Jimmy Higgins
Contributor
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2001
- Messages
- 44,533
- Basic Beliefs
- Calvinistic Atheist
Well, if Covid-19 gave us two things to be grateful for, it at least:
1) Cancelled Cats!
2) Contracted the 2020 election season
But still, even contracted, these things are just too long. But now we are on the final stretch of the 104 week ironman event. We saw so much. From 15 debates that didn't ultimately matter to Rudolph Giuliani... "tucking his shirt". And while we wish we could unsee all of that, we are left with Donald Trump and Joe Biden facing off for the richest prize in politics, the Presidency of the United States... or if Trump wins re-election, another 4-year paid vacation.
So now we are left with predicting what happens on election night... if anything. Heck, we need to predict when we think we'll have a winner... if we'll have a winner... if the vote matters?! WTF America?! But lets assume, we vote, the vote counts, we have a winner. 2016 really screwed things up. Hillary Clinton was winning in the polls, then some really late bullshit fell on her, and she lost in a convincing electoral college defeat via 70,000+ aggregate votes in three states... and a near 3 million popular vote win. But as right-wingers that were once conservatives say, "The popular vote doesn't matter." So we are left with trying to gauge what in the heck the polls mean this year and use history as a primer... which is kind of risky as Trump has defied pretty much all historic precedences up to now.
Let's first talk of the power of incumbency. Incumbents always win. In US History, no incumbent President has ever lost re-election, not one. Except for a few. Which ones lost? Herbert Hoover, vacuum cleaner magnate, was seen as under appreciating the Great Depression. His repeated calls that the economic downturn would disappear like magic weren't well received, especially when the magic didn't happen. As a result, Teddy Roosevelt's son Franklin Delano Roosevelt won. Some historians question whether that claim is actually accurate, but I'll let the philosophers decide. Another interesting incumbency failure was George HW Bush, long lost fourth cousin of future President George W. Bush. George HW Bush's history is quite interesting, as he had the fabled military success over the Iraqis in Kuwait. Operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield showed he had finesse in deriving cool names for military operations. With the success of those names, George HW Bush was doing well, but then saxophones became extremely popular. Most mid 80s to late 80s songs had saxophone solos in them and the craze was still quite alive in the early 90s, right before Grunge hit the street. George HW Bush was seen in a grocery store noting he couldn't play a saxophone. This provided an opening for first chair Oxford Marching Band saxophone player, William Jefferson Clinton to knock one out of the park. The people were impressed, and he won the '92 election over the current President and Ross Perot, another person who couldn't play the sax.
What does this tell us? In general, incumbents always win. Donald Trump, despite all thoughts that are decent, is the incumbent. So the question is, what is the basis of states not re-electing him that elected him in the first place? The first place to look is turnout, especially of the African America vote. Turnout was lower among African Americans in 2016 because they just didn't feel the Obama vibe in Hillary Clinton. Her lack of charisma that President Bill Clinton, her step son, had was apparent... and despite the African American vote providing Hillary Clinton the nomination in 2016 over aging Vermont Socialist Methuselah, they just didn't give enough of a fuck to turn out in big numbers in 2016. They did turn out, but not enough. Had African Americans given just about 0.05 to 0.10 times more of a fuck in 2016, the US would have been in a better place now.
Now I know what you are thinking... didn't the African American vote get Biden the nomination?! Yes... be afraid, be very afraid. Of course, despite a potential for African Americans having issues with Joe Biden and his at times spotty record on race, the President has done his best to anger a fatigued segment of the population who has at times boiled over in 2020, in part to several high profile, or more appropriately well publicized killings of unarmed blacks by the police (or as President Trump would say, when the police choke like in a golf tournament). In particular, Donald Trump's warning that the niggers are coming to the suburbs to fuck your white wife might be enough to re-energize a segment of the population that is tired of being targeted for votes, but seemingly getting little in return, like the Estonian Vote.
So, with the African American vote, maybe being a little larger this year (or not), are there any other compelling reasons someone might either change their vote in 2020 or turnout when they didn't last time? For this answer, we turn to a little know current event that most Americans are not aware of, the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite there being little press about this, about a quarter of a million Americans are dead from this pandemic. But the rub is, despite nearly a quarter of a million dead, there really isn't that big of a tilt in the polls, because in general, most people don't know someone who died. Therefore, it is a bigger deal that people can't get drunk at a bar and hit on someone that isn't their wife in the hopes of having a quickie in the bathroom.
Yeah, so large pile of corpses and the African American vote don't seem to be the Achilles Heal for Trump... so then what? Is there anything this guy could do that'd cost him the election? Sadly, the answer appears to be in doubt. Does this mean you need to get online and find some Canadians (-iens) to adopt you? Not necessarily, but I would at least get familiar with the Canadian requirements and look up a bit of Canadian history to become more literate (there isn't much so it shouldn't take long, the 19th century literally has only one event that happened of any importance!).
So what stands between you and sharpening those razor edges? The polls! Yeah, yeah, I know, 2016 resulted in the polls taking a massive dump down our throats. And if that isn't graphic enough, I have no idea what would be. The polls were hot and heavy for Clinton and dissipated at time got closer to the election. Then some rat phucking from Russia and Giuliani might have helped make those polls irrelevant. It is still uncertain if the polls were wrong and underweighted the rural areas or if the unknown or undecideds in 2016 went heavy towards Trump. If it was the prior, it is impossible to tell if that is still happening. Clearly the pollsters would be weighting differently to catch more rural support. If they are, then Trump could be in a world of hurt. If it is the later, then Trump could definitely be in trouble.
Polling in 2016 in October and November provided Clinton with two things: a sub-50 point polling number, a lead that was smaller than the undecideds. There is good reason to suspect that undecideds turned the election in 2016 because if people were dumb enough to be undecided with Trump and Clinton, they were definitely dumb enough to vote for Donald Trump! While Johnson might have fit in with being part of the problem with Libertarian voters shifting Trump in the voting booth, it seems more possible that those "likely voters" that were too stupid to provide a name in a poll swung heavy for the guy that wanted to trade them magic beans for their cow, because they were really really stupid. And I'm not being judgmental here. They were very fucking stupid.
The polls in 2020 have a different story: Biden has 50+ points in PA, MI, WI, and other places, his lead is bigger than the undecideds. If one was to put their faith that this nightmare is going to fucking end... this is where I recommend misplacing it! Hindsight provides us a tale of how the polls might have been right in 2016, just we didn't interpret it because the pollsters didn't weight strongly enough for idiots. With fewer idiots polling as undecided, it would appear that it is possible that there is a reason to put the poisons back on the top shelves.
But this is a predictions thread. What is my prediction?! It is 2020.
1) Cancelled Cats!
2) Contracted the 2020 election season
But still, even contracted, these things are just too long. But now we are on the final stretch of the 104 week ironman event. We saw so much. From 15 debates that didn't ultimately matter to Rudolph Giuliani... "tucking his shirt". And while we wish we could unsee all of that, we are left with Donald Trump and Joe Biden facing off for the richest prize in politics, the Presidency of the United States... or if Trump wins re-election, another 4-year paid vacation.
So now we are left with predicting what happens on election night... if anything. Heck, we need to predict when we think we'll have a winner... if we'll have a winner... if the vote matters?! WTF America?! But lets assume, we vote, the vote counts, we have a winner. 2016 really screwed things up. Hillary Clinton was winning in the polls, then some really late bullshit fell on her, and she lost in a convincing electoral college defeat via 70,000+ aggregate votes in three states... and a near 3 million popular vote win. But as right-wingers that were once conservatives say, "The popular vote doesn't matter." So we are left with trying to gauge what in the heck the polls mean this year and use history as a primer... which is kind of risky as Trump has defied pretty much all historic precedences up to now.
Let's first talk of the power of incumbency. Incumbents always win. In US History, no incumbent President has ever lost re-election, not one. Except for a few. Which ones lost? Herbert Hoover, vacuum cleaner magnate, was seen as under appreciating the Great Depression. His repeated calls that the economic downturn would disappear like magic weren't well received, especially when the magic didn't happen. As a result, Teddy Roosevelt's son Franklin Delano Roosevelt won. Some historians question whether that claim is actually accurate, but I'll let the philosophers decide. Another interesting incumbency failure was George HW Bush, long lost fourth cousin of future President George W. Bush. George HW Bush's history is quite interesting, as he had the fabled military success over the Iraqis in Kuwait. Operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield showed he had finesse in deriving cool names for military operations. With the success of those names, George HW Bush was doing well, but then saxophones became extremely popular. Most mid 80s to late 80s songs had saxophone solos in them and the craze was still quite alive in the early 90s, right before Grunge hit the street. George HW Bush was seen in a grocery store noting he couldn't play a saxophone. This provided an opening for first chair Oxford Marching Band saxophone player, William Jefferson Clinton to knock one out of the park. The people were impressed, and he won the '92 election over the current President and Ross Perot, another person who couldn't play the sax.
What does this tell us? In general, incumbents always win. Donald Trump, despite all thoughts that are decent, is the incumbent. So the question is, what is the basis of states not re-electing him that elected him in the first place? The first place to look is turnout, especially of the African America vote. Turnout was lower among African Americans in 2016 because they just didn't feel the Obama vibe in Hillary Clinton. Her lack of charisma that President Bill Clinton, her step son, had was apparent... and despite the African American vote providing Hillary Clinton the nomination in 2016 over aging Vermont Socialist Methuselah, they just didn't give enough of a fuck to turn out in big numbers in 2016. They did turn out, but not enough. Had African Americans given just about 0.05 to 0.10 times more of a fuck in 2016, the US would have been in a better place now.
Now I know what you are thinking... didn't the African American vote get Biden the nomination?! Yes... be afraid, be very afraid. Of course, despite a potential for African Americans having issues with Joe Biden and his at times spotty record on race, the President has done his best to anger a fatigued segment of the population who has at times boiled over in 2020, in part to several high profile, or more appropriately well publicized killings of unarmed blacks by the police (or as President Trump would say, when the police choke like in a golf tournament). In particular, Donald Trump's warning that the niggers are coming to the suburbs to fuck your white wife might be enough to re-energize a segment of the population that is tired of being targeted for votes, but seemingly getting little in return, like the Estonian Vote.
So, with the African American vote, maybe being a little larger this year (or not), are there any other compelling reasons someone might either change their vote in 2020 or turnout when they didn't last time? For this answer, we turn to a little know current event that most Americans are not aware of, the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite there being little press about this, about a quarter of a million Americans are dead from this pandemic. But the rub is, despite nearly a quarter of a million dead, there really isn't that big of a tilt in the polls, because in general, most people don't know someone who died. Therefore, it is a bigger deal that people can't get drunk at a bar and hit on someone that isn't their wife in the hopes of having a quickie in the bathroom.
Yeah, so large pile of corpses and the African American vote don't seem to be the Achilles Heal for Trump... so then what? Is there anything this guy could do that'd cost him the election? Sadly, the answer appears to be in doubt. Does this mean you need to get online and find some Canadians (-iens) to adopt you? Not necessarily, but I would at least get familiar with the Canadian requirements and look up a bit of Canadian history to become more literate (there isn't much so it shouldn't take long, the 19th century literally has only one event that happened of any importance!).
So what stands between you and sharpening those razor edges? The polls! Yeah, yeah, I know, 2016 resulted in the polls taking a massive dump down our throats. And if that isn't graphic enough, I have no idea what would be. The polls were hot and heavy for Clinton and dissipated at time got closer to the election. Then some rat phucking from Russia and Giuliani might have helped make those polls irrelevant. It is still uncertain if the polls were wrong and underweighted the rural areas or if the unknown or undecideds in 2016 went heavy towards Trump. If it was the prior, it is impossible to tell if that is still happening. Clearly the pollsters would be weighting differently to catch more rural support. If they are, then Trump could be in a world of hurt. If it is the later, then Trump could definitely be in trouble.
Polling in 2016 in October and November provided Clinton with two things: a sub-50 point polling number, a lead that was smaller than the undecideds. There is good reason to suspect that undecideds turned the election in 2016 because if people were dumb enough to be undecided with Trump and Clinton, they were definitely dumb enough to vote for Donald Trump! While Johnson might have fit in with being part of the problem with Libertarian voters shifting Trump in the voting booth, it seems more possible that those "likely voters" that were too stupid to provide a name in a poll swung heavy for the guy that wanted to trade them magic beans for their cow, because they were really really stupid. And I'm not being judgmental here. They were very fucking stupid.
The polls in 2020 have a different story: Biden has 50+ points in PA, MI, WI, and other places, his lead is bigger than the undecideds. If one was to put their faith that this nightmare is going to fucking end... this is where I recommend misplacing it! Hindsight provides us a tale of how the polls might have been right in 2016, just we didn't interpret it because the pollsters didn't weight strongly enough for idiots. With fewer idiots polling as undecided, it would appear that it is possible that there is a reason to put the poisons back on the top shelves.
But this is a predictions thread. What is my prediction?! It is 2020.
Yeah, if that is accurate, it deserves another 
