Is American Democracy Broken?

Has Trump so polarized the country that even an overwhelming Biden/Harris win won't heal the wound?  Will Proud Boys roam the streets with their AK-47s and terrorize grandmas in pussy hats?

Quote :

America has thrived despite a long history of ignorant voters making questionable decisions and unqualified elected officials implementing abysmal policies.

https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/american-democracy-is-less-broken-than-you-think/

Charlie Cook predicts Democrats will pick up about ten seats in the House, will win the Senate by 5 or 6 seats (flopping a 53/47 minority to a 52/48 majority), and Biden will win by 9 or 10 percentage points.

Of course, in order for the votes to count, the Russians have to be thrown out of the tabulators first.

Frankly I'm surprised his predictions are for such narrow wins.  I personally expect a landslide, based on the early voting, the engagement of young people, people of color and women, and the general tenor of Trump TV coverage over the past year.

Election Day is finally here. Seemed like it took forever.

This may be — probably WILL be — the last-ever US presidential election between two old white guys.

I am fucking ASTONISHED that this race is so close.  What the FUCK is wrong with people???

Are they so scared of "socialism" that they'll run into the arms of a wanna-be dictator?

America doesn't deserve to have "a Republic -- if we can keep it."  At least half the country is too goddam stoopid to be candidates for self-government,  They deserve to be taken over by Putin, so they don't ever have to think for themselves again.  U.S.S.A. forever yay!

Or,

The alternative view...

The Russians are in the cupboards again.

I wasn't convinced about American democracy when I first came here. Events over the intervening ~40 years have served to convince me that my first impression was unduly generous. American "democracy" has been broken for a long time. The current crop of crooks is just demonstrating the fact.

Trump has gone from WINNING in Pennsylvania and Georgia to LOSING as the mail-in ballots are counted.  Expect him to challenge in court (all the way up to SCOTUS) the legitimacy of counting votes 4 days after the election.

Expect his lawyers to lose.  Badly.  Even with THIS court.

But do the math here.  PA has 20 electoral votes, and GA has 16.  Even if Trump (whom has 214 already) gets those 36 electoral votes through the courts, that still only gives him 250 votes.  Add 15 for NC and 3 for AK where he's leading and that's still only 268.

Meanwhile Biden, with 253 electoral votes, is ahead in Arizona (11) and Nevada (6).  That totals the magic 270.  And he's on track to win PA and GA too (306 total, surpassing Trump's 304 in 2016).

Trump's pathway to re-election is totally blocked unless his lawyers somehow find a way to delegitimize votes already certified.

And let's not forget, Biden is ahead by FOUR MILLION VOTES in the popular vote (4,122,873 to be exact).  A total of 143,497,869 votes have been counted so far, which is 11% more than in 2016 (128,838,342).  The courts -- even THIS Supreme Court -- should be very wary of overturning the will of 4 million voters.

Hah-ha-ha.  This is rich!

Trump TV is having to apologize on air to the Don for calling Arizona when, statistically, there's no way Trump can catch up to Biden.  Oops!  That's not what state propaganda is supposed to do.

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Fox's news coverage of the election has been strikingly deferential to the president, who is known to watch the network for multiple hours a day.

Gawd I love Seattle.

Analysis on the radio this morning, Seattle metropolitan area went 90% for Biden, 8% for Trump. 


The dumbshit rightwing farmers in the east and south lowered our overall state tally to 59.5% Biden, 38.0% Trump.

District of Columbia went 93.3% Biden, 5.2% Trump.  CA, CO, CT, DE, HI, IL, MA, MD, NJ, NY, OR, RI, VT all went over 55% for Biden.

I don't understand them, I really don't.

Amid Trump Tariffs, Farm Bankruptcies And Suicides Rise

US farm bankruptcies jump 20% in 2019 despite Trump bailout

Trump is literally killing them, and they still vote for him.

Consider this possibility:

•  Rural counties have less-sophisticated vote counting mechanisms, that are more easily hacked and manipulated
  

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced this morning that, due to the closeness of the vote there, they would be undertaking a recount.  That MIGHT turn out to be interesting?

Here's another LOL story. Republicans are offering bounty money to anyone who can document voter fraud, because their own efforts to show the election was rigged are coming up empty.

Except there are some instances of voter fraud on the Republican side. Minor, but well documented.

And the Republicans refuse to pay for those.
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/week-later-texas-dan-patrick-still-has-his-1-million-n1247987?cid=eml_mra_20201117

Trump TV is making a big deal of the announcement that the Georgia recount found 2600 votes on a thumb drive that hadn’t been counted.

800 of them were Trump votes.

That means 1800 of them were for Biden. Oops!

Yeah.

AP wrote:

The full hand recount of the state's 5 million presidential votes resulted in a narrowing of Biden's lead over President Trump in Georgia, but not nearly enough to change the result. He now leads by just over 12,000 votes.

Team Trump has exercised their option to call for a THIRD recount in Georgia, this time a machine recount.

They must think Russia's got a direct link into the Diebold network.

Unfortunately (for TT & Russia) he'd have to flip a MINIMUM of three states to overturn the election, and Georgia is the only one close enough to qualify for a recount.


Here's another observation:


The first chart is states that Trump won.  The second chart is states where COVID is running rampant.  Coincidence?

Well, no actually, because Trump supporters don't believe in masking up.

This is ugly.

A dark money mystery in Florida centers on the campaign of a spoiler candidate who appeared to help a Republican win by 32 votes

The most impactful thing Biden/Harris could do is to work to overturn Citizens United.