US Election 2020

[Scot Dutchy]

Democracy never got started so how can it end?

[rainbow]

Trump is not going to live 12 more years. When he loses the election, rapid decline.

Not for want of trying by the Orange Peril, but there is no such thing as a negative IQ.

[Tero]

Trump has manipulated the campaign to be strictly about race and "law and order." Perfect distraction, best he has done so far. No pandemic, Russia or corruption in his dictatorship.

[Tero]

Trump picked up a percent over the last few days. I think this is due to Kenosha and Portland. "Law and order" working on some undecided voters.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/tr ... l-ratings/

[Scot Dutchy]

A nice explanation of the corrupt American election system:

Electoral college explained: how Biden faces an uphill battle in the US election

Trump won the presidency in 2016 despite Clinton receiving almost 3m more votes, all because of the electoral college. How does the system work?

The unequal distribution of electoral votes

While the number of electoral votes a state is assigned somewhat reflects its population, the minimum of three votes per state means that the relative value of electoral votes varies across America.

The least populous states like North and South Dakota and the smaller states of New England are overrepresented because of the required minimum of three electoral votes. Meanwhile, the states with the most people – California, Texas and Florida – are underrepresented in the electoral college.

Wyoming has one electoral college vote for every 193,000 people, compared with California’s rate of one electoral vote per 718,000 people. This means that each electoral vote in California represents over three times as many people as one in Wyoming. These disparities are repeated across the country.

Professor George Edwards III, at Texas A&M University, said: “The electoral college violates the core tenet of democracy, that all votes count equally and allows the candidate finishing second to win the election. Why hold an election if we do not care who received the most votes?

“At the moment, the electoral college favours Republicans because of the way Republican votes are distributed across the country. They are more likely to occur in states that are closely divided between the parties.”

Never mind the Russians, voter intimidation and gerrymandering. Trump cant lose?

[Scot Dutchy]

This will be a big problem.

Most Democrats fear Trump could reject election defeat, poll shows

As many as 75% of Biden voters worry that if Trump loses election he will refuse to concede defeat, triggering a constitutional crisis

Three in four supporters of Democratic challenger Joe Biden are worried about the prospect of Donald Trump rejecting the US presidential election result if it goes against him, an Opinium Research poll for the Guardian shows.

The survey underlined fears that the president will not accept the outcome of November’s race, triggering a constitutional crisis. Last week two congressional Democrats wrote to the Pentagon seeking assurance that the military would ensure an orderly transfer of power.

Nearly half of all Americans (47%) say they are worried about the possibility of Trump losing the election but refusing to concede defeat, Opinium found. Among Biden voters, that figure climbs to 75%, whereas for Trump voters it stands at 30%.

Conversely, two in five (41%) Trump voters are worried that Biden will lose but not concede, as opposed to one in four Biden voters (28%).

Trump has spent months spreading disinformation and attacking the integrity of the voting process. He declared in August: “The only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged.” It appears that he is making some headway in encouraging Americans to distrust their democracy.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Trump's loyal operatives wouldn't want to let something out that tarnished one of the boss's prime talking points in the campaign. So they quashed it.

'Report: Trump Administration Blocked Intelligence Warning Of Russian Efforts To Influence Election'

ABC News reports that the Department of Homeland Security withheld an intelligence bulletin in July warning it had “high confidence” Russia was interfering in the election by attacking Joe Biden’s mental health—much as President Donald Trump has repeatedly done—escalating concerns that the Trump administration is interfering in election security efforts ahead of November.

• The draft bulletin, titled “Russia Likely to Denigrate Health of US Candidates to Influence 2020 Election,” found that Russian actors were “likely to continue denigrating presidential candidates through allegations of poor mental or physical health” to influence the election outcome, particularly through attacks on Biden’s mental health.
• The Russian interference effort, which included a baseless effort to claim Biden’s verbal gaffes are “symptoms of dementia,” echo Trump’s repeated—and similarly baseless—attacks on the Democratic candidate’s mental fitness.
• ABC reports that one hour after the draft bulletin was submitted for review on July 7 before going out to federal, state and local law enforcement, a senior DHS official said to “hold on sending this one out” until consulting with acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf.
• The bulletin was ultimately never sent out, ABC reports.
• A DHS spokesperson confirmed to ABC that the bulletin was delayed “for further review,” claiming that it “lacked the necessary context and evidence for broader dissemination.”

[Tero]

OK....Sep 29.

At least it won't be as bad as Oprah interviewing atheists. She did not quite comprehend the concept. "Why do you atheists hate god so much?"

[Brian Peacock]

Many GOP Voters Value America’s Whiteness More Than Its Democracy

Previous presidents have flouted the rule of law and sought to restrict access to the ballot, but none of Trump’s modern predecessors have treated these endeavors like photo ops. Trump has not subverted the independence of federal law enforcement through the quiet appointments of hacks but by openly declaring that he expects the U.S. attorney general to protect him from legal accountability and by warning his allies not to cooperate with FBI investigations. He has not subtly exploited official powers for partisan gain but, rather, has formally strong-armed a foreign government into investigating his chief domestic rival and hosted a Republican National Convention on the White House lawn. He has not evinced a desire to disenfranchise his opposition merely through the orchestration of probes into (nonexistent) voter fraud but by explaining on cable television that he is blocking federal aid to the Postal Service because, if it does not receive such aid, “that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting.”

Trump’s refusal to keep his assaults on democracy constrained within limits (and/or shrouded in pretense) has scandalized a significant minority of Republican elites. But his high crimes and misdemeanors have made little impression on the party faithful. None of the president’s affronts to liberal democracy — not his praise for “very fine” white vigilantes or his proposed postponement of November’s election — have shaken his grip on a little over 40 percent of the electorate.

One explanation for Republican indifference to such deeds is that Republicans aren’t aware of them: Fox News’s programming and Facebook’s algorithm have simply kept red America blissfully ignorant of the commander-in-chief’s most tyrannical moods. (If a president executes a political prisoner in the middle of Fifth Avenue and no right-wing pundit is inclined to report it, does his shot make a sound?)

But a new paper from Vanderbilt University political scientist Larry Bartels suggests an alternative hypothesis: Many Republican voters value “keeping America great” more than they value democracy — and, by “keeping America great,” such voters typically mean “keeping America’s power structure white.”...

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/09 ... study.html

[Tero]

I can't move the bar on the phone left and right
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/tr ... l-ratings/
But it's quite amazing the chaos Biden is causing even before being elected.

Trump has gane a couple %.

[Tero]

yeah, it's about 2% Trump gained in a week, scaring white people about them black anarchists. See that link and scroll the last few days.
It's quite amazing the chaos Biden is causing, even before being elected.

[JimC]

Fear of the "other" has always been a potent tool for populist demagogues...

[Tero]

How the supreme court gets involved in recounts
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_Unit ... in_Florida

Recounting 4 counties only was unfair to the rest of Florida!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Protection_Clause

[Tero]

Mail vote fraud is >90% bs:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/03/politics ... index.html

[JimC]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-09-04/ ... n/12628490

The former head of America's overarching counter-terrorism body is warning political violence could "spin out of control" in the days leading up to the US presidential election, potentially resulting in "a lot of people getting killed".

Russ Travers, who served as acting director of the National Counter-Terrorism Centre (NCTC) until March this year, fears Donald Trump's ongoing rhetoric about the potential for a "rigged" election could lead to mass casualties if the President loses.

"I fear there are a lot of people out there with very warped views of reality and a lot of guns who could willingly take up their weapons in defence of what they believe is the President and the constitution," he told ABC News.

"That, I think, is a worrisome possibility that is growing as the political rhetoric gets more and more severe."

I don't think we have a crazed radical spouting paranoia here...