Too Soon To Start Thinking About 2020? No, it's 2020!

[malchior]

100% likely that Stephen Miller wrote the notes for this speech.

Yup - I hate that he chuckles at his racist pablum.

[Smoove_B]

WTF? Ford was probably America's most famous antisemite and most successful racist, pouring huge resources into racist propaganda in the 1920s and 1930s.

Don't anyone doubt for a second that whoever wrote Trump's speech saying Henry Ford had "good bloodlines" knew Henry Ford wrote a pamphlet called "The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem." This is the gaslit dog whistling this White House does. It's dark, scary stuff.

[LordMortis]

We must be getting near. My skin is becoming thin and may be time to do what I did 2016. Start, checking out from social media. Which would really suck during a pandemic.

[Grifman]

I keep seeing comments like this:

I'm deeply worried about electoral shenanigans, and don't really know how to fully weight that, though I don't think that it's going to be easy for Trump to rig the election in his favor.

They'll suppress the vote and cook the results and SCOTUS will rubber stamp their gambit.

That presumes a fair election with no shenanigans

Geez, you all sound like some of my Trump loving friends on Facebook. I think this is crazy talk - just like I think theirs is crazy talk.
Look, sure the Republicans will try to suppress the vote, bu as distasteful as it is, that's normal politicking. Throw up a bunch of crap on the wall about Biden, try to lower any enthusiasm for him, and discourage people from voting. But both sides engage in this kind of stuff. They may try to further reduce voter rolls but it's sort of late for that at this point - most of that work has already been done to the extent it could be. They may try to reduce polling places or try to place other hurdles that are within the law for "reasons".

But you guys are all but talking about election fraud, and that's extremely hard to pull off. First off, elections are a state and local affair, not a national one. The votes can't be manipulated by the federal govt in any way. And state and local election boards are made up of Republicans and Democrats and are fiercely independent. Remember Trump's election fraud commission. They asked for all sorts of voter data from the states, and were uniformly told to go screw themselves by elections officials in blue AND red states. Nobody wanted the federal govt interfering in their bailiwick.

And how would this be done? Again, you have people of both parties in state and local govt, especially in the battleground states where power is often spilt between both parties. It would be very hard to manipulate the results at a state or local level and would require too many people.

Now, that said, here is what I do believe might, or is even likely to happen. Some battleground states or states will have trouble in some way or another with their process, especially with increased voting by mail. If Trump loses, i would not be surprised if he files a lawsuit contesting the results in those state(s), or forcing some kind of recount. But a lot of that depends on how badly he loses (if he loses) - if it is overwhelming, then there's no margin of error for him to work with. But he's so unpredictable, who knows. But talking about the election being "fixed" is only going to feed into the already conspiratorial mind of his followers - I'm already seeing signs of this.

[malchior]

I keep seeing comments like this:

I'm deeply worried about electoral shenanigans, and don't really know how to fully weight that, though I don't think that it's going to be easy for Trump to rig the election in his favor.

They'll suppress the vote and cook the results and SCOTUS will rubber stamp their gambit.

That presumes a fair election with no shenanigans

Geez, you all sound like some of my Trump loving friends on Facebook. I think this is crazy talk - just like I think theirs is crazy talk.
Look, sure the Republicans will try to suppress the vote, bu as distasteful as it is, that's normal politicking. Throw up a bunch of crap on the wall about Biden, try to lower any enthusiasm for him, and discourage people from voting. But both sides engage in this kind of stuff. They may try to further reduce voter rolls but it's sort of late for that at this point - most of that work has already been done to the extent it could be. They may try to reduce polling places or try to place other hurdles that are within the law for "reasons".

This post comes across like this is a normal election. It isn't 2008 or 2012. Wait those were crazy too. How about 2000? Nope Bush v. Gore. Our elections have been getting worse and worse. Even 2016 as crazy as it was may be seen as well-ordered compared to this one. There are a lot of risks and indicators that show that this one will be bonkers. They are setting up investigations, they've removed IGs to not have eyes on their schemes, they've set up even more voter suppression, they are attacking mail-in voting which likely will be critical this year, the Russians are in the wings, social media is going to make things even worse, and back to coronavirus we very well might have a major outbreak this fall.

But you guys are all but talking about election fraud, and that's extremely hard to pull off. First off, elections are a state and local affair, not a national one. The votes can't be manipulated by the federal govt in any way. And state and local election boards are made up of Republicans and Democrats and are fiercely independent. Remember Trump's election fraud commission. They asked for all sorts of voter data from the states, and were uniformly told to go screw themselves by elections officials in blue AND red states. Nobody wanted the federal govt interfering in their bailiwick.

This is where the disconnect is. It doesn't have to be election fraud. It is probably going to be the messiest election of our lifetimes. Maybe orders of magnitude more messy. That's the risk. Shenanigans isn't code for election fraud. It is the reality that the system is completely failing and things that were unimaginable happen *every day* now. Why is the election special?

Now, that said, here is what I do believe might, or is even likely to happen. Some battleground states or states will have trouble in some way or another with their process, especially with increased voting by mail. If Trump loses, i would not be surprised if he files a lawsuit contesting the results in those state(s), or forcing some kind of recount. But a lot of that depends on how badly he loses (if he loses) - if it is overwhelming, then there's no margin of error for him to work with. But he's so unpredictable, who knows. But talking about the election being "fixed" is only going to feed into the already conspiratorial mind of his followers - I'm already seeing signs of this.

Again, your point of view is way too narrow. He doesn't have to fix the election. They just have to smash more norms than you'd ever expect. They've shown they aren't afraid to do that. And we probably will come to realize that the experts on authoritarianism raising alarms for almost 3 years were maybe on to something. But it's all theoretical right now. Maybe it doesn't happen, this is an orderly election, and Trump quietly melts away. That just feels incredibly implausible at the moment.

[noxiousdog]

It's as simple as sowing enough confusion that it winds up in the hand of Trump appointed judges.

[Kraken]

It's as simple as sowing enough confusion that it winds up in the hand of Trump appointed judges.

And only in a handful of states.

[Kraken]

It's as simple as sowing enough confusion that it winds up in the hand of Trump appointed judges.

And only in a handful of states.

Michigan and Wisconsin are two of those. Here's a good opinion piece explaining the GOP's gambits there.

While McDonald noted that Trump and Republicans in Congress have little power to push back on election results once they have been certified and the electoral college has met, he suggested that the greater risk to a legitimate election comes not from Republicans in Washington making baseless claims about fraud in Michigan, but from those in a neighboring state with a notoriously gerrymandered legislature: Wisconsin.

“The larger threat … is a scenario where a state like Wisconsin is pivotal in the election results and the electoral college, and Biden has won Wisconsin, but the Republican legislature decides to override the results from the election and award the electors to Donald Trump,” he said adding that the Supreme Court’s majority opinion in Bush v. Gore noted that state legislatures have plenary power to decide how electors are appointed.

“If you're looking for a scenario where the results are somehow reversed from a Biden victory by allegations of irregularities in the election, that's probably the scenario you're looking at,” he added.

While McDonald posited that Michigan could also play host to such a scenario because of its “heavily gerrymandered” legislature, he stressed Wisconsin is the most likely candidate for such a power grab because of the lengths Republicans there have gone to stymie Democrats in the past, most recently by forcing voters to cast their ballots in person during the April primary election.

It’s also a state where Republicans have made no secret of their belief that voters in cities are illegitimate.

The GOP will not allow itself to be voted out of power unless the margins against them are overwhelming.

[YellowKing]

My prediction is that Biden's electoral college victory is going to be too overwhelming to deny. I think we're going to have some 2016 Trump states flip (like NC), which will be enough to put a fork in him. However, the above Wisconsin scenario is my biggest fear should the election be closer than I expect.

[Blackhawk]

Indiana did vote Obama in 2008.

[Holman]

Good news!

WaPo: Federal judge guts Florida law requiring felons to pay fines before they can vote

A federal judge has gutted a Florida state law requiring felons to pay all court fines and fees before they can register to vote, clearing the way for thousands of Floridians to register in time for the November presidential election.

The law, critics said, had made it virtually impossible for most felons to register, either because of an inability to pay or because the state offered no way for them to know what they owed or whether they had already paid.

U.S. District Judge Robert L. Hinkle agreed, likening the restrictive legislation to a tax and concluding that the state had not created a system that would allow felons to identify their financial obligations.

“The Twenty-Fourth Amendment precludes Florida from conditioning voting in federal elections on payment of these fees and costs,” he wrote, referring to the constitutional amendment that bans poll taxes.

[Kraken]

More scenarios about White House election theft.

In October, President Trump declares a state of emergency in major cities in battleground states, like Milwaukee and Detroit, banning polling places from opening.

A week before the election, Attorney General William Barr announces a criminal investigation into the Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden.

After Biden wins a narrow Electoral College victory, Trump refuses to accept the results, won’t leave the White House, and declines to allow the Biden transition team customary access to agencies before the Jan. 20 inauguration.

Far-fetched conspiracy theories? Not to a group of worst-case scenario planners — mostly Democrats, but some anti-Trump Republicans as well — who have been gaming out various doomsday options for the 2020 presidential election. Outraged by Trump and fearful that he might try to disrupt the campaign before, during, and after Election Day, they are engaged in a process that began in the realm of science fiction but has nudged closer to reality as Trump and his administration abandon longstanding political norms.

The anxiety has intensified in recent weeks as the president continues to attack the integrity of mail voting and insinuate that the election system is rigged, while his Republican allies ramp up efforts to control who can vote and how. Just last week, Trump threatened to withhold funding from states that defy his wishes on expanding mail voting, while also amplifying unfounded claims of voter fraud in battleground states.

“In the eight to 10 months I’ve been yapping at people about this stuff, the reactions have gone from, ‘Don’t be silly, that won’t happen,’ to an increasing sense of, ‘You know, that could happen,’” said Rosa Brooks, a Georgetown University law professor. Earlier this year, Brooks convened an informal group of Democrats and never-Trump Republicans to brainstorm about ways the Trump administration could disrupt the election and to think about ways to prevent it.

But the anxiety is hardly limited to outside groups.

Marc Elias, a Washington lawyer who leads the Democratic National Committee’s legal efforts to fight voter suppression measures, said not a day goes by when he doesn’t field a question from senior Democratic officials about whether Trump could postpone or cancel the election. Prodded by allies to explain why not, Elias wrote a column on the subject in late March for his website — and it drew more traffic than anything he’d ever published.

But changing the date of the election is not what worries Elias. The bigger threat in his mind is the possibility that the Trump administration could act in October to make it harder for people to vote in urban centers in battleground states — possibilities, he said, that include declaring a state of emergency, deploying the National Guard, or forbidding gatherings of more than 10 people.

Such events could serve to depress or discourage turnout in pockets of the country that reliably vote for Democrats.

“That to me is the frame from which all doomsday scenarios then go,” he said.

To ward off such a scenario, Elias is engaged in multiple lawsuits aimed at making it easier to cast absentee ballots by mail and making in-person voting more available, either on Election Day or in the preceding weeks.

Biden, for his part, has suggested more than once that Trump might try to disrupt or delay the election. And his campaign grew very concerned this month when it was announced that election security briefings, which in past cycles had been delivered to candidates by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, would now be the province of the director of national intelligence. That post is currently held by John Ratcliffe, a Trump ally who was confirmed to the position Thursday.

“Since 2016, Donald Trump has shown that he is always ready to sacrifice our basic democratic norms for his personal and political interests,” said Bob Bauer, a Biden senior adviser who is a lawyer for the campaign. “We assume he may well resort to any kind of trick, ploy, or scheme he can in order to hold onto his presidency. We have built a strong program to plan for and address every possibility to ensure that he does not succeed.”

Trump has said he expects the election to be held Nov. 3 as scheduled, and under federal law he does not have the power to postpone it. But a comment by the president’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner about whether the election would be held as scheduled — “I’m not sure I can commit one way or another,” he said — renewed fears that Trump would try to move the election or discredit the process if he thought he was going to lose.

Trump’s campaign derided the anxiety over the election as irrational hand-wringing driven by Democrats’ inability to accept his victory four years ago.

Brooks’s group at Georgetown is not the only one forecasting doomsday scenarios for the election. Ian Bassin, executive director of Protect Democracy, a nonprofit group dedicated to resisting authoritarian government, last year convened the National Task Force on Election Crises, a bipartisan 51-member group dedicated to envisioning scenarios that could wreck the presidential election.

The task force sees eight potential calamities, including natural disasters, a successful foreign hack of voting machines, a major candidate’s challenging the election and seeking to delegitimize the results, and a president who refuses to participate in a peaceful transfer of power.

“We hope there are safeguards in place,” said Norman Ornstein, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who participated in the task force. “Let’s face it, those safeguards ought to include the Senate of the United States and the Justice Department. There’s reason to be nervous.”

[Skinypupy]

There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent. Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed. The Governor of California is sending Ballots to millions of people, anyone.....

....living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there, will get one. That will be followed up with professionals telling all of these people, many of whom have never even thought of voting before, how, and for whom, to vote. This will be a Rigged Election. No way!

Provide one - just one - piece of evidence that there has been widespread voter fraud in any state that has done mail-in ballots. Just one. Ever.
Yeah, didn't think so.

And, of course, the MAGAs will crow about how patriotic Trump is, without ever realizing the irony that he is trying to do literally the least patriotic thing imaginable: take away people's right to vote.

[Zarathud]

Donald Trump votes by mail. Why can’t you?

[YellowKing]

That is terrifying language coming from the freaking President. Sounds like something you'd hear from some third world dictatorship.

[Paingod]

Biden should Tweet "When I'm elected President, any funding that's being held hostage to states that want voters to use well-known and reliable methods, like mail-in ballots, will absolutely have that funding restored and increased."

In all honestly, I'd love there to be some method to make voting at least a little compulsory or tempting. Even a $10 kickback on tax returns for being a proven voter might be enough to get people to go and check a box or two.

[malchior]

That is terrifying language coming from the freaking President. Sounds like something you'd hear from some third world dictatorship.

Our nation is feeling pretty third world lately. We may soon find out if its a dictatorship.

[El Guapo]

That is terrifying language coming from the freaking President. Sounds like something you'd hear from some third world dictatorship.

Our nation is feeling pretty third world lately. We may soon find out if its a dictatorship.

Way back in 2015 Trump was already reminding Trevor Noah of African dictators.

[Isgrimnur]

In what can only be described as blindness to irony, my back yard neighbors are flying a Trump 2020 flag out back, subtitled No More Bullshit.

[RunningMn9]

In what can only be described as blindness to irony, my back yard neighbors are flying a Trump 2020 flag out back, subtitled No More Bullshit.

I’ve got a clown in my neighborhood proudly flying that banner.

[Zarathud]

Add in a comma: No, more bullshit.

[Scraper]

In what can only be described as blindness to irony, my back yard neighbors are flying a Trump 2020 flag out back, subtitled No More Bullshit.

I’ve got a clown in my neighborhood proudly flying that banner.

I've got a bunch of those in my area. A new one I'm seeing pop up is a flag with Trump dressed like Rambo holding an M60 in front of the flag. The irony of dressing Trump like a Vietnam era super hero is lost on them.

[Smoove_B]

100,000 dead Americans. One wrong president.

[malchior]

This small group is still running circles around the Democratic Presidential campaign's media strategy. It is frankly ridiculous how shitty the Democrats are at politics.

[Default]

Donald Trump votes by mail. Why can’t you?

FWIW, on the telecom this morning, plans were to make over 100 new hires, that would all be laid off in September, along with everyone up to seven years of service, if we don't get some bailout cash.

I have thirty years in, so I would still be working, but my days would probably go from 10 to 16 hours to cover the slack, plus we will be bombarded by mail-in ballots. It would be a clusterfuck of biblical proportions, and the expected resurgence of Covid-19 would make this election a feast for conspiracy addicts, when my coworkers start having to recoup at home.

I don't feel hopeful at all that we as a country aren't being set up.

[El Guapo]

[Ralph-Wiggum]

I always find the ads that just use Trumps own words against him the most effective. Play those 24/7 for the next 5 months, please.

[LordMortis]

I always find the ads that just use Trumps own words against him the most effective. Play those 24/7 for the next 5 months, please.

I do too. But I am not the target. I also find that there is a wall, where using his own words means next to nothing for those that want to "The democrats are...."

[YellowKing]

I think Biden needs to hammer on the economy. 100,000 dead people you don't know doesn't mean anything. The fact you lost your job under Trump's watch does.

[Jaymann]

To put it in perspective in nine years of the Vietnam War the US suffered 282,000 deaths.

[malchior]

Trump claims massive mail-in ballot fraud in California

When challenged in the Oval Office by a reporter about how the tweet was incorrect, Trump doubled down and claimed that kids steal mail-in ballots and get them 'signed down the street'. He said the reporter can go read about it. No we can't. That has never happened. Ever. Kid summer activities: tag, camp, running through sprinklers, catching fireflies, election fraud. The man is beyond absurd.

[malchior]

Proof of life! Joe needs to get mad. Not Trump mad but righteous mad. Larry Kramer (RIP) level righteousness is just what the doctor ordered. The conduct by the police in Minnesota has been outrageous and the President is fanning the flames. We need him to step up and show everyone there is another path away from this absolute madness.

[malchior]

Based on events this week up to today what the heck is the Trump election strategy? He seems to have completely lost it. He won't talked about 100K dead from coronavirus. He won't talk about the George Floyd killing. He won't talk about the economy. He is sort of doing the rile up the base thing but it seems so half-hearted. This is sort of like seeing him in his Hitler in the bunker phase during impeachment except he is completely free to maneuver. It's bizarre.

[RunningMn9]

This small group is still running circles around the Democratic Presidential campaign's media strategy. It is frankly ridiculous how shitty the Democrats are at politics.

True. I also like that they are going after Moscow Mitch too.

[El Guapo]

Based on events this week up to today what the heck is the Trump election strategy? He seems to have completely lost it. He won't talked about 100K dead from coronavirus. He won't talk about the George Floyd killing. He won't talk about the economy. He is sort of doing the rile up the base thing but it seems so half-hearted. This is sort of like seeing him in his Hitler in the bunker phase during impeachment except he is completely free to maneuver. It's bizarre.

I worry a bit that he thinks images of mostly white police officers fighting with mostly dark skinned protesters, especially if they're violent, are good for him politically. I'm also worried a bit about the possibility that that might be correct.

[malchior]

I'm with you there but even that is pretty half-hearted by his standards. He has said some idiot things, picked some pretty useless fights, and sort of engaged. Like I said it's weird. He certainly looks and feels like a guy who has lost his mojo. That'd be awesome if it holds up.

[Ralph-Wiggum]

His whole shtick is to blame others for everything bad that is happening and try to get the narrative on to something that resonates with his base, which is why his speech today was all about WHO and China.

[YellowKing]

Based on events this week up to today what the heck is the Trump election strategy? He seems to have completely lost it.

Trump's never had an election strategy. Or any strategy at all. Everything we perceive as strategy is either something cooked up by his advisors or him making rash decisions that are so improbable that we have to imagine he must have a secret strategy just to make sense of it.

He is completely animal brain - in the moment, short-term, do the most immediate thing to fix what he perceives as the immediate problem, with absolutely no regard to the long term consequences or optics.

Donny's out of his element, and what we're seeing is someone who is just throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks.

I hate to admit it, but part of me gets some pleasure from watching this complete meltdown. It gives me hope that things will get so bad that he'll get trounced in November. The old adage "You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet" keeps running through my mind.

[malchior]

The problem is he got his mojo back because he felt his smallness again. When the walls are closing in on him coming into the election...he'll feel that smallness again and I fear what he'll do. That said, his strategy is clear - get his turnout up and I suspect keep theirs down by any means necessary. I stand by what I've been saying - this will be the worst election in American history.

[Kraken]

Remember that he phoned Putin before yesterday's declaration of war. His strategy is fear, chaos, and deflecting blame, and he's getting tips from a master.