PART of it. Some of those latino populations came to the USA from countries that claim to be Socialist governments (although some are really Fascist) and the Republican false claims that Democrats support a socialist government in the USA filled them with fear. For them, ANYTHING is better than where they (or their parents) came from.

There is some historical support for that, if you ignore that the Democratic party is now the more Liberal party. During the time of Plantations and Slavery (and later lawful indenture under the Jim Crow laws) those were driven by conservative Southern Democrats. Those Southern Democrats and their offspring are now the core of the Republican party.

Parties and people CAN change over time, some do.

I must admit I'm puzzled about Biden's mental state. I listened to his long acceptance speech and the earlier one he made during the vote-counting, and he sounded entirely compos mentis. Yet this is the man who apparently thought at one point that he was running against George Bush. It doesn't seem to add up.

A few things: I agree that the goal LONG TERM was and is single payer, because that is the right way to do it.
They wanted to do it slowly and transition to that to prevent huge economic upset, thus the approach of the ACA.
Of note: the ACA was based upon a REPUBLICAN plan that failed at state level only because the surrounding states had conflicting standards. It had real promise as a national plan. Republicans submitted significant changes to it, as did Democrats, to make it a national plan. The Republicans then opposed it because they thought it would gain too much support for the Democratic party if signed by a Democrat POTUS. Stupid, but true!

At one time all healthcare had to be non-profit. One act by Nixon and a final act by Reagan ended that. It was a result of those acts that Health Insurance and Financial Institutions gained such power over healthcare and the expenses started to skyrocket. The intent WAS to reduce the power of insurance companies, but also to reward and retain PROVIDERS and free them from the control of the financial institutions. You SHOULD still be able to choose your doctor under a single payer system, once you do not have to fight with the financial people to do so. NOTHING about the ACA or Single Payer Systems prevent choice.

(Not saying they might not have other problems, but those specific issues are mostly propaganda from those invested in having NO CHANGE because they are getting rich off of the suffering population NOW!)

Harris does not have enough Federal experience or backing to make a great POTUS. Yet. That may come, and I expect it will, but not anytime soon. Perhaps by 2024.

Biden has the experience at both Federal and International level, is healthy and fit, mentally sharp, and should be a good (not excellent, but good) POTUS. I expect him to serve four years. I will not and cannot predict beyond that and cannot imagine him WANTING to serve eight.

I think I see why you think the way you do, but I think your opinion is based upon only certain news coverage without the fine detail and perspective. Studying the changes in people, parties, policies, industries, and the effects over time gives one a broader basis for understanding. (As well as a basis for rejecting "news" that is biased or propaganda!)

And indeed he did, during the infamous State of the Union Address where Pelosi demonstrably tore up his speech afterwards.

I haven't checked the numbers myself, but i noticed that the Democrats didn't refute his claims back then. Maybe they're just incompetent and/or lazy, but it could also be that it was factually correct.

Those claims were refuted. journalists (AT NPR I believe) pointed out the real unemployment figures are different than the "on unemployment benefits" figures and more applicable to real unemployment. Simply by refusing benefits, expired benefit periods, or rejecting claims the reported numbers may be manipulated. You have to pay attention to what they are REALLY reporting.

As an aside, I only consider the figures in 2017 and first half of 2018 a carryover from the previous administration policies. In 2019 we started to see the effects of the current administration. 2020, of course, has been hijacked by a pandemic and the mismanagement involved and should be considered separately.

This is false. I have no doubt that NPR did attempt to "refute" the claim by using a very specific formula that nobody else uses to make the claim look false.
However, the claim is true. Even CNN says so.
https://www.macrotrends.net/2621/bla...mployment-rate
https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/06/econo...ate/index.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/04/blac...ecord-low.html

By the way, unemployment rate are tracked by the Department of Labor using the same formula they've been using for decades. NPR using a different formula to discredit the claim is an example of their blatant bias in reporting.
https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpsee_e16.htm

That's an entirely baseless assertion.

Oh, but it absolutely does.

All his public speeches are read from an autocue. There are two screens in front of the podium, one slightly to the left and one slightly to the right of it. This gives the impression that he's addressing the whole audience when he turns from one screen to the other. And the man can still read, so this works just fine.

His online question-and-answer sessions in late summer were also autocued, it turned out. We weren't supposed to know that, but he revealed that fact when he asked his team to raise the screen slightly on one occasion. It was live, so it couldn't be edited out afterwards. They must have hired a really good typist.

His widely varying performances are quite consistent with early dementia. As you mentioned, he called Trump "George" in an interview with the Sun and his wife had to correct him (which it seems she was prepared for); when introducing his granddaughter at a rally he also introduced his son Beau Biden, who died tragically of a brain tumor in 2015; and he has repeatedly slurred his speech, failed to construct coherent sentences, or uttered completely nonsensical words without correcting himself, indicating that he didn't realize what he had just said made no sense.

One one occasion, he forgot that a celebration was being broadcast, and (unlike all the other speakers) started addressing the crowd with his back to the camera. On another, a trivial detail regarding a note he apparently had given to his staff made him appear confused. Then there's his disastrous "look, fat!" response to allegetions of corruption, and his dismissive "you should vote for Trump" reply in a Q&A. Unusual mistakes for such an experienced speaker and politician.

But in other instances, such as during the presidential debates, he has indeed seemed quite fine. And physically he's clearly in great shape for his age, running up to podiums and walking briskly down stairs.

This is what you'd expect from a dementia patient, especially one that's on medication.

I've observed it myself at close range, unfortunately; the "sundown syndrome" where the patient is somewhat OK in the morning but falls apart in the afternoon; medication working against some symptoms and not others; the patient functioning well in structured and familiar environments but becoming confused in unfamiliar settings or if something slightly unexpected happens; irrational or angry outbursts when challenged; etc.

Unlike Trump, he has refused to take a cognitive test. Not only that, but his response to an interviewer who challenged him on it was just bizarre.

Also, I wouldn't exclude the possibility that he might have taken (or rather been given) stimulants. He oddly declined Trump's arrogant challenge about taking a drug test before the debates.

It's worth noting that in the last few months, the Biden campaign stopped all activity involving Joe Biden before lunch. That's highly unusual, but in line with the above.

2 statements on this.

1) From my recollection, the "Republican plan" that you're referring to was from Maryland which only has a RINO Republican governor and is extremely Democrat overall.

2) Republicans opposed it because their base absolutely does NOT want a government mandate. While I'm sure the Republican corporatists would have loved forcing people to buy healthcare from their benefactors once the mandate became an public issue they had to oppose it or risk their seat.

Really? I mean this quite seriously; I've never heard that before.

Weren't the main proponents of segregation in the 1960s and 1970s (post-Jim Crow) Democrats, like the infamous George Wallace? When did this switch occur? And who were/are these people today, in the Republican party?

Regardless, the vocal proponents of segregation today are certainly all democrats, albeit from a particular wing of the party. They're the ones demanding racially segregated "spaces" in universities, and campaign to repeal civil rights legislation that prevent them from implementing this.

Everybody,

Would anyone be interested in doing some simple debunking of (or possibly confirming!) claims of voter fraud in Michigan?

I came across some information on a conspiracy-minded website that seems to create mostly clickbait articles, but the interesting part were the links to the sources in one of those articles.

I have now in my possession an amount of raw data that can be either confirmed as proof of voter fraud or debunked as nonsense, by performing some simple searches on an official, Michigan State web site. The site is currently not responding, though, probably due to massive overload.

Would such information be considered on-topic in this thread? Or should I create a separate thread? (Or should I not bother at all, because no-one cares about the integrity of elections? )

And Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada

Half of the country does not believe the results of this election. We know that there have been felonies committed. Boarding up windows at vote counting places, refusing observers entrance, dumping ballots, helping people in Georgia fix their ballots, more votes counted in districts than are registered in the district. Sounds just like 1960 in Texas doesn't it?
This is far from over. Hopefully the courts move quickly, and sort through the mess.

I would say that on inauguration day we should march on Washington carrying sign saying "illegitimate president", "not my president" and just simply refuse to comply. You know, like the left had done for 4 solid years. And just simply refuse to acknowledge Biden as president. Maybe we can make up a conspiracy and impeach him.

We should start planning to do that right now.

Have you seen the reports regarding William Bradley? According to Politifact, there's a fake story going around that Mr. Bradley, who was born in 1902 and died in 1985, has voted in the election.

They explain that this is just a simple misunderstanding, as his son is also called William and currently lives at the same address. He did indeed receive a ballot in his father's name (in addition to his own), but he threw it away.

The article also contains this quote:So it's all good, and Unnamed City Official confirms it.

Funny, then, that if you go to https://mvic.sos.state.mi.us/Voter/index (yes, this is legitimate; "state.mi.us" is registered to the State of Michigan) and search for the following:...you'll find that Mr. Bradley Sr. appears to have risen from the grave and found the ballot his son threw out, because according to the database, he has indeed done his civic duty and voted in the general election this year.

Specifically, he requested an absentee ballot on 11. September (that's not a general mail-in ballot, like his son supposedly claimed to have received), and it was mailed to him 8 days later. The filled-in ballot was received a month before election day. That is, his absentee ballot, specifically sent to him with his date of birth, not his son's.

Note: I have zero interest in 'partisan bickering' - I'm jumping in here (and assuming good faith in return) just to share some historical knowledge about US history because I think history is neat.

Following the American Civil War's end in 1865, the US went through something called 'Reconstruction' which was primarily championed by Republican presidents (like US Grant), this 'failed' (or 'ended' depending on your read - historians debate this) in the late 1800s (usually this is pointed at Rutherford Hayes' administration), and the US South underwent yet another 'big transition' as the reconstruction constitutions (state level) were re-written into their more modern form (this is why a lot of Southern US states have constitutions with dates between 1890 and 1920, as opposed to being similar in age to the state - this is where 'Jim Crow' comes from). As the 20th century came in, the national/federal-level Democratic Party eventually ended up with the 'New Deal' coalition (under FDR) containing in part Southern Democrats, which represented the reliably deep blue voting block of the US South. The 'Southern Democrats' were a politically and culturally unique subset of American Democratic Party thinking/organization, and were very pro-segregation. George Wallace (who actually goes back prior to the 60s-70s with his political career) is a famous example of these folks, other famous examples include Strom Thurmond, John Stennis, Richard Shelby, Sonny Perdue, and Robert Byrd. When the Democratic Party at the national level switched to an embrace of Civil Rights in the 1960s as a platform plank (this was JFK/LBJ (especially under LBJ and the signing of the Civil Rights Act in '65) but it traces back to Truman in '48 if you want to get specific, and thats when Thurmond ran for president), it fractured the party - New England and the American West embraced the new Democrats, but the South rejected them (or more specifically, perhaps, 'White voters in the South'). The majority of those politicians (as above) switched to the GOP, and the GOP embraced this as the Southern Strategy in the 1970s. Most of the people involved in this are dead or (very) retired (it happened 60-some years ago) at this point. This also explains why the South was reliably 'deep blue' up until relatively recently (the last 10-20 years). Some of the people mentioned there were more prominent in national-level politics in the 1990s and into the 2000s though.

This event is pretty common knowledge among US historians and political scientists (because of how 'big' it was as an outcome of Civil Rights and in 20th century history), but it never ceases to surprise me how often folks seem to have been shielded from this transition (or who have even weirdly heard its a 'myth'). I also don't understand to what extent it 'matters' at present - it's not like either major party is (that I'm aware of) advocating for a return to Jim Crow or de jure segregation (and that 'debate' was settled at the national level as well), and that was one of the primary drivers of the 'split' in the 1940s-60s. The modern RNC and DNC do not closely resemble their former selves of even 30 years ago, let alone 60-90 years ago. So it's probably a little glib to say something like 'if George Wallace was alive in 2020, he'd be a Republican' - but we know (because he did it) that Strom Thurmond, for example, was a Republican after this switch, up until his death.

History has an article on this with more specifics if you're curious:
https://www.history.com/news/how-the...mocratic-south
Some more links:
http://factmyth.com/factoids/democra...hed-platforms/
http://origins.osu.edu/history-news/...s-real-history (this also covers the inverse switch - where African-Americans primarily re-aligned with the DNC during FDR's tenure, and talks about 'liberal Republicans' like Wendel Wilkie).
https://history.house.gov/Exhibition...y-Realignment/ (the House of Representatives even has a nice web-page about this)


To your final paragraph, I'm not sure what to tell you (that's a less 'historical' question) - like I said, I'm not aware of either major party having a stated plank for de jure segregation, and Jim Crow is fully dead in the United States (and has been for some time). That doesn't mean there aren't specific individuals that may have weird ideas about how to organize (or re-organize) the country, or that racism has been entirely stamped out, but that's another, bigger, discussion. I'm fully unaware of any call for 'racially segregated "spaces" in universities' in the United States (apart from a few private schools pre-Runyon v McCrary (427 US 160), which happened in the mid-70s and squashed that, and I've literally *NEVER* heard Runyon referenced by any major American political candidate/official/whatever), nor can I imagine any serious call for such a thing to be legal or to survive judicial review. What specific civil rights legislation are you referencing? I know there have been a few relatively big cases (at the appellate and supreme court level) challenging (or seeking to challenge) aspects of affirmative action/quotas in university admissions (I'm remembering a specific case involving the University of Texas system, but can't remember the full name to look it up), but I wouldn't characterize those as A) being similar in their goals or B) a drive back to segregation. I'm also not sure how 'political' those cases are - I don't think everything can (or should) be reduced to electoral politics and electoral politics also probably cannot (or should not) be reduced to philosophic ideology, in other words "party != philsophy != personal constitution of an individual" as the above history shows.

(Sigh.)

Maybe (just maybe) the best thing for the nation at this point would be if Trump shocked us all and simply conceded defeat with dignity and grace.