GET OUT: US politics November 2020

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🚨 DK Election Pool Alert: With over 350K entries, a majority of people in every state besides Colorado predict that @realdonaldtrump will be the winner of tomorrow’s election. pic.twitter.com/zUF0uZZtwK

— DraftKings (@DraftKings) November 2, 2020

one thing that's absolutely gonna be fun to watch (if there does not happen to be a catastrophic nationwide polling error) is the subsequent meltdown from Republicans, the majority of whom legitimately think Trump is going to win tomorrow.

dammit

If by fun you mean watching armed militias take to the streets to terrorize people, then yeah, I agree.

Can someone among you characterize the forces by which Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed to the Supreme Court, having nothing whatever to do with Donald J. Trump, and explain how that same apparatus is supposed to be incapable of mounting a case (however nonserious or unlikely to succeed?) against, for instance, the PA results?

These are the worst sore losers I've ever seen, it won't be pretty.

Hadrian, I'm with you.

Also, I'm just going to say it: I find gambling so distasteful that that Draft Kings graphic made me more viscerally angry than I've been in a day or two.

This is very high-stakes for the same people, for the same reasons, with the additional motivation of prosecutorial immunity for a host of crimes.

Yes, especially when the rush to confirm Barrett was explicitly about making sure the election would be thrown to Trump.

Hadrian, the Trump campaign is not the Senate.

Seems to me the rush was more like McConnell thinking "Yeah we will not get this chance again for a while," and that isn't even about Senate control but not having a GOP president to do the nominating. Hell there was that report back in summer he was suggesting various federal judges should retire while they could so he could get them replaced before he couldn't anymore.

lmao Draft King's nationwide poll of 41 year old white male degenerate gamblers

xxp The Trump campaign is not twhat we're talking about. "The Trump Campaign" as such hardly exists. The prime mover in a contested election is the same coalition of Heritage Institute, AEI, the Koches and Sheldon Adelsons, etc.

ILX Will Eat Itself

The notion that these parties are going to suddenly sit back and not get involved because "not serious" or whatever seems jusut shockingly naive. They are bracing for their gains in SCOTUS and regulatory rollbacks to be wiped out in year one.

why would a bunch of think tanks throw good money after bad on behalf of a loser?

never mind, this is dumb. nobody’s learning anything here.

If by fun you mean watching armed militias take to the streets to terrorize people, then yeah, I agree.

― Mr. Cacciatore (Moodles), Monday, November 2, 2020 9:21 AM (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

all right, i'm out of this thread

enjoy your panic spirals everyone

Could we maybe not do the part where we start shaming each other for how we are dealing with this tremendous anxiety>

Not in response to your post Brad, but in general, we all aren't all at Alfred's level of zen here yet folks.

probably not, I was already a dick to Hadrian apparently and that’s purely because I’m choosing to process this week differently than he is

ah yes, panic spiraling, the tried and true mechanism for coping with anxiety. works every time.

I think we are all, obviously, at different phases and methods of trying to make it through the week.

FFS there's a difference between "panic spiraling" and understandably anxious over how things could go wrong and/or sideways tomorrow. Jesus Christ.

I’m reading Wodehouse this week. Highly recommend it if you have the option.

It's entirely possible to ackowlege danger w/o "panicking." I know we'll never get past this dyamic here, but that assertion always rings to me as a little bit of projection.

Personally I'm cautiously optimistic. AND I know better by now than to underestimate the enemy.

Muriel Spark too.

xpost

Do we have an Election Panic thread so we can keep this one a bit less manic?

A huge chunk of Trump's stop counting votes at 12:01 AM on 11/4 argument will get blown to shit if he is behind at that time and I think there is a very good chance that is the case.

I appreciate the rosier takes here! Nobody's slamming Alfred for feeling solid about things... It just always only seems to happen in the other direction.

xp No reason we can't have both and let everybody find their own level

i mean whatever, i've just accepted i'm not going to be real calm for the next few days
i'm gonna get tipsy and stoned tomorrow night
not the most healthy but fuck it
i'm just acknowledging this is what's going down and i'm not going to further stress myself out by feeling bad about it

FFS there's a difference between "panic spiraling" and understandably anxious over how things could go wrong and/or sideways tomorrow. Jesus Christ.

― soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, November 2, 2020 11:40 AM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Which one helps you and the outcome?

@ulysses

rolling “Trump is gonna win” containment thread

generally i don't think unloading anxiety into a conversation with other ppl is the best way of dealing with anxiety

i'm not shaming anyone it's just... if you take a step back you will realize we're stuck in a loop

Fuck the massive, shitty levels of condescension itt today. I'm out.

I hope I didn't sound smug a couple hours ago. I posted my mood because I was in the minority and thought it worth sharing.

A huge chunk of Trump's stop counting votes at 12:01 AM on 11/4 argument will get blown to shit if he is behind at that time and I think there is a very good chance that is the case.

Yeah, I really don't understand the whole "election day voting will be all Republican -> RED TIDE!!!" line of thinking. Look, the overwhelming majority of Americans find Donald Trump repellent and are frothing at the mouth to be rid of him. I know you can't convince ILXors or New York Times reporters of that fact, but it's true. Do you really think every single anti-Trump voter shot their wad already? Fuck no. Turnout is gonna be an avalanche tomorrow, and remember that it's a simple rule of the universe: the more voters show up, the worse Republicans do. They fucking well know it, and you all should too.

xp It is worth sharing, and you didn't sound smug.

generally i don't think unloading anxiety into a conversation with other ppl is the best way of dealing with anxiety

I think it could be, in real life. On a message board? Probably not. Which is to say, I recommend focusing energy of connecting positively with real people, as available, not least because we are all going to be tuned/attuned to the virtual world for the next 48 hours.

i am also prob reacting to the fact that the current discourse online resembles doomsday prep

I also think turnout is going to be insane on Election Day, as opposed to the (reasonable) theory that it'll be below-average because people are voting early due to COVID-19.

Per Trump, really, who the fuck cares what he says? He called the 2018 election a red wave iirc both before *and after* it happened. This is a moron who complained about vote fraud *after he won.* All he is is (unpleasant) white noise, like non-stop planes taking off.

Do we have an Election Panic thread so we can keep this one a bit less manic?

― Fuck the NRA (ulysses),

i think it makes sense to keep it here.

if/when there are 10,000 posts by Nov 4, we can do a part 2

Turnout estimates, FWIW, are definitely trending upward. Last week guesses were hovering at an average of a little over 150 million. I've now seen a few more that are shifting it to 160, possibly even higher. (170 was one claim, which, amazing if it happened.)

xp i'm taking the under there

its a different kind of anxiety this time around

4 years ago we all knew a Trump victory was gonna be horrible but idk if we really envisioned how bad things would get, like I don't think "he'll massively fuck up a pandemic which might prevent us all from seeing our family and friends for 2 years" was on anyone's Bingo card

this time if he wins we kinda know exactly what the stakes are - we're out of the Paris Accord, we're done with the WHO, we won't try to stop the virus (and likely are just gonna settle for 3 million dead Americans), and with a 6-3 SC majority & hundreds of Trump judges we may never get another free & fair election again. I think if Trump wins the country is basically done for. I thought America could survive 4 years, I don't think it can survive 8

on the other hand, there are just so many signs that Republicans are about to get wiped off the map, which you didn't have in 2016. I get that the cultists are firmly in his corner but he's gonna need way more than that, and if 2016 non-voters/undecideds/independents are seriously looking at the last 4 years and thinking "yes, 4 more years of this" then America is not worth saving

Speaking of what Trump says and how he says it, I'm beginning to think, if things go Biden's way tomorrow, that it was the first debate that really firmed things up. Biden showed he was competent and coherent, not the babbling old person they tried to paint him as, and Trump turned his asshole level up to 11 and went Full Trump, which no one wanted to see.

i think it makes sense to keep it here.

if/when there are 10,000 posts by Nov 4, we can do a part 2

― just another 3-pinnochio post by (Karl Malone), Monday, 2 November 2020 16:54 (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i'm not wishing the usa luck again just fyi

xp i'm taking the under there

― Fuck the NRA (ulysses)

in the spirit of our current time, i don't use exact numbers anymore. if it's more than i can count on my finger and toes, it's at least "10,000". either that or 0. could be fake! either way, feel free to translate my numeric values to whatever system you're using