2020 US Presidential Election

[SteveM70]

It's easy to write Trump off as a buffoon, but he's very good at getting his narrative out regardless of how true it is. His strategy seems to be simply to "stay on message, push the slogans, never admit that you were wrong"

A strategy very similar to a couple of recent votes here. Scarily, it works

 

[nlogax]

There was (and remains) much distrust of her, to the extent that a notable proportion of the floating voters, and even some democrats, simply wouldn’t vote for her. Whilst many of them wouldn’t vote for Trump either, a vote lost to Clinton still made it easier for Trump to win, and so it proved.

This is still a hangover for Biden and the Democrats. Of course many will vote for Biden because he's not Trump, but the Dems seem incapable of standing up a candidate that is good enough / inspirational / stands for something that isn't just 'I'm not the orange guy'. Clinton wasn't popular enough or deemed to be electable where it counted in the rust belt. There's a real risk that Biden's campaign will go the same way.

A strategy very similar to a couple of recent votes here. Scarily, it works

This is the collective future of democratic institutions. Facts won't matter nearly as much as the clouded and skewed messaging and the public perception that results. The art of individual critical thinking when it comes to political alignment appears be on the wane.

 

[Bald Rick]

Speaking to my US based but British friends at the time, they were quite surprised at how many people, seemingly well-adjusted, absolutely detested Clinton. That doesn’t appear to be the case with Biden, or at least not to the same level.

 

[BostonGeorge]

Just to put into perspective how hopeless the Democratic strategy is, we are in the midst of a pandemic which has been about as badly managed as it possibly could have been, US unemployment is at the levels it was during the height of the 2009 crash and there’s political unrest all over the country, with race relations being in a particularly bad place. There is no way the incumbent should be surviving these circumstances. But the Democrats have somehow managed to align themselves with the mob, whereas Trump has managed to position himself as the leader in the fight against the mob. People seem to be forgetting Trump is already the President and the above has happened under his watch. I’m also deeply concerned about Biden’s cognitive decline - I am not remotely convinced he can see out four years. And his VP nominee is a person who is repulsive to the electorate. As it stands right now I can only see the narrative getting more favourable for Trump in the run-up to November.

 

[edwin_m]

But the Democrats have somehow managed to align themselves with the mob, whereas Trump has managed to position himself as the leader in the fight against the mob. … And his VP nominee is a person who is repulsive to the electorate. As it stands right now I can only see the narrative getting more favourable for Trump in the run-up to November.

Kamala Harris is a former prosecutor and to large degree a law and order candidate. She might be repulsive to racists and misogynists but I'd like to think they don't make up a large proportion of the electorate, and they would probably vote for Trump regardless of who was on the other ticket.

 

[BostonGeorge]

She’s repulsive to left-wing Democrats for her record as a prosecutor, which is littered with convictions against the poorest and most vulnerable people in society. The way to help people out of misery isn’t by kicking them when they are down.

 

[mmh]

Kamala Harris is a former prosecutor and to large degree a law and order candidate. She might be repulsive to racists and misogynists but I'd like to think they don't make up a large proportion of the electorate, and they would probably vote for Trump regardless of who was on the other ticket.

"You can't dislike a black woman unless you're a racist misogynist" is exactly the sort of narrative which will deliver a Trump victory.

 

[nlogax]

"You can't dislike a black woman unless you're a racist misogynist" is exactly the sort of narrative which will deliver a Trump victory.

Exactly. Any sort of public statement from the Democrats airing that sentiment would be this year's rehash of Clinton's 'deplorables' line.

 

[edwin_m]

"You can't dislike a black woman unless you're a racist misogynist" is exactly the sort of narrative which will deliver a Trump victory.

"Repulsive" is a bit stronger than "dislike". In the absence of any other reasons for your view then the suspicion has to be that it's based on the person not the policies.

 

[najaB]

Of course many will vote for Biden because he's not Trump, but the Dems seem incapable of standing up a candidate that is good enough / inspirational / stands for something that isn't just 'I'm not the orange guy'.

The Dems #1 goal is winning this election. That means they needed a candidate who would win votes from both disaffected Republicans and Democrats. They, fortunately, decided not to go with the candidate who would appeal to the left-leaning side of the electorate at the expense of the moderates. Once they have power, then they can try to shift to the left.

But the Democrats have somehow managed to align themselves with the mob, whereas Trump has managed to position himself as the leader in the fight against the mob.

How silly for a party on the left to stand in support of basic human rights, rather than supporting the State in denying those rights to a significant proportion of the population.

I’m also deeply concerned about Biden’s cognitive decline

This is slightly worrying, but to be honest Trump is no better or worse.

She’s repulsive to left-wing Democrats for her record as a prosecutor, which is littered with convictions against the poorest and most vulnerable people in society.

But - and this is the important thing - less repulsive than Trump and will appeal to more people in the middle and on the right than she will potentially put off on the left-wing. Who would you have suggested as a better vice-Presidential candidate?

 

[SteveM70]

She’s repulsive to left-wing Democrats for her record as a prosecutor, which is littered with convictions against the poorest and most vulnerable people in society. The way to help people out of misery isn’t by kicking them when they are down.

As a prosecutor, is her role not about applying the law without fear or favour, rather than choosing whether or not to apply it based on the accused’s situation? I appreciate it probably isn’t as simple as I’ve described it, but fundamentally prosecutors don’t make the law. Is there a US equivalent of a public interest test, and if so who applies it?

 

[BostonGeorge]

The Dems #1 goal is winning this election. That means they needed a candidate who would win votes from both disaffected Republicans and Democrats. They, fortunately, decided not to go with the candidate who would appeal to the left-leaning side of the electorate at the expense of the moderates

How many times do they have to rehash the same losing strategy before you realise it’s nonsense? Al Gore, a moderate, loses to Bush. John Kerry, a moderate, loses to Bush. Obama, ran on a left-wing agenda, got himself elected before shifting to the centre and breaking election promise after promise. And then we have Clinton, the anointed one, left to pick up the pieces of Obama’s eight years of letting down the Democratic base, she runs a centre-right campaign and manages to lose to an appalling human being. Einstein’s definition of insanity has never been more apt.

 

[ainsworth74]

Obama, ran on a left-wing agenda, got himself elected before shifting to the centre and breaking election promise after promise.

Of course after 2010 the Democrats did not control the House and had only a small majority in the Senate. They were also faced with a Republican leadership whose objective was to block, everything and anything that had his name anywhere near it. It's hard to pass legislation and get things done when the other side won't even considering the appearance of bi-partisanship let alone actually working together. There's a lengthy article on the subject here from Politico:

On January 29, 2009, the whittled-down and beaten-up Republican minority in the House of Representatives gathered for a strange celebration of defeat.

The Democrats had just drubbed them at the polls, seizing the White House and a 79-seat advantage in the House. The House had then capped President Barack Obama’s first week in office by passing his $800 billion Recovery Act, a landmark emergency stimulus bill that doubled as a massive down payment on Obama’s agenda. Even though the economy was in free fall, not one House Republican had voted for the effort to revive it, prompting a wave of punditry about a failed party refusing to help clean up its own mess and dooming itself to irrelevance.

But at the House GOP retreat the next day at a posh resort in the Virginia mountains, there was no woe-is-us vibe. The leadership even replayed the video of the stimulus vote—not to bemoan Obama’s overwhelming victory, but to hail the unanimous partisan resistance. The conference responded with a standing ovation.

“I know all of you are pumped about the vote,” said Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House Republican whip. “We’ll have more to come!”

The Republicans were pumped because they saw a path out of the political wilderness. They were convinced that even if Obama kept winning policy battles, they could win the broader messaging war simply by remaining unified and fighting him on everything. Their conference chairman, a then-obscure Indiana conservative named Mike Pence, underscored the point with a clip from Patton, showing the general rallying his troops for war against their Nazi enemy: “We’re going to kick the hell out of him all the time! We’re going to go through him like crap through a goose!”

This strategy of kicking the hell out of Obama all the time, treating him not just as a president from the opposing party but an extreme threat to the American way of life, has been a remarkable political success. It helped Republicans take back the House in 2010, the Senate in 2014, and the White House in 2016. This no-cooperation, no-apologies approach is also on the verge of delivering a conservative majority on the Supreme Court; Republicans violated all kinds of Washington norms when they refused to even pretend to consider any Obama nominee, but they paid no electoral price for it—and probably helped persuade some reluctant Republican voters to back Donald Trump in November by keeping the Court in the balance.

...


In December 2008, Cantor gathered his House whip team and two Republican pollsters at his condo building. With the media narrative dominated by the terrifying danger of a second Great Depression and the historic election of the first black president, Cantor wanted to discuss his strategy for responding to the Democratic landslide. It was a messaging strategy, not a governing strategy, and it was pretty simple. It was to defy the conventional wisdom that Republicans needed to move to the center and reach out to Obama if they wanted to start reviving their ruined brand. “We’re not here to cut deals and get crumbs and stay in the minority for another 40 years,” Cantor declared. “We’re going to fight these guys.”

Cantor knew he couldn’t stop Obama’s agenda in the House. But he figured that if Republicans stuck together and made sure the president couldn’t brag about bipartisan support for his progressive priorities, they could make him pay a political price for failing to cure the partisan divisions in Washington. The goal was not to make Democratic initiatives more palatable to conservatives; the goal was to make those initiatives unpopular, scuff up Obama’s post-partisan Yes We Can media shine, and eventually drive the Democrats out of power. In early January 2009, when the House GOP leadership held a retreat at an Annapolis Inn, the team’s new campaign chairman, Pete Sessions, opened his presentation with a philosophical question: “If the Purpose of the Majority Is to Govern…What Is the Purpose of the Minority?”

His answer was on his next slide: “The Purpose of the Minority is to Become the Majority.”

That same weekend, McConnell gathered his depleted Senate Republican caucus in the ornate Members Room of the Library of Congress to deliver a similar non-governing message. He warned his colleagues that they would have nothing to gain from working with the incoming president, that bipartisan cooperation would just make Obama look like a hero. An aide later provided a copy of his talking points:

“We got shellacked, but don’t forget we still represent half the population.”

“It’s important to keep an eye on regaining the majority.”

“Most importantly, Republicans need to stick together as a team.”

That was all before Obama took office. After his inauguration, Republicans quickly canceled his honeymoon.

The Victory of ‘No’

The GOP’s unprecedented anti-Obama obstructionism was a remarkable success. And then it handed the party to Donald Trump.

www.politico.com

It is more remarkable that Obama got anything done post 2010 (and definitely post 2014) than any perceived breaking of election promises.

 

[nlogax]

The Dems #1 goal is winning this election. That means they needed a candidate who would win votes from both disaffected Republicans and Democrats. They, fortunately, decided not to go with the candidate who would appeal to the left-leaning side of the electorate at the expense of the moderates. Once they have power, then they can try to shift to the left.

If winning is the ultimate aim, then I fear going with Biden may have screwed the pooch. I would very much like to be wrong about this but from what I've seen since the RNC the slow and steady uptick of Trump's support in swing states as well as the midwest makes a Democrat victory less likely than many think.

 

[BostonGeorge]

As a prosecutor, is her role not about applying the law without fear or favour, rather than choosing whether or not to apply it based on the accused’s situation? I appreciate it probably isn’t as simple as I’ve described it, but fundamentally prosecutors don’t make the law. Is there a US equivalent of a public interest test, and if so who applies it?

That is, unfortunately for her, part of the problem with her image. Her record non-violent crimes isn’t anything to be proud of. She didn’t even come out in favour of marijuana legalisation until mid-2018 and she surely knows the effect even minor drug convictions do to the long term prospects of young people, especially in the African American community. I would imagine it’s very hard to lend your vote to somebody who took glee in prosecuting parents when their kids played truant. Who does that help? So, is she better than the alternative? Of course she is. But they need to make some serious commitments to people before November AND stick to them if elected. If they run on platitudes Trump wins again.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

It would be a good idea to do so before expressing the sorts of opinions you have in your last few posts.

To a European observer Biden is well to the right but that's where the centre of gravity of American politics tends to sit, and a left-wing programme would just push swing voters back to Trump. But unlike Trump, Biden doesn't seem corrupt and even if the handful of harassment accusations against him are true Trump has done similar or worse multiple times over. Most importantly Biden doesn't seem to be threatening the very basis of American democracy, which if destroyed would make it virtually impossible for the country to move to a more progressive agenda in the foreseeable future.

You're right that I'm not as well informed as I thought I was- mea culpa.
However Biden is right-wing by any universal standards, even allowing for the rather skewed Overton Window in the United States. The Clinton Crime bill (you know, the one with the "superpredators" stuff that Hillary talked about back when she was just the first lady) was far more draconian than anything that the Republicans would have been able to get away with.

Just like the Brexit talk, Hyperbole does no favours to the "never Trumpers". The biggest threat to American democracy isn't Donald Trump or any other individual... it's the tendency for both parties to resort to hyperbolic rhetoric about their opponent whilst they both try to compete for the same 30% or so of the electorate in the centre.
Trump is an a**hole, that's clear. But he isn't Hitler, he isn't Mussolini, he isn't even David Duke (whom he hasn't even met, remember ).

Biden however seems to think that all he needs do is not be Trump. Polls I've seen cited (which I'll try and find) suggest that around 70% of Americans and even a majority of registered Republicans support some sort of public option for healthcare, above and beyond the fudge that is Mitt Romney's Affordable Care Act. When asked about it, Biden refuses to even consider it a policy option- perhaps because he's afraid Donald will call him a Commie, but more likely because he's in bed with the insurance industry like most of his er, comrades.

 

[BostonGeorge]

Biden however seems to think that all he needs do is not be Trump. Polls I've seen cited (which I'll try and find) suggest that around 70% of Americans and even a majority of registered Republicans support some sort of public option for healthcare, above and beyond the fudge that is Mitt Romney's Affordable Care Act. When asked about it, Biden refuses to even consider it a policy option- perhaps because he's afraid Donald will call him a Commie, but more likely because he's in bed with the insurance industry like most of his er, comrades.

My sentiments exactly. He simply has to move his position on healthcare - it is likely the difference between winning and losing. But he won’t because, like you say, he is beholden to his donars from the insurance industry.

 

[edwin_m]

Biden however seems to think that all he needs do is not be Trump. Polls I've seen cited (which I'll try and find) suggest that around 70% of Americans and even a majority of registered Republicans support some sort of public option for healthcare, above and beyond the fudge that is Mitt Romney's Affordable Care Act. When asked about it, Biden refuses to even consider it a policy option- perhaps because he's afraid Donald will call him a Commie, but more likely because he's in bed with the insurance industry like most of his er, comrades.

Giving Americans a new choice, a public health insurance option like Medicare

Plan to Protect and Build on Obamacare | Joe Biden

Joe Biden will protect and build on Obamacare by giving Americans more choice, reducing health care costs, and making the system less complex to navigate.

joebiden.com

 

[61653 HTAFC]

The Dems #1 goal is winning this election. That means they needed a candidate who would win votes from both disaffected Republicans and Democrats. They, fortunately, decided not to go with the candidate who would appeal to the left-leaning side of the electorate at the expense of the moderates. Once they have power, then they can try to shift to the left.

That's cute!

There's only a handful of them that even think in those terms- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez being one, another being good old Bernie Sanders who of course isn't a Democrat anyway. The idea that Biden or his close allies are secret leftist Trojan horse is right out of Trump's recent speeches.

Biden is ultimately a status-quo candidate (and by that I don't mean he'll give you "Whatever You Want"). I agree that a more lefty candidate would be given the exact same bashing about being a Communist that Biden is, only some of it might stick in a mpre meaningful way... but Biden's only strength is not being Donald Trump. All those who were struggling after 8 years of stealth neo conservatism under Obama/Biden aren't being offered anything by Biden/Harris. Working-class white people in America might well feel like another four years of Trump is worth the gamble... after all, the first four years weren't as bad as certain people made out they would be (for them at least).

Plan to Protect and Build on Obamacare | Joe Biden

Joe Biden will protect and build on Obamacare by giving Americans more choice, reducing health care costs, and making the system less complex to navigate.

joebiden.com

So why did he pooh-pooh it the other week when he was asked? Doesn't sound like a man I'd want to trust with my vote...

 

[BostonGeorge]

Plan to Protect and Build on Obamacare | Joe Biden

Joe Biden will protect and build on Obamacare by giving Americans more choice, reducing health care costs, and making the system less complex to navigate.

joebiden.com

Oh god, the irony. “Making the system less complex to navigate”. Have you read that mess? It’s just waffle that helps nobody. Easy to navigate would be healthcare that is free at the point of use.

 

[102 fan]

Trump must surely be the worst president the Unites States has ever had. He has made the US a laughing stock around the world and made America more divided and fractious than ever. His bellicose rhetoric, vicious personal attacks, blatant lying are only matched by his overwhelming incompetence, especially in tackling the vital issues of the day such as Covid19 and the environment; all the while allowing his very rich friends to become ever more wealthy at the expense of the poorest in society.

I try to convince myself that the American people won't re-elect this egotistical buffoon as their president and thus doom themselves and the rest of the world to another four years, allowing him to create even more havoc. But then I realise this is America that I'm talking about.

His core supporters will of course vote for him and a large proportion of Republicans would rather die than vote Democrat, but perhaps some may abstain. Reports of the deliberate running down of the US Postal Service are worrying, along with the lack of US government effort to prevent a repeat of Russian interference in the election. I fear the level of smears, faked news stories and misinformation by the Trump team and their friends on the far right will be greatly intensified and I suspect this election will become the dirtiest and most morally repugnant in American history.

In 2016 Trump lost the public vote but was elected due to the bizarre workings of the US Electoral College, could it happen again? What do you think the outcome of the 2020 election will be?

Not wishing to endorse Trump, but America's troubles did not begin once he was elected, although it's fashionable now to think it was violence free.

List of incidents of civil unrest in the United States - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

And as I've said before, electoral reform is always raised by the loosing side.

 

[najaB]

Easy to navigate would be healthcare that is free at the point of use.

That is dead in the water and will not win you elections. Americans have an irrational fear of state-run healthcare, even many on the left.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

How many times do they have to rehash the same losing strategy before you realise it’s nonsense? Al Gore, a moderate, loses to Bush. John Kerry, a moderate, loses to Bush. Obama, ran on a left-wing agenda, got himself elected before shifting to the centre and breaking election promise after promise. And then we have Clinton, the anointed one, left to pick up the pieces of Obama’s eight years of letting down the Democratic base, she runs a centre-right campaign and manages to lose to an appalling human being. Einstein’s definition of insanity has never been more apt.

Al Gore actually won the popular vote in 2000 - Bush only got the presidency because of the US electoral college system, which doesn't entirely reflect the popular vote and has an in-built Republican bias due to how support for the parties is distributed geographically. Same as happened in 2016 when Hilary Clinton won the popular vote. (Plus in 2000 there were those issues with hanging chads and votes probably not being counted properly in Florida). In 2004, I would say Bush was so popular because of 911 and the Iraq War that basically no-one stood a chance against him. I don't recall Obama having a massively left-wing platform in 2008 - his views seem to me much closer to Biden and the moderate wing of the Democrats than to the Progressive (left-wing) wing.

You seem to be implying that the Democrats need to run a very left-wing candidate to win. I don't think that logic stands up.

 

[mmh]

Al Gore actually won the popular vote in 2000 - Bush only got the presidency because of the US electoral college system, which doesn't entirely reflect the popular vote and has an in-built Republican bias due to how support for the parties is distributed geographically. Same as happened in 2016 when Hilary Clinton won the popular vote. (Plus in 2000 there were those issues with hanging chads and votes probably not being counted properly in Florida). In 2004, I would say Bush was so popular because of 911 and the Iraq War that basically no-one stood a chance against him. I don't recall Obama having a massively left-wing platform in 2008 - his views seem to me much closer to Biden and the moderate wing of the Democrats than to the Progressive (left-wing) wing.

You seem to be implying that the Democrats need to run a very left-wing candidate to win. I don't think that logic stands up.

They need a candidate who's seen as a credible alternative and worth the bother of change to attract the wavering voters. That's the same in any election.


Obama wasn't a particularly left leaning president, but it's untrue to claim being elected on the image of being to the left wasn't a major factor in his first election. Much of the local campaigning was based around some vision of him as a saviour, who would bring the magical change you could believe in, whereas of course what he really was was the same old but with a different skin colour.

I'm the sort of voter who would need a particularly specific left wing policy to prevent me from voting for Trump. I lean to the left, but I am also patriotic, anti-globalist and quite keen on a bit of protectionism. So, unless someone's going to offer something truly radical like health reform, why would I bother voting for a same old, same old Democrat?

 

[61653 HTAFC]

"Obama ran on a left-wing agenda"... did he? Maybe in terms of promising healthcare reform, but what he delivered was a fudge designed by Mitt Romney with input from lobbyists from the insurance industry. "Hope and Change" was empty platitudes and much of Obama's cabinet were Wall Street insiders.

I don't think Bernie Sanders would have a chance against Trump this time around if he was the nominee, he'd get McCarthy-ed so hard that he'd have to claim asylum in Cuba... but at least he'd be offering something other than the status quo, and he'd have more to say than "I'm not Donald Trump, suck it up and vote for me or you're a racist".

 

[najaB]

Al Gore, a moderate, loses to Bush.

Thanks to the Supreme Court.

John Kerry, a moderate, loses to Bush.

The Iraq war was only a year old by the time of the 2004 election and hadn't yet turned into the cluster-f that it ultimately became. "Wartime President" is normally a guaranteed re-election.

And then we have Clinton, the anointed one, left to pick up the pieces of Obama’s eight years of letting down the Democratic base, she runs a centre-right campaign and manages to lose to an appalling human being.

She had a lot of problems, being centre-right was the least of them.

 

[mmh]

"Obama ran on a left-wing agenda"... did he? Maybe in terms of promising healthcare reform, but what he delivered was a fudge designed by Mitt Romney with input from lobbyists from the insurance industry. "Hope and Change" was empty platitudes and much of Obama's cabinet were Wall Street insiders.

Sure, Obama was full of empty platitudes but he was taken as a radical alternative by many. His campaign didn't correct that, because it relied on it.

That he turned out to be a useless same old, same old doesn't mean that's why he won. In his second campaign, and even now, the more blinkered were still talking about him as some kind of wonderful savior. Now all those people have seems to be "he/she isn't Trump."

He's going to win unless something changes.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Sure, Obama was full of empty platitudes but he was taken as a radical alternative by many. His campaign didn't correct that, because it relied on it.

That he turned out to be a useless same old, same old doesn't mean that's why he won. In his second campaign, and even now, the more blinkered were still talking about him as some kind of wonderful savior. Now all those people have seems to be "he/she isn't Trump."

He's going to win unless something changes.

It doesn't help that regardless of what they think of Trump, they treat those who voted for him with contempt... a bit like how anyone who voted Leave here were written off as xenophobic reactionaries.

With all the stuff that's been thrown at The Donald, none of it seems to have diminished his appeal to those who feel that they have been ignored by establishment politicians. As he said himself, he could shoot people on Fifth Avenue and not lose any support. He is the Teflon President.

 

[najaB]

It doesn't help that regardless of what they think of Trump, they treat those who voted for him with contempt... a bit like how anyone who voted Leave here were written off as xenophobic reactionaries.

With all the stuff that's been thrown at The Donald, none of it seems to have diminished his appeal to those who feel that they have been ignored by establishment politicians. As he said himself, he could shoot people on Fifth Avenue and not lose any support. He is the Teflon President.

Yes, his base love him. But it's difficult to win with just your base. Unless something major changes he will lose, not by a landslide but nothing he's doing is endearing him to people outside his base.

Case in point: today he said the police officer who shot Jacob Blake "choked, like someone missing a putt." He compared shooting someone seven times to missing a golf shot. Nobody who doesn't already love him is going to hear that and think "sounds reasonable".

 

[mmh]

Yes, his base love him. But it's difficult to win with just your base. Unless something major changes he will lose, not by a landslide but nothing he's doing is endearing him to people outside his base.

Case in point: today he said the police officer who shot Jacob Blake "choked, like someone missing a putt." He compared shooting someone seven times to missing a golf shot. Nobody who doesn't already love him is going to hear that and think "sounds reasonable".

That is fake news. Yes, he has a ridiculous turn of phrase. No, he wasn't making that comparison.

It doesn't help that regardless of what they think of Trump, they treat those who voted for him with contempt... a bit like how anyone who voted Leave here were written off as xenophobic reactionaries.

Indeed, that's spot on. And this thread contains lots of proof that even after four years, on both sides of the Atlantic people either cannot or will not understand that. It's remarkable. Until the left/liberals/progressives everywhere begin to accept that this approach doesn't work, they'll continue to struggle.