Trump and democracy

[BillyStubbsTears]

Bang on Dutch. That is what is coming next week. Let's see how strong American democracy is, when he loses by 10% of the vote and refused to accept it.

[DonnyOsmond]

I'm all for that drama.

[MachoMadness]

Bang on Dutch. That is what is coming next week. Let's see how strong American democracy is, when he loses by 10% of the vote and refused to accept it.

Wish I had that level of faith. I'm still convinced he'll suppress and tamper with the vote enough to win, and I don't know if American democracy has sufficient oversight to hold him to account for it. Biden being a fairly limp candidate doesn't help.

[Bentley Bullet]

That's my mind made up on who I'm betting on!

[MachoMadness]

Here's an interesting yet slightly concerning poll.



Biden is nearly 40 points ahead among early voters. But Trump is nearly 40 points ahead among voters who'll vote on election day. Given what we know already about the GOP doing their best to disrupt early votes, even cancelling potentially thousands of votes which may not be able to be counted on election night, the path to stealing the election is clear.

[Glyn_Wigley]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9aJ_tTPwPY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGYPRs5co7M

[BillyStubbsTears]

Standby.

https://mobile.twitter.com/jonathanvswan/status/1322981523608449024

[SydneyRover]

A couple of pundits have Biden at 85-90% chance of winning yep head for the bunker

[BillyStubbsTears]

The opinion polls would have to be out by historically unprecedented amounts for Trump to even stand a chance of winning. But I will guarantee you, there is no way he is admitting defeat on Tuesday night. This is likely to get very, very ugly.

[EasyforDennis]

What is even worse in all of this is that if/when Trump loses he still remains in office for 11 weeks!!

[Glyn_Wigley]

The artificial vote-counting deadline that Trump is pushing for could mean that all the votes cast by post by the overseas US military personnel could get ignored. That'll go down well with the armed services!

[Donnywolf]

What is even worse in all of this is that if/when Trump loses he still remains in office for 11 weeks!!

Yes its not ideal to have an outgoing President in a position to continue to "rule" and have the nuclear codes ready to deploy . I am sure there are lots of steps to keep that under control - BUT there are people pointing out that Trump can do almost anything he wants including pardoning himself

I read an article where he Tweeted he "could Pardon himself - but why would I because I have not done anything wrong". However with the legal Constitutional experts split on exactly what is and what is not possible - if he does get voted out he may well decide he MIGHT have done something wrong and do it anyway

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/can-trump-pardon-himself/578074/

[Dutch Uncle]

The opinion polls would have to be out by historically unprecedented amounts for Trump to even stand a chance of winning. But I will guarantee you, there is no way he is admitting defeat on Tuesday night. This is likely to get very, very ugly.

Absolutely BST. The best case (!) is that the military evict him. He won’t go quietly, and will try to destroy a lot of things. The ‘Trump train’ in Texas shows the mindset of his supporters. There are two sorts of people in Trump’s universe, those who are with him and will do anything for him, and those who are not, and they need to be insulted and threatened.

[Donnywolf]

A bit like B****t over here then (both ways of course)

[Dutch Uncle]

What is even worse in all of this is that if/when Trump loses he still remains in office for 11 weeks!!

Yes its not ideal to have an outgoing President in a position to continue to "rule" and have the nuclear codes ready to deploy . I am sure there are lots of steps to keep that under control - BUT there are people pointing out that Trump can do almost anything he wants including pardoning himself

I read an article where he Tweeted he "could Pardon himself - but why would I because I have not done anything wrong". However with the legal Constitutional experts split on exactly what is and what is not possible - if he does get voted out he may well decide he MIGHT have done something wrong and do it anyway

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/can-trump-pardon-himself/578074/

Whatever Trump's situation over Federal crimes, and whether he can pardon himself or not for those, there are plenty of State crimes he has committed where he definitely has no power of pardon.

[Donnywolf]

Good - thanks for that ! Come on USA - get him out and then "get him in"

[Campsall rover]

He has claimed victory this morning.

The votes are still being counted.

Who the hell does this man think he is.  USA’s 1st Dictator. Thinks he can do whatever he wants.

This man needs stopping now as he is a danger to Democracy and to the World.

I say this as someone who is no supporter of the Democrats as i don’t think Biden will be good for the American economy and that would not be good for the UK imo.

[EasyforDennis]

He has claimed victory this morning.

The votes are still being counted.

Who the hell does this man think he is.  USA’s 1st Dictator. Thinks he can do whatever he wants.

This man needs stopping now as he is a danger to Democracy and to the World.

I say this as someone who is no supporter of the Democrats as i don’t think Biden will be good for the American economy and that would not be good for the UK imo.

We are all doomed.

[MachoMadness]

And yet millions are still voting for him. The polls were way off once again. Is Trump a cause, or is he simply a symptom?

[BillyStubbsTears]

I've been saying for years MM, the root cause of Brexit and Trump was the Austerity that both the UK and the USA had imposed on them by right wing Governments in the early 2010s. It was a catastrophically bad economic policy and it led to years of underperforming economies with wages stagnant. In that environment, people work harder just to stand still and they understandably get angry. Farage picked up on that anger here and pointed people to immigrants and the EU, when they were not the root cause. he was a nobody before 2010. Totally irrelevant. But Austerity made him relevant. Trump picked up on it and pointed the anger at China and Mexico. And both of them fed that feeling of blaming The Other for people's lack of prospects. They normalised feelings that people thought they had previously had to suppress.

I was predicting those sorts of social splits back in 2010, when the LDs went into coalition with the Tories here and enabled Austerity. Because there was a massive example from history. Hitler swept to power after Chancellor Bruning imposed swingeing Austerity on Germany at the start of the Great Depression. He came along telling Germans that they deserved better and that it was the fault of the Jews that there were 4-5million Germans out of work. Right wing populists have always gained from badly bungled economic situations. Obviously the past decade has been nothing like as bad as the 30s, but it is from exactly the same root cause.

it's a f**king long way back to heal the divisions in society now.

[Glyn_Wigley]

It's looking increasingly likely that Biden will win Arizona and Nevada, which will give him the 270. He might also get Georgia too, Trump's lead is shrinking at an alarming rate.

[Donnywolf]

... will that mean "Trump's head is shrinking at an alarming rate" (to match)

I DO hope so

[SydneyRover]

I'm hoping that with all the chaos of challenging votes and legal actions that it distracts him for as possible to reduce the amount of damage he can do.

[Donnywolf]

One of his Legal team was just on TV outlining Trups case - and it appears to the cynic in me that they want the counts stopped (where they are winning like Pa) and to be continued (where they are losing like Az)

She was asked if Trump would concede either now or when Biden gets to 270 or indeed if / when Trump lost the remaining undeclared States and she said NO

She then asked "I find it strange that nobody is asking Joe Biden that same question". Well I suspect the answer to that is he is sat on 253 needing 17 more EC Votes which can come with just taking Pennsylvania for 20 more or a couple of other States such as Nevada and Arizona or Wisconsin where it is a close run thing but there will be a recount as Biden leads by 21000 ish I think it was.

[idler]

If there is a possibility of Democrats cheating then there is the same option for Republicans to cheat but that is never mentioned. Add Trump's past actions and tweets and I know who I would trust.

[BillyStubbsTears]

It's looking increasingly likely that Biden will win Arizona and Nevada, which will give him the 270. He might also get Georgia too, Trump's lead is shrinking at an alarming rate.

The way the votes are going, I suspect Biden will win Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and Pennsylvania.

The narrative has been that this is a close election. It's only been seen to be close because of how the votes have been counted. In reality, Biden has won the popular vote by 4-5 million, and will, I think, end up 100 Electoral College votes ahead of Trump. A landslide by any measure.

[IDM]

Saw some captions on bbc news this morning:

Trump supporters protesting in Pennsylvania - stop the vote..

Trump supporters protesting in Arizona (or similar where Biden is just ahead) - count all votes.

As if the rest of the world can?t see the difference.?

Spoilt children led by the biggest Spoilt bas**rd in chief.!!

[drfchound]

IDM, that last line of yours..... I said virtually the same thing to someone this morning.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Thing is, there's a huge community in the US who only get their news from Fox and self-supporting online groups. I do think they genuinely believe that the only way Trump can lose is by the Democrats stealing the election. They simply weren't prepared for the possibility of him losing fairly. And they genuinely believe that they have a duty to protect democracy. It's very scary.

[MachoMadness]

Speaking of Fox News, here's Trump's press sec being fact-checked on air by them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bF1z6X2iOMI&ab_channel=BillBeck

Trump is now too far right and swivel-eyed for Fox News.