Reluctantly and most times after the fact. I haven't counted the number of times but his campaign strategy has been to stoke racial tensions. While the FBI has indicated the highest domestic threat is from right wing white supremacy groups like the proud boys Trump has campaigned just the opposite. Left wing anarchism is the problem. He has also signaled support with militia right wing groups that support his policies.

The people that wanted to kidnap Michigan Governor are not left wing activists.

Sorry to get off topic again.

^ not sure what the topic is - DT's campaign and Covid?
But yeah, it would be nice to get off the *boys talk.

I don't think Biden is like that at all.
Which is clearly why he was chosen, despite his age.
But even if you're right, there can be only one solution for the next election: DT must go.
If only to welcome politics back to the grounds of reality again.
After that there could be another election for all I care (supposing DT goes back to bullying people on TV - or any other isolated environment - only).

But you're right, the problem goes much deeper than DT.
The US of North America, where politics has been reduced to a Disney-like fight of good against evil. Where Hollywood actors seem likely candidates to fight that fight.
Where the political landscape hasn't changed since the civil war (and some believe the election to be a quadrennial re-enactment).

I truly hope you get a change there evtl., a third party maybe, revolutionary or pointless as it may sound, just look at (most) other countries, it's what makes them go: political discussion, the need to form coalitions etc.

"A high-ranking FBI agent told reporters that the Western-chauvinist group Proud Boys, which has made headlines for its part in violent clashes in Portland, Ore., and New York, is not considered an extremist group, contradicting a report from a Washington state sheriff’s office that circulated in November." https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...oup-after-all/

Not 'extremist' and not proponents of white supremacy, IMO.

One opinion from two years ago...

Exactly - I searched for other substantiated FBI reports on the matter and found nothing that refuted the opinion that the sheriff's office was mistaken in it's characterization of the group. Maybe you can find something verifiable?

Agree entirely, this quibbling over whether or not Group A or Group B are "bad guys" (and if so which flavour they are) is not going anywhere, and is several steps removed from the subject of the thread.

________________________


People have told me that betting odds were a better indicator than opinion polls - because the betting companies are invested in making money - so I looked up what that might mean.

The average odds are currently 65|35 in favour of Joe Biden, and (other than a brief period at the start of September) has had Joe as favourite since June ... but then same source for the 2016 election is claiming the odds for Hilary Clinton were consistently between 65|35 and 85|15 and if the page content is accurate (no copy in Wayback machine for 2016) then it clearly wasn't a good predictor of the result.

But another different source has Joe winning as 87|13 which is pretty significant.

Does anyone know of any prediction models that put Donald in the lead, and if so, how does their methodology differ?

Its basically the pot calling the kettle black, both sides are so (rightfully) offended by the opposition that they put their blinders on and vote for the "lesser" evil oblivious they are both terrible.

Who are you voting for, the sociopath or the narcissist?

Apparently some here imagine a thread titled with not only disregard but the possibility of taking pleasure in anyone's misfortune, let alone a controversial high profile president, and especially close to elections and those heavily polarized and emotional over the economy and Covid, would somehow not get political Obviously if instead of Trump it was Mother Theresa or St. John of Assisi there wouldn't ever be a thread with their names and Schadenfreude over their state of health in the same sentence.

For my part I tried to point out that nobody personifies evil. Pick any deranged villain in History and it's likely they loved someone or some thing, had some positive thoughts and actions. Even the fictional Don Corleone immediately after murdering a man at point blank range sits with his family and tells baby Michael, "You Father loves you very much". I've tried to be objective and not take the overly simplistic Party Politics way out and view Trump with an open mind and judge more by what he does than what he says. I think he has done some good and at least some of the bad can turn out for the good if we learn from the lesson.

I have shifted over time because of perhaps what should have been obvious by electing to the presidency a person uneducated and inexperienced in Law and Politics, but that is the main reason he was elected by people fed up with Status Quo politicians. Some if not most of Trump's tweets paint him as impulsive and narcissistic, and those aren't laudable traits for leaders even if they are rather common. Sometimes I expect him to take a Rooster Mussolini pose . It's sophomoric, silly, and possibly dangerous I think Trumps lack of devotion to Constitutional Law and lack of awareness of how his support of groups like Proud Boys is viewed (and could possibly play out) is a very bad mistake at the very least, and despicable if what the majority of the FBI has concluded has any truth in it.

The bottom line is REGARDLESS whether one thinks Proud Boys is populated by casual Good Ol' Boys or Brown Shirt thugs, Trump's "stand down and stand by" IS dangerous, despicable and stupid. Despite that and while I don't want him to serve an additional term now, I don't wish him ill.

In my view I was always on topic in a guaranteed political powderkeg thread. You're free to disagree but wishing for or advocating censorship is not conducive to meaningful discussion in my view.

@enorbet Nice post, I agree - with most of it. Have a good day.

It's got nothing to do with censorship or not getting political, it's about indicating a preference for a thread that goes somewhere, instead of arguing around in circles.

Just like a thread on Linus Torvalds that descends into a debate on emacs or vim would have people saying "can we focus more on Linus". (And if people want to know why X sucks they can do it a new thread.)

And to be clear, the issue is not the bringing up of the initial side-subject (which was an interesting addition), it is the excessive dwelling on whether or not some bunch of people is all bad or partly bad or whatever, because - as you've pointed out multiple times - that's not even your contention.

There's a saying that 'whatever woman marries for money usually earns every penny of it'

Interesting that we've heard nothing about Melania Trump in a while… she no doubt couldn't get the antibody treatment her husband did, so she has to beat Covid the hard way. Have you heard much of her in the Excited states?

^ https://duckduckgo.com/?q=How+is+Melania+Trump+doing

8bit

...but then again, it is exactly the subject: sowing dissent, distracting from the issue at hand ... it is clear which candidate is a master of this.

I listened to a lengthy piece today that was dealing with exactly that (way across the pond, certainly no agenda there).
They compared three different ways of predicting the outcome, and those only differed by how large a marging Biden is going to win.
Even allowing for the crazy mechanism that allow DT to win last time, with a minority of votes.

But this is no time for complacency, this game isn't over yet.
I shudder to think what comes next.
Did somebody say that it's awful convenient to have a staunch republican as supreme justice, just in case you want to question the election outcome in front of the highest court?

I don't think Biden is a sociopath.

You buy into the narrative that "they're all crazy in different ways".
Yes, the Democrats don't miss a chance to point out how crazy DT is. Thing is, they're right. Stupidly turning it around and saying "No, you are!" - that's a tactic that has become all too familiar in the Trumped-up states of NA in the past years...

Looking at it from outside the US of NA, it sure looks like the Democrats have much more to offer in terms of foreign policy, compared to DT. And I don't mean soldiers.

What I've noticed is that DT's methodology of labeling somebody/something and then judging the label, is a practice that seems to be spreading. They're simple labels usually - 'good,' 'fine,' 'bad,' left/right, etc. I even noticed an instance or two in this thread, although the labels are much more sophisticated here.

On this side of the pond, they keep This poll survey fairly up to date - like every day or two.

It's not as crazy as it looks. One of the things the Founding Fathers specifically considered was the possibility of a few big cities getting together and outvoting the rest of the country. That's why they devised a method of choosing an electoral college which would require the winning candidate to have broad support across the states rather than just a simple overall majority (although of course most winners have had both).

The map of the states after Trump's victory showed a huge mass of red with two broad blue stripes running down the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Because that's where the biggest cities are and they all voted for Clinton. It was precisely the situation the Founders had foreseen and planned for.

btw Lincoln and Kennedy both won with a minority of the popular vote and I haven't heard any Democrats complaining about that.
Yes, it's pretty obvious what the plan is. It seems fairly likely that Trump will win on the night because most Republicans vote in person and most Democrats this year will be voting by post. When the postal votes get counted, Biden will overtake Trump, who has more or less said already that he will then declare the result illegitimate due to ballot tampering. And his tame Supreme Court will confirm it. Four more years!
I don't either. I think he's senile. That's hardly an improvement, is it.