US Politics: Choking our Democracy

[TrackerNeil]

10 hours ago, Gaston de Foix said:

Good piece for the unconvinced that the filibuster has to go: 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/09/07/senate-filibuster-rule-repeal/

Total agreement. As I said during the primaries, any candidate who has no filibuster policy has no policy at all, because "no policy" is exactly what that candidate will achieve as president. 

Also, the filibuster is essentially a conservative measure, preserving the status quo, so why are liberals fighting to protect it? Sure, going to a majority Senate may occasionally bite us, but at the end of the day, the majority is either going to govern or it isn't. If we're not going to govern even when we are in charge, why are we bothering to fight to be in charge at all?

[IheartIheartTesla]

I saw somewhere that Sabato said he mentally added about a point or so from what he considered were 'shy Trump voters', always the quiet ones in conversations and polls saying they thought politics was too negative etc. He also admitted it was a gut feeling more so than anything else. But I have found the opposite to be true, here in Michigan there are a lot of loud and proud Trump supporters, and I wouldnt consider too many to be coy about their political preference.

There may be some effect of this near the 'elite centers' (or the converse in rural communities), but even giving Trump 1-2 points that is not captured by weighing by education Biden is still ahead by ~5-6 points right now. Less than 2 months to go.

[DMC]

12 hours ago, Gaston de Foix said:

Good piece for the unconvinced that the filibuster has to go:

Heh, yeah that piece did absolutely nothing to convince me the filibuster has to go.  Two former chiefs of staff whining about the stimulus?  Right, the filibuster is somehow to blame for Obama rushing that through as opposed to the reality of political expediency and his very valid interest in getting something passed as soon as possible.  Then there's the last graph which begins:

Quote

Finally, ending the filibuster would recognize the increased partisanship in the Senate, rather than contribute to it.  We served under senators who were able to construct bipartisan majorities for important legislation, and we hope that the Senate finds its way back to constructive engagement and robust debate.

Uh, yes, eliminating the filibuster will most certainly contribute to increased partisanship in the Senate.  Anyone that thinks otherwise is either out of their minds or full of shit.  Also, Ted Kennedy's chief of staff talking about constructing bipartisan majorities via "constructive engagement and robust debate" insults the intelligence of anyone aware of Ted Kennedy's legislative career.  He exploited the filibuster as a tool to get what he wanted - or prevent things he didn't want - for half a century. 

The co-author was Tim Johnson's former chief of staff.  I don't recall Johnson ever complaining about the filibuster while in office, and as a South Dakotan Democrat it was quite useful to sustaining his political career.  Anyway, acting like abolishing the filibuster would miraculously lead to increased comity to enable bipartisan majorities - let alone "constructive engagement and robust debate" - is complete ass backwards logic.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

If you eliminate the filibuster, all that will change is instead of getting next to nothing done, you'll get something passed and then when you lose power the other side will immediately undo it. This could actually create even more uncertainty. 

[IheartIheartTesla]

There are now a fair number of polls showing a tightening race in PA that I dont like one bit. I think drumming up the votes in Philly and Pitt is something that cannot be ignored this cycle like it was in 2016 (one of the numerous missteps of the Clinton campaign)

[sologdin]

consequences of Irish and German Catholic immigration for American identity and social harmony.

the absurdity here is that the lack of harmony is caused by nativist vigilantism.

 

recovery as "K-shaped,"

isn't that because the CARES act's $454B of direct loans turned into $4.54T of FRB-guaranteed market loans to non-financial corporations without restrictions on dividends, stock buybacks, executive compensation, and so on?

[Maithanet]

7 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

There are now a fair number of polls showing a tightening race in PA that I dont like one bit. I think drumming up the votes in Philly and Pitt is something that cannot be ignored this cycle like it was in 2016 (one of the numerous missteps of the Clinton campaign)

My impression of the PA post-mortem was that the Clinton campaign were fighting hard in Philly and Pittsburgh, but more or less abandoned the rest of the state.  Thus Trump was able to increase his margins in the rest of the state (which was already very Republican) from like +400k to +600k. 

[Gorn]

55 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

If you eliminate the filibuster, all that will change is instead of getting next to nothing done, you'll get something passed and then when you lose power the other side will immediately undo it. This could actually create even more uncertainty. 

If it's a good, popular policy, they won't. Republicans couldn't destroy ACA, and all they needed was 50 votes.

Right now, filibuster is an excuse for the party in power to do nothing. And removing it might force the average voter to actually care about congressional elections and increase turnout, since things they care about will be on the line every time.

I don't understand why anyone on the "progressive" side would support a tool designed to actively impede, you know, progress.

[DMC]

13 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

There are now a fair number of polls showing a tightening race in PA that I dont like one bit. I think drumming up the votes in Philly and Pitt is something that cannot be ignored this cycle like it was in 2016 (one of the numerous missteps of the Clinton campaign)

Meh, I'm not panicking about PA just because of a few recent polls - one of which was Rasmussen.  Monmouth and now Susquehanna has it close too, but those Monmouth polls in general last week seemed to skew right and were a pretty damn small sample.  Not criticizing them, but it seems like an ordinary outlier.

2 minutes ago, Gorn said:

I don't understand why anyone on the "progressive" side would support a tool designed to actively impede, you know, progress.

Because eliminating the filibuster can just as equally - if not more so - encourage regression rather than progression.  Particularly in a chamber that has a built-in GOP advantage, ceteris paribus.

[Fez]

This makes me extremely nervous; even though the sample size is tiny...

 

[DMC]

54 minutes ago, Fez said:

This makes me extremely nervous; even though the sample size is tiny...

Yeah 3/8 spoiled sounds like a bunch of horseshit.  Be curious do know where these are being counted.

[Fez]

9 minutes ago, DMC said:

Yeah 3/8 spoiled sounds like a bunch of horseshit.  Be curious do know where these are being counted.

Well, North Carolina only started sending out ballots on September 4. I think the only ones that could be returned thus far are overseas/military ballots, which went out even earlier. There hasn't been time for anyone else yet. Later this week more ballots should start coming back. It could be that there's more issues with verifying residency for those voters than others; but that's the only legitimate reason I can think of.

As for the counting itself, I think its being done by the local election offices.

[IheartIheartTesla]

Of the 27 spoiled, 10 D, 9 R and 8 other if you follow his thread. Lets wait for more data to make any sort of statistical extrapolation out of this.

[Varysblackfyre321]

1 minute ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Of the 27 spoiled, 10 D, 9 R and 8 other if you follow his thread. Lets wait for more data to make any sort of statistical extrapolation out of this.

It doesn't seem to be overly skewered towards Republicans or Democratsat least

[aceluby]

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

If you eliminate the filibuster, all that will change is instead of getting next to nothing done, you'll get something passed and then when you lose power the other side will immediately undo it. This could actually create even more uncertainty. 

You just described the last 3 years.  

[Zorral]

11 hours ago, Triskele said:

Some of you may have heard about this war game scenario thing that a non-GOP coalition was doing.  There's a Daily Beast (limited clicks) piece here that has way more on what that's about, who is involved, what debates they're having, etc...

 

Somewhat related to what some of you are saying above, it's getting harder and harder to envision and election that feels over on election night as there's almost no way Trump concedes cleanly (or so I fear) and almost no way that Trump wins the popular vote.  

 

"The Left Secretly Preps for Violence After Election Day."  

I just read that.  Take away:  they still have no idea as to what, you know, to do in the face of guns. Or when Biden folds way too early.

Quote

 

...But the group stated that the most relatable parallel would be what happened in 2000, when the final results remained in limbo for weeks amid a recount of votes in Florida. 

What’s difficult to remember was just how ill-prepared everyone was for that moment. When Al Gore dispatched top campaign aides to Tallahassee, the presumption was that election officials would quickly find another box of ballots that would change the vote count in a way that left no ambiguity as to who won. Ron Klain, Gore’s top emissary in Florida, recalled telling his wife he’d be home by the coming Saturday.

The ordeal ended up lasting 36 days. And in looking back on it many years later, Klain said that the fundamental mistake Democrats made was treating it, primarily, as a legal fight....

 

And this happened because out-of-touch with just how far the opposition is willing to go at anytime and anywhere, VP Gore, didn't even carry his own state in the election.  If his own state had given him the majority that recount wouldn't happened, and been stopped by people intimidating the counters in Florida with actual guns.

[sologdin]

the 2000 recount interrupted by gunslingers?

i don't get this line of argument.  we know from palast that the state of florida stripped many thousands of persons of the right to vote unlawfully (and many more lawfully) in florida. but gore also lost more registered dems to bush than he did to nader.  the whole thing was a fuckup--but it wa sufficiently close that he lost his own state.  i.e., this was not an extrajuridical loss.

[Fez]

To be fair, Tennessee was rapidly changing politically in the late '90s. And by 2000 was a very different state from the last time Gore was on the top of a ballot back in 1990.

Law and Order's Fred Thompson won the special election for Gore's seat with 60%, and won reelection in 1996 with 61%. Ron Sundquist won the governor's race in 1994 with 54% and was re-elected in 1998 with 69%. In 2000, Bill First won the other senate race with 65%. It's a miracle Gore still got 47% that year. I don't blame Gore for not winning his home state.

I do blame him for not winning New Hampshire though. It was an extremely winnable state that he lost by 1.2% (~9,000 votes) and if he'd carried it Florida wouldn't have mattered.

[DMC]

56 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Of the 27 spoiled, 10 D, 9 R and 8 other if you follow his thread.

Hm.  That's a lot of other.

As for 2000 Florida, Harris and the Florida courts wanted to stop the recounts because the writing was on the wall that if they continued Gore would win.  And SCOTUS complied.  Gore losing Tennessee doesn't matter, and no, was not surprising.  Like Fez said, if he had just gotten three thousand more votes in New Fucking Hampshire the world would be a very different place right now.

[A True Kaniggit]

30 minutes ago, DMC said:

Hm.  That's a lot of other.

Yeah. My first thought as well.

Maybe a combination of the spot being left blank or the vote not being 100% clear so it was discarded.

No way that percentage of people are voting third party.