The Dems are only just scraping through because they’re not left wing enough:
The Democratic establishment has long refused to embrace even the basic tenets of social democracy – not least taxing the better-off to fund programmes such as a comprehensive welfare state and universal healthcare.
Yep, truly:
That does not mean there is no hope. The so-called Squad of progressive Congressional Democrats – whose most famous member is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – has doubled in number, including the election of former nurse Cori Bush in Missouri and the first queer black Congressman, Mondaire Jones, in New York. The old Democratic establishment has failed to inflict the final reckoning on Trumpism that is deserved. It falls to this new generation of progressive leaders – predominantly working-class people of colour – to finish the job, not just for the United States, but for all of us.
That’s how you win over Flyover Country Own, really.
You’re British Owen – as shown by your spelling – adjectives go *BEFORE* the noun.
The ‘Guardian’ opinion pages are a dumpster fire. They just don’t get it.
“The ‘Guardian’ opinion pages are a dumpster fire. They just don’t get it.”
Some of the early analysis I’ve seen shows white college educate women make a late swing to Trump. If the left had any awareness and contrition they’d be asking why and come to the conclusion that violence on the streets really isn’t the best way to get women on side. Add to that accusing their sons of being college rapists, the transgender-TERF wars, white privilege accusations, all whites are racists chants and its a small wonder any women voted for Biden at all.
I agree with young Owen on one thing; if the Squad get into power, it’s definitely finished.
“social democracy”
Wasn’t that an euphemism for “communism”?
Having perused the quotation in Tim’s post and noted that every adjective is placed before its associated noun, I would like to know if anyone can explain jgh’s post.
Meanwhile, in the Washington Post:
“We need to not ever use the word ‘socialist’ or ‘socialism’ ever again. . . . We lost good members because of that,” Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.), who narrowly leads in her reelection bid, said heatedly. “If we are classifying Tuesday as a success . . . we will get fucking torn apart in 2022.”
@BiND:
Yes, I agree that Biden jumping in both feet first into gender self-id will have led some traditionally Dem-voting women to hold their noses and vote for Trump.
I hope the Squad take over the Dems – and exercise what little power gridlock allows them through president Harris. 2024 will be a sweep.
And here’s another bit of analysis
“ I am loving all the white people blaming Trump’s great numbers on the racism of his voters when the only demographic that he didn’t improve with was white men.”
And as to Flyover Country, to the extent they care about it, if they do, it will be to crush it under the weight of intersectional politics, not win it.
D My guess, he refers to poc but prefers on nationalistic linguistic grounds owen to use c’d p.
aaa = “predominantly working-class people of colour”. –
Sorry aaa, reply to Diogenes above.
2024 will be a sweep
There’s 4 years between then and now for them to really fuck things up though.
” And as to Flyover Country, to the extent they care about it, if they do, it will be to crush it under the weight of intersectional politics, not win it.”
The thing that will crush the US is non-white immigration. As Mark Steyn has pointed out: ‘ Demographics is destiny’.
Dems regularly bleat about Republicans gerrymandering a particular district or county; meanwhile they have been busily gerrymandering the whole country with immigrants both legal and illegal.
We need to not ever use the word ‘socialist’ or ‘socialism’ ever again
Indeed. Still believe in it, and implement it once in power, but never mention it in elections. This isn’t ‘lying’ because only our enemies lie.
Jonathan November 6, 2020 at 10:14 am – “Dems regularly bleat about Republicans gerrymandering a particular district or county; meanwhile they have been busily gerrymandering the whole country with immigrants both legal and illegal.”
And that is why the Squad – and Owen Jones – are the future of America and the UK. Our rulers fully intend to make us a minority and flood the West with people from shithole countries who will reproduce their shithole cultures here.
You want to see the future of the Republican and Tory parties? It is AOC. She will be the moderate Right in two generations
Assuming unlimited immigration is going to make America love luxury gay space communism and free late-term abortions for transgender demiclown otherkin is dumb. The PRI had a good run in Mexico, but Mexico is fairly homogeneous. Multiethnic empires tend towards fragmentation.
It’s more likely to result in homosexuality being banned in Minnesota (pbuh) and a Bolsonaro figure being elected.
Steve November 6, 2020 at 10:30 am – “Assuming unlimited immigration is going to make America love luxury gay space communism and free late-term abortions for transgender demiclown otherkin is dumb. The PRI had a good run in Mexico, but Mexico is fairly homogeneous. Multiethnic empires tend towards fragmentation.”
Is it? Remind me, does Mexico City have tranny rights and free abortion?
What Owen doesn’t get is that the policies are window dressing. I am pretty sure The Squad are not particularly Left wing. They just hate you. And these days the hatred of Whites is dressed up in the language of the Left. That is what brings the Islamists together with the Trots.
Now there is some give and take there. The Islamists seem willing to put off throwing Gays off buildings if they get to kill Jews. And people like you. The Left will segregate boys from girls at their meetings if they get to take your house. At some point the two groups will have to part ways. But it will be too late for you.
But it will be too late for you.
Doomed!
But he says “queer black Congressman” a sentence or so earlier…
I am loving all the white people blaming Trump’s great numbers on the racism of his voters when the only demographic that he didn’t improve with was white men
Yeahbut Biden increased his share of the crucial dead people demographic, and Democrat operatives huddled in backrooms, frantically filling out loads of votes.
If we are classifying Tuesday as a success . . . we will get fucking torn apart in 2022.”
So it seems Dennis was right about the polls. Whether they were deliberately bullshit or accidentally bullshit probably doesn’t matter much, they predicted a massive blue wave which didn’t happen.
” It’s more likely to result in homosexuality being banned in Minnesota (pbuh) and a Bolsonaro figure being elected.”
TBH Steve, that’s the most optimistic outcome. I’d say future USA is on a spectrum between:
a) the whole country splits up into several smaller countries based on demographic lines.
b) Brazil.
President Biden is not the end of America, but a Biden administration would be the beginning of the end….
Jon – Dunno.
Breaking up is probably the good ending. There’s no particular reason California needs to be in a political union with West Virginia, now that there’s no real common agreement on what being American means (and lots of violent disagreement).
However, there’s no obvious way to align geography with demography, unless some really bad Balkans-style shit happens.
The US Empire will continue until it doesn’t. $20 trillion in national debt and declining human capital doesn’t sound like a recipe for longevity, but then the wildly dysfunctional Ottomans and the USSR had a good run, so who knows?
Steve November 6, 2020 at 10:42 am – “Doomed!”
Americans just lost an election because their country has been flooded with so many illegals they will be a minority soon.
By all means, if you can see the bright side to this, let me know. The only good news I see for Americans is that they get to be Brazil. We will get to be Lebanon before we become Egypt and then Pakistan.
if you can see the bright side to this, let me know
If crying and masturbating doesn’t fix it, I don’t know what will.
I’m optimistic. The dems won well enough to ignore antifa and Owen Jones but not well enough to want to embrace them. I foresee a series of democrat mayors calling out the national guard.
Could be an interesting four years. The principal’s already been set, if you don’t like the result of the election, you don’t have to accept it. That can work both ways. People of the right have generally accepted democratic results that go against them because the have more invested in the system. The left continue depriving them of that investment they’re removing the brakes. Mentioned in a previous thread, it depends on who controls the streets. The left has long used a two pronged method to get what it wants. The political & the use of various levels of civil disobedience from peaceful demonstrations to intimidatory demonstrations to all out riots. The only reason the left has a monopoly on this is the self restraint of the right. That starts to fail things could get very interesting. The left’s restrained, in part, by civil authorities use of the forces of law & order. With civil authority moving further to left, it might not find the forces of law & order not as responsive. Not at the level of the footsoldiers of the forces of law & order using their force to impose law & order. Not if their sympathies are more with the people they’re supposed to be forcing than those giving them their orders.
‘not least taxing the better-off to fund programmes such as a comprehensive welfare state and universal healthcare’
The better-off (sic) will be shocked that they AREN’T being taxed to fund programmes.
The average person doesn’t know what the better-off pay, so Leftards get away with proclaiming over and over that they will get the rich to pay their “fair share.” Objective studies years ago showed the rich pay MORE than their fair share already.
Well compensated Californians lose 2/3s of their income to taxes. Less so here in SC, but still over 50%.
Think it’s worth remembering, if you back over past confrontations between the forces of law & order & insurrectionary actions the responses were actually supported by the general public. Paris ’68, Parisians in general supported the heavy handed suppression of the riots. Kent State, much the same with the National Guard. The guy in uniform with the baton or the rifle or the tear gas dispenser is the brother of the guy out of uniform paying his taxes pays their wages.
Meanwhile, in the Washington Post:
“We need to not ever use the word ‘socialist’ or ‘socialism’ ever again. . . . We lost good members because of that,” Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.), who narrowly leads in her reelection bid, said heatedly. “If we are classifying Tuesday as a success . . . we will get fucking torn apart in 2022.”
aaa has nailed down the biggest news in the USA yesterday.
The biggest development yesterday had to do with the House of Representatives. It is becoming increasing clear that the Democrats are going to lose big in the House. Republicans will not control, but they will have somewhere between 200 and 2005 seats. Democrats were expecting a net gain in the House. At yesterday’s Democrat Caucus, moderate Democrats such as Spanberger (and more importantly Majority Whip Clyburn) criticized both the progressives and Speaker Pelosi in no uncertain terms.
What does this mean?
First, it means that Pelosi is going to be challenged for the position of Speaker, and whether she wins or loses, she will be weakened.
Second, the moderate Democrats are sending a very clear signal to Pelosi, Schumer and Biden… We will not walk off the climb for you in support of radical legislation. Pelosi bet big on the progressives and she bet wrong. Kind of like me betting on Trump. Actually, exactly like me betting on Trump.
You have to remember, the Democrats in the House are well aware that in 2009 Pelosi sacrificed a generation of moderate Democrats in the House to get Obamacare passed. The moderate Democrats in the House have not forgotten that, and it appears they determined (and are going to be aggressive about it) to avoid a repeat.
Yes, there is that too. The big difference in the American tax system is that there is no VAT. Which Jones will be the first to tell you is a regressive tax.
It looks like enough entirely honest and true ballots have been found to hand Georgia to (Biden) Kamala, so save for court challenges the Presidency is decided. Entirely honest and true ballots are now being found in senate races.
It’s actually funny, in the same way Russian chemical weapon murders (acts of war) too brazen to respond to are funny.
It looks like enough entirely honest and true ballots have been found to hand Georgia to (Biden) Kamala, so save for court challenges the Presidency is decided. Entirely honest and true ballots are now being found in senate races.
I blame the Russians.
. . . Democrats are going to lose big in the House.
Normally, losing big would mean ending up with fewer seats than your opponent. Those of us who are not hot-rod accountants like Dennis might use our fingers and conclude that Democrats have actually suffered a setback.
That setback does point to some potential comedy gold. America might have a senile, corrupt President-elect with a hung Senate and a House so close that it’s unable to elect a Speaker in time to certify the Electoral College votes.
Anyway, adjectives don’t always come before nouns; we’ve had courts martial, Princes regent, poets laureate, knights errant, letters patent, Doctors Who, professors and bishops emeritus, an Astronomer and Princess Royal, a Queen regnant along with her Prince consort, and sundry attorneys, postmasters, directors, consuls and Pedants general.
And we’ve had many of them from time immemorial.
Normally, losing big would mean ending up with fewer seats than your opponent. Those of us who are not hot-rod accountants like Dennis might use our fingers and conclude that Democrats have actually suffered a setback.
Or you could just engage in pointless semantics to avoid admitting Dennis is right.
And what you do with your fingers should probably remain private.
“The big difference in the American tax system is that there is no VAT.”
Dennis will know. Isn’t there a ‘sales tax’ in the US – Which I think varies from state to state. Not sure how and on what it operates but it’s probably close enough to VAT if you’re looking for a ‘regressive tax’ to moan about. And leftards are always looking for something to moan about.
There are – often – sales taxes. But they raise a percentage point of GDP. A proper VAT raises 8 to 10 points of GDP. It’s the major tax difference.
The Ameriacn tax system is actually – definitively at the Federal level, still when including state taxes – more progressive than European ones. Because of the VAT
Ah, direct democracy and taxes. What could go wrong?
https://apnews.com/article/san-francisco-approves-taxes-on-ceos-9dbf9e764220830dcfabeed96b45a63d
No evidence of fraud you say? Hmmm…
https://twitter.com/ClimateAudit/status/1324586090897018880
Not to worry, Jonathan, Democrats are losing bigly.
The average person doesn’t know what the better-off pay, so Leftards get away with proclaiming over and over that they will get the rich to pay their “fair share.”
I think the average person has a rough idea, but people want higher taxes for other people. If those other people happen to earn more than them, even better. There’s nothing better than the sound of the caring Progressive when they suddenly realise THEY are the target of a new tax.
https://twitter.com/milliedrane/status/1324729976214740992
It’s obviously fraud, too many amazing statistical coinkydinks, all favouring Biden.
They also openly told people what they were going to do in advance. While the polls were projecting an unlikely Biden landslide, evil midget Bloomberg and others were disseminating talking points to the press and activists (same thing) warning that, while Trump would be ahead on election night, he’d lose once all the votes were counted. Which is a pretty fucking astonishing prediction given the polls.
The GOP has a noble tradition of losing, but if they tolerate this they won’t be allowed to win a closely contested presidential or senate race ever again.
Dunno that Trump has a good chance of winning, but he’d be right to use every legal option available to recount/audit the suspicious votes. No point in making it easier for his enemies, they’ll try to ruin him either way (because that’s how banana republics operate).
If you think this is bad just wait until the Dems start using their vote-finding powers to flip both Georgia seats in the forthcoming senate run-offs.
That will make it 50:50 with VP Harris (assuming she hasn’t got the big job just yet) casting the deciding vote. Kiss goodbye to filibusters and order at least 4 more chairs for the Supreme Court.
It’s obviously fraud, too many amazing statistical coinkydinks, all favouring Biden.
Don’t be cynical, Steve. It’s obvious a drooling senile with virtually no enthusiastic following can get 90% Obama-beating turnouts; and the fact that hundreds of thousands of those ballots cast no downticket votes is no evidence that they were generated as required.
PJF – I know right?
This is the biggest, fattest, most brazen con ever pulled on the American public since they pretended Sarah Jessica Parker was a sexually desirable woman.
Gotta admire the chutzpah, but raising the stakes like this seems like the kind of thing that’s a much bigger existential threat to the system than Orange Badman ever was. Sort of like when our “elites” (piss be upon them) thought they could just cancel Brexit. Could spiral into a constitutional crisis or maybe worse (why not? It’s 2020)
2016…
Them: Hillary should be president. Russian collusion.
You: Act like an adult and accept the results.
Them: Never!
You: You’re undermining democracy!
2020…
You: Trump should be president. Voter fraud.
Them: Act like an adult and accept the results.
You: Never!
Them: When we did this you said we were undermining democracy.
You: Yeah, but this is different!!!
Dennis – I’m sure the moral high ground will keep you dry when they take away your rights, your guns, and your money. Thoughts and prayers x
Steve –
You sound just like the nutless wonders who claimed Trump was going to throw everyone in concentration camps. But you do you.
That’ll be those nutless wonders soon to be running your country. What lolz.
That’ll be those nutless wonders soon to be running your country. What lolz.
Yeah, well that sometimes happens. Democracy can be problematic if you don’t have the maturity to accept it when it’s inconvenient for you. Me, I wear big boy pants, so I can cope.
Try it.
I’ve lived through LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, too much of the Bush family, Clinton and Obama. It’s gonna take a lot more than Joe Biden (and Kamala Harris) to scare me.
Every Republican president is Adolph Hitler and every Democrat president is Joseph Stalin… Whatever.
Looking at the results at the end of the initial count I commented to some friends that Biden needed to win 2/3rds or more of the remaining votes in a number of states to win which seemed unlikely and it looked like a narrow Trump win was possible. Fast forward and did some quick calculations and turns out that the votes for Biden since the initial count in most of the battlefields was 75% of the remaining votes. Just enough of a trend to flip the victory
Fast forward and did some quick calculations and turns out that the votes for Biden since the initial count in most of the battlefields was 75% of the remaining votes.
Given that Democrats made a massive effort to get Biden voters to use mail-in ballots, this should not be a surprise. Mail in ballots have to be tabulated manually. They are not going to be counted or reported in the early stages of the count. Nor should anyone be surprised by the fact that counting in high density urban areas (overwhelmingly Democrat) tends to be slower than in other areas… It’s the way it has always been. I simply don’t understand why anyone would be surprised by the drift towards the Democrats at the tail end of the count.
For those still stuck in Kubler-Ross Stage One with only seven working brain cells and a bad case of paranoia, let me ask the following questions:
1) Anyone remember just how improbable Trump’s victory was in 2016? How everything that had to go right went right? Remember his combined margin of victory in WI, MI and PA? No, you don’t. Try less than 80,000. That’s 22,000, 11,000 and 44,000. Given those margins, why would anyone be surprised at Biden taking each of those states in 2020?
2) Can anyone explain to me why there was an absence of massive fraud in the battleground states in 2016 that allowed Trump to win the presidency, but a massive amount of fraud in 2020 guaranteeing a Biden victory? I mean, did WI, MI and PA only discover how to commit rampant, undetected voter fraud sometime between early November, 2016 and early November, 2020?
3) Given that MN hasn’t gone Republican since Nixon in 1972, is a Trump loss in 2020 to be considered such an anomaly that it can only be explained by fraud?
4) Here’s one I asked Ecks a couple of weeks ago: How many of you know the election laws of the battleground states, as well as, say, NV, AZ and GA? You know, what are the compositions of the election boards? How do they function? Who has oversight? What sort of oversight exists? Short answer: None of you. You haven’t done the work and you don’t know. Why?
I’d love to see answers out of PJF, Steve and Ecks, but then I’d also like to have Brad Pitt’s looks and be hung like a horse…
There’s nothing better than the sound of the caring Progressive when they suddenly realise THEY are the target of a new tax.
California being a fine example:
Can anyone explain to me
I doubt it Dennis. You seem like a nice enough guy, but probably answer “knock knock” jokes with “come in”.
Boomers: the gulliblest generation.
” Can anyone explain to me why there was an absence of massive fraud in the battleground states in 2016 that allowed Trump to win the presidency, but a massive amount of fraud in 2020 guaranteeing a Biden victory? I mean, did WI, MI and PA only discover how to commit rampant, undetected voter fraud sometime between early November, 2016 and early November, 2020?”
The obvious answer to that is that in 2016 they didn’t think they’d need it. Hillary was a shoo in, right? Everybody said so, especially in the echo chamber of the Left. They’d had 2 easy Obama wins prior to 2016, who needs to bother fixing the vote when you’re winning like a boss anyway? When Trump slammed through on the inside they were caught napping. And have been making it very clear for the last 4 years they weren’t going to let it happen again.
@BNiC
“Looking at the results at the end of the initial count I commented to some friends that Biden needed to win 2/3rds or more of the remaining votes in a number of states to win which seemed unlikely”
Well why did it seem unlikely to you? Did you look at the state-by-state betting markets? Did you have a look at specialist US politics, election modelling or political betting forums (or the equivalent corners of Twitter or wherever) to see which places hasn’t reported yet in those states, what kinds of ballots hadn’t been reported yet (the counting order varies by state) and the expected split in those ballots?
Even for those Brits who have never really understood how US elections work, have you never followed a UK election live results? When the first places to report tend not to have the same characteristics as the last places? The way the UK elections work is that the first places to report are almost all Labour even during a Tory landslide. You get similar things in the US election but the dynamics are different (eg urban areas tend to report later than rural, the reverse of the UK). If a Yank watched the first 20 results of a UK election and tweeted it was gonna be a Labour landslide, you’d call them an uninformed twit. There’s no virtue in being the British equivalent for a US election. I’ve even seen Brits complaining that the count doesn’t get finished in one go, UK-style, as if this was unusual or unprecedented in the US. Well I think it would be a better way of doing things to reduce uncertainty and make the results appear more fair (appearance of fairness is important in its own right) but anyone who is surprised Americans do it that way just hasn’t been paying attention even to the 2016 election!
If someone has an informed analysis suggesting eg “Boondocks County votes by mail were expected to fall about 20,000 Trump and 10,000 Biden but they just announced 5,000 Trump and 90,000 Biden – BLATANT FRAUD” then that would be great. What I mostly see is people expressing surprise that e.g. in poor, racial minority, urban areas the mail votes might split 70-30 or stronger to Biden. (The equivalent places in Britain, the Conservative Party often struggles to get 20% of the vote.) Back of the envelope calculations saying Biden would need X% of remaining votes to win just aren’t enough, you have to do a wee bit of research to check which places haven’t reported yet, what kind of vote they haven’t reported yet, and try modelling the split on that (based on exit polls – which in the US cover mail votes too – as well as historic performance, counts received already from comparable counties, etc). And if you cannot be bothered with that, look at the betting odds, since gamblers generally do try to take those things into account.
MBE – narp
What happened was that Orange Man was ahead before a number of key areas stopped counting for, uh, reasons. A few hours later Joe Biden “won” an improbable number of mail-in votes in strategically important Democrat-controlled fiefdoms that not only put him ahead, but bucked the trend seen in other Blue districts. There was also plenty of fuckery around kicking Republican observers out of vote counting, and at least one case that’s come to light so far where counting machines inexplicably changed thousands of Trump votes to Biden. (Funny how these errors only go one way)
If you actually believe that Joe Biden – who couldn’t get anybody to turn out to see him in person – not only won the most votes of any presidential candidate in US history, but just so happened to achieve better margins than any Democratic candidate has ever achieved in exactly the right rotten boroughs required to flip key states, at exactly the right moment when Dem operatives knew how many rural Trump votes they needed to overcome, and in those key districts performed significantly above the trends observed elsewhere, and with African kleptocracy style 90%+ turnouts… maybe you and Dennis should audition to replace Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels in that comedy franchise.
If this happened in any other country the US State Department would’ve declared it fraud already. Because it is.
Fraud or not? You decide:
https://twitter.com/robbystarbuck/status/1324783531139235841
Also this:
IS THE POPE CATHOLIC? That’s Rod Blagojevich’s response to whether he thinks Democrat votes are being ‘stolen’ in Philadelphia
https://twitter.com/newsmax/status/1324783608909844480
From former a Democrat Governor of Illinois.
@Steve
It’s useful for the Myth of Trump to have this narrative of “Trump never really lost” to fall back on, but where’s the actual evidence?
Sizes of campaign rallies are a crap guide to who’ll win an election. Corbyn would have won landslides in the last two UK elections if that were true. Biden specifically didn’t want to have large crowds because of Covid! Similarly it’s no surprise Biden led Trump by large margins on mail-in votes considering Trump specifically discouraged supporters from mail-in voting. Perhaps a tactically clever move in terms of producing the “stolen election” narrative, but ironic if that by suppressing his own vote this way – there are marginal voters/non-voters who may have mailed in for him if encouraged but who didn’t have the motivation to actually attend a polling station in person – he might have cost himself the election.
Trump was ahead on vote-count in several places before counting stopped but it soon (or had already) became clear Biden was far more likely to win based on which votes remained to be counted. Any analysis that doesn’t actually look at that county-by-county breakdown in detail is bunk. If there’s a tight Biden victory then of course it would be by him picking up “just enough” votes in the last places to report. That’s pretty much true by definition but also accentuated by the order the votes were counted – indeed Trump’s team knew this which is why they pushed so hard for Republicans to vote on the day, as they knew it would play into their “stole the election” narrative. They’ve been pushing that for a long time. It’s prima facie evidence of Trump’s narrative-creation strategy playing out, it isn’t necessarily indicative of mass Democrat cheating. Particularly since the way the votes broke was largely along the anticipated lines.
I’m sure there were the usual irregularities for what it’s worth. I don’t think elections are ever entirely clean in any major Western country. Had Trump won by a slim margin, Democrats would always have their argument the Republicans pulled it off by voter suppression and there’s some truth in that too – anyone who thinks the Republican party has clean hands and believes in a totally “fair” fight is just as naive as those who think the sun shines out the Democrats’ backsides. What I’ve not seen any credible evidence of is large-scale manipulation, either in terms of the logistical operation to get the required hundreds of thousands of fake ballots into the count (if this was being done at large scale across multiple key battlegrounds it would be a national conspiracy involving hundreds of people and the chance of nothing leaking or being detected would be slim) or the detailed statistical evidence of fraudulent-looking results compared to prior expectations (nobody can cite anything extreme like my Boondocks County example, so presumably it would have to be done more subtly by adding smaller number of fake ballots over a larger number of counties – but that makes the required size of conspiracy even larger, and hence more implausible).
@TomJ
Excellent.
“Every Republican president is Adolph Hitler”
Passé.
Going forward: “He’s literally Trump.”
but where’s the actual evidence?
I’ve already told you. Implausible discrepancies in alleged turnout, margins of results, the fight to prevent scrutiny of counts, the obviously synchronised Biden vote dump, and the software “glitch” that’s already been discovered in vote counting. All evidence enough for a stewards enquiry, and needless to say horse racing is a bit less important than elections.
If this was a tax return, feral accountants would be auditing it as we speak. Trump (who I expected to probably lose, btw, albeit fairly) was subjected to a massive criminal investigation over much thinner evidence.
But you probably thought Enron and Bernie Madoff were just incredibly lucky at business and Jeffrey Epstein was just incredibly sad.
“The GOP has a noble tradition of losing”
And Dennis, He of Many Personalities, personifies this Romney side of the party.
Trump was* delightfully different. A fighter and a winner.
To be a noble loser, you have to be a loser.
*Past tense?
@Steve
That’s the skeleton argument. But where’s the analysis? Which specific counties? By what specific discrepancies, and discrepancies as adjudged against which statistical models?
Literally the only “evidence” I’ve seen so far has been people comparing Biden’s percentages in the last section of the vote count to the percentages in the first section and saying that’s implausible, when they haven’t even done a county by county analysis. I’m sure someone somewhere can offer something less weaksauce than that, but if so why is nobody trumpeting it? Got a link?
From Trump downwards, all the claims of fraud have been very vague.
Fwiw “former Democrat Governor of Illinois” is a pretty lulzworthy description of Blago. Could just as well have gone with “Trump supporter who was sentenced to 14 years for corruption until the president commuted his sentence”. The truth is a bit of both of course, and the corruption was when he was signed up to Team Democrats not Team Donald. It just wasn’t a fair-minded description.
[People say there’s a mafia] but where’s the actual evidence?
[People say there’s corporate corruption] but where’s the actual evidence?
[People say there’s Pakistani child abuse] but where’s the actual evidence?
It’s odd that otherwise intelligent people come up with this line. They seem to expect criminals to detail their activities and leave the evidence lying around. When whistle-blowers do come forward they’re then dead / litigated / racist and the “analysts” are back to where’s the actual evidence? It’s all just so vague.
The “can’t contain a conspiracy” argument only applies to conspiracies that cross cultural boundaries. So moon-hoax and Bush-did-9/11 – obviously imaginary because they’d require opposing sides to conspire. Mafia, Jihad and Detroit? You can cover those up sufficiently with an uncurious media.
Here’s the BBC showing how to look beyond a vague lack of evidence:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-37243190
Why is the USA now equivalent to a banana shithole?
And Dennis, He of Many Personalities, personifies this Romney side of the party.
I’m sure this was meant as an insult, but what what it reveals about Gamecock’s (and Steve’s and PJF’s) ignorance of fact is telling.
The conventional wisdom is that Mitt Romney lost to Obama because he let Obama steamroll him… That he was a wimp. That’s a nice, lazy, easily digestible tale, but when you actually look at the details of that election, and the demographics of the vote, you find something different.
Mitt Romney performed about as well as George W. Bush did with blacks, latinos and women. He didn’t lose the election because of them. His numbers with independents were just fine as well. So where did he underperform? With white males, ages 18 to 54. What’s that demographic? The core of the Republican Party’s base.
Mitt Romney lost because the Republican base saw him – rightfully – as a RINO. You cannot be a successful Republican governor in MA – which Romney was – unless you are a moderate Democrat. And what was Romney’s position on Obamacare, which was the central issue of the election?
“Repeal and Replace”
That isn’t what the base wanted, so they stayed home in droves on election day. The whole “Romney lost because he didn’t fight” line was foisted on the public by a Republican Party that had happily drifted away from its base (and would continue to do so… The Party Elders were ready to run Jeb Bush against Hillary, remember?).
So the reality of it is this: Gamecock, PJF and Ecks are in Newmania Territory. Stuck in Stage One emotionally, and not equipped intellectually (or morally, for that matter) to delve into actual fact to discover the truth. This is confirmed by this fact: No one of them has made a good faith attempt to answer the four questions I asked of them with logic and fact. So now they’re Newmania… And it’s all Dark Forces and Corruption and Conspiracy.
Remember this boys: If you lie down with the hogs, don’t be surprised if you’re mistaken for a pig.
[People say there’s a mafia] but where’s the actual evidence?
[People say there’s corporate corruption] but where’s the actual evidence?
[People say there’s Pakistani child abuse] but where’s the actual evidence?
It’s odd that otherwise intelligent people come up with this line. They seem to expect criminals to detail their activities and leave the evidence lying around. When whistle-blowers do come forward they’re then dead / litigated / racist and the “analysts” are back to where’s the actual evidence? It’s all just so vague.The “can’t contain a conspiracy” argument only applies to conspiracies that cross cultural boundaries. So moon-hoax and Bush-did-9/11 – obviously imaginary because they’d require opposing sides to conspire. Mafia, Jihad and Detroit? You can cover those up sufficiently with an uncurious media.
Pure Newmania.
PJF… If Newmania had written the above about Brexit a month ago, you’d have mocked him for it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah… I know, PJF.
This is different.
@PJF
While there’s some fairness in your points, I’m not saying I need to see CCTV footage of Joe Bloggs smuggling 1000 fake ballots into the counting hall. Just that the burden of evidence is on the person who’s claiming “fraud!” to demonstrate that it’s taken place, and some plausible suggestion of how it might have happened.
Now it would be unfair to judge an argument by its weakest proponents, the problem the “fraud!” arguers have is their coalition might be made of (particularly on a non-US discussion forum) is
(a.) People who genuinely don’t understand how US elections work, and are confused by the way the last reported results can differ systematically from the earlier results, don’t have a clue which counties are reporting first/last, and don’t believe that e.g. a poor urban area might be over 70% Democrat,
(b.) People who have an in-depth understanding of the US system, have crunched the numbers, adjusted for all the variables that need taking into account, and identified systematic patterns that raise clear suspicions,
(c.) People who are saying other more mathier/polsci-literate people have done the numbers on (b) and regard their findings as convincing, but won’t actually link to their analysis, just assert that it exists.
This coalition should be judged entirely on the strength of (b.). If I sat here and wrote “you didn’t even check which county results were getting counted last, clearly there was no fraud!” that would be wrong. What I can say, fairly, is “if you didn’t even realise systematically different places report last (and sadly that was the level of largely uninformed discussion on some of Timmy’s earlier threads), then you’re in no position to evaluate claims of fraud” and that “the fact Democrat-leaning areas got reported last isn’t in itself a sign of fraud, and was entirely anticipated both by electoral analysts and gamblers, which is why it was incorporated in their forecasts and into the betting odds”. Unfortunately I haven’t seen very much of (b.) at all. Just seen a lot of (a.) and (c.).
Stuck in Stage One emotionally, and not equipped intellectually (or morally, for that matter) to delve into actual fact to discover the truth.
Dennis adds mind reading to his imagined skill set. Far from being grief stricken, I’m finding it all hilarious.
Speaking of hilarity, it seems US elections are decided by corporate media, who have all suddenly called the race for their guy despite no official result (and just as the Trump team was rolling out its fraud witnesses). Will twitter censor folks calling the child-sniffer “President-elect”? Don’t hold your breath.
Banana shithole. Because of twats like Dennis.
Just that the burden of evidence is on the person who’s claiming “fraud!” to demonstrate that it’s taken place, and some plausible suggestion of how it might have happened.
MBE, you can apply that to every dodgy third world election. There’s never any direct evidence, just “irregularities” like those mentioned on the BBC page. There’s also no direct evidence that Russia used Novichok in Salisbury. You’ll probably want to get all la-de-da Gunner Graham about that, too.
There’s never any direct evidence, just “irregularities”…
Time to fit PJF for a tinfoil hat.
It does amuse me that the Usual Suspects are quite happy for statistical analysis to ‘prove’ all manner of their favourite hobby horses, such as currently when because more non-whites are dying from covid this ‘proves’ that the UK is a fundamentally racist society, without any evidence whatsoever, yet suddenly become all ‘show me the hard proof!’ when the same techniques are used to suggest Leftist electoral fraud.
Speaking of hilarity, it seems US elections are decided by corporate media, who have all suddenly called the race for their guy despite no official result (and just as the Trump team was rolling out its fraud witnesses).
Uh, they’ve been calling House and Senate races, as well as the presidential election on a per state basis since 7pm on Tuesday. Mostly without “official results”. Including all the states that went Trump and the House and Senate seats that went Republican.
So now calling the presidential race on Saturday is an irregularity that confirms a conspiracy between corporate media and the Democrats?
Do you have any idea of just how batshit crazy you sound?
Elvis has left the building. Stop being a pussy about it.
Time to fit PJF for a tinfoil hat.
OK, Dennis, prove me wrong. Show direct evidence of election fraud in, say, Venezuela. Lots of irregularities, lots of people saying there’s fraud. I mean, it’s obvious, right? Now show us specifically how Chavez and Maduro were not legitimately elected.
Elvis has left the building.
Elvis went to play golf. There will be legal challenges and recounts. The election is not decided just because the Democrat media complex says it is.
Stop being a pussy about it.
I am entertained either way. You ascribe false feelings to me, and angrily lash out at those of us disagreeing with you. I suspect a mind-reader would detect that you’re butt-hurt and in denial at your country becoming a laughing stock to all except the likes of Anderson Cooper and Alyssa Milano. Congrats, Dennis.
I suspect a mind-reader would detect that you’re butt-hurt and in denial at your country becoming a laughing stock to all except the likes of Anderson Cooper and Alyssa Milano.
As usual, you look at the evidence and can’t correct process it.
Disappointed? Yes. Butt-hurt? No.
But here’s the part you seem incapable of grasping: I’m an adult. I can cope with my candidate losing without turning to the comfort of conspiracy theories and dark forces. Nor do I have to engage in the sort of hyperbole that ends up with the ludicrous (and rather pathetic) chant that the USA is now a “laughing stock” or a “third world country” because a Republican lost the presidency.
Third world is army tanks in the streets and “presidents for life”. Or having your local police monitoring your Twitter feed. Or ignoring grooming gangs because your police afraid of being called racist. Or being forced to defend yourself with a fucking narwhal tusk because you aren’t allowed to arm yourself.
If you have to massage your butt by imagining that I’m a pussy, or hopelessly naive, or secretly devastated and unable to cope, fine. Whatever it takes to get you through you day without an intrusion of fact, logic or reality is fine by me.
What you’re not bright enough – or sophisticated enough – to grasp is that there are a whole lot of right-wing and Republicans in the chattering classes who make their living from getting eyeballs on their websites. Drama brings eyes. Confronting your audience with unpleasant truths drives them away. Same goes for The Donald, his campaign staff, and the RNC. They’ve been saying for months they were going to win. So now what? You think they’re going to stand in front of the world and say, “Gee, looks like we really screwed the pooch on this one”? I don’t think so. So what then? Find a fall guy or some boogeymen.
So by all means, keep on yammering and keep on sending me your pity. If you think it reflects well on you and badly on me, well, at least you’re consistent in your view of things.
Exactly 20 years ago George W. Bush beat Al Gore by a short hair after a recount. And 20 years later nobody’s proved that Florida got the count wrong. In 2016, less than 80,000 votes in 3 states decided the presidency. And 4 years later nobody’s proved that WI, MI and PA got it wrong. Lots of us have been through this before. More than once. And lots of us have some degree of faith in the system.
After all, we haven’t produced the sort of political ideologies, political systems and politicians that have started two world wars (after subjecting the continent to centuries of more limited conflicts), raped, pillaged and plundered in the name of empire, or set up and run industrialized genocide. Europe gave the world authoritarian rule via royalty, fascism and communism. That’s Third World. The USA gave the world an authentic, functioning Republic. That’s First World.
But by all means, pick yourself up, brush yourself off, and walk on like it never happened.
It’s what you do best.
If you have to massage your butt by imagining that I’m a pussy, or hopelessly naive, or secretly devastated and unable to cope, fine.
You’re projecting, Dennis. You’ve just spent the last few posts calling me those things.
Or being forced to defend yourself with a fucking narwhal tusk because you aren’t allowed to arm yourself.
Ha, I knew the nationalism angle would rile you. So easy. Well, you’ve elected a senile, child sniffing, foreign-owned crook as Commander in Chief. Welcome to wogland, old chap. If you can develop a sense of humour you should be able to join us for some good laughs ahead.
Once finished congratulating yourself, could you answer the four questions I asked you?
Can someone find Dennis, He of Multiple Personalities, four questions?
The questions have been stated earlier in the thread. Just looking for your answers. For posterity.
@Jim
It does amuse me that the Usual Suspects are quite happy for statistical analysis to ‘prove’ all manner of their favourite hobby horses, such as currently when because more non-whites are dying from covid this ‘proves’ that the UK is a fundamentally racist society, without any evidence whatsoever, yet suddenly become all ‘show me the hard proof!’ when the same techniques are used to suggest Leftist electoral fraud.
What statistical evidence? I can see lots of people claiming there’s evidence. But nobody pointing to it. Like I said, I don’t need to see hard proof of wrongdoing, just evidence pulling off the trick was plausible and evidence of of something dodgy in the numbers. In what way, substantively, would the detailed results be different from those we’ve actually seen, if the true situation were a Democrat victory achieved by several percentage points in the national vote but tigher results in the battleground states? A lot of the apparent closeness and lead-swings have been the result of the order ballots were tallied. Anyone astonished by how far Biden could lead in votes by mail from urban areas, wait til you see results from the overseas voters!