Why Trump will be reelected

[Stacyhs]

Originally Posted by theprestige

After eight years of Presidentin' it seems that Barack Obama has quit the life.

I think Obama has been wise to not endorse anyone until the nominee has been determined. Endorsing someone too early could result in that candidate not being the actual nominee and then Obama having to support him/her as an 'also ran'. No....it's better to wait. Unlike Trump, I think Obama thinks ahead.

[Trebuchet]

Originally Posted by wasapi

Biden has felt compassion in his life, where as Trump has no idea what compassion is or feels like.

Trump has plenty of compassion. He spends all day feeling sorry for himself! Oh, you meant for other people? Sounds like Socialism!

[JoeMorgue]

Originally Posted by Horatius

I mean, does a simple yes or no question really get into the nitty-gritty of what people think of Trump, and what he's been doing?

Yes, because that's what the 2020 election is going to be. You either vote for Trump or you don't.

The Republicans understand that. Someone who votes for Trump with 51% enthusiasm and someone who votes for Trump with 100% enthusiasm are the exact same person politically speaking. They care about growing their base, not energizing it.

So instead of making people who already like them double-dog, super-duper like them the Republicans care about you just until your needle is safely on the Trump side of the scale, then they ignore you. And in politics that's exactly what you should be doing.

It's why the Republican's don't run cause purity tests on people on their side (they run the everloving hell out of them on the other side you notice) and don't give two tin whistle farts in the wind about being hypocrites.

Because the Republicans know that a vote from someone you find disgusting is still a vote and being a hypocrite just means you have two people who think completely different things both on your side.

It's how someone who literally almost nobody actually likes or supports in any positive sense of the term got himself so securely into power.

Trump knows that in politics 10 people who find you just a fraction of a hair better then the other guy but otherwise don't give a crap about you will beat 1 guy who loves you and will die for you every single time.

[Delvo]

Originally Posted by wasapi

Biden has felt compassion in his life, where as Trump has no idea what compassion is or feels like.

And yet, Biden is the one who's sworn to block universal health care if he gets the chance, whereas Trump is the one who has sometimes blurted out that it would be a good idea. And Biden is the one who's never seen a war he wasn't in favor of whereas Trump has been a mix of saying & doing both belligerent things and pacifist things. And Biden is the one who's openly expressed his contempt for a whole age group (which should mostly be his own base) and his determination to keep them down while telling them their problems don't exist but are also their own fault, which is such an absurdity and so far from anything Trump's done that there isn't even really any one particular parallel on the other side to point out Trump not doing.

Originally Posted by JoeMorgue

Yes, because that's what the 2020 election is going to be. You either vote for Trump or you don't.

The Republicans understand that. Someone who votes for Trump with 51% enthusiasm and someone who votes for Trump with 100% enthusiasm are the exact same person politically speaking.

Those who do vote are the same, but those who are less enthusiastic are less likely to vote.

[Stacyhs]

Originally Posted by Delvo

And yet, Biden is the one who's sworn to block universal health care if he gets the chance, whereas Trump is the one who has sometimes blurted out that it would be a good idea. And Biden is the one who's never seen a war he wasn't in favor of whereas Trump has been a mix of saying & doing both belligerent things and pacifist things. And Biden is the one who's openly expressed his contempt for a whole age group (which should mostly be his own base) and his determination to keep them down while telling them their problems don't exist but are also their own fault, which is such an absurdity and so far from anything Trump's done that there isn't even really any one particular parallel on the other side to point out Trump not doing.

Those who do vote are the same, but those who are less enthusiastic are less likely to vote.

You really need to get over Sanders and move on.

[Regnad Kcin]

55 percent is “whopping?”

[Mumbles]

Originally Posted by dudalb

SO democracy in the US is dead?

It hasn't actually been born as of yet, so...

Still, it combines their love of authority with their hatred of black and brown people, so of course they'd immediately move to that more aggressively than before (the entire reason why the VRA still covered most Southern states, Alaska, and certain counties, is that they never actually stopped trying to suppress black/native/Latino voters - previously you could get out of preclearance if you just didn't try anything blatantly bigoted for a decade, which they never managed to pull off)

[Segnosaur]

Originally Posted by Delvo

And yet, Biden is the one who's sworn to block universal health care if he gets the chance....

Which of course is actually completely and totally wrong.

What Biden said is that he would block a Bernie Sanders style medicare-for-all plan, not that he would block "universal health care".

One big problem with BernieBros is that they just don't seem to understand that there is more than one way to implement Universal health care, and Sander's plan is only one way to reach that goal.

Secondly, Biden favors expanding health care through building on Obamacare. One reason he prefers this method is because he thinks he can get health care to a large number of people faster than a Sander's plan of tearing down the existing system to implement medicare for all. Sounds to me like he has at least some concerns for people's well-being.

From: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/10/bide...on-health.html
(Campaign spokesperson) Bates said. “He made clear that his urgent priority is getting to universal coverage as quickly as possible and he explained why he firmly believes our approach should be to build on the profound benefits of the Affordable Care Act with a Medicare-like public option.”

[Stacyhs]

Originally Posted by Segnosaur

Which of course is actually completely and totally wrong.

What Biden said is that he would block a Bernie Sanders style medicare-for-all plan, not that he would block "universal health care".

One big problem with BernieBros is that they just don't seem to understand that there is more than one way to implement Universal health care, and Sander's plan is only one way to reach that goal.

Secondly, Biden favors expanding health care through building on Obamacare. One reason he prefers this method is because he thinks he can get health care to a large number of people faster than a Sander's plan of tearing down the existing system to implement medicare for all. Sounds to me like he has at least some concerns for people's well-being.

From: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/10/bide...on-health.html
(Campaign spokesperson) Bates said. “He made clear that his urgent priority is getting to universal coverage as quickly as possible and he explained why he firmly believes our approach should be to build on the profound benefits of the Affordable Care Act with a Medicare-like public option.”

Well, there you go again. Trying to confuse the issue with facts. Shame on you.

[Masque]

Originally Posted by JoeMorgue

Yes, because that's what the 2020 election is going to be. You either vote for Trump or you don't.

The Republicans understand that. Someone who votes for Trump with 51% enthusiasm and someone who votes for Trump with 100% enthusiasm are the exact same person politically speaking. They care about growing their base, not energizing it.

So instead of making people who already like them double-dog, super-duper like them the Republicans care about you just until your needle is safely on the Trump side of the scale, then they ignore you. And in politics that's exactly what you should be doing.

It's why the Republican's don't run cause purity tests on people on their side (they run the everloving hell out of them on the other side you notice) and don't give two tin whistle farts in the wind about being hypocrites.

Because the Republicans know that a vote from someone you find disgusting is still a vote and being a hypocrite just means you have two people who think completely different things both on your side.

It's how someone who literally almost nobody actually likes or supports in any positive sense of the term got himself so securely into power.

Trump knows that in politics 10 people who find you just a fraction of a hair better then the other guy but otherwise don't give a crap about you will beat 1 guy who loves you and will die for you every single time.

"I don't have to run faster than the bear, I just have to run faster than you." And entirely true if you just want to keep power. The lies you tell to do it simply don't matter if the gas lighting works.

However... 60,000 troops died in Vietnam. If you were alive in the U.S. at the time, you knew somebody who didn't make it back. A schoolmate, a relative, a friend, the child of a friend, but somebody. The corona virus in on track to kill between (let's say) between 100,000 and 1,500,000 people in this country. Everyone will know a couple to maybe a dozen (or more) people who die of it. It makes it a lot harder to pull off the Trumpian "I did a really good job. Who are you going to believe, me or your lying, dead mother/grandmother/loved one?"

[Meadmaker]

Originally Posted by Masque

"I don't have to run faster than the bear, I just have to run faster than you." And entirely true if you just want to keep power. The lies you tell to do it simply don't matter if the gas lighting works.

However... 60,000 troops died in Vietnam. If you were alive in the U.S. at the time, you knew somebody who didn't make it back. A schoolmate, a relative, a friend, the child of a friend, but somebody. The corona virus in on track to kill between (let's say) between 100,000 and 1,500,000 people in this country. Everyone will know a couple to maybe a dozen (or more) people who die of it. It makes it a lot harder to pull off the Trumpian "I did a really good job. Who are you going to believe, me or your lying, dead mother/grandmother/loved one?"

Indeed.

The COVID-19 epidemic is going to change everything about this political season. We still don't know how it's going to shake out. We don't know how long we will be "on lockdown" in various parts of the country. We don't know how bad the economic damage will be. We don't know how many people will die. Unfortunately, though, we know that all of those things, will be so bad that most people wouldn't have believed them four weeks ago.

When it's all over, someone you know will be dead, and lots of people will have lost jobs and homes, and the economic crash will be worse than 2008/2009, and there's a good chance that you might have to find a substitute for toilet paper. The electorate will blame somebody for this. It seems to me that the guy in charge might end up being blamed, but I've given up trying to predict.

[Delvo]

Originally Posted by Segnosaur

What Biden said is that he would block a Bernie Sanders style medicare-for-all plan, not that he would block "universal health care".

The scenario he was asked about involved a bill ready to sign. Vetoing that bill in that moment, when that's the choice you have and the Biden alternative is not, is in fact vetoing universal health care. (Just as much as, if Bernie had been against ACA because it wasn't M4A, that would have been being against at least some degree of improvement in some aspects of the situation. And yet, even though Biden's the one who's flat-out against the alternative that isn't his, and Bernie's the one who supported an alternative that wasn't his, Biden's supporters claim that Bernie is the one who lets idealogical purity get in the way of whatever practical improvements are available. Exactly the opposite of reality. Why is that? If Biden's so much better, why can't he be defended without that kind of behavior?)

Originally Posted by Segnosaur

Biden favors expanding health care through building on Obamacare.

...which was never even possibly going to be, or even meant to be, universal. It was invented by Republicans to protect the insurance industry, which lives by costing as much as possible while providing as little actual coverage as possible. (And even if there were a way to make it universal, it would still be wildly more expensive, but I digress.)

And even that much is acting as if we had any real reason to believe he'd ever even follow through with what he's now claiming is his plan. He's spent his career fighting against the peasants in various ways and spent the last few years dribbling about how great it is to work together with the Republicans because they're good people who are just about to have their "Come to Jesus" moment any year now and it would be just great to have one of them as VP. Suddenly claiming to have a universal health care plan now after he's seen how popular the idea has gotten is... not in character.

Originally Posted by Segnosaur

One reason he prefers this method is because he thinks he can get health care to a large number of people faster than a Sander's plan of tearing down the existing system to implement medicare for all.

The fact that it couldn't, and would even go the opposite way in reality (especially in the specific scenario he was responding to, with a bill for one of them sitting on the Oval Office desk ready to go), is so utterly clear that the idea that he even believes it himself reads rather low on the plausibility meter. If all that money keeps flowing through the middlemen's hands, they'll keep using it to keep buying themselves the freedom to keep things going the direction they have been. There are only two ways for that to end: cut out the middlemen (which in all other contexts everybody agrees is a good thing), and/or fix the country's system of Roman-esque legal bribery (which would be good for other issues too, not just this one). Biden is in favor of neither, which equals being in favor of keeping things just as crappy as they already are.

Originally Posted by Segnosaur

Sounds to me like he has at least some concerns for people's well-being.

He might. But if so, it has a strange scope, applying to some issues (which I can't name at the moment but they might be out there) but not health care, or lending & debt, or the crime bill, or desegregation, or the main victims of the general direction of our economy, or anybody who happens to be too much younger than him (just off the top of my head).

And I'll also agree with what I expect you would say about Trump, that he doesn't appear to have any such feeling for almost anybody at all. However, I'm more interested in what they would do than why they would do it, so a sincerely empathetic & sympathetic person who coincidentally/mistakenly favors heartless-looking actions that are more likely to harm people is worse than a raving psychotic monster who coincidentally/mistakenly favors actions that are less likely to harm people. And at the very least, the comparison is not nearly as straightforward & obvious as it would have needed to be in order for the "ELECTABLE!!!!!" argument to have ever had a speck of validity.

Originally Posted by Masque

60,000 troops died in Vietnam. If you were alive in the U.S. at the time, you knew somebody who didn't make it back. A schoolmate, a relative, a friend, the child of a friend, but somebody. The corona virus in on track to kill between (let's say) between 100,000 and 1,500,000 people in this country. Everyone will know a couple to maybe a dozen (or more) people who die of it. It makes it a lot harder to pull off the Trumpian "I did a really good job. Who are you going to believe, me or your lying, dead mother/grandmother/loved one?"

Even if the numbers do get that bad (and if they don't, it will only make those who said they would look bad), there is great power in people's ability to modify new facts and an old established narrative to fit together. Anybody who thinks Trump is handling this well (or even just non-catastrophically) right now would simply be able to claim later that he kept it down to those low numbers and they would have been worse otherwise. Trump himself has already started to set that version of the story up for the future. The fact that mostly the same people believed him when he said it would be no big deal and didn't mind his deliberately avoiding taking any action about it can just quietly vanish from their brains. And this version can even be embellished with claims that the predictions were something like a half-million or two million or whatever instead of the actual low-six-digit estimates that are actually being circulated in the present.

Or not.

Possibly.

No particular prediction from me on that one

[The Don]

I agree, whatever the final death toll is, the Trump Administration, President Trump and the GOP will point to a far higher number and claim that their 10/10 handling of the crisis saved millions of lives.

Comparisons to other countries with lower death tolls will be discounted because of reasons.

[Stacyhs]

Originally Posted by The Don

I agree, whatever the final death toll is, the Trump Administration, President Trump and the GOP will point to a far higher number and claim that their 10/10 handling of the crisis saved millions of lives.

Comparisons to other countries with lower death tolls will be discounted because of reasons.

It will all be Obama's fault for leaving the shelves empty in the federal stockpile. Besides, how could anyone predict a pandemic? It's like Katrina; no one could have predicted that either.

[The Don]

Originally Posted by Stacyhs

It will all be Obama's fault for leaving the shelves empty in the federal stockpile. Besides, how could anyone predict a pandemic? It's like Katrina; no one could have predicted that either.

Exactly !

Obama had 8 years to develop a Covid-19 vaccine and did nothing about it ! OTOH the Trump Administration only took a couple of months to start acting.

Heck Obama didn't even bother to work around the GOP blocking funding to replenish the federal stockpiles after the H1N1 outbreak.

Sure he may have established a pandemic response team, but did he properly ensure that his successor couldn't disband it ? That's all on Obama !

[Stacyhs]

Originally Posted by The Don

Exactly !

Obama had 8 years to develop a Covid-19 vaccine and did nothing about it ! OTOH the Trump Administration only took a couple of months to start acting.

Heck Obama didn't even bother to work around the GOP blocking funding to replenish the federal stockpiles after the H1N1 outbreak.

Sure he may have established a pandemic response team, but did he properly ensure that his successor couldn't disband it ? That's all on Obama !

What can you expect from a man who wears a tan suit?

[Mumbles]

Here's the thing; put aside the idiocy of having CORVID-19 tests available before it was even known to exist:

It's actually correct to say that the Obama Admin didn't restock in the aftermath of the Ebola crisis.

But in truth, even then, it was the GOP Senate that refused to let any restock happen. Hell, it was Susan Collins that cut $1B from that budget in his last year. I'm sure she's very disappointed in that.

We're looking at serious rot within a particular party, and it's the GOP - and at the head of it all, for the last decade? The man I've ben telling y'all was the very worst actor in the US, even before the Idiot in Chief took office. Moscow Mitch McConnell.

[Stacyhs]

Originally Posted by Mumbles

Here's the thing; put aside the idiocy of having CORVID-19 tests available before it was even known to exist:

It's actually correct to say that the Obama Admin didn't restock in the aftermath of the Ebola crisis.

But in truth, even then, it was the GOP Senate that refused to let any restock happen. Hell, it was Susan Collins that cut $1B from that budget in his last year. I'm sure she's very disappointed in that.

We're looking at serious rot within a particular party, and it's the GOP - and at the head of it all, for the last decade? The man I've ben telling y'all was the very worst actor in the US, even before the Idiot in Chief took office. Moscow Mitch McConnell.

I agree. McConnell is every bit as bad as Trump, if not worse because he's smarter than Trump.

[ChristianProgressive]

Trump is going to drag out virus drama as a vote suppressing mechanism and excuse. That's been plain for some time, given his public opposition to measures allowing voting from home by mail.

[JoeMorgue]

Originally Posted by Mumbles

Here's the thing; put aside the idiocy of having CORVID-19 tests available before it was even known to exist:

It's actually correct to say that the Obama Admin didn't restock in the aftermath of the Ebola crisis.

But in truth, even then, it was the GOP Senate that refused to let any restock happen. Hell, it was Susan Collins that cut $1B from that budget in his last year. I'm sure she's very disappointed in that.

We're looking at serious rot within a particular party, and it's the GOP - and at the head of it all, for the last decade? The man I've ben telling y'all was the very worst actor in the US, even before the Idiot in Chief took office. Moscow Mitch McConnell.

Because that's one version of "The masses deserve to be punished for not being as nihilistic and without hope as I am" mentality that is at least a major, if not the major, factor in most of Trump's support.

These are people who's entire political identity has been wrapped up in "The government is corrupt and incompetent and we can't depend on them for anything" idea and the only way to maintain that is to elect people who are corrupt and incompetent and go "But it would be worse if the librul demmicrats were in office because they would want the government to do even more stuff."

We are being punished for the sin of wanting to live in a better world. I've been saying that for years. The sad little nihilsts are mad that some people actually can make the world better and some people want those people in charge because their self identity is so wrapped up in "Everything sucks and you're naive if you want things to get better."

That's why, even given COVID-19, I'm still putting a Trump Presidency/Republican Retain Control of the Senate 2020 at, at best, 50/50 odds. "But look at how much worse stuff as gotten" works in their favor.

People are basically arguing that the trolls are gonna stop trolling because they are making people upset.

[theprestige]

Originally Posted by Stacyhs

I think Obama has been wise to not endorse anyone until the nominee has been determined. Endorsing someone too early could result in that candidate not being the actual nominee and then Obama having to support him/her as an 'also ran'. No....it's better to wait. Unlike Trump, I think Obama thinks ahead.

It'll be one of history's unanswered questions: If Obama had endorsed one of the candidates earlier, would it have cleared the field and cemented their nomination? Or would it have turned out even worse than what has actually happened?

It also raises some speculation about the nature and scope of Obama's popularity. His endorsement of a candidate during the primaries matters, if lots of Democrats like him and value his opinion on these things. Waiting until after the nominee has been chosen makes his popularity with Democrats largely irrelevant.

On the other hand, endorsing the nominee heading into the general election only matters if lots of independents and moderates on both sides like him and value his opinion on these things. The Democrats have already picked their candidate without his input. Will his input in the general influence how many non-Democrats vote for the nominee?

I agree with you about the risks, though: What if Obama had endorsed someone, and then discovered that his popularity wasn't enough to carry their nomination? I think you're right that Obama thought ahead. I think he thought ahead, and realized that the safest play is to wait for the primaries to conclude, and then add his support to whoever the Democrats had already decided to support anyway.

And I think Obama really has quit the life. I think that even after the primaries are over and the candidate is chosen, Obama will still keep to the sidelines.

With his community organizing experience and his political connections, probably the best thing Obama could do right now is team up with Greta Thunberg and work on something that really matters to all of humanity now and in the future. In the meantime, though, he's probably going to have to endorse Joe Biden.

[Stacyhs]

I don't think he 'has' to do anything (re your "spoiler"). It will be interesting, though, to see if he does engage more in politics if Biden wins the election. IMO, he is a valuable resource.

[AlaskaBushPilot]

Originally Posted by Meadmaker

Indeed.

The COVID-19 epidemic is going to change everything about this political season. We still don't know how it's going to shake out. We don't know how long we will be "on lockdown" in various parts of the country. We don't know how bad the economic damage will be. We don't know how many people will die. Unfortunately, though, we know that all of those things, will be so bad that most people wouldn't have believed them four weeks ago.

When it's all over, someone you know will be dead, and lots of people will have lost jobs and homes, and the economic crash will be worse than 2008/2009, and there's a good chance that you might have to find a substitute for toilet paper. The electorate will blame somebody for this. It seems to me that the guy in charge might end up being blamed, but I've given up trying to predict.

A very reasonable post.

The OP is more of this failure to accept his ideas are rejected by the electorate.

There are a lot of ways this thing could go if the dems had anyone who was not corrupt to offer up in opposition to Trump. Tulsi Gabbard, that was the problem with her - she opposed the MIC Deep State trillionaire criminal gangsters.

But Trump could blow it, or might even already have blown it. We are a long ways from out of this thing.

[ChristianProgressive]

Tulsi Gabbard was a GOP trojan horse.

[theprestige]

Originally Posted by ChristianProgressive

Tulsi Gabbard was a GOP trojan horse.

So many questions.

Do you think they've been running her since the beginning, or did they get to her later?

Did they target her on purpose, because she's Hindu and Samoan? Or was she just the nearest available politician?

How do you think they got to her? Was it straight bribery, or did they have to resort to blackmail or extortion?

If they didn't realize they needed her until last year, then how they got to her becomes a really important question. What do they have on her, to flip her from sincere progressive to GOP tool?

What did they predict would happen if she didn't run? Is there any way to test this prediction?

[Elagabalus]

Originally Posted by Trebuchet

Why trump will be reelected

1. The Democratic Party. Around 90 years ago Will Rodgers said “I'm not a member of any organized political party. I'm a Democrat.” Still true.
2. The Republican Party. Absolutely monolithic in its devotion to Trump.
3. Socialism. The current front-runner is a self described socialist. But it's not just Bernie, the R's will use that scare word for any candidate. And a vast number of Americans don't understand what it is. As in the first post of this thread.
4. Toxic Bernie-Bro culture. There are not that many of the toxic ones, but they are very vocal.
5. Fox News. They have no shame and will lie about anything to help the Republican party.
6. Cheating. In addition to the ongoing Republican efforts to disenfranchise likely Democratic voters, the Russians are already busy, and Trump is already working hard to cover it up.
7. Impeachment. I think it was a dumb idea. Trump will run on how exonerated he is.
8. Prejudice. Against immigrants, brown people, women, and LGBT people. A lot more folks harbor subtle prejudices than you probably think.
9. Gullibility. Trump fans willingly believe anything he says; anything they here on Fox News or Breitbart. But it's not the fans that are the problem; it's the folks in the middle who are susceptible to the lies when they get repeated often enough.
The USA is totally screwed.

Psssst! Trebuchet don't worry. Rumor has it that the Dems are manufacturing a fake virus to derail the whole Trump train!



It was fun to see this thread again.

[Dave Rogers]

Originally Posted by Elagabalus

Psssst! Trebuchet don't worry. Rumor has it that the Dems are manufacturing a fake virus to derail the whole Trump train!



It was fun to see this thread again.

Hey, #6 is still in play.

Dave

[Trebuchet]

Originally Posted by Dave Rogers

Hey, #6 is still in play.

Dave

In concert with #9, of course.

[d4m10n]

Originally Posted by Trebuchet

Why trump will be reelected

1. The Democratic Party. Around 90 years ago Will Rodgers said “I'm not a member of any organized political party. I'm a Democrat.” Still true.
2. The Republican Party. Absolutely monolithic in its devotion to Trump.
3. Socialism. The current front-runner is a self described socialist. But it's not just Bernie, the R's will use that scare word for any candidate. And a vast number of Americans don't understand what it is. As in the first post of this thread.
4. Toxic Bernie-Bro culture. There are not that many of the toxic ones, but they are very vocal.
5. Fox News. They have no shame and will lie about anything to help the Republican party.
6. Cheating. In addition to the ongoing Republican efforts to disenfranchise likely Democratic voters, the Russians are already busy, and Trump is already working hard to cover it up.
7. Impeachment. I think it was a dumb idea. Trump will run on how exonerated he is.
8. Prejudice. Against immigrants, brown people, women, and LGBT people. A lot more folks harbor subtle prejudices than you probably think.
9. Gullibility. Trump fans willingly believe anything he says; anything they here on Fox News or Breitbart. But it's not the fans that are the problem; it's the folks in the middle who are susceptible to the lies when they get repeated often enough.
The USA is totally screwed.

FWIW, I'd say most of these factors explain how Trump got to 70+ million.