2020 U.S. Presidential Election

[Nihil Obstat]

On 11/6/2020 at 7:12 PM, chrysostom said:

 

Sorry, was having trouble deleting the quote code here.

Anyway, a friend of mine on Facebook posted a discussion thread last week saying "what if Biden wins?" This was my response then:

 

Obama in 2008 and 2012 was supposed to be the end of days for conservatism in the Western world. The truth is usually more mundane. He will do a lot we'll disagree with, a few good things that none of us will be willing to admit, and a few debatable things that none of us will be willing to offer the benefit of the doubt on.
The pro life cause will be set back a bit, euthanasia will gain ground, homosexuality and trans ideology will continue to cement themselves in the cultural landscape. As a society we will continue our headlong slide into decadence (same as with a Trump second term).
Life will go on, and we will continue to make very little spiritual progress, the same as we've been doing, because it's always about the enemy who's out there, not our own failings.

 

Satan can take advantage of any of those appetites, the bitterness, the panic, the despair, or for other people indifference, sloth, pusillanimity, etc. If the devil can make a liberal lose their soul through liberalism, and a conservative lose their soul through conservatism, he will do that too.
I am just very suspicious of an approach that seems to be so based on emotion, bias, and questionable heuristics.

Edited November 8, 2020 by Nihil Obstat

[Ash Wednesday]

This exorcism prayer for priests and laity has been passed around in some Catholic circles to be prayed until the election is resolved, though I think it's also a prayer worth having on hand beyond this.

I have a book of exorcism prayers for the laity, this is from that book. I previously ordered the book for priests by mistake.    I'm not authorized to bless salt, houses, and Easter meats, so if anybody knows any priests that need a book of exorcism prayers, let me know.

https://amzn.to/2I8ch5N

[Didacus]

Is there any realistic chance at this point that Trump can pull a victory from thisbelection?

I know Gerogia is recounting votes... any other states doing the same?

[Peace]

1 hour ago, Didacus said:

Is there any realistic chance at this point that Trump can pull a victory from this election?

No.

[Ash Wednesday]

1 hour ago, Didacus said:

Is there any realistic chance at this point that Trump can pull a victory from thisbelection?

I know Gerogia is recounting votes... any other states doing the same?

I'm skeptical, but at the same time I'm fine with them recounting or airing any legal grievances that may exist to resolve any whatabout-isms. I felt this was going to be likely regardless of who would get the networks projection. It will all eventually get sorted.

[Credo in Deum]

On 11/6/2020 at 10:05 AM, Peace said:

Yeah I was a big fan of Rubio back in 2016 before Trump called him "Little Marco" and ruined his life. For whatever reason I feel like his window of opportunity has come and gone. I am becoming a fan of Nikki Haley but we'll see what happens with her.

Nah, they would not be apologizing for current stuff. For current stuff, I think they just need to act normal and choose their words carefully when speaking. Just be like John McCain was. When some quack comes up to you in a Town Hall and says "Obama is a Muslim terrorist" respond with "I'm sorry miss, that is not true" instead of "You know what, I don't know if he is, there should be an investigation."

They would need to apologize all the stuff in the past though. Stuff like Goldwater being against the Civil Rights Act. Reagan and the welfare queens and so forth, just give a real acknowledgment of some of the reasons why the strife between the groups exist, and be sincere about wanting to make amends and wanting to work with a group going forward. I think you would need a major candidate like the presidential nominee or all of the leaders of the party to make it a consistent part of their message for a number of years, to reverse that trend.

Regarding the civil rights act was it a republican or deomrate who put on a 14 hour filibuster to try and delay it from being passed?   I believe it was senator Robert Bryd a DEMOCRAT and former Ku Klux Klan member who did that.  

Democrats haven't switched from being racist to not racist, no, they've just gotten better at it.

Edited November 9, 2020 by Credo in Deum

[HumilityAndPatience]

The whole thing is theatre... The real "red pill" is to understand that votes dont make a difference. Sad truths...

[Didacus]

31 minutes ago, HumilityAndPatience said:

The whole thing is theatre... The real "red pill" is to understand that votes dont make a difference. Sad truths...

I never liked democracy... I genuinely believe it is at the core of many if even most of the problems in society today.

[Peace]

2 hours ago, Credo in Deum said:

Regarding the civil rights act was it a republican or deomrate who put on a 14 hour filibuster to try and delay it from being passed?   I believe it was senator Robert Bryd a DEMOCRAT and former Ku Klux Klan member who did that.  

Democrats haven't switched from being racist to not racist, no, they've just gotten better at it.

Yeah as I wrote the Southern Dems practically founded the Klan. But those folks moved into the GOP starting with Goldwater. Look, there is a reason why 90% of black folks vote Dem and highly are suspicious of the GOP. And that reason ain't because they all just got duped or brainwashed into thinking the GOP was racist, and that the Dems are all angels. Even today whenever you have some right-wing white supremacist group at the extremes - they all lean towards the GOP (and seem to love Trump in particular). That isn't just a coincidence.

[Aloysius]

In terms of overt and expressed racism, the rise of republicanism in the south coincided with overt racial hatred becoming less and less socially acceptable in the south.  and with very few exceptions, the actual politicians never switched parties.

Of course, in terms of institutional things that differently advantage different racial groups, you could find the republican rise coinciding with those kinds of things replacing the old Jim Crow; and the social unacceptability of overt racism does not mean it went away, just that it went more underground.  racists who in the past were able to rely on overt government segregationist policies found refuge in more libertarian philosophies to try to protect them against government enforced integration or inclusion or fairness, etc.  It was that side of things that the southern strategy developed around--a convergence of interests from wealthy people who wanted to use libertarian ideology to protect themselves from taxes and groups of people who previously tried to use the government to enforce segregation now trying to protect themselves against a government that had flipped on them as the overall social acceptability of racism / segregation was no longer accepted (at least not overtly)

add to that the democrat push for welfare spending, and you can really see where the black community ended up solidly supporting the democrats.  in fact, it started around FDR's time, with campaigns that told black Americans turn their pictures of Lincoln around to face the wall and pull the lever for FDR--the first chink in the armor of the black community's previous loyalty to the republican party.  Johnson's Great Society was the culmination of that side of the push.

That welfare side of things was actually the same kind of thing that made Irish Catholics so loyal to the democratic party for so long as well, until the abortion issue forged the religious right alliance and split the Catholic block of voters.  but that also coincided with Irish Catholics as a whole rising up in class and social position in society--something that if it had happened in the black community to that degree would have probably resulted in the same kind of split of the vote considering the overall social conservatism that is prevalent with them.

anyway, that's the more complicated story--it's not an easy "party's flipped" narrative, it's not an easy "repubs became racist" narrative, either.  but it is understandable, and the republican's cut-throat strategies to gain power have definitely had negative impacts on the black community.  It'd be good to see the Republicans live up to their older legacy now -- I am disappointed not to see what Trump was going to do with his platinum plan (though I cynically expected it to fail after re-election, and possibly him having just used it as a ploy).  But anyway it's clearly not a one party or the other issue, and for all Trump's faults you have to give him credit for being the first politician in a long while, democrat or republican, to actually try to court the black vote (dems tend to take it for granted, except in primaries, and reps tend to assume it's not going for them and gerrymander / arguably try to suppress it because of that assumption; not that the reps didnt still do that this time, but while they were doing that Trump was spending serious campaign money trying to get them to vote for him)

[Anomaly]

17 hours ago, Didacus said:

Is there any realistic chance at this point that Trump can pull a victory from thisbelection?

I know Gerogia is recounting votes... any other states doing the same?

There should be more recounts.   Just google 2016 race with Hillary.   Remember they recounted Michigan and found they had more ballots than counted in poll books?    In 2016, Florida also had two Supervisors of Election get disciplined, one got fired, for not following the law.   Both happened to be Democrats in primarily Democrat Counties.  

Look at the voter results.  It only has to be a few populous Counties that can change the state.  Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin are going Biden by less than 1% of votes.   Considering how biased the media has appeared to be, and past history of shenanigans, do you really think voters have high confidence games weren’t played again?    At the very least, a fair investigation is owed to the citizens to legitimize the winner, regardless if it’s Trump or Biden. 

[Didacus]

17 minutes ago, Anomaly said:

There should be more recounts.   Just google 2016 race with Hillary.   Remember they recounted Michigan and found they had more ballots than counted in poll books?    In 2016, Florida also had two Supervisors of Election get disciplined, one got fired, for not following the law.   Both happened to be Democrats in primarily Democrat Counties.  

Look at the voter results.  It only has to be a few populous Counties that can change the state.  Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin are going Biden by less than 1% of votes.   Considering how biased the media has appeared to be, and past history of shenanigans, do you really think voters have high confidence games weren’t played again?    At the very least, a fair investigation is owed to the citizens to legitimize the winner, regardless if it’s Trump or Biden. 

I belueve that the Trump campaign is in its rights to question the results.

Its a bit strange for a Canadien looking from outside: some sources of course say election tampering is nearly the norm, others of course claim it is exceptionally rare.

Based on my own readings, I woupd think more than likely there was significant tampering, amd at the very least some very suspicious circumstances.

[Peace]

2 hours ago, Didacus said:

I belueve that the Trump campaign is in its rights to question the results.

Its a bit strange for a Canadien looking from outside: some sources of course say election tampering is nearly the norm, others of course claim it is exceptionally rare.

Based on my own readings, I woupd think more than likely there was significant tampering, amd at the very least some very suspicious circumstances.

I have no doubt that there is fraud. What I have trouble believing is that there is systemic fraud that changed the result of the election.

Like the GOP loves to say that Philly is corrupt and so forth. That may be true. But it ain't like there isn't fraud going on in the red parts of the state too. You can manufacture votes out in the country just like you can in the city.

[Anomaly]

3 minutes ago, Peace said:

I have no doubt that there is fraud. What I have trouble believing is that there is systemic fraud that changed the result of the election.

Like the GOP loves to say that Philly is corrupt and so forth. That may be true. But it ain't like there isn't fraud going on in the red parts of the state too. You can manufacture votes out in the country just like you can in the city.

Two wrongs don’t make a right.

I live in Florida and experienced the hanging chad fiasco.  As a result, Florida changed many procedures and the machines used.  The system is much more transparent and verifiable.  

Per voting patterns, it only takes a county, a few precincts, to tilt the results in a close race. Fla still had issues with elected supervisors not following the law a few years ago.  That was addressed for this year.  

It’s always a battle to balance voter suppression with vote security.  It’s not a fundamentally partisan issue unless one side sees an advantage to be gained.   

At the least, it validates the winner and gives guidance to correct issues.   Already there is talk about submitting a bill for standardization of certain protocols to ensure transparency and validation.  

[Didacus]

2 hours ago, Peace said:

I have no doubt that there is fraud. What I have trouble believing is that there is systemic fraud that changed the result of the election.

Like the GOP loves to say that Philly is corrupt and so forth. That may be true. But it ain't like there isn't fraud going on in the red parts of the state too. You can manufacture votes out in the country just like you can in the city.

D.Trump would NEVER cheat!