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

Remember in 2012 "Ham" Rove and co. were predicting all sorts of things even up on election night trying to keep the narrative going they were going to win and win big.

There is definitely some big delusions with some Trump supporters on their chances like there was with Clinton in the last election. Around here especially at work, I don't talk politics for jack, but you don't have to ask for an opinion from some of these people and plenty of Trumpkins are in denial of circumstances.

I don't see how anyone could win re-election after pretty much constantly flipping the bird to half the country for four years on anything and everything. GOP money cult and that core of crazy that has been media indoctrinated for three decades will ride or die with whatever lunatic is piloting the ship. Sad truth is I really don't think Trump would be losing all other idiocy included if the pandemic had not happened. They would have been able to ride the riots to victory.

I'm sure even if Biden wins the story will be all these people dying off because of this "red wave" of infections happening now will be pinned on him the same damn way the smoking crater of an economy that Obama received was his fault in 2008. And the money cult only has to find 15-20 of the voting electorate to go along with their harebrained BS to re-take power.

Remember in 2012 "Ham" Rove and co. were predicting all sorts of things even up on election night trying to keep the narrative going they were going to win and win big.

lol I rescreened Karl on FOX the other day

Such leadership

Mark Meadows on CNN: “We are not going to get control of the pandemic.”

Says we will instead try to get therapeutics and vaccines rather than trying to control the spread.

— Toluse Olorunnipa (@ToluseO) October 25, 2020

What in the

The Trump administration offered Santa Claus performers a deal: promote a Covid-19 vaccine, and they'd get early access to it. The plan has been called off. https://t.co/Cg7XRbUsZu

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) October 25, 2020

I'm sure even if Biden wins the story will be all these people dying off because of this "red wave" of infections happening now will be pinned on him the same damn way the smoking crater of an economy that Obama received was his fault in 2008.

Honestly this is the best-case scenario, because then people on the right would take virus seriously. I'm more concerned that here in the red states a Biden win — and the let's-hope-more-coherent federal focus on COVID that would accompany it — will just harden people's resistance to any and all public health mandates.

Like, people will be burning their "Biden face diapers" in the streets, that kind of thing.

I don't see the red states/people being curtailed/corralled at all, not even a little bit. Certainly there will be no enforceable mask mandate, because how in the world would a Biden administration enforce it? In some ways that's a relief, since progress toward a vaccine will be made no matter who is governing, but Biden will (most likely) get the actual win without while avoiding, say, sending troops into the streets to make people mask-up. Now, getting people to *take* the vaccine, that's another matter, but all the schools have to do is mandate them to get the ball rolling there.

Btw, speaking of Santa, the coup de grace is Trump losing and then being responsible for taking Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Eve down with him due to his incompetence.

I have been waiting for some of militia nuts to basically go create some violence to try to bring back the "riots". If those clowns that were planning what they did would have instead done some type of actions to try to raise up racial animus and succeeded in getting the riots going now like they were this summer, I think Trump/GOPs 'us or them' would have been more effective. Luckily as in the 90s, these guys are a bunch of damn idiots.

Fox News makes more money when the Democrats are in power and those camo LARPers getting further into legit politics is probably the next step.

https://www.npr.org/2020/10/22/926279072/militia-leader-known-as-the-bundy-ranch-sniper-seeks-a-new-title-senator

. Erwin said on the call: “Since you would be doing Santa a serious favor, Santa would definitely reciprocate.”

Mr. Caputo said: “I’m in, Santa, if you’re in.”

So if he loses, what's Trump going to do for the last few weeks of his term? He could (and will) surely do more rallies, or foment racial conflict, or basically just ... keep it up, but he would be doing so with not only no gain or benefit, but the sword of Damocles that is imminent investigation/prosecution hanging over his head. He can't even resign and have Pence pardon him (per some creative conspiracies), because you can't be pardoned for something you haven't been convicted of yet.

So if he loses, what's Trump going to do for the last few weeks of his term? He could (and will) surely do more rallies, or foment racial conflict, or basically just ... keep it up, but he would be doing so with not only no gain or benefit, but the sword of Damocles that is imminent investigation/prosecution hanging over his head. He can't even resign and have Pence pardon him (per some creative conspiracies), because you can't be pardoned for something you haven't been convicted of yet.

Part of me thinks he's just going to disappear, that the country will be effectively without a president from November until January (and he might not even show up for Biden's inauguration). Another part thinks he'll go on a looting-and-burning spree out of a combination of greed and spite. Sell off every national park to energy companies, fire everyone who pissed him off and shut down their agencies, etc., etc. It's really hard to say, because he's clearly insane. I guess we have to pray for the right combination of laziness and depression, rather than nihilism and rage.

do you guys follow The Frankenstein Project? it's a group of doctors who produce videos making fun of the monster they created

— blaaaaaaaaaines (@blainecapatch) October 16, 2020

I'd put big money on him not going to a Biden inauguration. Live tweeting a bunch of seditious bullshit during the inaugural speech.

I totally see him skipping the inauguration, and in fact possibly hosting his own alternative in protest. I think there is probably still time to book Three Doors Down again.

If he has nothing to gain and has already lost, then his underlings and supporters in government, from the Senate down, really have nothing to fear, and if he went full burn it down nihilist they might intervene. Of course, there is the question of *how* they respond to his bullying when he *is* out of office. Will they still fear his wrath and bend to his will as an ex president? It's not like they have anything else to offer.

Internal polls are useful for campaigns because they’re more likely to be district level, which gives you more useful information for campaigning. But yeah there’s some “not invented here” syndrome in the way campaigns ignore high quality external polling.

Internal polls aren’t untrustworthy per se. They’re not even necessarily biased. The problem is that *the ones we find out about* are biased, because campaigns have an incentive to leak particular results. External pollsters release every poll they do.

Which in part has been Harry Enten's point -- the GOP is barely leaking anything, and what they are leaking isn't much good for them to start with.

3DD, the “Beach Boys”, Kid Rock


I expect a fair amount of people including some newly minted congress folk (Marjorie Taylor Greene, etc) to be all STILL MUH PRESBNIDENT

Regardless if he wins or loses I expect him to immediately start campaigning for 2024. He doesn't want the job but he's got to keep the grift going to pay his lawyers and stave off debt repayment.

honestly can’t blame him. that’s a ton of $$$ to leave on the table

Hays County is outside Austin, right?

Yep, it's got Wimberley, Dripping Springs, Buda, and Kyle. As Austin housing has become rapidly unaffordable, development in these exurbs to the southwest of Austin has ramped up. In 2016 Hayes County went for Trump by less than 1%... it was basically 50/50. The population has doubled since then, and the new residents are mostly Austin commuters... my bet is that in 2020 they go for Biden by about 15 points.

🚨October 24/Texas Counties breakdown🚨

Harris County-

As of yesterday, a total of 1,063,627 have voted with 6 days of Early Voting left.

In 2016, a total of 1,313,000 people voted in the entire General Election.

Currently at 81% of it's 2016 total.

— ET Breaking News (@breaking_et) October 25, 2020

"We're rounding the turn," the president says in New Hampshire of a virus that has caused an outbreak in the vice president's office.

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) October 25, 2020

I'd put big money on him not going to a Biden inauguration. Live tweeting a bunch of seditious bullshit during the inaugural speech.

I think he will attend, he’ll sit politely and watch, and that will be the day he finally becomes president, a few minutes before he isn’t

I'm not sure anyone can predict the actual impact of a loss on Trump's psyche. This is a guy who has avoided accountability and responsibility for everything his entire life. He has powerful psychic systems of denial and deflection in place, such that it's a possible an incontestable loss will either not register at all or will completely fry the system. Anything from retaliatory nuclear strikes on Manhattan and San Francisco to zombie-like paralysis seems equally likely.

It'd be funny if Biden said Trump wasn't allowed to come

ET Breaking News suggesting 1.7 million is the increase in Texas voters compared to 2016 as the minimum required for Biden to win here.

Are we on track for that?

The thing is, it's really hard to project increased total turnout based on increased early votes, because you don't how many of the early votes are just displaced Election Day voters. It seems likely we're going to see sizable increases in total turnout, but we won't know until Election Day.

Ah, he's talking about a 1.7m increase in *Harris County* voters for Biden to win Texas... that makes more sense.

Tho I suppose it would be possible to track how many of the people who have voted so far didn't vote at all in 2016. Not sure if anyone's doing that.

Well, for Harris County it looks like 1.7 million is possible, with tipsy's caveat that we don't know how much of this early voting is people who would normally vote on Election Day going early to avoid COVID exposure. But Harris is currently at just over a million early votes, with six polling days left. The non-Saturday average is around 70k/day (and in the coming midweek they're doing extended polling hours, Thursday is 24 hours at some locations). So figure early voting hits about 1.4 million. That means you only need 300k votes on Election Day to hit that 1.7 million in Harris County. Very, very possible. And if Election Day turnout is normal, 2 milion is in the realm of possibility.

Oh yes: Election Day total for Harris County in 2016 was ~350k, in 2018 it was ~450k.

Trump winning Texas is still a longshot though. Like I really do not believe it will happen. But these numbers mean a bloodbath for Texas Republicans in state races (which includes judges in Texas) and that will in fact benefit the entire country.

Sorry, Biden winning Texas I meant obviously.

Trump email tally: 37 since Friday.

Looks like they're going all in on top of Biden's visit this week

Here we to...@KamalaHarris to TEXAS on Friday, per a Dem briefed

— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) October 25, 2020

I guess they have to be somewhere when they're not in Pennsylvania where they should be.

if she goes to RGV or el paso you'll know they're serious and they think they can win. if she's in the dallas suburbs then they're doing it for the national coverage and donations.

God this better not backfire

We recently learned a tragically sad story of a veteran in the Rochester region.

When he stopped receiving increased unemployment assistance, he couldn't pay his mortgage and heartbreakingly committed suicide.

I just demanded we pass suicide prevention acts. pic.twitter.com/hD8LbEI96A

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) October 24, 2020

Last line actually caught me by surprise.

fucking hell

if she goes to RGV or el paso you'll know they're serious and they think they can win. if she's in the dallas suburbs then they're doing it for the national coverage and donations.

Perhaps a sign?

FLASH: The Biden campaign is canceling TV ad schedules that had been booked in TEXAS (10/27-11/3 flight)

They are still staying up in El Paso and San Antonio markets

— Medium Buying (@MediumBuying) October 25, 2020

Holy fuck if that Schumer tweet ain’t the Democrats in a nutshell

that schumer statement is unreal

like for real on the level of "let them eat cake"

RE: Texas, is are they simply focusing the rest of their efforts on the areas with lowest turn out so far?

that schumer statement is unreal

a much longer video clip of Schumer is attached which puts the tweet into its proper context, but it is bizarre that whoever wrote the tweet (a staff member?) juxtaposes those sentences as the essence of what Schumer was saying. It comes across as grotesque, but it's not an accurate reflection of his much wordier statement or the context in which it was read.

The tweet is a powerful encouragement to never listen to Schumer speaking at all, but especially in the attached video.

RE: Texas, is are they simply focusing the rest of their efforts on the areas with lowest turn out so far?

― Darin, Sunday, October 25, 2020 4:13 PM (thirty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

if they do then that's how you know they're serious.

alternatively: if you see obama in texas at the end of the week then it's happening.