@b “If I had a vote in the upcoming election it would likely go to where it does the least harm – to some third party candidate who argues for more peaceful and more socialist policies.”
That’s what I would do also, if the third party candidate had even an outside chance of winning. Sadly, that is not how the U.S. presidential electoral system works. The electoral college rules that were written into the Constitution made it inevitable that only two parties would vie for power. If you think I am wrong, consider the fact that the last viable American third party was the Republican Party which formed in the mid-nineteenth century and sent the Whig Party into the dustbin of history, leaving, again, only two major parties. Third parties have popped up from time to time, but they were all short-lived.
The inescapable logic of this system is that votes for third party presidential candidates might as well not be cast. They may make the voters feel better about themselves doing “the least harm,” but they also do the least good, as they have zero impact on the outcome.

Posted by: Rob | Oct 19 2020 16:33 utc | 4

or the TL;DR version. Trump may win again for the exact same reasons as last time and with team D committing the exact same unforced errors from four years ago.

Posted by: thepanzer | Oct 19 2020 16:34 utc | 6

I still think it’s hilarious that Crooked Hillary ran a lazy, sloppily unfocused campaign whilst Trump was campaigning his ass off. Then she had the Chutzpah to get all angry & indignant when she lost. Some people, who have to WORK to put food on the table, would have voted for Trump out of sheer admiration for his energy and dedication to the task.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Oct 19 2020 16:54 utc | 8

I am convinced Trump will lose by a large majority due to the fundamental desire of humans for stability over chaos. Trump has created and will continue to create chaos. I am not of the opinion chaos is inherently bad; I can think up any number of ways that Trumpian chaos has been a good thing. Nevertheless, in the lives of most people, stability matters a great deal, and there has been a notable decrease in it under Trump. Will chaos decrease under Biden? It will decrease somewhat when coronavirus subsides, and he may get credit for that. However, on the other hand, there is no remedy in sight for the ongoing sinking of the US Titanic. Biden and any Democratic majorities will also get the credit for that, when the bottom falls out, regardless of how incessantly the DNC and MSM attempt to blame Trump and the Republicans.

Posted by: Joseph Dillard | Oct 19 2020 16:57 utc | 10

to Karlov1 saw your #53
yours is 1 of most educational voices aboard.
Thank you and look forward to your early return…somewhere sometime.
Meanwhile, bestest to you and yours.
Note that many times I not post to acknowledge outstanding content bec feared the unworkable clutter of so many acks if all readers followed the usual policy in person-to-person speech. Yet not to ack in blog world is mistaken for ignore. A conundrum.

Posted by: chu teh | Oct 19 2020 17:08 utc | 12

On most domestic issues Trump is only slightly to the right of a Biden/Harris administration. His foreign policy is less warmongering but more chaotic than a Democratic administration would likely be.
Posted by b on October 19, 2020 at 16:03 UTC | Permalink
Actally Trump has been the most aggressive US President for the last 30 years (Even his book is called Time to get Tough).
What happens if those who bet on Trump get an even bigger Cold War, including nuclear war-mongering coming after them? He is trashing the framework of nuclear arms control, prompting the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to proclaim that we’re closer to nuclear war than ever before.

Trump’s famous promise to “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) should have come with the caveat that he planned to do so by provoking a New Cold War with China and Russia. He led his supporters into thinking that he meant to focus more on internal issues than international ones, which some in hindsight wrongly portrayed as quasi-isolationalism. Lo and behold, however, MAGA has arguably turned into the most aggressive US foreign policy in decades, which makes it extremely dangerous for global stability.
Truth be told, Trump did imply something of the sort while on the campaign trail, but few realized how far he intended to go. He’s known for ranting about China’s trade policies so many foresaw the trade war that followed his election, but the scale and scope of his anti-Chinese policies likely surprised even the most rabid anti-communist elements of his base. Trump didn’t just try to broker a new trade deal, but took aim at China’s Belt & Road Initiative (BRI), some of its tech companies like Huawei and TikTok, and its territorial integrity.
Since the beginning of this year, he’s also ridiculously claimed that China is responsible for COVID-19. Secretary of State Pompeo rattled the US Hybrid War saber earlier this summer during his landmark speech at the Nixon Library, which was followed up by Trump’s dramatic address to the UN General Assembly (UNGA) last week that compared China to Nazi Germany. So serious are US-Chinese tensions as a result of this unprovoked onslaught that UN Secretary General Guterres opened the UNGA debate by warning against a “New Cold War”.
It’s not just China that’s victimized by Trump’s MAGA strategy but Russia as well despite Trump’s opponents continuing to claim that he’s under the influence of Moscow. He once bragged about how “I have been FAR tougher on Russia than Obama, Bush or Clinton. Maybe tougher than any other President”, pointing to his intense sanctions regime against the country that he once promised on the campaign trail to partner with. NATO has also expanded its military forces and infrastructure closer to Russia’s borders during this time too.
On top of that, the Trump Administration has been accused by Russia and Belarus of orchestrating the latest political unrest in the latter, and is also currently trying to assemble a coalition against Russia’s Nord Stream II pipeline with Germany. Russia’s Turkish Stream pipeline with Turkey and the Balkans is also being threatened as well. Not only that, but anti-Russian spy scandals are a dime a dozen nowadays in the US and its NATO allies, which serve the purpose of creating pretexts for imposing even more sanctions pressure on Moscow.
There’s a method to this madness, however, and it’s important to point it out in order to expose the truth about how Trump’s MAGA strategy operates. The three most common denominators linking the US’ Hybrid Wars on China and Russia are geopolitics, economics, and fake news. America wants to “contain” both countries, to which end it’s increased its military presence in the South China Sea and Eastern Europe respectively, while targeting BRI, Chinese tech companies, and Russian energy ones using fake news.
The Trump Administration believes that the combined effect of these three simultaneous Hybrid War fronts against what it regards as its two main rivals will result in “decoupling” them from their primary partners across the world, thereby leading to their “isolation”. As a means to that end, the US is provoking a New Cold War, the acknowledgement of which debunks the notion that MAGA is a “peaceful”, “inward-looking”, “isolationist” strategy. To the contrary, it’s the most aggressive and dangerous US foreign policy in decades.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/trump-hellbent-provoking-new-cold-war/5725187
He relies on the military in order to stay in power, this is why he likes them and raises their budgets a lot. He likes generals. He likes big weapons. Big bombs. Big army. Military parades. Glory to the US. This is his way of thinking. He is not isolationist at all and has done everyting possible to prop up imperialism.
He pushed for a space force and starting military parades in Washington with big entusiasm. He said that he could nuke Afghanistan. He said that the US should have taken Iraq’s oil long before becoming a President. And constantly brags about having “bigger nuclear button”, “bigger weapons”, etc.
He is the most imperialist president for the last 30 years. He thinks that wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are stupid only because they distract from the main aim: to rearm, start a new Cold War, and smash Russia and China, who are the real enemy. And subdue everyone else, including the EU.

Posted by: Passer by | Oct 19 2020 17:21 utc | 14

While most polls show that Joe Biden will win the U.S. election my gut is telling me that Donald Trump will have a second term. The election might well become a repeat of 2016 when Trump won even though most media had predicted that Hillary Clinton would win.

I don’t care who wins. I just want it to be extremely close – preferably, decided by fraud a la Bush vs Gore in Florida 2000.
With a contestable election, the USA will then plunge even more in internal divisions, leaving more space for the rest of the world to breathe.
As for the enthusiasm thing. My guess is the “foot soldiers” of the Democratic Party, the people who historically go house to house to do campaign for the party, migrated to Bernie Sanders. When Bernie Sanders was robbed of the nomination twice in a row, the Democratic Party essentially lost its “foot soldiers”. In my opinion, this was a calculated risk: the DNC certainly knew it would happen, and decided they were not worth the risk of nominating a socialist.

Posted by: vk | Oct 19 2020 17:39 utc | 16

Passer by @Oct19 17:21 #14

Actally Trump has been the most aggressive US President for the last 30 years

Yes.
b is waaay too easy on Trump. Both with the pandemic and with Trump’s belligerence.
b’s excuse that the Democrats would’ve been the same is just that: an excuse. Unless that excuse is put into the context of the Deep State’s control of the duopoly and that BOTH Presidential candidates are loyal to the Deep State.
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Oct 19 2020 17:47 utc | 18

Trump has performed the most provocative acts in his first time in order to secure his second term. ( Israel, China Russia) and to mark himself against Obama.
He succeded. He has been shaken by the fear of the virus attack on him and his family and the worrying impact on his re election campaign. If elected, he may calm down and make provocative acts in the opposite direction, more positive. He will think more about his legacy away from wars and tensions.
Biden is hopeless and the Dem party corrupted to the bones. Nothing good can come out of him and his party.
Despite Trump’s recklessness and near hysterical behavior, he is now predictable and can be managed.
I believe he will win.

Posted by: Virgile | Oct 19 2020 17:48 utc | 20

– Biden/Harris are empty suits for the ‘Globalists’
– Obama was an empty suit for the ‘Globalists’
– W. was an empty suit for the ‘Globalists’
– Clinton was an empty suit for the ‘Globalists’
For 30 years the U.S. has been failing under the rule of the ‘Globalists’.
Trump will try to prevent the final collapse.
Biden/Harris will go to war to have somebody to blame for the final collapse. And the ‘Globalists’ will have succeeded in converting the U.S. from an Empire into their Colony.

Posted by: dh-mtl | Oct 19 2020 17:57 utc | 22

Posted by: Virgile | Oct 19 2020 17:48 utc | 21
Actually he seems to be obsessed with harming Russia and China and cementing a new Cold War, even if he loses the election due to that.
Why is he so desperate to get out of the START Nuclear Treaty with Russia just before the election?
He behaves as if he knows that he will lose the election and wants to cement the new Cold War in his remaining time.
He is a military puppet and it shows.
Ask yourself who in the US wants to trash the framework of nuclear arms control. The military, obviously.

Posted by: Passer by | Oct 19 2020 17:59 utc | 24

It isn’t true that the polls had it wrong in ’16. They accurately predicted that Clinton would win the popular vote. Trump’s electoral college victory was the result of winning three “swing” states by less than 80 thousand votes. There is nothing to suggest that anything like that is going to happen again. Those states are trending strongly toward Biden. Trump has pulled his advertising. His fundraising has dried up. He is being heavily outspent. Trump is in trouble even in states that have been traditionally won by Republicans by wide margins. It is telling that Republicans officeholders are now publicly distancing themselves from him, even in a state like Texas.
Trump won the presidency with fewer votes than Romney received when he lost. While there is no passionate support for Biden, he does not carry the high level of negative opinions that Clinton had in ’16. People who are expecting Trump to prevail are not looking closely at the facts. I find Biden loathsome but there is ample reason for believing that he is going to win.

Posted by: David | Oct 19 2020 18:13 utc | 26

https://youtu.be/_zhWHsfEa0U
Sky News Australia did an interview with Steve Bannon about the Hunter Biden emails. Interesting interview about the origin of the hard drives and their authenticity and what they contain.

Posted by: Down South | Oct 19 2020 18:19 utc | 28

If I was the one pulling strings from the dark, and unavoidable collapse of the state is at the horizon, I too would put most offensive, polarizing, affair prone distraction at the helm of the state to keep people glued at the TV gimmicks and away from the real things going on (like robbing everyone blind and entrenching my position). And when the SHTF he will be the convenient scapegoat and disposed.
US has Trump, UK has BoJo… They are not going anywhere.

Posted by: Abe | Oct 19 2020 18:26 utc | 30

Sad to see supposedly intelligent people confusing words with deeds. Trump is a loudmouth blowhard (or at least he plays one on TV), but the fact remains that he has not started any new wars. That makes him relatively unique among living presidents. Clinton’s expected win in 2016 was ready to be sold by the mass media as a mandate for hot war against Syria, which means the US would be in hot war with Russia right now instead of these fits and starts towards cold war that we have been seeing. There is a big difference between Trump doing the Commander in Chief version of his Wrestlemania rants and actually ordering in the troops to destroy another country.

Posted by: William Gruff | Oct 19 2020 18:34 utc | 32

Its only words.
Posted by: William Gruff | Oct 19 2020 18:34 utc | 33
William, what is the point of Trump exiting 30 year old nuclear arms control agreements?
I do not see anything good in that.

Posted by: Passer by | Oct 19 2020 18:40 utc | 34

Congratulations to Bolivia! They took their country back from crooks, including the despicable Musk. Well done Bolivia!

Posted by: Norwegian | Oct 19 2020 18:47 utc | 36

“what is the point of Trump exiting 30 year old nuclear arms control agreements?”
Requirement of the job. The US was already in violation with the $trillion that Obomber authorized for “upgrades” to the US nuclear arsenal, so exiting the treaties was necessary. It doesn’t matter who was president at the time since the circumstances were already put in motion that would force the issue.

Posted by: William Gruff | Oct 19 2020 18:52 utc | 38

A brilliant and reflective posting, b.
You cited two reasons why your gut feeling steers you towards the likelihood of a Trump victory in two weeks: efficacy of each party’s ‘get out the vote’ efforts; polling inaccuracies prior to the actual ballot. I agree with your gut feeling but see a different crucial factor at play. I sense that American people are at a stage of subconsciously sensing the onset of difficult times and desperation. It is at a stage of wanting their leaders to be mean, blatant, and ruthless. Someone like Trump fits the bill. Someone like Trump will get the nod from most of them.
Americans see China, Russia, Iran, et al overcoming the oppressive tactics that four POTUS in a row used in trying to subjugate them, and yet seem to be doing well. They are mighty jealous; they are mighty desperate; they want a leadership that is stupid enough to resort to war to get what they want and need. It is the gangster era in US politics. Gangster Trump is gonna win.

Posted by: Oriental Voice | Oct 19 2020 19:00 utc | 40

William Gruff @Oct19 18:34 #33

the fact remains that he has not started any new wars.

No. Trump has started or continued several wars. But the small countries that he has picked on haven’t responded to Trump’s hostility in a way that would invite their destruction.
Trump’s Acts of War

• Trump unjustifiably attacked Syria with missiles TWICE and occupies their oil fields while imposing harsh sanctions that make it difficult for them to buy oil from others.
• Trump assassinated Iranian General Soleimani. This was an illegal act that US Troops paid a price for.
• Trump continues to provide crucial support (weapons, logistics, targeting, etc.) for Saudi Arabia’s war on Yemen.
• Trump reneged on his “Peace Agreement” with North Korea.
• Trump’s third-party sanctions on Iran constitute a virtual embargo – which is an act of war.
• Trump has terminated numerous Cold War era peace treaties and JCPOA.
• Trump has defied the UN and US decades of US middle east policy by moving US Embassy to Jerusalem and recognizing Golan Heights as Israeli territory. He has also greatly reduced aid to the Palestinians and is supportive of the Israel’s annexation of the West Bank.
• For decades USA recognized the Palestinians as a nation with a right to have their own country via the “two-state solution”. In this context, Trump’s actions are acts of war against the Palestinian nation.
• Trump supported a coup in Venezuela and backed that with the seizure of Venezuelan oil foreign assets (oil company and gold).
• Trump is pushing HARD to terminate NordStream II. Traditionally, such interference in strategic geopolitical relations would be seen as an act of war.
• Trump has militarized space. Russians and Chinese may have satellite killer technology but USA has gone well beyond to actually create a ‘space force’ with the intention of dominating space. Some may see this as a provocation rather than an act of war but it certainly means future frictions that could lead to war.

!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Oct 19 2020 19:00 utc | 42

Norwegian @38
Why do you assume that the establishment/oligarchy is infallible? What makes you think they really have a handle on what is happening? They just misjudged and got their asses handed to them in Bolivia, Belarus, and Kyrgyzstan. Their economic war against China is hurting them far more than China. PNAC hasn’t advanced an inch in more than half a decade when they were originally planning on “Seven countries in five years!”
Sure, it’s theater, but the cast has totally lost the script and are just incoherently ad libbing left and right, the curtains are on fire, the audience is throwing rotten veggies at the stage, and the stage managers still have no idea how things got to this point.
Yeah, it’s theater, but as performances go it is a farce.

Posted by: William Gruff | Oct 19 2020 19:04 utc | 44

@Abe | Oct 19 2020 18:26 utc | 31
That sounds about right. It is always about distractions.

Posted by: Norwegian | Oct 19 2020 19:15 utc | 46

Bunny: “Trump allowed what was already in progress when he was sworn in to continue, and that is the same thing as starting a new war!”
No bunny, it is not the same thing.
What’s with Americans these days that they are hysterical and have no sense of proportion? It’s like the “woke” who think that laughing at a Black kid who is wearing his trousers around his knees is the same thing as lynching him. Trump childishly calling Kim Jong-un names is not an act of war, no matter what the hysterical tube watchers might think about it.

Posted by: William Gruff | Oct 19 2020 19:16 utc | 48

b, yet again, since you don’t seem to get it.
The US is a federation of (sorta) sovereign states, analogous to the EU, except the central government of the US is democratically chosen, not self-appointed like the EU bureaucracy. As such, responsibility for public health and safety lies with the state governors and city mayors. The federal government can intervene only where there is some overriding interstate problem. Interstate pollution is one of those, national defense another. The President and the federal government are mostly powerless to impose lockdowns or to police the streets. Biden, Obama, even Franklin Roosevelt could not have done more than Trump.
You are not alone in your confusion. The great majority of the American media are also unaware of the federal nature of the US government.

Posted by: bob sykes | Oct 19 2020 19:23 utc | 50

@William Gruff | Oct 19 2020 19:04 utc | 45

Why do you assume that the establishment/oligarchy is infallible?

I don’t think they are infallible. The fact that they are trying does not mean they will succeed. I am rather seeing a pattern of insanity (ref. “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”)
I do agree with what you say about the failures in Belarus and now Bolivia. We could add more examples, but some of these examples are indeed very dangerous failures, even if indeed it is farcical theater.

Posted by: Norwegian | Oct 19 2020 19:24 utc | 52

re: Red Ryder
pure BS on all points.
Trump is a fake Republican and a total submissive dog to Jews/Israel. Nothing good can come out of him.
Trump’s economy: major retail chains collapsing/going out of business. 50% of All Americans unable to pay their bills. More homeless than ever before. The ONLY thing doing great is the Stock Market ONLY because the Fed is doing QE and throwing literally billions at the banks who give it to the companies who buy back their stocks and raise the stock prices. Zero-hedge documented all that quite well until 2020. the Stock Market isn’t the economy. Inflation in USA is at least 8-12%, NOT the 2% the gov says.
Trump’s foreigner policy: Attack Russia, China, Syria, Venezuela, Iran, EU and anybody else who wont submit to USA. trying to provoke China into a hot war. Kissing Jew’s ass anyway possible.
Trump tried to start a war with Iran but was stopped by Mattis. A 2nd trump presidency will almost certainly see a US war against Iran.
Biden: no better.
BIden’s economy: major retail chains collapsing/going out of business. 50% of All Americans unable to pay their bills. More homeless than ever before. The ONLY thing doing great is the Stock Market ONLY because the Fed is doing QE and throwing literally billions at the banks who give it to the companies who buy back their stocks and raise the stock prices. Zero-hedge documented all that quite well until 2020. the Stock Market isn’t the economy. Inflation in USA is at least 8-12%, NOT the 2% the gov says.
Biden’s foreigner policy: Attack Russia, China, Syria, Venezuela, Iran, EU and anybody else who wont submit to USA. trying to provoke Russia into a hot war. Kissing Jew’s ass anyway possible. A 2nd trump presidency will almost certainly see a US war against Russia.
USA is fukked either way. the world rejoices.

Posted by: Hoyeru | Oct 19 2020 19:33 utc | 54

Who’s worse Trump or Biden?
Even if Biden is as bad as Trump or slightly worse in some areas it is good to vote out the brutish warmonger every 4yrs so that the Bully & Chief cannot consolidate power over 8yrs.
Trump didn’t start any wars … YES HE DID! It is only dumb luck that we didn’t get into a butcherfest w/Iran.
Iran gave us 5 hours warning so that we could evacuate Al Asad airbase and our numbskull commanders had our guys hunker down into mortar pits. If there were any deaths in Iran’s missile strike then Trump would have been compelled to launch an attack on Iranian territory and the IRGC would have launched 3 follow up salvo of ballistic missiles only this time hitting massed U.S. troops.
Trump started a war and it was only Iran’s restraint and luck that kept it from escalating.

Posted by: Christian J. Chuba | Oct 19 2020 19:39 utc | 56

Oriental Voice @Oct19 19:00 #41

Gangster Trump

This is a good moniker for Trump as it brings out the nature of the Deep State.
The ‘gang’ includes Hillary, Biden, Bushes, neocons, CIA, MI6, Mossad, etc.
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Oct 19 2020 19:50 utc | 58

You are right about a Trump win. But, Viva Bolivia!

Posted by: j. casey | Oct 19 2020 20:03 utc | 60

V. @Oct19 19:38 #56

… DNC screwed him [Sanders] for second time in four years.

Bernie was a sheepdog. He wasn’t fighting to win. He was there to screw his dumbass lefty supporters who are led to believe that Democracy Works(tm). You voice is your vote! LOL.
Ask yourself: If Sanders could raise significant funds from his supporters (as he did) and he has such a strong following (as he did), why did he need to go on a quixotic, futile quest to take over the Democratic Party? Why not just start an independent Movement and run as an independent? Or better yet, ‘take over’ the Green Party and run as the Green Party nominee?
You were had. You got fooled. Swindled by your trust in a closet Zionist that is in bed with all the top politicians in the corrupt system that works for THEM and not you.
Audre Lorde: “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House”.
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Oct 19 2020 20:04 utc | 62

Here’s a question for “lesser evil” and/or Bernie supporters to consider:
If you vote for Biden and he wins – do you really think there is any possibility that a progressive will head the Democrat party Presidential ticket in your lifetime?
From my view: if even Innocuous Joe fails and a second Surprise! election occurs – there could be an opening to change the Democrat party.

Posted by: c1ue | Oct 19 2020 20:09 utc | 64

Didn’t all those BLM rallies help spread COVID too? How is that Trump’s fault?

Posted by: Bruce | Oct 19 2020 20:15 utc | 66

Mao Cheng Ji @Oct19 20:04 #64
I can’t understand those who say Biden&Co, sponsored by global finance, is the lesser evil.
They are both evil and they both work for the same gangster class.
The Empire is a bi-partisan project.
=
… this is, obviously, a naked power struggle.
You’ve been duped. It’s kayfabe. Mock combat. The Democratic establishment – including Sanders, Biden, and Pelosi – are throwing the race just as Hillary threw it in 2016. Trump is the Deep State pick and his job isn’t done.
!!

Posted by: Jackrabbit | Oct 19 2020 20:24 utc | 68

Congratulations to Bolivia. May their example lead other neighboring countries to stand up for their people instead of being compliant slaves to empire.
There are a couple of comments upthread that posit that Biden is the rep for global finance and Trump is the rep of nationalists. At one point I thought that what we are seeing was a clash of financial elite but no longer. And if I did see it that way I would put Trump as the rep of the globalists because of his Occupied Palestine support.
Now I see the clash of US politics as a set up for a global culling of the lower tier rich along with a consolidation of global power/control. I see Brexit as the same sort of clash between the UK/City of London folk and the EU types that want visibility of City of London stuff.
If Trump wins it will be a squeaker and if Biden wins it might be a blow out but I hope not…..I don’t want either to have a mandate or think they have one.
The US shit show continues but the rest of the world like Bolivia are moving on which is good to see.

Posted by: psychohistorian | Oct 19 2020 20:28 utc | 70

@Christian J. Chuba #66
You leave out Yemen and Syria. Ukraine also occurred on Obama’s watch.
And Obama was the first to extrajudicially kill an American citizen abroad.
Hardly the record of a peacemaker.

Posted by: c1ue | Oct 19 2020 20:29 utc | 72

poor elon. i hope he and his canadian street urchin baby mama have enough to get by. wouldn’t want little ^%$&$%&%7!# to go hungry after all.
the second you bring up che around basic folks (and especially the huge population of anti-castro lunatics in florida) they usually default to “he was a murderer!!!!” maybe – but even if we accept that term it omits the fact that many (or most) of those killed had it coming and, if allowed to live there, would have gone straight back to counter-revolutionary hijinks. exile is a decent option but it’s not like they stop acting like pricks when they hit miami.
anyone who has even casually followed events in south/central america knows the right wing down there can’t be reasoned with as human beings. that is great if you’re a banana company, mcdonald’s or want some nuns raped and killed but if you want a functioning society the occasional euthanasia could be necessary. again, i’d put them in rafts and let them do some refugee LARPing before the coast guard scoops them up and hands them cocoa. anything harsher would just convert them to martyrs.
and as always, agreed that a bumbling, hated trump is better than a semi-popular biden riding a long wave of unaccountability and acting on a “mandate”.

Posted by: the pair | Oct 19 2020 20:42 utc | 74

Biden’s leads in MI, PA, and WI are between 6.5 and 8 percent. Trump is very unlikely to win any of them let alone repeat his 2016 sweep. Biden hasn’t ignored those states the way Clinton did. He is focusing his money on them and outspending Trump by a wide margin. Trump has thrown in the towel. He has chosen not to use any of his own funds. That is because he knows that the game is over for him.
Nate Silver, who predicted 99 out of 100 state results accurately in ’08 through ’12 gives Trump a 12 percent chance of winning the electoral college vote and 4 percent chance of winning the popular vote. The passion of Trump’s supporters at rallies is a poor indicator of what the election results will be. I’m surprised that so many here are anticipating a Trump win.

Posted by: David | Oct 19 2020 20:50 utc | 76

Posted by: Red Ryder | Oct 19 2020 16:55 utc | 9
I’m sorry but is this satire?

Trump will be most concerned with carving his name into history with Infrastructure, a new greener electrical grid, rebuilding urban centers, creating a health system that is better and cheaper and all can access, and getting left wing ideology out of the educational system.

Trump leading an infrastructure program, greener electrical grid and rebuilding urban centers? Laughable. C’mon you are joking, right?
On the infrastructure side of things, he made that promise in 2016 and nothing materialized. This time around he could very well be facing a Democrat House and Senate and unlikely to get any of his plans enacted. Then there is the fact that not even the Koch-funded and created Cato Institute is behind him. Instead, I see ramped up hostilities and potentially hot war (perhaps by proxy as is the not-so-new normal) with Iran and a massive increase in military infrastructure spending (gleefully green lighted by the Congress no matter who controls it) as well as skirmishes, both “diplomatic” (the US is not agreement capable) and military in and around China’s (claimed) territorial waters and the South China Sea. We still haven’t left Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan despite the recent threats to close the embassy in the “Green Zone” and many are thinking (apologies for the weasel words) that Israel will soon go to war with its neighbors, surely drawing Iranian proxies and assets in. And furthermore all of THAT says nothing about the obstructionary investigations and impeachment attempts that will dog his second lame duck term as much or more than they did in the first.
Trump’s not going to do anything about medicine except further privatize it and his education policy consists, I shit you not, of increasing “patriotic education” in public schools and relaxing the regulations even more on private, for-profit charter schools.
As to b’s larger points and his prediction, I will go out on a not-so-long limb here and disagree. We left the United States just after the 2016 election, and still have relatives from California to Texas to Ohio/Pennsylvania/West Virginia/Maryland – and the so-called silent majority this time will be Biden voters. Last time I predicted a Trump electoral college win based on the silent majority I saw in large part via my social media connections including extended family and in-laws. The polling saying Hillary was a slam dunk didn’t match at all what I was seeing with my own eyes and hearing with my ears.
There was no passion about Hillary Clinton from most of the left (I didn’t vote for her) – just a subset of centrist females and upper crust liberals – and Trump was campaigning hard, including co-opting the populist sentiment and language of the Bernard Sanders campaign to hit at her from the left. This time around, I’m seeing a lot of Trump fatigue and I’m hearing that there are now plenty of Biden/Harris yard signs out in places where Trump dominated last time. (To those who are not in the United States, it is a common practice to stick 2-3 foot metal and paper signs into one’s front lawn.) COVID-19 or not, Trump fatigue is real and if Biden can make it through the first week of November without falling apart in a shambling, dementia-addled public melt-down, I think he’s going to beat Trump in both the popular vote and the electoral college. Just my hunch – I didn’t end up casting a ballot.
There are also likely to be a ton of contested results and court cases to come of it if the vote is really close. That’s where you start getting into the civil war scenarios and return of the Brooks Brothers Riots, but this time armed with AR-15s and much more aggressive. I found an interesting leftist/anarchist piece on the matter over at crimethinc (which has been blackballed and banned by FB, Twitter and IG) here. He references a long piece in the Atlantic as well as some other decently written articles within it.
All of that having been said, I do not endorse or approve of Joe Biden or Kopmala Harris, so please don’t read this comment as such. We’ll see the Russia baiting, military interventions, color revolutions/coups and continued abuse of government surveillance (among other) powers when and if Biden does win. There will be a softening of the stances with Iran, Venezuela and China, but probably nothing substantive (again, not agreement capable). Also, to think that Biden/Harris would get behind any real “defund the police” movement with actual policies is ridiculous. We all know both of their “tough on crime” records. That would have to come from the state/local levels or the Congress, and I honestly could see Biden vetoing anything along those lines. Most of the people I know, including some who voted Trump last time around, what they really want is a return to the fake normalcy of the Obama years, even if that means electing a proven war monger, corporation/bank owned puppet like Sleepy Uncle Joe.

Posted by: _K_C_ | Oct 19 2020 21:03 utc | 78

@Jackrabbit: for someone who “threw” the election, HRC sure did kick up a screeching fuss afterwards. In fact, the fuss has never stopped.
A much simpler explanation – HRC didn’t bother to campaign with the icky flyover people because she assumed that the election would be a coronation. After all, MI, WI and PA had consistently voted Team D in presidential elections for at least a generation, why would 2016 be any different?

Posted by: Feral Finster | Oct 19 2020 21:16 utc | 80

What’s funny is how many Yankee doodle dumb f*cks actually think the US (s)elections change policy.
Nothing has changed under Trump but the rhetoric just like nothing has changed over the last 40 years(at least) under any of these corporate fascist cult members.
The US is not a democratic republic and never really was. Anyone that actually believes Trump is going to change anything is the victim of magical thinking. He’s merely trying to convert himself from being the bribe maker to one of the bribe takers. Just read the book he had written for his oversized ego.
US foreign and economic policy is and always has been decided by the elite themselves or as of late via their heavily funded (get paid what to)think tanks. They have useful idiots in the press, academia, and the MIC that decide which country to loot and pillage in order to steal the natural resources to exploit us with. You’re only voting for which actor will lie to you about policy while making themselves, their friends and family and fellow cult members richer and more powerful.
Vote real hard this time and watch as nothing changes as far as policy goals are concerned and watch the cult members of either party pretend that their insignificant tactical changes equate to actual policy change.
Stay safe and sane, and don’t let these criminal assholes trick you into thinking they care about your well being. They only care about their own power, just like the two dickheads pretending to run for president. Both of which would be in prison or homeless by now if not for their connections and or parents money.

Posted by: dave | Oct 19 2020 21:21 utc | 82

james@84 asks about complaints about the electoral college. Complaints about the electoral college began in the second election, in 1792, about how the electors should vote as their states voted, not as they wished. The first constitutional crisis was in the election of 1800, which resulted in the passage of the 12th amendment. The electoral college was almost certainly not abolished then precisely because it gave Jefferson, the winner, a majority by overrepresenting the South. People complained that Jefferson was the Negro president because slaves were added, at 3/5 a man, to the supposed populations determining the congressional and electoral college representation. The electoral college gave John Quincy Adams the presidency and the popular vote winner (more or less,) Andrew Jackson, raved like a maniac for the entire term, as did his followers. There was another constitutional crisis in 1876, complete with threats of civil war resuming. It is strictly a modern thing for a Gore to supinely give up. Bush thought he might lose the electoral college and was preparing a fallback campaign to reject this as illegitimate, according to reports. And it is reportedly Obama who told Clinton to give up, as in, he’d fight her on it. Accepting the electoral college is a sure sign of reactionary politics, no matter how officially left. Every single person who claims that it’s the Constitution and that’s all there is to say, is a damned liar, or a gullible fool repeating damned lies.
The system is nearly impossible to change, which is not an accident.

Posted by: steven t johnson | Oct 19 2020 21:42 utc | 84

On Trump’s war actions relative to Obama, I find myself leaning more toward William Gruff’s comments @33, 49, 58.
@14 Passer by, I can agree that Trump has been more aggressive in rhetoric and in putting on a great show of sound and fury.
And I can agree that his dangerous rhetoric and brinksmanship puts the world at greater risk of nuclear catastrophe.
But in terms of actual physical damage, societies destroyed, and lives lost or ruined, my impression is that Trump has perhaps done a lot less harm than Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama.
Under Obama:
– US/NATO completely destroyed Libya, the most developed, progressive/socialist country in Africa
– Turned it into a failed state complete with AQ, black slave markets, and years of war and chaos
– Black lives previously mattered in Libya under Gaddafi who was also going to help all of Africa
– Obama made sure that that noble goal didn’t happen – guess black lives outside the US don’t matter much to him
– How many years or decades did that set Africa as a continent back? How many lives did that affect?
– Got weapons, AQ extremists, and violence flowing from Libya to Iraq/Syria/Mali/Africa
– Made sure that ISIS metastasized with training, funding, arming, and selective inattention
– Limited or no bombing of ISIS other than to push them toward Damascus
– Bombing of Syrian forces that tried to fight ISIS
– Largely destroyed another stable, secular country, Syria – brown lives outside the US didn’t matter much to him
– Created the largest flow of refugees since WWII
– Just how many black lives, brown lives, women, children were lost by that, including in the Mediterranean?
– Overthrew the elected government in Honduras – brown lives outside the US didn’t matter much to him
– Overthrew the elected government in the Ukraine in 2014 with neo-Nazi partners
– Poured weapons into and encouraged war in the Ukraine – how many died?
– Bombed the highest number of countries of any US presidency in history (7)
Under Trump:
– Made lots of aggressive/despicable rhetoric about North Korea, but then actually talked and met with them
– Dropped the “Mother of all Bombs” in Afghanistan, but in a remote location – how many people did that kill?
– There have been increasing civilian casualties in Afghanistan – but how many more than under Obama?
– Afghanistan peace talks have been happening under Trump, for what it’s worth
– Made a show of airstrikes in Syria, but provided notifications – how many people did those kill?
– Apparently stopped the US funding of regime change proxy forces in Syria in 2017?
– ISIS lost almost all its territory (thanks to Syria’s allies, Iran, Russia, etc.) under Trump
– Syria regained ground and stability, fewer people dying and suffering there under Trump than under Obama
– Possibly less fighting and killing in the Ukraine than under Obama
– Assassination attempts against Maduro did take place
– Repeatedly tried to overthrow Maduro via Guaido – seemed a bit of a joke
– American mercenaries were caught red-handed in Venezuela – seemed a bit of a joke
– Did assassinate the highly-regarded Iranian general/diplomat Soleimani and others around him
– Did overthrow Evo Morales in Bolivia, but it sounds like that may now be getting undone?
– Colour revolution attempts in Hong Kong, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, etc.
– Did impose brutal sanctions on Venezuela, Syria, Iran – but how many more have died as a result?
– Have there been more or fewer people dying in Yemen under Trump than under Obama? Or comparable?
I could be wrong, but my impression is that far fewer black lives, brown lives, white lives, women, children have been killed or ruined under Trump’s reprehensible rhetoric than under Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama’s noble-sounding smooth talking.

Posted by: Canadian Cents | Oct 19 2020 22:11 utc | 86

‘Voter enthusiasm”, “better ground game”…………….bread and circus.
Electoral college vote is what wins elections in the US, not the sham called the popular vote. The only quasi democracy exercised is among the delegates chosen by governors of each state, and they get their marching order from corporate America.
Maybe that’s why Biden doesn’t care much. It’s already decided. Anyway, we are screwed either way.

Posted by: Alpi | Oct 19 2020 22:27 utc | 88

To William Gruff’s point that Trump hasn’t started any “new wars” – I agree with the rabbit’s response and, because I’m a broken record on the topic, I can virtually guarantee that Trump will start a hot war on Iran once he’s safely re-elected. I’ve been predicting that for a long time now, and with the Israelis suddenly signing (meaningless?) peace deals with the Gulf monarchies, the “maximum pressure” campaign now reaching a point where it’s hard to imagine any possible NEW options other than a straight naval blockade, the shackles will be off and Trump will be free to turn against his (smaller and often
more disingenuous than advertised “anti-war” base) and hit Iran really hard. Plus the Saudis sure have bought a lot of weapons systems from the U.S. in the past 3+ years. They’re going to want to use their new toys.
The other thing is, U.S. presidents don’t have to start “new wars” anymore, really. Obama didn’t start any wars the likes of what George W. Bush and Dick(head) Cheney did. He and his fellow Atlantacists merely interceded into brewing conflagrations and helped them along throwing fuel on the fire, including Libya and Syria – Ukraine was too close to Russia for them to risk anything military. The French handled most of the Libyan destruction, IIRC, and U.S. proxy head-choppers did most of the destroying in Syria. Trump hasn’t really been that much better than Obama when you look at it that way. In fact, he’s revved up the drone assassination program to record levels (as of 2019 anyway, nobody talks about it anymore) and the Democrats and Republicans in Congress gifted him with the largest military budget of all time.
But back to my original point, I think the right way to phrase it is Trump hasn’t started any new hot wars……YET. Give him another term and that will change.

Posted by: _K_C_ | Oct 19 2020 22:52 utc | 90

as far as I am concerned Donald Trump has been the absolute worst president ever on two historic and existential issues:
1. nuclear weapons/nuclear war/arms control
and
2. global warming/climate catastrophe
the human race is absolutely hurtling itself toward extinction, and the f**king Climate Apocalypse high-speed train engine is pretty close to going off the cliff as far as I am concerned. To be brutally frank, the ecological and Planetary damage from either of these two existential crises coming to complete fruition are a thousand million times more damaging that any right-wing supreme court appointment or attempted foreign coup d’etats etc etc (all of which are hateful… and not that these things are insignificant, either, for they are not and should be reisted).
Trump and his right-wing ideologues in the ruling class are climate catastrophe deniers even as tens of millions die or are displaced worldwide from the droughts, storms, deluges, hurricanes, typhoons – and that’s not even to mention the already catastrophic loss of species and animal/plant life and their individual numbers… And the continued poisoning of the landscape, waterways and oceans, from China and Siberia to the USA and the Amazon. And we are just at the historical start of these things.
Little of this has been on the mainstream media radar the last few decades except for the most superficial and cursory notices. We all know the economic, political and psychological reasons why too.
Imagine if you would if Maddow alone had spent 1/2 of the time she wasted on russiagate lies and hype, instead focusing on and railing about pollution, species decimation, habitat loss, rising oceans and a hundred other related climate apocalypse issues! And wee all know why she didn’t do that, too.
sorry to go on, but these existential issues that are being essentially ignored by both american political parties and the capitalist Ruling Elites of the world make for a very sorry spectacle in the final years/decades of the human race.

Posted by: michaelj72 | Oct 19 2020 23:18 utc | 92

I disagree that Trump or Biden will start a hot war on Iran and actually on any other country. Those days are done. Finito.

Posted by: arby | Oct 19 2020 23:24 utc | 94

karlof1 | Oct 19 2020 19:54 utc | 60
Precisely. And removed the typo, OMO, altogether in 218.
Data held within a med family in direct line all the way back to Ehrlich staff.
Bec of u appears 1st time on inet. Thanks your perceptions.

Posted by: chu teh | Oct 19 2020 23:34 utc | 96

Trump is definitely a warmonger. It’s just that he doesn’t want to fight a middle eastern war. There is some high probability that the whole pandemic is a bio attack against China, aiming to cripple its economy and its international reputation, except it ended up backfiring.

Posted by: W | Oct 19 2020 23:56 utc | 98

b, yet again, since you don’t seem to get it.
… The President and the federal government are mostly powerless to impose lockdowns or to police the streets. Biden, Obama, even Franklin Roosevelt could not have done more than Trump.
Posted by: bob sykes | Oct 19 2020 19:23 utc | 51
You mean he didn’t even have needed to stage himself as US master of ceremony in the White House press circus as superior promoter of how best to deal with the flue? … the Chinese globalist hoax?

Posted by: Vig | Oct 19 2020 23:58 utc | 100