2020 US Elections

[Gareth Barry Conlon]

Well yes, SCOTUS picks are partisan.

I feel like I'm not really understanding what you're getting at

No - they clearly should not be partisan. The court should be an independent non political institution. The Dems commit to this and nominate judges on the basis of their standing and also independence from politics. The GOP just see it as a partisan mechanism to push conservative policy.

 

[Damocles]

See this is part of the lie.

Going back to the Nixon administration, 17 of the 21 supreme court justices were voted in with supermajorities. Many of them had 90%+ votes in favour.

That's because normal practice is to appoint reasonable, well qualified, universally respected judges.


What Trump and Mitch McConnel have done, removing the supermajority requirement and forcing through 3 Supreme Court nominees that not even all the republicans could back is not normal.

It's the ultimate both-sides fallacy. Merrick Garland was not a democratic version of Gorsuch or Kavanaugh. He was a moderate, because that's what you did.

Can you provide examples of a Republican controlled senate appointing a liberal judge and a Democrat controlled senate appointing a conservative judge?

Was RBG a moderate? Was Scalia? What about Thomas?

I think the idea that the Supreme Court was always full of moderates before Trump and that Coney Barratt and Kavanaugh are some extreme cases is, politely, absolutely bonkers.

 

[lloydie]

"Four more years? Get 50/1 on Donald Trump to win the US Presidential Election 2020 with promo code EPUS2020" William Hill

 

[mancity2012_eamo]

Well yes, SCOTUS picks are partisan.

I feel like I'm not really understanding what you're getting at

Should the law be partisan?
I would suggest any system that allows it to be is flawed to start with.
Abusing that system in order to further bias the court and influence the law is heading in completely the wrong direction.

 

[Damocles]

The Dems commit to this and nominate judges on the basis of their standing and also independence from politics

Is it a massive coincidence that the Democrats have never nominated a Justice not affiliated to the Democratic Party then?

This idea that the Supreme Court has never been a battleground of the right nominating conservative leaning judges and the left nominating liberal leaning judges is an argument that I've literally never had because nobody has ever proposed something so strange.

 

[Damocles]

Should the law be partisan?

We're not talking what should be here, we're talking what it is, as unfortunate as it may be.

And I'd argue that the law is ALWAYS partisan but that's a different and non-political argument not particularly relevant to the thread

 

[mancity2012_eamo]

.

We're not talking what should be here, we're talking what it is, as unfortunate as it may be.

And I'd argue that the law is ALWAYS partisan but that's a different and non-political argument not particularly relevant to the thread

I edited after you had replied obviously;

I would suggest any system that allows it to be (partisan) is flawed to start with.
Abusing that system in order to further bias the court and influence the law is heading in completely the wrong direction.
There clearly was an abuse of the GOPs majority in the senate to bypass normal tradition.

Look at it anyway you like, it's just plain wrong having the legal reading of constitutional matters, so biasedly wrapped up in the court's political and religious leanings.

 

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

See this is part of the lie.

Going back to the Nixon administration, 17 of the 21 supreme court justices were voted in with massive supermajorities. Many of them had 90%+ votes in favour. They were voted for by both parties.

That's because normal practice is to appoint reasonable, well qualified, universally respected judges.


What Trump and Mitch McConnel have done, removing the supermajority requirement and forcing through 3 Supreme Court nominees that not even all the republicans could back is not normal.

It's the ultimate both-sides fallacy. Merrick Garland was not a democratic version of Gorsuch or Kavanaugh. He was a moderate, because that's what you did.

The two parties are not the same.

You beat me to it.

The Judicial branch of the US government is supposed to be non partisan, and independent from the executive and legislative branches of government.

 

[stonerblue]

Is the US in a civil war now?

Is Islam a banned religion?

I must have missed that piece of news.

The US far right has been powerful and present for as long as the US has existed. It wasn't that long ago that they were hanging black people from trees and demanding that their children not be in the same school as black people. Let's not pretend that a country where nationalism seems to be seen as a positive trait and every politician stands behind a flag shouting God Bless America has not had a long history of far right ideologies within their political system. In fact the Power of Nightmares documentary pointed out 20 years ago that US culture demands an enemy (Nazis, Soviets, Communists, Islam, etc) in order to function and that was decades before Trump was anywhere.

Are gun-toting militia roaming the streets and government buildings threatening, or actually shooting, people that disagree with them with the tacit approval of trump?
Antifa v blm?
mask v non-mask?

Did trump not call for a ' Total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the US'?

I'm well aware of Americas need for 'an enemy' and its history. TRump has managed to undo any good work on race relations from the last 50 years in his desire to produce that much needed 'enemy'

let's not pretend trump hasn't made the US a royally fucked up place at the moment.

 

[Damocles]

I edited after you had replied obviously;

I would suggest any system that allows it to be (partisan) is flawed to start with.
Abusing that system in order to further bias the court and influence the law is heading in completely the wrong direction.
There clearly was an abuse of the GOPs majority in the senate to bypass normal tradition.

Look at it anyway you like, it's just plain wrong having the legal reading of constitutional matters, so biasedly wrapped up in the court's political and religious leanings.

Yes I agree that it's totally wrong. I just don't think it's new. In fact I don't even think it's purely a Supreme Court problem or an American problem. Any time a politician has the ability to influence law making appointments then generally they will attempt to provide candidates that see the world as they do. There are similar issues here with the House of Lords.

 

[domalino]

Can you provide examples of a Republican controlled senate appointing a liberal judge and a Democrat controlled senate appointing a conservative judge?

Was RBG a moderate? Was Scalia? What about Thomas?

I think the idea that the Supreme Court was always full of moderates before Trump and that Coney Barratt and Kavanaugh are some extreme cases is, politely, absolutely bonkers.

Ruth Bader Ginsberg was voted in 96-3. Scalia was voted in 98-0.

And you're trying to compare them to who, Amy Coney Barrett? 52-48. Kavanaugh? 50-48?

This is entirely the point. The way everyone before McConnell/Trump handled supreme court nominations is that you nominated someone who would get bipartisan support, because they might lean left or right, but they were proper, respectable judges.

They weren't fundamentalist catholics with 2 years experience as a judge who think contraception should be banned.

If you can't see the difference you are being wilfully stupid.

 

[RandomJ]

Any rough estimate on when the result will be announced?

 

[cjn]

Was very close to writing in for @Bigga but went with Joe Biden in the end. Very tough call. Also there was a line down the block at 6:15 in the morning, which I imagine says good things about turnout this time around.

 

[cjn]

Any rough estimate on when the result will be announced?

In the scenarios where Biden wins comfortably we'll likely know by around 10 or 11pm New York time. Anything less than that, at some point tomorrow.

 

[aguerrrroooooooooooo]

In 2016, Hillary Clinton made her last big public appearance in Pittsburgh, speaking in front of Pittsburgh University's famous Cathedral of Learning landmark. Yesterday Biden (with Lady Gaga) was also there.

Hope that's not an omen!

It makes sense. If he wins Pennsylvania he probably wins the election

 

[aguerrrroooooooooooo]

If this final Iowa poll is remotely true then Trump’s done. He took Iowa by 10 points in 2016.

2020 Election Forecast

Latest forecast of the 2020 presidential election between President Donald Trump and Joe Biden by Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight

projects.fivethirtyeight.com

He's still favoured to win it but it's much closer, he should be sweating more about Texas. I think it will stay red but it's by no means a cert, if he does lose Texas though it's over

 

[Damocles]

Are gun-toting militia roaming the streets and government buildings threatening, or actually shooting, people that disagree with them with the tacit approval of trump?
Antifa v blm?
mask v non-mask?

Did trump not call for a ' Total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the US'?

I'm well aware of Americas need for 'an enemy' and its history. TRump has managed to undo any good work on race relations from the last 50 years in his desire to produce that much needed 'enemy'

let's not pretend trump hasn't made the US a royally fucked up place at the moment.

We're basically arguing timing at this point.

We agree that the US is fucked. I think it's fucked because American culture is fucked and this predates Trump, who is a symptom of that culture rather than the cause. Healthy democracies don't vote in game show hosts with no previous political experience with highly unrealistic promises that claim their democracy is corrupt. The very fact he claimed their democracy is corrupt with his swamp draining rhetoric and still had a massive amount of the voters voting for him is indeed evidence of the fact that many Americans already believed their democracy to be corrupt.

I think about the lynchings and the Christian fundamentalists/evangelical streak and the race riots that seem to happened every decade or so, and the Wall Street influence and the lobbyist system and the overly partisan rhetoric and the PATRIOT Act (and successsors) and the constant interventionalist foreign policy and the flag waving and the gun toting and the Pledge of Allegiance in schools and the fascist symbology and the fight against LGBT rights and the portrayal of Muslims in the media even predating 9/11 and Rodney King and OJ Simpson and the general worship of the military or soldiers and that 25% of the American people believe the Earth orbits the Sun and 75% or so believe in the literal existence of angels and the denial of climate change and the demonisation of the United Nations and the "vaccines cause autism" thing and the homelessness situation including how they're portrayed in US media and the "gang culture" and the corporate exploitation of social movements and the constant non-stop propaganda by the media, politicians and corporations.

I think of all these and when somebody says "it's Trump fault that our country is divided" or some such then it never rings true to me. I'm sure that he hasn't helped but that horse bolted long ago.

 

[aguerrrroooooooooooo]

Do not believe any polls where one of the choices is controversial. We've seen it with Brexit, Trump 1st time and 2019 General Election.

The reality is people are not stupid and are hardly going to declare their true voting intentions if those intentions are going to lead to people calling them racist etc. They will however still go and vote for what they believe. You can guarantee that for every newly registered voter on the back of BLM there will also be one who will register to support Trump. Remember he doesn't have to win the popular vote, just the electoral college and can do so with probably as little as 45% of the popular vote as long as he takes the key states. In short this is going down to the wire and we could see some states so close that the military votes arriving from overseas, and 2 to 3 days late, could swing it either way.

Don't look at betting as they work of exit polls and rely on people being truthful. At 9.55pm on Brexit Day, I was stood outside a William Hill packing up my Vote Leave paraphernalia and the girl left the betting office telling me we had no chance and Leave was now 10/1 against! Of course I accepted that and went off to my local count very subdued. By 11pm as the 1st boxes opened I could see that what the polls had said and what people had voted were 2 different things. By 2am, there were Remainers in tears as my local area recorded 57% Leave and similar margins were being shown across the UK.

I'm not fussed who wins in America today as frankly we have enough homeland issues to deal with but to discount Trump based on media bias would be foolish.

It's very interesting you say this, there are some polling groups that try and take into account the supposed shy trump vote and as a result have him down as winning again.

 

[mat]

Any rough estimate on when the result will be announced?

End of November by the Supreme Court.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

It's very interesting you say this, there are some polling groups that try and take into account the supposed shy trump vote and as a result have him down as winning again.

This is a good podcast about the bullshit of polls.

Let's be honest, you have a one-in-two chance of being correct, and then 4 years later, you're wheeled out as some sort of expert, but if you get it wrong, nobody notices.