Biden Defeats Trump to Become Next President | Hacker News Reader

Biden Defeats Trump to Become Next President

nbcnews.com

160 points_vbdg70 comments

I hope the runoffs in Georgia swing blue. A Republican controlled Senate will stall our recovery from trump for at least a couple more years.

Isn't that almost impossible? AFAIK the votes were approximately split 3 ways across 2 republicans and 1 democrat. That's the only reason why the democratic candidate was even ahead.

No, there are 2 senate races, and each had a Republican and a Democrat as top two vote-getters. In one race, the Republican came on top and in the other the Democrat did, but neither winner reached the 50% threshold required by state law, so both races are going to runoff.

In the race the Democrat was leading, the Republican candidate had a history of minor (local) scandals, and only held the seat because she was appointed to it.

It's almost impossible for another reason: Dem turnout in runoff elections falls off precipitously.

Well that was the case pre-2016 election. 2017-2020 Democrats did very well in special elections. It remains to be seen what happens to democratic enthusiasm under a Biden presidency.

Don't underestimate Stacey Abrams.

https://fairfight.com/about-stacey-abrams/

I don’t think Stacey Abrams has a great record at winning elections in Georgia. Do you think she’ll be helpful in these runoffs?

She doesn't need to get elected to help the movements.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/07/us/stacey-abrams-georgia-vote...

In the special election, the top 3 candidates (two republicans and one democrat) got ~80% of the vote. There were a lot of other democratic candidates that got a total of ~15% of the vote, so it's plausible that Warnock (the democratic candidate in the runoff) could win.

As a former republican who is afraid of the direction of political dialog in this country. This is the best outcome I could have hoped for. In my option the dismal showing for dems in the congress and many state legislatures and governors and trumps loss is a repudiation for the toxic rhetoric from both groups.

>As a former republican who is afraid of the direction of political dialog in this country.

Specifically what are you afraid of?

>In my option the dismal showing for dems in the congress and many state legislatures and governors and trumps loss is a repudiation for the toxic rhetoric from both groups.

Can you give me some examples of the toxic rhetoric you see from congressional democrats?

Here's a congressional democrat calling for lists to be drawn up of those who worked with Trump.

https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1324807776510595078

What do you think they intend to do with those lists?

You're spinning what is essentially "screenshotting tweets" to sound a lot more nefarious than it is. It seems pretty clear to me that she's talking about accountability. It's not about hunting down poor innocent conservatives in their homes, it's making sure that people involved in the administration can't distance themselves from their actions.

Congresswoman Cortez explains herself well.

>Is anyone archiving these Trump sycophants for when they try to downplay or deny their complicity in the future? I foresee decent probability of many deleted Tweets, writings, photos in the future

The concern is that these enablers will not have their credibility tarnished for their support of trump.

Are you okay with whitewashing?

She wants to prevent Trump's (former?) supporters from whitewashing their actions so that we, Royal we, can face the problems trump exposed.

What, exactly, is your fear here?

Most likely hold them to account for enabling poor policy choices by avoiding giving them any position of power in the future, discouraging anyone from voting for them, etc.

But her statement was rather vague and didn't clearly state at all what the purpose of her list would be, so our own biases about her and what she represents would likely color our feelings about what she might do with such a list, no?

To be clear. Congressman Cortez is asking if people are preserving the history of people that supported trump.

She is not making a list.

I think the media and pundits on both sides have constructed mental pictures of the "enemy" in the minds of naive voters, which don't accurately describe the people in the opposing camps. During the Bush and Obama administrations if you did a study where you asked GOP voters to describe how they think DEM voters would describe there political views and vis-versa there was a much bigger gap between what Democrats thought Republicans believed and what Republicans themselves reported then the other way around. Although I have not seen data from the trump era I suspect that the discrepancy would be in both higher in both comparisons.

This didn't really address my questions. What scares Republicans about democrats?

Is it that I want affordable health, eye, and dental care?

Is it that I want poor and minority groups to be protected from exploitation?

Is it that I want religion to stay out of politics and wombs, and pay taxes?

Is it that I want white collar criminals to be prosecuted?

Is it that I want the failed war on drugs to end and get addicts actual rehabilitative care?

Is it that I want our decrepit infrastructure to get maintained?

Is it that I want people of color and women to be protected from hate?

Is it that I want poor and minority people to have the same opportunities as rich kids?

Is it that I want college to be affordable and lead to a better life instead of serfdom?

Is it that I want to get perverse incentives out of prisons?

I can go on. We can argue methods in other posts, but do these mere dreams scare Republicans? If so, why?

Republicans directly oppose all of those things, because they are, at their core, bad people who are only interested in their personal wellbeing, not of what is best for this country.

And generalizing half the population in the worst way possible is definitely what's best for the country.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on why Republicans oppose the things that Mr/Ms Flyy posted 9 hours ago. Or anyone else's thoughts. Please.

I don't think you ever get a good answer to that because the answer is ambiguous. Asking why "Democrats" or "Republicans" do anything is asking about a straw man. Many individual voters will have a nuanced opinion about all of those questions. The way a lot of the questions are phrased presupposes Republicans don't care about those things, which I suspect is probably wrong for most.

I think many of those who identify as "Republican" or "Democrat" don't examine most of those points in any detail at all and just simply vote down the ticket. Their opinions are probably not going to reveal any useful information.

For the rest, my guess is its probably a fundamental disagreement about what government should be responsible for. Voting for the government to further some cause is inhertanly voting for parts of it's implementation. I think my libertarian bias is leaking through.

The problem is, I have yet to see any good faith efforts to govern on the part of Republicans in the past decade. Sure, Democrats make missteps all the time, and I'm more than happy to campaign with you against specific things that the Democrats have done over the years, but I can't think of a single good thing that Republicans have done in my adult lifetime. Since Newt Gingrich, it seems that Republican's primary purpose in life is to grab more power - the country be damned. I'm more that willing to vote for a Republican that isn't just a party shill, and has reasonable views on things like gay rights, abortion, the war on drugs, military spending, healthcare, etc, but I have yet to see even a single one. Romney, maybe? But not really, he's still a hyper partisan, except in like 2 things.

Sam Harris did a really fascinating podcast with David Frum, a long time conservative writer and assistant George Bush.

Frum basically says that after the Obama election, republican strategists sat down to decide on whether to shift the platform to changing demographics in America or to double down and declare all out war. They chose the latter.

Congressional and Senate Republicans did quite well under Obama. Trump's increase in the Black and Hispanic vote will be food for thought.

I was under the impression that, in general terms, the Black vote went for Biden and the Hispanic vote went for Trump.

The majority of both went to Biden, but Trump made gains over what he got in 2016 which was better than Romney in 2012. So there appears to be a path to improve minority showing for Republicans, depending on the Republican.

I've seen and heard quite a few democrats addressing the need to do better Spanish outreach due to the spread of pro trump propaganda on social media. That mistake has been identified and is being addressed. I have not heard that the black community went big for Trump. Can you cite some sources?

I wrote that he made gains, because he did. He did better than Romney did in 2012 and did better than he did in 2016.

Sorry, you're right.

I think a potential factor is the democrats' anti-gun rhetoric. It's explicitly designed to cater to white suburban moms, i.e. those who think guns are bad and scary and threaten their children. This in spite of the fact that twice as many children die from accidents involving glass tabletops than firearms accidents [0]. Add to that the recent surge in new minority gun owners due to safety concerns [1], the long, racist history of gun control [2] from army/navy laws to those targeting "saturday-night specials", and the recent push to lock certain weapons behind a $200 tax and an arduous process [3] and I think it makes for a big factor in Trump's increased black and hispanic support. This is in spite of the fact that Trump is absolutely terrible as far as gun rights go, but the democrats for some reason insist on being worse. Running on a platform of repealing the NFA, the GCA, and the FOPA, or even getting rid of the Hughes amendment, would probably yield massive dividends.

[0]: https://www.ammoland.com/2020/11/twice-as-many-children-die-...

[1]: https://www.blackenterprise.com/black-americans-now-account-...

[2]: https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/civil-rights/347324-t...

[3]: https://joebiden.com/gunsafety/

Good points.

Do you think there's room for a middle ground on this issue? Can America handle a national discussion on gun rights, health care access, bullying, and mental health simultaneously? Gun laws cut through all of those issues deeply.

> I'm more that willing to vote for a Republican that isn't just a party shill, and has reasonable views on things like gay rights, abortion, the war on drugs, military spending, healthcare, etc, but I have yet to see even a single one.

It sounds like what you're saying is that you'll vote for any Republican that leans Democrat.

> I have yet to see any good faith efforts to govern on the part of Republicans

That sounds super partisan.

> Republican's primary purpose in life is to grab more power

At this point, I've heard both parties say that about the other.

> > I have yet to see any good faith efforts to govern on the part of Republicans

> That sounds super partisan.

Can you provide any evidence to the contrary? I'm willing to believe that my news are partial...

Is there any indication that the GOP is going to seek consensus with the next administration?

Democrats introduce legislation designed to, they think, help Americans. Republicans block that legislation.

The one major piece of legislation passed and signed into law in the past 4 years by Republicans, who controlled all of the government for 2 of those years, was a giant, unfunded, tax break for the rich. That is it.

"both groups". Such amazing mendacity. You people live in a world of your own.

Which part needs recovery? The pandemic, of course, but if it were up to democrats the shops would’ve been closed and businesses bankrupt more than by trying to keep stuff open. Minimum wages have increased, stock market is doing fine, unemployment rate up to SARS-CoV-2 has been lowest, under Obama the national debt grew by 25 (debt-to-gdp) from 40-65 in his first 3 years (!) where Trump only 3 (76-79), people on food stamps lowered drastically in his 3rd year... if you mean that the democrats need to recover from prosperous years by riuning everything, you got it right...

There are other threads with a lot of points, but they've been flagged. I'm assuming this one will be flagged too.

NY Times https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25016070

CNN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25015967

For everyone flagging this: the thread when Trump won in 2016 is one of the highest-voted threads of all time. This belongs on HN.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12907201

Because it had thoughtful discussion. Just look at the other threads on HN.

But the threads keep getting flagged and buried before the discussion really starts. Its a catch-22.

Phew. As a U.K. citizen I look forward to our government shitting itself next.

I wonder if, after we have our brilliant brexit deal, there will be some opportunity to ask the nation if we actually want the thing.

I doubt it. And if there was I get the feeling that Murdoch's machine will be fired up to set the result, which is bad. So we're fucked either way.

The only thing we have now is the bungling twat and the gremlin pulling the strings that are running this shit show are getting their options radically limited. Hopefully there will be an internal revolt against them.

So what does this mean for potential recounts? Would they still mean anything, or is it pretty much known at this point?

Going off of what's happened historically it's a done deal by this point.

The article contains projections made by news outlets based on publicly available vote data. Based on those data, Biden has won.

The lawsuits and potential recounts are a separate process which are unaffected by the projections made by media outlets.

That said, it looks like the Trump campaign would have to flip three states to win, which seems unlikely.

Recounts in the past have had a difference in the hundreds. Biden is leading in most places by thousands, sometimes tens of thousands.

Georgia is going to recount since it is so close. I support that. Neither Trump nor Biden requested it, it was the state official who announced a recount.

It is. For what it's worth, Georgia hasn't been called, so the outcome of the recount will not change the headline call.

This is a projection.

edit: I was wrong. Headline is accurate.

So were all the other states they called, what's your point?

Headline is not true

Headline is accurate

Not only is the headline not identical to the article, but it is also not true. It is also against the site guidelines, but no one cares for those anyways.

The title of the article is "Biden defeats Trump to win White House, NBC News projects"

Exactly, which is not the title in this submission - which is editorializing and misleading.

Cope more

Is dang out of bed yet? All the flagging going on is childish.

Aaaand flagged. FYI there's an active campaign going on to flag every thread calling Biden the winner

Mostly it looks like the discussion devolved past the point of value.

If you can, vouch for the post, i did.

This belongs here. Trump's win was discussed here. This should be too.

A Biden Harris presidency has major ramifications for basically every industry and company discussed here.

Dang Will likely merge the various posts about this.

I've seen several posts calling Biden the winner get flagged. Let's see how long this one hangs around.

Edit: Looks like even a simple statement of fact on this topic gets downvoters. Anyone care to state their reasons?

Probably four years

It's been called by all the press agencies now.

How do you downvote?

You need 501 karma or more to downvote.

Dewey defeats Truman

Madame President

It'll take a while for the media to decide what narrative to settle on about how and why this happened, but to be honest, I don't think we should overthink it:

America has many systematic and cultural problems, and a deep divide about how it ought to be governed, and by who. Ultimately, though, a slim majority of voting Americans were not willing to tolerate the level of severe mismanagement of government that Donald Trump delivered, particularly over the last year with regards to coronavirus.

I think this says much less about us - good or bad - than we'd like it to. Personally, I am relieved, but I know the societal problems in this country will continue. I wish Joe Biden and Kamala Harris good luck, but I am not going to be cutting them a break, either.

We still have to decide what sort of country we want to be.

While I agree with most of your narrative the still outstanding piece beyond the president is the Democrats loosing seats in the house and not gaining control of the Senate. While they did get the presidency by a relatively slim margin in a few states the bigger picture it will be hard, if not impossible, to implement many of his agenda goals unless he can reach across the isle somehow (and the other side is accepting).

This is not a solid or mandate win by any means I do not believe. Not gaining the senate, not getting a supermajority in house, these were things that would've said the American people outright rejected trump. While we have a new president in the Whitehouse the country could potential be deadlocked for the next 2-4 years.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com