Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

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

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

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

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

All your base are belong to Tunch.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

T R E 4 5 O N

A Senator Walker would be an insult to the state and the nation.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / What’s Your Level of Fauci?

Reader Interactions

274Comments

  2. 2.

    Fair Economist

    Feeling a 6, although intellectually I know it should probably be 8 because of the long term Senate prospects.

  3. 3.

    Nicole

    Oh, I’m at 9. Because I hate what last night showed me about the character of a shitton of Americans.

    And any Senate races that go to runoff, the Democratic candidate should run on, “If you want anything to get done- Covid relief, health care, anything, you need to vote D and give the Democrats Senate control.  Do you want a relief check?  Vote D.”

    I was told (anecdotal, but still, from 2 sources I am close to) of conversations they had with people who said they were voting Trump because “Trump sent me $1200.”  The Dems should just run on, “Vote D, we’ll give you money.”  It’s effective.  Everybody likes to be given money.

  4. 4.

    Baud

    I’m a solid seven, mostly because I just want the counting to finish.  The Senate situation sucks, but if we have the House and the White House, we can hopefully get people to pay more attention to the Senate in what looks like a good map for us in 2022.  Also, a Senate loss or a 50-50 Senate does limit our ability to do aggressive things, which, while bad, also may limit Dem in-fighting.

  6. 6.

    jonas

    7 or 8. Not getting the Senate is a huge disappointment. Blue tidal wave has become gentle ripples on a pond slurping onto a muddy shore.

  7. 7.

    Matt

    If the Rs hold the Senate, the only thing Mitch should be voting on is one impeachment trial after another. Hang every crime of the administration around the party’s neck, in public.

  10. 10.

    germy

    Last night I was leading, often solidly, in many key States, in almost all instances Democrat run & controlled. Then, one by one, they started to magically disappear as surprise ballot dumps were counted. VERY STRANGE, and the “pollsters” got it completely & historically wrong!

    — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 4, 202

    Very strange that people vote.  How can we prevent this?

  11. 11.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Five.  Wanted more, didn’t get it.  I will take this as a win and say there is still much work to be done.

  14. 14.

    negative 1

    I’m going to lean on my name here and say I don’t see how this is anything but bad.  Trump will never be held accountable for anything, and the lesson to the R’s is that a charismatic bigoted autocrat is the way to go, they just have to be a little bit smarter than announcing their corruption in public.  The autocracy and bigotry are the feature, though, not the bug.

    As a way of explaining how I’m more cynical this morning, I live in a republican trolley city in a very democratic state.  I live in the lower middle class eastern half, and the falling-into-lower-middle-class-but-quite-there-yet western half is white and really bigoted.  Dems picked up no seats on the city counsel, didn’t pick up the mayor’s office, and lost one of the state rep seats that was democratic until last night.  Repubs, rather than come out with a ‘hey, we’re all in this together so thanks for your votes and I’ll represent you all’ message instead facebook livestreamed their victory party.  Biden will probably win.  Morally this was a loss.  I work in a politics adjacent field, and I’m fresh out of ideas on how we’re not just an awful country filled with awful people.

  16. 16.

    patrick II

    @Baud:

    A Senate loss means no new judges, and it certainly means no new extra judges.  We will not be able to update the VRA with the curent judges or save the ACA, with the current judges and no senate.

    So, I’m like a 2. Hopefully Joe shows me something with Executive Orders.  Which will probably be deemed unconstitutional as well.

    This whole response changes if we get to 50 or a runnoff in Georgia.

  18. 18.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    #9

    If the Rethuglicans keep the Senate, a Biden presidency will be doomed to fail because Mitch McConnell is the gravedigger of American democracy.

  19. 19.

    Baud

    @patrick II: Yes, I’d much rather have the Senate. We have been hamstrung since the GOP took the House in 2010, but for too long, voters didn’t see where the bottleneck was. We have to find a way to change that.

  20. 20.

    FelonyGovt

    I’m thoroughly disgusted. I’ve had it with pollsters, the Electoral College system, and stupid racist Americans.

  22. 22.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @negative 1: We have a choice.  We can look at a Biden win as a victory and act accordingly or not.  I have my suspicions which course of action will play better moving forward.  And it’s not calling a win a loss.

  25. 25.

    mali muso

    I think my current mood is about a 6.  Last night was definitely a 9.

    This take from Rachel Bitecofer rings true to me…

    The hot take that “D’s need to learn to talk to the other side of the electorate” is absolutely the WRONG take. I mean my god. Biden, Lincoln, the outside groups: they threw the best persuasion messaging in the history of persuasion campaigns at them. What Ds need to do is is come to terms that when it comes to the electorate, the very 1st thing that matters is party ID, and this includes Indie leaners. This data is from June, but last night’s results make clear that it reflects the actual results as well. Right leaning Indies- which make up a disproportionate share of the overall Indie pool, are closet Reps: they are not persuadable no matter how much you cater to them or whether or not Cindy McCain is on your side. The Biden campaign, all of the Senate Dems, and the House Dem candidates bet their candidacies on a couple of assumptions most imp is that they should focus their arguments on issues & not on nationalized referendum campaigns, which is the way that the GOP runs their down-ballot races. Also, in case you haven’t noticed, Trump lies directly to people bc he knows they are stupid & will never find out. Did I state that plainly enough? You want to know why Rs are willing non-college voters? They tell them what they want to hear. The Ds talk to everyone like they have a master’s degree. Trump talks to them as they are: Walmart shoppers. I realize that sounds elitist and condensing- its meant to. Some 60+ million of them just cast ballots for Donald Fucking Trump & if you ask them why, probably 40 million of them will tell you reasons that are literally exact opposite truths like “he drains the swamp” or “he’s a “successful businessman” or my personal fave, “he’s the only honest man in Washington.” If Dems want to learn how to “reach voters on the other side” then they need to realize that these people would tell you “yes” they read news & then report “The National Enquirer” as their as their paper of choice. Now, IDK if its just that I’m one of fewer academics that come from the real, unpolished, bottom 50% world, and not the romanticized bullshit painted by J.D. Vance of working-class America- the real one where people have 3 kids from 3 different women and get angry when 1 of them is reticent to let them visit their kid when they get out jail. AGAIN. In THAT working class, sexism, racism, xenophobia, and bigotry run rampant: and not only are these “isms” prevalent, there is a belief that they shouldn’t have had to be buried (see how that relates back to their culture war champion?) That the old days were far superior bc they could just call someone a f&g or slap their female co-worker in the ass is they were in the mood. There was a hierarchy, a caste as @Isabelwilkerson notes, and they were at the top of it. Everything else might be a shit sandwich, their job, their house, their marriage, their debt, but that hierarchy & their place at the top of it- as Wilkerson notes in her book, that shit was SOLID. And now its gone. And do you know who took it? The Democrats So, you’re not appealing to that. Anyone looking at Maine senate, the state with the most Indies in the nation, but also an electorate that is predominately white and lower educated & thinks we just need a better argument is coming at this the wrong way. Don’t get me wrong-you gotta change the voting behavior of these voters, but you’re not going to do it via tweaking issues or talking about this and not that. Its going to take a complete and total overall of the entire electioneering approach of the party.

  26. 26.

    DRickard

    About the same; hoping the professional Republicans decide there will be too much blowback if they steal as many states as are still in play and will squash the DOPUS’s “only my votes should be counted” lawsuits.  Worried about what kind of psychopaths the Trumpenproletariat will nominate in the 2022 primaries.

  27. 27.

    Bex

    @Omnes Omnibus: Four.  And to all the gloom and doomers here (not you!) get a mop and a bucket like the rest of us because we have a massive clean-up to do re the Senate.  Lots of Rs up next time and we need to do some scrubbing.

  30. 30.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Bex: Yep.  Ron Johnson should know right now that we are coming for him.  That is my political goal for the next two years.

  31. 31.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @germy: Let us all pause and take a moment to consider the kind of agony Il Douch is going threw.  What ever happens at least we made daughter fucker there miserable.

  32. 32.

    The Moar You Know

    We got fucking pasted on the national level last night.  I’m hoping to at least salvage the presidency.  Ready for that to not happen either.

    I have two local victories I’m pleased with and one nail-biter that’s pretty much going to determine if we retire with dignity, or cat food.

    I majored in survey and polling design in college  – almost 30 years ago, but the basics are still the same – and it’s obvious that the polling industry (and it is an industry) has completely and totally failed.  I have some theories about why, but they are only theories.  And since I don’t work in the field, no real way to prove them.   But I can say this:  what got wrought and justifiably so on Sam Wang’s RCP in 2016 is going to fall on 538 in 2020.  It’s not entirely their fault, they aggregate the polling work of others as did RCP – but they do put their own modeling and forecasts out under their own name and they’re going to eat the blame for some inexcusable failures.  Especially in PA.

    Fauci level is about 11.  This nation has been failed by its own citizenry.

  34. 34.

    Sebastian

    Looks like major ratfucking with USPS.

    I am calling for firing squads. Not accepting stolen votes. It’s ballot box or bullet box now.

  38. 38.

    Kent

    @Fair Economist:Feeling a 6, although intellectually I know it should probably be 8 because of the long term Senate prospects.

    The Senate sucks.  But remember, 6 out of the 8 years that Obama served as President he had a GOP House and he also had a GOP Senate for the last two of them.

    Every single one of those Obama years was infinitely better than any single given day of the Trump Administration.  The office of the president is immensely powerful, even without the Senate.

  39. 39.

    TheTruffle

    I’m a 6 at this point.

    Who here thinks the Dems need our own Newt Gingrich or Grover Norquist

    And who else thinks it’s cool that Arizona went for Biden and also has TWO Dem senators now?

  40. 40.

    cope

    7.  Echoing a couple of others, even a Biden win won’t make up for the rest of the big picture.

    George Hanson famously said “You know, this used to be a helluva good country. I can’t understand what’s gone wrong with it.”

  42. 42.

    negative 1

    @The Moar You Know: Not just PA.  They had Wisconsin Biden +8.1% and it looks like it will be Biden + 0.7%.  That’s a miss.  It’s outside of the margin of error.  All of their misses were outside the margin of error.

    I agree with you on the industry-wide reckoning.  Through work we’ve spent $20,000 on polling this cycle.  I’m almost considering calling them and asking for a f&*king refund.

  43. 43.

    JR

    @Omnes Omnibus: same. Even a landslide doesn’t end this mess. People need to remember that there’s going to be a lot of hard work ahead. Rather see that than the complacency on display in 2009-2010

  44. 44.

    FlyingToaster

    8

    At this point, I don’t see the viability of the American Experiment.  There are two wildly divergent views of what it means to be an American, and there’s no bridge between them.  Either you think we’re all in this together, or you want the other side to die already.

    There is no compromise point between Pizza and “tire rims and anthrax”.  There just ain’t.

    The “good” news is that we’re about to kill off a bunch of covidiots.  As the great man said, Fuckem.

  45. 45.

    negative 1

    @Omnes Omnibus: It’s a loss because Trump now gets away with it.  All of it.  After this dragged out mudfight with bad feelings all around there will be NO appetite to prosecute Trump for anything.  Now, that means the next grifter that comes along gets to do it too, because there are no consequences.

  49. 49.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @germy:   Good question, my bet it’s ether 11 because he will labeled luzer in public or 0 because he just doesn’t give a shit about being president.

  51. 51.

    negative 1

    @James E Powell: Yup.  My back of the envelope calculation this morning is that you could take the margin of error, double it, and add it to the projected R totals for the last 2 presidential elections and be more accurate than the polls have been.  They are obviously missing something with their sampling.

  52. 52.

    Mallard Filmore

    @Wyatt Salamanca:

     

    If the Rethuglicans keep the Senate, a Biden presidency will be doomed to fail because Mitch McConnell is the gravedigger of American democracy.

    1) the ‘Rona is not done with us yet
    2) Republicans keeping the Senate depends on whether they stay on the good side of the new AG

    About (2), I suspect that they are ALL compromised, and some can be convinced to quietly retire.

  53. 53.

    robmassing

    I’m about 5, but that’s only because I went to bed thinking Joe had lost and woke up to learn that he’s probably gonna win. This numbs me momentarily to the Senate disaster. I’m, like, “Oh, maybe Joe will figure out a way to get stuff passed anyway.” And then I’m like, “Snap out of it!”

  54. 54.

    FlyingToaster

    On telephone polling:

    The past 6 years or so are demonstrating the death of polling.  Specifically, people don’t answer the phone unless they know who’s calling.  The people that pollsters can reach (me, on ChezToaster’s landline, because we don’t pay for CallerID) are not even remotely representative of the US.  There’s no weighting or finagle factor that can fix the sheer lack of data.

    Any other polling style (e.g, online like YouGov) is self-selecting.  And subject to mobbing by either side.

    It’s dead, Jim.

  55. 55.

    Kent

    @patrick II:

    A Senate loss means no new judges, and it certainly means no new extra judges.  We will not be able to update the VRA with the curent judges or save the ACA, with the current judges and no senate.

    So, I’m like a 2. Hopefully Joe shows me something with Executive Orders.  Which will probably be deemed unconstitutional as well.

    This whole response changes if we get to 50 or a runnoff in Georgia.

    The president wields immense power and if he wins, Biden’s control over the executive branch will be absolute.  He doesn’t need a single Cabinet confirmation do do that.  Trump caged children and essentially re-wrote immigration law with acting Homeland Security secretaries.

    A Biden win means every single regulatory change pushed forward by Trump can be reversed.  From the EPA to the IRS.

    Yes it means no judges or meaningful legislation.  But Obama governed for 6 out of his 8 years with at least a partial GOP Congress and every one of those years was better than any single day of Trump.

  56. 56.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I will cheerfully join you, by sending money and writing postcards on behalf of his opponent. God willing I’ll have built up the financial reserves to do this by, say, early 2022.

    Right now, I expect to be donating money and energy to Warnock in his runoff against Loeffler. And any other Dems nationwide who are forced into a runoff/recount election. Then, I’d appreciate a few months to regroup, buy an iPad and/or laptop and/or PC, and a few other things to see me through the next decade.

    But getting rid of as many Senate Rs as possible is priority #1.

    ETA: WOOPS, fixed Ds to Rs.

  58. 58.

    rp

    As I said on an earlier thread, I don’t buy the idea that all of the pollsters missed this badly, esp. after they missed in 2016 and were likely hyperaware of the possibility of undercounting working class white voters. Plus, we have evidence in the form of actual votes from 2018 and a number of special elections over the last few years that there’s been a significant shift towards Dems. I don’t know if it’s the USPS, hacking, or whatever, but this doesn’t pass the smell test.

  59. 59.

    piratedan

    if…. IF I am reading the AZ SOS website correctly, depending upon certification, it looks like we squeaked out AZ CD6 for Tiperneni… I wasn’t sure how many of out key 15 congressional targets came thru, but at least, it looks like this one happened by 1800+ votes…

  61. 61.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @negative 1: And there will never be consequences if we view everything as a loss.  If everything goes as it seems, we will have the Presidency and the House.  Senate is a reach.  But the Senate isn’t a reach in 2022.  So let’s fucking go for it.

  62. 62.

    Elizabelle

    @Yarrow:   That’s what I think.

    Mitch looks like The Grim Reaper is coming for The Grim Reaper.

    Not a well man.  May have been another reason he pigged out on the Barrett confirmation.  Might be his last.

  63. 63.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @FlyingToaster: Actually, the polling is on target unless Trump is involved. I think Trump reality TV star fan bois screw the likely voter models.  The polls won’t capture anyone who only shows up to vote for Trump and otherwise doesn’t give a shit.

  64. 64.

    Sebastian

    Last night I was 8, went to sleep as 4-5, now I am 3.

     

    Y’all keep forgetting that once we have the Executive we have DOJ, FBI, CIA, NSA, etc. All the intelligence comes out. Muller comes out. Everything comes out.

     

    You REALLY think it’s not going to be a fucking bloodbath for the GOP? FOX is already hedging and running around nervous. You think OANN will survive? Those fuckers will have the FBI ripping out the drywall and forensic accountants uncovering every fucking Ruble.

     

    McConnel and Chao? Munchin? These fuckers have so much dirt on them it’s going to be a fucking prosecution bonanza. We have to make sure that there is no look forward bullshit and have every crime prosecuted.

  66. 66.

    The Moar You Know

    Not just PA.  They had Wisconsin Biden +8.1% and it looks like it will be Biden + 0.7%.  That’s a miss.  It’s outside of the margin of error.  All of their misses were outside the margin of error.

    I agree with you on the industry-wide reckoning.  Through work we’ve spent $20,000 on polling this cycle.  I’m almost considering calling them and asking for a f&*king refund.

    @negative 1:  Hope you don’t mind the highlights.  They are extremely important.

    Were I you, I’d be on the phone with them this morning asking for my goddamn money back.  They fucking failed.  If I’d turned in work that failed the data sets that badly in college I’d still be working at Starbucks today.  This should not be happening in 2020.  It wouldn’t have happened in 1990, when I got my degree.

    My gut feeling is they’ve been using far too small sample sets and “modeling” is not able to make the results look convincing anymore, but I can’t prove it.

  67. 67.

    evap

    I’m at an 8, but that’s only because I am lucky enough to have the “happy gene”.    I can admit here that I am hoping that McConnell is seriously ill and drops dead soon.   Not a great Plan B, alas.

  68. 68.

    negative 1

    @Goku (Amerikan Baka): Being the first presidential administration to prosecute the administration of your predecessor would take an enormous amount of political capital, and that’s assuming you win the Senate.  I’m saying that with election victories in battleground states of less than one percent you have absolutely NO chance of seeing that happen.  Trump’s supporters will riot, apparently there’s a lot of them still, Dems will be accused of overreaching, and they’re flat out not going to put their slim majority on the line to make it happen when they’ve run on the ‘heal the nation’ idea.

  70. 70.

    MazeDancer

    Four

    We won the White House.

    Social Security, Medicare, ObamaCare, and Medicaid are saved.

    Even if it is all “Actings”, the Biden Cabinet will bring some sanity.

    And Mitch is not well.

  73. 73.

    Yarrow

    @FlyingToaster:  I think they need to increase the margin of error to 10 or 15 points. Most of the polls would be within the margin of error at that point. Of course they’d also be practically useless, so…

  75. 75.

    Kropacetic

    It’s not on the list but I’m about at a 10.  I just had a a blowout fight with my Trumpanzee parents, called them bougie racist assholes, told them I was moving out, and quit my job to facilitate this, because I just can’t anymore.

    I don’t even care about the results of the election.  I was considering doing this months ago when the primary came down to Biden and Bernie because I knew the best we could hope for at that point is either someone who will do somewhat less harm than the current White House occupant but not really solve any major societal problems or a well meaning person who is utterly useless.

    I’m not participating in this society anymore.  It’s just our bougie assholes against their bougie assholes. Taking recommendations on a pleasant place to go while I wait to starve.

  76. 76.

    germy

    @The Moar You Know:

    Is a lot of this because Americans don’t answer their phones anymore?

    Forty years ago, you could dial a landline and someone would pick up and say “Hello?” nervously because they had no idea who was calling.  Maybe it’s a family emergency!  Maybe it’s just a telemarketer, won’t know until I pick up the receiver!

  77. 77.

    Arclite

    I’m an 8.  In talking to some Trump supporting acquaintances in FL and NC a few days ago, they said that they intentionally didn’t answer pollsters when they called, so I kind of figured those states would go to Trump. My prediction a few days ago was 283 for Biden to 255 for Trump. Biden takes PA, NV, WI, MN, ME, NH, and MI while Trump takes FL, NC, GA, AZ, and OH. Looks like AZ and PA will switch places today.

     

    The Shy Trump Voter is real, although less “shy” and more anti-institution.  It’s not looking like Biden will be anywhere near a 10 point popular vote win, either.

  78. 78.

    robmassing

    Not sure why anyone is optimistic about Dems taking the Senate in 2022. If we don’t have it in the first two years, McConnell is going to make sure the people suffer, blame Biden, and elect MORE Rs.

  79. 79.

    TheTruffle

    I never trust polls. I was heartened by all those lovely lovely early voting stats, however.

    If Biden wins (and I am cautiously optimistic), it is a step in the right direction.

    He needs someone new to lead the DNC

    @Mallard Filmore:

    That is a good point. A win for Biden would be an upside. No matter what.

  81. 81.

    Kent

    @negative 1:@Goku (Amerikan Baka): Being the first presidential administration to prosecute the administration of your predecessor would take an enormous amount of political capital, and that’s assuming you win the Senate.  I’m saying that with election victories in battleground states of less than one percent you have absolutely NO chance of seeing that happen.  Trump’s supporters will riot, apparently there’s a lot of them still, Dems will be accused of overreaching, and they’re flat out not going to put their slim majority on the line to make it happen when they’ve run on the ‘heal the nation’ idea.

    We don’t need high-profile Biden and Biden AG-lead prosecutions of Trump Administration wrong doing.  That would be the Trump way.  What we do need is ‘independent’ non-partisan Assistant AGs in places like the Southern District of NY going after all of these people for all the actual crimes that they have committed.

    Biden keeps his hands clean while the DOJ sics young hungry prosecutors after all of these criminals and ties their lives up in knots behind all kinds of Grand Jury secrecy.

    Target #1 needs to be the USPS guy who tried to steal the election by destroying the Post Office.  There has to be plenty of wrong-doing there to find, even if it is his 2014 taxes.

  84. 84.

    Aziz, light!

    I’ll be a 2 when it is certain we are kicking Trump to the curb and stomping on his tiny hands.

  85. 85.

    PsiFighter37

    I’m at a 5 now. I was through the roof when I went to sleep at 4 AM, but I have calmed down. Biden is going to win. Senate control is going to come down to 2 Georgia runoffs in January; we need to absolutely go in guns blazing and win both of those seats so we can take McConnell out of the picture.

    That said, court expansion and any of the ‘go big’ initiatives are probably DOA. But having some kind of national strategy around COVID is going to go miles in terms of making things better. Just look at other countries and how folks like Jacinda Adern were rewarded electorally for doing things right. If we can do that here, I have hope for the 2022 midterms.

    I also do hope that the Lincoln Project folks figure out a way to sustain themselves longer term. It is clear we need our frenemies even more, given that this election was way closer than I thought. And I also hope people like AOC recognize the precariousness of the moment and are team players focused 100% on the big picture and not on stupid DSA-oriented concerns.

  87. 87.

    James E Powell

    @khead:

    Ohio is gone for the Dems, but the Southwest is now blue.  Go figure.

    Yeah, my beloved home state. Biden lost counties that Clinton won.

  90. 90.

    Baud

    @robmassing: Neither optimism nor pessimism enter into it.  2022 is simply our next opportunity to make gains at the federal level.  It just so happens that the map is also good for us in 2022.

  91. 91.

    Arclite

    @robmassing: “Not sure why anyone is optimistic about Dems taking the Senate in 2022.”

     

    Yeah, with a 7 point structural advantage in the Senate, it seems unlikely Dems will ever hold the Senate again in our lifetimes.

  93. 93.

    zhena gogolia

    @Kent:

    I’m with you. The presidency is huge.

    It will also set a different tone for the next four years, lowering the level of empowerment of the assholes among us.

    I just hope we get the presidency. If we do, I’ll count it as a win, definitely.

    I was screaming at my husband last night that to me, the neighbors’ Trump signs are swastikas. But they would probably be amazed to hear that. They don’t really pay any attention to what he says or does. He’s on their “team,” and you root for your team.

  95. 95.

    negative 1

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’m asking only because I don’t have the heart to look it up myself, and you seem to be in a good mood this morning, but did the Dems pick up any State houses or governorships this cycle?  In my state they lost ground, though they still have a majority.

  97. 97.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @TheTruffle: I’ve thought that for years. We don’t have enough ruthless asshole Dem party operatives and our messaging sucks. Our messaging was better this cycle but the GOP messaging machine is like listening to a choir singing in an echoing cathedral. Our messaging is like listening to a combination of 20 muttering monkeys and a bunch of dogs at the pound.

    Oh, and I made the mistake of going to the local AZ elections guy and he’s not all that sure of the call for Biden in AZ. He says Biden is ahead 90K with half a million ballots out which may or may not be from red areas. Also, Tipernini is only ahead 1700 votes.

  98. 98.

    Citizen Alan

    @Yarrow: I have to admit: the one thing that would make all this stress worthwhile to me is if the Pukes hold the Senate 51-49 but then McConnell keels over dead in December and the Dem governor of Ky appoints a Democrat to replace him, giving us a 50/50+1 split.

  99. 99.

    Baud

    @James E Powell:

    Biden lost counties that Clinton won.

    I hope the closeness of this election puts to bed all the attacks on Hillary.  We now know that Trump has real supporters, not simply people who hated Hillary more.

  100. 100.

    zhena gogolia

    @negative 1:

    I was thinking last night that there was never any chance they were going to prosecute a former U.S. President. If he’d been convicted at the impeachment, maybe. But even then.

  107. 107.

    MJS

    @negative 1: We don’t need Biden to do shit about Trump after he’s out of office. There’s an AG in New York ready, willing, and able to put the fucker in jail. Probably other places too.

  108. 108.

    Gravenstone

    @Mallard Filmore: Fuck quiet. If we have a Democratic AG and can prove any of them are compromised and acting under coercion, make it public as hell. Cast them out as the traitors they are. Then track it back to the moment they were compromised and make it your life’s work to undo everything they’ve ever done since that moment. Ensure their legacy is as failed and broken pariahs.

  111. 111.

    guachi

    @MazeDancer: If Democrats don’t take the Senate the Supreme Court can rule the ACA unconstitutional and nothing will get done until 2022 about it.

    At least that would give Democrats something to run on in the 2022 Senate races when 2/3 of the seats up for grabs will be Republican seats.

  112. 112.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @robmassing: Well, let’s just give up and sob softly in a corner.  We fucking won.  Not as much as we hoped, but Trump will no longer be president.*

    *All usual caveats about counts proceeding as they are, etc.

  116. 116.

    moonbat

    @Immanentize: Perchance, THIS is why the pollster’s predictions were so off. Trump’s inside man was deliberately holding ballots back that would have made this a landslide…

  117. 117.

    The Moar You Know

    Is a lot of this because Americans don’t answer their phones anymore?

    Forty years ago, you could dial a landline and someone would pick up and say “Hello?” nervously because they had no idea who was calling.  Maybe it’s a family emergency!  Maybe it’s just a telemarketer, won’t know until I pick up the receiver!

    @germy: As I said, I don’t work in the field.  I don’t know.

    My suspicion is that it’s NOT that, although it’s not helping.  I just think these firms are not getting people in a room, like you would for an advertiser’s focus group, because it costs a lot of money and time and they don’t want to spend the cash since people are still coughing up big bucks for useless results.

    But again, I don’t know.  All I know is that a set of polls – quite a few – had Biden up by 4% in Pennsylvania and the actual result is looking like he’s gonna finish 10% down.  That’s a failure of polling.  Pure and simple.

  118. 118.

    Kent

    @Kropacetic:@Kent: I’m looking state-side.  No passport.

    Washington State then.  We are growing increasingly blue up here.  The WA economy and state government is more competently run than across the border in OR and the cost of living is cheaper than CA.

  119. 119.

    Nicole

    @SiubhanDuinne: I’m ordering postcards from Postcards to Voters’ Etsy shop today, in anticipation of writing for Warnock.

    My long-out-of-use cursive was much improved after 225 cards this past month.  Practice makes perfect!

  120. 120.

    BC in Illinois

    @negative 1: 

    The Biden administration may not be in position to prosecute the malfeasance of the Trump maladministration.

    But they can be the FOIA – – the Freedom of Information Administration.

    Every FOIA request should be expedited, the response checked for [actual] national security issues, and everything made public. Everything. FOIA requests from DA’s, reporters, scholars, students writing term papers, nosy citizens. Everything.

    After the War of the Rebellion, the US government published The Official Records of the War of the Rebellion. Seventy volumes. Confederate and Union orders, telegrams, correspondence. We could do the same thing. Let it all out in the open. Transcripts of phone calls. Corrupt correspondence. The full minutes of every criminal conspiracy.

    The Freedom of Information Administration.

  121. 121.

    Kropacetic

    @Aziz, light!: No, I fucking don’t.  And if you paid attention, I don’t have a lot of love for Bernie either.  Also alcohol is gross and dangerous.  I voted for Biden but let’s not pretend he’s going to do anything but put a smiling face on the owner class that is taking us for all we have.

  125. 125.

    Shalimar

    @Baud: The map was good for us in 2010 too.  The party that breaks shit never gets blamed for breaking shit.  The party that tries to fix it always gets blamed for the few things that don’t get fixed.

  127. 127.

    John S.

    The Senate has shown they are completely irrelevant and incapable of doing anything other than packing the court (with conservatives). Trump has shown that everything else can be done by executive order.

    I see no reason for Biden to abandon the new normal for the foreseeable future.

  128. 128.

    Baud

    @Shalimar: We did blow 2010.  But nothing stays the same forever.  And it doesn’t matter, because 2022 is happening whether we like it or not.

  129. 129.

    MisterForkbeard

    I’m a 4, assuming Biden wins. Which is likely, but you never know.

    There’s a LOT Biden can do with the presidency, even with a very narrow Republican Senate. One of the big things we need from this presidency is consequences for the blatant law-breaking, and Biden can get that done.

    What disgusts me is that much like 2016, Republicans have learned that blatant corruption is fine so long as they maintain solidarity. If they don’t turn on each other, they can keep lying, stealing, gaslighting and it won’t matter at all. I don’t know how to change that dynamic. Hell: We had a pretty great campaign and Trump was an ongoing dumpster fire AND a completely fucked up the Covid response, and Trump still almost won.

  131. 131.

    Citizen Alan

    @MazeDancer:

    Social Security, Medicare, ObamaCare, and Medicaid are saved.

    Why on Earth would you think that given the fact that there are 5 psychopaths on SCOTUS who almost certainly think all those things are unconstitutional?!?

  132. 132.

    Kropacetic

    @Kent: I have always wanted to see Washington.  Cost of living won’t be much of a concern since I won’t be working, but a change of environment would be nice.

  134. 134.

    Fair Economist

    @Kent:

    Every single one of those Obama years was infinitely better than any single given day of the Trump Administration. The office of the president is immensely powerful, even without the Senate.

    100% agree that the Presidency is powerful and that 4 more years of Trump would likely be the end of American democracy. BUT – McConnell will do his level best to wreck the country now, figuring the voters will blame Biden for what he doesn’t do. Unless we make some big shifts in public perception, he’ll probably succeed, meaning we may never get the Senate for the foreseeable future. That’s really bad.

  135. 135.

    Kent

    @Shalimar:@Baud: The map was good for us in 2010 too.  The party that breaks shit never gets blamed for breaking shit.  The party that tries to fix it always gets blamed for the few things that don’t get fixed.

    So maybe we need to start breaking shit too.  Stuff that the GOP cares about like farm programs.  Waste of fucking taxpayer money and they aren’t going to vote for us anyway.

  136. 136.

    Calouste

    @negative 1: You don’t start by prosecuting the administration, you start by prosecuting some small fish and let it snowball from there. Parscale is the only campaign manager who isn’t in prison yet, I think he’ll get rather nervous if someone were to audit his finances. But you don’t start with the political stuff, you start with the money laundering, the drugs, the wife-beating, it’s all there.

  140. 140.

    John S.

    So PA is essentially being written off as lost for Biden? I’m not seeing anyone call that race yet, and there was supposed to be a ton of votes left to count.

    What changed?

  142. 142.

    Goku (Amerikan Baka)

    @James E Powell:

    Mine was fucking one of them, albeit narrowly. I couldn’t believe it. Even Clinton won it by 3%. I figured Biden would easily win it. One of the local state senate seats were lost because the R’s ran a woman with the same last name as the D incumbent!

    On the bright side, at least Jenniffer Brunner looks to have won one of the state Supreme Court seat up this year

  143. 143.

    MJS

    If it’s true about the thousands of ballots that weren’t delivered by the USPS, then in addition to DeJoy, there are a whole lot of supervisors and managers that need to be prosecuted as well. DeJoy wasn’t at every post office hiding those ballots – he had willing accomplices. I also don’t understand why, if it’s actually the case, the union that represents postal carriers wasn’t screaming about it for the last month or so.

  144. 144.

    Raven Onthill

    Pretty much a nine. I am much reminded of the 1932 near-win of the Nazis in Germany. At least, I do not think a Biden administration will invite the worst Trump appointees into the cabinet, but there are many ways the Republicans will work to undermine a Biden Presidency.

    There are some good things here: in a Biden administration the CDC and the EPA will begin operating properly again, as well as the rest of the executive branch. Biden will probably improve US international relations, though the former trust in the USA by US allies will not return until US domestic politics are more stable.

    BUT.

    We are facing a depression the like of which we have not seen for 100 years. The Republican Senate will do nothing to ameliorate it. Skulduggery in the state governments will stymie attempts to control the COVID-19 epidemic. Roe v Wade will probably be overturned, leading to the deaths of women and more violence from religious extremists.

    Fkeda, fkeda, fk fk fk.

    (Maybe more thoughts later.)

  145. 145.

    Fair Economist

    @BC in Illinois:

    But they can be the FOIA – – the Freedom of Information Administration.

    Every FOIA request should be expedited, the response checked for [actual] national security issues, and everything made public. Everything. FOIA requests from DA’s, reporters, scholars, students writing term papers, nosy citizens. Everything.

    This is brilliant.

    I also think they should provide video reporting of Trump’s misdeeds for social media sharing. We need to start working on how social media is being used to damage America along with traditional media.

  147. 147.

    VeniceRiley

    How much time do we have left before runaway global warming? I’m a 15 on the Fauci scale. If Mitch is still in power, nothing happens. We are toast- LITERALLY

  148. 148.

    Citizen Alan

    @Baud:

    If anything, it will only galvanize the DSA cretins who will insist that Bernie could have won and helped carry the Senate. Never mind the fact the DSA nitwit in my local district only got about 25% of the vote.

  149. 149.

    Kent

    @Baud:@Shalimar: We did blow 2010.  But nothing stays the same forever.  And it doesn’t matter, because 2022 is happening whether we like it or not.

    We lost the House in 2010 but didn’t lose the Senate until 2014.  What people also forget was that 2010 wasn’t just the Tea Party election, it was also the first election under Citizens United and Dems were completely out-gunned by dark money.

  150. 150.

    negative 1

    @MJS: You will see him on TV as much in the next four years as you would have if he would’ve won.  He’ll be a f^&king celebrity.  He’ll be on Fox, OANN, and whatever other cesspool network I’m forgetting.  He gets ratings, and apparently according to last night’s results there’s no downside to being associated with him.  Mark my words.

  153. 153.

    gene108

    @Immanentize:

    20 Rs, 10 Ds in senate 2022 races if I counted correctly. Not counting death replacements, of course.

    Meh….my worry about the 2020 Senate races was that the R’s up for re-election were in Republican friendly states. It’s not like 2014, when the Democrats who won in Republican leaning states, in the 2008 wave, were up for re-election.

    There really are not many Democratic leaning states with Republican Senators. There are some states that are temptingly close, like NC, the ever ephemeral Florida, and maybe a few others, but by in-large there seems to be a sorting of Democratic states with Democratic Senators and Republican states with Republican Senators, which gives the Republicans a decided advantage in the Senate.

  154. 154.

    Woodrow/asim

    As a Black Man, in America? A person whose ancestors were literally Owned?

    I’m going to keep working. Keep striving.

    I’m going to keep it the way John Lewis, and Elijah Cummings, would want us to see. What Maxine still would want us to do, I think. Head up, ’cause my people have made a way out of no way. Song in my heart, because when we stand up and fight, we win.

    And dedicated, ’cause we cannot, and will not, win overnight, nor win every fight.

    It’s bad, yes. Yet tonight’s results are exactly what the vast majority of Black folx, esp. older ones, have know — or lived thru — about America.

    And yet? We still rise.

  155. 155.

    Pharniel

    8. If, big if, they call for Biden convincingly (WI & MI both had the SOCTUS smack them down so only the most restrictive voting conditions are already baked in), and I get a good night’s sleep I’ll be down to a 7 because holy shit did this entire country just disappoint me.

    I’d be full Blogmeister levels of swearing if I hadn’t just had a meeting with an executive that indicates I’ll be employed for the next year, and the automatic “talking to executives” filters were not still engaged.

    But I’m good ‘n mad right now.

    I’ll keep working to build mutual aid, and fighting, because I’m a long time Lions fan I understand fighting the fight because to not fight it is the ultimate betrayal, but I am godsdamned tired though.

  159. 159.

    Mallard Filmore

    @negative 1:

     

    Being the first presidential administration to prosecute the administration of your predecessor would take an enormous amount of political capital, and that’s assuming you win the Senate.

    Why is taking the Senate required for this?

    Also, if going after criminals directly is too risky, there are plenty of supporting targets available … the NRA, the RNC, etc.

    The New York State AG said a few days ago that Trump Inc. (not Trump himself) was under criminal investigation.

  160. 160.

    John S.

    @negative 1: I agree. He’s basically going to act as Shadow President, and unless he is thoroughly discredited and prosecuted, I fully expect the motherfucker to run again in 2024 (assuming he lost this election).

  161. 161.

    Calouste

    @VeniceRiley: I saw an article in the Wall Street Journal (!) this morning that quotes some Wall Street person who pretty much literally said that the Republicans winning the Senate was bad news, because it meant no new stimulus.

    The article also emphasized that the stocks went up significantly the moment the results were starting to look good for Biden this morning. This might be the first time ever that the stock market goes up when the more left-wing candidate wins the election.

  162. 162.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    About a 6 I guess. It’s not over. I refuse to pretend that last night’s results were the entire vote when there 101 million early votes. We’re not trained to wait, but nevertheless we should wait.

    Not that I’m any good at it either. The 30 seconds to type this posting is about all the politics I can stand to think about this morning. Going back into distract-myself mode.

    The one election thing I’m doing is watching PA’s counting dashboard to follow the status of the count. The larger election I’ll try to wait a few days before drawing any conclusions.

  166. 166.

    Immanentize

    @Gravenstone: The ballot stuff is confusing.  People are urging caution.  But it seems to be — not logged in as being delivered.  There may be bar code problems, but delivered?  I also don’t believe this will be the last report on this to Judge Sullivan.  I am awaiting more info. from the noon hearing….

    Still, we knew it was possible maybe even planned….

  167. 167.

    Kent

    @Yarrow:@patrick II:  So, I have a question. I know the Senate is supposed to vote to confirm judges and SC Justices. Is that a law? Or just a norm?

    It’s in the constitution.  I think the word is “consent” not “confirmation”.  But what is meant by consent is left open.  I personally think that a Biden presidency should just seat judges and state that Senate consent is presumed unless they actually vote them down.  Make it an implied consent and make them actually vote his choices down rather than just keep them from a vote.

  169. 169.

    Pharniel

    @Calouste: Markets crave stability.

    Trump craves attention & demonstrations of power.

    The investor class wants dem sweet, sweet tax cuts, but they’d also like to be able to have an investment plan that lasts longer than a short film.

    They are absolutely thrilled with the idea of a boring dem presidency & obstructive senate to create the perfect storm of consistency – nothing getting done at all.

  171. 171.

    Bill Arnold

    @Citizen Alan:

    McConnell keels over dead in December and the Dem governor of Ky appoints a Democrat to replace him, giving us a 50/50+1 split.

    Is that a Wish? :-) (He suffered a bad fall in August 2019. Came close to breaking his neck or skull, perhaps.)
    Also, note that if the Senate is 51R and Biden is President (and thus K. Harris 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.) This has happened, recently:
    How one man put Bush on the ropes – Senator Jeffords’ defection has derailed the President’s conservative agenda. (Edward Helmore, 27 May 2001)

  173. 173.

    negative 1

    @raven: I’m not looking to be argumentative as much as I’m pleading for hope, but why?  Do you think people wouldn’t tune in to hear what he has to say?  Or are their journalistic standards above that?  Or will his army of mouth-breathers suddenly not follow him on Twitter?  Or will he decide he’s tired of the limelight?

  174. 174.

    dlw32

    I’m about at 42 on this scale. Sure, Biden may become president in the end. But clearly this country is not a decent country. As H P Lovecraft would say, we have become a degenerate people.

  178. 178.

    Sebastian

    @BC in Illinois:

    Yes, I would go a step further and confiscate communication of FOX et al and release it immediately. Once they sue you remove access but by then it’s too late.

  179. 179.

    Nicole

    @MJS:

    There is a better than even chance he’ll be dead in 2024. Either from bad habits, or bad “tea”.

    Or bad Diet Coke, in his case.

  180. 180.

    p.a.

    I’m at 7.  A Biden win= we have the DoJ, and access to all the IC records on tRump et al.  As others have said, FOIA also.

  182. 182.

    West of the Rockies

    @PsiFighter37:

    Glad you’re calmed down.  Still feeling that +6 this morning?  I downed a couple Guinness cans (last night), just enough to take the edge off.

  183. 183.

    Yarrow

    @Fair Economist:

    We need to start working on how social media is being used to damage America along with traditional media.

    Yep. It’s being used to push disinformation and propaganda into people’s homes and in front of their faces 24/7. It’s a useful tool for anyone who wants to destroy democracy and Facebook in particular has been involved in doing just that in countries around the world.

    Humans are not built to withstand seeing disinformation and propaganda in front of their faces day in and day out and not be influenced by it. Sure, people can just look away but it’s designed to keep you hooked. It gives you that dopamine hit. Gets your adrenaline going. Makes you feel part of something. It’s a real danger.

  184. 184.

    Kent

    @Bill Arnold:Is that a Wish? :-) (He suffered a bad fall in August 2019. Came close to breaking his neck or skull, perhaps.)
    Also, note that if the Senate is 51R and Biden is President (and thus K. Harris 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.) This has happened, recently:
    How one man put Bush on the ropes – Senator Jeffords’ defection has derailed the President’s conservative agenda. (Edward Helmore, 27 May 2001)

    The only GOP Senators who have ever flipped have done so within blue states like Jeffords and Specter.  It ain’t going to happen with a red state Senator.  The only GOP Senator in a blue state is Johnson from MN and he is a complete tool who just needs to be beat in 2022 not flipped.

    I expect some institutionalist Senators like Romney will support things like Biden Cabinet appointees. But they ain’t gonna flip.

  186. 186.

    Mallard Filmore

    @Gravenstone:

     

    Fuck quiet. If we have a Democratic AG and can prove any of them are compromised and acting under coercion, make it public as hell.

    Sure, if prosecution is untenable for any reason, scream their crimes to the world. I am all for that. But that would be in line with a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

  187. 187.

    Nutmeg again

    Wow. About a year ago I moved from a town firmly on the Berkeley–Cambridge axis (Northampton MA), to a seemingly more neutral, i.e., typically American town in Blue CT.  The news from yesterday and today tells me I am still in a bubble with really strong boundaries.  I don’t even know who the rest of my compatriots even are. It’s both sickening, and frankly, kind of terrifying.

    Here, the Republican rep to State Senate in my district (who ran unopposed) is noted by Democratic mayors etc. in surrounding towns as working really well across the aisle, being highly cooperative with them, and they seem to think, and all-around good egg. (I still didn’t vote for her).

    But I’m getting such a strong whiff of brimstone from much of the rest of the US, that she would be opposed by a more virulent RWNJ.

    I don’t even recognize the US. I have my wonderful elderly dog, but if not for her, I would be seriously considering a move to Europe to be with my kid.

  189. 189.

    gene108

    @Kent:

    Biden’s control over the executive branch will be absolute. He doesn’t need a single Cabinet confirmation do do that.

    If Republicans control the Senate, we won’t have a single Cabinet confirmation.

    Obama chose Comey, because he’s the only person the Republican controlled Senate would confirm was another Republican.

    Also, the Board of Governors of the Postal Service have pretty much all been appointed. by Trump. They are the ones that pick a Post Master General. So don’t even think the USPS is going to get fixed, if Biden wins. Like out of control coronavirus cases, the messed up USPS will be just another cudgel to beat Biden with, and it will work just like bashing Obama on the economy worked in 2010. There’s nothing Republicans can do to alienate their voters. There’s a whole lot Democrats can do to alienate their voters.

  190. 190.

    khead

    @raven:

    Not bullshit.  Trump is the one losing GOP candidate who isn’t going to slink away and be forgotten/shunned by the GOP electorate.  Better get used to it.

  191. 191.

    Kent

    Is it just me, or has Biden’s lead in MI grown in the past hour?   NYT now has him at + 0.7% or about a 34,000 vote lead.

  193. 193.

    Nicole

    @Yarrow:

    Humans are not built to withstand seeing disinformation and propaganda in front of their faces day in and day out and not be influenced by it. Sure, people can just look away but it’s designed to keep you hooked. It gives you that dopamine hit. Gets your adrenaline going. Makes you feel part of something. It’s a real danger.

    So true.  I feel like we’re seeing the culmination of 30 years of FOX News, which went to great lengths early on to get on every cable package available.  Hell, I briefly (and by briefly, I mean 2 weeks) watched it in the very late 90s, because it was on our cable package. I had a roommate, who, although she was not generally a good person (she stole food and skipped out on her final bills), took me to the woodshed when I spouted some bullshit my dumb 20-something self had heard on FOX, and in this case, she was absolutely correct to do so.  And then I woke up.  But I remember the anger high FOX News gave.

    As one of the ex-cultists said on The Vow, no one ever plans to join a cult.

  195. 195.

    cain

    @gene108: Also, the Board of Governors of the Postal Service have pretty much all been appointed. by Trump. They are the ones that pick a Post Master General. So don’t even think the USPS is going to get fixed, if Biden wins. Like out of control coronavirus cases, the messed up USPS will be just another cudgel to beat Biden with, and it will work just like bashing Obama on the economy worked in 2010. There’s nothing Republicans can do to alienate their voters. There’s a whole lot Democrats can do to alienate their voters.

    That is the sobering thought – we need the senate otherwise we can’t do anything.

    But honestly, if teh senate won’t seat just put “working people” in that position. If the senate wants to make a fuss then take it to the SCOTUS.

  196. 196.

    Raven Onthill

    Meantime, let it be noted that racism and sexism are powerful in the USA. Trump still has his Twitter account and will continue stirring the pot. On the other hand, he is likely to end up bankrupt and subject to criminal prosecution. It is possible that some of the rape charges will finally stick.

  198. 198.

    Searcher

    I’m down from the “playing Russian roulette” levels of stress to the “pre-wedding jitters” level.

  199. 199.

    catatonia

    @Citizen Alan: and how would they enforce that? You know, pope, divisions, Stalin. We’re past the singularity here. Precedents don’t mean shit for the other side, it’s high time we start throwing them away as well. I’m sure that’s unrealistic but so is 47% of the vote going to a prick who’s overseen the deaths— mostly totally avoidable— of a quarter-million Americans in 9 or 10 months. Yet that’s happened.

    And absolutely agree with Kent. Start gutting the federal budget that flows toward red areas. I know, easier said than done. But threats help.

    I don’t know, I’m going to get an MRI this evening to see if I have prostate cancer. So I’m a bit worried and feeling pretty nihilistic as well. I’m not thinking things through and I don’t feel like googling to see just how irrevocable SCOTUS rulings are. I’m just an ill-informed but who I like to think is usually a well-intentioned guy who’s seeing red mist everywhere right now.

  202. 202.

    Kent

    @gene108:

    If Republicans control the Senate, we won’t have a single Cabinet confirmation.

    Obama chose Comey, because he’s the only person the Republican controlled Senate would confirm was another Republican.

    Also, the Board of Governors of the Postal Service have pretty much all been appointed. by Trump. They are the ones that pick a Post Master General. So don’t even think the USPS is going to get fixed, if Biden wins. Like out of control coronavirus cases, the messed up USPS will be just another cudgel to beat Biden with, and it will work just like bashing Obama on the economy worked in 2010. There’s nothing Republicans can do to alienate their voters. There’s a whole lot Democrats can do to alienate their voters.

    He doesn’t need Senate confirmation of a single cabinet official to assert control over every Federal agency.  He can do that perfectly well with acting Secretaries.  And I expect institutionalists like Romney will confirm his Cabinet picks anyway.  It’s not like judges where the seat is vacant if no confirmation.  Biden just puts whoever he wants in as the acting Secretary.

    As for the USPS.  DeJoy can be driven out.  A Biden DOJ can open up multiple criminal inquiries into everything from his election behavior to taxes.  Investigations that might “magically” go away if he resigns.  Or that will tie him up in Federal court for the rest of his life if he doesn’t.  That’s how it is done.

  203. 203.

    Bill Arnold

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    That is my political goal for the next two years.

    I know a family that has a two-year rule of revenge. Revenge should be deferred for two years, so that the guilty person doesn’t expect it and to make it clear to oneself that the revenge is still required.
    I agree about Ron Johnson.

  209. 209.

    Layer8Problem

    Put me down for a 6.  I generally have a sunny disposition and an optimistic outlook.  I went in looking for all the right stuff to happen and believed the polling but still felt an ominous undercurrent of warning, if you will.  I went to bed last night wanting to throw a brick at Steve Kornacki and his rolled-up sleeves,  just feeling way concerned and reminding myself that the bad guys would get votes on election day but we would NOT know for sure for a few days.  I woke up to more positive news.  Maybe no Senate, but Kent’s reminder of the power of the executive helps and Biden’s ahead right now.

    I wish I could say the same about my partner here, who’s at 7.5 trending toward 8.

  212. 212.

    Sebastian

    @gene108:

    With all due respect but if you want to give up please take a backseat because I am not letting a bunch of mobster shitpile traitors run the country and my life because of some “norms” they never follow.

    Arrest them, audit their donors, search their think tanks for any ounce of collusion, break them.

    THEY ARE THE MOB.

    Hell, have the US Navy pull up to tax haven island states and issue ultimatums: all stolen US money disclosed or we level you.

    International manhunt for organized crimes. Cruise missiles at oligarch mobster yachts. Predator drone strikes, too.

    Treat them like fucking Al Qaeda because that’s who they are. I am sick and tired of the defeatist attitude, we are literally fighting for the survival of the human race in a fight of Good vs Evil.

    Pass the fucking ammo.

  214. 214.

    The Moar You Know

    Side bet.  Is Melania:

    1.  Sobbing to her lawyer on the phone to get her out of this because she can’t do four more with this asshole?
    2. Packing the suitcases?
    3. Unpacking the suitcases in her new six-floor condo in Ljubljana as I write?
  217. 217.

    Yarrow

    @Nicole:  What we really need to educate people about disinformation and propaganda and how it’s being used here. Sweden and Finland have that. We could do it too. But an education program? I crack myself up.

  218. 218.

    rikyrah

    @MazeDancer:

    Even if it is all “Actings”, the Biden Cabinet will bring some sanity.

     

    I know that’s right. Do the Actings, and get down to business. Period.

    Don’t even go through the nominating process. Phuck that shyt.

  219. 219.

    frosty

    I’m slightly more cautiously optimistic about PA now. York County has counted all the absentees and mail-ins and Biden got 36.7%. For every election since 1988, if the County went over 34% the state went for the Democrat.

  220. 220.

    Kay

    I’m horrified that so many Americans endorsed lying and stealing, but I don’t think it’s the time for navel gazing by Democrats. We won. We’re going to have to fight to seat the elected President. I think all energy should go to that- we can discuss campaigns and messaging and polling later.

    Biden won more than Trump did in 2016 and Trump was seated. I want Biden seated. That’s my take. We elected the President and now he needs to take office in January.

  221. 221.

    Jinchi

    @Kent: The only GOP Senator in a blue state is Johnson

    Johnson is from Wisconsin, but I otherwise agree with your point.

    OTOH the Senate is still in reach. The real question is how heavily the mail-in ballots will break.

  224. 224.

    Yarrow

    @Omnes Omnibus:  If (When? Fingers crossed…) Biden wins, Ron Johnson’s traitorous activities with Russia will begin to see the light of day. He’s got to be terrified and he’s not smart enough to get out of any of it.

  225. 225.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Fair Economist: t 4 more years of Trump would likely be the end of American democracy.

    Just stop that.. Four more years of Trump is just four more years of the same BS we’ve seen the last four years. If Trump couldn’t get off his ass to do it with a Republican congress he’s even less likely to do it now. The fundamental truth about Trump is he is a lazy, dumb man whose biggest interest in life is getting in his own daughter’s pants and talking shit non stop.

    Not to mention a lot of Chickens are coming home to roost for Trump, whether he is president or not.

  226. 226.

    zhena gogolia

    @The Thin Black Duke:

    FWIW, in the depths of my despair last night I thought of what Black people in this country have gone through, and tried to pull myself together. Not very successfully. But I think of it all the time and it puts me in check.

  227. 227.

    Shalimar

    @khead: Trump is the GOP candidate I think is least likely to still be alive 4 years later.  He doesn’t look healthy, physically or especially mentally.

     

    Unfortunately,  he’s just a symptom of a problem that will be much worse with the next dictator-wannabe.

  228. 228.

    catatonia

    @rikyrah: thanks. I’m thinking even if it is, they’ll be getting it early and prostate isn’t as bad as some if that’s the case. This is all based on blood work anyway and the only real symptom I have can be attributed to aging. Wouldn’t have even posted about it except as a weak excuse for my rather irrational state of being right now

  230. 230.

    Bill Arnold

    @rp:

    Plus, we have evidence in the form of actual votes from 2018 and a number of special elections over the last few years that there’s been a significant shift towards Dems. I don’t know if it’s the USPS, hacking, or whatever, but this doesn’t pass the smell test.

    Polls nailed the Minnesota results (assuming the results remain stable).
    In some other states, they were wildly different than the results, which skewed R relative to the polls.
    It seems unreasonable to believe that people in Minnesota are much more likely to pick up their phones and talk to a pollster than people in neighboring states. What other differences are there? I agree, smells bad.

  232. 232.

    Yutsano

    @cain: You know, you KNOW, that the Senate will sue over this. And probably win. But acting designation rules need to br observed again. He gets a person for 120 days then another one from the senior executive service ad nauseum.

  233. 233.

    James E Powell

    @Kay:

    100% endorsed. We have time for that other stuff and we should definitely take a step back from before going to work on the future. Right now, let’s nail down the present.

  234. 234.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Kent: I don’t think that’s true for two reasons:

    COVID let Trump pretend to be “strong” in the ways his supporters really like, and it let him ramp up a LOT of anti-government and anti-left sentiment. He basically blames Democrats for every life-saving action that gets taken and disobeys all of it and says he’s strong to do so while Biden is weak for ‘hiding’. This plays with a lot of Trump’s base. It also lets Trump avoid responsibility for the economic devastation.

    Additionally, COVID disrupted election voting so much that it probably helped him. We saw a lot of fuckery with remote mails, and remote ballots are more likely to get tossed out than in-person ballots, and all of that disproportionately affects Democrats… who disproportionately voted early.

  235. 235.

    Arclite

    @TheTruffle: How do you figure that it’s premature?  It’s a 7 point structural deficit.  There’s no way to over come that even in wave elections. That’s not going to changed in the next 30 years.  The Dems won’t hold the Senate again.  And thusly the Dems won’t get any judges approved again either.

  237. 237.

    Brachiator

    It looks like Biden will eke it out, so I’m not a 9, but the prospect of another couple years of de-facto President Mitch McConnell has me at about 8. How about you?

    I am at full on nine.  I avoided looking at any news from about 4 pm yesterday.  I was hoping for something definitive, preferably a landslide Biden victory.

    It is not a good sign that millions of idiots voted for Trump, a man who does not care whether they live or die. I don’t know what these people want. Or why they foolishly believe that Trump will get it for them.

  238. 238.

    mad citizen

    @Pharniel: “I’ll keep working to build mutual aid, and fighting, because I’m a long time Lions fan I understand fighting the fight because to not fight it is the ultimate betrayal, but I am godsdamned tired though.”

    Fair weather Colts fan here, since I live where they are.  I watched some of the game last Sunday.  Being a Lions fan has to be one of most Sisyphean of all the pro teams.  I admire you.  At least the Tigers and Pistons have won a few titles, and the Red Wings many.

  239. 239.

    Fair Economist

    Biden has “one weird trick” at his disposal for open positions that he needs to do something but doesn’t need to be permanent – like Post Office board. If Nancy recesses the House he can recess Congress as a whole, and make recess appointments good until the next Congressional term.

  240. 240.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    My meter is oscillating between 6 and 7. I’m feeling the lip-chewing, but I’m also angry about the large number of bigoted assholes doubling down on Trump.

    Searching for the silver lining: If we have the presidency and the House, it should be possible to lay a lot of blame and exert a lot of pressure on the do-nothing Senate Republicans and McConnell. I don’t think the bigoted assholes hold Congress in the same esteem they do Trump.

  241. 241.

    cain

    @zhena gogolia: FWIW, in the depths of my despair last night I thought of what Black people in this country have gone through, and tried to pull myself together. Not very successfully. But I think of it all the time and it puts me in check.

    It was mentioned on twitter that some portion of young latino and black men went to Trump.

    Males are a problem of all colors.

  242. 242.

    mad citizen

    Yeah I’m probably between a 6 and 7 too, mostly due to Shitty Nation Realization.  I don’t know what can fix it: Mandatory Voting; or provide a $500 tax credit if you vote; or tell people you’re taking away their right to vote.  I’m open to EXTREME measures (which I know will never happen).

    Said it yesterday in a reply to someone–it took 100 years to get a woman in the high office, and even then #2.  I hope, no KNOW, Kamala will be able to lead us, and talk about her experiences as a woman doing that job.  See first paragraph though about how any woman could vote for the shitstain.  Will never understand.

  243. 243.

    Brachiator

    @Kent:

    Sobering thought.

    Without Covid I think Trump would be cruising to a 300 pt EV win right now.

    Yeah, I kinda see your point.  It’s not just his woeful response to the pandemic, and the erosion of his supposed success with the economy, it is also that his reaction to the crisis made his fundamental incompetency and psychological instability more apparent and harder to ignore.

    The sad thing is that too much of his base still ignore this. They want more of what they see, no matter where it leads.

     

  244. 244.

    Raven Onthill

    In happier news, Mississippi has overturned the electoral system that kept Blacks from the statehouse and has removed the traitor’s symbols from its state flag.

    In ambiguous news, St. Louis has adopted a new voting system. Not clear to me that it will be an improvement, however.

  245. 245.

    J R in WV

    @Immanentize:

    Shit is getting real:

    In South Florida, the USPS failed to deliver ~27 percent of the mail ballots.

    You’re really reliable, so I believe this. Plus it was obviously Dejoy’s goal from day one. But please post a LINK???

    I’m pretty sure there are laws against interfering with the mail service, and I hope Dejoy gets to explore the wonderful world of Federal Prosecution for the rest of his life. Interviews, prosecuted for not telling the truth to his interviewers. Wear him out, cost him all his stolen wealth in legal fees.

    Same for most of Trump’s cabinet, Mnuchin, Wilbur Ross, the guy who ran a bank on Cyprus, the Homeland Security child abusers, all of them! Follow illegal orders, go to jail~!~ Especially AG Barr… what a flowing well of horror that guy is!

  246. 246.

    LadySuzy

     

     

    @PsiFighter37: The Lincoln Project folks were dejected last night. Confident for a small Biden win, but totally dejected about their party. They’re coming to the realization that they are a little minority of conservatives who have some principles. I think that the ones who hadn’t quit the party officially will do it. For the majority, they’re good people. And they will become democrats, maybe. They’ll never go back.

  247. 247.

    Sab

    @James E Powell: DeWine saved the Rs in 2020 with his early lockdown. He flattened the covid curvr for months. He’ll get no thanks for it. Things really haven’t been dire yet in white Ohio.  My guess is that after the holidays they will be.

  249. 249.

    Nicole

    @Yarrow:

    What we really need to educate people about disinformation and propaganda and how it’s being used here. Sweden and Finland have that. We could do it too. But an education program? I crack myself up.

    The advertising industry would lose their minds if we tried.  Could you imagine?  I remember the food industry going nuts about putting calorie counts on products, and even some liberal friends of mine were calling it “government intrusion.”  Uh, wut?  How is being given information a bad thing?   We are so malleable it’s embarrassing.

  251. 251.

    mad citizen

    I’m not a buyer of the “Trump would have cruised to victory without COVID” idea.  It would have been a totally different campaign and experience.  Someone here mentioned the ground game that didn’t happen.  Biden would have had loads of true rallies.  The election was mostly a vote up/down for Trump.  I’m so sick of the dude I’m much happier with him gone than Mitch.

  252. 252.

    Nicole

    @mad citizen:

    See first paragraph though about how any woman could vote for the shitstain.  Will never understand.

    We are just as susceptible to white patriarchy as men.  A lifetime of the culture you grow up in telling you that you are not as good as men, no matter how many “Go Girl!” tshirts you buy, will do that to you.

  253. 253.

    Chris Johnson

    6, and I’ll tell you why.

    We fought against Trumpism and Russia, and this was their BEST shot. There is no ‘better be careful or they will start to cheat, or fight us!’ This was their best, and it’s ongoing, and it’s active and alive right here. And it is not giving Trump a second term, though it’s trying VERY hard to give Russia their real prize: civil war.

    The plan was always ‘win so hard they can’t cheat out of it’. That’s what this looks like.

    THEIR plan is firstly, ‘fight America so hard that if possible you rule it and shit all over it for your Russian masters’ (if you don’t like that, goons will torture your geriatric hands like they did to McConnell to make you an example to the others)

    If that fails, and it is failing, the plan is to rile up the QAnon crazies into a terrorist front AND to rile up the liberals until they literally see the enemy side as savage animals that need to be put down. Dehumanization. Directed out of RUSSIA: that message isn’t coming from the Biden camp, or even the Lincoln Project. The massive groundswell of doomsaying and hysteria picturing the red-staters as a psychotic rabble eating babies is a propaganda op. It is literally the balancing factor for what the QAnons are being told.

    Because this is an op, an act of war, and in the absence of a President Trump or a wholly complicit Mitch McConnell, Russia’s primary tactic is fomenting civil war.

    And here’s why I am a 6 on the Fauci scale, believing that: this is being done to the right-wingers at their expense, horribly. Do you have any idea how many right-wingers are going to die, either directly from COVID after Trump events, or down the line if (for example) they’re sickened and then McConnell and the Supreme Court obliterate all health care? The right-wingers have no defense against this. We left-wingers work together, we wear masks, we do a LOT of stuff. We build communities. Hell, even if the right-wingers enlist all the cops as their death squad force, how is that so different from living as a black person in America now, or in the 40s, or 50s, or 60s, etc?

    This is not the war you think it is. The Trumpists are DUPES. They are lied to on a massive scale, they are terrorized to the point where it endangers their health, they’re conned into superspreader events. It’s scary to face, but it’s like Trump boat parades sinking: you have to understand that Russia does not want these people to do well. They are weapons to be used against us and against themselves.

    Biden is a very good candidate for finding and practicing the REAL defense against this, which is to try to govern in the midst of the chaos, and make help available as much as possible to those who will accept it.

    Trumpists will angrily deny any such help, and they will fucking DIE disproprtionately for it. Especially in the midst of a pandemic, especially as they predictably defy health care edicts meant to protect them and us.

    They’ll die dupes, believing lies they were fed by an elaborate conspiracy run out of Russia (therefore, not ‘treason’, just Cold War turned hot in a novel way), and we’ll remember that.

    Let’s rescue as many of these poor deluded bastards as we can, and let’s treat our inability to save all of them as the fates of war. Right now, our best tactic is grim, stubborn, survival. I’m game, and I think we are able to do that, and that all of the Trumpist tactics going forward will play very poorly in PR terms. This was their best shot, and all that remains to them is to obliterate their own people like Jonestown, which they will do (or like suicide bombers, which we can also confidently expect will happen).

    I’m a 6 on the Fauci scale, and this is why.

  254. 254.

    artem1s

    @Baud:

    I hope the closeness of this election puts to bed all the attacks on Hillary.

    hear, hear… she was also right to call out the alt right and give the deplorables a name. I also do not want to hear word one from any Democrat about Nancy Pelosi’s leadership.  If she chooses to remain Speaker, we will all be better for it and should thank our lucky stars Joe will have someone with experience on his side.

  255. 255.

    mad citizen

    @Nicole: Yes I thought all the free market types say information is great to have, and the market and rational economic man allocates and decides.  Speaking of, checked the interesting Massachusetts Right to Repair vote (when I read about this I thought of course, Car Talk!  Must be a culture thing there):

    Allows car owners to access and share data generated by the operation of the vehicle with independent repair shops?

    Yes

    75%
    2,386,982

    No

    25%
    794,170

  256. 256.

    Grover Gardner

    Just get that monster out of the White House.  I can live with just about anything else (I think).

  257. 257.

    Jinchi

    @Kent: Without Covid I think Trump would be cruising to a 300 pt EV win right now.

    I actually disagree. After his first year in office, nothing ever moved Trump’s numbers. There was no victory that would win over people who hated him and no failure that would lose him support on the right. Trump was on target to lose before covid hit. The fact that his disastrous management of the pandemic didn’t cost him severely is simply because we’ve reached scandal saturation.

  258. 258.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Kay: It was a win.  Let’s treat it like a win and move forward from there.  IOW I agree with you and have been arguing this for a couple of threads now.

  259. 259.

    mad citizen

    @Chris Johnson: Your post last night (when things looked very grim for the top spot) was noticeable to me.  I really enjoy this one.  I was thinking about the cancer scale.  Our nation was at Stage 4 yesterday, and perhaps a Biden win takes us back to Stage 3; whereas the other outcome might have been terminal

    I would love to see Biden do a national address to the nation–at night–about this topic.  Well I guess those are rare–put it into the State of the Union–surely a pertinent topic for that.

  262. 262.

    gene108

    @Sebastian:

    With all due respect but if you want to give up

    Who said anything about giving up? The road ahead is much, much, much harder than most people on liberal blogs expect.

    The USPS was reformed many, many years ago to avoid patronage assignments. McConnell perverted that, when he retook the Republicans retook the Senate in 2014. He refused to confirm Obama’s replacements to the outgoing Board of Governors, who server staggered seven year terms. There was no quorum for the USPS BoG, until 2017, when the Republican Senate confirmed Trump’s appointees. The USPS BoG picks the Post Master General. Legal pressure can be brought on DeJoy and he can be forced to step down, because he’s probably just as shady as any other 2016 RNC Finance Vice Chair, but the Trump appointed BoG picks his replacement.

    We’re in for a much longer and much harder slog than we hoped on Monday.

    Your below rant sort of proves my point. It’s not even in the realm of reality. Even the first part about treating Republicans like the mob is unrealistic.

    take a backseat because I am not letting a bunch of mobster shitpile traitors run the country and my life because of some “norms” they never follow.

    Arrest them, audit their donors, search their think tanks for any ounce of collusion, break them.

    THEY ARE THE MOB.

    If we want to be the party of the rule of law, we must be aware there are restrictions on how we can wield that power. There are probably ways to start legally poking around at the Trump administrations doings. Maybe reopen some cases that Barr stopped for what look political reasons? Maybe have a Biden appointed IRS director and/or Treasury Secretary turn over Trump’s tax returns to the House, and go from there?

    Anything that gets done is not going to be glamorous. It’s going to be complicated stuff related to tax rules, international disclosure requirements, and stuff like that.

    The below part of what your wrote is fucking insane, but it also reinforces something I mentioned in an earlier thread about Trump’s appeal. Men like to boast and brag about doing something badass to their enemies. It’s some sort of default setting for men. A politician that targets their tough talk to something a group of men agree with them on and you end up with a group of men that will support a politician. It happens with liberals, who fall in love with someone like Ed Shultz for his brash talk.

    Hell, have the US Navy pull up to tax haven island states and issue ultimatums: all stolen US money disclosed or we level you.

    International manhunt for organized crimes. Cruise missiles at oligarch mobster yachts. Predator drone strikes, too.

    Treat them like fucking Al Qaeda because that’s who they are. I am sick and tired of the defeatist attitude, we are literally fighting for the survival of the human race in a fight of Good vs Evil.

    Pass the fucking ammo.

  263. 263.

    gene108

    @cain:

    It was mentioned on twitter that some portion of young latino and black men went to Trump.

    Males are a problem of all colors.

    Heh…if white men voted for Republicans at the rates of the above groups, the Republican party would be extinct.

  264. 264.

    Chris Johnson

    @Sebastian: They got Al Capone for tax evasion. Just sayin’.

    They are indeed the mob, but there’s a paper trail plus they’re increasingly needing to do obvious crimes and just be allowed to do them. A lot of the stuff we’re fearful of is SUPER criminal.

    At this stage, these guys absolutely depend on having no rule of law at all. Let’s make that cost them. I’ll leave the ammo to the Army, thank you.

    Not that any of THESE mobsters actually do tax evasion. Oh, wait… :D

  265. 265.

    Bill Arnold

    @gene108:
    I’m with Sebastian on the tax havens. They need to be neutered, somehow. And most of them are soft targets, protected only by the vast amounts of money and influence that the world’s oligarchs control. Many of them are islands, dependent on fragile communications( (fiber) cables imported power and food, etc. A lesser alternative is transparency through leaks/hacks, like the Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, etc.

  266. 266.

    ballerat

    @The Moar You Know: Manipulating the math of a small sample (“weighting”) is far cheaper than actually calling 10,000 people. So yeah, I think there’s something to your hunch.

    I also think the whole phone calling thing doesn’t work like it used to. I try to not answer numbers I don’t know because I am goddamned tired of being tele-spammed by internet dialers.

    I also think there are a not insignificant number of people who support trump but don’t want to admit how they’re actually going to vote to a pollster. Because they really don’t admit it to themselves. I’m not talking shy trumpers. I mean people who before the election are unhappy with trump, do not consider themselves supporters, and do understand how damaging he is, but when they come right down to it, when they actually do the deed of voting, they vote trump. Because they just can’t bring themselves to actually vote for a dem. Trump is bad but they tell themselves the better angels of someone else’s nature will cancel out the worse angels of theirs. They just cannot not vote for him.

    If you’ve canvassed and have talked at length with “undecideds” or ”independents”, you’ve met these people, 2 out of three who are just republicans, people who very much want to pretend especially to themselves that they aren’t.

    Polling relies on a fundamental assumption, that people will be honest with the pollsters but first they have to be honest with themselves.

    Until pollsters become better at the sociology and psychology of a large number of real people rather than manipulating mathematic models of just a smattering of them, they’re going to miss outside their margins of error.

  267. 267.

    Seanly

    @MJS:  thumbs up

    I was between an 8 and 9 last night w/ dips to about 100 a few times. I’d say now I am a 6.

    Maybe Biden could’ve salted this away w/ better Latino outreach in FL & TX, but I think we can still win the Presidency.

    I’d have liked to take the Senate decisively, but I don’t think Mitch is long for this world.

  268. 268.

    ballerat

    @Seanly: Oh stop it with the better outreach crap.

    Latinos have had 4 years of seeing what Trump is about. If that didn’t reach them nothing’s going to.

    Outreach isn’t the problem. And it’s not just Latinos. It’s everyone. It’s the people themselves. Nothing Biden can say or do will change their fundamental nature if it’s not there to begin with. It has to be within them first. And if it ain’t there now, after these four years, it won’t ever be there.

  270. 270.

    artem1s

    @Kent:

    I expect some institutionalist Senators like Romney will support things like Biden Cabinet appointees. But they ain’t gonna flip.

    someone has to take the reins of the GOP when the flopsweat is over.  RMoney is just clueless enough to believe it’s still his destiny to lead the party AND that he will be welcomed with open arms. I could see him trying to be the leader of the not-Gohmert GOP for at least the first few months.  You know he’s going to show up at the WH and try to tell Biden what to do, just like when he showed up in London and told the Brits how they were doing the Olympics all wrong.

  272. 272.

    No One You Know

    @The Moar You Know: I’ve gotten into the habit of looking at both the size and characterization of the poll. Less than 1000? Hard pass. Although won’t fix problems with a bad algorothm.

  273. 273.

    No One You Know

    @Chris Johnson: I found this very helpful. It’s very plausible as a black psy ops attack. And if the fault lines are visible and made discussable, we have the means to neutralize them.

    Climbing down from my Fauci 8 to a 7.

Comments are closed.