Linky Friday: What a Shambles That Week Was Edition

Andrew Donaldson

Born and raised in West Virginia, Andrew has been the Managing Editor of Ordinary Times since 2018, is a widely published opinion writer, and appears in media, radio, and occasionally as a talking head on TV. He can usually be found misspelling/misusing words on Twitter@four4thefire. Andrew is the host of Heard Tell podcast. Subscribe to Andrew'sHeard Tell Substack for free here:

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19 Responses

  1. Oscar Gordon says:

    LF10: Ha! Although in a way, that sets a bad precedent, in that if you are willing to toss your credibility into the toilet, you have carte blanche to defame anyone you want.Report

  2. DensityDuck says:

    [LF6] “This isn’t something a sports arena can just start doing: To prevent utter disaster will require careful staffing, entirely new security measures and thorough efforts to enforce social distancing.”

    bruh

    “Gosh why is it that Americans can’t seem to come up with some way to deal with the ‘rona, despite our vaunted ingenuity and inventiveness? Boy, it sure seems like these modern times are just full of weak-minded, weak-willed, uncreative lazy fat idiots, addicted to screen-time and social-media brain poison. Wait, what? Convert a sports stadium into a voting center so that people have more distanced spaces to vote? Pffft, that’s impossible, that’s way too hard, nobody could possibly figure out how to make that work!”Report

    • Oscar Gordon in reply to DensityDuck says:

      And it completely ignores the fact that the people who work in stadiums and conventions are actually pretty used to showing up at the crack of dawn to completely reconfigure the facility for whatever event is happening that day, and they tend to be rather competent at doing so in a way to deliberately control the flow of people.

      Because, like, it’s their actual fecking job.

      So yeah, I think stadiums and convention centers got ya covered.Report

      • Philip H in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

        They may, but do elections officials have them covered? Are there enough registration computers or book copies? Enough pens? enough voting booths or machines? These are non-trivial logistics issues. They should be managable, and any arena worth its over priced beer could solve many of them for a given jurisdiction, providing there’s funds and forethought.Report

        • Michael Cain in reply to Philip H says:

          …providing there’s funds and forethought.

          It’s the forethought part that’s got me worried. There seem to be too many places just making things up as they go along. I am so pleased I live in a vote by mail state with several elections worth of experience at it.

          OTOH, yesterday Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) proposed — but did not formally introduce — legislation that would forbid major features of the mail ballot arrangements used in most of the western states.Report

      • Kazzy in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

        Well, my library runs elections staffed by 70-year-olds and always seems to figure it out. I mean, it’s a good library and pretty spacious as far as small-ish towns go. But… it’s a library. With 70-year-old volunteers.

        They’re concerned that the voting equipment is going to drain the power of an NBA arena? Have they ever been to an NBA game?Report

  3. Saul Degraw says:

    LF7: People do realize that if Biden was going out on an all out war, the headline would be “Biden’s aggressive style worries some Democrats”, right?

    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/09/media-mistakes/616222/

    Fallows argues that the media learned nothing from 2016. This secret worries article is a good example of one of the media’s greatest addictions and pathologies, the need to have every Presidential election be a horserace. The media has no idea how to handle a Presidential election without it being a horserace. But Biden’s popularity has always been at 50 percent or somewhat above and the polling has overwhelmingly been excellent for Biden. But it is boring to report that Biden knows what he is doing and Trump is in tailspin. So horserace it is. I am a bit disappointed that it got posted here.

    Everyone freaking out about Trump’s refusal to concede results is another example of the horse race pathology. I think Michelle Goldberg has it right. Trump is a very weak person trying to be an authoritarian strongman. I suspect that Republicans might have even worse internal polling and all the stuff that came out this week are Hail Mary attempts to stop it:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/24/opinion/trump-election-2020.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=HomepageReport

  4. Saul Degraw says:

    Comment in moderation againReport

  5. Saul Degraw says:

    I also believe the proper British term is omnishambles. I prefer a good ol’ American description of cluster fuck or shit show.Report

  6. Saul Degraw says:

    Former OTer Jamelle Bouie has a column comparing the debate over the Missouri Compromise in 1820 with today’s political situation: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/25/opinion/trump-supreme-court-missouri-compromise.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=HomepageReport

  7. Saul Degraw says:

    https://emersonpolling.reportablenews.com/pr/september-2020-biden-holds-his-lead-voters-split-on-supreme-court-nominee-timetable

    “When asked who voters thought was more of a wimp, 57% said Donald Trump and 43% said Joe Biden.”Report

  8. superdestroyer says:

    In listening to a podcast about past presidential debates, it was noted how good Bill Clinton was during his debates. He destroyed GW Bush in 1992 and Dole was incapable of dealing with Clinton. The question for the future is why can’t the Democrats find another candidate like Clinton” younger, charismatic, and knowledge of policy instead of elderly politicians with no charisma and little interest in policy,

    Image how President Trump would look if he was debating Bill Clinton or Barack Obama in their primes.Report