Who do you tip to win the US presidential election

[Dinner]

You are a very ignorant person, as always.

https://youtu.be/iieHL6svp5c

The reality is Joe Biden will say or do anything and, worse, just go along with a thing a radical far left democrat majority (who have become radicalized and will saying anything these days) wants. He will be owned and controlled by the extremists because that is his party while he really is in deep mental decline without any guiding principles even if he could remember them, which he cannot.

people of principle can’t vote for him while the low I.Q., such as yourself, can’t even identify the problems.

[Kidlicious]

The question is who is who is selling out, Bernie or Biden. The way I see it is both HRC and Biden were/are trojan horses. Bernie didn't actually sell out both times.

[Kidlicious]

Can't wait until Obama gets canceled.

[Elok]

Not watching Dinner's video (clicked on it, looks like one of those weirdos-on-youtube-screaming-into-the-void things) but I'm guessing the confusion here springs from there being more than one type of leftist in this country. Economic leftists of the Bernie type have been pretty well sidelined at this point, and realistically I don't see single-payer getting passed; if it did, it would somehow turn into something like Medicare part D that funnels tax dollars into corporations. But that's beside the point. The most influential school of crazy on the left, at this precise point in time, would appear to be the social justice types; Robin DiAngelo has been riding near the top of the Amazon listings for some time, and is currently #3, just ahead of Ibram X. Kendi's broadly similar wad of bat****tery. Some of the people buying those books are just putting them on their shelves and planning to read them at an indefinite "later," no doubt, but that's still a powerful heap of cray-cray going around. I don't know what these people could actually do with a president and two houses of congress, since most of what they want is not only illegal but unconstitutional, but that is indeed something of a cause for concern.

[N35t0r]

Nono, if biden wins, the far left will gain power. Private property will be abolished. Land will be collectivized.

[BeBMan]

Usually we like to think that being in gov has a moderating effect, as it requires to deal with actual probs and ideological purity is bad at solving them. Ok, and then came Trump.

[Kidlicious]

It's even worse than that. This is only the beginning of the angry mobs harassing people and the government going after their victims.

[Jon Miller]

Not watching Dinner's video (clicked on it, looks like one of those weirdos-on-youtube-screaming-into-the-void things) but I'm guessing the confusion here springs from there being more than one type of leftist in this country. Economic leftists of the Bernie type have been pretty well sidelined at this point, and realistically I don't see single-payer getting passed; if it did, it would somehow turn into something like Medicare part D that funnels tax dollars into corporations. But that's beside the point. The most influential school of crazy on the left, at this precise point in time, would appear to be the social justice types; Robin DiAngelo has been riding near the top of the Amazon listings for some time, and is currently #3, just ahead of Ibram X. Kendi's broadly similar wad of bat****tery. Some of the people buying those books are just putting them on their shelves and planning to read them at an indefinite "later," no doubt, but that's still a powerful heap of cray-cray going around. I don't know what these people could actually do with a president and two houses of congress, since most of what they want is not only illegal but unconstitutional, but that is indeed something of a cause for concern.

There might be people on the left who are authoritarian and who will send secret police around to grab people off the street who don't meet the required level of wokeness.

But what makes you think that the mainstream liberals in Washington/etc will do that (who didn't do that from 2008 to 2016)? Or even many of the progressive left? Especially, why are you more afraid of this then of the current administration who is actually sending secret police around Portland to grab people off the street? Isn't the actions of the current Republicans cause for much more than concern?

The truth is that the woke-ism gets supported by the capitalist left because it is cheaper for them and distracts from economic leftism. But that doesn't that we need to be more concerned about it then of the right wing facism happening right now which hasn't even needed the full cooperation of the other two branches of government. It seems that if there is a stand made against facism, then that would also guard against left wing facists from exercising power in the next decade.

And your analysis completely ignores that for the next generation one of the branches of government (Justice) will be rightwing, baring something radical like expanding the bench. The next two retirements are almost certainly going to be leftwing justices.

JM

[Jon Miller]

It seems an awful lot like your thinking goes like this: 'Well, the current people in power are bad and are hurting people, but they aren't hurting me. And I can imagine that their opponents will hurt me, especially if they act at all like the current group in power. So I guess I won't oppose the current group in power, especially not in supporting their opponents.'

Please consider and meditate on the words of Pr. Niemöller.

There are plenty of moderates and even right wingers who are supporting Biden. Many explicitly because Biden has reached out to them. While Biden has decided to choose a female democrat as his running mate, I would still expect at least one cabinet member to be a (former?) Republican.

JM

[ZEE]

Jon Miller we need soem citations to back up those statements.

[Kidlicious]

There are no secret police arresting people. Those are just federal agents. I bet you still believe children are in concentration camps too. You believe whatever they tell you.

[Elok]

No, I'm concerned about something more like (just one possible path):

1. Biden wins, and both houses of congress go blue
2. It's hammering time, and everybody's in a "end of Return of the Jedi" type mood, so somebody takes Defund the Police seriously and starts moving to aggressively demilitarize the police
3. This entails firing a lot of cops, nationwide, at once
4. This dumps a lot of unemployed cops on the market at a time when the economy as a whole isn't doing so hot
5. Cops have few job skills relevant for being not-cops, have a militaristic mindset, and are used to making a decent amount of pay for modestly-educated men. Also, most of them have guns, are feeling pissed and embattled already, and Trump just lost.
6. Gigantic upsurge in domestic terrorism
7. Everything unravels from there.
8. Composition of courts becomes largely irrelevant.

Again, just one possible path. As I say: Trump is incredibly crappy but also impotent, and represents a more or less stable equilibrium; he is unlikely to do anything decisive because he's a bloated posturing pissant without an ounce of courage in his body, and he's so good as a lightning rod that he occupies the opposition just by blithering. If he is removed from the picture, the toxic atmosphere that produced him is free to produce something worse. We'll have to let go of the tiger's tail eventually, but I don't want that to happen now. And yes, if not now, when, etc. But I do wish you'd abandon this notion that getting rid of Trump will solve the problem. I really don't think it will.

(The DiAngelo crowd are most worrisome to me in that they're a further destabilizing/escalating element in America's ongoing battle between opposing camps of internet lunatics shouting over the sane people. I don't think they're going to become a Red Guard, or anything of that nature. I was attempting to clarify what I thought Dinner was getting at. Sorry for not making that clear.)

[Jon Miller]

I don't think that getting rid of Trump will solve the problem.

However, I think it is a necessary step to solving the problem.

Both houses may go blue, but Biden will win before the Senate goes blue. If the Senate goes blue, there will still be conservative Democrats on it (this is something that I have had to repeatedly point out to some people in RL who are independents who lean R/L. Just because Republicans that appear respectable like Sasse have mostly supported Trump doesn't mean that Democrats will be the same and there have been some Republicans who have stayed respectable (McCain/Romney). Additionally, there have been far more moderate/conservatve Democrats then moderate Republicans because the Democrats didn't have the tea party/etc to 'purify' their ranks for a decade. Maybe the Democrats will start their 'purifying' process now, but it will take a decade for them to get as bad as the Republicans are now and we can take steps to keep that from happening.

JM

[Jon Miller]

I have seen lots of stats, but here is one:
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/mem...enate/ideology

#40 0.74 Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith [R-MS]
#41 0.74 Sen. Patrick “Pat” Toomey [R-PA]
#42 0.74 Sen. Lindsey Graham [R-SC]
#43 0.73 Sen. Richard Burr [R-NC]
#44 0.73 Sen. Rand Paul [R-KY]
#45 0.72 Sen. Lamar Alexander [R-TN]
#46 0.71 Sen. Joe Manchin [D-WV]
#47 0.70 Sen. Bob Corker [R-TN, 2007-2018]
#48 0.68 Sen. Joe Donnelly [D-IN, 2013-2018]
#49 0.68 Sen. Richard Shelby [R-AL]
#50 0.65 Sen. Robert “Rob” Portman [R-OH]
#51 0.61 Sen. Heidi Heitkamp [D-ND, 2013-2018]
#52 0.58 Sen. Lisa Murkowski [R-AK]
#53 0.56 Sen. Jon Tester [D-MT]
#54 0.54 Sen. Susan Collins [R-ME]
#55 0.53 Sen. Angus King [I-ME]
#56 0.52 Sen. Claire McCaskill [D-MO, 2007-2018]
#57 0.51 Sen. Doug Jones [D-AL]
#58 0.48 Sen. Bill Nelson [D-FL, 2001-2018]
#59 0.46 Sen. Mark Warner [D-VA]
#60 0.44 Sen. Gary Peters [D-MI]

This was of the previous congress. Obviously Heidi is gone, bill is gone, Joe is gone and Claire is gone (all replaced by Republicans). Jon is still in Montana. Gary is still in Michigan. Mark is still in Virginia. Doug is probably going to be replaced with a Republican. Angus is still in Maine. Joe Is still in West Virginia.

For a radical Democrat senate, if you believe that Amy is radical, you would need something like 55+ Democrats. That is a pickup of 9 seats, if you assume Doug goes.

That is picking up Arizona, Colorado, Maine, North Carolina, Montana, Georgia, Kansas, Iowa and one of Texas, Kentucky and South Carolina. And assuming that all of those will be on the liberal (not moderate) side.My understanding is that many of the Democrats running are on the moderate side and will be expected by the constituents to be moderate.

BTW, I gave the central distribution. I think a fair argument can be made that moderates are between 0.4 and 0.6 while conservatives are above 0.6 and liberals are below 0.4. By that metric there are 2 moderate Republicans (Lisa and Susan) and there were 9 moderate Democrats (Jon, Angus, Claire, Doug, Bill, Mark, Gary, Chris and Michael) and 2 conservative Democrats (Heidi and Joe). That is what I mean about the ideological imbalance between Democrats and Republicans. Mitt and John are genuine conservatives not moderates.

The majority of states (not people) are moderate/conservative, and the Senate will continue to reflect that even if Democrats take control.

JM

[Elok]

We're viewing this at two different levels. You're focusing on the game, I'm worried about the meta-game--the interplay between the two gigantic storm-clouds of anger and paranoia which are driving larger events at this point. Note that in the one example I gave, only one action at the federal level was involved--the initial decision to start ejecting cops. From there the process of disintegration would be almost automatic, just as it was in Iraq after the invasion. But of course there are other ways it could go bad. I don't trust Biden to manage this mess. At present, I'm ambivalent; I honestly don't know which outcome would be worse in the long run. But I do realize that I have no significant influence over this.

[Jon Miller]

I don't understand why you are more concerned about non-state terrorism then state terrorism. I don't understand why you don't see the difference between the state making things worse and the state trying to make things better.

There were issues in the last two decades during the Bush and Obama years, but things have been a lot worse during the Trump years. This is because he needs to push those clouds (and to separate them). Biden, in particular, is preaching reconciliation. Maybe he can't do it; maybe his bandaid won't work (like Obama's didn't really work). But we need a break from the State pushing division and harming people or we will get Civil War or a Fascist State.

You are concerned that Biden might be hijacked by people who might act as bad as Trump but for the other side, but the alternative to Biden is Trump!

JM