rolling “Trump is gonna win” containment thread

Jiggery pokery

xxxp to Zelda - but that model presumes that a candidate winning a state is because of legit voting trends that then guide its understanding of how demographically/regionally similar states will vote. It does not account (I don't think) for state variations in shenanigans, LET ALONE chicanery & malarkey!

I can't help but marvel, in a very sad way, at how the Republican message has drifted so fully over the past four years to saying the quiet part out loud. They are just going all in on voter suppression by any means necessary, not even taking the time to pay lip service to the bullshit excuses about theoretical voter fraud. Nope, trying to prevent people from having their votes counted so that Rs can win without more votes is now just a central and explicit piece of their, um, "platform."

Biden's gonna win Pennsylvania.

Wisconsin is a bigger risk of being lost to chicanery, and even then, I don't think a great one.

Biden IS gonna win Pennsylvania, in terms of voter intention. But we won't know for a while, so it will be better for the nation if he doesn't have to.

Hate to be doctor doom but Gore won Florida in terms of voter intention (that is, more people left the booth believing they'd voted for him).

But the devil was in the details and the lawfare and how/when things got counted.

PA will go to Biden in terms of more people wanting him to be president. Trump could take it on the technicalities like postmark dates and overvotes / undervotes / spoiled ballots / ballots disqualified for lack of a notarized double-witnessed cursive signature in the right shade of ink.

Hence the wish that Biden doesn't need PA.

Neanderthal, why do you think Wisconsin is more prone to chicanery?

just because SCOTUS overruled the federal court and won't allow ballots to be received up to 3 days after Election Day. I don't think that'll result in enough discarded ballots for Biden to lose but it's more directly impactful

counterpoint: every single Dem voter I know here is well aware what the GOP is doing and either mailed in their ballot weeks ago or is dropping it off directly. the only people who aren't aware of this are the people whose news channels have been talking nonstop about Hunter Biden the last 2 weeks.

which i do have to give it to Dem messaging, has been a consistent bit of messaging state-wide since before the elections began.

NPR was talking with 5-38 yesterday. 5-38 mentioned that there will be a smaller error deviation in the polling results this year because of some reasons which I may have already forgot. That smaller room for error and the seeming lack of an October surprise hurting Biden are both good reasons to have hope.

However, like Lavator says, the chicanery & malarkey aren't accounted for (we think). I wager that cheating will play a major role this election. It's frightening 😬.

It has been indicated that in 2016 4% of mail-in-votes were not counted (signature mismatch, improperly bubbled-in/not following directions, and states that don't accept late ballots - sometimes even if they were mailed out on time). This year the same reasons that 4% of mail-in-votes didn't get counted in 2016 will remain in effect but also we are facing an outright attack on the post office. I hope people don't wait until the last minute to send in their ballot. Especially since I think democrats are the voters most likely to take advantage of this method; and, there is going to be a larger percentage of people voting by mail this year.

Trump could ABSOLUTELY WILL try to take it on the technicalities like postmark dates and overvotes / undervotes / spoiled ballots / ballots disqualified for lack of a notarized double-witnessed cursive signature in the right shade of ink.

The paperwork is already drawn up, they're not going to wait a second longer than necessary to start this process.

it happened in 04 and arguably is why Dubya won again

difference is a lot more people dropped off ballots this year, hopefully. I did (mostly because my idiot mailman kept seeing the flag up on the box and NOT TAKING THE MAIL I PUT IN THERE...but kept putting new mail on top of it)

NPR was talking with 5-38 yesterday. 5-38 mentioned that there will be a smaller error deviation in the polling results this year because of some reasons which I may have already forgot.

much less undecideds/3rd party votes this year

xxpost why are you writing it 5-38, it's 538 as in "the total number of EVs"

xxp frogbs, they also miscalculated the college educated white male vote or something like that

xp wrote 5-38 because it's not pronounced 5 hundred and 38 but whatever

https://www.npr.org/2020/10/28/928556186/whats-changed-since-polls-were-wrong-about-2016s-presidential-election

538: But by 2016, that got blown out of the water - white voters without a college degree preferring Donald Trump by a lot and white voters with a college degree preferring Hillary Clinton. Because we weren't paying close enough attention to that, we had too many college-educated voters in our sample, enough to inflate Hillary Clinton's overall share of the vote by one or two points. But the other things that we have to pay attention to is what Dhrumil was talking about, was conveying uncertainty.

Greil Marcus, never someone who can be accused of a sunny outlook: "I’d give him about a 75 percent chance, holding his wins from 2016 except for Michigan and Wisconsin, Trump 280-Biden 258"

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/real-life-rock-top-10-october-2020/

There's someone I always turn to for election forecasts

Greil Marcus huh? What's Xgau's take on this?

No input from elderly rock critics, society has progressed past the need for input from elderly rock critics.

Dick Clark says that Biden's got a good beat and is easy to dance to. Casey Kasem, however, indicates that there is still significant strength for Trump in the demographic that prefers a light string section and tight harmonies.

It's a tough call. Likely down to the wire, and Rick Dees may be the tiebreaker.

Disco Cuck

There's someone I always turn to for election forecasts

It's worth noting (again) that he had 2016 almost exactly right--in February, 2016.

In a presidential election, Nate Silver will prepare careful and accurate guides to what should happen, what is most likely to happen, but not what will happen: anything can happen. Add to this the disbelief on both sides that Trump could actually win, which energizes his followers and confirms his claims to outsider status, and add to that the fact that in many circles, particularly among better educated and better-off people, and particularly on the coasts, there are plenty of people who are attracted to Trump, who are secretly thrilled by the current of nihilism he is riding and the specter of destruction he embodies, but are keeping their mouths shut.

But I do think he's wrong this time (and possibly playing mind games with himself--say the unthinkable so it won't happen).

That's less a prediction and more a warning. Idk that even Silver would have disagreed with it

This tine Greil is attempting a prediction

clemenza, are we talking about Silver or Marcus?

This tine Greil is attempting a prediction

He's definitely identified a fork in the road

Marcus...I read it as a warning and a prediction. And he was definitely wrong about where Trump's support would come from ("particularly among better educated and better-off people"). Still, almost a year out, pretty good, I'd say.

"Marcus...I read it as a warning and a prediction."

How? He's a music critic first and foremost! Why listen to every dick and nancy w/ their own 'predicitons' other than having it rile you up?

He's a music critic first and foremost!

Marcus? Yes, and no. And it hardly riled me up. It was interesting.

I always get resistance when I quote that...even if you hate the guy, is it that hard to say, "Hmmm, pretty good call"? I don't remember a lot of other people allowing that Trump might win. I don't like Michael Moore, but I give him credit for seeing something everybody missed.

I've met Marcus several times. He moderated a panel I sat on in 2017 -- a gentlemen in private, if this term exists in 2020. But his position staggers me with its implicit admission of insularity. Not once does he acknowledge the work done by people Not Trump hoping to reverse the flow: the volunteers, the lawyers working on SCOTUS and local court challenges, etc. It's just this hand-throwing "Yup, he'll win, and I'll still have a berth from which I can opine on conspiracies and correspondences and echoes, etc."

Reading his post, I think at my most sinister that Marcus is signaling, "Don't worry, folks! I'll still write well during a Trump second term."

I'm quite sure he's aware of all that. He's an old guy who's seen a lot of horrible stuff. He's not a cheerleader--I don't know why a certain amount of fatalism would be so scandalous.

and, yeah, he was right in 2016. He's criticized Gore Vidal and others for writing with the smugness of certainty.

I'm quite sure he's aware of all that.

Probably, especially if you have dinner with him. That does not come across in his post.

"Don't worry, folks! I'll still write well during a Trump second term."

Really? Marcus is about the least self-aggrandizing rock critic I've ever read.

I wouldn't call it self-aggrandizing so much as the dreaded term "privileged." He's fine in California.

I just think he was really wrong about "...in many circles, particularly among better educated and better-off people, and particularly on the coasts, there are plenty of people who are attracted to Trump, who are secretly thrilled by the current of nihilism he is riding and the specter of destruction he embodies, but are keeping their mouths shut."

If I have to admit what most turned my stomach, it's how the Trump's Chances sentences he puts between dashes as asides. He's too sharp a writer for that kind of callousness.

"who are secretly thrilled by the current of nihilism he is riding"--I think he was right about that, he just had the wrong people who were thrilled.

I interviewed Marcus in 1986, and he contributed to my fanzine once. I wrote a book in 2014 that was important to me, sent it to him, and never got so much as a thanks--even though there was a chapter on him and other writers who'd influence me a lot. I said I was finished with Marcus at that point. It's only here, Michael Corleone-style, I get dragged into defending him.

feel like we need a second containment thread for "political predictions from 'professional' music critics who have no real authority besides having done this shit for way too long" tbh

I texted my mom today "Hopefully when I see you again our occupation by the orange idiot will be over." Her response:

"Yeah there's always hope I guess
I just don't think it's gonna pan out for us this time.
Do I think he will legitimately win?
No
Do I think he's gonna stay in office?
Fraid so"

What are they doing to these poor boomers?! I mean, I think there's certainly a chance she's proven right but damn, mom, so fatalistic already?

Jesus, he's a writer, he's allowed to write whatever the fuck he wants.

glad that's settled

Sure, but why are people listening to a music critic dancing to politics?

xp

"who have no real authority"

I have no earthly idea what that means. Who grants this authority, and where do we sign up?

LBI: whether you like Marcus or despise him, calling him a music critic is an extremely narrow description of what he does. He writes about everything. His last book was on The Great Gatsby (haven't read it, and I'm not sure if he leap-frogged his zone of authority).

there's a certain self-conscious "tough guy" un-emotional glibness to writers like marcus. it's not the prediction, it's the stupid trappings of a persona that no one has needed for thirty years being shoved unwanted into a beehive of anxiety. ham-fisted, no empathy. pretty much a failure at writing by any metric that means anything imo.

Clemenza, you are right about that. And I don't like nor despise him, but from an outsider view (I am an outsider) it does seem like Americans are quoting everyone and no-one, from Nate Silver to Marcus, to back up either their fears or hopes about the outcome of the election. If that's "just" (not saying this lightly) anxiety about Tuesday, I get that. But I don't think Greil Marcus, despite his wide array of topics covered, is an expert on polling/predictions of elections etc.

Tl;dr: It's getting hot in here.