but I am right aren’t I?

Edited by Spiderman (14 Oct 2020 6.50pm)

There is a huge difference between Murdoch's and Bezos's motivations. Murdoch has a media empire and an open political aim, which he directs his outlets to follow. Bezos owns a newspaper whose political stance he agrees with but he adopts a hands-off approach. I think he bought it to make sure it continued to do the work it does in the way it does.

I have no insight into the way New Yorkers as a whole are thinking, or whether they collectively believe the majors are doing a good job or not. My earlier comments were related only to the way they seemed to be responding to the pandemic and standing up to the idiot in the WH. I somehow doubt that many are "turning to Trump". There will always be exceptions but that doesn't appear to be the overall picture.

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

Not in matters of law. There the Supreme Court give the final answer and they did.

If the democratic process wishes to change it then it can enact a new law.

For the avoidance of doubt any comments in response to a previous post are directed to its ideas and not at any, or all, posters personally.

Well said. Certainly in 2016, despite the no holds barred tactics I'm more than willing to admit that Trump won, and if he does the same this time then fair play to him. For all the rollercoaster and debasing of norms of conduct of the last four years I don't exactly bemoan establishment favourite Hillary Clinton not being President.

Biden isn't such a hated figure though, and Trump has done enough missteps and had enough misfortune (having to deal with Covid and so on) that an objective reading has him well ahead of where Clinton was four years back (and indeed even she won the popular vote and so he doesn't need to move the dial much).

I tend to agree that Trump's path to victory is becoming more and more tricky and that there is nothing in his personality that screams 'play by the rules'. That's where the wildly pre-emptive mantra of how corrupt mail in voting is comes in. He knows from polling that vastly more Democrats are going to vote by mail*, and so is banking on being ahead on the night and using that combined with endlessly questioning the validity of the tens of millions of mailed in votes being counted. There are already plans in the works for some states to disregard mail in ballots

[Tweet Link]

Where states refuse to disrupt the democratic process, he'll no doubt try to go through the courts, all the way to the top to stop the count: "We need nine justices. You need that. With the unsolicited millions of ballots that they're sending, it's a scam, it's a hoax"

"We're going to have to see what happens. I've been complaining very strongly about the ballots. And the ballots are a disaster.... get rid of the ballots and there will be—there won't be a transfer, there will be a continuation."

Someone who is confident of winning legitimately doesn't behave this way. It's troubling that disrupting tens of millions of mail-in ballots (through a method that clearly has no history of mass fraud and one which democrats are all but certain to gains millions more votes in anyway) or using nefarious means even to undermine that process, would be a big plus from his perspective. By all accounts rather than anyone else, he's that one that needs to rig the game and if that happens it's byebye democracy. It's going to be a mess.

*among Trump supporters, only 11 percent said they planned to vote by mail, and 66 percent said they planned to vote in person on Election Day. Among Joe Biden backers, 47 percent said they planned to vote by mail, while only 26 percent said they planned to vote in person on Election Day [Link]

Edited by BlueJay (14 Oct 2020 8.56pm)

[Link]