US Politics: Dead Pimps Need Not Apply

[kairparavel]

13 hours ago, felice said:

Indeed. I have reservations about this sort of protest, but it's somewhat hypocritical of Carlson to object.

 

I present:

 

[Fez]

I didn't think I'd ever gain a tiny bit of respect of Martha McSally, but apparently I have; though only because of how much worse other Republicans are being... [My bolding]

Quote

 

At the highest levels of the national party, there’s frustration with McSally — and a sense that she’s not being aggressive enough throughout the process.

While Florida Gov. Rick Scott has lashed out at election officials over the vote counting in his state, McSally has been largely silent. Top officials with the White House and Republican National Committee, who’ve been prodding the McSally campaign to amp up its efforts, have expressed frustration that the Arizona congresswoman hasn’t tried to drive a message that there’s something amiss with the vote count.

On Thursday evening, senior Republicans joined the McSally campaign for a conference call to discuss the state of play. On the call, Justin Clark, the White House director of public liaison, and Mike Roman, a veteran opposition researcher who is working with the RNC, pressed the McSally campaign on what was being done.

RNC Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel, meanwhile, has spoken with Lines, and has expressed a desire for more aggressiveness.

 

I can't wait to see what happens if Trump does lose in 2020.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

So my conservative relatives are out in force with their memes and anger over the last couple of days. I'm going to say, blue wave happened.

 

Also, I can't wait for the next family reunion! They talk so much shit, but in person, they act so nice. I'm going to continue every shitty conversation they started, and I'm going to begin at the level of aggression they escalated to. 

[Relic]

31 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

and I'm going to begin at the level of aggression they escalated to. 

How do you think that's going to work out? The more attacked these snowflakes feel the harder they dig in their heels. I really think a lot of what we are experiencing in America boils down to ignorant people not liking to be told they are ignorant, and racist people being told they have to be racist in private. 

[Fez]

Florida senate margin has further narrowed, down to 12,562. Supposedly all ballots are now counted, except for overseas ballots, and there's zero word of how many of those actually exist.

The recount may narrow that margin some more too, but the only thing that'll actually turn this into a victory instead of an absurdly narrow defeat is if there really was a machine reading error in Broward.

[lokisnow]

Looks like democrats may flip another four districts in ca based on latest counts, lead change for Denham he’s now behind.

[SpaceChampion]

Long thread by an expert on ISIS propaganda about the terrorism she experienced at home -- in Kansas.

 

[Rippounet]

2 hours ago, Relic said:

How do you think that's going to work out? The more attacked these snowflakes feel the harder they dig in their heels. I really think a lot of what we are experiencing in America boils down to ignorant people not liking to be told they are ignorant, and racist people being told they have to be racist in private. 

It's not just ignorance or racism, it's stupidity, period.

I remember Norman Mailer (I think) saying that about W: that people liked the fact that he would act and sound stupid, thus making people feel good about themselves.

With Trump it's not just about feeling good, it's about being proud of your stupidity and crassness. There's climate change? Nah, fuck the planet. A complex geopolitical situation? Nah, America first. Etc....

51 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

Long thread by an expert on ISIS propaganda about the terrorism she experienced at home -- in Kansas.

 

Fascinating, thanks for sharing.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

6 hours ago, Relic said:

How do you think that's going to work out? The more attacked these snowflakes feel the harder they dig in their heels. I really think a lot of what we are experiencing in America boils down to ignorant people not liking to be told they are ignorant, and racist people being told they have to be racist in private. 

I agree--and I don't think I'm changing much of anything, but I also believe they don't get called out often in their everyday lives (in person). They kind of expect our silent complicity. 

[DMC]

So Silver did the type of quick and dirty analysis I sometimes do, adding up the House popular vote for each state and projecting it on an electoral map.  The exercise highlights three key takeaways many others are asserting as well:

• The battleground is narrowing.  A handful of states aren't really "purple" anymore at the presidential level - Ohio and Iowa (which actually looks pretty good in SIlver's tally, but I think the governor's race is a better indicator) are pretty red while Virginia, Colorado and Nevada are pretty blue
• The remaining six swing states can clearly be separated into two groups - Midwest states:  Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin vs. Sunbelt states:  Florida, Arizona, North Carolina.
• Silver's results reiterate that it looks far more fruitful to adopt a Midwest strategy than a Sunbelt

Midterms Show Historic Youth Turnout

Quote

approximately 31 percent of youth (ages 18-29) turned out to vote in the 2018 midterms, an extraordinary increase over the CIRCLE estimate in 2014 and the highest rate of turnout in at least 25 years.  In 2014, IOP estimates that approximately 10.8 million young Americans voted (Democrats preferred, 54 percent-43 percent), compared to 14.7 million in 2018 (Democrats preferred, 67 percent-32 percent). The actual number of Republican votes cast by those under age 30 remained stable from 2014 to 2018, while nearly all of the nearly 4 million increase in turnout came from those supporting Democrats. 

It is so so sad that 31 percent of turnout is considered "historic."  Anyway, more interesting is how increasingly polarized we are by age:

Quote

Age now accounts for one of the most significant divides in America; 35 percent of the electorate was estimated to be younger than 45 years old and they preferred Democrats, 61 to 36 percent (+25); among those 45 and older, Republicans were preferred by one percentage point. 

Finally, here's a tweet I would "like," if I was insane enough to be one twitter:

 

On 11/8/2018 at 7:48 PM, Kalbear said:

To be clear, I don't personally think that.

Ok.  I agree with I think everything you said in this post.

[Galactus]

A bit ago someone mentioned that US turnouts numbers are actually much, much worse than they look, comparatively, since they only count registered rather than eliglible voters. 

 

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, Galactus said:

A bit ago someone mentioned that US turnouts numbers are actually much, much worse than they look, comparatively, since they only count registered rather than eliglible voters. 

Counting by registered voters, US turnout is actually pretty comparable in presidential cycles to the rest of the world, but yes much lower in midterms.  Still, this was the highest midterm turnout since 1966.  Also in regards to eligible voters, Michael McDonald's U.S. Elections Project site has turnout data comparing VAP (voting-age population) to VEP (voting-eligible population) going back to 2000. 

[Galactus]

1 minute ago, DMC said:

Counting by registered voters, US turnout is actually pretty comparable in presidential cycles to the rest of the world, but yes much lower in midterms.  Still, this was the highest midterm turnout since 1966.  Also in regards to eligible voters, Michael McDonald's U.S. Elections Project site has turnout data comparing VAP (voting-age population) to VEP (voting-eligible population) going back to 2000. 

47% compared to 84% in the swedish elections this year. That's.... Not exactly comparable. 

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, Galactus said:

47% compared to 84% in the swedish elections this year. That's.... Not exactly comparable.

Again, the midterms are much lower.

[Fragile Bird]

I was curious to see how we compared in terms of turnout.

The turnout in the last 4 US elections has been 2004, 55.7%, 2008, 58.2%, 2012, 54.9% and 2016, 55.5%.

In Canada we have been shocked by bad turnout. In the same time period as the US elections (we don't have set terms, a minority government might only last 18 months) the turnout has been 2004, 60.9%, 2006, 64.7%, 2008, 58.8%, 2011, 61.1% and 2015, 68.5%. The 58.8% in 2008 was attributed to voter fatigue, being the third federal election in 4 years, and perhaps the recession, and was the lowest number in Canadian federal election history. 

1 hour ago, Galactus said:

A bit ago someone mentioned that US turnouts numbers are actually much, much worse than they look, comparatively, since they only count registered rather than eliglible voters. 

 

According to what I see on Wikipedia, the percentages are based on "Voting Age Population", not registered voters.

Any way you look at it, though, the US numbers are pretty awful. As are the Canadian numbers.

[DMC]

29 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

The turnout in the last 4 US elections has been 2004, 55.7%, 2008, 58.2%, 2012, 54.9% and 2016, 55.5% [...]

According to what I see on Wikipedia, the percentages are based on "Voting Age Population", not registered voters.

Again, there are small but significant difference once you correct from VAP to VEP (voting eligible population).  For VEP, those numbers look like 2004:  60.1%;  2008:  61.6%;  2012:  58.6%;  2016:  60.1%.

[Wethers]

Arizona Senate race update as of 6:30pm Arizona time (MST) as the mail-in ballot count continues:  Sinema's lead grows to a bit under 30k.  Tons of ballots still remain but I'm starting to feel good about this one.

Kyrsten Sinema (D):  1,048,655 (49.53%)

Martha McSally (R):  1,018,823 (48.12%)

As an aside, the Arizona Dem Secretary of State candidate (Hobbs) was trailing by tens of thousands a few days ago and is now within 2k of the Rep candidate (Gaynor).

https://results.arizona.vote/#/featured/4/0

 

[Gertrude]

5 hours ago, DMC said:

The battleground is narrowing.  A handful of states aren't really "purple" anymore at the presidential level - Ohio and Iowa (which actually looks pretty good in SIlver's tally, but I think the governor's race is a better indicator) are pretty red while Virginia, Colorado and Nevada are pretty blue

I wouldn't count Iowa out quite yet. The Dem gov candidate was particularly uncharismatic and no one I know was really excited about him, but he wasn't Reynolds. Get a good Dem presidential challenger and against Trump. I think we're gettable. Or maybe I am just too hopeful.

[DMC]

38 minutes ago, Gertrude said:

I wouldn't count Iowa out quite yet. The Dem gov candidate was particularly uncharismatic and no one I know was really excited about him, but he wasn't Reynolds. Get a good Dem presidential challenger and against Trump. I think we're gettable. Or maybe I am just too hopeful.

Sure.  Point there was is if the Dem wins Iowa, or Trump wins Virginia, Colorado or Nevada, then it's very very likely they won anyway.

[Jace, Extat]

Michael Che summed up Beto O'Rourke's appeal to Democrats as "He's young, he gives good speeches, he's charismatic. And he loses elections."