"The August 2020 US Politics Thread is highly thought of, but nobody likes me. It can only be my personality. That's all."

I think Alfred is saying they’d all be one ghost. Like “sandwich of bacon, lettuce and tomato”

shit forgot my oxford comma

I think that a very large percentage of voters in national elections have always been clueless political simpletons who just vote based on vague ideas of which politicians are "on their side". It is much more noticeable now because in the past the parties limited voters' presidential choices to reasonably competent and experienced candidates. The Republican Party derailed itself by elevating Palin to the ticket in 2008 and barely escaped nominating some complete bozo in 2012. In 2016 they finally imploded. Here we are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf9DYeePLJY

that's why the right wing press is doubling down on the idea that democrats hate republican voters and all they stand for.

they're leaning hard into the culture war.

they're leaning hard into the culture war.

And polls indicate that it's not working. Like, really not working. At all.

hope so!

none of the MAGAs in my neighborhood -- the ones whose Trump flags unfurled in the last three weeks -- are persuadable.

fixed

Don't correct a corrector.

Maybe you just need to offer them an alternate method of committing slow and spiteful suicide.

so many to choose from

why not fast and spiteful

i don't think it will be a blowout either, unfortunately. if you read the right-wing press, you'll see that fear and hatred of democrats is higher than its ever been. biden won't be able to present himself as a "normal" alternative to many of these voters.

I think a blowout if it comes will come from a massive increase in Democratic turnout. Republican fear and hatred of Democrats has been redlined since Obama got elected, increasing it at this point doesn't increase Republican turnout, it actually causes some percentage of them to die of strokes. Biden is the most normal presidential candidate I think is possible. He was VP for eight years, he's an old cishet white guy... it is his privilege to vanish in a way no other candidate could, presenting a minimal target for Republican caricature while being a blank canvas for a wide spectrum of independents and Democrats to happily color in.

Dems are used to being field mice that anytime they hear the phrase Excite Trump's Base they assume the president can command 987 million voters to overwhelm polling stations. I expect his base to remain excited through November and even after his loss.

There are no McGovern/Mondale blowouts anymore. 330-350 EVs is a ‘blowout’ for the foreseeable future.

yeah, a blowout in this sense being all the tossups going to one party

Yep. Obama's 2008 electoral vote total is the closest we'll see in our lifetimes. The parties have settled: we have no liberal Republicans or conservative Dems

I want Biden to win all 50 states. I know he won't come close. But god it all needs repudiating with extreme prejudice. The racism, the rape apologies, the petty small-minded greed.

that's why the right wing press is doubling down on the idea that democrats hate republican voters and all they stand for.

― treeship., Wednesday, 5 August 2020 19:02 (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

In my case - they're right!

no ... conservative Dems

citation needed

citation my ass!

In my case - they're right!

The vast majority of voters on either side in a two-party hegemony are either general-purpose dipshits or people who "don't really think about politics." Tribalism provides an easy excuse to allow themselves to continue to not think about it: there's someone to be opposed to, therefore you are in the right.

A huge amount of Republican voters could easily be swayed by a candidate or party that actually represents their interests, as opposed to poorly but loudly pretending to. The systems of communication are set up to disadvantage anyone attempting to actually reach them.

All of this sucks, but it can be enough to hate everything they vote for, and to feel frustration and pity for them without hating tens of millions of strangers as a lumpenmass.

agreed

A huge amount of Republican voters could easily be swayed by a candidate or party that actually represents their interests

I don't think this is true. For a lot of people, voting as an assertion of identity will in fact outweigh self-interest.

Yep. The GOP has no interests outside eliminating the tax burden from the rich. It's a collection of racists. The racism is the point.

That is the GOP's goal, I agree, which all the 'serious' Republicans understand. Their tactics, on the other hand, are pure culture war. Hence - as you say - the collection of racists, abortion crusaders, etc.

And yes, it helps that so many aspects of the culture war integrate so neatly with eliminating taxes for the rich. It almost adds up to a vision.

an electoral blowout would still be made up of many relatively close races, many hinging on the results of mail-in ballots. i do want it to be a landslide, but i still fear the extended litigation nightmare

yeah one scenario I can see happening is - in person voting is counted on election night, showing several swing states red, then as mail-in ballots get counted, they slowly flip to blue, causing Trump to tweet "all the fake news showed I was WINNING and now I am LOSING....this is fraudulent, cancel the election?" - iirc he did something similar in a recent election but I can't remember which one

that is if mail-in voting favors Dems - I know it usually doesn't, but it probably will this time

All voting is going to favor Dems because we're going to kick their asses from here to Kankakee

not a ton of EC votes in the mid-Atlantic iirc, maybe shoot for "here to Hawaii"

dammit

I'd go with "Old Maui"

fwiw I think f hazel is right - I respectfully suggest that sic is overestimating the power of political messaging to budge people out of tribal allegiance with talk of "representing their interests."

Like, I try to imagine a group of very intelligent, eloquent, and persuasive Republicans showing up at my doorstep and convincing me that I've been wrong all this time, and that my truest interests lie with supporting their party and its candidates.

They show me charts. They cite respectable peer-reviewed journals. At some point, I say, "wow, you're right, the Laffer Curve is correct! Burdensome taxation and excessive regulation DO stifle entrepreneurship and therefore the betterment of humankind, including the plight of the downtrodden. I just never knew! And wow, you're also right about all these pesky culture-war issues that I used to think were important. Now I realize it's just liberal virtue-signaling, and doesn't actually help any people of color. People of color are best aided by economic growth! I realize now that trying to help them through welfare programs is paternalistic and condescending. Thanks, guys!"

This is not gonna happen. Nor is its opposite.

all you can do is imagine those people exist

I get being mad at people who vote dumbly! And I absolutely didn't say most of them could be convinced with better information. But you don't have to hate people who've been conned. My thinking on electoral politics is that I want policies which benefit the greatest possible majority of people, and imo it's helpful to actively hope that said people would have their lives benefited.

Also a big part of my thesis is that those chartwielding Republicans couldn't convince you because you are already thinking correctly.

sorry for party treeshing

lol

sic otm. in any case, that's how i think about these things. people are more their just their political allegiances -- some people don't even think about these things that much and just go along with what their community thinks. and right or wrong, those people aren't in the same moral category, for me, as mitch mcconnell. they're just people.

I heard the tail end of an interview with someone on the radio in a piece about party allegiance to certain policies. I think they were talking about immigration, and specifically DACA, and they had managed to dig up a person who supposedly tends to vote Democratic, but was anti-DACA, and I thought - who the fuck is this person?

People are complicated! I would not be at all shocked by a traditionally Democratic voter who grew up in a Democratic household and has stayed mostly Democrat — because they support public schools, Social Security, maybe even environmental protection — but also thinks "people should come here the right way" and is a little unnerved by seeing signs in Spanish popping up around the community.

There are probably some of them in my neighborhood, which is mostly lower-middle-class and has a lot of retirees and votes like 80 percent Democratic. (Also, that same person may well be on great terms with their new Latino neighbors, of whom there are a lot more now than 20 years ago.)

There was a poll taken just a few weeks ago that showed something like 70% of Trump supporters - not just conservative and Republicans at large, but specifically Trump supporters - support DACA, iirc. If 70% of *Trump supporters" are behind DACA, then a Democrat being against sounds like a pretty serious outlier.

Trump's Bank Was Subpoenaed by N.Y. Prosecutors in Criminal Inquiry

The New York prosecutors who are seeking President Trump’s tax records have also subpoenaed his longtime lender, a sign that their criminal investigation into Mr. Trump’s business practices is more wide-ranging than previously known.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office issued the subpoena last year to Deutsche Bank, which has been Mr. Trump’s primary lender since the late 1990s, seeking financial records that he and his company provided to the bank, according to four people familiar with the inquiry.

The criminal investigation initially appeared to be focused on hush-money payments made in 2016 to two women who have said they had affairs with Mr. Trump.

But in a court filing this week, prosecutors with the district attorney’s office cited “public reports of possibly extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization” and suggested that they were also investigating possible crimes involving bank and insurance fraud.

...

Deutsche Bank complied with the subpoena. Over a period of months last year, it provided Mr. Vance’s office with detailed records, including financial statements and other materials that Mr. Trump had provided to the bank as he sought loans.

Deutsche Bank’s cooperation with Mr. Vance’s office is significant because other investigations that have sought Mr. Trump’s financial records have been stymied by legal challenges from the president and his family.

Last month, the Supreme Court dealt a blow to congressional investigations into the president’s finances when it ordered lower courts to reconsider whether Deutsche Bank and Mazars USA, Mr. Trump’s accounting firm, had to comply with congressional subpoenas seeking his records. The ruling meant that the subpoenas would not be enforced until after the presidential election in November, if at all.

Mr. Vance’s office declined to comment.

August surprise?

👀 https://t.co/rzJzTk8OGw

— Renato Mariotti (@renato_mariotti) August 6, 2020

um

https://www.newsandguts.com/twitter-bans-trump-until-he-deletes-coronavirus-post/

(ftr, this is a thing Twitter does. I'm permabanned on three separate accounts for being brutal to Trumpers, but when you first break their rules, they tell you of your temporary suspension, then they make you go out there and delete the offending post, unlike Facebook who removes it for you. Then your temp ban ends and you can return to your stupid audience).

btw circumventing a ban only requires a new phone number, apparently. google voice must be doing great business amongst trolls.

I thought it was the trash account TeamTrump that was banned

you are apparently correct. meh.