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The US [Election] Thread of 2024: Part Two
Hahnsoo1
Make Ready.We Hunt.Registered User, Moderator, Administrator admin
Make Ready.We Hunt.Registered User, Moderator, Administrator admin
Here it is... your general US election thread for the year 2024. It is a critical election with two fairly unpalatable presidential candidates who should be eating tapioca pudding in a retirement home, who instead will duke it out for control of the free world with an apparently rapidly changing situation where a Crazy Old Man is going up against some sort of Dem nominee (a lot has happened). US presidential elections as of late have become a stressful and contentious time on these forums, with a lot of infighting and poor posting habits that lead to accounts being jailed and/or banned. The moderators will be watching this thread more closely than any other thread on Debate and Discourse.
Also, a lot of congressional seats and governorships will be elected this year. Feel free to discuss those, but don't be surprised if all the oxygen is sucked out of the room by the presidential election discussion. Some of these side discussions may be easier to do in the appropriate state-level political threads.
General Rules and Posting Guidelines
Most of these rules and guidelines are already standing policy in Debate and Discourse political threads, but they are being reiterated here so you have absolutely no excuse for not knowing them. Some of them are for this specific thread only. You are responsible for these rules and reading the OP (and the entire thread, for that matter) if you want to participate in this discussion.
Who Are The Candidates?
Okay. Stop. Just stop. Get out of the thread. We don't really have time to educate you if you aren't willing to put one iota of research into this topic, or you live under a rock (unlikely, since you post here). If you want to post here, don't do so from a position of ignorance of the very basic topics. For very basic information about the upcoming election (Presidential, Congressional, Gubernatorial, or other), head to Ballotpedia.
Topics to Avoid
Not infractable (EDIT: Okay, maybe a little infractable, as a treat, but we'll give you a warning by default), but generally fruitless avenues of discussion that will get a LOT of side eye from the moderators.
Thread Locks
This thread will almost inevitably get locked due to some sort of infighting or trolling or whatever. When this thread gets locked early, it will be locked for a minimum period of 24 hours (possibly longer based on mod coverage).
New Election Threads
After this thread is locked at 100 pages, the Moderators will create the next OP for the new Election thread. Don't spin up a follow up thread (unless it's about a specific off-topic subject instead of the election, of course). Repeated bad behavior or doomposting may result in thread-kicks being carried over into new Election threads.
Mods will update this OP over time as more things need to be said. We'll hopefully also announce in the thread if there are other rules/guidelines that are being added, but you are responsible for knowing the stuff in this OP.
Also, a lot of congressional seats and governorships will be elected this year. Feel free to discuss those, but don't be surprised if all the oxygen is sucked out of the room by the presidential election discussion. Some of these side discussions may be easier to do in the appropriate state-level political threads.
General Rules and Posting Guidelines
Most of these rules and guidelines are already standing policy in Debate and Discourse political threads, but they are being reiterated here so you have absolutely no excuse for not knowing them. Some of them are for this specific thread only. You are responsible for these rules and reading the OP (and the entire thread, for that matter) if you want to participate in this discussion.
- Be Kind - This is THE most stressful topic for a lot of the posters here. Now is NOT the time to deploy the snark cannon or the condescension engine or "fucking fuck FUCK", no matter how much you dislike another poster. Be gracious. Be kind. Realize that we're all stressed out here.
- Walk Away - If discussion is getting too heated or you find yourself replying to the same person over and over again in a short period of time... maybe you should talk a breather and walk away from the thread for a bit. I encourage folks, if they are getting into a fight here, to just stop posting and do something else. You don't need to win Internet points. It's not worth it.
- Stay On Topic - It's tempting to go down tangents or rabbit holes, but the election thread is bloated and difficult to read as it is. If your commentary does not pertain directly to the 2024 Election, consider making a God Damn Separate Thread.
- No memes or tweets without commentary and sourcing - If you link to a tweet or a screenshot of a tweet, copy and paste the full text of the tweet, and then source the author and why that author is important to listen to. With links being broken to tweets on a constant basis (and Twitter/X no longer working properly anymore, let alone on these forums), this is more important now than it was 4 or 8 years ago. YouTube video links (or Instagram or whatever) should also be sourced with a general synopsis of what's in the video, along with the subject or author of the video and why they are important.
- Limit your quoting and linking of an article - DO give us the source and the author and why it is important. But if you post text from the article, leave it at 3-5 paragraphs, TOPS. 1 paragraph, with relevant sentences bolded, is best. People do NOT need to read the entire article here! They can just follow your link. Give them enough to entice them to read the article, and leave it at that.
- Images should be spoilered - For best posting practices, because images take different formats on different devices, please spoiler tag your images. This includes screenshots of Tweets and Articles. We'll give SOME lee-way about this (not all pics are created equal), but in general, giant images tend to be annoying on mobile, and sometimes smaller images blow up to a large size on desktop. If you do post an image of anything, accompany that image with some commentary or opinion. If you don't have an opinion about it that you are willing to share, you shouldn't be posting it.
- This isn't a comedy standup show - This is not the place to practice your tight five or post a drive-by of a meme and leave it at that. You aren't boomers (the forum is getting old, but not THAT old)... don't just post unfunny political cartoons or a tired Anakin/Padme meme with political text. Don't post drive-by "gotchas" just to rile up the thread. Don't make snarky one-liners as replies. This kind of behavior will get you jailed or banned.
- No doomposting - Look, we get it. The last decade has been rough, and this past year has been ESPECIALLY rough. It's easy to lose hope or to give into despair. What we cannot allow you to do is to spray that all over the forums. We can't provide mental health services for you. This place cannot be the dumping ground for your trauma. Find help and assistance, or find some other social media to use instead of therapy (not recommended, but I know that's what most people do). But you can't do this here, and this will get you thread-kicked.
- No livetweeting events - What we mean by this is that it's pretty annoying to post "Wow, I can't believe he said that!" and not have any reference to who "he" was or what was actually said. If you are posting events happening in real-time at that moment, you better do a good job of identifying a news source that people can look up and the actual content of the events that are happening.
- No relitigating the 2016 Hilary Clinton vs. Donald Trump Election - Look, we know this is one of the prior elections that got us into this mess. But there's nothing we can say about this that hasn't already been repeated and flamed back and forth a hundred times in the past decade. Talk about the present, not the past.
- The use of political violence - This is a long-standing rule on the entire forums, but we cannot allow folks to endorse or imply political actions that result in violence. This includes death threats and threats of violence against public figures.
Who Are The Candidates?
Okay. Stop. Just stop. Get out of the thread. We don't really have time to educate you if you aren't willing to put one iota of research into this topic, or you live under a rock (unlikely, since you post here). If you want to post here, don't do so from a position of ignorance of the very basic topics. For very basic information about the upcoming election (Presidential, Congressional, Gubernatorial, or other), head to Ballotpedia.
Topics to Avoid
Not infractable (EDIT: Okay, maybe a little infractable, as a treat, but we'll give you a warning by default), but generally fruitless avenues of discussion that will get a LOT of side eye from the moderators.
- The results of any individual poll - This is distinct from talking about the accuracy of a given poll result (the infamous biases that exist with phone polling, for example) or discussing the legitimacy of a poll. In general, any single poll is going to be meaningless unless context is given against other similar polls or the methodology/sample size used in the poll. "Latest CNN poll shows..." is pretty useless, and results change on an almost daily basis as part of our cursed 24 hour news cycle.
- In-depth medical discussion about dementia - I know the few of you who are health care professionals and doctors, but the rest of you have no business diagnosing someone who you've never examined with any sort of mental illness or dementia. We get it, they're old. This is a fruitless topic that leads to a lot of dumb things that laypeople say when they read WebMD.
- Palestine/Israel - This is an important topic, but take it to the MENA thread. Folks can post articles about it if it pertains directly to the US elections, but take further discussion to the MENA thread. "I'd like to talk more about this, but let's take it over to the MENA thread." - Use this line. You have permission from me.
- US Immigration policy - Again, an important topic, but take it to the existing Immigration thread. This one is a bit more lax because we're likely to see a lot of arguing about this from the candidates and the US political parties, but in-depth discussion of immigration policy should take place in the Immigration thread.
- Ukraine - In-depth discussion of what's going on in Ukraine should probably be routed to that thread.
- The philosophical principles of voting in general - We have a separate thread for that. It's a garbage fire, but it exists. Have at it over there.
- The usual Leftist vs. Liberal arguments - We know. It's a longstanding thing on these forums. As much as we all enjoy a circular firing-squad (spoiler alert: We don't), if this starts happening, that's the RIGHT time to walk away. Don't escalate. Use the report button. Post about something else. No political affiliation needs you, Joe/Jane Internet, to defend its honor or whatever. This one IS likely to lead to infractions or thread-kicks or a thread lock.
- Project 2025 - Yeah, this is the game plan given by conservative thinktanks in the US if they obtain enough power. But this is all stuff that happens AFTER the election. It's not their game plan for winning this election. There is a current thread about Project 2025, so lead discussion of Project 2025 here.
- Do not keep making the argument that Trump will be worse than Biden whoever the Dems nominate (likely Harris) - This is 100% obvious. Everyone knows this. You do not need to make this argument. Yet, it keeps getting made. If you feel compelled to say this in the thread for some reason, take a step back and actually listen to what people are saying. Especially don't keep harping about how Trump will be so much worse for the LGBTQ+ members of our forum! This has ONLY led to bloody and pointless arguments that eventually lead to thread locks. No one here is voting for Trump. Whether or not they are voting or voting for Biden the Dem nominee is their own personal dilemma and not yours. Do your political canvassing out there in the real world. Note that you can compare the candidates all that you want. But "Trump will be worse", while technically true, tends to be used as a dismissal or rebuff for criticism of Biden, and you can do better than that. Address the criticisms and arguments.
- 7/16/2024 Addedum - The Trump Rally shooting and assassination attempt - Try to avoid talking about the shooting except how it directly pertains to the Election. We plan on having a separate thread to discuss the shooting. Doomposting based on how this will bump Trump chances is not allowed in this thread, as are snarky comments about the shooting in general.
Thread Locks
This thread will almost inevitably get locked due to some sort of infighting or trolling or whatever. When this thread gets locked early, it will be locked for a minimum period of 24 hours (possibly longer based on mod coverage).
New Election Threads
After this thread is locked at 100 pages, the Moderators will create the next OP for the new Election thread. Don't spin up a follow up thread (unless it's about a specific off-topic subject instead of the election, of course). Repeated bad behavior or doomposting may result in thread-kicks being carried over into new Election threads.
Mods will update this OP over time as more things need to be said. We'll hopefully also announce in the thread if there are other rules/guidelines that are being added, but you are responsible for knowing the stuff in this OP.
Hahnsoo1 on
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It does lead me to a question that has been rolling around in my head for the last week.
What can we, as a forum community, do to impact the election? I'm not going to frame it in terms of a positive impact, because everyone's definitions will be different on exactly what is positive in this tumultuous time. But is there something that we might be able to collectively work towards that everyone can agree to? Even if it's super weak, and super small, I still believe in this community and the good we can do.
Warframe/Steam: NFyt
I think if we are seeing some massive shift to the right then, yeah, it's basically entirely that we let social media run rampant and fuck with the minds of entire generations of people.
I think the polls generally paint a picture of insanity but that kind of thing is why I can't dismiss the insanity as impossible.
I just skip to the end of new posts to see what the latest new gripe is and skip over the pages of recycled arguments in between. Easy enough to backtrack when the discussion is worthwhile, but most of the time it's rehashing the same things.
If I were a big streamer or one of their mods, I would nope the fuck out of having to deal with anything political in comments or chat. One, the setups usually aren't conducive for discussion of politics since they move to fast for anyone to drop well thought out posts or information dense posts. Two, all the assholes and their bots will show up to fling shit everywhere, while strangling the community. Finally, being open about having a contentious position could end up with the community splitting and half of it leaving because they really don't agree with the position to the point that they don't want to support the content creator.
I see a shit of very large and popular channels where politics stuff is shut down. Most you can maybe get away with is calling people out for being shitty bigots to certain marginalized groups or complain about a government regulation not being particularly great. Also whine about taxes.
I'd say the only reason the right is starting to get more young men, is that the oligarchy has destroyed a ton of third spaces and their is still a fuck ton of households where sexist shit goes unchallenged and with the lack of third spaces they are essentially stuck wallowing in an environment where that shit is reinforced and then get pissy when they run into a bunch of women that do not want to have to put with the sexism.
Honestly, I'm not sure how democrats fix some of that because even too much of the nonsexist public bulks at the idea of government spending or regulations that would likely help to bring back 3rd spaces. Sadly, NIMBYism is something that the right doesn't have a monopoly on.
Uhm, yeah, this is an election, which is a kind of popularity contest.
Biden ain't popular, and what supposed accomplishments he's accomplished ain't moving the needle for folks.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
I read everything except ignored stuff (which is usually quoted anyway) but it's not something I'd like recommend as a healthy habit.
Maybe people don't care about what Biden has done, or maybe people are just very badly informed. If the latter, a well-organized messaging campaign could be all that's needed to move the needle.
I’ve been unreasonably addicted to this thread. Like checking in every hour lest I miss that super important post that clarifies everything.
I should probably not keep doing that until November…
I don't really know if that's the case, in his history as a political figure, Biden has had a fun runs with the same idea, even if he wasn't directly performing it -- he had enthusiastic cultural moments that capitalized on it, what with Diamond Joe, and more recent Dark Brandon.
I think a lot of the existential angst people feel nowadays with his prospects is that it's really tough now to see him ever touch the same level of virality, at least not for the good reasons. Instead it's come down to his staffers and administration insisting that his senior moments are 'cheap fakes'.
For better or worse, part of what we need in a candidate in order to succeed is to at least participate in being part of the cultural zeitgeist in a positive way that people can cheerlead.
And where we're at now, makes it very hard.
Dark Brandon was co-opting a meme and tbh they did it pretty much perfectly.
And the onion apologized for helping bidens image and helping him get elected based off the cool fun character they created which was not a reflection of reality
Yeah The Onion is in that Parker / Stone place of having a lot to account for in their irreverent cynicism leading to the problems we've got today.
Edit- despite having a whole lot of good biting satire. I'd also toss The Simpsons and SNL in the pile.
Yeah it’s pretty easy when 31 posts of every page are the same circular argument
There’s a systemic fear of appearing too political by only mocking one side, so it all devolves into “both sides are equally bad” or “giant douche vs turd sandwich” acting like there’s no difference between them.
What winds up happening is the side that likes to play the victim ends up complaining anyway and then the whole window shifts toward them in an effort to appear balanced.
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That whole thing seemed both silly and rather presumptuous about how meaningful it actually was.
A quote from Chad Nackers, Editor in Chief of the Onion, regarding coverage of Trump.
Why would I ever give a shit what comedians think of politics? They certainly dont give a shit about it.
For better or worse I do think cultural currency is an important factor in a political campaign meant to counter and win over Trump. And in my post I merely meant to suggest that while he was effective in being the person who got us there the last time, I think people genuinely worry that lacking some of that sharpness and wit, that Biden might not be able to repeat.
Trump absolutely wants to be president for life
I mean it's absolutely horrific what his stream of thoughts are and where they come from, but yes most of what he says is verbal diarrhea.
Edit - the shapes of it though are definitely really terrible stuff he believes in to the core.
Fuck that noise. The Simpsons didn't say anything anyone wasn't already thinking at the time, and they sure as hell weren't as aggressively apathetic as South Park.
If you want to blame comedy shows, take it up with Fallon and the others who decided to normalize Trump even as he was spewing toxic rhetoric all over the airwaves.
Everyone loved Joe biden when he ignored the sexual harassment of Anita hill and shamed her for complaining about being raped so that he could help seat the very worst supreme court justice.
And when he talked fondly about his good friend Strom thurmond.
Just a really good democrat that liberals have always loved
???
Good thing the 81 year old that everyone hates is not also trying to be president for life, right? Haha that would be crazy! If an 81 year old white guy tried to be president until he died!
Haha! Wild stuff!
Serving out 2 terms is not the same thing, even if he happens to die during his second term.
?
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
The notable hard right shift in women after Dobbs that we've all seen.
It's the reason he won't step down? He is the only one that can beat Trump and he is the only one that can be president.
What else are you gonna do elect trump?
Isn't that the whole rallying cry? "Not trump!"
However, the fervor of the Anti-Biden crowd may be paradoxically preventing them from speaking up to avoid getting lassoed with those whom they would otherwise disagree
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
If folks want to engage with the thread, please do so with good faith arguments and not aggressive posts devoid of content.
https://www.axios.com/2024/07/16/nate-silver-polymarket
Article is not particularly deep, mostly just a puff piece on politics gambling markets in general, but the gist is that Nate Silver has begun working for Polymarket.
It also fails to mention that Polymarket is one of Peter Thiel’s investment babies, so Nate Silver is in effect working for Peter Thiel now.
-Indiana Solo, runner of blades
We have slowly been moving towards the joke in 30 Rock where everything is owned by Halliburton / GE becoming reality, except that the companies/executives at the top are even less socially responsible.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...