The whole point of all the chaos that the President, his campaign, his surrogates, and his supporters are calling for, and the actual chaos that he, his surrogates, and his supporters are creating, are all intended to do one thing: demoralize everyone. In the table below you can see the Soviet doctrinal model for subverting a state and society. Demoralization is one of the major components. Among other actions, it includes subverting the legislative process to subvert the judicial system and the rule of law. Part of the reason that Senator McConnell jammed Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination through in under six weeks just before the election is to demoralize the majority of Americans. It is why he’s already stated publicly that during the lame duck, regardless of the results of the election, he’s not going to bring a COVID relief package to the floor. Rather, all he’s going to do is fill the remaining Federal judicial vacancies in order to achieve a legislative demoralization two for: further packing the courts with Leonard Leo chosen reactionaries and extremists and ensuring that Americans don’t get the help and assistance they need to survive the pandemic.
The domestic terror attacks on the Biden-Harris campaign bus and the staffers accompanying it in their own vehicles in Texas, promising to give Senator Harris a Texas Welcome, which is reminiscent of what conservative Texans announced they would give President Kennedy in 1963 is intended to demoralize you. Domestic terrorism that appears to have originated with Don Jr. instigating it via his social media accounts. The militia threat in Rome, GA that led to Georgia Democrats cancelling their rally there today is intended to demoralize you. Thethe closing of the Garden State Parkway in NJ, the Mario Cuomo Bridge in New York, and several other major roadways in the northeast are all intended to demoralize people. As are the President’s statements that his lawyers will get right to work as soon as the polls close in Pennsylvania on Tuesday night. And the statements by deadbeat dad and ambulatory thumb Jason Miller on ABC’s Sunday news talk show this morning. The ever more bizarre attempts to smear VP Biden with ever wilder and more bizarre allegations about his surviving son by Giuliani, Bannon, Don Jr., Guo Wengui’s network, and others are intended to demoralize you.
Just as the President’s, his surrogates’, and his supporters’ attempts to make it so that nothing is true, therefore anything, everything, and nothing is possible are intended to demoralize, so too are the activities, actions, and statements heading into election day. And regardless of the outcome of the election, whether they are able to make projections and calls early or whether it takes several days because things seem close on Tuesday and we have to wait for the ballots to be counted, the attempts to demoralize will continue through January 20, 2021. The President, his campaign, the Republican Party, the now clearly misnamed conservative movement, the President’s surrogates, and the President’s supporters want you demoralized. They want you on edge. They want you scared. Because they want the demoralization and the fear to immobilize you.
The political science PhD part of me, in line with Charlie Cook’s projections, looks at the data and information we have and recognizes the high probability that VP Biden wins without much difficult and the Democrats are able to achieve a 52 seat Senate majority. The low intensity warfare professional in me looks at what’s going on and is exceedingly concerned regardless of what happens on Tuesday.
Things are going to be unsettled, uncomfortable, unpleasant, and dangerous no matter what happens on Tuesday night. Especially if what the data tells us is going to happen happens and VP Biden wins. The President, his key subordinates in his administration, in Congress, on the Federal courts, in state governments, his surrogates, and his supporters will ramp up their destructive rhetoric and, in some cases, behavior. Not because it will somehow undo the results of the election, but because in reality they actually hate America; especially the real promise and ideals of America. Just as they hate the vast majority of Americans. And if they can’t control America and rule it and over the vast majority of Americans, then they’ll try to see it damaged so no one else can.
I know the next 120 hours, the next five days, is going to seem like an eternity. An eternity fraught with danger and full of stress. But they only win if we actually become demoralized. America doesn’t belong to them. They don’t own it. They don’t get to control it. And they don’t get to rule it or anyone in it.
So compartmentalize. Do whatever you have to do for self care. And keep doing whatever you’ve been doing to make sure everyone you know is voting and everyone they know is voting.
Edited To Add (ETA) 9:25 PM EST:
I just want to add one comment within the body of the post. Everyone needs to stop freaking out and knee jerking about which demographic is turning out in which ways for Biden versus 2016 or 2012 or 2008. The coalition that VP Biden has built, as well as that has coalesced around him, is not a recreation of President Obama’s 2008 or 2012 coalitions. Nor is it an attempt to recreate Secretary Clinton’s 2016 coalition and then expand it in the demographics that underperformed for her vis a vis for President Obama in 2008 and 2012. Rather, the coalition that VP Biden built was, as I forecast back in January 2019, initially from the left through to the center. With the addition of the NeverTrumpers, whether former Republicans or Republicans who recognize the threat that the Republic is in and are doing the right thing by crossing over and supporting VP Biden’s candidacy, and VP Biden’s ability to pull in non-college educated more rural and blue collar whites, especially white men, tells us something important. What VP Biden has built in terms of an electoral coalition is, for all intents and purposes, a national unity coalition. It now runs from the left anchored by Senator Sanders and all but his most rabid supporters all the way out to the center right with a number of Republicans for Biden, The Lincoln Project folks and their supporters, and at least half of the National Security Leaders for Biden*. This is something almost unseen in modern American political history. And it is important to remember just how broad, wide, and deep VP Biden’s coalition is when you see, hear, and/or read reporting on some proportion of what would normally be a Democratic demographic not turning out in the numbers like they did in 2016, 2012, or 2008. So don’t freak out. Realize just what the Biden coalition is and what it represents.
Open thread!
* Full disclosure: I am advising one of the original 3 star (lieutenant general) signatories of the National Security Leaders for Biden letter. I served as his senior civilian advisor before he retired and have been providing political, strategy, and policy analysis to him since early in the summer. This is a voluntary service, I am not being paid.
different-church-lady
If I’m going to idly wonder things, one of the things I’ve been wondering is: the parallels between Stalinism and Trumpism are pretty clear. But did Trump deliberately pick up Stalinism as a model, or did he just stumble across the fact that it has an effect and went with it from the gut?
NYCMT
My wife and I already voted, but getting trapped on the Whitestone bridge this afternoon after coming back from a distanced funeral and shiva call for a beloved great aunt, in a traffic jam engineered by the ferocious clowning of mostly Jewish Trump supporters, who used their vehicles and bodies to threaten me and my family – yes, this was tremendously frightening. I kept my shifter in park and my right foot on the brake while my wife dialed 911 and my nine-year-old son sobbed next to his two year old brother. Video of what happened – except for the part when they knocked on my car windows and broke my right-hand mirror.
dmsilev
Thank you, Adam.
Tim C.
Thank you Adam. Thankfully I married well and my spousal overunit is much more capable of seeing the small picture in terms of taking care of the here and now and the family. Dark times indeed, but we have to have courage to see it through.
?BillinGlendaleCA
This shit is supposed to demoralize us? As a wise man, who left us too soon, said; fuck’em.
White & Gold Purgatorian
Thank you. What you have written clarifies the sense of unease I’ve been feeling the last few days. If we understand what they are trying to do to us, it is easier to withstand the storm. We are voting on Tuesday, come hell or high water.
Adam L Silverman
@different-church-lady: I don’t know if anyone knows. But this model isn’t unique to Stalin. It is similar to the behavioral models of both Mussolini’s Italian fascism (national-syndicalism) and Hitler’s NAZI fascism (racist fascism). Basically, regardless of whether the state is organized around concepts of communism or fascism, which are ideologically opposed to each other, they are still totalitarian. And there’s a limited number of ways to run a totalitarian system. Or to try to create one so you can then run one.
waspuppet
These people have always been with us. I heard people yeah-butting dictators in 1975. The whole “I’m so worldly that I know this whole American thing is a bunch of crap” attitude. As soon as Trump told Bill O’Reilly “You think we don’t have killers here too?” I knew exactly who he was.
randy khan
It’s helpful that they’re often so bad at it that it’s comical, but chaos certainly is part of Trump’s brand, and he definitely thinks it helps him.
Adam L Silverman
@NYCMT: I’m so sorry you had to go through that at the hans of Jews without Mercy, who despite their public protestations of their religiosity are, sans mercy, not really Jews. You notice none of the President’s supporters pulled that stupidity in a stand your ground state.
p.a.
Yes: fuck’em.
Also too, the Secret Service knows how to deal with trespassers in the WH.
The Moar You Know
Wow, they haven’t missed one fucking thing on that chart. Not a single one.
I’m going to assume restoring a broken society to a reasonable level of functionality takes at least as long as breaking it did, would that be accurate, Adam?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@NYCMT: I’m so sorry, particularly for the trauma to your 9 year old. That was outrageous.
JaySinWA
I worry that even if T. doesn’t react badly to losing or if he wins, the fuse has already been lit on violence. It will take some effort to de-escalate. T. doesn’t have that in him.
Scotius
The most dangerous moment in an abusive relationship is when the abuser knows you are leaving them.
NYCMT
@Adam L Silverman: The cruelty was the point, I guess.
I know the caselaw around NYPL 35.15 (2) too well. Which was why I kept the car in park right foot firmly on the brake and stared straight ahead until the TBTA cops came a second time to clear the clots.
Cheryl Rofer
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Speaking of that, a CNN reporter was talking about what’s it like going to Trump’s rallies again and again it was pretty clear the whole idea is to repeat the lie over and over again until it becomes true in the minds of the attendees.
I also am totally convinced Trump’s real objective in building uncertainty in the minds over the election in at lest a segment of the population is so Trump can claim Biden stole 2020 from Trump and there are enough people believing him that Trump has enough of a fan base to continue with these rallies of his. There was one article that was claiming Trump’s real fear is he will lose worse than Jimmy Carter which would mean an end to the grift train for him.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Thank you, Adam. I agree. I think there’s a very good chance Biden is going to win. I saw the NYT upshot poll and another A+ rated poll showing Biden up by 6 and 7 points in PA. If that’s correct, and the ballots are counted, Biden wins PA.
All of the President’s, his supporters’, and the rest of GOP’s behaviors and actions have indeed made me nervous, but if anything it’s pissed me off even more. That bullshit with the Biden bus was clearly intimidation. Why else did they surround it with their ugly fucking trucks? That makes me angry. That story about children being pepper sprayed by sheriff’s deputies in the south during a march to the polls? That infuriates me. I’m infuriated every time I see a “thin blue line flag” mask come through my checkout line. I want to scream at them about the children being pepper sprayed and ask them if that’s what they stand for. We’re not going to let them win, no matter what
JaySinWA
T. preparing for a premature ejaculation (of victory).
https://www.axios.com/trump-claim-election-victory-ballots-97eb12b9-5e35-402f-9ea3-0ccfb47f613f.html
Adam L Silverman
I just added the following update to the original post:
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: De nada!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Cheryl Rofer:
It’s interesting to see that the EC vote margin has steadily decreased over time, yet the popular vote margin stayed the same
WaterGirl
@NYCMT:
I am very sorry that happened and I am very glad you were able to keep your cool. I can imagine a panicked feeling if there’s nowhere for you to go and no way to get out.
What does this mean?
“I know the caselaw around NYPL 35.15 (2) too well.”
What is the point of keeping the car in park and keeping your foot firmly on the brake?
I assume the staring straight ahead helps reduce the likelihood of confrontation?
geg6
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
This is what I like to hear! We won’t let them win. No matter what. Fuck ‘em.
DesertFriar
Adam,
Suppose that Russian is able to hack into a voting booths and are able to change the vote total. Would you suspect that they would increase the vote for Trump or increase the vote for Biden? And then leave a trail that could be followed to show that Russian intelligence can control the outcome.
What; in your opinion, would be the biggest upheaval in the US?
Adam L Silverman
@The Moar You Know: As I’ve briefed untold numbers of times since going to work for the Army in 2007, you can never go back to what things were like before the society, the culture was broken. You can only build to a new normal. Which is why Biden’s slogan of “Build Back Better” makes so much sense.
MomSense
@NYCMT:
I am so sorry and so furious that they did this to your family.
bluefoot
@NYCMT: I’m so sorry you and your family had to go through that.
Gin & Tonic
@WaterGirl:
https://law.onecle.com/new-york/penal/PEN035.15_35.15.html
Adam L Silverman
@DesertFriar: I honestly don’t know. I’ve always argued that if I was running an op to muck with US election results, I’d do it by messing with voter registrations. Change the spelling of a name here, adjust a middle initial there. Change a zip code here, a street address there. And space it out within and across states so it looks like noise within the voter registration databases by looking like the normal types of errors one would expect in getting data into and maintaining large databases of people’s personally identifying information.
As to what would happen if the Russians did it and decided to rub everyone’s noses in it, I also don’t really know. If they do it, it is to the President’s advantage for reelection, and he is inaugurated for a second term, then I don’t know what could be done short of impeachment. And even if the Democrats could take a majority in the Senate, they won’t have the 2/3rds majority needed to remove him and his vice president from office to rectify the problem. There is no other actual remedy.
WaterGirl
I found the chart hard to read. Here’s a link to a .pdf that I found easier to read. If there is a link to that up top, i missed it.
catclub
Counting/tabulation computer
FTFY
I think this is one place where the disorganized US makes that hard. I thought the more likely hack is silently de-registering voters. But so far I have not heard of that happening.
Also, that only works if it is close enough to steal less than 1% margin, at most?
SiubhanDuinne
@NYCMT: What a terrible thing for you and your family. I’m dreadfully sorry you all had to go through that, and I particularly hope the nine year old is doing okay after such a scary experience.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: Thanks. Yeah, I had googled that, but that still doesn’t answer the question of why being familiar with that had him keep the car in park, and the foot on the brake, and looking straight ahead.
Another Scott
@Cheryl Rofer: Repost from downstairs:
(An hour-by-hour projection of state results on Tuesday and subsequently.)
Well worth a click over.
Cheers,
Scott.
NYCMT
@WaterGirl: That’s the New York penal code for the justification defense for use of deadly force in defense of person. They weren’t trying to jimmy open the doors or smash windows. but if I responded they could have tried to open the car up. Best to keep everything cool. Besides, I could not get away.
Adam L Silverman
If anyone was wondering, this is the domestic terrorist who attacked the Biden-Harris staffer by driving into his/her van on Friday.
debbie
@different-church-lady:
Oh, please. He’s not that kind of thinker.
Adam L Silverman
@WaterGirl: There is not a link to it.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: No, but he has people around him who are. And people that fund him like Mercer.
FelonyGovt
Thank you so much for this, Adam. You have no idea how welcome this information is. It’s been a troubled weekend.
Mart
@Adam L Silverman: smug pieces of shit. They have stressed me to no end the past five years and we need to make sure they have fair trials. None of this move forward bullshit that just fuels the fascists.
ETA Isn’t the guy with the eye patch the vet insulted by SNL’s Pete Davis, and they hugged it out a week later? Or am I mixing my assholes up?
Adam L Silverman
@FelonyGovt: You’re welcome.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Adam L Silverman:
And honestly? What it was like before led to this moment and it wasn’t all that great for a lot of people for the past 20 years or more. The economy didn’t benefit most Americans, as evidenced by so many surveys that show most people can’t afford legal aid or don’t have much in the way of savings.
All those Trump voters who talk about how well their 401ks are doing are privileged people who overlook all of the other atrocities Trump has committed.
I have a great aunt and great uncle on my father’s side who are big Trumpers. They are people who came into money later in life, through fracking I think. There was a family gathering back in early March and she asked if my father and his brother were “Trumps” (Trump supporters). My father was a “no” and I think my uncle said no as well. She then sang his praises about the economy, and then I came up with a witty rejoinder about how Trump also put “babies in cages”. She had such a blank look and probably didn’t have time to react because my father jumped in to change the subject, but man I wished I could’ve gone after her further
Gin & Tonic
@Adam L Silverman: Seems economically anxious.
WaterGirl
Holy shit, I didn’t realize that there were 100 Trump vehicles involved in the attack on the Biden bus in TX. That would be terrifying. All the participants need to be in jail.
debbie
@NYCMT:
OMG that it was Jewish Trump supporters acting so thuggishly! They should reflect on what they no doubt know their forbearers had to go through.
I am not demoralized. I am fucking angry and appalled.
Mary G
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): My response is also getting more pissed off. I hate that @NYCMT: had to sit there with his frightened children and watch American Nazis act out.
Jeffro
@Another Scott: that is so bizarre…
…his end-of-night EV map is 100% the same as mine (ok, vice versa)
WOOT!
WaterGirl
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): you might consider deleting that comment.
Adam L Silverman
@Mart: In the case of Eliazar Cisneros who has admitted to vehicular assault on Friday, this is the reason he’s a smug piece of shit:
And the cop’s were actually in the trucks attempting to run the Biden-Harris bus off the road:
guachi
Who else has taken time off from work next week just to stay home? I’ve taken Tuesday through Thursday off because there’s no way I could get actual work done.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: Obviously.
mad citizen
@SiubhanDuinne: NYCMT, Just wanted to add my voice to this as well. (Not a lot of juicers around on a Sunday night). I watched your video and retweeted it (not that that means much, I’m sure I have a handful of followers).
So sorry you had to experience this. I am so tired of these cultists and will never understand it.
PPCLI
Great post. Thanks
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@NYCMT:
I’m so sorry that happened to you. I can at least one asshole you responded to trying to gaslight you and tell you what you experienced didn’t happen
Adam L Silverman
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Do we have to have the talk again?
Mary G
@Adam L Silverman: I really have come to love that slogan and chose a Biden/Harris yard sign on it from a private vendor when it looked like the campaign wasn’t going to fill my order as soon as I wanted.
This is one of your best posts. I’m so glad John reeled you in after you complained. He can be lazy, but he’s a genius at recruiting front pagers that make this blog so phenomenally good.
frosty
Neither I nor anyone I know is demoralized. Anxious, yes, but determined. And voting.
Adam L Silverman
@guachi: I’m in between projects because our DOD clients aren’t processing paperwork for the projects they want us to start because the CR runs out at the beginning of December. So what little work I have, I’ll be doing it from home like I’ve been doing since February.
Mary G
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): This is too much like something a MAGAt would say. Please ask a front pager to delete it.
Eolirin
@Adam L Silverman: When we have a functioning justice department again we need to start going after this stuff hard.
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
Pardon my French, but those are some titties.
Adam L Silverman
@Mary G: They were swamped in regard to merchandise. I bought my mom a ball cap and it took six weeks to get here.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Adam L Silverman:
Fine, delete it. Sorry
Mary G
TriassicSands
Don’t stop there. Check to make sure your own ballot is accepted and then help others do the same. For most voters there is no excuse for not tracking their ballots and fixing any problems before the election is certified.
There are large numbers of voters this year who are inexperienced — either first time voters or first time mail-in voters. Mistakes are possible, likely even, but they can be fixed.
Even experienced voters should not assume they don’t need to follow-up.
Jeffro
True, and we’ve already seen this with McConnell blowing off the need for an additional Covid aid package (and one almost has to wonder about trumpov’s super-spreader rallies going on everywhere…I know they’re mostly about his ego-salving, but still…)
The only thing I can suggest (and hope that Biden/Harris are already planning for) is not really about the election; I think that’s a foregone conclusion. I just hope that Team Blue is planning on continuing to counter-message all of the president*s Nov-Jan messaging, rallies, lawsuits, and encouraging of violence.
I know we are all exhausted and Biden/Harris must be too, but we’ll all have to redouble our efforts to marginalize the nutters, press for criminal investigations and charges, remind the outgoing administration officials that they. will. be. prosecuted for destroying evidence, etc.
It’s a fine line for a ‘national unity’ campaign to walk, but they absolutely must remind the American people that the vast majority of this country wants to be free of these twin viruses: trumpian corruption and oh yeah also Covid-19
Adam L Silverman
@Eolirin: AG Barr met with a white Christian supremacist this afternoon who was picketing in front of his house because Barr isn’t indicting Obama, the Clintons, and Biden. Barr met with him, talked with him, prayed with him, and then took a picture with him.
Ascap_scab
I can’t be demoralized, I already voted by mail weeks ago. My votes are in the bank. All they’re doing now is pissing me off for the next election.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: Dude is flabby.
NotMax
Mom (age 92) went and early voted in person in NY today.
Mary G
@Adam L Silverman: That was actually encouraging. I have never purchased a yard sign for a national candidate before; only city council and local bonds for libraries and schools. There are many more like me, I think.
Another Scott
More Twitter doom-scrolling…
“Non-scalable fence” – is that like “transparent aluminum” or “compassionate conservative”??
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Just be a little more careful in the future, okay?
Thor Heyerdahl
Curtis Mayfield & The Impressions – People Get Ready (1965)
Adam L Silverman
@TriassicSands:
That’s just SCIENCE!
Steeplejack
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I think (hope) that Trump is seriously underestimating the legal shitstorm awaiting him when he is out of office, up to and including criminal charges, which he will not be able to ignore by hiding behind a wall of lawyers. And the government has enough money that Trump can’t outspend them into giving up.
Adam L Silverman
@Ascap_scab: You and me both. You and me both.
Eolirin
@Adam L Silverman: Yes, the “when” was doing some pretty heavy lifting in my sentence.
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: Razor wire and spikes up top.
randy khan
@catclub:
And in places where ballots are scanned, generally the scanning devices are not connected to the Internet, so hacking them is somewhat harder (although not completely impossible – you could do it via software updates, for instance).
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman: Longer ladder.
;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
MomSense
@guachi:
I am taking Tuesday off to do voter protection. My teenager is nervous about it so we have been a tv news free zone all weekend watching movies. Can’t take off Wednesday because I think it will be a crisis day for people who will need to talk.
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: I don’t know what he’s afraid of, other than losing. The only people out in force terrorizing people are his supporters that he, Jr., and his other surrogates have whipped into a fine froth.
opiejeanne
@NYCMT: I am so sorry this happened to you and your family, and I’m glad you weren’t harmed and I hope your children don’t have nightmares. I’m sure this did not help your blood pressure at all.
My niece’s husband (I think that makes him my nephew & I will always claim him) got stuck in Olympia WA for 2 hours on the I-5, trying to get home to Tacoma this afternoon. Danny is 2nd generation Mexican, so I was concerned but he’s a big guy and was driving his company’s truck. I just heard from him and was relieved that they hadn’t given him any grief.
He’s been in Oregon the past 10 days cleaning up after the fires and searching for bodies. I think that was enough stress for him without these morons on the overpasses and blocking traffic for hours.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman:
Unlike here, where you get the Soros Bucks.
sdhays
@Another Scott: I wonder how long it will take for the Biden White House to dismantle the Dump Bunker. I expect less than a week, but I don’t know the logistics might be.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@randy khan:
And where the ballots are scanned, like in Ohio, there’s still a paper trail. I’m hoping Kay could explain this, but I remember reading about a whistleblower who worked with Rove’s operation in Ohio and they said Rove claimed that if voting tallies were within the 2-3% margin for a candidate, the tallies could be “changed”. The problem with this is that there’s a paper trail, so how would Rove hope to get away with this?
Mart
I was concerned a ways back when my company sent out election security precautions, but not too worried. Now we know Trump hollers stop the presses, I’ve won. The Supremes are very concerned about ballots and counting. Assholes intimidate, shoot, and vandalize. The resistance comes out to play as well.
Glad I live in lily white suburbia. Wished I had changed my registration to Republican. (Only half kidding.) Also too I mailed my vote last Sunday, still not in. Thought being in a white county in a red state would give my mail privilege dammit!
dmsilev
@Another Scott: Same contractor that built The Wall(tm), I presume?
Eolirin
@randy khan: Right, but ballot machines are usually not a monolith even in the same state so what percentage of machines you can hit in that fashion is very variable and there isn’t a good delivery mechanism to hit many machines at once, unless the state itself is in on the attempt, because ballot machine software updates are supposed to be audited before being rolled out.
Registration is definitely the easiest of the attack vectors. Most of the rest of the attack surfaces would either require hundreds or thousands of individual local attacks to swing anything more than a very local election, or would be fairly easy to detect and reverse in most states because of the tiered way that the results are collected. You’d get visible discrepancies between the layers that would be amenable to audit.
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman:
;-)
(a reply in that Twitter thread.)
Cheers,
Scott.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Some positive news:
Sabato’s Crystal Ball: Democrats Poised to Make State Legislative Gains
dmsilev
@Adam L Silverman: Look, you don’t understand. DC is full of …Democrats. That’s got to be terrifying.
Adam L Silverman
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Don’t even get me started.
Winston
Checked my mail in ballot in Central Florida. It has been counted. Yay!
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: It doesn’t actually work that way either.
Ruckus
@different-church-lady:
A couple of points.
He’s had help from a country whose leader was around 30-40 yrs ago and who seems to have people killed at will and who practices the same sort of policies at home, if not in quantity, in quality.
His diseases help him be that person, his narcissism especially, but the other mental issues he has as well. And he’s spent his entire life being who you see, the culmination of, the person who gets what he wants by convincing the vulnerable of his charm, wit, racism, and wealth – even as all of that, with the exception of the racism, is pure bullshit.
Brachiator
I will look at voter demographics after the election. I don’t care about any polls right now and skip over posts and threads about polls and any speculation about them. I DO care that people are voting, that get out the vote efforts are still happening, and that Democrats and others are fighting like hell against the GOP voter suppression efforts.
Also I have been enjoying the hell out of video clips of Obama making that three point shot.
You just know that Trump never honestly sank a hole in one.
Zelma
I have almost decided not to turn the TV on again until Wednesday morning. I turned on the MSNBC thing tonight but I turned to the Eagles game almost immediately. (I’m not sure which is worse, but at least the Steelers won today.). I am just too nervous to listen to one more analysis of this poll or that poll or this group or that group. I have done what I could, emptied my bank account, made calls, voted and now I am going to spend the next two days praying. Just to make my life more fraught, I think I’ll give quitting smoking a go. I can hardly get much tenser,
I found Adam’s post both telling and sad. Perhaps the KGB and its successors followed this recipe, but they could not have hoped to succeed were it not for the failures of American society. And our greatest failure is our hubris and our ignorance. The United States will be a very different place after this coming Tuesday. If Biden wins, we can perhaps survive as a decent country. But the stench of Trump will always be with us. If Trump wins, we’re done.
I guess I’ll wait until after the election to quit smoking. I mean, if Trump wins, what’s the point?
opiejeanne
@Adam L Silverman: Still, the mob got to Ceausescu.
Mousebumples
@Adam – As always, thank you for these posts. Scary, yes, but I like to be prepared.
@Goku – if you’re not already, follow @EScrimshaw and @LeanTossup on Twitter. They have their own poll based model and Evan has had some insightful articles that look at the data. He posted last night about the Iowa Selzer poll, and what’s wrong with it, along other things.
Breathe, do what you need to take care of yourself, and we’ll get through this.
sherparick
@Adam L Silverman: I also think a lot of these stunts from the vote suppression to the thuggery on the highway also are being done to distract and keep the COVID-19 story off the front page, which from looking at the NYT they have been successful. Even Fauci’s now open conflict with Administration Policy is buried.
PsiFighter37
Jesus Fucking Christ, my wife just told me her parents voted for Trump. Fucking assholes. They live in PA, too. And they are Chinese, which makes as little sense as Mexican-Americans voting for Trump.
Soooo annoyed. Tempted to withhold any more pictures of their granddaughter.
ETA: And they voted for Clinton in 2016. How stupid. How fucking stupid. Combine that with realizing my starting TE in my FF league is barely playing tonight because the other TE on the Eagles came off of IR yesterday (and I wasn’t paying attention), and now I am going to lose solely because of that, puts me in a perfectly rotten mood for going to sleep.
Adam L Silverman
@opiejeanne: They did.
James E Powell
Apart from the more important disasters that would follow a Trump victory, the pollster industry will be permanently discredited with the public. Companies will still use them, but the public will just stop believing that they know any more than a magic 8 ball.
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman: I know. Donnie apparently doesn’t. (Though there are comments in that Twitter thread that an “un-scalable fence” has been “in the works” for the WH since 2016.)
Biden being President on noon Wednesday January 20, 2021 has nothing to do with the White House. He will be President no matter where he is. As we know.
Cheers,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@PsiFighter37:
Now you know what all the tough on Xi, tough on China, referring to the PRC as the CCP or the Chinese Communist Party or the ChiComs by the President and his surrogates is all about.
Ruckus
@Scotius:
Bingo.
They strike when they feel cornered or caught or get any pushback – perceived or real, like a rabid dog or rat.
Kattails
Thanks Adam. Excellent points. I’m in OK shape and have sufficient beverages on hand to get through a week or more, and most of a half gallon of coffee almond fudge ice cream. I just refuse to let this get to me. However, I will be standing at the polls with signs on Tuesday and was trying to remember where your recent list was of what to look for/do if there is ratfuckery afoot at polling stations. Could you refresh us on that before voting day? It was highly relevant, more so given the outbreak of intimidation tactics over the last couple of days; but I don’t have a printer, should have made a bookmark.
Also, while noting the stuff about Cisneros’ and the local cops, what do you think about the FBI getting involved in this? Are they as likely to give him a stern talking to, or do they actually take domestic terrorism seriously?
I was putting out more Biden/Harris signs late today and saw some Republican ones with the lying “Democrats will raise (up-pointing arrow) taxes”, in red, which bit of fabrication I’d addressed in a local letter to the editor. Rather than destroy or deface the sign, which would be tacky, I might run up a couple to put right next to them saying “ON TRUMP”.
My plan is to keep busy with some fine hand sewing or practice my calligraphy. Perhaps too hard to do original creative work, but can surely organize materials or make progress on simple projects. I’ve got a scarf going for Operation Gratitude. Remember kids, worriers spend a lot of time shoveling smoke.
Kent
This afternoon we had our pleasant hike on a local trail here in Camas WA (Portland suburbs) completely interrupted by a big MAGA parade of Trump crazies with their racist flags and pickup trucks. They were led by about 6 fire trucks with full sirens blazing. I couldn’t recognize where they were from because they didn’t have any city markings so it must have been some private fire fighting companies. They exist out here to fight forest fires under contract. I’m quite sure it would have been illegal for our local fire fighters to take the city trucks out for Trump parades.
There is zero chance that WA goes for Trump and this is a 100% mail-in balloting state with a bazillion dropboxes all over the state. So most people have actually already voted I think. The whole thing was a pointless annoyance.
These same folks were around in 2016. But they just seem more desperately feral now than ever before. 2016 was more celebratory. 2020 is just sheer feral anger. You can smell the desperate hatred from a block away.
Adam L Silverman
@Kattails: I haven’t done a post on what to look for at the polls. Are you referring to my how to be safe and secure if you’re attending a protest post from back in 2017?
Patricia Kayden
Nelle
My daughter and I are focusing on comparing different movie versions of Jane Austen novels. We’ve done Emma and next up is Sense and Sensibility. And I’ve found a version of Pride and Prejudice (BBC, 1980) that I haven’t seen since then. Hope we can find the 40’s version with Laurence Olivier.
My extended family has come through rough times: familial losses through a plane crash, physical disabilities through a car crash, and revolution (my sister and nieces were on the last ferry out of Kinshasa in 1997, my BIL and nephew were on the floor for several days of the worst fighting). My husband had three tours in Vietnam (before I met him). My dad lived through the German invasion in WWI, then the fighting between the Reds and Whites and in between the attacks of Mahkno and his anarchists, followed by famine. What is known in our family is persistence, gratitude, and endurance.
We’ve lost an illusion of security – an illusion for those of us who are white and have not been subject to poverty. So now, we can better understand the brutality of raw power that so many of our fellow citizens have long experienced. It is humbling. With persistence, gratitude, and endurance, we can create something better. And I’ll add accountability to reality and to justice. We need that.
gwangung
Ai-yah!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Another Scott: Oh, looks like someone thought of a nice b-day present for me.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Another Scott: Hmmm, that’s sounds like a fence Mexico will pay for.
Ruckus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Because the electoral map actually did change, states got bluer and added population while states got redder and didn’t add the same percentage of people. So the electoral collage doesn’t reflect the actual population and it’s location, the same way the house doesn’t. Property has a higher value in conservative politics than people do. We’ve been taught that people matter more than land but our political system does not reflect that.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Mousebumples:
Just checked him out:
He has pretty bold prediction map
I don’t think it’ll be 100% correct, but I like his optimism
catclub
does anyone have the link to a historian doing a podcast on successful and failed democracies over time?
There was a commenter here who mentioned it – maybe thursday
MisterForkbeard
@PsiFighter37: My wife is doing this with her parents over their vocal Trump support. Might be worth doing.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kattails:
You asked Adam, but if and when Biden is sworn in, he appoints his AG and has them confirmed, I expect the DOJ and the FBI to take this stuff very seriously
Mousebumples
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): yeah, i dont think he’s 100% right (but I hope!) and their models have been close on the recent NZ elections, for example.
His recent point of “if we saw what was going on in Florida’s numbers and the state was called Adirolf, we wouldn’t be as freaked out as we are.”
I’m volunteering, I’m working on GOTV like we’re behind. Being in a more optimistic mental frame helps me for the next few days, and we’ll see what results Tuesday (and beyond) bring.
Suzanne
I am not demoralized! I am PISSED. L I V I D.
@NYCMT: I am so sorry. That is terrifying.
randy khan
@Eolirin:
Oh, I definitely agree – registration is much more centralized in every state.
Bill Arnold
Did people see this story (in a local Pennsylvania news outlet), which made it to the Washington Post[1] (the Trump campaign was told no in this case). Ooops:
Security info request from Trump campaign perturbs Cumberland County officials ahead of election (Zack Hoopes, Oct 30, 2020) (bold mine)
The Trump campaign described the request as “standard election transparency details,” but local officials find the implication — that the President’s campaign staff is harvesting election security plans through what appears to be a personal web-based email account — to be extremely concerning.
“It’s almost kind of chilling the sort of data they wanted us to provide,” Cumberland County Commissioner Gary Eichelberger said. “This is basically the whole security plan. We’ve never received a request of this detail and I find it troubling that one of the interested parties [in the election outcome] feels they have a right to information that obviously could jeopardize the security of the ballots.”
This is especially funny:
But the details O’Shaughnessy asked for in her email do not concern ballot verification; rather, they are specific physical security details for ballots and voting machines.
These include information on “the location(s) that ballots are immediately sent to when polls close (including address and room number)” as well as “the individuals who transport the ballots to the location(s).”
The campaign is also asking for “the time(s) when are ballots are transported to canvass site,” information on any security provided, and “the best point of contact for each storage location(s) of the ballots.”
IMO, better than even odds that a Trump Clown Ops Team (and their vehicle(s), important) is caught and identified somewhere on high resolution surveillance cameras, and maybe in person, attempting to steal/manipulate/destroy ballots(/voting machines/whatever). Betcha some places are setting up additional surveillance cameras. (e.g. trail cams) The GOP has now announced their intent (they have clear motives; behind in polls). (Which could be attempted false flag ops, of course.)
Another Scott
@catclub: Was this it?
https://acoup.blog/2020/10/30/fireside-friday-october-30-2020/
(I’ve had it in another tab, but haven’t read it yet.)
Cheers,
Scott.
Kent
At least the Seahawks won and the Cowboys are losing so the world isn’t all demoralizing
On the Trump-fed conspiracy theory that doctors are goosing Covid numbers to make more money and make Trump look bad? It is filtering down to the MAGA faithful. My wife is a physician with Kaiser. She just recently has an elderly patient test positive, who also suffers from mild dementia. So she has to send out care information to her adult children as she was getting sent home to self-quarantine.
She got an irate email back from one of the sons who lives out of state in Utah she thinks. Talking about how it was just to convenient that the Covid positive test came in right now, and that he was taking it with a grain of salt, and basically accusing her of falsifying a Covid positive test to make Trump look bad and increase their profits.
I told her to not respond but to forward it on to her corporate supervisors asking them how she is supposed to respond to this sort of thing. Just to lay a record in case there are future complaints from this family. Sheesh.
piratedan
@MisterForkbeard: I understand that pain, you can tell them that they can see their grandkid as soon as the GOP reveals their Health Care Plan.
Kent
But….we are a REPUBLIC not a Democracy. So nothing to see here or fail. Or so my MAGA cousin tells me.
randy khan
@Another Scott:
Speaking as someone who walks past the White House periodically, it’s not unscalable so much as much taller than the old one, and much harder to scale. And, yes, it’s been in the works for a while, since well before Trump was in the White House. The theory in 2016 was that they could build a better fence and get rid of the Jersey barriers that keep people off the sidewalk on the south side of Pennsylvania Avenue. The fence will have enough space between slats that you can see the White House and take photos of it, which actually is a significant objection to the current arrangement – essentially you can’t get a photo that doesn’t show the fence.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@MisterForkbeard: The kid’s father(and I assume step-mom) are Trump voters. Older Korean and religious.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Mousebumples:
From one the LeanTossUp articles about the NYT/Siena poll in PA and other polling in swing states:
We have vote and make sure all votes are counted. If we can do that, we’ll win
catclub
@Another Scott: Thanks!
Pretty sure yes.
Adam L Silverman
@catclub: Ask and ye shall receive. Seek and ye shall find.
https://acoup.blog/2020/10/30/fireside-friday-october-30-2020/&source=gmail-imap&ust=1604686968000000&usg=AOvVaw1tTnnVIlt65HeF2Ew61gwd
What the historian doesn’t say is there is a pretty direct line between the Spartacus revolt and Julius Caesar declaring himself emperor. The elites got very, very, very scared when the Spartacan revolt was very, very, very hard to put down. And when Crassus almost failed to do so, that set the Roman republic on an almost straight path to imperium.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
When I had my shop in LA, one Sunday in the late 80s I walked out of the shop towards the office and saw a man take off his shoes and climb over an 8 ft chain link fence with razor wire strung on both sides into the truck engine distributors lot next door. Not a scratch or any tears to his clothing. He’d done this before. Called the cops and within a minute, 6 cars and a helicopter. When the cop came up to my fence to talk I asked were did all the units come from, she laughed and said, “Start of a new shift, first call.” The entire precinct showed up. BTW they caught him.
sdhays
@Adam L Silverman: It’s been surreal for me to watch how anti-CCP people in Hong Kong tend to support Dump, thinking he’s the best chance for the US to protect them from China. People fall so easily for empty tough talk.
Fortunately, those people mostly can’t vote in American elections so their ignorance isn’t going to affect our elections. It’s sobering, though.
Kent
@randy khan: What is this, the 5th Century and the Theodosian Walls of Constantinople? Sheesh.
If Biden wins, one of the first things they need to do is restore the “people’s house” to its former condition.
Kattails
@Adam L Silverman: Hallucinating again? Could have sworn I saw something from you just recently about what to look for, were there armed people, were voters turning away, that kind of thing. (face expresses chagrin/puzzlement.)
Lyrebird
Well going to work tomorrow will be less fun, because for self care I chose to actually make some Halloween activities happen for the kids, when I should be grading non stop.
But yes we gotta have some fun where and when we can.
Adam L Silverman
@Bill Arnold: So here’s what didn’t get reported in that reporting. Cumberland County’s county seat is Carlisle. Carlisle is the home of Carlisle Barracks, which is where the US Army War College is located. If the Trump campaign screws up the counting in Cumberland County, they’ll be disenfranchising about a hundred uniformed personnel, Department of the Army and Interagency civilians (civil servants on either Title 5 or Title 10 lines), and those Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, or Marines who deployed after graduating from the resident course and left their families in Carlisle while deployed and are voting absentee ballots, as well as their spouses voting in person.
grandmaBear
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): not all ballots in Ohio are scanned. Ours in exurban Dayton aren’t & those I voted on in Franklin County in 2016 weren’t either. They both had the little paper roll behind a plastic window. Unless you can see the actual software code I don’t see how a real audit could be done. I suspect cheating could happen if post election audits aren’t routinely done, and you have bad actors writing code that shifts every hundredth vote for one candidate to the other but only on Election Day.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@sdhays:
@Adam L Silverman:
@PsiFighter37:
I really hope not too many Chinese Americans fall for this stupid shit to make a difference. Probably won’t, but still
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
I take it this is snark.
He is done if he loses. I’d bet all of his debts are over due and he’s really got nothing. He’s basically a literal bum that has had a good story and run of believed bullshit. But no one will just loan him money, all his businesses seem to be losing money and have been for a while, no one other than his rabid racist supporters actually seem to like him and as his persona is based upon him being a wealthy scumbag and the wealthy part is an illusion…….
Ruckus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Back when I lived in OH we voted on machines with no paper trail. There was no guarantee that the scumbag SoS, Ken Blackwell wasn’t changing votes and a lot of scuttle that he was. He made it much harder to vote, why he wouldn’t cheat is beyond me.
Adam L Silverman
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I’m going to say it again, and I’m sure I’ll have to do so a few more times before Tuesday night. Unless Biden is leading in Florida by at least 5, so he’s leading outside the margin of error, he is at best tied in Florida and most likely loosing it by at least 1% of not 2%.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@grandmaBear:
But the actual paper ballots themselves, or the paper printouts showing the voter’s choices that get inserted into the scanning machines if voting with touchscreen machines, are still kept, aren’t they? There’s still a paper trail. When I voted in-person a few years ago, I distinctly remember inserting my ballot into a machine which I presume was a scanner. I assumed that’s how it was done all over Ohio
sdhays
@Ruckus: Are his debts real, though? I genuinely don’t know. For all we know, they’re a vehicle for Deutsche Bank to launder elicit Russian money and avoid paying US income taxes.
Adam L Silverman
@Kattails: Let me check the archives, but I don’t think I did a post like that.
Jinchi
That’s easy. Increase the totals for Trump. He doesn’t care if he wins by cheating and Bob Barr would be happy to look the other way. The last thing Putin wants is to accidentally help elect an adversary as the American president.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Ruckus:
I believe that changed about 10 years ago. Jennifer Brunner was SOS and expanded early voting times, and made it possible for a paper trail to exist for ballots
Morzer
@Adam L Silverman: FWIW, the recent polls have looked pretty good for Biden in Florida and North Carolina.
Adam L Silverman
@Kattails: Now I’m tracking. I think you want the bottom of this post. In which I copied and pasted the instructions from Georgetown Law School on what to do.
https://balloon-juice.com/2020/10/09/the-former-special-operations-bubbas-sought-to-provide-private-security-in-minneapolis-on-election-day-are-going-to-be-breaking-all-sorts-of-laws/
CaseyL
@NYCMT: Horrible, horrible. I am so sorry that happened, and on the way back from mourning! Ghastly people.
I spent part of the evening phone banking for Washington State. Nothing terribly interesting happened, except that I found out there are robo-troll *answering devices* – because I got one, a guy yelling that he couldn’t talk right now because he’s working in the middle of a blizzard. When I told the rest of the team, one of them said she’d gotten that one, too.
It wasn’t nearly as hard to do as I feared, so I feel better about phone banking again tomorrow, this time for Pennsylvania.
sdhays
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Not all American Chinese are even anti-CCP, and Chinese policy isn’t necessarily even part of the top 3 issues – apparently different from Cubans in S. Florida, for example.
If you’re looking to blame a group for Dump, blame white men.
Adam L Silverman
@Ruckus: It is snark.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Adam L Silverman:
FL would definitely be nice to win outright. It would dash Trump’s chances completely. However, Biden has several other paths, as that quoted section notes. He only needs one of the following, given current polling: Arizona, Florida, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Texas, North Carolina, or Ohio. Penn and AZ are evidently pretty solid and stable for Biden
As Kay talks about so often, it’s interesting to note just how many paths Biden has to win and how narrow Trump’s path is. It’s not impossible for Trump to win, it needs to be noted, but if we fight I think we’ll win pretty big
Lyrebird
@NYCMT: That is beyond horrible and I am holding up your whole family in my thoughts, especially your kiddos.
Kattails
@Adam L Silverman: Aha! It wasn’t your comment, but a link you embedded from Georgetown University Law School “recommends the following actions…on the illegality of militias in all fifty states if one sees armed groups and/or individuals near a polling place.” (Silverman on Security 10/9/20)
You found it faster than I did, thanks.
Adam L Silverman
@Morzer: He’s not outside the margin of error in Florida.
grandmaBear
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I think the machine type is decided by each county.
Edited for typo
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@sdhays:
Like I said, unlikely, but is disappointing to hear whenever it happens
Cubans in S. Florida really need to let the Cuban Revolution go. It was 60 years ago and turning the US into a banana republic isn’t going to turn back the clock. Fidel is dead and his brother Raul isn’t much longer for this world himself. Today’s GOP isn’t Reagan’s party (well, it was racist, but it was willing to use Cuban refugees as political props against Communism). The Dems aren’t communists. What the fuck do they think European social democratic parties are?
bluefoot
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): It’s the majority of white men who are voting for Trump. And it’s white men who are out there terrorizing people.
Ruckus
@sdhays:
Oh I think they are exactly that. He’s such a patsy that I suspect that Russians and Deutsche Bank are working the scam with him as the guy that takes all the risk, the fall guy, the guy who goes to jail or worse for him. Remember that it’s not every Deutsche Bank branch but only one, the one that conveniently has a number of Russian oligarchs as customers, and one djtshitforbrains.
Adam L Silverman
@Kattails: I knew where to look. No worries.
Medicine Man
@Adam L Silverman
Thank you for the words of encouragement, Adam.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): No Republican has ever won the Presidency without your state. That dates back to Lincoln.
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman:
We may know before midnight!!
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@CaseyL:
I phone banked for President Obama before he was and I got some people who I’m pretty sure had gotten a number of calls and were not voting for that man. Not many responses like that but a couple. Oh well…
Anya
I was phone banking today for Wisconsin and I feel the same way I felt in 2012 when I was doing GOTV in Ohio — WI is a Biden country. I was feeling a bit anxious so I decided to do something useful.
We will not give them the satisfaction of demoralizing us. They are acting all crazy and doing all of these insane performative stuff because they know they are losing. It’s the same reason Donald Jr. is crying on Fox News. They’re not acting like winners.
frosty
@Nelle: Are you watching modern adaptations of Austen? Don’t forget Clueless.
Adam L Silverman
@Medicine Man: You’re welcome.
TS (the original)
I will never understand why democrats have to be outside the margin of error to win, but republicans do not. Is this related to the republican methods of voter suppression? Bad polling? Something else?
@Adam L Silverman:
Kent
@Another Scott: Honest to God I really don’t care how it happens as long as he wins.
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: We’ll have a projection for Florida before midnight. Of that I have no doubt. What I don’t know is which way it will go.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Another Scott: That sounds about right, we knew things were going south about 9pm out here in 2016.
Kent
It’s a Florida thing. Long long history of being disappointed by that state. But also a long history of rampant voter suppression of ever single kind as well.
cain
Is it taxes? Most Asian Americans (including my demographic) seem to believe voting republican gives them less taxes which is not true. Only rich people get less taxes, not us regular schmucks.
Adam L Silverman
@TS (the original): In the case of Florida, it has to do with how the polls samples are put together and weighted. For instance, in the 2018 governor’s race the final poll had Gillum up by 4.8% or so. He lost by about 1.2%. So while the statewide polling shows Biden with a solid, week on week consistent lead, unless he’s outside of the margin of error, preferably at 50% or better, than he is, at best, even.
Mai Naem mobile
@Steeplejack: Orange Dbag’s going to be a whole new world of hurt without the presidential power and megaphone he has. I guarantee you he hasn’t processed even the possibility of all this happening. McConnell isn’t going to give a crap about what he says once he’s got the loser label. I don’t think Shelly Adelson and Robert Mercer will be returning Dbag’s phone calls. I am worried about what he’s going to do in 75 days till inauguration but his underlings are going to be busy sending resumes out and holding marathon shredding and computer destruction parties.
InternetDragons
Honestly, I wish this post could stay at the top until after the election. Reality-based and comprehensive information like this provides a good dose of sanity in uncertain times. Thank you.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Yes. The fact that he’s polling even with Biden in OH more or less is pretty stunning. A recent Quinnipiac poll had Biden up by 5, but I’m not sure if that’s an outlier or not. Still, it cheered me up when I saw it on the front page of the Plain Dealer last week : )
Adam L Silverman
@InternetDragons: You’re welcome.
Kent
Asian-American small business owners can be pretty conservative and motivated by issues like crime, especially if they have inner-city businesses like convenience stores and restaurants.
I don’t know so much about Chinese, but my wife’s Filipino work colleagues (both doctors and nurses) are Trump supporters and we are in liberal SW Washington State. Their local extended families are restaurant and shop owners and pretty MAGA. Especially with all property destruction at local protests.
cain
@Adam L Silverman:
I don’t think they particularly care given what they are doing in Texas. If it ends up that they fucked themselves and lost because they de-enfranchised Republican votes then that will be a big laugh for the entire GOP.
NotMax
@Adam L. Silverman
From this vantage point Florida hinges on Miami-Dade, where pollsters may as well be throwing darts at a dartboard while blindfolded insofar as reliability is concerned
Ruckus
One thing I’d bet for sure on is that a lot of trumpers know or believe that they are going to lose. They are acting up and staging the highway stops because they are trying not to win but to scare people and if they were sure they were winning I doubt they’d be doing this. They are extremely worried that their racism is now going to be widely known, that jobs may be lost, cops they have paid off may be fired and/or rat them out. They think this tactic will work for him to win or to scare people not to get even. But at some point this type of action is going to piss off the wrong people rather than scare them.
cain
Yeah, that makes sense. A lot of first generation is definitely like that – not sure about the 2nd generation though. Usually all that conservatism gets on the nerves of the younger generation – speaking as a 1st gen immigrant who have seen people in his diaspora having to deal with conservative parents.
NotMax
@NotMax
Slight amending:
From this vantage point Florida this year hinges on Miami-Dade, where pollsters may as well be throwing darts at a dartboard while blindfolded insofar as reliability is concerned
TS (the original)
@Kent:
thanks
@Adam L Silverman:
Can no-one work out how to change the polls? How weird that they are always/usually wrong.
And then I see NotMax @188 – so Florida is different. Guess I should know that given all the FloridaMan stories.
Mai Naem mobile
@Kent: I always think of Filipino Americans and Vietnamese Americans as the exception RW Asian groups. The Vietnamese because of Communism and the success the GOP has had labeling Dems as pinko commies. The Filipinos because I figure a lot of the ones who make it here were Marcos’ supporters and Marcos was a right winger.
@cain: the GOP South Asians i know, do vote GOP because of taxes. They sure as heck don’t give a crap about abortion,gay rights and the other stupid wedge issues.
Winston
@NotMax: All right. It’s a coin flip in Florida. I got a dime here and a quarter; approximates the margin of error; 3.5%. Biden is heads. <FLIP> Dime is tails. Quarter is heads. Biden wins by 2.5 minus 1.0 or 1.5% or not. ?
Adam L Silverman
@TS (the original): One of the major issues is that Florida has a lot of people move in every year. So the likely voter population is constantly in flux. And Florida has both a youth bulge and an elder bulge. Normally the youth aren’t a factor, but if they get mobilized then they have the ability to negate the elder bulge. And the state is, in reality, several states with very different societies. The greater Miami area is far more like a Caribbean state and society than the rest of the state. Broward and Palm Beach counties are a lot like NY City and Long Island. The greater Tampa Bay area – Tampa, St. Pete, Clearwater, Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties – are more progressive. The rest of central Florida is much more Republican, but Orlando is a large urban area and more Democratic. Gainesville is a liberal oasis in a solid red desert. Same with Tallahassee. The space coast up to Jacksonville is really a funky mixed bag, but tends to be conservative. Jacksonville is just weird. It’s sort of like south Georgia and sort of not like south Georgia. And the panhandle is basically the lower parts of Alabama and Mississippi.
And all of it is inhabited by Floriduh! Man and Woman.
rikyrah
I think that a lot of folks like me are willing to do the work for the American Experiment, but also are like.. Those muthaphuckas think that somebody is playing with them??
rikyrah
@InternetDragons:
Silverman is the best???
rikyrah
@NYCMT:
??? for you and your family
prostratedragon
Adam, thanks for reminding us, or informing those who are too young to remember that detail of the story, of the shameful way certain people in Dallas shouted up hostility to President Kennedy before that visit. As you might have also noted above (haven’t read all the comments yet), it was so bad that iirc the Secret Service or some other security body suggested that he not make the trip.
I was 11 years old that year, but had already figured out some stuff from watching the early civil rights movement. I’ve been at a slow boil ever since.
GoBlueinOak
Re-read your post from a year ago that you referenced. Seemed half of it was about Sanders, whom you were totally wrong about.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@GoBlueinOak:
GoBlue72, is that you?
Steeplejack
@PsiFighter37:
“My in-laws are destroying the country and my fantasy football team is fucked.” It’s a perfect storm!
I’m not laughing at you, but, damn, that’s funny. A perfect distillation of these crazy times.
Did the in-laws offer any explanation, plausible or otherwise, for how they went from Clinton to Trump? They might want to get their talking points ready, because someone from the New York Times is probably zeroing in on them for an interview.
gwangung
@cain: 2nd generation (which is the minority of Asian Americans) are more liberal and less likely to conflate Democrats with communism or socialism.
They’re more acculturated into American society…and also more likely to be educated about Asian American history, so they spot the white supremacy trends more easily—and they won’t accept it as normal.
Winston
If I recall correctly in Florida in 2018, Gillum had won, Nelson had won then all of a sudden 200,000 ballots were found on a loading dock in Miami and we got DeSantis and Scott and everyone goes uh huh and blamed the Democrats for hiding them.
Steeplejack
@Nelle:
You can rent the 1940 Pride and Prejudice on Apple TV, Amazon, YouTube or Google Play for $1.99. Useful link.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
There’s also Pride and Prejudice: A Musical included with Prime, but in the most generous grading scheme would give it a C.
NotMax
@NotMax
Stoopid fingers. Fix.
There’s also Pride and Prejudice: A Musical included with Prime, but in the most generous grading scheme would give it a C.
Lacuna Synechdoche
Adam @ Top:
I know a lot of people are seeing parallels to Nixon ’68, and that’s the vibe Trump is pushing too, but to me, Trump looks a lot more like a spectacularly corrupt and criminal parody of Goldwater ’64. And I suspect his campaign will meet the same losing fate.
Captain C
@Another Scott: If he gets landslided out and decides that the Secret Service will turn him over to whichever law enforcement agency wants him at 12:01M on the 20th, Trump is so going to try to flee the country the night before the inauguration.
Or perhaps flee to Mar a Lago and declare independence.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Lacuna Synechdoche:
Yeah, Nixon ran against the incumbent, so is Trump. One problem, Trump is the incumbent.
Hob
I don’t comment here often and I’m pretty late to this thread, but I just wanted to say I really appreciate this post— one of the best I’ve seen from Adam.
NotMax
@BillinGlendaleCA
If there must be a parallel to ’68 made (and that creaky, leaky, patchwork ship sailed long ago) it would be Wallace’s finishing with 46 electoral votes.
Sherlock-Hound
@different-church-lady: Trump himself knows nothing about such things; he may be a brilliant conman (not joking), but I’ll bet Miller and Bannon are shoring up the theory for him.
sgrAstar
Great post, Adam. Thank you.
?
Procopius
Maybe I’m OT here, but a political scientist should be aware that, while 52 Senators is, technically, a majority, it’s useless unless the Democrats do away with the filibuster, which I have read that Biden has said he won’t allow. I have no idea how he thinks he could prevent it, but that’s what I have read that he said. I keep seeing comments that Democrats had a “supermajority” in 2009. In fact, until July they had 57 Senators. That is not a “supermajority,” which is 67. In addition, there were two Independent Senators. One voted reliably with the Democratic Caucus, the other was Joe Lieberman. In July, 2009, the state of Wisconsin finally certified Al Franken, and for about six weeks the Democrats actually had 58 Senators, then Ted Kennedy died and his place was taken by Scott Brown (R). Any number less that 60 cannot be considered a real majority as long as the filibuster exists.
Procopius
@WaterGirl: I don’t know if it’s important, but, according to Wikipedia, Thomas Schuman, whose name appears at the bottom, was originally known as Yuri Alexandrovich Bezmenov. He was a journalist and a KGB officer. I haven’t done a lot of research, but one of the links Duck Duck Go brings up on the front page says he was a propaganda specialist. I would treat any description of the process of subversion he published with the same degree of skepticism I direct toward The Protocola of the Elders of Zion. Americans don’t seem to do critical thinking much any more.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@NYCMT: I am so sorry that they did that to your family and you. I hope you are all ok, that has to be terrifying especially for the children.
The Fat White Duchess
@NYCMT: I’m so sorry for your loss (may her memory be a blessing), and that you were terrorized on the way home is just… unspeakable. Much sympathy to you and your family, and to all the good people of my hometown.
Uncle Cosmo
Freaked me out for a second – it looked like a combination of “Adolf” and “Adderall”. I guess my dyslexar (or should that be “raxelsyd”) could use a maintenance visit.
tuamturgo
@NYCMT: Sorry to hear you got caught among entitled white men slipping and sliding into mob rule.
J R in WV
Adam, Thanks for this post, excellent discussion of current issues regarding Trumpist alarmism and violence. I’m glad we’ve already voted in person and can just stay home, up our hollow, I expect to wait in peace and quiet for the various state calls.
@NYCMT: So sorry for your loss! May her memory be a blessing!
And how unspeakable that hooliganism on the highway going home~!!~
Those people are louts and bullies. I hope your video helps put many of them away for assault and threats, this violence and hate crime can’t be allowed to continue.
dkinPa
I know this is a dead thread, but I just wanted to say thank you, Adam, for this post! I’ve sent it on to about 20 of my friends and relatives, most of whom are freaking out, in an effort to calm them down. We will work through this!