Not very many, and most of them are masked, unlike the anti-healthcare worker rallies by Trumpsters. >70% of Americans are intelligent enough to say it's not time to reopen, dozens of states are still on the upswing in cases, not flat or falling. Thanks to brain dead morons, we are nearly guaranteed a second outbreak this summer, Trumpronavirus is going to be with us in November, and most Americans are intelligent enough to understand why.

We should definitely listen to you because you've only been wrong about everything you've ever said about Covid 19.
It's not even as bad as the flu.
We won't ever have more than 15 cases, quickly dropping to zero.
There's no need for federal guidelines.
It will disappear by April.
We won't ever see 1000 deaths.
We definitely won't hit 10000 deaths.
We won't hit 20000 deaths.
40000.
60000.
80000.
100000.
Ok, it's well over 100000 dead Americans from horrendous planning, foot dragging, and obstinate denials, but Trump saved us from it hitting 2.5 million dead.
Only Chinese nationals carry it, so a travel ban on them solved everything.
It's an Obama era CDC created virus handed to China by Democrats to attack America.
*facepalm

Oh yeah? Tell me these known stories of Democrats cheating....I must have missed that, or is it data only found on OAN? Trump's multi million dollar nationwide election fraud investigation sure didn't find any, that's why you never heard it's conclusions.

We don't need Republican examples, we all remember last election and the candidates who had their campaign collect thousands of ballots from the elderly and change their votes, and the judge who voted as their dead spouse, and those woman who admitted voting multiple times because Trump said Democrats would, etc. All Republican cheating.

Idiot, vote by mail is not new. The only thing new is one party claiming it's improper or illegal....only when their political rivals do it, not their own party (Trump isn't threatening any red states who've gone to vote by mail...neither are Democrats, blowing your snide bullshit accusation out of the water.) Multiple states were 100% vote by mail when Trump was elected....are you saying that election was invalid and he's not the president?! Ok, I'll go along under those circumstances, but only if I get the last 3 1/2 years back first.

Trump hopes he can create that kind of confusion, then morons like you would accept his just declaring himself the winner and maybe having to postpone any further elections until we can figure out what's going on (indefinitely).

No one likes him OR the shit he's gotten done, shit like sparking a depression by not handling the outbreak in any useful way (banning some Chinese but not travel from China clearly didn't help) for almost two months while telling the nation there was nothing to worry about, go about your business, no need to prepare for anything, shit like handing trillions to political allies, withholding aid from Democratically led states, dragging his feet, publicly denying there's any problem while those around him illegally prepared by selling hotel stocks etc, blaming one race for creating the virus to deflect blame from his total failure to lead, etc.

If Hillary was in office, she wouldn't have disbanded the CDC international pandemic prevention and preparedness teams and plans, so wouldn't have needed Republicans to vote for her stimulus package.

If Dems/Hillary put forth a $2 trillion recovery bill, Republicans would have denied her a penny, not one Republican vote, called it a socialist cash grab, fake virus, and insisted the stimulus was tied to death squads who would come murder grandma, just like they did over healthcare. Republicans are incapable of compromise or honest debate, incapable of legislation that doesn't benefit Republicands at least 2-1 over Democrats, and incapable of putting the good of the nation before party, unlike Democrats. Republicans agreed to give billions to citizens, as long as they got trillions for businesses like Trump's failing clubs, and they complained about hundreds of millions to fight Covid.

Name these non related goodies, I bet you can't without asking OAN, who will give you an outright lie to repeat.

Everyone lost except maybe the makers of hydrocloroquin and Trump's failing golf clubs and a few billion dollar companies that took most of the small business stimulus money. All that loss was due to Trump's complete failure to take Covid seriously and his multi month delays when every second counted to save lives, jobs, and the economy, and his removal/firing of all oversight positions listed in the recovery bill he signed to facilitate disqualified billionaires and Trump family members getting the lions share.

So sorry, but those with real Trump Derangement Syndrome are his supporters (and Trump himself), who are going to find the rest of their lives difficult, having completely abandoned reality and sanity in favor or ridiculous, divisive, self serving lies.

If Trump steals, denies, or cancels the election (the only way he can win) this country won't last 234 weeks.

Before you balk, he's already publicly mused about postponing the election indefinitely and/or tossing out blue state mail in votes completely....but not red states that also went to vote by mail. That's a death knell for the US as a nation.

The state of our union is bankrupt and weak, fading fast in ICU. It won't survive another Trump term. Time to learn Mandarin.

This is why I cannot understand most "conservatives" wanting to ban abortion, or at least wanting to make it a state by state right, eradicating it outright or regulating it to death in most red states.

As a group, they complain that minority populations are growing much faster than white populations (making whites a minority), but then create policies that can only exacerbate that disparity (because as you hinted, white girls are more likely to be able to afford to travel out of state to get an abortion). They complain about a prevalence of single parent households, and create policies that can only create exponentially more. They complain about uneducated baby factories living off the state but want many pregnant teens to have no choice but to leave school and become an uneducated baby factory living off the state.
WTF people?

This guy has many problems. The main flaw in his argument is his attempt to try and associate pedophilia with LGBTQ. Only individuals with an extremely low IQ, high religious beliefs and a devious agenda can follow him down that line of thinking. Most republicans can accept racism, but even the red state of alabama drew the line at pedophilia by not electing roy moore. It was close but america is not accepting child molesters for now.

http://ozonnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/57a284792e12aacf55659340a2c64fb7.jpg

Many, if not most, that oppose places like Planned Parenthood, and oppose most methods of birth control, oppose it, because they think it encourages promiscuity. Sex is of course limited only to marriage in their world view, which is why heavy red states have abstinence only education... which tends to result in them having the highest teen and repeat teen pregnancy rates. And some would argue that the only function of sex is for procreation. The Bible even forbid pulling out (Gen. 38:8–10), though one could argue that was for one guy in particular. Anyhow, basically they see pregnancy as part of God's design and purpose for sex. The fact it has physical pleasures, is a gift from God for the married couple.

In the case of IUDs, they believe the old myth that the IUD causes abortions, that it lowers the chance that a fertilized egg will implant. The reality is that it doesn't at all, at least for modern, non-copper clad IUDs. Once upon a time, the old copper ones did have a very small impact on the chance a fertilized egg could implant, and even modern ones that have far less copper cladding on a wire around it, can have a very very small chance of decreasing implantation. But those ones aren't really used that often. Basically, the IUD is the most effective form of birth control, but it is opposed to stereotypes and lies. Modern IUDs work to prevent fertilization in the first place, via the hormones in them and design, if an egg is fertilized, it still has the same chance of implantation... however the chance of an egg being fertilized is very low, as sperm mobility is seriously hurt, and of course the woman's body lowers egg release too.

Plan B also doesn't stop implantation, or if it does, it is near modern copper clad wire IUDs (and more recent evidence shows it is likely even far less than that). It prevents the women's body from releasing an egg... if an egg is released already, it won't do any good. However, once again, facts don't matter to those on the right, and they promote it as a morning after abortion pill.

Of course, a healthy young woman, who's optimally fertile, only 30-40% of her fertilized eggs will implant, meaning that God Himself aborts about 60-70% of babies (since they define it as a full baby and human life at conception) in optimally fertile women. Now.. you have to add to that, natural miscarriages for other reasons... and the odds of having a baby really are against you naturally. (There are links to medical journals here: http://ask.metafilter.com/203529/What-of-fertilized-human-eggs-die and in this Healthcare Triage video about IUDs: https://videosift.com/video/IUDs-Are-Pretty-Great-So-Why-Arent-They-More-Popular)

Seriously, he's taking a shit on "purist liberals"?

Remind me again, who was speaking up loud and clear about the danger of running another corporatist against a right-wing populist? Who was that again? Was it the strategists and consultants of the DNC? Was it all the celebrities who were „with her“?

Or was it maybe those liberal idiots whose candidate is, I don't know, the most popular politician in the country? Sanders gets cheers from Trump voters at townhalls in red states, and you're putting the blame for Trump's election at the feet of purist liberals?

Honestly, mate. You want to know what a neoliberal disaster looks like? Look at at the White House. Neoliberal policies are the breeding ground of right-wing populists. You think someone like Trump gets elected because of his convincing policy proposals? Right-wing populists are the answers to „centrist“ policies that enrich the few at the cost of the many. Everyone knows the effects, from widescale poverty, historic inequality, the opioid epidemic, all the way to the two-tiered justice system with fraudsters and torturers running free while not being able to pay a parking tickets gets you jailed.

Too abstract for you, Bill? Then look at Detroit. Look at Cleveland. Is that enough of a visual representation of what a neoliberal disaster looks like?

In this situation, they decided to run a corporatist, with the message „America is already great“. How was that supposed to resonate with the working stiff, Bill? The people whose despair is the main driver behind the opioid epidemic, as Case-Deaton has shows us in such detail. Who had the glorious idea to run exclusively on identity politics and ignore the economic plight of the lower class?

Was that the purist liberals, Bill?

Did the purist liberals run a campaign whose own people, if „Shattered“ contains any truth at all, described it as nothing short of a disaster? Even Clinton's own people didn't seem to know why she was running, and were toying with the idea of just going with „it's her turn“. Seriously, the way they describe Clinton's paranoia and refusal to interact with her own staff makes it sound like her campaign was not much less of a clusterfuck than Trump's presidency, from an organizing point of view.

But yeah, go ahead and blame the purist liberals. And Comey, while you're at it. And Russia. And Jill Stein. And fake news. And WikiLeaks. And sexism. Anything but the DNC and their corporate candidate.

Let me know when you're done, maybe then we can have a proper post-mortem of how the Democrats managed to lose the White House, Congress, most state legislatures and Governorships. And we'll start from the top, because we have a saying in German: „der Fisch stinkt vom Kopf her“. Maybe you can get an option to vote against Wall Street, against the war on drugs, against big pharma, against the MIC, and against the destruction of our biosphere. Because you sure as hell didn't have one this time.

That site is conservative run and compiled, and even so, just do the math, divide by population. Start with Alaska, firmly red.
But, much better, look at REAL numbers instead of that rabid Trump supporter's totally unverified numbers, these with the math already done for you at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_taxation_and_spending_by_state
and
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_tax_revenue_by_state

California spends $8,967 per person while taxing $7690 (honestly worse than I thought),
New York spends $9,940 and taxes $10,279.27,

Alabama spends $11,743 taxes $4,330,
Alaska spends $14,375 taxes $6,697 (I think only DC is worse),
Arizona spends $10,157 taxes $5,318,
Arkansas spends $9,635 taxes $8,578
(and because you mentioned them, Texas which spends $8,865 and taxes $8,421.59, not so bad)

....and that's just comparing the A's to what you would expect to be the most social service friendly firmly democrat states. Clearly, looked at per capita (the only way it makes sense) red states take far more than they give on average, then complain that they're supporting the inner city with their farm taxes, it's just not correct.

EDIT: and as mentioned above, I also know Texas, and the country folk are just as big welfare queens as the city folk, they just convince themselves that a corn subsidy isn't welfare, putting some pet goats on the property so you don't pay taxes isn't welfare, getting free water for their crops paid for by the government isn't welfare....it's just bullshit. If you take what you don't need, or don't pay your fair share, you're a taker, and that describes a HUGE portion of the right....largely your country folks.

Not that i doubt your very charming old-timey anecdotal evidence, but spending a few minutes on google and you'll find... you know... actual data.

Conservative sites will point to how much 'blue' states spend on welfare, ignoring entirely the differences in population, as well as the fact that far and away the poorest counties with the highest percentage of welfare recipients are indeed in red states. As well as states in general, who per capita have the most welfare recipients. It really isn't even close.

Don't take my word for it...

Social security isn't a hand out. It is a HORRIBLE investment program that has been warped and disfigured from it's original purpose. At least people HAVE been paying into it for a LONG time. I'm not exactly surprised that they want to reap SOME sort of benefit for it.

Tax breaks (that favor specific companies or markets) are government handouts. Speaking of solar, how did our government handout for Solyndra do? Must have been a Red state... no?

Medicare as well is something that has been taken out of people's checks (you know, people with actual jobs) for a long long time. Again, not surprising that people expect to get something for that...

In my experience, in general country folk are very independent folk and are generally self reliant. If you want to find locations in the USA where people thrive off of governmental handouts, pick up a map that shows all the blue counties/parishes/districts/etc.

Red states almost always vote against their own interests. They take more tax money than they give and rail against the programs that they themselves take the most advantage of. How they convince themselves that 'the other' is the welfare queen is beyond me.
What's crazy is, if Trump is to be believed (he's not) he's suggesting something like single payer, what else could 'everyone will be insured' mean? It can't possibly mean the subsidies and discounts go away, but the requirement for insurance remains, can it?
No sympathy for these people. They voted against having health care for the needy, then realized they ARE the needy. Karma's a bitch.

@noims -- All rather academic, but I guess that Sanders might alienate some of the hard-line, "establishment" Democrats. But, I feel like the proportion of people that feel like that AND the extent to which it would bother them is tiny compared to the same figures for Republicans that are uneasy about Trump.

Then again, I'm from a pretty solidly Republican red state, so most of what I hear from back there is people that tend to vote Republican being upset with Trump. I wouldn't get exposed to steady Democrats being less enthused with Sanders, because I don't really know any.

So, interesting to hear your take on it but I still tend to think that Bernie's appeal to people in the middle AND Republicans disgruntled with Trump would very likely result in him getting more electoral votes than Hillary will get.

Yeah, Trump is a complete tool. Guilty of all the stuff Maher said about him. Given that kind of "competition", what would the Democrats have to do to get those 20 states to flip their direction?

I can take a stab that that one, Bill -- he's sitting right next to you. If the Democrats had chosen Sanders as their candidate, I guarantee that at least some of those states would have gone blue on election day.

Firm, registered Democrats? They'd all happily vote for Bernie in the general, just like they will vote for Hillary.

Undecideds, moderates, and young people? Drastically more likely to vote for Bernie than Hillary. A huge segment of the voting population is disgusted with the two major choices, and would happily flock to a candidate that has a proven track record of honesty and integrity, instead of the dog and pony show that we have now.

Firm, die-hard Republicans? Maher is right; there is a certain percentage of people that would never vote Democrat. But, I don't think that number is above 50% of the population even in the reddest of red states. But even for many of those people that are completely dissatisfied by Trump, from their perspective Hillary is NOT a better option.


Let's consider how all the arguments against Trump play to that specific audience: (note that the responses are what *they* think, not necessarily what *I* think)

Trump is a womanizer / misogynist / predator. Yeah, and Clinton is married to a worse one who disgraced the Presidency while he was in office.

Trump lies constantly. As opposed to the Clintons, who would never lie. For example, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" (Bill), "it depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is" (Bill), and "I am confident that I never sent nor received any information that was classified at the time" (Hillary).

Trump has no experience with government and would make an incompetent president. What's worse: a crooked / corrupt Washington insider that knows how to game the system, or someone with no experience?

etc. etc.

Hillary goddamn Clinton is NOT going to be seen as a reasonable alternative to Trump to those people. No matter how much he goes off the rails. No matter what crazy, foul, contemptible shit he says or does. No matter how many skeletons you dig out of his closet. Why? Because they are convinced (reasonably or not) that the Clintons have done just as much questionable shit and more, they are perhaps just better at covering it up.

But if the Democrat candidate was Bernie Sanders, I'm sure a lot more of those hard-line Republicans would be way more tempted to vote blue in November.

Hilarious. Maybe they should have tried to not giggle like naughty teenagers making a prank call if they want to be taken seriously.
First, they did make the shirt he asked for, a quality one it seemed, just with a bonus secret message.
Second, Trump supporters are the same people who advocate the refusal of service for people who offend their religious (or political) sensibilities, so what's his problem? He was probably hoping they would refuse him service so he could use the video as proof that "liberals" are totally hypocritical and refuse service to those they dislike but vilify "conservatives" for the same thing, but got something unexpected instead.

It's now pretty clear that initially they did this looking for and expecting a negative reaction they could exploit somehow, then pressed the point when they got one, thinking they 'got them' and now he can be the conservative hero of the week.

To be fair though, what response does one expect when one goes into a business in a firmly red state like Alabama or Mississippi, and an even more firmly Republican city, and then go to a world famously Republican neighborhood in that city, enter a store with a Trump sign in the window and ask them to make you a HILLARY T-shirt? I would bet $10 it involves threats of violence if not actual violence and firearms, not a quality shirt with a 'secret' message inside.

A consistently red state. Perhaps dying on Mars would be preferable.

To a certain extent, but unfortunately a charismatic (or dictatorial) leadership, or even parents passing on their belief systems to their children, can create or enforce ideals that can shape society. Many people still adhere to religion because "that's the way it's always been", not because the religion actually fits their personal ethics...

In general, I do actually agree with you in regards to the concept that secularity tends to lead to enlightenment, but there are plenty of secular countries that are authoritarian/despotic (North Korea being a shining example), violent and considerably backwards compared to countries which have a high proportion of religious people and freedom. Unfortunately, enlightenment leads to arrogance as well.

The continual push by the media/politicians etc to classify Muslims as a homogenous whole smacks more of an attempt to play on xenophobia and racism than any factual evidence.

Particularly when the enlightened country making the most noise about it has "In God We Trust" printed on their currency. Compound that with provoking and polarising moderate Muslims by marginalising and insulting them? Enlightenment does not preclude gross stupidity.

A simple look at the US (secular mind you) shows stark differences between the north and the south, red states and blue states etc. You're proposing that 1.5 bn people (that would be ~5 times more people than the entire population of the US) spread across most countries in the world are somehow tightly aligned purely because they share a religion that is as varied as any other in the world?

And the mean truth? The arrogance and presumption of "enlightened neighbours" are part of the reasons why certain countries are as they are...

Iran is a classic example. The US (all enlightened and shit) engineers the coup that deposes a democratically elected Prime Minister hailed as a leading champion of secular democracy. And when the Shah was overthrown, it was by fundamentalists lead by Ayatollah Khomeini, ushering in an era of strict theocracy and an abiding hatred of the US.

Your last paragraph highlights the problem perfectly. We have two media reporters, deliberately or ignorantly, disseminating false information which would probably lead to discrimination against Muslims. How ethical is it to incite an entire country to hate over the actions of a tiny percentage of the whole? How ethical is it to ignore humanitarian disasters in countries which have no strategic or natural resource value (and places where no white people have been beheaded)?

And when presented with empirical truth, how ethical is it to refuse to accept it?