Topic: US Presidential Election 2020 - page 2. (Read 6260 times)

Democrats are already looking forward to impose retaliatory steps, in case Trump goes ahead with his plan to nominate Amy Coney Barrett to the SCOTUS. One measure that they may adopt quickly after the 2020 elections is the removal of the filibuster option. Another option being discussed is to increase the strength of the SCOTUS from 9 to 11, which will allow the new president to nominate two judges. If this happens, then the SCOTUS may once again swing to the left.

Yes, McConnell blocked Obama's nomination in 2016, ostensibly because it was an election year. Now, 2020, with Trump about to nominate another Republican yes-man (or yes-woman, he's said it will be a woman)... we are in an election year, and McConnell is desperate to get the nomination in asap. They used to at least make attempts to hide this sort of hypocrisy, now it's like they couldn't care less.

Things just got a lot more complicated, with the death of SCOTUS judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg (known as Darth Vader Ginsburg among the conservatives). Remember that she refused to resign in 2016, when Barack Obama had a chance to replace her with a similar ultra-leftist judge. Now Trump is the president and the GOP holds a sizable majority in the senate (53-47). Even if the most liberal GOP senator (Lisa Murkowski) defects, the conservative pick will be elected to the SCOTUS. Just one and half months before the POTUS elections, now a new topic has emerged all of a sudden.

@johhnyUA maybe you have not read the media reports about the different version of US economy presented by Trump and Biden, because if you had read then you would have realised that Biden will end the trade war with China and make peace with them. Also Biden’s is keen to follow WTO guidelines, and didn’t they recently rule in favour of China? (see link below), hence it’s clear that Biden will not be continuing Trump’s trade war with China.

Sources:

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/--5276355

https://www.wsj.com/articles/wto-finds-some-u-s-tariffs-on-china-violate-trade-rules-11600188559

The point about Democrats winning everything would mean one party has the ability to pass significant amounts of legislation unopposed for about 2 years, it would be quite marked change to the normal impediment by either side.   I can post charts for Biden and Trump given from a markets based pricing, quite a few will hedge or try to hedge by taking a bet on the price as we approach the result.
   There is one hedge fund that only invests in the market while congress is not sitting, the theory being any progress by government is expensive and not to the country's advantage.  Unfortunately there is no scenario government ceases to spend money or overspend money every day but in recent years QE has meant markets like fiscal spending and weak currency and both candidates represent alot of over spend afaik.
  I had a market short open just before Trump won, markets did fall big on the news but only the perceptive pre trading and fears of the wider market.   When actual live hours in New York and Chicago came round the market ceased to falter and rose ever since, reason being they liked the news of fiscal stimulus and perceived it as easy money policy for banks, etc.   Hence I dont see a crash occurring with any candidate this time around, possibly Biden adjusts some policy but ultimately neither is hard money stance so I dont think its a big reaction.

I doubt that if democrats will win, they stop such trade war against especially China. This is not question of politic, but  about economic. There some interests (most businesses that already located in China) to stay everything as it is, but also there enough businessmen that want to open in USA and trying to break China's manufactory down. So democrats will do the same politic as Trump, in terms of trade wars and antiglobalism.

On the contrary I've heard that the markets are already betting on Biden and the Dems winning. Basically Trump has lowered taxes, but aside from that he has caused chaos with his multiple trade wars, so a return to more normal governing is seen as good by financiers, even if that mean taxes increasing a bit again. Which is not to say Biden would capitulate in front of China, but for example he could stop the war with the EU, revive the WTO, and negotiate with China with the backing of the EU.

it hasn't happened in our lifetimes. the house chose the president in 2 elections---1800 and 1824, jefferson and jackson. the 1800 election was a total fluke; it only happened because electors neglected to distinguish between president and vice president, coincidentally resulting in a tie. that's unlikely to happen again!

based on the 2016 swing states, 270towin.com/ lists 64 possible combinations resulting in a 269-269 tie. still unlikely IMO, especially when you consider states like maine and nebraska who can split their electoral votes.

betfair has biden 53% to win, democrats 55% to win the senate, and democrats 85% to win the house. imagine if all 3 come true. the markets would hate it!

I’m pretty certain Trump will stay in office. They can make whatever noise they want in the media about it being close but I just can not see Biden getting enough support to get in. Trump will win comfortably imo.

No, I'm not. It's perhaps a little disingenuous to suggest that anyone is talking about an alternative between government by a mainstream party and government by an extremist party. That's a false dichotomy. I appreciate however that I could have been clearer. I was saying that the tendency with a PR government - or any coalition - is that decisions are made by compromise, which of course will be the middle ground, whereas in FPTP government by a single party, there is nothing preventing a move towards a (somewhat) more extreme position. In the UK the Tories are a right-wing party who whilst in government have moved further to the right. But they're not extremists.

Apologies if I wasn't clear enough. However I will leave it there, as it's a thread about the US election.

If you are saying that the Conservative Party is an extreme-right outfit, then I am sure that no one else in this forum would agree with you. FPTP has been very successful in removing both the extreme-right and extreme-left parties from the parliament. It was through the proportional representation that neo-Nazi parties such as BNP of England, NDP of Germany and Golden Dawn of Greece won their seats. If I am given a choice between the Tories and the BNP, then I would chose the former anytime of the day.

Yes. Perhaps I should have been clearer. I was using Germany as an example of a nation where parties work together and there is generally a coalition running the country, rather than a single party, and I was using this as a rebuttal to @STT's point about divisions and fractures. I wasn't using it as an example of pure PR.

Regarding your point about FPTP removing fringe elements, I would argue that this it is actually FPTP that empowers extremists. If a single party is in power, then it is easy for factions within that party to take control, as we have seen in the UK: the ruling Conservative party used to be broadly split for/against on Europe, but Boris Johnson has purged the europhiles and turned it into quite an extreme party. If instead the government is a coalition of viewpoints, then this helps to remove extremism as any compromises will necessarily always push towards a more centrist position - example, a simple coalition of a left-of-centre party and a right-of-centre party - where will they find agreement?

You are comparing two entirely different systems. In Germany, they have a combination of first-past-the-post (FPTP) and proportional representation. This helps some of the smaller parties in gaining representation. However, one negative with this system is that it is very difficult for a single party to gain majority on its own. On the other hand, the US system is purely based on FPTP. It helps in removing the smaller fringe-elements from political representation.

The other way of looking at it is that it promotes cross-party working and removes some of the toxic factionalism that we see in less representative nations. A divided country is more the sort of thing we see when there are two possibilities that are in natural opposition to one another. Going beyond PR for a second, Germany is one of the best-run countries in Europe, but seems to always be run by a coalition with no single party in charge. Appreciate this is deviating from the topic somewhat as the thread is about the US, where two-party politics is firmly embedded.

You dont want a PR system for maybe similar reasons as to why a direct democracy and referendums on everything would not be best.   PR might seem fairer or more regular in theory but it divides power and causes fractured governance, it can mean a divided country and an inability to pass legislature without consent of every party in the spectrum of representatives.    I consider it dangerous for the weakness it might cause, a regular short term and a clear win or lose to a party with a manifesto is about as good as its likely to get.



Only a 11 in 100 for this event seems to underline a Biden win but then the Clinton loss was unlikely I suppose.   I'm still not sure that site accounts for diversity in voting regions not following averages, obviously theres alot of votes that end up not having any weight overall because its a big win in that state and those votes werent needed there or minority votes elsewhere.

Never heard of the 2nd event being possible with congress.  I do recall the hung election of Bush jnr. and thats more probable at 5 in 100 apparently.   I could believe the votes might be obscure even on the day till late.

It is certainly flawed, but then so are most other democracies. If a country were to move to a system whereby representatives accurately reflected votes, then we are talking about proportional representation. The reason that this doesn't tend to be implemented (thinking more about countries where there are more than two main political parties) is that, whilst it is fairer, it benefits smaller parties by removing the inbuilt advantage that the current system gives to larger parties. So the larger parties, i.e., those in power, reject the possibility whenever it is raised. Basically it's governments acting in self-interest rather than the interests of their citizens, which, as you indirectly pointed out, is not a new development.

FL do have a very large number of electoral votes (29), but I don't think that it is that important. The reason is that Trump can still lose the elections even if he wins in Florida. According to FiveThirtyEight, Pennsylvania is going to be the state that will decide who wins this election (you can check their forecast here: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast, check the section "The winding path to victory").

yeah, and FL could be a decision maker, since the number of electoral votes from FL is the biggest, so it is not just to win a seven or eights states, it is to pick the right ones as well
one could tell that this is not good election model, since you do not have to win majority of votes in the country to win the elections, but it is there for a long time, and nobody is complaining

Although there are a total of 50 states, in reality the presidential election takes place in just 9 states. The remaining 41 states are either deep-blue or deep-red and no one expects any upset in these states. The 9 swing states in my opinion are: NH, PA, MI, MN, WI, FL, NV, AZ and OH. Trump needs to win a minimum of 7 or 8 out of these 9. The results from the other states doesn't have any significance.

Also, the number of swing states are on the decline. Earlier, we would have considered states such as VA, MO, IA, CO.etc as swing states. But they have moved away from the center.

Do you mean cannot, or should not? This is quite a distinction.

Scenario: Biden wins.

What is Trump's response?
a) he graciously concedes defeat,
b) he refuses to admit he has lost, claims that the election was rigged, refuses to leave the White House, and starts legal proceedings,
c) something else.

Consider the huge number of mail-in votes that there will be because of the pandemic, and Trump's various tweets and comments about mail-in votes being fraudulent.
Consider that the election outcome depends largely on a few swing-states, some of which have Republican-controlled legislatures.
Consider Trump's previous record on accepting defeat in anything (graciously or otherwise).

I actually think that option B is reasonably likely.