God Has Abandoned Us: U.S. Politics November 2023

the problem is Trump doesn't officially have the nomination yet, many of the polls have over 10% "undecided" responses still, we're over a year out, state-level polling aggregated is more valuable than national and it's not yet being done frequently enough by high enough quality pollsters, and there are still plenty of other factors like how Trump's various trials are going to impact him later on the campaign trail, or how Kennedy's independent campaign will impact things. if some of the economic news continues to look better than expected, Biden is also likely to rebound from some of the negative noise that's currently impacting him.

the polls that were accurate in previous Presidential elections weren't the ones that were run a year before the election.

Does the RNC have any kind of contingency plan for Trump splitting the vote/support in the multiple scenarios where he's not or makes himself unable to be the official (R) candidate?

Oh for sure the RNC definitely has very smart and well-thought-out strategies for any eventuality. lol.

I think polls are stupid but my gut tells me that they are directionally correct. again this will hinge on GOTV efforts.

Are they still just calling landlines and hoping they get some bored person who will talk for a few minutes? Like 1993 style?

that nyt swing state poll used a mix of landlines and cell phones. but it's true that the response rate is minuscule.

"...The former president reposted a message that called for a citizen's arrest of Judge Arthur Engoron and Letitia James."

2024 FUCK YEAH

The polls were accurate this year! The problem is now people made saying that because the democrats lived up to the polling numbers in elections this year that means…Biden’s polls are inaccurate.

― deep wubs and tribral rhythms (Boring, Maryland), Wednesday, November 15, 2023 2:10 PM (seven hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

well yeah the fact that Ds continue to decisively win what should be close elections, particularly in swing states, is a good indicator that Biden's poll numbers probably are not gonna wind up being correct. I mean again, we're a year away and I don't think polls this far out have ever really been predictive, its really just all vibes at this point. once the public at large has to hear Trump speak again I guarantee those polls will start looking different.

As I think I pointed out earlier, Trump actually seems fine staying quiet-too-quiet outside of his cult audience this time around. I don’t expect to see him at a single debate ever again.

eh I don't know if he could help himself from doing the presidential ones. not only is it a much bigger audience but the optics of appearing at a debate vs. people you're going to crush is a lot different than going up against the person you just lost against. especially when your entire attack line is that he's senile and can't speak or whatever

The last time I posted a missive from Salaita, I was shouted at by various users (even tho he was correct), so I anticipate being shouted at again here (where he is, once again, correct):

Consider for a second the moral assumptions inherent to a political philosophy that insists on voting for genocidaires rather than making genocidaires accountable to their victims. If we are obliged to reward violence with power, then we essentially resign ourselves to passive spectatorship of ecocide and dispossession. How can we conceive of a decent existence in a society that only allows for mechanical participation? After all that we’ve seen, how can we give even perfunctory license to the U.S. ruling class? Visualizing an outcome different than the current horror is exceptionalism in its most dangerous form.

American exceptionalism is primarily a set of national mythologies asserting that the USA is a unique force for good in the world. This self-image is inextricably tied to conquest both in the past and present. American exceptionalism, then, is also a narrative process about non-Americans and their ontological position in relation to the United States. The process renders much of the world’s population an exception to the dignity of political and economic freedom.

https://stevesalaita.com/genocide-joe-and-the-electoralists/

I agree with Salaita's post. Except:

Merely entertaining the idea of voting for Joe Biden is an insult to the thousands of innocent souls whose slaughter he endorsed. The least we can do is ensure that their memories supersede the same old liberal delusions.

The piece could've named chairing the Senate Judiciary Committee during the Thomas hearings, the crime bill, MBNA, the Iraq War vote, in addition to his acquiescence towards American exceptionalism and Israeli slaughter -- and I will vote for him because that's how our system's set up.

That's fine, you do you.

Exactly.

To live at all today is to insult others' existence

But I agree with the snippet too, aside from it being "passive" spectatorship

If there was a single ounce of ETHICS in the “Ethics committee”, they would have not released this biased report. The Committee went to extraordinary lengths to smear myself and my legal team about me not being forthcoming (My legal bills suggest otherwise).

It is a disgusting…

— George Santos (@MrSantosNY) November 16, 2023

(Headline is cut off there: he's not seeking reelection)

Alfred 100% OTM. I clung to the absurd "my vote is my voice" shit long into my 30s, to my discredit, and was disabused of it right here on good old ilx, but it's mystifying to me that people my age still can't get this. if you stay home, it doesn't matter. if you vote third-party, you're not actually voting, you're just giving that third-party candidate a warm feeling when they look at their numbers, which will be low, because this isn't a multi-party system. it's two. you're gonna get one. your vote indicates which of the two you believe will do less harm. that's the Democrat. nobody here, afaik, is arguing "the Democrats are secretly good." they're very un-secretly bad, terrible really, just not as bad as the party whose candidate openly embraces fascism and who, for example, puts laws on the books in Tennessee making it illegal for a man to have sex with another man. vote Dem, you get the party that will "tut-tut, now we mustn't" to that law instead of passing it. that's it. you don't get "good candidate." you're not gonna. ever. Americans aren't revolutionaries and they won't be getting their shit together enough to change the system, it may collapse under the burdens of its own failures but on the left we think solidarity is something to be avoided so don't hold your breath. you get "less bad." that's all anybody's vote means.

and that's how good cop/bad cop politics thrives, as long as the good cops can point to their mandate

I love how voting for Biden makes you morally complicit in genocide but letting Trump get re-elected is, in Salaita's eyes, totally consequence-free morally. He's very lucky that he's too stupid to realize that inaction is also a choice that moral consequences attach to.

There's also that.

well, if 160 million people vote, your vote counts for 0.000000625% of 160 million ?

Being held at gunpoint and being told that no matter what choice you make will lead to slaughter and that not making a choice will also lead to slaughter isn’t the best fucking thing in the world, and defense of it will always strike me as pathetic

The only alternative is suicide and that is also awful. Existing as a citizen of a wealthy nation involves some level of rationalization that your existence is harmful, there’s literally nothing getting around that and everyone here has very clearly done that because we are all here.

one of the two appointed 3 SCOTUS justices who reversed Roe v Wade and are presiding over a not very subtle rollback of protections for marginalized groups and enabling a christofascist state.

I don't like the system but I know one reality I can't live in again.

table, if you have like a ruling royal family ready to go for America that will free us from this unpleasant franchise, go ahead and set it up

DJP otm

(well, the other alternative is political violence, as we've also seen)

the only movement that gets people's attention involves buildings being set on fire/rioting and we've seen, unfortunately, how precious people get about property damage over human lives when that happens.

xpost

Looking forward to the army occupying our cities on and the executive order ending birthright citizenship on Inauguration Day 2025!

That was not a poke at anyone in particular our votes won’t matter lol

ya the best thing about trump II is nobody can go "i didn't think he'd eat MY face!"

maybe it'll just be "ay america has always been eating faces really, this is fine."

Apart from the selfish reason of not wanting to deprive friends, my nieces, and godson of my estimable company, I don't want my enemies to think they've won by forcing suicide.

I detest cheap sentiment

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/11/15/political-violence-civil-war-q-a-00127350

"Right now we’re at an interesting moment politically in the United States where there isn’t a lot of accountability for anything right now. We’re in a climate where it’s unclear what people can and can’t do or what they can and can’t get away with. Some of the behavior we’re seeing, there’s an assumption that people will get away with it because all kinds of people are getting away with all kinds of things right now politically."

Being held at gunpoint and being told that no matter what choice you make will lead to slaughter and that not making a choice will also lead to slaughter isn’t the best fucking thing in the world, and defense of it will always strike me as pathetic

no one's defending anything, it's just a reality. if you choose to say "to me personally it makes no difference which of these two bad choices wins," that is indeed an expression of your privilege. it's demonstrably true in this country that however marginal -- indeed, pathetic! -- the difference in quality of life for people who, e.g., need government assistance to feed themselves or their families, will be under Democratic control than under Republican, it's still a measurable "if you're getting welfare, you better hope for a Democratic House & Senate. The other guys actively want to take your benefits; the Democrats will concede more than they should, much more, and make deals that are bad to preserve things they should be actively fighting for, and it sucks; and, again, if, for you, there's no difference between "people who want to eliminate your welfare check and people who will let the other guys take too big a bite of it" doesn't seem like a difference, that's an expression of privilege.

isn't envisioning every marginalised, impoverished, endangered voter as a hostage to the largesse of the Dems another form of privilege?

no, it isn't, and it has nothing to do with "largesse." it's really a very simple question, everything else is parlor games: one of two parties will have power; which will do less harm? nobody's going to overthrow the government this week, or next month, or next year, or in the next five years, unless it's the fascists. pointing out that your choices are "bad" and "worse" and that you should of course vote for bad, it's honestly a no-brainer, isn't privilege at all, it's math.

and that's how good cop/bad cop politics thrives, as long as the good cops can point to their mandate

― Tyler Perry's Cystitis (Noodle Vague), Thursday, November 16, 2023 10:24 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

true but I don't think letting the bad cops win ever led to there being better cops. like some people seem to hold on to this idea that if we let Trump win and the country tank as a result we'll wind up with a Dem candidate that's actually good and revolutionary, when we've seen that who you actually get is Joe Biden

nobody here, afaik, is arguing "the Democrats are secretly good."

I actually have! well, somewhat. I think Biden has actually done a lot of good things that he isn't getting credit for, because the Dems really really do not know how to sell themselves. in fact up until this Israel/genocide shit I was convinced he was the best President of my lifetime, in fact he probably still is sadly

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F_D5cvPWcAAcPxA.jpg

The tweet that included this screenshot reads:

>>I’m genuinely not joking that Biden should make this part of the campaign. Cut an ad: [Biden voiceover] “we’re bringing jobs and diplomacy back to the United States, but that’s not all we’re bringing…”, cut to a panda doing roly-poly stuff. Feels like a layup.

Everyone does love pandas, they are adorable.

Saw a guy sum up the state of affairs like this:

If you're on the right, shitting on Dems is how you demonstrate the shared hatreds that make you part of the tribe.

If you're on the center-left, shitting on Dems is how you demonstrate the above-it-all independence that earns the admiration of peers.

If you're on the left, shitting on Dems is how you demonstrate the moral & ideological purity that are the price of membership.

If you're in the media, shitting on Dems is how you fight off accusations of bias & establish your "objectivity."

There is no faction in US politics -- barely even elected Dems! -- for whom praising Dems is socially advantageous. There's no approbation waiting, no reputational boost, for anyone. It is, from almost every vantage point, uncool. (Just try it on Twitter to see for yourself.)

Thus we get today's information environment, which responds to a transition from four years of violent irrational madness & mass death to three years of relative scandal-free sanity & economic recovery with ... unrelenting, top-to-bottom negativity.

No faction -- far as I can tell, not a single individual -- wants to reckon with their role & responsibility in this state of affairs, so I guess we're just going to talk ourselves into outright fascism and it's gonna be no one's fault.

My point is that a reluctant, strategic vote for the lesser evil isn't registered as reluctant or strategic but is used as evidence by that lesser evil that they in fact that enjoy support and therefore their policies are correct and justified

I guess my concession to this politics of despair is to not dictate to people who are more at risk than I am how they should vote, but there is a long game even in the theatre of electoral politics and arguments about some pragmatic election-by-election "vote for the least worst option" necessity are based on ignoring the longer term

And I don't see any evidence that voting least worst had done anything except encourage the alleged left/liberal parties to move further and further right over the last 50+ years

Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 4.9 percent in the third quarter of 2023

Which is currently the highest of any industrialized economy.. but yeah, voters 'trust' the GOP more when it comes to shepherding the economy, that's the ticket

I think Biden has actually done a lot of good things that he isn't getting credit for, because the Dems really really do not know how to sell themselves. in fact up until this Israel/genocide shit I was convinced he was the best President of my lifetime, in fact he probably still is sadly

My sense is that it's exactly because these good things are not hyped that the administration is able to sneak these good things by (for a failure in being lowkey, Biden's apparently very good FCC pick was bullied into withdrawing) which also tracks with their handling of Israel which is impossible to do in a lowkey way (unless they're secretly working behind the scenes to undermine Bibi while publicly maintaining full-throated support, but that smacks of 5D-Chessism).

many xposts No one is holding anyone at gunpoint and telling them to vote. You may receive some tut-tutting on a politics thread if you live in a swing state and want to keep your hands clean but that's about it.

I think people should vote or not vote as they see fit, but in the bizarro landscape of our electoral system I will say that I think there are basically two kinds of voting: mostly symbolic and mostly pragmatic. One is about signaling personal beliefs, the other is about actual programmatic results.

If you do not live in a swing state — which I would define as at minimum any state where the perceived or expected gap between the GOP and Democrats is less than 5 points, and maybe even 8-10 points — then I think it literally doesn't matter how you vote or don't vote. In California or New York or South Carolina or Idaho, all votes fall into the "mostly symbolic" category. Because while it's theoretically possible that if enough people voted third-party or didn't vote in those states they could end up with surprise winners, in practice that's not really going to happen. So symbolize away!

If you're in any kind of competitive state and considering sitting it out or voting third-party, then you are moving away from symbolic into pragmatic territory. That vote for a third party, or refusal to vote at all, carries the weight of real potential consequence — it could help make the difference in the outcome. As a mostly pragmatic and rarely symbolic voter myself, I don't care too much how people vote in noncompetitive states. But people in competitive states I hope would really think through the practical consequences of their votes, rather than just their symbolism.

isn't envisioning every marginalised, impoverished, endangered voter as a hostage to the largesse of the Dems another form of privilege?

― Tyler Perry's Cystitis (Noodle Vague)

I'm a gay man in Miami-Dade County, Florida. The only ones who hold us hostage are DeSantis, the Florida legislature, and the national GOP, who want to kill me and the queer people in worse economical positions than me.

and frogbs otm. I've allowed myself only a couple of arguments with GOP relatives since early 2022, and every time they wanna play a gotcha moment -- expecting a stuttering defensive Dem -- I rattle off every good thing Biden's done; they're especially gobsmacked when I say, "He's nominated the federal judges I want: those who don't treat the Constitution as a tombstone erected in 1787." So used are they to FOX/OAN talking points that they're thunderstruck when they see positive defenses of liberalism.