#(I'm dying Nate is so fucking lost)

[qqueenofhades]

I just read an article on The Conversation that states: "Today, most data has Trump narrowly beating Biden in the national popular vote, albeit within the statistical margin of error." (Source for that data: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/)

In your opinion, is that true? How can that be possible after everything Trump has done? After the Insurrection? I'm terrified 😕

(For reference, the original article can be found at https://theconversation.com/five-reasons-why-trumps-republican-opponents-were-never-going-to-beat-him-223288?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=The%20Weekend%20Conversation%20-%202888329325&utm_content=The%20Weekend%20Conversation%20-%202888329325+CID_fceedfd21410eb8a7b6fd6e1124d9d54&utm_source=campaign_monitor_uk&utm_term=five%20reasons)

Short answer: no, I don't think it's true.

Long answer: no, I really don't think it's true. Here's why.

Broader context. A Republican has won the popular presidential vote only twice in the 21st century, and in the first of those occasions -- 2000 -- I use "won" very advisedly. We all know, or at least we should, about all the fuckery that went down in Florida with Bush vs. Gore and SCOTUS stepping in to stop the recount (which almost surely would have gone to Gore) and handing Florida, and thus the presidency, to George Dubya Bush by a mere 537 votes. Dubya then did win re-election and the popular vote/EC in 2004, in the throes of patriotic war fervor and the GOP's Swiftboating of John Kerry (who was a pretty terrible candidate to start with). Other than that? None. Zip. Nada. None. Even in 2016 when Trump squeaked out a win (and thus the presidency) in the Electoral College, he lost nationwide to HRC by over 3 million votes. He lost to Biden by 7 million votes nationwide last time. Also, the reason the GOP loves the antidemocratic Electoral College is that it always works in their favor, and because red states with relatively scant population are given the same power in the Senate. That's why California, with 40+ million people, gets two (Democratic) senators, and Wyoming, with 400,000 people, gets two (Republican) senators. There is just no way that red states can get the actual raw numbers to win the popular vote against heavily blue urban population centers. The only one that comes close is Texas, and while it's something of a white whale for Democrats who think fondly that it'll surely turn blue this election cycle (and then it doesn't), it's not giving all its votes popular-vote-wise to Republicans. So yeah. The numbers aren't there. Biden is about 99% certain to win the popular vote, but because this is America, the question is whether the EC will follow.

(Although, I gotta say. In the deeply unlikely event that Biden loses the popular vote but wins the Electoral College -- i.e. the exact same thing Trump did in 2016 -- the right wing would lose their fucking minds and it would be incredibly hilarious. Also, we might finally get some red states willing to sign up to the National Popular Vote Compact, which is just a few ratifications away from going into effect. As noted, the Republicans will cling onto the Electoral College with their last dying breath because it's the only thing that makes them competitive in nationwide elections. If it fucked Trump, they might finally listen to ideas about changing it.)

The media are incredibly biased, and so is Nate Silver. Silver first rose to prominence as an independent geeky Data Guy elections whiz-kid, and was relatively good at being unbiased. That is not the case anymore. He's now affiliated with the New York Times and has started echoing the smugly anti-Biden framework of both that paper and the mainstream media in general. I'm not necessarily saying his data is total bunk, but he's extremely eager to frame, narrate, and explain it in ways that artificially disadvantage Biden (in the same way the NYT itself is all in on "BUT HIS AGEEEEE," just as they were with "BUT HER EEEEEEMAILS" in 2016) And that's a problem, because:

The polls are shit. Like, really, really shit. Didn't we just go through this in 2022, where everyone howled about how All The Data pointed to a Red Wave and then were /shocked pikachu face when this was nothing more than a Red Dribble of Piss (and frankly, the best midterm election result for the ruling party since like, the 1930s?) We've also had major, real-time proof that the polls are showing a consistent pro-Trump bias of 10 or more points, which is a huge error and keeps getting corrected whenever people actually vote, but the media will never admit that, because TRUMP IS WINNING WE ARE ALL DOOMZED!! We heard about how Biden might lose New Hampshire because he wasn't even on the ballot and that would be a critical embarrassment for him. He cruised easily with 68% (all write-in votes and FAR more than any other Democratic "candidate.") Meanwhile, Trump won New Hampshire by about 15% under what the polls had predicted for him (after doing the same and barely squeaking over 50% in Iowa, one of the whitest, most rural, most Trump-loving states in the nation). The number ballparked for Biden in the NV Democratic primary was something like 75%; he got over 90% (and twice as many votes as any candidate in the Republican Primary/Caucus/Whatever That Mess Was). The number for what he was supposed to get in the SC primary was in the high 60% (driven by the media's other favorite "Black voters are abandoning Biden" canard); he absolutely crushed it at 97% statewide. When Biden is winning by whopping margins and Trump is underperforming badly, in both cases by gaps of ten percent or more, it means the polls are simply not showing us an accurate state of the race. This could be because of media bias, bad data, selective polling, inability to actually connect with voters (especially young voters, who are about as likely to eat a live scorpion as to pick up an unsolicited phone call from an unknown number). This also shows up in:

Special elections. We've heard tons of Very Smart Punditry (derogatory) about how Democrats kicking ass in pretty much every competitive election since Roe was overturned in 2022 totally means nothing for the general election. (Of course, if the situation was reversed and Republicans were cleaning up at the same rate, we would be hearing nothing except how we're all destined for Eternal Trumpocracy... wait. no... we're still only hearing this. Weird.) In the last special election in early February, Democrat Tom Suozzi won back his old U.S House seat (NY-03) by over eight points, after polls had given him at most a two- or three-point edge. (Funnily, once again a Democrat did far better than the media is determined to insist, so Politico hilariously called a thumping eight-point win "edging it out.") This represents almost a 16-point blue swing from even just 2022, when The Congressman Possibly Known as George Santos won it by 7 points. On that same night, a Democratic candidate in a Trump +26 district in deep, deep red Oklahoma only lost by 5 points, marking another massive pro-blue swing. This has been the case in every special election since Roe went down. Apparently blah blah This Won't Translate to the General Election, because the media is very smart. Even when Democrats (historically hard to motivate and muster in off-year election cycles, or you know in general) are turning up in elections that don't involve Trump to punish terrible Trumpist policies, we're supposed to think they won't be motivated to actually vote against the guy himself? And not just them, because:

Trump is a terrible candidate. Which we know, and have always known, but now it's really true. We've had up to half of Haley voters stating they will vote for Biden over Trump if that is the November matchup (which it will be). Haley, amusingly, actually outraised Trump in January, because it turns out that the Trump Crime Family's open promise to send every single donor or RNC dollar to pay El Trumpo's legal fees hasn't been a terribly effective message. We had Republicans in NY-03 telling CNN that they voted for the Democrat Suozzi because they're so fed up with the GOP clown show in the House and don't think Republicans can govern (which uh. Yeah. Welcome to reality, we all knew that ages ago too). We have had up to a third of Republican voters saying they won't vote for Trump if he's convicted of a felony before the election (and technically he already has been, but we're still hoping for the January 6 trial to go ahead). Now, yes, Republicans are a notoriously cliquey bunch and might change their minds, but for all the endless bullshit BIDEN SHOULD STEP DOWN BECAUSE DEMOCRATS ARE DISUNITED narrative the media has been pushing like their kidnapped grandmothers' lives depend on it, Democrats aren't actually disunited at all. Instead, Trump is in chaos, the GOP is in chaos, sizeable chunks of Republican voters are ready to vote for someone else and in some cases have already done so, and yet, do we hear a peep about how Trump should step down? Nah. In related news, did you hear that Biden is old?!?! Why isn't anyone writing about this?!?!

Now, I want to make it clear: Trump's chances of winning are not zero, and they are not inconsiderable. We need to face that fact and deal with it accordingly. Large chunks of the country are still willing to vote for white Christian nationalist fascism. Trump still has plenty of diehard cultists and the entire establishment Republican party in his pocket, and it's been made very clear that Putin is bringing the full force of his malevolent Russian fascist machine to bear on this election as well. Case in point: we spent four years hearing about HUNTER BIDEN HUNTER BIDEN SECRET CORRUPTION GIANT SECRET BUSINESS SCANDAL, and it turns out that the GOP's "star informant" has been actively working with Russian spies the whole time and fed them complete bullshit disinformation, which they were eager to repeat so long as it might hurt Joe Biden. (And it would hurt Ukraine, so, twofer! I cannot emphasize enough how much it was all a deliberate collaboration by some of the worst people on earth.)

In 2016, people naively assumed that Trump could never win, and so they were especially willing to throw away, spoil, or otherwise not exercise their vote, or throw purity hissy fits over HRC (likewise fed at the toxic teat of Russian disinformation). That was exactly what allowed Trump to squeak out a win in the EC and put us in the mess we are currently in. If people act in the same way in 2024 that they did in 2016, Trump's chances of winning are drastically increased. So once again, as I keep saying, it's up to us. If we all vote blue, and we get our networks to vote blue, Biden is very likely to win. If we don't, he won't, and Trump will win. It's that simple. We had better decide what we're doing. The end.

[citizensteels]

[TEXT] IM26C4U.

[text: jenny] what the fuck does this mean

[text: jenny] I’m completely lost and a little tipsy

[text: jenny] are you okay

[frienderbender]

Skwistok for the imagines/scenarios, I'm sorry, I have an illness, there's no cure

send me a ship and i’ll write five short scenarios/imagines

look we always have time for skwistok here. skwistok you will always be famous.

i really would like to write about them during the preklok days. not even romantic, just their dynamic as a whole. because it has to be weird for both of them in some ways, despite how incredible their guitar playing is together. toki is this new guy in this band that’s really starting to take off, he’s replaced some founding member he’s never heard of or met that the guys just kinda talk about in hushed whispers, and he’s got a lot on his plate. meanwhile skwis has to deal with showing the new guy the ropes, teaching him more specific guitar techniques since toki has no formal training, and even dealing with this underlying fear of oh god what if this guy becomes better than me. ultimately them coming together and reaching a common ground and realizing, oh, wait, we really need each other.

another preklok one but i NEED toki and skwisgaar getting lost in florida. they’re dying. they’ve never dealt with heat like this before (it’s 79° outside). skwis has lived in tampa for several years now but he’s always depended on nate to get him from place-to-place, meanwhile toki has no fucking clue where anything is.

final preklok one i swear but. first holidays together. nathan and pickles went to nate’s folk’s place, will went out to cause trouble on his own, so toki and skwis are just left at the shitty apartment and talk about what they used to do during the holidays and how different things are in the states, especially florida. they both miss the snow. eventually they resign themselves to watching old christmas movies they’ve never seen, but for the first time all night, things feel alright.

a fake dating scenario. something something they get mistaken for being a couple by the press but it’s actually boosting sales and they’re seen as like, amazing and brave figures by the media so they decide to stick with it but then…..oh no….they’re developing feelings For Real. who could’ve seen this coming (also if we wanna go for a fake episode vibe: the rest of the guys are like. trying to prove themselves as really cool and supportive allies whilst also doing vaguely gay shit because ofc. meanwhile charles is openly gay and has been for years but whatever🙄😒).

toki tries to introduce skwisgaar to some of his hobbies, like his models and video games but um. shockingly skwisgaar is not great at any of them. skwisgaar does not know how to deal with this meanwhile toki keeps kicking his ass in mario kart :/

[grapecaseschoices]

6, 13, 15 for my babies kate (nendis??? nandis??)

i dont know. kendate? natedis? kate is okay i guess. kete?

6. If your detective heard Sanja’s prophecy for N, how would they feel about it?

Assuming Kendis didnt just burst in mid-prophecy like what the fuck is this? Not good? Not happy. I think Kendis would be like .... unhappy with Nate thinking he could like have their future guided by some words spoken by some magic woman -- have HER future guided by that. I'm not exactly sure what emotion Kendis would feel at hearing the prophecy (other than maybe frustration) but it wouldnt be many (if any) good ones. It would probably fill them with determination -- though whether to more studiously avoid Nate or to prove this Darkness BS wrong ... I'm not sure (probably the first as that's more tangible).

13. Did your detective save N or Sanja? Why do you think they do so? And how are they feeling about the aftermath? (Sanja dying, N getting hurt, both being fine in the end) Do they regret their decision?

Nate. Because Nate is theirs to save, as simple as that. Like, Andy it was instinct. Unlike Andy she's a little more aware of the why. She cares about Nate. And for Kendis that's what matters. Sanja dies though and she feels awful -- and part of that is feeling like she SHOULD feel awful. They know the thing to do was to save Sanja. They know Nate is a vampire and could have lived it. I think a part of them feels like they could have had their cake and eat it too, but they didn't make it on time for Sanja. They have some regret that they lost a human life, a person they were meant to / promsied to protect. They're feeling pretty shit (but they'd do it again .... which is probably adding to feeling like shit).

15.  What is your detective’s relationship with Rebecca like? If they saw the conversation that she has with N before the end of Book 2, what would they think?

On the lower side of neutral. It fluctuates. Kendis sympathizes with Rebecca but wouldn't tolerate her meddling. So they wouldn't be pleased. Like, why does she think she has a right to an opinion in their life? They'd be quick to shut that down especially because they know how Nate can be. They don't want him getting ideas.

Wayhaven Route Questions!

[flashyfucker]

omfg the cale’s best friend x nate is like a need now. my brain is short circuiting, make him the biggest cunt there ever was!!! it’s widely known (he himself admits it and teammates too!) that he’s a hot head and he takes hockey so seriously so i know the angst would be sooo good, but also the frustration borderline hate fucking would be great too (his ex once tweeted ‘you can’t uneat my ass’ or something like that) so i know nate fucks dirty.

stressing the cale's best friend part too !! like i'm imagining she and cale met on tinder and quickly realised they weren't .. sexually compatible lmao but they worked really really well as friends. so it's kinda normal for cale to be like "ok what about him" sometimes. but ur all at a party one night and it's all jokes and a few more of the boys are in on the whole throwing out suggestions thing until nate's name comes up and cale's (blackout drunk) straight away like "no no no way. she can't cum without being roughed up. and he's a sweetheart so it wouldn't work." and ur like dying inside as he's blabbering but you're more focussed on pulling him away to order him an uber and get him home safely (cause he's lost his party privileges now). and everyone's respectful enough to pretend they didn't hear cale's drunken rambling, it's whatever. but nate finds you alone in the kitchen later idk :/

[cajunroe]

♫ + one for Ron Speirs, Carwood Lipton, Brad Colbert, Nate Fick, what can I say, I'm greedy :))) as a bonus Ron+Carwood and Brad+Nate, if you feel generous *puppy eyes*

well damn i never back down from a challenge let’s do this

ron speirs:blood on my name - the brothers bright - how could i not do a total dark banger for sparky??? like this man enjoy the thrill of a fight and there’s something somewhat dark that lurks behind his eyes, insidious and not always present but willing to show its face when necessary; there something ruthless about the way he holds himself and it’s almost scary if you don’t trust him or know him; and i think a lot of ron’s personality and insecurities and fault are consumed and hidden away by this thirst for the fight; like i can imagine him in any war ancient or modern or anywhere in between because the way he handles himself is something that kind of transcends circumstance and i just really need to compile all my character studies on speirs into a paper or something; like i realize the way i’m describing him sounds almost non-human but there is something about his bravery that is a little deeper and darker than on the surface; the way this song progress and darkens and heightens from beginning to end just hit his character in the best way possible because there’s something about speirs that borders on a death wish and accepting one’s own mortality and that if you can’t outrun death forever, you might as well get your hands dirty in the process. 

carwood lipton:against the grain - city & colour - if anything stuck out to me about lip it’s his compassion and this song just...idk i can imagine him softly talking to one of the men having a hard time or even a stranger having a bad day, to follow their heart, and god this song just hits me everytime because it’s so beautiful and the lyrics are so real and so raw that i just break down; when you listen to it, just picture lip and you’ll see what i see; his compassion came from a genuine place not because he needed people to go on or do their jobs, the concern was real and his compassion was real and the communicates through his character; the songs reminds the listener that it’s okay to just live sometimes and not search for answers in everything, not everything has meaning and sometime shitty things happen, the worse things in life can happen without any answers and we have to go on without them; “you need not to reach for the stars when life becomes so dark and when the wind does blow against the grain, you must follow your heart.”; even if you have answers, they’re not always enough, trust yourself and your instincts more than anything; lip had an amazing sense of sympathy and empathy for everyone and took care of everyone around him before himself; selflessness and compassion are two traits that are invaluable and he had them both in spades; and the line, “you need not to find a cure for everything that makes you weak” just gives me so much hope during my dark times because it reminds me that i am allowed to have faults and that i can be weak and strong at the same time and that what i’m going through it okay so long as i trust myself to follow my instincts when it gets too be too much and that will always scream lipton to me

please, send me a ♫ + a character’s name or a ship and i will respond with a song that reminds me of them

this is a long post, so the rest are under the cut!

brad colbert:bad habits - fidlar - this song is a bit “showy” for brad but it’s such an absolute “i fucking do what i want and your opinion isn’t needed or wanted or should even be thought” type song; his issues are his own and brad is unapologetic about not opening up or sharing anything and it isn’t from a scared position or anything else, he has emotions and he’s not afraid of being vulnerable because he knows it’s not a weakness or a fault, he’s just genuinely so private that only those closest to him see the real him; he has his bad habits but they’re HIS, no one else’s and he doesn’t need help or anyone to chime in on them because he’s at least acknowledging the fact that they’re there; he knows that anyone who truly loves him will stick around and support him despite these bad habits and they do; anyone else who “can’t handle it” wouldn’t be someone he’d want in his life anyway; the line “i don't care if i'm damaged, honestly, i just think i'm bored” hit me because i always see brad as someone who feels like he should always be doing more and “reaching his full potential” for no other reason than the fact that he likes to keep busy and enjoys all that life has to offer; so bad habits are easy to pick up because he gets bored easy and “idle hands” and all that; not the song i think describes brad perfectly but one that makes me think of him...and ray, every damn time. 

nate fick:seein’ red - unwritten law - there’s something that always stuck with me in gen kill and it was leadership, like it was a main consistency running throughout the whole thing; and nate’s leadership especially was a big point for me because they’re adults but they’re also still relatively young and something about their leading just will always remain impressive to me; especially nate’s and this song is just a real anthem for him and never fails to make me think of the “don’t fuck with my men” scene and i get chills; but it also reminds me of nate always feeling like he had to play catch up or that he was failing even when it wasn’t his fault or when he wasn’t failing, which i think we can all relate to;  like “i confess, i don't know what to make from all this mess. don't have much time for sympathy, but it never happened to me. so follow the leader now.” there’s something about gen kill that forces you to see them as superficial and emotionless until they’re in the thick of it and the reality comes through and all nate wants is to get his men home alive because that’s what leaders do

speirton:life me up - mree - okay so...i like to think that there’s two speirs; pre-lip and post-lip and while he’s still the same, there are significant differences between the two because i really feel like ron “death wish” speirs unconsciously (or consciously) does have a real (small??) death wish before he meets lip and while his recklessness is just as much brave as it is illogical, there’s one person who isn’t scared or him or in awe of him and that’s lip; he jokes with ron and no one “jokes” with ron, he’s easy to talk to and understands the severity and harsh realities or war but unlike ron he doesn’t let them diminish the soft parts of his personality, if anything lip’s compassion and dedication thrives because it is a scarce but highly needed resource in the war and lip gives it freely and without question and ron is in deep before he knows it; lips softens him and you see a lot of ron’s hard line dissapate the more he’s around lip, he wouldn’t have given two shit is someone was sick or about promotions but lip had both and ron was happy for the promotion but worried about the pneumonia because anything could kill them out here and ron would die just to find lip and yell at him for dying from pneumonia; okay i digress but post-war when all is said and done, ron finds himself in a new world, he’d gotten so used to houses with singed wallpaper and missing roofs, that when they’re in a warm home, wrapped up in one another, with only the sound of a ceiling fan and the crickets outside that ron feels like he’s missed a step somewhere; lip came in and changed his entire world and ron didn’t even notice and tbh he can’t even be upset because he’s never felt so content and settled and happy in his life before; lip lifts him up and ron can only try to do the same for him for as long as they’re together

icefick: past lives by børns - something about icefick that always makes me think of them is not realizing you’re in love or being surprised to find that you’re in love and for these two that is on mf POINT.; like they’re so oblivious but in tune with one another that it isn’t until they’re deep in love with one another that they realize what’s going on and by then it’s way too late to do anything about it; they’ve lived so many lives between there and her where they are now and now that they think about it, it was only a matter of time but it’s still surprising and they find all these different moments where it couldn’t have been anymore obvious that they were supposed to be together but they missed it completely; i especially love the lines “past lives couldn't ever hold me down. lost love is sweeter when it's finally found. i've got the strangest feeling, this isn't our first time around.”; like they’ve been circling one another for so long that it’s almost comically it took them so long, but it’s so much sweeter that they discovered it so late because it gave them more time to know one another so intimately and intricately that it’s impossible to part