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2020 Election Night Live Blog/Open Thread

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…As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives… –W.H. Auden, September 1, 1939

Well, here we are, four years after election day’s eve in 2016. Time to kick back, as some of you may already have done, although I would not advise drinking:

First, some jokes. This one hurts because it’s true:

The whole thread is great — including classing the flag-waving Trump trucks as “technicals” — and it’s not like the West hasn’t earned it.

Election map (1):

Election map (2):

Election map (3):

A note to obsessives:

The Great Assimilation™:

Readers, this is really meant to be a live blog, so if any of you are following the events of the day, and the count, in the mainstream press, otherwise online (for example, on YouTube), or on podcasts, please leave links here. And if any of you spot anything interesting or irregular on the ground, please share.

While waiting on the main event, I’ve put together some material to instruct and amuse, to which you naturally may add. First, some jokes. Then, some useful links on the election itself. Finally, I’ll elaborate on the call I’ve already made, in comments.

Now, some useful links.

“When To Expect Election Results In Every State” [FiveThirtyEight]. Handy map:

Note that Florida delivers results early. Biden can win without Florida. Trump most probably cannot. Patience is a virtue:

The upshot for the presidential race is that we should have a pretty good idea of where things are headed on election night, even if no candidate is able to clinch 270 electoral votes (which is the threshold required to win) until later in the week. We should get near-complete results in Florida in a matter of hours; Arizona and North Carolina will release the vast majority of their ballots very quickly, although if the race is too close to call they may not provide a final answer for days. Georgia and Texas should tally most ballots on Nov. 3, but counting may stretch into Wednesday or Thursday. We should know the winner in Wisconsin by Wednesday morning; Michigan and Pennsylvania, by contrast, will probably take until the end of the week.

“Same Day Voter Registration” [National Conference of State Legislatures]. Another handy map:

Note that you must go to the link to hover over each state to get detail.

“Here’s when each state starts tallying up mail-in ballots” [The Hill]. “Many states can start processing ballots before Election Day, even if they don’t start counting them until Tuesday. Either way, the results are never released until after polls close in that state.” • Sadly, there’s no map, but all the states are listed.

Next, my priors. I should say that I underestimated liberal Democrat appeal in the 2018 midterms, because I couldn’t stand their messaging. (“How could anybody fall for this?”) While the Blue Wave was by no means a tsunami, nevertheless it was more than a ripple. I don’t feel bad about guessing wrong because all the state polling was terrible, but guess wrong I did. Well, I can’t stand liberal Democrat messaging in 2020 any more than I could in 2020, so I may be erring on the low side this year, too.

That said, here was my call, such as it is, for 2020:

I think the polling and the reporting is so corrupted that it’s too difficult to reverse engineer facts on the ground from it (due to the “airtight consensus” referred to by Thomas Frank).

… I think a Biden victory is more likely than not. First, Covid — regardless of systemic issues that should be, but will not be, raised — happened on Trump’s watch. Voters will punish him for that. Second, Trump’s messaging has been scattered and undisciplined (no doubt due to lack of the A/B testing he did with crowds in 2016). Third, we are seeing what looks like the birth of class consciousness in the PMC, and the suburban vote + Never Trump Republicans giving the country club permission to vote for Biden will help. Fourth, none of the potential Trump October surprises panned out: No (colorable claim of) a vaccine, economy not good enough, no foreign policy deal (e.g., North Korea), [and no Durham Report]. Hunter Biden’s issues wouldn’t have made the grade even without liberal Democrat censorship.*

I expect the Republican party apparatus to suppress as many votes as they can (which they do in the general; Democrats only suppress votes in the primaries), and I expect, from anecdotes, surprisingly big turnout by Trump voters on election day, but I expect Biden to escape that pincer movement.

NOTE * Here too the Trump campaign and/or its allies failed to execute. If Hunter Biden’s laptop had surfaced in September, there would have been time to construct a proper narrative, bludgeon the platforms, etc.

My second choice is the stupidest outcome imaginable: An “Electoral Commission,” a la the Hayes/Tilden election of 1876, which would involve the vilest backroom dealing you can possibly imagine. (I think Roberts will use all the influence in D.C. that he has to avoid a second “Bush v. Gore” because that would destroy the Supreme Court as an institution, so I don’t think this election will be decided by the Court. Trump and McConnell may intend that, but that doesn’t mean they will get what they want.)

And my view of the shortly-to-be triumphant Democrat Party:

My view of election 2020 — I think Trump is out of runway, feral though his ground operation may be — is that the Democrat Party, with its class basis in the PMC (see Thomas Frank) showed enormous political dominance, having seen off not one but two populist threats, one from the right and one from the left. (The Sanders campaign, and especially its funding model, has been carefully erased, though hilariously the Trump campaign is said to have adopted the Sanders technique of relational organizing.) In the day-to-day cut and thrust of politics*, Democrats compensate for the numerical weakness at the Democrat base — unlike the FDR coalition, the PMC is nowhere near a majority of the population** — with their control of the commanding heights of the media, an alliance with the intelligence community, and a structural requirement that our extremely broken systems all require highly-paid bubblegum and duct-tape operators with credentials to run.

If we think of Corey Robin’s idea that conservativism is “a meditation on lost power,” then we see clearly that the Resistance, leading to a Democrat Restoration led by the Obama Alumni Association, West Wing fans, and a necessary leavening of Bush-era war criminals, is a conservative reaction to Trump’s victory in 2016, with its concomitant rejection of Clinton, the “most qualified” candidate (and, as a [x] woman, a symbol of justice as conceived of by aspirational PMCs).

Assuming a Biden victory, the PMC will have re-asserted their natural right to rule (in service of capital, too, let us not forget). How will they exercise this power? More concretely, how will the Biden campaign exercise its power in implementing Covid policy?

History and PMC class interest together, as Romer argues and Frank shows, give the likely answer: “Not well.” Given past behavior, one would expect a doubling down on fingerwagging and shaming across the media spectrum, and (hence) a contact tracing program that doesn’t win the trust of those most in need of it. (Hero Fauci being lauded, because Orange Man bad, after having told his “noble lie” on mask effectiveness gives off a terrible stench of rot; what will “the experts” remorselessly lie about next, pray tell? Vaccine efficacy and safety?)

Naturally, I pray that I’m wrong, and that Rule #2 of Neoliberalism does not apply.

NOTE * That is, not at the level of abstraction required by Ferguson et al.’s industrial model, whose operations become evident only well after facts on the ground, because campaign finance is horridly obfuscated.

NOTE ** And willful Democrat refusal to expand their base shows they have no intention to become so.

Of course, if Trump wins Florida and Texas tonight, and puts Pennsylvania in play, Democrats will turn to have been a lot less dominant than I thought. But IIRC, McKinley (“airtight consensus”) beat Bryan (“populist”) like a gong. All that money helped.

UPDATE Are they trying to get me to vote for the other guy?

* * *

As usual, this post does not update; readers may track the debate in real time in comments.

Please keep your comments as informative and analytical as possible. Write for the reader who hasn’t seen the debate, and comes to this site in lieu of watching it on TV. There are no points at NC for knee-jerk, context-free one-liners (“Boo ____!” or “Yay!”) that only those who are also watching can make sense of; that’s for Facebook or Reddit.

I think it adds more value if you take a moment, use your critical thinking skills, then comment, and readers can discuss what you say. That way, those who cannot watch the debate — or can’t stand to do so — can get a good idea of what really happened by reading what you write after the fact. This is what the NC commentariat is so very good at, after all. Last time, the times before that, and this time. Thank you!

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About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

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489 comments

  1. JWP

    The MSNBC graphics have the electoral votes and senate seats on the bottom like ESPN does for scoreboards in football/basketball games. Goes along with commentary here about debates being like sporting events. The profit model has shifted from reporting to sensationalism.

    1. ChrisPacific

      I’m now seeing races being called for one side or the other without any votes being counted. This is apparently common practice “based on polls or other data.”

      ‘Results’ is clearly a flexible term here.

      1. ChiGal in Carolina

        Earlier I spot-checked the Guardian, they listed Biden with VA’s electoral votes but now that I’m listening to Useful Idiots they are saying Trump is ahead there.

        What a bogus exercise this is.

        1. ChrisPacific

          They just called all the western states for Biden before a single vote was counted. Why bother waiting until the polls close if you’re going to do that, or Election Day for that matter?

          1. Laughingsong

            Saw that too, how bogus. They’ll claim that those are considered safe states, and I suspect they will even seem correct to think that since the blue urban areas of the west coast states tend to count/report quicker. But it’s not over until it’s over.

    2. Altandmain

      It’s become a “my team vs your team” partisan sort of “sport”, if you will.

      The whole spectacle shows how empty this whole political system is. There is no focus on actual policy, on the actual challenges facing daily Americans, and so on.

      Perhaps the reason is, everyone knows that none of the politicians will do much for the average person. Just make their lives worse and the well off even more wealthy.

      1. drumlin woodchuckles

        Perhaps the Big Media conspire to make it that way. If the Big Media can sports-matchify politics and elections, the Big Media can keep descriptions and analyses of staffing choices and rules-writing/rewriting choices at the departments and bureaus and agencies off camera and away from the mikes.

      2. JWP

        Even my most centrist but biden favoring grandparents were talking about how its “nothing changes and biden vs nothing changes and trump” Everyone recognizes the problem but has no means of changing it.

    3. turtle

      Al Jazeera has Thomas Frank and Nomiki Konst on right now on their panel! I don’t know if they will be staying.

        1. turtle

          Thank you! Those are some people I had been hoping to see do live coverage. Now Jimmy Dore and Aaron Mate are also on.

    1. OpenthepodbaydoorsHAL

      Alive, dead, moved out of state years ago, PA mailed out a humongous quantity of ballots. Paging Josef Stalin…

      1. anon y'mouse

        i get a lot of mail for the former residents of my house, some important looking (which i mark “please forward or return”) and possibly financial.

        but i didn’t get any ballots except the ones people here signed up and asked for deliberately.

        wonder what that means for your theory on PA?

  3. MT_Bill

    Just poured the first beer of Election night 2020. Surely my fault, but ended up with an awful lot of head.

    I’m not sure if that’s foretelling the winner or not.

    No matter who wins, we always lose.

      3. Lex

        A double, two olives. Couldn’t find the vermouth or I’d have made it a very large martini.

        The idea of waking up to four more years of Trump… ‘Bartender, set up another round and keep ’em coming’. The idea of listening to four years of Uncle Joe…whywhywhywhywhywhy…

    2. MT_Bill

      Once I get the kids to bed, I might switch to G & T’s.

      We were told we had to start quarantining today because the kids have been exposed at school. Maybe the old school anti-malrials will help. If not they still mix well with gin.

      Expecting MT to go back to lockdown tomorrow, unless they think waiting a week will make it look less political.

      What a shitshow.

  4. griffen

    I dont have popcorn. But plenty of cold beers and a bag of pork rinds will have to suffice.

    Its the deep breath before the plunge, young hobbit.

    1. fresno dan

      griffen
      November 3, 2020 at 7:16 pm

      I forgot to replenish my red wine supply – I only have a gallon (THAT WON’T BE ENOUGH!)
      I have half a bottle of bourbon, and a bit of rum left. I do have a bottle of scotch for a friend who was gonna visit but canceled due to covid and I guess I can drink that too. Not enough…
      My only hope is Kodos and Kang.

      1. roxy

        You are kidding right? All that and you might not have to worry about waking up in the morning. Or if you do, you’ll wish you had not. Maybe I’m missing the joke. Bath & bed for me, with husband’s favored background noise of MSNBC fading away.

  6. Carolinian

    I agree that the late arrival of the laptop is puzzling but maybe that’s simply the way things worked out.

    And I also continue to wonder whether Trump even wants to win since he made his point by winning in the first place. As Jerri-Lynn has said, the notion that he has to win in order to stay out of prison is a stretch.

    1. NotTimothyGeithner

      I suspect Trump has the same type of dead enders like HRC and simply believes he was born for this. HRC once upon a time had points. Trump clearly wanted to be a star of the Right Wing media space, more so.

      On a unrelated note, Comet is currently showing an episode of Quantum Leap where Sam leaped into a chimpanzee in the space program.

      1. Carolinian

        But now he is a star for the right wing, win or lose. After all there are those three SC justices. All we have ahead is “dark winter.”

      2. fresno dan

        NotTimothyGeithner
        November 3, 2020 at 7:25 pm

        On a unrelated note, Comet is currently showing an episode of Quantum Leap where Sam leaped into a chimpanzee in the space program.
        quantum reality – how many times have chimpanzees leaped into a US president? Using my MOST critical thinking faculties, I estimate in my lifetime….ten.

    2. The Rev Kev

      The laptop was late arriving because the FBI sat on it after seizing it from that computer repair guy. When it became obvious that they were going to hide it until after the election which meant maybe never releasing it if Biden won, the Trump campaign came out with their own copy. Use to think that the F.B.I. stood for the Federal Bureau of Investigation but with their own words, it is becoming obvious that they have transformed themselves now into the Federal Bureau of Intelligence.

      1. NotTimothyGeithner

        , it is becoming obvious that they have transformed

        Maybe the odd field office did some good on occasion, but any organization run by J Edgar for so long was always trash.

      3. OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL

        Not quite the right timeline, when the hapless computer shop guy realized the FBI were doing nothing about it, and rightfully fearing for his life, he brought it to Giuliani. So Trump not only needs to beat the Dems this time, he needs to beat the FBI and CIA. In the far future we will learn about a program under something the NSA calls “Hammer”, this is a vote changing program called “Scorecard”. Apparently it was already deployed for Biden in S. Carolina, I always thought there was something very fishy about that dramatic turnaround, it just didn’t make sense that Clyburn could get to enough barber shops fast enough to get the result Obama and Soros needed. The Night Of The Long Knives will fill future tomes. (Removes foil hat)

    3. Dr. John Carpenter

      I don’t think Trump wanted to win in 2016. I don’t think he wants to be reelected, but he doesn’t want to lose either. Or at least be seen as a loser.

      And yeah. If he hasn’t been in prison up to this point, there’s no way it’s happening as an ex-president.

      1. Brunches with Cats

        Totally agree that Trump didn’t want to win in 2016, and there was little risk that he would. Hillary’s coronation was a given, momentarily delayed by Bernie’s unexpected success. Once that was dispatched, it was settled. As I’ve commented before, I was watching live when The Associated Press called the election for Trump, and I watched him walking to the stage. Unlike Pence, who bounded up to the podium in a joyous outburst never to be repeated on-camera, Trump looked like he was walking to an execution. When the cameras finally focused on his face, it looked to me like he was scared, maybe even about to cry.

        Over the next few weeks, he was savaged in the media for being unprepared. Well, of course he wasn’t prepared! According to reports at the time, some of which are resurfacing, the presidential run was just a publicity stunt for a new television show. Two things I give Trump credit for are 1) stepping up to the plate, as ill-prepared and ill-suited for the job as he was — and, in the beginning, he was totally alone, as Melania clearly didn’t want to be in D.C. and had made no plans to move; and 2) surviving an attempted coup by “17 intelligence agencies,” reinforced by the blob, the media, and the Democrat billionaire donors club.

        He has to have known all along what they have been planning since he won. He may be a narcissist with an authoritarian streak, but I don’t think he’s a glutton for punishment. I think it’s possible he’s said and done everything he could think of to lose, because he doesn’t want another four years of this any more than we do.

      2. saffa

        In the documentary on Trump by the same name on Netflix, he clearly stated multiple times that he wouldn’t run for president until he knew he could win. Twice before 2016 people were speculating that he should run and each time he said no. So I dunno what y’all are smoking but if a leftie from South Africa can get that piece of basic information and at the very least respect the orange man for sticking by his guns, then what on earth makes the educated elite in USA get it so horribly wrong?
        Sigh.

        Also, it seems people are not all that versed in pathological narcissism and the importance these people place on winning. He would not be in the race or in the White House if it did not give him a hard on.

        These facts should be obvious. But methinks that left-leaning people have still not actually accepted the reality of Trump’s existence and his basis for support because they find him so revolting that they’d literally mindfuck themselves into la la land.

        I’d be super surprised if Biden wins. It’s not about what’s right and good, but about what is the reality of America right now, and the educated seems woefully unable to grasp white working class needs and expectations.

        Hey there’s still time, maybe there’s a happy-ish surprise ending.

    4. wadge22

      Two uninformed speculations on laptop timing:

      1 Laptop was released late with plans of drip drip to continue into the vote tallying period, perhaps with a big drip to drop shortly after election, with the aim to somehow tie in to discrediting and rejecting the results.

      2 Laptop was actually surfaced or greenlit by Harris or DNC aligned interests, leading to Biden stepping aside before inauguration.

      Again, just musings that might explain the late timing. I dont even think I agree with some assumptions you would have to make for either to be true. Starting with whether there is anything very damaging in the laptop story to begin with.

      1. Stephen Cavaliere

        I find it curious that the laptop thing wasn’t covered by the MSM until like two days ago. Too late to make a difference, but “they” want to let Biden know that he’s on a very tight leash. One tiptoe too far the Left and we’ll be hearing a lot about that laptop.

  7. Mason

    A man was escorted from the polls after showing up just outside the property with a pistol then arrested after showing up again. Otherwise, it’s been quiet in Charlotte, NC. A few businesses are boarding up tonight in downtown.

    Joe Rogan podcast has begun with Kyle K.

        1. Michael McK

          And please do keep us informed about what you see and hear where you are with the local perspective on the Nagorno-Karabakh situation. Sadly, our shit show is hardly the only one.

          1. hoki haya

            what i see?

            white phosphorous. spitak fosfor. 5000 degrees it burns, destroys forests and civilians.

            please urge your representatives and senators to recognize artaskh’s right to self-determination. i m glad there are three bills in the House now, from Pallone, Tulisi, and Schiff, that should all be rolled together Ted-Kennedy-style to a) kick Turkey out of NATO, b) condemn the actions, and c) recognize Artsakh.

            spirits are high, but we need resolution.

            three failed ceasefires.

            it is owed to them, to ancestors, the unborn, and to ourselves, to be as filled with optimism, good humor, camaraderie and conviction, as the defenders and fighters of freedom in view here.
            https://fb.watch/1x6FSc2069/

          2. hoki haya

            i’ve tried, but they place my comment in moderation. Azeris, with Turkey and Israel behind them, are employing white phosphorous, as America did in Iraq, and Israelis have used on Palestine.

            1. hoki haya

              ok thank you. i found this site even before i went abroad last, and am glad always to see and read familiar voices here when i can,

    3. hoki haya

      ah, this holy day, like “God’s Ultimate Sporting Event” for Americans, where you employ the illusion of choice – with true choice subterfuged, by law, by mechanism, at every federally regulated opportunity, and old-skool skullduggery – who should win? our team must win! we know what’s right and good!
      all with the caveat that i have survived being outside the entire administration of 45, but i do not believe our troubles, idiocy, distances, abrogations, began with him. not by a long stretch.
      they ask me, of course, in the grocery, in the university, at the front, ‘who do you support?’ i say no one. not since JFK, with all his flaws, or FDR, with all his flaws, has there been a difference between parties. a viable 3rd or 4th or 5th party, i say, such as you have here and throughout the rest of Europe, would be welcome, but is not allowed to foment in America. ‘democracy’, mm-hmm.
      who will ameliorate our situation, policywise? no one, i say, which doesn’t take much saying to be understood. Obama and Bush 2 both campaigned in saying they would recognize the Genocide and resolve the conflict, and once they were elected, did nothing.
      I can understand the need for cosmetic, conceptual change on the federal level. I also understand that conceptual change is not actual change.
      the election of Biden will set genuine reform back by 12 years at least, and encourage a new head of the Republican hydra to rise to power.
      the election of Trump will dismay the masses, but could engender a more cohesive and coherent counterpoint that could be used by savvy progressives.
      either way, i’m not sure i see much difference, domestic or foreign policywise, forthcoming, but then again, like i said, i escaped immediate clutches a long time ago.

      my question remains: where, online, can i watch this football match?

      1. drumlin woodchuckles

        For those of us who do live here, there is this difference about the TrumpAdmin. The TrumpAdmin staffs the agencies, bureaus and departments with pro-polluters, pro-swindlers, and other pro-crime figures. Their plan for environmental regulation, for example, is total polluter permissiveness. The Trump Group gives the bizniss community the permission it has craved for decades to fill the air with cancer gas, fill the water supply with cancer juice, and cover the food supply with cancer gravy.

        So there is that difference.

      4. Donald

        Yeah, this idea that a Trump victory will lead to a progressive renaissance has no evidence for it. We just had four years of Trump and Bernie was crushed.

        I have a friend in real life who thought like this. He thought Trump was revealing the rot in the system and upsetting the liberals and this meant the left would finally come to power. Totally delusional. Maybe this is some sort of persistent illusion lefties have worldwide. Corbyn is a decent man. He got crushed too.

        3. Biph

          At this point the WH isn’t worth having it’s going to be a divided government either Trump with the senate but not the house or Biden with house but not the senate, nothing will get done as the nation sinks lower and the most likely outcome from that is going to be a massive vote against whichever party has the WH in 2 years.

        4. Jonathan Holland Becnel

          And yet Socialism/Communism/Marxism are all more Popular now than since the 30s.

          Curious.

          Rome wasnt built in a day.

          1. Scramjett

            IDK man, I’m starting to think this “rise” in popularity is a blip. I recall when Stephen Colbert “ran” for president in 2008 touting his poll increase, “I have moved up from 1 to 3, a 300% increase!”

        5. Scramjett

          So the question remains: how does the left win?

          My personal take: the left never wins. The people, when faced with leftism or extinction, will choose extinction every time.

  10. Yves Smith

    Postal Service misses court-ordered deadline for unsent mail ballots The Hill:

    The U.S. Postal Service failed to meet a court-imposed deadline Tuesday afternoon for the urgent processing of some 300,000 mail ballots that had not been delivered to election offices as deadlines neared.

    https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/524347-postal-service-misses-court-ordered-deadline-for-unsent-mail-ballots

    Polls VERY busy here in Birmingham. Remember AL had mail in ballots too. Aide from South Birmingham had to wait nearly 2 hours to vote. Our local station had lines out the door (and it has lots of room inside too) and at times down the block, in a community with 6 stations for 20,000 people.

    Zelda is keeping us up to date with right wing reports. This one suggests the Dems don’t think they have FL or PA in the bag: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-campaign-white-house-without-florida-pennsylvania

    2. ChrisAtRU

      I didn’t consider FL or PA as in play for Biden in my #270ToWin maps. Upper-upper midwest gotta pull through for #IceCreamJoe!

    3. John Zelnicker

      I voted here in Mobile at about 2:45 pm. No line whatsoever. I walked right in, directly to the first desk to show my ID, then the second to get my ballot, then sat down to mark my ballot. (At least we use hand-marked ballots here, although they are scanned for counting.)

      There were several folks sitting at the cubicles marking their ballots, but otherwise the place was mostly empty.

      For the first time Mobile is using electronic poll books for ID verification through a tablet device. I hope they are no less accurate than the printed poll books used in the past. (As long as they haven’t been hacked by RussiaChinaIran.)

      Alabama is a very red state, despite Doug Jones being elected Senator to replace Sessions. That was a result of a horrible opponent that even the Repubs couldn’t tolerate. This means that here have been no noticeable efforts by Repubs to suppress the vote.

      1. Yves Smith

        Birmingham was awash with Doug Jones signs, so the high turnout here might be a desperate effort to try to push him over the line (he lags state-wide).

  12. flora

    Lambert, The Auden poem is a perfect reading of this year’s election choices, imo.
    I live in the bluest city in my state. The feeling I sensed today while out and about is one of resignation; not the giddy, hopeful joy of 2008, or the “we’re back!” energy of 1992 and 1996. The feeling I got was more elegiac than an energetic hope for a better future. No one was smiling. No one was enthusiastic and upbeat and lively. Even accounting for the pandemic.

    Of course, this is entirely subjective.

    1. flora

      adding: I’m in a non-swing red state. My county/city always goes blue and the voters have always been cheerful, as in ‘we put our oar in for team blue!’ It’s so odd this year, like ‘we voted blue… but not too happy about the candidate we had to vote for.’ Well, we’ll see how the night turns out.

    2. hoki haya

      i for one agree; the Auden is entirely apt, and good to read.

      People here are flipping out – are they flipping out everywhere? Does it come down to WI? oh, man…suddenly Biden is the hero of working class minorities? I can’t do this)

      1. hoki haya

        the PA lead has been double-digits for hours; why has it not been called? surely Phil&Pitt have been counted…and mail-ins cannot breach that gap…NC&GA are also clearly done. is it down to MI/WI? is this going to be contestable? oh boy.

      2. hoki haya

        ah..it comes down to whether or not you drink the water in Flint….and who you blame for its taint.

        1. hoki haya

          spend five minutes listening to american commentary (ABC: moving forward, Lincoln, etc) and five minutes listening to Russian commentary, and you have the great divide.

  13. ChrisAtRU

    Commentariat!!!!

    I’m on the hellverse that is #Twitter and watching Kornacki attack his big board like Jackie Chan lays into a Wing Chun mook jong!

    I have Islay scotch on tap as my sedative.. Let’s go!

    1. chris

      I’m enjoying a smooth cup of pecan coffee with pumpkin chocolate chip cookies while my kids stay up with me to watch his whole democracy thing in action tonight. Cheers fellow Chris !

    2. ChrisAtRU

      The tone on #MSNBC suggests that they really felt/expected that they’d be able to call FL/GA/NC for Biden early, and now it’s all collapsing before their eyes … needless to say, lefty #Twitter is not being kind:

      “Ha! Remember when Democrats decided this state meant Joe was the candidate?”

      1. ChrisAtRU

        #ForThe420Friendly

        Looks like the ganja is going to be a big winner tonight! Fun fact: won the intramural league on year in college playing for a team named “Ganja” … ;-)

        For your election soundtrack, “Pass The Tu-Sheng-Peng”!

        1. ChrisAtRU

          MSNBC anchors encouraging each other to breathe now … LOL … they got high on their own supply of national push polls in the lead up, but the reality of Trump matching and in many cases surpassing his voter percentages from 2016 is causing hyperventilation. What a sorry bunch they are … all of them. #BernieWouldHaveWon

          1. ChrisAtRU

            Kornacki just put up the same #27ToWin map I created … LOL (Biden squeaks to 270)

            Thanks Lambert, for adding it to the Water Cooler! ;-)

  14. Amfortas the hippie

    the Gathara twitter thread is almost unholy wit.
    good find!
    ” Head of the AU observer mission, Milton Allimadi, says the US electoral system “would be an embarrassment in most African countries” and that the continent would be willing to share its expertise and resources as part of a “Marshall Plan” to rebuild democracy in the US.”

    i sent it to my Team Blue/PMC stepmom, before turning off my phone.

    1. The Rev Kev

      That is what I call ‘dropping a depth charge’. A barrel rolls off the back of a ship into the sea, nothing happens for a short while, and then VROOMMMM!

  15. Lee

    PBS commentator surprised that immigration, “which was the defining issue of 2016” was now a principal concern of only 3% of voters.

    She also noted the problem with characterizing Hispanic voters is that they are not monolithic. LOL: I love the identitarian attempts to generalize about a category that in fact does not exist.

  16. griffen

    Does it look like Florida is the hot potato once again?

    It’s a really interesting state. Retirees, a robust population of Cuban Americans and south Americans. Those demographics are really unique.

    2. edmondo

      Florida is Trump +200,000 with 86% of the vote in. The panhandle is Trump territory.

      Dow futures went from +200 to -150 in the last hour.

      1. Foy

        Where are you getting those results from Edmondo? The websites I’ve got are behind on those % counts.

      2. Lee

        Pinellas county went to Biden by 1%, where Clinton lost to Trump by a similar margin. PBS is trying to buck up Dem spirits.

    3. marym

      775K people with past felony convictions for whom FL citizens voted to restore voting rights, and then Republican legislature prevented it.

  17. Edward

    I think the main question of this election is whether we will have a smooth transition/continuation of power or not. Will the losing party and their supporters reject the results?

    1. Blended

      We didn’t have one 4 years ago; the intelligence communities were weaponized against the president, and the MSM pushed Russia lies for years. Why would you expect any kind of acceptance of the result from either side this time around?

      1. Edward

        We are facing the possibility of an explicitly undemocratic election. This won’t be political types and some bureaucrats conspiring against the results but– possibly, large sections of the public rejecting the outcome and withdrawing their consent. The government’s tattered legitimacy will finally collapse. I don’t know if this will happen but it is possible. I don’t think this country has ever been in this situation before. It is a new situation, an experiment, and a measure of the out-of-control recklessness of the politicians.

        1. notabanker

          My intuition (ie random viewing of signs around town) would have told me that there is more Biden support than Clinton this go around. Just checked the results from my county:
          2016 – 92,000 votes
          59.47% Trump
          34.92% Clinton

          2020 – 99,000 votes
          60.17% Trump
          38.32% Biden

          I guess some of the tweeners hate Clinton more than Biden, or hate Trump enough to vote for Biden, but the base is the base in flyover country. Democrats are delusional with the anyone but Trump strategy. At least here it’s only flipped the fringe.

        2. Shiloh1

          Need to return to / start again with The Articles Of The Confederation. Too much centralized influence over individuals and individual states.

          1. JBird4049

            At the Federal level that’s all Congress’ fault aside from some assistance from the Supremes. The legislature has been ceding more power to the executive, which includes all the alphabet agencies, because it is a hassle and exposes the individual Congress critters to political attacks. Much easier to just avoid the issues and have the executive branch do it.

            I don’t think that the Founders ever thought that not legislating would be a problem for whoever herd of people fighting to get elected and not govern? When/if a reformist party does take control it will have a backlog of work decades long as well as not only restaffing but rebuilding or recreating the various agencies that have been gutted over those same decades. A Sisyphean or at least Herculean task.

          2. Edward

            I think government is a dynamic, evolving thing. Various interest groups try to game the system for their benefit and governments have to adapt to the new situations to try to maintain a balance between interests. The U.S. government has collapsed. The use of mass media and propaganda and bribery by selfish rich people has overcome the checks and balances of our government. Our society’s immune system against this social infection has been defeated and now the host is being eaten by the disease.

    2. Mo's Bike Shop

      Will the losing party and their supporters reject the results?

      What does that have to do with the continuation of power? /badumtish

  18. anon y'mouse

    Watching Salem’s Lot. seems more fitting, as that is what awaits.

    keep me informed & entertained, fellow yobs!

    1. richard

      omg which one? I just rewatched the David Soul version, and it has not aged well. Packed with all the tension of a bank employee training video. But that was as scary as teevee was allowed to get back in the day (1979).

      1. anon y'mouse

        its main failing is that it was filmed as a “made for TV” special, and they forgot that if they were going to fail to spend big on special effects, such as they were in that day, then they should keep most things in the near dark to hide the cheese.

        i would rather anything old, because all of the new tricks they use don’t add enough for what they take away with genuine acting, keeping to the plot (or having one to begin with) and dialogue. in other words, all we have now are special effects. so, i tend to keep to the old things because they seem to have understood the nature of suspense. jump scares, gore and simulated sex plus special effects don’t cut it for me.

        but then again, i deliberately watch trash. i find it is where all of the interesting weirdness is.

        finishing off the evening with The Masque of the Red Death.

  19. Altandmain

    Does anyone else feel like it doesn’t really matter who wins?

    Trump will continue his kleptocracy.

    Biden will put neoliberals and Bush era neoconservatives into his administration. That means that nothing will change. The upper middle class, the PMC, will do well, and the rest will suffer. The 1% make out like bandits either way.

    My advice would be, if you are in a non-swing state, vote for the Green Party. If you are in a swing state, I hate to say this, but vote Trump. A Biden win means that the earliest time the left wins is 2028 because he or Harris will block a primary. If Biden loses, then in 2024, there can be another primary.

    https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2020/06/whats-the-earliest-a-progressive-democrat-can-be-elected-president.html

    I wish the US had a proportional representation system. I wish the money were out of politics, and the rich had at least some sense of noblesse oblige.

    1. ChiGal in Carolina

      Yeah, it’s hard to feel like it matters. Maybe your calculus is right but with the pandemic I just couldn’t vote for continued chaos in this swing state.

    2. Donald

      If you vote for Trump, you are not voting for some future leftist victory. You are voting for Trump and all of his policies.

      These bizarre strategic calculations people make are, I think, a sign of powerlessness. If it does anything at all, it strengthens the far right, but people want to imagine they are doing something positive.

      1. OpenthepodbaydoorsHAL

        Powerlessness delivered by whom exactly? For the tens of millions who donated $18 to Bernie? For the primary voters who saw to it that Kamala didn’t even make it to the first primary, only to see her magically appear on the ticket? For the machine back room string pullers who engineered a magic Biden “win” in South Carolina? The dementia addled Grandpa with a 47 year record of doing everything in his power to screw workers? Your suggestion is to reward the party that did this? My view is that they deserve the most emphatic of face smashes, and yes as a lifelong Dem I would have voted for Attila The Hun to deliver that blow. How dare they. Doubled, for what they did up to and after 2016. If Trump wins then a purge should begin that would make Stalin green with envy. Burn it to the ground, then use the ashes to build concrete blocks upon which the people of the country can stand. Again.

        1. Brunches with Cats

          Agreed — emphatically — right up to the “purge” part. In fact, the D party purge is complete. They decapitated the progressive left, sucked up the body, and are digesting the remains. Those of us who escaped being assimilated will have to find a different direction. If we weren’t exactly welcome in the D Party before, now we’re somewhere between worthless and buzzing flies. We are going to have to find our own way.

    3. mrsyk

      i feel like this is the least important presidential election in my 40 years of voting. Heads I win, tails you lose.

    6. Scramjett

      I don’t think the left will ever win in the US. Because it never has. It came close in 1932, but it was less of a win and more of a draw. Then, after WWII, the loses began with the first major blow coming from Taft-Hartley that severely curtailed the power of unions. There will be no left victory in 2024 and 2028. After 2030? Well, try not to think about that because I don’t think it will matter anymore.

      As I like to tell people, the so-called “party of FDR” was barely even the “party of FDR” even when FDR was president. His VP from 1932 – 1940 hated the New Deal and was looking forward to running for President in 1940 to try and reverse some of his New Deal programs (until FDR pulled a last minute primary “gotcha.”)

      People, especially Dem voters, don’t realize that Dems were never really ever a people’s party or a labor party. They acted like it to get votes, but in recent years, they’ve by-and-large dropped all pretense.

    1. griffen

      There is always next month, next year .

      And I’ve always thought: I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue.

    2. Blended

      I’ve browsed a bunch of the live maps, I think I like this one the best. I can even drill into the local ballot measures in my state.

      2. epynonymous

        Just scanned it (yahoo). It automatically detected my state as MA when I clicked state. Currently it shows 8% of of estimated votes reported. Doesn’t show a single vote for the Green Party candidate. Libertarian at 1.2% The Green-Rainbow Party was on the ballot, not a write in.

        Could be their bias or a state reporting timeline skew.

        I’ve been getting plenty of text ads from the parties, almost all from the democrats. One came right as I left the polls. I have no reason to believe they were geo-locating me to the polls and sending a targeted ad, but it occurs to me that technically that would be completely possible. It’s probably even legal.

        The ad in question used the fake name I gave my yahoo email too.

        1. epynonymous

          It appears the manager of the yahoo link and I just simultaneously realized that florida is going for trump.

          Also, maybe we both did it because Biden’s strategy, imo, is not to speak tonight and to wait it out. Meanwhile, I hope Texas turns blue but we are naieve to have hoped for it to happen this year.

          There are two forces at work. Trump is an incumbent, but Biden was a senator.

          I will try tabulating the methodology for how the Greens were ignored and see if it was additive. *sighs and checks MA result state page. Compares to “actual” results as reported to google…* Same percentage for the green party at 80% reporting as at 10% reporting. Like clockwork. 0.5% (I guess that’s not worth reporting on…) 14,811 votes total. Listed by the wrong party name, since the Green party is now the Green-Rainbow party.

          Will math the methodology in the morning.

          ~*they call it the magic board*~ Watched CBS anyways. See the Reince Preibus interview? Here’s my ‘transcript’

          “Reince Preibus? Reince Preibus.” Repeat as neccessary.

            1. epynonymous

              ABC just about called it for trump.

              “Trump just won 38 electoral votes.”

              Commercial break. (the mandalorian)

              I was mid math on the remaining states, and 5 minutes ago it looked like maybe both candidates needed 40 more electoral votes.

              TBD, but I guess we’re getting a speech or two after all.

              Previously, I had wondered if Biden won (or had a chance to claim it through the process.) if the media would even announce they were blacking out coverage of any Trump attempt to speak.

              The machine works. This is a good thing. and that’s where I sit, lets see if it holds up in the morning. (but I guess I’m waiting for a speech.) ABC now lists trump at 212 and biden at 209. Now he’s the story.

              <<< Just can't shut up. Was the Georgia water leak an inside job? Oh my.

              1. epynonymous

                Just got 274 or 276 for Trump in my head.

                Meanwhile ABC says Biden beat Hillary Clinton in Texas. They’re trying to break the news gently to the faux leftists.

                Nobody blamed the Green Party this time though!

  21. smashsc

    Abigail Spanberger (VA-7) (CIA) is down 40%/60% with an estimated 81% of the vote in. Pushback against the Intelligence community candidates or something else?

    1. NotTimothyGeithner

      She is one of the 2018 winners who won without a GOTV operation and more just anti-Trump sentiment. Its a tough district. Back during the height of my blue kool aid and the 50 state strategy, no one really expected it to go blue. Its the GOP’s Eric Cantor’s old district or close enough. Cantor was replaced by a Teabagger that Spanberger beat. Her opponent is a doofus, but he doesn’t put out the all-hate vibe and doesn’t have the bad blood of having primaried Cantor. With Biden’s push for “moderate Republicans”, she was probably doing GOTV for folks who were going to vote Biden over Trump but straight GOP otherwise.

      Ultimately, she was a right wing Democrat who did nothing to inspire confidence or grow her brand. The district is wealthier Richmond suburbs and rural areas that Cantor always took care of (subsidies and such).

      1. xformbykr

        You may have the wrong district. Spanberger’s district includes northern virginia suburbs of wash. dc. It’s not cantor’s old district.

        Like smashsc, i too don’t know why she would be down. I had not seen opponent ads on tv lately but had seen spanburger ads.

          1. smashsc

            Another 2018 Democrat Rep., Jennifer Wexton (VA-10) is also getting soundly beaten (so far, Frederick County yet to report).

          2. IMOR

            Hey- much of it was a cesspool of the type you mean when I was there in the mid 80s! No credibility issue.

  22. Krystyn Podgajski

    Looks like Biden will win North Carolina. Listening to local radio…

    Biden ahead 325k, slightly favored.

    If Biden wins here I call it for him, taking my meds, and going to bed.

    1. Amfortas the hippie

      aye. I hafta wait till 8pm lima to take mine…so i’m giving Bob the Cat another 30 minutes to come the heck in, and i’m out.
      i can’t allow myself to get all OCD about all this.
      check in periodically, and it is what it is.
      i remember 2000; this could drag out for a month or more.
      280(?) miles, today.
      nest of 18 pillows beckons for to prop up my remains.

  23. Bazarov

    It felt very good to vote for the Green Party ticket in the swing state I live in.

    I could not bring myself to vote for a Biden (“nothing fundamental will change”/”I’ll veto Medicare for all”) Harris (former hanging-prosecutor) ticket.

    1. Mason

      Same.

      I was sad though when I left the senator ballot blank. I did want to vote against Thom Thillis but I just couldn’t vote for another neoliberal. Maybe Cal Cunningham isn’t so bad.

      Looks like he’s winning too.

      1. Elizabeth

        Same here – I detest Biden (a corpse with hair plugs (Matt Taibbi)) – if Trump wins, at least we know the devil we’ve had for 4 years.

    2. VietnamVet

      I voted Green Party for President. Maryland has been declared for Joe Biden. I left the House race blank. For the first time, several of days ago, I got an e-mail that the ballot was counted.

    3. Brunches with Cats

      I’m probably one in a million voters who didn’t know who they were going to vote for right up until taking pen in hand — not that it was going to matter one way or the other, as this is in a solid red county in a deep blue state. I thought of leaving the president line blank to make a point, or voting Green Party. The only reason I was voting, really, was for a couple of down-ballot races. And one of those was, surprisingly, on the Working Families Party ticket, along with Biden-Harris. WFP is bought and paid for by the D billionaire donors club, but as I understand it, if they get enough votes, Cuomo won’t be able to keep them off the ballot in the future. That, to me, was worth holding my nose and voting for Biden.

    1. NotTimothyGeithner

      I don’t believe Silver conducts polls. He’s an aggregator of information produced by other pollsters. He primarily models what the electorates will look like and looks to the polls to determine who wins based on that and past experience.. Covid and stepped up GOP efforts to suppress the vote are going to cause all kinds of issues.

      1. Bill Carson

        Well yes, of course he doesn’t conduct his own polls. I am going with his aggregated predictions, which showed Biden leading Florida 50.9% to 48.4% (2.5%), and the current margin with 91% reporting is Trump leading 50.7 to 48.3.

        That is a HUGE margin.

        1. NotTimothyGeithner

          I mean 2020. Off the top of my head, W did reasonably well with non-Cuban Hispanic voters under 35 in 2000 (but NADER! I know), and Covid hit while many snowbirds were still in Florida. Its possible they stayed long enough to change registrations. I don’t know the results, but 2016 demonstrated that we need to beware expectations.

          Admittedly, I’m surprised with Biden’s senior polling strength by this early report which is why I’m wondering about snowbirds voting. How many are there? The internets indicate high six figures or as much as 5% of the population. I don’t the know the registration rules.

          1. NotTimothyGeithner

            Though I guess the problems are in Miami-Dade. I mean shenanigans. Biden just pooping the bed. Anna Maria Navarro was part of Biden’s “latino outreach,” so you know she’s trash.

              1. NotTimothyGeithner

                I tend to agree with Obama’s view that nothing can stop a motivated person from voting. The GOP works to raise obstacles, but to a certain extent, this is built in and nothing new. Team Blue’s ground game can over come this. Yes, it sucks, but this is a winner take all kind of thing.

                Expectations that “moderate Republicans” would follow the lead of David Brooks and Joe Scarborough while ignoring the downtrodden is a flawed strategy.

                1. Bill Carson

                  Yeah. That’s the only explanation I can find. The Trump Trainers all voted, and they grabbed Uncle Larry, who hasn’t voted in his life, and took him to the polls.

    2. Mason

      “If Trump wins Florida, he’d shoot up to a 33 percent chance of winning the Electoral College, per our choose-your-own adventure interactive. The key question, of course, is how much a pro-Trump polling error in Florida would translate to other states.” – Nate Silver

      1. NotTimothyGeithner

        With Covid, I would almost wonder how many snowbirds stayed down there and voted in Florida.

    3. albrt

      Florida seems to be the big outlier so far. Speculation is that the pollsters misclassified cubans in Miami as hispanics rather than troglodytes.

    4. Alex morfesis

      So…Trump holds flow read duh…but nc and Ohio are trending better for Biden than the votes in 16 for the hillbot…so…

      and the BBC showed a glum Trump visiting his HQ earlier today giving a little non pep talk…did not look as though he expected to win

      1. Alex Morfesis

        Ha…so much for “trending”…looks like it all boils down to Wisconsin…Michigan will probably flip to Joe…so…it is all about Wisconsin it would appear at this moment…Georgia has a slight slight chance to flip to Biden…would be icing on the “let them eat” cake…

        A nation very divided…thankfully, the Flow read duh republicans stole their last presidential election…700 thousand who were given back the right to vote only to have it yanked back by a modern day poll tax…won’t hold from pending lawsuits but held back long enough to deliver Florida one more time for potus…

  26. The Rev Kev

    I know what some Democrats want. They want a ‘White People Mourning Trump’ like event-

    https://whitepeoplemourningromney.tumblr.com/

    There are at least dozen pages on that thread but it was enough to confirm for me that you should never dress for an election like some did there.

    They are following the US elections on TV in Oz live and it sounds an awful lot like the Melbourne Cup that we had here yesterday – a horse race that stops a nation.

    1. chuck roast

      Very good. They showed Trump’s dance video, Get Out And VOTE! We are through the looking glass.

      1. chuck roast

        This could mean four more years of Ivanka’s White House Christmas videos! Think Crazy Eddie…I will send them to my friends and drive them INSANE!

  28. chuck roast

    Was watching Halper/Tiabbi. Marianne Williamson…why the hell did they have her on. They should have gone for another voice of reason…a wrestler…like Jesse Ventura or Rey Mysterio.

    1. Louis Fyne

      IMO….The post-WWII “self-actualization” psychology mindset among many in the intelligensia, particularly Democrats, keep Democrats elites totally oblivious to regular people.

      Look at Biden’s slogan—-“Battle for the Soul of the Nation.”

      you can’t feed a family or send a kid to college with Marianne’s deep-hearted fee-fees

      1. Dr. John Carpenter

        This is why I was left scratching my head after Jimmy Dore had her on for a lengthy interview that was full of this kind of stuff. Obviously he can do what he wants on his show but it seemed really “off brand”.

        (For the record, I am a “whatever gets you through as long as it’s not hurting anyone else” person but “you can’t feed a family or send a kid to college with Marianne’s deep-hearted fee-fees” is as true as true can be.)

  29. bruce

    You don’t advise drinking, do you? I’m on the opposite side of that one. I am now tucking into a bottle of the Ransom Vineyards sweet vermouth (made in Oregon!). It’s not your father’s vermouth. There may also be some cannabis going on.

    In the perfect sci-fi movie “Total Recall”, there was a scene where the robot cabdriver “Johnny Cab” was driving Arnold Schwarzenegger around Mars, and Ah-nuld became impatient with the robot’s slow pace, so he finally ripped the robot right off the driver’s seat and threw it out the window. Just as Johnny Cab hit the ground, he said “Fasten your seat belt!” That’s my advice for the next few hours. We’re on Mars.

  30. Aleric

    It looks like the vote result map for Minnesota doesn’t take into account the recent court ruling that mail-in ballots would not be counted if received past election day. Since they have been counted as they arrive, the totals should be in tonight. May be a good window into the rest of the upper midwest.

    It’s been a mess – back to back TV ads saying “mail in your ballots now” vs “turn in your ballots in person, don’t mail them in”.

    1. Aleric

      Minnesota Secretary of State website still says that votes will be counted until Nov 10, but I think that is not correct. Though less certain since MN SOS is usually reliable.

  31. jr

    I’m rooting for Biden simply because I have to live with my GF for the next few years, but I voted Howie.

    1. bruce

      Just how many years do you plan to live with your GF before you jettison her into the void? I voted Biden because I simply can’t stand Trump’s manner, style, persona, even before I get to the policies.

      1. jr

        Excuse me? It was a joke. Perhaps you would like me to offer insights into your life that I glean from your comments. I’m very good at it.

        1. bruce

          I’m sure you are, go for it. It’s just that the “GF for the next few years” struck me as incongruous in the context of a committed relationship. The women in my life don’t have expiration dates like cartons of milk.

          1. jr

            Which gives you leeway to snark instead of inquire? The “years” comment referred to the next election. Funny, don’t see you digging into my other discussions so deeply. See you soon.

  32. edmondo

    LOL. I do believe that if Trump gets re-elected that half the Democrats I know are going to sputter themselves into such a frenzy that it’s going to rival The Rapture.

    2. polecat

      Imagine them as those floating helium-filled sex dolls( minus the amorousness) that were released skyward, from that episode lead-in in the series ‘Six Feet Under’ .. except with Hillary substituting for that unfortunate church lady …

  33. Lee

    David Brooks appears visibly shaken as he states that it doesn’t look like there’s going to be a Biden blowout. With all that’s wrong with Trump…..

      1. NotTimothyGeithner

        I think they are afraid to find out they aren’t the “thought” leaders they believed they were. Many of the GOP types who jumped ship are going to find out they offer little in the way of value to anyone. This scares them.

    2. Glen

      Bobo shaken? Well that gives me heart!

      Well, you know what he will say – Republicanism didn’t fail, Biden failed to be conservative enough!

      Oh, wait, [family blog it], neolibrealism didn’t fail, he just didn’t suck up to Wall St enough! THERE!

  34. Mason

    Peter Daou is talking to Howie H. on the Green Party live-stream. Love listening to him.

    Now to get Chris Hedges on the livestream.

      1. bruce

        “Wall Street losing dough on every share. They’re blaming it on longer hair.” –the Stylistics

    1. LibrarianGuy

      It’s all down to Arizona I would say. Biden’s lead negligible there.

      Biden’s only pick-up looks like N.C. Trump will win Pa., Michigan and Wisconsin. Minnesota not enough to cover that.

      And as the Chapo guys are saying, the DNC will learn nothing and change nothing . . . . The odds I’ll need to try to get out of this failing country increase daily.

      1. albrt

        My experience living in Arizona for 20 years is that the polls are reasonably accurate, but the democrats never outperform. If the polls are off it will go Trump’s way.

  38. IMOR

    18,000 same day new voter registrations in MI. Even if a third of that number are duplicate, who thinks they don’t break 70/30 Biden?

    1. albrt

      Me. Democrats at all levels are very good at getting complacent with very little basis, and the Trumpsters have been the ones getting cattle-prodded the past few days.

    2. OpenthepodbaydoorsHAL

      Or will he do what Hilary did on the night, refuse to concede, throw an ungodly fit, then start working on her CIA/FBI backup plan. More likely Joe will take two Adderol and in the morning tell Jill he’s secretly relieved Bush beat him. Maybe a new set of dentures and bounce a granddaughter on his knee, and try to avoid anyone who might be holding a subpoena in their hands, lots of splaining to do and I don’t mean the man kind.

      1. Hepativore

        I know that it is schadenfreude, but the disappointment of Trump winning a second term would be tempered by seeing all of the howling PMCs on places like Balloon Juice and the smug DNC leadership and their consultant parasites die of blood pressure-induced strokes after they rammed Biden/Harris down our throats because he was “more electable”. Thanks Obama!

        I have long ago come to the conclusion that we are f*cked anyway regardless of who wins tonight, so enjoy, everyone…

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy_cFHs5xb4

  40. MT_Bill

    They say you really have to hit rock bottom before you are willing to make changes.

    The problem is, we think rock bottom is losing. It’s not, it’s losing money. And right now they still make gobs of it if Trump wins. They’ll take that trade every day.

      1. albrt

        Agree, but the way they set this up, the democrat operatives are going to have a hard sell to convince anybody they know what they are talking about if they lose tonight.

        Nobody ever said they were smart. Except them.

    2. LibrarianGuy

      It’s rock bottom for 80% of us.

      It’s great for the Elites, and lots of dumb white voters just vote right wing based on magical thinking.

      The Dems and elite pundits crashed it again. At least Joe “beat the Socialist” which is all they wanted to do. Thanks, Obama and all the Clintonite $%&@#s.

    2. edmondo

      New York Times now has Trump favored to win Florida, North Carolina and Georgia,

      Hillary must be in her bunker with a bottle of scotch and a big case of PTSD

          1. Samuel Conner

            If anything, it will appear that JB’s loss is more humiliating than HRC’s. I would imagine that would please the Clinton wing of the Party.

      2. anon y'mouse

        Hillary seems the kind of person who would instead have a bout of schaudenfreude and cackle “this is why they should have gone with me! i could have CRUSHED him this time!”

        didn’t she just write a long screed about how she was ‘born for the presidency’?

      3. Mo's Bike Shop

        I’ve got BBC, FOX, and NYT on reload. The states that NYT hasn’t called seem telling. When you hover.

      1. hoki haya

        i’d choose a clown over a robot any day. this will empower, i hope, a truer alternative in 2024.

  44. LibrarianGuy

    They are pissing their pants and blaming “Bernie Bros” and people who don’t like billionaires over at Daily Kos. I bet those right wing Libs at Lawyers Guns and Money are sad that their Messiah, shamblin’ Uncle Joe, failed as well.

    But they will learn nothing, as the Water Cooler sign-on says. They learned nothing from Hillary’s loss except “Russia Russia Russia”.

    1. METx

      It’s possible we’ll put “Russia Russia Russia” behind us after this and become “China China China”

      1. LibrarianGuy

        As long as we never grow up and take responsibility, we can all have these fine scapegoats to blame as the country falls to pieces. Woohoo!!

  45. Lee

    PBS discussing how Biden could have pandered better to Latinos. Lot’s of puzzlement that Dem position on immigration wasn’t more successful in winning their votes. Effing morons.

    2. Louis Fyne

      here’s a hint to the brain trust….lots of Latinos find it condescending and hate being deemed a brown person of color by (often lily white) politicians, activists, and academics!

      they’re Mexican/Colombian/Brazilian first. (just like someone named Joe Pesci would call himself Italian first)

      1. Basil Pesto

        I had assumed Brown referred to people with middle eastern ancestry. Perhaps even south Asians. I didn’t realise it included people of Iberian descent.

        I don’t get why, given that ‘yellow’ is offensive
        as a blanket description of people of east asian descent, ‘brown’ which is an identical form of descriptor, is somehow totally and unquestionably kosher. The people that use these labels are not very thoughtful.

  46. ChiGal in Carolina

    BBC presenter asking Biden surrogate tough questions: why can’t you win some of these states? you’re running against a very unpopular President who people think mishandled the pandemic, why aren’t you doing better?

    No good answer forthcoming, some bs about a racial reckoning.

    He’s not buying it: but demographics are on your side, why can’t you do better than this? Why?

    1. Jokerstein

      If that was the former mayor of Baltimore, I hear a WHOLE lot of excuses spewing forth. I think we may be in for another four years of TDS…

    2. Jason Boxman

      Indeed, we’ve been hearing about demographics being destiny for the Democrat Party for at least a decade now. Not sure when that’s going to bear fruit. Maybe it is? There will be much mining of exit polls and voting patterns in census tracks once this election concludes.

      Maybe we’ll get new soundbite names for different classes of voting patterns, again.

  47. John Emerson

    Just checking in but there’s been no unexpected good news so far.

    I do not admire or respect Biden and I expect him to do harm, but I don’t especially fear him. I fear Trump. In his second term he will be far worse than in his first.

    1. Phillip Allen

      There is no reason to fear Biden because there is no there there, as it were. TheBiden™ is a meat puppet placeholder being operated by a claque – likely a coalition of various Great Assimilation factions – and those people you should most absolutely fear, because they are the ones who will be running the show. This will be true when Harris is shunted into place as well. While it’s possible she might evidence some independent priorities of her own (apart of punching down on poor people and keeping as many in prison for a long as possible), her career to date has shown admirable fealty to the dictates of capital and a solicitous deference to those how might help advance her ambitions.

  49. Foy

    Seems CNN’s earlier “a buffet of paths to victory for Biden” is now evaporating. They haven’t learnt.

  50. jr

    About an hour back, National PMC Radio said BoBo Joe leads electorally but plenty of ground to cover yet…

      2. cocomaan

        Right? I’m in the wrong line of work. Also, Bloomberg spent incredible amounts of money in Florida. Send me some of that Bloomie $$$

  52. ObjectiveFunction

    …Exactly. And this is just the tip of the iceberg for what’s already unfolding across the global PMC ‘meritocracy’ as the marketplace figures out that their expertise is an *extremely* fungible commodity.

    Pithy corollaries follow:

    1. So if a 53 year old MBA symbolic analyst finds her/himself offshored and unemployed in their home office, does their LinkedIn make a sound? (I suspect their mortgage lender does after a while).

    2. Move over, deplorable precariat! there’s a (whiny) new cohort gonna be double parking in the Aldi and the DollarSave. (Until the X5 goes off warranty)

    3. Personal relationships and patronage was always what really mattered in PMC world, of course. You didn’t think it was actual ‘talent’, did you? But for those not already ‘branded’, how well can we really network and shmooze over Zoom?

    4. Rem facias, rem si possis, recte, si non, quocumque modo, rem (Horace)

    (Pope) Get wealth and place, if possible with grace; if not, by any means get wealth and place.

    5. But no matter, for the next few evenings, I intend to savor the sweet tears of unfathomable grief of my overwhelmingly TDS friends, and toast the slow painful unraveling of the Vast West Wing Conspiracy three times three!

  53. Sub-Boreal

    Concerned Canadian looking in: wondering how long it would take for plate tectonics to fit us in next-door to Australia and NZ.

    2. ObjectiveFunction

      A. Build a Big Beautiful Wall of pancake houses and Swiss Chalets, and make Amriki pay for it!

      B. Be like Israel in Lebanon and build yourself a buffer zone comprised of seceding US states. Maine, NH, Vermont, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Alaska. Don’t touch the West Coast or Florida though (It’s A Trap!(c). Make those other guys bring along Hawaii as a condition.

    3. Lee

      I looked into becoming a Canadian permanent resident. This is what I was told: If you have a rare skill or $2 million cash, you can move to Canada after the pandemic ends. And people complain about U.S. immigration limitations. I’m gonna start protesting at your border.

        1. Shiloh1

          Isn’t there a golf course in Maine that you can sneak in through? Theoretically. I wouldn’t know.

          1. ambrit

            Ask Lambert on the ‘down low.’ He ‘has’ a “walking tour” itinerary to get to asylum in Fredrickton I understand.

        2. ambrit

          I dunno there. I suspect that 90% plus of the American population could fit the qualifications for that status. (Does Canada recognize ‘economic persecution?’)

  54. chuck roast

    Halper & Tiabbi are killing it with their guests…Frank, Mate, Dore, Sirota…wait until the booze kicks in.

    2. Jason Boxman

      I don’t ever podcast, but I’ve been bouncing through the ones mentioned here, and I agree this is the best so far, by far. I really should go to bed though. Mostly this is just encouraging me to keep doing work for the office.

  55. ddt

    You know what would be funny? If Trump won the popular vote but lost the electoral college. Man that would be hilarious.

    My Trump voting friend has called it for Trump saying the Chinese yuan is tanking.

    1. Glen

      So Chinese junk gets cheaper for Walmart?

      And the Waltons just get richer?

      Big win for China and the billionaires.

  56. Biph

    At this point the best result would be a Trump win but narrower than last time say he gives back AZ and WI and GA ends up close enough that we get 2 GA senate runoff races where the Dems would have a better than normal chance to win and do, so we have a Dem congress and Trump executive. Worst case scenario Biden gets a close win but doesn’t get the Senate, no chance of dems winning the runoff(s) and we get endless hearings about Hunter Biden’s laptops.

    1. ObjectiveFunction

      Wait, have we entered the ‘bargaining’ phase of grieving already? That was quick!

      What now must we do to learn to stop worrying and love the Donald?

      1. Biph

        I preferred Biden to Trump but only if he took the Senate, without the Senate it’s better off with a fully divided govt. Whoever wins the country is going to be worse off but 4 years of nothing getting done with a Dem in the WH means a a smarter right winger will get all 3 branches of govt in 2024. With Trump in the WH it means having a chance of getting a left wing populist in the WH in 2024. I thought Biden would win by a similar margin as Obama in 2008 and get over 300 EVs, oh well.

  57. marym

    Georgia
    Fulton County – Mail-In ballots will not be counted until tomorrow due to a pipe burst at State Farm Arena…https://twitter.com/Georgia_NAACP/status/1323799988682608647

    Gwinnett County officials say a software issue is preventing them from processing as 80,000 mail-in ballots. https://www.wsbtv.com/news/politics/software-issue-gwinnett-county-delaying-up-80000-mail-in-ballots/66J4YIPG2NCH3JNCHRKCQOVVPE/

    Philadelphia
    Philadelphia officials say they will not be reporting any more mail ballot results tonight. About 76,000 have been tallied so far — out of 350,000-some received. https://twitter.com/hollyotterbein/status/1323820689598615553

    + assorted tweets about mail-in ballots still to be counted in MI/WI/PA, and a Republican legal challenge to provisional ballots in PA. No idea what impact is expected on final totals, but we’re such a dysfunctional country.

    1. Mason

      This was actually one of the worst case scenarios I thought of from a while back. I wanted who-ever would win the election to win by a clean margin. Looks like it will be close. The ‘wait until the mailed in ballots’ thing is a weaker excuse than I thought it would be.

      It’s all on Pennsylvania now and I can’t wait for em’. They’ll finish counting tomorrow right?

      It would be funny though if TX counts the absentees and it flips to Biden suddenly.

      1. cocomaan

        Nate Silver’s predictions incorporate the best of, the worst of, and all other possible worlds.

        He’s basically a televangelist.

        1. Louis Fyne

          Monte Carlo simulations and modeling work great when dealing with physical events, like the motion of a car.

          Not when you’re dealing with garbage polls. Garbage in, garbage out. And Nate just kept shoveling it out to the masses for months on end.

    2. Louis Fyne

      if it makes you feel any better, in 1 of the infinite universes out there…..Nate Silver apologized to the world for his mistake by making sweet love to a pig on national TV.

      1. albrt

        So you’re saying Nate Silver is really David Cameron? I can’t say I’ve ever seen them in the same room.

  59. Jeff N

    I’ve been playing with the 270 map and I have Trump at 250, with a win if he gets PA(20) or NV(6)+NC(15)

    per Lambert’s shades-of-blue map up above, “only some” [less than half?] of PA/NV ballots can be counted tonight? PA supposedly already 44% counted.

    1. Mason

      Look at the BBC map of Pennsylvania, rural counties have finished tallying votes at 80+%. Urban areas are still at around 20%.

      1. Louis Fyne

        The NY Post is using the same data feed as Reuters. So the data definitely is not right-wing while it’s posted on a right-leaning site.

      2. Foy

        Whats the story with Virginia? All the sites I look at have it as a Biden win still but Trump is up 2.0%?

        2. Biph

          Did some snooping, VA counts all absentee/mail in ballots for the state as 1 precinct and that precinct had 1.7 million ballots plus it seems those ballots are being counted last.

  60. John Chemist

    Well, the bright side if Trump wins is that both the Republicans (who actually, on the whole, dislike Trump as crass and boorish) and the corporate Dems (who, well, dislike anyone without a liberal arts degree – i.e. most Americans) will be in disarray. This opens a chance for the People’s Party in 2024 who could win big on their very simple platform – Medicare for all, 15 dollar minimum wage, free public college, and taxing the obscenely rich. If Biden wins, running a third party candidate left of Attila the Hun in 2024 would be vilified (which they’ll do anyway, but it will stick more if they’re running against an incumbent Democrat). If Biden loses, then the corporate neo-liberal Dems will have difficulty coming up with excuses – A Russian dog ate their homework? – and a third party candidate could actually make an impact.

    1. Donald

      Magical thinking. Bernie lost to Biden. People who are smug about the Democrats losing might want to remember that they beat Sanders.

      2. ambrit

        Hmmm…. In certain points of view, “stabbed in the back” could be parsed simply as “won.” I’ll be interested to see the later figures on turn-out for the more left leaning demographics. Biden could well lose simply because he gave the working class nothing to get enthused about, and so they stayed home, or voted Trump, on election day.

      3. Late Introvert

        People who are smug about Biden beating Sanders might want to remember that the DemRats cheated Bernie.

        They would rather lose to Trump then win with Bernie in a landslide. And I would prefer that as well

      5. Darius

        Boss Obama pulled a deus ex machina and got Pete and Klobuchar to pull out and endorse Biden just before Super Tuesday. Media swooned, gave Biden $100 million in free media. Brunch liberals fell in line.

      6. Jonathan Holland Becnel

        Uh huh. Rigggggghhhhhttttt

        Not like Klob and Mayo dropped out days before Super Tuesday and Pocahontas stayed in to siphon votes from Bernie.

    2. Louis Fyne

      ID politics will destroy your People’s Party before Day 1. AOC will be the defacto head of the Democratic Party and she (or someone like her) will turn up the ID politics to 11.

      You thought the DNC looked down on the bottom half of white America now? wait til the cameras show Trump’s smug face at his victory party. (and now the DNC will add in Cuban-Americans to the lot)

      Sorry to be a pessimist. Just a realist. Hope I’m wrong

      1. Aumua

        AOC will be the defacto head of the Democratic Party

        HA. That would be great, but alas! It is nothing but a hard right fever dream. A little boogie man, meant to rile up their faithful. It’s the same tactic as calling Biden or Pelosi Socialists.

    3. richard

      i’m certainly putting what little political hope i have left in the People’s Party. my first encounters w/ it have been sitting in on national calls and watching their convention, and i’m pretty impressed. i don’t get ANY sense of incipient idpol with them, or diversions, and i only mention bc another commenter predicted such a slide, and i have a keen ear for that and can report nothing of the sort. so far.

  61. Duck1

    Boy that electoral college is undemocratic
    Maybe somebody should amend the constitution
    (but hey, let’s not fuck with the filibuster, gotta reach across the aisle, so much fun)
    Things for democrats to cry themselves to sleep with

        1. Jonathan Holland Becnel

          Just smoked a nice Strawberry Lemon Sativa :-)

          Very, very, very happy the Democrat Establishment will prolly lose.

          Revenge of the Berners.

  63. bun

    where are people getting their results from? I’ve been looking at WSJ, CNN, NYT, etc and they all seem to be giving slightly different outlooks. Is there a ‘best site’ to check out?

    curious that NYT shows Trump up by 400,000 in Florida with ~94% counted and they say its too close to call. really?

    1. albrt

      They don’t want to take a chance on showing Trump ahead at some point in the evening because he will take a screen shot and declare victory.

      I literally think that is the thought process.

    2. bun

      also NYT and WSJ show Biden haven taken Virginia, BUT Trump is leading in the popular vote?

      what am I missing? is Va traditionally Dem?

      1. Biph

        Northern VA always comes in late and big for Dems, same thing happened in 2016, HRC was down most of the night went ahead by 2% late ED night/early ED+1 morning ended up winning the state by 6.

      2. NotTimothyGeithner

        The last GOP statewide winner was in 2009 for Gov, Lt Gov, and Ag (Virginia has off year elections), and Obama and Warner won in 2008 with Webb winning in 2006.

        in 2009, there was a fierce primary, Obama rolled up OFA and so forth, even doing healthcare events poaching volunteers while we were trying to win, and Deeds, the Team Blue nominee, pulled a Kerry and lost his mind during the general. He tried to replicate his primary win, but his campaign manager, who’s name escapes me, had terrible ideas about turnout. The state party was/is a complete basket case.

        Virginia (the meta entity) also likes a fair amount of “nice”. The GOP is really Teabagger crazy by and large which is not Virginia “nice”.

    3. Louis Fyne

      reuters.com Click through to the data map.

      No fluff, just data, a self-updating map and relevant commentary

  64. albrt

    I honestly don’t know why anyone would think Donald Trump is a good president, but it has been empirically demonstrated that a lot of people do.

    You can’t beat something with nothing, and Joe Biden is the stumbling, bumbling epitome of nothing.

    There is no prospect of anything improving in the United States, no matter the outcome tonight.

    In the past I have assumed that I would need to find a job abroad to emigrate, but tonight I’m thinking that maybe I’m finally old enough to cash out everything and hope the wife and I can get admitted somewhere decent on bank balance alone.

      1. albrt

        Wealthy people go wherever they want.

        I am not wealthy, but if I cashed out everything including the family home before the real estate markets tank, I would have a six figure balance that might get me into a country in the relatively more stable range of the developing world.

        1. WhoaMolly

          Canada was running about 400K-ish last time i looked. Few years ago.

          With US passport you could live there 6 months before having to leave.. (Pre virus and political insanity).

          Hawaii is remote and pleasant but you essentially have to bring your own job.

          1. albrt

            Yeah, it’s about the same in most of the decent countries, and it keeps going up so it’s always a cool $100K or so out of my reach. And nobody actually wants a middle aged American lawyer, so I am not going to get the benefit of any close calls.

      2. Louis Fyne

        pre-covid, NZ was the easiest.

        Ireland if you have documented (fairly recent) Irish ancestry.

        Spain if you buy some property.

        IIRC, Canada is actually pretty tough to get in. Australia too.

        Post-covid…probably some of the countries the Caribbean, like Dominica (not Dominican Republic), until NZ, Ireland etc. resume pre-covid migration policies.

        I’d assume Latin America has the best bang for each buck. Guessing Uruguay, Costa Rica, even Paraguay might be the best bets???

        On a budget, you’re actually probably just better off living in small town America that has a libertarian (or progressive) tilt.

        1. albrt

          I currently have a foot in the small town midwest and a foot In Maricopa County, which voted more rationally than most places. Maybe I can stick it out here and maybe not.

          The ancestry thing is great if you’ve got it. My best hope would be to lean hard on adopted Hungarian ancestry and try to get in tight with Viktor Orban.

          Hmmm. Maybe not.

        2. Yves Smith

          Countries in SE Asia good too if you can take the climate. Malaysia and Thailand get good expat marks and I believe pretty affordable retirement visas.

          Greece is apparently a relatively affordable way to get into the EU if you buy property. I think 200,000 or 225,000 euros. Not cheap but cheaper than Canada.

      1. Lambert Strether Post author

        > SE Asia is there for the taking, once you get vaccinated of course.

        Everything is up in the air until Covid is either defeated or normalized. One way or another, I think all these countries would like the foreign exchange. All are do-able for a non-rich person; $400K would be ample. As far as vaccination, Laos and Cambodia, also the cheapest, most definitely. Thailand has world-class health system, including public health. Malaysia is said to be good. Vietnam’s health care system is not as good as Thailand’s. English and general cultural competence at dealing with foreigners is greatest in Thailand, from tourism. All these countries have what John LeCarré called tiresome bureaucratic obstacles, and ways to clear them.

        1. Basil Pesto

          I thought it interesting that, just as the shit was first hitting the fan in March, Steve Keen had a look around and decided that Thailand was the place to be, and his judgement, it seems, was superb (I don’t know why he ruled out the motherland, I’m very glad to be here from a covid point of view)

  65. barrisj

    Commenters on Sam Wang’s Princeton Consortium site are well abusing polling in general, but some are suggesting vote hacking(!) as an explanation for two straight buggerized polling v actual results:

    https://election.princeton.edu/

    At this point, I’ll accept any explanation for tonight’s debâcle.

  66. hoki haya

    love to you all, and i’m saddened by trhe result, tho i do prefer a carnival barker to a robot.

    please urge your Reps & Sens to acknowledge Artsakh’s right to self-determination.

  67. cocomaan

    The possibility of the Republicans keeping the senate is probably a bigger deal than the presidency. That’s another presidential term of no D judicial appointments and no D agenda being passed.

  68. ChrisPacific

    PA and Wisconsin are both closer than they look, and could well go for Biden. Drill down to the county level races. The urban centers (Milwaukee, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh) are way behind on vote counts compared to the rural ones, and swing heavily for Biden. So as counts catch up we should see Biden gain ground there. Anybody’s guess whether it will be enough though.

    I think we are headed to the courts.

    2. ambrit

      So much for using the ballot box to advance a strong workers rights agenda. Now we come to the time of ‘direct action’ and uncivil disobedience.

  70. Lee

    I don’t understand why AP hasn’t called Florida for Trump. With 98% reported there don’t seem to be enough votes left for Biden to catch up.

    1. Lee

      AP reporting of total vote percentage went from 98% in Florida to 96%. Evidently the turnout is turning out to be higher than they previously estimated.

    1. albrt

      I voted for Bernie in the primary, but I’m not sure he would have won. 2020 was 4 years late for him.

      But I do think that somebody who stood for something could have won easily. Joe Biden is nobody who stands for nothing.

      1. richard

        bernie’s ideas would have crushed trump like a paper cup
        bernie himself isn’t prepared to win anything, so goodbye bernie
        but to the ideas i say well hello sailor

    2. Late Introvert

      DemRats prefer to lose to Trump than that horrific outcome.

      Sorry to be a broken record. My neighbors have a yard sign that says “Presidents are temporary. Wutang is Forever.”

    3. anon in so cal

      Bernie probably would have won 2016. Not clear about 2020. AOC surely helped him win a lot of primaries (before she dumped him over the LGBT remark?). And, yes, in 2020, the DNC and Obama sandbagged him, again, throughout the primaries, and especially before Super Tuesday. But would open borders really resonate in the midwest? Is it really reconcilable with MedicareForAll, MMT, notwithstanding?

      For some of us, it would be a relief to see Biden lose. He deserves to. He’s a cruel, corrupt war profiteer.

      Some Biden supporters talked about “pulling Biden left.” Would they try that with Trump? Trump is already to the left of Biden on some key issues. Seems more feasible. Protecting the Tsongass should be priority, and pardoning Julian Assange.

        1. Big tap

          In 2016 he was against open borders. In 2020 he was much closer to the open borders position which killed him the the middle/ rocky west of the country. The so called “white states” there that voted for him in 2016 didn’t in 2020

      2. Aumua

        Methinks the U.S. is about to veer toward the the hard right, so if you’re a leftist of any genuine stripe here then I recommend getting ready to blend in as best you can.

        1. flora

          If Biden loses I see the Dems ready to claim that T’s charge against Biden as “too socialist” was the problem. So, I’d expect the Dem estab to move even farther to the right. (Never mind that the charge is ridiculous.)

          1. Aumua

            It’s all part of a larger strategy by the right… a deliberate, planned out path to suppress the (actual) left. The liberals/dems are just pawns in this larger game, and willing pawns at that.

      3. Dan

        The real issue is that the Democrats seem incapable of finding a candidate with national appeal who is also under 70 years old. If Trump wins, it will have the benefit of clearing the field of the aged & infirm for 2024.

    4. RMO

      Lambert: I think Bernie would have won – 2016 and 2020 as well. Something to reflect on is how well Trump is doing against Biden even with the unexpected arrival of a pandemic that he made a right pig’s ear of. Without Covid I bet that he would win easily against Biden.

  73. JWP

    Psyclobin and decriminalizing all drugs in oregon and pre-k for all in Portland have passed. Good night for drugs and progressive local policies (minus prop-22).

  74. richard

    nice
    the same week the kid drops flower (quits smoking weed), he has the opportunity to pick up a fungi
    can’t hurt my lungs, right?

        1. The Rev Kev

          Thanks for that. Still feel uneasy about this aspect of calling elections. Didn’t Buttigieg call Ohio before they had started counting votes – and the media went totally along with it?

          1. Brunches with Cats

            The AP doesn’t use any of this kind of speculation in its decisions to call a race. They definitely don’t listen to the candidates. Networks like to “project” winners, but AP doesn’t project. They call a race only when the numbers support it. Not sure if it was in the FAQ at above link, but AP has correspondents on the ground everywhere, so they are getting their numbers directly from ballot-counting sites. At least, that’s how they’ve always done it. What network projects what is immaterial.

          2. Basil Pesto

            It’s a bit different for various reasons. Iowa was a caucus, not a ballot; a primary of a political party has much less scrutiny, and is a less rigorous and impartial process, than a government election. It’s also the first part of an ongoing campaign – you can’t really bullshit the call of ballots for government that are going to be counted regardless of your call (Florida 2000 might give the lie to this, but AP point out they didn’t call Florida in 2000 bc they were uncertain); Buttigieg’s campaign claimed the victory, not a newswire (even if many news outlets uncritically accepted his claim).

            AP’s methodology seems sound, and their track record for presidential elections (as far as I can tell) is unblemished.

            1. The Rev Kev

              Thanks. They seem pretty thorough. I see on that page that Mitch McConnell made it over the line. Shame that. I see too that Nancy Pelosi won – after the media blackout on her opponent the past coupla months.

              1. Brunches with Cats

                You’re very welcome, Rev.

                As for Pelosi and McConnell, there’s only one way to eradicate a zombie. To his credit, Wolf did nearly succeed in melting her.

  76. Shiloh1

    Since we’ve all had a few drinks and are whiling away the time, what was in those envelops in the church books at Poppy’s funeral 2 years ago? Pence, Biden, Hillary, W, Jeb! But not Jimmy.

  77. Hal

    Went to Politico, the best website for election coverage, probabilties etc.

    Clicked on the Predential race tab, got a message:

    “An unexpected error just occurred”

    —Like Trump is winning!

    3. flora

      eh, Biden gave a sort of Victory speech outdoors on a stage with flags and some supporters and honking car horns a little while ago; news channel broadcast a snippet of it. I thought: why the heck is giving a victory speech now?

      1. albrt

        Because he started sundowning around 6:00 pm even with the extra meds, and he couldn’t have stayed up much later.

  79. Redlife2017

    The NYTimes thinks Biden might squeak in a win in Georgia. Which is fascinating. That’s going to be awful close.

    And in twitter news, Trump tweets that Biden is trying to steal the election. I wonder if he’s set up some auto-tweets like that…

    1. ChrisAtRU

      We have a delicate equilibrium of sorts …

      Biden is pulling out the desert southwest victories he needs for “Squeaky By With 270” scenario.

      However, Wisconsin is looking shaky.

      Trump was looking to fulfill his part of the bargain and maybe keep Wisconsin, but Georgia has a lot of outstanding urban votes and Biden might win. If Biden wins GA, then he doesn’t need WI. It’s as simple as that, and any counts outstanding in PA won’t matter.

      1. Brunches with Cats

        LOL. The one they objected to was his being “up BIG” but other side was trying to steal the election.

  81. Dan

    At this point (2am EST) I’m having a hard time seeing how Biden pulls this one off. There will be virtual ties in a couple states that will be heavily litigated, and we all know that the Repubs are better organized and more motivated in that kind of fight. Trump’s base was seriously motivated to turn out, but Biden – well, who here is inspired by Biden? I’d be happy to wake up wrong, but I doubt that I will.

      1. Aumua

        Well looking at the numbers from MI and WI, I think Silver may be manifesting the first stage of grief.

  84. The Rev Kev

    Trump right now is giving a speech in DC thanking the American people and saying that they are winning while giving figures for different States. Saying he is going to the Supreme Court to stop more votes being accepted after the cut-off time. The media is definitely not happy with him.

    1. Another Scott

      It’s in amazing contrast to how they covered the Iowa caucuses. It’s almost as if they fit the narrative to their favored candidate.

      1. Lambert Strether Post author

        Remember when Mayo Pete declared victory when the official vote count was zero (0)? Good times. Funny to see Trump using the same strategy (except more loudly and crudely).

    2. marym

      There’s no such thing as the cut-off time. There are ballots which have been received but not counted, and ballots still in the mail (states have different rules about post-mark dates and how long after Election Day they can be accepted). Also, states have rules about when mail ballot counting can start (before or after in-person votes are counted).

      Also, Fox called AZ for Biden (I don’t think any other media has) and the Trump administration is supposedly upset, because…. they’re still. counting?

      Republicans don’t think ballots should be cast or counted unless it’s for them. Federal law gives the states up until 6 days before the meeting of the electors to count the votes. June 25, 1948, ch. 644, 62 Stat. 673.
      https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/3/5

      1. The Rev Kev

        Should have been more clear. He wants new votes not to be accepted in the same that way that back in 2000 the Supreme Court stepped in to have all counting stopped. He said he doesn’t want a load of new votes being found at four in the morning that will tip an election to Biden. He is calling fraud as he was winning and then suddenly it all slowed down. Gunna get messy in the next coupla days.

        2. marym

          Adding: I’ve seen tweets saying it was Republican legislatures in WI, PA, and MI who made the current rules that mail ballots can’t be counted earlier.

          IANAL and can’t speak with authority about the 2000 decision (and I doubt Trump can either), but it wasn’t supposed to be precedent, was related to a recount, and is hardly a proud moment in our electoral history. However, Kavanaugh invoked it recently in a concurrence for another voter suppression effort. And Trump has been saying for weeks that he needs the Supreme Court to elect him.

          So it’s all of a piece and it’s all about disenfranchisement and it’s shameful and lawless.

        3. Roger Smith

          In typical Trump fashion there is a foundation of reality there. Why are there reports of these states taking breaks and stopping counting for the night? He’s attempting to leverage the ineptitue of our electoral process whereas the likewise selfish Democrats are banking on it.

          1. marym

            Completing the count, recounts when needed, and certifying the vote count always extend beyond election night.

      2. Lambert Strether Post author

        > There’s no such thing as the cut-off time. There are ballots which have been received but not counted, and ballots still in the mail (states have different rules about post-mark dates and how long after Election Day they can be accepted). Also, states have rules about when mail ballot counting can start (before or after in-person votes are counted).

        All quite right (and should have been fixed long ago, but here we are.)

        On ch. 644, 62 Stat. 673, here is the text:

        If any State shall have provided, by laws enacted prior to the day fixed for the appointment of the electors, for its final determination of any controversy or contest concerning the appointment of all or any of the electors of such State, by judicial or other methods or procedures, and such determination shall have been made at least six days before the time fixed for the meeting of the electors, such determination made pursuant to such law so existing on said day, and made at least six days prior to said time of meeting of the electors, shall be conclusive, and shall govern in the counting of the electoral votes as provided in the Constitution, and as hereinafter regulated, so far as the ascertainment of the electors appointed by such State is concerned.

        I’m having a hard time parsing this. I don’t think this is counting the votes per se, but resolving court cases about the counts. But perhaps a lawyer can clarify.

        1. marym

          Maybe I’m wrong on that law. But there’s no “cut-off” date or time. Even if we had a more rational and uniform system, the cut-off wouldn’t be election night (or “when Trump is winning a state”).

          Maybe Trump the tv watcher thinks media calling an election is definitive, but even then sometimes they hold off when there’s further counting, or recounts to be done. He didn’t want them to call AZ.

          1. Lambert Strether Post author

            > there’s no “cut-off” date or time. Even if we had a more rational and uniform system, the cut-off wouldn’t be election night

            Yep. Although as the Times says in its now-deleted Tweet, the press has trained people to believe just that. After all, what’s a “horse race” when the horses all cross the finish line at different times?

          2. Yves Smith

            Trump is just sputtering. State law in each state governs. No basis for the Supreme Court taking a case related to any state unless Trump can argue violations of existing statute (and any relevant case law in that state) in that state.

            Just about zero odds of SCOTUS taking a case the way Trump is arguing it.

    3. Lambert Strether Post author

      I wonder if the Election Integrity Project (NC here; here) has been gaming this out:

      “How the Media Could Get the Election Story Wrong” [New York Times]. “[A] group of former top government officials called the Transition Integrity Project actually gamed four possible scenarios, including one that doesn’t look that different from 2016: a big popular win for Mr. Biden, and a narrow electoral defeat, presumably reached after weeks of counting the votes in Pennsylvania. For their war game, they cast John Podesta, who was Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, in the role of Mr. Biden. They expected him, when the votes came in, to concede, just as Mrs. Clinton had. But Mr. Podesta, playing Mr. Biden, shocked the organizers by saying he felt his party wouldn’t let him concede. Alleging voter suppression, he persuaded the governors of Wisconsin and Michigan to send pro-Biden electors to the Electoral College. In that scenario, California, Oregon, and Washington then threatened to secede from the United States if Mr. Trump took office as planned. The House named Mr. Biden president; the Senate and White House stuck with Mr. Trump. At that point in the scenario, the nation stopped looking to the media for cues, and waited to see what the military would do.” • Oh. The name “Transition Integrity Project” reminds me forcibly of Nelson Algren’s advice: “Never eat at a place called Mom’s.”

    4. Lambert Strether Post author

      > Saying he is going to the Supreme Court to stop more votes being accepted after the cut-off time.

      Asian Nikkei Review:

      2:25 a.m. Trump speaks off the cuff at the White House, telling supporters to get ready for a celebration and claiming that he’s won states that have not yet been called, including Georgia and North Carolina. “This is a fraud on the American public,” he says of delays in declaring the winner.

      “As far as I’m concerned, we already have won,” Trump says.

      “We’ll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop. We don’t want them to find any ballots at 4 a.m. in the morning and add them to the list.”

      I can understand a roach on a wedding cake, but this guy… He brings the roach with him, and puts it on the wedding case himself. Trump is doing miraculously well, and… now this.

      1) I think Roberts cares about the institutional integrity of the Court. He might be able to thread the needle with an ObamaCare-like decision, but the safest course for him, especially if he wants to drink a cocktail in Georgetown ever again, is to refuse the case (deferring to state election law, for example).

      2) There’s no such thing as national cut-off point (and in particular, not one called by the press or a political party). I don’t think Trump has a theory of the case (though granted, in Bush v. Gore, Scalia IRRC urged that Bush was the one injured by lack of closure, which was… novel). Unless Trump has already managed to wire it up (but see point #1) I think this if puffery and he doesn’t have a leg to stand on.

      3) Of course, as we all know from Democrat primaries, Democrats have fraud capability and desire. But Trump can’t urge that the election turns into a pumpkin at midnight for that reason.

    5. Aumua

      Heheh seems like all he might have to do here is cruise to victory, but he just. can’t. help himself. He has to push it, cause that’s the way he knows how to deal with life, by pushing his way through.

      He’s also probably a bit paranoid, and I can’t say I blame him for that.

      1. Lambert Strether Post author

        > cause that’s the way he knows how to deal with life, by pushing his way through

        I hate to psychologize, but I think Aaron Maté’s psychologist father would say something like Trump has a monkey on his back, and the monkey is Trump’s horrid father, Fred. Trump tells Fred: “I’m a winner!” Fred, digging his monkey feet into Trump’s back, says: “You’re a fraud!” Trump enacts both parts in his own person, over and over again.

  85. Lambert Strether Post author

    Here’s a 270toWin link to the current ABC results (I’m 5 off for Biden and I can’t see where; it’s late, and I haven’t even been drinking.

    It’s the interactive map, so if you want to play around with paths to victory, have at it.

      1. Lambert Strether Post author

        Playing around, here’s an entirely plausible path to victory for Biden that does not involve PA:

        AZ (now called for Biden), ME, WI, HI, MI and NC. Sadly, only HI will have almost all of its votes counted on election night.

  86. The Rev Kev

    What if Russia, Iran, China, Cuba and North Korea mess with people and come out to say that they recognize Donald Trump as President of the United States?

        1. Ook

          If I were in charge of either Russia or China, I’d be sorely tempted right about now to declare Hillary Clinton the real President and call for demonstrations and a general strike.

  87. Morpheus

    Perhaps I am hopelessly naive, but I don’t think the courts are going to intervene to limit counting or exclude votes the states deem legitimate. It feels like the entire voting process has gone more smoothly than expected, and the results are unbelievably close for the Electoral College (again!). I think an intervention by the courts now would be seen as completely illegitimate, not only in the US, but overseas as well. I am an American living in Spain, and my Spanish friends have been messaging me practically all night. The whole world is watching indeed.

  89. Your man in Japan

    IMHO, anything less than a landslide for Biden is a victory for Trump.

    I must admit, a part of me wants Trump to win, if only to completely de-legitimize the right-center/neoliberal/corporate brand of politics that the Democrat party keeps foisting upon us. If that happens, though, it will certainly mean plenty of short-term pain for all of us 99%ers.

  90. Eustache de Saint Pierre

    Boy oh boy – things appear to just keep getting more horribly interesting – something approaching hysteria over here in Limeyland on TV mainstream media according to my partner – goodness or badness knows what it is & will be like for you guys.

    Good luck.

  92. Tomonthebeach

    Short of the 2nd Coming, it is hard to see how Biden has a prayer of winning. The Senate will remain GOP too. Put simply, DNC blew it again.

    In essence, Trump just sent DNC a “You’re Fired!” They have blon two elections in a row with terrible candidates hand-pocked by Wall Street toadies.

    1. Lambert Strether Post author

      > Short of the 2nd Coming, it is hard to see how Biden has a prayer of winning

      I disagree. I just posted a perfectly plausible path to victory for Biden. What is hard to see is how any liberal Democrat pollster, pundit, or strategist should be trusted ever again. In fact, none of them should have jobs. Of course, they all will.

      1. WillyBgood

        Thanks for that. Looks like it’s going to take awhile with lots of jawboning (cya’ing) before this is over.

  93. BlueMoose

    My scenario. Trump wins but as others have pointed out he doesn’t really want to be president. But he doesn’t like to lose either. So, a month or 2 into his second term he announces that he is stepping down to ‘pursue other interests’ and is leaving the US in the good hands of his loyal friend Pence. In the fade-away scene at the end of the movie we see Trump jetting down to Florida for some golf, eating some fast food and laughing about his parting gift to the Dems.

  99. Lambert Strether Post author

    From 538, states that will still be counting and when they expect to finish.

    Wisconsin: semi-final results around 6 a.m. Eastern.

    Georgia: The afternoon.

    Michigan: Wednesday night.

    Pennsylvania: Friday

    North Carolina: Over a week.

    Maine: Anyone’s guess.

  100. TBellT

    Wow – Two prez elections in a row I’ve trusted the pollsters (they said they corrected their models!) and my mom was like “I don’t know I think he could win, I don’t understand how but I think he’s going to win”… From now on going to be listening to mom logic.

    2. Terry Flynn

      Yep. The pollsters have never been forced to face the Kuhnian issue that their underlying paradigm is no longer for for purpose.. .. So they continually tweak things, but are always (re)fighting the last war. The fundamental problem is that in this day and age a voter is in “n-dimensional space” – let’s just imagine 3 dimensions since our monkey brains can’t really easily go beyond that easily! So there’s (for simplicity) “social conservatism”, “economic conservatism” and “attitudes to trade” as our x, y and z axes.

      Our voter has a mean and a variance in each dimension. If we knew these we could predict how current events would “affect the final aggregation process”- i.e. Their vote.The trouble is any previous election or poll only gives us a discrete answer (usually of two – Democrat or Republican). Since the 1980s we have known that even giving (say) 10 hypothetical different “universes” where we mess with economic/social /trade issues we STILL can’t separate mean and variance.7 out of 10 times voting Democrat could indicate “mean effect” (this person is somewhat of a tribal Democrat) or “variance effect” (could be ultimate swing voter but a bunch of unobserved random ish factors tended to cause Democrat voting)

      Turns out you CANNOT aggregate across these two types of voter without first adjusting for their different variances. So more complex polling (preferably coupled with data from other sources) must be done to first establish their “type” before you can aggregate…. Much less predict. YouGov were on the right lines in 2017 UK General election but their “secondary data source” was a bit duff and so didn’t work well in 2019…..so they’ll probably abandon the approach which is a pity.

    3. Krystyn Podgajski

      I read too much news and media and twitter this election and it screwed with my intuition. No more. Done. I was barely using the internet in 2016.

      Looks like my vote did not matter as well, and everyone was yelling at me to vote for Biden and not 3rd party because they know me. While marking my ballot I was hovering over the Green Party for quite a while. My mistake again for having too much empathy and being foolish enough to think I could govern the world.

      By the way, the democrats did horribly in NC and lost so much control via the House and Supreme Court. This is way more important than the election. Then you have Oregon literally legalizing everything and Florida raising the minimum wage to $15/hour? Ha! Democrats are idiots. Bernie would have owned the Socialism label and helped people understand it instead of Biden running from it like a coward.

  101. Alex morfesis

    Milwaukee’s election official on CNN just called it an unofficial wrap and Biden is up by about 10,000 votes in Wisconsin… although…there are still some smaller counties which lean red with a small chance to close the gap…and there are probably provisional ballots that apparently won’t get dealt with until Friday…

    1. Yves Smith

      I may be hallucinating, but I dimly recall that WI is a state where you don’t even have to mount a real challenge, candidates have an automatic right to a recount if the result is within a certain margin, something like 0.5%. If my memory is right, this will qualify.

      2. Biph

        I think it was 1%, but Walker and the GOP changed it to .25% it would be kind of funny if that costs the GOP here.

    1. saffa

      *correction, Dems ‘expected to win the house’ whatever that means which is less than nothing. So my bad

  103. WillyBgood

    San Francisco is boarded up and my place of employment is telling us it’s ok not to show up for work tomorrow. I guess they expect violent Trumpers? My text from work stated bridges will be blocked. Where do they get this info? But, a day off is a day off, even if unpaid :)

    1. Yves Smith

      If anyone is going to be demonstrating in cities anything beyond trivial numbers, it’s Resistance types.

      From comments on Links yesterday:

      edmondo
      So they are boarding up the windows in Washington DC because all three Trump supporters who live there might attack the other 800,000 residents?

      km
      There are three now? Did one of them have a baby or something?

      Pelham
      Good point. The same in other heavily Democrat cities, with mayors solemnly warning of the danger posed by disgruntled white supremacists. As someone else has noted, the left’s demand for white supremacists far exceeds the supply

      .

      1. Brunches with Cats

        As of Monday, the “Protect the Results” umbrella group (yes, “Resistance types”) had 472 protests planned nationwide. Here’s their interactive map:
        https://protecttheresults.com

        Lambert thinks this is just street theater, but when you have that many people, cops ready to drag them off in handcuffs, bad actors hanging out in case of opportunities for looting, and in general groups of angry people, outraged that the other side is trying to “cheat” them out of an election they believe is the last thing standing between democracy and dictatorship, is it so hard to imagine how cute blonde Amber in her pink pussy hat turns into a “rioter?”

        1. Yves Smith

          We are on the same page. It is typical of the liberal “othering” is that it’s those potbellied men with bad hair and tattoos who will wreck property, when in cities, it looks like it’s their allies that will do that.

      2. Brunches with Cats

        Adding, organizers said they would mobilize if Trump:
        — Declared victory before all votes were counted.
        — Went to court to stop the count.
        — Accused the Biden campaign of rigging the results or trying to steal the election.
        — Refused to concede.

        By my count, he’s done three out of four. And last time I checked, there were 472 events that could be activated starting today. FWIW, the umbrella resistance group cautioned volunteers not to go anywhere near the polls yesterday and not to start and activist event after dark. So I guess we’ll find out how well they stick to their commitment to non-violence.

  104. Ella

    I just woke up (630ish eastern). I avoided all news until now (actually spent evening watching some good tv, which was long overdue).

    My instinct tells me Trump’s got this. The only way (IMHO) that Biden would be in the White House in 2021 is if we woke up this morning to a landslide. And quite frankly, I’m so sick of these “close” races. It feels like reality TV.

    I know there are “paths’ to winning for Biden, even if PA goes to Trump, etc. etc. but my thought is that Trump will NEVER let that happen (ie, legal actions to prevent it).

    I feared this would happen but also was prepared.

    I also think it’s important to say that living in the US, even if Biden wins, does it really matter? Not even from the perspective of politics and what happens in the White House but from the perspective of society. While I do not want 4 more years of Trump, if Biden is president, it doesn’t change the fact that 50% of the country believed in Trump. That’s our society, that’s our culture. That’s the issue I see for me and my family, regardless of who is in charge.

    Would love to hear other people’s perspectives. I’m sad this morning :(

    1. Noone from Nowheresville

      Mid-season mini-series! This could suck up the oxygen for quite a while. The question is how many episodes will we get? And, yes, the whole debacle has been semi-scripted reality TV for me since before Trump was elected in 2016. That’s not an accident.

      It’s hard to say what 300 plus million people believe, especially those who are not part of the voting circus.

      Don’t scapegoat whatever side you don’t agree with. Most likely austerity is coming, the CARES Act will begin to show us exactly how big of a turnip we got for what they gave away on our behalf.

      A significant minority of the bottom 80% will need to come together in unexpected ways to build a real resistance if we have any chance of mitigating the next go round. Part of the job of the mini-series will be to keep us focused on the “shiny” and further drive the wedges in which divide us. That’s true regardless of whether Trump or Biden is declared the winner.

      The longer the show drags on, the harder actual people and local / regional governments / businesses will get hit and the more time the grifters have to establish their grifts.

    2. a different chris

      Yeah I feel the same way, except I’m not sure Trump has “got this”. We, and the planet, are screwed regardless of who wins because it is so close Biden, who wasn’t going to do much at all if he wins, now won’t do anything.

      At least this gave me a smile:

      >New Mexico’s Xochitl Torres Small lost to Republican Yvette Herrell.

      Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican all the time – Harry Truman

    3. Acacia

      I had the same feeling of “Trump’s got this”, but look where things stand as of now…

      First, of all the states still at play, results from three of them will take more time. Latest I heard is that NC could take over a week to sort out, MI on Friday, and MI on Weds night. That leaves NV, AK, WI, and GA.

      Let’s assume Trump gets AK. He then still needs 54 electoral votes. That means he needs to win four out of WI, MI, PA, NC, and GA. By contrast, Biden could get 270 with NV, WI, and GA.

      The path to a Biden victory is shorter, and doesn’t involve waiting on results from the states that will take longer to count them.

      Of course, and as you point out, this goes out the window if Trump’s campaign takes some sort of legal action.

    4. Basil Pesto

      I know there are “paths’ to winning for Biden, even if PA goes to Trump, etc. etc. but my thought is that Trump will NEVER let that happen (ie, legal actions to prevent it).

      Well, he might try, but it’s ultimately not up to him. If he gives the impression of having put up a fight, I think that’ll ultimatey be enough for him. What reason could he, political dilettante/idiot savant with a previously fabulous lifestyle and considerable power with a fraction of the scrutiny, possibly have to stick around?

      As for your compatriots, try not to hold it overmuch against them. Try to find the common ground which I’m certain exists between you. I don’t mean you should strive for the ‘unity’ cliché of politicians, which is disempowering and useless (politics is division by definition), but rather something closer to solidarity, which is more useful I think.

      This might be a good place to start

      1. Amfortas the hippie

        my forthcoming letter to the editor* of my little local paper will necessarily include these numbers.
        everybody knows by now, out here(my proverbial Feedstore), that i despise both parties, and am an evangelist for localism/autarky.that was going to be my focus regardless of who won what.
        the difference(sic) between the two procorporate, neofeudalist parties, for me, is mainly about tone and rhetoric, as well as—to be fair—the size of the crumbs that fall from the big table onto the little people.
        but even if the dems win a trifecta, the sawtooth decline out here will continue apace.
        my focus, either way, will be on ramping up the food production, continuing to work on the infrastructure(triple redundancy is ideal, but double will do…re: water, power, etc), and maintaining my status as local guru for sustainability, extreme recycling/re-use, and a secular, if somewhat mystical, prophet of doom.
        i find trump exhausting, of course…..but if the dems lose to him again….like someone said last night….it may finally break the fever enough that a third party/new party has a chance to make inroads(something that must begin today, face to face)

        (* it’s become something of a tradition,lol.
        but i’ll wait a week or two(or 6) to see how it shakes out, including local sentiment. Somehow,i’ve managed, in all my letters, to get kudos from all sides….and i’m repeatedly surprised that tea thinks i’m one of them, and the hillfort dems think i’m in their camp. aside from advocating for obamacare(before the betrayal, when it still might have been a “path to” at least a public option), i have remained nonpartisan in these missives, and focus more on moral philosophy and nailing hypocrisy, using their own words against them(like adam smith quotes to urge mask use, etc) so, remarkably, i’m the voice of Reason out here,lol…which is weird, since i’ve always felt like an outsider, and for most of my life have had good reason to believe that everybody thinks i’m crazy)

        1. JacobiteInTraining

          I like your perspective, and strategy of coexistence w/evangelizing the ‘nobody up top from either ‘party’ is willing to let any more crumbs fall off the table to the dogs below’. Woof, woof…99% of us are stridently told to eat our dogfood!

          Regardless of how I personally voted, in my morning text responses to people who stayed up all night watching the reality show…which I studiously avoided…I have been asking:

          “…so which is it, Hitler or Stalin?…Because i need to know whether I should learn to sing the Horst Wessel Song, or the Internationale, and with what amount of enthusiasm…”

          If caricatures of candidates are what we are given, then caricatures of responses is what they’ll get from me.

          I tried to get to sleep early although I do admit to watching an old favorite vid called ‘Once Were Warriors’ before finally being able to get to sleep.

  105. Brick

    Missed this yesterday but the FBI and FCC are reportedly investigating large volumes (more than 10 million) of robocalls about changes of polling locations, change of voting days, damaged voting sensors, stay safe stay home on election day, vote the other way because the sensors are mixed up calls. I understand this is normal but it does look like fuel for Donald to query the results if he needs to and for losing supporters to take to the streets.

    2. Sparks

      Gee, too bad they couldn’t get their bureaucratic asses in gear the other 3 years, 11 months and 29 days, to investigate, prosecute and arrest the robocallers across state lines that are violating the federal Do Not Call Registry.

  106. Katiebird

    I’ve been thinking about those 27 rallies Trump did this past week. 4-5 a day; I couldn’t imagine doing it myself. And the crowds were (or seemed to be) huge.

    But when the cameras showed Biden, they focused right on him as he spoke. Was there ever anyone in his crowds? The brief glimpses I saw didn’t show them.

    I know this isn’t meaningful or significant in terms of votes. But it seems very weird that the Dems couldn’t put together a couple of blowout events for their Presidential Candidate.

    2. Aumua

      Whatever else their foibles may be, perhaps the Dems are also a little more conscious of the pandemic and large gatherings?

  107. ckimball

    I didn’t realize how I was going to feel. I am in Washington and voted
    green. The democratic party has become so ugly to me. It feels
    like big vice. A friend of mine with a different perspective told me
    that Donald Trump wanted to plant a trillion trees…. his part would be a billion. It’s a United Nations idea. Well, the comment lead me to
    look into it further and I saw this: “Trump strips protections for Tongass forest, opening it to logging” [The Hill]. “The Trump administration on Wednesday lifted protections for Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, a move that will expand logging in the nation’s largest old-growth forest. A notice posted in the Federal Register exempts the forest from the so-called roadless rule, a Clinton-era prohibition on road construction and timber harvesting on many Forest Service lands. Under the Trump administration’s changes, the nearly 9.4 million acres of inventoried roadless land in the Tongass would once again be considered suitable timberlands.” To repeat to this to you feels like a sacrilege because it is so sad and you already feel it…the sadness.
    I WANT HIM GONE. He is too big a screw ball and just a willy nilly
    destructive screw ball. I don’t think we can work with him.

    Health Care

  108. landline

    Should Biden win and live until January 20, 2021 (watch out for Nevada, Trump can lose Wisconsin, Michigan and Arizona and still exceed 269 Electoral College Votes if he wins Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina, Alaska and Pennsylvania), the first initiative of his administration will be “Masks For All, Not Medicare For All.”

    PS. I work in a grocery store and chatted up the candidate for whom I voted, Gloria La Riva, in the produce section yesterday afternoon. How cool is that? It is to me. Carry on.

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