The worst possible scenario (for a non-Republican) is starting to look likely

[Angelyn]

Maybe not, it hasn't hurt Trump yet with kissing VPutin's ass and the Russian's asses, now has it?
One thing ALL Democrats realize, is that we can't allow Trump to remain in office for another term. Personally, I wouldn't have a problem with Democrats playing as dirty as the Republicans have played the past 4 years. Listen to THEM cry foul some. They need a good dose of their own crooked tactics. Its going to take at least two terms for Democrats to straighten out what Trump has already screwed up.

I didn't vote for Trump, and hardly anybody around me admitted voted for Trump. So of course Trump can do NOTHING that will hurt himself with us!

But I'm not going to support the dems either. Unless they come up with people and policies that are not Republican lite.

 

[MacNfries]

I'm not going to support the dems either. Unless they come up with people and policies that are not Republican lite.

This is ONE election, Angelyn, that you do NOT want to leave the incumbent in office. Anything to get him removed, even if its with another Republican, is critically important.
I'm a moderate, myself, and totally disagree with Bernie's hypotheticals ... too much like "Trickle Down - Tax Cuts Pay For Themselves" bullshit to me.

 

[blkdlaur]

So it’s ole Blitz Brained Biden - don’t get me wrong I like Uncle Joe but his mental faculties definitely have slipped. There is NO way he is fit to run this country. Hell in addition to not knowing where he is most of the time he didn’t even know what office he was running for of late. Always a gaffe machine but clearly now age has taken it’s toll - only desperate Dems choose to ignore what is SO apparent.
Hard to even comprehend what your party has become - desperate whining subversives.

 

[MacNfries]

Biden will have a lot of support from people with sane minds, blklaur. He'll also staff the agencies that need staffing, etc, and pick a competent VP that's "young" but sharp.
I won't count Biden out until he and Trump have a couple debates ... that'll tell us where we are with Biden. I do think he has a good HEART and DEEP CONCERN for the nation. I also think he is probably one of very few that could work across the isle with Republicans. Republicans need to shed the remaining Tea Party members out and return to a more normal party, or they're going NO WHERE for the next decade or so.

 

[blkdlaur]

Agreed about the good heart and concern for the nation. Absofuckinglutely no doubt he would be the best candidate for working across the isle - agree 100%.
It’s just toooooooo late for Uncle Joe - I honestly feel bad for him and I dread him trying to debate President Trump - I cringe at the thought. It’s sad watching him try so hard but age has definitely affected him in an adverse way and I hate the position he has found himself in - really too bad :{

 

[nanci whiteboy]

Due to his age, Biden needs to choose a younger VP with the demeanor, temperament and maturity of the average Democrat voter.

Greta Thunberg would be perfect.

 

[Angelyn]

This is ONE election, Angelyn, that you do NOT want to leave the incumbent in office. Anything to get him removed, even if its with another Republican, is critically important.
I'm a moderate, myself, and totally disagree with Bernie's hypotheticals ... too much like "Trickle Down - Tax Cuts Pay For Themselves" bullshit to me.

I guess its a very personal thing, but because I got just one thousand too many "where are you from" questions in my lifetime, I'm not that attached to the US and US greatness.
Republicans tend to do this kind of crap.

I feel it personally when people accuse me of being a Russian troll, since my real name looks vaguely from that part of the world. I'm deeply offended when people say I voted for Jill Stein because of her ancestry, and I get mad when they suggest Jill Stein is supported by Russia because of her ancestry.
Democrats tend to do this kind of crap.

Since I'm from a firmly blue state, my vote doesn't matter. Let them fight it out. I'm going third party again. I've said it before and will say it again, I really like the idea of MULTIPARTY DEMOCRACY, coalition governments and proportional representation. It would be an awesome thing if both the Republican and Democratic party split asunder, so that neither party is beholden to their lunatic fringe anymore.

 

[AndrewKSims]

The average American is so deluded with propaganda they have no idea what to believe.

Trump is the head of the sinking ship that is USA. He'll easily be re-elected.

People who still believe in the efficacy and purity of politics are in complete denial. Both sides of the aisle 100% bought and paid for. Your wealth is being stolen right from under you. Good luck placing your hopes and dreams in the next candidate.

The people in power don't give a ******* about you. Lol at spending time taking them seriously. Whoever called Bernie Sanders' "performance" as such nailed it. Yes, these are figurehead, avatars. They're not leading this country, and haven't for decades.

Here's what the future holds:

Ruthless technocratic authoritarianism.

 

[Angelyn]

Well, haven't been back to my thread in a month, and here am I, bumping it up with my latest comments:

I keep feeling like a loser. This November is going to be very bad. I don't want to read the news at all. In my job I'm supposed to be well informed, but actually I want to stick my head under the sheets and hope it all goes away.

So much is going wrong I don't know where to begin.

Biden is showing some leadership, which I like. He actually said no to defunding the police. The democrat front runner needs to hold the left wing extremists in check.

But Biden is going to face a tsunami. Right now the right wing has had more than three years to run amuck, and the left is in no mood to compromise. If the democrats win the election, I'm fearing the worst in left wing excesses. The image of democrats kneeling wearing kente scarves seemed so wrong to me. If you want to have justice, have justice for everyone. Not make it look like you're kneeling to Africans or catering to a specific demographic.

But four more years of Trump? I can't breathe! (Wordplay intended. Even without police violence against black people being an issue, I would have used this phrase, because it means I really can't hold my breath and hold my nose for four more years before Trump goes away.)

No matter who wins the election, mainstream America loses! Most of us non-radical people are gonna be losers!

It sucks so bad, I feel so awful.

 

[HornandTail]

another thread.....similar to the last 6 or 7...……. all saying you are not a trump supporter......while praising the right and talking down about the left……….. your doom n gloom for the left is as fake as your pic


why don't you admit that on several things on here you are as phoney as a 3 dollar bill

Smart intake. I do think th same.

 

[Angelyn]

I'm afraid to read articles like this.

No, Trump isn't finished. His durable presidency is just beginning

Commentators have dismissed President Donald Trump's chances over and over again, only to be chastened by his triumphs.

www.usatoday.com

Just like I'm afraid of all the leftwing Defund the Police chants.
Yes I know they don't mean to actually cease all law enforcement. The real intention is for MN to build a new police department without the same old corrupt hands. But the slogan sucks.

Nicholas D Kristof of the NYT had an article about that stupid slogan.

Opinion | When It Works to ‘Defund the Police’ (Published 2020)

Understand, the plan isn’t to get rid of all cops.

www.nytimes.com

The more you think Trump is down and finished, the more the progressives and leftwing extremists are gonna demand for Woke policies. Then the more Biden is gonna think that he can or must give in, in order to keep his lead and make sure people turn out to vote.

We're going to end up with all that Reparations for Slavery, Defund the Police, etc chanting.

With 10% or 15% lead in the polls, the Damnorats are gonna go ballistic in their leftwing pandering.

What's next is that the extreme left causes so much panic that the right comes out to vote. Christians and Conservatives who had gotten tired of Trump, are going to figure out Trump is the known evil, and come out to vote Trump again despite having told the pollsters that they will vote Biden. In the meantime 20, 30% of all liberals are young morons who know how to throw things in the street, but never vote anyway, so Biden's lead is going to drop dramatically.

As a teacher I know full well how young Americans talk big and do small.

Damnorats' lead will shrink to 2-4% thanks to turnout.

Trump will definitely win the electoral college if Biden can only muster a 2-4% lead in the popular vote.

 

[Angelyn]

To make things worse, I'm thinking that Defund The Police, will really look as though the police are being disbanded permanently.

It's going to take the MN city council months to work out the logistics for dismantling their current police.

In the meantime they have probably also been working on other projects. EG setting up a hotline for mental illness with a dedicated corps of trained responders, preparing ******* rehab clinics, setting up of shelters for domestic violence with private security to guard the shelters, etc. These are needed if you're going to reform the police and reduce the scope of police duties.

But none of these replacements for police activity are likely to be ready by November 3. No way you can suddenly snap your fingers and hire trained personnel to handle all the stuff you used to dump on the police. All the public is going to hear about, is how the current police department will be closed and all officers fired by 1 Jan 2021 or something.

So the MN City Council is going to do its work at the worst possible time. All we'll hear about, is the ending of Policing in MN as we know it. And probably demoralized police officers will be sitting in their squad cars refusing to do anything so crime rates will be soaring.

Nov 1 is probably going to be another typical Chicago weekend. 20, 50 people are going to get shot since that's what happens in Chicago every weekend. Except on Nov 2 the Repugnicans will be running ads that tell voters, every suburb is going to be Chicago without the police.

On Nov 3 Trump wins election with a tiny majority in the popular vote.

Winning the popular vote still won't net Trump the election of course. The electoral college still has final say. They don't have to put a mini-Hitler in power if they don't want to. If Trump starts talking about shooting his enemies, the college will balk.

But on Nov 4 the Damned Rats and their woke gang do what they did after the last election. They go about burning things, rioting, destroying stuff. Because the political left is even angrier than it was in 2016, I'd imagine riots are a lot worse. Maybe somebody will set a bonfire of Maga hats on the steps of the Capitol. Even if no real damage is done, the optics are going to look very ugly.

Trump talks about restoring law and order using the military, and wins by a huge majority in the electoral college.

American democracy goes down the pits as Trump issues executive orders. Knowing how Trump likes to echo historical racists, he will call his executive order "Law to Remedy the Distress of People and the Nation".

once again the democrats have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

 

[ridgelyfan]

Sheesh Angelyn. Are there any politicians you do like or who you think would be effective?

You really seem to be in some kind of doom spiral. You OK?

 

[Angelyn]

Sheesh Angelyn. Are there any politicians you do like or who you think would be effective?

You really seem to be in some kind of doom spiral. You OK?

Surely you are seeing the effects of three plus years of our crappy politics.

 

[guimoyingji]

If American politicians don't realize what's wrong with their country, then whoever becomes president is the same.

So it's no use being angry.

 

[Angelyn]

I'm gonna reiterate my favorite lines, I think both the damned asses and the repugnicans need to break apart.

Damn Ass Party can become the following:
Red Guards, the woke gang and antifa basically. They want to legalize the lynching of accused racists. (They already conduct online lynch parties.) Maybe 1% of electorate
Progressive Party, maybe 10%. They believe in open borders, welcome chain migrators, will legalize basically anybody who sets foot in the USA including ex-ISIS members
Green Party 10% More focused on the big issues like climate change, lassiez faire policies when it comes to human-on-human politicking
Liberal Democrats 10%, supportive of reparations and other social policies to cure income and racial disparity.
Silent Moderate Progressives, people who don't mind immigrants or interracial and interfaith marriages but still have some NIMBY attitudes towards social programs. Maybe 15%.

Repugnicans can become the following:
Ye Olde Confederates, promoting slavery as a way to solve black crime. (They might go for credit card debt slavery rather than chattel slavery, so no visible chains.) Maybe 1% of electorate
Dixieland Heroes, good old boys who like the confederate flag and believe segregation is good for everyone, maybe 10%
Evangelicals/ Moral Majority, the Liberty University folks who don't read any books apart from the Bible. Maybe 20%
Silent Moderate Conservatives, not really keen on interracial marriages or mass immigration, but don't hate anybody and will support liberal projects as long as they have minimal impact on own pockets. Maybe 15%.

These numbers don't add up to 100% because there are maybe 8% Fence Sitters and Third Party Voters out there such as me who will float between parties if we had real multiparty democracy

I'm pretty confident that like in other countries such as Germany, the Moderates will gradually coalesce into coalition governments. They have 30% between themselves.

Then in order to build a government, they need 20% more.
They could get that 20% from the single biggest voting bloc, the Evangelicals.
Or they could get it from bringing in the Greens and the Liberals.
The Evangelicals are almost impossible to compromise with. See how Shas has messed up Israeli politics? Not a good idea to have religious fanatics in any government.

This 50% bloc is usually attractive enough to get most of the fence sitters also, attaining 57% or higher consistently in polls.

Inspired by German democracy, I would say it would be basically the Moderates, the Liberals and the Greens who run things, year in year out.
The extreme left and right are shunted off and usually balance each other by shouting across the aisles. As long as you don't push too far to one side, the other side won't get stronger.
The rise of the extreme right in Germany is because Merkel did the wrong thing. She moved too far left and promoted Mass Immigration. If Merkel had stayed in the center, German politics would have remained stable.

 

[guimoyingji]

I don't know if you realize a problem. If a person like trump can be elected as president, it means that there will be countless trumps elected. It's not trump's problem, but the problem of American system. Before you blame trump, you should first think about how trump can be elected and become president The president of the United States? How did he do it? Why not someone else?

In my opinion, the presidential election in the United States itself is a kind of short-term venture capital system, and the investment project is not recommended by senior venture capital managers, but decided by the passers-by on the street. So, do you think the project operated by this short-term venture capital mechanism is likely to gain or lose money?

 

[ridgelyfan]

The big donors and party leaders have way more influence than you must think @guimoyingji . It takes a lot of money to run for president, and the only person to get anywhere near having a party nomination in recent memory without a lot of billionaire or corporate backers was Bernie Sanders.

Trump isn't a billionaire himself; he was bankrolled by the Mercer family.

Having a system where a small number of elites make big decisions is exactly how we got Trump as president. It looks like the Mercers are sitting the next election out, however

The Billionaire Mercer Family Has Reportedly Bailed on Trump in 2020

The reported loss of the Mercers — vital to Trump’s 2016 run — compounds campaign fears that the GOP’s big-ticket donors won’t show up in 2020.

nymag.com

'a former West Wing official told Vanity Fair, while a former Renaissance executive added, “Bob views all his political spending as a bad investment.”'

 

[guimoyingji]

The big donors and party leaders have way more influence than you must think @guimoyingji . It takes a lot of money to run for president, and the only person to get anywhere near having a party nomination in recent memory without a lot of billionaire or corporate backers was Bernie Sanders.

Trump isn't a billionaire himself; he was bankrolled by the Mercer family.

Having a system where a small number of elites make big decisions is exactly how we got Trump as president. It looks like the Mercers are sitting the next election out, however

The Billionaire Mercer Family Has Reportedly Bailed on Trump in 2020

The reported loss of the Mercers — vital to Trump’s 2016 run — compounds campaign fears that the GOP’s big-ticket donors won’t show up in 2020.

nymag.com

'a former West Wing official told Vanity Fair, while a former Renaissance executive added, “Bob views all his political spending as a bad investment.”'

It sounds like the previous election process of village head in rural China. In the past, in order to be elected as village head in rural China, the village head candidate had to get the villagers' votes. The candidate had to spend a lot of money to bribe the villagers and promise the villagers benefits. Then all the villagers voted at the villagers' Congress to decide who could be the village head.

However, this form has produced a lot of corruption and crime in the countryside, which has caused a very bad influence in China. For a while, the name "village head" was the synonym of evil officials in China, although in China, the village head was not the real official.

As a result of a large number of bad events, serious bad public opinions have been aroused in Chinese society. The Chinese government has decided to implement the performance appraisal policy for the village head. The chief responsibility of the village head is to lead the villagers to become rich and improve the living standards of the villagers. The term of office is three years. The villagers decide the ownership of the position of the village head. If a bad corruption event is caused, they will bear criminal responsibility.

Since then, the non official position of village head has become more subtle. When a small number of village heads attract investment, develop rich projects, and make their villagers rich, it has triggered a nationwide rural imitation. All farmers have begun to attach importance to the position of village head. For a better life, more and more college students have been elected village head, because they have more Knowledge, more young, more visionary, in China, there are many college student village leaders who have been promoted to county-level cadres and become principal officials because of their superiority in leading rural areas to become rich.

Now, the village head in rural China has become an important channel to become a formal official in China. As long as your achievements are outstanding and you can make the rural areas under your leadership rich, you will get a lot of superior appraisals and you can become a formal official in China.

The US presidential campaign is indeed similar to the Chinese village chief campaign, except that the US presidential campaign is larger and there is no performance appraisal mechanism.

 

[ridgelyfan]

Yep, I think you're not far off. The mechanisms that lead to self-serving leaders are not unique to the United States, or unique to the time we live in.

You might find this video entertaining: