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US Politics: Bounties from a Jericho Walk


ants

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18 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Colors in Merika thread, mate! 

Never!  You can take my life, but not my freeedoooom!

18 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

But the reason is rather simple. Ethics. One side wants to accomplish a lot, in an ethical way. The other side doesn't want to do much, and accomplishing said goals in an unethical way is completely fine. And since those of us in the former group are cowards anyways........

So the unethical side is achieving what they want (or would have if McCain had voted the "right" way) via the current system, but the ethical side shouldn't change things when the current system doesn't allow them to do what they want.  

16 hours ago, DMC said:

Because of the combination of (1) a presidential system in which the executive wields extraordinary and increasing power and discretion; (2) an environment of extreme polarization and negative partisanship that yields a GOP caucus that refuses to check their president in even the most egregious of circumstances; and (3) a GOP party (in government and the electorate) that has increasingly - and shockingly - authoritarian tendencies (as if their baseline wasn't worrisome enough). 

If we had a parliamentary system with a no confidence motion, of course the filibuster would be unnecessary.  As an institutionalist, (1) above is enough for me to retain the legislative filibuster.  But in the context of (2) and (3), it's rather essential.  Congress has spent the last century ceding power to the presidency.  The filibuster is just about the only real check a minority party has left.  Under the current environment, abolishing the filibuster would effectively render Congress as akin to Putin's Duma for any GOP president - not just Trump - if they can achieve unified government. 

That concern trumps (no pun intended) the progressive push for change in my book - particularly considering the GOP also has the advantage in the judiciary (this morning notwithstanding).  Further, as discussed, the GOP will increasingly reap the benefits of malapportionment in the Senate due to the rural/urban divide in the future, barring a rather radical realignment.  Ironically, the filibuster is the only means for the Senators that represent the majority of the population to counteract such non-majoritarian rule.  

That does not mean there aren't ways to reform the filibuster to limit its frequency and abuse.  See here.  I am in favor of pretty much all of those listed short of complete abolition.

I'm not sure how the Senate filibuster affects (1).  Having a legislature more able to pass legislation should lead to a reduction in Presidential power, I would have thought.  Although I don't think it's clear how it plays out.  

Effectively the main thrust is that you think the Republican unified government does more damage than a Democrat unified government (plus that the Republicans have an advantage for senate seats).  I think this fear of change and what may happen actually makes things worse.  Its effectively disenfranchising the voters because you're scared what the opposition may do, fulfilling the prophecies of those who say voting doesn't matter and nothing changes anyway.  I would argue this approach is part of what has hurt involvement in politics and reduced voter turnout.  

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17 minutes ago, ants said:

I'm not sure how the Senate filibuster affects (1).

It affects it when in conjunction with unified government.  Congress' deference to the executive is especially concerning in such instances due to the powers of the presidency.

19 minutes ago, ants said:

Its effectively disenfranchising the voters because you're scared what the opposition may do, fulfilling the prophecies of those who say voting doesn't matter and nothing changes anyway.  I would argue this approach is part of what has hurt involvement in politics and reduced voter turnout.  

This makes no sense.  The filibuster is not disenfranchising voters.  (Not to mention the voters generally don't give a shit about the filibuster one way or another.)  If anything it's protecting the enfranchisement of voters based on the current composition of the Senate.  Gridlock, yes, has reduced political efficacy, and the filibuster is part of that.  But there's different ways to reform that instead of idiotically giving away the store.  

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Its disenfranchising them because unless they get enough votes to overcome the filibuster, they're votes don't matter.  It means there is this huge space between having enough votes to utilise the filibuster and being able to overcome it, then finishing higher or lower doesn't matter.  Getting over 50% doesn't matter.  That effectively means that the impact of voting is reduced, and voters are being disenfranchised.  

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So I've heard mutterings from conservatives that the polls must be wrong, and they invariably point to the Trafalgar group that was most accurate in swing states in 2016, and which is again showing competitive races in MI/WI in 2020. Dont want to dismiss this completely out of hand, but I should note that they used a somewhat unusual methodology in 2016 that looked for 'shy' Trump voters etc...(one of their tricks was to ask who their neighbor was voting for...something I dont fully understand). Anyhoo, something to keep in mind, but again, there are reasons why 2016 methodology wont work in 2020.

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5 hours ago, ants said:

Never!  You can take my life, but not my freeedoooom!

It's spelled "freedumb" in Merika thread!

Quote

So the unethical side is achieving what they want (or would have if McCain had voted the "right" way) via the current system, but the ethical side shouldn't change things when the current system doesn't allow them to do what they want.  

Are they achieving all that much though? One bad piece of legislation and some judicial appointments that were going to happen anyways.

All things considered, Republicans have failed spectacularly over the last few years, and they only sped up the dying of their party.

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21 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

So I've heard mutterings from conservatives that the polls must be wrong, and they invariably point to the Trafalgar group that was most accurate in swing states in 2016, and which is again showing competitive races in MI/WI in 2020. Dont want to dismiss this completely out of hand, but I should note that they used a somewhat unusual methodology in 2016 that looked for 'shy' Trump voters etc...(one of their tricks was to ask who their neighbor was voting for...something I dont fully understand). Anyhoo, something to keep in mind, but again, there are reasons why 2016 methodology wont work in 2020.

It's another data point. But I wouldn't put too much weight into Trafalgar, no more than any other pollster. They got it right in 2016; though whether that's from their methodology (which I could see backfiring badly under the right circumstances) or luck I couldn't say. But they've had some decent-sized misses too. In 2018 their final election day polls had McSally +2 over Sinema, a 5 point miss, and had Kemp beating Abrams by +12, a 10 point miss.

Another poll to add to the pile, nothing more.

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I feel like Trafalgar's methodology (not that I'm an expert) seems almost designed specifically to get a Republican lean.  Thus, if the election is surprisingly Republican favorable (like 2016) they come out looking good.  In 2018, not so much, although they were at least saved by the Florida mini-upsets.  They also predicted R wins in LA and KY governors races, which did not come to pass.  So yeah, I wouldn't ignore them completely, but I'm not worrying particularly about those results either.  

The Democrats keep releasing internal polls that are dizzying if true (they probably aren't).  Today we have Biden +2 in Missouri.  Trump won Missouri by 19 points.  

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40 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

It's spelled "freedumb" in Merika thread!

Are they achieving all that much though? One bad piece of legislation and some judicial appointments that were going to happen anyways.

All things considered, Republicans have failed spectacularly over the last few years, and they only sped up the dying of their party.

Only because of Trump's gross incompetency.  In the meantime they've packed the federal court system with judges ranging from conservative to batshit reactionary and barely qualified.  Their party is[n't] dying anymore than the Dems are.  They have a tiger by the tail with Trump but now they've seen just how much BS they can get away with, if they had someone remotely more in tune with the party goals in the WH we'd be fucked.  If the Dems ever get control of all three branches they're going to have to do something about the Senate while they have a shot, whether it's adding states or weakening the filibuster.  They have zero fucking vision though so I'm not going to hold my breath.  

It's like the covid-19 pandemic in the US.  Yeah, it's bad, but the next one could be even worse if we don't learn anything from this.  Trump has done a lot of damage, but I wouldn't even want to think about how fucked we'd have been with say Lindsey Graham as President and a unified republican government from 2016-2018.  This isn't to say Trump isn't dangerous, just that he's exposed the problems that have been here all along.  He's the manifestation of the disease, but he isn't the virus itself (sorry for mixing incongruous medical metaphors).

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3 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

That graph is so fucking funny. 

Sad thing is it will probably get worse. Setting the protests aside, some of the party images are just disgraceful. I'm sure there are examples from other places as well, but here it seems like so many people have just stopped caring. 
 

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9 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Only because of Trump's gross incompetency.  In the meantime they've packed the federal court system with judges ranging from conservative to batshit reactionary and barely qualified.  Their party is[n't] dying anymore than the Dems are.  They have a tiger by the tail with Trump but now they've seen just how much BS they can get away with, if they had someone remotely more in tune with the party goals in the WH we'd be fucked.  If the Dems ever get control of all three branches they're going to have to do something about the Senate while they have a shot, whether it's adding states or weakening the filibuster.  They have zero fucking vision though so I'm not going to hold my breath.  

It's like the covid-19 pandemic in the US.  Yeah, it's bad, but the next one could be even worse if we don't learn anything from this.  Trump has done a lot of damage, but I wouldn't even want to think about how fucked we'd have been with say Lindsey Graham as President and a unified republican government from 2016-2018.  This isn't to say Trump isn't dangerous, just that he's exposed the problems that have been here all along.  He's the manifestation of the disease, but he isn't the virus itself (sorry for mixing incongruous medical metaphors).

But that's the point. With a Republican President and a Republican Senate, of course they were going to pack the courts. It would happen regardless. The fact that they've completely failed legislatively is pretty damning, but it's also a good reason why the filibuster is in place. Had it not been, things would be so much worse.

But yes, their party is dying, both technically and just literally. Their main constituency is old, uneducated white people, and their life expectancy is falling. Until something significantly changes, Republicans will never win the popular vote again. 

God damn the Electoral College. Complain about that more than the filibuster in the Senate. 

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22 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

The Democrats keep releasing internal polls that are dizzying if true (they probably aren't).  Today we have Biden +2 in Missouri.  Trump won Missouri by 19 points.  

Yeah, that's a result I just can't believe. Obama only lost Missouri by 0.1% in 2008, but the state has been rapidly reddening for over 20 years and that 2008 result was a crazy outlier.

On the other hand, while national swings are generally mostly uniform they aren't entirely. There was no indication that Obama should've won Indiana in 2008. It was a 21 point swing from 2004, whereas the national swing was 9 points. If Biden ends up winning the national vote by about 10 points, and gets an 8 point swing from 2016, there easily could be a state that swings by 20 points again. I'm not sure I'd pick Missouri as the one to do it though.

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2 minutes ago, Fez said:

Yeah, that's a result I just can't believe. Obama only lost Missouri by 0.1% in 2008, but the state has been rapidly reddening for over 20 years and that 2008 result was a crazy outlier.

On the other hand, while national swings are generally mostly uniform they aren't entirely. There was no indication that Obama should've won Indiana in 2008. It was a 21 point swing from 2004, whereas the national swing was 9 points. If Biden ends up winning the national vote by about 10 points, and gets an 8 point swing from 2016, there easily could be a state that swings by 20 points again. I'm not sure I'd pick Missouri as the one to do it though.

I don't know. It might be true. Things are crazy right now (and may change before November). Like, there is no redder state than here in Kentucky. I'm not sure if there is a state where Trump has been more popular than Kentucky. (There probably is, but Kentucky has to be top 4-5 Trumpiest states there is.)

But, we are just today getting the results from our mainly mail-in primary that was held last Tuesday. And one of them shocked me. In the GOP presidential primary there was just two options on the ballot - Trump and "uncommitted."  In Fayette County (the second most populous county in the state) 28 percent of the Republican voters chose "uncommitted" rather than vote for Trump. This isn't an open primary. Democrats and Independents don't get to vote for GOP nominations and over a quarter of Republicans were like, "No. Not Trump." I'm kinda amazed to see that here.

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6 minutes ago, Fez said:

Yeah, that's a result I just can't believe. Obama only lost Missouri by 0.1% in 2008, but the state has been rapidly reddening for over 20 years and that 2008 result was a crazy outlier.

On the other hand, while national swings are generally mostly uniform they aren't entirely. There was no indication that Obama should've won Indiana in 2008. It was a 21 point swing from 2004, whereas the national swing was 9 points. If Biden ends up winning the national vote by about 10 points, and gets an 8 point swing from 2016, there easily could be a state that swings by 20 points again. I'm not sure I'd pick Missouri as the one to do it though.

Even if Biden won by 15 points I still wouldn't give him much chance in Missouri.  We talked last week about what could be the "surprise" state in the event of a Biden landslide, and while MO would have been a reasonable choice in 2008 (more likely than Indiana, to be honest), it isn't anymore.  The super reach states are either the ones where white voters have shown some weird quirks wrt Republican orthodoxy (MT, AK) or where supercharged AA turnout might be enough if Trump turnout is bad (SC).  Missouri doesn't offer either one (and MO is 83% white).  

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5 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Maybe the Obama outlier points to what increased AA turnout in polls can do (I have no idea what the demographics are in Kansas City or St Louis, but it is plausible). I think AA turnout may be decisive in some states this time around, actually.

And Twitler showed what a depressed AA turnout can do.

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1 hour ago, ants said:

Its disenfranchising them because unless they get enough votes to overcome the filibuster, they're votes don't matter. 

I don't think you understand what disenfranchising means.  It's denying someone their right to vote.  Not how their vote translates into their Senators' vote on the floor.  That...entirely confuses the idea of a republic.  If people want to vote for Senators or representatives based on their positions on the filibuster, they are more than welcome.  But the vast majority don't give a shit.

As for the Trafalgar polls, I wouldn't worry about it too much.  There are pollsters that lean one way or another, but they lean HARD republican.  It's not surprising their numbers are so out of step with everyone else's.  Just look at the trends.

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