#like you can put a third-party candidate on your ballot but it's the same as voting for nothing

[princesssarcastia]

okay listen. airing a u.s. political pet peeve here.

setting aside the issue of to-vote-for-biden-or-to-not-vote-for-biden in 2024 and the arguments for and against,

please don't lie to people and tell them voting for a third party presidential candidate is a good idea. please....please don't do that. it won't work. it won't help you. if you want to vote for a third party candidate as a "fuck you" to the republicans or the democrats or both, okay. go for it. but don't tell people that will help, don't expect it will help, it will do exactly nothing.

vote third party in your village, town, school district, city, county, state elections! vote for third-party candidates in your u.s. house races! in those kinds of races a third-party or nonpartisan candidate can have a decent chance of winning, depending. but it 100% won't work for president, and outside some very specific circumstances, probably also won't work in the u.s. senate.

the "third-party" presidential candidates running with most actual established political parties (green party, libertarian party) are not your friends any more than trump or biden are.

[the-badger-mole]

Reaching for Hope

These last few months have been filled with the most horrifying stories and images coming out of Palestine, DRC, Sudan, Yemen, and too many other places around the world. We, in the US, have seen our president- our political leaders- roll over and not only allow the atrocities to continue, but to actually financially support and arm the perpetrators, despite the majority of us screaming for them to stop. To me, there is little difference between the Democrats and the Republicans at this point. Both parties are bought and paid for by the same people. As a new presidential election is coming up, I can't in good conscious vote Democrat. Not after what I've seen. Not as long as they refuse to hear us when we tell them we don't want Genocide Joe Biden or any of his cabinet to run.

But what is the solution?

I hate the feeling of helplessness I feel. I hate watching the horrors being carried out with my tax dollars. I hate that our "leaders" are more concerned with keeping the money from groups like AIPAC than actually representing the people who voted for them. They have put my finger on the trigger and they won't let me let go.

I'm trying to figure out how to make my voice heard. I've reached out to my representatives. I've done what I can to amplify voices that need to be heard more than mine. I can't claim any special effort in following BDS boycotts because the truth is, these aren't brands I have a whole lot of intentional contact with in the first place. As for Starbucks and McDonald's, I don't like either place so, cutting them off took very little for my part. I do encourage you to avoid all of these businesses, though. I don't know what else to do.

I will not vote for Joe Biden if he runs again. I will do my best to find down ballot candidates who's values are more in line with mine, but I will not give my support to a man who sees the atrocities being committed in Palestine and gives billions and weapons to the people committing these crimes against humanity. If the DNC is smart, they will be actively looking for candidates who don't openly support genocide, but let's face it, we ALL know how smart the DNC is. So, barring some drastic change, barring the DNC running a candidate who isn't on the take from AIPAC, who will actually pull support from Israel as they try to wipe out an entire culture for the sake of oil, I will be voting third party. I'm considering voting for Claudia De la Cruz of the PSL party, but there's nearly a year left, so I'm open to shopping around.

I know there are those that will say that pulling votes away from Biden is essentially voting for Trump. I know that there are those that will say that if the Republicans take the office again, they'll gut our rights. To that, I say, a vote for Trump is a vote for Trump and a vote for Biden is a vote for Biden. If the DNC can't come up with a better candidate and a better reason to vote for them than the same fear mongering tactics they've been using for years, then Trump is the DNC's fault. What has the Democratic party done to ensure our rights? What protections for voting rights have they passed at a federal level? What protections for education? For bodily autonomy? How do we have FOURTEEN BILLION to spare for freakin ISRAEL, but nothing for public schools? Nothing for student loan relief? Nothing for public health? Police reform? What good is the Democratic party if their only real platform is "Vote Democrat because we're not that guy"? If your conscious tells you to vote for Biden in November, so be it. As for me, I can't look at the man without seeing the blood of innocent men, women and children dripping off of him.

[rampagingpoet]

Posting this here so I can link to it next time someone calls me a nazi for *checks notes* encouraging participation in the electoral process.

And disclaimer: I'm Canadian, so it's not like I can get out and vote in the United States elections.

I think everyone should vote. I'm also of the opinion that there are genuine differences between the two major US parties, but even if there weren't it's still important to show up at the polls.

I've run into several people on Tumblr that won't be voting for either major party. People threatening to withhold their votes unless their policy goals are met. It's not my preferred strategy, but it's their vote and their choice! But please, please, show up at the polls.

For the threat of not voting to motivate a politician, they have to believe you will vote once they match your position. If Cards Against Humanity of all organizations can find out whether you voted last election or not, any political party worth their salt can know the same. And the threat "I'm not going to vote for you!" holds essentially zero weight if you stayed home on election day ten years running.

(They're probably not looking at you personally, but if aggregate data suggests there's a strong correlation between "I won't vote for you unless..." and "did not vote", well! Not much point in appeasing loud nonvoters.)

If everyone that "didn't like the candidates" or "didn't think their vote would make a difference" had voted for the same third-party in 2020, that third party would have had a whopping 10% of the popular vote. That's 10x as many votes as the highest-voted third-party candidate in the event.

(Incidentally, the highest-voted third-party candidate was Jo Jorgensen of the Libertarian Party. She had about 1.18% of the popular vote. The Green Party only got 0.26%)

If you can't in good conscience vote for a candidate that's putting the military interests of the United States above human life, so be it. But at least show up at the polls. Vote for a third-party candidate that matches your views. Write in the name of someone who isn't running for President but has a good voting record in the House. Hell, write in your own name or your mom's name or just plain spoil your ballot.

But do show up. Just to prove that you can and will.

[monkeywiki]

No I'm sorry, but same for me too. The fact is that we're stuck as a two-party system until we get a voting overhaul, because "majority wins" means that the person the most people can agree upon will take ALL of the votes regardless of anyone else's votes.

As much as I despise the current candidates, the fact is that Trump has a guaranteed 30% of the vote. If any of the non-Trump candidates dip below 30%, he wins. You've seen what he's like; do you really think we'll have the opportunity to have another fair election after this?

We all have better candidates than Biden in mind, but he's the figurehead of the anti-Trump movement by virtue of "20-25% of people always vote for the incumbent, and every other non-Republican is voting for Biden to stop Trump". If you think you can honestly get 40% of people to agree on a single third-party candidate and beat out both Trump AND Biden then I'm all ears, but let's be honest, it's just not happening this close to the election.

However, this is NOT the way it always has to be. We - the people who hate this situation as much or more than you do - are working on getting Ranked Choice voting on our state ballots so we can get out of this shit system and actually succeed in getting a third-party candidate in office. You should join us in doing that so we can actually make it happen!

We all hate the situation we've been put into, but we have to use our control tactfully. Splitting up the anti-trump voting bloc is how he wins, period. It's how he won in 2016 and it's how he'll win again if we don't band together and stop him.

im just really scared that biden's not an appealing candidate strategically and that he'd be better off stepping down and letting at least kamala of all people take his place. i swear that'd up their chance of winning by at least 30%, but his stubbornness and refusing to step down, + top democrats begging for him to do it, whatever the 'super friends' were visiting him to tell him to step down, + calling his own vice president 'donald trump' and the ukrainian president 'putin'... it's just... not looking good.

now i'm really excited to tell you that claudiakarina2024 is getting petitions done with thousands upon thousands of people per state almost every other day, i'm hearing about new states that are now entering vote-able state, which to me stands out significantly because its happening so fast.

what stands out to me, is that she's out there on the ground, she's speaking at protests, she's talking to everyone, she is not afraid to talk to anyone and listen to every day people-- while biden is claiming he's done more than any other president, she's not bragging, she's working.

now, what stands out to me, as someone who grew up a democrat and has become a skeptic, is that i'm seeing real immense growth in this campaign in real time-- faster than i've been able to keep up with. they talk about project 2024. they talk about palestine. they talk about the working class. they talk about a LOT

the truth is they've already reached 20 states this early in their campaign, and they're still working tirelessly-- without corporate funding, to spread the word-- and the reason it works, is because we're all tired. and there's a LOT of us.

just listen to her speaking voice! do not give into the defeatism the two party system sells you! listen to these people who are working their ass off for something we believe in and building a ground roots movement with un-matchable momentum for the working class, take a look around you and your fellow people who believe in the same as you and hear what's being said right now!

what we're not seeing is her on mainstream television, BECAUSE of what she stands for, what she advocates for is an enemy of the corporate state, and it's up to us to learn, listen and boost her messaging so we can reach everyone. it truly is possible, you have to take the first step and listen, and speak up!

[captainjonnitkessler]

haven't people been putting forth cornel west and jill stein from the green party as a third option. making it clear, i'm not talking about how likely it is, because they aren't either of the usual parties known to reign over the us. but the fact that they're considered on the ballot at all means that is also another plan of action, however small the statistics. not on a scale of likelihood or what people consider as 'best', but based on sheer statistical probability, it is there.

on subjective opinion, one can still think 'well, that's unlikely, so there's no point', but because it's an opinion other people will always argue the point. i'm bringing them up simply because i've been seeing a lot of people bringing them up lately as the candidates to bat for, more so than i expected, so i want to see what you think on it.

it's reached my main timeline via multiple people i follow. i follow fandom accounts for the most part, and many usually won't talk politics, so it's interesting to see this unfold. grim given the context, but interesting times is a curse for a reason.

that said, if you read this far, i do want to say you bring a very good point about no one option being perfect. i've even heard criticisms about the third party i mentioned above, however much i hear they're better with policy than others. and when none of the available options are working, those who choose to fight against it anyway so often turn to revolt and revolution, for good or ill. so no matter what, there's going to be an awful consequence of some sort, and choices to a better world too often require stepping on living corpses. it's a hard road.

wishing you well.

I consider the election a binary choice not in that your options are "vote Biden or vote Trump" - because as you say, there are third party options available - but in that your option is "vote Biden (in an attempt to steer the country onto a less destructive path) or do not vote Biden (and let the country do whatever it's gonna do without your input)". "Don't vote Biden" can be accomplished by voting third party or by not voting at all, but the result is the same either way because third party candidates are simply not viable in our current system.

I'm a little jaded about third parties in general because I remember when Gary Johnson ran third party in 2012. Obama being re-elected was a pretty safe bet and Johnson was pushing HARD not for the win, but just to get 5% of the vote, so he would be eligible for federal funding in the next election. It was a pretty big movement, at least in the circles I was in at the time, to try to break down the two-party system and get a toehold for a third party to break onto the scene.

All that energy got him 1% of the vote in 2012, and when he ran again in 2016 against possibly two of the least-liked candidates in recent history he still only managed 3% (while Jill Stein of the Green party got 1%). And maybe they just weren't very good candidates, but there have only ever been about 8 third-party candidates in US history to get more than 10% of the vote, and almost none of those broke 20%. So I'm inclined to think breaking down the two party system is going to have to happen legislatively, rather than being accomplished by voting.

[desidov]

some things to remember if uncommitted/protest voting in the US:

write-in is not a comment box—putting anything other than a qualified write-in candidate will be treated as an error (not as “this person willfully voted for an ineligible candidate,” “this many people wrote the same message,” or anything like that)

check who’s on the ballot or an eligible write-in for your state specifically! third party candidates have to register with each state independently and often won’t be eligible everywhere

read up about the third party options in your state, because if there’s one you align with, that’s a clearer way to make a statement than just not voting.

research down the ballot and especially read about the “nonpartisan” and referendum polls before voting. that’s how they sneak some egregious policies into state and local gov. see if local orgs you trust have put out voter guides, endorsements, candidate interviews, etc

remember voting is about the least impactful thing you can do to change the world :’) support mutual aid, support marginalized peoples local and around the world, and do not stop talking about politics after november

[jaybirdbooty]

Rhetoric like this is how we got ourselves into a two party system in the first place. While the best way to not have the republican bastard is to vote for the democratic bastard, and so on. We put ourselves into a hole by doing this.

Republican or democrat? Whom am I voting for, republican or democrat? In reality the choices of political candidates in the United States is limitless. Literally anyone from Kanye West to my mom can apply to be a candidate this is why there are caucuses and primaries.

Are you affiliated with a certain political party? Participate in your local caucus. This is where members of a political party join together for which presidential candidate they want to represent them. It’s not as important as the primaries but it is important to see which candidate is high risk or not.

Primaries are more important. They are held state wide and for the people that got enough support during a caucus. Primaries determine who is actually going to be on that big ballot in November. For example no one took President Obama seriously as a candidate until he garnered support during the primaries. Primaries are when you really want to be voting the bastards off.

You don’t get “one big shot” you get several.

Now to circle back to when I said we put ourselves down by voting off the “bad guy” in the official election. This rhetoric is put in place to insure us poor American peasants wouldn’t actually vote for a third party. America is run by two major political parties Democrats and Republicans. To ensure total domination of the political scene both red and blue parties will adapt third party ideals and then spout off some nonsense against third party candidates. Why would you vote for the Green Party if the Democratic Party cannabalized what they stand for and also has more money? The big two will even shine the spotlight on each other good or bad to get the public’s eye away from third party candidates.

Another rhetoric spouted is that we “waste” our votes by voting on a third party and should just vote on one of the big two instead.

Now think about it for a second. Why would a republican prefer you vote for a democrat than a third party candidate and vice versa? It’s because they are the same damn people. Same connections, same monetary backings, and same families.

So if you really want to stick it to the man vote for the third party candidate. If you aren’t going to put your vote in vote for the most popular third party candidate. I’d do it even if I really didn’t like the guy because the President isn’t the one making the laws. A third party president would still be congress’s bitch but it sure would make a statement that something needs to change. It would also help the older generation understand that they can vote for something outside of democrat and republican.

(

So, there's a lot of USians around who are very clearly fucking fed up with their political choices this election cycle, and planning to sit it out.

And I get it! What's the point of voting if there's no one to vote for?

The thing is, I'm Australian. In Australia, voting is compulsory. We don't get to sit out our elections, and I'll be real honest with you - we don't exactly get better choices than you lot. So how do you vote if there's no one to vote for? You find someone to vote against. And there's always someone to vote against.

Now, we have the pleasure of preferential voting in Australia - We get to rank every candidate from 1 to X, and I'll tell you, there's something so cathartic about putting the biggest bastard of the lot at the very bottom of your preferences. I understand that USians don't get that option - you get to mark one person, and that's it.

That means that you get one shot, so aim it at the biggest bastard of the lot. The candidate you most utterly detest. Put your vote in the worst possible place for them. Don't even think about who that vote's going towards, that's not the point. Remember, every vote is a vote against someone. Make sure you fuck up that someone's election day!

[bawwsadface]

Liberals Don't Learn

we live in categorically Tough Times. the climate disaster is already happening, the least educated, most mentally deteriorating elderly cronies in the world are holding the lock and key to the nuclear codes, homelessness rates are skyrocketing, and the big mac costs 10 dollars.

it probably seems like an easy time to give up. probably seems like the perfect storm for apathy. and it has proven to be for many. but in the wake of trump's re-election, i've noticed an effervescent attitude bubbling among my peers. folks far left of the political establishment. folks who have taken enough drives around the same traffic circle to see the same plays coming and getting run back over and over enough times to stop caring. there's been a sense of "well, better keep on trucking i guess." because it's become evidently clear that the forces in power will never work in our favor.

because we are all educated enough to know better by now. it's still frustrating to see, sure. upsetting to watch the country's full blown descent into fascism that's been happening since 9/11 crystalize before our eyes. we know that they know that we know and they just don't care. but we can't pretend anymore that it's a surprise.

because we know better, we know to not let it be such a heavy weight on our shoulders. we will fight back. we will organize. we will do everything we can within our abilities to strengthen our communities. to grow what is small, what is local, what is huddled together into a stronger coalition. one that may not entirely beat the man, but can stand toe to toe with him when push comes to shove. and that's what matters. so we truck on through. we are all over this. we are all better than this. we need to focus on what makes us human and learn to nurture it.

and i get it, it's tempting to dig into the weeds. to want to play political strategist and history teacher and point fingers. act like any of the third party votes, when fully added up would've swung any of the states she lost (they wouldn't have). or to call people who have checked out of the process altogether privileged cowards. suggest that kamala's nonstarter nature was because she was a black woman. or to handwring about putting aside the politics of a cop who openly supported her administration's genocide because it would be an election that supposedly "saved democracy." oh you mean like the last one? the one before that? and the ones before those as well?

don't look for blame among your peers. those are the very same people you should be trying to rally with. besides, it's pretty easy to see when you take one or two steps back, that it is and has always been the dems and liberals fault that they can't govern. that simpsons joke has remained evergreen since 1994.

learning that the dems predicted a far less gracious turnout for their candidate then ran her anyway? it's no surprise. seeing that they stonewalled any objection to keeping someone with declining mental faculties in the white house just so they wouldn't open up a primary in his wake? you know one where, god forbid, one of their own who actually had a platform could run a successful campaign? yeah that tracks.

listen man, i've been voting for just long enough (since 2012) that i can recognize that even in the two administrations where the liberal establishment seemed like it was "winning", all these problems were still there making them fumble. clinton was a centrist with a house that hated him. obama refused to push any progressive moves thru congress even when he had the doors wide open to do so. and they still expected us to come crawling back and check that same ballot box every four years and then shut up and stop listening in the interim.

i think we're all within our rights to be fed up with it all. and to be so used to the same blows coming that a fascist getting re-elected is just puffing past us like smoke. why would it surprise anyone at this point?

your time is better spent advocating for your community. go volunteer at planned parenthood. go support local meal programs for your neighborhood. share resources openly. get a library card. find a friend who's a teacher or a student and share access to their educational materials. give your time and your energy and your money when you are able to the people that matter. the people that make up your every day that you actually live. and remember to rest and keep yourself nourished along the way.

even after everything, i can still believe in that.

[willfrominternet]

a political post: despite the hysteria of the last few days and also the last several years, there is no benefit to voting for anyone other than the democratic party. i hate to tell you this. voting democratic down the ballot is our shot for mitigating fascist bullshit.

your fave third party candidate will not win. yes, it's your choice to vote for who you want. but whether you vote green, libertarian, socialist, or independent, that party does not have a shot in hell of winning the election. they have no representation in congress, no marketing, no nothing. the only person running indie in 2024 is robert f. kennedy, and he's as bad as trump.

speaking of trump: if you're still voting for the guy i don't know what to tell you man. you've been eating the brain worms by the spoonful. yes, he got shot. yes, political violence is bad. yes, i know there's a lot to unpack regarding the previous sentence. whatever. trump winning the election - even if democrats take the house and the senate - gives republican think thanks like the heritage foundation the a-ok to carry out their dark work such as project 2025. it allows trump to fill whatever supreme court seats open up (most likely thomas's and breyer's) with conservative-leaning justices, as well as possibly expand the courts to add even more. all of this means the right-wing advocates can once again threaten the rights of all folks who don't fall into their blueprint of the "ideal american": white, middle-class or higher, heterosexual and cisgender, two kids, two gas-guzzling cars, and one job which dad works because mom's taking care of the home.

ok will maybe that's going a little far. lol. lmao even. did you hear harrison butker's commencement speech?

look things haven't been super under biden and the man is making ronald reagan look like a spring chicken, but if you think things are going to get better if trump gets back in the white house you are sorely mistaken. any quarter we give to the republican party at this point threatens millions and millions of americans. it threatens the country's infrastructure. it threatens our financial and mental health. voting for republicans or any other candidate takes a vote away from the party which might get good things done, or at least not tank our entire country due to greed/cruelty/lack of experience.

and yes i know what you're going to say. the democratic party is not supportive of palestine. they support israel and they will let bibi run tanks over gaza and the west bank and put up condos for israeli and american settlers. friend, i want a free palestine as much as you do. the democratic party has people who want this as well. if the democratic party wins the election, there is at least a shred of hope for it. if the republicans win, there is none.

even if biden crosses the rainbow bridge - whether it's before the democratic convention or after election day - harris will take over and it'll be like a 1:1 swap politically. this is a reminder, by the way, that we could have had nikki haley and kamala harris duking it out instead of the same two octogenarians from last time. this could have been an interesting and historic race and instead we're worrying about a) will the current president or the former one or both die of old age, and b) will the republican candidate win and tank our country even harder than he did last time?

voting democratic down ballot is the only way for us and potentially the world to not get royally screwed over the next four to at least forty years. i mean, a lot of other things will also try to screw us no matter what, but we can try to stop those things as well. we can multitask.

by the way this post was not sponsored by the democratic party. this post was sponsored by the willfrominternet.tumblr.com foundation for some god damn air conditioning.

EDIT: i forgot to address people who straight up won't vote in this election. trust me: you're not making the protest point you think you're making, and your apathetic ass will regret it later even if your candidate wins. also a million demons and dukes of hell will haunt you every night

[nappingpaperclip]

I’m trying to organize my thoughts on this in a way that makes sense, so please forgive the long response but

I understand that fear, I really do, but I feel like this sentiment that people should still vote for Joe Biden even if he is participating in genocide just because he’s the ‘lesser of two evils’ just translates to him and other democrats thinking that they can do what they want and will still get liberal & leftist votes.

can we all collectively agree that a two party system does not work if both parties are full of people who care more about money than peoples lives? both parties make money off of the weapons industry and are both willing to participate in genocide despite our peaceful protests and the pictures of the bloody and broken bodies of innocent people on the news. why do we keep hanging on to the hope that democrats are going to fix anything?

trans and gay people are still losing our rights under the Biden administration, this is why making informed votes at your local elections is very important

however, I think that we should be telling democrats that they do not have our vote if they do not listen to the people they are supposed to represent. instead of listening to their constituents protesting and begging for the lives of our fellow humans, they arrest peaceful protesters and threaten to give them Rico charges for 20+ years in prison. why should we not be looking instead towards third parties and organizing for them, if begging the government to give a fuck about people is going to get us arrested either way?

now is the best time, more than ever to organize for third party candidates and get them on the ballots. the primaries have not even happened yet, there is still time. however also,

threatening to withhold your vote is a good form of protest

this post alone has almost 11.5k notes. imagine if instead of all resigning to ignoring the news and putting our heads down and marking Joe Biden on a ballot next year, imagine all of the usamericans who gave this post notes flooded the gov’t phones with hundreds of calls telling them that if they do not ceasefire, they will not get our votes?

you want your vote to actually matter? then use it to your advantage. they are willing to hold our rights hostage for votes, so we should hold our votes hostage for humanity

put in your address and find your legislators. it pulls up their phone numbers for you. look for your senate and house reps. call their office and tell them you will be withholding your vote unless they demand a ceasefire.

then after that, call the White House comment line: (202) 456-1111 and tell them the same thing.

you will either get to leave a voicemail or a receptionist will pick up and take note of your comment. don’t let anxiety or despair stop you. all you have to say is one line.

“I will be withholding my vote in any upcoming elections until there is a ceasefire in Palestine, Sudan, and Congo and the government stops using my tax money to fund genocide.”

you don’t have to tell them your name but if it is your local representative you might need to give your zip code. if they ask for your name and you don’t want to give it say you would like to stay anonymous

the two things a politician worries about most is their money and their votes. so make them sweat about their votes. you don’t even have to mean it, you don’t have to not vote. the point is to scare them into realizing they don’t have a guaranteed vote if they are participating in genocide. tell them you’d rather vote for third party, or no one at all. you don’t have to mean it, but make it sound like you do. we still have time to worry about an election later, the more days go by the more people who are killed.

if you cannot participate in protests or otherwise organize, this is the least you can do to honor the people who have died needlessly.

this is a matter of life or death for thousands of people. so use your voice now and stop resigning to the future that has yet to come. tell the democrats that they do not have a vote unless they stop the genocide. hold your vote hostage and make them listen

People are talking about not voting for Biden.

Again.

I'm just so tired of this argument.

I just can't do Trump again.

I can't.

His incompetence killed so many people. A panel estimated 40% of COVID deaths could have been averted.

One of those deaths was my mother.

She was killed because people didn't trust the vaccines and they didn't think masks were worth the inconvenience. That man could have gone on TV and said "This is the Trump vaccine and it is great." He could have sold fucking MAGA masks on his website. He had 100% influence over his dipshit followers and could have used that for the greater good. But he was too vain to wear a mask in public and bungled the vaccine rollout.

And now I worry some of my trans loved ones may not make it through another far right administration. They have this giant target on their back right now and conservatives seem determined to eradicate as many trans lives as possible.

I wrote a whole ass post about how I didn't care for Biden. I still don't. But when I try to imagine what a right wing administration would be doing right now... that seems like it would be a nightmare orders of magnitude worse than the current nightmare.

As someone with an untreatable chronic illness, I know the feeling of being presented with choices where all of them suck. And I have had to survive by choosing the least sucky option over and over.

It feels bad every single time.

I hate it.

And I still fucking choose.

It should be different. There should be better choices. I shouldn't have to choose the least bad thing among all bad things.

But there are people and things in this world I feel are worth sticking around for, so I continue to choose the least sucky thing.

[phroyd]

WASHINGTON — President Trump has selected Judge Amy Coney Barrett, the favorite candidate of conservatives, to succeed Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and will try to force Senate confirmation before Election Day in a move that would significantly alter the ideological makeup of the Supreme Court for years.

Mr. Trump plans to announce on Saturday that she is his choice, according to six people close to the process who asked not to be identified disclosing the decision in advance.

As they often do, aides cautioned that Mr. Trump sometimes upends his own plans. But he is not known to have interviewed any other candidates and came away from two days of meetings with Judge Barrett this week impressed with a jurist he was told would be a female Antonin Scalia, referring to the justice she once clerked for.

“I haven’t said it was her, but she is outstanding,” Mr. Trump told reporters who asked about Judge Barrett’s imminent nomination at Joint Base Andrews outside Washington after returning Friday evening from a trip to Florida and Georgia.

The president’s political advisers hope the selection will energize his conservative political base in the thick of an election campaign in which he has for months been trailing former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., his Democratic challenger. But it could also rouse liberal voters afraid that her confirmation could spell the end of Roe v. Wade, the decision legalizing abortion, as well as other rulings popular with the political left and center.

The nomination will kick off an extraordinary scramble by Senate Republicans to confirm her for the court in the 38 days before the election on Nov. 3, a scenario unlike any in American history. While other justices have been approved in presidential election years, none has been voted on after July. Four years ago, Senate Republicans refused to even consider President Barack Obama’s nomination to replace Justice Scalia with Judge Merrick B. Garland, announced 237 days before Election Day, on the grounds that it should be left to whoever was chosen as the next president.

In picking Judge Barrett, a conservative and a hero to the anti-abortion movement, Mr. Trump could hardly have found a more polar opposite to Justice Ginsburg, a pioneering champion of women’s rights and leader of the liberal wing of the court. The appointment would shift the center of gravity on the bench considerably to the right, giving conservatives six of the nine seats and potentially insulating them even against defections by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who on a handful of occasions has sided with liberal justices.

Mr. Trump made clear this week that he wanted to rush his nominee through the Senate by Election Day to ensure that he would have a decisive fifth justice on his side in case any disputes from the vote reached the high court, as he expected to happen. The president has repeatedly made baseless claims that the Democrats are trying to steal the election and appears poised to challenge any result of the balloting that does not declare him the winner.

Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, has enough votes to push through Judge Barrett’s nomination if he can make the tight time frame work. Republicans are looking at holding hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee the week of Oct. 16 and a floor vote by late October.

Democrats have expressed outrage at the rush and accused Republicans of rank hypocrisy given their treatment of Judge Garland, but they have few options for slowing the nomination, much less stopping it. Instead, they have focused on making Republicans pay at the ballot box and debated ways to counteract Mr. Trump’s influence on the court if they win the election.

Mr. Trump met with Judge Barrett at the White House on Monday and Tuesday and was said to like her personally. While he said he had a list of five finalists, he never interviewed anyone else for the job and passed over Judge Barbara Lagoa of the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, who appealed to campaign advisers in particular because of her Cuban-American heritage and roots in Florida, a critical battleground state in the presidential contest.

Despite Mr. Trump’s penchant for drama and the intrigue that surrounded his first two picks for seats on the Supreme Court, the selection process since Justice Ginsburg died last Friday has been fairly low-key and surprisingly predictable. The president has long signaled that he expected to put Judge Barrett on the court and has been quoted telling confidants in 2018 that he was “saving her for Ginsburg.”

If confirmed, Judge Barrett would become the 115th justice in the nation’s history and the fifth woman ever to serve on the Supreme Court. At 48, she would be the youngest member of the current court as well its sixth Catholic. And she would become Mr. Trump’s third appointee on the court, more than any other president has installed in a first term since Richard M. Nixon had four, joining Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh.

Judge Barrett graduated from Notre Dame Law School and later joined the faculty. She clerked for Justice Scalia and shares his constitutional views. She is described as a textualist who interprets the law based on its plain words rather than seeking to understand the legislative purpose and an originalist who applies the Constitution as it was understood by those who drafted and ratified it.

She has been a judge for only three years, appointed by Mr. Trump to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in 2017. Her confirmation hearing produced fireworks when Democratic senators questioned her public statements and Catholicism. That made her an instant celebrity among religious conservatives, who saw her as a victim of bias on the basis of her faith.

Judge Barrett and her husband, Jesse Barrett, a former federal prosecutor, are reported to be members of a small and relatively obscure Christian group called the People of Praise. The group grew out of the Catholic charismatic renewal movement that began in the late 1960s and adopted Pentecostal practices like speaking in tongues, belief in prophecy and divine healing. The couple have seven children, all under 20, including two adopted from Haiti and a young son with Down syndrome.

In a 2006 speech to Notre Dame graduates, she spoke of the law as a higher calling. “If you can keep in mind that your fundamental purpose in life is not to be a lawyer, but to know, love and serve God, you truly will be a different kind of lawyer,” she said.

But during her 2017 confirmation hearing, she affirmed that she would keep her personal views separate from her duties as a judge. “If you’re asking whether I take my faith seriously and I’m a faithful Catholic, I am,” she told senators. “Although I would stress that my personal church affiliation or my religious belief would not bear in the discharge of my duties as a judge.” She was confirmed on a 55-to-43 vote, largely along party lines.

As a law professor, Judge Barrett was a member of Faculty for Life, an anti-abortion group, and wrote skeptically about precedent in Supreme Court rulings, which both sides in the abortion debate took to mean she would be open to revisiting Roe v. Wade.

“I tend to agree with those who say that a justice’s duty is to the Constitution and that it is thus more legitimate for her to enforce her best understanding of the Constitution rather than a precedent she thinks clearly in conflict with it,” she wrote in a Texas Law Review article in 2013.

She later criticized Chief Justice Roberts for his opinion preserving Mr. Obama’s Affordable Care Act, saying he went beyond the plausible meaning of the law. As an appellate judge, she joined an opinion arguing on behalf of an Indiana law banning abortions sought solely because of the sex or disability of a fetus, disagreeing with fellow judges who struck it down as unconstitutional.

Conservative and liberal interest groups did not wait for Mr. Trump’s announcement to open the battle over Judge Barrett’s confirmation. Each side prepared multimillion-dollar campaigns to introduce her to the public and frame the debate to come in the Senate, with an eye on the November contest.

Several polls over the past week have shown that most Americans, including many Republicans, believe the next justice should be selected by the winner of the November election, not by Mr. Trump in the meantime.

A survey released Friday by The Washington Post and ABC News suggested the fight may drive Democrats even more than Republicans to the polls. About 64 percent of Mr. Biden’s supporters told pollsters that the vacancy made it “more important” that the Democrat win the election, while just 37 percent of Mr. Trump’s supporters said the same for him.

Phroyd

[boy-and-girl-crazy123456]

saw you mentioned being bored and wanting to discourse. curious for your opinion v mine on american politics. voting is a completely rigged system. it is intended to create an illusion of choice. people who cant register should not be ashamed or hated. it’s not their fault it’s systematically bullshit. but if you can register, you should, and vote for war criminal biden, because he’s *at least* not trump, just

(second ask from same person) “okay i sneezed and sent the first ask too early and then sneezed again writing another and i can’t tell if i sent the second ask or cancelled it. i’m sorry. i have allergies lmao. anyway i have no faith that voting isnt pointless and the results dont matter, but why avoid it if its an option for you. what do you got to lose. that being said if you only vote and nothing else you’re literally doing nothing” I’m actually really glad I got this ask because I’d been considering putting down my thoughts on voting in a post or something for a bit now and this seems like a good opportunity to do so. This is basically all off the cuff and it’s very rambly and long so I apologize if this sucks to read lol

So yeah I think I more agree with you than don’t, I think voting in the US is...if not “rigged” at least systemically ineffectual, it’s controlled by the interests of capital and is set up in a fundamentally undemocratic way; on top of that the US is itself an illegitimate settler-colony and empire and you’re essentially choosing the executor of settler-colonialism and empire (i made a post a while back pushing back against the concept of a “left wing president” for this reason). So I definitely am sympathetic to people who don’t vote or simply choose not to, either for well defined ideological reasons against US empire or just a more general sense of it not mattering or having more important day to day activities living under a harsh dictatorship of capital. I also think you’re right in saying that for many people it’s not going to end up being much of a hassle; for my own part, I was able to apply entirely online and my state currently allows absentee ballots with no justification, so voting for me mostly consists of filling out a piece of paper I’ll get in the mail and be able to send back for free. So if you’re in that situation, then yeah, might as well.

As for voting for Biden, I’m not AS against it as some of the people on here are but I wouldn’t go so far as you do and say people who can get registered should vote for him. I think that voting for him solely out of desire to get Trump out is genuinely a perfectly fine reason to do so. But we shouldn’t delude ourselves about what the presidency is or what the US itself is; again, ultimately you’re just voting for the executor of the interests of capital and empire, and those interests shape the presidency more than the other way around. I think this is most evident in the bellicose attitude displayed by both candidates towards China; during the trade war I think a lot of people attributed this to some kind of pet issue of Trump’s, which isn’t entirely wrong, but it’s clear that great power competition with China has become the general focus of the American bourgeoisie and thus Biden has adopted this position as well.

There’s also third parties, which seem to be popular among the left on here, but honestly I’m pretty pessimistic about them. Many take the position of voting for the Green Party in the hopes it’ll reach the 5% threshold, but I really really doubt this’ll be met and I don’t like the GPUS enough in general to vote for them non-pragmatically. To put it bluntly I think most of the GPUS supporters on here are people who supported Bernie in the primaries and got in the mindset of compromising being a communist/socialist with voting for a social democrat. Where this gets problematic is that with Bernie he actually could’ve won AND he had a large movement to try and radicalize people out of, so the decision to compromise was a lot more understandable (I personally supported him in the primaries for this reason- the larger his share of votes before having the primary stolen from him, which was inevitable, the easier it is to divorce people from the Democratic Party); with an uninspiring candidate like Howie Hawkins and a party with essentially no path to victory, I don’t know why we’re even bothering instead of just going all out and voting for a communist. Speaking of, I also know some people (not really on here but definitely on other platforms) who are voting for the PSL ticket which I think is fine, but PSL does a lot of work besides electioneering (unlike the GPUS, who essentially show up every presidential election and neglect to do any other kind of work), so voting for them or not won’t really affect their overall status as a revolutionary party; they’re not really going for the 5% threshold because running candidates isn’t really what they focus on anyway.

But yeah at the end of the day electoralism at the present time is, I think, not an effective strategy for the left to take because the only viable option most of the time is trying to carve out a space within the Democratic Party, which is just. Not a good idea and hasn’t worked, really. So I agree with your point about just voting and nothing else being useless because I think we need to build a popular movement that doesn’t compromise on issues like settler-colonialism and empire first, and once it’s large enough and has a base we can talk about MAYBE running candidates (although I also think the structure of American government is fundamentally flawed in this respect and it might take some sort of great change first before we can do that; this could be a minor revolution changing the structures, a major one where we take power outright, or a strategy of dual power where we create a separate structure first [my suggestion])

I hope this makes any sense at all and isn’t just unreadable garbage lol I tried to respond to as many points as possible but feel free to send me more asks if any of this needs elaboration or if you have other questions etc. Also take a zyrtec or something

[d2kvirus]

Dickheads of the Month: November 2020

As it seems that there are people who say or do things that are remarkably dickheaded yet somehow people try to make excuses for them or pretend it never happened, here is a collection of some of the dickheaded actions we saw in the month of November 2020 to make sure that they are never forgotten.

Nobody was expecting Donald Trump to concede defeat gracefully, but bloody hell, between the completely batshit insane conspiracy theory bollocks from himself and the rancid Trump offspring to Rudy Giuliani making complete fools of themselves even before he had to give a press conference from the parking lot of a landscaping firm as nobody checked which Four Seasons it was, before threatening to outlaw Twitter because people made fun of his little table (yes, that sentence does make sense), nobody could have expected just how tempramental toddlers are now thinking it's a bit much

...although somehow the Tory government managed to have an even worse response, because not only did posting a boilerplate jpeg to congratulate Joe Biden for his victory the laziest response possible, but then it turned out that they only had a celebratory jpeg for a Trump victory and hastily edited it on Paint so that Biden’s name was on there, but did a cack-handed job of it even though a.) Common sense dictates you have one for each candidate ready in advance, and b.) Given they had several days to accept which way the wind was blowing, the fact they did the most cack-handed job says everything you need to know 

Smirking cretin Priti Patel has bullied Home Office staff and, having initially tried to bury the report, the best the Tory government could come up with to try and make this go away was claim that she was bullying her subordinates by accident while proven liar Boris Johnson claimed she had done nothing wrong, numerous members of the Tory government either said that as they hadn’t seen her bullying anyone she must be innocent or tried claiming she was “accused” of bullying instead of found guilty of bullying, and to top it all off we had Michael Gove’s wife Sarah Vine accused anyone calling Patel of being a bully racist while Alison Pearson said Patel can’t be a bully as she isn’t tall enough. Also, did I mention this came out during national Bullying Week?

...and just a thought for Jess Phillips after she decided to weigh in, considering it’s on record that you bullied Diane Abbott (and have gleefully said how you told her to “Fuck off” on various occasions) it's not a good idea for you to try and act as you’re above bullying as you will get called out for your hypocrisy

Murderer Amanda Knox thought it would be a really funny joke to suggest that, no matter what the election result, the next four years couldn’t be as bad as the four years she spent studying abroad.  You know, those four years where she murdered Meredith Kercher and got away with it

So it turns out that the moral compass of the Tory government says that it is fine for Dominic Cummings to be happy to sacrifice the elderly if it protects the economy during a pandemic while displaying that he doesn’t know how herd immunity works, purging 21 MPs from the party for not buying into his No Deal Britait Jonestown, siphoning hundreds of millions of pounds into the pockets of his mates in various dodgy contracts, or flagrantly violating the lockdown rules by driving several hundred miles to Durham (where he owns a house he doesn't pay council tax for) after testing positive for Covid - but as soon as he calls Carrie Symonds “Princess Nut Nuts” he’s out the door...for a staged photo op, even though he is remaining in his job until December, which is when he was going to leave anyway

...and we should mention Laura Kuenssberg bullishly stating that Cummings was going nowhere in the wake of Lee Cain being told he could leave when his contract is up in December but they want to make it look like he is being fired, but within twelve hours saying that Cummings would always be leaving in December as a blog post in January stated, which not only asks if anyone has checked the archived version of that blog in case any edits were made in mid-November, but also how she can justify her £290k a year salary if she can get a story that badly wrong that Cummings’ blog disagreed with her

There’s a reason why Lindsey Graham isn't popular in the Senate and it isn’t because he questions if Biden won the election, it's because he’s telling people to “misplace” the votes for Biden which they are counting so that Trump could claim that he won Georgia instead of losing Georgia, demanding a recount, then losing Georgia

Once again proven liar Boris Johnson demonstrated that lockdown rules apply to the little people but not to him or his inner circle, as he met with fellow Tory MP Lee Anderson in person rather than via Zoom as the lockdown rules state, didn't wear a mask as lockdown rules state, and clearly didn’t social distance as a picture of him with Anderson taken during the meetings shows they are not two metres apart as lockdown rules state, which means that he had to spend two weeks self-isolating as a direct result 

Has anyone told Keir Starmer that The Board of Deputies weren’t on the ballot for Labour leadership?  Because by his performative act of refusing to restore the party whip to Jeremy Corbyn after his performative suspension, which he did after the BoD stamped their feet and demanded the whip not be restored, he’s not doing a good job of demonstrating leadership

First of all it was news that Steve Bannon uses Twitter, as surely he should have flounced off for Parler years ago.  But secondly, the real news is how he used his Twitter account to call for Anthony Fauci to be beheaded - at which point he suddenly couldn’t use his Twitter account anymore

According to Iain Duncan Smith putting the UK into a second lockdown is “giving in to the scientific advisors” as if during a pandemic, which the last time I checked was a scientific matter, you should instead be listening to Julia Halfwit-Brewer, Dan Wootton, Alison Pearson or Isabel Oakeshott rather than people qualified to talk about what to do in the face of a global pandemic 

Nice Guy Rishi Sunak proposed a return of Eat Out To Help Out for Christmas.  You know, the thing which has been directly linked with causing a spike in Covid numbers in August?

Tory arrogance was neatly summed up by George Eustace casually saying that, if Lurpak didn’t want to incur the massive price hikes of Britain crashing out of the EU without a paddle, all they have to do is move their entire base of operations to the UK

The fact that Disney have been trying to justify their refusal to even issue royalty statements to Alan Dean Foster for his novelisations of the Star Wars and Alien franchises and have simply been pocketing the revenue made by the books continued sales by claiming they only purchased the license and not the liability, which is a particularly unique interpretation of copyright law

It was only a matter of time before The Daily Mail started trying to create dirt about Marcus Rashford because he has the sheer gall to say that feeding children is not a bad thing, which they did by reporting the horrors of him...buying a house for his mother

Twitter troll Ben Bradley had a stellar month, first by standing up in Commons and asking why there isn't a Minister for Women while also showing a terrifying inability to understand what equality is, and soon followed that up by quoting Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech by claiming that it was about equality - only for Bernice King to tell him that, no, her father’s speech was about eliminating racism from our society

I think that it's time for The Daily Express to admit that, when they're running articles saying that it’s Remainers who are to blame for Trump getting dumped onto the street, that maybe they have a problem

The Streisand Effect still hasn’t reached WWE judging by their continuing to double down on demanding their employees independent contractors stop earning money via third-party platforms manifested in their releasing Thea Trinidad from her contract in spite her Twitch account always being under her real name and not her WWE moniker of Zelina Vega

It was a coincidence that the Jewish Labour Movement decided to hold their annual conference on the Palestinian Day of Solidarity.  Of course it was...

This month it was Fin Taylor who demonstrated just how far from satire HIGNFY has strayed with his “Bomb Glastonbury and kill all Jeremy Corbyn supporters” joke in response to Joan Bakewell lying about Corbyn breaking the law - and, afterwards, Taylor was generally being a smug twat about it on his Twitter - which also serves to show how Tim Davie is fine with booking comedians whose acts have plenty of questionable content contained within it if it guarantees the Tories escape criticism

This month’s example of Steve Baker making himself a walking punchline with no self-awareness came from him howling that further lockdown measures would be a violation of terms set out by the European Convention on Human Rights - yes, the exact same convention that Baker has a.) Repeatedly accused of meddling with British affairs and is an example of the EU nanny state, and b.) Frowns upon things such as Steve Baker repeatedly voting against allowing child refugees to be reunited with their families

Nothing says “worker happiness” quite like GameStop running a competition for their stores to post Tik Tok dances where the store which is voted the winner receives prizes such as an Amazon Echo, a Visa gift card, and the privilege of working an additional ten hours during the week of Black Friday.  Wait, did I say “worker happiness”?  I meant to say “Dickensian shithousery” where employees are expected to compete so they can work more hours

Of course the “We’re not racist”s of Twitter had an issue with Sainsburys Christmas ad because it didn’t appeal to white men due to having a black family, in much the same way that Compare the Market’s ads don't appeal to white men as they’re not Russian meerkats

Professional victim Laurence Fox thought it would be a good idea to get into a slanging match with The Pogues while lying that Fairytale of New York would be banned from the airwaves.  It went about as well as could be expected

It wouldn’t be Remembrance Day without The Sun or The Daily Mail exploiting it for some obvious ragebait, and this year was no exception with both “papers” posting a photo of Extinction Rebellion posting with a banner in front of the Cenotaph protesting climate change - a photo taken two days earlier, but they held off on posting it until the day itself to get the rage flowing, because they needed something as neither Jeremy Corbyn nor Meghan Markle were within a mile of Whitehall

This month it was Ernest Cline who demonstrated a lack of understanding of the Streisand Effect by ordering DMCA takedowns on anyone who posted an excerpt of Ready Player Two online, which mainly served to help the internet realise which the actual excerpts were and which the parody versions were - because it was pretty hard to tell them apart otherwise...

“I’ve been silenced”, shrieked Suzanne Moore in an interview with the Telegraph, fatally undermining her argument in the process.  Funny how the people who have been “silenced” keep doing that, isn’t it?

Because we haven’t heard anything idiotic from Jake Paul in a while, Jake Paul decided to say Covid isn’t real and flu has killed just as many people.  So I give it a week before his older brother Logan feels he has to one-up this and say the Holocaust was fake...

And finally, not for much longer, is Donald Trump and his complicity in trying to organise a coup - but not a very good coup, as his minions at Fox News had to exaggerate how many people were actually protesting about him losing an election and crying about it - which was further undermined by his inability to tell Michigan and Minnesota apart

[zazaofpugs]

Vote for someone else in the Primary though! If we CAN run someone else against Trump, we very much should. At very least, we can send a message to the Democratic Party that we don’t support the genocide. I understand it’s a rigged system and Biden will win the nomination but don’t just throw up your hands entirely. There are still ways to voice your displeasure while realizing the margins are razor thin in the general election and Trump truly is the greater evil.

Furthermore, don’t fixate on this. Support candidates who aren’t part of the two party system down ballot. Keep up the boycotts. Keep calling, posting and giving what you can to end this conflict. The presidential election is a wedge issue for left leaning people. We can’t let it be. We need to never stop engaging in solidarity and community building. Part of that is not meeting people who differ from you for perfectly legitimate reasons (I mean who WANTS to vote for someone actively backing a genocide?) with mockery or derision. It’s not an unreasonable stance for people to have. It’s mathematically correct that in practice voting third party, writing in or abstaining from voting are increasingly the likelihood of a second Trump term, if done en mass but at the same time, it is emotionally true you have to mark yes next to the guy who actively supports an ongoing genocide. Let’s not pretend that’s not a very shitty thing to have to do. Let’s not pretend it doesn’t take something out of our souls every time we are forced to do it. Pragmatism does not overcome how horrible the act is.

It’s a fucked up system. Just because you know how it functions and the little control we have over it doesn’t mean other people are wrong to abhor it and to want out of it. That’s what we should focus on. We all want out. We all want better. Anything we do now should be to negate and mitigate awful outcomes, but we should all be putting our energy into working together towards something better.

I see this kind of post and I see what people who aren’t voting Biden see, an appeal to just accept this system. It seems like there is never any follow up. It’s just “you’re dumb for not voting for Biden b/c Trump will win” what you’re not doing is empathizing or engaging in community building. You are not saying “vote Biden now, even though it sucks and I promise to be building dual power structures with you so we never have to do this again”. If you’re not explicit about how you seek to make changes with the time you’re buying with a second Biden term, then you are in effect just appealing to a less-bad but still horrific status quo.

Well… that got away from me. TL;DR: vote for whoever you want in the primaries. Don’t fixate on presidential politics too much though. Spend most of your time trying to build a system that does not constantly posit us with “terrible” and “worse than terrible” as our only viable options. Don’t be a dick to people who want off this ride, especially if you are not making your own commitment to larger systematic change clear.

Anyway, if you don't vote for Biden to Teach Him A Lesson and Trump wins, I'm sure all the thousands more Palestinians killed in Gaza when Trump gives Netanyahu full steam ahead and pulls all diplomatic support for a ceasefire/peace process, the Ukrainians and/or other Eastern Europeans likewise genocided when Trump gives Putin everything he wants and pulls out of NATO, the immigrants deported and put in concentration camps, the protesters detained en masse under the Insurrection Act, the women who die from being refused divorces and reproductive care, the LGBTQ+ people legislated and harassed out of public life, the people of color murdered by fully sanctioned white supremacy, and the societies around the world affected by America's collapse into a theocratic fascist dictatorship will definitely fall at your feet in thanks and give you the Gold Medal For Twitter Social Justice. So yknow, that's very important.

[arlingtonpark]

2020 Election Night Survival Guide

Hey, everyone!

It’s Halloween night, but the scariest night of the year is going to be in a few days on Election Day.

Since everyone’s wetting themselves over this, here’s a quick survival guide for Election Night.

Part I. The State of Play

In the United States, political authority is shared between three institutions: the President, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. Elections for all three will be occurring on Election Night 2020.

The President is elected by the Electoral College. Each state is given seats in the College based on the size of their Congressional delegation.

Candidates for President put forth a slate of candidates to represent their state in the College, which voters choose by popular vote.

This system was chosen because a national popular vote was not possible at the time. 

As of now, Joe Biden is almost certainly going to win the election. He is polling ahead in every state Barack Obama won in 2012 except Ohio and Iowa, and is liable to win Arizona and maybe even Georgia. This will give him a comfortable victory. 

The Senate is composed of two Senators for every state. One third of the body elected every two years for a total term of 6 years for any one Senator. 

The current crop of Senators was last elected in 2014, a very good year for Republicans. 

It was not expected, though, that Democrats could undo those gains since they were made by Republicans wiping out Democrats in Louisiana and Arkansas, and other similar states.

Democrats used to have a strong presence in those states, but that presence was wiped out in the Obama years.

Republicans didn’t make those gains in swing states, but instead in state’s whose voters switched allegiances. It was hard to see Dems making a comeback.

A lot has changed though.

States like Arizona, Texas, Georgia, South Carolina, and even Kansas are competitive now. This was unthinkable in 2014.

Dems have made gains of their own in these states among suburban voters. These people are generally white collar workers who are better educated than average. And they are repulsed by Trump’s basic indecency.

The Dems are now widely expected to win a majority of the Senate -- possibly even a comfortable majority.

The House is composed of 435 Representatives who’re elected every two years. 

The dynamics are the same as the Senate: Dems are gaining in the suburbs, and Republicans are gaining among blue collar workers. 

The Dems took over the House in 2018 and they’re expected to increase that majority by 10 seats or so. 

Part II How to Handle Election Night

Assuming you want to watch the election returns come in live, here’s how to best do it.

Firstly, do not watch the TV news coverage before the actual vote counting starts. 

It’s all drivel and you’ll annihilate your brain watching it.

It’ll mostly be padding to fill up time and make it seem like a lot is happening when not much is.

As well as pundits trying to divine the meaning of this election before it’s actually happened.

And lots of bemoaning of how we can’t all just get along. With no one even trying to think of solutions. 

Don’t waste your time.

You should use the time before the polls close to get up to speed on what the candidates stand for, and how various scenarios might affect you.

To the extent you can stomach such speculation.

Vox is a great news source with a great series of articles on Biden’s platform.

Here.

President Trump...he has no platform.

Literally.

It’s just a copy-paste of the 2016 one. 

Of course, a lot depends on the congressional elections, and I’m not going to get into the nitty-gritty of that here.

There are elections for various governorships up, but you can ignore them, unless it’s your governor up for election. 

The governor of any state that isn’t yours only matter if they’re likely to run for President in a few years. 

There are also some high profile local elections going on.

To varying extents, Dems are hoping to expand their power in Arizona, Michigan, Texas, and North Carolina.

Republicans are hoping to do the same in Wisconsin.

Arizona, South Dakota, New Jersey, and Montana are holding referenda to legalize marijuana.

Oregon will be voting on legalizing mushrooms and decriminalizing all other drugs. 

California has a number of referenda on the ballot regarding rent control, criminal justice, and labor laws.

Florida will be voting to raise the minimum wage to $15, potentially the ninth state to do so.

In any event, feel free to make a party of it.

Order a pizza, have snacks out, beer. Whatever you want. I’d urge you to invite friends over, but, you know...

You can turn the TV news on at 6pm if you like, but I recommend you leave it on in the background and not pay close attention until 8pm. 

I also recommend choosing which network to watch based solely on which one has the most gimmicky, over the top presentation. 

TV news has zero value to you aside from providing real time, unprocessed information. 

Leave the game play analysis to the internet.

Have a laptop open if you have one. Otherwise have a computer handy.

I recommend having three tabs open.

One for the New York Times’ live election night interactive. You know those touch screen displays the networks have their election nerds using to show the state of the race as votes are counted?

The NYT’s interactive is that, but all to yourself.

I also recommend reading the accompanying article explaining how the interactive works. It’s pretty cool what programmers can do these days. 

Lots of news sites will have online interactives, though. Choose whatever you like, but the NYT’s is generally the best. 

The second tab is for Twitter. Twitter is the best place to be for real time analysis. I’ll have a twitter list available for you to use if you like.

The people on this list fall into one of three categories.

The first are the election nerds. These people are adeptly familiar with the United States’ political geography and can tell which side is winning before all the votes are counted.

The second are the pundits. 

Smart ones, mind you.

Political scientists and commentators. I made sure to get a mix of liberal, conservative, and moderate voices. Obviously they provide the commentary on the nerds’ analysis. 

The third and final are a couple of joke accounts for laughs. PixelatedBoat, originator of the milkshake duck meme and the Gorilla Channel hoax, is in there, as is President Nixon’s Twitter impersonator. 

The final tab is for a good quality liveblog. I recommend 538′s, but again, most news sites will have liveblogs going, it’s just that 538 usually has the best one. 

Lastly, as races get called, don’t be afraid to cheer or boo. Election day is pretty sterile, which is a shame because it used to be very rowdy and frenetic. By all means, be emotional.

You’re free to call it a night whenever you want, but there’s no point in carrying on past 1am, so I’d recommend stopping there.

There aren’t any exciting races on the west coast, and California is notoriously bad at vote counting, as they are at ALL things involving government, so the outcome of those races won’t be known for a while. 

Part III The Known Unknowns

Now comes the stuff everyone is panicking over.

Is this the end of democracy?

Eh, probably not.

In theory, Trump could successfully steal the election, but only if it’s a close race.

It’s not a close race.

There is no way for Trump to steal the election. Not through excluding mail ballots, not through the courts. There just isn’t one. 

The Supreme Court won’t help Trump unless they think they can get away with it, but the recent confirmation of Barrett to the Court has put them on notice, and that will restrict what they can do. 

Trump could contest the results by asking Congress to certify his slate of electors as legitimate over the electors the voters chose, but that’s not an issue if Dems control the House. 

That’s really it.

There’s no other way for Trump to win even if he loses the Electoral College.

Even recent buzz about late arriving mail votes not counting probably won’t amount to much.

Most of the people mailing their ballots in late are actually Republicans lol ^^.

Here are some issues to actually look out for:

Trump thugs policing polling places. Voter intimidation is illegal. If someone is intimidating you, report them. 

Hoax ballot stuffing. Don’t be surprised if people fake fraudulent voting to juice Trump’s claims of a rigged election. Treat such allegations with caution.

Violent unrest is unlikely to happen even a little bit, but I won’t be surprised if there are at least some isolated incidents.

While there is some risk, I actually think the danger is overhyped.

The likeliest outcome of this election has always, always been that Biden cakewalks to Inauguration Day. 

Even the talk about not knowing the winner on election night might have been all hype.

Florida, despite its reputation, is actually very good at counting ballots, and the winner of the state should be known on election night. 

A lot can be extrapolated from this, and some news sites might call the race just off of that. 

If who won Florida isn’t known on election night, then you can start panicking. 

Trump will definitely fume about if he loses, but if the outcome is clearly in Biden’s favor, it’ll just be hot air.

It shouldn’t surprise you to know that if Trump loses, he will make no effort to shepherd a economic bailout bill into law in the time between the election and his formal exit from office.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

Also Trump. 

Trump himself has openly floated the idea of fleeing the country if he loses.

He’s over $200 million in debt and will have to sell most of his assets to pay it off. He also faces prosecution for various crimes he committed before and during his presidency.

If he does, he’ll probably try to brand himself a fallen hero in exile, and live off of his supporter’s Patreon donations or whatever. 

Oh, yeah, and the rallies. Trump is planning to keep holding his rallies even after the election, even if he loses, even as the plague is ravaging and the economy is in the toilet.

Don’t be surprised if his supporters are completely blind to the utter failure of leadership in that.

Let’s see, what else to cover...

I guess that just about covers it.

Have fun, kids!

[warsofasoiaf]

Not sure if this is a good time for this ask but I'll toss it out: Your opinions on Trump and Sanders are well established, assuming those are the two nominees what do you plan on doing come election night? Obviously there are down ballot decisions, but when it comes to president what should someone who thinks neither candidate is qualified do? Third party, sit it out, lesser of two evils, etc?

Easiest answer out of the way first. I already plan to have voted come election night. I vote absentee and have done so ever since I was in the military. I dislike the process of physical voting. Standing in a long line of strangers for a long period of time during flu season? No thanks. Unfortunately, that is dependent on the state you live in, so plenty of people can’t take advantage of it. Sure, it’s entirely possible you might change your mind between the day you send your ballot in and Election Day, but the same could be said about casting a ballot on Election Day and wanting a different candidate the next day, or even five minutes later. Although at least if what the evidence I read can be trusted, early voting doesn’t necessarily increase turnout.

Also easy is saying what I will be doing, because I won’t say. My actions are between me and the ballot box. It’s a safe bet, however, to guess that I won’t be casting votes for candidates I’ve done nothing but express disgust towards.

As for the more difficult question, “what should someone who thinks neither candidate is qualified do,” that’s one of the drawbacks to democracy: it requires a lot of difficult effort. Voting is an awesome responsibility that you must bear, that every person who lives in a democracy must bear. It is your responsibility to come to the conclusion that satisfies you as best as you think it can. Don’t let anyone shame you into voting for their candidate if you don’t like them. For someone to say: “you must vote for my candidate because XYZ” is to say that XYZ must be more important to you than what you have decided is more important. If you’ve decided you cannot in good conscience vote for a candidate, then someone telling you that you must disregard your conscience for their sake. 

Personally, I’m not a fan of the “lesser of two evils” idea; I think it promotes the idea that all the parties need to do is run a candidate one iota better than the other guy. Similarly, I’m not a fan of “the party no matter what” because we’ve got a serious accountability problem with politicians already (look at approval ratings vs. incumbency ratings) and publicly telling them that they’ve got your vote no matter tells them that you are not going to take them to task for their bad behavior; they get what they want no matter what they do. Even if that’s what you intend to do, it strikes me as more to your advantage not to advertise it, even if only to enact a phantom watchman. A scarecrow isn’t as good to scare away birds as a human, but it’s better than putting up nothing and telling the crows that you’re not watching.

Vote third party if they have a candidate you like. Stay home and express your disgust online if you want. Or hold your nose and vote for the most palatable garbage the two major parties will deliver. As Dr. Wong from Rick and Morty said, “all of us have the right to choose.” Just be sure that what you decide to do is what you want, and not have your actions decided by someone else who denies you that.

That includes me, by the way. If you want to say “you’re not being practical, I’m not taking your advice,” or even “this threat is too grave to do anything less than ‘x’” then ignore me, and know that I don’t think any less of you for it. As long as you’ve decided what you want to do that’s fine by me.

Thanks for the question, Crowz.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King