Where Do We Go From Here?

90% of R’s support Trump because he’s currently the president. 90% would probably support a trained seal if he ran our country. The question is whether or not the R’s can find a candidate who is actually qualified to run our country and can defeat Trump in the primary. In 2016 they had several candidates who were much more fit to run our country, but none of them would rally behind a single non-Trump candidate they way the Dems did with Biden vs. Sanders. I don’t think the R’s will make the same mistake they made 4 years ago.

im fine with this too.

both candidates are 1: not old as dirt, 2: not named trump or Clinton

bonus, one is not a white man.

Amy’s voice can get annoying. Says good stuff, but just nagging tone all the time.

Yeah my Dad was quoting some statistic like that to me last night over email. I think his claim was that if you line up the states by vote margin and then pick the “tipping point” ones (ie the closest ones that went Biden that would have needed to flip to give Trump the win), that Biden’s margin in 2020 would be smaller than Trump’s in 2016, which he claims is around 77,000 votes… a calc I haven’t checked.

So if we assume the current vote totals are final, then Biden has 306 electoral votes. Trump would need to flip 37 votes.

The tipping point states would be

16-GA (0.0%),
20-PA (0.2%),
10-WI (0.6%),

If those three states had flipped then Trump would have won. Those are the closest 3 states.

So the margins at present are:
GA: 1,562
WI: 20,534
PA: 13,374

35,470 at present.

The margins in those states will grow though, so that’s not final. But I guess at this point the margin is closer than Trump’s was 4 years ago if my Dad’s 77,000 is accurate. It could grow though… hard to say where it will ultimately land. PA might slide out of “tipping point” status at which point we’d add AZ instead.

Something else I found a bit disturbing: GOP partisans attempting to use innumeracy by stating a large number of vote differential (hundreds of thousands) while noting only a few percentage points of votes were outstanding. “How can they overcome this??? Look! Math!”

I mean, I get that much of their base consider math the devil, unless, you know, their deities use it to deceive them. then it’s OK.

I meant that he lost the electoral college by a tiny fraction of all votes, just like we said Clinton lost by just a few votes in a few states.

Right now, his combined margin in AZ and NV is about 63,000 votes. In PA and GA, 15,000.

edit: I see your dad already made the same point.

I think there are issues a large portion of people can rally around and a good politician could easily bring us together on.

  • Freedom and liberty: Americans love our freedom and explaining how each individual freedom is important to freedom in general can be a great rallying cry and a place to bridge gaps between races, genders, religions, and sexual orientations. Expressing concern over arising trends as an imposition on freedom is a great selling point. Conversely understanding how a new policy will impinge in someone’s freedom is a great way to figure out who will oppose it, how to message it, and whether it is worth that price.

  • Education - Americans overwhelmingly think education is important even though there is disagreement about the value of college education. I think a future candidate would do well to reimagine what the education process looks like in America. We are barely preparing most people for working in the jobs that need to be filled by American companies. Generally onshore companies demand skilled labor even when the job is manual. We need to gear education to better fill professions and match the skills of the future. Math education in particular doesn’t touch data or probability at all in high school and that is a glaring hole in our youth’s ability to find gainful employment when they reach working age.

  • Healthcare reform: A majority of Americans would like all Americans to have access to healthcare. This needs to be sold as an economic opportunity for individuals and an investment in the future. Again freedom should be part of the deal, like the freedom to move jobs, start a business, etc.

Divisive policies:

  • Identity politics: Democrats have spent too much time painting people of color as the only poor people that matter. All poor people need help and if we help them all the people of color get help too. Without changing this message rural America is going to always be out of reach them. Remember the % of white people that are poor is lower than the % of black and Hispanic people that are poor, but the number of poor white people is greater than both combined.

  • Religious morality: The Republicans need to have a come to Jesus (pun intended) moment and understand that religious freedom is wonderful and that everyone else deserves to have the freedom to enjoy their life the same way that we Christians enjoy our own and that is by living it the way that they want to. Continuing to try to restrict individual freedom in the name of religious morality is a failed and divisive strategy.

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That’s a wonderful goal. Now explain how to do it.

Until you succeed, religious groups have enough political clout to swing presidential and senate elections, and therefore supreme court nominations.

I have the same comment on your other four points. Worthy goals, the argument is how to do it.

(Regarding poor vs. race: Note that in Minneapolis, 20% of the population is black, 32% of the poor households are black, 46% of the violent crime victims are black, and 80% of the homicide victims are black. It seems that “more blacks are poor” doesn’t explain “more blacks are crime victims”.

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Poor whites tend to be rural. Poor minorities tend to be urban poor. The density issue contributes to the crime rate. Also dense areas can be policed more easily so crime stats go up for that reason also. Toss in the distrust of police that comes from both the pre-1980s policing methods and the Ethopian and Somali immigrant populations experiences in their countries of origins and you have a recipe for serious problems.

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I checked and it was 77,744 according to Wikipedia’s numbers, so I guess my Dad’s PhD is good for something. (Just kidding… he’s brilliant in a lot of ways, but I profoundly disagree with him about this election. I shouldn’t mock his education, which is more education than I have.)

Biden’s margin is up to

GA: 1,564
PA: 14,713
WI: 20,537
Sum: 36,814

Still well short of Trump’s 77,744.

But that said, it’s a weird stat that is heavily dependent on the order of the states. If you get close to 270 and then a big state pushes you over, that will really pad your margin vs if a small state pushes you over.

In this case that impact is pretty minor though as they both have an excess 8 votes in their margin states, the cutoff state is Wisconsin in both cases, and the margin in Wisconsin is similar.

Except it’s also home to all kinds of other nutty shit.

He could have full-blown rabies and be biting everyone who comes within 100 yards of him, and ~45% of this country would still vote for him. Hell, 75% of that group would willingly go to see him to get bitten, and half of that group would refuse to get shots because of anti-vaxx bullshit / soon-to-be-dying devotion to want to follow Trump into the great beyond as the greatest thing they could imagine to honor him.

I know there is a lot of contempt for trump voters, but the perception of republicans by the media is not accurate.

Yes, there is the loyal trump base. who will blindly follow any insane thing Trump has to offer. Will ignore pandemics, attend rallies, and possibly even openly revolt when trump loses.

but then there is the other half of the R party. The 1/2 that tolerated trump for 4 years but now are somewhat relieved that the party should be moving on. The 1/2 that cringed every time they saw a trump tweet and wished for a more presidential professional leader that shared their policy views. The 1/2 that hates being lumped in with the the die hard Trumpers and hates that the Party is now associated with racism and bigotry. This is the 1/2 that likely voted for someone else in the R primary (recall trump only got like 40% of the R vote). Some of these people may have secretly voted Biden. This is not too dissimilar from the Dem party where 1/2 the members would rather not be the party of socialism, but the Dem party chose a non-extremist in their primary.

So going forward, the divide in the R party is going to become more pronounced. They rallied behind trump when they had to, but we have a chance to move on from him. Many Sr Rs are going to break from Trump in a hurry after this and leave the party heavily divided. The R primary for the 24’ election is going to be extremely controversial, with the constant threat of Trump running independent if the Rs dont give him the nom.

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Trump won’t be running in 2024 whether he ends up winning or losing in 2020. He’ll be too old and things have moved on past him. The Republican Party moves on. Ted Cruz wants another crack at being POTUS. There are also a lot of ambitious and successful Republican governors that will be wanting to run in 2024. Paul Ryan is yesterday’s news. He’s had his moment. He’s not coming back any more so than Dan Quayle or Dick Cheney.

Rs ran and voted 70M+ for Trump as an extreme crazy person and he barely lost to the middle of the road moderate Dem…im not sure your post accurately reflects this dynamic at all.

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Trump in 2024 will be only a 5 months & 6 days older than Biden is now.

78 is the new 48???

It is not unreasonable to say Biden is too old.

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I think Fiorina has the best understanding of American politics.

The political opinion of the Americans hasn’t really changed. The public is not as polarized as the politicians. The two parties have been drifting to their relative extremes, and leaving behind voters.

I think the party that moves to the center will be the more successful one.

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I think media has amplified the extremes in a way that makes the politicians look more extreme. My right leaning friends can’t discuss politics without pointing out Democrats think there are 37 different genders and will mandate that, therefor they are the party of nonsense. I do agree most people can find a lot of common ground if they are willing to look.

Its advantageous for the extermely partizan to push brinkmanship.

I’m not convinced this is accurate. I think Republicans were pissed that Obamacare was passed in such an unusual manner without a single Republican vote and obviously Democrats are pissed about the Supreme Court.

People responded to “we’re not the party of ‘no’; we’re the party of ‘hell no’!”

I would really really really like for you to be right and me to be wrong. But I’m not convinced.