I respectfully disagree. Think of all the witnesses! Hundreds! Surprise testimony! It will be a total circus.
I would indeed be greatly disappointed but also not terribly surprised if he ends up with a slap on the wrist.
No, thank you.
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That’s so strange. Have many more journalists been hired in the past four years? Is there some kind of booming news economy that I haven’t heard of? I don’t get this bit at all.
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It is a reality show, and we’re chumps for struggling against that. How does one exploit the nature of reality shows to the benefit of humanity?
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Hey, I’ve been suggesting to people that we out-distract the Distractor-in-Chief for a long time now, but no one will listen. 
What’s that, Mr. President? You want to be on Mount Rushmore! Sure, no problem. Let’s set up a committee to review the requirements. We’re going to need to raise outside funds, so let me know which donors to contact first. Also, we’ll need your approval on an image to use, so we need to you look through some samples before we set up a focus group to give us feedback. It’s gonna take several meetings per week to make this happen ASAP, along with all your other great ideas. We’ll make sure to put those into your calendar, working around your golf schedule, of course…
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The polls have one major, huge problem with them. They poll registered voters on how they would vote. They even go so far as to split out the voters who are likely to vote (based on their past history). However, this year, especially, there’s some very significant wrenches in the gears which were not nearly such big issues previously:
- There’s a pandemic.
- Huge swaths of the country plan to vote by mail.
- Trump is going to prevent a huge number of those mail-in votes from being counted. Most especially in those areas likely to vote against him.
- Trump is going to prevent in-person voting in many areas.
a) He’s successfully disabled the Post Office’s ability to deliver the mail in time for election by removing the required mail-sorting machines and the new rules which disallow postal workers from doing their jobs properly. In many states, only 1 month to mail in an application for an absentee ballot, have that application processed, and the ballot mailed to the voter, and the voter to fill out and mail the ballot back to the polls. With it taking up to 2 weeks (or more) for each of those mailing trips, that means huge number ballots cannot possibly arrive in time to be counted. And, on top of that, he’s fighting tooth and nail in the courts to prohibit jurisdictions from setting up ballot drop-boxes that people can use to bypass the post office delays. Plus setting the stage to prohibit in-person voting for those folks who apply for an absentee ballot, but do not receive one in time. This means that millions of votes in urban (mostly democratic) areas will not be counted. And he is suing to disallow absentee ballots in democratic areas from being allowed to be counted even if they make it on time.
b) He’s going to extreme lengths to create chaos in urban (democratic) areas. Sending in his extra-legal SS troops and terrorist militias to terrorize the population (expect to see curfews, blockades, and all sorts of problems the closer we get to election day)
c) He’s declared that federal money cannot be sent to support urban (democratic) areas (despite those same areas being where the vast bulk of that money came from in the first place). That means no federal money for polling places, or workers to man those polls, or the equipment to vote with. Many polling sites will find themselves without the equipment or people to keep those machines running, leading to long lines, and/or closed polling sites. Vital transportation (roads, buses, trains, etc) will be without the money which is needed to keep running, so public transportation will be greatly affected, preventing many people from being able to get to the voting locations. Meaning millions of people will find themselves unable vote in person either.
Imagine the election results of New York, without most of the votes from NYC. Imagine Illinois without most of the votes from the Chicago area. Imagine Pennsylvania without Philadelphia voters. Imagine Michigan without Detroit voters. Imagine California without the votes from LA, The Bay area, Sacramento, or San Diego.
Even many Blue states would turn Red if the urban residents are prevented from voting and having their votes counted, never mind the swing states. That is what Trump is doing. A strategy of blocking likely democratic voters from voting. And it’s working.
So no matter what the polls say, if Biden voters are prevented from voting, he cannot win. The polls have not been taking that into account.
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“Mr. President, the poll numbers suggest people want socialized healthcare. Think how your ratings would skyrocket if you champion this thing people love!”
And then Trump tells his followers they want socialized healthcare, and that he invented it, and then they want it, and then we get it.
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Wow. I think you’ve crystallized my fears for our neighbours to the South. I keep thinking the US seems almost inevitably heading towards civil war but could not seriously imagine the sort of apocalyptic scenario I associate with the term “civil war”.
Your analogy (which I hadn’t considered) fits perfectly with what I think are the facts on the ground.
I’m not certain whether your supposition makes me feel better (because it involves 1,000 times less deaths) or worse (because it now seems a 1,000 times more plausible).
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I can distill it for you. Trump is polarizing. He enrages people. Because of that, he drives clicks. Clicks equal ad views (and more clicks). Trump is, sadly, the best thing to happen to media since, sadly, 9/11.
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And votes.
I get that, but have more journalists been hired, who would be let go if “clicks” were to decrease? I’d like, I guess, some numbers on journalist employment over the past 4 years. I suppose you’d need some definition of “journalist” to go along with that too, but something. I’m just not buying that Clicks = money paid to journalists.
Here’s a recent article in a magazine I read:
don’t lose hope, but don’t get complacent.
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It’s the same with the Tories in the UK. The press always just assumed they are better for the economy. In reality they steer the country into crises that subsequent Labour governments then have to solve. But of course that means that generally it feels like the economy is worse under Labour and just when they manage to get it going again they are voted out and another Tory government can reap the benefits of their work.
They even managed to pin the world wide financial crisis of 2008 on Labour!
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All good things go to die in the land of corporate dystopia. There’s no real profit in “journalism”, so there is a lack of journalists. When newsrooms went on the chopping block because “you cost money we can’t afford” (ie, our rich investors deserve higher dividends), there was little anyone could or would do to save them. You end up with rich benefactors like Jeff Bezos bailing out newspapers and hoping like hell they’ll let the organization run with the former integrity it has. Too often, that does not happen (see: Sinclair media purchases).
Upshot: everything that is wrong with modern American society can be described by two factors, which have worked hand-in-hand throughout our history - greed, and systemic racism.
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No, it’s more complex than that. Fewer, hungrier journalists. There aren’t newsrooms anymore. (Only a few remain.) Now things are more like a gig economy with a giant bunch of journalist freelancers, more or less. Or think of it like an umbrella or a corrall. So they are worried about their parent companies’ viability and so they do the master’s bidding, while looking over their shoulder, fearful of their own economic future. It’s not more clicks = more journalists. It’s, more clicks = the company lasts longer during uncertainty and can pay the existing workforce without making cuts.
Therefore, bring in the clicks if you know what’s good for you.
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The most important thing to remember is that Biden can’t win. No one will vote for him and Trump is unbeatable by anyone- except my person, of course.
Never mind that he came from behind with no money and swamped the primaries. That he’s stayed ahead by huge numbers and Trump got no bounce from his convention. That Trump is running out of money. That Trump doesn’t know how to campaign during a crisis like this. That Trump’s act has worn thin and people see him for what he is more and more. That Biden capitalized immediately at the latest leaks about his statements in fallen service members- and this shows that Trump’s insiders are actively trying to sink him.
People have just internalized their own talking points from the primary and still adhere to that bible and can’t go forward. And think that everyone must be motivated by fear.
Trump is weak - after all he’s done I’m motivated by winning - and vengeance. I’m pissed off and want to kick Trump’s ass.
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Let’s just say if 45 loses, refuses the election results and starts a coup, I don’t want to be in the “running to buy TP at Costco” phase. Just covering all the bases.
A clear win will not lead to chaos. Just more of the same monkeyshines we’ve been seeing for 4 years, only probably much worse (I still believe if he wins again America (and more widely the planet) is done for in many possible ways). If it’s a clear loss (fingers crossed) he’ll still probably whine about a rigged/stolen election but hopefully the other Rs will put on their big boy/girl pants and realize he has to go.
If it’s a close win it will probably be because of election tomfoolery and voter disenfranchisement combined with the fact that EVERYONE, %100, and yes, that means you in blue states needs to get out and vote.
If it’s a close loss, he’s not going to be leaving office until he’s dragged out of the white house which probably won’t happen for months given his ability to drag shit out in the courts.
Everyone keeps joking about how “2020 sucks”. I agree. But I have a feeling 2020 is just the snowball on the top of the hill. It’s starting to roll, but it’s only going to be picking up steam from here. Until it gets warm enough to melt the damn thing sometime in 2024 given the current awesome climate situation which will take years to get back to where we were in 2016.
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Here in Canada we have a fun system where the NDP (social democrats) occasionally get elected in various provinces.
Almost always they take over in a struggling economy with massive deficits and high unemployment. Invariably 4 or 8 years later they lose to the not-NDP party, which then inherits a strong economy and a budget surplus. Which they then instantly squander with ill-advised tax cuts, when then lead to spending cuts and the consequent economic decline.
Invariably the NDP are portrayed as bad with the economy while the ‘not-NDP’ are the competent stewards, despite literal decades of evidence and counterexamples.
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He wasn’t my first choice, but I gotta say I’m kind of excited about voting for Biden. He’s really done a good job reminding me how much I took for granted having our president be a smart, hard working, empathic person.
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I guess dear leader didn’t get the message. Honestly, his narcissism being so extraordinary that he can’t even conceive of what Machiavelli is saying here is probably our only hope.
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Right? Dems spend money on people who spend money, while GOP spends on people and corporations who sock it away and create dynasties. This almost always means that the economy is better both for working class and the macroeconomic indicators under Dems.
The only thing the GOP used to have a shred of economic credibility on was less spending, but over the past decades they have overtaken the Dems on spending. And now that MMT and actual experience with historically huge spending have shown that it doesn’t lead to runaway inflation, suddenly that is not a GOP advantage either.
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