The county I live in has been run by Republicans more or less forever. I don’t know if we’ve ever had a Democratic county executive or Democratic control of the county legislature.
There were two county races last night, one for sheriff and one for a legislative district in the most well-off of the suburbs. Both seats were previously held by Republicans and the last two elections for the seats were essentially uncontested (i.e. there was no Democratic challenger). Democrats won both races by 12-15 points.
If Trump is still here in 2019, Democrats will probably win most or all of the remaining county-wide races (county exec, DA, county clerk) and I suspect they’ll take control of the county legislature as well (I don’t know the districts well enough to say much with confidence).
I don’t know if my county is very typical. The demographics hit all of Chuck Todd’s erogenous zones — well-off white suburbs, blue-collar suburbs (with lots of union members), small towns, and an urban core with the usual mix of people of color and hipsters of all ages. The mix is probably more skewed to urban core and well-off suburbs than most places.
But I’ve got to think this is happening in lots of places, that the Trump effect is helping Democrats a lot, especially in low turn-out races (and local elections are the lowest of the low turn-out).
I don’t favor impeaching Trump unless the case is strong. I’ll wait and see what Mueller comes back with. Clinton was impeached for lying about an extramarital affair as part of an investigation of a real estate deal. I certainly expect that Trump is guilty of a lot more than that, but we’ll see. Even if Mueller doesn’t bring obstruction charges against Trump, it’s likely that Trump will fire Mueller or pardon people to keep them from squealing, and those are things he can and maybe should be impeached for.
I expect that no matter what happens, Republicans in Congress will stand by Trump, a few furrowed brows and sternly worded tweets aside.
They’re gonna get what they deserve as a party, from the towns to the cities to the capital.
Lapassionara
From your mouth to FSM’s ears.
Corner Stone
I feel good. I knew that I would, now.
hueyplong
I will be pleased if Dougl’s post ends up being the generally accepted historical narrative of this time.
Corner Stone
I can confidently predict that within 24 hours or less, every pundit will settle on the theme of, “But just being *against Trump* isn’t enough. What is the Democrats message? What does the party stand for?”
Yarrow
Here’s another example of a county that has never had a Dem elected official.
Corner Stone
I just wanted to repeat this because if I am going to have nightmare fuel I want to make sure others will also too.
Murc
I can’t believe someone unseated O’Flynn. I mean, that was just… the man has been Sheriff since before I could vote. I always ticked the Democratic box but I didn’t expect anything to come from it.
Maybe we should have actually run someone on the Democratic line for the 7th judicial district.
skyweaver
I have a good friend who ran for town clerk in Urbana, NY (heavily Republican.) She ran as a Dem, not expecting to win. She did. I have no idea if it was the Trump effect or not (she did the work), but that has to be variable in there somewhere.
Roger Moore
In the House, yes. Even if there’s a bloodbath in the House in 2018, the Republicans who survive it will figure they survived and they can stick by Trump without paying for it; many of them will even credit sticking with Trump to surviving their primary. But the Senate is another matter. If the Democrats somehow manage to defy expectations and a very unfavorable map in 2018 to pick up seats, that has to scare the shit out of the Republican Senators who will be facing reelection in 2020 and 2022. If we can put that kind of wave election together, we might be able to scare enough of those Senators to back a strong impeachment case.
Mike J
@Murc:
You do realise the Democratic party isn’t like a bar in 19th century Portland where we drug people, tie them up, cart them away, and force them to serve?
Zach
His campaign foreign policy team had, at a minimum, 40% Russian intelligence assets and he appointed another his NSC. A minimum level of vetting would’ve made this pretty obvious at the time. At some point Trump has some responsibility?
My guess is the “worst” thing we’ll find out about Trump re: Russia is that he knew about Russia dangling Clinton dirt and actively or tacitly encouraged quid pro quo to pay for it… rather than immediately calling the FBI. It sounds like you could make an espionage/conspiracy case out of that that condemns everyone who found out about the offers made to Don Jr. and Papadopolous. Whether that’s enough for impeachment is mostly a political question, and I guess is the answer is “yes” if Trump screws up tax cuts and “no” if he gets it done.
MattF
@Roger Moore: I do wonder what it would take to push generic R politicians away from Trump. I mean, we’ve already got a reasonable facsimile of treason– what more could you ask for? I think the noisy R politicians get coverage– but their actual numbers are small. The others are generally hiding under their desks in the hope that no one notices.
Nicole
As a resident of NYC for a quarter of a century, it aggravates me to no end that Trump may end up dying an old man in his bed, but I will take comfort if his ineptitude being foisted on the nation at large breaks the stranglehold the Right has had on certain portions of the nation since I was a young ‘un. You find your ponies where you can.
Corner Stone
@Zach:
I guess it depends on how you define “worst”. I fully expect to find proof that Trump has been entirely financed by Russian Oligarch money (Kremlin) for two decades or so. And that every business deal he has made in a foreign location is rife with graft, corruption and all sorts of Foreign Corruption (FCPA) violations.
Jeffro
@Corner Stone: true, that will indeed be their question
If only there was something from the VA races to point to as to what coughhealthcarecoughguncontrolcough drove up Dem turnout…
Roger Moore
@Zach:
I think it’s going to come out a lot worse than that. My gut feeling is that it will turn out the Veselnitskaya meeting was not just dangling but actually involved the Trumpsters promising to repeal the sanctions in exchange for electoral help. They’ve already admitted the dangling, and I don’t believe they would have done that if there weren’t something a lot worse they were trying to hide.
Yarrow
Dems winning all over the country. Even Montana:
That was Helena and this is Billings:
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
I think we only have one more year of Trump being able to affect anything as President. I think the Tax bill is going to be a disaster either way it goes and Republicans are going to start looking out for themselves. And Mueller is going to start nailing these jackasses to the wall pretty soon.
Corner Stone
@MattF: IMO, they are a victim of their own success. Because as has been stated elsewhere, D’s won the VA Gov by more votes than has been seen before. Yet the Statehouse is almost evenly divided. So, to my thinking the R pols have nowhere to go anymore. Because our side is finally looking like they want to taste some of the drug known on the street as “turn out”. The only way to keep votes is to play to the hate in their local fiefdom. And pray. Lots of prayers.
Yarrow
@Nicole:
No predictions on how long Trump may live–he does not look like a well man–but even if he somehow gets pardoned for his federal crimes he won’t escape NY AG Schneiderman’s charges at the state level. Those cannot be pardoned. Schneiderman is coordinating with Mueller to this end.
Major Major Major Major
Yeah, these results make me hopeful for the 2020 redistricting.
@Corner Stone: Breitbart is already going with “this can’t be an anti-trump vote because Gillespie wasn’t pro-trump.”
piratedan
ty Doug for the usual EC shout out, Hand in Hand is one of my favorite tunes from that era….
what I believe that we saw in yesterday’s election result is something along the lines of the ending of complacency of the American middle. Left-leaning but disdainful of local politics and getting their hands dirty in the day-to-day. Now they are finding out that yes, every couple of years you have to get up off of your ass and go and vote and you have to pay attention to what the candidates actually say versus what the media thinks that they are saying.
Took electing a complete set of crooks and liars and giving them control of the levers of power to actually realize that the GOP has lost their ever-loving minds about issues ranging from immigration to gun-control to health care.
Keeping them aware and participating is the trick, this isn’t just slap a damn band-aid on it and stop worrying about it kind of problem, this is the beginning of the long hard slog to kick out the fascists, the theocrats, the grifters, the crooks, the dark money and the rich that would just as soon keep you dumb and subservient.
Lets hope that this the result isn’t just a harbinger of the battle won, but to a successful triumph over those folks whose vision of America isn’t inclusive, tolerant and compassionate.
Roger Moore
@MattF:
What it will take is electoral consequences for sticking by him. The essential point of making Trump their nominee is that the Republicans are willing to put party before country, so sticking by him through treason shouldn’t be such a surprise. The flip side of that, though, is that they’re likely to drop him the moment they conclude he’s hurting the party rather than helping it.
LAO
This is fascinating:
Mike in DC
The trifecta here:
1. Mueller indictments
2. Big Dem election wins
3. Failure to pass tax cuts
Will ramp up establishment Rs turning on Trump, both publicly and privately. If they lose big next year, Trump loses all political cover.
Yarrow
@Corner Stone:
Agreed. And all the kids are involved. Remember Eric said, “We don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.” Russian money does not come without strings. They are just so dumb.
MazeDancer
In a 1,350 vote election, two Dems took the seats on formerly GOP Town Council in a tiny Hudson Valley village. They worked hard. Canvassed. Shook hands.
One won by 6 votes, the other by 12. Every vote matters.
Ian G.
Doug!, you’re Monroe County/Rochester, right? Glad to hear another one of New York’s heavily populated, GOP-leaning counties threw the bums out. We elected a Democratic County Exec here in Nassau too, after the asshole GOPer started running “MS-13 is coming for you!” ads. Fuck him. If I ever see him, I’m going to tell him about how MS-13 forgot to burglarize my house after I accidentally left a 1st floor window unlocked for a week when I went on vacation.
themann1086
Same thing just happened to my home town (Upper Darby, Delaware County, PA), where my parents still live: no Dems in the county government, and they won every race last night (2 council seats, 3 executive positions), and they also eked out a majority on our township council and won the town treasurer race, first for both. My mom almost cried in relief and excitement.
ArchTeryx
From an earlier thread, thank you for the actual Bible referwnce. Smiting is just what these fascist fucksticks deserve, but I’ll settle for them all being driven into political exile. Last night was one of the happiest nights of my life…I will live to see the end of the Trump era .
O. Felix Culpa
@Major Major Major Major:
You know what? Let Breitbart and Fox deceive themselves and their readers/viewers about what’s happening. It gives us a strategic advantage. It helps to be able to see, hear – and think – when doing battle.
Yarrow
@O. Felix Culpa: Agreed. If Fox viewers have no idea the election happened and what the results were, maybe they’ll think everything is fine (from their perspective) and that they don’t need to turn out to vote. That’s fine with me.
Betty Cracker
@MazeDancer: Wow.
gene108
More than a vote against Trump, it is: “Our candidate got 3 million more votes and that orange ass-clown is President! NEVER AGAIN!!!”
Barbara
@Corner Stone: Well, gerrymandering is what has kept Virginia’s Republican politicians in power for this long. They won the governorship at a very opportune time, in 2009, to make sure that they maximized potential Republican seats in the U.S. House and in the General Assembly. The real shock to their system yesterday was in the exurban counties of Loudoun and Prince William, where demographic change has been slowly building over the last 20 years, not just because of immigration, but also housing affordability, so that people who would have moved to Fairfax instead moved a little further out. Corey Stewart is from Manassas, in PW County. When this shift started happening it drove these counties to be more Republican, but eventually, the demographic changes reached critical mass and finally became grist for change even in an off year election. Wrt Bob Marshall in particular and his nasty, nasty campaign against Danica Roem, I honestly think many people did not realize just how crazy out there culturally conservative he was. His first victory came before many voters were even living in his district and there have been cycles when he didn’t even field an opponent so he never had to actually campaign. He couldn’t hide it this year, either personally or politically.
ETA: If anyone is from the Hampton Roads region, I would like to hear their take on the results out of that region. Seems more pro-D than expected.
Ian G.
@O. Felix Culpa:
Amen. I want every GOP Congresscritter to run as close to the Shitgibbon as possible next year.
The sane ones in competitive seats will probably all retire, so that gives us a better chance of facing swivel-eyed loons in the elections.
Betty Cracker
@O. Felix Culpa: Actual Fox News clip from this morning:
Major Major Major Major
@O. Felix Culpa: given that we’re currently in what amounts to a limbic-system-based turnout battle, I don’t care that they live in an alternate reality, except for the fact that it corrodes our ability to do big things as a country. Ordinarily I wouldn’t see how it gives us an advantage, but if their takeaway is that they need to be MORE pro-trump and have MORE hateful primaries, I’m okay with that.
Immanentize
Watch the retirements increase!
I just read over at TPM that Ted Poe (R. Tx) is retiring. Ted Poe is one of the nastiest shit weasels in Congress. As a judge he was mean and corrupt — sanctimonious pro-death, finger on the scale for prosecutors mofo. I am so sorry to hear he has leukemia (which he said has nothing to do with his decision — and I believe hiim!) But I am so happy that he too is leaving Congress.
Barbara
@O. Felix Culpa: I would like Breitbart to lay out exactly what Gillespie should have done to make himself more “pro-Trump.” Carry a tiki torch at the latest Charlottesville march? Lead a well-publicized rally in a chant of “lock her up”? Ask audience members at an event to beat up protesters?
Major Major Major Major
@Barbara: they outline his, ah, deficiencies. You can find the article yourself if you’re that curious.
Eric U.
looks like a Dem/Rep split in the PA supreme court, but all the lower level judge races went to Dems. Curious about that. I was hoping that my republican-leaning township would elect two dems to the town board, but there was a split there too. Can’t have everything, I guess.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: In what world are progeny of the ultra rich like DeVos and T not elitist? Not to speak of the other fabulously wealthy members of the cabinet like Ross and Mnuchin.
zhena gogolia
@Corner Stone:
OOOH, that one makes me seethe. “Were you asleep for 2008-16?”
catclub
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
Except for ruining the EPA, ruining the Justice department (goodbye voting rights), rolling back bank regulations, and getting ever more RWNJ judges confirmed, what have the Romans done to us lately?
The Moar You Know
I don’t favor it at all. For starters, we can’t. Votes aren’t there. Even if we flip the House, we aren’t going to get to 2/3rds in the Senate.
And frankly, I like Trump right where he is, dragging the GOP to their doom.
O. Felix Culpa
@Betty Cracker: The old “elitism” canard again. Why is it ok to be an “elite” athlete or a member of an “elite” military group, but not a person with a good education and, you know, actual skills? What is “elite” in this Fox usage actually code for? Can’t be rich people, since they lurve them some fatcats.
ETA: or what s_c said at #43.
catclub
@Major Major Major Major:
If the Democrats have majority in the VA state house, there is no reason not to redistrict for the 2018 election. Their present district map has been ruled
gerrymandered.
O. Felix Culpa
@Barbara: Yes. :)
Old Dan and Little Anne
Go Monroe County! My wife and I were in awe last night at we watched all the blue Ds shown as winners on the nightly news crawl. Suck it, republicans.
catclub
@O. Felix Culpa: A liberal professor of anthropology is elite. Mitt Romney and his ilk are down to earth businessmen.
Never mind the professor has to drive a taxi to make ends meet.
Major Major Major Major
@The Moar You Know: you don’t favor filing articles of impeachment in the House if we win the chamber and there is conclusive evidence that the president and commander of the armed forces is in thrall to an enemy power?
Immanentize
@O. Felix Culpa: Elite = snooty libtards.
oatler.
“Thoughts and prayers
to all the Republican
politicians who lost their
seats today. We won’t
do anything to prevent it
from happening again.”
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
Lemme see if I follow: electing gold-plate-anything-that-can’t-run-away Donny is a victory for common folk. Emptying Goldman Sachs to staff the WH is draining the swamp. Sending Guatemalans back to Guatemala makes us safer and gets our jerbs back.
Do I get an A?
eclare
The shitass touch: everything he touches turns to shit. Can’t wait til it gets to ZEGS. Saw that Iron Stache tweeted last night “in 2018, we’re coming for you”.
Mike in DC
@O. Felix Culpa:
Depending on the audience:
1. Urban jews
2. Liberal academics
3. Hollywood liberals/jews
It is never rich white conservatives.
Yarrow
@Major Major Major Major: At least one article of impeachment has already been filed. Long step between filing and being taken up by the traitor Paul Ryan.
trollhattan
@oatler.:
Too soon!
cmorenc
@Corner Stone:
My bet is that Mueller’s team will find that Trump’s financial affairs include large sums of laundered money and evaded taxes, and Trump’s Russian connections will be closely.
eclare
@Corner Stone: Keep it simple: Democrats stand for Americans to receive healthcare and not to get shot in church.
Yarrow
@trollhattan: The ballots are not even cold!
Ian G.
@O. Felix Culpa: “Elitism” education, sophisticated worldview, cosmopolitanism, etc. You know, the same shit fascists have been at war with since forever. Trump is an ignorant buffoon with horrible taste in everything and who only eats burgers with ketchup. I’m an Ivy League educated atheist who lived in Brooklyn and has a well-worn passport. Trump is not elitist, I am. It has nothing to do with money.
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: Right? “We elected a pampered slumlord’s heir who shits in a golden toilet and lards his cabinet with bankers and scam artists. Take that, elitists!”
The Moar You Know
@Barbara: Yes. Also get the dumb haircut.
Chris
@Betty Cracker:
The candidate who got fewer votes than the other one was a rejection of elitism. Uh huh. Okay.
Look, you can say that Trump’s election was a mandate from the masses rejecting the out-of-touch elites in Washington. Or you can scold people about how we’re a REPUBLIC not a DEMOCRACY and therefore the fact that politicians can win even when the majority of people don’t want them there is a wonderful thing.
… PICK ONE.
MazeDancer
Tom Coyne, the Ohio Mayor who left the Dems to support Trump, going down by 5 points was a fitting demise.
So many good wins last night. Proof how important ground game is to victory.
And almost like: Without the Russians, GOP can’t win.
Major Major Major Major
@Yarrow: hence “if we win the chamber”.
@MazeDancer: I’m glad that they’re ignorant enough of American politics not to understand the propaganda value of the Virginia governor’s race.
eclare
@Jeffro: You beat me to it!
Barbara
@Major Major Major Major: Yeah, it’s mostly rhetorical. The level of vitriol in Gillespie’s ads was just shocking. The MS-13 ads demonized Latinos and the “Northam loves pedophile ads” are about as repulsive as anything I have ever seen. It’s really hard for me to predict how those sorts of things play out. I thought they were over the top, and that people should find them to be ridiculous and cartoonish. Maybe Gillespie’s problem is that he wasn’t subtle enough with the racist politicking. And the confederacy stuff — I don’t know what our current demographics are, but there are an awful lot of people like me who live here but were born elsewhere and are just bone tired with the idea that every election should be just another chance to relitigate the Civil War.
rikyrah
Something to make you smile today
https://youtu.be/jMMQxc5NqXs
different-church-lady
@eclare: The only rule Trump operates by: Trump wins, everyone else loses.
@schrodingers_cat: A: in a world played by Calvinball rules.
Doug!
@Ian G.:
Yup I’m in Monroe County
judge Crater
Trump isn’t done breaking the furniture and pissing on the carpet. He will fire Mueller and he will pardon his co-conspirators. Paul Ryan and most of the GOP has already made its deal with the devil. The fate of the Republic, to a large extent, rests in the results of the 2018 mid-terms. That’s where the rubber meets the road. Dems need to forget about fund raisers in the Hamptons and the Aspen Institute and big crowds in college towns. They have to get out into the trailer parks and rust belt cities and drive the message home that Trump and his Forbes 100 cabinet members don’t give a fuck about the poor and the middle class.
Chip Daniels
@schrodingers_cat:
I think “elitist” is the new “cosmopolitan”, or “urban”, a code word that signifies the Out Tribe. It doesn’t have the literal meaning any more.
debit
More good news. The first transgender candidate for city council in Minneapolis won.
Yarrow
Speaking of Russia:
LOL. Dumbass.
schrodingers_cat
@different-church-lady: Bizzaro R Fox Nooze world?
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize:
Well, I’m proud to be in good company then!
I foolishly entered into a fb “conversation” with a high school classmate turned RWNJ (or maybe he always was that – I grew up in John Birch territory). His display in turn of fiction-based, fact-avoidant bullying and aggrieved whining was disturbing. These folks truly do live in an alternative universe and they really believe the apocalyptic nonsense Fox etc. are spewing. My conclusion, based on trying to engage these folks in respectful dialogue on multiple occasions, is that their worldview is truly impenetrable. We have to move on without them and overwhelm them at the ballot box.
Chip Daniels
@judge Crater:
And we need to stop being afraid of raising hell and creating a disturbance.
That is, we need to be willing to impeach, and not just “keep on walking”.
mouse tolliver
@Corner Stone: They’ve already started. Kristen Welker on MSNBC did a segment on how broken the Democratic party is and Donna Brazile and the usual blah blah blah. And before that they ran their millionth segment about the forgotten hard working Trump voters and how they all think he’s doing an amazing job.
Barbara
@oatler.: In all seriousness, I do wonder if the latest mass civil casualty and gun massacre galvanized people to actually punish the Republican position on gun control (“thoughts and prayers for the dead”). Virginia is not going to be anti-gun for the foreseeable future, but the after effects of the Virginia Tech massacre are still very much with us. Montgomery County Virginia, home of Blacksburg, votes reliably Democratic.
Aardvark Cheeselog
Even assuming the Ds completely run the table in ’18, in a blowout that makes 1974 look like a loss by comparison, and even if every.single.one. of the new D Senators was rabid to convict, Republican votes would still be needed.
different-church-lady
@trollhattan: It’s too soon to politicize politics.
Guachi
FWIW, the democrat winning the mayoral race in Billings has no practical effect as the city is run by a city manager and the mayor is a figurehead. I don’t know how Helena is run, so I don’t know what practical effect a Democrat winning has.
However, Billings is in the conservative part of the state so it may presage Democrats winning state House and Senate seats next year. Also, Montana is the least black state in the union so a black candidate winning anything is a big deal.
Yarrow
@Major Major Major Major: We don’t need to win the chamber to file the articles of impeachment. But to get them to go anywhere we do.
ET
The Root has an incomplete list of the names they used for Trump. Cheeto Jesus is not there. I also like one I think Betty wrote – walking collection of unresolved personality disorders.
The Moar You Know
@Major Major Major Major: No, I do not. You can’t get a conviction in the Senate, so all the GOP voters and the mushy middle idiots (and most importantly, the complicit media) then say “well, he was found innocent” – which would be an unmitigated disaster.
I would like to see Mueller’s work go to New York and have any potential (I know they’re there!) charges tried at the state level. Avoids so many potential shenanigans.
D58826
ok don’t take this as a Debbie Downer comment. Obviously yesterday was a good day not to be a Republican. I’m not sure it was a good day to be a democrat. The reason I’m saying that is because just from the little I’ve read over the past 12 hours is that yesterday was more Anti-Trump than the birth of a new progressive democratic majority. Now that being said there is a golden opportunity to go back to those anti-Trumpers and convince them to join the new progressive democratic party (or maybe coalition is a better term). I don’t know what the right approach is but re-litigating the 2016 primary and Donna Brazzile is not one of them.
I think one idea that should be pushed is – we have had 40 years of trickle down, small gov’t anti tax policies offered by the GOP. Look what that has gotten us (you) – galloping income inequality, policies to roll back the progress in the environment, civil rights, women’s rights, etc that you non-democratic voters claim are important. The GOP is not going to deliver on those issues. You have been distracted by culture war wedge issues while the 1% has picked you pocket and purchased large shares of your government. The democrats can change that but you have to vote for them.
Corner Stone
@The Moar You Know:
Trump can not remain in office. Mainly because he is a traitor enthrall to a foreign power. But he also clearly desires to be an autocrat and undermines everything we in this nation used to stand for. We have to get him out and replace every single person he has brought into the administration. We’ll need to then pass a series of laws formalizing what were previous norms regarding Executive actions. And hope by then our Nat’l Parks and other parts of our environment can be saved/restored.
Ridnik Chrome
Good morning, everyone! Here in NYC I am enjoying the impotent rage of the New York Post and the Daily News over the landslide re-election of Bill De Blasio. Say what you will about Blaz, he’s still better than the two assholes who preceded him, by a long, long way. And better than the pro-Trump loony tune who was his closest competition this time.
No Drought No More
America 2017: “I don’t favor impeaching Trump unless the case is strong”.
Tokyo 1945: “Unless that bomb did real damage to our beloved Hiroshima, I oppose surrender”.
“Mid-Atlantic 1912: “Unless that iceberg punched a bigger hole in this ship than I think it has, we’re not abandoning anything”.
Some democrats would starve to death as manna rained from the heavens around them, I swear.
Over the past 40 years, the democratic party has fallen into the same bad habit as had the Army of the Potomac by 1864. They worry too much. About what the republican party is doing or might do, and all the while dwelling on what might go wrong rather than what will go right. It’s about time democrats knock that shit off, by turning they tables on the dishonest bastards by attacking them with hearts and minds unburdened by silly tactical doubts (like worrying about the viability of Trump’s impeachment case at this point in the process). They should begin to act with the courage of their convictions, and leave the worrying to the GOP. Lincoln understood that right makes might, and the vast stakes involved in defending the American Republic are nothing less than whether or not our democracy, and government of/by/and for the people, will perish from the earth. It always has been, and always will be.
Ohio Mom
@Yarrow: hmm..I live in the next county over and that IS impressive. Never would have thought Warren County would go even a little Blue. It’s Boehner’s old district.
WaterGirl
@eclare: Iron Stache?
Raoul
What do we make of the mass exodus of what I’d say are safe Republicans from Congress? Ted Poe in the Houston suburbs is the latest in that camp. He’s a long-time incumbent in a wealthy NW suburban area. My dad and his girlfriend always liked him (I sure didnt’!).
OK, he’s 69 and maybe being in Congress with watery eyed idiot Paul Ryan isn’t that fun.
But I think they know their gonna get their ass handed to them, and even the ‘safe’ guys don’t want to go back to being in the minority — not that they would get much less done in that mode than as the current, useless majority.
trollhattan
@D58826:
IIUC the Dems historically have difficulty with turnout for off-year elections, so yesterday is at least an anomaly. Show me a repeat performance or two and I’ll believe things have really turned for the better.
Immanentize
@rikyrah: “Look-a-me!” So good. Thanks!
Roger Moore
@The Moar You Know:
I disagree. If the case is strong enough and we get control of the House, I think we should push it. Lay out in big televised hearing everything he’s done wrong, and let the Republicans worry about whether to defend him or convict him. If they want to make treason their party brand, I say we give them that chance.
Brachiator
@skyweaver:
I am just loving hearing stories like this.
And good luck and best wishes to your friend.
LongHairedWeirdo
Clinton was impeached for being a popular Democratic President that the Republicans could trump up charges against.
Remember, he was defendant in a lawsuit that was privately funded just for the sake of harassing him. During that, he gave a very lawyerly answer to a question that did not leave room for an ethical prosecutor to bring perjury charges – they don’t let a jury decide if you might have done X_behavior to bring her pleasure when you claim that, no, you just enjoyed it for yourself.
It was decreed that he engaged in perjury before the grand jury because they had another person whose story didn’t match his, so of course he was lying or they had nothing to impeach him for. They also tried to impeach him for suborning perjury because “of course he did, he spoke to Lewinsky!” and if he hadn’t, they wouldn’t have anything to impeach him for.
The *only* reason I’m not in favor of impeaching Trump for any crime starting with “failure to use this product in a manner inconsistent with its labeling” is that he wasn’t in the Republican power structure at the time. But if there’s any serious charge, the Democrats have to show they have the gumption to use impeachment, rather than to keep getting clobbered by trying to be the adults in the room, waiting for things to come back to normal. They won’t. Not while there’s no price for GOP misbehavior.
gvg
@cmorenc: I think he also has a lot of dirty money from the middle east. and maybe American mob money too. He clearly hasn’t cared about laws for a long time.
I question funding for the Mercers and the Koch’s and am grateful they don’t appear to work well together. But some of these Rich donors have been acting against the US for awhile in ways that to me don’t even look like simple self centered greed. I’d like to check them out and hope some of it will happen as a side effect of all the investigations.
Raoul
@WaterGirl: Granny-starver’s Democratic opponent next October. Randy Bryce. He’s an iron worker with a cheesy mustache, and ironstache is is twitter handle.
We should all go give the ‘stache 10 bucks. I think he actually could win!!
Spanky
@The Moar You Know:
Supreme Court judges don’t live forever.
eclare
@WaterGirl: Iron Stache.
Immanentize
@O. Felix Culpa: Moving on. I sadly agree. They were given permission to reveal themselves, and now they have, and they cannot go back. It is a new version of the lumpen proletariat (the Trumpen proletariat?). Many will get their sense of civility back, many will not.
JR
@Eric U.: Mundy had the Governor’s implicit endorsement by virtue of appointment, so that probably worked against Woodruff.
Renie
In Nassau County, NY on Long Island, Nassau is deeply Republican. We elected our first woman County Executive who is a Democrat. To top it off in the Town of Hempstead, which is ground zero for Republicans in Nassau County, we also elected a woman Democrat as Supervisor. It took almost 100 years but now we have a Democrat in power. Joe Mondello who has been GOP party chair for about 30 years must be in a rage and thank God for that.
Yarrow
@Ohio Mom: Oh, good! I’m glad you saw it. I posted that for you last night but I think you’d already gone to bed–it was late. I’m glad you find it a good sign.
NotMax
Deep within the muddy morass inside his head, have to hypothesize that even Dolt 45 himself realizes that would be like burning down the casino to try to avoid filing for bankruptcy.
Brachiator
@The Moar You Know:
Impeachment would be a great thing, even if only to see Trump rattled and wounded.
Why leave anything to chance?
Fair Economist
IMO the big take-home from this election is: safe Republican seats aren’t safe. Republicans will still win a lot of races, but nobody knows which previously safe seats are now flippable. This is really going to scramble things for the Republicans, and I think it’s going to drive a lot of retirements.
Immanentize
@Spanky: @The Moar You Know:
Like everything there are up and down sides to impeachment —
If we can retake the Senate, even by one seat, then filing articles of impeachment in the house, even if it really never comes up in the Senate might allow the Senate to prevent any more Supreme Court (or other) justices from being confirmed — “such a cloud over the President” and “Too close to the next election, let the people decide” etc.
danielx
@schrodingers_cat:
Details, details….how many Cabinet members, aside from possibly the Evil Elf, do you suppose the average Trump voter can even name?
Haven’t kept up this morning, so I’m curious:
1. Is Trump still having a Twitter ragegasm?
2. Has Paul LePage’s head exploded yet?
MomSense
@Corner Stone:
NEEDS MOAR BRAIN BLEACH.
While on the subject, WTF is up with the comb forward (down?) buzz cut? Have you ever seen such a bizarre thing? His producers should tell him never to look down on camera.
Kay
It was SO cynical. They both made deliberate decisions to tack FAR Right. Probably lots of mad scrambling to Dump Trump in those campaigns today! Yost is the worst because Taylor is probably a genuine Right wing nut- she’s vehemently opposed to…health care. He’s whatever he has to be on any particular day. By 3 PM today he’ll sound like Kasich.
Fair Economist
@Brachiator:
Failed impeachments strengthen their target and weaken the impeachers. It happened with both Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton. Since it’s almost certain to fail in the Senate, it would be a bad idea.
NotMax
@Renie
Maybe – maybe – the Democrat from Long Beach who caucuses with the Republicans (and who was re-elected yesterday) will cease and desist from that now?
Chris
@NotMax:
Would it, though? If enough of the GOP stands by him, it doesn’t matter if he fires Mueller.
Ohio Mom
@Yarrow: Yeah, we go to bed early around here — my kid had to be out of the house at 7:30 am and it is a team effort.
Thank you so much for thinking of me! Makes my day.
Miss Bianca
Well two of the three county commissioners were recalled last night, to be replaced by hard-core Republicans, leaving one reasonable one. At least the assholes who ran the last time, and wanted this election to be a “do-over”, didn’t get in, tho’. Building code initiative failed, school bond issue passed. Yay-ish?
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize: “Trumpen proletariat.”
A sadly apt name. I don’t hold out much hope for many returning to civility. I see the ugliness in their FB posts. At best we outvote them and diminish the power of their enablers. Yesterday’s election results were encouraging.
Frankensteinbeck
I’m on the ‘I don’t support impeachment unless we have the votes to convict’ team, but I’m considering the argument that making Republican Senators go on record voting to protect a proven traitor is useful.
@Betty Cracker:
Trump’s election was absolutely a rejection of elitism. Republicans turned out en masse to declare their anger at the fact that educated, tolerant people are superior to ignorant, cruel bigots. Mind you, that’s not a rejection by the country as a whole, but it is definitely a central pillar of support for the winning candidate.
Brachiator
@Immanentize:
Very good!
Boatboy_srq
@Barbara: Loudoun is odd. Sterling, for example, was initially incorporated as a segregated, all-white community – right when CRA outlawed discrimination in housing. It’s much more colourful now than when it was founded; no doubt the community founders are spinning in their graves. Many of the folks who made up the earlier population have merely moved into western Loudoun and kept their “values”, which makes finding an attractive affordable community in that part of the county difficult unless you like having bigots for neighbors.
Example: Casually house-shopping, I visited a lovely-looking subdivision in Aldie. Pretty homes, nice tract, nice views, just rural enough not to feel hemmed in. One of the salespeople, when she discovered where I was living, said “I grew up there, when it was Sterling Park (the old, whites-only name) – when it was a NICE place to live.” It was all I could do not to ask, “Don’t you mean when it was a WHITE place to live?” Needless to say I am not looking at that community any more, and the entire township is now to me suspect after that incident.
NotMax
@Chris
Dunno. However the proverbial camel is already heavily loaded with straw, and firing Mueller would add an entire bale to its back.
D58826
@trollhattan: Yep. a large number of groups – white suburban women, 18-25 years olds etc turned out in unusually large numbers for an off-off-year election. They have to turn out again in 2018 and 2020 and 2022, etc. And the D’s have to offer a future that not only makes them turn out to vote but vote for the D’s.
I’ll take the one handed clap but have to turn it into a two-handed clap going forward. And I’m not convinced that the “primary-2016- the beginning’ mini-series has been cancelled.
Corner Stone
@Raoul:
How dare you! How dare you, sir!!
schrodingers_cat
@Frankensteinbeck: You call it a rejection of elitism, I call it a rejection of reality. Reality always comes back to bite you in the butt, whether you are an individual or a country, you can only live in denial for so long.
O. Felix Culpa
@schrodingers_cat: Amen.
Yarrow
@Ohio Mom: Glad it made your day!
Frankensteinbeck
@schrodingers_cat:
It is that too, but there is a seethingly powerful anger in conservatives that stupid bigotry is considered inferior. They hate it, and it was a huge factor in Trump getting nominated and elected.
Ohio Mom
@Kay: I had a moment of panic a week or so ago when I spaced out, lost track, and thought the Ohio gubernatorial primary was going to be yesterday — I still pine for Cordray, or even a sign that any of the current contenders are capable of rousing some excitement. I couldn’t imagine who I’d vote for, my MO being, I’ll vote for any Democrat, as long as I think they can win in the general. But which one of them is that?
I know you’ve said you like Pillich, she is a hard worker, she must have knocked on every door in our district when she was running for State Rep. I was glad to have her represent me. But I’m not convinced that she can knock on every door in the entire state!
Ian G.
@Renie:
Nice news about Town of Hempstead. I’m in North Hempstead, far less loony Trump country, and we sent the incumbent Dem Judi Bosworth back. I’m really excited about Curran winning county exec.
Corner Stone
Re: Trump’s failed trip to the DMZ. If he’s on Marine One is he in charge or is the pilot? Could he have ordered the pilot to go all the way to the landing zone even if the pilot felt conditions were unsafe?
I still happen to think Trump couldn’t control his bladder so they had to abandon the photo op and turn around.
schrodingers_cat
@Frankensteinbeck: That I agree with, they want a cookie for all their meanness and nastiness and are surprised that when sane people recoil in horror from their antics.
Uncle Cosmo
(Jackson Browne, “Till I Go Down”)
Chip Daniels
It all works together-
Impeachment galvanizes the Dem base, and leads to electoral victory.
Being vulnerable to political death sharpens the mind of the remaining Republicans, who are then faced with either lumping in with Dems or death at the ballot box.
We need to be bold, and stop being afraid.
Yarrow
@Ohio Mom: Is there a chance that yesterday’s elections and D wins could encourage someone to step into the OH Gov race?
Brachiator
@Fair Economist:
Andrew Johnson’s impeachment was part of a long, largely successful effort to block his presidency. Johnson failed to get his party’s nomination for a second term.
Clinton was strong both before and after his impeachment.
Also, as I noted, I want to see Trump enraged at being impeached. I want to see his fragile baby ego slapped around. I don’t care about the politics of it.
ThresherK
@Corner Stone: Actually Bobo’s beat you to it with Tuesday column about the tire-fire + shitstorm on a sinking ocean liner that is the proposed Trump tax bill.
Boatboy_srq
@Betty Cracker: Lord Dampnut’s (s)election was a rejection of taste, manners, propriety, respect for the law, respect for other humans, integrity of the electoral process, and the last vestiges of suspicion of the wealthy as potentially dishonest. If that’s “elitism” then elitism should be celebrated.
Frankensteinbeck
@schrodingers_cat:
To Republicans, including the press, this is what the conflict between ‘regular Americans’ and ‘elites’ means. Trump is their apotheosis, and voting for him was a declaration of their anger at not being superior.
catclub
@MazeDancer:
I was thinking that.
Ohio Mom
@Yarrow: That is what I want Kay to tell us. She is a lot more plugged in than I am, even though she apparently lives in some little town in a forgotten part of Ohio, and I am in one of the state’s major metropolitan areas. Go figure.
Renie
@Ian G.: Yes saw Judi won; great news. Very disappointed Saladino won. He will now blow out the Town of Oyster Bay budget with more patronage jobs for GOP.
catclub
@D58826:
I see this election, and the 2010 and 2014 elections as complacency in the party that also has the presidency. Neither the effort nor the urgency that the out party voters have. It sure would be nice if the Democrats are permanently motivated, but I have low hopes of that.
catclub
@Immanentize:
Still a giant if
NotMax
@catclub
One take away from yesterday is that there is strength in numbers.
Fecund amendment solutions!
catclub
@mouse tolliver:
Trump uses ‘amazing’ when he is confused.
D58826
@Corner Stone:
Everything I have ever read is that the command pilot has the final say on board the aircraft. – af1, Marine 1 or your local puddle jump airline.
Now it does seem a bit odd that after saying he wasn’t going to visit the dmz that there was this sudden change of plans. And the weather was, very conveniently bad. Since it’s only 20-30 miles to the DMZ they could not have driven? But then maybe I’m just seeing conspiracies where none actually exist. After a year of Der Fuhrer easy habit to get into
TenguPhule
Doug, what more do you want, a taped criminal confession?
Oh Wait, Trump already did that for Comey’s firing.
TenguPhule
@Corner Stone:
Dude, they already did that yesterday in the media as the votes were being counted.
TenguPhule
@catclub: Don’t forget State, Energy, Education and the FDA.
Heidi Mom
@No Drought No More: The Army of the Potomac comparison — excellent!
Zach
@Corner Stone: Oh yeah I’m sure Trump is in about as bad shape as Manafort with tax evasion / money laundering… probably Trump’s not quite as bad in terms of where the money came from and probably he’s much worse at the magnitude of it and simply breaking the law. There’s a good reason he selectively leaked one, partial tax return and we’ve never seen the others.
I just mean the “worst with respect to Russia” about quid pro quo Clinton-dirt-for-diplomatic-favors… not the finance stuff. I guess that there’s a LOT of shady nudge-nudge stuff, but what will sink most of the Trump team is being clued in to a major act of espionage and not reporting it. That’s collusion without anything else done to help spread the hacked data or funnel voter data to Russia or whatever. IANAL so who knows what if any laws it breaks.
I’m pretty sure as an American if I find out about state-backed espionage to undermine American democracy I’m required to report it and certainly not take meetings to shoot the shit about it.
TenguPhule
@NotMax:
What makes you think he never tried that too?
TenguPhule
@Corner Stone: This, a thousand times this.
Cermet
@D58826: While all legal orders must be followed by an officer from a superior commander, a pilot is the sole authority on the plane to decide what is safe and what is not for the passengers. Read into that what ever you want.
Aleta
Probably Ashley Bennett has been mentioned already, but she got pissed off, ran and won:
-McClatchy
Corner Stone
@Aleta: What is it with people from NJ and the Confederacy?
Barbara
@catclub: There were reports of bots, probably Russian in origin, trying to ramp up the division and fall out over the Latino Victory Fund ad, which was supposed to air on Spanish language stations and was withdrawn after the truck attack in NYC (the ad depicted a man in a truck apparently targeting young Latino children). Personally, I thought the ad was a little extreme, but the fears it was trying to express are not.
PaulWartenberg
there is one other effect to mention, although I feel a bit in the wrong on this:
There wasn’t Hillary on the ballot to depress voter turnout.
That hatred, that vitriol that exists against her EVEN AMONG THE DEMOCRATIC BASE – all because she’s too “pro-business”, too “centrist” – had a likely effect on voter turnout in 2016. Even when the arguments against her were – and remain – baseless, even when the hatred against her is fueled by a Right Wing Noise Machine that DESPISES her – gods, most of the mudslinging in the 1990s was aimed at HER more than Bill – that hathos for Hillary remained ever present.
The mainstream media that would have jumped all too quickly on Hillary and any candidates she backed had no one to jump on this time. As a result, the media coverage for the state and local elections had no choice but to highlight the disasters the GOP was bringing to the podium.
Notice how eager and how often Fox Not-News, trump, and the GOP campaign apparatus kept hawking Hillary’s name for scandals and investigations and ZOMG SHE STILL LIVES across the landscape? EVEN THOUGH SHE WASN’T IN POLITICS ANYMORE? Without her as a unifying boogy-monster to get the Far Right vote out, without her as a divisive mudpot in the Far Left turnout, the Republicans had nothing else but their failures, their tax-cuts-for-the-rich, their “Kill Obamacare”, and their racism/sexism to present to voters.
I hate to say this: Having Hillary as the candidate in 2016 seems to be a reason – not the only one, damn you Putin – the Democrats were blindsided in that election cycle. It’s totally unfair to her: Hillary is nowhere near the monster the Far Right AND Far Left fear her to be, and in terms of competency she would clearly be running a smarter, smoother White House. But the *image* of Hillary ruined the Democrats last year.
This assessment is pretty sad to consider. The only condolence I can offer is that, with Hillary no longer available as a dartboard target for the Republicans, the Democrats may have better chances in 2018 to win the midterms…
Bill Arnold
Piling on, here’s a nymag piece:
The Anti-Trump Wave Has Come, and Republicans Can’t Stop It (Jonathan Chait, 2017/11/07)
And don’t forget that the Paradise Papers are in play now, disrupting and distracting (and yes frightening) many among the rich and powerful. (And not just the US, though the debut was very nicely timed if the timing was (at least in part) to maximize US impact. Am quite impressed at the whole operation.)
“Momentum” used to be one of DT’s favorite political words. He now has plenty of momentum. Down.
Matt
Unless the Hell they believe in is real, that’s flatly impossible. They’re doing damage to shit like the climate that’s quite likely to be irreversible – and ultimately lethal to tens of millions. You could strap every member of the GOP to a combined lethal-injection & resuscitation device that killed them every hour on the hour and there still wouldn’t be enough time in the day.
catclub
@TenguPhule: I only had one keyboard.
bookdragon
@themann1086: Same here (Montgomery township, Montgomery Co, PA). R’s in supervisor and school board forever. Last night D’s took everything but tax collector and only lost that one by 22 votes
wenchacha
@Doug!: I will be watching to see how the new Sheriff, very recently changed from R to D. To be sure, I didn’t follow this much during the recent months. I figured O’Flynn was a sure thing.
Penfield district I am in had but one Democrat on the ballot, and that was the new Sheriff in town. I hope any changes in the city of ROC are for the better.
Shana
@The Moar You Know: The only, and I mean only, advantage to having Trump in office is that the longer he’s there the more damage he does to the Republican “brand.” By the time he’s done they’re going to find it much harder to win races just because they’re Republicans.
Shana
@Barbara: Perhaps not, but we could get one gun a month back, and close the gun show loophole.
Barbara
@PaulWartenberg: Do you notice how some Democrats have also been trying to ride the anti-Hillary bandwagon? Exhibit A last week would be Donna Brazile. And she wonders why people like me are pissed.
Kenneth Fair
@Yarrow: Don’t forget that Russian oligarchs play for keeps. The weird connection uncovered last year between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank (not to mention with the DeVos family’s Spectrum Health) looks more and more like a connection between Trump and his Russian minders.
J R in WV
OP:
I don’t favor impeaching Trump unless we must. I do favor taking the “football” out of his hands, or doing away with it and changing our strategic thermo-nuclear response mechanism to a more controlled method than more or less instant radioactive holocaust.
Take away his ability to kill and destroy by requiring congressional approval for acts of war. He cannot be trusted with the tools of warfare AT ALL!!
Make it conditional, let it end when Trump leaves office – added benefit of pissing Trump off!!! Bigly!
Sister Golden Bear
@Kenneth Fair: There was an interesting analysis of the traffic between the three servers that it sure looked like database replication/database syncing. DB admin isn’t directly in my expertise — I know just enough to be dangerous — but it certainly seemed more than plausible, and actually downright likely.
It’s a way the Russians could have laundered info obtained via hacking, e.g. Democratic Party lists of likely voters, and then used health insurance info (via the DeVoses) to match that with physical addresses, email addresses, social media accounts, etc. Which then could be leverage by the Trump campaign or Russian troll farms supporting the campaign.
J R in WV
@judge Crater:
Every pardon is a confession of guilt. No one who doesn’t fear indictment, trial and conviction needs a pardon. People who know they haven’t committed a crime don’t (shouldn’t) fear conviction.
We can use pardons as weapons in future elections. Best commercials evah! My opponent supported people guilty of crime to the extent they went to Trump to seek a pardon!
Nancy
@Ian G.: Pleasing. Encouraging. Good news.
Although my embarassing suburb–we’re the ones who prayed all the way to the supreme court before town meetings–is still all repub all the time.
Kathleen
@Yarrow: Ho Lee Shit! Warren County is a bastion of reactionary right whing racists. That was one of the counties Karl Rove was waiting for in 2012 during his Fox News meltdown! I was so focused on Cincy races and Virginia I didn’t even know about that. Thanks!
Kathleen
@The Moar You Know: I agree. It won’t do a damn bit of good unless they bring down the Rethuglican party in all its gooey thugginess.
Julie
@Barbara: I went to high school in Manassas (haven’t been back for years), but it’s not a big place and now I feel like I need to know if I know anyone who knows Corey Stewart.
I don’t think anyone has answered your question about Hampton Roads yet. I remember it as having a large African American population. It would be interesting to see whether turnout was up there?
J R in WV
v@Zach:
But, see, words count. Collusion is not a crime. Conspiracy is the crime, that isn’t quite the same as collusion. Which is why the Rs are using that word so much, even in their denials.