RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Election Day 2020

Down to the wire, too close to call.....


....Oh wait. No it isn't. Trump is drawing tremendously huge crowds every where he goes--even places he hasn't gone (see also: Beverly Hills)--and, predictably, the polls have once again gone from YUGELY favoring Democrats to evening out with, or leaning toward, Trump.

Lets cut to the meat of the matter and eliminate all equivocation in the process: the Democrats do not have hidden voters. They all operate in plain sight on account of their self proclaimed, protected status as "polite society". By that same token, Trump's voters are still vilified and targeted--even killed (see also: Jacob Gardner's "suicide")--when identified by hostile partizans and aggressive insurgents (see also: Antifa, BLM), and thus have a vested interest in remaining hidden even as Trump draws large crowds. Where there's smoke, there's fire...and if those rally sizes constitute smoke, what does that say about the fire?

Bearing this in mind, the polls lie. Obviously. They always have, being a tool of manipulating public perception rather than a means of conducting objective analysis. That being said, they've gone almost completely from serving the purpose of overestimating the cultural strength and prevalence of Democrats, as a means to chip away at conservative morale, to masking an inevitable massive fraud so as to cease the severe hemorrhage from the near fatal wounds that Trump has dealt the cabal (see also: the euphemistic "Deep State"). It's certainly not the first time or occasion that Democrats have cheated using voter fraud. More than likely they've used numerous permutations of the basic concept over the past 40 to 50 years in every single state to gaslight the populous with spurious perceptions that they're outnumbered by an "other" philosophy that's entirely alien to them and that they're a dying race of thinkers destined for death. But I'm all but certain that the lengths they've gone to over the past 6 to 12 months constitutes the single most massive fraud to which we will ever bear witness since they are necessarily going to have to break the 3% rule in an attempt to meet their goal of getting the dementia-plagued Biden (Harris) into office.

By "3%", I'm referring to the threshold that must be observed when playing the game of stacking dummy votes before it becomes noticeable. By comparison, the scale of the primaries is such that a given political party can get away with a rate of 10% fraudulent ballots or, at the very least, "counted" votes before hitting a barrier of explicit fraud (see also: Hillary and Biden stealing primaries in CA and IA). The threshold for a general is 3%, and they must surpass it. They will, of course, launch the same narrative of "look no further" with regards to voter fraud OR they will project blame on the opposition. But this is the first time that they've had to deal with someone who has a vested interest in exposing voter fraud--as opposed to establishment Republicans who've been complicit with Democrats in hiding it.

Bearing these two factors in mind, the center-left and/or dead heat polls that we are seeing assuredly allude to something beyond margin of error. More like, significant lead for Trump that they're desperate to hide. In actuality, they know people don't believe it, but since narratives must be steeped in the tone of something "official", they must forego the acknowledgement of the natural understanding of the individual (see also: common sense) and rely upon the open secret of deceit so that they might simply emphasize their own consistency to justify results that are inconsistent with apparent reality, and thus effectively broadcasting their strategy to their true believers (see also: MEM) via the dog whistle of outrageous claims and general incredulity given credence only by their own repetition and devotion to the current state of the Overton Window. The Zeitgeist is now squarely in the hands of the individual, and not the media.

PA has already stated that the state will not be called today in the interest of insuring 'every vote is accounted for'. NC will likely be in a similar situation. Democrats managed to take advantage of the liberal plant, Justice Roberts, who has allowed them to keep votes flowing into the states three days past the election. Trump will cry fowl--as well he should. As counties that were clearly turned red gradually metamorphasize to blue over a long enough timeline, the rules of the game will be clear cut to everyone. And that spark will risk a conflagration.

People here are probably already aware of the warnings of rioting, violence, and looting today--especially if Biden loses. This fact should be self-defeating to his ilk, but neigh. On the contrary, they've gone through great lengths to construct a mentally gymnastic high ground built up the persistent narrative that Trump is an underhanded, lying istaphobe to whom which any form of violence would be justified. As such, they have fabricated a reality in which they can wear the violence and viciousness of Biden's supporters and fellow travelers on their sleeve and still sit pretty atop their pile of sophistry ridden rhetoric and ad hominem laden shit. Conversely, any violence taken up by Trump supporters, whether offensive or defensive, in the coming days will be portrayed as insurrectionist terrorism. Only the left could some how get away with being so blatantly coercive, but still make a case for righteousness. And while this is going on, Hilldog has told Biden to "not concede defeat under any circumstances".

For those who don't already know at this point: everyone--and I mean EVERYONE--is now VERY well armed and on high alert. Antifa is gonna Antifa regardless of outcome. BLM is gonna BLM regardless of outcome. Such are the intimidation orders they've been receiving from OCONUS. Furthermore, mothers have bought firearms in record numbers on account of the riots. Militias are standing by, and still as geared up as they ever were. Trump has erected a fence around the White House and called in around 250 soldiers to guard the castle.

I'm hoping I'm wrong on this one and that Trump has a trick up his sleeve to mitigate or nullify the likely friction (to put it lightly) that will ensue today and over the course of the next month or so. But there's too many factors, too many actors, and too much on the line to assume anything other than shots fired.


Knowing full well the consequences of saying something with this much finality before the big game, I say it anyway: Trump will win in a landslide both in the popular vote and the electoral college. Any other reported result will, and should, be challenged.

Back to our original programming.



....What say the rest of you? Putting aside your preferences, which are pretty much well documented, who do you think will win and by how much?

The 2016 polls at the end showing Hillary with about a 3 percent lead was only off a percentage point. Her popular vote total came close. Biden?s national lead is about 8. If they?re off by 1 percent again that probably still means a win for Biden and America will need to brace for a lot of angry butt hurt trumpers. Dems accepted that Trump won in the electoral college but I don?t see trumpers accepting a Biden popular vote and electoral college one. You guys know democracy is your enemy.

Just to beat you to it:

"Red Mirage"

And that will be the Demmy strategy.

Trump is killing it in Florida now.

Biden WAS ahead in Ohio and NC, but Trump has now taken the lead from him.

....Aaaaaaaaannd Virginia has been recalled because Trump is now leading.

Must be late for you guys.

I spend a lot of time on Twitter nowadays and deliberately seek out US conservative views on politics (ie I try to counteract Twitter's expectations of what I prefer seeing and force myself out of a liberal echo chamber). i engage in polite discussion with a lot of questions, and generally don't challenge them on their views for fear of antagonising them. It is very informative.

So the "blue wave" ease to power which many Dem supporters thought was going to characterise this election has been diluted by seeing views from both sides of the fence.

So, thus far, I'm really surprised by Maine's current results, and the other way surprised by Montana. Disappointed by Texas, which I would have guessed was increasingly liberal. In Arizona I wonder if Biden got a boost by McCain's widow coming out for him.

Do I think there will be violence as an outcome of the election? Yes, sadly, I do. If Trump wins, I'm expecting violence in California and Washington DC. If Biden wins, I'm expecting to see violence in places like Michigan.

If Trump wins, I think that the concept of "pollster" needs a serious re-vamp, because that would be two elections in a row where most major polls got it wrong (noting the LA Times in 2016 was the only major poll which picked Trump). FiveThirtyEight has been cagey of late, predicting a Trump win as "plausible" if unlikely.

Who do I think will win? Fuck knows.

But I've got to say, as someone who is living in a tightly locked down region where there has been no community infections for well-over 200 days, the lack of concern n the US about the pandemic and how it is being handled is baffling. How this could ever have become politicised I just don't understand. (The region I live in, Western Australia, is the powerhouse of our national economy and has some high risk remote Aboriginal communities where a covid infection would have decimated them.)

Pa., Michigan, and Ohio seem likely to go to Trump.

Hello Dave.


The theory on this one--which I'm leaning toward--is California. Liberals who couldn't afford to live under the policies they put in place leave in waves and go to cheaper-to-live states and then proceed to vote in the same policies that motivated them to leave their previous homes in the first place. In which case, the California exodus has seen droves of people head to Texas and Arizona.

Was McCain's wife a factor? Perhaps. But I have a feeling the stated perception of her influence was utilized to justify a flip that the Demmy media already saw coming even though it is, quite frankly, out of left field. People tend to overstate the affect that icons have over the larger culture of a given environment. In my experience, people know how to think on their own regardless of what a single individual says. Besides, she was never that popular.

... or maybe not Michigan and Pa.? I didn't realise how many mail-in ballots still need to be counted.

Bit of a rollercoaster.

Hey P, it has been a while.

I'd really like to see stats on resident traffic to and from California to see if your extremely plausible theory stacks up. (Anecdotally, I know liberal Texans who have moved to California - or moved to Austin.) But, wouldn't the same thinking apply to Florida? There was some discussion somewhere today that Latinos in Florida have different perspectives to Latinos in other Us states, which, frankly, I don't understand (I'm not sure i have ever actually met a Latino person - Australians are generally culturally blind to ethnic US surnames).

NYT shows Biden at 209, Trump at 118. CNN shows Biden 205, Trump at 136. Fox shows Biden at 227, Trump at 210.

Fox is predicting Iowa to Trump. I was surprised it was even in doubt.

CNN predicts Trump wins Ohio and Idaho.

I don't understand the process in Nevada. Haven't they started counting?

Maine seems like it is back in play?

Florida is populated by Cubans. But old and young. Some of the young have decided to ignore the stories told to them by Nana and Papa about 'ol Commie Castro, but for the most part they maintain an anti-left culture that repels threats in the form of liberal agendas. Cubans are very contrary to Mexicans and Puerto Ricans.


PA, MI, are saying WC votes are probably not going to finish being "counted" until Friday. It begins.

While this is going on, Trump's lead in GA has slowed....hmmm.

Arizona still in play.

Fox fucked up again. They're gonna get skewered....like I care.

And who the fuck is Jo Jorgensen?

Everyone in my office keeps refreshing their screens every half an hour.

CNN and Fox give Virginia to Biden.

Anyway, the experience I described on Twitter over the past four years makes me wonder about American political culture and the dissolution of polite discourse. So much yelling and trolling and entrenchment of positions. It is hardly unique to US politics - I made a comment on Reddit the other day about how some large, pretty but invasive trees in our city should be chainsawed and I was accused of ecological vandalism. I thanked the person for correcting me on how birds do eat their fruit, and the name-caller was suddenly very contrite. If people are arming up and prepared to violently challenge or protest the election process or outcome, it is because polite society has been eroded by social media. I've come to realise (and always sort of knew) that politeness is a fundamental part of a functional democracy. Everyone has their views on the role of the media (I can't read WaPo anymore because even I think it is ridiculously partisan) but, y'know, people need to start talking, and stop yelling.

Fox and NYT gives Ohio to Trump, CNN gives it to Biden. Wheee!

When can it be conclusively declared that politeness was always mask for corruption and virtue signalling? You can't have subterfuge without politeness?


I'm starting the think...okay, that's a lie, I've known from the get go...that confusion is the name of the game here. Calls, recalls, conflicting calls, and delays aplenty. They're not trying to avoid violence. They are assuring it.

Trump is so far ahead in Michigan and Wisconsin, that there is scarcely any means Biden could recover. Yet they claim more votes need to be counted. Bullocks.

Trump's lead in PA is massive. True, there's only around 50% in, but it's apparent why they're going to slow this down to a crawl. They're afraid he's going to win.

Dammit. Nix the question mark at the end of the second sentence.

One million votes in Arizona have been frozen with a one hundred thousand vote difference between the two of them.

Don't tell me you don't know what this is?

FUCKING QUESTION MARKS AND THE FUCKING BROKEN EDITING FEATURE!! FUCK!!@

Oh well, worth a shot on the politeness concept. Silly me. The problem is that Democrat voters are going to think that a Trump win is also a power grab, especially if he calls victory too early. So, the same deep scepticism as you have. Echooooooooo.

While I was eating sushi, Twitter has slapped down the Trump tweet on stolen elections. Well, that bodes well for a peaceful transition, if it comes to that.

So, back from lunch, what do we have... Fox has Minnesota to Biden, CNN and Fox say a Nebraskan split vote 4:1 to Trump. North Carolina looks like a dead heat. NYT says 224:213 in favour of Trump. Fox (who seem to be speedier) say 238:213. Someone in my office said that there are 1m Michigan postal votes to count. I can't find a source backing that. Biden is 300K behind Trump in that state.

Rob

Rob needs to upgrade this site. Ho ho ho. (Does he even know it still exists?)

Nevada have started counting.

What is your source on 1m Arizona votes "frozen"?

Politeness is all well and fine, but not when it's prioritized over correctness.

If the Biden ilk threatens violence if Trump wins, it would certainly be excessively "polite" for Trump to concede solely on those grounds. But.....yeah, people shouldn't be coerced into compromise solely to preserve the opposition's state of mind.

The Twitter algorithm is being manipulated. Governor Miller's shit doesn't pop up immediately anymore.

Apparently, they haven't actually counted the votes that were cast the day of.

https://www.ntd.com/arizonea-governor-says-its-too-early-to-call-state-for-biden_524130.html

"Over one million votes have yet to be counted, Miller said.

?We pushed our people to vote on Election Day, but now Fox News is trying to invalidate their votes!? he said in a tweet."

.

I made a choice early on to skip all of the early coverage and wild speculation, and just looked in for a few minutes at 8 PM and 9 PM.

I actually fell asleep early, and woke up about 12:20 A M, and was surprised to see even FOX News wildly speculating that Biden had won! I was saddened for about 30 minutes, but now slightly over an hour later, I'm seeing that neither candidate has approached 270 yet. And the battleground states that haven't been called yet (most of them with 87% to 94% counted) , are all strongly leaning Trump:

Georgia (50.7%, with 93% counted),
North Carolina (50.1% Trump, 94% counted),
Pennsylvania (56.6% Trump, 64% counted),
Michigan (53.7%, 66% counted)
Wisconson (51.2% Trump, 88% counted),

and
Nevada (47.6% Trump, 67% counted)

all but one have Trump leading by a good margin, well over 50% in most cases.

Currently it's Trump 213 and Biden 238.

It seems to me that Trump still has a very good likelihood of being re-elected, for all the wild speculation otherwise.

My only concern is, with mail-in ballots, if Biden has lost by say 10,000 votes on election night, and mail-in ballots can be counted anywhere from 3 to 13 days after the election, some states not even requiring a postmark date, Democrats can manufacture fake ballots, reach into their magic hat and pull out 11,000 mail-in ballots, and pull an Al Franken on us again. Fortunately there's only a few states with rules that lenient (new rules byfiat of judges, right before the election!), but one of those states is crucial Pennsylvania.

I was hoping the election would go so decisively for Trump that it wouldn't matter how many fraudulent ballots the Democrats slipped in the mix. But regardless, by a narrower margin than I would have liked, Trump is still winning.

That was my point.

And it is going to decisively. There's no reason why WI, MI, and PA can't continue to count and further reveal the leads that Trump has maintained. That's why the Demmies have frozen the process in place.

Yes.

On average, the (Democrat partisan) polls over-sample Democrats as a ratio of voters by about 10%
And one poll by CNN/Washington Post showed Wisconsin at -17% for Trump.
Trafalgar (the most accurate pollster in 2016, and the only poll to show Trump winning Michigan in 2016) at the same time on Sunday showed Wisconsin at +1 for Trump.
That's an 18-point innaccuracy!

The mainstream polls, like the liberal media and social media tech giants, are all part of the Democrat machine to discourage Republican voters. They are nothing more than psychological warfare at this point.
And that may have been the case as far back as 1988. Dukakis was going to win by a 17-point margin in 1988. How did that one work out?

Trump is speaking and is currently calling them out on the fraud.

This is now front and center and he has declared that this will be taken to the Supreme Court.


*cleff* We've only just beguuuuuuuunnnnnnnn! *cleff*

Hmm. So Trump was just on TV, saying he won the vote. Pence (who is a career politician and more careful) walked it back and said the GOP was on the road to victory. Pence said that the GOP would remain "vigilant" (as everyone definitely should - Dems on Twitter are going on about LaJoy hiding ballot papers and how he should be arrested).

Trump said he did not want votes being found at 2am in the morning (he plainly means fraudulent votes) and talked about a "fraud" to be resolved in the Supreme Court.

Ah well. So be it. Hardly unexpected.

Hi Dave

I think pollsters are genuinely meant to be non-partisan. But given the polls said that there would need to be double the margin for error of 2016, something is definitely going wrong with their methodology. FiveThirtyEight (who, remember, said a "plausible Trump" possibility of victory) is going on about how difficult it is to reach people in rural areas. They'll be doing a lot of navel gazing yet again.

Indeed it was not unexpected.

The Rust Belt state officials had already given a preview of this when they had said they would not allow him to win.

Going back to the 1960 election, JFK won by voter fraud, unquestionably in Illinois (through his father Joe Kennedy's mafia ties there) and only slightly questionably not fraud in Texas as well (LBJ's political machine).

Nixon could have challenged the outcome, but did not, because he knew it would tear the nation apart. As compared to Al Gore and Hillary and Obama, who have absolutely no problem dividing the country and tanking the stock market for their political gain. Or if not guaranteeing their Democrat gain, at least damaging the unity of the country out of pure spite. If they can't win, they undermine the system. I think it's clear we'll see another round of that Democrat spite for the next week, and probably the next 4 years and beyond.

Yes, I agree that Trafalgar are definitely doing it right. I did read about their polling methodology which distinguished it from others - regrettably, I can't remember what that was.

What's your source for that, P?

Yes. The election after the election. Trump was prepared in advance for this, with his own army of about 600 lawyers, to hopefully contain any dirty tricks attempted by the Democrat lawyers (and Democrat-owned judges). What I like is Trump is under-estimated. A real estate agent I know from New York who knew Trump years before the 2016 election told me that her interactions taught her that Trump always plays to win, and that he doesn't enter any situation he isn't prepared to win. And unlike the sellout Republican establishment, Trump is not averse to playing hardbaall if that's what it takes to win.

PA's AG Josh Shapiro said that Trump would not win prior to the count.

Whitmer said something similar. Trying to find her quote.

So perfectly said, Pariah.

Also California immigrants to Colorado and Nevada. The same will happen with the flight of New Yorkers to Florida. Instead of learning their lesson, they continue to vote for the liberal policies that ruined California, and are now slowly ruining the states they moved to and now vote in.

The other factor is hispanic immigration to these states, and particularly to states surrounding the Washington DC area, such as Virginia, Maryland and North Carolina, that over the last 15 years have turned those states from Red to Purple or Blue.

A side issue from the election discussion, but I want to address it.

I think you make the point that drives Trump's logic, that you are in an enormous lockdown that is crippling Australia's economy, with really minimal effect. As soon as the lockdown ends, for all the economic damage, the cases will immediately spike at the exact point the lockdowns end. It only delays the inevitable. So it is far better to just isolate the elderly and immune-compromised, and let the rest of society function. That is what Governor Ron DeSantis has done in Florida.

The science at this point shows that lockdowns don't work. There's a former New York Times reporter named Alex Berenson who wrote a short book on the subject (that Amazon tried unsuccessfully to suppress from being read). Even if the entire population were to get Covid-19, only about 1% die, and the increase in suicides, drug overdoses, drug and alcohol abuse, domestic abuse and child abuse, not to mention economic damage, demonstrate far more damage from a shutdown than deaths from the disease itself.

And no one in liberal circles seems to want to discuss Sweden and other states, that never had any lockdown, and are now emerging far better than the rest of Europe, approaching herd immunity, with no economic damage. The U.S. offers a unique example, because mostly countries did a nationwide lockdown, whereas President Trump left it to individual states to decide their own Covid policy. I'm lucky to live in Florida, that locked down only the worst hit areas. And while I am in one of the areas that was locked down (Palm Beach County) if I wanted to, I could have still gone to work daily, shopping daily, or gone wherever I wanted without fines or imprissonment. But I chose to comply as much as possible, only going out to buy groceries and visit family occasionally for the most part. I'm lucky to have that ability.
Others are starved of income and at risk of eviction or losing their homes if they don't get a weekly check. Not everyone can stay home. And how are we able to stay home and comply? Because tens of millionss of other people still go to work every day, produce and transport our food, deliver our mail, and countless other essentials and luxuries we take for granted.

In the early months, we were dealing with an unknown Covid-19. Now we understand it better, and have many therapies to treat the dangerous inflammatory stage of the illness, and have vastly lowered the death toll. Yes, people still get sick and infections are increasing, but most get well even without treatment, and far fewer are dying because doctors know better how to treat it in the 15% or so of cases where there is risk. Lockdowns no longer make sense.

I'll set aside the herd immunity issue, because the science on it isn't clear (the latest I read is that immunity lasts no longer than three months - no source, sorry), and the disease leads to lasting organ impairment (plenty of sources for that).

But the shutdown does make sense if you're a doctor. It is to do with slowing the spread. Bear in mind we have universal healthcare. If our hospitals are filled to overflowing with Covid patients, then what happens to the people with heart attacks, car accident injuries, strokes, and so on? They die.

My wife is a pathologist who was sceptical about the shutdown. We did the maths. Population: 25m. infections: 27610. Current deaths: 907. That's a 0.033% death rate. Projected deaths if the entire population was infected: 821260. but say only 1/10 people got it. That's only 82126 deaths. Instead, we have had only 907 because of the lockdown. Then add in the deaths from other causes which cannot be treated by the hospital system has broken by a pandemic overload. We only had 60000 soldiers killed in WW1 over four years. 82126+ is a crazy number for one year.

But yes, mental health issues and domestic violence are a very, very big deal, and no one should discount that at all. I don't know the numbers on that. However, that isn't a numbers game. Its a horrible thing. I have no answer to it.

Oh and the Australian economy is doing ok, but mostly because the steel and gold prices have jumped.

As for Sweden (you'll recall my ex is a Swede and so I've been watching it closely), this is from yesterday: https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/heal...roversially-lax-covid-strategy-c-1514129

"?We see that the situation is heading in the wrong direction - the situation is very serious,? Prime Minister Stefan Lofven told a press conference on Tuesday.... One in five patients receiving intensive care was a COVID-19 patient, added Lena Hallengren, Sweden?s minister of health and social affairs."

See also this Lancet note: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31673-1/fulltext

Back to your regularly scheduled political punch-up.

Lots of Dems on Twitter saying that Trump is trying to commit a coup, because he has claimed victory without a final vote count confirmation nor a concession.

I don't see it that way. Trump is committed to a legal process in the Supreme Court. That's not coup behaviour.

So, the conspiracists are all out hunting this evening.

I don't have many nice things to say about Pence, usually, but I do commend him on his walk back. He is confident, but he said "road to victory" not "victory". That's solid and responsible.