US Elections 2020

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Originally Posted by sidney111

Well considering I’d just come from viewing the Tgirls with really hard full erections thread, you could be right

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I'm glad you're alright. People in this country who watched the Confederate flag marched through their capitol are a bit more upset about it.

I am not against trying to understand structural causes of things even when they have more obvious proximate causes. For instance, if someone commits a murder I don't think it's irrelevant whether their unhappy childhood played a role. Likewise, when someone commits a terrorist act it may be useful to understand what policies lead to more or less terrorism. But that doesn't mean I blame parties who did nothing wrong or that it ever supersedes the initial analysis of who committed the crime and who lit the fuse.

The liberal media or the mainstream media is not a guilty party. What could they do but tell the truth about the bald lies Trump was telling? Outlets that amplified these lies and Trump share blame with the people who committed insurrection.

Are there structural problems that can be addressed that might improve social harmony in this country? Sure. But that doesn't make media outlets that corrected lies wrong nor does it say anything about the traitors who stoked this violence.

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Originally Posted by Stavros

This article from last November by Joan Williams is sort of like a companion to Cramer-

https://hbr.org/2020/11/how-biden-wo...-working-class

But it begs the queston -can Biden deliver jobs in 'Middle America', ravaged by Covid -?

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I can't remember the source, but I recall some analysis after the 2016 election that showed that the main explanator or Trump voting was racial anxiety rather than economic deprivation. Trump voters actually had higher incomes on average than non-Trump voters.

Here's some sources on my point about racial anxieties underpinning support for Trump.
https://theintercept.com/2018/09/18/...e-class-trump/
https://www.thenation.com/article/ar...mp-racism-did/
https://www.prri.org/research/white-...-donald-trump/
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content...bian-et-al.pdf

This raises an obvious question. If the concerns of Trump voters are based on unfounded fears and/or prejudices, and can't be addressed without unfairly damaging the interests of other members of society, then how exactly are these to be addressed. In a democracy the interests of a minority cannot be allowed to take precedence over those of the majority. Trump's base is already significantly overrepresented in the electoral system - why do they deserve even more?

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Originally Posted by filghy2

Here's some sources on my point about racial anxieties underpinning support for Trump.
This raises an obvious question. If the concerns of Trump voters are based on unfounded fears and/or prejudices, and can't be addressed without unfairly damaging the interests of other members of society, then how exactly are these to be addressed. In a democracy the interests of a minority cannot be allowed to take precedence over those of the majority. Trump's base is already significantly overrepresented in the electoral system - why do they deserve even more?

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An interesting set of links (I could not get The Nation to open), is the similar disconnect between reality and the voters. Many of the voters who chose to Leave the EU in the UK cited issues that were not direcly related to the EU. Some voted Leave beause they were opposed to Cameron's Austerity policies; some voted because they disliked immigrants -but from outside the EU-and often in areas where there was little immigration of any kind. One of the highest Remain votes was in London which has an above average cohort of immigrants from outside the EU.
On core issues, such as Sovereignty, many may have been swayed by Johnson's 'Take Back Control' slogan, but would not have been able to explain what it meant, and even fewer would have cited the more genuine anxiety that they did not want the UK to be part of the 'Ever Closer Union' that has been written into every treaty since Rome in 1957. Again, even when told there could be a risk to jobs in the UK, the sense that 'we' would be 'Taking Back Control' -of our borders, our laws, our money- was appealing, even where there was no evidence that it would make life in the UK better economically or protect jobs.

In the case of the US, where Race has been a defining issue since Jamestown, it is no surprise that this image people have of their country they see being 'stained' by people of the wrong colour. That there were times in the 19th century when their immigrant ancestors, from Hungary, Italy, Russia -to name just three- were seen as a threat does not register, just as the first anti-immigration laws were designed to halt the entry of the Chinese into the US, and in the 1920s, the Jews. But ask the question, Who does this country belong to? and the answer is not definitive. Trump banked on the view that his supporters see the US as a White, Christian country, and everyone not answering to that description is in some way a lesser American. And he relentlessly classified Americans according to a Yes or No question, until he asked the question Am I More Important Than the Constitution? And the answer came back: no.

In partisan terms, the Democrats have succeeded in building a coalition of the diverse groups that constitute the USA. At the Party Conventions in Chicago in 1968 and Miami in 1972, the party was seen as an incoherent collection of interest groups who insisted their cause was the right cause but did not speak to each other. Since then, they have been able to integrate those various interests, and appeal to a wider group of electors, even as the Republicans -Reagan aside- have relied on a smaller group of voters.

But if race is such an issue how does one account for the voters who chose Obama twice, then opted for Trump? It may be that the sense of belonging looks at Congress and takes the view they are out of touch, but I recall when Carter was elected they said he won because he was an Outsider from Georgia who would do things differently, and for all his successes in restoring the dignity of the Office that Nixon undermined, and the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel (and a real peace treaty between two warring states, not the financial thank you Jared Kushner is resposible for in 2020), Carter failed to build a working relationship with Congress, and was lumbered with the Iran Hostage Crisis at the end of his term.

Perhaps the sense of alienation from the centre of Government has always been there, so that economics and race are always the keys that unlock power, but not always at the same level of interest. Rebuiding the infrastructure of the US would demonstate locally where the tax dollars are going, but rebuilding the infrastructure has been on the agenda since Clinton and I don't know it has ever passed through a partisan Congress to actually happen, so I don't know if Biden will be able to do much about it without McConell's support, and I doubt he will get that.

So maybe its because people don't think the Government ever gets things done that is at the heart of their discontent?

The problem for me is that it's not clear whether we're talking about what caused people to support Trump or what caused people to engage in insurrection.

Trump does represent a rejection of the elites. Instead of addressing points about subjects that are difficult to grasp he will call his opponents all sorts of names. For some people it is refreshing to see someone who takes him or herself seriously be belittled. For these people he is a hero because he's willing to say what they're thinking. The problem is that while he's been very effective at convincing some people he stands for them he has also been spectacularly corrupt, consistently dishonest, and has not attempted to solve any problems government usually addresses.

When he has violated norms, such as calling the media the enemy of the people, or declaring victory for himself in the middle of an election, his supporters like it because they dislike the people he dislikes. Sadly he also has systematically lied to them and violated our Constitution in every way imaginable. That's not a partisan view. He typically tells dozens of lies per week and then lies about the lies.

Once Trump started to develop a following many of his supporters took leads from him. When he tells them he's been cheated, even if he can't make it sound plausible, they are fanatical in their support. The people who are in the best position to do anything about it are members of his political party. But they have been intimidated by the messianic conspiracy theorists who threaten them if they even consider taking a reasonable view.

Those across the aisle and in the media are left trying to point out the many errors: that hydroxychloroquine is not a miracle cure for covid, that a vaccine will not be available in three months, that covid is not "a flu", that nobody shredded ballots, that dominion machines were not rigged, that there isn't a conspiracy in all of the cities with large Black populations to cheat him. If Republicans cannot find the courage to do this themselves, whatever that sacrifice costs them politically, then the only thing Democrats can do is try to enforce the law and follow the Constitution.

I would like to hear from somebody something concrete about how Democrats or the media could have responded to Trump trying to suppress the vote pre-election, claiming victory during the election, and going into full-on conspiracy theory mode after the election with the most brazen plans to destroy our democracy. Seriously? A less strident tone? Don't contradict him so much or you contribute to the polarization? I couldn't figure out what the effective response is to a deluge of nonsense. I know for sure it's not to acquiesce to the falsehoods.

One issue that probably hasn't received the attention it deserves is who is running the country at present. The USA now seems to have no effective Federal government and won't for the next 9 days. What happens if there is some crisis in that time requiring the President to make decisions? We seem to have a situation in which members of the administration know that Trump is mentally incapable of doing his job, but won't formally do anything about it.

https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/opini...?ocid=msedgdhp

Donald Trump just became the first American president to be impeached twice. Oh well, that's one way to ensure his place in the history books...

It is way too late for Elaine Cho,Betsy DeVos,Hope Hicks,Chad Wolfe and other Trump Administration Officials to resign now and save their own asses,because they have enabled Donald Trump to commit impeachable offenses and abuse his powers for years and did absolutely nothing about it. They might as well stick around because within a week none of them is going to have a job,and nobody is going to hire them.

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Originally Posted by Laphroaig

Donald Trump just became the first American president to be impeached twice. Oh well, that's one way to ensure his place in the history books...

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Only 5% of House Republicans thought that inciting an armed mob to storm the Capitol and then obstructing the security forces' response justified impeachment.

Some good news is that Republican voters' support for Trump seems to be falling away finally. https://www.vox.com/2021/1/15/222328...ng-impeachment
Hopefully this will help at least 17 Senate Republicans to find some courage. I'm sure many of them would love to see Trump disbarred from running again - they just don't want to be seen to support it.

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Originally Posted by filghy2

Only 5% of House Republicans thought that inciting an armed mob to storm the Capitol and then obstructing the security forces' response justified impeachment.

Some good news is that Republican voters' support for Trump seems to be falling away finally. https://www.vox.com/2021/1/15/222328...ng-impeachment
Hopefully this will help at least 17 Senate Republicans to find some courage. I'm sure many of them would love to see Trump disbarred from running again - they just don't want to be seen to support it.

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Would be interesting to see what the ratio of Republicans to Trump supporters actually is. Twitter isn't exactly a great barometer, but a lot of Trump supporters on there saying they'll never vote Republican again. I suspect the real "silent majority" are the Republicans sighing with relief that Trump is gone and hoping that the next candidate will be more conventional republican, for want of a better phrase.