The US 2020 Presidential Election & Attempts To Overturn It

[DOR]

Affirmative action is forced diversity. Why not target it at the economically disadvantaged? Especially in colleges which are getting more expensive by the day while getting a job without a college degree is becoming next to impossible? And yes this will not only help PoC more than white people (fewer of whom are poor) but it will also help the most needy amongst the PoC. Targeting it based on race or gender is stupid and ends up helping white women and the more economically privileged PoC. That the most progressive state in the union (which is also majority latino) just rejected overturning the ban on affirmative action should tell you that it isn't only the "right wing" by which I take you mean racists (wink wink nudge nudge!) who oppose it.

Target the economically disadvantaged ... great. Like, say, needs-based financial aid? Been there, done that (and, since two teacher salaries [my parents] disqualified me, I worked two or three jobs through college and grad school).

So, if your target is 100% financially stressed people, you've got the solution all wrapped up. And, if your target is those entire segments of society who haven't had equal opportunities in the past, your solution misses the bus and has to walk to school in the snow, barefoot.

[Firestorm]

Target the economically disadvantaged ... great. Like, say, needs-based financial aid? Been there, done that (and, since two teacher salaries [my parents] disqualified me, I worked two or three jobs through college and grad school).

So, if your target is 100% financially stressed people, you've got the solution all wrapped up. And, if your target is those entire segments of society who haven't had equal opportunities in the past, your solution misses the bus and has to walk to school in the snow, barefoot.

I'm not talking of just financial aid. Affirmative action is about giving special treatment to a section of people in college admissions and government jobs, not just financial aid.

I firmly believe an African American student who lives in a low income neighborhood, went to a bad school and whose family can't afford college tuition, deserves special consideration, not just in financial aid, but in getting admission to the college in the first place (despite lower test scores etc.). But so does a white student in the same situation.

I also believe an AA student whose parents are upper-middle class working professionals and lives in a nice suburb with a decent school, does not deserve any special consideration merely because of his/her race. Nor does anyone else in similar circumstances.

I don't believe in the theory that white people are somehow privileged today even if their personal economic situation is dire. And I say this as a brown person. Rich people definitely are privileged, in several ways. Especially when it comes to college admissions.

[Albany Rifles]

I'm not talking of just financial aid. Affirmative action is about giving special treatment to a section of people in college admissions and government jobs, not just financial aid.

I firmly believe an African American student who lives in a low income neighborhood, went to a bad school and whose family can't afford college tuition, deserves special consideration, not just in financial aid, but in getting admission to the college in the first place (despite lower test scores etc.). But so does a white student in the same situation.

I also believe an AA student whose parents are upper-middle class working professionals and lives in a nice suburb with a decent school, does not deserve any special consideration merely because of his/her race. Nor does anyone else in similar circumstances.

I don't believe in the theory that white people are somehow privileged today even if their personal economic situation is dire. And I say this as a brown person. Rich people definitely are privileged, in several ways. Especially when it comes to college admissions.

Firestorm, what you are describing is a maturing of the process....it is what we should work for rather than just screaming its unfair and chucking the whole thing out the window.

Like the ACA it's not perfect....but let's fix what is broke and move on. We don't need to just shitcan the entire thing. An example is in Georgia if you maintain a 3.0 as a state resident you are guaranteed admission to a state college and keep a 3.0 in college and no tuition. Nothing racial...and it is paid for by lottery profits.

[tantalus]

firestorm,



I saw both the AOC NYT discussion and the Spanberger one as well.

it's interesting because I don't necessarily see them in -disagreement-.

AOC's belief is that the losses were tactical in nature: she said her analysis of a number of losing campaigns was that they ran really late and really poor online campaigns, which was doubly problematic because Biden/DNC's post-COVID strategy was to substitute online campaigns for door-knocking (a -really- bad decision in hindsight, which Clyburn thankfully talked the campaign out of later).

Spanberger think it's how ideas are messaged.

I really don't think it's either-or.

to the extent I have issues with AOC's take, it's that she's selectively saying that "swing-state candidates whom backed Medicare for all won, those whom didn't, lost." maybe so, but the real issue here is "defund the police", which is much more inflammatory in a way that Medicare4all isn't.

there's lessons here for both the progressive and moderate wings.

It goes to show that analysing things in the chaos of 2020 is very difficult, very noisy.

Iam not convinced the progressives can learn much at all. i dont think they want to learn the message they need to. And in an increasingly polarized world where the trends of polarization are aggressive it becomes very difficult to put learning into practice. The future still rests with the progessives. Thats not a great incentive either.

[Firestorm]

Firestorm, what you are describing is a maturing of the process....it is what we should work for rather than just screaming its unfair and chucking the whole thing out the window.

Like the ACA it's not perfect....but let's fix what is broke and move on. We don't need to just shitcan the entire thing. An example is in Georgia if you maintain a 3.0 as a state resident you are guaranteed admission to a state college and keep a 3.0 in college and no tuition. Nothing racial...and it is paid for by lottery profits.

Thing is I don't know how people will have confidence that it will mature eventually instead of staying as a purely race/gender based process, especially with stuff like critical race theory and anti-racism of the Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo variety gaining ground in political and intellectual circles. Prop 16 in California had huge money behind it along with a lot of political and media support. The state is majority-minority now with Latinos having a plurality. White people are only 37% of the state, yet Prop 16 got defeated.

[tantalus]

The man should have lost by a bigger margin, isn't it ?

If he was as terrible as the media & social media portrayed him to be.

Despite the results people are not giving up on him. This is what i some one told me

Yes, logic says he should have lost by larger.

He could have turned the challenegs into a great wartime victory for himself. Come out battling the pandemic with a great plan. I think he could have won if he was competent. i think given his handling he set himself up for a huge defeat. Avoiding it does not necessairly bestow him with skill, but perhaps luck. Did he avoid a landslide through his great political ability. In short I would say no. If he had handled the pandemic optics with sanity and stuck to a populist message on other issues he probably could have won the electioral college. The bad luck he suffered in 2020, he doubled and tripled down by his own stupidity (the opposite of skill), he was protected by the electoral college from a beating and his manner and style reasonated with a section of the populace frustrated by the cultural developpments and the style and manner of those developments. His horrible character flaws meshed with that moment, thats luck, not skill to me, and his ability to leverage that off his pre exisiting fame is also driven by luck.

But in reality luck is a driver of far more of the outcomes in life than most would ever care to admit and the human condition lives in denial of this reality. Trump, right or left, nobody is an exception to the chance events of their lifes surroundings. Bidens luck in 2020 is bibilical also.

The other thing is winning at all costs is not really what you should aspire too. Trump won more votes than he should have in the 2020 election beacuse of his characters flaws and his lies. I think his huge turout says that about him also.

[Firestorm]

Yes, logic says he should have lost by larger.

Trump had some headwinds, like Covid and people's personal distaste for him because of his own behavior. But he had a lot of tailwinds too. A booming economy before covid, a good recovery and reopening in the latter part of the year, stimulus checks reaching people during the lockdown and people's obvious dislike/dissatisfaction with the Democrats in general along with their own fiascos like "defund the police". Plus he was the incumbent and historically it has been very tough to beat an incumbent president. If it wasn't for Covid, he might have won.

[Officer of Engineers]

No sir, not like this. This is different. There are far too many people that support Donald Trump. And the Republic will not fall in a day, a week or even a year. It will be a slow decline and the origin will be traced directly back to Donald Trump and his enablers.

Worse than the ACW and Lost Cause? Worse than McCarthy? Worse than anti-Vietnam? Worse than anti-nuclear weapons (read solo Western disarmament)? I've lived through highs and lows. Things may seem bad but there's no panic that one wrong move would result in a mushroom cloud and people were scared enough to demand that we surrender to the Soviets without firing a single shot.

[TopHatter]

Worse than the ACW and Lost Cause? Worse than McCarthy? Worse than anti-Vietnam? Worse than anti-nuclear weapons (read solo Western disarmament)? I've lived through highs and lows. Things may seem bad but there's no panic that one wrong move would result in a mushroom cloud and people were scared enough to demand that we surrender to the Soviets without firing a single shot.

No sir, not worse than the ACW. That was clearly the worst. And even with the reestablishment of the Union, the ACW still leaves a gaping scar across this country.

But yes, worse than McCarthy, worse than the Vietnam protests, worse than nuclear weapons protests. 71,249,597 (and counting) Americans decided that Trump, with all his vile filfth, was not a deal-breaker. Not the racism, not the misogyny, not the sneering contempt for POWs, not the utter disdain for science, not the blatant corruption, not the callous disregard for human life. None of that was enough for 71 million Americans to say "Uh-uh, that's a bridge too far".

The Cold War was bad, certainly. But back then, the threat was external. Now the festering rot is from the inside. A house divided against itself cannot stand.

[TopHatter]

FYI - I have started a new thread to cover the Trump to Biden transition here
Please make relevant posts in that thread going forward.

[Oracle]

So, I was reading a lot these couple of days, and I think it's fair to say votes were rigged in the US election in support of Joe Biden, that is, fraud happened. Who else thinks it's plausible?

[TopHatter]

So, I was reading a lot these couple of days, and I think it's fair to say votes were rigged in the US election in support of Joe Biden, that is, fraud happened. Who else thinks it's plausible?

No, votes were not rigged in support of Joe Biden. What you've been reading is a load of bullshit.

For starters, if the vote was going to be rigged in favor of Joe Biden, then why weren't Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham also defeated, instead of winning their reelections in landslides?

With a GOP-controlled Senate, led by Moscow Mitch, Biden is going to face complete and utter gridlock. So whoever "rigged" the votes was simultaneously the most brilliant and the most stupid person or persons on the planet.

[Gun Grape]

So, I was reading a lot these couple of days, and I think it's fair to say votes were rigged in the US election in support of Joe Biden, that is, fraud happened. Who else thinks it's plausible?

Maybe Surfgun. But deep down even he knows its BS.

Why is it the Republicans are quick to accept the results of the House and Senate races but not the President? They were all on the same ballot

I mean FFS if the Dems stole the race in Ga for Biden, why is there a runoff election for the 2 senate seats?

[InExile]

So, I was reading a lot these couple of days, and I think it's fair to say votes were rigged in the US election in support of Joe Biden, that is, fraud happened. Who else thinks it's plausible?

I suspect this is satire, but it’s really hard to tell with Trumpers

[GVChamp]

So, I was reading a lot these couple of days, and I think it's fair to say votes were rigged in the US election in support of Joe Biden, that is, fraud happened. Who else thinks it's plausible?

It's not plausible. It's possible, but not plausible, and certainly not "fair to say." It'd have to the largest, most well-coordinated, well-concealed, most audacious election fraud in history.

To give an example: Chicago Democrats probably placed fraudulent votes against Republicans in the 1960 election. But the upper-bound estimate is maybe 10k, so JFK probably would have won IL even without the fraud, and even if JFK lost IL, he still would have won the election (the fraud in Texas wasn't enough to swing that state).

So, the most egregious case of fraud that we might know about, is not enough to swing .2% in ONE battleground state. At this point you're talking about four or five battleground states, with wider margins, in a system that's almost certainly more watched and more open to investigation.

So...Trump being cheated. Impossible? No. Election fraud happens. Plausible? No. Too big a conspiracy, too many hands in the pot.