The elections are a mess. Lots of people thought this would be the case, but Bernie Sanders, Vermont Senator and presidential hopeful from the Old Days, was able to predict the exact shape this mess would take a couple of weeks ago.
During an appearance on The Tonight Show on October 23, Sanders, presumably trailing faint wisps from his journey back from Delphi, managed to outline the last 12 or so hours of news events well in advance of their happening.
After describing the reasons behind his support for Joe Biden, Sanders sets out the current scenario for everyone’s favorite late-night hair-tousler. “For reasons which I don’t have the time to get into tonight, you’re going to have a situation, I suspect, in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, other states, where they are going to be receiving huge amounts of mail-in ballots,” he says, before going on to detail how ballot processing delays could (and have) led to Republican votes being counted faster due to more Democrats favoring mail-in ballots.
Sanders then lays out a scenario that’s now come true. He imagines Donald Trump “at 10 o’clock on election night” seeing himself “winning in Michigan, he’s winning in Pennsylvania, he’s winning Wisconsin, and he gets on the television and he says, ‘Thanks you, Americans, for reelecting me. It’s all over. Have a good day!’” Once mail-in ballots in favor of Biden start to be counted, Sanders says, Trump would then claim that “‘those mail-in ballots were crooked, and we’re not going to leave office.’”
“This is something I worry about,” he says. “My view is that every vote must be counted.”
Those worries, it turns out, were well founded.
[via Huffington Post]
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100 Comments
Don’t worry. I’m sure the Supreme Court will do the Right thing.Geddit? The “Right” thing! Yes, I am still drunk!
Is there an alternative right? *rimshot*
That would be all the Reich things
Trump has zero case, even with his stacked court.
Hasn’t stopped them before.
Bush didn’t have a case either. The Supreme Court arbitrarily ruled him the 43rd President in 2000.
Bernie is great and all. Currently I don’t care to hear his input or a recap on his previous input. I don’t care to hear about Hillary Clinton’s thoughts either.
This is why all your electronic devices have power switches. Off you go.
And dismiss options.
But we’re still gonna hear from all of his fans, obnoxiously jumping up and down screaming “I told you so!” for the next few weeks.
I’m sure all the Cuban immigrants in Dade county would have totally gone for the socialist. They love that stuff.(wanking motion)
And they didn’t as far as the Florida Dem primaries are concerned, but the Bernie stans are too blinded by all of the rainbows and sparkles that St. Bernie is emitting from his unicorn to pay attention to that or anything else.
Like, I understand there are cultural differences, but I do not understand voting for a man who openly and undisguisedly hates you and everyone who looks like you.
“But, one day, there’s a billion to one chance I may be someone he doesn’t hate! Gosh, I’d be a fool to not to vote for him now in that case!”
Disagree, I think in his defense Trump has done a lot more for Miami Latinos than Biden has, especially in the last five years. With the Miss Universe thing (whatever it is) being held in Westchester, the Trump hotels and plazas being built in Doral which is heavily Venezuelan, and crying “socialist” to low-info goombas (and possibly tying that to the riots), the ingredients were there for an upset.
and quite possibly the horse you rode in on!
Cubans in Florida are different. You are falling into a similar trap of lots of non-Latinos of not understanding the differences between Cubans in Florida, and, say Puerto Ricans in New York. The Cubans ran away from Castro, and the Republicans have been courting them ever since. Add into that their fucked up views on immigration (Mexicans are bad because they didn’t come in the right way, which, in the case of Cubans, coming in the right way meant setting foot on American soil). If you asked a Chilean, a Dominican, a Cuban and a Mexican what they thought the most pressing issues facing the latino community is, you would get 4 different answers.
Sure, Republicans play nice on the one issue Cubans care about (Cuba!), but otherwise their policies make Cubans suffer just as much as any other brown-skinned demographic. The Cubans are, from everything I’ve been told, essentially single-issue voters (Cuba!), and since the Republicans say what they want to hear about Cuba, they’re apparently happy to ignore everything else the GOP does to hurt them.Maybe the above is wrong, but I haven’t yet come across any explanation of why it would be.
Have you met right wingers? They vote against their own interests all the fucking time, and a lot of the Cubans in Florida are VERY right wing. They vote for the guy with an R next to his name, because the Rs oppose socialism, and Joe Biden is apparently a radical Marxist (in their deluded eyes). It’s as simple as it is stupid.
They still think their Republican daddy is going to get all their stuff back from the godless commies.
Any day now.
But they didn’t go for Biden, either, so what’s your point?
That Kevin Kiermaier is the best defensive CF in the AL.
In a league with both Luis Robert and Byron Buxton? That’s even more stupid than your uninformed political takes
BR has all three about equal in defensive WAR. Fangraphs has Kiermaier worth about twice as many defensive runs above replacement as either of the other two. He does it mostly with his arm, which is an atypical way for a CF to deliver defensive value.Laureano also belongs in the conversation.If Bernie were the nominee, the race would have been called last night, and not in favor of the competent, non-racist, candidate.
That they aren’t voting for any liberal or Democrat period. So enough with the nonsense that Bernie could’ve worked magic on them, when they didn’t vote for him either as far as the Florida primary is concerned.
They wouldn’t go for anyone that was ok with abortion. Cuz religion and bible say you shouldn’t wear mixed fibers or something.
I think they aren’t so keen on gay rights, either.
It’s because of those damned mixed fabrics in fashion right?
As the child of Cuban immigrants I will never understand how they are willingly duped by cries of creeping socialism but refuse to recognize the authoritarianism that’s staring them right in the face.
Oh, cause they went out and voted in droves for Biden did they?
Gusanos. Do. Not. Bloody. Matter.
Let the bunch of wealthy white Cuban expats bitch and whine for three generations because they haven’t been able to coup their unearned land back from Castro.
Time and time again we have this discussion only for it to inevitably turn out that the ‘oppressed ancestors’ of some Twitter bluetick bitching about Bernie were driven out for being slave plantation owners or some other shite like that.
They threw a hissy fit early in the night saying Bernie would sweep. As if.
They throw hissy fits at anyone who does not kneel before the altar of St. Bernie the Magnificent.
Im a progressive and even I want to yell he’s a man not a god. Bloody hell.
We also have to hear from the brain dead wing of liberals who just regurgitate talking points instead of ever daring to criticize their own party, admit fault or try to make things better. Oh, never mind. You just spoke.
for the next few weeks years.
Bernie is a current Senator, and extremely well-liked politician. Hillary is neither of those things
Yet nothing he said or says changes anything about this just like Clinton.
Currently I don’t care to hear his input or a recap on his previous input.
Then don’t listen.
Looking at it right now, Biden’s pulling ahead in Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Arizona. If he can hold onto those, he wins. Though, it’ll be the first time since 1960 that the President was elected without winning OhioWhat we should be looking at is the Senate races. So far there’s been a net zero gain with Doug Jones losing in Alabama (That was a given, the only reason he barely won last time was because he was up against a pedophile.) and Ben Ray Lujan winning in New Mexico. What’ll be interesting to watch is the Maine Senate Race since they’re using Ranked Choice Voting, meaning that if none of the candidates get at least 51% of the vote, than the candidates with the least amount of votes are eliminated and the votes go to the second choice on the ballot.
kelly has been called, so that should move them to +1
ED: the computer programs they use to display the models have *no* idea what to do with ranked choice. MA had a referendum on it, which is too close to call right now, but if it wins i wonder if they have to patch something in to deal with the weird nuance it adds
kelly has been called, so that should move them to +1Yay. Sweet news. The Kelly bros are cool.
“Though, it’ll be the first time since 1960 that the President was elected without winning Ohio”Add losing Florida to the mix.
I’ll happily swap Florida for the Midwest, Arizona and (Cthulhu willing) picking up Texas in 2024.
Fuck Ohio- signed a disgusted Ohioan.
As an Ohioian… please god this state sucks we fired the only smart woman and have the worst sports fans.
“and have the worst sports fans.”Counterpoint: Philadelphia
The Buckeyes are willing to let us all die at the moment. They are the worst.
Counter-counter-point: Boston.
Election night is one of the few days I’m proud to be from New Jersey.
So, give me good news please.There’s no reason to think that these states should change, right?Like, most mail in ballots lean democratic and the cities left to be counted are democratic areas. So while they’re will be recounts, once AP declares Biden should win right?
Maine checking in. Gideon has all but lost. Collins has a 51% majority right now, with Gideon around 43%. 15% of the ballots still to be counted (mostly from conservative areas of the state). Right now Gideon and the two third parties, combined, are trailing Collins by about 17,000 votes. Even if it did come to a runoff the ~1.5% that voted for Linn are unlikely to have Gideon as their second.Apologies, Maine has failed.
Side tangential rant… This is all the more reason to end the Electoral College. There are 49 other states out there and yet most of the time the candidates spend is in Ohio. Fuck Ohio, a single state should not have that power.All Primaries should happen withing a single month too for the same reason. It is insane that some states are waiting months after “Super Tuesday” when the whole Primary is over to even begin the process.
Everyone and their uncle said it would go this way.TRUMP said it would go this way.
Except there’s really nothing to worry about, because just stating that he won has zero legal validity, and absolutely no one except his most rabid fans are taking it the slightest bit seriously.
Rabid fans with guns, who already tried to kidnap a governor, who believe their opponents are inhuman lizard people that drink the blood of children. Nothing to worry about that combination of factors.
They didn’t try shit, they got caught because the morons posted their “plot” all over social media.
Which candidate are you referring to? Both declared victories.
Everyone said it would go this way. A major part of the supreme court conversation was about how he could use it to stop the count on election night
Fox News Poll: 72 % favor medicare for all, 29% against.Maybe it wouldn’t be 51-49 if Biden ran on that. Nahhh…
I mean, pretty much everybody assumed McDonald would try that, and that he will demand recounts, sue where he can, and be dragged kicking and screaming from the White House. Hell, even if he wins he’ll probably demand recounts because his vanity demands a bigger margin.
2016 showed us that. i don’t know if there is a larger “sore winner”than Trump. at least, not one over the age of 14. his pettiness knows no bounds, and defies all logic for someone who has been in the fucking White House for 4 years. he’s almost as delusional and vain as a reality star.. oh wait.
Bad winner Bad LoserJust generally bad human being really.
Exactly. Not sure why this is framed as Bernie being uniquely prescient. It’s what the experts have been saying for a while.
It’s also something Trump has been saying for the last few weeks (months? I can’t tell anymore)
So?
Who could have foreseen that a state by state patchwork of early voting and main-in balloting could have resulted in chaos?
Watching CNN try to figure out what was happening in real time in states where those votes were already included in reported totals and election-day results had a different D/R mix was high comedy.
I would just like to say that if, at any point in the future, anyone says to me “you should be optimistic because of this poll,” I will stab them in the face. It’s now been definitively proven that polls are total fucking bullshit.
You shouldn’t do that,a bat is perfectly adequate and less messy.
A bat? What am I, some kind of savage?
I apologize how about –
That’s more like it. More momentum at the end, combined with a centralized impact point for greater damage. Requires more control and finesse. An elegant weapon, for a more civilized age.
A man has to have enthusiasms.
Not really. Some were better than others. And the results in Florida didn’t exactly come as a huge surprise. People on the ground were sounding the alarm months ago about latinos swinging towards trump.
Yeah, except you never know in advance which polls to trust. People “sound the alarm” on things all the time that turn out not to be true later on.
Just pointing out that the results so far conform to both mine and many others expectations. We all have to make decisions as to what information sources to trust, that doesn’t mean everyone got it wrong.And not to get all Dave Chappelle up in here, but to those of us who aren’t Americans, a solid chunk of the US being fascist or fascist-curious is very old news.
that doesn’t mean everyone got it wrong.I never said everyone got it wrong. My point is that it’s easy to look back and say “well we predicted this” but in advance nobody knows who’s going to end up being right.
“I never said everyone got it wrong.”You’re right. I overestimated the value of “total fucking bullshit”, I guess.
No, you just assumed that it meant “all polls are always wrong.” That’s not what I meant, not what I said, and obviously a silly interpretation. The original statement was meant (in the spirit of venting, not scientific inquiry, by the way) that we can’t rely on polls for anything, which means they are worthless. Sure, one given poll might be highly accurate, another might not be, but there is no way to tell in advance which is which.
Did I add a sarcasm tag? Calm the fuck down.
No, you calm down! *flips over table*Anyway, I assumed you were being sarcastic, so my apologies for the confusion.
This is one of the reasons why “Latinos” (or Latinx if you must) makes no sense as a category. What Florida has is Cuban-Americans, which tend to be very conservative due to their (or their parents’) negative experience with Castro’s regime. But this isn’t the case with Mexican-Americans, Salvadoran-Americans, etc. which don’t fear any social program as creeping socialism.
I know this is a completely bullshit, specious argument by Mango Unchained that ALL mail-in ballots are automatically invalid because they’re mailed in, but just typing it out I can’t believe this is where we are in 2020, and before you ask yes I have been awake and coherent for the last 4 years and saw everything that came before this, and am still not fully processing that either.
“a completely bullshit, specious argument by Mango Unchained that ALL
mail-in ballots are automatically invalid because they’re mailed in”…except in e.g Arizona and Florida, where they are automatically VALID because they were mailed in. And in Pennsylvania, where you also have to count random bits of paper as ballots cast for the Republican nominee.
In fairness, anyone with an ounce of common sense saw this coming. This was as close to the nightmare scenario as you could get on Election night: Not a landslide and decided by votes that come in and are counted in the days after the election. That’s the reason there’s a whole army of conservative lawyers ready to get out there and get as many votes tossed as possible and there was such a push to make it where as few votes coming in the mail after election day could be counted. The Trump team knew their path to victory lies in shaving percentages off of potential Biden support through extra-ballotal means.
um, I hate to ask this because of what the answer might be, but did Bernie also happen to know what the ultimate outcome might be for this election? (other than my losing even more respect for the American electorate due to a non-landslide win for Biden?)
If it makes you feel any better, Biden has received more votes than any US Presidential candidate in history, and is going to receive a lot more once all of California is counted. The only thing that makes this look remotely close is the stupid electoral college.
I do appreciate the sentiment but in 2016 Hillary received 3 million more votes than Dipshit and look where we ended up. I assumed Biden would end up with more votes than Dipshit, maybe not the most in history which is great, but as you said, the stupid electoral college…
My main point is that the American electorate overwhelmingly did not want Trump. That may or may not end up mattering because of the electoral college, and the fact that Trump received any votes at all is depressing and a failure of the electorate, but the fact that Trump is doing this well is mostly the fault of the stupid system, not the electorate. If we had a setup that made any sense, we’d be griping that Trump got votes while celebrating Biden’s clear and obvious victory.
yeah I know, like everyone here I’m just impossibly disappointed and stunned that this race is even competitive because of the fucking electoral college that the Dems have NO chance of getting rid of; even that interstate compact needs way more states to circumvent the electoral college, and that’s just not happening. Maybe I am more of a pessimist than I realize, because getting the most votes is not nothing. I wish Biden had the stones to troll Trump after the election by saying constantly “I got the most popular votes in HISTORY”.
I’m sure some sort of Biden proxy will troll Trump in exactly that way. They will probably post it once the results are final, because that’s what you do when you win, you celebrate, especially with record numbers of people voting for you.
I hope if anyone becomes Biden’s “troll in chief” it’s Mayor Pete; I have really enjoyed that Fox News lets him come on, knowing he’s going to nail Trump to Trump’s supporters, and nail him hard. I enjoy watching someone who I thought was pretty boring and safe turn out to be a bit of a dick when it suits him. I think Ted Lieu and AOC and probably a few others have good enough Twitter game to troll Dipshit about this as well, and they should, because even if he whines about conspiracies costing him the election (i.e. everything but his gross incompetence), it is absolutely the sort of thing that burns him to the core of his ego.
Someone from the Biden campaign (maybe Hunter even, that would really make heads explode!) should reply to every one of Trump’s “FRAUD!” tweets with a clip of Biden saying “Why don’t you just shut your mouth, man” from the debate. And someone a little more indirectly connected to the campaign just needs to post John Goodman saying “Shut the fuck up, Donnie” from the Big Lebowski.
Says the miserable old fuckface who denigrated the party with which he caucuses 4 days before the election. Bernie “Knife In Your Back” Sanders can literally go fuck himself with this whole wannabe-Svengali routine.
Literally everyone said it would go this way, so why single out Sanders?
It makes a great opportunity to dogpile on Sanders and his supporters. “Hey, we fuckin’ hate this guy! Can’t he just go away? How dare he… try to bring actual progressivism into the mix? And his supporters, fuck them all to death, right? I hate them more than Trumpists!” etc. etc.
Dude, this wasn’t some divine foresight from Sanders, it’s what nearly every data analyst was saying would happen. Like, you think Bernie Sanders hasn’t heard of Dave Wasserman?
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/beware-blue-mirage-red-mirage-election-night-n1245925Hell, Trump was broadcasting days ago that he would do exactly what he tried to do last night…
https://www.axios.com/trump-claim-election-victory-ballots-97eb12b9-5e35-402f-9ea3-0ccfb47f613f.htmlYou’re headline might as well be “Bernie Sanders Reads the News, Conveys What He Read to Others” …
I love Bernie but…everyone who was seriously paying attention to the dynamics of this election knew it was going to stretch out several days while disproportionately Democratic mail-ins were counted and Trump loudly demanded an end to the counting.
To be fair, Donald Trump also said it would go this way.
Because it’s a playbook that’s been designed for this election.
Look at that. Bernie knows exactly how to read Trump. It’s almost like he was uniquely prepared to deal with him. Almost like he should’ve been the one to go against Trump instead of Biden fumbling all over and just barely winning.