Board 8 > Politics Containment Topic 334: save_us.pa

(+) Yeah! (+)

I thought of this topic title and couldnt resist.

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The polls "being off" in 2016 feels like a red herring this election.

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The state polls were off in 2016. The national polls were pretty good.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CQL1WUR6pk

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communism is just a red herring

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydpmzU_i2hg

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don't forget the flair please.

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I hate that today looks optimistic.

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UshiromiyaEva posted...

I hate that today looks optimistic.

I know.

I was numb in 2016, I don't know what I'll feel tomorrow if things veer off course here.

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2016 sucked but it was left feeling "well whatever, whats the worst Trump could actually do".

Turn to 2020, and, well.

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red13n posted...

2016 sucked but it was left feeling "well whatever, whats the worst Trump could actually do".

Turn to 2020, and, well.

It took until the pandemic for the Trump presidency to underperform my expectations (and even then, his response didn't really surprise me, just the situation itself).

It was pretty clear he was going to be a really, really bad president imo!

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red13n posted...

2016 sucked but it was left feeling "well whatever, whats the worst Trump could actually do".

ever since trump won, i've been super anxious about what he could do. i'm actually surprised it took him this long to majorly abuse his presidential power (of course he's already done minor shit like the roger stone pardon).


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red13n posted...

2016 sucked but it was left feeling "well whatever, whats the worst Trump could actually do".

I was saying we were royally fucked since the day after election day. He's been worse than imagined, but not by much. I distinctly remember taking flack from users here about my 'alarmism'. Turns out I was right!

...hooray...

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Trump exceeded my expectations.

Mr Lasastryke posted...

ever since trump won, i've been super anxious about what he could do. i'm actually surprised it took him this long to majorly abuse his presidential power (of course he's already done minor shit like the roger stone pardon).

What could he do to you? In Europe, I think you'd have more to worry about with a Democrat who has a higher chance of starting a war with Russia.

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KamikazePotato posted...

I distinctly remember taking flack from users here about my 'alarmism'.

i can take a wild guess who these users were.

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Actually while Trump's response to COVID was within my expectations considering by then I'd been conditioned to expect the worst from him in every situation, if it had taken place the week after election day it would have been the most surprising thing he could've done. This may be a controversial opinion but I don't think a pandemic is particularly difficult to handle at the top level of government. There's an incredible amount of work to be done at the ground level, but all a leader has to do is make some calming speeches, tell people to wear masks and distance, and approve aid for places they need it. Not an outright easy job, but not anymore difficult than anything at that level of governing.

In reality, COVID should have been a slam dunk for Trump. If he hadn't handled it the exact opposite way he was supposed to, he wins re-election easy. Would've won over tons of independents.

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red sox 777 posted...

What could he do to you? In Europe, I think you'd have more to worry about with a Democrat who has a higher chance of starting a war with Russia.

it just sucks to see democracy end in the US even if it doesn't directly affect me. though i do feel like it sets a dangerous precedent too. if the US decides that democracy is worthless, how long until it's declared to be worthless in my country? (the EU is undemocratic as hell so this is already a large enough problem without this precedent tbqh.)

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One complaint that I kind of have is all the voter suppression talk on reddit and other places...do people not realize the plethora of ways you can vote, literally months beforehand, to days beforehand, to the day itself? I feel like at this point if someone doesn't vote and they wanted to, it's more on them then on any supposed attempts to stop people from voting. And I'm not expecting any agreements here as this is more right-leaning view. But it just irks me every time I see a post on reddit "systems in a small town go down for an hour on the last day to request absentee ballots...voter suppression durrr!"

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Mr Lasastryke posted...

i can take a wild guess who these users were.

Well it was mostly the open GOP-bootlickers and Lopen (who is a closeted GOP-bootlicker) but most of the left-wingers in the topic weren't buying it either. We expected bad but there was definitely a prevailing opinion of 'well we'll just get through the four years and be done with it'. Some were even saying it could be a positive thing by exposing the bad element of the American populace, which would immediately be rejected and become weaker than they were before or something.

I've had a great prediction track record for the last four years and it's because I've assumed the worst case scenario every time. I do not feel good about this.

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KamikazePotato posted...

I was saying we were royally fucked since the day after election day. He's been worse than imagined, but not by much. I distinctly remember taking flack from users here about my 'alarmism'. Turns out I was right!

...hooray...

Certainly wasn't from me! This is pretty much how I imagined it would go, minus the pandemic part

guffguy89 posted...

One complaint that I kind of have is all the voter suppression talk on reddit and other places...do people not realize the plethora of ways you can vote, literally months beforehand, to days beforehand, to the day itself?

My state does not have early in-person voting. You have two ways to vote: on election day, or by mail, and the latter is currently subject to GOP fuckery.

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Mr Lasastryke posted...

it just sucks to see democracy end in the US even if it doesn't directly affect me. though i do feel like it sets a dangerous precedent too. if the US decides that democracy is worthless, how long until it's declared to be worthless in my country? (the EU is undemocratic as hell so this is already a large enough problem without this precedent tbqh.)

Why would Trump winning in 2016 signify the end of democracy? Seems more like democracy working than the other way around.

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KP, you think everything was bad because you disagree with the Republican Party on virtually every issue. As that is the nature of your disappointment, I assure you, it can get much "worse." Trump and the GOP managed to pass one major bill in four years. If they get full control of Congress, where there was one bill there could be 20.

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red sox 777 posted...

Why would Trump winning in 2016 signify the end of democracy?

i was referring to how trump would refuse to acknowledge mail-in votes as legitimate and declare victory based on election day votes.

if he wins legitimately, democracy is unaffected, yeah.

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red sox 777 posted...

KP, you think everything was bad because you disagree with the Republican Party on virtually every issue. As that is the nature of your disappointment, I assure you, it can get much "worse." Trump and the GOP managed to pass one major bill in four years. If they get full control of Congress, where there was one bill there could be 20.

They had full control of Congress until 2019

Anyway, it can (and will) get worse if Trump has a second term when he is completely unshackled by fear of harming his reection bid and has already had four years of damaging the guardrails of democracy, but it won't be because he's getting a lot done through Congress.

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Mr Lasastryke posted...

i was referring to how trump would refuse to acknowledge mail-in votes as legitimate and declare victory based on election day votes.

if he wins legitimately, democracy is unaffected, yeah.

Oh, in 2020. That's true, and as long as we let people legally vote by mail, those have got to be counted. If they're not going to be counted people need to know early enough that they can make plans to vote in person.

I think the probability of Trump losing and starting a constitutional crisis is very very low. Not zero because I'm not naive enough to think that stable republics last forever, but it's very unlikely.

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A reminder of how insane it would be to let Trump keep the keys for four more years:

https://twitter.com/mmasnick/status/1323406238244241408

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Grimlyn posted...

communism is just a red herring

Best movie ever

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LordoftheMorons posted...

They had full control of Congress until 2019

Anyway, it can (and will) get worse if Trump has a second term when he is completely unshackled by fear of harming his reection bid and has already had four years of damaging the guardrails of democracy, but it won't be because he's getting a lot done through Congress.

They had the filibuster rule still. Guess who's been advocating for abolishing the filibuster?

If the Republicans win what they did in 2016 (Presidency + both houses of Congress), Republicans senators are going to quote the Democrats pushing for abolishing the filibuster now like Democrats quoted Lindsay Graham on confirming a Supreme Court nominee immediately before an election. Only they would have the power to do it.

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Not too worried about this succeeding now that multiple judges would have to agree to something so ridiculous, but the effort to throw out over 100k drive through votes in TX is being appealed

https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1323407243484798979

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Republicans are totally okay with throwing out 100,000 people's votes. They're rejecting democracy.

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Doubt we have anyone in this topic who's not registered to vote, but just in case...! (Or if you have friends/family you're still trying to convince to vote)

https://twitter.com/DanAmira/status/1323317895649284103

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Yeah, not surprised it is being appealed but it won't go anywhere. No way an appeals court makes a decision overturning this. I feel like they have to have had an appeal prepared already in anticipation of this.

This feels more like a stunt than anything seriously believing they have a chance.

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the previous topic 500'd before I could join in the pessimism olympics, but I see your Trump win and raise you a civil war

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PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

Yeah, not surprised it is being appealed but it won't go anywhere. No way an appeals court makes a decision overturning this. I feel like they have to have had an appeal prepared already in anticipation of this.

This feels more like a stunt than anything seriously believing they have a chance.

The activist behind the legal challenge believes in QAnon, so I wouldn't be surprised if he was a true believer in this garbage too

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We've been in a civil war ever since Charlottesville.

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Some decent news:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/02/us/election-ballots-rejections.html?referringSource=articleShare

Mail-in ballots being rejected at a lower rate than normal years. Something that was a bit of a concern, given a lot of people voting by mail-in-ballot this year for the first time.

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Ulti's been saying that, but then he's also been hedging his position.

when did he hedge his position?

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Tom Bombadil posted...

the previous topic 500'd before I could join in the pessimism olympics, but I see your Trump win and raise you a civil war

I see your Civil War and raise you World War III as the EU, China and Russia get involved. On different sides. Each.

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Ulti will claim he was right regardless of the outcome.

Mr Lasastryke posted...

when did he hedge his position?

He just posted that article saying that Trump will win in a landslide.

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red sox 777 posted...

He just posted that article saying that Trump will win in a landslide.

i assume he doesn't agree with it. he's still saying biden will win in extha's poll topic.

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Mr Lasastryke posted...

i assume he doesn't agree with it. he's still saying biden will win in extha's poll topic.

If Trump wins he'll claim he was right, and he was only pretending to get Biden supporters hope up or whatever.
If Biden wins, he'll claim he was right, and he only posted those articles to show how dumb people were being (unlike him! He knew what was going to happen)

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How did we go from Trafalgar being a pollster that was revealed to be just barely partisan to the point of being able to hide it and was still considered at least someone on the up and up...to them being an extremist claiming that Trump was guaranteed PA victory and any other result was illegitimate in....1 day??

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Well, I'm only hedging my bets in the sense that I will openly admit I am not confident in the outcome. That's how I feel given the information we have. With that said, I will be posting full predictions tonight, including margin of victory, for each and every state in my election discussion topic. I got 48/50 in 2016 and am 5/5 on winners in my lifetime, but I could have gotten lucky. So let's see.


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So are there any good reasons to actually watch the live election coverage tomorrow night? It'll be super stressful, there's nothing much we can to change the outcome (even potential protests against Trump shenanigans wouldn't happen until Wednesday), and the media probably won't be able to call a winner before the night ends anyway. Seems better to just do something else and check the results later.
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I forget if we have anyone from Philly here

https://twitter.com/TomKingTK/status/1323264709408292864

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https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1323359333003022336

...wasn't he saying the election was totally in the bag for biden a few days ago? >_>

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The reason people say Trump's election would represent the end of democracy is because Trump and the GOP in general have a history of undermining democratic institutions which we expect to continue.

I think it's less accurate to say that Trump's election would represent the end of democracy and more accurate to say that if Trump is elected in 2020 then as a direct consequence we may not have a real democracy by 2024.
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