US election 2020 thread

[Sue]

Rabbit Hash, Kentucky.

 

[rubbershoes]

Americans hate losers. And all those voters who were too shy to confess to pollsters that they were going to vote trump will be joined by ranks of others who will retrospectively believe that they never supported him. He won't be remembered as the incumbent who got the highest ever total vote.

There appear to be many Americans who don't believe he lost and accept the fraud bullshit. The righteous fury of people who think their man has been cheated out of a second term could rise in 2024.

 

[planetgeli]

It's a sample size of one but my trump-voting relative claimed that he likes trump because of the way he talks, not using long words, not talking down to you like all those new york people do, but that was a lie. He voted trump again because he doesn't want to pay higher tax and trump's tax breaks helped him, thats it.
It was pure self interest dressed up as 'i'm just a simple uneducated guy and he's a straight talker'.

Well that sounds like any run of the mill RP voter to me. But it's not run of the mill RP voters who have produced such a massive turnout in this election. Without Trump this turnout would not be in the 70s, it would be back in the 50s or low 60s like always.

Trump is the phenomenon that has produced this high turnout on both sides. Lots of people who wouldn't normally vote, on both sides. And when discussing that we have to look for reasons to what Trump tapped into on both sides. And that makes it about a lot more than tax breaks.

 

[eoin_k]

Listening to CNN online with the service pausing during advertisements makes you realise that it really is an advertising channel with news breaks.

 

[2hats]

Georgia poll worker in hiding after false claims online

ATLANTA (AP) — With all eyes on Georgia’s razor-thin presidential vote margin, falsehoods are swirling on social media about supposed ballot counting irregularities there.

apnews.com

 

[planetgeli]

There appear to be many Americans who don't believe he lost and accept the fraud bullshit. The righteous fury of people who think their man has been cheated out of a second term could rise in 2024.

I'm guessing that's probably around the same percentage who don't think climate change or racism are a problem. And it's not much of a Venn diagram.

 

[prunus]

Trump's gestures were just really weird, its true. That thing where he was playing an invisible accordion a lot for instance, definitely novel. I don't think this is what drew people to him though.

Gained him a lot of traction with the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone community though I gather.

 

[gosub]

 

[prunus]

Rabbit Hash, Kentucky.

Fairly sure I bought some of that off a guy in the street when I was a naive young thing

 

[steveseagull]

 

[bimble]

I wonder if the way everyone's hanging on now watching the tv and really caring about every single piddly batch of votes that gets announced will mean that turnout will be higher than usual in future too or will it just go back to where to was.

 

[Wilf]

Christ, had to stop that before I was sick.

This is the stuff redsquirrel was warning about guys. It’s pathetic.

… and a truly dreadful example of the genre, both in the politics and the graphics, but especially the politics. It's difficult to think of a worse reaction to Trump's defeat, liberals (and neoliberals) as heroes, my oh my.

 

[flypanam]

Aye the world’s problems used only need one superhero to save it, now the world is so fucked we need a whole army of them, and they just cause the same amount of damage as the villain...

 

[tim]

I don't see this would happen anywhere in the South tbh. Black voters in the South know exactly how the battle lines are drawn and that hasn't changed for centuries

I'm not too sure what that means. Firstly, with the exception of the brief hiatus after the Civil War during the "Reconstruction Era" there were very few black voters in the American South until the 1960s. Secondly, traditionally the Democratic Party more specifically its "Southern Democrat" wing, was the party of overt American racists like: James O Eastland, George Wallace, Robert Byrd, and Strom Thurmond, some of whom remained in office as until recently enough for Biden to have worked in friendly collaboration with them. It was only in the late sixties under Nixon and Goldwater that the Republicans, whose strength was until then in the North adopted their " Southern Strategy" appealing to alienated white Conservatives/racists, thereby coming to dominate the South politically, displacing the Democrats.

Political parties change their strategies and the electorate regardless of ethnicity change their allegiances as their interests change.

 

[Idaho]

There appear to be many Americans who don't believe he lost and accept the fraud bullshit. The righteous fury of people who think their man has been cheated out of a second term could rise in 2024.

My guess is that these are a very vocal and media attractive (click-wise) group. We'll hear all about them under exciting headlines for a good while. But do they really matter more than systemic racism, inequality, poverty, l lack of healthcare, covid - and all the other critical stuff facing the country?

 

[steveseagull]

Listening to CNN online with the service pausing during advertisements makes you realise that it really is an advertising channel with news breaks.

Yes it is the same two or three tedious CNN promo adverts on the online version. I am watching the US version on my Firestick and it is proper adverts (mainly for pharma and insurance)

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I'm not too sure what that means. Firstly, with the exception of the brief hiatus after the Civil War during the "Reconstruction Era" there were very few black voters in the American South until the 1960s. Secondly, traditionally the Democratic Party more specifically its "Southern Democrat" wing, was the party of overt American racists like: James O Eastland, George Wallace, Robert Byrd, and Strom Thurmond, some of whom remained in office as until recently enough for Biden to have worked in friendly collaboration with them. It was only in the late sixties under Nixon and Goldwater that the Republicans, whose strength was until then in the North adopted their " Southern Strategy" appealing to alienated white Conservatives/racists, thereby coming to dominate the South politically, displacing the Democrats.

Political parties change their strategies and the electorate regardless of ethnicity change their allegiances as their interests change.

An electorate seeking to combat white supremacy in the South once upon a time voted Republican if it voted at all. Today it votes Democrat. But the battle line is the same.

 

[ginger_syn]

This is just brilliant:

Brilliants a bit much to be fair but it funny.

 

[cupid_stunt]

Listening to CNN online with the service pausing during advertisements makes you realise that it really is an advertising channel with news breaks.

I've been watching it on Freesat, which will be the same as on Sky, to be on those platforms they need a OFCOM licence, which even if they could sell enough ads to fill the ad breaks they are running across the pond, they wouldn't be able to air them here, because of the limits on the amount of ads per hour in the UK, so they use 'fillers' instead.

I tend to pause it, whilst I do something else, than start it again & skip the 'ad breaks', it's the only way I can make it bearable to watch.

 

[bimble]

The adverts on fox are excellent.

 

[The39thStep]

 

[Lord Camomile]

Frank Bainimarama, the Prime Minister of Fiji, has congratulated Biden on his election success

 

[ska invita]

Trouble is with these looking back something in motion things is that it isnt a linear path nor was it inevitable. Did anyone on here argue that when Obama was elected that a candidate like Trump would/could win the election?

I wasnt making a case for a straight line - dialectics!! though the big buttons of friendly fascism have been being pushed for decades in the US. W Bush and his cronies was particularly shocking to me..... a far scarier president that Trump IMO. Though if 9/11 happened under Trump it wouldve been carnage too. Hard to imagine how it might have been different under Obama.

Obamas election (with its promise of 'Change') isnt that relevant here, but the 2008 financial crash and subsequent slow economic deterioration definitely is - that did make certain things inevitable i think, and people did make that case as the situation slowly unfolded. The impact has been delayed...Obama held some of the excesses of that back with a massive stimulus package - much bigger than happened in Europe IIRC = put $800billion+ dollars on the deficit (a quick search tells me). Ongoing QE and socialism for the banks/rich likewise in the UK

But the other thing that happened is that post 2008 the far right slowly got strategic and found new methods of operating and angles - based on historic principles, but novel in execution - and got good at exploiting a post 2008 landscape.

 

[ska invita]

The most common thread I've seen in Trump's supporters language hasn't been about policy - it's been "he speaks our language".

yeah but he's saying quite specific things and its common thread is scapegoating. much of the territory is one that a good leftist populist could easily claim ground on though (fake news and draining the swamp in particular)

only Trump can do Trumpism - he's a unique case - but I feel certain the general authoritarian global trend is going nowhere....material conditions make sure of that. i tend to be a bit of a doomsayer which clouds my judgement, but this incarnation of global capitalism does seem to be seriously running out of rails, and the only thing that will get it to the next few stations closer to hell is authoritarianism/neo-fascism of some shape and form. Marxists may have been saying this kind of thing for decades - capitalism has proved very adaptable and proved them wrong - but for a variety of reasons and factors things seem different now. Climate change and the necessary degree of state intervention into the economic system are unprecedented.

...ufff...all too much for a saturday!

 

[2hats]

Frank Bainimarama, the Prime Minister of Fiji, has congratulated Biden on his election success

Well they are at least 17 hours ahead of the US.

 

[bimble]

oh he's awake.

 

[teqniq]

What 'legacy' is this I wonder?

 

[JTG]

I'm not too sure what that means. Firstly, with the exception of the brief hiatus after the Civil War during the "Reconstruction Era" there were very few black voters in the American South until the 1960s. Secondly, traditionally the Democratic Party more specifically its "Southern Democrat" wing, was the party of overt American racists like: James O Eastland, George Wallace, Robert Byrd, and Strom Thurmond, some of whom remained in office as until recently enough for Biden to have worked in friendly collaboration with them. It was only in the late sixties under Nixon and Goldwater that the Republicans, whose strength was until then in the North adopted their " Southern Strategy" appealing to alienated white Conservatives/racists, thereby coming to dominate the South politically, displacing the Democrats.

Political parties change their strategies and the electorate regardless of ethnicity change their allegiances as their interests change.

Yeah I know

Same struggle, fought by different means over centuries

 

[JTG]

Trump is the phenomenon that has produced this high turnout on both sides. Lots of people who wouldn't normally vote, on both sides. And when discussing that we have to look for reasons to what Trump tapped into on both sides. And that makes it about a lot more than tax breaks.

To an extent, though the pandemic and the increased access to postal voting must also have played a part

 

[tim]

An electorate seeking to combat white supremacy in the South once upon a time voted Republican if it voted at all. Today it votes Democrat. But the battle line is the same.

Firstly, people who were denied the right to vote, the disenfranchised can not be classed as a non-voting part of an electorate. Your "if" implies that people who couldn't vote chose not to vote. I know that is not what you meant to say, but I think it is worth being pedantic

Secondly I was replying to posts that seemed to suggest that rural African Americans in the South had a long-standing loyalty to the Democratic Party. This seems unlikely to be true as the Democrats were for well over a century, the partly of legalised and murderously enforced white supremacy.