It's looking like a reverse 2016 right now with Biden narrowly winning the rust belt and possibly Georgia. Expect riots and a court challenge which may likely exacerbate said riots.

Can anyone explain to me why some states choose to count their ballots early and others not? It seems like the US system is specifically designed to make things as chaotic as possible.

Yes, that's how it looks to me too.

I find it hard to see anything good about the results. — Echarmion

I'm not really disagreeing. I'm trying to articulate the following...

Most of the people who voted for Trump are Republicans, not fascists. To date Trump has been a closet fascist who has been able to convincingly play the role of being an exciting Republican. To the degree Trump over plays his hand in the coming days that facade may collapse.

When Trump says he's won before the votes have been counted people just laugh at Trump being Trump. But when the President of the United States says we should stop counting votes, that's different. Most Trump voters are not fascists. They don't want somebody on top deciding whether their votes should be counted. They want to vote and they want to win of course. But they don't want somebody deciding whether they get to vote.

Say you're a conservative Catholic single issue anti-abortion voter. So you hold your nose and vote for Trump. But do you hold your nose and vote for Mussolini? Such voters wish to use rule of law to achieve their ends, not abandon rule of law.

The voting is over of course, but there's still a public opinion election underway. Those with ultimate power may act if they conclude that there's a broad consensus emerging that Trump the Republican is becoming Trump the Fascist.

To the degree Trump overplays his hand and shows his true colors this becomes more likely.

Of course, if Trump wins, the opposing side need to just suck it up too. That's Democracy — Baden

That depends on how he wins. If he really does have the votes, then yea, we suck it up. If he doesn't have the votes but tries to use executive power to invalidate the election, that's something else.

While I'm honking, I gotta say, whatever happens we Dems need to sit down in front of a mirror and finally figure out why we continually find ourselves in close elections against cartoon characters.

Losing to Jeb Bush? Ok, there's no shame in that.

Having to fight tooth and nail to have a chance of defeating Trump? That's clear evidence that all the blame can't be aimed elsewhere. We've somehow alienated vast swaths of the population to an extreme degree. We need to figure out how that happened. Calling them a "basket of deplorables" isn't going to fix it.

I know I'm probably touching on some 2016 nerves here, but Bernie probably would've done better where Biden failed. The reason why the election is so close now is because Biden lost ground with Hispanics. He didn't reach out to them as much as he could've and focused on the white suburban vote.

Bernie's campaign was largely focused on getting out the Latino vote with the help of Chuck Rocha, which paid dividends in places like Nevada. Of course Bernie probably would've lost in Florida cause Florida is an extraterrestrial asteroid that crash landed on the US east coast 3000 years ago and happens to be full of the one Hispanic group that despises him, but he probably would've done better in places like the RGV in Texas. Whoever the next democratic nominee is in 2024, they need to hire people like Rocha so that they don't take the Latino vote for granted.

Don't worry, I'm being hypothetical about a fair victory. Biden has won this as I've been saying.

Under your "decent" Presidents the likelihood of the people getting what they want was no different than under Trump. Even if we were to accept the US is a democracy (highly debatable) Trump's character has absolutely nothing to do with how representation of the people's will is provided by the system. Very badly it seems. But in the end democracy is not one man and it's certainly not just this election. — Benkei

I don't really agree with that. I think "character" plays a central role in a representative democracy. The problem is that character is hard to assess.

I'm not a fan of everyone making up their mind on every single policy question and then selecting the candidate most likely to deliver. I think it's unrealistic to expect people with jobs and families to make these calls. I think Trump is far more a symptom of an undue focus on policy questions than he is the symptom of a cult of personality.

A representative is not merely a servant. I expect a representative to make decisions in my interest on the spot. That requires that I look at their personality.

As to power politics, this is precisely the only way you can keep a semblance of democracy alive in the US because of the winner-takes-all system. You don't build common ground, you don't compromise and you should win at all cost. If people can't tell the difference between us and them it will cost us votes. If we don't win and give voters what they want, it will cost us votes. This has nothing to do with decency. — Benkei

That strategy is going to fail, because people who actually want to solve problems are always going to loose this game to autocrats and demagogues who only care about power. Democracy relies on the consent of the loosers, the minority, to function. Piss them off and they're going to bring the roof down on your head. You don't need majority support to crash the system.

The only reason Democrats need to act "decent" is because they try to appeal to 20.000 different groups instead of providing an overarching story that transcends modern identity politics and goes back to people vs. corporations, workers vs. capitalist, poor vs. rich etc. take your pick. Not "not Trump". But Democrats are too scared of losing their Wall Street backers, who, despite record spending and outspending of Trump, can't even decisively deliver victory, if at all. The story is wrong, the politics naïve and shows that it's basically the Democratic Party that is in crisis - in light of the challenges they don't offer anything new, they just double down on the same old thinking. Donkeys indeed. — Benkei

The Democrats are in this spot because they have failed to deliver a vision for the future. That much I agree on. They have also failed to meet the raw power of the GOP head on, instead relying on compromise with people who are no longer interested in compromising.

But the reason for their failure isn't their "decency". It's complacency, lack of vision.

When Trump says he's won before the votes have been counted people just laugh at Trump being Trump. But when the President of the United States says we should stop counting votes, that's different. Most Trump voters are not fascists. They don't want somebody on top deciding whether their votes should be counted. They want to vote and they want to win of course. But they don't want somebody deciding whether they get to vote. — Hippyhead

The president has been saying the same thing over and over for the last couple of months. With the silent support of the GOP. How is him acting the way everyone expected him to going to just now break the facade?

I don't really care whether republicans consider themselves fascists. What matters is whether they'll fight fascism, and it appears they won't.

Don't worry, I'm being hypothetical about a fair victory. Biden has won this as I've been saying. — Baden

I've believed that Trump will win since 2016, and that won't change until I'm proven otherwise. Especially given that everything about 2020 sucks (another lockdown tomorrow, yay...).

Although I have to say that COVID and the inevitable no-deal Brexit have left me caring very little about the U.S. election (the only reason I read up on American politics these days is to distract me from the shit show at home).

But in better news, I took a body composition test at my gym yesterday and I have the metabolic age of a 23 year old (I'm 32), so I have that going for me at least.

The president has been saying the same thing over and over for the last couple of months — Echarmion

Part of Trump's political genius is that he talks non-stop (thus dominating all forms of media) but you can never really know for sure what he's saying. So for example, we don't really know whether he's going to try to use executive power to invalidate the election or not. And because we don't know, we're off balance, we're confused, we wait, we don't act.

Yes, he's been talking for months but that doesn't mean anything. What happens next will mean something. If he does nothing but talk, then he's an exciting Republican. If he acts to invalidate the election, then he's a fascist. He's cornered and will have to choose and show his hand.

I can say that Sweden, my home country had a development like that from say 1920 up til 2010 after which globalization issues with a very large immigration and unstable job market has caused a very unstable poltical landscape and a lot of frictions.
— Ansiktsburk
So... nothing dramatic happened until 2010???

Even if off the topic, I'd argue that a lot has happened in Sweden before that. Perhaps starting from the huge influx of Finns, half a million, coming over in the late 60's and early 70's to your country. Half a million is still a large number. We tend to overemphasize the changes of the present. — ssu

I'm not saying that nothing happened. Of course it did. But in a slow, structure'sconservative kind of manner. A slow, steady move left until the 60s. Then towards the end the madness that has struck the western world - rich young people going left - destabilized things. That was probably the biggest stir politically, but the effects wasnt all that dramatic. The immigration from finland was people seeking jobs, people with basically the same culture as the swedes. Gradually, people from southern europe came as work immigrants, The left/right positions wasnt all to affected by that.

Then, of course, effects of globalization and automation struck hard against the working classes, jobs going to low salary countries, and immigration took off dramatically, notably since 2015, people with a totally different culture than the northern europe individual and work ethic moral.

The politics, therefore, consists of a big ultranational party with nazi roots having 20-25% of the votes, and the right and left trying to manoever within that landscape. The last elections have been a total catastrophy.

A lot of the problems are, of course, due to the globalized world, not much to do about that, but also on the policies of the rich, theoretial left wing of the socialistic and environmental parties. There is a lot of flower power dreams that makes the very successful slow developments in our country fail. Not much have been done right the last 10 years.

Mail-in results like this, now being counted, might help. Hard for us to appreciate the level of disparity between how each side voted, but this is why Biden is winning late.

Fingers crossed.

:victory: Some of your other predictions were rather prescient I have to say.

While I'm honking, I gotta say, whatever happens we Dems need to sit down in front of a mirror and finally figure out why we continually find ourselves in close elections against cartoon characters. — Hippyhead

The problem is that you don't see that your candidate was a cartoon character as well.

Having to fight tooth and nail to have a chance of defeating Trump? That's clear evidence that all the blame can't be aimed elsewhere. We've somehow alienated vast swaths of the population to an extreme degree. We need to figure out how that happened. Calling them a "basket of deplorables" isn't going to fix it. — Hippyhead

No. It was the candidate that you put on the Democratic ticket that contradicted the very things that the Dems argued against or for. A true progressive just can't bring themselves to vote for an old racist white guy that has been in power for nearly 50 years, nor can people that have claimed that systemic racism and white privilege exists bring themselves to vote for a old racist white guy that has been in power for nearly 50 years.

The problem is that too many people get their political information from one source - the E! Channel, celebrity social media channels, etc., and that too many people simply don't have the memory capacity to remember the statements that their political party made over the years that contradict the very things that they are saying today. The media is insulting your intelligence and you want to vote for more of the same.

Just look at when Obama wanted to fill a Supreme Court seat near the end of his term and when Trump wanted to fill the vacant seat in the same body near the end of his term. The Dems and Reps swapped arguments in both instances. Both took the position of the other in the previous incident. When both parties are so inconsistent to the point that they take the position that the other party had in a previous instance, it would be difficult to distinguish between them, and the result is close elections between two cartoon characters. Go figure. It is well past the time that we stop feeding this two-headed monster with our votes. There are alternatives. Educate yourselves.

Wisconsin flipped earlier and Michigan just flipped and probably will remain flipped.

That's only 26 electoral votes. Pennsylvania + North Carolina + Georgia is 51 votes.

Biden doesn't need any of those if he keeps Nevada and Arizona. NC might still flip too. 300k outstanding, 76k difference.

EDIT: and Penssylvania is possible too depending if the absentee ballots follow the split of 70-to 75% in favour of Biden elsewhere.

A graphic aid:

Well, it's close.

Likely so close that even some other politician than Trump might also start arguing about an unfavorable outcome.

There is a high probability that this is made a debacle. At least that I can say.

(Anyone remember the earlier Mexican elections before the last one's, the current President was then also a candidate and simply refused to acknowledge the outcome. )

Part of Trump's political genius is that he talks non-stop (thus dominating all forms of media) but you can never really know for sure what he's saying — Hippyhead

I'm not sure how much it matters.
Seems Trump has legitimized conspiracy theories.
There's this thing, "in chaos all are equal" (or however it is), that seems applicable here.
Works well when you're (out-gunned or) out-reasoned, and there are a bunch of people that want to revert Roe versus Wade for example.
Actually, given how Trump says one thing one day, and another (or the contrary) the next — demagogue'ish post-truth'ish bullshit — what he says at large doesn't seem to matter much; as long as he rattles the cage, stirs some (bull)shit, upsets the upsettable, appears different somehow, but doesn't alienate the discontent country guy and the Christian soccer mom (and such).

• Trump shattered his promise to ‘drain the swamp.’ The self-dealing would be epic in a second term. (The Washington Post, Sep 2020)

Biden is carrying absentee ballots in Penssylvania by 78% so far. If that keeps for the outstanding absentee ballots then that's enough to flip it. That would put Biden at 291 electors in his favour.

Republicans refused to allow absentee ballots to be counted first in PA for this very reason. Very different narrative and much less confusion if they hadn't decided to play dirty.

Part of Trump's political genius is that he talks non-stop (thus dominating all forms of media) but you can never really know for sure what he's saying — Hippyhead — jorndoe

Yes. This works because he has millions of voters dumb enough to believe whatever he says. They don't understand politics, but trust him to look after their interests so they just cheer whatever crap he spouts. Note he never allows anyone to question him because allowing a questioner any comeback would deflate the garbage bubbes that issue from his ass.
The factless drivel re the election being stolen from the voters because some late votes might be allowed is a case in point. It's empty rubbish. I think he is trying to stir up the right wing militias to start violence if the count goes against him. The ludicrous stuff about the Supreme Court has been ignored even by Pence. He is the most abhorent President ever, a would-be dictator. He will do anything to steal ths election. You have been warned!
(I'm a Brit, and even I'm angered and appalled by this man!)

Republicans refused to allow absentee ballots to be counted first in PA for this very reason. Very different narrative and much less confusion if they hadn't decided to play dirty. — Baden

I checked online to see if my absentee ballot had been accepted and in one place it said it had and in another it said it was rejected for lack of signature. I do remember signing it.

Anyway, the Republicans might have suppressed a Republican vote, which would serve us right. As a Republican, I enjoy the justice inherent in sleeping in the bed I made, regardless of how unpleasant the consequences.

If only Democrats were so principled.

That's a lovely story. One to tell your grandkids. Anyhow, it's unlikely Pennsylvania (or GA or NC) will matter now. The map gives it to Biden with AZ, NV, WI, and MI.

That's a lovely story. One to tell your grandkids.. — Baden

This is how I find out you're pregnant? I'm gonna be a grandpa?

At this point it looks like Biden is winning NV, WI, AZ, and MI which should be enough to put him over 270. These races are close though so we're in legal challenge territory and who knows how that will play out. I'm not even an American but my brain is just fried right now. Can't work, I can't sleep, just as I would expect coming from 2020.

What a fucking shitshow.

I'm going to be so incredibly depressed if Biden loses. My nihilism isn't working!