US Politics: Supreme Courting to insanity.

[James Arryn]

4 hours ago, DMC said:

Right but the in terms of mobilizing those who do care - which is really all that matters in elections - putting the two together to emphasize the stakes sounds like a good thing from what I can tell.  Again, somebody is going to need to explain to me why it isn't.

There’s not a lot of research on this, but the few studies I’ve seen show that Democrat voters make little to no connection between the their vote and the composition and/or decisions of the Supreme Court. Republicans do a lot more. Whereas things like stopping or supporting Trump and the economy are consistent voting motivators for supporters of both parties. Possibly this is either better long-term planning by Republican voters or better messaging by the GOP, or possibly this is the result of so few recent Democrat appointments, but one study even showed that Democrat candidates who stress the SC as a campaign issue are negatively affected. 
 

https://uh.edu/~abadas/BadasSimas-SupremeCourtElectoralIssue.pdf

 

That being said, even if the USSC did actually take deflection into account in their timing, imo that would only have altered their docket by fairly little. Moreover, recent polling weirdly shows that while the hearings have possibly raised the number of Americans who support indicting Trump, it has had virtually no effect on which party they would support and odder still, whether they’d vote for Trump. The Republican ‘witnesses’ who have ~ said ‘Trump tried to subvert the process and represents a serious threat to Democracy but I’d still support him over a Democrat’ are seemingly the rule, not the exception. Not sure we’ve ever seen anything this bizarre before, but there it is. 
 

It does kinda feel like a ‘world gone mad’ scenario. 
 

edit: I should add the disclaimer that I have rarely been able to empathize with the motivations of the American electorate at large and have never found a single path to getting why anyone would support Trump in anything outside of base bigotry and the appeal of superficial strongman/bully personification of American power.
 

Every time I hear him speak on any topic that topic is Trump and Trump’s greatness and how wronged Trump is and how everyone except the media loves Trump and understands how Trump deserves so much better from the American people and how much anything but a Trump supermajority is either evidence of incompetence or corruption on the part of anyone but Trump. Narcissistic leaders aren’t new, god knows, but no one has ever made as much effort to openly lead with that at pretty much every turn before that I know of, not even the notorious historical figures to whom he is often compared*. A conversation between a Martian and a fungo would contain more mutual understanding than one between me and a Trump supporter. 
 

second edit: on the other hand, I nailed that test wherein you are asked to predict what a Democrat thinks a Republican would say about an issue and vice versa. I was ~ 6% off on predicting what Dems think republicans think and almost dead on (either under or just over 2% off) in predicting what republicans think Dems think so although I cannot relate to how they think I seem very able to predict what they’ll think, especially the side I understand the least. As a consultant I’d be the equivalent of an elite drug-sniffing dog; I can smell it coming a mile off but have no fucking clue what it actually is. Also the media doesn’t praise me enough…everyone says so. 
 

* last edit, I’m almost certain: I can already hear someone saying something like ‘well, a lot of Americans think that Trump is just more honest about being narcissistic/self-serving/manipulative/corrupt than other politicians and so that makes him more trustworthy in a way’. I can anticipate the words, I know this makes some kind of sense to other people, it’s just completely incomprehensible to me as an actual non-satirical rationale for supporting someone for political office. 

[DMC]

4 hours ago, James Arryn said:

There’s not a lot of research on this, but the few studies I’ve seen show that Democrat voters make little to no connection between the their vote and the composition and/or decisions of the Supreme Court. Republicans do a lot more. Whereas things like stopping or supporting Trump and the economy are consistent voting motivators for supporters of both parties. Possibly this is either better long-term planning by Republican voters or better messaging by the GOP, or possibly this is the result of so few recent Democrat appointments, but one study even showed that Democrat candidates who stress the SC as a campaign issue are negatively affected. 

Oh yeah, there actually is plenty of research that's concluded the basic point of the study you linked - the SC in general is a more salient issue and subsequent mobilization for the Republican base compared to the Democrats.  Moreover, abortion itself is a more salient issue among Republican voters compared to Democratic voters.  Depressingly, this was even borne out in the most high profile contest since it became clear SCOTUS was going to overturn Roe last September - the McAuliffe/Youngkin gubernatorial campaign.

However, none of that research is meant to suggest that overturning Roe - easily the most salient and consequential SC decision of my lifetime (except maybe Bush v Gore, I suppose) - is not something that can benefit Dems irt a motivating factor.  Especially considering while overturning Roe has always been unpopular, it's become increasingly unpopular as it's become more and more clear the SC was actually going to do it.

As has been discussed before, I'm skeptical how much of an impact it will have on the midterms.  Inflation/the economy is still going to be the predominate issue in the fall, and it's hard to see this decision overriding in most voters' calculus - at least most persuadable voters' calculus.  Which again, was why I was emphasizing mobilizing interested voters rather than your "average" voter that is largely going to disengage right up to voting anyway. 

The "mobilization" I'm talking about isn't how the metric is operationalized in most studies you're referring to (at least scholarly studies, that is).  I'm not just talking about voting outcome, I'm talking about motivating the activists in your base to actively participate and contribute to the campaign -- and its that enthusiasm that is particularly crucial during midterm cycles and how the Democrats can turn this into an advantage.

And to be clear, the Dems and both the campaign organizations and interest groups therein have been planning for this.  And of course it's worth at least trying.  Here's a good rundown on that effort.

Anyway, none of this has much to do with my point.  Whether/how much overturning Roe or the January 6 hearings can impact the election remains to be seen, but the underlying assumption that both being emphasized at the same time will "drown out" one another or somehow be a bad thing for Democratic electoral efforts is completely unfounded and even the theoretical premise, IMO, is counter-intuitive.

[Ormond]

9 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I believe average Americans are already so overwhelmed by the current political landscape and politics aren't the first thing on most people's minds. They're only going to be focusing on a few things at best and something like overturning Roe basically knocks everything else off of their radar. 

I hate to break this to you, but politics has NEVER been "the first thing on most people's minds", no matter what the political landscape is. 

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Moreover, recent polling weirdly shows that while the hearings have possibly raised the number of Americans who support indicting Trump, it has had virtually no effect on which party they would support and odder still, whether they’d vote for Trump. The Republican ‘witnesses’ who have ~ said ‘Trump tried to subvert the process and represents a serious threat to Democracy but I’d still support him over a Democrat’ are seemingly the rule, not the exception. Not sure we’ve ever seen anything this bizarre before, but there it is. 

I don't think this is bizarre at all when you realize how much the right-wing has demonized the Democrats and the "liberal media" over the last 30 years. Many Republican voters now really believe that it is the Democrats and the media who are the greatest threats to democracy and that they are plotting to put us under a socialistic authoritarian dictatorship which will outlaw religion and control all aspects of our lives. In order to convince people who believe that to vote for a Democrat, you have to convince them not only that Trump is a "serious threat to democracy" but that he is a GREATER "threat to democracy" than they believe the Democrats are, and that's really difficult given the number of years they've been exposed to anti-left propaganda. 

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Ormond said:

I don't think this is bizarre at all when you realize how much the right-wing has demonized the Democrats and the "liberal media" over the last 30 years

Assisted tremendously by the demonized 'left' media, such as NPR.  The story this morning was an interview with an forced birth Indiana white female ob/gyn who blames the high level of maternal and infant mortality in the US on abortion and is thrilled that forced birth is now the rule so the medical system of the , who, in her own words, "have far less access to medical care."

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Ormond said:

I hate to break this to you, but politics has NEVER been "the first thing on most people's minds", no matter what the political landscape is. 

Yeah, which was part of the point I was trying to make. Everyday people at best are only considering a few things that are political at one time. An event like overturning Roe blocks out everything else for a lot of people, especially if they're casual observers. 

Quote

In order to convince people who believe that to vote for a Democrat, you have to convince them not only that Trump is a "serious threat to democracy" but that he is a GREATER "threat to democracy" than they believe the Democrats are, and that's really difficult given the number of years they've been exposed to anti-left propaganda. 

Those people are lost causes. I wrote here years ago that the only thing that could shake the right out of the fever dream it was it in was a catastrophe so large no one could look away from it. Looks like we got two of those between the pandemic and J6 and we're batting 0/2. Not sure anything can bring the majority of these people back from psychosis now which is deeply troubling going forward.

[LongRider]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

Assisted tremendously by the demonized 'left' media, such as NPR.

National Republican Radio continuously talking to Trump voters during the Trump years really bothered me.  When I heard them say yesterday on ATC that they would be talking to people about the SC's ruling, I immediately changed the channel, been to that rodeo before and wasn't interested in the opinions of woman haters.

[Week]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

Assisted tremendously by the demonized 'left' media, such as NPR.  The story this morning was an interview with an forced birth Indiana white female ob/gyn who blames the high level of maternal and infant mortality in the US on abortion and is thrilled that forced birth is now the rule so the medical system of the , who, in her own words, "have far less access to medical care."

 

So the current maternal and infant mortality will improve with more cases that may also be higher risk. That's really some special kind of stupid logic.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

23 minutes ago, Week said:

So the current maternal and infant mortality will improve with more cases that may also be higher risk. That's really some special kind of stupid logic.

Especially with this starting point:

 

[Poobah]

I don't usually jump in to this thread because, well, not American, but recent events leave me worried for my many American friends, not to mention for the inevitable exporting of their bullshit to my country as we've already seen the evengelical nutjobs begin with their backing of the TERFs here. So I come with a simple question:

What is the fucking point of the Democratic party?

To elaborate it seems to me it seems that for all their hand-wringing they're never prepared to do anything, they're establishment centrists who wouldn't risk rocking the boat if it were on fire, and indeed have done everything they can to sabotage any of their candidates who might dare to try. They're all shocked and saddened right now but as far as I can tell there's a democrat president, a democrat controlled congress, and a democrat controlled senate, and they had plenty of warning that this was coming down the pipes and instead of doing anything about it decided that the best thing to do was rush to protect SCOTUS from the people rather than the people from SCOTUS.

[Spockydog]

37 minutes ago, Poobah said:

 

What is the fucking point of the Democratic party?

 

She read out a poem. What more do you want? Sheesh. 

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, LongRider said:

National Republican Radio continuously talking to Trump voters during the Trump years really bothered me.  When I heard them say yesterday on ATC that they would be talking to people about the SC's ruling, I immediately changed the channel, been to that rodeo before and wasn't interested in the opinions of woman haters.

How anyone, even on Weekend Edition, could allow this preposterous Indiana ob/gyn say  the government and medical system is "now free to provide all the loving care and nurturing that every life, mother and child's deserve," because now we have forced birth, and who declared, just before that, there isn't easy access to health care for Black women in north Indiana -- without any pushing back on the out-and-out lie, I cannot comprehend.  Who would consent to have that ob/gyn in charge of her pregnancy?

Here is the heart of the Dems and our problems.  The media, whether from the reich or from the center -- there is no left media.

 

 

[Ormond]

I am not going to dispute that there are things that could theoretically have been done beforehand to mitigate what we're now going through.

But when people from the UK or other countries ask questions like that I think they often don't fully realize just how much weaker political parties are as institutions in the USA than they are in most parliamentary democracies. The Republicans may look more organized and disciplined than the Democrats, but they are not powerful in an institutional sense like European parties are, or Trump would never have gotten the nomination in 2016 in the first place, and he wouldn't have been able to take over the machinery of the party like he has.

I just looked at a site that explains how one becomes a member of the four main political parties in the UK. You have to fill out an application to be a party member and pay dues there! Local party associations can theoretically reject applications for membership. That is completely foreign to the American system. All you have to do be a "party member" in the USA is declare that you are a member of that party, and register as a member with the state government in the states that have registration by party, which is completely free and doesn't involve any "application". Parties cannot keep anyone from running on their ballots in a primary if they pay whatever fees the election law requires, and those fees go solely to the government, NOT to the parties themselves.  This allows individual politicians like Manchin (to give one example) to defy the wishes of the leaders of their party in a way that would be much more difficult in most other countries. It also makes party platforms less relevant, because one doesn't have to claim to agree with anything in a party's official platform to run on their ballot in a primary. 

As cultural changes have led to a greater correlation between being "conservative" and "liberal" to being "Republican" and "Democrat", I think there is actually more party discipline and solidarity in the USA Congress now than there was 50 years ago. But parties will still be more "useless" than they are in the UK as long as party organizations have no control over their membership. 

[DMC]

Been over this before, and obviously the Democratic party is very far from perfect, but blaming them for this decision or how they've dealt with abortion is just ass backwards and/or ignorant.  What have they done since they won unified government?  Well, legislatively, Pelosi passed the WHPA in the House last September with only one Democratic House member voting against it.  Then it (entirely) predictably failed to pass cloture in the Senate with Manchin as the only Democratic nay vote in February.  Then, after the leak last month, they did this all again.  Legislatively, the problem with US politics is, obviously, the filibuster.  The fact that fundamental institutional problem also applies to abortion rights should not be a surprise to any interested observer.

So, other than winning elections or unilateral action (which anything of substance on this particular issue would very likely be struck down by the GOP dominated SCOTUS), the Democrats have not been able to do anything since the threat to Roe hit Threat Level Bravo way back during Dubya's administration.  The only thing Senators could do was vote against Republican presidents' SCOTUS nominees.  And when it comes to Trump's trio, the only Democrats that voted for any of them were again Manchin, along with Joe Donnelly and Heidi Heitkamp (and their votes were electoral calculations that predictably failed but wouldn't have changed anything anyway). 

You could say the Dems should have tried to block Dubya's appointments, but Roberts' role in this is effectively moot in two ways (although the amount of Dem votes he did get - 22 or 50 percent - was way too high, as I thought at the time).  As for Alito, only four Democrats voted for his confirmation - Robert Byrd, Kent Conrad, Tim Johnson, and Ben Nelson.  They could have filibustered, sure, but all that would have resulted in is the filibuster being abolished for SCOTUS nominees a decade earlier than it actually was.

To conclude, if you're complaining about the Democratic party "not doing anything" on abortion with regards to Congress and the presidency, we're basically talking about 7 Senators - and only one sitting - and one House member.  Those 8 legislators certainly do not reflect where the overwhelming majority of the Democratic party at all levels is today.

[LongRider]

5 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Here is the heart of the Dems and our problems.  The media, whether from the reich or from the center -- there is no left media.

No left media that matters. 

I moved to Redding CA last fall and am amazed at the radio stations out here.  Public radio, not NPR, that is really public.  Yesterday, for example, I listened for a while to Ralph Nader's radio program.  I've heard programs by indigenous peoples consisting of their history, politics and music.  There are other 'lefty' programs as well.  This is different from any other radio market I've been in, and I really appreciate it.   Puts NPR to shame.

These are interesting and important programs, unfortunately, a very small reach.

[Larry of the Lawn]

34 minutes ago, DMC said:

Been over this before, and obviously the Democratic party is very far from perfect, but blaming them for this decision or how they've dealt with abortion is just ass backwards and/or ignorant.  What have they done since they won unified government?  Well, legislatively, Pelosi passed the WHPA in the House last September with only one Democratic House member voting against it.  Then it (entirely) predictably failed to pass cloture in the Senate with Manchin as the only Democratic nay vote in February.  Then, after the leak last month, they did this all again.  Legislatively, the problem with US politics is, obviously, the filibuster.  The fact that fundamental institutional problem also applies to abortion rights should not be a surprise to any interested observer.

So, other than winning elections or unilateral action (which anything of substance on this particular issue would very likely be struck down by the GOP dominated SCOTUS), the Democrats have not been able to do anything since the threat to Roe hit Threat Level Bravo way back during Dubya's administration.  The only thing Senators could do was vote against Republican presidents' SCOTUS nominees.  And when it comes to Trump's trio, the only Democrats that voted for any of them were again Manchin, along with Joe Donnelly and Heidi Heitkamp (and their votes were electoral calculations that predictably failed but wouldn't have changed anything anyway). 

You could say the Dems should have tried to block Dubya's appointments, but Roberts' role in this is effectively moot in two ways (although the amount of Dem votes he did get - 22 or 50 percent - was way too high, as I thought at the time).  As for Alito, only four Democrats voted for his confirmation - Robert Byrd, Kent Conrad, Tim Johnson, and Ben Nelson.  They could have filibustered, sure, but all that would have resulted in is the filibuster being abolished for SCOTUS nominees a decade earlier than it actually was.

To conclude, if you're complaining about the Democratic party "not doing anything" on abortion with regards to Congress and the presidency, we're basically talking about 7 Senators - and only one sitting - and one House member.  Those 8 legislators certainly do not reflect where the overwhelming majority of the Democratic party at all levels is today.

Why, after the alarm bells started going off in the early 2000s, did they not have a ready-to-go piece of federal legislation to legalize the right to an abortion?  They had the trifecta for a minute there.

 

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Larry of the Lake said:

They had the trifecta for a minute there.

If you mean the supermajority in 2009, there was no way they would get all 60 Democratic votes in the Senate on any significant abortion bill.  Look up the members of that Senate.  The Dems had two members from Arkansas and three from the Dakotas, along with Ben Nelson in Nebraska (as well as Byrd and Rockefeller in West Virginia, but granted both were so secure in their positions they didn't have to worry about reelection in supporting such legislation).  That supermajority - probably the last we'll see in a very long time, or judging by this thread's fatalistic posture, ever - was achieved precisely because it had Dem Senators in states where Democrats are now used for target practice.

I meant to mention that but omitted it for brevity's sake.

[Cas Stark]

31 minutes ago, DMC said:

 

To conclude, if you're complaining about the Democratic party "not doing anything" on abortion with regards to Congress and the presidency, we're basically talking about 7 Senators - and only one sitting - and one House member.  Those 8 legislators certainly do not reflect where the overwhelming majority of the Democratic party at all levels is today.

It's been 50 years since Roe, in all that time, you think it would have been impossible for the Democrats to have enacted federal legislation to protect abortion rights?

[mormont]

3 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

It's been 50 years since Roe, in all that time, you think it would have been impossible for the Democrats to have enacted federal legislation to protect abortion rights?

Yes.

ETA - to elaborate: the fact is, Ormond is right. 'The Democrats' aren't, and have never been, one single entity in the way that a lot of parties are. They're a coalition, and in that time their coalition has always included people who would not vote for such legislation. It's possible that perhaps in times past some Republicans might have, despite the existence of Roe. I don't know.

I do know that this sort of hindsight discussion of possible past votes isn't helping anything. Put the blame for this where it belongs - on the Republican party. They're the ones who did this.

[DMC]

Just now, Cas Stark said:

It's been 50 years since Roe, in all that time, you think it would have been impossible for the Democrats to have enacted federal legislation to protect abortion rights?

Well, I've already covered the past twenty years.  When do you think they could have done it?  During the Carter administration?  That indeed probably would have been the optimal time but...Jimmy Carter.  During the Clinton administration?  I suppose he could have tried during his honeymoon period but (a) the party was significantly different at that time - Richard Shelby was still a Democrat until the 94 Republican takeover - and (b) Clinton's administration was infamously inept at achieving its legislative agenda during those first two years anyway.

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, LongRider said:

These are interesting and important programs, unfortunately, a very small reach.

If they stream? others can.

Unfortunately, despite my local NPR station, with enormous reach throughout New Jersey and NY state, whose home is frackin' New York City, remains astonishingly NPR namby pamby, even on it's 'local' programming, by and large.

The Newark-New Jersey public radio jazz station though (which I can hear streaming or broadcast(, has a weekly program, which it shares with the NYC station, called "Ask Governor Murphy."  It's an hour long, and caller-in driven, and really interesting. Murphy does an excellent job.

I guess our local NPR station is so wealthy that it can buy into the NPR programming.  For really local stuff we have to work with the tiny other 'public' stations -- which are mostly music.  Worthwhile, for music and culture of various of our communities, but not any political work, so to speak.