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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   30571 thread views

U.S. Election (Day?) 2024 Megathread

With apologies to our many friends and posters outside the United States... it's time for another one of these! Culture war thread rules apply, and you are permitted to openly advocate for or against an issue or candidate on the ballot (if you clearly identify which ballot, and can do so without knocking down any strawmen along the way). "Small-scale" questions and answers are also permitted if you refrain from shitposting or being otherwise insulting to others here. Please keep the spirit of the law--this is a discussion forum!--carefully in mind.

If you're a U.S. citizen with voting rights, your polling place can reportedly be located here.

If you're still researching issues, Ballotpedia is usually reasonably helpful.

Any other reasonably neutral election resources you'd like me to add to this notification, I'm happy to add.

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not sure when the election results will be announced

You and everybody here. I presume that explains the "(Day?)" quip in the title.

Most amusingly: Nevada's a swing state, and it's going to be counting mail-in ballots with postmarks up through election day (or with smudged postmarks) if they're received up to 3 or 4 days later. Even if everybody counts competently and instantly with no errors and no recounts there's a small chance we might not know the final outcome before the end of the week.

I still cannot fathom how any reasonable, good-faith interlocutor thinks this is a good way to run an election. Not having a denominator for vote count on election night is just staggeringly irresponsible if you actually care about legitimizing your democracy.

Not counting valid votes from legitimate voters, can also be irresponsible for legitimizing your democracy. That's the tension. There is nothing special about election night. Nothing changes for a couple months. It's just an arbitrary cut off point, and if it takes days afterwards to declare a winner, it doesn't actually cause any real problems.

So there is nothing fundamentally wrong with saying that if you allow mail in ballots, those posted by the election day should count. You could even build that into the process. Election day is today. The Election decision day is November 10th. There doesn't need to be an expectation we will have a winner overnight. Indeed in close elections probably you want to take a few extra days for recounts and the like.

I don't think it a huge deal to only count those received on or before the cut off, but I don't think it a huge deal to choose mailed by the cut off either. They are both reasonable choices on how you are determining what makes it in time, based upon your preferences.

Whatever Florida is doing is clearly right and everyone else should copy them.

I wouldn't disagree to be honest. If you are going to have mail in and early ballots and you want an outcome quickly then doing some work to them prior to the election is just good sense.

This all just seems absolutely bizarre to me. Like, I'm capable of understanding the words and following the train of thought, I'm not saying that you're being incoherent, but I'm just completely baffled that this doesn't seem insane to others. The idea that it would delegitimize democracy to tell people that they need to vote by election day seems quite literally crazy to me. The idea that we keep accepting votes that come in well after election day just seems like something that everyone knows is wrong. The fact that states can't even tell you how many people voted a couple days after the election seems impossible to justify. I feel like if I explained that process to someone that was voting for the board in the local running club, they would be confident that I was doing something janky to steal an election, that obviously everyone should cast their vote by the time the polls close on election day.

I don't know man; this just seems like an unbridgeable divide.

I think it is certainly fine to prefer the former. I am just pointing out it isn't that insane as long as you don't count election day as something special. It is just a day we choose votes to be cast by. Therefore if we choose to allow mail in votes (and we don't have to!) and we want to make sure that the most eligible votes are counted, then saying votes must be sent on or before election day isn't in and of itself crazy. Predicated on the idea you are not expected to have a result on election day.

For the running club let's say you told them votes must be cast on or before November 3rd. And you can cast them at the club in a box, or by handing them to Walterodim or SSCReader for people who live closer to them than the club house. We will then get together on November 5th and count the ballots.

At that point the ballots given to me or you would not reach the club house until November 5th, where we would add them to those in the box and count them. So as long as the ballots were entrusted to us (or the box) by November 3rd, the fact they don't get added to the big pile until we go to count them is not a problem. They are still eligible ballots cast by the members, who found it easier to give them to us than put them in the box themselves. November 5th is then the important day. November 3rd is just the cut off for them being submitted to the process set up.

And if that process was instead the mail then it is certainly feasible to say it must be mailed by November 3rd and received by November 5th when we actually go to count them. That they are received by the time the count is expected to end is really the important part. Having a cut off, is just a way of trying to ensure we aren't counting ballots until December. The cut off isn't the ends, it is the means.

Everyone does have to cast their vote by the time polls close on election day. Just some states think it's good enough for the ballots to be in the custody of the postal service (i.e. requiring a postmark by election day) as opposed to requiring ballots to be in the custody of the elections organization by that time. The argument is approximately that in a mail-in voting system, the postal service is effectively part of the elections organization.

FWIW, usually the justification has been that the margin of victory of the winning candidate in most races is much higher than the total volume of mail-in votes, so it doesn't actually matter. At least besides the pseudo-religious justification of having those mail-in voters believe that their vote "counted".

It remains to be seen just how many more mail-in votes (legitimate or questionable...) will take place in this election.

I’m predicting fewer mail-ins than 2020, even if the total is higher.

2022 was a drop from 2020, but we still had 30% of votes cast by mail. Even before the pandemic there were mail-ins by the tens of millions, in numbers rapidly increasing. "There's still some to count but not enough to change the Presidential result" was a thing I recall hearing in 2000, back when they were called "absentee ballots" and they were just a thing for invalids and active-duty soldiers and out-of-state students and such, but that time is past.

Just hearing this month old banger:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=3BrCvZmSnKA

Was there now proof that they were eating the pets of people that live in Ohio?

Stray cats and dogs are common bushmeat in Haiti. Haitians in Miami in the 80s were nicknamed “the cat eaters” for that very reason. Furthermore, the sacrifice of small animals for voodoo rituals, endemic to Haiti and very common, is well documented.

Why on earth is it strange to think that recent immigrants of little to no education would continue their cultural practices of their homeland until they are properly acculturated?

As far as I’m concerned the burden of proof is on the people saying it’s not happening.

As far as I’m concerned the burden of proof is on the people saying it’s not happening.

That's not how burden of proof works, as it is impossible to prove something isn't happening.

It's possible to prove that no Haitians ate cats at any point between X and Y times; continuous video footage of all Haitians for the entire period would do it.

Hard, yes, but not impossible.

Nah, that still wouldn't work because you can't prove that you captured all Hatians.

Strange how there hasn't been any evidence of it then that I can recall.

Nicknames from 4 decades ago are not evidence.

It can be fun to assert things with no proof, but we shouldn't delude ourselves that it's somehow the more correct approach

Common cultural practice over many years isn’t evidence of something?

If I told you that I saw a group of afghans in my town and one of them was wearing a burkha, you would automatically assume I’m lying for clout?

That’s very interesting.

Common cultural practice in the US? Nope. Citation needed.

It's common cultural practice for people to cut the hands off of thieves, that also doesn't happen in the US to the same degree it does elsewhere. Terrible line of reasoning that is. What's very interesting is your epistemic standards for believing something.

Multiple, unrelated people at different times all complaining about a well documented and common cultural practice by a foreign group that suddenly emerged in one area in very great numbers?

Yeah, a normal reaction to that is to think there’s probably at least a bit of validity to the claim.

Automatically discounting that as false is evidence of liberal brainworms or motivated reasoning. You think magic dirt is enough to transform the cultural practices of literal hordes of foreign peasants in an instant upon arrival?

How on earth can you believe that? It strikes me as intensely autistic.

Just wanted to register and confirm that when pressed by both netstack and myself, you were unable to provide any evidence at all of what you confidently proclaimed was a "well documented and common cultural practice" in the US. Is this the case?

It's one thing to have the belief that the burden of proof is not on you in order to make your statement. (I still disagree with that stance but it would be slightly more reasonable.) It's quite another to act and proclaim as if something is well-founded, tell others they are autistic or have brainworms for believing differently than you, and then silently slink back and retreat when you cannot provide evidence for it. What would you call that behaviour in your colourful language?

I'm still open if you'd like to provide evidence. We could then have a discussion about . Otherwise, I'll have a hard time believing that you agree with the mission statement of this place to move past shady thinking and be a serious voice to consider.

If you’ll notice my posting history it comes in little bursts. I basically never write very long entries. There’s a reason for it.

That’s because outside of this cute rarefied forum, I don’t have a silly little email job that allows me to get large amount of screen time and pop in here and write big theses with multiple citations. I have a real job in which I work insane hours and it that requires my full attention, and a family with young children.

So I found myself parked on the side of the road trying to find a source in an old x thread that would pass muster to make some random person believe that fresh off the boat immigrants from one of the most backwards countries on earth immediately change their entire way of life and diet the second they pop off the plane due to ‘magic culture’ and ‘magic laws’ which are basically unenforced. And that people in different countries eat different meat, including bushmeat. The absurdity of the situation sank in, and I resumed the important task I had at hand.

Even now at the ass crack of dawn as I write this on my phone, my daughter points to this as she climbs on me over and over again and exclaims “wow! That’s a lot of words!”.

Very politely, I’ll recommend you do a google search. Specifically about cat eating as a cultural practice. If you do it “raw” you’ll be greeted by a tidal wave of screeds of legacy media screaming “hoax” at the top of their lungs you. There’s also a handful of reels & tiktoks from people, some Haitian, saying this is true.

But if you know a bit about search, and can pull articles from say ten years or older, you might be surprised at what you see. The thread on X that I was looking for but unable to find even included a bbc article about which cultures ate cats, but I’m certain the Haitian portion of it was scrubbed after the controversy. They tend to do that.

Anyways, I’ve wasted enough time on this. Good luck in your search to find out that not everywhere is like the USA, I guess.

A single link of evidence would have sufficed, and taken less time to write. It beggars belief that such a well documented and common cultural practice would be so difficult to find evidence for.

Since you keep playing the motte and Bailey game, I'll remind you that you asserted cat eating was going on as common practice IN THE USA. Even what you recommend that I look up to prove YOUR point does not actually prove the point you are trying to make!

You don't have to pretend that you're being polite when you snark to me implying I can't do a search, that I don't have a job and family as real and important and serious as yours, that I'm autistic or have brainstorms.

It is to clear to me, to you, and to anyone else reading this (god help them) that you are not being polite, I'm not being particularly polite, and we don't respect each other very much. Don't insult anyone's intelligence by pretending otherwise.

While I'm giving advice, (since that seems to be what we're doing here) I'd also recommend against engaging up until the point you realize you cannot and only then pulling out the 'I have better and more important things to do' card. You had the time to write everything leading up to this. You either play the card right away or admit that you simply don't want to engage in a battle that points out shortcomings in your thinking.

If you truly refuse to defend the things you say, then I suppose all I can say is good luck with your 'insane hours' and 'family'. May I meet you again elsewhere on this forum and obliterate you again in the marketplace of ideas.

Look, demanding "cite?" can be an obnoxious form of argumentation and you are not required to provide one on demand. People here are very prone to (selectively) demanding links to evidence when they don't believe something, but that is the nature of this forum - you are supposed to proactively provide evidence, especially in proportion to the inflammatory nature of your claims.

But I'm not admonishing you here for failing to provide evidence. I'm admonishing you because your response to someone asking you for evidence was "Well, I do real work, not like you worthless paper-pushers, I'm too busy with my real and valuable life and family to care about what I write here."

And, you know, good for you. Spending time with your daughter is undoubtedly a better use of your time than arguing with Internet randos. But don't jump into an argument with inflammatory claims, and when challenged, play this "I'm too busy and I have a real life" card. That is really obnoxious.

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Can you show me any of these people? Where are they? Where is their evidence? You keep saying things as if they're common knowledge that are not at all established. The only woman I have heard of in connection to these rumors recently flatly admitted she repeated them based on what her neighbour heard from someone else with no evidence.

Actually, the normal reaction is to ask for evidence of a baseless claim. I have some crypto to sell you if that's all it takes for you to believe something. My neighbour swears by this coin!!!!

Pets are the most protected class of animals in America. You really think, if there was an epidemic of foreigners devouring cats and dogs from the street, that there would be literally ZERO evidence of this? Rise in missing pets? No videos, incriminating pictures? Despite the droves of people who would be incentivized to catch such behaviour? Don't you think that if they WERE eating pets, they would also be eating other wild animals at much higher rates which WOULD be obvious? Do you have any hard evidence of any of that, other than your favourite unsubstantiated rumours? Please don't bring up the 2 or 3 supposed cases that have already been investigated and debunked, as we can both agree that would be a waste of both our times.

Automatically believing unsubstantiated rumours because they agree with your priors and political pundits is evidence of foolish reasoning and intellect regardless of your political leaning! I'll take brainworms over inability to reason any day!

Even Vance admitted the story was made up! Are you really going to defend his statement longer than he did?

In case you actually don't understand this (hard to believe but hey, you never know!): The dirt isn't magic. The laws and the culture are magic.

'Literal hordes of foreign peasants'. Okay there, calm down, seems like you're getting a bit excited.

Thanks for the diagnosis, I'll be sure to mention it to my doctor. The brainworms too, those sound serious.

Pets are the most protected class of animals in America.

Except us. Choice quote from the IUCN Red List assessment:

Conservation sites identified : Yes, over entire range

First, they aren’t unrelated. The Twitter trend has seen to that.

Second, it’s not well-documented. If it were, you could show rates of dog or cat consumption in Haiti rather than just asserting that they’re really high. Dog consumption appears highest in East Asia; I’d be willing to believe that Haiti has flown under the radar, but I have yet to see the evidence.

@cartman and I cannot tell where you got your prior that Haitians are total dog gourmets. If it’s because of voodoo, show me dog sacrifice numbers. If it’s because of an epithet tossed around in the 80s, tell me why you think it’s particularly accurate today. Surely you can do better than repeating “well documented!”

It's more like, you heard tenth-hand that there are people wearing burkas in a town you've never visited, and there's somehow no photos of said burkas.

That's before we even get into questions about the base rate of burka wearing vs dog eating.

But why should we expect to find any proof? The nature of the act tends to leave little evidence, and that evidence is likely not on public display and is probably circumstantial and inconclusive. The people who are in the best position to find any evidence also have very little incentive to do so. Besides, I also believe Haitian immigrants in Ohio are continuing to practice other culinary traditions and habits they have brought with them, but I also have no proof they are not subsisting entirely on Big Macs. So there's that.

Who said I expected anyone to find proof? I don't. What I do expect is that IF people want to make a positive claim, they SHOULD be expected to provide proof for that claim. Or else why should I believe them?

I can assert all manner of things that don't leave behind evidence, and I'm certain you would not believe the vast majority of them based on this specious reasoning

Who said I expected anyone to find proof? I don't. What I do expect is that IF people want to make a positive claim, they SHOULD be expected to provide proof for that claim.

No you shouldn't, but that goes beyond the scope of this thread to address.

Alright then, case closed I suppose!

In a population in which 90%+ of adults or teenagers are carrying a device in their pockets at all times which enables them to film HD footage at 24 frames per second (at least) on a whim and then immediately share that footage with the entire world - if Haitians in Springfield are doing something untoward with cats or dogs, I would expect at least one video (even a blurry, out-of-focus video taken from a distance) showing that taking place.

never come down

Regardless of politics I think this song was pure meme magic. The band (Brave Shores) hated that their song was taken and how hard it slapped.

But who would have thought that in 2024 Pets lives matter?

https://youtube.com/watch?v=3BrCvZmSnKA

Trump music videos are an underappreciated art form, I think.

I think we stress out too much about this shit because terms are too long. If we had Presidential and Congressional elections every six months people would be a lot more chill about it all. People would argue that such terms would be too short for the winners to develop any sort of continuity once in office but you know what, it's not the 18th century anymore, they have access to much more powerful tools than before. And in any case, that's their problem.

Shorter terms would also give us more opportunity to see how different politicians handle relatively similar issues. So much changes in four years that there's relatively little way to get a feel for how two politicians would handle the same issue.

Counter-argument: make all political appointments for life and multiply the salary many times over. This way politicians can spend their life going after whatever entity they think does the most damage (whether big tech / Amazon, school unions, pharma, etc) without worrying how it affects the party or the next election.

Maybe give them cool hats to wear as symbols of their office, while we're at it. But unironically I think it's a better plan than what we're doing now.

I believe that most things that effectively reduce the impact of each particular politician have the net effect of transferring power to what we would call the "deep state", all of the unelected aides, assistants, bureaucrats, etc that actually stay in the same jobs for long times. This is usually in reference to tougher term limits, but I think it would apply to dramatically shorter terms too.

There is tremendous power in having long experience in a system, knowing what has and hasn't worked in the past, all the ins and outs of all the little rules, who knows how to do what, etc. The more we limit the amount of time actual elected politicians spend in office, the more we transfer that power to their unelected aides who actually know how to get things done, and can slow-walk anything they don't like while accelerating anything they do.

I don't think any "tools" can fix that problem, because it's about power. Tools that actually increase a politician's power effectively versus the system will never be built, because it's not in anyone's interest to make it easier for any newcomers to accumulate power. Power is only effectively increased at the expense of other people with power, who can't be expected to cooperate in the process.

Would liquid democracy be stressful?

that would be a logistics nightmare

I think if anything that would be worse. As it stands now, I’d minimally double the terms of most offices. The trouble we have now is due to short terms. The house barely gets settled in and knowing where the bathrooms are before it’s time to run for office. And this kind of short term means that they really don’t have to do anything concrete to fix problems. Worse, if you can make it looks like you’ve fixed something but the consequences of your bad fix don’t show up within two years, you’ll be gone before the negatives hit. Even four years for president is pretty short. By the time the economic impact of your policies hit the mainstream, you’ll be packing up to move out.

The second thing is that really, the short terms mean politics is taking up an extraordinary amount of the collective bandwidth of the public imagination. Every two years we’re choosing new leaders, and that means 6+ months every two years of constant speculation, political ads, push polling, and punditry aimed at convincing the public to vote in a given way. Worse, because fear and anger are the most effective means of inducing people to care about politics, we spend those six months learning to hate those who disagree with us politically. You hate abortion? You’re killing women, you sexist. Oh, you’re pro abortion? Baby killer! And so on, through every major issue. This tends to create tensions between people that shouldn’t exist. And the wounds caused by this short cycle never completely heal.

In my opinion, politics, ideally would be such a minor part of life that they really don’t matter. The general public is not served by a system so broken that it’s near top of mind what a political figure said or did today or any other day. It’s not supposed to be that important, and frankly, if the government worked properly, you wouldn’t have to constantly baby sit it and change its nappies.

As it stands now, I’d minimally double the terms of most offices.

One interesting thing is that IIRC the Federalist Papers contemplated that Cabinet Secretaries would need Senate advice and consent to be replaced, and generally serve across administrations. That might be a reasonable blend of longevity in office but with rapid accountability for particular screwups.

What are the most interesting state/local results so far?

Sherrod Brown got the boot here in Ohio, after 21 years in Congress. Obama won Ohio both times, and the state has almost always had one Republican and one Democratic Senator; now all statewide elected officials are Republican. Not a bellwether anymore, I don't guess. I don't know how interesting that really is, but I'm always fascinated by how states flip over time. When I was a kid, it was utterly unimaginable that North Carolina or Georgia could ever be play for the Dems; in future years, they probably will be blue from time to time.

I saw that NYC went 1/3 for Trump. Getting 67% of votes is the worst Dem result in NYC since 1870 or something.

California has a little more than half the votes tallied right now, and the anti-crime Prop 36 is at 70% YES votes. If this holds, Prop 47 is basically repealed.

Notably, CA Gov. Newson campaigned against Prop 36, while Harris refused to give an answer on her stance when she was asked.

The Los Angeles DA George Gascon also lost re-election. He was one of the most progressive DAs and was a proponent of Prop 47 if I remember correctly. He was also DA in San Francisco before his LA stint.

Seems like a broad indictment against crime in California. Not sure how much change I expect to see in places like SF, but it seems positive imo.

Will Trump survive his term? And if he does, will he hand pick his successor or let the 2028 primary happen without interference?

I hope it's going to be Vance

He will retire after 2026 midterms to give Vance the max opportunity for win and still leave him with 2 possible future terms if the economy is good and the world is ok.

Do you really think that’ll happen, or are you just throwing out a wild theory? To me, that seems about as likely as Joe Biden coming back as 48 in 2028. It would be entirely out of character for Trump (or any president) to resign in order to help his successor.

We live in timeline in which crazy things do happen. And I don't know - this Trump feels different. Somewhat more determined and responsible. I don't think it is out of question. Especially if he stumps for the 2026 midterms.

Could be wrong though.

The best possible outcome, but I don't believe Trump could set aside his ego.

Not a chance.

Unless he has some route to get Jr. into the line of succession, he’s not going anywhere.

I predict he develops some kind of noticeable health issue in the last two years, but not one serious enough to incapacitate him (more like we'll slowly see him slowly reduce his working hours Biden-style but for more of a physical reason). Odds maybe 70%.

Who's live election tracker is best? So far I prefer bloombergs: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-us-election-results/ but I dont like how it doesnt display total registered voters, just a % counted.

Anything else out there worthwhile?

Polygon or bitcoin . Those really highly correlated with trump's odds

Polygon

the gaming news website?

Not unless they go full tanks in the street, which is still IMHO a slight probability. If Trump wins, the blob is defanged. They'll do literally anything to stop it.

One of the jokes I never saw this election (and 2020, 2016) is someone using the "tomorrow belongs to me" clip from Cabaret as a representation of a Trump rally. And with so much Nazi name calling it really looks like a strange omission - it is a catchy song, it is just enough tongue in cheek to pass a just joking bro or to be posted ironically and it has all the needed elements to go viral.

Be the change you wish to see in the world.

The irony here is that "the morning will come when the world is mine; tomorrow belongs to me" only really needs the first-person singulars changed to plural ("ours"/"us") to become a plausible SJ slogan (at least, in a world without Cabaret).

Literally just heard this done as the closing number on BBC Radio 4's impressionist show Dead Ringers.

When do you think Harris will concede?

She still has an 8% chance according to Polymarket so I think this is a bit premature.

The big networks haven't called a single swing state yet.

way premature to concede. there is no upside to early concession

Stocks are up. Railroad stocks are way up. Pharma stocks are down.

Tax cuts, tarrifs, and drug backlash being priced in as we speak.

Why drug a backlash?

RFK

JD Vance mentioned banning Pharma ads on TV during his appearance on Joe Rogan pod. Plus RFK maybe?

Does anyone know what’s taking Nevada so long to begin releasing results? Are they waiting until the numbers are finalized?

They hold their cards close to their chest.

Supposedly they do not release results until all voters finish voting and all votes are tabulated. I expect 2-3am EST for NV to report.

They're depressed because they're a swing state but don't actually matter in any of the plausible scenarios.

NV played a nice role in most 269-269 scenarios, at least.

The networks are saying that they don't release any totals until ALL people still in line are done voting. So results won't release until every line clears in the whole state.

Thanks!

I've bet a small amount on the outcome on the elections. The Kelly criterion suggests being more aggressive than what I've been though.

My buddy's weird pastor was telling me the other day over beers that based on his reading of biblical text Trump is the prophesied antichrist ushering in the end times.

On the one hand the end times are god's will, so both pointless and bad to oppose. But on the other, the antichrist is bad and should be opposed, right?

So assuming Trump is the antichrist, should a prophetically inclined Christian prefer to have voted for or against him?

This is of course completely ridiculous and an appalling misuse of scripture, but...

The dragon stood on the shore of the sea. And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. It had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on its horns, and on each head a blasphemous name. 2 The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority. 3 One of the heads of the beast seemed to have had a fatal wound, but the fatal wound had been healed. The whole world was filled with wonder and followed the beast. 4 People worshiped the dragon because he had given authority to the beast, and they also worshiped the beast and asked, “Who is like the beast? Who can wage war against it?”

5 The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise its authority for forty-two months.

Hrrrm.

Check out some lore here (fact-checked by real American gematria-informed astrologers). It also brings in the all-important 9/11 predictions and Back to the Future: https://x.com/DonnieDarkened/status/1466212244316905474

I like Trump but I don’t rule it out.

My understanding is the Antichrist is supposed to be a military man of some sort, which Trump is decidedly not

I generally believe that the most important aspect of biblical end times prophecy is the specific statement in Matthew 24:36 that no one knows when it will happen. So I'm generally of the opinion that we won't be able to interpret these prophecies except in retrospect.

Obviously there's meta concerns but I'll just ignore those.

Also, the Antichrist is supposed to be universally popular, which pew research indicates Trump's appeal falters hugely on the international level.

I chose to abstain from voting on this basis, although I still think he's less likely to cause a Revelation-grade catastrophe in the near future than Harris would have. (I associate Mystery Babylon, and the Whore of Babylon, with America, and Harris would fit the bill, although the Whore doesn't need to be a specific individual to represent the country.)

And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God's wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.” Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.

I would not want to risk it.

To answer your question: Christians prefer not to vote for the antichrist.

Prophetically inclined Christians would be aware that Jesus was very clear about his coming will be like a thief in the night, and that no one knows about that day or hour, not even himself, but only the Father knows.

sadly, I know waaaaay too many Christians devouring media insisting that the Rapture is happening any day now.

I think that kind of media is essentially fan-fiction though. Unless they're actually selling all their possessions and going to lie in a field I don't think they -actually believe- that stuff. It's red meat, just like you see in political bubbles. Some radicals may actually believe it, but it's in the same way some radical left-wingers think Trump is an actual Nazi or right-wingers think Democrats actually want to destroy the US. It's a bailey belief.

"sure, sure, but if you use the middle letter of this book with this complex and arbitrary system of numerology, bam, you crack the whole thing wide open!"

I wasn't able to stay up to watch the entire 2017 Australian Open men's final; I fully expected that Nadal would come up with his usual plot armor bullshit and pull it out. Waking up to see that after five years in the wilderness, Federer had finally won again on the very biggest stage - defeating his greatest rival to boot - is genuinely one of my favorite memories.

I have to go to bed now; I wonder if tomorrow will be another morning like that.

Polymarket are now effectively running a death lottery on Trump. Also, the odds seem really good for the 'Trump will not be President' wager considering what happened this year. It was around 1/200 when I looked. 4 sitting Presidents of 46 have been killed so far. the historical odds is something like 4/46 * 2/50 of being killed in a 2 month window if we include November to January before certification. so about 1/280, so purely on historical odds alone its not a good bet but if you think Trump is significantly more likely than average then those odds start to look interesting.

I'm tempted to throw a little money at "Trump will not be president" as a hedge against my despair in case it actually happens. Is Polymarket open to Americans?

Is Polymarket open to Americans?

No, though if you use a VPN and crypto they can't exactly stop you. This would be a violation of their terms of service and also the law, though the extent to which that violation would be on you versus them is not clear to me.

So long as you're not obnoxious about it there's nil incentive for them.

I mean actuarial life tables give trump a 1/100 chance of dying of natural causes in that time frame, those odds are a bit low if anything on actuarial life table grounds.

Wait you are saying there is a 1% chance he will die in the next 90 days? That seems unlikely

Yep.

Actuarial life tables give him a 1.45% chance to die of natural causes in the next 90 days, Trump is healthier than the average 78 year old but he is fat and could have heart disease for all I know so I wouldn't give him non-zero odds.

Also surely decent delta of 'significant health event which disqualifies him from the presidency without actually killing him'

I consider that he's way healthier than the average 78 year old a big reason to give him lower odds relative to his life table, the "significant health event" angle does happen too but I think it still only gets him to 1%

What's going on in Arizona and Michigan? Seems like the counts have been stuck for over an hour now.

Polymarket is spiking to Trump at 90% Did something get called that I am unaware of? It looks the major swing states are still in play.

Someone said MI, WI and PA need to be won to allow Harris a path to victory at the moment. WI and PA are about 1% ahead for Trump right now with about 50% of those two states counted.

Edit: WI, MI and PA currently ahead for Trump in the count. Shitposters are memeing 'Trump built the Red Wall'.

If trump wins AZ and Georgia then Yes harris would need to sweep all 3 of those to win.

It can be modeled as a doubly absorbing matrix in which winning/losing a certain number of swing states of a 50% probabiblity confers an absorbing state. This can occur long before most of the votes are tallied. having a sizable lead on 6/10 swing states effectively means winning the election, so winning 5/6 of the necessary states leaves very little room for Kamala to win. or 1/2^5 odds

True, I wasn't thinking in probability.

NYT is projecting an 80 percent chance of a Trump win

But I don’t know I’m getting 2020 vibes, feels like deja vu. Someone know how this is different this time around? Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona all look like a toss up and could go for Harris

here is what happed in 2020 based on a screenshot of FTX betting market:

https://wp.decrypt.co/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/FTX-Prediction-Market-U-T-D.png

The ballot dumps come in at 9:30 UTC , so in 5 hours from now

From memory Trump got to like 60-70% chance to win in betting markets.

I think the difference is that we don't have COVID forcing first-time-ever changes in election mechanics. Less of a chance for midnight ballots to show up and/or the probability of that is priced in.

That's the theory anyway.

The Dem and Media have called trump an asshole for 4 years about the “big lie”.

If nothing else, he has mobilized his supporters to be vigilant for election rigging. It will be harder to pull the same trick twice. I worry they have new tricks. But in 2020, people were confused when there were reports of vote tabulators being sent home for burst water pipes.

I certainly am in the 'it ain't over til it's over' crowd. If looking at statistics and probability, since Trump just needs to win one state he's more likely to come out ahead than Harris. That being said, I wouldn't be surprised of midnight shenanigans.

Saturday night, my partner & I filled out our respective ballots. Sunday morning, we dropped them in the mailbox by our local library.

This morning I got an email from my county. My mail-in ballot was processed & my vote was counted. The voting system in my state is working as intended, from my vantage point.

Hopefully more states can vote in the same manner I am. No theater, no drama, just a couple selections & bada bing bada boom. I just want more people to have my level of privilege, whatever their candidate of choice is.

I remain firmly in favor of restoring secret ballots. While I trust that you and your partner have a lovely relationship and are free to vote your conscience in full view of the other, that is plainly not the case for everyone. Mail-in balloting provides too many opportunities for coercion or otherwise illegitimately changing the votes of others.

National election day!

In my experience, people complaining about mail-in ballots are not usually thrilled about giving federal employees another holiday.

Move the Veterans Day slightly to coincide with the election day, then?

Uh, what’s the actual mechanism for giving non-federal employees a holiday?

Like heck yes I’m opposed to giving federal workers a paid day off on Election Day when I ain’t getting one.

It’s a legitimate point. We can barely manage to get most of the country free for Christmas.

Compromise: Move MLK day to October and put the election on it. I'm sure the Reverend would be fine with it. Republicans are happy because it doesn't create a new holiday and also it reduces the stature given to a black guy, Democrats are happy because black people and minorities get time off to vote and also it ties MLK even more tightly into the civic mythos, plus they can put pictures of him up in the voting room.

Republicans are happy because it doesn't create a new holiday and also it reduces the stature given to a black guy,

I think you misspelled "Democrats".

Democrats claim to be "pro black" but the moment any individual black man starts to have some success they immediately shift to tearing him down, eg MLK and Clarence Thomas. There is nothing a democrat hates more than a nigger who escaped the plantation.

Didn't quite a few people here lament that the libs had won the US culture war a couple years ago?

And now they've lost it? What happened?

They haven't lost the war. They've lost a battle. With that said, they've lost a bunch of battles in the past couple of years, so an explanation is still warranted.

The look of things is that the inroads the right has made into the tech world (most notably Elon Musk buying Twitter, but to some degree also alt-tech getting its act together with places like Substack) were critical; it seems that SJ's clean sweep of "first-tier" social media platform censorship was actually at least somewhat load-bearing in keeping the youth loyal (to come back to the US election - the swing among 18-29s was 15% for men and 7% for women, and this despite Jan 6). Apparently, Elon Musk spending ~$100,000,000,000 spearing his white whale ($44b buying Twitter, the rest in losses from Biden's "Fair Game" order) actually hit a vital organ.

SJ is not dead. They still have the education system and a good chunk of company bureaucracies in their pocket, and while Musk may have outlasted Biden, SJ might yet manage to pull off replacing Twitter. They're definitely on the back foot, though; SJ had at first the advantage of surprise and then an aura of inevitability, but they have neither now. And, of course, one must always factor in that most tail risks hit SJ much harder than its adversaries.

I have germ of a post thats been percolating since this exchange here about how it's dumb to indulge in doomerism that I ought to flesh out along these lines.

But to answer your question about "what happened", the answer is that the fight isnt over until everyone agrees on who won. Reaganism was supposed to have been done-in by the end of the Cold War and the rise of "Progress" and Globalization but, to all appearances, its back baby.

Qui uincit non est uictor nisi uictus fatetur.

They have not lost it. But they did spend a ton of social capital on the failed cause of stopping orange man, which I think was a foolish move.

There’s no real end to the culture war. Battles and skirmishes can be won, but war….war never changes.

Those who say the lefts has won are mostly right wingers who spend a lot of time among cultural elites and other high status places and feel totally out of place and like a small minority. It’s easy to feel like you’ve lost when you see so little right wing influence anywhere

They haven't lost it. They still control the same institutions as before, except for the actual presidency.

Can't Trump just utter his old catchphrase "you're fired" ?

To answer my own question: not so easily, but they have a plan https://goodauthority.org/news/why-the-president-cant-just-fire-bureaucrats/

Project 2025 actually has a well thought out section on the levels Trump has https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_CHAPTER-03.pdf

No. They’ve still won it. Reports of a pendulum swing are greatly exaggerated.

I don’t think most people voted for Trump as an explicit anti-woke vote. My impression is that the modal voter was voting mainly on the economy, with maybe a smattering of other more “procedural” considerations in play (the assassination attempts, the lawfare, etc). I don’t think wokeness was really on the radar this election cycle for most people.

voting mainly on the economy

AKA people who will either vote D or just go back into their holes next election when Trump fails to do any of the impossible things to the economy that he has promised them. If the Dems learn anything this election its that the key to dealing with rubes isn't to talk down to them or try to convince them of anything but to simply tell lies right to their face.

I donno. Virtually every organ of culture I used to enjoy has been fully captured and is pushing far left talking points. I don't expect this to change. The best I see in opposition is a few video games being accidentally based by either taking an agnostic stance on modern day political issues, or apparently having feminine women? Actually Talos Principle II just had a normal heteronormative nuclear (robot) family, which was depicted as something wholesome and meaningful, as opposed to a source of existential horror and suffering. But I see no full throated condemnations of globalism, or odes to nationalism. Few works with any awareness of the human condition, or why conserving tradition might actually be wise and prudent. And these are silly things to expect in games granted, but I'm weighing it against the vast bulk of games with pronouns, and body type A/B, and bizarre anachronistic Orange Man Bad monologues or trans rights activist spiels. And I don't see this changing hardly at all. The best a game made by a conservative can pull off is to keep the creators politics a secret, lest the franchise be torn from their grasp and they get ejected from the fandom of their own creation. Like Notch or Scott Cawthon.

Will this change? Uuuuuuuuh. I mean never say never, but I see no signs of it. It's an absolute crushing culture war victory for the left. Pretty much all anyone can hope for is that the industry completely crashes because of all the brain rot and detachment from what audiences really want.

What if political partisanship and DEI is banned, at risk of being fired and losing all funding or special legal status. It worked somewhat for De Santis with Disney and with the Supreme Court with Universities. This could work in a few ways: DEI for political views, or maybe making journalists be sued for lying, or maybe you can have courts audit internal chats of journalists.

Most organisations would bend the knee if funding/firing is at stake (and it should be). It should also apply to all grant, university, NGO, contracts, etc.

Wasn't this actually a thing during at least part of the Trump administration for government contracts (which Biden reversed, naturally)? I would hope it makes a return.

Actually Talos Principle II just had a normal heteronormative nuclear (robot) family, which was depicted as something wholesome and meaningful, as opposed to a source of existential horror and suffering.

Don't forget that the robots were sexless and chose their genders themselves. It was only a 50% chance that the family would be heteronormative.

When I went into work this morning, the credit team that negotiates with the banks for funding to keep day-to-day operations going had to prove, to Larry Fink's satisfaction, that we were on track to meet DEI goals. That these DEI goals are in blatant violation of laws protecting investors from their wealth managers absconding with their investments in order to further their own political policy objectives, even when this is to the blatant detriment of the investors, is somehow completely irrelevant.

Presumably, sometime after taking the Oath of Office, President Trump will once again - he did this in 2017, remember? - issue an Executive Order clarifying that taking your investor's funds to give sweetheart loans to companies that are adequately woke is, in fact, a violation of investor protection laws designed specifically to stop such actions. And presumably, the Department of Justice will once again laugh this off and and advise the President that "the Executive has passed his Executive Order. Now let us see him enforce it" just as they did back then, until such time as a friendlier administration can take power and issue an Executive Order mandating that such behavior be done.

he did this in 2017, remember? -

Indeed but it was in 2020, so he delayed by N days

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2020-09-28/pdf/2020-21534.pdf

Wokeness — I refuse to use scarequotes as if it's not a real and easily definable ideology — took over all the real institutions of power over the last 30 years, and in a sudden rush in 2020. Major companies without DEI goals, universities that don't act as seminaries for wokeness, and media and information sources that don't assume wokeness as a foundational premise are as rare as hen teeth.

2024 Republicans (who include several anti-woke ideologies under their tent) have seized the political organs. This is because public office is the only part of the American power structure that takes input from the dalit and shudra castes, or to some extent even the vaisyas.

Whether political power will translate to real institutional change is yet to be seen. I predict that unless Trump is willing to be a Red Caesar, that is, to step out of the bounds of his legal constitutional authority and dare anyone to stop him, it will not.

Didn't quite a few people here lament that the libs had won the US culture war a couple years ago?

And now they've lost it? What happened?

I mean, short version, Trump's a lib--at least by the standards of the US culture war circa 1990. He's "meh" on abortion, broadly pro-marijuana, unfaithful to his wives, venal, vain, irreligious, vulgar... the Republican coalition circa William F. Buckley, Jr. was capitalists, anti-communists, and the religious right. Today it's more like "lib-right" capitalists, anti-Wokists, and the working class. Religious conservatives are a bit like black democrats, now: faithful to the party, but insufficient to deliver victories and so never given more than lip service. (Of course, this has resulted in some "blaxit" political defections, just as religious organizations are importing Wokism.)

Buckley's expressed view was that the role of the conservative was to stand athwart history yelling "stop!" But new people are born. Old ones die. Each new generation must decide for itself what received wisdom it will preserve, and what it will discard. But "decide" may be putting it too strongly; each new generation will preserve some wisdom, and discard other, and often very little effort will be put into consciously deciding which will be which. Memes, like genes, get passed along in a variety of ways, and may persist for a variety of reasons.

The cultural revolution of the 1960s-1970s, itself an outgrowth of the liberal progressivism of the early 20th century, made substantial memetic inroads by casting tradition to the wayside. This has historically been a ruinous approach, but thanks to the march of science and technological advancement, "old lore" is not the asset it has been. George W. Bush was probably Buckley's Last Stand. Obama's defeat of Romney (not incidentally, a religious capitalist whose prophecies Obama mocked in his infamous "the 1980s are now calling" comment) was the end of Buckley Republicanism as a going concern. (The rest of that obviously scripted line accuses Romney of trying to bring back the global policies of the 1980s, the social policies of the 1950s, and the economic policies of the 1920s. And Obama manages to make it sound like a bad idea!)

But memes, like genes, don't simply give up. They respond to selection pressure. Much of Buckley Republicanism was salvageable, particularly those bits well-suited to anti-Wokism (through Wokism's own Communist heritage). But the vulnerabilities--like religious devotion--had to be discarded, or at least relegated to vestigial status. Identity politics dominated the 1990s and 2000s, culminating in Obama's primary defeat of the perpetual political bridesmaid, Hillary Clinton. So Republicans adopted identity politics. The white working class had joined Reagan's Republicans in response to increased competition from racial minorities; Trump turned this into a race-blind "big tent" populism. Straight-laced, uptight, moralizing religious busybodies couldn't really survive the onslaught of Internet irreverence, so they were replaced with earthy, vulgar, but masculine men. And so on and so forth.

Like bacteria swapping DNA, the major American political movements clashed, and each was changed by the other. Much of the "lib" agenda circa 1990 is now just... American culture. But much of the "conservative" agenda circa 1990 is, too! So now there are different humans with different tastes and different political priorities, and the pendulum continues its incessant swing. By the time you get the new coalitions really, truly figured out... it'll be time for you to retire and let someone else try the next one.

Religious conservatives are a bit like black democrats, now: faithful to the party, but insufficient to deliver victories and so never given more than lip service.

Religious conservatives do get things out of our partnership with the GOP- notably, protection from cultural progressives, but we get at least half a loaf on abortion, and in red states we often get benefits about schools(based charters, for example).

I will never wrap my head around the American electoral system. Why in Jesus' name do statements from press associations carry weight on this issue?

Because they create common knowledge.

Well... in other countries we rely for an official electoral bodies to call the results. But if it works for you...

We’d be waiting potentially for weeks for an official call. So the major news networks use statistical modeling to project a winner within a reasonable timeframe.

This is an odd statement to me. News reporting agencies report...news? Like isn't this self evident?

AP doesn't actually decide the election, they just "call" it as in: they report the results. They're not inaugurating the president, they're telling people who won.

Even the news agencies are quite conservative. Earlier in the night when Pennsylvania was about 90% counted I did the math and found that remaining votes would need to break about 2:1 Kamala for her to make up the difference. All remaining votes would need to have come from Dem strongholds, but the remaining votes were distributed all across the state.

News wouldn’t call it for a few hours more.

Because, due to the Constitution, each state is essentially in charge of its own election. Some of the state governments are incompetent (or potentially corrupt) and take forever to count the votes.

It's not really that hard, of course. Florida counted all the votes in a couple hours.

But it would be impossible for the federal government to impose standards on all 50 states unless there was some constitutional issue at stake like racial discrimination. And, given that it's now become a partisan issue, Democrats seem to think that loose practices give them an advantage so it's a non-starter anyway.

Because they are ultimately backed by statistical analysis, and those analyses are often sufficiently (and explicitly) tuned to avoid mis-calls. While there's some mild pressure at TV networks to call states "first", there's some strong pressure to avoid making a mistake. And the people actually doing the calls are actually somewhat competent at their jobs.

Organizations like AP often have direct lines of communication between key government officials and agencies, with more or less formalized roles in being a designated source to disseminate government pronouncements of certain types. The AP carries weight because it is being a mouth piece, not an evaluator, and it is being a mouthpiece because (a) it makes money doing so, and (b) the governments don't want to rely on everyone going to their own websites to learn the same thing. Publishing via AP is often easier and quicker.

This isn't unique to the US. If you ever go to South Korea, Yonhap will often be reporting on emergent north korea incidents in English within minutes of events that would be reported through military channels to national leadership. The UK also has some fairly well established government-media relationship, up to and including nuclear war doom of the nation stuff.

Not quite the same thing, but Yes Minister always used to joke that the Foreign Secretary and the PM get all their news from the television - official channels don’t put the information through for hours.

Yes Minister has always had a special place in my heart. I've known a lot of Americans who liked West Wing because it was what they wished government was like, whereas Yes Minister had far more cutting insights behind its satire.

I just watched it for the first time last month. It's amazing how well it held up.

The NYT needle is predicting that Trump is the likely winner: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/11/05/us/elections/results-president-forecast-needle.html

Annoying: ABC is showing the number of votes from different counties with circles. But it seems like they're using the number of votes as the radius, instead of the area. So even when things are entirely tied up, you see a sea of blue.

Malice or incompetence?

Willful blindness. Don't look at what you don't want to see.

How do you in-person voters... remember anything meaningful? Grew up in Oregon and opted for a mail-in ballot even here in conservative Utah purely for the convenience. I actually love being able to dedicate a little time one evening to reviewing the mailers I've set aside, the websites of a few candidates, and making sure I could remember the background behind things. Do you just quickly Google stuff? That sounds kind of dangerous as the #1 result isn't always a holistic or accurate portrayal.

Which (voting by mail) was almost incredibly useful this year. I don't know how much y'all may or may not have heard about this, but the Utah Legislature tried one of the most blatant and anti-democratic power grabs in memory, trying to give themselves power to effectively ignore or rewrite ballot measures even after they pass -- which isn't great IMO to start with, but the wording they put on the actual ballot measure/amendment to give themselves this power was an EGREGIOUS misstatement of the actual content of the measure (basically, a bald-faced lie). This happened with not one but TWO measures, both struck down by courts for being misleading to voters (though the second was less overt) -- but weirdly, this decision came too late to reprint the ballots, so votes on both will not be counted but will still appear. (Even worse, the whole thing wasn't prompted by anything understandable -- it was specifically because an anti-gerrymandering ballot measure passed that the legislature didn't like and got caught ignoring)

My point? Although the system worked in this case, if the courts hadn't managed to rule in time, or dropped the ball, a ton of voters right there in the booth may have been confused which one out of the four was the lie, which one was the exaggeration, which one was the one everyone likes, and which was the one that is probably useless (formalizing the election of county sheriffs, which... is already the case?)

But if you take home the ballot, and get to research as you vote, this becomes much, much easier. Professional politicians, hot take, take unfair advantage of voters, even well-informed ones, when voting in person. Vote by mail!

Typically for the general I just remember races where I won’t vote straight r and no on the propositions. In primaries I fill out a sample ballot(regular Republican primary voters get them mailed by numerous orgs where I live, I just mark one up to select the local far right candidate).

What is particularly difficult for you? I understand that perhaps your referendum are poorly (perhaps intentionally) worded, but what else is so hard? It is perfectly fine to simply not vote in races where you dont know or dont care enough to know. I know most of the judges, so I vote on judges. I care about schools and law enforcement so I take time to make my choice. I don't particularly know about water reclamation so I tend to abstain. Perfectly acceptable.

A typical ballot contains anywhere from 15 to 25 positions/questions, and anywhere from 20 to 40 candidates (not exact, totally spitballing based on previous experience). That's a lot of names. Hard to keep them all straight, yes?

Are you deliberately abstaining because you view yourself as not sufficiently educated, or are you not bothering because it's not practical to retain all of that information between when you roughly decide and the actual voting booth? I'd say the former is fine, even if I disagree, but the latter is exactly proving my point -- you could have contributed to the democratic process, but didn't, largely because you didn't have a paper ballot to consult at home with plenty of time to consider your options.

As an additional note, if ranked choice/IRV is implemented this becomes an extra important point -- because now you can potentially concern yourself with previously ignorable decisions.

A typical ballot contains anywhere from 15 to 25 positions/questions, and anywhere from 20 to 40 candidates (not exact, totally spitballing based on previous experience). That's a lot of names. Hard to keep them all straight, yes?

Not really if I care about them.

We had 3 statewide advisory questions. Easy enough to remember. 1 State and 2 federal. A few LE-related questions. A school board choice. And about 30 judges to vote on, all that I remembered. There were also 2 local advisory questions, again easy to remember. The remainder were niche like water reclamation.

Whether I am deliberately abstaining, or not bothering is kind of subjective. My opinion is its not worth my time to educate myself about water reclamation not just because its so niche a subject, but also because I don't think any of the sources will be particularly trustworthy. If you wanted to, of course, for most of these niche questions you can vote party line and expect a pretty average result from whatever party you favor.

In any case, if you want to you can always get a sample ballot at home, fill it out and copy it at the booth.

the Utah Legislature tried one of the most blatant and anti-democratic power grabs in memory

...more anti-democratic and blatant than anointing Kamala the Democratic nominee without a primary process?

trying to give themselves power to effectively ignore or rewrite ballot measures even after they pass

Do they have any choice, really? Referendum voting is terrible, and often saddles legislatures with impossible choices. People are in general pretty happy to increase spending and cut taxes forever, and the process is inevitably infected by special interest groups looking for ways to manipulate a gullible electorate into false consensus building.

Admittedly, I have a much bigger problem with "power grabs" than with "anti-democratic." As someone once apocryphally said--the best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.

Referendum voting is terrible, and often saddles legislatures with impossible choices.

A legislative veto is one thing but rewriting the referendum is just ridiculous.

Legislatures are usually the ones proposing spending related referenda anyway IME, so it's kind of a case of "stop hitting yourself".

So here's the language voters see, and I've bolded the most problematic parts:

Should the Utah Constitution be changed to strengthen the initiative process by:

  • Prohibiting foreign influence on ballot initiatives and referendums.
  • Clarifying the voters and legislative bodies’ ability to amend laws.

If approved, state law would also be changed to:

  • Allow Utah citizens 50% more time to gather signatures for a statewide referendum.
  • Establish requirements for the legislature to follow the intent of a ballot initiative.

The impression is clear: a voter who trusts the descriptions to be accurate would get the impression that the initiative process is currently weak, and that the legislature doesn't have to follow ballot initiative intent. In reality, the exact opposite is true!

Again I note that the issue is not that there was a few ballot initiatives that failed miserably. Most of the ones that make it to the ballot at least in Utah are typically just fine or even good -- the amendment that made them mad was literally an anti-gerrymandering one, which most all regular people agree is a good idea. It would be something else entirely if there were any cases of actual disasters or actual foreign influence (even proponents admitted this had never happened).

...more anti-democratic and blatant than anointing Kamala the Democratic nominee without a primary process?

I don't understand this complaint. The nominee is formally selected by convention, and has been since the 1830s. Primaries played no role in the selection of delegates prior to 1972; prior to then most states didn't even have them, and the ones that existed were mere "beauty contests" to demonstrate voter preference to the actual delegates. There was a brief period when Democratic delegates were bound to the candidate they had been selected for unless the candidate formally released them, but that hasn't been the case since 1984. When Biden dropped out of the race, the same delegates who were selected in the primaries were the ones who participated in the convention. They could have voted for anybody, but nobody besides Kamala made any serious play for the nomination.

If Donald Trump's assassination attempt the Saturday before the convention had been successful, do you seriously think that the Republicans would have postponed the convention so they could hold anything remotely resembling new primaries in all 50 states? As presumptive vice-presidential nominee and with Biden's endorsement, at least Kamala was an obvious choice. The GOP didn't have this luxury, and Nikki Haley, Ron Desantis, and anyone Trump had talked to about possibly being vice president would have all been jockeying for position. You're also talking about a party that's still hanging on to a caucus system that nobody outside of the relevant states seems to understand.

You get that it's not 1972, right?

Do you really not question why literally no-one in the Democratic Party has addressed this issue by going on to CNN and saying "What gives? The Party decides the nominee, not the voters; why do you all care so much how badly we're rat-fucking you?"

Voters expect the parties to put forth the candidates they voted on, not whoever they selected behind the scenes. This isn't "let's get together and decide the nominee behind closed doors in a cigar smoked room" anymore.

Sure, those are all very pragmatic reasons to do undemocratic things.

That's just my point, though. There are a great many reasons to not fret if the democratic process of referendum elections gets disrupted.

You can just write it down on paper and take it in, or even put it in a note on your phone

How do you in-person voters... remember anything meaningful?

I go over the sample ballot, make my choices, and either mark them down on the sample ballot or print them out.

Then I bring that in as a cheat sheet and just follow it.

I used to write it down on my phone, but the state I'm in disallows phones while voting, so, paper solution.

Since I'm registered to vote, my county provides a sample ballot in my e-mail. I do my research online, then write down my selections on a text file. In previous years I would put the text file in my Kindle and open it at the voting booth. This year I went with the lower-tech solution of simply copying my choices into a notebook. Never had any trouble with either.

Interesting but makes sense. Do you think most in person voters do this?

I solve this problem by typing up my selections as I research them, then I bring the notes to the polling place. This usually works out fine for me, but unfortunately during the first election I owned a smartphone, I had my notes on it and I had a little trouble because the poll workers didn't want anyone to get out any device with a camera. I hurriedly memorized things outside for that election and then I switched back to paper printouts afterward. These days the printouts don't seem to be necessary, because "a camera could enable someone to coerce your vote" is a joke in an election where a third of ballots are mailed in.

When I looked into it, a supermajority of voters solve this problem by selecting "party line R" or "party line D". This seemed like a reasonable button for voting machines to use to filter out people who shouldn't be voting, but it turns out that poll tests are illegal and the machines actually record those votes, so basically in non-off years we're just picking all our winners based what each local district thinks about the Presidential candidate from the same party.

To be clear I do quite like the option of in-person voting, if for nothing else to give an opportunity for a theoretically-coerced individual to overrule their mail-in ballot, just in principle. Seems to me to be the best of both worlds if in-person is still available but the system is set up for and encourages mail-in ballots as the primary method. But if most people end up voting party line straight down that strikes me as fairly problematic. It's not uncommon for there to be at least one bad egg in a party-line bunch, as it were.

Interesting that Kamala hasn't conceded yet.

It’s a bad look. At least say something to your supporters. “We’ll get ‘em next time” or whatever. She’s an even worse leader than I thought.

She's probably busy conferring with three letter agencies about what is Plan D.

Nah. If the fix was in, it would have been fixed.

Blackpillers took an L last night.

I'm not saying Harris will somehow still be president. Hillary's Plan B was the Steele Dossier and miring his administration in 4 years of fake investigations and impeachments. I imagine Harris right now is organizing the deep state for 4 years of defense in depth to resist every action of a Trump admin.

Well... she's probably not organizing shit. But she's probably in the room while the adults are talking.

The true black pill is that, somehow, they will claw this back. Court case, rent a mob, assassination attempt number three, something.

When Trump takes office in January, I want a mea culpa from you, too.

Kamala doesn't have the power over the deep state that Hillary had.

I am darkly wondering if the rumors of her drug and alcohol use were true.

Kamala never seemed to have the strength to weather the intense demands of a Presidential campaign (few do). As someone with a minor drinking problem of my own, I can say it must have been pretty tempting to down a bottle of red last night after the blue wall crumbled. It might take awhile to summon the courage to appear in public again.

Umm... You can't get even tipsy on bottle of wine. Source - I am from Eastern Europe.

She probably should have downed a pint or two of bourbon to get wasted.

If you’re female, haven’t eaten, aren’t white, and/or are on SSRI’s, yes you can. And none of those things would surprise me about Harris.

I drink wine extremely frequently, you can absolutely get tipsy on one bottle of wine.

Especially if you are; female, older, petite, lacking in muscle mass, under enormous stress, Asian, and not white. All things which have been shown to lower your base alcohol tolerance. Especially if you drink infrequently and in binges.

I can’t get drunk on a single bottle of wine, but I’m literally the opposite of Kamala Harris; young(ish), fit, muscular, relaxed, male, big, (mostly) European, no Asian admixture, and I drink modestly literally every day.

Harris probably drinks every day

Wouldn’t surprise me. I’ve known a lot of drunks, she’d fit right in.

Still all those other factors would make her alcohol tolerance naturally lower. Even if she was a raging alcoholic she could definitely get a good buzz on a full strength bottle of red wine.

The NYT only called it for Trump at 5:38am (tell me that was a coincidence...) so it could be she's sleeping first. Their predictor needle was hovering around 99%-Trump since around 1:30am, but after Gore's embarrassing concession-retraction in 2000 there might be some understandable reluctance for politicians to make a concession phone call until the outcome is completely certain.


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