Outside of voter fraud, I expect the Democrats to wake up discovering that a large chunk of reliable Democrat voters ended up quietly voting for Trump.
I found out, today, that someone who I had referred to as an NPC -- the one person in my life that I never, ever talk politics with confessed to a mutual friend "I'll deny it if you tell anyone, but I'm not voting for Biden and I'm considering voting for Trump"
If this guy converts, it'll be really hard to not troll him regarding some of the more ridiculous things he's said over the last four years... but I'll probably be happy enough to bite my tongue if he ever admits it.
It's making me hopeful -- not just that President Trump wins (hell yes, that's important). We have a problem, right now, in that there's a very vocal, very obnoxious element of the left that -- I believe -- is causing people to react quickly to all dissent no matter how ridiculous it is. In the 80s, if someone kneeled for the National Anthem in this country, they'd be removed from the field with their name being synonymous with America's enemies. The left and their enablers have figured out that if you make enough noise, the number of people making the noise isn't relevant -- it'll feel like popular support.
If Trump wins in a landslide with substantial Democrat support (and it is not successfully silenced), I hope more of us get noisy and let these companies know that it's not OK to react to every left-leaning outrage at the expense of everyone else.
I hope people are paying attention to the subtleties here . . .
If I'm reading that right, those are returns by political party. I know a lot of Democrats, all of which were members of "the empiresistence" in 2016. All but one or two are either voting for President Trump or not voting, today. And that's not including all of the people who are now reliable Republican voters who were originally registered as Democrats[1].
What I'm seeing, anecdotally, is that if the voter isn't a Pussy-Hat Wearing Public School Teacher/College Professor/Government Bureaucrat, they're voting for President Trump. If you are, you're making enough noise for 10 people on the Twitter Reality-Simulator.
If my anecdotal experiences are even 1/2 right, conservatively, 20% of those "D" votes are for Trump.
[1] At least with my generation, if you weren't really paying attention to politics, you registered as a Democrat. Your teachers and the news have been telling you the Democrats are the "good guys" for so long that if your parents aren't politically interested, you're registering as a Democrat. 1/3 of my very conservative friends are registered Democrats for this reason (some altered that this year, most leave it alone)
I saw your comment, and I thought the same thing.
The liberals have basically owned themselves here. In attempting to re-define reality by referring to riots as "Peaceful Protests", reality won. Now any time I see "Peaceful Protest" -- without condition -- I assume they're referring to riots[1].
[1] To the point that I was really confused when President Trump started referring to his rallys using that term (in order to force the left to allow them, lest their BLM riots be squelched).
If this guy is in Detroit, beer/coffee -- my treat. Nicely done.
I only have a car trump flag, but our American flag actually fell off of our house last night and is bagged up leaning against the wall in my bedroom until I have time to repair it after work.
My precinct is in my subdivision[1] and I was thinking of attaching that to my bike to ride over there to see if the line is as bad as it was this morning (outside of the 100' campaigning rule, though an American flag -- I don't think -- would be considered electioneering, anyway).
[1] A very conservative area in a critical county in Michigan -- 10 times the number of people there all day so far. I usually voted at 10-10:30 b/c there was never a line... my wife passed it on her way running errands ... it was as long as it was when we went at 7:00 AM this morning (wrapped around half the building). I was the only voter in my precinct for 15 minutes at that time in 2016 and it was even lighter during the primary (when we had exceptional turn-out).
I only get my supply of liberal tears from non-hard-working American liberals. Shipping is too expensive and because demand is high, I'd be worried a little bat soup might get mixed in. The QC at Chinese liberal tear factories is really lacking.
I used to think the same thing ... it really still doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
Given my location, we spend a lot of time in Canada and I worked (remotely) for a company in the UK. Every one of my Canadian friends and former UK co-workers knew more about US politics and how the US government works than many of my American friends.
While in Toronto about 5 years ago, we struck up a conversation with a couple at a bar and the guy said something like "I don't pay attention to Canadian politics -- everyone I know pays more attention to US politics than Canadian". I'm not sure if that's true, but considering I spend about 5 minutes a year on Canadian politics as an American, if he's even partly right, that's "strange" to me.
I had a similar experience working with a team in the UK during Brexit (all of which were Remainers)[1]. I was at that job when Donald Trump was elected and was surprised that US political conversations were more frequent than they had been when I was working for an American company.
[1] ... and when Obama injected himself into UK politics, all of them were upset -- some were offended (US Presidents aren't supposed to pick sides in their allies political battles) all said it would help Brexit pass.
I'm going to commit suicide if he wins.
Oh. My. Lord.
Thank, God America wasn't made up of these kinds of people during World War II. I can't imagine being so worthless as to pin my entire, physical, existence on the outcome of an election -- even if I was the candidate that lost.
How entitled are we in the world that we think 2020 -- with all of it's insanity, and the last 4 years of Democrat tempter-tantrums that things happening today are somehow "worse than ever in American History" and worth ending your life. The first/second World Wars, the Civil War, 9/11, I mean ... "c'mon man". These people are a bunch of children who, mathematically speaking, have lived on earth long enough to be mistakenly called "adults". This is the kind of stuff that happens when you teach children that they can do no wrong and all of their failures are someone else's fault.
It probably is normal. I know in my state, this was the case until a few years ago. New voters had to show IDs but voters who had previously voted didn't.
A lot of the laws were written this way IIRC out of fear that requiring ID for every voter would cause the laws to be thrown out due to "disenfranchising voters". And it's better than nothing, I guess.
When I hear people talk about disenfranchisement due to voting ID, I dismiss them as either openly dishonest, racist, or a 'zombie'[1]. I live in a blue-collar area and serve underprivileged areas.
The argument that "Republicans are Racist" because of voter ID, when examined, reveals the opposite conclusion. Republican voters do not think voter ID is a problem because we know that most people have appropriate ID[2] due to its necessity in life. And those that don't can get ID easily. We, specifically, do not think black, Hispanic or other minority populations are "too uneducated/drug-addicted/poor/otherwise incapable" to figure out how to get an ID.
I can't understand how "African-American people are too (reason) to get ID to vote" isn't a highly offensive, racist thing to say. Are white liberals so minimally exposed to minorities that they think all black people are like the ones they see on evening news? Even worse, the Democrats don't think all minorities would be disenfranchised, only Hispanic and black voters. So, the liberal non-racist ideology explains that "white people are bad", "Asians are really smart", "Black people are too stupid to get IDs" and "Hispanics can't get ID because they're all 'undocumented' and we need them to stay that way so I can get cheap lawn care". Yeah, that's not racist. /s
That kind of stuff makes my blood boil and I actually miss the days when it was generally considered wrong to call attention to someone's race if their race had nothing to do with the circumstance in question. As a professional software developer, I want to finish a job interview with the interviewers saying "Wow, he's a sharp, capable, programmer", not "Wow, he's a sharp, capable, programmer ... an he's (race)". Because the unspoken remainder of that sentence is "... which is strange because (race) people are usually too drug-addicted/poor/dumb to be this successful". No. Fuck you.
[1] The kind of NPC that is "feature complete", receives all uploads every day and functioning at 100%. There's no point in attempting a reasoned conversation.
[2] The purpose of "motor-voter" laws was to piggy-back on the fact that people in poverty often have drivers' licenses/other ID but have lower frequency of voter registration.
... I'll be up at the crack of dawn standing in line, tomorrow.
Interesting times, indeed. I was trying to figure out why "voting" feels so different this year -- COVID/etc aside -- I know what it is for me. I showed up to vote the first election I was eligible as "my patriotic duty", exercising "my rights as an American", because "if you don't vote you have no right to complain", because I wouldn't hear the end of it from my parents if I didn't...
And for me, at least, this year: Fuck. That. I'm voting for the sheer, rare, joy of having a candidate running for re-election that I actually want to be President.
It was really thoughtful of the Democrats to give us Biden to vote against, just to make every aspect of the voting experience enjoyable. Biden and his family are the gift that keeps on giving.
I really hope we all get off our normally-lazy rear-ends and vote.
I don't like "Vote like your life depends on it" ... mainly because, it shouldn't. We're not supposed to have an executive branch with king like powers. We're supposed to have a system that is highly resistant to corruption and concentration of power. Short of moving the needle a small bit on one direction it shouldn't matter. But that's not the system we have, anymore. Maybe we never did.
I look at it this way: President Trump has governed better than I would have ever imagined. I believe he chose to run because he saw his country going down a road he didn't like. Being President has done nothing good for Donald Trump. He'd be richer if he wasn't President. In pretty much every way, President Trump's life would have been better had he chosen to skip the primary 4 years ago.
I'm extremely confident he's going to win. I'm confident that President Trump doesn't need my vote to win. But there's no way I'm going to miss this one opportunity to directly thank the President. Conversely, because there probably won't be any broken glass/bullets flying, I can't imagine being so lazy as to not take this tiny little effort on my part to say "THANK you, man".
My hope is that the fraud is incredibly bad, and that we turn out in numbers that are so record breaking that it becomes the largest political earth-quake the country has ever seen... let's make the fraud have to be bad. Increase their anxiety and the chances that they make a bad gamble, make big mistakes, get caught and bring the network of voter fraud down with it.
Practice your line standing/circle filling (screen tapping, etc), folks. We've got one day to show them how it's done.
Yeah ... and I think that's why they felt it was OK to use the picture. They figured "well, we want to show a crowd because this is the most anticipated election of our lifetimes and a few dorks in white circles doesn't communicate that".
So they picked a picture that -- except for the MAGA part not being dead-center in the photo -- has several markers as a "Trump crowd".
It could have been innocent.
It could easily have been evil, too. The obviousness of it being a Trump Crowd is only obvious if you're actually looking at the photo. The article isn't about the photo, the photo is providing background for the article. So the reader scrolls past and the photo is registered to that reader as CROWD. Onto the next headline (or reading the article).
Fast-forward to the point that "they're called out".
In this article, the same photo is attached, but the article is about the photo. Every reader is spending at least a few seconds looking at that photo. Every reader sees the "Make America Great Again" banner at the top. Every reader sees the red trucker hats. Obviously it's a Trump Crowd.
And somewhere in that hypothetical article is the line "When asked to comment, WDIV editor Blah Blah said there was no intent to mislead, and in fact, this photo was chosen over other crowd photographs because it included obvious Trump campaign imagery -- banners and trucker hats". The readers of the second article find this explanation to be extremely plausable.
I'm not surprised. I kind of feel bad for even posting it. Here's the thing, if the media wasn't so twisted (and especially so, these days), that photo is perfectly fine, if not a shining example of mixing media without being deceptive.
Imagine a world where we all felt the MSM was reasonably fair[0], or even one where the MSM agreed with our positions. Were that the case, I'd look at that photo and conclude:
In that unbiased world, I'd look at that photo and think: I know Biden isn't doing rallys (nobody shows up except for Trump supporters) so there aren't any solid photographs of crowds in this election cycle. This story is specifically about the most anticipated election in our collective lifetimes. Showing a photo of a few reporters standing in white circles around an old man does not say "highly anticipated election", so they picked a Trump Rally photo and specifically included the "Make America Great Again" banner so as not to accidentally mislead[1].
And that's probably the argument the writer made when the editor (hopefully) questioned the use of the photo. The problem is that they didn't look at it in context: when the media is so biased that the people supporting the media's bias see the bias, any innocent mistake[2] is going to amplify that bias and further destroy their credibility.
If I'm an editor at any of these places, I'd have gone bald over the last year examining things to avoid any additional loss of credibility and spending the other 80 hours fighting tooth and nail to get some of it back. Doesn't seem like that's happening, unfortunately.
[1] And Biden's says something about China, I think. /s
[2] Despite my poking fun with as the OP, I give people the benefit of the doubt, and I know, personally, a former news caster from that station who is an amazing man and MAGAs.
Serves me right that there'd be a damn typo right in the headline I posted since I'm often the one rolling my eyes at others. Guess it's fitting that it's Sunday!
Sorrey, everyeone
Wife sent it to me; it's going around FB in our area.
It's hard not to see it that way, these days.
I think about this from time to time: back when the Podesta e-mails dropped, there was a bunch of satanic imagery/art and such that these people collected/hung in their homes. Here's the thing, I don't think any of them (well, maybe one or two, but just as likely, none) are satanists. I think these liberals do this sort of thing to poke fun at Christians -- sort of like treating the Judaeo-Christian Satan as a fictional Voldemort.
...Let's see, buys satanic icons, is corrupt, yup, they're satanists[0]. Really, by nearly all standards, they're directly worshipping satan[1]. The thing I love about Revelation -- at least if you believe it foretells the end of the world and the coming of Jesus Christ -- it'd be kind-of tragically-funny if most of the inner cabal were worshiping satan because of a bible that they didn't believe ... their own actions resulting in fulfilling a prophecy. But, hey, if you believe, then it's completely wasted time spending much energy worrying about "when" the end of the world is coming. I mean, what am I going to do that I shouldn't have been doing already? It's not like I'm going to be able to stop God if He decides He's coming back! :)
But yeah, religious or not, everyone understands evil (corruption) against good. And it need not even be good. I have voted third-party because -- even though my preferred party ran a candidate that supported things that I align with, politically, it's meaningless against corruption. Corruption guarantees someone has leverage on my candidate for black-male. Does it matter if your record of support on my pet issue is perfect up to this point if my candidate is being leveraged?
One thing that's hard to deny -- if there was any corruption with Trump, we'd know. No candidate has undergone the number of high-resolution rectal exams this man has had to suffer. I may not agree with him on everything, but I know what he's going to do with a certainty I don't think you could apply to any politician in my lifetime. Frankly, he's done such a solid job economically, I'm finding myself admitting I am/may additionally be wrong on some of the positions which we don't align. It's hard to argue with results ... time and time again.
Oh,... I forgot ... the guy who's managed to do nearly everything he set out to in his first term ... is a LIAR!!!11!!1111. /s :)
[0] Perhaps only the corrupt ones by this argument, but I don't have the required time to filter "who had 'ironically' satanic art/did 'ironically' satanic things" from "who was doing things that were (at least) ethically questionable"
[1] Hard not to argue that (1) the hours spent laboring to afford satanic artwork, (2) the desire to have imagery in your home that reminds one of satan. Looks like a duck to me.
Love that ...
... do you think they just really clung on to this idea that The Republicans really went after Bill Clinton because he cheated on Hillary[1] (not because of a million other reasons and committing perjury...)?
I think they're trying to play at . . .
Surely he Can't be a Man of God if He Commits Adultery!
Read the Bible. Take a look at who God blessed, who God chose as Kings in the Old Testament. I often hear "He chooses the perfect man for the job, not the perfect man". I know very few Christians (and I'm among them) who have an opinion on whether or not he's been faithful -- it doesn't matter to me. If there was clear proof, I wouldn't be surprised and it wouldn't affect my opinion on him as a man or as President[2].
[1] I know this sounds horrible ... but really fellas ... every single guy I talked to about Lewinsky -- Democrat or Republican -- said "well, he's married to Hillary".
[2] We all sin, Dude. I'll leave the judgement to your wife and God.
Exactly ...
... the Trump curse is awesome to watch, though.
My favorite was "Gram 'em by the Pussy[1]." My closest friend's[2] wife weighed in on a debate we were having about how damaging that comment was and to my surprise, she said it made her want to vote for him more and she believed other women -- if they were being honest with themselves -- would admit the same (my wife did, as well).
The issue was that a non-practicing-Christian, single, wealthy playboy in that world -- everyone has accepted that he's getting laid by a lot of beautiful women. But my favorite part is that they both said, with flat sarcasm HE ISN'T WRONG and I couldn't find anyone who, after a few minutes of reasoned conversation, didn't fizzle down to damn near a "So What?" about that story.
Looking forward to the usual New York Times playing Journolist again and learning, again, how little they matter.
[1] And I owe a beer to womever made the the silhouette of a woman on a beach with "Grab Life by the Pussy" meme back then. I literally laughed. Out loud.
[2] Guy's a genius; he was telling me Trump needed to run back during the Obama days, knew he'd run in 2016, win the Primary and the election -- only person I know to call everything and with total confidence.
Wolf!! Everybody, Wolf!!
A friend of mine -- Hillary voter from 2016 (he's all red as of the tax cuts, I think) -- I remember an observation he made shortly after Trump was elected (before he had a wholesale conversion).
He was extremely frustrated that, in his mind, "The President was EVIL and was going to do EVIL HORRIBLE THINGS!! ZZOMG!11!!1 ..." (head raised mouth open screaming at the sky) ... but the MSM are so blind in their hatred of the man that they create a grand philosophical/political commentary over two scoops of ice cream or the meaning of a missssspelling on Twitter. They underestimate the intelligence of their viewers[1] who are going to "toss the baby out with the bathwater", the bathwater being the supposed coming evil.
Imagine, for a second, that what comes out on Sunday is a perfectly sourced, documents-to-back-it-up, credible document with authenticated recordings and multiple on-the-record witnesses with nothing to gain and the most diabolical of the accusations is also the most credible. And we're talking the kind of diabolical that every one of us would regret our vote the day after we believed the story. I know, it's like when your kids ask "well, what if the sun turned into cheese, broke up into a million pieces, and fell out of the sky all while still on fire." .. "Um, not sure, that's impossible" .. "yeah, Dad, but what if?". I get it, it's not going to happen -- there will be a diabolical accusation, but it'll have zero credibility. I mean, there's exactly zero chance President Trump is secretly Joe Biden wearing a Donald Trump suit, but bear with me. Let's pretend.
What would happen?
Nothing. Maybe more votes for Trump. Lots of noise on TV, lots of new ads (probably timed for immediately after the story breaks). I'm convinced from my small, but diverse (different jobs, socio-economic status, union membership) sub-sample of democrat friends and neighbors that all the way back to about mid-2017 they started getting frustrated with the MSM I always complained about for reasons that it took about 1-2 years for them to fully admit[2]. All of them said in one way or another that they felt like they were being lied to -- the more they embedded themselves in "resisting" the less it made sense. And censorship came up a lot[3]. It's as though when a story was censored, the usual Streisand Effect happened but another thing, as well -- "what doesn't CNN not want me to know" and it quietly adds a nudge of credibility that the article otherwise wouldn't have had. I don't think there's a clearer definition of "negative credibility".
I wonder what I would do if they published a story endorsing President Trump. I think it'd give me a little anxiety, wondering what they're really up to.
[1] Or over-estimate their own.
[2] I think the one I liked the most was "they're just doing that because he's a TV star/playboy; it's tabloid-journalism, not liberal-bias". Friday jobless claims come out; not saying a lot about the career politicians if a "TV star/playboy" fresh in to politics lands the White House and then manages it better from day 1 than it's been managed since Ron. (... Ronald ... Donald ... we had to see it coming ...)
[3] "Bbbbuuutt it's a private company, not the government" -- Damn is that a prize coming out of a no-longer-self-respecting hippie's mouth.
This is different, and I completely agree with Tucker given the kind of show that Tucker does[1]. The danger in Tucker hammering the Hunter side of the story is that the Hunter-only parts of the story is way juicier, but their less important to the election than the other parts that should matter to people when they cast their votes. You can't dismiss the (rather complex) financial crimes as "it's just his dumb kid" and it requires someone to explain "why these crimes are so serious".
The bigger problem is that they also serve as a huge distraction. Aside from this, the bigger problem is that "when/if the story breaks elsewhere", it's important that the networks not feel they can simply skip the inconvenient "directly implicating that guy on the ballot" questions and claim they "covered the story" while all they really did is toss around some nasty photos while repeating "... the troubled child of Joe Biden, brother of Beau, who's campaign statement indicated that Joe had no idea his son was struggling ..." and like a magician, distract with sleight-of-hand-fake-sympathy while ignoring all connections to Their Joe.
If the story ever breaks on the other network news shows/stations, I believe the previous paragraph's scenario will play out.
More likely, they'll continue to ignore it. And honestly, let them. I had my only not-yet-converted friend stop mid-sentence when I interrupted him immediately after he uttered "CNN said". "Yeah ... they're worthless[2]"
At the same time, I can throw Tucker out there and I'll get all kinds of grief, but that fog clears quickly with "You don't like the guy, we've established that -- what is is inaccurate, wrong or fabricated?" "You don't get to choose your own facts" blah blah blah.
If he started sensationalizing stories, or betraying the important parts for the ones that avoid inconvenient connections because "the viewers want to see proof that Hunter is a pedophile[3]", it's going to be less of a news program and more of a reality show (like most of the rest of the news is).
[1] His is a national, generally political, show. The Hunter stuff that he's avoiding is better suited in tabloid/celebrity news, but should be on his show if enough aren't reporting on it (he did report on the allegations). That's done.
[2] I don't remember the rest of the conversation and am pretty sure that "A liberal admitting that the network news is so liberal that even they can't trust their reporting" is one of those things that I subtly trained my unconscious on in case I ever end up in a coma -- you know -- so I can know what's real. So I'm probably in a coma.
[3] If your liberal friends are parents and throw the whole "there's not enough proof" line at you, ask them "Would you let him baby sit your kids?" If they say "Yes"... hopefully they won't ... maybe don't let them babysit your kids. Hell, question #1 on the babysitting application "Would you let Hunter or Joe Biden babysit your children?"
Considering the stories of people being (privately) bused to polling places ... Of course, it's just to help people who need a ride to vote. You know, living, registered, voters, sometimes with really real IDs -- always more than one.