Trump's approval rate increases to 49%

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

Honestly, I'd be more worried about that shitshow state of the union address than the damn IA caucuses at this point, and that's saying something. Pelosi just fed the GOP the money shot of every attack ad from here 'till November 4th, Democrats are lining up to shit the bed firing nuclear takes about Rush getting the Medal of Freedom literally the day after he announced he has cancer, and Trump just fed the Republican base the whole-ass cow with that veteran stunt.

There's not a single damn Democrat left on capitol hill that understands optics, apparently, and Trump has them so dialed-in at this point they may as well actually be working on his damn campaign staff.

Pelosi tearing up that speech is going to go down in political history on the same page as the Dean scream and Dukakis' tank ride.

 

[Trunkage]

I swear the phrase "I am just stating facts" is usually the sign you're spouting a conspiracy theory [https://www.fastcompany.com/90458795/humans-are-hardwired-to-dismiss-facts-that-dont-fit-their-worldview].

But this is a pretty funny presentation of those facts regardless....

I, literally, can not believe some started a program called Shadow and used it in an election process. It's like calling your military contractor Blackwater. Yep, that sounds legit. No shady dealings

 

[Satinavian]

Granted it doesn't help that most countries now have a Green Party (or equivalent) that chiefly serves the function of splitting the centre-left across two parties and ensuring neither wins.

If you don't use a FPTP system that is not really a problem. Coalitions are a thing.

 

[Silvanus]

... What are you even talking about? When have I ever suggested you shouldn't critizice Trump? What I said was that you shouldn't fixate on Trump because most of the weird seemingly lunatic stuff he does is a ploy for attention. Again, you fall for exactly the same thing that let Trump win in the first place, focus on the clown while ignoring the abysmal effort that's being made to contain him, and the corruption that's not allowing the people who's job is to contain the clown to do their job.

Isn't it kind of the job of the opposition to hold the government to account?

Its funny; here in the UK, whenever the Labour Party gets introspective and starts inspecting their own behaviour/ processes, they're accused of "naval-gazing" or neglecting the duty of criticising the government. And whenever they criticise the government, they're told to get their own house in order first. It's a lose-lose.

 

[JamesStone]

... What are you even talking about? When have I ever suggested you shouldn't critizice Trump? What I said was that you shouldn't fixate on Trump because most of the weird seemingly lunatic stuff he does is a ploy for attention. Again, you fall for exactly the same thing that let Trump win in the first place, focus on the clown while ignoring the abysmal effort that's being made to contain him, and the corruption that's not allowing the people who's job is to contain the clown to do their job.

Isn't it kind of the job of the opposition to hold the government to account?

Its funny; here in the UK, whenever the Labour Party gets introspective and starts inspecting their own behaviour/ processes, they're accused of "naval-gazing" or neglecting the duty of criticising the government. And whenever they criticise the government, they're told to get their own house in order first. It's a lose-lose.

Labour is a whole diferent can of worms that got shafted mostly because of years and years of nearly-uncontested propaganda against Corbyn, a complete and utter failure from the party to unite and constant attemtps at internal sabotage. Although if anyone the Dems don't like win, it'll probably be exactly the same can of worms.

As for your question, you know what was "holding the government to account"? Protesting the internment camps relentlessly as many did, protesting Trump's war policies and nonstop rallies as Trump did, mobilizing your party in preparation for the elections, as some senators tried to do. You know what isn't? All the pathetic theatrics inbetween.

This impeachment trial is a prime example. As much as I think Nancy Pelosi is a ghoul, she was absolutely right that jumping to impeachment without some way to assure republican fuckery wouldn't be abundant is foolish, and it was. All this gave was a energized but dissappointed Dem. base and a very energized and fired up Rep. base. This was pure show with zero consequence, just like all the times prior where the democrats moved in against trump without any munition to actually hurt him.

Rallies, events, ways to remind the populace that very little of what Trump did was by his own competence, coupled with harsh and timely criticisms of actual policy and actual events, coupled with protests about the most henious of Trump's actions was what was needed. Not this pure theatrics bullshit that serves only to provide a neat little smokescreen for the President and his bs.

 

[Agema]

This impeachment trial is a prime example. As much as I think Nancy Pelosi is a ghoul, she was absolutely right that jumping to impeachment without some way to assure republican fuckery wouldn't be abundant is foolish, and it was. All this gave was a energized but dissappointed Dem. base and a very energized and fired up Rep. base. This was pure show with zero consequence, just like all the times prior where the democrats moved in against trump without any munition to actually hurt him.

It's not that easy though. They were very potentially damned if they did and damned if they didn't.

The Democrats are not just a few hundred Congresspeople, they represent millions voters, including their activists and funders. They are under a lot of pressure to take action and there's a cost to their own support if they do nothing, that they appear weak, inept, and won't fight for the cause, demoralising their base. They could have sat around taking longer to collect evidence and force subpoenas, but all the polls and studies were pointing to the American public becoming more apathetic or hostile to impeachment should it drag on. .

Rallies, events, ways to remind the populace that very little of what Trump did was by his own competence, coupled with harsh and timely criticisms of actual policy and actual events, coupled with protests about the most henious of Trump's actions was what was needed. Not this pure theatrics bullshit that serves only to provide a neat little smokescreen for the President and his bs.

I would suggest that harsh and timely criticims of actual policy and actual events includes impeaching presidents for abuse of power.

 

[Trunkage]

... What are you even talking about? When have I ever suggested you shouldn't critizice Trump? What I said was that you shouldn't fixate on Trump because most of the weird seemingly lunatic stuff he does is a ploy for attention. Again, you fall for exactly the same thing that let Trump win in the first place, focus on the clown while ignoring the abysmal effort that's being made to contain him, and the corruption that's not allowing the people who's job is to contain the clown to do their job.

Isn't it kind of the job of the opposition to hold the government to account?

Its funny; here in the UK, whenever the Labour Party gets introspective and starts inspecting their own behaviour/ processes, they're accused of "naval-gazing" or neglecting the duty of criticising the government. And whenever they criticise the government, they're told to get their own house in order first. It's a lose-lose.

Labour is a whole diferent can of worms that got shafted mostly because of years and years of nearly-uncontested propaganda against Corbyn, a complete and utter failure from the party to unite and constant attemtps at internal sabotage. Although if anyone the Dems don't like win, it'll probably be exactly the same can of worms.

As for your question, you know what was "holding the government to account"? Protesting the internment camps relentlessly as many did, protesting Trump's war policies and nonstop rallies as Trump did, mobilizing your party in preparation for the elections, as some senators tried to do. You know what isn't? All the pathetic theatrics inbetween.

This impeachment trial is a prime example. As much as I think Nancy Pelosi is a ghoul, she was absolutely right that jumping to impeachment without some way to assure republican fuckery wouldn't be abundant is foolish, and it was. All this gave was a energized but dissappointed Dem. base and a very energized and fired up Rep. base. This was pure show with zero consequence, just like all the times prior where the democrats moved in against trump without any munition to actually hurt him.

Rallies, events, ways to remind the populace that very little of what Trump did was by his own competence, coupled with harsh and timely criticisms of actual policy and actual events, coupled with protests about the most henious of Trump's actions was what was needed. Not this pure theatrics bullshit that serves only to provide a neat little smokescreen for the President and his bs.

Nearly uncontested propoganda? Do you think they did nothing? What could have Corbyn done to rectify that situation?

 

[Silvanus]

As for your question, you know what was "holding the government to account"? Protesting the internment camps relentlessly as many did, protesting Trump's war policies and nonstop rallies as Trump did, mobilizing your party in preparation for the elections, as some senators tried to do. You know what isn't? All the pathetic theatrics inbetween.

This impeachment trial is a prime example. As much as I think Nancy Pelosi is a ghoul, she was absolutely right that jumping to impeachment without some way to assure republican fuckery wouldn't be abundant is foolish, and it was. All this gave was a energized but dissappointed Dem. base and a very energized and fired up Rep. base. This was pure show with zero consequence, just like all the times prior where the democrats moved in against trump without any munition to actually hurt him.

Rallies, events, ways to remind the populace that very little of what Trump did was by his own competence, coupled with harsh and timely criticisms of actual policy and actual events, coupled with protests about the most henious of Trump's actions was what was needed. Not this pure theatrics bullshit that serves only to provide a neat little smokescreen for the President and his bs.

As I understand it, the intention was not to succeed in formally finding Trump guilty in the Senate and removing him procedurally. The intention was to bring more and more evidence and testimony to light, to make people aware of it.

On that count, it was successful. People are now better informed of what went on with Trump's shady dealings with the Ukraine.

So, sure, he's been acquitted, as we (and Pelosi) expected. But that's not likely to disappoint Democrats so much they stay home on election day. A more likely outcome is that the undecided voters become more broadly aware of his corruption (keep in mind broad public support for impeachment, even stretching to ~10% of Republicans according to one poll), as well as tarring the Republican Senators with the dirt of the obvious cover-up.

 

[Agema]

Nearly uncontested propoganda? Do you think they did nothing? What could have Corbyn done to rectify that situation?

Corbyn was a fucking awful leader. There was a strategic void at the top of the party. You have to bear in mind things like Labour voting for a general election in 2019 despite being miles behind in the polls and its party HQ not even ready for a GE, which was suicidal. Its manifesto was a dog's dinner of whatever policies people thought were a nice idea without consideration of a short, sharp coherent message which is well recognised to be most effective. Their answer to far too many things was nationalisation - short of waving Lenin flags they could hardly do more to make the caricature of Corbyn and team as communists stick. Their response to accusations of antisemitism suggests a party utterly clueless at the importance of handling media perceptions.

All throughout 2017-2019, Corbyn's approval rating was on the slide, from about evens to around -50 (!!!) at the time of the election. How did they let this happen? When Ed Miliband had a serious negative approval rating, they designed and ran a campaign - with all the same right wing press hostility - to improve it, and got it back to pretty much level. Astonishingly, no-one at Labour seemed to recognise or want to deal with the fact their leader had such low credibility with the public.

The dice may be loaded against Labour due the biases of the British media, but they are not impotent and they can and have campaigned and advertised effectively in the past. Under Corbyn, however, it was amateur hour: I would characterise it as a load of ideological purists with an understanding of political campaigning barely advanced from student campuses, and that is the fault of the leader and the team he has picked to run the show.

 

[JamesStone]

... What are you even talking about? When have I ever suggested you shouldn't critizice Trump? What I said was that you shouldn't fixate on Trump because most of the weird seemingly lunatic stuff he does is a ploy for attention. Again, you fall for exactly the same thing that let Trump win in the first place, focus on the clown while ignoring the abysmal effort that's being made to contain him, and the corruption that's not allowing the people who's job is to contain the clown to do their job.

Isn't it kind of the job of the opposition to hold the government to account?

Its funny; here in the UK, whenever the Labour Party gets introspective and starts inspecting their own behaviour/ processes, they're accused of "naval-gazing" or neglecting the duty of criticising the government. And whenever they criticise the government, they're told to get their own house in order first. It's a lose-lose.

Labour is a whole diferent can of worms that got shafted mostly because of years and years of nearly-uncontested propaganda against Corbyn, a complete and utter failure from the party to unite and constant attemtps at internal sabotage. Although if anyone the Dems don't like win, it'll probably be exactly the same can of worms.

As for your question, you know what was "holding the government to account"? Protesting the internment camps relentlessly as many did, protesting Trump's war policies and nonstop rallies as Trump did, mobilizing your party in preparation for the elections, as some senators tried to do. You know what isn't? All the pathetic theatrics inbetween.

This impeachment trial is a prime example. As much as I think Nancy Pelosi is a ghoul, she was absolutely right that jumping to impeachment without some way to assure republican fuckery wouldn't be abundant is foolish, and it was. All this gave was a energized but dissappointed Dem. base and a very energized and fired up Rep. base. This was pure show with zero consequence, just like all the times prior where the democrats moved in against trump without any munition to actually hurt him.

Rallies, events, ways to remind the populace that very little of what Trump did was by his own competence, coupled with harsh and timely criticisms of actual policy and actual events, coupled with protests about the most henious of Trump's actions was what was needed. Not this pure theatrics bullshit that serves only to provide a neat little smokescreen for the President and his bs.

Nearly uncontested propoganda? Do you think they did nothing? What could have Corbyn done to rectify that situation?

Nothing, that was my point. Corbyn had no chances whatsoever because he had been under complete and disgusting attack for years from the media, the Tories and his own party. He had almost no support outside of his loyal base and any attempts of his to energize the people were completely sabotaged at every turn. There was little he could do without resorting to immoral counterstrikes.

Jeremy Corbyn was a decent man surrounded by sabouteurs and jackasses. The most you can say about him is that unlike Sanders he failed to build a strong base and to instill some level of social consciousness into the British public years prior, or that he chose to focus on things other than Brexit into what was going to be a Brexit-obsessed election, but outside of that Corbyn was a victim of political assassination, and the sad truth is that the only thing he could have done to survive it is to be something he isn't: another politician piece of shit in it for nothing but himself.

 

[JamesStone]

snip

snip

So, after a day let's add some more things

First, we now know for sure that the app was miscounting votes since at least one county representative is coming up and telling that the numbers being reported ARE NOT the actual numbers they gave

Then it appears the machine was switching votes away from two of the most popular candidates to two of the least during the first stage

And now that after all this ratfuckery the counts are supposedly down and give victory to Sanders, suddenly the DNC feels the need to "recanvass", not during the biggest part of this mess when Buttigieg the Vermin Inferior was declaring himself the victor despite having no actual data and was getting his victory lap of free publicity and added momentum, donations and attention.

I don't claim to know for sure that this is more than just negligence, but at this point I don't give a fuck. It doesn't matter. There's a level of pure inane imbecility where the distinction between negligence and malign intent becomes so thin it doesn't matter anymore. There should be an independent investigation of whatever the fuck happened here, because regardless of intent this is a subjugation of democracy that should not be ignored. If you still want to call me a conspiracy theorist because I don't think incompetence of this level should be just swept under the rug fine. Maybe people like you will be the majority, maybe even enough to let this ratfuckery interfere with the election to the point Buttigieg or Biden get nominated. I'll be there to bitterly and spitefully laugh when Trump gets elected a second term in that case.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

First, we now know for sure that the app was miscounting votes since at least one county representative is coming up and telling that the numbers being reported ARE NOT the actual numbers they gave

"We know they didn't use the app to rig the election, because it crashed before they could". Absolute state of Iowa right now.

 

[SupahEwok]

I don't claim to know for sure that this is more than just negligence, but at this point I don't give a fuck. It doesn't matter. There's a level of pure inane imbecility where the distinction between negligence and malign intent becomes so thin it doesn't matter anymore. There should be an independent investigation of whatever the fuck happened here, because regardless of intent this is a subjugation of democracy that should not be ignored. If you still want to call me a conspiracy theorist because I don't think incompetence of this level should be just swept under the rug fine. Maybe people like you will be the majority, maybe even enough to let this ratfuckery interfere with the election to the point Buttigieg or Biden get nominated. I'll be there to bitterly and spitefully laugh when Trump gets elected a second term in that case.

I mean, I'm not against people being fired for absolute incompetence. Big cock-ups like this do tend to lead to audits. I just choose to not look at life through the lens of a Tom Clancy novel just because I'm emotionally involved, and I think the conspiracy swilling that Bernie's camp likes to indulge in actively damages their brand among potential supporters. There's a fine line between advocating to clean up the establishment and raving that we're in a cyberpunk dystopia.

That said, you ought to get used to disappointment anyway cuz the Dems' miscalculation with the impeachment trial has probably cost the election. All it did was energize Trump's base for him, after a few years of slowly running out of steam as his promised changes ended up being dry farts. He needed something to kick off the campaign trail, and the Republicans managing to frame the trial as just Trump Derangement Syndrome and shutting it down did the trick.

 

[Agema]

"We know they didn't use the app to rig the election, because it crashed before they could". Absolute state of Iowa right now.

lulz.

Honestly, the last few years have been so shite in political terms I've resorted to laughing through the despair.

 

[Agema]

That said, you ought to get used to disappointment anyway cuz the Dems' miscalculation with the impeachment trial has probably cost the election. All it did was energize Trump's base for him, after a few years of slowly running out of steam as his promised changes ended up being dry farts. He needed something to kick off the campaign trail, and the Republicans managing to frame the trial as just Trump Derangement Syndrome and shutting it down did the trick.

It depends. A majority of Americans thought witnesses should have been called, and at minimum are deeply suspicious of what Trump attempted.

The impeachment may have fired up his base, but it may also have cost him in a lot of more moderate voters who take a dim view of absurd political hijinx. The last few years have taught me that pessimism is appropriate, but even so we still have to consider Trump may have lost some votes in important demographics.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

Honestly, the last few years have been so shite in political terms I've resorted to laughing through the despair.

It was only a matter of time before something like this happens. We entrust "first in the nation" nomination status to people who think deep-fried twinkies are a delicacy.

 

[SupahEwok]

That said, you ought to get used to disappointment anyway cuz the Dems' miscalculation with the impeachment trial has probably cost the election. All it did was energize Trump's base for him, after a few years of slowly running out of steam as his promised changes ended up being dry farts. He needed something to kick off the campaign trail, and the Republicans managing to frame the trial as just Trump Derangement Syndrome and shutting it down did the trick.

It depends. A majority of Americans thought witnesses should have been called, and at minimum are deeply suspicious of what Trump attempted.

The impeachment may have fired up his base, but it may also have cost him in a lot of more moderate voters who take a dim view of absurd political hijinx. The last few years have taught me that pessimism is appropriate, but even so we still have to consider Trump may have lost some votes in important demographics.

I mean, nobody knows what's gonna happen in the next 9 months. Maybe Bernie will be seen on video saving a disabled vet's pet kitten from a burning building. Maybe it'll come out that Trump fucked a pig's severed head in college. Who knows? To an extent, reality is such a chaotic system that none of us can really guess what's going to happen.

But from my personal experience, polls tend to underplay Trump's status with voters, and the impeachment trial was an overall success for Trump and Republicans, who managed to successfully shift the conversation away from corruption to Democrats being sore losers among right wingers and a good deal of moderates. Trump has made a lot of small fuckups, but the great work of his term has been managing to successfully pivot any of the big ones from being perceived as a cataclysmic one to just sour grapes to voters. It's tough to unseat an elected incumbent when his party still backs him up to the neck, and there's no one, big failure to hang on him, like Watergate or the Great Depression. He's doing what he's done for his whole life: skating by and spinning around one disaster after another, outrunning his mistakes. If he has any genius in him, that's what it's in. Unless one of them manages to catch him before November, I really do think he'll make it.

 

[Marik2]

I kinda want the economy to fall into recession so that the average person can blame it on the president. And then people will start to demand UBI. Stupid wishful thinking, I know.