When I see Trump talk, I wonder if he really believes what he says or if he knowingly and willfully lies.
What this man has done in four years has put a great damage to the democratic culture in the US, and he badly harmed the reputation of the US around the world, especially when it comes to old allies in Europe.
Edit: If Trump was not a narcisstic egomanianc („I WON THIS ELECTION BY A LOT“?!? Wtf?!), he would have stepped up in dignity, conceded his loss, congratulated Biden and wished him well. The US is confronted with many challenges in the midst of a huge pandemic, the nation is divided, and all he has to say is he won by a lot (in big letters)?!? This is it?
When they say why, it becomes understandable. "I came here with $7.23 in my pocket and didn't even speak the language. I'm making a living. Get off welfare and get a job."
The Dems are painted as the party of handouts and the handouts torque the immigrants off. The immigrants are working extremely hard,sending money home to their families and so on.
Oh, wait…
A lot of hispanics voted for Trump in this election.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/14/florida-latinos-dis...
Pretty sure Hispanics can think for themselves, with factual references at hand. I believe the linked article paints them in an unfairly gullible light, while it does nothing to discredit what it claims as being conspiracy theories. They point to current developments happening in their home countries, only becoming discreditable 'theories' because of the absurdity in which they are framed (in the article).
To name an example, The Open Foundation (associated with philanthropist Soros) has been funding parties and congresspeople all over S.A. who are looking to advance certain social causes. This is part of funding declarations by the recipients, and since it's not unlawful, and not a secret, it's not a conspiracy; and since it's not fiction, it's not a theory (in the sense of supposition). One of such causes is the decriminalization of abortion, an issue that's been traditionally (fiercely) opposed.
Considering Trump's aim to defund Planned Parenthood, and the appointment of a fitting (Catholic) judge to the Supreme Court, couldn't they not lean towards him in this aspect on the grounds of a proven track record, rather than just propaganda?
We should all be so lucky to "fail" that badly...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_terr...
That sounds like you believe parties don't always adjust to the electorate. No major party can have a platform that doesn't allow them to get a majority of the vote. So if demographics means the country becomes liberal, then so do both parties. That doesn't mean the conservative party isn't the more conservative one. It might mean that they want single payer healthcare or, for example.
That’s patently false: one Republican president in 28 years has been elected with a majority of the vote.
On the local level, gerrymandering and vote suppression are both tactics to get around the need to appeal to a majority, and the GOP has embraced both.
If it weren't winning the presidency, it would be compelled to be more competitive. No major party exists nationally without winning presidential elections.
Republicans will become a minority party with no power at all. Democrats will get mad that there are Republicans on the ballot, so the rules will be changed to allow two Democrats on the ballot, a progressive one and a "liberal"/moderate one (and no Republican). This allows progressive policies to continue, and the legislature ends up being a supermajority mix of progressive Democrats and liberal Democrats, with some useless Republicans from a few low-population counties.
There's absolutely no reason the US won't follow this same pattern: it works.
(You can also see the Democratic Party's progressive/liberal split today with the DSA. That's just the CA dynamic going national.)
Also why would that happen? There are tons of republicans in California. Obviously, California republicans running for state offices should have a platform that might resemble a D platform. Because as I said - you adjust to the elctorate. What parties stand for isn't written in stone. Parties that think it is will become irrelevant. Annd no, not because they are banned from running.
If they bothered to break democracy, why hold elections at all? There is no legitimacy coming from a one party election. Multi party and ranked choice I hope will bring some sanity to the system.
Republicans work about as hard keeping more right-associated candidates off the ballot (e.g. libertarians).
CA voters approved the change. Who's being divisive here? If voters want more relevant choices on the final ballot, and vote for the change, that should be fine in a Democracy.
Or maybe you prefer some other kind of rule?
I thought you were speculating about what a party would do which you disagree with. If this is indeed something that happened (despite your use of future tense) I apologize.
> If voters want more relevant choices on the final ballot, and vote for the change, that should be fine in a Democracy.
If they decided to simply not have elections, because people want all D so what's the point, would that be OK in a democracy? (Answer: No, because it's not a democracy any more then).
I feel this discussion has sidetracked a bit. I think the conclusion is this: in a 2 party system, if opinions shift (due to time/demographics/fashion/talk radio...) then if both parties don't adapt, you risk ending up with a de-facto one party rule. And that's not the fault of the party that didn't need to change, but the fault of the party that needed to but didn't.
Imagine a district with the following breakdown: 35% Progressive D, 35% Liberal/moderate D, 25% Republican, 5% Other. So overall, 70% D.
CA used to mandate that on the final ballot, you got one choice per party, e.g. one D, one R, and N "Other".
Here's what would happen: the D primary would have a Progressive and a Liberal/moderate. But because Progressives were a lot more "activist", they got out and voted in the primary and their candidate would win. So the final ballot would be: Progressive D, moderate R, N "Other".
In the election, enough Liberal/moderate Ds would NOT vote for the Progressive D, so the moderate Republican kept winning, despite only being 25% of the electorate and not voting with Democrats in the legislature, even though 70% of their district were Democrats.
The change was to have the top two candidates of any party on the ballot. This resulted in a Progressive D and a Liberal/moderate D (and no R). R's (of course) vote for the Liberal/moderate D in this scenario on the final ballot, and they win (and vote with the Democrats in the legislature). This, more or less, is why Democrats have a supermajority in CA, but it's really two wings of the same party, and they have to negotiate much the same way that Democrats and Republicans in the US Senate have to get along.
Just not in California. But it would be different federally, right?
As long as there are conservative Whites living in California in sufficient numbers, there will be a Republican Party to represent their interests—that's how a "representative democracy" is supposed to work. Republicans lose when there aren't enough Whites with conservative beliefs to elect them, and win when there are enough.
Republicans today remind me of the Confederacy in a lot of ways, and I expect them to fade away over time in a similar manner. The US can no longer support an effectively White-only national party.
I think this is a gross oversimplification (and demonstrably false if you look at some other countries), but OK, for the sake of argument let's say that one party represents one core demographic. Then one of these is true: 1) their core demographic is a majority or 2) they can attract enough share from other demographics without alienating their core demographic. or 3) they are, and should be a minority party.
I think a big part of the problem is that the US is a big and diverse place politically, so having parties with a huge national identity like the donkey and elephant is always problematic at the edges. R's simply have to attract more minority voters, more women voters, more young voters etc.
> I expect them to fade away over time in a similar manner. The US can no longer support an effectively White-only national party.
Well they will adapt or fade away. That of course goes for any political party, anywhere. A party can't please everyone. But it also can't perfectly please only a tiny core base. They need to broaden their support. But are they capable of that? It's like they think that "Attract voters from demographic X" means "Tell people in demographic X how good Republican policy is". What it should mean is actually change policy to attract that demographic.
Now: this state discussion misses a big point with the US political climate and it's that the divide isn't really between states, nor mostly between demographics like age or ethnicity, but between city and rural. I honestly don't quite understand why that divide is so pronounced.
He will literally say anything it takes, truthful or not, to win the current argument.
Anybody familiar with the church has encountered this sort of "playing both sides of the fence" before.
In both cases, the Holy Man has all the answers, and it sounds like they know what they are talking about-- even if their answers are contradictory.
Questioning that leads to circular logic you can't unravel, and in the end you give up and accept that they know better than you. Institutionalized gaslighting, in both cases.
Trump formed a committee to find voter fraud and for years it failed. It silently disbanded. The heritage foundation has researched voter fraud too, and it has found little to no evidence.
If that doesn't satisfy them, what will? You're basically saying we have to convince a group of people that fucking unicorns and dragons don't exist.
Don't repeat disinformation. This never happened.
Poll watchers were required to stand 10 feet away to protect workers from COVID-19. The court ruling required that they be allowed to stand 6 feet away.
Citation: https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2020/11/05/philadelphia-co...
It seems to me the counting authority should have set up some 4K CCTV gear, and/or 4K webcams on an internal network, for the duration. The pandemic gave them ample warning that physical distancing measures would be required.
The earlier post's premise--as pushed by Trump over Twitter--that Republican poll watchers were specifically targeted for exclusion, however, is factually wrong.
Can you read a ballot from 6 or 10 ft away? Does that affect the ability of observers to observe whatever it is they are responsible for observing?
Does COVID justify relaxing the rules on observation of a vote count?
There was a lawsuit filed by the Trump with regards to the distance requirements for safe viewing of vote counting. The judge overturned a lower court decision on what safe distances would be, and enabled observers to observe from 6 feet instead of 10.
The first source listed corroborates this story (although I haven't found any primary sources or what the exact contents of the complaint were, abcnews seems to be the source that most outlets are referencing https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/pennsylvania-judge-permits-c...).
There doesn't seem to be any truth to observers being removed from any tabulation rooms (or at least I can't find any trustworthy sources). The second source, while claiming this in the headline, is also just referencing the complaint discussed earlier and has twisted that into the headline.
People could have more faith in the process without more legal cases like Florida 2000 (which kept Gore out of the White House despite him winning the vote in Florida), the Brooks Brothers Riot[0] and its 2020 replicas, the 2019 Georgia governors race (where the Republican candidate was also the secretary of state responsible for counting the votes; needless to say, there were 'irregularities.'), pervasive efforts to prevent demographics that historically do not vote Republican from voting[1], manipulation of the postal service to disenfranchise likely Biden voters[2], the continuing myth of 'voter fraud' that the GOP spreads[3] to justify disenfranchisement, and the constant drumbeat of 'it's rigged if I don't win' emerging from Trump's Twitter account and replicated by Facebook and other right-wing media outlets.
There's no clear way to restore faith in the electoral process without removing disdain for democracy from the Republican Party's DNA.
[0] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/what-is-the-brooks-b...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_suppression_in_the_Unite...
[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/11/05/usps-late...
[3] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/24/fbi-has-not-seen-evidence-of...
The preponderance of partisan, Republican, judges on the supreme court is very much part of the problem.
Take a step back, take a deep breath, and remember that issues are more complicated than "my team good, your team bad."
Or perhaps we shouldn't investigate foreign election interference?
The DoJ very much found signs of Russian election interference. They just couldn't prove that the Trump campaign actively conspired with Russia.
The 'Russia hoax' produced multiple criminal charges, both of Russians for interfering in the 2016 election, and of several Americans for obstructing the DoJ's attempts to investigate the possibility of people in the Trump orbit conspiring with the Russian government.
It has been factually established that Russia interfered with the 2016 election. The only question -- which cannot be answered because people in the Trump orbit lied to investigators and concealed evidence -- is whether the Trump campaign actively conspired with Russian entities beyond Trump openly asking for their help to access H. Clinton's 'emails.'
Take a step back, take a deep breath, and remember that some issues are a lot clearer than intentionally obfuscatory Republican narratives make them out to be.
If the process results in electing white supremacist like Trump, shouldn't that cause people to "lose faith in the process?"
Biden's historic turnout and election is proof the US doesn't want fascism. If that doesn't restore faith in the process, I don't know what would...
They need to believe. So they follow those that help them do so.
But I am in favor of investigating all (legitimate) allegations of fraud, not just the ones that DJT wants to investigate. And counting all ballots.
Of course. Which is why it's really only worth mentioning in the context of fraud actually changing anything significant.
Not sure why either side has anything to do with fraud in this election (I got that undertone from the post).
As always extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
If Trump voters are really upset about it, states can audit the vote and show that fraud was a very small percentage, and didn't change any outcomes. (Both sides commit fraud, so they tend to cancel each other out.)