It Obama loses ?
What a take away. I don’t think the young people would be able to handle it.
No. The Left in this country is too passive, too sheeplike. The Republicans could openly steal the election and openly mock Obama voters about it on national television and you wouldn’t get riots.
How does refusing to riot make one passive and sheeplike?
I’m speaking of how the Left has let the Right run roughshod over it for decades. I’m saying they wouldn’t do anything, including riot. Just passively stand and take it, like always.
Oh, I think you underestimate the level of frustration and anger afoot at this stage of the game.
Recall that Bush’s motorcade was mobbed by protesters following his disputed victory in 2000…that crowd would likely have overturned his car had security not been as tight as it was.
People are a HELL of a lot angrier now.
If Obama loses fair and square (not likely at this point, but just for the sake of argument) there will be some rioting, but on a limited scale. Some will just need to vent, and others take any excuse to go out and wreak havoc and loot. But I’ve no doubt that there would be angry crowds and fires and some vandalism in the streets of our poorer and/or Blacker areas.
If he loses AND there is the slightest indication of fraud, warranted or not, all hell will break loose, and not just in limited areas. Being on “the left” myself, I can speak for many who feel we were robbed in both 2000 and 2004, and we’ve sat patiently by, for the most part, for the last 8 years as Bush and his ilk ran this country into the ground as we knew they would.
The prospect of another 4 -8 years of this shite is not going to go over terribly well, and again, if suspicions of fraud factor in, Katy bar the door.
I think we normally passive lefties are at our boiling point, and lest we forget that we’ve quite a few hot-heads not averse to burning a few cars, smashing a few windows, and setting off a few bombs in our midst (no, I’m not one of them, but they are known to gather near here from time to time.)
Most of us will just get together and get drunk, maybe do a few primal screams off the porch or in the street, and start planning for 2012, true. Doesn’t mean we take it lying down, just that we don’t resort to violence, as a rule. But given the human tendency to be sucked into the mob mentality, I wouldn’t discount large numbers of normally non-violent people joining in if any mass gatherings of energetic protest emerge in their immediate area.
The current economic situation adds to the mix, with the prospect of class warfare emerging as a viable threat. The election of another administration favoring tax cuts for the rich at a time when many are struggling to survive would not bode well for domestic tranquility.
Adding in the racial element this time around (a lot of Black folks have been pretty pissed off for a long while already, and some will take it very personally) I think there is a very real potential for some serious mayhem.
All that said, I don’t think it will happen, because I think Obama has this one “signed, sealed, and delivered”. And I don’t think the Republicans and their cronies would DARE attempt any sort of fraud, given the powder-keg any such actions would ignite.
(I could, of course, be wrong on both counts)
So what about the other side of the coin? Will there be rioting if Obama WINS? Right-wing rioting and other acts of violence directed at those seen as the enemy? Personally, I’m more scared of THOSE folks than I am of the “boys in the hood”.
Under what circumstances? A Deibold debacle? McCain loses massively in popular vote but by some electoral magic and chicanery gets 271? I don’t think the Pubbies have that much mojo anymore. They might pull it off it were close, but it ain’t looking like close.
Well, it IS a very close election, the most recent polls aside, and a lot can change in a week. The current polls are behind by at least that much, and a few weeks back, they told a different tale.
And it remains to be seen how big a factor racism will play, how many who will vote their prejudices once alone in that booth, but who would never admit to it publicly. Just because racism is no longer socially acceptable doesn’t mean it no longer exists. This could be a significant factor, enough to tip the scales in a close race.
I hope you are correct, and it would take a miracle (manufactured by Diebold or otherwise) for Obama to lose this one.
Agreed. If he loses “fair and square” then there will be lots of bitching and moaning, but the backlash will be minimal. (Of course the right will have a field day with “I told you so”).
But if there’s anything questionable like 2000, all hell will break loose.
Uh huh! Did you notice the terrible violence by the right in Denver and the peace and love that was rampant in St. Paul at the conventions. :rolleyes:
Does a 6-10 point lead count as ‘close’ to you? How about a 150-vote margin? Obama is very clearly in the lead at the moment, which was not the case for either candidate at any period of time longer than a day or two in 2000 or 20004.
Right. A few weeks ago Obama wasn’t really competitive in Montana, North Dakota, Arizona, or Georgia, though he seemed to be in West Virginia, where McCain has regained a fairly decisive lead. I don’t think six days is enough time for McCain to turn this around.
This election was never that close. The combination of Obama and the Dean 50-state strategy was already extremely well positioned to take the White House post-Bush. But when you also add in the financial crisis, Palin, the McCain campaign legion of errors, and Obama’s virtually flawless campaigning, it became a lock.
I understand Democrats will never want to take the win for granted given recent history, but even if you don’t trust your own instincts and the polls, trust the self-interested rats leaving the sinking ship of the party.
I mean seriously, when was the last time you saw so many Republicans endorsing a Democrat? When was the last time you saw so many mouthpieces for the Republican establishment either publicly leaving the ticket, or squabbling over who is to blame right in heat of the campaign? Conservative cognition and message consolidation are absolutely rigid and cohesive usually, such that not that long ago they were talking about a permanent majority and being taken seriously. That’s what makes these apostasies so significant - they’ve completely unthinkable in a normal election environment. These people see the writing on the wall, and they know they have to position themselves for the loss.
Any talk of riots should be reserved for the rednecks and bigots who will think, because of the McCain campaign polarisation, that there is a dodgy Muslim terrorist occupying the White House.
Many people hate the Republicans so much that any little rumor of something not going 100% exactly by the book that maybe possibly somehow could have shifted half a vote to McCain will be spun into widespread voter fraud that was authorized and planned at the highest levels of the party. In other words, the threshold for “questionable” is a lot lower this time around. Additionally, several people in this very thread have intimated that if McCain wins then it must have happened because of voter fraud. I thiink all of this makes it extemely likely that there will be at least some rioting in certain cities if McCain wins.
There are going to be riots when Obama wins. There are riots when a baseball tean wins the Series, fer Ghu’s sake. There is a lot of pent-up emotion out there, and some of it is going to vent come Election Day.
Oy vey. Again with the “black people are gonna riot” thing?
And don’t give me any baloney about how you just mean “people in general.” Gimme a break. Nobody sits around and frets over whether pudgy redheaded over-educated Jews are going to riot. People aren’t voicing vague fears about store windows being broken in downtown Westfield, NJ. Nobody’s worried about the Upper West Side of Manhattan. They’re worried about Newark.
It’s like people think that black people are just waiting around for an excuse to go have a riot.
“Hey Fred!”
“Hiya, Hank. How’s it going?”
“Good, good. Listen, I was thinking of rioting this weekend. Are you up for it?”
“Naw, I’m saving it for Tuesday night.”
“You’re right! That would be a good night for a riot.”
“Hey, you wanna run down to the Home Depot on Saturday and pick up some new crowbars and lighter fluid?”
“Sure thing. But Sharon is on a business trip, so I’ll have my kids with me.”
“Great. I’ll bring mine, and we can go to Chuck E. Cheese for lunch!”
Hmmm.
No, I can’t agree. Sure, the Left has stopped with the direct action kinda stuff. And a good thing too. Neither side should do that crap unless the stakes are extremely high (higher than our comfortable lives right now - financial crisis or no - would allow). But there has been no sort of conservative victory at all. On an intellectual level, the Left has succeeded somehow in one of the greatest victories of them all: they have managed to skew the actual rules of engagement to the left, such that you can dismiss somebody by labelling them as a “conservative” without further argument. It’s become an insult. You can almost hear the half-aspirated “Ugh” before it.
So, I’d say the left hasn’t done too badly in the last couple of decades. In my more charitable moments, I’d almost congratulate them for their suave debating technique in getting this bullshit presented as the norm.
But I suppose I’m just being “shrill”. 
Yeah, it’s a stereotype, but it’s also based on history and experience. I spent several years in poorer, mostly Black areas, and it is not that anyone is planning a riot like they would a night out with the boys, it is that there is a LOT of frustration and anger simmering just below the surface constantly (over racism, poverty, unfair stereotypes, etc) and it doesn’t take much to cause it to boil over.
What I see is that in that community currently, at least where I am, there is a lot of hope right now, but also a great deal of cynicism. These are people who are used to being let down, so many don’t want to get too excited about it, lest they get slapped down come the 4th. And if that happens, many will be not only disappointed but personally insulted and WILL have their outlet.
And I don’t think it will be limited to the poor or Blacks if McCain takes it…the frustration and anger is a lot more widespread than that these days.
I don’t either (think McCain can turn this around at this point) but I guess being raised on the Gulf Coast, I tend to see elections as similar to hurricanes.
They move around a lot prior to landfall, and even with the best science, it is impossible to predict exactly where and how strongly they will hit.
Even up to the last moment, they have this tendency to change course or weaken or strengthen. They can veer off the predicted course in a moment.
So it is with public opinion in an election. Too many factors to take into consideration to presume we have it down to a science and can say for certain.
So I am not dancing (or rioting:D) in the streets just yet, thanks. I am keeping a watchful eye out and feeling more and more sure of exactly how this thing will hit, but I hesitate to get too cocky when it comes to wild, violent, unpredictable forces of nature.
I agree.
You know, as a young person, I’m really rather offended by this. No one could accuse blacks, or the poor, or any other group of being unable to handle a loss without rioting with a massive backlash against the accuser.