2020 US election - The fat lady is warming up in the wings

[Labster]

I'll make the obvious joke, then:

Don't get taken in by cheap Parler tricks!

[Bob Schroeck]

Oooh, I hadn't thought of that one. There was lower-hanging fruit that Geth had set up.

[Bob Schroeck]

Emily Murphy at the GSA has given in to reality and has begun the transition between administrations.

EDIT: Oh, ans she's claiming she didn't do it earlier "out of fear of favoritism" and claims the rules for how the process starts are "vague and need to be updated". (Translation from Republicanese: "I couldn't keep Biden out of the White House without getting in trouble with the law. That law needs to be changed.")

Amazingly, Trump did not rant and rage at her on Twitter, and in fact thanked her and confirmed the start of the transition. I wonder who actually sent the message, because it was calm, dignified, diplomatic and well-spoken -- all things Trump has never been known for, especially when someone is effectively calling him a loser.

[robkelk]

Reuters' version of the same story indicates the delay was because there were still outstanding issues until now. I suspect it wasn't a coincidence that the authorizing letter was sent the same day that Michigan certified Biden's win in that state.

[Jinx999]

Amazingly, Trump did not rant and rage at her on Twitter, and in fact thanked her and confirmed the start of the transition. I wonder who actually sent the message, because it was calm, dignified, diplomatic and well-spoken -- all things Trump has never been known for, especially when someone is effectively calling him a loser.

I did notice that he didn't tweet at all Monday morning. He usually puts out quite a bit of vitrol and defiance with his morning coffee.

[Bob Schroeck]

And flashing back several messages, the movement to not vote for the GOP at all is picking up some steam, with a group tied to GOP dirty trickster Roger Stone encouraging voters to stay away from the run-offs. It's apparently to "punish" Georgia Republicans for not subverting the Constitution in favor of Trump.

[Bob Schroeck]

Amazingly, Trump did not rant and rage at her on Twitter, and in fact thanked her and confirmed the start of the transition.  I wonder who actually sent the message, because it was calm, dignified, diplomatic and well-spoken -- all things Trump has never been known for, especially when someone is effectively calling him a loser.

I did notice that he didn't tweet at all Monday morning. He usually puts out quite a bit of vitrol and defiance with his morning coffee.

Apparently he wrested his cell phone back from whatever operative has been holding onto for the last couple days, because he just spewed out another storm of rants, including an apparent backtrack on the GSA certification and retweeting some bizarre videos from Randy Quaid.

[Norgarth]

Maybe he's decided if he can't escape the pending criminal charges via a second term, he'll try 'for an insanity plea instead? ;P

[hazard]

Unlikely to succeed, and even if it did succeed it would, for him, mean confinement for the rest of his life in a psychiatric facility.

[GethN7]

Guys, I get it, you hate Trump, to the point it verges on the physical, but do yourselves a favor and consider something, even if Biden wins.

The other side is going to expect you all you to be venomously hateful, insufferably smug bastards whose contempt will have a physical force, and if you prove them right, getting them to accept a Biden win will be harder if you play up to their expectations.

The smarter thing to do is be exceedingly gracious in victory and deny the other side anything that might stoke their fires. If you do that, reality will set in quicker for them since you are not helping them be continually blind to anger and you might avoid most of them becoming even more rabidly hateful then they expect their enemies.

Just keep that in mind even if you win. Being an asshole winner is no better than being a sore loser, and in this case, being an asshole winner is just going make the losers even more sore, and that helps no one.

[Jinx999]

Biden is being a moderate centralist and is reaching out and being concilatory towards the republican voters.

I'm, personally, fairly strongly right by British standards, a strong supporter of the free market, distrust of government and rule of law, and am within reasonable distance of P.J. O'Rourke.

Trump has always lacked any real conservative virtues, is a towering ass and hypocrite, placed populist economics ahead of the general benefit, doesn't want any constraints on government (i.e. his) power, shown contempt for any laws that protect other people from people like him and has managed to drag a lot of the Republican party with him to the point that I'm generally disgusted.

And he's now playing dog in the manger with the election in a staggering contempt for democracy because he cannot face up to the fact that a lot of people really don't like him. His behaviour is clearly and literally a kick in the teeth for the entire basis for the United States, that "We, the People" have a right to kick the bastards out if we don't like them.

I believe in the virtues of the old Republican party, but Trumpery is a cancer and the sensible Republicans need to face up to the fact that the party needs chemotherapy, even though it will hurt and make them feel bad, if they want the Grand Old Party to live and not turn into a twisted mockery of itself.

[hazard]

Geth, for those who aren't on the American definition of centrist-to-right politics, the most recent presidential election was a choice between two undesirable options. Trump was just the much more undesirable option.

As such, plenty of people will neither be gracious victors nor sore losers. They will feel, with cause mind you, that like for the past decades they did not get to play at all. They will not act with smug contempt, nor venomous hate. They will simply demand of Joe Biden the same things they demanded of Donald Trump, and Barack Obama, and George Bush, and Bill Clinton and so forth, and while they'll get the occasional bone thrown their way, they know Joe will fail to deliver.

He has always failed to deliver. His Congressional record is clear on that.

[GethN7]

Geth, for those who aren't on the American definition of centrist-to-right politics, the most recent presidential election was a choice between two undesirable options. Trump was just the much more undesirable option.

As such, plenty of people will neither be gracious victors nor sore losers. They will feel, with cause mind you, that like for the past decades they did not get to play at all. They will not act with smug contempt, nor venomous hate. They will simply demand of Joe Biden the same things they demanded of Donald Trump, and Barack Obama, and George Bush, and Bill Clinton and so forth, and while they'll get the occasional bone thrown their way, they know Joe will fail to deliver.

He has always failed to deliver. His Congressional record is clear on that.

Well, to be honest, you have a good point there. At the same time, I still stand by my contention even if one side loses this round, then their opponents should make the hard fall have a soft landing. Just because both sides may be getting screwed doesn't mean either side should grind in the glass for the other side, the political landscape is already polarized enough.

[hazard]

Geth, you aren't getting it.

There aren't two sides to US politics. US politics pretends there are two sides, and deliberately tries to exclude every other voice.

[GethN7]

Geth, you aren't getting it.

There aren't two sides to US politics. US politics pretends there are two sides, and deliberately tries to exclude every other voice.

George Washington had hoped politics could stand above factionalism, but before he left office there were already becoming the norm.

Forgive me, but I'm not cynical enough to believe we don't even have the illusion of opposing views.

[hazard]

Nope, still not getting it.

Although it could be argued that right now in power are the parties of corpocrats and bought corpocrats, the reality is that the USA population does not believe in (just) corpocrats or bought corpocrats, but because of the way politics is structured in the USA only two parties can ever exist to the point of relevance. It's not that there's only two voices, or just one voice. It's that there are a dozen possible parties as well as the current ones, but politics deliberately excludes the parties and thus voices that are not in power. And it does so at every level of government.

[classicdrogn]

The current election cycle demonstrated that pretty clearly - a vote for anyone but Biden was a vote for Florida Man, and a vote for anyone but the cheeto was a vote for Biden. And yes, I am vindictive and hateful, because if it only takes a generation to undo the ruin of America's reputation and alliances it'll be a miracle, and at least two for the internal divisiveness in the best (non "shoot 'em all and let the survivors figure it out," and the fact that is even remotely plausible is the top of my list of reasons) case.

[robkelk]

Looking in from the outside, we've known this to be true for decades.

Put north at the top of a map of the lower-48, and we see that the right-wing goes to the right-hand coast (DC) while the left-wing goes to the left-hand coast (Hollywood) because the system is rigged so that they can't get into the right-hand coast and what the left-hand coast offers is the only way for them to have a voice.

That's been the case for longer than I've been alive, and I'm looking at retirement-and-pension in less than a decade.

[Labster]

I'm a low level official in the Democratic party -- really only the alternate to a member of the county party, but I'm also a Rules Committee chairman so I have a bit more sway than most alternates.  The two party system is so endemic to the American way of thinking that I haven't really even considered which issues I'd be championing -- which group I'd want to join -- if we had a functional multiparty democracy.

I think I might be a moderate?  I mean, not an American moderate, a European moderate.  I watched Borgen, and honestly The Moderates seem pretty cool, though that may be a side effect of them being the protagonists.  The only ones who straight up turned me off were the Freedom Party (for many of the reasons Trump is repellent).  I mean, heck, I can't make up my mind which faction I'd join in SMAC.  I mean, University seems cool, but I do care a lot about classical liberalism, so maybe the Peacekeepers?  But we do need a strong economy, maybe Morgan, but no, think of the mindworms, gotta go Gaian.  Or maybe a religious society sounds nice too?  The only ones I don't empathize with are the Hive (individuality is a good thing) and Sparta (fuck off, stop attacking me assholes).

Meanwhile the two-party system has divided our country into two giant tribes that hate each other.  And Dianne Feinstein isn't going to be Chair or Ranking Member of the Senat Judiciary Committee because of her public displays of bipartisanship, which were frankly gross and something that should only be done in private.

[Black Aeronaut]

I wouldn't know myself, Labster.

For my part, I believe that all public services should be socialist programs at all levels of the government (what level depends on the scope), and my idea of public services includes not only schools, hospitals, and infrastructure, but also electric, water, and telecom (ISP) services.  (And no one dare say that Internet Service is not a critical need in today's society - we may not have flying cars, but the future is definitely here.)

I'd also like to see other economic reforms.  Corporations should not be "persons".  They can have representation the same way labor unions do (I really like how they do things in the Nordic System), but otherwise I don't believe they should be receiving handouts.  If a company is gonna fail, then let it fail - they obviously made some very poor choices.  I do feel, however, that the government should help brake the fall as much as possible by providing welfare assistance to the former employees and retraining opportunities so they can pursue a different career.

And there should be a minimum living wage.  Though I'd caveat that it should be set at the municipal level, and the only regulation from above that is that it meets with the cost of living demands in that area.  As well as whether or not you're an adult, and how many dependents you have.  Because, for real, the people themselves are the greatest resource of any country - anyone that says otherwise is selling snake oil.

Oh, and can we PLEASE do something about the housing market!?  For fucks sake, homes are supposed to be LIVED IN.  If people keep jacking up the prices of houses everywhere, then pretty soon every goddamn city is gonna be like Cupertino.  How would I fix it?  Mandate that a house must be held in ownership for a minimum of ten years before they sell it again.  Seriously, if these people wanna make money on housing, then maybe they should start renting them out at reasonable prices.

I'd also like to see the government thoroughly secularized, with only a basic moral code everyone can agree on to guide lawmaking and judgment.  Sure, it'll take on shades of the Ten Commandments, but I'd crack skulls if needs be if people insist that women have no rights to their reproductive abilities.  Oh, and the government will have no right to dictate the lifestyle choices of people.  Nor will any religion or quasi-religious entity.  They can deny membership, but the moment their congregations start to discriminate outside the walls of their houses of worship, then it's time to put them down.  Because, let's face it, so long as no harm is being done, then it's not your god-fucking-damned business.

I wouldn't know where this puts me in European politics, but around here some people (Read: Republicans) think I'm a raving lunatic.

[hazard]

Left to center left, BA.

[DHBirr]

One of Windrip's lawyers, Jenna Ellis, tweeted a meme image of a Theodore Roosevelt "quote" which has, in fact, been rated as "No evidence that he EVER said that."  Then she defended doing so by saying that even if it weren't anything he actually ever said, the idea was true (and, demonstrating that she's a StormTrumper, she misspelled idea "ifea"). 

A number of Twitter users then ripped her up, down, and sideways with their own "misattributed" quotes, including of Jenna Ellis declaring herself to be an "embarrassment to the legal profession" ... even if she never actually said that, the idea is true.  "You're right, Jenna, THIS IS FUN!"

Edit:  It was pointed out to me later that one of those mocking her is Theodore Roosevelt V, TR's great-grandson.

-----
I'm a very forgiving person ... on Lord Vader's terms.  "Apology accepted, Captain."

[robkelk]

Left to center left, BA.

And Canadians would call you left to far-left - but we have a reasonably-successful political party for these views.

As for empty houses, Vancouver charges a much higher property tax if a house isn't lived in by the owner or a renter. That might be worth a look elsewhere.

[robkelk]

she misspelled idea "ifea"

Are you sure she didn't mean "IKEA"? You know, cheap and falls apart if you put too much load on it, but some people think it looks pretty.

[Jinx999]

Sidney told such dreadful lies,
it made lawyers sigh and roll their eyes.
The spelling’s trash, the claims are worse.
To make the judge who reads it curse.
“To answer this mindless screed,
I find I must refer to Meads.”
The President, who from his earliest youth,
had held no great regard for truth,
Claimed that it was surely proof.
And everyone shouted “What a goof!”