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Monday, Nov 09, 2020 - 23:00 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Subscription Renewed

Alas, these signs of the nation's collapse
The masses dancing blindly in the stupor of this world
In this nightmare, a political din
The world is reduced to a round of Go
- Ode of Showa Restoration, Mikami Taku


I was all but ready to cancel my subscription to reality once again, as I watched the results come in for the U.S. Presidential election last week, whilst munching knockoff Cheetos. That was just lazy writing, man! You thought Game of Thrones Season 8 was bad, but that was at least kind of original. They were recycling the script from 2016 wholesale here: the polls were, again, horribly off, of course, but watching the expert poll analysts splutter on air wasn't as entertaining the second time around. You had the networks withholding calling states for GEOTUS, and calling them for his opponent at the first opportunity to build the narrative, but yeah, that was totally derivative and old hat. One would expect those plotting a globally-broadcast drama to have some slight imagination, and when the first day ran almost exactly as it had with Season One: Versus Hillary (plus the Yuan tanking), I was preparing to pen a scathing review to accompany the termination of services (as was also happening to Netflix); no way was I paying zero dollars a month, for such lackadaisical dreck!

And then, about when I was stuffing the review and cancellation letter in an envelope, the big twist came. I have had to take my words back since then - these guys are pretty good! This moreover reframes the first day as something of a postmodernist Groundhog Day trope, that subtly preps that audience for the swing. As such, I have awarded the show a preliminary 4/5 star rating, and made time in my schedule to follow the next month or two's episodes, very closely.


Polls Bad

However the cliffhanger eventually plays out, an inescapable conclusion was that the polls were completely off again. We'll see if possible recounts move the final tallies, but as it stands, this summarizes how significantly "the polls" underestimated The Donald for the swing states and some others, after aggregation by RealClearPolitics and FiveThirtyEight:

StateRCP538
Iowa6.29.5
Ohio7.29.0
Wisconsin6.27.8
Michigan1.57.1
Florida4.35.9
Texas4.44.7
Pennsylvania1.14.6
Nevada1.53.7
North Carolina1.23.2
Minnesota-2.82.1
Arizona-0.61.2
Georgia-0.91.2

To this, recall the analysis presented here last Monday, on states with ample actual early voting data, such as Florida and Texas: neither were particularly close, with TRUMP eventually improving on his Florida showing to +3.3 over +1.2, as could largly be inferred from their increased advantage after early voting had completed (which also provided the first signs that the honoured poll aggregators were pretty dang wrong). FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver has been actively trying to defend his not-very-accurate prognostications throughout the entire sequence of pies-to-the-face, but it would frankly be rather more parsimonious to simply admit that most of the mainstream media-sanctioned polls were heavily biased against TRUMP, and sold a "blue wave" to influence the electorate towards their preferred party. Like, is that really so unbelievable? Mind, the final predictions above have already taken the late "tightening" into account, and it would have been even worse had the projections from a month or two out been considered.

Anyhow, the returns couldn't hide that GEOTUS had obtained the most votes of any sitting President, and further bridged the racial divide better than any Republican candidate since 1960, having won 26% of the non-white vote; apparently, he made big gains with both Blacks and Latinos (as Miami showed the way early), with his largest loss of support coming from the white college-educated male category. I suppose that's what one gets for trying to reach out to fringe groups such as the Jews and Amish, the latter whom raced to the polls in horse-drawn buggies, and even allowed their women to vote, just this once. Let's see any Democrat manage that!


Jeb! started the Latino push, Donald's perfecting it!


I'm not putting any money on the poll aggregators adjusting towards the better-performing (i.e. TRUMP-friendly) pollsters come 2024, it goes without saying, and with the polling farce apparently concluded, it's time to follow the real action:


Enter The Law

Whatever else Dilbertman might be, he's usually realistic
[N.B. because there's no humour like observational humour]

I had always expected the proceedings to drag until Friday at least, given all the conflicting signals, and I could hardly be disappointed by the heights to which the tension was raised in the second episode - a large GEOTUS lead in multiple states would be theatrically cut down in the relevant dark alleys at 4 a.m. in the morning, though to be fair, the plot spoilers had already been leaked onto the Internet beforehand. The vote-counting in the deciding states would excruciatingly drag on for the next few days - with extra ballots being conveniently reported whenever it seemed like TRUMP would close out the win - only to almost without exception stop shortly after just barely giving Biden the lead. Clearly, many weren't buying such a dodgy finish (more details later on), but the FAKE NEWS had called it for Joe the instant they could, with Big Tech going as far as to disallow the word "fraud" being posted, whether explicitly or implicitly. That's some dystopian 1984-level stuff, personally.

One doesn't expect the FAKE NEWS calling the election to restore harmony to Amercia, given how the Democrats' supposed "blue wave" wishful thinking has floundered with them probably not taking the Senate, and a net loss of seats in the House besides. Internal cracks - largely hidden in the election run-up - have begun to reappear, with Biden and BLM supporters now clashing in the streets after momentary confusion, and AOC threatening to quit politics over the Democrats not going full socialist, but not before emulating Madame Defarge in proposing the creation of a list of TRUMP supporters, for purposes. Well, one hopes they get their submission portal for names up soon then.

Over to the other half of the country, the sheer brazenness of the fuckery has gotten many (possibly literally) up in arms, with red flag after red flag being raised: late, unaccompanied ballot boxes; improbable voter ratios; removal of Republican observers; the dead presumably rising to vote; the errors all going in one direction, etc. Note that, after all this, Biden's supposed lead in multiple swing states remains razor-thin, with automatic recounts already ordered in some of them. However one might think of TRUMP, it's hard to deny that he's been a fighter, and at least some of the legal avenues available for contesting the results, seem quite plausible. In Pennsylvania alone, there appears a more than fair chance that the state Supreme Court very clearly overstepped their authority in overruling their legislature, in matters pertaining to mail-in ballots (which has resulted in an abnormally-low percentage of rejected mail votes), just for starters.

While a request for a full audit has already been made for Penn, I fully await the affair to wind its way up to SCOTUS, because let's face it, it's where the story has to head for maximum drama. Like, what are the chances that the two prospective winning candidates, also happen to be those that attacked two of the deciding judges the heaviest on unsubstantiated sex crimes, during their confirmation hearings? You don't add such details in the backstory for nothing, from my experience with thrillers, and it's all pointing towards a late reckoning as the final episode, from all the hints that have been dropped...


Please, Joseph, take a seat. Please, take your time, take your time! I can wait. I can always waits. I've been waiting for thirty years!
(Source: 4chan.org)


[To be continued (definitely, plenty of time left!)...]



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