Today we may learn for sure who won….. Or not.
Open thread.
317 thoughts on “Election Day! Open Thread”
Breaking News!
This bakery in Pennsylvania is seeing Trump cookies far outsell Biden cookies. Trump will win Pennsylvania. Since Trump wins Pennsylvania, I think I’m prepared to call the election for the Donald at this point.
~grins~
OK_Max (Comment #193014): “Nor am I for giving some citizens more voting power in presidential elections because they reside in particular States.”
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That is most definitely NOT the case in the United States. It is merely a prejudicial way of framing it.
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Less populous rural states have different interests than populous urban states. The electoral college is a way to help balance the rights of the smaller states against the power of the larger states.
OK_Max (Comment #193019): “Oh well, the Constitution allowed slavery at one time, so I shouldn’t be surprised at it being unfair on voting.”
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Another prejudicial framing. The Constitution never specifically allowed slavery, although for the first 80 years it also did not specifically prohibit it.
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Addition: By OK_Max’s logic, the Constitution still allows human sacrifice.
mark bofill,
“Eat his lunch” has a better sound to it than “eat his cookies”. :-0
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I have no doubt Trump has a lot more enthusiastic supporters than Biden (Biden is a corrupt career politician, suffering early stage dementia, after all). The kind of people who would buy politically motivated cookies are Trump supporters. What is not clear is if Trump will get more votes.
By varying the number of electors each State has according to population (number of House representatives as well), democratic fairness is approximated in our system. I hate to be the one to break the bad news, but most of our ideals are only approximated in government. Innocent people go to prison, guilty people go free. It’s not a perfect world.
States are intrinsic to our system of government here in the U.S.; there’s no sense in pretending otherwise. It’s not the Federal government and the people. Lots of federal programs don’t deal directly with the people at all, but deal with the States. Federal mandates to States are not assigned on the basis of population, and I see no issue of fairness there. Federal funding to meet mandates given to States isn’t based on population. Federal funding for highways isn’t based on population.
More importantly though – our country is vast and diverse. The culture, industry, and concerns of various regions aren’t the same. I see absolutely nothing enlightened, progressive, or liberal about decreeing majority superiority and a disregard for the culture, industry, and concerns of minorities in various regions. When did the liberals decide minorities were unimportant, or that justice says we can ignore minorites? [Edit: Rhetorical question. I don’t believe they have so decreed.] I must’ve missed that memo.
We got what we got. It’s a reasonable approximation that’s stood the test of time. Don’t mess with it gratuitously.
Numbers and Per Capita Distribution of Troops
Serving in the U.S. Post-9/11 Wars in 2019, By State https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/costs/social/Troop%20Numbers%20By%20State_Costs%20of%20War_FINAL.pdf
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Look like blue states owe red states some blood and treasure, ha ha. It’s really more of an income divide I think, haven’t looked those numbers up. I really don’t understand progressive’s fascination with reinstituting the draft, which comes up often. A volunteer system seems much more palatable. I think it might have to do with forcing some people to be more anti-war if they have skin in the game.
OK_Max,
Nothing stopping you from moving to Montana or Wyoming and enjoying your outsize voting power.
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Personally I think the system for Congress works pretty well, you have the House which is population based and the Senate which allows for rural areas to have some outsize influence to prevent tyranny of the majority. One can imagine many other systems that may or may not work better. The electoral system for President is a bit whacky and we wouldn’t design it that way again in 2020, but it’s what we have and it’s not likely to change.
HaroldW
“The respective Constitutions, newly established, would outline their values and provide their views on the rights of individuals and limits to the power of state and federal governments.”
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Sounds a bit like the split of Pakistan (and later Bangladesh) from India. It was not a graceful process. Muslims and Hindus in India *STILL* do not get along at all well (I confirmed this personally during a 2 weeks stay in India 24 months ago). The Indians are becoming richer than the Pakistanis and Bangladeshis… no surprise there, considering their respective cultures. The potential for religious (and cultural) conflict in the region remains high.
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Splitting up the USA, left vs right, would be no panacea. I vote for the conservative states to get all the nuclear weapons.
SteveF (Comment #193017)
November 2nd, 2020 at 3:34 pm
I am shocked (shocked!) by the relative enlistments rates across the country (as of 2014): https://www.businessinsider.com/us-military-is-not-representative-of-country-2014-7
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I didn’t see anything more recent. Since I live in Florida, with lots of enlistments, I should clearly have my vote count double that of the weasels in Massachusetts, not less than votes in Massachusetts (which is the actual situation).
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NO, you are looking at this wrong. Florida is being subsidized by tax dollars from other States. What do you mean by “which is the actual situation” ?
I too was surprised by the report from Business Insider. I thought there would be more military service men and women from Midwestern States. That so few are from Utah, however, was not surprising. Many young LDS men right out of school go on missions for the church, leaving them with less time for military service.
OK_Max,
“What do you mean by “which is the actual situation†?”
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Pretty clearly, Florida voters are under-represented in the Senate. There are two senators from Massachusetts, and two from Florida, the population of Massachusetts is about 6.9 million, while in Florida the population is about 22.5 million… so my representation in the senate is only 1/3 per capita that of Massachusetts residents. How is that fair? (by your analysis, it is not). Of course Texas and California have even bigger gripes than Floridians about Senate representation.
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Same thing with the electoral college, though reduced due to House representation being proportional to population. Florida gets fewer electoral college votes than Massachusetts per capita…. and Rode Island, Maryland? Forgettaboutit.
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You are chasing fantasies. The Constitution is pretty clear that all votes are not always equal. If that makes you unhappy, then try to change the Constitution to your liking.
If you don’t like the United States setup, I wouldn’t recommend you investigate the makeup of the United Nations and how that works. News bulletin: these things are messy to start, maintain, and operate. I would suggest it is wise for the US to not allow the rest of the world to vote itself the US treasury.
Tom Scharf (Comment #193027)
November 2nd, 2020 at 4:24 pm
OK_Max,
Nothing stopping you from moving to Montana or Wyoming and enjoying your outsize voting power.
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Except my wife.
BTW, I was wondering in which State citizens have the most power in presidential voting. Is it Montana,Wyoming, North Dakota or another State?
Wyoming according to FairVote. Wyoming according to this link as well.
shrug.
OK_Max,
It is mostly the small population states. Here is the hit parade:
39 Idaho 1,787,065 0.54%
40 Hawaii 1,415,872 0.43%
41 New Hampshire 1,359,711 0.41%
42 Maine 1,344,212 0.41%
43 Montana 1,068,778 0.32%
44 Rhode Island 1,059,361 0.32%
45 Delaware 973,764 0.29%
46 South Dakota 884,659 0.27%
47 North Dakota 762,062 0.23%
48 Alaska 731,545 0.22%
49 Vermont 623,989 0.19%
50 Wyoming 578,759 0.17%
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There is one representative in the House per 730,000 population, so the very lowest population states get BOTH exorbitant Senate representation, and extra House representation. I really suggest you move to Wyoming. Then work on your proposals to amend the Constitution. Likely popular with your new neighbors.
Lots of countries have leaders who do not win the popular vote.
It is possible in UK, Australia, India, and Canada. Justin Trudeau’s party won fewer votes than the Conservatives, but it was a solid victory.
MikeN,
“Justin Trudeau’s party won fewer votes than the Conservatives, but it was a solid victory.”
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Damned Canadians, they should be shot, for sure. “Majority rules” is the nexus of life. OK, not in the US Constitution.
SteveF (Comment #193030)
November 2nd, 2020 at 4:46 pm
You are chasing fantasies. The Constitution is pretty clear that all votes are not always equal. If that makes you unhappy, then try to change the Constitution to your liking.
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I doubt the Constitution says or implies some votes in a Presidential election are to count for more than other votes. If I’m wrong, I wonder if the popular vote could become less and less important if population becomes more geographically concentrated in the future. Is the electoral college changed to assure there will not be a large gap between it and the popular vote?
Max,
Are you trying to goad us into mentioning the 3/5’th Compromise? Here:
Article I, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution states: “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.â€
We abolished slavery, and everyone is a free Person now. But the Constitution does indeed state that some people counted more than others with respect to representation.
But set that aside, because slavery was abolished. Read Federalist #10 for goodness sakes. The Federalists did not intend for there to be unchecked Democracy in this country, and the Constitution reflects that. The Electoral College and the representative scheme laid out guarantees that not all votes will weigh equally. The founders weren’t innumerate; they understood this perfectly well. The Constitution reflects that.
OK_Max,
No, if every Democrat in the country chooses to live in New York and California, then their votes will automatically become less important. The electoral college is pretty well defined. So is Senate representation. They are not going to change except by Constitutional amendment. Like I said, work to change the Constitution if you don’t like it; the process is well described in the Constitution. Have at it.
OK_Max, saw this morning population projections for US that would put 30% of population controlling 70% of senate. Doesnt sound like a good formula for maintaining the union given the way it performs at the moment, and especially if Senate becomes predominantly GOP controlled and House is Dem controlled. As far as I can see, equal representation of states in upper house is common in federation/commonwealth setups and you can see why. It doesnt seem to create the discordance in Australia that it does in US though which may be due to bottom-up government or limits on senate powers. Canadians at work do a lot of moaning about their senate though.
There are all kinds of ways using the popular vote to determine the Presidential election could be considered unfair and unrepresentative – and in fact we are on our way to being in that situation.
Take the case where most of population and regions of the nation are fairly evenly divided in voting preference, but a very few cities in a very few locations vote overwhelmingly for one party and swing the popular vote to that party.
Based on my above list of populations, less than 5% of the population currently controls 24% of the Senate votes, and if we include on that list slightly higher population states, then it becomes “worse†if your idea of ‘better’ is proportional representation. It is obvious the Senate is not and *never* was expected to be anything like a proportionally representative body. The Senate is designed (as a feature, not a bug) to represent the interests of the individual states, independent of population in those states. That is just how it is. People need to either try to change the Constitution or get over it.
Well it would seem highly unlikely, (given what I understand of the constitution which is admittedly limited), that low population states would allow an amendment that reduced their power. However, I can also see that issues could arise where small minority overrules what a large majority of population want. If that issue was truly important rather than a preference, then leaving the union might be preferably to “getting over it”. Slavery did in 1800s. What in 21st?
However, I can also see that issues could arise where small minority overrules what a large majority of population want. If that issue was truly important rather than a preference, then leaving the union might be preferably to “getting over itâ€.
Usually, nothing prevents States from enacting whatever laws they like. The Bill of Rights can of course, but that’s a feature in most people’s eyes.
If a large majority wants something but the good people of Wyoming don’t, why not just leave them out of it.
I am thinking the Maori on the South Island need to push for rhe island to leave NZ and become the 51st state of the USA. Lots of senatorial power. More freedom.
Well … here’s an idea the Democrats might not have ever thought of … apparently? Support policy proposals that these small states like and win them.
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You can now return to your “life is unfair” whining competition.
Actually, the 10 smallest states are split: 4 blue (Vermont, Rhode Island, Delaware, Hawaii), 4 red (Alaska, Wyoming, the Dakotas), 2 purple (Maine, New Hampshire).
Similar with the largest states; split between the two parties.
Mike M,
But you are getting away from the “Republicans unfairly control the Senate†howls from the indignant left. It is always about the desire for power over everyone with the left.
Oh yeah, it’s the United STATES of America.
The electoral college is a compromise between population and geography. Disrupt that compromise and sparsely populated states have less or even no reason to remain in the union.
Urbanization seems to be continuing, so perhaps its not surprising that there’s a friction here.
Phil
… if Senate becomes predominantly GOP controlled and House is Dem controlled.
I love divided control. Whatever the cause of divided government, that's a feature, not a bug!
OK_Max: "I doubt the Constitution says or implies some votes in a Presidential election are to count for more than other votes. "
No time to look this up at the moment, but I believe that at the time the Constitution was established, there was no thought of a popular vote for President. I think electors were chosen by the states' legislatures.
lucia, I'm with you about not wanting one party to control Senate, House, and Presidency. If Biden wins, I'm really hoping that Senate stays Republican. There seems to be little doubt that the Democratic Party will remain the House majority, so I'm not as concerned about the Senate majority if Trump wins.
Either way, I am thrilled that election ads, texts, news, etc. will slow down.
Very heavy turnout at my polling place this morning. Gonna try again later, lines too long.
HaroldW,
Yes, Nancy is very likely to retain her gavel.
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However, there are a lot of freshman Democrats from 2018, and many of those are in some danger of being replaced, often by the same Republican who they squeaked past in 2018. I will be surprised if the Republicans don't pick up a number of seats (6 to 10?), but not enough to switch control. Considering the very near lock-step voting of House Democrats, a smaller majority won't make much practical difference except on rare occasion.
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A more troubling observation is that none of the crazies on the left, like Occasional Cortex and the rest of 'the squad', are being seriously challenged for their seats…. not in primaries and not in the general election. Looks like there is going to be a long term presence of these people in the House, where (unfortunately) they will push the Dems toward ever more extreme-left policy positions. Think striking a compromise with Nancy Pelosi would be difficult? Try compromising with the utterly unhinged Occasional Cortex.
My neighbor said he had to stand in line for early morning voting. This was a first form him.
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I voted by mail.
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Boy I'm glad I was too busy to decided to work the polls.
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It's a quite tiring job even when it's not busy.
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I mean…. yeah… mostly sitting and everything. But it goes on for ever and when I worked it there weren't enough poll workers. So we were there from 7 am–??? (After you process the votes at least two workers have to drive them ballots etc to another destination. So we drove around– we got a bit lost in one of the few parts of the county with strange winding roads . I have navigation now so it wouldn't be a problem… but that added some time. THEN we had to wait in line…. So I think it was 7am to 10 pm in the end.
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Fortunately I'd packed nice lunch in an insulated bag.
HaroldW (Comment #193061): "I'm with you about not wanting one party to control Senate, House, and Presidency."
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That is a feature if it forces compromise. And it will be a feature if Biden wins. But it is a problem if one party is either determined to obstruct and/or insistent on getting its own way. So I am hoping for full Republican control so that Trump can actually make changes that are desperately needed.
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Is it contradictory to say that something can be both a feature and a problem? I think not, but off hand I would not want to be forced to defend that position.
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mark bofill (Comment #193062): "Very heavy turnout at my polling place this morning. Gonna try again later, lines too long."
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That is why I voted last week; lots of opportunity to go back later.
I got lucky: almost no line when I got there but a long line when I left. I don't think that was my fault. 🙂
MikeM,
The minority party can obstruct. Unless their "own way" is truly to get nothing, they can't get their "own way".
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Full GOP control ain't gunna happen. I wouldn't want it anyway… but ain't gunna happen.
HaroldW (Comment #193060): "I believe that at the time the Constitution was established, there was no thought of a popular vote for President. I think electors were chosen by the states' legislatures."
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My impression is that the Article 2 Electoral College was envisioned as an assembly of wise men who make a decision in the best interest of the nation.
But by the time the 12th Amendment was passed, they had been disabused of that fanciful idea. Popular vote had become a thing in choosing electors, but I am not sure if it was universal.
Somebody (Hamilton, I think) wanted the 12th Amendment to specify that electors be chosen using the system now used in Maine and Nebraska.
Woo hoo! Political attack ads ending today! No lines at polling places in my area. A lot of mail-in and early voting opportunities in FL though.
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I prefer split government for a lot of reasons. Mostly it prevents any action at all which is just fine by me. I'm of the opinion that it mostly kind of works in a murky way and attempts to fix things are just as likely to make things worse. When a big enough need comes along then there will be compromise such as yearly budgets and covid stimulus. The opposing sides can blame each other for not doing things their crazy activists want and keep their influence down (we can't get GND by a Republican Senate so just stop talking about it!, etc.).
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lucia,
Only Republicans "obstruct", the Democrats "resist". That's a super important distinction to the media.
15 minutes from door to door for me to vote this afternoon. Early voting had a 3 hour line on Saturday.
Lucia,
If Trump doesn't die in the next few hours, then you won't have to go out and negate your earlier mail-in vote. 😉
I think she ought to do it just to be safe… I mean he could die at any time. You never know…
SteveF,
I'm leaving the house for a dance lesson and then will be tutoring until 4 pm. So I'll have to check the news at 4:30 pm to see if he kicked the bucket. . .
Mark,
Yes… but he could remain alive. I'm not voting for him if he's alive.
Well, so long as you're prepared to live with yourself if Trump loses Illinois by one vote in your district and then dies.
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You're a ballsy gambler Lucia, that's all I can tell you.
Another sign of the times, yet another Cat2 hurricane hit the gulf coast last week and nobody even noticed. As far as quantities go this was as bad a season as 2005, however for magnitudes there weren't any monster Katrina's this time around. After 2005 the "experts" said we will have more hurricanes due to climate change, then we proceeded to not have a Cat3 landfall in the US for 11 consecutive years. They changed to "just more powerful storms" after much thinking. We will see if recency bias strikes again and they revise their estimates.
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The reality is we can't see a lot of change in this sporadic noisy data over the 100+ years of warming, so if there is a climate signal there it is likely a small influence. Check back in 30 years.
And the lines are still crazy long!
Tom Scharf,
"yet another Cat2 hurricane hit the gulf coast last week and nobody even noticed."
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Ya, it passed directly over my production plant in Louisiana (20 miles from lake Pontchartrain), and the people at the plant said "it was a joke"… had they not been informed by television news, they would never have noticed anything unusual happened. Just a little wind and a little rain. I think the national hurricane center has kind of lost it: every storm's intensity/danger is exaggerated… a lot… to hype fear and crazy behavior. Like the little boy who cries wolf, the NHC has to learn not to do this.
mark bofill,
Trump isn't going to lose Alabama if you don't vote.
Let's just hope there is a clear winner. The usual suspects will say the usual things no matter what but we definitely don't need another FL recount circus in 2020. One thing both sides learned from 2000 is to make sure chartered planes full of lawyers are ready to pounce.
SteveF (Comment #193087): "I think the national hurricane center has kind of lost it: every storm's intensity/danger is exaggerated… a lot… to hype fear and crazy behavior."
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I don't know that is the fault of the NHC. Forecasts need to include a range of possibilities. Watches and warnings are based on the worst case, since that is their purpose. Hurricanes change intensity rapidly as they approach and move over land; I would think that leads to a wider range in uncertainty.
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Then the "news" media take the worst case and run with it, screaming that the sky is falling. I don't know that the NHC can do much about that.
" Whatever the cause of divided government, that's a feature, not a bug!"
Ok. I get it. MMP serves the same function in our electoral system, especially important as we have no upper house and the Governor General's reserve powers remain so far a theoretical possibility. The important thing for a working government though is that it forces compromise. Feels like that is becoming less common in US.
I also get that no federation is going to work unless members have equal rights. I am now getting interested in the differences between US and Australian system. My perception is that Australia is a much looser confederation than US but have never really bothered to look much at how our neighbours do government.
SteveF. "I am thinking the Maori on the South Island need to push for rhe island to leave NZ "
I dont think I get what point you are trying to make. Maori are very thin on ground down here and markedly pro-social. ie readily trade individual rights for wider community good.
The liberatarians did however make big gains in last election – close to 10% of vote and the most ever MPs in the house. I think this was combination of being anti gun-control (widely feared that Labour will try to bring in Australian-type gun control laws) and disaffection with chaotic National. I doubt it will make much further ground however. They are hard line economic dries which appeals mostly to the very wealthy. They are anti gun control but also pro-euthanasia, pro-LGBT rights, pro-abortion, pro marijuana legalisation for basically the same reason (liberty) which doesnt sit well with social conservatives.
" Support policy proposals that these small states like and win them"
But would they? It seems both here and US that a very large no. of people vote on identity grounds – an alignment of political values. The size of swings in US seems rather small suggesting that proportion of "never Republican" or "never Democrat" is quite large.
In most places that means a party can just throw a bone or two to their dyed-in-the-wool supporters and ignore completely the never-the-vote-for-you communities to concentrate on policies that might swing voters that at least occasionally switch allegiance. This leads to dominance of centrist parties. So what drives the polarization in US?
Mark,
Trump remains alive.
Steve,
Trump isn't going to lose Alabama if you don't vote.
(twitches slightly) I know! I know! But what if he does! What if all these crazy lines are people who are sick of Trump and voting Biden! Arrrggghhh!!!! I have to get out there and vote!
(twitches spasmodically some more)
And Lucia! He might already be undead creature-of-the-night for all we know! Comey told us Trump eats souls! Marianne Williamson identified him as a psychic Dark Lord! Bwaaaaahh!!!
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What? No I don't need a tranquilizer! Get away from me with that get AWAYGETAWAY!!!!
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Okay, I'm calm.
Points taken.
Mark
Mike M,
"Hurricanes change intensity rapidly as they approach and move over land; I would think that leads to a wider range in uncertainty."
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Sure, but there is still crazy exaggeration. When a hurricane in the Bahamas threatened eastern Florida earlier this summer, I checked hourly on-the-ground conditions at four Bahamian weather stations (all at airports), all within the "destructive windfield" of the hurricane. When the NHC was saying 100 MPH ground level winds, the on-the-ground stations were ALL saying 45 MPH to 55 MPH. That never changed. Every single NHC forecast of winds was wildly higher than reality, over a whole day. As the storm approached (but never reached) the Florida coast, it was much of the same: NHC – >90% chance of 50 knot winds (57 MPH), reality at the local air field 25 MPH with a few gusts to 35 MPH. The NHC is comically high, most all the time. It was not that way 15 -20 years ago, when their intensity forecasts were pretty much spot on.
Lucia,
"Trump remains alive."
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Yes; he didn't have a heart attack, so you won't have to rush out to change your ballot. We will see if he gets reelected.
lucia (Comment #193095): "Trump remains alive."
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Trump is not the cause of polarization in the U.S. Have you forgotten the way the Dems demonized Romney? McCain? Bush?
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The cause of polarization is the elites (or oligarchy, clerisy, cosmopolitan class, whatever term you prefer) who run the country for their own benefit without regard to the needs of the People. They maintain their power, in no small part, by actively working to keep the people polarized.
It depends. The damage for Cat2 and below is usually pretty small, limited to trees falling and localized flooding. Most of FL can handle Cat3 no problem. We had 100 mph winds here a few years ago and nothing but a bunch of tree damage. But when I drove through where Michael hit with 140 mph+ winds it was obviously a thresholding function, there was massive eye opening widespread damage. The totals weren't huge because it was mostly rural. What is true is that the area of max winds is usually pretty small, but you don't want to be in it. Just being 5 miles out of that eye wall can make a big difference.
I think increased polarization is somewhat imaginary, it just seems more inflamed due to the immediacy and performative outrage in social media which them feeds the MSM. There does seem to be more party line voting then there used to be. The activists used to be ignored and now they are handed the megaphone by the MSM. Stuff like a few bad police shootings being amplified into widespread systemic racism is an example of what didn't used to happen and now does. Whether this is forward or backward progress depends on one's viewpoint.
Alright. Back to the polling station, once more into the breach. The line is no longer wrapped around the building.
Time to get some covfefe on.
[Edit: license not in wallet. Oh noes! Must go get passport. The epic saga continues…]
MikeM
I'm not sure why you are telling he is not the cause of polarization.
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I merely said he remains alive which he does. This observation in response to people who observed if he died in time for me to do so I said I would go out an cast an in person vote to override my mail in vote for Jorgenson (sp?). Some thought perhaps he would kick the bucket before the polls close and I would have to go out and stand in line.
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He remains alive. My mail in vote will stand.
Ahhhhhh. Satisfaction at last. I voted.
Better go request a new license though!
lucia (Comment #193104): "I'm not sure why you are telling he is not the cause of polarization."
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Your earlier comment immediately followed Scadden's question about polarization, so I mistakenly thought you were responding to that.
Mike M,
"Trump is not the cause of polarization in the U.S."
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I agree with that. Trump's 2016 election was more a symptom than a cause of polarization. Another big contributor to polarization in 2016 was that a remarkably dishonest, unlikable, profoundly corrupt Washington insider (the insider's insider, if you will) was his opponent. Had Hillary not done her nauseating "basket of deplorables" speech, she might actually have won, in spite of all her other many flaws. Her consistent "You are horrible, and irrelevant besides" take on all of flyover country probably cost her the election. Note to future presidential candidates: don't tell half the voters you think they are unworthy of consideration.
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To the extent he remains sentient, which may not be much, I doubt Biden is much better than Hillary, but tries at least to hide the worst of it. That is, unless someone asks about his blatant corruption.
Apologies Mike (RE:(Comment #193108)) I was being sillier than usual was what that was all about.
MikeM,
Fair enough. I tutor at 7 pm when the polls close. I think even if he died now, I might not have time to vote unless I cancelled my students lesson (which I'm not going to do.)
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So…. pretty certain I won't be going to the polls to recast my vote.
I remain bemused by the idea that the democrats vowed to do everything in their power to resist and remove a duely elected president, even before he was elected, call his voters deplorables and ugly. spin lies about russian collusion for years, and then accuse him of causing division. This is the epitome of the phrase "…cries out in pain as they strike you."
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On the other hand Obama tells republicans that elections have consequences and to take a seat at the back and that's totally in the spirit of cooperation and not divisive in the slightest.
Reminder:
If you put your “I Voted†sticker under your pillow tonight,
then the Election Fairy will leave you a Xanax.
I saw twitter… Is it going to be a long night ….. again? You gotta be freakin' kiddin me?!!!!!
It's going to be a long night.
So far so good though. Trump may carry Florida and North Carolina. He'll live or die in the blue wall states later tonight I think.
The Chinese Yuan is starting to tank.
That tells us two things about how international money traders see things: Who they are thinking will win and who they think will be tougher on China.
71% of Ohio vote in. Trump leading by 6% and 298,000 votes. Still think many votes not counted in big cities.
Did anyone catch the number of mail in ballots in Pennsylvania that won't be counted tonight? For some reason I thought I remembered hearing 270,000 mail in ballots won't get counted tonight but will be over the course of the rest of the week.
But I'm not sure I heard that correctly, or am remembering it correctly.
Fox finally gave in to the obvious and called Florida for Trump, which has been obvious for over an hour.
They have not called Ohio either. But they have called Virginia for Biden in spite of Trump have a six point lead with half the vote in.
Many states are called the moment polls close. It seems they are relying heavily on what they expected more than on what is actually happening.
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Chris Wallace just realized that polls and voting are different things.
It looks like Biden will get Arizona and Trump will get North Carolina and Ohio. I think that means that Trump will need two of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota.
I don't think we're going to know who won tonight.
I don't know. Trump is doing awfully well in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Maybe it will be clear by the end of the night.
I'll say the same thing I did 4 years ago. It looks like Trump is overperforming (again).
Illinois Fair Tax bill looks like "no". That's one win.
Google has Trump leading in every state (other than AZ) that is not yet called. (They still show AZ as not called– but I think Fox called them as Dem.)
Pennsylvania won't be done tonight. But I think Trump will take Michigan. Then either Wisconsin or Minnesota does it.
The WP has Trump over 270 as the vote in progress stands now, but that doesn't mean a whole lot. It's fairly common for late votes to swing left as big cities count slower. It will at least give the liberal media a class 10 panic attack. I hope they have a jumbo bottle of Xanax at hand.
WP?
I think you're right Mike. Unless the trends change, Trump is going to win both Michigan and Wisconsin.
It looks to me like Trump will lose Minnesota.
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[Edit: WP == Washington Post? Not sure]
My prediction about staying…. I'm going to break tradition. I'll probably wake up around 3 and check…..
Senate is looking Republican. I guess we'll see though.
Yeah. I've gotta work tomorrow. I'm going to try to sleep.
Yesterday FiveThirtyEight had Biden leading in FL in 13/16 polls for a net of Biden +2.5%.
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Trump is currently leading in FL by +3.4% with 96% counted.
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WP = Washington Post.
The Fox analysis guy just gave a coherent explanation of why they have called some states but not others. So we are not going to know until tomorrow, if then.
That Chinese currency tanking chart is worthy of IPCC.
It is a 1% drop made to look like the hockey stick by rigging y axis.
"My prediction: the polls are totally FUBAR."
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How did those new and improved methodologies that are definitely much better than 2016 pan out for them?
Well, looks like the Senate & House are staying R & D respectively, so we'll continue to have a divided Congress. I'm pleased: the less legislation the better, say I.
No predictions yet on the Presidential winner. Which is to say that the polls have missed the mark again.
If Trump wins, what do people think is the main motivation? For reference, in 2016 I attribute his win to (a) anti-career politician; (b) Clinton's "deplorables" attitude; (c) perception of Clinton corruption. One might argue that similar factors remain in 2020. If only the Democrats had nominated Tulsi Gabbard, my preference after the debates, but she hardly registered in the polls. Maybe in 2024 the Democrats will move toward the center. It wouldn't hurt if some of their more leftward members left for the Socialist Party.
[Aside: how did other countries end up with more than two major parties? It would seem to foster some necessary compromise to create a majority government. Perhaps that's just "greener grass" thinking…]
DaveJR,
Yes, the pollsters were (again) very wrong in lots of states. I think they just can’t bring themselves to adopt methods which don't yield their preferred result of a ‘blue wave’ at every election. It is a bit like asking climate (activist) ‘scientists’ what sea level will be in 80 years. They just can’t bring themselves to say the obvious…. almost certainly less than 17†higher than today, and most likely 13†or so.
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When you allow your political prejudices to cloud your analysis, your analysis is almost always going to be garbage. Most pollsters are the poster children for letting political preferences ruin your factual analysis. Neither ‘political science’ nor ‘climate science’ have much to do with science…. they are not ‘cargo cult science’, but a good distance in that direction.
HaroldW,
“ [Aside: how did other countries end up with more than two major parties? It would seem to foster some necessary compromise to create a majority government. Perhaps that's just "greener grass" thinking…]â€
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The only way it happens is in a parliamentary system, and it is often due to some form of proportional allotment of parliament members.
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Yes, I think it is greener grass thinking. The governments formed from parties with very different objectives are usually weak, short lived, and arguably bipolar or worse, but do manage to drive policy in violently different directions whenever they have 50% + 1 votes. Want instant gun confiscation, 70% marginal tax rates, and hate speech laws? Then adopt a parliamentary system. I’ll stick with supporting a constitutional republic.
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WRT Democrats moving toward the center: not an ice cube’s chance in hell. The party will tolerate nothing but allegiance to the ‘long arc of history’ that they say bends toward public control of all private activities. Someone like Joe Manchin is tolerated only because he votes left whenever it really counts. I doubt Manchin can survive his next election.
HaroldW,
Perhaps, the explanations for the Republicans doing generally well is the Dem main campaign them is "Shut up! We don't hear you!" which turns out to be a vote losing divisive message.
Uber and Lyft have been exempted from Cali's law making their drivers employees.
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The irony of that is that the whole purpose of the law was specifically to rope those drivers into employee status. But they also roped in lots of other groups some arguably are very clearly contractors and have worked that way for years. (For example: free lance script writers.) I think the referendum didn't mention them so they remain employees. But… in fact… those who could move tended to leave the state, or some companies just stopped hiring california people. (Varsity tutors just cut all their California based tutors– from what I've read on facebook.)
After ignoring the election drivel on TV last night I expected to awaken to a morning with it all over. That obviously is not going to happen. No matter how this turns out the big losers here are the pollsters. I agree with SteveF that I think they do not want to change an approach that gives them what they want to see. I too am reminded of the climate scientists who, when obtaining a result they like, quit looking. We all have that tendency I think but I hope most of would take another look if we saw something that looked too good to be true.
I was very happy that the pollsters had it wrong about the IL "Fair Tax" vote.
The Senate looks almost a sure thing for Republicans, with 51 votes virtually certain, 52 likely, 53 or even 54 possible after the Georgia runoff. That is a very good outcome; there will be no more screaming about placing 4 new lefties on the SC, no Green New Deal, no single-payer health care, no punitive individual mandate, and no dramatic tax increases.
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The outcome in the House is less certain beyond that Pelosi will for sure retain her gavel. I saw a couple of projections that Dems would gain ~5 seats, but I think the seers have backed off that projection. We’ll see. Maybe Pelosi will be more reasonable. (Nah, I’m only joking, she will suck up to the left as always.)
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Looks like a long ugly legal fight in Pennsylvania, and maybe elsewhere.
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A week or so ago I saw Larry Sabato’s projections for the presidential election, where, of course, a win by Biden was claimed a near certainty and a blowout a real possibility.
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They dismissed any notion of shy Trump voters messing up the telephone polls, stating there was no evidence of it. I wrote a short email explaining that the polls were for sure not accurately capturing Trump’s support due to the woke cancel culture keeping many Trump supporters from talking about their preference.
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I am waiting for a reply where Sabato thanks me for my insight, but not counting on it.
SteveF,
I don't know why pollsters refuse to admit to themselves that people can and do lie on political polls. I always lied on political polls. Now I don't take them at all.
Lucia,
“ Shut up! We don't hear you!â€
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That is part of it. The other part is: “If you say the wrong thing, we will punish you socially and try to get you fired!â€
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When someone believes they can’t possibly be mistaken about anything, then they are capable of unlimited evil. That is exactly where the ‘woke cancel culture’ of the left is headed. Sensible people don’t like it, so they shut up and vote their beliefs.
Lucia,
I instantly hung up on dozens of calls to participate in polls. Some were no doubt just ‘push polls’ and some more legitimate, but I would never waste my time on any of them. I think part of the explanation pollsters reject the obvious is that it leaves them with nothing to do: if telephone polls are rarely accurate enough to make reliable projections, and pollsters can’t (or refuse to) change their methods, then there is no need for telephone polls…. or pollsters.
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One might hope this debacle makes them step back and critically evaluate why their polls sucked (yet again), but that is just not going to happen…. too much money to be made churning out useless tripe that fits a political narrative.
SteveF,
What gets me is the tendency of some to "diagnose" groups of people as "voting against their interest". If you want people to vote for X and they don't, you should at least consider the possibility that X is not in their interest.
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I suspect we are going to be treated with stories about how all sorts of people voted "against their interest". The thing is: little effort will be given to finding out what those voters actually consider to be "their interest".
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Example: I've read all sorts of articles lecturing evangelicals that they shouldn't vote for Trump because of his bad character. I actually do think he has bad character. But those articles tend to scrupulously avoid discussing positions on abortion which like it or not, matter to those evangelicals. Alternatively, they just decree that Trump is so bad, they should set aside their position on abortion. This doesn't work to persuade.
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Now, I think abortion should be legal. So… you know… Trump's position on abortion makes me less likely to vote for him. But I don't thereby come to the conclusion that I can analyze the balance and decree evangelicals are voting "against their interests" because they vote for Trump– and in part because of his position on abortion. (They may have other reasons too.)
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Before you decide someone is voting "against their interest", you really, really, really need to sit down, talk to them and find out what they consider to be their interests. You might be surprised.
I'm prepared to call the election for Biden. Trump isn't going to take Michigan.
mark bofill,
Yes, either Trump pulls a miracle in Nevada or Michigan, or it is over… the closest presidential race since Bush/Gore.
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I don’t look forward to a dementia patient as president, but so long as Republicans hold the Senate and the SC blocks the unlawful executive actions that I expect to see Biden take, then it will not be a catastrophe. What will be interesting is how long before Biden is forced out. My guess is between 1 and 2 years.
Yup. Looking like 270-268 Biden (Az, Mi, Wi, NV=43+227). Trump is leading in GA,NC, PA, AK =54+214. That does put it in the range where unfaithful electors can have some fun. Senate stays republican.
We held the Senate and the Supreme Court isn't tilted liberal; we'll survive Biden.
Bummer though. I'd gotten comfortable ignoring all the recruiters ringing my phone off the hook all the time under Trump. Better get ready to go back to the barrens of the Obama years.
Iowa district 2 house representative has 380 votes separating them.= out of ~400k cast. That ones going to take a while to resolve.
Actually, thanks Steve. I'd forgotten Trump has a path through Nevada still, if he wins Pennsylvania.
I'm not holding my breath, but I'll keep watching.
[Edit: Lol. I just looked at the district population map in Nevada. Trump isn't going to win there.]
SteveF,
My guess is Trump will push through executive actions to force Biden to unwind.
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Biden is, well, shall we say, less than mentally energetic. I know he will have minions, but you and I both have experience with those whose lack of mental energy springs from falling into the abyss of dementia. They can simultaneously resist actions others propose and also not take any themselves. Biden will not be as energetic in unwinding as the Dems hope, and like it or not until they shift him out, they will need to go through him.
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If Biden has alzheimers, and I think he does, he will move s_l_o_w_l_y even if pushed. Yes… one might hope one can get alzheimers patients to bend to one's will. But doing it easily involves duping and sneaking, which is facilitated by patient being somewhat isolated.
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He has shown strong symptoms of lack of energy…. And they need to get him to do things. That might be surprisingly difficult.
We'll see what happens. I'm not happy to be living in interesting times. . .
Lucia,
"My guess is Trump will push through executive actions to force Biden to unwind."
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Maybe, but I think there will be for sure a Clintonesque orgy of pardons. The problem with executive actions from a lame duck will be the continuing resistance of the bureaucrats; they know all they have to do is delay until January 20….. which for bureaucrats is not a long time.
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Where there may be real movement between now and January is the Middle East, where Arab countries terrified of Iran may figure it is best to get closer to the Israelis before Biden comes in and screws everything up… like Obama, opening a clear path for Iran to put nuclear weapons on ballistic missiles.
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Another imponderable is Biden's legal exposure for influence peddling related to his son and brother. Between them they took about $6 million form the Chinese in 2017 and 2018. If a Senate subpoena were to show Hunter or Biden's brother wiring Joe money from that haul, then Biden's departure from the scene might be, ahem, accelerated a bit by Democrats.
It looks like a close Biden win. Votes not trending well in battleground areas. Not a terrible outcome assuming the Republicans hold the Senate. I'll shed no tears to see Trump gone. A Biden landslide would have been a terrible outcome. I'm sure Trump will be a magnanimous loser, ha ha. This will remind everyone why they aren't sorry to see him go.
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Some of these states may go to mandatory recounts though. The left and right do agree on recount rules at least, keep "processing" and counting votes until your side is winning and then declare the vote over. I have no desire for Trump to win by legal chicanery in recounts a la Gore.
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The "Cubans" in south FL were apparently a deciding factor for Trump there. It is humorous that the articles I read started calling them something other than Hispanic. You got the feeling they were being a bit demeaned as not real Hispanics, ha ha. FL now leans a bit more right in the state legislature.
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In other good news the vote in CA (Prop 16) to reinstate racial preferences was defeated pretty handily.
The White House has a basement for Biden to hide in, right? He can just stay there for 4 years.
Tom,
A couple of things.
"This will remind everyone why they aren't sorry to see him go."
Lots of people are going to be sorry to see him go. I am.
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"The "Cubans" in south FL…"
What's with the scare quotes? They *are* Cubans, or at least were.
Shy Trump voters or overwise biased polling looks real. That's two election in a row.
Somebody else noted that at least these polls * get verified * by an actual real count. What about all those polls for other subjects that never get verified? This industry has now lost trust and has some work to do.
Scare quotes for Cubans because they were being commonly assumed to be on Team Hispanic until yesterday. The point being is they are being thrown under the identity bus for thinking independently and now apparently require a new name.
Oh. Ok.
In retailing, the election of Biden would be classic bait and switch. You think you're buying one thing but you end up with something completely different.
Tom Scharf (Comment #193174): "I'll shed no tears to see Trump gone."
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Very shortsighted. There are a number of adages that apply. Out of the frying pan, into the fire. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Be careful what you wish for.
——–
Tom Scharf (Comment #193180): "Shy Trump voters or overwise biased polling looks real."
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Sadly, the bias was not quite large enough.
Ariz results will move to a narrower margin.
Most Latino Congressional district in the country, at Mexico border, went from Hillary +60 to Biden +5.
My next prediction: I expect 110% voter turnout to be more than a thing this year.
It's not hard to understand why people would vote against Trump. People who think an election is a referendum on character and on Hollywood style leadership are likely to vote against Trump. Then there are the set who have different policy preferences.
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What the MSM willfully ignores is the opposite, people vote against Biden because of policy preferences and acknowledge yet ignore Trump's character flaws. As I stated before, primaries are more a referendum on character, and general elections are referendums on policy in my view. I vote accordingly.
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I prefer Trump's policy, but am sick to death of Trump the clown. What we will hopefully see is a "sane Trump" candidate in the next election cycle. The SC is set for a while so no big fears there. If the Republicans hold the Senate they can block crazy all day long. There really wasn't any policy plan for term #2, except being not leftish. That's not a bad thing, but also not compelling to attract casual voters. Biden will likely reimplement Obama orders, but only so much damage can be done and it is temporary.
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In the grand scheme, the coronavirus probably caused Trump to lose. In a close election everything can be said to be the primary cause, but this loomed over everything. He was unlucky there.
DeWitt,
"…you end up with something completely different."
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You mean Kamala?
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Based on where the outstanding votes are, it looks like Biden ekes out wins (near 1%) in Michigan and Wisconsin, wins by a few % in Nevada, and wins Arizona by a couple of %. Even with all the uncounted absentee/mail in ballots remaining in Pennsylvania, it looks to me like Trump will win PA in a squeaker.
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So the final electoral count may be 270 Biden, 268 Trump. But don't worry, Biden's lefty lackeys will act like they have a 'sweeping mandate' for 'fundamental change' in government. Count on hearing things like: "Just look at the popular vote!"
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In Michigan, it looks like John James (R) comes up about 0.1% short of the votes he needs to upset incumbent Peters (D). It's too bad, because James is an excellent candidate, and was no doubt dragged down by Trump. Unless something very drastic happens, it looks like Republicans will end up with 51 or 52 in the Senate.
Tom Scharf,
I agree that lots of people are tired of Trump's obnoxious behavior, including me. But I am not sure how long the relief from Trump will last once he is gone, along with Ol' Joe, and Karmala starts insisting on insane lefty administrative policies.
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Yes, the SC can stop the worst of it if they have the courage, but when the Kamala administration refuses to permit any pipeline, refuses to allow natural gas or petroleum exploration anywhere on Federal property and off-shore, blocks all nuclear power, and ties up everything they can't block via bureaucratic suffocation, things could turn ugly pretty fast.
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You may remember the Donald fondly after being force fed Kamala's 'enlightened' ideas for a while.
MikeN (Comment #193186)
November 4th, 2020 at 11:30 am
Ariz results will move to a narrower margin.
Most Latino Congressional district in the country, at Mexico border, went from Hillary +60 to Biden +5.
Which county and link please.
SteveF
it looks like Republicans will end up with 51 or 52 in the Senate.
Just enough. My hope yesterday was:
1) Pritzgers "fair tax" intiative would be voted out.
2) GOP majority in senate. Looks like it happened.
3) Uber/Lift won the cali referendum to have drivers NOT be employees. Happened.
I get my students through gig economy. It's nice change, easy and I like the work.
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If law making them employees had not been booted by voters it would likely embolden congress to change employment law and Poof!!! my tutoring business would drastically change. Didn't want that!
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(I do think people need to enforce laws on books. Some people are treated as contractors when conditions are NOT. But that's a different issue.)
Tom Scharf (Comment #193188): " What we will hopefully see is a "sane Trump" candidate in the next election cycle."
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Probably wishful thinking.
I suppose Trump could run again, right? Aaaaaagghhhh!!!!! Ha ha.
Looks like Collins retains seat in Maine.
Tom,
We'll have to find something to thwart him. Garlic works against vampires. There must be something to repel Trump.
Lucia,
Don't worry, something like the fair tax amendment will probably be back again very soon. It could take the form of a flat exemption combined with higher overall rate, with the exemption set high enough to free many people from having to pay any state income tax at all.
SteveF (Comment #193189)
"So the final electoral count may be 270 Biden, 268 Trump."
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Yes, looks that way, but still to close to call.
Does the stock market (S&P up 3.2%) anticipate a Biden victory?
Tom Scharf,
If Trump loses (as is now likely), he is not going to run again in 2024… he'll be too old, and the Dems will no doubt *still* be trying to throw him and his entire family in prison.
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After a year or so of a demented president… followed by Kamala driving him from office, voters may figure they need some protection, and pull control of the House from the Dems in 2022.
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Does there exist a "nice Trump"? I have not seen one. Do you have a suggestion?
OK_Max,
"Does the stock market (S&P up 3.2%) anticipate a Biden victory?"
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I think mostly it was driven by the relief of knowing the Senate is not going to allow big tax increases on businesses (and individuals, of course).
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Certainty helps the market; lower taxes help more.
Senate will not end at 51 or 52 R. Georgia will have at least one runoff and maybe 2 with Perdue at 50.7% needing to stay above 50 to be declared the winner.
Trump had a late campaign stop in Neb to try and get all 5 votes there. Losing that one kept him from getting a tie, which is likely in his favor. He can still get a tie if he wins Mich(or Ariz+Nev) but loses North Carolina.
WSJ: "U.S. stocks surged Wednesday toward their biggest-ever postelection gain, led by a rally in technology shares, as investors appeared to coalesce around the idea of a divided U.S. government."
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Stock market is probably also reacting to no blood in the streets, literally. I always thought the election violence meme was ludicrous. People confuse Twitter with reality a little too often.
MikeN,
Where do you think the Senate ends up if not 51 or 52?
SteveF, 50 with 2 runoffs. End result of that I can go with 52.
There was a big vote dump of 138,000 ballots for Biden overnight in Michigan that went 100% for Biden. This has now been explained as a typo, a county turned 15,371 into 153,710. I think this update is reflected in the current counts, but not sure.
I haven't seen any explanation for a similar jump in Wisconsin.
Woa!
John James (R) running for Senate in Michigan has increased is lead as the final votes have been tallied. He is up to a lead of 0.4% over the incumbent with 97% counted. He was down to less than 0.2% with 6% left to count.
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If James wins, then control of the Senate is well out of reach for Democrats.
I take back the "Woa!"…
The Michigan Sec. of State just dumped a huge block of almost 100% votes for the incumbent, putting John James behind by 0.1% (~6,000 votes), with 2% of the count remaining. I am now back to what I expected before: a loss by James of 0.1% to 0.2%.
Funny. That exact thing has happened a lot this cycle.
[Well. Not dropping a big almost 100% block of votes for the *incumbent*. Dropping a big almost 100% block of votes for the *Democrat*.]
I wonder what's responsible for it.
I didn't mean to insinuate fraud. I honestly wonder if there's some reasonable explanation for it.
Mail in ballots. In the county next door 87% of registered democrats voted early compared to 45% of registered republicans. Ohio is a first vote counts state, so these ballots were counted and results posted by 8pm. A half hour after the polls closed. Each pooling place had lists of who had requested an absentee ballot or early voted so these were turned away or voted on provisional ballots at the polls. Trumps lead increased as the in person ballots were counted as there were more republican registered voters at the polls.
I can see the reverse being true for states where last vote counts. In that situation, you would need to cross reference against the poll sign ins to eliminate remove the absentee ballots of those who voted in person before running them through the machines.
mark bofill,
I was not suggesting fraud.
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I think that the explanation is the processing of votes (especially, awkward absentee ballots/mail ballots) delays reporting quite a lot unless the state allows pre-processing. Most don't, since many people (like Lucia) had the option to wander in any time election day and negate their original mail-in/absentee ballot. Since under these circumstances people could easily vote twice, when the poll workers have to record an absentee ballot (or mail-in ballot), they have to authenticate it against the list of voters who already voted live. So that makes processing of the mail-in/absentee ballots not START until polls close, and to be very slow compared to processing of any other ballot. Peple wen't counting on covid-19.
Thanks Steve, thanks Andrew.
JD Ohio, Starr County, Texas
Trump picked up 6000 votes while Biden lost votes.
The makeup of state legislatures barely changed, Republicans still control most of these. Turnout was obviously huge, but realistically the vote didn't change much from 2016. Thin margin changes in the Midwest was the difference.
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I don't expect recounts to change anything unless the margin is crazy thin in a race. There was a case in my county where one set of votes was put through the scan counter twice that was found during a recount. A few hundred total vote difference but the delta change was insignificant. Places like Detroit and Philadelphia aren't exactly in my circle of trust but I really doubt large scale fraud is likely.
It appears that the grim reaper had a fine old time in Georgia yesterday. Here are Wuhan virus deaths in Georgia for the last seven days:
47
32
24
2
18
480 November 3
43
Yesterday's number just doesn't seem right. Anyone know what happened? Must of been some sort of a dump of backlogged data. Not the first time Georgia did something like that.
It would appear the Libertarian candidate might have been unhelpful to Trump in some of the close votes. Not sure how the vote breaks down if it wasn't there but it should favor the Republican.
Well… that's one interpretation. Those who voted libertarian otherwise might have left that race blank or filled in a write in.
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I would only vote for Trump if he was dead. If there had been no Libertarian candidate, I still wouldn't have voted for him.
The race might well not be over. Following based on items on the Daily Wire, they might have changed since yesterday.
There are lots of uncounted votes in Arizona, making it too close to call.
A bunch of funny business in Michigan including a rural county (possibly more than one) where the Trump votes somehow got reported as Biden votes and vice versa.
88% turnout of registered voters in Wisconsin. Not possible considering that no other state has ever had more than 80% turnout and many registered voters are dead or have moved. Precincts in Milwaukee had over 100% turnout.
Nevada and Pennsylvania are really insane.
The press won't call Georgia or North Carolina for Trump but jump the gun on Arizona and Michigan. Almost like they are trying to sell the narrative that Trump lost. A narrative that started with the pre-election polling.
———-
As a result of all this, I now feel confident in making a prediction: Most Trump voters well never believe that Trump lost.
Mike M.
Precincts in Milwaukee had over 100% turnout.
Visitor from Illinois? 🙂
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Obviously, that's bad. But I'm not sure how it's handled since the votes are all going to be mixed in together and not linked to the individual voter. If it's true they have more than 100% voting …. I guess we'll learn!
Mike M,
Can you provide a link showing more than 100% turnout?
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Errors like the candidate totals being reversed should be caught in a recount.
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It does appear that the early call in Arizona was a mistake; it may have been caused by simply not understanding where the many votes that had not yet been counted came from. I did note that Trump’s deficit fell significantly when 3% (out of 15%) were added to the totals overnight. Whether or not Trump can close the gap in Arizona is very unclear, but the early calls were unwise.
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Nevada is impossible to figure out. The gap between candidates has narrowed or stayed the same, while the expectation had been that Biden’s lead would grow rapidly with processing of the remaining votes.
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Giving voters the option to negate an existing early vote by walking in on election day has caused horrible delays in counting, since it means each early vote must only be counted after the close of polls, and verified against the list of confirmed election day votes. It is a very bad idea, and I hope the individual states will reconsider this practice.
Az listed as having 95% of the vote in where it was actually 85% with a majority left untabulated in Maricopa county. Absentee ballots from there is what closed the gap and there are 400k left to count.
Antica county in Michigan likely had the Dem/Rep choices switched all the way down the ballot which is why it stood out like a sore thumb. Local republican candidate only received 2 votes. Likely shift for president is 3k which is not enough to make a difference. It might shift the senate race.
Milwaukee and Wisconsin allow for voter registration on election day. You can walk in register and vote at the polling place. Definitely a bit susceptible to voter fraud, but that is what their rules state. Because of this they cannot have over 100% registered voters voting and the total registered voters weren't likely used in the % calculations.
Just like 2000 caused introspection and revisions to the in person balloting and counting processes nationwide, I expect this election to do the same for registration and early voting. It's insane that in todays tech driven world that we have multiple states without at least an preliminary call 30 hours after poll closing.
Yeah, I got suckered. It's not settled yet.
Steve,
Milwaukee City Wire is reporting on precincts that have more votes than registered voters. Can't link easily on my phone.
AndrewP,
Just like 2000 caused introspection and revisions to the in person balloting and counting processes nationwide, I expect this election to do the same for registration and early voting.
Yep. Among other things:
* Regular checks to see if voters died.(Supposedly, dead people voted.)
* Extra scrutiny for registrations of anyone over 90 yo. Registration of these people tend to be rife with dead listings. Also: if they've often moved. (This policy would result in howls from the AARP set.)
* Asking people registering at new addresses their two former old address and requesting they check an informed consent notice that tells them they will be unregistered elsewhere. (Perhaps do a license check. . .)
They do need to think about how to do this to avoid dis-enfranchising. But even if we don't have dead people voting, we currently have reports of that. Reports and suspicions the dead are voting or people voting twice is also a problem.
STeveF
It could take the form of a flat exemption combined with higher overall rate, with the exemption set high enough to free many people from having to pay any state income tax at all.
If the flat exemption was fixed at the lower 20% income averaged over 5 years ending 2 years before the current one, I'd actually be ok with that. I think it's better than a "free for all" type progressive rate that allows legislators to pick whatever they like.
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Oh… the 20% exemption should include income from any transfer payments: food stamps and value of housing vouchers etc. In the case of ambiguity, they can have a schedule to state what any specific thing is worth (and which things don't count. The "value" of k-12 public education shouldn't count. It's compulsory and generally speaking "everyone" gets it regardless of income.) Ideally, the amendment is clear on which things do count and what doesn't count.
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I like 20% because it covers the very poor, kids mowing lawns, babysitting and so on. It does pretty much mean nearly all adults will pay more or less at the same total rate.
mark bofill,
Walk-in register and vote means the 100+% ratio of votes to previously registered voters is meaningless. Now, I think walk-in register and vote rules are very unwise, because you then depend on hundreds temporary poll workers, pressed for time, to evaluate voter qualifications (really a resident of the district? really a US citizen?). To me there is far too much potential for fraud. But those are the rules in Wisconsin.
Oh, are those the rules in Wisconsin? Didn't know. I agree with you, pretty unwise.
Lucia,
My experience is that those who inherited a significant amount of money are all for high and progressive income taxes. One of my relatives (by marriage) is in that group…. never had a financial worry, from birth to 72.
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Inheriting a couple billion, like Pritzker, is of course the extreme case. I remain astounded that the voters in Illinois would elect the guy; he has spent his whole life completely isolated from the real-world existence of voters, so is very unlikely to understand their needs and priorities. I mean, to Pritzker, there is no difference between the moderately well off professional class, the middle class, the poor, and the very poor… all are hopelessly poor compared to him, and his personal experiences are 100% disconnected from all those voters. While voters worry about things like income tax rates, Pritzker biggest worry is if his private jet travel to his Bahamas estate might be delayed a few minutes.
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I don't doubt he is well meaning, but I do doubt he is suitable material for elective office…. and his support for higher taxes shows it.
Not as unwise as mailing absentee ballots to all registered voters to their address of record. DC, HA, WA, & UT did that according to the NYT. I would bet some old Chicago style precinct roundups happened in Milwaukee and that was the cause of that excessive turnout. Not necessarily fraudulent but shady and ripe for abuse none the less.
Unfortunately even sane rules on early voting and registration will be labeled as suppressing the vote. AOC has already complained that the long lines at her polling place for early voting last weekend was a sign of voter suppression. The fact she didn't recognize the dissonance of a democratic borough in a democratic city in a democratic state actively trying to suppress her voting for democrats was amazing.
SteveF,
Progressive tax rates don't actually touch wealth. So those with inherited wealth aren't strongly affected by it. It does touch their income so they can't escape it entirely, but they can often organize things to shield the income by being careful about "where" it some is "earned".
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They can sometimes also organize things so they get a benefit that doesn't look like "income" on taxes. (Everyone can to some extent. I live in a house I own. If I sold invested to earn $X I'd pay income on that. But I'd now have to pay rent, $Y. So to some extent the $Y represents "shielded income" and I benefit from this. If you are very wealthy there will be strategies to make stuff "not income". I don't know what they are, but I'm pretty sure they exist and there are people whose job it is to know what they are.
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I don't doubt he is well meaning,
I'm sure he thinks he is.
AndrewP
Unfortunately even sane rules on early voting and registration will be labeled as suppressing the vote.
Yes. The rules do have to be very carefully thought out. It is true that to some extent any rule has the potential to suppress at least 1 vote.
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For example: If you need to register a week before, someone who just moved to the district 6 days ago can't vote. Technically, because they have moved, they can't legally vote in their old district. They are no longer a resident. (Anyway… they aren't there!). Or… if you make it 1 day and they moved here 6 days ago, but forgot to register during the hectic moving time…. they can't vote.
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When I worked in Illinois, you had to register in advance. But you also had a residency requirement that was longer. There were complicated rules in place for people who had moved from one place in Illinois to another– and we had different ballots. So some people who had moved to and from place inside Illinois could get ballots to vote for Governor and President. But their ballots would not include local races.
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It was actually pretty fair…. But fair will mean complicated. And then someone will argue that some people are "unaware" and so become disenfranchised for lack of education of their options. That's entirely true… but… sigh….
Lucia,
The biggest tax advantage for income from wealth is the treatment of "long term" capital gains from investment, offset by capital losses, of course. They top out at 20% marginal rate, rather than the 37% rate for "normal" income. The fact that "long term" is considered >12 months is, IMO, scandalous at best. The fact is: high "normal-income" earners do pay high income tax rates, very wealthy people never do.
SteveF,
I know that's the biggest one. Now that Jim and I are mostly retired and living off capital…. we are very aware of that!
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Also, since that income is not "earned" we don't pay social security or self-employment tax.
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I don't know the extent to which someone who is very wealthy can set up "businesses" and make a sizable number of services "business expenses". I know businesses can't be entirely fictional, but if you don't absolutely need to maximize profits some decisions can be…well….
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My master plan should I win the lotto could be to ask an accountant what I need to do to set up a "ballroom dance" business that makes just a little money, but allows me to hire good teachers, invite coaches (who my teachers and I like) and have a six times the square footage of the studio where I take lessons so that we have tons of room for Waltz and Foxtrot. And we could have dance socials every Friday or Saturday night as part of our "business model". ( Note: I want to go to dance socials every Friday and Saturday night. )
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The studio where I dance would never have that much square footage because the owner actually wants to make enough to pay herself, pay her teachers, and potentially expand to eventually have a chain she's created where she makes money. Paying rent for 6 times as much square footage just for the luxury…. well….she when she sharpens her pencil, she can't afford that. But I could if my goal was just to cover the rent.
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In case you think this is totally pie in the sky…. one of my former teachers said he once worked at a studio where the owners had money and strictly speaking did not need to earn anything to live off of. Their goal was to just barely cover operating expenses. He said it was a great place to work. Zero marketing pressure. (Often teachers are prodded to "persuade" students to spend more and and more and more…. Of course, it's in the interest of teachers to retain students and upsell to some extent. But the pressure on some teachers at chains can be very heavy handed.)
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The thing is the "business model" is very, very, very close to the model by someone who love dance, wants to make a living with dancing and so on. The main difference is that… well… my motive is to subsidize my dance addiction which otherwise would purely be expenses.
Wisconsin had 88% turnout. Mail-in balloting allows for multiple votes if they send to people who have moved out or died.
It's possible the mail-in just produced more voting, or the same day voter registration isn't reflected in the numbers, but this 88% is much higher than any state has ever recorded.
If Trump only has to flip one state to change the election outcome (as it sits now) then things will get pretty messy. The conspiracy theorists will go wild. If he has to flip two of the marginal states then that makes things real hard.
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I don't think it is likely there will be any large fraud, this would need to be preplanned and executed with a lot of people (potential leaks) and one would need to believe it would make a difference in the outcome of the election for the potential large risk. I can see this for small potato things like city council positions, but not large scale national outcomes.
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Government bureaucrat incompetence is another story. Easy to believe lots of stuff can happen, likely did happen, and will be found in the recount. Probably not enough to make a difference unless margins are 0.1%.
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One thing for sure, the coastal media won't be looking under any rocks to help Trump.
The voting system could use more traceability. The ability for citizens to confirm their vote was tabulated correctly, that they didn't vote etc..
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Well … actually I found a convoluted process in FL to confirm my mail in vote was actually counted. It's county by county and the usual horrible gov. website design. No way to confirm the actual candidate selections were correct.
Wisconsin, because they allow registration at the polls, doesn't use percentage of registered voters in their voter participation stats. They use % of current voting age residents instead. Historical stats can be found here https://elections.wi.gov/elections-voting/statistics/turnout first link. I come up with 3.2 million votes this year which calculates to 72.51% using their method. I just downloaded their excel sheet and added the cumulative votes for president in b2. The previous five presidential elections were 67.34%, 70.14%, 69.20%, 73.24%(2004), 67.01%. In other words I don't really see a smoking gun in this years counts.
It might be wise for Biden to request recounts in states Trump narrowly won as a hedge. There are deadlines here so if Trump gets lucky in a recount Biden may have no recourse.
Dance studio philanthropy! Haven't considered this for my retirement, ha ha.
For those wanting to see if your vote was tabulated correctly… Think about what it would take to accomplish that. Would it even be possible to have a secret ballot in that situation?
If everybody knew how everybody else voted then retribution could be visited on those who voted "wrong" and threats of that retribution could be used to intimidate voters in voting "correctly".
As it stands today, the information about who cast a ballot is separated from the actual ballot on purpose. I don't think I would want to change that. I do worry about what happens to my ballot after it has been opened, but that is why there are supposed to be observers of that and the other processes in counting the vote to ensure all is open and above board.
I've heard about a few places where observers from all affected parties were NOT allowed to watch the counting. That alone, if verified to be true, would call into question any count that favored only those observers that were allowed to monitor the count even if they did everything else fairly.
Tom,
Not really "philanthropy". But getting what I want and subsidizing it with tax write offs. I mean… I could go out and just rent a hall suitable for a large wedding. And hire a band. And send out invitations to dancers inviting them to come for free. Then I can get what I want: regularly scheduled dances in a large hall. (Quite large makes Foxtrot, Waltz etc. reasonable. Yes… we all dance it in smaller studios. But even advanced beginners end up compromising their moves to deal with the small floor. In contrast, Salsa, etc don't need those floors.)
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I'd could just pay for all these expenses out of my income. But I want to make all of those things "business expenses" and still get what I want!! But I want it whether or not I can make any real money. So… I could set up a small "business", with the aim of just barely covering expenses. It is a business, but one that someone who needed to eat would not set up. That person wants to actually make money!
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Heck…. if I had kids I could not only write off the expenses for my social life, I could "employ" them and give them cush-jobs that sounded fancy but really weren't much of anything. Jim-Jr could be head of "marketing" which might mean he edits the template for the fliers announcing teach weeks dance, and then puts then in a pile on the table for people to pick up. Lucia-jr could be "Dance Director" which might mean she picks the music and acts and DJ. They might "oversee staff" who would be the one bouncer/ticket collector and perhaps a janitor who we had sweep up the place.
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Anyway: this is in my plan should I ever win the lotto. That's not likely to happen anytime soon as I only buy a ticket if the jackpot is greater than $300,000 which happens now and then. But unfortunately, the Illinois lotto won't let me sign up for "push" announcements to tell me the current jackpot. So I could miss my opportunity when it happens. DRAT!
Tom
It might be wise for Biden to request recounts in states Trump narrowly won as a hedge. There are deadlines here so if Trump gets lucky in a recount Biden may have no recourse.
Biden absolutely should do this. The race is close. Recounts in close races are legitimate.
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If Biden loses because Trump requested recounts swing states to Trump and the clock ran out, that's too bad for Biden. The constitution does have time deadlines. That's a given.
Not really "philanthropy".
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More like phillusibus. 😉
Georgia is looking like it will end in basically a tie…. Over the past 24 hours a large number of mail-in ballots from around Atlanta have cut Trump's lead to a few thousand votes.
phillusibus ?
Yah, phillusibus.
It's like 'trunalimunumaprzure', except it's also got a 'covfefe' aspect as well.
Looks like I was wrong about the Republicans gaining 5 to 10 seats in the House.
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Their actual gain will likely be 13 or 14, cutting the Dem majority to about 224/211. Based on the always accurate telephone polls, most pundits had projected a Dem gain or 10 or more seats. The wailing and teeth gnashing has begun, of course, but almost nobody in the Democratic party understands the basic problem: after they gained control, the House would not compromise with the Senate nor with Trump, wasted time with endless Trump investigations of nothing, and wasted even more time on a completely pointless impeachment. A lot of voters suffered buyers remorse about giving them control of the House, even more than I expected.
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My bet is that the crazy "squad" and their ilk will continue to drive the Dems to extreme nutty/left/green positions. After all, the crazies now make up an even greater fraction of the Dem caucus. If a handful of crazies withhold their votes, the Democrats can't even pass a bill now.
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I predict voters will give up on them, and they will lose control of the House in 2022. If Pelosi has lick of sense, she will retire before then.
Lucia, mark,
"phillusibus" = phil & lusibus
Love of dance.
I'm reading stories (with a certain satisfaction, if I may add that) that suggest Pelosi might face a struggle to retain the role of Speaker.
mark bofill,
We might hope, but I doubt it. She has far too many outstanding chits to be driven out so easily. If it were to happen, I believe she would retire immediately. Easily the worst Speaker of my lifetime; ….. and that is a very high hurdle considering all the previous occupants. Angry, foolish, and petty, so unable to compromise on anything of substance. I will be happy to see her gone.
SteveF,
Yes. As bad as Trump is, I don't think the Democrats understood that they were also being bad and that people would perceive this. Although the Barrett confirmation was tame, people were still reminded of the Kavanaugh confirmation. And news stories kept reminding people of that and suggesting the Dems were threatening that.
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Then. She. Was. So. Nice. (Without being sacharine.) And. So. Smart.
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I suspect there may also be some people, who, like me, prefer divided government. Hearing that Biden would win by a landslide, and knowing they really did not want Trump, they decided to split the difference and vote GOP for senate and House while still voting for Biden.
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This happens. I know because I do it! I know I'm likely not the majority– but then the "swing voters" aren't the majority.
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People who are really in the tank for one party sometimes have no idea what those "in between" consider when voting.
Lucia,
I’m perfectly OK with divided government.. in general, the fewer laws passed the better. Both parties, if given control, tend to over-reach, but lately it has been the Dems who look the most threatening to rational government. Republicans just don’t do ‘lockstep’ voting nearly as well as Democrats… Republicans act more like cats with firecrackers going off all around. They could easily have gotten rid of Obamacare and a host of other bad policy, but just couldn’t ever seem to get the votes together. Trump’s biggest strategic error was pissing off a very sick John McCain, who got back at Trump by voting to preserve Obamacare… then making sure Trump was disinvited to McCains funeral.
The following is quoted from an article in today's USTODAY.
"Today, California, for instance, has 40 million residents and 55 electoral votes, while Wyoming has about 560,000 residents and three votes. That means Wyoming's electors represent about 186,300 voters apiece, while California's are proxy for more than 727,000 each. In other words, Wyoming's Electoral College votes count almost four times more than California's on a per-person basis."
So if you want your vote for President to count for a lot more, move to Wyoming or some other State with a low population. If that seems crazy, it's because it is crazy.
OK_Max,
So… move. Anyone can! 🙂
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If that seems crazy, it's because it is crazy.
It doesn't seem crazy. I think the reason it doesn't seem crazy is it's not crazy.
OK_Max,
"If that seems crazy, it's because it is crazy."
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Doesn't seem crazy to me at all, and I live in Florida, with close to the same ("unfair") representation in the electoral college as California. The weighting of the States in the electoral college (and in the Senate) are a feature of the Constitution, not a bug. That state-based representation in the Federal government is what allowed the Union to form in the first place. I urge you (yet again) to expend effort to change the Constitution if you think it should be changed; the procedures to change it are laid out clearly. Complaining endlessly about a lack of "fairness" is nothing but complaining about the Constitution. It is also very tedious. Work to change it if you don't like it.
There are lots of things that are unfair. There are millions of conservatives in NY, CA, IL, etc that have basically zero input into who is President because of where they live. Winner take all for each state's electoral college points being the issue. Perhaps you go into proportional points depending on the vote in your state. This can be done. Strangely the party that controls the state isn't interested in this. Very strange they are against being "fair".
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We have what we have. It's a bit messy but works well enough. Because the way to change the system needs the approval of the group who is benefitting from its awkward implementation we are likely stuck with it for a while.
Georgia margin at 0.07%. What a frickin mess. As mentioned above with a winner take all state system this makes a few votes count a whole lot. The FL 2000 recount was basically a tie, end of story. PA may end up going Biden and that would likely end the madness.
Tom: Does that trigger an automatic recount in GA? (It does in some states.)
Overnight counting in Georgia of mail-in ballots has pushed Biden in front by about 900 votes in 5 million. Now we have to wait for overseas ballots, mainly military.
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Boy, were those telephone polls accurate.
I looked at the Georgia Secretary of State web page (he is a Republican). As of 10:30 last night there were 14,000 mail-in ballots remaining, with most of those from the Atlanta collar counties. Those counties consistently vote about 55% for Democrats, so Trump is very likely to end up about 2,000 to 2,500 behind. It is not likely military ballots can reverse that, so in spite of legal challenges and a recount, Trump looks almost certain to loose Georgia and the election.
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Trump ran behind most Republican Senate candidates. Trump’s clownish behavior appears to me to have offended enough Republicans in close states to cost him re-election.
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With both senate races in Georgia heading to a runoff, I can only wonder how many hundreds of millions of dollars from wealthy Dems will end up being spent on behalf of the Democrat candidates.
Steve,
Yeah. I think Trump is done. He'll fight and recount and so on, but he's still done.
The fat lady is still off stage.
The media have been trying to sell the narrative that Trump is done since, well, the trip down the escalator. They fed us phony polls during the campaign. They were quick to call states for Biden and slow to call states for Trump. There are all sorts of legal issues still to resolve.
I will believe that Trump is done when he concedes.
Grateful that Trump is most likely done and all of his shenanigans will soon be over. Probably the worst person to hold that office since Herbert Hoover. Rather than Democrats underperforming, it should be remembered that Trump earned a record number of votes for a one-term President, driven by bringing in many new R voters. I think it is likely that Democrats overperformed in 2018 (after the Kavanaugh hearings) because the election may have been an indirect referendum on Trump. In 2020, while Trump likely had high enthusiasm among the new voters he brought in, traditional GOP voters could now directly express their frustration with Trump while voting R down-ballot.
Regardless, it is just reality that Trump remains a formidable force in GOP politics and this election will not repudiate his voice.
Tom Scharf (#193260): "actually I found a convoluted process in FL to confirm my mail in vote was actually counted. It's county by county and the usual horrible gov. website design. No way to confirm the actual candidate selections were correct."
Palm Beach County (FL) provided not-too-bad site to show whether the ballot was (1) requested, (2)mailed, (3) received, and (4) counted.
As for checking that one's selections were counted correctly, no…but I can't see being able to do that without creating a database with potential for abuse.
RB,
I'm not sure what "repudiating his voice" would even mean.
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I think we can see is that many policies and issues he insisted on discussing openly will continue to be discussed openly while in the past, they were often seen as outside polite conversation. Yes, he often said things in appalling ways, but there are very real questions touching on:
1) Immigration policy: both legal and illegal.
2) Approach to racial equality. Now a days, more people will openly discuss the inequity of quotas which are, lets face it, slamming hard working, smart, ambitious Asian Americans.
3) Freedom of speech and expression on campuses which have been implementing speech codes.
4) Use of violence or obstruction to thwart discussions both on campuses and in BLM initiated protests. (The violence exists whether it's actual BLM people or others doing it. And yes, I'm aware of the Trump train surrounding the Biden bus in TX. But this will only encourage people discuss the issue of people taking to threatening and violent action because the "left" can't really discuss the "rights" entry into this threatening behavior without all the behavior being discussed.)
5) How to run k-12 public schools. Topics that can be discussed include capture of control by unions in a way that they are largely run for the benefit of unions. (I'm not even going to say benefit of teachers, though teachers are certainly higher in the mind of unions than students.) It also includes parental choice, charter schools and so on.
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Prior to Trump, the "Overton window" if it were was that there was only "one side" that could be actively discussed on these issues. The one thing Trump did do was be willing to discuss the other side — and implement policies on the other side.
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Yes… many of these topics required more nuanced discussion that Trump is capable of. But I think the GOP side will likely have learned that they must not be afraid that every practical or conservative position is a vote loser. Many are actually vote winners– and that's why Dems lost control of the House and did not win control of the Senate. (Whether we'll get GOP control remains to be seen, as that requires at least 51. But… 50 GOP and
The left's new guidelines for speech run something along the lines of:
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"Your speech is violence. My violence is speech."
Lucia,
That is a good list. I would add the issue of MSM bias in news coverage AND in all discussion of policy. Same applies (to a lesser extent, so far) to how Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. operate to suppress conservative views on all the 5 items you list, and many more. These are major problems and they are not going to disappear. A few people on the left (Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, and a couple more) are willing to discuss the bias problem, but they are very few, and mostly have been now excluded from polite company by the MSM.
What is populism?
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It seems the worst of populism is an appeal to a majority by demonizing a minority.
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Perhaps the worst, and most stark example is racism. But socialism is also an appeal to the majority ( the 99%) while demonizing a minority ( the 1% ). True, the wealthy are not deemed a political minority because they hold power through wealth. But the murders and prison camps of socialism past seemed to overwhelm whatever power the existing elites had in those societies.
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But there's a dynamic of "becoming a monster by fighting monsters" at work.
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The irony of the fascism of anti-fa seems to be matched by the racism of anti-ra. Is there a similar dynamic of opposing socialism? or of opposing the postmodernists? or of opposing anything?
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As Haidt repeats: humans are tribal. Can we return the tribe to being the US, including everyone?
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Unfortunately, some of the madness includes:
"No borders, no wall, no America at all" and
"End fascism and the Liberalism which enables it", meaning not US liberal ideas, but the Enlightenment.
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It's easy to exaggerate, but the warnings about postmodern thought seem all too real and evident.
OK_Max (#193289): The example cited exaggerates the (real) effect of having electors = reps+2 (senators). But you knew that.
You've mentioned "unfair" conditions. One might equally argue that the US is (or was intended to be) a federation of states. So allotting more electors to the more populous states is "unfair" to an equal footing of all member states. California has 18(!) times the representation of Wyoming in the electoral college. Oh my, how "unfair".
Eye of the beholder and all that…
SteveF,
I'm not sure anything can be done about bias in news media. After all: each outlet is a privately run entity. However, I think some of those involved in media outlets may come to realize that when one "side" dominates, many people come to be skeptical. After all: The reaction of Russians to media monopolies like Pravda was not to believe everything Pravda said. Likewise, Chinese in the PRC don't all say, "Oh. If the government agency says 'X', then 'X' must be true. "
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Trump's attacks on the media were over-the-top and in-your-face. But the problem for the media is that bias was then openly discussed. And lots of people do not buy many media outlets claim that they are just objective and reporting facts. Let's face it, some of the reporting was comical.
The 7-day trailing average of reported covid-19 deaths in Florida continues its decline, reaching 45 today, despite gradually rising confirmed cases.
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In Brazil, both confirmed cases and deaths have fallen ~2/3 since their peaks in late July, and show no indication of rising again. My many friends in Brazil assure me it is not due to everyone in Brazil wearing masks, nor due to superb health care infrastructure. The drop is almost certainly driven mainly by herd immunity and reduced interpersonal contacts, even though experts are united in their conclusion that herd immunity could not possibly cause such a drop.
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The mask-less evil Swedes have 'catastrophically rising' confirmed cases, now at a far higher rate than when a hundred Swedes a day were dying, yet deaths per day remain stubbornly below 10. There is no justice in the world.
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Meanwhile, in saintly France, with the most draconian covid -19 restrictions in Europe, cases continue to rise and deaths have passed 400 per day and rising. That is higher than Brazil (393 per day), in spite of Brazil having three times the population of France. Yup, draconian covid-19 policies look more sensible and cost effective all the time.
I think there is another thing about Trump sort of "caused"….. And we'll see if this continues. And that was that Democrats focused on hims so much that despite having a very strong majority, they really did almost nothing other than react to and complain about Trump.
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Yes… they tried to portray not having another Covid-aid package Trumps fault. But the fact was the Senate and Trump were ready and willing to enact one. The Democrats blocked it as not big enough. So there was no package.
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The Democrats also wasted enormous amounts of time on impeachement (which was never going to go anywhere.) Meanwhile, the advanced almost nothing on their agenda. Voters could see that the Senate and Trump weren't "blocking" anything because there was nothing to block.
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Now: this distraction may well have been a "Trump" effect. His constant tweeting, in-your-faceness, outrageous statements, whiplash inducing contradictions were certainly amazing. But the fact is: they did totally distract the Dems from getting their act together and proposing major legislation.
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Maybe they can coalesce and figure out what they want to propose. And if they actually do maybe the Senate will block some of it. (I hope so actually.) But the fact is, Trump and the Senate didn't "block" much of anything in the past 4 years because the Democrats were all just focused on talking about how bad Trump was. While they might not be wrong that he is bad, bad, bad….. that talk still didn't advance anything and voters knew it.
Lucia,
"…they did totally distract the Dems from getting their act together and proposing major legislation."
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Maybe, but I think it was more that Trump gave them an excuse to never compromise with the Senate. Any major legislation which the House would find acceptable would never even have been considered in the Senate. Pelosi certainly understood this, and Mitch McConnell was not shy about reminding her and everyone else of that fact.
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The truth is, the House (and most 'progressives' for that matter) did not want, do not want, and probably will never accept, any significant compromise on major legislation, with Obamacare being the best example. They want exactly what they want, and compromise with hayseed conservatives from flyover country be damned. The reason there was not additional covid "relief" was because the Democrats in Congress insisted on including large expenditures completely unrelated to covid-19…. like bailing Illinois out of its unsustainable obligations. If the Republicans gain at least one of the two senate seats in Georgia, no significant legislation will pass in the next two years. Or as one Democrat wag said "A republican controlled Senate is where the Biden presidency will go to die."
This has been a Republican victory (including at the presidential level–the party is well rid of Trump).
As a progressive liberal I really wanted to see a repudiation of 'Trumpism.' Instead the Republican rid themselves of the messenger and were rewarded with a continuation of the power structure that moved the country away from my views. We'll see how it turns out.
Without the Senate, progressive ambitions will have to wait–perhaps indefinitely. We will certainly see King Log after four long years of King Stork.
What, me miss an opportunity to media bash?
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Fake News. That term won't be leaving us for 100 years. The Russia collusion story was an * epic * embarrassment. They will never be able to polish that turd and make it shiny.
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Antifa talked about a strategy of dilemma action. "A dilemma action is when you put your opponent in a no-win situation. Your enemy has to react. If they don't react, they look weak; if they do react, they have to react in a certain way where it looks like it's an overreaction."
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Trump did this with the media continuously, and they ran over each other falling into this trap. Just yesterday a bunch of media outlets (NPR, NBC, CBS, ABC, NBC) cutoff a Trump press conference after he started saying his usual ridiculous things in order to immediately "correct" the record. I do not trust the media to correct the record in an unbiased way, and I expect to be able to hear what the President of the US has to say about a close election regardless of the high and mighty fact checkers. They recently squashed the Hunter Biden story. Twitter locks the NY Post for weeks. They have a very bad impulse to now prevent people from even hearing the other side, and now we have the Internet! What are they thinking?
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There are true things, false things, and unproven things. Election fraud is not a false story, it is an unproven story without evidence. This is no longer a distinction the media like to make. Of course there were "illegal votes" out of 150M, this is a certainty. Unlikely to be enough to swing anything, but May 2020 …
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Ex-Philly election official pleads guilty to stuffing ballot box for Democrats https://nypost.com/2020/05/21/ex-philly-election-official-pleads-guilty-to-voter-fraud/
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But here's the thing, nobody is taking Trump seriously anyway. He has earned his reputation of no credibility, so why burn your own credibility by overreacting. The counter to Trump saying the elections were fraudulent is not to infer that they were perfect.
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And it's very strange that the media's take is to demand Trump provide evidence when historically it has been the media's role to do this investigation … see Kavanaugh. And even when evidence of wrong doing is provided such as Tara Reid or Hunter's infamous hard drive … they try to bury it. It's all a disgrace to their profession.
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I will say though that the non-cable media news divisions did a decent job of election reporting. There was very little hyperbole it was almost entirely straight news and data. It's getting back to "regular" reporting now.
Thomas,
I don't know what "Trumpism" is; consequently, I don't know what actions or statements would constitute repudiating it.
**progressive ambitions will have to wait–perhaps indefinitely. **
Of course.
**We will certainly see King Log after four long years of King Stork.**
Uhmm….I wouldn't say "certainly". I think we may see Regan and Goneral replacing King Lear.
Hmm.. wordpress updated. HTML is all getting stripped! ARGGGG!
LEt me check…. blockquotes were stripped.
italics
bold
Bush won FL in 2000 by 0.009%.
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And just a reminder of what happened in 2000, the MSM that now demands evidence of fraud be delivered to them banded together under the NORC and paid for and got all the FL ballots via FOI requests and recounted them well after the election was over. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100524251837190200
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There was no evidence of fraud, only unclear voter intent in a myriad of ways. Bush still won in most counting methods. You think there is unclear voter intent in some GA ballots? The point here is that in today's environment they will not lift a feather to examine something illegitimate in a Biden win (and I doubt there is any there, there), where they would self initiate and pay for a close examination for the other side. It's just classic confirmation bias, but they can't act like this and then claim the throne of unbiased fact checkers that need to cutoff press conferences.
"I think we may see Regan and Goneril replacing King Lear."
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Is Kamala Harris Regan or Goneril?
Here's a prediction, Trump will never formally concede and call Biden. Not Trump's brand.
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And somebody please hide the nuclear codes.
Tom Scharf,
I agree that Trump is unlikely to ever call Biden and concede; he is far too self-centered and stubborn to ever admit defeat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eMkth8FWno
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I was troubled by his new conference last night; he sounded more removed from rational thinking than usual. He really needs to get a grip. What I believe will happen is people will start resigning in droves (even Melania may bug out!) if he keeps spouting the endless "stolen election" claims after the courts have ruled against him and it is clear he has lost. At some point I have to believe he will recognize that he has to pack up and leave.
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If he is still acting crazy come mid December, then Mitch McConnell and the cabinet may visit him and explain he is endangering the runoff Senate elections in GA. The cabinet could threaten to use the 25th amendment, and rightly so, because at that point he would in fact be certifiably crazy.
Tom Scharf (Comment #193334): "The Russia collusion story was an * epic * embarrassment. They will never be able to polish that turd and make it shiny."
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Yes, and that all but guarantees that Trump voters will never believe that Biden was elected legitimately.
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Tom Scharf: "Antifa talked about a strategy of dilemma action. A dilemma action is when you put your opponent in a no-win situation. Your enemy has to react. If they don't react, they look weak; if they do react, they have to react in a certain way where it looks like it's an overreaction."
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Straight out of the terrorist playbook.
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Tom Scharf: "Trump did this with the media continuously, and they ran over each other falling into this trap."
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But there is an important difference: The media are not supposed to react to appear strong or to make Trump appear wrong; they are supposed to be honest. Doing that would have neatly resolved the dilemma.
Tom Scharf,
"They will never be able to polish that turd and make it shiny."
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Maybe if they wait long enough and it becomes a coprolite.
Mike M,
Yes, and the police have mostly applied the minimum necessary force to suppress Antifa … "protests". I guess it depends on which media you listen to.
I've been thinking about anonymous ballots.
I'm starting to think the anonymity is more trouble than good. Here's why.
If the federal government wants to know my party affiliation (assuming they don't already know by innocent means), they can certainly work it out. They can read my email and eavesdrop on my devices, I don't believe its controversial to say that anymore (correct me if I'm wrong). Once they know my party affiliation, they know how I'm probably going to vote anyways. If persons in the government are going to retaliate, well. They can do it anyway already.
I think election results ought to be reviewable and auditable. It'd increase people's confidence maybe that elections are fair.
What do y'all think / tell me why this is wrong.
Thanks!
Tom,
I also think Trump will not concede or call Biden either. Manners are not his forte.
As long as he complies with the law and vacates the White House, I don't care.
Mike M,
I do not doubt that ballot fraud (at some level) takes place in Philadelphia adn some other big cities…. there is overwhelming evidence this has happened in the past in Philadelphia. There might even be ballot fraud happening in Philadelphia right now. But the truth is: if Biden holds Arizona and Nevada, it is already over, independent of what happens in Georgia and Pennsylvania. Even more to the point: a Republican administration in Georgia is overseeing the counting, and there is no reason to believe they are involved in ballot fraud, yet it looks like Biden will emerge with a tiny (3,000) advantage by later tonight. Unless military ballots reverse that (which seems very unlikely), Pennsylvania really doesn't matter at all, nor does Michigan.
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Trump has every right to pursue lawsuits if he thinks there has been fraud. But if he loses those lawsuits, as I expect he will in in the states where it matters, he is going to have to come to grips with reality: he lost an extremely close race against overwhelming MSM bias and phony polls that may have influenced voter turnout.
mark bofill,
When your ballot is no longer secret, the leftist brown-shirts can pound on your door at night after you voted for the wrong candidate. Then you will wish you had the protection of a secret ballot.
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IMO, secret ballots are *always* crucially important for the legitimacy of any elective government. With a secret ballot you can always claim the brown-shirts are mistaken: "Yes, I belong to that party, but I just realized how wrong they are, so I voted for the other guy." You can even joint the party the brown-shirts like, but then vote (secretly) for a different candidate.
Steve,
You don't think they'd already be pounding on our doors, if not for the prevalence of guns in the burbs? I sort of do. I think Antifa would be glad to, if they believed they wouldn't get shot too often for it to be worth it.
I don't propose public ballots. I propose that the government make reasonable efforts to keep that info secret. I expect the safeguards to be inadequate, but again; so what. Somebody at least in local government already has my party affiliation info. If I'm not afraid of that getting out, why am I afraid of who I voted for getting out?
[Edit: I probably didn't explain what I was thinking properly in the first place. I put enough info on my ballot such that the government can identify me. That way there's an audit trail. That's what I meant by getting rid of 'anonymity'.]
Anonymous (to the public) ballots and the ability for me to confirm my votes are not necessarily mutually exclusive. There are endless systems that protect identity, and endless hacks and breaches. No doubt it would be hard to get right, but not impossible. As it sits now though all these votes are sent into a black hole with hopefully trustworthy people but no traceability. I'd rather have traceability.
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Assuming we had this though there would no doubt be lots of fallacious claims that I voted for X but it got changed to Y. The threat of outing people for their votes and public retribution is real as has happened to donors in the past. Perhaps one could choose to anonymize their vote or not. Perhaps you could get a one time code to check on-line at the poll.
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But overall I still think it's not a real problem, just as I think voter suppression is not a real problem, as in materially affecting outcomes in national races.
Thanks Tom,
But which is not a real problem; actual decisive voter fraud or the uncertainty people might have about it?
I'm with you on actual decisive voter fraud not being a thing. I know small scale fraud happens, but I doubt fraud on a scale that could flip elections.
But it might be worthwhile to be able to verify after the fact, if uncertainty is widespread and there's unrest about it.
*shrug*
Or not. People are going to settle down and accept President Biden fairly soon, those who are still crying fraud. There's no decent alternative, AFAICT. [So] maybe it *is* unnecessary.
A de-clowned Trump would have won this race. He picks up some people with his antics, but loses a lot more in my view. This will eventually be tested, the Republicans will no doubt blame this for his loss. There were a few own goals along the way with covid, but governing is hard and external events will produce scar tissue. Overall not much reason to rethink fundamental policy positions. Probably running against Harris next time around.
SteveF (Comment #193292)
November 5th, 2020 at 6:07 pm
Complaining endlessly about a lack of "fairness" is nothing but complaining about the Constitution. It is also very tedious. Work to change it if you don't like it.
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I don't "complain endlessly" about the lack of fairness in the electoral college.You must be thinking about someone else. Sure, I believe the electoral college is unfair, but since it would be hard to change, complaining endlessly about it would be a waste of my time.
OK_Max,
Well, you do complain about the electoral college often. To prove you don't do it endlessly you are going to have to stop.
"A glitch in software used to tabulate ballots in Antrim County, Michigan caused at least 6,000 Republican votes to be counted as Democrat, according to Michigan GOP Chairwoman Laura Cox.
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The miscalculation, Cox said in a press conference, was first reported by a county clerk. A short investigation revealed that 47 counties in Michigan may have also suffered from a similar glitch with the same software, which could have caused some red counties to rake in a higher number of Democrat votes than usual."
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Wow. That's really bad.
SteveF,
“ You must be thinking about someone else.â€
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No, I was thinking about you. Which is not to say there are not others who do the same, there are plenty. My response is always the same: change the Constitution if you think it is unfair. I don’t know exactly how many comments you have made about the “unfairness†of the electoral college, but it is more than a few. Prove you are not endlessly complaining about it by not complaining about it. That works every time.
I do not see this election as a major defeat for leftist progressivism. The Democrats have moved far left over the past several years and the result today is that they will win the Presidential, House and maybe the Senate elections. In the Senate they only need 50 Senate seats with Harris breaking ties or worst case one or two Republicans breaking ranks..
The leftists Democrats will capture over three percent more of the popular vote nation-wide than the Republicans. There also were formerly red states going blue (barely) and formerly (before 2016) blue states going blue again (barely) which from an Electoral College standpoint is promising for the leftist Democrat party. These elections are not horse shoes.
I think the MSM and social media are more comfortably in the lap of the Democrat party left. Academia moved further left and now is more vocal in their support of radical left ideas.
The Republican party has had their brand burnished with the politically required and obligatory support of Trump. That blemish will have some lasting political effect like it did with Nixon. There will be some future trade-offs for the Republican party between those who did not embrace the more conservative Republican views and appeared to like Trump for being Trump and the never-Trumpers. I suspect the that former significantly outnumber the latter with neither group fitting the conservative Republican mold.
I would be surprised if Trump goes quietly into the night post election and we might find out just how crazy he actually is. I doubt that he is sufficiently aware that the Republican party currently owes him exactly nothing.
BTW, Welcome to covid he** Illinois. Been there, done that, signed FL. The entire Midwest is on fire. ND is * confirming * cases at a rate of 1% of their population per week, even with the 4th smallest population density.
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This is more than masks and motorcycle festivals. There is still a latitude correlation going on here, maybe just climate driving people indoors. Who knows.
SteveF (Comment #193368)
I know exactly how many comments you have made about the “unfairness†of the electoral college, but it is more than a few.
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SteveF, I’m not sure you are right. I don’t recall commenting on the unfairness of the electoral college “more than a few times.†If, however, you can quote me complaining about it more than a few times, I will accept that as proof.
OK_Max
You complained about the electoral college either directly or indirectly in:
OK_Max (Comment #193289)
OK_Max (Comment #193039)
OK_Max (Comment #193032)
OK_Max (Comment #193019) (You allude to slavery in this one.)
OK_Max (Comment #193006)
OK_Max (Comment #192997)
The state polling election errors look to be even worse in 2020 than in 2016, ha ha. What a disaster for these people. Apparently the polling industry went into increasingly sophisticated modeling to predict outcomes over the past 10 years and … unbelievably … incredibly … surprisingly … seem to have injected their own biases into the outcomes. I know that this sounds completely implausible when it's done with math and a computer and crap tons of big data.
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The consensus from polling the polling people who design and create the polls is that they weighted the 2016 poll models wrong for education level and they promised it was fixed. This time it's the Hispanics (oops, Cuban Americans) fault, at least in FL.
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Oh yeah, remember Brexit polling? Oops.
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Hurricane modeling for insurance in 2005 dropped historical records and instead used ummmm … big data and climate models. Oops.
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I have created my own model, Tom's model of trusting modeling. As the complexity of a model increases, so does the likelihood of a preferred progressive agenda outcome. I'm not sure even talking to pollsters at all is wise for Republicans, the errors point in the wrong direction a little too often.
Tom Scharf, I built a model to predict the elections state by state in 2016, that did pretty well. It just looked at polls and made some assumptions about how the undecided and third party would split.
I had no idea how to read the polls this time around.
Getting rid of Trump and 'Trumpism' means Republicans do not win.
I don't see any chance of Republicans winning in Virginia with Trump not on the ballot, or in Colorado. Unless you think a standard Republican can win in Nevada, the only path I see to victory for Republicans is to compromise on free trade and go after Pennsylvania and the midwest. Perhaps without Trump, the suburban women will deliver the needed votes.
lucia (Comment #193376)
November 6th, 2020 at 9:51 pm
OK_Max
You complained about the electoral college either directly or indirectly in:
OK_Max (Comment #193289)
OK_Max (Comment #193039)
OK_Max (Comment #193032)
OK_Max (Comment #193019) (You allude to slavery in this one.)
OK_Max (Comment #193006)
OK_Max (Comment #192997)
_______
If counting my replies to members who replied to me on the subject, yes, there have been at least that many. I don’t recall, however, bringing up the subject of the electoral college more than a few times. I could be wrong.
OK_Max,
You stand accused of "complaining about". You do not stand accused of "bringing it up".
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Of course complaining about the electoral college during back and forth discussing counts as complaining about the electoral college. So yes: within the past few days you complained about it the number of times indicated.
MikeN,
I think Republicans can win without Trump.
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I didn't know what "Trumpism" means when Tom Fuller used it and I still don't know what it means when you use it. I've read the entry at Wikipedia and it lists some of the policies that have been pretty specific to Trump (sometimes saying admirable things about dictators) and other things that I don't think have much to do with Trump or support for Trump. (For example: aggressive partisanship seems to be pretty widespread among Dems too. Are they Trumpists? )
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Anyway, I think the GOP can win without some of those features and can't (and shouldn't) win without them. Many aren't going away because they are shared by both the left and right. It might be nice if the right dropped them, but we'd still have the lefts hyperpartisanship which was already around during the Obama era. So that feature which for some reason is called "Trumpism" by Trump critics is not going to go away if only the right drops it. The left embraced it long ago!
Tom Scharf,
“I'm not sure even talking to pollsters at all is wise for Republicans, the errors point in the wrong direction a little too often.â€
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Perhaps ~100% mistaken in the ‘progressive’ direction is a little too often. But yes, I think it makes little sense for anyone to talk to pollsters, since their main goal seems to be establishing narratives which apply social pressure on people who don’t agree with ‘progressive’ goals.
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An example is the endless polling suggesting how most people support ‘action on climate change’. That claim is both constant and constantly false. Yes, most people are aware of all the scare stories, and aware enough to say future warming is a concern, but no, they most certainly don’t support measures that will inevitably cost each person in the States thousands of dollars a year, and keep a billion very poor people in that sad condition indefinitely. That kind of polling is garbage and dishonest, but frighteningly ubiquitous.
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The narrative advanced by the always left-leaning political pollsters is “You are obviously in the minority, because the polls show how most of your neighbors disagree with you…. what is wrong with you?â€. Some might argue that the polling industry is simply incompetent, rather than willfully dishonest. I can’t say otherwise with any certainty; they may in fact just be grotesquely incompetent. But if that is the actual explanation for always reporting the ‘progressive’ position is more widely held than it really is, then it changes nothing: the polling industry is a damaging social influence, and one best completely ignored.
MikeN,
I think a less narcissistic Trump, who doesn’t tweet much, and is a little more careful about his public statements would easily have won this election. Trump offered a strange combination of prudent rejection of very bad ‘progressive’ policies, prudent selection of judges who actually mean it when the swear to defend and uphold the Constitution, and appallingly offensive personal behavior. His behavior is in fact embarrassing to a lot of people who otherwise support his policies.
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Can someone like Josh Hawley duplicate Trump’s prudent policies without the bombast and bad behavior? I have to believe he can.
SteveF,
I agree with you. I do think the candidates should know they can push back *some*, but it shouldn't be full on Trump whiplash inducing insanity. Honestly, I couldn't even keep track of all that…..
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I like some of the policy outcomes, but I don't mind him being booted out. (I do want >50 GOP senator though.)
MikeN (Comment #193386)
November 7th, 2020 at 12:30 am
I surmise what you are implying is that there is a goodly portion of Trump supporters who are not that much in line with the Republican Party and as an alternate choice could and would vote for a far left Democrat party. That would not surprise me that that is the case for a significant portion of them.
I personally do not have a very high opinion of voters' judgments and political knowledge or believe that there is a lot of consistency in how they vote and why they vote the way they do. That is a major reason I favor a very limited government. People are in an informed position for making decisions about their own circumstances but not the nation's or mine.
In a previous post I mistakenly used the term burnished when I meant tarnished when referring to the affect of Trump on the Republican brand.
What Republican brand? IMO, the media and democrats have done an exemplary job of defining the republican brand and it's not flattering in the slightest. People won't admit to being republican because of the brand, so personally, I think Trump has done little to damage it, but he has given them more confidence to stand up for themselves.
DaveJR (Comment #193407): "What Republican brand? IMO, the media and democrats have done an exemplary job of defining the republican brand and it's not flattering in the slightest. People won't admit to being republican because of the brand, so personally, I think Trump has done little to damage it, but he has given them more confidence to stand up for themselves."
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Indeed. More important is that Trump has given many citizens confidence that there is someone who will stand up for *them*. As a result, they actually believe that voting for Trump will make a difference, so they actually vote. A nice polite Republican will still be demonized by the media and Democrats but will likely fail to convince Trump voters that he will stand up for them. So many Trump voters will go back to not voting.
Mike M,
"..but will likely fail to convince Trump voters that he will stand up for them."
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Have you listened to Josh Hawley speak?
SteveF (Comment #193410): "Have you listened to Josh Hawley speak?"
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Yes. He seems good. Maybe he can appeal to the Trump voters who previously voted Dem or did not vote at all. Maybe he can't. I have no evidence either way.
I think that those are basically single issue voters: Are you on our side?
The Trump "standing up for yourself" in my eyes stems from the narcissistic tendencies he possess where in fact he is incessantly and in exaggerated form merely standing up for himself. He uses the emotionally charged and overly simplified approach of the left – only more so. Maybe that is his appeal across party lines, but to me it is abhorrent and what in particular I hate about politicians in general.
There certainly are centrist Republican politicians that have difficulties making arguments for individual freedoms, free trade, the free market and limited government and are just a step or two behind the move to the political left. Their lack of a sound political foundation should not be confused with politeness.
It is in the end ideas that change the political course of a nation with elections being at some point in time the result of those ideas being put into action after a sometimes lengthy process of filtering down to the electorate. The filtering down process has as a middle person the intelligentsia which in current times is primarily of a leftist bent and is represented by the MSM most readily observed by the New York Times and the Washington Post and the attention they attract on a daily basis.
I do have some hope for the communications of ideas that have been made available by way of the internet and that can effectively bypass the MSM. I also think that it is important to keep a vigilant guard on the freedoms of expression currently protected (allowed some might want to imply) on the internet. Those interested in a consensus and conformity of political thought, given the power, would not long tolerate those freedoms.
I suppose the difference is people who were neither laid off nor working.
Frankly I'm not sure what the R party stands for any more. They seem to agree that we should have larger government (in size, $$, and extent of regulation), perhaps just growing at a slower pace than D's prefer.
And I don't know what "Trumpism" is, either…he seems to hold a hodge-podge of positions. His health plan sounds like Obamacare* without the mandate (and presumably requiring public funding to balance the books), he seems to be protectionist, willing to increase the federal budget without much restraint. Rs didn't even have a platform this election cycle, emphasizing a lack of focus.
That said, Trump did accomplish some good things. I'm cautiously optimistic about Israel-Arab relations, which was perhaps galvanized by the symbolic move of the US embassy to Jerusalem. And court appointments. The rest, not so much.
*And without the "Obama" label! Possibly more important
"Some might argue that the polling industry is simply incompetent, rather than willfully dishonest. I can’t say otherwise with any certainty; they may in fact just be grotesquely incompetent."
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Yes, one can bring up the same canard of systemic racism to explain systemic bias against conservatives in polling. It's mostly subconscious, but some are overt, etc. Yawn. They are so confident they don't do this that they don't even bring it up in discussions. Historically the polling errors have gone both directions, but this is before the newer sophisticated models which allow more easily for bias.
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Lookup "AI bias" on Google and you will find lots of scholarly work on concerns with unintentional bias in algorithms for things such as loan approval. Once again this is an example of turning over every rock looking for undesirable bias (racism, sexism) while never even looking for desirable bias (ideological). This has become pervasive because of social pressure in academia to only study culturally allowable subjects.
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Anyhow I wouldn't be surprised if the Republicans consider an official platform of telling voters to not talk to pollsters specifically and any social researchers generally. I'm for it at this point. At the minimum it would send a message that academia needs to start cleaning up their act.
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This is not to say that there aren't lots of honest researchers who care about the right answer. There are however real pressures on them to get socially acceptable answers that poisons the entire enterprise. They would be dishonest to say there isn't. There are huge numbers of examples of this.
MikeM
**but will likely fail to convince Trump voters that he will stand up for them.**
I'm sure he will fail to convince *some* Trump voters he will stand up for them.
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But I think this most recent race included *other* Trump voters, including minorities, who voted because they supported Trumps economic policies that resulted in more minorities having decent jobs. White blue collar workers have been slammed, but they aren't the only people who want a good economy so they, their family and friends can have decent jobs.
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I think commonly Trumpism is used in a derogatory way to paint anyone who supports the Republican party to be a personal supporter of Trump's obvious character flaws. It has little meaning to me and I generally stop reading if an article starts down this path.
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One could argue that it is support for some of Trump's positions that have not been historically conservatives positions, for example trade protectionism and more overtly against unskilled immigration. I just don't find it is ever used in a way that is meant to foster more understanding, instead it is divisive.
It's over, WSJ officially calls the election for Biden.
Tom,
Well… yeah… Some legal wrangling will continue. Some voter irregularities will be found. (There is no election with zero.) The election was close enough that Dem "wins" on mail in ballots may have made the difference and some of those choices were perhaps unwise. But that happened and choices were made.
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He lost. I'll be surprised if he writes a courteous concession speech. Or.. maybe he'll surprise us. (Every now and then he had a decent speech and I was surprised every time!)
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But seriously, overall, I think it's good he lost– provided the GOP keeps at least 50 seats.
Enjoy your victory left leaning citizens! Sucks to lose this one but the right had a few good years lately. Can't win them all, but I'll take a divided government without much crying.
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… and now for the ceremonial call for unity which translates to "if everyone becomes a liberal we can be happily unified!". Followed a few weeks later by great plans for sweeping progressive legislation from Congress critters which has no chance of passing. Soul searching by the losers like the apocalypse just happened, gleeful gloating by the winners like a permanent tide just changed.
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A year later everyone recognizes that everything seems just about the same, except hopefully CNN ratings drop by 50%, ha ha.
Lucia,
"Every now and then he had a decent speech and I was surprised every time!"
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Yes, but that was only when he read a speech on the teleprompter written by someone a lot more eloquent than him. And even with a good speech in front of him, ALWAYS ad-libed with nonsensical repeated adjectives that only damaged what he was reading. I found it pretty weird.
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I don't think Trump has a concession speech in him…. good or bad.
Tom Scharf,
"Followed a few weeks later by great plans for sweeping progressive legislation from Congress critters which has no chance of passing."
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The only certainty of not passing is if Republicans hold 51 seats. 50 seats means the potential for almost unlimited bad laws.
I don't think you'll get crazy past a 50/50 Senate. Too many Senators from unsafe states. You will get a liberal SC justice past that though. I really don't even think a 51/49 for the left will allow much crazy. They couldn't pass cap and trade last time. But no doubt at least 51 is a much better deal. I think GA runoff will work in the rights favor, but I have no special insight here. The libertarian will be gone and motivations will be higher on the right.
Lucia, I used 'Trumpism' in quotes, because it tends to have no meaning. However, I did kind of mean what Tom and Kenneth say above. That the only path for Republican victory is through Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, while keeping hold of suburbs in Georgia, NC, Arizona.
I don't know that this is possible with a traditional Republican conservative politician like Rubio or Cruz.
Trump has several positions where he broke with Republicans:
isolationism, tariffs, spending and welfare, crime, and focused more on immigration than many others would do.
It's not clear what all are needed, but I suspect a free trader would not be able to win in the needed states. Wisconsin has been won by many though.
I do have some hopes of countering the current leftist trend and I believe it requires moving away from the two party system. I judge that many if not a majority of voters vote against a party rather than for one.
Both parties effectively use negative campaigIng because both parties have negatives. As a libertarian I see most of these negatives as negatives for libertarians. Voters currently avoid voting for a third party because they consider that a vote for the party they oppose.
I am not sure of how third party voting can become more popular, but at some point the voting public might realize that the two parties are gaming the system for their benefit.
The results of Trump's tariffs and the unintended consequences of them, if properly articulated, would make a good case against them.
Obama won two elections without imposing those tariffs.
Politics are a lot about brand, and not actions or results.
MikeN,
I also suspect an extremely strong free-trader would have difficulty winning. The difficulty is that strong free-trade can only exist if other countries are also strong on free trade. OR if only very small economies protect themselves.
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But China has become large and they absolutely are not free trade. And they lie, evade and so on. So while I recognize that free trade is better, I (and many) recognize that the US can't afford free trade if it means our markets are open while others are blocked. In negotiation, the stances that we will keep our markets open come hell or high water doesn't work.
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So yeah.. .some one who says the US markets are freely open for all whether or not others open their markets probably can't win because he shouldn't. And I say that as someone who thinks free trade IS ideal.
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I do think in trade or immigration discussions our negotiators should have "We put American Interest First". Likewise, the French should put French interest first, the Chinese Chinese interests and so on. That doesn't mean "screw everyone". But no country should be coming to the negotiating table with the attitude of "Tell me what you want, my job is to give it to you even if it makes my people bleed!" No country should come with the attitude of "We all agree that X is ideal. Sure, we can achieve it by placing the full or most of the burden on my people while yours give up nothing or almost nothing." If *they also* think something is ideal, they should assume the burden too.
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I think this should apply to the idea of free trade, immigration and so on. The alterative doesn't work. The ideals are things to aim for. But often they can't be achieved single handedly and in which case, we should just recognize that.
Lucia,
I agree about the need for balanced immigration/residency. There are countries who send lots of smart people to the States, where they compete, usually successfully, for jobs in the States. That is never reciprocated. It means US citizens are excluded most everywhere, even when they could offer skill sets in the local market that are rare. I think it would be perfectly reasonable to require any country from where we accept immigration to reciprocate by offering permanent residency to US nationals. There may not be that many Americans who want overseas residency, but I am betting lots of governments would *never* agree to a balanced accord (India, Japan, China, most of Latin America, etc.)… so the States would be justified in simply blocking people from those countries. Goose and gander you know.
Free trade should be between groups of individuals and individuals and not nations. Under the current nation to nation trade relations there will never be equality of opportunity on both sides and more often than not trade restrictions will be imposed to protect an inefficient industry with the result of no motivation to improve. Where a government subsidizes an industry for exports it is actually subsidizing the importing nation consumers.
Trump never explained nor was he capable of explaining his tariffs. It was simply an emotional plea of us against them. It was the same with immigration. If these approaches win in politics were are doomed to the results of no brainer populism. Trade and people exchange between nations is motivation to avoid hot and cold wars,
Kenneth
**Free trade should be between groups of individuals and individuals and not nations.**
I don't know what this means. Laws regulating trade are set at the nation level, not at the individual level.
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As a consumer, I sometimes buy stuff from vendors China through ebay. I don't manufacture. Whether I am free to sell to the Chinese vendor I buy from is pretty irrelevant to anything.
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**Trump never explained nor was he capable of explaining his tariffs.** Well… yeah… Trump.
Regarding China, US policy is not likely to change.
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See Peter Zeihan.
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He assesses that the order after the Berlin Wall fell was based on US protecting the world against the communist block. That's no longer necessary though it took three decades ( and one Trump ) to change.
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The US doesn't need the rest of the world.
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Further, it's of questionable morality to trade with the progenitors of the concentration camp running, Tibet crushing, social credit police state of China anyway.
"The virus didn't kill Trump's re-election. He did, by reminding the majority of Americans yet again through his bungling of the worst pandemic in a century, just how costly an exhausting a reality show president can be."
Opinion by David Axelrod, CNN Senior Political Commentator November 7, 2020
I'm not sure I agree with Axelrod. I don't know whether Trump would have won if not for Covid-19 or his reaction to it. I do know I am more concerned about this virus than who won the election.
The number of Americans infected with Covid-19 is rising rapidly as we go into winter. Deaths from the disease also are beginning to rise and may total 300,000 in 2020.
Hopefully, Trump will take this pandemic more seriously in the time he has left in office.
Why does this quote: "This is our moment to root out systemic racism" worry me so?
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Systemic racism raises the question: what system?
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It's not the law – the constitution and the civil rights acts guarantee equality before the law. So no need?
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The mandated "white fragility" training says the racism is subconscious – so there have to be thought police to scan brains and take the non-compliant to room 101.
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I wish I was catastrophizing and perhaps someone can convince me of that, but having read 'Cynical Theories' and seeing the echos in the new administration which is beholden to the POMOs, this looks bad.
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Like climate change imagined at some far future date, "systemic racism" is another imaginary problem used to raise government power ( and police state? ).
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That's par for the course for POMO – one doesn't need facts or observations.
Kenneth,
Yes, unrestricted trade is an ideal, but only that, an ideal. It is true that subsidized industries which export are in fact subsidizing foreign consumers, but trade where that subsidized export destroys industries in the receiving countries, while blocking competition from the receiving countries, is a formula for the kind of widespread de-industrialization we have seen over the past 40+ years in the USA.
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I understand the arguments for free trade, but I do wonder if you understand the arguments for the need for equal access to markets in other countries. Like it or not, most of the world has many restrictions/rules/duties/prohibitions/etc that disadvantage US exports, and so indirectly disadvantage US workers, while at the same time expecting (and, indeed, taking advantage of) unrestricted exports to the USA to grow their industrial base. On the whole, the USA is ‘richer’ when we receive inexpensive imports, of course, but that increased wealth is not at all uniformly received, and many people in the USA have suffered a lot for a very long time as a result. This is a big part of the coastal-elites/flyover-hayseeds conflict which Trump, though awkwardly at best, at least recognized as a problem.
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If Republicans are willing to take up and address this issue, I am confident a “nicer Trump†can easily win. The alternative is a descent into the abyss of lost liberty and lost wealth as the left takes over all control of individual actions and all speech.
"Hopefully, Trump will take this pandemic more seriously in the time he has left in office."
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Empty words, taking something "seriously" has no actionable intelligence attached. The amount of money spent by this government so far seems pretty serious to me, but that debate isn't worth having. Lot's of favored ideologies in Europe who definitely take things seriously in your view are doing just as well as the Midwest now. One of the few upsides of regime change is that the big turd gets put on the other guy's plate, pardon my poetry.
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This virus is monumentally bigger than how one perceives seriousness, wringing one's hands and declaring one's empathy does exactly nothing. It is performative. Personally I hope a vaccine is out before inauguration, but Biden will be just as helpless as every other leader with an outbreak on that day.
The idealism of free trade also assumes the free movement of labor. Enforcing rigid environmental regulation on one's own industry and allowing cheaper product imports from countries that don't is unfair. Many other examples here, but trade is complicated. Tariffs are a crude tool, but one observation is that very few people objected to picking a fight with China regardless of whether it paid off. China is now forcing Hollywood to censor its own product for access to its markets. China forces American companies to open up their IP for access to their markets. For them it is definitely "China First". That's fine and expected, but we need to fight back with vigor.
Tom Scharf,
“ Many other examples here, but trade is complicated.â€
Perhaps the understatement of the decade. Protection of local industries and workers is the rule most everywhere…. though relatively little in the USA compared to most places.
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Since you live in Florida, you are probably familiar with the problems of agricultural (and other) runoff going into Lake Okeechobee…. phosphorus, nitrogen, sulfur, etc. When the lake level becomes dangerously high in the rainy season (threatening the dike which protects the surrounding low-lying region) the Army Corps of Engineers opens gates that send the polluted water through canals to estuaries on the East and West coasts, where algae blooms then suffocate the estuaries, killing off marine life and making the water unsafe for human contact. The entire estuary often smells like an open cesspool. At times the algae mats are so heavy it looks like you could walk on them. The problem is almost 100% caused by the “reclaimed†farmlands (they were swamps) used to grow sugar cane. Were those farms still swamps, the natural drainage would flow through the Everglades and out to sea north of the Florida Keys. But the farms both add most of the pollution and block the natural water flow, so the estuaries suffocate.
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Sugare care production in Florida is costly and relatively inefficient compared to truly tropical regions. But US cane growers (and sugar beet growers) are protected from competition by strict import quotas and very high duties. As a result the international price for sugar is about 1/3 to 1/2 (on average) compared to the price in the States. The farms south of Lake Okeechobee are owned by a handful of very wealthy families and corporations, all with enormous political influence. The sensible path would be to eliminate the quotas/duties, let the farms disappear, and return the land to its natural (swamp) state, saving the estuaries from damage and reducing the cost of food everywhere in the States. I railed for *decades* about this economic and ecological madness… but it never changed. Those involved, including the politicians receiving campaign contributions from those profiting from the current state of affairs, simply will not even acknowledge that there is a problem with uncompetitive farms protected by quotas and duties doing ecological damage. Their reaction is best described as surreal.
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A couple of years ago, I played a round of golf with a recently retire UN bureaucrat. During conversation I found out that his areas of specialization was negotiation between countries overy agricultural duties, and specifically sugar. When I explained my frustration about the destruction of the estuaries and sugar duties, he basically laughed at my naivety. He explained that almost no country of any size in the world has a truly open sugar market, and there is zero chance that is going to change…. there is too much political influence by farmers and sugar processors *everywhere* and anybody who thinks they can change that is wasting their time. He said that the USA could drop import restrictions and instantly destroy an entire industry, but it is only a fantasy; it is not going to happen. He said the US Congress is not going to bankrupt a bunch of farmers and add thousands to the unemployed to reduce sugar prices.
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Economically justified or not some things are not going to change. I am all for trying to lower tariffs, duties, and a multitude of other impediments to efficient trade, but only with counter-parties that are open to compromise. Few are.
What's a POMO?
POMO: Permanent open market operations at the Fed? I can’t find anything else.
I'm with you on that one, Eddie. Language has been drastically redefined in the last few years and most have yet to catch up with the new ways these common phrases are being used by certain sections of society.
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"Systemic racism" is now being used to mean a system created by racists ie white people. The cure is a new system which implements the "correct" kind of discrimination and puts the "correct" people in power. As Kendi puts it, "The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination." This is one of the reasons why California recently put forward a vote to remove civil rights legislation (thankfully defeated), but is ongoing on much smaller scales in places like Portland.
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The ideas have gained support through ignorance and good intention, and are being actively pushed on school kids as a solution, but I can't imagine the results being anything but the complete opposite. I've seen the powerpoint slides of an actual school lesson in which the children had to identify their oppression and victim points. Imagine the kind of mental trauma this could create, identifying children whose very existence is a threat to others because of their physical characteristics, and the children who are told they are suffering harm from the existence of other groups. Do they seriously imagine this will not create an environment of resentment, hatred, and guilt? Seriously upsetting stuff.
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Critical race/gender etc theory is a pernicious mind virus and follows in the well worn footsteps of critical class theory, commonly known as communism. One would have hoped such anti-intellectual nonsense would have been laughed out of academia, as it completely turns around strongly held concepts like judging people by the content of their character instead of the color of their skin, but, like similar lefty thought, it hides the inevitable outcomes of guilt, division, hate, and power behind the kind of facade of fine sounding, well intentioned, compassion and understanding that many liberals seem unable to disagree with. Others, like Pluckrose, recognize the danger, but still stand with the parties who exploit this poison for political power, imagining they can change the system from within. How they expect a winning formula to change when it continues to offer up the results they're looking for, I don't know.
Critical race theory is garbage on an industrial scale, nothing more.
A casual perusal of the media today has confirmed that democracy is now "working" again, after an unspecified period of not working, and using an unspecified definition of democracy that is different than holding elections by voters and counting votes. I'm sure there is a correlation here that I am somehow missing.
Economic issues and consequences like those related to international trade have to be considered from a big picture where the view is very different than that from a narrower perspective.
As long as we can agree that international trade can be beneficial to both parties and see the problems of confining trade to national borders, we have to realize that trade restrictions have consequences in the form of counter restrictions from the restricted nation. US agriculture paid a price for Trump's restriction on China trade while the protected industries did benefit as expected.
The link below gives a scorecard summary of the Trump tariffs and who gained and who lost and the net effect. It turns out that the tariff actions were basically a redistribution of various groups gains and loses with a net loss and no concessions from China.
So who are you going to believe your lying eyes or your lying President?
Kenneth,
From your link: "In general, then, Trump’s tariffs have helped some workers and hurt others. Nothing is particularly surprising about this; trade policy almost always has important distributive effects, and any change in trade policy is a choice to benefit some groups at the expense of others."
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Of course, even though I think it is clear the article is biased against all things Trump. But to the point of the article: I certainty never said otherwise; there is a *clear* net overall positive when very inexpensive manufactured goods enter the country, replacing more expensive goods.
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But I fear you are missing the point. The benefits of cheap goods entering the States (without reciprocal opening of foreign markets), while a net benefit overall, dramatically hurts lots of workers, even as it helps others. It is a case of dilute benefits and concentrated costs, even while on net it is somewhat positive. This is always a socially destructive influence.
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A parallel is minimum wage laws: Yes, it is absolutely certain that higher minimum wage laws cost jobs in the long term. But in the short term, they are a net benefit to some… and especially if unlawful immigration and unlawful employment of those unlawful immigrants is restricted.
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I suggest you consider getting past the black and white of Milton Friedman and look at the bigger picture. We could just pay a bunch of unemployed people to compensate for their loss of employment from un-reciprocated "open trade", or we could restrict un-reciprocated trade. Economically, there is not a lot of difference. Socially, there is.
I'm for free trade, but there has to be a recognition that while allowing China to fill up Walmart with cheap goods benefits all shoppers at WalMart, those making this trade decision here are not paying any penalty and taking all the benefit. This has been ongoing.
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If everyone crossing the border illegally had a journalism degree instead of cleaning their house for low cost then I bet the media would have an entirely different take on the subject.
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The perception is that the elites in charge of trade policy are being self serving and simply asking them to justify their policies typically ends up with "shut up rube, you wouldn't understand" arrogance. Perhaps this is the optimal policy and it just so happens to serve their interests in a disproportionate way, but I think they need to explain this clearly to those who vote.
SteveF (Comment #193464): "The benefits of cheap goods entering the States (without reciprocal opening of foreign markets), while a net benefit overall, dramatically hurts lots of workers, even as it helps others."
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That is not so. That sounds like the theory of absolute advantage, which went out 200 years ago when Ricardo showed that what matters is comparative advantage. The benefit comes from trade enabling the shifting of domestic resources to a more productive use. Putting people out of work makes them less productive and so hurts the economy overall, even if some people benefit.
I always forget move comments screws up html!!!1
Mike M,
“ The benefit comes from trade enabling the shifting of domestic resources to a more productive use. â€
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Hummm…. not sure I understand your point. Yes, shifting people to more productive use…. they just need to focus on learning C++….. might be hugely advantageous. On the other hand, it may be difficult for a 55 YO maintenance mechanic near Pittsburgh to pick up C++ and get a job writing code, especially when trained coders from India can undercut US software development costs.
Lucia,
So is HTML back?
Yeah…. I always forget “move comments” screws them up. I closed comments on the other thread, turned “move comments” on , moved comments and forgot to turn it off.
I don’t know exactly why move comments has that specific feature… but it does.
Capitalism is based on letting inefficient enterprises fail which otherwise results in a system where these enterprises are subsidized through direct subsidies or indirectly with tariff protection with the result of a stagnate economy that is not different than that in a socialist economy. In a growing and dynamic economy that only capitalism can provide, jobs are available for those lost in failing enterprises. Even in a less than capitalist economy that we currently have in the US, a growing economy pre-Covid was creating jobs for workers at all skill levels.
Kenneth,
But you are omitting something. Being efficient isn’t the only thing that matters if subsidize are going on by someone. When efficient unsubsidized (say, American) enterprises have to compete with subsidized (by, say, Chinese or other) enterprizes the efficient unsubsidized enterprises fail. In this case, the unsubsidized countrie’s economy can also become stagnant and unproductive.
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Yes. Our pre-covid economy was creating jobs. But that wasn’t the result of going all out on free-trade.
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I do think free trade is the ideal to reach for. But it’s a bit like a tango or a marriage. It takes two to tango or have a good marriage. It takes both sides wanting free and granting free trade to have free trade.
If an equality of opportunity awaited the initiation of trade there would be very little beneficial trade between enterprises in different nations or within nations. Taken to the regional level within a nation’s boundaries enterprise inequalities exist between differences in regional pay scales, cost of living differences, workers compensation costs and regulations. Once trade restrictions are initiated the nations involved are on a slippery slope to an all out trade war where the detrimental effects of trade restriction become readily apparent.
Much of the institution of trade restrictions in the past in the US was not with some fairness issue in mind but rather an example of crony capitalism which is actually anti capitalism. Many times it was motivated by politicians looking at the workers involved and the populace where the enterprises are located and the hope of gaining their favor at the polls.
Once again with free trade the big picture needs to be kept in view. Free trade is a large factor in keeping the overall economy dynamic and efficient. It is such an economy that can provide jobs at all skill levels and for those workers transitioning out of failed enterprises.
The link below provides some data and facts concerning the current state of international trade.
I’m going to move the vaccine comments to the new thread.
Is this business about Benford’s Law hooey, valid, or is it more nuanced than that? https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/trump-campaign-staff-claims-to-have-statistical-evidence-of-fraud-in-wisconsin
Don’t misunderstand me – decisive fraud or not, Trump’s lost. I genuinely hope that doesn’t get overturned, because overturning Biden’s win is not going to be accepted. Look at the hysteria of the last four years. It’d mean civil war.
But still, just as a curiosity. Is Benford’s Law really a thing?
[Edit: Asking people who’ve got a better grasp of statistics than me, which probably ought to be a plurality if not a majority!]
mark,
I’d have to run a toy model. But I suspect the Benford law stuff isn’t that strong. Benford’s law applies when numbers are the result of a random process AND the numbers of themselves range over orders of magnitude. (Two is nice… 10 better.)
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The number of voters in a precinct is not entirely deterministic. The locals intentially try to keep precints in a range of size. So, I know the number of voters in a Chicago precinct does NOT conform to Benfords law. (It’s precisely the sort of example discussed in the Wikipedia article as not being governed by Benford’s law.)
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The somewhat random nature of which voters arrive can move a distribution of votes cast toward benford’s distribution, but I’d have to run some numerical experiments with a range of voting % to see if it actually succeeds. (If it’s a 100%-0% landslide: I know benford’s law would NOT apply. I don’t know how far a 50-50 race would move things.)
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So at first glance: The Benfords issue looks unconvincing to me. Someone has to do more to show it should apply to this data.
Here is a little better data :
The Phase 3 clinical trial of BNT162b2 began on July 27 and has enrolled 43,538 participants to date, 38,955 of whom have received a second dose of the vaccine candidate as of November 8, 2020. Approximately 42% of global participants and 30% of U.S. participants have racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds. The trial is continuing to enroll and is expected to continue through the final analysis when a total of 164 confirmed COVID-19 cases have accrued. The study also will evaluate the potential for the vaccine candidate to provide protection against COVID-19 in those who have had prior exposure to SARS-CoV-2, as well as vaccine prevention against severe COVID-19 disease. In addition to the primary efficacy endpoints evaluating confirmed COVID-19 cases accruing from 7 days after the second dose, the final analysis now will include, with the approval of the FDA, new secondary endpoints evaluating efficacy based on cases accruing 14 days after the second dose as well.
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So the greater than 90% effectiveness is calculated starting 7 days after the second dose.
Thank you Lucia.
I’m not seeing a new thread, and the recent comments side panel isn’t updating. Perhaps it’s my problem.
mark bofill,
In case it helps, here’s how I think of Benford’s law. If the log10 of a random variable x is uniformly distributed over [0,1], there is a ~30% chance that it (the log10) lies between 0 and log10(2)=0.301, which is to say that x is in the interval [1,2] — that is, the decimal representation of x begins with a “1”. Equally, x begins with a “1” if log10(x) is in [1,1.301], or in [2,2.301], etc.
If a r.v. x varies over several orders of magnitude, one can “cut-and-fold” the distribution of log10(x), adding the distribution over the interval [0,1] to that of [1,2], [2,3], etc., For a log-normal r.v. varying over multiple decades, the resulting sum distribution ends up being sort-of equally distributed.
Hand-wavy, I know, but it helps me.
If the log-distribution of x is narrower than a decade though, then Benford’s law won’t apply.
It seems the main page is not updating, I see recent comments side panel working on this thread, but not main page.
If the Pfizer vaccine is approved and quickly manufactured and distributed in great quantity, will the media credit “Operation Warp Speed”* or Biden’s election?
*really, who comes up with these names? Dilithium has nothing to do with a vaccine. 😉
There was a similar “math proves Trump didn’t win Wisconsin” episode in 2016. I can’t find the links at the moment. It was some measurement of suspicious changes in voting patterns. It came to nothing.
Thanks Harold, actually that does help.
Update: Clearing browser cache for this site fixed the update problem, also seeing this on my phone (Chrome) so it’s not just my desktop.
The House looks like it will end up with 207 or 208 Republicans and 228 or 227 Democrats. This is a far cry from the 186/249 House most pollsters were projecting. The worst thing for Dems is that the losses were mostly among the class of moderate first term Democrats who gave Pelosi the majority. They won election in 2018 claiming to be moderates, then voted lock-step for endless investigations and impeachment for the OMB. Voters didn’t forget that. The Democrat caucus is now even more extreme-left than before the election.
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Had Democrats in North Carolina not gerrymandered two existing Republican house seats out of reach, it would have been even worse for the Dems: they would not a have flipped a single Republican seat. If the history of midterms is any guide, Pelosi is at real risk of losing her gavel in 2022; and with the crazies on the left pushing the caucus, that outcome becomes ever more likely.
I was wildly pessimistic with my projection of +5 for the Republicans. New House projections: Republicans will end up with 211, 212, or 213 seats, to the Democrats 224, 223, or 222 seats. Two very close (under 100 votes separation) races have the republican ahead with all votes counted, but… this is politics, so who knows.
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This places the majority within relatively easy reach for Republicans in 2022, because even conservative estimates based on population shifts put the Republicans up 6 seats, and that doesn’t include the typical losses for the party with the White House, which is commonly over 20 seats.
In 2000 Republicans had 227 seats. Democrats failed to take the House. Republicans were then down to 221 seats. Again Democrats failed to take the House, even though an incumbent usually loses seats for his party after two years.
This time Republicans would have redistricting in their favor slightly.
MikeN,
Yes, a reasonable guesstimate gives Republicans a likely +6 seats via redistricting and different states gaining and losing representatives. Since 1950, when a party controls the White House at a midterm election, the opposition picks up on average ~25 seats. There are exceptions, of course. I have always thought that min-term swing represents different levels of voter motivation: When the President is instituting policies you really don’t like, you are more motivated to vote in the midterm election. This was clearly why Nancy Pelosi got the gavel after Trump was in office for two years.
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Unless Biden behaves very differently in office than he has promised to (and he is already staffing up his administration with the unhinged left!), there will be a lot of very motivated conservatives in 2022. The bigger the over-reach, the bigger the backlash. Two years is a lifetime on politics, but I will be very surprised if the Republicans don’t take control of the House in the 2022 midterms.
Breaking News!
This bakery in Pennsylvania is seeing Trump cookies far outsell Biden cookies. Trump will win Pennsylvania. Since Trump wins Pennsylvania, I think I’m prepared to call the election for the Donald at this point.
~grins~
OK_Max (Comment #193014): “Nor am I for giving some citizens more voting power in presidential elections because they reside in particular States.”
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That is most definitely NOT the case in the United States. It is merely a prejudicial way of framing it.
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Less populous rural states have different interests than populous urban states. The electoral college is a way to help balance the rights of the smaller states against the power of the larger states.
OK_Max (Comment #193019): “Oh well, the Constitution allowed slavery at one time, so I shouldn’t be surprised at it being unfair on voting.”
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Another prejudicial framing. The Constitution never specifically allowed slavery, although for the first 80 years it also did not specifically prohibit it.
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Addition: By OK_Max’s logic, the Constitution still allows human sacrifice.
mark bofill,
“Eat his lunch” has a better sound to it than “eat his cookies”. :-0
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I have no doubt Trump has a lot more enthusiastic supporters than Biden (Biden is a corrupt career politician, suffering early stage dementia, after all). The kind of people who would buy politically motivated cookies are Trump supporters. What is not clear is if Trump will get more votes.
By varying the number of electors each State has according to population (number of House representatives as well), democratic fairness is approximated in our system. I hate to be the one to break the bad news, but most of our ideals are only approximated in government. Innocent people go to prison, guilty people go free. It’s not a perfect world.
States are intrinsic to our system of government here in the U.S.; there’s no sense in pretending otherwise. It’s not the Federal government and the people. Lots of federal programs don’t deal directly with the people at all, but deal with the States. Federal mandates to States are not assigned on the basis of population, and I see no issue of fairness there. Federal funding to meet mandates given to States isn’t based on population. Federal funding for highways isn’t based on population.
More importantly though – our country is vast and diverse. The culture, industry, and concerns of various regions aren’t the same. I see absolutely nothing enlightened, progressive, or liberal about decreeing majority superiority and a disregard for the culture, industry, and concerns of minorities in various regions. When did the liberals decide minorities were unimportant, or that justice says we can ignore minorites? [Edit: Rhetorical question. I don’t believe they have so decreed.] I must’ve missed that memo.
We got what we got. It’s a reasonable approximation that’s stood the test of time. Don’t mess with it gratuitously.
Numbers and Per Capita Distribution of Troops
Serving in the U.S. Post-9/11 Wars in 2019, By State
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/costs/social/Troop%20Numbers%20By%20State_Costs%20of%20War_FINAL.pdf
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Look like blue states owe red states some blood and treasure, ha ha. It’s really more of an income divide I think, haven’t looked those numbers up. I really don’t understand progressive’s fascination with reinstituting the draft, which comes up often. A volunteer system seems much more palatable. I think it might have to do with forcing some people to be more anti-war if they have skin in the game.
OK_Max,
Nothing stopping you from moving to Montana or Wyoming and enjoying your outsize voting power.
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Personally I think the system for Congress works pretty well, you have the House which is population based and the Senate which allows for rural areas to have some outsize influence to prevent tyranny of the majority. One can imagine many other systems that may or may not work better. The electoral system for President is a bit whacky and we wouldn’t design it that way again in 2020, but it’s what we have and it’s not likely to change.
HaroldW
“The respective Constitutions, newly established, would outline their values and provide their views on the rights of individuals and limits to the power of state and federal governments.”
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Sounds a bit like the split of Pakistan (and later Bangladesh) from India. It was not a graceful process. Muslims and Hindus in India *STILL* do not get along at all well (I confirmed this personally during a 2 weeks stay in India 24 months ago). The Indians are becoming richer than the Pakistanis and Bangladeshis… no surprise there, considering their respective cultures. The potential for religious (and cultural) conflict in the region remains high.
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Splitting up the USA, left vs right, would be no panacea. I vote for the conservative states to get all the nuclear weapons.
SteveF (Comment #193017)
November 2nd, 2020 at 3:34 pm
I am shocked (shocked!) by the relative enlistments rates across the country (as of 2014): https://www.businessinsider.com/us-military-is-not-representative-of-country-2014-7
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I didn’t see anything more recent. Since I live in Florida, with lots of enlistments, I should clearly have my vote count double that of the weasels in Massachusetts, not less than votes in Massachusetts (which is the actual situation).
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NO, you are looking at this wrong. Florida is being subsidized by tax dollars from other States. What do you mean by “which is the actual situation” ?
I too was surprised by the report from Business Insider. I thought there would be more military service men and women from Midwestern States. That so few are from Utah, however, was not surprising. Many young LDS men right out of school go on missions for the church, leaving them with less time for military service.
OK_Max,
“What do you mean by “which is the actual situation†?”
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Pretty clearly, Florida voters are under-represented in the Senate. There are two senators from Massachusetts, and two from Florida, the population of Massachusetts is about 6.9 million, while in Florida the population is about 22.5 million… so my representation in the senate is only 1/3 per capita that of Massachusetts residents. How is that fair? (by your analysis, it is not). Of course Texas and California have even bigger gripes than Floridians about Senate representation.
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Same thing with the electoral college, though reduced due to House representation being proportional to population. Florida gets fewer electoral college votes than Massachusetts per capita…. and Rode Island, Maryland? Forgettaboutit.
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You are chasing fantasies. The Constitution is pretty clear that all votes are not always equal. If that makes you unhappy, then try to change the Constitution to your liking.
If you don’t like the United States setup, I wouldn’t recommend you investigate the makeup of the United Nations and how that works. News bulletin: these things are messy to start, maintain, and operate. I would suggest it is wise for the US to not allow the rest of the world to vote itself the US treasury.
Tom Scharf (Comment #193027)
November 2nd, 2020 at 4:24 pm
OK_Max,
Nothing stopping you from moving to Montana or Wyoming and enjoying your outsize voting power.
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Except my wife.
BTW, I was wondering in which State citizens have the most power in presidential voting. Is it Montana,Wyoming, North Dakota or another State?
Wyoming according to FairVote.
Wyoming according to this link as well.
shrug.
OK_Max,
It is mostly the small population states. Here is the hit parade:
39 Idaho 1,787,065 0.54%
40 Hawaii 1,415,872 0.43%
41 New Hampshire 1,359,711 0.41%
42 Maine 1,344,212 0.41%
43 Montana 1,068,778 0.32%
44 Rhode Island 1,059,361 0.32%
45 Delaware 973,764 0.29%
46 South Dakota 884,659 0.27%
47 North Dakota 762,062 0.23%
48 Alaska 731,545 0.22%
49 Vermont 623,989 0.19%
50 Wyoming 578,759 0.17%
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There is one representative in the House per 730,000 population, so the very lowest population states get BOTH exorbitant Senate representation, and extra House representation. I really suggest you move to Wyoming. Then work on your proposals to amend the Constitution. Likely popular with your new neighbors.
Lots of countries have leaders who do not win the popular vote.
It is possible in UK, Australia, India, and Canada. Justin Trudeau’s party won fewer votes than the Conservatives, but it was a solid victory.
MikeN,
“Justin Trudeau’s party won fewer votes than the Conservatives, but it was a solid victory.”
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Damned Canadians, they should be shot, for sure. “Majority rules” is the nexus of life. OK, not in the US Constitution.
SteveF (Comment #193030)
November 2nd, 2020 at 4:46 pm
You are chasing fantasies. The Constitution is pretty clear that all votes are not always equal. If that makes you unhappy, then try to change the Constitution to your liking.
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I doubt the Constitution says or implies some votes in a Presidential election are to count for more than other votes. If I’m wrong, I wonder if the popular vote could become less and less important if population becomes more geographically concentrated in the future. Is the electoral college changed to assure there will not be a large gap between it and the popular vote?
Max,
Are you trying to goad us into mentioning the 3/5’th Compromise? Here:
We abolished slavery, and everyone is a free Person now. But the Constitution does indeed state that some people counted more than others with respect to representation.
But set that aside, because slavery was abolished. Read Federalist #10 for goodness sakes. The Federalists did not intend for there to be unchecked Democracy in this country, and the Constitution reflects that. The Electoral College and the representative scheme laid out guarantees that not all votes will weigh equally. The founders weren’t innumerate; they understood this perfectly well. The Constitution reflects that.
OK_Max,
No, if every Democrat in the country chooses to live in New York and California, then their votes will automatically become less important. The electoral college is pretty well defined. So is Senate representation. They are not going to change except by Constitutional amendment. Like I said, work to change the Constitution if you don’t like it; the process is well described in the Constitution. Have at it.
OK_Max, saw this morning population projections for US that would put 30% of population controlling 70% of senate. Doesnt sound like a good formula for maintaining the union given the way it performs at the moment, and especially if Senate becomes predominantly GOP controlled and House is Dem controlled. As far as I can see, equal representation of states in upper house is common in federation/commonwealth setups and you can see why. It doesnt seem to create the discordance in Australia that it does in US though which may be due to bottom-up government or limits on senate powers. Canadians at work do a lot of moaning about their senate though.
There are all kinds of ways using the popular vote to determine the Presidential election could be considered unfair and unrepresentative – and in fact we are on our way to being in that situation.
Take the case where most of population and regions of the nation are fairly evenly divided in voting preference, but a very few cities in a very few locations vote overwhelmingly for one party and swing the popular vote to that party.
Based on my above list of populations, less than 5% of the population currently controls 24% of the Senate votes, and if we include on that list slightly higher population states, then it becomes “worse†if your idea of ‘better’ is proportional representation. It is obvious the Senate is not and *never* was expected to be anything like a proportionally representative body. The Senate is designed (as a feature, not a bug) to represent the interests of the individual states, independent of population in those states. That is just how it is. People need to either try to change the Constitution or get over it.
Well it would seem highly unlikely, (given what I understand of the constitution which is admittedly limited), that low population states would allow an amendment that reduced their power. However, I can also see that issues could arise where small minority overrules what a large majority of population want. If that issue was truly important rather than a preference, then leaving the union might be preferably to “getting over it”. Slavery did in 1800s. What in 21st?
Usually, nothing prevents States from enacting whatever laws they like. The Bill of Rights can of course, but that’s a feature in most people’s eyes.
If a large majority wants something but the good people of Wyoming don’t, why not just leave them out of it.
I am thinking the Maori on the South Island need to push for rhe island to leave NZ and become the 51st state of the USA. Lots of senatorial power. More freedom.
Well … here’s an idea the Democrats might not have ever thought of … apparently? Support policy proposals that these small states like and win them.
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You can now return to your “life is unfair” whining competition.
Actually, the 10 smallest states are split: 4 blue (Vermont, Rhode Island, Delaware, Hawaii), 4 red (Alaska, Wyoming, the Dakotas), 2 purple (Maine, New Hampshire).
Similar with the largest states; split between the two parties.
Mike M,
But you are getting away from the “Republicans unfairly control the Senate†howls from the indignant left. It is always about the desire for power over everyone with the left.
Oh yeah, it’s the United STATES of America.
The electoral college is a compromise between population and geography. Disrupt that compromise and sparsely populated states have less or even no reason to remain in the union.
Urbanization seems to be continuing, so perhaps its not surprising that there’s a friction here.
Phil
… if Senate becomes predominantly GOP controlled and House is Dem controlled.
I love divided control. Whatever the cause of divided government, that's a feature, not a bug!
OK_Max: "I doubt the Constitution says or implies some votes in a Presidential election are to count for more than other votes. "
No time to look this up at the moment, but I believe that at the time the Constitution was established, there was no thought of a popular vote for President. I think electors were chosen by the states' legislatures.
lucia, I'm with you about not wanting one party to control Senate, House, and Presidency. If Biden wins, I'm really hoping that Senate stays Republican. There seems to be little doubt that the Democratic Party will remain the House majority, so I'm not as concerned about the Senate majority if Trump wins.
Either way, I am thrilled that election ads, texts, news, etc. will slow down.
Very heavy turnout at my polling place this morning. Gonna try again later, lines too long.
HaroldW,
Yes, Nancy is very likely to retain her gavel.
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However, there are a lot of freshman Democrats from 2018, and many of those are in some danger of being replaced, often by the same Republican who they squeaked past in 2018. I will be surprised if the Republicans don't pick up a number of seats (6 to 10?), but not enough to switch control. Considering the very near lock-step voting of House Democrats, a smaller majority won't make much practical difference except on rare occasion.
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A more troubling observation is that none of the crazies on the left, like Occasional Cortex and the rest of 'the squad', are being seriously challenged for their seats…. not in primaries and not in the general election. Looks like there is going to be a long term presence of these people in the House, where (unfortunately) they will push the Dems toward ever more extreme-left policy positions. Think striking a compromise with Nancy Pelosi would be difficult? Try compromising with the utterly unhinged Occasional Cortex.
My neighbor said he had to stand in line for early morning voting. This was a first form him.
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I voted by mail.
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Boy I'm glad I was too busy to decided to work the polls.
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It's a quite tiring job even when it's not busy.
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I mean…. yeah… mostly sitting and everything. But it goes on for ever and when I worked it there weren't enough poll workers. So we were there from 7 am–??? (After you process the votes at least two workers have to drive them ballots etc to another destination. So we drove around– we got a bit lost in one of the few parts of the county with strange winding roads . I have navigation now so it wouldn't be a problem… but that added some time. THEN we had to wait in line…. So I think it was 7am to 10 pm in the end.
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Fortunately I'd packed nice lunch in an insulated bag.
HaroldW (Comment #193061): "I'm with you about not wanting one party to control Senate, House, and Presidency."
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That is a feature if it forces compromise. And it will be a feature if Biden wins. But it is a problem if one party is either determined to obstruct and/or insistent on getting its own way. So I am hoping for full Republican control so that Trump can actually make changes that are desperately needed.
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Is it contradictory to say that something can be both a feature and a problem? I think not, but off hand I would not want to be forced to defend that position.
——–
mark bofill (Comment #193062): "Very heavy turnout at my polling place this morning. Gonna try again later, lines too long."
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That is why I voted last week; lots of opportunity to go back later.
I got lucky: almost no line when I got there but a long line when I left. I don't think that was my fault. 🙂
MikeM,
The minority party can obstruct. Unless their "own way" is truly to get nothing, they can't get their "own way".
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Full GOP control ain't gunna happen. I wouldn't want it anyway… but ain't gunna happen.
HaroldW (Comment #193060): "I believe that at the time the Constitution was established, there was no thought of a popular vote for President. I think electors were chosen by the states' legislatures."
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My impression is that the Article 2 Electoral College was envisioned as an assembly of wise men who make a decision in the best interest of the nation.
But by the time the 12th Amendment was passed, they had been disabused of that fanciful idea. Popular vote had become a thing in choosing electors, but I am not sure if it was universal.
Somebody (Hamilton, I think) wanted the 12th Amendment to specify that electors be chosen using the system now used in Maine and Nebraska.
Woo hoo! Political attack ads ending today! No lines at polling places in my area. A lot of mail-in and early voting opportunities in FL though.
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I prefer split government for a lot of reasons. Mostly it prevents any action at all which is just fine by me. I'm of the opinion that it mostly kind of works in a murky way and attempts to fix things are just as likely to make things worse. When a big enough need comes along then there will be compromise such as yearly budgets and covid stimulus. The opposing sides can blame each other for not doing things their crazy activists want and keep their influence down (we can't get GND by a Republican Senate so just stop talking about it!, etc.).
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lucia,
Only Republicans "obstruct", the Democrats "resist". That's a super important distinction to the media.
15 minutes from door to door for me to vote this afternoon. Early voting had a 3 hour line on Saturday.
Lucia,
If Trump doesn't die in the next few hours, then you won't have to go out and negate your earlier mail-in vote. 😉
I think she ought to do it just to be safe… I mean he could die at any time. You never know…
SteveF,
I'm leaving the house for a dance lesson and then will be tutoring until 4 pm. So I'll have to check the news at 4:30 pm to see if he kicked the bucket. . .
Mark,
Yes… but he could remain alive. I'm not voting for him if he's alive.
Well, so long as you're prepared to live with yourself if Trump loses Illinois by one vote in your district and then dies.
..
You're a ballsy gambler Lucia, that's all I can tell you.
Another sign of the times, yet another Cat2 hurricane hit the gulf coast last week and nobody even noticed. As far as quantities go this was as bad a season as 2005, however for magnitudes there weren't any monster Katrina's this time around. After 2005 the "experts" said we will have more hurricanes due to climate change, then we proceeded to not have a Cat3 landfall in the US for 11 consecutive years. They changed to "just more powerful storms" after much thinking. We will see if recency bias strikes again and they revise their estimates.
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The reality is we can't see a lot of change in this sporadic noisy data over the 100+ years of warming, so if there is a climate signal there it is likely a small influence. Check back in 30 years.
And the lines are still crazy long!
Tom Scharf,
"yet another Cat2 hurricane hit the gulf coast last week and nobody even noticed."
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Ya, it passed directly over my production plant in Louisiana (20 miles from lake Pontchartrain), and the people at the plant said "it was a joke"… had they not been informed by television news, they would never have noticed anything unusual happened. Just a little wind and a little rain. I think the national hurricane center has kind of lost it: every storm's intensity/danger is exaggerated… a lot… to hype fear and crazy behavior. Like the little boy who cries wolf, the NHC has to learn not to do this.
mark bofill,
Trump isn't going to lose Alabama if you don't vote.
Let's just hope there is a clear winner. The usual suspects will say the usual things no matter what but we definitely don't need another FL recount circus in 2020. One thing both sides learned from 2000 is to make sure chartered planes full of lawyers are ready to pounce.
SteveF (Comment #193087): "I think the national hurricane center has kind of lost it: every storm's intensity/danger is exaggerated… a lot… to hype fear and crazy behavior."
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I don't know that is the fault of the NHC. Forecasts need to include a range of possibilities. Watches and warnings are based on the worst case, since that is their purpose. Hurricanes change intensity rapidly as they approach and move over land; I would think that leads to a wider range in uncertainty.
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Then the "news" media take the worst case and run with it, screaming that the sky is falling. I don't know that the NHC can do much about that.
" Whatever the cause of divided government, that's a feature, not a bug!"
Ok. I get it. MMP serves the same function in our electoral system, especially important as we have no upper house and the Governor General's reserve powers remain so far a theoretical possibility. The important thing for a working government though is that it forces compromise. Feels like that is becoming less common in US.
I also get that no federation is going to work unless members have equal rights. I am now getting interested in the differences between US and Australian system. My perception is that Australia is a much looser confederation than US but have never really bothered to look much at how our neighbours do government.
SteveF. "I am thinking the Maori on the South Island need to push for rhe island to leave NZ "
I dont think I get what point you are trying to make. Maori are very thin on ground down here and markedly pro-social. ie readily trade individual rights for wider community good.
The liberatarians did however make big gains in last election – close to 10% of vote and the most ever MPs in the house. I think this was combination of being anti gun-control (widely feared that Labour will try to bring in Australian-type gun control laws) and disaffection with chaotic National. I doubt it will make much further ground however. They are hard line economic dries which appeals mostly to the very wealthy. They are anti gun control but also pro-euthanasia, pro-LGBT rights, pro-abortion, pro marijuana legalisation for basically the same reason (liberty) which doesnt sit well with social conservatives.
" Support policy proposals that these small states like and win them"
But would they? It seems both here and US that a very large no. of people vote on identity grounds – an alignment of political values. The size of swings in US seems rather small suggesting that proportion of "never Republican" or "never Democrat" is quite large.
In most places that means a party can just throw a bone or two to their dyed-in-the-wool supporters and ignore completely the never-the-vote-for-you communities to concentrate on policies that might swing voters that at least occasionally switch allegiance. This leads to dominance of centrist parties. So what drives the polarization in US?
Mark,
Trump remains alive.
Steve,
Trump isn't going to lose Alabama if you don't vote.
(twitches slightly) I know! I know! But what if he does! What if all these crazy lines are people who are sick of Trump and voting Biden! Arrrggghhh!!!! I have to get out there and vote!
(twitches spasmodically some more)
And Lucia! He might already be undead creature-of-the-night for all we know! Comey told us Trump eats souls! Marianne Williamson identified him as a psychic Dark Lord! Bwaaaaahh!!!
…
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What? No I don't need a tranquilizer! Get away from me with that get AWAYGETAWAY!!!!
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Okay, I'm calm.
Points taken.
Mark
Mike M,
"Hurricanes change intensity rapidly as they approach and move over land; I would think that leads to a wider range in uncertainty."
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Sure, but there is still crazy exaggeration. When a hurricane in the Bahamas threatened eastern Florida earlier this summer, I checked hourly on-the-ground conditions at four Bahamian weather stations (all at airports), all within the "destructive windfield" of the hurricane. When the NHC was saying 100 MPH ground level winds, the on-the-ground stations were ALL saying 45 MPH to 55 MPH. That never changed. Every single NHC forecast of winds was wildly higher than reality, over a whole day. As the storm approached (but never reached) the Florida coast, it was much of the same: NHC – >90% chance of 50 knot winds (57 MPH), reality at the local air field 25 MPH with a few gusts to 35 MPH. The NHC is comically high, most all the time. It was not that way 15 -20 years ago, when their intensity forecasts were pretty much spot on.
Lucia,
"Trump remains alive."
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Yes; he didn't have a heart attack, so you won't have to rush out to change your ballot. We will see if he gets reelected.
lucia (Comment #193095): "Trump remains alive."
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Trump is not the cause of polarization in the U.S. Have you forgotten the way the Dems demonized Romney? McCain? Bush?
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The cause of polarization is the elites (or oligarchy, clerisy, cosmopolitan class, whatever term you prefer) who run the country for their own benefit without regard to the needs of the People. They maintain their power, in no small part, by actively working to keep the people polarized.
It depends. The damage for Cat2 and below is usually pretty small, limited to trees falling and localized flooding. Most of FL can handle Cat3 no problem. We had 100 mph winds here a few years ago and nothing but a bunch of tree damage. But when I drove through where Michael hit with 140 mph+ winds it was obviously a thresholding function, there was massive eye opening widespread damage. The totals weren't huge because it was mostly rural. What is true is that the area of max winds is usually pretty small, but you don't want to be in it. Just being 5 miles out of that eye wall can make a big difference.
I think increased polarization is somewhat imaginary, it just seems more inflamed due to the immediacy and performative outrage in social media which them feeds the MSM. There does seem to be more party line voting then there used to be. The activists used to be ignored and now they are handed the megaphone by the MSM. Stuff like a few bad police shootings being amplified into widespread systemic racism is an example of what didn't used to happen and now does. Whether this is forward or backward progress depends on one's viewpoint.
Alright. Back to the polling station, once more into the breach. The line is no longer wrapped around the building.
Time to get some covfefe on.
[Edit: license not in wallet. Oh noes! Must go get passport. The epic saga continues…]
MikeM
I'm not sure why you are telling he is not the cause of polarization.
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I merely said he remains alive which he does. This observation in response to people who observed if he died in time for me to do so I said I would go out an cast an in person vote to override my mail in vote for Jorgenson (sp?). Some thought perhaps he would kick the bucket before the polls close and I would have to go out and stand in line.
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He remains alive. My mail in vote will stand.
Ahhhhhh. Satisfaction at last. I voted.
Better go request a new license though!
lucia (Comment #193104): "I'm not sure why you are telling he is not the cause of polarization."
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Your earlier comment immediately followed Scadden's question about polarization, so I mistakenly thought you were responding to that.
Mike M,
"Trump is not the cause of polarization in the U.S."
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I agree with that. Trump's 2016 election was more a symptom than a cause of polarization. Another big contributor to polarization in 2016 was that a remarkably dishonest, unlikable, profoundly corrupt Washington insider (the insider's insider, if you will) was his opponent. Had Hillary not done her nauseating "basket of deplorables" speech, she might actually have won, in spite of all her other many flaws. Her consistent "You are horrible, and irrelevant besides" take on all of flyover country probably cost her the election. Note to future presidential candidates: don't tell half the voters you think they are unworthy of consideration.
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To the extent he remains sentient, which may not be much, I doubt Biden is much better than Hillary, but tries at least to hide the worst of it. That is, unless someone asks about his blatant corruption.
Apologies Mike (RE:(Comment #193108)) I was being sillier than usual was what that was all about.
MikeM,
Fair enough. I tutor at 7 pm when the polls close. I think even if he died now, I might not have time to vote unless I cancelled my students lesson (which I'm not going to do.)
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So…. pretty certain I won't be going to the polls to recast my vote.
I remain bemused by the idea that the democrats vowed to do everything in their power to resist and remove a duely elected president, even before he was elected, call his voters deplorables and ugly. spin lies about russian collusion for years, and then accuse him of causing division. This is the epitome of the phrase "…cries out in pain as they strike you."
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On the other hand Obama tells republicans that elections have consequences and to take a seat at the back and that's totally in the spirit of cooperation and not divisive in the slightest.
Reminder:
If you put your “I Voted†sticker under your pillow tonight,
then the Election Fairy will leave you a Xanax.
I saw twitter… Is it going to be a long night ….. again? You gotta be freakin' kiddin me?!!!!!
It's going to be a long night.
So far so good though. Trump may carry Florida and North Carolina. He'll live or die in the blue wall states later tonight I think.
The Chinese Yuan is starting to tank.
That tells us two things about how international money traders see things: Who they are thinking will win and who they think will be tougher on China.
71% of Ohio vote in. Trump leading by 6% and 298,000 votes. Still think many votes not counted in big cities.
Link to Ohio Secretary of State. https://liveresults.ohiosos.gov/
Did anyone catch the number of mail in ballots in Pennsylvania that won't be counted tonight? For some reason I thought I remembered hearing 270,000 mail in ballots won't get counted tonight but will be over the course of the rest of the week.
But I'm not sure I heard that correctly, or am remembering it correctly.
Fox finally gave in to the obvious and called Florida for Trump, which has been obvious for over an hour.
They have not called Ohio either. But they have called Virginia for Biden in spite of Trump have a six point lead with half the vote in.
Many states are called the moment polls close. It seems they are relying heavily on what they expected more than on what is actually happening.
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Chris Wallace just realized that polls and voting are different things.
It looks like Biden will get Arizona and Trump will get North Carolina and Ohio. I think that means that Trump will need two of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota.
I don't think we're going to know who won tonight.
I don't know. Trump is doing awfully well in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Maybe it will be clear by the end of the night.
I'll say the same thing I did 4 years ago. It looks like Trump is overperforming (again).
Illinois Fair Tax bill looks like "no". That's one win.
Google has Trump leading in every state (other than AZ) that is not yet called. (They still show AZ as not called– but I think Fox called them as Dem.)
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=Election
Pennsylvania won't be done tonight. But I think Trump will take Michigan. Then either Wisconsin or Minnesota does it.
The WP has Trump over 270 as the vote in progress stands now, but that doesn't mean a whole lot. It's fairly common for late votes to swing left as big cities count slower. It will at least give the liberal media a class 10 panic attack. I hope they have a jumbo bottle of Xanax at hand.
WP?
I think you're right Mike. Unless the trends change, Trump is going to win both Michigan and Wisconsin.
It looks to me like Trump will lose Minnesota.
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[Edit: WP == Washington Post? Not sure]
My prediction about staying…. I'm going to break tradition. I'll probably wake up around 3 and check…..
Senate is looking Republican. I guess we'll see though.
Yeah. I've gotta work tomorrow. I'm going to try to sleep.
Yesterday FiveThirtyEight had Biden leading in FL in 13/16 polls for a net of Biden +2.5%.
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Trump is currently leading in FL by +3.4% with 96% counted.
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WP = Washington Post.
The Fox analysis guy just gave a coherent explanation of why they have called some states but not others. So we are not going to know until tomorrow, if then.
That Chinese currency tanking chart is worthy of IPCC.
It is a 1% drop made to look like the hockey stick by rigging y axis.
"My prediction: the polls are totally FUBAR."
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How did those new and improved methodologies that are definitely much better than 2016 pan out for them?
Well, looks like the Senate & House are staying R & D respectively, so we'll continue to have a divided Congress. I'm pleased: the less legislation the better, say I.
No predictions yet on the Presidential winner. Which is to say that the polls have missed the mark again.
If Trump wins, what do people think is the main motivation? For reference, in 2016 I attribute his win to (a) anti-career politician; (b) Clinton's "deplorables" attitude; (c) perception of Clinton corruption. One might argue that similar factors remain in 2020. If only the Democrats had nominated Tulsi Gabbard, my preference after the debates, but she hardly registered in the polls. Maybe in 2024 the Democrats will move toward the center. It wouldn't hurt if some of their more leftward members left for the Socialist Party.
[Aside: how did other countries end up with more than two major parties? It would seem to foster some necessary compromise to create a majority government. Perhaps that's just "greener grass" thinking…]
DaveJR,
Yes, the pollsters were (again) very wrong in lots of states. I think they just can’t bring themselves to adopt methods which don't yield their preferred result of a ‘blue wave’ at every election. It is a bit like asking climate (activist) ‘scientists’ what sea level will be in 80 years. They just can’t bring themselves to say the obvious…. almost certainly less than 17†higher than today, and most likely 13†or so.
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When you allow your political prejudices to cloud your analysis, your analysis is almost always going to be garbage. Most pollsters are the poster children for letting political preferences ruin your factual analysis. Neither ‘political science’ nor ‘climate science’ have much to do with science…. they are not ‘cargo cult science’, but a good distance in that direction.
HaroldW,
“ [Aside: how did other countries end up with more than two major parties? It would seem to foster some necessary compromise to create a majority government. Perhaps that's just "greener grass" thinking…]â€
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The only way it happens is in a parliamentary system, and it is often due to some form of proportional allotment of parliament members.
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Yes, I think it is greener grass thinking. The governments formed from parties with very different objectives are usually weak, short lived, and arguably bipolar or worse, but do manage to drive policy in violently different directions whenever they have 50% + 1 votes. Want instant gun confiscation, 70% marginal tax rates, and hate speech laws? Then adopt a parliamentary system. I’ll stick with supporting a constitutional republic.
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WRT Democrats moving toward the center: not an ice cube’s chance in hell. The party will tolerate nothing but allegiance to the ‘long arc of history’ that they say bends toward public control of all private activities. Someone like Joe Manchin is tolerated only because he votes left whenever it really counts. I doubt Manchin can survive his next election.
HaroldW,
Perhaps, the explanations for the Republicans doing generally well is the Dem main campaign them is "Shut up! We don't hear you!" which turns out to be a vote losing divisive message.
Uber and Lyft have been exempted from Cali's law making their drivers employees.
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The irony of that is that the whole purpose of the law was specifically to rope those drivers into employee status. But they also roped in lots of other groups some arguably are very clearly contractors and have worked that way for years. (For example: free lance script writers.) I think the referendum didn't mention them so they remain employees. But… in fact… those who could move tended to leave the state, or some companies just stopped hiring california people. (Varsity tutors just cut all their California based tutors– from what I've read on facebook.)
After ignoring the election drivel on TV last night I expected to awaken to a morning with it all over. That obviously is not going to happen. No matter how this turns out the big losers here are the pollsters. I agree with SteveF that I think they do not want to change an approach that gives them what they want to see. I too am reminded of the climate scientists who, when obtaining a result they like, quit looking. We all have that tendency I think but I hope most of would take another look if we saw something that looked too good to be true.
I was very happy that the pollsters had it wrong about the IL "Fair Tax" vote.
The Senate looks almost a sure thing for Republicans, with 51 votes virtually certain, 52 likely, 53 or even 54 possible after the Georgia runoff. That is a very good outcome; there will be no more screaming about placing 4 new lefties on the SC, no Green New Deal, no single-payer health care, no punitive individual mandate, and no dramatic tax increases.
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The outcome in the House is less certain beyond that Pelosi will for sure retain her gavel. I saw a couple of projections that Dems would gain ~5 seats, but I think the seers have backed off that projection. We’ll see. Maybe Pelosi will be more reasonable. (Nah, I’m only joking, she will suck up to the left as always.)
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Looks like a long ugly legal fight in Pennsylvania, and maybe elsewhere.
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A week or so ago I saw Larry Sabato’s projections for the presidential election, where, of course, a win by Biden was claimed a near certainty and a blowout a real possibility.
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They dismissed any notion of shy Trump voters messing up the telephone polls, stating there was no evidence of it. I wrote a short email explaining that the polls were for sure not accurately capturing Trump’s support due to the woke cancel culture keeping many Trump supporters from talking about their preference.
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I am waiting for a reply where Sabato thanks me for my insight, but not counting on it.
SteveF,
I don't know why pollsters refuse to admit to themselves that people can and do lie on political polls. I always lied on political polls. Now I don't take them at all.
Lucia,
“ Shut up! We don't hear you!â€
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That is part of it. The other part is: “If you say the wrong thing, we will punish you socially and try to get you fired!â€
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When someone believes they can’t possibly be mistaken about anything, then they are capable of unlimited evil. That is exactly where the ‘woke cancel culture’ of the left is headed. Sensible people don’t like it, so they shut up and vote their beliefs.
Lucia,
I instantly hung up on dozens of calls to participate in polls. Some were no doubt just ‘push polls’ and some more legitimate, but I would never waste my time on any of them. I think part of the explanation pollsters reject the obvious is that it leaves them with nothing to do: if telephone polls are rarely accurate enough to make reliable projections, and pollsters can’t (or refuse to) change their methods, then there is no need for telephone polls…. or pollsters.
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One might hope this debacle makes them step back and critically evaluate why their polls sucked (yet again), but that is just not going to happen…. too much money to be made churning out useless tripe that fits a political narrative.
SteveF,
What gets me is the tendency of some to "diagnose" groups of people as "voting against their interest". If you want people to vote for X and they don't, you should at least consider the possibility that X is not in their interest.
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I suspect we are going to be treated with stories about how all sorts of people voted "against their interest". The thing is: little effort will be given to finding out what those voters actually consider to be "their interest".
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Example: I've read all sorts of articles lecturing evangelicals that they shouldn't vote for Trump because of his bad character. I actually do think he has bad character. But those articles tend to scrupulously avoid discussing positions on abortion which like it or not, matter to those evangelicals. Alternatively, they just decree that Trump is so bad, they should set aside their position on abortion. This doesn't work to persuade.
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Now, I think abortion should be legal. So… you know… Trump's position on abortion makes me less likely to vote for him. But I don't thereby come to the conclusion that I can analyze the balance and decree evangelicals are voting "against their interests" because they vote for Trump– and in part because of his position on abortion. (They may have other reasons too.)
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Before you decide someone is voting "against their interest", you really, really, really need to sit down, talk to them and find out what they consider to be their interests. You might be surprised.
I'm prepared to call the election for Biden. Trump isn't going to take Michigan.
mark bofill,
Yes, either Trump pulls a miracle in Nevada or Michigan, or it is over… the closest presidential race since Bush/Gore.
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I don’t look forward to a dementia patient as president, but so long as Republicans hold the Senate and the SC blocks the unlawful executive actions that I expect to see Biden take, then it will not be a catastrophe. What will be interesting is how long before Biden is forced out. My guess is between 1 and 2 years.
Yup. Looking like 270-268 Biden (Az, Mi, Wi, NV=43+227). Trump is leading in GA,NC, PA, AK =54+214. That does put it in the range where unfaithful electors can have some fun. Senate stays republican.
We held the Senate and the Supreme Court isn't tilted liberal; we'll survive Biden.
Bummer though. I'd gotten comfortable ignoring all the recruiters ringing my phone off the hook all the time under Trump. Better get ready to go back to the barrens of the Obama years.
Iowa district 2 house representative has 380 votes separating them.= out of ~400k cast. That ones going to take a while to resolve.
Actually, thanks Steve. I'd forgotten Trump has a path through Nevada still, if he wins Pennsylvania.
I'm not holding my breath, but I'll keep watching.
[Edit: Lol. I just looked at the district population map in Nevada. Trump isn't going to win there.]
SteveF,
My guess is Trump will push through executive actions to force Biden to unwind.
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Biden is, well, shall we say, less than mentally energetic. I know he will have minions, but you and I both have experience with those whose lack of mental energy springs from falling into the abyss of dementia. They can simultaneously resist actions others propose and also not take any themselves. Biden will not be as energetic in unwinding as the Dems hope, and like it or not until they shift him out, they will need to go through him.
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If Biden has alzheimers, and I think he does, he will move s_l_o_w_l_y even if pushed. Yes… one might hope one can get alzheimers patients to bend to one's will. But doing it easily involves duping and sneaking, which is facilitated by patient being somewhat isolated.
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He has shown strong symptoms of lack of energy…. And they need to get him to do things. That might be surprisingly difficult.
We'll see what happens. I'm not happy to be living in interesting times. . .
Lucia,
"My guess is Trump will push through executive actions to force Biden to unwind."
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Maybe, but I think there will be for sure a Clintonesque orgy of pardons. The problem with executive actions from a lame duck will be the continuing resistance of the bureaucrats; they know all they have to do is delay until January 20….. which for bureaucrats is not a long time.
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Where there may be real movement between now and January is the Middle East, where Arab countries terrified of Iran may figure it is best to get closer to the Israelis before Biden comes in and screws everything up… like Obama, opening a clear path for Iran to put nuclear weapons on ballistic missiles.
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Another imponderable is Biden's legal exposure for influence peddling related to his son and brother. Between them they took about $6 million form the Chinese in 2017 and 2018. If a Senate subpoena were to show Hunter or Biden's brother wiring Joe money from that haul, then Biden's departure from the scene might be, ahem, accelerated a bit by Democrats.
It looks like a close Biden win. Votes not trending well in battleground areas. Not a terrible outcome assuming the Republicans hold the Senate. I'll shed no tears to see Trump gone. A Biden landslide would have been a terrible outcome. I'm sure Trump will be a magnanimous loser, ha ha. This will remind everyone why they aren't sorry to see him go.
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Some of these states may go to mandatory recounts though. The left and right do agree on recount rules at least, keep "processing" and counting votes until your side is winning and then declare the vote over. I have no desire for Trump to win by legal chicanery in recounts a la Gore.
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The "Cubans" in south FL were apparently a deciding factor for Trump there. It is humorous that the articles I read started calling them something other than Hispanic. You got the feeling they were being a bit demeaned as not real Hispanics, ha ha. FL now leans a bit more right in the state legislature.
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In other good news the vote in CA (Prop 16) to reinstate racial preferences was defeated pretty handily.
The White House has a basement for Biden to hide in, right? He can just stay there for 4 years.
Tom,
A couple of things.
"This will remind everyone why they aren't sorry to see him go."
Lots of people are going to be sorry to see him go. I am.
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"The "Cubans" in south FL…"
What's with the scare quotes? They *are* Cubans, or at least were.
Shy Trump voters or overwise biased polling looks real. That's two election in a row.
RCP polling errors:
OH: +7
WI: +6
IA: +6
TX: +5
FL: +4.5
NC: +1
GA: +1
AZ: -2.5
MN: -3
538 polling errors:
OH: +7
WI: +8
IA: +7
TX: +5
FL: +6
NC: +3
GA: +3
MN: +2
AZ: -1
Somebody else noted that at least these polls * get verified * by an actual real count. What about all those polls for other subjects that never get verified? This industry has now lost trust and has some work to do.
Scare quotes for Cubans because they were being commonly assumed to be on Team Hispanic until yesterday. The point being is they are being thrown under the identity bus for thinking independently and now apparently require a new name.
Oh. Ok.
In retailing, the election of Biden would be classic bait and switch. You think you're buying one thing but you end up with something completely different.
Tom Scharf (Comment #193174): "I'll shed no tears to see Trump gone."
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Very shortsighted. There are a number of adages that apply. Out of the frying pan, into the fire. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Be careful what you wish for.
——–
Tom Scharf (Comment #193180): "Shy Trump voters or overwise biased polling looks real."
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Sadly, the bias was not quite large enough.
Ariz results will move to a narrower margin.
Most Latino Congressional district in the country, at Mexico border, went from Hillary +60 to Biden +5.
My next prediction: I expect 110% voter turnout to be more than a thing this year.
It's not hard to understand why people would vote against Trump. People who think an election is a referendum on character and on Hollywood style leadership are likely to vote against Trump. Then there are the set who have different policy preferences.
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What the MSM willfully ignores is the opposite, people vote against Biden because of policy preferences and acknowledge yet ignore Trump's character flaws. As I stated before, primaries are more a referendum on character, and general elections are referendums on policy in my view. I vote accordingly.
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I prefer Trump's policy, but am sick to death of Trump the clown. What we will hopefully see is a "sane Trump" candidate in the next election cycle. The SC is set for a while so no big fears there. If the Republicans hold the Senate they can block crazy all day long. There really wasn't any policy plan for term #2, except being not leftish. That's not a bad thing, but also not compelling to attract casual voters. Biden will likely reimplement Obama orders, but only so much damage can be done and it is temporary.
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In the grand scheme, the coronavirus probably caused Trump to lose. In a close election everything can be said to be the primary cause, but this loomed over everything. He was unlucky there.
DeWitt,
"…you end up with something completely different."
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You mean Kamala?
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Based on where the outstanding votes are, it looks like Biden ekes out wins (near 1%) in Michigan and Wisconsin, wins by a few % in Nevada, and wins Arizona by a couple of %. Even with all the uncounted absentee/mail in ballots remaining in Pennsylvania, it looks to me like Trump will win PA in a squeaker.
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So the final electoral count may be 270 Biden, 268 Trump. But don't worry, Biden's lefty lackeys will act like they have a 'sweeping mandate' for 'fundamental change' in government. Count on hearing things like: "Just look at the popular vote!"
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In Michigan, it looks like John James (R) comes up about 0.1% short of the votes he needs to upset incumbent Peters (D). It's too bad, because James is an excellent candidate, and was no doubt dragged down by Trump. Unless something very drastic happens, it looks like Republicans will end up with 51 or 52 in the Senate.
Tom Scharf,
I agree that lots of people are tired of Trump's obnoxious behavior, including me. But I am not sure how long the relief from Trump will last once he is gone, along with Ol' Joe, and Karmala starts insisting on insane lefty administrative policies.
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Yes, the SC can stop the worst of it if they have the courage, but when the Kamala administration refuses to permit any pipeline, refuses to allow natural gas or petroleum exploration anywhere on Federal property and off-shore, blocks all nuclear power, and ties up everything they can't block via bureaucratic suffocation, things could turn ugly pretty fast.
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You may remember the Donald fondly after being force fed Kamala's 'enlightened' ideas for a while.
MikeN (Comment #193186)
November 4th, 2020 at 11:30 am
Ariz results will move to a narrower margin.
Most Latino Congressional district in the country, at Mexico border, went from Hillary +60 to Biden +5.
Which county and link please.
SteveF
it looks like Republicans will end up with 51 or 52 in the Senate.
Just enough. My hope yesterday was:
1) Pritzgers "fair tax" intiative would be voted out.
2) GOP majority in senate. Looks like it happened.
3) Uber/Lift won the cali referendum to have drivers NOT be employees. Happened.
I get my students through gig economy. It's nice change, easy and I like the work.
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If law making them employees had not been booted by voters it would likely embolden congress to change employment law and Poof!!! my tutoring business would drastically change. Didn't want that!
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(I do think people need to enforce laws on books. Some people are treated as contractors when conditions are NOT. But that's a different issue.)
Tom Scharf (Comment #193188): " What we will hopefully see is a "sane Trump" candidate in the next election cycle."
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Probably wishful thinking.
I suppose Trump could run again, right? Aaaaaagghhhh!!!!! Ha ha.
Looks like Collins retains seat in Maine.
Tom,
We'll have to find something to thwart him. Garlic works against vampires. There must be something to repel Trump.
Lucia,
Don't worry, something like the fair tax amendment will probably be back again very soon. It could take the form of a flat exemption combined with higher overall rate, with the exemption set high enough to free many people from having to pay any state income tax at all.
SteveF (Comment #193189)
"So the final electoral count may be 270 Biden, 268 Trump."
_____
Yes, looks that way, but still to close to call.
Does the stock market (S&P up 3.2%) anticipate a Biden victory?
Tom Scharf,
If Trump loses (as is now likely), he is not going to run again in 2024… he'll be too old, and the Dems will no doubt *still* be trying to throw him and his entire family in prison.
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After a year or so of a demented president… followed by Kamala driving him from office, voters may figure they need some protection, and pull control of the House from the Dems in 2022.
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Does there exist a "nice Trump"? I have not seen one. Do you have a suggestion?
OK_Max,
"Does the stock market (S&P up 3.2%) anticipate a Biden victory?"
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I think mostly it was driven by the relief of knowing the Senate is not going to allow big tax increases on businesses (and individuals, of course).
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Certainty helps the market; lower taxes help more.
Senate will not end at 51 or 52 R. Georgia will have at least one runoff and maybe 2 with Perdue at 50.7% needing to stay above 50 to be declared the winner.
Trump had a late campaign stop in Neb to try and get all 5 votes there. Losing that one kept him from getting a tie, which is likely in his favor. He can still get a tie if he wins Mich(or Ariz+Nev) but loses North Carolina.
WSJ: "U.S. stocks surged Wednesday toward their biggest-ever postelection gain, led by a rally in technology shares, as investors appeared to coalesce around the idea of a divided U.S. government."
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Stock market is probably also reacting to no blood in the streets, literally. I always thought the election violence meme was ludicrous. People confuse Twitter with reality a little too often.
MikeN,
Where do you think the Senate ends up if not 51 or 52?
SteveF, 50 with 2 runoffs. End result of that I can go with 52.
Claims of voter fraud popping up:
https://thefederalist.com/2020/11/04/yes-democrats-are-trying-to-steal-the-election-in-michigan-wisconsin-and-pennsylvania/
So it begins.
I'm having trouble finding 18 blue districts on this map, which as I'm typing this says D 200 R 185.
https://www.foxnews.com/elections/2020/general-results/house
There was a big vote dump of 138,000 ballots for Biden overnight in Michigan that went 100% for Biden. This has now been explained as a typo, a county turned 15,371 into 153,710. I think this update is reflected in the current counts, but not sure.
I haven't seen any explanation for a similar jump in Wisconsin.
Woa!
John James (R) running for Senate in Michigan has increased is lead as the final votes have been tallied. He is up to a lead of 0.4% over the incumbent with 97% counted. He was down to less than 0.2% with 6% left to count.
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If James wins, then control of the Senate is well out of reach for Democrats.
I take back the "Woa!"…
The Michigan Sec. of State just dumped a huge block of almost 100% votes for the incumbent, putting John James behind by 0.1% (~6,000 votes), with 2% of the count remaining. I am now back to what I expected before: a loss by James of 0.1% to 0.2%.
Funny. That exact thing has happened a lot this cycle.
[Well. Not dropping a big almost 100% block of votes for the *incumbent*. Dropping a big almost 100% block of votes for the *Democrat*.]
I wonder what's responsible for it.
I didn't mean to insinuate fraud. I honestly wonder if there's some reasonable explanation for it.
Mail in ballots. In the county next door 87% of registered democrats voted early compared to 45% of registered republicans. Ohio is a first vote counts state, so these ballots were counted and results posted by 8pm. A half hour after the polls closed. Each pooling place had lists of who had requested an absentee ballot or early voted so these were turned away or voted on provisional ballots at the polls. Trumps lead increased as the in person ballots were counted as there were more republican registered voters at the polls.
I can see the reverse being true for states where last vote counts. In that situation, you would need to cross reference against the poll sign ins to eliminate remove the absentee ballots of those who voted in person before running them through the machines.
mark bofill,
I was not suggesting fraud.
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I think that the explanation is the processing of votes (especially, awkward absentee ballots/mail ballots) delays reporting quite a lot unless the state allows pre-processing. Most don't, since many people (like Lucia) had the option to wander in any time election day and negate their original mail-in/absentee ballot. Since under these circumstances people could easily vote twice, when the poll workers have to record an absentee ballot (or mail-in ballot), they have to authenticate it against the list of voters who already voted live. So that makes processing of the mail-in/absentee ballots not START until polls close, and to be very slow compared to processing of any other ballot. Peple wen't counting on covid-19.
Thanks Steve, thanks Andrew.
JD Ohio, Starr County, Texas
Trump picked up 6000 votes while Biden lost votes.
The makeup of state legislatures barely changed, Republicans still control most of these. Turnout was obviously huge, but realistically the vote didn't change much from 2016. Thin margin changes in the Midwest was the difference.
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I don't expect recounts to change anything unless the margin is crazy thin in a race. There was a case in my county where one set of votes was put through the scan counter twice that was found during a recount. A few hundred total vote difference but the delta change was insignificant. Places like Detroit and Philadelphia aren't exactly in my circle of trust but I really doubt large scale fraud is likely.
It appears that the grim reaper had a fine old time in Georgia yesterday. Here are Wuhan virus deaths in Georgia for the last seven days:
47
32
24
2
18
480 November 3
43
Yesterday's number just doesn't seem right. Anyone know what happened? Must of been some sort of a dump of backlogged data. Not the first time Georgia did something like that.
It would appear the Libertarian candidate might have been unhelpful to Trump in some of the close votes. Not sure how the vote breaks down if it wasn't there but it should favor the Republican.
Well… that's one interpretation. Those who voted libertarian otherwise might have left that race blank or filled in a write in.
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I would only vote for Trump if he was dead. If there had been no Libertarian candidate, I still wouldn't have voted for him.
The race might well not be over. Following based on items on the Daily Wire, they might have changed since yesterday.
There are lots of uncounted votes in Arizona, making it too close to call.
A bunch of funny business in Michigan including a rural county (possibly more than one) where the Trump votes somehow got reported as Biden votes and vice versa.
88% turnout of registered voters in Wisconsin. Not possible considering that no other state has ever had more than 80% turnout and many registered voters are dead or have moved. Precincts in Milwaukee had over 100% turnout.
Nevada and Pennsylvania are really insane.
The press won't call Georgia or North Carolina for Trump but jump the gun on Arizona and Michigan. Almost like they are trying to sell the narrative that Trump lost. A narrative that started with the pre-election polling.
———-
As a result of all this, I now feel confident in making a prediction: Most Trump voters well never believe that Trump lost.
Mike M.
Precincts in Milwaukee had over 100% turnout.
Visitor from Illinois? 🙂
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Obviously, that's bad. But I'm not sure how it's handled since the votes are all going to be mixed in together and not linked to the individual voter. If it's true they have more than 100% voting …. I guess we'll learn!
Mike M,
Can you provide a link showing more than 100% turnout?
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Errors like the candidate totals being reversed should be caught in a recount.
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It does appear that the early call in Arizona was a mistake; it may have been caused by simply not understanding where the many votes that had not yet been counted came from. I did note that Trump’s deficit fell significantly when 3% (out of 15%) were added to the totals overnight. Whether or not Trump can close the gap in Arizona is very unclear, but the early calls were unwise.
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Nevada is impossible to figure out. The gap between candidates has narrowed or stayed the same, while the expectation had been that Biden’s lead would grow rapidly with processing of the remaining votes.
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Giving voters the option to negate an existing early vote by walking in on election day has caused horrible delays in counting, since it means each early vote must only be counted after the close of polls, and verified against the list of confirmed election day votes. It is a very bad idea, and I hope the individual states will reconsider this practice.
Az listed as having 95% of the vote in where it was actually 85% with a majority left untabulated in Maricopa county. Absentee ballots from there is what closed the gap and there are 400k left to count.
Antica county in Michigan likely had the Dem/Rep choices switched all the way down the ballot which is why it stood out like a sore thumb. Local republican candidate only received 2 votes. Likely shift for president is 3k which is not enough to make a difference. It might shift the senate race.
Milwaukee and Wisconsin allow for voter registration on election day. You can walk in register and vote at the polling place. Definitely a bit susceptible to voter fraud, but that is what their rules state. Because of this they cannot have over 100% registered voters voting and the total registered voters weren't likely used in the % calculations.
Just like 2000 caused introspection and revisions to the in person balloting and counting processes nationwide, I expect this election to do the same for registration and early voting. It's insane that in todays tech driven world that we have multiple states without at least an preliminary call 30 hours after poll closing.
Yeah, I got suckered. It's not settled yet.
Steve,
Milwaukee City Wire is reporting on precincts that have more votes than registered voters. Can't link easily on my phone.
AndrewP,
Just like 2000 caused introspection and revisions to the in person balloting and counting processes nationwide, I expect this election to do the same for registration and early voting.
Yep. Among other things:
* Regular checks to see if voters died.(Supposedly, dead people voted.)
* Extra scrutiny for registrations of anyone over 90 yo. Registration of these people tend to be rife with dead listings. Also: if they've often moved. (This policy would result in howls from the AARP set.)
* Asking people registering at new addresses their two former old address and requesting they check an informed consent notice that tells them they will be unregistered elsewhere. (Perhaps do a license check. . .)
They do need to think about how to do this to avoid dis-enfranchising. But even if we don't have dead people voting, we currently have reports of that. Reports and suspicions the dead are voting or people voting twice is also a problem.
Here
https://mkecitywire.com/stories/564495243-analysis-seven-milwaukee-wards-report-more-2020-presidential-votes-than-registered-voters-biden-nets-146k-votes-in-city
STeveF
It could take the form of a flat exemption combined with higher overall rate, with the exemption set high enough to free many people from having to pay any state income tax at all.
If the flat exemption was fixed at the lower 20% income averaged over 5 years ending 2 years before the current one, I'd actually be ok with that. I think it's better than a "free for all" type progressive rate that allows legislators to pick whatever they like.
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Oh… the 20% exemption should include income from any transfer payments: food stamps and value of housing vouchers etc. In the case of ambiguity, they can have a schedule to state what any specific thing is worth (and which things don't count. The "value" of k-12 public education shouldn't count. It's compulsory and generally speaking "everyone" gets it regardless of income.) Ideally, the amendment is clear on which things do count and what doesn't count.
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I like 20% because it covers the very poor, kids mowing lawns, babysitting and so on. It does pretty much mean nearly all adults will pay more or less at the same total rate.
mark bofill,
Walk-in register and vote means the 100+% ratio of votes to previously registered voters is meaningless. Now, I think walk-in register and vote rules are very unwise, because you then depend on hundreds temporary poll workers, pressed for time, to evaluate voter qualifications (really a resident of the district? really a US citizen?). To me there is far too much potential for fraud. But those are the rules in Wisconsin.
Oh, are those the rules in Wisconsin? Didn't know. I agree with you, pretty unwise.
Lucia,
My experience is that those who inherited a significant amount of money are all for high and progressive income taxes. One of my relatives (by marriage) is in that group…. never had a financial worry, from birth to 72.
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Inheriting a couple billion, like Pritzker, is of course the extreme case. I remain astounded that the voters in Illinois would elect the guy; he has spent his whole life completely isolated from the real-world existence of voters, so is very unlikely to understand their needs and priorities. I mean, to Pritzker, there is no difference between the moderately well off professional class, the middle class, the poor, and the very poor… all are hopelessly poor compared to him, and his personal experiences are 100% disconnected from all those voters. While voters worry about things like income tax rates, Pritzker biggest worry is if his private jet travel to his Bahamas estate might be delayed a few minutes.
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I don't doubt he is well meaning, but I do doubt he is suitable material for elective office…. and his support for higher taxes shows it.
Not as unwise as mailing absentee ballots to all registered voters to their address of record. DC, HA, WA, & UT did that according to the NYT. I would bet some old Chicago style precinct roundups happened in Milwaukee and that was the cause of that excessive turnout. Not necessarily fraudulent but shady and ripe for abuse none the less.
Unfortunately even sane rules on early voting and registration will be labeled as suppressing the vote. AOC has already complained that the long lines at her polling place for early voting last weekend was a sign of voter suppression. The fact she didn't recognize the dissonance of a democratic borough in a democratic city in a democratic state actively trying to suppress her voting for democrats was amazing.
SteveF,
Progressive tax rates don't actually touch wealth. So those with inherited wealth aren't strongly affected by it. It does touch their income so they can't escape it entirely, but they can often organize things to shield the income by being careful about "where" it some is "earned".
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They can sometimes also organize things so they get a benefit that doesn't look like "income" on taxes. (Everyone can to some extent. I live in a house I own. If I sold invested to earn $X I'd pay income on that. But I'd now have to pay rent, $Y. So to some extent the $Y represents "shielded income" and I benefit from this. If you are very wealthy there will be strategies to make stuff "not income". I don't know what they are, but I'm pretty sure they exist and there are people whose job it is to know what they are.
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I don't doubt he is well meaning,
I'm sure he thinks he is.
AndrewP
Unfortunately even sane rules on early voting and registration will be labeled as suppressing the vote.
Yes. The rules do have to be very carefully thought out. It is true that to some extent any rule has the potential to suppress at least 1 vote.
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For example: If you need to register a week before, someone who just moved to the district 6 days ago can't vote. Technically, because they have moved, they can't legally vote in their old district. They are no longer a resident. (Anyway… they aren't there!). Or… if you make it 1 day and they moved here 6 days ago, but forgot to register during the hectic moving time…. they can't vote.
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When I worked in Illinois, you had to register in advance. But you also had a residency requirement that was longer. There were complicated rules in place for people who had moved from one place in Illinois to another– and we had different ballots. So some people who had moved to and from place inside Illinois could get ballots to vote for Governor and President. But their ballots would not include local races.
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It was actually pretty fair…. But fair will mean complicated. And then someone will argue that some people are "unaware" and so become disenfranchised for lack of education of their options. That's entirely true… but… sigh….
Lucia,
The biggest tax advantage for income from wealth is the treatment of "long term" capital gains from investment, offset by capital losses, of course. They top out at 20% marginal rate, rather than the 37% rate for "normal" income. The fact that "long term" is considered >12 months is, IMO, scandalous at best. The fact is: high "normal-income" earners do pay high income tax rates, very wealthy people never do.
SteveF,
I know that's the biggest one. Now that Jim and I are mostly retired and living off capital…. we are very aware of that!
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Also, since that income is not "earned" we don't pay social security or self-employment tax.
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I don't know the extent to which someone who is very wealthy can set up "businesses" and make a sizable number of services "business expenses". I know businesses can't be entirely fictional, but if you don't absolutely need to maximize profits some decisions can be…well….
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My master plan should I win the lotto could be to ask an accountant what I need to do to set up a "ballroom dance" business that makes just a little money, but allows me to hire good teachers, invite coaches (who my teachers and I like) and have a six times the square footage of the studio where I take lessons so that we have tons of room for Waltz and Foxtrot. And we could have dance socials every Friday or Saturday night as part of our "business model". ( Note: I want to go to dance socials every Friday and Saturday night. )
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The studio where I dance would never have that much square footage because the owner actually wants to make enough to pay herself, pay her teachers, and potentially expand to eventually have a chain she's created where she makes money. Paying rent for 6 times as much square footage just for the luxury…. well….she when she sharpens her pencil, she can't afford that. But I could if my goal was just to cover the rent.
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In case you think this is totally pie in the sky…. one of my former teachers said he once worked at a studio where the owners had money and strictly speaking did not need to earn anything to live off of. Their goal was to just barely cover operating expenses. He said it was a great place to work. Zero marketing pressure. (Often teachers are prodded to "persuade" students to spend more and and more and more…. Of course, it's in the interest of teachers to retain students and upsell to some extent. But the pressure on some teachers at chains can be very heavy handed.)
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The thing is the "business model" is very, very, very close to the model by someone who love dance, wants to make a living with dancing and so on. The main difference is that… well… my motive is to subsidize my dance addiction which otherwise would purely be expenses.
Wisconsin had 88% turnout. Mail-in balloting allows for multiple votes if they send to people who have moved out or died.
It's possible the mail-in just produced more voting, or the same day voter registration isn't reflected in the numbers, but this 88% is much higher than any state has ever recorded.
If Trump only has to flip one state to change the election outcome (as it sits now) then things will get pretty messy. The conspiracy theorists will go wild. If he has to flip two of the marginal states then that makes things real hard.
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I don't think it is likely there will be any large fraud, this would need to be preplanned and executed with a lot of people (potential leaks) and one would need to believe it would make a difference in the outcome of the election for the potential large risk. I can see this for small potato things like city council positions, but not large scale national outcomes.
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Government bureaucrat incompetence is another story. Easy to believe lots of stuff can happen, likely did happen, and will be found in the recount. Probably not enough to make a difference unless margins are 0.1%.
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One thing for sure, the coastal media won't be looking under any rocks to help Trump.
The voting system could use more traceability. The ability for citizens to confirm their vote was tabulated correctly, that they didn't vote etc..
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Well … actually I found a convoluted process in FL to confirm my mail in vote was actually counted. It's county by county and the usual horrible gov. website design. No way to confirm the actual candidate selections were correct.
Wisconsin, because they allow registration at the polls, doesn't use percentage of registered voters in their voter participation stats. They use % of current voting age residents instead. Historical stats can be found here https://elections.wi.gov/elections-voting/statistics/turnout first link. I come up with 3.2 million votes this year which calculates to 72.51% using their method. I just downloaded their excel sheet and added the cumulative votes for president in b2. The previous five presidential elections were 67.34%, 70.14%, 69.20%, 73.24%(2004), 67.01%. In other words I don't really see a smoking gun in this years counts.
It might be wise for Biden to request recounts in states Trump narrowly won as a hedge. There are deadlines here so if Trump gets lucky in a recount Biden may have no recourse.
Dance studio philanthropy! Haven't considered this for my retirement, ha ha.
For those wanting to see if your vote was tabulated correctly… Think about what it would take to accomplish that. Would it even be possible to have a secret ballot in that situation?
If everybody knew how everybody else voted then retribution could be visited on those who voted "wrong" and threats of that retribution could be used to intimidate voters in voting "correctly".
As it stands today, the information about who cast a ballot is separated from the actual ballot on purpose. I don't think I would want to change that. I do worry about what happens to my ballot after it has been opened, but that is why there are supposed to be observers of that and the other processes in counting the vote to ensure all is open and above board.
I've heard about a few places where observers from all affected parties were NOT allowed to watch the counting. That alone, if verified to be true, would call into question any count that favored only those observers that were allowed to monitor the count even if they did everything else fairly.
Tom,
Not really "philanthropy". But getting what I want and subsidizing it with tax write offs. I mean… I could go out and just rent a hall suitable for a large wedding. And hire a band. And send out invitations to dancers inviting them to come for free. Then I can get what I want: regularly scheduled dances in a large hall. (Quite large makes Foxtrot, Waltz etc. reasonable. Yes… we all dance it in smaller studios. But even advanced beginners end up compromising their moves to deal with the small floor. In contrast, Salsa, etc don't need those floors.)
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I'd could just pay for all these expenses out of my income. But I want to make all of those things "business expenses" and still get what I want!! But I want it whether or not I can make any real money. So… I could set up a small "business", with the aim of just barely covering expenses. It is a business, but one that someone who needed to eat would not set up. That person wants to actually make money!
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Heck…. if I had kids I could not only write off the expenses for my social life, I could "employ" them and give them cush-jobs that sounded fancy but really weren't much of anything. Jim-Jr could be head of "marketing" which might mean he edits the template for the fliers announcing teach weeks dance, and then puts then in a pile on the table for people to pick up. Lucia-jr could be "Dance Director" which might mean she picks the music and acts and DJ. They might "oversee staff" who would be the one bouncer/ticket collector and perhaps a janitor who we had sweep up the place.
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Anyway: this is in my plan should I ever win the lotto. That's not likely to happen anytime soon as I only buy a ticket if the jackpot is greater than $300,000 which happens now and then. But unfortunately, the Illinois lotto won't let me sign up for "push" announcements to tell me the current jackpot. So I could miss my opportunity when it happens. DRAT!
Tom
It might be wise for Biden to request recounts in states Trump narrowly won as a hedge. There are deadlines here so if Trump gets lucky in a recount Biden may have no recourse.
Biden absolutely should do this. The race is close. Recounts in close races are legitimate.
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If Biden loses because Trump requested recounts swing states to Trump and the clock ran out, that's too bad for Biden. The constitution does have time deadlines. That's a given.
Not really "philanthropy".
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More like phillusibus. 😉
Georgia is looking like it will end in basically a tie…. Over the past 24 hours a large number of mail-in ballots from around Atlanta have cut Trump's lead to a few thousand votes.
phillusibus ?
Yah, phillusibus.
It's like 'trunalimunumaprzure', except it's also got a 'covfefe' aspect as well.
Looks like I was wrong about the Republicans gaining 5 to 10 seats in the House.
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Their actual gain will likely be 13 or 14, cutting the Dem majority to about 224/211. Based on the always accurate telephone polls, most pundits had projected a Dem gain or 10 or more seats. The wailing and teeth gnashing has begun, of course, but almost nobody in the Democratic party understands the basic problem: after they gained control, the House would not compromise with the Senate nor with Trump, wasted time with endless Trump investigations of nothing, and wasted even more time on a completely pointless impeachment. A lot of voters suffered buyers remorse about giving them control of the House, even more than I expected.
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My bet is that the crazy "squad" and their ilk will continue to drive the Dems to extreme nutty/left/green positions. After all, the crazies now make up an even greater fraction of the Dem caucus. If a handful of crazies withhold their votes, the Democrats can't even pass a bill now.
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I predict voters will give up on them, and they will lose control of the House in 2022. If Pelosi has lick of sense, she will retire before then.
Lucia, mark,
"phillusibus" = phil & lusibus
Love of dance.
I'm reading stories (with a certain satisfaction, if I may add that) that suggest Pelosi might face a struggle to retain the role of Speaker.
mark bofill,
We might hope, but I doubt it. She has far too many outstanding chits to be driven out so easily. If it were to happen, I believe she would retire immediately. Easily the worst Speaker of my lifetime; ….. and that is a very high hurdle considering all the previous occupants. Angry, foolish, and petty, so unable to compromise on anything of substance. I will be happy to see her gone.
SteveF,
Yes. As bad as Trump is, I don't think the Democrats understood that they were also being bad and that people would perceive this. Although the Barrett confirmation was tame, people were still reminded of the Kavanaugh confirmation. And news stories kept reminding people of that and suggesting the Dems were threatening that.
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Then. She. Was. So. Nice. (Without being sacharine.) And. So. Smart.
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I suspect there may also be some people, who, like me, prefer divided government. Hearing that Biden would win by a landslide, and knowing they really did not want Trump, they decided to split the difference and vote GOP for senate and House while still voting for Biden.
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This happens. I know because I do it! I know I'm likely not the majority– but then the "swing voters" aren't the majority.
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People who are really in the tank for one party sometimes have no idea what those "in between" consider when voting.
Lucia,
I’m perfectly OK with divided government.. in general, the fewer laws passed the better. Both parties, if given control, tend to over-reach, but lately it has been the Dems who look the most threatening to rational government. Republicans just don’t do ‘lockstep’ voting nearly as well as Democrats… Republicans act more like cats with firecrackers going off all around. They could easily have gotten rid of Obamacare and a host of other bad policy, but just couldn’t ever seem to get the votes together. Trump’s biggest strategic error was pissing off a very sick John McCain, who got back at Trump by voting to preserve Obamacare… then making sure Trump was disinvited to McCains funeral.
The following is quoted from an article in today's USTODAY.
"Today, California, for instance, has 40 million residents and 55 electoral votes, while Wyoming has about 560,000 residents and three votes. That means Wyoming's electors represent about 186,300 voters apiece, while California's are proxy for more than 727,000 each. In other words, Wyoming's Electoral College votes count almost four times more than California's on a per-person basis."
So if you want your vote for President to count for a lot more, move to Wyoming or some other State with a low population. If that seems crazy, it's because it is crazy.
OK_Max,
So… move. Anyone can! 🙂
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If that seems crazy, it's because it is crazy.
It doesn't seem crazy. I think the reason it doesn't seem crazy is it's not crazy.
OK_Max,
"If that seems crazy, it's because it is crazy."
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Doesn't seem crazy to me at all, and I live in Florida, with close to the same ("unfair") representation in the electoral college as California. The weighting of the States in the electoral college (and in the Senate) are a feature of the Constitution, not a bug. That state-based representation in the Federal government is what allowed the Union to form in the first place. I urge you (yet again) to expend effort to change the Constitution if you think it should be changed; the procedures to change it are laid out clearly. Complaining endlessly about a lack of "fairness" is nothing but complaining about the Constitution. It is also very tedious. Work to change it if you don't like it.
There are lots of things that are unfair. There are millions of conservatives in NY, CA, IL, etc that have basically zero input into who is President because of where they live. Winner take all for each state's electoral college points being the issue. Perhaps you go into proportional points depending on the vote in your state. This can be done. Strangely the party that controls the state isn't interested in this. Very strange they are against being "fair".
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We have what we have. It's a bit messy but works well enough. Because the way to change the system needs the approval of the group who is benefitting from its awkward implementation we are likely stuck with it for a while.
Georgia margin at 0.07%. What a frickin mess. As mentioned above with a winner take all state system this makes a few votes count a whole lot. The FL 2000 recount was basically a tie, end of story. PA may end up going Biden and that would likely end the madness.
Tom: Does that trigger an automatic recount in GA? (It does in some states.)
Overnight counting in Georgia of mail-in ballots has pushed Biden in front by about 900 votes in 5 million. Now we have to wait for overseas ballots, mainly military.
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Boy, were those telephone polls accurate.
I looked at the Georgia Secretary of State web page (he is a Republican). As of 10:30 last night there were 14,000 mail-in ballots remaining, with most of those from the Atlanta collar counties. Those counties consistently vote about 55% for Democrats, so Trump is very likely to end up about 2,000 to 2,500 behind. It is not likely military ballots can reverse that, so in spite of legal challenges and a recount, Trump looks almost certain to loose Georgia and the election.
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Trump ran behind most Republican Senate candidates. Trump’s clownish behavior appears to me to have offended enough Republicans in close states to cost him re-election.
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With both senate races in Georgia heading to a runoff, I can only wonder how many hundreds of millions of dollars from wealthy Dems will end up being spent on behalf of the Democrat candidates.
Steve,
Yeah. I think Trump is done. He'll fight and recount and so on, but he's still done.
The fat lady is still off stage.
The media have been trying to sell the narrative that Trump is done since, well, the trip down the escalator. They fed us phony polls during the campaign. They were quick to call states for Biden and slow to call states for Trump. There are all sorts of legal issues still to resolve.
I will believe that Trump is done when he concedes.
Grateful that Trump is most likely done and all of his shenanigans will soon be over. Probably the worst person to hold that office since Herbert Hoover. Rather than Democrats underperforming, it should be remembered that Trump earned a record number of votes for a one-term President, driven by bringing in many new R voters. I think it is likely that Democrats overperformed in 2018 (after the Kavanaugh hearings) because the election may have been an indirect referendum on Trump. In 2020, while Trump likely had high enthusiasm among the new voters he brought in, traditional GOP voters could now directly express their frustration with Trump while voting R down-ballot.
Regardless, it is just reality that Trump remains a formidable force in GOP politics and this election will not repudiate his voice.
Tom Scharf (#193260): "actually I found a convoluted process in FL to confirm my mail in vote was actually counted. It's county by county and the usual horrible gov. website design. No way to confirm the actual candidate selections were correct."
Palm Beach County (FL) provided not-too-bad site to show whether the ballot was (1) requested, (2)mailed, (3) received, and (4) counted.
As for checking that one's selections were counted correctly, no…but I can't see being able to do that without creating a database with potential for abuse.
RB,
I'm not sure what "repudiating his voice" would even mean.
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I think we can see is that many policies and issues he insisted on discussing openly will continue to be discussed openly while in the past, they were often seen as outside polite conversation. Yes, he often said things in appalling ways, but there are very real questions touching on:
1) Immigration policy: both legal and illegal.
2) Approach to racial equality. Now a days, more people will openly discuss the inequity of quotas which are, lets face it, slamming hard working, smart, ambitious Asian Americans.
3) Freedom of speech and expression on campuses which have been implementing speech codes.
4) Use of violence or obstruction to thwart discussions both on campuses and in BLM initiated protests. (The violence exists whether it's actual BLM people or others doing it. And yes, I'm aware of the Trump train surrounding the Biden bus in TX. But this will only encourage people discuss the issue of people taking to threatening and violent action because the "left" can't really discuss the "rights" entry into this threatening behavior without all the behavior being discussed.)
5) How to run k-12 public schools. Topics that can be discussed include capture of control by unions in a way that they are largely run for the benefit of unions. (I'm not even going to say benefit of teachers, though teachers are certainly higher in the mind of unions than students.) It also includes parental choice, charter schools and so on.
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Prior to Trump, the "Overton window" if it were was that there was only "one side" that could be actively discussed on these issues. The one thing Trump did do was be willing to discuss the other side — and implement policies on the other side.
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Yes… many of these topics required more nuanced discussion that Trump is capable of. But I think the GOP side will likely have learned that they must not be afraid that every practical or conservative position is a vote loser. Many are actually vote winners– and that's why Dems lost control of the House and did not win control of the Senate. (Whether we'll get GOP control remains to be seen, as that requires at least 51. But… 50 GOP and
The left's new guidelines for speech run something along the lines of:
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"Your speech is violence. My violence is speech."
Lucia,
That is a good list. I would add the issue of MSM bias in news coverage AND in all discussion of policy. Same applies (to a lesser extent, so far) to how Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. operate to suppress conservative views on all the 5 items you list, and many more. These are major problems and they are not going to disappear. A few people on the left (Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, and a couple more) are willing to discuss the bias problem, but they are very few, and mostly have been now excluded from polite company by the MSM.
What is populism?
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It seems the worst of populism is an appeal to a majority by demonizing a minority.
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Perhaps the worst, and most stark example is racism. But socialism is also an appeal to the majority ( the 99%) while demonizing a minority ( the 1% ). True, the wealthy are not deemed a political minority because they hold power through wealth. But the murders and prison camps of socialism past seemed to overwhelm whatever power the existing elites had in those societies.
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But there's a dynamic of "becoming a monster by fighting monsters" at work.
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The irony of the fascism of anti-fa seems to be matched by the racism of anti-ra. Is there a similar dynamic of opposing socialism? or of opposing the postmodernists? or of opposing anything?
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As Haidt repeats: humans are tribal. Can we return the tribe to being the US, including everyone?
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Unfortunately, some of the madness includes:
"No borders, no wall, no America at all" and
"End fascism and the Liberalism which enables it", meaning not US liberal ideas, but the Enlightenment.
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It's easy to exaggerate, but the warnings about postmodern thought seem all too real and evident.
OK_Max (#193289): The example cited exaggerates the (real) effect of having electors = reps+2 (senators). But you knew that.
You've mentioned "unfair" conditions. One might equally argue that the US is (or was intended to be) a federation of states. So allotting more electors to the more populous states is "unfair" to an equal footing of all member states. California has 18(!) times the representation of Wyoming in the electoral college. Oh my, how "unfair".
Eye of the beholder and all that…
SteveF,
I'm not sure anything can be done about bias in news media. After all: each outlet is a privately run entity. However, I think some of those involved in media outlets may come to realize that when one "side" dominates, many people come to be skeptical. After all: The reaction of Russians to media monopolies like Pravda was not to believe everything Pravda said. Likewise, Chinese in the PRC don't all say, "Oh. If the government agency says 'X', then 'X' must be true. "
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Trump's attacks on the media were over-the-top and in-your-face. But the problem for the media is that bias was then openly discussed. And lots of people do not buy many media outlets claim that they are just objective and reporting facts. Let's face it, some of the reporting was comical.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyILjGn96gw
The 7-day trailing average of reported covid-19 deaths in Florida continues its decline, reaching 45 today, despite gradually rising confirmed cases.
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In Brazil, both confirmed cases and deaths have fallen ~2/3 since their peaks in late July, and show no indication of rising again. My many friends in Brazil assure me it is not due to everyone in Brazil wearing masks, nor due to superb health care infrastructure. The drop is almost certainly driven mainly by herd immunity and reduced interpersonal contacts, even though experts are united in their conclusion that herd immunity could not possibly cause such a drop.
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The mask-less evil Swedes have 'catastrophically rising' confirmed cases, now at a far higher rate than when a hundred Swedes a day were dying, yet deaths per day remain stubbornly below 10. There is no justice in the world.
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Meanwhile, in saintly France, with the most draconian covid -19 restrictions in Europe, cases continue to rise and deaths have passed 400 per day and rising. That is higher than Brazil (393 per day), in spite of Brazil having three times the population of France. Yup, draconian covid-19 policies look more sensible and cost effective all the time.
I think there is another thing about Trump sort of "caused"….. And we'll see if this continues. And that was that Democrats focused on hims so much that despite having a very strong majority, they really did almost nothing other than react to and complain about Trump.
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Yes… they tried to portray not having another Covid-aid package Trumps fault. But the fact was the Senate and Trump were ready and willing to enact one. The Democrats blocked it as not big enough. So there was no package.
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The Democrats also wasted enormous amounts of time on impeachement (which was never going to go anywhere.) Meanwhile, the advanced almost nothing on their agenda. Voters could see that the Senate and Trump weren't "blocking" anything because there was nothing to block.
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Now: this distraction may well have been a "Trump" effect. His constant tweeting, in-your-faceness, outrageous statements, whiplash inducing contradictions were certainly amazing. But the fact is: they did totally distract the Dems from getting their act together and proposing major legislation.
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Maybe they can coalesce and figure out what they want to propose. And if they actually do maybe the Senate will block some of it. (I hope so actually.) But the fact is, Trump and the Senate didn't "block" much of anything in the past 4 years because the Democrats were all just focused on talking about how bad Trump was. While they might not be wrong that he is bad, bad, bad….. that talk still didn't advance anything and voters knew it.
Lucia,
"…they did totally distract the Dems from getting their act together and proposing major legislation."
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Maybe, but I think it was more that Trump gave them an excuse to never compromise with the Senate. Any major legislation which the House would find acceptable would never even have been considered in the Senate. Pelosi certainly understood this, and Mitch McConnell was not shy about reminding her and everyone else of that fact.
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The truth is, the House (and most 'progressives' for that matter) did not want, do not want, and probably will never accept, any significant compromise on major legislation, with Obamacare being the best example. They want exactly what they want, and compromise with hayseed conservatives from flyover country be damned. The reason there was not additional covid "relief" was because the Democrats in Congress insisted on including large expenditures completely unrelated to covid-19…. like bailing Illinois out of its unsustainable obligations. If the Republicans gain at least one of the two senate seats in Georgia, no significant legislation will pass in the next two years. Or as one Democrat wag said "A republican controlled Senate is where the Biden presidency will go to die."
This has been a Republican victory (including at the presidential level–the party is well rid of Trump).
As a progressive liberal I really wanted to see a repudiation of 'Trumpism.' Instead the Republican rid themselves of the messenger and were rewarded with a continuation of the power structure that moved the country away from my views. We'll see how it turns out.
Without the Senate, progressive ambitions will have to wait–perhaps indefinitely. We will certainly see King Log after four long years of King Stork.
What, me miss an opportunity to media bash?
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Fake News. That term won't be leaving us for 100 years. The Russia collusion story was an * epic * embarrassment. They will never be able to polish that turd and make it shiny.
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Antifa talked about a strategy of dilemma action. "A dilemma action is when you put your opponent in a no-win situation. Your enemy has to react. If they don't react, they look weak; if they do react, they have to react in a certain way where it looks like it's an overreaction."
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Trump did this with the media continuously, and they ran over each other falling into this trap. Just yesterday a bunch of media outlets (NPR, NBC, CBS, ABC, NBC) cutoff a Trump press conference after he started saying his usual ridiculous things in order to immediately "correct" the record. I do not trust the media to correct the record in an unbiased way, and I expect to be able to hear what the President of the US has to say about a close election regardless of the high and mighty fact checkers. They recently squashed the Hunter Biden story. Twitter locks the NY Post for weeks. They have a very bad impulse to now prevent people from even hearing the other side, and now we have the Internet! What are they thinking?
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There are true things, false things, and unproven things. Election fraud is not a false story, it is an unproven story without evidence. This is no longer a distinction the media like to make. Of course there were "illegal votes" out of 150M, this is a certainty. Unlikely to be enough to swing anything, but May 2020 …
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Ex-Philly election official pleads guilty to stuffing ballot box for Democrats
https://nypost.com/2020/05/21/ex-philly-election-official-pleads-guilty-to-voter-fraud/
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But here's the thing, nobody is taking Trump seriously anyway. He has earned his reputation of no credibility, so why burn your own credibility by overreacting. The counter to Trump saying the elections were fraudulent is not to infer that they were perfect.
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And it's very strange that the media's take is to demand Trump provide evidence when historically it has been the media's role to do this investigation … see Kavanaugh. And even when evidence of wrong doing is provided such as Tara Reid or Hunter's infamous hard drive … they try to bury it. It's all a disgrace to their profession.
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I will say though that the non-cable media news divisions did a decent job of election reporting. There was very little hyperbole it was almost entirely straight news and data. It's getting back to "regular" reporting now.
Thomas,
I don't know what "Trumpism" is; consequently, I don't know what actions or statements would constitute repudiating it.
**progressive ambitions will have to wait–perhaps indefinitely. **
Of course.
**We will certainly see King Log after four long years of King Stork.**
Uhmm….I wouldn't say "certainly". I think we may see Regan and Goneral replacing King Lear.
Hmm.. wordpress updated. HTML is all getting stripped! ARGGGG!
LEt me check…. blockquotes were stripped.
italics
bold
Bush won FL in 2000 by 0.009%.
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And just a reminder of what happened in 2000, the MSM that now demands evidence of fraud be delivered to them banded together under the NORC and paid for and got all the FL ballots via FOI requests and recounted them well after the election was over.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100524251837190200
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There was no evidence of fraud, only unclear voter intent in a myriad of ways. Bush still won in most counting methods. You think there is unclear voter intent in some GA ballots? The point here is that in today's environment they will not lift a feather to examine something illegitimate in a Biden win (and I doubt there is any there, there), where they would self initiate and pay for a close examination for the other side. It's just classic confirmation bias, but they can't act like this and then claim the throne of unbiased fact checkers that need to cutoff press conferences.
"I think we may see Regan and Goneril replacing King Lear."
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Is Kamala Harris Regan or Goneril?
Here's a prediction, Trump will never formally concede and call Biden. Not Trump's brand.
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And somebody please hide the nuclear codes.
Tom Scharf,
I agree that Trump is unlikely to ever call Biden and concede; he is far too self-centered and stubborn to ever admit defeat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eMkth8FWno
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I was troubled by his new conference last night; he sounded more removed from rational thinking than usual. He really needs to get a grip. What I believe will happen is people will start resigning in droves (even Melania may bug out!) if he keeps spouting the endless "stolen election" claims after the courts have ruled against him and it is clear he has lost. At some point I have to believe he will recognize that he has to pack up and leave.
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If he is still acting crazy come mid December, then Mitch McConnell and the cabinet may visit him and explain he is endangering the runoff Senate elections in GA. The cabinet could threaten to use the 25th amendment, and rightly so, because at that point he would in fact be certifiably crazy.
Tom Scharf (Comment #193334): "The Russia collusion story was an * epic * embarrassment. They will never be able to polish that turd and make it shiny."
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Yes, and that all but guarantees that Trump voters will never believe that Biden was elected legitimately.
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Tom Scharf: "Antifa talked about a strategy of dilemma action. A dilemma action is when you put your opponent in a no-win situation. Your enemy has to react. If they don't react, they look weak; if they do react, they have to react in a certain way where it looks like it's an overreaction."
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Straight out of the terrorist playbook.
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Tom Scharf: "Trump did this with the media continuously, and they ran over each other falling into this trap."
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But there is an important difference: The media are not supposed to react to appear strong or to make Trump appear wrong; they are supposed to be honest. Doing that would have neatly resolved the dilemma.
Tom Scharf,
"They will never be able to polish that turd and make it shiny."
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Maybe if they wait long enough and it becomes a coprolite.
Mike M,
Yes, and the police have mostly applied the minimum necessary force to suppress Antifa … "protests". I guess it depends on which media you listen to.
For those of you who believe that systematic election fraud does not happen, here is a brief history of Philadelphia's ballot box stuffer in chief: https://thefederalist.com/2020/11/06/american-hustle-party-insiders-tell-the-true-story-of-how-philadelphia-elections-work/
I've been thinking about anonymous ballots.
I'm starting to think the anonymity is more trouble than good. Here's why.
If the federal government wants to know my party affiliation (assuming they don't already know by innocent means), they can certainly work it out. They can read my email and eavesdrop on my devices, I don't believe its controversial to say that anymore (correct me if I'm wrong). Once they know my party affiliation, they know how I'm probably going to vote anyways. If persons in the government are going to retaliate, well. They can do it anyway already.
I think election results ought to be reviewable and auditable. It'd increase people's confidence maybe that elections are fair.
What do y'all think / tell me why this is wrong.
Thanks!
Tom,
I also think Trump will not concede or call Biden either. Manners are not his forte.
As long as he complies with the law and vacates the White House, I don't care.
Mike M,
I do not doubt that ballot fraud (at some level) takes place in Philadelphia adn some other big cities…. there is overwhelming evidence this has happened in the past in Philadelphia. There might even be ballot fraud happening in Philadelphia right now. But the truth is: if Biden holds Arizona and Nevada, it is already over, independent of what happens in Georgia and Pennsylvania. Even more to the point: a Republican administration in Georgia is overseeing the counting, and there is no reason to believe they are involved in ballot fraud, yet it looks like Biden will emerge with a tiny (3,000) advantage by later tonight. Unless military ballots reverse that (which seems very unlikely), Pennsylvania really doesn't matter at all, nor does Michigan.
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Trump has every right to pursue lawsuits if he thinks there has been fraud. But if he loses those lawsuits, as I expect he will in in the states where it matters, he is going to have to come to grips with reality: he lost an extremely close race against overwhelming MSM bias and phony polls that may have influenced voter turnout.
mark bofill,
When your ballot is no longer secret, the leftist brown-shirts can pound on your door at night after you voted for the wrong candidate. Then you will wish you had the protection of a secret ballot.
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IMO, secret ballots are *always* crucially important for the legitimacy of any elective government. With a secret ballot you can always claim the brown-shirts are mistaken: "Yes, I belong to that party, but I just realized how wrong they are, so I voted for the other guy." You can even joint the party the brown-shirts like, but then vote (secretly) for a different candidate.
Steve,
You don't think they'd already be pounding on our doors, if not for the prevalence of guns in the burbs? I sort of do. I think Antifa would be glad to, if they believed they wouldn't get shot too often for it to be worth it.
I don't propose public ballots. I propose that the government make reasonable efforts to keep that info secret. I expect the safeguards to be inadequate, but again; so what. Somebody at least in local government already has my party affiliation info. If I'm not afraid of that getting out, why am I afraid of who I voted for getting out?
[Edit: I probably didn't explain what I was thinking properly in the first place. I put enough info on my ballot such that the government can identify me. That way there's an audit trail. That's what I meant by getting rid of 'anonymity'.]
Anonymous (to the public) ballots and the ability for me to confirm my votes are not necessarily mutually exclusive. There are endless systems that protect identity, and endless hacks and breaches. No doubt it would be hard to get right, but not impossible. As it sits now though all these votes are sent into a black hole with hopefully trustworthy people but no traceability. I'd rather have traceability.
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Assuming we had this though there would no doubt be lots of fallacious claims that I voted for X but it got changed to Y. The threat of outing people for their votes and public retribution is real as has happened to donors in the past. Perhaps one could choose to anonymize their vote or not. Perhaps you could get a one time code to check on-line at the poll.
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But overall I still think it's not a real problem, just as I think voter suppression is not a real problem, as in materially affecting outcomes in national races.
Thanks Tom,
But which is not a real problem; actual decisive voter fraud or the uncertainty people might have about it?
I'm with you on actual decisive voter fraud not being a thing. I know small scale fraud happens, but I doubt fraud on a scale that could flip elections.
But it might be worthwhile to be able to verify after the fact, if uncertainty is widespread and there's unrest about it.
*shrug*
Or not. People are going to settle down and accept President Biden fairly soon, those who are still crying fraud. There's no decent alternative, AFAICT. [So] maybe it *is* unnecessary.
A de-clowned Trump would have won this race. He picks up some people with his antics, but loses a lot more in my view. This will eventually be tested, the Republicans will no doubt blame this for his loss. There were a few own goals along the way with covid, but governing is hard and external events will produce scar tissue. Overall not much reason to rethink fundamental policy positions. Probably running against Harris next time around.
SteveF (Comment #193292)
November 5th, 2020 at 6:07 pm
Complaining endlessly about a lack of "fairness" is nothing but complaining about the Constitution. It is also very tedious. Work to change it if you don't like it.
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I don't "complain endlessly" about the lack of fairness in the electoral college.You must be thinking about someone else. Sure, I believe the electoral college is unfair, but since it would be hard to change, complaining endlessly about it would be a waste of my time.
OK_Max,
Well, you do complain about the electoral college often. To prove you don't do it endlessly you are going to have to stop.
"A glitch in software used to tabulate ballots in Antrim County, Michigan caused at least 6,000 Republican votes to be counted as Democrat, according to Michigan GOP Chairwoman Laura Cox.
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The miscalculation, Cox said in a press conference, was first reported by a county clerk. A short investigation revealed that 47 counties in Michigan may have also suffered from a similar glitch with the same software, which could have caused some red counties to rake in a higher number of Democrat votes than usual."
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Wow. That's really bad.
SteveF,
“ You must be thinking about someone else.â€
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No, I was thinking about you. Which is not to say there are not others who do the same, there are plenty. My response is always the same: change the Constitution if you think it is unfair. I don’t know exactly how many comments you have made about the “unfairness†of the electoral college, but it is more than a few. Prove you are not endlessly complaining about it by not complaining about it. That works every time.
I do not see this election as a major defeat for leftist progressivism. The Democrats have moved far left over the past several years and the result today is that they will win the Presidential, House and maybe the Senate elections. In the Senate they only need 50 Senate seats with Harris breaking ties or worst case one or two Republicans breaking ranks..
The leftists Democrats will capture over three percent more of the popular vote nation-wide than the Republicans. There also were formerly red states going blue (barely) and formerly (before 2016) blue states going blue again (barely) which from an Electoral College standpoint is promising for the leftist Democrat party. These elections are not horse shoes.
I think the MSM and social media are more comfortably in the lap of the Democrat party left. Academia moved further left and now is more vocal in their support of radical left ideas.
The Republican party has had their brand burnished with the politically required and obligatory support of Trump. That blemish will have some lasting political effect like it did with Nixon. There will be some future trade-offs for the Republican party between those who did not embrace the more conservative Republican views and appeared to like Trump for being Trump and the never-Trumpers. I suspect the that former significantly outnumber the latter with neither group fitting the conservative Republican mold.
I would be surprised if Trump goes quietly into the night post election and we might find out just how crazy he actually is. I doubt that he is sufficiently aware that the Republican party currently owes him exactly nothing.
BTW, Welcome to covid he** Illinois. Been there, done that, signed FL. The entire Midwest is on fire. ND is * confirming * cases at a rate of 1% of their population per week, even with the 4th smallest population density.
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This is more than masks and motorcycle festivals. There is still a latitude correlation going on here, maybe just climate driving people indoors. Who knows.
SteveF (Comment #193368)
I know exactly how many comments you have made about the “unfairness†of the electoral college, but it is more than a few.
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SteveF, I’m not sure you are right. I don’t recall commenting on the unfairness of the electoral college “more than a few times.†If, however, you can quote me complaining about it more than a few times, I will accept that as proof.
OK_Max
You complained about the electoral college either directly or indirectly in:
OK_Max (Comment #193289)
OK_Max (Comment #193039)
OK_Max (Comment #193032)
OK_Max (Comment #193019) (You allude to slavery in this one.)
OK_Max (Comment #193006)
OK_Max (Comment #192997)
The state polling election errors look to be even worse in 2020 than in 2016, ha ha. What a disaster for these people. Apparently the polling industry went into increasingly sophisticated modeling to predict outcomes over the past 10 years and … unbelievably … incredibly … surprisingly … seem to have injected their own biases into the outcomes. I know that this sounds completely implausible when it's done with math and a computer and crap tons of big data.
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The consensus from polling the polling people who design and create the polls is that they weighted the 2016 poll models wrong for education level and they promised it was fixed. This time it's the Hispanics (oops, Cuban Americans) fault, at least in FL.
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Oh yeah, remember Brexit polling? Oops.
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Hurricane modeling for insurance in 2005 dropped historical records and instead used ummmm … big data and climate models. Oops.
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I have created my own model, Tom's model of trusting modeling. As the complexity of a model increases, so does the likelihood of a preferred progressive agenda outcome. I'm not sure even talking to pollsters at all is wise for Republicans, the errors point in the wrong direction a little too often.
Tom Scharf, I built a model to predict the elections state by state in 2016, that did pretty well. It just looked at polls and made some assumptions about how the undecided and third party would split.
I had no idea how to read the polls this time around.
Getting rid of Trump and 'Trumpism' means Republicans do not win.
I don't see any chance of Republicans winning in Virginia with Trump not on the ballot, or in Colorado. Unless you think a standard Republican can win in Nevada, the only path I see to victory for Republicans is to compromise on free trade and go after Pennsylvania and the midwest. Perhaps without Trump, the suburban women will deliver the needed votes.
lucia (Comment #193376)
November 6th, 2020 at 9:51 pm
OK_Max
You complained about the electoral college either directly or indirectly in:
OK_Max (Comment #193289)
OK_Max (Comment #193039)
OK_Max (Comment #193032)
OK_Max (Comment #193019) (You allude to slavery in this one.)
OK_Max (Comment #193006)
OK_Max (Comment #192997)
_______
If counting my replies to members who replied to me on the subject, yes, there have been at least that many. I don’t recall, however, bringing up the subject of the electoral college more than a few times. I could be wrong.
OK_Max,
You stand accused of "complaining about". You do not stand accused of "bringing it up".
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Of course complaining about the electoral college during back and forth discussing counts as complaining about the electoral college. So yes: within the past few days you complained about it the number of times indicated.
MikeN,
I think Republicans can win without Trump.
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I didn't know what "Trumpism" means when Tom Fuller used it and I still don't know what it means when you use it. I've read the entry at Wikipedia and it lists some of the policies that have been pretty specific to Trump (sometimes saying admirable things about dictators) and other things that I don't think have much to do with Trump or support for Trump. (For example: aggressive partisanship seems to be pretty widespread among Dems too. Are they Trumpists? )
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Anyway, I think the GOP can win without some of those features and can't (and shouldn't) win without them. Many aren't going away because they are shared by both the left and right. It might be nice if the right dropped them, but we'd still have the lefts hyperpartisanship which was already around during the Obama era. So that feature which for some reason is called "Trumpism" by Trump critics is not going to go away if only the right drops it. The left embraced it long ago!
Tom Scharf,
“I'm not sure even talking to pollsters at all is wise for Republicans, the errors point in the wrong direction a little too often.â€
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Perhaps ~100% mistaken in the ‘progressive’ direction is a little too often. But yes, I think it makes little sense for anyone to talk to pollsters, since their main goal seems to be establishing narratives which apply social pressure on people who don’t agree with ‘progressive’ goals.
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An example is the endless polling suggesting how most people support ‘action on climate change’. That claim is both constant and constantly false. Yes, most people are aware of all the scare stories, and aware enough to say future warming is a concern, but no, they most certainly don’t support measures that will inevitably cost each person in the States thousands of dollars a year, and keep a billion very poor people in that sad condition indefinitely. That kind of polling is garbage and dishonest, but frighteningly ubiquitous.
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The narrative advanced by the always left-leaning political pollsters is “You are obviously in the minority, because the polls show how most of your neighbors disagree with you…. what is wrong with you?â€. Some might argue that the polling industry is simply incompetent, rather than willfully dishonest. I can’t say otherwise with any certainty; they may in fact just be grotesquely incompetent. But if that is the actual explanation for always reporting the ‘progressive’ position is more widely held than it really is, then it changes nothing: the polling industry is a damaging social influence, and one best completely ignored.
MikeN,
I think a less narcissistic Trump, who doesn’t tweet much, and is a little more careful about his public statements would easily have won this election. Trump offered a strange combination of prudent rejection of very bad ‘progressive’ policies, prudent selection of judges who actually mean it when the swear to defend and uphold the Constitution, and appallingly offensive personal behavior. His behavior is in fact embarrassing to a lot of people who otherwise support his policies.
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Can someone like Josh Hawley duplicate Trump’s prudent policies without the bombast and bad behavior? I have to believe he can.
SteveF,
I agree with you. I do think the candidates should know they can push back *some*, but it shouldn't be full on Trump whiplash inducing insanity. Honestly, I couldn't even keep track of all that…..
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I like some of the policy outcomes, but I don't mind him being booted out. (I do want >50 GOP senator though.)
MikeN (Comment #193386)
November 7th, 2020 at 12:30 am
I surmise what you are implying is that there is a goodly portion of Trump supporters who are not that much in line with the Republican Party and as an alternate choice could and would vote for a far left Democrat party. That would not surprise me that that is the case for a significant portion of them.
I personally do not have a very high opinion of voters' judgments and political knowledge or believe that there is a lot of consistency in how they vote and why they vote the way they do. That is a major reason I favor a very limited government. People are in an informed position for making decisions about their own circumstances but not the nation's or mine.
In a previous post I mistakenly used the term burnished when I meant tarnished when referring to the affect of Trump on the Republican brand.
What Republican brand? IMO, the media and democrats have done an exemplary job of defining the republican brand and it's not flattering in the slightest. People won't admit to being republican because of the brand, so personally, I think Trump has done little to damage it, but he has given them more confidence to stand up for themselves.
DaveJR (Comment #193407): "What Republican brand? IMO, the media and democrats have done an exemplary job of defining the republican brand and it's not flattering in the slightest. People won't admit to being republican because of the brand, so personally, I think Trump has done little to damage it, but he has given them more confidence to stand up for themselves."
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Indeed. More important is that Trump has given many citizens confidence that there is someone who will stand up for *them*. As a result, they actually believe that voting for Trump will make a difference, so they actually vote. A nice polite Republican will still be demonized by the media and Democrats but will likely fail to convince Trump voters that he will stand up for them. So many Trump voters will go back to not voting.
Mike M,
"..but will likely fail to convince Trump voters that he will stand up for them."
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Have you listened to Josh Hawley speak?
SteveF (Comment #193410): "Have you listened to Josh Hawley speak?"
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Yes. He seems good. Maybe he can appeal to the Trump voters who previously voted Dem or did not vote at all. Maybe he can't. I have no evidence either way.
I think that those are basically single issue voters: Are you on our side?
The Trump "standing up for yourself" in my eyes stems from the narcissistic tendencies he possess where in fact he is incessantly and in exaggerated form merely standing up for himself. He uses the emotionally charged and overly simplified approach of the left – only more so. Maybe that is his appeal across party lines, but to me it is abhorrent and what in particular I hate about politicians in general.
There certainly are centrist Republican politicians that have difficulties making arguments for individual freedoms, free trade, the free market and limited government and are just a step or two behind the move to the political left. Their lack of a sound political foundation should not be confused with politeness.
It is in the end ideas that change the political course of a nation with elections being at some point in time the result of those ideas being put into action after a sometimes lengthy process of filtering down to the electorate. The filtering down process has as a middle person the intelligentsia which in current times is primarily of a leftist bent and is represented by the MSM most readily observed by the New York Times and the Washington Post and the attention they attract on a daily basis.
I do have some hope for the communications of ideas that have been made available by way of the internet and that can effectively bypass the MSM. I also think that it is important to keep a vigilant guard on the freedoms of expression currently protected (allowed some might want to imply) on the internet. Those interested in a consensus and conformity of political thought, given the power, would not long tolerate those freedoms.
Employment stats continue to be weird. Last month, payrolls rose by 638K while the total number employed rose by 2.28 million.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/06/jobs-report-october-2020.html
I suppose the difference is people who were neither laid off nor working.
Frankly I'm not sure what the R party stands for any more. They seem to agree that we should have larger government (in size, $$, and extent of regulation), perhaps just growing at a slower pace than D's prefer.
And I don't know what "Trumpism" is, either…he seems to hold a hodge-podge of positions. His health plan sounds like Obamacare* without the mandate (and presumably requiring public funding to balance the books), he seems to be protectionist, willing to increase the federal budget without much restraint. Rs didn't even have a platform this election cycle, emphasizing a lack of focus.
That said, Trump did accomplish some good things. I'm cautiously optimistic about Israel-Arab relations, which was perhaps galvanized by the symbolic move of the US embassy to Jerusalem. And court appointments. The rest, not so much.
*And without the "Obama" label! Possibly more important
"Some might argue that the polling industry is simply incompetent, rather than willfully dishonest. I can’t say otherwise with any certainty; they may in fact just be grotesquely incompetent."
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Yes, one can bring up the same canard of systemic racism to explain systemic bias against conservatives in polling. It's mostly subconscious, but some are overt, etc. Yawn. They are so confident they don't do this that they don't even bring it up in discussions. Historically the polling errors have gone both directions, but this is before the newer sophisticated models which allow more easily for bias.
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Lookup "AI bias" on Google and you will find lots of scholarly work on concerns with unintentional bias in algorithms for things such as loan approval. Once again this is an example of turning over every rock looking for undesirable bias (racism, sexism) while never even looking for desirable bias (ideological). This has become pervasive because of social pressure in academia to only study culturally allowable subjects.
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Anyhow I wouldn't be surprised if the Republicans consider an official platform of telling voters to not talk to pollsters specifically and any social researchers generally. I'm for it at this point. At the minimum it would send a message that academia needs to start cleaning up their act.
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This is not to say that there aren't lots of honest researchers who care about the right answer. There are however real pressures on them to get socially acceptable answers that poisons the entire enterprise. They would be dishonest to say there isn't. There are huge numbers of examples of this.
MikeM
**but will likely fail to convince Trump voters that he will stand up for them.**
I'm sure he will fail to convince *some* Trump voters he will stand up for them.
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But I think this most recent race included *other* Trump voters, including minorities, who voted because they supported Trumps economic policies that resulted in more minorities having decent jobs. White blue collar workers have been slammed, but they aren't the only people who want a good economy so they, their family and friends can have decent jobs.
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I think commonly Trumpism is used in a derogatory way to paint anyone who supports the Republican party to be a personal supporter of Trump's obvious character flaws. It has little meaning to me and I generally stop reading if an article starts down this path.
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One could argue that it is support for some of Trump's positions that have not been historically conservatives positions, for example trade protectionism and more overtly against unskilled immigration. I just don't find it is ever used in a way that is meant to foster more understanding, instead it is divisive.
It's over, WSJ officially calls the election for Biden.
Tom,
Well… yeah… Some legal wrangling will continue. Some voter irregularities will be found. (There is no election with zero.) The election was close enough that Dem "wins" on mail in ballots may have made the difference and some of those choices were perhaps unwise. But that happened and choices were made.
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He lost. I'll be surprised if he writes a courteous concession speech. Or.. maybe he'll surprise us. (Every now and then he had a decent speech and I was surprised every time!)
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But seriously, overall, I think it's good he lost– provided the GOP keeps at least 50 seats.
Enjoy your victory left leaning citizens! Sucks to lose this one but the right had a few good years lately. Can't win them all, but I'll take a divided government without much crying.
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… and now for the ceremonial call for unity which translates to "if everyone becomes a liberal we can be happily unified!". Followed a few weeks later by great plans for sweeping progressive legislation from Congress critters which has no chance of passing. Soul searching by the losers like the apocalypse just happened, gleeful gloating by the winners like a permanent tide just changed.
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A year later everyone recognizes that everything seems just about the same, except hopefully CNN ratings drop by 50%, ha ha.
Lucia,
"Every now and then he had a decent speech and I was surprised every time!"
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Yes, but that was only when he read a speech on the teleprompter written by someone a lot more eloquent than him. And even with a good speech in front of him, ALWAYS ad-libed with nonsensical repeated adjectives that only damaged what he was reading. I found it pretty weird.
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I don't think Trump has a concession speech in him…. good or bad.
Tom Scharf,
"Followed a few weeks later by great plans for sweeping progressive legislation from Congress critters which has no chance of passing."
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The only certainty of not passing is if Republicans hold 51 seats. 50 seats means the potential for almost unlimited bad laws.
I don't think you'll get crazy past a 50/50 Senate. Too many Senators from unsafe states. You will get a liberal SC justice past that though. I really don't even think a 51/49 for the left will allow much crazy. They couldn't pass cap and trade last time. But no doubt at least 51 is a much better deal. I think GA runoff will work in the rights favor, but I have no special insight here. The libertarian will be gone and motivations will be higher on the right.
Lucia, I used 'Trumpism' in quotes, because it tends to have no meaning. However, I did kind of mean what Tom and Kenneth say above. That the only path for Republican victory is through Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, while keeping hold of suburbs in Georgia, NC, Arizona.
I don't know that this is possible with a traditional Republican conservative politician like Rubio or Cruz.
Trump has several positions where he broke with Republicans:
isolationism, tariffs, spending and welfare, crime, and focused more on immigration than many others would do.
It's not clear what all are needed, but I suspect a free trader would not be able to win in the needed states. Wisconsin has been won by many though.
I do have some hopes of countering the current leftist trend and I believe it requires moving away from the two party system. I judge that many if not a majority of voters vote against a party rather than for one.
Both parties effectively use negative campaigIng because both parties have negatives. As a libertarian I see most of these negatives as negatives for libertarians. Voters currently avoid voting for a third party because they consider that a vote for the party they oppose.
I am not sure of how third party voting can become more popular, but at some point the voting public might realize that the two parties are gaming the system for their benefit.
The results of Trump's tariffs and the unintended consequences of them, if properly articulated, would make a good case against them.
Obama won two elections without imposing those tariffs.
Politics are a lot about brand, and not actions or results.
MikeN,
I also suspect an extremely strong free-trader would have difficulty winning. The difficulty is that strong free-trade can only exist if other countries are also strong on free trade. OR if only very small economies protect themselves.
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But China has become large and they absolutely are not free trade. And they lie, evade and so on. So while I recognize that free trade is better, I (and many) recognize that the US can't afford free trade if it means our markets are open while others are blocked. In negotiation, the stances that we will keep our markets open come hell or high water doesn't work.
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So yeah.. .some one who says the US markets are freely open for all whether or not others open their markets probably can't win because he shouldn't. And I say that as someone who thinks free trade IS ideal.
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I do think in trade or immigration discussions our negotiators should have "We put American Interest First". Likewise, the French should put French interest first, the Chinese Chinese interests and so on. That doesn't mean "screw everyone". But no country should be coming to the negotiating table with the attitude of "Tell me what you want, my job is to give it to you even if it makes my people bleed!" No country should come with the attitude of "We all agree that X is ideal. Sure, we can achieve it by placing the full or most of the burden on my people while yours give up nothing or almost nothing." If *they also* think something is ideal, they should assume the burden too.
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I think this should apply to the idea of free trade, immigration and so on. The alterative doesn't work. The ideals are things to aim for. But often they can't be achieved single handedly and in which case, we should just recognize that.
Lucia,
I agree about the need for balanced immigration/residency. There are countries who send lots of smart people to the States, where they compete, usually successfully, for jobs in the States. That is never reciprocated. It means US citizens are excluded most everywhere, even when they could offer skill sets in the local market that are rare. I think it would be perfectly reasonable to require any country from where we accept immigration to reciprocate by offering permanent residency to US nationals. There may not be that many Americans who want overseas residency, but I am betting lots of governments would *never* agree to a balanced accord (India, Japan, China, most of Latin America, etc.)… so the States would be justified in simply blocking people from those countries. Goose and gander you know.
Free trade should be between groups of individuals and individuals and not nations. Under the current nation to nation trade relations there will never be equality of opportunity on both sides and more often than not trade restrictions will be imposed to protect an inefficient industry with the result of no motivation to improve. Where a government subsidizes an industry for exports it is actually subsidizing the importing nation consumers.
Trump never explained nor was he capable of explaining his tariffs. It was simply an emotional plea of us against them. It was the same with immigration. If these approaches win in politics were are doomed to the results of no brainer populism. Trade and people exchange between nations is motivation to avoid hot and cold wars,
Kenneth
**Free trade should be between groups of individuals and individuals and not nations.**
I don't know what this means. Laws regulating trade are set at the nation level, not at the individual level.
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As a consumer, I sometimes buy stuff from vendors China through ebay. I don't manufacture. Whether I am free to sell to the Chinese vendor I buy from is pretty irrelevant to anything.
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**Trump never explained nor was he capable of explaining his tariffs.** Well… yeah… Trump.
Regarding China, US policy is not likely to change.
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See Peter Zeihan.
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He assesses that the order after the Berlin Wall fell was based on US protecting the world against the communist block. That's no longer necessary though it took three decades ( and one Trump ) to change.
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The US doesn't need the rest of the world.
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Further, it's of questionable morality to trade with the progenitors of the concentration camp running, Tibet crushing, social credit police state of China anyway.
"The virus didn't kill Trump's re-election. He did, by reminding the majority of Americans yet again through his bungling of the worst pandemic in a century, just how costly an exhausting a reality show president can be."
Opinion by David Axelrod, CNN Senior Political Commentator November 7, 2020
I'm not sure I agree with Axelrod. I don't know whether Trump would have won if not for Covid-19 or his reaction to it. I do know I am more concerned about this virus than who won the election.
The number of Americans infected with Covid-19 is rising rapidly as we go into winter. Deaths from the disease also are beginning to rise and may total 300,000 in 2020.
Hopefully, Trump will take this pandemic more seriously in the time he has left in office.
Why does this quote: "This is our moment to root out systemic racism" worry me so?
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Systemic racism raises the question: what system?
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It's not the law – the constitution and the civil rights acts guarantee equality before the law. So no need?
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The mandated "white fragility" training says the racism is subconscious – so there have to be thought police to scan brains and take the non-compliant to room 101.
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I wish I was catastrophizing and perhaps someone can convince me of that, but having read 'Cynical Theories' and seeing the echos in the new administration which is beholden to the POMOs, this looks bad.
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Like climate change imagined at some far future date, "systemic racism" is another imaginary problem used to raise government power ( and police state? ).
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That's par for the course for POMO – one doesn't need facts or observations.
Kenneth,
Yes, unrestricted trade is an ideal, but only that, an ideal. It is true that subsidized industries which export are in fact subsidizing foreign consumers, but trade where that subsidized export destroys industries in the receiving countries, while blocking competition from the receiving countries, is a formula for the kind of widespread de-industrialization we have seen over the past 40+ years in the USA.
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I understand the arguments for free trade, but I do wonder if you understand the arguments for the need for equal access to markets in other countries. Like it or not, most of the world has many restrictions/rules/duties/prohibitions/etc that disadvantage US exports, and so indirectly disadvantage US workers, while at the same time expecting (and, indeed, taking advantage of) unrestricted exports to the USA to grow their industrial base. On the whole, the USA is ‘richer’ when we receive inexpensive imports, of course, but that increased wealth is not at all uniformly received, and many people in the USA have suffered a lot for a very long time as a result. This is a big part of the coastal-elites/flyover-hayseeds conflict which Trump, though awkwardly at best, at least recognized as a problem.
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If Republicans are willing to take up and address this issue, I am confident a “nicer Trump†can easily win. The alternative is a descent into the abyss of lost liberty and lost wealth as the left takes over all control of individual actions and all speech.
"Hopefully, Trump will take this pandemic more seriously in the time he has left in office."
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Empty words, taking something "seriously" has no actionable intelligence attached. The amount of money spent by this government so far seems pretty serious to me, but that debate isn't worth having. Lot's of favored ideologies in Europe who definitely take things seriously in your view are doing just as well as the Midwest now. One of the few upsides of regime change is that the big turd gets put on the other guy's plate, pardon my poetry.
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This virus is monumentally bigger than how one perceives seriousness, wringing one's hands and declaring one's empathy does exactly nothing. It is performative. Personally I hope a vaccine is out before inauguration, but Biden will be just as helpless as every other leader with an outbreak on that day.
The idealism of free trade also assumes the free movement of labor. Enforcing rigid environmental regulation on one's own industry and allowing cheaper product imports from countries that don't is unfair. Many other examples here, but trade is complicated. Tariffs are a crude tool, but one observation is that very few people objected to picking a fight with China regardless of whether it paid off. China is now forcing Hollywood to censor its own product for access to its markets. China forces American companies to open up their IP for access to their markets. For them it is definitely "China First". That's fine and expected, but we need to fight back with vigor.
Tom Scharf,
“ Many other examples here, but trade is complicated.â€
Perhaps the understatement of the decade. Protection of local industries and workers is the rule most everywhere…. though relatively little in the USA compared to most places.
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Since you live in Florida, you are probably familiar with the problems of agricultural (and other) runoff going into Lake Okeechobee…. phosphorus, nitrogen, sulfur, etc. When the lake level becomes dangerously high in the rainy season (threatening the dike which protects the surrounding low-lying region) the Army Corps of Engineers opens gates that send the polluted water through canals to estuaries on the East and West coasts, where algae blooms then suffocate the estuaries, killing off marine life and making the water unsafe for human contact. The entire estuary often smells like an open cesspool. At times the algae mats are so heavy it looks like you could walk on them. The problem is almost 100% caused by the “reclaimed†farmlands (they were swamps) used to grow sugar cane. Were those farms still swamps, the natural drainage would flow through the Everglades and out to sea north of the Florida Keys. But the farms both add most of the pollution and block the natural water flow, so the estuaries suffocate.
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Sugare care production in Florida is costly and relatively inefficient compared to truly tropical regions. But US cane growers (and sugar beet growers) are protected from competition by strict import quotas and very high duties. As a result the international price for sugar is about 1/3 to 1/2 (on average) compared to the price in the States. The farms south of Lake Okeechobee are owned by a handful of very wealthy families and corporations, all with enormous political influence. The sensible path would be to eliminate the quotas/duties, let the farms disappear, and return the land to its natural (swamp) state, saving the estuaries from damage and reducing the cost of food everywhere in the States. I railed for *decades* about this economic and ecological madness… but it never changed. Those involved, including the politicians receiving campaign contributions from those profiting from the current state of affairs, simply will not even acknowledge that there is a problem with uncompetitive farms protected by quotas and duties doing ecological damage. Their reaction is best described as surreal.
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A couple of years ago, I played a round of golf with a recently retire UN bureaucrat. During conversation I found out that his areas of specialization was negotiation between countries overy agricultural duties, and specifically sugar. When I explained my frustration about the destruction of the estuaries and sugar duties, he basically laughed at my naivety. He explained that almost no country of any size in the world has a truly open sugar market, and there is zero chance that is going to change…. there is too much political influence by farmers and sugar processors *everywhere* and anybody who thinks they can change that is wasting their time. He said that the USA could drop import restrictions and instantly destroy an entire industry, but it is only a fantasy; it is not going to happen. He said the US Congress is not going to bankrupt a bunch of farmers and add thousands to the unemployed to reduce sugar prices.
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Economically justified or not some things are not going to change. I am all for trying to lower tariffs, duties, and a multitude of other impediments to efficient trade, but only with counter-parties that are open to compromise. Few are.
What's a POMO?
POMO: Permanent open market operations at the Fed? I can’t find anything else.
Maybe “post modern�
Yes – post modernists.
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I was doubtful that obscure philosophers could have such a pernicious effect:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el6TVEMnS3E
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but after reading Pluckrose:
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https://areomagazine.com/2017/03/27/how-french-intellectuals-ruined-the-west-postmodernism-and-its-impact-explained/
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and Pluckrose and Lindsay (Cynical Theories), I've seen the paper trail.
I'm with you on that one, Eddie. Language has been drastically redefined in the last few years and most have yet to catch up with the new ways these common phrases are being used by certain sections of society.
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"Systemic racism" is now being used to mean a system created by racists ie white people. The cure is a new system which implements the "correct" kind of discrimination and puts the "correct" people in power. As Kendi puts it, "The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination." This is one of the reasons why California recently put forward a vote to remove civil rights legislation (thankfully defeated), but is ongoing on much smaller scales in places like Portland.
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The ideas have gained support through ignorance and good intention, and are being actively pushed on school kids as a solution, but I can't imagine the results being anything but the complete opposite. I've seen the powerpoint slides of an actual school lesson in which the children had to identify their oppression and victim points. Imagine the kind of mental trauma this could create, identifying children whose very existence is a threat to others because of their physical characteristics, and the children who are told they are suffering harm from the existence of other groups. Do they seriously imagine this will not create an environment of resentment, hatred, and guilt? Seriously upsetting stuff.
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Critical race/gender etc theory is a pernicious mind virus and follows in the well worn footsteps of critical class theory, commonly known as communism. One would have hoped such anti-intellectual nonsense would have been laughed out of academia, as it completely turns around strongly held concepts like judging people by the content of their character instead of the color of their skin, but, like similar lefty thought, it hides the inevitable outcomes of guilt, division, hate, and power behind the kind of facade of fine sounding, well intentioned, compassion and understanding that many liberals seem unable to disagree with. Others, like Pluckrose, recognize the danger, but still stand with the parties who exploit this poison for political power, imagining they can change the system from within. How they expect a winning formula to change when it continues to offer up the results they're looking for, I don't know.
Critical race theory is garbage on an industrial scale, nothing more.
A casual perusal of the media today has confirmed that democracy is now "working" again, after an unspecified period of not working, and using an unspecified definition of democracy that is different than holding elections by voters and counting votes. I'm sure there is a correlation here that I am somehow missing.
Economic issues and consequences like those related to international trade have to be considered from a big picture where the view is very different than that from a narrower perspective.
As long as we can agree that international trade can be beneficial to both parties and see the problems of confining trade to national borders, we have to realize that trade restrictions have consequences in the form of counter restrictions from the restricted nation. US agriculture paid a price for Trump's restriction on China trade while the protected industries did benefit as expected.
The link below gives a scorecard summary of the Trump tariffs and who gained and who lost and the net effect. It turns out that the tariff actions were basically a redistribution of various groups gains and loses with a net loss and no concessions from China.
So who are you going to believe your lying eyes or your lying President?
https://www.brookings.edu/policy2020/votervital/did-trumps-tariffs-benefit-american-workers-and-national-security/
Kenneth,
From your link: "In general, then, Trump’s tariffs have helped some workers and hurt others. Nothing is particularly surprising about this; trade policy almost always has important distributive effects, and any change in trade policy is a choice to benefit some groups at the expense of others."
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Of course, even though I think it is clear the article is biased against all things Trump. But to the point of the article: I certainty never said otherwise; there is a *clear* net overall positive when very inexpensive manufactured goods enter the country, replacing more expensive goods.
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But I fear you are missing the point. The benefits of cheap goods entering the States (without reciprocal opening of foreign markets), while a net benefit overall, dramatically hurts lots of workers, even as it helps others. It is a case of dilute benefits and concentrated costs, even while on net it is somewhat positive. This is always a socially destructive influence.
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A parallel is minimum wage laws: Yes, it is absolutely certain that higher minimum wage laws cost jobs in the long term. But in the short term, they are a net benefit to some… and especially if unlawful immigration and unlawful employment of those unlawful immigrants is restricted.
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I suggest you consider getting past the black and white of Milton Friedman and look at the bigger picture. We could just pay a bunch of unemployed people to compensate for their loss of employment from un-reciprocated "open trade", or we could restrict un-reciprocated trade. Economically, there is not a lot of difference. Socially, there is.
I'm for free trade, but there has to be a recognition that while allowing China to fill up Walmart with cheap goods benefits all shoppers at WalMart, those making this trade decision here are not paying any penalty and taking all the benefit. This has been ongoing.
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If everyone crossing the border illegally had a journalism degree instead of cleaning their house for low cost then I bet the media would have an entirely different take on the subject.
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The perception is that the elites in charge of trade policy are being self serving and simply asking them to justify their policies typically ends up with "shut up rube, you wouldn't understand" arrogance. Perhaps this is the optimal policy and it just so happens to serve their interests in a disproportionate way, but I think they need to explain this clearly to those who vote.
SteveF (Comment #193464): "The benefits of cheap goods entering the States (without reciprocal opening of foreign markets), while a net benefit overall, dramatically hurts lots of workers, even as it helps others."
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That is not so. That sounds like the theory of absolute advantage, which went out 200 years ago when Ricardo showed that what matters is comparative advantage. The benefit comes from trade enabling the shifting of domestic resources to a more productive use. Putting people out of work makes them less productive and so hurts the economy overall, even if some people benefit.
I always forget move comments screws up html!!!1
Mike M,
“ The benefit comes from trade enabling the shifting of domestic resources to a more productive use. â€
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Hummm…. not sure I understand your point. Yes, shifting people to more productive use…. they just need to focus on learning C++….. might be hugely advantageous. On the other hand, it may be difficult for a 55 YO maintenance mechanic near Pittsburgh to pick up C++ and get a job writing code, especially when trained coders from India can undercut US software development costs.
Lucia,
So is HTML back?
Yeah…. I always forget “move comments” screws them up. I closed comments on the other thread, turned “move comments” on , moved comments and forgot to turn it off.
I don’t know exactly why move comments has that specific feature… but it does.
Capitalism is based on letting inefficient enterprises fail which otherwise results in a system where these enterprises are subsidized through direct subsidies or indirectly with tariff protection with the result of a stagnate economy that is not different than that in a socialist economy. In a growing and dynamic economy that only capitalism can provide, jobs are available for those lost in failing enterprises. Even in a less than capitalist economy that we currently have in the US, a growing economy pre-Covid was creating jobs for workers at all skill levels.
Kenneth,
But you are omitting something. Being efficient isn’t the only thing that matters if subsidize are going on by someone. When efficient unsubsidized (say, American) enterprises have to compete with subsidized (by, say, Chinese or other) enterprizes the efficient unsubsidized enterprises fail. In this case, the unsubsidized countrie’s economy can also become stagnant and unproductive.
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Yes. Our pre-covid economy was creating jobs. But that wasn’t the result of going all out on free-trade.
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I do think free trade is the ideal to reach for. But it’s a bit like a tango or a marriage. It takes two to tango or have a good marriage. It takes both sides wanting free and granting free trade to have free trade.
If an equality of opportunity awaited the initiation of trade there would be very little beneficial trade between enterprises in different nations or within nations. Taken to the regional level within a nation’s boundaries enterprise inequalities exist between differences in regional pay scales, cost of living differences, workers compensation costs and regulations. Once trade restrictions are initiated the nations involved are on a slippery slope to an all out trade war where the detrimental effects of trade restriction become readily apparent.
Much of the institution of trade restrictions in the past in the US was not with some fairness issue in mind but rather an example of crony capitalism which is actually anti capitalism. Many times it was motivated by politicians looking at the workers involved and the populace where the enterprises are located and the hope of gaining their favor at the polls.
Once again with free trade the big picture needs to be kept in view. Free trade is a large factor in keeping the overall economy dynamic and efficient. It is such an economy that can provide jobs at all skill levels and for those workers transitioning out of failed enterprises.
The link below provides some data and facts concerning the current state of international trade.
https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/case-free-trade
I’m going to move the vaccine comments to the new thread.
Is this business about Benford’s Law hooey, valid, or is it more nuanced than that?
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/trump-campaign-staff-claims-to-have-statistical-evidence-of-fraud-in-wisconsin
Don’t misunderstand me – decisive fraud or not, Trump’s lost. I genuinely hope that doesn’t get overturned, because overturning Biden’s win is not going to be accepted. Look at the hysteria of the last four years. It’d mean civil war.
But still, just as a curiosity. Is Benford’s Law really a thing?
[Edit: Asking people who’ve got a better grasp of statistics than me, which probably ought to be a plurality if not a majority!]
mark,
I’d have to run a toy model. But I suspect the Benford law stuff isn’t that strong. Benford’s law applies when numbers are the result of a random process AND the numbers of themselves range over orders of magnitude. (Two is nice… 10 better.)
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The number of voters in a precinct is not entirely deterministic. The locals intentially try to keep precints in a range of size. So, I know the number of voters in a Chicago precinct does NOT conform to Benfords law. (It’s precisely the sort of example discussed in the Wikipedia article as not being governed by Benford’s law.)
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The somewhat random nature of which voters arrive can move a distribution of votes cast toward benford’s distribution, but I’d have to run some numerical experiments with a range of voting % to see if it actually succeeds. (If it’s a 100%-0% landslide: I know benford’s law would NOT apply. I don’t know how far a 50-50 race would move things.)
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So at first glance: The Benfords issue looks unconvincing to me. Someone has to do more to show it should apply to this data.
Here is a little better data :
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So the greater than 90% effectiveness is calculated starting 7 days after the second dose.
Thank you Lucia.
I’m not seeing a new thread, and the recent comments side panel isn’t updating. Perhaps it’s my problem.
mark bofill,
In case it helps, here’s how I think of Benford’s law. If the log10 of a random variable x is uniformly distributed over [0,1], there is a ~30% chance that it (the log10) lies between 0 and log10(2)=0.301, which is to say that x is in the interval [1,2] — that is, the decimal representation of x begins with a “1”. Equally, x begins with a “1” if log10(x) is in [1,1.301], or in [2,2.301], etc.
If a r.v. x varies over several orders of magnitude, one can “cut-and-fold” the distribution of log10(x), adding the distribution over the interval [0,1] to that of [1,2], [2,3], etc., For a log-normal r.v. varying over multiple decades, the resulting sum distribution ends up being sort-of equally distributed.
Hand-wavy, I know, but it helps me.
If the log-distribution of x is narrower than a decade though, then Benford’s law won’t apply.
It seems the main page is not updating, I see recent comments side panel working on this thread, but not main page.
If the Pfizer vaccine is approved and quickly manufactured and distributed in great quantity, will the media credit “Operation Warp Speed”* or Biden’s election?
*really, who comes up with these names? Dilithium has nothing to do with a vaccine. 😉
There was a similar “math proves Trump didn’t win Wisconsin” episode in 2016. I can’t find the links at the moment. It was some measurement of suspicious changes in voting patterns. It came to nothing.
Thanks Harold, actually that does help.
Update: Clearing browser cache for this site fixed the update problem, also seeing this on my phone (Chrome) so it’s not just my desktop.
The House looks like it will end up with 207 or 208 Republicans and 228 or 227 Democrats. This is a far cry from the 186/249 House most pollsters were projecting. The worst thing for Dems is that the losses were mostly among the class of moderate first term Democrats who gave Pelosi the majority. They won election in 2018 claiming to be moderates, then voted lock-step for endless investigations and impeachment for the OMB. Voters didn’t forget that. The Democrat caucus is now even more extreme-left than before the election.
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Had Democrats in North Carolina not gerrymandered two existing Republican house seats out of reach, it would have been even worse for the Dems: they would not a have flipped a single Republican seat. If the history of midterms is any guide, Pelosi is at real risk of losing her gavel in 2022; and with the crazies on the left pushing the caucus, that outcome becomes ever more likely.
I was wildly pessimistic with my projection of +5 for the Republicans. New House projections: Republicans will end up with 211, 212, or 213 seats, to the Democrats 224, 223, or 222 seats. Two very close (under 100 votes separation) races have the republican ahead with all votes counted, but… this is politics, so who knows.
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This places the majority within relatively easy reach for Republicans in 2022, because even conservative estimates based on population shifts put the Republicans up 6 seats, and that doesn’t include the typical losses for the party with the White House, which is commonly over 20 seats.
In 2000 Republicans had 227 seats. Democrats failed to take the House. Republicans were then down to 221 seats. Again Democrats failed to take the House, even though an incumbent usually loses seats for his party after two years.
This time Republicans would have redistricting in their favor slightly.
MikeN,
Yes, a reasonable guesstimate gives Republicans a likely +6 seats via redistricting and different states gaining and losing representatives. Since 1950, when a party controls the White House at a midterm election, the opposition picks up on average ~25 seats. There are exceptions, of course. I have always thought that min-term swing represents different levels of voter motivation: When the President is instituting policies you really don’t like, you are more motivated to vote in the midterm election. This was clearly why Nancy Pelosi got the gavel after Trump was in office for two years.
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Unless Biden behaves very differently in office than he has promised to (and he is already staffing up his administration with the unhinged left!), there will be a lot of very motivated conservatives in 2022. The bigger the over-reach, the bigger the backlash. Two years is a lifetime on politics, but I will be very surprised if the Republicans don’t take control of the House in the 2022 midterms.