2020 USA presidential election

josh wrote:

Michael Moriarity wrote:

josh wrote:

Aristotleded24 wrote:

Why would anyone vote for Biden when he can't string a coherent sentence together and he has been accued of sexually assaulting one of his aides?

And when did you stop beating your wife.

Which one of these 2 assertions do you consider lacking in evidence?

YouTube is full of mashups of Biden talking insanely about Corn Pop, mistaking New Hampshire for Vermont and telling voters who question him that they should just vote for Trump. Al Franken was forced to resign from the senate over far less serious sexual allegations. Thousands of Republican ads will display the evidence of both, and they should be starting right about now, since Bernie has dropped out and the Rs no longer have to worry about having a competent opponent for Trump.

Biden may still win, but it will be strictly an anti-Trump vote, which failed for Hillary, and may well fail for him as well.

With all the video of Trump's insanity?  If they want to go that route, they'll be more than matched.  Same with the sexual assault allegation.  With Franken there was a photo.

The difference is that nobody expects the Republians or Trump to champion women's rights, and that is not a primary motivating factor for Republican voters. It doesn't have the power to sway anybody. The Democrats, on the other hand, paint themselves as the defenders of women and their values, but the truth is that's more about using that as a club to hit Republicans over the head with than any actually principled stance. Look how differently the Democratic Establishment reacted to the allegations against Brett Kavanaugh versus those against Joe Biden. There's a rank hypocrisy in the Democratic Party that their supporters will not tolerate.

Besides, how many accusations did Trump face before he won in 2016?  You think more accusations that come out now will sway people?

Aristotleded24 wrote:

cco wrote:

Douglas Fir Premier wrote:

Aristotleded24 wrote:

Why would anyone vote for Biden when he can't string a coherent sentence together and he has been accued of sexually assaulting one of his aides?

The Supreme Court.

I get and respect why people some people might not be able to bring themselves to vote for him.

But - as someone who's well to the left of the Democrats - that's the reason I'd probably hold my nose and vote for him, if I were a U.S. citizen and eligible to vote in a competitive state.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 87, and has faced a string of health problems in recent years. Stephen Breyer is 81. Clarence Thomas is 71, and is rumoured to have health problems of his own. And Samuel Alito - while a mere 70 years young - might look at RBG as a cautionary tale, and opt to retire while a Republican is still in the White House, depending on how things are looking after the 2022 midterms.

If Trump gets another four years in office, there's a very realistic chance that there will be six Trump appointees on the Supreme Court by 2024.

The right-wing Democratic establishment has already started hammering on this line. It's the ultimate Charlie Brown football: The Supreme Court! You must not think of anything but the Supreme Court! Fuck policy, fuck sick people, fuck stopping the slaughter of brown people overseas, fuck the collapsed economy, fuck your future, fuck your kids, fuck your grandkids. Settle for the hope of a Supreme Court justice who, 30 years down the line, might not vote to overturn your fundamental rights. That's what American politics is now.

Joe Biden has already promised to veto Medicare for all. Do you think Supreme Court justices he picks will uphold any state's single-payer system? He opposes abortion. Think his justices will uphold Roe v. Wade? He's an architect of racist mass incarceration policies. But now we're supposed to believe he'll appoint a left-wing Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court, like everything else, was lost as soon as Bernie dropped out.

We know that the Republicans are going to have bad supreme court picks. But is the idea that the Democrats would have substantially better picks based on anything other than fantasy and projection? Did Clinton or Biden ever once themselves raise that issue as to why Trump should be defeated? Remember that when the vacancy that Kavanaugh eventually ended up filling happened under Obama, Obama didn't even really challenge the Republican obstructionism. Do we have any reason to believe that Biden would fight for his nominee in the face of a hostile Republican Senate?

I'm not sure if you're directing your questions at me or cco.

I look at who Trump has appointed to the court so far. And I look at who Obama, Clinton, and Bushes I and II appointed. Are the Democratic appointees far enough to the left to align with my politics? Not by a long shot. Are they to the left of the Republican appointees? I'd say yes. Does that make them substantially better? Well, unless one believes that Supreme Court rulings don't have real world consequences, even the slightest bit better (the difference between 5-4 and 4-5) is actually quite substantial.

Of course I remember the failure of Obama's final nominee. I don't see any parallel between that debacle and how I expect things would play out if Biden should win. That vacancy was the result of Scalia's unexpected death with an election less than 10 months away. If Biden wins, I expect that Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer would both retire within the first year or two. Let's say the Republicans hold on to a slim majority in the senate, putting Biden in a position where he has to nominate candidates who are sufficiently moderate to garner the needed votes from the other side of the aisle. That would not be ideal, but it wouldn't be another Merrick Garland situation. Those two vacancies would get filled. If Biden wins, I expect Alito would stay put, as would Thomas - if his health allows. If that's how it plays out, the court would remain relatively unchanged in its leanings, but having gotten younger on the moderate side of the bench.

If, on the other hand, Biden loses; how much longer can Ginsburg hang on? Until the 2024 election, when she'll be 91? Will Breyer want to retire before he turns 86? Even if they both somehow have the will and good fortune to stick around, I would expect Thomas to provide Trump with at least one more opportunity to nominate someone to the court. And as I said before, I could see Alito considering his retirement after the 2022 midterms. With a Trump win, the best case scenario is that it remains status quo, and we go into the unknown of the 2024 election with a 5-4 conservative majority, and RBG and Breyer still on the bench.

Or maybe he gets four more vacancies, Republican control of the senate, and we end up with a 7-2 conservative majority for a generation.

Even if we are unlikely to be satisfied with Biden's nominees, I would see value in having him make those picks rather than Trump.

David Swanson: Why You Should Never Vote For Joe Biden

https://davidswanson.org/why-you-should-never-vote-for-joe-biden/

"...I don't think lesser evilists are evil. I don't think they're insane. I don't think they're failing to make an argument. I think they're failing to recognize the side effects of the treatment they're prescribing for our ills. I think that every four years we get two choices that are more evil than the time before. Here's Trump four years the worse than last time, versus Biden who's been repeatedly rejected in the past over his warmongering, corporate prostituting and general lack of anything positive to offer.

And the idea of changing society to get better choices while returning to lesser-evil voting at intervals is immensely impeded by what lesser-evil thinking does to its practioners. They join the team. They self-censor. They slant. They become partisan. And activism and discourse and policy all go down the tubes...The question is not whether to compromise. It's whether to bow face-down in the mud and whether doing so is strategically smart..."

'The more often a stupidity is repeated, the more it takes on the appearance of wisdom.' - Voltaire -

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

The logic, or lack therof, behind this does not reflect the dangers to the political system in the US or the extreme misery that will increase on millions of people in the US and outside. Biden may be a mainstream no-good candidate. He is not at significant risk of bringing the US to the point of defacto dictatorship.

This is the same ridiculous fearmongering bullshit that the Democratic Party has shoved down our throats for decades. "If a Republican gets elected, life as we know it will end, the sun will burn out, the moon will turn to blood, and the stars will fall out of the sky and scorch everything on impact. We are doomed!" Well, after 4 years of Trump, most of us are still here. People tune that out after a while.

Sean in Ottawa]</p> <p>[quote=NDPP wrote:

The US must be understood to have an extremely weak democracy to the point that we have to use the word generously to include them. Trump is threatening the remaining few checks and balances that exist. Assuming that there can be a cmpetative election this fall (and we are not even sure about that) it is clear there will not be one four years after that.

The Democrats have had control of the House for 2 years, have signed off on increases to Trump's military budget that he asked for, and also signed off on his new version of NAFTA. They give the theatre of resisting as a means to emotionally manitpulate their supporters and say, "send us money so we can stop Trump and the Republicans" while going along with him on the major issues.

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

But Biden does not threaten the 2024 election in the very real way Trump does. The US gets a do-over then if they elect Biden and  are not certain to get one with Trump. If you look at the authoritarian trend since 2016 you should not have any confidence things will get better under Trump for 2024.

Nothing fundamental is going to change under Biden. He said he would veto Medicare For All. He has no plans for a Green New Deal. He has no plans to dial back foreign military adventures, or even reverse any of the actions that Bush II, Obama, and Trump have taken towards authoritarianism. That will leave people very angry and frustrated, and a second Trump will be able to come in, take advantage of that, and win.

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

A note on leaders: Biden can be a bad choise but he is a product of his party. This party has been influneced by OAC and Sanders adn is facing an internal conflict. It is not what it was and even if he may not be what he was. He is an establishment candidate which means he is influened by the party considerably including its evolutions as slow as they might be. He may also choose a very progressive candidate for Vice President as his best chance at election. That person may be President befor ethe end of the term and be well positioned to win in 2024.

Actually when it comes to AOC, it's the other way around. She is knuckling under to the Democratic Establishment. She only endorsed 2 progressive challengers to right-wing Democrats this time around, she has replaced some of her more radical staffers with staffers who are more comfortable working in Congress, and she has earned praise from the likes of Neera Tanden. As Kshama Sawant said, the Democratic Party is where left-wing movements go to die. The Democrats are very good at allowing enough people like AOC and Dennis Kucinich before her to win so that the left thinks they can take over the party, but they maintain the levers of control. The Establishment shows no signs of bending to the left at all. As mentioned, Biden said he would veto Medicare For All if it reached his desk. Nanci Pelosi dismissed the Green New Deal as the "green dream or whatever." Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein was dismissive of a group of school children who asked her to sign onto a Green New Deal because they are terrified of the future that climate change will bring. They are ruthless. Furthermore, there are signs that Klobuchar and Buttigieg were promised positions of power and influence in a Biden Cabinet if they dropped out and endorsed him on Super Tuesday. That is what tipped Biden over the edge. Voting for Biden will only reward that behaviour, and that is craven behaviour that should not be rewarded.

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

Someone has to tell the Bernie Sanders supporters who are thinking they might stay home or vote other than Biden that not voting for Biden will not bring back Sanders -- it will only risk the chance that the US may not be able to have a candidate like Sanders any time in the next century.

Yes, Sanders is a once-in-a-lifetime candidate. It's too bad that the DNC along with their media allies and MSNBC did everything they could to tank his campaign. This is all the more reason to mobilize to build a third party that can actually be competitive, instead of falling for the fear-mongering I described in the first part of this thread. Had the Michael Moores of the world, instead of begging the Democrats to move left, had themselves fought to build a third party for the last 20, 25, or 30 years, we might very well be in a situation where neither the Republicans or Democrats had a majority in either the House and the Senate, and that an independent group of progressive legislators had actual clout and would be an effective resistance to the first Trump coronavirus bailout. For all their grandstanding speeches, AOC and Sanders voted for it. The only resistance to Trump's plan came from a few Republicans.

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

Someone should tell Sanders supporters that allowing the re-election of a man who muses about totalitarian directions regularly, including suppression, end to term limits and the absolute control of the leader is beyond stupid.

More ridiculous fearmongering. If the Democrats want to win votes, they should go out and earn them. If they are that worried about Sanders voters staying home, or voting third party, or voting for Trump, they should look in the mirror and ask themselves why. Instead, they just blame everyone else but themselves for why they lose. People have a right to make up their own minds about who they want to vote for.

Why are people always using emotional blackmail tactics on Sanders voters to try and scare them into voting for whoever the Democrats prop up? Why does nobody ever say to folks like Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, or Nancy Pelosi that if they want to win an election, they are the ones who need to change and accomodate the voters?

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

Someone should tell Sanders supporters to listen to Sanders. He sacrificed a campaign that was looking at long odds but not certain defeat. He did htis for the reasons above.

Not me, us was Sanders' campaign slogan. Sander's most loyal partisans were attracted to him because of the public policy agenda that he espoused and the consistency with which he has done so over the years. It isn't a cult of personality, and many Bernie supporters have openly said that they disagree with such a move. Furthermore, when Sanders began shilling for Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election, his popularity went down and he wasn't able to gather the same crowds he had before. This move also appears to validate critiques from some on the left of Sanders who said that the only prupose of his campaign was to channel the progressive energy into the Democratic Party where it could be dispersed and not pose any threat to the Establishmen. Sanders himself also blundered by treating his "friend Joe" with kid gloves, not calling out his weaknesses, and saying that Biden could win an election. The last thing you do in an election campaign, especially when you have an uphill fight like Sanders did, is to give swing voters permission to vote for any other candidate.

Well, after 4 years of Trump, most of us are still here.

True, but tens of thousands aren't due to his health and environmental policies.  Or lack of same.

There is another reason to believe that Biden will not win, and that is support among younger voters. They were key to Obama's victories in 2008 and 2012, as they cancelled out the Republican votes who tended to be older. Even in 2016, Clinton won younger voters. Trump and Biden are tied with young voters right now. Given that turnout and the likelihood of voting Republican increases with age, that is a near certain landslide win for Trump in the Electoral College and the popular vote.

NorthReport wrote:

Political tide on crisis threatens to turn against Trump

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/492439-the-memo-political-tide-on-crisis-threatens-to-turn-against-trump

The crisis is opening up new avenues to steal the election/Look at the Wisconsin formula. of 180 polling stations in one Democrat city they closed all but three. Republican area polling stations left open. If you are willing to stand the wait are you willing to contract Covid-19 while waiting? This is a variation on a theme of lilmiting voting in areas the Democrats control

This was not about the Democratic Primary. They were holding an election that decided the State Court. Democrats did not vote Republicans did. This is crucial to then use the court to ensure that the state is effectively stolen for Trump. With the Electoral College the way it is they only need to do this in 4-5 States and Trump wins.

No guarantees depending on how this emergency plays out but there are as many reasons to see Trump win s lose.

As well even if he lost it does not mean that he, and his court, would take that as a loss. They may simply declare fraud and refuse to leave. Don't think the US has much of any democracy now. In fact you would be hard pressed to find any evidence of one. 

Sure you may say they have always been undemocratic but this is a deterioration in critical areas of what was already a system that has always been on the verge of collapsing. What is replacing it is rabid denial of facts and racist nationalism. The US may welcome its exit from the list of countries putting up much of an effort to claim to be democratic.

Meanwhile Trump declared (according to Raw Story) that it is not the State governors' decisions to open the US but his. Note it was the Governors who ordered the social distancing.

So, if Trump wants to overrule the Governors, this might be the step too far. Some facts:

1) States run federal elections

2) Trump influences the success of GOP senators but not nearly as much as the governor of the State they are representing

3) States rights is part of the GOP religion

If Trump decided to overrule governors there would be a few phone calls from Republican governors to their federal senators telling them it is time for  removal and a new Republican candidate. A few calls may go to the President telling him that a dictator move over the Governors will lose him his job.

Of course if Trump did this anyway and the Republicans picked someone else -- then Democrats would take Biden out to the woodshed and he would come back resigning from the campaign for personal reasons and a canddiate designed to defeat the new Republican would be found before convention.

Your guess is as good as mine who the dandidates will be and who would win. I am sure Michelle Obama's phone would be buzzing and she would either be asked to be the candidate or to convince an acceptable one to run.

This is what I mean by a curve ball to hit this campaign. I feel something is going to happen that changes everything. I cannot predict what.

In this case I think moron trump would stand down and not overrule Governors on an over-reached order for opening. But if he did -- I think  he is nearer to a breaking point than he realizes. He is fast becoming a liability for Senators looking for re-election and they do have the power to bury him. My guess is they will try to hold out until just before the convention and if Trump has not fixed his sinking popularity, he might find himself replaced on the ticket -- this comes up faster if he challenges governors over state rights.

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

3) States rights is part of the GOP religion

I have to disagree with you on this one. States' rights have always been a rhetorical trick for the GOP, not an article of faith. They support states' rights to do things like maintain segregation, ban gay marriage, and subsidize religion, but are dead-set against states' rights to implement gun control or health care. If Trump overrules governors, they will back him, because he's Trump and some of those governors are Democrats.

NorthReport wrote:

So much for MAGA!

Why does the USA with only 23% of the China's population have 625% of China's confirmed virus cases?

The real question is why do you believe China's numbers?