2020 Elections

[Parasaurolophus]

Just saw the climate town hall. Watching Biden was incredibly painful. He's beyond doddering.

Details? I missed this event.

It's hard to find, but I can PM you a link to a YouTube video of his performance, if you want to watch him dodder for half an hour. He was just completely incoherent, entirely unable to articulate any kind of vision, let alone his own, contradicted himself or clearly said the opposite of what he meant a number of times, and seriously fumbled his interactions with the citizens asking questions (he ended up looking insensistive and belligerent, in addition to clueless and doddering). And, of course, a blood vessel in his eye burst. But that's neither here nor there.

He sounds exactly like someone with dementia (having taken care of such a person for years, I remember all too well what that sounds like). In fact, he sounds exactly like a person with dementia who doesn't want to give up their driver's license, even though they haven't driven in years, because so much of their identity is bound up in having it.

[spork]

Why not post the link here, for any interested parties?

[Parasaurolophus]

Why not post the link here, for any interested parties?

Sure.

[spork]

Awesome comb-over.

He repeats himself. Not in a good way.

[spork]

Today Greta Thunberg handed the Democrats the most potent weapon they can use against Trump and the GOP. But I'm going to assume that the Democrats are too stupid to recognize just how effective mockery can be.

[spork]

Interesting charts on Facebook ad spending by Democratic presidential candidates:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/14/us/politics/democrats-political-facebook-ads.html.

This is the kind of thing that spells trouble for Senator Susan Collins (R-ME): https://twitter.com/mcm50_karen/status/1183359113058799617?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1183379276357345280&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailykos.com%2Fstory%2F2019%2F10%2F13%2F1892132%2F-Portland-Maine-Resident-Takes-Out-Full-Page-Ad-in-Portland-Press-Herald-To-School-Susan-Collins.

[mamselle]

An (I hope unlikely) what-if:

In some places, the consistent undermining of world diplomatic and military positions would lead to a coup, or a palace revolt. What if our sweet, naive assumptions that there will BE an election in 2020 were to be wiped out by an uprising?

Because once a leader starts tearing up the fabric of law and basic justice, they lay themselves open to retributive powers willing to employ the same chaotic stratagems against them.

One really wants to be careful about taking things for granted...

M.

[mythbuster]

   Along the lines with Mamselle, My great fear is of civil war/revolution after the 2020 election. Trump declares the results fake if he loses and refuses to leave office. He commands the military to arrest the Dem candidate, Pelosi and others on treason charges for colluding with foreign entity or some such. He's already called for the execution of the whistle-blower, so do think he hasn't fantasized about this already. California then takes a stand and may have to secede as a result.
   It's all too close to being a real possibility.
   

[spork]

The chances are in reality so infinitesimal that they are effectively zero. Article 25 would be invoked prior to inauguration day or the Senate would vote in favor of impeachment. In neither case would someone like Trump have the support of the military for an attempted coup. There might be a few Pizza Gate-type crazies who would gear up for "war," but 99.9 percent of citizens would focus on working their day jobs so that they could continue to pay their bills.

[Anselm]

My reading of history is that people don't risk everything they have in life to revolt unless their backs are against the wall and have no other choice.  We are not at that point yet.

[mamselle]

I don't mean to scaremonger, but I don't think it's a completely impossible scenario. Not because "we", (however "we" construe "ourselves") are at any breaking point yet, but because the crazier component of the society so easily goes up in flames over imagined slights and other more serious things.

Last evening's private film fare, showing Trump killing journalists and others who oppose him, to me, brings us just that much closer.

I've thought in the past that he's unstable enough that I hope they keep knives and guns far from him on a daily basis.

The ideation of violence is one of the steps towards its realization.

Savoring such scenarios--like defeating ones enemies or doing away with them for good--may have started with kindergarten cartoons, but the impulses are clearly escalating.

If you've ever lived with a dangerous person, you get a sense of what is likely to happen, and when.

But not always in time.

M.

[spork]

This is what will determine election results in many areas of the country, in both presidential and congressional races: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/opinion/ohio-democratic-debate.html.

Any candidate who constantly hammers on the message of "I know you're suffering, here's a realistic plan for alleviating some of that suffering, and here's how it can be implemented" will have the advantage. Trump's tactic of blaming immigrants and poor people for income inequality is stale at this point. I don't have the data readily at hand, but I doubt many of the people who consider themselves "middle class" (or think they deserve to be in that group, however they define it) feel like their real incomes have increased significantly since Trump took office.

[mamselle]

I really, really wish that could be true. And for many, it probably is.

But now we have this:

   https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/14/united-airlines-oks-passenger-with-lynching-journalists-t-shirt.html

An old shirt, to be sure, but the airlines didn't make him change it in order to board.

I've written for journalism, as I'm sure others have. Don't like.

The line between free speech/free speech acts vs. threats of bodily harm is tenuous.

I still think the balance of the population is sane.

But the "lunatic fringe" (whose phrase was that?) is worrisome.

Someone just observed in one of the British papers that (not new news, of course), politicians of a certain stripe feed on chaos, because then their reason for existing and being heroes comes to the fore.

There probably are courses right now using "1984," "Animal Farm," and "The True Believer" for comparanda.

It's just that the people who need to consider those texts are not likely to be taking those courses...(or reading the texts).

M.

[polly_mer]

My reading of history is that people don't risk everything they have in life to revolt unless their backs are against the wall and have no other choice.  We are not at that point yet.

I agree with this.  I also agree that Trump doesn't have the support of the military to the extent that he could just refuse to leave if the election goes against him and I have full confidence we'll have a 2020 election that is good enough in terms of counting votes.  I expect it will continue to be a mud-slinging, entertainment circus, but we're still at the saying-mean-things-to-each-other stage, not armed uprising in the streets.

Again, other countries (civilized peer countries) have rioting and sustained protests.  For example, France has had protests every weekend for almost the past year.  This week saw a riot at the Barcelona airport.  Brexit continues to be a huge concern on how that will affect the British and much of the Western World

Meanwhile, we have an annual march with people wearing specialty hats and people are annoyed because the hats aren't inclusive enough for their tastes.

One continuing message in some quarters is how President Trump kept his campaign promises and there are people who have sufficient evidence to believe those assertions because he did keep some of those promises--the same stories that make certain people's blood boil regarding rolling back environmental rules, bringing home US troops, and addressing immigration.

The people who are armed with little enough to lose that they might be thinking violence are by and large those who would favor a Trump second term, not Hillary/Bernie/Elizabeth/Biden supporters.  Even if we have a Trump impeachment that results in removal from office, I don't expect those folks to go violent; I expect them to support the next candidate who isn't a career politician who addresses their concerns.

[Anselm]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=yMIF-zD7D1g

Biden is painful to watch in this clip from the recent TV debate.