rolling “Trump is gonna win” containment thread

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

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

we could have the first SOTA where they have to have a 30 minute break to have a nurse change the President

on some level you almost have to marvel how cable news has become the WWF and 2scoops is king heel kayfabe

porn star. hush money. election fraud. uhhhhh, these networks don't make much money. you gotta give them this one.

"We didn't start the fire..."

I got King Crimson:
"... cigarettes, ice cream, figurines of the Virgin Mary ..."

it's renewed indefinitely whether he wins or loses. until he dies.

I mean, Trump will always be news at some level. But if he loses in November he's done as a central fixation for a lot of people. He'll continue to cultivate his followers for fleecing, but he'll mostly make headlines when he gets convicted or acquitted of things.

If he wins, obviously he returns to center-of-the-universe status. BUT, I really do think the lame-duck syndrome will settle in faster than he expects. Especially because he will be so predictably disastrous and embarrassing. And he'll probably end up impeached again within two years because he just can't help it.

yeah but Project 2025

I mean, Trump will always be news at some level. But if he loses in November he's done as a central fixation for a lot of people.

I hope we can be so lucky, but I'm skeptical. There is still a lot of fucking media people out there who won't be able to quit themselves from covering every grievance and whine he sharts out.

That prarie-faced fuckwad John Kasich just predicted that the Democrats will win the House in November "by a substantial majority, more than people expect" at the moment while the GOP picks up the Senate.

yeah but Project 2025

Like everything these crackpots dream up, a lot easier to say than do. Not that they won't try! And not that they won't do damage. But even assuming that Trump can stick to any particular plan with any level of discipline at all, I think his capacity to deliver is let's say unproven.

I mean, working for the federal govt under a 2nd Trump term will be even more miserable, terrible and crazy-making than it was during the first one. Not trying to minimize that. I just think he's a bit of a, if not paper tiger, old, fat and easily distracted tiger. Who is also congenitally incapable of delegating anything without second-guessing whoever he delegates it to as soon as he thinks they look bad on TV.

if he loses in November he's done as a central fixation for a lot of people.

he'll mostly make headlines when he gets convicted or acquitted of things.

I think his capacity to deliver is let's say unproven.

it's not him I'm worried about, it's the people who plan on putting P25 in place regardless of what he does

Yeah but that's the thing, there is no version of Trump in charge where there are people just going about putting their own agendas in place. He's the one who would have to drive it, he doesn't let anyone else do ANYTHING for very long without throwing them under the bus. And if he doesn't personally care about something, and there's not much he does care about, he's not going to the mat for it because of any ideological principle. He doesn't have any.

I'm not saying don't worry be happy. But having watched how things have played out since 2020, I'm way less persuaded we're on the verge of authoritarian takeover at the national level than I was in 2021 in the immediate aftermath of Jan. 6.

My concerns about authoritarian takeovers at the state level in red states has only increased, however.

Yeah I wouldn’t be so sure the Stephen Millers and Christian Nationalists and forced birth fetishists wont get their way.

They'll obviously be way more catered to under Trump than Biden. He'll issue a bunch of executive orders to make them happy, some of which will survive court challenges. It will be bad! He definitely shouldn't be president again. But he'll also be a lame duck immediately, his popularity ratings will never get close to 50 percent and probably will fall lower than they did in his first term as everyone remembers what it's like to have him as president, and a whole bunch of people in both parties are going to be jockeying to be next in line from day one.

Christian Nationalists in particular face the perennial problem that only like 20 percent of the country wants to live in their demented theocracy.

The prize is always 4 more years to pick SC judges, though, right?

I did take some solace that, in the article about how the Heritage Foundation hired the trick-shot specialist who became Trump's bodyman, as a means to shore up "We'll be in charge and ready to go if he wins", it mentions that Trump gets big mad every time anyone suggests they're going to "in charge of" the next presidency.

Stephen Miller is a dude I find genuinely terrifying, like all of Trump's mouthpieces come off like cartoon villains but Miller is a very specific type and that's someone who is a henchman for a literal demon. I couldn't be in the same room as him.

Nor can his hair.

Stephen miller won't see that post Alfred, but I will

if the last few days have taught us anything it's that you never know who's gonna see your posts

few days on ILX, or in jury selection?

lol I was also wondering, I assume the latter

If they could match up ilx usernames with their owners they'd disqualify the lot of us, wholesale.

"Is it true that you wrote that Donald Trump was a 'Dud'?"

had a daydream yesterday where i was one of the people being considered for the jury and i suddenly standup and throw my chair at trump and he dies

and then i become president

"By our count you wished death on Mr. Trump a total of 103 times across the years 2017 to the present. Isn't that true, Mister, uh, Frogbs."

I still think I can be fair and impartial though

"Indeed, Mr. Frog-bis." "Please, it's Frog B.S."

"Mr. Frog-bis is my father"

"Mistrial declared until we can get the pronunciation clarified."

its supposed to be unpronouncable. you know like the thing Prince did

fake polls!

https://www.newsweek.com/joe-biden-leads-donald-trump-poll-actual-voters-2024-presidential-election-1892723

"Actual voters"? What about the bots?

this doesn't seem encouraging for him

Lmfao Suburban Delaware County, PA (mail ballots):

Trump - 54% Haley 46%

Biden - 97% Dean - 3%

How on earth the GOP isn't completely freaking out about this is beyond me.

— M L C (@ChiCyph80) April 24, 2024

i thought haley quit

I think that’s the point.

“dropping out of the race” doesn’t take you off the ballot once you are on it

anyway I realized yesterday that I wasn't really worried about rogue jurors because even if some of them voted Trump for six weeks they were gonna see the version of Trump that we all see. that once they get away from the propaganda and actually have to spend time around the actual guy they'd realize he's a sleepy old man who does nothing but whine all day as he is confronted with mounds and mounds of evidence of his criminal activity. obviously FOX News tries to hide that side of the man. you almost wonder if they have no notion of what Trump is actually like. I mean how many people do they catch walking out of his rallies halfway through because he's just rambling and making shit up? how do they not know this is what he does and has always done?

maybe there's been a bit of this effect on the nation as a whole? obviously it'll fade after the trial even if he is found guilty (and I think he will) but if he has another one after this and it goes the same way, idk I think he really is cooked then.

like falling asleep and farting in court, then waking up and complaining that he's too cold...that's the sort of shit Trump would be ruthless about in a political opponent and basically how he won the presidency

Someone should give him a cozy blanket

haley got 150k votes in the florida primary yesterday. the primary was closed (GOP) only, and voting began after haley withdrew. probably nothing.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Wednesday, March 20, 2024 11:08 AM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

Pennsylvania is also a closed primary. probably nothing.

Biden - 97% Dean - 3%

For a second, I thought that was *Howard* Dean (I assume it's Dean Phillips)

“like falling asleep and farting in court, then waking up and complaining that he's too cold”

like how is this not an entire national ad campaign with dark brandon glasses logos i’m not even kidding. i mean, it’s horrible, but mandatory.

obviously a lot of those Haley voters are gonna vote for him anyway but idk it seems different from the usual dynamic where its a difference in political views, Trump is just extremely unlikeable right now

all told she got 16.5% of the vote which is not bad for someone who dropped out a month ago. wonder if anything like that's happened before and what that meant for the end result. one in six GOP primary voters got off their ass to explicitly vote *against* him and he's gonna need pretty much all of them in the end in order to have a chance. doesn't seem like an ideal situation

FWIW, today was the 4th anniversary of this presser:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33QdTOyXz3w