site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  7mo ago (text post)   28244 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.

15
Top Bottom New Old Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I will go to sleep in about 7 hours from now, not sure when the election results will be announced and what that would be in IST. I think harris should win given migrant voters and whatnot but I would be pleased to see trump win. I hope in case he wins, he wont fuck up immigration like he did last time by mandating social media checks lol.

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.

I just remembered this song never come down from 2016, time flies lol.

I have Nick Fuentes livestream on my laptop, will check on it whilst I learn javascript, I am scared of mentioning his name as that may put me on a watchlist in case I apply for an American visa lol.

I used to watch him somewhat back in 2019 before he went full psycho. His followers haranguing charlie kirk was fun for a bit but that was about it.

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

Shadilay is a classic too and this song literally named Donald Trump by Mac Miller

Never come down is a classic. that, MDE and RSD (real social dynamics) are things from 2016 that seem like a lifetime ago.

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

Yeah, online degen right has the monopoly over edits and fane made music videos, twitter is full of them and the worlds richest man contantly retweets them,

One I really like is this by Sam Hyde on q anon, the thirty second part about q anon here is super funny. "activation word, Ronald Macdonald" kek

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.

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.

Regarding the Selzer poll, I had the following exchange:

It’s hard not to view this as just the latest in a long string of people lighting their credibility on fire for a tiny chance of stopping bad orange man. It seems to run contrary to every other piece of evidence: polls, registration, early voting, “vibes.”

A Trump blowout still seems like the most likely scenario to me. There is just too much going in Trump’s favor relative to the very close 2020 election.

We've only got a few days to wait so we'll see. But how willing are you to consider that rather than your ideological opponents willfully blinding themselves, it is perhaps you?

It looks like once again my judgment was infallible and the left was completely and utterly deluded. The entire online left was collectively deluded by the Selzer poll. "She's the gold standard!" It was beyond obvious the poll was rigged.

I ask myself constantly if it is I with the willful blinders. But no, when reality gets a vote in the past 8 years it's always the left who was deluded. The great Selzer debate is just a microcosm. They worship "muh experts" who are bought and paid for, or who are simply lying to support their ideology, and then refused to be moved by facts or logic. I guarantee this will trigger no self-reflection. They will insist they were right to trust the "gold standard" Selzer against all logic.

In what way was it 'beyond obvious'?

I don't claim that the poll was particularly good/accurate, but I find it funny how easily people are willing to label a called shot on a probability 'obviously wrong' as soon the result doesn't agree with the slightly higher probability assigned.

If anyone's right, it's those who look at the record of the pollsters they follow and decide who to believe based on how many cumulative shots they've called correctly.

In what way was it 'beyond obvious'?

Because it blatantly contradicted every other piece of evidence about the state of the race in a way that was wildly implausible.

I find it funny how easily people are willing to label a called shot on a probability 'obviously wrong' as soon the result doesn't agree with the slightly higher probability assigned.

I spent the past few days on X relentlessly making fun of anyone who believed the Selzer poll. And then bet some money on PredictIt for good measure.

If anyone's right, it's those who look at the record of the pollsters they follow and decide who to believe based on how many cumulative shots they've called correctly.

As predicted, zero self-reflection. I could explain to you where this logic goes wrong, but it's better if you figure it out yourself.

What other pieces of evidence are you citing? Other polls perhaps? Hmm....

Could you explain it? Or are you going to say another vague nothing about experts that beggars belief with nothing to back it up?

Other polls, early voting number, the cross tabs on other polls suggesting Kamala was in trouble with black and Latino men. Past polling missed suggested the aggregate underestimated Trump. Statements by polling experts like Nate Cohn who said that nothing changed in the methodology.

And then of course, vibes. Talk to a lot of Trump-curious individuals.

Ah okay, so you believe experts and polls when they agree with your priors. Got it.

You’re not trying to convince me, and you’re not trying to convince the non-existent readers of this thread, so the sad conclusion is that you are only trying to convince yourself that you weren’t made to look like a fool by some old lady in Iowa who Nate Bronze said was “the gold standard” because she predicted Obama 100 years ago.

Are you taking issue with my conclusion? You mock people who believe in experts, you clearly state that going off a pollsters record is an error, then you turn around and claim to believe evidence from different pollsters. Based off what?

Was I supposed to conclude something other than that you believe your priors? If so, I'm not sure what it would be since you didn't provide any reasoning for believing some pollsters and not others.

Going to keep calling me a fool or do you want to make a claim with any amount of logic or intellect behind it?

Actually, I'll remind you that you claimed the poll was rigged, not just wrong. Care to back that up at all or is that just no-evidence vibes?

I looked at many different types of evidences, combined them when my priors, and drew the correct conclusion. That is the not the same as “I blinded trusted the one expert who told me what I wanted to hear.”

The Selzer poll did bother me initially. But after looking at all of the available evidence, it clearly was such an extreme outlier that fraud or incompetence was a more likely explanation than that it was carrying any information. I was so convinced by my deep dive that I made some heavy Trump bets on Monday/Tuesday and walked away with tens of thousands of dollars.

I was right. I probably wouldn’t have made those bets if it weren’t for the Selzer poll, because I hadn’t looked at all of the evidence.

I don’t owe you a detailed writeup of every piece of evidence I considered. However, I do think anyone who seriously believed the Selzer poll was a fool who did not seriously think through the result, or was bad at thinking it through. But again, I don’t owe you an explanation.

More comments

Selzer looks to be living the Jesse Smollett media arc.

  1. Be a minor notable

  2. Trade integrity for brief media celebration

  3. Collapse

They could just have had a somewhat flawed process that happened to align with the final consensus last time. These things are such tiny sample sizes.

It's possible Selzer just botched it accidentally, and it wouldn't be the first time to have a weird outlier. But... it wouldn't be the first time to have a weird outlier, so it's at least not a strong look for the people certain it had to be correct.

The surprise factor works to trump's advantage...the stuff not captured by polls by possibly picked up by savvy prediction market traders or investors of DJT stock. However, the cockiness by the left was nowhere near where it was in 2016.

But no, when reality gets a vote in the past 8 years it's always the left who was deluded.

2022 midterms beg to disagree.

There is the theory that Ronna McDaniel and other GOP bureaucrats were purposefully sandbagging Trumpy candidates, starving them of campaign funds and promotion. Now that the Trump takeover of the GOP is complete with Lara Trump as chair, there is no longer internal sabotage.

This is by far a less convincing argument than some of those candidates just being loony.

All politicians are loony when put under any scrutiny what so ever. Even my favorites are kind of loony, but in a way that's endearing to me. All that matters is the information war that shapes public perception of them.

I didn't think it was real either. Iowa D+3 would have meant a Democratic sweep of historic proportions uncaptured by any other pollsters. But experience has taught me to avoid a mental states which invite punishment for hubris: the night isn't over quite yet.

At this point, it seems Selzer will be off by 15 points. Wow.

For what it's worth, I'm thinking through where I went wrong.

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.

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!”

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.

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.

More comments

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.

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.

Welp and this seems like a wrap, from 2016 when I was barely an anti-SJW guy due to Indian affirmative action to now being a jaded 24 year old neo-reactionary, it's been 8 interesting years of culture war. Do I like Trump, not really, I am not even American, still it was fun being a part of the entire thing.

Lets see what the next 8 look like. Today was fun, will start writing code now lol.

Is there any chance people are being hasty on this, or are the numbers such that it's impossible for the end result to change?

I have no faith in any electoral process, it aint over till its over, but seems highly unlikely.

With the current counts Trump is guaranteed at least 269. The worst outcome given that is a tie, in which case the Republican controlled House would choose him as President.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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).

this was fun guys, I will now bang out a few hours of javascript code, this was not like 2016 but I liked it a lot. I hope you had a fun day too!

A victory for democracy, a defeat for Our Democracy

Last night was a referendum on Our Democracy. They lost, and democracy won.

Donald Trump isn't popular, and many, if not most, of the people who voted for him did so with many concerns about his character. Kamala Harris has neither character or principles, and was truly an empty pantsuit representing Our Democracy.

The idea of democracy comes from an understanding of human interaction. Corrupt men can become powerful, and power can corrupt men. Groups are subject to groupthink, and institutions can be captured by a committed minority. Men, in groups, become a herd. Since we must have institutions and powerful men, we subjugate them to the ballot. Every man may cast one ballot, in secret and in private, free from external influence of anything other than his conscience and his God.

Last night, fifty percent of us did exactly that. They lied to us (Steele dossier) and censored the truth (Hunter Biden's laptop). They used their institutional power to put a thumb on the scale for their chosen candidate. We cast out the representative of the institutions, we rejected the consensus they tried to build, and put in place a man who will tear down these institutions.

It's democracy in action.

Unfortunately, it's a defeat for Our Democracy. One of my formative memories of 2016 was a video of a young woman angrily screaming "I am educated! I have a college degree!" at a Trump parade. Our Democracy has a competing understanding of human interaction. Men are inherently selfish and misguided animals, and it is the institutions that humanize him. People should be part of a community and a consensus. Those who respond to the consensus should be granted honors (such as degrees) and roles in the institutions, and people should respect these institutions*. If the institutions are responsive to the community, they have the right to shape the consensus.

I find many believers in Our Democracy aren't bothered by the FBI censoring the laptop, the lies they put out, the softball interviews of their candidate and the media and the tech companies putting their thumb on the scale. That's just Our Democracy in action, the institutions are showing their worth by defending us against Trump.

Our job as citizens isn't to follow our reason and our conscience, accountable to none other than our Creator. Our job is to respond to the consensus, and show up on election day to "make our voices heard" and legitimize the consensus through the institution of voting.

The vote might be Democracy, but the vote is just a part of Our Democracy. The institutions and the consensus they shape are part of Our Democracy, and when the leaders do not respect the institutions or the social consensus, they become Not My President. Just because they won the vote doesn't mean they won Our Democracy, and the institutions have the right to oppose the winner on behalf of the consensus.

Expect a lot of Our Democracy in action in the next four years.

  • An AWFL down the street from me has a sign that says "Respect Science". If it needs to be respected or believed, it's not science.

I think that also came out in those ads and texts about "your friends can see whether you dated" or the like "Men, women won't want you unless you're a voter, and she can check" stuff. Our Democracy assumed that anyone engaged in the civic process for the sake of their peers would be on the side of Our Democracy. They could not understand that the social pressure to vote may actually involve the exercise of democracy against Our Democracy.

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!"

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

Trump has looked really tired and slow the last few months. He got his team over the line of winning the election, and he is already easily the most important Republican President since Reagan and maybe even before. Republicans have good reason to build a mile-tall statue of him tomorrow. But I doubt he has the energy remaining to actually do a lot as President. Is this about to be the age of Vance, Musk, Thiel, Ramaswamy, and so on to become the new actual center of the Republican party? If it is, I think it is probably going to be good for the Republicans, since those individuals are relatively young so they will be able to be energetic and electable for years to come. Trump seems so worn-out in his recent public appearances that I wouldn't be surprised if the Trump Presidency is actually effectively run by people like Vance and Musk instead of by Trump.

To be fair, it's possible that Trump's visible tiredness might be at least partly cured by a nice spell of actually being the President-Elect instead of campaigning. We'll see soon enough.

Well, as a prior, he actually didn't spend a whole lot of time actually governing near the end of his term either so that seems like a pretty reasonable baseline. I predicted downthread that the Cabinet will matter a LOT, but also that by the second half of his term he's going to be in some kind of physical decline and reach Biden levels of activity, though mostly physical (mental is too unpredictable to say).

It won't be the cabinet - it will be the EOP staff who actually run things. By default "Da Boss" in an administration with a lazy or distracted President is the WH Chief of Staff, but the crucial point is that someone controls access to the President's autopen. Famously, when Wilson had a stroke pre-25th amendment it was the First Lady.

Senate-confirmed cabinet secretaries have far less power than they are supposed to. In the British system, you tend to get "sofa government" with a high-energy PM and cabinet government with a low-energy PM. In the US system, the shift in power from departments to the EOP seems to be hard-coded now.

I thought he looked great. Imagine trying to do this campaign at any age.

Trump was at rallies and interviews every day, keeping a grueling schedule that would destroy people half his age. Harris hid from the press for nearly entire run while Trump was out there in public constantly. And, of course, 8 years ago Hillary had a physical breakdown during the home stretch.

If this is decline, I want some.

He had a grueling campaign (did more rallies compared to Harris). Dude is going to get some golf in and come back strong. But yes he is going to delegate.

Statistically speaking, he’s going to alternate between golfing and coming back strong. Man spent a lot of time at Mar-a-Lago last presidency.

Maybe he should invite Biden; could do him some good.

Oh look, the states that Trump won were exactly the states that Polymarket predicted he would win on October 25th (slightly cherry picked).

https://x.com/ChrisJBakke/status/1854253803673100290

Prediction markets outperformed pundits once again. I hope that all the people who said betting on Harris was free money didn't actually do it. Just kidding, I know they didn't.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=cnZTXQkdhhM

Time, on October 22nd: "Don’t Trust the Political Prediction Markets". Oops.

When it comes to accuracy, these prediction markets have an even poorer historical track record than political polling– not to mention these companies come and go with startling transience.

the reality is that the Circuit Court could well rule that these platforms are illegal and shut them down in merely a few weeks’ time.

Maybe they would last longer if Time wasn't writing hit pieces on them.

I tried to insert a blank paper ballot into the voting machine without coloring in any circles. The machine displayed a "blank ballot" error message and spat it out. I told a poll worker what I was attempting to do, and she made a phone call to ask whether my blank ballot could be accepted and counted. After waiting for five minutes, she got off the phone and informed me that I was obligated to color in at least one circle in order for my ballot to be counted. So I ended up voting to legalize abortion in Missouri.

Makes sense, I'm glad you selected an uncontroversial topic for your protest-vote-indication.

It ain't over 'til its over, and I still pretty much expect to wake up tomorrow to Pennsylvania or Georgia explaining how they found half a million Harris votes in a mailbox somewhere and how that's totally normal.

But just this moment I'm getting some real Hillary vibes out of this one. Remember when people were arguing that she was going to flip Utah blue? I've grown pretty accustomed to news coverage about Kamala winning, say, North Carolina--or all seven swing states. But as of right now, dreams of a mandate were clearly just that; if any of Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Wisconsin do turn red, she's done.

If it does become clear that she's lost, will Harris concede? Or will she recycle Hillary's advice to Biden and instead set lawfare into motion? Would Democrats try to steal the election again, like they did in 2016, with faithless elector schemes or attempts to prevent the certification of the vote? Would the up the ante?

I am still skeptical that we'll get a chance to find out, but people have been speculating about Trump and Republican "sore loser" scenarios for months. What does a Harris loss look like?

Trump's ahead in WI (and PA for a few seconds at around 43% counted) right now. Less opportunities to rig things now covid's over. Polymarket spiking past 85%. This is looking like a solid win.

It ain't over 'til its over, and I still pretty much expect to wake up tomorrow to Pennsylvania or Georgia explaining how they found half a million Harris votes in a mailbox somewhere and how that's totally normal.

I do wonder what their cover for action will be this time around. Last time it was the fact that Trump told people not to vote by mail. This year their organization was all about turnout no matter how you vote. Early in person, mail in, day of, they don't care, just vote. What possibly plausible explanation can there be for those 3 am 90% Harris vote dumps?

yeah many people still remember that 2020 surge

Concession within a day unless there's a Gore-level "too close to call". And I would like to think such would have been apparent by now.

Whenever I see the guys on TV doing the county-by-county comparisons in Pennsylvania, it looks pretty grim for Trump. Why are the PA markets at 80%? What am I missing?

What am I missing?

Whatever you're missing, I'm missing it, too.

But if Kamala's team also missed it...

I, too am not understanding county turn out.

We had fewer mail in ballots and the split between Republicans and Democrats was smaller than in 2020 for those ballots. Because they take longer to count (and PA can't start preparing them before the election), those are the ballots that come in late to the count. In 2020 that meant it was always going to get better for Biden as the night went on. Harris does not have that same split to rely on. If she is not up on "on the day" voters there are not enough mail in ballots to save her (unless a lot of registered Republicans got mail in ballots then switched to her from Trump, which seems..unlikely). Down over 600,000 compared to 2020 and the split was less than 2-1 in favor of registered Democrats, compared to more than 3-1 in 2020.

It may be that Trump shifting gears in his PA rallies and telling his supporters to vote however they can including mail in ballots might have been enough. Of course if he had said that in 2020, the split might not have been as big as it was in the first place. Potentially exonerating those PA Republicans who opened up mail-in voting in 2019 just prior to Covid. Without Trump encouraging his supporters not to use the mail-in ballots, it might be their plan to boost rural elderly turn out is finally successful, just 4 years down the line.

Also while Harris is running ahead in some counties, she is running below Biden in 2020. Unless Philly has huge turnout (and it didn't seem THAT busy to me), you'd rather be in Trump's shoes than hers right now.

What does a Harris loss look like?

She doesn't have the constitution, the character, or (going by reports) the personal charisma necessary to sustain a defiant stand. Blues do not have enough gas left in the tank to sustain a pivot to election denial at this late date. If Trump takes this, I think the reckoning might arrive in Blue-Land.

But is she retarded enough? Look at Stacy Abrams and all her hagiography denying not one, but two election losses! To this day she's a hero, has raised (embezzled?) millions of dollars for "election fortification", and even had all sorts of cringey cameos in Orange Man Bad shows like Star Trek.

Show me a time when she's dug in, bared her teeth, and defied the odds to fight for something, even once, anywhere. It's possible she has and I'm simply unaware, but from what I've seen of her, I rather doubt it.

Trouble is that 'sways like the willow' sways to every wind. I think it'd need to be close to a big progressive push to carry her along, but there's a variety of avenues that would let her be easily pushed, even to her own detriment.

In public, no, in private, she took the inside track didn't she? Sucked up to the winner, then launched a coup against him.

Hillary publicly admitted defeat, and in private effectively nullified Trump's entire presidency with the fake Steel Dossier and the fake Russia investigation. Who knows what Harris has up her sleeve.

I don't think it's accurate to say Harris launched the candidate coup against Biden. She clearly knew about it to some degree, given how prepared she was to start advertisements mid-weekend, but the names in most political scuttlebut have very much been party elders.

What does a Harris loss look like?

Depends a lot on degree.

If it's tight -- one state under 5%, two or three states under 1% -- some amount of delaying is unavoidable. Literally, in some cases, like Pennsylvania where I don't think Harris could stop people from getting a recount if she wanted to. Some of the objections I might even agree with: there's a mess with Nevada signature verification that seems at least plausible. If it's not -- lose the popular vote by most of a percentage point, multiple states with multiple percent differences -- probably not.

I don't think we'll get a complete copy of J6, knock on wood. The Electoral Count Reform Act makes any challenge at Congress specifically to be exceptionally hard, requiring twenty Senators and over eighty Representatives. There's revelations about Trump I could imagine getting that level of cohesion, but I can't imagine any that wouldn't have been released long ago and needing (or wanting) a particularly boisterous riot at all.

There's still some place for ugliness toward the middle, though. I've mentioned the possibility of a blue governor in a state that voted red by a narrow margin and has the NPV Compact on the books doing something Interesting when it came to certifying electors for their state. I don't think it's likely, since neither Shapiro nor Whitmer seem to be Grishams, as bad as I think Whitmer's COVID response was, and that's why I'll describe it at all. There's a hilariously stupid loophole in the Electoral Count Reform Act related to judicial review, and it's one that's very hard to exploit, but there are some specific lines I could see the Baude/Paulsens of the world try to push, to serious destruction, enough that I'm not going to go into more detail.

Neither of these work at 300+ electoral vote splits. There's stuff that might, but it's... very far tail end, and very ugly. I'd be disappointed if the Harris campaign keeps trying to get blue jurisdictions to find ballots that can't close a 50-point EV gap, but that's just be embarrassing rather than destructive. There's gonna be people trying to come up with novel interpretations of everything -- Lawrence Tribe is still alive -- but they don't need conservatives wargaming for them.

((Wouldn't be surprised by some last-minute regulatory or executive branch bird-flipping, though dunno if anyone cares at this point. Probably will set the stage for a lot of legal fights afterward, though, both in terms of APA challenges to Trump and in making it hard for him to undo hits against himself or Musk; a CFPB-like established in the lame duck session is definitely on the table.))

Harris specifically almost certainly turns into one crux of any election post-mortem if she loses, especially by a large amount. A very tight race might be handwaved as racism or sexism, and I still expect to see a lot of ''racist v anti-racist'' tweets about the African-American male vote even as California brings it back closer to historical norms, but a large EV loss against Trump is gonna leave too much blame to go around. I don't think that's entirely fair, with the combination of general economic mess and everything Biden and last-minute swap (and, frankly, weakness from Walz), but the public relations people aren't going to put their own necks on the line. There's already gonna be a ton of outreach folk sharpening their wits for the tell-all books, and Harris being the nominee this year was always a bit about fear of that possibility from 'better' candidates like Whitmer or Newsom (ugh).

I'd like for there to be some more serious considerations among the broader progressive field about how it came to this, especially about emphasizing every tactical option but persuasion, but I... don't think it could happen.

((And, conversely, I'd hope that Trump et all does some actual giving on matters like abortion, like an 8-week safe harbor in exchange for requiring in-person consultations for oral abortificents, if only for tactical considerations like not getting absolutely crushed next election, but I'm not very optimistic. Even if it ends up a split House/Senate, there's gonna be too much temptation to take everything they can get.))

That said, I spent a lot of November 2020 sure that the Red Tribe Didn't Riot, so discount all this analysis as appropriate.

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?

Sampling early reactions on Reddit, I’ve seen a wide range of opinions about What Went Wrong For Democrats last night. While I’m encouraged by the amount of “what did you people expect when you decided to call everyone Nazis” scolding, I’m very intrigued by one of the counter-narratives I’ve already seen congealing: Kamala ran too far to the right, alienating and demoralizing millions of committed progressives and black voters, causing them not to vote this time around. She courted and crowed about the support of neocons, made noises about securing the border and getting tough on crime, and progressives turned on her by staying home.

Now, how much of this is just a knee-jerk coping mechanism by people desperately attempting to make sense of what just happened while preserving their egos? I have no idea. I sincerely hope that in the fullness of time, at least some of these people attempt some level of soul-searching, however abortive and ultimately futile, about why they have been so comprehensively rebuked by the American people. Presumably they will have ample time and opportunity to do so while imprisoned in crystals

However, I actually hope that this leads to massive finger-pointing, pouting, lashing out, and crybullying by black Democrats. One of the big stories last night is that, despite a very modest shift toward Trump among black men, Trump[EDIT: Harris] still carried roughly 90% of the black vote. While nearly every other sizeable ethnic group in American shifted heavily toward Trump, blacks - at least, the ones who voted - remained unfailingly loyal to the Democratic Party. My sense is that blacks are going to take this loss extremely personally, and that it will sting them to no end.

I watched CNN’s coverage last night, and while nearly every single on-air analyst was refreshingly clear-eyed about the reasons why Kamala was losing and how this should not be some huge surprise to anyone, Van Jones was a maudlin mess, on the verge of sobbing as he lamented how black women, who “dared to dream that they might make up tomorrow and see one of their own get a turn in power”, were hurting. Well, I hope they are! And I hope that they become very obnoxious about it, hurling invective and accusations at their non-black friends and colleagues. I want them to be so overbearing about this that even the most committed “ally” begins to feel the Fatigue™️. Black women are convinced that the rest of America doesn’t want to see a Strong and Aggrieved Black Woman in charge. I hope that they’re right, and that their behavior becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy!

I hope that as racial polarization between various non-black interest groups begins to dissipate, polarization between blacks and everybody else accelerates. And I hope that this alienation leads to a nation-wide reconsideration of delusions about crime, about policing, about affirmative action/DEI/reparations, about “racial justice issues”, and about the profound and long-lasting overreaches of the Civil Rights Revolution. I am in favor of literally any development that could cause the Democratic Party to permanently pivot away from their pandering to the black vote, black issues, black guilt-tripping, etc.

I’m saying all of this, fully aware that it is itself a delirious overreaction. Like probably many of you, I got to sleep very late last night and am still coasting on a political sugar high. I want this to have sweeping, seismic effects on the future of America, and of the Democratic Party. Hell, I want to be able to be happy to vote Democrat again someday! I want the Democrats to offer me even a marginally preferable product, such that I can one day extricate myself from the “multiracial working-class populist coalition” that apparently catapulted Trump to victory last night. If Democrats want me back, somewhere far down the line, I’m going to need to see some hardcore soul-searching alongside tangible results before I can ever consider taking a step back into the fold. In the meantime, I’m daring to believe that over the next four years Trump and his team of consultants genuinely can start Making America Great Again.

I’m daring to believe that over the next four years Trump and his team of consultants genuinely can start Making America Great Again.

By pressing the make the economy good button along with the make inflation not have happened button? I expect a bit better from the users here no matter who they hoped would win the idea that either of them were gonna effect the economy in any major way in the short term betrays a bit of a lack of understanding.

To be clear, I don’t expect the economy to significantly turn around under Trump. There are other measures by which a country can be great, though, and I do believe that the Trump administration, both through direct action and through not hamstringing private industry, can contribute significantly to increasing America’s greatness along those axes.

I would disagree. I think we are going to see full ID Trump tariffs and all. I don't think he has the patience for anyone that is going to tell him no and he's gonna pull the trigger on any idea he has that can pass legally unchallenged though EOs or he can get the legislature to pass. The two things I am most sure of in the next 4 years is that he will 1. hurt the people who believe he is the only one who can help him 2. ruin JD Vances political career through either malice or indifference.

As as aside I also highly suspect Musk overestimates the influence what he has done for Trump has bought him but this is just a hunch.

By pressing the make the economy good button along with the make inflation not have happened button?

Not the op, but...

More like by pressing the "rocket engines go burrrrrrr" button and not pressing certain other buttons that a Harris administration would've almost certainly pressed.

Have we brought up yet the possible effect on Republicans of the lack of movement of the black vote by any reasonable means? If the conclusion is that blacks will vote Dem by >90% pretty much no matter what they do, possibly up to making them practically immune from prosecution and given unlimited money, then it naturally follows that their votes should be suppressed somehow rather than attempting to earn them.

Trump still carried roughly 90% of the black vote.

Given context, I assume you meant Harris.

I’m very intrigued by one of the counter-narratives I’ve already seen congealing: Kamala ran too far to the right,

Obviously there's a lot of different takes on what happened in the election. One of the narratives is around Trump talking about the economy being bad and Harris not doing so. And for a certain segment of the left, running to the left would involve talking about left-leaning economy policies (antitrust/breaking up monopolies, stronger regulations, etc.), and Harris was avoiding doing so. So people who believe in those policies and believe they are popular are upset that they aren't being proposed (and think this is a plot by wealthy interests to keep pro-business policies around).

While I support such policies and wanted Biden (yeah, I know he wasn't on the ballot) to win because I think that was the best chance of such policies being enacted, I really don't believe they are broadly popular. If you directly ask the American people if they want food poisoning and monopolies raising prices, I assume you'd get a lot of "no"s, but if you bring them policy proposals to do something about it, they'll vote it down as wonkish and anti-freedom.

by the amount of “what did you people expect when you decided to call everyone Nazis” scolding, I’m very intrigued by one of the counter-narratives

The ironic thing about the Democrats accusing everybody they dislike of being "Nazis", "Fascists", and "White-Supremacists", is that the real honest-to-god Nazis and White Supremacists tend to vote Democrat.

I suppose a true fascist recognizes thier own.

Isn't this for accelerationist reasons?

Maybe, but he also endorsed Biden back in 2016, at which point does it matter?

I don't think Richard Spencer's endorsement matters, but I think his motivation may.

It reads to me like the 'Sex traffickers for Harris' yard signs I saw. Mocking.

If his endorsement doesn't matter, why would his motivation?

I mean, the damnYankees(one word) are the ethnic group everyone else is polarizing against. That’s been the story of the past decade or so in politics. Sometimes they’re joined by the blacks, but it’s pretty clearly a damnyankee driven phenomenon.

I sincerely hope that in the fullness of time, at least some of these people attempt some level of soul-searching, however abortive and ultimately futile, about why they have been so comprehensively rebuked by the American people.

I don't dispute that some soul searching is in order, but she lost by just 2.3%. You're talking as though Trump won in a landslide.

You're talking as though Trump won in a landslide.

Losing by 2.3% against a convicted felon, rapist, insurrectionist, fraudster, racist and a nazi is a landslide.

I don't think there has ever been even one election anywhere where there hasn't been some faction of the losing side saying that the reason they lost was being too centrist and not running a clear ideological campaign. It's one of the easiest analyses to make and will always find at least some traction with the party's left-wing/right-wing/liberal/conservative/separatist/whatever faction that's been chafing under the party's attempts to moderate and become attractive to general voter base in order to win elections.

While black women are as committed as ever to the Democratic party, black men may be edging towards the exit.

https://x.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1854233305450746255

My sense is that blacks are going to take this loss extremely personally, and that it will sting them to no end.

Joy Reid, Van Jones and co will (because their status depends on it) but will most?

Do we have turnout figures, because that can be as/more telling. It feels like there was a lack of enthusiasm even as the usual black pundits lined up behind Kamala making the expected noises.

And not in the Obama "we don't think he can win" sort of way.

I’ve always been suspicious of the narrative of “alienating the base” for the democrats (AKA not being woke or economically left enough), simply because most of those positions are not held by that many people. The number of people out of nearly 400 million who would not put up with Kamala’s rather tepid support of Israel is probably not that big. Likewise, the number of people turned off because her economic plans were too moderate seems fairly small. Especially since the only viable alternative is a guy who’s basically running on “take everything the liberals like and destroy it as hard as we possibly can”. The Trump answer to all of the positions these people are left of her on Trump is radically on the right on. Trump is not shy about supporting Israel — he wants Israel to “finish the job (presumably of blowing up Gaza)”. Trumps plan for student loans is “make the student pay back the loans”. Trumps plan for the environment is “let’s pull out of all the agreements, drill baby drill, and deregulate so it’s easier to pollute without consequences”. There just isn’t a way to punish the dems on this when the alternative is “not only get literally nothing you actually want, but lose things you have now.

There just isn’t a way to punish the dems on this when the alternative is “not only get literally nothing you actually want, but lose things you have now.

Trump wins Dearborn amid anger over Gaza and Lebanon

"The Muslim community is united in principle against the Biden Harris administration, especially for the genocide," he said.

Not that I disagree with your logic, but people are willing to punish the Dems regardless. How should we explain this apparent voting against your own preferred outcomes? (I can understand the Muslim voters who believe in tackling domestic problems first, but not the ones who explicitly name Gaza as a reason to vote for Trump.)

I can understand Muslim voters being mad enough at Kamala over Gaza to cast around and decide that they agree with Trump's agenda for other reasons. And it's not improbable seeming to me, either- AFAICT Dearborn has similar demographics to pre-9/11 Muslim-Americans, and the GOP did quite well among them back in the day.

I think there’s some truth to it. Trying to outflank Republicans to the right on Israel seems like a puzzling strategy and it absolutely tanked Harris in Michigan. In Dearborn she came in third place behind Trump and Jill Stein. I think that also depressed turnout by liberal college students in a number of places. And most people who were seriously pro-Israel voted for Trump and Republicans anyway, because Republicans have a better established track record on supporting Israel.

This isn't accurate, she lost a significant portion of her expected vote to Jill Stein, but she didn't finish third.

Trump won with 42.48% of the vote over Vice President Kamala Harris, who received 36.26%, according to results, with 100% of precincts counted, provided to the Free Press from City Clerk George Darany. Jill Stein received 18.37% of the vote.

After 10/7 and the surge of support for Palestine among Democrats, I thought Trump would, if anything, perform better than the historical average among Jews for Republican POTUS candidate. Yet it seems only 21% of American Jews voted for Trump, less than any R in 24 years. What is the explanation?

Guesswork here: Jews tend to be wealthy (mainly) because they rolled a high IQ stat on average, and as a result American Jews tend to avoid some of the most unpleasant consequences of Democratic party politics, like poor policing. This makes them more likely to support higher degrees of empathy than the average American because they can afford those higher degrees of empathy without it substantially impacting their lives. It is also possible that the higher IQ is also just correlated positively with high degrees of abstract empathy. American Jews also, being wealthy on average, tend to support America's establishment status quo on average because if you're benefiting from the current situation, why rock the boat? A combination of Trumpism somewhat pattern-matching to Nazism, high levels of empathy and ability to afford empathy, and valuing the status quo gives American Jews a high level of incentive to vote against Trump even despite 10/7 and the interests of those Jews who are in Israel. The fact that it's the lowest level of support in 24 years can be explained by the fact that for many American Jews, Trump presents a viscerally unpleasant issue, whereas Israel's issues are relatively abstract and distant.

Jews are disproportionately rich and PMC. Trump support is déclassé. A lot of people severely underestimated how stigmatized being a Trump supporter still is after eight years.

I honestly think that’s most of it. Call it my tribal theory of the cocktail party.

There are some notable defectors and early adopters who paid a high social cost for supporting Trump. Each subsequent person is less likely to pay a cost.

Each quadrant of the political compass has Jewish representation. They tend toward lib-left because social justice is a big part of the Jewish identity, and unlike David Mamet, they haven't noticed they're being used by the failed versions of socialism. To me it's that simple.

Richard Hanania was predicting the same thing. I wonder if he'll acknowledge that.

  1. Not all Jews support Israel.
  2. Among Jews that do support Israel: Biden and Harris have... actually not been particularly pro-Palestine. They got in trouble with the Qur'an-thumpers for this, actually. I guess pro-Israel Jews trusted them to keep to that line?

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.


What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats