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U.S. Politics: Some Of Us Did Warn You, But It Can't Happen Here...


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39 minutes ago, Fez said:

I remain amazed at how quickly a democracy can fall apart. 

It can happen before you had time to blink. Why does it amaze you?

31 minutes ago, Horza said:

Ok, it means that the US economy is in a deep hole and mass unemployment will deepen and persist unless there’s huge demand side stimulus.

News this morning suggests talks have broken down, at least for the time. But with all the bad news, both sides will try to make a deal because you can't have this as you're governing and not act.

21 minutes ago, Relic said:

Was there ever any doubt that this would be Trump's tactic?

 

Nope.

12 minutes ago, Fez said:

Could be he hopes to do that. But most states are not as pathetic as New York when it comes to votes.

Why do you still think you can use historical data to predict 2020? Anyone who says they know how the voting will work is lying to themselves. And it's been that way for a while, even before the pandemic and the collapsing economy. 

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1 minute ago, Fragile Bird said:

Didn’t some of the regulars here use the phrase “we’re fucked” some time this year?

Oh yeah, all of you.

Honestly, in 2016 I thought the US was headed for a constitutional crisis, cos I thought the Republicans would go to extreme lengths to stall and impeach a Clinton administration in order to prevent a liberal replacing Scalia. 
 

re: the above article, the key points for me are the dependence of the electoral system on conventions rather than law in key aspects, and what Nils and Ed say here:

 

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“He doesn’t have to win the election,” said Nils Gilman, a historian who leads research at a think tank called the Berggruen Institute and was an organizer of the exercise. “He just has to create a plausible narrative that he didn’t lose.”

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To some participants, the game was a stark reminder of the power of incumbency.

“The more demonstrations there were, the more demands for recounts, the more legal challenges there were, the more funerals for democracy were held, the more Trump came across as the candidate of stability,” said Edward Luce, the US editor of the Financial Times, who played the role of a mainstream media reporter during one of the simulations. “Possession is nine-tenths of the law.”

I think there’s a little too much focus on the loyalties of the security services rather than the institutional inertia of the presidency and the ferocity of state level anti-democratic measures in thinking about this impending disaster.

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7 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Herman Cain has died of COVID.  

I just heard that!

That’s what he got for going to Tulsa with Trump. First big name victim, although I bet lots of regular folks got COVID-19 and a few have died.

Next one up is that geezer from Commerce, he’s been in hospital for more than three weeks now.

eta: Wilbur Ross, though they said ‘not COVID related’, but do you believe that?

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17 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

It can happen before you had time to blink. Why does it amaze you? 

Um, because it's the end of a form of government that lasted 244 years? Why the fuck wouldn't that be amazing?

The franchise has been pathetically small at times, but it's never been this under threat on a national scale to those that have had it.

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From an ethical standpoint, do I have to retire my title now?

7 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I just heard that!

That’s what he got for going to Tulsa with Trump. First big name victim, although I bet lots of regular folks got COVID-19 and a few have died.

Next one up is that geezer from Commerce, he’s been in hospital for more than three weeks now.

So who would have taken the odds that the old foggy church lady would make the joke about someone dying before me?

Man I should have bet that one hard. I would have made off better than Butch.

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6 minutes ago, Fez said:

Um, because it's the end of a form of government that lasted 244 years? Why the fuck wouldn't that be amazing?

Older institutions than that have fallen fast too. 

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The franchise has been pathetically small at times, but it's never been this under threat on a national scale to those that have had it.

Like I and others said, don't be surprised if we find ourselves here.

Amazing, right?

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14 minutes ago, Fez said:

The franchise has been pathetically small at times, but it's never been this under threat on a national scale to those that have had it.

Sorry to keep doing this but this is one of those sentences that pulls a knife on itself.

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Any chance Trump’s delay the election tweet backfires? Surely there is a bottom for his supporters somewhere. He might be floating it to see what it does to his numbers. Not that I don’t take it seriously, just trying to find some silver lining.

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1 minute ago, S John said:

Any chance Trump’s delay the election tweet backfires? Surely there is a bottom for his supporters somewhere. He might be floating it to see what it does to his numbers. Not that I don’t take it seriously, just trying to find some silver lining.

He's just asking a question, right?  We have free speech in this country, don't we?  MAGA!

EDIT:  It will make no difference.  It's quite possible he's just trying to stir up the media/liberals to distract from the GDP numbers. 

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3 minutes ago, S John said:

Any chance Trump’s delay the election tweet backfires? Surely there is a bottom for his supporters somewhere. He might be floating it to see what it does to his numbers. Not that I don’t take it seriously, just trying to find some silver lining.

Here’s a glass, it is filled halfway. 

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https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/30/us/elections/biden-vs-trump.html?a

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Even for Mr. Trump, suggesting a delay in the election is an extraordinary breach of presidential decorum that will increase the chances that Mr. Trump and his core supporters don’t accept the legitimacy of the election should he lose to former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.

 

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6 minutes ago, S John said:

Any chance Trump’s delay the election tweet backfires? Surely there is a bottom for his supporters somewhere. He might be floating it to see what it does to his numbers. Not that I don’t take it seriously, just trying to find some silver lining.

The guys on CNBC said, once again, are we supposed to take this seriously or, as usual, it’s walked back tomorrow. ‘He’s just disrupting again’.

I think he’s preparing his base to riot when he loses. Or when mail-in ballots need a week to count, and he won without them, he’ll say the mail-ins were fraudulent.

Whoever wins has to win big, or else.

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Forgive my ignorance here as I don't have a deep manual nut and bolts understanding of US political mechanics, but like...

With the somewhat infrequent statements similar to the '2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history' type bullshit, couldn't Trump [et cronies] be attempting to obliquely seed the ground to invoke nAtIoNaL sEcUrItY?

Doesn't said invocation kind of cede a lot of power 'normally' reserved for Congress and the Senate back to the Office of POTUS? 

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