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2020 US Presidential Election

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DynamicSpirit

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Joe Biden's speech following the electoral college vote is available on youtube. Well worth watching - he speaks very powerfully and with a strong air of authority to condemn Trump and many Republicans' attempts to subvert the election, to praise those few Republicans and election workers who defended the integrity of the election and to call for unity. I'm also impressed by his patience in waiting until now to make that speech. I think he's going to prove a good president.

A snippet:

JoeBiden said:
A few states went for recounts. All the counts were confirmed. The results in Georgia were counted three times. It didn’t change the outcome. The recount conducted Wisconsin actually saw our margin grow. The margin we had in Michigan was 14 times the margin President Trump won that state by four years ago. Our margin in Pennsylvania was nearly twice the size of the Trump margin four years ago. And yet none of this has stopped baseless claims about the legitimacy of the results.

Even more stunning, 17 Republican Attorneys General, and 126 Republican members of the Congress, actually, they actually signed onto a lawsuit filed by the state of Texas. That lawsuit asked the United States Supreme Court to reject the certified vote counts in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. This legal maneuver was an effort by elected officials and one group of states to try to get the Supreme Court to wipe out the votes of more than 20 million Americans in other states. And to hand the presidency to a candidate who lost the Electoral College, lost the popular vote, and lost each and every one of the states whose votes they were trying to reverse.

Full text here
 
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21C101

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Joe Biden's speech following the electoral college vote is available on youtube. Well worth watching - he speaks very powerfully and with a strong air of authority to condemn Trump and many Republicans' attempts to subvert the election, to praise those few Republicans and election workers who defended the integrity of the election and to call for unity. I'm also impressed by his patience in waiting until now to make that speech. I think he's going to prove a good president.

A snippet:



Full text here
Assuming he stays fit and well enough to do the job.

He will be constrained by the lack of a Senate majority and will need to "reach beyond the core" to try an improve his position at the mid terms when the incumbent often loses seats in both houses of congress.

If there is a "Gorbachev ist Krank" moment (excuse the German, I was in east Berlin in a hotel mainly occupied by Soviet Officers when that happened) then Harris will lose by a landslide in the mid terms.
 

najaB

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He will be constrained by the lack of a Senate majority and will need to "reach beyond the core" to try an improve his position at the mid terms when the incumbent often loses seats in both houses of congress.
If there's one person who will reach beyond his base it's Joe Biden. During his years in the Senate he was well known for working with Republicans rather than against them - which is why he has so few fans on the left of his party.
 

Cowley

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If there's one person who will reach beyond his base it's Joe Biden. During his years in the Senate he was well known for working with Republicans rather than against them - which is why he has so few fans on the left of his party.
I hope it’s possible for him to do that for the sake of his country, but I do wonder if too much damage has been done over the last few years.
 

21C101

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I hope it’s possible for him to do that for the sake of his country, but I do wonder if too much damage has been done over the last few years.
To be fair I think the constitution and institutions have held up well.

The problem is that for a democracy to work you need both sides to share key common values. Without that you have no demos just two tribes who vote accordingly and that is increasingly the way the US (and to some extent the UK cf Brexit) are going.

Not for nothing in mediaeval times were the major cities in Europe self governing city states like Singapore is now.
 

DelW

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To combat their claims of "electoral fraud" they are going to commit electoral fraud. Whoever said Americans don't do irony?
We've seen pro-Trump groups chanting "stop the count" where their man was ahead, while simultaneously other pro-Trump groups were chanting "count the votes" where their man was behind.

Now there are pro-Trump groups using the mantra "stop the steal" while it's their idol who is trying to disregard people's votes and get himself put back into office, effectively by orchestrating a coup. The hypocrisy is staggering, and most of the world outside the US recognises it.

Trump's presidency started with barefaced lies (over his inauguration) and ends with barefaced lies over his election loss. I can only hope that more Americans come to recognise this before he or one of his dysfunctional family tries to get elected in 2024.
 

Senex

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We've seen pro-Trump groups chanting "stop the count" where their man was ahead, while simultaneously other pro-Trump groups were chanting "count the votes" where their man was behind.

Now there are pro-Trump groups using the mantra "stop the steal" while it's their idol who is trying to disregard people's votes and get himself put back into office, effectively by orchestrating a coup. The hypocrisy is staggering, and most of the world outside the US recognises it.

Trump's presidency started with barefaced lies (over his inauguration) and ends with barefaced lies over his election loss. I can only hope that more Americans come to recognise this before he or one of his dysfunctional family tries to get elected in 2024.
Will it go down in history as the most disgusting presidency ever of the USA? It's certainly managing to end on a really "high" note as the shameful attempt to set democracy aside and stage a coup through the state legislatures and the courts fizzles out and American institutions do finally come good.
 

DynamicSpirit

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Will it go down in history as the most disgusting presidency ever of the USA? It's certainly managing to end on a really "high" note as the shameful attempt to set democracy aside and stage a coup through the state legislatures and the courts fizzles out and American institutions do finally come good.

Possibly. Depends whether you applies today's standards, or the standards of the time.

In absolute terms, terrible at Trump is, you could argue that most presidencies of the 19th century would have been worse... after all those presidents, in some cases, openly supported or openly tolerated slavery and, even after slavery was abolished, accepted or supported discrimination against blacks that went way, way, beyond anything you see today. Attitudes towards women would have been totally misogynistic by today's standards too. And as I understand it for much of the 19th century, corruption in elections was open and rife - only finally cleaned up thanks to general public disgust towards the end of the 19th century.

But on the other hand, most of those 19th century presidencies were also simply reflecting the standards of the day, and very often, they were making slow progress in improving things. To my mind, the almost uniquely bad thing about Trump is the way he's completely ignored today's 21st century standards of ethics and actually taken the level of Government very substantially backwards, towards what would have been common 130 or so years ago. So I would think Trump will have been the worst President by far if you measure by the common acceptable standards of behaviour at the time, but not if you retrospectively apply today's standards to all past presidents.

(For what it's worth, I think it's a totally unrealistic to expect people 200 years ago to have lived by today's standards, so it's much better to try to judge by the standards of the time. After all, who knows what things that we all think are perfectly fine and reasonable will be viewed with utter disgust by almost everyone in 100 or 200 years' time).
 
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Andrew*Debbie

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President Grant's administration was riddled with corruption and endless financial scandals. He is often put forward as the worst president of all time.

Harding is another. Google Teapot dome.
 
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hst43102

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Possibly. Depends whether you applies today's standards, or the standards of the time.
That's the problem. You can't compare history as standards have changed massively throughout time. Culture today is incredibly different even to 2016, when Trump took office.
 

najaB

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The difference between Trump and previous presidents is that most of his predecessors are known for one (or maybe two) scandals, where it would be difficult to count the number that the current administration has been embroiled in.
 

birchesgreen

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One big difference is every thought and deed of Trump can be broadcast around the world in seconds. Past bad presidents (especially before the days of mass media) were easily able to hide a lot of the bad stuff!
 

edwin_m

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Possibly. Depends whether you applies today's standards, or the standards of the time.

In absolute terms, terrible at Trump is, you could argue that most presidencies of the 19th century would have been worse... after all those presidents, in some cases, openly supported or openly tolerated slavery and, even after slavery was abolished, accepted or supported discrimination against blacks that went way, way, beyond anything you see today. Attitudes towards women would have been totally misogynistic by today's standards too. And as I understand it for much of the 19th century, corruption in elections was open and rife - only finally cleaned up thanks to general public disgust towards the end of the 19th century.

But on the other hand, most of those 19th century presidencies were also simply reflecting the standards of the day, and very often, they were making slow progress in improving things. To my mind, the almost uniquely bad thing about Trump is the way he's completely ignored today's 21st century standards of ethics and actually taken the level of Government very substantially backwards, towards what would have been common 130 or so years ago. So I would think Trump will have been the worst President by far if you measure by the common acceptable standards of behaviour at the time, but not if you retrospectively apply today's standards to all past presidents.

(For what it's worth, I think it's a totally unrealistic to expect people 200 years ago to have lived by today's standards, so it's much better to try to judge by the standards of the time. After all, who knows what things that we all think are perfectly fine and reasonable will be viewed with utter disgust by almost everyone in 100 or 200 years' time).
Another measure of the how bad a president is, would be the material consequences of their actions. That comes from a combination of the president's wishes and the power available to implement them. Trump has only started a few small wars, although he encouraged conflict in Yemen and probably elsewhere too. By that measure W Bush was far worse for starting the Iraq war, which achieved no worthwhile objective, cost hundreds of thousands of casualties and ultimately left most of the region in a dire state.

I accept that not everybody will agree with this argument and I don't myself think it's conclusive, but it's another way of looking at things.
One big difference is every thought and deed of Trump can be broadcast around the world in seconds. Past bad presidents (especially before the days of mass media) were easily able to hide a lot of the bad stuff!
In fact he seemed to have relished the ability to make nearly everything public.
 

nlogax

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In fact he seemed to have relished the ability to make nearly everything public.

Come January 21st I have a hunch he'll be banned from Twitter and will instead have to fart out his public rants in the right wing nutjob social media basecamp of Parler. You'd hope that at least the media would stop reporting on him once there but they'll still be desperate to report on every lunatic sentence he utters even if they have absolutely zero bearing on reality.
 

edwin_m

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Come January 21st I have a hunch he'll be banned from Twitter and will instead have to fart out his public rants in the right wing nutjob social media basecamp of Parler. You'd hope that at least the media would stop reporting on him once there but they'll still be desperate to report on every lunatic sentence he utters even if they have absolutely zero bearing on reality.
Twitter has confirmed he will be treated like any other private citizen, where currently he is exempt from many of the rules on the grounds of being a world leader. Not sure what the logic is there other than to get a lot more people viewing Twitter...
 

21C101

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Twitter has confirmed he will be treated like any other private citizen, where currently he is exempt from many of the rules on the grounds of being a world leader. Not sure what the logic is there other than to get a lot more people viewing Twitter...
I think the logic is that Banning the President of the United States of America is not likely to be good for business and will just set up whichever upstart platform he decamped to to do what Android have done to Apple.
 

yorkie

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Come January 21st I have a hunch he'll be banned from Twitter and will instead have to fart out his public rants in the right wing nutjob social media basecamp of Parler. ...
I've never heard of that before; I had to look it up!

Parler (/pɑːrlər/, PAR-ler) is an American microblogging and social networking service launched in August 2018. Parler has a significant user base of Donald Trump supporters, conservatives, conspiracy theorists, and right-wing extremists
Sounds a lovely place (!)
 

Bald Rick

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What I don’t get - really don’t get - is if Trump and his dwindling band of close political supporters still genuinely believe they can overturn the result. It can only be a yes or no answer.

If no - then what do they stand to gain? (Other than more donations)

If yes - then do they not foresee what the reaction would be, both in the US and worldwide? There would be anarchy on the streets, and most (if not all) world leaders would refuse to recognise the result.

Either way, it’s perplexing.
 

Cowley

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What I don’t get - really don’t get - is if Trump and his dwindling band of close political supporters still genuinely believe they can overturn the result. It can only be a yes or no answer.

If no - then what do they stand to gain? (Other than more donations)

If yes - then do they not foresee what the reaction would be, both in the US and worldwide? There would be anarchy on the streets, and most (if not all) world leaders would refuse to recognise the result.

Either way, it’s perplexing.
I think he’s seen this whole thing as an ego trip really, and I don’t know if he’s quite got to the point of accepting that his ego has been punctured yet?
I don’t think for one minute that any of this was to do with serving the people that voted him in as a fresh broom (or siphon).

Throw in that he’s losing grip on his immediate destiny where it comes to not being able to keep himself out of Federal Court, plus the fact that he’s making some money out this which may well come in useful in the very near future if/when he does in fact find himself in court, then it does sort of make sense to behave in the way that he’s doing.

The fact is though that he’s got such poor judgment that in the end reality will hopefully hit his fantasy so hard that it might actually cause him some proper problems.
 

ComUtoR

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What I don’t get - really don’t get - is if Trump and his dwindling band of close political supporters still genuinely believe they can overturn the result. It can only be a yes or no answer.

If no - then what do they stand to gain? (Other than more donations)

If yes - then do they not foresee what the reaction would be, both in the US and worldwide? There would be anarchy on the streets, and most (if not all) world leaders would refuse to recognise the result.

Either way, it’s perplexing.

Trump and the rest of the swamp have backed themselves into a corner. Trump was never going to concede as he would be painted as a quitter. He has also been peddling the rhetoric that the whole thing is some kind of fake election, he won, there was cheating etc etc. To admit defeat or concede now would make a mockery of everything he has been saying for weeks. Everything he appears to do is to play to his base. Those are the ones out on the streets having being whipped up into a frenzy. If he turned away from them there would be just as much chaos on the streets. He needs to keep up the rhetoric for the next 4yrs to keep that loyal base. I could forsee him being branded a traitor and the republicans never winning another presidency again if he gave up and changed his tune.

What would be scary is that he genuinely believes he won and there is widespread election fraud. He is surrounded by sycophants all the time so they are constantly feeding and reinforcing his behaviour. That or he's a borderline sociopath.

People like Mitch McConnell are/have been really clever to keep themselves attached to Trump but still maintaining political distance. I think they will abandon him when its "finally" over.
 

overthewater

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Twitter will have a problem come 22nd Jan, Trump will end up being banned on that day, and pop goes 6th biggest just behide Cristiano Ronaldo. Mind you most of the replies to trump is just people moaning, what on earth are those people going to do when he disappears..
 

DelW

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What I don’t get - really don’t get - is if Trump and his dwindling band of close political supporters still genuinely believe they can overturn the result. It can only be a yes or no answer.

If no - then what do they stand to gain? (Other than more donations)
I think that "more donations" is the main reason, alongside his ego denying that he could possibly have lost.
I can't find an online confirmation, but I'm sure I heard a BBC correspondent say a few days ago that Trump has raised in excess of $125m from his faithful, since the election, supposedly to fund his legal actions. Little of this has been spent, and much is in accounts directly controlled by Trump himself.
Quite a bit of his activity as president was devoted to his personal enrichment, and this is his last chance to milk the system.
 

21C101

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Twitter will have a problem come 22nd Jan, Trump will end up being banned on that day, and pop goes 6th biggest just behide Cristiano Ronaldo. Mind you most of the replies to trump is just people moaning, what on earth are those people going to do when he disappears..
Decamp to whatever alternative platform alights at, boosting that platform immensely.

Which means Twitter's decision isn't straighfoward if they want to maintain their near monopoly and not facilitate a rival platform.

Similar for Youtube (google)
 

Darandio

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It was over $200M on December 4th, and it's close to $300M now.

And some of the stories behind the emails asking for these donations are incredible. Stories of the elderly giving what they can only to be contacted again shortly afterwards saying it's not enough and asking for more and giving it. A few days later another email arrives saying it still isn't enough. Some will of course say it's their stupid fault for giving in the first place and maybe that's true but this bloke needs locking up.
 

dosxuk

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Decamp to whatever alternative platform alights at, boosting that platform immensely.

Which means Twitter's decision isn't straighfoward if they want to maintain their near monopoly and not facilitate a rival platform.

Similar for Youtube (google)

Twitter, Facebook and Google are far more worried about each other and declarations from the authorities than tiny alternative platforms being used by a few more extremists. Twitter will be glad to see the back of Trump and all the extra complaints his content creates.

If, somehow, Parler becomes a threat to any of them, it'll be hours before they're bought up and the problem is solved. The chances are far higher that one of Parler's members does something silly and the entire thing comes crashing down and closes.

Alex Jones is a bigger draw to the Parler camp than a dethroned Trump anyway, and his banning from all the mainstream sites seems to have done them absolutely zero harm.
 

overthewater

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However certain People including silly politician believe these new platforms are dangerous and should not be allowed, while at the same time these people that should not be allowed on any platform, which is never a good idea. Thast where more hatred and distrust comes from.

With $300million I bet some of that will be used for Senate races, some will be used for his reelection bid in 2024 and $200million for his own accounts..
 
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