Jump to content

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


Ser Scot A Ellison

Recommended Posts

3 hours ago, Sci-2 said:

See this is irritating because I see one side (not my team) trying to win, while the other side sits back in reaction mode and whines about the other side being more creative and dedicated to winning.

There is no reason the left cannot employ these same strategies. You have to fight to win, I'm sick of the lack of going for the jugular from the D's.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Looking over to Texas, I was surprised to see that with the exception of Austin, the big cities in Texas definitely weren't as blue as Democrats hoped.  Trump won 49% in Tarrant County (Ft. Worth), 43% in Harris County (Houston), and 40% in Bexar (San Antonio).  Not to mention of course that lots of medium sized cities are still very red, like Galveston, Baumont, Lubbock, and Denton. 

I never really gave the Dems much shot at flipping Texas.  Trump won by 9 points there in 2016, and that big a shift in a huge state like Texas is just a big, big ask.  I was hoping Biden could keep it under 3 points or so like Beto did, but it looks like it's gonna be Trump +5.5 or so.  Not all that much different than the shift nationally.  Democrats have reason for hope going forward, but there is still a LOT of work to do. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

Did NC's law change recently? As part of the Republican legislature trying to neuter the Dem governor?

While I can't quickly find anywhere to confirm it, I'm almost certain that law was on the books before the 2010 census.  The GOP just simply reaped the benefits by taking back both the state House and Senate during the 2010 cycle.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

Did NC's law change recently? As part of the Republican legislature trying to neuter the Dem governor?

No. The legislature tried, but under the state constitution the changes had to go to referendum and were resoundingly defeated in 2018. North Carolina has just always had a weak governor. They had no veto power at all until 1996 (the last state to do so), and it's not a particularly strong veto (no line-item abilities for instance).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another silly thing I'm noticing is that Trump's state in the popular vote was Tennessee, with a net +710k votes.  Next was Texas with +650k, then KY and AL with ~ +550k each.  So Trump's top 4 states in the popular vote net him just under 2.5 million votes.  In contrast, Biden won California alone by 4.9 million votes. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Another silly thing I'm noticing is that Trump's state in the popular vote was Tennessee, with a net +710k votes.  Next was Texas with +650k, then KY and AL with ~ +550k each.  So Trump's top 4 states in the popular vote net him just under 2.5 million votes.  In contrast, Biden won California alone by 4.9 million votes. 

Texas aside, population density is what makes these states sort of obsolete in a political sense, and also what causes their citizens to go doqn the dark roads of xenophobia. No easy solutions, here. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is definitely a pattern that the states with big cities and lots of people are voting for Democrats. 

Big states (20+ EVs) - Biden 4, Trump 2

Medium states (10-19 EVs) - Biden 10, Trump 3

Small states - (<10 EVs) - Biden 11, Trump 20

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

There is definitely a pattern that the states with big cities and lots of people are voting for Democrats. 

Big states (20+ EVs) - Biden 4, Trump 2

Medium states (10-19 EVs) - Biden 10, Trump 3

Small states - (<10 EVs) - Biden 11, Trump 20

Ergo, coastal elites, and stuff. Its cool to see the Mexican border starting to influence politics, tho. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Relic said:

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

You're obviously not wrong about the media profiting off of Trump, and I don't know what type of book Haberman is writing, but I strongly disagree on this being a general principle of reporters not writing books on odious leaders.  Were Woodward and Bernstein wrong to publish All the President's Men?  Was Shirer wrong to publish The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich?  I certainly don't think so.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, DMC said:

You're obviously not wrong about the media profiting off of Trump, and I don't know what type of book Haberman is writing, but I strongly disagree on this being a general principle of reporters not writing books on odious leaders.  Were Woodward and Bernstein wrong to publish All the President's Men?  Was Shirer wrong to publish The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich?  I certainly don't think so.

You're right, to a point, i think. Important books, both. However, Trump is very much still a player on the board, and I think we need to give him as little attention as possible. He's like one of those monsters that feeds off of exposure (fear) and grows stronger because of it. The last thing we need are more fucking Trump books. 

Maggie is obviously cashing in. I don't fault her, she's got three kids, but...meh. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Chataya de Fleury said:

Good job on that. Also, it is not an "assault rifle". There is no such thing. It might better be described as "military-style rifle".

Yes there his. If I hit you with my rifle, hence forth it becomes my assault rifle. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Relic said:

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

Isn't the real surprise that she waited this long to write a book? I think from the start the Trump administration has been uniquely accessible to authors good or bad from Wolff to Woodward.  And she has broken so many stories in the Times, when many of her colleagues like Michael Schmidt faced criticism for saving their scoops for their books.  

I agree w/you that it is in the public interest for Trump to be an object of no interest.  I just don't think asking journalists to self-police is the way to do that.  And, frankly, I suspect we are yet to learn all the craziness that took place in the WH.  But we will.  And we ought to.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Gaston de Foix said:

Isn't the real surprise that she waited this long to write a book? I think from the start the Trump administration has been uniquely accessible to authors good or bad from Wolff to Woodward.  And she has broken so many stories in the Times, when many of her colleagues like Michael Schmidt faced criticism for saving their scoops for their books.  

I agree w/you that it is in the public interest for Trump to be an object of no interest.  I just don't think asking journalists to self-police is the way to do that.  And, frankly, I suspect we are yet to learn all the craziness that took place in the WH.  But we will.  And we ought to.  

Fair. And i dont begrudge her. BUT, media attention is how this fucking scumbag rolled his way down the escalator and into the white house. The moment he said Mexicans coming here were rapists or whatever he said it should have been game over. But nope, the media decided to make him into either a hero or the ultimate villain, and cashed in while this country went further down into the toilet. It's obscene. Eating the rot to grow fat. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Maithanet said:

In Georgia, the big change is that the dense Atlanta suburbs have gotten very blue very quick.  For whatever reason, that isn't happening to nearly the same extent in North Carolina.  Mecklenberg county is Charlotte, the second largest county in the state.  Biden won it 67-32.  But Biden didn't win a single county bordering Mecklenberg, and was below 38% in 4 of the 5.  And these aren't low population places - those 5 counties gave Trump essentially the same number of votes as Biden got in Mecklenberg.  That really represents that old formula for Red states - blue metro areas, cancelled out by red suburbs.  In Georgia that approach has failed.  In North Carolina, it is still holding. 

I am probably stating the obvious, but a large reason for the difference between the Atlanta suburbs and Charlotte suburbs may simply be a matter of population.  A quick search suggests the Atlanta metro area is a~6million people vs 2.6 million for Charlotte.  No need to move out to the countryside if there is space closer to town. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...