Use the OFFICIAL Election Thread in the Politics Forum..

[flacaltenn]

Thread link is --- Official 2020 November Election Thread.

It will open tonight at 11PM Eastern. Use it as we have before for ALL comments, analysis, news items and EVERYTHING election until 11PM Eastern Wednesday night.. We're extending the time limit because there WILL BE NO ELECTION certainty until AT LEAST that time..

After that -- IF it drags on -- we may be opening "consolidated official threads' for each STATE still in contention.. Look for them..

You can use this floating announcement to bump it with PRE-Election hype and bad predictions.. LOL.. Just keep it on topic... Help to keep this on Page 1 of this forum until tomorrow night,.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

This was my reply to a comment in a now closed election discussion “thanking” 70 million Americans for voting out Trump.

“Creating Civil War”? It was the left that sent their brown shirts into the streets to riot, burn businesses down, and murder people in the streets, and you know it. But congrats, you lefties have proven terrorism works.

Actually the violence was one of the issues that helped Trump win votes. Trump needed to magnify the idea that “the left” was burning down cities and threatening Americans in their homes. It undoubtedly worked in winning him many votes. Democratic mayors who resisted his efforts to rapidly repress with federal “help” demonstrations and street protests — as in Portland — were accused of supporting or tolerating violence.

But if the arson and violence and disruption in Portland was so great you would expect the Democratic politicians there to suffer in the elections. Apparently that is not what happened. Oregon stayed comfortably Democratic. The Mayor of Portland (in charge of local police) was re-elected, and a referendum calling for a city civilian board to independently review police violence won over 85% of the vote. In the State of Oregon, the last major Republican state officer, the Secty of State, lost. I could be wrong about some of these details, but clearly locally there was no overwhelming rejection of the way the local authorities handled the violence.

I previously argued that Trump clearly (and intentionally) worsened the violence with his actions, but that the national Democrats also hurt themselves by not openly and publically criticizing the violence in Portland. They should have publically encouraged the arrest of all provocateurs to keep the situation from worsening. A tough situation for sure, but one that died down eventually, and thankfully remained more “street theater” than “Revolution” or “Civil War.”

We need to lower the level of hatred and idiocy and armed confrontations. So far I’m happy to see the vast majority or Americans are keeping calm, respecting each other, voting. Whoever wins, wins.

Trump, in my opinion, was indeed a demagogue and provocateur, an incompetent administrator and a personally extremely unstable narcissist. I am glad to see him go, so long as he is voted out legitimately, which seems to be happening.