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US Politics: In Through the Out Door


DMC

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Also in news that I find a massive relief Proposition 6, “the Repeal of Funding for Road and Bridge Repair” that republicans put on the ballot to try to get their base activated failed and is losing by about 600,000 votes, enough that they have called the race!

that was 5.5 billion in annual funding for road repair and transit that republicans were trying to repeal, there was no way to find that amount of money hiding under mysterious unobtanium republican rocks!

For a local example, in 2008 and 2016, la county funded sales taxes to finance transit projects, which got about combined 200M for a carpool lane and truck lane project on interstate 5 in my area from castaic lake to state highway 14, but as the sales tax revenue is only available annually and thus the project isn’t scheduled for about 4 years from now in spite of having completed CEQA and preliminary engineering. Steve Knight successfully squeezed 50 million in funding for the same project from the trump admin but only because this road repair act had resulted in an allocation of 250M next year, doubling the previous allocations, but more importantly the road repair act makes the money available now, so that when the outer lane pavement refurbishment project in the same area is completed next year, they’ll start work right away on the carpool and truck lanes, years ahead of schedule. (I believe the prior plan had been contingent on getting equal federal matching money which has more or less dried up in The trump admin, so it saves the feds money too.)

and an overlooked and important part about this bill was that it also indexes the gas tax to inflation, so it’s a relief it wasn’t repealed, because we will have much more stable transportation funding without inflation erosion.

And it levies additional annual usage fees on electric cars which is much needed particularly as Tesla is selling 5000-10,000 in California monthly now!

This was the prop I was most nervous about as something of a transportation wonk, so I’m thrilled to see it get defeated.

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I'm worried that the Dems are going to take this as a signal to start investigating Trump on a massive scale. If they get too brash and threaten Trump himself, it will only serve to energize his base even more in the general. With the senate being what it is and his base being drooling idiots who can't wait to be robbed blind, he is virtually bulletproof. Targeting the kleptocrats in his administration harms him a lot more than a circus based around Trump.

Gotta say though, the fact that we saw so many young people come out and vote, and such a diverse slate of candidates be pretty successful is awesome. I'm really hoping that this marks a shift in the political engagement of young people at least for this generation, but I doubt it.

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Dem Sisolak (D) wins Nevada governor race over Laxalt (R).  

And in Connecticut - wow.  Ned Lamont (D) may be making a late comeback in the governor race over Stefanowski (R).

Edited to add - Lamont up now slightly with 90% precincts in (most 100%), with the ones that are left being mostly urban counties like Stamford, Hartford and New Haven which are partly-counted.  Would mean at least good gains overall in the governor races for the Dems.

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26 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

I'm worried that the Dems are going to take this as a signal to start investigating Trump on a massive scale. If they get too brash and threaten Trump himself, it will only serve to energize his base even more in the general.

'Worried' is quite the wrong word there.

Democrats cannot spend every waking moment terrified of what the other side will do and trying not to upset them. Trump's base will be energised in 2020 no matter what happens. Trump will be out there, blowing racist whistles (they won't even be dog whistles by that time), firing them up. If Democrats did literally nothing for two years, Trump would simply invent things to fire up his base.

Finding the truth about Trump, on the other hand, will keep the Democrat's base fired up, which matters more than trying to placate the Trump fans. They won't be placated, and it's foolish to try.

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The most important investigations against Trump, in terms of political optics, will be regarding the corruption rife in his administration. They may not care about foreign policy one bit, where there's a lot to investiage, but Trump and his cronies reaching into their pockets is going to bother at least some of that base.

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52 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

I'm worried that the Dems are going to take this as a signal to start investigating Trump on a massive scale. If they get too brash and threaten Trump himself, it will only serve to energize his base even more in the general. With the senate being what it is and his base being drooling idiots who can't wait to be robbed blind, he is virtually bulletproof. Targeting the kleptocrats in his administration harms him a lot more than a circus based around Trump.

The very last thing Dems need to worry about is how energised Trump's base is.

Just assume that they will be maximally energised, cos Trump WILL lie and create controversy in order to energise them - it's about the only thing he's actually good at.

If Dems kowtow to Trump, his base will be 100% motivated.

If Dems resist literally everything that Trump does, his base will be 100% motivated.

Anything in between, and his base will be 100% motivated.

 

Trump will get 20% of the US population to vote for him, (maybe less in an economic crisis, more if he gets to declare war on Iran)

The question is whether the Dems can enough out to overcome the electoral college and voter suppression.

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1 minute ago, mormont said:

'Worried' is quite the wrong word there.

Democrats cannot spend every waking moment terrified of what the other side will do and trying not to upset them. Trump's base will be energised in 2020 no matter what happens. Trump will be out there, blowing racist whistles (they won't even be dog whistles by that time), firing them up. If Democrats did literally nothing for two years, Trump would simply invent things to fire up his base.

Finding the truth about Trump, on the other hand, will keep the Democrat's base fired up, which matters more than trying to placate the Trump fans. They won't be placated, and it's foolish to try.

Maybe you're right, being seen as standing up to Trump is really good for the Dems, but at the same time, when you're talking about how we're gonna get the bastard and not actually achieving anything, it hurts your political capital. I'm not saying that they shouldn't do anything, but they need to be smart about this. If they just go charging in there, it's gonna make them look like idiots. Finding ways to win lesser, but still damaging victories is going to be key. Absolutely go after him, but don't get so focused on him that you lose sight of the larger picture. I think that being able to go back to the voters in 2020 and say, "not only did they go after Turmp, but they took down a few of the pieces of shit who surround him" sounds a lot better than "Well, we tried to skewer Trump but besides winning the moral victory we haven't actually achieved anything.".

Also

 

18 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

The very last thing Dems need to worry about is how energised Trump's base is.

Just assume that they will be maximally energised, cos Trump WILL lie and create controversy in order to energise them - it's about the only thing he's actually good at.

If Dems kowtow to Trump, his base will be 100% motivated.

If Dems resist literally everything that Trump does, his base will be 100% motivated.

Anything in between, and his base will be 100% motivated.

They absolutely need to resist everything they can. I'm talking about the optics for the Dems. Only going after Trump is pointless because he is bulletproof. Going after his cabinet and picking it apart gives you another drum to beat. My argument is that just paying attention only to Trump while his kleptocrat pals enrich themselves behind the scenes is missing a major arrow in your quiver come 2020.

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Fair enough, and I would absolutely agree that undermining trump by getting his close supporters is probably the best tactic; I think ideas more into your post than was necessarily there on a re-read - though you did warn against energising Trump's base...

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1 hour ago, mormont said:

'Worried' is quite the wrong word there.

Democrats cannot spend every waking moment terrified of what the other side will do and trying not to upset them. Trump's base will be energised in 2020 no matter what happens. Trump will be out there, blowing racist whistles (they won't even be dog whistles by that time), firing them up. If Democrats did literally nothing for two years, Trump would simply invent things to fire up his base.

Finding the truth about Trump, on the other hand, will keep the Democrat's base fired up, which matters more than trying to placate the Trump fans. They won't be placated, and it's foolish to try.

Nicely put.

The Dems motto needs to be "Stand Strong" and "Turn the Tide" and if only they could take that to heart. Whether it means taking a loss in 2020 or not (Oh how I hope not!), it's still what must be done. There needs to be a direction chosen and not wavered from. Much, much, much, easier said than done with the Dems, I know! A long game needs to be played though, the Republicans know how to do that, the Dems need to learn.

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37 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

Fair enough, and I would absolutely agree that undermining trump by getting his close supporters is probably the best tactic; I think ideas more into your post than was necessarily there on a re-read - though you sidearm against energising Trump's base...

I should have phrased it as hurting the left with independents. I don't think that running on an anti-Trump platform is gonna get us across the line in 2020. So many folks have tuned out because of how politics has worked of the last few years (The Dems call Trump out for being awful, he dismisses it and engineers a more entertaining but less politically damaging scandal/gaff to get folks off the schedule), so Dems shouting about how bad Trump is is just feeding into that issue. Folks around him being dragged out of their homes in handcuffs or dragged in front of the house is actually going to get some attention (I hope).

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While I wasn’t expecting a blue wave, and understood the Senate was just structurally difficult to take and defend this term, and knew that voter suppression and gerrymandering put the odds against us in a number of place, and am aware that R voters just tend to be better than Dems at voting in midterms, I have to say that I’m pretty aghast at how many people actually came out to double down on the stupid and the bigoted.  Like how is the US this full of the boundlessly hateful and credulous?    And are they actually even this gullible, or do they pretend to believe Dems are giving free healthcare and scholarships or whatever to MS13 members that are apparently coming over in droves to rape white women?  

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Morning thoughts...it seems to me that there is something extremely broken in a society where elections are the cause of so much anxiety. I observed to many people on the verge of flipping out yesterday, and that just seems...wrong. How do we back away from the edge of this precipice? 

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33 minutes ago, drawkcabi said:

Nicely put.

The Dems motto needs to be "Stand Strong" and "Turn the Tide" and if only they could take that to heart. Whether it means taking a loss in 2020 or not (Oh how I hope not!), it's still what must be done. There needs to be a direction chosen and not wavered from. Much, much, much, easier said than done with the Dems, I know! A long game needs to be played though, the Republicans know how to do that, the Dems need to learn.

Slate had a piece on the enormity that is Democrat messaging the other day.  I have to say, this also confuses me.   I get the sense that a lot of the country’s creatives are on the Dem side; how is it that their talents aren’t being applied?    Why are the Dems always going so milquetoast at the national level?      In terms of specific messaging, I’m curious if something forward-looking would serve them, like appealing to the future as opposed to this regressive, backward-looking nostalgia shit Trump peddles.

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9 minutes ago, butterbumps! said:

While I wasn’t expecting a blue wave, and understood the Senate was just structurally difficult to take and defend this term, and knew that voter suppression and gerrymandering put the odds against us in a number of place, and am aware that R voters just tend to be better than Dems at voting in midterms, I have to say that I’m pretty aghast at how many people actually came out to double down on the stupid and the bigoted.  Like how is the US this full of the boundlessly hateful and credulous?    And are they actually even this gullible, or do they pretend to believe Dems are giving free healthcare and scholarships or whatever to MS13 members that are apparently coming over in droves to rape white women?  

Well, some of the people I grew up with in NH do truly believe that the left wants fully open borders with no controls and that if step over the line into the US then you are guaranteed a great paying job, benefits, etc.  They believe that because it was repeated enough that it had to be true.

One of them posted the meme showing the comparison between Trump and Obama. Even after it was pointed out that the image had been modified to show an incorrect approval rating for Trump he said he fully supported the data presented.  Reality and facts have no meaning when a good party line can be repeated.

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2 minutes ago, butterbumps! said:

Slate had a piece on the enormity that is Democrat messaging the other day.  I have to say, this also confuses me.   I get the sense that a lot of the country’s creatives are on the Dem side; how is it that their talents aren’t being applied?    Why are the Dems always going so milquetoast at the national level?      In terms of specific messaging, I’m curious if something forward-looking would serve them, like appealing to the future as opposed to this regressive, backward-looking nostalgia shit Trump peddles.

I think part of it is that Dem's probably consume a more diverse range of media. Not to sound arrogant, but I think that Dems listen to a wider range of opinions on their side of the aisle than Republicans do. Because of this, you often get conflicting messages and differing ideas, where as Republicans largely consume Fox, which is the propaganda arm of the RNC, or other right wing commentators who either take all their cues from Fox or feed into the madness that Fox dispense. Also Dems have a wider range of opinions within the party, which makes it harder to message to the entire group without putting at least one part of your base off. The messaging that gets me fired up is not what gets a more centrist Dem, do you end up with watered down trash that inspires no one but doesn't actively offend anyone.

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16 minutes ago, Relic said:

Morning thoughts...it seems to me that there is something extremely broken in a society where elections are the cause of so much anxiety. I observed to many people on the verge of flipping out yesterday, and that just seems...wrong. How do we back away from the edge of this precipice? 

The only solution I see is to keep trying every election until Trump and all the Trump Republicans are voted out. However difficult that is. Then maybe the GOP can rebuild themselves and we'll have at least two sane political parties again and we can vote based on the ideas we like most to steer the country rather than out of a sense of desperate preservation. As long as elements of Trump coalition remain as voting options elections are going to try the nerves of the most stalwart of us.

 

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1 minute ago, GrimTuesday said:

I think part of it is that Dem's probably consume a more diverse range of media. Not to sound arrogant, but I think that Dems listen to a wider range of opinions on their side of the aisle than Republicans do. Because of this, you often get conflicting messages and differing ideas, where as Republicans largely consume Fox, which is the propaganda arm of the RNC, or other right wing commentators who either take all their cues from Fox or feed into the madness that Fox dispense. Also Dems have a wider range of opinions within the party, which makes it harder to message to the entire group without putting at least one part of your base off. The messaging that gets me fired up is not what gets a more centrist Dem, do you end up with watered down trash that inspires no one but doesn't actively offend anyone.

Seems to me that this is all due to our dumb two party system. Dems have to represent all progressives, and a deal of centrists too, and that's just not good for anyone involved. 

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1 minute ago, drawkcabi said:

The only solution I see is to keep trying every election until Trump and all the Trump Republicans are voted out. However difficult that is. Then maybe the GOP can rebuild themselves and we'll have at least two sane political parties again and we can vote based on the ideas we like most to steer the country rather than out of a sense of desperate preservation. As long as elements of Trump coalition remain as voting options elections are going to try the nerves of the most stalwart of us.

 

For the record, I felt some of that anxiety as well, although not to the extent i felt it during the evening hours on election day 2016. So i understand where its coming from, but it just doesnt seem like that should be the case in a healthy democratic society. Which i guess we have never been. 

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