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U.S. Politics: It’s beginning to look a lot like Rescission


lokisnow

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Oh, meant to say this quite awhile back, but re: Bullock and Hickenlooper running for president instead of Senate in 2020:  In 2016 Rubio "retired" from the Senate, ran for president, failed by mid-March, and ran for Senate anyway.  I don't really think it should be a problem.

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54 minutes ago, DMC said:

North Carolina has demonstrated the GOP is pretty domineering with their voter suppression.  Looks like they just got caught, sure, but that ain't gonna change anything. 

Angry Democrats have ensured that Democrats in North Carolina control the Governorship, and (just as importantly) the courts. The legislature is still ludicrously gerrymandered, but it is no longer a super-majority, so the Governor's vetoes are now effective.

What was impressive about North Carolina Democrats in 2018 is their legislative success without a state-wide race, in the face of gerrymandering and voter suppression. It's basically a backlash against Republican overreach - which makes North Carolina very competitive in 2020.

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To me, the actions of the republican controlled state legislatures in NC, Wisconsin, and Michigan to undermine those states democratic governors, while despicable, come across as desperate tactics to delay the inevitable.  They are in a minority rule situation with a base that can only shrink as a direct result of their own actions. 

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21 minutes ago, ThinkerX said:

To me, the actions of the republican controlled state legislatures in NC, Wisconsin, and Michigan to undermine those states democratic governors, while despicable, come across as desperate tactics to delay the inevitable.  They are in a minority rule situation with a base that can only shrink as a direct result of their own actions. 

Especially because the North Carolina gerrymander is doomed via the courts, the Michigan gerrymander is doomed via the adoption of a neutral commission, and despite the power-grab in Wisconsin, I think Evers retains the ability to veto the Republican map, and get a neutral, court-drawn, map.

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5 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

What was impressive about North Carolina Democrats in 2018 is their legislative success without a state-wide race, in the face of gerrymandering and voter suppression. It's basically a backlash against Republican overreach - which makes North Carolina very competitive in 2020.

Not complaining about the performance, but the Dems ran about even in both the state house and senate battlegrounds, which ultimately isn't too impressive for an emerging/sometimes battleground.  Considering the environment and prior expectations*, it seems odd to be bullish on North Carolina based on 2018 performance but then bearish on Tennessee.  To be clear though, yeah, I think Dems have a better chance against Tillis or whomever in NC than Tennessee.

ETA:  *To illustrate, here's the popular vote of US House elections in each state in the last three cycles:

North Carolina:  2014 - 55% R/44% D; 2016 - 53/47; 2018 - 50/48.

Tennessee:  2014 - 62% R/33% D; 2016 - 65/35; 2018 - 59/40.

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18 hours ago, Zorral said:

Paul Krugman -- 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/17/opinion/republican-apparatchiks-deep-state.html?

After providing one example after another of how they / rethugs are realizing their objectives past, right now and future, he gives the inevitable conclusion.

 

I read this article too and as usual, I agree with Krugman.

There is something in this article, that I like some further elaboration on. It's:

Quote

But the parties are structurally different. The Democratic Party is a loose coalition of interest groups, but the modern Republican Party is dominated by “movement conservatism,” a monolithic structure held together by big money

This seems to me @DMC area of expertise. If you would @DMC , could you please further elaborate on this?

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David Frum not happy with Paul Ryan patting himself on the back.

Quote

In so many ways, Paul Ryan and Donald Trump have little in common. Ryan is affable and well mannered; Trump, not so much. Ryan holds strong, consistent ideological beliefs; Trump, not so much. Paul Ryan is in splendid physical shape …

But there is one thing they do share: a sense of personal achievement strangely disconnected from their real-world records.

 

Hey did you notice that big bonus you got because of the Republican Corporate Tax Cut?

Oh well, don't worry, neither did anybody else.

Quote

Newly available data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Employer Costs for Employee Compensation data allows an update of the trends of worker bonuses through September 2018, to gauge the impact of the GOP’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. The tax cutters claimed that their bill would raise the wages of rank-and-file workers, with congressional Republicans and members of the Trump administration promising raises of many thousands of dollars within ten years. The Trump administration’s chair of the Council of Economic Advisers argued in April that we were already seeing the positive wage impact of the tax cuts:

A flurry of corporate announcements provide further evidence of tax reform’s positive impact on wages. As of April 8, nearly 500 American employers have announced bonuses or pay increases, affecting more than 5.5 million American workers.

..........................................................................................

Yes, Tucker Carlson is a conservative idiot.

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Eleven advertisers have pulled out of Fox News after host Tucker Carlson suggested that immigrants make America “dirtier.”

During a monologue on Thursday, Carlson claimed that “you never hear” anybody make an economic case for “mass immigration” — which is simply not true — then went on to blast politicians and pundits, including current House Speaker Paul Ryan and the presumptive next House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, for supporting more immigration into the US.

For Carlson to say that nobody makes an economic case for immigration is simply not true. Has this moron even bothered to look at the relevant literature, or did he just take Rush Limbaugh's word for it?

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8 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

I think Collins is in trouble even if she doesn't retire. After the Kavanagh thing, her moderate reputation is in tatters, and whomever runs against her is going to get a lot of financial support. Meanwhile, rural Maine chucked its Republican House incumbent this year, so it seems to be a state where Obama-Trump voters are actually switching back.

Of the others, I think you're too optimistic on Kansas. They'll vote for a Democratic Governor with a Republican super-majority in the legislature, but Senate? Kansas hasn't voted for a Democratic Senator since 1932. By contrast, I think you're too pessimistic on North Carolina (Democrats there are exceptionally angry and mobilised after the shenanigans of the Republican legislature), and Montana (the one red state that remains happy to elect Democrats in statewide contests. I think Montana flips before Texas).

I agree that Collins may be in trouble if she stays in, but I need to see evidence first. 

Kansas, I think the state is changing more than you think. Not only did they vote for a governor, but one of the four house members flipped and another one nearly did; at least some of the state is ready for Democratic representation in Congress. Meanwhile, in 2014, Roberts won his senate race by only 10% in an extremely favorable Republican year. For comparison, this was a year where Republican senate candidates won by 17% in Montana, 33% in Nebraska, 40% in Oklahoma, 30% in Tennessee, etc. Roberts is a weak candidate, and if he retires, I think there's a good chance Kobach runs and wins the primary. To be clear, I'm not saying Democrats are favored to win this race, but I think they are in a better position than in the states I ranked below it. It's only the first 3 states I listed that I'd Democrats favored right now, which means that they either need to win one more from among the rest, or have Jones hold on in Alabama, to take the majority; if they win the White House.

North Carolina, I just don't trust Republicans not to steal the race. And I thought that even before the NC-9 allegations came out, because before that I didn't think they'd literally commit election fraud. But I did think they'd use ever other dirty trick in the book; and now I think there might be fraud as well.

6 hours ago, ThinkerX said:

To me, the actions of the republican controlled state legislatures in NC, Wisconsin, and Michigan to undermine those states democratic governors, while despicable, come across as desperate tactics to delay the inevitable.  They are in a minority rule situation with a base that can only shrink as a direct result of their own actions. 

Agreed. And in Michigan at least, it looks like it was a bridge too far for at least some Republicans. News came out last night that at least one of the bills, the one that would weaken the Secretary of State, was dead in committee. The other two bills, one that weaken the Attorney General and one that would basically nullify state campaign finance law, may still pass; but its unclear if there's the time, the votes, or Snyder's approval (who has been talking a big game about bipartisanship since the election). And as far as I can tell, Michigan Republicans were never trying to weaken the powers of the governor-elect herself.

Its really Wisconsin and North Carolina where Republicans are tripping over themselves to undo democratic results to any extent they can. At least in North Carolina Democrats control the state supreme court and can overturn any egregious laws; the ones from two years ago are still tied up in the court system.

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12 hours ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

We need a wall or we will cease to be a sovereign nation!

Make America America Again!

You need to worry about making Jaceland Jaceland again. Word is you nearly got rick rolled out of Experts, and you failed to defend your C League throne. Heavy is the head that wears the crown…..

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9 hours ago, ThinkerX said:

To me, the actions of the republican controlled state legislatures in NC, Wisconsin, and Michigan to undermine those states democratic governors, while despicable, come across as desperate tactics to delay the inevitable.  They are in a minority rule situation with a base that can only shrink as a direct result of their own actions. 

Jokes aside, I agree, and furthermore, I think there’s a good chance that they might actually speed up the inevitable. What better way to get out the vote than to show people that one side is trying to prevent them from voting and/or undermined their vote. I suspect there will be a strong backlash in the years to come for what Republicans have been doing.

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10 hours ago, DMC said:

Oh, meant to say this quite awhile back, but re: Bullock and Hickenlooper running for president instead of Senate in 2020:  In 2016 Rubio "retired" from the Senate, ran for president, failed by mid-March, and ran for Senate anyway.  I don't really think it should be a problem.

Doesn't that depend on what the deadlines for filing to run for office are in Colorado and Montana? I thought these rules were very different in different states. Someone should look up the rules in those two states to make sure you are correct. :)

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Speaking of Kansas,

This is what I was saying, Johnson County and the other suburban areas of Kansas have turned beyond hostile towards Republicans. So much so that Republican state legislators from those areas are flipping parties even though it means joining the minority party.

Republican mismanagement of the state, and the ongoing purge of the once-dominant moderate wing of the party, are rapidly changing the political landscape there. I wouldn't call it a purple state yet, but Democrats can win in a good year against a weak opponent; which I think will be the state of play for the 2020 senate election. This is what we thought was happening in 2014, it just took a few extra years to come to fruition.

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2 hours ago, Ormond said:

Doesn't that depend on what the deadlines for filing to run for office are in Colorado and Montana? I thought these rules were very different in different states. Someone should look up the rules in those two states to make sure you are correct. :)

You’re right. The rules do vary greatly from state to state. But the rules can also be changed to accommodate dual runs. For example, the Kentucky Republican party changed the date of its presidential caucus so that Ran Paul could run for both the presidency and the Senate.

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6 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

This seems to me @DMC area of expertise. If you would @DMC , could you please further elaborate on this?

Don't know about the "big money" part (each party relies on big money), but the rest of Krugman's quote you provided sounds like his articulation of Hopkins and Grossman's Asymmetric PoliticsHere's a review that succinctly quotes the thesis:

Quote

The Democratic Party “fosters a relatively pragmatic, results-oriented style of politics in which officeholders are rewarded for delivering concrete benefits to targeted groups in order to address specific social problems,” the authors wrote. In contrast, the Republicans are more prone to “forge partisan ties based on common ideological beliefs, encouraging party officials to pursue broad rightward shifts in public policy."

Thus, the authors concluded: "Republican voters and activ­ists are more likely than their Democratic counterparts to prize symbolic demonstrations of ideological purity and to pressure their party leaders to reject moderation and compromise."

So the Dems' coalition of interest groups is traditional in a Downsian sense, seeking the median voter in a two-party system by behaving as a cartel party extracting and appropriating government benefits in order to maintain power.  Meanwhile, the GOP increasingly has become more akin to a "niche" party in a PR system, bent on ideological purity that is composed and behaves accordingly.

3 hours ago, Ormond said:

Doesn't that depend on what the deadlines for filing to run for office are in Colorado and Montana? I thought these rules were very different in different states. Someone should look up the rules in those two states to make sure you are correct. :)

Sure but as Ty said those rules can be changed rather easily/conveniently.  And look it up yourself!  :)

48 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

You’re right. The rules do vary greatly from state to state. But the rules can also be changed to accommodate dual runs. For example, the Kentucky Republican party changed the date of its presidential caucus so that Ran Paul could run for both the presidency and the Senate.

I didn't know Ran had grown influential enough to get Senators to change their name and copy him.

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Did I miss something ? The Dow just dropped 500 points in twenty minutes, wiping out an otherwise positive day.

wierd December in the markets, usually the “animal spirits “ of the traders means December traditionally irrationally outperforms which results in end the year positively, to have a dour December in an up economy is bizarre. What happened to the traders’ positive holiday animal spirits this December?

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1 hour ago, DMC said:

Don't know about the "big money" part (each party relies on big money), but the rest of Krugman's quote you provided sounds like his articulation of Hopkins and Grossman's Asymmetric PoliticsHere's a review that succinctly quotes the thesis:

So the Dems' coalition of interest groups is traditional in a Downsian sense, seeking the median voter in a two-party system by behaving as a cartel party extracting and appropriating government benefits in order to maintain power.  Meanwhile, the GOP increasingly has become more akin to a "niche" party in a PR system, bent on ideological purity that is composed and behaves accordingly.

Sure but as Ty said those rules can be changed rather easily/conveniently.  And look it up yourself!  :)

I didn't know Ran had grown influential enough to get Senators to change their name and copy him.

Thanks for the response.

I've watched about two decades of horrid Republican policy making (or should I say even more horrid than what was historically the case), and as such I start to hyperventilate whenever I see any sort of "both-sidism".

If the two parties, have fundamentally different mechanics in how they operate, then it seems to me this is an important point in refuting the bothsidism.

Accordingly, I have a further question. Is Hopkins and Grossmans' theory about the two parties pretty well accepted or received within the political science community?

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