The Trump Presidency

[ineluki]

  Well, even though I think it's tacky and tasteless,

That could be the title of the next book about Trump.

 However, Snopes confirms that this site has nothing officially to do with the White House or any other office in the U.S. government.

He would make a great member of Donald's inner circle... delusions of grandeur, unbelievable achievments...

https://www.linkedin.com/in/gianniniceo

[Bryanpoprobson]

2000 people at a White House rally, hosted by a positive testing President, just one week after the super spreader event. Many attendees not wearing masks or practicing social distancing. Pure insanity

[JayUtah]

Not to mention campaigning on government property.

[grmcdorman]

I don't think he ever really stopped.

And he and his team seem to being doing everything they can to spread the virus; basically take the medical advice and do the opposite. Social distancing? We'll shake hands and hug. Masks? Nope, no masks, up close and personal.

[JayUtah]

I imagine these people are all inherited wealth, the people in Trump's circle.  So being ignorant, smug, selfish, greedy, and indifferent to the plight of others got them where they are.  Why would they do anything different now?

[grmcdorman]

Well, also "rules don't apply to me." Unfortunately for them, physical rules - physiology, physics, etc. - are indifferent to your wealth & station.

[Obviousman]

So, are we going to see a 'Trump Slump' in the next few days, with him collapsing and requiring a return to hospital?

[molesworth]

So, are we going to see a 'Trump Slump' in the next few days, with him collapsing and requiring a return to hospital?

Based on what I understand about the progression of Covid-19, I think he is past the worst of it.  He may continue to suffer some after-effects, such as the noticeable shortness of breath, but he'll probably make a decent recovery.  Despite being older and obese, he also has the best medical care available and access to treatments nobody else will get, so it's not too surprising.

Of course this will play right into his narrative of it being nothing serious, and we'll no doubt here more "pronouncements" on the subject very soon 

[Ranb]

So, are we going to see a 'Trump Slump' in the next few days, with him collapsing and requiring a return to hospital?

Probably not.  Trump went to the hospital and got the very best of care and follow-up that few other people will get until they are actually very sick.  I don't think we can track Trump's expected course to take during an illness with the average American's

[JayUtah]

I think it's still the case in my state that you can't even get tested until you have symptoms consistent with the disease.  Access to hospitals is rationed; only cases that require hospitalization are accepted.  The notion that one can check into a hospital (of any quality) "as a precaution" simply doesn't exist in the U.S. for anyone except the most privileged.  But in practical terms, it means that a hospital physician doesn't see an ordinary case until it has progressed already to a life-threatening stage.

Now I don't recall if we ever learned whether the President's blood oxygen level dipped that low, or whether he was on supplemental oxygen.  But those would qualify as hospital cases in my state -- not critical/intensive care, but hospitalization.  And he was already in the hospital when and if that occurred.  Not just Donald Trump, but other Republicans infected recently have gone all out to downplay the seriousness of the disease and to hold up their privileged cases as somehow typical.

[jfb]

My wife and I voted this morning - got to the polling place about 10 minutes before it opened, line was already around the back of the building.  Took us about 40 minutes altogether. 

Travis County (Austin and surroundings) is using new polling machines that have a touch-screen interface, but print a paper ballot that you can examine before depositing it in the ballot reader.  The only hitch is the ballot reader doesn't read the human-readable portion, but the barcode printed at the top, so there's still room for shenanigans.  But, it's an improvement over the old system where you didn't have any sort of auditing ability.   

Turnout in TX is at record levels.  Per WSJ:

In Harris County, the nation’s third-largest county, which includes Houston, turnout surpassed record numbers set the first day in 2016 five hours before polls closed, according to County Clerk Chris Hollins, a Democrat. By the time polls closed in the evening, 128,186 people had voted in person, nearly double the 67,741 on the first day of 2016. Other counties across the state also reported record-breaking first-day numbers.
...
As of Monday, there were 16.9 million Texans registered to vote, up 300,000 from three weeks ago and up 1.8 million since October 2016, according to the Secretary of State’s Office. In Travis County, which includes Austin, 97% of estimated eligible voters are now registered, according to the voter registrar.

Now, that 97% means dick if people don't actually get to the polls, but based on the numbers yesterday, I think most of them will.

Vote by mail?  In TX, mail-in voting is restricted.  You either have to be over 65, disabled, in jail (but otherwise eligible to vote), or prove that you will be out of your home county for the duration of the election.  Abbott's one-mail-in-drop-box-per-county shenanigans may very well bite Republicans in the ass, since that will make it harder for their most reliable demographic (home-bound seniors) to vote. 

As of right now, this minute, Biden has 290 electoral votes based on state polls per 270towin.com.  As of right now, all of FL, GA, NC, OH, and IA are toss-ups - they could all break for Trump and not affect that number.  Biden would have to lose PA and one of MI, WI, MN, or AZ to lose the electoral vote; all currently lean D, but are not anywhere near solid.  OTOH, FL and NC have flipped between toss-up and lean D over the last couple of weeks - it's not inconceivable one or the other could go for Biden. 

I would giggle for a solid hour if TX broke for Biden - that would be the first D we picked since Carter.  Right now we lean R (which is a shock in itself, we're usually much more solid), and I fully expect that to hold through election day, but ... giggle.  For a solid hour. 

But...

This is day 2 of early voting.  There are another 19 days left before the shouting is done.  Things can still go very pear-shaped.  No sleep until Biden takes the oath of office.  If you are a registered voter in the US, VOTE.  Do it tomorrow.  Do not wait until Nov 3. 

[raven]

I think it's still the case in my state that you can't even get tested until you have symptoms consistent with the disease.  Access to hospitals is rationed; only cases that require hospitalization are accepted.  The notion that one can check into a hospital (of any quality) "as a precaution" simply doesn't exist in the U.S. for anyone except the most privileged.  But in practical terms, it means that a hospital physician doesn't see an ordinary case until it has progressed already to a life-threatening stage.

Now I don't recall if we ever learned whether the President's blood oxygen level dipped that low, or whether he was on supplemental oxygen.  But those would qualify as hospital cases in my state -- not critical/intensive care, but hospitalization.  And he was already in the hospital when and if that occurred.  Not just Donald Trump, but other Republicans infected recently have gone all out to downplay the seriousness of the disease and to hold up their privileged cases as somehow typical.

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/519533-trump-given-supplemental-oxygen-on-friday-white-house-doctor He was at some point, possibly more than once.

[JayUtah]

Travis County (Austin and surroundings) is using new polling machines that have a touch-screen interface

Historically those have had problems with calibration that others have reported as vote-rigging.  The place where you touch isn't properly aligned with the image on the screen.  It makes it look like the machine has been rigged to cast votes for a particular candidate regardless of where you touch.  It's usually not Diebold's fault.  (They make most voting terminals in the U.S., but their bread and butter is ATMs.) Some counties don't store their voting machines in climate-controlled storage when not in use.  Temperature fluctuation causes the alignment to drift.  Then the precinct employees may not be trained in how to calibrate them, or know that it has to be done.  They just set them up and plug them in.

...but print a paper ballot that you can examine before depositing it in the ballot reader.  The only hitch is the ballot reader doesn't read the human-readable portion, but the barcode printed at the top, so there's still room for shenanigans.  But, it's an improvement over the old system where you didn't have any sort of auditing ability.

Indeed, our county's most modern voting machines have the same paper readout.  Where intentional vote-tampering has been attempted, the voting machine itself was never the target.  It's just too cumbersome to rig enough of them to affect an election of any size.  The soft target is the county- and state-level tabulators that come with the system.  In many cases all you have to do is hack into an unencrypted database on a Microsoft server.  Only in the recent few election cycles have those been adequately secured.

Now, that 97% means dick if people don't actually get to the polls, but based on the numbers yesterday, I think most of them will.

Good for Texas!  This election will be one for the record books no matter how you slice or who wins.

Vote by mail?  In TX, mail-in voting is restricted.

The entire state of Utah has voted primarily by mail in the past two national general elections.  My county has voted almost entirely by mail in its local elections for the past 10 years.  Aside from the occasional printer's glitch or a couple of well-meaning parents filling out ballots on behalf of their adult children away on religious ministry, there have been no irregularities.  There is a robust, politically accountable system for canceling ballots that are misdirected or cast improperly.  (Due to a programming error, the county sent primary-election ballots prematurely to 17-year-olds who had pre-registered to vote in the general election after they turned 18.) There is a web site where I can check on the status of my ballot.

My ballot arrived in the mail yesterday.  Once cast, it can either go back out with today's domestic mail, or I can drop it at any polling place, or at any of four official drop boxes in my metropolitan area.  (Several more throughout the county.) None of this has been in response to the pandemic or to the interference with the U.S. Postal Service.  This is simply where Utah -- a staunchly Republican state -- has always wanted to go.  It wouldn't surprise me if the eggheads in the state's technology division were working on a way to vote safely and accountably online in the future.

Abbott's one-mail-in-drop-box-per-county shenanigans may very well bite Republicans in the ass, since that will make it harder for their most reliable demographic (home-bound seniors) to vote.

I've never figured out that logic either.  The Trump campaign, and a lot of other Republican campaigns, seem to be clinging to lightning rods that will alienate seniors, including cuts to healthcare.  And letting the pandemic run amok as a "Democrat hoax" risks a more sinister reduction of that core demographic.  They seem to be running entirely on the law-and-order against Antifa-terrorists platform.

Anyway, when Utah switched to primarily voting by mail, there was no statistically significant partisan skew in the outcomes.  There was a significant increase in overall voter turnout.  Our state's numbers reflect what's been reported elsewhere:  Republicans love voting by mail and don't see anything wrong with it.  I think voter suppression by other means (e.g., poll taxes, ID checks) have become such an ingrained part of the Republican playbook that they just apply them categorically without stopping to think that those previous efforts relied on voting being an in-person activity.

I would giggle for a solid hour if TX broke for Biden - that would be the first D we picked since Carter.

The last Democrat who carried Utah was Lyndon B. Johnson.  But then we have a nearly negligible number of electoral votes, so no one bothers to campaign in our state.  I'm still flabbergasted that the VP debate was held just up the hill from my house.  Utah rarely rates political attention beyond accusations of provincialism.  We're still giggling about The Fly.

Things can still go very pear-shaped.

Remember 2016.  Polls don't tell us the real story.

[gillianren]

We've got our ballots; I think I'm going to sit down with Simon today and teach him how to vote.  Because that's how you raise new voters, after all; you normalize voting.  Why do I vote in every election?  Because I learned as a small child that voting in every election was just what we do.  He's also going to learn a bit about how I do my research, which is another valuable thing to know, because it's about evaluating sources and so forth.  Something a lot of people clearly cannot do!

But yeah, I wonder if "make voting harder for the elderly during a pandemic" is going to be what turns the tide--I wonder if some of the less hardcore Republican voters are going to realize that their ostensible leadership doesn't care if they live or die so long as there are enough people voting Republican to keep the leaders in power.

[JayUtah]

We've got our ballots; I think I'm going to sit down with Simon today and teach him how to vote.  Because that's how you raise new voters, after all; you normalize voting.

Worked for me.  My parents always conspicuously voted, and took me with them when they did.  It's what you do.

He's also going to learn a bit about how I do my research, which is another valuable thing to know, because it's about evaluating sources and so forth.  Something a lot of people clearly cannot do!

Not just evaluating sources, but deciding upon criteria.  Are we issue voters?  Candidate voters?  Party voters?

But yeah, I wonder if "make voting harder for the elderly during a pandemic" is going to be what turns the tide--I wonder if some of the less hardcore Republican voters are going to realize that their ostensible leadership doesn't care if they live or die so long as there are enough people voting Republican to keep the leaders in power.

Fox News and talk radio.

We're not making it harder for the elderly to vote.  We're "Protecting everyone, including the elderly, from the widespread voter fraud that would otherwise result."  Sure it means grandma can't vote.  But it also means -- according to their messaging -- that those evil Antifa/Democrat/anarchists can't stuff the mailboxes with fake ballots.  And we're not taking away your healthcare insurance.  We're "Repealing that failed, unconstitutional, expensive Obamacare that gives your high premiums to freeloaders, so that we can replace it with something better."