Because other places are a lot worse. Says nothing about whether America is good or bad.
Many immigrants have the same reaction when they go to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc - it’s not
unique at all to those entering America
I think he wins
No question in my mind
Yeah. Seems like they may be in the wilderness for a while.
But sometimes I wonder if this is way more of a popularity contest than I think. Like can the Dems be fine if they pick someone with a bit more charisma and the GOP run a stiff like Romney
Vs Trump I agree, however I don’t think he likely receives the nomination.
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Right, but it wasn’t a comparison of America to other places. It was a national discussion on America being good vs. bad which is why I brought it up. The picture painted of America I would think played a part in swaying voters. Voters who accept America has problems but is not as bad as painted. Vs. a narrative that America is this awful hellish place. If you were undecided perhaps you just don’t see America the way it got painted by many and therefore settled on putting aside the problems to not vote against the entire thing altogether. Saying this was a fight for the soul of our nation was a bit much in hindsight. I don’t know how that was meant to convince middle-of-the-road voters; as a strategy to drive enthusiasm amongst a base I get it.
SO much good to take out of the process this time around. Voting early, voting by mail, not having major issues at polling sites - very few reported and nothing I’ve seen beyond a few isolated issues in the anals of Twitter.
Impressive and necessary going forward.
In my humble opinion, No.
Republican base - never voting Democrat, not as necessary for voter turnout to win an electorate collage
Democratic base - requires massive turnout like in 2008 (FOR Obama) or 2020 (AGAINST Trump); have a lot of different factions that if not united against somebody will not turn out or may vote the other way as we saw with Clinton and Bernie in 2016.
Now if you want to tell me voter turnout will always be this high, sure I guess that changes things but historical trends suggest it doesn’t repeat often. Especially as Republicans get more diverse as a party. We may wind up with a 2024 ticket featuring an African American on their side. This is where Dems playing identify politics and essentially taking voter blocks for granted is a flawed strategy on their end they don’t seem willing to address.
I say this cautiously and its based in my opinion and how I’ve studied the last few months…Progressives on the left are not thrilled they had to to Biden to try and beat Trump. With no Trump, they are going to be more animated and vocal ala 2016 for Bernie. Look at somebody like Harris who was very liberal in the Senate. She couldn’t get to Iowa. Warren never won a state in their primary. But that didn’t stop them from running and dividing the party in a way only easily reunited in the face of somebody like Trump. It’s yet to be determined if they can unite around anything else and given the down ballot races it doesn’t seem like they would have success.
If he was serious about politics then he should run for Governor or Senator first. Ronald Reagan was governor before running for president. And Arnold Schwarzenegger would definitely have run for president after being governor if he was allowed to.
I think he has made his democratic leanings obvious but democrats are less likely to nominate someone with no political experience. And while The Rock is beloved it could also be seen as a negative to swing voters as just another Hollywood liberal.
But if he ran for governor or senator of Florida (his current residence) and won he would absolutely be a contender for president.
Personally I would love to see it.
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Would vote for Rock as Fla Governor in 2 years 1000%
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Their politicians. Eventually they will get in line with whoever the candidate is.
This happens on both sides of the aisle. In 2016 Trump said awful things about the other candidates like Cruz and Bush, was projected to lose the election and the republican base and his primary contenders all lined up behind him.
It was also a contentions democratic primary this year with the democrats and eventually they all supported Biden.
AH-HA! One thing we have to stop doing is viewing Politicians as voters!
Politicians are the people who wouldn’t compromise on desperately needed stimulus a month before an election, spent 2 years investigating the President (with Taxpayer/Voter $) and then Impeached the President.
We need to start recognizing the difference between Politicians doing politics for a care and voters and what they actual care about or want.
They all united around voting out Trump, enthusiasm for Biden never really took off which was a indicator polls were going to be woefully wrong - and they were.
Unrelated to any specific topics being discussed but I just saw this statistic and was stunned.
Biden has received more votes for president than any candidate in history with over 70 million votes. It will also have the highest turnout of any presidential race in history with over 137 million votes.
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What was Obama in 2008? I think 69.5M…
Where does Trumps 2020 total (67.3 as of now) rank so far all time?
He would have surpassed both Obama and Romney in 2012 and obviously himself and Hilary in 2016.
Correct, Obama in 2008 was 69.5 million.
And good point about Trump. His current vote total of 67.5 million would be the third highest turnout for any candidate (1. Biden 2020 2. Obama 2008 3. Trump 2020).
So far it looks like Trump has had about 4.5 million more votes than he did in 2016. That’s still astonishing to me.
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That is fucking nuts!
(and he still may finish higher than Obama in 2008…some referendum on him this was 
)
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I want to go back to impeachment.
This was the biggest thing at the start of the year. The fact that it did not become a campaign topic, it was ignored, like they knew bringing it up would have backlash. Almost an admission that it was a political theater stunt. All those republican senators who protected Trump were going to lose their seats for how they handled it. Well, it appears that Republicans will keep the senate; it looks like they may even gain a house seat where impeachment originated from. This is a point I keep coming back to - what does it tell us about the time spent and wasted (frankly) by politicians and media and how it actually differs from the public voter. It really should give people a pause to rethink what happened over 4 years and how much has/will/should change.
I know this will be controversial but if everyone was outraged and screaming at Trump for what he did in the Park in DC and the photo op - which was blatant political theater and a show of power, should we have viewed the impeachment of the United States president for what amounted to as political theater and an attempt to undermine him domestically and globally as an issue just as big. The Senate races playing out suggest nobody fell for it, so what was the point?
Nobody has to attack me for presenting the question as a thought provoking question with hindsight. I obviously understand the difference between using tear gas on civilians vs. politics in congress and the executive branch.
I’m not gonna lie, I’m going to miss the entertainment Trump provided me over the last 4 years.
I’m not an American. I’m not a political person. I recognize he’s a shitty person, but I cant deny it has been entertaining. The fact that a guy that I watched over the years, appear on wrestling events and have a reality TV show, became the President, is still totally baffling to me and then to see the way he acts and the things he says on twitter and the lies he spews, that he actually believes.
It almost feels like I’ve been reading one long, 4 year book and now its finally coming to an end.
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The entire impeachment was an absolute joke. Trump used every loophole in the book (and some not in the book) to delay the process, and Republicans and Democrats alike blatantly undermined the whole thing by announcing their votes before the hearings even began. In reality, I think most Democrats saw the danger in removing the President without having the evidence – legally permissible evidence, not just “yeah, that’s probably true” evidence – to back it up. But Dems also knew that they could just vote along party lines for political reasons and count on the Republicans to make sure it didn’t happen.
Then why do it? What purpose did it serve? As a political tactic it failed and now as something to be used in an election it failed twice. That is very confusing for me as somebody who follows this stuff, I can only imagine how it was viewed by folks less inclined to follow closely for hobby.
Same thing for Stimulus which is an entirely different beast to tackle. But again, a situation where Dems in congress made a calculation that something was beneficial to them politically, play the American public for fools an treated their livelihoods as pawns, and what did it get them? I suspect their bargaining position is not improved with a split congress (house and senate). They didn’t win seats. All it did was hurt Americans. So again, I go back to this idea that one side has been arguing moral highroad for 4 years and yet acted with political agendas and motives that ultimately did not benefit them. And none of that is in defense of Trump or Republicans who acted as poorly as anyone if not worse in the same time. I just am trying to think about the house and senate races and what those results tell us since they don’t include the name Trump in it.
My opinion is that it was Democrat grandstanding that got away from them. Mitch McConnell called their bluff and not enough Dems were willing to risk pissing off their constituents by backing down. It was a dumb/risky power play by Nancy Pelosi and the left that backfired.
I’ve been saying for the last four years that Democrats could have buried Trump WITHOUT exaggeration, lies, or political stunts. Just use his own words and actions against him. But they’re politicians, so they just couldn’t do it.
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The trump cult is powerful. I’m not sure that could have been accomplished.