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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 4, 2024

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I'd say it's pretty close to even, certainly the closest (polls-wise) that we've seen in decades. Nate Silver has an almost perfect 50-50, while betting markets have 55-45 in favor of Trump. I trust Silver a bit more than the betting markets, which have a record of being slightly R leaning. There was a Romney whale in 2012, and a 35% chance for a Trump win in 2020 was a bit too high IMO given the polls. Silver might have a slight D bias, but it doesn't matter much in any case since they both pretty much agree with each other (the betting markets have mostly converged with Silver over the past few days after being too pro-Trump for a bit).

Anyone who has a high degree of certainty on this election outcome is either a fool, a charlatan, or a grifter. You should knock them down a peg or two in your mental map of who to trust.

Relatedly, do you think there will be issues certifying the election results? Which side do you think will struggle more if they lose?

Republicans will absolutely, 100% throw a fit if they lose. That's practically guaranteed. Trump has been laying the groundwork for it for a while now, as have pro-Trump accounts like Catturd (who's a good barometer of the online right). Trump said the vote was rigged when he lost the Iowa primary in 2016 (with little evidence), he said it was rigged in 2020 (with little evidence), and so of course he'll say it was rigged now if he loses. Republicans will squint, say something like "the media is biased, so yeah, I guess the election was stolen" while ignoring all of Trump's actual claims.

I'm not sure if the Dems would go the same way. I'm sure there will be some who want to escalate given what Republicans have done, while others will be more along the lines of "we cannot become that which we hope to destroy". The jury's out on which side will win.

As to whether either side could actually steal the election, I'm doubtful. Trump is more committed, but also highly incompetent and he doesn't have the levers of government at his disposal like he did in 2020. The Dems are more competent and control the presidency, but are less committed and so I don't there will be enough of a consensus to take drastic action.

I think either group is going to be a problem. However, some states have been calling up NG (https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/02/us/washington-oregon-nevada-national-guard-election/index.html) especially it appears in Blue states. This seems rather telling, because it seems like the elites are expecting unrest in Blue areas not red ones. This makes me suspect that they’re anticipating a Red win, as that’s what would cause trouble in Blue areas. The Proud boys aren’t going to Portland. But Antifa goes there all the time.

Antifa doesn’t like Harris much either, though.

It just means the left took stuff like J6 seriously, while the right tries to memoryhole it as nothing more than a few folks strolling through a building.

I suspect they're expecting riots no matter who wins. They're organized and funded in advance, and you can't tell the people you've bussed in to shut up and go home without blowing off some steam. Like Hines always talks about, blues just consider it a charming youthful game for their tribe, like Spartan kids playing Pillage The Helots.

If Harris wins the riot can be about Dunkin Donuts' complicity with Israel or something.

"the media is biased, so yeah, I guess the election was stolen" while ignoring all of Trump's actual claims.

Maybe you don’t mean me since I am not a Republican … but this is too light on the media.

The thought is ‘ the vast majority of journalism in this country revolves around getting one political party elected ‘ and even that thought is almost too tame for me.

Trump has hours and hours of air time to fill and a bunch of information at his disposal to try and say the election was stolen with a straight face. The rest of us don’t have that problem. We can simply just state what is, imo.

I’m unsure what the solution is - but ‘ journalism ‘ needs to be disbanded and reformed into proper working other in much the same vein as the government itself.

The media exists to make money, with the partisan slant being a secondary consideration, caused by the leanings of the reporters themselves. If the media was as coordinated and hated Trump as much as some would claim, it wouldn't have given him so much free air time for his entire political career.

I agree journalism could use improvement, but I haven't heard of any reasonable propositions to do so. Most people who want to change it can only think of replacing it with something like Catturd, i.e. the same problems as before, amplified significantly, but it agrees with their sectarian ideology so they claim it's "better".

"Disbanding" the media would be a terrible idea.

"Disbanding" the media would be a terrible idea.

Not sure why. Mainstream media is already pretty much dead or dying, being replaced via the capitalist mechanism you use to justify it, making money.