That sort of thing I'd class as terror attacks more than anything else.

What I was thinking of was alleged one-on-one incidents.

It absolutely did play a role in the election. Especially the fact the Comey held a press conference to announce he was investigating her again, 9 days before the election. He's the most historically unpopular president in the modern age, and his victory in 16 came down to about 30-50k votes across 2 or 3 states. Take Michigan for example, he won by 16k votes, in a state where 18k people voted for Jill Stein because everyone assumed Hillary would win.

Mistakes like these won't happen again. Ironically, Trumps only path to victory imo, is if he runs against Biden, who he may be forced out of office having been fearful to go up against.

So racism suddenly doesn't exist?

Wow

What a wilful misunderstanding.

I was clearly questioning if any high profile alleged hate crimes turned out to not be fake, I didn't say racism doesn't exist, or that hate crimes never happen.

Well, the new case here with the little girl seems like it only became high profile because it was false (or am I wrong about that?)

I believe it existed, just like the "rebellion / lolz" Brexit votes, but not to a large enough extent that it was 100% pivotal. I also think that an absolute ****ing boatload of people who didn't vote at all in 2016 are probably some of the most vocal Trump supporters by now and will definitely vote in the next election, which will counteract most (if not more than) the "omg what happened" non-voters from the Democrat side.

The same goes for Brexit really. There's an idea that people who didn't bother and are now horrified would vote en masse and dramatically change the result - but I strongly suppect that there are plenty of crowing no-deal Brexiteers who didn't vote in the referendum the first time.

[edited to add] Also because of how the US electoral system works, it doesn't matter at all if Democrat supporters in states that already voted democrat - e.g. California and New York - come out in droves to vote. The democrat vote can literally double in those states and it doesn't make any difference... and those two states alone contain nearly 20% of the entire population of the US. Their FPTP system is even more broken than the UK's and that's saying something.

I think Trump capped out his limit in 16. In order win by a few thousand votes he had the right mix of an excited base to vote for him, and a depressed democratic vote. There's just no evidence that his supporter base has grown, and evidence that points to the opposite happening.

Besides which, he's killing farming because of his trade war, more steel plants have closed in his 4 years, than in 8 years of Obama, and the same with coal, it won't affect his numbers that much, but it will be an issue that his dem opponents can absolutely hammer. He's getting a relatively free pass at the mo as the dems are focussed on each other, but as soon as that's decided, there will be constant attacks on his record - Mexico, healthcare, sucking up to dictators (Kim and I are in love), not believing his own intelligence over Putin etc.


I think he'll always have a rabid base, because of the kind of people he deliberately tries to appeal to, but the mid terms showed that people will flood out in elections to vote against him, and that's his major weakness, his ability to motivate the other side.

Like I said in my reply to Niamh, I think there are other considerations that mean you can't make a direct comparison like that to 2016. A huge number of Trump's most vocal supporters are people who have never voted in their lives believing it "pointless, all politicians are the same anyway", who LOVE Trump's "unconventional" ranting and xenophobia, and will without a shadow of a doubt vote for him in the next election. They'll be first in line. Just like the UK's multitude of racists and xenophobes who didn't get out of bed to vote in Brexit 1 would be camping outside the voting centre if there was a Brexit 2.

Candace Owens Blexit movement is growing.

Maybe, especially if they hammer home that he's cosying up to communist states, but I still personally believe that general sociological tides play a far bigger role in voting outcomes than any up-to-the-minute specifics or electioneering.

I would also point out that Trump in the odds was 5/1 and Hillary 1/5, exactly mirroring Brexit's 5/1 and Remain's 1/5, and to toot my own trumpet, I considered both Brexit and Trump to be near-certainties. "The indications" look at what's going on, and what the polls say, and neither have much or anything at all to do with what your average voter will do when they plod into that voting booth. They vote with their gut, and with "what sounds about right" vagueries. Voter apathy in the heavily democrat states is out of the equation; Dems still took them so again, it doesn't matter if the Dem vote in NYC or Los Angeles literally doubles. It would greatly extend the popular vote lead of the Democrats but, in the US system, so what? The only states that matter are the swing states and I'm FAR from convinced that the revitalised Democrat vote will outweigh the emboldened vote of Wall-supporting illiterates who haven't voted for generations. Those people aren't being polled. They're not part of the debate. They'll still be part of the numbers in the final count and people forget that.

Well if it was misunderstanding it certainly wasn't wilful

That's how I read your post:shrug:
Maybe be more precise next time?

I agree with you on that, there are absolutely other considerations. No election is ever completely simplistic, but I just disagree that he has even more people to tap into this time around, when all the evidence suggests the opposite. They were first in line last time around too, there are just more dems in the US, and they won't be arguing amongst themselves this time around.

That's before the stuff in my other posts come into play.

Wall-supporting illiterates :laugh:

There are more dems certainly but they're clustered on the coasts in large population areas where their vote is significantly diluted. I also think there's a good chance that there's still plenty of "invisible voters" for Trump to tap into next time around... those who were agreeing with him on their TV in 2016 but didn't truly believe that he could win enough to motivate them to the voting booth. Those people now know he can win, because he did win, and that might be enough to get them to pick up a pen. I guess we'll see what happens :joker:. You never know he might not even be in the running, unlikely as it is.

I'd not heard of her before but Alf's description made it sound like the bandwagon was rolling in her support before they realised she was lying.

the GoP have been very busy altering the voting boundaries in their favour. If you take a look at the boundaries that will be in play at the next election, you will realise how ludicrous they are and how it could easily tilt a result in favour of Trump

I don't know, hadn't heard of it until she was lying tbh :shrug:

Don't spoil the narrative :hehe:

The very first I heard of her was this thread :joker: but it sounds like she was similar to Smollett - went crying to the media that she was attacked, the media duly wailed, it turned out she was lying. But like I said, that's all I got from this thread, so who knows/cares.

That Jussie guy was famous though so bound to get more exposure true or not true

Ask yourself why the media was ready to believe
Bc theres so much racism about it is believable

That's one way to look at it, another way is, there's not enough racism for the dividers to use, so they make it up.

Unluckily theres plenty, from top politicians down to people in the street
So no need for your hypotheticals