Doug's Darkworld

A friend sent me a video. Interesting video. It makes the case that we’ll see something truly horrifying on election night. It points out that Biden mail in votes are going to be likely double Trump’s mail in votes. According to their calculations, we might see Trump getting an overwhelming electoral college victory on election night from in person votes. And about ten days later as the mail in ballots are counted, Joe Biden becomes the winner.

I have no way of judging the accuracy of their calculations, so I have no idea how likely such a result is. It certainly seems plausible though, I can see no reason why it’s impossible. And then, we’d have a problem. The gentle reader gets one guess what the result of that would be. Yes, Trump would declare victory on election night and do everything in his power to cast doubt on the subsequent mail in ballots. It could get really ugly. Here’s the link to the video: The Terrifying Election Scenario That Could Rip America Apart.

And to make it even more fun, despite all his overblown fears of fraudulent votes, Trump asked his supporters in north Carolina to vote twice for him to “test the system.” That’s right, Trump urged his supporters to commit voter fraud to somehow prevent voter fraud? I’d say I’m not sure what he’s thinking, except I don’t think much thought goes into what Trump says. At least it gives ammo to the Democrats to demand scrupulously fair mail in vote counts. Still though, it’s throwing more gasoline on the dumpster fire the 2020 elections are shaping up to be.

2020 really highlights the transcendent archaic absurdity of America’s electoral system. In their efforts to set up a system that would prevent some populist from getting elected over the desires of the rich and powerful, the founding fathers set up a system that ultimately was incredibly undemocratic and easily manipulated by politicians. I mean gerrymandering was invented in 1812 for God’s sake, and the Constitution should immediately have been amended to prevent it. Nope, it’s still with us today, allowing political parties to get representation far beyond what their support warrants. And it’s gotten worse in recent decades as the GOP realized demographically they were more outvoted every year. If Trump wins in November despite losing the popular vote, that will mean three out of the last six presidential elections will have gone to the loser in the popular vote. All Republicans I might add. Yeah, some democracy.

A couple more notes in the margins. I’m a bit under the weather today. And the 2020 new normal baseline is frazzled, depressed, angry. Hoping it’s just allergies/air quality. I’d be really annoyed if I caught the Rona. So more Trump shenanigans:  Trump orders review to defund NYC, other ‘anarchist’ cities. OK then. As I said in yesterday’s blog, the amount of civil unrest in the US right now is pretty modest. There’s no “cities under siege.” Anarchists are not flooding the streets, there’s not widespread rioting and looting. So this is just another of Trump’s attempts to claim liberals are the problem and he is the solution.  It will play well with his base, and that’s all that matters to Trump.

In other Trump news (it is 2020) Trump claims that Americans who died in war are “losers and suckers.” My guess is that this isn’t going to help his popularity with veterans: Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’. It’s a depressing article. According to it Trump simply can’t understand why anyone would do anything that wasn’t out of self interest. His whole term in office certainly reflects that. I mean, that’s what con artists do, anything goes as long as they benefit. Trump University showed beyond any doubt he doesn’t care who he hurts as long as he benefits.

So I guess this to some extent explains the popularity of Q-Anon conspiracy theories among Trump supporters. Unable to admit that their beloved leader doesn’t give a shit about anyone but himself and his family and cronies, why, Trump must be secretly engaged in a fight against terrible enemies of all that is right and good! Confirmation bias on steroids. The Q-anon movement is still growing, and sucking in other conspiracy minded folks: How Covid-19 myths are merging with the QAnon conspiracy theory.

What a time to be alive. Yeah, the election isn’t going to end well. Stay safe everyone. #StaytheFHome #WearaDamnMask #InsanusTempora

Copyright © 2020 Doug Stych. All rights reserved. 

(Image: A Roman dodecahedron. Hundreds have been found. What is it for? No one knows. Just a reminder that no matter how much we think we understand, there are still things we don’t know. Even about ourselves. Seemed appropriate in these times, people are going to look back on 2020 America and wonder. Why didn’t they defend their country against Covid-19? It will be a mystery. I’m still mystified. Credit: Lokilech Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled GNU Free Documentation License.)