Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This fight is for everything.

Another missed opportunity for Jamie Dimon to just shut the fuck up.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

White supremacy is terrorism.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

I really should read my own blog.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

…and a burning sense of injustice to juice the soul.

In after Baud. Damn.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Consistently wrong since 2002

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

So many bastards, so little time.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Ohio and the Future of Democracy

Ohio and the Future of Democracy

by | 127 Comments

This post is in: ,

I can’t say it any better than Trae Crowder did.  Especially toward the end, he lays it all out in black and white.

“If the hearts of the people cannot be won, then the will of the people must be quashed.”

He ties together all the gerrymandering, voting restrictions, the big lie, January 6, everything.  Nothing we don’t already know here on Balloon Juice, but it’s really well done and he presents a compelling case in less than 2 minutes.

We have all the best people on our side.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

127Comments

  3. 3.

    mrmoshpotato

    “If the hearts of the people cannot be won, then the will of the people must be quashed.”

    I would’ve preferred having will’s fat, orange, fascist, shitstain face reduced to pulp.

    ETA – luxuriously and tremendous bigly.

  5. 5.

    rikyrah

    “If the hearts of the people cannot be won, then the will of the people must be quashed.”

     

    I’m going to go back to Roe.

    It still amazes me that so many of these pundits STILL have not yet come to grasp what removing body autonomy for HALF the population actually means.

    That it might make that HALF very angry.

    That we don’t get a gun and shoot up schools, but, it doesn’t mean that our anger isn’t there.

    That we don’t know that Maternal Mortality is going UP in all of these States, and why.

    No, I’m not being ‘hysterical’ about the issue.

    And, that, no, I’m not willing to trade cheap gas and eggs for it.

  6. 6.

    Betty Cracker

    Watch out, Iowans — was just reading that your state fair is about to be swamped with GOP presidential hopefuls. Ron DeSantis will be walking around scolding children for eating fried candy bars. Trump is attending with a gaggle of Florida politicians who endorsed him over DeSantis. God help you all!

  8. 8.

    Ken

    @frosty: I believe Baud is thinking more in terms of “Dark Lord on his Dark Throne”, though I’m really not plugged into the plans for the Baud! 20XX! inauguration committee.

  11. 11.

    Nelle

    @Betty Cracker: We are leaving for Colorado.  We are bombarded with ads for Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, a bunch of candidates I’ve never heard of, and a lot of ads, more in sorrow than anger, saying we have to move on from TFG.  On that I agree, though not in the direction that they suggest.

  12. 12.

    rikyrah

    YES,

     

    What have they ever done but be ratphuckers?

     

    Jon (@OpenBordersJon) posted at 2:38 PM on Wed, Aug 09, 2023:
    I love this sentiment from green party slacktivists. What has the green party ever accomplished to “earn votes?” What has Cornel West or Marianne Williamson? You may not think dems have done ENOUGH for this country, but they’ve done infinitely more than any green.
    (https://twitter.com/OpenBordersJon/status/1689360512457318400?t=599Sv4OibHaSR4cwfSrvVQ&s=03)

  15. 15.

    rikyrah

    Democrat, Environmentalist, & the establishment (@BlueSteelDC) posted at 7:11 AM on Thu, Aug 10, 2023:
    A threat of physical violence HAS NEVER BEEN protected speech

    If you threaten life and property its not to them to give you a break – as you maybe kidding

    You are now and should be subjected to the full review of the law

     

    Democrat, Environmentalist, & the establishment (@BlueSteelDC) posted at 7:21 AM on Thu, Aug 10, 2023:
    Because Twitter is where some of y’all get your civics education you have never been able to do anything that may cause a public threat.

    They literally give you an example as to tell you you cannot yell” fire in a crowded space.”
    (https://twitter.com/BlueSteelDC/status/1689612845778956288?t=RgFrByPFRFsGImoMp17l-w&s=03)

  16. 16.

    rikyrah

    Looking for the lie. See none.

     

    William B. Fuckley (@opinonhaver) posted at 6:41 PM on Wed, Aug 09, 2023:
    the origin of the “woke weak military” meme is because they’re pissed the generals told them they wouldn’t order people shot in the street to keep them in power after they lost an election, and they want future generations of officers to give that order.
    (https://twitter.com/opinonhaver/status/1689421655595212800?t=GahiwUjq4aQSYQZ8ERUEcg&s=03)

  20. 20.

    SFAW

    @Betty Cracker:

    Ron DeSantis will be walking around scolding children for eating fried candy bars.

    The danger comes not from his scolding; it would come from his unhinging his jaw and swallowing the offending child whole.

  21. 21.

    rikyrah

    Blue Virginia (@bluevirginia) posted at 6:57 PM on Wed, Aug 09, 2023:
    Let’s be clear what’s going on: Youngkin & his right-wing billionaire buddies are attempting to BUY the VA legislature in order to roll back women’s reproductive freedom, voting rights, environmental protection, etc. We HAVE TO stop them. https://t.co/9GMnpb6nGR h/t @samshirazim https://t.co/QD8wehdqm3
    (https://twitter.com/bluevirginia/status/1689425628854927360?t=5wnAJuxC9C99DtF-wOzuAg&s=03)

  22. 22.

    sab

    The abortion fight isn’t over in Ohio. This last fight was for democracy, us v our legislators. The abortion issue won’t be on the ballot until November. But at least it will be on the ballot.

  24. 24.

    Cluttered Mind

    @rikyrah: Whenever anyone brings up the Green party I always dismiss them as Republican sock puppets designed to weaken Democrats. Their rank and file may be genuine in their beliefs, but they are being useful idiots for the right. I bring receipts, too.

    Exhibit 1 (What happens if you type “green party funded by republicans” into a google search. It’s a lot.):

    https://www.google.com/search?q=green+party+funded+by+republicans&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS972US972&oq=&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggBEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg5MgYIARBFGDsyCAgCEAAYFhgeMgoIAxAAGIYDGIoFMgoIBBAAGIYDGIoF0gEIMjAzM2owajeoAgCwAgA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

    Exhibit 2 (Jill Stein, Michael Flynn, and Putin at the same table):

    https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/06/jill-stein-says-nothing-happened-at-her-dinner-with-putin/

    Whatever SHE says happened or didn’t happen is irrelevant. Vladimir Putin is never photographed that close to anyone by accident, ever. Her presence in that company, and knowing she was there by invitation, is damning.

    Exhibit 3:

    Kyrsten Fucking Sinema. Enough said.

  25. 25.

    schrodingers_cat

    @rikyrah: The MSM  doesn’t see you if you are not an angry white (or Republican voting) male. Has anyone analyzed how much positive press coverage shouty BS and finger wagging Orange Error got compared to HRC in 2016?

  26. 26.

    rikyrah

    UH HUH

    UH HUH

     

    Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) posted at 0:30 PM on Wed, Aug 09, 2023:
    DEC. 31, 2020: Chesebro gives voice to an emerging view among Trump lawyers that Clarence THOMAS is their best hope for a pre-Jan. 6 ruling throwing the election in doubt.

    The email is missing “i”s and “L”s due to a formatting issue.

    https://t.co/4RcYAT2VFw https://t.co/PX3YdZAabL
    (https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1689328210813530131?t=vpo2Ci4uZumR5zJHKBGMvQ&s=03)

  27. 27.

    SFAW

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I’ve seen a number of word clouds (or whatever they’re called) showing the relative mentions of things like Trump’s “policies” vs. Hillary’s e-mails, but I’m not sure how much that fits your “analyzed” criterion/criteria. I mean, it’s analysis of a sort, but not exactly rigorous.

  30. 30.

    schrodingers_cat

    @SFAW: How much time did she get to be on TV/cable compared to her primary and general election opponent.

    Here opponents were a manifestation of  angry white males from both the ends of the ideological spectrum.

  31. 31.

    NorthLeft

    Really like his stuff. Every Democrat running for office should repeat a version of Mr. Crowder’s observations…..and post his Tik Tok on their website.

  32. 32.

    Ken

    @rikyrah: The email is missing “i”s and “L”s due to a formatting issue.

    That’s all right, I figured out what “have eonard eo gve hm another yacht trp” meant.

  33. 33.

    Yarrow

    @schrodingers_cat:

    The MSM doesn’t see you if you are not an angry white (or Republican voting) male.

    Which is weird because the media personalities themselves are no longer all white males. Lots of POC and women on local and national news. The ownership must still be mostly white and male and the faces we see are just doing their bidding. It seems like that isn’t going to work forever.

  34. 34.

    SFAW

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Don’t know the numbers re: time on TV, but when TFG kept getting free TV via (for example) his empty podium, probably don’t need to get out my slide rule. [Yes, I know my observation is not analytical.]

  36. 36.

    Yarrow

    @SFAW:  Yeah, the empty podium because a joke on late night TV and a meme online because they did it so often. Pathetic.

  39. 39.

    narya

    @rikyrah: The pundits are so used to regarding women as less-than; they are the same clowns who just cannot see the work that women do, who are still stuck in the 50s, with a little 70s sexual revolution pasted over it. If they have female partners, they just figure that THEY will be able to get the care they need; they have no ability to consider the situation of a woman who has a couple of kids, a low-paying job, and no real resources. Access to health care, whether it’s maternal care, abortion care, miscarriage care, whatever, is ALREADY IFFY, especially for women of color; this crap is yet another life-altering, and possibly life-risking, burden. And a lot of people get that, but not the pundits.

  42. 42.

    rikyrah

    They reveal themselves all the time.

    Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) tweeted at 7:37 PM on Wed, Aug 09, 2023:
    When Republicans panic and start yelling all the quiet parts out loud, you get this amazing article full of quotes like this.👇

    “I can’t tell you we’re going to win in this fight; we’ve got a Supreme Court that surprised the living daylights out of me.”
    https://t.co/gYP1p4O8Qw
    (https://twitter.com/marceelias/status/1689435765787291648?s=02)

  46. 46.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @rikyrah:

    Jesus – do they not have fitness standards for Texas State Police?  That guy makes me look svelte – I’ve over 60, got a gut and a couple of bum quads, and could outrun that clod into a heart attack.

  47. 47.

    Kathleen

    I don’t know if this has been noted in national media, but the big story in Cincinnati is how Republican counties underperformed in the Issue 1 vote. This Enquirer article provides some interesting analysis.

    https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/2023/08/09/republican-party-underperformed-ohio-issu

    In Cincinnati’s pro-Trump suburbs, for example, support in Butler County fell from 61% for Trump to 50% for Issue 1. In Clermont County, it fell from 67% to 54%. Outside Columbus, support for Issue 1 was 11 points lower in Licking County than it was for Trump in 2020, falling from 63% to 52%. Some of the most dramatic shifts happened in reliably Republican strongholds like Jackson and Belmont counties.

    While Democrats largely drove Issue 1’s defeat on Tuesday, Republican strongholds across the state failed to garner enough enthusiasm for the “yes” side. A USA TODAY Network Ohio analysis of unofficial results found support for Issue 1 in all but one county in the state lagged behind support for former President Donald Trump in 2020 and U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance in 2022.
    Take Delaware County, a suburban Columbus county that votes loyally − but sometimes narrowly − for Republicans. Vance won the county with 53% of the vote when he ran against former U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan in 2022, and Trump got 52% in 2020. On Tuesday, Issue 1 failed there with just 42% of voters backing it.

     

  48. 48.

    Bupalos

    @Yarrow: white males may be the primary locus of the “go back to an imaginary past” movement, but there are large and growing chunks of active participants in many demographics. And more than one version of the myth.

    Basically anyone  who perceives life as getting worse is susceptible. And it’s why there is such a terrible feedback loop with Republican governance.

  49. 49.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @rikyrah: OMG, they are literally arguing that they need to gerrymander in order to maintain their majority in the House and, that, as a result, they are justified in doing so.

  50. 50.

    WaterGirl

    @rikyrah: I keep seeing that.  Still trying to figure out if the Rs made that up out of whole cloth or if the J6 committee really did lose or fail to retain documentation.

    Does anybody know?

    Did they maybe send it all, even the originals to Jack Smith so it couldn’t be subpoenaed by the R when they got the majority?

  51. 51.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @rikyrah:

    Oldest daughter is a mushroom person (which always worries me, but she keeps guides, journals, and has her own hidden forage spots, so she clearly knows her shit).  She claims that it was absolutely murder, because anybody who has experience knows the difference.

  52. 52.

    Kelly

    @rikyrah: Seniors face more than $50 billion in unpaid medical bills, many of which they shouldn’t have to pay

    On my agenda for today: call our local hospital which sent my 87 year old Mom a bill for a bit more than $1,000 over her deductible for a visit. Should have just been her deductible. She paid the bill and I found out later. Hospital has acknowledged the error but can’t seem get around to writing a check.

  54. 54.

    WaterGirl

    @sab: Last stats I saw were that No got 57% and Yes got 43%.

    It’s not lost on me that if Issue 1 had been in place, the 43% minority would be more powerful than the 57% majority.

    That’s fucked up.

  55. 55.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @WaterGirl:

    I have questions as to whether Trump can even subpoena records out of a congressional committee.  May be a separation of powers issue.

  56. 56.

    OzarkHillbilly

    The state GOP is not giving up:

    GOP legislators file lawsuit challenging cost estimate of Missouri abortion-rights amendment

    The SoS(R) (who is constitutionally empowered to make these estimates) said the cost will be $0. Our authoritarian AG(R) said it would cost the state billions of $. The state Supreme Court told the AG to sit down and shut up because he has no say in the matter. So now we get this. Anything to drag it out as long as necessary to keep the abortion rights proposal off the Nov. ballot.

  58. 58.

    sdhays

    @WaterGirl: I have a vague recollection of the House Select Committee doing something with the evidence collected to protect people who helped the committee from the pieces of shit that would be taking control of the House. I’m sure they shared everything pertinent with the DOJ.

    Could that be what they’re talking about?

  61. 61.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @sdhays:

    I think they turned it all over to the DOJ.

    I suspect that Smith’s team isn’t fucking around over sending over all of it in order to comply with Brady requirements.

  62. 62.

    MomSense

    We just passed laws expanding abortion access including “late term” and there was a group threatening a people’s veto ballot question.  The morning after the Ohio results they decided not to pursue it.
    Thank you, Ohio.  I think we have been spared a terrible campaign.

  63. 63.

    WaterGirl

    email today from the Southern Poverty Law Center:

    Long after he served his sentence for a crime committed more than 20 years ago, Dennis Hopkins said he still felt like a “branded man.”

    In 1890, Mississippi adopted a state constitution that was specifically intended to prevent formerly enslaved people and their descendants from voting. In modern times, a provision of that constitution — a lifetime voting ban for anyone convicted of certain crimes — is still having its intended effect: Between 1994 and 2017, nearly 50,000 Mississippians, including Hopkins, were banned for life from voting due to conviction of a disqualifying offense.

    So, we sued.

    In 2018, the SPLC and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, LLP, filed a lawsuit claiming that Mississippi’s lifetime voting ban arbitrarily grants or deprives citizens who reside in Mississippi of the right to vote and was intended to discriminate on the basis of race. Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit held that Mississippi’s lifetime voting ban for people with disqualifying felony convictions who have completed their sentences is cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

    Now, for the first time since his conviction, Hopkins, a foster parent, business owner and community volunteer, will be able to exercise his right to vote in Mississippi.

    In recent decades, Black voting-age Mississippians have been disenfranchised at over twice the rate of white voting-age Mississippians. In a state where Black voters have been historically barred from voting through complex, intentional and targeted restrictions, this victory is deeply impactful.

    “This is a tremendous victory for the state of Mississippi,” said SPLC Mississippi State Office Director Waikinya Clanton. “People have paid their debt to society and have been oppressed from exercising their voting rights for far too long. This is a huge win in the fight to restore dignity and respect to the voice of the disenfranchised voter in Mississippi.”

    Sincerly,

    Your friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center

  65. 65.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @sdhays: this is, I think, Adam Kinzinger responding to a MAGAt repeating this accusation

    Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini) @AdamKinzinger 13h

    They’re all there for everyone to read. But keep walking off the cliff, sheep.

  66. 66.

    smith

    @sdhays: And getting those records might be a back-door way to find out who told the committee what (and subsequently told Jack Smith). It might give them cover to release the names of those witnesses, despite any protective order.

  67. 67.

    Bupalos

    @Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: I’m a huge mushroom person, both farming and forage, and while I’d agree, one thing to account for is that the amanita phalloides is apparently not a traditional native in Australia. An old timer might simply say “we don’t have those here” and it wouldn’t be included as a possibility. I guess they have been there since the 60’s, but must be very very rare.

  68. 68.

    Kent

    @Betty Cracker:Watch out, Iowans — was just reading that your state fair is about to be swamped with GOP presidential hopefuls. Ron DeSantis will be walking around scolding children for eating fried candy bars. Trump is attending with a gaggle of Florida politicians who endorsed him over DeSantis. God help you all!

    I can’t decide for whom this is more embarrassing and cringeworthy;  Ron DeSantis, or the gaggle of Florida Republican politicians following Trump to Iowa like whipped puppies.

  69. 69.

    WaterGirl

    @Omnes Omnibus:  So true.  I was just thinking about that yesterday.  I get why everything in the Senate can’t be 50% + 1, but 60 is a ridiculously high bar.

    It seems to me that 55% would be a more reasonable choice if we want to, you know, actually govern.

    55 – 45 would seem to address the not-50%-plus-one concern.

  71. 71.

    Scout211

    Another Florida story. The Daily Beast is reporting that a GOP candidate for congress plagiarized his honors thesis.

    So will this hurt him or help him with the voters?

     

    Right-wing Florida Republican congressional candidate Anthony Sabatini is not afraid to trumpet his resume, including his undergraduate degree from the University of Florida, where—according to his LinkedIn, Legistorm, Wikipedia, law firm, and Timeshare Information Center bios—he graduated with honors, magna cum laude.

    But Sabatini’s honors thesis—a 2012 treatise on the political legacy of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, titled “A Profound Logic of The Blood”—is wildly plagiarized.

    The Daily Beast’s review of the paper found that Sabatini lifted an astonishing amount of content verbatim from other sources. Worse, Sabatini—who double-majored in history and philosophy before being admitted to law school, also at the University of Florida—frequently pulls his passages from Wikipedia, and presents them without the required quotation marks or any clear attribution whatsoever.

    In some instances, Sabatini injected slightly different words here and there—ripples in the streams of the thoughts, ideas, and words of other people, which he arrogated as his own. And in places where Sabatini does reference a secondary source, those references themselves frequently appear to be incorrect and, often, according to a plagiarism expert, entirely made up.

  75. 75.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @WaterGirl: I have only one data point: when I searched for a transcript of Richard Donoghue’s testimony I found it, but not on the U.S. Congress website. There it was a broken link.

    I doubt the material is lost, I think we can trust that the committee foresaw the threat.

  76. 76.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    they are literally arguing that they need to gerrymander in order to maintain their majority in the House and, that, as a result, they are justified in doing so.

    Seems like their new go to argument, like Eastman:

    In a Thursday interview with Tom Klingenstein, chairman of the Claremont Institute’s Board of Directors, Eastman cited a portion of the Declaration of Independence that mentions a need to “alter or abolish the existing government” in the face of certain circumstances, Talking Points Memo (TPM) reported on Friday.

    Certain circumstances = Democrats winning elections and being seated

  78. 78.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    Listening to Trump snippets on Morning Joe, and in his patter, whenever he says “by the way”, that’s a big tell that what is following is a huge lie.

  83. 83.

    Roger Moore

    @WaterGirl:

    I get why everything in the Senate can’t be 50% + 1

    I don’t.  Practically every other legislature in the world manages with 50% + 1, including, AFAIK, every state senate.  Supermajority requirements are mostly a tool for entrenched minorities to maintain their power, as if the disproportionate representation of small states wasn’t bad enough already.

  84. 84.

    Cacti

    The end goal of any fascist movement is to criminalize any political opposition to themselves.

    First they use the machinery of democracy to gain a place at the table, then comes the internal sabotage of said machinery, and finally the enabling acts and the imprisonment and assassination of dissidents using the power of the state.

    The United States is well into step 2.

    Trump is promising out loud that if he returns to power, step 3 will have arrived.

  85. 85.

    narya

    @Scout211: This kind of shit makes me furious. I’ve made my living writing, and just this morning, when someone asked for a sample, I said, well, the most recent versions of X were a team effort, i.e., weren’t all me. I’m not holding myself out as special–I think it’s what honest people do, and I try to be that. But this kind of outright plagiarism makes a mockery of honesty.

  87. 87.

    VOR

    @Cluttered Mind: Minnesota recently legalized recreational marijuana. One of the minor arguments pushing it over the line was a belief the local Republicans were using the “Legal Marijuana Now” minor party as a spoiler. Legalizing takes away the appeal of that party. IDK the truth of this claim, but it was strange my very close CD had two straight elections with a LMN candidate where the candidate died before election day.

  88. 88.

    SFAW

    @WaterGirl: ​
     

    But-but-but I have been informed by a brilliant NextDoor commenter that the SPLC is a racist/commie/terrist/fascist/racist organization!

  89. 89.

    Geminid

    @Kathleen: I’m curious as to the composition of that “Yes” undervote in the referendum. There were probably a few Trump- and Vance-to-No voters, but not many. Of the stay-at-homes, I wonder how many were hard core Trumpers. Some of those folks don’t care about anybody or anything but Trump.

  90. 90.

    Juju

    @Sure Lurkalot: The  Declaration of Independence is not a governing document. We have the constitution as the governing document. Eastman is a very unimpressive supposedly elite attorney.

  91. 91.

    Redshift

    @Roger Moore: Exactly. The filibuster was an accident of history. The Constitution specifies only a few instances where for supermajority votes, because the Framers, because they knew it was generally a bad idea.

  92. 92.

    Redshift

    @Sure Lurkalot:

    Certain circumstances = Democrats winning elections and being seated

    Somehow it’s even worse than that. From what I read, Eastman’s arguments that “the left” has gone to far and are undermining our values are mostly a boring litany of manufactured Fox outrages, like banning gas stoves. It’s clowns all the way down.

  94. 94.

    Kathleen

    @Geminid: You’re right – that would be interesting to know. I hope some numbers person in Ohio does a deep dive on that. Or we can always count on NYT to get all up in the feels of Trump supporters in Ohio diners to give us the answer LOL!

    “Sundays in this Warren County suburb consist of attending Latin Mass, hitting the breakfast buffet at Frisch’s and reading stories in the Cincinnati Enquirer about pregnant 10 year old girl from Ohio who had to go to Indiana to get an abortion. But now the woke Anti Issue 1 mob is trying to take all that away from us.”

  95. 95.

    Philbert

    @Juju: True, in addition the Declaration says breaking off is big, the world deserves an explanation and reasons, and then gives a long list. My favorite is that the King has restricted immigration.

  96. 96.

    Geminid

    @Ksmiami: I believe this will be the last Republican House Majority this decade, and we ought to be able to hold the Whote House through 2032. The Senate’s tougher, but I think if we can squeak through next year’s election with a majority we’ll hold it for the rest of the decade.

    Some of my optimism is based on the way Republicans seem intent on crushing themselves. It’s like Democrats are the Roadrunner, and Wiley Coyote has teamed up with an especially stupid elephant.

  97. 97.

    Ken

    @Kathleen: @Geminid: I find it interesting that this is being reported as Republicans underperforming, which suggests that they didn’t show up. Maybe they did show up but many voted “no”?

    The article gives percentages for those who voted, but nothing to tell us percentage or absolute turnout, which might help answer the question. I.e., whether percentage turnout in Republican counties was lower than that in Democratic ones.

  98. 98.

    Geminid

    @Kathleen: If I were an Ohio political reporter I would have wanted to hang out in a suburban Starbucks around referendum time and listened to the chatter there. It seems like that’s a more significant and growing cohort of voters than the ones in diners. Those diner interviews remind me of how National Geographic would send a reporter to examine some dwindling jungle tribe.

  99. 99.

    Subsole

     

    @rikyrah: I am curious about this.

    I wonder if part of it is that so many of these pundits are very safely lodged in deep blue cities nestled in deep blue states. They don’t register the disaster because the disaster didn’t touch tthem. It’s just another tornado that plowed through the yokels.

    That said…

    Most of it is misogyny, I imagine. Though maybe not rank, he-man woman-hater misogyny. More that Conservatism, Inc. exists as a sort of object of veneration for the Beltway.

    Conservatism, at heart, sells stereotypes. I think a lot of media folks seem to have this idea of Conservatives as a White Noble Savage. A repository of simple, homespun values to genuflect before and never, ever examine too closely. The stereotype of the clever peasant: too honest to lie, but somehow also sly enough to always get the better of the snooty experts and intellectuals.

    I think the press goes soft on these folks because doing so lets them kind of vicariously identify as people too smart to fall for all that Ivy League bullshit they learned in school while also being very well-paid and exceedingly proud of said Ivy League BS. (Oh, the multitudes we contain…)

    They get to be simple, and authentic. They get to be real. It all feeds into the conservative stereotype that simple is good. Simple is safe. Simple is honest. Complex is threatening and difficult and scary. Complex therefore cannot -must not – be permitted to be real.

    Basically, the pundits want to pretend to be genteel country folk because they think it gives them street cred. In order to do so, they have to ignore the myriad cruelties and absurdities underlying those stereotypes.

    The White Noble Savage only works until you realize that, like every other Noble Savage in history, he is valued primarily because he is a funhouse mirror for rich folks.

    He is spiritually rich because he is Simple – which, in reality, works out to being impoverished and benighted in ways that people who have never experienced that kind of privation might be silly enough to imagine lend a body strength.

    They want to revere the country folk and their Simple, heartfelt spiritual devotion – and the blood and bodies and pain and fear and heartache that are that particular church’s bricks and mortar just plumb spoils the effect, y’know?

    It’s less that the press hates women (though several demonstrably do), and more that they’re just willing to sacrifice them on the altar of their own insecurities.

    Which of those moral failings is more damnable, I leave as a personal exercise to anyone who reads this far.

  101. 101.

    WaterGirl

    @Cacti:  There it is.

    The end goal of any fascist movement is to criminalize any political opposition to themselves.

    First they use the machinery of democracy to gain a place at the table, then comes the internal sabotage of said machinery, and finally the enabling acts and the imprisonment and assassination of dissidents using the power of the state.

    The United States is well into step 2.

    Trump is promising out loud that if he returns to power, step 3 will have arrived.

  104. 104.

    Subsole

     

    @rikyrah: That I actually do disagree on. I think that poster is overthinking it.

    They don’t like the Woke Army because “gays and women and transes are icky”. That’s it.

  105. 105.

    Geminid

    @Ken: My theory is that there were some Republican No voters, but not a lot. There might have been more Independents who typically vote Republican who voted No. Unfortunately, news outfits seem mostly to have given up on exit polls; this would have been a good occasion for some.

    Aside from anecdotal sources, I think someone could develop some good information out of voter roll analysis. That info will be available on a few weeks and a precinct-level analysis might prove fruitful.

    There was some interesting voter roll analysis developed after Youngkin’s win on Virginia. Some people found that a substantial amount of Republicans had stayed home in 2020 but then came out for Youngkin in 2021. That made sense to me.

  107. 107.

    Subsole

    @rikyrah:

    I am a long way from being any kind of socialist.

    But this is the kind of thing that makes me think taxing rich folks back into the Cretaceous is a matter of national survival.

  108. 108.

    FelonyGovt

    I’m reading more articles lately where some of the anti-abortion zealots believe that if they come up the perfect “compromise” (15 week ban! Exceptions for rape and maternal health!) or the right words, a majority will realize the right-ness of their position and fall into line.

    Except there’s no compromise where a fundamental right for half of Americans has been stripped away.

  109. 109.

    Geminid

    @WaterGirl: For the Trumpers, it may be both. And some conservative Independents may have voted No on the principle that politicians suck, and the referendum process is a good check on them.

  110. 110.

    Subsole

     

     

    @Yarrow: Heck, Van Jones became a meme in real time with his “the day Donald became president” bullshit.

    It was richly deserved, too. The only injustice was that he definitely should not have been the only one to suffer that fate.

  111. 111.

    narya

    @FelonyGovt: Because, at heart, all of these laws essentially tell women that they are incapable of identifying and acting on their own needs and situations, and/or their needs and situations are irrelevant.

  114. 114.

    Subsole

    @FelonyGovt:

    Roe was the compromise.

    They tore that up.

    Now we do it the hard way.

     

    As Mr. Snipes once observed, some motherfuckers are always trying to ice skate uphill.

  115. 115.

    Paul in KY

    @Subsole: (In general) I just think they know that they need to up a political philosophy that their paymasters like or there will be another person doing that job.

  118. 118.

    rikyrah

    @FelonyGovt:

    I’m reading more articles lately where some of the anti-abortion zealots believe that if they come up the perfect “compromise” (15 week ban! Exceptions for rape and maternal health!) or the right words, a majority will realize the right-ness of their position and fall into line.

    Except there’s no compromise where a fundamental right for half of Americans has been stripped away.

     

    They have proven that they can’t be trusted.

    1. They keep coming for those of us in Blue States, who want reproductive body autonomy
    2. Their ‘ exceptions’, DON’T EXIST. i.e., look at Texas
    3. They are coming for BIRTH CONTROL AND IVF
    4. The girl in North Dakota going to jail for getting an abortion
    5. The Republican AG’s suing to get access to medical records – for people getting healthcare OUT OF THEIR STATE. What do they need it for, if they aren’t gonna try and CHARGE PEOPLE FOR GETTING ABORTIONS.
  119. 119.

    Soprano2

    @rikyrah: That article is just wow, they basically outright admit that without cheating through extreme gerrymandering they know they cannot compete fairly for people’s votes.

  120. 120.

    Soprano2

    @OzarkHillbilly: It’s all kabuki theater in an attempt to keep the measure off the November 2024 ballot by making it impossible to gather enough signatures. Normally they hate Medicaid and probably would like to completely get rid of it; how can they think legal abortion is costing the state Medicaid funds? I think the other side could argue it’s saving the state millions of dollars on pregnancies they don’t have to pay for! The whole thing is ridiculous.

  121. 121.

    Geminid

    @rikyrah: That 15-week “compromise” ban was so perfect that Virginia’s Republican House of Delegates majority was afraid to put it to a floor vote. I wonder why not. They have a 52-48 Delegate majority. Some might have warned that if they voted for the bill, their suburban constituents would send them packing this fall. Others might have worried about the Bible thumpers back home who want a stricter ban.

    Thir leadership complained that Senator Louise Lucas and her “Brick Wall” would have blocked the measure. That was true, but this consideration didn’t keep them from passing all sorts of other stupid bills. This issue scares them.

  123. 123.

    Gravenstone

    @WaterGirl: Unless you’re a full out racist or authoritarian, what problem could anyone have with the Southern Poverty Law Center?

    Cockroaches never like the brightness of direct light.

  124. 124.

    Shana

    @rikyrah: My husband is always surprised that I don’t taste a new recipe when I’m making it or done making it. I always say that I’ve been cooking long enough that I can tell whether or not it will be good.

    Bu then I’m not cooking a dish with mushrooms I’ve foraged myself and serving it to 2 other couples without serving it to my kids as the article says she did. YMMV

  126. 126.

    sab

    @WaterGirl: Ohio has passed a lot of horrible constitutional amendments by more than 60% in recent years. Banning same sex marriage in 2004 passed by 61.7%. Reversing bail reform passed by about 70% in 2022. So did requiring citizenship to vote in local elections (so green card holders can’t vote on tax and bond issues.)

    The 88 county requirement was the scary part. I would be terrified to try and collect signatures in some of our rural counties. Republicans would dominate the constitutional amendment game basically through intimidation.

Comments are closed.