I've Changed My Mind About Trump

[Big RR]

Never call the outcome of the game before the final whistle. I'll wait for the counting before I say anyone chances are squashed.

[TPFKA@W]

Keep your fingers crossed.

[Big RR]

I'm on about 2 hours sleep and I'm not sleepy; I have to see what happens. I'm even crossing my eyes.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Biden's been done in by many factors. One is that he messed up the Latin vote in Florida by allowing himself to be portrayed as a communist (Trump's clever clarion call there) to a bunch of people who've been drinking the anti-commie Koolaid since the early 60s. He never made a convincing case for his "I'm not a socialist" thing, partly because so many people really do believer he's going to resign/retire/blow a brain-vein and Harris plus . . . a scary alternative VP will take over. Another error was to underestimate how significant the economy is - people don't care much about complicated plans - Trump successfully parlayed the biggest boom in employment in history (since everything was shut down by Covid duh!) and happy 401Ks in an achievement of more value than race or the plague.

Biden was also done-in by BLM protests - yeah yeah I know. The fact is, the radical left has screwed the pooch and earned themselves a much closer election than it ever should have been. They may yet have earned themselves Trump which one could almost believe is what they wanted. They occupied some public spaces and alienated millions(?) of voters who might have discarded Donnie's Mafia otherwise.

Biden might still win - and I pray he does. But he was far from the ideal candidate - the feeble best of an awful bunch - as far as WINNING goes. Not a knock against the smarts/competence of others. The Dems put up a poodle to avoid running a wolverine. Which would have lost BAD!

IMO

[Big RR]

Meade, you may be right about the effect of the BLM protests, but I really can't blame the participants. What's the alternative? Be good and maybe we'll let you eat at the master's table now and then? I don't think this is going to go away. The really interesting thing is that the behavior of he Trump supporters--carrying weapons, driving cars into crowds... doesn't appear to have had the same result.

[BoSoxGal]

Where’s all the criticism for those damned lefty activists who dumped all that perfectly good tea into that cold salty harbor?

[MajGenl.Meade]

Meade, you may be right about the effect of the BLM protests, but I really can't blame the participants. What's the alternative? Be good and maybe we'll let you eat at the master's table now and then? I don't think this is going to go away. The really interesting thing is that the behavior of he Trump supporters--carrying weapons, driving cars into crowds... doesn't appear to have had the same result.

Yeah, I'm not considering the protest as such to be the issue - it's the peripheral violence (not the majority of the protestors) that played into Trump's hand. Let's face it, his argument (repeated by so many people I contacted), was that such violence was only the beginning - if "dems" won, they would unleash the fully fury blah blah because we could "all see" that it was democrat controlled cities that not only allowed but, through weakness and downright sympathy, were happy that buildings burned etc etc vomit and so on.

"They" believed it. Biden's Brownshirts was a refrain I saw too many times . . . "they" lapped it up. And "they" saw the militia stuff as honest attempts (a) to support lawnorder and (b) pay back. "They" were hit first.

Nice one BSG!

[Big RR]

Yeah, I'm not considering the protest as such to be the issue - it's the peripheral violence (not the majority of the protestors) that played into Trump's hand.

I'm not sure; many still complain about kneeling during the national anthem by blacks, yet don't raise a whimper when pro police groups deface the US flag, changing the colors so it can have a blue stripe (imagine what would happen if BLM made a BLM version of the American flag like the police groups did; I can pretty much guarantee that the reaction would be swift and loud). Sure the violence made for nice sound bites, but I think it's more race based than violence based reactions. The same is true for the anti immigrant positions. And that is a real problem going forward.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Yeah, I'm not considering the protest as such to be the issue - it's the peripheral violence (not the majority of the protestors) that played into Trump's hand.

I'm not sure; many still complain about kneeling during the national anthem by blacks, yet don't raise a whimper when pro police groups deface the US flag, changing the colors so it can have a blue stripe (imagine what would happen if BLM made a BLM version of the American flag like the police groups did; I can pretty much guarantee that the reaction would be swift and loud). Sure the violence made for nice sound bites, but I think it's more race based than violence based reactions. The same is true for the anti immigrant positions. And that is a real problem going forward.

I don't doubt that the "violent left", radical left, ANTIFA etc. was a dog-whistle. But without the violence itself, Trump's terror inducement would have been considerably weakened. People are racist but they are scared/phobic/whatever and he played into that fear. As did the "set this city on fire" radicals.

I've said it before and . . . a very large number of Americans are sick and tired of liberal superiority, criticism, and being despised by intellectual elitists. I'm tired of it but still voted against Trump and for Biden rather than that stupid 3rd party disrupter (another problem for Biden). Just as I voted against Trump and for Clinton. I see his kind of thinking as more destructive of societal norms than the libs. But I wish they'd all shut up and go away. (Contradiction, much?)

[ex-khobar Andy]

I'm convinced that the difference is that Trumpists are more motivated to show up and vote. Think about it - if the country is split 60 - 40 in favor of Biden and 60% of the Biden folk vote and 90% of the Trumpists do, you have a 36% - 36% tie. Add the plain anti-democratic idiocy of the Electoral College and it's a landslide. Dems have to choose someone their voters can be passionate about - so Bernie would have beaten Trump in 2016.

The conventional wisdom is that candidates swing back towards the dull middle once they are selected. Maybe the conventional wisdom is wrong - the most important factor is enthusiasm.

[Big RR]

I've said it before and . . . a very large number of Americans are sick and tired of liberal superiority, criticism, and being despised by intellectual elitists.

Well, that's a different post, but I agree with you, at least re the fact that it is a perception among many Trump voters and "Reagan democrats"; Biden said he could win those voters back, but that does not appear to be the case. And it's something the democratic party has to address.

[Crackpot]

Biden didn’t do particularly well against the Trump smear machine. Trump did quite well at spinning Biden’s tendency for frequent gaffes and occasional creepy behavior into claims against his sanity and as an effective deflection against Trumps own issues in those areas.

[BoSoxGal]

I still think it comes down to the awful truth that a strong inclination toward authoritarianism exists in our populace; all other political arguments aside, all hurt feelings over being PC’d, all outrage over human rights issues, under all that is that a very large percentage of the citizens of this country are okay with an executive who violates every constitutional norm established over 240 years and are willing to give him the carte blanche that a second term without accountability would provide.

So I’m still very much in fear for the future of my country.

[Econoline]

I expect that in...oh...about a week?...Faux News will be screaming bloody murder about Biden's poor performance in handling the pandemic.

[ex-khobar Andy]

I haven't.

[ex-khobar Andy]

Love this one:

[BoSoxGal]

[BoSoxGal]

These fucking guys.

Rudy Giuliani and Eric Trump launch furious attack on US democracy and promise wave of lawsuits to stop Biden

Giuliani claimed at the Philadelphia press conference, ‘We’re going to win this election. We’ve actually won it.'

Madeline Roth
Members of the Trump campaign, including Eric Trump and Rudy Giuliani, held a press conference in Philadelphia on Wednesday afternoon in which they claimed Donald Trump has not only won the state of Pennsylvania, but the entire US presidential election.

Eric Trump spoke first, alleging that Democrats are trying to “cheat” by committing mass voter fraud and vowing to file a lawsuit to halt vote-counting in Pennsylvania.

“We're going to win Pennsylvania, but they're trying to cheat us out of it because they know it's their only path to victory,” he said. “We are going to file a suit in Pennsylvania. It is the last thing that we wanted to do, it's the last thing my father wanted to do. But this is rampant corruption. It can’t happen. It’s not fair. This isn’t democracy.”

Eric Trump then introduced Mr Giuliani, whom he said was "leading the legal effort" on behalf of the Trump campaign. The former New York City mayor fired off a litany of criticism aimed at Joe Biden and Democrats.

"This is beyond anything I have ever seen before," Mr Giuliani told the crowd of Trump supporters. "Do you think we're stupid? Do you think we're fools? You know something, Democrats do think you're stupid. And they do think you're fools. That's why you get called 'deplorable' and 'chumps.'"

He continued, "We're going to stick with this. We're going to win this election. We've actually won it. It's just a matter of counting the votes fairly."

Mr Giuliani said the Trump campaign has already filed a lawsuit in Pennsylvania that alleges Republicans were not given the proper chance to observe the opening and sorting of ballots. He added that they may also file a federal lawsuit against what they claim is voter fraud, to "really expose the corruption of the Democratic Party."

[Econoline]

[Bicycle Bill]

-"BB"-