US Politics: holding our breath waiting to see what happens next

[Fragile Bird]

39 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Read this list of grievances by the Trump campaign for a good laugh: https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/trump-voter-fraud-michigan-lawsuit_n_5fabef94c5b68707d1fb0166?ri18n=true

Unacceptable.

I tried to quote this story, in fact I did quote this story, and instead the post from Anti-Targ got quoted. Weird.

[briantw]

6 hours ago, Fury Resurrected said:

I don’t think it’s entirely Clinton’s fault. I don’t like her as a candidate, I don’t like her judgement on several very important votes in the senate, she’s way to the right of anything I’d be happy about. But I think a lot of what worked against Clinton is sexism against a woman who doesn’t try to mask her ambition with the expectations people have for women’s behavior. I think a lot of it is also the conspiracy theories about the Clintons.

In Biden’s case, I think the Barrett nomination and the quarter million dead Americans from COVID did more party uniting than any person could have done.

Personally, I think the problem with Clinton is that she walked in acting like she'd already won the race and that being the first woman president was nothing short of her destiny and barely even bothered campaigning in the Midwest.  Add to that the fact that she was a thoroughly underwhelming, uncharismatic candidate running against a cult of personality and it's not hard to see how she ended up losing.  

I don't think Biden is much better from a policy standpoint, but he worked hard to turn votes in key swing states and he also had the benefit of people seeing what a disaster four years of Trump had been, whereas four years ago people could tell themselves, "How bad could it be?"

[Varysblackfyre321]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/sweeping-pro-lgbtq-agenda-sought-ok-hiv-positive-troops-free-transgender-migrants%3f_amp=true

The article goes into Biden’s plans to help the LGBT.

Towards they try to sanitize Trump’s policy positions in regards to issues facing them.

”Of course, it assails Trump, who was the first Republican to discuss gay and transgender causes he supported during his 2016 Republican National Convention speech and who appointed the first openly gay ambassador, Richard Grenell, who later served briefly on the president’s Cabinet as an acting intelligence chief.”

It's maddening seeing conservatives pretend Trump’s actions hadn't made much more difficult to be a member of the LGBT community.

 

[Fragile Bird]

Today’s economic numbers show that inflation has not budged. Trillions have been poured into the economy and the Fed has been trying to reach it’s goal of inflation just under 2% and it hasn’t budged. 
 

Fear the deflation dragon, folks, it will destroy you.

[Relic]

Maggie Haberman is writing a book about Donald Trump, due out in 2022. Now, I've got a lot of respect for Maggie. When she was a young reporter we were friends, both working on the City Desk of the NY Post. I always admired her tenacity and general attitude. One of the most sarcastic people I've ever met, or at least she was, which is saying a lot when working in a major NYC newsroom.

But...

This is the kind of shit that literally makes me sick. So many good people have been pulled under the sway of the worlds most famous man, and many of them enable him and use him to get rich and/or famous. I personally never want to hear about this orange fucktard again, and yet it seems he has created a permanent place in out culture, mostly due to the media riding his ass endlessly for rating and $$$. 

/rant

[Fez]

Scandal! Apparently Obama is a filthy liar who never quit smoking while he was President and was smoking up to 10 cigs a day sometimes. I'm kinda amazed his White House was able to keep that under wraps the whole time (though there were certainly suspicions he still had the occasional one). 

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Joe Manchin looks fucking hilarious on TV right now. His mask makes him look like he's wearing giant purple and yellow hoop earrings.

[Larry of the Lawn]

5 minutes ago, Fez said:

Scandal! Apparently Obama is a filthy liar who never quit smoking while he was President and was smoking up to 10 cigs a day sometimes. I'm kinda amazed his White House was able to keep that under wraps the whole time (though there were certainly suspicions he still had the occasional one). 

 

Doesn't it say he quit once the ACA passed?  Still is impressive no one got a picture of him smoking.  Imagining Obama trying to smoke a cigarette like a teenager sneaking off to smoke a bowl.  

[Maithanet]

For all the talk of "realignment", the final 2020 map is going to look remarkably similar to the 2004 presidential map.  Biden won all the Kerry states, plus the 3 states that have moved decisively to Democrats in the past 16 years (NV, CO, VA) plus two reach pickups that Biden won by just ~12k votes (GA, AZ). 

That doesn't look like a realignment to me, that looks like a static map with a few demographic shifts in a slightly better year for Dems. 

[Sci-2]

Evidence suggests several state Senate candidates were plants funded by dark money

Quote

Why would candidates for Florida Senate seats do no campaigning, no fundraising, have no issue platforms, nor make any effort to get votes?

Local 10 News has found evidence to suggest three such candidates in three Florida Senate district races, two of them in Miami Dade County, were shill candidates whose presence in the races were meant to syphon votes from Democratic candidates.

Comparisons of the no-party candidates' public campaign records show similarities and connections that suggest they are all linked by funding from the same dark money donors, and part of an elaborate scheme to upset voting patterns.

Quote

The District 39 candidate is 81-year-old Celso Alfonso, a retiree who named the woman he calls his wife as campaign treasurer. She owns a day spa, and the home where we found Alfonso Tuesday afternoon.

He, too, lied about his identity at first, and finally admitted to being the candidate.

Alfonso claimed he had a lifelong dream to be in public service. He said he filed on his own, that no one assisted him.

A comparison of candidates Alfonso and Rodriguez show unusual similarities.

Both filed as No Party Affiliated candidates, yet both had recently been registered Republicans.

Both qualified as candidate on the same day, June 12, 2020, by paying a qualifying fee.

Both listed Gmail addresses with identical patterns: first initial, last name and district number and 2020.

Both list one single contribution to their campaign; both contributions are $2000 self-loans, presumably to pay the filing fee.

Both candidates' support appears to come from the same Political Action Committee, “Our Florida” - that have no previous political contributions or expenditures listed. It is the PAC that paid for campaign fliers for the candidates, all done by the same Clermont, Florida mail house, Advance Impressions.

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

4 minutes ago, Sci-2 said:

Evidence suggests several state Senate candidates were plants funded by dark money

 

I'm surprised this hasn't happened more frequently, or maybe others have just been better at covering their tracks.  

***if Lincoln Project really wanted from do something they should dump $ into state legislature candidates in states that would be flippable with friendlier maps, run then as Federalists or The Conservative Patriots for Freedom Party or some shit

[Fez]

42 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

For all the talk of "realignment", the final 2020 map is going to look remarkably similar to the 2004 presidential map.  Biden won all the Kerry states, plus the 3 states that have moved decisively to Democrats in the past 16 years (NV, CO, VA) plus two reach pickups that Biden won by just ~12k votes (GA, AZ). 

That doesn't look like a realignment to me, that looks like a static map with a few demographic shifts in a slightly better year for Dems. 

I think you're underselling some of what changed in 16 years:

Colorado moved 18 points to left, Arizona 11 points to the left, New Mexico 9 points to the left (remember Bush won NM in 2004), and Nevada 7 points to the left. Also, Utah appears to have moved 24 points to the left and Texas 17 points to the left. That's a pretty massive swing all across the southwest.

Meanwhile, Iowa went 9 points to the right and Ohio 6 points to the right. A lot of red states got much redder, and some blue states got much bluer; to the point that it's easy to forget just how close some states used to be (e.g. Oregon used to be usually won by ~4 points for Democrats, now its 15+ point blowouts). And while the margins in WI/MI/PA are almost identical to 2004, the county-level maps look very different as the coalitions have changed. 

Some 2004 battlegrounds simply aren't anymore, some states that were safe in 2004 are now battlegrounds, and some states that were safe in 2004 are now safe for the opposite party. It's not the New Deal coalition breaking apart, but there's still been a lot of changes under the surface.

[DMC]

59 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

For all the talk of "realignment",

Who's talking about realignment?  Honest question.

[Kalbear]

Lots of people are talking about realignment. It's huge. :p

Also, thank goodness we're not seeing any upticks in attempted violence

 

Quote

 

A Staten Island Trump supporter with an interest in the militia movement was arrested on Tuesday, after calling for crowds of New Yorkers to be gunned down in the streets while celebrating the election results, and threatening to "blow up the FBI building for real," according to federal prosecutors.

Brian Maiorana, 54, was arrested in Annadale, Staten Island on Tuesday morning. Federal agents who searched his home recovered a semiautomatic pistol, a Taser, a crossbow, an expandable baton, the upper portion of an AR 15 assault rifle, and several rounds of ammunition, prosecutors said.

Maiorana is barred from possessing firearms as a result of a 2007 sexual assault conviction.

 

[Fragile Bird]

Who would have guessed that when Trump told his adoring crowds before the election that after Nov. 3 you’d never hear about Covid-19 again he meant he’d never say anything about the virus again.

[Maithanet]

2 minutes ago, DMC said:

Who's talking about realignment?  Honest question.

After 2016 and prior to this year's election, there was definitely talk about a realignment happening.  I don't have one particular article that I remember as presenting a thesis on it, but it was discussed both on this forum and in several articles I saw.  You're welcome to talk about it being overblown, but it has definitely come up.

4 minutes ago, Fez said:

I think you're underselling some of what changed in 16 years:

Colorado moved 18 points to left, Arizona 11 points to the left, New Mexico 9 points to the left (remember Bush won NM in 2004), and Nevada 7 points to the left. Also, Utah appears to have moved 24 points to the left and Texas 17 points to the left. That's a pretty massive swing all across the southwest.

Meanwhile, Iowa went 9 points to the right and Ohio 6 points to the right. A lot of red states got much redder, and some blue states got much bluer; to the point that it's easy to forget just how close some states used to be (e.g. Oregon used to be usually won by ~4 points for Democrats, now its 15+ point blowouts). And while the margins in WI/MI/PA are almost identical to 2004, the county-level maps look very different as the coalitions have changed. 

Some 2004 battlegrounds simply aren't anymore, some states that were safe in 2004 are now battlegrounds, and some states that were safe in 2004 are now safe for the opposite party. It's not the New Deal coalition breaking apart, but there's still been a lot of changes under the surface.

But the map is never totally static, and 16 years is a long time.  Compare the maps from 1968, 1980 and 1992, and they have virtually nothing in common.  In contrast, the 2004 and 2020 maps look quite recognizably similar.  Overall the west and southwest have moved to the left and the rust belt has moved to the right, but not so much that the map is all that different. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 minute ago, Fragile Bird said:

Who would have guessed that when Trump told his adoring crowds before the election that after Nov. 3 you’d never hear about Covid-19 again he meant he’d never say anything about the virus again.

My dad said same thing.  Boy was he wrong.

[SFDanny]

3 hours ago, DMC said:

John Harris has a piece up on the Great Intraparty Debate.  It's fairly evenhanded and clearheaded overall, but does include a pointed criticism of AOC's NYT interview on Saturday that, refreshingly, has nothing to do with ideology or policy priorities.  Thought it was worth sharing:

 

So much of this stuff is centered around the losses in the House. The broader framework is important to remember. First, and no one should ever be able to start a discussion about this election without first mentioning this, Biden-Harris won with a record number of votes for any candidate ever to run for President and Vice President. Part of that was a great campaign and pitch perfect candidates, and part of that was the mobilizing factor of the repellant incumbent for people who wanted to get rid of Trump. But that framework cannot be lost. It is a political earthquake to oust Trump. It a time for celebration, not internal party recrimination.

This was done against the power of Trump's incumbency, and most importantly for the House races a decade long legacy of Republican gerrymandering of districts. It matters that when the new lines are drawn in places like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and North Carolina that Democratic governors will have a say in the process.

It also matters that, while Democrats turned out the historic vote that the second largest turnout in a presidential election was done by the Trump campaign. He was beaten soundly, but we cannot underestimate the importance of the turnout of his supporters in the down ballot races. The combination of Trump's turnout and gerrymandered districts thet put the chances of democratic candidates to a severe disadvantage. The good news is that Trump will not be on the ballot either in the run off races in Georgia, nor in the newly redrawn congressional races in 2022. Whether or not the GOP can maintain the kind of turnout without Trump on the ballot is going to be a sharp challenge for them.

We can have wonderful debates on issues, but those issues will never receive enough winning votes to make them a reality if the Democratic Party cannot put enough people into Congress to get it done. That means people like AOC and Spanberger toning down the rhetorical attacks. We need both of their voice and their votes.

 

[Maithanet]

I also think that the Dems underperformance in the house shows that there's a portion of the anti-Trump coalition (particularly in the suburbs) that aren't very happy with the Democrats either.  A president Biden and a Republican congress is just fine with them.  A lot of those voters probably are former Republicans or Rep leaning independents, but just found Trump too loathsome and incompetent.  Whether they can be fully brought into the Democrats tent or if they drift back to the Republicans will be one of the most important electoral battles of the next decade.

[DMC]

5 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

After 2016 and prior to this year's election, there was definitely talk about a realignment happening.

Ah.  Definitely after 2016 - after 2008 as well.  The former was silly - realignments don't happen when the winner of the EC loses the popular vote - and the latter clearly didn't turn out to be the case.  Anyone talking realignment before this election (or any election) was just asking to be wrong.  Anyway, I haven't seen much of anybody suggesting it's a realignment since the election, that's what I was wondering about.

That being said, Fez is right that there've certainly been substantial shifts in the past 16 years, albeit that doesn't qualify under the standard definition of realignment, and yeah, shifts are always gonna happen over such a period of time.  I guess you could say the southwest has been realigned though.