The Election Day Thread

[JayMysteri0]

Physically ill part 2

Lindsey Graham has defeated Jaime Harrison, keeping his South Carolina Senate seat

The Republican won a tight race over Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison.

www.vox.com

 

[Joe]

America is doomed.

 

[Alli]

America is doomed.

But what can we do? Where can we go?

 

[Joe]

I just can’t believe this many people think Trump is doing a good job enough to vote for him. We have so many problems in this country.

 

[Edd]

Little soon for doom talk, although Graham winning is disappointing.

I hear Portugal is nice.

 

[SuperMatt]

Democrats blew it in Florida. Somehow calling Mexicans rapists made them vote for Trump? Or maybe Dems overestimated how much latinos would hate Trump with his anti-immigrant rhetoric. It seems like many recent immigrants have quickly become anti-immigration... for any new immigrants.

 

[Alli]

 

[SuperMatt]

Little soon for doom talk, although Graham winning is disappointing.

I hear Portugal is nice.

Dems in SC probably never had a chance... I think that was all wishful thinking.

 

[SuperMatt]

If Trump wins re-election, I think I’m done with politics forever.

 

[SuperMatt]

Some voters are dumb. In some areas, a majority of them are.

Georgia Republican who supports QAnon wins US House seat

A Republican congressional candidate who expressed racist views and support for QAnon conspiracy theories has won a U.S. House seat representing northwest Georgia

abcnews.go.com

 

[lizkat]

I have come to the realisation that I really and truly have come to hate the South.

Politically, culturally, historically.

Well I'm not at all fond of the fact that we in the USA have never acknowledged we need a truth and reconciliation process to wind up our first godblasted Civil War.

It's one thing to have a revolution and quite another to attempt to dissolve a federated republic.... and then both sides go on for over a hundred years glossing over the damage with different sets of ideas on who the injured parties really were, who they still are and how to bind up our wounds?

We are living proof these days that this approach does not work.

But leaving that aside and staying in the now, even while acknowledging our difficulties in not having resolved some of that stuff, then we throw in a Donald Trump to bring the racists out of the woodwork? Great. Like he was ever going to help us move forward as a nation, in any sense of that phrase.

So if we want to get down to brass tacks on modern culprits, it goes back to this horrible, corrupted remnant of the GOP and their craven bargain with the devil: accepting a Donald Trump as their standard bearer in order to eke out another few years of power before either changing demograpics or an unsustainable economic model just wipes the Republican Party out and possibly takes the nation with it. These guys in this version of the GOP don't care. They care about right here, right now, this gotcha, this scrabble to stay in power for its own sake and for the conviction that greed, hey it still works for some of us.

The question is why does this GOP with all its atrocious behavior on shameless display still have so many followers? Tax cuts and dereg are enough for some of us and hang the example Trump sets for future generations of Americans? Or... people just don't get it because all the ugly chickens the Trump admin's eggs have hatched out simply haven't come home to roost?

I mean Trump is not on the side of ordinary people. Yet tonight we see plenty right-leaning voters apparently voting for Trump again. I will be interested to see the demographic breakout by gender, race, education, religion when this election is over.

Still there are lots of mail ballots outstanding in states that don't count them ahead of Election Day, or that allow them to be accepted in for counting quite awhile after today.

Wish I could see how individual GOP Congressmen themselves have voted in this presidential election. I wonder if some loathe him enough to vote for Joe Biden, even as they refused to distance themselves publicly from Trump's remarks this week that seemed to give the green light to Trump fans as some of their road rallies turned into violence against political opponents.

 

[Edd]

I drank a lot today, but couldn’t catch a proper buzz because it’s all too serious. Caught a two hour nap this evening. I may have to pour some wine and ride this out. Bottle of Ambien on standby if I have to bail.

 

[SuperMatt]

Well I'm not at all fond of the fact that we in the USA have never acknowledged we need a truth and reconciliation process to wind up our first godblasted Civil War.

It's one thing to have a revolution and quite another to attempt to dissolve a federated republic.... and then both sides go on for over a hundred years glossing over the damage with different sets of ideas on who the injured parties really were, who they still are and how to bind up our wounds?

We are living proof these days that this approach does not work.

But leaving that aside and staying in the now, even while acknowledging our difficulties in not having resolved some of that stuff, then we throw in a Donald Trump to bring the racists out of the woodwork? Great. Like he was ever going to help us move forward as a nation, in any sense of that phrase.

So if we want to get down to brass tacks on modern culprits, it goes back to this horrible, corrupted remnant of the GOP and their craven bargain with the devil: accepting a Donald Trump as their standard bearer in order to eke out another few years of power before either changing demograpics or an unsustainable economic model just wipes the Republican Party out and possibly takes the nation with it. These guys in this version of the GOP don't care. They care about right here, right now, this gotcha, this scrabble to stay in power for its own sake and for the conviction that greed, hey it still works for some of us.

The question is why does this GOP with all its atrocious behavior on shameless display still have so many followers? Tax cuts and dereg are enough for some of us and hang the example Trump sets for future generations of Americans? Or... people just don't get it because all the ugly chickens the Trump admin's eggs have hatched out simply haven't come home to roost?

I mean Trump is not on the side of ordinary people. Yet tonight we see plenty right-leaning voters apparently voting for Trump again. I will be interested to see the demographic breakout by gender, race, education, religion when this election is over.

Still there are lots of mail ballots outstanding in states that don't count them ahead of Election Day, or that allow them to be accepted in for counting quite awhile after today.

Wish I could see how individual GOP Congressmen themselves have voted in this presidential election. I wonder if some loathe him enough to vote for Joe Biden, even as they refused to distance themselves publicly from Trump's remarks this week that seemed to give the green light to Trump fans as some of their road rallies turned into violence against political opponents.

Hitler was very popular. That kind of leader can, sadly, be quite appealing to people unhappy with their lot in life. Trump didn’t lose many GOP faithful because of abortions and the courts... but he gained disaffected blue-collar workers by appealing to their base instincts.

 

[Alli]

I have overindulged completely. I will probably have trouble falling asleep and will wake up angry. Unless things turn around before I go to bed.

 

[SuperMatt]

I have overindulged completely. I will probably have trouble falling asleep and will wake up angry. Unless things turn around before I go to bed.

I don’t think there will be definitive results tonight. Pennsylvania vote-counters went to bed and start again tomorrow morning.

 

[Scepticalscribe]

Democrats blew it in Florida. Somehow calling Mexicans rapists made them vote for Trump? Or maybe Dems overestimated how much latinos would hate Trump with his anti-immigrant rhetoric. It seems like many recent immigrants have quickly become anti-immigration... for any new immigrants.

Dems in SC probably never had a chance... I think that was all wishful thinking.

My own personal view is that such places were never going to vote for anything remotely progressive.

But, how 40 plus million people (and counting as of now) can consider supporting that corrupt, cruel, and monstrously incompetent, malignant narcissist leaves me lost for words.

 

[Alli]

I don’t think there will be definitive results tonight. Pennsylvania vote-counters went to bed and start again tomorrow morning.

Oh, they’re not going to bed. They’ll be up all night counting and recounting. Dotting every i and crossing every t.

 

[lizkat]

I drank a lot today, but couldn’t catch a proper buzz because it’s all too serious. Caught a two hour nap this evening. I may have to pour some wine and ride this out. Bottle of Ambien on standby if I have to bail.

There are a shed load of votes that will not be totalled up for weeks, and some key states including Pennsylvania are among them... not saying we can't see a winner sometime in the wee hours ahead, but my take on even compelling election nights is that when it's time to go to bed, it's time to go to bed and I'll take my chances that the absence of my attention won't derail the nation and send it over a cliff.

So far I'm still buzzed on coffee I drank at the unusual hour (for me) of 6pm, so I'm good for awhile yet. I do feel though somewhat like I used to feel when peering down past the end of a subway station into the tunnel and waiting for train lights to appear. Not that I really believed I could make the train show up any faster, just that it might not be totally out of the realm of possibility. OK you can laugh now, I'm taking a snack break.

 

[lizkat]

I have overindulged completely. I will probably have trouble falling asleep and will wake up angry. Unless things turn around before I go to bed.

We were warned to be patient. A lot of states have a lot of mail ballots out and lenient time frames for return. Biden will rack up a huge popular vote margin even if his electoral margin is pretty skinny. We just don't know yet...

 

[SuperMatt]

It’s pretty sad that everybody knows Biden will win the most votes, but we have to go through all these f-ing shenanigans to see who our president will be. If we get ANOTHER 4 years of a minority president, it’s going to be big trouble for America. We need to kill the electoral college.