rolling “Trump is gonna win” containment thread

Trump is probably gonna win and we’re gonna need this thread

the electorate is never wrong

I'm not concerned about Trump getting more votes than Biden, he almost certainly won't, but I do worry that the Supreme Court basically gave the GOP permission to disenfranchise large amounts of voters and throw away absentee ballots. I know a lotta people don't take Trump saying stuff like "vote by mail is illegitimate" seriously but lets see what happens if/when he actually loses

our catechism must be:

increasing isolation? good!
emboldening? bad!

leon czolgosz did nothing wrong

I know a lotta people don't take Trump saying stuff like "vote by mail is illegitimate" seriously

i do. i don't know why others don't. he's saying the quiet part out loud, when a more competent GOP person would just litigate it and let the GOP-selected judges do the work of disenfranchising voters. that's what they'll do under trump, too, but he's doing us the favor of yelling out his intentions so they can at least be critiqued (and hopefully counteracted).

but instead everybody's just like "keep your head down and...vote?"

or you know, try to vote, knowing that a ton of the people you need to vote with you aren't going to do it because they don't want to die

on the flip side

new @CNN poll of registered voters:

Biden 53%
Trump 42%

— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) April 9, 2020

the good news is that even though voters will (once again) be disenfranchised, we're starting from an even better margin the time that h clinton lost by negative 3 million votes. and it's not due to biden being good or inspirational. he 's standing in for the steaming pile of shit in the well-worn phrase "i'd vote for a steaming pile of shit before i'd vote for donald fucking trump".

for the second time in 4 years, we've been handed a choice between donald trump and literally a steaming pile of shit

Would've bet on trump (almost did bet on biden to win democratic nomination and trump to win the general at the beginning of the year but the odds were below 2/1) but COVID throws in a dollop of unpredictability

for the second time in 4 years, we've been handed a choice between donald trump and literally a steaming pile of shit

― let me be your friend on the other end! (Karl Malone)

i'm working really hard not to play grammar police here karl, i'm trying to be a good descriptivist but i can't get over my white privilege hangup that people should not use "literally" when they mean "figuratively"

Hilary Clinton >> Joe Biden

But that's for another thread. No doubt Fred will poll them.

Hilary Clinton had a functioning brain and many people were genuinely invigorated by her candidacy

exactly

xp i call out people on the literally thing too. but the thing is, when i see donald trump, i see a big pile of shit with steam coming off of it, with a little crevice in the side moving up and down in time with the words that he speaks. he literally is a steaming pile of shit, and apparently 53% of voters also see it

she still lost white women though

Hilary Clinton >> Joe Biden

i agree too, it's a mistake to lump them into the same category. but i had to hold my nose for her all the same

She was definitely a much better candidate, but people didn't absolutely hate Trump the way they do now. hard to remember now but there was a time when a lot of online folks liked Trump b/c he was just eviscerating the GOP

I think enthusiasm for a candidate augurs success more often than people hating their opponent

Hillary would’ve made a better president and seemed smart and alert and awake but ppl hated her guts and they don’t feel the same about Biden

she did seem alert and awake! and sadly those do put her in another league, as a candidate

xp i call out people on the literally thing too. but the thing is, when i see donald trump, i see a big pile of shit with steam coming off of it, with a little crevice in the side moving up and down in time with the words that he speaks. he literally is a steaming pile of shit, and apparently 53% of voters also see it

Not that I disagree

In a just world, Hillary would be a stronger candidate than Biden, and I say that as someone who doesn't like Hillary much. But Biden Obama's VP and a good ole white guy.

it's up to Biden to fuck it up, and I trust he can do it.

yeah, i mean i'm not going to complain if you call donald trump literally a steaming pile of shit, but to call hillary clinton literally a steaming pile of shit seems slightly... hyperbolic?

I wouldn't bet a dollar on the outcome. I've generally thought GENERIC DEMOCRAT would win for the last couple of years and Trump will win people were just doomsayers, but so much of Trump's insanity seems to have been normalized and Biden is such a uniquely terrible candidate (we haven't even gotten to the BURISMA BURISMA BURISMA stage of things) that I wouldn't begin to guess how this will turn out.

but to call hillary clinton literally a steaming pile of shit seems slightly... hyperbolic?

yes, this is the part where i made a mistake, i readily admit

oh wait, and i called biden a literally steaming pile of shit, too.

welp

look in the time of coronavirus, etc etc, mistakes are made

Everyone who voted for the Iraq war is a steaming pile of shit

let me fix this for the record: we're faced with a decision between a literally steaming pile of shit and a figuratively steaming pile of shit. in 2016 the choice was between a literally steaming pile of shit and however we want to figuratively refer to hillary clinton

firm, but fair

Hillary would’ve made a better president and seemed smart and alert and awake but ppl hated her guts and they don’t feel the same about Biden

this is my one hope for 2020, people were mobilized to vote against Hillary in ways they won't be for Biden. I had coworkers who hated her guts for no discernable reason. we rag on the GOP for the way they fired off bad-faith attacks on her for 20 years but it sure as hell paid off

I wouldn't bet a dollar on the outcome. I've generally thought GENERIC DEMOCRAT would win for the last couple of years and Trump will win people were just doomsayers, but so much of Trump's insanity seems to have been normalized and Biden is such a uniquely terrible candidate (we haven't even gotten to the BURISMA BURISMA BURISMA stage of things) that I wouldn't begin to guess how this will turn out.

well the fact that "the president doesn't have a functioning brain" is now normalized is probably a point in favor of Biden now, sadly. by and large this is just what we've always known, most voters don't care about racism, corruption, lying, dead people in foreign countries, etc. etc...but once they start losing their jobs and having people they know die as a direct result of the President's incompetence, things might change. murdering 1,500,000 brown people on false pretenses didn't hurt GWB. the financial crisis and Katrina did.

I honestly don’t think Trump comes off as nearly as senile as Biden. We’re mostly judging him on content but he’s still a pretty confident speaker. Biden genuinely sounds like my 92-year old grandfather in the final year ‘decline phase.’

is this also the thread for "we're gonna have a Republican judiciary + sham elections for the rest of our lives"

however we want to figuratively refer to hillary clinton

― let me be your friend on the other end! (Karl Malone)

if you're asking my preference, i would prefer we not refer to hillary clinton, figuratively or otherwise. that's probably not a reasonable request, but it just seems like picking at an old wound that will fucking never heal over.

is this also the thread for "we're gonna have a Republican judiciary + sham elections for the rest of our lives"

― lukas

i feel like we should have a separate thread for long-term doom-mongering and we could try to keep this to 2020-only doom-mongering? but it's not my thread.

HRC is a white supremacist mass murderer who is partly responsible for this shitshow why should she get a pass

So good to finally have someone on this board who can weigh in from The Left.

HRC is a white supremacist mass murderer who is partly responsible for this shitshow why should she get a pass

shit really? Perhaps there should be some congressional hearings.

I honestly don’t think Trump comes off as nearly as senile as Biden. We’re mostly judging him on content but he’s still a pretty confident speaker. Biden genuinely sounds like my 92-year old grandfather in the final year ‘decline phase.’

― Greta Van Show Feets BB (milo z), Thursday, April 9, 2020 2:52 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

i agree. i think it's hard to imagine Biden beating anyone but 799 people died in my state today of the virus trump was denying was a problem about a month ago so WHO KNOWS

Dumb asshole is gonna win, ffs

This site has enough rolling 77 threads for griping.

The thread title says what it’s for, it’s for this, so it doesn’t go in other threads

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EWFrynfU4AASTY5?format=jpg&name=medium

Low numbers for Biden in both Trust and Don't Trust, so he does have room to improve if he's able to become more visible

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EWFrynfU4AASTY5?format=jpg&name=medium

its tough when every major news network gives a free 2 hour commercial to your opponent every single night

they had it early so Trump could get himself locked in as the candidate before he was sentenced to jail for a variety of felonies in a variety of state and federal courts. They didn't KNOW at the time the Supreme Court would help him wriggle out of that problem.

Polling right now is going to be weird too. Trump still has a slight post-ear tag and post-convention bump

and the bump of everybody not 100% officially knowing Kamala is really the candidate until the convention.

i don't know if that helps him or her though

genuinely have no clue where they go after Trump, I know the GOP has always been a cult of personality to some extent but never quite like this.

The bad news is they'll manage just fine. The real powers at the top of the party are the people who sit near the apex of the business and financial system, the ones who pay a small army of think tank strategists and top flight legal help to figure out how to retain or grow their control over the nation and by extension, much of the world.

The right wing media, such as the FOX News and Sinclair Group, are constantly testing their messaging, steering according to the receptivity of their audience to the evolving talking points, and the ship sails on. Politicians like Gaetz and Greene aren't expected to govern, but to probe for the right buttons to push to keep things at a boil. Such creatures understand their role. They know they'll be rewarded in exact proportion to how well their messages elicit viewer/voter engagement.

It is a wonderfully well-oiled machine, fueled by the profits generated by its operation, and maximizing its power to generate those profits is its only ideology and sole purpose.

We all can see this machine and its record of success, but we try not to in order to keep our spirits up for the fight against it.

I can't help but get annoyed when someone says "but she lost because of the electoral college." Winning the electoral college is the only way to win the election. It's like saying a football team won the touchdown contest but had fewer points. Larger point about popularity of women candidates taken, just a pet peeve of mine.

I still fear that the racism and misogyny hard-baked into America aren't going to make this nearly as smooth as some people seem to think it will be

you're forgetting how ageism is also hard-baked into America, Sanders or Warren actually still come off as pretty youthful despite being 82 and 75 but Trump absolutely does not, he radiates old, infirm, and out of touch. he thinks wearing a bandage on his head is a flex but... it makes him look like he escaped from a hospital, not dodged a literal bullet

The country already voted -- twice -- for a Black man and voted convincingly for a woman of Black-Asian descent in 2020. I think we're better.

"it makes him look like he escaped from a hospital, not dodged a literal bullet"

sun-baked rich guy golfer after getting skin cancer removed. that's what i thought when i saw him.

xps

I think it's fine to point out that a candidate won the popular vote by millions but lost the electoral college. Yes, they need a better strategy to win, but the longer term view is that the EC puts Democrats at a structural disadvantage and disenfranchises many millions of voters by valuing their votes far less. It needs to change if we are ever going to get to a more sane system.

There's no baked-in reason it puts Democrats at a disadvantage, it just happens to work out that way with current state demographics. Democrats are more concentrated in cities, but there's no inherent reason a less dense state can't have a blue city in it that tips the state blue.

It intentionally advantages smaller rural states at the expense of larger states with larger cities.

Exactly, votes in smaller state have a much higher value. I don't know that it needs to be thrown out, but larger states need a significant increase in representatives/EC votes.

wonder what if anything it might say about the rolling trump is gonna win containment thread that there's neither a rolling kamala is gonna win containment thread nor rolling kamala is gonna lose containment thread yet

I'm more hopeful this morning than I've been in weeks, but I still fear that the racism and misogyny hard-baked into America aren't going to make this nearly as smooth as some people seem to think it will be.

― Maxmillion D. Boosted (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Monday, July 22, 2024 11:16 AM (twenty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

https://bsky.app/profile/swolecialism.bsky.social/post/3kxuuhlio6i2k

what's it say?

“

theres a few things overlapping here:

1) americans especially white americans are pretty racist
2) americans especially white americans don't like to *think* of themselves being pretty racist
3) the all-groyper campaign staff is incapable of understanding point 2
“

in b4 we all start freaking out about swing states

They want but don't necessarily need the presidency. They have the Court for decades to come, plus a plurality of states in which to do harm.

― Millennium Falco (Ye Mad Puffin)

mmmmm. how much harm y'all gonna let 'em do? how many people y'all gonna let 'em kill? these folks have the power to do harm, the intent to do harm, and will respond to any intervention to limit their ability to do harm with armed force. and they are willing to die for what they believe in, even though what they believe in is pretty much objectively stupid and wrong.

i mean for real, what is the Future of the Right? you ask me, what motivates a lot of these folks is that they're _winning_ as long as more of _us_ are dying than _them_. they really believe that. they really believe that's how you win.

you know how i think you win? surviving until the people who are trying to kill you stop trying to kill you. that's the only kind of "winning" i understand. maybe that's not very patriotic of me, i don't know.

it seems to me that Trump has never had to face a formidable opponent, which KH is. i'll check polls in a month after the dust settles from the shake up, but i'm not going to worry too much in the meantime. just my feeling at this moment

was thinking about that today...the people have known Clinton and Biden for decades, they've been attacked by right-wing media forever, probably a lot easier for him to go against someone they already hate instead of someone people don't really know much about. also Harris has a lot more swagger than those two, she's someone whose insults might actually sting. plus you know it would kill him to lose to a black woman.

it seems to me that Trump has never had to face a formidable opponent

Ehh, Hillary Clinton got three million more votes than him

she would've gotten a lot more than that if she wasn't such a shit candidate

People were so tired of the Clintons and Bushes and just wanted them to all to just go fuck off.

Dems didn't learn the right lesson from Obama. he wasn't so well-liked for his policies or his willingness to reach across the aisle or even the hope/change stuff he was popular because he had some swagger. Bill definitely had it, Dubya had it sorta, Trump kinda does in his own weird way, but Hillary doesn't. Biden does a little but I think a lot of the votes for him were because fuck Trump. I think Kamala has it too. kinda in a wine mom sorta way but idk, she seems charming

Starting from the advent of television--even Eisenhower had the swagger next to Stevenson--that should never be discounted. Aside from Nixon in '68, you can make a case that it's a surprisingly reliable predictor. (I'm sure there are one or two exceptions that will be pointed out.)

yeah Joe Biden

but Trump also has anti-swagger like people straight up cannot bear to hear him speak so maybe we'll call a draw on that

I don't know how Bush/Dukakis lines up with that, but Dukakis tried to run on competence, and that doesn't have a lot of swagger appeal.

Nixon in '68 and Biden in '20 were also extraordinarily unusual elections.

The old reliable indicator was always 'the taller candidate wins'. Trump wears lifts in his shoes and is just as reluctant to reveal his true height as he is his true net worth. Still, Harris is the shorter of the two, so here's hoping that old reliable indicator fails.

biden is shorter than trump and he won

might be different when it's a man vs. a woman though

I do think though that if Trump were 2 inches shorter he probably would've lost

The younger candidate usually wins, I think Biden has been the exception.

I can’t think of an election in my lifetime where there has been such a significant difference in age between the candidates (maybe McCain/Obama?)

thing is Kamala is 59 but she doesn't look it. I think that's important too. like it is true that even though Biden was only 4 years older he just seems 'old' in a way Trump doesn't

Dukakis tried to run on competence, and that doesn't have a lot of swagger appeal.

Just remembering the tank photo-op now--"Hang on, I can fix this!"

Trump the rare sort that takes Viagra and geti taller.

Harris will be the shortest major party nominee since Stephen Douglas, and if she wins, she'll tie James Madison as the shortest president. (All are/were 5'4".) (Hillary is 5'5".)

John Kerry was 6'4 for all the good it did him

Harris can be the Altuve of Presidents!

I was surprised to learn how short Harris is back in the 2019-20 campaigning. She has tall vibes.

do we know their star signs do their star signs next

it seems to me that Trump has never had to face a formidable opponent

Ehh, Hillary Clinton got three million more votes than him

― Andy the Grasshopper

The electoral college racist origins are to blame. I still can’t believe how the system hasn’t been corrected to remove that bullshit entirely.

Yeah I'm fully back to freaked out. Things are better but still a coin flip at best. (I know I'm not providing any helpful information to anyone here, this is just my safe space to vent so I don't make family and friends as freaked out as I am.)

hey that's what this thread is for!

I feel like the third party impact on the election might make for uncomfortable amount of variability in final results. like we can see now that Kennedy is pulling votes from Trump, so we kinda don't want him to taper off to like 2%, but third party candidates almost always come in way too high in national polling this far out, so idk if we can really count on his numbers staying where they are.

guess the end result would be if his vote vanishes, do they just stay home instead of voting for Trump, defect to Harris, or defect to Trump

third party candidates almost always come in way too high in national polling this far out

Good point.

One assumes that those who voice support for a third-party candidate are double-haters or "tHe pArtIeS arE tHe SAME" cranks.

I think nominating Harris constitutes enough of a change from Biden that double-hating is taken somewhat off the board.

Everyone who spent the last few months lamenting "I wish these weren't our only two choices" kinda sorta got their wish, and her name is Kamala.

People's reasons for voting third party vary and have varying degrees of legitimacy but prospective RFK voters feel very
https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:720/format:webp/1*7eYImGeA8UEiJ1SpwbAmdw.jpeg

RFK is def more aligned with Trump but I do think he attracts a lot of not-particularly-informed folks who just really don't like Biden either

have i mentioned that the first place i heard about biden stepping down was from the RFK grifters trying to get signatures to get him on the ballot outside Pride? i was busy being gay, i had other things to do besides worry about biden. anyway those rfk folks were the most lowlife, lyingest motherfuckers... i got duped into signing, well, it came out ahead i figure because i did my best to get the word out and a couple people at least who would've signed didn't because of that. honestly, i think better of the people outside pride protesting and telling us we were going to hell... they weren't harming the queer community as much... people pushing anti-vax candidates don't give a shit about the queer community. lots of us are immunocompromised. god knows what the ballot situation will be like, but the way those canvassers were acting, there _better_ be a fight to keep rfk off the ballot. just the scummiest motherfuckers.