US Politics: In Through the Out Door

[Paladin of Ice]

Gotta agree with Trisk, I don’t take what Pelosi or Schumer are saying at face value at all. Of course they don’t expect Republicans to suddenly stand up for what’s right or for Trump to do a 180 and be a reasonable deal maker, they’re saying it because it’s what is the traditionally expected and ritual thing to say, and so when Republicans turn around and spit on the outstretched hand, Democrats can turn around to the press and the people and say “Well, we tried, and you all saw it.”

What they don’t seem to get is that the traditional way is outdated and, for the foreseeable future, as meaningless as yesterday’s garbage. The press isn’t an impartial ref between the sides, it’s mostly giant corporations that will bend over backwards to avoid alienating potential customers, even if that means utterly neglecting their basic function. When a large segment of potential customers (right wingers) insist that the sky isn’t blue but yellow and purple polka dots and constantly rail against you for not giving fair treatment to the polka dot theory, most corporate media will find a way to twist their reporting to not directly contradict the polka dot point of view.

 The general public doesn’t care either, since most of them only pay loose attention to political news at best, and often only when there’s an election around the corner. (political junkies who constantly follow the news and talk about it in person or online are very much outside the norm.)About the only thing they really care about is effectiveness, not whether you’re doing something the right way or according to the rules.

Democratic politicians are like an athletic competitor whose opponent blatantly cheats, so Democrats look to the ref and the crowd to plead their case and get rewarded. Except the ref is just shrugging and letting things go on, the crowd is not actually watching the action, and the opponent is using the chance to rack up the points, however illegally they’ve been gained. When the crowd finally does tune in to see what the final score was, all they see are that Democrats are losers.

Dems keep thinking someday they’ll be rewarded for trying to win strictly according to the rules, that the ref will call fouls and/or disqualify the opponent and the crowd will run the opponent out of town, but bottom line it looks pretty damn unlikely, and if it does ever happen it’s going to be at the margins and not a deciding factor.

That is what I think Dems can’t or won’t wrap their heads around. They’re still gesturing to the ref and crowd and nothing is going to happen.

[karaddin]

20 minutes ago, Paladin of Ice said:

Democratic politicians are like an athletic competitor whose opponent blatantly cheats, so Democrats look to the ref and the crowd to plead their case and get rewarded. Except the ref is just shrugging and letting things go on, the crowd is not actually watching the action, and the opponent is using the chance to rack up the points, however illegally they’ve been gained. When the crowd finally does tune in to see what the final score was, all they see are that Democrats are losers.

Dems keep thinking someday they’ll be rewarded for trying to win strictly according to the rules, that the ref will call fouls and/or disqualify the opponent and the crowd will run the opponent out of town, but bottom line it looks pretty damn unlikely, and if it does ever happen it’s going to be at the margins and not a deciding factor.

That is what I think Dems can’t or won’t wrap their heads around. They’re still gesturing to the ref and crowd and nothing is going to happen.

This analogy is perfect.

I remember being told while playing soccer back in school "play the ball not the ref". The Dem's are still standing there politely waving to get the refs attention while the ref is asleep on a sun chair on the sideline.

[The Marquis de Leech]

2 hours ago, kairparavel said:

So here's a question about that: concession before all the ballots are counted. 

If we want to maintain the idea that every vote counts why on earth do we allow candidates to concede before everything is counted? Plus, with everything we've seen in the past decade plus, why would you ever not wait til the very end?(And this I genuinely don't know (and yeah I should but I don't) - does conceding too soon mean anything or is just symbolic?)

Concession doesn't mean anything legally. A candidate can un-concede if they want.

[The Marquis de Leech]

On the Senate front, I'm looking at it this way: it was a rough night. But it would have been Armageddon under President Hillary Clinton.

[The Marquis de Leech]

6 hours ago, DMC said:

There's plenty of other Speakers/minority leaders that could be as adept at fundraising and whipping.  My preference for Pelosi to be gone has nothing to do with her.  It has to do with the fact the GOP has used her as a boogeywoman for over a decade.  Time for that to stop.  But it won't, because she'll cling to power like any other douchebag instead of doing what's best for the party.

The Republicans will use *any* Democratic leader as a boogeyman. It's what they do, and anyone voting Republican because of Pelosi was always going to vote Republican.

Pelosi was a highly competent Speaker. The real issues a decade ago were Harry Reid and the Senate.

[Crazydog7]

I guess I never realized how badly the deck was stacked because as a Liberal in South Carolina I am used to losing by a 60/40 margin how the hell do you win the popular vote of the various senate races by almost 11 million votes and still not control the senate? 

[Paladin of Ice]

16 minutes ago, Crazydog7 said:

I guess I never realized how badly the deck was stacked because as a Liberal in South Carolina I am used to losing by a 60/40 margin how the hell do you win the popular vote of the various senate races by almost 11 million votes and still not control the senate? 

Run up the votes in the the wrong races. Mazie Hirono winning 73% of the vote in Hawaii does nothing to help Donnelly in Indiana or Heitkamp in North Dakota. In California you had the two Democrats competing for one Senate seat without a Republican in the race, that was about 6.5 million votes by itself, not one of which did any good for Bill Nelson or Claire McCaskill. Same with Gillibrand's almost 1.85 million vote edge, and every other deep blue state or surprisingly easy win in a purple state, like Ohio and Wisconsin.

[DMC]

3 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I know, but I also think a whole lot of dems out there are tired of even pretending to be the adult in the room and want to have someone say "fuck no, we are going with our agenda, and either trump can get on board and be a Democrat or he can get out of the way." And meanwhile punish the shit out of his cabinet.

This is pretty ridiculous.  Are you seriously whining about some tweet that isn't particularly "bi-partisan" nor adult but just Schumer's rather pro forma statement on the Sessions firing?  From the article linked within that same tweet, Schumer said:

Quote

“I find the timing very suspect, No. 1,” Schumer told reporters. “But No. 2, our paramount view is that any attorney general, whether this one or another one, should not be able to interfere with the Mueller investigation in any way."

"They should not be able to end it, they should not be able to limit it, they should not be able to interfere with Mueller going forward and doing what he thinks is the right thing. And that will help guide us as we go through this process," he said.

Is..is that good enough for you?

1 hour ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

The Republicans will use *any* Democratic leader as a boogeyman. It's what they do, and anyone voting Republican because of Pelosi was always going to vote Republican.

Pelosi was a highly competent Speaker. The real issues a decade ago were Harry Reid and the Senate.

Yes, the Republicans will seek to use any Dem as a boogey..person.  However, that doesn't mean it will be as effective as Pelosi for quite some time.  It takes a while to raise name ID, whereas Pelosi's has been very high for a very long time now.  As for GOP voters not changing their minds due to Pelosi, yes, this is generally true, but she is used in appeals to encourage turnout and/or enthusiasm.  That's not a negligible effect, particularly in a midterm.

I'm no huge fan of Harry Reid, but I'd need more of an explanation for why the Dem Senate is more to blame than the Dem House when they were in the majority (which is what I assume you mean by "a decade ago.")

[DMC]

1 hour ago, Crazydog7 said:

I guess I never realized how badly the deck was stacked because as a Liberal in South Carolina I am used to losing by a 60/40 margin how the hell do you win the popular vote of the various senate races by almost 11 million votes and still not control the senate? 

The popular vote in the Senate is a pointless statistic.  What happened in the states that happen to hold the 33-35 races each cycle is not an indicator of anything.  And it's hard to say where those 11 million votes came from.  Maybe it was in states with safe Dem seats that weren't competitive contests at all - which would  again mean the numbers mean nothing - I don't know.  One would have to look into each individual race, which is what you should be doing anyway.

[DMC]

Sorry for the triple post, it's late and I get distracted like a cat with a flashlight.  As for Gillum potentially demanding a recount, just no.  He's down by about 43 thousand votes.  The chances the tally could be overturned is as close to zero as possible, so all a recount would do is just increase negative perceptions of Democrats among Florida voters.

[DMC]

@Maithanet - you were definitely right about the Arizona election:

Quote

In Arizona, Republican Rep. Martha McSally currently leads Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema by about 1 percentage point. However, the Arizona Republic estimates that almost 650,000 votes have yet to be counted statewide — including 80,000 to 100,000 in blue-leaning Pima County and 500,000 (!) in Maricopa County (the Phoenix area). Maricopa has some very blue corners and some very red corners, so without knowing where the outstanding ballots are coming from, this is a totally wide-open race. Reportedly, the state will issue updated vote totals at 5 p.m. local time every day starting on Thursday, Nov. 8.

Should be fun to watch!

[Relic]

5 hours ago, karaddin said:

i think people should stop equating voting for bigotry with being stupid. Not only is this unfair in that plenty of people with lower intelligence are wonderful and compassionate people whose worth shouldn't be judged by their intelligence, it also has the extremely toxic effect of allowing the bigotry demonstrated by "known" intelligent people to be dismissed. People are voting for bigotry and hatred because they are bigoted and hateful or they are cynically self centred and don't care about the bigotry and hatred if it suits their interests. And an awful lot of white people feel that their interests are represented by the "white race" ahead of anything else. Don't give it a pass, don't dismiss it as stupidity, and don't think there aren't plenty of truly awful educated and intelligent people that are bigoted as fuck.

 

100% this. 

[Morpheus]

The WH is sharing Infowars doctored footage to justify revoking the press pass for CNN’s Jim accosta after Trump threw a hissy fit over his question. So that is where we are in our Orwellian hellscape post election.

https://newrepublic.com/minutes/152131/smear-cnns-jim-acosta-white-house-seems-borrowed-sped-up-infowars-video

[karaddin]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

Sorry for the triple post, it's late and I get distracted like a cat with a flashlight.  As for Gillum potentially demanding a recount, just no.  He's down by about 43 thousand votes.  The chances the tally could be overturned is as close to zero as possible, so all a recount would do is just increase negative perceptions of Democrats among Florida voters.

Aren't provisional ballots only counted in a recount? Or is it when the number of provisional ballots are greater than the margin and they've already been counted?

[mormont]

6 hours ago, Paxter said:

Yeah he does seem pretty livid. Which is weird because my overall read is that the mid-terms were a stale-mate or admirable draw rather than a definite victory for either side. 

I know others have responded about whether this was a stalemate, but: it doesn't really matter if it was a stalemate, if you want to understand Trump's fury. He's livid because he feels his authority was challenged, and it both terrifies and enrages him when that happens, whether or not that challenge ultimately succeeds. Look at that video from the press conference. This is a guy who feels the ground shifting under him, and he's lashing out in response, because it's all he has in his emotional repertoire.

[DMC]

31 minutes ago, karaddin said:

Aren't provisional ballots only counted in a recount? Or is it when the number of provisional ballots are greater than the margin and they've already been counted?

Good question.  I've never looked into it, so don't know.  I suspect it's the latter.  Probably varies by state too.

[karaddin]

3 minutes ago, DMC said:

Good question.  I've never looked into it, so don't know.  I suspect it's the latter.  Probably varies by state too.

It seems like everything does lol

[David Selig]

5 hours ago, Crazydog7 said:

I guess I never realized how badly the deck was stacked because as a Liberal in South Carolina I am used to losing by a 60/40 margin how the hell do you win the popular vote of the various senate races by almost 11 million votes and still not control the senate? 

The Democrats actually won most Senate seats which were decided this year, and by a very big margin too (23-10, or close to it, depending on what happens in Arizona). But most of the races were for seats they already held so it ended up being a net loss for them.

[The Anti-Targ]

21 hours ago, DMC said:

@The Anti-Targ

The reason I can't conceive of it has nothing to do with the political culture I was reared in and everything to do with the fact I'm a cynical asshole.

 

Not to belabour the point, but politically cynical assholes are everywhere, the exact nature of the cynicism is shaped by the political culture.

[DMC]

1 minute ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Not to belabour the point, but politically cynical assholes are everywhere, the exact nature of the cynicism is shaped by the political culture.

Don't tell me how my cynicism was shaped.  I was raised in an incredibly privileged environment that emphasized optimism in the possible changes for the future.  Looking back, that was literally the curriculum.  That and they are not to blame for me being a cynical asshole.  I would have been a cynical asshole no matter where or how I was raised - let alone it's "political culture."