USPOL Oct: Trumpelthinskin's spinning wheel: spinning hot takes into gold

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USPOL Oct: Trumpelthinskin's spinning wheel: spinning hot takes into gold

JosefStalinator: Oct 9, 2007; Come Tbilisi if you want to live.; Grimey Drawer

Ice Phisherman posted:

Continued from the previous thread:

I asked PJ about this. Seeing as she's reliably predicted the arc of the election over and over again I thought I'd ask her what she thought a Trump loss would look like. When I asked her this was her prediction:

To me, a trained political scientist, this is a hard pill to swallow. The only thing that gets me to accept this as a possibility is that PJ has been reliably correct over and over again. I had no idea where this election was going or why it got where it was for months. We'd all just arrive at bizarre outcomes over and over again and the only person who I've found (so far and so far in the past) who has predicted the election with any degree of sustained accuracy has been PJ. I went back and read some of her earlier predictions. It seemed crazy at the time. The above seems crazy to me now, but not out of the question like I thought just a few months ago.

It's my belief that Trump is a mentally ill person who believes his own bullshit and has ridden a political wave to where he is now. If I accept PJ's prediction as true then enough crazy people are going to listen to Trump that if/when he loses that there are going to be sporadic acts of right wing terrorism. My original prediction was that time would be the greatest limiting factor as we're now just shy of a month away. While that might not mean a Mondale wipeout, him acting like a crazy person and inciting his followers to violence doesn't have such a strict time limit on it as people are still going to listen to him, though the remaining ones are going to grow increasingly angry and disconnected from reality as each event of violence leaves fewer and fewer of them.

The reason why I think it'll fizzle out in the end is that like TapTheForwardAssist said, people are mostly comfortable right now. They're going to be angry, but only the craziest true believers will do anything about it. The rest will just talk poo poo.

If all of this happens as laid out though it means we're heading for a political realignment. Trump is the result (some may say end result, but I'm not convinced) of the GOP and the right feeding their voters a steady diet of fear, hate and paranoia for generations. Most politicians never believed this. Those that did were outliers. But their voters did, or at least enough of them. Dogwhistle racism is not only a way to be racist without being called one, but dogwhistling is also a training tool. It helps prepare for actual commands. Trump went from dogwhistle racism to actual racism and his followers are eating it up because "he tells it like it is" and "isn't afraid to be politically incorrect".

My only hope is that if PJ is correct, that it goes further, smashes the GOP and we can have a total realignment. The GOP in a few years becomes a party that I could see myself voting for because they're no longer racist, sexist, homophobic, wealth hording or bedroom invading. Maybe they're a little lovely, but I'd no longer be trapped voting for democrats for the single reason that they're not totally incompetent and abusive.

Sup fellow trained Poli Sci goon! (Grad student or are you a prof by now?)

I agree with you - I think PJ has the psychology down, but overestimates his influence and ability to actually raise a stink post-election. Especially if Hillary wins by a convincing margin, there's no way Trump incites any violence beyond a very few nuts. Worst he'll do is not concede, maybe demand recounts, and cry foul while everyone laughs at how ridiculous his conspiracies are. It'll help delegitimize Hillary, like the birther movement did Obama, but it won't do much more than that.

There was a good article someone posted in the last iteration of the thread, that noted that while we might not see a real change in the party system or realignment in that sense, we might see a policy realignment as Dems adopt free trade and policies that benefit minorities and wealthy/educated urban city dwellers, while the Republicans persist in the rural areas (south and midwest), fighting between the two for the suburbs and exurbs.

Anyone predicting the demise of the GOP is just wrong. All it takes is one recession, one major fuckup by Hillary or the Dems, or one dogwhistler who can control himself and sell himself as a center-right moderate (like W did) and the Republicans will be back in charge. They've got the house on lockdown until at least 2022, and will probably do well enough in 2020 to maintain their gerrymandered advantage.

# ¿ Oct 1, 2016 08:13

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 17:47

JosefStalinator: Oct 9, 2007; Come Tbilisi if you want to live.; Grimey Drawer

Josef bugman posted:

I think this may be a bit too pessimistic mate. It seems more likely that the current crop of Republican voters will continue to vote themselves into obscurity over the next several years. If they remain "do nothings" then eventually the people of the districts will just start trying to throw out weirder and weirder people, until they can't even function as a sub section of a party.

Why? Republicans have been doing just fine on the congressional level (senate and house) doing nothing and blindly opposing everything the Dems do. Literally no one understands that except people who already won't vote for them ever. All they need is a big shock to the economy/terrorist attack to get moron undecided voters on board, or choose someone who isn't completely insane, and they've got a solid shot at taking the Presidency and keeping their house/senate advantage.

I mean, if Trump can even get close to and maybe even briefly lead or tie Hillary, I see no reason why a Kasich or some other generic "moderate" Republican couldn't pull it off.

# ¿ Oct 1, 2016 09:44

JosefStalinator: Oct 9, 2007; Come Tbilisi if you want to live.; Grimey Drawer

I really don't understand the optimism on Hilldawg's chances at another term - there's still a lot that can happen in four years, but most importantly, not much will happen at the federal level beyond the appointment of Scalia (and probably RBG's) replacements. Unless Hillary shocks everyone and turns Trump's defeat into a chance to work with the Republican congress on a number of major issues that they generally oppose (healthcare, criminal justice, environment, taxes, etc), then it's going to be four years of doing nothing.

Remember that voters are morons. While the Republicans do not have demographics on their side, running a not-literally insane person like Trump can easily attract a good number of women voters and possibly even hispanic voters if the economy takes a turn for the worse or some other international crisis occurs. There WILL be another recession, and the Democrats will be blamed for it if they are in the White House, because voters are dumb and will ask "Why didn't the Dems do anything, they've been in charge for 12 years!" Memories of Trump's racisms might help keep hispanics behind the Dems, but the lack of Trump will likely just exacerbate the enthusiasm gap of young voters and hispanics who suddenly don't have a boogeyman around to scare them into supporting the Dem, causing them to just say "meh" and stay home. 2018 will be a preview of this.

Voters have the memory of goldfish, undecided voters are morons, and lol nothing matters. This election should be a testament to this more than anything!

That said, the Republicans may totally nominate Cruz and suicide, but I'm arguing that it's not a given. 2020 will end up being a far more consequential election in the long run (avoiding fascism aside), as it will decide whether the house is finally back in play for the entire decade from 2022-2032.

# ¿ Oct 1, 2016 11:31

JosefStalinator: Oct 9, 2007; Come Tbilisi if you want to live.; Grimey Drawer

Don't forget that Russia is encouraging ignorance on climate change by adopting conservative rhetoric/conspiracy theories, and serving as a second source of climate skepticism!

# ¿ Oct 1, 2016 12:36

JosefStalinator: Oct 9, 2007; Come Tbilisi if you want to live.; Grimey Drawer

Ditocoaf posted:

It's a reference to a @dril tweet which was a silly nonsensical turn of phrase. Building an entire frequently-used term on a single reference to a tiny funny thing seems like a bit much to me, but whatever, you can't stop memes.

(gently caress it: Part of the original tweet's humor comes from how it seems to come out of nowhere but fits well anyway, like most dril tweets. using it as a routine way to say "this guy was owned" diminishes everything involved. I'm a curmudgeon about memes. Arzy is a good and useful term though.)

This is an extremely painful post to explain the reference to this:

https://twitter.com/dril/status/134787490526658561

# ¿ Oct 3, 2016 08:56

JosefStalinator: Oct 9, 2007; Come Tbilisi if you want to live.; Grimey Drawer

^^^It's all good just teasing you for overanalyzing @dril

Simplex posted:

Given that race, gender, age, education, income, etc. are all pretty good predictors for how someone is going to vote, you should probably consider if polls are actually providing any new information. Or, if through repeated sampling they are merely zeroing on a mean that could fairly easily be calculated through other methods.

Pretty good predictor does not mean a perfect predictor. No one is only a white person, only a man, only educated, only rich, etc. And even if they were, demographics only explain some percent (less than 100) of a person's voting patterns. There's an element of randomness, and the fact that many voters are single issue voters or vote because of some gaffe or quality like "temperament of a candidate", that polls more accurately measure.

Also, without polls, how would we know which groups are more likely to vote for which party/candidate? Some demographics are more salient at some times than other - Catholics, for example, used to skew heavily toward the Dems, but it's pretty even now or a wash (or better explained by ethnicity). Polling shows us how these things change over time.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2016 08:59

JosefStalinator: Oct 9, 2007; Come Tbilisi if you want to live.; Grimey Drawer

canepazzo posted:

Am I reading this wrong or is Reuters showing Clinton +13 nationally?

Lol is this like the pro-clinton equivalent of the LA times tracking poll?

# ¿ Oct 4, 2016 22:28

JosefStalinator: Oct 9, 2007; Come Tbilisi if you want to live.; Grimey Drawer

Tiny Brontosaurus posted:

Who are the least awful Republicans now?

Maybe Susan Collins?

# ¿ Oct 6, 2016 00:01

JosefStalinator: Oct 9, 2007; Come Tbilisi if you want to live.; Grimey Drawer

This thread tomorrow: But what if Trump loses so bad, Democratic voters don't bother showing up and we lose the senate ahhhhhh

# ¿ Oct 8, 2016 05:30

JosefStalinator: Oct 9, 2007; Come Tbilisi if you want to live.; Grimey Drawer

Bushiz posted:

Do you suppose Clinton will have a speech prepared in case trump no shows on Sunday.

The townhall actually lends itself well to just taking questions from the audience, but a brief attack-speech at the start before people turn it off wouldn't be a bad idea.

# ¿ Oct 8, 2016 07:07

JosefStalinator: Oct 9, 2007; Come Tbilisi if you want to live.; Grimey Drawer

The only thing any of us should truly, earnestly be hoping for is a democratic house.

# ¿ Oct 8, 2016 07:27

JosefStalinator: Oct 9, 2007; Come Tbilisi if you want to live.; Grimey Drawer

VirtualStranger posted:

I honestly believe that the House is fully in play now.

Clinton is at 87% on the 538 now-cast and still rising rapidly, and most of that is just a result the 1st debate and its aftermath. The current poll numbers don't even take into account the past several days yet, let alone the clusterfuck that just happened in the past 12 hours.

The election is one month away, there are still two more debates for Trump to humiliate himself in, and Clinton campaign is going to dump all of the opposition research they've kept in reserve over the past year before election day hits.

If I remember correctly, the Dems need a 7 or 8 point popular vote victory in order to overcome gerrymandering and capture the House.

I will be the voice of pessimism!

Whether Trump's goose is cooked, there's still a few debates and a month for something super insane to happen. And this isn't his first collapse or scandal, so there's always the chance he shrugs it off. This isn't even the worse thing, objectively, it just seems to really be getting the media's attention because of how bluntly bad it is. ...but you're right. He's probably done. Even pessimistic me can't redeem him.

Senate wise - what if Dems don't bother to vote, but Republicans are still motivated to support their guys "to check hillary" or some other stupid logic. Fanatical Trumpists might still come out, though I imagine some might be mad at their own reps for disavowing him. If Dem voters don't see the point, it's probably not enough to sink Hillary, but could turn the Presidential year turnout into something closer to midterms, and gently caress over a few close races for the Senate Dems.

House wise, much as I really hope it's in play, it's really not. Plenty of other posters have talked about how the Dems really did not prepare quality candidates in all potential swing states, having effectively given up on the House well before this. It's need to get REALLY bad for the Republicans, like super-depressed turnout and intra-party civil war, for things to flip to the Dems. That would involve reps turning on one another or pissing off Trump supporters, depressing Republican turnout in strong Republican (R+10 or more) districts to the point where a relatively unknown Democrat has one month to get enough votes to be elected. Not impossible, but a long shot even if Trump completely collapses.

Even if Trump collapses, there's also the issue of ~~Hillary's mandate~~. Plenty of people are voting against Trump, and if Trump truly collapses, Hillary's going to IMMEDIATELY face the criticism from Republicans that she's not actually being elected by the will of the people, simply the lesser evil with Trump (actually this'll probably happen before election day). Properly delegitimized and facing a hostile house, we get another 4 years of no legislation or progress, yay!

And maybe, if by SOME MIRACLE, the Democrats take the house. There's always the Senate filibuster. And Dems ain't getting 60 senate seats unless a bunch of Republican senators keel over before election day.

# ¿ Oct 8, 2016 10:19

JosefStalinator: Oct 9, 2007; Come Tbilisi if you want to live.; Grimey Drawer

SpaceDrake posted:

You, my son, live in an interesting time to be a student

Imagine being a teacher right now. Trump has brought out the absolute worst in people, and classroom debates have to be so heavily managed to keep the morons from insulting every non-white male in the entire class :negative:

Seriously, I don't know how many times I've had to stop the idiots from talking about deporting illegals, while students who are illegal immigrants in my class shift uncomfortably in their seats.

# ¿ Oct 8, 2016 10:29

JosefStalinator: Oct 9, 2007; Come Tbilisi if you want to live.; Grimey Drawer

Am I the only one who wasn't really all that shocked or moved by the "grab her pussy" news? When I read it I was like "oh, look, another dumb Trump comment". Then it EXPLODED in a way that made me think, "what the hell, do things matter now?"

What makes this much worse than calling Mexicans rapists, birthers, or any of the other stupid poo poo?

# ¿ Oct 8, 2016 10:53

JosefStalinator: Oct 9, 2007; Come Tbilisi if you want to live.; Grimey Drawer

Roland Jones posted:

I wasn't shocked, but, as people have said, he's literally bragging about sexually assaulting women, trying to get married women to cheat, and so on, just after his own marriage at that. Not only is that something a lot of people, even among the GOP and the deplorables, find to be awful, but it's something a lot of people have personal experience with.

Insulting veterans? Well, people like paying lip service to them, but most people aren't vets and don't really care.

Insulting Hispanic voters? They weren't voting for him anyway for the most part, and the republicans have long abandoned their pretenses of reaching out here.

Insulting women? Sadly most Republican women are used to that sort of thing from their politicians and could rationalize it away, and a lot of the GOP base actually likes that, much like they approve of the previous thing. Also Alicia Machado was hispanic, so that probably lessened things on that front too, because a lot of GOP voters are racist.

Boasting about groping and fingering women without their consent, though? There's no one who looks favorably on that, besides utter dirtbags like MRA and PUA types. It's, well, indefensible, even for the GOP; even some of the crazier surrogates and defenders are trying to redirect rather than condone that. The Republians with consciences, the ones who are high-profile enough that they can't escape it, and the ones who want to escape the sinking ship, are speaking out on their own about this and have to be negative (even if almost none have the guts to actually unendorse), and any others who have it brought up to them have to speak against it, because looking even remotely defensive of it is both abhorrent and something that will sour a sizable portion of their base (i.e. white women and white men who care about this sort of thing or can at least imagine it happening to their wives/daughters/etc.). There isn't any spin you can put on it and people the GOP actually expects to vote for them care about it.

Basically, it's not exactly worse (well, rape and sexual assault are pretty bad, really, but I'm not up to comparing the evil of racism or other bigotries versus rape here or now) but it's worse to Republicans, and also hits a much broader group since there's absolutely no racial or religious aspect to it this time.

If Trump cries it's going to be a tantrum like an angry child, nothing remotely sympathetic. Pitiable at best, maybe, but also repulsive.

This all makes sense, thank you. This election has absolutely broken me because I genuinely was nonplussed by this latest thing. We all knew he was a creep based on 100000000000 other pieces of evidence, but I'm still amazed that it took him explicitly saying "grab them by the pussy" in a recorded video to make people go "oh man, I wonder if this guy doesn't really respect women???".

# ¿ Oct 8, 2016 11:43

JosefStalinator: Oct 9, 2007; Come Tbilisi if you want to live.; Grimey Drawer

isk posted:

Even in 1999/2000 it was pretty interesting. My advice to college students is to take a Poly Sci class in an election year, especially if the professor has campaign experience. Sometimes we'd skip the planned lecture and discuss the state of the election at the time.

For my students, during the primaries I did a weekly (was once a week class) update on the current delegate counts, and a quick run down of upcoming races, general news, etc.

I started this semester showing polls and important dates, info, etc, but I don't even know what to do now. I think a lot are getting burnt out on it so I might lay low on it for a bit and let them digest the insanity that is the election for themselves.

# ¿ Oct 8, 2016 11:47

JosefStalinator: Oct 9, 2007; Come Tbilisi if you want to live.; Grimey Drawer

Coheed and Camembert posted:

https://twitter.com/KevinFarzad/status/784930375172698113

I think Dems safely win the Senate at this point, but how likely is it they take the House?

Not likely. Even if Trump bombs hard, you need to keep Dem turnout high and Republican turnout low in favorably Republican districts with weak Dem candidates. You'd have to see Democrats REALLY motivated to vote in an absolutely blowout scenario.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2016 02:56

JosefStalinator: Oct 9, 2007; Come Tbilisi if you want to live.; Grimey Drawer

Shimrra Jamaane posted:

Lol even the terribly lovely UPI/CVOTER poll has Clinton up now.

The day he falls behind in the LA times poll is the day he truly loses.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2016 09:23

JosefStalinator: Oct 9, 2007; Come Tbilisi if you want to live.; Grimey Drawer

smug n stuff posted:

I strongly doubt McMullin takes Idaho--it's polling much more strongly Trump than Utah, and it's only 25% Mormon to Utah's 60%.
The town this photo was taken in, Rexburg, is home to BYU's Idaho branch, so it's more than likely that the whole crowd is millenial Mormon college students.

That's a lot of babies for college students-

Oh, wait, Mormons.

# ¿ Oct 16, 2016 03:09

JosefStalinator: Oct 9, 2007; Come Tbilisi if you want to live.; Grimey Drawer

WampaLord posted:

Based on what I've read, there seems to be two prevailing opinions:

1) If turnout is suppressed enough for Republicans by loser effect or other factors and the Dems win by a +8 to +10 margin, there's a very good chance of retaking the House. Gerrymandering can't hold up to a wave election.

2) The Dems have some real loving nothingburger candidates running for House seats who aren't going to inspire anyone to vote for them, and also a significant number of people are capable of splitting their ballot and voting R downticket.

There's already a lot of evidence that ticket splitting might even salvage the Senate for the Republicans, and the House is a pretty darn tall order beyond the Senate.

# ¿ Oct 16, 2016 10:17

JosefStalinator: Oct 9, 2007; Come Tbilisi if you want to live.; Grimey Drawer

Epic High Five posted:

Does she get concerned about the liquor section in her supermarket?

Listen if you had kids like hers you'd ALSO need to drink a glass (bottle) of wine a day.

# ¿ Oct 18, 2016 09:47

JosefStalinator: Oct 9, 2007; Come Tbilisi if you want to live.; Grimey Drawer

Phoenixan posted:

In Utah and just cast my mail-in ballot.

I really hope you strategically voted for McMuffin!

# ¿ Oct 19, 2016 04:32

JosefStalinator: Oct 9, 2007; Come Tbilisi if you want to live.; Grimey Drawer

WhiskeyJuvenile posted:

https://twitter.com/ppollingnumbers/status/788625822437564416

KY isn't gonna flip, but it's a bad sign for other downballot races if their senate candidates are seeing a lot of undecided republicans.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2016 08:09

JosefStalinator: Oct 9, 2007; Come Tbilisi if you want to live.; Grimey Drawer

Eugene V. Dabs posted:

It's a Google poll, I'd hold off on making any proclamations yet.

Gah, wasn't paying attention. I'm just desperately praying every day for the Dems to take the house. The thought of a functioning government for about 2 years excites me beyond belief.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2016 08:23

JosefStalinator: Oct 9, 2007; Come Tbilisi if you want to live.; Grimey Drawer

So I just got back from training to be a poll worker in Texas, and I think I was the only one under 65 in the room. There was also maybe one non-white person.

And we still got a question about what to do about the "illegals" in case they try to vote. I felt bad for the training people from the elections commission, but they did their best to shut them down and ignore their stupid rear end questions.

Also, there are like 24 different forms you have to fill out to do basically anything. Don't make more work for your poll people, goons!

# ¿ Oct 26, 2016 05:26

JosefStalinator: Oct 9, 2007; Come Tbilisi if you want to live.; Grimey Drawer

"You're fascinated by sex!" - The guy who devoted his speakership to bringing Bill Clinton down for a blowjob

# ¿ Oct 26, 2016 11:32

JosefStalinator: Oct 9, 2007; Come Tbilisi if you want to live.; Grimey Drawer

Radish posted:

Have some faith in the electorate.

No.

(but yeah, if anything the fact that trumps losing and hurting the GOP should give us some faith)

# ¿ Oct 30, 2016 01:39

JosefStalinator: Oct 9, 2007; Come Tbilisi if you want to live.; Grimey Drawer

climboutonalimb posted:

What is the cattle futures controversy?

Hillary made a boatload of money in a really short period of time investing in cattle futures. GOP says this is a sign of corruption.

# ¿ Oct 30, 2016 01:42

JosefStalinator: Oct 9, 2007; Come Tbilisi if you want to live.; Grimey Drawer

Nessus posted:

How big of a boatload are we talking here? I'm just curious, the worst case here is "hillary did the exact same poo poo every other GOP official did, ever"

According to wiki, 1,000 turned into 100k in 10 months.

# ¿ Oct 30, 2016 01:49

JosefStalinator: Oct 9, 2007; Come Tbilisi if you want to live.; Grimey Drawer

Combed Thunderclap posted:

The current media consensus seems to be "WTF Comey???", and that emerged pretty quick after they realized there wasn't actually any meat to the story. CNN even threw up an op ed piece on its front page calling for Comey to resign soon after the "story" broke.

Still plenty of media outlets that immediately and enthusiastically went for (and are still going for) the HILLARY WEINER SEX SCANDAL EMAILS angle of course, and it's obvious the same incentives for clickbait are causing more of the same problems they have all election, but there seems to be some marginal improvement?

...I really can't wait for a serious post-election media reckoning though. It'll probably never come because they'll all be too busy covering whatever new "scandal" the Republicans have dug up or giddily reporting on the Hillary administration's appointments and policy implementation etc. and pretending everything's fine now haha see it all turned out ok in the end.

The post-media reckoning will be focusing on whatever nothingburger scandal of the month the GOP finds on Hillary, endless congressional hearings on Benghazi/emails/Weiners/Cattle futures/Lesbian affairs.

And we will never have a functioning government because it means we'll never get a Congress that isn't controlled by stonewalling GOP types!

We just gotta hope we can eventually appeal literally everything to the supreme court to approve dictator abuela's executive orders :negative:

# ¿ Oct 30, 2016 12:12

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 17:47

JosefStalinator: Oct 9, 2007; Come Tbilisi if you want to live.; Grimey Drawer

Crowsbeak posted:

Yeah I have a feeling the GOP way of heading off civil war will be trying impeachment.

They don't even need to - people will tune out after Nov 8th, as most people's understanding of government begins and ends with "we elected a President". Everything that happens, or doesn't, after the election is Hillary's fault.

The democrats have to basically bide their time, hoping that by some miracle the GOP implodes before another recession hits and they can redistrict in 2020 and try and forge a house majority.

They're racing against time though, because the first big scandal/recession/terrorist attack/whatever that hurts the incumbent Dems will be seized upon and bring about Republican control of all three branches of government.

Sure demographics buy them time but if Donald loving Trump can be anywhere within 5 points of Hillary Clinton, then people are stupid enough to elect a Republican if anything but the best conditions aren't met. Let alone elect a Kasich-esq Trump-lite who will just cut taxes and do the same poo poo W did.

# ¿ Oct 30, 2016 12:18

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > USPOL Oct: Trumpelthinskin's spinning wheel: spinning hot takes into gold