New Developments III

[Greg]

A Pew Research poll conducted three years ago shows that 70% of Americans think the U.S. economy is rigged:

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2 ... -powerful/

[Big Magilla]

Just sent in my ballot by mail. Just my congressman and the local school board on the ballot.

Andy Kim is my present Congressional rep. but with redistricting my choices are the most conservative Republican nut in New Jersey who will have an easy win over a local businessman running for the first time. I voted for him anyway.

The local school has two openings with four candidates. Voted against the two that want to have the parents decide what gets taught in the schools.

Is the Republican nut the guy who used to be a Democrat?

No, not that nut.

This one's name is Chris Smith. He's been in office for 42 years, came in with Reagan in 1980 when he was only 27.

He's done some good things but look where he's spent the most time and guess where he stands on a woman's right to choose.

Congressman Smith has long chaired a number of bipartisan congressional caucuses (working groups) including the Pro-life (37 years), Autism (21 years, co-founder), Alzheimer’s (19 years, co-founder), Lyme Disease (15 years, co-founder), Spina Bifida (15 years), Human Trafficking (15 years, co-founder), Refugees (15 years), and Combating Anti-Semitism caucuses, and serves on caucuses on Bosnia, Uganda and Vietnam.

The picture accompanying his bio is from 2014.

https://chrissmith.house.gov/biography/

[Greg]

Just sent in my ballot by mail. Just my congressman and the local school board on the ballot.

Andy Kim is my present Congressional rep. but with redistricting my choices are the most conservative Republican nut in New Jersey who will have an easy win over a local businessman running for the first time. I voted for him anyway.

The local school has two openings with four candidates. Voted against the two that want to have the parents decide what gets taught in the schools.

Is the Republican nut the guy who used to be a Democrat?

[Sonic Youth]

Sonic Youth wrote
And how many election cycles will we need to go through before we stop saying this? The insane bullshit is proving to be more and more attractive than the alternative, and it's happening worldwide. I'm afraid we're going to end up elderly relics who look back wistfully on our past and nostalgically pine for the country we used to live in.

I mean, this is an Academy Awards message board. We're already elderly relics.

Like I said, most days I'm with you but this is how I feel today. Or at least when I wrote that post before I learned that Boris Johnson might be making a comeback (ugh). We just have to get organized and try again. We all just experienced our first social media decade in politics. We have a ton of new setbacks (you can write off half the country who fight culture wars at the ballot box) but we also have new advantages like mail in voting. I'm certainly not hopeful, I'm just accepting of the new world and the constant continuing effort that is going to be required.

See, I can't grok any of this. We're not living in 2012 anymore. We are living in a time when Republicans are succeeding in making all our institutions un-democratic. McConnell has made the Senate even more anti-democratic by playing games with the Supreme Court and the filibuster and promising to refuse to bring any Biden appointees to the floor for a vote if the Republcians obtain a majority The conservative majority Wisconsin Supreem Court ruled that the Democratic governor can not seat any interim appointees if the predessesor refuses to vacate the office. Democrats are powerless to reign in these abuses, but when they do have the power to do so, they don't. Thus, the Repulicans chicanery is now legitimized. So it doesn't matter if Demorats may win a majority someday. We've already seen that they can have a majority all three houses, but they will never attain equilibrium again. Everything that is supposed to be strucutrally democratic has now been altered, weakened, and at this point probably unfixable. And that's it. This is the new country we live in. The end.

[taki15]

Is there a reason Mister Tee doesn't write anymore about politics?
I always found his posts very interesting and analytical.

[Big Magilla]

Just sent in my ballot by mail. Just my congressman and the local school board on the ballot.

Andy Kim is my present Congressional rep. but with redistricting my choices are the most conservative Republican nut in New Jersey who will have an easy win over a local businessman running for the first time. I voted for him anyway.

The local school has two openings with four candidates. Voted against the two that want to have the parents decide what gets taught in the schools.

[Sabin]

Sonic Youth wrote
And how many election cycles will we need to go through before we stop saying this? The insane bullshit is proving to be more and more attractive than the alternative, and it's happening worldwide. I'm afraid we're going to end up elderly relics who look back wistfully on our past and nostalgically pine for the country we used to live in.

I mean, this is an Academy Awards message board. We're already elderly relics.

Like I said, most days I'm with you but this is how I feel today. Or at least when I wrote that post before I learned that Boris Johnson might be making a comeback (ugh). We just have to get organized and try again. We all just experienced our first social media decade in politics. We have a ton of new setbacks (you can write off half the country who fight culture wars at the ballot box) but we also have new advantages like mail in voting. I'm certainly not hopeful, I'm just accepting of the new world and the constant continuing effort that is going to be required.

[Sonic Youth]

Sonic Youth wrote
Looks like it was a summer bump after all. At the rate these polls are plummeting, I'm not even sure we're keeping the senate.

Well, we're not going to know until after the Georgia runoff, and likely they'll be one. Anyone who wants to freak out about the fate of democracy (and climate) is more than welcome. Most days I'd join in. But today, all I can think is we've lost both houses before and we'll lose them again. This isn't going to be as existential a loss as we feared a year ago. Too many voters are activated and won't vote GOP again (the reverse is true as well). Give Republicans one or two houses, they're just going to continue off a cliff with their insane bullshit.

And how many election cycles will we need to go through before we stop saying this? The insane bullshit is proving to be more and more attractive than the alternative, and it's happening worldwide. I'm afraid we're going to end up elderly relics who look back wistfully on our past and nostalgically pine for the country we used to live in.

[OscarGuy]

You might as well give up on Missouri ever electing another Democrat. It's fallen so far into the right wing ideology that I don't think even Todd Akin could have lost to Claire McCaskill now.

[Big Magilla]

How much more can we take? How incredibly stupid and gullible can the electorate be to fall for the Republican bullshit yet again?

What plans do they have for fixing the economy? None!

What plans do they have for curing crime? Give more guns to the electorate to fight their own battles?

The House is probably lost to the effects of gerrymandering but losing the Senate will only be due to colossal stupidity out of the citizens of states where the choice of the Democrat over the Republican should be a no-brainer. I'm thinking of these ten in particular: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Georgia, Wisconsin, Missouri, Iowa, Florida, North Carolina, Nevada, and New Hampshire.

[Sabin]

Sonic Youth wrote
Looks like it was a summer bump after all. At the rate these polls are plummeting, I'm not even sure we're keeping the senate.

Well, we're not going to know until after the Georgia runoff, and likely they'll be one. Anyone who wants to freak out about the fate of democracy (and climate) is more than welcome. Most days I'd join in. But today, all I can think is we've lost both houses before and we'll lose them again. This isn't going to be as existential a loss as we feared a year ago. Too many voters are activated and won't vote GOP again (the reverse is true as well). Give Republicans one or two houses, they're just going to continue off a cliff with their insane bullshit. It won't matter because Biden has the veto pen. And then the American people get to decide in 2024 which direction they want to go in. We've got a brutal Senate map in 2024 anyway. So, I think we just take our ball and try again. I'm personally disappointed because I was enjoying what the Biden administration had been doing for the last few months and I really wanted to see more of that. At the end of the day, it would've taken a miraculous first year for the Biden administration to hold onto both houses and that didn't happen. Maybe it will for someone else in the future.

I'm heartened by one thing I'm seeing. Democrats are getting better at running campaigns in the era of social media. I remember 2014. We're not going to see those campaigns anymore. I don't think Tim Ryan is going to win but he is doing an incredible job.

[Sonic Youth]

I'm not 100 percent confident that what we're seeing now isn't a summer "bump", but that may be my pessimism driving my judgments. But if they perform as strongly as they look right now, then Trump is done.

Looks like it was a summer bump after all. At the rate these polls are plummeting, I'm not even sure we're keeping the senate.

[Sonic Youth]

Right now a few weeks out, I'm mostly interested in seeing if a single statewide race this year sees a Senator from one party and a Governor from another. Is that a thing that is going to happen anymore?

Vermont. Kansas and Oregon are possibilities. Alasaka may have a House and Senate/Gov. party split, which is relevent since Alaska only has one representative.

ETA: And New Hampshire.

[Sabin]

OscarGuy wrote
The funny part is that early on, everyone thought Fetterman would pull Shapiro over the line rather than the reverse.

I've been trepidatious about John Fetterman from day one, except my biggest concern about him (depressed black turnout due to his past) has been replaced by another (questions of fitness). That said, I'm unconvinced that either of those things translate to a vote for Oz and you're right that Shapiro is likely going to do a better job of carrying Fetterman than Mastriano will do of carrying Oz or vice-versa.

Right now a few weeks out, I'm mostly interested in seeing if a single statewide race this year sees a Senator from one party and a Governor from another. Is that a thing that is going to happen anymore? The closest scenario I can envision is Georgia, but I'm still not convinced that Warnock is going to beat Walker.

[OscarGuy]

The funny part is that early on, everyone thought Fetterman would pull Shapiro over the line rather than the reverse.