Too Soon To Start Thinking About 2020? No, it's 2020!

[Smoove_B]

Glad to be back.

Glad you're back as well. We're getting to the point collectively that when people disappear I get nervous. Happy to hear you're re-centered (bathed?) and hanging out.

[El Guapo]

Fucking Moscow Mitch. This is worse than poll tax and voter ID combined.

Kentucky has a Democratic governor, though.

[LordMortis]

My hopes took at hit today. My super rare trip out to commerce saw everyone with a mask, but a few had them around their necks, and I'd estimate 1/3 of people wore their masks below the noses. I mean it's better than nothing and shields me against their talking but it's pretty obvious 1/3 of people either don't know how to care 4 month in or are essentially protesting the mask policies and getting away with it. We can't make it four months of sustained giving a shit about our fellow people. Four lousy months. I honestly equate the vast majority of below the nose mask wearers as MAGAts and further there are MAGATs that have enough sense to still wear masks.

Also our tests per day seem to be decreasing and yet our cases per day just starting to go up. We were doing so well. Even surprising me post Memorial day.

[Remus West]

My hopes took at hit today. My super rare trip out to commerce saw everyone with a mask, but a few had them around their necks, and I'd estimate 1/3 of people wore their masks below the noses. I mean it's better than nothing and shields me against their talking but it's pretty obvious 1/3 of people either don't know how to care 4 month in or are essentially protesting the mask policies and getting away with it. We can't make it four months of sustained giving a shit about our fellow people. Four lousy months. I honestly equate the vast majority of below the nose mask wearers as MAGAts and further there are MAGATs that have enough sense to still wear masks.

Also our tests per day seem to be decreasing and yet our cases per day just starting to go up. We were doing so well. Even surprising me post Memorial day.

When you say "we" are you talking nation or state? Last I saw Michigan's numbers were still headed down but I haven't check recently.

[LordMortis]

My hopes took at hit today. My super rare trip out to commerce saw everyone with a mask, but a few had them around their necks, and I'd estimate 1/3 of people wore their masks below the noses. I mean it's better than nothing and shields me against their talking but it's pretty obvious 1/3 of people either don't know how to care 4 month in or are essentially protesting the mask policies and getting away with it. We can't make it four months of sustained giving a shit about our fellow people. Four lousy months. I honestly equate the vast majority of below the nose mask wearers as MAGAts and further there are MAGATs that have enough sense to still wear masks.

Also our tests per day seem to be decreasing and yet our cases per day just starting to go up. We were doing so well. Even surprising me post Memorial day.

When you say "we" are you talking nation or state? Last I saw Michigan's numbers were still headed down but I haven't check recently.

State.

https://www.bridgemi.com/michigan-coron ... s-and-maps

We have been flat for a while (again surprised after Memorial day), flat is now starting to creep up. We bottomed out under 250 cases per day and now we're bouncing all over the place in the 300s, only we're testing less than when we bottomed out. (Still much better than 700 to 1000 per day but I liked it better when we were small trending down with more tests, rather than small trending up with fewer tests)

[malchior]

Context: This was Trump upon returning after Tulsa. Full out disheveled. Fill it in with whatever craziness you think happened on the plane/helicopter back to the WH. In my envisioning, he banishes everyone from his presence and just binges on KFC while calling Hannity for a calm down talk. That or screaming in impotent rage.

https://twitter.com/TheRickWilson/statu ... 4561308676

[malchior]

Post-Tulsa tantrum continues.here is what we're going to hear up until the election and definitely after.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/sta ... 4579982336

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/sta ... 5755190272

[Holman]

Meanwhile, GOP party mailers encourage GOP voters to vote by mail because it is "easy, safe, and secure."

[Remus West]

As much as we may think this is a tantrum I think it may simply be a request being put out there to his foreign "allies". Disgusting pile of crap that he is.

[em2nought]

I honestly equate the vast majority of below the nose mask wearers as MAGAts and further there are MAGATs that have enough sense to still wear masks.

In my experience it is always the democrats who loudly advocate for trash recycling, but it's the republicans who put out the blue totes on trash day.

[hepcat]

You don't know any democrats in real life though.

[raydude]

I honestly equate the vast majority of below the nose mask wearers as MAGAts and further there are MAGATs that have enough sense to still wear masks.

In my experience it is always the democrats who loudly advocate for trash recycling, but it's the republicans who put out the blue totes on trash day.

Well of course the Democrats don't put out the blue Totes on Trash day. We put them out on the correct day - Trash and Recycling Day.
#AnecdoteFail.

[hepcat]

I have to wonder if Barr will go down in history as a traitor to his country at this point. He was on Fox last night perpetuating the lie that mail in ballots were going to lead to widespread voter fraud.

Barr told Fox News that voting by mail “opens the floodgates to fraud.” He warned a foreign country could “print up tens of thousands of counterfeit ballots” and that it would be difficult to figure out which ballots were valid.

Barr has not publicly provided any evidence to support his claim. And election administrators in multiple states have disputed this theory, stating it would be virtually impossible for a foreign country to peddle phony ballots undetected.

Barr is, at best, grossly misinformed and wildly negligent; at worst, he's setting the stage for a sitting president to dispute the results of a an election if he loses.

In either case, I would like to see Barr disbarred at the very least after he leaves/is forced out of the protective cocoon of Trump.

[Holman]

https://twitter.com/SawyerHackett/statu ... 67808?s=20

Turns out that having *one* polling place in the largest city in the state is a problem no matter how big the location is. Traffic and parking prevented voters from reaching the polls in time.

[Holman]

I know we're awful people if we wish death on Trump, but if Mitch McConnell fell in a bottomless pit I would watch the video feed forever and ever.

[Freyland]

Bottomless pit and looping video feed is like dividing by zero.

[Alefroth]

Bottomless pit and looping video feed is like dividing by zero.

Who said looping?

[Jaymann]

Unless he were recording himself on the way down, the video feed would fade to black fairly quickly.

[Alefroth]

I think that was the point.

[Holman]

Unless he were recording himself on the way down, the video feed would fade to black fairly quickly.

Camera drones. Multiple angles. Soundtrack.

[Defiant]

Biden Takes Dominant Lead as Voters Reject Trump on Virus and Race
A New York Times/Siena College poll finds that Joseph R. Biden Jr. is ahead of the president by 14 points, leading among women and nonwhite voters and cutting into his support with white voters.

The full results:
https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/ ... a/full.pdf

Also, of those who voted in 2016:
https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/12 ... 0277441540

[El Guapo]

https://twitter.com/jonathanchait/statu ... 4251669505

[Blackhawk]

Maybe, when your opponent is tearing down his own castle walls, it's better to sit back and let him go about it.

[Defiant]

The searching of the media in that article reminded me of this dumb headline (not sure if I posted it here or not):

"Biden faces new hurdle: Winning as front-runner"

[Defiant]

Maybe, when your opponent is kicking his own sand castle, it's better to sit back and let him go about it.

Fixed that for you. Because actual castle walls implies a stability that was never there.

[YellowKing]

Letting others tear themselves apart while you quietly fly under the radar building alliances is a valid strategy that has worked for Survivor, Big Brother, etc. Maybe Biden is beating Trump at his own reality show.

[Kraken]

Biden's doing fine as long as he stays on script. Just keep doing that.

[malchior]

This all seems to be a wishful way of minimizing a key weakness. The fact remains that the Biden campaign has struggled to get a message out for months. It luckily hasn't turned out to be a problem but it is a risk. Hopefully it won't be signficant.

[El Guapo]

This all seems to be a wishful way of minimizing a key weakness. The fact remains that the Biden campaign has struggled to get a message out for months. It luckily hasn't turned out to be a problem but it is a risk. Hopefully it won't be signficant.

Maybe. Could be his lead should be in the 20s instead of the mid-10s, I guess. And sometimes I wonder how much most campaign decisions ultimately matter.

But I disagree that he's not getting a message out. Biden's core message is "I'm a good guy who will take the presidency seriously and stop scaring you every damn day."

[El Guapo]

I will say that one complaint that I have about the Biden campaign is that whenever I get fundraising text messages, they are split into 2 or 3 messages which come 5 - 10 minutes apart, for some reason. So I get interrupted twice whenever they come, which is annoying.

[malchior]

I think that message is the baseline. That said, it is hard to quantify invisibility but he has to be the least visible Presidential nominee in decades...maybe ever in the modern era. Which is striking when Trump's most visible mechanism for presence is free (Twitter) or free press coverage. We will see what happens as the 'convention' comes and goes.

[El Guapo]

I think that message is the baseline. That said, it is hard to quantify invisibility but he has to be the least visible Presidential nominee in decades...maybe ever in the modern era. Which is striking when Trump's most visible mechanism for presence is free (Twitter) or free press coverage. We will see what happens as the 'convention' comes and goes.

Maybe. But I've also seen some analysis indicating that Trump's poll numbers go down when he gets more media attention. Which would suggest that you don't want to take media attention away from Trump.

[YellowKing]

The Biden nomination and lead was kind of inevitable, assuming in hindsight that "Trump fatigue" was an actual thing that most of the country suffered from. There was this urge for a "return to normal," and the easiest way back to that was the safe pick. I'm not sure it makes any difference what he does or doesn't do.

[Defiant]

Letting others tear themselves apart while you quietly fly under the radar building alliances is a valid strategy that has worked for Survivor, Big Brother, etc. Maybe Biden is beating Trump at his own reality show.

Not to mention Werewolf, Secret Hitler, Battlestar Galactica, Diplomacy and other hidden identity and alliance building games.

Of course in those games, usually the person employing that strategy is manipulative and one of the baddies. Not something that describes Biden.

[El Guapo]

The Biden nomination and lead was kind of inevitable, assuming in hindsight that "Trump fatigue" was an actual thing that most of the country suffered from. There was this urge for a "return to normal," and the easiest way back to that was the safe pick. I'm not sure it makes any difference what he does or doesn't do.

I think that's a reasonable argument, at least at this point. I think this kind of validates Biden's core argument in the Democratic primary, FWIW, since Sanders wouldn't be running as a "return to normal" candidate.

[malchior]

I think that message is the baseline. That said, it is hard to quantify invisibility but he has to be the least visible Presidential nominee in decades...maybe ever in the modern era. Which is striking when Trump's most visible mechanism for presence is free (Twitter) or free press coverage. We will see what happens as the 'convention' comes and goes.

Maybe. But I've also seen some analysis indicating that Trump's poll numbers go down when he gets more media attention. Which would suggest that you don't want to take media attention away from Trump.

Right but you need a long game here. Let's say he wins but hasn't communicated anything but good guy/not Trump. What has he run on? What can he get done? Maybe that is immaterial because the Republicans will sabotage everything but passive only goes so far when you are talking about the Presidency. I think giving him the 'convention' is fair but he hasn't eased any of my concerns about him at all. I'm getting a real Buchanan vibe here.

The Biden nomination and lead was kind of inevitable, assuming in hindsight that "Trump fatigue" was an actual thing that most of the country suffered from. There was this urge for a "return to normal," and the easiest way back to that was the safe pick. I'm not sure it makes any difference what he does or doesn't do.

I think that's a reasonable argument, at least at this point. I think this kind of validates Biden's core argument in the Democratic primary, FWIW, since Sanders wouldn't be running as a "return to normal" candidate.

This is the major disconnect here. What does "return to normal" mean? It's like saying don't worry about the dysfunction. Biden needs a plan or in 4 years were going to be right here again. He can't run on 'I'm a good guy' and not express a desire to address the many significant problems we face. We're well past the point of kicking a can here.

[Jaymon]

Trump is a reactionist. if Biden does something, or announces a policy, or takes a stand, then Trump would jump all over that with tweets and executive orders and insults and whatnot. if Biden does none of those things, Trump has no leverage. It seems like a calculated strategy, a mix of don't rock the boat, and tortise vs hare.

its like hey, did you hear what Bidens up to? Nobody says that, because its the same thing he was up to yesterday and last week and last month. Its the stability platform. And I think its working.

[malchior]

Trump is a reactionist. if Biden does something, or announces a policy, or takes a stand, then Trump would jump all over that with tweets and executive orders and insults and whatnot. if Biden does none of those things, Trump has no leverage. It seems like a calculated strategy, a mix of don't rock the boat, and tortise vs hare.

its like hey, did you hear what Bidens up to? Nobody says that, because its the same thing he was up to yesterday and last week and last month. Its the stability platform. And I think its working.

I'd call it the Captain Edward Smith platform. If he maintains a huge lead, why not spend down some of it now to stake a position on a reasonable reform? That is the opportunity I see.

[El Guapo]

I think that message is the baseline. That said, it is hard to quantify invisibility but he has to be the least visible Presidential nominee in decades...maybe ever in the modern era. Which is striking when Trump's most visible mechanism for presence is free (Twitter) or free press coverage. We will see what happens as the 'convention' comes and goes.

Maybe. But I've also seen some analysis indicating that Trump's poll numbers go down when he gets more media attention. Which would suggest that you don't want to take media attention away from Trump.

Right but you need a long game here. Let's say he wins but hasn't communicated anything but good guy/not Trump. What has he run on? What can he get done? Maybe that is immaterial because the Republicans will sabotage everything but passive only goes so far when you are talking about the Presidency. I think giving him the 'convention' is fair but he hasn't eased any of my concerns about him at all. I'm getting a real Buchanan vibe here.

The Biden nomination and lead was kind of inevitable, assuming in hindsight that "Trump fatigue" was an actual thing that most of the country suffered from. There was this urge for a "return to normal," and the easiest way back to that was the safe pick. I'm not sure it makes any difference what he does or doesn't do.

I think that's a reasonable argument, at least at this point. I think this kind of validates Biden's core argument in the Democratic primary, FWIW, since Sanders wouldn't be running as a "return to normal" candidate.

This is the major disconnect here. What does "return to normal" mean? It's like saying don't worry about the dysfunction. Biden needs a plan or in 4 years were going to be right here again. He can't run on 'I'm a good guy' and not express a desire to address the many significant problems we face. We're well past the point of kicking a can here.

I mean, he's got a super progressive platform. So...that's what he's going to do. Probably more progressive than would be ultimately approved by Congress (assuming that the Democrats take the Senate; if they don't it doesn't matter much what his platform is).

[malchior]

Right and that's why I give him to the convention. We will see how much of it survives and how it is communicated. We'll (hopefully) know more about how the platform actually addresses the cracks in the system. That's tough to gauge right now until we hear about more of the meat here.