I had lunch with David yesterday and told him I disagreed with one sentence on this post. Actually it's two: "If Biden wins, I expect violence from MAGA. I also won’t rule out violence from the left if Trump wins, but the left does not have the same violent, revolutionary culture that I see on the right."
The opposite here is true in my opinion. If Trump wins, violence is assured. Well-funded, well-planned, and terribly destructive violence will break out in major cities around the country. It will look like a movement but in reality it is political violence, centrally funded, planned and executed, including people paid to rouse up the crowds and recruit thugs.
If Biden wins (and it's not unlikely he will at the last moment pull it off), there will be scattered violence by Trumpists, playtriots, and other grifters. It will not be organized, planned, or centrally funded. It will be little groups, possibly well-armed, causing mayhem, and opposed by the centrally-planned, funded, and organized violence of the Democrats (who will still burn stuff).
So there will be violence either way. But the groups who would fight some kind of "civil war" will not be the kind of people you'd follow. And in the end, the National Guard will put an easy end to it when it gets out of hand. No prepper or playtriot group can fight the army. I always tell my prepper acquiantances: when the Bradley Fighting Vehicle rumbles down your road into your driveway, you lose.
For the sake of my children and grandchildren I pray you are wrong about violence. I have broken my rule and started sharing political posts on FB again. My sister is planning a trip to South Dakota and taking her two dogs along, and I jokingly said stay away from the governor. She put a big question mark and said she had to google it. Too many people are completely in the dark and not paying attention at all. The home healthcare nurse that came to take care of my husband after his quadruple bypass is an immigrant from Cuba and of course listens to Spanish news stations here in Miami. He had totally bought into the lies that Biden is a socialist and Trump is the only hope for our country. That’s just two examples. I have many many more. I shared Steve’s column yesterday and I will share yours today David and I can only hope that people will take a minute to read them. Thank you for what you both do.
The MAGA right is as stupid and insane as the woke left. Both groups can’t imagine that many many people actually disagree with them (not to mention that many many people also find them to be morons). It’s an existence bereft of reality, or even the capacity for grasping same.
Great read David and better yet, some awesome comments. While i agree with some of them and disagree with others, my take is less complicated. It's too early to start counting the votes; polls are simply early samplings and until the push actually starts, pretty meaningless. BTW, i expect a full out press, the likes we have never seen come this Sept. Should be interesting.
I've reduced polls and put them in the same category as signage and flags. While many of my neighbors vote blue, few of them wear it on their sleeves (or fly it from a flag post), In fact, none do. On the other hand, i can walk the neighborhood and find trump flags and signs. It used to bother me, now i just feel sorry for those so attached to a serial liar (sorry, but that's what he is).
Anyway, polling is an interesting discussion. I used to answer them, now i ignore them. Wasting what time i have left is silliness. I suspect those who have swallowed the trump line are hoping for such calls to help prop their guy up and give him an out should he lose.
In either case, i sleep good at night knowing there are more of us than there are of them.
No. I’m saying that polling has an inherent uncertainty. They’re saying that if the election results don’t turn out the way they want or if a poll doesn’t give the results that they want, it’s invalid.
I haven’t heard a single person on either side claim that the results were invalid “because they didn’t like them”. The problem is that we are not addressing election integrity except as a dead chicken to beat up the other side with. We need an election authority with real integrity all sides recognize. We need to open up elections that are demonstrably bad to real review. The courts have been too timid to fill the function, as in Gore 2000 and Arizona virtually any year. America has a long history of corrupt elections, and we could fix all kinds of national issues just by recognizing and dealing with the fact.
If you believe that, become a poll worker / election judge and embody the change you wish to see in the world. You'll have a MUCH better idea about the integrity issues working within the system, than being a spectator outside.
I had lunch with David yesterday and told him I disagreed with one sentence on this post. Actually it's two: "If Biden wins, I expect violence from MAGA. I also won’t rule out violence from the left if Trump wins, but the left does not have the same violent, revolutionary culture that I see on the right."
The opposite here is true in my opinion. If Trump wins, violence is assured. Well-funded, well-planned, and terribly destructive violence will break out in major cities around the country. It will look like a movement but in reality it is political violence, centrally funded, planned and executed, including people paid to rouse up the crowds and recruit thugs.
If Biden wins (and it's not unlikely he will at the last moment pull it off), there will be scattered violence by Trumpists, playtriots, and other grifters. It will not be organized, planned, or centrally funded. It will be little groups, possibly well-armed, causing mayhem, and opposed by the centrally-planned, funded, and organized violence of the Democrats (who will still burn stuff).
So there will be violence either way. But the groups who would fight some kind of "civil war" will not be the kind of people you'd follow. And in the end, the National Guard will put an easy end to it when it gets out of hand. No prepper or playtriot group can fight the army. I always tell my prepper acquiantances: when the Bradley Fighting Vehicle rumbles down your road into your driveway, you lose.
For the sake of my children and grandchildren I pray you are wrong about violence. I have broken my rule and started sharing political posts on FB again. My sister is planning a trip to South Dakota and taking her two dogs along, and I jokingly said stay away from the governor. She put a big question mark and said she had to google it. Too many people are completely in the dark and not paying attention at all. The home healthcare nurse that came to take care of my husband after his quadruple bypass is an immigrant from Cuba and of course listens to Spanish news stations here in Miami. He had totally bought into the lies that Biden is a socialist and Trump is the only hope for our country. That’s just two examples. I have many many more. I shared Steve’s column yesterday and I will share yours today David and I can only hope that people will take a minute to read them. Thank you for what you both do.
Thank you for the shares
The MAGA right is as stupid and insane as the woke left. Both groups can’t imagine that many many people actually disagree with them (not to mention that many many people also find them to be morons). It’s an existence bereft of reality, or even the capacity for grasping same.
Great read David and better yet, some awesome comments. While i agree with some of them and disagree with others, my take is less complicated. It's too early to start counting the votes; polls are simply early samplings and until the push actually starts, pretty meaningless. BTW, i expect a full out press, the likes we have never seen come this Sept. Should be interesting.
I've reduced polls and put them in the same category as signage and flags. While many of my neighbors vote blue, few of them wear it on their sleeves (or fly it from a flag post), In fact, none do. On the other hand, i can walk the neighborhood and find trump flags and signs. It used to bother me, now i just feel sorry for those so attached to a serial liar (sorry, but that's what he is).
Anyway, polling is an interesting discussion. I used to answer them, now i ignore them. Wasting what time i have left is silliness. I suspect those who have swallowed the trump line are hoping for such calls to help prop their guy up and give him an out should he lose.
In either case, i sleep good at night knowing there are more of us than there are of them.
“It’s ironic that Adams and many on the right tend to be very skeptical of polling except when the polls show Donald Trump in the lead.”
Isn’t this exactly what you did in the prior paragraphs for the Democrats?
No. I’m saying that polling has an inherent uncertainty. They’re saying that if the election results don’t turn out the way they want or if a poll doesn’t give the results that they want, it’s invalid.
You say tomato, I say tomato.
More like apples and oranges.
Our positions are almost totally opposite.
No sure what you are trying to say. Does not seem like you and David are saying the same thing.
I haven’t heard a single person on either side claim that the results were invalid “because they didn’t like them”. The problem is that we are not addressing election integrity except as a dead chicken to beat up the other side with. We need an election authority with real integrity all sides recognize. We need to open up elections that are demonstrably bad to real review. The courts have been too timid to fill the function, as in Gore 2000 and Arizona virtually any year. America has a long history of corrupt elections, and we could fix all kinds of national issues just by recognizing and dealing with the fact.
If you believe that, become a poll worker / election judge and embody the change you wish to see in the world. You'll have a MUCH better idea about the integrity issues working within the system, than being a spectator outside.