The GTP Unofficial 2020 US Elections Thread
- Thread starter Sanji Himura
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Imagine if he gets 5% on a third party ticket! The Libertarian Party should bite its tongue and elect him for 2024
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- NotThePrez
- NotThePrez
Scaff
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- ScaffUK
I will tell you what is amusing (to me at least), going back 3 to 4 years in the America thread and looking at all the ‘Trump’s not that bad’, ‘your all exaggerating this’, ‘but he’s an excellent businessman who will drain the swamp’.
A lot of that thread hasn’t aged well at all.
A lot of that thread hasn’t aged well at all.
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Danoff
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I give 2016 Trump voters a bit of a pass. I mean, I'm still angry 3rd parties didn't skyrocket in 2016, but you couldn't have known Trump was going to turn out like this. Heck even in 2019 during his impeachment people were saying "how much harm could he do?" (which Adam Schiff responded to brilliantly, a response which has aged well). I don't think anyone would ask "how much harm could he do?" today.
ROAD_DOGG33J
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I look back at 2016, and I think all the signs were there, but he was an unknown quantity. So to see that a ton of people voted for him in 2020, it's no surprise. The same flaws he had running in 2016, the voters don't care about in 2020 either. We just had a chance to see those flaws displayed in the White House.
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- Morgoth_666
But... but... somebody sent my folks fake ballots, and "they're not the only ones!" So clearly there was widespread successful fraud and the vote was rigged, somehow. Because they got the mail version of a "your computer has been hacked" phone call. I have absolutely no idea what to even say to them anymore. I don't really have a counter-argument to "I don't believe it."
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- Simcoeace
Yeah - but where are those people now? Crunch has disappeared ... but according to the poll, 16 people voted for Trump in the 2020 election (compared to 20 for Biden, which is not that dissimilar from the split in the US popular vote as a whole). Where are they now? We've had Dotini harping on about the "peace & prosperity president" for years, we've had others ridiculing the "Orange Man Bad" position, we've had ryzno playing coy (although I have a strong suspicion he didn't vote for Trump).
The reality is, it was clear what kind of person Trump was long before he ran for President ... & he hasn't disappointed. He has turned out worse than anyone could have possibly imagined ... although, to be fair, he didn't start a war of choice (although he did push the Iranians pretty hard). What is so weird about this, is no matter how appalling his behaviour, he still attracts a lot of support & still dominates the dialogue over at GOP HQ.
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McLaren
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Someone trying to buy themselves a pardon?
https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/01/politics/presidential-pardon-justice-department/index.html
UKMikey
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Guess that answers @MatskiMonk's question.
It'll be interesting to see if the GTP exit poll is more accurate for the USA than it was for the UK general election
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- The Ramapo Mountains
- jjaisli
I think in many cases, people saw what they wanted to see. Granted, we still don't have the full story. But bits and pieces, as they reveal themselves, are starting to form a picture. There is a reason why Trump had such a bad reputation in his home state, where people knew him best, and why Clinton pounded him in the popular vote (in NY) back in 2016. The guy has been grifting and screwing New Yorkers since the 80s.
I've said it repeatedly in this thread and I'll say it again. Donald Trump NEVER WAS that guy. We're starting to see that he was a Trust fund kid who inherited more than 1/2 a billion dollars through his family business, basically ran through it all in less than 20 years, started a few successful businesses but mostly ran others into the ground, borrowed even more money, and was basically a broken, nearly bankrupt shell back in 2004 when Mark Burnett hired him to star in the Apprentice.
Most people who watched the show saw a guy, who was this insanely rich and powerful business mogul in charge of dozens of companies who did this silly Apprentice show on the side, just for fun. But the truth was the opposite. He had almost nothing left and the Apprentice was a life-line for a guy who had hit bottom. And that show was his main job and primary source of income for several years.
Yes, he made the most of his popularity, earned a lot of money, earned even more endorsements and side deals due to his newly found fame. And he IS a genius in terms of being a con man. But a con man is EXACTLY who people voted for. They thought they were getting a genius businessman. Instead, they got crazy uncle Donnie, who only got where he was because he inherited a LOT of money. And if not, he'd probably be hawking used cars off a lot in Queens if he wasn't born into riches. And what makes it all the more ridiculous is after a disastrous 4 years, where his utter incompetence shined through, a lot of people voted for him...AGAIN. And the real icing is many of these people are STILL fighting for him, some threatening to go to war for him.
I'm trying to read through bits and pieces as I'm working but this pardon bribery scheme investigation is turning into a major story. The DoJ has been trying to keep it under seal. I can’t overstate the enormity of this case. And I think I initially misunderstood. Barr didn’t come out and announce it. It leaked BECAUSE Barr was trying to keep it under seal and the court ordered it unsealed.
Still none of it surprises me. And that's a bit sad. It doesn't surprise me because we all know, or SHOULD know by now that Don the Con will say or do anything, legal or not, if he thinks it will benefit him and screw everybody else. But it also shows that despite people in his inner circle advising him, he has slowly gotten rid of any dissenting voices from that inner circle over the years and surrounded himself with "yes" men. And now that he's lost the election, it's looking increasingly likely that he's going to burn for it.
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- attilag78
- TheHun99
I don't consider myself in any way as someone who can foresee what happens, especially not in politics. Heck, up until 2016 I haven't paid much attention to US politics despite living here since early 2008. However, it was very-very-VERY clear what would happen if the orange-gutan would be elected. His rhetoric was very clear from the get-go. I remember a conversation with my regular driver towards the airport - god ol' days of business travel, where art thou? - and he said that he was considering voting for Trump because he thinks that this would only be a publicity stunt and he wouldn't actually take the job. I told him that this was a very bad thinking and it would never happen, in fact, be prepared for the worst. I don't know how he voted in 2016 but as he continued to drive me, he was clearly not happy with the incumbent president.
Anyway, I can draw parallels with the Hungarian situation back in the '90s. I started college in 1996 and I subscribed to a weekly magazine that still exists and is still outside the Fidesz media bubble. The signs were very clear 2 years before Orban won his first term as prime minister, even for me, an 18-year old idiot who was just about to get to the Big City for college (Budapest has 1/5 of Hungary's population, about 10 times larger than the next largest cities in terms of population, my home town is like 40 times smaller). Yet, he was elected and then he was elected again in 2010 and rules as Victator I ever since - and blames everything on migrants, Soros, LMGTBs and of course on "az elmult 8 ev" (the last 8 years, that was under the current opposition's rule, yes, the one that ended a decade ago).
We could also mention other examples from the 20th century history for sure, the guy who got to rule Germany in the 1930's. History repeats itself over and over and it seems that humanity is completely incapable of learning of their own mistakes.
So yeah, if there's ever a doubt, be prepared that there's no such thing as 'XY is not that bad'. He is.
Scaff
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I think one of the advantages some European's had come down to a lack of direct exposure to Trump (he was never in our Apprentice TV show). and most knew him just as a name with little context, or as the American who threw his toys around to get his golf club in Scotland (and he didn't leave a good impression in that regard.
I knew more about him due, oddly, to my love of early American Blues and Folk, and his father's reputation as a racist that Woodie Guthrie sang about, that leads me to the Central Park 5 and Trump's legal battle in regard to refusing to let apartments to non-whites.
That combined with those on the political left in Europe being very, very wary of Nationalistic political approaches, as @TheHun99 said, we have a track record of these.
The most shocking element fo the last four years (and still to this day) is just how invested his base is in the con and the lies, and that they actually believe that the person who's policies have directly made them poorer are still under the impression that it's all good simply because they are offered up a (nonsensical) boogey-man to blame.
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Danoff
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I think I made a post anticipating that either Trump or Hillary would be impeached within a year of taking office. Of course neither of those things happened. But if you saw this happening, what has happened now, you can either see the future, or you are extremely pessimistic. I would not have expected Trump to openly get away with impeachable offenses due to the Senate, and I would not have expected him to outright attack the constitution on so many fronts, and have the support to continue doing so. I would have thought it absolute political suicide to openly talk about a third term, and defying a democratic election. Nor would I have expected him to be so dead-set against the US and its institutions.
I think we all knew he was going to be a douche, but what has actually happened is beyond what I thought possible in any shape or form within 4 years.
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- attilag78
- TheHun99
As I said, I certainly can't see the future but I'm most certainly pessimistic when it comes to politics and the conservative side sliding towards the far right in near-lightspeed. What I can tell though, that having witnessed, even if from afar, how Hungary and Poland did it and the respective parliaments were completely complicit with their voter base cheering on literally anything they did, it wasn't particularly hard to foresee his actions. If you remember how people cheered on Trump when he said that he could get away by shooting someone dead on the 5th Avenue and staff like that, those were perfect examples what would come.
In the last few years the political right in general heads very clearly towards the far right extremist direction and their goal isn't hidden in any way: power grab at all cost and turn any democracy into an autocratic country with their best buddies placed in all relevant positions (judicial, political, economical). I still can hardly believe that people are simply put so idiotic that they don't see we're heading head first into the wall and into the next civil and world war but at the very least towards a very uncomfortable living situation called dictatorship.
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