2024 Presidential Election thread

[IdahoBert]

I just don’t know how people can think government gets “smaller” when all the branches of government are concentrated into the hand of one man who is a dictator. I guess the decision-making is “streamlined“ but this model does not have a good track record historically. Dictatorships are the biggest government conceivable. 

Also, how can you LOVE “the constitution“ and support a candidate who essentially wants to get rid of it? You either have to be really duplicitous or so charged up with emotion that none of this stuff registers.

[LaceyLou]

18 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

The Dems lost with Hillary and decided it was a fluke rather than a property of their electorate, so Biden doubled down with Harris. If you believe that leadership means getting out in front of your public and bringing it along, that was not necessarily a mistake ethically even if it may have turned out to be tactically. But the point has been made that if that was the plan then Biden had to give Harris at least as much or more profile in his admin that Obama gave Biden, and it was never even close. One can also argue that if it was foreseen that  a win was so critical in '24 and the Dems were absolutely set on a woman, then pick a white woman and least save your self that half of the battle. In any case, there are a lot of way to slice and dice this history on the continuum of what should have been done in 2020 that cast the die for '24. But the other factor is that I think a lot of people thought Trump would either have gone away to jail or at least gone away instead of holding his grip on GOP. 

Everybody needs to suck it up, go find someplace to use your efforts help build US civil society for the next few years and make a contribution to holding it together.

I was planning to take a couple of days off, then start researching in preparation for the midterms. And then it will be the time to get active in our communities, and if you haven't already, follow your local government and try to make choices to make it a healthy one. There are a lot of organizations and people out there who could use the help. 

And... remember in 2016 enough people got together to keep the ACA in place until the midterm elections-maybe we can't prevent everything on Drumpf's agenda but we owe it to ourselves to keep trying.

 

[Kacie]

27 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

They should have let Biden run in 2016 instead of Obama and his bros forcing Biden to stand down and clear the way for Hillary. Biden likely wins in 2016 and Trump goes back to being a C rate celebrity. 

I could be wrong on this, but I believe Biden declined to run because Beau had just recently died.

[Motown Bombers]

3 minutes ago, Kacie said:

I could be wrong on this, but I believe Biden declined to run because Beau had just recently died.

Biden has said that, but there has been a lot of talk that Obama and his crew, like Axelrod, told Biden to step aside and clear the way for Hillary since Obama was going to endorse Hillary. 

Edited November 7 by Motown Bombers

[LaceyLou]

I think it was both-he was told to step aside, and since he was going through a lot at the time he didn't argue.

[Kacie]

49 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Well, that makes a hell of a lot of sense, doesn't it?

Yes, I am completely serious about that.

A few years back, Hartland, near Brighton, got all bent out of shape having fluoridated water and voted to remove it.  One of the local dentists wrote them a thank you letter saying it would undoubtedly increase his business.

[Motown Bombers]

We're going to have another Flint water crisis aren't we?

[IdahoBert]

We shouldn’t be surprised about Biden. I remember during the Obama presidency they locked him up in the vice president’s mansion and put duct tape over his mouth so he couldn’t say anything untoward and embarrass them.

Then passed him over for running in 2016 and it looked like he was dead politically and then in 2020, lo and behold, the oligarchy had to find the oldest, safest, and most innocuous candidate because everybody else was “too left-wing or too young“ and they dredged him up. This is what the oligarchy does to us.

And interestingly, enough, Biden enacted some “activist government“ policies that by my recollection were greater than what Obama ever did — he acted like an actual Democrat at times which is something that hasn’t happened for quite a while — especially given that his healthcare plan was a business-friendly marketplace healthcare plan and not an expansion of Medicare.

To me, Obama is sort of a liberal Republican of the old style who had to be a Democrat by circumstances, who believes “the business of America is business” and government intervention is essentially obsolete. He never really stood up to the far right, he never engaged in political combat when they were tarring and feathering him. And I think we can thank him for making the momentum of the far right possible. 

[LaceyLou]

5 minutes ago, IdahoBert said:

We shouldn’t be surprised about Biden. I remember during the Obama presidency they locked him up in the vice president’s mansion and put duct tape over his mouth so he couldn’t say anything untoward and embarrass them.

Then passed him over for running in 2016 and it looked like he was dead politically and then in 2020, lo and behold, the oligarchy had to find the oldest, safest, and most innocuous candidate because everybody else was “too left-wing or too young“ and they dredged him up. This is what the oligarchy does to us.

And interestingly, enough, Biden enacted some “activist government“ policies that by my recollection were greater than what Obama ever did — he acted like an actual Democrat at times which is something that hasn’t happened for quite a while — especially given that his healthcare plan was a business-friendly marketplace healthcare plan and not an expansion of Medicare.

To me, Obama is sort of a liberal Republican of the old style who had to be a Democrat by circumstances, who believes “the business of America is business” and government intervention is essentially obsolete. He never really stood up to the far right, he never engaged in political combat when they were tarring and feathering him. And I think we can thank him for making the momentum of the far right possible. 

Agree 100%. I know Biden has his share of gaffes, but certainly nothing compared to Drumpf! And he has done a good job through difficult circumstances.

Of course, it's only useful to look at the past in order to guide us in the present....

[Motown Bombers]

Democrats had a true progressive in Biden who came off as a moderate. They never realized what they had. 

[Edman85]

Good thread from an economist that worked for Obama I recently discovered about the nuances of the economy and the effect on the electorate:

https://x.com/jasonfurman/status/1854249690738606338

[Motown Bombers]

Missouri voted for $15 minimum wage, paid sick leave, and abortion rights, but Democrats continually get blown out there. 

[Tigeraholic1]

He does a great job articulating why the majority of Americans voted the way they did yesterday.
 

 

[smr-nj]

You know what? Nothing about today and reading this thread has been in any way cathartic for me. Period.

….which pretty much tells me that I also need to step away for a bit. What all this has told me, and I don’t think I can be dissuaded from this opinion, is this country will not vote for a woman. The only way would be is if both Republicans and Democratic candidates were women, and you goddamn know that never going to happen. 
 

I will try to direct some of my brain power(whatever might still exist), and whatever else is needed into areas that would be a positive. If locally there are any groups working with immigrants, I will see if I can help there. If there are women that need medical help/assistance, I will see if I can help in that direction. make no mistake about it, this was & is a war against women. 

[Hongbit]

10 minutes ago, LaceyLou said:

Of course, it's only useful to look at the past in order to guide us in the present....

We have entered into an Idiocracy.   It’s going to get 10x more crazy over the next 4 years. 

I’m not sure how much of the past will help us moving forward.   They are probably better served to throw out much of what happened in the past and take completely different approach. 

Democrats need to start treating the will of the American voter just like the 31 other NFL teams treat the Raiders front office.   Irrational, unpredictable, and doing things that are not explained or understood through traditional logic.    

They are going to have to throw out many of their past election strategies and tendencies and dig deep into what is getting through to different groups of voters.    

[pfife]

21 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

He does a great job articulating why the majority of Americans voted the way they did yesterday.
 

 

The majority of americans didnt vote, let alone vote how he said.

[Tigeraholic1]

10 minutes ago, pfife said:

The majority of americans didnt vote, let alone vote how he said.

Huh, I thought CNN was an accepted news source. He really does explain why it happened. If people  didn’t vote then why would we care what they think.

[LaceyLou]

37 minutes ago, Hongbit said:

We have entered into an Idiocracy.   It’s going to get 10x more crazy over the next 4 years. 

I’m not sure how much of the past will help us moving forward.   They are probably better served to throw out much of what happened in the past and take completely different approach. 

Democrats need to start treating the will of the American voter just like the 31 other NFL teams treat the Raiders front office.   Irrational, unpredictable, and doing things that are not explained or understood through traditional logic.    

They are going to have to throw out many of their past election strategies and tendencies and dig deep into what is getting through to different groups of voters.    

I like the word Kakistocracy, that somebody used earlier in this thread.

[LaceyLou]

57 minutes ago, smr-nj said:

You know what? Nothing about today and reading this thread has been in any way cathartic for me. Period.

….which pretty much tells me that I also need to step away for a bit. What all this has told me, and I don’t think I can be dissuaded from this opinion, is this country will not vote in a woman. The only way would be if both Republicans and Democratic candidates were women, and you goddamn know that never going to happen. 
 

I will try to direct some of my brain power(whatever might still exist), and whatever else is needed into areas that would be a positive. If locally there are any groups working with immigrants, I will see if I can help there. If there are women that need medical help/assistance, I will see if I can help in that direction. make no mistake about it, this was & is a war against women. 

I hear you-it's important that we actually do something to help. And I need to stop talking about getting away from the screens and actually do it, LOL. I never did get to that book I was going to read....

[chasfh]

7 hours ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

Can someone please explain this graph? You wonder why republicans did not trust the 2020 results. 
 

 

It couldn’t possibly be that Trump’s abject awfulness every single day for four years running could have driven turnout against him high enough to get him voted out of office, could it? Your man told you it’s the fraud, the whole fraud, and nothing but the fraud. So what else could it be other than the fraud? How on brand.

Now, here’s a thought exercise, not for you, really, but for everyone else.

Trump has cried “wolf” … er, “fraud” … so often that the accusation of voter fraud itself has essentially been stripped of all meaning. So if—and again, it’s a thought exercise—if the Trump people could manage to engineer a massive election fraud that, I don’t know, turned D votes into R votes, or wiped out D votes altogether, or double-counted R votes—the actual method doesn’t even matter, so pick your favorite—and proof positive found this to be the case … well, could anyone even blow the whistle on it and look credible? Would it not look for all world like just another empty accusation? So it might be possible that the whole fraud canard could actually have been a genius move on the part of the brain trust backing Trump to set up something like this so meticulously over these past years in order to engineer a massive fraud to steal this election, and get away with it completely, because the accustatio has been rendered impossible to pursue.

Once again, just a thought exercise. Carry on.

[pfife]

48 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

Huh, I thought CNN was an accepted news source. He really does explain why it happened. If people  didn’t vote then why would we care what they think.

Maybe a cnn viewer will come entertain you. 

I however take issue with your post.  *You*said majority of americans in your post and youre off by a few dozen million as 339m *.5 is way more than the votes trump got

If you dont care what they think why did you bring them up?

Edited November 7 by pfife

[mtutiger]

50 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

Huh, I thought CNN was an accepted news source. 

All cable news is garbage. And I don't need some panelist who spends his day shouting at other panelists to tell me what to think.

Edited November 7 by mtutiger

[mtutiger]

1 hour ago, Edman85 said:

Good thread from an economist that worked for Obama I recently discovered about the nuances of the economy and the effect on the electorate:

https://x.com/jasonfurman/status/1854249690738606338

Excellent thread.... seems more valuable than listening to Scott Jennings.

[mtutiger]

 

Well, we're gonna find out aren't we?

Edited November 7 by mtutiger

[Tigeraholic1]

Not trying to upset anyone I was just trying to give a prospective. Unless the plan is to some how eliminate all the Trump voters we all have to find a way forward.