US Politics - The Conceit of Not Conceding

[Larry of the Lawn]

I wonder if Biden's team has tried reaching out to Pence to see if they can get any sway in the current admin's Coronavirus Task Force.  Pence might be a ghoul, but he's not a total fucking idiot, wonder if he'd maybe balance self-respect and legacy against loyalty to Trump and be amenable to actually trying to deal with the pandemic for the next two months.

[maarsen]

1 hour ago, larrytheimp said:

I wonder if Biden's team has tried reaching out to Pence to see if they can get any sway in the current admin's Coronavirus Task Force.  Pence might be a ghoul, but he's not a total fucking idiot, wonder if he'd maybe balance self-respect and legacy against loyalty to Trump and be amenable to actually trying to deal with the pandemic for the next two months.

Well he has been taking credit for developing vaccines that he had not the slightest interest or interaction with. Does that count?

I suspect Pence is more concerned about securing his negligible future reputation. Stay out of sight till the dust settles so he comes out reasonably clean and let Trump be the one that carries all the blame when the histories are written.

[argonak]

15 minutes ago, maarsen said:

Well he has been taking credit for developing vaccines that he had not the slightest interest or interaction with. Does that count?

I suspect Pence is more concerned about securing his negligible future reputation. Stay out of sight till the dust settles so he comes out reasonably clean and let Trump be the one that carries all the blame when the histories are written.

I was talking to my neighbor (someone I would consider a traditional Republican voter who has stayed on their bus despite being rather uncomfortable with the driver, rather than a MAGA cult member) about vaccines, and they were completely under the impression that the Pfizer vaccine had been part of the government's efforts.  I tried to quietly and calmly correct that incorrect impression.  Right Wing Media Propoganda has been trying hard to co-opt that vaccine.  If it had come out before the election, I would not have been surprised if it could have been the October surprise Trump needed.

[Fragile Bird]

I wonder if Pence has been out of sight because Trump asked him to assume the presidency and issue blanket pardons to a bunch of people, including Trump.

There’s been a lot of speculation Trump will pardon himself with the expectation that Sleepy Joe won’t have the guts to go after the pardon because he cares about national unity, or if Trump has been told pardoning himself is risky so he should go the Pence route. As I heard a dozen times over the weekend, even Nixon didn’t risk pardoning himself.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Not that it would make much of a difference, if the New York AG is after him for state crimes.

I'd really like to imagine the New York AG or DA for Manhattan sitting on a couple of indictments with quite a few folders full of... evidence (it's 2020 not 2012), just waiting for Biden to assume office, so they can finally go after the orange one.

[Kalbear]

11 hours ago, DMC said:

....Uh, your statement here was Buttigieg was polling higher than Harris and Warren.  And it was wrong.  But, ok, that doesn't matter because..Biden won. 

Buttigieg was polling higher in certain polls, though apparently not all the ones RCP has. But yes, I'll say that it's not as important because Biden won the primary significantly, which means regardless of what I think the general primary populace thought that he was a better candidate than Warren. And Harris didn't even make it out of November. 

11 hours ago, DMC said:

You have numbers that show how Harris or Warren would have done against Trump on November 3, after the pandemic and a full campaign that never existed?  What other hypothetical data are you drawing from Mr. Wizard?  What a fucking joke.

We have lots of other data indicating that women do not get as many votes as men do. Do you have anything that contradicts that other than wishful thinking?

11 hours ago, DMC said:

No, I don't, and neither do you. 

I don't! but I do have lots of data indicating women have a harder time of it across the board in the US. 

11 hours ago, DMC said:

But the expectation that Warren would have increased turnout/margins with women compared to Biden, or Harris would too - as well as black men - is entirely as justified as your expectation they would have lost white male votes compared to Biden.  Stop applying your banal takeaways from decades worth of research on female office-seekers to the specifics of the 2020 presidential election.  You don't know what you're talking about.

Indicators from Clinton's election indicates that women do not specifically turn out for women. Indications from the primary do not indicate that women specifically turned out for Warren, either. Indications for Harris did not indicate black people in any way turned out all that much for her. 

And your suggestion is to not use research and data and...use your gut? From you? That's super rich. In any case, if you're entirely pulling things out of your ass might I suggest you listen to other women when they talk about the difficulties of reaching higher levels in organizations and understand that it would have been harder, period. And it doesn't take it to be much harder for someone to have lost - only 67k votes.

[argonak]

57 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I wonder if Pence has been out of sight because Trump asked him to assume the presidency and issue blanket pardons to a bunch of people, including Trump.

There’s been a lot of speculation Trump will pardon himself with the expectation that Sleepy Joe won’t have the guts to go after the pardon because he cares about national unity, or if Trump has been told pardoning himself is risky so he should go the Pence route. As I heard a dozen times over the weekend, even Nixon didn’t risk pardoning himself.

He's been giving various speeches at various events the past week.  He's not actually in hiding.

[Relic]

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

I wonder if Pence has been out of sight because Trump asked him to assume the presidency and issue blanket pardons to a bunch of people, including Trump.

There’s been a lot of speculation Trump will pardon himself with the expectation that Sleepy Joe won’t have the guts to go after the pardon because he cares about national unity, or if Trump has been told pardoning himself is risky so he should go the Pence route. As I heard a dozen times over the weekend, even Nixon didn’t risk pardoning himself.

This theory has been floating around for two years. It's dumb. Trump isn't handing over power to Pence. 

[Martell Spy]

Biden's lack of legislative coat-tails complicates all the various narratives about why Biden won based upon who he is, his race, gender, being a boring vanilla moderate. 

Now, Biden clearly won the primary based on these things. However, that's in the context of a terrified Democratic base in a pandemic and with a wanna-be Hitler running for re-election.

[Fez]

21 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Biden's lack of legislative coat-tails complicates all the various narratives about why Biden won based upon who he is, his race, gender, being a boring vanilla moderate. 

Now, Biden clearly won the primary based on these things. However, that's in the context of a terrified Democratic base in a pandemic and with a wanna-be Hitler running for re-election.

Not necessarily. One interpretation of the what happened is that this was a high turnout Republican-leaning electorate, as seen by the down-ballot results. But that Biden was boring and palatable enough to the Republican-leaning voters who disliked Trump but otherwise still voted for Republicans.

This would imply that the original theory about the election was correct, that Biden would attract crossover votes. It's just that there were so many irregular voters who showed up that lean Republican (and in many cases that included voting for Trump) that those crossover votes resulted in Biden squeaking by in many of the swing states, rather than getting a blowout win.

[SFDanny]

25 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Biden's lack of legislative coat-tails complicates all the various narratives about why Biden won based upon who he is, his race, gender, being a boring vanilla moderate. 

Now, Biden clearly won the primary based on these things. However, that's in the context of a terrified Democratic base in a pandemic and with a wanna-be Hitler running for re-election.

He also won because the Left in the Democratic Party could not convince a broad enough coalition of Democratic voters that one of their candidates would win against Trump. Every campaign is about the particulars of the moment. Perhaps Sanders, Warren, or my favorite, Harris, could have won against Trump, but I see no evidence they had, in this context, the ability to even get through the first step of winning the nomination. Obviously they didn't do so. 

Let me ask this. Do you think any other Democratic candidate would have prevented the Trump turnout? What is the evidence they would have done a better job in winning over more of the Trump voters who cost Democrats some of those down ballot races? Or do you think Sanders or some other candidate would have expanded the electorate to such an extent they would have avoided those losing races down ballot races? Once again, almost eighty million people voted for the Biden/Harris ticket. Is there a real reason to think Sanders or anyone else would have done better? I don't think so.

Rather, I think we need to look deeper into the quality of the down ballot efforts. Did Democrats do enough to expand on the base in each district to build on the wins of 2018? My guess is they did not. Things like targeted voter registration campaigns to get new Democratic voters need to be emphasized and funded in a district and state specific way. We all can learn somethings from Stacy Abrams efforts over the last two years and longer in Georgia. Combine that with an aggressive effort to win fair redistricting and the future can be very bright indeed for the Democratic Party.

 

[Kalbear]

Guess there's a potential counterpoint: Biden got people out who would both vote for him AND Republicans, and another Dem candidate might have gotten more people out who would vote downballot all the way. 

But that's a pretty big if, especially given that the election was decided by 67k people in 3 states.

[argonak]

10 minutes ago, Kalbear Total Landscaping said:

Guess there's a potential counterpoint: Biden got people out who would both vote for him AND Republicans, and another Dem candidate might have gotten more people out who would vote downballot all the way. 

But that's a pretty big if, especially given that the election was decided by 67k people in 3 states.

It was still pretty record turnout.  I think Democrats overestimate how popular the names of their policies and candidates are to the voting public.  Far too many votes are seriously ignorant about how their government functions, and the issues and policies that are current.  It leaves them really open to falling to Republican talking points style of propaganda.  If they repeat lies often enough, people start believing them, even at a subconscious level.  

A huge number of Americans haven't the foggiest idea what socialism is, but they know they don't want it.

[Fragile Bird]

1 hour ago, Relic said:

This theory has been floating around for two years. It's dumb. Trump isn't handing over power to Pence. 

That depends on how afraid he is. Who knows what kind of behind-the-scenes shit he pulled as president. State level crimes are one thing, federal are another.

There’s a basic legal principle that you can’t be your own judge, and granting himself a pardon may be a step too far for the Supreme Court. Hand over the presidency to Pence on the 18th or 19th and keep yourself safe. It may not even ruin Pence’s career.

[Martell Spy]

54 minutes ago, SFDanny said:

He also won because the Left in the Democratic Party could not convince a broad enough coalition of Democratic voters that one of their candidates would win against Trump. Every campaign is about the particulars of the moment. Perhaps Sanders, Warren, or my favorite, Harris, could have won against Trump, but I see no evidence they had, in this context, the ability to even get through the first step of winning the nomination. Obviously they didn't do so. 

Let me ask this. Do you think any other Democratic candidate would have prevented the Trump turnout? What is the evidence they would have done a better job in winning over more of the Trump voters who cost Democrats some of those down ballot races? Or do you think Sanders or some other candidate would have expanded the electorate to such an extent they would have avoided those losing races down ballot races? Once again, almost eighty million people voted for the Biden/Harris ticket. Is there a real reason to think Sanders or anyone else would have done better? I don't think so.

Rather, I think we need to look deeper into the quality of the down ballot efforts. Did Democrats do enough to expand on the base in each district to build on the wins of 2018? My guess is they did not. Things like targeted voter registration campaigns to get new Democratic voters need to be emphasized and funded in a district and state specific way. We all can learn somethings from Stacy Abrams efforts over the last two years and longer in Georgia. Combine that with an aggressive effort to win fair redistricting and the future can be very bright indeed for the Democratic Party.

 

I'm not sure I know the answer to the first. I'd say with a high degree of certainty Obama. He'd have made something completely different out of this election with the same conditions and opponent, but obviously he was not available. Castro, maybe? 

I agree with the latter. I think the Biden team's very plan that won them the election might had an effect on the legislation results. If so, it's kind of hard to call it a mistake when they won the Presidency.

[Fez]

39 minutes ago, argonak said:

It was still pretty record turnout.  I think Democrats overestimate how popular the names of their policies and candidates are to the voting public.  Far too many votes are seriously ignorant about how their government functions, and the issues and policies that are current.  It leaves them really open to falling to Republican talking points style of propaganda.  If they repeat lies often enough, people start believing them, even at a subconscious level.  

A huge number of Americans haven't the foggiest idea what socialism is, but they know they don't want it.

It depends on the policy. Some of them, like a minimum wage increase, are generally extremely popular. However, for voters who don't want to vote Democratic, it hasn't been enough to get their support. And, in fairness, sometimes they don't even need to in order to get the policy into place. Florida just voted to increase its minimum wage to $15 (by 2026), and it got 60% of the vote. Why vote for the party you hate when you can take the one thing you like about them and just vote for it at the ballot box?

It's the same reason why, though I do think the Democratic party should embrace marijuana legalization, I'm not sure it'll actually help them that much. Legalization has been progressing rapidly the past few years already, and I think the prospective of someone who supports legalization but dislikes Democrats would be that the incentives to vote Democratic even if they fully go pro-legalization aren't good enough.

[SFDanny]

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

That depends on how afraid he is. Who knows what kind of behind-the-scenes shit he pulled as president. State level crimes are one thing, federal are another.

There’s a basic legal principle that you can’t be your own judge, and granting himself a pardon may be a step too far for the Supreme Court. Hand over the presidency to Pence on the 18th or 19th and keep yourself safe. It may not even ruin Pence’s career.

It also depends on how willing Pence is to go along with Trump's crimes. That might depend on how many of those crimes Pence participated in and is implicated in. Trump might have to pardon Pence before he resigns. If any of this happens, it will be the greatest political scandal in US history, and it will all have to come out. A pardon doesn't get one exonerated for future perjury charges. Right now, I wager a guess that Trump is trying to have as much of the evidence destroyed as possible.

[Martell Spy]

1 hour ago, Fez said:

Not necessarily. One interpretation of the what happened is that this was a high turnout Republican-leaning electorate, as seen by the down-ballot results. But that Biden was boring and palatable enough to the Republican-leaning voters who disliked Trump but otherwise still voted for Republicans.

This would imply that the original theory about the election was correct, that Biden would attract crossover votes. It's just that there were so many irregular voters who showed up that lean Republican (and in many cases that included voting for Trump) that those crossover votes resulted in Biden squeaking by in many of the swing states, rather than getting a blowout win.

Yeah, I don't really know the answer and wasn't claiming to, which is why I said it complicated the narrative. My first reaction to the election results once they were known was that Biden's moderation was key to the results. I came upon a news piece that made this very point I made and it did make me think quite a bit about my first reaction.

How about this theory? The Biden team saw this as a close election before it started, perhaps quite accurately so. They made a plan to win certain states and seemed to have executed it. (AZ, PA, etc) Maybe they didn't pay enough attention to what else might happen with Senate seats? Does anyone know?

[Martell Spy]

53 minutes ago, argonak said:

It was still pretty record turnout.  I think Democrats overestimate how popular the names of their policies and candidates are to the voting public.  Far too many votes are seriously ignorant about how their government functions, and the issues and policies that are current.  It leaves them really open to falling to Republican talking points style of propaganda.  If they repeat lies often enough, people start believing them, even at a subconscious level.  

A huge number of Americans haven't the foggiest idea what socialism is, but they know they don't want it.

The Democrats ran almost entirely on healthcare in 2018 and won. If what you say was true, all the Republicans had to do was called the Democrats socialists for their healthcare ideas and win the election.

[SFDanny]

I've a question. Right now I see Biden/Harris have a popular vote of 78,777,614. I trying to figure the likelihood they will reach 80 million votes. California has 634 thousand votes outstanding. If they maintain their statewide advantage around 64% they should get around 400,000 more votes out of California alone. I know there is a lot of NYC that hasn't finished counting their votes as well. I'm figuring 79.5 million is a lock, but does anyone know if the last 500,000 or so is possible? @DMC do you know?