US Politics: Turkeys Available Here

[mcbigski]

On 11/27/2021 at 2:20 PM, Week said:

To wit:

Did you not read the bold or are you being intentionally obtuse?

Which parts of the text you bolded do you disagree with, btw?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

On 11/27/2021 at 2:31 PM, A True Kaniggit said:

Without looking, I’m fairly certain in the former Confederate States the descendants of those who fought a war to own other human beings vote Republican about 75%.

The descendants  of the people who were owned by the aforementioned group currently vote Democrat around 88% (because no one wants to be on the same side as the person who thinks they should be property)

Non Southern Republicans, how do you rationalize this?

That flipped in the 60s, and 70s when the Republicans worked hard to court the “racist vote” in the South.  Before the Parties traded their form positions with each other the South was a bastion for the Democratic Party and those Blacks who managed to vote generally voted Republican.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

3 hours ago, DMC said:

Piece out today that's basically a follow up to the OP in this thread - Trump’s Senate picks stumble out of the gate:

Outside of the Parnell debacle in Pennsylvania, the two races that are most likely to help Dems are in North Carolina and Arizona.  In NC, former governor Pat McCroy is manifestly a better general election candidate than the Trump-endorsed Ted Budd.  Budd has closed the gap since the endorsement, but McCroy still leads in the most recent polls and is still outraising Budd.  In Arizona, Trump has yet to endorse a candidate but the clear frontrunner (and best general election candidate) is Mark Brnovich.  The problem?  Brnovich is Arizona's AG, and thus Trump's sworn enemy for not trying to overturn the election for him.

Even in Alabama, Trump-endorsed Freedom Caucus charter member Mo Brooks is running neck-and-neck with Richard Shelby's former CoS Katie Britt to replace Shelby.  Obviously that's not much of a pickup opportunity for the Dems, but still.  And of course there's Alaska where Trump-endorsed Kelly Tshibaka isn't making a dent in Lisa Murkowski's lead and advantage - even though it doesn't really matter given Alaska's new jungle primary system.

As far as I'm aware, the only non-incumbent Trump-endorsed candidate that's going to cruise to nomination is Herschel Walker in Georgia, who has a number of clear red (yellow?) flags as a general election candidate.

If Trump endorsed Senate Candidates lose across the board or even more often than not will the Republican establishment finally feel safe to kick Trump and his Trumpanista buddies to the curb?

[DMC]

55 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

If Trump endorsed Senate Candidates lose across the board or even more often than not will the Republican establishment finally feel safe to kick Trump and his Trumpanista buddies to the curb?

No but it would make them much more skittish about the prospects of him running again and embolden his potential challengers.  Whether - and how - that affects Trump's calculus, who the fuck knows? 

[DireWolfSpirit]

Assuming he advances to the General, Walker seems like a seriously tough opponent.

I think Herschel Walker would get enough crossover votes from low info voters that will just support a famous athlete. 

He also could snipe off just enough minority voters that would normally be in the Dem camp.

Also seems unlikely he would have any trouble fundraising.

[DMC]

25 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Assuming he advances to the General, Walker seems like a seriously tough opponent.

The GOP would clearly rather have Perdue and probably Collins run but they refused.  Hell maybe even Loeffler.  Walker has significant baggage, is going to be very prone to amateur mistakes and likely to polarize voters, and along with Abrams hopefully at the top of the ballot Warnock doesn't need to worry about black voters at all.

[DireWolfSpirit]

46 minutes ago, DMC said:

Hell maybe even Loeffler. 

She grates me.

[DMC]

And cowboy stoners everywhere wept...

Matthew McConaughey will not run for Texas governor

[A Horse Named Stranger]

11 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

If Trump endorsed Senate Candidates lose across the board or even more often than not will the Republican establishment finally feel safe to kick Trump and his Trumpanista buddies to the curb?

Not as long as he holds that much influence over their (primary voters).

To reiterate what Flake said (looking at Arizona), to win the [Republican] Primary, you need Trump, but if you run for office you need to appeal to the moderate voters.

Or in other words: As long his audience loves the circus, the ring leader will pick the clowns.

[Darryk]

So there's a lot of resentment in South Africa and a feeling that we're basically being punished for a) having good enough science to identify the new variant, because of our experience with HIV and TB b) being honest and telling the world about the new variant immediately.

And as if that's not enough, we've got to deal with this guy:

Thankfully my brother got into the US legally, not by swimming across the Atlantic Ocean.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

I must salute the South Africans, but question their jugement tho.

I salute the people of South Africa for creating time travel. But really, travel back in time to Pangaea, just travel to the US border to be eaten by some stupid dinosaur doesn't strike me as a particularly sound plan.

Just count your blessings. Abbott is displaying Zuma levels of stupid there. 

As for your bigger point. Of course travel would be restricted as soon as that new variant popped up. If it turns out the vaccines hold up, and that it ain't that bad, travel from South Africa will resume.

[Kalbear]

4 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

As for your bigger point. Of course travel would be restricted as soon as that new variant popped up. If it turns out the vaccines hold up, and that it ain't that bad, travel from South Africa will resume.

And that would be fine - if we were restricting travel from EVERY country that has so far shown to have it. 

But we have not done that, so it sucks ass. 

[DMC]

12 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Not as long as he holds that much influence over their (primary voters).

To reiterate what Flake said (looking at Arizona), to win the [Republican] Primary, you need Trump

Well, that's kind of the point.  At least right now, it does not look as if his endorsement (or lack thereof) is as nearly influential in the GOP primaries as it was in the last two cycles.  Of course, that could change by the time people actually vote, but if it holds it would severely undercut the value of his endorsement which he uses as both a carrot and a stick on potential GOP officeholders.

Moreover, even if his endorsed candidates do prevail in the primaries, if the Dems end up winning Pennsylvania - or, say, North Carolina because Ted Budd is the GOP nominee instead of Pat McCroy - that will similarly piss off "establishment" Republicans or non-Trumpists.  Indeed, it's exactly what McConnell fears.

[DMC]

Interesting op-ed from Seth Masket that harkens back to our discussion that Biden et al. need to provide "leadership" against the "wokeness" that is hurting the Dems electorally:  Why A ‘Sister Souljah Moment’ Won’t Save Biden - Clinton’s polling didn’t actually change much after his tack to the center on race. Biden should ignore the pundits calling for a 1990s reboot:

Quote

So why is it important to interrogate this piece of political lore three decades later? Because clearly many opinion leaders take it as an article of faith that a Democratic president can make himself more popular by bashing advocates for racial justice. The evidence doesn’t really support this, but they make the argument anyway.

Boot is right that the stakes are very high right now for both the Democrats and for American democracy in general. However, it’s far from clear that Democrats would gain anything by slamming a Black Lives Matter activist or trashing adherents of critical race theory. Indeed it would only signal to Black people within the party that their leadership considers them expendable when times get tough.

In midterm elections, turnout typically suffers among key Democratic constituencies like people of color and young voters. Biden symbolically casting aside people of color would probably only add to that problem — particularly if it’s just taking a page from 1990s punditry that may not have actually worked in the first place.

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

10 hours ago, DMC said:

Well, that's kind of the point.  At least right now, it does not look as if his endorsement (or lack thereof) is as nearly influential in the GOP primaries as it was in the last two cycles.  Of course, that could change by the time people actually vote, but if it holds it would severely undercut the value of his endorsement which he uses as both a carrot and a stick on potential GOP officeholders.

Moreover, even if his endorsed candidates do prevail in the primaries, if the Dems end up winning Pennsylvania - or, say, North Carolina because Ted Budd is the GOP nominee instead of Pat McCroy - that will similarly piss off "establishment" Republicans or non-Trumpists.  Indeed, it's exactly what McConnell fears.

Remains to be seen. McTurtle's fear is the best case scenario for anybody not named Trump. Worst case scenario, his candidates prevail on election day. 

[Larry of the Lawn]

12 hours ago, DMC said:

Interesting op-ed from Seth Masket that harkens back to our discussion that Biden et al. need to provide "leadership" against the "wokeness" that is hurting the Dems electorally:  Why A ‘Sister Souljah Moment’ Won’t Save Biden - Clinton’s polling didn’t actually change much after his tack to the center on race. Biden should ignore the pundits calling for a 1990s reboot:

 

Yeah, fuck Max Boot.  He was shouting harder than just about anybody to go into Iraq, he's basically a Neocon who pretends he's abandoned the right.  Not that he's incapable of insight, but his motives have always been pretty transparent about trying to force the Dems to moderate.  

[Varysblackfyre321]

On 11/28/2021 at 3:48 PM, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

If Trump endorsed Senate Candidates lose across the board or even more often than not will the Republican establishment finally feel safe to kick Trump and his Trumpanista buddies to the curb?

They were nearly lynched by a mob he practically set on them after he cost them both control congress and the presidency.. If that wouldn’t get them to dislodge from nothing will.

Conservatives are spearheading an authoritarian movement; you don’t hope for authoritarians to see the moral value in working in a liberal democracy or reason.

At best what should be done to address them is to least make it so that they forced to moderate or become irrelevant.  

[Varysblackfyre321]

20 hours ago, Darryk said:

So there's a lot of resentment in South Africa and a feeling that we're basically being punished for a) having good enough science to identify the new variant, because of our experience with HIV and TB b) being honest and telling the world about the new variant immediately.

And as if that's not enough, we've got to deal with this guy:

Thankfully my brother got into the US legally, not by swimming across the Atlantic Ocean.

To many conservatives Covid is like global-warming; it’s dangerous when it’s existence can be used to beat up non white people and foreigners. Any other time it’s what can you do, besides it’s just a cold no big deal.

On 11/28/2021 at 8:54 PM, DMC said:

And cowboy stoners everywhere wept...

Matthew McConaughey will not run for Texas governor

I’m a bit disappointed. He looks to be someone who could help win Texas for the democrats no matter how he ran; if he ran as a republican, he takes(at least a few) votes for Abbot, if he ran a democrat I do think there is a strength to men and polls have reflected well on him when matched up against abbot. 

[Larry of the Lawn]

Is there any actual will in the Democratic party to do any type of substantive police reform?  

This piece makes a pretty soild argument "no":

https://thecolumn.substack.com/p/liberals-never-cared-about-substantive?justPublished=true

 

Quote

None of it makes any sense but it’s not supposed to.

It’s supposed to make liberals feel better for opposing substantive reform. Which is why getting into the weeds of empiricism is, to put it crudely, playing a losing game. Because “studies” aren't really what's driving the reactionary pushback to recent Black Lives Matter/George Floyd reforms, nor is any crime data. The people opposing substantive reform today are the same people who opposed it in 2019, 2016, and 2014. And they would oppose it if crime went down, up, or sideways. What changed is the target of the messaging, namely fence-sitting white liberals.

The backlash against meaningful police reform isn’t based on bespectacled wonks pouring over data and reluctantly, with a heavy heart, coming to the data-driven conclusion we must, unfortunately, go back to arresting and imprisoning countless faceless minorities. It’s about rebranding old racist dogma, protecting private property, and midwifing the Democratic Party’s short-term electoral needs. And it’s naive to act like it’s anything else. It’s fear, it’s serving the interests of wealthy donors, and it’s centering the political expediency of Democrats who are worried about 2022 and 2024. And, just like in the 1990s, it’s about pandering to and creating content for rich liberals whose primary concern is home prices and “good schools,” who also want to look like they care about racial justice. 

Ultimately, it’s a political question, not a “data-driven” one, no matter how much Globe Emoji Twitter tries to tell you otherwise.

 

[DMC]

1 hour ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

I do think there is a strength to men

This sounds like Gandalf.

Anyway I'm not sure McConaughey would have ran in either primary due to sore loser laws.  He'd have a very hard time beating Abbot in a GOP primary and even Beto would be difficult to defeat in a Dem primary.  Seemed pretty clear he would have run as an Independent.