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US Politics: Paradise Lost


Fragile Bird

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4 hours ago, Zorral said:

What the rethugs and orange nazi are wanting to do with the Agricultural Bill is going to send them all away.  Especially as the biggest market by far for their products has been declared war upon tariff-wise and China isn't buying any of it.  This includes just about everything from nuts and berries (yes, really, just starting with pecans and cherries) to rice, soybeans, pork and corn.  Worse, they want to get rid of the government supported food safety programs like SNAP that in many ways hold up prices for ag products here in the USA.  Worse even that that, they want to get rid of other agricultural subsidy programs that have been in places since the Great Depression.  And even worse that that -- they want the Ag Bill to be revisited, redebated, revised and voted on every 6 months instead of every 6 years.  Talk about destabilizing everything food related . . . .

Pfft you say that is if farmers were a significant part of the rural population. Most of the farmers have been killed off by the unholy trinity of policies from Nixon, Reagan and neoliberalism. The handful of farmers that still exist are all many times consolidated and are all millionaires many times over. But these rare farmers there are only like 30 of them for every 1000 people in the rurals and those thirty are very happy with the welfare injections trump has given them. Lots of cash for them, they’re thrilled. The rest of the rurals are lifestyle folks, people that choose to live that way, and they’re so ideologically committed that they will thank president fuhrer for cutting the food stamps that keep them from starving.

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2 hours ago, Ordos said:

3 more seats still to declare by the NY Times and one more Democratic pickup in Utah!

What's going on in New York with 2 seats still to be declared? The other one is in Georgia.

Yep, with the Utah-4 pickup (by less than 1k), and assuming the 2 NY seats split as expected (Dem Brindisi wins NY-22 and Rep Collins, ugh, wins NY-27 where each lead their races by a couple thousand votes), that would be a +39 pickup for Dems, 234 total.

It's true GA-7 has yet to be called too, and (R) Woodall's margin is less than 1k votes over (D) Bourdeaux, but it seems like a longshot given that it's Georgia (area northeast outside of Atlanta) and late-counted votes may not swing blue.

Another that has been "called" already for Republicans but is going down to the wire with the even-stronger-than-usual late/absentee surge by Democrats in California is CA-21 (Fresno/Bakersfield).  Incumbent (R) David Valadao had a bigger lead when the race was called, but his margin over (D) T.J. Cox has now been whittled down below 1k votes.

So in summary, Dems +39, 234 total, with a chance to get to +40, 235 if either GA-7 or CA-21 flip.  Underdogs in both, but I think CA-21 is maybe slightly more likely given the late-counted vote demographic in CA.

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10 hours ago, Maithanet said:

But I don't feel like this is projecting based on the midterm result.  It's projecting based on what we know now about Trump and whether 2016 is likely to be repeatable.  With the obvious caveat that projecting from 2 years out is really hard, I think the signs are there that Trump faces some challenges in 2020 that he is going to have trouble overcoming.  Trump is very bad at expanding his base - he doesn't offer olive branches to new supporters.  And yet he must win new voters to win in 2020.  If he just repeats his 2016 performance, he's probably on track for a narrow loss (points 3 and 4).  And there's reason to think (points 1 and 2) that he might not even be able to match his 2016 showing, although I'm sure he'll get close, since the floor for Republican presidential candidates is very high. 

Again, the biggest predictive value is simply that Trump is right now an incumbent in a good economy. No incumbent in a good economy has lost in, like, a hundred years. It's certainly possible that things will change, but honestly the best bet to get Trump out is to shittily hope that the economy tanks. 

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Also, I like this idea - Pelosi should win speakership - and then retire. It'll allow her to guide the next leaders and prepare them for the goahead without her fighting them at a point when no one should be fighting. And it's doing it not when things suck (like they did for Ryan), but when things are actually somewhat decent. 

That said, from what I can tell she's doing an awesome job of grooming people to come up - Fudge (though after she supported the judge who just gunned down his girlfriend, ugh), Schiff, a bunch of the CPC, a bunch of the CBC...she's downright masterful in wielding power in ways that both support her and support the party. 

Seriously, the more I learn about her, the more I admire her. 

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1 hour ago, Triskele said:

And I think that I saw some stat on votes for the Dems breaking a record for total in non-presidential year?  

So now it's reported that Trump tried to get DOJ to prosecute Comey and Hillary earlier this year.  Not that this is particularly surprising, but it's a reminder that just because Trump hasn't turned the US into a totalitarian state yet doesn't mean that the desire is not there.  

I remember a Chait interview earlier in the Trump admin where they had some kind of back-and-forth about how afraid they were about being Jewish now that Trump had won, and the conclusion of the parties was "not particularly,"  But they were probably (and understandably) making the Holocaust scenarios overly salient when the ratchet-up-the-rhetoric element and the possible fallout should have been much more salient, and now Pittsburgh and attacks up everywhere.  This is an ongoing crisis until it ends if it ever does.  
 

Remember, though, Trump, by some accounts, is getting set to purge the so-called 'adults in the room' - presumably the people who would counsel him against this sort of action.  With out their chicken-hearted objections, Trump should be more than capable of creating a major national catastrophe. 

 

Side thought on this - with the new conservative toady on the supreme court, maybe Trump really will be stupid enough to executive order himself something vaguely resembling the 'Alien and Sedition Act?'

 

DMC - Keep in mind, this is Trump...

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54 minutes ago, Triskele said:

Why start it with "remember though?"  That implies I'm missing your point when you're just coming along and reiterating my point.  

My whole point is the worst case scenario with Trump is getting closer with the (likely?) dismissal of people who would counsel Trump against things like prosecuting political opponents.

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Conservative sorts of people can piss and moan all they want about the "liberal media".

But, the fact of the matter is that they were highly successful in getting the media to talk and write incessantly about Hillary's email habits, a real nothingburger, ignoring more import stuff.

Perhaps some strain a bit too hard to look all reasonable and centristry. Or maybe they are afraid of the "liberal media" charge.

And then of course, there doesn't seem to be any outrage by certain sorts of people that some individuals in the Trump administration have used personal emails for government business.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/12/25/14037576/trump-won-because-of-emails

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Historians will write of a growing trend toward partisan polarization and a brewing sense of political crisis dating back to Bill Clinton’s impeachment in 1998. They’ll note the projected end of America’s white majority, the geopolitical revolution induced by Russia’s reinvention of itself as an international beacon of cultural conservatism, and the corrosive effect of the 2007-’08 financial crisis. The “failures of neoliberalism” will come in for scrutiny.

All true and all important. But my message to the future is this. No matter how stupid it sounds, and no matter how much political and journalistic elites on all sides of America’s toxic politics began trying to ignore it as soon as the votes were counted, the dominant issue of the 2016 campaign was email server management.

 

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Throughout the campaign season, network newscasts dedicated more time to Clinton’s email server stories than to stories about all policy issues combined.

 

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The conservatism. Thinks markets clear all by their lonesome, particularly when paired with a tax cut for the wealthy. But, then turns around and loves itself some military Keynesianism.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/17/17967510/trump-saudi-arabia-arms-sales-khashoggi

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President Donald Trump is once again trying to persuade Americans that the United States needs to keep selling war weapons to Saudi Arabia. That hundreds of thousands of US jobs are on the line if he cancels arms sales to the kingdom.

Once again, that’s not true.

 

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Canceling weapons sales to Saudi Arabia won’t really hurt US jobs much. There aren’t that many American workers making weapons for the Pentagon, much less Saudi Arabia, and MBS isn’t buying enough weapons to put a dent in the US economy anyway.

 

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Overall, the private US defense industry does directly employ a lot of US workers — about 355,500 in 2016, according to the most the recent estimates from the Aerospace Industries Association. But private-sector defense workers make up less than 0.5 percent of the total US labor force, and that includes every person whose job depends directly on the sale or production of airplanes, tanks, bombs, and services for the entire US military.

Even without knowing the actual numbers, the labor and equipment to make military equipment could be used to make other stuff. The manufacture of weapons and arms should be based on the strategic needs of country (whatever your take on what the strategic needs are) and not sold as a jobs program.

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3 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Again, the biggest predictive value is simply that Trump is right now an incumbent in a good economy. No incumbent in a good economy has lost in, like, a hundred years. It's certainly possible that things will change, but honestly the best bet to get Trump out is to shittily hope that the economy tanks. 

Except that no-one will vote for or against Trump based off the economy*. They'll vote for or against him based on the fact that it's Donald Trump.

*Short of another Great Recession.

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1 hour ago, DanteGabriel said:

I apologize for misreading your intent and for my own unkind words.

I hate to say it, but Trump’s venom has been seeping into our body politic, and now most of us are more likely to act in kind.

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10 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I hate to say it, but Trump’s venom has been seeping into our body politic, and now most of us are more likely to act in kind.

He's poisoning the well...

He also invented the term "poisoning the well" - He thought of it only last night, and felt thatit was a good way of describing what he was acheiving in a new and interesting way that no-one had thought of before...

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So how far are we from a banana republic at this point?  Just a short recap:

·         Trump, before he was elected, attempted to undermine the results of the election

·         Trump, since he’s been a candidate and more so since he’s won, has attacked the press and called them the enemy of the state. Yesterday he called Khashoggi an enemy of the state of Saudi Arabia when defending his support of the prince and hand waving away Khashoggi’s murder.

·         Yesterday it was confirmed that he wanted to abuse his powers and jail his political enemies, one a presidential candidate and the other one of the top law enforcement agents in the country.

·         He’s suggested in the past that he wants to be in power past his two constitutionally mandated terms.

·         He uses the military as his play thing.

 

I know others can provide more examples, but the above alone makes the situation feel quite grim.

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2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I know others can provide more examples, but the above alone makes the situation feel quite grim.

He is trying to install an unqualified lackey to the nations highest law enforcement office.

He has imprisoned tens of thousands of migrants at the border -- including children.

He has made it clear he wants to redefine birth citizenship.

He has allowed and even encourage corruption among his cabinet and family (nepotism hires into his administration too)

He's aligned himself, and America, more with Putin, Kim, SA, Duterte, etc. as opposed to traditional, democratic allies like the UK, Germany, France, etc.

[etc, etc.]

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8 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

He's poisoning the well...

He also invented the term "poisoning the well" - He thought of it only last night, and felt thatit was a good way of describing what he was acheiving in a new and interesting way that no-one had thought of before...

Huh, I could have sworn it was the ancient Greeks who spoke of the dangers of poisoning the public well which we all must draw from, and that those who knowingly do so should be exiled or executed, but playing off my last post, yep, it was Trump.

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17 hours ago, lokisnow said:

This means democrats have to counter each of these strategies to effectively win elections:

1: decrease republican share of rurals with a rural heavy green new deal

2: increase minority turnout and democrat share of the minority vote.

3: fight an aggressive suburban campaign to increase republican losses there.

Winning a million suburbs votes by +3 is insufficient to offset the losses  from just 100,000 rural votes.

If democrats can’t move the needle in the suburbs they need to radically increase youth voting and turnout. Otherwise they’re dead and the rural vote share strategy the republicans have been employing will continue to yield enormous power for them.

one single strategy from the democrats will not win them 2020.

I agree with that strategy.  Democrats have improved pretty dramatically in the suburbs in the past couple decades.  Look at Virginia's Fairfax County, by far the most populous county in VA.  In 2004, it voted for Kerry 53-46.  This was not nearly enough, and Kerry lost the state badly.  In 2016, Democrats had increased that margin to Clinton winning 65-29, picking up almost 200k votes. 

Obviously not all suburbs are as large and diverse as Fairfax County.  2018 exit polling showed that while Democrats had a great election, they only tied 49/49 in the suburbs nationwide. 

Republicans have been relying on running up the score in rural areas, but 2018 was a good example of the limitations of that strategy.  Exit polling showed that they made up only 17% of total voters, compared to 32% in urban areas and 51% in the suburbs. 

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1 hour ago, Week said:

He's aligned himself, and America, more with Putin, Kim, SA, Duterte, etc. as opposed to traditional, democratic allies like the UK, Germany, France, etc.

Man, the UK were never our allies. Did you forget that they helped the Canadians burn down the Presidential Mansion?

Beware the delicate fowl!!!

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Anyone that tries to enforce Ohios violently oppressive anti choice bill should at the very least live the rest of their lives in prison cells. Judges,DAs, cops, and the disgusting individuals and politicians that think they have the right to kill an actual human being because they want to terminate a pregnancy. 

These politicians are no better than abortion clinic bombers.

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So, Trump is about to give troops at the border authorization to shoot in certain defense scenarios. Looks like another step toward something's horrible occuring.

They can use lethal force to defend border agents is what is new. They already had self-defense rights. And Kelly already signed a memo with the order.

Nancy Pelosi Just Showed Us Why She’s the Democratic Leader

When it comes to dealing with her opponents inside the Capitol’s marble walls, no one in her party even comes close.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/11/nancy-pelosi-likely-be-house-speaker-again/576478/

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Soon after Fudge’s announcement, The Washington Post’s Dave Weigel tweeted, “A quick update on Seth Moulton’s quest to block Pelosi from the speaker’s gavel.” Below it was a gif of a cartoon character who steps on a succession of different rakes, each of which pops up and slams him in the face.

 

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