The American Politics Thread

all things being equal.. if both parties turn out..  Trump loses..2018... that was the empirical evidence to what we all knew.. but rarely ever saw..  there are more Democratic and leaning voters than there are Republicans. Their key to electoral success.. ie 2016.. is to turn out their votes. and keep down Democratic ones to where it becomes a 2016.. 2000 crapshoot..  and that is very much in play for 2020..

the trick is.. for all the analysis of trends and polls... no one knows what really is going to happen with voting.. thus Trump does has a chance. That is the funny thing. .the whole Pandemic thing.. while on the face of it should have been the final nail in his coffin.. may be the thing that gets him reelected.. by suppressing the vote or various GOP led disenfranchised funny business tactics..

Raff and I were talking of that earlier while we were out for walk..  she noted that I tossed the application for voting by mail in the trash.. and I said hell yeah..  I didn't care what I had to do to vote in person..  go to a consolidated voting location... stand in line for hours...   I'm doing it.   Dangerous? pfff..  I've been working throughout this whole thing...  I always thought I'd more lucky to not catch it than to be unlucky to have caught it. So I could care less about that side of it..  what the issue will be though will structural and how difficult it is for people to vote in person.. do those votes by mail get to where they need to go and don't get tossed by some partisan official who thought your signature looked 'funny'

Of course, if Biden does win Florida while also winning Arizona, he won't even need PA.  It will be a dramatically different map.  But Florida is closer than PA, so I guess if he does win Florida, he is probably winning PA as well. 

Another 2 questions:

1 - Are all recipients of the Purple Heart now officially known as suckers?

2 - Is the transition from sucker to loser considered a promotion?

I think you missed my point.. there are very different demographics here that Trump needs to win reelection .. this is not 2016 where he just needs white working class to turn out while banking on traditional support of seniors and suburbanites.... he has big problems with others now that are completely different.

but focusing on one..as he is... does not bring back the others.  Florida and Pennsylvania are two completely different states and have very different demographics in play here.  Trump is playing hard with the fear and law and order shtick...to white working class voter... that can win him Pennsylvania.. but does nothing to win Florida where seniors are the key swing demographic.

Personally I think he loses both.. if voting doesn't become a disaster.. but I'd give him a much better chance to win Pennsylvanian than Florida where he has gone underwater with seniors since 2016.. first with health care. then the bungled virus response.

Russian interference is definitely something I think we should be concerned about, especially since this administration and McConnell have done squat to secure our election system. Not sure what role China might have. I hope I'm wrong, but to me, November is looking like it might be a big mess.

No, I think it's pretty safe to say it will be a big mess. No matter what happens there will be more riots and protests and it get worse before it gets better. If Trump wins the radical left will protest and create more violence and if he loses the radical right will do pretty much the same thing. 

obtw..  you aint' no patch on Raff.. but you are pretty hot too when you whip out the angry face..

To me a moderate would be someone who would vote a party that is ideologically set between the democrats and the republicans. As such a party doesn't exist in the US, I would assume that would now mostly include the swing voters and the non voters. I'm talking true moderate here, not moderate democrat or moderate republican.

And a radical, to my mind, would be more that just a voter with a strong opinion, but a voter incapable of acknowledging that any opinion other than his or hers is worth even a thought, and who would even be prepared to commit violent acts in support of his or her opinion.