Qwiss! wrote:

Claudius wrote:

Not sure it’s a Republican plan. It’s a Trump thing. Need to separate the two.
He’s throwing a million different things at trying to undermine the vote. I don’t see him as any different to any developing country despot. If he sees the opportunity on election night and he has any kind of delegate lead, he will call the election and declare himself winner. Any votes that arrive thereafter will be deemed fraudulent. He’s keeping his solution space open.

I think most of that is likely but I don't think he is slowing the USPS right now. Thats the sort of conspiracy you'd find very hard to contain.

Either way this next election is going to be an absolute clusterfuck. I can see Trump rejecting any loss and I can see people taking to the streets if he wins.

The postmaster general that trump recently hired is one of his cronies, and has engaged in suspicious operational changes that have lead to the slow downs. Its not beypnd the realms to posit that trump has sent him in to take a hatchet to the place

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/08/07/postal-service-investigation-dejoy/

Warren, VP nominee, Obama will be the string to watch. The VP nominee better have her shit together sandwiched between those two hard hitters.

Kamala Harris it is.

This'll crash and burn again.

Really good pick. Now time to focus on sewing up the election. Can’t lose to a man who thought the Spanish flu of ‘1917’ ended WW2.

It'll be Trump by landslide. Probably better this way too, Biden win means 100% no change for the Democrats (as opposed to 99.9999% chance) and probably a bigger chance for more wars in the rest of the world. Trump is a vile piece of shit but he serves a purpose in tearing down the window dressing around the US.

There’s no way more Trump is a good thing for the US or the rest of the world.

Trump is pretty behind on the polls though? I think Biden will probably win and change nothing like you said.

No politician is going to change things in the US. Even Sanders would have done fuck all in the grand scheme of things. Nothing will change until the people change.

The people do want change, they don't have many outlets and are voting the wrong way but they recognise the need for change far more than Washington wants to admit.

Mirth wrote:

The people do want change, they don't have many outlets and are voting the wrong way but they recognise the need for change far more than Washington wants to admit.

This is contradictory. The people want change. The people are voting the wrong way.

It's the electorate that needs to change. They're the only ones with any power to change things, not Sanders, Trump or anyone else.

Maybe in a generation or two that will happen, I have some hope in youth. But right now a huge chunk of society is far too selfish, ignorant, stupid and downright evil to enable anyone who actually wants to bring about change.

I said it would be Kamala to everyone who asked, but it's still no less hilarious.

Claudius wrote:

Mirth wrote:

The people do want change, they don't have many outlets and are voting the wrong way but they recognise the need for change far more than Washington wants to admit.

This is contradictory. The people want change. The people are voting the wrong way.

The people want change and are given two options that are actively working to make sure change doesn't happen. Only thing that is a contradiction is a two-party system where both sides serve the same elite class.

Klaus wrote:

Claudius wrote:

This is contradictory. The people want change. The people are voting the wrong way.

The people want change and are given two options that are actively working to make sure change doesn't happen.

Do you think the large majority of those people are unhappy with their options or would vote in a 3rd candidate who did offer change beyond campaign slogans?

I don't. 

Klaus wrote:

Claudius wrote:

This is contradictory. The people want change. The people are voting the wrong way.

The people want change and are given two options that are actively working to make sure change doesn't happen. Only thing that is a contradiction is a two-party system where both sides serve the same elite class.

Pretty much this - it's a choice between 'more of the same' vs 'something different'. Trump's had abysmal approval ratings since he took office, it's not like the country (aside from the usual nutjobs) are massively in love with him.

goon wrote:

Klaus wrote:

The people want change and are given two options that are actively working to make sure change doesn't happen.

Do you think the large majority of those people are unhappy with their options or would vote in a 3rd candidate who did offer change beyond campaign slogans?

I don't. 

If the third party candidate had an equal opportunity on the ballot I reckon a lot of people would do it, but everyone knows that voting third party in a two-party system is just wasting a vote. The lack of real choice in politics is also how you end up with a population of non-voters that is almost as big as the population of actual voters. Sure voters are disillusioned, but so are the people who don't vote at all. I think the last American election had a turnout around 55 percent right? And out of those voters, 46 percent ended up deciding the election. Which means that no more than a quarter of the population decided who should be in power.

It's by design as well. If you're a corrupt party that serves only special interests, you'd want to exclude as many as possible to better manage the electorate.

Dems on the ground go nuts for voter turnout, but their banking lists are obviously geared towards specific demographics, strategically and cynically by state and by district.

Coombs wrote:

It's by design as well. If you're a corrupt party that serves only special interests, you'd want to exclude as many as possible to better manage the electorate.

Exactly. I think the way the democrats have treated Bernie illustrates perfectly how afraid they are of the working class.

Trump saying clearly on Fox why he won’t fund USPS. “Now they need that money in order to make the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots...But if they don’t get those two items that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting...”

'If you don't test, coronavirus numbers go down'

'If you have no mail service, people can't mail in their ballots'

Just can't stop saying the quiet part out loud 

Trump would have walked it before Covid 19 but he's goosed now.

There is fear in some circles that he won’t leave (peacefully) because he knows he will more likely than not face prosecution. The only way he doesn’t is if they let him be so as not to further fragment the nation.

Klaus wrote:

Claudius wrote:

This is contradictory. The people want change. The people are voting the wrong way.

The people want change and are given two options that are actively working to make sure change doesn't happen. Only thing that is a contradiction is a two-party system where both sides serve the same elite class.

The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them.

Obama gave possibly his best speech ever tonight. A call to action to citizens to save democracy

I can't believe Biden is effectively branding himself as a placeholder leader. It's almost a quasi monarchy system now.

Outcome of a broken two party structure.

It's interesting to see the same dynamic on the Republican side. After Paul Ryan disappeared into the night, the Neo-con wing has just collapsed. You've even seen many of them featuring in the Democratic Convention pleading for Democrats to vote out Trump. Now the Republicans are just an uneasy coalition amongst the Tea Party and Evangelicals who see Trump's utility in securing a moral future. That's 3 parties learning and struggling to work together.

It's a similar story on the Democratic side. What's interesting is that the Republicans are consistently able to pull rightwards to protect American values, and Democrats don't have the same outwards liberty.

Chomsky four years ago, literally nothing changed

https://www.alternet.org/2016/01/noam-chomsky-electing-president-empire/

The political spectrum is basically center to extreme right. Extreme right. Way off the spectrum. The Republican Party about 20 years ago basically abandoned any pretense of being a normal political party. In fact, the distinguished, respected conservative commentators, from the American Enterprise Institute, a right-wing think tank, like Norman Ornstein, described the Republican Party as a radical insurgency which has abandoned parliamentary politics. They just don’t want anything to happen. Their only policies are “don’t do anything” or bomb.

That "don't do anything or bomb" description is correct.
It is appalling to see the Republican Party in action. They don't deliver any policies that improve the living conditions of the 99%. Nothing on healthcare, education, regulation of business. And they block any policy proposals from the centre/left. All they do is come out every four years and stoke fears of the end of White Power by focusing people on immigration, guns, and abortion.

They're just selling The American Dream that anyone (everyone) can get rich, and that they (the Republican party) won't get in your way. You have entire states (Mississipi, Alabma, etc.) that are legitimately in line with 3rd world countries when it comes to quality of life but they're happy to vote down any one or any thing that promotes healthcare, education, etc. because they're scared those few dollars out of their pocket will stop them from getting rich.

Meanwhile, not a word is said on the defense spending, tax cuts and loopholes, etc.

It's like the vote in part of Eurovision.
Hide behind the sofa levels of cringe, but so funny.

Jo Biden seemed to struggle to remember the word  Thursday the other night.
Is the plan to replace him with Kamala within months of his inauguration, if he actually makes it?
Bonkers set-up.

MistaT wrote:

You have entire states (Mississipi, Alabma, etc.) that are legitimately in line with 3rd world countries

Mississippi has a GDP per capita higher than the UAE, right behind New Zealand. The next worst states, Arkansas and West Virginia, both have a higher GDP per capita than the UK and France. HDI paints a similar picture.

That feels off. UAE has a real GDP per capita higher than about a dozen states.

And it’s predominantly Republican states towards the bottom, including Mississippi, Alabama, WV.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_between_U.S._states_and_sovereign_states_by_GDP_per_capita

Cool. We were both right. Those are nominal numbers. I was looking at real.

Also Delaware being all the way up the top has nothing to do with standard of living, I suspect. Even within the US there are better places to live.

Although it's a useful reminder of how much money that country has. Enough to make mistakes for another century and still not be too badly off.

Would be interesting to see GDP per capita with the top 5% of earners taken out. Same applies to any country I guess, but I'm really interested in standard of living for the bottom 50%. That's how I want to judge a country. I agree with Claude, and I'll mention again the book Deer Hunting With Jesus, which attempts to describe why poor working class Americans vote for the party that regularly screws them over when it comes to income protection, healthcare and education. And it basically comes down to a promotion of nationalism, guns, abortion, racism / immigration, and class warfare.

It's quite amazing how the very people who screw them over are the ones they vote for. I guess though the Dems haven't done much to improve the lives of the lowest paid, most vulnerable either. Politics is broke.

Asterix wrote:

Would be interesting to see GDP per capita with the top 5% of earners taken out. Same applies to any country I guess, but I'm really interested in standard of living for the bottom 50%. That's how I want to judge a country.

Yeah, either that, use the median income or include the Gini coefficient. Weather aside if I had to pick between living and working in Norway or in Delaware I know which one I'd pick

Apparently Alabama has a higher GDP per capita than Germany.