THE 2020 US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

WP64 wrote:It was incredibly hard to stomach voting for Dick Durbin but I did it...

Ugh. Illinois sucks man.

I want to vote for the Tax as well, but I am apprehensive. In the end they will rob us blind.

What is the problem with Dick Durbin?

I'm not here to defend him I just want to know.

Oh god, vote for the fucking progressive tax amendment, please.

undo wrote:What is the problem with Dick Durbin?

I'm not here to defend him I just want to know.

He's a democrat.

Look at who he's running against, though. This isn't difficult.

I shouldn't be surprised by the ad campaign they've put out against it. But I am. I think I've gotten anti-Madigan themed flyers in the mail every day for the last two weeks. TV ads are really pushing the idea that it will give politicians power to raise taxes on every struggling blue collar worker... just because they can (and they absolutely will, because they despise their hard-working constituents).

Durbin is just a main cog in the blue machine, which seeks to destroy the poor community (hoping the poor will just leave so that their nepotism bubble can expand into more gentrified areas) with actions such as shutting down 50 of the cities most needed schools and bankrupting the state with corruption while they, and most importantly to them: their families, are able to rob said communities blind.

They come in sheep's clothing and talk a good game, but in the end they serve the racist system (see construction contracts, blacks who never get tenure or teaching jobs with great qualifications and never find union work while being fully unionized) and serving foremost: nepotism.

They control the police force, and then try to blame others when the Police behave badly. This nepotism can be hard to put your finger on, but I spent a good amount of time with cop families and connected families in Chicago (through family) and trust me: when they tell you about it, it becomes crystal clear they are racists who serve themselves while bankrupting everyone else. And, their oligarchical, nepotistic system keeps them firmly in control: and most importantly this nepotistic bubble which keeps the people in their safe, thriving neighborhoods voting for them. The poster is obviously Mike Madigan, hence the ads you receive: a truly, truly evil man who uses power to expand his nepotism.

Since they have such firm control, voting red isn't an option. So, you just vote blue or don't vote at all. Democracy at it's finest.

Durbin maintains a remarkably discreet profile given the fact that he is the senior Senator of one of the country's largest states so I feel like people don't really have any strong feelings about him, which is to his benefit. His voting record is that of a mainstream Democrat. He is basically indistinguishable from Chuck Schumer. I have absolute loathing for these people. Of course Duff is right that the alternative is unholy, which is why I bit the bullet, but I did consider voting for the Green Party candidate (I was surprised that they had nominated someone actually).

How are you guys planning to approach the election night? I feel like it is really self-defeating to sit myself down and watch the cable television spectacle knowing that I will just go to sleep without any clear indication of the result and having had to suffer through the most banal, undergraduate analysis of their pundits as they pander to the lowest common denominator of the least informed elements of the American electorate tuning into their primetime television event. It is truly nauseating. At the same time, can I realistically just follow passively follow through message boards and twitter? Ideally I could just listen to some jazz records, drink some chamomile tea, and read. But for some reason, I feel like I would actually regret not really allowing myself to fully experience this as the national event that it is. I have a lot of mixed feelings about it.

At the beginning of the year I made plans to go to the movies on election night, just get out of the house and someplace where I can't even check my phone even if I want to

I'm still planning on "going out" but I have no idea what that will even be like, yeah sounds like a great idea

With all this violence I will be shocked if it's not a red wave. I don't believe any polls. People see looting, burning all Summer they vote red. The voting turnouts are breaking records and as we all know: the old vote in the biggest numbers. And, even if old people care about the blue, I think it's gonna be a landslide because of all the violence.

how old are you

I wasn’t gonna vote but then I watched Arcade Fires performance on Bon Ivers GOTV concert. I’m sure it changed more than my mind!

I own a 'Durbin For Senate' t-shirt. Very good looking, comfortable garment, imo.

This Minnesota ruling is fucked up guys.

they're really gonna steal this thing, huh

Seems they're gonna try.

Pretty sure I'm going to order a gigantic, literally heart-stopping pie with extra everything and then split my time between watching movies, checking in for periodic and brief updates, and dying (re: diabetes). "Brief" will be key, when it comes to the periodic updates.

I voted Green when I could, but otherwise voted an entirely Democratic ticket. Voted to boot every single judge, lol. First time that happened.

Disclaimer in case people forgot: had Illinois been in play, I would have voted for Biden literally dozens of times. And I convinced all but two people I know (my cousin and my aunt) to vote for the candidate whose policies they actually supported rather than the candidate the TV convinced them was "more gooder." This year, that meant they all voted for Biden.

But it seems impossible that it won't take at least a few weeks for things actually to settle, as such, so I'll probably be wasting my time by checking in at all. I dunno! Whatever!

jesus jones wrote:they're really gonna steal this thing, huh

I had just turned six years old before the 1988 election. I was hardly the average child, lol, and it was the first time I made a general election prediction. I really do remember seeing that one Dukakis TV ad and saying to myself, "THIS guy can't win." I've correctly predicted every single one since then, too. This will be the first time that I won't get it right. Earlier this year, I posted several times about how it seemed impossible to me that Trump could lose. He seemed prohibitively likely to get the most votes in the right places, so it was a safe-ass pick. Unless, as I think I once put it, the coronavirus situation turned into a straight-up bubonic plague situation. A situation I didn't reckon any of us wanted to see.

Well, that happened!

But I'm not going to be right because I'm not even making a pick. This is because, for the first time in my life, the question, "Who will get the most votes?" (or even, "Who will get the most votes, and where?") is totally irrelevant. This is unthinkable, and yet it is true. This is how I always made my predictions--I asked myself and then answered this question, and the answer was always really obvious. Now, it's not even worth asking. It's somehow meaningless. And even quaint.

This year, the question is, "Which votes will be allowed to be counted, and where?" And as there's no way to answer this question with any certainty in even a single area, let alone every single place in the country, it's impossible to predict a winner. A blind guess is not a prediction, and blind guesses're suddenly the best we've got.

This is absolutely, viscerally terrifying.

I feel like that's a clumsy and poorly done post, but I assure you that it's the real shit.

Feeling the absolute shit out of that terrifying and admittedly poorly done post. Thus, not poorly done imho.

Anyway, I'm gonna straight up ignore election "night" cause we won't know the results and nobody needs the stress of watching trump claim victory at like 8pm when there's no possible way he could know that for another week. My gut says that he will lose in a blowout but use the system he has taken charge of to steal a victory and conclusively deliver the death blow to US democracy. But I've been wrong before.

Outcome of the election will decide entirely whether I try to continue to promote up the chain in my current vocation or get out at earliest opportunity, flee the country, and become a dissident expat professor of political science in another country. So fingers crossed for as few people as possible getting murdered by white supremacists I guess. Fuck this all and god fuck the united states of america.

Brace yourselves for the worst because the constant rioting the last two months is going to tip this into Trumps favor. As unfortunate as that is. Hope I'm wrong, we'll see after tomorrow.

"constant rioting" is a very :watkid: right wing savage description of what is by and large a fairly beautiful, national execution of our collective 1st amendment rights

I live in Portland, I've protested all over the city, and any activity I've witnessed that fits the definition of "riotous" was perpetrated by the blue-clad gang members with batons and badges.

Yeah, not much reason to think that'll pan out. Trump's got a chance at a legitimate victory but it's not much of one. The real danger is voter supression and bullshit lawsuits.

I've been teeter-tottering between existential dread and forced numbness, occassionally allowing myself to almost feel excited for a few seconds before shutting it back down. Been telling myself that nothing exists past Halloween for a while now, and now that we're here, man, I dunno. But as for tomorrow night plans, I really can't imagine successfully distracting myself from it, so I'm just gonna sit down and watch what happens until I can't anymore, and then maybe I'll just stare into space.