USElection2020

Quora Answer : Why doesn't Joe Biden wait for the recounts before declaring he is the president-elect?

Nov 13

Because it would be abnormal to do so. Any other presidential election would have been considered definitively over by this point. There is nothing in either the current numbers or the accusations which warrants treating this election differently from any other.

And "humouring" Donald Trump in this, is just rewarding him for being an asshole, which isn't something that should be encouraged.

Quora Answer : Who do you think has a good shot at winning the democratic presidential nomination, Bernie Sanders or Michael Bloomberg?

Feb 18, 2020

Both have a shot at it, but from different methods.

Bernie - by inspiring many ordinary Americans to become donors and activists by promising them policies that will help them. And because he's genuinely popular with the working class voters that the Democrats lost to Trump in 2016.

Bloomberg - by spending his personal fortune buying a fuck-tonne of TV adverts to tell the more moderate Democrats that he's best to beat Trump because American people love successful billionaires and are terrified of "socialism".

Quora Answer : Would the Republican Party do better if they began to be more supportive of social programs?

Mar 23, 2020

Robert M Ward has it partly right.

The populist right Republicans ARE going to start promoting social programs in the face of coronavirus.

Trump wants, more than anything else, to win the election in November and stay in power. He's not an ideologue. Or a free-market theorist. He's not worried about debts or deficits or economics. If the best way to win the election in November is some version of UBI, or other program that pays out to the voters, that's what he'll push for.

And, yes, if the Democrats are so stupid that they cling to their "sensible centrist" line and prefer to insist on "means testing" government support to keep Wall Street happy, when Trump is running to their left, then they will get themselves wiped out in November.

Quora Answer : How could Biden lose the election?

Aug 31

Same as Hillary.

By complacency, taking people for granted and acting like he's obviously going to win ... on the grounds of politics being about virtue and him being the more virtuous candidate.

What Dems need to recognise is that politics is at least somewhat transactional.

A candidate needs to offer something to hope for and something to believe in for itself.

The Dems continue to act as though the thing they believe in is "we're better people than Trump"

And that's going to lose them the election again.

It's terrifying

What Biden needs to do is make a fucking offer. Tell the American people what good things they are going to get if they vote for him. And good things is not "less Trump, more us". Because that's the tactic we saw fail last time. The election is not a virtue signalling competition, it's about people who will run the country telling you how they'll run the country for your benefit.

What's Biden's pitch?

Trump and his enablers are going to tell people that the country is being destroyed by Marxist BLM rioters who are defending paedophiles, and that without his firm hand, the country will descend into anarchy.

It's a dishonest lie, like everything else he says. Donald Trump invents fake enemies and then pretends he'll save you from them. Faced with real enemies, like Covid-19, he won't even know what to do and will let 150,000 Americans die unnecessarily.

BUT ... at least he talks about something concrete.

Tell me. What has Biden promised, in practical terms, that he'll do to make American lives better? Apart from "not be Trump"?

I know. I know "green new deal". But green issues have been associated with the Dems since Gore. Obama did them. They go without saying. The phrase is pushed by AOC. Biden doesn't own GND.

What is an actual offer to the American people from Biden? Something he personally stands for and fights for? That will make them want him as president?

I think Trump is going to win.

And it won't be because he "stole" the election. Sure there'll be gerrymandering and voter suppression. But that's at the margins. It won't be because of Russia or social media or BLM.

It will be because the Dems failed to tell an inspiring and convincing story about something they'll do for the American people.

It's not too late to turn that around and start telling that story.

But it's almost too late. In Sept 2020

Quora Answer : What is your opinion about Donald Trump losing the 2020 election?

Nov 10

tl;dr : I will be delighted when I'm convinced it has happened.

Right now it looks to me that Trump and the Republicans are talking up fraud and irregularities in the swing states where Trump lost.

The reason they are doing this is not because they imagine that the courts will find any irregularities. There aren't any worth worrying about.

But they will create enough smoke and confusion that Republican legislatures in those states will be able to refuse to appoint Electors before Dec 15th, on the spurious grounds that "it would be unfair and illegal to appoint Electors before we've fully investigated these irregularities and problems and can trust our results".

And then Pennsylvania (and maybe some others) won't be contributing votes to the decision about the presidency at all in 2020.

And Trump might still be reselected.

This seems to me the obvious playbook. And given previous examples of the Republicans' tactical and shameless use of obstruction for partisan aims I don't expect anything better of them here. If they think there is even a slim chance they'll get away with it, they'll do it.

And with their strength in the House and Senate. And with the entire Republican party / fanbase and even Fox News commentators coming back on board, I think they'll be sufficiently emboldened to try it.

This is not over yet.

We should not be complacent. Much of the world is celebrating and imagining that Trump is busted. And that his lawsuits are merely a reflex tantrum.

That is not true. He and his people are manoeuvring and scheming even now. They are good at this. As a party the GOP have become utterly ruthless and dedicated to the cause of gaining and holding power at any price. They have not suddenly become reformed characters, dedicated to the good of the country and a fair electoral system. They are pissed. Many of them are so in their bubble that they passionately believe that the only way Trump could have lost is because of Democratic corruption, and so whatever it takes to rectify that is really reasserting a greater justice.

We may yet see several of these close states that swung to Biden, opting out of sending Electors. And then the supreme court deciding that the president must still be selected, by a now reduced and with a Trump supporting majority, college. And the whole Republican establishment, senators, governors, media etc. will go right along with it. "Sure ... it was a bit of a mess this time," they might agree. "But what could we do? The voting was so flawed what with Covid and all those unreliable postal votes. Best not complain too much or you'll look like you have something to hide, and better luck next time, eh?"

Quora Answer : What is a good response to the assertion that since Democrats should also want a fraud-free election, they should be okay with all of the investigations, including the proposed audit?

Jan 5

Donald Trump is literally on tape trying to convince Georgia election officials to fix the vote there for him.

The Georgia vote has been recounted (as have various others) and, in court, Trump's lawyers have failed to present any compelling evidence of fraud.

At some point we have to start assuming that Trump isn't asking for investigations of fraud because he has any legitimate reason to believe that there has been fraud, but simply because he can't bear losing, doesn't want it to be true that he lost, and wants to cause as much trouble as possible (up to an including denying Biden his victory).

Trump is probably never going to accept that he's lost. And American democracy can't keep humouring Trump with new investigations to try to satisfy him. He isn't going to be satisfied. And if we do new audits just because he demands them, then we'll be doing them forever.

Remember the Republicans have form here. They launched no fewer than ten investigations to try to find some reason to blame Hillary Clinton for what happened at Benghazi. If they had been investigating this in good faith, one or two would have been enough. But the investigations were always about trying to discredit Clinton (and Obama) not actually understand and learn lessons from the failure.

Trump and his stooges' accusations of fraud and calls for further audits have the same bad-faith intentions. And they are intended not to fix fraud but to hold up or derail Biden becoming president.