"Will you shut up, man?" US Politics October 2020

Including mine!

xxxpost

dang
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-early-vote/more-than-4-million-americans-have-already-voted-suggesting-record-turnout-idUSKBN26R1LR

(posted two days ago)

With four weeks to go before Election Day, more than 4 million Americans already have voted, more than 50 times the 75,000 at this time in 2016, according to the United States Elections Project, which compiles early voting data.

got mine mailed off yesterday, minnesota has a good ballot tracker site so you can check to see if it was received and counted

figured best to get if off now in case there is a problem

I'd like to see Biden lift up the White House with his bare hands and shake it until Trump falls out like lunch money out of a nerd's pocket.

Estimated voting population of the US is around 200 million, I gather -- be interesting to see what the overall percentage of that group ends up early voting in the end.

Now, see, this is good stuff: politico.com/news/2020/10/08/progressive-agenda-2021-joe-biden-427673

story from a day later says 5M
https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/07/politics/ballot-returns-early-voting-2020-election/index.html

would imagine the daily number of early votes cast/absentee ballots received will grow at a fast rate every day from here until the election

So, trying to catch up. Is the sequence

1. Commission on presidential debates says the debate will be virtual

2. Trump says he won't participate

3. Biden camp says (or strongly implies) Trump's a coward who is afraid to debate virtually

?

Or is it more like

1. Biden camp refuses to debate unless it's virtual

2. Trump says Biden's a coward for not being willing to debate mano a mano

3. Commission on presidential debates says the debate will be virtual

4. Trump says he won't participate in a virtual debate

5. Biden says Trump's a coward who is afraid to debate virtually

6. Trump camp accuses Biden camp of having inappropriately influenced (excuse me, RIGGED) the Commission to set the debate on Biden-friendly terms

?

The outcome will likely be the same but the optics are different

The prof at Florida who studies this surely has his reasons but I'm not getting why the surge of early voting is thought to indicate high turnout. Why isn't it just a sign that more people are voting by mail than ever have before? My vote's in, and I never voted by mail before, but I always vote.

Yeah I don't get that either.

xxp it's both depending on who's reporting

Yes. I suspect the figures will re-align when early voting starts and GOP voters line up.

I admit I was thinking similarly here:

It will be interesting to see if this was a credible threat or if it followed the FBI’s “we caught a terrorist” model, which is (1) find a mouthy shiftless loser, (2) whip them up more, (3) offer to give them guns or bombs or stuff, and (4) arrest them for the plot. https://t.co/6SDkJUNIq0

— MonsterHat (@Popehat) October 8, 2020

Did Pence actually mention Soros?

Trump can fight his way out of a corner. He does it over and over again and people keep assuming he'll trip himself up. MAYBE this time it's different, I just wouldn't bet the farm on it.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Thursday, 8 October 2020 15:57 (four minutes ago) link

Why I'm so obsessed with the famous "wriggle" tweet is because I don't see it as fighting at all. He just gets away with it. And the pattern of intense "THIS will be his downfall!" rubbing of palms together for each notable example have been justified but never deliver. The cult around him dig in their heels more defiantly each time; they will not give liberals the satisfaction to any degree. As each scandal/revelation/investigation has fizzled out anticlimactically with no consequence, it's really hard to not have defenses up to protect myself from even more disappointment this time. I want to believe! And the disappointment is not healthy. It makes us pore over every little image and statement, grasping for evidence to support our hope that this will finally be it. The desperation goes too far in that hunt sometimes, but it's counter balanced by the desperate stubbornness on the other side.

This morning:

"She's a communist. She's not a socialist, she's well beyond a socialist," he said, going on to make false, fear-mongering claims that Harris wants to "open up the borders to allow killers and murderers and rapists to pour into our country."

He twice called Harris, the first woman of color on a major party ticket, a "monster."

I imagine they will focus such derangement heavily on Harris the last three weeks.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/08/politics/trump-covid-fox-interview/index.html

everything the Dems do from now on needs to be focused on preventing another person like Donald Trump from ever existing

The Democrats really need to find ways of stealing the attention and controlling the narrative right now.

lmao

at this point there must be a historic number of votes already cast right?

https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-2020G/index.html

Nationally, voters have cast 4.5% of the total votes counted in the 2016 general election.

(20+% in wisconsin and virginia, 10+% in florida, wisconsin and michigan among others)

MCCONNELL: “I haven’t actually been to the White House since August the 6th. Because my impression was that their approach to how to handle this is different from mine and what I suggested that we do in the Senate, which is to wear a mask and practice social distancing."

— Julie Tsirkin (@JulieNBCNews) October 8, 2020

"i don't trust him with my health ,the rest of you should though"

everything the Dems do from now on needs to be focused on preventing another person like Donald Trump from ever existing

https://filmschoolrejects.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/the-time-machine-1960.jpg

MCCONNELL: “I haven’t actually been to the White House since August the 6th. Because my impression was that their approach to how to handle this is different from mine and what I suggested that we do in the Senate, which is to retract into our shells and consume a healthy diet of shredded carrots and Omega One Floating Pellets, fortified with critical Omega 3 & 6 Fatty Acids and slightly elevated protein levels for consistent, healthy growth"

In the year 2525

Ha!

That explains how McConnell has lived to the age of 155

"Several members talked about murdering 'tyrants' read the indictment of every message board and comments section on the internet

Mostly this is just kinda sad

Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien, who tested positive himself, says the Trump campaign agrees to delaying the second debate by a week to October 22 so it can be in person.

"And accordingly, the third debate should then be shifted back one week to October 29," he says.

— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) October 8, 2020

xp, I can't find it right now, and don't really want to, but when the ISIS phenomenon was gaining steam, there was a very well produced propaganda video going around the internet that included a speech by some ISIS fighter about "tyrants," and this totally makes me think of that.

One of those involved complained in June that Whitmer (D) was controlling the opening of gyms

well this is clearly tyranny

There's def something about the gym owner/personal trainer mentality that lends itself to Trumpism I've noticed. Small business owner + aggression + "self-sufficiency" ideology I guess? Plus just the practical reality that COVID especially sucks for gym owners and trainers.

the pain & gain presidency

This all gets lost in the ridiculous firehose-full-of-sewage that is current political news, but.

One of the endlessly repeated talking points from Republicans has been that the Obama Administration presided over "the slowest recovery since the Great Depression."

Pence said it again yesterday. "Slowest recovery."

There is a part of me that wishes someone would wheel round with "Oh yeah? Well at least we HAD a recovery. Where the fuck is yours?"

Like, imagine if there were a two-car race, and Car #1 finished, albeit slowly. Then Car #2 flipped over, crashed into a wall, caught on fire, killed thousands of people, and the resulting toxic cloud ended most sentient life on the planet.

Is it seemly that the talking point from Team #2 is still "yeah, but the other people were so SLOW"?

Brad Parscale cried during arrest, told officers his wife won't have sex with him https://t.co/UrzgSa7gcl pic.twitter.com/Dny3sXgnnM

— New York Post (@nypost) October 8, 2020

just putting this out there

damn it's not often that this song from my youth is so topical

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deKRFMjQ5sY&ab_channel=AndrewJohnson

dammit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQuSXE25vd4&ab_channel=MoxyFr%C3%BCvous-Topic

just putting this out there

That's what he said.

Had to laugh at the "and they cut you off whenever they want" part of Trump's complaint about virtual debate.

ugh it's Michigan Militia by Moxy Fruvous. I don't know how to do this shit

(xpost, the recovery) A perfect match for their framing of Obama and Swine Flu: what could have happened but didn't was so much worse than what's actually happening now.

please, the debate must be held in person so our candidate can interrupt and talk over the entire proceedings. remote debates are not possible because the constantly disruptive behavior of our dumb boy could be easily counteracted by muting him.

Just curious, what were those lunatics going to do *after* they kidnapped the governor and overthrew the state of Michigan?

profit, obv

lol

So, first you get the woman (Whitmer), then you get the power (Michigan), then you get the money? Did I get that order right?

This is why, broadly speaking, I'm not really afraid of militias rising up to wreak havoc on some grand scale. Yes, they may be inclined toward violent action (which is scary) but they're also real fucken dumb.

LIBERATE MICHIGAN!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 17, 2020

god don't scare me like that, thought it was a new one

There's a Michigoose / Michigander jest in there somewhere but I'm too tired to construct it rn

fitting that one of the plotters' leaders is named Fox

i'm curious to learn what they thought of Trump's call to LIBERATE MICHIGAN!!!

seems relevant, whether they started planning before or after, and if before, what their reaction was to it

"Wolverine Watchmen" was the name of their group

terrifying, in my view. sorry. i know i'm prone to overreact to these kinds of things.

but they were doing this to try to start civil war II. that was the aim. and if they really would have gotten the 200 people they were looking for to kidnap whitmer and "try her for treason" before the election, they may very well have succeeded in inciting violence across the country. and i very much doubt that trump or anyone in his orbit would have the courage to do the right thing in that situation. he likes people that like him. Wolverine Watchmen are probably leaning toward Trump, i'm guessing