U.S. Politics megathread (merged)

[A Boy Named Crow]

3 hours ago, Maple Leaf said:

Today (Tuesday) is election day in the USA.  This is the day that Republicans assume control over Congress.

 

And they will never give it back!

Imagine the revisionism that will go on over this in years to come. It'll be painted as the natural order, a great moment in the country's history, the day they took their country back...war will be peace,  freedom will be slavery and, most importantly, ignorance will be strength. 

[JFK-1]

This woman is a researcher of civil wars of which she has studied over 200 around the world. From this data you can predict the likelihood of civil war. She says the US is in what they in the field term "the pre-insurgent stage"

 

A number of other levels have already been passed to reach this stage. She puts it down to the Republicans finding themselves in a place where due to demographics they can never win a popular vote again.  

 

How Civil Wars Start: The Pelosi Attack and the Rise of Extremism in the U.S. | Amanpour and Company

 

Democracy in America is balanced on a knife edge, says political scientist Barbara F. Walter, but it may not be too late to rescue it. Walter is the author of "How Civil Wars Start" and she speaks with Hari Sreenivasan about how America can prevent another one from starting.

 

 

 

[ri Alban]

9 hours ago, Led Tasso said:

We already fought a war and killed a half million soldiers over that. It's not splitting. But it might get more violent.

California is offski, if Trump gets back in.

[Cade]

Time to divest holdings in US companies, that place is going down the shitter.

[Maple Leaf]

7 hours ago, A Boy Named Crow said:

Imagine the revisionism that will go on over this in years to come. It'll be painted as the natural order, a great moment in the country's history, the day they took their country back...war will be peace,  freedom will be slavery and, most importantly, ignorance will be strength. 

All animals are equal, except some are more equal than others.  The future in the USA.

[Watt-Zeefuik]

12 hours ago, Maple Leaf said:

Today (Tuesday) is election day in the USA.  This is the day that Republicans assume control over Congress.

 

And they will never give it back!

 

Plutocrats have had a stranglehold on this country before, and we've broken that control. We'll break it again.

 

A huge number of people are going to be harmed in the process but if they get it (and IMO that's not a given at all) we will break this too.

[Maple Leaf]

20 minutes ago, Led Tasso said:

 

Plutocrats have had a stranglehold on this country before, and we've broken that control. We'll break it again.

 

A huge number of people are going to be harmed in the process but if they get it (and IMO that's not a given at all) we will break this too.

I hope that you're right.  What time frame are you thinking about when American politics return to what we think of as normal?  5 Years?  10 Years?  A generation?

[Watt-Zeefuik]

Just now, Maple Leaf said:

I hope that you're right.  What time frame are you thinking about when American politics return to what we think of as normal?  5 Years?  10 Years?  A generation?

There's a degree to which I'd say I hope we don't "return" to any particular state, but find our way to something better. 50s with McCarthyism? 60s with police dogs being let loose on Black voters? 70s with the launch of Reaganism? 80s with peak neoliberalism? 90s with Clintonism and the Gingrich "revolution?" Aughts with W's brutal wars and the economic collapse? Teens with the rise of Trumpism?

 

It's always two steps forward, one step back in the best case scenario. All those decades had positive trends.

 

I don't know where hope comes from at this point. But good things always seem to show up from where you don't expect it. Absolutely nobody gave Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff a chance of sweeping the Georgia Senate seats two years ago and giving the Democrats fingernail-tip control of the Senate in the process. I'm braced for terrible news tonight, but not resigned to it. The polls and political signals are weird. I think it's going to be a mixed night. And after that, we'll have to see what happens.

[Mikey1874]

The economy improving is the solution. 

 

Whether that is possible is unclear. If not some dark times ahead for America. 

[Watt-Zeefuik]

Just now, Mikey1874 said:

The economy improving is the solution. 

 

Whether that is possible is unclear. If not some dark times ahead for America. 

 

The sad thing is that aside from inflation, the economy is in superb shape. Unemployment continues to be extremely low and economic activity remains high. Inflation is making everyone jumpy, though.

 

No matter what happens tomorrow, it won't be as dark as during the Trump admin. The Republicans held a big majority in both houses plus the White House, and then after the Democrats won back the House we had the orange fash sabotaging the public health response to the worst pandemic in 100 years.

 

The worst that's going to happen is the GOP pushing us over the debt default line, which is pretty terrible for the world as a whole given the status of the dollar, and we'll be living with the unconscionable and corrupt Dobbs decision forcing people to give birth against their wills. Yes, 2024 could be very bad again, but we'll have to wait and see.

[Cade]

Florida bans federal election monitors from entering polling places

 

 

Feckin tin pot banana republic

[Geoff Kilpatrick]

So, aye, the Republicans to win both houses and Trump to announce for 2024 with no issue. Looks like all those Trump is going to jail claims lasted well.

[Jeffros Furios]

Time to dust down the MAGA hat and get the Build the Walls t-shirt on ....

 

The great man returns ...its like the 2nd coming of Jesus 

[The Real Maroonblood]

Just now, Jeffros Furios said:

Time to dust down the MAGA hat and get the Build the Walls t-shirt on ....

 

The great man returns ...its like the 2nd coming of Jesus 

[A Boy Named Crow]

6 hours ago, Maple Leaf said:

All animals are equal, except some are more equal than others.  The future in the USA.

It's a brave new world!

[Notts1874]

He's away again. 

[SwindonJambo]

1 hour ago, Notts1874 said:

He's away again. 

 

He is one very dangerous feeble excuse for a human being. Unfortunately he has tens of millions of adoring disciples hanging on his every word, including a scary number of meatheads.

[ri Alban]

I used to feel sorry for the Americans. Now I hope they get what they deserve. Civil war and the destruction of the USA. The world will be a better place.

[Maple Leaf]

Herschel Walker is a staggeringly stupid man, yet almost 2 million people have voted for him  to be one of only 100 senators in the entire USA, voting to pass or reject laws.

 

It's a close race, to close to call, but of all the races in this election this is the one that leaves me shaking my head in disbelief.  He is as thick as the proverbial plank.

[A Boy Named Crow]

2 hours ago, ri Alban said:

I used to feel sorry for the Americans. Now I hope they get what they deserve. Civil war and the destruction of the USA. The world will be a better place.

Careful what you wish for. If the US descends into chaos, it'd be the likes of China who would step up. Now I am no fan of America, but imagine a world where China was the only superpower!

[JFK-1]

1 hour ago, Maple Leaf said:

Herschel Walker is a staggeringly stupid man, yet almost 2 million people have voted for him  to be one of only 100 senators in the entire USA, voting to pass or reject laws.

 

It's a close race, to close to call, but of all the races in this election this is the one that leaves me shaking my head in disbelief.  He is as thick as the proverbial plank.

 

I always thought that about Trump, only watched this Walker guy for probably seconds at a time on occasion. And yeah the density is can I say painfully obvious? So are he and Trump dumb and dumber? And in which order?

 

And how thick are the 2 million who voted for him? Some researcher should look into that. 😉

[Watt-Zeefuik]

Democrats with slightly better than even odds to hold the Senate at this point. If the GOP do manage to win the House, it's going to be by a whisker.

 

There's still a teensy tiny chance that the Democrats come out functionally in a stronger position this than they were in.

[JFK-1]

22 minutes ago, Led Tasso said:

There's still a teensy tiny chance that the Democrats come out functionally in a stronger position this than they were in.

 

Not good for Trump if that were the case. Serial loser, even when winning looks feasible. That's what's required to kill him and his entire cult off, continuous losses.

 

If they came out of this weaker, then lost the next presidential election too, then the GOP might have a rethink. And if it were a return to just pre Trump crazy they still have to reinvent themselves entirely. The demographics are drifting against them every single year far less election cycle.

 

How much gerrymandering can you do.

[Watt-Zeefuik]

So far the Democrats are up one seat in the Senate, and the other incumbents in races which haven't been called are all up narrowly.

 

Nevada is the most precarious, followed by Georgia. Arizona looks likely to hold. Those are three Democratic seats up.

 

Mandella Barnes has given GOP ******* extreme Ron Johnson a much closer race than expected in Wisconsin. Johnson is still up, but there are still votes out.

 

Unfortunately, because of their own Dipshit Duo of Sinema and Manchin, the Democrats need to pick up at least two seats to have a chance at enough votes to make fillibuster carveouts for voting rights reform and to legislate Roe-equivalent protections. And then they'd have to somehow hold onto the House, which still looks like longer odds but far better than most were predicting.

 

If all of that came together, and the Dems got 52 seats in the Senate and the barest of majorities in the House, and managed to get legislative Roe and voting rights passed, it would be an absolutely enormous win for Biden. Probably a bridge too far, but the doom and gloom polls of the past few weeks had everyone thinking it wasn't possible.

[Malinga the Swinga]

6 hours ago, Maple Leaf said:

Herschel Walker is a staggeringly stupid man, yet almost 2 million people have voted for him  to be one of only 100 senators in the entire USA, voting to pass or reject laws.

 

It's a close race, to close to call, but of all the races in this election this is the one that leaves me shaking my head in disbelief.  He is as thick as the proverbial plank.

The same Herschel Walker, who while was a good NFL player, campaigned on a strong anti abortion/pro-life platform. While you can argue rights and wrongs of that platform, the allegation he paid for his mistress to have such an operation seems to make him a hypocrite of highest order.

Add that to his threatening to kill his ex wife and other women he has known. He doesn't deny them, but claims he can't remember them.

If he is allowed to represent anyone in senate, then it truly is a low mark in US politics.

[Watt-Zeefuik]

1 hour ago, Malinga the Swinga said:

The same Herschel Walker, who while was a good NFL player, campaigned on a strong anti abortion/pro-life platform. While you can argue rights and wrongs of that platform, the allegation he paid for his mistress to have such an operation seems to make him a hypocrite of highest order.

Add that to his threatening to kill his ex wife and other women he has known. He doesn't deny them, but claims he can't remember them.

If he is allowed to represent anyone in senate, then it truly is a low mark in US politics.

It’s likely going to a runoff. 2020 all over again in Georgia.

 

However, given that Kemp handily beat Abrams (much to my disappointment but not surprise), the fact that Warnock got more votes so far is encouraging.

 

The hypocrisy of the GOP on Walker’s actions on abortion is astonishing even for them.

[Watt-Zeefuik]

Also encouraging, one of the most outlandish MAGA fuds in the House, Lauren Boebert, may actually lose her extremely deep red district. 

[Notts1874]

44 minutes ago, Led Tasso said:

Also encouraging, one of the most outlandish MAGA fuds in the House, Lauren Boebert, may actually lose her extremely deep red district. 

Unfortunately her mate MTG is back in 😡😡😡😡

[Watt-Zeefuik]

The other subtext here is that Trump endorsed a lot of the Senate losers today. The Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Georgia candidates all won primaries over “establishment” GOP candidates and came up short (at least for now in GA). Other Trumpies won but it was still a disappointing night overall.

 

A lot of the GOP leadership are sick of Triump but can’t keep their voters onside without sopping to him. If they suck up to him and lose anyway, that’s all to the good.

[Cade]

So it's still looking bad, just not as bad as it could have been.

 

[Watt-Zeefuik]

12 minutes ago, Cade said:

So it's still looking bad, just not as bad as it could have been.

 

Way better than it could have been. Not as good as some outside hopes, but the GOP are extremely disappointed this morning.

[Maple Leaf]

45 minutes ago, Led Tasso said:

Way better than it could have been. Not as good as some outside hopes, but the GOP are extremely disappointed this morning.

 

Your predictions were much closer than my "the sky is falling" outlook.  Well done.

 

I'm feeling much better today, despite the near OD on The Glenlivet last evening!

[Riccarton3]

Some commentators do derision quite well. Or withering analysis

 

'has spent all his time bemoaning the 2020 election' 

[Notts1874]

 

[Riccarton3]

Its amazing the support he gets as he seems to conform to exactly the type of cry baby the right would ridicule. 

 

I got cheated , man.

 

Seems not all the public are as stupid as he'd hoped

 

 

[leginten]

3 hours ago, Led Tasso said:

Also encouraging, one of the most outlandish MAGA fuds in the House, Lauren Boebert, may actually lose her extremely deep red district. 

Lauren Boabied.

[Maple Leaf]

4 hours ago, Led Tasso said:

Also encouraging, one of the most outlandish MAGA fuds in the House, Lauren Boebert, may actually lose her extremely deep red district. 

She looks like the ideal MAGA candidate.

 

[Riccarton3]

Is crime out of control across the States? Or just as you were. Seems to be the Republican mantra despite them being happy everyone is tooled up.

[Rodger Mellie]

14 minutes ago, Riccarton3 said:

Is crime out of control across the States? Or just as you were. Seems to be the Republican mantra despite them being happy everyone is tooled up.

I cant' speak for crime situation in the whole of the US, however, I'm in Connecticut and in my neighborhood there has definitely been a recent increase in crime. Last Sunday afternoon a gang of teenagers (who work for serious criminal gangs) stole a car and stole a gun from the glove box of another car. They caught the gang but didn't recover the gun (my neighbor works for the local police so we get info). A big crime issue in CT is the theft of catalytic converters from vehicles  My mother-in-law had hers stolen (again in broad day light) outside the local chemist a few weeks back. In the shop for 5 minutes and the time she came out the gang had left. The scary thing is these gangs aren't afraid to use guns. They shot at a guy who tried to stop them from stealing off cars in his neighborhood just a few days ago. 

[Mikey1874]

1 hour ago, Riccarton3 said:

Is crime out of control across the States? Or just as you were. Seems to be the Republican mantra despite them being happy everyone is tooled up.

 

Its something politicians use at elections.

 

Same everywhere. 

[Maple Leaf]

When it comes to Trump, some things never change:

 

CNN — 

As votes rolled in from across the country Tuesday night, Donald Trump said something truly incredible when asked about how much credit or blame he should get for the election results.

“I think if they win, I should get all of the credit, and if they lose, I should not be blamed at all,” Trump told NewsNation, adding: “But it will probably be just the opposite.”

Yes, he really said that. And, no, he wasn’t kidding. He would, quite simply, like to have his cake and eat it, too.

In Trump’s world, all good things are the direct result of his action while all bad things are definitely someone else’s fault. He is forever telling himself a story in which he is the forever hero – fighting off the losers and the haters who are dragging him down.

Case in point, this tweet from Maggie Haberman of the New York Times:

“Trump is indeed furious this morning, particularly about Mehmet Oz, and is blaming everyone who advised him to back Oz – including his wife, describing it as not her best decision, according to people close to him.”

It was his wife’s fault!

[Maple Leaf]

50 minutes ago, jonesy said:

Wouldn't mind being the boabier, TBH.

Here's the guy you gotta get past.

 

[Unknown user]

1 hour ago, jonesy said:

Wouldn't mind being the boabier, TBH.

I like the thought of that pronounced like sommelier.

[Notts1874]

6 hours ago, Maple Leaf said:

She looks like the ideal MAGA candidate.

 

If she loses *fingers crossed* she can go back to running her open carry restaurant......

[leginten]

1 hour ago, jonesy said:

Wouldn't mind being the boabier, TBH.

D’you think she would take her gun off for it?

[Notts1874]

Boebert now only trailing by 62 votes. 

[Watt-Zeefuik]

11 hours ago, Maple Leaf said:

 

Your predictions were much closer than my "the sky is falling" outlook.  Well done.

 

I'm feeling much better today, despite the near OD on The Glenlivet last evening!

Spirits lifted!

 

6 hours ago, Riccarton3 said:

Is crime out of control across the States? Or just as you were. Seems to be the Republican mantra despite them being happy everyone is tooled up.

Crime went up during the pandemic and is still a little high but nothing like the GOP freakout about it. Still much lower than it was from late 80s into aughts.

[Watt-Zeefuik]

3 hours ago, Notts1874 said:

Boebert now only trailing by 62 votes. 

Obviously I hope she loses but the fact that this is even remotely close is completely unexpected given her district. 

[JFK-1]

 

America Has an Anti-MAGA Majority

 

The election results show that although a sizable minority of Americans will never defect from Trump, an even larger group seems equally determined to stop Trumpism.

 

Last week, President Joe Biden delivered a speech in Washington that sought to frame the midterm election as a battle over the fate of democracy—and, implicitly, as a referendum on Donald Trump and Trumpism as a movement.

 

The speech didn’t attract much attention, and where it did, critics tended to pan it as needlessly divisive, flailing by a sinking party, or, worst of all, superfluous: Biden seemed to be preaching to the choir and talking over the heads of a congregation more concerned about inflation, crime, abortion, and other urgent concerns.

 

Not for the first time, Biden has both the last laugh and a better intuition about voters than his critics assume. The midterm-election results, which appear to have delivered Republicans only modest gains, show that although a sizable minority of Americans will never defect from Trump, an even larger group seems equally determined to stop Trumpism.

 

The existence of this anti-MAGA coalition is essential to understanding not only this election, but also the 2024 race.

 

“When elections are clearly about Trump and MAGA, MAGA will lose,” Michael Podhorzer, a progressive strategist, told me. “What Trump did was make a really large number of Americans say, ‘There’s now something really at stake in elections, and it matters more if I go out and vote.’”

 

Across the country, Trump-endorsed candidates underperformed. In Pennsylvania, Mehmet Oz—who owed the GOP nomination to Trump’s help—lost a Senate race to the Democrat John Fetterman, and Doug Mastriano lost the gubernatorial race to Josh Shapiro.

 

The Republican Tudor Dixon lost a bid to unseat Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. In Arizona, the GOP nominee Kari Lake is trailing the Democrat Katie Hobbs (although many votes remain uncounted).

 

Although some election-denying candidates won—far too many—some of those who stood to matter most struggled. Kristina Karamo lost a race for Michigan secretary of state, and Mark Finchem, who was present at the January 6 Trump rally, trails in Arizona.

 

Also in Arizona, the Republican nominee Blake Masters, who seems skeptical about democracy in general, is behind Senator Mark Kelly.

 

In a traditional midterm election, the president’s party suffers. The opposition party’s voters are angry; those who back the party in the White House are complacent or disheartened and stay home; swing voters are mercurial.

Given high inflation, economic jitters, and Biden’s low approval ratings, this looked like it could be a traditional midterm, with huge Republican gains—an impression that GOP leaders encouraged with lofty predictions and late sorties into blue districts.

Pundits also doubted that Democrats could capitalize on anti-Trump sentiment when he was not on the ballot, pointing to Terry McAuliffe’s defeat in a 2021 Virginia gubernatorial campaign that he tried to center on Trump.

 

But the regular pattern broke. Outside of Florida, where Democrats suffered an epochal collapse, Democratic voters didn’t stay home. Independent voters actually backed Democrats narrowly, according to exit polling.

 

The group that the Cook Political Report’s Amy Walter calls “meh voters”—the ones who somewhat disapprove of Biden and worry about the economy—favored Democrats too. (By contrast, in 2018, when Trump was president, those who somewhat disapproved of the incumbent favored his opposition.)

 

One major factor behind this is abortion. Putting pro-life justices on the court was one of Trump’s central campaign promises and keystone achievements. The Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturning Roe v. Wade was a major factor for voters, who supported pro-abortion-rights ballot measures in five states.

 

Pro-abortion-rights backlash was widely expected, but the signs of pro-democracy voting were largely overlooked. Americans consistently tell pollsters that they worry about Trump’s attacks on elections and institutions.

 

A Reuters/Ipsos poll in September, for example, found that 58 percent believe the MAGA movement is a threat to the foundations of democracy. But many observers questioned whether that would be a driving force in votes or simply too abstract to overcome economic worries.

 

With the votes counted, that seems wrong. Not only did election-denying candidates fare poorly, but voters told the Associated Press that the future of democracy was a top issue for them, trailing only inflation in importance. (Democrats actually won voters who said the economy was not doing well, according to AP).

 

Podhorzer argues that analysts have failed to recognize the emergence of a big anti-MAGA coalition that started in the 2018 midterm. During the Barack Obama years, Democrats voted heavily in presidential elections, but many stayed home during the 2010 and 2014 midterms, producing a GOP-heavy electorate.

But in 2018, the state of play changed. Turnout shot up an astounding 14 percent. That gave Democrats a large tranche of potential voters who had already cast ballots in a midterm rather than just a presidential election, and who could help blunt Republican momentum if they showed up in 2022—which they apparently did.

 

“There’s this new group of voters there because of Trump and MAGA,” Podhorzer said. “That’s changed the equation.”

 

Those voters still had to turn out, though. Democratic messaging around abortion helped, but so did hearings of the House committee investigating January 6 and Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

Republicans rolled their eyes at the hearings, arguing that they wouldn’t change anyone’s mind and were drawing underwhelming ratings. More sympathetic observers supported the hearings as a matter of justice and the political record, but they doubted they would have much political impact.

 

But the peak of those hearings this summer coincided with both the Dobbs decision and Democrats’ best polling of the midterm cycle. Biden’s approval rose, and Democrats took an edge in the generic congressional ballot. Those measures receded some in recent weeks, but the bump helped push Democrats through to the election.

 

The consistency of the anti-MAGA coalition, which has been a decisive factor in the 2018, 2020, and 2022 elections, should shape the 2024 election. Its existence helps prevent large swings in results, feeding into the calcification of American politics.

 

This year’s results also suggest that Trumpism can motivate Democrats or Democratic-leaning voters. On the other hand, only Trump himself motivates his MAGA base—even though he has twice lost the popular vote.

 

hat poses a question to the Republican Party ahead of the next presidential primary: Should the party return to Trump, who motivates the base but is a proven loser? Or should they opt for a candidate who can appropriate Trumpism without Trump’s baggage, but who might inspire lower enthusiasm in the base?

 

These results are not sufficient reason to be sanguine about the state of American democracy. Kevin McCarthy, the likely next speaker of the House, has shown that he is a Trump sycophant.

 

Election deniers won up and down the ballot across the country, and they could wreak havoc. But the midterm shows that many Americans are not just aware of the threat to democracy, but ready to vote based on it.

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/11/america-has-anti-maga-majority/672047/

 

 

[Dusk_Till_Dawn]

This will hopefully finish Trump permanently