US Election Week 2020

[crazy canuck]

The failing of Liberal Democracy in the US is that it sold out and now the people who were supposed to benefit from that political economic system are getting screwed allowing Trumpism to flourish.

That is certainly the Progressive critique.

Not just from Progressives.  One needs to have blinders on to not acknowledge the effect of election spending rules and how that impacts your politics.

That would imply that before the last few decades there was no undue influence of rich people on democratic elections, which I simply find unrealistic and impossible.

Well yeah, you made a statement that is not possible.  That influence has always existed, but you would need to have blinders on not to realize how much that influence has increased in US politics.

[chipwich]

What do Pelosi and Schumer have to do with national election results?

Who else is responsible for a collective failure in the House and Senate?

What are you blathering about? It's dozens of different elections, the majority and minority leaders don't affect that.

[fromtia]

Edit: And Adrian Vermeule (the common good, Catholic integralist Harvard Law Professor) is excited for this potential re-alignment:

The future will be multiracial, working class, socially conservative populism and I can't wait

Because I watch Krystal Ball on Rising I have found myself listening a lot to Saagar Enjeti and while I dont agree with him on a lot of stuff I do find the case he makes for an imminent realignment absolutely compelling.

[FunkMonk]

The failing of Liberal Democracy in the US is that it sold out and now the people who were supposed to benefit from that political economic system are getting screwed allowing Trumpism to flourish.

That is certainly the Progressive critique.

Not just from Progressives.  One needs to have blinders on to not acknowledge the effect of election spending rules and how that impacts your politics.

Is this the critique of center-left parties in the West in general?

Not really.  In Canada, for example, we have health care, legislation which actually protects workers etc.  We also have strict election spending rules.

The US is an outlier amongst western countries in a lot of ways, including health care, labour laws and election spending rules.

Canada is great but I'm talking about western Europe too, where center-left parties have had a lot of trouble with right-wing populists in recent years, and those countries have sizeable welfare states themselves.

[Syt]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2020/11/04/trump-biden-election-live-updates/#link-IN7UYEL7P5C4XEGLGPVSWXCVJM

Trump campaign officials preparing a slate of legal challenges, they tell allies

By Josh Dawsey

Top Trump campaign officials told allies, surrogates and donors in a call Wednesday morning that they expected a slate of legal challenges and had already deployed lawyers to a range of states.

"We are in recount territory in Wisconsin, in Michigan, the same way," deputy campaign manager Justin Clark said, according to a recording of the call obtained by The Washington Post. "I believe we will be lodging legal challenges in both of those places because there is some ... to counteract any funny business going on in both of those places."

"You will see more litigation today, likely," Clark said about Pennsylvania.

He didn't specify exactly what it would be.

Bill Stepien, the president's campaign manager, said that the campaign had deployed lawyers to Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, among other states.

"We have a legal operation like that has never been assembled for a Republican candidate for president," Stepien said. "We feel really good about the state of our legal operation."

Clark said the campaign is "on guard" in North Carolina and has challenges "in every board of elections in the state."

"We are looking for ballots that come in late to lodge challenges," he said. "The same is true in Georgia. We have a fully staffed, fully operational team."

Stepien said the team was closely watching Philadelphia more than other areas.

"We are in the shorts of those officials to make sure we are in each of those offices, looking over the shoulders of the election officials," Stepien said.

Jason Miller, a campaign adviser, told surrogates on the call that he expects "the media" to focus on the president saying he wanted counting stopped, while the campaign wanted ballots to still be counted.

"We want all legally cast ballots to be counted. We want all illegally cast ballots not to be counted," Miller said.

He encouraged surrogates to fight the media. "Turn it around back on them. Why do you think they're fighting so hard to get illegally cast ballots accepted?" Miller said.

[Valmy]

Since everybody was predicting this for months, a close election with long legal challenges, is it too much to hope that Joe Biden and company are prepared for it? 

Lots of lawyers are going to be making big billable hours off this thing.

[Syt]

Since everybody was predicting this for months, a close election with long legal challenges, is it too much to hope that Joe Biden and company are prepared for it? 

Lots of lawyers are going to be making big billable hours off this thing.

Are you not enjoying election month?

[Sheilbh]

I've said it a million times - but no-one normal cares about policy which might help explain some stuff for Krugman.

The GOP is just so much better at messaging at all levels, national, state, and local. Policies are nice, but if I can convince Emilio to come out and vote for me because the Democrat is a vicious communist hellbent on destroying his small business running a food truck then honestly policies don't matter all that much.

Exactly. People aren't rational calculating machines matching their policies with their party preferences. This is about marketing, branding, identity etc of you and your opponent.

Canada is great but I'm talking about western Europe too, where center-left parties have had a lot of trouble with right-wing populists in recent years, and those countries have sizeable welfare states themselves.

Yeah the centre left in most of Europe has collapsed (with the exception of Scandinavia and Iberia) to a core vote of public sector workers and the young educated people. So tends to be big cities and college towns (the Brahmin Left). I think the race element in the US may mean the Democrats are different - because the minority vote in Europe is nowhere near as big. And to an extent Obama's coalition achieved this.

But you take away a generational political talent and it looks less clear that the Democrats are that different from their sister parties in Europe (or Australia - my hottest of hot takes is that the most important electoral event in the last 5 years was the 2019 Australian election ). Obviously there could be lots of changes on the way - climate especially will force that, but it is striking that this doesn't look a million miles away from Europe. The Democrats are the social democrats/centre left plus the greens and the Republicans are the christian democrats/centre right plus the populist/nationalist right - obviously the content of their policies are very different but the structural issues/re-alignment seem similar.

[Valmy]

NC is 99% counted out according to WaPo, with Trump leading by 80k. Looks like a win for the pumpkin.

But Roy Cooper won

So weird.

[Valmy]

Since everybody was predicting this for months, a close election with long legal challenges, is it too much to hope that Joe Biden and company are prepared for it? 

Lots of lawyers are going to be making big billable hours off this thing.

Are you not enjoying election month?

Not as much as all those lawyers. Lots of boats and mansions are getting paid off this month.

[Barrister]

Lots of lawyers are going to be making big billable hours off this thing.

Thank God there's at least one silver lining to this whole mess.

[alfred russel]

What do Pelosi and Schumer have to do with national election results?

Who else is responsible for a collective failure in the House and Senate?

What are you blathering about? It's dozens of different elections, the majority and minority leaders don't affect that.

dude, they are responsible for recruitment and strategy. they also position their incumbents for reelection.

[crazy canuck]

The failing of Liberal Democracy in the US is that it sold out and now the people who were supposed to benefit from that political economic system are getting screwed allowing Trumpism to flourish.

That is certainly the Progressive critique.

Not just from Progressives.  One needs to have blinders on to not acknowledge the effect of election spending rules and how that impacts your politics.

Is this the critique of center-left parties in the West in general?

Not really.  In Canada, for example, we have health care, legislation which actually protects workers etc.  We also have strict election spending rules.

The US is an outlier amongst western countries in a lot of ways, including health care, labour laws and election spending rules.

Canada is great but I'm talking about western Europe too, where center-left parties have had a lot of trouble with right-wing populists in recent years, and those countries have sizeable welfare states themselves.

Where have right wing populists been able to hold on to power in Western Europe?  I acknowledge that they have taken hold in Poland and Hungary but that is a separate issue of liberal democracy never actually being established after the fall of communism.

There are lots of other examples of healthier Liberal Democracies other than Canada - Denmark, Norway, New Zealand, Australia etc etc.   Just look at the world livability rankings and it will be easy to identify them.  And that is really the point.  The US is failing on many measures, life expectancy, income and wealth inequality, access to health care, lack of mobility, and so it is not that surprising that right wing populism has succeeded.

My concern is that US style right wing populism is going to infect the rest of us.  How can it not.  The US is the major cultural hub of the world.  We already see signs of it in Canadian politics.  Before last night I thought the US was going to turn it around and the threat would be minimized.  But now I have a lot of doubt that will happen at all.

[DGuller]

I wonder if the reason polls got it so wrong this year was because of the shy Trump voters that were assumed to not exist anymore.  If you think about it, you've got more to be shy about in 2020 than in 2016 if you're voting for Trump. 

It may also be that Trump voters are not even shy with others, but rather themselves.  They don't want to say out loud that they're going to vote for that man, because they are ashamed of it.  They're just going to quietly vote for him, because reasons.  The deplorables in the trucks aren't ashamed of it, but maybe a Republican doctor is.

[FunkMonk]

The failing of Liberal Democracy in the US is that it sold out and now the people who were supposed to benefit from that political economic system are getting screwed allowing Trumpism to flourish.

That is certainly the Progressive critique.

Not just from Progressives.  One needs to have blinders on to not acknowledge the effect of election spending rules and how that impacts your politics.

Is this the critique of center-left parties in the West in general?

Not really.  In Canada, for example, we have health care, legislation which actually protects workers etc.  We also have strict election spending rules.

The US is an outlier amongst western countries in a lot of ways, including health care, labour laws and election spending rules.

Canada is great but I'm talking about western Europe too, where center-left parties have had a lot of trouble with right-wing populists in recent years, and those countries have sizeable welfare states themselves.

Where have right wing populists been able to hold on to power in Western Europe?  I acknowledge that they have taken hold in Poland and Hungary but that is a separate issue of liberal democracy never actually being established after the fall of communism.

There are lots of other examples of healthier Liberal Democracies other than Canada - Denmark, Norway, New Zealand, Australia etc etc.   Just look at the world livability rankings and it will be easy to identify them.  And that is really the point.  The US is failing on many measures, life expectancy, income and wealth inequality, access to health care, lack of mobility, and so it is not that surprising that right wing populism has succeeded.

My concern is that US style right wing populism is going to infect the rest of us.  How can it not.  The US is the major cultural hub of the world.  We already see signs of it in Canadian politics.  Before last night I thought the US was going to turn it around and the threat would be minimized.  But now I have a lot of doubt that will happen at all.

Sheilbh put it better than I ever could.