Economic wise yes. Militarily not so much.

How does this effect [sic] me?

For most countries, America meddles with your affairs far more than you do ours. The executive branch is our most powerful branch of government, and it's more or less just the president's personal fiefdom. So the newly-elected President of the United States can, for all practical purposes, direct our:

• foreign policy: which countries we see as allies or enemies
• trade policy: whether we impose tariffs on your country or encourage you to join an economic sanction bloc with us
• fiscal and monetary policy (to some extent): American economic failures can trigger global recessions or depressions, and often do
• defense policy: i.e., how securely NATO works as a defensive alliance (can Estonia expect American support in the event of invasion?)
• military operations: the President is able to unilaterally and clandestinely direct operations like American drone strikes, the bin Laden raid, and the Soleimani assassination- these may have foreign policy repercussions for you, or even domestic ones (American foreign meddling can send refugees or otherwise affect the stability of your home country)

Why isn' talked more about the parallel parliament election that seems to be more important?

First, the legislature is less powerful than the President. Second, the two branches of the legislature (our lower house- the House of Representatives- apportioned by population, and our upper house- the Senate- apportioned by state) have to work in tandem to pass legislation. If the legislature is split, then it has less impact: the Senate independently confirms or blocks presidential appointments, the House independently handles the national budget, and they only pass some no-brainer legislation (e.g., COVID relief).

This is most likely a big difference from how the legislature works in your country, since in most European countries the lower house holds more power.

In this election, we can more or less expect the Democrats to retain control of the House since they are nationally far more popular at this time. The part of the legislature that may matter is the Senate, which can go either way. But since the Republicans have nearly no chance of controlling the full legislature (both houses), the Senate race only really matters if Biden wins- in which chase the Democrats can win the Senate to gain full control of both the executive and the legislature. A federal trifecta (POTUS + Senate + House) is far more powerful than a split government: if you live in a parliamentary democracy, this would be akin to a single party gaining an outright majority (and not needing a coalition to govern). It would result in one party having near-unilateral control of American government, although defections on individual votes are more common in the US than in your country since party whips have less power here.

Finally, if you want to follow live updates on the election for some reason, FiveThirtyEight is running a highly politically- and statistically-literate live blog: https://fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog/2020-election-results-coverage/

Edited 11/3/2020 18:39:57

whether you like it or not, culturally and scientifically, USA still is THE world power.

I have never seen a belgian be so patriotic about the US

i wonder in like a million years later how will that generation judge us.

i think it will be something like this


"Can You Believe We As A Species Fought One Another Just Because They Served Under A Different Flag?"

"Can You Believe We As A Species Fought One Another Just Because They Served Under A Different Flag?"

I don't find it hard to believe especially because the so called promoters of international peace love to destabilize countries and create never-ending civil wars

I have never seen a belgian be so patriotic about the US

bit awkward considering 1) I'm not Belgian 2) I'm not being patriotic about the US
;p

I think he means your statement about the US being a "cultural world power".

It is kinda hard to define culture, so that statement is a little bit meaningless.

a) your profile shows the belgium flag

b) listen to this and tell me a patriotic american wouldn't say this "whether you like it or not, culturally and scientifically, USA still is THE world power"

Edited 11/3/2020 20:44:49

I think he means your statement about the US being a "cultural world power".

It is kinda hard to define culture, so that statement is a little bit meaningless.

It's either "meaningless" or "a little bit", not two simultaneously. That's like saying a cadaver is "a little bit" dead - makes no sense. Just nitpicking.

Actually it's not that hard to see the amount of popular movies, music, games or books produced by Americans or American companies, especially movies (Hollywood!). Certainly, you can see where I'm coming from here. Is there a more culturally influential country? Feel free to give me your own definition of culture or whatever but just saying" uhhhh it's hard to define" is dodging the question

a) your profile shows the belgium flag

Did you just ASSUME my nationality?! *shocked gasp*

b) listen to this and tell me a patriotic american wouldn't say this "whether you like it or not, culturally and scientifically, USA still is THE world power"

Sure but could also be said by someone else for other reasons.

So you aren’t Belgian? Idk what to believe anymore

Look at his clan and it should tell you

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/politics-podcast-the-election-isnt-over/

Current status of the election (~15min). TL;DR: Biden landslide is obviously out of the picture. We do not know who has won. It comes down to the wire.

The rest are just notes I'm taking while listening to the podcast, so this is mostly Nathaniel Rakich (@baseballot)'s analysis.

Arizona has been called for Biden by Associated Press and Fox News but not yet ABC.

Wisconsin: we expect results to be mostly in Wednesday morning, mainly waiting on Milwaukee
Michigan: we expect results results to come in sometime Wednesday
Pennsylvania: expect to take until Friday to report all results
Georgia: expect rough results @ noon on Wednesday

Likely blue shift coming from not-yet-counted mail-in ballots + urban areas (Milwaukee, Atlanta, etc.).

"Tea leaves" from Upper Midwest states:
WI - lots of absentees left to count in Milwaukee, Trump ahead by only 3-4 pts at time of podcast, so WI deficit is not particularly daunting
PA - suburban and urban counties (e.g., Harrisburg and Scranton area) bode will for Biden to some extent as he's outperforming Clinton by about 5pts; but this isn't happening consistently across the rest of the state, so cautious optimism for Biden there

Senate is not going to go Democratic, most likely. They have lost in AL (predictable), likely ME, AZ not called, NC looking good for Tillis, IA projected for Ernst (R), so Dems do not have the opportunities they need to get a majority. Still too soon to call but unlikely that Dems get Senate.

and of course, House has been called for Dems.

In other news, CA passed Prop-22 (which reclassifies Uber/Lyft/etc. drivers back as independent contractors, undoing the changes from AB-5) and three states have voted tonight to legalize weed.

i have a personal problem with the us system

Why Does senate Exists? Why Cant House Of representatives have the senate's Power?

nevada and wisconsin being red was fun while it lasted

Edit: Another piece of good news- an Electoral College tie is now extremely unlikely to happen.

Good chance we will know result by end of Wednesday. The states to watch are MI, WI, GA. If Trump wins all 3, it's over for Biden (unless he can win NC, NV, PA). If Biden wins any 2, it's over for Trump (unless he can win NC, NV, PA).

At this point, WI will likely be called before most people see this. NC and NV both accept late-arriving mail-in ballots and so final results will take a while there; most likely, NC goes red and NV blue. GA comes down to just how well Biden did in Atlanta, while MI and PA hinge on mail-in ballots. Due to the partisan skew when it comes to mail-in voting this election (one side takes COVID more seriously), basically there's staggering margins in these mail-in ballots: In PA, of the 2.4M returned mail-in ballots, about 66% are from registered Democrats vs. 23% from registered Republicans. Plus late-counted votes tend to also be from cities, so chronologically you can expect later-counted votes in battleground states to lean Democratic.

All in all, this is a narrow race coming down to the wire and exposing us as a very deeply divided nation. Lots of fascinating demographic phenomena (huge gender divide, especially among Latinos). If we're unlucky, we have to wait for PA to decide the election (that can take til Friday or later) but right now there's a good chance someone locks in 270 by Wednesday night.

Edited 11/4/2020 11:30:53

Great analysis by knyte.
I did a summary for a group of interesting friends. It's from the viewpoint of a Biden win because that's currently the most likely, but you could flip it around for a Trump win as well.

Biden wins state XX if he get YY% of the outstanding vote. This is ZZ.
Maine - 35% - almost certain
Arizona - 39% - almost certain (updated from 42% -> 39% after latest drop)
Nevada - 48% - likely
Wisconsin - 40% - likely (updated from 50% -> 40% after latest drop)
Michigan - 52% - likely (updated from 59% -> 54% -> 52% after latest drop)
Pennsylvania - 68% - possible
Georgia - 63% - possible (fixed rounding error)
North Carolina - 65% - unlikely
Alaska - 58% - unrealistic

Interpretation of probabilities entirely mine and based on most recent information of the outstanding vote (expected to be democratic leaning for Wisconsin (mainly Green Bay), Michigan (mainly Detroit & Lansing), Pennsylvania (mainly mail-in ballots), Georgia (almost exclusively Fulton county), while no obvious advantage for any party for other states as far as I am aware)

Edited 11/4/2020 13:04:12

i find it ironic that The Republican party Claims To Be Conservative And Patriotic But They Seem More and More Like A Fascist Party

It's already over. The senate is going to block literally everything Biden would propose, and then he'll cave in just like every other democrat.

goragl & Thungsten: as far as I'm aware, it is not allowed to discuss politics itself on Warzone. I believe knyte's post and myself's are within what is considered acceptable.

Additionally, what Thungsten says about the senate is factually incorrect:

Georgia outstanding ballots are in democratic leaning areas, so it's a realistic possibility that both Georgia races will go to a run-off (i.e. if Perdue drops under 50%).
Since it's reasonably likely that democrats will lock 48 seats (Arizona and Michigan in addition to races that are already called), senate is certainly not decided yet.

While arguably one of the most likely senate outcomes at his moment is 48-51 (Georgia-1 R, Maine R, NC R, Michigan D, Arizona D), any outcome between 47-52 (considerable probability that Michigan goes R) and 50-48 (Maine (high % outstanding vote) & NC (democratic leaning outstanding vote) also D combined with Georgia-1 run-off) is currently realistic enough to be considered.

(Note: my personal interest in the US election is purely from a statistical modelling and prediction point of view. Elections outcomes are very fascinating, especially in complex 2-party systems like the US.)

Edited 11/4/2020 14:21:24