US Election

[Little waster]

So Day 2 of the RNC is upon us and with it one of the eagerly-anticipated highlights, Melania Trump's speech.

At last we'll get an answer to the question on everyone's lips, which Michelle Obama speech will she be reciting tonight?

I'm hoping for a retelling of Michelle's 2014 commencement address for Dillard University on the theme of the empowering potential of education.

[EACLucifer]

Interestingly, her husband is taking himself out of the election game too. I wonder whether they neutralise each other in terms of political impact: the White House loses its Trump-whisperer while the Lincoln Project loses one of its loudest voices.

Seems like a rare example of a genuine "in order to spend more time with their family"

[EACLucifer]

I imagine a convention dip is still possible if something goes catastrophically wrong so a no-change convention is perhaps more of a bullet dodged than a missed opportunity for Biden.

I like Kimberly. She spells her name like an adverb, she's shagging her toyboy Donald Jr (what's the necessary age difference for toyboyism? She's 9 years older), she's got more plastic in her face than Barbie, she's got more hair extensions than Essex, and she shovels down the cocaine like they shoved coal into steam engines.

Little and often?*

*This is defined as six full shovels every two minutes or so.

[shpalman]

So Day 2 of the RNC is upon us and with it one of the eagerly-anticipated highlights, Melania Trump's speech.

At last we'll get an answer to the question on everyone's lips, which Michelle Obama speech will she be reciting tonight?

I'm hoping for a retelling of Michelle's 2014 commencement address for Dillard University on the theme of the empowering potential of education.

Apparently she's been saying things which aren't very nice about Donald and Ivanka.

[Squeak]

Interestingly, her husband is taking himself out of the election game too. I wonder whether they neutralise each other in terms of political impact: the White House loses its Trump-whisperer while the Lincoln Project loses one of its loudest voices.

Seems like a rare example of a genuine "in order to spend more time with their family"

It really does.

Thinking about it, it's worth remembering that Kellyanne Conway is the one who allegedly confiscated Trump's mobile phone in the last weeks before the 2016 election. I don't think there's anyone left who could do that this year. So maybe the Conways' disappearance won't be a totally neutral effect.

[plodder]

I imagine a convention dip is still possible if something goes catastrophically wrong so a no-change convention is perhaps more of a bullet dodged than a missed opportunity for Biden.

I like Kimberly. She spells her name like an adverb, she's shagging her toyboy Donald Jr (what's the necessary age difference for toyboyism? She's 9 years older), she's got more plastic in her face than Barbie, she's got more hair extensions than Essex, and she shovels down the cocaine like they shoved coal into steam engines.

She’s a fascist with training wheels. I’m trying to get a sense of perspective with the worst of what I’ve seen at British party conferences, but this seems properly distopian. f.cking hell. How are you supposed to fight that?

[Little waster]

I imagine a convention dip is still possible if something goes catastrophically wrong so a no-change convention is perhaps more of a bullet dodged than a missed opportunity for Biden.

I like Kimberly. She spells her name like an adverb, she's shagging her toyboy Donald Jr (what's the necessary age difference for toyboyism? She's 9 years older), she's got more plastic in her face than Barbie, she's got more hair extensions than Essex, and she shovels down the cocaine like they shoved coal into steam engines.

She’s a fascist with training wheels. I’m trying to get a sense of perspective with the worst of what I’ve seen at British party conferences, but this seems properly distopian. f.cking hell. How are you supposed to fight that?

I dunno, the Repugs were claiming that Night 1 had went awesomely but I think it’s a well-established rule-of-thumb that if your opponents are gleefully sharing your full speeches, without editing or editorialising, then something has gone badly wrong for you.

Ridicule seems the best disinfectant here, forget Kinnock in Sheffield even soft Republican voters will be repelled by that neve4 mind swing voters, genuinely uncomfortable to watch.

[lpm]

Deciding to fight it is the first step. Much of the US media is deliberately not fighting fascism - passing on lies without comment, repeating fantasy world tropes, normalising behaviour that is mad, or illegal, or both mad and illegal.

It's the "balancing two sides" problem we've faced for a couple of decades on everything. The BBC balances a vaccinator with an anti-vaxer. Brings in a fake billionaire's lobby group to balance an economist. Presents an anti lockdowner to be the the other side to an epidemiologist.

Now they are doing it with the Trump Party's attempt at fascism - seeing it as fair to balance normal politics with Trump politics. Two sides, horse race, plague-on-both-your-houses.

[Little waster]

If you watch Melania's speech again carefully you can see her blinking a message in morse code.

Not sure who "Toadstool-Dick" is?

[lpm]

The 538 tracker has improved a sliver. Back to +9.3 (it had previously eroded a bit from peak of +9.6 to low of +7.6, generally being in the +8.0 to +8.5 region for the past 3 weeks).

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/po ... /national/

Shouldn't have said that. Immediately slumped back to +8.2.

A fall from +9.3 to +8.2 is how a fall from +9.3 to -5.0 begins.

[Bird on a Fire]

Surely that's within the margin of error? Sounds like it's basically constant at 8ish with a bit of wobble.

[dyqik]

The 538 tracker has improved a sliver. Back to +9.3 (it had previously eroded a bit from peak of +9.6 to low of +7.6, generally being in the +8.0 to +8.5 region for the past 3 weeks).

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/po ... /national/

Shouldn't have said that. Immediately slumped back to +8.2.

A fall from +9.3 to +8.2 is how a fall from +9.3 to -5.0 begins.

This change is entirely due to Rasmussen's Biden +1 poll. Rasmussen are not trustworthy.

There aren't any live interview polls being published right now, between the conventions, just online ones. Live interview polls have been a lot more bullish for Biden than online panels.

Similarly, 538's model is including and compensating for a small convention bounce for Biden, but there's no real reason to expect one to actually occur this year. They've been getting weaker, and there are almost no undecided voters this time around.

[shpalman]

https://twitter.com/drskyskull/status/1 ... 28940?s=09

[El Pollo Diablo]

Big batch of new twice-daily polls from a company called USC Dornsife, who I haven't heard of before. Each one is done over a week during the convention season, polling likely voters (so theoretically giving the most accurate sense of where voters are, though this is not definite).

They show Biden with a big lead, and that that lead has grown a little over the last two weeks. Biden has gone from around 51% to around 54%, Trump from around 41% to 40%.

Which is nice.

[Little waster]

Big batch of new twice-daily polls from a company called USC Dornsife, who I haven't heard of before. Each one is done over a week during the convention season, polling likely voters (so theoretically giving the most accurate sense of where voters are, though this is not definite).

They show Biden with a big lead, and that that lead has grown a little over the last two weeks. Biden has gone from around 51% to around 54%, Trump from around 41% to 40%.

Which is nice.

538 had a slight narrowing over the RNC convention but it's all within the noise so too soon to say if it or "events, dear boy, events"* will change the overall picture.


*I give you "US LEA openly colluding with far-right death squads" and raise you "BLM activists shouting at Rand Paul".

You pays your money and you takes your choice.

[dyqik]

Big batch of new twice-daily polls from a company called USC Dornsife, who I haven't heard of before. Each one is done over a week during the convention season, polling likely voters (so theoretically giving the most accurate sense of where voters are, though this is not definite).

They show Biden with a big lead, and that that lead has grown a little over the last two weeks. Biden has gone from around 51% to around 54%, Trump from around 41% to 40%.

Which is nice.

This is the same group that was doing the USC/LA Times polls in 2016.

[snoozeofreason]

I think that we had some discussion of this upthread, but the system for counting postal votes in the US sounds like a recipe for conflict and shenanigans. In the UK they have to arrive before election night, and get counted alongside the in-person votes. That's not perfect, but at least there isn't the prospect of a majority for one party on election night being gradually eroded as postal votes come in.

[AMS]

I think that we had some discussion of this upthread, but the system for counting postal votes in the US sounds like a recipe for conflict and shenanigans. In the UK they have to arrive before election night, and get counted alongside the in-person votes. That's not perfect, but at least there isn't the prospect of a majority for one party on election night being gradually eroded as postal votes come in.

Point of pedantry: UK postal votes have to be received by the local authority running the election by the time the polls close (10pm). This can include hand delivery at the council offices, or also dropping them into a ballot box at a polling station. (Which kind of defeats the point of a postal vote...)

There are several ways US elections seem a bit weird from the outside, starting with why does it take so long to vote?

[jimbob]

I think that we had some discussion of this upthread, but the system for counting postal votes in the US sounds like a recipe for conflict and shenanigans. In the UK they have to arrive before election night, and get counted alongside the in-person votes. That's not perfect, but at least there isn't the prospect of a majority for one party on election night being gradually eroded as postal votes come in.

Point of pedantry: UK postal votes have to be received by the local authority running the election by the time the polls close (10pm). This can include hand delivery at the council offices, or also dropping them into a ballot box at a polling station. (Which kind of defeats the point of a postal vote...)

There are several ways US elections seem a bit weird from the outside, starting with why does it take so long to vote?

Well if you have a single polling station for a town of 13,000 that will help contribute to that.

[Lew Dolby]

There are several ways US elections seem a bit weird from the outside, starting with why does it take so long to vote?

And why, in this day and age in a country that's a world leader in electronics, don't they just elect the president by counting the votes ?? I can understand the need for an electoral college back in the days when results went to Wahington overland in days or weeks - but now !!??!!

Even my USAian cousins think it's mad.

[Gfamily]

There are several ways US elections seem a bit weird from the outside, starting with why does it take so long to vote?

And why, in this day and age in a country that's a world leader in electronics, don't they just elect the president by counting the votes ?? I can understand the need for an electoral college back in the days when results went to Wahington overland in days or weeks - but now !!??!!

Even my USAian cousins think it's mad.

It's because letting everyone have an equal weighted vote leads to the tyranny of the larger states.
As opposed to what we have now.

[Lew Dolby]

Is that ^^^ tongue-in-cheek ??

I'd have thought a system where, for example, Californians vote 51% for a candidate and that candidate gets ALL California's Electoral College votes would be nearer to a tyrany of the larger states.

If you just smply count the national vote, no one need ever know how the vote went in each individual state.

[AMS]

Registering your campaign slogan as a web domain is just basic competence, no?

https://www.keepamericagreat.com/

[Gfamily]

Is that ^^^ tongue-in-cheek ??

I'd have thought a system where, for example, Californians vote 51% for a candidate and that candidate gets ALL California's Electoral College votes would be nearer to a tyrany of the larger states.

If you just smply count the national vote, no one need ever know how the vote went in each individual state.

Tongue in cheek? Hardly, AIUI, it's the justification given for using that system.

As it is, electors from the smaller states represent far fewer voters' intentions than the electors from large states.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_ ... l_Vote.png

Of course it would make more sense for the popular vote to choose the president, but this would reduce the power of people in the smaller states.

[Woodchopper]

There are several ways US elections seem a bit weird from the outside, starting with why does it take so long to vote?

And why, in this day and age in a country that's a world leader in electronics, don't they just elect the president by counting the votes ?? I can understand the need for an electoral college back in the days when results went to Wahington overland in days or weeks - but now !!??!!

Even my USAian cousins think it's mad.

It's because letting everyone have an equal weighted vote leads to the tyranny of the larger states.
As opposed to what we have now.

Or to put it more mildly the electoral college reinforces the federal nature of the US. So for example Wyoming with a population of circa half a million still gets its own electors.

If the US President were to be directly elected then it would be more like a unitary state in which Wyoming didn’t matter very much.