2024 US Presidential Election Thread

[Yard_Sale]

The uninteresting and predictable miss of this thread isn’t the election loss due too inflation - but the massive cultural shift in politics.

Progressive, woke politics, and pop culture…lost. In America



I could tell you why. But then I’d just be repeating the key points of previous posts I’ve made between two threads over the course of a year or more.




The majority here will “point and laugh” - but this election result was a very loud answer from the blue collar, and very-middle-class-not-necessarily-college-educated folks of this country


As I’ve outlined before. The “working” illegals of this country aren’t going anywhere. We need them. Just like we needed the blacks. Just like we needed the Chinese, the Mexicans and my Irish relatives. It doesn’t justify our, or the first worlds humanitarian malfeasance - but nothing ever will. Neither will the drug, sex, and human trafficking that the Biden/harris/Trump/Obama/Bush/Clinton administrations that preceded it did either.

Cottage industries always manifest when given the opportunity 🙄



As someone who’s frequently in Mexico - they want Trump back in office as much as Republicans do. They’re not happy with Central Americans invading their country either - as I’ve outlined previously how black and brown neighborhoods in Los Angeles were beginning to get frustrated with Central Americans being forced into their neighborhoods. It’s only gotten worse




My first time to PR was in 2005 on a surf trip. I was a wet-behind-the-ears-liberal back then. And even being a hard-nosed blue collar guy (and even though I quickly became a conservative by my mid 20’s…I’m proud of the person I was, and the values I had back then).
…I was shocked how much trash there was - even in the rural areas. I’ve been back a half dozen times since then, and it’s only got worse. So has the Philippines. So has Indonesia. So has Mexico. So has Guatemala. So has Costa Rica. So has Nicaragua. So has Columbia. So has Panama. So has Brazil. So has Taiwan. So has Ecuador. So has Cuba. So has Venezuela - pretty much any third world country I’ve surfed in.

Like red neck and intellectual jokes, 3rd world stereotypes don’t manifest out of thin air. And if you’ve ever met and spent considerable time with these people - they’re some of the most hilarious, humble, and self-deprecating people you’ve ever met - like most of the rural world. I meet fellow rednecks and cowboys all over the world, and in the end, we’re all the same 😎

There’s a reason why the black, brown, yellow, and white trash gave a big middle finger to the machine this election.

And it’s the same reason a lot of us “trash” live in Danoff’s neighborhood. We’re not dummies. And the many of us whom have made it. We want the same for our fellow working man who’s willing to put in the effort, without a handout

And as per usual, given that this thread is chalk-full of mostly American
and blue collar workers, I’m sure this post will be immortalized with 👍🏼 and virtual high 5’s







But seriously, jokes aside -because everyone that participates in here IS A GOOD PERSON



… no matter which side of the Mason-Dixon Line you stand on, America is the best country in the world. No matter who’s team is in charge, I’ll always be proud to be an American












Everything will be fine.


God bless 🇺🇸

 

[Keef]

Lord, have us mercy. The end of the segment.

Things like voting and graduating high school are the absolute bare minimum of being a human citizen in America these days. If a person can't do those things...that's their freedom, but they will not get an ounce of respect from me until they do something right.

 

[HenrySwanson]

That’s so dumb that it’s so funny that it’s not even funny anymore.

How did we end up here, really? Can it be traced back to 80’s yuppie culture? Or earlier? Later? Or is woke culture and exaggerated political correctness to blame?

I'd say it's (that being his views, not the election result) a reaction to progressive views over the past decades.

Democrats undermined by radical agenda

If Kamala Harris loses, she can reflect on her party’s mania for progressive ideas on immigration, policing and race

www.thetimes.com

Example from the article:

Promoting lax law enforcement and tolerance of social disorder was another terrible idea and voters hate it too. In the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, the climate for police and criminal justice reform was highly favourable. But Democrats blew the opportunity by allowing the party to be associated with unpopular slogans like “defund the police” that did not appear to take public safety concerns seriously. Democratic non-white and working-class voters tend to live in areas that have more crime and are therefore unlikely to look kindly on any approach that threatens public safety.

A survey conducted for my new report with Yuval Levin, Politics Without Winners: Can Either Party Build a Majority Coalition?, confirmed the strength of these sentiments. By 73 to 25 per cent, voters backed keeping police budgets whole in the interests of public safety over reducing them and transferring money to social services.

Among non-white working-class voters there was a 30-point margin against reducing police budgets, which ballooned to 50 points among moderate to conservative working-class non-whites, the overwhelming majority of this demographic. By contrast, white college-grad liberals favoured reducing police budgets by 20 points. That tells you a lot.

The Overton window has been yanked so far to the right (in the UK and US at least) that what Tate said would now be fringe rather than extreme in some quarters.

It's awful, and I keep correcting my student who uses that word and other derogatory phrases. However, what was limited to the playground is becoming more prominent thanks to the influence and exposure of nasty circles of society.

 

[ROAD_DOGG33J]

I ran some calculations on the states with less than 97% of the votes in. Assuming the proportions remain the same for the remainder of the votes, it will be Harris at ~75.4M and Trump at ~78.1M with a total of 153.5M between the two. That's 2M less overall than the 2020 election for the major parties with a decrease of 7.2% for blue votes and increase of 5.2% for red votes.

 

[Fezzik]

50.7% at the moment. Only barely half of those that bothered to vote have gone nuts. It’s better than we did with Brexit.

 

[UKMikey]

You've got to be carefully taught.


In the following post somebody points out that while most Americans in this survey don't believe gender dysphoria is a thing - although this figure is slowly coming down over time - a majority polled support laws designed to protect transgender rights, or at least they did two years ago. These results suggest to me that the culture war isn't a front-and-centre concern in the minds of the majority of people polled.

Americans’ Complex Views on Gender Identity and Transgender Issues

Most favor protecting trans people from discrimination, but fewer support policies related to medical care for gender transitions; many are uneasy with the pace of change on trans issues.

www.pewresearch.org

 

[HenrySwanson]

These results suggest to me that the culture war isn't a front-and-centre concern in the minds of the majority of people polled.

Americans’ Complex Views on Gender Identity and Transgender Issues

Most favor protecting trans people from discrimination, but fewer support policies related to medical care for gender transitions; many are uneasy with the pace of change on trans issues.

www.pewresearch.org

Not American but it's probable that it wasn't a big reason that it got people out to vote. This seems to back that theory up:

NBC News Exit Poll: Voters express deep concern about America's democracy and economy

Women are twice as likely as men to rank abortion as their top issue, according to preliminary results from the national survey.

www.nbcnews.com

Harris's campaign should have focused on the economy and immigration and used the tactics employed by Goebbels the Right to gain such a strong hold on the culture wars. However, truth and decency limited them, so it would have taken something creative to engage with voters susceptible to changing course.

 

[UKMikey]

As I understand it the Harris campaign did try to focus on the economy at least. Her plan to fight price gouging by corporations sounds to me like it would've done a lot more to reduce prices than Trump's concept of an idea to raise money by pushing them up further with tariffs.

But people didn't listen.

She also discussed immigration at length on her 60 Minutes interview and elsewhere. When the subject came up during her presidential debate Trump pivoted to ranting about Haitians eating pet cats and dogs.

Kamala Harris defends record on immigration: "Solutions are at hand"

Republicans have pounded Vice President Kamala Harris on immigration. She's announced plans to enact tougher border restrictions and has called on Congress to act on long-term solutions.

www.cbsnews.com

 

[05XR8]

So much going on. I can’t recall if it was posted here or one of my family members posted, how young people felt if Kamala went on Joe Rogaine it would have swayed their vote. Seriously.

 

[HenrySwanson]

As I understand it the Harris campaign did try to focus on the economy at least. Her plan to fight price gouging by corporations sounds to me like it would've done a lot more to reduce prices than Trump's concept of an idea to raise money by pushing them up further with tariffs.

But people didn't listen.

She also discussed immigration at length on her 60 Minutes interview and elsewhere. When the subject came up during her presidential debate Trump pivoted to ranting about Haitians eating pet cats and dogs.

Kamala Harris defends record on immigration: "Solutions are at hand"

Republicans have pounded Vice President Kamala Harris on immigration. She's announced plans to enact tougher border restrictions and has called on Congress to act on long-term solutions.

www.cbsnews.com

Reminds me of how Kennedy vs Nixon played out on Mad Men:

Spoiler: Mild sexual words

 

[Scaff]

The uninteresting and predictable miss of this thread isn’t the election loss due too inflation - but the massive cultural shift in politics.

Progressive, woke politics, and pop culture…lost. In America

I'm pretty sure this is simply you projecting.

According to every poll, exit interview, etc, the economy and immigration drove Trump's votes.

Its interesting however to know what drove your vote.

 

[Tornado]

Well not really. We already knew that.

Not American but it's probable that it wasn't a big reason that it got people out to vote. This seems to back that theory up:

View attachment 1403665

NBC News Exit Poll: Voters express deep concern about America's democracy and economy

Women are twice as likely as men to rank abortion as their top issue, according to preliminary results from the national survey.

www.nbcnews.com

Harris's campaign should have focused on the economy and immigration and used the tactics employed by Goebbels the Right to gain such a strong hold on the culture wars. However, truth and decency limited them, so it would have taken something creative to engage with voters susceptible to changing course.

I suspect that there was a lot of "Leopards would never eat my face" at play here for the right side of that chart; but I find it interesting that even for people who said they voted for her the thing she seemed to focus the most on (and was the most popular "line item" referendum that was also on various state ballots basically independently from any support of her) is only the second most important thing on their list.

 

[Sprite]

Looks like a really bad knock-off Star Trek Voyager convention panel.

 

[Scaff]

One of my main hopes now is that Trump's planet-size ego strikes and leads him to reject Project 2025 due to it not being a product of his bigly brain.

Of course if he doesn't make the full term, Vance will embrace it with open-arms (as I strongly suspect he's a stooge for those behind it).

 

[Famine]

Phew, it smells like the Musk-promoted "left got more left" tripe in here...

Looks like a really bad knock-off Star Trek Voyager convention panel.

View attachment 1403697

Jane No-Way, Harry Thin-Skin, and ChakoFDA.

 

[Touring Mars]

Looks like a really bad knock-off Star Trek Voyager convention panel.

View attachment 1403697

If only we could fire them into deep space - does anyone have any rockets?

 

[TexRex]

But what do those two terms mean?

Whatever any idiot wants them to.

 

[Joey D]

The uninteresting and predictable miss of this thread isn’t the election loss due too inflation - but the massive cultural shift in politics.

I disagree. The main things people were worried about were the economy and inflation, and almost every poll shows that. It's hard to give a damn about abortion rights or social issues when you can't afford to buy groceries. The sad part is, Trump isn't going to fix the economy, his plan is going to make it exponentially worse. Tariffs are bad for the economy, like really bad. Sure, they might be good in the long term if companies eventually shift manufacturing back to the US and there's an employment boom, but the people who can't afford groceries aren't going to care about 20 years from now. They care about what's happening today, and when they see that Trump has fumbled the economy, they will shift the way they vote. Much of this comes down to a lack of education and understanding how the economy works. If all you ever did was get your views of the economy from the Fox Business channel, you'd think what Trump is doing is great. If you've actually spent more than a couple of hours reading about how the economy works or taking an Econ 101 course, you'd know Trump's plan is a disaster. Unfortunately, like the Constitution, most Americans don't understand how the economy works nor do they really care.

 

[Keef]

View attachment 1403664

Interestingly, since the last I checked, Kamala has gained 3 million votes while Trump gained 1 million. Also wasn't he already given like 307 or 310 electoral votes?

Edit: Arizona only has 76% reporting right now, three days later. What the hell? Also, Wisconsin has gotten to a 30,000 vote difference but there isn't enough left that could sway that. NYT and AP are giving him 295 electoral votes right now.

 

[mellofello9]

... If all you ever did was get your views of the economy from the Fox Business channel, you'd think what Trump is doing is great. If you've actually spent more than a couple of hours reading about how the economy works or taking an Econ 101 course, you'd know Trump's plan is a disaster. ...

Isn't this EXACTLY who voted in droves, though, the clueless masses? And the message they got was manipulated to be what needed to be heard to get them to vote that way, common sense be damned. If anything this election proved to me that it's not a person people are voting for, it's a message. What I don't understand is how anyone expects to get past this when we can't recognize the root cause. Social Media. Control the message, control the population. IMHO, This was just laid bare for us.

Until there is accountability for injecting BS into the info-sphere, this will not change. Not here, not there, not anywhere. In the 70's we were all like "Don't you be pushing your subliminal messages on me through the TV" but now we clamor to sign-up for what is, ostensibly, the same damn thing in a pretty new package.

Yeah, I get it. This opens the conversation to the whole idea of the 'truth police' and the subsequent 'who's watching THEM' debate. Problem is, if you don't do something, you're stuck doing nothing. I guess throwing pebbles at a mountainside can be more fun than shaking your fists at the clouds but, and in the end, you're still accomplishing nothing.

 

[Danoff]

Did Harris go with this in any way in the tail-end of her campaign?

Yes.

Surely the system has to act as if the majority is right, even if it isn't. Based on democratic principle alone

No. See my signature. The foundations of the nation are not up to a vote, at least not in this way. It is not necessary to turn over the worlds most powerful military to a dictator, that's just a dumb idea that nobody should carry out for any reason.

No matter who’s team is in charge, I’ll always be proud to be an American

Everything will be fine.

If you're proud to be an American but are fine with the destruction of everything America is actually based on, you're not proud to be an America, you're playing stupid teams.


==============================================================

Most of you are not fully appreciating what is happening, which is amazing to me because it has been shouted from the rooftops for years now and it's still just not sinking in. There is no law today that applies to the president. And the president is capable today of deputizing anyone to break any law for any reason and is complete control over how much of the law applies to that person. This is indisputable fact today. Biden is above the law, and anyone Biden chooses is above the law. End of story. If you think this is wrong, for any reason, I will help you to understand why it is not, but know in advance that it is not wrong and there is no argument with it. If you think that's what America is about, that's also wrong.

Biden could execute Trump TODAY and there is no legal recourse. If he did it himself, he could still not be prosecuted. If someone else did it for him, he can pardon them. If someone else does it and he pardons them, it's not even all that straight forward to impeach him.

Trump is a malignant narcissist. I mean that in the most clinical sense. The idea that no law applies to him, but the law applies to everyone else, unless he decides it doesn't, is EXACTLY the world that a malignant narcissist wants. He's getting it. His particular illness demands the most insane bending of the world to him, and it has happened for him. There is nothing remotely safe or fine or ok about trusting Trump with that kind of unchecked power. And there is no way to check it in advance.

Interestingly, if Biden were to act against Trump today, it would force the US to try to find some kind of way to check the power of the president. Because democrats do not support unchecked power, and republicans don't either, and Trump supporters don't support it when it's not Trump who has it. So if Biden were to act against Trump, it might actually force the necessary political action to save the nation's institutions.

 

[Joey D]

Isn't this EXACTLY who voted in droves, though, the clueless masses? And the message they got was manipulated to be what needed to be heard to get them to vote that way, common sense be damned. If anything this election proved to me that it's not a person people are voting for, it's a message. What I don't understand is how anyone expects to get past this when we can't recognize the root cause. Social Media. Control the message, control the population. IMHO, This was just laid bare for us.

Until there is accountability for injecting BS into the info-sphere, this will not change. Not here, not there, not anywhere. In the 70's we were all like "Don't you be pushing your subliminal messages on me through the TV" but now we clamor to sign-up for what is, ostensibly, the same damn thing in a pretty new package.

Yeah, I get it. This opens the conversation to the whole idea of the 'truth police' and the subsequent 'who's watching THEM' debate. Problem is, if you don't do something, you're stuck doing nothing. I guess throwing pebbles at a mountainside can be more fun than shaking your fists at the clouds but, and in the end, you're still accomplishing nothing.

Most of America is clueless about things. I mean, the number of searches for "Is Joe Biden still in the race?" spiked on election day. That's how clueless people are; they didn't know that the current president wasn't running for reelection despite it being talked about nonstop for six months.

How do you combat it? Unfortunately, you can't. Social media is undoubtedly a big problem, but saying stupid stuff on social media isn't a crime and is protected by the First Amendment. The best we can do is elect officials who push for reformed school curriculums that teach critical thinking and research skills. However, that will take decades to fix because we haven't been teaching people those skills for decades. You also need to convince people that being educated isn't a bad thing. There's an anti-intellectual movement in America (and probably in many parts of the world) because stupid people don't like being told they're stupid. They believe that the intellectual elites are just belittling them because they went to "the school of hard knocks" or "have street smarts" when, in reality, the intellectual elites are just calling out people's ignorance.

 

[deththrasher]

Will Trump do anything to change this legacy that Biden-Harris set?

 

[Danoff]

View attachment 1403717



Will Trump do anything to change this legacy that Biden-Harris set?

Yes.

Trump would like Israel to stop being so nice.

 

[Fezzik]

Interestingly, since the last I checked, Kamala has gained 3 million votes while Trump gained 1 million. Also wasn't he already given like 307 or 310 electoral votes?

That was from the BBC sometime this morning so may not have been completely up-to-date.

Will Trump do anything to change this legacy that Biden-Harris set?

Yes, he'll help his good friend ensure that Gaza ceases to exist, other than Israeli beachfront resorts.

 

[Keef]

Most of you are not fully appreciating what is happening, which is amazing to me because it has been shouted from the rooftops for years now and it's still just not sinking in. There is no law today that applies to the president. And the president is capable today of deputizing anyone to break any law for any reason and is complete control over how much of the law applies to that person. This is indisputable fact today. Biden is above the law, and anyone Biden chooses is above the law. End of story. If you think this is wrong, for any reason, I will help you to understand why it is not, but know in advance that it is not wrong and there is no argument with it. If you think that's what America is about, that's also wrong.

Biden could execute Trump TODAY and there is no legal recourse. If he did it himself, he could still not be prosecuted. If someone else did it for him, he can pardon them. If someone else does it and he pardons them, it's not even all that straight forward to impeach him.

Trump is a malignant narcissist. I mean that in the most clinical sense. The idea that no law applies to him, but the law applies to everyone else, unless he decides it doesn't, is EXACTLY the world that a malignant narcissist wants. He's getting it. His particular illness demands the most insane bending of the world to him, and it has happened for him. There is nothing remotely safe or fine or ok about trusting Trump with that kind of unchecked power. And there is no way to check it in advance.

Interestingly, if Biden were to act against Trump today, it would force the US to try to find some kind of way to check the power of the president. Because democrats do not support unchecked power, and republicans don't either, and Trump supporters don't support it when it's not Trump who has it. So if Biden were to act against Trump, it might actually force the necessary political action to save the nation's institutions.

Gotta be honest, after reading your posts for the past few pages I think you're having a little freakout and need something to calm you down. You're showing a lot of the echo-chambery signs that the usual suspects show in this thread and out in the world.

A lot of us do know exactly what you're talking about, we've known it for years, and we know the potential of the current situation. I've mentioned the single party concept several times and I know what that means because I've read and watch the histories. There are multiple possibilities here, could be that everything aligns and we're plunged into a single-party oligarchy like Russia and China (though I've been assured by a Trumper acquaintance that "that won't happen"), or it could be that this administration is so dysnfuntional that nothing important really gets done. Frankly, the former is more likely and we have to assume it's likely because it's happened many times before.

But there ain't **** we can do about it now, and until ideas are brewed, very little we can do about it for the next four years.

I keep thinking about those timeline charts of the evolution of America's political parties and I think we're in the midst of a swing on whoever's chart gets drawn next. But those changes were highly unpredictable so who knows what could happen. Parties could split, new ones could be formed, new candidates could come out of the woodwork. Nobody had a clue who Obama was before his campaign for example, because he was only in federal politics for 3 years and was a lowly statehouse member before that.

So bottom line is we could be ****ed, we could be not. Time to deal with it.

 

[Famine]

Interestingly, if Biden were to act against Trump today, it would force the US to try to find some kind of way to check the power of the president. Because democrats do not support unchecked power, and republicans don't either, and Trump supporters don't support it when it's not Trump who has it. So if Biden were to act against Trump, it might actually force the necessary political action to save the nation's institutions.

I wonder how angy Trump would be if Biden stepped down (does 25A allow for a solo declaration of permanent inability?) and allowed Harris to succeed him as POTUS 47 for a couple of months - causing all the "47" merchandise he's been making to go to waste...

... and then issued a drone strike to eliminate a domestic terrorist as an official Presidential act.

(although that would very much cause civil unrest)

 

[Danoff]

Gotta be honest, after reading your posts for the past few pages I think you're having a little freakout and need something to calm you down. You're showing a lot of the echo-chambery signs that the usual suspects show in this thread and out in the world.

I appreciate the sentiment. And I applaud you for telling me what you're thinking. The desire to cling to hope that something will work out, or something will save us, or somehow everything is going to be ok is very normal and human and calming. And it's what keeps you in place and screwed when something like this happens.

I know you don't think it can happen to you, nobody does. It's happening.

A lot of us do know exactly what you're talking about, we've known it for years, and we know the potential of the current situation. I've mentioned the single party concept several times and I know what that means because I've read and watch the histories. There are multiple possibilities here, could be that everything aligns and we're plunged into a single-party oligarchy like Russia and China (though I've been assured by a Trumper acquaintance that "that won't happen"), or it could be that this administration is so dysnfuntional that nothing important really gets done. Frankly, the former is more likely and we have to assume it's likely because it's happened many times before.

But there ain't **** we can do about it now, and until ideas are brewed, very little we can do about it for the next four years.

Why four years? What happens in four years?

What ideas are going to be brewed after January? The time to act is now, before he's inaugurated. That's as clear to me as it can possibly be.

I keep thinking about those timeline charts of the evolution of America's political parties and I think we're in the midst of a swing on whoever's chart gets drawn next. But those changes were highly unpredictable so who knows what could happen. Parties could split, new ones could be formed, new candidates could come out of the woodwork. Nobody had a clue who Obama was before his campaign for example, because he was only in federal politics for 3 years and was a lowly statehouse member before that.

Parties... what... no... there are no candidates or parties anymore. I mean sure, we can pretend that the American political system is intact or something if that helps people make peace.

So bottom line is we could be ****ed, we could be not. Time to deal with it.

No, we're screwed for sure. It's time to deal with it.

I wonder how angy Trump would be if Biden stepped down (does 25A allow for a solo declaration of permanent inability?) and allowed Harris to succeed him as POTUS 47 for a couple of months - causing all the "47" merchandise he's been making to go to waste...

... and then issued a drone strike to eliminate a domestic terrorist as an official Presidential act.

(although that would very much cause civil unrest)

It would cause a ton of civil unrest. But it might force the country to finally say something is not ok. I'd prefer biden take the fall rather than kamala on that one though. He might too.

 

[Fezzik]

does 25A allow for a solo declaration of permanent inability?

Not needed - it only takes a letter

National Archives NextGen Catalog

The online portal to the records held at the National Archives, and information about those records.

catalog.archives.gov

 

[MatskiMonk]

America is the best country in the world

Lol.