US Politics: Choking our Democracy

[Centrist Simon Steele]

On 9/1/2020 at 2:16 PM, Zorral said:

This should be titled Shooting Our Democracy, rather than choking it.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/with-itchy-trigger-fingers-some-right-wingers-predict-the-next-civil-war-has-finally-arrived

 

 

And I still find it insane that we have a President not wholly invested in repairing this (but instead, he's instigating it). The day of political leaders putting country before self, obviously, ended long ago, but it's never been more apparent than now.

 

[DMC]

6 minutes ago, Gaston de Foix said:

I agree but if you are going to do some form of but-for analysis then Obama probably would have taken Jack Ryan even without the implosion.

Probably but it would've been a much tougher election.  It's hard to decipher cuz all of the head-to-head polling I can find (and remember, although obviously been awhile) happened after Ryan was already engulfed in the scandal. 

As for Jones, in terms of the numbers Obama plainly won it due to Blair Hull's collapsing campaign - and Obama taking almost all of his abandoning support as opposed to the establishment's chosen candidate Dan Hynes.  This is a pretty good brief writeup of the primary, and see pags. 7-8 for the polling shift.  Obama largely did that on his own merit, and the establishment subsequently coalesced around him.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

17 hours ago, Triskele said:

Umair again with the sky is falling take (Medium, limited clicks) lays out ways in which we're failing to fight fascism right now and says that thinking morality will save you is a huge mistake.  Part of his example, is that so many soccer moms voted for Trump in 2016 even though it was considered amoral to do so which is part of why the election surprised many.

 

 

I agree with this. There's nothing that indicates Biden's any better off than Clinton was, and if it's close, Trump doesn't have to cheat a ton to scam the system. I'm sure he has "top men" on this project. He will certainly try to stoke violence if things go poorly in November--and reacting, without thoughtful proactive moves, is one of seven Achilles heels of the Democratic Party.

Trump will steal the election, and Nancy Pelosi will stand behind him and give him bunny ears.

[Gaston de Foix]

2 minutes ago, DMC said:

As for Jones, in terms of the numbers Obama plainly won it due to Blair Hull's collapsing campaign - and Obama taking almost all of his abandoning support as opposed to the establishment's chosen candidate Dan Hynes.  This is a pretty good brief writeup of the primary, and see pags. 7-8 for the polling shift.  Obama largely did that on his own merit, and the establishment subsequently coalesced around him.

That polling is fascinating, thanks for sharing.

I was thinking of this narrative by Jones himself : https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/03/obama200803

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

17 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

And I still find it insane that we have a President not wholly invested in repairing this (but instead, he's instigating it). The day of political leaders putting country before self, obviously, ended long ago, but it's never been more apparent than now.

 

This is what makes Trump uniquely dangerous. Not only is he not interested in uniting the country, his political strategy is to turn everyone against one another. This election has all the signs of a disaster waiting to happen.

Daddy Putin must be happy with what his puppet is doing.

[Fragile Bird]

Oh look, the CDC has sent out letters to all states telling them how to prepare for a Covid-19 vaccine at the end of October or start of November!

[Mudguard]

Trump has been complaining about voter fraud for the past four years, so of course now he's openly urging his supporters to commit voter fraud in order to validate his fraud claims and invalidate the upcoming election, which he obviously now thinks he's going to lose.

Quote

President Donald Trump suggested that people in North Carolina should vote twice in the November election, once by mail and once in person, escalating his attempts to cast confusion and doubt on the validity of the results.

His ability to sink to new lows is amazing really.

[Fragile Bird]

37 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

His ability to sink to new lows is amazing really.

Speaking of new lows...Trump wants Biden to take a drug test because his debating abilities have improved so much he must be on drugs, and a President shouldn’t be on drugs. He’ll take a test too.

You cannot make this shit up. 

[Varysblackfyre321]

3 hours ago, DMC said:

Those are betting odds which are..not scientific.

I'm curious on your grievance with it?

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

I'm curious on your grievance with it?

Because it's pretty much meaningless.  It's obviously not representative - the odds are based on the people doing the betting - and they're quite susceptible to manipulation.  If you didn't have any other data to look at, sure it might be fun to see what they're saying, but prognosticating the presidential election is now a giant industry that includes plenty of, you know, actual data and methods.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Mudguard said:

Trump has been complaining about voter fraud for the past four years, so of course now he's openly urging his supporters to commit voter fraud in order to validate his fraud claims and invalidate the upcoming election, which he obviously now thinks he's going to lose.

His ability to sink to new lows is amazing really.

Hey, I hope they listen. Get a bunch of Trump votes thrown out in NC.

[HoodedCrow]

Telling people to vote twice to screw up the election. Getting photos instead of dealing with issues. Gaslighting.

I don’t know a lot of Trump supporters. But the spouse of one was talking up violence to black people. Thanks, Donald.

[Zorral]

Quote

Fascism isn't new in America. Letting it win would be.

https://katz.substack.com/p/fascism-isnt-new-in-america-letting?

A sketch of William Dudley Pelley and the silver shirts . . . katz has long been working on a book about Smedley Butler (the general who after being in early 20th century colonial missions published War Is A Racket.

As I commented much earlier -- the orange shoggoth is far more successful than Huey Long. 

Quote

 

Once again, the presidential election pits a flawed liberal against a fascist. It seems—maybe? far too late?—like we’re nearly ready to have a public conversation about that fact. CNN’s Brian Stelter had Jason Stanley, the Yale professor and author of How Fascism Works, on his show Sunday. (I interviewed Jason last year.) Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez put it bluntly: “November is about, in my opinion, stopping fascism in the United States. That is what Donald Trump represents.”

Others are still sticking to hilarious obfuscations, like today’s New York Times headline, “Fueling Partisan Passions Through a Summer of Unrest.”

What that story was trying to say was this: Trump—who from the start tried to incite stochastic terrorism against racial minorities and his enemies—is now stoking political violence in the hearts of American cities, in a last-ditch attempt to distract from his economic catastrophe and murderous mismanagement of a pandemic that has now killed at least 185,000 people in the United States and counting.

On Saturday, as hundreds of Trump-flag-waving extremists prepared to barrel through Portland in souped-up trucks—pepper spraying pedestrians, firing paintballs, and attempting to run counter-protesters over—the president tweeted “GREAT PATRIOTS!” When a caravan participant—a member of the violent far-right group Patriot Prayer—was killed in a post-rally street confrontation with an apparent anti-fascist, Trump (and Don Jr.), posted incitement. Trump then defended last week’s double homicide by Kyle Rittenhouse—a 17-year-old white kid who crossed state lines to join a Facebook-organized “militia” targeting pro-Black Lives Matter rioters in Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Good-faith rebuttals usually take the form of historian David A. Bell’s Aug. 26 Washington Post op-ed, which argued that Trump “is not a fascist” because he is “a uniquely American threat.” Bell, as all honest brokers must, quickly to-be-sures his own argument to death: noting that “some” of Trump’s followers “belong to a long and sinister American tradition that includes the [proto-fascist] Ku Klux Klan,” and that his “extreme nationalism, his praise of violence, his not-so-coded racism and his insistence on absolute loyalty from his followers all recall elements of fascist ideology.”

Bell’s argument is utilitarian: that most American voters (wrongly) understand fascism to be “an alien, foreign ideology” and that “to associate it with a president for whom they may well have voted in 2016, and for whom they may still be considering voting for, is likely to seem absurd.” Putting aside the idea that these same undecided voters would somehow be more inclined to agree that they are the ideological heirs of the KKK, it’s missing the point. It isn’t people considering voting for a fascist who need to be warned. It’s everyone else.

 

 

[TrackerNeil]

3 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Oh look, the CDC has sent out letters to all states telling them how to prepare for a Covid-19 vaccine at the end of October or start of November!

I have the feeling that this is the last we'll hear of this mystery vaccine. It's a stunt, and I don't think it's going to move many votes. Like most of what Trump does.

[Fragile Bird]

25 minutes ago, TrackerNeil said:

I have the feeling that this is the last we'll hear of this mystery vaccine. It's a stunt, and I don't think it's going to move many votes. Like most of what Trump does.

I suspect you’re right. Shame about the CDC destroying it’s reputation, though. And the FDA too.

[DMC]

2 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Shame about the CDC destroying it’s reputation, though. And the FDA too.

I don't know, I think their reputations are dependent on the administration they're serving anyway.  Hell, they aren't even technically independent agencies, they're both under HHS.

[Fury Resurrected]

3 hours ago, TrackerNeil said:

I have the feeling that this is the last we'll hear of this mystery vaccine. It's a stunt, and I don't think it's going to move many votes. Like most of what Trump does.

Health Partners is testing one in Minnesota, it was announced today, you can sign up to volunteer

[Mudguard]

3 hours ago, TrackerNeil said:

I have the feeling that this is the last we'll hear of this mystery vaccine. It's a stunt, and I don't think it's going to move many votes. Like most of what Trump does.

I think there's a good chance that they'll give at least one of the three vaccines currently in phase 3 clinical trials an emergency use authorization before the election.  They definitely laid out the groundwork for it already, and the bar is actually relatively low for emergency use authorization.  Most likely, the vaccines are going to be safe, so the main question is whether they are effective. 

We approve influenza vaccines for general use without having any idea what the efficacy of the influenza vaccine is.  In a bad year, the influenza vaccine may be only 10% effective or worse.  The target for full FDA approval of a coronavirus vaccine is 50% efficacy, so emergency use authorization which is less stringent, will require less than that.  I could see this administration push a vaccine with 10% efficacy through out of desperation, arguing that it's better than nothing, and conservative media is going to gloss over the poor efficacy and focus on the "approval".  

If the election tightens, which it probably will over the next couple months, even a small bump could be enough.  On the one hand, we really need a good vaccine as soon as possible.  But on the other hand, it would really suck if that ended up helping Trump get reelected.  

[ants]

I'm not sure it's smart to just assume that the vaccines will be safe.  They're totally new vaccines, you'd only need side effects from 1 in a 1000 and it could be worse than the disease itself.  

But if Trump announces a vaccine, and Biden simply says fantastic news, why will that give Trump a boost? 

[OnionAhaiReborn]

18 minutes ago, ants said:

I'm not sure it's smart to just assume that the vaccines will be safe.  They're totally new vaccines, you'd only need side effects from 1 in a 1000 and it could be worse than the disease itself.  

If the Trump administration rushes approval on an early vaccine, I will be very unlikely to get it. The funny thing will be when the Covid denying, mask skeptical MAGA types are rushing out to get it on Trump's say-so.