US Politics - Absence of Ballots

[Werthead]

Yeah, Arizona is looking dodgy.

Current vote differential: 68,390. That sounds good but it was 130,665 a day ago. 450,000 votes still to be counted. Trump needs 57.54% and is currently trending at 58.7%. But that came down from 64% at the start of the day. If he keeps dropping at this rate, he won't be able to win, but he'll be able to eat into the lead. If the remaining counts are mostly from Tucson, Biden should be okay. If they're not and there's still a lot of rural votes in there, Trump can swing it.

Conversely Biden is now trending a lot more than he needs to win Georgia, with a lot fewer votes left to count and the remaining votes down to 13,500.

[DanteGabriel]

1 hour ago, Simon Steele said:

@DanteGabriel

re: Dems drifting right

I think we don't disagree that things have happened (moving away from Clinton's healthcare, defense, education, etc.)--it seems we disagree about what it means. (Is that a fair representation of your response, do you think?)
 

More or less. My main point was that it's not ridiculous to say that this is the Dems' most progressive platform ever. If you want to say it's not that progressive relative to political norms of the time, I won't argue, mainly because I have no idea how it compares to, say, the McGovern platform in its time.

 

1 hour ago, Simon Steele said:

If so, I think we have to look at the fact that those Democrat positions are no longer viable as evidence as a drift to the right. Are Republicans pulling them to the right or is the country naturally shifting to the right I suppose is what's unclear. I tend to think it's the former: gerrymandering, voter suppression, obstructionism, etc. 

As in most things in life, a little of both I'd think.

1 hour ago, Simon Steele said:

The Dems don't stick to their positions--their current positions are responses to the Republican BS. The Republicans never are forced to adopt or modify, only the Democrats. I made this point with Amy Coney Barrett. In Obama's last term, the Dems rightfully asserted that McConnell's blocking of Obama's justice was wrong.

I doubt Garland is who Obama would have picked in a different situation, anyhow, but he immediately started from a compromised position (for all the good it did). But with this most recent nomination, the Dems initially took up the position, "Well, according to Republican logic, this should not happen in an election year." By doing this, they validated the right's BS once again. Kamala Harris is the first one I heard make a good point: it's not the election year, but people have now cast their votes, so we should hold off. But the time spent arguing McConnell was actually logical in 2016 is just an example of how the Dems will not hold their position. Biden bringing Republicans to the Convention and pushing their most popular members to the side (AOC). Again, Dems believed they could poach right wing voters who hated Trump (which invariably moves Biden to the right), and election day comes, and it seems, unshockingly, those people literally did not vote for Biden.

The Dems have been so afraid of losing, they've kind of refused to stand for important cornerstone beliefs. "Now's not the time" we heard about fairly traditional leftist positions as we headed into this election. And for all that, this still was too close. I'm not advocating going full Sanders mode right now, but I think the party needs to shift incrementally back to what they once were, and while doing that, take some notes from the right on how to message and get your base actually fired up.

Broadly agree with all of this. Dems should set the agenda and have confidence to do so. I've certainly been plenty angry over the years watching them shrink from fights because they were afraid someone might stick a mean label on them.

Has the party ever been confident like we want? I don't think they were that way even when trying to get the ACA passed. The coalition is more fractious and I do think there's something self-selecting about the Republican base being more likely to follow the line.

I'm on the verge of talking about Republicans as a political entity behaving like Chads who have the confidence to approach women while Democrats are the low-self-esteem incel hanging back, so I'll just end it there.

[teej6]

Nevada is a mess

[The Marquis de Leech]

I am still feeling optimistic about Arizona - I'm recalling the trajectory of the count during the 2018 Senate race.

[Zorral]

5 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

10 years ago I was still listening to the radio you mention.  It’s toxic.  

But not the DNC or the candidates, it seems.

It's still such a hope that Biden-Harris may be inaugurated, but it still is only Grant winning the Battle of Ft. Donalson in February, 1862.  Such desperately needed positive news for the Union, but there ever more bloody years of the war still to be fought, partly because the traitors refused to admit defeat unless they were unconditionally awarded all the same status and condition that reigned prior to their secession.

Before huffle puffling calling this a war -- good grief, They have been calling it war and waging it, with guns and every other violence, for decades already.  And never more so than now, with the cops fully in. 

[Fez]

13 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Actually, there is a possible reality that exists where Rupert Murdoch unintentionally saved America from fascism by trying to stick it to Trump by calling Arizona for Biden earlier.

I have a feeling that the Arizona call kept Trump's team from being far more aggressive in getting vote counts stopped in states where he is ahead by forcing him to argue competing outcomes in states determined entirely on whether he's ahead or behind.

This is where I'm at too. And I'm not entirely sure it was unintentional.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

I'm on the verge of talking about Republicans as a political entity behaving like Chads who have the confidence to approach women while Democrats are the low-self-esteem incel hanging back, so I'll just end it there.

If you frame that analogy as Democrats' toxic way of thinking about the party in relation to the voting public, I actually think that a particularly apt comparison.

"Aww...c'mon baby; why do you want to vote for HIM??? My policies will treat you so much better baby. Just vote for me, because I understand you better than he does! I have all the right policies!"

Then, voters break Dems' hearts, and that turns to bitterness at Republicans. 

"What's so great about THEM?? Their policies are SO BAD for you! Don't you get it?!?!?"

Yeah, seems like a good analogy.

[Mexal]

6 minutes ago, teej6 said:

Nevada is a mess

 

[Mindwalker]

The percentage of white women who voted for T has gone from 53% in 2016 to 55%. Wtf?! (Source: Crooked media) - so much for 'suburban' women abandoning him in droves...

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Fez said:

This is where I'm at too. And I'm not entirely sure it was unintentional.

My head has gone there at times too; wasn't there a quote by Fox's election board runner that seemed particularly combative in the run-up to the election?

[teej6]

2 minutes ago, Fez said:

This is where I'm at too. And I'm not entirely sure it was unintentional.

Agree with you and @The Great Unwashed on this. There are reports of Trump calling Murdoch after Arizona was called for Biden by Fox and yelling and Murdoch didn’t care. There might be something there. 

[Maithanet]

15 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

Actually, there is a possible reality that exists where Rupert Murdoch unintentionally saved America from fascism by trying to stick it to Trump by calling Arizona for Biden earlier.

I have a feeling that the Arizona call kept Trump's team from being far more aggressive in getting vote counts stopped in states where he is ahead by forcing him to argue competing outcomes in states determined entirely on whether he's ahead or behind.

But Trump would have had to make those competing arguments whether Arizona was called or not.  Biden would have still been ahead.  I guess you could argue that losing Arizona took some of the wind out of Trump's sails to aggressively try and get the vote counting stopped in MI and WI, but once that happened by early Wed, it was too late. 

And I'm pretty certain there was nothing legally or even semi-legally that Trump could have done to get the count in WI and MI to stop dead in its tracks so quickly.  I guess he could order them to stop counting and send in the military or the black vans, but they're not the only ones with guns, and I don't think he did the groundwork necessary for a full on guns-blazing coup. 

[teej6]

1 minute ago, Mexal said:

 

Yes, Biden will prolly win NV but it will drag till the weekend or longer. So don’t want it to come  down to NV.

[Maithanet]

1 minute ago, Mindwalker said:

The percentage of white women who voted for T has gone from 53% in 2016 to 55%. Wtf?! (Source: Crooked media) - so much for 'suburban' women abandoning him in droves...

There are a lot of votes yet to be counted and they are overwhelmingly democratic mail in ballots (something that white women democrats embraced perhaps more than any other group).  So let's just wait before throwing any groups under the bus. 

[Mindwalker]

4 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

If you frame that analogy as Democrats' toxic way of thinking about the party in relation to the voting public, I actually think that a particularly apt comparison.

"Aww...c'mon baby; why do you want to vote for HIM??? My policies will treat you so much better baby. Just vote for me, because I understand you better than he does! I have all the right policies!"

Then, voters break Dems' hearts, and that turns to bitterness at Republicans. 

"What's so great about THEM?? Their policies are SO BAD for you! Don't you get it?!?!?"

Yeah, seems like a good analogy.

I'd say they are the Nice Guy (not nice guy), but not quite as toxic or deranged as incels.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Maithanet said:

But Trump would have had to make those competing arguments whether Arizona was called or not.  Biden would have still been ahead.  I guess you could argue that losing Arizona took some of the wind out of Trump's sails to aggressively try and get the vote counting stopped in MI and WI, but once that happened by early Wed, it was too late. 

And I'm pretty certain there was nothing legally or even semi-legally that Trump could have done to get the count in WI and MI to stop dead in its tracks so quickly.  I guess he could order them to stop counting and send in the military or the black vans, but they're not the only ones with guns, and I don't think he did the groundwork necessary for a full on guns-blazing coup. 

Oh, I definitely see all the holes in it; that's what you get when someone spends 4 years gaslighting you - paranoia and mistrust.

But, I plan on going back and reconstructing the Election night time-line with that frame of reference to see how the logical implications would play out. I'm not even saying it was particularly planned; Murdoch could have just been being opportunistic.

[Fez]

5 minutes ago, Mindwalker said:

The percentage of white women who voted for T has gone from 53% in 2016 to 55%. Wtf?! (Source: Crooked media) - so much for 'suburban' women abandoning him in droves...

Do NOT, I repeat do NOT try analyzing the exit polls for anything at this point. It took almost 2 years for the 2016 exit polls to get validated to the actual results, and when they did, it resulted in some post-election takes being extremely wrong.

[Jace, Extat]

1 minute ago, Maithanet said:

There are a lot of votes yet to be counted and they are overwhelmingly democratic mail in ballots (something that white women democrats embraced perhaps more than any other group).  So let's just wait before throwing any groups under the bus. 

I would throw every white woman in this hideous carbuncle of a country under a bus were it in my power. Then I'd throw myself after them to prove the righteousness of (and avoid prosecution for) my actions. White women handed the house back to Republicans in 2 years and the presidency in 4. Fuck us.

[teej6]

PA SoS on CNN saying that the overwhelming majority of ballots will be counted today

[Mindwalker]

You're right, I didn't realize these data are prob from exit polls.