U.S. Politics: Huff and Puff the Socialism away

[Guest]

1 minute ago, James Arryn said:

New Economist poll: 53% of Republicans say Trump is a better President than Lincoln was.

Supposedly Doug Brinkley said Trump's numbers would go down with impeachment as time goes on.  Hard to reconcile that thought with the stat you've got there.  

[James Arryn]

9 minutes ago, Triskele said:

Supposedly Doug Brinkley said Trump's numbers would go down with impeachment as time goes on.  Hard to reconcile that thought with the stat you've got there.  

For the sake of argument, we did not that I know of have a comparative Batshit Quotient about this particular topic, so hard to say.

[Larry of the Lawn]

Biden campaign absolutely snatching the millennial vote away fro everyone else with his "No Malarkey" tour.  

[Guest]

16 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Biden campaign absolutely snatching the millennial vote away fro everyone else with his "No Malarkey" tour.  

Feels like it could be an Onion headline but is actually real.  

[DMC]

2 hours ago, Triskele said:

I think that's right in terms of things being a big opening ask, but I do have doubts about how much can get done.

I mean, no president is going to pass any of her agenda without unified government in this polarized climate.  So yeah, since it currently looks unlikely the Dems retake the Senate, it's also unlikely any Dem president will get much done.  But, there's still a considerable chance Trump's numbers could lead to a replay of 2018, in which case the requisite pickups in at least AZ, CO, ME, NC should be very likely.  And as a voter, I'm keenly interested in gauging a candidate's ability to shepherd her policy agenda through the legislative process by uniting the party.  You're still not gonna get much through the Senate unless you abolish the filibuster, but reconciliation should be good to get one big agenda item through in the first year -- if it's handled correctly.

Just saw this article on NH voters being sick of Tom Steyer's face.  Good cautionary tale on the limits of "buying" an election (and the efficacy of campaign advertising, for that matter):

Quote

Some Granite staters said they’re seeing Steyer’s ads dozens of times a day — and it’s become more grating than ingratiating. A POLITICO reporter who watched YouTube music videos this week by Pentatonix, a popular a capella group, endured 17 Steyer ads in just over an hour.

Even some of Steyer’s local staff privately acknowledge the volume of ads has gone overboard.

Steyer has massively outspent other Democratic candidates on social media in an effort to gain traction in polls and ensure he makes the debate stage. But the recoiling of some New Hampshire voters suggests there are limits to the strategy — Michael Bloomberg beware. Indeed, some residents feel like they can't touch a piece of technology without seeing his face.

“There is a point of no return in terms of visibility," said Scott Spradling, a New Hampshire media analyst. "At some point, you become the uninvited guest. He uniquely is becoming dangerously close."

 

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, Triskele said:

Supposedly Doug Brinkley said Trump's numbers would go down with impeachment as time goes on.  Hard to reconcile that thought with the stat you've got there.  

I don't see why. Trump's numbers are going down a small amount with impeachment, but ultimately if you've stuck with Trump this long there's a whole lot you're gonna tolerate. 

And there is no 'other side' to jump to. What, Republicans are going to become Democrats all of a sudden? When party allegiance is identity, changing it doesn't happen just like that for most people, especially those who consider obeying authority and purity of value to be very important.

[The Anti-Targ]

2 hours ago, James Arryn said:

New Economist poll: 53% of Republicans say Trump is a better President than Lincoln was.

Well yeah! Lincoln ruined America with that whole freeing the slaves thing, and Trump has done what he can to reverse that.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

I don't see why. Trump's numbers are going down a small amount with impeachment, but ultimately if you've stuck with Trump this long there's a whole lot you're gonna tolerate. 

Exactly.  I'm doubting Brinkley's take.  I mean, I sure hope that he's right, but he seems to be putting his historian hat on a bit too much and saying "it'll be like Watergate" and failing to realize how different today's world is.

[ThinkerX]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

I don't see why. Trump's numbers are going down a small amount with impeachment, but ultimately if you've stuck with Trump this long there's a whole lot you're gonna tolerate. 

And there is no 'other side' to jump to. What, Republicans are going to become Democrats all of a sudden? When party allegiance is identity, changing it doesn't happen just like that for most people, especially those who consider obeying authority and purity of value to be very important.

True.

 

However - according to the Facebook links and comments of my quasi-relatives - there are no small number of military types who are becoming highly unhappy with Trump over selling out the Kurd's and that SEAL fiasco.  I can't really see most of them voting blue, but I can see them staying away from the polls.

 

And again, the rural (red) US is undergoing a population implosion.  

 

[The Anti-Targ]

17 hours ago, ThinkerX said:

True.

 

And again, the rural (red) US is undergoing a population implosion.  

 

Meaning they are moving into the urban centers to make them more red, as well as those left behind are becoming even redder and not turning more blue. Is the rural count ever going to get so low that they don't have their own congressional representative, in states that have one or more exclusively rural+small town(s) district?

[ThinkerX]

38 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Meaning they are moving into the urban centers to make them more red, as well as those left behind are becoming even redder and not turning more blue. Is the rural count ever going to get so low that they don't have their own congressional representative, in states that have one or more exclusively rural+small town(s) district?

In my area, the red vote is not moving so much to urban areas as to the retirement homes and cemeteries.  A great many of these people are *old*. I hear similar stories from across the country: small towns are literally dying off.  

 

Tiny ray of hope for those of a more left bent.  Used to be, I'd deliver piles of far right wing literature to a hundred-plus addresses along the route - and democratic/liberal materials to maybe ten total.  Past few years, the number boxes getting the far right stuff has dropped by maybe a third - while those getting the more 'left' material has increased.  This, I believe, has to do with older conservatives dying off and more moderate sorts buying/building houses in the area.    

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Meaning they are moving into the urban centers to make them more red, as well as those left behind are becoming even redder and not turning more blue. Is the rural count ever going to get so low that they don't have their own congressional representative, in states that have one or more exclusively rural+small town(s) district?

In England these are the pocket boroughs, that had no population at all, from enclosure, migration, etc.  Safe seats for Parliament that were controlled by the local lord or whomever was the poobah, whether or not the poobah lived there.  It's quite like that already in a lot of counties out there in the hinterlands here in the USA.

 

[SkynJay]

The problem is, as I see it, that the new conservatives replacing the dying boomers are even more extreme. Growing up idolizing alt-right idols, loving it when Trump pwns those feminists and PC libtards, and living on reddit/4chan.  This group is living in the cities.  I don't know their numbers, but they are both young and very vocal.  And they are not your old Reagan uncle, who might vote for a Dem if said Dem has always been good for the district.  

The thought that the political tilt is going to go more liberal as it gets younger really hasn't proven true yet, and I am not sure it takes politics of hate into account.

[The Anti-Targ]

1 minute ago, ThinkerX said:

In my area, the red vote is not moving so much to urban areas as to the retirement homes and cemeteries.  A great many of these people are *old*. I hear similar stories from across the country: small towns are literally dying off.  

 

Tiny ray of hope for those of a more left bent.  Used to be, I'd deliver piles of far right wing literature to a hundred-plus addresses along the route - and democratic/liberal materials to maybe ten total.  Past few years, the number boxes getting the far right stuff has dropped by maybe a third - while those getting the more 'left' material has increased.  This, I believe, has to do with older conservatives dying off and more moderate sorts buying/building houses in the area.    

My fear theory of politics, which explains why conservatism increases with age (fearfulness increases with feelings of vulnerability, and feelings of vulnerability increase with age), means old people never die out, they just get replaced by a new batch of old people. And while population numbers decline, the decline in the older more conservative age groups declines slower, because each generation is more numerous than the next and each generation is living longer than the last. So the question really is whether youngest 2 voting generations are [becoming] more left than previous generation, so that the inevitable increase in conservatism with age is slightly shifted with a more left starting point.

12 minutes ago, SkynJay said:

The problem is, as I see it, that the new conservatives replacing the dying boomers are even more extreme. Growing up idolizing alt-right idols, loving it when Trump pwns those feminists and PC libtards, and living on reddit/4chan.  This group is living in the cities.  I don't know their numbers, but they are both young and very vocal.  And they are not your old Reagan uncle, who might vote for a Dem if said Dem has always been good for the district.  

The thought that the political tilt is going to go more liberal as it gets younger really hasn't proven true yet, and I am not sure it takes politics of hate into account.

That also feeds into my fear theory. As I've mused before, the fastest way to hate is fear. The right even trains people to fear the govt (i.e themselves, or at least the political arm of the right), except oddly the two things about govt that can actually effectively oppress you: police and military. But including, as oddly, two things govt can / could / does that can benefit you and improve your independence: health care and education.

[sologdin]

along the route

totalitarian postal inspectors, comstock's dead-hand control.

[ThinkerX]

34 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

My fear theory of politics, which explains why conservatism increases with age (fearfulness increases with feelings of vulnerability, and feelings of vulnerability increase with age), means old people never die out, they just get replaced by a new batch of old people. And while population numbers decline, the decline in the older more conservative age groups declines slower, because each generation is more numerous than the next and each generation is living longer than the last. So the question really is whether youngest 2 voting generations are [becoming] more left than previous generation, so that the inevitable increase in conservatism with age is slightly shifted with a more left starting point.

That also feeds into my fear theory. As I've mused before, the fastest way to hate is fear. The right even trains people to fear the govt (i.e themselves, or at least the political arm of the right), except oddly the two things about govt that can actually effectively oppress you: police and military. But including, as oddly, two things govt can / could / does that can benefit you and improve your independence: health care and education.

The other thing I note about the older conservatives (from having to deal with these people on a near daily basis) is that while most would never vote democrat, they are willing to entertain things like man made climate change (they talk about this rather frequently, citing examples from their travels and far off relatives), minimum wage, and how health care costs need to be brought under control (my father and his friends bitterly denounced Obamacare but went to Mexico for dental work and thought very highly of the Canadian medical system).

 

The near impossible trick, though, is presenting these things in a manner acceptable to far right ideology. 

[DMC]

1 hour ago, SkynJay said:

The thought that the political tilt is going to go more liberal as it gets younger really hasn't proven true yet, and I am not sure it takes politics of hate into account.

Millennials and Gen Z are significantly more left leaning than previous generations ever were.  Yes, the comparative extremism of young right-wing voters is concerning (if not downright scary), but the generational advantage for the left among anyone born after 1980 is the best either party has had in the history of polling.

[HexMachina]

20 hours ago, ThinkerX said:

True.

 

However - according to the Facebook links and comments of my quasi-relatives - there are no small number of military types who are becoming highly unhappy with Trump over selling out the Kurd's and that SEAL fiasco.  I can't really see most of them voting blue, but I can see them staying away from the polls.

 

And again, the rural (red) US is undergoing a population implosion.  

 

 

2 hours ago, ThinkerX said:

In my area, the red vote is not moving so much to urban areas as to the retirement homes and cemeteries.  A great many of these people are *old*. I hear similar stories from across the country: small towns are literally dying off.  

 

Tiny ray of hope for those of a more left bent.  Used to be, I'd deliver piles of far right wing literature to a hundred-plus addresses along the route - and democratic/liberal materials to maybe ten total.  Past few years, the number boxes getting the far right stuff has dropped by maybe a third - while those getting the more 'left' material has increased.  This, I believe, has to do with older conservatives dying off and more moderate sorts buying/building houses in the area.    

You’ve a rather disconcerting habit of taking and using your anecdotal “evidence” and findings from internet comment sections over and applying them in a widespread fashion, rather than looking at actual data, polls, trends etc.

[ThinkerX]

1 hour ago, HelenaExMachina said:

You’ve a rather disconcerting habit of taking and using your anecdotal “evidence” and findings from internet comment sections over and applying them in a widespread fashion, rather than looking at actual data, polls, trends etc.

True.

Yet it works, at least some of the time.  Most of a year before it happened I predicted Trump would not only be the republican candidate, but had an excellent chance of defeating Clinton - predictions which were ignored or ridiculed here, almost right up to the election.  At the same time, I also predicted Trump stood a very good chance of being impeached (also ignored and derided here), yet that is a dominant news story.  

 

As to the anecdotal bits and pieces, well, you look in the right places, I am noting the same trends as others.  these trends, of course, are accelerating.

 

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/1/13/14246260/death-gap-urban-rural-america-worse

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depopulation_of_the_Great_Plains

 

I get called by pollsters of various stripes quite often.  What irked me is that much of the time, I was stuck with their range of answers, not the ones I wanted to give.  Also, the overwhelming majority of these calls come over landlines - something most younger people no longer bother with, hence a fair possibility of distortion on that account.  (several times the past year or two, I've taken these calls, been asked my age, and then told 'my demographic was already represented' - which says something about the lists used by the polling outfits.)  I also note there have been multiple complaints and comments here about how polls for certain races and regions have been either mishandled or are seriously obsolete. 

[maarsen]

5 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Meaning they are moving into the urban centers to make them more red, as well as those left behind are becoming even redder and not turning more blue. Is the rural count ever going to get so low that they don't have their own congressional representative, in states that have one or more exclusively rural+small town(s) district?

Those moving out of small towns tend to be more open minded, hence the urge to leave the parochial small town. I spent enough time in small towns to know that small towns equal small minds.