US Politics - A Dream of Swing

[Makk]

Much better than when I went to bed, but still....

Weeks of legal shitfighting and recounts coming up.

Who knows what trump will do in his last few months if he does lose. And if he does will he be back in 4 years for another crack at it?   

[IheartIheartTesla]

There are 52 house seats remaining, I dont believe it is possible for the Republicans to take the House (a fair number are in safe D seats, so I think R+5 may end up being what happens)

[Durckad]

18 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

Jesus Christ Collins is a fucking cockroach. Well, I hope this close call has "taught her a lesson." 

I'm going to look in my crystal ball and... nope.

Also, I love that the election hasn't even been decided yet and the argument that "Trump is not a real Republican" is already leering its head.

I'm surprised @OldGimletEye radar hasn't gone off yet.

[aceluby]

Just now, Makk said:

And if he does will he be back in 4 years for another crack at it?   

He can't not be in the spotlight, so if he's not dead or in prison, I'd put money he'll be on the ballot

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

22 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Why is the James/Peters race so close? Is Peters incompetent? I was sad to see James is black. I view black Republicans with a great deal of suspicion, especially after seeing them interviewed on CNN or CNBC.

Much like I view Republican Jews. So you want to vote with the people who want to see us burn? Okay...

[Ran]

The AP explains why they've called Arizona for Joe Biden. Seems hard to refute. And saw more reporting that basically all that was left to count in WI was 300 votes, with Biden up 20,000. Even Scott Walker is saying that a recount might yield Trump a couple hundred votes, at best -- not worth doing.

 And Biden's lead is expanding in Michigan. It comes down to Nevada and Pennsylvania, I guess.

 

[SeanF]

8 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I gather 80 Congressional positions are still up in the air. Do we have a handle on them? Can the Republicans take the House?

Unlikely, but they could reduce the Democratic majority to ten or so.

 

4 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I saw confirmation of Gideon conceding, but again, Collins had less than 50%, she has 49.8%. Why concede?

Because she’d need 90% of second preferences, which is not feasible.

[OldGimletEye]

3 minutes ago, Durckad said:

I'm surprised @OldGimletEye radar hasn't gone off yet.

No, I don't buy that Trump has been great for the economy. It's true, in my view, things are better, than say they were 4 years ago. But, that had to do with trends that were occurring before Trump took office, largely us recovering from a devastating financial crises.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

2 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

It was always pretty crazy to think that the Dems were going to unseat Mitch McConnel and Lindsey Graham, but I can't speak to the reasoning behind throwing tens of million at those races rather than more $$ against weaker Senators.

The Democrats have always [willfully] misunderstood Trump's appeal, and possibly this is partly to blame for eeking out a win against him as well as Trump doing better with black and Latino men after 4 years.

 

I still don't understand Trump's appeal. How the working class can look at him and say, "He gets me" is beyond my reasoning abilities. Everything about him is antithetical to their existence and ability to prosper. I hear the claim "but the economy was good for most of the presidency," but that's determined by a metric that has absolutely no bearing on the working and middle class. Rich people were getting richer, and I suppose people had jobs, but their material conditions didn't change. The daily messaging from media about a booming economy, even if the impacts of this boom do nothing for you, likely acted only as confirmation bias for his supporters. 

2 hours ago, Maithanet said:

I see what you're saying.  But I'm not sure Trump was as easily beatable as you are describing.  He certainly SHOULD be, I can hardly imagine anyone doing a worse job as President for the past four years.  But partisanship and the Republicans propaganda machine are very strong, and getting stronger.  This underwhelming (probable) Biden win might really have been the best we could do.  Which is itself, an indictment of this country. 

This reminds me of an article I read awhile back called "the Tragedy of the Common" (I believe). It was published in the 60s, but the author talks about the problem of "technical solutions." This branches from a belief that natural sciences can solve existential threats (overpopulation, specifically, in his article), but that we can't rely on that. Solutions for these problems have to come from a shift in cultural consciousness. I'm on the fence about if the Democratic party fell into the technical solutions column or the cultural consciousness column. On the one hand, the Democrats did position themselves as ideological opponents to Trump (racism, for example), but on the other, the technical solutions to the issues of Covid and the economy seemed to be the loudest message. The Republicans, I suppose, have mastered this. They don't shift cultural consciousness, but the seize on the internal beliefs and fears that subcultures carry with them--primarily Christians. 

How do we win a war against a party that's not only stacked the deck against us in literal ways (gerrymandering, voter suppression, etc.), but also help those people who see things like equity and equality for the other as an assault on their spirituality? The Democratic party needs to find a way to begin to shift that needle. I'm not sure how.

I'll take the Biden win though.

2 hours ago, Mindwalker said:

Yes, I remember bringing that up in these threads, and everyone responded with"This time is different, now people have seem what Trump does." But the rather mundane adage that you have to run on something positive, still seems to hold true. 

Watching Democracy Now.

Ben Jealous: Trump heavily outspent Biden 10:1 in FL with LatinX voters in Spanish speaking media. Had Spanish-language ads there 1 month before Biden. Pence went there multiple times. Leaders, e.g. in Venezuelan community kind of acknowledge the politics, but say: "Yeah, we hate them, but at least we know these guys!" (I paraphrased the first part of the sentence.)

 

That's a fair point. And Trump, while still impulsive and sometimes resorting to negative attacks, became (disingenuously so) a more "positive" person after recovering from Covid. Saying he loved everyone, the women and the men, etc. He did what he does best: he performed, and people loved it.

2 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

How is the Democratic Party going to respond to the lack of enthusiastic support from Latino voters?

Scot, I wonder about this too. I dread bringing up the prohibited B-word around here (Bernie), but I think Dems start there since he had huge support with this demographic. What part of his message resonated? 

1 hour ago, QuietColours said:

Having had similar exchanges with his office, plus some where his staff accused me of lying about my identity on the phone when I called about issues, all I can say is amen to that.

It was my one saving grace last night to rub it in. He's the worst. I'm glad we're rid of him.

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

You didn’t answer the question.

How can there be an answer? Maybe Biden's the best candidate--but his strategy/approach or whatever didn't work. Maybe we see a blue wave with a different approach. Saying one person or the other might have done better is useless. It's an unknown. We can deal with the fact that this victory (which I'm believing will happen) is far too narrow for the hell we've gone through in the U.S. for the last four years.
 

So, I can't give you a person who would do better. A partial solution to this, however, would be ranked voting. 

22 minutes ago, The Great Unwashed said:

If Biden wins, but R's keep the Senate, Biden's administration needs to focus on doing one of the few things McConnell can't blockade, which is using the DOJ to dredge up all the corruption during the Trump era. 

Before I get a thousand incredulous "you think that will finally move the needle" responses; no, I doubt that anything at this point will turn off Trump's base. But I think it's fairly obvious that Democrats were entirely shit at messaging this cycle. If Trump *hadn't* spent the entire year tripping over his own dick (and I'm not even including his disastrous pandemic response), he probably would have won the race last night.

Democrats need to remove their heads from their asses and figure out that a whole hell of a fucking lot of people don't *want* to go back to the way things were before Trump, regardless of how much they hate him, because the way things were for them sucked. Yes, things under Trump probably suck worse, but "Let us make your lives slightly less miserable" isn't exactly an inspiring slogan. But it's going to take time to come up with new messaging, which Democrats don't have. 

So use this treasure trove of Trump administration graft to flood their zone with shit, tie Republican Senators to the absolutely shady BS going on

Set the fucking narrative from day 1; otherwise you just let Republicans use you as a pinata for the next 2 years while they obstruct everything you try to do.

To the first bolded point, Trump's most ardent supporters are disenfranchised white men (I think). They feel ignored and under attack. Of course, the shifting to a more tolerant society is not an attack on them, but it's what they believe and fight against. I think the long-term ramifications of "the deplorables" accusation fuels a lot of this. They feel the Democratic party looks at them as inferior things. That's hard to get over. I know there was outreach on this front during 2020, but the focus on "white suburban women" only probably reinforced those ingrained prejudices and bigotry that his base has. I know Biden made general comments about working class people needing help, but when was the last time they were actually championed? Poor white people, privileged or not, are resentful of the message that their problems aren't as important. How do we balance this while still promoting equity for our most at risk populations? 

To the second bolded point, I wonder how the stalled stimulus negotiations impacted voting with undecided voters. I have little doubt that people who need stimulus support see this as something Pelosi obstructed (as opposed to McConnell). Her approach seems disastrous in hindsight. 

[Maltaran]

2 minutes ago, Ran said:

The AP explains why they've called Arizona for Joe Biden. Seems hard to refute. And saw more reporting that basically all that was left to count in WI was 300 votes, with Biden up 20,000. Even Scott Walker is saying that a recount might yield Trump a couple hundred votes, at best -- not worth doing.

 And Biden's lead is expanding in Michigan. It comes down to Nevada and Pennsylvania, I guess.

 

You’re no longer thinking Georgia is possible?

[Durckad]

2 minutes ago, Makk said:

Much better than when I went to bed, but still....

Weeks of legal shitfighting and recounts coming up.

Who knows what trump will do in his last few months if he does lose. And if he does will he be back in 4 years for another crack at it?   

Hopefully he'll have a Twitter-attack and drop dead on the toilet like an overly bloated, fascist Elvis before that.

But if 2020 has taught me anything it's that he's probably immortal.

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, Mindwalker said:

We can def. agree on that.

There really isn't another option; Democrats couldn't get an effective message together over the course of 4 years, so they're definitely not going to get an entirely new one together in 6 weeks.

The fascist wing of the Republican party crushed all opposition last night. The only lessons being learned is that a more disciplined and less crass version of Trump will cruise to election.

If Biden wins, we've essentially only purchased a 4 year partial reprieve from the continuing implementation of American fascism; we had best use all tools available. Investigate McConnell and Chao, Trump, his children, etc. If some Democrats get caught up, well, boo-fucking-hoo, don't be a corrupt piece of shit.

 

[IheartIheartTesla]

ME-2 has gone for Trump, per the AP....so another data point for a polling miss.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

I still don't understand Trump's appeal. How the working class can look at him and say, "He gets me" is beyond my reasoning abilities.

The best guess I can offer is that he looks like a cartoonish rich guy, and a lot of working class people want to be that? Idk, I'm trying here.....

[Kalbear]

I thought this was fascinating - it's a plot chart of voters preferences and how they work:

https://www.voterstudygroup.org/publication/political-divisions-in-2016-and-beyond

What's fascinating to me is the massive gulf in the 'fiscally conservative/socially liberal' part. There's probably no real room for Dems to grow there. 

Where the 'war' is going to be is in that socially conservative/fiscally liberal area.

[Kalbear]

Also, on polling misses: wow:

 

 

[Kalbear]

Also also, while the AP has called Arizona for Biden I think they might eat a bit of crow there and it might end up being real close. While Maricopa ballots are what's remaining they're the late-arriving ones, and we don't know how those skew.

Wisconsin being called for Biden makes a lot more sense though. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Are accurate State level polls possible in an era where people screen all their calls and randomized home calls simply are not possible as they once were?

[butterbumps!]

18 minutes ago, Simon Steele said:

I still don't understand Trump's appeal. How the working class can look at him and say, "He gets me" is beyond my reasoning abilities. Everything about him is antithetical to their existence and ability to prosper. I hear the claim "but the economy was good for most of the presidency," but that's determined by a metric that has absolutely no bearing on the working and middle class. Rich people were getting richer, and I suppose people had jobs, but their material conditions didn't change. The daily messaging from media about a booming economy, even if the impacts of this boom do nothing for you, likely acted only as confirmation bias for his supporters. 

This reminds me of an article I read awhile back called "the Tragedy of the Common" (I believe). It was published in the 60s, but the author talks about the problem of "technical solutions." This branches from a belief that natural sciences can solve existential threats (overpopulation, specifically, in his article), but that we can't rely on that. Solutions for these problems have to come from a shift in cultural consciousness. I'm on the fence about if the Democratic party fell into the technical solutions column or the cultural consciousness column. On the one hand, the Democrats did position themselves as ideological opponents to Trump (racism, for example), but on the other, the technical solutions to the issues of Covid and the economy seemed to be the loudest message. The Republicans, I suppose, have mastered this. They don't shift cultural consciousness, but the seize on the internal beliefs and fears that subcultures carry with them--primarily Christians. 

How do we win a war against a party that's not only stacked the deck against us in literal ways (gerrymandering, voter suppression, etc.), but also help those people who see things like equity and equality for the other as an assault on their spirituality? The Democratic party needs to find a way to begin to shift that needle. I'm not sure how.

Instead of throwing money to moonshot elections (Harrison in SC, McGrath in KY, for example), maybe investing in local news?   Sort of like a less Pravda version of Sinclair, plus local newspapers so that half of the country isn't stuck in fact deserts?  Maybe it could puncture the bubble of Fox News?

 

To expand-- I don't think our messages are wrong or even poorly delivered on the Dem side.  I think people aren't hearing us.  It's just not breaking through because all these people aren't being reached.

[aceluby]

10 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

The best guess I can offer is that he looks like a cartoonish rich guy, and a lot of working class people want to be that? Idk, I'm trying here.....

I think it's more that they are voting for the character he plays on TV.