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

Every moment spent thinking about Trump is a moment that could have been spent contemplating, creating or appreciating something else. Trump is a narcissistic philistine, and he bent American culture toward him.

that's not true, we have plenty of time to do that stuff now

If you like ketchup on a well-done steak, then he's no philistine.

Before Trump, I’d never had the feeling of wanting to fast-forward through the era I was living in, of longing to be in the future, looking back at how it all turned out.

i felt this a lot over the past 4 years, despite the fact they both my kids were born in that time, and i should have been savoring it. what a bunch of shit.

To a point I brought up this morning:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/29/politics/mail-in-ballots-supreme-court-pennsylvania-wisconsin-north-carolina/index.html

All those in-transit ballots have to arrive by Tuesday to be counted in Wisconsin. So that is unsettling. Hopefully Biden's lead is large enough that late ballots won't matter.

doesn't automatically discarding ballots have an equal chance of hurting Republicans?

Potentially an even greater one, given that there's been a huge emphasis on the Democratic side to vote early regardless.

I just assumed it would hurt Democrats in blue states (and wouldn't matter to them in red states). Wisconsin is extremely important, and Biden's up 7-10 in most polls.

Trump postponed tonight's Fayetteville, North Carolina rally to Monday, due to bad weather. Surprised he didn't just do it anyway.

xpost -- Remember that these are not nationwide decisions but individual state ones. The only reason Trump et al are venting is that these are swing states or seen to be.

Welp, add Minnesota to the list of states that might have hundreds of thousands of invalidated absentee ballots: https://cbsloc.al/37Uh7Ow

I’m not sure I buy this is bad for Biden, literally every Dem voter I know made a point to vote early because they knew the GOP was gonna try to steal it

it's Thursday, will the outstanding ballots really not be delivered by next Tuesday?

Trump is a narcissistic philistine, and he bent American culture toward him.

this lets America off the hook imho

it's Thursday, will the outstanding ballots really not be delivered by next Tuesday?

https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5f626e7cde8955b36a7f436f/960x0.jpg

"Trump is a narcissistic philistine, and he bent American culture toward him."

this lets America off the hook imho

― it bangs for thee (Simon H.), Thursday, October 29, 2020

yes otm

I guess the ruling in MN was like the one in WI. "However well-intentioned and appropriate from a policy perspective in the context of a pandemic during a presidential election, it is not the province of a state executive official to re-write the state’s election code, at least as it pertains to selection of presidential electors”. These court rulings are confusing

THIS IS THE DECISION I HAVE BEEN WARNING ABOUT FOR WEEKS. There is NO Supreme Court precedent to back up the 8th Circuit. This is a radical made-up theory Republicans are using to prevent states from counting ballots! THIS IS DANGEROUS FUCKING TERRITORY! https://t.co/etL0CYFmCM

— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) October 29, 2020

These court rulings are confusing

Ya think?

that's scary. I always think Mark Joseph Stern is right

hah nice!

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/523500-georgia-senator-to-skip-debate-after-democratic-rival-goes-viral

THIS IS THE DECISION I HAVE BEEN WARNING ABOUT FOR WEEKS. There is NO Supreme Court precedent to back up the 8th Circuit. This is a radical made-up theory Republicans are using to prevent states from counting ballots! THIS IS DANGEROUS FUCKING TERRITORY! https://t.co/etL0CYFmCM
— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) October 29, 2020
― On average, this critic grades 8.3 points lower than other critics (Eric H.), Thursday, October 29, 2020 8:09 PM (twenty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

The US are ruined.

I feel like I'm often lately trying to understand lawyers' interpretations of court decisions regarding the election that are arcane. I don't know who to believe, and the decisions themselves often seem like some kind of roulette, with no explanation that is coherent to us

what’s to stop state officials from counting all the ballots and daring DOJ to do something about it?

what’s to stop state officials from counting all the ballots and daring DOJ to do something about it?

Didn’t mean to do that

Republican-controlled legislatures and their ability to choose electors, which they are champing at the bit for any excuse to deploy

Minnesota's "blessed" with a split legislature rn.

Right, and I guess it would take a SCOTUS travesty to even allow the interpretation that would let legislators pick the electors directly, but PA and WI are fully R controlled

(that is, an interpretation that would let legislators pick electors and also not be subject to a governor's veto)

you are thinking way beyond me. where does it go from it being about votes counted to 'legislators picking electors'

It's a "see what sticks" kinda election.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/10/trump-plan-legislature-appoint-electors-end-democracy.html

describes it better than I can

Tho I admit I'm lost now too.

Avoid this if you're allergic to optimism:

National Journal has unlocked my column early, here it is, might need to fill out a form to access. Unlocked link: https://t.co/hVIxNV7YIp

— Charlie Cook (@CharlieCookDC) October 30, 2020

Not allergic to, but for sure no longer fluent in.

What is "optimism"?

It's this thing in quotes.

good morning!

only the accelerationist in me is optimistic these days

good morning!

love you guys :)

I will say that in California it's kinda easy to be chill simply because we've been doing absentee/ballot drop off for years and this year will be busy but not unprecedented. Good story here with a Bay Area focus:

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Bay-Area-s-early-votes-are-pouring-in-15682880.php

As noted, in SF itself essentially half the registered voters in the city have already voted. With the further opened stations over the weekend, that number'll just spike up.

My sense is that this election is shaping up to be rather lopsided, and suppressing late votes hurts Republicans more than Democrats. However, if any action is taken by a state to wipe out a large amount of votes and reverse the results, I don't see how that winds up with anything less than an end to the country. I can't imagine that a massive portion of the country will just sit back and watch its votes be trashed and not take immediate action.

the cook article is nice to think about, but fails to account for all the chicanery. makes it hard to take seriously.

Yeah I'm getting quite confident too, I've noticed that since the first debate there has been virtually no good polling for Trump whatsoever, this is nothing like in 2016 when Trump was ticking up every day leading up to the election and we were all like "come on that asshole is not getting that many votes"

but the chicanery! the chicanery, i say!

It's the absence of changing trends that seems to be driving a lot of current mood, combined with the still accelerating turnout. Everything's holding steady and Polling Twitter seems to be astoundingly sanguine more and more. Silver pretty much just said "Eh, nothing much will change, only interested in the last Pennsylvania polls."

To my mind the funniest anecdote is Ossoff ripping Perdue a new one and then Perdue going "Uh" and dropping out of the last debate.

Ossoff's finest moment, made possible because Perdue stood there and took it.

Given all the shenanigans being pulled with the post office prior to most states' early voting windows, my hunch was that almost everyone intended on dropping their ballots off in person anyway. Which means, another mostly botched attempt at supervillainy.