If I didn’t know better, then I would say they’re trolling the electorate.
I think for everyone’s mental health they need to end the running tally of votes. In the UK the results are only announced when they’re all counted, and (I think) assuming nobody demands a recount.
I’m left wondering how many folks expected a widespread repudiation of Trump. Not hoped for, expected. Because it always seemed to me a sadly tall order.
All I expected was a larger popular vote margin for Biden than Hillary got. A firm, yet not necessarily widespread, repudiation was possible but difficult to predict. A larger popular vote margin for Trump than before was almost inconceivable.
I legitimately expected it. I figured the handling of COVID-19 alone was a boat anchor that would sink Trump. I thought it was going to a quick night. Florida, Georgia, or North Carolina would go Biden, maybe Texas (unlikely). Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania would have Trump leads that would not be anywhere near as large. Moreover, I thought that supporters of Trumpism (American fascism *1) was quite small. Maybe 7-12% of the electorate. I thought much of the 2016 result was “not Hillary”.
Now I think that perhaps support for American fascism is much higher perhaps as high as 40% of the electorate. I think that there a lot of people who are quite comfortable living in a fascist state with a weakened democracy.
*1 - For clarity, fascism is not Nazism. Nazis were fascist, but a nation can be fascist without being Nazis. American fascism is different than Nazism, but that doesn’t make it less fascist.
In the UK they also count, sort and tabulate each pile. The reason they aren’t allowed to report tally is that to avoid having new numbers where 99% of the votes are foir one party and then a second ballot drop for another. That reduces confidence in the fairness of the proceedings.
ETA: They do that in Pakistan as well and in India that I know off. No idea about othr commonwealth countries.
That was misguided with respect. Obama should have by conventional wisdom, lost the 2012 election due to a (very) bad economy. The electorate did not blame him, but rather the previous admin,
Same way with the pandemic, its basically unknowable whether the electorate as whole (and I talk about all countries here, not just the US) blames the incumbent for it. Rightly or wrongly.
The “incumbant gets blame for bad news” trope is an unreliable one at the best of times.
The economy is nebulous and hard to pin on Obama when the crash happened before him. The pandemic unambiguously happened under Trump, Trump mismanaged it in a very vocal and very public way the whole time, still mismanages it, and it’s a pretty clear cut topic.
I wasn’t taking the COVID-19 as a blamed for bad news, but more the inept handling of it killed a lot of people. The Trump administration seemed to go out of their way to ensure Americans would be killed, but even rejecting that notion (as legitimate as it seems), 230000 dead Americans seems like it should have been a boat anchor.
Like if you get 230000 Americans killed by any means. War. Disease. Whatever. That seems to me like it would be a hard thing to overcome in an election.
I think NV might end up being the Wisconsin of 2020, with Dems assuming it’s in the bag only to find out otherwise. In retrospect, Biden ran a very similar campaign to Hillary: he’s nicer than Trump. Didn’t matter then, didn’t now.
Biden’s campaign, like Hillary’s, never really sold anything substantive to voters in terms of something tangible that could change their lives. Obama’s campaign was the last one to do that when it ran on healthcare. I’m not saying Biden didn’t have ideas, but he sure as hell didn’t pitch them that hard.
Trump gave his voters something tangible. Yes he’s a Son of a bitch but he’s their SOB.
At a time when millions of working class voters are struggling and worried about their economic futures, Biden told people to stay home and wear masks. Trump told people to go out and keep bringing in income. And that might be the difference
Not only that, but by 2012 there had already been two years of steady job and market growth. The economy was a plus for Obama.
How so? Trump has no record to run on except being an asshole. His only accomplishment was the tax cuts for the rich. As much as you say that Biden is running on just being less of an asshole than Trump, Trump is more or less running on being the king asshole.
Edited my message
He sold them on a mythic past that had been destroyed by liberals and immigrants.
Asahi in the post below yours seems to be arguing that handling the virus irresponsibly might have actually been a net benefit for Trump…
You are missing the point. You may think Trump or whoever the President was was inept. Maybe his supporters think he did a great job. Both are irrelevant. The question is what the general feeling is.
Obama did not cause the Great Recession. Nor did Trump cause the virus.
Both led the response to the crises and both were roundly criticized by several quarters. Remember Obama was pillored for allowing foreclosures and while bailing out banks and not punishing senior management, look up threads from that time. Same way Trump has been, for emphasizing the economy over safety.
The question of whether those were the right decisions or not is irrelevant. The question is whether or not the electorate feels that the leader has done well, par or poorly. In both cases it seems that the view was “about as well as could be expected”.
CNN reporting that a new batch of Michigan votes came in which took Trump’s lead from 200k to 60k.
Yes. That totally explains his better than expected showing amongst Latinos and black men.
On the COVID thing. I think a lot of people blame Trump. But a lot of people HATE the lockdowns too. Some people are in both camps. And even if you think Trump totally fucked this up, you’re probably rationalizing by saying he probably killed more people than necessary but he did it to try and save some jobs. I need to reiterate…the COVID thing was not a big Democratic advantage because the lockdowns are just as damaging and scary for many people.
I was just coming to post that. I’ve been reading through the conservative subreddit and that seems to be a common theme with respect to COVID-19. A lot of fear concerning national lockdowns.