US Elections 2020

[filghy2]

It's interesting that the Murdoch media seem to be making a concerted effort to distance themselves from Trump's claims. We know that Murdoch likes to back winners, so he may have concluded there is no benefit in supporting the flailing antics of a loser as he goes over the edge.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazi...divorce-434775
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...ightwing-media

[Stavros]

It appears there has not been a Third Party candidate taking votes away from either of the two main antagonists, though I read somewhere Kanye West is mulling a 2024 run.

It seems I might be wrong about this, as the Guardian/Observer today has looked at the thin margins of victory for Biden in states where the Libertarian candidate jo Jorgensen took a significant number of votes, though they admit the assumption is that they would otherwise have gone to Republicans -

"In the Republican stronghold of Georgia, which will award 16 electoral college votes, Biden presently bests Trump by fewer than 8,000 ballots. The percentage-based breakdown puts this into sharp relief: Biden has won 49.5% of the votes compared to Trump’s 49.3%.

Jorgensen has won the remaining 1.2% – which now totals 61,792 votes. That number is more than seven times the Trump-Biden split there. The Associated Press has not yet called Georgia’s results. On Friday, state officials announced a recount.
Numbers from Arizona, which the AP has already called in favor of Biden, are also noteworthy. With 90% of the vote counted, Biden holds 1,626,943 votes to Trump’s 1,606,370 – a 49.6 to 48.9% divide. Jorgensen has landed 49,182 votes, or 1.5%. Arizona awards 11 electoral college votes.

In Wisconsin, which Trump won by 22,748 votes in 2016, Biden has been called as the winner, with 1,630,570 votes compared to his opponent’s 1,610,030. Jorgensen got 38,415 votes, which is more than the difference between these candidates. Wisconsin has 10 electoral college votes.
That said, a vote for Jorgensen is not by any means necessarily a vote that Trump would have otherwise won."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...rump-joe-biden

[Stavros]

As to what happens next to the defeated President, assuming that his legal challenges fail and there are no, or not enough 'faithless electors' to reverse the result so far, there is speculation he will try to maintain his dominance of the Party to run again in 2024. Or, that he will create a news company of his own, something that has traction is, as Filghy2 points out above, he has been abandoned by Rupert Murdoch.

The most remarkable third option was proposed last night on Channel 4 News in the UK last nght. Timothy Snyder argued that with mounting debt problems that must be resolved over the next four years, and with litigation over tax affairs current and more pending, he says the 45th President is a 'flight risk' and could well deal with his problems by leaving the country, but did not speculate on where he might go to be beyond the law...

https://www.channel4.com/news/what-c...-a-flight-risk

[mrtrebus]

goodbye & good riddance mr trump

[trish]

We failed to take the Senate, failed to remove Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham, we lost seats in the House but still retain it my a small margin. Nevertheless, I am so fucking relieved.

[filghy2]

We failed to take the Senate, failed to remove Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham, we lost seats in the House but still retain it my a small margin.

I guess the conspirators who stole the election from Trump forgot about those other races.

I think it's fair to say that the outcome was a rejection of Trump rather than an embrace of the Democrats. The result is going to reopen questions about the small target strategy of relying on Trump's unpopularity rather than offering a more ambitious policy agenda. It may be papered over for a while in the euphoria of victory, but I'm sure these questions will intensify as it becomes clear how hamstrung this administration will be without the Senate.

[filghy2]

It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out within the Republican Party, once the legal avenues are existed and people can't hide behind the argument that there are still issues to be resolved. The Trumpists will try to enforce absolute loyalty but there must he hard-heads who understand that refusing to move on and obsessing about the myth of the stolen election is not likely to be a good strategy for winning the next one.

[broncofan]

It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out within the Republican Party, once the legal avenues are existed and people can't hide behind the argument that there are still issues to be resolved.

They don't seem to be punished very much for abhorrent behavior. We also found out that while we have "low-propensity voters" that we can turn out when participation increases they do too. Their voters came out in force just like Democrats did.

I don't take it lightly that Rupert Murdoch has limits to what he'll accept. Those limits seem kind of arbitrary given what he's already been on board with but there appears to be a threshold he won't cross. Either that or he just doesn't think that helping to turn the U.S. into an authoritarian state by fueling Trump's delusions is something that would end up profiting the Republican party or his family business.

I am not sure what policies will make the Democratic Party more popular but I really wish there was widespread buy in to the idea that we have to respect democratic norms as well as basic norms of fairness. The damage Fox News has done is incredible and it remains to be seen whether they've created something they can't control as they get outflanked by outlets more committed to being crazy.

[Stavros]

If you don't like Mondays and you voted for Biden, you won't like this Monday. The practical business of ensuring that a transition takes place, is being held up by the refusal of the President to accept he has been defeated. It appears one key element of this is the refusal of the woman in charge of the 'General Services Administration' to sign the documents that release official funds and office space for the Biden Transition Team, as reported in this morning's Guardian wth regard to Emily Murphy-.

"Murphy is “refusing to sign a letter allowing Biden’s transition team to formally begin its work this week”, the Post reported, noting that her job includes signing “paperwork officially turning over millions of dollars, as well as giving access to government officials, office space and equipment authorized for the taxpayer-funded transition teams of the winner”.
This is a rarely-discussed duty, typically executed without incident in the period after a new president is elected. It’s a formal letter from the federal government acknowledging the winner of the race, separate from the media calls. But the Post found that almost 36 hours after the projection of a Biden win, Murphy had not written the letter, and that the “the Trump administration, in keeping with the president’s failure to concede the election, has no immediate plans to sign one”.

In addition, someone called Mark Levin has argued that the President can still remain in place by winning votes in the Electoral College-

"Levin has been sympathetic to the president’s false and unsubstantiated claims about fraud and the ongoing efforts to undermine the integrity of the election. He has also called for GOP state legislatures to ignore the election results and send electors who will vote for Trump instead of Biden."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...9-live-updates

Can this be done legallly?

[broncofan]

In addition, someone called Mark Levin has argued that the President can still remain in place by winning votes in the Electoral College-

"Levin has been sympathetic to the president’s false and unsubstantiated claims about fraud and the ongoing efforts to undermine the integrity of the election. He has also called for GOP state legislatures to ignore the election results and send electors who will vote for Trump instead of Biden."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...9-live-updates

Can this be done legallly?

Mark Levin is a right-wing radio personality. An awful personality and person. In most states it is prohibited by law for the elector to vote for anyone other than the person who won the popular vote in that state and those laws have been upheld by the Supreme Court. I haven't seen a survey of those states that don't have laws forbidding it vs. those that do but I believe it's an extremely unlikely outcome. Below is an article about "faithless electors."

The other legal avenues don't look very promising to Trump. Recounts probably won't accomplish anything, trying to invalidate the ballots that PA segregated might be moot if there are fewer than the margin of victory. I believe when Trump's legal cases are thrown out and the recounts are finished he won't have any avenues left.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...rs/6159795002/