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I sincerely hope that you're correct, ireactions.  I'm sure, to some level, I'm just being an alarmist, but here's the scenario I'm talking about.  And here are all the roadblocks I think Trump can throw in front of any opposition.

Now, first, I want to say that I don't foresee Trump simply saying "I'm king now, no more elections."  I think it would be more strategic than that, and he'd use the powers available to him to do it.  I think Trump's DOJ (using loyalists) would come out with a report of a major election fraud scheme for either 2026 or 2028.  It would have "evidence" of crimes in a number of states (including all battleground states) orchestrated by Democrats.  This could be combined with indictments of Trump's political enemies in these states to make it look legitimate.  Trump's FBI would also come out with raids and large demonstrations of evidence.

It would be BS, but it would look official.  I assume journalists and whistleblowers in the FBI and DOJ would come out and say the report is untrue, but would people believe them?

Trump would announce that, temporarily, elections are suspended until the investigation concludes.  I would think either the date would be undetermined, a dummy date would be established, or they would just say all terms are extended until the next major election date (2028 to 2030 or 2026 to 2028).  So now there's an "independent" report of massive election fraud that half the country will be inclined to believe.  Would Republican senators and congressmen fall for it?  My assumption is yes, and even if enough would impeach Trump, I don't know if enough would convict because you'd need almost 50% of Republican senators to vote for that.  And, remember, there would be an official report including "evidence" that a lot of Republicans would instantly believe because it plays into the narrative.  Conservative media and social media would be parroting the report and the evidence, and Trump would be hailed as a hero who ended election fraud in the country.

There would certainly be unrest in the country, but I think any unrest could be easily subdued by police, the national guard, and the military.  I think the standard citizen would be powerless to do anything.

But let's say that people didn't believe it and Trump was impeached and convicted.  And let's say that he was indicted for crimes because he doesn't technically have control over elections.  His first move in that case would be to claim that he is immune because his actions were official acts.  He oversees the DOJ so he can order them to do whatever he wants, whether it's legal or not.  He just had the report created and released, and then he just recommended that there be no elections.  Then Congress and the states went along with it.  He's totally immune.

If a judge says that he's not immune, he appeals to the Supreme Court.  Do they believe him?

Now maybe Trump not going to prison for election crimes isn't the worst thing in the world.  In this scenario, he isn't president and elections happened.  But it took the media being allowed to report on it, whistleblowers being allowed to speak out, enough people in important positions either believing the report to be untrue or believing the report to be irrelevant, enough congressmen to impeach, enough senators to convict, either a Republican attorney general brave enough to indict his own president or a Democrat has to win in 2028 to assign an attorney general to indict, courts have to believe that Trump is committing an unofficial act or the Supreme Court has to believe it, and then a jury would have to convict.

All that would have to happen for Trump to go to jail.  And that's really the only risk that Trump faces.  It's a fairly remote possibility of jail time as the risk and being king as the reward.

Because I think people would just believe the report, and the lack of elections would simply make people complacent.  The resistance would die down and the Republicans in power would stay in power.  Democrats would get swept up in the investigation, and loyalist Republicans would replace them.  And people wouldn't care because most people don't care about politics anyway.

(Again, I'm probably just being an alarmist, but that scenario doesn't seem far fetched to me)

See, I thought that before.  I thought that Republicans would use Trump to get control of the White House and when it became convenient to remove him and install their guy (Pence), they would.  Not only did they not do that when they had the chance (the first impeachment), they didn't even do it when it was politically convenient (the second impeachment).  I was confident that the Supreme Court, with nothing really owed to Trump anymore (since he can't give them anything they don't already have), would do the right thing and confirm that the president doesn't have full immunity for crimes.  Not only did they not, but they gave him everything he wanted.

Republicans stood by Trump despite the fact that he tried to overthrow the government, tried to hoard national secrets for God knows what, and when he was convicted of felony offenses.  I don't see any reason they wouldn't follow him down any road.  And once Trump crosses the dictator threshold, he also has fear as a weapon to keep people in line.  If he executes a political rival or two, his allies are less likely to do anything about it.  When he controls law enforcement and the judges, there's not a whole lot he can't do.

Maybe Trump doesn't want any of that.  Maybe he just wants to live in the White House and have people call him Mr. President.  Maybe getting the DOJ to dismiss the crimes against him was enough.  And maybe he doesn't want to "run" again in 2028.  Maybe we have built up a version of our heads of Trump that doesn't exist.

But if that version of Trump does exist, I don't think there's any limit to what he would do, and I don't think there's anything he couldn't do.  He has enough support in Congress, he has control of the Supreme Court to do whatever he wants, he has control of law enforcement to put down any sort of resistance, and he has control of the military if he needs more control.

Maybe he will be a normal president.  But if not, we are all very much at his mercy.

(Just my opinion.  Do not let my fear mongering impact your lives.)

I agree.  And that's why I'm good with Vance because I don't think he'd do most of that.  I don't think he'd suspend elections, I think he'd allow for free and fair elections, and I think he would accept results that he didn't like. 

The good news is that Trump is very old and unlikely to be in good health.  I think he'll die sooner than later which means we might only have to live a decade at most under a Trump dynasty.  If he hands things over to someone like Vance, maybe he would restore democracy.  I don't know.  But considering what he eats and how he eats while getting zero exercise, I don't think he lives that long.

See, I disagree.  I think Vance would be bad, but I think he'd be bad in reparable ways.  If Trump died today and Vance was going to be president for the full four years, I think my stress level would go down a ton.  Vance is more dangerous in a Project 2025 way because I think he's way smarter than Trump and more Christian nationalist / far right wing /etc.

Vance would do all the things that Trump would do (replace Alito and Thomas with younger, crazier versions), gut the government to make it work worse, etc, but I don't think he'd do the incredibly dangerous / illegal things that Trump would do.

- I don't think he'd necessarily let Ukraine die or allow Russia to do whatever they want.
- I don't think he'd suspend elections
- I don't think he'd target political rivals
- I don't think he'd be okay with executing people that disagree with him
- I don't think he'd sell out America to make a buck
- I don't think he'd get us out of NATO
- I don't think he'd do the mass deportation (or at least not to the level Trump wants)
- I don't think he'd do the tariffs
- I don't think he'd do outright illegal / thuggish / mobster activities

I think Vance is dangerous, but I don't think he's anywhere near as fascist or anywhere near as anti-American.  I think Vance, while twisted, would do what he thinks is best for the country.  Trump will only do whatever is best for himself and will sacrifice whatever it takes to get what he wants.  I think Trump doesn't care about legacy or the future or any of that.  Vance, I think, would want to be a good president, and I think he'd be much more willing to be a "normal" president than Trump will even try.

And with Vance, we'd be able to possibly fix any damage that he does.  Not on the Supreme Court, of course, but that's gone either way.  Democrats could get control of Congress as early as 2026, and they'd have a great shot of beating Vance in 2028.  I think the economic state would be better compared to Trump, and I think there'd be a slight sense of normalcy.

Again, I think he'd be a terrible president.  But not a king.  Not a tyrant.  Not actively trying to destroy America to appease dictators.  I think he'd stand up to Putin in a way that Trump wouldn't in a million years.  I think he'd actually be "America First" as opposed to what Trump does (which is Trump first).  It'd be bad but not apocalyptic, and him being president is currently best case scenario for me.

Yeah, I think the conversation is basically at an end.  Democrats failed, fairly massively, in 2024.  They not only lost, but they lost a ton of ground and the entire government.  Trump is going to get to do basically whatever he wants with full control of not only every member of the GOP but all three branches.  If he wants to declare that there are no elections in 2026, no one will be there to stand up to him.  The country, and possibly the world, is in his hands.

What can Democrats do?  I really don't know.  You have a situation where people believe whatever Republicans say, however outlandish.  Democrats can either spend time, effort, and money trying to prove that clean energy isn't making whales depressed, but it's hard to prove something like that and people won't believe them no matter what they prove.  I agree they need to stop focusing on identity politics and focus on issues that help struggling families, but even when they do things that directly help people, Republicans can just lie and say things got worse and people will believe them.  People will go fill up their cars for $2.50 a gallon and they'll believe they paid $5.00 a gallon.  The stock market can make them rich with record-breaking days, but they'll think their personal finances are a disaster.  I don't know how you compete with that.

And that's if we even get elections anymore.  It's pointless to worry about Democrats' strategy in 2028 if we don't even know if there will be an election in 2028.  It's pointless to speculate about who might run because Trump might throw anyone who could run in jail.  It just really sucks, and I hate thinking about it.  I've basically put my head in the sand when it comes to the news because it's all depressing.

Interesting analysis.  I guess, to me, I see Lex as a genius more than anything else.  I see genius intellect being Lex's superpower and his flaw being his frustration with that not being enough.  I think of it as the smart nerd in high school who is constantly frustrated that the cool jock gets all the friends and all the girls.  Being the best at science should trump being the best at football.

With Cudlitz, I see a guy who's pretty smart (creating/controlling Doomsday was effective - taking control of his destiny in jail required smarts) but he's more like a different jock who is mad at the better jock.  I feel like Rosenbaum (and Brown) are ten steps ahead of everyone and only lose because they underestimate other people's smarts or one small fatal flaw.  I feel like Cudlitz is maybe one step ahead and loses because he hasn't fully thought everything through.  I think he's been an effective villain but don't see that villain being Lex Luthor.

Your analysis of Rosenbaum is good though.  I always thought of Lex as someone who desperately wanted to be loved, and it just drove him to be kind of crazy.  That he realized he could never get the love he wants with brains alone, but he could get money and power pretty easily with brains alone.  So he took the path of least resistance and hoped that the money and power would be enough to make up for it.  Or at least make up for his shortcomings.

Well they're about to find out how much Trump will serve them.  Trump won't care because he'll have his immunity and the billions of dollars he's about to get out of the government.  But after the promises that he made to people that he a) has no ability to provide and b) has no interest in providing, there should* be a lot of really pissed off people when prices go up, jobs disappear, and Trump takes everything for himself.

Again, the worse it is for Trump voters, the better it is for America.  So bring it on.

Agreed.  I just think "the network media tried to get Kamala Harris elected" is quite the take.

I guess we'll see.  When Republicans are in full power and the economy is destroyed, are people going to believe it when Republican media says everything is going great?  Maybe.  We are talking about some incredibly brainwashed people.  They believed that advanced legal theories are being taught to children.  They believe that kids are getting sex changes without parental consent.  They believe that babies are being executed, I guess for fun?  According to pilight, the biggest issue in America is two people getting sex changes in prison.

So maybe when there are food shortages and no social security, no healthcare, no medicare, massive unemployment, and a historic recession, people will believe that everything is going great.  Republicans basically told voters that things were going to get really bad, and they still got voted in.  Maybe they want to suffer.

Well, two things.

1. Trump isn't for them, which they'll quickly find out.  The educated people who voted for Harris have good jobs that will allow them to get through the economic hurricane we're about to get hit with.  The uneducated people who voted for Trump are living paycheck to paycheck and are going to be wiped out.  And they're the ones that are going to depend on the government programs that are going to be bankrupt.  They're the ones who are going to get sick and die because of RFK Jr.  And, honestly, good.  They're going to get exactly what they voted for.

2. The public is very stupid.  And if Republicans are just going to make up stuff or make mountains out of molehills, then the Democrat is going to have to spend the entire campaign disputing the idea that six year olds are getting sex changes in public schools and that millions of babies are being executed.  Remember that it's impossible to dispute this stuff with these people because they only believe things if Trump said it.  Harris could've paid for thousands of hours of ads disputing literal nonsense, and it wouldn't have mattered because Trump says they're happening.  If people believe in demons and monsters and secret pedophiles and things that are not happening, I don't know how a campaign is supposed to respond to that.

Again, this is a problem with the distribution of stupid people.

I agree with some of this.  I admit that I was intrigued by the idea of Biden being a one-term president, but I think the entire endeavor may have been doomed from the start.  As per usual, the Democrats are 100% on the right side of history but are awful at playing politics.  Even if Biden had agreed on January 21st, 2021 that he was going to be a one-term president, I don't know what you do about Kamala Harris.  She was chosen to appease black voters, and even though she was the best of that group, she obviously wasn't the right candidate for 2024.

Would three years of getting to know her help Kamala?  Or hurt her?  If she was the de facto 2024 candidate, would the Biden Administration have done anything differently?  And if so, why?  Even if Biden expected to run in 2024, he was almost 80 or above 80 for his entire presidency.  Even if he didn't drop out, there was a reasonable chance that she would've been the candidate because of Biden's death.  So it doesn't make sense for them to treat her any differently whether Biden announced he was a one-term president or not.

Would she have gotten credit for more of Biden's wins and allow Biden to take blame for more of his losses?  I guess...but why would Biden do that?  He only gets one term and he's basically using it to prop up Kamala Harris?  I don't see why Biden would do that or why he'd be forced to do it?  I think they probably could've put Kamala up front more.  She obviously worked on her public persona because it went up the more people saw her.  But again...what would she do that she wasn't already doing?

And I still just do not believe in any world would people have been okay with an open primary.  If she wins, it would upset the black vote (which was already teetering) because they would've (rightfully?) seen the party as using her for the win in 2020 and discarding her because they didn't think she could win the big job.  I assume the process would've gone the exact same way as Biden's primary did - a random democrat would've gone against her, there would be no debate, and she'd win every state.  I don't think it would've accomplished anything.

Would the extra time have helped?  Maybe?  But I feel like her campaign did a pretty good job of outlining her proposals.  Time wouldn't have helped her distance from Biden because that was a choice.  I'm also not sure how much distancing from Biden would've helped because you might end up making your base mad if you throw your popular (within the party) president under the bus.

But let's assume that they could've had an open primary without upsetting the black vote (or the women vote).  Who beats her in a primary?  Gavin Newsom?  Does he beat Trump?  Gretchen Whitmer?  Is she any more ready than Harris was?  I like Pete Buttigieg, but I think it was the wrong election to have a gay candidate.

When you look back at it, it seems like no candidate had any chance.  People wanted Trump.  And boy are they going to get him.

******

Now was there something Biden, as president, could have done?  Almost certainly.  I don't understand why more wasn't done at the border.  Seemed like an easy enough win, particularly as his border policy didn't win any voters.  I have to assume his border policy was designed to get Latino votes back, but it sure didn't work.

I think the infrastructure bill was good.  I think progress was made on climate stuff.  But I think the biggest failure was probably Biden's inability to make any progress with the blue collar voters that a) were traditionally democratic and b) voted for Barack Obama.  Even the stuff he did with unions fell on deaf ears.  He saved their pensions, and they still didn't endorse him.

I don't know.  It's a mess.  The only good news is that, if the Republicans allow another presidential election, I think the country is going to be a disaster in 2028.  It will probably be a big enough disaster in 2026 that the Democrats should win huge in 2026.  There will be gas shortages, food shortages, insanely high prices, lost jobs, American troops on at least one battlefield (I assume helping wipe out the Palestinians and maybe finishing off Ukraine), and massive loss of rights.  I assume even some hardcore Trump people are going to massively regret their votes as soon as this time next year.

But what does the Democratic base look like?  I really think trying to figure out how to get all the stupid people back might help.  I don't know how you do that.  More racism?  They seem to like wearing ridiculous clothes.  Maybe Democrats can capitalize on that somehow?  Free meth?

Oh boy, you are really struggling.

Okay.  Republicans love the Electoral College.  Because, prior to last night, the Republicans hadn't won the popular vote in a long time.  So even though no other modern democracy copied it, they have fought every attempt to eliminate it.  The funny part is that the Electoral College was established because the Founding Fathers didn't respect the average American.  They found the average American to be too stupid to understand anything enough to make a decision on who to vote for.  They had the opportunity to give people a direct vote, but the framers thought the people were too stupid to vote.

The people that love the Electoral College and the Founding Fathers are the people the Founding Fathers respected the least so they created the Electoral College.  It is a joke at the expense of Trump voters.  Who are too dumb to vote and who the Founding Fathers did not (and would still not) respect.

If the 18th Century Electoral College had been around, Trump would have gotten zero votes.  Because the electors would have been educated enough to realize that Trump is an idiot.

You are correct that women couldn't vote and minorities couldn't vote and that rich white men were who the elites wanted.  All beside the point.  Kamala also wouldn't be the candidate because she is both a woman and black.  So also beside the point.  There obviously would've been a different candidate for Trump to run against, but the point is no educated person would ever vote for Trump.  And since all the electors were educated, Trump would get zero votes under the system that Republicans love so much.

Because Trump is an idiot and his voters are too stupid to vote under that system.  That's the entire joke.  It wasn't that complicated.

Well, yeah.  Of course.  Almost every one of our presidents has been a rich white man.  But you cannot argue that the vast majority of Trump's voters are the people the Founding Fathers thought were too stupid to vote.  And they were right.

I think America will survive.  This isn't a fatal blow any more than Hitler was a fatal blow for Germany.  We have a very stupid and very selfish president who will sell us out to Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, and others.  But he's old and will die sooner than later.  The Supreme Court will be lost for generations, but the country will survive.  The economy will be in tatters, and I assume the world will need to move to a different reserve currency with the shape the dollar will be in.

But extreme autocracies like the one Trump wants don't last forever.  Particularly when Trump, again, is very old and in poor health and has no clear heir.  I think if Trump dies sooner than later, Vance will be more of an existential threat than a physical one.  I assume he'd still be owned by Russia and China, but there's less evidence that he's as comically manipulated by other autocrats.  I also gotta think that Vance is more of an opportunist than a true fascist, and he might allow for a free and fair election if given the choice.

Remember that Hitler died cowering in a bunker.  Mussolini was executed.  Bad men win, but history is full of ones that died horribly.

I'm sorry, but that's ridiculous.  How many people have "too many sex changes for prisoners" as their top issue?  Top 10 issues?  Top 100 issues?  It's a nonsense issue that accounts for basically no expense to taxpayers, and it was a Trump policy.

So prisoners are going to keep getting sex changes, because that's what the Trump administration wants, but he's going to torpedo the economy, deport millions, put Eileen Cannon on the Supreme Court, put RFK Jr in charge of health, remove fluoride from the water supply, ruin farmers, destroy manufacturing in the United States, destroy NATO, and join with Russia, China, and the great autocracies of the world?  Or maybe he will eliminate it and save the country between $16,000 and $128,000 for the two federal inmates who have received public-funded sex changes.

That's 0.000007552% of the federal budget on the high end.  But Dean Phillips was going to mention that on a debate stage and it would've just ended her campaign.  Ridiculous.

I think this is a BS argument.  Kamala wasn't the best candidate ever, but she had a positive approval rating.  She ran a strong campaign and built a ton of enthusiasm.  The primary argument is also bad because there's no evidence that there was any scenario where there would've been a true open primary.  The odds are, even if Biden had announced that he wasn't running for re-election on January 21, 2021, that she would have run unopposed as long as she wanted to run at all.  In fact, even if there had been an open primary, you would've come here and said that "her own party didn't even believe in her enough to crown her as the nominee.

And Trump is historically unpopular so I don't see how he's not a "weak candidate" as well.  I think pretty much anyone should've been able to beat Trump.  I'm not ready to go down the same road as QuinnSlidr, but something is really suspicious about this.  Not even Trump-sponsored polls were this rosy.  Trump is extremely shady, works with people that are extremely shady, and he's been planning something for four years.  For him to win so easily is extremely suspicious.

And since we're unlikely to have legitimate elections in this country any time soon, I'm cool doing a little election denying of my own.

******

I'm so annoyed and frustrated and angry.  So many people voted against their own interests, and they're going to pay.  Farmers in the midwest are going to lose their farms, either because they're crushed by tariffs or crushed by a lack of a workforce.  Poor blue collar workers are going to lose their unions, and they're going to be crushed by increased prices and a dreadful economy.  Latino men that voted overwhelmingly for this man are going to be deported, whether they are citizens or not.  Muslims who did protest votes or voted for Trump will be deported and Gaza will be destroyed.  Republicans who spent decades fighting the Soviets are going to hand Europe to Putin.

If we ever get another true election, Democrats need to find a way to get stupid people back.  Letting all the stupid people be in one party was the biggest mistake that the Democrats made.  But with all the war and disease and poverty that are coming, the Grim Reaper might take care of enough of those guys in the mean time.

Gonna have to hope that the polls that closed late are huge for her in Georgia.  North Carolina doesn't look as bad but not great, obviously.

Looks like we might be hoping for 270-268.  I was hoping for a bigger win than this, but might be time to adjust hopes to *any* win.

I hope you're right.  It'll be impossible to know until later, but I'd be willing to bet that Trump can't get all the voters he needs to show up.  I also think that polls probably overstated his support with Republican women and minority men, but again we won't know.

On Trump's crowd sizes....let's not read too much into that.  There's no correlation between going to rallies and voting.  Trump had huge rallies in 2020 and lost.  Being enthusiastic about sitting in some arena until 1am listening to the same stories they've heard a thousand times and being enthusiastic about voting is very different.  I think what's happened is that Trump's rallies have lost their novelty value with a lot of people.  But I don't necessarily think people are less enthusiastic to vote for him.  I could be wrong and it doesn't matter what I think because we'll know soon enough.

But you're still right that low propensity voters are less likely to vote.

I guess it depends, right?  In 2020, we had the red mirages in all the swing states because a vast majority of mail-in ballots in those states were Democratic.  This year, as republicans love to point out, it's still much more democratic but the gaps have closed.  That means either less Democrats are voting in total (unlikely), more Republicans are voting in total (unlikely), more of both are voting (unlikely), or that more Democrats and less Republicans will be voting on Election Day (the consensus opinion).

And we know some of the stats to at least have an idea of who's going to get more of the mail-in ballots.  If they've finished counting the Election Day votes in Pennsylvania and she's winning?  Then she's winning big.  Even if they finished counting and he's only up a little, she's probably winning big (or at least big enough to call even before a lot of those votes are actually counted).

And I think there will be signs.  Female turnout.  Minority turnout.  White turnout.  There are people that are going to be able to see things that most people can't, and I think we're going to know pretty early whether the polls were right and it's going to take days or if the polls were wrong (in either direction) and it'll just drag out until people feel comfortable officially calling it.  I could be wrong, but I feel like we felt pretty good the next day that Biden was going to win.

I'm hoping and praying for a safe day with no violence.

I'm right there with you.

Yeah, I just can't lump in 70 million people to be like that guy.  I refuse to do to them what they've done to you/us.  When you de-humanize people, it becomes okay to eliminate them.  I don't want Trump voters to die, and I don't think you do either.  We gotta keep our eyes on who the real enemy is, and we can defeat him as soon as tomorrow.

Happy to jump in here.

I think Biden has been overall very good, but I don't think he's done himself or Kamala any favors.  I have been saying, along with Grizzlor, that there were easy wins to be had at the border.  I think the border bill was the right thing to do in a pre-Trump area, but I think it was foolish to think that Trump would let Biden have a win like that in a Senate that Trump basically runs.  There were things that Biden could've done that could've shut that issue down without endangering anyone or being less humanitarian.  John Oliver did a good piece on the border a while back talking about how Biden is *way* better than Trump on the border but we can still do much, much better.

I also think that he needed to have navigated Ukraine and Gaza better.  I don't know if he and Blinken have been the best at world politics this term.  And obviously, I think the thing that Biden could've done better at is promoting Kamala and putting her in a position to succeed.  The border is toxic for Democrats and if he wasn't going to be more hawkish there then he really needed to keep her as far away from it as possible on the chance that he wasn't going to run again.  They needed to put her front and center on some easy wins - obviously not at the expense of Biden getting credit for his own wins.  But some area where Biden was already popular on that they could get her approval rating up.  She's obviously gotten better at this stuff since 2020, and he could've used her.

But I don't think it's super fair to say that Biden's approval rating means he's been terrible.  People blame him for inflation (not his fault) and don't like him because of his age.  I also think we should get used to low approval ratings for all presidents in this environment.  The opposing party will not approve just because, and I think it's reasonable for people in the president's party to say they don't approve of the job he's doing.  I think the days of the president getting a positive approval rating are done.

And as far as valid reasons to vote for Trump, I still think a number of people are voting for the lives they had in 2016-2019 (they forget about 2020 or group it in with Biden's years).  If you don't pay attention to politics or watch cable news, it's easy to forget or not care about who's president.  It's easy to miss the things that Trump says or does.  I'm sure plenty of people have missed the violent rhetoric and are simply thinking "I liked my life better when he was president"

And while that's ignorant and naive, I do think it's valid.

******

The Iowa poll has the potential to be huge if Selzer is right.  If Midwesterners are really flipping to Harris over Trump (maybe because of tariffs?) then she's going to sail to victory.  And as Grizzlor mentioned, the Kansas poll and the Nebraska 2nd district poll are more signs that something is going on.

Nate Silver has said that there's a ridiculous amount of herding going on in polls.  And there seems to be an idea that pollsters are terrified of being wrong again so they're calling every poll a tie and essentially punting on the election cycle.  If Trump wins by 2-3 points, they can say margin of error.  If Harris wins by 2-3 points, they can say margin of error.  They made no official pick and can blame margin of error as a unit.

But some of the smaller, focused polls in specific areas that people really understand are going to Harris.  I'm not ready to declare victory by any stretch, but I feel pretty confident that she's going to win.  I'm praying that it's evident tomorrow night and I can continue to get peaceful sleep, but I just don't know.  As I've said all along, she just needs to get 270, but every state she gets above 270 will make it harder for Trump to successfully steal it.   

I do worry that the bigger her win, the more violence there might be (because it might look to certain people as being more rigged), but I think it's going to be hard to get enough support to overturn a bunch of states.

Yeah that's too many two-syllable words for Trump.

I've been reading some analysis from people on the ground.  It was from a Democratic guy on the ground, but he said in Wisconsin everything but the polling leans towards Harris.  That the Republicans don't really have a ground game or even much of an appearance of a ground game.  Heard similar things in Arizona and a couple other swing states.  The only thing that's pointing toward a potential Trump victory is a) the polling and b) the idea that the polling isn't leaning to the Republicans enough.

Early voting is obviously leaning Democrat but it's also really leaning female.  So either the women of this country are going to save us or are currently stabbing us in the back (and shooting themselves in the foot).  I think Democrats need to keep doing what they're doing but I also think Democrats need to surprise a bit on Election Day. 

And hoping beyond hope that Democrats are doing whatever they can to prepare for anything the MAGA base is going to try and to do disrupt voting or destroy votes.

I feel fairly confident that we got this, but I don't know how to incorporate illegal activities into my analysis.  So I'm just going to hope that someone else is considering all the ways this could go wrong.

So I guess two things:

1. I don't remember, at all, the episode "Combat" nor the character of Titan.  But I looked up a recap, and it seems like it was one of those "bad guy is in a fight and ends up impaled by accident" - let me know if that's incorrect

2. I think my philosophy on Clark is still heavily based on the idea that Clark is responsible for humans (and other non-powered beings) but not super-powered beings.  Whether it's the idea that Clark is "an adult living among children" from (cancelled) or Clark "living in a world made of cardboard" from Justice League Unlimited, I think Clark's actions should represent that responsibility.  I don't really even have a problem with Cavill's Clark killing Zod in Man of Steel because I think Zod would've easily killed millions (billions?) of people if given the chance.  Zod was basically a crazy person with a gun, and Clark was the nearest policeman.

I do think that Clark has a responsibility, as one of the strongest beings in the universe, to protect people from themselves as much as possible.  So Clark's first move shouldn't be to execute someone if there's any other way to save people.  I like a Clark that will jump in front of a kyptonite bullet to save even one person.  But I think if Clark, of sound mind, decides that the only way to save people is to kill, I think it's okay according to whatever system of justice exists in my head for Clark.

But even that, I think, has a limit.  In the Snyder Cut, I had no problem with the Justice League beheading Steppenwolf because I think he was a threat (and I'm not 100% sure what that version of the Justice League was supposed to do with a captured Steppenwolf).  I did think it was bizarre for Superman to cut off Steppenwolf's horn with his heat vision when he didn't really seem to be a threat.  One, I think, fits the definition of justice.  One was overly cruel.

I have no idea if I answered your question.

Here's some more information that I find comforting

https://unrollnow.com/status/1851339376196010260

I'm not fully certain, but I think things are shifting.  I've completely abandoned looking at polls because those waters have been poisoned by conservative polls.  But if you look at all the vibes - how Republicans are manipulating both polling and betting markets, how desperate Trump seems, how he's already talking about election fraud, and how overly optimistic Republican insiders seem to be...this is all signs of a campaign that is shifting toward claiming that the election was rigged.  They're going to say "we were up big in the polls, we were up big in the betting markets, etc"

Oddly enough, I'm less worried about Trump's plan to overturn the election as long as Democrats win the House (and they have an okay chance of having a 50/50 Senate).  He's not going to be president and he's not going to have as many resources to fight back as he did when he was in the White House.  What I'm more worried about at the moment is what we're seeing in Arizona, Oregon, and Washington where votes are being destroyed by rogue Republicans.  I think she can win on a fair vote, but I'm worried that the Republicans are going to do what they can to destroy as many votes as possible.  So hoping that Democrats continue to bank as many early votes as possible.

I'm also cautiously optimistic.  I'm not as confident as I was for Biden but I feel like the chances are greater than 50/50.  I just really have trouble understanding the demographics of this race.  She's winning all women, all college educated, she's regained a lot of the minority support that Biden had.  She's winning a decent number of registered Republicans (although those could be intermingled with the college educated and the women and even some of the minorities).  Trump isn't pulling similar number of registered Democrats.

How is this race 50/50 (even nationally....allegedly) when Trump is literally only winning among uneducated white people?

I also think there will be some people that will tell pollsters they're voting for Trump but will actually vote for Kamala.  Wives of Trump supporters.  It's just going to be impossible to know until Election Day.  It could either be a landslide for Kamala, a landslide for Trump (if polling error is like 2020), or a really close race.  At this point, I'm more worried that Trump supporters are going to destroy legitimate Kamala votes than that she won't get enough votes.

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So the Puerto Rico stuff.  It gained a ton of traction online, and I wonder if that traction ends up doing anything.  Puerto Ricans are mad, and there are Puerto Ricans everywhere.  My question is:

1. Are the people that are mad already Kamala voters?
2. Are there any Trump voters who are mad enough to switch?
3. If there are people that are mad that aren't yet registered, is there time in the state they're in to get registered?

Like in Texas, we have a ton of Puerto Ricans but if they aren't registered, their anger gets us nowhere because it's too late to register.  In some of the swing states, there's same-day registration but not all.  And I don't know what percentage of registered Puerto Ricans in swing states were already voting for Harris.

There's also the issue of the fact that Trump himself didn't say it, even if it was at his rally, and that Trump can fairly easily distance from it.  But I think there's a decent chance that this sways at least some people.  And again, every vote hypothetically could make a difference.

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There's new rumors about the bombshell report that will "end" the Trump campaign.  Now it's rumored to have something to do with the Butler assassination attempt.  At this point, it either needs to be released in the next day or so I don't think it matters.  It might not matter anyway

He said a bunch of times that he would've voted for basically any Republican other than Trump.  I did a little more research and he's never openly come out in favor of either party and says he is a registered Independent.  He says he has voted Democrat a lot in the past, but he's also been pretty equally critical of both parties.

Either way, he did God's work last night on Hannity, and I think his "I would've voted for any other Republican" probably endeared him to the standard Fox News viewer that doesn't know any better than I did.  I can say pretty safely that he's probably one of the few people that's fairly trustworthy who's going to go on Fox News and let Republicans know that it's okay not to vote for Trump.

Stephen A Smith went on Hannity last night, and I think he might've actually been one of Kamala's best surrogates even though he doesn't particularly like her.

- He's a black Republican who said he would've voted for any Republican but Trump
- He tore Trump apart
- He out Hannityed Hannity

I think he spoke to a segment of the Fox News audience that thinks of themselves as conservative/Republican and is uncomfortable with Trump.  I think someone speaking emphatically about those same issues might influence some people.  Enough to make a difference?  Probably not.  But maybe.

Very generous but unnecessary.  If we have to flee the country, we will be able to take care of ourselves.

I read that.  On behalf of the daughter of the donor, I hope the story isn't true.  If the story is true, I obviously hope that my fellow Americans realize that maybe Trump isn't the innocent man people somehow believe that he is, and they reject him on election day.

I just don't have a whole lot of faith in that.  The true MAGA folks will think it's fake no matter who verifies it, and I think a lot of Trump voters know that he's a criminal and a monster and just don't care.  I've been disheartened by a lot of people saying "look, I know he's not a good person and I know he's done bad things, but I think he's going to fix the economy" or whatever.  And so I don't think anything, including him killing someone on Fifth Avenue, is going to cause them to switch.

Now.  If it is true.  And if it gets released.  And if its believable and corroborated and people believe it....I don't see how it doesn't tip the election enough to win it for Harris.  Because it just wouldn't take that many people not voting for him (set aside anyone switching to her) for her to win.  If the polls are to believed, this election is essentially a coinflip and it doesn't take much for a coinflip to go from heads to tails.

But, God Almighty, I hope this man loses and we can soon forget about him.