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

the type of people who are going to protest on behalf of Joe Biden are probably not going to be torching police cars, and if that kind of thing does pop off they're going to pack their kids back into the SUV and go home.

they're not protesting on behalf of Joe Biden, they're protesting against Donald Trump. protesting against a demon tends to have a much different effect on demeanors.

taking Lyft to the protests

the “shy” Trump voters in 2020 have got to be just the weirdest fucking 55-60 people in this country. unfortunately, I’m willing to bet I’m related to about 9 of them

there are no shy Trump voters, just short Trump voters and shit-stained Trump voters

Wasserman getting bolder:

Four days out, and we're on the cusp of another major evolution in how we view America's electoral map.

— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) October 30, 2020

can you imagine the beautiful policing of those protests? beautiful like you've never seen

― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Friday, October 30, 2020 2:56 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yeah i mean what we've seen from protests this year is that the administration / regime has no qualms about using full force of power, in the open, to stymie them, and the media cooperates. i think they're itching to take it even further and they have the hardware for it. i think the only thing really stopping them is their own incompetence and ability to make others in power do what they want, although they have managed to eke out significant gains there in the past month. ultimately i don't think it's enough to outright steal the election but i mean it's still very possible.

And the 24 hour thing in Houston adds more votes to the tranche:

Good morning! Between 7PM last night and 7AM this morning 10,250 people voted in Harris County.

This morning County Clerk @CGHollins will be casting his vote at Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church.

Still need your #IVoted sticker? 120 locations are open until 7PM. #HarrisVotes pic.twitter.com/cgxok4td12

— Harris County Clerk (@HarrisVotes) October 30, 2020

Amazing. I saw a tweet last night suggesting that a good story would be to interview the voters going to the polls at 3 AM.

agree, but there’s a good chance that person could be a shift worker or in the gig economy and it might fuck up the narrative about who is actually working class in this country

Essentially that was the idea of this expansion -- to give people working those schedules a chance to vote when they wouldn't be able to otherwise. Saw a number of tweets from/about people saying just this.

agree, but there’s a good chance that person could be a shift worker or in the gig economy and it might fuck up the narrative about who is actually working class in this country

― A-B-C. A-Always, B-Be, C-Chooglin (will), Friday, October 30, 2020 10:31 AM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

let's focus on real working class people who own companies that lease construction equipment and drive $80,000 ford f-150s

Part of me is curious about researching the absolute shittiest concession speeches in history because I have a feeling this could be up there... but then again I don't want to jinx anything.

Trump isn't giving a cocnession speech

"Do u want me 2 concede? 2 CONCEDE DEEZ NUTS"

His concession speech will be one final refusal to flush the toilet.

WHY WON'T THE LAMESTREAM MEDIA REPORT ON HUNTER BIDEN'S CONNECTIONS TO BOFA?????

roses are red
violets are blue
FAKE NEWS
invalid command or file name

In re Pennsylvania:

Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar says 2,236,162 voters have returned their mail/absentee ballots to date. That's about 73 percent of ballots, she says. She stresses that voters *hand-deliver* ballots to dropboxes/county offices and NOT mail them.

— Justin Sweitzer (@justin_sweitzer) October 30, 2020

the good news about that at least is they can do that between now and ED

This Farhad Manjoo column is a good counterweight to Michelle Goldberg's about how Trump's command on our attention has prevented us from engaging with art and culture:

Yet when I got to thinking about how Trump has redirected our attention, I realized I was mistaken. All the time we spent focused on him has not been for nothing; there has been an unexpected upside to his omnipresence. Even as Trump’s presidency has been tiring — not to mention profoundly cruel, deadly and embarrassing for our nation — it has also been something else: motivating.

With nearly every tweet, Trump gave us a new 10-car pileup from which we couldn’t look away. But in the process of making us look at him, Trump forced many of us to actually look for the first time. By turning us into a nation of rubbernecks, he has pushed us to reckon with why things are crashing in the first place and to examine the faulty infrastructure of our democracy.

If we’re lucky, this will be his only lasting legacy. For many of us, Trump has shattered the comfortable bliss of not having to pay attention.

His concession speech will be one final refusal to flush the toilet.

He's gonna issue a series of executive orders — and by that I mean he's gonna upper-deck every toilet in the White House.

Re his concession speech, fat chance.

“President Trump has called off plans to appear at the Trump International Hotel on election night, and is likely to be at the White House instead, according to a person familiar with the plans.” ⁦@maggieNYT⁩ https://t.co/KQSTmW2Fh0

— Michael Tackett (@tackettdc) October 30, 2020

Interesting that the famously sanguine Trump camp isn't referring to it as a victory party

Also through Vox Klein/Silver piece is pretty solid, with numerous truths therein

Crossed it a little while ago but the early vote total is now well over 60% of the entire 2016 vote.

He’s just scared to leave the White House in case he’s not allowed back in.

he will sue everyone

he will declare a class-action libel lawsuit against everyone who lives in a sanctuary city

there's an early voting place at a city park couple blocks from me, observationally walking the dog (which now happens all times of the day since i've been wfh) but it's been line out the door nonstop, plus brisk business for the staffed drop off mail-in ballot boxes in a tent outside near the street

(this is all good we were 82% Clinton - %10 Trump in 2016

Ned - this map from the NY Times which i just remembered is kind of cool if you're looking at specific districts or regional early voting you can drill down to the neighborhood level on this to see how the district voted in 2016

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/upshot/election-2016-voting-precinct-maps.html#13.11/44.9380/-93.1967

Good stuff!

Also through Vox Klein/Silver piece is pretty solid, with numerous truths therein

― Anaïs Ninja (Ye Mad Puffin), Friday, October 30, 2020 11:15 AM (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

One benefit of the edited transcript of the podcast interview is that it edits out Silver's bad contrarian take on why the Electoral College is good.

He deserves nothing less than Ceaușescu's last night in office.

does he think the electoral college is good because its existence benefits him personally?

xp

*professionally

I never got past Electoral high school

I'm gonna guess Electoral College has a racist team name

Electoral College Football Team

One benefit of the edited transcript of the podcast interview is that it edits out Silver's bad contrarian take on why the Electoral College is good.

― jaymc, Friday, October 30, 2020 12:35 PM bookmarkflaglink

He deserves nothing less than Ceaușescu's last night in office.

― Andy the Grasshopper, Friday, October 30, 2020 12:35 PM bookmarkflaglink

pretty harsh on Silver but i get it

does he think the electoral college is good because its existence benefits him personally?

xp

― glengarry gary beers (voodoo chili), Friday, October 30, 2020 11:50 AM (sixteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

It was something incoherent about how it's good that states get to make up their own rules, because some can go ahead and practice voter suppression if they want, but others don't have to. Klein said, "But isn't that an argument against the Electoral College?" and Silver replied, "Well, I guess maybe I'm contradicting myself."

Silver is not ah a historian.

he’s a painfully silly man when he’s talking anything besides numbers

He is awful at kung fu

Enter the Wonk

NBC/Marist poll of NC (among likely voters):

Biden 52%
Trump 46%

Oct 25-28, +/- 4.7%

Among registered voters, it's Biden 51%, Trump 46%

— Mark Murray (@mmurraypolitics) October 30, 2020

Silver is not ah a historian.

one of my favorite deep cuts by The Fall

Holy shit @ North Carolina

for a sec i thought that was national and about had a heart attack lol xxp

but yeah that's fuckin hot

it would be pretty funny if it ended up as such a blowout that Trump's angle ends up being something like "this has never happened before so it can't be real! fake news!"