US politics - sometimes political jokes get elected

[Lollygag]

Trump being free to run for more than a second term because of impeachment isn't just a meme. My family has told me this too and it would have come from conservative talk radio. It's much more wide-spread than just a meme. To make it worse, I've had odd questions about Trump as a king and Don Jr now being treated as some anointed heir.

Democrats need to break through to the disengaged voters and conservative media wall ASAP. This is getting critical.

[OldGimletEye]

1 minute ago, Lollygag said:

 it would have come from conservative talk radio.

Probably from the jack ass that just got Presidential Medal of Freedom.

[Lollygag]

Just now, OldGimletEye said:

Probably from the jack ass that just got Presidential Medal of Freedom.

That would be my first guess. Michael Savage would be my second guess.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

23 minutes ago, DMC said:

Manchin has well-established incumbency, this don't matter to him.  Sinema?  I guess, but if she voted the other way it'd be a much more expensive political cost, in terms of any rational choice analysis.

True, but his numbers have been dropping, and it's quite possible he could lose his next election. But he did have less to risk. 

[DMC]

12 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

True, but his numbers have been dropping, and it's quite possible he could lose his next election. But he did have less to risk. 

Eh, according to Morning Consult, he's still +13, and just above majority - 51% approval.  That should be just fine for an incumbent.  In comparison, Tim Kaine is at +11 and 45%, and I have zero worries about him winning his next election.  West Virginia is different than Virginia, no doubt, but I wouldn't be scared, or even too concerned, by the numbers if I was Manchin.  Definitely not worth inviting the wrath of leadership and risking the money they can provide you.

[Lollygag]

Ok, it's worse than I thought. Trump running on a third term because of impeachment is being heavily pushed by Mike Huckabee and it's all over Fox News via Hannity.

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/474391-huckabee-teases-hannity-appearance-says-hell-explain-why-trump

Quote

Huckabee claimed Trump’s critics, including former FBI Director James Comey and Democrats in general, as well as the news media and House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, would make the president eligible to run in the 2024 presidential election. He also said he was “named to head up the 2024 re-election.”

 

[Mindwalker]

2 hours ago, Zorral said:

I thought I remembered something like this from back on the day -- you all who wondered what Germans would make of our reenactments of the War of the Rebellion -- here, from 2011, is your answer:

https://www.pri.org/stories/2011-05-30/why-germans-reenact-us-civil-war-battles

 

 

I don't think they speak for the majority of Germans, not even the majority of male Germans.

As far as reenactments are concerned, I would probably buy the whole "it's just a re-living history, fantasy thing" claim if these people also reenacted other scenes.  Why this obsession with war, if it's just harmless escapism?

That said, while it took longer for right-wing extremists / fascists to really get momentum here, they are now on the rise, particularly in Eastern Germany. They are, of course, of the opinion that our culture of remembering mentiond by several posters is a trip of self-flagellation, the Holocaust (not that they'd use the term) just a tiny bird dropping in our otherwise glorious past. And of course they love Trump (and Brexit).

[Zorral]

9 minutes ago, Mindwalker said:

I don't think they speak for the majority of Germans, not even the majority of male Germans.

As far as reenactments are concerned, I would probably buy the whole "it's just a re-living history, fantasy thing" claim if these people also reenacted other scenes.  Why this obsession with war, if it's just harmless escapism?

That said, while it took longer for right-wing extremists / fascists to really get momentum here, they are now on the rise, particularly in Eastern Germany. They are, of course, of the opinion that our culture of remembering mentiond by several posters is a trip of self-flagellation, the Holocaust (not that they'd use the term) just a tiny bird dropping in our otherwise glorious past. And of course they love Trump (and Brexit).

The thing is though -- the Germans have lots of reenactment groups that reenact various battles of very old wars  -- but I don't think I've ever seen any reenactment German groups that do WWI or WWII -- though the Brits and others do those two wars -- and they seem to be gathering more interest in these later days among the US people who like to participate in such things.

Does Germany have the Society for Creative Anachronism?  So I went and googled, and it seems not only does Germany have SCA groups but so do other European countries:

https://drachenwald.sca.org/groups/

[Wall Flower]

1 hour ago, OldGimletEye said:

Probably from the jack ass that just got Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Arsehole, or I guess that should be asshole, would be more appropriate surely. 

I'm an Aussie but my first and only time watching Rush Limbaugh on TV is seared into my memory. Clinton was president and some idiot thought that Rush's show should be beamed to Aussie TV sets. I had no idea who he was but I soon found out. He told a joke about how Hilary had gone looking for Chelsea but found the family dog in her room instead. Apparently, the dog-walker had taken Chelsea for a walk by mistake - the hilarious implication being that 10 year old Chelsea was such a dog that the walker couldn't tell the difference. The audience hooted and laughed at the expense of a ten year old child while I sat back gobsmacked. No wonder Trump sees him as a hero. They're cut from the same cloth.

[IheartIheartTesla]

I think the 538 model for the primaries is a hot mess and very volatile, but interestingly enough Biden went from pole position (~40% chance to get majority of delegates) to third place. Behind Sanders (now at 40%) and no one (25%) with Biden at 20%.

I am having nightmares about a brokered/contested convention where the accusations will fly after all the horse trading is done. Also, I'd like to see some quality polling out of SC to corroborate whether Biden's position there has eroded or not. If Biden does go into a tailspin, then he best remove himself from the race so Bloomberg can take over (I dont think Klobuchar will ever dominate the moderate position).

[Larry of the Lawn]

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

True, but his numbers have been dropping, and it's quite possible he could lose his next election. But he did have less to risk. 

He's also like 4 years out from an election.  Anything can happen between now and then.

[Larry of the Lawn]

1 hour ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

I think the 538 model for the primaries is a hot mess and very volatile, but interestingly enough Biden went from pole position (~40% chance to get majority of delegates) to third place. Behind Sanders (now at 40%) and no one (25%) with Biden at 20%.

I am having nightmares about a brokered/contested convention where the accusations will fly after all the horse trading is done. Also, I'd like to see some quality polling out of SC to corroborate whether Biden's position there has eroded or not. If Biden does go into a tailspin, then he best remove himself from the race so Bloomberg can take over (I dont think Klobuchar will ever dominate the moderate position).

Me too.  That would be awful, and a boon to Trump.

[GrimTuesday]

Romney is from Utah, which while still red, is not really big on Trump, this vote does not hurt him at all.

So anyone still paying attention to Iowa? There seems to be a number of data errors and they all center around Bernie losing votes. I'm still not saying they are purposely rigging anything, but they sure are blundering in that direction.

[Kalbear]

12 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

Romney is from Utah, which while still red, is not really big on Trump, this vote does not hurt him at all.

So anyone still paying attention to Iowa? There seems to be a number of data errors and they all center around Bernie losing votes. I'm still not saying they are purposely rigging anything, but they sure are blundering in that direction.

It's been entirely consistent with the overall pattern. Buttigieg has had very good organization and got a lot of people out, and he had even better on second organization - he was a lot of people's second choice. Sanders stayed remarkably consistent from first to second, but turnout wasn't what he wanted and he's had trouble getting people to switch to him on second choice. Sanders will almost certainly get the popular vote but not the total delegate votes, which is pretty well tailor made to infuriate his base and is incredibly ironic. 

[GrimTuesday]

22 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

It's been entirely consistent with the overall pattern. Buttigieg has had very good organization and got a lot of people out, and he had even better on second organization - he was a lot of people's second choice. Sanders stayed remarkably consistent from first to second, but turnout wasn't what he wanted and he's had trouble getting people to switch to him on second choice. Sanders will almost certainly get the popular vote but not the total delegate votes, which is pretty well tailor made to infuriate his base and is incredibly ironic. 

I'm not saying that they are inflating Pete, I'm saying that they have been fucking up Bernie's numbers. In Polk County they were reporting 21 SDE that should have gone to Sanders for Deval Patrick. They have since corrected it, but this is still sketchy that they reported this info in the first place. They are damned if they do and damned if they don't might as well make sure they got it right the first time around. As I said, not malicious just incompetent.

Pete went up about 8 points (19%) and Bernie is up 1 (25%) in NH, with Biden losing 7 points (11%) and Warren dropping 1 (11%).

[Altherion]

48 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Sanders will almost certainly get the popular vote but not the total delegate votes, which is pretty well tailor made to infuriate his base and is incredibly ironic.

How does that even work? As I write this, CNN says that with 97% of the vote counted, Sanders has 44,753 votes and leads Buttigieg by 2,518 votes which amounts to roughly 2% of the overall number of votes cast in the final tally (in the initial one, Sanders' lead is roughly twice as large). However, on the State Delegates tab, Buttigieg leads Sanders 26.2% to 26.1% (CBS says the same thing). Now, Buttigieg's margin of 0.1% is razor thin even compared to the rather small 3% of the vote that still needs to be counted so it's possible that Sanders gets ahead, but regardless of what happens, they'll be very nearly tied. If he keeps the lead, does Buttigieg somehow come out of this with more delegates than Sanders? Google shows them getting an equal number, but its sum of delegates does not add up to 41 so I don't know where the additional ones go.

[A True Kaniggit]

15 minutes ago, Altherion said:

How does that even work? As I write this, CNN says that with 97% of the vote counted, Sanders has 44,753 votes and leads Buttigieg by 2,518 votes which amounts to roughly 2% of the overall number of votes cast in the final tally (in the initial one, Sanders' lead is roughly twice as large). However, on the State Delegates tab, Buttigieg leads Sanders 26.2% to 26.1% (CBS says the same thing). Now, Buttigieg's margin of 0.1% is razor thin even compared to the rather small 3% of the vote that still needs to be counted so it's possible that Sanders gets ahead, but regardless of what happens, they'll be very nearly tied. If he keeps the lead, does Buttigieg somehow come out of this with more delegates than Sanders? Google shows them getting an equal number, but its sum of delegates does not add up to 41 so I don't know where the additional ones go.

Eh. Sometimes the person with the fewer amount of votes wins.

What the hell you gonna do ?

[Kalbear]

7 minutes ago, Altherion said:

If he keeps the lead, does Buttigieg somehow come out of this with more delegates than Sanders? Google shows them getting an equal number, but its sum of delegates does not add up to 41 so I don't know where the additional ones go.

How it works is deeply, deeply stupid, and is an extra special stupid fun thing about the Iowa caucus that's related to the second delegate switch. Basically what it tells you is that there are a bunch of areas where Sanders wasn't viable and his supporters had to go to someone else, and he didn't make up for those losses in other places where other people had to be marked nonviable and move to him. 

As to the split, the way it works is proportional, where the delegates are given out and split to everyone that got 15% or more.

[Which Tyler]

 

[Kalbear]

Thinking on it though, a couple things come to mind.

Either:

Clinton was so absurdly unpopular that literally anyone running against her in Iowa could have gotten, like, 40% or so

or

Sanders somehow is barely squeaking by a mayor of a small town despite getting nearly 50% of the votes in 2016 which bodes ill for his overall popularity and his ability to convert others to his cause

Could be both too!