Honest question: Will there be an election in 2020?

[Pennsylvania Deplorable]

Do none of you understand the constitution? The president doesn't have unlimited power. Trump is a bit authoritarian for my tastes, but not as much as Clinton. Additionally, seeing people who like Fidel Castro warn about a Trump dictatorship makes me unsure if I ought to laugh or cringe.

Seriously, there is no chance of a dictatorship unless a full-scale civil war breaks out, which we all know isn't going to happen, and even then it would be highly unlikely. The National guard and police may have to crush a riot or two, but that's the extent of it.

P.S. I love how you are all so concerned about rigged elections now after saying a month ago that Trump was a "threat to democracy" for not pledging to accept the results until he saw if there was fraud. The doublethink of the left is wondrous to behold.

[Frozen Sky Ever Why]

Do none of you understand the constitution? The president doesn't have unlimited power. Trump is a bit authoritarian for my tastes, but not as much as Clinton. Additionally, seeing people who like Fidel Castro warn about a Trump dictatorship makes me unsure if I ought to laugh or cringe.

Seriously, there is no chance of a dictatorship unless a full-scale civil war breaks out, which we all know isn't going to happen, and even then it would be highly unlikely. The National guard and police may have to crush a riot or two, but that's the extent of it.

P.S. I love how you are all so concerned about rigged elections now after saying a month ago that Trump was a "threat to democracy" for not pledging to accept the results until he saw if there was fraud. The doublethink of the left is wondrous to behold.

LOL

[publicunofficial]

I think there will be an election, but I can totally forsee a future where Trump loses, and REFUSES to transfer power, saying he has "very good evidence of voter fraud!"

Picture what Pat McCrory is doing in North Carolina, but at the national level.

[Suburbia]

There will be an election. There has to be. Period.

[oraclebones]

Additionally, seeing people who like Fidel Castro warn about a Trump dictatorship makes me unsure if I ought to laugh or cringe.

Who is it that liked Fidel Castro who's warning about a Trump dictatorship? That's a straw-man argument.

And you ask, "Do none of you understand the constitution?" I understand it quite well--better than most, in fact. And it's quite plain that Trump either knows nothing about it or doesn't care about it in the least. That's precisely the problem.

[Frozen Sky Ever Why]

Why are you acting like this is an unreasonable question? 48% of Trump supporters believe the press should not be allowed to say whatever they want. He just suggested stripping citizenship for flag desecration. We are very likely looking at the end of the Republic.

[pbrower2a]

Do none of you understand the constitution? The president doesn't have unlimited power. Trump is a bit authoritarian for my tastes, but not as much as Clinton. Additionally, seeing people who like Fidel Castro warn about a Trump dictatorship makes me unsure if I ought to laugh or cringe.

Seriously, there is no chance of a dictatorship unless a full-scale civil war breaks out, which we all know isn't going to happen, and even then it would be highly unlikely. The National guard and police may have to crush a riot or two, but that's the extent of it.

P.S. I love how you are all so concerned about rigged elections now after saying a month ago that Trump was a "threat to democracy" for not pledging to accept the results until he saw if there was fraud. The doublethink of the left is wondrous to behold.

1. The President has the powers that Congress will let him exercise. After 3010 President Obama was a weak President.  All that can stop Donald Trump is the Supreme Court (which he is likely to fill with people sympathetic to his beliefs on human rights and economics), the unwillingness of local law enforcement to repress dissent, and any rifts in the Republican Party.

2. The real difference between Donald Trump and Fidel Castro is simply that they have opposite views on whether economic inequality that dehumanizes the masses is a good thing. Marxists and ultra-capitalists believe that capitalism is the same thing, an order engineered to enrich elites at the expense of everyone else. Castro opposes the exploitation; Trump wants to intensify it. Both offer mind-numbing propaganda in the service of their beliefs and make implications of violence to anyone who gets in the way.

Both are True Believers with ho tolerance of any disagreement in policy or objectives. That they disagree as diametrically on whether capitalism at its harshest is ideally good or horrifically evil matters little when one considers that they see capitalism as the same harsh economic order and reduce political debate to "I know everything that there is to know, and if you disagree with me, go burn in Hell".




   

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

Do none of you understand the constitution? The president doesn't have unlimited power. Trump is a bit authoritarian for my tastes, but not as much as Clinton. Additionally, seeing people who like Fidel Castro warn about a Trump dictatorship makes me unsure if I ought to laugh or cringe.

Seriously, there is no chance of a dictatorship unless a full-scale civil war breaks out, which we all know isn't going to happen, and even then it would be highly unlikely. The National guard and police may have to crush a riot or two, but that's the extent of it.

as we all know, every president/congress/etc thus far has followed the constitution unerringly *nods*

[JJC]

Why are you acting like this is an unreasonable question? 48% of Trump supporters believe the press should not be allowed to say whatever they want. He just suggested stripping citizenship for flag desecration. We are very likely looking at the end of the Republic.

The press is not aloud to say whatever they want. You can't report something that is untrue unless you want to be sued for slander, for example. (Obviously, there's a different standard we set for famous people). Ultimately, the jury decides what is slander and what isn't.

As for the press, Trump has been the most open and accessible candidate in history when it came to the media. He was constantly doing conferences, news interviews, and phone ins. And it was always himself going out there, not an army of consultants and operatives. For better or worse, Trump was completely upfront and unfiltered.

Clinton, on the other hand, had the most secretive presidential run in history - avoiding the media like a plague. I think she went something like a whole year without holding any press conference. Every interview she did was highly staged and she knew the questions before they were asked since the media coordinated with her. (as revealed through wikileaks).

Remember the first debate? Yeah, wikileaks reveled that Donna Brazile gave her the questions before the debate. (CNN only says one, but come on. Why stop there?)

The point is, that 48% is a reflection of just how GOD AWFUL the media industrial complex is. They are not journalists interested in the truth. They have become an isolated, incestuous arm of the liberal coalition who's main function is to create narratives that advance their political agendas (recent example; 'war on women', 'alt-right', 'fake news'). Literally +96% of the media endorsed Hillary in a country that elected Donald Trump as president. You couldn't get anymore disconnected than that.

There's a reason trust in the mainstream media is at record lows with 32%. And it's only that high because of high liberal acceptance.

*BTW, Hillary also supported banning the desecration of the flag back in 2005. And for the record, as a Trump voter, I do not.

[Hindsight was 2020]

The press is not aloud to say whatever they want. You can't report something that is untrue unless you want to be sued for slander, for example. (

Fox did that to Common

[oraclebones]

I'm bumping this post because we are now five days into the actual Trump presidency, and he has shown that he plans to carry out the fascist agenda he advocated during the campaign. His party has shown no interest in resisting his authoritarian tendencies.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if there ends up being only a sham election in 2020.

[SWE]

Yes, Trump will win in a landslide against his opponent "Or Else"

[LONG LIVE KING DONALD I]

I'm bumping this post because we are now five days into the actual Trump presidency, and he has shown that he plans to carry out the fascist agenda he advocated during the campaign. His party has shown no interest in resisting his authoritarian tendencies.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if there ends up being only a sham election in 2020.

B-b-buh I thought it was already a sham because of the electoral college?

She won the popular vote!

[Nyvin]

I'm bumping this post because we are now five days into the actual Trump presidency, and he has shown that he plans to carry out the fascist agenda he advocated during the campaign. His party has shown no interest in resisting his authoritarian tendencies.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if there ends up being only a sham election in 2020.

B-b-buh I thought it was already a sham because of the electoral college?

She won the popular vote!

Moralistically?  Yes.

Officially?  No.

[publicunofficial]

There will be an election. Not everyone will be allowed to vote, but it'll be an election.

The real question is what happens if/when Trump loses and he refuses to accept the result.

[Seneca]

I stand by my initial post. One factor that I had not considered was the possibility that Trump might deploy national guard forces into American cities. Perhaps a more direct form of voter suppression is in the cards.

There will almost certainly be the pageantry of an election. Whether it is a free and open election (at least in the sense that recent US elections have been free and open) is questionable. It is not difficult to imagine a combination of voter suppression legislation and repression against political opposition turning 2020 into the sort of "managed election" that has characterized many despotisms across history.

[The_Doctor]

Yes. There will be elections. Life will continue. In fact, liberals will be thanking God for fifty years for Donald Trump, because he will be prove an effective punching bag to run against. Sort of how liberals thank God for Herbert Hoover.

We have more to fear on the authoritarian score from someone who wins a wide majority and will be backed by the (angry) rising majority coalition in this country and will have a Congress to go with him. Aka, nobody from the Right who will be able to create that kind of coalition and plenty of people on the Left who can.

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

Yes. There will be elections. Life will continue. In fact, liberals will be thanking God for fifty years for Donald Trump, because he will be prove an effective punching bag to run against. Sort of how liberals thank God for Herbert Hoover.

We have more to fear on the authoritarian score from someone who wins a wide majority and will be backed by the (angry) rising majority coalition in this country and will have a Congress to go with him. Aka, nobody from the Right who will be able to create that kind of coalition and plenty of people on the Left who can.

That's actually a good point, and partly why I am not a Democrat (yet). I'm skeptical of one party having too much unchecked power, and while Republicans have it now (and it does truly horrify the sh**t out of me, even as a straight white male planning on joining the Navy with an Ivy League degree in hand, I realize I have nothing to lose personally. But I actually think this is beginning to resemble fascism.), Democrats are very likely to have it in the future (and a much more dominant majority, too).

How do Republicans not see that their day of reckoning is coming?  It's pretty simple... they consistently get X (very low) % of the minority vote.  The minority vote grows by X % every year.  They can win an election every now and then, like Trump (who got about 3 million votes less than Clinton) but their long term numbers are going to be disastrous. 

Oh, I 100% agree. Many of them are operating under some delusion that those Millennials will "warm" to them with age (the "you become conservative with age" myth), or some stupid sh**t like that. Watch Fox News sometimes for a laugh, and someone is bound to bring it up every now and then.

-Psst... the answer for the Republican Party is ending DACA and rapidly moving to an immigration restrictionist posture.

[The_Doctor]

Yes. There will be elections. Life will continue. In fact, liberals will be thanking God for fifty years for Donald Trump, because he will be prove an effective punching bag to run against. Sort of how liberals thank God for Herbert Hoover.

We have more to fear on the authoritarian score from someone who wins a wide majority and will be backed by the (angry) rising majority coalition in this country and will have a Congress to go with him. Aka, nobody from the Right who will be able to create that kind of coalition and plenty of people on the Left who can.

That's actually a good point, and partly why I am not a Democrat (yet). I'm skeptical of one party having too much unchecked power, and while Republicans have it now (and it does truly horrify the sh**t out of me, even as a straight white male planning on joining the Navy with an Ivy League degree in hand, I realize I have nothing to lose personally. But I actually think this is beginning to resemble fascism.), Democrats are very likely to have it in the future (and a much more dominant majority, too).

How do Republicans not see that their day of reckoning is coming?  It's pretty simple... they consistently get X (very low) % of the minority vote.  The minority vote grows by X % every year.  They can win an election every now and then, like Trump (who got about 3 million votes less than Clinton) but their long term numbers are going to be disastrous. 

Oh, I 100% agree. Many of them are operating under some delusion that those Millennials will "warm" to them with age (the "you become conservative with age" myth), or some stupid sh**t like that. Watch Fox News sometimes for a laugh, and someone is bound to bring it up every now and then.

-Psst... the answer for the Republican Party is ending DACA and rapidly moving to an immigration restrictionist posture.

This is not going to change the fact that minority vote growth will outpace white voter growth in America, no. You don't understand that DACA kids are a very small fraction of the Latino vote, even if legalized, and that 3/4 of the Latino vote is legal and growing.

Even if you "restricted" immigration starting now, the 1965 immigration law let in 50 years of unrestricted immigration around the world and their descendants are legal voters. White voters, I keep saying this over and over again, are set to decrease in absolute values starting in 2024.

Your posture just puts you at the mercy of urban liberal white voters in CA, NY, IL, PA, etc. You cannot mine the rural counties indefinitely. The fact Trump lost the popular vote by 3 million (including the fact that large swaths of IL, NY, CA whites voted Democratic, for example) indicates that your faith in the white voting bloc voting GOP is seriously misplaced.

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

Yeah, it's hard to reach out to minorities and urban people in general when 75% of their legislative and congressional seats are rural-based. So there might be truth to what you're saying.

Also, they seem to be relying on higher margins in rural areas now.  So they will basically face the reverse problem of Democrats who are highly concentrated in cities. 

Yup. Look at California. Republicans are becoming the self-packed party in that state. It also has the potential to happen in Texas over the next few decades, particularly if Democrats make inroads in soon-to-be minority majority Tarrant, Collin, Denton, Williamson, and Hays Counties. When that happens (and given how fast Gwinnett County, GA swung after going majority-minority, I think it's more a question of "when", not "if" these counties flip), Republicans could well be relegated to exurban/rural seats that vote 70+% GOP. Exactly what happened in California post-2004 through now.

-Texas is not California; compare rents, marriage rates, and White fertility rates.

[The_Doctor]

The same Texas that went from 57-41% Romney to 52-43% Trump, with the Houston, Dallas, and Ft. Worth areas trending Democratic?

Okay then.

[The_Doctor]

The same Texas that went from 57-41% Romney to 52-43% Trump, with the Houston, Dallas, and Ft. Worth areas trending Democratic?

Okay then.

I'm assuming you're agreeing with me? The similarities to California are strikingly similar. Texas is basically where California was in the 80's. I think my scenario would take a few decades to pan out, but the potential is very much there.

Yes, I was. I was also responding to EHarding.

I need to take a look at why Dallas and Houston shifted Democratic as did Ft. Worth. It might be interesting to evaluate how these cities are ethnically and income wise.

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

Yeah, it's hard to reach out to minorities and urban people in general when 75% of their legislative and congressional seats are rural-based. So there might be truth to what you're saying.

Also, they seem to be relying on higher margins in rural areas now.  So they will basically face the reverse problem of Democrats who are highly concentrated in cities. 

Yup. Look at California. Republicans are becoming the self-packed party in that state. It also has the potential to happen in Texas over the next few decades, particularly if Democrats make inroads in soon-to-be minority majority Tarrant, Collin, Denton, Williamson, and Hays Counties. When that happens (and given how fast Gwinnett County, GA swung after going majority-minority, I think it's more a question of "when", not "if" these counties flip), Republicans could well be relegated to exurban/rural seats that vote 70+% GOP. Exactly what happened in California post-2004 through now.

-Texas is not California; compare rents, marriage rates, and White fertility rates.

It shares a lot of the characteristics of California 20 years ago... A lot of big growing cities... a booming minority population... a lot of in and out transplants from other states...  Why wouldn't Texas follow what happened in California over that time period?

-Fewer residential construction restrictions to repress the family.

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

The same Texas that went from 57-41% Romney to 52-43% Trump, with the Houston, Dallas, and Ft. Worth areas trending Democratic?

Okay then.

I'm assuming you're agreeing with me? The similarities to California are strikingly similar. Texas is basically where California was in the 80's. I think my scenario would take a few decades to pan out, but the potential is very much there.

Yes, I was. I was also responding to EHarding.

I need to take a look at why Dallas and Houston shifted Democratic as did Ft. Worth. It might be interesting to evaluate how these cities are ethnically and income wise.

-Very simple: the GOP became the party of family values, which were found more in the Jimmy Carter-voting Texas rurals than in its former suburban and urban bastions. Look at Ted Cruz's vote share in the Texas primary.

Also, see Griffin's map of the Texas White Vote:
https://fusiontables.googleusercontent.com/fusiontables/embedviz?q=select+col7+from+1HOxybMzharikbGfEtBMi8QYP5z_ydsW6eZMmsP6w&viz=MAP&h=false&lat=41.51180023299375&lng=-88.84258676562496&t=1&z=5&l=col7&y=2&tmplt=2&hml=KML

[(Still) muted by Kalwejt until March 31]

Yeah, it's hard to reach out to minorities and urban people in general when 75% of their legislative and congressional seats are rural-based. So there might be truth to what you're saying.

Also, they seem to be relying on higher margins in rural areas now.  So they will basically face the reverse problem of Democrats who are highly concentrated in cities. 

Yup. Look at California. Republicans are becoming the self-packed party in that state. It also has the potential to happen in Texas over the next few decades, particularly if Democrats make inroads in soon-to-be minority majority Tarrant, Collin, Denton, Williamson, and Hays Counties. When that happens (and given how fast Gwinnett County, GA swung after going majority-minority, I think it's more a question of "when", not "if" these counties flip), Republicans could well be relegated to exurban/rural seats that vote 70+% GOP. Exactly what happened in California post-2004 through now.

-Texas is not California; compare rents, marriage rates, and White fertility rates.

It shares a lot of the characteristics of California 20 years ago... A lot of big growing cities... a booming minority population... a lot of in and out transplants from other states...  Why wouldn't Texas follow what happened in California over that time period?

-Fewer residential construction restrictions to repress the family.

I think you read far too into general societal constructs as impacting politics.  Housing size, number of marriages, etc. etc. may have some impact at the margins, but you're not recognizing that there is a much much bigger picture at work here... which is the direct correlation because race and education levels and how people vote... and the GOP is not winning the segments of the population that are growing.

-Have you read Steve Sailer's work on the marriage gap?

http://www.unz.com/isteve/how-the-marriage-gap-painted-the-map-red-or-blue-from-2000-thru-2012/