2024 Presidential Election | ELECTION DAY 2024

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lawtig02 said:
Speaking as a newly-minted member of the CONTIFA wing of the Democratic Party, is this pre-election freak out a normal thing among my brother and sister Dems? Good lord, people. NOTHING HAS CHANGED!!! Even with the recent WSJ poll that has some obvious methodological problems, Trump has STILL not hit even 47% on the 538 average. Kamala is working hard and has a great plan to keep working the people who need to be reached over the next 10 days.

It's like everyone who's been recognizing and calling out Trump's nonstop lies for the last nine years is suddenly believing them.
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1. Kind of normal. I'm interested in the personality theory of politics -- namely, that people's political leanings are determined by the types of people they are. Well, according to that theory, there's an authoritarian personality, which is determined primarily by very low openness to experience. high conscientiousness (i.e. diligence in following rules), and very high on antagonism (which means low agreeableness). And the liberal personalities have their own types.

Well, educated liberals are generally high on neuroticism. That's what makes them successful. Lawyers are famously neurotic, as you surely know. Good ones, anyway. Professors are often neurotic. These are related to success because neurotic people can often channel their anxieties into productive pursuits. But they are still neurotic, meaning high anxiety.

2. But it's also a fear response. There's just so much at stake in this election. And I don't think you identify with it.

Let me offer my diagnosis of CONTIFA: it's not unflattering. Basically, you appreciate the dangers of Trump. You've come to understand why it's important, in our day and age, to be anti-MAGA. You've understood that being a good person is usually inconsistent with MAGA. That is to say, you've intellectualized your politics. As someone who intellectualizes almost everything, I am not offering this as a critique at all.

It's just different from how a lot of long-time liberals think. Sometimes you see people on the board, when feeling pessimistic, say things like, "it won't hurt me, so I guess I can soldier on," etc. That's a form of reassuring thinking. It's being phrased in a pro-social way, and it's a good sentiment, but it's not my sentiment. You'll almost never see that from me, because that makes me feel worse.

It hurts me even more to know that people like me will not be targeted but the vulnerable populations will. That is, I've tried to live my life, from the very beginning of my autonomy, to help people, especially vulnerable people. I'm not always that successful because reasons that don't need to be mentioned here, but anyway that's my ideal. It literally makes me sick to my stomach sometimes thinking about the communities ravaged by hurricanes or typhoons or droughts and wild fires and realizing that Trump's election will basically lock humanity into a warming cycle that will reproduce these things many times over. That there will be people who starve when the farmland gets pulled into the sea. I might or might not be around when the shit really hits the fan, but it makes me really upset anyway.

All of that is to say that people like me really *feel* the impending doom of Trump. It's not intellectualized. And again, that's weird for me to type because in 99 out of 100 cases, I'm the one who intellectualizes more than my interlocutors. But it seems, not here. And so this is naturally going to make me on edge.

Now, because I intellectualize, I'm pretty good at burying my anxieties beneath analysis. That's why I'm not freaking out here. But I suspect that there are a lot of people who *feel* the same way I do, but don't intellectualize as much as my weird ass does, and that's the recipe for the freakouts.
 
lawtig02 said:
Speaking as a newly-minted member of the CONTIFA wing of the Democratic Party, is this pre-election freak out a normal thing among my brother and sister Dems? Good lord, people. NOTHING HAS CHANGED!!! Even with the recent WSJ poll that has some obvious methodological problems, Trump has STILL not hit even 47% on the 538 average. Kamala is working hard and has a great plan to keep working the people who need to be reached over the next 10 days.

It's like everyone who's been recognizing and calling out Trump's nonstop lies for the last nine years is suddenly believing them.
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I'm not really sure I follow your last sentence. No one here believes Trump's BS. The objective reality is that the election is very close and will be decided by thin margins. At best, that means we're about to go through two more months of "stop the steal" BS, and conspiracy theories, and lawsuits, and who knows what else. Being concerned about Trump winning the election, which is a very real possibility, and/or about what will happen if we don't know an official result for days, which is also a very real possibility, does not correlate at all with believing Trump's BS.

I guess my complete response would be, how are you NOT freaking out? How is, like, a 40-50% possibility of a Trump win (likely coming along with control of both the House and the Senate) not raising a huge knot of stress in the pit of your stomach? I sure as hell hope it doesn't happen. There's still a good chance it doesn't happen. But I find it hard to understand an "everything is good" mentality at this point. Many of us had that mentality in October 2016, when Clinton was blowing Trump out and we were laughing at Pubs all the way to the finish line. After that debacle, how anyone could ever again go into a Trump election - knowing the stakes and consequences if he does win - with calmness and confidence is beyond me.
 
lawtig02 said:
Harris isn't in Texas to help other candidates. I thought maybe that's why she was going, and I'm sure she'll do what she can while she's there, but she's made her intentions clear now. She's in Texas to highlight the state's barbaric abortion laws, which are actively causing the deaths of women and the needless suffering of nonviable infants. That seems well worth a quick trip to our second largest state to me.
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Oops. Didn't mean to post that part. But I think this is her second or third trip to Texas in the last week or two.

Edit: never mind. Faulty memory. Looks like they were talking about this trip.
 
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rodoheel said:
I guess my complete response would be, how are you NOT freaking out? How is, like, a 40-50% possibility of a Trump win (likely coming along with control of both the House and the Senate) not raising a huge knot of stress in the pit of your stomach?
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How long have you been a liberal? I think that's a lot of it. See my post above.
 
superrific said:
1. Kind of normal. I'm interested in the personality theory of politics -- namely, that people's political leanings are determined by the types of people they are. Well, according to that theory, there's an authoritarian personality, which is determined primarily by very low openness to experience. high conscientiousness (i.e. diligence in following rules), and very high on antagonism (which means low agreeableness). And the liberal personalities have their own types.

Well, educated liberals are generally high on neuroticism. That's what makes them successful. Lawyers are famously neurotic, as you surely know. Good ones, anyway. Professors are often neurotic. These are related to success because neurotic people can often channel their anxieties into productive pursuits. But they are still neurotic, meaning high anxiety.

2. But it's also a fear response. There's just so much at stake in this election. And I don't think you identify with it.

Let me offer my diagnosis of CONTIFA: it's not unflattering. Basically, you appreciate the dangers of Trump. You've come to understand why it's important, in our day and age, to be anti-MAGA. You've understood that being a good person is usually inconsistent with MAGA. That is to say, you've intellectualized your politics. As someone who intellectualizes almost everything, I am not offering this as a critique at all.

It's just different from how a lot of long-time liberals think. Sometimes you see people on the board, when feeling pessimistic, say things like, "it won't hurt me, so I guess I can soldier on," etc. That's a form of reassuring thinking. It's being phrased in a pro-social way, and it's a good sentiment, but it's not my sentiment. You'll almost never see that from me, because that makes me feel worse.

It hurts me even more to know that people like me will not be targeted but the vulnerable populations will. That is, I've tried to live my life, from the very beginning of my autonomy, to help people, especially vulnerable people. I'm not always that successful because reasons that don't need to be mentioned here, but anyway that's my ideal. It literally makes me sick to my stomach sometimes thinking about the communities ravaged by hurricanes or typhoons or droughts and wild fires and realizing that Trump's election will basically lock humanity into a warming cycle that will reproduce these things many times over. That there will be people who starve when the farmland gets pulled into the sea. I might or might not be around when the shit really hits the fan, but it makes me really upset anyway.

All of that is to say that people like me really *feel* the impending doom of Trump. It's not intellectualized. And again, that's weird for me to type because in 99 out of 100 cases, I'm the one who intellectualizes more than my interlocutors. But it seems, not here. And so this is naturally going to make me on edge.

Now, because I intellectualize, I'm pretty good at burying my anxieties beneath analysis. That's why I'm not freaking out here. But I suspect that there are a lot of people who *feel* the same way I do, but don't intellectualize as much as my weird ass does, and that's the recipe for the freakouts.
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That all makes sense, and while you're right I don't think much like a long-term liberal, I think I may be intellectualizing this a little differently than you're suggesting. If Trump wins, I'll be devastated for the people who will be most impacted by his presidency (recognizing I'm probably not in any of those groups personally). I just don't think Trump is going to win. The polling, and especially changes in the polling within the margins of error, seems meaningless to me at this point in the race. All of the "momentum" talk is just noise from Trump's camp. I don't think this race has materially changed since Kamala took over and showed the country she has what it takes to be president of the United States, and nothing that happens in the next ten days is likely to change anything either. I'm not saying it's impossible for Trump to win. I just think his odds of doing so are somewhere in the 10% range.
 
Her closing argument is focusing on 1/6. That’s out of touch.

I think Harris would be a good president but she’s a lousy campaigner. Running on the fact she’s not Trump won’t win because most Americans are numb to how dangerous he is. They can’t be shocked enough anymore. She should have (and should now) talk about the fact that she’ll be tougher on the border to protect jobs, expand Obamacare, provide tax relief for those making less than (choose a number). Don’t say I will tax the rich. Talk about helping those under and certain level. People feel that. Mention nothing about trans rights. It’s not that I don’t care but that’s not going to win and she has to win. If she loses this, and the trend appears to be she will, then I pray the Democrats huddle with politicians like Bernie and Warren and talk about how they get back to focusing on middle America. Concerts with Beyoncé and Springsteen is not it. No one cares.
 
HintonJamesHeel said:
Her closing argument is focusing on 1/6. That’s out of touch.

I think Harris would be a good president but she’s a lousy campaigner. Running on the fact she’s not Trump won’t win because most Americans are numb to how dangerous he is. They can’t be shocked enough anymore. She should have (and should now) talk about the fact that she’ll be tougher on the border to protect jobs, expand Obamacare, provide tax relief for those making less than (choose a number). Don’t say I will tax the rich. Talk about helping those under and certain level. People feel that. Mention nothing about trans rights. It’s not that I don’t care but that’s not going to win and she has to win. If she loses this, and the trend appears to be she will, then I pray the Democrats huddle with politicians like Bernie and Warren and talk about how they get back to focusing on middle America. Concerts with Beyoncé and Springsteen is not it. No one cares.
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Why in the world do you think her closing argument is focusing on 1/6? Have you seen it? She's talking a little bit more than she has been about Trump being a fascist because his closest aides just went on the record calling him that.

I'm almost certain her closing argument will be a concise summary of her positions on (a) helping the middle and working classes, (b) protecting our border while also respecting our immigrant communities, (c) continuing to invest in American manufacturing, (d) supporting our unions, (e) standing by our allies and opposing our enemies abroad, and (f) protecting women's rights to control their bodies. In other words, what she's been talking about since the day she took over.
 
HintonJamesHeel said:
Her closing argument is focusing on 1/6. That’s out of touch.

I think Harris would be a good president but she’s a lousy campaigner. Running on the fact she’s not Trump won’t win because most Americans are numb to how dangerous he is. They can’t be shocked enough anymore. She should have (and should now) talk about the fact that she’ll be tougher on the border to protect jobs, expand Obamacare, provide tax relief for those making less than (choose a number). Don’t say I will tax the rich. Talk about helping those under and certain level. People feel that. Mention nothing about trans rights. It’s not that I don’t care but that’s not going to win and she has to win. If she loses this, and the trend appears to be she will, then I pray the Democrats huddle with politicians like Bernie and Warren and talk about how they get back to focusing on middle America. Concerts with Beyoncé and Springsteen is not it. No one cares.
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You are just deep in your feels and your pessimism. No offense intended, and I'm certainly not belittling you for having those those feelings. But you are not paying attention if you think that Harris's closing argument is solely about January, 6, 2021. Her closing argument is that America gets to choose between a president who has an "enemies list" and a president that has a "to-do list" for the American people. Her closing argument is that we can choose to continue to be a free democracy, or we can surrender our democracy to a handful of fascist billionaire oligarchs. Her closing argument is that we can build an America with an opportunity economy for people of al socioeconomic backgrounds, or we can choose to let billionaires continue to squeeze the life out of the middle class. Her closing argument is that we can choose positivity, hope, optimism, and joy, or we can choose hatred and fear. She has provided clear and concise talking points on every single one of the policy items you listed above. That you are choosing to not see them or hear them is on you, not on her.
 
CFordUNC said:
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Don't think the GOP supermajority can override Cooper signing off on the electors. Thankfully. Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin should all be safe from these shenanigans for the same reason.

Nevada and Georgia have a bit more fear involved.
 
rodoheel said:
I'm not really sure I follow your last sentence. No one here believes Trump's BS. The objective reality is that the election is very close and will be decided by thin margins. At best, that means we're about to go through two more months of "stop the steal" BS, and conspiracy theories, and lawsuits, and who knows what else. Being concerned about Trump winning the election, which is a very real possibility, and/or about what will happen if we don't know an official result for days, which is also a very real possibility, does not correlate at all with believing Trump's BS.

I guess my complete response would be, how are you NOT freaking out? How is, like, a 40-50% possibility of a Trump win (likely coming along with control of both the House and the Senate) not raising a huge knot of stress in the pit of your stomach? I sure as hell hope it doesn't happen. There's still a good chance it doesn't happen. But I find it hard to understand an "everything is good" mentality at this point. Many of us had that mentality in October 2016, when Clinton was blowing Trump out and we were laughing at Pubs all the way to the finish line. After that debacle, how anyone could ever again go into a Trump election - knowing the stakes and consequences if he does win - with calmness and confidence is beyond me.
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I don't want to necessarily speak for @lawtig02 but I'll speak for myself- and I know that folks like lawtig and I probably seem like we are completely off our rocker with the optimism. I just feel that the fundamentals matter. Money matters, grassroots volunteers matter, the ground game matters, the message of joy and hope vs. the message of hatred and division and negativity matters, the message of "America is a great place but we still have work to do to make it even better" vs. "America is a garbage can" matter. Trump has been a massive albatross around the GOP's electoral chances in general elections for going on 8 years now. MAGA is deeply unpopular among all normal people in this country. There are significant numbers of Republicans claiming that they are voting for Harris. All of those things matter, IMO. I'm not saying that it won't be uncomfortably close, but I just trust that having literally all of the fundamentals and intangibles in Harris's favor, and none in Trump's, is what will seal the deal.
 
CFordUNC said:
You are just deep in your feels and your pessimism. No offense intended, and I'm certainly not belittling you for having those those feelings. But you are not paying attention if you think that Harris's closing argument is solely about January, 6, 2021. Her closing argument is that America gets to choose between a president who has an "enemies list" and a president that has a "to-do list" for the American people. Her closing argument is that we can choose to continue to be a free democracy, or we can surrender our democracy to a handful of fascist billionaire oligarchs. Her closing argument is that we can build an America with an opportunity economy for people of al socioeconomic backgrounds, or we can choose to let billionaires continue to squeeze the life out of the middle class. Her closing argument is that we can choose positivity, hope, optimism, and joy, or we can choose hatred and fear. She has provided clear and concise talking points on every single one of the policy items you listed above. That you are choosing to not see them or hear them is on you, not on her.
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The overwhelming majority of Americans think they lived through four years of Trump and if it happens again, they will live through another 4. She needs to be talking about uplifting the lower and middle class. The argument she isn’t Trump isn’t going to win it for her. I pray I’m wrong.
 
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