General Politics Discussion VIII [ARCHIVED] • Page 140

lmao holy shit.

I never knew anything about the band other than their name, but I guess it's safe to say they're right wingers? libertarian shitheads?

 

Your signature on file is what you used to sign at the June primaries. If someone moved here after that it’s whatever is on the Colorado drivers license

 

I'd bet everyone on set had to be tested multiple times to shoot the video. Just for them to lecture people on wearing masks. Great.

 

I believe their big thing was (is) being all about the troops, and that morphed into being the kind of right wing populists that love Trump

 

Glad climate change is there. But I guess we just will never touch on immigration, gun control, or education in the debates.

Just make sure the climate change segment is more than just asking a right-wing framed fracking question and about whether you support the green new deal

 

Wonder how many terrorist plots in the US are just undercover FBI goading some mindless freaks into incriminating themselves. 75%?

 

I don't think this really rare, Bernie endorsed the woman I voted for for City Council in Long Beach and that's much lower profile than Nithya vs. Ryu.

I think the more remarkable thing is Nithya's online presence being so huge because every comedian I follow on social media lives in her district and is campaigning for her.

 

Also nice to see "Race in America" and not the forced tying of race with violence that we saw in the first debate.

 

Any question about climate/GND will 100% just end in Biden talking about how he's going to protect jobs with 0 time spent on why something like the GND is necessary in the first place

 

Some actual questions on climate to Biden should be:

1. Fracking releases methane into the atmosphere, can pollute water systems, and even cause “mini earthquakes”. Why do you think trying to regulate the industry rather than phasing it out completely would be an adequate option to address climate change?

2. Do you support increasing our nuclear energy production to achieve net-zero emissions?

And to Trump:

1. The government gives billions of dollars in subsidies the fossil fuel industry every year. Wouldn't the conservative position be to let the market decide which industries can survive and be the cheapest energy source?

2. The wildfires in California, which have been accelerated due to climate change, continue to impact the state. Being the over 50% of the land is federally owned, do you take any responsibility for the mismanagement of the forests that you claim to be the cause?

No moderator will be that good though

 

A Campaign of Voter Subtraction

Democrats following only the polls are gearing up for a postelection replay of 2016. The situation seems eerily similar weeks before Election Day. Biden leads handily in the polls, just as Hillary Clinton did then; many of his supporters believe that all people need to do now is vote. If Republicans keep the White House and the Senate, many will conclude that Democrats lost because people did not vote. But if that happens, it’s likelier that Democrats will have lost because people who wanted to vote could not vote.

If Democrats lose, they will pore over the exit polls, looking to see who stayed home. Young people, people of color, and poor people might again be blamed for failing to vote at higher rates. Black and Hispanic men might be blamed for voting for Trump at higher-than-expected margins. The very groups assaulted with racist policies and misinformation by Republicans during the election risk being assaulted with racist ideas after the election. The voter-subtraction policies of Republicans will fade into the background.

And if Trump wins, Biden voters might again be livid at the pollsters. Many Democrats seem to believe that the reason the polls did not predict a Trump victory in 2016 was because state-level polls underrepresented white, non-college-educated voters, obscuring Trump’s strength. Pollsters have corrected this. However, this popular explanation fails to explain why those state-level polls that did properly weigh education levels were also off in predicting the results.

The greatest myth of the 2016 election is that the polls got the election wrong. What if the polls did not get it wrong? What if the Republican game of voter subtraction got it right? What if the GOP game is even stronger in 2020, as it wields the awesome power of the presidency?

 

I'm not really getting what this means - can someone break it down for me?

 

It comes down to voter suppression. If the GOP can successfully keep groups (generally POC) from casting their ballots, they'll win. The polls weren't necessarily wrong in 2016 in terms of signifying voter preference, but efforts at voter suppression were successful enough to offset them. Basically, if everyone eligible to vote had actually been able to cast their ballot, Trump would have lost.

 

Basically, if we manage to lose 2020, it seems increasingly likely that both 2016 and 2020 were rigged.

People made a big deal blaming lack of democratic votes in 2016, and will probably do the same in 2020, and we will all lose sight of the fact that the GOP stole both elections.

EDIT
@aoftbsten did a better job at explaining tbh

 

Thank you - but aren't the large numbers of people voting early generally seen as a good sign for Democrats?

 

At least he's acknowledging that he can lose the election.

 

Which is exactly why people are....nervous. There’s fears that the Trump administration is going to use every tool at their disposal to “invalidate” those early votes, or the types of votes that are historically D. Setting up false mailboxes, installing a new SC judge (and other federal appointees), Trump calling main-in votes fraudulent no matter how many times it’s been proven false, are all playing into an endgame to try to use the 2000 election as “precedent” to invalidate those votes.

I would research the Red Mirage too if I was you, to understand what they’re looking to accomplish on Election Day as well.