USA Politics

[Todd]

This is the name of the black metal band that Todd is secretly a part of, I wonder how'd you know?

I was kicked out after the second album.  Creative differences.

[71 dB]

Based on my "the bad guy always wins" premiss I predicted, from afar, that Trump would beat Hilary, back in 2016.

People said I was crazy.

I'm not making any predictions this time.

Kyle Kulinski said before Trump got the Republican party nomination he could win he presidency. It's about looking at the facts such as polls and demographics and analysing them instead of believing the out-of-touch establishment garbage of corporate media. Anyone who saw how Trump's fake populist rethoric works well in the important rust belt while Hillary Clinton's entitled corporatism doesn't was able to see Trump has a real chance. Hillary Clinton ignored the rust belt and didn't know how to respond to Trump's fake populism and that's why she lost.

Biden is a huge favorite this time around because Trump has been so horrible handling coronavirus and he can't "hide" or "smear" it. People have lost their jobs for real. People have died for real. People have lost their employer-tied healthcare for real. People are facing an eviction crisis for real. Trump has lost his political instincts. Four years ago he was the "outsider who makes America Great Again". Now he is an insider who has had years to make America Great Again, but for most Americans the country looks anything but Great. Trump has got his base, about 1/3 of the country and that's it. The ads against Trump are devastating. Trump is humiliating himself and exposing his idiocy on daily basis (the Jonathan Swan interview was legendary stuff, like watching "Curb Your Enthusiams"). Biden can hide in the cellar until the election and take an easy victory... ...that's how it's right now and things can change but for now it looks very good for Biden. 

[Todd]

Straight from the horse's mouth:Employment Situation News Release

Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 1.8 million in July, and the unemployment
rate fell to 10.2 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. These
improvements in the labor market reflected the continued resumption of economic
activity that had been curtailed due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and
efforts to contain it. In July, notable job gains occurred in leisure and hospitality,
government, retail trade, professional and business services, other services, and
health care.

U3 = 10.2% = Super Creepy 46.

[71 dB]

Straight from the horse's mouth:Employment Situation News Release

U3 = 10.2% = Super Creepy 46.

U3 is used because it looks nicer, but U5 and U6 unemployment numbers give better picture. U6 = 16.5 %.

[Todd]

U3 is used because it looks nicer, but U5 and U6 unemployment numbers give better picture.

Only sort of correct. 

However, if 10.2% = Super-Creepy 46, then 16.5% = Super-Creepy 46.

[71 dB]

However, if 10.2% = Super-Creepy 46, then 16.5% = Super-Creepy 46.

Yes, but the alternative for Super-Creepy 46 is four more years of Clown 45. 

[Todd]

I am not making a value judgment here, just demonstrating a tried and true political equation. 

[Herman]

Kyle Kulinski said before Trump got the Republican party nomination he could win he presidency. It's about looking at the facts such as polls and demographics and analysing them instead of believing the out-of-touch establishment garbage of corporate media. Anyone who saw how Trump's fake populist rethoric works well in the important rust belt while Hillary Clinton's entitled corporatism doesn't was able to see Trump has a real chance. Hillary Clinton ignored the rust belt and didn't know how to respond to Trump's fake populism and that's why she lost.

I don't want to go into a whole discussion, but I'd like to remind you that if people disliked Hillary so much it's a little strange she got 3 million more votes than Trump.

She lost Michigan by the size a small town's votes, 50K or something.

If that idiot Comey* hadn't felt compelled to appear as the White Knight with his announcement about Hillary's bleeding emails (or what was it?) chances are she would have won. And as a consequence tens of thousands wouldn't have died of Covid.

In other words, it wasn't her meagre likeability  ('entitled corporatism') that hurt her chances, because Trump didn't have any likeability either.

* And this vain man felt the world needed him to write a book about himself, too.

[Todd]

Yes, it was Comey's fault.  That's it.

Anyway, instead of forever living in the past, it's best to live in the here and now:

Intelligence community's top election official: China and Iran don't want Trump to win reelection, Russia working against Biden

No matter the election outcome, at least one onerous regime will be displeased.  Woo-hoo!

[71 dB]

I don't want to go into a whole discussion, but I'd like to remind you that if people disliked Hillary so much it's a little strange she got 3 million more votes than Trump.

She lost Michigan by the size a small town's votes, 50K or something.

If that idiot Comey* hadn't felt compelled to appear as the White Knight with his announcement about Hillary's bleeding emails (or what was it?) chances are she would have won. And as a consequence tens of thousands wouldn't have died of Covid.

In other words, it wasn't her meagre likeability  ('entitled corporatism') that hurt her chances, because Trump didn't have any likeability either.

* And this vain man felt the world needed him to write a book about himself, too.

Trump had some likeability so that some two time Obama voters voted for him instead of H. C. and Trump was hated the most where it didn't really matter. If you are gonno lose a State anyway it doesn't matter how much you lose as long as you win enough States to win the electorate vote.

People who have lost their well paying industrial jobs are not going to vote for someone who supports the trade deals that caused the outsourcing. They are going to vote for the dude who promises (lies in the case of Trump) to bring pack those jobs. H.C. could have lied too, or at least undercut Trump's credibility on the issue ("I'm not bringing those jobs back but so isn't Trump"), but she didn't. Instead she repeated platitudes such as "Stronger together" thinking probably it is still 1992, but it was 2016, the age of political populism and she didn't even try to be a populist so she lost to a fake populist. 

[JBS]

One important thing
In 2016 people expected that if Trump was elected, GOP establishment would keep him from going off the rails, and put up some opposition to any truly wrong headed or ignorant thing he did, and not act as they actually have since Jan 2017.

[milk]

The Unraveling of America

"...to live in Canada today is like owning an apartment above a meth lab."

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/covid-19-end-of-american-era-wade-davis-1038206/

[arpeggio]

One of the big mistakes many Trump supporters make is to assume that liberals are dumber than they really are.

We know Trump won the election.

For example, a few months ago on Bill Maher's show they had a conservative who insisted that Democrats were mad because they thought Hillary actually won the election.  The other liberals on the panel spent five minutes trying to convince him that they knew Trump won.

There are many reasons why Trump won.  Most of us realize that it was not just Comey.  It was the combination of many factors including some mistakes by the Clinton campaign.

[JBS]

There are third party candidates.
https://mobile.twitter.com/jimantle/status/1291898086541930503

The 2020 Libertarian Party presidential nominee has been bitten by a possibly rabid bat

[Herman]

There are many reasons why Trump won.  Most of us realize that it was not just Comey.  It was the combination of many factors including some mistakes by the Clinton campaign.

Of course it was stupid of Hillary not to visit MI and WI more often in the summer of 2016. Obviously there was some entrenched thinking that the Rust Belt would be in her column, if only because of Bill's former popularity there.

All campaign do stupid things and make mistakes.

Comey's announcement was an unique event in modern election history and it's pretty amazing that he's been accepted for some time after as a person to take seriously.

[arpeggio]

The bottom line is that Trump won and Clinton lost.

I am tired of Trump supporters with their simplistic logic who think we do not understand that.

[milk]

The Unraveling of America

"...to live in Canada today is like owning an apartment above a meth lab."

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/covid-19-end-of-american-era-wade-davis-1038206/

"This has nothing to do with political ideology, and everything to do with the quality of life. Finns live longer and are less likely to die in childhood or in giving birth than Americans. Danes earn roughly the same after-tax income as Americans, while working 20 percent less. They pay in taxes an extra 19 cents for every dollar earned. But in return they get free health care, free education from pre-school through university, and the opportunity to prosper in a thriving free-market economy with dramatically lower levels of poverty, homelessness, crime, and inequality. The average worker is paid better, treated more respectfully, and rewarded with life insurance, pension plans, maternity leave, and six weeks of paid vacation a year. All of these benefits only inspire Danes to work harder, with fully 80 percent of men and women aged 16 to 64 engaged in the labor force, a figure far higher than that of the United States..."

"... If and when the Chinese are ascendant, with their concentration camps for the Uighurs, the ruthless reach of their military, their 200 million surveillance cameras watching every move and gesture of their people, we will surely long for the best years of the American century. For the moment, we have only the kleptocracy of Donald Trump. Between praising the Chinese for their treatment of the Uighurs, describing their internment and torture as "exactly the right thing to do," and his dispensing of medical advice concerning the therapeutic use of chemical disinfectants, Trump blithely remarked, "One day, it's like a miracle, it will disappear." He had in mind, of course, the coronavirus, but, as others have said, he might just as well have been referring to the American dream."

[71 dB]

Marquita Bradshaw won the Democratic Primary in Tennessee! 

"Working people showed that my viability was different. I knew it was going to happen. I could see the momentum."

Marquita Bradshaw
Democratic Senate Candidate

[JBS]

Marquita Bradshaw won the Democratic Primary in Tennessee! 

"Working people showed that my viability was different. I knew it was going to happen. I could see the momentum."

Marquita Bradshaw
Democratic Senate Candidate

Reality check
Tennessee has not elected a Democrat to the Senate in 26 years.

Progressives winning primaries is a very different thing from progressives winning general elections.

[71 dB]

Reality check
Tennessee has not elected a Democrat to the Senate in 26 years.

Progressives winning primaries is a very different thing from progressives winning general elections.

That's true. She has a long long way to win Bill Hagerty. However, she did beat corporates in the primary dispate of massive financial disadvantage. Just imagine if the lefties had the same kind of money to spend in these elections. Progressives also often suffer from lack of name recognition, but if they keep showing up election after election eventually they have enough name recognition to win (e.g. Cori Bush did not have enough name recognition in 2018 to win the primary but now she did).