US Elections 2020

Started by dsanchez, August 29, 2020, 00:34:10

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dsanchez

2023.11.22 Lima
2023.11.27 Montevideo

dsanchez

2023.11.22 Lima
2023.11.27 Montevideo

SueC

This is such a train wreck that I usually try to ignore it, but here's one really interesting article that's just out:

https://www.crikey.com.au/2020/09/25/donald-trump-psychological-profile/

Actually worth reading.  At least the first bit, before the author gets all acrostic...
SueC is time travelling

SueC

SueC is time travelling

Ulrich

QuoteI just voted! Didn't see Iggy Pop or Bob Dylan on the ballot so everything was definately second choices!

(Sonny Vincent, US songwriter & punkrocker via FB)
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

SueC

Guy Rundle at Crikey is good at summing this excrementitious situation up:

QuoteThe almost perfect storm has descended upon the American polity: an electoral system designed in the 18th century and not much modified since, ramshackle at the best of times, is now going head-to-head with an out of control pandemic, a mendacious president, a gangster administration and a stacked Supreme Court. What else could possibly go wrong?

Oh yeah, it's legal to open carry guns into a polling place. Thank God there's nothing aggravating about voting in the US, like an hours-long wait in line, with the distribution of food and water prohibited. Last, best hope of man, everybody.

There's no even-handedness about this. Democrat-run states may gerrymander their districts — they have to, for parity — but it's Republican states that suppress the voter rolls with lifetime voting bans on felons, removal of polling places and understaffing of those that remain. Now, with the universal right to mail-in ballots due to COVID-19, the brand-spanking new Supreme Court has ruled, on a Wisconsin case, that mail-in ballots stamped as mailed before polling day but arriving after will not be counted.

This, after the Trump-installed head of the US Postal Service initiated a campaign of withdrawing hundreds of mail sorting machines from service before workers refused to co-operate.

With state and county government determining most election conduct, the lawsuits are running wild. There are more than 300 currently underway, a large proportion focused on the key swing states of Florida and Pennsylvania. Should there be challenges to the result in these or other swing states, it seems likely that these will be the cases which are rapidly shuffled up to the Supreme Court — which has complete discretion to take up whichever appeals it likes.

In the Wisconsin decision Justice Brett Kavanaugh affirmed both the notion of "stopping the count" on election night or soon after to avoid "confusion", and the supremacy of state government election codes over any challenge to their constitutionality by state courts. Since most of these governments are Republican, well.

The stage is thus set for a multi-directional car crash: hundreds of thousands of rejected votes, stand-offs at polling places, queues so long people are denied the chance to vote, followed by razor-thin state results which might be reversed into a final result in which an electoral college majority diverges from an overall majority.

This would test the system to close to breaking point beyond anything of recent decades. It's an extraordinary situation, arrived at in no more than a decade and a half from a point of relative stability and consensus. It's a product of the "wrecking crew" approach to government by Republicans — to do government so badly that all consensual norms collapse and power becomes sheer exercise of force.

More here:  https://www.crikey.com.au/2020/10/29/2020-us-election-biden-victory/

...and I love this definition of his:

Quote"exported democracy" — manufactured elites, a dodged-up process, a systemic exclusion of progressive change
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SueC

The sad state of the world is resulting in a lot of high-quality, impassioned writing, such as:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/27/ronald-reagan-vs-donald-trump

Comparing the Australian way of holding elections to the current US way of doing it:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/29/the-us-electoral-system-is-a-shambles-they-could-learn-a-lot-from-australia

How we vote here is really good - but we do have the problem that voting isn't by proportional representation, but by seats - so someone can get in government because they win more seats, even though they get less overall votes - just as happened in the US in 2 out of the last 5 elections...

Best commentary of all, as usual, by FDOTM:



from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/28/how-much-better-would-the-usa-be-with-a-raccoon-in-the-white-house

Stay sane, everyone - or at least, don't tip further into insanity...  :'(
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dsanchez

2023.11.22 Lima
2023.11.27 Montevideo

SueC

Just when you thought things couldn't possibly get worse... (but at least the article is scorchingly well-written):

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/04/ok-america-so-what-the-hell-happens-now
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Ulrich

From Sue's link:
Quote from: undefinedIn short, I think we all feel the hand of history on our pussies.

Donald Trump, America's howling id, has not lost this election. Then again, Joe Biden has not won it. Shortly before 6am UK time, Biden addressed a rally – never a better time for one, mate – and told the Delaware crowd he was "optimistic". In split-screen Trump addressed his Twitter retinue, and told them of "a big WIN", adding "they are trying to STEAL the election ... votes cannot be cast after the Poles are closed." Expect him to invade Pole-land in the coming days.

Hilarious wording, did she really just say "pussies" in a press article?  XD

The holy city breathed like a dying man...

dsanchez

Looks like Biden made it

2023.11.22 Lima
2023.11.27 Montevideo

SueC

Some good news amongst the dire:

QuoteAccording to a Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) report, 18 indigenous women were running for congressional seats this year – a record in a single year. Native American women made up 2.6% of all women running for Congress this year, the highest percentage since CAWP started collecting data in 2004.

There have been four Native Americans in the US Senate and a handful of indigenous US representatives. All were men until Haaland and Davids were elected in 2018.

In Kansas, Stephanie Byers, who is Chickasaw and a retired teacher, became the state's first transgender lawmaker when she won her race for a seat in its house of representatives.

"We've made history here," Byers said on Tuesday. "We've done something in Kansas most people thought would never happen, and we did it with really no pushback, by just focusing on the issues."

Also in Kansas, Christina Haswood, a Navajo Nation member, became the youngest person in the state legislature at 26. A third member of the Kansas house , Ponka-We Victors, a Tohono O'odham and Ponca member, won her re-election campaign.

The US House of Representatives will have its highest number of indigenous representatives after Tuesday's election, according to the independent Native American newspaper Indian Country Today.

Six candidates, including Haaland, Davids and Herrell, won their elections. Two Oklahoma representatives, Tom Cole, who is Chickasaw, and Markwayne Mullin, who is Cherokee, won their re-elections, and Kaiali'i "Kai" Kahele, who is Native Hawaiian, won an open seat for Hawaii. There were previously four indigenous members of Congress, all in the House of Representatives.

from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/04/native-american-women-elected-congress-record-number
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SueC

Quote from: Ulrich on November 04, 2020, 16:57:49From Sue's link:
Quote from: undefinedIn short, I think we all feel the hand of history on our pussies.

Donald Trump, America's howling id, has not lost this election. Then again, Joe Biden has not won it. Shortly before 6am UK time, Biden addressed a rally – never a better time for one, mate – and told the Delaware crowd he was "optimistic". In split-screen Trump addressed his Twitter retinue, and told them of "a big WIN", adding "they are trying to STEAL the election ... votes cannot be cast after the Poles are closed." Expect him to invade Pole-land in the coming days.

Hilarious wording, did she really just say "pussies" in a press article?  XD

She was only quoting, Ulrich, as you'd be aware, but I can't tell you how horrible it is to be female and have some champion posterior orifice in public office refer to us or our anatomy in this way, and in other equally delightful ways.  OMG if there was justice.  But there's not, and what I want to know is how women can actually vote for someone so misogynistic - do they like being portrayed by someone in a position of power as objects for sexual exploitation, and as non-people?

At this point, I'm taking a deep breath and reminding myself of all the decent men in this world, who treat women with respect.  Thank you and it makes such a difference.  ♥

And yeah, excellent wording in that article.  My biggest laugh went to "America's howling id" - genius, bwahahaha.  :lol:  It kinda merges imagery of a howling idiot with a personification of the emotional three-year-old-ness that a lot of US citizens have been putting on show, and for whom the howling idiot seems to be a spokesperson...  Plenty of id and ego on show, not much superego here...

And the Poles are closed, bwahahaha.  :rofl

Perhaps Pole-land would be the best place for The Resident Rump to cool his heels, on a melting ice shelf.  :evil:
SueC is time travelling

Ulrich

It looks like Biden is ahead with his votes. Fingers crossed.

(Whatever happens, Trump will not go quietly...)

Quote from: SueC on November 05, 2020, 02:22:47She was only quoting, Ulrich, as you'd be aware

Yeah, I knew about Trump's quote "grab 'em by the...", but still I was surprised to see this in a "serious" newspaper article/comment.  ;)
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

SueC

I couldn't help but make a comment today on the Guardian about how nice it would be if Thor applied his hammer to a particular sconce, @Ulrich.  Probably that's going to disappear for not abiding by community standards... but there was a lot of anger out there, and not all of it couched in metaphor.  I guess the community standards people are going to have a busy time of it while individuals like that a) exist, and b) end up in power positions.  :evil:
SueC is time travelling