2024 US Presidential Election

[SGR]

Don't judge it based on most social media as a whole, however you also don't get real opinions IRL because these people would never say this insane shit in person.

That's probably true, but people in real life aren't rewarded and given mass attention by saying the most outrageous and egregious shit possible.

[Paul Smeenus]

Doesn't *bean* we're not screwed

*mean*

[DJChameleon]

Something seems fishy with Trump and Vance being super quiet lately. I don't want to buy into the conspiracy theories but the vote total this year compared to 2020 is off by 18 million votes. People are getting emails that their vote was received but hasn't been counted yet.

Also another fucked up thing are those texts people are getting telling them to report to their nearest plantation to be a slave.

[SGR]

Something seems fishy with Trump and Vance being super quiet lately.

It's funny, I was thinking the same thing - but not just Trump and Vance - also the Democrats - everyone is being rather quiet lately. I don't remember it being this way when Trump won in 2016. What does that mean? It could mean Trump/Vance are planning something...it could also mean the Democrats are planning something...or it could mean nothing, and they're all just fuckin' tired and we're making something out of nothing.

I don't want to buy into the conspiracy theories but the vote total this year compared to 2020 is off by 18 million votes. People are getting emails that their vote was received but hasn't been counted yet.

Back in 2020, Republicans weren't asking where those votes went, but rather where they came from. 

I'll take this opportunity to once again say that we have no way to audit our elections end-to-end and thus need to simply trust our institutions and media outlets about the reported numbers. I will also mention that there are many, many vulnerabilities and vectors for attack/modification in our vote custody chain - and I'll reiterate, after so many years passing with no real motivation or plan from either party to fix it and make the process more open, transparent, auditable and standardized, one can only surmise that the nature of our various voting systems is not a mistake, but rather an intentional design (Despite all of Trump's bitching about the 2020 election, did you hear him actually vocalize serious plans to fix our elections systems in a way that everyone can trust them? I didn't. Rather, he just signal-boosted the idea of increasing turnout to make it 'too big to rig').

That being said - aren't there still votes being counted? I thought there were, but maybe I'm wrong. The availability and motivations for mail-in ballots in 2020 v 2024 might also be an explanation for the discrepancy.

Also another fucked up thing are those texts people are getting telling them to report to their nearest plantation to be a slave.

I heard about that - such a pathetic troll job - but by whom is the question? Wouldn't be surprised if it's a foreign adversary trying to incite internal division and conflict.

[Psy-Fi]

Sabby Sabs - 10 Reasons Why Kamala LOST!

[DJChameleon]

It's funny, I was thinking the same thing - but not just Trump and Vance - also the Democrats - everyone is being rather quiet lately. I don't remember it being this way when Trump won in 2016. What does that mean? It could mean Trump/Vance are planning something...it could also mean the Democrats are planning something...or it could mean nothing, and they're all just fuckin' tired and we're making something out of nothing.

Nah the truth is boring. They can't just be tired. They plotting something major after cheating this time and rushing the results to be reported early before enough votes were counted along with all those mail in boxes being set on fire and those voter rolls being purged. Cheating in mass scale! All of this was orchestrated by the POPE!

Back in 2020, Republicans weren't asking where those votes went, but rather where they came from. 

I'll take this opportunity to once again say that we have no way to audit our elections end-to-end and thus need to simply trust our institutions and media outlets about the reported numbers. I will also mention that there are many, many vulnerabilities and vectors for attack/modification in our vote custody chain - and I'll reiterate, after so many years passing with no real motivation or plan from either party to fix it and make the process more open, transparent, auditable and standardized, one can only surmise that the nature of our various voting systems is not a mistake, but rather an intentional design (Despite all of Trump's bitching about the 2020 election, did you hear him actually vocalize serious plans to fix our elections systems in a way that everyone can trust them? I didn't. Rather, he just signal-boosted the idea of increasing turnout to make it 'too big to rig').

That being said - aren't there still votes being counted? I thought there were, but maybe I'm wrong. The availability and motivations for mail-in ballots in 2020 v 2024 might also be an explanation for the discrepancy.

There is also the possibility that those millions of voters also decided to sit out and not vote this time around because they didn't like both candidates.

I heard about that - such a pathetic troll job - but by whom is the question? Wouldn't be surprised if it's a foreign adversary trying to incite internal division and conflict.

Possibly who knows.

[Lisnaholic]

Something seems fishy with Trump and Vance being super quiet lately. I don't want to buy into the conspiracy theories but the vote total this year compared to 2020 is off by 18 million votes. People are getting emails that their vote was received but hasn't been counted yet.

It's funny, I was thinking the same thing - but not just Trump and Vance - also the Democrats - everyone is being rather quiet lately. I don't remember it being this way when Trump won in 2016. What does that mean? It could mean Trump/Vance are planning something...it could also mean the Democrats are planning something...or it could mean nothing, and they're all just fuckin' tired and we're making something out of nothing.

^ This is how I read the recent silence: all the campaigners+speakers are burned out, and in the Trump camp, they've been given all the mandate they dreamed of, so they don't need to court public opinion any more. Remember when, in Trump's previous, they abandoned the regular press conferences? After sending Sean Spicer out a few times the Trump admin realised, "Hey, why even bother lying to these people any more?"
I think the silence is a sign of governance to come: decisions made behind closed doors, the public frozen out and just presented with a fait accompli when necessary - pretty much how Putin conducts business in Russia.

[DJChameleon]

Well at least we don't have to worry about this circus anymore since it was the last presidential election to occur according to Trump himself.

[Trollheart]

The words of Michael Moore in 2015 now sound like a prophecy: "Please, please, please, even if you hate Hilary, grit your teeth and vote for her. If not, you'll have voted for the last American president."

[Jwb]

I didn't know what to expect, but the scale of Trump's win is genuinely surprising.  Especially the amount he grew with particular demos like Hispanics, considering that one of the main bullet points of his campaign is mass deportation. Trump not only picked up ground with most of the major minority demos, he did so while campaigning on illegals stealing their jobs.  Remember how many times on the campaign trail he made a point of saying they're coming in and stealing black jobs or stealing Hispanic jobs? It's possible that message actually resonated with people, despite the sneers of white liberals over what a "black job" is. 

So this potentially makes his movement much stronger and more durable than it would have been if it was just the party of white grievance.  If you can expand the in group to ironically form a multi racial nativist coalition,  then that potentially becomes not just a marginalized opposition party but the new dominant party in American politics. 

That means that despite all the speculation about what happens to the Republican party once Trump is gone,  it could potentially be the Democrats instead who are facing a collapse of their coalition.

This seems even more likely as this election result will likely lead to further infighting on the left as the progressive and liberal factions compete to define the narrative.

As for what to expect from Trump's term, I don't know. Obviously it's tempting to look at his last term and rest assured that the crazy shit he promises on the campaign trail is not going to happen, just like last time.  But there are some differences this time around.

1) He's been in power before.  He won't be so green this time around.
2) He's gotten a bigger mandate than before.  Not only does he have the Senate,  House,  and SC, but he won the popular vote to top it off just to give him an ego boost.
3) He's severely aggrieved over "the way he was treated" last time,  and is likely to have an axe to grind.
4) He doesn't have to worry about reelection.  He can focus solely on trying to cement his own legacy.

So what will he do to cement it? My best guess is mass deportation, tariffs, and leaning on Ukraine to end the war. All of which I believe he will dedicate his effort to accomplish in the first 2 years of his term while he still has the clear mandate to do so. 

None of this really sounds that hard to imagine him being able to meaningfully follow through on, if I'm being honest.  If anything I could see him implementing selective tariffs like last time instead of the kind of broad and severe tariffs he's been campaigning on.  Then just claim that as a promise kept. Not like the voter will ever know the difference.  If he did actually try to do something like 20% tariffs across the board on all imports,  that seems like a disaster.  But intuitively that's not what I expect him to do. Although there's always a chance. He definitely has enough hubris to think his negotiating skills are more valuable in crafting a trade deal than the advice of any economist or advisor, so if he thinks he's right enough there's no telling how far he will go.

I could see the mass deportations being the biggest source of scandal for the administration,  as it's not so abstract and will  likely produce videos, pictures,  stories etc of ICE raids and families being torn apart,  people being detained in camps,  etc. Then again,  the constant chorus from the left that Trump is a fascist and a threat to democracy have fallen flat.  And now,  with Trump having pushed the envelope at every turn since 2015, and with Dems calling him out at every turn,  his behavior has become normalized and thus a new standard has been established.  So charges of fascism in general have lost a lot of their punch.  Which means that there's more leeway for the Republicans to lean in and act as fashy as they want. If anything,  they can basically bait the Dems into calling them a fascist and then use the fact that the left "calls everyone a fascist" as a talking point against them to make them seem like the unhinged party in the eyes of the average voter. So that raises the question.... if you actually think the Republicans are moving in a far right authoritarian direction,  how do you successfully point that out and properly stigmatize it in a way that the average voter finds compelling?  Or do you just have to ignore the fascism and just focus on who has the best tax policy?

Either way,  there's a possibility that none of his major promises come to fruition.  I'm reluctant to enter immediately into "the sky is falling" mode because Trump is fairly unpredictable, and he also tends to "over sell" the scale of both his promises and his previous achievements. So only the God Emporer himself knows what he really plans to do about any of this. But I'm inclined to think that he learned a thing or two from the last time around and that he will be much more effective,  at least in the first two years,  at pursuing his agenda.

[Trollheart]

Ah JWB, the political threads ain't been the same without you! Welcome back.
A good, even great and very honest analysis of what to expect in the next four years (or much further, god help us - oh wait you don't exist, oh well) and I would also point out another obvious thing: this time Trump has no pesky Covid pandemic getting in his way, so there's really nothing for the Dems to hang their hats on, as it were. I guess we can all hope that victory in itself, being vindicated and finding redemption (if he thought he needed to, which he did) in the eyes of the voters - especially those who did not vote for him, or maybe anyone, last time around - might be enough for him, a Cheshire Cat grin on his stupid fat ugly orange face. But then, he could want more more more and go even harder right. One thing is for sure: the next four years at the very least are not going to be dull, and are likely to be the worst years of some people's lives.

[Weekender]

When the dust settled, it turned out about the same amount of people voted for Trump as did in 2016. That's a scandal. Still, it's not the mandate that he will govern with.

Harris was not a strong candidate to begin with, and she was given a short campaign. I can't pretend I didn't think the DNC had a sound strategy. I thought women would turn out in record setting numbers but it looks like even they didn't want to vote for a cop.

[SGR]

Trump tells Biden 'politics is tough' as they hold historic White House meeting after his election victory

I hope they can still find time to play Minecraft together.

[DJChameleon]

Trump tells Biden 'politics is tough' as they hold historic White House meeting after his election victory

I hope they can still find time to play Minecraft together.

As long as it's before his bed time at 7pm.

[Psy-Fi]

Pollster spoke to voters about Harris, here is what they said