Curry Pervert wrote: Wed Oct 23, 2024 2:55 pm

zorg wrote: Wed Oct 23, 2024 1:36 pm A proper fascist would have seized power during their first administration.

He kinda did, remember. He's just too much of a bumblefuck to pull it off properly., and some pushed back against it.

The only reason he failed was hubris. It never occurred to him that it might not go his way. Now that he has reason to expect even more resistance and only the time of a single term left to legally hold power, if he truly is the type to do it, he's going to go hard Fascist asshat this time. Also, his Supreme Court Storm Troopers have basically set him up for a free for all. I'm still just hoping for Syphilis to finally rip him apart.

Trump fits the profile of the stubborn boomer who thinks he's going to live forever, always wants more and more, is incapable of honest self-examination, is used to having much of everything done for him, and definitely won't go gentle into that good night. He would gladly take the whole country down with him if it meant getting to assert some kind of fleeting dominance before he passed away and/or became a has-been. Putin is similar in that he likely can't conceive of a post-Putin Russia, a future for his country that doesn't involve him.

I'd assume Mitch McConnell doesn't have a lot of clout around here, and rightly so, but this article in CNN from the other day is telling: McConnell says ‘MAGA movement is completely wrong’ and Reagan ‘wouldn’t recognize’ Trump’s GOP. Read some of the specific quotes.

We can scoff at the notion of Reagan as being some kind of paragon of virtue, sure, but the GOP is in a strange state at present in that it has conflicting aims. On the one hand, its top brass increasingly wants to walk back all of trashy pettiness and narcissistic incompetence and disregard for the rule of law of Trump and his ilk. On the other hand, Republicans don't want to lose numbers. Encompassing the "undesirables" or those with a "politically disaffected" mindset helps them win, or so the logic goes. If such people get turned away by a more "normal" presidential candidate who is more measured and not prone to riling them up with lies and provocations, then the right's turnout may well be smaller come Election Day.

^ They have a "lunatics are taking over the asylum problem" that goes back to the tea party but has been rebirthed in worse forms. They want the votes but clearly there are Republicans with some actual principles (misguided as they are) who have to cater to the dumpster fire if they want a career in conservative politics.

There was a moment back in McCain vs Obama that I see as the moment this problem became clear. It was the awkward moment where McCain was at a town hall and a woman was handed the mic and expressed her concern that Obama was a closeted Islamic extremist who hated America. You could clearly see how McCain was so uncomfortable with his new brand, Palin was an obvious idiot and these were his voters. He actually had the gumption to correct the woman. If Trump was watching he probably said, "Don't correct that woman! Agree with her!!"

Yeah ^^^. We're in this bind now. It's a problem for the Republican Party specifically, but also America in general. And the world. If a significant chunk of a given voting bloc is "a few DVDs short of a boxset," then on some level they have to be put up with, catered to, and emboldened with congruent rhetoric. Or else their votes might be lost. Trump has tapped into this, in large part because he himself isn't very intelligent, is unusually arrogant, and may well believe much of the nonsense he spouts. Even if he doesn't believe something (like that the 2020 election was stolen), he's a credible mouthpiece for that manner of bullshit. This form of confirmation from on high then begets more shoddy thinking among the populace, which then gives politicians more incentive to incorporate it into their messaging and platforms. We, collectively, have capitulated too much, and there's a growing fear that there's no going back.

It could be argued that all political maneuvering incorporates some kind of sleight of hand, some kind of fuckery, and that even sure-footed establishment politics has its dubious effects. But some form of stability or relative "normality" is preferable to a trashy-ass race to the bottom.

Y'all ever heard about poll herding?

Basically, pollsters are so afraid of being wrong this time around that they're manipulating their methods until they can publish a statistical tie. The problem is that they're doing it too well, to the point where the data isn't reflecting the actual margin of error that you should statistically get based on the sample size.

I hate to give any credence to Nate Silver because he's got some shitty takes on a lot of things, but when he stops bloviating and sticks to statistics, he's actually useful:




That being said, the Selzer poll in Iowa just came out, and it's one that a lot of people were waiting for. It has Harris +3. IN IOWA. Never saw that coming.

He's been very critical of the democrats this time. Nate Silver says she is a B candidate running a D campaign. C average.
And we're not going to learn very much with 3 days to go. "The pollsters are just punting except the NYT," and now that Iowa poll I assume.
If you add up the states where Harris is ahead, she is still one state behind and that state is Pennsylvania.

It's all bread and circuses, Harris is a shoe-in.

Get ready for the maga meltdowns.

A_Man_Who_Tries wrote: Thu Oct 17, 2024 3:34 pm Harris, and by a wider margin than expected, but that's not going to stop an absolutely homocidal shitstorm in the aftermath.

Picked Trump in 2016, but don't see it now. Usual caveat of the ludicrously fast news cycle.

Likewise on all counts until a couple of weeks ago. Harris seems to be lagging a bit now so I am leaning Harris, but only just.

Everyone around me seems pretty confident, I’m not feeling much of anything. I just want all of those people to go away. And THEY call ME vermin.

Also, conscience voters: you’re so fuckin cool! I can’t get over how punk you are.

Curry Pervert wrote: Mon Nov 04, 2024 7:41 pm It's all bread and circuses, Harris is a shoe-in.

Get ready for the maga meltdowns.

Interestingly I’ve seen a bit of “Harris will crush him” based on the massive break for Harris among women and particularly high propensity voting older women who are super pissed at Roe vs Wade.

It’s about likely voters and their sense of motivation. I’m sure if Trump is crushed the blame will go on the Trump Bro strategy. Young men might say they’re voting Trump but are they actually registered and do they show up? History tells us no where near as much as older women.

Personally I hope I wake up tomorrow to Trump undeniably in the gutter. But I’m not counting on it.