Iz 🌟

excellent :D (I was already thinking about putting an extra clarifier in the title from yesterday so I will do that now though) the Joker sequel's recent prominence and the meaning of the phrase as 'madness of two' came to me as a good descriptor for the second Trump term. RFK Jr. at Health is so insane I can barely believe it but it really does fit with the theme of sycophants - this will really be a wild ride.

Me too, I'm slowly marathoning onwards with some longer shows (One Piece, MHA, JJK) but not actively watching any seasonals, safe in the knowledge I can pick and choose which shows to get to whenever I like. I've heard enough about Dandadan to give it a go at some point though. I do love Luce though, a very astute choice of mascot by the Catholic Church. There's gotta be a mangaka out there who's seen enough of the Catholic archetypes that occasionally permeate anime whenever there's a Christian character of some description to put something together...

'Little Dark Age' showing a bunch of longevity is really cool to see, I wouldn't have called it making into the ROTD final at any point before it did this year but it is holding up well culturally (in part due to online edits with... mixed... origins) for something that wasn't a big hit initially.

I'm sorta enjoying that quite a few cabinet appointments seem to be Republicans from the House which will ensure the Republicans don't get to use their slim House majority to do anything for several months. Other than that, what an outright batshit insane set of appointments. Trump 1.0. wasn't this blatant, it was a mix of some Trumpian political operators and Republican establishment, this just seems to be whoever's been most sycophantic to Trump over the campaign (Rubio aside). One bright spot is that John Thune is the new Senate majority leader succeeding McConnell - he's still a Republican of course but much more clearly aligned with the Republican establishment and wasn't on board with Jan 6. So between that I don't actually see the slim Republican trifecta working all that well for Trump. Hopefully, in any case.

Figured as uncharacteristically, Trump is being really on the ball with announcing cabinet picks, that the time for the general thread on the next term of the United States' politics is upon us. Perhaps a little early but Biden's is not showing any signs he's going to do much in the lame duck period. Such INSPIRED cabinet picks include: Elon Musk & Vivek Ramaswamy being sent to the kids table at the new Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE, wow so le epic) Tulsi Gabbard, former Democratic snake oil saleswoman as Director of National Intelligence Kristi Noem, South Dakotan governor and dog murderer in Homeland Security Marco Rubio as Secretary Of State Elise Stefanik, insane Trump loyalist as Ambassador to the UN A Fox News host as Defense Secretary and possibly most insane of all, the notoriously creepy Matt Gaetz as Attorney General. Anyway, discuss the trajectory of the US here.

I would caution against assuming that Trump is Trump and that once he's gone the Republicans would be directionless or necessarily unpopular. When you compare Republican messaging and drive to standard Democratic messaging they're invigorated and do get how to entice people to come out to vote for them. They're a very efficient party at getting themselves into power and blaming their opponents. Once Trump is out of the picture they'll still have the Republican infrastructure complete with podcasters and influencers selling themselves as the cool, manly, all-American party of fascism and a leader will emerge from that. Doubt Vance himself is quite up to being the heir even if he obviously thinks himself that at the moment but whoever emerges will absolutely play off that and their new multiracial base (Rubio comeback?). For one thing, something we really hope doesn't happen is that Trump dies a short while into his term and America is lumbered with President Vance. Vance and the people behind him would absolutely use the opportunity to put down roots to institutionalise their ideology into government and probably would go ahead with a wide variety of anti-democratic moves to disadvantage a Democratic comeback. I don't think Trump is going to bother much with that while he's in the Presidency, he's got his second term now and apart from insulating himself for any post-Presidency retirement he won't care much for beyond it - there's no way at his age he thinks he has a 3rd term in him. He likely only orchestrated Jan 6th out of ego. As it always is with him.

Congratulations Addy, I think that does make sense as a winner, did stand out. Thanks to those of you who pointed Fleshgod Apocalypse, I found their latest album really enjoyable, on the more operatic side of metal in opposition to their name, so I thought I'd give one of the highlights a go here. Thanks for the wonderful hosting Doctor Blind, really enjoyed this edition. Really great rock songs, OU was a fantastic opening to this contest and 'Tragediaa', 'Kakurenbo' and 'clairbourne practice' were exactly my style too, some excellent discoveries.

I completely forgot I'd done quite well recently not sure I can call who wins from here, I've spent most of this results thread internalising everyone's very impressive records

ooh nice plan, I love a few stats. No clue what will do well here, but there were a lot of good tracks here both from hard and soft rock traditions.

+40 Metric - Doomscroller 39 Alan Walker - Faded 38 Ghost - Mary On A Cross 37 RAYE (feat. 070 Shake) - Escapism. 36 Grimes - Flesh Without Blood 35 Käärijä - Cha Cha Cha 34 Taylor Swift & Bon Iver – Exile 33 MGMT - Little Dark Age 32 Wolf Alice - Don't Delete The Kisses 31 Billie Eilish - Bad Guy 30 Lilly Wood and The Prick - Prayer In C (Robin Schulz Remix) 29 Hozier - Take Me To Church 28 Galantis - Runaway (U & I) 27 Grimes - Kill V. Maim 26 Olivia Rodrigo - Good 4 U 25 Go_A - Shum 24 Wolf Alice - The Last Man On Earth 23 ABBA - Don’t Shut Me Down 22 Caroline Polachek - Welcome to My Island 21 Dua Lipa - Levitating (Original / DaBaby Remix) 20 Carly Rae Jepsen - Run Away With Me 19 Weeknd - Blinding Lights 18 Dua Lipa - Physical 17 Christine And The Queens - Tilted / Christine 16 Taylor Swift - Out of The Woods 15 Mark Ronson (feat. Bruno Mars) - Uptown Funk 14 Ariana Grande - Into You 13 Tove Lo - Habits (Stay High) (Original / Hippie Sabotage Remix) 12 Katy B - Crying For No Reason 11 Billie Eilish - Bury a Friend 10 Ariana Grande - No Tears Left To Cry 9 Clean Bandit (feat. Zara Larsson) - Symphony 8 FKA Twigs - Two Weeks 7 xx – On Hold 6 Janelle Monáe - Make Me Feel 5 Taylor Swift - Wildest Dreams 4 Kungs vs. Cookin On 3 Burners – This Girl 3 Rita Ora - Anywhere 2 Weeknd - Save Your Tears (Original / Ariana Grande Remix) 1 Ariana Grande (feat. Zedd) - Break Free

Germany about to come and start 2025 off early with a disappointing election result then huh. But then nearly all of the German parties seem to have some deep problem in their psyche they need to work through and this cycle was screwed anyway. In the grand narrative of incumbents getting thrashed post-COVID/Ukraine, the CDU look like they managed to time their 2021 loss and wilderness recovery almost perfectly looking at opinion polls.

Clearly this had very little to do with the campaigns, because anyone paying attention to either would see a low energy poorly attended Trump campaign and a high energy inspiring Harris one, even if you like Trump or don't like Harris. The problems were clearly a lot more fundamental and likely an inevitable disappearance of Democratic voters due to bad feelings about the economy.

The large number of polls who went towards a tied race definitely herded - even if some of them turned out right, the sheer amount and lack of variation around a tie is poor methodology. Of course, some of them were right and more right than Selzer or Lichtman, which is somewhat difficult to believe on its surface, but true nonetheless. Polling industry certainly has one thing to reckon with though, and that is the sheer number of polls associated with the GOP and billionaire apparatus that are about more than checking public opinion, rather clearly flooding the zone in attempts to lead public opinion. Just like newspapers and Musk's ownership of Twitter, putting thumbs on the scale to shift the result. Not that I'm saying this made the difference, or that it's solely responsible for the Democrat loss, but it's been clearly realised as a method for the billionaires to move towards their preferred result. The sudden appearance of Iowa polls following Selzer was particularly egregious.

Quite. Of the 3 Democrat campaigns against Trump, Biden's was by far the most progressive and appealing to the left base, even if Kamala herself holds more progressive values than Biden. As much as I'd like to claim so, I'm unsure that that's a correlation, it might just be the tides of economy swinging against Trump that middle time, it might be America being sexist. But it's not like cosying up to the moderate neocons has ever helped the Dems in this era.

It seems that enough of the American median voters are set to swing back the other way from 2020 because of incumbent dissatisfaction and perceived wisdom that the 2016 Trump admin wasn't that bad on the economy. Always a possible result but one I was hopeful wouldn't come to pass. Without doing any huge narrative analysis, which I never think is particularly helpful given how few votes comparatively switch every election, there doesn't seem to have been much the Harris campaign could have done to change the result - this was probably baked in with the idea to punish the Biden incumbency. It does majorly mismatch the vibes I was reading from both campaigns but on a big enough scale, that didn't matter. Good luck America, sheesh.

Georgia votes left are almost all Democrat-leaning areas, entirely possible it's still narrowly D. Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Michigan look similar. on the other hand Wisconsin votes left look worrying and it's on a knife's edge so that's something new to doom about.

Decision Desk called NC which seems early? But then I also trust them calling Virginia because of outstanding votes in urban areas. NC still has a fair few votes from urban areas. Georgia probably going down to the wire. WI, MI, PA all still looking good though, this is still somewhat consistent with early Dem panic because the first few votes in swing states aren't great for them though polls having this as a tied race seem somewhat correct (which isn't great as it means they'll learn nothing).

Some outlets have already called Virginia for Harris, which on timings is a little worse than 2020 but not by much.

This electoral college margin was expected at this point in the night. Vote totals aren't looking as great as I'd want to but it's still too early to tell in key states.

I'm going to be zen, I'm not going to react. NYT needles up yay

The first drops for NC look good but it's like 2%. Definitely holding onto the good signs in the north - and Georgia's metros look good but the rurals look trash.

So far it seems like Harris is consistently outperforming Biden 2020 in... most counties by a few points and particularly those near any sort of city. Some rural counties that are in are shifting red but not that many of them. This seems to be more true further north, I think Florida is lost and Georgia is... iffy at the moment.

I was meming a little but Hamilton County, Indiana has come in with Democrats narrowly leading (though only with 66% reporting), and that's a suburban county of Indianapolis that has pretty much always voted Republican (but has been trending towards being competitive the last few elections).

seen enough, these early results from Indiana are enough to declare a Kamala blowout. Philadelphia turnout looking very good too, in more serious coverage.

what's your coverage of choice? I'm probably going to be bouncing between BBC (as much as it's my default I feel wary about trusting them for decent US election coverage), CNN, NBC and my favourite political livestreamer.