#polls on Biden's first year

[solitarelee]

one of the things i will enjoy about leaving america will be that i will no longer get screamed at to vote every time there's an election even though i've voted in every election since i was 18

the screaming starts like 2 years before the election and there's always elections

[welcometoqueer]

I haven’t really seen any of the more recent U.S. election news hitting tumblr yet so here’s some updates (now edited with sources added):

There’s evidence of Trump cheating and interfering with the election.

Possible Russian interference.

Mail-in ballots are not being counted or “recognized” in multiple (notably swing) states.

30+ bomb threats were called in and shut down polling stations on Election Day.

20+ million votes are still unaccounted for, and that’s just to have the same voter turnout as 2020.

There was record voter turnout and new/first-time voter registration this year. We definitely should be well over the turnout in 2020.

U.S. citizens are using this site to demand, not only a recount, but a complete investigation into election fraud and interference for the reasons stated above:

Here is what I submitted as an example:

An investigation for election interference and fraud is required. We desperately need a recount or even a revote. The American people deserve the right to a free and fair election. There has been evidence unveiled of Trump cheating and committing election fraud which is illegal. There is some evidence of possible Russian interference. At least 30+ bomb threats were called in to polling places. Multiple, notably swing states, have ballots unaccounted for and voting machines not registering votes. Ballots and ballot boxes were tampered with and burned. Over 20 million votes that we know of are unaccounted for. With record turnout and new voter registration this year, there should be no possibility that there are less votes than even in the 2020 election.

Sources (working on finding more links but if anyone wants to add info, it’s appreciated):

FBI addressing Russian interference and bomb threats:

Emails released by Rachael Bellis (private account, can’t share original tweet) confirming Trump committing election fraud:

Pennsylvania's Centre County officials say they are working with their ballot scanner vendor to figure out why the county's mail-in ballot data is "not being recognized when uploaded to the elections software:”

Wisconsin recount:

[ID:

Multiple screenshots and images.

The first is a screenshot with a link and information for contacting the White House directly regarding election fraud. The instructions include choosing to leave a comment to President Joe Biden directly and to select election security as the reason.

The screenshot then instructs people to include any or all of the following information in a paragraph as a comment to the president:

32 fake bomb threats were called into Democratic leaning poll places, rendering polling places closed for at least an hour.

A lot of people reporting their ballots were not counted for various reasons.

This all occurred in swing states.

This is too coincidental that these things happen and swing in his favor after months of hinting at foul play.

Directly state that an investigation for tampering, interference, fraud is required, not just a recount.

The second image is from the FBI Twitter account that reads:

The FBI is aware of bomb threats to polling locations in several states, many of which appear to originate from Russian email domains. None of the threats have been determined to be credible thus far. https://t.co/j3YfajVK1m — FBI (@FBI) November 5, 2024

The next four Gmail screenshots of an email sent to Rachael Bellis from Chris T. Spackman that read together as follows:

Dear BELLIS, RACHAEL E., The Dauphin County Board of Elections received a challenge to your absentee ballot you applied for in the November 5, 2024 General Election. The challenge argues that a provision of the Pennsylvania Election Code takes precedence over the federal Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA), which requires states and counties to permit U.S. citizens who move overseas to vote by absentee ballot for federal offices based on their last U.S. residential address.

The full text of the challenge that was filed appears below this email.

You may respond to the challenge in any of the following ways:

1. Call the Bureau of Registration and Election at (717) 780-6360;

2. Email a statement to the Bureau at Election election@dauphincounty.gov. Any statement you submit regarding the period during which you lived in Dauphin County, any family or connections that you still have here, and why you are now residing abroad would be read into the record.

3. Appear in person at a Board of Elections hearing scheduled for Friday, November 8 at a time to be determined in the Commissioners Public Hearing Room, 4th floor of Dauphin County Administration Building, 2 S 20d St, Harrisburg, PA 17111. The meeting is also likely to be livestreamed on Facebook on the Dauphin County channel.

Sincerely,

Christopher T Spackman

TEXT OF CHALLENGE BEGINS

Dear Dauphin County Board of Elections,

I am submitting this challenge to an absentee ballot application pursuant to 25 Pa. Stat.

3146.8(f).

25 Pa. Stat. 3146.8(f) Any person challenging an application for an absentee ballot, an absentee ballot, an application for a mail-in ballot or a mail-in ballot for any of the reasons provided in this act shall deposit the sum of ten dollars ($10.00) in cash with the county board, which sum shall only be refunded if the challenge is sustained or if the challenge is withdrawn within five (5) days after the primary or election. If the challenge is dismissed by any lawful order then the deposit shall be forfeited. The county board shall deposit all deposit money in the general fund of the…

The rest of the forwarded email is cut off.

The last image is a screenshot of the official statement from the Centre County, Pennsylvania Board of Commissioners released on November 6, 2024 that states:

Centre County Working with Ballot Scanner Vendor to Export Election Results.

(Bellefonte, PA) -Centre County Elections Office is working continuously to provide mail-in ballot data in order to post unofficial results.

To this point, all ballots have been scanned, including all mail-in ballots.

Centre County's Election team and IT team have identified that the data are successfully being exported from the mail-in ballot scanners, but that the data is not being recognized when uploaded to the elections software.

Centre County's Administrator, John Franek, Jr. stated, "We have not stopped working, and we will continue to work until unofficial results are posted and reported to the Pennsylvania Department of State."

As a next step, Centre County has begun working with the equipment vendor to adjust configurations to make the two systems-the mail-in ballot scanner and the elections software where data are uploaded -compatible with one another.

We will provide updates as we make progress.

/end ID]

[cleoselene]

Did you know?

Democrats have won the popular vote in seven out of the last eight presidential elections going back to 1992? The only time the GOP has won the popular vote in the last 36 years in a presidential election was in 2004, and it was a pretty narrow margin. This was a wartime election and the first election post-9/11. The Democratic candidate was the unfortunately uninspiring John Kerry, who had been lied about. You know how in politics we say someone has been "swiftboated" when a successful lie is told about them? That term originates with the 2004 election because a bunch of people concocted an elaborate lie about John Kerry's military service. He wasn't super inspiring as a candidate, but that was the worst thing he did. He wasn't a bad guy. He was just running in a very gross, jingoistic time after the worst terror attack in American history, and had a bunch of successful lies told about him to the point where a whole word about a specific kind of lie was invented about it. THIS is the only time since 1988 that the Republican party has won the popular vote. George W. Bush did not win the popular vote in 2000. The Supreme Court ordered that votes stop being counted in Florida and handed the victory to Bush.

Donald Trump has never ever won the popular vote. The electoral college handed him the victory in 2016, less than 15,000 votes across three states decided the election. Hillary Clinton in total won about 3.7 million more votes than Donald Trump. Trump HATES hearing this number. He hates even more that Joe Biden got about 7 million more votes. He hates even more that you bring up the fact that he lost his midterm elections for his party in 2018, badly. And that the "Red Wave" in 2022 did not happen because of backlash at his Supreme Court. Or that in 2023 voters continued to reject his Supreme Court at the polls.

He knows, the Republicans know, that if more people vote, they lose. They don't want small d democracy. They want authoritarianism. They want to suppress it.

So when you get cute about not wanting to vote, you're not doing activism. You're surrendering.

[qqueenofhades]

oh god is biden dropping out? i don't know what happens then

Jesus effing Christ.

Few thoughts:

The billionaire Democratic donors got their way, apparently. All I saw was that the big-dollar donors were secretly putting pressure on the rank-and-file Democratic elected officials (i.e. House and Senate) to denounce Biden or not get any more money, and other shameful backroom maneuvering to knife Biden. I will refrain (lol, no I won't) from speculating that billionaires of any political stripe feel threatened by Biden's increasingly progressive tax/wealth redistribution policies, and saw their chance after the bad debate performance to knife him. Because until further notice, I'm going to think that was the biggest factor.

I don't know if there's an actual health condition that made Biden agree it was the best time (in fucking July) to step down, but if this was an issue, there needed to be planning last year, at the earliest, to prepare for a new successor. I don't know what's going on. This is a clusterfuck on many, many levels.

However: it is true that this does change things and not necessarily only for the worse, as long as Harris is immediately confirmed as the new nominee and this stupid Democrats In Disarray nonsense, which is giving the media exactly what they want, is put to a fucking end. If Harris is also swept aside and the billionaire donors try to install their preferred "Centrist!!!" candidate (lol Manchin or some shit) with an equally antidemocratic closed-door Star Chamber convention, then yes, we're fucked. Because the Congressional Black Caucus and African American voters saw exactly what the rich white man billionaires were trying to do by torching Biden and then Harris, and they are not going to play ball with some Magical White Man replacement.

If Harris is immediately confirmed as the new nominee (and to the best of my knowledge Biden has endorsed her), then she has a chance of reinvigorating the race. There were a lot of Americans who did not want either Biden or Trump. I suspect they were fucking braindead, but so be it. Harris has apparently polled pretty and increasingly well in recent days (in some cases actually better than Biden) and again, there is no remotely small-d democratic alternative to her. The billionaire donors already trashed the duly elected (by the primary process) Democratic nominee. If they do the same to Harris, then yes. We will have Trump and there won't be any more democracy in this country on either side, because the Republican big-bucks donors will gleefully pick up where the Democratic big-bucks donors left off.

Jesus fucking Christ.

The message needs to be "Harris is Joe's successor, she is younger and already has four years of experience and is the only candidate." Anything else is a fucking gift from god to the Republicans, once more getting trashed after Trump's terrible RNC speech. Maybe she can then pick Whitmer or Shapiro (both popular and effective Democratic governors of swing states, MI and PA respectively) as a running mate, but the nominee has to be Kamala. There is no other fucking choice. This is already enough of a mess.

If that can happen, and the fucking donors can refrain from fucking it up, then... okay. It's not great, but it does change things. It makes the ticket younger. It makes it historic (first Black female president beating Trump would be amazing). It could reach people disenchanted with the current two-old-white-guys setup.

This is an incredible sacrifice on Biden's part and I only wish that I could believe he did it voluntarily, rather than being forced out by a small class of rich people worrying about his policies getting too progressive.

I wish him only the best and I recognize this decision was taken under extreme pressure. If we then lose to Trump, I hope everyone who forced Biden out burns in hell.

I was a diehard Biden supporter not because I loved the guy personally, but because he was the only choice for preserving democracy in America. The essential stakes of the election have not changed, even if the billionaires just knifed us in the fucking back, possibly to nobody's surprise, because R or D, they are not our friends.

Kamala is the only choice. I will now have to defend her as hard as I did for Biden. She needs to beat Trump. There is nothing else to it. If you think she can't, then you need to work at helping her do that. There is already enough calamity and doom. We do not have a choice. We cannot lose sight of what is at stake here.

Kamala Harris/Whitmer and/or Shapiro and/or Buttigieg 2024.

The end.

[ralfmaximus]

Two things — check that, three things — appear to have gone off the rails at the paper we used to call the Gray Lady. First, whoever is in charge of the paper’s polls is not doing their job. Second, whoever is choosing what to emphasize in Times coverage of the campaign for the presidency is showing bias. Third, the Times is obsessed with Joe Biden’s age at the same time they’re leaving evidence of Donald Trump’s mental and verbal stumbles completely out of the news. Let’s start right there. At a rally on Saturday night in Virginia, Trump confused Barack Obama, who left office seven years ago, with President Biden for the third time over the last six months. “Putin has so little respect for Obama that he’s starting to throw around the nuclear word,” Trump said, as his crowd of rabid supporters suddenly fell silent. “You heard that. Nuclear. He’s starting to talk nuclear weapons today.” You won’t find that verbal stumble and the crowd’s stunned reaction in the Times coverage of the campaign over the weekend. You’ll have to read other publications — for example, Salon or maybe the Guardian — if you want to learn how often Trump is losing his way mid-sentence at rallies and just mumbling incoherently.

The article also explores a recent Times poll favoring Trump that is so insanely, obviously inaccurate that it reads like parody.

The NYT is definitely in the bag for Trump, same as 2016.

[reasonsforhope]

THANK FUCKING GOD

"The Supreme Court on Thursday [June 13, 2024] unanimously preserved access to a medication that was used in nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the U.S. last year, in the court’s first abortion decision since conservative justices overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago.

The nine justices ruled that abortion opponents lacked the legal right to sue over the federal Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the medication, mifepristone, and the FDA’s subsequent actions to ease access to it. The case had threatened to restrict access to mifepristone across the country, including in states where abortion remains legal.

Abortion is banned at all stages of pregnancy in 14 states, and after about six weeks of pregnancy in three others, often before women realize they’re pregnant.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was part of the majority to overturn Roe, wrote for the court on Thursday that “federal courts are the wrong forum for addressing the plaintiffs’ concerns about FDA’s actions.”

The opinion underscored the stakes of the 2024 election and the possibility that an FDA commissioner appointed by Republican Donald Trump, if he wins the White House, could consider tightening access to mifepristone, including prohibiting sending it through the mail...

Kavanaugh’s opinion managed to unite a court deeply divided over abortion and many other divisive social issues by employing a minimalist approach that focused solely on the technical legal issue of standing and reached no judgment about the FDA’s actions...

While praising the decision, President Joe Biden signaled Democrats will continue to campaign heavily on abortion ahead of the November elections. “It does not change the fact that the right for a woman to get the treatment she needs is imperiled if not impossible in many states,” Biden said in a statement...

About two-thirds of U.S. adults oppose banning the use of mifepristone, or medication abortion, nationwide, according to a KFF poll conducted in February. About one-third would support a nationwide ban...

More than 6 million people [in the U.S.] have used mifepristone since 2000. Mifepristone blocks the hormone progesterone and primes the uterus to respond to the contraction-causing effect of a second drug, misoprostol. The two-drug regimen has been used to end a pregnancy through 10 weeks gestation...

Biden’s administration and drug manufacturers had warned that siding with abortion opponents in this case could [have] undermined the FDA’s drug approval process beyond the abortion context by inviting judges to second-guess the agency’s scientific judgments. The Democratic administration and New York-based Danco Laboratories, which makes mifepristone, argued that the drug is among the safest the FDA has ever approved."

-via AP, June 13, 2024

--

Note: A massive relief and a genuine victory - this will preserve access to the medication used in 2/3rds of abortions last year, for at least another 2 years. (Probably minimum time it will take Republicans to get their next attempt before the Supreme Court.)

Still, with this, a sword that has been hanging over our heads for the last two years is gone. There will be a new one soon, but we just bought ourselves probably at least 2 years. The fight isn't over, but this is absolutely worth celebrating.

[booasaur]

I think there are some takeaways here, if we want to learn from this.

First: third-party voters were irrelevant. In no swing state did left-leaning third-party voters add up to enough to push Harris over.

Second: many progressive policies and politicians outperformed Harris.

Third: appealing to Republicans did not work.

It has never worked, in the US or in Europe, we've seen time and again that giving ground to right wing policies only legitimizes them and voters then prefer the original. For example, if you worry about immigration, and both sides are saying it's a problem, who do you trust more to handle it?

Fourth: polls were pretty accurate. There were months, years, really, of debate about polling being broken, which demographics were underrepresented, which were overrepresented, herding, hopes that they were overcorrecting for the last two misses on Trump, but they ended up closer than anybody wanted. Which also means that Biden would have lost by even worse.

Fifth: on the one hand, people should hopefully see this graphic and realize there's no minority to scapegoat:

On the other hand, I'm seeing a lot of people take it as a sign the country has simply shifted to the right in a huge, undeniable way that's depressing and ominous and feels hopeless. After all, Trump will win the popular vote by a lot, the first time a Republican has in decades.

However, this should be taken in conjunction with these numbers:

Now THIS is something that's open to further analysis and that can be worked with.

Why did so many Democrat voters not show up?

Here are some potential reasons for this, the truth most likely being a combination of at least several of them:

She's a Black-Indian woman. There's no denying the racism and misogyny among the US electorate, but given earlier polls where she was leading, I don't think this was the main or certainly only reason.

She was seen as too progressive/leftist. Again, by virtue of our racist, misogynistic electorate and our billionaire-owned media, Harris was seen as too extreme left by a lot of people, not just because of policies, but because inherently, her identity itself is extreme left to them. I personally don't think this was a crucial factor because, again, she had been leading when she was going stronger on the progressive messaging, other progressive policies and politicians outperformed her, and a lot of the people who think she's too extreme are Republicans who'd never vote for her. I just don't think it's a good enough reason for the millions of Democrats who didn't show.

Palestine. There's a coalition of pro-Palestine people, not just Muslims and Arab Americans but leftists and other POC too, but numerically, their vote for third parties made no difference. Did enough shift to Trump or not show up at all? Certainly in Michigan they swung to the right, but would that have made a difference? Did they matter in other less tangible ways, e.g., a lot of the same active progressives who'd have been out campaigning simply voted quietly for Harris and left it at that? How much of a distraction was this for Dems, having to constantly address Gaza as opposed to putting forth their own policies, and did it contribute to the overall perception of them being incompetent and weak and bringing chaos when people were tired of it? I think Palestine did have an effect, but enough to swing it overall...?

Not being progressive enough. A lot of people will point to Palestine and immigration, the decision to campaign with Liz Cheney and Mark Cuban and court Republican moderates, stifling Walz, and various other shifts that abandoned the left for the center and then the left didn't show up while the center went for Republicans as they always do, but the left isn't that large. I think, if this one point is a factor, it's more that it was simply difficult for normal voters to show up when they didn't really know what the candidate stood for, aside from "more of the same" and "not Trump".

Biden. When you have a ton of people unhappy with where the country is going, including their biggest priority, the economy, being tied to an unpopular incumbent was going to be tough, especially when, as a Black-Indian woman, she would be judged as disloyal if she broke too much from him. Nevertheless... People were unhappy with him and his administration.

Ultimately, I think there's a lot to learn and I hope Dems will.

I think we're in for a tough time and we're going to need community and solidarity, not fighting among ourselves.

[robertreich]

No Labels Isn't What It Claims to Be

The “No Labels” Party is not what it pretends to be. It’s a front group for Donald Trump.

Now I understand, if you’re sick of the two major parties, you might be intrigued by a party that claims to be a “common sense” alternative that finds the middle ground.

But if you or anyone in your life is planning to vote for No Labels — or any third party — in 2024, please watch and share this video first.

Here are three things you need to know.

First, No Labels is a dark money group with secret far-right donors. Investigative reporting has revealed that they include many of the same Republican donors who have pumped huge sums of money into electing candidates like Trump and Ron DeSantis. They also include the rightwing billionaire Harlan Crow, who spent years secretly treating Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to a lifestyle of the rich and famous.

If the No Labels Party is backed by Trump donors, in an election where Trump is on the ballot, there’s actually a label we should give to “No Labels.” Clearly, they’re a pro-Trump group.

Second, the premise No Labels is based on — that Donald Trump and President Biden are at equally extreme ends of the political spectrum — is preposterous.

Trump has been impeached twice, found by a jury to have committed sexual assault, is facing 91 criminal charges in four separate cases — two of them in connection with an attempt to effectively end American democracy.

There is no “equally extreme” candidate as Trump!

Finally, the structure of the Electoral College means that as a practical matter, a third party only draws votes away from whichever major party candidate is closest to it. No third party candidate has ever won a presidential election.

And in this particular election, when one of the major parties is putting up a candidate who threatens democracy itself, we cannot take the risk.

Donald Trump has already tried to overturn one election and suggested suspending the Constitution to maintain power. It is no exaggeration to say that if he takes the White House again, there may not ever be another free and fair election.

Democracy won by a whisker in the last presidential election. Just 44,000 votes in Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin — less than one tenth of 1 percent of the total votes cast nationwide — were the difference between the Biden presidency and a tie in the Electoral College that would have thrown the election to the House of Representatives, and hence to Trump.

If candidates from No Labels— or any other third party, like the Green Party or the Libertarian Party —  peel off just a fraction of the anti-Trump vote from Biden, while Trump voters stay loyal to him, Trump could win the top five swing states comfortably and return to the Oval Office. And No Labels’ own polling shows they would do just that!

Let me be absolutely clear. Third-party groups like No Labels are in effect front groups for Trump in 2024, and should be treated as such.

The supposed “centrism��� No Labels touts is nonsense. There is no middle ground between democracy and fascism.

Please share this video and spread the word.

[zvaigzdelasas]

President Biden said that his administration is exploring whether he has the authority to shut down the southern border without authorization from Congress.[...]

"We're examining whether or not I have that power," Biden told Univision's Enrique Acevedo in an interview taped last week that aired Tuesday night.

"Some are suggesting that I should just go ahead and try it," Biden said. "And if I get shut down by the court, I get shut down by the court."[...]

Bipartisan legislation to give the president more resources and power to control the border failed earlier this year.

During his State of the Union, Biden defended the legislation and dared Republicans to defy former President Trump and help him fix it. Before the speech, Biden officials had been exploring how they could essentially close the border with Mexico by turning asylum seekers away if they cross illegally.[...]

For Democrats, there have been some warning signs that Biden is losing support with Latino voters.

In his first year in office, Biden held a 54-24 advantage over former President Trump, according to the latest Axios-Ipsos Latino Poll in partnership with Noticias Telemundo. That 29-point margin has dropped to 9 points, with Biden leading Trump 41-32.

10 Apr 24

[hungwy]

I thought I was going to have a normal day but I guess I spent about 6 hours looking at election data and exit polls. So here's my findings

This election we saw 17.4 million less votes than in 2020. Had those who voted in the 2020 election voted in 2024, Harris theoretically would've gained around 14.3 million potential votes from previous Biden voters, and Trump would've gained 2.3 million from previous Trump voters. But she in fact seemed to have lost a great deal of Biden's voter base, having only 67.2 million votes compared to Biden's 81.3 million. The 14 million "lost" Biden votes did not go to Trump either--he has had a consistently sized voting base in both elections, which in fact shrank from 74.2 million to 71.8 million this election.

More than likely, previous Biden voters simply sat out this election due to dissatisfaction with the candidates. A smaller pool of voters with less amounts of Democrats voting of course results in a larger pool of votes for Trump (in fact, both Trump and the Independents had less votes overall in 2024 than in 2020). Considering the split of the popular vote this election, Harris 2024 was as unpopular as Trump 2020, and Trump 2024 was as popular as Biden 2020. It seems Harris failed to pull in any new voters. In both years those with previous voting experience were basically split evenly between the two candidates, making new and inconsistent voters the decision-makers: In 2020, 14% of voters said that 2020 was their first year they had voted, and 64% of those new voters opted for Biden. In 2024, 8% of voters were new, and they generally opted for Trump at 54%. Many new voters in 2024, young people, are more conservative than voters of the same demographic in 2020, 36% voted for Trump in 2020, with 42% now for Trump 2024. There were many Hispanic/Latino voters this year as well: In 2020, the demographic voted 32% for Trump, rising up to 45% in 2024.

Looking at voting issues for Trump supporters, it is clear they feel their financial well-being was weakened by Biden and that they want a leader who will enact big changes to the economy, immigration, and foreign policy, all of which are Trump's main talking points (and perhaps these specific concerns came to be important because Trump mentioned them, who knows). The Democratic Party opting for a more moderate candidate like Harris, who offered the same policies as the last president, consequently could not tap into the economic concerns of Trump voters.

Exit polls from the 2024 presidential election

[macleod]

The United States is about to embark on an experiment inspired by one of the New Deal’s most popular programs. On Wednesday, the Biden administration authorized the creation of the American Climate Corps through an executive order. The program would hire 20,000 young people in its first year, putting them to work installing wind and solar projects, making homes more energy-efficient, and restoring ecosystems like coastal wetlands to protect towns from flooding. ¹

Rep. Joe Neguse, a Colorado Democrat, said the program should pay “a living wage” while offering health care coverage and other benefits. ²

There are plans to link it with AmeriCorps, the national service program, and leverage several smaller climate corps initiatives that states have launched in California, Colorado, Maine, Michigan, and Washington. The White House also launched a new website where you can sign up to get updates about joining the program. ¹

The American Climate Corps is an interagency partnership between AmeriCorps, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Departments of Labor, Interior, Agriculture, and Energy.³

Reviving the Civilian Conservation Corps is widely popular, with 84 percent of Americans supporting the idea in polling conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication last year. ¹

¹ Grist, Sep. 20ᵗʰ 2023 ² Boston, Sept. 21ˢᵗ. 2023 ³ AmeriCorps, Sept. 20ᵗʰ 2023

[qqueenofhades]

Leaving aside possible reversals, disasters, doom & gloom, can we take a moment to savor the Trump meltdown over Harris/Walz and the momentum that makes a possible blue tsunami seem an entirely plausible outcome? I'd love to give you the space to ramble about it if you'd like, as my current fandom at least for the moment has shifted back to US politics (but not, for the first time in a while, to doom scrolling politics!).

Aha, I feel as I have probably already said most of my current thoughts, but here are a few things that really make me desire a heaping helping of butt-whooping blue wave in November:

The state that has had the most volunteer sign-ups since Harris took over the ticket? Fucking Florida, with over 18,000. The Villages, formerly a hotbed of Trump support (and y'know, probably still is), also had a major pro-Kamala event, and she is allegedly up 15 points in Miami-Dade (after Biden won the county by 7% and lost the state only by 3%). Now, we all know that Obama won Florida twice, but it has become such a symbol of retrograde Trumpian/DeSantisian politics that winning there would be literally seismic. I'm not going so far as saying that it's in PLAY play, but let's just hold onto that happy, happy idea.

Likewise the poll I mentioned the other day, where Trump is struggling to break 50% in Ohio, once a swing state and now also reliably red. The fact that this is Vance's home state and he's dragging the ticket down every single time he opens his mouth, thus offering the smallest sliver of hope that Ohio (which DID legalize abortion and weed by major margins last year) could also go blue? Incredible. Amazing. Showstopping.

Harris is also tied with Trump (46%-46%) in North Carolina and there is a lot of chatter about how the terrible GOP governor candidate could give a boost to Democratic turnout statewide.

The Mormons have apparently announced their intention to abandon (or at least support much less than they usually do) the Republican presidential ticket in 2024. Remember when Obama won Indiana in 2008? In my wildest dreams, I imagine Utah going blue in 2024. It won't but shh.

Basically, where we were braced for another agonizing nail-biting grind-it-out three-day election determined by a few thousand votes in key states (because etc etc the Electoral College sucks) we are now looking at the very real possibility that Harris wins at least one state, and possibly more, that Biden didn't, and which have been seen as out of reach for Democrats since Trump came on the scene. I don't think I need to counsel anyone against complacency, because we're all too damn scared for that, but yeah. Polls, even the good-looking ones that we like, don't vote. They are still skewed and subjective and do not represent the actual reality, whatever that may end up being. The Republicans and the media will be trying their absolute goddamnfuckingest to ratfuck us again in the 80-something days that remain, but:

WE CAN DO THIS, WE WILL DO THIS, WE MUST DO THIS.

WHAT IS THIS.... JOY SCROLLING? FOR AMERICAN POLITICS? IN THE YEAR 2024 WITH DONALD TRUMP ON THE TICKET FOR THE FUCKING THIRD TIME?

UNPOSSIBLE.

[batboyblog]

https://www.tumblr.com/batboyblog/763234650399424512/the-recent-chappell-roan-thing-is-why-i-absolutely

I frankly also get the impression that a lot of these people genuinely think another Trump term will just be “business as usual” or “it’ll only hurt the people who deserve to suffer” and that they’ll just be able to hide away from the consequences for four years before someone comes along and fixes the mess for them and they get to benefit.

I don’t think they have any realization of just how bad this is gonna get the second time around, because the first time Trump was metaphorically behind a chained fence and held back by strong rope. This time he’s being let loose alongside his fascist theocratic friends.

I've puzzled about this for some time, because like do people honestly not remember what it was like? what those 4 years were like? the fear, the chaos, the national embarrassment. Every day waking up and going "oh god! what did he DO! while I was asleep!" and how often you'd wake up to some story that he'd tweeted something scary and dangerous at 4am. I believe him threatening to nuke North Korea (the "Fire and Fury" tweet) was one of those very early AM specials that we all woke up to.

I mean for people like Chappell, its hard to remember, but Trump has been the more or less national main character for 9 years, since the fall of 2015. I mean an 18 year old first time voter could have been 8 years old when Trump came down the gold escalators told us all that Mexicans were rapists and he was running for President. So for anyone under 30, Trump is normal since every election they've been able to vote in, he's been the Republican nominee. I've spent 9 years of my life, across 5 elections fighting Trump directly or indirectly. Depressing thought that.

but past that there's been a national effort to gaslight us all into thinking "yeah no it was normal" I mean I remember the media coverage of 2017, the first year or so of Trump's Presidency, every few weeks or so there'd be some "is it time for the 25th amendment now?" story about if Trump's weird behavior this time for his cabinet to step it and remove him. (A quick google turned up CNN Oct 2017, New York Times May 2017, The Guardian July 2017, and Vox February 2017) compare that to coverage today? The term "Sane-washing" has been coined where when Trump says something bonkers it gets characterized as "sometimes meandering" rather than "incomprehensible" and "worrying"

figures in the media have gone so far as to claim there's just no point to covering new Trump scandals because "they won't move the needle" which really should not be a journalist standard. And we see that they do, take North Carolina's Mark Robinson. Caught in a massive scandal, involving sex, porn, and being a Nazi, he's now down massively in the polls after nation wide coverage. Trump just had new court documents opened that showed he wanted a riot on January 6th, that his reaction to a mob threatening the life of his Vice-President was "so what?" and they he knew full well that he had lost but was going to "fight like hell" any ways. And its not much of a story, indeed I'm seeing more news about a NY Republican Congress having worn black face (new story today) than Trump's effort to over throw the government and kill Mike Pence.

past the media's gaslighting of course there's been a major and on-going campaign to effect how we see reality. I know that sounds very woo-woo, but to step back for second, most of what we know about the world is stuff people tell us, so you know Joe Biden is the President because other people have said so, most likely you've never met him or even seen him in person. Well as more and more people turn away from traditional media, and traditional media turns more and more to making of money by confirming the bias of people, it becomes easier and easier to slip things that are not real into "facts we are told". So for example "Joe Biden is President, and also in decline" there's never been any real evidence of that, but if on social media you are bombarded with it 4,000 times a day... you start to take it as understood wisdom.

people are also getting worse and worse at not just taking what they're told if it confirms biases they already have. Former Vice-President Al Gore wrote a book nearly 20 years ago now, called "The Assault on Reason" which had a ton of very interest neuroscience about the ways that moving images, TV he was talking about, by-pass the logic centers of the mind, the way we relate and trust someone talking to us in a way the written word does not. I can't help but reflect on that with the rise of TikTok and short form video as a "source of information" (lol)

any ways this is a long winded way of saying bad faith players, Republicans, left wing grifters, and agents of chaos, have been very good at flooding the zone all through the Biden Presidency with stuff "student loan debt" remember when that was SO! important SO big and Biden "not doing anything" (untrue) was the biggest deal? well yesterday his newest plan got unlocked in court and 3 out of every 4 people with loan debt will get relief.... oh you're just now hearing about that from me? huh... funny... I thought it was the number one issue and reason we should never trust Biden and the Democrats... weird....

but there have been other issues pushed up as THE! issue, its all misdirection, its all meant to get natural Democratic voters to feel frustrated, upset, and hopeless, and not to vote their interest. The world is a big complex multi moving machine, and anyone telling you that one issue either fixes every other issue or totally totally outweighs everything else and should for everyone, is most likely BSing you and doesn't have your best interests at heart.

and lets be clear, Trump is a Rapist he's a lot of things, traitor, racist, scumbag, criminal, scab, tax cheat, fraud, etc but for me any ways, I'm not gonna vote for a rapist to be President and if other people aren't gonna do everything they can to stop a rapist from being the President I don't want to hear how much they care about progressive issues.

[mariacallous]

It’s the most startling thing I’ve seen in this year’s presidential campaign – the astoundingly large gap between how young men and young women plan to vote this November. Among women under age 30, an overwhelming 67% plan to vote for Kamala Harris, while just 29% say they’ll back Donald Trump. But among young men, a majority – 53% – plan to vote for Trump, while 40% say they’ll support Harris, according to a New York Times/Sienna College poll. That’s an astonishing 51-percentage-point gender gap.

It’s easy to understand why so many young women favor Harris – she has an inspiring life story, champions reproductive freedom and would break the biggest glass ceiling of all by becoming the first female president. But I’m mystified why so many young men back Trump.

Many of them seem to like Trump’s machismo. They like that he talks tough. They see him as an icon of traditional manhood. But all this raises an unavoidable question: should Trump be looked to as an icon of manhood considering that he boasted of grabbing women’s genitals, was found liable for sexual assault and had an affair with an adult film star soon after his wife gave birth? That shouldn’t be anyone’s model of manhood.

Many young men seem to admire Trump’s king-of-the-jungle vibe: he roars, he bellows, he boasts that no one can ever beat him (unless they cheat). But when you cut through Trump’s tough talk and look at the record, it becomes clear that Trump did very little for young men in his four years as president.

Whoops, I should note that if you’re a young man making more than $1m a year, Trump did do a lot for you, thanks to his colossal tax cuts for the richest 1%. But for the more than 99% of young men who don’t make $1m a year, sorry, Trump didn’t do diddly for you, other than cut your taxes a wee bit, a tiny fraction of the tax cuts that he gave to the richest Americans.

I recognize that many young men feel uncomfortable about the Democratic party, partly because some Democrats unfortunately treat men as a problem – and sometimes as the problem. If the Democrats were smart, they’d see that young men – like every other group in society – have problems that they need help with, problems like affording a home, finding a good-paying job, obtaining health insurance, affording college and having enough money to raise a family.

Regardless of how you feel about Harris, the truth is that her policies will do far more for young men than Trump’s policies will. It’s not even close. She is serious about lifting up young men and young women, and she has plans to do so.

Unlike Trump, Harris will help with soaring rents and home prices. She has pledged to build 3m new homes to help drive down housing prices. In another big step to make housing more affordable, she plans to give a $25,000 subsidy to first-time home buyers. Unlike Trump, Harris is also attacking the problem of high grocery prices – she has promised to crack down on price-gouging at the supermarket.

For many young men, health coverage and high health costs are a problem. On those matters, Trump will only make things worse. He has repeatedly promised to repeal Obamacare. That would be a disaster for millions of young men and women because they would no longer be able to be on their parents’ health plan until age 26. What’s more, repealing Obamacare will push up healthcare prices.

Many young people complain about their mountains of student debt. Trump won’t help on that; he has condemned the idea of forgiving student loans. In contrast, Harris wants to expand Biden’s debt cancellation program, which is hugely popular with young Americans. What’s more, Trump backed huge cuts in student aid – a move that would make it harder for young people to afford college. Harris is eager to make college more affordable by increasing student grants. Not only that, she is looking to what Tim Walz, her running mate, has done as Minnesota’s governor. He has made Minnesota’s state universities and community colleges free for students from middle-class and lower-income families.

If you’re a young man frustrated by how little your job pays, you should know that Trump – doing a big favor for his corporate allies – did nothing to raise the $7.25-an-hour federal minimum wage. Harris strongly supports raising the minimum wage.

Trump has made two big promises to make your life more affordable. Without giving details, he says he will cut auto insurance prices nationwide in his first 100 days in office. He also says he will cut energy and electricity prices in half during his first year in office. If you believe those far-fetched promises, then you’ll probably believe me when I say I have a bridge to sell you.

If you’re a young father or if you hope to have a family someday, you should know that Harris’s policies will do far more for you than Trump’s. Recognizing how expensive it is to raise a family, Harris has called for creating a children’s tax credit of $3,000 per child per year and $6,000 for a newborn.

To improve work-family balance, Harris has long pushed to enact paid family and medical leave so that people can take much-needed paid time off to spend with their newborns or care for sick parents or children. (Most Republicans oppose a paid leave law because their corporate donors oppose it.) Trump doesn’t have similar pro-family policies – his main policy proposals are huge tax cuts for corporations and the ultra-rich and large tariffs on imports that will dangerously push up inflation.

Although many young Americans don’t realize it, Biden and Harris have worked hard to create good-paying jobs for those who don’t go to college. Biden and Harris fought to enact three important pieces of legislation – an infrastructure bill, a green energy bill and a computer chips bill – that will create about 1m construction jobs, factory jobs and other jobs across the US, many of them unionized jobs with strong benefits.

If you’re one of the many young people at Starbucks, REI, Apple or elsewhere who support unionizing as a way to increase your pay and improve your working conditions, you should know that Harris is a strong supporter of unions and enthusiastically backs legislation to make it easier to unionize. But billionaire Trump dislikes labor unions. When he was president, he and his appointees did dozens of things, large and small, to weaken unions and create roadblocks for workers seeking to unionize.

There’s no denying that Trump’s tough talk makes many young men feel good. But tough talk is cheap. It won’t help anyone pay the rent, afford college or raise a family. Harris doesn’t talk as tough as Trump, but her record and her policies make undeniably clear that she will do far more for America’s young men and women than Trump will.

I don't agree with every point he makes here, and I also don't think a lot of young men are voting based on rational and objective things like whose policies will benefit them most. But I still thought this was an interesting read.

[reasonsforhope]

"A record number of early votes have been cast in Georgia on Tuesday [October 15, 2024] as residents headed to the polls in a critical battleground state that is grappling with the fallout from Hurricane Helene and controversial election administration changes that have spurred a flurry of lawsuits.

More than 328,000 ballots were cast Tuesday [October 15, 2024], Gabe Sterling of the Georgia secretary of state’s office said on X. “So with the record breaking 1st day of early voting and accepted absentees we have had over 328,000 total votes cast so far,” he said.

The previous first day record was 136,000 in 2020, Sterling said.

The swing state is one of the most closely watched this election, with former President Donald Trump trying to reclaim it after losing there to President Joe Biden by a small margin four years ago, leading Trump and his allies to unsuccessfully push to overturn his defeat.

Those efforts have loomed large this year as new changes to how the state conducts elections have been approved by Republican members of the State Election Board, leading Democrats and others to mount legal challenges, many of which have yet to be resolved even as Election Day nears.

Despite the massive turnout on Tuesday, the process appeared to go smoother this year for some Atlanta-area voters who spoke with CNN.

“Last time I voted, I voted in the city and the lines were out the door. They only had like, maybe like three people working,” said Corine Canada. “So people honestly just started leaving because it was like that. Yeah, like, ‘This is too long. I can’t sit here (and) wait, I have to go back to work.’ But here, no, it was easy.”

-via CNN, October 15, 2024

[chaosfish2775]

Everyone, voting is not the end of your contribution in this campaign. Anyone looking at the nonsense I’m posting was probably already going to vote. But there are people in your life who aren’t going to vote, and it’s your duty to your country to convince them otherwise. Get people registered to vote, get people informed on their options, and get people out to the polls on November 5th. Donald Trump has his base, and they’re more vicious than ever. You think those racist, fascist, MAGA idiots are going to sit at home twiddling their thumbs? No! They’re going to vote. So make sure that everyone in your life who doesn’t want to see this country go to absolute shit, again, is registered to vote, and will.

It’s not hopeless, it’s not over. Donald Trump won’t win if the sane, decent people of America actually go out and vote this year. His strategy in this election, as it has been in every election, is to energize his base. But the thing is, they’re already energized. And with Biden dropping out and Harris stepping in, the only real credible attack he had is gone. Now he’s not facing someone who’s 82 years old, now he’s facing someone who’s almost 2 decades younger than him. He attacks her laugh, because there’s nothing else. He lies, and says she’s further left than Bernie Sanders, because he’s grasping at straws. He’s pulling away from the debates, because he’s a life long felon, and she’s a prosecutor. Because she’s fought, and beaten, people who are exactly like him.

If we go out and vote, if we utilize our more important right as members of this country, Harris will win. So go out there, get people registered, get people to the polls when it matters. Spread the word, reach out to anyone you can, make sure your friends and family know how crucial this election is. Biden was right when he said this election will determine the next few decades, maybe even the rest of this century. For the US, for the world. Do you really want that future to be set up by Donald Trump?

We will not go back. We must roll up our sleeves. We will move forward. And on January 20th, 2025, Kamala Harris will be sworn in as the first woman President of the United States. Vote blue, vote Harris. 🇺🇸🥥🔵