US Politics: Butter Not Guns

[DMC]

He does seem to have trouble sleeping.  And while he may not be stressed due to the demands of the job like most presidents, he certainly seems to have had many high blood pressure days since taking office.

[Guest]

CNN is reporting that the White House is locked down.

[Jace, Extat]

Just now, The Great Unwashed said:

CNN is reporting that the White House is locked down.

I told them I'll come out of the chimney when there's cookies and milk. Not before, dammit!

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

12 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

CNN is reporting that the White House is locked down.

Sounds like SS shot someone. But those are just early reports.

[Guest]

Why is it not at all surprising that Trump thinks you pay student loans so you get to go to college?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 minute ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Why is it not at all surprising that Trump thinks you pay student loans so you get to go to college?

Why does he think giant tax cuts will fix the pandemic?

Who the fuck knows why he says what he says, least of all himself.

[Guest]

The last pandemic ended World War II! HAHAHA

[Fragile Bird]

44 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

The last pandemic ended World War II! HAHAHA

Let me guess. A Trump quote?

[Centrist Simon Steele]

16 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I get the feeling that there is very little enthusiasm for Biden as a candidate. I wonder what is motivating the voters intending to vote for Biden? Are the voting for Biden or against Trump?

I'm really surprised that the best the Democratic party could come up with is a candidate who has lost, what, 3 primary races in the past. He was 2nd best, or worse, for a number of election cycles, but this time he's the best the party has?

Of course everyone of the Squad is better IMO, and Bernie, but I can understand why no one in the Squad put their hand up.

Seems like Democratic leadership heard someone say, "A paper bag could beat Trump," and then they got filled with ideas. 

Sometimes I feel like Biden's not even real. Where is he? What's he doing? Who cares?

[Larry of the Lawn]

7 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Apparently 'eligible to run for POTUS' is not one of those metrics

Pure pedantry on my part, but Tlaib and Pressley are both eligible to run for POTUS as far as I know.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 hour ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Why is it not at all surprising that Trump thinks you pay student loans so you get to go to college?

If some idiot really made an attempt on Trump it could actually build sympathy for that bastard.  If they oppose Trump making an attempt on his life is the worst thing to do.

[Kalbear]

6 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Pure pedantry on my part, but Tlaib and Pressley are both eligible to run for POTUS as far as I know.

Sure, but 'any one of them' is certainly not the other two being, ya know, constitutionally valid. 

[Castellan]

14 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

If some idiot really made an attempt on Trump it could actually build sympathy for that bastard.  If they oppose Trump making an attempt on his life is the worst thing to do.

I think he'll be happy at anything that gives legs to "i am your law and order President".

So, he certainly knows how to annoy, now he says he is going to make a convention speech at Gettysburg. 

 

[The Anti-Targ]

I saw a piece on Alan Lichtman's prediction with his 13 keys for the White House. His keys have been pretty reliable at predicting the winner.

It appears his prediction includes an argument that Trump's brand of charisma is only appealing to a narrow segment of the electorate, so over all he put Trump in the not charismatic column. Charisma is somewhat subjective, but I think you have to say that Trump mostly got where he did in life, business and politics because he is charismatic, in the used car salesman sense of charisma. So I think Lichtman is wrong and the charisma assessment for Trump should be given a tick. 

The interesting thing with Lichtman's keys is there is only one metric that the challenging party can directly influence, in the election year, which is the charisma or national hero status of the challenging party candidate. The other thing the challenging party can do is gain seats in the House in the mid-terms, but that's 2 years prior not in the presidential election year.

This is how I've analysed the keys:

Key	T	F
1. Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.		1
2. Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.	1
3. Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.	1
4. Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.	1
5. Short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.		1
6. Long-term economy: Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.		1
7. Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.	1
8. Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.		1
9. Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.		1
10. Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.	1
11. Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.		1
12. Incumbent (party) charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.	1
13. Challenger (party) charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.	1
	7	6

According to the wiki if there are 6 or more Fs then the Challenger is predicted to win.

Coronavirus has turned 3 keys against Trump: Sustained social unrest and the two economic growth stats. The thing that might work to reverse the turn of the keys on economic growth is that most people don't blame govts for the economic fallout of Coronavirus. Whereas in pretty much every other economic contraction blame is typically placed firmly on the govt, or at least partly so. You can definitely pin the appalling disease stats on the Trump Administration, but every economy has suffered regardless of what approach a government has taken to deal with the pandemic. So I think these keys can't really be used to make a firm prediction this year. Chances are Trump wins, I think.

There is also an argument to be made that Trump achieved a major foreign affairs success in taking on China in trade and forcing trade concessions out of them. The only problem with claiming it as a success is it has not born any fruit, yet, so no one is seeing or feeling this success (and my assessment of the reality of the concessions is that it's a qualified success, not a major success, even if the 'Rona never happened).

[DanteGabriel]

26 minutes ago, Castellan said:

I think he'll be happy at anything that gives legs to "i am your law and order President".

So, he certainly knows how to annoy, now he says he is going to make a convention speech at Gettysburg. 

 

Has anyone told him it's too late to forfeit the battle to the Confederacy?

[Castellan]

12 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I saw a piece on Alan Lichtman's prediction with his 13 keys for the White House. His keys have been pretty reliable at predicting the winner.

It appears his prediction includes an argument that Trump's brand of charisma is only appealing to a narrow segment of the electorate, so over all he put Trump in the not charismatic column. Charisma is somewhat subjective, but I think you have to say that Trump mostly got where he did in life, business and politics because he is charismatic, in the used car salesman sense of charisma. So I think Lichtman is wrong and the charisma assessment for Trump should be given a tick. 

The interesting thing with Lichtman's keys is there is only one metric that the challenging party can directly influence, in the election year, which is the charisma or national hero status of the challenging party candidate. The other thing the challenging party can do is gain seats in the House in the mid-terms, but that's 2 years prior not in the presidential election year.

This is how I've analysed the keys:

Key	T	F
1. Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.		1
2. Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.	1
3. Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.	1
4. Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.	1
5. Short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.		1
6. Long-term economy: Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.		1
7. Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.	1
8. Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.		1
9. Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.		1
10. Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.	1
11. Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.		1
12. Incumbent (party) charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.	1
13. Challenger (party) charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.	1
	7	6

According to the wiki if there are 6 or more Fs then the Challenger is predicted to win.

Coronavirus has turned 3 keys against Trump: Sustained social unrest and the two economic growth stats. The thing that might work to reverse the turn of the keys on economic growth is that most people don't blame govts for the economic fallout of Coronavirus. Whereas in pretty much every other economic contraction blame is typically placed firmly on the govt, or at least partly so. You can definitely pin the appalling disease stats on the Trump Administration, but every economy has suffered regardless of what approach a government has taken to deal with the pandemic. So I think these keys can't really be used to make a firm prediction this year. Chances are Trump wins, I think.

There is also an argument to be made that Trump achieved a major foreign affairs success in taking on China in trade and forcing trade concessions out of them. The only problem with claiming it as a success is it has not born any fruit, yet, so no one is seeing or feeling this success (and my assessment of the reality of the concessions is that it's a qualified success, not a major success, even if the 'Rona never happened).

Yes, I saw that too and thought the same things. His "charisma" worked last time. He just needs to whip things up so people's base prejudices control their voting and they drift back to his fold. Which is what he is trying to do and a female VP running mate will help him.

Also agree, people do not necessarily blame Trump for recession. They can always irrationally blame the "Chinese virus" or rationally realise it would be the same whoever was in power. 

 

[Castellan]

3 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

Has anyone told him it's too late to forfeit the battle on behalf of the Union?

I think it could cause heart attacks among history professors sitting there contrasting one address to the other. 

I suppose he would think he made the most tremendous best speech ever at Gettysburg.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Trump isn't charismatic. He can be funny, but the appeal isn't that large, and more people view him as it's time to take the car keys away from grandpa. Trump's strength is that he simply has no sense of decency, he's happy to drag things into the mud and if you follow him there he can level the playing field. Don't take the bait. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

11 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

Has anyone told him it's too late to forfeit the battle to the Confederacy?

I'd argue this is their long awaited victory. The most racist president in modern history giving his speech there? That's like when one religion conquerors another and slaps their faith on the defeated temple. He even defends their flag, a Yankee from NYC. What a cuck play.

[The Anti-Targ]

6 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Trump isn't charismatic. He can be funny, but the appeal isn't that large, and more people view him as it's time to take the car keys away from grandpa. Trump's strength is that he simply has no sense of decency, he's happy to drag things into the mud and if you follow him there he can level the playing field. Don't take the bait. 

Like I said, charisma is subjective. There are lots of politicians I've found to be not charismatic but other people have found to be very charismatic. And as we know from DnD charisma can be used to get people to like you or scare the bejeesus out of them. I think saying Trump doesn't have a sufficiently broad charismatic appeal to help get the necessary votes to be returned to office is a false sense of hope. He lost the popular vote and won in 2016, so the breadth of his appeal doesn't even need to get him a plurality of votes.