The First Amendment is null and void for those who criticize our fascist leaders.

But a Russian KGB agent was allowed unrestricted access to manipulate our social media and give money to campaigns......and maybe play around with a few vote counting systems.

To bad she conceded. She's lost all standing in the courts by doing that. This is what Gore did when his election was stolen too.

A perfect storm of corporate media (read monopolies), a nation with hollowed out manufacturing where the most common jobs are sales clerks and waiters, forgien election interference and an oligarchy looking for their puppet king.

This is the down side of capitalism that folks don't talk about. How even our government and democratic processes are bought up by the filthy-rich. Money and wealth is the real power in the US. And they won.

It's a major issue with the better party who follows rules and regulations; that preaches for tolerance and understanding. We give, but not in the way of Tai Chi. We don't follow up with anything except depression and excuses.

I, frankly, believe that Lichtman was correct. No one will ever be able to tell me this wasn't stolen and the "steal" was in plain sight for probably the entire year, if not earlier. They found a way to cheat that wasn't visible so much to us, and kept us distracted with red herrings like voter purge and suppression (which still helped them).

But, what the f*ck? If the democrats WITH power are willing to roll over, what are we, the ones WITHOUT power suppose to do? Oh! I know, we'll GOTV again next time! /snark

I believe the good Prof Lichtman is correct. I think the model, though, does not take into account the chicanery, which the prof would not have any real emperical data to take into consideration.

The best I can do is consider them "VERY ILL" (mentally) and hope that a cure might be soon to come. A bit (as I wrote on another thread) like the zombies of "The Walking Dead" somehow receiving a cure for the virus that has caused their unexpected and abrupt turn. Looking at MAGA like "brain-turned" helpless ill people somehow makes it easier to deal with these people I otherwise so want to hate.

And his conspiracy theory quackery, just like they did during COVID when they refused to wear masks, drank bleach, took horse diarrhea medicine, and listened to complete fucking deranged idiots like Sherri Tenpenny and Stella Immanuel who said that COVID came from lizard people. Drinking raw milk and consuming the other unproven bullshit "cures" that he recommends is going to get a lot of people killed. And at this point, a lot of them are really beyond hope.

We lost every single battle. He was so wrong, and obviously won’t be believed again.

Seems like what it was based on is wishful thinking.

I remember when he warned against calls for Biden to drop out because he thought we'd lose, then immediately after Harris became his replacement he transferred all the keys from Biden to her, stating that her being VP granted her the same keys that Biden had.

So, which is it? A colossal mistake for Biden to drop out, or no big deal because Harris would get the same keys and "advantage"? He had been very wishy-washy since the aftermath of the debate.

That's not exactly an objective stand.

and other sources as twisting things up because the actual facts weren’t known by such a large proportion of voters, and that that isn’t accounted for in his model.

He also implied that he suspects malfeasance was involved. Though he declined to outright assert there was a conspiracy.

An expert and practiced Russian KGB agent was allowed unrestricted access to a lot of our most frequently used social media. Foreign money was allowed to buy up influence both in the media and in our politics. And corporate media monopolized our most common news sources. A political party straight up owns a huge media conglomerate.

Did Putin really need to rig the vote counts for pedo Trump? No, but he probably did.

My advice, buy a Glock or similar and learn how to use it. I've been around firearms all my life but never even considered a handgun until 2017. Wife has one too. Favorable situation for us since we have no kids at home. And I do understand that the chances of political violence touching us is very, very small. Particularly up here. But I figure it's like airline safety. The chances of a mishap are very small but catastrophic if it does occur. I'd rather be prepared and never have to use it than need it and not have it. Personal opinion. Your mileage may vary.

All affordable; well served firearms for most home defense situations…

Democrats do own and are well trained in use and responsible firearms ownership.

FAFO

Once again dispelling the firearm scared, latte sipping, Volvo diving myth. As though Tim Walz hadn't dispelled that myth already. I'd compare my cultural bonafides against any and all trump voters and the majority of them would be found lacking.

...that I don't feel so bad about missing more states in this election than in the previous four combined. I have a different method than the Professor, so when we came to the same conclusion that only reinforced my confidence. Two different methods arriving at the same conclusions is usually a solid way of predicting an event.

Not this time. Other factors were at play that neither he nor I accounted for -perhaps couldn't account for.

For the record, I haven't been threatened or harassed. I guess irrelevance is useful sometimes.

if Dem votes were so low because people saw these predictions, the GOP crossovers and the Obama-level rally sizes and figured it was a done deal so didn't bother.

last couple of rallies. I think it was intentional. Convince Dems we had it in the bag.

Setting expectations from the other direction.

Quite a gamble, unless your get-out-of-jail free card wasn't guaranteed.

Interesting perspective - thank you

And just weren't counted.

We had an expert KGB agent freewheeling in our elections. Come on folks do you really think the only thing he wasn't going to touch was our vote counting systems?

Didn't Russia make some serious inroads to hacking a lot of our infrastructure systems?

Too bad she conceded. There might be a lot of evidence still out there. Right now, they're not rushing to hide it because they think they won.

It DID predict most of the outcomes for Presidential races for decades.

His model was not infallible and needs revision, but as with any model involving human beings, they are not perfect.

I admit I’m curious to see how Presidential Vance would do in the 2028 election, assuming that we still have free or semi-free elections then. I suspect that Vance would find himself as an American equivalent of Venezuela’s strongman Nicolas Maduro following Hugo Chavez, with all the problem chickens coming home to roost.

I see in the OP some key factors noted, including the economy and foreign policy — which seem to assume that the populace in general understands the basic facts surrounding those factors.

Could it simply be that any rational model that tries to predict outcomes based on reality is now forever flawed in our post-truth world?

Thanks.

Yes because "misinformation" and "disinformation" that is pounded out daily, not just on social media, but in the M$M, "works".

They were able to manufacture an unreality that people who are not hardcore news and political junkies, accepted.

When the GOP would spew "The economy is failing!!11!11!!" and then the media will immediately have a headline that says -

That's how they've enabled Chump, and I've always known that Chump isn't smart enough to do this on his own.

I looked at Lichtman's 13 keys and worried that Harris actually might not have the needed keys, because so many Americans believe that the economy was terrible, that immigration is a crisis, etc. if you look at it in MAGA speak. His model predicted Trump would win.

Still, I felt sure Harris would win. I'm no good at predicting. Americans often surprise me in their idiocy.

the fractures media ecosystem created different realities which altered voters perception of economy regardless if facts. I don’t know if the keys can be adjusted for that considering that disinformation is about to get exponentially worse. He should retire, IMO. It was a colossal failure including popular vote for which the keys were always 100% accurate.

Good call!

Well done, sir.

Now, go away.

Sadly