2020 U.S. Presidential Election

[BittyBug]

But most Latino immigration movements are not the elite. I think it is important to realize that the lobbyists for this particular group--while having a strong voice in politics--are not a majority.

Most of the Venezuelan immigrants are very much in the elite - most who had money to flee Venezuela did so while the country is imploding. And Florida, and the Miami-Dade area in particular, has always been the province of wealthy Latinos, especially Venezuelans.

Finally, of course Latinos can be as just as racist as anyone else. In fact, it is still culturally acceptable to disparage POC in many South American countries.

So yeah, there is no monolithic Latino community any more so that there is a monolithic Asian community or any other community. The DNC needs to wake up and hone its message to the many different constituencies whose support they need if they want to win elections.

 

[alilou]

If Trump does indeed go to Scotland he'll have to leave eventually regardless of lawsuits/extradition. Americans can't just move to/set up residence in the UK just because they want to. You get 6 months and then you have to (try to) immigrate or leave. So he wanders over to France. Oh oops France is a Schengen country he gets 3 months there. And so it goes. Eventually he will have to find a government willing to let him stay long term. Perhaps Putin will welcome him

 

[ballettmaus]

I'm still confused about the voting machine "scandal." What parts were supposed to have been moved out by Antifa, or whoever?

The only thing that makes sense to me is that he means the software. So, that's probably not what he means.

 

[MacMadame]

But this is the kind of time that something like that happens. But it has to be a genuine split, with a significant number of leaders from the current party departing to a new party for it to succeed. A few people starting a new party will fail.

Like the WSA failed. (SkateFAIR )

But if you just count advocating for government programs as socialist then you've snared pretty much all Democrats. Then the term is meaningless.

And really all GOP too since everyone advocates for Government programs. It's just which ones they are advocating for that changes based on political leanings.

 

[MacMadame]

The only thing that makes sense to me is that he means the software. So, that's probably not what he means.

I think he means the hard drives (assuming they have them).

 

[Dobre]

Isn't someone in Scotland thinking of prosecuting him? Why would he feel safer from the law in Scotland?

 

[ballettmaus]

The DNC needs to wake up and hone its message to the many different constituencies whose support they need if they want to win elections.

I think that's easier said than done. Since the Democrats (and Republicans) include a number of different factions but have to please a lot of voters as a whole there will always be something that someone won't like. And I would assume that the more diverse a country gets, the harder that becomes.

It's kind of like as if German parties had to form a coalition before instead of after the election and if I voted for the Green Party, I'd automatically voted for the SPD as well.

 

[BlueRidge]

I think that's easier said than done. Since the Democrats (and Republicans) include a number of different factions but have to please a lot of voters as a whole there will always be something that someone won't like. And I would assume that the more diverse a country gets, the harder that becomes.

It's kind of like as if German parties had to form a coalition before instead of after the election and if I voted for the Green Party, I'd automatically voted for the SPD as well.

That's the thing. There's no way the Democratic Party can have one message for everyone.

The DNC doesn't win elections, it helps provide funding and training and organizing but candidates win elections and those are won at the state and local level. The party will succeed when people are invested at those levels because the elected members of the party deliver on what people need. Its not top down. We get caught up in the idea that it is because we focus so much on presidential elections.

The Democratic Party has long been a coalition of interest groups; often those too are too nationally focused. But there are a lot of good Democratic office holders at levels closer to communities and that's where the party is going to win voters. Then fashioning a presidential campaign that is acceptable to enough of them to win the nomination and the presidency is a huge challenge.

The Republican Party has been subsumed by an expansive rightwing media and that drives it. The Democrats (thankfully) don't have that so how the party gets stronger in areas it is weak has got to be a different thing and it is less dependent on message than on actually delivering policies whose outcomes work for people. The Republicans have managed to become disconnected from what they actually deliver in government at least nationally and what people support them for, but the Dems have to deliver good government and programs that provide for people's needs. And what they have to be able to communicate is their successes when they do that.

 

[overedge]

The documentary '537 Votes' has a really interesting breakdown of the 2000 presidential election, and how the Elian Gonzalez affair led to a lot of Hispanic/Latinx voters becoming disenchanted with the Democratic Party, to the extent that a couple of hundred votes in Florida ended up making the difference in that election. I've never even visited Miami so I don't how accurate this perspective is, but it was something I hadn't thought about before.

 

[tony]

Yeah me, scholars of authoritarianism and those who lived in authoritarian regimes or otherwise have experienced it/have experience with it.

You know what's funny about this exact phrasing? You know how many people living in Miami will tell you 'I came from a socialist/communist country, I know the signs. Don't tell me what is and isn't socialism, I escaped it!', etc when talking about why they weren't vote for Biden? I'm sure @olympic can back me up on this, because that's all I heard from quite a few people for a few months leading up to the election. I don't get why your experience trumps (not punning) what other people are expecting to happen. Because the people you choose to follow are better educated? Your/their opinion matters more? You spend more time analyzing every move Trump makes while many people find the key issues, vote for what suits them best, and they move on so therefore your ideas hold more weight?

Sure it's their number one issue. But there's a difference between something being a number one issue and voting for someone because of that issue no matter what. I'd assume that only those who don't believe authoritarianism can happen here or are willing to ignore the threat of authoritariansim/downplay it would be voting for that candidate. And that goes for both parties.

So you're saying people that feel very strongly about one issue and one issue only are wrong in that taking precedence over everything else? So these so-called clear threats of authoritarianism that you think only the super educated can see (or honestly I don't even know what you're going for at this point) should be the number one issue for EVERYONE?

I'd think that the thought of taking away any kind of gay/trans rights, if it came from a Democrat at some point, would be more than enough for people within the community to flock to the Republican candidate, no questions asked. If a Democratic candidate wanted to segregate schools/neighborhoods or something super extreme, you don't think that most people, including the majority of minorities, would flock to the Republican candidate? I said in a PM to someone that being in an ethics course this previous semester, I met a lot of younger Latina ladies in Miami and when we got to abortion, they were all very clear that this is a huge issue for them and they weren't going to vote any other way, as the election had been approaching at that point. Are they wrong for seeing that as an actual occurring problem but 'ignoring' the so-called signs of authoritarianism?

Your number one issue that has made you hellbent on this forum for how many months/years seems to be how you've lived through authoritarianism and you don't want signs of it to pop up. That's fine. I can't tell you how to feel. But why are you suggesting that people who have their own precedence of issues suddenly 'don't believe' something can happen that you personally see?

Watching summaries of what he said or did is not the same as watching an entire town hall. And how is watching a summary different from reading an article that summarizes what he said or did? (And before you tell me that articles are biased, articles and reports from German news outlets basically report the same).

Because several of you attempted to take me to task for getting the information straight from the source, and then you constantly come here talking about everything Trump does. I wanted to immediately know what he said, but it was the end of the world (literally, read the stressed out posts) for some that I had done that.

You chose to directly engage with me when I said it was ridiculous to assume that 74 million people were hardcore MAGA and ready to fight into a civil war. I think anyone who says that out loud is damn foolish. Now you're throwing this slant, without directly saying so, that you put more effort in than others, especially all of those terrible Republicans, and anyone who doesn't put in such effort clearly isn't considering YOUR number one issue.

 

[BlueRidge]

The documentary '537 Votes' has a really interesting breakdown of the 2000 presidential election, and how the Elian Gonzalez affair led to a lot of Hispanic/Latinx voters becoming disenchanted with the Democratic Party, to the extent that a couple of hundred votes in Florida ended up making the difference in that election. I've never even visited Miami so I don't how accurate this perspective is, but it was something I hadn't thought about before.

If an election is so close that a few hundred votes make the difference, I think it is hard to derive any valid overall conclusions about why it was one or lost, the bigger question is why was it so close.

Incidentally there is so much talk about the Dems failing to win the Latino vote you'd think that they had lost it. But they won it by a large margin.

 

[Sparks]

The documentary '537 Votes' has a really interesting breakdown of the 2000 presidential election, and how the Elian Gonzalez affair led to a lot of Hispanic/Latinx voters becoming disenchanted with the Democratic Party, to the extent that a couple of hundred votes in Florida ended up making the difference in that election. I've never even visited Miami so I don't how accurate this perspective is, but it was something I hadn't thought about before.

Yes and it didn't hurt that Jeb Bush was governor and there were confusing ballots.

 

[BittyBug]

....it is less dependent on message than on actually delivering policies whose outcomes work for people....

In order to have a policy record, they have to first win, so in the meantime, the message needs to be how their policies will benefit their target audience. But they have to be able to succinctly articulate what those policies are, and differentiate the message by sector. It's not that hard - micro-targeting happens every single day with retail advertising.

 

[Judy]

Regarding the back and forth about Miami by a few posters upthread:

I am also in Miami. I have lived here since 1995. I agree that in Miami (and elsewhere), Trump voters are not a monolith of crazed monsters BUT people need to understand that they do enable something bad and anti-Democratic by voting for him.

It has been interesting in my 25 years here. I came here with preconceived notions about the Latino community like a lot of non-Latin people. The big takeaway is not only is the Latino community very diverse culturally, but very diverse on the values they vote on. They also do not view themselves generally speaking as POC - A big mistaken assumption by white liberals.

My 1st experience in the 90s was viewing the schism between Cuban and non-Cuban Latinos. A Puerto Rican friend pointed out that existing issues between black Cubans and white Cubans in the community. A lot of white Cubans like to point out their ties to Spain (if they exist). The earlier Cuban arrivals to FL were whiter and the later arrivals starting around 1980 (Mariel boatlift) darker. The whiter Cubans didn't / don't mix with and look down on the darker later arrivals. They accuse them of being schooled by the communist government to be reliant on the government for a hand-out when they enter the US. I work with Cuban lawyers who say as much. Cuban Republicanism stem back to JFK and the Bay of Pigs fiasco. They happily celebrate the presidencies of Nixon, Reagan and so on.

Venezuelans are a newly identified voting bloc. From what I see, a lot of them loved the tough talk against Maduro and they enjoy Trump's swagger.

Other Latino groups such as Nicaraguans remember the fight against Ortega / Marxist-socialism and Reagan's lawbreaking stand against it. So, they also are open to Republicanism generally. My Nica neighbor at work has a dark-skinned mother who crossed the Rio Grande to be in the US. Trump would've tormented and deported her if she did that in 2018, but she voted for Trump. Why? She is Catholic and anti-abortion. White liberals shudder. But for her, it's not about being a POC, it's all about her religious values. I think she is an enabler but an important take away for a Democratic strategist is this; understand these nuances like the Trump campaign did.

IMO, Biden was lukewarm about FL. He had the resources to go all in but he seemed to be concentrating (perhaps smartly) on Hillary's 'blue wall', and even more on GA, AZ and NC which he lost by a much smaller margin. I felt smug that he lost my state but won anyway. Florida needs to learn it is not as needed for the EC as it thinks it is. HA

I don’t think they had any hope of Florida and I think they did it right Which is easy to say (for me) after seeing the results.

 

[Vagabond]

If Trump does indeed go to Scotland he'll have to leave eventually regardless of lawsuits/extradition. Americans can't just move to/set up residence in the UK just because they want to. You get 6 months and then you have to (try to) immigrate or leave. So he wanders over to France. Oh oops France is a Schengen country he gets 3 months there. And so it goes. Eventually he will have to find a government willing to let him stay long term. Perhaps Putin will welcome him

Trump is eligible for an ancestry visa and British citizenship because his mother was British.

 

[BlueRidge]

In order to have a policy record, they have to first win, so in the meantime, the message needs to be how their policies will benefit their target audience. But they have to be able to succinctly articulate what those policies are, and differentiate the message by sector. It's not that hard - micro-targeting happens every single day with retail advertising.

They just won the presidency and they control the House. They need to deliver there and all the way down to town and county levels. And focus on that in the messaging. Its not as if Democrats are not in office anywhere and they still have to win. They are there in a lot of states. People like stories, they need to create stories about good government that they have delivered.

They won the House in 2018 by focusing on what they had delivered on health care with Obamacare.

 

[BittyBug]

They just won the presidency and they control the House.

And if they don't win the Senate all their best intentions are likely to come to a screeching halt with Mitch McConnell.

I agree that people like stories but there also needs to be vision.

 

[overedge]

If an election is so close that a few hundred votes make the difference, I think it is hard to derive any valid overall conclusions about why it was one or lost, the bigger question is why was it so close.

I think what the documentary was getting at was that a whole bunch of things in Miami, including local politics within the Cuban and Spanish-speaking communities, ended up collectively making a difference in the federal election. Whereas at the time those things happened, they were treated as local issues that almost no one thought would have any lasting impact.

 

[overedge]

Yes and it didn't hurt that Jeb Bush was governor and there were confusing ballots.

And that there were Bush (Jeb and Dubya) supporters on the committees that oversaw the local voting and were the arbitrators of any election disputes. Also Roger Stone was involved too

 

[alilou]

Trump is eligible for an ancestry visa and British citizenship because his mother was British.

I did not know that. Oh well.

 

[overedge]

I don't think Trump is very popular in that part of Scotland, because of the way he treated the locals in getting planning permission for his golf course and in building and running it. If he thinks he's going to escape angry mobs in the US for peace and quiet in his Scottish retreat, well, er, um.....

 

[Aussie Willy]

I don't think Trump is very popular in that part of Scotland, because of the way he treated the locals in getting planning permission for his golf course and in building and running it. If he thinks he's going to escape angry mobs in the US for peace and quiet in his Scottish retreat, well, er, um.....

And the Scottish don't put up with any BS either.

 

[Tesla]

My husband thinks ********* is a Chinese-made biological weapon, wonders why China is handling the ********* better than any other county yet is still a third-world country, thinks Australia is in the brink of war with China, thinks that Trump didn’t want to sign the stimulus because of the money to Pakistan for gender studies, thinks there’s going to be a revolution like the Bolshevik Revolution because of Pelosi's house getting graffitied, thinks Antifa and BLM will take over, and thinks our son will be forced to take a knee. He has a few degrees and is an engineer and he believes all of this. I don’t know where he gets his information from. He told me that if any of this is true, then I need to rethink where I get my news from, and he’ll do the same if none of this is true. I refrained from pointing out that yeh trucker strike was bullsh!t (for which he never apologized for laying into me when I didn't express enough concern about it). I don’t know what he thinks about Trump's call to GA. I didn’t ask, but since he thinks there was voter fraud, I wouldn’t be surprised if he felt Trump's call was fine.

 

[Vagabond]

(((((Tesla)))))

 

[Aussie Willy]

Following Hal Sparks covering the GA rally that is on tonight (US time). Trump is just freaking deluded. Still saying he won the most votes that any sitting president has won. Oh and radical extreme liberal Democrats are going to steal the WH and Senate and bring in communism. It is so uncreative and they just cannot come up with anything new. Now attacking AOC and Stacey Abrams.

Also Kemp and Raffensperger are petrified of Stacey Abrams.

He is praising the hell out of Pence saying Pence will come through for him on the 6th.

 

[Vagabond]

I don't think Trump is very popular in that part of Scotland, because of the way he treated the locals in getting planning permission for his golf course and in building and running it. If he thinks he's going to escape angry mobs in the US for peace and quiet in his Scottish retreat, well, er, um..... :

And the Scottish don't put up with any BS either.

If Trump goes to Scotland on the 19th, he may be under house arrest and facing extradition soon thereafter. And the weather isn't a pleasant there in late January and early February as it is in Palm Beach.

 

[canbelto]

He says that if Pence doesn't come through he won't "like him as much."

 

[Aussie Willy]

He says that if Pence doesn't come through he won't "like him as much."

As much as I don't like Pence, I kind of feel a bit sorry for him that he is going to be attacked by Trump after confirming the result.

Trump just said he doesn't do rallies for anyone else but himself. Well that says it all. But he is now doing the Kelly and David rally because he loves them both. And then in a year and a half he is going to campaign against Kemp and Raffensperger.

And the Democrats want to turn the US into Venezuela. Hal says he hasn't been to a Venezuela pro-Democrat lately .

And he is begging Kelly to win. Says that if they win he will get no credit.

 

[Aussie Willy]

Oh f*ck he can't say Burisma. Now onto Hunter Biden. And then just randomly onto illegal immigrants. "The wall the wall the wall"(direct quote). He is so over the place. There is no cohesive train of thought.

OMG now he is talking about catch and release. Guess what? His definition is you first catch them and then release them . And now again demonising illegal immigrants because of the rapist and criminals.

 

[canbelto]

Kelly Loeffler looked rather deflated tonight.