2024 US Presidential Elections Megathread

[chipwich]

I'm very glad this election was decided by a full court press rather than some lawsuit or voter suppression or some dipshit in Wisconsin.

[DGuller]

FWIW misdemeanors in NYC are lower than they were in 2017 and at a very low level historically.  I.e. it was 374,000 in Obama's re-election year of 2012 and 287,000 last year.  I suspect numbers would be pretty similar in other cities.

The low point in NYC misdemeanors (pre COVID) occurred during the mayoralty of the notoriously woke Bill de Blasio who presided over a continuous and very significant decrease in offense levels over the course of his term in office.

I get the argument that facts don't matter only perceptions but at a certain point the cognitive dissonance becomes ridiculous.

Part of it is my fault.  When a year or so ago I walked past a guy jerking off right there on the corner of 27th street and 5th Ave, at 6 pm, I didn't report him.  I'm guessing that petty crime and quality of life crime never gets reported all that consistently, and it certainly gets reported less often when it becomes normalized.  Maybe you've been around men jerking off during Obama years as well, but for me it was a new experience.

[Barrister]

I agree.  She wouldn't have.... look how quickly she got bounced out of the 2020 primaries.  I content a Tim Walz-like candidate would have prevailed in a 2024 open Democratic primary, and then had a better shot against Trump.

Yeah a competitive primary process instead of "her turn" would be one suggestion.

By the time Biden stepped down Harris was the only possible nominee.  It wasn't a "her turn" energy like it was for Hillary in 2016, but rather as the sitting VP she was the only choice.


The counter though is if Biden had not run again in 2024 and there was an open nomination there's no guarantee a moderate would win the nomination.  Would it instead have been Kirsten Gillibrand as the nominee?

[The Minsky Moment]

Maybe you've been around men jerking off during Obama years as well, but for me it was a new experience.

For real- that's a new experience? How much time did you spend in NYC before 2016?

If the claim is that misdemeanors went down by almost 100,000 because people stopped reporting, I can't take that seriously.

[HVC]

Crazy homeless people are what NYC was known for before they Disney-fied downtown.

[Barrister]

Maybe you've been around men jerking off during Obama years as well, but for me it was a new experience.

For real- that's a new experience? How much time did you spend in NYC before 2016?

If the claim is that misdemeanors went down by almost 100,000 because people stopped reporting, I can't take that seriously.

I think it's entirely possible the drop in misdemeanours in NYC is because of the end of the "stop-and-frisk" policy.

Or not.

WHile measuring the number of charged laid (or number of convictions) is quite easy, measuring crime itself is much more difficult.

[DGuller]

I'm not talking about a certain number of people, I am talking about DGuller who I thought was smart but who seems convinced "wokeism" exists.

So when you hear someone you consider smart saying something you disagree with, your instinct is to no longer regard them as smart?  Personally my instinct is "if a smart person is saying something I disagree with, maybe I can learn from them".

[The Minsky Moment]

I think it's entirely possible the drop in misdemeanours in NYC is because of the end of the "stop-and-frisk" policy.

That could explain drops in certain kinds of possession misdemeanors.

But it couldn't explain declines in (e.g.) minor assault offenses or criminal trespass.

[The Minsky Moment]

Another problem in the "woke" theory is how do you explain why the Democrats won in 2020 in the wake of the massive BLM protests?  Why did the GOP underperform so badly in 2022, arguably the woke high tide?  Why only in 2024, with woke rhetoric on the decline and the party leadership actively de-emphasizing it, did voters turn suddenly against Democrats?

[grumbler]

Yes, a President should enforce the laws and protect the border; or in Trump's case make an empty promise to enforce the laws and protect the border. Much better than pretending that immigration abuse isn't a problem.

Given that nobody was "pretending that immigration abuse isn't a problem," I have no idea what you are arguing.  The border didn't get fixed under Biden because Republicans vetoed any attempt to fix it.

[DGuller]

Maybe you've been around men jerking off during Obama years as well, but for me it was a new experience.

For real- that's a new experience? How much time did you spend in NYC before 2016?

Yes, it was a new experience.  I started working in NYC from 2016 on, so I didn't spend that much time in NYC between when I moved out of it and 2016.  That said, the number of masturbating men I encountered, deliberately or accidentally, was zero for all years before 2024.

I did take PATH and subway trains for all the years I've lived in US regularly, except for the COVID years, my personal experience was what I said it was.  At no time during the last 20 years I've commuted in trains I've felt unsafe, until the last couple of years when it became a very regular occurrence.

You can minimize my experience, you can say how all your life you've been around people who were shooting at you with one hand and cranking one out with their other, it's just part of life, or you can take it as a data point.

[Barrister]

Another problem in the "woke" theory is how do you explain why the Democrats won in 2020 in the wake of the massive BLM protests?  Why did the GOP underperform so badly in 2022, arguably the woke high tide?  Why only in 2024, with woke rhetoric on the decline and the party leadership actively de-emphasizing it, did voters turn suddenly against Democrats?

Anti-incumbency.

2020 Trump was the incumbent so he wore the BLM protests.  2022 I'm not so sure about the GOP underperforming - they seemed to do pretty well (and of course were not the incumbents).

2024 Harris had a large headwind against her being closely tied to the incumbent.  She needed every advantage going her way, and wokeism wasn't helping.

[DGuller]

Another problem in the "woke" theory is how do you explain why the Democrats won in 2020 in the wake of the massive BLM protests?  Why did the GOP underperform so badly in 2022, arguably the woke high tide?  Why only in 2024, with woke rhetoric on the decline and the party leadership actively de-emphasizing it, did voters turn suddenly against Democrats?

I already addressed that.  I think Democrats in reality lost in 2020, because they missed their rare chance to run up the numbers, and in the end what they did win was insufficient to do what needed to be done (thanks Sinema and Manchin).  They were poised to win very big, and they almost didn't win at all.  I think BLM was a big part of that.

When you win small on your good hands and lose big on your bad hands, you're losing.

[frunk]

I lived/visited NYC frequently from 1999 to 2010, and I think my masturbating man count is 2 and sleeping bum on the subway is too frequent to even consider tracking.  By that estimate you are probably due another black swan event in the next couple of years.

[DGuller]

I lived/visited NYC frequently from 1999 to 2010, and I think my masturbating man count is 2 and sleeping bum on the subway is too frequent to even consider tracking.  By that estimate you are probably due another black swan event in the next couple of years.

Sleeping bums on the subway were always a thing.  Menacing bums on the subway were not.