Trump

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

RE: Trump

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Three more blows to Trump's fantasy.

1) State and Federal authorities have stated for the record that there is no evidence of voter fraud (Sky News)

2) Trump's own chief of cyber security has told him that this was the "cleanest election ever". (Sky News)

3) The law firm in Pennsylvania that was representing Trump in his law suit has "withdrawn its services".

twitter.com/thehill/status/1327386773564125185

His race is almost run. He has nowhere else to go.

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Here we have a Republican Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, accusing a Republican Senator, Lindsey Graham, of trying to convince him to "toss legal ballots".

twitter.com/AmyEGardner/status/1328464861454622721

This is all getting very ugly in the USA and it is going to get worse.

indiana · Tennis legend

In the US, as new covid cases have been spirralling upwards, how many more American covid deaths will be down to Trump, as his lack of concession delays the transition to Biden and him getting the contacts and funds to progress his covid plans plus national security etc etc?!

I've read cases for 3rd degree manslaughter ( of thousands ) against Trump for his general covid response and this is just furthering it. More realistically a string of charges could be levelled at him on various fronts.

But in truth, if he'd just quietly disappear to his golf courses and hardly be seen in public again, most folk would probably take that. But that may be hope over experience with this man. He will no doubt try again for the presidency in 2024 if free to do so plus be background noise in the intervening years.

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indiana wrote:
In the US, as new covid cases have been spirralling upwards, how many more American covid deaths will be down to Trump, as his lack of concession delays the transition to Biden and him getting the contacts and funds to progress his covid plans plus national security etc etc?!

I've read cases for 3rd degree manslaughter ( of thousands ) against Trump for his general covid response and this is just furthering it. More realistically a string of charges could be levelled at him on various fronts.

But in truth, if he'd just quietly disappear to his golf courses and hardly be seen in public again, most folk would probably take that. But that may be hope over experience with this man. He will no doubt try again for the presidency in 2024 if free to do so plus be background noise in the intervening years.

No, they couldn't. If you stop trying to view it through a British lens, and assuming any self-similarity between the UK and US you'll get on much better with it.

Trump is not doing anything about it because his base want him to do nothing about it.
COVID in America is now just part of the culture war. Acceding, in any part, to the Democrats suggested containment measures would be betrayal. Even if it means Mid-Westerners have to die in their thousands needlessly, I have to tell you that half of the country would genuinely rather fill up the cemeteries than concede an inch to the Democrats.

For example, North Dakota yesterday reached the grim milestone that 1 in every 1,000 inhabitants has now succumbed to COVID. There is no natural reason that a large rural state with a very low population density should have such a bad outcome. They should be on par with their neighbours in Canada (1 in 3,419 at time of writing).
But North Dakota is very heavily Trump country (Trump took 65.1% of the vote with 99% of ballots counted), and they believe him. There are countless first-hand testimonies now of nurses and doctors in North Dakota saying that the people come in sick and when you tell them they have COVID they bawl you out and cuss you because they genuinely don't believe that it is real, because the President has insisted as much. They refuse treatment for COVID and demand to be treated for whatever real disease they actually have, belligerent to the last. The only time they seem to shut up is when, inevitably, they are intubated, and shortly thereafter when they die.

This is being repeated across the Mid-West, in States that should have no discernible problem containing the outbreak, such are their inherent geographical advantages.
But, containment, by any and every means, has been conflated as a Democrat idea/plot, and so is reflexively resisted.
No amount of death yet seen has swayed opinion here in these States. In fact, Triump's approval rating on the handling of the COVID pandemic has increased steadily since the summer, and took a big boost after he got it, and in particular, the performative virtue signalling way in which he stood on that balcony. Sorry to tell this, but that played great in rural America.
It's like Mitch McConnell and his gang said on the day of the 2008 election that saw Obama win; at a crisis meeting, they discussed how to handle what was a genuine shock and disaster to Republicans at the time. What they came up with was what the base wanted to hear: If he was for it, former Ohio Senator George Voinovich explained, "we had to be against it."
They will literally die before they concede to any 'Democrat' ideas or impositions, because to them those things are one and the same, for far more complicated and nuanced reason of long standing than I am relating here.

You just don't understand. All the things you are suggesting would virtually guarantee a civil war.

The result of the election is very clear and decisive. I still believe though that the Republicans may attempt to overturn this, and the way they have the concentration of power, I can see at least three routes where they stand an (utterly injust) chance to do so.

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If I Could Serve Id Have Been A Contender wrote:
I can see at least three routes where they stand an (utterly injust) chance to do so.

And, lo and behold, moves down one of those paths begins in earnest: refusal by GOP members to authorise the election results in Wayne County, Michigan

This is unspeakably bad, and ominous.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

If I Could Serve Id Have Been A Contender wrote:
If I Could Serve Id Have Been A Contender wrote:
I can see at least three routes where they stand an (utterly injust) chance to do so.
And, lo and behold, moves down one of those paths begins in earnest: refusal by GOP members to authorise the election results in Wayne County, Michigan
This is unspeakably bad, and ominous.

Am i correct, it now goes to michigan board to authorise over the heads of Wayne county? Will, could they also refuse?

If this happens en Masse , in effect democratic process is overthrown, trump wins?

Surely that makes the US a dictatorship? Surely that is against the constitution? Is there no provision for another vote in places that Trump tries to do this?

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My understanding of American electoral law is not deep enough to be able to say with any certainty the exact course of things, but the general idea is this:
If Trump can prevent enough districts from being certified, it eventually goes to the state legislatures to call the election, and a majority of the are GOP run. They would elect Trump, faithlessly - in contradiction of the results of their ballots.
That could be appealed to the Supreme Court, which is also GOP run, 6-3.

I won't pretend to know the exact details of the appeals process and layers of bureaucracy within Michigan electoral law.

What it does do though is set a precedent and provide even more ammunition to the GOP fever machine - "see it was so fraudulent, these good patriots couldn't in good conscience sign off for the first time in our nations history" etc etc etc
The tinder is already bone dry.

I mean it's all a long shot, but that they're making the moves at all is very bad news
As noted by an earlier correspondent here, Sen. Graham has been pretty openly interfering in other states elections and seeing how valid ballots might be discarded. Testing those waters. It's not just the electoral tampering that's an issue there. States are very independent, and normally take very great exception if Senators from another state attempt to lecture them or interfere in even trivial matters. That there is possible co-ordination in at least three states is also worrying.

Trump has also been quietly hollowing out the military and National Security apparatus this week and placing loyalists in many positions. That would influence military and police loyalty, for example. Trump is massively popular among Police at all levels - unsurprisingly as he encourages their worst excesses and completely indemnifies them from scrutiny.
Same is true in all branches of the military rank and file - officer classes are more evenly split, but overall the armed services, the police and other quasi military bodies (National Guard, Coastguard, DEA, INS etc) he has, last I looked, about 70-80% approval, should push come to shove.
Even whilst writing this, he's fired Chris Krebs at CISA!

On a happier note, for light relief, seek out accounts of Rudy Giuliani's appearance as a lawyer for the Trump campaign in court today.
Popehat, an old school Conservative/Republican is quite a good one, https://twitter.com/Popehat/status/1328850419385204736
Plenty of others were almost identical in their opinions of his lawyering and jurisprudential faculties.

indiana · Tennis legend

Even with my great lack of understanding I still fully anticipate Biden being inaugerated as scheduled in January. The majority of seasoned observers seem to think much of the ongoing is trying to save face rather than any genuine chance of Trump remaining in power. Slowly but surely his avenues are being being blocked off. Maybe one can get too close to things ...

However the transition or non transition so far is a disgrace, and I admit my surprise at how much support Trump continues to have, or largely lack of opposition, in the GOP hierarchy for his manoeuvres. The divide is indeed huge as has become a bit clearer to many of us.

By the way I don't know what I am supposedly suggesting ( that would virtually guarantee a civil war ). As I indicated, personally I'd prefer that he wasn't pursued through the courts but left to fall out of the limelight. Just him voluntarily disappearing from sight seems very unlikely.

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indiana wrote:
The majority of seasoned observers seem to think much of the ongoing is trying to save face rather than any genuine chance of Trump remaining in power.

None of the experts ever seem to state what exactly happens if, for example, say, Trump just refuses to leave the Whitehouse come January?

If he simply refuses to go, who exactly does anyone think will step in to make him?

You are relying on Police/Military to forcibly remove him. I'm not certain that they would carry out those orders. They are very Pro-Trump, even beyond the call of duty.

Even then you'd have pandemonium in the aftermath.

The commentators are again relying on checks and balances, and decency, the normal order of tradition. The things that were utterly irrelevant with Russia or Impeachment, or countless other melodramas, as they were all just swept aside whilst all anyone could meaningfully do was tut.

There are no checks and balances that apply to Trump. The more he tramples the norms or conventions, the more he upsets Democrats, the more his base love him and see him as both, 'draining the swamp' and winning the 'culture war'.

In many senses, being the self-avowed 'disruptor' here, he can't lose.

As ro the other question: any move in this direction: I've read cases for 3rd degree manslaughter ( of thousands ) against Trump for his general covid response and this is just furthering it. More realistically a string of charges could be levelled at him on various fronts. would all but guarantee a civil war, or at least armed conflict.

But again, the presumption that if he disappears to play golf America would somehow prefer that, is flawed. His base, essentially now 50% of the country as near as makes no difference, only want him to

preferably still in power, by any means
or else, attacking Biden (Liberals, Democrats etc) even more than he has done as President. Ten thousand times more. They wish that Trump would go further than he does, much, much, much further.

Anyway, enough for today. I wish you all a good day and an efficacious exit from the lockdown.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

I note all the negativity around the proportion of the population who can vote (233 million) and voted (154 million) (66%) and voted for Trump (72 million) and obviously it is an issue

However more people voted in 2020 than in 2016 (60.1%) (and the Democratics increased the size (62.5 million v 61.1 in 2016) of their win in terms of the popular vote from 1.4 to 6 million admittedly relatively inconsequential by USA standards but close to the entire population of Scotland. 61% turnout for Obama in 2008 was the highest since 1960.

So despite the Republican noise the trend is Trump mobilised more people to vote but an increasing majority not for him. The behaviour in North Dakota is interesting and attracts attention because it is the US at its most rurally isolated & polarised but places like Florida the Carolinas and Texas could be receptive to and benefit from a consolatory political approach. COVID vaccination strategy needs careful working out and the response will be fascinating

-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Thursday 19th of November 2020 11:01:39 AM

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

The Georgia recount has confirmed Biden as winner although this article suggests Trump could request yet another recount?

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/nov/19/joe-biden-president-georgia-recount

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Oakland2002 wrote:
I note all the negativity around the proportion of the population who can vote (233 million) and voted (154 million) (66%) and voted for Trump (72 million) and obviously it is an issue

However more people voted in 2020 than in 2016 (60.1%) (and the Democratics increased the size (62.5 million v 61.1 in 2016) of their win in terms of the popular vote from 1.4 to 6 million admittedly relatively inconsequential by USA standards but close to the entire population of Scotland. 61% turnout for Obama in 2008 was the highest since 1960.

So despite the Republican noise the trend is Trump mobilised more people to vote but an increasing majority not for him. The behaviour in North Dakota is interesting and attracts attention because it is the US at its most rurally isolated & polarised but places like Florida the Carolinas and Texas could be receptive to and benefit from a consolatory political approach. COVID vaccination strategy needs careful working out and the response will be fascinating

-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Thursday 19th of November 2020 11:01:39 AM

I think 66 % holds up well against the UK in general elections, think wed be happy if we achieved that level in our next election.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

One thing I've never understood is how it is, with all this widespread voter fraud that Trump has uncovered for us, it seems to have just been Democrats that have played the system and cheated. We are so lucky the Republicans are all straight and upstanding and upholding the rules of the election so steadfastly.

Elegant Point · Satellite level

Four ways Trump has meddled in pandemic science and why it matters
How US President Donald Trump and his administration have silenced scientists, meddled in their reports and ignored their advice.

www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03035-4

A bit behind the times.......but also an interesting read.
What a Joe Biden presidency would mean for five key science issues
The coronavirus pandemic, climate change and space exploration are among the issues that Biden will influence if he wins the upcoming US election.

www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02786-4