CardinalBacker

I’ve met a few… they exist. But a quarter sounds high to me, too.

Good analysis... but I think you might be overlooking population growth as it relates to voter turnout, in most years. 2020 was an an outlier for a couple of reasons.... we've never sent mass ballots out to registered voters, unrequested. I strongly suspect this "allowed" a lot of people to vote who normally wouldn't be bothered to make their way to the polls, and also would have opened up the POSSIBILITY of voter fraud (but no evidence of such was ever found). The question is whether or not it makes good sense to "push" people to vote when they'd normally not be willing to go to any effort to get to the polls... I guess that depends on whether or not your party won or lost. I think it was a terrible idea. The main thing that I saw was that Trump does an excellent job of getting people to vote... not just for him, but against him as well. And he's better at getting the "Not Trump" votes out than he is at getting the actual "Trump" votes to the polls. That's the real Trump Effect, in my mind. But I think a combination of those two factors led to the high turnouts... combined with the ongoing pandemic/lockdowns, as well as the racial unrest that was going on in 2020. It's kinda strange that people see "fraud" in the jump in Dem votes from 2016 to 2020, but nothing wrong with an abnormal increase in Repub votes for the same time period.

There wasn't a lot of cackling going on last Tuesday night when she pieced Trump up in the debate. Oh, wait.... the moderators cheated, lol.

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C'mon.... the second attempt on his life? They caught a guy with a gun in the area. Exaggerate much? It's just a PR stunt for the Trump campaign, all of whom are upset that it's not working as effectively as the first one to boost support. MAYBE if Trump hadn't shown up with a Kotex on his ear and selected JD Vance to be his VP immediately after the attempt, he could have sustained the momentum from that failed Republican assassination attempt. And to call someone a Marxist "because their father must have passed some of that ideology on to his little girl" is a stretch, bro. Calling somebody a Marxist doesn't mean what it used to, McCarthy.

Nah… to be completely honest, I think it goes like this. I’m split on it. Part of me says that there’s a segment of voters who believe that trump should be the ruler, whatever that means. It’s about 25% of R voters according to polls. They’re the hardcore Trump loyalists… the kind of people who would travel to DC in the winter to hear Trump speak at a rally, then ransack the Capitol… maybe trump doesn’t believe his own “you’ll never have to vote again” rhetoric-but he’s just throwing red meat to the fascism supporting minority of the R party. Kinda like he does when he says racist crap to fire up the minority of his followers (cough, Baddog, cough) who really don’t like brown skins or foreigners. You know, Trump doesn’t really want unilateral power, he just needs to whip up his voters who think he should have unilateral power. It’s possible, right? Then the other side of me sees who he was willing to say or do ANYTHING to remain in office, even after it became obvious that he didn’t have the votes. The fact that he refuses to accept reality as late as the debate last week makes me think, “no… this guy is the real deal, willing to do ANYTHING to get back in office and then willing to do anything to keep it and/or hand it off to his heir apparent. Over time, things have ping-ponged back and forth between monarchies/fascists who get overrun by the masses, then that form of government (populist) erodes to the point where a strong man seizes power. I think we fought off socialism/communism as a republic and in 2024 we’re fighting off a facist-style movement where enough of the population has enough faith in one leader to give them absolute power. But that’s just my opinion. Trump and his hardcore followers (the ones who aren’t in prison for their 1/6 activities represent the biggest internal threat to our democracy that we’ve seen in my lifetime. The fact that it’s originating from “my” side is what’s particularly troubling to me. I would have expected the left to converge around a popular leftist, not the right.

He thought he was going to get re-elected to a second term.

Did you not watch the TV on 1/6 when Trump was arguing that Mike Pence has the constitutional authority to ignore the electors that were sent to Washington, but instead recognize and count the votes of "replacement electors" that would hand the election to Trump? How much more un-democratic can you get than that? That's ignoring the fact that Trump's militia attacked the capitol. -Trump and his supporters are a threat to America. There's simply no defending their treason as being "patriotic."

Then stop pretending like he's not going around saying things like "vote for me now, and you'll never have to vote again." You can attach whatever interpretation of what his words mean to you, in a completely non-threatening manner, but it doesn't change the fact that he says these things. Why are you out here saying what you THINK he meant, but he's not bothering to clarify? BECAUSE HE MEANS IT.

He IS a threat to democracy. That’s what his supporters don’t seem to understand. When you have a group that says “your vote doesn’t matter… electoral college votes do” then goes scorched earth on EVERYBODY, friend and foe alike… then his misguided supporters try to overthrow our government in 2020… all the whole their leader makes threats to “become a dictator on day one” and how “you’ll never have to vote again,” and they RENOMINATE THE WOULD BE DESPOT AGAIN? We’ve never seen a bigger internal threat to democracy…. So you shouldn’t be upset when people call it out for what it is… a threat. Secondly, this Friday night we’ll all go watch football games. Imagine a scenario where my team draws 8 legitimate unsportsmanlike conduct penalties. Multiple ejections. On the other hand, our opponents draw one single flag for retaliating. Now imagine how dumb I who’d look if I was screaming and crying about how dirty the other team was, and how they should have been dq’d because of the one penalty they committed. That’s trump fans crying about hateful rhetoric. ALL YOU HAVE IS HATEFUL RHETORIC. You’re not mad that the Ds are being mean, you’re mad that they’re using your playbook, lol.

Pardon me, but I haven’t seen socialists attacking the Capitol and trying to stop the peaceful transfer of power…. THAT is an actual threat to democracy, not “communism, like back in the mid 1900s.”

Polls aren’t accurate… too many factors can sway the results in either direction. And they definitely don’t reflect which voters will actually turn out to vote. I think the polls in 16 represented peoples’ preferences, but Trump’s voters turned out when Hillary’s didn’t bother. I like that 538 compiles polls… if you have 49 polls showing candidate “a” winning and 2 showing candidate “b” winning, you can take something from the trend. Other people will ignore the 49 as flawed and champion the 2 others as “proof” that candidate “b” is going to win. Most are still within the margin of error. We’re just going to have to see what happens in November. My prediction? Kamala wins the popular vote by 10 million plus, wins the electoral college more convincingly than Biden did, and Trump cries that he was cheated. I think that the Ds take control of the House and remain in control of the Senate. The Rs didn’t do anything except fight with each other while controlling the House… they don’t deserve to lead in most peoples’ eyes. Presidential election cycles bring out the voters that don’t spend their time talking about politics online, and those people don’t like the party of divisiveness/hate these days… they’ll vote “D,” I’m afraid.

Can I wait until she’s elected?

And now she has Trump's ankles behind his ears, lol. How funny is that?

You'd best believe it's going to come up.... They all cheered when Trump's Supreme Court rendered that decision on immunity, but I'm perfectly aware that somebody on the other side will take full advantage of the new-found immunity. And the right will be HOWLING.

Here's the thing that you guys refuse to acknowledge. Y'all don't mind hateful rhetoric when it's Trump doing it. But y'all sure like to point out the rhetoric coming from the other guys. Any Trump voter has no right to criticize rhetoric, period. Your guys is way worse about it. Secondly, you can't try to overthrow the government by sending fake electors to Washington, overrun the capitol to stop the counting of votes, promise Christians that they'll never have to vote again if they vote Trump now, intimidate state election officials like Trump did in Georgia, etc..... then be mad when somebody accurately calls your Dear Leader a threat to democracy. HE'S THE BIGGEST INTERNAL THREAT TO DEMOCRACY THAT WE'VE SEEN IN MY LIFETIME. If your side raises a Trump flag and attacks the capitol... y'all are a threat to democracy. The fact that Trump has been re-nominated PROVES that you all supported Trump's attempt to overthrow the government, Period. You just don't like people calling you out on your bull. Personally? I think the whole "second attempt" is just an overblown attempt to re-create some of the drama from a couple of months ago when that young Republican took a shot at Trump. And I don't remember an big outpouring of concern here on the boards in 2011 when that young radical took shots at the Obama White House. How big of a moron does one have to be to believe that 1. Democrat rhetoric is causing these attempts on Trump's life . 2. Trump's rhetoric on prior to and on the morning of 1/6 had nothing to do with the attack on the capitol. You'd just have to be willfully stupid.

Who are we talking about here?

Dude.... Trump was doing okay after the debate with Biden, then got a huge boost after the failed assassination in Pennsylvania. Biden drops out, Kamala gets the nod, Trump gets shelled in his first debate against Kamala. What could possibly give him a much-needed bump in the polls? I'll give you a hint... it worked a couple of months ago. I call Shenanigans.

You know, as the lone BC fan trolling (!) these waters for YEARS now, I agree with you. No shutout against the Raiders. BC is decent this year. I disagreed with the decision to opt up when it happened, and I'm even a little more disappointed now because it would be a good year to be competing with the likes of WOS and Silsbee...both of which aren't really themselves yet. Jury is still out on Jasper, but HF looks pretty sharp. BC's defense is salty... but we haven't been tested. And a ho-hum team from a big school like Lum is a whole different animal from knocking around a 3A team. But based on the appearance of new BC posters here, I have to assume we're about 3 wins away from the L-Train 2.0.

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I don’t care about the other side. I care about hypocritical “men of God” who won’t stand up against wrong when it’s done by our own. You can’t even condemn sinful behavior…. You condone it by supporting Trump. Tell me, sir… what did Moses think of the Holy Land?

The thing is, his followers believe this stuff. And if a Trump follower isn’t an actual racist, the fact that most of his other followers are racist isn’t a dealbreaker.

Edit. Don’t be mean.

But your guy only offers hate!!!

“I pledge allegiance to this flag I bought from a roadside vendor. And to our dear leader, whose name is emblazoned upon it, …. Etc”. You know the rest.