US Politics: He's so indicted, he just can't abide by it...

[Mindwalker]

No reason to be ashamed! Not your fault...

re: Georgia indicments: Some experts believe that the litigation about where to hold the trials (federal or not) could take up to 2 years including appeals. : (

Edited August 26, 2023 by Mindwalker

[Larry of the Lawn]

For the sake of everyone's mental health might be worth managing expectations about any of this trump litigation amounting to anything.  

[Fez]

15 hours ago, Maithanet said:

2012 and 2020 were pretty similar in terms of the popular vote (d+4).  Texas went from r+16 in 2012 to r+5.5 in that time.  At that rate of change, it would be basically tied in 2024.  Now, I'm well aware that will be a hard lift, those final five points will be very hard.  But if we're talking about a great night for Dems, it is definitely possible.

That's true, but at the same time Democratic vote shore in the Rio Grande valley (and I suspect other Hispanic areas in the state too, but I don't know the numbers for sure) has been in decline. A Republican winning TX-15 in 2022 should be a massive alarm bell about trends in the state. Demographic change has helped make the state closer, but I don't think it flips until Dallas-Forth Worth is like Atlanta (it's getting closer, but isn't there yet).

 

48 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Hence my objection to primaries.  Particularly, the Republican Party Primaries where (in the Presidential context) they are winner take all allowing a plurality candidate (like Trump) to pull away early and where a big field with one slightly more popular candidate favors that slightly more popular candidate and allows that slightly more popular candidate to build a big lead early.  

At least the Democratic Party has “superdelegates” baked in to the process that creates the potential to disarm a dangerous populist candidate at the convention (I’m still curious to see how that would work and how the voting public would react).  

I’m suggesting, speculating, that  “open” primaries where everyone in a given State or SMD has the ability to participate in all primaries being run might result in less radical candidates being selected in primaries.  South Carolina does have “open” primaries.  Anyone can vote in either primary, but not in both.  

The issue around "winner take all" Republican primaries is separate from whether they're open or closed.

And as for getting less radical candidates, generally speaking the issue isn't the primary structure; it's how radically gerrymandered the districts are. There's a reason why it's GOP Representatives are so much crazier than the GOP Senators, and why GOP state legislators are overall worse than the Governors.

Granted, all of them are quite bad compared to a baseline. But that's a function of the whole party getting more and more nuts. But changing the primary structures doesn't really help that. Most people vote in the primaries of the party they identify with, even if there's more value voting in the other one. Alabama has open primaries for instance. And theoretically every Democrat should be voting in the Republican primaries for which candidate is least worst, since that's the only opportunity that exists to influence politics in the state. But they don't. Most either don't vote at all, or vote in the Democratic primaries for whoever the sacrificial lambs are for the election.

[Zorral]

Lock Him Up? A New Poll Has Some Bad News for Trump
A new POLITICO Magazine/Ipsos poll punctures some prevailing political narratives about the Trump indictments.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/08/25/ipsos-poll-trump-indictment-00112755

[mormont]

3 hours ago, Larry of the Lawn said:

For the sake of everyone's mental health might be worth managing expectations about any of this trump litigation amounting to anything.  

Ormond could comment with more knowledge, but my understanding is that depressing expectations does not in fact have a signficant protective effect on mental health.

[Varysblackfyre321]

 

[Larry of the Lawn]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

Ormond could comment with more knowledge, but my understanding is that depressing expectations does not in fact have a signficant protective effect on mental health.

Fair enough.  Just speaking for myself that abstaining from the 24/7 Trump news cycle has been nice.  Was thinking more along the lines of people checking the social media feeds or news coverage expecting that you're going to hear something that changes anything or puts Trump to rest or any kind of resolution. It's been 7 years of nonstop breathless "is this going to be what takes him down?".  We've been through Russia-gate, the Mueller report, Stormy Daniels, the civil sexual assault trial, two impeachments, none of it has come to anything meaningful, and the media can't let go even for a couple hours.  It's going to be all we hear about in the US political news sphere for the next couple years still.  People can talk about whatever they want but I can't hep thinking that the laser-focus on Trump as the Number One Topic is misplaced and more or less useless.

And being in the dark on the details of Trump's legal issues for a few days or hours isn't going to hurt anyone. 

[Gaston de Foix]

4 hours ago, Larry of the Lawn said:

For the sake of everyone's mental health might be worth managing expectations about any of this trump litigation amounting to anything.  

If you think of it as a silver bullet to end his candidacy for president, yes.   If that was the goal, the time to commence proceedings was on Jan 7, 2021 or Nov. 7 2020 or ASAP thereafter.   Sufficient facts were already in the public domain.  

I already have a standing bet with Ty over this, so I won't crow prematurely, but I fully expect Trump to be eventually convicted at least once and to have that conviction sustained on appeal.  

The problem from a legal perspective is and will be too much political interference in the legal process.  If Trump had been treated like an ordinary citizen, he would have been indicted for obstruction of justice of the Mueller investigation. 

[LongRider]

I hadn't seen this vid before, but it is rather funny.

 

[Mindwalker]

Abstaining from twitter's frantic cycle has definitely been good for me. Speaking of twitter & Stormy Daniels, and I can't link to it bc I don't go there anymore, but she's apparently trolling him. "Hi Tiny, remember me?" See, finding joy in silly little things is definitely good for mental health.

 

[Ormond]

5 hours ago, mormont said:

Ormond could comment with more knowledge, but my understanding is that depressing expectations does not in fact have a signficant protective effect on mental health.

Well, optimism is in generally better for both mental and physical health that pessimism, except perhaps in what's called "defensive pessimism" where being pessimistic about a personal outcome one has a good deal of control over (such as doing well on a school test) leads to higher motivation.  I think there are probably few people who have enough direct input into the outcome of these  court cases that "defensive pessimism" would really work for them. 

[mormont]

This is just sad.

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Obligatory disclaimer, as required by law.

Golf is not a sport.

[Kalbear]

11 hours ago, Gaston de Foix said:

He lost the popular vote twice.  More dislike him than like him. 

Sure! But the point was that there's a general common adage that increasing voter turnout will help democrats/progressives/moderates/whatever, and we have evidence that this is not the case. The turnout for the last election was the highest as a percentage that it's been in what, 100 years or something absurd like that? And Trump got a larger percentage of the vote. Furthermore, he increased his % with African Americans and Latinos. 

The corollary to the primary issue should be obvious - there is absolutely zero evidence and plenty of counterevidence that increasing the amount of people who vote increases the moderation of those candidates. As I said above, the problem is that you have a popularity contest combined with a population that considers racism, misogyny, bigotry and cruelty to be entertaining and popular. 

11 hours ago, Gaston de Foix said:

And even in respect of Trump, it works.  Party elite-driven disapproval didn't stop Trump from triumphing in 2016 as the candidate of the right (not the only one, but definitely the candidate of the most right-wing voters).  A more moderate candidate would stand a better chance if every state in the country had open primaries.  

The solution is not to make it more at the behest of the random voter! The solution is to make the parties have greater control over their candidates. And yes, elite-driven disapproval didn't stop Trump because the Republican party had basically no effective power (and still largely doesn't). Their winner-take-all systems in the primary combined with weak political control combined with strong economic control meant that the only people who might stop Trump would be the Murdochs and the Kochs. 

11 hours ago, Gaston de Foix said:

We've learned the hard way that parties can't control who becomes their nominee. 

They absolutely can, and many times they've done a fairly good job of it. A very good example of this is...well, last election, where Biden came back and proceeded to stomp, followed by the party swiftly coalescing onto him and making deals. 

9 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Hence my objection to primaries.  Particularly, the Republican Party Primaries where (in the Presidential context) they are winner take all allowing a plurality candidate (like Trump) to pull away early and where a big field with one slightly more popular candidate favors that slightly more popular candidate and allows that slightly more popular candidate to build a big lead early.  

At least the Democratic Party has “superdelegates” baked in to the process that creates the potential to disarm a dangerous populist candidate at the convention (I’m still curious to see how that would work and how the voting public would react).  

But again, having more people show up and vote wasn't going to solve any of that for Republicans. There's a whole lot of evidence to indicate that the more that people vote, the more people actually would have voted for Trump - one of the only name-brand people on the ballot. 

9 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I’m suggesting, speculating, that  “open” primaries where everyone in a given State or SMD has the ability to participate in all primaries being run might result in less radical candidates being selected in primaries.  South Carolina does have “open” primaries.  Anyone can vote in either primary, but not in both.  

Yes, tell me about the less radical South Carolina candidates, please. 

9 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Now Timmons has gone all in on the Trumpanista civil war crazy train.  But he waited until this week to do it.  

So...it didn't do any good at all. 

9 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

If nominally Democratic voters are allowed to participate in Republican Primaries as well as the Democratic and nominally Republican voters are allowed to participate in the Democratic primaries… don’t we end up with each side curbing what they see as the excesses of the other and more moderate cadidates being nominated?  

Not really. You see all sorts of shitty shenanigans. You see Dems voting for the most extreme candidate possible because they believe in the general that they'll have the best chance of winning. You'll see other people voting for whoever they randomly like, or who has a particular issue they care about. Once again, the aggregate of this country is not 'moderate'. Especially now. Moderate voters (or more accurately swing voters, since they are not particularly middle of the road) are important to get for general elections but they are still a very small percentage; the vast majority of the voting populace identifies with a party strongly in their voting patterns, and that has only gone up. 

9 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Or is the problem that it’s too late for this?  That each party would run spoilers in the other’s primaries (RFKjr. for example) to pull their die hard votes and allow the usual style candidate to rise to the top.

Bingo

9 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Maybe we were better off with “smoke filled rooms” and the public participating in only the general election?

I'm becoming more and more convinced that parliamentary democracies where there is no elected Executive is a significantly better way to run things for a variety of reasons, and one of the biggest ones is that it gives the party significantly more power and a popularity contest significantly less. Smoke-filled rooms have their own problems, mind you - elites choosing who you vote for can miss significant trends and tend to be more reactionary and conservative as a rule. 

But really we're at a point where the combination of hyperpartisanship, media isolation, personal isolation and dysfunction are more likely than not going to cause the US to become a failed democracy, with the two states being either autocracy or complete malfunction and not a whole lot in between. And none of that is going to be fixed by making the primaries open to anyone to vote in. 

[Fragile Bird]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

This is just sad.

 

I remember reading a story in Golf Magazine by a reporter who followed Trump around a golf course for 18 holes of golf, watching how many times he cheated. Rules did not apply to the man. 

This was long before he was president.

[LongRider]

nvm  

Edited August 26, 2023 by LongRider

[Varysblackfyre321]

1 hour ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Obligatory disclaimer, as required by law.

Golf is not a sport.

It’s just an excuse to hit the grass

[maarsen]

10 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

It’s just an excuse to hit the grass

In Trump's case, an excuse to kick a ball around.

[Gorn]

14 hours ago, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

Sure! But the point was that there's a general common adage that increasing voter turnout will help democrats/progressives/moderates/whatever, and we have evidence that this is not the case. The turnout for the last election was the highest as a percentage that it's been in what, 100 years or something absurd like that? And Trump got a larger percentage of the vote. Furthermore, he increased his % with African Americans and Latinos. 

And lost, making the adage you are referring to, uh, correct.

He was also running as an incumbent president who (until 2020) presided over a good economy, and benefited from the backlash to the pandemic restrictions and the Black Lives Matter protests. He still lost.

[Gaston de Foix]

42 minutes ago, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

I'm becoming more and more convinced that parliamentary democracies where there is no elected Executive is a significantly better way to run things for a variety of reasons, and one of the biggest ones is that it gives the party significantly more power and a popularity contest significantly less. Smoke-filled rooms have their own problems, mind you - elites choosing who you vote for can miss significant trends and tend to be more reactionary and conservative as a rule. 

But really we're at a point where the combination of hyperpartisanship, media isolation, personal isolation and dysfunction are more likely than not going to cause the US to become a failed democracy, with the two states being either autocracy or complete malfunction and not a whole lot in between. And none of that is going to be fixed by making the primaries open to anyone to vote in. 

This I completely agree with.  Parliamentary democracies are better for exactly that reason - see the defenestration of Liz Truss in favor of Rishi Sunak once she demonstrated her economic program was bonkers.  

But, that's not an option in the US.  I think where we agree in your thoughtful post is that there is no "one neat trick" that will fix the interlocking and complex dysfunctions of our politics.  

45 minutes ago, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

Sure! But the point was that there's a general common adage that increasing voter turnout will help democrats/progressives/moderates/whatever, and we have evidence that this is not the case. The turnout for the last election was the highest as a percentage that it's been in what, 100 years or something absurd like that? And Trump got a larger percentage of the vote. Furthermore, he increased his % with African Americans and Latinos. 

Yeah that's a fair representation of the views of many progressives but that's not my argument.  I mean it's entirely possible that the general US populace will want to overthrow democracy in favor of an dictator and there's really nothing to stop them. 

In my lifetime (barely, but still it counts), India voted for Indira Gandhi who then proceeded to declare a state of emergency and rule as a dictator.  And initially the elites both supported her and passionately believed she was doing the right thing.  In fact, many of her most controversial measures completely reflected elite sentiment such as the introduction of population control measures effectively bribing men to have vasectomies with transistor radios (and rounding up the homeless and poor to forcibly administer such operations).  The educated populace in India was utterly convinced that only emulating China's demographic strategies would allow India to obtain prosperity.  The judiciary, for example, was entirely complicit in her program.  

It was her delusion that she remained popular and the poor, casteist, illiterate, sexist, cow-worshipping and largely ignorant population who kicked her out of office and saved Indian democracy. 

My point is only that many democracies are at risk of becoming failures and sometimes they escape by the skin of their teeth.  We need to put our faith neither in princes nor in mobs.