Now we need to get to work and push that lackluster centrist dork leftward to get essential changes made. No complacency allowed!
I hear Trump left the White House this morning to go golfing. He should probably cut that short and start making plans to flee the country. He might be welcome in Russia, although I hear they don’t much care for failures. North Korea?
Gotta find somewhere that has no extradition treaty with you.
And you has use a SECOND MAN!!
Now we need to get to work and push that lackluster centrist dork leftward to get essential changes made. No complacency allowed!
I’ll get right on that as soon as the stress hives and nightmares clear up a bit.
Happy for all American’s ,i know he is not the choice of many ,but at least he is not the snatch snatcher .
You are lucky though ,we over here have another 4 years before we can boot that bastard johnson out .
First female vice-president!
Okay, can we get the prosecution of The Donald and his cronies started, please?
Biden is prez, but I’d also like to say how happy I am that Kamala Harris is vice-prez. She will make her presence known, especially if the Dems can come up with two big wins in Georgia in January. I want to see her kick some butt.
Trump isn’t going anywhere. I fully expect him to start laying the groundwork for his 2024 bid for the White House within the next few months, even if he doesn’t formally announce anything.
By the time other Republican candidates into the race a couple of years from now, he will have held dozens of rallies around the country, giving him a 2-year head start on the competition.
Those rallies are like crack to him and catnip to his base and I don’t see much chance of him abandoning them now, especially since his base fully relieves that the selection was stolen from him.
A few weeks ago I would have said that such a scenario would be bad for the Republican Party, but now I fear it will be worse for the country as a whole.
Unless the Democrats can pull off two Senate upsets in Georgia, you’re not going to get a socialist paradise anytime soon. Hell, Democrats couldn’t even flip the Minnesota State Senate this election. But sure, keep on fantasizing about Biden turning left if that’s your thing.
Annnd … a bitter trumper has entered the stage.
What does that even mean? The U.S. has been circling West to East for hundreds of millions of years.
Let’s recall that there are still 2 and 1/2 months of the Trump Presidency still to survive. And he’s getting worse.
I’d love nothing more than that right now, but I’m afraid that’s wishful thinking.
This is the sound of his hometown upon hearing this news. Of course we New Yorkers are a notoriously a forgiving lot, and will welcome him back with open arms and throw him a ticker tape parade!*
*Except instead of throwing ticker tape at him, we’ll be throwing the contents of our cat litter boxes.
I’m not sure why I’m feeling this way, but even before the election my mindset had become ‘whatever happens, the work will need to go on’. Cynicism is understandable, but giving up is no solution. Biden absolutely wasn’t my choice, but he’s so much better than the alternative. I would have been so much happier if the Senate had flipped, and there’s still a tiny hope that it will. But even if it doesn’t, Biden can stop some of the madness. That’s almost all Obama was able to do. And two years from now, maybe there will be another chance.
I’m feeling pretty good. Again, I’m not sure why; it isn’t like me!
It ain’t over. Unless Biden clinches Nevada (probably?) and Arizona (maybe?) the spectre of faithless electors looms large.
Well, NV is already in the Biden column. But even if it weren’t, the bogeyman of faithless electors reversing the outcome is nonsense.
FWIW, Politico has called it for NV and AZ.
https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/
“He might be welcome in Russia,”
he could complete the film!.
xdrta @15:
In 2016, Clinton had five faithless electors, and Trump had two. Were they bogeymen?
Did they have any effect?
Are you fucking kidding me? Do you think there is some principle that says electors will only be faithless if they can’t affect the outcome?
OK, it’s possible, I suppose, in the same way that it’s possible that you need to wear that tin-foil hat when you go outside.
It’s not the best news we could possibly get, but with good news so sparse these days I’ll take it. I’ll take it.
There won’t be enough faithless electors to deny the Electoral College to Biden, given his margin now.
Prediction: As a final act of defiance, Trump WILL let the door hit his ass on the way out.
@20 – I think the thing about the 7 faithless electors mentioned is they all, as far as I can tell, decided independently to flip. What would be needed to accomplish a reversal of this election would be dozens and dozens of electors would all have to switch sides, or more likely, they would have to be selected by several Republican governor or Sect’ys State?, whomever appoints them in each state (all acting in concert?) with the purpose in mind of ignoring the popular vote, and choosing reliable electors who will vote T, which would boil down to a massive conspiracy. Not very likely I think.
Hooray. Another four years and no change, despite the big mouths and beautiful intentions of the RobG’s of that superpower in decline.
That’s the inevitable when the only important thing is voting against a candidate.
No, Cartomancer, it’s not news. It’s a little less bad news.
This is good news during at time when good news has been scarce. I’m happy for a while anyway.
Xpost from Political Madness thread.
He is stalling and running out the clock.
It won’t take the GOP/Trump long to figure out they have 2 1/2 months of power left to continue wrecking the USA. I’m sure it will be an ugly finish to an ugly term.
naturalistguy @23: I hope you’re right, and you probably are. But nothing, absolutely nothing, could surprise me after four years of TrumpWorld, with the cult still in full howl.
@tacitus #6:
I fully expect him to be in prison, dead, or in self-exile by 2024.
Me @28:
Least of all the bootless wittering of blatherskites like mnb0 and The Vicar.
At some point in the near future we will have to try and figure out why the Democrats didn’t do so well, despite having a hugely flawed, destructive, and failed opponent in Donald Trump and the GOP. (We being the Democrats and the normal people of the USA.)
.1. It is way too simple to blame the Democrats for a lackluster campaign. The causes and the problems in the USA are way too deep for that.
.2. Oddly enough, the Trump campaign was actually very poorly run. His War on Competence worked well enough that the people running his campaign were idiots.
A lot of his campaign money was poorly spent. I’m sure a lot of it was simply diverted by his people into their own bank accounts. It’s a perk of being corrupt in a corrupt administration.
Trump himself didn’t do his election any good.
His big issue was…Hunter Biden.
Who cares? Hunter Biden wasn’t running for anything and Joe Biden isn’t in charge of his 50 old adult son. The two Bidens don’t even appear to be all that close.
It was an irrelevant nonissue and no one believes anything Trump says any way.
It is strange that, despite the fact that Trump is Trump and his campaign was poorly run, he still did so well.
FTFY
Trump hasn’t appeared all that healthy since…he was elected in 2016.
He sometimes appears unsteady on his feet such as having trouble walking down a ramp.
He also appears to have some sort of age related cognitive decline problem.
It is quite possible that in 4 years, he might be even more incoherent and confused.
It’s also possible that his base won’t care that much if he is drooling and incoherent.
Still, even with lingering shreds of anxiety, and a hard row yet to hoe, it is the best Saturday in a long, long time.
We’ll have to start holding Biden to the fire in a couple month’s time, to make sure he actually does the right thing.
For now, though, it’s time to party like the end of a One Piece story arc.
It’s been masses of honkage and bike bells all up and down the main drag of West Hollywood ever since the rain stopped.
Just like we had no leverage on Trump, it’ll be hard to get Pelosi/Biden to do anything but what they were gonna do. Me, I’m still pleased mbnO and The Vicar are still around.
Unless Democrats win both runoffs in Georgia, which seems pretty unlikely, the Republicans will retain control of the Senate; and I don’t expect Collins, Murkowsky, or any other Republican senator to do anything other than obey Mitch in all things. That will constrain what Biden is able to do.
Collins et al. are allowed to give the appearance of disobedience when their votes won’t actually matter, but I can think of only one Republican vote, McCain against repealing the ACA, that was other than the straight Republican line in any case where it was close.
billseymour@37 Don’t be a party pooper. Nothing’s going kill my buzz or harsh my mellow today. That is all.
Trump’s socially destructive behavior will follow him to new organizations, don’t forget all of those former administration officials. And the way they are using court donations to pay election costs. Trump will use and dispose of those below him no matter where he is. A benefit of this mess is concentrating socially disruptive behaviors together and letting them teach each other why it’s bad behavior while we remind them.
I know there are a lot of people who are all “but not that woman” but I’m happy as hell that not only did the US elect its first ever woman to the executive branch, but she’s Black and South Asian. The only downside is the senate is going to be worse off for not having her doing any questioning in committee.
tuckit in carson said on Friday that Biden will make everyone drink starsucks coffee everyday .
I’ll be glad when that Nazi piece of garbage is out of office. I won’t be glad that a whole lot of people who ONLY cared about getting Trump out of office will soon seamlessly transition back into being the primary stumbling blocks towards equality and justice in this country again… and knowing that that particular group of people include Biden and Harris themselves.
Do you see a plume of white smoke rising from the presidential compounds, as incriminating records are being burned? A new Corn Pop has been elected!
And the usual suspects are put to kill the joy of this win.
Newsflash, voting for a candidate is leverage. Just look at ted cruz and lindsey Graham. Both enemies of trump turned bootlickers because they fear their voterbase. Know your enemy.
Of course we’d have more leverage of we flipped the senate but once again people dont give a shit about anything other than president. And thats our failing.
I pray to god the mechanics responsible for Air Force One disable the plane and the back up planes. I would assume it could be done so the pilots know not to take off.
Some mildly good news, via Ryan Knight on twitter:
For: Ocasio-Cortez, Pressley, Bush, Omar, Bowman, Porter, Cartwright, Levin, Jones, DeFazio, Tlaib
Against: Finkenauer, Peterson, Mucarsel-Powell, Shalala, Cunningham, Horn, Rose, Torres Small
@44
Trump’s loss leaves them without a sacred cow to rally around. Even if the Republicans retain the Senate Majority, they will be less organized and less empowered. I’m not saying it’s going to be an easy fight, but at least it’s no longer an impossible fight.
CR@46 I mean it. Nothing’s going to harsh my mellow today.
Look, progressives win progressive districts, and more power to them! (literally I guess) But that doesn’t prove much in a general sense about what works nationally. For instance, the district Collin Peterson lost sure wasn’t going to a progressive (but good riddance to Peterson anyway).
It doesn’t prove the opposite either, but your case as stated above is unconvincing.
@ 6
I believe the only place Trump has left to go after four years is either prison or the funeral home. Assuming none of his legal issues catch up with him, his physical and mental deterioration is obvious. If anyone is going run on the Trump name, it’s one of his Lovecraftian spawn, most likely Don Jr..
2nd place is the first loser. The most tremendous loser. Hey, Donnie, chalk one up in the “L” column. World history will echo that fact until we’re all gone. It’ll be interesting to see how quickly your ‘followers’ disappear. The remaining 7 billion of us share an acute sense of relief that you’ve been fired.
You’re lame, Donnie. You’re nobody’s boss now.
He’s got 70 days to continue tearing down the country. Hopefully, he won’t do TOO much damage on the way out.
@drew #32
I think you’re overestimating how much leverage you ever had. You had none, for this simple reason: Biden could lose and be perfectly fine. He was never going to pay the price. You had a choice between voting for him, or taking it up the ass from Trump. That’s not a position of power and it never could be. They might want you, but you need them.
This would be a good time to build leverage, though. Rather than trying to drag Biden leftward, focus on building more ground support and getting your people into positions of power. If you get enough pull to actually elect your own candidates (even at a local level) without the support of the democratic machine, then you’ve got leverage. Until then, you don’t.
Its not a question of will trump flee the country, I think he is pretty clear on his need to do that before the prosecutions get started, but the bigger question is not where will he go, its who will take him? He really doesnt have any money so he cant bribe his way in, and he has such a crappy reputation for treating every other country as if they were beneath him That I cant see anyone wanting this walking, talking liability. He wont have a chance to run for office in 2024 because he will be too busy running from all the DA’s looking for his ass.
What does that even mean? How would one define a “progressive district,” independently of stipulating that it’s a district where progressives win?
For example, Katie Porter won in CA-45, which had Republicans representing it from 1983 (when it was created following the 1980 census) until her first term in 2019.
Also, as you can see from the wiki link, with regard to other statewide offices and presidential elections, it had mostly voted for Republicans in those too. It went to fucking Romney, for example. Is he a “progressive” now? The same year, it also voted against Dianne Feinstein (at least a Dem but certainly no progressive), who had previously gotten the lead in that district.
So would you have had a good reason to label it a “progressive district”? How is a person supposed to spot those in the wild? If you don’t get to cheat by looking at the answer sheet for the test, how do you pass it?
I don’t think the relevant standard is about “proof.” You can look at various national polls for evidence. Things like M4A are very popular nationally.
Those things aren’t popular with the small minority in the upper classes, as well as the establishment figures who represent them, meaning it isn’t easy. So what? It’s still the right thing to do and is worth fighting for, while the alternative is not.
That’s half of the mildly good news: good riddance to him. Yes. Exactly.
However, you can’t be sure that a progressive would not have won against Fischbach. You’re talking about a campaign which would have a completely different set of policies, different statements given to journalists which voters might pay attention to, different groups supporting/endorsing them, and so forth. A “centrist” needs to walk a tightrope to try (and usually fail) to avoid pissing off certain voters on either flank, and they have to avoid saying anything of substance about what they’d try to do with the job if they get it. A progressive doesn’t need to sweep their shit under the rug, and that attracts more of one flavor of voter and fewer of another.
The point is, a candidate like Peterson isn’t just a watered down version of the same thing as AOC or whoever. So don’t think of him like that — dispense with the confused, myopic, self-serving, neoliberal bullshit and see what remains of the argument. We’d be playing a whole other ballgame, with a different team that’s adopting a different strategy, and you just can’t use the outcome of the first game to call the second.
Trumpkin. Orange on the outside. Empty on the inside. Needs to be thrown out in November!
Na Na Na Na Hey hey hey goodbye!
The loudest sigh of relief came from the Canadians. My wife and I were seriously considering, even planning to move to Canada (Victoria or Vancouver, BC) if Trump won, And I’m sure we were just two amongst many. I suspect the Canadians were envisioning a hundred million strong horde of Americans racing across the border, condo down payments in hand. We even got a book written by a NY gentleman who did just that when Trump won in 2016.
Many commenters above have speculated on Trump’s near term future. Remember that he is in hock up to his eyebrows to the time of over 400 Million. I suspect that some of those will not be satisfied to just send payment-past-due notices.
@56 – And those same hundred million Americans just assuming Canada would take them.
What to do woth Trump after he stops beong presodemt is a lose lose scenario. Either we let him go and not uphold the rule of law. Or he gets arrested for his crimes and becomes a martyr for a large group of consistent voters. Remember he is leaving office woth 44% approval rating. Thats very high.
Trump needs to die in prison, or you’ll be having this same fight again in four to eight years.
I agree with you LykeX especialy since we ahve to regain the rule of law but im worried that we will turn him into like Mandela but for assholes.
logicalcat@58 — I disagree with your characterization of the choices. Biden’s first act as president could be to issue a full pardon to Trump, his family, and anyone in his administration, along with a directive to the state of New York to halt any prosecution under threat of retaliation, and the Trump cult would still consider him a martyr brought down by the Deep State.
Maybe, just maybe, if justice were instead allowed to proceed then at least the facade of presidential omnipotence (at least if you have an R after your name) could be cracked. I even allow myself the fantasy that seeing his crimes on display would at least introduce a microsecond of introspection among his loyal supporters, but I know that is likely impossible.
Incidentally, while I agree that him having a 44% approval rating is alarmingly high, after this week I’m convinced it is actually a low estimate. His approval rating seemed to track pretty well with his percentage for “preferred candidate” over at least the last couple months. I suspect that the same polling error that underestimated his support also affects his approval rating. I admit, though, I don’t know much about the methodology–perhaps the approval rating is done in a completely different manner.
@mike mckee @45, easy enough. Pull the 28 volt essential bus breaker and lockout-tag out. Then, pull the engine igniters. The aircraft is inoperable either way.
If memory serves, one breaker panel is a bit tricky to locate and it’s inaccessible from inside of the aircraft.
Lykex @59:
Eugene Debs ran for president (on the socialist ticket) from prison in 1920. He got almost 1,000,000 votes, 3.4% of the total.
Mitch McConnell is now saying he has the right to veto Biden’s appointments. Biden can easily circumvent this by just appointing ‘acting’ secretaries …..but he will not. This gives him the excuse he wants to not appoint a single progressive Democrat.
In a way this is good, now people can se the reality for what it is and prepare to retake the Democratic party in the primaries in a little over a years time.
Trump has been playing the martyr since he started running for office. That’s his whole shtick. He is the poor,* put-upon white man, beleaguered by the horror of a humanity that no longer bows and scrapes exclusively at his feet and for his benefit. He endures the ultimate martyrdom of having occasionally been called an asshole for his despicable behavior, the humiliation of being insulted by lesser beings for his boorishness, and the terrorism of the suggestion that he might deserve to suffer negative consequences for his worst excesses.
And so, from the ashes of this dreadful martyrdom, he rose like a phoenix composed of pure, petty spite to hurt all of those people for the sake of all aggrieved white men everywhere. It is because he was already a martyr that his cult adores him so.
So wrap him in the heaviest chains, throw him in the grimiest cell, drop the cell down the deepest hole, send a kiloton of the sweatiest dynamite in after him, pave over the fucking crater, and build a monument to Harriet Tubman on top of it.
*But not really poor, because he’d have gotten nowhere if he didn’t give the appearance of great wealth and an equally great lack of taste.
This election was primarily about whether the USA would become a nuclear-armed fascist superpower. That possibility has by no means vanished – over 70 million Americans voted for it – but it’s been averted for the next four years. There is the possibility that Trump will attempt an outright seizure of power with the connivance of the Supreme Court and the police unions, or start a war with China, or nuke Philadelphia, and Americans need to be alert to these dangers, but I don’t expect them to happen. Trump has no friends, and few if any among those with significant power actually feel any loyalty to or admiration for him; they will act in self-interest, and in most cases that’s likely to mean distancing themselves from this loser as fast as possible. (“Trump? I hardly knew him. Of course, he had won the election, and you had to respect the office, but really, the vulgarity of the man…”) Of course, Biden is a standard-issue conservative, Harris, judging by her Senate record, somewhat more liberal, but certainly not a serious progressive, let alone a socialist. And even if they wanted to enact the kind of policies desperately needed on health care, economic equality, reform of the police, and above all climate disruption, the Republican lock on the Supreme Court and probable control of the Senate would not allow it. But what our sourly flatulent friends up-thread (most notably mnb0 and drew on this occasion, consciousness razor at least found something positive to say, which I’ll come back to) overlook, or indeed appear to actively resent, and attempt to counter, is the huge boost to the morale of those on the left who disagree with them, and the corresponding blow to the right, domestically and internationally. In political struggle, momentum is of the first importance. For the past decade, in the USA and globally, that has lain with the far right: the rise of the “Tea Party” culminating in the election of Trump, the rise of mini-Trumps across much of Latin America, Europe and Asia, the baleful influence of Putin. Trump’s defeat is the latest and largest of a number of very recent signs that it may be shifting: the elections in South Korea, New Zealand and Bolivia, the overwhelming vote to replace Pinochet’s constitution in Chile. Of course, across much of the world the right and far right remain in the ascendant – but they have no answer to the pandemic, let alone to the climate and ecological crises; and in Trump’s downfall, they will see the shadow of their own.
QFT.
From consciousness razor@46:
If Ryan Knight’s point holds in general, or on average – I’d need to see more systematic evidence, but I certainly hope it’s there and think it might be, then there, precisely, is the leverage that drew@32 and seachange@36 are convinced is absent. Biden and Harris are not progressives, but they are politicians: they want to win the Georgia runoffs, to avoid the usual losses of the party holding the Presidency in the mid-terms, to hold the Presidency in 2024. They are not under any circumstances going to initiate the glorious ecosocialist revolution the USA and the world need, but if they are convinced a leftward shift will win votes, they’ll make it.
The fact that the election results were well short of a triumph may itself give the (relative) progressives within the Democratic Party more leverage than they would have had if the “blue wave” had materialised. Pelosi has already been making excuses for the losses in the House, and anyone can see that Biden’s strategy barely succeeded – just as in 2016, a few tens of thousands of votes difference in a few states and the electoral college would have gone the other way. Conversely, we can expect to see an instant descent into infighting within the Republican Party, between Trump and his family and cronies on the one hand, and the free-traders and neocons (who want the TPP, a strong NATO, an anti-Russian stance, better relations and a revival of trade talks with the EU) on the other; as well as jockeying for position between those with Presidential ambitions for 2024. We can also see that the Supreme Court Republicans will be faced with serious dilemmas, not only over any election-related cases that reach them (would they really risk a far larger and more blatant political interference than in 2000?), but over the Obamacare case. If they rob 20 million Americans of health care in the depths of a pandemic, they give the Democrats the most potent issue possible for the Georgia runoffs. I don’t know which way they’ll jump – most probably, try to punt the issue into next year – but the dilenmma for them is real. One of the biggest errors of the likes of mnb0, The Vicar and that crowd, typical of purity fetishists of all stripes, is the failure to understand that the political and personal divisions and conflicts between our enemies are real, deep and lasting – they can’t even admit the reality of those between the Republicans and the Democratic Party establishment, let alone those within the Republicans. Admit them, study them, exploit them.
@60 no more like john mitchell and bernie madoff
@54 you must not be from California other wise you would know that in the past 40 years orange county has undergone (still in progress) a major demographic change all the real estate developing has brought in a very large increase in the latinx and working class and educated population.
if I maintain the WWII analogy I used the previously, we have now got a secure beach head and will soon start pushing forward . there will be plenty of work ahead but today we can relax for a while
uncle frogy
KG @66: Very well said.
I’m not in a mood to analyze the political implications any further today. We dodged a bullet. At least I think so. It’s a big thing that Fox News has carried the Biden victory and isn’t shilling for Trump, though some GOP senators are. The message has to come from a source Trump supporters will believe. There are still armed goons showing up to intimidate state government officials (sorry an “armed demonstration” isn’t a thing). But I am pretty optimistic right now that we’ll get a peaceful transition of power.
As for legal challenges, gimme a break. A single state like in 2000 with a very close vote is one things. But this time, even Georgia, which is “close” is unlikely to flip in a recount and that’s enough by itself. Assuming Arizona holds for Trump, that’s enough. Or maybe they want to challenge Wisconsin? Against the backdrop (though constitutionally meaningless) of Biden’s popular vote lead, which will be well over 5 million after a full count, it is hard to envision.
It doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods. I’ll believe Trump is out when he’s out. After that, of course McConnell will obstruct everything as long as he’s Senate majority leader. I prefer not to think about it today. The US is in worse shape now than it was in 2008 when Obama was elected and at one point had a 60-40 Senate.
Personally I also have less optimism than I used to about younger voters because at least some of them have been poisoned by alt-right and Trumpism. We are better than we would be if Trump had won. That’s about all I can say.
@69 Assuming Arizona holds for Biden, that’s enough. Oops! And of course Pennsylvania is sufficient too.
You guys are right. The martyr complex is coming no matter what we do. Might as well throw him in jail. At least rule of law get established.
Good luck everyone, you still have a pandemic on and now three months of a President who gives even less shit than usual.
I know it wasn’t intended as an insult to Mandela (and I’m not by any means an uncritical admirer of the latter), but this comparison is utterly grotesque. Mandela not only put his life on the line and spent 27 years in prison for the rights of others, he did it without the slightest trace of self-pity or vengefulness.
How are you so sure you know what Biden will do? He’s a politician. Politicians like to win elections, and if they are in charge of the executive, they like to appoint whomever they choose. He will certainly hold out the hand of cooperation to McConnell, but if McConnell spits on it, as he probably will*, at a time of grave national crisis, Biden can make a great deal of political profit out of it, and appoint who he wants to acting positions. And as I’ve argued above, if he thinks a leftward shift (in policies or appointments) will win him votes, he’ll make it – within limits, of course.
*If he’s still leading the Senate Republicans – many are going to want to put as much distance between themselves and Trump as they can, as soon as possible.
If Trump tries to mobilize his armed thugs to intimidate election boards finalizing results, the House should draw up immediate and clear impeachment charges. Treason is explicitly impeachable, and “levying war against” the United States is explicitly an act of treason. Of course the GOP Senate majority could nullify it like the last one, and probably will, but let’s get them on record doing that.
Hopefully it won’t come to that, but it’s unclear. There’s no reason to expect any of this to be “normal.”
KG It is very interesting rereading https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2020/10/16/the-october-surprise/ now that I know who you are!
Rob Grigjanis@68,
Thanks!
It’s only today, since the election result was called, that I’ve been able to think at all coherently about the consequences. Of course, in many respects the USA and the world remain in deep shit – but it would have been well over head level if Trump had won.
KG @ # 66: … Biden’s strategy barely succeeded – just as in 2016, a few tens of thousands of votes difference in a few states and the electoral college would have gone the other way.
I don’t have time or energy to research this properly, but the recent running tallies from PA & GA usually listed the Libertarian candidate pulling just enough, about 1%, to have made the difference for both states – and no doubt some others. Probably, as with Nader and Stein in previous close-calls, many of those votes would not have gone to Trump™ – but possibly (and probably, in the eyes of many Repubs), the “Libs” tipped the scales in the final count.
Thank you, Jo Jorgensen, whoever you are!
We may thus look forward to some minor but quite bitter acrimony between Republicans and Libertarians – and an unexpected (and probably to-be-wasted) opportunity for proponents of ranked-preference/instant-runoff voting plans to widen their appeal.
It’s going to take a bit of time to overcome the surreality of 2016 an embarrassment of being an American with that orange skid mark on our collective pants. I am so happy. It’s like having a boil lanced or rotten tooth painfully extracted. My pride starts with Kamala. Is it wrong to have a crush? Sorry, I feel like the Obama Girl.
The GOP should think very hard about switching all their state presidential primaries to ranked-choice voting, otherwise Trump’s followers are going to select someone just like Trump in 2024.
Without ranked-choice voting, the GOP will again run many center-right candidates, who will split the votes of their supporters in their early presidential primaries, leaving a candidate with the largest plurality of supporters (namely those fully indoctrinated by conservative propaganda) a path to their nomination again.
And obviously the GOP should also replace state presidential caucuses with primaries, for the same reason.
There’s another major political party that should do the same thing.
On her Twitter profile:
https://mobile.twitter.com/KamalaHarris
Kamala has her pronouns listed “She/her”. That should mean something versus the last 4 years of Hellfire.
Kinda weird though to have the “Keep the faith!” banner shared with Uncle Joe:
https://mobile.twitter.com/JoeBiden
Given the shitshow since 2016 the “faith” thing and religiosity of Biden’s speech is easily overlooked but please don’t throw nonbelievers under the bus.
Kamala’s victory speech today was excellent. Biden made an excellent choice.
It may be that the appearances of how this election and the various strategies worked or did not work are being skewed by the effects of the pandemic on how the election was run, the altered election day turnout and the unprecedented mail-in vote count with its delays and all. I am not sure how 5million + votes can be thought of as some kind of failure. maybe wait and see a few weeks before making a provisional or final judgment
@80
Though I may sound naive, I think Biden was changed in many ways by serving as VP with Obama, and I don’t expect him to stray intentionally from Obama’s formula “We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers.” He may do it unintentionally just because he’s an old school Catholic and it’s just something he grew up doing. It might take some reminding that he needs to use inclusive language, but he will do it. He’s not going to be like George W. Bush bringing in “faith-based” programs or Trump simply pandering to evangelicals (and laughing at them in private).
@82
The downballot is disappointing and having a shrinking House majority and (so far) not regaining the Senate is not as successful as hoped. The main objective was achieved, and the popular vote margin is impressive, not a failure at all.
No, it wasn’t. Governmental power was not wrested away from the conservatives who have systematically destroyed this country. As it stands, the only accomplishment was getting Trump out of office. Not nothing, but not much as long as the Republicans still retain the power to grind the government to a halt on a whim. The election result is the bare minimum of a start to achieving any real objectives that matter; it is not in itself an achievement.
This election is a victory only if the thing you care about is that bad Orange Man is out. This election is only a victory to those who want to go back to not giving a shit.
unclefrogy:
Allow me to elucidate, if obliquely: Trump got around 48% of the popular vote.
That is, of people who voted, just under half went for Trump.
—
Sure; one tent is offering festering feces with vomit dressing, the other plain gruel with maybe some spit.
And just under half of buyers go for the feces. Mmmmm!
(It is a failure, but of the population, not of the vendor)
I just did a driveby of some blogs sites on Patheos where some fundie right wingnuts hang out.
They are quite literally falling apart and retreating further into their fantasy worlds.
Joe Biden (the lifelong Catholic), is going to “start throwing xians in jail”.
And even weirder predictions.
I didn’t stay long,
Those people have nothing to offer anyone or anything.
Come dance PZ!
♪(┌・。・)┌
┗(＾0＾)┓
kome@85
You won’t agree with me, but screw it, I’ll try to make my point anyway. First off, yes obviously having Biden as president with a GOP Senate is not a recipe for progress.
However, having Trump as president with a GOP Senate along with the autocratic president theory promoted by AG Barr and the nullified impeachment of early this year is a recipe for authoritarianism. Not because “Trump is a big stupid meanie” (though he is) but because this election was a referendum on every single way a sitting president abused his power with impunity. So we would have a vote this moves the needle from: (a) Trump gets away with acts of corruption while we look the other way to (b) Trump is empowered by the American voter and does so with the explicit consent of the governed.
It would literally have been a change in our form of government, and a drastic change for the worse. The “main objective” though not the only one of this election was to preserve something along the lines of constitutional government. It is one thing for a party like the extremist GOP to hold the Senate hostage through procedure. It’s quite another for the People to consent to it through an election.
The above is a little abstract, but the interpretation by the GOP Senate, the 2nd Trump administration, and the 6-3 SCOTUS majority would be anything but abstract. They would take it as complete vindication of Barr’s theory of presidential power and run with it. If anyone complained, they’d point (quite reasonably) to the election. The media, which has been at least somewhat active in criticizing Trump might be cowed by this, and if not, Trump would take more direct and probably violent measures against them.
Obviously there are plenty of other important objectives, and yes, we missed most of them. Also, we’re not even out of the woods on preserving our system of government, but this was at least a necessary step.
wtf guys who ever thinks it takes one battle to win a war is about 12.
the main objective was to get a democrat elected and send trump packing. It was not to issue in the new millennium and explode the “Star Destroyer” this ain’t Hollywood this is real life. the only thing that is easy in life is sliding down hill.
you want change clearly and complain that someone else did not convince 48% of the people to vote for progress and change. Why don’t you go right a head try to convince those 48% that your ideas are better. A you guys, if you are different people, should feel completely free to do that important task and stop complaining that some others have not been able to successfully change their minds
uncle frogy
uncle frogy:
Stupid question. Because they’re irredeemable, obviously.
(dare I say, deplorable? ;) )
I mean, they prefer shit to gruel! It’s what they like. Mmmmm.
Get this though your head: they really, actually like him. They approve of him.
Look: (https://news.gallup.com/poll/203198/presidential-approval-ratings-donald-trump.aspx)
Do you approve or disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president?
Approve Disapprove No opinion
2020 Oct 16-27 46 52 1
2019 Oct 14-31 41 57 2
He actually got more popular!
John Morales@91 Well, as I summarized it yesterday to my facebook friends (granted none are Trump supporters):
So, yeah, 48% percent of Americans like Trump. I won’t pretend they don’t know what they’re voting for. I can’t change it either, but at least there aren’t enough to push me around. I do think that over time, the numbers could shrink. People vote for all kinds of reasons and there could be totally explicable reasons of self-interest for any individual to think that their life from 2017 till now was just fine and why rock the boat.
It was a tough election, and biggest take-away I have is don’t get complacent. In 2016 everyone just thought Trump was just gonna lose on his own without any help. Politics doesn’t work that way.
Ive met trumpies that were more lenient and pleasant than some leftists. Especially the purity kind. They are not all nazis. You can reach some of them. Even convince them. Some will grow and realize their errors. But this whole “irredeemable” shit sounds like elitism to me.
People forget that a lot of them were former Obama voters.
logicalcat@93
If I don’t try to “reach” Trump voters or really any Republicans at this point, it’s not elitism but respect in some sense. They want what they want. It’s not up to me to tell them they want something else. Isn’t it even more elitist to think they’ve just made a big mistake and will come around once I explain it?
I don’t have the time for it. In some ways, I still prefer it to the 80s, where I might as well just shut up about Reagan because people around me liked him. I think about people I know who vote for Trump. They’re probably just the same assholes who were voting for Reagan 36 years ago. Nothing very difficult to explain. Why would I expect more? Now with younger people, I do get a little disappointed, but I am used to people not seeing things the way I do. In a lot of ways, I’ll always be heartbroken by democracy, though I believe in it.
As long as it doenst come at the expense of progressivism. Forgot to add that. I meam a fox news town hall gave a standing ovation to Bernie so there you go.
Im just saying people can be convinced and leftists are not convincing. There will always be thise hardline trumpies, but we cant pretend thats all of them. You gotta pick and choose your rhetoric.
Some random thoughts: apparently, 48% of Americans support corruption if it gets them what they want. Not surprising, since cheating seems to be much more acceptable these days. Trump, Barr , the GOP et al have brought this country closer to outright Fascism than at any time in our history. These are all inter-related. If you study the rise of Fascism in Italy in the 1920’s, the parallels to the US, of the past 4 years especially, are striking and frightening. Mussolini was the sworn enemy of the Church, but he knew he needed them to give him legitimacy. So he made a deal with the Pope, promising to restore the power of the
Church in return for recognition of Fascism. The Pope agreed. They worked hand-in -glove for the next 20 years. ( If Trump were hung by his heels in Times Square it would be a fitting end to the analogy.)
Trump’s supporters are not going away. Non-Trumpers keep saying this is not who we are. On the contrary, this is exactly who we are, and who we have been since 1607 and Jamestown. Ask any Native American. We need to admit and understand it before we can fix it, if that’s even possible. Joe and Kamala can sing Kumbaya ’til they’re hoarse — it’s not going to mend the rift in our society. How to do that? I’m not really sure, but we must find a way.
My biggest fear now is that Trump will carry out a scorched earth campaign, taking everyone and everything done with him. At the close of WWII, Hitler could have surrendered, but he felt that the German people had betrayed him. (Couldn’t blame himself–sound familiar?). So instead of sparing what was left of his country, he allowed ti to be destroyed as retribution . Not saying Trump is Hitler, but the pattern of thought and personality is similar. We shall see.
Trump will still be a grave security risk even after leaving office. I don’t know how much he actually absorbed, but any knowledge he possesses could be for sale to the highest bidder. I’m sure the FBI and the CIA are sweating bullets over this potential catastrophe. Hopefully, they will find a way to keep him in check, but short of solitary confinement, I remain doubtful.
Finally, the Blue Wave never materialized. Maybe it was a pipe dream. Maybe overconfidence. At the very least, it was a monstrous miscalculation on the part of Democrats. With all the money and effort that was put into winning the Presidency and Senate, we not only failed with the Senate, we lost seats in the House. Even if we manage to draw even in the Senate, and I think the odds are against it, we should have taken it handily. We now need to recalculate and recalibrate if we are to make any significant social progress in the next 2-4 years. Granted, we did oust The Little Dictator, and that buys us some time, but not as much as one might think. But a win is a win, and as Belichick would say, “It’s on to Cincinnati”.
you know, I keep thinking that maybe… we all could just enjoy ONE day where a tiny bit of progress was made. Hell, the rest of the world seems to be mostly enjoying it.
plenty of time for torture later?
Davidc1 #3
Not if McCluskey and Corbyn rip Labour apart.
Let’s just enjoy Trump’s demise, and hope he doesn’t scorch the earth on his way out.
@80 hemidactylus
Sorry to say, but pronouns in her twitter bio mean next to nothing, considering that she put trans women into male prisons not so long ago. Maybe she has learned, in fact I really hope that she has learned, but until we see actual measurable support, in the form of laws and initiatives that actually take some effort from her to enact, we can not be sure, and a twitter bio on an account that is most likely run by her campaign is definitely not enough.
I’m sorry, but this is nonsense. Trump beat Obama’s voting numbers from 2008 (which was the previous record for total votes) and Biden still won by almost 5 million votes. How is that not a blue wave?
Yes, it’s disappointing that the Senate didn’t flip (caveat for the run-off elections) and that’s going to lead to a massive load of bullshit, but let’s not despair just because the other side voted, too. This went about as well as could have been expected. You defused the bomb under the constitution. America will now exist long enough that you can get to work on the other problems. That wasn’t a given, so be happy with it.
I see that the circular firing squad has already begun. “I am a member of no organized party. I am a Democrat”.
At least you have a president elect who seems to have an actual human heart and actually cares about other people. That’s a massive change in things. Also he says he will follow the advice of scientists. “Imagine that! Imagine that!”
LykeX@102 Yeah, blue wave meets red sea wall. I shudder to think what would happen if we took the same lackadaisical approach we did in 2016.
@#31, raven
Maybe running a guy who constantly said, on TV, that he was against the things the base (and, incidentally, the public at large) actually want made people decide there really wasn’t that much difference after all? I suspect that for every vote he picked up by pandering to the Republicans, he lost more than one from non-Republicans. And I don’t think he picked up very many — Republican turnout was up, and several demographics supported Trump more this time than last time.
Every Congressional candidate who backed Medicare For All won their re-elections. (In fact, there are new ones, who also won.) And don’t tell me “oh, those are all blue states, they were safe anyway”: Florida — fucking Florida — passed a minimum wage increase. Bernie Sanders is still the most popular member of the Senate, even in red states.
It’s no longer plausible to say “the public prefers centrists”. The really, really obvious truth is that the public hates the insincere, lying centrist Democrats, and a very large portion of them would rather vote for their own deaths by coronavirus than for one of them. Biden and the Clintons are — as they obviously were 20 years ago, if pinheads in the party would pay attention — an electoral dead end. The faster we get rid of these puppets of the 1%, the better for the party (and, incidentally, the country).
Or are you glad that Biden is saying Dick Cheney is going to be a foreign policy advisor? Can’t wait for the next coup in Bolivia, or a new Operation Car Wash to prop up Bolsonaro’s increasingly-unsteady grasp on Brazil, both of which Biden was okay with before. Democrats have become scum, indistinguishable from the Republicans. They made themselves so, and people like you sat around and watched and voted for them while they did it.
Vicar@106 Lemme know when you guys succeed in reshaping the US political landscape. I do have progressive values, but I’m not an “early adopter” in anything else.
You have lots of ideas on what it would really take to win a presidential election. Great! Get a major candidate on the general election ballot some time and I’ll vote for them.
The Vicar @106:
When and where did Biden say this?
@Rob
Wouldnt surprise me to find out that he pulled that outta his ass. Im glad his particular brand of dishonest leftism lost this round.
@Vicar
You picked the wrong example. Biden lost Florida specifically because they fell for the “Biden is a socialists” propaganda. Its the only state wjere the dishomest rhetoric of the left painting him as an ultra right wing would habe been helpful.
You are correct about the other states tho and im glad that progressives are actually voting in the system and letting their voices heard above the losers who would rather abstain.
He might be welcome in Russia
You must be joking. The Russians had some wild hope back when the Orange Idiot was elected that he might be more or less a reasonable head of state with whom they could deal. He did not have Hillary’s rather nasty cold war attitudes and I think they thought there was some room for reasonable negotiation. Boy, were they wrong.
Since then, Trump has managed to muck things up, pile on sanctions, kill arms treaties, and internally making idiot of himself. I do not think even the Moscow Zoo would have a use for him. Has anybody looked at Nordstream II? Trump seems to manage to antagonize the Russians and the Germans, as well as most of the rest of the European Union with the strange exception of Poland.
I suppose the Russians should be somewhat grateful since the US sanctions have managed to strengthen their economy in several areas particularly agriculture and aerospace. The cheese industry is doing really well (not joking) and their wheat exports are booming. The new Russian airliners are using totally Russian components rather than dealing with Europe. I’m sure the Europeans are very pleased to have lost that market.
I doubt that the Russians are terribly happy with Biden but, faute de mieux, they probably are a bit happy that total fools like Pompeo will be no longer around. Now all they have to do is adjust to bunch of idiots that never have actually understood that the USSR does not exist anymore.
@ Iris
That reminds me I need to clean out the kitty-litter box. I do not live in New York but is there an address where I can send donations?
@Rob – it’s one anti-Biden loon on one Twitter thread (which won’t allow comments except from followers) – https://twitter.com/wahidsakakhan/status/1325156126560804864. Made-up story for people like the Vicar to quote in internet threads
jrkrideau@110 I’m not sure how seriously to take the Russian thing, but if Putin was trying to knock the US down a peg or two in geopolitical power, he succeeded tremendously. So Trump definitely served a purpose. That doesn’t mean he’ll be rewarded for job well done.
I personally think the main winner on the global stage is going to be China. I am not a China basher. My in-laws live in Chengdu, and I have countless coworkers from mainland China.
I do find Xi Jinping rather frightening, and if I had to pick one issue, it’s his refusal to respect the 50 year agreement on Hong Kong. One thing China is not, unlike most authoritarian nations today, is a failed state. I think the trade relationship with China since the 80s has been a mutual boon, though I sweep a lot of human rights abuses under the rug to say that. Having China as a global adversary is dangerous and idiotic, particularly when the United States is only falling in power and influence.
@109
Any evidence of that? Obama was called a socialist Muslim, among many other things, and won Florida. Twice.
Funny that, in spite of all evidence that progressive ideals win, centrists are still taking this opportunity to crap all over the very reason the Republicans lost where they did in this election and promote the very reason Democrats lost where they did this election. It’s very very very hard to square the progressive-attacking rhetoric with the fact that Utah – mother flipping Utah of all places – passed their ballot measure switch over to using gender-neutral pronouns with 58% of the vote and yet still went for Trump by also around 58% of the vote. But, then again, it never ceases to amaze me the mental gymnastics that uninspired centrists will perform in order to maintain their greater contempt for progressives than they ever hold for conservatives.
Kome#113, Joe Scarborough of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, who is an ex-congressman fro Florida, confirmed that this was widely used in Trump ads on Latino radio stations in Miami. It changed the Cuban and Venezuelan refuge vote from blueish to red.
kome@113 Get your pick on the general election ballot as a Democrat some fine November and I’ll vote for them. In fact, I’ll do one better. Start a new party with progressive values that overtakes the Democratic party in political power, and I’ll vote for that candidate, most likely.
logicalcat @109:
Yes, the perfectly reasonable fear that the US may end up a hellish nightmare like Canada or New Zealand (that’s what they think ‘socialist’ means, right?).
I’m typing this by candlelight huddled in Gulag 573,
ScarboroughScarberia, Ontario.I seem to remember that right after Biden won the nomination, some regulars said they were sure Biden was going to lose.
Rob Grignanis #116, keep in mind the term “socialist” means different things to different people. For the Cubans it meant Castro and his form of communism. For the Venezuelans, it meant a fascist dictatorship from the left. Communist countries called themselves “socialist republics”.
A lot of middle America also equate socialism with communism, and a “nanny state”.
While I consider, in the present era, socialism to mean a strong safety net net, with M4A, living wages, adequate unemployment and welfare benefits, not everybody, including most of middle America, doesn’t. They are afraid if they help folks, the folks (with skin color darker than theirs of course) will take advantage and never work again. That is what I hear “on the street”.
@Kome
Im notna centrist im left leaning liberal who supported Sanders twice. But im also half cuban man living in miami dade county and i cam tell you straight up that the propaganda worked. A lot of my people are paranoid about socialism and voted against him. This is only one reason out of many but its a big one.
Propaganda against Obama being a socialist disnt work as well because we did not habe actual self proclaimed socialists worling together woth the party like we did this time around. And even then I still hear to this day that “Obama is a dirty socialists who fidel celebrated his winning the election”.
@kome
Forgot to add that you need to read my comment better for comprehension. I mentioned that its a good thing progressoves voted snd got more of them in congress. I did not claim that in general progressive policies were bad electorally. Quite the oposite actually.
I was only talking about Florida. And you dont know Florida jack. Listen instead of assuming.
Actually ignore my call to read my comment with comprehension. With my penchant for typos bad grammar and spelling I shouldnt be talking shit.
@102
I’m sorry but I do not know what you are referring to here?
Obama 2008, popular vote 69,498,516 e-college, 365
Trump 2016, popular vote 62,984,828 e-college 304
the final count for 2020 are not in yet regardless of the call
the numbers I am the most curious about are the total percent of the registered voters that voted and the total turnout.
uncle frogy
On the subject of south Florida, I know Venezuelans who have emigrated there are very likely not keen on socialism. Some 20 years ago I car-pooled with a woman who had moved from Venezuela to the U.S. and she despised Hugo Chavez. She was also a devout Catholic and I would not be surprised if she voted for Trump.
I have encounterd the problem of people attaching “communist/-ism”, “marxist/,-ism”, or “socialist/-ism” as if they were obvious and present bad things. Quite a few times over the last few days. So far I have literally asked to show me the bad thing in each case. No takers so far. They used as insults and the resistance to showing the characteristics is the opposite of what a person should want to do if they see a bad thing. They should want to show it.
Similarly I have someone who is resisting explaining why something is fascism. We both make lists or otherwise remember people we believe are connected to a social problem. And we both respect leaders who do the same, but somehow it’s fascism when one side is doing that and they won’t say what the difference is. Fortunately I can point out their charge is baseless.
I have people arguing that the charges of fraud aren’t baseless because some other person believes they exist or they are about to be shown.
I point out that until I have evidence I can appreciate for myself the charges are baseless, and I won’t accept their belief as reason to stop pointing out the charges are baseless.
Well I can tell you one bad thing about communism. It doesnt actually solve the thing it was intended to solve, which is income inequality. End stage communism resembles end stage capitalism in terms of income inequality except instead of the 1% being a provate citizen its a government employee. Oh and theres breadlines too.
Thats the other bad thing. A government controled market is rrally bad at gauging supply and demand and you end uo with huge surpluses but also huge moments of scarcity.
Of course im very bias against communism obviously consoderong my background. Democratoc socialism is fine. Medicare 4 all and free college and tax the rich and all that.
Ill tell you this. Most communist ive met are the db purity left kind. Dont know if any other exist but their arguments for it are really bad.
@logicalcat 126
True as that may be the labels are being asserted as undefined, general purpose, disparaging characterizations and treated as if they were obviously true. They are planted on people and issues alike, and used to justify dismissing them without even recognising them. And they are used to justify the political aggression in general
I met a Chilean woman in grad school, around 1980. When I asked her how she felt about Allende, the coup, and Pinochet, she seemed a bit embarrassed (leftist students everywhere!) but quite firm that while Pinochet’s methods were unpleasant, they were necessary. No point asking how she felt about Pablo Neruda then.
The comfortable (most of them) will always value their comfort over the lives of the less fortunate.
RobG@128 I can believe it. One thing about Trump is that as an incumbent president, he represented the status quo. In 2016, he was an unknown with the potential to be a catastrophe. If by 2020, you didn’t feel that he had been catastrophic (which I would not conclude judging only by my life circumstances) then you might well feel easier about voting for him a second time. I was thinking about border counties in Texas where he apparently improved by a lot among Latinos. Maybe people were really worried in 2016 and had concluded by 2020 that their worst fears had been exaggerated.
It’s also worth noting that Trump still did a lot worse than many Republicans downballot. It has always been a myth that voters would just find Trump unacceptable. A lot of them, not just his crazy fans, seem think he’s fine. I mean, I hate it, but that’s people for you.
@129
not to be forgotten is the effect of 70 years of anti-communist propaganda and the equating socialism with the same generating some hesitancy on behave of voters. the bogey man looms large in the shadows in times of insecurity.
There is a debate whether what is identified as communist countries are actually implementing communism and not just a form of state capitalism paired with totalitarian power structure
uncle frogy
@130
The whole “these countries were not REAL capitalism” is what I had in mind when I said that the arguments for it are terrible. Its just apologia. At least its better than Castro/Stalin apologists I guess.
Sorry I meant “these countries were not REAL communism.”
I need to proof read more.
Brony @ 124: from Webster’s dictionary: Fascism–
1: often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
2: a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control
Trump 2020, more than 71 million. That’s what I’m referring to.
one of the problems to overcome in changing minds is the propaganda of the past 70 years about what socialism is and what communism is and that is probably not accomplished by using those already over charged words without explaining what the actual goals are.
sticking to the principles and forgetting about 140 years of academic rhetoric and jargon. I am reminded of the protest sign I saw from an early tea party demonstration which said something like “keep the governments hands off my social security.”
the goals and principles are as old as Confucius the how is the argument.
uncle frogy
@134
the final vote tally is not in yet and it looks like the turnout was significantly larger then ever before.
His 70 mill though otherwise impressive were not enough however.
uncle frogy
@logicalcat 96+97
???????????????????????????
But the result won’t change enough to change my point. Trump is still going to have more votes than Obama 2008.
Which is part of my point. A lot of people got out to vote. Not just for Biden, but also for Trump.
Which was the other part of my point. Even though Trump had a frighteningly good turnout, he still lost. That’s the blue wave.
LykeX@138
I agree when it comes to Trump. However, I don’t agree when it comes to down-ballot races. For instance, Susan Collins won by a margin that could not have been reversed by better turn out for Sara Gideon. That was damned disappointing, and Susan Collins hasn’t done much to hold onto friends on either side.
This was a hard-fought election and give Trump some credit for getting people off up their ass to vote, though it’s sad they voted for him. That’s still how elections are supposed to work. We have known for decades that the Democratic party as such doesn’t have much to offer to Americans. We’ve had individual campaigning superstars like Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. We also have a lock in states like California where I live, because of a proportionately small rural population. But the Senate map is set for Republican minority rule, and it’s hard to reverse without major, unlikely shifts in population or the addition of new states like DC and Puerto Rico.
@PaulBC
Agreed. The Senate result is likely to make this a long, drawn-out, painful process. I’m feeling tired just thinking about it.
@publicola 133
I appreciate it, and that may be useful. But since Trump supporters are using the label I’m holding them responsable for it’s meaning and showing the characteristics. Anything less is name-calling that someone trying to warn people would not engage in. Same as how communism, socialism, and marxism are being used.
I’m individually holding them responsable for their words.
You’d never guess from reading that, that Biden not only won the Presidential election, he got more votes than any other candidate for that office, ever. Or that turnout – while still quite low by global standards I think – was the highest for over a century. If Biden lost votes from non-Republicans, and gained fewer from Republicans, where did his extra votes (which will probably amount to over 10 million more than Clinton got in 2016, or Obama in 2008 or 2012) come from? Whatever else you can say about it, this was not an election where people thought: “there wasn’t that much difference after all”. My hunch is that a large chunk of those who “voted for Biden” were really voting against Trump, but both those who did that, and those who voted for Trump, evidently did see a difference. I know you either can’t see one, or pretend not to, but not everyone is as stupid or dishonest as you.
That’s great! I want to see a more extensive and detailed survey of how Democrats from different wings of the party did, at all levels. If it holds up as generally true that those supporting more progressive positions did better – brilliant! That fact should be used both to push those positions, and in the next round of primaries, focusing on those progressive positions that had the biggest impact. The Florida case is interesting too – one possible explanation is that a lot of people are socially conservative but economically “liberal”. How progressives or socialists should deal with that is a complex question but again, the first requirement is a detailed look at the evidence, across all states, demographaphics, and issues, not your kind of silly sloganising.
And yet – a lot more people voted for Biden in the primaries than for Sanders. Trying to explain that by “Oh, the party establishment pushed Biden” just won’t cut it – particularly if, as you say:
Surely the epitome of “lying centrist Democrats” are precisely the party establishment – so why would the people eligible to vote in the primaries take any notice of them – other than to go for whichever candidate they obviously opposed?
@142
FWIW, though you can probably guess, that does not describe me. Biden is pretty far down on my list of primary choices, and I did vote for Sanders this time unlike 2016, but Biden is fine. His policies will be totally conventional, and I think he’s not a terrible human being, unlike the present occupant of the White House. In fact, if he were literally my uncle I’d think what a nice warm-hearted guy, sorry about the loss of Beau, and I see he takes a lot of solace in his faith. (But I liked Hillary Clinton much more and I think we lost a great president in her.)
As I have often repeated, I could vote for John Kerry in 2004 (who again is, uh, fine). You really need more than just “will continue to stand for the raving monster that is US foreign policy” because that describes every president I can think of, and I can put Jimmy Carter and JFK on that list. Seriously, you will have to do better to persuade me that someone is a monster just to point out that we’re all living off the poisoned fruit of US imperialism. I know that.
@kurt
Let me clarify, most leftists aren’t convincing. They don’t do things like Bernie does, which is have an actual conversation. They mostly preach and talk down to people.
If the majority of leftists were like Sanders I wouldn’t have a problem.
And some lie. The dishonesty of the left is one of the reasons why I pushed back against the purity left. And they turn people off.
@144
that is from my perspective is the only possible way forward. that conversation is our only option it is the one that all to often shied away from. A conversation requires listening which is another thing that has not very often done. If we are to reach any kind of consensus on issues there is no other way but a two way communication, because we are in this all together and only together will we get out of it. there ain’t no easier way.
uncle frogy
logicalcat@144 Sanders is a good guy with sensible ideas in line with the New Deal. However, I still resent him for showing up for the 2016 race taking a situation where we were hanging on by the skin of our teeth and just needed a Democrat with a veto stamp, and starting a big conversation about how things could be better, and also acting as economic scold, when there was cause for genuine optimism relative to the economy in 2008, and when ACA–which was insane by conventional standards, but the closest we ever got to universal healthcare in the US–was on very shaky ground and could either set expectations and be improved, or be sabotaged as it ultimately was, and further discredit though whole idea of universal healthcare. (Mission accomplished, thanks to Trump, or don’t you think so?)
It was the wrong argument at the wrong time, and we paid a price for it. Now we’re on weaker ground. This is the ratcheting I have watched since Ronald Reagan was president.
In 2016, there was just barely some hope for hanging on and regrouping. Now I really think it is just about holding the pieces together. For me, anyway, there is not much hope for anything but slowing down the decay of policies that actually help people. Maybe at some point people will wake up and demand more, but by that point, their actual ability to do anything about it will be decreased even more.
the common mistake has been that that conversation is been directed to and by the politicians and couched as compromise. The conversation that is needed is conversation with and among the voters because this is a representative democracy and it is the voters in the final analysis make the decisions it is by the consent of the governed that we will proceed. All to often that consent has been acquired through fear, lies and manipulation with out honest open conversation we will continue to seesaw between extremes without any consistent direction toward a failed state status. I do not see an easier way forward
uncle frogy
unclefrogy@148
Right, one in which a minority of voters represents a majority of Senate seats. Rock on, Framers. You guys had a real sense of humor.
true but it is the situation at hand some how we need to go forward anyway. There is no way we can go back to the beginning and start over. Here we are in the present with mounting troubles threatening to overwhelm us and the only way out is forward through them.
uncle frogy
Alternating between the right and the far right, you mean?
Comparing the absolute values is silly, considering that the country is growing. The US population in 2008 was approximately 303.5 million, and it’s 331 million in 2020, an increase of roughly 27.5 million or 109% of the 2008 figure (worldometer). Of course, that’s not the same as the number of eligible voters, which is a more complicated figure to determine for a variety of reasons. But the median age has gone up from 36.9 in 2010 to 38.3 in 2020, meaning it’s not like younger people form a larger share now (but really, we need know about those under eighteen who can’t vote, not just under 36 or 38). In any case, the percentage increase for eligible voters was probably roughly the same or even larger than it was for the 9% in the country as a whole.
Let’s go back a little farther to 2000, rather than just 2008, for a somewhat better perspective. According to wikipedia:
– In 2000, Gore got 51 million (48.4%) and Bush got 50.5 million (47.9%). Turnout was 51.2%, which of course includes all voters and not just those who voted for one particular candidate. None of this is particularly relevant in this case, because Bush “won” the EC college based on a court decision, which has nothing to do with the popular vote.
– In 2004, Kerry got 59 million (48.3%) and Bush got 62 million (50.7%). Turnout was 56.7%.
– In 2008, Obama got 69.5 million (52.9%) and McCain got 59.9 million (45.7%). Turnout was 58.2%.
– In 2012, Obama got 65.9 million (51.1%) and Romney got 60.9 million (47.2%). Turnout was 54.9%.
– In 2016, Clinton got 65.8 million (48.2%) and Trump got 63 million (47.2%). Turnout was 55.7%. Again, don’t be mislead by these numbers, because Trump did lose the popular vote and merely won via the EC.
– Given what we know currently about 2020, Biden got 76.2 million (50.7%) and Trump got 71.6 million (47.6%). Turnout is not yet determined, and none of those aren’t final results, since around 5% of the vote is still uncounted.
Now, comparing Biden with Obama in 2008:
76.2 – 69.5 = 6.7. This number is context-free and basically meaningless.
76.2 / 69.5 = 1.096, which is about the same as the population growth rate over that same period.
Also, 50.7% is obviously a smaller share of the vote than 52.9% is. This isn’t what I consider a “blue wave.” If they merely win an election, that’s definitely not enough.
Uh….. “the EC college.” That’s obviously the college that contains the electoral college, which consists of electors, who actually get to vote in the presidential election. It was a weird time.
Not that it makes any difference, but I noticed the percentage I wrote for Trump 2016 was wrong. He got 46.1%, not 47.2%. I had copied the previous line and forgot to edit that bit.
consciousness razor@152,
According to Wikipedia:
Popular vote 79,784,165 73,763,979
Percentage 51.0% 47.2%
Counting is till continuing.- about 2% still to come.
79.8/69.5 = 1.148. So with a smaller share of the vote than Obama 2008, Biden got significantly more votes relative to total population – and clearly, the vote for Biden will top 80 million once counting is complete. The difference, of course, was turnout. It seems to have been around 67% this year (The Wikipedia article doesn’t say, this is from estimates elsewhere) compared to 58.2% in 2008. Still not high by European standards (let alone Australian, where of course voting is compulsory), but the highest for over a century, and the highest ever since women could vote. Completely gives the lie to the “People didn’t see much difference” bullshit. Quite evidently, they did – on both the pro-fascist and anti-fascist sides.
Biden’s vote has now passed 80 million, with around 2% of the vote still to count, a lot of them in New York state. 80/69.5 = 1.151. Current percentages Biden 51.0, Trump 47.1.
Current figures, with some counting still continuing:
Popular vote Biden: 81,284,158 Trump: 74,221,816
Percentage Biden: 51.3% Trump: 46.9%
81.28/69.5 = 1.169+