President Joe Biden

[FogBlueInSanFran]

Trump doesn't rely on people determining whether he's racist, he relies upon people discussing whether he's racist so that one side can shout (or even shoot) at the other. All he has to do is ensure that division remains.

You just cannot underestimate the type of populism we are seeing and it has nothing to do with one side vs the other, race vs race, the narrative on those things has been created in order to divide society.

As they say divide and conquer, his greatest challenge in winning the election is how to divide democrats. He probably won though the day the democrats decided to put a white, old and right-leaning conservative up as their candidate.

I don’t understand this post. Are you talking about 2016 or 2020?

 

[BigOscar]

Trump doesn't rely on people determining whether he's racist, he relies upon people discussing whether he's racist so that one side can shout (or even shoot) at the other. All he has to do is ensure that division remains.

You just cannot underestimate the type of populism we are seeing and it has nothing to do with one side vs the other, race vs race, the narrative on those things has been created in order to divide society.

As they say divide and conquer, his only challenge to winning the election is how to divide democrats. He probably won though the day the democrats decided to put a white, old and right-leaning conservative up as their candidate.

People say that, but you don't win by getting the loony left really excited about you, you win by being an acceptable face for people across the spectrum to vote for you. The far left are loud, but frankly they are shit. They can't agree on anything, they attack anyone not as extreme as them and are hugely off putting to pretty much everyone. Not sure how many times and how badly Corbyn has to lose, to the worst candidates ever seen, before people realise this.

 

[inbetween]

People say that, but you don't win by getting the loony left really excited about you, you win by being an acceptable face for people across the spectrum to vote for you. The far left are loud, but frankly they are shit. They can't agree on anything, they attack anyone not as extreme as them and are hugely off putting to pretty much everyone. Not sure how many times and how badly Corbyn has to lose, to the worst candidates ever seen, before people realise this.

The interesting thing on Corbyn is he prevented a Tory majority in 2017 and that's with the Tories outright supporting Brexit. Take Brexit off the table, put Corbyn up against Boris today and I really don't know what would happen. Brexit was his downfall really and nothing else (not that I wanted a Corbyn government anyway). Almost as many people voted for Corbyn in 2017 as voted for Tony Blair in 1997 (who won a massive majority).

The US is a strange country, it's a place that seems hard-right, patriotic and nationalist yet it is the only country to my knowledge that has legalised cannabis and even legal single sex marriage in some states. In some places indeed it's right-wing and in others it's liberal but it's never really between the two so it's impossible to truly marry those together with a centrist. It's like saying let's reconcile the socialists and far-right by having the Lib Dems govern, it just doesn't work.

I wouldn't rule out people voting for something different if it was available but it isn't, it needs to be remembered that the lack of a fresh candidate is how Trump won 4 years ago. For this reason even some democrats don't want Biden but they've had no choice because of appeasement with a centre that actually doesn't seem to exist. The only argument left for Biden is quite simply "he isn't Trump" so we'll have to see if that is enough....

 

[BigOscar]

The interesting thing on Corbyn is he prevented a Tory majority in 2017 and that's with the Tories outright supporting Brexit. Take Brexit off the table, put Corbyn up against Boris today and I really don't know what would happen. Brexit was his downfall really and nothing else (not that I wanted a Corbyn government anyway). Almost as many people voted for Corbyn in 2017 as voted for Tony Blair in 1997 (who won a massive majority).

The US is a strange country, it's a place that seems hard-right, patriotic and nationalist yet it is the only country to my knowledge that has legalised cannabis and even legal single sex marriage in some states. In some places indeed it's right-wing and in others it's liberal but it's never really between the two so it's impossible to truly marry those together with a centrist. It's like saying let's reconcile the socialists and far-right by having the Lib Dems govern, it just doesn't work.

I wouldn't rule out people voting for something different if it was available but it isn't, it needs to be remembered that the lack of a fresh candidate is how Trump won 4 years ago. For this reason even some democrats don't want Biden but they've had no choice because of appeasement with a centre that actually doesn't seem to exist. The only argument left for Biden is quite simply "he isn't Trump" so we'll have to see if that is enough....

Honestly, I'd put Trump winning 4 years ago almost entirely on Hillary being a woman and a massively unpopular woman at that. Even then she still won the popular vote by a fair way. Also the fact that it was on the back of a black man being in charge for 8 years didn't help either.

Trump has lost that "chaaaaange" vote that he had before and he's lost the ability play off the unpopularity of his opponent. Pretty much no one except Bigga actively dislikes Biden, he's very vanilla. He would have absolutely loved the Dems to put a leftwing candidate up against him so he could have played the anti-American, socialist, anti-patriot card against them, but you can't do that with Biden, it doesn't stick. All he has left is vaguely associating all Dems with Antifa and anarchy, which doesn't particularly stick with Biden either.

So Trump has lost the ability to get people to vote against his opponent (while getting huge amounts of people to vote against him), while also losing the impetus of the change crowd. All that is left is the far right, the cultists, the racists and now the anti abortion crowd. Problem for him is, those are generally all the same people.

His only real hope is rigging the system, or making it so clear he intends to rig the system that voters stay away, as turnout will kill him. He just doesn't appeal to enough demographics anymore, while his opponent is a very palatable choice for most people, even if he's not exciting

 

[cjn]

People say that, but you don't win by getting the loony left really excited about you, you win by being an acceptable face for people across the spectrum to vote for you. The far left are loud, but frankly they are shit. They can't agree on anything, they attack anyone not as extreme as them and are hugely off putting to pretty much everyone. Not sure how many times and how badly Corbyn has to lose, to the worst candidates ever seen, before people realise this.

While I agree with most left policy, this is basically correct. To win presidential elections you still need to appeal to the center because there are a lot more people there than there are all the way on the left. Most progressives actually understand this, which is why Biden has overwhelming support within the party, it's just that the holdouts have to make it their thing to be as annoying as possible so they end up being way overrepresented in stuff you see online. The idea that there a significant amount of these people is basically not true.

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

Honestly, I'd put Trump winning 4 years ago almost entirely on Hillary being a woman and a massively unpopular woman at that. Even then she still won the popular vote by a fair way. Also the fact that it was on the back of a black man being in charge for 8 years didn't help either.

Trump has lost that "chaaaaange" vote that he had before and he's lost the ability play off the unpopularity of his opponent. Pretty much no one except Bigga actively dislikes Biden, he's very vanilla. He would have absolutely loved the Dems to put a leftwing candidate up against him so he could have played the anti-American, socialist, anti-patriot card against them, but you can't do that with Biden, it doesn't stick. All he has left is vaguely associating all Dems with Antifa and anarchy, which doesn't particularly stick with Biden either.

So Trump has lost the ability to get people to vote against his opponent (while getting huge amounts of people to vote against him), while also losing the impetus of the change crowd. All that is left is the far right, the cultists, the racists and now the anti abortion crowd. Problem for him is, those are generally all the same people.

His only real hope is rigging the system, or making it so clear he intends to rig the system that voters stay away, as turnout will kill him. He just doesn't appeal to enough demographics anymore, while his opponent is a very palatable choice for most people, even if he's not exciting

This is absolutely correct. Perfect summary.

 

[FogBlueInSanFran]

While I agree with most left policy, this is basically correct. To win presidential elections you still need to appeal to the center because there are a lot more people there than there are all the way on the left. Most progressives actually understand this, which is why Biden has overwhelming support within the party, it's just that the holdouts have to make it their thing to be as annoying as possible so they end up being way overrepresented in stuff you see online. The idea that there a significant amount of these people is basically not true.

Also completely correct.

 

[SebastianBlue]

Honestly, I'd put Trump winning 4 years ago almost entirely on Hillary being a woman and a massively unpopular woman at that. Even then she still won the popular vote by a fair way. Also the fact that it was on the back of a black man being in charge for 8 years didn't help either.

Trump has lost that "chaaaaange" vote that he had before and he's lost the ability play off the unpopularity of his opponent. Pretty much no one except Bigga actively dislikes Biden, he's very vanilla. He would have absolutely loved the Dems to put a leftwing candidate up against him so he could have played the anti-American, socialist, anti-patriot card against them, but you can't do that with Biden, it doesn't stick. All he has left is vaguely associating all Dems with Antifa and anarchy, which doesn't particularly stick with Biden either.

So Trump has lost the ability to get people to vote against his opponent (while getting huge amounts of people to vote against him), while also losing the impetus of the change crowd. All that is left is the far right, the cultists, the racists and now the anti abortion crowd. Problem for him is, those are generally all the same people.

His only real hope is rigging the system, or making it so clear he intends to rig the system that voters stay away, as turnout will kill him. He just doesn't appeal to enough demographics anymore, while his opponent is a very palatable choice for most people, even if he's not exciting

Great post.

 

[SebastianBlue]

For those interested, a 2020 US Elections thread has been created.

2020 US Elections

This is a thread for general discussions related to the upcoming 2020 Elections in the United States.

This includes presidential, congressional, state, county, and municipal elections, along with the overlap between them and the general debate about social/political/technical/economic influences on them and possible outcomes.

It is a catch all for topics that span multiple factors so may not be appropriate for discussion in other more focused threads (i.e. a situation that involves Trump, Biden, *and* the Supreme Court, where meaningful discussion requires analysis of all three in the context of the elections, and so should happen here rather than their individual threads).

 

[Bigga]

Why does it matter, though? No person can truly understand every culture in a diverse country such as the USA, and that's even if knowing who someone is, or even just liking their talent, counts as anything beyond knowledge.

It's just a sales trick, like David Cameron saying he liked The Smiths, he just picked a northern band to latch onto for votes. I'd much rather a politician come out and say the truth, that they know sweet FA about something irrelevant when asked.

I agree and can't understand the need to pander. It's a trait so despised.

"Who's your favourite rap artist alive?"

"No idea who's out there as I stopped listening years ago/ Don't listen to rap, it's not my style of music!".

Job done, no lies and more respect garnered for not playing a game for votes.