My reflections on 2020 AD - Page 9 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15131803
Going to make my election predictions now, so I can't go back on them. As it is I believe i'll be pretty accurate.

I also want to add that none of this is an endorsement of what I think will happen necessarily, but it will be what it will be and i'll face and accept that if nothing else. All this I predict will happen in the remainder of 2020 AD.

President Trump will win re-election with an electoral collage sweep, winning 37 states. It's possible that he will also win the popular vote as well. Biden will concede as total shock befalls Liberals everywhere in anguish and incomprehension, again.

Biden's loss will be the end of the Democratic party as we've known it, as the more Liberal wing of the party will take over from the more moderate Democrats like Biden and Pelosi.

Trump's win will also be the end of the Republican party as we've known it by 2021 AD, becoming a total personality cult of populists and nationalists centered around the policies and personalities of the Trump family and their minions. True Conservatives will be left out of the party for the most part, possibly forming a third party of their own.

Azerbaijan will defeat the Armenian separatist Republic of Artsakh in Nagorno-Karabakh, taking the less mountainous part of the region and settling Jihadis from around the world there.
#15131872
annatar1914 wrote:Trump's win will also be the end of the Republican party as we've known it by 2021 AD, becoming a total personality cult of populists and nationalists centered around the policies and personalities of the Trump family and their minions. True Conservatives will be left out of the party for the most part, possibly forming a third party of their own.


I'll put my name down as agreeing that this will happen to the Republican Party if Donald Trump remains the president.

annatar1914 wrote:Biden's loss will be the end of the Democratic party as we've known it, as the more Liberal wing of the party will take over from the more moderate Democrats like Biden and Pelosi.


I'm not so sure about this one. The Democrats have had to save face by incorporating elements of the Sanders campaign into the Biden platform, but they still wouldn't have let Sanders win in 2016 or 2020, so I don't think it's all that likely that people adjacent to him will take over in 2024 if Biden loses the election. The Democrats might run with Elizabeth Warren, but I think she could be something of a snake oil saleswoman, offering an updated version of the false left-populism of Barack Obama. I think moderates are going to try and hold on as long as possible, whether in the form of Pete Buttigieg or someone equivalent, and the exodus of neoliberals from the Republican Party will give them new justification for doing so. Personally, I think a smart move the DNC could make would be to run with Andrew Yang, who offers a sort of technocratic populism, which, contrary to popular belief, is still grounded very much in neoliberalism.
#15131936
@Local Localist ; you said about my prediction of the GOP becoming a totally Trump-run Nationalist/Populist party that;


I'll put my name down as agreeing that this will happen to the Republican Party if Donald Trump remains the president.


It's a pretty safe bet. Whether that is agreeable personally or not it seems to be the course taken, in my opinion.

As to the permanent turn I predict for the Democratic party, you said;



I'm not so sure about this one. The Democrats have had to save face by incorporating elements of the Sanders campaign into the Biden platform, but they still wouldn't have let Sanders win in 2016 or 2020, so I don't think it's all that likely that people adjacent to him will take over in 2024 if Biden loses the election. The Democrats might run with Elizabeth Warren, but I think she could be something of a snake oil saleswoman, offering an updated version of the false left-populism of Barack Obama. I think moderates are going to try and hold on as long as possible, whether in the form of Pete Buttigieg or someone equivalent, and the exodus of neoliberals from the Republican Party will give them new justification for doing so. Personally, I think a smart move the DNC could make would be to run with Andrew Yang, who offers a sort of technocratic populism, which, contrary to popular belief, is still grounded very much in neoliberalism.


These would be sane and rational moves at least safe from a party donor perspective, because if they can't keep the money coming in they're done for. It would be a very smart move to let the people like Andrew Yang come in and run the DNC, him and Tulsi Gabbard, if they want to prevent a turn to a genuine Left in antithesis to a genuine Right that is developing.

So we shall see, I do think also that the Would-be Anarchist bungholes out in the streets have about maxed out on their usefulness, or really I should say their uselessness, because all they're doing is help President Trump's re-election. Maybe afterwards he can cut them a check by way of thanks, because I can't discern a real political motive with them.
#15131941
annatar1914 wrote:It's a pretty safe bet. Whether that is agreeable personally or not it seems to be the course taken, in my opinion.


Well, a major party of the United States degenerating into a Cult of Personality sounds pretty bad.


annatar1914 wrote:These would be sane and rational moves at least safe from a party donor perspective, because if they can't keep the money coming in they're done for. It would be a very smart move to let the people like Andrew Yang come in and run the DNC, him and Tulsi Gabbard, if they want to prevent a turn to a genuine Left in antithesis to a genuine Right that is developing.

So we shall see, I do think also that the Would-be Anarchist bungholes out in the streets have about maxed out on their usefulness, or really I should say their uselessness, because all they're doing is help President Trump's re-election. Maybe afterwards he can cut them a check by way of thanks, because I can't discern a real political motive with them.


From what I see it seems the Democrat string pullers do not actually have a concrete plan (or agenda) of their own. They seem to jump over whatever bandwagon is out there and adopting it to their needs, kicking the real maker aside if necessary.
#15131945
@Patrickov ;

Well, a major party of the United States degenerating into a Cult of Personality sounds pretty bad.


In an American historical context, not really, not as much as one might expect. In a highly individualistic society like ours, we have figures who come along and are leaders of nationalist and populist movements, highly charismatic figures to those who they appeal to. Such men like William Jennings Bryan, Huey Long, Abraham Lincoln, and others.



From what I see it seems the Democrat string pullers do not actually have a concrete plan (or agenda) of their own. They seem to jump over whatever bandwagon is out there and adopting it to their needs, kicking the real maker aside if necessary.


They are rather adrift, have been since before I was born, back when President Kennedy was shot, and then his brother a few years later. They've gone a little off the rails since then, and living off the intellectual capital of President Roosevelt's ''New Deal'' and President Johnson's ''Great Society'' programs.
#15131947
2020 has really shown me how low impulse and stupid people really are. Also how quick they are to believe everything they are told without questioning a thing. We really have turned into a bunch of dumbed down sheep.
#15132003
Godstud wrote:2020 has sucked ASS.


Not in a good way, either!


It has been a difficult year. I just hope that it has at least made me a better and wiser person, a man kind of finds out who his friends are in trying circumstances, and that's a positive development too.
#15132005
Phyllis Stein wrote:2020 has really shown me how low impulse and stupid people really are. Also how quick they are to believe everything they are told without questioning a thing. We really have turned into a bunch of dumbed down sheep.


People have almost always been this way. There is a Latin quote from ancient Rome which I like to use;


''Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur''


Or ''the world wants to be deceived, so let it be deceived''

If people can love people anyway, and work for the common good as we discern it to the best of our own poor abilities, it doesn't have to be such a burden that leads to cynicism and corruption.
#15132860
Here's an article talking about some truths that I'd want all Christians and people of good will to consider as this election is moving towards it's climactic end;

https://www.thefirsttv.com/are-we-being-punished/
By David Thornton
3 hours ago

When I woke up this morning, the situation was pretty much the same as when I went to bed. We still don’t know who will be president next year and Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania are too close to call, as is control of the Senate.

The strong repudiation of Trumpism that many of us hoped for did not materialize last night. At this point, what I considered to be the optimal outcome, firing Trump and maintaining a Republican Senate to check the Democrats, is still a possibility, however.

What is not a possibility is that Donald Trump will ride off into the sunset. No matter what the ultimate outcome of the election is, Trumpism will continue to infect the Republican Party for the foreseeable future. If Trump wins, many Christians will take it as a sign that the president is sent by God and will become even more strongly wedded to the man who many very nearly worship already.

The people who think Trump is sent by God might be right, but perhaps not in the way that they think. Back in 2016, I speculated that the mere choice between two candidates as deeply flawed and unfit for the presidency as Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump might be a sign of God’s anger with America. A pick-your-poison sort of divine judgment.

Four years later, I still think that is a possibility. I discussed the matter with a couple of people before the election, including The First co-writer, Steve Berman, and mentioned that a very narrow election ending in a Trump victory could well signal God’s displeasure with us as a nation.

If I was a deity and I wanted to give America over to chaos, it seems that the best way to do that would be to have an election that shows the country is very evenly divided. Throw in a few states that are too close to call. Mix in lawsuits from both parties. Stir in recounts. Add a president that doesn’t want to wait until all the votes are counted, a president who doesn’t want all the votes to be counted. Let the situation bake for several days. Then garnish with protests that will spread the Coronavirus and possibly -probably – escalate into violence. A Supreme Court ruling that decides the election after the controversial confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett is the cherry on top.

Ladies and gentlemen, that’s where we are today.

And if the country is facing divine judgment then the Democratic Party is as well. If President Trump wins re-election, it will mark two elections in a row where Democrats have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in surprise losses that defied the polls. Ironically, it might be the issue of abortion that made the difference.

Although most Democrats are not of the “shout-your-abortion” wing of the party, the Democratic Party does have a pro-choice litmus test for its candidates. If Democrats did not place such a high premium on support for legal abortion, they would have much more success in the Bible belt and Midwest. Just ask John Bel Edwards, a rare pro-life Democrat in his second term as governor of Louisiana.

In the South and Midwest, abortion is a roadblock to supporting Democrats for many voters. If Democrats would run candidates that more closely align with red states on the life issue, many states and districts might swing the other way. Heartbreaking losses like 2016 and possibly 2020 might well be the wages of support for what many Americans consider to be murder.


Nevertheless, evidence that Donald Trump was the wrong person to bring the country together came late last night when Donald Trump claimed victory with votes from several states still uncounted and the outcome of the election still in doubt (and remains in doubt today).

The president’s comments were designed to stir division and anger among his base. Trump claimed that his opponents were trying to “disenfranchise” his supporters and vowed, “We won’t stand for it.” In reality, the president is trying to disenfranchise the voters whose absentee ballots have not yet been counted.

President Trump has spent months laying the groundwork for claims of voter fraud and an illegitimate election. These baseless claims could incite violence on the part of the president’s supporters. As Steve Berman wrote this morning, “None of this is a surprise.”

In the Bible, bad kings often shaped the national character. The historical books of the Bible that detail the ancient kingdoms of Israel and Judah often relate that bad kings, who did “evil in the eyes of the Lord,” would often lead their nation into trouble. For example, 2 Kings 21:9 says, “Manasseh led them astray so that they did more evil than the nations the Lord had destroyed before the Israelites.”

The Bible warns us that “Bad company corrupts good character” (1 Corinthians 15:33). John Calvin similarly wrote, “They who rule unjustly and incompetently have been raised up by him to punish the wickedness of the people” and “a wicked king is the Lord’s wrath upon the earth.”

David Leach at Strident Conservative wrote recently, “God has used Donald Trump over the past four years to give America an opportunity to turn from evil by exposing the moral failures of the false prophets and teachers. Trump was used to shake the church from her slumber, her reliance on government, and her abandonment of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Looking at the past four years, it is entirely possible that Donald Trump is a Biblically bad “king” who is leading America into corruption rather than the messianic figure that many Christians assume him to be. Maybe Donald Trump represents God’s wrath against America in which God has given America “over to a depraved mind so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice” (Romans 1:28-29).

The possibility that Trump represents divine judgment should not be discarded by Trump’s Christian supporters. Biblical eschatology does not have an obvious place for America in the end-times. If the end of days is truly drawing near, then, rather than making America great again, the next few presidents are more likely to make America irrelevant again. Trump’s isolationism and growing internal strife could be the path to ending America’s role as a superpower, setting the stage for end-time prophecies to be fulfilled.

If we really are experiencing God’s judgment, don’t expect things to get better. We have experienced numerous “shakings” over the past few decades, from the September 11 attacks to the Great Recession. These “shakings” have increased in frequency and severity in 2020. If I’m right, re-electing Donald Trump won’t end the “shakings.” It will increase them.


I tried warning all sorts of people one both sides of things concerning President Trump, and I think that he could still win. None of this either way in an outcome is the end of the world; almost all of American elections have carried an ''Apocalyptic'' tone to them, but some things are worse than others. And the point about Abortion and the Democratic party should be taken to heart as well. The Democratic Establishment have alienated workers for decades, and alienated Pro-Life Democrats.... If only to see it in purely pragmatic grounds, how many elections have been harder against the GOP than need be, because of the party's alienation of these groups of ordinarily otherwise typical Democrats?
#15134066
I'm going to write about what I wrote earlier;

Going to make my election predictions now, so I can't go back on them. As it is I believe i'll be pretty accurate.


I was pretty accurate.

I also want to add that none of this is an endorsement of what I think will happen necessarily, but it will be what it will be and i'll face and accept that if nothing else. All this I predict will happen in the remainder of 2020 AD.


Definitely not an endorsement, but this is my attempt at being as objective as possible, fully aware of the good people who voted for President Trump and aware of the natural gifts this flawed man has, that are obscured in people's minds because of their strong visceral emotions about him.

President Trump will win re-election with an electoral collage sweep, winning 37 states. It's possible that he will also win the popular vote as well. Biden will concede as total shock befalls Liberals everywhere in anguish and incomprehension, again.


This could easily still happen if the election goes before the US Supreme Court for resolution. And if it could be shown that Trump's enemies used illegal means to win the election against him, it would be quite in keeping with the fecklessness and blind and abject stupidity of a goodly portion of their leadership.

Biden's loss will be the end of the Democratic party as we've known it, as the more Liberal wing of the party will take over from the more moderate Democrats like Biden and Pelosi.


This is where I am wrong I think, they will dump the Sanders/AOC/ Omar faction after this terrifyingly close election. Upon reflection on this some more, I believe that the Democratic Party establishment will actually pivot after the 2020 election to a sort of ''Trumpism without Trump'', with a slight patina of Liberal talking points to obscure the change. And some of what he has done whether good or bad will be claimed by them if they should replace him. Nationalism and Populism are here to stay.

Trump's win will also be the end of the Republican party as we've known it by 2021 AD, becoming a total personality cult of populists and nationalists centered around the policies and personalities of the Trump family and their minions. True Conservatives will be left out of the party for the most part, possibly forming a third party of their own.


This will be true, unless a fellow like Ted Cruz can salvage things.

Azerbaijan will defeat the Armenian separatist Republic of Artsakh in Nagorno-Karabakh, taking the less mountainous part of the region and settling Jihadis from around the world there.


Unfortunately this is true also it seems. The world is silent, again.
#15136868
A lot of people who prognosticate on future events assume trends will continue as they are in the present, and if they are wrong, sometimes they're wrong for the right reasons, but the trend was changed. Or they're right for the wrong reasons, the events happened as they thought they would, but not for the reasons why they believed they would happen for.

In my case, with what I said would happen in the 2020 election (which still isn't legally and formally over, but still...), was dependent on factors which I knew were present, but I did not count on as being decisive. It made me wrong about the election, but confirmed some other things in my mind which turned out to be correct.

It's 2020 still, and I'm actually quite happy that I can still learn from events, especially when I was not correct about something. Perhaps it's like a scientist researching something in a laboratory; a mistake causes a breakthrough.
#15139240
I don't think this year will end without a major flare-up of war in the Middle East, and/or some kind of terrorist attack during the transition from President Trump to President Biden, just have that feeling like some of the players think they'll have room to operate now that they may not have later.

So many have lost sight of the bigger picture, that the United States has been at war since 1990 (Saddam Hussein's ''Mother of all Battles''), and will continue at war under a Biden/Harris Administration, that is if there is one (of which I am not convinced). War changes the whole equation. Unfortunately modern war is possessed of so many variables that few can penetrate the fog of variables unless they have the minds of warriors themselves.

Who is winning, and who is losing? That's the important question nobody asks even after over 30 years of war. Why is that?
#15139294
annatar1914 wrote:I don't think this year will end without a major flare-up of war in the Middle East, and/or some kind of terrorist attack during the transition from President Trump to President Biden, just have that feeling like some of the players think they'll have room to operate now that they may not have later.

So many have lost sight of the bigger picture, that the United States has been at war since 1990 (Saddam Hussein's ''Mother of all Battles''), and will continue at war under a Biden/Harris Administration, that is if there is one (of which I am not convinced). War changes the whole equation. Unfortunately modern war is possessed of so many variables that few can penetrate the fog of variables unless they have the minds of warriors themselves.

Who is winning, and who is losing? That's the important question nobody asks even after over 30 years of war. Why is that?

Because it doesn't really matter who wins or who loses, so long as the war continues. "The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia." :|
#15139338
Potemkin wrote:Because it doesn't really matter who wins or who loses, so long as the war continues. "The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia." :|


At some point, eventually over time there's always a winner. Namely, the party that wants to win bad enough, over the party that does not want to win bad enough. And the West cannot in it's own spiritual crisis name the enemy it is so obviously fighting, and what and who it is really fighting for.
#15140171
Say what one will, when it's all said and done, President Trump could still be re-elected to a second term as President. No amount of stubborn denials, no amount of gaslighting and propaganda about particular details is going to diminish that very distinct possibility.

I say this now because I truly believe that President Trump-regardless of what I personally think about his Presidency or not-was the subject of an attempt to illegally overturn the results of the election and deliver more votes to Joe Biden. Of course given the nature of modern American politics, there were probably attempts on the part of his campaign to do the same, suppress votes and so forth, but the results are what they are. It reminds me of the Presidential election of 1824 which cheated Andrew Jackson out of the Presidency, or the Presidential election of 1877 where the clear winner Gov. Tilden was beaten by Hayes, both contingent elections I might add.

I suspect that the 2020 election will be a contingent election too, before this is all over and done.

Now here's the interesting thing for me, regardless of whether I'm wrong or right about the attempted election steal of 2020; Trump could well have lost anyway, looking at the polling data past couple weeks, he alienated a significant part of the voting demographic who voted for him decisively in 2016; white male voters who make less than 100/k a year, and who are usually registered independents and are politically ''Centrist'', that is, economically ''liberal'' and ''conservative'' on the social issues. Trump alienated them with his lurch to the Right, with all the cringe pandering to minorities who were never going to give Trump enough votes to matter, and the grifters and loons who infest Trump's Administration and campaign and the new ''Right'' in general. They got turned off by the Country Club Republicanism in practice and an open floor to all the cranks, retards, conspiracy theorists, and hucksters now infesting the GOP. Turned off by a domestic donor class first policy and a Israeli/Saudi first foreign policy.

Does that sound like a contradiction, holding to an attempted steal and affirming Trump lost anyway? No, they aren't exclusive ideas, when you think about it.

Since neither Presidential candidate is fully what I would wish for, I have no hope for one over the other exactly, I can live well under either a renewed Trump Administration or a Biden Administration, with a slight preference for Biden because of Iran and the American illegal occupation of part of sovereign Syrian territory, but neither excites my enthusiasm for sure.

What concerns me are the excited and the enthusiastic voters, this election. That's why I post this, because of the political toxicity and hatreds engendered in 2020. For whatever reason, whether social pathologies caused by COVID-19 and everything associated with it, and an totally insane media stoking the passions of hysterical conservatives and liberals alike, it is a serious problem.
#15140238
It occurred to me that formally speaking President Trump is as President, the most powerful man in the world, but when and if he leaves office in January 2021 and given the nature of today's world, he will actually be more powerful informally than he ever was as President, and maybe more powerful than a President Biden.

And he knows what every modern President knows, and everything that has been done or not done. Strange times we live in, very strange.
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