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US Politics: For Whom the Bell Tolls


Fragile Bird

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See if this were a normal special election where about 12.5% of voters from a presidential election votes, Jones would have a chance, but it's not, the media has insured about 60%+ of voters from a presidential election will vote, and in Alabama that means of  sheer numerical demographic necessity, that Moore will win in a landslide.

Since the mainstream democrat analytics driven "losing is the best way to govern" philosophy has been implemented the past couple decades, democrats have followed the wonks advice and never invested a penny in Alabama voter registration nor party building efforts. So that means they scrambled for a month or so to register voters to no real avail. If democrats had a two decade long program registering voters in red states they'd have hundreds of thousands more potential voters in Alabama to mobilize. But the Clinton/obama wonk-approved analytics driven strategy of never preparing to win and to instead opt to strategically mandate built in losses decade after decade means that when these Roy Moore or Todd akin chances occur, democrats can barely take advantage because their strategy of pre-losing means they can't even beat a pedophile. (Missouri has tilted so far red since national democrats abandoned my home state as not worth investing in that I do not think it is possible mcckaskill would beat akin in 2016 or even in a 2017 special election)

remember, when Moore wins, his victory  is what every national democrat leader has intended to happen when they've talked about "allocating resources smartly"

if we ever get a ground up national democrat party that furthers the interests of fifty state parties in all fifty states, democrats might begin to compete again a teensy little bit in elections across the board.

but probably not since republicans will change the rules and suppress democracy and the press in the interim. Elected Republicans hate this county and all of its values and are in general fundamentally evil pursuing evil policies and they will do whatever it takes to make sure that keeps happening. Why would an evil person balk at a pedophile, just another hail fellow well met ally, amiright? 

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28 minutes ago, WinterFox said:

It's only like an informed gut feeling, but I think that in the unlikely event that I eat my bra tomorrow (probably more like Wednesday), Jones would actually win by more like +7

I agree that if Jones wins, he's more likely to win big than small.  I liked the line someone mentioned upthread of Moore +5.5, that's what I'd put it at if I were Vegas.  If I have to guess my first instinct was to go with Moore +5, but I'll go with Moore +4.  Because it sounds cooler.

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Well, David Brooks says he’s had it with the Republican Party. Well I guess it’s good that Brooks has decided the Republican Party has become such a buffoonish party he’s out. Guess better late than never.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/07/opinion/the-gop-is-rotting.html

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A lot of good, honorable Republicans used to believe there was a safe middle ground. You didn’t have to tie yourself hip to hip with Donald Trump, but you didn’t have to go all the way to the other extreme and commit political suicide like the dissident Jeff Flake, either. You could sort of float along in the middle, and keep your head down until this whole Trump thing passed.

A few comments.

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Then he asked the party to accept his comprehensive ignorance and his politics of racial division. 

Well, honestly, David the conservative movement has always been willing to pander to racism. It’s just that Trump amplified the situation.

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Now he asks the party to give up its reputation for fiscal conservatism.

LOL. Okay. It was only by reputation. In reality, it was all talk and little action. Not that I’m particularly attached to “fiscal conservatism” I just saying by the standards of it’s own rhetoric, it never lived up to it’s own hype. 

Like I said before, it’s like that guy you wrestled in high school. You known the one. The one that wouldn’t shut the fuck up about how good he was. Then he gets his ass kicked, but still keeps talkin’ trash. And you’re like “what the fuck is wrong with this clown?”

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There is no end to what Trump will ask of his party. 

What’s even scarier is what they will give.

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Young people and people of color look at the Trump-Moore G.O.P. and they are repulsed, maybe forever.

At this point, I think every person that wants to be decent should be repulsed forever.

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It’s amazing that there haven’t been more Republicans like Mitt Romney who have said: “Enough is enough! I can go no further!”

Well its not all that amazing too me. The Republican Party has for a long time refused to own up to it’s own bullshit. And before you make Mitt Romney look like some hero, just remember he’s the one that said 47% of Americans are lazy. And I just have to think, that kind of rhetoric is often interpreted as a racist dog whistle by many Republicans.

The main difference here, I think, is Trump didn’t do dog whistles. Instead he used a bullhorn. He didn't even try to be subtle about it.

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The reason, I guess, is that the rot that has brought us to the brink of Senator Roy Moore began long ago. Starting with Sarah Palin and the spread of Fox News, the G.O.P. traded an ethos of excellence for an ethos of hucksterism.

Yup. No argument there. I think many people got on the conservative pundit gravy train because it was an easy way to make a buck.

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The Republican Party I grew up with admired excellence

Yeah, it was a real legend in its own mind.

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Excellence is hierarchical.

Then you should love the Trump Presidency. The plutocrats are clearly in charge. And they intend to say in charge, no matter what type of dirty tricks they have to pull.
 

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All rested on a body of serious intellectual work.

LOL. Sure, Art Laffer was a person with serious ideas. Anyway…

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Supply-side was based on Say’s Law, that supply creates its own demand. 

I’ve joked in the past that the Republican Party and conservatives are “The Say’s Law Believers”.

Interestingly enough, Say himself seemingly questioned the law named after him around 1829 after the English Banking Crises of the 1820s.

And then sometimes later John Stuart Mill figured out there could be a “general glut” once you had money and financial assets in an economy.

Milton Friedman's idea was basically you could relieve the general glut by putting enough money into the economy.

Where Keynes differed was that he said, well not exactly old Milt. He said, if you don’t have enough interest bearing safe stores of value, you can still have a general glut even if you pump all types of money into the economy, resulting in a general glut.

Anyway, I have no idea how somebody that purports to admire Milton Friedman, like you Dave, became just an ardent lover of Says Law. No fuckin’ clue. Friedman was very politically conservative, and I’d disagree with many of his ideas, but he was smart enough to realize that you couldn’t just let the bottom drop out of the economy and rely on Says Law to right things, particularly if your goal was to have permanent conservative governance. He knew the right needed some kind of rational answer to Keynes. 
 

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Those cuts were embraced by Nobel Prize winners and represented an entire social vision, favoring the dispersed entrepreneurs over the concentrated corporate fat cats.

Yet, it would seem it was the corporate fat cats that got richer. And the supposed extra growth never came.
 

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Today’s tax cuts have no bipartisan support. They have no intellectual grounding, no body of supporting evidence. 

No they do not.

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They do not respond to the central crisis of our time.

That’s because some people chose to believe in Say’s Law. 

The Say’s Law Believers, also known as the Republican Party.

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The rot afflicting the G.O.P. is comprehensive — moral, intellectual, political and reputational. 

Yup.

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More and more former Republicans wake up every day and realize: “I’m homeless. I’m politically homeless.”

Well, by the second half of Dubya’s presidency they should have had a clue something had gone seriously wrong. By 2010 or so they should have realized the Republican Party had utterly lost it’s effing mind. But rather than anyone saying “uh, Houston we have a problem” they were too busy arguing about who was the true conservative.

And now here we are.

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7 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Well, David Brooks says he’s had it with the Republican Party.

One of the reasons it's hard to truly dislike Trump and Bannon is the sheer quantity of utterly awful people who are opposed to them. Driving pseudo-intellectuals like Brooks out of major political parties (where's he going to go? will the Democrats take him?) is practically a public service.

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1 hour ago, lokisnow said:

So I think probably Moore + 12 and within seconds of the results becoming clear, fez posts that this loss is actually an enormous victory for democrats.

In a normal race, a Democrat only losing by 12 in Alabama would be a pretty big deal; yet another good sign for the 2018 midterms. But with the unique characteristics of this race, it's impossible to draw any takeaways from the race.

As for my prediction, I'm gonna go with Jones+3. I wouldn't be remotely surprised by a single-digit win in either direction, so I'm gonna go with my heart.

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32 minutes ago, Altherion said:

One of the reasons it's hard to truly dislike Trump and Bannon is the sheer quantity of utterly awful people who are opposed to them. Driving pseudo-intellectuals like Brooks out of major political parties (where's he going to go? will the Democrats take him?) is practically a public service.

Pseudo intellectuals are the absolute worst. Give me some salt-of-the-earth racists, nazis, and kleptocrats any day. Amirite?

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10 minutes ago, Week said:

Pseudo intellectuals are the absolute worst. Give me some salt-of-the-earth racists, nazis, and kleptocrats any day. Amirite?

They got rid of the actual intellectuals 20 years (or more) ago, so the de-intellectualising of the party had to find a way to get rid of the pseudo's so that it could become a completely nonintellectual party. Intellect is the enemy of ideology.

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Truly a glorious rally for Moore tonight, with his wife saying 'fake news is telling you we don't like Jews. One of our attorneys is a Jew".

And Bannon, saying Washington Republicans will abandon the base as soon as the corporate tax provisions are passed, saying 'there's a special place in hell' for those Republicans, mocking Ivanka Trump and her comment about abusers of children.

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26 minutes ago, Triskele said:

What do people think of the cynical view that there's a silver lining for the left if Moore wins because then the GOP has to go through with the indignity of having him in the Senate?  

Like I said, running against Roy Moore as the face of the GOP Congress in a swing district is something any operative would relish.

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Jones +1.

Followed by immediate demands for a recount.  During the recount, a pile of ballots for Moore mysteriously appears, enough to give him a borderline victory.  Democrats call fowl, but Trumps new Voter Fraud crew calls those claims overblown. 

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32 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Like I said, running against Roy Moore as the face of the GOP Congress in a swing district is something any operative would relish.

I think there are several non-Alabama states / districts that lean GOP but would send Moore packing.  Maybe there’s a chance that Moore winning will signal to some of those voters we might not be on the best path here.  Lose an Alabama Senate seat that you probably had no chance of winning anyway, but set up the larger party as one that chooses politics over morality.  

However, I have very serious doubts that many GOP voters will hold Moore against whoever their local guy is and a loss is still a loss.  Kinda like in college football when you play teams like say, appropriately enough, Alabama - and your team loses but you don’t get your ass kicked as badly as you thought you were going to.  Some silver lining to be found there, but ultimately still goes into the record books as a big fat L.

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3 minutes ago, S John said:

Lose an Alabama Senate seat that you probably had no chance of winning anyway

Not to mention one you will certainly lose in 2020 even if you win.

3 minutes ago, S John said:

I have very serious doubts that many GOP voters will hold Moore against whoever their local guy is and a loss is still a loss.

National trends have a very strong impact on the (overall) results of midterms, and Roy Moore has definitely been nationalized - in part with the help of Trump.

5 minutes ago, S John said:

ultimately still goes into the record books as a big fat L.

I really don't see losing in Alabama as "a big fat L."  More like a gimme for Republicans they managed to squander into competitive.

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1 hour ago, Triskele said:

What do people think of the cynical view that there's a silver lining for the left if Moore wins because then the GOP has to go through with the indignity of having him in the Senate?  

I don't have a take on this that I feel too strongly about, but I have a hard time signing on.  It feels like there's been this never-ending parade of "if the GOP goes this far, it will come back to bite them" commentary for years, and yet here we are with the GOP owning the US government and starting to pack the courts. 

Trump is the white house, he's as big of a piece of shit as Moore is. If they vote Moore while Trump is still in the white house fucking everyone over, they won't ever have a stink attached to them that will drown the party. It means nothing. This country is a shit infested hell hole plagued with bigoted hard right zealots that would hand over their own kids over to be raped by people like Moore if that meant they could fuck over the marginalized.

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