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vikingTON

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Working on the reasonable assumption that Trump loses from here, the past five years is really turning out to be a massive short-term win for the GOP. They couldn't script a much better outcome for themselves than what is coming to pass.

Trump will exit as a moderately disgraced one termer but can point to the 6-3 Supreme Court as a genuine achievement for the cause. With the Democrats once again Dundeeing it in the Senate, they've got no chance of even bringing that back to even a sensible 6-5 balance by adding more justices. A Boden presidency will flounder against an obstructive Republican Senate and then the midterms will likely punish the incumbent party; which sets it up for a raft of Republican challengers to Harris or some other insipid centrist in 2024. 

The one issue is that they've perhaps gone too far in proving that by backing any clowncar candidate and playing the 'Cuban socialism!' card in Miami-Dade hard enough you can always get within touching distance of executive power. Their future Presidential primaries are going to be stacked with genuine, true believer nutters rather than cynical narcissists like the Donald.

The site is supposed to be a place for the extended 'family' of Morton supporters - having an affinity with people that you don't know, because you share a love of your local football club. It's not supposed to be about point scoring and showing how 'clever' or 'funny' you are, or just being downright rude and offensive to people you don't know, because you can get away with it. Unfortunately, it seems the classic case of people who have little standing/presence in real life, use this forum as a way of making themselves feel as if they are something. It's sad, and I've said that before..

 

So, having been on Morton forums for about 15 years I guess, I've had enough... well done t*ssers, another Morton supporter driven away. You can all feel happy at how 'clever' you are

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30 minutes ago, vikingTON said:

Working on the reasonable assumption that Trump loses from here, the past five years is really turning out to be a massive short-term win for the GOP. They couldn't script a much better outcome for themselves than what is coming to pass.

Trump will exit as a moderately disgraced one termer but can point to the 6-3 Supreme Court as a genuine achievement for the cause. With the Democrats once again Dundeeing it in the Senate, they've got no chance of even bringing that back to even a sensible 6-5 balance by adding more justices. A Boden presidency will flounder against an obstructive Republican Senate and then the midterms will likely punish the incumbent party; which sets it up for a raft of Republican challengers to Harris or some other insipid centrist in 2024. 

The one issue is that they've perhaps gone too far in proving that by backing any clowncar candidate and playing the 'Cuban socialism!' card in Miami-Dade hard enough you can always get within touching distance of executive power. Their future Presidential primaries are going to be stacked with genuine, true believer nutters rather than cynical narcissists like the Donald.

Maybe some random nutjob from Hicktown Caledonia will come forward and offer to represent him in the Supreme Court claiming to be unbeaten, quoting two-for-two etc.  Do you know anyone remotely like this?  :rolleyes:

 

 

I'm gonna miss Trump, I liked him.

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46 minutes ago, vikingTON said:

Working on the reasonable assumption that Trump loses from here, the past five years is really turning out to be a massive short-term win for the GOP. They couldn't script a much better outcome for themselves than what is coming to pass.

Trump will exit as a moderately disgraced one termer but can point to the 6-3 Supreme Court as a genuine achievement for the cause. With the Democrats once again Dundeeing it in the Senate, they've got no chance of even bringing that back to even a sensible 6-5 balance by adding more justices. A Boden presidency will flounder against an obstructive Republican Senate and then the midterms will likely punish the incumbent party; which sets it up for a raft of Republican challengers to Harris or some other insipid centrist in 2024. 

The one issue is that they've perhaps gone too far in proving that by backing any clowncar candidate and playing the 'Cuban socialism!' card in Miami-Dade hard enough you can always get within touching distance of executive power. Their future Presidential primaries are going to be stacked with genuine, true believer nutters rather than cynical narcissists like the Donald.

Wouldn't be so sure about the midterms. The Republicans have far more Senate incumbents up in the midterms: 20 to 12. There's relatively little for the Democrats to lose even in the case of a midterm backlash (which I agree seems to be common wisdom.) Maybe Nevada? Maaaaybe Colorado? 

The GOP primaries will be stuffed with Chamber of Commerce geldings like Bush and Rubio for the foreseeable, absolutely pointless candidates. The GOP is using Trump's defeat and the retained Senate as a chance to banish populism, and they'll succeed in the short term. 

edit: And while I do agree that they can call the Court appointments an achievement, in reality Kav and ACB are both squishes and will vote with Roberts - which is to say, against the base - when push comes to shove. 

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10 minutes ago, capitanus said:

Maybe some random nutjob from Hicktown Caledonia will come forward and offer to represent him in the Supreme Court claiming to be unbeaten, quoting two-for-two etc.  Do you know anyone remotely like this?  :rolleyes:

I once lived in a 'city' in the US that had barely 25k people living in it if the college was up and running at the time and whose 'toon centre' amounted to sum total of a three by three street grid. They'd quite rightly look up at the Clyde Metropolis' magnificent urban sprawl and more train stations than exist in their entire state with awe. And rightly so. For the equivalent of hicktown Caledonia you need to look at Brechin or New Cumnock instead. 

Thanks for playing anyway.

The site is supposed to be a place for the extended 'family' of Morton supporters - having an affinity with people that you don't know, because you share a love of your local football club. It's not supposed to be about point scoring and showing how 'clever' or 'funny' you are, or just being downright rude and offensive to people you don't know, because you can get away with it. Unfortunately, it seems the classic case of people who have little standing/presence in real life, use this forum as a way of making themselves feel as if they are something. It's sad, and I've said that before..

 

So, having been on Morton forums for about 15 years I guess, I've had enough... well done t*ssers, another Morton supporter driven away. You can all feel happy at how 'clever' you are

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Note: I've cut and pasted this over from the Coronavirus thread.

On 8/5/2020 at 10:18 AM, TRVMP said:

You're wrong, though - it's Trump's core support that's wavering, and he's (slightly) overperforming with some non-traditional members of the populist coalition, namely the suburbanites who fled to the Democrats in the mid/late 2000s in purple states. Note that I'm saying he's overperforming, not performing better. That is, while he will (for example) lose California and win Texas, I expect his baseline results with the relevant demographics to reverse (that is, he'll do worse in Tarrant County TX than he did last time, and better in San Bernardino County, CA.)

First of all, on this day in which I'm genuinely sad (but not in the slightest bit surprised), let's at least console my suffering by saluting my prescience. The county examples I gave, here is the result for the first of them in 2016 and 2020. (San Bernardino in California is only half-reporting at the moment, but I believe the end numbers will support my thesis far greater than Tarrant does).

Tarrant County, TX

  2016 Votes 2016 Percentage 2020 Votes 2020 Percentage
Republican (Trump/Trump) 345,921 51.70% 399,342 49.30%
Democratic (Clinton/Biden) 288,392 43.10% 397,174 49.10%

In 2016, the Democratic base didn't turn out, and there were some crossover voters who went for the go-for-broke candidate, Trump. This time around, Biden's numbers were boosted by both a small number of crossover voters and (more importantly) vastly boosted enthusiasm on the blue side. (As several people have observed: some people don't like Biden, but nobody really hates the guy. Even many Democrats, on the other hand, simply couldn't stand Hillary Clinton.)

So what about the other side of the coin - his overperformance outside of that 2016 coalition? I believe that California's county-level results will indicate this best of all, but unfortunately they're not yet finalized. As I say, San Berdu is only partially reporting at this point. For the sake of honesty, and for the five people who'll read this, I'll add their results when they are around 95% finalized. (They won't be fully finalized until December.)

But for an immediate comparison, let's look instead at the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas. This area is considered strongly Democratic. It is overwhelmingly Hispanic (and of Hispanic, overwhelmingly Mexican) and very working-class. The most populous county there is Hidalgo (home to Edinburg and McAllen). Here are the comparative figures:

Hidalgo County, TX

  2016 Votes 2016 Percentage 2020 Votes 2020 Percentage
Republican (Trump/Trump) 48,642 28.0% 89,925 41.00%
Democratic (Clinton/Biden) 118,809 68.5% 127,391 58.10%

Now, I will freely admit that this was a bad year for Democrats in Texas, but nonetheless this is an extremely unexpected result (for people who aren't me, anyway): normally bad Democratic years result not in Republican votes in the Valley, but in depressed Democratic votes. This year we instead saw both. Biden simply did not turn out the voters there at anything approaching wave level, while the Republicans weren't miles off actually doubling their raw vote - better than even the Democratic wave up in Tarrant.

(You can trust me that Tarrant and Hidalgo are indicative of the trends across the state - with a few anomalies here and there, mostly in Central Texas.)

In other words, here in Texas, Trump's support increased both in net and proportional terms in non-traditional areas, while his base support stagnated when accounting for increased turnout. This is indicative of two things: first of all, right-wing populism has a far broader base than almost anyone understands and that almost nobody will be ready for when it hits home.

The second, and in the short term far more consequential thing is that the original Trump narrow coalition didn't come out sufficiently to push him over the top this time. We can debate why this is: in my view, this is in large part because Trump didn't work hard enough to bring the economy, trade, and immigration to the forefront of the campaign, and until around six days before the election he was continuing to accept the media's framing of the race - a fatal mistake and one that he didn't make in 2016. (How many US voters consider COVID to be a big deal? You'd be surprised.) Unfortunately, it was readily apparent as early as May that this was happening. Older whites who were disenchanted by business-as-usual in DC and wanted an outsider now found themselves lured towards the Democrats by a candidate who was recognizable, was generally regarded as sane and moderate, and didn't frighten the horses.

Meanwhile where Trump's coalition *did* expand, we saw it do so - and this is counterintuitive in a lot of ways - increasingly among Hispanics and other non-traditional members of the coalition. The Democratic circular firing squad here in Texas is trying to figure out why that is, and as you might predict they can't find their ass with both hands. Noticing that things like law and order, small business protection, and the dignity of the American worker are - and you may want to sit down for this - popular among those who live disproportionately in crime-affected areas, disproportionately work in small businesses, and disproportionately populate the working class... well, that won't occur to them.

Instead they'll say it was a failure of outreach. Okay, to be fair to them, their ground game was weak until very late in the day, but it was also weak in 2016. But as Trump now knows, and should have known earlier, outreach is something that should be done in addition to a compelling campaign message, and not just for the sake of outreach. The first person who can square that circle - who can capture the vast No/Some College electorate out there, of all races - will have a winning populist message that can win even in high turnout cycles like this one. Trump's 2016 win was half because of his own genius and half because of Clinton's hubris. Anyone who can run the Trump playbook convincingly in the future and do so while absolutely hammering the message of economic protectionism and law and order will win a monumental victory. And it's my belief that the person who manages this will not be a Democrat.

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1 minute ago, vikingTON said:

I once lived in a 'city' in the US that had barely 25k people living in it if the college was up and running at the time and whose 'toon centre' amounted to sum total of a three by three street grid. They'd quite rightly look up at the Clyde Metropolis' magnificent urban sprawl and more train stations than exist in their entire state with awe. And rightly so. For the equivalent of hicktown Caledonia you need to look at Brechin or New Cumnock instead. 

Thanks for playing anyway.

I was thinking about the drunken Cowboy Plumber who floods kitchens of unsuspecting women he's trying to pump, then clogs up the small claims court system trying to get the price of his washers back.   Not you, you local yokel.

 

Better luck next time.

 

Next.

6 minutes ago, TRVMP said:

Note: I've cut and pasted this over from the Coronavirus thread.

First of all, on this day in which I'm genuinely sad (but not in the slightest bit surprised), let's at least console my suffering by saluting my prescience. The county examples I gave, here is the result for the first of them in 2016 and 2020. (San Bernardino in California is only half-reporting at the moment, but I believe the end numbers will support my thesis far greater than Tarrant does).

Tarrant County, TX

  2016 Votes 2016 Percentage 2020 Votes 2020 Percentage
Republican (Trump/Trump) 345,921 51.70% 399,342 49.30%
Democratic (Clinton/Biden) 288,392 43.10% 397,174 49.10%

In 2016, the Democratic base didn't turn out, and there were some crossover voters who went for the go-for-broke candidate, Trump. This time around, Biden's numbers were boosted by both a small number of crossover voters and (more importantly) vastly boosted enthusiasm on the blue side. (As several people have observed: some people don't like Biden, but nobody really hates the guy. Even many Democrats, on the other hand, simply couldn't stand Hillary Clinton.)

So what about the other side of the coin - his overperformance outside of that 2016 coalition? I believe that California's county-level results will indicate this best of all, but unfortunately they're not yet finalized. As I say, San Berdu is only partially reporting at this point. For the sake of honesty, and for the five people who'll read this, I'll add their results when they are around 95% finalized. (They won't be fully finalized until December.)

But for an immediate comparison, let's look instead at the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas. This area is considered strongly Democratic. It is overwhelmingly Hispanic (and of Hispanic, overwhelmingly Mexican) and very working-class. The most populous county there is Hidalgo (home to Edinburg and McAllen). Here are the comparative figures:

Hidalgo County, TX

  2016 Votes 2016 Percentage 2020 Votes 2020 Percentage
Republican (Trump/Trump) 48,642 28.0% 89,925 41.00%
Democratic (Clinton/Biden) 118,809 68.5% 127,391 58.10%

Now, I will freely admit that this was a bad year for Democrats in Texas, but nonetheless this is an extremely unexpected result (for people who aren't me, anyway): normally bad Democratic years result not in Republican votes in the Valley, but in depressed Democratic votes. This year we instead saw both. Biden simply did not turn out the voters there at anything approaching wave level, while the Republicans weren't miles off actually doubling their raw vote - better than even the Democratic wave up in Tarrant.

(You can trust me that Tarrant and Hidalgo are indicative of the trends across the state - with a few anomalies here and there, mostly in Central Texas.)

In other words, here in Texas, Trump's support increased both in net and proportional terms in non-traditional areas, while his base support stagnated when accounting for increased turnout. This is indicative of two things: first of all, right-wing populism has a far broader base than almost anyone understands and that almost nobody will be ready for when it hits home.

The second, and in the short term far more consequential thing is that the original Trump narrow coalition didn't come out sufficiently to push him over the top this time. We can debate why this is: in my view, this is in large part because Trump didn't work hard enough to bring the economy, trade, and immigration to the forefront of the campaign, and until around six days before the election he was continuing to accept the media's framing of the race - a fatal mistake and one that he didn't make in 2016. (How many US voters consider COVID to be a big deal? You'd be surprised.) Unfortunately, it was readily apparent as early as May that this was happening. Older whites who were disenchanted by business-as-usual in DC and wanted an outsider now found themselves lured towards the Democrats by a candidate who was recognizable, was generally regarded as sane and moderate, and didn't frighten the horses.

Meanwhile where Trump's coalition *did* expand, we saw it do so - and this is counterintuitive in a lot of ways - increasingly among Hispanics and other non-traditional members of the coalition. The Democratic circular firing squad here in Texas is trying to figure out why that is, and as you might predict they can't find their ass with both hands. Noticing that things like law and order, small business protection, and the dignity of the American worker are - and you may want to sit down for this - popular among those who live disproportionately in crime-affected areas, disproportionately work in small businesses, and disproportionately populate the working class... well, that won't occur to them.

Instead they'll say it was a failure of outreach. Okay, to be fair to them, their ground game was weak until very late in the day, but it was also weak in 2016. But as Trump now knows, and should have known earlier, outreach is something that should be done in addition to a compelling campaign message, and not just for the sake of outreach. The first person who can square that circle - who can capture the vast No/Some College electorate out there, of all races - will have a winning populist message that can win even in high turnout cycles like this one. Trump's 2016 win was half because of his own genius and half because of Clinton's hubris. Anyone who can run the Trump playbook convincingly in the future and do so while absolutely hammering the message of economic protectionism and law and order will win a monumental victory. And it's my belief that the person who manages this will not be a Democrat.

Tl, Dr.  Twice.

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2 minutes ago, TRVMP said:

Wouldn't be so sure about the midterms. The Republicans have far more Senate incumbents up in the midterms: 20 to 12. There's relatively little for the Democrats to lose even in the case of a midterm backlash (which I agree seems to be common wisdom.) Maybe Nevada? Maaaaybe Colorado? 

The GOP primaries will be stuffed with Chamber of Commerce geldings like Bush and Rubio for the foreseeable, absolutely pointless candidates. The GOP is using Trump's defeat and the retained Senate as a chance to banish populism, and they'll succeed in the short term. 

There's a lot of seats for the Democrats to lose in the House though, which isn't actually a Democrat-leaning body either in terms of the popular vote=representatives won. Any significant drop in Democratic enthusiasm and turnout will see a loss of much of their gains in the 2018/20 cycle: though redistricting in some states may mitigate this. By 2023 it could easily be a narrowly split Congress in both houses.

The Rubio types already stood and lost to an outsider in 2016 who proved that you don't need political experience to win and do okay as an unpopular Republican incumbent. Losing control of the selection process is the only potential downside that the establishment GOP faces from this. But that establishment will replace itself over time with those who won office as part of the Tea Party movement, or with Trump, or with whoever follows up a similar agenda in the years to come. The establishment GOP has its gain baked in already by turning the Supreme Court over for a generation.

The site is supposed to be a place for the extended 'family' of Morton supporters - having an affinity with people that you don't know, because you share a love of your local football club. It's not supposed to be about point scoring and showing how 'clever' or 'funny' you are, or just being downright rude and offensive to people you don't know, because you can get away with it. Unfortunately, it seems the classic case of people who have little standing/presence in real life, use this forum as a way of making themselves feel as if they are something. It's sad, and I've said that before..

 

So, having been on Morton forums for about 15 years I guess, I've had enough... well done t*ssers, another Morton supporter driven away. You can all feel happy at how 'clever' you are

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57 minutes ago, vikingTON said:

There's a lot of seats for the Democrats to lose in the House though, which isn't actually a Democrat-leaning body either in terms of the popular vote=representatives won. Any significant drop in Democratic enthusiasm and turnout will see a loss of much of their gains in the 2018/20 cycle: though redistricting in some states may mitigate this. By 2023 it could easily be a narrowly split Congress in both houses.

The Rubio types already stood and lost to an outsider in 2016 who proved that you don't need political experience to win and do okay as an unpopular Republican incumbent. Losing control of the selection process is the only potential downside that the establishment GOP faces from this. But that establishment will replace itself over time with those who won office as part of the Tea Party movement, or with Trump, or with whoever follows up a similar agenda in the years to come. The establishment GOP has its gain baked in already by turning the Supreme Court over for a generation.

They could lose the House, true. It's very early to say that, though, given the unpopularity of the chamber and the fact that the Republican base has aligned itself with Trump, who is (in my view, correctly) going to foment discord in the party moving forward.

Much as Sanders ran Clinton a bit too close for comfort in 2016, and then the DNC orchestrated a Biden win in 2020 (wisely, as it turned out) the establishment GOP has spent the last four years trying to ensure that Trump never happens again. They don't look at Trump's record-breaking 2020 primary votes as a good thing. They want him and his supporters out of the party and a return to business as usual. They would rather lose a million elections with Rubio than win one with Trump. They've said as much and will take this election as permission to do it going forward. The populist tide is going to try to resist that, but it's not going to happen in the next two years, I say that with complete confidence. 

You make it sound like anyone can just rock up and dismantle their institutional control. Remember, you were convinced, utterly and completely convinced, as late as November 3rd 2016 that the polls were accurate and Trump was a joke candidate and was about to be swept. Now you're talking blithely about how he did it "without political experience?" He was as dominant a personage as you could imagine, he had around 98% name recognition even before declaring candidacy. Who else fits the bill in the US today who would not only run, but run as a populist? I don't think such a person exists.

As such any populist win in the future is going to come against the wishes of the establishment GOP and only as part of the broader realignment that's taking place, the one that I described above. It's absolutely not coming from within the current eGOPranks. They have told us that and we need to believe them. 

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If I may quote some posts from the Covid thread here:

On 10/1/2020 at 4:02 PM, TRVMP said:

Given that Trump narrowly avoided a coup attempt orchestrated by the previous administration and our intelligence agencies, and that the radical left currently has several major cities in its pocket, the likelihood of post-election machinations and violence is almost entirely unidirectional.

 

On 10/2/2020 at 8:25 AM, dunning1874 said:

In terms of post-election machinations, there's only one candidate consistently talking up the potential for fraud among postal votes in an election which will have more postal votes than ever due to Covid-19, is attempting to savage the USPS in the run up to the election as part of the attempts to discredit postal voting, has openly spoken about the election ending up in court due to postal ballots and said the following when asked about committing to a peaceful transfer power if he lost the election:

"Get rid of the ballots, and you'll have a very - you'll have a very peaceful - there won't be a transfer, frankly, there'll be a continuation."

 

On 10/2/2020 at 9:05 PM, TRVMP said:

 

The second half is once again pure projection, 100%, nothing but projection.

I'm looking forward to the explanation of how comments such as "they are trying to steal the election" and "a major fraud on our nation" while going to court to stop counts fit into the problem of Trump's opponents projecting and taking him too literally, while not being indicative of Trump hoping to discredit and ultimately discount postal votes all along.

Brian Wake my Lord, Brian Wake

Brian Wake my Lord, Brian Wake

Brian Wake my Lord, Brian Wake

Oh Lord, Brian Wake

 

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11 hours ago, TRVMP said:

Wouldn't be so sure about the midterms. The Republicans have far more Senate incumbents up in the midterms: 20 to 12. There's relatively little for the Democrats to lose even in the case of a midterm backlash (which I agree seems to be common wisdom.) Maybe Nevada? Maaaaybe Colorado? 

The GOP primaries will be stuffed with Chamber of Commerce geldings like Bush and Rubio for the foreseeable, absolutely pointless candidates. The GOP is using Trump's defeat and the retained Senate as a chance to banish populism, and they'll succeed in the short term. 

edit: And while I do agree that they can call the Court appointments an achievement, in reality Kav and ACB are both squishes and will vote with Roberts - which is to say, against the base - when push comes to shove. 

I wouldn’t say Gorsuch is any less likely to go against the grain of the base than Kavanaugh or Coney-Barrett. All three have been serious, well qualified, picks. Though that Roberts is seen as being to the left of the base is telling!

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5 hours ago, dunning1874 said:

If I may quote some posts from the Covid thread here:

 

 

I'm looking forward to the explanation of how comments such as "they are trying to steal the election" and "a major fraud on our nation" while going to court to stop counts fit into the problem of Trump's opponents projecting and taking him too literally, while not being indicative of Trump hoping to discredit and ultimately discount postal votes all along.

Should he not be challenging close races? Should Gore have just accepted Florida in 2000? Similarly, should the Democrats not be doing the exact same thing in Arizona, which was called early (by television) but which Trump wants the count to continue? The Biden camp has blown the whistle on Arizona already with results outstanding. Now is that different? 

To be clear, I have said for months that Trump losses the Midwest and I think that any irregularities in rogue precincts - and there are some - are going to be marginal and not enough to change the outcome. That doesn't preclude Trump from trying to win. Your side spent three years orchestrating a coup attempt based on faulty intelligence and he's not allowed to file an election lawsuit because that's the End Of Democracy if he does? It's ludicrous on its face, of course it's projection. 

What you were worried about was some kind of Proud Boys-led putsch, which is obviously not happening. 

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3 hours ago, cmdc said:

I wouldn’t say Gorsuch is any less likely to go against the grain of the base than Kavanaugh or Coney-Barrett. All three have been serious, well qualified, picks. Though that Roberts is seen as being to the left of the base is telling!

The significant majority of the US political establishment is to the right of voters economically and to their left socially. Roberts is a product of his time and, to a lesser extent, the administration that appointed him. He's a squish and will avoid tough decisions that have meaningful political impact.

By the way, I don't automatically see as a bad thing in the context of SCOTUS. Given the grotesque amount of power it's amassed over the decades, you can make a case for its being less originalist in outlook. It is a political body, far more than in the past, and if it was truly unrepresentative of the political consensus, we'd see an acceleration of the coming-apart that's already happening in this country. All I mean is what I say: he's not representative of the current GOP base in his outlook or his jurisprudence.

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11 minutes ago, TRVMP said:

Should he not be challenging close races? Should Gore have just accepted Florida in 2000? Similarly, should the Democrats not be doing the exact same thing in Arizona, which was called early (by television) but which Trump wants the count to continue? The Biden camp has blown the whistle on Arizona already with results outstanding. Now is that different? 

To be clear, I have said for months that Trump losses the Midwest and I think that any irregularities in rogue precincts - and there are some - are going to be marginal and not enough to change the outcome. That doesn't preclude Trump from trying to win. Your side spent three years orchestrating a coup attempt based on faulty intelligence and he's not allowed to file an election lawsuit because that's the End Of Democracy if he does? It's ludicrous on its face, of course it's projection. 

What you were worried about was some kind of Proud Boys-led putsch, which is obviously not happening. 

There's a significant difference between a) challenging close votes in the manner of Gore in 2000 by asking for a recount as the margin of victory in Florida was so slim that a recount could feasibly find Gore was the winner, and b) asking for hundreds of thousands of votes not to be counted in the first place because you happen to be ahead before those votes are counted, while alleging that these votes must be fraudulent with absolutely no evidence. You know this.

ETA: Have the Biden campaign asked for counts to be stopped in Arizona? I genuinely haven't seen that anywhere but appreciate I'm only getting sources that are widely focusing on Trump's comments on Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Brian Wake my Lord, Brian Wake

Brian Wake my Lord, Brian Wake

Brian Wake my Lord, Brian Wake

Oh Lord, Brian Wake

 

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Just now, dunning1874 said:

There's a significant difference between a) challenging close votes in the manner of Gore in 2000 by asking for a recount as the margin of victory in Florida was so slim that a recount could feasibly find Gore was the winner, and b) asking for hundreds of thousands of votes not to be counted in the first place because you happen to be ahead before those votes are counted, while alleging that these votes must be fraudulent with absolutely no evidence. You know this.

Once again, he survived a coup attempt based on less than no evidence - that is, false evidence. If suspicion is grounds for a challenge against him, it's grounds for a challenge for him. Accordingly I know that in PA - and I knew this before Trump tweeted about it earlier - the Attorney General has been passing off Democratic operatives as state 'vote helpers,' and that (as usual) central Philadelphia precincts were closed to observers. Do these things really matter and will they change the outcome? Sort of, and no, respectively. But if this were happening in the other direction the entire cast of television would be completely losing its shit and calling it a banana republic (which is an insult to banana republics, the majority of whom can run elections more smoothly than the United States.)

I support completely Trump's right to call for a halt the count until we figure out what is going on. There's means, motive and opportunity here and the man deserves his day in court. I don't think for one second it'll change the outcome. I do think that SCOTUS needs to look at, at a bare minimum, a federal ruling about receiving ballots after election day, and this is the perfect time to do it.

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6 minutes ago, TRVMP said:

Once again, he survived a coup attempt based on less than no evidence - that is, false evidence. If suspicion is grounds for a challenge against him, it's grounds for a challenge for him. Accordingly I know that in PA - and I knew this before Trump tweeted about it earlier - the Attorney General has been passing off Democratic operatives as state 'vote helpers,' and that (as usual) central Philadelphia precincts were closed to observers. Do these things really matter and will they change the outcome? Sort of, and no, respectively. But if this were happening in the other direction the entire cast of television would be completely losing its shit and calling it a banana republic (which is an insult to banana republics, the majority of whom can run elections more smoothly than the United States.)

I support completely Trump's right to call for a halt the count until we figure out what is going on. There's means, motive and opportunity here and the man deserves his day in court. I don't think for one second it'll change the outcome. I do think that SCOTUS needs to look at, at a bare minimum, a federal ruling about receiving ballots after election day, and this is the perfect time to do it.

I agree that Russiagate was an absolute pile of bollocks that led to the Democrats embarrassing themselves for years, FWIW. I also don't see the relevance of that to Trump making blatantly false statements such as "we did win this election" long before counting was finished.

Can you share some of this evidence about Pennsylvania?

Brian Wake my Lord, Brian Wake

Brian Wake my Lord, Brian Wake

Brian Wake my Lord, Brian Wake

Oh Lord, Brian Wake

 

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3 minutes ago, dunning1874 said:

I agree that Russiagate was an absolute pile of bollocks that led to the Democrats embarrassing themselves for years, FWIW. I also don't see the relevance of that to Trump making blatantly false statements such as "we did win this election" long before counting was finished.

Can you share some of this evidence about Pennsylvania?

If only it was just the Democrats who embarrassed themselves. Unfortunately the whole seraglio of government agencies were in on it. I'm loathe to use the 'deep state' phrasing - I prefer to think of it as the regular administrative state, the permanent bureaucracy, the agencies that have missions and hopes and ethoses of their own. They were all in on it, we had to (and indeed still have to) pretend that the FBI is anything other than rotten to its core, and that what pathetic "convictions" they did manage to attain were based literally on fraudulent record-keeping and intelligence that people as high up as the director knew to be unreliable at best and false at worst. If it was just a political hitjob like birtherism I wouldn't harp on it so much, but this ran right through all of the institutions of state and to an extent continues to do so. It's worse than Watergate, it's a hundred times worse than the Red Scare, which at least did root out some traitors... it's a scandal of epic proportions.

Leaving aside things that don't even compare (e.g. the Indian Wars and Native American genocide, slavery - these things are obviously far worse) it's genuinely not an exaggeration to call this the worst scandal in American history. Yet absolutely nobody cares, minus a few internet weirdos. For this reason Trump would have to do a hell of a lot more than he's doing now for me to be even slightly worried about OuR dEmOcRaCy. There's a five-alarm fire taking place in the FBI office next door, Trump has a box of matches out, and we've turned the water cannon on Trump. It's debasing, frankly.

Anyway: Candidates usually say they've won elections if it's advantageous for them to do so. In fact I just remembered a good example: Stacey Abrams said so in GA in 2018 and to this day maintains that she lost an unfair election. Al Gore continues to maintain that he would have won 2000 were he granted equal protection by the state of Florida. In neither case did the world end. Trump will also continue to say he won the election until the end of time. And the world will keep turning. Again, I think it will ultimately end up being a fool's errand, and at best it's a face-saving exercise to keep the base ginned up. That doesn't preclude his having the right to challenge the result, as occurs in the vast majority of close-run and unusual* elections.

There have been two indictments this year alone of Democratic party officials in the Philadelphia area for ballot stuffing. They pertain to primary elections and are based on bribery, as opposed to partisan interest, but this happens in many US metro areas in every election cycle. I don't think it moves the needle, but it bears scrutiny, as does the fact that we know at least four-figures of 2016 voters in PA voted more than once in person. It's anecdotal but I believe PA to be the second-worst state for electoral corruption after Illinois. Again, I don't think it moves the needle, but you can easily look up these two examples.

*I don't mean in the terms of irregularity, which I believe to be pretty isolated in the US, but in terms of the circumstances of the postal vote due to COVID.

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