American Politics 3.0 - Back to Brunch

[SutterBrother]

Originally Posted by Whynotnow

What if one of the comets is a vaccinated one?

I don't want a comet to take us all out. I just want a slightly jumped up Covid to take out the anti-vaxxers.

Bring on the gain of function!

[Azure]

Originally Posted by SutterBrother

You don't think abortion rights are in the top 3 for most Americans? Even in light of how the special elections have gone since Roe v. Wade was overturned?

In that case - do tell? How are Democrats mopping the floor with the GOP in red states ever since?

Because the economy, inflation, wage growth, border crisis are bigger issues.

Are they moping the floor? Trump is polling better almost everywhere.

[Barnet Flame]

I’m guessing they are referring to actual elections rather than polls 8+ months before an election.

[SutterBrother]

Originally Posted by Azure

Because the economy, inflation, wage growth, border crisis are bigger issues.

Are they moping the floor? Trump is polling better almost everywhere.

I'd say the string of elections wins (vs Polls) in consistently red areas is a pretty good mopping.

Democrats winning in Kentucky (and Ohio, and Penn, and NH) means something on the ground, rather than just who answers their landline to answer a pollster's questions.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaig...ons-wins-2024/

The party has clinched significant wins in races across the country over the past year, including with an abortion-related measure in Ohio and a New Hampshire state House race in a district former President Trump won by a slim margin in 2020.

The GOP got what they wanted - a religious conservative SCOTUS, and a bunch of Red state governments and judges were able to thump the public with their bibles and claim women should be forced to carry unwanted babies to term.

They will now continue to harvest those losses when Americans go to the polls. Bodily autonomy matters to people across this country way more than anything you listed.

(also re: economy - you know unemployment is at record lows right?)

[IGGYRULES]

Originally Posted by Azure

Because the economy, inflation, wage growth, border crisis are bigger issues.

Are they moping the floor? Trump is polling better almost everywhere.

That's what fox news wants you to think. Economy??? Seems to me education is by far the biggest crises but you won't hear about that as far too many people are profiting off simpletons.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[direwolf]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

It has nothing to do with this. It's because people genuinely believe Biden doesn't have the mental capacity to tie his own shoes let alone run a country.

The then decision comes down to Trump or ???. Who is actually running the country right now and who will actually be running the country in 3 years?

I'm fairly certain a deep fried sneaker would be better than a Trump presidency but there's a concern. It also doesn't help that the Biden administration keeps trying to gaslight public by telling them he's sharp as a tack but he can't even sit down for a softball interview with CBS prior to the Super Bowl.

This whole Biden can't function thing is nothing more than sensationalist nonsense. The fact that millions of Americans are buying it hook line and sinker is incredibly sad and disappointing. Yes, the guy is old and he sometimes mixes up names/dates, etc... But he's clearly a much better choice than the alternative.

I mean, have you seen some of Trump's recent interviews and speeches? The dude is 4 years younger than Biden and doesn't even have 2 brain cells to rub together at this point. Just a complete lunatic and dumb as a sack of hammers. The really scary part is that he's gotten even more crazy than he ever was in 2016, just constantly spewing insane, incoherent, made-up bulls***.

This isn't a "both are equally bad" situation. One choice leads you to authoritarianism, insanity, chaos, and uncertainty. The other one doesn't. It's as simple as that. For the sake of Canada and the rest of the world, I sure hope Americans will look at the bigger picture and realize what's really at stake here in November and make the right choice.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Choosing someone entirely at random would still be preferable to Trump, so even if that premise about Biden was accepted (and I don't), the Trump or ??? question is pretty easily resolved in favour of ???.

[Cappy]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Choosing someone entirely at random would still be preferable to Trump, so even if that premise about Biden was accepted (and I don't), the Trump or ??? question is pretty easily resolved in favour of ???.

Corporate Jay said it himself. A deep-fried sneaker is better than Trump... but is ??? better than a deep-fried sneaker?

yes. yes, it is.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by SutterBrother

No Republican has come close to winning the popular vote in 20 years.

Hillary Clinton was the most unpopular presidential candidate in history, and STILL won the popular vote.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/197231/...or-images.aspx

Clinton was never polling as poorly as Biden is now. Over the last 6 months, Trump is leading in about 2/3rds of the head-to-head polls; nothing remotely close to that happened with Clinton vs. Trump. She was leading basically the whole way in terms of nationwide polls.

Biden is a dud. Democrats can lie to themselves all they want about how great things are and how unelectable Trump is, but voters clearly aren't convinced at this point.

[photon]

The other obvious candidates do even worse vs Trump.

https://emersoncollegepolling.com/fe...ent-democrats/

"A new Emerson College Polling national survey on the potential 2024 presidential election reveals a tight race between former President Donald Trump and current President Biden, with 45% of voters favoring Trump, 44% supporting Biden, and 11% undecided. Support for both candidates has decreased by one point since the last national poll in January. In other hypothetical matchups, Trump leads with 46% against Vice President Kamala Harris’s 43% and California Governor Gavin Newsom’s 36%. Against Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Trump maintains a lead with 45% compared to Whitmer’s 33%, with 22% undecided."

[Agamemnon]

Originally Posted by opendoor

Clinton was never polling as poorly as Biden is now. Over the last 6 months, Trump is leading in about 2/3rds of the head-to-head polls; nothing remotely close to that happened with Clinton vs. Trump. She was leading basically the whole way in terms of nationwide polls.

Biden is a dud. Democrats can lie to themselves all they want about how great things are and how unelectable Trump is, but voters clearly aren't convinced at this point.

Wow you're incredibly certain in your predictions despite historical facts. What will you do if Trump doesn't win the popular vote? Eat a massive bowl of s**t here? There will be a lineup for front-row tickets to that, better get a head start on the t-shirts...

I mean the whole 'polls mean nothing' has literally been the headlines after the last 2 elections, so why you would infer so extremely based on them is strange.

[OldDutch]

Trump has never won the popular vote and has been President.

[Agamemnon]

Originally Posted by OldDutch

Trump has never won the popular vote and has been President.

There is a post above claiming it is a near certainty that Trump will win the popular vote, hence the response.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by Agamemnon

Wow you're incredibly certain in your predictions despite historical facts. What will you do if Trump doesn't win the popular vote? Eat a massive bowl of s**t here? There will be a lineup for front-row tickets to that, better get a head start on the t-shirts...

I mean the whole 'polls mean nothing' has literally been the headlines after the last 2 elections, so why you would infer so extremely based on them is strange.

LOL. I'm not certain of anything. But polls do matter and they've been accurate in predicting the popular vote winner. Clinton had a 3-3.5 point lead on Trump in the polling aggregates and ended up winning by 2.1%. She also consistently led in the polls all through 2016.

In 2020, Biden also consistently led in head to head polls all through 2020 and led by 7-8% in the polling aggregates before the election, eventually winning the popular vote by 4.5%.

So why is it outlandish to look at Biden being consistently behind in the polls for the last 6 months, as well as his historically bad approval rating for a re-election candidate, and think that Trump is probably favored to win? Given Biden's poor performance in swing states, he probably needs to win the popular vote by about 3-4 points to win the election, and right now he's down by about 2 points nationwide.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by photon

The other obvious candidates do even worse vs Trump.

That’s the thing. Replacing Biden means replacing him with an actual other candidate. After first going through a convention where the candidate is chosen by delegates, rather than through the primaries.

First, will convention-chosen candidate X do better than Biden? As I noted on Friday, polling evidence makes that assumption at least highly questionable. That’s not the only question. Is early 21st century America really ready for a party nominee literally chosen by a few thousand party insiders and activists? I have real doubts about that. Will the convention not become a forum for litigating highly divisive issues like Gaza, Medicare for All and the broader contest between progressives and establishment-oriented liberals? The last half century of American politics has been based on the idea that the convention is a highly scripted unity launch event. This alternative would mean a free for all, in which the choice between a number of quite promising candidates will be made by a group whose legitimacy will likely be highly suspect. Not good!

Then there’s another issue. Okay, say you’ve convinced us. The thunderdome convention scenario is the better bet. How do we get there?

….Your plan is to convince the people who are pretty much by definition the most loyal to and invested in Biden — more than anyone in the entire political world — to abandon the plan they’re already two-thirds of their way through and convince Biden to step aside. We can add the more cynical point that this also means ending their own political careers at the top of the political game. As of today, the right-leaning RCP Average shows Biden 1.1 points behind Donald Trump. Are you really going to point to that and convince them that it’s hopeless? That to me is not remotely a serious plan. It’s not a serious anything.

And what exactly is the plan while you’re executing that plan? Unless I’m missing something, this plan means spending the spring perhaps not campaigning but in the midst of a public intervention trying to make the case that the party’s nominee is too old and frail to be President. On the off chance this plan doesn’t work, that seems pretty damaging to the nominee.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog...rong-heres-why

Biden’s polling numbers are concerning. But they’re not catastrophic enough to justify what would amount to abandoning his candidacy for a hail-mary pass into double coverage.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by photon

The other obvious candidates do even worse vs Trump.

https://emersoncollegepolling.com/fe...ent-democrats/

"A new Emerson College Polling national survey on the potential 2024 presidential election reveals a tight race between former President Donald Trump and current President Biden, with 45% of voters favoring Trump, 44% supporting Biden, and 11% undecided. Support for both candidates has decreased by one point since the last national poll in January. In other hypothetical matchups, Trump leads with 46% against Vice President Kamala Harris’s 43% and California Governor Gavin Newsom’s 36%. Against Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Trump maintains a lead with 45% compared to Whitmer’s 33%, with 22% undecided."

You can't put a ton of stock into polls about candidates who aren't even in the race and who haven't had a ton of nationwide attention. The fact that someone as unpopular as Harris has the highest numbers is a pretty good indication of that.

But this isn't really a Trump vs. Biden thing. Viewing it through that lens is going to lead to inaccurate analysis, because Biden is obviously more competent, more effective, has better policies, and is vastly more stable.

Instead, it's more of a status quo vs. blow it up kind of thing. A lot of people in the US have become fed up with how things are; real wages in most of the swing states are no better than they were 20 years ago and life expectancy (particularly among males) is dropping and now verging on 3rd world levels (the US male life expectancy is closer to Iraq's and Syria's than it is Canada's). People can keep going on about how great the economy is, but the average swing voter doesn't really care how the stock market is doing or what the unemployment rate is if they feel like they're losing ground economically and they see people around them dying earlier than before.

Now obviously Trump and the Republicans are the source for the vast majority of those problems; Republican policies drive income inequality and reducing access to healthcare leads to people dying earlier. But people don't see that and the Democrats haven't effectively communicated that; and I'm not even convinced they recognize that people are unhappy. Instead they just keep talking about how great things are, which doesn't play well with people who aren't happy with the status quo.

[Agamemnon]

Originally Posted by opendoor

LOL. I'm not certain of anything. But polls do matter and they've been accurate in predicting the popular vote winner. Clinton had a 3-3.5 point lead on Trump in the polling aggregates and ended up winning by 2.1%. She also consistently led in the polls all through 2016.

In 2020, Biden also consistently led in head to head polls all through 2020 and led by 7-8% in the polling aggregates before the election, eventually winning the popular vote by 4.5%.

So why is it outlandish to look at Biden being consistently behind in the polls for the last 6 months, as well as his historically bad approval rating for a re-election candidate, and think that Trump is probably favored to win? Given Biden's poor performance in swing states, he probably needs to win the popular vote by about 3-4 points to win the election, and right now he's down by about 2 points nationwide.

Ok I will give that it appears polling and popular vote appear fairly correlated, so you're right. I guess for me the fact that a Republican has won the popular vote twice since 1984, but they're definitely going to win it this time around. Regardless of polling, I can't see that happening.

I still reaaally want to see you eat that bowl though.

[photon]

Originally Posted by opendoor

Instead they just keep talking about how great things are, which doesn't play well with people who aren't happy with the status quo.

Yet they keep voting the same people in year after year in the parts of government that can actually make or change laws.

Obama was a change candidate for a change election, and very little changed. Trump beat Clinton based on change, and very little changed.

Now the choice is between two different candidates who have already been president.. there is no change candidate.

Well unless you count Trump's saying he's going to be a dictator, I guess that's change, and that's the change some people are wanting.

Not enough people in the US would accept enough change in the other direction to matter. Corporations and dark $$ own politics, and no one seems willing to elect anyone that would change that.

I said it before part of me wants Trump to win and things to get bad enough that people would actually support real change.

[Dion]

Not all of the responses Ms McCain received were so friendly, however, and she was back on X on Thursday to deride the Trump supporters who had come after her in response to her scathing rejection of Ms Lake.

https://twitter.com/user/status/1760704355584348330

[jammies]

Rapey Don still has 9 months to be classic Trump (aka a blowhard, tone-deaf fool), not to mention all his civil and criminal trials either will be still proceeding or ending in convictions/losses. Biden isn't much, but he should wipe the floor with Trump regardless of what polls say now.