American Politics

[M3J]

Why are you posting that again if no one responded few days ago?

 

[kkck]

*siiiiiiiggggggghhhhhhhhtttttt*

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 11, 2020, Original Post Date: Dec 9, 2020 ---

At this point I am just wondering how much damage trump's lies about the election have caused... And seeing basically the entire republican party getting behind this lunacy... It's genuinely difficult to fathom. Trump just might have just destroyed everything on his way out.

 

[M3J]

Brandon Bernard's execution shows just how anti-life USA is

 

[kkck]

I do not support the death penalty on principle but why give his case specifically any importance? The guy actually did what he was accused of, the murder of 2 completely innocent people.

 

[Sanity Check]

*siiiiiiiggggggghhhhhhhhtttttt*

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 11, 2020, Original Post Date: Dec 9, 2020 ---

At this point I am just wondering how much damage trump's lies about the election have caused... And seeing basically the entire republican party getting behind this lunacy... It's genuinely difficult to fathom. Trump just might have just destroyed everything on his way out.

I wish he wouldn't cite a 97% statistic.

Its the probability of Hillary winning the election, cited by polls in 2016.

It may also be the probability of the atlanta falcons winning the superbowl in that year when Tom Brady and the patriots came back to smash them.

 

[M3J]

I do not support the death penalty on principle but why give his case specifically any importance? The guy actually did what he was accused of, the murder of 2 completely innocent people.

No he didn't, which is why people are angry that he was executed. Bernard had no role in their deaths directly, Vialva shot them both in the head. After new info came out, five jurors said they'd have changed his sentence to life imprisonment. Not only that, but he changed for the better and helped others as well, he did what people claim prisons are supposed to do: rehabilitate.

The only reason why he was given the death penalty is because AG Barr is trying to get Black men executed. This whole system is racist, and Bernard was murdered because he's Black, and no other reason. Dylann Roof, Kyle Rittenhouse, etc are alive and/or free.

Brandon Bernard executed for role in 1999 murder of couple

Brandon Bernard was executed Thursday for his involvement in a 1999 murder, despite pleas for a commutation from former jurors, criminal justice advocates and celebrities.

www.cbsnews.com

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 12, 2020, Original Post Date: Dec 12, 2020 ---

Also, as that article in the end said, Trump and Barr are pushing for more Black people to be murdered, and that's so fucked up. How do we stop them from succeeding?

 

[McNuss]

Makes them lose their money and possibly go into debt, for being idiots.

I feel there's an agenda behind Trump's behavior though. Why would he spend so much time on insisting he's won and that the election is fraud?

Yes, there is an agenda.

For Trump it is all about the attention. That's where he draws his actual power from.

Remember his biggest success is neither the presidency nor his real estate business, but his TV show, The Apprentice.

Attention is a powerful force. You can held a long and boring speech, everyone will fall asleep, but if you suddenly start clapping you will get everyone's attention.

There is also this video where two groups of students with different colored t-shirts throw balls between each other and you have to count the throws. Midway through the video, someone in a gorilla costume walks through the screen. Many people tasked with counting the throws won't notice this gorilla at all, their attention has been stolen.

Due to losing the election, Trump is naturally losing the attention of the people. He counteracts this with, well, this. This isn't really about the presidency anymore, it it about the core of his power that is actually crumbling. He can't go back to The Apprentice.

He won't have his way with it. Once Biden is inaugurated, media will move away from Trump.

Speaking of attention, it is definitely not a coincidence that Barack Obama has just published his most recent book NOW.

 

[M3J]

I also think Trump's behavior right now will influence the 2024 election, possibly helping him/Republicans.

 

[hokageji]

Trump is surely running again in 2024, not sure if its going to be Don, Don Jr, or Ivanka.....

Cos he'll be around to support the kids too.... and that's enough.

 

[M3J]

Or at least a republican, and they can use this election to their advantage.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 19, 2020, Original Post Date: Dec 18, 2020 ---

Shit like this is why I'm so anti-Republican/anti-right. They're absolute evil and shitty.

 

[shionoro]

The question really is whether Trump's behavior will help democrats in georgia.
If they do it successfully, they could make the senate runoff another referendum on Trump which they'd have a good shot at winning again.


On the one hand, there were more people supporting biden than the democratic senator contenders, which makes it probably that a significant amount of people voted red senate but blue presidency.

Usually, the black support especially wanes in the runoff, which cost democrats lots of senate elections in georgia. But this time, some factors help them:

• Georgia is going to decide the senate, so there is a bigger importance on going to vote here.
• There is a boost in motivation for georgia democrat leaning people to vote again because they just flipped the state.
• Loeffler and Purdue are bad candidates that are relatively vulnerable.
• Trump is not playing for the Team. He goes out and tells people to vote red, which will have an effect, but on the other hand, he raises money for himself instead for the senate candidates and does not push back hard against the 'dont vote' movement. There might be a small but significant margin of people who like trump but still will not vote, especially after Biden got confirmed now even by Mc Connell as president elect.
• Stacey Abrams is doing amazing work and democrats are catching up to it finally. They listen to her more, they are willing to give funds. That is important, they seem to have wised up and appeal to the black population in georgia more than just putting out a candidate they think white conservatives might vote for.

So far, the turnout regarding ballot requests and early voting looks promising. I will not Jinx anything here and this is still a toss up, but at least I think that democrats are not in a hopeless situation when it comes to winning both seats.

 

[Newkerzy]

The question really is whether Trump's behavior will help democrats in georgia.
If they do it successfully, they could make the senate runoff another referendum on Trump which they'd have a good shot at winning again.


On the one hand, there were more people supporting biden than the democratic senator contenders, which makes it probably that a significant amount of people voted red senate but blue presidency.

Usually, the black support especially wanes in the runoff, which cost democrats lots of senate elections in georgia. But this time, some factors help them:

• Georgia is going to decide the senate, so there is a bigger importance on going to vote here.
• There is a boost in motivation for georgia democrat leaning people to vote again because they just flipped the state.
• Loeffler and Purdue are bad candidates that are relatively vulnerable.
• Trump is not playing for the Team. He goes out and tells people to vote red, which will have an effect, but on the other hand, he raises money for himself instead for the senate candidates and does not push back hard against the 'dont vote' movement. There might be a small but significant margin of people who like trump but still will not vote, especially after Biden got confirmed now even by Mc Connell as president elect.
• Stacey Abrams is doing amazing work and democrats are catching up to it finally. They listen to her more, they are willing to give funds. That is important, they seem to have wised up and appeal to the black population in georgia more than just putting out a candidate they think white conservatives might vote for.

So far, the turnout regarding ballot requests and early voting looks promising. I will not Jinx anything here and this is still a toss up, but at least I think that democrats are not in a hopeless situation when it comes to winning both seats.

Stacey Abrams has been on the radar for a while, I wouldn’t be surprised if she had a better shot in 2024. Hell, here’s a long-shot candidate: Adam Silver.

 

[shionoro]

Stacey Abrams has been on the radar for a while, I wouldn’t be surprised if she had a better shot in 2024. Hell, here’s a long-shot candidate: Adam Silver.

She almost won before. Honestly, I think if she manages to flip georgia blue a second time, only little can stop her if she tries.
And that is not the end of it. What works in georgia might also work in other southern states for democrats. If they find a winning strategy for georgia, i would not be surprised if they improve their overall performance.

I know people here are not especially Biden fans (while I am absolutely fine with Biden, I think he is an honest politician as far as honesty in politics goes), but Biden might be very useful to win the midterms, no matter whether they win georgia or not.
Democrats struggle in the more rural states, but a guy like Biden who is really cozy with the Gop takes the edge of 'they are all leftist extremists' from them.

That alone is not going to win a senate race, but coupled with an effective strategy for the state it does takes one of their strongest bullets from the republicans that did in fact help them to win a lot of house races this time.

The other question would be if biden is able to do that while still maintaining workable relations to the democrat left wing.

 

[kkck]

I don't think this year is much of a reference to anything, election wise. You have trump, a historically unpopular president, a pandemic... compounded with people voting against trump. It almost didn't matter that it was biden running...

For the next midterms to be good for democrats... *sight* Welp, biden needs to get shit that people like done. But he isn't actually likely to win the senate, he wants to work with republicans who will take every concession biden makes and give nothing back, and in general just isn't running on anything. All biden will have left is foreign policy, which isn't exactly what people in the US specifically care about.

Senate wise, the current state of things is probably as good as it gets for democrats in the foreseeable future. If the georgia race doesn't favor democrats now then it's a pretty safe bet it won't get much better in the future, when trump is less of a factor and republicans have milked biden for all he is worth.

Biden just isn't really running on anything nor does he have a winning strategy. He keeps telling people he will work with the party that tried to end democracy... Add to that 2/3s of all republicans believing biden and democrats in general run massive child sex trafficking rings who then get harvested for brain juice to get high or something. Trump lost but... things look bleak.

 

[M3J]

I can see the GA dems losing because Biden hasn't inspired Dems and the left to keep voting, Trump keeps playing it off as unfair election and inspires the reps to vote even more, and Reps will try to play dirty to win. I hope I'm wrong since as shitty as most Dems are, I'd rather they control things over the Reps.

 

[kkck]

I can see the GA dems losing because Biden hasn't inspired Dems and the left to keep voting, Trump keeps playing it off as unfair election and inspires the reps to vote even more, and Reps will try to play dirty to win. I hope I'm wrong since as shitty as most Dems are, I'd rather they control things over the Reps.

Well, it generally isn't good for your own odds to make the case that elections are literally fraudulent. So it's basically a battle between biden not really giving anyone a reason to vote and trump telling his base their vote is pointless.

 

[shionoro]

I don't think this year is much of a reference to anything, election wise. You have trump, a historically unpopular president, a pandemic... compounded with people voting against trump. It almost didn't matter that it was biden running...

For the next midterms to be good for democrats... *sight* Welp, biden needs to get shit that people like done. But he isn't actually likely to win the senate, he wants to work with republicans who will take every concession biden makes and give nothing back, and in general just isn't running on anything. All biden will have left is foreign policy, which isn't exactly what people in the US specifically care about.

Senate wise, the current state of things is probably as good as it gets for democrats in the foreseeable future. If the georgia race doesn't favor democrats now then it's a pretty safe bet it won't get much better in the future, when trump is less of a factor and republicans have milked biden for all he is worth.

Biden just isn't really running on anything nor does he have a winning strategy. He keeps telling people he will work with the party that tried to end democracy... Add to that 2/3s of all republicans believing biden and democrats in general run massive child sex trafficking rings who then get harvested for brain juice to get high or something. Trump lost but... things look bleak.

I don't think things look bleak right now. First of all, Biden might be more successful than Obama in striking deals with republicans. This is not about republican niceness and 'giving things back', this is about knowing how they work and finding offers that they cannot refuse well.
What cannot be forgot: With Trump out of the picture, that does not mean democrat chances decline. Trump was very unpopular by the end of his term, but Trump was also a huge driver of voters that ONLY came for him. In important states. These people might be lost for the GOP with the drama unfolding right now.

About the Senate: Democrats have a great chance to flip/retain the senate in 2022. The reason for that is lies in the system. Simply put, there are mostly republican seats up for grabs and only few vulnerable democrat ones.
Of these races, right now (which, admittedly, is early, but in american politics you can usually tell these things long in advance) only few get counted as potentially competitive (like, california will elect a democratic senator, but florida might not pick a republican one).
Of the competitive ones, it is a toss up that very slightly skews towards the democrats.

Biden is probably not going to push through with very divisive matters, even in a 50/50 senate. That also means that the usual pattern of midtermflipping (because lots of voters are angry) might play less of a role here.

In my opinion, democrats' biggest problem here is the house. But they can find a proper messaging until then.

 

[kkck]

I don't think things look bleak right now. First of all, Biden might be more successful than Obama in striking deals with republicans. This is not about republican niceness and 'giving things back', this is about knowing how they work and finding offers that they cannot refuse well.
What cannot be forgot: With Trump out of the picture, that does not mean democrat chances decline. Trump was very unpopular by the end of his term, but Trump was also a huge driver of voters that ONLY came for him. In important states. These people might be lost for the GOP with the drama unfolding right now.

About the Senate: Democrats have a great chance to flip/retain the senate in 2022. The reason for that is lies in the system. Simply put, there are mostly republican seats up for grabs and only few vulnerable democrat ones.
Of these races, right now (which, admittedly, is early, but in american politics you can usually tell these things long in advance) only few get counted as potentially competitive (like, california will elect a democratic senator, but florida might not pick a republican one).
Of the competitive ones, it is a toss up that very slightly skews towards the democrats.

Biden is probably not going to push through with very divisive matters, even in a 50/50 senate. That also means that the usual pattern of midtermflipping (because lots of voters are angry) might play less of a role here.

In my opinion, democrats' biggest problem here is the house. But they can find a proper messaging until then.

Democrat's have had a severe messaging problem since... obamacare got passed at least. Going into 2016, hillary pretty much didn't run on anything. Her campaign was associated with no policy. She pretty much ran on not being trump and lost. Then coming 2016... you have biden's campaign that also didn't really run on any policy. His main message was basically that he wasn't trump and that he was a decent guy. And the only reason it didn't fail spectacularly was because people showed up to vote against trump. Trump lost but that doesn't mean democrats stand for anything nowadays.

 

[shionoro]

Democrat's have had a severe messaging problem since... obamacare got passed at least. Going into 2016, hillary pretty much didn't run on anything. Her campaign was associated with no policy. She pretty much ran on not being trump and lost. Then coming 2016... you have biden's campaign that also didn't really run on any policy. His main message was basically that he wasn't trump and that he was a decent guy. And the only reason it didn't fail spectacularly was because people showed up to vote against trump. Trump lost but that doesn't mean democrats stand for anything nowadays.

I think people are underestimating biden severely.
Biden had a message, and a pretty strong one: Unity. And that message was powerful independent from Trump. That is what net him the primary, it is what net him the presidency.
Trump is not an easy target. Even with Corona, the incumbent bonus and his base, coupled with the republican voter suppression would have made it hard for any candidate to win.
Biden won. He also won against sanders. He also won against Buttigieg and Warren which were embraced by the obama crowd. While everybody thought he is to old and telling him his campaigning is bad.

The truth is that biden's campaign was incredibly competent at what they did.

It all sounds easy when you are not the guy who is campaigning. Now people say 'biden had to do nothing, he just let trump defeat himself'.
Well, when Biden was campaigning, freaked out liberals shouted at him to get out more and he was ridiculed as basement dweller. It worked, it was the winning move against trump, who you cannot compete with on the ground of attention.

Biden, unlike clinton, was able to get people like Sanders to campaign for him in a believable way (he campaigned for clinton, but the two would not even shake hands on some occasions, it was clear sanders despised her. It is also clear sanders genuinely likes Biden, even tho their policies differ).
He was able to get republicans on stage to campaign for him, showing that he meant it with the unity message.

People told Biden he is bad at campaigning and to old throughout all the year. And these people all lost, or the candidates they embraced lost. Biden won, and they kept and keep on telling how uninspiring he is and how democrats cannot win like that.

Trump is not only an obstacle to the GOP. He is also an asset. The GOP civil war right now will hurt them on the long run and is far more severe than any leftie/moderate divide in the democrat party ever was. Trump drove a lot of turnout of people who would not have voted the republican party otherwise. The storyline of him diminishing their chances to win is, in my opinion, a misleading one.

The best tools of the republican party against democrats is fear of the left. That is how they made gains in the house, because they demonized defund the police and even moderate democrats with it.
Biden is exactly the antithesis of that. He is not the guy who will build a socialist utopia (which i, as a utopia socialist do not find ideal), but he certainly is the guy who can legitimately embrace the unity message and that is RARE in modern US politics.

And he and his campaign executed that message and strategy with very little fuck ups. People talked about Biden's gaffes and claimed he does not know where he even is... While Biden kept winning. Against the people saying that. It boggles my mind how people still think it is Biden of all people who has a messaging problem.

The problem of democrats is not that they have no message. It is that they cannot find consensus about how to bring their message out, which is used by the republicans to distort the messages.
Biden is very useful in not letting that happen, because it gets more unbelievable even for republicans (and i hang out on their social media) that biden is some kind of radical.
But similarly, Biden is honest and fair enough as a politician for people like sanders and warren to not rip him apart, which can help him to actually have workable relationships to both the left and the moderate republicans.

He is, at the moment, the right guy for the job and the right guy to reclaim the senate and keep the house. There is a bigger problem with Nancy Pelosi and the countless of house and senate democrats that do not have their messaging sorted out. It is not Biden's fault.

 

[xi0]

About the Senate: Democrats have a great chance to flip/retain the senate in 2022. The reason for that is lies in the system. Simply put, there are mostly republican seats up for grabs and only few vulnerable democrat ones.

You're ignoring the factor of how Biden's first year or so in office will play into it. Midterm elections are largely a referendum on the current administration. Even if Senate Republicans get blame for blocking every piece of legislation put forth, people will still vote Republican if Biden is seen as ineffective. And let's be honest, many people will see that regardless of what he does.