rolling “Trump is gonna win” containment thread

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

in the main, no one's listening to whatever Biden says about covid-19, because he's not in a position to affect anything about it. people know that he's mostly irrelevant on that subject. it doesn't help that what he does manage to say is neutral boilerplate, stuff like 'I'd take effective action' that means nothing at all. I'd bet most of those trust vs. don't trust responders wouldn't be able to cite anything he said; it's just the usual tribal identification.

We should get Joe some of the shit from Flowers for Algernon

he does have room to improve if he's able to become more visible

Also room to get worse. Seriously, I would be all over a GoFundMe to (1) buy that man a teleprompter, (2) pay a trusted advisor to keep him on script, and (3) get some of them Deepfake tech whizzes to mock up some coherent speeches using his generically likable face.

he's gonna win every goddamn state https://t.co/RggsWIJkDH

— Andros of the Embers (@allahliker) April 21, 2020

of course he is

pic.twitter.com/cU6gIdMgGi

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 20, 2020

i forgot how wildly popular the initial travel ban and the wall and border separations were, everyone loved all that shit, this guy's totally right.

did we really need a new thread just for disgruntled sanders people to talk up trump?

I'd really like to see Biden put out an ad collecting all the times Trump made it sound like he wanted to fuck his daughter.

Trump is going to be president until we're all dead.

He'll never do it xp

ukilxors can't even be trusted to predict the results of uk elections

Trump is going to be president until we're all dead.

― Vegemite Is My Grrl (Eric H.)

only if he literally kills me

(xp) Not sure many, if any, predicted Corbyn would win tbf.

i remember the optimism during his campaign certainly from this point (8 months out from the election)

How Optimistic Are You?

The optimism was always qualified. Not that it matters as to whether I'll copy and paste some fun tweets xp

uk ilxors weren't stupid for hoping and people who are despairing right now aren't stupid for despairing

you can come up with another word for 'believes that election results aren't likely to be correlated w/ polling data'.

young voters are undercounted because they don’t use landlines, i totally read that

every time Trump says "Sleepy Joe" there are a bunch of disgruntled Bernie supporters tweeting "holy FUCK he's gonna get 500 EVs" and it's super annoying

he is an unstoppable force, though also extremely stoppable by the guy who polled worse against him than joe biden

I try to convince myself that "trump is gonna win" as an emotional shield in case it happens, plus the idea of investing in "biden is gonna win" is fucking sad (admittedly "trump is gonna one-term" appeals).

OTOH, what I sometimes think about is a friend's dad who voted for trump. He's a middle-class white guy who is literally in the infrastructure business and actually bought the idea that trump being pres would help him. But he's also married to a South American immigrant, and while I don't know him personally I am reasonably sure there's no chance he'll vote for trump again. I imagine there's at least a few other people like that, and I can't see anyone switching to trump at this point—even as hyperbole, "he's gonna win every goddamn state" makes you look like a dumbass. Going full throttle white nationalist isn't going to help him win, the thing to be worried about is disenfranchisement not trump's masterly "political campaigning skills."

Going full throttle white nationalist isn't going to help him win, the thing to be worried about is disenfranchisement not trump's masterly "political campaigning skills."

this

ultimately Trump had two big selling points for persuadable voters in 2020 - "at least the economy is doing well" and "yeah he's an incompetent racist dumbass but none of that really affects ME...", and now we're in a situation where millions are losing their jobs, 100,000 Americans will die, and the economy is cratering, and a lot of that can be traced back to Trump's incompetence. I just don't know who he *gains* in 2020.

like one thing I heard a lot in 2016 was "what's the worst that can happen, things already suck for us and the Presidency is mostly a show job" and well, now we know

can we lock this thread?

all true, but also

none of that really affects ME.

He could lose a few handfuls of voters out of sheer stupidity. I mean I haven't looked up the numbers or anything, but another thing to consider: I am a straight white man who normally isn't subject to trump's attacks...except I'm an immigrant (I was a baby, but it's not like I forgot)

Yeah, it's simultaneously true that Biden has some real policy/political wins, that the economy as a whole has been OK under his watch by historical standards, that those historical standards are not what people base their sense of "the economy" on, that Trump in a 2nd term would have absolutely faced the same inflation Biden did (duh it was a global phenomenon), that Biden himself has never been a super popular figure much less a beloved leader, that the U.S. right now seems like an exhausting mess from any number of political perspectives, and that when the main thing two-thirds of the country can agree on is that it's headed in the "wrong direction," it's always bad news for an incumbent.

In re YMP's WaPo linked story, the apparently strong and widespread appetite for "tearing down the system completely" is disheartening to me for the simple reason that all the mechanisms for major change that are built into the system have been rendered inoperable by the political climate, so the only avenue for "tearing down the system" would be the application of force majeure. Because the instruments of such force are already concentrated in the army, police, 'national security' apparatus, the wannabe militias, and quite a few criminals, I don't see traveling that avenue as ending in a better system or a better life for anyone who is currently oppressed by the heavy forces of wealth, property rights and white privilege, because the system as it now stands does at least exert some minimal safeguards and constraints on these forces and any such constraints would be entirely swept aside if a fascist takeover happens. The only beneficiaries would be the collaborators, not the resistance.

I don't necessarily think you should read too much into statements like that (though I don't think you should read too little either). A lot of polling has these really open ended and abstract questions that could be interpreted in a myriad of ways, or where terms like capitalism, genocide, socialism, free speech and other signifiers mean all kinds of different things at the same time - which is how we end up with people simultaneously saying "Israel is committing a genocide" and "Israel is trying its best to avoid civilian casualties". On the face of it, only one of these statements can be true, but it depends how the person who said this interpreted it, for them both can be true

Its also relevant how something tracks over time, if 13% of voters think x and 10 years later 16% of voters think x, thats not especially significant, but if its a shift from 3% to 12% thats more significant

Precisely. There were mechs put in place with thought time and effort precisely to avoid this shit. The failures of same are not so much evidence of bad foresight or design but instead of a very extreme insistence by wealth an power in defeating, disregarding, and removing them. And imo to insist “well it’s obvious those control mechs are shit and would never work, and usa needs better systems than say, the judicial one, and impeachment”…ok. but i am near a point of believing that no systems will FORCE a people to act ethically or lawfully if enough of em decide just to be fucking shit people to do v bad things. But to eviscerate or overthrow those mechs, i cannot assume anything better is remotely possible amidst chaos as the rich and armed put all other interests to the wall or under the boot. it’s bad enough and hard enough as it is. i think i get who they will make suffer, because we’ve seen it thousands of times.

after writing all this crap i re-read aimless, and it feels like a fucking re-statement. nevertheless.

"it depends how the person who said this interpreted it, for them both can be true"

i think it needs to be very clearly stated that there is no reasonable way both can be true

yes, that's a sign the poll is flawed not that large numbers of people's interpretations of reality are nonsensical

anvil: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/03/05/online-opt-in-polls-can-produce-misleading-results-especially-for-young-people-and-hispanic-adults/

i think it needs to be very clearly stated that there is no reasonable way both can be true

Depends on if they're using the same definition of genocide as you, and what that definition is we can't know. This is the problem with abstract terms that masquerade as definitive

not that large numbers of people's interpretations of reality are nonsensical

I don't know that interpretations of reality are necessarily nonsensical. Its just that a lot of terms aren't just interpreted differently by different people, its that they're often extremely flexible and pliable. Bernie Sanders is a socialist, millions of people love Bernie and say they support socialism - but is Bernie a socialist? and do they? I would say absolutely not, in a literal sense, but literalism is for the dictionaries

i included the word reasonable and i stand by the statement

Thats fair, but may leave you short of a full eleven

the disappointing counterpart to a baker's dozen

I don't necessarily think you should read too much into statements like that

I used the word "appetite" for a reason. Polls questions like that gauge the emotional temperature of the respondents, not their reasoned conclusions. What's disheartening to me is that mass political bodies move upon their emotions, not reasoned conclusions, and if the system denies a redress of their frustrations then those will eventually find an outlet in the act of literally "tearing the system down".

Some people believe that this is the inevitable path to a socialist revolution by the downtrodden, and in some political masses I think that would be correct. I do not see that coming to pass in the US masses, who have been propagandized from childhood to accept fascist authoritarianism in preference to socialist revolution.

New w/ @HansNichols

It’s not just public spin, Biden doesn’t believe his bad poll numbers nor do many of his top aides, per Dems who have spoken privately with the president and his team.

This informs the largely steady-as-she-goes campaign strategyhttps://t.co/Lu7ilWV59l

— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) May 14, 2024

polls are skewed, i repeat, polls are skewed

Reasoned conclusions are mostly illusory but I don't think this is necessarily more or less so than at other times. But I'm not sure this is measuring emotional temperature all that highly either (though it might be the case, I don't think its a given)

I think for "tearing the system down" to be more substantive, we'd need a better idea of what people actually mean by that and with how much conviction, otherwise its too much of an abstract signal

Has there been a deep-dive into how much of Trump's base has died over the past 4 years? I feel like that number is not insignificant. Perhaps I just perform a search...

In this cohort study evaluating 538,159 deaths in individuals aged 25 years and older in Florida and Ohio between March 2020 and December 2021, excess mortality was significantly higher for Republican voters than Democratic voters after COVID-19 vaccines were available to all adults, but not before. These differences were concentrated in counties with lower vaccination rates, and primarily noted in voters residing in Ohio.

src: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2807617

found this from a few years back:

"Excess death rates were 2.8 percentage points (15%) higher for Republican voters compared with Democratic voters (95% PI, 1.6 to 3.7 percentage points)."

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/political-party-affiliation-linked-excess-covid-deaths

xp!!

I posted that Bump piece partly in response to Neanderthal:

None of the things that are true today will change unless massive violence breaks out in the streets because nobody has to listen to the average American anymore otherwise. But few seem to have the stomach because for most, things rarely get bad enough to the point where they feel they have no other choice. It's a persistent state of "wow this is really bad but I still have much to lose and I have family that I can't make these decisions for".

The only major movements in making change have come through civil disobedience, civilian uprising through obstruction, or rioting.

That definition of "tearing the system down" seems more prevalent than, I dunno, a new convention in Philadelphia with powdered wigs 'n' shit.

thanks for that piece, YMP

"Excess death rates were 2.8 percentage points (15%) higher for Republican voters compared with Democratic voters (95% PI, 1.6 to 3.7 percentage points)."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzvk0fWtCs0

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/07/voter-age-biden-trump-2024-election-00150923

fwiw, biden is starting to run away with the 65+ group.

some of that is probably real political realignment (e.g. perhaps people are now getting more small c "conservative" as they age, i.e. preferring the low risk option, rather than more republican per se).

but it's totally plausible that some of biden's improvement in that group is due to the its composition changing because the republican members were more likely to die during the pandemic.

the job creators (*peace be unto them*) are anticipating a january '25 2scoops restoration, merely

https://thehill.com/business/4666442-all-three-major-stock-indexes-close-at-record-highs/