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The MoA Election Week In Review
Last week's posts at Moon of Alabama:
> Public PBS and NPR provided extensive coverage to presidential candidates in their newscasts with President Trump receiving 48 per cent of all politics-related news coverage on both channels, largely critical. Former Vice President Biden and his campaign received 18 per cent of such coverage on PBS and 20 per cent on NPR, most of which was neutral. On the three national TV networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) President Trump received 63, 56 and 60 per cent of prime time politics-related news coverage, respectively, most of which was critical, while former Vice President Biden received 20, 25 and 22 per cent, respectively, mainly in a neutral tone. The cable networks were mostly relying on reporting opinions at the expense of balanced coverage. MSNBC, and, albeit to a lesser degree, CNN, portrayed the incumbent President very negatively, and Fox News showed open bias with demeaning vocabulary against former Vice President Biden in some of its evening shows. <
> Though the maths and maps suggests Biden will likely reach 270 Electoral votes, the old saying ‘It ain’t over ’till it’s over’, holds true. The electoral vote scenarios in the key ‘swing states’ would only apply if there is no litigation, fraud or theft. However all three are in play – If you are stuffing the ballot box, you first wait to see what the regular vote is, so that you know how many votes you ‘need’ (mathematical anomalies aside) to push your candidate over the top. Trump, somewhat rashly, gave out the GOP vote calculations at 02.30 on Wednesday, and hey-presto, loads of absentee ballots suddenly arrived at certain polling stations at around 04.00. That seems to have happened in Wisconsin, where over 100,000 Biden votes appeared seemingly out of nowhere on a flash drive delivered by hand from a Democratic district. That put Biden ahead in Wisconsin – but litigation is in process. Likewise, it appears that a huge “absentee ballot” dump appeared in Michigan that heavily favored Biden.
This is just the beginning of a new and more uncertain phase that could go on for weeks. <
> In sum, if the results we have hold, Joe Biden will win the election and preside over a divided Congress. A chastened and anxious Democratic caucus will continue to hold the House. A triumphant Senate Republican caucus will obviously destroy his major legislative agenda. Biden will assuredly turn to policy by executive action, just as Barack Obama did late in his legislatively stymied administration. When he does, Republicans will do all they can to send those actions to a 6–3 conservative Supreme Court Biden will be unable to pack or meaningfully reform. In defeating Trump, Democrats will have avoided their worst-case scenario. Instead, they will have won the worst possible Biden victory, a political situation that will be a nightmare all its own. <
> There is nothing done by the Trump administration that can be rationally characterized as a radical aberration, some dramatic break, from U.S. tradition. Quite the contrary: none of Trump’s actions and policies are in some new universe of savagery, lawlessness, or radicalism when compared to those who preceded him in power. <
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Joseph Dana @ibnezra – 10:06 UTC · Nov 8, 2020
Biden’s acceptance speech in front of a Chase logo pretty much says everything you need to know about the next four years. #USElectionResults2020
Please use the Open Thread 2020-88 for non-election issues.
Scrolled directly to the bottom of the first page of comments without reading any other than the one right above the Post a comment form, which is RSH’s regarding election fraud. Agree completely with the Brennan center’s conclusions as I have read it before. I can’t say I care much for Mr. Brennan, but that’s beside the point. Anyway, I only dropped in to offer a few observations nowt that I’ve had a night to sleep on this US election stuff and a day to dive into social media, talk to people, and view a couple of American TV programs that I sometimes like to watch even if I don’t always agree with them (no, I will never watch Bill Maher on HBO – he’s a fucking establishment crank whose intellect I cannot even believe allowed him to make a career in standup comedy much less hosting a roundtable style talk show, and one that regularly features Ann Coulter – gag). So forgive me if I’m saying anything that hasn’t already been said, and also please forgive me if I had an ongoing dialogue with anyone in another thread that I’ve not gotten back to due to fatigue (Sagineh Bagoom (sp?) I’ll get back to it when I can).
Couple of observations:
1) Watched Dave Chappelle’s SNL monologue from Saturday night in America on “Saturday Night Live” – I recommend it. Very funny and really hits the nail on the head. I won’t spoil it, but if you end up watching (yes, SNL has become totally unwatchable during the Trump years), let me know what you think. I think Chappelle captured the zeitgeist when Bush/Cheney were in office and that he continues to in 2020. Love that dude.
2) Watched John Oliver using my American daughter’s password for HBO Max and a proxy server. This is how I normally view John Oliver: a) He avoids the Russia stuff just enough to remain credible in my mind, even though he often hints around it to appease his viewing base of mostly liberal Democrats with college educations. He’s never pushed the Russiagate thing in the manner that, say, Steven Colbert did, but he’s allowed some of the narratives to enter his show unscathed or un-criticized. b) He does a great job of exposing and breaking down the everyday graft and corruption of the elite in America and how it plays out for regular people. They did a bit on the diabetes clinics one time and another on trailer parks – I recommend both of them. c) He panders to the aforementioned educated liberal Democrat base just enough but knows where to stop to keep someone like me watching even if I scoff at some of the narratives he allows to seep in.
All of that said, this Sunday’s episode did a great job of showing the hypocrisy of Trump supporters and their behavior during the time spanning the closing of polls to now in the USA. In one clip, we see an all-white mob of (bused in?) angry Trump supporters in Philadelphia (80% black) chanting and screaming to Stop The Count!. I believe it was Wednesday night when it was filmed. In another clip we see a mob of mostly white, often armed Trump supporters in a heavily white Arizona precinct screaming to Count The Votes!. Additionally we see several clips of people in the USA and abroad dancing and reveling in public places that Trump is gone. There was literally just one person in any of the clips that had a pro-Biden sign. This matches with my own anecdotal and observed take on this election that regardless of why (be it the constant MSM negative treatment of Trump (which I and others better versed than myself have argued is actually GOOD for him – CNN’s top executive seems to think so)) there was a silent majority of Americans (although JUST barely) that really hate Trump the person and were far more happy to see him go than they were happy to see Biden/Kamala replace him. It really was a popularity or prom king contest and even though Trump filled arenas with his rallies and prompted crazy people to stage boat parades (regattas) and Biden “couldn’t fill a parking lot”, it wasn’t possible to extrapolate any meaningful information from those anecdotal facts beyond what they say themselves. Namely, Trump packs arenas, Biden doesn’t. But the mistake Trump supporters made was assuming that this naturally extrapolated to his popularity, but more importantly Biden’s lack of popularity.
Turns out that wasn’t the point. Enough people were sick of Trump, his toxic image (mostly self-made), and willingness to embrace or refuse to condemn the most xenophobic, hateful rhetoric and policy of some of the farthest right American constituencies, that they were willing to hold their nose and vote for Biden enthusiastically as a rebuke to Trumpism. This is the key fact that too many of his supporters (or supporters of CERTAIN Trump policies) here at MoA don’t seem to understand. Especially the ones constantly making unfounded/unbackable allegations of fraud on a scale and of a magnitude necessary to get Biden elected. His supporters are projecting their own passion for him and their perceived lack of passion for Biden onto what they expected the results to be. That’s not how it works. They are also exhibiting hallmark sociopathic traits (narcissism is a form of sociopathy I believe) when they say that THERE’S NO WAY OUR GUY LOST! IT’S IMPOSSIBE UNLESS THERE WAS MASSIVE FRAUD!!!
Before I continue, let me reiterate what I’ve said since I started commenting at MoA about this election. I think Biden will be a horrible president and I also think that there is some merit to the theory of some regulars here that a second Trump term would have hastened the decline of the USA hegemon and/or re-written the structure of the “elite” or “establishment” in Washington. But I also know that Trump was able to stack the district courts and SCOTUS with right-leaning, Federalist Society wet dream judges and justices (many of whom were called unqualified by the ABA) who will waste no time finding in favor of the types of policies stemming from the war on terra that George W Cheney put in place and which Barack H Obama seized and entrenched. These are activist judges and there is no way to make a case otherwise. Trump also gutted important “three letter agencies” like the EPA and Education Department as well as opened up vast swaths of federal land for privatization and exploitation. All of which are long term, ESTABLISHMENT GOP goals. Hence, as Glenn Greenwald argued in the linked piece, Trump governed like an arch-Republican, not a fascist tyrant like the MSM and “resistance” Democrats tried to paint him as. And I hate arch-Republicans, so I’m going to watch what Biden does on those and other issues before I make a judgment about him, and of course I’ll be observing his foreign policy stances and likely criticizing them, as I have done with every president since Ronny Raygun. I am not and won’t be celebrating either the Biden presidency – OR – the ousting of Donald Trump. I will be cautiously optimistic that Biden can fill some judiciary vacancies with somewhat liberal or progressive judges and reverse some of the damage that Trump did with respect to the Paris accords and other international agreements. I know I’ll be disappointed in a lot of what really happens.
I have said several times over the past several days that I would also rub Trump’s loss in with many of my Trumpist family members, friends and colleagues. I have changed my mind. I can’t get excited about Biden and I don’t really care all that much now that it really comes down to it. What I WILL do is demand intellectual rigor and real evidence from them if they are going to do what the Democrats and MSM did for 3.5 years with the Russiagate BULLSHIT and make claims of vote/voter fraud and the stealing of this election by way of USPS, the ballot box and vote counting operations. Show me evidence or shut the fuck up. And guess what, so far ZERO examples of legitimate vote rigging in favor of Biden. The converse? ZERO examples of vote rigging in favor of Trump! This election played out much differently than normal due to Da Rona, but any sane, patient, rational, informed adult already knew that the vote counting was going to be a LOT slower than normal and that this would muck up the MSM’s usual “up to the minute” election coverage and forecasting. No more “found votes” conversations for me. That’s just utter contemptible bullshit – UNLESS you have evidence AND the other side of the story or an explanation is available to review. I’m done with it and fatigued from the pitiable hypocrisy of Trump and his supporters. They spent nearly 4 years fending off BOGUS claims that Russia fraudulently got Trump elected, and now we’re going to have to hear the same thing from his side, but instead of Russia it’s vague claims of voter fraud backed by absolutely zero evidence – for FOUR MORE YEARS? (sadly, that is exactly what’s going to happen)
Last thing is Trump’s stated refusal to accept the results (I’m fine with recounts, lawsuits and reviews in cases where they are legitimate – after all, we need to know the real winner just like we needed to know in 2000 when Gore conceded and the partisan SCOTUS gave us George W Bush – without whom b might never have entered into a ‘career’ or side gig of blogging!) and his claims that he will boycott the usual ceremony like the one where Obama, after years of baseless and borderline racist attacks from Trump via Twitter, still sucked it up and attended the coronation of Trump. That’s just classless and, to me, very much in keeping with the attitudes and (lack of) intelligence of some of Trump’s more fervent American supporters.
Posted by: _K_C_ | Nov 9 2020 7:25 utc | 104
Since the sheep so very seldom look up, hardly any have noticed the this so-called ‘presidential election’ has occurred within the deep dark shadow of something profoundly sinister.
Frank Zappa:
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The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.
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Eric Zuesse, Strategic Culture, 11/1/2020:
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For example, on the Republican side, the fact that Donald Trump’s coronavirus leadership has been a catastrophic failure and is recognized throughout the world to be so, is ignored by some and denied by others, but it’s not recognized by Republican voters — they are in reality-denial about it. Also, for another example, these voters are in reality-denial about Trump’s racism and race-baiting. They deny the clear evidence of it.
However, on the Democratic side, the fact that Joe Biden is profoundly corrupt is simply ignored, as is the fact that he stole the nomination from Sanders by lying through his teeth. As is the fact that Biden was the U.S. Senate’s leading advocate in the Democratic Party for continuing segregation (‘separate but equal’). He was a stealthy bigot, not only on segregation, but on criminal justice. Also, the fact that Biden is an ardent proponent of U.S. imperialism and of the privatization of infrastructure in the conquered countries so as to sell them off to U.S.-and-allied investors, is likewise totally ignored by Democrats. (The main difference between Biden and Trump on foreign policy is over which country is the most important to conquer: for Trump it’s China; for Biden it’s Russia; but both want to conquer also Syria, Iran, Venezuela, and a few others.)
Perhaps the truth that both Republican and Democratic voters resist more strongly than any other is that the Republicans’ leadership regarding coronavirus-policy has been disastrously myth-laden and bad, and that Democrats are better only in that they are not leading this disaster, but Democrats have actually gone along with Trump on it wherever the polls were showing that a majority of the public were supporting his policy on the given matter. In other words: Biden’s policy has been simply to gloat over Trump’s getting all of the blame, and to avoid crucial specifics on what his own policy and priorities would be. But a choice between two evils is still evil — it’s an evil system. What is evil there is not merely the options, but the corrupt system that restricts those options to only ones that are acceptable to the actual rulers, to the very few — the aristocracy — that benefit from, and control, the corruption. That’s what’s more evil than either of the two nominees is. It is the people who are financing their political careers. And this is the reality that the vast majority of America’s voters, in both Parties, refuse to recognize. They refuse to recognize the more-fundamental problem, which problem is the trap that the country has degenerated into. Without recognizing that more-fundamental problem, there is no way out of it — not even possibly a way out of it.
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The really biggest problem with this so-called ‘election’ is that the Deepest State, which operates all the major propaganda organs, did not even bother to hide the fact that it was blatantly and furiously playing austerity games.
Please understand that any ‘political‘ (rather than ‘casual’) election that bears any involvement with computer voting, mass mail-in voting, and fails to implement simple score voting (each voter casts, say, zero to ten votes to as many candidates as they prefer — eg. each voter could, for example, theoretically grant nine votes to a dozen different candidates) is grossly inadequate. It will be either hopelessly insecure, or incapable of liberating the commonalty from corporate foundation fronted, perceived viability, two (or too few) party lock-in. It will provide no democracy whatsoever, just a tyranny of stealth overlords.
Posted by: blues | Nov 9 2020 8:12 utc | 110
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