American Politics Discussion Thread

[Commodore]

Meanwhile the president is spending all of his time golfing, infecting his staff, and orchestrating a coup and/or civil war. 

I've always rolled my eyes at conspiracy theories, but I totally believe he's contemplating this and if the hobgoblins in his mind convince him he can pull it off, he'll go for it.  January 20th can't come fast enough .

Is there any path you see leading to a January 21st state of the...well, let's call it state, where there are over 70% of US subjects who believe in the legitimacy of the government? How are your Cuban in-laws taking it? Genuinely curious.

Sorry to hear it, Boro, over-the-counter Vitamin D3 and baby aspirin might be of some help, hope you are all recovered swiftly.

[Jowy]

Look at the Republicans falling in line as Trump refuses to concede and tries to overthrow democracy. It's a good reminder that it's not just Trump, it's the Republican party as a whole that is the problem.

It's interesting to me that 50% of the donations towards election legal proceedings are actually going to paying off the campaign debt. That's an extra reason for not conceding. Gotta squeeze out every penny from your donators.

[suboptimal]

It's interesting to me that 50% of the donations towards election legal proceedings are actually going to paying off the campaign debt. That's an extra reason for not conceding. Gotta squeeze out every penny from your donators.

It's actually not quite that....for all of those donations the first ~$8000 from each donation actually gets split between the Save America PAC (60%) and the Republican National Committee (40%).  Once the a donation hits the $5k limit for the PAC then the money starts flowing to the stated cause (election proceedings) but up to 60% of that is going to retire campaign debt.  (source)

[T-hawk]

Look at the Republicans falling in line as Trump refuses to concede and tries to overthrow democracy.

They are trying to prevent an overthrow of democracy through illegally and fraudulently cast and counted votes.

(Well, I know they're just trying to win, they're not acting on any principle, but that is the principle that makes it possible.)

I remind everyone that no democracy in either direction has actually happened yet. The media reporting on the vote so far means nothing. What's real is the electors designated by each state and how they record their votes in the electoral college. The Republicans are using the courts to induce states to follow their own laws, like PA trying to count late ballots after the legally specified deadline. I'm actually not sure how I feel about that - if a state violates its own laws, is that an internal issue of only the state's concern or should the federal government have authority to enforce that?

[darrelljs]

They are trying to prevent an overthrow of democracy through illegally and fraudulently cast and counted votes.

(Well, I know they're just trying to win, they're not acting on any principle, but that is the principle that makes it possible.)

I support that principle, and would normally be at the Democrats for hypocrisy, but not this time. The "claim fraud and find evidence later" strategy that's apparently transpiring is at best irresponsible. Dragging it out past the point of absurdity is, for me, treasonous.

Is there any path you see leading to a January 21st state of the...well, let's call it state, where there are over 70% of US subjects who believe in the legitimacy of the government? How are your Cuban in-laws taking it? Genuinely curious.

Yes, if a) Trump says "just kidding", or b) the Supreme Court with a 6-3 conservative majority gives a (an?) unanimous ruling that fraud didn't happen. Unfortunately, the current slate of lawsuits are so pathetic no such cathartic ruling is possible.

The Cubans have abandoned Fox News over their anti Trump bias. I shit you not. They are watching something called Newsmax now, whatever that is. Trump TV is going to be a mint, and Trump is going to have 4 wonderful years making Biden's life miserable. If I was Biden I'd fake a stroke and let Kamala deal with it.

Darrell

[darrelljs]

I remind everyone that no democracy in either direction has actually happened yet.  The The Republicans are using the courts to induce states to follow their own laws, like PA trying to count late ballots after the legally specified deadline.  I'm actually not sure how I feel about that - if a state violates its own laws, is that an internal issue of only the state's concern or should the federal government have authority to enforce that?

I agree the PA and many of the other lawsuits have merit, its just hard to shake the feeling they were filed to give the appearance of widespread fraud, especially considering the number of ballots they impact are a few orders of magnitude below the margin of victory. You pose an interesting question, since its a federal election it feels like the Supreme Court should have final say, but I have no idea.

Darrell

[Cyneheard]

Look at the Republicans falling in line as Trump refuses to concede and tries to overthrow democracy.

They are trying to prevent an overthrow of democracy through illegally and fraudulently cast and counted votes.

(Well, I know they're just trying to win, they're not acting on any principle, but that is the principle that makes it possible.)

I remind everyone that no democracy in either direction has actually happened yet.  The media reporting on the vote so far means nothing.  What's real is the electors designated by each state and how they record their votes in the electoral college.  The Republicans are using the courts to induce states to follow their own laws, like PA trying to count late ballots after the legally specified deadline.  I'm actually not sure how I feel about that - if a state violates its own laws, is that an internal issue of only the state's concern or should the federal government have authority to enforce that?

1) The "media reporting on the vote/outcomes" is absolutely weak tea and you should know better. The media is looking at the reports that the states have published, and yes, have concluded that Joe Biden is going to win, but "Joe Biden has received more votes than Trump. We don't see any way that can change. It's over" is not them jumping to conclusions. Pennsylvania (and therefore the presidency) was called when:
- The vote margin was beyond the automatic recount threshold
- The remaining votes were in clearly pro-Biden areas, and had consistently been coming in strongly for Biden
- None of the votes that had been counted at that point were included in the "received between Nov 3rd and Nov 6th" timetable which you bring up (and which Alito had ordered to be counted, but kept segregated)
It was absolutely not a premature call.

2) The legal complaints have been super weak at best. It takes a high bar to overturn the votes that were cast, and nothing in any of these complaints has come close to changing that. Unless and until ANY of these legal complaints take any votes away from the count, this has changed nothing. We're seeing cases like "we have three people who died in October and sent in mail-in ballots but we don't know if those were counted" and such - they can't even show that there's a problem in the system! I am not going to through the complaints one by one because there's so many of them and they've been rejected in the courts again and again. 

The one significant legal discussion is about the PA deadline for receiving ballots and whether it was properly changed - but PA separated those ballots, Biden wins PA without them.

We are not saying that Trump needs to abandon the legal cases - but we ARE criticizing them as being without merit, and well aware that they have a ~0% chance of success because they are generally very poor lawsuits and the courts are always hesitant to intervene in elections after votes are cast.

3) When you get comments like Pompeo saying that there will be a "second Trump administration" (and do NOT give me the joking defense - there are some things that cannot ever be a joking matter. Respecting an election is one of them), yes, this is problematic. You're seeing people who are calling themselves "Representative-Elect" (based on media calls of their races!) saying that Biden can't be called President-Elect because the results haven't been certified. These are not serious complaints.

4) By the rules that each and every state had in place before the election, the Electoral College is determined by who got the most votes. In enough of those states and votes, that is clearly Joe Biden. For Trump to be re-elected, he would need to:
- Win Georgia (uncalled, but the current recount margin is quite high, he's very unlikely to succeed in winning there)
- Flip 2 of Arizona, Wisconsin, or Pennsylvania, based on, well, what. Saying that "we expect any of these to change" based on "there's a lawsuit somewhere that no judge has even looked at and it MIGHT change things when courts never overturn elections without overwhelming evidence" is obscenely speculative.

This. Election. Is. Over. Except for the shouting.

[Commodore]

I remind everyone that no democracy in either direction has actually happened yet.  The The Republicans are using the courts to induce states to follow their own laws, like PA trying to count late ballots after the legally specified deadline.  I'm actually not sure how I feel about that - if a state violates its own laws, is that an internal issue of only the state's concern or should the federal government have authority to enforce that?

I agree the PA and many of the other lawsuits have merit, its just hard to shake the feeling they were filed to give the appearance of widespread fraud, especially considering the number of ballots they impact are a few orders of magnitude below the margin of victory.  You pose an interesting question, since its a federal election it feels like the Supreme Court should have final say, but I have no idea.

Darrell

Well, last time a loser went after this crew's win it wound up in the Supreme Court. And got slapped down.

This. Election. Is. Over. Except for the shouting.

I need to polish up my resume and go back into the defense industry.

[DaveV]

About the vague accusations of voter fraud: right after the 2016 election (in which Trump claimed there were 3,000,000 fraudulent votes cast!), Trump empaneled a voter suppression election integrity panel, led by Kris Kobach, who had made a name for himself in Kansas via prolific stories of voter fraud, and increasingly onerous "remedies" to that fraud. The chair was the ever-obsequious Mike Pence. After eight months, this highly motivated and well resourced group had to strike their tents and slink away, having found exactly nothing.

[T-hawk]

Well, last time a loser went after this crew's win it wound up in the Supreme Court. And got slapped down.

Do you understand what happened in Bush v Gore? Exactly the same thing as is happening now: the Supreme Court ordered a state to follow the law. Democrats wanted to recount only a few Florida counties favorable to the Dems. The court held that there was no basis in law for that and a recount had to be statewide. That both couldn't be completed by the electoral college deadline and the Dems knew it wouldn't turn out in their favor anyway.

4) By the rules that each and every state had in place before the election, the Electoral College is determined by who got the most votes.

The most legal votes. If it's the most votes, then let's each go pull in a truck with a million ballots for our candidate.

Most legally cast votes, by all constraints such as date received, signatures, anything else that is required for a vote to be valid as specified by state law. That is still in dispute. An unlikely dispute, I agree. But what's happening now is exactly as the system is supposed to function. We've got time to review for irregularities before the resolution from the electoral college. If no or not enough irregularities are found, then yes Biden wins.

There's also the story of the Dominion voting machines switching votes to Biden. I don't know how credible or likely this is. One area of evidence is how much better Republicans did in down-ballot races than in the presidential. Maybe that was sabotage, maybe that was R voters legitimately voting down-ballot but not for Trump. Anyway, this is what could account for the 10k+ margins necessary to swing PA/GA/NV/AZ, a lot more than any localized instances of a few dozen ballots found in a post office here and there. This story may well turn up baseless. If it does, then yes Biden legitimately wins. It may even have happened but the result has to stand if there's no basis in the state laws to overturn a faulty counting machine.

But all of us should damn well want this investigated. If you don't, then you're the one undermining democracy.