So, how's Trump going to win this time..?

[alms]

Like 4 years ago, I’m still following the final day on TV peeling potatoes

I haven’t followed much otherwise and previously, except from checking 538 from time to time. Nate Silver seems still somewhat bitter about having his streak broken in 2016, and in the following post, he also sounds annoyed that we’re still ‘fearing’ a Trump win (before saying that indeed he can still win)

I’m Here To Remind You That Trump Can Still Win

Well, I would say fearing a Trump win is a completely rational response, in this highly irrational and confused situation we’re in.

I really hope Trump gets booted (the first president in a long while who isn’t re-elected, IIRC, that would be sweet), however, I’m still of the idea that the people who will keep voting a serial liar the caliber of Mr Trump, after everybody should have had plenty chances to see how naked the king really is, cannot be trusted to be super honest about their voting intentions; and no, I don’t think we need to know why, so restricting the definition of shy voter to issues with social pressure, might serve Mr Silver in due time, but isn’t really helping any, IMO.

Just like nobody needs to understand the finer points of gravity, to note that most objects have a tendency to fall down rather than take off spontaneously.

Honestly, I’ve been kind of surprised the polls favor Biden this much, given he is: Biden. Obama’s former Vice. I mean Huge Disappointment, Wasted Peace Nobel Prize, Mr Obama. But I guess he has a couple traits in his favor: he is neither a woman, nor Hillary Clinton. So perhaps there’s still hope.

[BillButNotBen]

It still seems highly possibly he could win. The national polls are unlikely to flip, but since basically the entire election comes down to which way a handful of people in a handful of states vote, even a very small shift towards him in those states could win it for him.
And the races in those key states are a lot closer than the national polls.

It is hilarious how the Trump side has been trying to portray Biden as this dangerous extreme-leftist loose cannon who is going to come in and destroy the USA, when even the people voting for him think he’s a really boring, vanilla, centerist politician who isn’t going to change very much.
It’s just that after the polarising insanity of the past 4 years, that’s kinda what people want. Someone boring and average and predictable and unlikely to rock the boat.

[alms]

Kind of worrying to hear about massive deployment of tactics aimed at increasing voter suppression. Turnout seems to be at a record high, though.

It is hilarious how the Trump side has been trying to portray Biden as this dangerous extreme-leftist loose cannon who is going to come in and destroy the USA, when even the people voting for him think he’s a really boring, vanilla, centerist politician who isn’t going to change very much.

"…it’s a disaster!"™ right? As I often quip in cases like this: yes, it’d be fun, if it wasn’t cringeworthy …but wasn’t Obama also described as a dangerous socialist? I’m pretty sure Trump’s supporters are aware that ‘socialist’ is just an insult that expresses contempt for a political adversary, while not being grounded in any way to the real meaning of the word (though they might act like they don’t)

Someone boring and average and predictable and unlikely to rock the boat.

And possibly who won’t claim COVID is just a hoax. Funny something so simple could be such a relief.

[alms]

Apparently I’m too optimistic about Socialist as an insult:

There was also a lot of Spanish-language disinformation targeting Latinos in Florida this year. Some of the key messages were trying to link Biden with socialism, which has a very strong impact with some communities, given its history in authoritarian Central and South American governments. And Trump played into the same narrative with his Spanish-language ads in the state.

This could be because Trump is speaking particularly well to those Florida Latino communities, which tend to be more conservative than Latinos in other parts of the country. Trump has done a lot to talk about the evils of “socialism” and to tie the Democrats to that worldview. Perhaps that’s what we’re seeing here playing out now?

From 538’s live coverage.

[BillButNotBen]

While it’s fun/stressful to watch live, I think it’s worth mentioning that the actual results are unlikely to be clear until very late in the game.

Given the massive number of mail-in votes, many of which can’t start to be counted until election day, and the fact that they’re likely to favor democrats while on-the-day votes are likely to favor republicans, early results might turn out to be very misleading.

Hopefully the media will be able to resist ‘calling it’ too early.

[alms]

This race has a number of atypical traits that are going to make forecasting really hard, that seems sure.

Nevertheless, it looks like Biden’s (responsible) non-campaign might cost him Florida, after all.

'We’ve got to stop the bleeding': Democrats sound alarm in Miami

[Firkragg]

Wowee, got up an hour early to watch the election. The live news coverage are worried that its so close right now. Just 8 hours ago the same journalists were predicting (with caveats) Trump only had a 10% chance. I really had hoped Biden would have such a clear lead it’d be clear he’d win. Seems like this will be a long, drawn-out thing, godsdammit.

[alms]

The live news coverage are worried that its so close right now. Just 8 hours ago the same journalists were predicting (with caveats) Trump only had a 10% chance

Nate Silver had anticipated that remark: “But it’s a fine line between a landslide and a nail-biter”

I just heard an analyst suggest that Biden’s campaign was too based on how bad Trump is, thus not assertive enough and ultimately not at all that different from Hillary Clinton’s. Then I realized that he just turned the way I feel into something more explicit and fact-backed.

SHIT! Please please please prove me wrong, American voters

Dreadful factoid: firearms sales go up during Presidential elections. Apparently the increase this year led to a new high.

US election year anxiety sends gun sales to record level

[Firkragg]

The rising gun sales and militias are a current nightmare for me, really hope it doesn’t spiral >_<
Got to get to work, good luck everyone, see you in 10 hours.

[alms]

In the cold, hard light of day I guess I must come to terms with the idea that Biden was chosen before the COVID trainwreck because Trump was expected to win, and it didn’t matter all that much if Biden lost. Should’ve seen that coming.

Also, after four years of hearing how polls are toilet paper because har-har! look at Hillary Clinton, I’m fully expecting the average bloke to become even more probability blind, give up statistics and resort to astrology.

[Vandelay]

Stayed up until about 3.45am (UK time) watching, mainly waiting until something positive happened. More and more it was looking like a repeat of four years ago though.

Waking up this morning, I think it is looking a little more positive, with a Biden win at least looking still the most likely outcome. Having said that, the wider ramifications of this election doesn’t really look that much different to a narrow Trump win. His methods are still vindicated and it likely would have been a very comfortable win for him if it weren’t for Coronavirus. Viewing all this from the UK, I feel that the Trump play book is going to only become more of a go to source for how to win an election here, where you only need to convince about 40% to put an X next to your side.

No matter what happens over the next couple of days (as it probably will be that long before we have a definitive answer), this still feels like a victory for divide and conquer populism.

[alms]

His methods are still vindicated and it likely would have been a very comfortable win for him if it weren’t for Coronavirus

Yup, I said 4 years ago he could win easy again, but I thought the appalling show with COVID would affect him more, instead it looks like there’s more support for Trump’s “fuck it” stance than I am naturally inclined to believe.

Trump is rich and doesn’t have a job like most folks, so it’s understandable that he can afford to go “fuck it”, however my personal expectation was that more people would see that it’s a little hard to earn when you’re dead, and being a functional human being is tougher when you’re grieving, whereas it seems like they thought “if I can’t earn as much, I might as well be dead”.

PS: also sad that BLM seemed to have so little impact on the results.

[alms]

I’m fully expecting the average bloke to become even more probability blind, give up statistics and resort to astrology.

Exhibit A (read the text below)

Because 89% chance is somehow synonymous with certainty (can you hear the echoes of those Firaxis designers working on XCOM, now?)

Kahneman has some interesting reads on this, BTW.

[Skalpadda]

Apparently I’m too optimistic about Socialist as an insult:

Yeah, Cuban immigrants in Florida trend hard towards conservatism and severe phobia of socialism so it seems to work for that demographic.

I thought the appalling show with COVID would affect him more, instead it looks like there’s more support for Trump’s “fuck it” stance than I am naturally inclined to believe.

That is the saddest thing I’ve seen in… I dunno. It’s fucking sad.

Anyway, I expected this, pretty much. I was feeling more optimistic a year ago, but the amazingly scatterbrained and unfocused strategies of the Dems, the failure of the media to be in any way coherent and the fact that Joe Biden, the most boring man alive, was the best they could manage tempered my expectations significantly. The confident talk about lots of red states flipping was pretty much exactly what we heard in 2016 so I never took the prospect of a blue wave particularly seriously.

And it looks doubtful if the Senate will flip to the Dems, and if it doesn’t we get at best a complete deadlock for four years and a greater chance of the next Republican nutter winning next time.

And it remains to be seen if Trump still manages to steal it somehow, through the SC or by getting republican controlled states to appoint “alternative” electors or some other nefarous shenanigans. He’s been laying the groundwork from the moment polling seemed to go against him and half the country are so brainwashed they’ll go along with anything the Republicans do.

Whatever happens I very much hope European leaders have some plans for how to keep the US at arm’s length from now on.

[Firkragg]

Let’s imagine Trump wins again. A lot of crap will continue to happen. What I wonder is if he keeps sticking to his Corona “strategy” (can you really call it a strategy when he dosen’t have one?), I assume a lot more people will get sick and die. What then I wonder? How long can Trumps voters keep denying how many died on his watch? How hamfisted his entire handling of covid has been to date?

I saw a clip via The Daily Show with Trevor Noah (or it might have been that John Oliver show, I mix them up sometimes) where a republican voter says Trump couldn’t have done more for the country to stop Covid.
How many deaths does it take to make the shine wear off? 500.000? A million? Bonkers. 230.000 is already too much.

[Skalpadda]

They will not back down or admit fault. Ever. It’s always someone else’s responsibility, no matter how obviously illogical their position is. Look at how Trump answers criticism or “debates”. He’ll just madly deflect, spout gibberish, childish insults and change the subject, then declare himself a winner. And half the country loves him for it. They are lost.

[BillButNotBen]

I’m glad I decided to not bother following the results closely, or I’d have ended up staying up all night and still not known anything.

Agreed, that even if Trump loses a lot of the damage has been done, both in the US and more importantly globally.

It’s become clear that if you divide people into tribes, tribal loyalty trumps everything else. I always kind of marveled at south american states where people would overlook the crimes of the leaders because they were so blind in their unwavering support. It’s been depressing how quickly large swathes of the US population seems to have fallen into the same mindset.

As a global symbol of democracy, the US has been badly damaged and it has emboldened autocratic leaders worldwide. At a time when countries like China are pushing their agenda global, it’s the worst possible time for the bastions of democracy to falter.

I’m kinda surprised that the section of the US population who are most fervently and blindly embracing a slide into autocracy are the ones who are usually most strident in their demands for freedom. Though I guess I shouldn’t be, as there’s always been a narrow dividing line between patriotism and nationalism and autocracy, and in many countries like eastern Europe or South America it is the same. It’s just that the US right wing are the ones that won’t stop going on about freedom and limiting government power.

It’s depressing that without Covid Trump might well have won easily, despite committing numerous offenses and achieving almost no successes.
It’s also depressing that the only thing he needed to do to win over a bunch of Latino voters was apparently point at Biden and shout ‘Socialist!’. Which is patently untrue, and at which point all his racism and other flaws were apparently immediately forgotten.

[coldvvvave]

Ctrl+F ‘Russia’ and no results? Wha happun? No Vlad’s (Vlad is short for Vladislav actually but who cares) interference this time? Unless you count idiotic story about Biden’s son. But that I hope no one believed.

How many years of therapy needed to admit that 99% of post-2016 Russian hysteria was basically bullshit? Not that shady stuff doesn’t happen, obviously spies do their thing (and other countries too). But the whole “hacked our democracy” thing. ‘Pearl harbor’ and ‘pee tape’ and ‘Trump was cultivated by KGB since 80’s’ and a few hundred insane stories more.

Will there be lessons learned? I mean obviously not it’s 'Murica after all, but maybe there is at least a small chance? Some self-reflection?

[Skalpadda]

I dunno, if anything I’ve seen Americans discussing this election being more self-reflecting than usual and less trying to look for scapegoats. That’s something I guess.

[Sarfrin]

I’m kinda surprised that the section of the US population who are most fervently and blindly embracing a slide into autocracy are the ones who are usually most strident in their demands for freedom.

That’s because they think they’ll have more freedom to do the shitty things they want to do to people who aren’t like them under a GOP-run autocracy. They’re probably right.