And counting down! This whole thing cannot end soon enough.
My 91-year-old mother and I agreed last night that there will probably be domestic unrest, and if it happens, authorities will deal with it. All we can do is our part - VOTE.
I hope by this time next weekend we have an announced president-elect.
ETA: and it’s Kamala Harris
I’m watching from New Zealand and worry it affects our economy, safety, trade relationships and much more. The whole world needs Kamala to win.
Reading the SDMB, I see plenty of well-argued predictions that give me hope for a Democratic victory. The GOTV effort, fundraising and so many Republican endorsements of Harris combine to make me believe that sanity will prevail.
Sending good vibes and thanks to those who have contributed (votes, donations, volunteers).
I still haven’t seen a single factor that would work in Trump’s favor. Quite to the contrary, everything points to Harris holding a colossal advantage.
By 11 PM on Election Night, the rout will be on. (Okay, probably only 300-330 electoral votes, but still very solid.)
Say what you will, but it feels a lot like 2016 to me. It’s hard to predict a presidential election, let alone one where some pollsters see a statistical tie. It all comes down to how a few thousand voters in a handful of states vote. The candidate that gets the most popular votes should win. Period. I hope Harris wins, but I won’t be surprised if she doesn’t.
So true. For so many important reasons – for this country, and for the world.
My personal reasons are relatively unimportant, but they include a kind of anxious fog I’ve felt hovering in and around my brain for several months now, robbing a certain amount of beauty and pleasure from all the great things I’ve been fortunate to experience recently (family moments, travel moments, nature moments, individual and team accomplishment moments at work and in volunteer efforts, good conversations with friends and neighbors, learning moments, book reading moments, musical moments, just being physically quite healthy and not poor…).
For example, I’ll notice a beautiful fall-color maple tree, or have an unexpectedly deep conversation with my teenage kid, and my first thought is “how nice!”…but my next thought is “Trump might win”…and then “how dare I let that awful man and his hundred million devotees ruin these precious minutes, hours, and weeks I have on this Earth!”. Then, I try to get back to enjoying the tree, or the conversation, or whatever…but now that takes mental effort, but it shouldn’t. None of that crap should be happening in the first place.
I hope you are right, but be sure to visit the bubble on the other side occasionally - there are comments over there by sane people making sane arguments that they have it in the bag, too. Either way it goes, a lot of people are going to be surprised and disappointed.
It will not be over until January 20 at Noon ET. Maybe.
Trump will challenge everywhere where he can if the vote doesn’t go his way. Local challenges, state challenges, even challenges in the House as the electoral vote is counted. Trump has had four years plus to sow discontent across the country. His FUD factor (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) has been running since 2016 with the media and especially the entire voting system.
When I used to teach first aid, CPR and other emergency things, I emphasized worst case scenarios. If one occurred, my students had some preparation. Most times not, so helping in an emergency would go well. I’m very concerned so many who think, want, believe in a Kamala win haven’t spent time with a Plan B. If Trump gets in, then what? Have you actively gone to the Dark Side and seriously considered a Trump “win?” Not, just what Trump say he will do, but what will you do to block him, to stop him?
I suspect too many, including so many voting for Kamala, will just roll over if Trump gets in. Deer in the headlights. The damage will be two-fold, what Trump does and so many who will just let it happen because “it couldn’t happen here.”
Well, it can happen here. And that scares the crap out of me if all the rhetoric now does not morph into deliberate action and challenge Trump every step of the way if he takes the oath.
If I remember correctly, the last two Presidential election cycles, the same sort of thing was being said. My question is: what, exactly, do you have in mind? From a practical point of view, what can any of us do? Act like the MAGAs and go around making threats to people, or deny authority like those SovCit morons? Open, armed rebellion? Flee with our assets to more civilized states or countries? What? What are you going to do if the unthinkable happens?
Live my life the best I can under the circumstances and hope for the best knowing that in four years Trump will be out of politics forever. He can’t cancel the next election due to some made up national emergency and he can’t run again for a third term without changing the US Constitution.
If Trump somehow manages to become dictator for life then that will be my cue to find a better country to live in. Fortunately, I have the resources to leave and never look back, assuming I can find a better country willing to take me.
Seeing utterly zero connection between those two things unless if you can provide a cite.
(sure - certainly worth the hopefully brief derail)
This. And I’m watching from Canada.
If Harris isn’t elected, this, IMHO, will be one of the greatest wasted opportunities in post-WW II history.
I don’t see the slightest chance that Trump will win. That being said…
In the shocking event that Trump does win - and, especially, wins with a majority in both popular vote and EVs - Democrats and political scientists are going to be at an utter loss. You cannot run a campaign better, with better timing and tactics, than what Kamala did against Trump. It was an absolutely clinical campaign from start to finish. Every possible advantage that could have been hers, was hers. Every possible blunder Trump could have made to screw up his own race, he made. The guy’s awfulness had been on full display for eight years and he’d uttered over 13,000 lies. Democrats already applied all the lessons of 2016. Many Republicans had died of Covid. Harris is nearly twenty years younger than Trump. The D’s had the much-better GOTV effort. Harris had over $1 billion in campaign funds.
If Harris has all of THAT and still loses, how does one explain it? One can only say that Trump is Teflon and Kevlar; nothing sticks to him and he is immune to anything used against him. There would be not a single thing Democrats could say “If we had tried X or Y, we’d have beaten Trump.”
Did you remember to add an hour for the time change? 
More seriously, I’m using Wednesday morning, rather than some time on Tuesday night, as the time when we are likely to know who the winner is.
Keep in mind there is a group of voters who would never accept having a female president, let alone a mixed-race female president. The Dems took a chance running her against a white male candidate who had previously won, no matter how ridiculous that candidate may be. There are a lot of prejudice people, as well as people who want to move this country backwards. Kamala is clearly progressive, and Trump clearly isn’t, and that’s going to cost her votes in the rural states.
I remember predictions on this very board even before the 2016 race that America will elect a gay man president before it elects a woman president. I guess we’re putting it to the test once again.
I will only be over on Election Night if Trump wins and with enough of a margin in all of the tipping point states that he would still win even given the inevitable accusations of fraud (often, but not always, true in the cases of Republican fraud.) I think Harris would concede in that instance, and I don’t think that anyone would continue to struggle beyond the point at which she concedes.
If Harris wins with a comfortable margin, even if no one is currently actively trying to thwart the results, I would still live in fear of the violence of 1/6 but on a broader scale.
If she wins more marginally it would even worse in terms of immediate danger and a protracted election. Not only would there be a slightly higher chance of violence, there would also be the legal challenges that could have the SCOTUS overturn the results of state elections.
If Trump wins marginally, the chances for immediate strife would be lower, but there could still be a protracted battle in the courts if there were some probably-true accusations of fraud by the Republicans that the courts don’t allow to be investigated or prosecuted or overturned. The intensity and length of this struggle, unlike the GOP fake accusations of voter fraud which deep down inside they don’t care about the truth of, would depend on the breadth and believability of the GOP fraud.
Remember that all such violence ultimately helps Democrats. If Trumpers do a repeat of Jan-6 on a scale fifty times bigger, it will only make the D’s look that much better and help that much more in future elections.
From what I’m reading and seeing from activist friends on social media, the Harris GOTV activity is off-the-charts on fire this weekend. I’m putting in a shift myself on Monday and another shift on Tuesday.
I’m still not ready to feel good about anything just yet, but…someone just posted that the only way Trump sees 270 is if he loses 80 pounds and steps on a scale, and I’m almost- almost- ready to laugh at that.
I agree with this (my brackets up there). And Duckster may be correct that nothing will be certain until noon January 20—that would be the case if Trump loses by some non-decisive amount, next week. Best case scenario: Harris wins hugely and this is apparent by late Tuesday night.
In that case, of course, the fascists will struggle and try to get either the House or the not-actually-Supreme (because submissive to Trump) Court to appoint the Felon as President. But the more decisive Harris’ victory, the less plausible their efforts will be. Possibly those efforts will be so implausible that even John Roberts will feel shame. (Not so much Alito and Thomas—they’ve clearly had shame-ectomies.)
If I had to place a bet, I’d bet that we’ll have an idea of how things are going by the close of Tuesday November 5, but we won’t have the race called until Saturday November 9. Too many swing states decline to deal with the mail-in vote until the dawn of Nov 5, and that won’t be enough time to call it by close of day.