2020 Election

[CKwi88]

(07-30-2020, 10:38 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: You know how some of us have been talking about warning signs of tyranny? This is one of those things.

Cue the "But CLEARLY he wasn't ACTUALLY suggesting that the election be delayed. He was simply posing a question. Can't you see the 3 question marks?"

What a clown. 

[BmorePat87]

(07-30-2020, 10:38 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: You know how some of us have been talking about warning signs of tyranny? This is one of those things.

Tribalism is strong. Strong enough to be hypocrites and to only care about remaining in power. It's not that the GOP didn't see it, it's that they hitched their wagon to this horse and realized that they could not undo that until the horse was done running. 

[BengalHawk62]

They will cheer and applaud when the nation descends into dictatorship.

[BengalHawk62]

According to the Constitution, the president doesn’t have the power to do this. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wrote one of his infamous “Executive Orders”, with no one stopping him. As he’s told us before, “as president, I can do whatever I want”. God in Heaven, please help us. ??

[Dill]

A moment ago I heard this on CNN--Herman Cain has died of COVID-19.

[*Nately120*]

(07-30-2020, 10:38 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: You know how some of us have been talking about warning signs of tyranny? This is one of those things.

Amazing how we spend almost 20 years trying to bring democracy to the middle east and then elect a tyrant of our own who wants to either delay and/or decry our democratic process.  

[Belsnickel]

(07-30-2020, 11:11 AM)BengalHawk62 Wrote: According to the Constitution, the president doesn’t have the power to do this. I wouldn’t be surprised if he wrote one of his infamous “Executive Orders”, with no one stopping him. As he’s told us before, “as president, I can do whatever I want”. God in Heaven, please help us. ??

Yeah, he doesn't have the authority to do it. However, like we have seen these past 3.5 years, the GOP in Congress has no spine and has been letting him get away with a lot of things or rubber stamping their approval for it when needed.

Anyway, here is the link to the Constitution Center's page on this very question from three months ago: https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/does-the-constitution-allow-for-a-delayed-presidential-election

The big thing about this is less about him actually moving the election date; that isn't likely. It's how much this is setting things up for him to not hand over power in a peaceful transition if he loses. He sees the polls, he knows things aren't looking good for him right now. This is him laying the groundwork for contesting the election results if they do not go his way.

[hollodero]

I have a constitutional question to the election postpoining: Would doing that (assuming Congress goes for it, I get that they really won't) mean the president keeps being president, or would his tenure end anyway, even if there were no elections?
In other words, would Nancy Pelosi become president?

[Dill]

(07-29-2020, 06:01 PM)hollodero Wrote: Hm. There are those that just want conservative judges, fear socialism or an abolishment of amendment number two, have a strong stance on abortion, [...], and finally, sure, white racists.
Trump.

You left out the millions of Endtimers, who don't give a fig for domestic or foreign policy. Trump is putting God's plan into motion.  And the millions who follow conspiracies like Qanon, though maybe fear of socialism falls in with that group too.

(07-29-2020, 06:01 PM)hollodero Wrote: And then there are those you describe. I am aware of them, but while some sure genuinely adore Trump, I feel these posiitions also often initially stem from disliking liberals rather then from enthusiasm for Trump. Of course in confrontation these positions are adapted (and maybe forcefully believed) to counter, similar to what the GOP members in Congress do, who allegedly (and I believe that) privately sing a whole different tune about Trump than publicly. But I guess many at least to some extent are aware of the unspeakable disaster you and I deem Trump to be. Even on the more extreme platforms there's more hatred than enthusiasm. So I think "hating"/disliking liberals is maybe by far the biggest portion of the 40%, not so much people being gullible or cult followers.
Just now I notice how "hatred" with an empty space in the middle turns into "hat red", and hence I now also explained MAGA hats.

The first bolded is kind of an understatement. As I have argued before, the fringe right has migrated into the mainstream, the center of American politics, thanks in part to the internet and cable news access, which give anyone who appears there the same apparent authority as heavily vetted news sources. What that means is that the political judgment of millions has been broken, leaving them unable to see how an unstable and ignorant president might damage everyone's interests, not just liberals'. Maybe a better way to put it is that they are finally unable, on their own, to recognize "unstable and ignorant" in any leader's behavior and policy decisions, and so rely on (for them) authoritative sources to guide them.*

The second bolded also helps explain why people who claim NOT to support Trump nevertheless run the most consistent interference for him. They do see some problem with Trump; but he is still not worse than Hillary, or worse than "the Democrats."

(07-29-2020, 06:01 PM)hollodero Wrote: As for the Democrats being unpalatable, I can see why someone would feel that way and I sure feel the party is severely flawed on many fronts. I do have a harder time understanding how a platform sporting Trump and Trump sycophants, which describes the GOP almost as a whole these days, can be seen as less or at most just equally impalatable from a neutral standpoint. I back up this stance by saying oh my god it's Trump.

You are right to have a "hard time" understanding this.

The choice between Trump and Biden cannot be seen as "equally impalatable" from some imagined neutral standpoint. It's only from a standpoint strongly invested in right wing politics that Hillary and Biden appear "just as bad" and the choice becomes difficult, and people are ready to make compromises with their supposedly deepest held values.  Those compromises generate the endless false equivalence, contradiction, and whataboutism we get from Trump surrogates.

*All Trump supporters aren't thus mystified. I think many in the 1% certainly recognize, in a completely rational way, how Trump policies benefit them financially, though not good for the country as a whole.

[Dill]

(07-30-2020, 11:56 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: The big thing about this is less about him actually moving the election date; that isn't likely. It's how much this is setting things up for him to not hand over power in a peaceful transition if he loses. He sees the polls, he knows things aren't looking good for him right now. This is him laying the groundwork for contesting the election results if they do not go his way.

Yes, there is a great deal of concern about that, and its implications for constitution-based government. 

A bipartisan group secretly gathered to game out a contested Trump-Biden election. It wasn’t pretty
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/07/25/nation/bipartisan-group-secretly-gathered-game-out-contested-trump-biden-election-it-wasnt-pretty/

WASHINGTON — On the second Friday in June, a group of political operatives, former government and military officials, and academics quietly convened online for what became a disturbing exercise in the fragility of American democracy.

The group, which included Democrats and Republicans, gathered to game out possible results of the November election, grappling with questions that seem less far-fetched by the day: What if President Trump refuses to concede a loss, as he publicly hinted recently he might do? How far could he go to preserve his power? And what if Democrats refuse to give in?...

“All of our scenarios ended in both street-level violence and political impasse,” said Rosa Brooks, a Georgetown law professor and former Defense Department official who co-organized the group known as the Transition Integrity Project. She described what they found in bleak terms: “The law is essentially ... it’s almost helpless against a president who’s willing to ignore it.”...

Using a role-playing game that is a fixture of military and national security planning, the group envisioned a dark 11 weeks between Election Day and Inauguration Day, one in which Trump and his Republican allies used every apparatus of government — the Postal Service, state lawmakers, the Justice Department, federal agents, and the military — to hold onto power, and Democrats took to the courts and the streets to try to stop it.

He doesn’t have to win the election,” said Nils Gilman, a historian who leads research at a think tank called the Berggruen Institute and was an organizer of the exercise. “He just has to create a plausible narrative that he didn’t lose.”...

The games are not meant to be predictive; rather, they are supposed to give people a sense of possible consequences in complex scenarios.

To some participants, the game was a stark reminder of the power of incumbency.

“The more demonstrations there were, the more demands for recounts, the more legal challenges there were, the more funerals for democracy were held, the more Trump came across as the candidate of stability,” said Edward Luce, the US editor of the Financial Times, who played the role of a mainstream media reporter during one of the simulations. “Possession is nine-tenths of the law.”

In multiple scenarios, officials on both sides homed in on narrowly decided swing states with divided governments, such Wisconsin, Michigan, and North Carolina, hoping to persuade officials there to essentially send two different results to Congress. If a state’s election is disputed, a legislature controlled by one party and governor of another each could send competing slates of electors backing their party’s candidate.

Both sides turned out massive street protests that Trump sought to control — in one scenario he invoked the Insurrection Act, which allows the president to use military forces to quell unrest. The scenario that began with a narrow Biden win ended with Trump refusing to leave the White House, burning government documents, and having to be escorted out by the Secret Service. (The team playing Biden in that scenario, meanwhile, sought to patch things up with Republicans by appointing moderate Republican governors, including Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, to Cabinet positions.)

The scenario that produced the most contentious dynamics, however, was the one in which Trump won the Electoral College — and thus, the election — but Biden won the popular vote by 5 percentage points.

“The Constitution really has been a workable document in many respects because we have had people who more or less adhered to a code of conduct,” said retired Army Colonel Larry Wilkerson, a Republican and former chief of staff to Colin Powell who participated in games as an observer. “That seems to no longer to be the case. That changes everything.”

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(07-30-2020, 12:12 PM)Dill Wrote: You left out the millions of Endtimers, who don't give a fig for domestic or foreign policy. Trump is putting God's plan into motion.  And the millions who follow conspiracies like Qanon, though maybe fear of socialism falls in with that group too.


The first bolded is kind of an understatement. As I have argued before, the fringe right has migrated into the mainstream, the center of American politics, thanks in part to the internet and cable news access, which give anyone who appears there the same apparent authority as heavily vetted news sources. What that means is that the political judgment of millions has been broken, leaving them unable to see how an unstable and ignorant president might damage everyone's interests, not just liberals'. Maybe a better way to put it is that they are finally unable, on their own, to recognize "unstable and ignorant" in any leader's behavior and policy decisions, and so rely on (for them) authoritative sources to guide them.*

The second bolded also helps explain why people who claim NOT to support Trump nevertheless run the most consistent interference for him. They do see some problem with Trump; but he is still not worse than Hillary, or worse than "the Democrats."



You are right to have a "hard time" understanding this.

The choice between Trump and Biden cannot be seen as "equally impalatable" from some imagined neutral standpoint. It's only from a standpoint strongly invested in right wing politics that Hillary and Biden appear "just as bad" and the choice becomes difficult, and people are ready to make compromises with their supposedly deepest held values.  Those compromises generate the endless false equivalence, contradiction, and whataboutism we get from Trump surrogates.

*All Trump supporters aren't thus mystified. I think many in the 1% certainly recognize, in a completely rational way, how Trump policies benefit them financially, though not good for the country as a whole.

This post in honestly fascinating for being exactly what it is attempting to describe.  A much better case could be made that the far left has infiltrated the moderate left.  "Trumpism", a few people aside, ends the moment Trump is out of office.  The far left has deeply enmeshed themselves in the Democratic party and they have no focal point, no single driving person, they are here to stay.  Their proposals are far more radical than anything Trump has done or even proposed.  Seattle just cut their police budget by 50%.  When told that this would mean a large percentage of non-white officers would be laid off a city council member suggested changing the MOU and contract with the police to allow laying off only white officers.  The California state assembly recently proposed that 90% of the money allocated for juvenile probation go directly to community based organizations instead.  One could go on and on, but for the sake of brevity, I'll leave it at that.

It is completely fair to have major issues with Trump.  It is completely untrue to say that a Democratic led country is the better choice without any room for doubt or dissent.

[Dill]

(07-30-2020, 12:29 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: This post in honestly fascinating for being exactly what it is attempting to describe.  A much better case could be made that the far left has infiltrated the moderate left.  "Trumpism", a few people aside, ends the moment Trump is out of office.  The far left has deeply enmeshed themselves in the Democratic party and they have no focal point, no single driving person, they are here to stay.  Their proposals are far more radical than anything Trump has done or even proposed.  Seattle just cut their police budget by 50%.  When told that this would mean a large percentage of non-white officers would be laid off a city council member suggested changing the MOU and contract with the police to allow laying off only white officers.  The California state assembly recently proposed that 90% of the money allocated for juvenile probation go directly to community based organizations instead.  One could go on and on, but for the sake of brevity, I'll leave it at that.

It is completely fair to have major issues with Trump.  It is completely untrue to say that a Democratic led country is the better choice without any room for doubt or dissent.

The broken judgment which put Trump in office was developed over two decades and won't end when he leaves.

People at one location, Seattle, are trying out some "radical" proposals that we won't find on the Dem platform at the convention. "One council member suggested" is not evidence of any sea change in the national party, especially if no one takes the suggestion. And I don't find cutting police budgets "more radical" than sending federal officers into cities against the wishes of local government, or using the military against peaceful protestors.

Until that "one council member" becomes president of the United States, then one certainly cannot make "a much better case" that some "far left" has infiltrated a moderate left with consequences for a national party, as once can make the case that the fringe right has "enmeshed" itself with the Republican party and produced a president and control of the Senate.

As I read your CA assembly proposal, it is that 95% of funds allocated for newly proposed juvenile assessment programs must go to "community-based organizations AND OTHER public agencies and departments that are not law enforcement." It does not refer to all money allocated for juvenile probation.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(07-30-2020, 12:56 PM)Dill Wrote: The broken judgment which put Trump in office was developed over two decades and won't end when he leaves.

Ahh, so the problem is that GOP leaning voters have faulty judgment.   

Quote:People at one location, Seattle, are trying out some "radical" proposals that we won't find on the Dem platform at the convention. "One council member suggested" is not evidence of any sea change in the national party, especially if no one takes the suggestion. And I don't find cutting police budgets "more radical" than sending federal officers into cities against the wishes of local government, or using the military against peaceful protestors.

Let us please not insult each others intelligence, or that of anyone else reading, by pretending that this is a phenomena linked solely to "one location".

Quote:Until that "one council member" becomes president of the United States, then one certainly cannot make "a much better case" that some "far left" has infiltrated a moderate left with consequences for a national party, as once can make the case that the fringe right has "enmeshed" itself with the Republican party and produced a president and control of the Senate.

One certainly can as the issue is hardly confined to that one person.  I suppose we can wait and see the Democratic party platform once released and revisit this then.

[/quote]As I read your CA assembly proposal, it is that 95% of funds allocated for newly proposed juvenile assessment programs must go to "community-based organizations AND OTHER public agencies and departments that are not law enforcement." It does not refer to all money allocated for juvenile probation.[/quote]

Right, just 95% of it.  The budget is renewed annually in July.  The study of the bill done by those who would be affected by it flat out stated that this would gut their juvenile probation functions.  Of course, they have a bias in this regard, but no proponent of the bill even attempted to state otherwise.  Also, it's hardly the only radical proposal currently being debated in the CA state assembly.  I'm pretty sure it's more than "one person" there too.

Here's the other issue, and it's one you can pin on the GOP as well.  Aside from the fact that we all known it's far more than "one person" or "one location" the other problem is that these radical proposals get virtually zero push back from what we would all describe as moderates.  Biden did state he doesn't want to defund the police, but aside from saying something along the lines of "I don't agree with all of that" these radical proposals are met with silence.  No push back, no stating that this is a radical proposal.  

Like I said, we can revisit this once the Democratic party platform is released.  Then we can see how far the proverbial one person's influence has spread. 

[*Nately120*]

Can we just make the Trump family the royal family of the USA? We need this kind of thing.

[BmorePat87]

(07-30-2020, 12:00 PM)hollodero Wrote: I have a constitutional question to the election postpoining: Would doing that (assuming Congress goes for it, I get that they really won't) mean the president keeps being president, or would his tenure end anyway, even if there were no elections?
In other words, would Nancy Pelosi become president?

The Constitution, as specified by the 20th Amendment, specifically states that the President's term ends at 12:00pm on January 20th. 

Congress setting the date of the election back doesn't change that date. If no election results are certified before that date then Pelosi is acting President until it happens. 

[Belsnickel]

(07-30-2020, 01:30 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: The Constitution, as specified by the 20th Amendment, specifically states that the President's term ends at 12:00pm on January 20th. 

Congress setting the date of the election back doesn't change that date. If no election results are certified before that date then Pelosi is acting President until it happens. 

This is all, of course, assuming that the rule of law is followed.

[BmorePat87]

(07-30-2020, 02:05 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: This is all, of course, assuming that the rule of law is followed.

The only way that could occur is Trump refusing to leave the White House at noon, at which point any federal agent choosing to side with him over acting President Nancy Pelosi would be engaging in actual treason. 

I said this to someone commenting on my cousin's Facebook post today, I have absolute faith that the military would not join him in a coup. 

[hollodero]

(07-30-2020, 02:11 PM)BmorePat87 Wrote: The only way that could occur is Trump refusing to leave the White House at noon, at which point any federal agent choosing to side with him over acting President Nancy Pelosi would be engaging in actual treason. 

I said this to someone commenting on my cousin's Facebook post today, I have absolute faith that the military would not join him in a coup. 

Can't imagine they would, question is if they would do anything though. Or take the approach of claiming that this is a constitutional issue and it's not their place to weigh in on that.

What I really worry though is what thappens if Trump (or anyone on his behalf) calls his followers to arms after being betrayed by a rigged election or a rigged system or a rigged whatever. Many dismiss an actual uprising as completely hysterical nonsense, but I for one am not so sure of that.

[Dill]

(07-30-2020, 01:21 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Ahh, so the problem is that GOP leaning voters have faulty judgment.  

The "GOP leaning" Trump base exercises "broken judgment." Yes. As I've argued since 2016.  And I don't see how I could make it plainer. But I'd extend this to any "independents" who have trouble recognizing Trump's mental instability, ignorance of government and foreign policy, misogyny, racism and general unfitness for the highest office in the land.  

(07-30-2020, 01:21 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Let us please not insult each others intelligence, or that of anyone else reading, by pretending that this is a phenomena linked solely to "one location".

One certainly can as the issue is hardly confined to that one person.  I suppose we can wait and see the Democratic party platform once released and revisit this then.

Ok. Portland too.  

The "insult" is in painting these local (and very much experimental) political movements as somehow the real, scary Dem national platform, as if they have taken over the Democratic party in the manner and too the degree that the extreme right in the US has overwhelmed the Republican.

If that were the case, Biden would not be the Dem candidate for president. And the Dem party would be split the way the Republican is now, with "never-Bideners" and an FDR Project or some such of prominent Dems running ads against him. 

[Belsnickel]

(07-30-2020, 02:46 PM)Dill Wrote: Ok. Portland too.  

The "insult" is in painting these local (and very much experimental) political movements as somehow the real, scary Dem national platform, as if they have taken over the Democratic party in the manner and too the degree that the extreme right in the US has overwhelmed the Republican.

If that were the case, Biden would not be the Dem candidate for president. And the Dem party would be split the way the Republican is now, with "never-Bideners" and an FDR Project or some such of prominent Dems running adds against him. 

Have to agree, here. I mean, the DNC recently voted to not include Medicare-for-All in the platform. The party is still more center-right on the geopolitical scale.