Headlines “Politics” [read the OP before posting]

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I did my time honored tradition of doing joke write-ins again this year. When both of your primary candidates are demented pedophiles (Biden more so....but Trump is still fucking awful), it's really hard to support either. And it's hard to choose the "lesser of two evils" when both main sides lean pretty fucking heavy on the "evil" thing. And it's not like other parties are better. Politicians are this breed of depraved, mustache twirling villain, that, without fail, are just so far gone in "common morality" that they might as well be a different species at times. I can't wrap my head around why they always turn out bad, but they do. Without fail. No matter what. Sure, some are far worse than others, but when your spectrum is "legal thief" to "genocidal maniac", yeah.... Real life villains exist, and they can be worse than your cartoon ones. And they're in so many places.

Honestly though, politicians probably represent our true nature. If we always go bad when going into politics, if we like bashing and demonizing the other side(s) whether justified or not, if we idolize these crooks and eagerly want them to screw us over more, and so on; what does that say about us as a species? About how nature works? That it favors assfucks and hates decent things? That it favors mistreating people and only looking out for yourself? That it favors sociopathy? I dunno, it paints a really fucking dim view on things. I don't have any suggestions to fix it --- you can't. It's inherent to how nature works. Just have to deal. Doesn't make have me be any less apathetic to this shit though. And I know I'd be one of these villains if I was in this position. Again, this is how things work.

Sorry about the rant, but geez fuck. Politics has depressed me for ages since I learned how depraved it was. I guess the stupid ads and shit will stop for some time and we can fling poo at each other less. So there's that. And at least I have fiction, where authority figures can actually give some damns about the people they're supposed to serve, instead of all being just criminals.
 
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ManOfMany

I can make anything real
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Trump's recent comments are yet another thing that proves exactly how dangerous this man and his supporters are. He demands that they stop counting votes and claims that every new vote coming in against him is rigged, and a very large chunk of the American population is completely undisturbed, as if this is just business as normal. This is NOT normal.

It frightens me that so many people tolerate such blatant disregard of our democracy, as flawed as it may be. This goes beyond whether or not you support his policies or support Biden's policies. Once we get Biden in office (hopefully), I will try to help push his administration to support progressive issues like a Green New Deal, and universal healthcare. It will be very difficult. However, if we don't get him into office I feel we are risking going down a path of no return. Trump hasn't attempted a violent takeover or something like that yet, but he is just a symptom not a disease. There is a cancer of fascist leaning that is growing in this country and it has to be struck down at every chance. If Trump does not win, it will turn up at the next election too and probably in the form of a far smarter individual, and more dangerous cult.
 
i am shaking i am so scared if drumpf steals this election from the american people all my rights will be stripped away and i'll probably be sent to a camp (i am trans). even if biden clutches it out theres so many people voting for him and i just know they want to kill me if they could i am so scared =[
 

atomicllamas

but then what's left of me?
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Request to change brackets in title to [The TRUMPening].

It's not all in yet, but Trump is crushing his 2016 numbers in Florida. Maine is also trending his way, but it's so rural it could be a while. Portland is sitting on Biden w/ a 3000 vote advantage. It also seems like Rhode Island is legit going Trump. The map is creeping redder and redder as the rural votes get counted.

This was either going to be a media driven Covid disinfo election or an economy reopening election. If a state with a huge portion of the Covid vulnerable population is going bigger for Trump than in 2016, this election is already over but for the counting.

My only hope, probably unrealized, is Trump also wins the popular vote so Democrats can finally, finally reflect on the madness I said was overtaking them and would not stop a long four years ago. Trump is currently ahead, but California isn't counted yet and that will flip it entirely if its percentages look like New York.

People don't want woke, they don't want riots, and they don't want to stay in hiding until government says it's safe. American bullshit detection and can-do attitude is the GOAT!
I’m not gonna contribute to the many (often garbage) hot takes that have been posted on this thread in the last 3 days. But I do want to take a moment to highlight my favorite post in the thread. Imagine legitimately thinking Rhode Island is going to trump because he’s up 2 points with 23% of the vote in. Congratulations on confirming for the 1,000,000th time that conservatives are the dumbest fucking people of all time.
 
So now that Biden won p much what's gonna come of these Trump lawsuits based on nothing? Will that delay things even further or is it just empty threats that don't really hold much water? I'm not sure how a lawsuit vs a state works
 
So Biden seems posed to claim at least 306 electoral votes, possibly more if NC wakes up from their nap and counts some more. The states Biden is winning in he's winning by several thousand or more, and historically re-counts don't change results by more than a few hundred. Additionally Biden's popular vote lead has been creeping up as well, nearing 4 million.

So now that Biden won p much what's gonna come of these Trump lawsuits based on nothing? Will that delay things even further or is it just empty threats that don't really hold much water? I'm not sure how a lawsuit vs a state works
They're baseless claims and will all but certainly get thrown out. Even if he SOMEHOW gains some traction somewhere he would have to flip multiple states to change anything. Seeing as there's no credible evidence of fraud, most likely all we'll see is some twitter whining.

Recounts in some states are expected but that's normal, but due to Biden's lead is unlikely to change anything. There's also military and other overseas ballots still to be counted but despite the stereotype they tend to vote pretty much 50/50.

tl;dr expect a lot of whining on facebook and twitter but nothing is going to change. Trump is fucked.
 

Sam

i say it's all just wind in sails
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Request to change brackets in title to [The BIDENing].

It's not all in yet, but Biden is crushing his 2016 numbers in Michigan. Pennsylvania is also trending his way, but it's so urban it could be a while. Erie is sitting on Biden w/ a 2000 vote advantage. It also seems like Georgia is legit going Biden. The map is creeping bluer and bluer as the urban votes get counted.

This was either going to be a Trump driven MAGA disinfo election or a social safety net election. If a state with a huge portion of the socially and economically vulnerable population is going bigger for Biden than in 2016, this election is already over but for the counting.

My only hope, probably unrealized, is Biden also wins North Carolina so Republicans can finally, finally reflect on the madness I said was overtaking them and would not stop a long four years ago. Trump is currently ahead, but all outstanding ballots aren't counted yet and that will flip it entirely if its percentages look like Georgia.

People don't want the wall, they don't want tax breaks for the wealthy, and they don't want to stay in hiding until violent mobs of neo-nazis say it's safe. American bullshit detection and can-do attitude is the GOAT!
 

Shrug

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im glad to announce that ive started my term of employment on the joe biden transition team. im official director of Doing the G-D Work Yall and Pushing Joe Biden to the Left Progressive-Style. ive already made a big difference: i took their day one plan to tattoo on the forehead the currently owed debt of every holder of student loans and convinced them to make it a qr code on the non-dominant forearm. technology making progressive change work! ive also worked out a tentative plan to center exiled voices during the leadup to wars in venezuela, bolivia, and iran. cant have old white men leading the charge to restore democracy when theyve done so much to deny experiences in the past! and ive scrapped a proposed rollout of the "threatening amazon alexa message" during the obamacare open enrollment in favor of a more carrot approach: one demographically targeted cast member of the office or parks and rec will pop up on the screens of your devices crying and saying theyll be shot through the forehead if you do not enroll for the aetna pewter plan with 561 dollar premiums and a 25,000 dollar deductible. we need to meet voters where they are! i look forward to 12 years of organizing, frolicking, being joyful, trusting the process, respecting my elders but not enough not to give them a kick in the butt when they need it, being silly, going to gosh darn protests, being epic, drinking a latte or three (a day), being snarky, crying sometimes, being not afraid to cry, weeping openly at points, being passionate, voting out that freakin turtle mitch, being awesomesauce, finding the pam to my jim, being amazeballs, adulting like a boss, and most of all activisting.
 

Bughouse

Like ships in the night, you're passing me by
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I’m not gonna contribute to the many (often garbage) hot takes that have been posted on this thread in the last 3 days. But I do want to take a moment to highlight my favorite post in the thread. Imagine legitimately thinking Rhode Island is going to trump because he’s up 2 points with 23% of the vote in. Congratulations on confirming for the 1,000,000th time that conservatives are the dumbest fucking people of all time.
It's almost like there's a thread for a collection of similarly delusional posts by this same user.

senior staff, do the thing. add the post.
 
Ever wondered why Nevada is so slow at declaring their results?

124009820_994306507756129_6471760735761133315_o.jpg


Seriously though, I hope Biden wins so he can influence other countries not to elect strongman leaders. But most importantly, he's Pro-Environment!

It's starting to look like Trump isn't ready to give up his presidential powers yet.
 
Seems like fraud has been proven in this election...sigh. Doesn't surprise me. But let's be fair. We're hearing about the Dem's fraud...what about the Republicans' fraud as well? Has to be some of it.

Just a shame we have this level of corruption. I'm right about something. About how corrupt our politicians and governments are.
 
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zxgzxg

scrabble
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Seems like fraud has been proven in this election...sigh. Doesn't surprise me. But let's be fair. We're hearing about the Dem's fraud...what about the Republicans' fraud as well? Has to be some of it.
There has been some voter fraud in California done in favor of a Republican candidate (for Congress, so not Trump). Here's an article. I believe there was a similar case in Nevada, but someone's gotta check me on that.
 
Seems like fraud has been proven in this election...sigh. Doesn't surprise me. But let's be fair. We're hearing about the Dem's fraud...what about the Republicans' fraud as well? Has to be some of it.

Just a shame we have this level of corruption. I'm right about something. About how corrupt our politicians and governments are.
Really? Do you have any sources that verify Dem fraud?

I did see an article on Republican fraud in Pennsylvania apparently.
 
Really? Do you have any sources that verify Dem fraud?

I did see an article on Republican fraud in Pennsylvania apparently.
It's a thing starting to trend on the Net. Reports of dead people voting, fixing ballots, etc. Also, fuck me for linking such a clickbait hashtag, but this is something trending: https://twitter.com/hashtag/sharpiegate?src=hashtag_click . I'd normally be skeptical about things like this, there's enough reports that it seems like something sinister is going on.
 

IBM

Banned deucer.
It's a thing starting to trend on the Net. Reports of dead people voting, fixing ballots, etc. Also, fuck me for linking such a clickbait hashtag, but this is something trending: https://twitter.com/hashtag/sharpiegate?src=hashtag_click . I'd normally be skeptical about things like this, there's enough reports that it seems like something sinister is going on.
That’s not a source, would you call tons of people saying the earth is flat a source for earth being flat?
 
I did my time honored tradition of doing joke write-ins again this year. When both of your primary candidates are demented pedophiles (Biden more so....but Trump is still fucking awful), it's really hard to support either. And it's hard to choose the "lesser of two evils" when both main sides lean pretty fucking heavy on the "evil" thing. And it's not like other parties are better. Politicians are this breed of depraved, mustache twirling villain, that, without fail, are just so far gone in "common morality" that they might as well be a different species at times. I can't wrap my head around why they always turn out bad, but they do. Without fail. No matter what. Sure, some are far worse than others, but when your spectrum is "legal thief" to "genocidal maniac", yeah.... Real life villains exist, and they can be worse than your cartoon ones. And they're in so many places.

Honestly though, politicians probably represent our true nature. If we always go bad when going into politics, if we like bashing and demonizing the other side(s) whether justified or not, if we idolize these crooks and eagerly want them to screw us over more, and so on; what does that say about us as a species? About how nature works? That it favors assfucks and hates decent things? That it favors mistreating people and only looking out for yourself? That it favors sociopathy? I dunno, it paints a really fucking dim view on things. I don't have any suggestions to fix it --- you can't. It's inherent to how nature works. Just have to deal. Doesn't make have me be any less apathetic to this shit though. And I know I'd be one of these villains if I was in this position. Again, this is how things work.

Sorry about the rant, but geez fuck. Politics has depressed me for ages since I learned how depraved it was. I guess the stupid ads and shit will stop for some time and we can fling poo at each other less. So there's that. And at least I have fiction, where authority figures can actually give some damns about the people they're supposed to serve, instead of all being just criminals.
Just to make you feel better, or probably not, but democracy rarely produces the "best" candidates, even less so in a two party system. Political party democracy produces candidates that can garner broad support to increase electibility. In America, where your only two parties are right-wing and centre-right, that's what you get. Also, in my opinion, it takes a person with narcissistic tendencies to want to hold public office in the first place. As one final point, in the US especially, big money runs politics, so that's a huge issue in and of itself. Our whole system needs an overhaul, but the people that benefit from the system are the only feasible way to change it so it's kind of a long shot. I personally want popular vote (or % of EC votes by state) and a multiparty system with caps on donations, especially from corporations and lobby groups, which I think most people do but it's not likely in my lifetime.
 
[...] Again: The problem is that the democratic party and a large number of their voters (wealthy neoliberals) are not affected by many of the problems in our country, and don't have the ability to care. It's just a sports game to them, where they get to scream and jeer at how the other side is Bad and pretend their side can do no wrong.

Every single poll shows that when asked about specific policies, voters in the US support leftist, progressive policies in significant margins. The fact that you think the dems are losing purely because of things the GOP do (while the dems do nothing but stand by idly and complain) is proof of your own ignorance and nothing more. If the dems really wanted to win they would run on these policies. AOC crushing her own election multiple times is evidence that running on these policies work. Fuck, OBAMA ran on this stuff and won hard, it's just he's a snake and didn't actually implement any of it. [...]
Yeah. There's similarly a lot of talk about how German voters have supposedly been turning against progressive politics since 2015/16, and it's largely not true. The German left-wing parties are in crisis, not their popular support.

The main weakness of German progressive parties today is precisely that there is currently one conservative party invariably polling 35-40% at the federal level, while three progressive parties (social democrat, democratic socialist, and Green) distribute another 40-45% among them (neoliberals and the nationalist reactionaries get the rest). The democratic left has quite strong popular support, and yet conservatives are better-positioned -- in fact, all but assured of retaining the chancellorship in 2021. What gives?

In this situation, the German system of >50% majorities by coalition won't allow for a "united front" of progressive parties at the federal level -- whereas the conservative party can simply choose the progressive party (or neolibs, when those are willing) that makes the most palatable concessions to them, and thus seal >50% of the seats.

Currently, for the first time in the Second Republic, the SPD seems to be a second-tier party when it had previously shared the first tier with the conservatives. I'd written about possible reasons why its electoral support was eroded (and largely went to other left-wing parties) -- which was presumably this lack of perceived authenticity over the last twenty years that also weakens the US Democrats now, and social policies that still only favoured the relatively wealthy.

By the numbers, though, the SPD's losses mirror the case of the neolibs (FDP), a party that dropped from ~15% of total votes to below 5% over the course of its most recent coalition years with the conservatives, i.e. 2009-2013. So indeed, are "progressive" politics the issue with voters flipping from the minority faction, or "establishment fatigue" caused by them failing to enact their promised policies against the majority faction, whereas conservative voters obviously care much less about anti-establishment policy? Seems like the latter to me.

From all I've seen (which may well not have been enough), the prevailing narrative among "conscious" Rep voters appears to be that "socialist" agitation (however they define it) is trying to gain influence with the establishment, who encourage this because they see socialist doctrine or policies simply as an effective tool to ensure D-voting cities eclipsing the votes of the bloomin' countryside and turn the state Blue forevermore; once done, they'll happily throw the relatively powerless socialists, now an unambiguous threat to their goals, under the bus again, and can even pretend to be social democrats.

Compare the above to how some "conscious" Dems generally either believe that socialism will indeed only play handmaiden to the establishment and get crushed once no longer useful, unless socialism manages to devalue if not dismantle democracy altogether (Myzozoa's position, as I understand it), or posit capitalism or white supremacy (however they define it) as the pernicious handmaiden to the establishment instead.

So my guess is -- these 2020 Dem-to-Rep flips occur in part because Biden is perceived as same-old in a way that Sanders would not be, yeah, but that's only one part of it. In addition, the 2020 flippers now believe to have realized, after 4 years of Trump, that socialism is the most powerful ideology "in bed with the US establishment", didn't think so in 2016, and probably aren't the kind of right-wingers who want the fascist white ethnostate now etc.

"Hot take", maybe? I don't think anyone here would be fazed if I'd said voters flipped Rep-to-Dem 2020 because they believe to have realized, after 4 years of Trump, that capitalism or white supremacy is the most powerful ideology "in bed with the US establishment", didn't think so in 2016, and probably aren't the kind of left-wingers who praise Stalin etc.

It doesn't matter whether reality reflects or refutes such a motive, it matters that they think it's well-founded. If voters flip Dem-to-Rep, they might well have consciously lost faith in the threat of capitalism / white supremacy, but think the threat of socialism is very real -- and further appeals to this may only cause them to double down on their flip. So try a different approach if you want them to flip back. I think that those "conscious" Trump voters genuinely believe they are voting for the real social democracy while the D voters are mindlessly falling for "gov't-approved socialism" meant to keep them on a leash. Convince them that it is not so, because the thought is not as inherently stupid as you might think. An example:

Why has Germany run a state-subsidized system of universal healthcare since 1883? Because Bismarck assumed that implementing one would deprive the nascent and still relatively radical SPD (or its predecessors) of one of its most popular platforms -- and thus make increased repression against socialists more "palatable" to the German working class. He was wrong, though -- his rationale was seen right through, the implementation not materially appeasing enough, and the "holistic" appeal of yet-untried social democracy in 19th-century Germany far underestimated.

One more thing about the question "who would consciously vote for white supremacy?" ("whites lol", yeah, but which ones). I've often heard that Hitler flipped the economically destitute and "revanchist" lower-middle class away from both left- and right-wing parties, while covertly appeasing executives and bankers until the reactionary oligarchy, reigning at the time via (constitutional, but abused) state-of-emergency dictatorial powers, felt pressured in several ways to appoint his popular platform to a "legitimate" government -- which promptly deposed them "legitimately" within two months (the Nazis loved their lie of the "legal revolution"). That was also the contemporary commenters' explanation for the origin Hitler's electorate, but it's not so clear under scrutiny.
That study points out, again, that this assumption is as overwhelmingly true in the case of rural Protestants as overwhelmingly false in the case of rural Catholics, while urbanites of both confessions were less polarized. The obvious question is why the Catholics resisted Hitler so much more than Protestants, because it was clearly not due to any shared Christian tenet between them, nor progressive politics, and I think the answer lies with Bismarck's politics (again) in his trying to build up Protestants as a tool for German (read: Prussian) nationalism against Catholics, who supposedly felt much closer "anti-nationalist" ties to the Holy See, or felt nostalgic nationalism for the recently-ended sovereignty of the South German states, which had not acquiesced to Prussian dominance as readily as much of the North.


It might be inherent lulz to textwall about German politics in the POTUS election thread, but I think it's relevant because both share a key trait, i.e. disunited left-wing democrats struggling to win a popular platform that properly represents the actual support for their policies in isolation, while conservative parties, despite being slightly less popular in the electorate than the progressive spectrum, remain relatively well-entrenched and unified. Yeah, that'll be all.
 
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