Troll Level: Expert
Hey, you! Yea, you! There's no need to feel down! We are WINNING and we are going to COUNT EVERY VOTE! #CountEveryVote #Winning pic.twitter.com/oBWabNJbM9
— Really American ?? (@ReallyAmerican1) November 5, 2020
Luckily, I’m swamped with work, so I’ve been able to tune out. But I did peek into Twitter and this video greeted me. Worth the break.
Open thread
ETA: Biden speaking soon:
WaterGirl
I am feeling less zen about this than I was last night and this morning. Not as confident as I was.
PsiFighter37
@WaterGirl: I feel just fine. We got this. I just wish votes would get counted faster…but this is what happens when we can’t put up margins to make things simple.
FelonyGovt
Thank you, I needed that. I haven’t been sleeping well at all. Intellectually I understand we’ve got this, but I want it to be definite.
MJS
@WaterGirl: I’m feeling more confident as I obsess over every tweet I can find re: vote counts. What has you concerned?
Lapassionara
@WaterGirl: I’m having the same problem. I need PA to flip to Biden! Please, FSM, make it so!
MisterForkbeard
I’m with PsiFighter. It’s looking pretty great for Dems overall, but I’m still waiting for the official calls before I break out the celebratory whiskey (as opposed to the funereal whiskey).
Omnes Omnibus
I am as calm as I was this morning. Let them count.
MJS
@PsiFighter37: It’s not just not being able to put up margins. It’s Republican fuckery. PA would have been called yesterday noon, at the latest, if the Republicans in the legislature had agreed to counting mail in ballots before the polls closed on Tuesday.
LurkerNoLonger
Like Tom Petty sang, the waiting is the hardest part. It’s like when you’re a kid and it’s Christmas Eve, you’re so excited to open your presents the next day. I want this present open!
SiubhanDuinne
Well, I’m apparently edgier than I thought. I just blew up at a friend who messaged me:
I get it’s supposed to be funny (I don’t think it is), but the stupidity of the comparison just set me off. The presidency of the United States of America is not a fucking reality show, despite the current occupant. AI judges didn’t tabulate a single ballot by hand, let alone 130 million. I hate seeing the process trivialised like this.
Kent
My LGBT teen daughter is doing worse than me. Makes me realize there are people with a lot higher stakes in this election than I have personally.
Yutsano
I’m bored in a refresher class. I really think this is all over but the shouting. And blue will top out.
mrmoshpotato
Feeling a lot better than I was earlier in the week. It’s 72 outside in Chicago which is ? but I guess I’ll go grocery shopping in a t-shirt then.
Bluegirlfromwyo
And they can dance! Cried happy tears.
We got this, y’all. Not everything we thought or wanted but the first step in taking our country back. Be proud and be in for the long haul. Let’s do this.
Eljai
@MJS: Exactly. The reason vote counting is taking so long in PA is because the GOP legislature refused Democratic requests to allow early votes to be counted as they came in. I would also add that when all the votes are counted, our margins will be fine. We’d be having a completely different conversation if we had been able to simply count the early mail-in ballots first. But they’re being counted last.
Miss Bianca
@PsiFighter37: In a really perverse way, I’m *almost* enjoying the agony. Because I know that local MAGAt agony is much, much worse right now.
SUFFER, MOTHERFUCKERS! SUFFER LIKE IT’S 2016 FOR ME!!
Redshift
This tweet thread about the Michigan court hearing is also cheering me up:
Baud
@Kent:
I have so little personal stake in elections that I’m somewhat chagrined that I’m so invested in the results.
Brachiator
Are we there yet?
Every now and then I check in here to note the folks who are micro-counting the vote. But I otherwise am not paying much attention.
I had a nice breakfast this morning. Then I went to Kaiser for some tests. Outside, some medical personnel are having a small demonstration for the victims of violence in Armenia. It was kind of touching to see.
Dan B
There’s an article in the South Florida Sentinel by Jeffrey Kasey ( couldn’t copy the link) about poll workers in Boca Raton being harassed by a MAGA mob. It’s very disturbing but also interesting because there seem to be so few incidents like this
BTW it feels okay that the country is managing to be calm despite the tensions that some nuts are feeling.
mrmoshpotato
@Omnes Omnibus:
“Fuck you, traitorous, murderous Trump trash! And I’m a vampire! Aht aht ah!”
MJS
@Baud: Actually, I think that marks you as a patriot. And someone who cares about others.
Raoul Paste
Georgia is alarmingly close, so I donated to Fair Fight
Mary G
I can’t stay here or anywhere else about the election past about ten seconds, without being eaten alive with anxiety. So I’m reading about the coronavirus, which isn’t much better, or doing offline things.
Gin & Tonic
@Kent: I work with someone who was transitioning M-F in 2016. She was crushed by the election results.
chopper
i’ll be honest, it would be nice if they counted the votes some time this month. i mean, NV counted like a hundred and then called it a day.
Peale
I’m really getting tired of reading threads about all the people who didn’t vote for us and speculation why they didn’t. When this is over, I want a thread specifically to discuss “what went well” and “what are our strengths” and “what are our opportunities”. A lot of gloom about Weaknesses and Threats. We’re only doing 1/2 the SWOT. It’s like reading a bunch of Cletus safaris in blog postings.
Catherine D.
That is indeed an epic troll of Trump – people who can move their feet!
ETA: I donated to Raphael Warnock as soon as he was in the runoff. I’ll do the same for Ossoff
MomSense
On the one hand the updates from the numbers nerds are encouraging. On the other hand, I think I’m forever haunted by 2000 2004 and 2016.
I do enjoy seeing trump’s crack(head) legal team get mocked by Judges, though.
Kent
It’s because like me, you care about the future of this nation and the world we are leaving for our children.
West of the Cascades
@chopper: The counters had to go out to round up the cattle.
MJS
If my calculations are anywhere close to correct, and AP’s estimate of 88% of the Arizona vote being counted is correct, then I don’t know why every news org hasn’t called it for Biden. Trump would have to get about 68% of the remaining vote to pull even, and that simply isn’t happening
MisterForkbeard
@Redshift: That thread is just… *chef’s kiss*.
It’s going to be nice when these asshats aren’t running the government and we don’t have to pretend to take their arguments seriously.
Bluegirlfromwyo
@Miss Bianca: Hahahahaha! Never thought about it that way. Love it.
Kent
Georgia and Arizona are now legit swing states, as is North Carolina. And Texas keeps getting closer and closer. That’s a big accomplishment. I don’t see the GOP making significant new inroads anywhere except maybe Ohio and it’s been pretty red for a long time.
mrmoshpotato
@SiubhanDuinne: ???
Isn’t that electronic voting too?
“Make sure to drop your American Idol ballot in the mail (no, not postage paid) for who you thought sang the best tonight, and we’ll bust our asses tabulating them, especially from you asshats who don’t vote in real elections that really affect your lives!”
different-church-lady
I’d rather be ahead and worried about bad news than behind and hoping for good.
Sister Golden Bear
@Kent: Much love to your daughter, I’m on edge myself. This election has huge consequences about whether more of our rights get taken away.
@Gin & Tonic: I transitioned a month after the 2016 election. I cannot tell you how absolutely terrifying and soul-crushing it was the day after the election. Among other things it was scramble to get my name and gender changed on my passport ASAP, because I needed to leave the country for a month, returning after inauguration—and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to change them when I got back.
Intellectually, I know that things are looking good in AZ, NV, PA and even GA, since the vast majority of the outstanding ballots are from heavily Democratic areas.
But until it’s called, and it’s official, I’m still a bit of anxious wreck.
@Redshift: As one lawyer said, a lawsuit without any evidence or documentation is just a tweet with a filing fee.
James E Powell
@Baud:
Same here. Been this way my whole adult life. I am my family’s crazy left wing uncle.
Splitting Image
One thing I have found encouraging since Tuesday is that the predicted ratfuckery has mostly fallen flat. The expected thugs have shown up in Michigan and Arizona, and the expected lawsuits have been filed, but they haven’t achieved anything and it all seems rather perfunctory. Trump declared victory and everyone ignored him. The GOP bigwigs aren’t rallying around him and even Rupert Murdoch apparently told him to fuck off. The loser stink is sticking to him and he’s going down.
I joked a few times before the election that the best thing Biden had going for him was that Trump had pushed out all of the people who helped steal the election for him in 2016 and he was depending on his own hires this time. This has turned out to be the case. He sent Rudy Giuliani to ratfuck the counting in Michigan. Rudy Fucking Giuliani. George W. at least could count on James Baker to do his dirty work. He didn’t have to depend on Rudy Giuliani or Corey Lewandowski.
SiubhanDuinne
SecDef Mark Esper has “prepared a letter of resignation” per MSNBC.
You can’t fire me! I quit!
Yarrow
@Kent: Florida seems to be a pretty red state now.
Kay
I’m annoyed more than angry. I just don’t know why people in this country have to put up with this nonsense.
We can’t seem to manage to make the simplest things work and we’re told this is the best we can do. I mean, is it? We just have to suck up idiotic decisions like mandating that no one may count the votes that are received first until after the votes that are received later?
Nothing fucking WORKS right. It’s presented as “oh, you must just soldier thru” but these barriers are created by people who operate in bad faith and we’re all harmed by them. We have wasted three days on this and it all could have been completed the week prior to election day. There was absolutely no logical reason for that, Republicans just decided to make it suck more. Enough. I’m sick of them breaking everything.
Mallard Filmore
@Eljai:
And if the mail-in ballots were counter first, we would be screeching about how Trump is catching up way too close.
Lapassionara
@Peale: Ditto this. If Biden clinches, we can look forward to a Barr-less DOJ, a Pompeo-less State Department, etc, etc. All cabinet-level officials will be gone as of noon on that day in January. I don’t care what Yertle wants in terms of nominees, those positions will be empty and that alone is a huge positive.
Quinerly
SOD Esper has resigned.
MisterForkbeard
@SiubhanDuinne: Rats, ships, etc.
Really though, there’s going to be a lot of people who won’t want to be associated with Trump once he’s out of power. It’s a good thing.
Kent
The problem with planning ratfuckery is that you don’t really know in advance that you were going to need it. Who was really predicting 2 weeks ago that this election was potentially going to come down to the vote in Maricopa Co. AZ and Fulton Co. Georgia?
You get your whole ratfucking operation set up in Detroit and Miami and ooops.
Kay
Pennsylvania could have had 90% of these mail ballots counted by election day. Fact. The one and only reason that wasn’t done was Republicans saw some advantage to making the entire country wait for results. We’re just wholly at their mercy and instead of being angry about that we’re told to be patient and stoic. I don’t want to be patient. I want a well run election.
FelonyGovt
@Kent: My LGBTQ daughter is also really fretting about these election results. And she’s not a teen, she’s in her 30’s. I feel so awful for her.
different-church-lady
@Baud: Only comparatively. We all have a massive public health stake in this election, even if we’re not in the groups that have been hit disproportionately.
Dan B
@Kent: I was part of the effort to get visibility and fair treatment for LGBTQ (and before that POC). My memories of the time before Stonewall are still vivid. The closet was more like being in a straight jacket in solitary with the addition of being in fear of being attacked at any moment.
But, unlike your daughter, I, and my friends, lived through ups and downs. AIDS was one low point. We figured out how to endure because there was no other choice. Many built us stronger. My awareness of the power of propaganda, and the crucial need for a Fairness Doctrine for this new age, is shaped by the lies propagated against LGBTQ people. The same lies are spread by media savvy folks against every minority. I hope Biden / Harris address this challenge. Justice hangs in the balance.
Kay
To me it’s become a question of what we in the public deserve in this country. We’re told over and over that we deserve nothing- that we simply must accept that almost nothing works properly.
I don’t think that’s true. I think we’re well within our rights to insist on better-run elections. Other countries manage it! Seems like we could! But we’ll never get there if we continue to meekly accept that the Trump Family are apparently in charge of when we get election results.
Completely voluntary chaos and inefficiency. No reason at all we have to put up with it.
Elie
@Kay:
Kay, THAT is the goal… to demoralize and make everything suck… so people won’t want to get involved. You know that my sister. You know that.
Somehow we are going to have to overcome this and someday, hopefully make some changes. In a way its good that there is so much variation from state to state…Makes it harder to corrupt system wide with one approach/program/plan. Each state is its own crappy universe and that is both our curse and saving grace?
hueyplong
Whatever happens in GA over the next hours/day, we know the overall result, so Stacey Abrams can lean over the prostrate Trump and, as he bleeds out, whisper, “John Lewis sends his regards.”
Kent
Trump is winning Florida by 3%. That’s the closest state right now that isn’t really still in discussion. But yeah, its red as hell at the state level. And it was never really securely blue in our generation. Not like AZ and GA were securely red.
If current momentum in AZ and GA turns both those states more blue (and I think it will as both are urbanizing and diversifying at rapid speed) then that completely changes future maps and elections and we can stop talking about Florida.
Arizona + Georgia = 27 electoral votes and likely to grow after the 2020 census.
Florida = 29 electoral votes.
Cheryl Rofer
@Quinerly: Not quite.
Preparing a letter of resignation is not the same thing as resigning. In fact, I would expect all Cabinet officials to prepare letters of resignation when they are appointed.
But the fact that this has leaked is significant. Something is going on, but it’s not clear what.
Trump has mentioned firing Esper along with a number of other national security appointees. Is that what Esper is reacting to? Or has Trump asked him to do something he (even a lobbyist Republican) feels he shouldn’t?
Cue (more) suspenseful music.
patroclus
Pa. difference now down to 97, 900.
hueyplong
@Cheryl Rofer: Sounds like Trump wants to send the military to stop vote counting.
Spanky
One wonders if Esper’s boss was making a demand that he felt was way beyond the pale, and so bailed.
Eta: Great minds, Cheryl.
Starfish
@Miss Bianca: Yeah, one of those people was riding their pickup truck through the liberal town that you know I live in with their Trump flags flying on Wednesday when the outcome was less clear. I hope he is sad or has a flat tire.
Kay
@Elie:
It just annoys how it’s presented as some kind of test of character- “we WILL wait forever for results because we’re just THAT good”
Stop waiting! Tell them you’re pissed they wasted 3 days on this bullshit. You’re allowed. It’s a state recording process. We’re not launching the space station. It should be done in the most timely and accurate way possible, not in deliberately idiotic ways that slow it down.
James E Powell
Trump’s PA lead now under 100K – Please get smaller faster.
Jean
And why aren’t they calling Nevada for Biden at this point? Is it that the state will take Biden to 270, and Arizona has only been called by the AP and Fox? Isn’t AP the gold standard here? Seems to me that if Arizona has become more doubtful AP would have retracted their call until further results came in.
Dan B
@Sister Golden Bear: Hang in their. Whatever the outcome we need to be their for everyone of us. With a Biden win the threats will come from the grassroots and the fears of young gaylings in red areas will be suffocating.
JPL
@patroclus: good
Roger Moore
@MJS:
I think the news media is being extra careful about calling any of the close states because of memories of 2000. They don’t want to call a state and then have it wind up close enough to require a recount. They especially don’t want the state where they have to retract the call to be decisive for the election.
Kent
Anyone know how the mail ballots are processed in PA? I was wondering if by delaying the processing of those ballots until after the election the GOP actually reduced a common avenue of rat fuckery, which is rejection of ballot signatures. In states like FL they process them as they come in and they love to reject Black and Hispanic absentee ballots at higher rates than whites.
Right now they are going balls to the wall to process mail-in ballots all across PA and I don’t expect election clerks are going over signature matches with a microscope.
It will be interesting to compare the mail ballot rejection rate for late processed ballots in PA with say FL which processes them early.
Elizabelle
Especially if you live in a swing state, check in w your local Democratic campaign office to see if they need help finding voters whose ballots were rejected. We’re doing that here in Virginia. visiting the voters homes if we can’t get them on the phone. All information to cure the ballot has to be in by noon tomorrow at the registrars office, at least in Virginia. If you have the time to volunteer, check in with the Dems. Very important and last minute work.
hitless
@Kay: I feel so much the same way – it was galling to watch obsequious reporters ask Trump if he would accept the election results. It’s not up to him. It’s not his decision. Anyway, I really appreciate your comments – it’s meaningful to feel that my perception of reality is shared by someone else who also can’t believe this is how we are doing things.
James E Powell
@Jean:
I think they are all scared of being wrong.
patrick Il
TaMara (HFG)
If anyone needs a distraction I put up an excerpt of the newest book. The editor just sent me the revisions – but still a draft (always a draft until the last page is written and edited, twice).
WaterGirl
@MJS: @Lapassionara:
Yesterday and last night I was anchored by the Jen O’Malley video, and even last night all was playing out as predicted. We had Wisconsin, as predicted, and we got Michigan, as she predicted.
I woke up feeling good and confident this morning.
But then AZ was less certain, and she had said they had flipped it, and then Nevada turns out closer than expected and it doesn’t feel like PA is closing the gap quickly enough.
So while I think we win it, if it’s that close in AZ and NV and PA, if everything came out close but we are on the wrong side, we could lose.
So while I still think we’ll win, I am feeling more unsettled and am no longer feeling certain that we have won.
Roger Moore
@mrmoshpotato:
American Idol can afford to be causal about their voting process because there’s nothing critical on the line. If their votes were as important as presidential votes, they’d have to take a lot more precautions to prevent cheating.
LurkerNoLonger
@Jean: I want NV and PA to come in one after the other. Like a one-two punch. One to Trump’s gut, the other to his balls.
Kent
Looks like the difference in PA dropped below 98,000 with the latest update. Still showing 92% of the count complete. When we got up this morning or went to bed last night I think it was at over 200,000 wasn’t it?
I have no idea what is actually happening, but I gotta think the smaller and redder counties are finishing up their outstanding ballots first and the big blue counties are going to take longer.
Kattails
I want competence and compassion. Right now we have neither. I was browsing one of my painting books at lunch, keeping my mind occupied, and the author was talking about learning the various components of mastery. He noted the path for learning virtually anything: Unconscious incompetence– conscious incompetence– conscious competence– unconscious competence. Trump has never moved beyond the first because he can’t criticize himself, can’t hear it from others. Everything he’s done in life has sadly failed at following any path of mastery.
Biden, on the other hand, has done the work, made mistakes, admitted them, learned from others, shared opinions and ideas even from those he disagrees with, taken the hits. He will go in, not perfectly because nothing is, but there are so many aspects of the job where he’s earned that “unconscious competence”. He also won’t be threatened by the earned skills of others–in fact he respects them. THAT is what will give him the edge in this awful situation.
Jean
@James E Powell: AP doesn’t seem scared. Other states have been called. Only reason could be they don’t want to make a call that puts Biden at 270 if other networks haven’t joined in to all AZ for Biden.
Kay
@Elie:
And everything’s compared to the absolute worst. “Don’t complain! You could be living in a dictatorship where they don’t HAVE elections!” I suppose that’s true but does that mean we can never expect even a barely functioning election process? That’s just a bridge too far?
They SO lower expectations you find yourself like “well, AT LEAST they didn’t pitch my ballot! I am grateful for that!”
Maybe we get such crap quality because we never insist on anything better.
Jean
@LurkerNoLonger: I can totally understand that; it would be a great finish!
Yarrow
Some good news.
Quinerly
@Cheryl Rofer: you’re right. Had on background. Didn’t read the chryon.
BTW, Biden to speak within next hr.
Baud
@Yarrow: Nice!
Geoduck
@SiubhanDuinne: I just hope that one of Biden’s first actions is to tell Barr to have his resignation on his desk by the end of yesterday.
TaMara (HFG)
Heads up, Biden is going to be speaking soon. I’ve updated up top
mrmoshpotato
Yeah. What’s up with that? SAD!
jl
My status report.
I sheltered in place and imposed a media black out on myself after polls closed on election day until mid-morning the day after. Then read the news and made some spreadsheets to figure out chances in the counts of remaining ballots. Looked good enough for 270 that I did not freak out too badly.
Jon Ralston was obviously rattled by NV, though I didn’t see it in my look at NV county numbers. So that was only thing that bothered me. Did he know worrisome stuff that he was not prepared to report?
Looks like we achieved the overriding goal, getting rid of dangerous president that threatened democracy. Damage incurred in getting there OK with me given the stakes. But how we got into such a desperate fix for this election needs to be looked into. Some of that was unavoidable given unexpected public health crisis, though I am worried that the approach taken by Dems may encourage the bad habits of their consultant poo-bahs in the future.
In terms of evaluating the forecast models, might be a good idea to wait until the final results are in before we pass judgement on the forecasts. Right now, I think we know enough about the results that the models did pretty good for president and senate, given the uncertainty in the data. House forecasts could end up being horrible to fine, depending on final results in the district races. I think we also know enough that the forecasting models that relied heavily on House district polls did the worst, but the Leantossup people are drowning in woe regret and deep apologies more than they need to. But very important to find out what went wrong with the House district polling.
Kay
@hitless:
I think this stuff corrodes our quality of life. It forces us to accept lower and lower standards.
I don’t believe in unnecessary pain. I don’t think it builds character. It’s just annoying and draining.
James E Powell
@Kent:
I haven’t kept track of the numbers other than the gap, so I don’t know ballots remaining.
I am, for reasons having nothing to do with reality, more anxious about this today.
Sideshow Bob
@FelonyGovt: I’m so sorry for her :(
Splitting Image
@Kent:
That’s true, but if you’re planning to win by ratfucking you get your ducks in a row months in advance. Arizona and Georgia may have been a surprise but everyone knew Trump had to retain Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Trump entrusted Michigan to a guy who has spent the last few months running around trying to interest the world in Hunter Biden’s laptop.
This seems sub-optimal.
patroclus
I’m getting the feeling that Philadelphia is about to report…
Baud
@WaterGirl: This is the first I heard that someone said AZ had flipped. I thought the news out of NV today was mostly good.
I heard an estimate earlier today that Biden would win PA by 200K but then I saw Ed Rendell estimated an 80K Biden win.
bemused
@Yutsano:
All over but the whining. So much whining.
Immanentize
I know there are some Spanberger fans here, but in this reporting, for one who just barely squeaked out her win, she sounds a little unhinged:
Quinerly
@hueyplong: there’s a cute meme going around with John McCain in a smoking jacket (shades of Hugh Hefner, oddly) drinking champagne/wine. “When Arizona ends up to be the tipping point tell Donald that I want him to know it was me.”
Baud
@James E Powell:
Haha. Me too.
Yutsano
Class is done. System I need to start work still not functional. Out of stuff to really catch up on. Still feeling good about Biden winning.
EDIT: Bidden? Really fingers?
patrick Il
@Kay: depending on who wins this election, that may end up being hollow optimism.
piratedan
@Kay: well Gin&Tonic and I sparred over this somewhat in the last thread regarding why, but I agree with his point (and yours) that it should be better. Like everything else in this country, better usually costs, we should have to have this process take days and I fully believe that most of us want it to be a timely, efficient process.
The will to make it so, and add in the fact that it’s so rewarding for the bad guys to make it less so is also glaringly obvious.
The networks love it, because they have political junkiedom enthralled for an entire week.
ArchTeryx
Well, feeling a lot less despondent than I was the night of the election. Getting the Orange Cockwhistle out of the White House may be half a loaf but damn it’s an artisan one. I just hope to heaven that if Biden wins (when Biden wins) he has some kind of a plan to deal with the buzzsaw that Mitch McConnell and the Lochner Court are going to take to ANY governing agenda at all.
ETA: Like the ACA being stuck down in the middle of a pandemic. Without the Senate, there will be no replacement coming any time soon so… what to do?
James E Powell
@Kay:
This is akin to the stories of people waiting in line for hours, sometimes in bad weather, and saying “This shows how great our democracy is!”
rikyrah
I am waiting.
Not every patiently. But, I am waiting.
This just….ugh…
Brachiator
@hueyplong:
Trump is behind in the vote count. I don’t see that stopping vote counting gets him anything. He cannot force states to certify results.
Calouste
Wasn’t the shitgibbon going to do a rant disguised as a press conference in Pennsylvania this morning?
Anyway, just noticed on the Guardian that he now hasn’t been seen for more than 24 hours,
pacem appellant
Somebody report something! I have to work today or otherwise I’d be on the Peloton at max resistance all day.
WaterGirl
I was horrified to read yesterday that 7% of the ballots that made it to the post office never made it to a place that could be counted.
7% is an amazingly large number. That alone could account for the polling be off by so much.
Yes, Republican legislatures caused this unnecessary waiting with their limitations on counting. And the Supreme Court put their hands on the scale, too, in ways which affect voting and counting, which is dead wrong because elections are run by the states.
It’s like I saw to my dogs: In or out, pick one.
I am sick of the Supreme Court and everyone who puts party and ideology above the rule of law – Just fucking pick a rationale and stick with it. It’s appalling that they are cherry picking everything, and doing the equivalent of “you have to count every vote here” but “you have to stop counting there.”
Fucking pick an ideology and stick with it. I am sick of morals and ethics being irrelevant to have of our elected officials. I can’t wait for Biden to win.
Baud
@jl:
He was confident, then rattled, and then last I heard, he was confident again. Ugh. So little real information.
Kay
Counted in a normal, sensible order, where you count the ones you got first, first instead of last. Or, of course, you can do it the dumb insane way that is a lot more slow and infuriating.
Bruce K
@Kay: Hell, Trump said the quiet parts out loud as to what the Republicans thought their advantage would be. Get the Election Day votes tallied, run up a lead, then stop the count and call the game on account of darkness. It’s a lot tougher to get votes thrown out if they’ve already been counted.
JoyceH
I’m feeling fairly zen. I’m almost certain that Biden’s got this. And I just realized a silver lining to this long count.
Remember right before the election when there were all those predictions of a landslide that would be declared early Tuesday evening? While that would have been nice, I had a concern about it. If the election had been called before midnight on Tuesday, the citizens of DC, and probably NYC and a number of other cities, would have spilled out into the streets for a wide spread delirious street party. That might be great in most circumstances, but these days that would make a bunch of superspreader events in those cities. Now when the call is made, I think most folk will go “whew” and pour themselves a drink. So the long count is probably saving lives in the long run.
TaMara (HFG)
This ass-kicking may make some of you feel better.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Baud: For what it’s worth, Sen. Bob Casey (yesterday?) estimated Biden to win PA by 100,000 votes. Presumably, he knows what he is talking about.
jl
But my nervousness index is unstable, I have to admit, until the initial counts getting Biden to 270 EVs are done. And that may take till the end of the week, dammitall.
patroclus
Pa. difference down to 96,224
zzyzx
The PA Dashboard says 340k votes still uncounted, 90+k of them in Philadelphia. I’m assuming some of what has been counted has not yet been reported.
https://www.votespa.com/About-Elections/Pages/Counting-Dashboard.aspx
TomatoQueen
Cheerful report from Pittsburgh:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/05/us/pittsburgh-steelers-allegheny-county-election-2020-trnd-spt/index.html
Some of my best friends are Steelers fans.
And, from what is undoubtedly a garden spot:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/05/politics/dog-mayor-rabbit-hash-kentucky-trnd/index.html
Normally I don’t bovver with CNN but it’s 4:27pm est on Guy Fawkes Day so any port in a storm…
Baud
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): Yes. 100K was sort of the figure I heard at first, but then I see these other estimates. All of the estimates involve healthy leads, but I don’t like thinking about the possibility of a downward trend.
zzyzx
@Baud: I see that as taking the data seriously so that doesn’t bother me.
Another Scott
@WaterGirl:
Cheers,
Scott.
raven
@JoyceH: Unless they don’t drink.
Kent
@WaterGirl: I don’t think it was 7% total. I think it was 7% of the ballots they handled on election day didn’t get delivered on time.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Kent: A friend volunteered to count votes in Montgomery County, PA. She worked Tuesday and yesterday but now she’s done. Here’s what she said not long ago:
Citizen Alan
@Roger Moore: American Idol voting. Jesus. IIRC, you vote by phone, get billed for each vote, and can vote as many times as you can afford. Small wonder that Republicans want voting to be that way.
Immanentize
@Redshift: That was very satisfying. Thank you!
natem
@Another Scott:
Genius
Kay
@Bruce K:
It just kills me that people are like “I’ve been waiting for days and I’m very anxious”. None of this was necessary. It’s purely voluntary pain and chaos. Isn’t there enough involuntary pain? We have to go out of way to make everything worse and then present it as a measure of how stoic we are?
WaterGirl
@Baud: Sorry I wasn’t clear. Jen O’Malley in the video YESTERDAY said very matter-of-factly that AZ had flipped to us.
But then more vote counting put that in doubt. The flipping reference was NOT saying it had flipped from Biden to Trump.
jl
@Kay: Important to remember that PA counting is taking so long because of uniquely depraved state legislature GOP. PA had one of the most rickety and dangerous voting systems, and the state GOP worked hard to keep it that way in the middle of pandemic, and a known danger of Trump trying to steal the election.
I have quite a few relatives in PA, spent some time there, and think the whole place is weird. Sorry if offend any PA commenters. So, of course PA would be especially messed up. Election-wise, PA is the FL of the northeast.
MomSense
@Immanentize:
I agree with her about the messaging. It cost us votes
Baud
@WaterGirl: Ok, whew.
rikyrah
@Immanentize:
I, um….don’t see why you’d have a problem with this.
She’s just telling the truth.
Defund the police was a phucking stupid label pushed by politically inept people.
And, I’m on the side of defunding the police.
But, I know that language counts, and this was a self-own that didn’t need to be.
I am left. Don’t consider myself moderate, let alone on the conservative part of our party. But, I don’t kid myself about Manchin or Spanberger. And, we shouldn’t do shyt that makes things harder for them to run.
MisterForkbeard
@Immanentize: I’ve interacted with some conservatives (and a few others recently) and I do think the “Defund the police” stuff hurt us overall.
A lot of folks are super outraged about it and don’t understand what it means, or that Biden supports a different kind of police reform. They might just be using as an excuse, but… <shrug>
zzyzx
@WaterGirl: I want to see today’s AZ update before I freak out too much. I saw reports from reliable people (at least they backed their information up with facts) that said that yesterday’s drop was especially Republican leaning and the other ones were 10 points more D leaning in terms of the voters’ registrations. I hope that’s right.
JPL
It’s going to be difficult for trump to catch up in AZ
AZ Presidential Election Results Biden (D): 50.48% (1,471,024 votes) Trump (R): 48.15% (1,403,118 votes)
95 percent in
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: DougJ’s trolling just doesn’t resonate with me. I sort of don’t get why people love it so much.
Roger Moore
@bemused:
The fat lady is warming up. The whiny orange baby is already in mid-aria.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Are the first three counties blue?
jl
@Baud: Maybe he made big claims about the Clark (Las Vegas) and Washoe (Reno) Dem firewalls. Then probably because of order of vote counting, they didn’t seem so fireproof for a while.
But the rural counties in NV just don’t have enough people to flip the result unless very low margin in the big city counties. Carson City only other big (for NV) urban place that could produce big GOP vote, and it was evenly split, from last numbers I saw.
And, as Ralston was panicking, some rural places in NV turned out to be surprisingly pro Dem.
Also, this election may have produced a non-insane state legislature, which has been a periodic problem for that state. We’ll see how that turns out. Edit: to clarify, insane (as in stark raving mad) and butt ignorant state legislatures have been a periodic problem in that state.
James E Powell
I did this, thought I’d share it for whatever it’s worth to anyone.
PA just did an update that added a total of 1898 votes: 1287 (67.8%) Biden, 611 (32.2%) Trump.
Total gap now 97,22
Don’t know total remaining to count, so can’t predict anything.
pacem appellant
@MisterForkbeard: Mushy centrists dems on FB that I know said the same thing, that the “defund the police” drove people into the arms of the GOP. I’m not buying it. It reeks of post hoc ergo propter hoc.
WaterGirl
@zzyzx: I am not freaking out.
I’m saying I went from “we’ve got this, it’s only a matter of time for it to play out, why is everybody still so nervous”
TO
“All the states in this endgame are very close, and it is possible for every state to land just on the other side of the line, and give Trump the win.”
So I’m no longer zen, sanguine, confident. But I am also not doing anything resembling freaking out.
I AM UNEASY.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
The way I read them, he’s calling B.S. on the FYFNYT by parodying their headlines.
Matt McIrvin
@pacem appellant: Spanberger is in Dave Brat’s former district–she has to be a centrist. She has to worry about anything that loses her some conservative-leaning support.
zzyzx
@James E Powell: God this is going to be sooooo close.
If Biden can take a lead of even 1 vote, then it’s over, but it just keeps slowly going down.
Kay
@jl:
I know they rigged it like this. I’m just frustrated that we once again are being asked to put up with malicious actors screwing things up deliberately. It’s not an obstacle course! You should be able to get voted and get it counted without it taking an entire week. You won’t be a better person at the end of this- you’ll be a more annoyed and frustrated person because once again the thing doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to.
I’m not blaming the pollworkers. I mean, we’ve succeeded in making that job a test of endurance too. There was no reason to- certain powerful people just felt like fucking with it, so they did.
debbie
@Roger Moore:
Even better than the whining will be the court opinions calling him on his bullshit.
Baud
@zzyzx: The predictions are that PA will not be that close. The lowest prediction I’ve seen is Biden by 80K.
WaterGirl
@debbie: I know that. I just don’t get the appeal.
Immanentize
@Quinerly: Why? Was he ordered to send troops to Iowa or something?
zzyzx
@WaterGirl: In that case is it OK if I freak out for the both of us?
My wife has been in complete, “It’s over. We lost” mode since yesterday, but that’s mainly because she doesn’t want to let herself hope and have it dashed.
WaterGirl
@zzyzx: You can freak out, but not in my name! :-)
Citizen Alan
@James E Powell: I know people who insist they finally decided to vote for Trump over Hillary because the BLM Mothers were allowed to speak at the DNC. They’re idiots, but they do say that. We have to confront the fact that after 150+ years, we still have a sizeable percentage of people in this country whose greatest fear is of John Brown rising from the dead to lead another slave revolt.
SiubhanDuinne
@Yarrow:
Oh, I’m so glad! I was really disheartened when it was reported that she’d lost. She’s really good, and I hope she’s in Congress for as long as she wants to do the job.
clay
@JoyceH: You know, my wife was very worried that in a Biden win, the Trumpers would take to the streets in an armed uprising.
I think the slow motion victory has helped with that: they went to bed Tuesday happy, and have seen their ‘victory’ slowly fade. It’s like boiling the frog; they are slowly getting used to being losers.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
Probably different for different people. For me, it’s the mockery of their pursed-lips compassion.
Suzanne
I feel like the other shoe is about to drop.
One of my new neighbors invited me to a socially distanced outdoor BYOA get-together for tomorrow evening “since we’ve all had a hard week”. Yes. Yes, we have.
zzyzx
WaterGirl
Biden speaking.
jl
@Kay: Thanks for amplifying. That was a not a comment meant to correct you. It was one of those general venting of grievances comments (which make this almost top 10,000 blog so wonderful), aimed at a lot of sloppy media reporting
patroclus
@Baud: For comparison purposes, Michigan is now showing a 150,000 Biden lead.
Benw
Pretty solid, all things considered
SiubhanDuinne
@Geoduck:
I believe Barr’s term as AG concludes at the precise moment that Biden’s term as President begins. No overlap.
Cheryl Rofer
@hueyplong: @Spanky: That’s the big speculation, that Trump has asked for troops to be sent in.
But in that case, Esper should have resigned already. The fact that he’s making known that he has a letter of resignation ready suggests that Trump hasn’t explicitly asked yet, just hinted, and this is Esper’s shot across the bow.
Baud
@patroclus:
Right. I thought PA would follow a similar path. And maybe it will. I don’t have a good handle on the numbers. I’m just going on the predictions of all the experts who think it’s only a matter of time.
James E Powell
@WaterGirl:
I am exactly where you are. The champagne is on ice because in my house there is always champagne on ice. But it is the refrigerator in the garage.
Geminid
@Immanentize: Unhinged? Sounds to me like Spanberger is sleep deprived. And she probably is.
Albatrossity
@WaterGirl: I had no sleep Tuesday night, awash with fear that I would find another four years of Trump in the news at dawn. But that didn’t happen. Yesterday was better, and sleep was possible last night. Today all of the wheels are turning in the right direction in not just AZ and NV, which would be enough to get the win. PA is just math; there are NO pro-Trump counties left with outstanding ballots, and even in the Trump-leaning counties the early ballots were heavily pro-Biden. Trump’s gonna lose PA.
And now Trump is bitching about fraud in GA, which tells me that somebody in that state (Kemp?) told him that he was losing. Flop sweat, for sure.
Roger Moore
@Citizen Alan:
It’s not American Idol, but I like to tell the story of how Dancing With The Stars helped open some of my coworkers’ eyes politically. Back in the late 2000s, a group of my Chinese immigrant coworkers were huge DWTS fans. They would obsess about it over lunch, talk about the latest episode, and generally became obsessed about it. When they put on Bristol Palin, a whole bunch of her mom’s fans because instant followers and would vote for her no matter how awfully she performed.
My coworkers were pissed. One in particular complained about how the “Teabaggers” were messing up her favorite show. I mentioned that she should probably call them “Tea Partiers” rather than “Teabaggers” because the latter had a second, sexual meaning. She made a point of calling them “Teabaggers” in a way that emphasized she knew it was rude from that point on. As a group, they suddenly and dramatically recognized that the Republicans were all about tribalism rather than policy, and they were never going to be part of the tribe.
Mike in NC
Washington Post right now: Result Could Come As Soon As Today
Baud
@Mike in NC: Well, they can’t come any sooner than that.
jimmiraybob
The “Election Protection Briefing” video that was shared here yesterday was a big help for me. I didn’t get the sense that they were bullshitting just to put lipstick on a pig. They seemed truly confident and kept citing data rather than the fever dreams of s deluded lunatic. Biden also reflected that positivity this afternoon and sounded Presidential tone. If AZ holds up, and it looks like it will, and Nevada comes in for Biden-Harris, then everything else will be icing on the legitimacy cake.
It’s been a long 4 years. I think that I’ll hold up until it can be confidently called.
Thanks JC and the whole BJ team and family.
I’m under no illusion that the narcissistic conman psychopath in chief will fade away quietly but I am hoping the legal actions he will be facing will blunt the avalanche of lies and BS.
Progress and not regress…..for a while anyway.
raven
@Mike in NC: I could win the lottery too.
MomSense
In other freak out news, one of my coworkers just got a negative test result (she’s been out for three days and no one told us why until now) and our Governor issued a mandatory mask order. We have had our highest New Covid cases in the last week and hospitalizations are going up.
Fucking bars and churches and Trump rallies screwed us.
GoBlueInOak
@jl: I am PA born and raised – and completely agree.
PA is in Top 10 of percentage total population that is seniors. And they can be as bitter and racist as Florida seniors. If anything, they are seniors who didn’t have the financial resources or wherewithal to move to Florida to retire.
Added to the mix is a local culture proud to be jagoffs.
Baud
@MJS:
That’s no good. I have a reputation to uphold.
RinaX
@rikyrah: Agreed. The “defund the police” slogan is easily one of the dumbest things to come out of this cycle.
LeeM
@SiubhanDuinne: Or, keep him around for a week or two of debriefing. Good to know where the skeletons lie. I would assume the Biden team will get fully briefed on which of Trump’s apparatchiks have been moved into government.
TiredOfItAll
Maybe someone has already made this reference: You know that scene at the end of the Harry Potter movie where all the Slytherin flags are flying over the house banquet and then Dumbledore gets up and announces more points for Gryffindor and says “Assuming that my calculations are correct, I believe a change of decoration is in order” and then all the Slytherin flags change color to Gryffindor flags…..
MJS
@Citizen Alan: So they’re racists, and are never going to vote for a Democrat anyway.
We need to stop believing the things these people say. If the words “defund the police” and “socialist” had never been uttered, there would have been some other language that offended the “potential Dem voters” so much that they just had to vote for Trump and his enablers. They come up with excuses to make themselves appear less racist. We shouldn’t buy it.
Put another way, “defund the police” pales in comparison to the thousands of things Trump and other Republicans have said that should have “turned off” these people of alleged good conscience. This is pretext, pure and simple.
Matt McIrvin
@SiubhanDuinne: Yes, isn’t it common practice for the political appointees at the top to be cleared out the moment the new administration begins?
sdhays
@WaterGirl: I don’t consider that trolling. I consider it mocking the FTFNYT.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@MomSense: I was hoping I wasn’t the only one. She shouldn’t be shouting it, she should be more thoughtful and tactical, but she’s right
@rikyrah: yup. To take another example: I, personally, would probably implement a single payer plan if I were Benign Omnipotent Emperor of the United States. If I were running for office, I would never say that. Because if I were ever to run for office, I would want to win.
Suzanne
I will say that I am enjoying the fact that Uday and Qusay are apparently really upset.
Woodrow/asim
@jl: Yeah, Ralston losing confidence was…not great. He knows really well how to interpret the NV data sets to understand how that state’ll vote.
I think that’s a clear sign it wasn’t just polling off. There’s something about this election — something legit, no conspiracy here — that was bone-deep not part of the standard electoral patterns we’ve been running for decades now. I’m not going to speculate what that is, or why, because I recall the 2016 post-election speculation and a lot of that early discussion was WRONG WRONG WRONG.
I will say this. That Selzer was about the only polling firm who even came close to capturing the reality on the ground — and that just in Iowa — is, I expect, going to be a major point, going forward.
Bill Arnold
@Yarrow:
I’m looking for/wondering about explanations for large differences in polling error.
e.g. Minnesota, polling average hit Biden’s win percentage very closely. In Wisconsin, off by 7 percent.
fivethirtyeight.com still has polls, e.g. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/wisconsin/
jl
One good sign, if only in that it keeps chances of an election steal low, is that more signs are coming in that the GOP has decided that the usefulness of this jackass they’ve had to put up with for 4 years is over. And that seems to include most of the Trump judges, who don’t want to damage their reactionary project going forward by destroying their reputations by not throwing toxic nonsense nuisance lawsuits out of court. I hope that trend is real and continues.
Bad news is that GOP will move to more competent execution of their very disastrous plans.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Bring Your Own…. Ale? Appetizers?
Peale
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Alsatians.
Another Scott
@WaterGirl: I thought you might get a chuckle out of it, but I know too well that humor is a very personal thing.
For me, I enjoy it because FTFNYT is so obviously bad at this type of thing. And, if anything, DougJ is too gentle on them about it.
;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
MJS
@MomSense: Respectfully disagree. Not one person truthfully said, “You know, I wasn’t going to vote for the piece of trash in the White House whose mishandling of a pandemic has led to 200,000 deaths, but some supporters of the other guy, but not the other guy himself, have some off the wall ideas, so I better stick with the piece of trash.” They were never going to vote for Biden, or any other Democratic candidate.
patroclus
Pennsylvania difference now 90, 542.
jl
I did hear an interview with a Trump supporter who seemed sane and rational, willing to accept a Biden win, who seemed to speak in good faith. I was driving and had a hard time keeping control of my vehicle. Given the shock, I think I did pretty well staying in my lane.
Suzanne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Bring your own ALCOHOL.
MisterForkbeard
@pacem appellant: I will say that some people really are just super fucking outraged about Defund the Police.
A local restaurant here (in the bay area) had ACAB signs and “Defund the Police” and “Black Lives Matters” signage. A local conservative person had a confrontation with them about it and the owners basically didn’t respect them at all, and now we’re seeing people from all over the state trashing them on social media and so on. These folks are REALLY on fire about it, and think that criticizing the police is “promoting hate”.
When the store owners updated to say that their minority employees had asked them to take the signs down because the store was getting threats and they didn’t feel safe, the same people yelled at them for not having any convictions so it proved they were all about BLM for… the money?
Regardless, it triggered a bunch of people, some of whom were ostensibly moderate.
Baud
@MJS:
I don’t know what impact Defund the Police actually had, but the notion that messaging (or in this case, perceived messaging) has no impact on voters’ decisions does not seem very plausible.
Subsole
Oh, holding up okay.
Mild fog of zen, interspersed with moments of paralyzing terror. And also, somehow, so incredibly bored with the whole damn thing already.
So, better than Tuesday.
Very, very grateful to have this place with y’all.
patroclus
Pa. difference now 90,566.
Bill Arnold
@Bill Arnold:
There was also the sort of out of context Trump statement 2 AM-ish Nov 4 “We were winning everything and all of the sudden it was just called off.” – at the point things that night were “called off” (and people went to sleep :-), Biden was in the lead. So maybe he was slipping and saying something else. :-)
Which is a long-winded way of saying that the Biden camp and their proxies needs a ready stockpile of election fraud allegations if the Trump (false) accusations get totally out of control and start to get traction. Stuff like disenfranchising felons in Florida, too many mail-in ballots discarded (some improperly), etc, are helpful but allegations of straight-up real-time election fraud can be useful.
Immanentize
@MomSense: Then she needs to control HER messaging. Republicans are always going to take the voices of minorities and shove them down voters’ throats. Every time. The more we whimper, the worse off we are. I get every district is different, but she needs to run her race, others need to run theirs. If a person in a safe D district, which happens to be majority minority, needs to say “Black lives matter, Socialism! Defund the police!” To win, it should not be up to the white conservative candidates elsewhere to tell them how to run their campaigns. Except white candidates think that is their special right.
jl
@Baud: I think way too soon to evaluate claims like that. In any case, no point in complaining about it. Self-righteous lefties who like strident slogans on one side, and people like DiFi on the other, are both part of the party, and they say and do odd and counterproductive things. Can’t get rid of them in the short run, so part of Dem leaderships’ job is to figure out how the manage their political zoo.
Fair Economist
@jl:
One thing about House district polling is that it’s concentrated in competitive districts, which tends to be suburban better-educated districts, because they were the ones that were shifting the most out of gerrymanders, and they *did* shift pretty hard for us. It was a biased sample for the whole country.
R-Jud
@Suzanne: I want to see DJTJr cry on live TV. Just stand there blubbering.
jimmiraybob
Which one is the smart one again? I keep getting them confused.
James E Powell
Again, I have no idea what the remaining numbers are, but since 1:15, PA has added
22,334 votes
14,846 (66.47%) Biden
7488 (33.52%) Trump
We need to keep this up for about 300K more or so ballots
I think there might also be a difference between ballots left to be counted and votes left to be reported. There may be a time lag between those two.
jl
@Fair Economist: I think that is true overall. in TX and FL they may have been overoptimistic for districts with many Hispanics, especially when averaged over disparate communities. We’ll see after the dust settles.
Edit: I think it’s important to look at idea that GOP voters could reject Trump but come on home for downticket races. They couldn’t do that in 2018. I don’t know if that is true, but reasonable enough to look at carefully.
Edit2: and that may be case where stated intentions didn’t match partisan instinct closer to the election.
Immanentize
@rikyrah: But who actually said that in campaigns for the House? I am curious.
If one person caught on tape says “F— the police,” that will be the message in every Republican piece of literature from state level to the president. It is NOT something that can be controlled.
Baud
@Immanentize:
Maybe that’s what she’s doing by criticizing the slogan. Gets her props by the right-leaning voters in her district.
Kristine
@Yarrow: That is good news. I should’ve remembered when I posted yesterday that there were still ballots outstanding.
Immanentize
@MisterForkbeard: It hurts conservative Dems! True! How do we control the language of rage on the streets? Or do we have a baseline what is best for conservative Dems standard? Is that the party default? And on the converse, I am no radical.
Yarrow
@MomSense: I agree as well. It’s terrible messaging. The idea is good but the slogan sounds scary and like they want people to be without any law enforcement. When you’re explaining you’re losing.
Immanentize
@pacem appellant: agree
Geminid
@MJS: you may not think that the “Defund the police” messaging swayed any voters. But the republicans sure thought so, because they pounded it incessantly. The republicans were lying, but I think the message worked, and that’s one reason we’re sweating this election out.
zzyzx
@James E Powell: I’d like that gap to widen a few points to closer to 70, but hopefully the Philly votes haven’t dropped yet.
Suzanne
@jimmiraybob:
Assumes facts not in evidence.
2liberal
I guess controlling the Senate comes down to a double runoff in GA.
Please correct me if wrong
I hope Stacey Abrams gets everyone voting and that all the Trump cultists stay home!
Immanentize
@Matt McIrvin: So work harder in your district! Improve constituent services. Show up to everything. Do right by your voters. Quit hectoring other members of Congress for action on the very same motivation.
Suzanne
@zzyzx: Gap in which direction?!
Lord this is terrible. I have been breaking out all week.
Gin & Tonic
@jimmiraybob: Neither.
MJS
@Baud: Sorry, I just don’t believe there were any true persuadable voters in this election, at least not for President. As far as Spanenberger is concerned, if she was being labeled with “defund the police” and “socialism”, and was unable to counter those labels, since she was a supporter of neither, then that seems to be a problem with her messaging and campaign. Again, if it wasn’t those specific terms, it would have been something else that would have been used as excuse not to vote for the Democrat. We need to stop worrying about every little thing said by a Democrat or Democratic supporter, to appease people who won’t be flipped, and instead focus on getting new voters (young people, people who’ve never voted, etc.).
Just my two cents
ByRookorbyCrook
Defund the Police was just a bad slogan. It needs to be explained too much and is easy to be demonized. That said, Spanberger needs to pull on the big girl pants and realize she will be cast as the next incarnation of Stalin as long as she is a Dem. At no point, will she not have a storm of attack ads rolling over her. That is the long and short of it. She will be the best friend of the ‘Squad’ and coming to drink the blood of the unborn. Defund the Police was an easy attack ad, but it was just as easy to have an ad with Nosferatu Pelosi over her shoulder.
Another Scott
@Immanentize:
BlueVirginia’s take.
FWIW.
My $0.02 – 1) Teh Socialist lost the nomination. 2) Defund the Police isn’t party policy. 3) Spahnberger is smart and tough but she has to realize the party is a big tent, and the base has reasons for wanting to push the country left. 4) Arguing about the path forward is important and appropriate, but it should be done in a sensible way. 5) If it weren’t Defund the Police, it would have been something else. They make stuff up (“Warnock eats pizza with a fork and knife!”). Messaging matters and can always be better, but the other side always gets a vote.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@jl:
In just the last week, we had Bernie Sanders and Claire McCaskill solemnly agreeing with very different leading questioners (Seth Meyers and Brian Williams respectively) on the notion that Democrats have forgotten regular working people. I’m a dumb guy who couldn’t win an election in his own house, and I live alone, and my first thought to both Williams and Meyers was “Democrats have spent the last fifteen years realizing the hundred year old goal of expanding affordable health care to working Americans. Democrats have been fighting for more than a generation to increase the earned income tax credit. Democrats want to make quality higher education accessible for students whose parents can’t casually write checks for $25,000 a year…..”
Immanentize
@Geminid: Actually I agree. And I am no Tlaib fan, but Rep. T. Seemed to be sweet in answer but also firm
Bill Arnold
@2liberal:
Or (if 51R-49D) death of a R Senator in a state where the replacement could be a D, or Biden nominating a sitting R Senator for a cabinet position, or a R Senator switching to the party of sanity, or…
Old R Senators are often very careless about SARS-CoV-2 infection-probability-reduction measures. McConnell is looking ill despite his protestations, etc.
Point is, it’s a continuous fight. E.g. remember how the Rs prevented Al Franken from being seated.
Immanentize
@MomSense: negative or positive??
pacem appellant
@MisterForkbeard: Is there a way out this? I actually want to defund the police (I’m in the bay area too). But did anyone get extra outraged at “Defund the Police” so much so that they were going to vote Blue but just couldn’t if that meant (in their mind) kicking the boys in blue? Or was it just the same people who found another reason to punch the hippies they’ve been punching for five decades now?
Turnout this election is crazy high. The Dem message (both its conservative and liberal wings) got people out in record numbers, so I think that means “Defund the Police” and “Unite for a better future” (gag) got people off their duffs and to the polls. It’s just that the GOP was good at getting their deplorables out, too.
jl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: If those where the questions, whether Dems have been working for the working class or not, then both the crusading lefty and the crabbed and crabby centrist whiffed the answers, IMHO.
Miss Bianca
@Kay: Preach it, Kay. We need to be battering people with this message until all Republicans have been rendered flatter than hammered shit.
TiredOfItAll
@Yarrow above said “When you’re explaining you’re losing.” So so true. It doesn’t matter what the slogan really means, whether “defund the police” or “socialism”. The vast majority of folks won’t look past the scary slogan to its meaning. And in four years if the Dems put up a woman (better yet a black woman), many folks won’t look past the image to the substance. Dems need marketing geniuses for 2022 mid-terms and 2024
zzyzx
@James E Powell: OK I feel better about those numbers now that Nate posted that those 67/33 difference happened in mostly red counties in PA. The Philly area is closer to an 80/20 split!
Immanentize
@Baud: Seth Moulton
Baud
@zzyzx: whew.
SiubhanDuinne
@Matt McIrvin:
Yes, AFAIK. But I am not an lawyer.
Baud
@Immanentize: What about him?
Bill Arnold
@ByRookorbyCrook:
Pretty sure it was being amplified vigorously by … non-progressive operatives. Haven’t seen an analysis yet though and haven’t done one.
zzyzx
@Baud: 67/33 would still do it, but with a lot less room for error. I have it at 62% or so needed for Biden.
Baud
@zzyzx:
I want buffer.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
also, Nate Silver trolls his fellow quant, which is becoming a trend in Wasserman’s twitter feed
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: That one I appreciate!
zzyzx
@Baud: so do I, but I’ll take a couple hundred at this point!
Still 120k just in Philly and Pittsburgh and another 40k in the Philly burbs so I’m keeping my fingers crossed, and hoping Ed Rendell and the Biden camp have their numbers right!
Omnes Omnibus
@TaMara (HFG): OMG! That’s just embarrassing.
James E Powell
@zzyzx:
That explains why the chunks were so small.
Miss Bianca
@pacem appellant: Yeah, well, I have heard nothing BUT shit about Black Lives Matter out here in the sticks (“Rioters! In the streets! Looters! Police-haters! OMG!”) and I tried to argue with some of these folks what “Defund the Police” meant, but their minds were already made up. And the uniformity of the pushback messaging suggests to me that Fox and OANN had a fucking field day scare-mongering their viewers with all of the above. So, yeah…”Defund the Police”? Great idea, fucking horrible branding.
Nora Lenderbee
@Quinerly:
Hee hee.
Immanentize
@Miss Bianca: I’m sorry that was your experience. And I actually agree that, political campaign-wise (which is really the glue of this blog, the slogan hurts. I know it. But,
1) criminal justice reform is my area of advocacy. At all sorts of levels. The way that ‘defund the police’ has pissed people off, it has also been a motivator — as we see in the political realm — for communities. Legislatures, county commissions, etc. to account for police budgets. Everybody can agree that no one wants to defund the police — but what about the millions that police abuse lawsuits cost tax payers? The slogan has pushed that discussion more than any protest or egghead idea or research paper I have seen in my career. I hate it! I am for it!
2) what is the preferred substitute slogan that does as much work? Marketing experts? Beuhler?
jl
@zzyzx: “67/33 would still do it, but with a lot less room for error. I have it at 62% or so needed for Biden.”
For the record, I’ve never been so pessimistic as to suggest it has to be Baud 6733!!
Miss Bianca
@Immanentize: I believe “Reform the Police” sounds both less threatening and more accurate. YMMV
Immanentize
@Miss Bianca: that doesn’t make you yawn? Reform usually ends up meaning, “training.”
jl
@Miss Bianca: It’s a weird problem, and I don’t know the answer.
Very few people, including most police themselves, argue that police should be in schools trying to be psych counselors calming down 10 year olds, or deciding whether a kid should go the principle’s office, or have the parents called. But how to slogan that? I don’t know.
Winston
Just looked at GA. Almost all of the red counties are in, with a lot of blue outstanding around Atlanta and Savannah. The margin is 9500 votes. Looking good.
Immanentize
@jl: in the end, one doesn’t slogan that. This is my political campaign focus point. One must bring attention to that issue which is really hurting kids in schools. So, bang on the friggin door! Politicians be damned.
I guess “Police OUT (of our schools)” is one possibility.
Miss Bianca
@Immanentize: I’m not looking for excitement in the slogans I’m using to persuade people to take a look at my “radical” ideas. Quite the opposite, in fact.
ETA: For example, in my community, most people are fucking THRILLED that there’s now a sheriff’s deputy permanently assigned to the school. It appalls me, but if I start saying “Defund the Police!” to these parents, or “Police out of Schools!” they will look at me like I’m fucking nuts. They don’t see any problem with it. They see it as PREVENTING problems. The fact that their unquestioning support for gun-humping and tacit support for domestic and social violence is what is actually threatening their kids in school just sails over their heads. So, am I trying to reach these folks with a slogan, or am I trying to whip up a lefty faithful that just doesn’t really exist in numbers here?
Immanentize
@Miss Bianca: This is my very original point — all politics is in fact local. It is not really the chore of one locality to dictate the needs of another. Unless, of course, the whole (party?) agrees over time by some consensus process. What works where you are would be awful where I am and vice versa. But consensus does develop. I cannot image a Dem who is against abortion and/or single sex marriage today. But that wasn’t close to true even 15 years ago and back then many elected Dems were saying “Never mention gays! It is losing me votes!”
ETA. I love you even more than I did earlier today.
WaterGirl
@Immanentize: I thought “reform” meant a committee to discuss the possible formation of a committee to think about possibly making some changes.
jl
@WaterGirl: blue ribbon! the bluer, the better.
Immanentize
@WaterGirl: Sadly, yes.
Miss Bianca
@Immanentize: Aw, shucks. Same back at ya.
But *ahem* *harumph* back to the point – maybe I missed something crucial, but I figured Spanberger was yelling at her local Democratic Party apparatus for faulty messaging for her district. Was that not the case?
Ooh, I guess I *could* do some of my own research, but I’m to the point of exhaustion where I just want to be spoon-fed my data, not go hunting and gathering it on my own!//
Geminid
@Immanentize: I may not be a Rashida Tlaib fan, but I respect her as a hard worker, and she rightfully promotes the interests of her constituents, who are among the poorest in this country. Terry Sewell (D-AL) serves a lot of economically disadvantaged people as well. They may be in different wings of the standing coalition that is the Democratic Party, but as long as those wings work together, the party can achieve meaningful progress. Spanberger was venting, and I wish she had time to explain what she meant by getting “back to basics.” Maybe she will. But it was moderate Democratic candidates who won the majority in 2018, and we should listen to them with an open mind, because people like Chrissy Houlihan and Elise Slotkin represent the Democratic “base” as much as do Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jaime Raskin.