Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Good lord, these people are nuts.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Let there be snark.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / Late Night Open Thread: Scary Tales for Political Adolescents

Late Night Open Thread: Scary Tales for Political Adolescents

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Since “Joe Biden is poised to win, barring some unforeseen disaster and/or further GOP-Russian fvckery” is not newsy, the Financial Times puts a flashlight under its chin and sets out to make its readers’ flesh creep. The above thread was trending on the Twitter Politics sidebar all evening, so FiveThirtyEight felt impelled to chip in…


The boring, mundane reality is that we sane people are going to keep working our arses off to ensure Biden wins by a majority sufficient to crush Repub dreams of a coup, with the Very Serious Pundits gnawing on our ankles at every step. After which, the Squatter-in-Chief will tweet an increasingly demented stream of accusations, while his minions work on their resumes… or their flight plans to countries with no extradition treaties. And the rest of the GOP will already have memory-holed the Trump presidency by the time the electoral college votes, and will be prepping op-eds & legislation to quell the financial excesses of the Obama-Biden Era, for a return to the glory days of the Cheney/Bush II regency.

Reader Interactions

130Comments

  1. 1.

    lgerard

    I’d love to see the Secret Service pile trump’s golf clubs and other belongings out on the sidewalk in front of the White House on January 20th.

  2. 2.

    Yutsano

    I have yet to see a scenario where Biden doesn’t win. He has so many more options than Dolt45 has. Our job is to make the vote as indisputable as possible. It’s also worth noting that election calls by the networks are done via exit polls. They can’t exit poll mail-in ballots. So any network calling elections on November 3rd is a clown show. To put it mildly.

  3. 3.

    H.E.Wolf

    And the rest of the GOP will already have memory-holed the Trump presidency by the time the electoral college votes, and will be prepping op-eds & legislation to quell the financial excesses of the Obama-Biden Era, for a return to the glory days of the Cheney/Bush II regency.

    Or… we could keep the Democratic majority in the US House and win a Democratic majority in the US Senate, and continue the flipping-to-Democratic of state legislatures, and let the Republicans throw impotent tantrums while Democrats enact some good laws.

    Ya never know. It could happen. :-)

  4. 4.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Yutsano:

    election calls by the networks are done via exit polls. They can’t exit poll mail-in ballots. So any network calling elections on November 3rd is a clown show. To put it mildly.

    Oh, excellent deduction.  How to get this message out?

  5. 5.

    The Pale Scot

    If only the creature could be forced sit thru the kind of verbal drubbing Ed Milliband gave Boris Johnson today, it was awesome. I will happily sponsor this man for American citizenship.

    Ed Millibank’s Commons Speech 14/9/2020. The juiciest bits are @ 12:30 & 16:30, but whole thing transcendental, it’s one long 20 min insult

  6. 6.

    Geoduck

    Assuming Biden does win, I wonder how he’ll handle the inaugural ceremony. I almost hope he cans all the hoopla and just has him and Edwards and few important witnesses, all wearing masks. You know the Shiatgibbon won’t attend.

  8. 8.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @lgerard: my gut feeling is that the secret service would be happy to see the orange dbag go being that he doesn’t give a shit about them. Several got COVID following the fucker around at his super spreader events.  He also didn’t want to pay them early on when they were/are completely overstretched following his loser kids in addition to him. I am sure they also know up and personal what a total grifter the fucker is. We’ve paid 100s of thousands of $$$ for the secret service using golf carts at his golf courses protecting his ass.

  10. 10.

    Mike in NC

    USA Today just had to run yet another of those articles about frustrated undecided voters. Many appeared to be Bernie Bros looking for unicorns. Others were merely too stupid to figure out that Fat Bastard plans to be the American Putin.

  11. 11.

    Dopey-o

    If Trump won’t vacate the oval office, theres no reason Crazy Uncle Joe can’t go back to the  Executive Office Building. He still knows his way around there, and he can run the country from his old desk.

    While  crowds gather outside the White House, the electric and heat can be switched off. Send all the domestic and kitchen staff on vacation, cut the cellular boosters to limit locations the former president can tweet from, and turn off the presidential cellphone service. Block all internet access in and out.

    Install jersey barriers at all vehicle exits from the grounds and America can watch the first presidential self-perpwalk. I would pay a week’s wages to see this.

  12. 12.

    cain

    @Geoduck:

    Bring in the people who did the DNC remote – and just make it a great prime time show that everyone can appreciate. Of course, it will include everyone except republican politicians and Trumpers.

  13. 13.

    Jacqueline Onassis Squid

    But according to my sister who tells me that everybody in the super rich towns in Northern Westchester is gung-ho for Dollar Store Mussolini, Biden is going to lose NY.  Are you telling me that my sister has absolutely no idea what’s going on?  Yeah, I think so, too.

  15. 15.

    Roger Moore

    @Yutsano:

    It’s also worth noting that election calls by the networks are done via exit polls.

    AFAIK, exit polls are generally pretty inaccurate; they have a large polling bias and aren’t used to call the elections.  Instead, the networks use the partial counts announced by the states together with some modeling based on where those partial counts are coming from.  That’s why some states can be called really quickly while others may not be called for days.  If they were using exit polls, they’d be able to call every state in about the same amount of time.

    What exit polls are used for is to add demographic information to the official vote totals.  That’s how they can say which candidate won the 65+ vote or the black vote even though ballots are secret.  They can take the biased information they get from their exit polls and correct it based on the actual vote totals to get reasonably accurate guesses about how different demographic groups voted.

  16. 16.

    Mr. Kite

    Well, I happen to remember 2000. The republican hysterics and screeching got the media on their side. Lieberman went on tv to pre-concede (maybe Feinstein will fill in this time).

    It’s going to be way worse and crazier this year. There will be blood. Trump lickers are already calling for armed response. They will intimidate and threaten voters. Remember Putin’s goons bombed apartment buildings blaming Chechen terrorists. And who does T listen to? There is no bottom with him.

    In a good faith election Biden wins clearly. Maybe the white power gangs, sorry, “militias”, are all just chicken shit cosplayers. I hope so.

    I’m trying very hard to be optimistic. Some days are better.

  18. 18.

    RaflW

    Deficits will Definitely Matter™ in Joe Biden’s America, courtesy of the party that blew ’em up real good. And every pundit with a sinecure to maintain will be apoplectic from Jan 21st onwards. It’s gonna be really, really annoying.

  19. 19.

    TS (the original)

    with the Very Serious Pundits gnawing on our ankles at every step.

    They really really want a revolution – imagine all the reporting – both sides and all that.

  21. 21.

    RaflW

    @The Pale Scot: I was captivated by Ian Dunt’s incredible live-tweet of the entire Commons debate.

    I — in my grasp of UK politics from living there for six whole months in 1988 (and also reading stuff since then)  — may unfortunately be inclined to agree with his overall assessment: “There really is no statement damning enough for what we’re witnessing. It’s a low point in [UK] national life – an attack on the most basic principles of liberal democracy.”

    His full write-up Shock and outrage as parliament votes to put government above the law.

    And really, it is sort of fascinating, in a horrible multi-car crash sort of way, how our two very special relationship nations are racing each other into the bad place of life outside the rule of law.

  22. 22.

    Sab

    OT Our 10 year old rottmix just dropped dead of a heart attack. Fell down the steps, let out a howl then passed out. We rushed her off to the vet hospital, with detours (where is that infrastructure we was promised) for road collapses. No good. So the tuxedo cat (who hated her from the day she moved in) won. Quick death for her, but hard on us. Shadow the mean kitty is desolate. So am I . So is my husband. She was his little girl.

  24. 24.

    West of the Rockies

    I read the super annoying 538 piece on this subject today.  “Trump holds all the cards, he’d be untouchable, Biden would be impotent and out of luck…”

    Also, I LOATHE the “undecided” voter interviews, especially the ones that go, “Well, I wanted Bernie, but now that it’s a choice between a guy who wants to destroy everything and someone who isn’t Bernie, I’m gonna take my ball and go home because I have my precious principles.

    Also, does anyone find Eric Trump physically repellant?  He’s got such a creepy mouth, all gums and horse teeth, and dumb, dull eyes.

  26. 26.

    Quaker in a Basement

    Even when we succeed in throwing him out of the White House, he won’t be going away. He’ll continue to hold his rallies and call in to Fox shows and tweet and generally be just as chaotic and disruptive as he is today.

  28. 28.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @JaySinWA: I don’t think you can compare the secret service with cops. Secret service are usually better educated. Makes a big difference. Also I think when you put your employees’ lives in danger out of choice(COVID) they don’t generally respect you. For crying out loud they’ve already promised to let a bullet hit them instead of you.

  29. 29.

    lumpkin

    Worrying that trump continues to squat in the Oval Office even after a clear-cut Biden victory shows a lack of imagination. This is the most trivial of concerns. The real concern is that trump, the DOJ, DHS, and his militia brownshirts along chaos agents in state and local governments will totally destroy the legitimacy of the election. We could end up with it being decided in the House by state delegations, which would undoubtedly go in trump’s favor or have several states that Biden should have won declare their popular votes invalid and have their state legislatures determine the electors in trump’s favor, or have it somehow end up in the gop supreme court, which would decide it in trump’s favor. These are the things to worry about.

  31. 31.

    Felanius Kootea

    @Quaker in a Basement: The news media would be more willing to cover all the legal cases that are able to move forward when the attorney general no longer acts as the president’s lawyer.  Plus he’ll have loser stink all over him and the GOP will be eager to pretend he was a Democrat all along. His legal battles will no longer be partly funded by taxpayers and the billionaires won’t have any use for him.

  32. 32.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Quaker in a Basement: initially maybe but his power will wither away. The GOP isn’t going to want him around and they aren’t going to be scared of him.once he’s not POTUS. Plus he’ll have to deal with the NY lawsuits, the tax returns being released, the Russian stuff being released etc. The tennis ball machine is going to be hitting him pretty hard. Also he’s unhealthy. I wouldn’t be surprised if he drops dead just from the stress.

  33. 33.

    mrmoshpotato

    I’m not going to watch the results on the 3rd.  I’ll load up USA Today’s tracker and refresh it a week after and weekly after that.

    Time for a late walk.  Gotta make sure the ‘hood’s still outside.  Being this Chicago hellhole and all.

  36. 36.

    Sab

    @RaflW:

     

    @eddie blake:

     

    @Ghost of Joe Liebling*s Dog:

    Thanks. It hasn’t hit me yet. I am sure it will tomorrow. I am glad it was so quick for her. She was a lovely girl, full of life and love. I have nursed several dogs through slow cancer deaths and this was so much better for her. Four of our five cats are very sad. They were waiting for us on the upstairs landing when we got back. Just sitting in a little bunch together. The elderly cocker is asleep. We will break the news to him tomorrow.

  37. 37.

    Mai Naem mobile

    If 250,000 people dying can’t give Biden a clear overwhelming landslide we are fucked as a nation.

  38. 38.

    Felanius Kootea

    @lumpkin: A decision in the house only happens if Biden gets 269 votes in the electoral college and Trump does as well. President is decided by the House, VP by the Senate. We get Biden with Pence as VP.  I just don’t see the scenario you painted and I’ve lived in a developing country with multiple military coups.

  39. 39.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Sab: I am sorry about your dog. The only silver lining I see is that you didn’t have to make the decision to have he put down. That’s always a gut wrenching decision.

  42. 42.

    JoyceH

    @JaySinWA: The police union didn’t have to tool around in golf carts in triple digit heat index weather because Donny insisted on getting in his golf game. Trust me, the Secret Service despises him. The only people who adore him are the ones who don’t have to spend time with him.

  44. 44.

    TS (the original)

    @Quaker in a Basement:

    And we’ll find out how he would have behaved if Hillary had won – and the media will support him every step of the way. Not sure who I dislike the most – but I think the political media – they gave us trump.

  45. 45.

    Sab

    @Mai Naem mobile: Yes indeed. Been there. Done that. I still have nightmares about the one where I think I jumped the gun. He had what Cole’s Lily had. I didn’t believe the vet when he said it was treatable.

    My cats are very sad. Most of them looked at her as their protector. The house is very empty now. 2020 has really sucked as a year.

  46. 46.

    lumpkin

    @Felanius Kootea: 
    If it’s decided in the house it’s by state delegation not a full vote of all representatives. There are more republican state delegations than democrat.

    What you have observed in other countries doesn’t tell us much about what might happen here.

  47. 47.

    Sab

    Going to the vet hospital was weird this year. We all sat in the parking lot. The staff came out and took pets away. Then we just sat in our cars in the parking lot and waited to hear from the doc, calling us on our phone.

  49. 49.

    Splitting Image

    I’m skeptical that the toddler can successfully manage a coup. I guarantee you that he will fritter away whatever advantages he has as the incumbent by spending eight hours a day watching Fox and eight more posting on Twitter.

  50. 50.

    Sab

    @prostratedragon: We don’t even have a good picture of her. Black dogs don’t photograph well. Just a silhouette with teeth and eyewhites

    ETA And she was a pretty girl, very pert. Big eyes. Waggy tail. Short nose. Very alert.

  51. 51.

    lumpkin

    @Felanius Kootea:

    You are wrong about how the election could end up in the house. You indicated it only happens if there’s a tie. That’s not correct. If no candidate gets a majority of electoral votes, the decision is made by the house in a vote where each state gets 1 vote.

     

    There could be some states where Biden should have won the popular vote but state and local government officials contrive to invalidate the results and simply refuse to select electors, resulting in no candidate getting 270 electoral votes, which would put the decision in the house.

  54. 54.

    CaseyL

    @Splitting Image:

    I’m skeptical that the toddler can successfully manage a coup.

     

    The Toddler in Chief isn’t the one I worry about. It’s all the fascists and oligarchs on staff, in the Cabinet, and running the federal government I worry about. Toddler is their front, happy to sign whatever they put in front of him as long as he can steal everything that isn’t nailed down. They’re the ones invested in turning the country into West Russia.

  55. 55.

    prostratedragon

    @Sab:  But you’ve given me the cutest mental picture. In particular, growing up I knew a couple of black cocker spaniels who were real cards, which helps me get the drift even if yours was a bigger dog. Spirit hugs.

  57. 57.

    Xenos

    How is it ensured that both sides agree to the same, duly constituted electoral college?  I worry about and Avignon presidency.

  58. 58.

    Felanius Kootea

    @lumpkin: The only states where that would matter, given current state polls, would be Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.  If Biden wins all the Hillary states (he’s ahead in every single one) plus those three, he wins the election.  He’s also ahead in Florida, Arizona and within the margin of error in Texas, of all places. Please lay out plausible scenarios where Biden wins all the Hillary states and then due to Republican shenanigans on Election Day, loses his advantage in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania even with banked early votes and absentee ballots. Note that all three of these states have Democratic governors with the National Guard at their disposal to quell militia insurrection (even if their state legislatures are Republican due to gerrymandering).  Walk me through how this happens so I can appropriately panic.

  60. 60.

    Redshift

    One thing to keep in mind is that none of these toadies are loyal to him, they’re only loyal to power. He demands loyalty and thinks he gets it, but they’re really only sticking with him for what they get out of it, and once that’s in question, few of them will want to risk being the one left holding the bag/going to jail.

    Similarly, everyone in the Justice Department and the civil service who’s been agonizing over the choice between keeping their career or speaking out and maybe making a difference will find that flipped, doing the right thing will get them out from under Trump and Barr and they’ll keep their career.

    I’m not too worried about a clown car coup against that.

  61. 61.

    Sab

    @prostratedragon: My parents had a black cocker. He was one of the ones I nursed through cancer. Amazing dog. My brother’s girlfriend found him lost on a golfcourse in February. Nobody ever claimed him. Great dog. He died of melanoma, but he had a great life before that.

  62. 62.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @Felanius Kootea: Walk me through how this happens so I can appropriately panic.

    No need to panic, but the 1876 election gives you a pretty good idea of just how much shenanigans is possible in a presidential election. The answer, a lot.

  63. 63.

    Sab

    @Amir Khalid: Thanks. Quick for her, which is what I hope for. Great dog.

    We are hoping to steal my step-daughter’s dog, who is being mistreated/ neglected.

    ETA my stepdaughrter sucks with pets, but she is amazing with actual human children. Which should be what it is all about.

  65. 65.

    Redshift

    @Chetan Murthy: In the normal course, the parties choose electors statewide and in each congressional district, and slate of the candidate that wins the state become the state’s electors. I’m sure they’re technically chosen by the state government, but I’m pretty confident it’s delegated in state law to the candidates (who abide by party bylaws). So whoever is running the state can’t just decide to choose other electors.

    But I expect your point was that they’re chosen at the state level; no disagreement there.

  66. 66.

    James E Powell

    @Felanius Kootea:

    I worry about Republican election bullshit, but I worry even more about white people in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.

    Old people in Florida have been giving me nightmares since 2000.

  67. 67.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Redshift: My understanding was that state leges could pass a law retaking the right to choose the electors, though?  And sure, it’s gotta be passed like any law.  But in any case, yeah, there won’t be competing slates: each state will decide somehow, and that’ll be that for that state’s electors.

  71. 71.

    Chris T.

    @Yutsano: But in all-votes-by-mail states (OR, WA, and increasingly now, CA), there are no polls to exit-poll. Not sure what they do then…

  72. 72.

    James E Powell

    @Yutsano:

    I have yet to see a scenario where Biden doesn’t win.

    Since I will never fully recover from 2000 or 2016, I can see all manner of scenarios in my fevered nightmares.

    What will it take for Biden to win Florida?

  73. 73.

    Sab

    Our Tuxedo thinks he won his battle. But we are mourning a sweet gentle dog , and this tuxedo cat made her life miserable.

    But on the other hand, he has asthma.

  76. 76.

    dm

    I don’t sorry much about institutions, but I do worry about Q cultists and people whose knowledge of the Constitution is limited to half of the second amendment “liberating” state capitols and looking for protests to vigilantize.

    I doubt there are many, but Timothy Mcveigh and his accomplice were only two.

  77. 77.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Sab: For Western English speakers, yeah, “th”.  But in truth, the “t” and the “th” are both somewhat in-between a “t” and a “th”, and …. well, American English just doesn’t have the phoneme for it.  Heh, so my mom can pronounce my first name, but my younger sisters (born in the US) can’t.  Which is interesting, I guess.

  78. 78.

    Felanius Kootea

    @Viva BrisVegas: I am aware, but this is not an “Oh no, Ulysses S. Grant is not running scenario.” It’s an election where millions who don’t even like Biden are motivated to vote for him against Trump because they see Trump as an existential threat.  Something that  US TV reporters, for whom Trump’s re-election is not seen as an existential threat, and who are only too happy to discount the mid-term election results from 2018, fail to acknowledge, as they fall over themselves to interview the same troglodytes they’ve been enamored of since 2016. An election where Biden is polling ahead in every state that Hillary won and quite a few that she lost, where the Governors and Secretaries of State who run the elections are now Democrats.  So when someone posits a scenario where the electoral college numbers are in doubt in some vague, unspecified red state that Biden absolutely needs to win, I want them to show me their work, so I run through my head whether it is plausible and try to figure out how we can guard against it.

  80. 80.

    NotMax

    @lumpkin

    Not to belabor the point (and gawd we’ve been around this same decrepit what if carousel here too many times already), the House is involved only if the electoral college results unsealed and accepted by them on January 3rd do not provide 270 or more for one person.

    There are more republican state delegations

    While that is so today, may not be the case in the new Congress.

    Actually an arcane legal conundrum of sorts, as D.C.’s House delegate is barred form casting floor votes. Since D.C. does now vote for president, the D.C. delegate by rights ought to be able to vote in these special circumstances as a delegation, but might technically be unable to.

  81. 81.

    Felanius Kootea

    @James E Powell: Biden doesn’t need Florida to win but he has multiple paths.  Maybe it is a century ago that Obama won Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania and I’m overly optimistic, but something tells me that there are many people in those three states who will vote for Biden that would never in a million years vote for Hillary.  It doesn’t hurt that all three states now have Democratic governors, and all three now have Democratic Secretaries of State (Secretary of the Commonwealth in PA’s case) running the election.

  83. 83.

    VOR

    @Felanius Kootea: I recall Biden was polling unusually strong among older voters. The GOP and Trump have been pretty clear about their lack of concern for the lives of the elderly during the pandemic. Perhaps they aren’t willing to die for the stock market?

  84. 84.

    jl

    @Felanius Kootea:  I agree that MI, PA and WI are critical

    The smoke in SF Bay Area was so miserable today, I decided to do something miserable to match, so I plowed through swing state early and mail voting rules. From what I saw, many of the swing states start processing and counting early votes before election day (edit: with a shitload of felony charges for releasing any info prematurely), so if there is a strong effort to do mail in ballots early, do a lot of in-person absentee ballot early voting in states that do that weird thing, then most of the mail-in votes will get counted fairly quickly. Many of the swing states accept ballots postmarked on election day up to ten days after the election. But if they can count the other mail in ballots quickly enough, not enough time for much deviltry. There’s no ‘hanging chad’ problem’.

    But sadly, MI, PA and WI have clumsy in-person absentee early voting, and they don’t do squat with the ballots until election day (unless I missed some new development). They also require ballots to arrive by election day, and WI and PA have big court fights over the ballots. I hope the Democrats are paying special attention to GOTV in those states.

    Anyone has better info that I do, chime in and let me know where I am miserably wrong.

  85. 85.

    Sab

    @Chetan Murthy: In Ohio I had a an American born Chinese parented roommate in college. She and every sister she had had had parents who chose names that they could not pronounce. Marie. Dorothy.Chiristina. There was another sister I forget whose name was equally a problem.

    Otherwise we had identical backgrounds. Our dads had same jobs. in medecine. My sister was a Chinese Art Historian.

  86. 86.

    Sab

    @Sab:  My family was Scottish and Irish, but my mother had a speech impediment and could not pronounce rrs. They came out as wws. Amazing with her ethnic background.

  90. 90.

    opiejeanne

    @Sab: I am so sorry for your loss, and I feel that pain.  We lost a very dear kitty in a similar manner. It was so sudden that the shock of it left us numb for hours.

  91. 91.

    Sloane Ranger

    @The Pale Scot: And the end result was what? The Bill passed to the next stage despite a couple of Tory backbenchers not voting with the Government. Big deal. In order to stop the Bill over 80 Tories need to vote against it or not vote at all.

    More Tories will probably vote for the amendments next week but it still won’t be enough. Our slide into Rogue nation status has begun.

  93. 93.

    Bruce K

    @James E Powell: As I understand it, mailed-in ballots are counted in advance in Florida, but not publicized until the polls close, so if Biden has enough mail-in votes banked to get him outside the margin of error (or, let’s be honest, the margin where GOP fraud could cause doubt), that’s the ballgame on Election Day. I gamed things out on the 270towin interactive map, basing things on the aggregate estimates on electoral-vote.com, with adjustments for GOP shenanigans in places like Georgia and Wisconsin, and even then, if Biden takes Florida, game over.

  96. 96.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    I doubt the coup bit, it’s clear the serious people have written off Trump by now as a luzer. Not to mention, the opposition is already mobilized, a coup wouldn’t work. What is Trump going to do, order the Airforce to bomb cities if there is a general strike?

    Like I said, I still predict when it becomes clear Trump is going to lose, Trump will do some bullshit, a not resignation so Trump can blame Pence on losing the election and then when the election is over announce Trump had his fingers crossed and Trump is still president, then he will run off to Florida and spend the rest of his life screaming how the left cheated him of his second term.

    You all are making the wrong assumptions about Trump, Trump doesn’t want the office for the power, Trump wants to office as a trophy.

  99. 99.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @lgerard: I think the White House staff packs up the out going President and family while the Inauguration is going on   I would bet the staff can not wait to see Trump and Melania gone.

  102. 102.

    CarolDuhart2

    @Geoduck: So will a lot of other people when the smoke clears.  2024 was going to be an open one for the Republicans regardless-and if Pence is ever going to be President, he’s going to press the semi-incumbent advantage of a VP and announce  immediately to press that advantage.

  103. 103.

    Mousebumples

    @nasruddin: re democratic support of US House delegations – i believe newly elected House reps vote, which is why it’s worth supporting At Large candidates in Alaska and Montana.

    https://www.270towin.com/2020-house-election/state-by-state/consensus-2020-house-forecast

    Current composition is 23-26 with 1 tie (Pennsylvania). If we can flip the aforementioned At Large seats, we’re at 25-24 Democrats.

    You can play with control of certain toss up seats on that page, as well. I’m not sure that we will win that control , but it’s within our reach with GOTV efforts since we have solid candidates running in most of these races.

  104. 104.

    Mousebumples

    @jl: They also require ballots to arrive by election day, and WI and PA have big court fights over the ballots. I hope the Democrats are paying special attention to GOTV in those states.

    Reporting from Wisconsin, I’ve gotten multiple outreach attempts to get me to vote by mail (already signed up). Another reason to get my ballot dropped off ASAP is so that it’s marked as received and they can stop checking up on me.

    Related – for the April Judicial election (and Presidential primary), we had an extra week for our ballots to arrive by mail. That is not typical, historically. Ballots were due by election day for the August “partisan primary”. There are lawsuits now, in Wisconsin and other states, to extend the received by date. We’ll see how that goes , but I’m trying to be hopeful. ?

  105. 105.

    Kay

    I think Republicans in Congress want Trump gone. He’s bad for Republicans in Congress- they got creamed in 2018 and they’re probably going to lose the senate in 2020. He’s a daily problem for them – they can get all the tax cuts and the far Right judges from a much less blatantly corrupt and repulsive GOP President and they can do it without losing college educated and suburban voters by 20 points.

    They’re too cowardly to do anything about it themselves, but if voters do it for them they won’t get in the way of his removal.

    They are wholly self interested and backing Trump in their own self interest tips from “worth it” to “not worth it” when he loses. The low quality hires in the Trump Administration itself will do anything and everything to stay in power but congressional Republicans won’t assist, because it is no longer in their interest as members of Congress to do so. Trump losing solves a lot of their problems. They can pick up all the principles they dropped and pretend none of it ever happened, and move right to opposing Biden which serves the same purpose Trump does as far as they’re concerned.

  106. 106.

    Matt McIrvin

    Despite the clickbait title, the 538 article actually isn’t about the case where there’s a clear-cut Biden win and Trump simply refuses to leave. That’s not a danger at all. It’s about the case where Trump manages to sow enough chaos and FUD in the run-up to the election that it becomes conventional wisdom that he might have won, and he can contest the result plausibly enough to get judges behind him. At that point, the military etc. might actually be uncertain about who to go with.

    Consider: the same drama-hungry media that has an interest in imagining these stories also has an interest in helping to make them real.

    Also consider: Trump has appointed a huge number of federal judges and two Supreme Court Justices. In modern law, the Constitution literally only says what they say it says. Things we consider legally absurd could start happening fast.

  107. 107.

    geg6

    @jl:

    This is PA’s very first general election with mail in absentee voting.  Of course it’s a little clumsy because they have only ever done it once for the primary.  It took a while, but it got done.  The Secretary of the Commonwealth is trying to get permission to start counting mail in ballots three days ahead of Election Day.  If she succeeds, the results will be available much more quickly than they were for the primary.  Dems have a huge number of requests for mail in, a gigantic number more than GOPers.  And we currently have the majority on the state Supreme Court and a Dem governor.  I am confident we’ll get it done properly.

  109. 109.

    ThresherK

    I’m glad that we’re seeing more lines like “Joe Biden is poised to win”.

    I forget who I’m stealing this from, but: Were any Republican to have the lead that Biden has now, our news and pundit headlines and framing would treat Election Day as a mere formality.

  110. 110.

    yellowdog

    @Felanius Kootea: The current House delegations are 25 R, 24 D and one tied and the tied one is PA. There are only 3 states where flipping a seat will give a D maj. They are the aforementioned PA, FL and MT and MT is highly unlikely to flip. I don’t know the state of the House races in those states, but there appears to be a very, very narrow path for Ds to have a majority of delegations in the next Congress.

  111. 111.

    trnc

    @Yutsano: It’s also worth noting that election calls by the networks are done via exit polls. They can’t exit poll mail-in ballots. So any network calling elections on November 3rd is a clown show. To put it mildly.

    Just to be clear, you aren’t putting all your chips on major media outlets being anti-clown show, right?

  115. 115.

    CarolDuhart2

    About planning for the inauguration:  a link here:

    http://www.insideelections.com/news/article/inauguration-planning-confronts-reality-of-pandemic

    I agree with using the template for the DNC and encouraging the people to stay home, or at least do things that are local.  Not only because of the pandemic, but because very angry Trumpers may try to take their rage out on attendees.  The shock of having their anointed leader evicted by the very democratic processes they despise may be too much.

  119. 119.

    WaterGirl

    Wow, panicky thread.  Maybe focusing on “What if all the worst case things happen?” isn’t helpful?

    This might be my least favorite BJ thread ever.

  121. 121.

    Miss Bianca

    @Sab: Late to this thread, just wanted to say how sorry I was to hear about your pup’s passing.

    Too many jackals’ pups passing right now, I need to give my fur persons extra skritches today, because tomorrow never knows…

  124. 124.

    chopper

    @Matt McIrvin:

    the thing is, even if trump tries to get some courts to stop vote counting (say, on election night), there’s no legal authority to stop counting and throw the rest out. any ‘stop’ would be a pause. and before anyone goes citing bush v gore, that was a recount.

  125. 125.

    J R in WV

    @JaySinWA:

    Given the police union endorsement, I am not confident that the SS is all that opposed to Donny

    Police unions have nothing to do with the Secret Service. Further, the police don’t work with Der Drumpf 24/7, and so don’t know first hand what a dork he is.

    Thus you are wrong!

  126. 126.

    J R in WV

    @Sab:

    So sorry for your so sudden loss!! And glad you have several fur babies left to console you.

    It’s always hard, though! so sorry!

  127. 127.

    J R in WV

    @lumpkin:


    If it’s decided in the house it’s by state delegation not a full vote of all representatives. There are more republican state delegations than democrat.

    That’s true today — we don’t know what will be the case after November! Don’t be a downer, much will be revealed after November…

  129. 129.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    @JaySinWA: Assuming you mean “Secret Service” and not a rebuilding of the actual Schutzstaffel, I think they respect the rule of law enough to acknowledge he’s not President the instant he’s removed from office, or his term expires.

    (“Removed from office”? It wouldn’t surprise me if the Republicans decide to remove him from office in the lame duck session, in an attempt to rehabilitate their image.)

    So I wouldn’t expect them to pile up his golf clubs on the side walk, etc., but I do expect them to remove him from the White House, as gently as he’ll allow. (Or, perhaps it would be the DC police, or, some other entity.)

    I suppose my real fear isn’t so much Trump, as it is… well. Think about the cognitive dissonance you need to support Trump at this point. How much *good* would you have to think he’s done, to merit the Presidency, after all this harm? You’d pretty much have to believe that he’s been hounded by the deep state all this time, and from there, it’s a tiny wobble to Qanon.

    PS: am I wrong, or would every Democratic officeholder have to condemn Qanon if it posited *Republicans* were involved in child sex trafficking?

  130. 130.

    LongHairedWeirdo

    @Sab: My deepest sympathies. I had a cat die suddenly, in a similar fashion (“either a congenital heart condition, or maybe a virus that’s *usually* okay, but mutates into a deadly form”). And it’s hard – perhaps the most helpless I’ve ever felt with any pet. There’s even a bit of PTSD – I mean, it’s like being in a car crash, and you’re all jumpy about getting in a car again, because right now, your mind is all full of the crash.

    I say that just so you’re ready – it might not happen, but I know that when my other cat was taking a really deep snooze, I freaked out, and scared the hell out of him.

    Sending virtual comfort, and hugs/etc., if desired.

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