Empire in Decline

jtr1962

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Handruin

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That debate was an enormous shit show. I remember yelling at my screen moments after Trump couldn't denounce white supremacists and went beyond that to encourage the proud boys. FFS I know he's shown signs of this before but wow...during a live debate. He knows he can't alienate his racist base.

Second largest contrast is the messages sent by both candidates on voting rights. Trump really wants to bestow fear with the voting system in any way he can and has been encouraging voter monitors which is illegal and make people believe democrats are tampering ballots. Biden handled that well by calmly encourages everyone to vote in whatever safe way they're able to. He also declared he would accept the defeat if it happens and support the winner. The difference is very telling.
 

jtr1962

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Yeah, it's just disgusting how he refuses to denounce white supremacists, whom incidentally I suspect are behind a lot of the riots and looting. His campaign slogan might as well be "Make America White Again". He's not even trying to hide his racism. Trump actually lost a court case for refusing to rent to minorities. Then there were the times he kicked his black employees out of one of his casinos so he and his buddies could gamble without black people around. Of course this stuff appeals to his base but anyone with these types of views has no business seeking national office.

The only way the GOP can continue to win elections is with gerrymandering and voter suppression. They're so far removed from the concerns of ordinary people that it isn't even funny. There was a time where I would mostly vote GOP, although I would vote Democrat if they were closer to what I wanted. Now I won't touch the GOP with a ten-foot pole. The Tea Party and religious right started co-opting the party in the Bush II years. Trump pretty much finished the job. When you have mainstream members of a major political party who support nonsense like QAnon you know we're in big trouble.
 

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Yeah, it's just disgusting how he refuses to denounce white supremacists, whom incidentally I suspect are behind a lot of the riots and looting. His campaign slogan might as well be "Make America White Again". He's not even trying to hide his racism. Trump actually lost a court case for refusing to rent to minorities. Then there were the times he kicked his black employees out of one of his casinos so he and his buddies could gamble without black people around. Of course this stuff appeals to his base but anyone with these types of views has no business seeking national office.

The only way the GOP can continue to win elections is with gerrymandering and voter suppression. They're so far removed from the concerns of ordinary people that it isn't even funny. There was a time where I would mostly vote GOP, although I would vote Democrat if they were closer to what I wanted. Now I won't touch the GOP with a ten-foot pole. The Tea Party and religious right started co-opting the party in the Bush II years. Trump pretty much finished the job. When you have mainstream members of a major political party who support nonsense like QAnon you know we're in big trouble.

It does seem like the GOP in the senate has really moved even more to the right over the last decade with what appears to be more and more party over country to establish a type of control. Maybe some of that has to do with older generations going away with less support from younger folks? The Democrats have been doing it too but it doesn't seem like it's the same party over country. I was originally Independent before trump took office. With the lack of a sincere 3rd party it was tough feeling like my vote would be wasted by going to opponent so I changed.

General curiosity...As a GOP voter, did you feel satisfied with the results from the elected (R) officials and presidents from the past? I know it's kind of a broad topic and if you asked on the flip side for (D) officials, I'd need some time to get details.
 

jtr1962

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It does seem like the GOP in the senate has really moved even more to the right over the last decade with what appears to be more and more party over country to establish a type of control. Maybe some of that has to do with older generations going away with less support from younger folks?
Actually from my perspective the problem is the older generations NOT going away. Think about it. Both candidates for President are from the Baby Boom generation, a generation which has stubbornly clinged to power long past their time. In fact, the same was true in 2016 with both Trump and Clinton from the same generation. This is a generation which has continually sold out the future to get more than their fair share. Even look at the ages of a lot of members of Congress. Same generation. The GOP has this intergenerational theft down to a science. Yes, the party may change once the older generation finally dies off but for now I see the ages of those in charge as the problem. Even the younger crowd supporting Trump are more useful idiots than anything else. If they were able to think clearly, they would see this guy doesn't have their interests at heart. His only goal is to see the shit doesn't hit the fan while his generation is still alive. Unfortunately, with covid-19 the shit did hit the fan. I think there will be enormous consequences for that, especially for the GOP.

The Democrats have been doing it too but it doesn't seem like it's the same party over country. I was originally Independent before trump took office. With the lack of a sincere 3rd party it was tough feeling like my vote would be wasted by going to opponent so I changed.
The NY Democrats are just as bad. Instead of rich people, they sold out to public labor unions. NYS and NYC have huge pension obligations. There is also a lot of debt because nobody wanted to pay as you go. That said, nationally the Democrats are better than the GOP at this stage of the game. A lot better actually. They also know if they don't deliver, assuming a Biden win, they'll likely lose in 2024.

General curiosity...As a GOP voter, did you feel satisfied with the results from the elected (R) officials and presidents from the past? I know it's kind of a broad topic and if you asked on the flip side for (D) officials, I'd need some time to get details.
More so with local elections than national ones. As an example, Guiliani delivered big time when he beat Dinkins in 1993. He brought down crime, and got the city functioning efficiently. Dinkins was just a horrible Mayor, the worst in my lifetime, at least until deBlasio. He had to go. Same thing to a lesser degree when Pataki defeated Cuomo in 1994. Cuomo was taxing the state to death. Pataki made NY more competitive again. At least Cuomo's son understands the need to keep taxes low enough to attract business.

Nationally is a mixed bag. Reagan delivered on tax cuts but I wished he would have cut taxes for the middle class more and not cut them at all for the rich. Unfortunately, Republicans ever since just doubled down on that, even though trickle-down economics never really worked as advertised. I'd say the last Republican President who was worth voting for was Bush I. After that it started increasingly becoming a party of religious zealots, the rich, corporation interests, and lately conspiracy theorists and white supremacists. About the only thing I agree with the GOP on at this point is their fight to end overzealous gun control. However, even there I'm not in full agreement. I think we should at least require training before someone can own a firearm. But in any case I'm willing to accept the gun control baggage of the Democrats in exchange for having a platform where I'm agreement with most of their goals. I've long believed in getting off fossil fuels. I had to be sold on national healthcare but I certainly see the need for it now. As for taxes, I no longer fear the Democrats raising taxes to the roof on the working classes. They know that mistake cost them big time in the 1980s. They can raise taxes sky high on the rich for all I care. It won't affect me or 99% of other voters. And it'll make up for the decades the rich paid a pittance in taxes, like Trump did. I don't know why the government should bankroll his business failures by letting him write off 100% of the losses.

Third party? Yeah, I wish there was a viable one because my views are neither fully Democratic nor fully Republican. Voting for either means accepting some baggage. Right now the GOP has a lot more baggage, starting with the guy in the Oval Office.
 

jtr1962

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Well, this is what happens when you have a sitting President who tells white supremacists to "stand back and stand by". It's clear to me at this point that Trump presents a clear and present danger to the United States. He should be removed from office on the basis of mental incompetence.

Unless there's some dramatic shift in the poll numbers, it looks like the election is Biden's to lose at this point. What I fear if Trump loses will be hordes of his armed supporters coming out, possibly thinking they can stage a coup d'etat. I never thought we would be talking about things like this in the United States. This is the kind of stuff which happens in Third World banana republics.
 

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Oh please. We were never a democracy. From the beginning it was meant to be for the privileged only. Only white male landowners had a vote for quite a significant chunk of time. Now they let us all vote -- ostensibly -- and they let us think it actually changes anything. I'm still going to, just on the offchance it does, but I can't believe a state in which the majority of people -- well, the majority I've talked to anyway -- outright hate their representatives keeps somehow re-electing the same scumbags over and over. Gerrymandering is a thing but it shouldn't be this easy to stay in power without helping your constituents.
 

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It used to be that not only conflicts of interest were to be avoided, but even the appearance of conflicts of interest. Times have changed . . .

He claimed he was going to "drain the swamp"; instead, he's filled it with vicious alligators.
New York Times Trump Tax Report, Part 2; since the NYT web site may have subscription limits/nagging, I'll include a few quotes:
The Swamp That Trump Built
A businessman-president transplanted favor-seeking in Washington to his family’s hotels and resorts — and earned millions as a gatekeeper to his own administration.​
Campaigning for president as a Washington outsider, Mr. Trump electrified rallies with his vows to “drain the swamp.”
But Mr. Trump did not merely fail to end Washington’s insider culture of lobbying and favor-seeking.
He reinvented it, turning his own hotels and resorts into the Beltway’s new back rooms, where public and private business mix and special interests reign.
As president-elect, he had pledged to step back from the Trump Organization and recuse himself from his private company’s operation. As president, he built a system of direct presidential influence-peddling unrivaled in modern American politics.
Federal tax-return data for Mr. Trump and his business empire, which was disclosed by The New York Times last month, showed that even as he leveraged his image as a successful businessman to win the presidency, large swaths of his real estate holdings were under financial stress, racking up losses over the preceding decades.
But once Mr. Trump was in the White House, his family business discovered a lucrative new revenue stream: people who wanted something from the president. An investigation by The Times found over 200 companies, special-interest groups and foreign governments that patronized Mr. Trump’s properties while reaping benefits from him and his administration. Nearly a quarter of those patrons have not been previously reported.
 
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I understand, in a democracy it would not be OK to invent different rules just to keep people from voting, or have them (moslly people with darker skin color) wait in line for 10+ hours to vote.

But it is interesting to follow the process.
 

jtr1962

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I'm actually amazed we haven't moved yet to 100% online voting, with mail-in ballots for those who don't have an Internet connection. Besides getting nearly instantaneous results on election day, it would end current attempts at voter suppression.
 

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I'm actually amazed we haven't moved yet to 100% online voting, with mail-in ballots for those who don't have an Internet connection. Besides getting nearly instantaneous results on election day, it would end current attempts at voter suppression.
Second sentence first: you assume that The Powers That Be have any interest in ending voter suppression. There are numerous counterexamples, such as various states "purging" their voter-registration lists to get rid of the "riff-raff", or closing voting locations in minority-population areas (e.g., https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/02/texas-polling-sites-closures-voting).

As for online voting, given that various countries have set up state-sponsored brigades of hackers (like is mentioned in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections), I would never trust any online voting system.
 

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So I just heard on CBS that the current president wants to stop the counting in PA, and continue in AZ? Is that true?
 

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I assume he will contest everything and anything.

Trump's campaign announced it would "immediately" request a recount in Wisconsin, and filed lawsuits in Michigan and Pennsylvania, dispatching allies to Philadelphia for a hastily arranged news conference where they took no questions.

With his wins in Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin, Biden needs only to claim Nevada's six electoral votes to reach the threshold.
 

Chewy509

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I'm surprised how close it has become... What's being reported here in Oz, is that Biden pretty much has won it (assuming he wins NV).
However lots of reports of claims that Trump's allies and even himself will launch legal action over various aspects of vote counting, etc.
 

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The state many are watching is Pennsylvania. There is a slow burn through counting all the mail-in votes and they've been weighted towards Biden. The current counts that are reported periodically are consistently in Biden's favor so far. PA may be the state that brings the win by tomorrow morning EDT time.

This is a tracking spreadsheet that someone is collecting the historical data to watch the numbers change based on estimates:

It's really disheartening that the election has been this close given how poorly managed covid is in the US and among so many other things.
 

jtr1962

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I'm surprised how close it has become... What's being reported here in Oz, is that Biden pretty much has won it (assuming he wins NV).
However lots of reports of claims that Trump's allies and even himself will launch legal action over various aspects of vote counting, etc.
Actually, CNN didn't call Arizona yet, and I agree with their reasons. As the votes come in, Biden's lead has slowly dwindled. Until it's mathematically impossible for Trump to catch up, they won't call the state. That said, PA looks good for Biden at the moment. At one point Trump was ahead by over 700,000 votes. As they started counting mail-in ballots, his lead started dropping rapidly. Now it's down to about 165K with something like 700K ballots yet to be counted. Same thing happen in Wisconsin and Michigan. Trump was leading by well over 100K in Wisconsin and over 300K in Michigan. Biden ultimately carried both states. If PA goes the same, he'll take the lead and it's game over regardless of what happens in AZ or NV.

And yeah, I'm surprised Trump got as many votes as he did but this tells me there are a lot of closet racists, as well as generally stupid people who believe all the nonsense he spouts.
 

jtr1962

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So I just heard on CBS that the current president wants to stop the counting in PA, and continue in AZ? Is that true?
Yeah, he wants to continue counting in states where he might catch up and flip them and stop counting in states where Biden is catching up. In his mind, mail-in ballots are all fraudulent. This is the kind of crap you normally see in banana republics, not the US.
 

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I bet he thinks if he puts this in front of the Supreme Court he just went through so much effort to pack tight with conservatives they'll give him the election because they feel they owe him. I can't wait to see it backfire.
 

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It appears more and more likely Biden will win the election. NV and PA continue to grow his lead, maybe AP might call it tonight or tomorrow. Trump seems to be having a meltdown and claiming all kinds of fraud, etc like one might expect of him at this point. I saw SD's home state of MI flipped back to blue. I bet he'd be proud.
 

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Even Rupert Murdochs media outlets is turning on Trump it seems... No wonder he is having a full on tantrum(p) when everything is going against him.
 

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Even Rupert Murdochs media outlets is turning on Trump it seems...

Murdoch seeks influence to wield power. Trump is a dead duck so even Fox is transitioning. Newscorp (including Sky) abandoned Trump a couple of weeks ago.

Short-term problem for the Murdoch crime family is that Biden doesn't owe them anything, so they will probably suck up to him for while. Same with my local state election that we had a week ago. However, they have been doing this for more than 50 years, so Rupert is completely unfazed.
 
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Ouch!

What about Arizona?
Arizona is expected to stay Blue now that it flipped.

The sad tragic human life irony I just read on reddit; someone did the math for Georgia that flipped blue. If trump had taken covid more serious and deaths were reduced through better leadership, he might have won GA. He lost too many supporters due to deaths that would have kept GA red in his favor. Biden is winning there by like 1500 votes.

https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/jpgj6e/_/gbeidv9
 

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I read there were about 8900 votes from overseas military personel still to be counted in Georgia yesterday.
It should give an upswing for the republicans, but on the other side, as I see it,Trump has not been very supportive of the US military.

Either way, it doesn't seem to have affected the numbers in GA negatively (for Biden) yet, since he is leading with 4020 votes right now.
 

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I just listened on the radio, where a republican lady from Ohio was crying for her grand children, that they had to live with this liberal agenda for all future if Biden wins (which she thought was quite probable). Is that worse than a russian-style thug regime? And if Trump would win the climate change would not be a priority and her (and everybody elses) grandchildren and grand grandchildren would be in even greater trouble than they already will be.

Plus, don't these people understand that there will be a new election in 4 years time? The republican party will (if Biden wins) have a chance to regroup and come up with a strategy/direction and win the next election if the american people find their alternative more appealing.
 

Newtun

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But the repugnicans have packed the Supreme Court with lifetime appointments of right-wingnuts. Some of them may have a little actual jurisprudence experience.

But from major news sources' projections in just the past few minutes, it appears that Trump is headed for his worse nightmare:

He's a LOSER!

(And a sore one at that.) Here's his new theme song:
 
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jtr1962

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I just listened on the radio, where a republican lady from Ohio was crying for her grand children, that they had to live with this liberal agenda for all future if Biden wins (which she thought was quite probable). Is that worse than a russian-style thug regime? And if Trump would win the climate change would not be a priority and her (and everybody elses) grandchildren and grand grandchildren would be in even greater trouble than they already will be.
This is the same kind of nonsense I've heard when they interview people at Trump rallies. They're in an alternate reality with climate change, with the virus, etc.

Plus, don't these people understand that there will be a new election in 4 years time? The republican party will (if Biden wins) have a chance to regroup and come up with a strategy/direction and win the next election if the american people find their alternative more appealing.
The demographics are changing in the US to the point the Republicans think they may not ever win any national elections again, even if they remain strong in some states. The so-called blue wall swung back to the Democrats. Georgia just turned blue. It will likely be more blue in 2024. Ditto for Arizona. Texas may even swing from a purple state now to blue in four years. Do the math. There just won't be enough reliably red states left for the Republicans to get in the game. Also consider that if we didn't have the electoral college, in 6 out of the last 7 elections the Democrats won a majority of votes. And that's with active voter suppression by the Republicans in a number of states.
 

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I agree with you, the times have changed, even Utah has forbidden slavery. More and more conservative values goes away.
 

Newtun

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I recently received a reference to the book Commander in Cheat, by sportswriter Rick Reilly.

I don't want to read the whole thing, but this review detailed some hilarious incidents. Review title/subtitle:

How golf explains Trump. Seriously.

“This guy cheats like a mafia accountant.”​
 
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