The Race For 2024

[Elixir]

let him think he won and humor him

BIG problem; he won’t think he won.
He knows he lost the pop vote BIGLY in 2016, he knows he lost the whole shooting match in a landslide in 2020, and he is probably pretty sure he’s gonna lose again this time, but has plans to ensure that it won’t matter.

 

[Politesse]

I'll give you a hint - you're supporting that long schlepp towards Gehenna with your attitude.

I have a feeling that if I tell what I think you're getting at, you'll wail that I mischaracterized you. So why don't you spell it out for me in clearer terms, and we can go from there. There's no need to be shy, we're all friends here. Go on. Make your argument.

No problem. That's actually fair enough.

There is a choice in front of you. Because it is not the exact precise choice that you have fantasized about, you believe throwing a tantrum is the better solution. Personally, I think the upcoming US election is probably the most defining election for the US because of the 2 stark differences on the ballot at the top.

But it's not just the ballot at the top is it? On the first Tuesday of November as citizens you get to vote for a whole bunch of other shit don't you? Like the legislative body (or what you call Congress). Or like the Senate (or what you call the Senate). You even get to vote for "propositions" and Judges and fucking Sheriffs!

And that is how actual change is done. From the fucking ground up. Deciding who is President is a start, but it's only a start.

And if you think that is hard work...tough fucking shit. I'm pretty certain why you only quoted half of my post instead of my whole fucking post; and that was in the hopes you don't get an answer such as this which is to say -

- for the government you want, you have to put the fucking work in and not be a lazy whiny cunt. Those Taliban-esque Christian who basically banned abortion in your country? Those fucking cunts put the work in for fucking decades to make your country more like what they think it deserves. You don't like that? Stop being a lazy cunt and put some effort into it. Or be a first world Afghanistan. I'm done giving a fuck.



Call me what you'd like, mate.

I did vote. I voted for Harris. I voted to end slavery in my state. I voted for my own right to marry. I voted to remove a corrupt city council member. I voted to continue funding the education system and remove carcinogens from school walls. I voted against the frivolous and idiotic attempt to remove my county DA for being too Black. I voted against a measure that was a transparent attempt to confuse voters through unclear wording. I voted against a quiet push to stuff the local school board with anti-literacy Trumpers with deep pockets.

I also work in the public sector amd volunteer most of my "free time" to prison educational outreach, two anti-slavery organizations, the homeless transit center in my neighborhood, environmental cleanup down on the Tuolomne River, and a tutoring program for the kiddos, all on top of my ongoing research interests. I donate well more than a tithe of my pitiful income to school foundations, MSF, Unicef, and Trevor. Just how much more would you ask of me? There are only so many hours in the week. Only so many dollars in the account. The things I do already put me in frequent danger of physical and mental collapse, and you say you want me to give more? A lazy whiny cunt indeed! I barely sleep. I have no friends who aren't colleagues. What more could I possibly be giving? What is it you do that gives you the right to talk down to me? What does a normal week look like for St Patooka the Tireless?

But of course, what you're really upset about isn't my charitable work, or my ballot choices. You didn't even know about those. You don't want to say it, but since it's the only thing you could have known from reading this thread, you must be upset that I dared to criticize Harris. Yes? For heaven's sake. Ignoring the dangerous inaction, occasional collaborationism of the "Left" in this country is not going to make the "Right" go away. You really believe Harris bragging about how big her gun is and how many Republicans she's friends with will bring more voters to her side? Because her polling numbers say this this strategy is not working for her at all. It's been slip, slip, slip for two weeks now, and by all accounts its starting to affect perception of down-ballot issues.

 

[starwater]

@Politesse - thank you for your volunteerism and charitable works.

 

[Derec]

There always is. That's why I wait until the second week of early voting.

There's always a record turnout???

I meant to say - there is always a much higher turnout in the first few days of early voting.
It is also the time when any glitches and kinks can be worked out.

 

[Derec]

I did vote. I voted for Harris.

Not like it'd do much good.

I voted to end slavery in my state.

Didn't you guys do that even before the Civil War?

remove carcinogens from school walls.

How do they propose to do that since pretty much anything under the Sun (as well as the Sun itself) is "known to the State of California to cause cancer".

I voted against the frivolous and idiotic attempt to remove my county DA for being too Black.

If you mean the far-left DA of Alameda County, she is not being recalled "for being too Black[sic]" but for being too soft on crime. Chesa Boudin and George Gascon are lily-white and they faced recall efforts for the same reason, one successfully and the other unsuccessfully so far.

I voted against a measure that was a transparent attempt to confuse voters through unclear wording.

Which one is that?

I also work in the public sector amd volunteer most of my "free time" to prison educational outreach, two anti-slavery organizations, the homeless transit center in my neighborhood, environmental cleanup down on the Tuolomne River, and a tutoring program for the kiddos, all on top of my ongoing research interests.

Again with the slavery. It has been gone for more than a century and a half. Or are you one of those who thinks that imprisoning people for crimes is tantamount to "slavery"?

I donate well more than a tithe of my pitiful income to school foundations, MSF, Unicef, and Trevor.

MSF is that outfit that sails around the Mediterranean aiding and abetting migrant smugglers. I would not give them a dime.
Also I doubt Trevor needs your money.

Just how much more would you ask of me? There are only so many hours in the week. Only so many dollars in the account. The things I do already put me in frequent danger of physical and mental collapse, and you say you want me to give more? A lazy whiny cunt indeed! I barely sleep. I have no friends who aren't colleagues. What more could I possibly be giving?

If anything, you seem to be doing too much. Maybe you should, as the kids say, "touch grass".

But of course, what you're really upset about isn't my charitable work, or my ballot choices. You didn't even know about those. You don't want to say it, but since it's the only thing you could have known from reading this thread, you must be upset that I dared to criticize Harris. Yes?

I get that a lot too, from the other side (moderate independent).

You really believe Harris bragging about how big her gun is

Hey! How do you know about her gun? She specifically told you guys in CA and NY to cover your ears.

and how many Republicans she's friends with will bring more voters to her side? Because her polling numbers say this this strategy is not working for her at all. It's been slip, slip, slip for two weeks now, and by all accounts its starting to affect perception of down-ballot issues.

Serious question: what do you think she should do to appeal to more voters?

 

[Derec]

Georgia World Congress Center.

It's downtown. Next to the Mercedes-Benz stadium.

Not one word of that has in any way increased my understanding.

Georgia World Congress Center is a convention center. They host conventions and other events of various kinds, including my sister's high school graduation back in the day.

Downtown is the central area of a city. Mercedes-Benz is a car company. And a stadium is a large building where they play regular and American football (alas no Aussie rules), but that is not important right now.

 

[Politesse]

Didn't you guys do that even before the Civil War?

To be more specific, what this ballot measure would eliminate is forced labor within the prison system, which is not at present prohibited by either state or federal law. Hopefully, just for a few more weeks.

 

[Derec]

To be more specific, what this ballot measure would eliminate is forced labor within the prison system, which is not at present prohibited by either state or federal law. Hopefully, just for a few more weeks.

They get free room and board. The least they can do is work in the kitchen, the library, the laundry or make a couple of license plates.

So, what, after this passes, the convicts can just sit around on their ass all day long for 20 years?

 

[Politesse]

Serious question: what do you think she should do to appeal to more voters?

At the beginning of her campaign, she came out swinging. People were vague on her policies, but strong on rejection of Trump and his plans for the country. It was working. She should have stuck with it. I do not believe that this is about swaying Republican voters to her side. That is unlikely in any case. What's at issue is how many people are coming to the polls.

 

[Tigers!]

Georgia World Congress Center.

It's downtown. Next to the Mercedes-Benz stadium.

Not one word of that has in any way increased my understanding.

Georgia World Congress Center is a convention center. They host conventions and other events of various kinds, including my sister's high school graduation back in the day.

Downtown is the central area of a city. Mercedes-Benz is a car company.

Even down under we know who Mercedes-Benz are.

And a stadium is a large building where they play regular and American football (alas no Aussie rules),

I'm sorry you have no Aussie Rules.

but that is not important right now.

Footy is always important (well, perhaps not the Yank version of bum-sniffing).

 

[Politesse]

Again with the slavery. It has been gone for more than a century and a half. Or are you one of those who thinks that imprisoning people for crimes is tantamount to "slavery"?

Yes. The Constitution allows for enslavement as punishment for a crime, a "loophole" (actually a very intentional compromise by its framers) that nearly all states use to justify practices that would be illegal had abolition been universal and unqualified.

 

[Politesse]

If you mean the far-left DA of Alameda County, she is not being recalled "for being too Black[sic]" but for being too soft on crime

Bullshit. The recall campaign began before she'd even been elected, it has nothing to do with her conduct in office.

 

[Politesse]

To be more specific, what this ballot measure would eliminate is forced labor within the prison system, which is not at present prohibited by either state or federal law. Hopefully, just for a few more weeks.

They get free room and board. The least they can do is work in the kitchen, the library, the laundry or make a couple of license plates.

So, what, after this passes, the convicts can just sit around on their ass all day long for 20 years?

You are greatly mischaracterizing prison labor, as I think you know. You may not realize the extent to which prison is hardly "free room and board."

But do I think people should be allowed to "sit on their asses" while involuntarily detained by their government, without facing cruel and unusual punushment for their supposed reticence? Yes. Yes, I absolutely do. This is America. You want someone to work for you? Produce your goods? Put out the wildfire behind your house? Offer them sufficient pay to make it worth their while.

 

[Elixir]

I got caught in the middle of the night on foot in a part of Atlanta where I was SO a minority, and I was distinctly uncomfortable during the whole ordeal.
Survived relatively unscathed, other than a minor barbed wire wound incurred while sneaking out a back door on the bottom level of the GWCC

I have no idea what GWCC stands for, but I am going to guess it's the Georgia Whites-Only Country Club.

Damn near, though it varies day to day. On that day it was (iirc) EMS World Expo and we were an exhibitor. After show hours we (my biz partner and I) didn’t feel like fighting the throngs exiting that HUMONGOUS building; as a “new” exhibitor (3rd yr) we were at about the farthest point from the door. A glance at a map revealed that the exit door was about as far away as our lodging, so out the back we went, crossed some tracks, climbed a fence and voilá, there we were in a bigtime barrio.

 

[Rhea]

So you’ve got someone who is a criminal, and they say, “i’ll stop being a criminal and I’ll even live in a locked cell if you just feed me every day, and maybe let me watch TV.

I mean, that’s actually a great deal for society, innit?

If we could get all the rapists to sign up for that, I think we could blow a gofundme right out of the water.

 

[ZiprHead]

Thread by @MattHardigree on Thread Reader App

@MattHardigree: I door-knocked today for the Harris campaign in Bucks County, PA, one of the most important counties in one of the most important states. I've done a lot of door-knocking in a lot of elections,...…

threadreaderapp.com

I door-knocked today for the Harris campaign in Bucks County, PA, one of the most important counties in one of the most important states. I've done a lot of door-knocking in a lot of elections, including this cycle, but what I saw definitely changed my view of this race.

Of course, this is just a single day covering about 90-100 doors. But it was also a persuasion run. We were hitting Ds but also had a list that included Independents and even a few Republicans who were considered possibly persuadable. Only had one pro-Trump door the whole day.

This isn't what I expected. This is a 50/50 county and the part we were in skewed Republican. My cousins Joe and Deb, who are wonderful, help organize this area and know their community well. It's a good community full of hardworking, nice folk, but it's not an easy one for Dems.

When I got there I saw a lot of Trump signs. Their house stood out because it had a giant Harris-Walz sign, albeit one that was slashed by three men in hoodies a few nights before. It's a street fight out here.

Overall (TL/DR), Dems are motivated, not a single Independent was voting for Trump and instead voting for Harris, moderate Republicans were all voting Harris. Other than the first door I didn't meet a single Trump voter.

 

[ZiprHead]

'Dead heat': Trump pulls even with Harris in NBC News poll

A close election has never looked more tightly divided, with Harris’ popularity declining from its previous high and abortion atop voters’ issue list.

www.nbcnews.com

You have to get all the way down to the end to get to the methodology.

The NBC News poll of 1,000 registered voters, 898 of whom were reached by cellphone, was conducted Oct. 4-8. It has an overall margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

The vast majority of younger, probable Harris supporters, simply do not answer their cell phones if they don't know the number.

Hell, I'm an old fart Harris supporter and I don't answer strange numbers.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Serious question: what do you think she should do to appeal to more voters?

At the beginning of her campaign, she came out swinging. People were vague on her policies, but strong on rejection of Trump and his plans for the country. It was working. She should have stuck with it. I do not believe that this is about swaying Republican voters to her side. That is unlikely in any case. What's at issue is how many people are coming to the polls.

Well she is behind in the polls! Should she really continue appealing to her base; or try to get new voters? She’s not going to win with the base that she has. She had to move forward. Fight. She needs reasonable people on the middle to vote for her! I’m a gun owner also; and I proudly vote democratic!

 

[Derec]

At the beginning of her campaign, she came out swinging. People were vague on her policies, but strong on rejection of Trump and his plans for the country. It was working.

She surged because people were happy that Biden was no longer running. It wasn't specific to her.
And yes, she based her campaign initially on "memes and vibes". As Maya Rudolph's Kamala said: "the lyrics are vague, but the vibe slaps". Coconut trees, being a brat, Republicans are weird.

She should have stuck with it.

You can't build a campaign just on "memes and vibes" long term. And yes, she did fumble the dismount onto a more grounded phase of the campaign.

I do not believe that this is about swaying Republican voters to her side. That is unlikely in any case. What's at issue is how many people are coming to the polls.

It's not just Republicans, although I do think some Republicans are swayable. It is mostly Independents, who are plurality of the electorate.

Like it or not, the Democratic base is not enough to win. And neither is appealing to people like you who on the left even in a place like California.
She needs to win states Hillary lost in 2016 - Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. If possible Arizona and Georgia too. Nevada was won by Hillary and also Biden, but is a tossup now. She needs to appeal to voters in these states, not run up the score in NY, IL and CA.

 

[ZiprHead]

Oh good lord! Trump tried to get another NDA from Stormy Daniels this past summer.

News just breaking so no online sources yet. Reported just now by Rachel Maddow on Chris Hayes' program.