The take-home is that half of eligible voters wanted to put their trust in a liar. — Banno

There are a large number of folk for whom basic honesty is unimportant. — Banno

Yes, and yes.

don't think so. Any nuance will just be special pleading. There are a large number of folk for whom basic honesty is unimportant. — Banno

It's about power.

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

Thanks for sharing your complete nonsense!

It's about power. — frank

That doesn't actually say anything. Yes, and...

I saw an interview with the guy who ghost-wrote Trump's book. He described trump just this way:

Trump's personality is beside the point. If it wasn't him, it would be someone else.

And it will be someone else. Trump has shown the way for a future Caesar to enlist populism to overthrow the mechanism of the republic. Only his incompetence stands in the way.

And it will be someone else. Trump has shown the way for a future Caesar to enlist populism to overthrow the mechanism of the republic. — Banno

:up: This is the beginning not the end

A caesar might deal with global warming more effectively. China has a caesar, so we'll see.

A caesar might deal with global warming more effectively. — frank

Unlikely. Complex issues require complex solutions. Autocrats see things simply.

China has a caesar — frank

China is not autocratic so much as run by Confucian nepotism.

"Xi's political thoughts have been written into the party and state constitutions.[3][4][5] Xi has often been called a dictator or an authoritarian leader[6][7][8][9][10] by political and academic observers, citing an increase of censorship and mass surveillance, a deterioration in human rights, the cult of personality developing around him, and the removal of term limits for the leadership under his tenure." --wiki

Is this not how he appears from your vantage point?

A largely pyrrhic victory, if it comes to pass:

"If, as seems now probable, Joe Biden eventually takes office, we should expect an administration distinguished mostly by its torpor. Not only will the Democrats lack a Senate majority, they’ll almost certainly double down on their disastrous centrism, concluding that Trump’s unexpectedly strong showing means that much of America skews to the right. Obama spent eight years trying to collaborate with Republicans. Biden will, most likely, do the same, even with a GOP increasingly infected by Trumpism.

The ensuing policy paralysis will not necessarily be the worst outcome, if only because, as the late Alexander Cockburn used to say, ‘Gridlock keeps the bastards at bay’. ...More generally, the election means nothing has been resolved. Trump might be done but his defeat – if that’s what we’re seeing – wasn’t sufficiently crushing as to destroy his legacy. On the contrary, many would-be demagogues, both in the US and elsewhere, will see his surprisingly strong showing as evidence that the old culture war incantations still retain some of their magic."

https://overland.org.au/2020/11/the-incomplete-defeat-of-donald-trump/

A caesar might deal with global warming more effectively. China has a caesar, so we'll see. — frank

Great idea, bootlicker. (Or sandallicker in this case)

Via political scientist Corey Robin:

"My four takeaways so far.

First, I hoped for better things.

Second, one Republican elected official after another is refusing to back Trump's efforts not to count the votes. The party has obviously decided that control over the Senate is more than enough to suit its purposes.

Third, with a party that many claimed always submitted itself to Trump's will (but was in fact more than happy to oppose Trump whenever it suited their purposes) not submitting to Trump's will, with tweets not having the intended effect, with street gangs not materializing on anywhere near a sufficient scale to implement the leader's will, it seems clear that Trump's only hope lies in the courts. Which may not be there for him either. But it's important to remember that, in the end, Trump's whole career now depends on what it has always depended on: not the apparatus of fascism but lawyers and judges. And that the Republicans are happy with the Senate.

Fourth, my biggest fear throughout the last four years has been that we would be facing an extended interregnum of back-and-forth, wherein an exhausted neoliberal Democratic Party trades power and office with an exhausted right-wing Republican Party. Last night's results (insofar as we know them) seem to confirm that that is where we are. Biden's presidency will be an awful lot like Obama's second term and even Trump's presidency: not in terms of content or substance, but in terms of having to rely, almost exclusively, on executive orders and action, and not being able to push a legislative agenda through.

In other words, four years of stuckness. Which is definitely better than the alternative of four more years of Trump, but not really moving us anywhere either."

---

4 years of an ineffective, frustrated government while the underclass of America (>60% of it) continues to rot? Trump, or someone like him, will be back in 2024, and US politics will continue to be dragged into the gutter that is right-wing neofeudalism - as anyone with a working brain knew would happen when Biden got nominated. The only relevant question defining the American path forward is how much its gangrenous decay can be insulated from the rest of the world, and at what rate.

Autocrats see things simply. — Banno

I see you've never read about Leto II Atreides.

US politics will continue to be dragged into the gutter that is right-wing neofeudalism — StreetlightX

:rofl: love that term.

The only relevant question defining the American path forward is how much its gangrenous decay can be insulated from the rest of the world, and at what rate. — StreetlightX

That is the definitely the big concern. Wealthy americans will need somewhere decent to immigrate once the putrefaction of the country has thoroughly festered.

Third, with a party that many claimed always submitted itself to Trump's will (but was in fact more than happy to oppose Trump whenever it suited their purposes) not submitting to Trump's will, with tweets not having the intended effect, with street gangs not materializing on anywhere near a sufficient scale to implement the leader's will, it seems clear that Trump's only hope lies in the courts. Which may not be there for him either. But it's important to remember that, in the end, Trump's whole career now depends on what it has always depended on: not the apparatus of fascism but lawyers and judges. And that the Republicans are happy with the Senate. — StreetlightX

I'd not let my guard down just yet. There is still plenty of room to influence the electoral college. The GOP might not be willing to openly challenge the counting of votes, but they might still be willing to prevent the counted votes from actually taking effect on charges of fraud.

I agree with most of what you say, but my focus is on the imperative of removing Trump. Gridlock is fine while Trump is ushered off the stage and put back in his box. It's possible that he will rally his forces and return next time, but I doubt the party will submit to his mealy mouthed madness, he may even make them unelectable for a while. But the crisis of a second term of Trumpism has been averted.

My perspective is shaped by the UK Trump happening at the same time. Johnson is also a showman, not so much a snake oil salesman, as a clown. But he can do more damage than Trump because the UK Prime Minister has a great deal of power and is currently reaping havoc in my country and turning us into a laughing stock and rogue state, while trashing the economy. Now Trump has descended into a vindictive burbling man child, some of Johnson's gloss will have tarnished and we can start to reign him in and possibly topple him now.

Arizona is tightening.

Now Trump has descended into a vindictive burbling man child, some of Johnson's gloss will have tarnished and we can start to reign him in and possibly topple him now. — Punshhh

True. I hadn't thought too much about the internationalist dimension of a Trump loss. Interestingly, in my neck of the woods, alot of South East Asia has been hoping for a Trump win because of his utter indifference to human rights abuses, and moreover, China has been somewhat ambivalent about America's descent into full-blown dementia (favourite quote from the linked article: "I had a Chinese scholar say to me: If we could convince all the countries in the world to come together and damage those pillars of U.S. strength, we could not be as successful as Donald Trump has been single-handedly,” said Paul Haenle, director of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center in Beijing").

From an internal US perceptive through, even these tight, undecided results already mark out a certain path of doom for the country.

Fair point.

How do y'all think Bernie would have done? Would it have been this close?

Just so people know, Trump is currently leading in (according to CNN numbers):

- Georgia: by 0.5% with estimated 95% counted, 16 electoral votes
- North Carolina: by 0.5% estimated 95% counted, 15 electoral votes
- Pennsylvania: by 2.6% estimated 86% counted, 20 electoral votes
- Alaska: by 30% with estimated 47% counted, 3 electoral votes

These do not look probable to change, in terms of random deviations in a non-biased model, with the remaining votes in question (though it is possible).

Added to the 213 electoral votes he has, these states would put him at 267.

In Nevada Biden is leading by 0.4% with estimated 89% counted. So if this flipped in the next 11% (which is more probable due to random deviations than the above) then Trump would win at 273 electoral votes.

There's a theory that all late counting favours Biden, so if that's true then Biden has a significant advantage; however, in some places Trump has been gaining late on Biden, so it's clearly not a certain theory, and may only be applicable in a general sense and does not happen to apply to whatever votes are actually remaining (a lot of factors affect when votes get counted and reported, so factors favouring Trump may happen to dominate now even if factors favouring Biden dominated the last X %).

So, it's definitely extremely close. If anyone was wondering, especially non-Americans here, if Biden standing at 253 right now was so close as to be "almost a sure thing", it is not.

I would intuit that Biden does have the advantage based purely on the current numbers, but I am still predicting a Trump win due to the supreme court advantage. Bush vs Gore was equally ridiculous, bad faith, anti-democratic, with lot's of outrage about it, as a SCOTUS determined election this time would be, didn't stop them then and there's even more crazy people on the SCOTUS now. Although I agree the reasoning pretext that would be used doesn't seem clear right now, the Republicans have a habit of inventing preposterous pretexts overnight and ramming them through (cause the democrats are week cowards and there's no actual credible threat that Republicans would actually deal with the precedent they lay down against themselves).

As an additional note Wisconsin is within 1%, with is conventionally within "recount range". Of course, a bunch of the states mentioned above where Trump is leading is within 1% to, but there maybe some far flung rational for recounting Wisconsin and eliminating some votes or somehow; just not applicable to the other states, maybe for the simple reason that the Democrats don't file a similar claim (as they know the SCOTUS would rule against them even if they use the same logic to bring victory for Trump). So, this is what a SCOTUS determined election could look like.

However, the Republican establishment may want Trump to lose, and so not pull the needed strings or then signal to the SCOTUS that they should actually use common sense this time.

Biden victory is not necessarily good for Democrats, as the pandemic situation essentially presents a no-win situation. Republican politicians and backers may very well be frothing at the mouth at the prospect of Biden needing to "curb civil liberties" instead of Trump being forced to do something when the medical system really is in state of collapse. Likewise, much better a Democrat push vaccines etc. than a Republican administration.

One thing keeping the lid on pure insanity on the Right is simply that Trump is in charge at the moment and it's impossible to blame absolutely everything on the Democrats and it's impossible for Trump to go too far in insane discourse because he has a power to act on what he says (it's crazy and contradictory, but it could be far worse). A Biden victory will bring out a birther type phenomenon multiplied by a thousand.

For progressives, a Biden victory will consolidate the right and move it further to the right, during which time Biden does nothing constructive and the state of disaster and dissatisfaction in 4 years will likely bring a much farther right wing president to power.

Whereas Trump victory will force Republicans to implement some of the basic left wing policies the pandemic situation will force, and the status quo democrats will simply no longer be relevant (and many simply too old), moving discourse to the left.

If you don't like American Empire, a Trump victory will likely continue the radical downward spiral of international credibility upon which most of the American empire is actually based, whereas a Biden victory will likely lead to an attempt to rehabilitate Imperial control where it is on the wane leading to wars. Paradoxically, Trump is so unstable that the US establishment cannot reach consensus around a new war since it's impossible to predict what Trump would do (whereas, Lybia and Syria were new wars the US establishment could consolidate around and convince allies, under Obama even if Obama was himself skeptical about them).

Likewise, as has been noted, Trump decredibilizes right wing ideology globally. He makes it very clear what viewing greed as good thing leads to, and also says all the quiet parts out loud.

As a European, it makes me sad to say it, but a Biden victory will be immediately followed by European leaders bending the knee (with a sexual connotation if you like), whereas a Trump victory will likely consolidate an US independent European policy project.

- Georgia: by 0.5% with estimated 95% counted, 16 electoral votes
- North Carolina: by 0.5% estimated 95% counted, 15 electoral votes
- Pennsylvania: by 2.6% estimated 86% counted, 20 electoral votes
- Alaska: by 30% with estimated 47% counted, 3 electoral votes — boethius

I think this really depends on what sort of ballots still need to be counted. If it's all absentee ballots then they are all in play still, with pretty good chances for Biden due to the blue shift.

I think this really depends on what sort of ballots still need to be counted. If it's all absentee ballots then they are all in play still, with pretty good chances for Biden due to the blue shift. — Benkei

Yes, I agree that there could be a large bias towards Biden, and lot's of simple models can be made showing Biden likely will win.

But the problem with those simple models is that it's too easy to miss something in which case, it's "oh, yeah, well didn't think about that" or "well, didn't think these votes would lean Trump".

The whole point of the election is we don't know how people will vote, and polls get more and more unreliable the more fine grained we look at things (i.e. individual counties can surprise, particular batches of mail in votes can surprise; maybe Biden voters voted very early but there was a surge of Trump mail in voters later to avoid Corona and/or they're older and it's convenient, and the mail-ins are counted sequentially -- even if the right wing spin machine is downplaying corona and claiming mail in votes are fraudulent, such cognitive dissidence may not be a problem; on top of polls being simply generally unreliable these days since land-lines are no longer a thing, and likely voters are much more erratic these days also). That votes lean one way during any range does not establish they will continue to lean that way for the next range. It's intuitively pleasing that if someone is "catching up" they will continue to close the gap and either make it or not make it over the line, but whatever is fueling the catch-up can dissipate at any point (and the point of the election is we don't have the data to make a solid prediction without the election actually happening).

In other words, a story can be told Biden is a heavy favourite at this point, but it's easy to come up with a counter story that also fits our current data, or then to just say "maybe we'll be surprised by these particular voters / these particular vote counting machines". Likewise, the data upon which such stories are based can simply be wrong; for instance: maybe a large amount of votes seem to be left to count from a heavily Biden leaning county, but it then turns out that was just some clerical mixup and the votes are almost all already counted or then there's some left but from a Trump leaning county.

My basic point though, is that it's not in a situation where Biden needs 1 more state to win and there are 6 states with 50% probability of going either way, which is what a first impression of some media may lead one to conclude. The situation is closer to being down to 1 state that will be close, than it is to 6 tossups in which Biden needs only 1 victory.

Georgia is going to Trump,

The beginning of "oh shit" for Democrats. It will be very close.

One interesting detail is that Libertarians in Nevada got 10 000 votes about, and the constitution party 2000 votes, and "others" got 10 000 votes (which I hope is Kanye). Biden is currently up by about 8000 votes. So it would be of personal pleasure to me, and I think a lot of us, if Biden wins and this becomes a wedge in the Republican-libertarian-Kanye trinity.

How do y'all think Bernie would have done? Would it have been this close? — bert1

I always assumed that Bernie was a Russian plant in the classic communist tradition.We have seen way too many like him for the last hundred years. We get lots of loose talk of 'class' struggles reminiscent of nineteenth century England or Germany, but no admitted specific plans for what to do after the despised capitalists and their bourgeois lackeys are eliminated. Nevertheless, as per either communist or fascist strategy, Bernie fragments and polarizes liberal political opinion and mobilizes his small but growing extreme.

In 2016, Bernie (with a big assist from Comey) just about guaranteed a Trump victory by disenchanting would be democratic voters.

Gangrene doesnt really spread aggressively. The fungal or bacterial infection near the juncture is what spreads, straight into the bloodstream. But we give high powered antibiotics and just let the appendage fall off naturally. For some reason that's helpful. So you have this black mummy foot that sort of wobbles on the bone until it's eventually found in the bed. It really stinks and its super painful so people just lay there sobbing, calling for a parent, usually their mom.

It's like a horror movie in real life.

Gangrene doesnt really spread aggressively. The fungal or bacterial infection near the juncture is what spreads, straight into the bloodstream. But we give high powered antibiotics and just let the appendage fall off naturally. For some reason that's helpful. So you have this black mummy foot that sort of wobbles on the bone until it's eventually found in the bed. It really stinks and its super painful so people just lay there sobbing, calling for a parent, usually their mom.

It's like a horror movie in real life. — frank

That's very interesting, never had gangrene myself. You have enlightened me my friend

By the way, what do they do with the foot?

Yes, I agree that there could be a large bias towards Biden, and lot's of simple models can be made showing Biden likely will win.

But the problem with those simple models is that it's too easy to miss something in which case, it's "oh, yeah, well didn't think about that" or "well, didn't think these votes would lean Trump". — boethius

Although there's always the possibility for a late surprise, most election analysts are pretty good at forecasting votes from certain demographics based on the remaining vote. Alot of the remaining vote is from urban areas and are mail-in. Thus far in this election alone, they've been heavily democratic,