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

xpost Isn't that what Nate Silver and even that Republican pollster was getting at, in congregate? Silver saying if the polls are off, they're off on Biden, and even adjusted he's still doing well. And Luntz said that if the polls are even more wrong than 2016, he'll be out of a job.

The PA state of play re those late votes (thread):

Looks like the Pennsylvania GOP last night asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the question of whether the mail ballot deadline extension ordered by the PA Supreme Court is allowed. (PA GOP says no and wants it overturned.)https://t.co/o14KDeRMbe

— Jonathan Lai 🙊 賴柏羽 (@Elaijuh) October 24, 2020

Again, though fuckery may be afoot in a final decision by the Supreme Court, it's only those later ballots affected -- and as noted, sure seems like the Democrats are aiming for and getting at running up the numbers well before that. So.

On the LOL front, BTW, a thread (useful for the screenshots as the article is paywalled):

”I was already doing small penis humiliation with a lot of these guys, so jumping to political humiliation wasn’t that much of a stretch.” https://t.co/wSZu1bQn8y

— Scafe says wear a gd mask (@erinscafe) October 24, 2020

The PA GOP may be setting aside the possibility of a self-own in terms of winning Trump another term, in order to capture a longer-horizon win based on their view of past election trends continuing in the future. They may have decided this is just what is best for the PA GOP in general.

with the # of Dems voting early i predict that we'll hear some variation on "if you look at the numbers, I actually won if you look at the votes that were cast on Election Day, which is the most important day in terms of winning the election, in fact most people think it's the most important. nobody ever heard of a President winning Election Day and not becoming president, it's just never been done before. some people are saying only the Election Day votes should be counted"

― trapped out the barndo (crüt), Saturday, October 24, 2020 1:03 PM bookmarkflaglink

he totally will say that, he did it with Andrew Gillum! it doesn't make sense and yet the GOP has lapped it up - your vote shouldn't count if it wasn't counted fast enough by the people who count votes

it doesn't make sense and yet the GOP has lapped it up

The propaganda value of an argument can be separated from its legal value. Mostly. Whatever the law says clearly enough will be upheld, but if a decisive majority swallows the propaganda and it becomes 'the truth' or 'common sense', then you can predict that the law is going to follow along soon afterward.

with the # of Dems voting early i predict that we'll hear some variation on (Trump blather removed)

Those incoherent incantations are phatic affirmations of power with no semantic content. I think a landslide result in favor of Biden will take away a lot of that power. It gives everyone concerned (judges, politicians, the press) license to ignore him (or, for the first time in a while, for his followers to actually attempt to parse him) in a way they couldn't do before the results come in. Like, once you see people start referring to Biden as the President-Elect in the days after the election... that seems like it might be stronger than any institutional trickery the GOP has laid the groundwork for.

Josh, yeah.

Sorry for long-form posting but I am soothing my anxiety rn by meditating on this:

More fun with Philip Bump's tool (ahem), I mean, looking at polling shifts.

Caveat: these are uniform shifts relative to 538 polling averages. They move everything in the same direction together, while in reality there are 50 separate entities. It's possible that Wisconsin's polling is off in a different way from Arizona's, and they're both "wrong."

That said, the threefold charge from Republicans has generally been that

1. All polls are bad (ahem), except maybe Rasmussen. Those sponsored by liberal media institutions (WaPo, ABC, etc) are especially bad.

2. They are designed to manipulate public opinion and not reflect it. Pollsters are placed on the earth to dispirit Republicans, and they deliberately juice the numbers to make them reflect liberal wet dreams.

3. Look at 2016; everybody thought Hillary was a lock; see point 1.

ANYWAY

If the current polling averages are as "off" as 2016, you get this result: Biden: 356 electoral votes. Trump: 182 electoral votes. Biden picks up 8 states

This means that polling would have to get (in the aggregate) 7 percent "worse," and all in Trump's direction, for him to win.

Polling, as an institution and profession, would presumably not recover from that, ever.

HOWEVER AND

If polling (as an institution and profession) has gotten even a little bit better - say, two percent better - and sampling and weighting and such, then Biden is north of 400 EVs.

it'd be funny for a mediocre candidate that nobody is really fired up about to deliver a Reagan-esque beatdown

For all the talk about the strength of Trump's base, I think there are an awful lot of voters who are definitely going to vote for Trump but will still be kind of relieved if he loses — and will not be energized to wage a months-long social media campaign disputing the vote. Of course, there will probably still be enough of the true believers to make it seem like there's an energized angry opposition, but it will be half of Trump voters or fewer.

remember when the narrative in the weeks after 2016 was "wow this just proves Democrats have alienated voters with economic concerns and disappearing industries, they have to find a way to win them back". which isn't false, of course, but now the narrative = "wow a lot of idiots voted for Trump thinking he wouldn't be the person he said he was".

Neanderthal, yep, and would forever kill the "bUt EnThuSiasM" argument

It is not mutually exclusive to believe that Democrats somehow did alienate voters yet Trump is alienating everyone.

I mean...they totally did. but the thing is, that narrative really downplayed a) the number of garbage human beings who voted for him because they wanted him to 'own libs', and b) that these people would run screaming from him in the next election cycle.

I agree that in the event of an unmistakable landslide, Biden will sweep into office easily. The entire strategy of hotly contesting every ballot in every close state falls apart if there are very few close states and a clear electoral college winner.

Trump's main hope is that he can hold the line in enough states with enough EC votes to allow room for doubt in two or three big-to-medium states, where he'll lay down a massive legal and propaganda barrage to keep matters up in the air until the courts can rescue him.

It's up to the voters to deliver that landslide and avoid that potential catastrophe.

it's just like when we said the Republican Party was dead and would never recover in 2016 when Trump became the nominee and then the next 4 years happened.

really too quick to define things, we are

I encourage everyone to NOT stay up watching returns on Election Night. Self-care! Turn away from the Internet, catch a movie, go to bed early.

nah, gonna take Wednesday off and stay up until dawn getting well and truly smashed.

I mean, that could be a blast. Election Night 2016 was so fucking soul destroying that I never want to experience another one, no matter the likely outcome or result. I need my sleep.

To each his own.

anything will be better than 2016, when I was on a business trip in Starkville, MS, alone in a hotel room, wanting to claw my eyes out and having nobody to vent with

Hey, I'm not judging anyone. Do what you feel!

I bought a very expensive bottle of champagne and I'm either going to drink it when they call Texas for Biden or break it against the ground when they call Pennsylvania for Trump and stab myself in the heart with the jagged, fizzy shards.

I plan on Wednesday morning doing what I always do on Wednesday mornings -- my laundry.

any tips for getting out blood stains?

our local art movie theater was showing Idiocracy that night for people who didn't want to subject themselves to the election results. the movie was timed so that by the time it got out, you'd know who won, most likely.

i think they felt comfortable doing it as most patrons of that place lean leftish, as do the owners, as a Hillary victory was pretty much assumed by the time they scheduled it. Many of the patrons were people who probably voted Hillary but did so while holding their nose, or just didn't want to watch the molasses-speed election results.

I keep imagining how they reacted when they left the theatre and found out what happened.

my laundry

^ sanity in action

On Election Night 2016, my local volunteer run little theater showed "American Honey". Not sure when it started but it let out around like 7:30 PM EST.

I entered the theater from one America and exited into a different America.

Unfortunately Idiocracy is, like, 70 minutes long. The should show it on a loop.

Then stayed up all night freaking out and commiserating with friends and family.

everybody is banned from looking at that NYT live probability tracker tool thingy this year

My strategy for sanity. Assume Trump wins outright on Election night. 2nd most likely scenario, too close to call and Trump steals election in court. Other possibility includes Biden winning. Least likely outcome, so I’m not considering it as a real option. This way I won’t be disappointed. Always expect the worse outcome. The “rules” no longer apply.

oh hey you're back

might do an online movie marathon group stream

btw if the landslide is so big that Trump actually is losing ON election night, he will totally pivot and say "but there's lots of mail ballots out there, valid ones!"

i am just going to pick up my guitar and play "I Cum Blood" over and over again for 4 hours

My friend is placing a large bet on Trump to win as what he calls an "emotional hedge" which he claims is a thing in sports betting.

Meantime

The president, in NC, has distracted himself from talking about how unfair the polling is and his false claim public polling is designed to talk about pretend stories of people going to the movies on election night, then something about Hillary Clinton and T-shirts.

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) October 24, 2020

Earlier, he said pollsters are trying to "depress you" so people don't vote.

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) October 24, 2020

i'm so sick of these damn pollsters trying to depress me

My friend is placing a large bet on Trump to win as what he calls an "emotional hedge" which he claims is a thing in sports betting.

― thousand-yard spiral stairs (f. hazel), Saturday, October 24, 2020 1:57 PM bookmarkflaglink

lol it totally is. "if I lose the bet, the best result happens and I am happy to be out the money. if I win the bet, we are truly and utterly fucked, but at least I have more money to deal with my misery".

i've done those often.

I can only imagine how bonkers his rallies will get in the home stretch.

Looks like Maggie knows her present gig is about to close its doors and she isn't concerned any more about maintaining her insider access at the WH. Jeez, I'd bet that of all the people who work in close proximity to Trump about 90% of them can hardly wait to throw a shovelful of dirt on his coffin and walk away.

Neanderthal

he will totally pivot and say "but there's lots of mail ballots out there, valid ones!"

Of course.

The other thing he will do is go immediately into lawfare in e.g., Pennsylvania, saying "wait no we need to challenge all of those because most them were cats and dead people and dead cats and dead people's cats!"

But as usual I'm with Raymond Cummings.

Results will likely be inconclusive. Go to bed early. Get someone to hide your phone, your tablet, your computer, and the TV remote.

Following minute-by-minute updates is a recipe for madness. "Well, Bob, with 2% of precincts reporting, Candidate A is up by 10 percent in rural Burpleurp County. BUT WAIT, now we're up to 5%, and Candidate B is up by three. Candidate A is going to have to do really well with the lacrosse moms in the suburbs of Derpville to gain back that ground."

"OH WAIT, this just in. Schmeck County is reporting a massive lead for Candidate B! Those voters are known to be more blurpservative, though. Perhaps the backgammon dads and the hazelnut farmers in the surrounding townships will narrow the gap. Susan, back to you."

No. Never again will I watch that shit. I'll mix myself a large melatonin and bourbon, and be blissfully asleep by 9:15.

(nice display name, YMP)

Back and forth, back and forth:

New: The Texas Supreme Court has temporarily reinstated Gov. Abbott's ban on multiple drop sites for mail-in ballots, pending full review of an appeals court ruling that would allow counties to set up these sites — response briefs due Monday pic.twitter.com/dL2e1CmK9Y

— Zoe Tillman (@ZoeTillman) October 24, 2020

(This is all a little unusual simply because Texas numbers are as noted massive already. Arguably they're trying to stem a tide but is that even feasible at this point?)

Yeah, I can't put myself through what I put myself through four years ago. Almost done constructing the Farraday cage around our apartment and I've been working out my jaw so I'm ready to chew through the cable line when the time comes.

The Texas GOP is fighting desperately to retain control of the Texas House... it's a redistricting year, and if the Dems can flip 9 TX House seats the GOP won't be able to gerrymander the shit out of the state. Which would cost them about half a dozen seats in the US House.

anything will be better than 2016, when I was on a business trip in Starkville, MS, alone in a hotel room, wanting to claw my eyes out and having nobody to vent with

Governor Abbott would probably prefer a Democratic President, since he can noisily rail against the intrusive feds again (just watch him refuse any federal COVID aid if it comes from Biden or Democratic legislation). His favorite target during the Trump years has been Austin, and punching down at them isn't nearly as effective as punching up at Biden will be.

I plan on Wednesday morning doing what I always do on Wednesday mornings -- my laundry.

I have a doctor's appointment at 8:30 the morning of November 4. TBD whether I'll be pestering him for a powerful opioid prescription or not.

(Got my flu shot today, for those of you who find human health as interesting as cats.)