The US Presidential election prediction thread

[NotThePars]

Whenever I see Timothy Snyder's name I always remember a Polish friend of mine saying that he's the historian of choice for people who treat Eastern Europe as a zoo where the animals can't talk.

[LongTimeLurker]

38 minutes ago, NotThePars said:

Whenever I see Timothy Snyder's name I always remember a Polish friend of mine saying that he's the historian of choice for people who treat Eastern Europe as a zoo where the animals can't talk.

He annoys a lot of nationalists because he tries to view history through a much wider lens than the we are the good guys and they are the bad guys nationalist narratives that many people are most comfortable with.

Edited January 15, 2021 by LongTimeLurker

[Granny Danger]

I take some comfort from the thought of Trump in the White House being avoided by everyone absolutely seething and not being able to vent his frustrations on social media.  Obviously not the way he thought his reign would end.

It makes me think about the Escobar dream sequence in Narcos.

[DA Baracus]

1 hour ago, BFTD said:

Excellent. No need to bring up my father's comments about the coloureds.

Back to Trump - he spent the election campaign in 2016 talking about how easy it supposedly was to vote fraudulently, but yet there was no need to investigate when he won. He just thought he was going to lose so he got his excuses in early. There comes a point when you look at that, at the total lack of evidence that has been presented for voter fraud (despite the continuing insistence that they have so much of it), and you can't logically come to any conclusion other than that they just want their guy to win, and to hell with democracy, political process, the constitution, and everything else that they claim to love so very much. Nobody is that stupid.

Most of the redcaps are.

[Ned Nederlander]

19 hours ago, Jim McLean's Ghost said:

Amazing story

 

 

[LongTimeLurker]

For close to a century even after the end of the Civil War when slavery was finally ended, the United States tolerated a culture of vicious racist violence that denied the right to vote to vast numbers of African American citizens and created an ongoing apartheid system across most of the US south. For decades racist American police officers could arrest pretty much anyone they didn't like the look of on something like a vagrancy charge and very little was done to stop lynch mob violence.

The idea that the USA has always been about "democracy, political process, the constitution, and everything else" has never held up to close examination. Eventually the Democrats under LBJ pushed through Civil Rights and Republicans even though they were originally the party of Lincoln have been surfing the racist backlash to electoral office ever since. Demographics are shifting rapidly now towards a non-white majority (predicted by 2045 or so) after racist immigration policies were end in the late 60s so that will soon stop working for them at the federal level. Once Texas flips blue, it's over for them as currently constituted. 

To win federal elections in the years ahead either the Republicans will have to moderate their politics in a big way or they will have to completely collapse the system and go for something like Putin's Russia where elections are just for show. Stupid is the wrong word to describe what happened on June 6th. The people involved were dangerous fanatics out to collapse the system who a decade ago would have listened to Alex Jones rambling on about Ruby Ridge or whatever and would have voted for some no hope Libertarian crank like Ron Paul and hence could be safely ignored for the most part.

More recently they became part of Trump's electoral coalition under the malign influence of Roger Stone probably so they could be used to crash the system, if necessary.  Too many people simply laughed at Trump in the build up to 2016 and didn't take him seriously when it should have been obvious that post-2008 the conditions were very much ripe for 1930s style politics. Bernie Sanders would have had a better shot at beating him than Hilary Clinton but the Democrats rigged their primary system to ensure an insugent candidate of the left could never win even when conditions were ripe for a change. The main positive of Jan 6th is that a lot more people are out of denial and are awake to the threat of populism now.

Edited January 15, 2021 by LongTimeLurker

[WhiteRoseKillie]

20 minutes ago, LongTimeLurker said:

For close to a century even after the end of the Civil War when slavery was finally ended, the United States tolerated a culture of vicious racist violence that denied the right to vote to vast numbers of African American citizens and created an ongoing apartheid system across most of the US south. For decades racist American police officers could arrest pretty much anyone they didn't like the look of on something like a vagrancy charge and very little was done to stop lynch mob violence.

The idea that the USA has always been about "democracy, political process, the constitution, and everything else" has never held up to close examination. Eventually the Democrats under LBJ pushed through Civil Rights and Republicans even though they were originally the party of Lincoln have been surfing the racist backlash to electoral office ever since. Demographics are shifting rapidly now towards a non-white majority (predicted by 2045 or so) after racist immigration policies were end in the late 60s so that will soon stop working for them at the federal level. Once Texas flips blue, it's over for them as currently constituted. 

To win federal elections in the years ahead either the Republicans will have to moderate their politics in a big way or they will have to completely collapse the system and go for something like Putin's Russia where elections are just for show. Stupid is the wrong word to describe what happened on June 6th. The people involved were dangerous fanatics out to collapse the system who a decade ago would have listened to Alex Jones rambling on about Ruby Ridge or whatever and would have voted for some no hope Libertarian crank like Ron Paul and hence could be safely ignored for the most part.

More recently they became part of Trump's electoral coalition under the malign influence of Roger Stone probably so they could be used to crash the system, if necessary.  Too many people simply laughed at Trump in the build up to 2016 and didn't take him seriously when it should have been obvious that post-2008 the conditions were very much ripe for 1930s style politics. Bernie Sanders would have had a better shot at beating him than Hilary Clinton but the Democrats rigged their primary system to ensure an insugent candidate of the left could never win even when conditions were ripe for a change. The main positive of Jan 6th is that a lot more people are out of denial and are awake to the threat of populism now.

I think you may be using the wrong tense for a fair bit of this - you make it look like a violent racist culture in the USA is a thing of the past, when in actual fact almost half of those who voted in November supported, to one extent or another, a continuation or indeed increase in discriminatory policies.

Always remember, the nation held up as a bastion of freedom built its economy on human suffering and death.

[NotThePars]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55670801

Proposing $1400 and arguing that the previous $600 means Americans technically got the $2000 is so Democrat brain that they'll need to get Trump's impeachment through or he'll storm back in 2024.

[coprolite]

I followed a link to a site called conservativehome yesterday. I didn't know where i was going but once i was there i thought i'd step outside the echochamber. Their article was nominally about British conservatives now claiming not to have any ties or not supported Trump. 

What they said about the internal politics of conservativedom seemed quite sensible and they claim to be moderate centre right. 

However, the whole thing was framed in whataboutery so pathetic it would make the celtgers blush. 

Apparently we almost voted in a hard left government which would have resulted in much worse anarchy. Leaving aside the unfounded speculation, surely no one can really think that Corbyn was hard left in any meaningful sense? 

Also they seemed to think that the blm protests were in some way comparable to storming the capitol. I must have missed the stories about the indiscriminate use of force on people with maga caps. 

[welshbairn]

40 minutes ago, NotThePars said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-55670801

Proposing $1400 and arguing that the previous $600 means Americans technically got the $2000 is so Democrat brain that they'll need to get Trump's impeachment through or he'll storm back in 2024.

I don't really get that take. The Dems were pushing for $2000, Trump got his Treasury Secretary and the GOP to settle for $600, then threw his final hissy fit to get it up the GOP and said he wanted $2000 after all, after the deal was done. All Biden is doing is making it the $2000 the Dems were after all along.

[welshbairn]

47 minutes ago, coprolite said:

I followed a link to a site called conservativehome yesterday. I didn't know where i was going but once i was there i thought i'd step outside the echochamber. Their article was nominally about British conservatives now claiming not to have any ties or not supported Trump. 

What they said about the internal politics of conservativedom seemed quite sensible and they claim to be moderate centre right. 

However, the whole thing was framed in whataboutery so pathetic it would make the celtgers blush. 

Apparently we almost voted in a hard left government which would have resulted in much worse anarchy. Leaving aside the unfounded speculation, surely no one can really think that Corbyn was hard left in any meaningful sense? 

Also they seemed to think that the blm protests were in some way comparable to storming the capitol. I must have missed the stories about the indiscriminate use of force on people with maga caps. 

There's a powerful Trumpy faction within the Tory Party, the Spectator has become its house magazine. The paternalism of MacMillan and Douglas-Home's One Nation Conservatism is long gone, it's now appeal to the proles worst instincts to make us even richer. 

Edited January 15, 2021 by welshbairn

[welshbairn]

Just now, MixuFruit said:

They won Georgia senate seats on a very clear 'give us senate control, you get 2000 bucks' ticket. One of those seats is back up for election in 2022.

Well they get $2000, instead of $600.

[NotThePars]

4 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

I don't really get that take. The Dems were pushing for $2000, Trump got his Treasury Secretary and the GOP to settle for $600, then threw his final hissy fit to get it up the GOP and said he wanted $2000 after all, after the deal was done. All Biden is doing is making it the $2000 the Dems were after all along.

That is not what people heard the last couple of months. I'm literally listening to a podcast as I type this where someone off-handedly jokes to someone else "maybe you can use the $2000 to replace your PC". Retroactively framing it after they win as "TECHNICALLY we're giving you $2000" is exactly the reason why people fucking hate the Democrats. 

 

[NotThePars]

This ad

This news story

 

And this tweet

 

It's definitely good politics to publish all this and then revise the number down on a technicality. They're not even in office yet and they're letting everyone down. No wonder 70 million people feel compelled to vote for the dumb fascist who at least pretends to like his supporters.

 

Edited January 15, 2021 by NotThePars

[welshbairn]

1 hour ago, MixuFruit said:

do you like, genuinely not get how this looks for them to do this?

No, I don't. They were promised $600 under Trump and Biden's making it up to the $2000 the Dems fought for. At the time of the Georgia election I doubt if anyone had received their $600, and many would have had to wait a week or more for basic social security payments because of Trump's last stand. "$600 is not enough, we need $2000." Couldn't be plainer. Warnock could have done a meme saying the a check would be coming to make up the $600 to $2000 if they voted for him, might have been clearer for those not paying attention for a sizeable cheque maybe coming through the letter box.

Edited January 15, 2021 by welshbairn

[NotThePars]

3 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

"$600 is not enough, we need $2000." Couldn't be plainer.

Maybe if people hadn't already been given 600 dollars you dopey c**t. Here's how you can make it plainer - "$600 is not enough. We need another $1400."

[welshbairn]

I think the pair of you are looking at it through the twitter lens, rather than someone in Georgia waiting to see how much money they'd get, 600 or 2000. It's a big difference if you aren't on $75,000 per annum.

Edited January 15, 2021 by welshbairn

[NotThePars]

5 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

I think the pair of you are looking at it through the twitter lens, rather than someone in Georgia waiting to see how much money they'd get, 600 or 2000. It's a big difference if you aren't on $75,000 per annum.

You've overplayed your hand here. You're at it.

[D Angelo Barksdale]

 

[GNU_Linux]

Think of all the brunches that money could be used for.