Keep in mind, neither of these tweeters are Democratic professionals:
This feels strange after a long night but is absolutely right. https://t.co/QnKjfOF2Rs
— stuart stevens (@stuartpstevens) November 4, 2020
Off to bed for me, if not to sleep…
Additionally, Senate is still very much in play. If Biden wins GA, why wouldn't one of those two seats eventually flip to Dems? That plus Collins under 50 & losing w/ranked choice & Peters pulling ahead means a 50-50 Senate with Kamala back in the chamber to be the deciding vote
— Adam Blickstein (@AdamBlickstein) November 4, 2020
Couple bright spots for me:
https://t.co/MQozQfVyUN pic.twitter.com/6NKOQpqX9w
— Matt (@MattM0720) November 4, 2020
BREAKING: Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids of Kansas has won a second term. The Ho-Chunk woman made history in 2018 as one of the first two Native women elected to Congress. #NativeVote20 #Election2020 https://t.co/nrANK4xTLV pic.twitter.com/KAp1MgN2NO
— Indian Country Today (@IndianCountry) November 4, 2020
BREAKING: Democratic Rep. Deb Haaland of New Mexico wins a second term. Haaland, Laguna and Jemez Pueblo, was one of the first two Native women elected to Congress in 2018. #NativeVote20 #Election2020 https://t.co/nrANK4xTLV pic.twitter.com/VIjK7gWmix
— Indian Country Today (@IndianCountry) November 4, 2020
Native organizers from AZ Tribes have been working toward this since 2016. They increased mail-in ballots by 200%. It’s been predicted that Natives would help swing AZ, even though there’s been a massive effort to suppress their votes, all while they were being ravaged by Covid. https://t.co/tMQ6whDEqF
— Ruth Hopkins ?????? (@Ruth_HHopkins) November 4, 2020
Words of wisdom:
One thing I’d say to folks tempted to offload some of their angst by sniping at others who had far rosier predictions about results:
Don’t. Expecting better of Americans isn’t a crime. Believing in a great outcome isn’t a sin.
And they’re suffering just like you.
— The Hoarse Whisperer (@TheRealHoarse) November 4, 2020
Elizabelle
Sleep well, Anne. Thank you for everything you’ve done.
Today looks like a good day to stay off the internet. Wait on an accurate count of results, and hope that the Post Office is forced to cough up any delayed ballots. We need to count them.
Bluegirlfromwyo
Deep breaths, everyone. I would’ve loved taking back our country to be easy. It isn’t going to be. Take some time off when you feel able, then press forward.
Betty Cracker
Thank you for pointing to a possible path of 50 + 1 votes in the Senate. It may or may not shake out that way, but it’s an offramp from the Despair Expressway. :)
moonbat
The media did the same thing in 2018, refusing to call a blue wave a wave and sniping at what was a phenomenal accomplishment. I’d expected no less.
But wins are wins and I will take them all and work to make them count.
OzarkHillbilly
A good reminder.
Cermet
After 2016, we are all rather worried. It is normal but the thugs have a way of cheating …pulling off last second wins
zhena gogolia
Great news about Davids.
No sleep, I lost 2 pounds overnight, and I have a full day of teaching. I need some good news.
Please, please let Biden be president. That’s the main thing.
zhena gogolia
@Cermet:
But in 2016 it was decided before I went to bed at midnight, as I recall.
Dagaetch
If Biden wins, and we somehow do get 50+ seats in the Senate, I’ll certainly breathe easier. But it’s still just incredibly depressing to realize that 65 million people said “Drumpf is my guy!” and chose him to be Pres. I didn’t like GWB, but I could understand how he appealed to people, and could still be friends with people who voted for him. People who voted Repub this time, nope. It’s a litmus test for me now. If you pulled a lever for Trump in 2020, I do not want you in my life.
Shalimar
I’m not depressed about the election. I still expect Biden to win. I’m depressed about the number of Americans who can’t recognize unprecedented, staggering incompetence. Americans absolutely have the power to destroy the entire planet during our slide from dominance. I don’t expect humanity to survive the next 100 years. And we’re so stupid on average that I’m not sure we should.
Dagaetch
@zhena gogolia: I think it became clear what was going to happen around 11pm, but the race wasn’t called until 3am?
Gin & Tonic
@Shalimar: The planet will survive. Homo sapiens may not, but that’s a different matter.
New Deal democrat
When I last checked, Biden was only about 13,500 votes away from taking the lead in Michigan, with 10% of the ballots still to be counted. If that happens, and he holds NV and WI, he wins.
i hope he holds a press conference to that effect the moment MI turns, if it does.
Still, a very dark night of the soul. Almost 50% of our neighbors are ok with turning the US into a full-fledged banana republic.
schrodingers_cat
What the last 4 years brought home to me was the utter loneliness of the immigrant experience. Lefty Indians in my timeline are gloating because according to them America is the greatest evil that has existed and we are getting our just deserts. RWNJs and their supporters (many of these are family or friends) are happy because their kindred spirit did better than expected.
Meanwhile in the country which I call home and have lived in longer than I did in the country of my birth, a significant section hates me for merely existing.
NotMax
Someone’s gotta link it.
:)
lowtechcyclist
It’s a thin path, but it’s still a possible one, thank goodness.
Then if we get to 50+Kamala, there’s the project of getting 50 Senators to all get behind killing the filibuster and then using their bare majority to pass all the bills that will need to be passed to deal with the challenges this nation is facing.
But that’s a battle for another day. One at a time. GA runoff(s) next.
Benw
Damn 2020 is a year for the ages. If Biden wins and we get a 50+1 senate we did what we had to do.
NotMax
@lowtechcyclist
You know who will still have the veto Sharpie in early January, unfortunately, and as a lame duck will in his fevered mind have nothing to lose by using it often.
Ian G.
Constant lurker, rare poster here. That Hoarse Whisperer post really resonates with me. I really do want to believe Americans are a decent people, but even if Biden wins, it’s really hard to make that conclusion. I’m as depressed about the future of this country as I was optimistic about it when we elected a black man president in 2008.
I have two young children who have been born since 2016. I climbed into the older one’s bed to give her a hug while she slept last night with tears in my eyes. I want her and her little brother to grow up in a decent country, I’m just not sure this country is it.
germy
Felanius Kootea
I couldn’t sleep. So much evil to overcome and I don’t use that word lightly.
PsiFighter37
@lowtechcyclist: In that scenario, I think the filibuster is going to stay, and we will simply have to jam everything in a reconciliation bill. Getting an expanded court is a pipe dream.
Biden just took the lead in Michigan – bring that home, along with Wisconsin, and Joe will have 270 on the dot.
p.a.
Wait, S. Collins hasn’t won? I thought that was called! Of to the Maine page…
Baud
I can’t understand the Trump voter either, but it seems like we need to think hard about how to make inroads into GOP voters, the way that the GOP is working to make inroads with minority men.
germy
mali muso
@Ian G.: I am so with you on this. In 2016 I was 9 months pregnant with a baby girl who is biracial. This morning I hugged my almost-4-year-old tight and mourned the loss of the hope that this might be a country where we could raise her. I maintain some faith that Biden will pull out the win and maybe we can even get the Senate, but the fact that millions of Americans affirmatively want racism and treason as the law of the land is utterly gutting.
Baud
@PsiFighter37:
Oh, good news on the lead. We can tell Trump we’ll stop counting the votes now.
sanjeevs
Michigan flipped blue. And the Senate seat there is still possible
New Deal democrat
And Biden now leads in Michigan. He has 270+ Electoral votes already if this holds.
PsiFighter37
@sanjeevs: Peters is behind by 36k – seems like he should be able to pull it out based on the amount of vote left.
James E Powell
@PsiFighter37:
That’s assuming NV holds, right?
What’s the story with Gary Peters? Is there enough uncounted remaining for him to win?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Betty Cracker:
Can Kamala vote rules?
PenAndKey
Man, I’ve taken the last month or so just to step back and recalibrate and focus on my family, but seeing Biden take the lead in NV, WI, and MI makes me just hopeful enough to reengage without risking a cardiovascular incident. My blood pressure and mental health simply couldn’t take the stress, so beyond urging all my family and coworkers to vote, as well as writing postcards for a month straight, I’ve been living in a “the die is cast” fugue.
I wish things weren’t closer than they are, and still maintain that there should be massive investigations into systemic vote tampering (polls can’t consistently be this off without being suspicious), but I’m hopeful that the Biden/Harris administration can go toe-to-toe with McConnell and come out on top when it counts.
lowtechcyclist
Oh, Homo sapiens will survive. If you think about all the places our Neolithic ancestors lived, from deserts to sub-Arctic islands, there’s no question that humanity will survive, no matter how inhospitable we make the planet for ourselves, whether by global warming, nuclear war, or just poisoning the shit out of everything.
The question in my mind is: if global warming goes unchecked, how many of our descendants will this planet be able to support in the year 2100? A good deal fewer than the current 7.5 billion, I expect.
My son could easily live to see 2100 if the world stays as hospitable for humanity as it is now. But will it?
Splitting Image
Good on Arizona and the native groups who helped swing it to Biden. Florida and Ohio were disappointments, but it looks like Biden will take Wisconsin, Michigan, and the champagne.
That aside, I’m going to hold off on any criticism of the late polls until all of the votes are counted. I suspect the popular vote will swing toward Biden as the last votes get counted, as happened in 2016.
The biggest story of the night may be that in spite of everything, a lot of Democrats still don’t understand the importance of the Senate.
Also, Clinton underestimated the number of deplorables out there. By a lot.
NotMax
Anyone heard anything from Harry Reid about Nevada?
PsiFighter37
@James E Powell: Yes, assuming Nevada holds.
In MI, there is still 11% of the vote left, from what I can tell it is predominantly Wayne County. I think that should be enough to haul Peters over the finish line.
NYCMT
@Ian G.: late at night four years ago during the catastrophe, my dad, who was born in London during the Blitz to German-Jewish refugees from Hitler, reminded me and my sisters that the promise of the country was still strong and that we should not give up in despair. After all, our grandparents didn’t. In fact, Pop-pop went back after Kristallnacht and Dachau to land with the third wave at Omaha on D-Day.
So, we made our second child in ’17, a delightful little boy who has no idea that tens of millions of Americans have bought shiny crocks of vile shit from the sparkling lights and grunts in their heads, who sat singing while brutes trapped us and struck our car. I fight for him, like Opa and Oma fought for Dad and Mom-mom and Pop-pop fought for Mom.
It’s not over. It’s never over. We can never give up in despair.
p.a.
@PsiFighter37: 3 other Senate hopefuls there, all w statistically significant votes (naturally, in a close election). Assuming Green hurt Peters, Taxpayer and Natural Law hurt James.
Patricia Kayden
germy
(Washington Post)
Baud
@James E Powell: We won’t find out about NV until Thursday at the earliest. But it seems most people think it’ll hold based on where the remaining uncounted votes are.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I think you’re right, but I’m just not sure how that would work. I figured the $15 minimum wage ballot initiative in FL would attract some low-propensity voters who might lean Dem, but if so, it was barely a speed-bump. That initiative got a shit-ton of GOP support, or it wouldn’t have busted 60%. Weed maybe? ;-)
PS: And now it looks like a hurricane is coming to punish Florida for its sins. Weee!
sanjeevs
@PsiFighter37: Peters is ahead now
Soprano2
Just saw the worst headline on Yahoo News: “Trump says he won. Why he didn’t”. It should be more like “Trump didn’t win, even though he claims he did”, or something like that. Lead with the truth, not his lie! Ggggrrrr….
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat: I fear we are going to see a brain drain, even with a Biden win. This country is still too much of a danger to the world.
So much work to be done.
Betty Cracker
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Good question! I don’t know.
p.a.
I picked a bad century to stop doing recreational drugs.?☹️
MattF
[Deep Breath]
Felanius Kootea
@Baud: You can’t? I think I understand them pretty well now. Seems pretty clear to me that the main strategy that would bring them into the fold would also wreck the Democratic Party.
marcopolo
@NotMax: If you want to know what is going on in NV check out Jon Ralston’s twitter feed. He thinks Biden holds on based on where outstanding votes are.
Kristine
I should mention here that for all I wanted to pie ? certain posters last night, I’m so glad this place exists. Thanks to all front pagers, and John, for keeping it going.
And I wound up not pieing anyone.
Ian G.
@NYCMT:
Thanks, I needed that. I also often think that as we lose the WWII generation, we’re losing a huge civic resource of the kind of people who would never have supported a thug like Trump after literally facing and defeating fascist guns.
Baud
@Felanius Kootea: I don’t think it’ll be easy, but we can’t sit on our heels knowing how close this high-turnout election was.
Omnes Omnibus
@PenAndKey: I’d like to point out to you that Biden won LaCrosse County by a lot. Maybe your neighbors aren’t as bad as you thought.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
It’s more disgusting in my mind that these many people voted “yes” to at lest two more years of death, disease and economic chaos. There is seriously part of me that really wants to them to get four more years of that filthy, stonner, daughter fucker so it’s rubbing in the face that government isn’t a football game.
PenAndKey
I fully expect that the minimum Invitation to Apply score requirement for Canada is about to see a spike even with a Biden win. As much as I’ve wanted to move the family it’s only a weak possibility at this point, but for many people they’ll be in a better position to say “we need to live somewhere more stable” and decide to get out and do what’s best for them/their family. I won’t blame them one bit.
leeleeFL
@Betty Cracker: I would not be amazed if the Universe was about to put Florida down like a dog! I was talking to my new neighbor a little bit ago. He is African-American. He and I will not ever understand Hispanics and African-Americans in South Florida voting tRump. I said if he hates anyone more than mouthy women with opinions, that would be people with Brown Skin. Apparently, Kansas has migrated!?
WHAT and I cannot emphasize this enough THE ACTUAL FUCK?
ETA FOUND QUOTE ON FB
NotMax
@marcopolo
Know about Ralston. Was curious if Reid has made any statements.
Oh, and I don’t do Twitter. Ever. Despise it with thrice the heat of every star that has existed since the Big Bang.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
I’m finding myself convinced that addressing the issues of the white working class in the industrial midwest and the south with targeted policies is a waste of fucking time. It makes them more comfortable and more smug in their abject stupidity.
They need to understand the pain of the consequences of continuing to vote to shit on people as opposed to improving lives.
Want tax waivers or federal grants or road improvements to support some factory with X jobs in your rural hellhole? Fuck you – you didn’t vote for us and won’t vote for us and are a negative resource drain – we can put that money into industrial developments in Philadelphia or Phoenix or Charlotte or dozens of other places where we can get electoral bang for the buck. Like your TVA? Fine – we’re parting it the fuck out. Enjoy your new electric bills…..
Emma from FL
You know what we need next? We need to focus on retaking the local boards that control basic things like education. In the US education has been stolen by the Texas Textbook Veto, to the extreme that a few years ago California, IIRC, refused to buy more textbooks from “texas-accomodating” publishers. We need to take back education and local services. Rewrite politics from the ground up.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@germy: Yes, and let’s keep in mind North Dakota is the worst place in the Republic for the damn pandemic. They literally voted for death there.
Soprano2
I suspect that there are a significant amount of people who usually vote Republican who voted for Biden and whoever the Republican Senate candidate was. That could account for what happened to our Senate candidates.
James E Powell
@Baud:
Jon Ralston says “tens of thousands of mail in ballots left to count in Clark” – He’s the local authority; I feel a little better.
Mary G
The Anglo world is choosing hateful incompetent fascists – look at the UK. It’s baffling. I left everything I had on the field, donated way more money and time, so I feel more at peace than I did in 2016. Marc Elias and Bauer are great lawyers, 1000x better than the incompetence on the other side. If the courts ignore the law to hand it to Twitler it’s on them.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Oh our species well, we’ve survived much worse things than this. See The Black Death. Our civilization, that’s another issue, you want nightmare fuel see the Late Bronze Age Collapse.
artem1s
@zhena gogolia:
I recall there was supposed to be a full recount in PA, WI, and MI but Jill Stein didn’t send experienced counters to any of the states, they did a really crappy job, call if off before the recount was complete in just one of the states, and took off with $7M in donations. We will never know what happened in that election because the media rushed to announce a winner. They wanted a horse race and thought it would mean more clicks for them if Trump was in the WH acting like an idiot. Many of the precincts in question started destroying the paper trails from touch voting machines as soon as the election was called. Misogyny demanded the woman stand down and that she reward the serial sexual harasser with a win he hadn’t earned. Expect a shitstorm of tweets from Hitler as the vote gets closer in PA and MI, demanding that those mail-in and early votes be invalidated. Looks like Biden learned at least one lesson from 2016 and hopefully the Democratic Party will never again let 2000, 2004, and 2016 under-counting happen again.
PsiFighter37
PA margin now under 600k. C’mon Philly…bring it home…
Felanius Kootea
@Emma from FL: Agree with this. Education is definitely key but change here will take some time.
Barbara
Checking in once per hour, and reading latest Tana French before dragging myself to my dining room that doubles as an office.
mali muso
Yeah, we missed activating our Canadian permanent residency paperwork earlier this year due to COVID, but were told by Immigration Canada that they would honor it once the pandemic subsides. Not trying to be a defeatist, but I gotta think about my kid.
Zzyzx
Relevant Simon and Garfunkel America lyric by time.
8 PM last night:
“Kathy, I’m lost,” I said,
Though I knew she was sleeping.
“I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why.”
6:15 this morning:
Michigan seems like a dream to me now.
p.a.
Surprised (and pleased) that there weren’t more shenanigans (that we’ve heard of at least) yesterday: voter intimidation attempts, blockades, etc. Half-assed, lazy fascists not as good as no fascists, but not having German efficiency can sometimes be a plus. I do expect some attempts at ‘Brooks Bros Riots’ over the next few days.
Felanius Kootea
@Barbara: Ooh I love Tana French! Haven’t read her latest. Is it part of the Dublin murder squad series or an independent one like The Witch Elm?
Soprano2
Oh, and what’s up with that measure in CA that lets ride sharing companies get out of laws that would make them treat their employees like employees? I heard that passed, why did it
ETA – I see the stock market is up, I guess they’re happy with the election results so far. I think they’d be happier with a Biden presidency, because they like more predictability.
James E Powell
@PsiFighter37:
Biden needs – we need – like 72% of those outstanding ballots. I need the NV, WI, & MI leads to grow so I can calm down
How many early votes remain to be counted in Green Bay and how long does it take to change the ink cartridges?
PenAndKey
That’s very, very true and I was extremely happy to see that. Though I’ve still got more than my fair share if MAGA neighbors. The results match what I saw on the ground, as do the results out of Jackson County where I work and commute. Given that I spend 10-11 hr/day working in said county I’m very thankful that my kids are at home. The La Crosse/Onalaska/Holmen corridor is an appreciated blue bubble for sure.
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Biden is currently leading in Wisconsin and Michigan, with numbers getting better as the mail-in votes continue to be counted. He also is winning Minnesota and Illinois. You want to throw all those Electoral Votes away by telling us to go to hell because the eastern half of the rust belt are idiots?
Betty Cracker
@leeleeFL: On Twitter, Stephen from Wonkette (who is black) observed that it’s untenable for Dems to rely on getting 70% of a bloc as disparate as Latinos and that when Dems run the score up with black voters, it only makes whites resent them more. There’s truth to that, but I don’t know what we can do about it except wait until demography overtakes the current electorate. I’m sure as hell not on board with downplaying civil rights to appease asshole white people, and I assume that’s true of most Democrats.
Yarrow
@schrodingers_cat: Not that it’s any comfort for you, but it’s been clear to me for some time that my government wants me dead.
JMG
Someone smarter than me posted on Twitter that now that Biden leads in enough places to have 270, Trump can’t yell “stop the count.” He’s got to come up with a new angle because he needs the count now.
marcopolo
@NotMax: While I don’t have a twitter account (I have no interest in posting or commenting), I do look at the tweets of folks whose expertise I trust. There’s actually a lot of good information out there in tweets–often including links to deeper dives on topics.
leeleeFL
@mali muso: As a descendant of Canadians who emigrated here ages ago, I wish Canada had a “right of return” program like Israel! As a lifelong hockey fan, I know all the words to the Anthem, and ALWAYS liked it better anyway.
Fair Economist
I was thinking about how CA elections chronically swing to Democrats as provisional ballots + late mails get processed. It happened nationally in 2018 too – I remember being really pissed when Ned Lamont lost the CT gubernatorial race, except that he didn’t – after all the votes were counted, he won. There were several other similar cases. Because of the mail vote suppression + aggressive intervention we are going to have an historically high rate of D-leaning provisionals.
Kamala will be particularly aware of this because that’s how she won in 2010.
danielx
Trying not to despair, but….I should know better than to be disappointed in so many of my/our fellow citizens by now.
gene108
@schrodingers_cat:
As a fellow Indian immigrant, who has been living since the age of three, the majority of Indian immigrants here, and their Indian American children are Democrats.
germy
Baud
@James E Powell:
That’s a lot but it actually might be doable, given where the ballots are coming from. But the sooner we learn it’s just gravy, the better.
Gin & Tonic
Schindler is an asshole, but sometimes assholes are correct.
leeleeFL
@Betty Cracker: I say, in their faces! I will not stand down on Civil Rights, NOT EVER! Fuck that noise! I may not sleep as much as I should at my age, but I can still sleep!
PenAndKey
I’m right there with you. My wife is still against the idea of moving as anything but my own personal pipe dream, and until the COVID restrictions lift we can’t even begin the process since we can’t get our language testing or medical exams done. But I’ve got a pre-teen son and infant daughter. I can fight and protest and vote until an early grave, but I have a major issue putting my kids through what I’ve experienced for 2/3 of my life when there’s a viable, if only barely, alternative.
James E Powell
@Betty Cracker:
There is a category of white voters that no matter what you do their resentment goes up.
Kent
So I couldn’t sleep here on the west coast so got up, walked the dog, made coffee and sat down to find out that Biden is leading in states that add up to 270, and his lead is likely to solidify in all of those states as the count continues. Does that sum it up? Plus PA and GA are still looking good.
We are up 2 in the Senate and have a path to still beat Collins and pick up a GA seat to bring the Senate to 50/50
Is that basically where we are at right now?
If so, things are looking a lot more up than they were 4 hours ago when I went to bed.
Fair Economist
@artem1s:
Your recollection is very charitable to her, because Stein didn’t even have the right to call for a recount in MI. But she asked for money for that anyway. All about the grift, as you say.
p.a.
Downballot importance!
cintibud
@Soprano2: ““Trump says he won. Why he didn’t”.”
You think that’s a bad headline? How about this – “Trump declares victory, Democrats complain”
I think the headline you quoted is a big improvement over the usual the past 20 years or so
Baud
@p.a.: That is good news.
sanjeevs
@Gin & Tonic: I think he’s dead wrong. There’s a reason Cambridge Analytica’s successful clients tend to angry assholes who spend most of their time on social media
James E Powell
@Gin & Tonic:
It’s the Proud Boys against our team’s Benetton ads. I feel like we can win that battle, but the messages and the methods are going to have to become more sophisticated.
DropDminus
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Then again, it might be Biden’s ability to at least bring some of them back that proves to be decisive in WI, MI, and PA.
Chris Johnson
@p.a.: No, this is what the shenanigans look like. This WAS shenanigans.
I would suggest to people to remember that as far as the ongoing Russian war on us, using these means, the goal is NOT and never was to make a powerful rightwing autocracy.
The goal is civil war, and always was.
So, anything you do or say along the lines of ‘we squeak out the win and then we must destroy all the subhuman baby-cagers who need to be put down like dogs because they aren’t fit to live!’ is the mirror image of what the Russians are telling red-staters about US.
Remember that. Civil war is not the solution, civil war is the best outcome for Russia and what they’ve been working towards all this time. This is war, but it’s not civil war unless we let it.
rk
Is it possible to have a heart attack from this stress? Because since yesterday my heart has been racing. I can hear it and had to take meds to reduce my heart beat. But still feel it going. God I so want this to be over!
Edmund Dantes
@Soprano2: cause in the surface it sounds “good”. Lots of money talking about how bad it would be for common man to not be their own boss. Ignoring the second order effects and hidden “not really own boss” reality.
gene108
When people talked about the 2020 Senate map favoring Democrats, and could lead to us retaking the Senate, I was skeptical. We would need to flip traditionally Republican states.
I think 2022 is where we get a clear Senate majority.
The Senate by design was not meant to be flipped so easily.
**************************
As far as Trumpism goes, the Republicans have always become more radically right wing after every major loss. Ford’s loss begat Reagan. Bush, Sr.’s loss begat Newt Gingrich. Bush, Jr’s failures, and McCain’s launch begat the Tea Party, and Trump.
Expect the Republicans to double down hard on Trumpism, because otherwise they’d have to admit they might’ve been wrong about a thing.
Amir Khalid
@gene108:
What was your life status before you turned three? (he said curiously.)
Kent
Thought here that I haven’t seen discussed anywhere.
Is it possible that the WI, PA, and MI legislatures fucked up one traditional means of GOP voter suppression used in other states like FL and OH, which is disproportionate rejection of mail-in and absentee ballots by insisting that mail-in and absentees can’t be touched until election day?
Reading twitter reports from PA it sounds like election workers are going at mad speed to open envelopes and process ballots. No one is taking time to study signatures with a magnifying glass to look for reasons to reject ballots. They are all just going as fast as they can to get done. In contrast to other states where they were doing it weeks ago at a leisurely pace.
Or do I have the process wrong and the signature checks have all been done already in PA?
I’m curious to see what the absentee and mail-in ballot rejection rates are in MI, WI, and PA compared to other states when this is all over.
dww44
@Cermet: On Monday my BIL told me that his SIL, himself a likely Trump voter but somewhat a fair minded one,was traveling thru SW Ga and stopped at an out of the way gun store to buy shot gun shells for hunting.
A bunch of MAGA T’s were sitting around and one said to our relative that “It looks like Mr. Trump is going to win.”SIL replied the polls say Mr. Biden is likely to win. The reply was “Maybe we’ll have to out cheat them. “
Ever the “ I’m rubber you’re glue” thinking with the GOP
Baud
@James E Powell:
Right. No one is suggestion the Dems go back to Jim Crow to win elections. But there are a million ways to strategize about how to advance civil rights and equality, and it would be nice if we can figure out how to do it in a way that least benefits the Republicans.
schrodingers_cat
@gene108: The Indians I speak in the comment above are Indians citizens who live in India. Where I live other than a Sikh friend and Bangladeshi friend I have there are no Indians in my circles.
YY_Sima Qian
@schrodingers_cat: I feel you. A lot of first generation Chinese immigrants lean culturally and fiscally conservative (my dad among them), though subsequent generations are predominantly liberal or moderate. With Trump though, the split among 1st generation Chinese Americans falls along those who hold strong anti-CCP views and those who do not. Those who are anti-CCP are fiercely and myopically pro-Trump, even though some of them are supposedly anti-CCP out of professed liberal convictions, despite all of Trump’s race baiting with “China Virus”. The anti-CCP cohort is a small minority among 1st gen Chinese immigrants, but I was still surprised at their number and Pro-Trump vehemence in 2016, and they have changed little in 2020. The WeChat group of the Chinese American church group my mom casually socialize with is filled with pro-Trump hysteria. I wonder if Falun Gong propaganda may have something to do with it, as well.
In China, the overwhelming majority opinion is that the US has always been an imperialist and neo-colonial plague in the world and is now getting its just desserts. Not many Trumpers in Mainland China in 2020 (there were some in 2016), but plenty in Hong Kong and Taiwan (and Vietnam, apparently influenced by a media empire established there by the Falun Gong). Taiwan has actually been an outlier in the world where polls have consistently shown that more people favor Trump than Biden, not an overwhelming advantage, but persistent.
Betty Cracker
@Gin & Tonic: The interesting dynamic for the Repubs is how to preserve nationalist power AND continue to loot the Treasury for plutocrats at the same time. Trump has managed it in part by being such a distracting freak-show. But signs are growing that the Trumpenproletariat are on board with government largesse, as long as it flows to them.
artem1s
@Splitting Image:
I hope the biggest take away by Dems is we have to use the next 2 years to shore up state parties and get ready for a big push in the mid-terms. Joe’s boss let the country down in 2018 and allowed OFA and the Party rest on their laurels for far too long. Joe can’t waste 2 years trying to reach across the aisle. The Lincoln Project needs to reject the GOP completely and keep up the pressure on GOP Congresscritters. Obama can’t just disappear again like he did in 2016. We need every Dem leader and NeverTrumper out there hammering GOTV and early voting in the mid-terms just like we have the last few months. On January 21 Joe and Kamala need to start campaigning for the mid-terms. Let Abrams out of the GA box and turn her loose across the country. Find others who have the same skills to engage with Cuban, Puerto Rican, Mexican and other Hispanic American communities. Same with the various Asian American communities. 2020 is only the third most important election of our lives. 2022 and 2024 are going to be far more critical. We need to turn back the pandemic we never beat. There is no vaccine for racism and white nationalism except voting.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Mary G:
Perfidious Albion.
YY_Sima Qian
@Elizabelle:
Already happening to an extent with Chinese immigrants, especially 1st generation.
gene108
@schrodingers_cat:
That part sucks. Knowing there are places you are not welcome. It’s a bitter realization.
Omnes Omnibus
It’s tiny in population, but I would like to give a shout-out to Menominee County, WI, which is coterminous with the Menominee Reservation. 82% for Joe. They come through like that in every election.
Fair Economist
@schrodingers_cat:
I would really think lefty Indians would hold the UK in MUCH lower regard than the US. It’s not the US that dragged the Indian economy down so much with colonialism, killed umpteen millions with avoidable famines, fanned sectarian divisions, etc.
PenAndKey
Oh, it probably is. Other than being involved in the get out the vote drive by writing post cards I’ve been nearly 100% disengaged for a little over a month-ish. I was diagnosed with borderline high blood pressure abut 6 months ago and have had anxiety most of my life, so for my own health I needed to focus on my kids and wife. The election was really getting to me. I probably still shouldn’t be here, but… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
But seriously, if you need to step back and look after yourself I don’t think anyone would fault you for it.
narya
@Barbara: Oh, how is it? I have really liked most of her stuff (the last one not so much).
Splitting Image
@Zzyzx:
Counting the trucks on the New Jersey turnpike, they’ve all gone in on hysteria.
TheTruffle
@schrodingers_cat: I’m sorry. I am so, so, so sorry.
guachi
John Barrow (my former Representative here in GA) lost the SoS election in GA in 2018 by 0.4%. The Libertarian got 2.2%
He lost the runoff by 3.8% on turnout that was 40% of the General election.
Turnout will be far higher this time around. But the Libertarian won’t be on the ballot to siphon votes.
The Senate race(s) will be close but I think the D candidates start at a slight disadvantage.
gene108
@schrodingers_cat:
I know you were referring to friends and family in India. I just wanted to reassure you most of us here are on our side of things.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Baud: It’s not that hard, California does it well, Civil Rights and anti-harassment protections applies to everyone and everyone, that includes white, over 50 men.
sdhays
@JMG: TPM, which uses AP numbers, has Biden up in Nevada, Wisconsin, and Michigan. And what’s left should increase his margin there.
I don’t know what they hell is going on in Pennsylvania, but it really looks like we don’t need it.
dexwood
Unlike my neighbors across the street who seem to have given up hope, they took down their Biden signs at 6:30 this morning, I’m still hopeful that Biden can win this.
And, our house is happy about Deb Haaland’s win. My wife’s mother is from Laguna Pueblo, her father is from Jemez Pueblo and Deb is a distant cousin. Go Deb!
Baud
@sdhays: Last I heard, GA was still in the cards for Biden.
Felanius Kootea
@Omnes Omnibus: Wow! That’s wonderful.
Baud
@dexwood: Some people just take down their signs because election day is over.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
They always were, thus the line in Catch 22 “dangerous socialism is any government money that doesn’t go to a farmer”
Amir Khalid
@YY_Sima Qian:
In the history of our species, there was never an empire that wasn’t imperialist (well, duh …) or colonialist. That’s just what empires do. And China (or more precisely, its leadership) has itself started on the path of imperialism. It seems to be inevitable when a nation reaches a certain level of military and economic clout.
Kent
Folks, a reality check here.
Obama governed for 6 out of his 8 years with a GOP House and the last two with a GOP Senate. And every one of those years was infinitely better than any month or week of the Trump Administration.
If Biden wins the presidency his control over the executive branch will be absolute no matter what the Senate says. He doesn’t need to have a single cabinet secretary confirmed to exert iron-clad control over every single agency. There is always someone with acting authority in every executive agency. I’m not sure what actual confirmation achieves except that it puts you in the actual line of succession in the event of a presidential vacancy. Trump has been running half the Federal government with acting secretaries that he has not even sent up for confirmation. And honestly, there are enough institutionalists in the Senate like Romney and Frist that I suspect he’ll get all his Cabinet confirmed even with a GOP Senate. Judges, of course, are a completely different matter. As is legislation.
During my 10 years as a mid-level manager in NOAA there were times when I was actually the acting official in the Alaska Regional office and would have to sign various regulatory actions. I was technically about 6th from the top but on a Friday when several bosses were on travel or vacation or at meetings elsewhere and someone calls in sick I was actually the last person standing in the office and was the acting official to sign regulatory actions. And if I had to leave, I’d have to appoint someone else below me still in the office. That’s the way the Federal government works. There is NEVER a power vacuum. I think the military is the same way.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Baud: GA and Texas are really good signs for the future. Both are clearly turning purple.
sdhays
@Baud: It still looks doable on TPM, but I don’t know enough to say. They still haven’t called NC either, for what it’s worth.
ETA: I’m breathing easier since Michigan + Wisconsin + Nevada look pretty good, so Biden wins. The rest is important, but not critical.
schrodingers_cat
@Fair Economist: America bashing has a long history in Indian politics, India was an ally of the Soviet Union during the Cold War and Indian lefties have looked up to Soviet Union since the 1920s.
United States on the other hand seen as the continuation of the British dominance.
Barbara
@narya: It’s a one off, set in a rural Irish location, but much tighter and not obviously preachy. Witch Elm aimed high but failed to make the climb.
leeleeFL
@Amir Khalid: I was nice, I let that go by!
PsiFighter37
Assuming California undergoes the usual ‘blue shift’, it seems like we will hang on to all of our 2018 gains in the House there, as well as regain Katie Hill’s old seat. TJ Cox is close enough to make it back, and it seems like even some of the safer GOP seats might possibly even flip.
I am disappointed we did not make as many new inroads, and seats I thought were gimmes (like VA-05) did not turn out that way. But taking the 2 NC seats, possibly one seat in TX, perhaps some in CA, is not bad. There are a lot of marginal seats that I think we can win without Trump on the ballot, assuming people can keep their sense of urgency up.
Old Dan and Little Ann
Whatever happens, thank Dog for Balloon Juice. Holy fucking Shite this is grueling. I CANNOT happily exist knowing so many fucking Americans voted for that orange asshole.
dexwood
@Baud: True, but this ain’t over yet.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
The tale of Westward Expansion was always rooted in the failure of white farmers.
Fuck up in Pennsylvania? Go to Ohio or Indiana, and the ensuing fuckup generations kept moving further and further west, spurred on in their opportunity with the individualist bootstrapping methodology of free land cleared of all indigenous people by the military. Fuck up your farm in Oklahoma and turn it into a desert? Move to Fresno and the government will irrigate it for you. Cash strapped? We offer tobacco subsidies and whet subsidies to address your poor budgeting.
Archon
If there is any good news to this late vote counting it doesn’t seem (right now)like Republicans officials are all in on Trump declaring fraud and are not prepared to go to the abyss with Trump over stopping or overturning the vote count.
Its an insanely low bar in a democracy that allowed people to vote by mail but still.
germy
@sdhays:
I was wondering why I keep seeing different electoral college numbers, depending what news outlet I visit.
TPM: Biden 238 Trump 213
WaPo: Biden 224 Trump 213
NYTimes: Biden 227 Trump 213
marklar
@leeleeFL: If you are posting here, I’m assuming that you are born before 2009 (or are extremely precocious!). Regarding Canadian citizenship, if you are born before 2009, one grandparent will likely suffice. Post 2009, it has to be a parent.
https://canadacitizenshiphelp.ca/2018/02/28/how-youre-entitled-to-canadian-citizenship-by-descent/
(One of the very first things my wife and I did– both of us are Quebecois transplants– when we had our kids was file the paperwork getting them Canadian citizenship.)
Good luck if you are eligible!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Kent: Also what he said means a President Biden means the Federal government gets it’s shit together on the pandemic.
Kent
They are the two most rapidly urbanizing states in the south. Even in the reddest states, cities vote Dem. So yes, they are turning purple but the reason isn’t that individual people are changing their minds, it’s that Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio are growing like gangbusters and the rural areas are slowly depopulating.
That isn’t happening so much in the stagnant parts of the south like AR and MS.
Redshift
@artem1s:
He didn’t allow OFA to rest on their laurels, he turned it from a campaign organization into an “issue advocacy” organization to promote his agenda, which legally couldn’t do election work. I was on the call where they announced it, and I was horrified. It’s my one really big complaint with Obama, to the point where to this day, I imagined if I won one of those “if you donate today Joe/Kamala might call you” things, what I would have told them is:
1. Keep the campaign organization and volunteers going for the midterms
2. Use your acceptance speech to tell everyone who’s volunteered that this is just the beginning, and they need to vote in every election and get involved locally.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
To the extent that Leonard Leo’s judges allow.
SiubhanDuinne
@NYCMT:
I have been thinking of you and your family a lot since your terrible experience over the weekend. Glad you are all staying strong — like your Pop-Pop and Mom-Mom and Opa and Oma.
(edited for grandparental inclusiveness)
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Indeed, the Homestead act was the original socialism in this country and there was huge esoteric crises when the government ran out of Indian land to steal in the late 19th.
NotMax
@schrodingers_cat
There was also Chandra Bose’s (and his army’s) ties with the Axis in WW2.
YY_Sima Qian
@Amir Khalid: Yes. I agree that is the case, although I would use “hegemonic” rather than “imperialistic”. I don’t think China is there yet, but what we have seen in recent years as China has become more powerful, leads me to believe that it will not be that different from hegemons past, including imperial China. The US had a chance to construct a more rules based world order after WW II that would constrain hegemons and major powers, but then proceeded (along with the USSR) to undermine the same order whenever it was found to be inconvenient, and has only become more so after the end of the Cold War. Trump is dispensing with any remaining pretense and lingering sense of mutual-responsibility, or even enlightened self-interest.
schrodingers_cat
I have relatives in Canada but I am not going anywhere. Canada is not a non-racist paradise. I used to live in Maine and in upstate NY. I have visited Canada many many times. The only time I was followed around in a store was in Quebec city. Canada.
Besides I became a citizen because I love this country, flaws and all even though at times it feels like it doesn’t love me back. And in India I never felt accepted because I was an outspoken woman. I could never be a good Indian daughter/wife etc as prescribed by the Manu Smriti.
I am here to stay. Haters can hate. Fuck them.
mad citizen
I really get the despair about how many idiots there are in our nation, etc. Nearing retirement, I’ve thought about doing that in another nation, only to realize Medicare doesn’t follow you. Still am thinking hard about getting out of my lifelong red state to a blue state/city.
But as was pointed to upthread by James “Benetton team”, it is interesting how corporate ads/campaigns have taken on kindness, etc. as themes. I hope that means there is hope for us.
I can’t describe what trumpism even is, but could be “all BS all the time” “All sides of all issues, except the culture ones to denigrate certain groups”. From an action point of view, it is total incompetence and chaos. So if the R’s want to nominate another empty person who attempts the cult of personality thing, please proceed.
reality has a well-known liberal bias. Education is anathema to republicans. They have become the party of stupidity.
glory b
@Dagaetch: A while ago, I saw an old editorial cartoon from the reconstruction era, I believe. It showed a white man who chose to be swept down a river and drown rather than take the hand of a black man on shore and be saved.
Sometimes, it feels like we haven’t come much further.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@YY_Sima Qian:In China, the overwhelming majority opinion is that the US has always been an imperialist and neo-colonial plague in the world and is now getting its just desserts
Out of curioustiy, I read about the British and the way they raped China with opium, I would think the modern Chines would just loath the UK with the same passion they loath the Japanese. My impression is the US mainly was a petty annoyance undercutting the locals with cheep manufactured goods in comparison to the UK and the HBSC scum.
clay
So I know the instinct is for Biden to NOT appoint any Republicans to his cabinet. But are there any Republican Senators from states with a Democratic governor? If Biden appointed that person (and they accepted*), then the governor could pick a Democratic replacement. Just a thought…
*Which I know is a heavy lift
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Right here with you. Plus, I am unemployable anywhere else.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
“What? I have to PAY for land?”
leeleeFL
@marklar: Will definitely look into this! Thanks!
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker: Demography won’t do it. It needs to be a multi-century project to raise our children better. That’s really the time scale here.
schrodingers_cat
@NotMax: That was more a propaganda coup for Germany and Japan than any significant threat to the British dominance. Bose’s INA was made up of PoWs of the British Indian Army captured by the Japanese in the Imphal-Burma theater.
Bose was Bengali and a lefty. Remember that Churchill let millions die in Bengal during the Bengal famine in 1942 by diverting much needed food supplies produced in India from going to Bengal.
History is complicated.
Redshift
@Kent: Yep, that’s mostly what happened in Virginia, as much as I like to credit our work in the Democratic Party here. But contrary to what the rural types like to claim, it’s not all new people moving in, it’s also a virtuous cycle with most of the next generation growing up in the Democratic areas.
Matt McIrvin
@schrodingers_cat: I’ve definitely known racist white Canadians, and black Canadians who never felt fully welcome in their own country, just like here.
2liberal
remember the texas flip the house money-ball initiative? so far they’re all losing. :(
bummer.
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2020/11/03/elections-2020-see-the-current-results-of-races-in-texas/
https://balloon-juice.com/2020/09/08/winning-is-everything-consider-texas/
oatler.
MSM: “All eyes on…”
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@clay:
What I want is for McConnell to have some physical thing that takes him out of office and be replaced. I want him to have enough awareness so he realizes that Andy Beshear is appointing somebody like Charles Booker to replace him.
Redshift
@dexwood:
I wouldn’t read too much into it, a lot of people just don’t keep campaign signs up after election day regardless.
Omnes Omnibus
@mad citizen: I still say that Trumpism and the current GOP are the death throes of white supremacy. They are dangerous and will be for a while, but they are dangerous because they know they are losing. Every schrodingers_cat who becomes a citizen, every bi-racial kid who is born, every white guy who isn’t bothered by his trans co-worker, and so on is another wound in their side.
Immanentize
There remains, as was the case yesterday, so very much for us to do.
But one thought I had this morning was that perhaps a longer voting period that we have has held back an immediate violent reaction that was more likely with a quick Biden win. It’s a hope, at least. I think Trump’s middle of the night announcement hurt not helped his future claims. Especially since he was calling for voting to stop everywhere — but Nevada.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Are you employable here?
Fair Economist
@mad citizen:
Please go somewhere purple or pink. I know in my case although I would be horrified at the policies of any red state, I wouldn’t be much affected personally. We can’t afford too much more sorting by state. I’m stewing on moving to TX or GA to move my vote, although I doubt I can get my husband to move from our current house, which he is very attached to.
leeleeFL
@mad citizen: I beg to differ..it is willfully embraced ignorance. They can be taught, they will not be. Sad!
clay
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: He seems too self-aware to blatantly disregard COVID rules like the normal MAGA chodes. Shame, that.
Immanentize
@glory b: Narrator *We have not come much further.
Redshift
@dww44:
The way I used to describe the GOP mindset toward cheating (before it became obvious to everyone) is “we know they’re cheating even though we have no evidence, so we have to do it or they’d have an unfair advantage!”
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Only when he wears pants.
Yarrow
@2liberal: People are bad about voting down ballot. Also, people suck.
Immanentize
@clay: kentucky ?
Barbara
@Omnes Omnibus: And I ask myself a thousand times, why?
leeleeFL
@Omnes Omnibus: THAT was very Steinbeck! Tom Joad would have loved it
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: So, no.
Ohio Mom
rk @ 101:
Call your PCP or cardiologist, if you have one. That is what they are there for. They take calls from patients 24/7 (or their covering colleagues do).
Than you.
Aleta
@dexwood: Wonderful news.
Omnes Omnibus
@leeleeFL: Wow. Thank you.
Immanentize
@schrodingers_cat:@Omnes Omnibus:
Thank you both. First serious series chuckle of the day!
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: It’s a little easier now with all the Zoom calling.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Thanks Baud, it means a lot.
Yarrow
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: He looks like he’s got a medial thing. He’s clearly terrified of getting Covid. Maye he’s got a serious health issue that puts him at high risk.
oldgold
Looks to me like there is a good chance Biden gets 271.
Hillary 232 + [ Mich -16 + AZ – 11, + Wisc – 10, + Omaha – 1 + E. ME – 1] = 271
If this occurs, the next thing to worry about are faithless electors. There were 7 in 2016.
GA or PA going to Biden could remove this source of anxiety.
Immanentize
Without really any purpose, I am again sharing my two best ever chinese cookie fortunes which I have taped on my monitor (at work, sadly):
AND, all time favorite:
Lapassionara
Here some things that will happen in the near term:
1. SCOTUS will hear arguments on the ACA. If it is struck down, there go protections for pre existing conditions.
2. IIRC, there is going to be an abortion case on the SCOTUS docket within a few months. That should prove interesting.
Every newsworthy ruling from SCOTUS will likely be a PR disaster for Republicans. Our side just has to keep hammering the message home about the Republicans efforts to turn back the clock on the progress made for women’s rights and healthcare security.
someday, the tide will turn, and it should turn in our favor.
Mike E
In NC, we re-elected our Dem governor handily (over the douchebag lt. governor) only to have a (different) deranged person win the lt. governor’s race. Our absentee ballots have a Nov 12th deadline (postmarked by the 3rd) meaning the presidential and senatorial races won’t be called until then, so there’s maybe a 10k vote swing around the margin where Joe could receive a more comfortable margin of victory and a better shot at a 50-50 senate w/Kamala as tie breaker (51 is still possible!).
Our gerrymandered state legislature wasn’t liberated from the TEA assholes so it’ll be divided government just like the last two years despite a 50-50 statewide vote spread (tho their majority can’t overturn vetoes as they did frequently ’17-’19). Similarly, our congressional delegation is 8-5 R (should be 7-6 but alas).
I know why shitty takes abound: our fellow citizens are morons as foretold by Blazing Saddles, I get that. However, let’s not forget how so many of our best neighbors stepped up to keep a better future in the realm of the possible
Immanentize
@Baud: Don’t stand up, Mr. Toobin!
Hildebrand
Thinking about the Latinx vote – we lived in the Valley (Rio Grande) in Deep South Texas for ten years. While I understand that this is just anecdata, I can’t help but shake the feeling that we keep thinking that Latinx voters are naturally a fit for the Democratic party due to immigration issues, labor, etc, but really do have affinity with the conservatives due to religion. So many are deeply conservative Catholics and Evangelicals – definitely a strong strain of the pro-fetus crowd.
On top of that, at least in the Valley, machismo was a huge issue (many of these guys would definitely approve of Trump’s treatment of women, including his wives) and tend to be pro-cop (which is weird – but many have made their way to the middle class by getting into law enforcement – which magnifies the machismo crap).
Finally, there is a deep (usually not talked about out loud) strain of anti-Black sentiment. Republicans have a long history of exploiting these kinds of rifts – so I won’t be surprised to learn that they used Black Lives Matter as a way of suggesting to Latinx voters that Black people are the ‘real’ problem.
My fear is that the progressive wing of the party will lambaste Biden for ‘not reaching out to Hispanics’ when it may be that we need to completely rethink how we do that, and what the real issues are.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: True!
Salty Sam
In the early aughts, James Lovelock, author of “The Gaia Hypothesis”, predicted that by 2100, human population would be reduced to 10% of current levels, and be living in engineered communities within the Arctic and Antarctic circles.
So we got THAT goin’ for us…
leeleeFL
@Omnes Omnibus: You are sincerely welcome! That book, along with Of Mice and Men and It Can’t Happen Here, helped inform my entire life! I still fill up when I think of them. My older Brother once told me I was so far left, I was kicking Joe Stalin in the ass. It was no compliment, but I cherish it. Kicking Stalin in the nuts would have been better.
NotoriousJRT
@New Deal democrat: I am trying to recall the classic comment about the Anerican sub-species that would be ok living under a bridge roasting a sparrow on a coat hangar as long as it meant their neighbors of color were missing at least one of those accouterments.
Immanentize
@Yarrow: I agree. When you start falling at that age, it is not uphill you are going.
Just today I wondered if Mitch’s future widow, current Secretary of Chinese Wealth, Elaine Chao, would run for his seat?
And there is always Randy Paul’s neighbor(s).
Aziz, light!
I’m retiring soon from my U.S. Forest Service career. Taking away Trump’s sharpie will reverse the nation’s downward spiral in environmental protection. Without the Senate to pass laws, there will be limits to tackling our most pressing problems, but enforcing existing laws and regulations will be a big improvement.
YY_Sima Qian
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Out of curioustiy, I read about the British and the way they raped China with opium, I would think the modern Chines would just loath the UK with the same passion they loath the Japanese. My impression is the US mainly was a petty annoyance undercutting the locals with cheep manufactured goods in comparison to the UK and the HBSC scum.
At a casual level, “American Imperialists” is a deeply engrained idea after decades of CCP propaganda. Until the end the Cold War, Chinese official discourse often applied the “Imperialist” adjective to the US, and the “Revisionist” adjective to the USSR, even when China was a de facto ally with the US against the USSR in the late 70s and throughout the 80s.
For those who have strong views on this matter, American crimes including the opium trade (run by American and British merchants, but also with Chinese middlemen on the Mainland and among the diaspora in SE Asia, which you will not find in Chines history books), participation in the Eight Powers Alliances that looted Beijing after putting down the Boxer Rebellion, carving out extraterritorial concessions on the Mainland, supporting the deeply corrupt Kuomintang regime during the Chinese Civil War, parking the 7th Fleet in the Taiwan Strait during the Korean War and preventing the CCP regime from finishing off the civil war.
Mind you, there is very little anti-American sentiment toward American individuals, businesses, and cultural influences. Most Chinese used to admire and envy the US, for its liberalism, democracy, government competence, vibrant culture, material wealth and military strength. The Great Financial Crisis badly damaged that positive image, the 4 years of Trump largely finished it off, except among a rump of the anti-CCP self-styled liberals that came of age in the 70s and 80s. I say “self-styled” because they are often pro-Trump, which makes me questions their professed liberalism.
Bobby Thomson
Hell, I’m still seriously considering taking my brain to Scotland or New Zealand, and my people have been here since 1620.
evodevo
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: yep.
Betty Cracker
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Okay, that cheered me up. Even if the rotting ghoul is avoiding the pandemic, he’s unwell.
Immanentize
@Lapassionara: Yesterday there was a SCOTUS argument in a case regarding juvenile sentences to life without parole. I have worked on that issue for, uhm, 15 plus years now. With Kennedy gone, not to mention RBG, I think Alito writes the opinion. Barrett hates kids not her own
Felanius Kootea
@schrodingers_cat: Right on!
Bobby Thomson
I’m sure they will, without a hint of irony as to how Sanders poisoned the well with Cubans.
Immanentize
@Hildebrand: All of this jibes with my Texas experience (in San Antonio, capital of the Valley ?)
Aleta
Currently Collins is above 50.
Kent
@Hildebrand: My experience living for 13 years in Waco is that much of the Hispanic population is essentially the so-called “white working class” and shares more in common with them than any other voting group.
You want to appeal to male Hispanic carpenters, stone masons, concrete workers, and small shopkeepers in TX? It’s basically the same appeal as non-college educated white working class factory workers in WI. They live the same lives. And often live in similar smaller towns.
evodevo
@NotoriousJRT: See: Davis X. Machina
schrodingers_cat
@Immanentize: Do we know that she loves her kids? Its not a given.
Kristine
@clay: I’m still wondering if he makes through the next 2 years, much less a 6 year term.
Immanentize
@schrodingers_cat: Good point! They are useful child-props, though.
Ruckus
The best part of this morning?
I didn’t have 100+ political emails in my inbox asking me for money. The first time in what seems like years since that’s been true.
schrodingers_cat
BTW one of my husband’s cousins who lives in Mumbai is making stupid jokes about the election in the family WhatsApp group. I am not a violent person but I want to deck him.
taumaturgo
@Baud: I believe the democrats always project weakness and indecision as in “when they go low we go high” bullshit. Biden’s message as humane and kind as it was, called for unity and kumbaya with Republicans that had zero desire for the eight years he was VP, and less than zero desire today to come together for the good of the country. Moscow Mitch understands power and how to yield it, compare and contrast with Schumer and Pelosi who are as I post most likely writing the umpteen stern letter. Republicans project a bullshit image of toughness and we must admit that they fight and humiliate the weak democrats 100% of the time. They appeal to a large mass of Americans, for worse, not better. The question becomes, have the Democrat leadership learn the lesson?
Geoduck
@Redshift: Weirdly, I had a neighbor put up a Shiatgibbon sign literally yesterday. Especially strange since we live in a mail-in voting state, and there was nobody to influence.
Kent
@schrodingers_cat: When this is all over and we can breathe again, I’d love it if you and some of the other Indians here would host a couple of India-centric threads because there is so much I really don’t understand about India and I expect I’m not alone.
mad citizen
@Salty Sam: You jarred another point I had: I saw a global warming map the other day–sometime in the future, and of course so much of Florida and the SE is underwater. I once asked a friend of mine and local New Orleans resident if anyone there ever talked about how NOLA will be underwater in 80 years and how will they move the city? She said No.
So move to a pink or purple state, I will keep that in mind, but for family/friend connections our two targets are CO or CA, so sorry. Maybe if Montana would be fun, and it’s kinda purple, right? When I say “nearing retirement”, I’m 60 (whoa, first time writing that) on Sat., so SS age is 7 years out. But I could always relocate with a different job.
henqiguai
Heh; how long you been Black in these here United States?
leeleeFL
@taumaturgo: I may be mistaken, if so, apologies, but that comment reeked of trollery, with a cherry of Democrat, rather than Democratic, on top. Just sayin’!
Ksmiami
@YY_Sima Qian: but having lived and worked over there, China won’t actually have to fight a stupid war etc and this next century or 5 is theirs…
germy
Immigrant Parents Shocked to Discover a Plate of Cut Fruit is Not a Substitute for a Constructive Apology
James E Powell
@Omnes Omnibus:
I agree. It’s what I thought of the Tea Party hysteria. They are just taking a lot longer to fade away than I expected.
Omnes Omnibus
@leeleeFL: Cartoon lefty.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Lapassionara:
Unlikely in my lifetime.
Omnes Omnibus
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: You are just a little ball of bitter, aren’t you?
Roger Moore
@Emma from FL:
Something I wish California would do is to get a team of professors from US or Cal State to write a set of textbooks for California. It would be done as a work for hire with a very generous reward for doing the work, but in the end the state would own the copyright on a complete set of textbooks written to the specifications of the state curriculum committee. Then we could give copies to every student in the state, either cheaply printed or in ebook format, depending on the local school district. Every student would have a copy to keep, and I bet it would still be cheaper and better than what we’re doing now. We could also license them to other states for a reasonable price so they could do the same thing. The textbook companies would howl, but fuck them.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Omnes Omnibus:
The Kentucky map was entirely red save for Louisville and Lexington.
Hildebrand
@Kent: Yep. I just don’t get how folks think the Latinx vote is naturally progressive. I think AOC is great for her district, but she is already questioning Biden (on Twitter) for not reaching out to the Latinx community – and by that, I am guessing she feels he wasn’t progressive enough. Progressive are not going to win in the Valley. It won’t happen, and yet, that is the conversation we are likely to have.
It’s really frustrating – because we could actually wind up losing the Valley to the Republicans just at the moment it was possible to turn Texas blue.
Ruckus
@mad citizen:
Sorry, they always were.
The leaders wanted dumb but satisfied and used any means to get there because what they really wanted was people smart enough to work and support their bullshit, but not smart enough to see that they were being massively taken advantage of. Only problem was that they elected dumb and never satisfied as their leader. The conservative party has been utterly successful at getting dumb, racist and stupid as their supporters and that will likely be their downfall. Too much success opens the curtains to door #racist, and that, in a modern society like this one is trying to be, in this day and age, will only go over for so long, like probably another couple of decades, minimum. But it’s not like they don’t have people standing in the wings to take over, the indoctrination may not be complete but it is successful.
taumaturgo
@leeleeFL: You may be right, what is your argument?
Immanentize
@leeleeFL: You haven’t met Mr. T. before? We’ll you nailed it in one reading.
topclimber
@schrodingers_cat: Actually, weren’t they officially non-aligned, which we of course interpreted as being against us?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Hildebrand:
AOC can suck it. She benefits from a really unique demographic lump in her district, and would struggle to get elected anywhere else. For all her mouthiness, she hasn’t accomplished shit and had old Crowley been around instead, wouldn’t have cost some suburban votes.
germy
Moscow Mitch has the senate votes.
If Schumer had the senate votes, Mitch would be the one writing stern letters
I’d love to see Mitch in his new role as “Senate Minority Leader”
Josie
@Hildebrand:
I grew up in the Valley and spent most of my adult life there. Your comments are on the money.
leeleeFL
@Omnes Omnibus: T, or me?
Geminid
@Bobby Thomson: the Democrats will have their their share of intraparty backbiting, with non-Democrat leftists also getting their licks in. But overall I think the Democrats will continue after this election as united as they were going in. I think the Republicans will be a different story. A trump loss will engender a lot of discord and division. A lot of his supporters will blame trump’s loss on the party, and will be RINO hunting. And demographic trends work inexorably against them. I’d much rather be in our shoes than theirs. It could be that the Democratic wave we saw in 2018, and hoped for this year, will come in 2022.
schrodingers_cat
@topclimber: Officially non-aligned but there was a pro-Soviet tilt for sure.
Omnes Omnibus
@leeleeFL: T.
susanna
Anne Laurie, get rested and return when ready. You’re invaluable here. Thank you for all the time and efforts put into this special place.
I’ll assume you’re young-ish to have this much input/output and stamina to be able to walk and think at the same time right now. Take care of your self in nourishing ways.
MCA1
@Immanentize: Funniest thing I’ve seen all day was this taumaturgo character sea lioning leeleeFL at the exact same moment you posted this! I mostly tuned out when they used “yield” instead of “wield.” Using the tried and true adjectival “Democrat” was really gilding the lily on their part.
Layer8Problem
You used “jibe” instead of “jive!” If BJ had upvotes for us to give I’d give you all of mine.
leeleeFL
@taumaturgo: I grew up in an America where the Democratic and Republican Parties had adults at the helm and a recalcitrant team of progressive people AND regressive assholes to corral. Things began to sort out and Republicans gathered in the predominance of assholes, put them on an Ark and sailed into their foreshortened future. Not, of course, foreshortened enough.
Regularly saying Democratic Leaders are weak for seeking the best in us is definitely a tell, as well as referring to The Democrat Party, rather than Democratic Party. Childish and obvious.
leeleeFL
@Omnes Omnibus: ?????
leeleeFL
@Immanentize: I have a bit of time today, usually I am skimming, but I am Kid-watching Grandma today so Mommy can work while Kid attends online classes!
Kent
Teacher here. Paper textbooks are basically obsolete. Few districts will ever buy new paper textbooks ever again. They may buy online curriculum packages. But the days of unified state-wide textbooks are over.
taumaturgo
@germy: I don’t recall Mitch writing any such letters during the Obama-Biden administration. Do you have any examples of such letters? I do remember however that he promised to make hell as the opposition leader, and in most instances, he did as promised. My point here is not to endorse Mitch, is to demonstrate that the Democrat’s worse enemy is a Liberal Democrat, not the GOP.
MCA1
@Geminid: I think that happens only if we get daily White House briefings about the number of bills on Mitch McConnell’s desk. None of the fundamental changes this country needs happens until Democrats regain control of the Senate, and a 2022 wave accomplishes that. If a small miracle occurs and Dems actually take the majority now, the chances to consolidate those gains in 2022 probably decreases significantly.
Omnes Omnibus
@taumaturgo: Do you know the difference between worse and worst?
schrodingers_cat
@henqiguai
Explicit and open xenophobia has been one of the planks of this President since he announced his candidacy. I am an immigrant and the actions of this administration have made it difficult for me to visit my family or for them to come and visit me among other things
I also know that I am among the fortunate ones. I am even here because of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and that I owe a tremendous debt to the black people who fought for rights for all. And nothing that I have gone through compares to their struggles as a people in this country.
Subsole
@germy: Sooooo…what happens there?
Geminid
@Geminid: regarding demographic change, I’ll be especially interested in how the Republican and Democratic Latino vote breaks down by age. When George W. Bush was elected, Rove talked about creating an enduring republican electoral majority, and he saw Latinos as integral part. But I suspect that this year a lot of first time Latino voters voted Democratic, and that can be a habit. There was a very extensive and apparently effective GOTV program in Arizona this year. It is described in a recent Politico article titled “Inside the Machine to Turn Out The Arizona Latino Vote.” It’s worth reading.
Ohio Mom
Mad Citizen @220: my cousin married a Montanan and has lived there for a quarter of a century. I hear it gets very very cold there, if that is an issue for you. As far as politics,she says, “Montana is weird.”
Bill Arnold
@Kent:
Also, if the Senate is 51R and Biden is President (and thus Kamala VP), every one of those 51 Rs has the power as an individual to flip the Senate. (McConnell isn’t exactly loved, and he can’t easily deliver pork without the House.)
How one man put Bush on the ropes – Senator Jeffords’ defection has derailed the President’s conservative agenda. (Edward Helmore, 27 May 2001)
The Thin Black Duke
Don’t feed the troll.
mad citizen
@Ohio Mom: Thanks for that. I’ve been to Billings and Bozeman but only in the fall. I could live in Bozeman, a very cool town. College towns are often great.
Subsole
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I feel that, but the collateral damage is too high.
Besides, if they could learn, they wouldn’t be Trump voters.
Don’t waste a lesson on someone who doesn’t have a brain to keep it in.
Walker
@Geminid: Hispanics were incredibly weak for Biden and switched to GOP in significant numbers. Biden went from +40 under Clinton to +20 this year. There was significant loss of hispanic voters in Florida and along the Rio Grande.
AxelFoley
@artem1s: Fuck you. Obama doesn’t owe you or this country shit.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: How they didn’t name that The Count’s Counting Polka I’ll never know.
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
I don’t mean to be glib….but, come sit by me.
You have described the experience of the ‘ Negro’ in America.
J R in WV
@Redshift:
Yes, this!
While the election continues as long as there are ballots left to count, the campaign is definitely over, there is no more voting. Now it’s all legal beagle work, and a little PR work to support the lawyer work.
Ohio Mom
mad citizen: My Cousin has a scale that goes something like (don’t remember exactly): nose hairs freeze after 10 minutes outside = minus 10 degrees; after 5 minutes, minus 20.
rikyrah
I am waiting patiently for the results to come in. Can’t say that I’m not anxious, but, while I couldn’t sleep Election Night 2016, I made it to sleep last night. After he won that congressional district in NE, everything calmed down for me.
Subsole
@Hildebrand: Anglo. Lived there a while as well.
From my experience, assuming these folks have sympathy w/’migrantes’ is…not wise. Most latinos I know are American, of Mexican descent. They could not care less about some Columbiana and her kids. I kinda see their point – we don’t expect British immigrants to act like Polish ones. But the basic lack of empathy still sucks.
Also, as you said, machismo. A really, really corrosive and atavistic kind of hyperpatriarchal worldview, reinforced by some frankly batshit churches.
And, some of them really, really don’t like blacks. At best, they think “if the anglos and negros want to fight, why invite myself into that mess? Imma be over here working. Y’all have fun.”
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Thankyou, that means a lot. Because someone up in the comments accused me of appropriating the black experience.
And I know that what I have gone through just doesn’t compare to it.
OGLiberal
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I saw a CNN exit poll that show that about the only demo Biden improved on v. Clinton was with white men – Trump went from +31 to +18. With white men with no college degree it went from Trump +48 to +37. That’s still a big gap but also a big change. The only other demo – at least in this exit poll – where Biden did better was with white women with no college degree – Trump +27 to +21. White women with a college degree went from +7 Clinton to +1 Trump. (which I find inexplicable but that’s what they found) So, if Joe did win because of the suburban mom’s it wasn’t necessarily the ones you expect them to be.
Of course, exit polls can often be garbage, especially this year, but here it is: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2020/11/politics/election-analysis-exit-polls-2016-2020/
Given the slimness of Joe’s lead and the states he needs to hold on to in order to win, maybe focusing on that demo – and I hate catering to their every complaint as well – was the right thing to do this year.
Subsole
@Aziz, light!: How many of those protections are still in effect? All I have heard is that the Filth did a number on us.
Subsole
@Immanentize: Bold of you to assume Justice Coathanger would exempt her own kids.
Subsole
@Kent: True. Also worth pointing out the RGV is overwhelmingly small town, and ag-heavy. Lots of citrus, cane and cotton in the Valley. So small-town rural is also an axis to consider.
Also worth pointing out we seem to be a lot of anglos discussing this. Latino voices would be welcome.
Ohio Mom
Susanna @243:
Amne Laurie Is certainly indefatigable but she is not young — she is a nightowl for whom posting all night is a preferred activity.
You are right though in that she deserves our every thanks.
Subsole
@Kent: Second!
@James E Powell: They are teaching their children’s children their poison. I don’t see that fade coming in time to help us. Though yeah, they are fading.
The Lodger
@clay: Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, who is not an outrageous choice among Republican senators.
Subsole
@Hildebrand: She should roll on down to Hidalgo or Cameron county, do a sit-and-listen. I’d actually pay to see that shit go down. She is very perceptive; she might find it illuminating.
Shit, I’d like to see her roll that shit in Victoria or Corpus. Never mind San Benito or Perlita.
Brachiator
Damn. I am so glad that I did not stay up and watch the election results. I almost cannot believe that we don’t know the results yet.
@OGLiberal:
Even taking the Cuban vote into account, I am somewhat surprised that Biden did not do better with Hispanic voters, especially in Arizona.
That more than 1 percent of black voters would choose Trump amazes me.
Miss Bianca
@OGLiberal: Again, I’m just going to say: I don’t understand this shit. At.All.
Subsole
@OGLiberal: Were those Union folks coming home, maybe?
dww44
@Splitting Image: Yesterday a voter came in to the precinct I was working. with a deplorable T shirt that confirmed he was a certified deplorable. The mostly AA poll workers didn’t pick up on the political significance. There is a state law that political signs and clothing etc. cannot be posted or worn within 150 feet of a poll location. Mostly it’s observed.
To their credit the AA’s who work in our polls here in this changing red state are tolerant of the other side. It’s the other side who are mostly loud and proud in these situations. No ugly experiences but it’s evident that they are confident in their right to remain in control.
No One You Know
@Barbara: I love Tana French. One of my great new finds.