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

How do you know?

MN ballot tracker said mine has been accepted and will be counted

I voted by mail in Tennessee (cause I'm overseas innit) but I have no idea how to find out if it got counted.

Congrats and kudos to all ILX voters.
https://media0.giphy.com/media/3oKHWikxKFJhjArSXm/200.gif

xpost does this do it? https://tnmap.tn.gov/voterlookup/

or does that only track the ballot getting to you?

wtf NBC is giving Trump his own town hall? The same time slot as the Biden one that Trump backed out of? What a bunch of assholes.

Wait, competing town halls on different networks?

How hard is Trump going to piss himself when Biden's ratings are better?

Look for Trump to claim a big ratings victory over Biden after their concurrent town halls on Thursday.

The way ratings work, it's basically guaranteed. Trump's on NBC, MSNBC & CNBC; Biden only on ABC. Nielsen ratings don't include streaming. https://t.co/Ano78Pzs63

— Michael M. Grynbaum (@grynbaum) October 14, 2020

lol are they really trying to push a "Biden's secret emails" story right now?

2020 is 2016 again

Play the hits

Is there anybody around who could replace Pelosi and be more progressive while still able to muster her party together.

I mean sooner or later both her and Schumer are going to need to be replaced.

― Stevolende, Wednesday, October 14, 2020 2:16 AM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Is there any evidence that Pelosi and Schumer are especially effective at mustering their parties together? That's not a rhetorical question, but I just don't get the best impression of either of them, and Pelosi in particular seems more concerned with tamping down the left wing of the party than growing the democrats' power (although I guess she'd argue those are interconnected)

wow Neanderthal that works! Wild. Thank you. I only needed my name, county and last 4 digits of my SS#.

This is so fucking stupid

1. I'm going to go through a few issues with the NY Post article on Biden, which I won't link to, but you will probably see on Twitter today.

Follow along if interested.

— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) October 14, 2020

Wait, how did Jacob Wohl arrange this glaringly-transparent laptop scam, I thought he was in jail

lmao he's so fucking stupid

pic.twitter.com/wJN4zv0y8O

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 14, 2020

I probably shouldn't say this but ... I hope Young Sheldon wins the time slot in a landslide.

Sick burn, there, Donnie.

It'll be funny if during the dual town halls they just start following the other one live on a screen. "Oh wait what's he saying now...ha look at that guy..."

sent my mail-in ballot just now.

also got a mailer from Trump somehow. wrote "RETURN TO SENDER - FUCK YOU" on it and sent it back.

That tweet is remarkable. He should definitely--above and beyond the fact it's a group that I think supported him last time--target seniors. Especially seniors in wheelchairs. (That's really a legitimate tweet?)

Okay, photoshop, got it...that I had to ask probably says something about Trump.

How do you know?

― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand),

Florida has a tracking website.

I do hope everyone realizes rn that Trump is absolutely going to win in the ratings and that will be the October surprise that completely shifts this race.

A+ tweet, so happy to see Donnie hellbent on going out with a suicidal bang.

xpost for a second I thought Iago Galdston was back

That tweet is a story, as I'd expect it would be, even for Trump.

that's a great tweet if you need to win back the over-65 demo, well-played Trump

He's doing very little this time around to dissuade from the (now m/l proven) notion that he never intended to win a presidential election.

ok lets all shit our pants to something new: US Politics November 2020

lol

Voters 65+ indeed strongly supported Trump in 2016, 53-44% (over a quarter of all voter).

https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/08/09/an-examination-of-the-2016-electorate-based-on-validated-voters/

Short of an add mocking people with MAGA hats, I don't know if he could self-immolate any more spectacularly.

He's doing very little this time around to dissuade from the (now m/l proven) notion that he never intended to win a presidential election.

― OrificeMax (Old Lunch), Wednesday, October 14, 2020 9:31 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

I've never bought this. He absolutely cannot stand to lose. A guy who didn't really want to win wouldn't be campaigning this hard on the mend from COVID, he'd use it as an excuse to take a break. He may have completely lost any bearings he once had about what it would actually take to win, but he can't handle losing.

he's always got his "Biggest Turd in White House Toilet" trophy

I think both are true, as others have pointed out. He desperately wants to win the presidency; he just doesn't want to be president (or at least the mundane, doing-stuff part of the job).

Will Biden have the guts to say ‘you’re fired’ on Nov 4?

xposts He's campaigning hard in a very Bialystockian manner.

xp the only reason I argue that point is that I'm tired of seeing that sort of passive liberal rationalization. The subtext of "he doesn't want to win" is "I don't have to worry about him winning." Admittedly, the polling is not looking good for Trump right now, but falsely crediting that to "he wants to lose" is a dangerous way to think about it imo.

honestly what does worrying about him winning help, anyway? i guess if it spurs you to join a phone bank or something, but I figure the people who do that were already going to.

worrying = suffering twice, Trump still does have a chance to win, but I ain't worrying about it for the next 3 weeks.

The subtext of 'he doesn't want to win' in 2016 was 'he wants to parlay this hype into some other venture i.e. The Trump News Network' and in 2020 it's 'the rest of his life is going to be a miserable shit slog if he doesn't manage to keep his ass planted in the seat of power'. It's not a passive liberal rationalization, it's a recognition that he does not and never did want the actual job (although he's very happy to accept the trappings of said job).

Yeah he clearly wants to win, he just has zero ability to learn anything or change his strategy. being an insufferable dick worked for him his entire life.

in 2016, speaking for me personally only, I bought into the narrative that he had no chance because I (naively) thought it was impossible that America could be stupid enough to vote in a reality show star as President, and the "grab em by the pussy" thing happened, but the polls never really matched my overconfidence; was definitely tighter, plus i hadn't yet learned how much this shit literally didn't affect his standing.

there was that pic of him looking shook in that meeting with Obama, I think he was freaked to win.

the rest of his life is going to be a miserable shit slog if he doesn't manage to keep his ass planted in the seat of power

This. This is why I don't fear three weeks from now so much as I fear four years from now, if fate takes us down that path.

Election night 2016: https://i.imgur.com/Zp9mZ46.gif

it's a recognition that he does not and never did want the actual job (although he's very happy to accept the trappings of said job).

― OrificeMax (Old Lunch), Wednesday, October 14, 2020 9:44 AM (sixteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

What is "the actual job?" By some accounts Nixon was pilled and boozed up while Kissinger handled foreign policy crises. George W Bush had no idea what the fuck he was doing and left it to Cheney and his cabinet. Trump wants to wear the crown and he wants to say no one could beat him. If you mean he's not motivated by a deep interest in policy or love of country, thanks for the insight.

(xpost) That, with Obama, and the unforgettable look on his face as he walked out late that night after being declared the winner.

He absolutely cannot stand to lose.

i think this is true, but possibly consistent with not intending to win. hence all the in-advance grievance over supposedly rigged elections in 2016 and even moreso in 2020. his endgame is to forever have a platform for people to listen to him ranting on about how unfairly he was treated. if trump loses the election and is still alive in two years, tune into any random Fox segment and you will hear his horrible voice dubbed over his horrible photo, coming in over the phone:

yes steve it's really terrible what biden is doing with the senate, i told everybody this is going to happen and here we go, it's the worst deal i've ever seen and he does not know how to negotiate and you can see what a mess it is, just a disaster in all the courts, the only bigger disaster is the 2020 election also, and a lot of people have looked at that and found all kinds of things you won't believe. you would not believe. the terrible things that went on, with obama and joe biden, and hillary CLINton, it was really outrageous and just unbelievable so really i don't say that i "lost" that election, that word is really unfair and unreasonable, and Burisma also, with Hunter Biden, how they let that go on, we wanted to drain the swamp and it was so corrupt, they had the file and John Podesta but nothing happens, i kept saying make it happen and they said 'we can't!' and everyone was against me. so much corruption, we won that election by a LOT. big time. we won it by so much!, and they wouldn't release the numbers because they were so bad for Joe Biden. they got the worst ratings, almost as bad as CBS which has never reported on the emails about all the stolen ballots and that's why nobody watches them, because i kept asking my people, where did they go? were the ballots? i keep asking and nobody can tell me why they didn't have the ballots which showed me winning very big, by the way, there were a LOT of people with the numbers, there were Q who were very good people for me, big support, and also very unfairly treated by the media, they said all the polls had me way out ahead, and then it's election day and i'm not ahead? it's fake news, it was such fake news and very unfair and it's why i only come on your show, by the way and you should be thanking me because i know it brings your numbers up a lot - a LOT, okay, let's be honest - and i come on here because you call me President Trump which is correct. because a lot of people do say i was one of the best, i think really the best president we've ever had, and i'm very proud of winning a second term. and the media doesn't like that second term, okay and they say Joe Biden won and it's very unfair. i call him Sleepy Joe by the way, he is not the President and you can look at the numbers, he is the worst President we've ever had except for Obama, and all kinds of people, they have this, okay? and this will continue for a half hour or more at a stretch, because of the ratings and the numbers.

...Since being trounced in a couple of elections by Ronald Reagan’s increasingly reactionary Republican party a couple generations ago, both Biden and the most powerful people in the Democratic party — ... — seem at some point to have come to understand their jobs as fundamentally janitorial. They dutifully clean up all the blood and champagne vomit that the Republicans invariably leave behind on their way out of office and then hand over the keys when it’s time for America’s reactionaries — who have under Trump embraced an unbridled, unapologetic, deeply American fascism — to once again take their turn. One party is dedicated to making things much more unfair and sadistic; the other seems to see that collapse inevitable and now sees its job as making sure it all happens more slowly, and both less egregiously and more efficiently.

I've been trying to think about how this (obvious) fact about today's Democratic Party, and the centrality of women to its coalition, tie together. I haven't yet gotten to the root of it, but there's something important there.

This look here.

https://will.illinois.edu/images/uploads/42506/trump_victory.jpg

It doesn't really register as elation.

Melania looks like she lost a round on "The Apprentice."