Turned on TV. CNN appears to have decided this is kinda over except for the lawsuits, and is now in reflective mood. Anderson Cooper is now talking to historian Doris Kearns Goodwin about lessons learned.
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An odd shtick nobody else could pull of with a straight face is Trump trying to halt counting where it would favor him and drive it to resolution where he’s behind. He really has no sense of the spirit of a competition. Atlanta commissioner doing a presser on scanner process.
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Quite a process this dude is describing. - invalidated ballots are tossed (missing/mismatched signature) - open, flatten feed ballot through scanner twice - if computer flags an uncertainty, human review panel infers voter intent to countpic.twitter.com/qtvLNghYUT
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Gotta say these people are heroes in the same sense as firefighters, healthcare workers. It’s thankless, low-paid, low-glamour frustrating work with a lot of angry people waiting to yell at you no matter what. This is why I believe in democracy. We invest thankless labor into it.
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Things tend to be valuable in proportion to the amount of thankless grinding labor it takes to make them work. In a way this would be an argument against online voting. The labor is a feature.
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Blockchain people get this and don’t get this. This is literal proof of work. If you designed an online version you should design in an expensive counting process. Elections *should* be costly to run.
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If Trump loses, there will be a clear test of the popular remote diagnosis that he is a narcissistic psycho with no soul. If he grows a beard to process, he has a soul. If he doesn’t, he doesn’t. I don’t make the rules. The beard test is bipartisan and global.https://twitter.com/LibertyRPF/status/1324145916853575680 …
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Litigiousness goes with trumpcore aesthetic like PB&J. Though US as a whole has a rep for litigiousness, it is not a randomly distributed trait. I think it’s a Jacksonian-America trait. The language points to a subculture: “So sue me” “See you in court” “It’s perfectly legal”
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Perhaps the clearest example of it is sovereign citizen conspiracy theories, ideas that income tax is illegal, etc. My theory is that these are self-soothing tales of agency poor white males began telling themselves in the 1830s after getting a taste of power under Jackson.
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You grasp at legalistic notions of agency when you’re admitted into society under the letter of the law but not the spirit. When you’re granted frustrating access to the nominal power but denied access to the inner rings. Trump has that same feeling at a fractally higher level.
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Basically, starting in 1830s a *national* class emerged in the US whose identity was built around suing richer whites and punching down at still-disenfranchised blacks and browns. A superset of poor-white post-civil war southerner.
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In case you’re not familiar with this line of argument it’s the one Walter Russell Mead has been developing for decades https://pmachala.people.amherst.edu/Current%20Politics/Case%20Studies%20in%20American%20Diplomacy%20-The%20Readings%20FOR%20the%20FIRST%20and%20SECOND%20Class/Mead,%20The%20Jacksonian%20Tradition.htm … https://www.hudson.org/research/13258-the-jacksonian-revolt … https://www.hudson.org/research/13010-donald-trump-s-jacksonian-revolt …
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Sling down no doomscroll tv
Also gotta reread this thinghttps://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/ …Show this thread -
Before Sling crashed, token Republican on CNN was arguing that the biggest outcome is rejection of far left. I kinda agree. If it had been Bernie on the ballot with AOC cheerleading, Trump would likely have won in a landslide. This is a major bourgeoisie warning shot across bows.
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While I’m sympathetic to some far-left policy priorities, Bernieverse vastly underestimates how much bourgeois middle values stability, even if short of law-and-order dogwhistles. This is the 800lb fascist-lite egregorilla++ we’re talking about. It includes Biden’s core.
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Even in countries that are not paranoid about communism, it takes a lot of oppression of a lot more people over a long time to truly activate a far-left movement. I grew up near the Maoist Naxalite belt in India. The cartoon antifa Fox agonizes about is a cute joke by comparison.
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Wow, Trump’s lead in GA narrowed from 370k last night midnight to ~30k now. 95% reporting. This is gonna be really close.
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Several people have brought up minimum wage as proof of far left policy support. No it’s support for more money for yourself when you make very little. I can’t think of a litmus test policy that would reliably gauge sympathy level for real socialism. Which I think is really low
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Don’t agree with this, but linking it in to think about more in my later lessons learned analysishttps://twitter.com/Stephen_Corwin/status/1324165872760557568 …
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This too. Don’t agree but interesting to think about. I think imagination *is* among the concerns to cater to. People vote for an overall emergent story, not a spectrum-auction bundle of policies.https://twitter.com/Stephen_Corwin/status/1324166026553151488 …
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This is an example of another anomalous feature of this election despite surface normalcy. Everybody is armed to the teeth including a ton of Democrats who are buying guns for first time. Best case: lots of used guns for sale after a peaceful transition.https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-10-30/gun-sales-are-soaring-and-its-not-just-conservatives-stocking-up …
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I did a thread on an outsider view of American gun culture in June when this arming of the populace was ramping up.https://twitter.com/vgr/status/1267940553204760576 …
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Guns are exhibit A in why you must cater to imaginations not just needs. If you don’t, a dark imagination takes over. The narrative imagination abhors a vacuum. In America it also shoots at it. And sometimes the void shoots back.
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Ht
@Aelkus a read on what to expect on Trump’s litigation end game. CNN discussing it right now as frivolous desperate long shots.https://www.propublica.org/article/if-trump-tries-to-sue-his-way-to-election-victory-heres-what-happens?fbclid=IwAR0WG8L9jr1Meta-A19lHg-WNJv26xaiXfGfr4X2C3ie8SOPkQENZAl2mcE …Show this thread -
CNN says Biden team being super cautious and disciplined in firmly not gloating about either Trump or his supporters, or taking any bait. The afternoon statement signaled a clear intent to be beaker in chief and woo away non-core trump voters if he wins.
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I don’t think the mainstream media or social media is going to be that restrained or forgiving if Biden wins. Jake Tapper already described Trump’s litigation endgame as “flailing.” Otoh if Trump squeaks through — still a slim possibility, his holy rage will be unstoppable.
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Worth thinking this through since it’s so close. If he does win I think Trump will go Old Testament on everyone who is now abandoning him. Mitch on down. Revenge on traitors will be first priority of second term. Both GOP and Fox will be tortured for doubting him.
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Everyone’s written him off, but he’s definitely not done. Statistical weird luck and/or strange legal events could still hand this to him. If he wins I think after revenge, his second biggest priority will be destroying Obamacare as his legacy. Scorched earth.
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Arizona is getting back in play for Trump, Biden’s lead is slipping seriously.
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4chan view. Don’t be quick to react. Things could still turn around for them in which case they’ll be in kek heaven. And if Biden does win, remember 2016. An imploding reality bubble is not pretty no matter who it happens to. https://twitter.com/mothistopheles/status/1324037003428667392 …
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