I saw something interesting on Twitter the other day that I can’t find now by some data-type person arguing that Democrats should sink a lot of resources into Texas the next few cycles the way they did in Colorado and Virginia a few cycles ago because Texas could become the next Colorado/Virginia. Texas has swung heavily towards Democrats the last few cycles. There are lots of young college-educated people in Texas, just like in Colorado and Virginia. It has a Republican party that used to be moderate in many ways (sensible on immigration and had anti-predatory lending laws that saved it from the worst of the housing crisis, for example) but is now deeply insane.
Turning Texas blue can really happen. And it’s not just the biggest state geographically (EDIT: in the lower 48), it’s the second biggest in terms of electoral votes, more than Michigan and Pennsylvania. If it becomes Virginia, it gets awfully tough for Republicans to win presidential elections.
Dems have a great candidate in MJ Hegar, running against John Cornyn. She was a fighter pilot and you may remember her amazing ad from last cycle. Let’s raise some money for her.
Michael Cain
And it’s not just the biggest state geographically…
Alaska on line 1.
oatler.
Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged in a video post Friday that the company erred by not taking down an event listing for a militia group that encouraged armed civilians to defend the streets of Kenosha, Wis., from civil unrest before the fatal shooting of two people this week.
Facebook removed the page for the “Kenosha Guard” and an event listing for “Armed Citizens to Protect Our Lives and Property” after the shootings Tuesday night in which Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, allegedly killed two men and seriously wounded a third.
Looking somber in a blue T-shirt and speaking in a slow, halting manner, Zuckerberg said the page and event listing violated Facebook’s policies and should have been removed after the company received numerous complaints about their violent nature. He called the error “largely an operational mistake.”
Wasn’t that what Himmler said?
Martin
Oh, sure, I’ve been arguing this for the last 4 years, everyone told me I was nuts, and you get to front page it. :P
Will Biden win Texas? Maybe though I doubt it. But I think its worth making Republicans sink money into fighting for it. It’s one of the more expensive states, and Dems don’t need to sink much money into it to force a much larger investment by the GOP.
Dems don’t need to win Texas to win, but Trump MUST win Texas to win. If he loses Texas, he can win all of the battleground states and he still loses. Make him fight in Georgia as well. And I’d put some polls in Utah. If there’s a group of Republicans that can be reached, it’s mormons. It’s a reach, but make them fight for it. Force Romney to campaign for Trump after voting to impeach him.
Martin
@oatler.: They didn’t learn from the Rohingya genocide that they were a party to. They’re not going to learn from this.
Roger Moore
@oatler.:
IOW, Facebook is trying to scrub the evidence now that the damage is done. How many more murders does Facebook need to help incite before people realize it needs to be destroyed?
arrieve
I’m in for MJ. Thanks for the work you put into these posts, Doug — it makes it easy to contribute my little bit.
Sab
I am not jumpng on your bandwagon. I remember when Daily Kos hated Sherrod Brown because he dissed Paul Hackett. Helicopter politics doesn’t work. They don’t know anything.
Meanwhile, I am giving bigtime to locals. We actually have a deep bench, but they don’t have Republican donors to feed on when they aren’t in office.
DougJ
@arrieve:
Thank you for giving!
KirkwoodATL
It’s a real possibility. The demographics in Texas are changing. Apparently, there’s been a 36% increase in Californians moving to Texas in the past year. Many large California-based corporations have relocated to Texas, such as Charles Schwab, Toyota, Siemens, etc.
Martin
@Roger Moore: They aren’t scrubbing evidence – everyone knows those pages were there, and Facebook isn’t denying that they were there. Those pages were pretty well reported after the incident.
The pages still need to come down, but they deserve tremendous blame for taking them down after the damage was done.
Facebook has completely lost control of their platform, and I think that fact is just starting to dawn on them.
Betty Cracker
@Sab: Nothing wrong with supporting local candidates (I generally do that too), but how is raising money for Hegar here analogous to the Hackett-Brown situation?
PsiFighter37
“If it becomes Virginia,
it gets awfully tough forRepublicanstocannot win presidential elections.”Fixed. I don’t think it is happening consistently for another decade, but when it does, it would mean (at least based on current numbers) Democrats would start with 260 votes – and that is without any of PA, IA, MI, WI, MN.
I mainly hope Biden wins this year, because that kind of repudiation – stealing the GOP’s biggest electoral prize – would send the kind of message that doubling down on the current brand of revanchism will mean permanently being in the wilderness at the national level.
dr. bloor
Texas is turning blue, kinda sorta, but might it be a better idea to throw money at state-level races? I don’t think Texas isn’t going to be the linchpin to getting the Senate back. If they toss Cornyn, it’s hard to believe his seat won’t be the 53rd or 54th in the D majority, not the 50th or 51st.
Kay
@Martin:
What if Facebook is just a Right wing company? That seems like the most obvious answer to me to explain why literally every week they’re implicated in one of these far Right social media campaigns. Maybe JLD at the D convention had it correct- you got your Fox News and you got your Facebook and they’re deliberately and profitably on the Right.
Calouste
@Martin: Romney already said that he was not going to vote for the shitgibbon, he was going to write in his wife or so. Where Romney could do a heck of a lot of good is if he congratulates Biden with his win on election night, to show that at least some Republicans accept the outcome.
New Deal democrat
If Cornyn is defeated, it will be because the Democrats have a blowout election. Polling over the past 30 days has him up between 3-5% on average.
A more important agenda might be to flip the Texas State House of Representatives blue. This will prevent another 10 year pro-GOP Congressional gerrymander.
Democrats need to win 9 more seats to do so. Between lean D and toss-ups, they can pick up 7. They need 2 of the lean GOP seats as well.
Here’s the link.
Here’s the Act Blue link. to donare.
A similar effort is taking place in NC, which is the State I have “adopted.”
Robert Sneddon
@KirkwoodATL: I’d think that anyone fleeing the Liberal-slash-Commie hell-hole California has become to the low-tax unregulated Paradise of Texas where life and labour is cheap isn’t likely to be of a mind to vote Democratic in the forthcoming election.
Nora
@New Deal democrat: Great idea. I just gave them some money. We do need to focus on the local elections and not just the national ones, especially when redistricting is coming up
Martin
@Kay: They’re a libertarian company. I don’t think they support GOP policies – that would result in them having virtually no employees left.
But I think they have this extraordinarily naiive libertarian attitude that if they turn half the worlds population loose on a platform where they can create as many smurf accounts as they want, say anything they want, and target any message to any subgroup that they want, that good things (other than their own profitability) will come of it.
I think they dismissed all the warnings from sociologists and so forth that it would be used for genocide, racial attacks, and every other horrible thing you could think of, and believed that none of that was their problem.
Tech companies are assumed to be dismissive of what all established experts outside of tech have to say, and I disagree with that in general, but I think it’s 100% correct for Facebook.
Martin
@Calouste: No, I want to force the issue. I think Dems should force the issue. Force Romney to either campaign for Trump or denounce him. Force Utah voters to reconcile that on their ballot. Don’t let him be silent about it. We want Trump out there seething about Romney.
Betty
@Kay: I agree. The stuff they let pass is ugly and hateful, and that stuff is always rightwing from what I see.
germy
Didn’t Facebook hire the Daily Caller to do their fact checking for them? If so, that’s evidence you’re right.
Ramalama
Very nice nod to Big Country with the title, btw. I have to prevent myself from viewing any of their videos these days because I fall into ear worm (eye worm?) status afterwards. I loved that band before the internet. I saw them open for Roger Daltry in Boston which broke my heart because they should have been the headliners. And one day after the internet, I realized I had never looked them up. I have to keep typing stuff now to offset the chills, the shakes I am experiencing by not viewing a video of theirs. Especially good is the live performance in East Berlin when Stuart …. OMG I have to leave now.
Martin
@Robert Sneddon: You’d be surprised. If your job takes you there, it takes you there. And places like Austin rival lots of parts of CA for general hipsterism.
Roger Moore
@Robert Sneddon:
Maybe people fleeing California for political reasons aren’t going to be left leaning, but that’s not the main reason people leave. A lot of people who leave California are basically satisfied but got priced out of the housing market or forced to relocate when their company moved, and they’re going to take California attitudes with them.
Ed Marshall
@Robert Sneddon:
Real people move places because they have a job offer. All that stuff you are talking about that has been a right wing fantasy about people voting with their feet against California is well…that isn’t what is happening.
Betty
@Martin: As W said, you either with us or against us. Mitt’s Dad would not have hesitated to support Joe under these circumstances. Let’s remind him who he needs to live up to.
Chief Oshkosh
@Robert Sneddon: What if much or most of that movement is not due to individual preference? Lots of big companies are moving to Texas. If you’re a Democrat and your company relocates you to Texas from Cali, you’re probably super-blue both psychologically (sad) and politically (Democratic).
Martin
@Betty: They let everything pass.
Geminid
@dr. bloor: M.J. Hegar heads up the same Democratic ticket as the state legislative candidates, as well as the six+ Democratic candidates with good chances to flip seats. So helping anyone, or supporting the state party or say, the Tarrant County Democrats helps the others. Beto O’Rourke’s campaign speeches were so uplifting they levitated people right off their wallets, and he raised a record $85 million in 2018. M.J. Hegar lacks the soaring rhetoric and fundraising magic, but she is good at plain speaking Truman style. In her own way I think she is as good a candidate as O’Rourke, maybe better.
Josie
@New Deal democrat:
Thanks for the link. This is an excellent place to put some money.
Baud
@New Deal democrat:
I’m surprised to hear that the Senate race is that close. Good news.
sdhays
@Martin: I think it’s more “they don’t want it to be their problem”, which is pretty much the Republican platform at this stage. I don’t think Zuckerberg is naive. He just doesn’t care.
Geminid
BethanyAnne
I live in Katy, on the west side of Houston. Houston is, overgeneralizing alert, money to the north and west, refineries to the east and south. Katy has grown so much over the past decade. Dan Crenshaw, a bit to the NE of me, has a serious competitor in Sima Ladjevardian, and Crenshaw himself is far more moderate than the maniac he replaced, “Judge” Ted Poe. IIRC, Obama won Houston by 200k votes in 2012, and Hillary won it by almost a million. Texas keeps going purple. I think Beto was right when he said we aren’t a red state, we’re a non-voting State.
zhena gogolia
David Frum has laid out the Republican platform with great exactitude (Atlantic link):
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/new-gop-platform-authoritarianism/615640/?
They won’t make it explicit because it will only appeal to a minority of the electorate.
Roger Moore
@Martin:
They’re libertarians like most other libertarians: Republicans who don’t want to admit that’s what they are. They decry the racism but care more about low taxes and lax regulations. As long as they work to keep Trump in power, they’re the enemy.
Calouste
@Martin: I doubt Romney will take a stance. Utah voted more than 20% third party in the 2016 presidential election, with the shitgibbon getting less than 50%, but only about 5% when Romney ran for Senate 2 years later. His stance, or lack thereof, won’t affect his electoral chances there.
Chief Oshkosh
@Geminid: Cornyn is the perfect example of a DC elite insider piece of shit. He’s an asshole’s asshole, too. Which means, of course, he’ll get every R vote. Fuck ‘im. Let’s do all we can to get Heger and down-ticket Ds elected.
Josie
@BethanyAnne:
We are neighbors, sort of. I’m in Spring Branch.
West of the Rockies
@Martin:
OT, Martin, but I’ve not heard Newsome’s conferences in about a week. How is CA doing with Corona. My county (Butte) remains on the watch list.
As for Texas, anecdotally, I can report knowing a couple who moved their construction business from CS to TX because “California is liberal and hates small business.”
No, they aren’t all that smart.
Geminid
@Geminid: In my comment above I meant to say 6+ Democratic Congressional candidates trying to flip seats. Rachel Bitecofer says there are as many as nine flippable seats, in suburban areas similar to those won by Libbie Fletcher and Colin Allred in 2018.
SuzieC
Done!
Benw
@zhena gogolia: 14) Socialism, created and led by Joe Biden, and Anti-fa, lead by chief stormtrooper Kamala Harris, must be defeated at all costs before they ever make President-4-life Trump feel bad ever again!!
Jinchi
Just to be clear. Flowers do grow in the desert.
gkoutnik
@zhena gogolia: Yeah. I read that and thought: “Exactly.”
Another Scott
Citation needed. :-/
Cui bono?
Facebook is, and has been, working as designed.
https://www.brookings.edu/research/big-tech-threats-making-sense-of-the-backlash-against-online-platforms/
Z knows exactly what he’s doing, and he’ll keep doing it as long as he’s able. Because it’s how he makes his money.
Cheers,
Scott.
Old Dan and Little Ann
My niece is a 20 year-old college student in Texas. She has become quite liberal in recent years despite her father’s family being right wing assholes. I am proud of her.
ThresherK
@Ramalama: RIP Stuart Adamson.
He was basically my first “rockstar suicide” and I miss him greatly. Glad I got to see them in a proper classic small club back in ’93.
Calouste
@Another Scott: Z is running into a bit of a problem because major advertisers are getting weary of have their name next to extreme content. But extreme content is how he gets the eyeballs. And I don’t think Z can run his company of the advertising revenues of gold scammers and pay day loan companies.
BethanyAnne
@Josie: Nice! I keep wanting to move back inside Beltway 8. I used to live near IKEA, and loved how close it was to things. But I’m Mom’s caretaker, and I don’t think she’ll be up to moving again.
zhena gogolia
OT, and this probably got posted last night while I was sleeping, but this is beautiful:
sdhays
@zhena gogolia: He’s missing the most important part:
White men are the natural leaders of America. People who are not white men can hold positions of power, but only if they serve to preserve the natural order. Democrats do not hold power legitimately. They win only when people who shouldn’t be voting vote.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
I knew that Republicans have wanted the Post Office gone for years, but I just saw a report on AM Joy that the current fiasco with the drop boxes and sorting machines has been planned for two years.
TWO. YEARS.
Josie
@BethanyAnne:
I understand that. I was in that position for a number of years. I’m with my middle son and family now playing nanny to the two year old.
Hopefully, when things settle and Lamh moves to Houston, we can get together.
zhena gogolia
@sdhays: Right.
Kristine
I know direct funding of a campaign is good, but I’ve also been donating monthly to the DLCC because they can pinpoint state races as well.
Frankensteinbeck
@Roger Moore:
While freaking the fuck out if a minority or woman ever questions them. They’re heavily invested in claiming they’re not culturally conservative (a bigot).
germy
Frankensteinbeck
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant):
Sure. The election interference thing was a target of opportunity, something that came along to invest Trump that much more in an existing plan. He hates the Post Office partly because he hates the government, period, partly because he may be able to get some bribes by selling it off, but mostly because he’s a petty, spiteful asshole and Bezos profits off of the Post Office’s existence.
sdhays
@Calouste: Advertisers should also be weary of being lied to and defrauded, but FB has too many eyeballs.
Jinchi
Setting aside the deception, as a federal employee, he shouldn’t have been involved in the campaign at all.
germy
@Jinchi:
You’re right.
They’re ignoring all rules and norms.
Jinchi
This is absolutely true. I moved from the northeast to Texas for college and was baffled by all the monuments to “State’s rights” and the casual anecdotes of friends carrying rifles when meeting trespassers on their land.
Still, I think the key to Texas is mobilizing the Latino vote. That involves convincing them that their votes count at all and that you’re on their side.
debbie
@germy:
How surprising. //
Eunicecycle
@Jinchi: It’s almost like they are violating the Hatch Act on purpose!
Eunicecycle
@Jinchi: My son moved to Austin about 9 years ago, and his new friends there couldn’t believe he had never fired a gun.
piratedan
@Ramalama: if you’re inclined, here’s a video from one of his earlier bands, The Skids, with an anthemic power pop vibe to it…. Into The Valley
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9udxbvHiqGw
J.
Done! The Senate could use more Democratic badass women. (I can already hear Trump refer to her as “Hegar the Horrible.”)
Calouste
@sdhays: FB has, ahum, had “data discrepancies” in the numbers they gave to their advertisers about their reach. I can’t remember if they got sued over it or not.
Jinchi
@Eunicecycle: Austin is great and the people can be wonderful. I hope your son enjoys it.
Still I often had debates about whether friendly Texans were really nicer than rude and dangerous northern city folk. I’d usually point out that nobody in the north ever hinted that they’d shoot me if I wandered through their yard.
cain
I think they are making a bet – I think they have no problem supporting these rabid supporters because like all cults they are willing to use the platform, buy from the ads, and generally follow the algorithms to FB’s benefit.
How many times has his ass been dragged in front of congress? Even FB employees are not exactly proud to work there given the kind of shit that they’ve encouraged in our society.
But they have golden handcuffs, a friend of mine was getting paid a million dollars a year as a senior software developer at Facebook. Yeah, more than most CEOs.
cain
Nope.. it won’t because they are a cult now. They haven’t hit rock bottom yet. The crazies are taking over and there is no more moderates who would have that kind of self introspection. White grievance is the name of the game – and you still have to consider Fox News and OANN that are out there forcing people to keep going to extremes.
burnspbesq
@KirkwoodATL:
‘The joke is that Austin used to be Santa Monica without the outrageous traffic and housing costs, but now it’s just Santa Monica without the beach.
Eunicecycle
@Jinchi: He loves Austin and now that he’s married a Texas native he is probably there to stay. She does love visiting Ohio though! She likes vegetable and flower gardening which is tough in Texas. She is always amazed at all the green and how tall the trees are.
Betty Cracker
@zhena gogolia: If you missed Rue’s essay from last night (that clip was featured in the post), do yourself a favor and read it. It’s beautiful.
Jinchi
@cain: You’re suggesting Peak Wingnut is a lie?
Jinchi
@Eunicecycle: If you’re familiar with Mt. Bonnell (elev 775 ft), I had a close friend who thought it was a legitimate mountain until she took her first trip out of state.
PsiFighter37
@burnspbesq: I would take Santa Monica in a heartbeat over Austin. At least in downtown Austin, I found it to be pretty boring during the day on the weekend. Granted, this was a few years ago; perhaps things have changed there more over the past couple of years.
Personally, I think Austin is a bit overrated – but YMMV. :)
PsiFighter37
@cain: It will be interesting to see. If Trump is the biggest GOP loser since Goldwater (which will happen if he loses Texas this year, since it means he probably lost GA, OH, and IA as well), it could mean there is some serious introspection. On the other hand, just see the path the GOP has trod since Goldwater lost…they went all-in on the Southern Strategy…
LongHairedWeirdo
@Michael Cain: I remember one joke that put it well.
Alaskan1: I hear Texas is really upset they’re not the biggest state since we joined.
Alaskan2: Too bad. Hey, wanna really piss them off? Let’s split the state in halves, and then they’ll be *third*.
Sab
OT: Somebody needs to proect Alex Witt from her blowdryer.
Omnes Omnibus
@Sab: What bandwagon? What are you talking about? I am staying local in my donations, but that is because I am in WI. For those who live in deep blue districts in blue states or for those who can afford to max out at home and still have donation money to spare, DougJ is providing a valuable resource.
Another Scott
@Calouste: They also, rather infamously, lied to sites like Funny or Die about how much videos on FB were being watched compared to from the original web sites.
Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
J R in WV
@sdhays:
Strongly disagree with this. Zuck is as right wing as it gets, his company will continue to support genocidal racist fascist Republicans while shutting down liberal accounts as long as they can get away with it.
There’s a very good reason I have never used Facebook at all for anything. It has lots of interesting stuff from my neighbors, but also has genocidal racist fascist Republican crap I won’t be associated with.
If Cole turned his back on genocidal racist fascist Republican shit here on B-J — which will never thank doG happen — I would be outta here so fast. And I could see years ago when Facebook was a new thing that it was gonna be bad, really bad, and so it has come to pass. Genocidal racist fascist Republican bad!
J R in WV
@Frankensteinbeck:
I’m pretty sure Amazon doesn’t ship much via the Post Office any more. They once did, but now they mostly use private contractors.
Benw
@J R in WV: I dunno, I still get Amazon packages delivered by my usual postal carrier
ETA: just noticed you said “much” NVM!
Redshift
@J R in WV:
You know that and I know that, but once Trump gets an idea lodged in his pea brain, there’s no getting it out, no matter how wrong it is.
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker:
Thank you — I did miss it. So beautiful.
Yutsano
@Redshift: Amazon does have that discounted package agreement with the US Post Office. And yes they still do some shipping via USPS especially where their own infrastructure doesn’t yet exist and the private servicers are too expensive. It’s the contract that Mnuchin has been ordered to tear up, which is why he wants the Postmaster General to hand it over. Except he can’t, so my “boss” is trying to get it by obligating the USPS. It’s all about busting that contract for Mnuchin. Otherwise he couldn’t give two hoots about the Post Office and its troubles.
Eunicecycle
@Jinchi: Yes our son has taken us up Mt. Bonnell. It had a nice view IIRC.
Eolirin
@Yutsano: One of the most terrifying consequences of a successful attack on the Post Office will be that Amazon will be in a position to dominate the national shipping infrastructure.
Eunicecycle
@Yutsano: I think Trump thinks the post office delivers packages for Amazon for free because, you know, FREE SHIPPING. Although maybe he’s not as dumb as I think he is. He just doesn’t seem to know how the world works at all.
ETA: Mnuchin DOES know though.
Marcion
FWIW, my devoutly Christian mom and her husband, who both live in TX and have both voted R for every election they’ve been eligible in (except 2016, which they left blank) have decided to vote for Biden this cycle.
Omnes Omnibus
I see where you went wrong.
zhena gogolia
@Marcion:
Good for them!
Eunicecycle
@Omnes Omnibus: Oh yeah, me too! Oops.
Jay
@J R in WV:
USPS does most of the “last mile” deliveries for Amazon where density does not allow a profit for Amazon. USPS package ground rate subsidize Amazon.
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/04/04/is-the-post-office-making-or-losing-money-delivering-amazon-packages/%3foutputType=amp
azelie
@Martin: There are things to like about Houston and San Antonio, too. I wound up living in Houston for a few years, which I thought I’d never want to do because I associated it with its nondescript suburbs. But it’s an incredibly diverse city that is pretty affordable and where there is a lot going on. It’s no Austin, but you could have a pretty good hipster life in the Heights, Montrose or West University.
WaterGirl
@Martin:
I agree that Facebook is in over its collective head, but I think that what is starting to dawn on them is that now it’s looking like they are going to be held accountable.
I suspect they think that’s the problem. Not the enabling of propaganda and the organizing of evil. I think Facebook and Zuck were down with that – as long as Facebook profited.
Jay
@Eolirin:
if the USPS falls, Amazon is not going to “take over”. The USPS is a federal service, paid for by taxpayers.
Amazon has no interest in doing daily mail deliveries and pick ups to each house hold in East Buttfuck Texas, at a loss. There isn’t even enough profit for Amazon to install a single “secure” drop site in East Buttfuck. Instead it’s in West Buttfuck, 40 miles away.
cain
Indeed.. there is no bottom to the crazy. Eventually all of these folks are going to be ending up on 8chan. Then we know they’ve hit the lowest they can go.
Redshift
For a serious effort in that direction, I was going to suggest raising funds for Voto Latino. They do voter registration and voter engagement with Latino voters, and are very active in Texas. I listened to Preet Bharara’s interview with Maria Teresa Kumar, and she makes a very good argument that there are millions of younger Latinos who are aligned with our values (none of the older generation “they’re devout Catholics so we have to be more conservative to appeal to them” crap) who aren’t being reached the way the Democratic Party tends to do things. And they could definitely do more with more funding.
Jay
@WaterGirl:
yurp. Libertarians hate to be held accountable,
or regulated.
WaterGirl
@New Deal democrat: Are you doing the Pod Save America adopt-a-state thing?
If so, would you be willing to write something up about that so we can feature in this week in a What We Can Do post?
sanjeevs
DNI says no more briefings to Congress on election interference
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/08/29/politics/office-of-director-of-national-intelligence-congress-election-security/index.html#click=https://t.co/t5wvU2Dxti
cain
For sure – but I think they will be forced on their current trajectory because to do otherwise is to completely lose the base they have. They would have to accept being out of power for the next 20 years or so. That is a bitter pill to swallow.
On the other hand, if they continue – they will continue to shrink as the demographics works against them – but possibly they will start having to compete with more moderate conservative parties that might spring up.
It is important that we have some kind of run off type election and not a winner take all – I’m actually quite sick of all this tribal dems vs republicans – it will break up the media’s stupid stories about all of us.
LongHairedWeirdo
@Another Scott: There’s another thing to consider.
It’s easy to blame Facebook, and they *should* be helping. But think of this.
In 1994, Gingrich decided Republicans were being too nice to Democrats. They should, instead, *constantly* say that Democrats are not just incorrect, but *bad people*. Dangerous people; people who want to destroy the American way of life.
At that point, people could spread lies like “the Clintons have a Christmas tree decorated with crack pipes!” because everyone just gave a wink and a nod, where *maybe*, if asked, they might say “I wouldn’t go *that* far, but they raise a point.”
Remember the bad faith “I’m not questioning Obama’s citizenship, but it’s a fair question to ask!”? I used to call it “cowardly”, but really, it’s worse than mere cowardice.
Since there are rightwingers who can say *anything* bad about Democrats, it’s trivially easy to let in, e.g., Russian ratfornicators. (Or maybe they make an honest rat before they start with the fornication. Maybe that’s why Republicans always go for bestiality as a comparison?)
If it was out of bounds to tell vicious, baseless, lies about a political opponent, it would be *much* harder to have election interference. You’d have to figure out the right tone – just enough, but not too much… and foreign actors would likely have a difficult time getting that right.
But more importantly, the right wing in this country has always been giving a wink and a nod to the *possibility* of violence, never denouncing threats, and refusing to circle the wagons when a terrorist on their side murders people.
I mean, time was, when the Charlottesville murder happened, no one would have said “maybe it’s a false flag to make us look bad!” Any organization that got taken seriously would instead have to loudly condemn the murder, and insist that anyone who would do that is *not* one of them; “we’re all Americans, and we don’t attack our fellow countrymen.”
Hell, time was, actually *responsible* gun owners would be furious at these morons carrying rifles to a protest. Time was, “you DO NOT carry a gun to make a statement; you carry a gun because you reasonably believe you might need to use it to protect your life or another’s.”
If you needed to carry a gun to a protest, it should be a handgun, in a secure holster. A high velocity rifle is *not* an appropriate tool to use in a crowd, where over-penetration could kill not just the target, but another person behind them (and where a miss could kill someone a hundred yards away).
So, not only are they using guns for the cowards reason (i.e., to feel strong and make a statement), they’re demonstrating that they have no understanding of the tools at their disposal, nor their proper use. Which means they’re pretty much the opposite of responsible gun owners.
Darn shame we don’t live in a sane country, where only truly *responsible* gun owners would be called responsible gun owners.
Steeplejack (phone)
@cain:
16chan holding for you on line 2.
Fair Economist
@Martin: No need to force Republicans doing namby-pamby things like writing in protest candidates to support us fully. The Republican nuts will do it for us. See Jeff Flake endorsing Biden. The Republicans burn the bridges to the dissenters anyway. If they want any future in politics they’ll have to come to us.
Jay
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Fair Economist: I keep thinking of the French election when the second round came down to Macron vs Marine Le Pen. I think every major candidate from the actual socialist to the far right quasi-theocrat endorsed Macron in the name of stopping the National Front, even though as I recall some of them seemed to hate Macron as much personally as they did politically. None of the Republicans would do anything like that for this country, not even St McCain– who I would not be surprised to learn had voted for Clinton– and I’d bet substantial quatloos that Elder Romney won’t do it this time, even though I would not be surprised to learn he votes for Biden.
RandyG
@New Deal democrat:
Of the seven races that Team Blue Texas 2020 at ActBlue supports, none of them are listed as competitive in the Baker Institute ratings. For example, in HD53 Democrat Joe Herrera received 6,387 votes in the March primary while incumbent Republican Andrew Murr received 27,353 votes. That hardly seems like a race where the Democrat has a chance and that money will make a difference. I’m not saying there aren’t Texas house races worth supporting, but the Team Blue Texas 2020 races seem pretty odd. In fact, the Baker Institute races seem to be pointing to the obvious ones worth supporting link
Kent
Former Texan here. Unfortunately a LOT of the Californians moving to TX are the most right wing Orange County types who are “fleeing” the creeping socialism of CA in their minds. Many of them are responsible for making TX even more wack-job crazy Republican.
They get to TX and let their full crazy fly.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack (phone): “16chan are squishes” –32chan
Jay
Jay
@Kent:
Proof they don’t have to emigrate to Texas to let their freak flags fly,….
Jay
Calouste
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Biden has been endorsed by a number of high profile retired Republicans (Powell, Kasich, Flake, plus some other former govs/sens/reps), and some others, including some active ones have said they’re going to vote neutral (Romney, the gov of MD, and even John Fucking Bolton).
Jay
Another Scott
One for laura…
(via nycsouthpaw)
Cheers,
Scott.
germy
@Jay:
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Another Scott: Laura will take that as a challenge.
ETA: Looking at the tweets above that, it looks like the Republican talking point now is that mobs are being flown around the country to protest.
Kent
Former Texan here. I spent 13 years living in Waco before recently moving back to the Pacific Northwest.
Based on my time there as a sometime political activist I think what hamstrings Dem politics the most is race. Essentially the parties became tribalized along racial lines and casual voters just started voting GOP if they were white and Dem if they were Black or Hispanic. Not 100% of course, but enough so that it was a little weird if you didn’t. When I walked into my upscale suburban polling place during primary elections I would be handed a GOP ballot by the little old ladies and they would be surprised when I would correct them and say, no, I want the Dem ballot. You were just assumed to be GOP if you were white and middle aged.
What ends up happening in a city like Waco is that Dem politics largely got reduced to majority Black and Hispanic districts. And the candidates and politicians who came out of that system were often traditional pork barrel types who looked out for their own and would ride ride up to the line in terms of corruption. And, of course the white-GOP owned local papers would always be right on top of every tiny little Black Democrat scandal or fake non-scandal which would polarize things further.
As a teacher I knew plenty of white liberal Democratic teacher types who were loyal Obama supporters and about as “woke” as a white middle aged teacher in the middle of Texas can be. But a lot of them just wished for a white middle class liberal Democratic party that didn’t exist. One that would do progressive things like promote parks, bike paths, better school funding, improved health care, more environmental protection. All those white liberal NPR totebag type positions. Which were maybe 10% of the middle class white population. There was very little solidarity or common organizing with the Black and Hispanic sides of Waco which had actual Democratic politicians and a majority of Democratic voters. It was almost like there were two Democratic parties that never talked to each other. The Black and Hispanic inner city, and the few white liberals in the suburbs.
To actually win state-wide you need to organize both and get them to work together on a common page, which never seemed to happen. In statewide elections we would get white suburban mom candidates like Wendy Davis who gave the suburban liberals a woodie but who didn’t really inspire the Black and Hispanic vote and was, therefore doomed. Or we would get Black/Hispanic candidates like Tony Sanchez who easily won the POC vote but didn’t get any white votes.
I don’t know the answer. Maybe the mixed ticket of Biden/Harris is it this time around. But until liberal whites and POC Dems can find common cause and work together in Texas I don’t see the state turning blue. I’m not talking about young “woke” white activists in places like Austin who are out doing the BLM stuff and so forth. I’m talking about the average suburban white middle class NPR type folks who are the actual majority of white Dem-leaning folks in Texas. Until they lose their fear of Black and Hispanic “cooties” and start working more closely with the actual Dems in their own communities I don’t see a lot of change happening.
Sure Lurkalot
@J R in WV: Really? Many of my last Amazon deliveries including gifts to other states were fulfilled by the USPS.
Jay
Kent
@Jay: Yeah. Well just saying that some of the most freakish crazy pro-GOP, pro-gun, racist folks I ever met in TX were right wingers who moved there from CA.
Your average CA liberal who leaves the state for greener pastures tends to move to places like OR, WA, or CO, not TX.
Baud
@Kent:
We need them to move to Wyoming. Two senators for the taking for the cost of two LA city blocks.
Dorothy A. Winsor
So you know that weird Trump phrasing “profoundly accept”? Is it possible he was misreading “proudly”?
Kent
@Baud: A bunch of Californians have moved to Jackson Hole. But not enough.
Another Scott
@Kent: Excellent comment. Thank you.
But I’m seeing what you’re hoping to see in my fairly upscale suburban NoVA neighborhood. On the national day of protest after George Floyd’s murder I saw a couple of dozen people, white people, holding a BLM rally. Little (white) kids writing BLM on the sidewalk in chalk and posting it on their front doors and living room windows. And they’re still doing it.
Of course there is much more to do, but I think things really are changing. Finally.
… gradually, and then suddenly…
Cheers,
Scott.
pamelabrown53
@Sure Lurkalot:
Me too. I live in a highly populated area and use Amazon a lot. I’m experiencing more deliveries via USPS than before.
surfk9
@Kent: Do you think that the organizing that Beto O’rourke is doing could help turn that around?
James E Powell
@cain:
Even with a Biden/Harris blue wave, it’s hard to believe we’d do any better than we did in 2008. And those bastards came right back. They lost in 2012 and we were flooded with articles about how Marco Rubio was the future and the party was going to change and the Republicans said, nah, we’re not only going to stick with racism, religious bigotry, and misogyny, we’re not even going to deny it anymore. It paid off for them beyond their wildest dreams. They are never going to do anything different.
Kent
@Another Scott: I hope you are right. Racism is the original sin of this country, linked both to slavery and the genocide of native peoples. And it is incredibly difficult to root out. Even in the Democratic party.
ThresherK
@piratedan: That song is Dunfermline Athletic’s entrance song. Stuart was a local and they obviously loved his work in both The Skids and Big Country.
The New Orleans Saints use a version of this band’s “The Saints are Coming” also, which is a crazy thing to have found out.
James E Powell
@Kent:
I got the same impression with Californians moving to Arizona, though I think it was also white retirees, sort of like the desert version of Florida.
Chyron HR
@Jay:
Republicans: “I sure love sowing the wind with no consequences whatsoever.”
Also Republicans: “Whirl what?”
Kent
I dunno. I left TX in June 2016 before Trump and Beto so I don’t really know how things have changed. Beto was the perfect storm of an incredibly charismatic and energetic young candidate going against one of the least charismatic and least liked GOP characters in a generation, during a wave off-year election that swept Dems into power in the House. And he still lost by nearly 3 points.
Anoniminous
@Calouste:
The FB Artificially Intelligent MarTech decided I really wanted to know about Baptist church services because I regularly use the phrase “ignorant hick Evangelical bigots.”
As far as I know, and I follow this stuff because I have to, nobody has sued FaceBook for fraud, receiving money under false pretenses, &/or etc.
pamelabrown53
@Kent:
Many folks don’t move for “greener pastures”; they move for jobs and career opportunities.
Unless you have some data to support your assertion, I’m more inclined to categorize it as “that’s what I (and a few friends) would do”.
Another Scott
@Anoniminous:
More likely, The Algorithm saw that you have strong feelings about it and wanted to feed your rage and disgust. Because nothing drives Engagement like rage and disgust.
Seriously. :-(
Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
Jay
@Another Scott:
@Kent:
I was “radicalized” in the late ‘70’s.
SWMBO, who was only “Political” about LBGTQ issues, got radicalized this year.
times, they are a changing.
Dress code at work says no non-Our Corporate Merch, no “Political Merch”, no offensive merch, but Corporate has distributed free LGTBQ merch for us to wear, along with BIPOC supportive merch and BLM merch.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kent:
Well unless their job moves to Texas.
oatler.
@Kent:
Faulkner said something to that effect, and he could also write a tailpipe gag that would really make you think.
James E Powell
@Kent:
This is a pretty good description of the white Democrats in Los Angeles County or, more specifically, the West Side and the South Bay.
RaflW
Late to the thread. Just did a bump for MJ.
If folks have a few spare bucks (I know the asks are coming in heavy now, but this is the season), there is a candidate running against the Alabama asshole who FB’d his praise for the Kenosha terrorist/murderer. Her name is Phyllis Harvey-Hall, and as a black woman running in a district that looks to me gerrymandered to get all the white Montgomery suburbs, she’s got an up-mountain (not just uphill) race.
But it drives me bonkers that black women running for Congress in tough, tough races don’t get funded. The Dem party could have a lot more power in AL if dems turn out well in ‘lost cause’ US House districts. Because there are both downballot races where their vote matters, and potentially statewide races that Dems could impact.
She has increased her donations thermometer by about 18% today (but that’s only $575 new dollars!), on that white guy Republican’s idiocy. Let’s help her out.
Kent
I think one error that national Dem strategists are making in TX is assuming that the Hispanic population in Texas is a natural Dem constituency that just needs to be “organized”. I think they are wrong about that and that George W Bush was very astute in thinking a large portion were natural GOP constituency. I think once the horrid blatant racism of the Trump era fades (and it will) there will be millions of TX Hispanics who will snap back to the GOP.
My wife is Hispanic and worked in Hispanic healthcare in Waco and we had a lot of Hispanic friends and neighbors in our suburban area. My daughters youth soccer teams that I helped coach were all majority Hispanic, and her select team was about 90% Hispanic. Honestly, a lot of those folks are natural Republicans. They live in suburban ranch houses in suburban subdivisions. Like most other Texans, they drive huge Ford and Chevy pickup trucks with 4 kids in the jump seat in back. They own landscaping, construction, roofing, exterminator, houskeeping, catering, and moving companies, and bakeries, restaurants, thrift shops. They don’t like paying taxes and justifiably don’t trust the government to do shit for them. Many attend either Catholic or evangelical churches. And the majority have roots in Northern Mexico, which is, by FAR the most conservative part of Mexico and the heartland of PAN which produced Mexico’s conservative presidents like Vicente Fox.
They are ripe picking for the GOP.
Anoniminous
@Another Scott:
Nah. Their algorithms are just a fancier version of word counting plus a simple minded Wisdom of the Crowd* qualifier. They cannot do anything more than that because existing Machine Learning systems can’t process context.
* Wisdom of the Crowd or “how the HELL did we come up with that?” mess.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kent:
I’m not too sure about that, they may pay inclusiveness lip service but racism is central to their party now.
WaterGirl
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant): In 2018, it was clear that we had an election coming in 2020.
Just because Trump doesn’t think more than 15 minutes in advance, doesn’t mean that there aren’t plenty of awful people who do.
I know you know this, I’m just speaking generally.
Brooklyn Dodger
Done! Threw in some more for Mark Kelly too. Than you for these reminders and Introduction to these candidates.
Kent
Honestly I don’t think so. If Trump loses there will no longer be any GOP leadership at the national level. And there will be a whole bunch of local and state-wide conservative politicians trying to figure out how to triangulate themselves to 51%. Especially if redistricting gets rid of some of the worst GOP seats. I expect to see a new generation younger GOP types who double down on the business-side (low taxes and regulation etc.) while trying to look friendlier on race.
There is never going to be any kind of permanent victory here. It will be fleeting. And it’s going to be an endless battle for the soul of this country for the rest of our lives and children’s lives.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kent: You’re basically saying the Libertarians will become the Republicans. The Republican brand may be to toxic to carry on, the Libertarians may just replace them like the Republicans replaced the Whigs.
WaterGirl
@Redshift: I just added the Vote Latino link to the What We Can Do list that’s at the top of the sidebar under Election Action!
That section also has all of DougJ’s donation posts, as well as all of all the Voting Plan Illustrations that MazeDancer has done for folks. More than 25 so far, you guys should check them out.
surfk9
@Kent: I agree that many Hispanics would be ripe for the GOP except for the racism. As the ex of a Hispanic woman and father of two half Hispanic sons, the ex in laws should have been ripe for the picking except for the overt racism. Prop 187 here in CA drove the community away from the GOP. The GOP has shown no desire to correct that problem.
In Texas, it was my understanding that Hispanics just don’t vote and the Dems have not put in the work to change that situation. That’s why I was hoping that Beto’s work would make a difference.
WaterGirl
@surfk9:
Does the past tense mean that you have given up hoping that Beto’s work will help?
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: Anyone who thinks that we ever just need to do one thing and then we will be a more diverse Denmark are deluded. There will always be a fight. Sometimes we will win, and sometimes we won’t. The important thing is that we make sure we win more than we lose.
Ken
Republicans achieve their dream of privatizing the Post Office.
Amazon submits the high bid.
Trump explodes.
Steeplejack (phone)
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Touché.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@surfk9: I guess that’s why I’m skeptical that the GOP will be able to get Hispanic voters, I’ve seen what happens when the crazy took over here in California.
evodevo
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant): Yep. they’ve been hamstringing us carriers for years…every few months coming up with yet another mindfuck or way to slow us down in the performance of our duties or way to screw us out of overtime or wages. One of the reasons I quit last Dec…
Kent
No. The actual Libertarians I know are freaky anti-social Ron Paul gold-bug types.
I just expect in the post-Trump years to see a new generation of more centrist Republicans of the Bill Frist or Mitt Romney mold who try to sound more “woke” on race while peddling the same GOP bullshit of lower taxes and less regulations and “freedom” Those types got pushed aside during the Trump years. But they will be back.
Trump peaked out the racist MAGA white working class thing but that is a diminishing constituency. And he had to draw an inside straight to pull it off. The new GOP in the vast swaths of suburban America is going to have to take a new tone, and I expect it quickly will when Trump is no longer the alpha male.
evodevo
@J R in WV: Uh, I don’t know where YOU are, but my small PO in Ky has been getting swamped by Amazon for many moons now…I thought last Xmas was bad, but this summer has been horrendous.
surfk9
@WaterGirl: No, just a poor choice of words.
Kent
I expect in rural areas they still rely on the USPS. But here in the suburbs where I live there are gray Amazon vans combing my neighborhood every damn day. I rarely ever get an Amazon package delivered to my mailbox by the USPS (we have community mailboxes on the street corner with parcel lockers). Rather, it is almost always some kid hopping out of an Amazon van dropping it on my doorstep.
Uncle Cosmo
@Another Scott:
WaterGirl
@surfk9: I was hoping that would be your answer, because I have high hopes for Beto and what he’s doing!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kent:
That’s not what happened here in California, they doubled down on the crazy.
Kent
Yeah, but I don’t expect that to happen in most of the rest of the country. We aren’t going to be that lucky. There is going to be a shitload of young GOP hopefuls with moneyed backers who are going to hire consultants to tell them how to get to 51%. And toning down the racism and putting a friendlier face on the GOP is going to be a big part of that. And it is going to happen in reverse. The big moneyed backers are going to go hunting for fresh young faces to put their money behind. Probably a lot of Hispanic and Asian-American candidates who can better sell the GOP message in the suburbs.
This is going to be an endless battle. It always is.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: But if the racists stay home the GOP can’t win. There is a needle that they are going to need to thread. They used to be able to do it, but the racists have had Trump and they don’t want to hear code anymore. I think we might have a window to do some good while this version of the GOP burns to the ground.
Just Chuck
Inciting murder, fine. But god forbid you show a fucking nipple on FB.
Kent
I hear what you are saying. I’m just not optimistic that we are ever going to shift the needle all that far to the left. If Trump loses, they will come ROARING back in 2022 and 2024, backed by billions of dollars of business money and the most sophisticated messaging that money can buy. And a lot of radical Dem types will make their jobs easier by pointless bullshit over-reaching and circular firing squads.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kent: Yup to now, the GOP has been following California, I don’t see a loss by Trump making a difference.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: I don’t doubt that they will mount a comeback. I just think that they have too many people who have gone too far down too crazy a path to turn it around that quickly. They keep double down every time they lose. I don’t seen any sign of it stopping yet.
Yutsano
@?BillinGlendaleCA: A new party has to sprout up. The Republican party that has the racists and the Qanon people will be stuck in permanent minority status at least on the Presidential level for at least the next two cycles. That can’t hold, and the plutocrat money won’t tolerate losing money and power. Someone or ones has to either wrest back the Republican name or form a new party for centrist Republicans. The republic can’t tolerate an opposition that exists to only call for its other side’s destruction. Anything like that is going to have to happen by 2024 or the wilderness will be the frontier states besides Colorado and the South. I don’t see that changing without that happening.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Yutsano: You’d think so, but the CA GOP is still singing “Still Crazy After All These Years”.
debbie
@Frankensteinbeck:
Isn’t the reason Trump hates the Post Office because it’s the vehicle for mail-in ballots?
Ian
@Betty: I appreciate the sentiment, but lets not forget that W’s with us or with the terrorists dichotomy helped fuel terrorism and set back the United States’ strategic goals.
Forcing Rmoney’s hand probably would feel really, really, really satisfying, but the only realist result I can see happening from it is another Senator Lee style Utah Republican challenging his lordship in a primary. That is one less vote we can potentially acquire in tough senate votes
?BillinGlendaleCA
@debbie: Trump only hates mail-in ballots if they’re Democratic mail-in ballots, he votes absentee.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ian: I don’t think there’s anything anyone can do to force Romney’s hand. Even if he ultimately voted to impeach, even if he marches with BLM– and two sincere cheers for him on both counts– he voted against evidence and witnesses in the Senate because to vote otherwise, in what was I believe a simple majority vote, would’ve made things tough for people like Collins and Gardner. He may not like trump, but his first loyalty is still to the Republican Party.
I’ll have one of my hunting friends shoot me a crow to eat if he does something dramatic to hurt trump in the next two months.
debbie
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Are they fighting over drop-off boxes in CA like they are here? The Dems are trying to sue to get more than the one per county here.
Yutsano
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I guess so. I can’t think of any moderate Republicans out of California off the top of my head. MAYBE the guy who took over for Katie Hill after she resigned. Oh and no more immediate resignations after scandals emerge guys. She was railroaded and no one can convince me otherwise.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Yes, the example I get from the Cal GOP is the crazys don’t give a shit about governance and just want a tribal marker to show they are better than the rest of us, sort of like the Greens.
My personal vibe is outside Trump most of the GOP is just desperate to be the party out of power again like under Obama so they can sit on their ass, scream about how the Democrats screwed it all up and how awesome it would be if they were the ones in power.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@debbie: No, we’re the People’s Republic of California.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Yutsano: The last one that I can think of is Neel Kashkari, but he headed off to the Minneapolis Fed. Yes, no immediate resignations, follow the process. If the Republicans know it will work, they’ll keep doing it until it doesn’t.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: The CA GOP has pretty much given up. They still can be competitive in some Congressional Districts(usually rural), but they’ve not held statewide office in the last decade(and the last one was the Governator).
Another Scott
@RaflW: Thanks for the pointer. Donated.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ian
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Every thing I have seen of conservatives and republicans in the past four years, and the 12-20 behind that, is that they do not give a flying F* about the actual size of government or debt.
I would be suprised if the libertarians took over the GOP. As far as I can tell, about 80-90% of republicans are in the conservative ‘populist’ branch of the party, big government for me but not for thee. The closest thing to a libertarian I have ever seen do well in the GOP was Ron Paul, and he got crushed when they had primaries.
Ramalama
@piratedan: Thanks for this. I hadn’t seen it. Early days not as good as his Big Country days because he wasn’t using his amazingly haunting and metallic sounding voice so much. He stands out as such a gifted lead guitar player who wrote amazing songs and could really sing. Such a waste, alcoholism.
Ramalama
@ThresherK: Oh nice. The only place I saw him in was a mid-sized venue in Boston at the Orpheum Theatre. Not shabby. But limited in how many songs they could sing since they were just the openers. A complete waste of talent.