The Year of the Black Swan, 2020, has been highly unpredictable – but I will not let that stop me!
The main political events in the US for the next few months:
- November 3rd: “Bad things happen in Philadelphia” – possible power blackouts, voter intimidation, and right-wing violence on Election Day, especially in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and North Carolina.
- November 4th: Trump declares victory shortly after midnight in DC – before polls close in Hawaii. He will base this on the votes counted as of midnight. A third of the country, aka the Trump Cult, will believe, to their dying day, that he won the 2020 election fairly and squarely.
- November 9th: The Blue Shift – as mail-in ballots are counted, it becomes apparent, to everyone outside of the Republican Bubble, that Biden won both the popular vote and even the electoral college vote (pictured above). Exit polling by CNN and others will show the same. Trump cries voter fraud and drives the election to the Supreme Court:
- December 12th: Biden v Trump – the Supreme Court, in a 6-to-3 decision, throws out enough mail-in ballots to give Trump the victory. No matter what facts they need to invent or ignore, no matter what feats of illogic they need to perform. After all, they are the last word, so who can stop them?
- December 14th: The Electoral College elects Trump.
- January 20th 2021: Trump inaugurated to a second term amid massive, nationwide protests.
Of course, 2020, being what it is, no doubt has something in store that no one is even thinking about right now. You know, like the arrival of the Andromedans or something.
That map at top is how I think the popular vote will go in each state. I take the Real Clear Politics’ latest poll average for each state and then assume they all shift by the same amount as they did in the last days before the 2016 election. Biden wins all the states Hillary Clinton won along with Arizona and the infamous Rust Belt 3 that Trump narrowly won: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. That gives Biden at least 307 electoral college votes, well over the 270 required. (I say “at least” because I am not sure about Maine-2 and Nebraska-2. In the map I gave them to Biden based on present, unshifted polling.)
The Electoral College map, though, will look different. It will have to for Trump to win. At least the Rust Belt 3 (or their equivalent) will have to turn red, whether through ballots thrown out by Biden v Trump or the Republican legislatures in those states submitting their own slate of electors:
North Carolina and the Rust Belt 3 are not just plain old swing states. They each have a Democratic governor and a Republican-controlled legislature (thanks in part to gerrymandering). The legislatures could use the chaos of November 3rd (see #1) as an excuse to call the election themselves and send in their own Republican slate of electors, letting Congress sort it out. It has happened before, in 1876, which helped to give us Jim Crow.
– Abagond, 2020.
Correction: In the original post I said Maine-1 when I meant Maine-2. Sorry.
See also:
- The Republican bubble
- electoral college
- gerrymandering
- Jim Crow
- The 2020 election for US president
- Trump 2020
- Biden 2020
- If Trump keeps power:
- If Trump steals the 2020 election – Sarah Kenndzior predicts the next four years
- Autocracy: Rules for Survival – Masha Gessen’s advice
- My past predictions:
- 1980-2015: my past predictions for the future
- 1980-2120: The future of race in the US
- 2006-2034: The near future: 2006-2034
- 2506
578
Wow if you look at rense.com et al, you’d think Philly was burning to the ground! Other than teams of roving explosives enthusiasts going after atm’s and the occassional riot, it’s pretty much the same old same old, ie more and more stores and restaurants going out of business ‘due to the covid-19 pandemic.’ Maybe I’m just jaded but this latest round over Walter Wallace was pretty much localized to west/southwest . And I saw a few articles that just gave me a mental image of some couple in the midwest freaking out over toast and orange juice about how bad things are getting in Philly. My mom even texted me about how it seemed ‘dicey’ here… Well fireworks, gunshots, or dynamite and propane tanks, i guess it’s helping me learn the difference in sound?
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And there is a very strong current in the news sources i follow (which i’m currently trying to recalibrate as isteve popped up the other day) about how supposedly BLM/antifa will be fomenting the civil war2 basically on election day. Which i find very concerning. On a lot of levels.
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Looks like bidens up 8-10% today, don’t blame me i voted libertarian.
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It’s weird because, in the not too distant past, with the exception of 2000, where only one state was in question and the difference in votes was only a few thousand, we’ve always been able to determine the election winner on election night. now, with more technology and more people voting early (which one would think would make for faster counting), supposedly it may take days or weeks to calculate the final vote.
Republicans smell a rat and believe that the same people who won’t even cover the Biden corruption scandal won’t hesitate to steal the election and will manufacture as many votes as needed to overturn anything remotely close… Democrats will cite some official reports that election interference isn’t a big deal (ignoring anything to the contrary), while Republicans will point to specific cases of voter fraud, like all the ballots found thrown out in various places that just happen to all be Republican votes or stuff like this: https://www.projectveritas.com/news/texas-ballot-chaser-pressures-voter-to-change-vote-from-cornyn-to-hegar/
For Trump to come anywhere close to winning, the polls would have to be way way off (especially after pollsters supposedly learned from their mistakes in 2016), to the extent that it would completely discredit the supposed “nonpartisan” nature of most of the polling.
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https://wjla.com/news/nation-world/somali-activist-alleges-years-of-widespread-voter-fraud-in-minnesota
Funny, I don’t see any stories with credible allegations of Republicans coercing people into changing their votes, discarding ballots or paying for votes (though even setting up some ballot collection stations in more Republican areas of CA to facilitate voting there–a state not remotely in play–gets them more coverage than any of the actual fraud stories or the rampant “ballot harvesting” done by Democrats)…
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So, you won’t put on your ‘death shroud’ and take to the streets to confront Trump and his minions like all self respecting free citizens would? How about a general strike with a few sabots thrown in the machines for good measure?
You’re just going to take any bs the Supreme Court sees fit to shove down your throat.
Taking it to the streets is for the people of HK, Belarus, Ukraine or wherever the US wants to start a color revolution?
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@gro jo maybe you can pass out little red books on the sidelines of the next riot (not too sure you are a us national) and rioting? Yeah man there’s justice, robbing stores for a short-sighted short con, justice! That’s ignorant.
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Foamenting at the mouth
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v8driver, you don’t seem to have a problem with rioting when it’s happening in foreign nations. By “you”, I’m referring to most people on this blog. Last year “you” were over the moon with what was going on in HK, yet, when your ‘precious’ liberty is on the line you remember your preference for order over freedom. Such hypocrites.
Foment all you want, I’m not the one making a mockery of your precious freedoms, am I?
Froth, foam at the mouth, drool to your heart’s content, note that it might be a sign of senility. I’ll be passing The Transitional Program, not the little red book, not that you’d know the difference. If you’re going for red baiting learn the different flavors thereof.
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@ Gro Jo
Did you miss this part of Abagond’s post?
“amid massive, nationwide protests”
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Correction: In the original post I said Maine-1 when I meant Maine-2. Sorry.
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Banks, 7-11’s, wawa’s etc are actually boarding up their glass windows today, i’m noticing, around philly, unreal, sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy at this point.
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@gro jo i’m compelled to say touche but i’m not going to, but that was a swaying argument. I don’t seem to recall property damage and looting the spear point of the umbrella revolution however counter-revolutionary that was. And it’s bashing not baiting
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@gro jo literal lol, you know what happened to trotsky, right?
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@ biff
Of course not, and you never will, because you only trust biased right-wing sources that make their living off of telling you what you want to hear.
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Solitaire, I did. My apologies to our genial host.
“I don’t seem to recall property damage and looting the spear point of the umbrella revolution however counter-revolutionary that was. And it’s bashing not baiting.” You’re a funny guy, I’ve always enjoyed your loopy cryptic comments. Right, the umbrella wielders were nonviolent when they set an old man on fire, trashed the legislative building, started fires, trashed subway stations, etc.
“@gro jo literal lol, you know what happened to trotsky, right?”
v8driver, lol, do you know what he did? Built an army that snatched victory from the jaws of defeat and fought against the enemies of humanity. When he died from his wounds, he had nothing to be ashamed of or regret.
Choke on this
” Testament of Leon Trotsky
My high (and still rising) blood pressure is deceiving those near me about my actual condition. I am active and able to work but the outcome is evidently near. These lines will be made public after my death.
I have no need to refute here once again the stupid and vile slander of Stalin and his agents: there is not a single spot on my revolutionary honour. I have never entered, either directly or indirectly, into any behind-the-scenes agreements or even negotiations with the enemies of the working class. Thousands of Stalin’s opponents have fallen, victims of similar false accusations. The new revolutionary generations will rehabilitate their political honour and deal with the Kremlin executioners according to their deserts.
I thank warmly the friends who remained loyal to me through the most difficult hours of my life. I do not name anyone in particular because I cannot name them all.
However, I consider myself justified in making an exception in the case of my companion, Natalia Ivanovna Sedova. In addition to the happiness of being a fighter for the cause of socialism, fate has given me the happiness of being her husband. During the almost forty years of our life together she remained an inexhaustible source of love, magnanimity, and tenderness. She underwent great suffering, especially in the last period of our lives. But I find some comfort in the fact that she also knew days of happiness.
For forty-three years of my conscious life I have remained a revolutionist; for forty-two of them I have fought under the banner of Marxism. If I had to begin all over again I would of course try and avoid this or that mistake, but the main course of my life would remain unchanged. I shall die a proletarian revolutionist, a Marxist, a dialectical materialist, and, consequently, an irreconcilable atheist. My faith in the communist future of mankind is not less ardent, indeed it is firmer today, than it was in the days of my youth.
Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression, and violence and enjoy it to the full.
Leon Trotsky.
Mexico February 27th 1940
A coda was added later dated March 3rd 1940. Mainly dealing with what should happen should he be involved in a serious drawn out illness, it ends with the following words:
“… But whatever may be the circumstances of my death I shall die with unshaken faith in the communist future. This faith in man and in his future gives me even now such power of resistance as cannot be given by any religion.””
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@gro jo let it be written for the record that you certainly are helping me fill in my comintern knowledge; however, sir, you confuse the hell out of me!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Communist_Party_of_China
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v8driver, It’s my pleasure to fill in your knowledge while confusing you.
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https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/10/30/nation/suburban-women-color-could-be-key-defeating-trump/
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@Biff
“which one would think would make for faster counting”
Unfortunately, several states cannot count those ballots early (I’ll let you google which party favors that suppression strategy). So, the same poll workers that are feeding in-person ballots into the machines also have to feed in the record number of mail-ins. If you want it to happen faster, you should’ve volunteered your time to help get the work done. It is what it is and a handful of folks in every county will be doing their best to get you the results as soon as possible. If you don’t believe it, fill out an app and do the work yourself like a real patriot.
Every time you post lately I just keep hearing the woman in that Esurance commercial… “That’s not how this works… That’s not how any of this works.”
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How the predicted events will be viewed through the Republican Bubble:
#1. Patriotic Americans defend and monitor the voting process by showing up at polling places with their guns. Left-wing violence mars Election Day. Blackouts are NOT a case of Russian interference (before any real facts are known about them).
#2. Trump wins!!!!!! The American people have spoken!
#3. Democrats and the Media Mob try to steal the election with fraudulent mail-in ballots and biased polling.
#4. The Supreme Court throws out questionable ballots, preserving democracy, the Constitution and the rule of law.
#5. The Electoral College confirms the will of the American people.
#6. Anarchists try to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.
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What if a US presidential candidate refuses to concede after an election? | Van Jones:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZWRhLW7Y8w)
Van Jones on TED Talks goes into not just what the law says, but what citizens can do.
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I think that no matter who winds up in power on January 21st 2021, at least a third of the country will think the election was stolen.
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My prediction is Trump narrowly wins.
If I’m wrong I won’t mind lol.
The fact is America is still a rascist, xenophobic country as it was four years ago. And they are going to come out to vote.
Republicans have narrowed the gap in their voter rolls in swing states.
The outlier that might make a difference against Trump are younger voters but some of those will vote Trump so …
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I’d be at peace with Trump winning “fairly” without the aid of amplified voter suppression. If so, “It is what it is”.
The fact is that the Democrats manipulated their nomination process when almost all the candidates dropped out in a coordinated manner to facilitate Biden’s selection. The presidential election merely continues the massive exercise in manufacturing consent.
So if their half-senile, neoliberal candidate loses I’m not losing any sleep!
Lo que será, será.
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I’d actually encourage everyone to have a stoic attitude towards the outcome, for their own sakes.
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@ Origin
“Amplified voter suppression” is baked into how the Repubs have structured the electoral process. It is inescapable at this point. For a Dem to win, they have to overcome the Repub “dirty tricks’ regime.
The Dems never raise a stink about voter suppression methods because they are okay with confining themselves to theatrical wailing about the “evils” of their
partners in crimecolleagues across the aisle. Part of their “street cred” routine for hapless Dem voters with nowhere else to go.Elizabeth Warren would have made a much better “establishment” candidate. The Dem Donor class seemed ready to work with her and she with them.
She would have appealed to educated White voters, she has a clear understanding of the issues facing working class voters (how much she would have done to alleviate their suffering is another matter) and she has no crazy racist skeletons in her closet (e.g. the 1994 Crime Bill). Therefore, she could have easily appealed to Black, Latinx and Asian voters
Still projecting vitality, Warren would have presented a sharper contrast to Trump than Biden.
Perhaps in an alternate reality….
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@ Afrofem
Too harsh a critique! I beg to differ.
I watch routinely the European political landscape and it seems almost inevitable, in the various countries, that major parties do favor more centrist candidates in comparison to more “radical” ones, be it to the right or to the left. This is not a particular American phenomenon.
Obviously, you could say to yourself that this candidate for the Democrats is already leaning to the right of the center, but the Democratic party probably thinks otherwise and it feels he is more likely to have a chance in a general election than others who competed against him in the primaries. They can be wrong of course, but I see no reason to believe that they don’t want to win against the Republicans.
Last time they – the Democrats – failed with a female candidate. Do you really believe this one would offer better chances for them? Maybe American society is not yet ready for a female President.
Anyway, at this point in time, what matters is if Americans want the continuation of the current POTUS and his administration or the option offered by Biden instead.
Opinions from a outside observer.
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@ Abagond
Following my thoughts in my previous comment…
Since months you have that banner at the top of this page with the inscription “AOC – 2024“.
Frankly I have a question for you: do you really believe that American society will be ready at that time for a so left-wing candidate (be it Democrat or independent) to the Presidency of USA? And to make things worse: female and non-White!
In the Portuguese language there is a proverb that says: “oft the optimum is the enemy of the good“. It means: when the optimum is not at reach, please do try the good.
I believe that the changes you and others want probably will take more time to materialize in the public perceptions of the American population at large, First you must have racialist and machist sentiments, if not going away totally, at least far more dissolved than it happens today in the population (which is majority White and Anglo-Sax Protestant, remember?).
Again, these are opinions of a outside observer.
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@ Afrofem
I’m still mad about Warren. Not a perfect candidate, but so so so much better than Biden.
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Biden was the most “vanilla” candidate. The other viable candidates were female (Warren, Harris) or gay (Buttigieg) or not white (Yang, Booker) or too “radical” (Sanders).
Sanders’ early successes was what really spooked TPTB and led to the hastily orchestrated (possibly Obama led) consolidation around Biden. Recall that some people were really freaking out! Chris Matthews on MSNBC actually applied a Nazi analogy to Sanders making some viewers angry on behalf of the Jewish candidate.
Something had to be done about the Sanders “threat” so Biden was selected as the nominee after the other candidates withdrew and endorsed him. He would seek to cash in on his legacy in the Obama admin to present himself as a return to normalcy (i.e the temperamental status quo; the corporatist status quo was unperturbed by Trump).
I agreed when Afrofem said that Warren would have projected a certain “vitality” to match Trump. It is true. She’s quick-witted and always seemed younger than 71 to me. Trump – love him or hate him – has Biden completely whipped in the charisma department. He was out there yesterday campaigning tirelessly in swing states to the very last moment.
TBH, Trump is the man of the hour and he is the person motivating the massive voter turnout. Hardly anyone is standing in line FOR Biden, but for or against Trump. The Dems gambled again by picking a candidate that doesn’t really excite any large segments of their own traditional base. Perhaps the 2nd time will be a charm? The polls are looking good…wait…
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@ Origin
Maybe I’m missing something here.
Who are those so-called “Dems” making the final choice of the party?
A politburo? A small elite inside the party? The masses at the bottom?
Who?
If what you say is true, it seems that they are not in sync with the rest of that party. And that means that the party needs an internal reorganization to make its choices reflect the will of its constituency.
Seen from outside it’s seems strange and immature.
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@munubantu
The party donor$ and those beholden to them are a strong force. It is part of the inevitable conflict between an inequality inducing economic system and democracy. Any candidate who talks about taxing the rich, for example, is going to have a very difficult time becoming the presidential nominee of a major party. The rich select whom the voters elect.
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This prediction has just come to fruition.
And already references to a future process in the Supreme Court have been made.
Things are happening with a mathematical precision!
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It is VERY close. Trump has a path to victory. Georgia and South Carolina are leaning his way with 94% reporting and with 81% of the vote counted in Michigan, he’s ahead by 5%. Even though those states are still considered too close to call, that’s 47 electoral votes leaning in his direction.
Trump already has Florida, Texas, and a key bell-weather in Ohio.
Apparently, the below is true:
However the three Democrat exceptions mentioned above were winning some of Texas, Florida, the Carolinas, West Virginia, Missouri, Arkansas etc. The South wasn’t totally red as it is today (after the very successful “South Strategy”).
If Trump wins the states that are leaning his way AND picks up Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes, I’m pretty sure he crosses 270 and wins the election. He’s currently leading by 12.6% in Pennsylvania with 64% reporting. So I think he’s preparing to fight over Pennsylvania (challenging mail-in ballots etc.), which is why he declared prematurely and mentioned the conservative Supreme Court. The 2020 elections could very well hinge on Pennsylvania in a similar manner to Florida in 2000.
I hope my humble recommendation of stoicism was considered by abagond’s regulars. A close election was always possible since the loss in 2016 did not cause the Democratic party to reflect but to deflect. In 2020, they’ve basically repeated the same playbook and now the same outcome is a distinct possibility …
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/29/hillary-clinton-wins-latino-vote-but-falls-below-2012-support-for-obama/
https://news.yahoo.com/biden-campaign-doesnt-consider-latinos-143056489.html
I have disconnected from these matters, but I wish peace upon anyone who’s currently agitated.
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Correction:
South Carolina should have been North Carolina. South Carolina has already been declared for Trump. As of now, he’s ahead in North Carolina by 1.4% with 94% reporting.
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As of right now, at best for Biden-Harris and at worst for Trump-Pence, it’s head for a 269-269 tie presuming the Trump lead in Maine-2 holds, Before anyone loses their mind, just call this one, as was 2000, a hobbyhorse election. Without the Libertarian vote, which is a conservative vote, Trump carries Wisconsin and is reelected. Voting for electors by congressional district is another hobbyhorse idea. All the kids who voted for Nader in 2000 were riding a hobbyhorse too.
If the election goes to the House, the vote goes by state and even though the Democrats have a house majority, the Republicans appear to control 27 House delegations with several tied. If the House cannot elect a president, the person selected as vice-president from among the top two will serve as acting president until such a times as the House does select a president from among the top three. That means that Mike Pence will serve as acting president
Expect a race to the bottom as faithless electors vie to push their favorite into the top three in the presidential race.
At any time in the future, the House could select a president. Suppose the Democrats make gains in the 2022 election, and then in a special election in 2023 to fill a vacant seat, they gain control of the majority of the House delegations. Even that late in the term, they can still elect Joe Biden president. Then Mike Pence will return to being vice-president. If Biden dies in the meantime, the House could select whoever was third in the electoral college, and there will be somebody who is third. Or they could select Biden nevertheless and then Pence would become president outright. If Biden was unable to serve for medical reasons (I’m being nice), then he would be president and finally get his face around the edge of those paper placemats in the small town restaurants. But Pence would continue as acting president under the terms of the 25th Amendment.
Now, let’s go on to the issue of direct election. You can’t have direct election without uniform voter qualifications nationwide and very srong safeguards against fraud and illegal voting. There’s a reason why in our sloppy and contradictory republic, we have to vote by state for the president. Each state sets its own voter qualifications and in various ways practices vote suppression and and the use of state power to create a one-party society and electorate.
If we have direct election with uniform voter qualifications and no fraud or illegal voting, maybe Trump wins the popular vote in 2020. No one knows how large or small the illegal vote is but I do know, the belief that all human activities have fraud in them, except American elections and baseball is not plausible. We all know about baseball, don’t we?
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So far the states have filled in as expected with the exception of Maine-2, which went for Trump. But, 24 hours after polls closed in California, six states have yet to be called: PA, NV, AK, GA, NC, AZ.
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I said:
This, thank God, did not happen! But, in terms of Election Day shaningans, there are reports of over over 300,000 mail-in ballots that are missing in Michigan and Pennsylvania. The post office is run by Louis DeJoy, a Trump loyalist and big-time Republican donor.
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@ munubantu
My whole life I have been told by corporate Democrats to “be realistic” and vote for one of their pathetic Wall Street lackeys. So, doing nothing about climate change is “realistic”, doing nothing about police brutality is “realistic”, doing nothing about starvation wages is “realistic”, doing nothing about millions of people without proper health care or education is “realistic”. Etc. I am expected to give aid and comfort to – billionaires.
According to the US Constitution, AOC will not become president until most people are ready. I’m ready.
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I do want to say something about the issue of vote suppression, I’m a Republican voter and have been in the presidential contests since 1984. In the Republican Party, vote suppression begins at home. The Republican Party suppresses its own vote and then tries to make up for by suppressing the vote of the other party too. What this grows out of is that in rural area particularly, the local farmers and rural gentry want only themselves and the local business owners, public employees and retirees voting. The most important thing to them is that they control who serves on the county board and who represents them in Congress and the state legislature. They do not want the white rural underclass voting, and they are wiling lose statewide elections if necessary to maintain their control.
Rural registration only becomes an issue when the demographics of some area or district starts to change, usually because the Hispanic population has started increase. Then the Democrats go in and start to register voters because they then see the hope of flipping the district. Well, I don’t complain about that. That’s politics. A political party registers its own voters, it doesn’t go out and register the other party’s potential voters.
The traditional Republican elite of the rural gentry and the metropolitan country club Republicans is very disturbed that Donald Trump has brought new motivated voters into the political system who are voting Republican. Well, think it out. Better that and engaging in outreach to minority voters and than suppressing your own vote and trying to make up for it by suppressing the vote of the other party too – most often the minority vote.
Trump in his politics has plugged into and promoted an impetus toward inclusive labor-oriented conservative populism, and regardless of how the election turns out (no, as of Nov. 4 it is not over, Pennsylvania and Arizona are not counted yet) this impetus will not go away. I thought Trump’s so-called “Platinum Plan” for black America was interesting but in fact the outreach it envisions is needed everywhere in the American lower middle class, working class and underclass.
Inclusive, labor-oriented conservative populism is a necessary idea but it needs some substance beyond the few things Trump, and George W. Bush before him, have done. Trump’s MAGA program is his economic program focused on manufacturing jobs and economic redevelopment. A little more than that is needed though. Education is needed – common school (K-12), undergraduate college and graduate and professional education alike. So is job and career training for the people with more limited education or who by choice want to pursue that type of career. If Biden was younger, with his roots in the socially conservative labor-nationalist wing of the Democratic Party, I would put some hope in the possibility that he might exercise some leadership and actually advance the economically-based labor-oriented agenda. As it is, in the present political situation, he’ll just end up being the hologram president if he turns out to be the winner of the election. His age is not the only issue though, the present political situation makes doing anything nearly impossible. The present federal budget was set up in the early 1970s under the reform conservative Richard Nixon and since then, no matter who is power, even when the same party has controlled both houses and the presidency, in the end, the Congress with some limited variations passes the same budget year after year.
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This prediction is happening before our eyes. Now almost consumed.
Things are happening with a mathematical precision like in matrix of reality!
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ScotusBlog: “For those dreading, or hoping, that a conservative 6-3 Supreme Court with three appointees of Donald Trump will overturn the results of the election and deem him to be re-elected: there is absolutely no chance of that happening, whatsoever. None.”
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Welp, you can now tick off number 3 baby!
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@munubantu
“Last time they – the Democrats – failed with a female candidate. Do you really believe this one would offer better chances for them? Maybe American society is not yet ready for a female President.”
While you made valid points about the prevalence of centrist candidates in European elections, I feel HR Clinton failed because she was a toxic candidate. HR and WJ Clinton built a powerbase in the Dem party. She was annointed by the Dem party leadership based on her relationships to corporate donors in the Dem party, not her electability.
HR Clinton (and by extension, the Dem party leadership) also made fatal miscalculations about the appeal of race-based political appeals to White voters. Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report summed up their failed strategy this way:
https://www.blackagendareport.com/corporate-democrats-want-run-against-trump-republicans-forever
I think Americans are ready for a female president; a female president without the glaring negatives of HR Clinton. If the Dems had boosted the candidacy of Elizabeth Warren, I think she could have given Trump a run for his money. She was ready to run on bread and butter issues. She would have hammered Trump on his gross mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic (his weakness with reality-based voters).
Warren could have prevailed, if only because she was a less toxic choice than Trump.
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@ Afrofem
Welcome back. (You were out for a while!)
I think that Elizabeth Warren and to some extent, even AOC and Bernie Sanders could compete shoulder to shoulder against this Republican candidate.
My thoughts, when I saw your previous comment, were: Is this really the time to resurrect the skeletons? Only candidates alive count!.
I too believe that racialist ideas that Trump is openly using to draw supporters from many White individuals could be firmly contrasted by a platform that addresses the real social and economic anxieties that people in general have.
By the way, a not negligible part of Black voters supported Trump too.
It’s clear that there is something that Trump promises that appeals to them despite all the racist dog whistle in the opposite direction. Maybe it’s because he promised to fight for their jobs (in the blue collar jobs stratum, for example).
There are some lessons to extract from those elections, for different quarters:
– the today’s “rulers” of the Democratic Party must make some effort to understand people better, and White voters in particular;
– the more “radical” left oriented sub-set of the Democratic Party must develop strategies to best market their ideas inside the party. Next time they must try harder to win the primaries within the party.
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@ Munubantu
@ Afrofem
I am more than ready for a woman to be president, yet I voted against HRC in both primaries (2008 and 2016), and voted for a man instead both times. It hurt to do it, but I’m not going to vote for someone just because she is a woman when I otherwise disagree with her policies.
That said, let’s not forget that she won the popular vote handily against Trump. To me, this signifies that many Americans are in fact ready for a female president. If we didn’t have the electoral college, she would have won. If she had campaigned harder in certain swing states where the outcome was razor thin, she probably would have won the electoral college.
I do agree that in many ways HRC is a toxic candidate, and that worked against her. I believe some Americans will never be ready for a female president, and that worked against her. But she didn’t go down in a resounding defeat, and that does signify something about the nation’s readiness for a woman to be elected president.
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@ Munubantu
“I watch routinely the European political landscape and it seems almost inevitable, in the various countries, that major parties do favor more centrist candidates in comparison to more “radical” ones, be it to the right or to the left. This is not a particular American phenomenon.”
I think a big part of our frustration is that in many European countries, their centrist candidates and policies are what would be considered radical left here.
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@ Solitaire
So true about HRC’s number of actual votes.
The Electoral College is just one more gaming mechanism set up by the founders to prevent the will of the people through the popular vote.
There are a number of female state governors and female representation in the House has steadily increased over the past decade. The pressure is building for a female president.
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This prediction is not likely to happen.
As I write, most of the attempts of Trumps camp at engaging the courts to their side are fallen.
It’s more likely they will go the way you describe on the thread “Biden wins”, namely,
(emphasis added)
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