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naraburns  nihil supernum  9d ago (text post)   26700 thread views

U.S. Election (Day?) 2024 Megathread

With apologies to our many friends and posters outside the United States... it's time for another one of these! Culture war thread rules apply, and you are permitted to openly advocate for or against an issue or candidate on the ballot (if you clearly identify which ballot, and can do so without knocking down any strawmen along the way). "Small-scale" questions and answers are also permitted if you refrain from shitposting or being otherwise insulting to others here. Please keep the spirit of the law--this is a discussion forum!--carefully in mind.

If you're a U.S. citizen with voting rights, your polling place can reportedly be located here.

If you're still researching issues, Ballotpedia is usually reasonably helpful.

Any other reasonably neutral election resources you'd like me to add to this notification, I'm happy to add.

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This is, of course, leaving aside things like voters who just don't get the joke.

Puerto Ricans in PA, apparently offended by the "floating Island of Trash" comment, interpreted Trump's use of garbage trucks in his rallies as doubling down on the comment calling them trash. Being unaware of the interplay of Biden saying "no, you're the trash!" to the MAGA base, which Trump was then slur-reclaiming by using garbage trucks, voters simply took it as:

Pacheco saw Trump’s decision to pose in a garbage truck at a campaign stop in Wisconsin the following day as an additional insult. “If he didn’t have nothing to do with it, what’s he doing in the garbage truck?” Pacheco asked.

That's some great median voter energy right there.

Voters aren't obliged to get the joke. In so far as the punching up/punching down framework is helpful, a platform speaker at a Presidential campaign rally attacking a group of voters is always punching down and always fucking up.

Trump hired an edgy comedian to introduce his rally. Said comedian insulted Puerto Ricans. Biden (probably misspeaking) turned the insult around on Trump supporters. Trump decided to treat this as the worst thing ever. Doubling down on a row when both parties screwed up and were rude, but your side was racist as well, is stupid.

In so far as the punching up/punching down framework is helpful

This is a personal crusade far removed from the much more important topic of the election, but it isn't. It has never been, and it probably never will be. The person who introduced it is a cartoonist who has never made anyone laugh in his entire life, and it hasn't been endorsed by anyone who's actually funny (except maybe Bo Burnham, I don't know that he has, but he might've).

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