American Politics 3.0 - Back to Brunch

[Dion]

Post-debate bumps are real, but no guarantee

The biggest post-debate polling bump in the last four presidential cycles helped Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee in 2012, make up an average of 4.6 percentage points in national polls.

But Romney's lead over then-President Obama didn't last.

Why it matters: A good (or bad) first debate can show up in the polls a week after the debate, according to the Real Clear Politics average of national polls.

It doesn't seal the fate of either candidate, however.

Obama recovered from an uninspired debate effort in 2012 and built a healthy lead in the national polls, which translated into a victory on Election Day.

In 2020, Joe Biden increased his lead over then-President Trump after their first messy meeting with a net gain of nearly 3 points, after coming into the debate with a 6-point advantage.

https://www.axios.com/2024/06/27/pos...t-no-guarantee

[ResAlien]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

You have to be willfully ignorant to post something like this.



In modern US political history there's never been anything like Project 2025 and Agenda 47.

There's literally NEVER been a US president who has incited an insurrection against the US capitol, tried a fake elector's scheme to steal an election, and sold sensitive national security secrets to foreign billionaires. There's also never been a US president who has had gushing praise for dictators around the world.

The piece of #### even denies climate change in the face of the obvious evidence that it's very real and getting worse at a horrifying pace.

This really is unprecedented. This really is different.

Sure I agree it is. Doesn’t change the fact that you minimize the shock value when every single thing is sold as catastrophe. The American people couldn’t be more tired of it. I’m curious where in the states do you live? Outside of some family in Oregon I’ve not come across an area or people that are still selling the end of days stuff this hard.

[MoneyGuy]

Originally Posted by Dion

The States have never had a President who wouldn't accept the results of the election who also went on to cause an insurrection on Jan 6th. If he gets in there will be a nation wide ban on abortions plus those charged and convicted on Jan 6th will get pardons from Trump.

He would also end all military support for Ukraine to allow Putin to do whatever he wants.

Those possibilities are terrifying. However, I still believe Biden wins this thing. He’d better; there are many more horrifying outcomes you haven’t listed.

[Dion]

Originally Posted by MoneyGuy

Those possibilities are terrifying. However, I still believe Biden wins this thing. He’d better; there are many more horrifying outcomes you haven’t listed.

I'm banking on the abortion issue being the deciding factor. That said I'm not confident on that.

[butterfly]

Originally Posted by Dion

The States have never had a President who wouldn't accept the results of the election who also went on to cause an insurrection on Jan 6th. If he gets in there will be a nation wide ban on abortions plus those charged and convicted on Jan 6th will get pardons from Trump.

He would also end all military support for Ukraine to allow Putin to do whatever he wants.

And four years later it will be back to normal again due to the most important election ever coming up in 2028. That will be followed by the most important election of all-time in 2032.

Putin's been doing whatever he wants since 2000.

[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by ResAlien

Sure I agree it is. Doesn’t change the fact that you minimize the shock value when every single thing is sold as catastrophe. The American people couldn’t be more tired of it. I’m curious where in the states do you live? Outside of some family in Oregon I’ve not come across an area or people that are still selling the end of days stuff this hard.

I don't think you can say "sure I agree it is" and then follow it up with what you just typed... unless you don't actually agree it is.

People are tired of apocalyptic messaging? Well this time it's the real thing, and the modern western world is finished unless voters tune in and pay attention.

It's a Flames forum, where do you think I live?

[Dion]

Originally Posted by butterfly

And four years later it will be back to normal again due to the most important election ever coming up in 2028. That will be followed by the most important election of all-time in 2032.

Putin's been doing whatever he wants since 2000.

Support for Ukraine has prevented Putin from getting what he wants.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

I don't think you can say "sure I agree it is" and then follow it up with what you just typed... unless you don't actually agree it is.

People are tired of apocalyptic messaging? Well this time it's the real thing, and the modern western world is finished unless voters tune in and pay attention.

It's a Flames forum, where do you think I live?

Atlanta?

[Dion]

Originally Posted by ResAlien

Sure I agree it is. Doesn’t change the fact that you minimize the shock value when every single thing is sold as catastrophe. The American people couldn’t be more tired of it. I’m curious where in the states do you live? Outside of some family in Oregon I’ve not come across an area or people that are still selling the end of days stuff this hard.

My brother lives in Northern Minnesota and is surrounded by MAGA Republicans in his area. The comments he's hearing from these brainwashed idiots is scary.

[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by butterfly

And four years later it will be back to normal again due to the most important election ever coming up in 2028. That will be followed by the most important election of all-time in 2032.

Wrong. There's never been anything like Trump in US politics, and believe me when I say he's made of the same ingredients as Hitler. He sees himself as a god, and to him we're all animals to be used or disposed of.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by opendoor

Basically the party establishment who largely dictates how things play out within the Democratic party.

Disagree that there’s any establishment dictating things in the Democratic Party. There are influential people in the party, but they’re highly fractious and competitive. Not powerful enough to dictate to a sitting president. The only person who could have stopped Biden from running again was Biden himself and a handful of his partisan advisors.

And there was no alternative candidate. Undermining Biden without a successor in the wings would have been folly.

[butterfly]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

Wrong. There's never been anything like Trump in US politics, and believe me when I say he's made of the same ingredients as Hitler. He sees himself as a god, and to him we're all animals to be used or disposed of.

You think DeSantis and Ramaswamy et al aren't cut from the same cloth? The Republicans at least voted for Trump in their primary.

Dems respected the dumb and outdated tradition of not challenging the incumbent and we saw what happened last night.

[ResAlien]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

I don't think you can say "sure I agree it is" and then follow it up with what you just typed... unless you don't actually agree it is.

People are tired of apocalyptic messaging? Well this time it's the real thing, and the modern western world is finished unless voters tune in and pay attention.

It's a Flames forum, where do you think I live?

Is this an E=NG thing? If you can’t grasp the concept that selling the end of the world every day for what’s now at least eight years numbs people to the message then you’re incapable of having a rational conversation. We can quibble on the severity being somewhere between “bad things economically and a roll back of protections” and “literally Hitler” but if you consider any comment short of “and a beast with seven horns and seven heads rose from the seas” to be tacit approval then Godspeed. As someone who lives in the states I’ll have a front row seat to how this goes.

Don’t worry if it goes tits up I’ll sneak back to Canada super fast. Hopefully before the nukes hit.

[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by ResAlien

If you can’t grasp the concept that selling the end of the world every day for what’s now at least eight years numbs people to the message then you’re incapable of having a rational conversation.

You keep making this accusation over and over again without substantiating it, and it comes across as you creating a false narrative so you can justify ignoring an important warning. It reminds me a lot of the tobacco and fossil fuel industries with their "ignore the fear mongers" messaging.

We can quibble on the severity being somewhere between “bad things economically and a roll back of protections” and “literally Hitler” but if you consider any comment short of “and a beast with seven horns and seven heads rose from the seas” to be tacit approval then Godspeed. As someone who lives in the states I’ll have a front row seat to how this goes.

I'm sure there were plenty of people who got tired of the doom-&-gloom messaging about Hitler, and stopped listening to the warnings. Figured there was no harm in ####ing around and finding out.

Suggestion for you, watch the film Don't Look Up.

Don’t worry if it goes tits up I’ll sneak back to Canada super fast. Hopefully before the nukes hit.

Yeah. Hows that workin out for Putin's neighboring country?

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

That's probably because I'm the only one on this board who's truly, fully paying attention to this stuff, and knows the true extent of the consequences of a Trump return to power.

I mean I gotta applaud this one, this is a breathtaking level of arrogance that needs to be recognised. Well done. But trust me, you're not the only one paying attention. I do suspect that you are either younger, or somewhat new to this, because only someone young or new to this would still have the level of hope and optimism that you have. If you were a veteran at this like myself or Res you'd be way more beaten down and cynical, as we are. Maybe when Trump wins in November it'll start eroding your hope. You'll get there, don't worry, I was once as spry and ambitious as you are. Then real life happens, and you join Team Meteor.

In the end Trump, and if you were paying attention to his life you would know this, but Trump is actually kind of dumb as ####, not a really good manager of people, and not nearly disciplined enough to be the next Hitler. He might have the ambition to want to do it, he just doesn't have the ability to actually execute it. It's why the thing that is most worrying isn't Trump, it's the next guy who has the same ambition, but the actual skill and ability to execute it. Someone who can control themselves and set the table properly, not someone who can be distracted with the simplicity of an insult.

Res is right though, "Boy Who Cried Wolf" syndrome eventually sets it. Endlessly going with Trump winning is the end of "democracy, Western Civilisation, humanity etc..." eventually brings diminishing returns. It'll be a disaster of a Presidency, without a doubt, but more than likely it'll be like last time: mostly little to no work, lots of golf, stunning incompetence and textbook Republican thievery, rather than the Fourth Reich. Until it actually happens though Dems need something more to run on than that.

[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

I mean I gotta applaud this one, this is a breathtaking level of arrogance that needs to be recognised. Well done. But trust me, you're not the only one paying attention. I do suspect that you are either younger, or somewhat new to this, because only someone young or new to this would still have the level of hope and optimism that you have. If you were a veteran at this like myself or Res you'd be way more beaten down and cynical, as we are. Maybe when Trump wins in November it'll start eroding your hope. You'll get there, don't worry, I was once as spry and ambitious as you are. Then real life happens, and you join Team Meteor.

In the end Trump, and if you were paying attention to his life you would know this, but Trump is actually kind of dumb as ####, not a really good manager of people, and not nearly disciplined enough to be the next Hitler. He might have the ambition to want to do it, he just doesn't have the ability to actually execute it. It's why the thing that is most worrying isn't Trump, it's the next guy who has the same ambition, but the actual skill and ability to execute it. Someone who can control themselves and set the table properly, not someone who can be distracted with the simplicity of an insult.

Res is right though, "Boy Who Cried Wolf" syndrome eventually sets it. Endlessly going with Trump winning is the end of "democracy, Western Civilisation, humanity etc..." eventually brings diminishing returns. It'll be a disaster of a Presidency, without a doubt, but more than likely it'll be like last time: mostly little to no work, lots of golf, stunning incompetence and textbook Republican thievery, rather than the Fourth Reich. Until it actually happens though Dems need something more to run on than that.

All you've really done here is confirm the accuracy of my statement you call "arrogant".

It doesn't look like you're paying attention. If you were, you wouldn't be talking the way you are. Trump is like no one before him in US politics in terms of being a bottomless pit of narcissism and psychopathy, that will suck everything and everyone into it until there's nothing left, and even then he won't be satisfied. People like him can't get into power, or everything goes to hell. He had no idea how to wield the powers of the presidency the first time around, he didn't even expect to win, and he was surrounded by people that guarded America from his worst impulses. None of those guardrails are in place this time around. This time, his criteria for hiring someone for a WH job or a government agency job is simply 100% loyalty to Trump. Which group of people are more loyal to Trump than any other? White nationalists and Neo-nazis. That's who he's going to fill government agencies with. And the change will be permanent as there won't be any more legitimate elections. Russia and North Korea hold "elections", but everyone knows they are complete shams. This is the future of American elections if Trump wins the final legitimate one.

You also have to take into account this supreme court, which is completely out of control. They've delayed his trials until after inauguration day so that he can have them thrown out and escape accountability. They also didn't throw out the immunity argument, a case that should have been laughed out of court the moment it arrived there. The idea that a sitting president can do whatever he wants is the most antithetical thing to the concept of America that's ever been brought before the SC. All Trump has to do to install himself as a dictator is say that the US is "at war with the invasion of illegals" and the court will give him the green light, and he can have seal team 6 to do whatever he wants. He's going to have his political opponents jailed and/or assassinated (see Navalny), and no one will be able to stop him. He's going to have unfriendly media outlets shut down or sold to his friends, and no one will be able to stop him. He's going to raid every US billionaire of their wealth and make himself a trillionaire, and no one will be able to stop him. He will stop the IRS from auditing his friends & cronies, and no one will be able to do anything about it. He will permanently shut down all efforts to combat climate change, including letting corporations pollute all they want, and no one will be able to do anything about it. All protests in the country will be violently put down (like they are in Russia), and no one will be able to do anything about it.

Have you ever found it odd that the RNC is not bothering to fund congressional races and is instead funneling all its money toward Trump's campaign? It's because they know he won't need congress if he gets back into power. Trump and the people in his orbit are ready to hit the ground running on a Trump dictatorship from day 1.

When it comes to Trump, I'll take the word of people like Micheal Cohen, Mike Esper, John Bolton, Mary Trump, etc over the word of people who've never met the guy. They all say he's an unprecedented threat to democracy and the constitution, and I believe them. After all, he himself called for the termination of all rules including those found in the constitution if that's what it takes to keep himself in power.

You accuse me of being the boy who cried wolf, but you can't point to a single example of me raising the alarm on anything that wasn't a real, legitimate danger to humanity. Or can you find an example?

As for me being naively optimistic or whatever, if we were to go by your logic, slavery never would have been abolished, women wouldn't have secured the right to vote, they never would have secured rights over their own bodies, same sex marriage never would have been passed, etc. Things really do get better over time if the public is really paying attention and putting in the work to get things moving in a positive direction. If the public looks away and lets white collar thugs have their way, that's when tremendous amounts of damage gets done and everything goes into the toilet.

The way I see it, there were a lot of good things that could have happened that were missed out on by small margins. Gore "lost" in 2000 the same way the Flames "lost" in 2004. Give me a Gore presidency and a Clinton presidency instead of Bush and Trump, things would look WAY better today than they do. Really it's one boat anchor from the slavery era that has been holding America back from getting great things done, and avoiding terrible things like the Iraq war.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, it's easy to get cynical and just say "everything is ####ed up and always will be". But the truth is there are directly identifiable reasons why things have gone sideways time and time again. In modern times the problem has been the electoral college, and to some extent the US senate giving too much power to small states. By no means am I saying getting rid of the EC will magically fix all problems, but I am saying that it is the single biggest obstacle to the US becoming a great nation. However, this conversation becomes moot if Trump gets back into power.

If you think there's no reason for people to vote for Biden other than Trump being terrible, I'd say you're also wrong there too. To name a few things, American Rescue Plan, Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Inflation Reduction Act, rejoining the Paris Climate Accord, student loan forgiveness for nearly 3.9 million borrowers, replacing lead pipes, joining striking workers on the picket line, CHIPS and Science Act, White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, lowered crime rates, low unemployment, best economic recovery from the pandemic of any major country, $110 billion in aid to Ukraine to fight off Putin's illegal war. But hey, you didn't need to be reminded of any of this, you're clearly "paying attention".

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by butterfly

You think DeSantis and Ramaswamy et al aren't cut from the same cloth? The Republicans at least voted for Trump in their primary.

Dems respected the dumb and outdated tradition of not challenging the incumbent and we saw what happened last night.

No, De Santis and Ramsey couldn't lead a bunch of drunks into a pub, what makes Trump scary is his ability to lead the brainless yahoos, I think it is ironically because he is a moron, he doesnt have the brains to second guess himself, he also thinks what ever he does is just fine, he's a Dunning Kruger psychopath, too stupid to even know he's evil

[flylock shox]

I think even a half-decent scan of the Republican party as a whole reveals a collection of snakes and weasels, but only one unicorn and that's Trump. He's the only one with the peculiar set of talents to be openly corrupt, shamelessly deceitful, and ethically hollow, while also holding mass appeal. He is a singular danger to American democracy, and this time he has intention and organized backing that he didn't have until the latter stages of his previous term.

If Trump is elected he will hit the ground running, and will immediately begin unraveling the threads that hold the fabric of American government and democracy together. They may not get it back, and even if they do the damage done in the meantime may be immense both within the USA and elsewhere in the world as the balance of power shifts.

He is uniquely dangerous, and to think of him as anything other than the unique threat he poses betrays either wishful thinking, extraordinary cynicism, or pure ignorance either about the man himself or about how democratic governments are held together and are perpetuated.

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

If they are sticking with Biden they need to make sure the debates are scheduled before the Early Bird dinners, they seem to be making him sleepy.

Why would Trump debate him again? Last night went better than the Republican's could have ever possibly imagined. I don't see what there is for Trump to gain by doing another debate. Lots for Trump to lose, but little to gain.

[DownInFlames]

I need to reiterate this: the Supreme Court tossing the Chevron Doctrine makes the discussion about who's running for president almost moot. Goodbye consumer and environmental protections.

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-c...a3f058637bbf6c