Democrats’ slim hopes to retain the House majority appeared to dim on Monday, with the party likely not having enough runway in the remaining uncalled seats to squeak out a win.
I’ve been looking forward to the Hunter Biden investigations, but I’d like to also see some fucking compromise. Enough of this winner take all idiocy.
2018, 2020 and 2022 should all be considered miracles because…rallies? The rest of us of have jobs and real lives we don’t go to rallies.
Perhaps Republicans should reflect on why they continue to lose.
Thankfully most Americans would rather see the government do something useful.
To what end? We already know the details of the Burisma kickback protection racket it’s clear as day but nothing was done.
Perhaps you want them to dig into who knew and why? We know that too, everyone knew and leads to billions of dollars flowing into Ukraine under the table which both parties would have had to sign off too, another Benghazi where no one want’s the dirty deals out in the open.
Or dig into many other of his dodgy dealings around the world? If Burizma isn’t enough of an open and shut case, I don’t know why you would expect something different from any other case.
If Republicans take the house I hope they spend their time trying to do things that benefit the people and go back to doing it in a bipartisan way, unlike the sham circus the democrats have been running for years in an attempt to “get Trump”.
The voter turnout will be less than 50% nationwide. That is nothing to be proud of and really can’t be considered a high turnout. It defies understanding why there are those who want to restrict and limit voter access rather than try to expand it.
As you mentioned, the elephant in the room is the redistricting process which disenfranchises large portions of the public.
Well, I think, you know, some of the fascinating states are Michigan and California, where independent commissions drew maps and where, on paper, it looks like there are a lot more competitive districts than there are elsewhere in the country. And likewise in Michigan, many people thought the Michigan legislature might be up for grabs for the first time in many decades because of much fairer-drawn maps than they had before. So those are some of the states that we were watching from the positive side. But then on the negative side, there are significantly skewed maps in states like Texas, Georgia, Florida and Ohio, which many people thought going in might be greater than the majority that Republicans would have in the House. And that seems to have been borne out. Florida, for example, probably gives Republicans four extra seats than they would have under a fairly drawn map. And so if, in fact, Republicans have a very thin majority in the House, it is likely to be due to gerrymandering.
Think I pretty much said the same things .
You can handle a little rhetoric! I’m making the point that barriers weren’t placed in the way of voting, people were able to vote in reasonable ways without difficulty, and they did.
It’s not a baseline, but you are suggesting that there were significant difficulties. I didn’t hear any stories about people having to swim across rivers or fight off roving hooligans to vote. They voted in normal ways like every other state, easily and conveniently.
Umm, and yes indeed we are. That’s my entire point.
Only if you ignore election security. That’s also an important concern.
Here’s some nuance: this is disenfranchisement. Requiring people to have ID 
isn’t.
Barriers were placed in the way. Doesn’t mean they’re insurmountable, or even difficult barriers for most, but some were placed, and more were attempted.
I made no comment to the magnitudes of the attempts at suppressing votes, other than that they occurred. and more were attempted.
Nobody is ignoring election security. But some are using it as an excuse the try and lower turnout. It’s my view that these are attempts at gradually moving the baseline, to eek out wins here and there - much like with gerrymandering.. a line here and. lime there leads to a district here and a district there, and before you know it, you end up with tossup states like WI and Georgia with 6/8 and 9/14 in the house.
It’s not, on the face of it. But when laws are instituted to reduce turnout rather than for security, well… and when it’s a farce where it doesn’t provide additional security on top of that (how do you get your free voter id card in Georgia? go to the county registrar with evidence you’re registered to vote. wait, whaaaat?), well, sheeeeeiiiiiiiitttttttt.
Conversation on the Midterm results, the Dems’ messaging and culture problem, the importance of repetition and the GOP media machine.
Accurate, Secure, and Timely. That’s what the baseline should be.
These are at odds with Dems current preference for Loosey Goosey elections under the guise of “make every vote count”. Sounds good and pro democracy in theory, but reality is Democrats want to totally ignore all the ways systems are abused - willfully ignoring so they can gain political clout with “feel-good sayings”.
That’s the real issue.
As we saw in Georgia 2020, at the end of the night it just boils down to someone handing over a USB thumb drive.
And any recount is pointless because once the vote is in, it’s in - and would be recounted regardless of legitimacy.
It’s also important to note the process of voting is anonymous on the back-end. This means votes could never be traced back to an individual after the fact.
That’s why it’s critical to have security on the front-end.
For example, when the recounts happened, we would have no way of knowing:
Hypothetically Democrats could just dip into the huge pool of registered Democrat voters who didn’t go out to vote, and just submit illegitimate votes on their behalf.
In summary:
Democrats say “Make every vote count”
Republicans say “Timely and accurately make every legitimate vote count”
Huge difference. Democrats are making a monkey’s paw wish.
Hypothetically unicorns could fly out of my ass.
Hypothetically, Republicans instead of reflecting on why they lost, could make up any number of scenarios with no evidence whatsoever. Hypothetically, they could waste time and resources on investigations that lead to nowhere. Or they could stick to bipartisan accomplishments like those that occured over the last two years: CHIPs, infrastructure, burn pits etc.
Don’t forget Ukraine funding, they are both pretty unified on that and Covid restrictions although one party loved that a teeny bit more than the other. Then there is hating Trump, they are pretty unified on that front too, don’t think for a second Cheney didn’t have the wink and nod from leadership in the GOP for her role on the sham Jan 6th committee.
Certainly there are the Republican types that held their noses and voted for Trump because they always vote Republican but would have much rather had Ted Cruz or one of the other Republicans back in 2016, they will no doubt be saying “I’m a Republican and I voted for Trump twice, it’s time to move on!”.
We all get it, the MSM is shilling as loud as it can “Trumps a loser, it’s time to move on!” as if any Trump supporters could give a damn what “news” channels like CNN are saying.
Which brings us to the most important part of the equation, are the hard core Trump supporters prepared to move on?
Agree with all of that. Except calling Jan. 6th a sham. That was clearly warranted.
They can continue to lose elections then. If you’re going to appeal to extremists, then you’ll just alienate the rest of your potential voters. Democrats seemed to have learned that lesson despite the GOPs best efforts to claim they have not.
If in their opinion the Republican establishment is no different to the Democrats, essentially anyway, might as well have the Democrats and they can own the downside and responsibility in the eyes of the public.
Like they do for inflation now, the recession we are in (not yet admitted, but they will) botched withdrawals from Afghanistan and presiding over new wars in places like Ukraine.
The Big Club Is Openly Reassembling - The Last Refuge
Take your time to read. BUT not with the intention to refute anything, we know you are very good at doing that.
Read it with with the intent of understanding how others are thinking and then consider, if that’s the thinking of the Trump supporters, how likely are they going to be to dump him now?
I was going to post earlier, but I don’t see the next year or two getting any better, if I were a Trump supporter I might be happier if Democrats had control of the House the Senate and Presidency. Can’t blame the Republicans if they are not holding any positions of power.
That would better for the country overall so I’d be for it.
Inflation up before, down again. Economy down before, up again. De-coupling won’t be easy but if that leads to Dems getting blamed then that’s a price to pay.
I think most Americans realized we needed to be out of Afghanistan and I’ve never seen a withdrawal done well. Have you?
Also the US is not presiding over a war with Ukraine. Soft reminder… that’s Russia.
Either way if you look at the long game all of these are positive moves for the country and the world. The US needs to pivot to Asia and not get bogged down with conflicts in the Middle East. Europe is now more united than ever in the common cause of collective security. Allies in the Pacific are united against a common enemy.
I’m very much agree with the Wilsonian perspective in that the world needs to be safe for democracy. The authoritarian voices and their sympathizers who were arguing that there was a better way to govern during the chaos of the Trump era have gone quiet.
Next time you could try without getting personal.
I really don’t care about the psychology of the hardcore Trump supporter as long as they stay on the fringe. They may have some valid grievances but the methods they support are disastrous for the country.
This is the Republican MO. They are much better suited at the being the opposition party than the governing party. After all, as was previously stated, they’ll have to offer something more than Reaganomics. And anti-woke won’t win a general election.
“Fringe” you say? They may represent the majority of Republican supporters as of right now, fringe is a world the democrats and establishment Republicans and the rest of the media want to live, but like many things they believe (or pretend to) I doubt is reality.
In this you are correct, the Republicans had no message going into the midterms, Ron DeSantis message about “Florida is the place where woke goes to die” is the wrong sort of messaging. That sort of thing might appeal to the Cruz types, but not the Trump lot, generally speaking.
So you are really making my point, what do the establishment Republicans have to offer?
Have they accomplished anything? We already had massive and draconian criminal investigations. Jan. 6 hearings have always looked like a dog and pony show. What have they found? No major accomplishments come easily to mind. Still waiting for Trump to be charged with something as a result of this, as I said at the start. That will actually be the test of this being anything really meaningful in a fact-finding sense.
Here’s an overview, slim pickings
What I concluded is that despite some successes, Trump is completely unfit for the job. Who needs a loose canon with a chip in his shoulder? He tried to run through the Constitution like it was the tax code.
Nope.