I get all that, and I think the GOP realizes how close they are to a generation or two of minority rule, so there isn't much they won't do to make that happen. I just don't think there's much about the Biden campaign that merits criticism. He's leading in every poll. He up in almost all the swing states, and that includes GA. He's within the margin of error in TX. I'd love to see him up by twenty, but that isn't going to happen. He and his team have done a very good job so far.

You can add this kind of stuff to albion's list:

������Russian journalists have discovered data from Michigan voter data rolls—including the personal info of 7.6 million Michigan voters—on a Russian hackers’ platform. It also includes voter info from other swing states, including Florida and NC https://t.co/EIiWioTbkF

— Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) September 1, 2020

Yeah, voter suppression fuckery and voting hackery - those are the two giant wild cards more than anything else.

SI

My brain tells me that he has fucked this up so badly that the folks who elected him in 2016 aren't going to vote for him again. Fear tells me he's still going to win because he's going to cheat to do it.

At the very least, let's hope the Senate gets flipped. That way he can be impeached again and get convicted this time. No Senate to save his ass.

Have to be convicted by 2/3rds to be removed from office, though. And that's never going to happen.

SI

Then we're fucked. :(

Again, I think people take for granted that the electoral college will favor Trump. It might, but I don't think it's certain that will happen. The electoral college favored the Dem candidate in the three Presidential elections before 2016. The last two times it favored the GOP just happened to be when it was deciding for the election, so people remember that more.

Biden is certainly a better electoral college candidate than Hillary. His performance in the swing states during the primary is strong evidence of that. Now Trump could still have an advantage and win on an electoral/popular split if it gets really close. But I feel like it'd have to be a more narrow popular margin than Clinton had in 2016, since Biden will certainly outperform her in most of the swing states.

Talked to my parents last night and had to listen to the "big revelation" that only 6% of people who supposedly died from Covid actually died from Covid. I just can't engage with them, knowing the fights and eventual dissolution of our relationship that going down that rabbit hole (and broadly, Trump and all the lies, etc.) would cause. It's selfish, but I work hard to alleviate as much stress and drama from my life as I can, and this would be like pouring gas on the fire.

I missed Christopher Titus's Twitter rant yesterday. Damn. Not too surprising from him, but Jim Gaffigan's rant was unexpected.

I read something over the weekend about perspective, how the riots/protests aren't even as bad as 30 years ago, but it definitely feels like this country is unraveling.

Ugh, what makes me pound my head against the wall that these same people were the ones saying "well it really only kills folks with pre-existing conditions so most folks don't have to worry"... which is what this data says (ignore that a LOT more folks have pre-existing conditions than most people think).

Ya, not as bad as the L.A. Riots, and not close to as militant/violent as the far left activists of the late 60s who helped sweep Nixon into power.

Maybe it has the potential to go that way, but, I don't think so. It's kind of a longer-simmering thing where everybody has mostly found their roles, or are tweaking them. And there's so many more means of expression now.

I know. My wife and I get off calls with our parents and we just let crap like that go and then talk to each other and our kids about not engaging over stuff we disagree about. I honestly wrestle with wanting to confront them, but there would be no going back.

I've been saying it for months, but I am seriously dreading Thanksgiving. It's at our house every year and I just see the confluence of a prolonged fight over the election spilling over into everyone's living rooms in late November. It's kinda hard to tiptoe around it without stepping on a landmine.

I've always wondered what 1968 felt like. I don't think this is it but this is our version of it.

Then again, I stumbled across this Tweet last weekend, talking about what life was like under Nixon and this doesn't sound too dissimilar:
https://twitter.com/mattdpearce/stat...95947122184192

SI

Kerry was close to losing the popular vote and winning the EC.

If he had, then we would have had Bush over Gore while losing the popular vote followed right by Kerry over Bush while losing the popular vote.

That might have been enough for a bipartisan push to eliminate the EC.

Now, unfortunately, the fact that it "helps the GOP" is baked into the cake enough that I don't see Republicans every going along with eliminating it.

dola:

And who really knows who it helps. We have very different elections if the candidates from both parties are in Los Angeles, and NYC, and Dallas and Houston trying to get out the vote.

When we do a family thing like that we verbally tell everyone no politics.

This is fascinating given that nobody prominent has ever said, a series of mini-strokes.

It never ends! Now they are trying to say that your favorite President, me, went to Walter Reed Medical Center, having suffered a series of mini-strokes. Never happened to THIS candidate - FAKE NEWS. Perhaps they are referring to another candidate from another Party!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 1, 2020

Just tell them you're not doing Thanksgiving this year because of COVID and see what happens :p

SI

That's a fun confession by the President.

That would have the same effect as discussing politics. Things kinda changed about 5 years ago due to a particular incident I'm not going to publicly discuss, and it's been an unspoken silence between us over politics and certain related social issues every since. To come out and say "no politics" would essentially bring that divide out into the open and cause just as many issues.

Reminds me of the kid who murdered his father and told 911 he couldn't get into the room because the door was locked but that his father wasn't moving or breathing and was bleeding from the mouth. Um... you know that how?

https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/...950478849?s=21

Just another example of trump being willing to sacrifice others for his own political gain.

Interesting especially in that he is typically a very skillful communicator as a means of persuasion, specifically. It might not suit my temperament or priorities, but he is good at connecting with people, or at least certain kinds of people.

But based on what I think I know about proper messaging and persuasion, you never repeat the allegation as part of your denial. This seems like a blunder, to me. If you're going to reference what people are saying, or you want to insinuate that your rival has a health problem (much closer to the mark for him), then you make at most a veiled reference to bogus allegations, and then flip the script immediately. This puts too much emphasis on the specifics of the claim against you, poorly played.

Yeah Thanksgiving has become the "family holiday" for many of us here. It's now pretty much an uncomfortable holiday for me, as four of my six brothers (and 3 of 4 wives) are pretty staunchily in the Trump camp now. My mother who voted for Trump, now says she was wrong to do so, and is probably in the "Republicans against Trump" groups. The virus has one good thing with it-its kept us apart. Dread thinking what it will be like when we do get together for Thanksgiving in any capacity. Really going to insist on some ground rules before then-no political/current events/election talk, no putting down protesters from either side/no CNN/Fox/MSNBC on TV/phone, etc. I almost hope the virus keeps us apart then too.

For the last few years, when I have gone home to visit, we have a "no talking politics" and "no cable news on" rule.

It works really well.

I have one conservative relative, a brother, and everybody just ignores him when he says something and moves onto something else. It's kind of funny.

I work at a very politely apolitical office in terms of non-work conversation, but whenever someone says something remotely political I just channel the Sopranos and say, "ah well, what are you going to do?" That takes the steam out of that.

I do have friends that would say I'm utilizing my white privilege to avoid talking about politics at work and on social media, and supporting the oppression with my silence and whatnot, and I'm fine with that now. Bring on the privilege. I do my part my way.

If it's true, how many GOP insiders do you think were wishing really hard that the stroke would be bad enough that they would have no choice but to invoke the 25th Amendment. And to be able to do it in a way that did not come off as anti-Trump, but simply a reaction to an unfortunate incident.

I can picture Pence now: "Lord, as always, Thy will be done. But, seriously, how can this not be Your will, right?"

If Biden wins, I'm fucking coming to Thanksgiving with my car wrapped with the Biden logo.

r/oddlyspecific

SI

Who watched cable news on Thanksgiving? There's the parades, endless football, the dog show, movie marathons both Christmas and non-Christmas related. C'mon!

SI

You know the old saying, if you're explaning that your secret trip to the hospital wasn't really a stroke, you're losing.

I just got a routine roundup email from my LinkedIn account, and saw that a former county elected official I know has been re-posting the now viral articles saying that covid is overblown because its victims are technically dying of pneumonia, heart attacks, or other commingled symptoms obviously related to and accelerated by covid. Many are using this as a talking point that covid is "only 6%" of the totals.

Yes, he's a republican, so no shock that he's on Team Red. Why is it noteworthy? HE'S A FUCKING MEDICAL DOCTOR.

Good heavens.

There's a loooot of houses where it's just accepted that Grandpa gets his Fox News and no one ever changes that. You want to watch football, go into the other room commie.

I wish all I had to worry about was cable news. I'm afraid to put on the NBC Nightly News with my parents in the room without drawing at least some sort of under the breath comment or sharp look.

When they visited about a month ago, they asked what channel OANN was on DirecTV (for the TV in the basement where they were staying). I didn't even know DTV carried that channel. Unfortunately, it does.

Since I've been talking about my parents across a couple of threads, here's another - I wonder what the heck they think of Drudge Report? They love that site but it appears Drudge sees the writing on the wall.

Man, my parents can get bent if they want to complain about what I choose to watch for the news if they are in my home.

You're a better person than I am. That whole thing is a big part of the reason why I don't have long conversations, or really any interaction with my Dad and Step-mom. Were it not for blood relations there's only a small life for us to share now. We simply wouldn't be friends in any other situation.

My wife's parents are massive Trumpers (ironically in 2016 they were hold my nose and vote for Trump because they really preferred Rubio). Visiting for Thanksgiving 2 years ago I was told I could watch anything on the TV except for the NFL - this was because Kap kneeled. But they also didn't have cable, so no Fox News thankfully.

It really is like drug tolerance.

FoxNews isn't giving a strong enough hit anymore. So you switch to OANN.

My concern is that Democrats always seem far more concerned with winning over voters that don't exist instead of getting their base out to vote. I thought the convention was a terrible missed opportunity to build the party long term.

Yeah, no NFL because they didn't want politics in their... something?

SI

It's like they blamed the NFL for not firing Kap and Reed on the spot.

It helps that they've never been sports fans, so they could easily turn their ire onto something that didn't matter worth a damn to them.

I imagine that it is like fans when a favorite player decides to hold out or switch teams.

One day, you are naming your pets after him.

The next day, you are burning his jersey and going on social media to tell him you hope he blows out his knee.

I am sure Drudge is the same way. He has switched teams, so fuck that guy. Can you believe we ever used to take him seriously?

It's like that moment that hard core porn just isn't good enough and you need to really get freaky.

You're supposed to follow that up with "...or so I've heard" ;)

SI

That, and Trump has complained about Fox News a few times so it's time to get the purer stuff.

oh no someone is putting horse medecine fentanyl into the street drugs
the fentanyl is showing up in lots of supply chains
we're seeing fentanyl now in the bloodwork of most of our ODs
dealers are starting to tell people they've got fentanyl mixed in
people are demanding fentanyl in their stuff
people are asking for straight fentanyl
now there's carfentanyl thats much stronger than fentanyl
where do i get the super fentanyl

"Some people say....."

"They tell me...."

Susan Collins has become more Susan Collins than anyone thought possible.

dola

what if we just did all the corruption?