2020 US election results

[David]

[Tannin]

Makes me think back to January this year when the US was on the brink of an escalating conflict with Iran and, thank god, decided to pull back. Would Biden have made the same decision?

Biden would never have been so utterly stupid, dangerous, and irresponsible as to have been in that position in the first place.

The region was at peace (insofar as the phrase ever applies in that part of the world) and had been for some time when Trump wrecked a working international accord, to the great detriment of all concerned, and to the undisguised horror of sensible states such as the whole of Europe, and very nearly started a war.

100% Trump's doing. No excuse for it whatsoever.

Why did he do such a stupid, stupid thing? Egotistic jealousy and racism. Obama had been a part of the peace agreement. Like Obamacare, peace with Iran was a notable Obama achievement, and as such, it had to be wrecked.

[David]

[Tannin]

What they will do, David, is act rationally*. They will decide such questions on the evidence and on the merits** of the case. (Compare with the Trump Administration's method, which is to toss a coin and (if tails) do something for petty personal and/or corrupt motives, or (if heads) do whatever it is that Putin wants.)

* Rational by American standards of US exceptionalism and commercial quasi-imperialism. This is not what you and I might call "rational", but it is as close as they ever get in that country.

** "Merits" needs to be similarly defined. They have a peculiar way of thinking about merit, and a history of getting quite a large proportion of their "on-balance merit" decisions comprehensively wrong. The Americans have been doing this ever since the war. They have a peculiar knack of making "altruistic" decisions which seem to suit their short-to-medium term national interest on the face of things, but turn out to backfire badly. (Mind you, they get it right too. Say about 50-50, over time.)

In a way, Trump is simply a spectacularly incompetent and monumentally ignorant version of the same thing, but we are talking a whole different order of magnitude.

PS: the TLDR is that Biden and Rice take us back to normal. Normal doesn't mean "good", it just means normal. It is better than Trump's combination of redneck ignorance, hate, and treason, and less risky to the world, of course, but America doesn't suddenly become a nice place because of it.

[David]

[Pi]

So here is what Trump is apparently trying to do:


https://www.axios.com/trump-electoral-c ... e5149.html


The US electoral system is like a wiring diagram made by a consortium of dyslexic electricians.

[David]

I suppose nothing should surprise at this point, but that would be an astonishingly audacious move even by Trump and the GOP’s usual standards. I have no doubt they’d try it if they thought they could get away with it, but one suspects the courts won’t be on their side and there’ll be enough politicians with cold feet to make it a non-starter.

[stui magpie]

More conjecture, The Don just won't concede, it's not his style to be gracious in defeat.

Interestingly though, his defeat is far from the landslide being beaten up.

Yes Biden has won the popular vote overall by over 5 million people, basically the same number of votes he won California by. The overall vote in the rest of the country was far closer

In practice, it's going to be around 100,000 votes that make the presidency change hands.

[Tannin]

Thanks for that gross distortion of the facts, Wokko. I suppose we should expect it from a Trump supporter; nevertheless, it is (a) not being claimed as a landslide by anyone with a brain (or indeed by anyone at all that I know or read or even read about), and (b) a clear and heavy defeat. More than 5,000,000 votes so far and still counting, and that against a background of relentless intimidation and voter suppression by the Trumpsters.

[stui magpie]

Don't drink and post.

[doriswilgus]

I’m no Maths expert,but 6 million plus extra votes,and 4% plus of the overall vote is a pretty decisive win.I don’t know how anyone could argue otherwise.

[doriswilgus]

[Tannin]

I’m no Maths expert,but 6 million plus extra votes,and 4% plus of the overall vote is a pretty decisive win.I don’t know how anyone could argue otherwise.

Neither do I. But we have just seen it happen, right here on Nicks. The ability of Trump supporters to rationalise incredibly ridiculous things is extraordinary. We haven't seen the like, not on this scale, since 1944.

[David]

[David]