US Politics, June 2020 — You have to dominate.

It's not over till it's over – a lot can happen in the next 131 days.

i would feel confident in a Trump defeat if i had any faith that he wouldn't be pulling every single possible lever of suppression and conspiracy-mongering and using DOJ as his personal litigator

The most reassuring data is not those polls but the real world enthusiasm and turn out in every single election since Nov. 2016, which has remained high and loud.

Hmm, I wonder what the Game Genie Party's chances of winning this fall's game of Contra are.

my concern is not that most people won't intend to vote for Biden but that enough will somehow be prevented from doing so

for me the most reassuring thing is that there are basically no swing voters any more while simultaneously is historically unpopular among likely voters.

the worrying thing is suppression and, especially, the fact that we probably won't know the result on election night because of covid postal voting which is an opportunity like no other for a "rigged!" narrative to become mainstream (not like among Q people, but among general low info voters).

covid postal voting

I know, I know, it's serious

yeah 4 months is a long time especially in Trumpworld where major scandals materialize and turn into "Trump + GOP corrupt so what" within a couple of days and everyone forgets about it a week later, BUT the major stories of the last few months which are really hurting Trump right now are the pandemic, civil unrest, and massive unemployment, none of which have really gone away or gotten any better. he can't control the narrative anymore, just tweeting insane shit about Burisma and OBAMAGATE isn't gonna work the way it did for "emails!" in 2016, things are legitimately shitty right now and by the end of summer we may be facing travel bans ON US because our handling of the pandemic was so bad. Trump's path to victory at this point would involve progress on all these fronts AND more electoral college magic, plus massive voter suppression. now all this may happen, Biden is by no means a lock, but I will point out that Hillary had nowhere near this big a lead & it still took everything breaking for Trump for him to pull off a victory.

So the Madison crowd last night: knocked over the statue of an abolitionist immigrant who died fighting for the union, a statue commemorating women's suffrage and beat up a 60 year old state senator and left him lying on the ground.https://t.co/ZAQqZySAUe

— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) June 24, 2020

right xp.

when was the last time you heard about hunter biden? all the *gates trump can come up and magical russiagate thinking are not going to have any effect in the face of actual news that affects individual voters, which is what we've been pandemic, an economic catastrophe, and extremely popular protest movement, and a strongly held public opinion about trump's performance on all of these.

also social distancing helps because it reduces the opportunity for biden gaffes (he is absolutely not up to the job of campaigning).

"we've been pandemic"

by the end of summer we may be facing travel bans ON US

The EU already has banned American travel and that looks set to continue in July when we'll be permitting travel again from other countries that seem to be managing better, including China.

So what the hell happened in Madison? Bad actors taking advantage of legit protests to cause mayhem? Twitter chatter seems to be placing the blame on "overzealous BLM protests" but, uh, that sounds deeply suspect given the statues that were targeted.

you underestimate the power of gerrymandering and other forms of voter suppression, methinks.

I on the other hand think you're overestimating the efficacy of voter suppression. In every primary or midterm where it's been suspected that the vote will be fucked with or constricted in some way, there's been a corresponding flood-tide of turnout, overwhelming attempts at suppression. And that's before the Big Game. If you think a trick that hasn't worked once yet is gonna work the eighth time, well, pull the blankets back over your head and have a good long cry.

People hate Donald Trump. The day they get a chance to finally and irrevocably express that hate is gonna be a national holiday, declared or not. We're gonna see presidential election turnout that hasn't been seen since the 1950s.

Nearly three-fifths of voters disapprove of Mr. Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, including majorities of white voters and men. Self-described moderate voters disapproved of Mr. Trump on the coronavirus by a margin of more than two to one.

Most of the country is also rejecting Mr. Trump’s call to reopen the economy as quickly as possible, even at the cost of exposing people to greater health risks. By a 21-point margin, voters said the federal government should prioritize containing the coronavirus, even if it hurts the economy, a view that aligns them with Mr. Biden.

Just a third of voters said the government should focus on restarting the economy even if that entails greater public-health risks.

That debate could become the central focus of the campaign in the coming weeks, as coronavirus outbreaks grow rapidly in a number of Republican-led states that have resisted the strict lockdown measures imposed in the spring by Democratic states like New York and California.

The public also does not share Mr. Trump’s resistance to mask wearing. The president has declined to don a mask in nearly all public appearances, even as top health officials in his administration have urged Americans to do so as a precaution against spreading the coronavirus. In the poll, 54 percent of people said they always wear a mask when they expect to be in proximity to other people, while another 22 percent said they usually wear a mask.

Just 22 percent said they rarely or never wear a mask.

Mr. Trump’s job approval on race relations was just as dismal. Sixty-one percent of voters said they disapproved of Mr. Trump’s handling of race, versus 33 percent who said they approved. By a similar margin, voters said they disapproved of his response to the protests after the death of Mr. Floyd.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/24/us/politics/trump-biden-poll-nyt-upshot-siena-college.html

This is innaresting:

Significantly, one group that saw Mr. Biden as far more than just acceptable was black voters. Fifty-six percent of black respondents in the poll said they saw Mr. Biden very favorably, a far more enthusiastic judgment than from any other constituency.

The limited passion for Mr. Biden among other Democratic constituencies does not appear to be affecting his position against Mr. Trump. Though only 13 percent of people under 30 said they had a very favorable opinion of the former vice president, that group is backing Mr. Biden over Mr. Trump by 34 percentage points.

Nicholas Angelos, a 20-year-old voter in Bloomington, Ind., who said he supported Senator Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries, said he would vote for Mr. Biden as the “lesser of two evils.” He said he believed the former vice president would “try his best,” in contrast to Mr. Trump, whom he described as “an autocrat” and “anti-science.”

“We all have to compromise,” said Mr. Angelos, who described himself as very liberal. He added of Mr. Biden, “I don’t think he’s anything special.

In the poll, 54 percent of people said they always wear a mask when they expect to be in proximity to other people, while another 22 percent said they usually wear a mask.

Just 22 percent said they rarely or never wear a mask.

would really love to see the state-by-state breakdown of this

Nicholas Angelos gets it

Democrats ask for the Sergeant at Arms to remove Gohmert from the hearing room because he refuses to stop banging on a table pic.twitter.com/PY3x4yWcYn

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 24, 2020

Put him in a basket with a cobra and a chimp and throw them in the Potomac.

So what the hell happened in Madison? Bad actors taking advantage of legit protests to cause mayhem? Twitter chatter seems to be placing the blame on "overzealous BLM protests" but, uh, that sounds deeply suspect given the statues that were targeted.

― soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Wednesday, June 24, 2020 11:29 AM (fourteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This presumes that they were targeting specific statues on deeply informed historical grounds, rather than indiscriminately tearing down relics of a society that has failed them.

Fair enough, it's hard to tell via the articles I've read and esp tweets that are all too eager to throw the blame everywhere.

I'm all for tearing down monuments to Confederate shitbags and the like but if I'm reading you correctly, "indiscriminately tearing down relics of a society that has failed them" sounds like some real bending over backwards.

xp

^^^
This dovetails with the Detroit article and then you can add on top of the racism a capitalism that has pretty much devolved to straight up leaving the morlocks to drown and this is what you are going to get.

Obviously, all this arguing about whether Trump will win or not is just the usual political palaver, because we all desperately want to move on to the voting and the result, but there are months yet to run before the payoff.

In the meantime, I might suggest that turning one's attention away from our forlorn presidential race to notice your own state and local politics might be a more fruitful pursuit atm. Reigning in the police is wholly a local issue and the iron is very hot and is about more ready to be pounded into a better, more useful shape than it has been in decades.

i just saw the future

October 20, 2020 Trump: - and now they’re asking me for MORE money for USPS? when they’re working with the democrats to commit voter fraud with the phony mail-in ballots? this has to stop. the american people demand it

I might feel more sanguine about voter turnout if we weren't in the middle of mishandling a pandemic that makes gathering together more dangerous than usual. I'd also feel more sanguine about people turning on Donald Trump if I believed people were actually turning on him; I predict he will lose few of the votes he got in 2016 because even the people who are hypercritical of him that are popping up in news reports are still indicating that they plan to vote for him again. There seems to be this prevailing idea of "now that people know, they will do the right thing" which, as far as I can tell, has no actual bearing in how people behave.

So what the hell happened in Madison?

The important thing to understand "the Madison crowd" referred to by Chris Hayes is a lot of different crowds of varying sizes. The people giving speeches to thousands at the Capitol are not the same as the people who robbed stores three weeks ago (non-political opportunists) who are in turn not the same as the people who took down statues (mostly-white mostly-dude militant leftists who like to fuck shit up on general theoretical grounds) There are people who will declare that coming into a restaurant with a baseball bat and a megaphone (this guy was a dude but not white, fwiw) saying "I've got a fucking bat," and asking diners through their megaphone to Venmo him for protest funds is inseparable from the struggle and is just part of the necessary process of "bringing the war home" to white liberals. I get the argument, I just think it's wrong.

anyone catching this Donald Ayer testimony in the House Judiciary Committee hearing? he is bringing it

jackson lee, before that, too. teed it up for ayer nicely

xp Or that beating the shit out of a guy for recording on his phone is a necessary precaution. Come on. It really doesn't matter that the guy turned out to be a liberal State Senator. He wasn't doing Nazi shit or trying to run somebody over.

ugh, John Elias is _not_ bringing it

And at the same time I am highly conscious that there are .. FORCES .. which cause us to be talking about the Clockwork Orange dipshits kicking old guys in the stomach and not about the people in cars who actually DID try to run over protesters earlier in the day.

btw did you all talk about this already: https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2020/06/kentucky-the-day-after

the necessary process of "bringing the war home" to white liberals. I get the argument, I just think it's wrong.

Their essential wrongness is that "war" cannot be waged by individuals or tiny groups. War is a tool that can only be wielded for and by large aggregates of people. This how the Irish Republican Army differed from the Symbionese Liberation Army, and that's why ISIS has far more political legitimacy than some dude with a baseball bat extorting money from restaurant patrons. That dude skipped all the hard part.

btw did you all talk about this already: https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2020/06/kentucky-the-day-after

― shout-out to his family (DJP), Wednesday, June 24, 2020

It's a good post. I limit the number of LGM writing I post these days.

Obviously, all this arguing about whether Trump will win or not is just the usual political palaver, because we all desperately want to move on to the voting and the result, but there are months yet to run before the payoff.

In the meantime, I might suggest that turning one's attention away from our forlorn presidential race to notice your own state and local politics might be a more fruitful pursuit atm. Reigning in the police is wholly a local issue and the iron is very hot and is about more ready to be pounded into a better, more useful shape than it has been in decades.

― the unappreciated charisma of cows (Aimless), Wednesday, June 24, 2020 1:15 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

i know i'm a shiny-national-thing poll-watcher on this thread, but please see SB 51: the California politics thread and the other local politics threads.

Thanks eephus, was generally trying to get a better handle on it outside of the typical news reports. My Twitter feed was pretty good in terms of folks in the midst of things in Seattle, Minneapolis, NYC and Chicago, but not so much Madison so it's been harder to piece things together. Appreciate the thorough rundown!

if this is the republican plan for election year during a pandemic then i feel good

Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D-Fla.) just chastised Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) for not wearing a mask during Judiciary hearing. Jordan responds: “The unmasking this committee should be concerned about is the unmasking that took place at the end of the Obama administration.”

— Felicia Sonmez (@feliciasonmez) June 24, 2020

I would feel better if most people weren't absolute fucking morons

What does that even.... I don't... who cares.

TREASON! The obvious treason that we don't even need to mention because it's so obvious the treason that Obama committed daily.

xp fair, but i'm going to steal a bunch of postal votes too to make sure

I'm not gonna lie, I'm impressed by these people's ability to set aside all normal human responses and just stay on message no matter what question is ostensibly at hand

"How do you like the Yankees' chances in a short season?"
"Not as much as I like staying Christian in the face of the AOC/Pelosi mob's demands to ban my faith!"

"Did you want to add fries to that?"
"Well, the only fries we should be concerned about right now are those fried in the depths of Obama's treasonous relationship with Bursima by getting Hunter Biden a job building 5G towers in Wuhan."

I would feel better if most people weren't absolute fucking morons

evergreen quote

my favorite example of setting aside normal human responses and staying on message (and look at this smug, moronic fucker think he's checkmating scott pelley)

“[These] are the White House talking points emailed to the Congress this week.” — great work by @ScottPelley for this masterclass in preparation + persistence as he tries to get McCarthy to identify the Trump defense against impeachment pic.twitter.com/1AV4zmEF11

— jd durkin (@jiveDurkey) September 30, 2019

these people should face legal repercussions and open constant derision from the public and the press

democrats doing a zoom convention

Democrats announced Wednesday that Joe Biden will forgo big crowds, chaotic floor votes and much of the pomp of a traditional political convention when he accepts his party’s nomination over four nights of nationally televised celebrations in Milwaukee in August.

The decision to shift gears and shrink attendance, abandoning the city’s basketball arena for a nearby convention hall, is intended to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus and establish a clear contrast with President Trump, who wants a large and raucous event with thousands of cheering supporters to celebrate his nomination.

“The thing that I believe more than anything is that Donald Trump needs the roar of a crowd to feel he is in charge,” Democratic convention CEO Joe Solmonese said. “And Joe Biden was born to be in charge.”

Democrats are asking the nearly 5,000 voting delegates to participate in Biden’s nomination from home, removing the core audience from the convention hall. The number of media allowed to attend the event in person, 20,000 in a typical year, is also expected to fall dramatically. Official reception parties for delegates, the press and volunteers have been canceled, and all the official business of the convention, including votes on the party’s platform and the nominees, will be handled remotely.

good