US Presidential Election 2024

[DA Baracus]

3 hours ago, The Other Foot said:

Trump is a cretin, but this take is silly. There are enough checks and balances in place to ensure that significant damage won’t be done. I’d also argue that Trump only means about 1% of what he says: he overpromises and overstates so that he has a bargaining chip. He also likes his opponents to think he is unpredictable.

Seriously, all this dramatic hand-wringing just now. In reality, we’ll all be sitting here in the run-up to the next election, discussing a USA that has barely changed. The world will still be spinning. 

 

 

I hope you're right 

[TxRover]

1 hour ago, Granny Danger said:

Project 2025 is about building the infrastructure to do what the hell you want.  Once you have total control of the machinery of government and that government is filled with unquestioning zealots in all the key positions then all else follows.

It is largely inspired by what Trump failed to do first time around because no one really thought he would win.  That is why he ended up appointing a succession of ‘loyalists’ who at the end of the day thought their loyalty to the Constitution was more important than their loyalty to the President.

Nothing is being left to chance this time around.

Correct. Schedule F is a key element that they failed in last time. Turning several layers of career civil servants into Trump appointed loyalists with clear directions and agendas to weaponize the system against minorities, undesirables and the like. Massive voter suppression and gerrymandering that makes the current U.S. election R+4 average even larger. Cracking and packing the Democratic voters into districts that are 80-90%+ Democratic leaning. Voter ID requirements while closing the places to get those IDs in Democratic leaning areas. Closing voting precincts “to save money”, and turning to one or two larger locations that just happen to be near inaccessible to mass transit and too far for the average blue-collar worker to attend…while reducing mail voting, absentee voting and the hours and days for early voting.

Under the current voting systems (gerrymandering, Senate seat allocation, Electoral College, etc), we could easily see (and have recently seen) a series of Republican administrations on an average 48.1% popular vote, with the losing Democrats on 51.9%. The Republican focus on State races prior to the 2000, 2010 and 2020 redistributing has created this monster from the defects in the system. If you don’t think that constantly seeing the candidate with less total votes being given the Presidency isn’t eroding faith in democracy in the U.S., you’re not paying attention..

[vikingTON]

13 minutes ago, TxRover said:

 If you don’t think that constantly seeing the candidate with less total votes being given the Presidency isn’t eroding faith in democracy in the U.S., you’re not paying attention..

2004 - candidate who won more total votes won the Presidency. 

2008 - candidate who won more total votes won the Presidency. 

2012 - candidate who won more total votes won the Presidency. 

2020 - candidate who won more total votes won the Presidency. 

Not paying attention indeed.  

Edited Saturday at 12:23 by vikingTON

[The Other Foot]

44 minutes ago, TxRover said:

Correct. Schedule F is a key element that they failed in last time. Turning several layers of career civil servants into Trump appointed loyalists with clear directions and agendas to weaponize the system against minorities, undesirables and the like. Massive voter suppression and gerrymandering that makes the current U.S. election R+4 average even larger. Cracking and packing the Democratic voters into districts that are 80-90%+ Democratic leaning. Voter ID requirements while closing the places to get those IDs in Democratic leaning areas. Closing voting precincts “to save money”, and turning to one or two larger locations that just happen to be near inaccessible to mass transit and too far for the average blue-collar worker to attend…while reducing mail voting, absentee voting and the hours and days for early voting.

Under the current voting systems (gerrymandering, Senate seat allocation, Electoral College, etc), we could easily see (and have recently seen) a series of Republican administrations on an average 48.1% popular vote, with the losing Democrats on 51.9%. The Republican focus on State races prior to the 2000, 2010 and 2020 redistributing has created this monster from the defects in the system. If you don’t think that constantly seeing the candidate with less total votes being given the Presidency isn’t eroding faith in democracy in the U.S., you’re not paying attention..

This is getting close to conspiratorial gibberish, I’m afraid. 
 

Let’s file ‘Schedule F’ alongside the Philadelphia Experiment and Roswell. 

Edited Saturday at 12:55 by The Other Foot

[carpetmonster]

12 minutes ago, The Other Foot said:

This is getting close to conspiratorial gibberish, I’m afraid. 
 

Let’s file ‘Schedule F’ alongside the Philadelphia Experiment and Roswell. 

Not overly. Check the Wisconsin statehouse gerrymandering - thankfully struck down either last year or earlier this year - https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/25/wisconsin-new-voting-maps-gerrymandering-republicans-democrats

 

Harris County (Houston and burbs essentially) TX is also a wheeze - Abbott signed it into law that there should only be one dropbox for votes per county - in Harris’ case that’s 5m people over 1700 square miles. Dan Crenshaw’s constituency there is certainly an interestingly shaped map - https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/texas-gerrymandering-2021/

[The Other Foot]

7 minutes ago, carpetmonster said:

Not overly. Check the Wisconsin statehouse gerrymandering - thankfully struck down either last year or earlier this year - https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/feb/25/wisconsin-new-voting-maps-gerrymandering-republicans-democrats

 

Harris County (Houston and burbs essentially) TX is also a wheeze - Abbott signed it into law that there should only be one dropbox for votes per county - in Harris’ case that’s 5m people over 1700 square miles. Dan Crenshaw’s constituency there is certainly an interestingly shaped map - https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/texas-gerrymandering-2021/

Good thing the Dems don’t gerrymander  

 

Bumcheeks etc 

[carpetmonster]

6 minutes ago, The Other Foot said:

Good thing the Dems don’t gerrymander  

 

Bumcheeks etc 

Not until very recently. Prisoner’s dilemma more so than bumcheeks. 

Edited Saturday at 13:30 by carpetmonster

[Zetterlund]

I had to google Project 2025 recently because I'd only ever come across it on this thread. It sounds like something a think tank dreamed up which is not likely to ever happen in reality. 

Sometimes it seems like people have forgotten Trump has already been president, and the world didn't burn down. In fact it's closer to burning down now than it has been for many decades. I get that it's jarring for most decent people to see someone like Trump elevated to such a position, but really it's on the other side to just present an appealing alternative, which let's be honest should be a tap-in. 

In Biden and Hillary Clinton before him, they've gone with at best beige and at worst deeply unpopular candidates and tried to propagandize the voters into backing them, which essentially came down to "it's not Trump" in both cases, for lack of anything of any substance to enthuse the public.

Remember also that Trump told Clinton to her face in a TV debate that he'd throw her in jail if he wins, and campaigned on this to wild cheers at his rallies, before filing that particular promise in the bin the moment his foot was in the door. If he wins this time all the fearmongering about him dismantling the state apparatus which supposedly came after him will be quickly forgotten, and he'll get down to the normal business of serving his donors at the expense of most ordinary Americans. Then the next guy will come in in 4 years and do the same, whichever of the 2 arsecheeks they may represent.

Democrat voters should be absolutely raging at their party leadership. 

[TxRover]

55 minutes ago, The Other Foot said:

This is getting close to conspiratorial gibberish, I’m afraid. 
 

Let’s file ‘Schedule F’ alongside the Philadelphia Experiment and Roswell. 

As a recently retired Federal Employee, I can assure you the Schedule F scheme is a shitload more than conspiratorial gibberish. It’s, at its core, an attempt to reverse about 100+ years of removing politics from the civil service.

The number of Hatch Act violations during the Trump Administration was shocking, as was the heel dragging on pursuing them. I saw a number directly, with some Supervisors stopping just short of demanding contributions for Trumps 2020 campaign, and shirts clearly promoting a voting position being accepted as long as they didn’t explicitly name Donald.

Edited Saturday at 13:50 by TxRover

[Granny Danger]

1 hour ago, The Other Foot said:

This is getting close to conspiratorial gibberish, I’m afraid. 
 

Let’s file ‘Schedule F’ alongside the Philadelphia Experiment and Roswell. 

The only way you can describe Project 2025 as ‘conspiratorial gibberish’ is if you haven’t been paying attention, which you obviously haven’t been.

[Granny Danger]

1 hour ago, Zetterlund said:

I had to google Project 2025 recently because I'd only ever come across it on this thread. It sounds like something a think tank dreamed up which is not likely to ever happen in reality. 

Sometimes it seems like people have forgotten Trump has already been president, and the world didn't burn down. In fact it's closer to burning down now than it has been for many decades. I get that it's jarring for most decent people to see someone like Trump elevated to such a position, but really it's on the other side to just present an appealing alternative, which let's be honest should be a tap-in. 

In Biden and Hillary Clinton before him, they've gone with at best beige and at worst deeply unpopular candidates and tried to propagandize the voters into backing them, which essentially came down to "it's not Trump" in both cases, for lack of anything of any substance to enthuse the public.

Remember also that Trump told Clinton to her face in a TV debate that he'd throw her in jail if he wins, and campaigned on this to wild cheers at his rallies, before filing that particular promise in the bin the moment his foot was in the door. If he wins this time all the fearmongering about him dismantling the state apparatus which supposedly came after him will be quickly forgotten, and he'll get down to the normal business of serving his donors at the expense of most ordinary Americans. Then the next guy will come in in 4 years and do the same, whichever of the 2 arsecheeks they may represent.

Democrat voters should be absolutely raging at their party leadership. 

You’re a good poster but I think a wee bit more than a Google is necessary to have any idea what Project 2025 is about.  It is largely because of what Trump failed to do in his first term that it exists.

[Granny Danger]

Whoops, I see the resident Incel is back to his red dotting ways.

[The Other Foot]

1 hour ago, TxRover said:

As a recently retired Federal Employee, I can assure you the Schedule F scheme is a shitload more than conspiratorial gibberish.

Civil servants. They ken.

Edited Saturday at 15:11 by The Other Foot

[TxRover]

1 hour ago, The Other Foot said:

Civil servants. They ken.

 No, I saw what they were trying to do. I saw the morons they managed to steer to a  couple of jobs that resulted in bloated, over budget projects that were contracted on an “emergency” basis to avoid bidding. I had another wunderkid stand behind me and try to tell me how to do the job, a job that takes 5 years of training, and that they had never done in their life. Luckily my supervisor shoo’d them away quickly and got the whole group out of the operational area because they were a distraction.

Do tell your experience with Schedule F.

[The Other Foot]

3 minutes ago, TxRover said:

 

Do tell your experience with Schedule F.

“It’s time to prepare… Schedule F”

 

[Granny Danger]

43 minutes ago, The Other Foot said:

“It’s time to prepare… Schedule F”

 

Do you have anything to actually contribute to this discussion or are you just trolling?

[The Other Foot]

10 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

Do you have anything to actually contribute to this discussion or are you just trolling?

My contribution is a sunburst of realism. The psychopathic orange nepo-baby is, in reality, going to pay zero attention to the strategy document of a thinktank, or to the people within his party who would like him to. He is in this for himself. He will change with the wind. If the wholesale alteration of the civil service hiring process turns out to be too difficult (as it will, given the checks and balances inherent to American politics) then, in reality, he will drop the policy like a lead balloon and move on to the next thing that makes the sealpups clap. 
 

To over dramatise the potential effect of a Trump presidency is to give far too much respect to this microcosmic, slapstick moment in history.

 

TLDR: you’re being hysterical, darling. 

Edited Saturday at 17:51 by The Other Foot

[Granny Danger]

13 minutes ago, The Other Foot said:

My contribution is a sunburst of realism. The psychopathic orange nepo-baby is, in reality, going to pay zero attention to the strategy document of a thinktank, or to the people within his party who would like him to. He is in this for himself. He will change with the wind. If the wholesale alteration of the civil service hiring process turns out to be too difficult (as it will, given the checks and balances inherent to American politics) then, in reality, he will drop the policy like a lead balloon and move on to the next thing that makes the sealpups clap. 
 

To over dramatise the potential effect of a Trump presidency is to give far too much respect to this microcosmic, slapstick moment in history.

 

TLDR: you’re being hysterical, darling. 

So the answer to my question is ‘no’.  Fair enough, I’ll ignore anything else you post.

[The Other Foot]

11 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

So the answer to my question is ‘no’.  Fair enough, I’ll ignore anything else you post.

So grumpy

[TxRover]

1 hour ago, The Other Foot said:

My contribution is a sunburst of realism. The psychopathic orange nepo-baby is, in reality, going to pay zero attention to the strategy document of a thinktank, or to the people within his party who would like him to. He is in this for himself. He will change with the wind. If the wholesale alteration of the civil service hiring process turns out to be too difficult (as it will, given the checks and balances inherent to American politics) then, in reality, he will drop the policy like a lead balloon and move on to the next thing that makes the sealpups clap. 
 

To over dramatise the potential effect of a Trump presidency is to give far too much respect to this microcosmic, slapstick moment in history.

 

TLDR: you’re being hysterical, darling. 

No, you’re ignoring the fact TOFF will put his yes men in place, slimy b*****ds that will do just what Project 2025 suggests because they gain power. TOFF will ignore it because it benefits him.

1 hour ago, Granny Danger said:

So the answer to my question is ‘no’.  Fair enough, I’ll ignore anything else you post.

Correct.