Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Let there be snark.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Peak wingnut was a lie.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / Biden-Harris 2020 / Monday Morning Open Thread: Countdown

Monday Morning Open Thread: Countdown

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The 1960 election is my first political memory — I fell asleep on the couch because neither of my (Irish Catholic lifelong Democratic) parents could tear themselves away from watching the results trickle in on the tiny black&white TV they’d bought specifically so they could watch the results!

How many people do you suppose hung up on him (or didn’t answer the phone) because they figured it was a prankster?

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343Comments

  2. 2.

    japa21

    Good morning. Hit 538 at the perfect time this morning. For about 5 minutes it had Trump winning every state. Somebody hacked the site but they were quick in getting it fixed.

  12. 12.

    raven

    Whistle while you work

    Stevenson’s a jerk

    Eisenhower has more power

    Whistle while you work. . .

     

    the first one I remember

  13. 13.

    MJS

    So now I find out that one of the many phone calls from unfamiliar phone numbers, which I’m not answering, could have been Obama. Well, I guess I know what I’m doing today. Sorry work.

  15. 15.

    JMG

    @MJS: This is why, while I phone banked from home for Clinton, I didn’t do it this year. Caller ID makes it useless. I know that if I don’t recognize the number, I don’t pick up. And getting texts on the iPhone from people I don’t know just makes me mad. So I made donations to give pros the resources to do what they think is best.

  17. 17.

    JPL

    My recent book purchase at Barnes and Noble would not download, and the dog was watching a crazy woman scream that she wanted her book.   Once I calmed down, I used google and found a fix.   phew   Is anybody else have nonsensical meltdowns?

  20. 20.

    PST

    My first political memory is also the 1960 presidential election when I was seven. I remember waiting with my old-school republican family in front of the little black and white TV set. I don’t know if it’s accurate or not, but somehow I remember Louisiana being the nail in the coffin for Tricky Dick, so we swallowed our disappointment and went to bed. It was the last time we were all on the same team politically.

  21. 21.

    gkoutnik

    Just came across this.  Every part of it rings true.

    James Fenimore Cooper, in 1838, in “The American Democrat”:
    “Whenever the government of the United States shall break up, it will probably be in consequence of a false direction having been given to public opinion. This is the weak point of our defenses, and the part to which the enemies of the system will direct all their attacks. Opinion can be so perverted as to cause the false to seem true; the enemy, a friend, and the friend, an enemy; the best interests of the nation to appear insignificant, and the trifles of moment; in a word, the right the wrong, the wrong the right. In a country where opinion has sway, to seize upon it, is to seize upon power. As it is a rule of humanity that the upright and well-intentioned are comparatively passive, while the designing, dishonest, and selfish are the most untiring in their efforts, the danger of public opinion’s getting a false direction is four-fold, since few men think for themselves.”

  25. 25.

    Kay

    After three weeks in jail, one of the suspects charged with plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is asking the judge to reconsider her decision to keep him locked up: He’s worried about getting the COVID-19 virus.

    Legit fear- he’s a diabetic and a heroin addict- but come on.

  28. 28.

    John S.

    My first political memory was voting in 1996 for Clinton. I had just turned 19. I remember having friends who voted for Ross Perot, and thinking how ridiculous that seemed given the man himself and the nature of our system.

    ETA: I did not have any as a child since my parents were Jehovah Witnesses and strictly apolitical. But I went to Washington DC for a week in high school as part of a program called “Close Up” where I met many politicians of the day and toured many government facilities. That pretty much awoke my sense of civic duty.

    ETA2: I graduated from Stoneman Douglas HS in 1994, and even then the student body had a strong sense of civics. I guess it’s always been there given the namesake of the school and the demographics of the area.

  29. 29.

    Baud

    @Geeno:

    By the end of the week, we’ll know the true nature of this country.  We’ve been coasting for the last four years on the hope that 2016 was a fluke. Even with the good polling, it’s natural to be nervous.

  30. 30.

    Kay

    @eric:

    had a good job at Meridian Health Systems helping drug and alcohol addicts before his arrest;

    So, people who would be really vulnerable to covid 19, and 99% are Medicaid.

  31. 31.

    Splitting Image

    My best guess is 375 electoral votes for Biden. I’m pretty bullish on the possibility of Texas going blue, but I’m prepared for a near-miss.

    Frankly the Democrats need to flip seats in the state houses more than they need to run up the score against Trump, but hopefully the one will make the other happen.

  36. 36.

    WereBear

    @JPL: Is anybody else have nonsensical meltdowns?

     
    I scream at uncooperative un-live objects much more.

    I certainly curse more. Especially when talking politics.

  37. 37.

    Kay

    Nate Silver
    @NateSilver538
    18m
    Biden got a tiny further boost this morning (from 89% to 90%*) from this plus some decent polling for him. But now there are no longer any further gains to be had for Biden from the mere passage of time.
    * Yes, just over the “clearly favored” line in our verbiage

    I like Nate Silver but the level of specificity with all these guys has become comical.

    You are just over the “clearly favored line” :)

  38. 38.

    mvr

    My earliest memory is of seeing the Democratic Convention of 1960 on a black and white TV.  I was two. But my immigrant folks, especially my mom, was pretty tuned in to politics.

  39. 39.

    Skepticat

    @JPL: Is anybody else having nonsensical meltdowns?

    Is anyone NOT having them?

    I took the Mario Cuomo Bridge Saturday on my way down the coast, and I see my timing was good, given that MAGAts closed it down yesterday. Between Maine and Virginia, I saw several gatherings of Chumpsters with trucks, motorcycles, flags, and bullhorns. No to mention the bulls**t.

  40. 40.

    Nicole

    I know we’ll still be dealing with Covid, but the idea that we’ll see an end to the willful cruelty of the last four years…

    The first election I remember is waking up and my dad telling me Carter lost. As we were Democrats, and I liked Carter’s campaign commercials, I was crushed, and my dad spent some time consoling me that Carter would be fine.

    Years later I found out my dad voted for Anderson.

  43. 43.

    Baud

    @Immanentize:

    It’s sure to be close, as it always is. People seem confident about Georgia. I’m not sure I even here Trump people talking about winning there, even though it’ll be close also.

  45. 45.

    John S.

    @Immanentize: That includes my and my wife’s vote!

    Broward has the most Democratic votes in the state, so if there’s any chance of winning Florida, we needed to run up the score here. And we have!

    There will still be scores of people voting here tomorrow, so I think we can get to 125% or more turnout levels from 2016. Which makes it that much more likely Florida is blue.

  48. 48.

    geg6

    @Kay:

    I am paying no attention to him and most of the polling aggregators this year.  I just think their methodologies are too opaque and what isn’t is too subjective.  And I trust none of Nate’s political instincts, which have been shown over and over to be just terrible.

  49. 49.

    TS (the original)

    @Baud:  I didn’t watch for long. He seemed to think the black voters were not coming out for Biden. I don’t know how they determine this? Is it via the location of prepoll voting? Return of postal votes?

    He might be a never trumper, but always comes across to me as republican in every other way.

  53. 53.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    I’m slow. It finally dawned on me that Trump’s executive order allowing easier firing of federal employees is meant to allow him to punish Fauci. All the other people it affects are just collateral damage.

  54. 54.

    Kay

    @geg6:

    I just read all of them and average :)

    The specificity combined with the massive hedge of “anything can happen!” is comical though.

    “It is 91.95678 BUT add this huge, ass-covering void”

    So that’s like….probably?

  55. 55.

    Nicole

    @Gin & Tonic:

    He was right.

    True.  Carter has truly been our best ex-President.   I grew up hearing his administration used as a punchline, but it makes me happy that younger voters mainly know him as the ex-President who goes out and builds houses for people.  What did ex-Presidents Reagan or the Bushes ever do to make things better for people who need help? (I know, Reagan had dementia by then)

  57. 57.

    geg6

    As for my first political awareness, it started as a small child during the Kennedy administration (both my parents voted Kennedy, especially my half-Irish mom).  My mom was obsessed by him and that was understandable, as she was a liberal Catholic Democrat all her life.  My dad was a what you’d characterize then as a liberal, Rockefeller Republican.  The first presidential election I really paid a lot of attention to was 1968.  It was such a crazy year, with the King and Kennedy assassinations, Vietnam and the peace movement, the Dem convention…as a 10yo, it was a LOT.  And then, my dad came home and said he’d changed his voter registration to Democrat.  That was huge for him as his whole family had been staunch Republicans ever since his parents had immigrated from England in the eartly 1900s.  His siblings and their spouses really had a hard time with that.  Ever after that, he was the more liberal parent and he and I bonded over our love of history and politics.  He was my first real political mentor as he worked out where he stood on the Dem spectrum over the years.  I often wonder what he would be saying about this crazy timeline we live in now.

  58. 58.

    Cermet

    Well, all I’ll say is I’d rather the massive weighing of all poll’s that 538 does and it having Biden in a huge overall chance to win, then the opposite (i.e. it being rump with all the leads.) Yes, stuff happens but I am very happy to have the odds so in Biden’s favor. If either Florida or North Carolina goes Biden, race over – rump exit’s stage right.

  62. 62.

    Nicole

    While we’re reminiscing about elections of years gone by,  let me hitch up my belt (the weight of the onions keep dragging it down) and say I miss the old lever machines.  I had an aunt who worked for the Board of Elections and she said they could be hacked just like any other machine could be, so it’s not that they were foolproof, I just miss the grand drama of pulling the lever and hearing that loud KACHOONK. It added such emphasis to my vote.  Like it was the machine saying, “AND SHE MEANS IT.”

    I get it, time and technology moves on, and the new system is fine (I especially like knowing there’s a paper ballot backup now).  I just miss the old machines.

  63. 63.

    jonas

    @JMG: Same here. About 3 months ago the caller ID said something like “Advantage Opinion Research” and I answered because I wasn’t that busy and I wanted to register my opinion. It took about 5 mins and appeared to want to suss out my responses to various issues affecting “Latinos” even though they make up about .05% of the local electorate. If more polling firms (or phone banks) would just identify themselves on caller ID, they’d get a better response.

  64. 64.

    Mary G

    1960 was my first election too. My parents were staunch Republicans and my dad took my Kennedy love badly. I remember my mother keeping her own vote tallies at the conventions.

  66. 66.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kay: The uncertainty you can actually calculate–the aggregated MoE sampling error of all these polls–is nowhere near enough to throw it to Trump.

    What that leaves is the looming possibility of a massive, essentially unpredictable systematic miss, which could be because of outright rigged elections. Can you slap a probability on that that anyone will regard as well-supported? You cannot. There’s just no way to estimate it. So at this point, Silver is speculating on the size of the tail of a probability distribution that is simply a guess on his part.

  67. 67.

    Lapassionara

    @John S.: Broward is notable for the butterfly ballot that confused voters in 2000. And I think it had a funky ballot design in 2018 also. Who knows what will happen this year.

    my earliest political memory is going to the polling place on Election Day in 1948, so my mother could vote for Truman.

  69. 69.

    TS (the original)

    @catclub:

    I guess 412 includes OH, GA and TX

    It does. I truly think there will be a massive backlash against trump. I think there will be some GOP votes for Biden that will split the ticket. 412 gives Biden every close state. Take the 368 on electoralvote today & add Texas and Iowa.

    Also makes me feel better about the next couple of days.

     

  70. 70.

    Chyron HR

    My election projection is that Jarvanka agree to have their Trump declared mentally incompetent in exchange for being allowed to permanently expatriate, and Beavis and Butthead are put in Supermax and/or shot.

    Hey, go big or go home, right?

  71. 71.

    Matt McIrvin

    The thing I don’t like is the way all these analyses keep raising the bar for Biden. He doesn’t just have to win, he has to win by a landslide! He has to be clearly ahead on Election Night, or he’s doomed! He has to win Florida to lock it down early!

    All that seems like it’s doing Trump’s work for him. People have to get ahead of this and make it clear that Biden is the legitimate President if he gets to 270 electoral votes, and that there’s nothing wrong if we don’t know that for days. What Trump is banking on is absurd on its face, the invalidation of potentially millions of actual ballots (that’s what my “doom-posting” is trying to get across). I don’t think he’ll succeed in doing it, I think that’s probably the claim he’ll need to make.

  73. 73.

    JML

    My first political memory was doorknocking for Carter-Mondale as a wee child with my mom. I grew up in a strongly democratic household and the whole family has stayed that way; we didn’t live near any of the rest of the extended family so I never had that “joy” of dealing with the RWNJ uncle at the holidays, either. I was at the rally in ’84 when Mondale (who is still one of the nicest and most polite people you’ll ever meet) told a couple of hecklers “aw, shut the hell up, will ya?” and the whole place just exploded. Suddenly, a bunch of stoic Norski were ready to string those Reaganites up had Fritz said the word.

    Spent an hour trying to talk my brother-in-law off the ceiling this weekend (he’s afraid the GOP will steal the election), which is challenging because I’m afraid of the same thing. We’ve both decided the best possible thing that could happen is for PA, NC, and FL to be called early for Biden and give those lying, corrupt bastards nowhere to go.

  75. 75.

    Baud

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I agree.  I don’t like raising the bar.  OTOH, I think some in the media have done a decent job saying that we may not know who the winner is tomorrow night.

  76. 76.

    Baud

    @JML:

    The other thing is that the media keeps talking about GOP turnout, but there’s been a lot of effort by Biden, LP, and others put into getting the few remaining honorable Republicans to cross-over.  I haven’t heard much discussion of how that might play into the results.

  77. 77.

    Patricia Kayden

    Here’s the reality. Mcconnell prioritized seating a Supreme Court judge and then went on a break instead of giving Americans a covid relief package. Republicans let him. Vote all Republicans out.— Patricia Arquette (@PattyArquette) November 2, 2020

  78. 78.

    germy

    Marco Rubio on the Trump caravan that surrounded Biden's bus in Texas:

    "We love what they did. But here's the thing they don't know: We do that in Florida every day."

    — Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) November 2, 2020

  80. 80.

    Betty Cracker

    @TS (the original): Adam is correct, and to amplify a point he made, the electorate in FL isn’t static because it’s a high-growth state, which is always true and a factor that makes FL so difficult to predict, but that’s even more true this year.

    One reason I’m still bullish on Florida is that almost 2 million people who did not vote in 2016 have already voted this year — well over a quarter of all votes cast so far. There also seems to be a surge of under-30 voters and older whites with college degrees, so that’s a good sign for Dems too.

    No one should ever count on Florida — I don’t! But we also shouldn’t assume it will go the same way it went last time. It’s a different electorate. It’ll be close, but I think we’ll win.

  83. 83.

    geg6

    @Betty Cracker:

    You know Florida well.  What do you think of the idea that the Tampa area is the place to watch to see how the state goes?  That is what I am hearing a lot of pundits saying and I don’t know Florida well enough to know what to make of that.

  84. 84.

    Immanentize

    The big polling error of 2016 was related to two things — not adjusting for education and missing a large number of new voters (for Trump) in the standard LV screens.

    Pollsters have worked hard to correct the first error.  This year, the new voter issue seems to favor Biden in a large way.  So, remember, voting polls can be off 2 or 3 points this year due to new voters with better results IN FAVOR OF BIDEN. Error won’t go exclusively to Trump.

  86. 86.

    Ken

    We did not know Presidential winner for certain before midnight on election nights in 1960, 1968, 1976, 2000, 2004, 2016.

    Also from 1792 through 1956.  Heck, the 20th amendment – moving the dates for Congress and the President to take office from March to January – wasn’t even passed until 1933, because before 1900 we usually didn’t have all the final numbers until the new year.

  87. 87.

    gkoutnik

    I’ve been paying attention to politics since Eisenhower’s second term (“It’s Wednesday; the President will be having a news conference”) but here’s my favorite personal political story:

    My mom was a Democrat and my dad was a Republican.  They never missed voting, although they’d joke about cancelling each others’ votes.  But they never missed voting, which was a powerful example for me.

    Later in life, my dad got Parkinson’s, and eventually he couldn’t work the levers in the voting machines.  My mom got official permission (because that was the kind of person she was) to go in and pull the levers for him.

    She said to me later, “I could have voted straight Democrat.  He would never know.  But I voted for the Republicans.”

    Not much more you need to know about love than that.

  88. 88.

    zhena gogolia

    @Matt McIrvin:

    In a church prayer session yesterday, someone asked for prayers that we have a free and fair election decided on Nov. 3, and that it doesn’t drag on for days, and that whatever the outcome, people accept it.

    I had to jump in there to point out that we could have a free and fair election that is by no means decided on election night.

  91. 91.

    germy

    This thread about a MAGA guy (real estate professional) who was caught destroying Biden signs. It’s an interesting story and in the end he paints himself as the true victim:

    Yesterday when legally placing @JoeBiden signs on a public road in LI a man named @roysilber w/ @corcorangroup pulled up parked his car besides me, illegally ripped up the sign & threw it in2 a puddle.Since I was alone I immediately grabbed my phone.This scary incident ensued. 1/ pic.twitter.com/HVBOllN77O— offtherails (@Women2Dc) October 31, 2020

  92. 92.

    Kay

    John Whitehouse
    @existentialfish
    · 14h
    Fox anchor: Let me push back on the idea that voters are suppressed. What about voter dropboxes?
    Clyburn: South Carolina doesn’t have dropboxes.
    Fox anchor: My understanding is every state had them.
    Clyburn: We tried, the legislature said no.
    Fox anchor: I stand corrected

    Republicans worry their anti-voter position is a political risk for them. I agree. We should take advantage of their appalling behavior this cycle and use it against them politically, going forward.
    We can make their anti-voter policy as unpopular as all their other policy, and it won’t be difficult.

  93. 93.

    Betty Cracker

    @geg6: There are a couple of areas I’ll be watching. The Tampa Bay area (my closest media market) is one, and like the rest of the state, it’s complicated. Everyone expects Hillsborough Co. (where Tampa is located) to stay in the D column.

    The question is what will happen in Pinellas Co. on the other side of the bay (where St. Pete is). Trump won Pinellas narrowly in 2016, but district level polling shows him losing it decisively this time around. The question is the quality of that polling, and I don’t have any answers there, but if Trump loses Pinellas, it could be a sign that the state is slipping away.

    Ditto Sumter Co. in the north-central part of the peninsula, which encompasses most of The Villages. Trump will surely win it, but the margins will matter. If Dems narrow the gap, that’s a bad sign for Trump. Anecdotally, I think there’s a good chance Dems WILL narrow the gap because so many seniors are pissed off at Trump’s bungling of the coronavirus.

  96. 96.

    Kay

    @germy:

    I think she was brave but honestly if people are alone I don’t think they should confront these Trump supporters. The whole video I was waiting for him to reach for a gun. She’ll get no warning when they start shooting.

  97. 97.

    JMG

    OK, here’s a little lighter note. The Times Upshot section has an article today breaking down the Biden-Trump results of all their battleground state polls by respondents’ first names. As you might expect, most men’s names went for Trump, most women’s for Biden. The name with the highest Biden margin at 60-40? Karen.

  100. 100.

    Full Metal Wingnut

    @catclub: Unfortunately I don’t know that 400+ is possible given the way the states split for modern Democrats.

    What’s funny is, Bush I beat Dukakis by only 0.6% more than Obama beat McCain. But Bush carried 40 states and had 400+ electoral votes. Obama carried 28 and had what, 365 or something?

    the electoral college really distorts things. It makes ‘88 look like a much bigger blowout than ‘08 even though it was more or less the same. Obama trounced McCain but looking at just the electoral map it looks closer than it was.

  101. 101.

    geg6

    @Betty Cracker:

    Thanks.  I appreciate your view.  I will watch for what happens in all those places.  MJ was talking that Pinellas was the place to watch, so maybe he’s onto something.

  102. 102.

    Kay

    South Carolina HAD ballot drop boxes. The Republican Party is so anti-voter they insisted the drop boxes be covered in plastic wrap so no voter could use this convenient and safe option.

    We’re paying their salaries and they’re making our lives harder. We can make this a 70% issue and it won’t be hard to get there. Republicans v voters. We can win that.

  103. 103.

    JPL

    @germy: When I saw that I said very loudly, what I thought of him.  Next he’ll put up a scripture, because he’s a hypocrite.

  104. 104.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @raven:

    The first one I remember, from the same campaign (1952 — or at least the same candidates):

    Hail, hail, Steve’s in jail,
    Ike has been elected,
    Just as we expected!
    Hail, hail, Steve’s in jail
    Ike is in the White House now!

    I actually do remember the 1948 Truman-Dewey showdown, but no songs or slogans, just the fact of it.

  105. 105.

    Geminid

     

    @Baud: When Joe Cunninham flipped South Carolina’s coastal1st Congressional District in 2018, I read that many precincts in affluent resort/retirement communities that had been solidly republican came out for Cunningham. The sitting Congressman was Mark Sanford, but he was knocked out in a primary by a right wing challenger (even though Sanford co-founded the House freedom caucus). This seat had been Republican hands for decades.            I guess that is one type of republican and independent voter the LP is trying to reach. I remember them being called Volvo Republicans. I guess now you could call them Range Rover Republicans.

  106. 106.

    Zzyzx

    I’m feeling better today just because Trump is signalling that he doesn’t think he stands a chance. I mean I’m sure his argument of, “I’m winning at halftime so can we stop playing?” will work on the MAGA crowd but anything he said would do that. I don’t see it persuading anyone who didn’t already want to believe that.

    I mean I’m still scared because when you’re walling off the White House with blocks of fencing and you’re encouraging a group to go crazy and attack those who don’t agree with you, it opens the world up to bad possibilities, but if we’re going down the road, I want us to have the best chance of winning, and it seems very very likely that at the ballot box, there are only three outcomes:

    1) Biden wins

    2) Trump finds a way to cheat

    3) The entire science of polling no longer works and no one will ever care about them again.

    I’ve seen too many accurate polls to really buy 3. I’m not going to tempt the wrath of the whatever from high atop the thing, but based on both the polls and the early voting banked, we’re in the best situation we could be. Let’s just bring it home!

  108. 108.

    JML

    @Immanentize:

    There’s also so many fewer undecideds in the current screens. 2016 polling had Hillary’s numbers pretty spot on; they just weren’t accounting for the undecideds rushing for the Current Occupant. If Biden’s toplines are accurate, things should work out ok…I hope.

    last 36 hours. not sure I have enough booze…

  109. 109.

    Ken

    @Just One More Canuck: I can’t speak to Chyron HR’s plan, but mine involves the stocks.  I would also like the government to ensure a good supply of rotting vegetables is available to the jeering crowds, although I realize this might be considered socialism.

  110. 110.

    germy

    As a parent of young children and a nationalist who worries about America’s low fertility I can say with confidence that daylight savings time reduces fertility by at least 10 percent.

    — J.D. Vance (@JDVance1) November 2, 2020

    Not enough White Babies being born? I don’t like changing clocks either but I never thought of that angle.

  111. 111.

    Barbara

    @Immanentize: The 2012 polling erred on Romney’s side, compared to final results, though there might have been a late swing to Obama in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.  But I don’t really see why Sandy would have affected outcomes in places like Ohio, which Obama won in 2012, precipitating Karl Rove’s infamous meltdown on national tv.

  112. 112.

    Jay C

    Another ancient geezer veteran observer here whose first political memory was of the 1960 campaign. I recall going to a store with my mother and seeing a sort of straw-poll rack of candy: one lot saying “Vote for Jack!” and other “Vote for Dick!”

    I will shamefacedly admit I went for “Dick” as I liked the packaging better (red, vs. Kennedy’s blue). Fortunately, I have since learned better.

  114. 114.

    Kay

    @zhena gogolia:

    I thought he sounded Russian too. There was another one from earlier in the cycle that genuinely scared me. It was a black woman doing a lit drop for (I think) a statehouse race. A white guy in his 50’s came up and started this insanely angry rant thru clenched teeth – not loud, but it went on and on and it was getting increasingly unhinged because the woman wouldn’t respond and that was unacceptable to him. The black woman did not respond in any way because she was (wisely) trying to de-escalate. I was scared for her.

  116. 116.

    different-church-lady

    @Baud: No, I already know the true nature of this country, and it’s 40% horrible. The only question remaining is which side the binary switch is going to be set to this time.

  118. 118.

    Betty Cracker

    @Zzyzx: Great point about how Trump is acting, i.e., like a loser. The screeching about fraud, the nonsensical insistence on excluding ballots, the frantic flying around and leaving supporters in the lurch at rally sites, threatening Fauci’s job, canceling the hotel “victory” party in favor of a walled-off vigil at the White House. This isn’t the behavior of a confident incumbent.

    Maddow is right about Trump — he’s a liar, so watch what he does instead of listening to what he says. And his behavior is that of a desperate person who believes he is losing.

  119. 119.

    Kay

    @Immanentize:

    It’s such a two-fer. It’s the right thing to do and it’s just at the tipping point where people will start to hate them for it. Their panicked reaction to the Texas lawsuit is instructive, I think. They think this is bad for them politically. They’re right.

    Did you hear Trump whining that voters should have got their votes in earlier? What goddamned nerve. They’re now going to scold us because our votes are inconvenient for them?

  120. 120.

    Immanentize

    @Kay: I think the Florida voter re-enfranchisement ballot initiative tells a really strong tale — over 60% of florida voters passed it!  People want to vote and they want it to be as easy as McDonalds’ drive thru or Amazon online.  Then they vote.

    ETA. The elected Republicans in Texas flipped out at that law suit, publicly opposing it.

  122. 122.

    Barbara

    @Kay: So here is a guy who had legitimately turned his life around and decided to throw it away again over pique that the governor was trying her damnedest to protect people just like him.  And now he wants to be protected from the danger he wanted to give other people the right to inflict on other high risk people.  There is something missing in him, some fundamental component of empathy, kindness and common sense.

  123. 123.

    Immanentize

    @Barbara: Don’t you think this is just an appropriate argument by his appointed (I’m guessing) counsel?  I would write that motion in a heartbeat if I were appointed to represent that SOB.

  125. 125.

    Baud

    @different-church-lady:

    We can deal with 40% horrible and reduce their numbers over time, if we remain persistent and dedicated to the cause.  We have been given the opportunity to fight the most noble of fights, so if we have a strong election tomorrow, let’s stop wringing our hands over it and get to work.

  126. 126.

    germy

    Hours after the President departed for Florida, this was the scene in Georgia as people were left for hours waiting for buses to take them to their cars: pic.twitter.com/rx34hXSR2U

    — Julie Tsirkin (@JulieNBCNews) November 2, 2020

    Some of the folks left stranded were older and disabled. Multiple people tried to hitch rides from strangers amid the pandemic.

    The single, narrow road to get in and out of the rally site was shared by pedestrians, cars, busses and emergency vehicles. pic.twitter.com/Fv3hQzVtW6

    — Julie Tsirkin (@JulieNBCNews) November 2, 2020

    Again?

  127. 127.

    Nelle

    My husband took an oath to defend the Constitution when he was 17 and began at the Naval Academy in 1961.  He says it is still operative and he’s going to be a poll worker tomorrow on a shift that goes from 6 am to 10 pm, unless there is still a line when polls close at 9.  I both admire his insistence and am irritated with his stubbornness.  Covid infections are exploding, with over 1/3 of the state (Iowa) at over 15% positivity rates.  The man is 76 and while he’s in excellent health (swims half an hour most days), I’m not.  I think he’s lived his life in readiness to be called back to duty.

  128. 128.

    NotMax

    @germy

    Totally trivial but that sparked a random thought of a strange it-could-happen scenario which never occurred to me before.

    Twins, born the day the clocks are set back. Possible for the birth certificate of the one delivered later to show a time before the first born’s.

  129. 129.

    germy

    J.D. Vance was all over NPR when his book came out.  They couldn’t get enough of him.

    He’s a fraud though, isn’t he?

  130. 130.

    different-church-lady

    Everyone’s periodic reminder: the less of 1984 (the book) is that totalitarians are not interested in replacing truth with lies. Totalitarians are interested in destroying the very concept of objective truth itself.

    The point in lying about polls is not to get you to believe Trump is winning. The point is to remove polling as a check for election accuracy.

  134. 134.

    Barbara

    @Immanentize: Yep, of course, it’s an argument his counsel should make.  He hasn’t been convicted, and no one deserves to be punished with a de facto death penalty as a result of health conditions.   And the judge should not decide based on the issues that I raised in my comment.

  139. 139.

    Barbara

    @Immanentize: I disagree, and she won’t ever say that. But it really shows the abiding lack of self-awareness in people like the defendant.  His conduct, basically, reflected a desire to give those around him the right to endanger people like him.  And his identification with those people superseded any recognition of his own long-term interests. It shows the enduring power of tribalism.

    I disagree because even though my kindness and concern for others has been tested over the last six months, I really don’t think criminal defendants deserve to be subjected to lethal conditions while awaiting trial or even serving sentences, if for non-violent offenses. If this guy is the beneficiary of that sentiment, then so be it.

  140. 140.

    Ken

    @germy: Third time’s the charm.

    I’m pretty sure he’s thinking “Never have to come here again”, which translates to “Don’t have to do anything more for these suckers”.

  141. 141.

    different-church-lady

    @Baud: I ain’t saying we can’t fix it. I’m only saying we already know what we’re dealing with, and tomorrow is not going to change it. Tomorrow is only going to change whether we can do anything about it.

  142. 142.

    R-Jud

    My first political memory is of seeing the photo of Dukakis on the tank during the ‘88 campaign and thinking “That looks like fun!” (I was nine years old.)

    My parents, sister and aunt are all taking shifts at the polls tomorrow in Monroe County, PA. It’s in the heart of the Poconos but still went for Clinton in 2016. It’s only become more diverse since then, so Biden should do fine.

  144. 144.

    Soprano2

    I’m telling everyone I have Swiss cheese brain right now, because all I can think about is wanting to check Twitter every 5 minutes. It’s crazy! I’m cautiously optimistic, but still have PTSD-like feelings from 2016 so I’m afraid to hope too much.

  145. 145.

    Ken

    @Just One More Canuck: what’s your view on tar and feathers?

    Against it, since it often killed when the burns became infected. Although I suppose with modern medicine and antibiotics, it could be brought back…

  146. 146.

    Kay

    Dave Wasserman
    @Redistrict
    ·1h
    New
    @CookPolitical
    : our FINAL House ratings feature eight late-breaking changes, all towards Democrats (including three in TX).

  147. 147.

    geg6

    @R-Jud:

    I have a four hour shift at the polls tomorrow here in Beaver County, PA.  I’m excited to be doing something to keep my mind off things, but I’m also a little nervous about asshole Trumpers being a problem.  Joe is coming here today, so they are battling for the county, which is really something considering that Trump won here decisively in 2016.

  151. 151.

    Nicole

    @Barbara:

    which Obama won in 2012, precipitating Karl Rove’s infamous meltdown on national tv.

    One of my favorite things I ever saw on TV, ever.

  152. 152.

    Kay

    Two pretrials and a mediation continued so far due to people on quarantine. This is just exploding in Ohio. Much, much worse than it was in the spring.

    Boy, but Biden is inheriting a mess. I think people are to some extent whupped though, and they’ll be looking for clear direction. A direction. Going somewhere.

  153. 153.

    different-church-lady

    @scav: OK, fine, look we just have one twin circumnavigate the Earth until we get things back in proper order. Yes, it will look like an entire day between births but you gotta do what you gotta do.

  154. 154.

    Geminid

    Democratic VA 5th candidate Cameron Webb barnstormed Southside Virginia Saturday, accompanied by Senator Tim Kaine. They hit Danville, and towns in Halifax, Henry, and Chatham Counties.       trump carried the 5th by 11% in 2016, but polls show Webb with a small lead over his execrable opponent.

  155. 155.

    different-church-lady

    @Kay: In a poetically just world, Biden will lead us away from this mess, and the people who don’t want to follow will die due to their own obstinacy.

  156. 156.

    Kay

    @Nicole:

    The Obama people were so confident. John sent me to a DC “blogger” meeting (because he didn’t want to go) and they announced they would win Ohio 4 months out. It was like “are you people really Democrats? Shouldn’t we be panicking?”

    We didn’t really have anything to say at the meeting without the panicking.

  157. 157.

    Ken

    @scav: I think the hard part is getting from the legal quibble – which of the twins is the “first-born” – to a juicy murder mystery.  Dorothy Sayers managed it in Unnatural Death, with one of my favorite scenes being Mr. Murbles’ analysis of the legal ramifications of the word “issue”.

  158. 158.

    different-church-lady

    Wait, wait, what if… the first twin is born at exactly 1:30 AM before the time change, and the second is born at exactly 1:30 AM after the time change…

  159. 159.

    Barbara

    @Kay: The rise of the sentiment that we should just let nature take its course is really frightening, but that’s what seems to be happening in places like Idaho.  The kicker being, of course, that Idaho hospitals are looking at having to transfer patients to Seattle and Portland, places that have had greater restrictions in place. It makes me want to grind my teeth and wish bad things on people who can’t be arsed to wear a fucking mask for 20 minutes when they go shopping.

    OTOH, in today’s NYT there is an inspiring article about early voting in Houston at one of the four polling locations that were open continuously for 36 hours beginning at 7:00 am last Thursday.

  160. 160.

    patrick II

    @mvr:

    My earliest memory of seeing a convention was in 1952.  I was four and I was pissed because they preempted “The Lone Ranger”.

    There wasn’t much talk about politics in our Irish Catholic house.  Mom was a staunch Democrat and Dad a Republican.  My mother’s mother voted for Hoover in 1932 and that was the last time she voted for a Republican, followed by my mom who never voted for one ever.  Followed by her five kids who are all liberal Democrats.  Mom won the silent argument with Dad.  Grandma used a ballot to vote for her 20th consecutive Democrat for president last week, joined by five kids and nine grandkids.

  161. 161.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Kay:

    I was thinking the same thing, and wishing it had been a pair, or even better a group, installing the Biden-Harris signs. Tough Guy didn’t have any trouble flipping off the solo little lady, but he might have thought twice about ripping up signs if there were four or five B-H volunteers on hand. That said, kudos to the woman who took and posted the video. I doubt I would have had as much presence of mind in similar circumstances.

  162. 162.

    Betty Cracker

    @germy: Trump did the same thing in Florida — showed up late and left chaos in his wake at 1 AM, with folks trying to make their way home in violation of the local curfew that’s in place because of the virus. The people who show up for these things are idiots. There’s just no other explanation for it. They get the treatment they deserve.

  163. 163.

    Kay

    @different-church-lady:

    I think of the US public like addicts. They have to hit bottom. It’s kind of wryly amusing to be in such a Trumpy county for the bottom. We also got an email that there won’t be any more negotiating at the courthouse. The 80% wingnuts there who have been denying this is a problem for 8 months have apparently decided they won’t want excess exposure to people.

    I wasn’t spending any more time inside there than I had to anyway- I think they’re a risk to me.

  164. 164.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @JMG:

    The name with the highest Biden margin at 60-40? Karen.

    LOL ? ROFL ? LMAO
    HAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHA HAHAHAHAHA

  165. 165.

    Obvious Russian Troll

    @JPL: Hell no you’re not alone. The season change hits me hard every year at about this time, and then you throw the goddamn election on top of it.

  166. 166.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    My first real political memory was the 1980 election. For some reason I fixated on third party candidate John Anderson as the guy I would vote for if I were old enough to vote. In my defense, I was only in 5th grade and had no idea who wanted to do what. In 1988, which was the first election I was old enough to vote in, I phone banked for Michael Dukakis in Grand Rapids, MI, and let me tell you that was pretty thankless. I have never voted for a GOP Presidential candidate – Clinton vs. H.W. was probably the closest I came. I did vote for a couple of moderate Republicans for Congress now and then, the last being Verne Ehlers. Since then it has been straight D ticket because the Republicans went insane starting with the Gingrich era and it has only gotten worse since.

    I kind of wonder how big a hissy fit Trump is going to throw if he loses, vis a vis keeping the Federal Government open. The current funding bill expires during the lame duck period – sometime in early December I think. Would he be willing to sign a CR to keep the government open, or would he shut it down as a final FU to the deep state and America in general? If not, would Mitch pass one, and whip enough votes to make it veto proof? I kind of feel like if he does allow the government to shut down it will put the final nail in the coffin of the filibuster – even the most conservative Democrats are going to realize they can’t keep it and get anything at all done if the Republicans are going full scorched earth on government funding.

  167. 167.

    Kay

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I think people are genuinely at risk if they engage with them. This guy was confident enough that he threatened her while she was filming him. They believe law enforcement will protect them no matter what they do and I’m not confident they’re wrong.

  168. 168.

    Skepticat

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Do you suppose those people will go to the polls tomorrow?

    Interestingly, I had this same thought, but if they have the (surprising) discipline to put together these truck rallies, they might actual make the effort. I certainly hope not, of course. Perhaps they’ll believe his bushwah about the red wave and won’t bother?

  169. 169.

    dmsilev

    @Barbara:

    The kicker being, of course, that Idaho hospitals are looking at having to transfer patients to Seattle and Portland, places that have had greater restrictions in place. It makes me want to grind my teeth and wish bad things on people who can’t be arsed to wear a fucking mask for 20 minutes when they go shopping.

    Not to mention, these are the people who year in and year out vote for politicians and policies that underfund the same rural hospitals which are now being overwhelmed. Oh, and are filled with hatred for the urban areas that have the capacity and facilities to help.

    I feel like a precondition for transfer to an urban hospital should be to sign a form acknowledging that that you, the patient, are accepting aid from an Urban Place and that you were wrong to vilify them.

  170. 170.

    geg6

    @Betty Cracker:

    Yep.  I have no sympathy for these assholes.  None at all.  That’s what the Trump years have done to me.  I’ve never felt this apathetic toward humans suffering in my entire almost 62 years.

  172. 172.

    Kattails

    @zhena gogolia: someone in the comments to her thread said he is Israeli and in his Facebook defense libeled her as having made anti-Semitic statements.  It’s a long thread from her, worth a look, because this bit is about the “you can criticize Israeli politics and not be anti-Semitic” issue.

  173. 173.

    geg6

    @dmsilev:

    I feel like a precondition for transfer to an urban hospital should be to sign a form acknowledging that that you, the patient, are accepting aid from an Urban Place and that you were wrong to vilify them.

    I like this idea.

  174. 174.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Skepticat: I was in semi-rural Orange County (NY) yesterday, and was driving to someplace important. Making a right turn onto a fairly scenic two-lane road, there was one of those stupid caravans going in “my” direction. One of the participants slowed enough to let me in, driving my Subaru with the Biden/Harris sticker on the back (which he couldn’t have seen until I  pulled in.) Drove that way for about 5 miles until I exited at my destination. Felt oddly subversive.

  176. 176.

    different-church-lady

    @Zzyzx: I dunno what phone you’re using, but according to Wiki and my memory, that ain’t how it works.

    …in springtime the clocks are moved forward from 2:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. and in fall they are moved back from 2:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m.

  177. 177.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @dmsilev: I think hospitals should start mining patients’ social media feeds and, if we have to start rationing care, supporting Trump should move a person to the back of the line. I mean, we’re going to be in a situation in about 10 minutes when essential workers are going to not get care because some Trump humping asshole took the last hospital bed after getting Covid at one of his rallies. You want to be reckless? Well fine the least we can do is put you last in line for hospital care, and if that means you die at home then big fat go ahead and do it.

  179. 179.

    dmsilev

    Here’s how I roughly think about the map. If Biden wins popular vote by…

    3% or less: Trump probably wins AZ/PA, wins w/ 279+ EVs
    4-7%: Biden flips AZ/MI/PA/WI/#NE02, wins 290 EVs
    8-9%: adds some combo of FL/GA/NC/TX/#ME02, wins 305-389 EVs
    10% or more: adds IA/OH, wins 413 EVs
    — Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) November 2, 2020

  180. 180.

    Skepticat

    Although I don’t post political comments, this morning I posted this in Fakebook.
    James Fenimore Cooper, in 1838 in “The American Democrat”
    “Whenever the government of the United States shall break up, it will probably be in consequence of a false direction having been given to public opinion. This is the weak point of our defenses, and the part to which the enemies of the system will direct all their attacks. Opinion can be so perverted as to cause the false to seem true; the enemy, a friend, and the friend, an enemy; the best interests of the nation to appear insignificant, and the trifles of moment; in a word, the right the wrong, the wrong the right. In a country where opinion has sway, to seize upon it, is to seize upon power. As it is a rule of humanity that the upright and well-intentioned are comparatively passive, while the designing, dishonest, and selfish are the most untiring in their efforts, the danger of public opinion’s getting a false direction is four-fold, since few men think for themselves.”
    The first likes were from a very liberal woman and a very tRumpist man.

  181. 181.

    Calouste

    @NotMax: When I was in college, there was a half marathon that started at 1.59 AM on the day the clocks went back, and just recorded the start and finish times, not the duration. So some people finished the 13.1 miles before 3 AM.

  183. 183.

    Ken

    @Zzyzx: I like watching my phone go from 2:59 to 2:00

    I didn’t stay up for that, but got it vicariously by looking through one of the late-night comment threads to find the pair where the timestamps skipped backward.

    BTW for those that care, the computers don’t get confused about the time because they use a numeric timestamp that always increments.

  185. 185.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @dmsilev: Well the polling seems to have settled on 8% as the average, and according to Civit Poll today Texas will this Florida years Florida with an effective tie in votes lol

  189. 189.

    dmsilev

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: Now, of course, the question becomes how accurate are the polls. Ignoring the absurdities like Rasmussen, the range seems to be about 6 to 12 percentage points, depending I guess on turnout models and so forth.

  190. 190.

    Elizabelle

    Good morning jackals.

    If you have not already, check in to see if any polling sites could use your help in passing out election information for the Democrats.  I am sure that they will allow you to bring a camp chair, and they usually  even provide shade, if you need it.

    We are still looking for some volunteers to hand out lit outside the polls in Virginia.  Would bet most states are.  You can work for as long as you like — or just cover a two-hour shift, and mix it up and cover a few polling sites, if you prefer.  Just call your county’s Democratic party office, or contact a local campaign.

    Mask up.  Hand sanitizer.  Dress warmly. Or however appropriately.  Sunscreen and a hat.  Take water and tea, if you like. Snacks.

    We can do this!  Way better than staying home and worrying, if you are up to being outside.

  191. 191.

    different-church-lady

    @Gin & Tonic: My primary machine is a 12 year old MacBook Pro, but even I think they’ll get it figured out before then.

    I also hope I’m not still alive at that point.

  192. 192.

    debbie

    I just got back from my pre-apocalypse food shop. Not quite sure why I thought I needed eight pounds of apples, though.

  193. 193.

    germy

    We watched the NBC news last night and the anchor said the candidates are in their final sprint.

    This is the Kentucky Derby to our media betters.

  194. 194.

    sdhays

    @germy: I suspect that you didn’t think of that because you’re a) not a (White) Nationalist Supremacist and b) not a moron.

    Unfortunately, those two things can be useful in getting book deals and media exposure.

  197. 197.

    sdhays

    @Ken: I think I triggered a bug in BJ during the switch over where I updated a comment and ended up with my comment earlier in the list than the comment it was responding to.

    I shouldn’t have been up commenting, but I had had some caffeine too late in the day and couldn’t sleep.

  200. 200.

    germy

    Michael Tracey decided to attend a trump rally:

    “I came to tonight’s Trump rally in Rome, GA over four hours early and only barely made it in because the lines were so long. The contrast with Biden events is just comical. Although to quote one attendee I overheard waiting on line: “I tell ya, we are superspreaders right now [laughs]” More people than I thought were wearing masks but it was still probably less than half overall, even though the Trump campaign officially encourages mask-wearing. Also there were people melting down left and right due to the logistical shitshow of leaving the event. Screaming matches between people over who gets to board returning busses, etc. I heard variations of “this is the biggest nightmare…” shouted in frustration several times. The Trump campaign claimed that hand sanitizer and masks would be distributed, but I didn’t see any of that. Made it all the way close to Trump without being offered either item. I have little doubt these are, in fact, significant superspreader events. One of the reasons is because they have both indoor and outdoor components. Bus shuttles from a mall parking lot to the airport rally space being the indoor component. On my bus, most people were not wearing masks. And they were singing, cheering, etc. (Yes, I’m getting tested)”

    https://twitter.com/mtracey/status/1323117454352998400

    (After surviving Maxine Waters brutal attack, he might still have a few pre-existing conditions, so I’m glad he’s getting a test)

  201. 201.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    You don’t know Long Island!

    Glad he’s outed and that his employer — the largest real estate group on the East Coast — has disassociated from him. Hope they stick to it. Real estate jobs are hard to find.

  203. 203.

    Ken

    @Gin & Tonic: That one’s been anticipated.  Both Windows and Unix have expanded the timestamp to 64 bits.  For Unix that’s several times the current age of the universe, for Windows rather less (they count 100-nanosecond intervals, instead of seconds).

  205. 205.

    WaterGirl

    Site notice:  I just enabled one of the problematic plugins so the plugin developers can catch the problem in really time.  So if the site slows down, that’s why.

  206. 206.

    Barbara

    @germy: He is what you might call the Marco Rubio of Appalachia — a biography in search of political donations and purpose.

  207. 207.

    Nicole

    @Kay: 

    We didn’t really have anything to say at the meeting without the panicking.

    Man, we Democrats really do have a bit of the abused spouse thing going, don’t we? Always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

    I am not usually a petty person, but as soon as it was clear Obama had it in the bag in 2012, I flipped over to Fox to watch the rest of the returns because it was soooooo satisfying.

  208. 208.

    Baud

    @germy: 

    The contrast with Biden events is just comical.

    In the absence of COVID, this dig at Biden would be weak. Given Biden is taking COVID seriously, it’s really disingenuous. We should be treating people like Tracey on the same level as we would Sean Hannity.

  209. 209.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    I’m wavering between

    a. watching election returns tomorrow, and

    b. Streaming something funny and mindless while avoiding news/social media until 9 am Wednesday.

    Call it self-care.

  210. 210.

    Ken

    @debbie: Glad he’s outed and that his employer — the largest real estate group on the East Coast — has disassociated from him.

    Antifa terrorism!  Cancel culture!

  213. 213.

    Baud

    @Nicole:

    Man, we Democrats really do have a bit of the abused spouse thing going, don’t we? Always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

    I agree.  It’s ok to be nervous after 2016 and with everything Trump is doing, and it’s ok to assess risks, but I don’t like when we indulge in creative pessimism, which I consider a form of disinformation like any other.

  215. 215.

    Nicole

    @germy:

    We watched the NBC news last night and the anchor said the candidates are in their final sprint.

    This is the Kentucky Derby to our media betters.

    And as a horse racing fan, assuming it goes the way it’s supposed to, what we will have seen is a gate-to-wire victory.  Biden got out in front at the start and had plenty left in the tank to hold ’em off at the end.

    I mean, Trump is a total failure and I know a lot of GOP are voting against him, rather than for Biden, but Biden deserves props for a good campaign.  One of the GOPers I know voting for Biden expressed hopefully that he’ll be able to “heal the country.”  That’s a result of what Biden gave off during the campaign- kindness.

  217. 217.

    Zelma

    Re earliest political memory.  I actually think I remember Truman-Dewey.  I was only 5, but have a sense of very upset parents.  I certainly remember 1952.  My best friend and I collected as many “I Like Ike” buttons as we could.  I think we had hundreds.  We pinned them all to a tent in her yard.  I have no idea why we thought this was a good idea.  I was much more aware in 1960; had this neat little gold elephant with “Nixon” on it.  I was Kennedy intrigued; I watched his inauguration on a friend’s color TV, the first time I saw one.

    In 1964, the year I could register, I signed up as a Democrat.  I recall the day I became a Democrat.  I was sitting in a hotel room in London, listening to the convention when Goldwater was nominated.  That was that.  I was voting for the peace candidate!  That went well.  I did vote for a Republican for NJ Senate in 1964 or 66.  His name escapes me but he was a  Rockefeller Republican.  I think he was the last Republican I voted for.

  218. 218.

    cain

    @Splitting Image:

    I understand that is happening across the country – that a number of state houses is getting Democratic majorities.

    I expect a transformation in the first 100 days. I expect that we no longer rely on the “comity of the Senate” – McConnell has destroyed it and now we will have to put everything into writing as strict rules.

    But also the system needs to be reformed in such a way that a Trump like figure cannot keep on committing crimes and suffer nothing. We’ll have to be careful though because all those rules could be used for ratfucking as well.

  220. 220.

    Miss Bianca

    @Kay: 

    You buys your ticket, you takes your ride, diabetic domestic terrorist guy.

    Oh, wait, you suddenly think terror is NOT ok when YOU are the one being terrorized? Tsk.

  221. 221.

    frosty

    @geg6:  Good for you. York County has yet to tell where I’m supposed to be tomorrow. I’m not too impressed with them this year.

    I’ll be going out for my final lit drop for DePasquale in a little while … maybe when the wind chill gets above 25! At least it’s sunny and not raining like yesterday.

  222. 222.

    Spanky

    @Ken:  For some reason, I woke just before the switch that night and posted here. Couldn’t sleep and stayed awake for almost exactly an hour, until 2 AM rolled around again. Go figure.

  223. 223.

    Baud

    @germy: 

    Why are these characters in our lives? What purpose do they serve?

    If there’s a silver lining to the Trump years, it’s revealed how many good and decent people there are all over the place who are working hard and doing the right thing. I want to focus more on our heroes, not our adversaries’ mouthpieces.

  224. 224.

    dm

    @Betty Cracker: There’s been some talk about Trump-heads who go from rally to rally.  Do you suppose any of those have been caught multiple times by the one-way-busses?

  225. 225.

    cain

    @Betty Cracker:

    All those kids from “March for our lives” have been waiting for this moment to vote. To kick this asshole to the curb. This is their time. They will not be denied.

    Trump and the NRA converted a whole generation to anti-gun with their bullshit.

  226. 226.

    different-church-lady

    @Nicole: Look, here’s how we got here:

    MEDIA 2016: “All signs point to a Clinton victory.”

    TRUMP 2016: “Everyone is lying to you! It’s all fake news! I’m the only one who tells you the truth!”

    RESULTS 2016: Shit, he…. he can’t be right, can he?

    This is how reality distortion fields work. I’m not confident it isn’t working again.

  227. 227.

    Spanky

    @debbie:I just got back from my pre-apocalypse food shop. Not quite sure why I thought I needed eight pounds of apples, though.

    Good for throwing when you run out of ammo.

  228. 228.

    geg6

    @zhena gogolia: 
    I agree. To me, that’s a Russian accent. I’m not an expert, but that’s how it sounds to me. I’ve known a few Israelis in my life and that accent is not quite right based on those people’s accents.

  229. 229.

    different-church-lady

    @Baud:

    I don’t like when we indulge in creative pessimism, which I consider a form of disinformation like any other.

    I can sign on to that. Hope, but don’t trust. Don’t invent things to destroy the hope.

  230. 230.

    Jay C

    @Nicole:

    One of the GOPers I know voting for Biden expressed hopefully that he’ll be able to “heal the country.”  That’s a result of what Biden gave off during the campaign- kindness.

    Well, good f*ck*ng luck with THAT: Not, I’m sure, that Joe Biden isn’t going to try to “heal the country” as best he can – and it’s absolutely (IMO) a necessity. The big problem he (and we) is going to face is that something like 35% of the entire nation aren’t going to WANT to be “healed” – that the extremist politics of the modern era (exacerbated by radical changes in media and information dissemination) have so poisoned an intractable one-third of the country that even the biggest loss from tomorrow’s election is only going to spur them to double down even more on oppositionalism, obstructionism and (sadly) probably political violence.

    Dumping Trump for a decent candidate/decent person is a vital necessity and a good start: but only a start…

  231. 231.

    cain

    @Kay:

    I seem to recall them arguing about how you need to work for your vote and it can’t be easy or some shit like that. Fuck these people.

  232. 232.

    scav

    In a twisted way, I suppose it’s good to see Trumpists and Republicans embrace enough reality to acknowledge that their vision of Mercan! Greatness! is so very very unattractive and hard to sell that the only way to get it past the electoral post is by threats, intimidation and ignoring all votes different than theirs. Teeny sliver of reality peeking through.

  233. 233.

    japa21

    @Nicole: One thing about this year is that, God forbid,  Trump wins, it will be hard to blame the Biden campaign.  They have been stellar .

    Of course,  that doesn’t mean there won’t be the usual suspects trying to anyway.

  234. 234.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Baud: 

    It’s ok to be nervous after 2016 and with everything Trump is doing, and it’s ok to assess risks, but I don’t like when we indulge in creative pessimism, which I consider a form of disinformation like any other.

    QFT. The people who are driving me crazy this time around are those who seem to be going out of their way to look for the one outlier poll or implausible scenario where everything breaks Trump’s way. Is it possible? I guess; I mean, 2016 did happen. But it isn’t 2016, and the facts on the ground are very different. I guess if it happens the doom-sayers will be able to tell me “I told you so.”

  235. 235.

    Tazj

    @germy: Yes, yes he was. All over NPR and everywhere else with others like him with their white working class wisdom, berating liberals for ignoring poor white people and rejoicing that we had received our just comeuppance with the election of Trump.

    Just because the Democratic 2016 presidential campaign didn’t entirely focus on white men didn’t mean that Republicans had become the party of the working man, but the media described it that way, ignoring Republican obstruction to Democratic policies that could have benefited them.

  236. 236.

    Baud

    @japa21: 
    Biden has been great, but he didn’t have to deal with all the crap Hillary had to, and he had the benefit of the experience of 2016 and four years of Trump.

    People who look back on 2016 and only want to focus on flyspecking Hillary’s campaign are displaying the type of attitude that gave us Trump in the first place.

  239. 239.

    geg6

    Dog help me, I am doing my best to avoid polling news because it just makes me crazy.  So I turned off MSNBC and went with The View, thinking that they will at least be entertaining with Ana Navarro guest hosting (she’s hilarious, especially in regard to Little Marco).  And who is coming on as the next guest?  Fucking Nate Silver.  Considering between the Food Network and HGTV now.

  240. 240.

    mrmoshpotato

    I understand not being enamored with dogs, but to actively mock dogs and their hoomans…

    Such an orange sack of shit.

  241. 241.

    Patricia Kayden

    Reforming the police must be a priority for President Biden.

    Armed groups confronted scores of BLM protesters this year. Our new Visual Investigation examined video and social media from over a hundred of these interactions and found that these groups often get a pass from the police. Watch https://t.co/OLOZEz6kF7.— Stella Cooper (@_stella_cooper) November 2, 2020

  242. 242.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Barbara: There’s a deep conservative fatalism operating here–a notion that some things are just nature or God having its way, and good character consists of accepting those things, swallowing your fears and getting on with living… or dying… instead of struggling against them.

    It can be fine advice for dealing with things that are genuinely beyond your control. Where it gets weird is when people apply it to things that ARE in our control and insist it would be normatively bad to try to control them.

    But the fact that Biden has actually gained the support of seniors suggests to me that the country is far from majority death-cult. When people talk about frontier stoicism in a fatalistic way, turns out they’re often thinking about OTHER people, not so much about themselves. When it threatens then personally, the story changes.

  244. 244.

    Baud

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I guess if it happens the doom-sayers will be able to tell me “I told you so.”

    It’s culturally safe to be pessimistic because no one loses their credibility when bad things don’t happen, but they get to gloat when things don’t work out to our benefit.

    A few months ago, the pessimists were saying to the election would be postponed and there would be troops on the streets.  If we win big tomorrow, there will be a new round of predictions, and so on down the timeline until the next time they are right.

  245. 245.

    Barbara

    @Betty Cracker: Seriously, what has J.D. Vance ever done besides write a book?  Okay, he served in the military and went to Yale Law School.  Lots of other people have done that.  Essentially, he is living off of his biography, and specifically, his mother’s background of addiction.

  246. 246.

    Ken

    @Baud: I assume you mean the “last” part?  Agreed.

    Besides, isn’t Beck’s current “way of life” shilling for dubious products on late-night cable?  He should watch his back, Trump might be moving into that space soon.

  247. 247.

    germy

    @geg6: 
    Before his appearance, they played the recent SNL skit, where he’s portrayed by a cast member with a skin head wig. So now he’s on, (via zoom) and he’s wearing a ball cap.

  248. 248.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: Hillary’s campaign was fine. She was operating with a completely unearned handicap arising from 20 years of concentrated hate and sexism, a largely unexpected attack by chaos agents bankrolled by Vladimir Putin and abetted by the social-media giants, complacency/complicity on the part of the mainstream media, and some outright election cheating too. I should be clear when I talk about her campaign’s collapsing in the final days that none of this was particularly Hillary Clinton’s fault.

  249. 249.

    debbie

    @geg6:

    I thought the same thing!

    Then he had some staffer (Mercedes Schlapp or similar) on who said women just didn’t see how warm and personable and caring Trump was.

    Since I’d had my daily dose of laughter, I clicked off. But if things look good when we wake up on Wednesday, I’m definitely tuning in. I still remember feeling nothing but joy and glee listening to Beck (literally) cry on the air after PBO won in 2008.

  250. 250.

    germy

    @different-church-lady:

    Look, here’s how we got here:

    MEDIA 2016: “All signs point to a Clinton victory.”

    I think lots of people stayed home in 2016 because they heard all the happy talk and wondered why they should bother standing on line. “She’s got this.”

    I remember commenters over at LGM wondering if Hillary would win in a landslide of historic proportions, etc.

  251. 251.

    Barbara

    @Matt McIrvin: I wish the media focused more on how other countries, like Germany, have grappled with the virus.  We were never going to emulate New Zealand or China, but we could have emulated South Korea or Germany.   Not only do they have fewer deaths, but they have been able to resume more activities sooner, even if it is going to be a continuing struggle until there is a vaccine.

    I respond to anyone who tells me that herd immunity is a viable option by telling them that until they willingly infect themselves they can fuck off.

  252. 252.

    geg6

    @Barbara:

    Apparently, there’s a Nexflix or Prime or something film of the book coming out and people were posting on FB (all my current FB friends are Democrats, so no ratfucking here) about being sure to watch it.  I had to tell them what an asshole Vance is and provided links.  They seriously had no idea and were shocked to find out he wasn’t a liberal Democrat.  Just goes to show how little of the stuff we all know filters down to the normies.

  254. 254.

    Ken

    @geg6: Considering between the Food Network and HGTV now.

    Food Network: Top chefs Bobby Flay, Alex Guarnaschelli, and Geoffrey Zakarian with their analysis of the 2020 polling situation.

    HGTV: House Hunters hosts return to last season’s homebuyers and interview them for their thoughts on the 2020 election.

  255. 255.

    Miss Bianca

    @Nicole: Ah yes…Biden as Secretariat, Belmont Stakes, 1973. Trump as…wait for it…SHAM.

    (Tho’ that’s kind of an insult to the memory of poor Sham, who really *was* a contender, he just had the misfortune of being a contender against the GOAT.)

  256. 256.

    evodevo

    @JPL:  Yes..Mr. Evodevo went off on some Indian tech support people on the AT&T “help” line yesterday…granted, they weren’t “helping”, but his patience has been in short supply these last few days…

  258. 258.

    Barbara

    @different-church-lady: No, that isn’t actually how we got here.  Among other things, like underpolling of certain demographics and lower than expected turnout among other demographics, we got here with a record number of undecided voters going into the last two weeks of the election, who broke for Trump for a variety of reasons.

  259. 259.

    mrmoshpotato

    @debbie:

    I still remember feeling nothing but joy and glee listening to Beck (literally) cry on the air after PBO won in 2008.

    Bwhahahahah!  I hope you can empty your schadenfreude tank later this week.

  260. 260.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Barbara: Western talk of East Asian countries’ approach to COVID is shot through with this irritating Orientalist, exoticizing tendency that leads to dismissing everything they do as impossible or irrelevant. Oh, they just wore masks because of weird Eastern cultural standards of etiquette! Oh, it’s that Confucian tradition, we’ll never be obedient drones like they are. It’s a kind of soft racism that actually leads to deadly foolishness.

    Turns out a lot of African countries are handling this intelligently too. I don’t imagine anyone in the US or even Europe will be inclined to pay close attention.

  263. 263.

    LadySuzy

    With no shenanigans, Florida goes blue. But I’m pretty concerned about all sorts of things. Mail-in ballots not delivered on time, voter intimidation, lines so long in democratic counties that people will get discouraged. Etc.
    @Baud:

  264. 264.

    Barbara

    @Matt McIrvin: That’s why Germany is a good example. Australia and Canada too. They are Western democracies that put a premium on personal liberty. If Korea had an advantage, it was having the experience of SARS, round one.

  265. 265.

    artem1s

    @JML:

    We’ve both decided the best possible thing that could happen is for PA, NC, and FL to be called early for Biden and give those lying, corrupt bastards nowhere to go.

    all Joe and Kamala need are one of those to be called and it’s pretty much over for Dump.  The interested thing about this year is how there are so many states that can be flipped to blue, while so many typically sure states that the GOP is struggling to keep in the ‘leans’ column. It’s comforting to know that the GOP has to scratch back a minimum of 5 or 6 states to even have a chance of a tie.

    I saw this morning that Joe is finishing in Philly and Kamala in Pittsburgh.  The DNC knows PA is the key.  If Joe takes his home state he wins. I’m also relieved they stopped wasting time in OH.  It was never even really in the toss-up column. Weirdly it might end up being within the margin of error but only because the GOP can’t afford to spend all it’s money and time trying to tie up one state that should be solid for them. Since they are currently trying to ratfuck the election in TX and releasing skewed polls in IA, I’m assuming they have decided that OH isn’t worth anymore of their time. It will make tomorrow a little quieter here I’m hoping.

  266. 266.

    Miss Bianca

    @debbie: Ha ha!

    Except Zippy Chippy seems like kind of a charming character. Donald Trump has more the temperament of the evil Fair Play, though none of his success as a sire. ; )

  268. 268.

    Citizen Alan

    @Barbara:

    Who exactly is paying for all these Idahoan Covid patients to be sent to Seattle and Portland? Is this yet another example of the tax dollars of Blue States being squandered on ungrateful Welfare Farmers?

  269. 269.

    H.E.Wolf

    @Betty Cracker:
    One of the under-the-radar benefits of having written FL GOTV postcards for http://PostcardsToVoters.org is that I looked up the places I was writing to. I now have a familiarity with many place names in FL, and a *personal* interest in Democratic turnout there.

    I’m a big FL booster now. :) I’m happy to have written to all the counties you mentioned! (28 counties in total, which is far from a complete list, but it was a great education in matters Floridian.)

    Best wishes, Sunshine State!

  270. 270.

    germy

    @schrodingers_cat:
    Yes, and Ron Howard, the good liberal,  is directing the film based on his book.

    People who don’t pay attention to the political stuff (most people) heard him on NPR and the Snooze Hour and thought he was just a nice man, an author with no agenda other than exploring his “roots”.

    Latest news, he called the idea of a Biden administration “Truth Commission” something out of George Orwell. He goes on Fox News to say stuff like this.

  271. 271.

    trollhattan

    @debbie: 
    Oh I dunno Glenn, Nazism was dead seventy years and seems very much resurrected today, so “ways of life” seem to take vacations and not really go away. What are you doing in fifty years?

  273. 273.

    geg6

    @artem1s: 
    Joe is in the Pittsburgh area today, ending with a drive in rally with Lady Gaga. It may be Kamala will be in Philly, but Joe is here.

  274. 274.

    J R in WV

    I remember my Dad had handsful of cheap little things with “I Like Ike” on them. Matchbooks, bookmarks, business cards, tiny short rulers, all kinds of stuff like that. My folks were staunch Rockefeller Republicans, socially liberal, in favor of integration, OK with people being gay, etc.

    Then in the late ’90s my mom had COPD from Pall Mall cigs [which she got hooked on in college where they passed out free packs at the football and BB games on campus!] and was bedfast. One afternoon I was with her, no one else was around, and she told me she was lost to the Republicans when they went so totally anti-abortion rights. She had been cancelling Dad’s vote out for several election cycles.

    I suspect, although she didn’t say so, that she lost either a best friend or a cousin to an abortion that went south back when you couldn’t go to an ER, as they weren’t legal.

    I’ve been a yellow-dog Democrat all my life. I would sooner vote for the good looking yellow dog under the porch than ever to vote for a Republican, any Republican! Wife is the same.

    And those talking about the NY Times — they have never seen a fascist candidate they didn’t think deserved a lot of consideration. Starting in 1922 when they published their very first glowing piece about the very nice Mr Adolph Hitler, who was looking like a great man to bring positive change to Germany!

    Actually, they were probably pro-fascist before 1922, that’s just the first glowing report on a famous fascist that I am personally aware of.

  278. 278.

    Matt McIrvin

    @artem1s: Though Biden is ahead in many more battleground states than he needs to win, I don’t think we can rely on ANY of those states being called early to save us from a week of drama. The ones that count earliest are also the ones where the polls are closest. The ones where Biden has the safest lead count late.

    So it’s probably a bad idea to raise expectations for an early resolution. Better to stress that this election is not like the ones we’re used to because of COVID and the great interest in early voting, and any notion of “certifying” a winner on Election Night is Trump-camp disinformation.

  280. 280.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @JPL: @JPL:  Yes, I am happy that my section of my work building is almost empty, so no one can hear me growl.  I do IT deskside and phone support, I have been not sleeping and anxious because of the election for the past couple weeks, also trying to plan my daughters wedding next August (thank Flying Spaghetti Monster so much can be done online now! Planned my own in 1984 from Hawaii, wedding in Connecticut, fun!).

    And now I find out my 6 November knee surgery has been delayed until January because my plan does not allow the hospital my surgeon scheduled it for… aaaarrrrggghhhhhh!!

    Ok I’m done venting. back to working with the lovely users.

  281. 281.

    Kent

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: 
    I’m slow. It finally dawned on me that Trump’s executive order allowing easier firing of federal employees is meant to allow him to punish Fauci. All the other people it affects are just collateral damage.

    It’s MUCH MUCH bigger than that. It will essentially drive out most of the senior policy people in every agency, many of whom will take lateral transfers into non-policy jobs to maintain their civil service protections. So EPA, Interior, BLM, Education, Commerce (Census), Justice, HHS, etc. etc. That will leave gaping holes everywhere for political appointees to be inserted into every position in charge of actual policy (implementing or repealing regulations).

    As a former Fed I suspect it really has nothing to do with Fauci. They don’t have to fire him to sideline him. They can just do a reorganization and take away most of his authority if they want, while still letting him draw a paycheck.

    Anyway, I don’t think they really want to fire him anyway. All that would happen if they fired him would be that CNN would give him the “Fauci Hour” during prime time in which he interviews experts and weighs in unfiltered on the disaster that is the Trump Administration. It would get huge ratings and he would probably triple his salary.

  284. 284.

    James E Powell

    @germy: 

    Apologists for white supremacy are always promoted by the press/media as RealAmericans® who may have some rough edges, but are basically decent people.

  286. 286.

    FelonyGovt

    My first political memory was in 1960, my liberal Democratic Jewish parents being overjoyed about Kennedy’s victory on the theory that “if a Catholic could be elected, maybe a Jewish person is next!” That didn’t exactly work out…

    My friends want to do a Zoom call tomorrow night where I know they will be dissecting every result that comes in. I’m trying to figure out how to tactfully avoid it

  287. 287.

    Ruckus

    @Kay: 
    I’m sure the prison has a clinic/pharmacy with a refrigerator to hold his insulin and will give him his shot every day so his being a diabetic shouldn’t be an issue. He is supposedly an ex heroin addict. That leaves his being part of a plot to kidnap a Gov. A somewhat serious felony. He should be in jail awaiting trial. People without $100 for bail for a minor crime shouldn’t. Making more room for the people who should, like him.

  288. 288.

    LuciaMia

    Halloween is over so I guess its now Everything Christmas full-steam-ahead!
    Though Lifetime has been showing nothing but their Xmas movies since Oct. 1st.

  290. 290.

    Ruckus

    @WereBear:

    I’ve been a potty mouth for over 6 decades. So plenty of practice. And really you have plenty to curse at, given our current events and our lack of an actual federal government. I wouldn’t worry about it.

    Or you could be like a friends mom. He says he never heard her swear in 50 yrs, till she had Alzheimer’s, when she started swearing like a sailor. Apparently she actually knew all the words, she chose not to use them. Personally I was a sailor at a young age. Even well before I enlisted in the navy.

  292. 292.

    VeniceRiley

    @Kent:  Noticing this, I do believe Dems managed to pass a law that lays out how the transition is handled at each agency by the nonpolitical career staff. So, thank Nancy Smash for what we manage to save from disaster.

  293. 293.

    trollhattan

    @Nicole: 
    Using “sprint” to describe anything Trump is doing is a stretch not even Gumby can accomplish.
    “Tub O’ Goo–2020”

  295. 295.

    LuciaMia

     when she started swearing like a sailor.

    Aways wondered. Why are sailors supposed to be more spectacular swearers than other branches of the military?

  296. 296.

    Kent

    @FelonyGovt: My first political memory was in 1960, my liberal Democratic Jewish parents being overjoyed about Kennedy’s victory on the theory that “if a Catholic could be elected, maybe a Jewish person is next!” That didn’t exactly work out…

    My friends want to do a Zoom call tomorrow night where I know they will be dissecting every result that comes in. I’m trying to figure out how to tactfully avoid it

    My first political memory was the 1972 elections and watching my liberal anti-war activist parents disappointment to see Nixon win re-election. I was 8 years old. A lot of parallels to 2020 I think, but also a lot of differences. Nixon was dark and the times seemed kind of grim. But today it seems much more existential.

  297. 297.

    Kent

    @LuciaMia:Aways wondered. Why are sailors supposed to be more spectacular swearers than other branches of the military?

    They are away from women and civilization for MUCH longer periods of time?  Especially in the old days of sailing ships and such?   IDK, just a random guess.

  299. 299.

    Skepticat

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: 

    It finally dawned on me that Trump’s executive order allowing easier firing of federal employees is meant to allow him to punish Fauci. All the other people it affects are just collateral damage.

    I see it as a much more broad return to the spoils system, and it sucks pondwater.

  300. 300.

    trollhattan

    @Kent:

    The Nixon days were far more dire than they seem today for folks who didn’t live through them. Not so much Nixon being worse than Trump (he wasn’t, but he was far more effective because he was infinitely smarter) but rather, events of the day were legitimately more terrifying.

  301. 301.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Ruckus: I’ve been a potty mouth for over 6 decades.

    Ha. I was born and grew up on the outskirts of Glasgow. I heard words you would never have considered verbs, adverbs, adjectives and nouns used in casual conversation between friends and acquaintances while describing describe pets, politicians, the council, the weather and their first-born sons.

  302. 302.

    Baud

    @trollhattan: I wonder if the saving grace of the Nixon years compared to now is that a lot of awful people were still split between Dems an the GOP and were less unified than they are today.

  304. 304.

    trollhattan

    @Baud: 
    Could be. Republican senators didn’t throw themselves on the tracks to save him during the Watergate hearings, and the party hadn’t officially welcomed the fundies yet. But it was beginning–the Southern Strategy vacuumed up southern whites from the Dem ranks, beginning formation of the Reagan coalition, which we’re still enduring.

    I remain astonished that after Kent State, polling revealed the majority of Americans believed those students had it coming.

    Because we love lumping, my parents probably lumped in with “Rockefeller Republicans” and while they didn’t seem bothered by Nixon did not buy into Reagan’s schtick. They also jumped from the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church when they took their hard conservative turn. Didn’t realize it at the time but I learned a lot from them even if politics were never a dinnertime topic.

  306. 306.

    Kathleen

    @germy: I think at one time he was flirting with idea of Senate run. Just what Ohio needs. Another execrable Rethuglican Senate candidate.

  307. 307.

    Baud

    @trollhattan:

    I remain astonished that after Kent State, polling revealed the majority of Americans believed those students had it coming.

    Right.  The awfulness of so many Americans today is not necessarily unprecedented.  It may be our expectations were out of whack, because we thought some things were past when they weren’t.

  308. 308.

    Emma from FL

    @Barbara: NO WE DID NOT. Jesus H. Christ. Hillary was literally robbed of a win. She won the popular vote by more than 3 MILLION VOTES. She “lost” the Electoral College by a total of less than 25000 votes in four states, two of which were DEFINITELY hacked. It was ratfuckery all the way.

    I’ve asked before and I don’t expect an answer this time either. WHY are we using Republican framing/ MSM framing for this!?

  309. 309.

    Bill Arnold

    @zhena gogolia:

    Hate to say it, but he sounded like a Russian.

    I’m not great on accents, but he sounded like Russian Mafia, or Russian Mafia-adjacent. (Fuckers are often extremely arrogant. And potentially quite dangerous.)

  312. 312.

    Nicole

    @Miss Bianca: 

    Ah yes…Biden as Secretariat, Belmont Stakes, 1973. Trump as…wait for it…SHAM.

    (Tho’ that’s kind of an insult to the memory of poor Sham, who really *was* a contender, he just had the misfortune of being a contender against the GOAT.)

    I agree with you, Sham was a terrific runner, and he was at least briefly capable of taking it to Big Red, while Trump has been taking kickback since Day 1. I myself am picturing American Pharoah’s Belmont, when he had things all his own way the entire race, and, even though it was probably over at the half-mile post, the crowd still went absolutely nuts when he crossed the finish line, ending a 37 year drought. At last. At last.

    Also, God knows the past 4 years have felt like 37.

  315. 315.

    Brachiator

    @Baud: 

    I wonder if the saving grace of the Nixon years compared to now is that a lot of awful people were still split between Dems an the GOP and were less unified than they are today.

    Support for Nixon collapsed over Watergate. He originally was riding high. From Pew Research.

    Nixon had won reelection in 1972 by a landslide and began his second term with a lofty 68% Gallup Poll approval rating in January 1973.

    Ultimately, the country turned against him. Around 57 percent thought he should be removed from office. And here’s the kicker.

    But once he was gone, the Americans were not quick to forgive and forget. In September, a 58% majority said Nixon should be tried for possible criminal charges. And they took the view that he should not be let off the hook easily, if found guilty. By a margin of 53% to 38%, the public thought that President Ford should not pardon Nixon, if he was found guilty.

    Something has turned sour in the country. Trump’s base continues to support him. The GOP learned the wrong lesson from Watergate and continue to stand by their man.

  317. 317.

    Matt McIrvin

    Thinking some more about “red mirages” and attempts to prematurely declare victory…

    Won’t any such tactic be bleeding obvious, even to people not particularly clued in?

    It all comes down to precinct-level reporting. Is any precinct going to report partial results on Election Night, say just of Election Day in-person votes, if they haven’t yet counted some large fraction of the ballots? It seems like gross malpractice if they do, and I don’t see any particular reason that they would. That’s not how it usually works, is it?

    So what that means is that if we see a red mirage, it’ll look just like a drawn-out version of what often happens on Election Night–the rural counties reporting their heavily Republican votes, while the cities and suburbs are either blank or “25% of precincts reporting”. It’ll be obvious what’s going on even just eyeballing the CNN maps.

    You never declare victory on the basis of 25% of precincts reporting, unless the state is such a slam dunk that the networks will call it on the basis of some model, and even then, they’re going to adjust for the fact that rural districts are different. I’ve seen them call states for the Democrat while the Republican is still ahead because they’re sufficiently confident about that. (I actually hope they don’t do much of this. Nobody needs anything called prematurely, and this election is confounding and different.)

    If Trump insists he’s won Pennsylvania when nobody around Pittsburgh or Philadelphia is even reporting results, he just looks like a fool.

  320. 320.

    Baud

    @Brachiator: I don’t think that’s inconsistent with my theory.  Basically, I’m saying the forces of darkness were weaker in Nixon’s time because they were less unified.  If they were all concentrated under the GOP banner in 1974, would polling have been different and more supportive of Nixon’s crimes?  It’s speculative, certainly, but I think for a lot of people, their point of view is influenced more by the nature of their bubble than they would care to admit.

  321. 321.

    Emma from FL

    @zhena gogolia: I can understand that but every time we do it we give them the talking points “even the liberals agree…”  I am not giving them a damn thing. Especially about Hillary.

  322. 322.

    Baud

    @Matt McIrvin: His voters won’t look behind what he says, and our voters will be nervous playing catch up regardless of what we known intellectually about the nature of the outstanding uncounted votes.

  325. 325.

    Kay

    But the poll-watching army that the Trumps have tried to rally hasn’t materialized. Although there’s no official data, election officials across the country say that they have seen relatively few Republican poll watchers during early voting, and that at times Democratic poll watchers have outnumbered the GOP’s. In Colorado and Nevada, where the Trump campaign was particularly active in recruiting poll watchers, its efforts largely petered out.

    I told you!
    Their poll watchers are louder and ruder and they get tossed out so they get all the attention, but we’ve been doing poll watching since 2008 and we’re better at it.

    “I am receiving reports of a few thousand poll watchers from a variety of left-leaning groups. There are very few poll watchers from right-leaning groups,” she said. “The Trump campaign is simply calling for additional poll watchers because they know there is a dearth of right-leaning poll watchers.”

    Work. It’s a problem for them.

  326. 326.

    Another Scott

    @Kay: This is my shocked shocked face.

    Thanks.

    Yet again, the press is being captured by “compelling” videos and pictures and ignoring most of reality.

    I welcome reality returning to DC at noon on Wednesday January 20, 2021 after the nation sends out the invitation tomorrow.

    VOTE VOTE VOTE!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  327. 327.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: One thing I could definitely see happening is raw exit poll data being leaked early and used to support the idea of a massive Trump landslide, since that will be ONLY Election Day voting, no early ballots at all, and likely extremely biased toward Republicans.

    Then when the counts come in they’ll insist they were fraudulent on the basis of those exit polls, just like Democrats did in 2004. Shoe on the other foot.

  328. 328.

    Brachiator

    @LuciaMia:

    I thought maybe the thing about sailors swearing was historical exaggeration, but a quick Google search suggests some truth behind this.

    When Charles Tyng first went to sea in the early nineteenth century, he “listened with horror to the profane language of the sailors” and was so distressed that “the idea that I was to be a companion with such creatures perfectly shocked” him.

    The official rules for the early US Continental Navy includes prohibitions against cursing and profane language.

  329. 329.

    Sasha

    Let’s put dogs back in the White House.

    We don’t currently have a dog in the White House, but we certainly have a cur.

  330. 330.

    Baud

    @Matt McIrvin: 

    I’m not overly concerned about Trump’s rhetoric per se because I don’t care whether his supporters consider Biden legitimate. It’s not their call. The only issue is the courts, where I think the risk is low, but if it comes to pass, would be a constitutional crisis.

  331. 331.

    Benw

    @Baud: it was also much more socially acceptable back then to be racist, misogynistic, homophobic, and anti-Semitic. They didn’t need Nixon for that.

    We HAVE made progress since then to make those things much less acceptable; think of the hell it must have been to be called racist when they said racist things about Obama for 8 years. Poor things. So they’re wildly loyal to Trump, who gives them permission to act that way.

  332. 332.

    Benw

    @Baud: it was also much more socially acceptable back then to be racist, misogynistic, homophobic, and anti-Semitic. They didn’t need Nixon for that.

    We HAVE made progress since then to make those things much less acceptable; think of the hell it must have been to be called racist when they said racist things about Obama for 8 years. Poor things. So they’re wildly loyal to Trump, who gives them permission to act that way.

  335. 335.

    Emma from FL

    @Baud:  I did not claim it was. What set me off is “the independents broke for Hillary.” Whatever they did was irrelevant to the actual Russian/GOP damage. And, btw, Comey didn’t get enough of a kicking around, for sure: but I will bet serious money “the indepndents” were primed to grab at any excuse to vote for Trump.

  337. 337.

    Ruckus

    @LuciaMia: 
    Locked up in a box for long periods of time, possibly sea sick a good part of the time, about 1/3-1/2 of the people you work for are fucking assholes, officers had servants, and the concept of Captain Bligh was a role model for some. For example I was stationed on a ship for 2 yrs, and in that time we had 5 captains. One was exceptional, one was acceptable, two were incompetent and one was a danger to all. In the army/marines you likely didn’t see as many officers as often, because you aren’t in a floating box with them 24 hrs a day. And that floating in a box is 24/7. If you are at sea for any length of time, it becomes routine but not a consistent 9-5 routine, a consistent 24 hr routine. That wears at you. And then there is the completely asinine crap, seemingly designed to drive you insane, so you will be capable of reenlisting so you can continue the fun. I once went 3+ weeks without seeing the sky or sun. I once went 6 weeks without a shower. It wears on you.
    OTOH, it’s all the military and the ranking system can be very similar to shitforbrains desiring admiration. There are egos, closeness, rigid hierarchy involved, while the enlisted do almost all the physical work.

  342. 342.

    briber

    @LuciaMia: 

    Sea ports are located in cites while army forts tend to be located in the countryside. This has an impact on who is around to bear witness to the actions of soldiers and sailors when they are off duty.

    It may not be that sailors have a particularly vulgar streak in them. Instead, they are just more widely seen when acting vulgar.

    (Served for 8 years in the US Navy as a Machinist’s Mate.)

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