Liberals seem pretty fired up about winning this election. In fact, I'd hazard there are signs Liberals are the most motivated electorate right now, several months out. This might be something to consider in election analyses.
— Magdi Jacobs (@magi_jay) March 3, 2024
A spate of reports, in advance of Super Tuesday tomorrow:
Fear and loathing in a Super Tuesday state: Democrats angry at Biden back him anyway to stop Trump https://t.co/oaEatHq2xI
— The Associated Press (@AP) March 2, 2024
It’s best, of course, if people want to vote for President Biden & to encourage their friends to do the same. But, realistically, not every voter will be fired up, especially for a primary in March. Good news is that a ‘reluctant’ (or a ‘spite’} vote weighs in the tally exactly the same as those cast with the greatest enthusiasm. Per the Associate Press, “Fear and loathing in a Super Tuesday state: Democrats angry at Biden back him anyway to stop Trump”:
HOPKINS, Minn. (AP) — Aishah Al-Sehaim laments the 30,000 Palestinians killed in Gaza, a grim statistic from a war with Israel that she wishes President Joe Biden would try harder to stop.
But the 38-year-old clinical data scientist, an Arab American from the Democratic-heavy suburb of St. Louis Park, Minnesota, is voting for the Democrat on Tuesday anyway because her top priority is stopping Republican Donald Trump.
“It’s not even about hope to affect change in the coming years, but simply that things don’t get more screwed up nationally and internationally,” she said.
Biden’s campaign isn’t likely to trumpet endorsements such as Al-Sehaim’s. But they give credence to the reelection effort’s strategy of promoting Biden administration programs but also turning out disaffected Democrats by invoking their fears of Trump…
Biden is still expected to sweep Democratic primaries in Minnesota and 15 other states on Super Tuesday and will likely secure his party’s nomination in the coming weeks.
“I’m not sure, because of the poison that’s been injected into the system over the last 10 years, if anybody gets that morning-in-America enthusiasm again,” said Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, referring to Reagan’s famous reelection campaign television ad. “It doesn’t surprise me that much that what you’re finding is people who say they’re going to support him, but it’s not an Obama-type new thing.”
Biden aides argue there is more enthusiasm for the president than the interviews suggest. They point to the 600,000 voters who voted in Michigan’s primary this past week, more than three times the turnout for Obama in 2012…
A chunk of Republican primary and caucus voters say they wouldn’t vote for Trump as the GOP nominee https://t.co/3RmH6r3OS6
— The Associated Press (@AP) March 3, 2024
Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, “A chunk of Republican primary and caucus voters say they wouldn’t vote for Trump as the GOP nominee”:
WASHINGTON (AP) — A small but substantial chunk of Republican primary and caucus voters say they would be so dissatisfied if Donald Trump became the party’s presidential nominee that they would not vote for him in November’s general election, according to AP VoteCast.
An analysis of the data shows that many of those voters were unlikely to vote for Trump, some even before this year, but it still points to potential problems for the former president as he looks to consolidate the nomination and pivot toward an expected rematch with Democratic President Joe Biden.
According to AP VoteCast surveys of the first three head-to-head Republican contests, 2 in 10 Iowa voters, one-third of New Hampshire voters, and one-quarter of South Carolina voters would be so disappointed by Trump’s renomination that they would refuse to vote for him in the fall.
This unwillingness to contemplate a presidential vote for Trump isn’t confined to voters in the earliest states…
Many of the voters who said they wouldn’t vote for Trump as the nominee aren’t Republicans at all. In the first three head-to-head contests, anywhere from 17% to 31% of the voters who said they wouldn’t support Trump in the general election identified as Democrats, and between 14% and 27% identified as independents.
Even for some of those Republicans, voting for Trump was already a tough sell. Anywhere between one-half and two-thirds of the staunchly anti-Trump voters in the early contests said they had voted for Biden in 2020…
Then there is the fact that primaries tend to draw out the people with the most passionate opinions. Voter turnout in primaries and caucuses, particularly ones that are relatively uncompetitive, is typically lower than it would be in a general election.
Still, about 1 in 10 early contest voters who said they supported Trump in the 2020 general election said they wouldn’t be doing so this year…
Numbers & charts at the link. It would be best, again, if these disillusioned ‘independents’ voted for Biden — but just failing to vote for TFG would be a win for our side.
Iowa Democrats were forced to toss the caucus. They'll quietly pick a 2024 nominee by mail instead https://t.co/nEkNDraED6
— The Associated Press (@AP) March 3, 2024
Finally, with all due respect to Iowa Democrats, I can’t say I’ve missed the quadrennial mishegoss:
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — There’s a lot less fanfare for Democrats in Iowa picking their presidential nominee this year, and it’s not only because Democratic incumbent Joe Biden is in the White House.
Instead of congregating for caucuses, a one-night spectacle where community members publicly signal their support for a candidate, Iowa Democrats headed to the mailbox to send in their ballot. The results will be released on Super Tuesday, a slate of primaries and caucuses across more than a dozen states.
The break with five decades of tradition follows chaos that mired the party in 2020 and the reshuffling of the Democrats’ 2024 calendar to prioritize more diverse states. The fallout has disappointed Iowa party leaders and activists, with some feeling jilted by the national party.
Even more, it has left many worried about the deterioration of Democrats’ grassroots organizing and about the prospects for success in a state that has morphed from a purple toss-up into a Republican stronghold over the last decade…
It’s hard news for the dedicated local Democrats, but I for one suspect that the promised ‘revisiting’ for 2028 is unlikely to bring Iowa (or New Hampshire) back to its beloved first-in-the-nation status.
On The Road – Albatrossity – Bighorn Mountains – 2
Baud
Haley is the first woman to win a GOP primary. Congrats to her.
Given Trump’s recent proof of dementia, Dems should have Obama go out campaigning as if he were still president.
Baud
Good. That’s the adult thing to do. Kudos to them for putting country first. It’s not always easy to do.
OzarkHillbilly
Welcome to Club Superfluous DEM Iowayans.
Sid
@Baud:
Democrats need to start including “dementia” with any reference to Trump.
Baud
Caucuses are too anti-democratic. I’m sure they have their virtues, but there’s no getting around that simple fact.
Tony Jay
@Sid:
Pointed questions should be asked about why Republicans aren’t asking for a dementia screening, especially given the stated unwillingness of a large chunk of their electorate to vote for the smelly trousered oddball.
Bait that click.
OzarkHillbilly
Time to go get the Grandbabygirl. Good day all.
Ken
@Sid: “Demented” would be better, since it’s a simpl statement of opinion. “Dementia” suggests a medical diagnosis, and we don’t have that for Trump — admittedly because he won’t go near any doctor that would make such a diagnosis, which is why his last few “medical” reports have read like fan fiction.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud:
The virtue of being anti-democratic?
The virtue of being a massive waste of time?
:)
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Anti-blech.
NotMax
Not super so much as incredibly crowded.
Alabama
Alaska
American Samoa
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Maine
Massachusetts
Minnesota
North Carolina
Oklahoma
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
.
The cacophony of so-called analysis* on Wednesday and days following will be dissonant, contradictory and deafening.
*accent on anal.
Kay
Amusing that French feminists were patronizingly told there was no need for laws protecting rights, just like US feminists. A consistent lie from anti choice lobbyists.
Baud
@Kay:
Glad our failures can help other countries
Baud
@mrmoshpotato:
I heard they had cookies.
JCJ
@Ken: true, but “Dementia Don” is kind of catchy
wjca
And holding one in the dead of winter, instead of say in June, guarantees that only the most motivated (extreme) voters will fight their way thru the weather to the meeting.
eversor
@Tony Jay:
Opening up the issue of dementia cannot be done as not only would Tang Hitler be thrown out St. Reagan would have to be looked at.
Kay
Meanwhile the United States and Poland have women sitting in prison for allegedly procuring abortions- Poland imprisons anyone who helps a women get an abortion too. Not even Iran or Indonesia are as restrictive as the United States.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
That’s an absofuckinglutely brilliant idea, and I am not being sarcastic! It would mess with TFG’s mind so much, and the more it’s messed with, the more visible it will be that it’s falling apart.
Princess
I’m sure those Haley-supporting women who were lined up and screamed at in Missouri caucuses will be lining up to vote early for Trump in November. (/s btw)
The kind of woman who votes in a caucus is likely to be the kind who is a pillar of the party, there to volunteer and make calls in the home stretch. I wouldn’t want to annoy those women. Not saying they’ll actually vote for Biden or even stay home, all of them, but they’re not going to be doing the work this year, I bet.
sab
Kay or other Ohio jackals:
We have a contested primary for one of the Supreme Court seats. Do you have any idea why the Ohio Democratic Party endorsed one Democratic candidate over the other? To me, the unendorsed candidate seems equally or more qualified.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: What caucuses have is a lot of the kind of old-timey cornpone pageantry that political reporters love, like reporting the vote count out of Dixville Notch. It’s the same reason they rhapsodize about in-person voting over mail voting, which fed into the conspiracy theories Trump tried to exploit on 1/6/21.
mrmoshpotato
@JCJ: How does “Demented Dipshit Don” sound to you?
Baud
@Kay:
Makes me wonder if immigrants from Latin America are disproportionately conservative.
Baud
@Princess:
I’m less certain that’s snark.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
hueyplong
@Kay: France wasn’t exactly first in line to extend suffrage, so there’s a soupcon of additional reasons for women there to be skeptical of non-binding assurances.
lowtechcyclist
@Ken:
‘Demented’ is an insult. Anyone can say it about anyone else, and it’s neither true nor false, it’s just the speaker’s opinion.
If someone says, “there’s been no diagnosis of dementia,” the answer is, “let him get examined by impartial doctors.” Which ain’t gonna happen.
Betty
@Baud: Maria Hinojosa has suggested that it isn’t so much abortion that motivates Latinos to vote Republican as it is their traditional belief in a strongman leader. That might help explain the support for DeSantis among Latinos besides just the Cuban community.
Kay
@sab:
All I know is I met Lisa Forbes and I was impressed. Not a comparison since I have not met Jamison. I see what you’re saying – a Cleveland versus Columbus primary is not great, but I think Forbes will be fine. It’s kind of different to have a probate lawyer on the court.
Baud
@Betty:
That would still make them conservative (or far left).
SFAW
@mrmoshpotato:
I was thinking “Donny Demento.” It has the virtues of being a made-up word, thus not as susceptible to “that’s a diagnosis, libtard! You can’t say that!” whines from the RWMFs, and it riffs on “Dr. Demento,” which/who is already well known.
ETA: Another plus is that it’s the kind of nickname TFG would toss out at others; how do ya like THEM apples, Shitgibbon?
hueyplong
@lowtechcyclist: I completely agree. He could start out funny, referring to Trump’s mixing up Obama and Biden and then, after a pause (he’s really good at timing), talk about the threat Trump poses to all Americans’ health and wealth.
Kay
@Betty:
I wonder if that’s true for younger Latinos, though. They’re also moving Right in Florida and they’re 2 or 3 generations out from any strong man leader in Ye Olde Country. Maybe they’re just ordinary American conservatives.
SFAW
@lowtechcyclist:
I’m sure the noted impartial/non-partisan Dr. Ronny
HJackson would be happy to provide a “clinical” diagnosis.mrmoshpotato
@SFAW: Insults Dr. Demento.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I hesitate to paint with a broad brush because there are so many exceptions, but yeah, anecdotally, Hispanic immigrants tend to be small-c conservative, more patriarchal in outlook, etc. I suspect Republicans would be doing a lot better with them if they hadn’t historically focused on cultivating the racist white vote, and the smarter ones have figured this out and are mitigating it.
eclare
@lowtechcyclist:
I agree!
p.a.
@Betty:
I don’t know the politics of it, but I do know there have been inroads among latin immigrants here in the US, and in Latin America by nondenominational evangelical churches. “Storefront churches.” Does the politics mirror white American evangelical alignment?
SFAW
@mrmoshpotato:
True, but I’m sure he’d bear up under the strain.
mrmoshpotato
@SFAW: What about that hilarious hippie Dr. Harold Whateverthefuckhisnamewas?
TBone
Girding my loins and just tryna do this jigsaw puzzle, lyin’ on the floor 🎶 the onslaught will not cease but that doesn’t mean I have to show up for it. I’ma just go about my bidness as usual. Fuck ’em.
satby
Salon’s Chauncey DeVega wrote on Friday about a doctor’s observations on tfg’s increasing cognitive decline. Worth reading for all the clues of how bad it’s getting.
SFAW
@mrmoshpotato:
Harold Bornstein died three years ago.
Kay
@sab:
Probate has become a kind of women-lawyer specialty in Ohio, which is nice for women because it’s lucrative. Usually we’re assigned the lower paying specialties.
A (male) probate lawyer I know proclaims loudly that this is because “people trust women!” which is sort of an admission, don’t you think? :)
Baud
The problem with “demented” is that Dr. Demento deserves more respect.
eclare
@satby:
Morning Joe played several clips from the past weekend showing this. I get TIFG mixing up Biden and Obama, Obama has been living rent free in TIFG’s head since the White House Correspondents dinner in 2011. But the last clip, where TIFG says something about KSA and Russia, slurring his words, and then just sort of stops talking and looks scared, that was frightening.
It looked like the same thing as when McConnell froze in front of reporters last year.
Thanks for the article, I’ll definitely read it.
Kay
@sab:
Bill DeMora is an Ohio Dem bigshot (and loudmouth) you may be familiar with – he sent out an email to county chairs and other people in the Party where he warned us not to veer from the Forbes endorsement – it’s true that individual counties can’t endorse contrary to the state party but I was amused he felt he had to jump in and yell at us. Fuck off, Bill.
Baud
I’ll be curious to see how the white racist base of the GOP reacts to the party getting more diverse.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Matt McIrvin:
Our Failed Corporate Media were also the same ones that would, in part, bemoan low voter turnout as a general ‘Murkin malaise…and eagerly reported on the early places to adopt mail voting as a silver bullet.
Little did they realize, at the time, that mail voting deprives them of content, Cletus’s to exit poll, etc.
And, of course, mail voting has proven not to be the silver bullet in terms of our shitty voting numbers. It helps, it’s also democratizing (it’s salient feature which never gets mentioned enough), but is not panacea.
Geminid
@wjca: Caucuses tend to empower more politicized citizens at the expense of more normal voters who turn out for primaries.. Former Republican Rep. Tom Davis summed up the dynamic:
Kay
I found the palest lavender nail polish for spring. Just the slightest hint of purple. Head in the Clouds, it’s called. I am in love.
NotMax
@TBone
Back in the wold and wooly 60s, bought this one as a semi-gag Xmas gift for a puzzleholic.
;)
sab
@Kay: Cleveland Plain Dealer had a guest editorial that said almost the same.
yellowdog
@Princess: Trump doesn’t care much about ground work anyway. He prefers to just steal the election with voter suppression and court drama.
lowtechcyclist
@Kay:
At least back when I was a paralegal in the late 1970s and early 1980s, probate was viewed as something of a backwater by most lawyers, at least compared with corporate law, civil litigation, or Constitutional law. There’s a very good living to be had in probate and estate taxation and how to avoid them (especially because the latter only applies to rich people anymore), but it’s not an area of law where being the go-to lawyer will get your name in the papers.
Anyhow, glad to hear that women are taking advantage of this.
trnc
Deep state swamp RINO votes, so they don’t count.
NotMax
#54: wold = wild
sab
@Kay: That kind of makes up my mind for me.
hueyplong
@mrmoshpotato: He’s with the choir invisible.
SFAW
@NotMax:
That was YOU that gave it to me? Thanks! Took me awhile to finish it.
My (perhaps incorrect) memory tells me that we had one of those,although pretty sure it didn’t come from you. [For those not in on the joke: NotMax and I grew up in the same town.]
artem1s
@Kay:
Jamison was backed by the party in 2022. She’s exactly who you’d want to get the job but she lost by a wide margin.
Given her background, I suspect Forbes is more connected state wide and probably can raise more money for her campaign and help raise money and awareness for other candidates too.
sdhays
@satby: Someone mentioned it actually getting discussed on some mainstream TV the other day, so it really must be getting bad.
SFAW
@hueyplong:
A/k/a pining for the fjords?
hueyplong
@SFAW: Or just resting.
Kay
@lowtechcyclist:
That’s exactly right. It’s not flashy at all. Low profile, which people want. No one wants an estate lawyer on a billboard :)
They litigate quite a bit though – that’s the only part of your description I would take issue with. Family fights over money or property are very difficult to solve. We regularly have 5 or 6 go to trial a year here, in a county of 30,000. I think the cases are probably more contentious in rural areas, where you’re talking about hundreds of acres of ground being split up and all the anger and resentment between sibs, etc.
NotMax
@SFAW
Not guilty. It was a gift for someone in Long Beach. ;)
Pretty much the only place to find it then was at Brentano’s, which was always such a delight to just browse through.
Spanky
@Baud:
If Republicans are stupid enough to allow Trump to debate, have Obama walk out onstage to the Dems’ podium.
Kay
@artem1s:
90% of our voters won’t care. I know designating Party on the judge’s line was considered a loss by Democrats, but I suspect it was probably a wash since so many Democrats didn’t know which judge was the Democrat on the ballot – it was the question I was asked more than any other, by a mile.
Suzanne
@NotMax: I miss Brentano’s. I was at a Barnes & Noble over the weekend, which is better than it used to be…. but there is just very little I enjoy more in life than a good bookstore and nowhere to be.
I have never been a “dream house” kind of person — which is probably weird coming from an architect — but the one thing I do fantasize about is having a whole wall of custom bookshelves with a rolling library ladder.
oldgold
Super Tuesday is such an insanely bad idea. Primarily for the reasons it is too early and too big. And,
Super Tuesday is an insanely bad idea. Primarily because it is too early and too big.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I am sure the NYT will be here to explain how this is bad news for Biden lol
Suzanne
@Kay:
Oh shit. I was terrified of this happening in Mr. Suzanne’s family. My MIL inherited her dad’s farm, and for a while, the plan was to keep it and then it would pass to Mr. Suzanne and his brothers. One of whom made noises about wanting to keep it in the family, but would never be able to afford to buy the other two out. Fortunately, my MIL sold that farm, and bought a bigger one, which she realizes has no family connection and everyone understands the plan is just to sell it and divide it up.
trnc
I think one of the biggest challenges in getting some of our apathetic voters fired up will be voter ID where implemented because that’s one more task related only to voting that may be a PITA. Beyond that, I would highly recommend that anyone in a voter ID state vote early. This year is our first in NC to require ID and I am here to tell you that it’s slowing down the process more than any maga could have dreamed.
It would also be helpful for those polling places to have signs to have IDs out and ready, to the extent the poll workers are interested in speeding things up.
Subsole
@Kay:
And that is why sitting elections out is a bad idea, kids.
SiubhanDuinne
@mrmoshpotato:
He died a few years ago*, so he’s off the hook.
*ETA: Probably of soul-crushing shame.
NotMax
@Suzanne
Used to drool over legal bookcases when occasionally attended auctions in rural PA.
But never had space for them.
Subsole
@mrmoshpotato:
I like it. It’s punchy.
sab
@artem1s: Every Democrat lost in 2022, even Jennifer Brunner.
SFAW
@NotMax:
Brentano’s! Long time since I heard that name. Used to love going there.
NotMax
@Enhanced Voting Techniques
“Accuracy is to a newspaper what virtue is to a lady, but a newspaper can always print a retraction.”
– Adlai Stevenson
.
Suzanne
@NotMax: I don’t have space for them, either. My “home office”, which is really also my library and Peloton room, is in the attic, and there’s very little floor area that has a proper ceiling. Most of the room is under a low sloping roofline. So I only have one full-height bookshelf and the other books are on half-height shelves.
Since I put in my notice on Friday, I can probably slack off for a bit here over the next couple of weeks. ;) Might take this opportunity to clear out some books I’m done with.
rusty
I know lots of people are fluffing Haley for winning the DC primary, but reading a couple of articles puts in in perspective. Only 5% of the DC electorate are registered Republicans. The vote was held at a hotel over three days. Almost all the Republican voters that live in DC are closely connected to politics as their profession. As one article said, they are the unicorn Republican voter. And the total vote count was under 2,000. Most towns manage more votes for the school budget or dog catcher. It was a deeply weird primary.
Suzanne
@NotMax: Adlai Stevenson obvs never heard of re-virgination surgery.
trnc
@Tony Jay: Good point. In all of the “news” stories I’ve heard so far that mention that Biden did not take a cognative test, they somehow fail to mention that those tests are only done if there is some evidence that it’s needed. Same criteria applied to DT when it was done.
Matt McIrvin
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Turnout is up for the past several years across most elections, but that probably has a lot to do with the threat or promise of vile strongman rule, which brings out both supporters and opponents.
Baud
@rusty:
I don’t think anyone believes that Haley is turning the primary around with this win.
Lots of Republican primaries are actually caucuses this year, so the total number of votes will be small.
Scout211
California moved our primary from June to Super Tuesday in 2017 because it became clear that by June, the primaries were essentially already decided and California became irrelevant. That affected voter turnout and all the local down-ballot elections.
IMHO, having all the primaries on the same day or in the same month would be a good idea, so the focus is more on the state and local races and it would hopefully eliminate all the silly first in the nation primary silliness and ridiculous media focus.
Just my two cents.
ETA: typos and clarity
eclare
@rusty:
Yeah, IIRC Chris Wallace said he was registered as a Democrat in DC because that is the only way to have your voice heard in the primaries.
Bupalos
This is a hopeful sentiment for 2024, but allowed to fester it will set the stage for the next authoritarian populist attempt, which will likely be much more sophisticated. I think it’s important whenever we run into this kind of voter sentiment to take some pains to try and actually talk up the very real good that Dems (and the Biden admin particularly) are doing and have done in the policy arena. We need to make clear that we are trying to do good, not just avoid bad.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: From what I’ve observed, they’re adjusting better than expected. Florida is a unique case since right-wing Cuban Americans have been a political powerhouse for generations, but that seems to have paved the way for multiracial coalition building that can’t be explained away by tokenism, IMO.
Kay
@Suzanne:
It’s a huge area, what with the aging of the population. PLENTY of work. All of the various guardianships and POAs, “clawbacks” for Medicaid nursing home charges, dementia planning ( a whole very sensitive sub specialty). My clients get mad at me because I agree with the state charging estates for Medicaid nursing home care – I think the older person’s assets are for the care of the older person, not a 40 year olds future inheritance. Providers have to get paid. If your loved one is in a nursing home and they have a half a million dollar asset the state SHOULD levy it because nursing home care is expensive and someone has to pay for it. That’s what it’s for – to care for the old person. It’s their money. We (now) have special appointed prosecutors in eah county just to collect from estates for Medicaid. Good.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Matt McIrvin:
Yeah, there’s lots of moving parts to it. Mail voting does seem to help knock the percentages up a bit and as I said, it’s an incredibly democratizing way to vote as the GOP can’t engage in it’s well-tuned voter suppression tactics.
Another way is hyper-local issues that people really care about. That’ll get em to vote, again it boosts numbers but not drastically. Then add in fundamental issues as you mention and then the percentages look…well, non-awful.
mrmoshpotato
@Scout211:
But then the media would have to report on other stuff from March until October!
TBone
@NotMax: That’s one I would not attempt 🤣 I’m watching The Human Comedy r.n. (1943 drama) till something more important happens today. Frank Morgan: Sing, youth, sing!
https://www.nytimes.com/1943/03/03/archives/the-screen-william-saroyans-first-picture-the-human-comedy-with.html
ETA I like wold I knew exactly what you meant.
Bupalos
@Baud: The left has a cartoonish view of right wing racism and thus is chronically unable to comprehend how flexible it can be.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Well, good. I’d much rather be divided on issues rather than demographics. Polling suggests a lot of white voters prefer Dems on many issues but vote their race. Maybe they’ll rethink their stance if the GOP starts to look more like the country.
Baud
@Bupalos:
IMHO that’s not wrong.
NotMax
Scout211
Five states at a time, every two weeks, in order of each state’s admission to the Union, plus one extra contest for only non-states shoehorned somewhere in the middle.
Reverse the order every four years
Chris
@Kay:
The current fad in France is to blame all social unrest and activism with a leftward tinge on the United States, and a few troublemakers importing its problems.* Macron has played into that often enough when the issue is race or immigration. Kudos to him for being on the right side of this one
* Why yes, this dynamic is instantly recognizable to anybody who’s read the “we and our slaves lived happily together until a few Yankee troublemakers came down here and got them all stirred up!” narratives coming out of the South in the 1850s, why do you ask?
Bupalos
@Betty Cracker: I don’t know when we’re going to stop being surprised by this. We’d better do it quick.
The dissonance I am constantly trying to introduce on this subject: Trump won a higher percentage of “non-whites” in 2020 versus 2016 and a lower percentage of “whites.” And I put those in quotes because behind the official statistics are concepts that are fluid themselves.
Suzanne
@Kay: Healthcare architecture is a lucrative specialty for the same reason: Boomers getting old and entering their prime “healthcare-consuming” years.
I don’t know if the Boomers really appreciate just how much healthcare they’re going to need, but also just how short of providers and facilities we really are.
NotMax
@TBone
Overeager Mickey Rooney and weird Butch Jenkins.
;)
Jinchi
I didn’t get the impression that these were “disillusioned” voters at all. I thought these were voters who chose to vote in the Republican primary explicitly to vote against Trump. We’ve even had people in the BJ comments mulling whether to vote strategically in the opposition party primaries when their preferred party doesn’t have a competitive primary.
TBone
@NotMax: awwww, but they’re both so cute I can’t help smiling. Neighbor came over to show pics of her brand new granddaughter yesterday. The beautiful child’s name is Sterling but the neighbor showed stunning ignorance on important health matters so I need the solace.
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
I actually had (and eventually solved!) that puzzle!! If memory serves, it was a Springbok jigsaw. Springbok came up with a lot of high-quality, absolutely diabolical products. We stocked them in our family bookstore, and I have a vague memory of a table set up with a puzzle on it (not the one you linked) for random customers to tackle. Good times.
Marcopolo
@Kay: This is a little (lol a lot) tangential to your point about state vs county D orgs but I have been following the NJ D Senate campaign to replace “gold bar” Bob M and have greatly enjoyed seeing the NJ county D orgs voting overwhelmingly in their local nominating conventions to support Andy Kim over the Governor’s wife. Am loving them pretty much giving them finger to the state party which is controlled by Gov Murphy. Also, Andy Kim is gonna be a hell of a senator!
Leto
@Kay: this right here is why the US will continually be seen as a backwater 5th world country with respect to medical/healthcare. But always glad to see the lawyers champion shit like this.
SiubhanDuinne
@SFAW:
And you both lived to tell the story!
NotMax
@TBone
There’s a Silva family here with three sons, named, in order (not kidding about this):
Sterling
Quick
Hi Ho
.
lowtechcyclist
@Suzanne:
I thought Dr. Heinz Doofensmirtz just zapped them with his Revirginator.
Jinchi
@Tony Jay:
I thought calling for dementia testing was a big party of Nikki Haley’s campaign strategy.
mrmoshpotato
@SiubhanDuinne: I prefer jigsaw puzzles to be bodyslammed. 💪🤼♂️
lowtechcyclist
@NotMax:
I’d be suing my parents the moment I turned 18.
ETA: I had a student once named April May. She seemed to be surviving the experience pretty well, but that’s not nearly as bad as any of the poor Silva kids. Especially Hi Ho. His parents have it coming to them.
Sanjeevs
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/04/politics/allen-weisselberg-trump-org-cfo-plea-perjury/index.html
Trump’s CFO to plead guilty to perjury.
Geminid
@wjca: In 2020, the dynamic Tom Davis described was used by Bob Good’s supporters to oust first-term Rep. Denver Riggleman from his VA05 seat. The charisma-free Riggleman might not have won a primary, but Good’s people were taking no chances. They first won control of the Republican 5th District Committee and mandated that instead of a primary, local caucuses elect delegates to the District Convention. That was held on their home field, Liberty University. Riggleman didn’t have a chance.
Four years later, Bob Good has a strong challenger in State Senator John McGuire. This time, a new state law requires that the nominee be determined by a June primary and not caucuses. Both Good and McGuire are knuckle-dragging reactionaries, but last year Good made the mistake of endorsing Ron DeSantis instead of Donald Trump and that is McGuire’s main line of attack.
I thought the decision by Virginia’s Republican party to use caucuses and a convention to pick their nominee for the 2013 Governor race was a turning point for the party. Lt. Governor Bill Bolling, a classic Chamber of Commerce/Country Club Republican, was one of two contenders. He had won 8 straight elections including 2 state-wide.
State committee members favored Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, “movement conservative” who made his name suing school boards over “deviant” school library content, so they chose caucuses and a convention. Bolling knew he could not compete on that level with Cuccinelli’s coalition of bible-thumpers and Tea Party so he passed on the race.
That November, Terry McAuliffe barely squeaked by Cuccinelli. I’m pretty sure Bolling would have beaten “Terry.”
@Geminid:
Suzanne
@lowtechcyclist: CURSE THE WHORE, PERRY THE PLATYPUSSSSSSS.
Marcopolo
In other news, today is the day I hit my initial goal (the number they suggested at the training) for collecting petition signatures to put legalizing abortion on the ballot here in MO this fall. Figure if an older lard ass like me can accomplish that w/out breaking too much of a sweat that it’s likely we get the signatures we need (though I’m sure it’ll be more work in the rural CDs).
mrmoshpotato
@lowtechcyclist:
1. Shouldn’t that be Revirgin-inator?
2. Don’t you think just seeing Doof would turn anyone back into a virgin?
3. 🎶My name is Doof. You’re a virgin again. Woop Woop!🎶
Tony Jay
@Baud:
Or Baudists. All depends on their position on pants.
Chris T.
@JCJ:
“Demented Donald” works just as well, or maybe better because of the repeated D sound.
Jinchi
I have relatives who still think that Nikki Haley will be the Republican nominee and that Joe Biden will drop out to let Gavin Newsom run.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: That’s a good way to look at it. I don’t want to downplay race as a factor in U.S. politics. Historically, it has been huge, and it still is, no question about it. But there’s some evidence it’s waning as the defining factor, and if so, I think that’s a good thing (even if the most glaring current manifestation in my state is multiracial fascism). IIRC, education is a better predictor of voting behavior now.
@Bupalos: Agree. There’s a lot of resistance to the idea, and I understand why because race is still a defining factor, and people are rightly worried about coalition members discounting its salience and deprioritizing associated policies. Which we shouldn’t! But political realignments happen, and you’ve got to be on top of them.
Another Scott
@Bupalos: I’m suspicious of post-election analysis the same way I’m suspicious of polling. Lots and lots of assumptions go into the analysis. But, that said, people who do this stuff for a living (and do it right) know the value and limitations of the Census data, voter rolls, etc.
Still, one number in isolation has to be taken with a grain of salt.
Wikipedia on “White Americans”:
How much is a consequence of potential changes in the definition of “white”, I dunno. But getting more of a shrinking demographic isn’t usually a good thing – it’s often a sign of severe problems to come.
FWIW.
[eta:] To try to be clearer – TIFG’s base is angry old white people. Their numbers going down could mainly be demographics. Angry old non-white people of course goes up as the pool of non-white people goes up. (But, yeah, Democrats always have to adjust their message to local constituencies. AOC’s messages aren’t going to play very well in The Villages.)
Cheers,
Scott.
Frankensteinbeck
@Jinchi:
No, these are definitely disillusioned voters. The voters that identify as crossover are normal for those primaries, and the anti-Trump vote persists regardless. This isn’t a Democrats interfering in the primaries thing.
EDIT –
The news has worked so hard to create this illusion. A lot of people really don’t know it’s a Biden/Trump race!
TBone
@NotMax: backstory? Was Frank Zappa involved? Who’d do that to a child (never mind, ha ha). Mom was gonna name me Jocelyn but her bestie said I’d be called Josie and that wasn’t classy enough. A lifelong disappointment 😆
Marcopolo
@Geminid: Assume this is the John McGuire who fucked up the Pledge of Allegiance at a Trump campaign event yesterday. Of course, then the singer at the event fucked up singing The Star Spangled Banner. Can’t make this shit up. Link to shitter via nitter: https://nitter.poast.org/RonFilipkowski/status/1764290666014626141#m
H.E.Wolf
Very true!
Caucuses also tend to disempower people who have medical issues that hamper or prevent caucus participation, and people who have jobs* that are difficult to get time off from.
* Blue- and pink-collar jobs, and (paid or unpaid) child care jobs, among others.
People with disabilities, women, and low-income/low-status workers are therefore likely to be under-represented in caucus votes.
Betty Cracker
@Marcopolo: I’ve also followed the NJ race with interest. I don’t have any animus toward Murphy or his wife (except that she’s apparently been a Democrat for about five minutes). But I am inherently suspicious of political machines calling the shots and am happy to see voters rejecting that bullshit process.
NotMax
@TBone
Know nothing other than the names as they were at one time printed in the phone book.
eclare
@lowtechcyclist:
A fellow student in middle school was named Candy Apple.
eclare
@Marcopolo:
Yay you!
TBone
@NotMax: maybe the printer was having a good joke that day to see if anyone was paying attention. If someone called me Hi Ho out loud they’d get a smack in the kisser!
ETA I can see I missed out not paying more attention here today 🤣 thanks for ALL THE LAUGHS everybody!
Matt McIrvin
@Chris: It’s also a favorite of Putin and East European demagogues: American troublemakers want to make us all gay or trans to weaken our society, etc. Kind of hilarious to see the US portrayed as a source of left-wing extremism given liberals’ concept of ourselves as a right-wing backwater but that’s where we are.
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker:
The interesting thing about race as a voting factor is that it overlaps with other things. Example: age. Over 75% of American Boomers are white. But for Millennials, that’s right around 50%. Religiosity shows similar patterns. So when we try to tease out all these factors and wondering which is more explanatory, we’re often talking about the same people and wondering which aspect of their identity is most salient….. when in reality, it’s likely that all of those things intersected to form their worldview.
Chris Johnson
@lowtechcyclist:
@Baud: Oh my god YES. As lowtechcyclist said, that is absolutely brilliant, great. Or just, Obama should go out campaigning and urging people to vote Democrat and not to vote Trump, and let the orange man totally decompensate and lose his shit over it.
Another Scott
@lowtechcyclist: There was a Julia Louis-Dreyfus character named “April May June” on SNL.
Cheers,
Scott.
SiubhanDuinne
@mrmoshpotato:
And this is why you always hear the wailing around your house — “There’s a piece missing!! No no, I swear, this stupid company left out some pieces!!!”
NotMax
@eclare
Went to grammar school with a Justin Case. (For one year; the family moved away.)
When worked at a summer camp used to go around prior to each season to schedule inter-camp sports with other camps within rational driving distance. At one of those I was introduced to the female tennis counselor, name of Royce Rolls.
Chris Johnson
@SFAW: Hmm: thing is, this is serious, and it’s not funny.
So it’s tricky, because mocking fascists is in fact a good tactic, but just because they want to make everything a circus doesn’t mean it IS just a circus. Ask women whether it’s all a laugh. I’m not sure it’s possible to have a bigger collective ‘minority’ that’s getting kicked in the teeth by the policies of the ‘circus’, and it’s not funny. Just because the fascists deserve mockery doesn’t mean the damage they do is funny.
Geminid
@Jinchi: Strategic crossover voting typically is talked about more than it actually happens, I think. This year may be different, at least if the anecdotal evidence I’ve seen from Democrats here who’ve already voted for Haley shows a general trend.
Chris Johnson
@TBone: before it rains anymore 🎶
eclare
@Frankensteinbeck:
I had this discussion with my aunt who says she hears there will be some switcheroo at the Democratic convention. I asked who specifically was saying this and were they Democrats. I told her no way, but I think she thinks she knows better, because reasons.
She is a Republican, but she called me once Joe was announced the winner in 2020 to congratulate me. So she’s not a complete nut job.
mrmoshpotato
@SiubhanDuinne: House? Tell me more about this house of mine? Better yet, send me the address and keys. 😁
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker: I think the salience of gender identity and sexuality is increasing. These issues are mostly winners for us, so backtracking out of fear would be a disaster– the “dirtbag left” vision of a culturally reactionary leftism is a loser. But I also think the backlash against any attack on traditional patriarchy is global, multiracial and multicultural. It’s a thing that makes the situation harder for us.
Steeplejack
@lowtechcyclist:
But Agent P (Perry the platypus) thwarted him, as usual.
NotMax
@TBone
First heard about them from a friend who came up through the local school system with them. Used the phone book for verification.
rikyrah
@Kay:
They are chasing White Adjancy. , combined with misogyny . I don’t know why this is so difficult to understand.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@lowtechcyclist:
I went to HS with a guy named Tom Collins.
mrmoshpotato
@eclare:
Please tell me they actually named their daughter “Candace.”
Chris
@Bupalos:
Interesting to note that even the original Confederate States of America (what’s usually considered American Racism At Its Most Extreme) could be surprisingly diverse if you look back. Their land contained former Spanish, French, and Mexican territories to go with the English ones, and a lot of those non-WASPs, yes, even Hispanics, were completely on board with the Confederacy. And it doesn’t even stop with those, admittedly all European-ish people; there were lots of Indians who sided with the Confederacy too (notably Cherokee). None of which, of course, means the Confederacy wasn’t still racist as hell.
Scout211
Good for you. And thank you!
Soprano2
@Ken: Trust me, if he has some kind of dementia the people around him know. The doctors probably even know, they just can’t say anything because of HIPAA. But unless they’re incredibly stupid and/or obtuse, they definitely know.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Is it lucrative because it pays well
?
Or because of the sheer volume of cases, they add up to pay well?
Soprano2
@Princess: I heard a local report about the caucuses this morning, and as far as I heard they didn’t mention this happening at all.
schrodingers_cat
Don’t many Hispanic people self identify as white? I know several people of Puerto Rican descent that do. And they are white (blue eyed with pale skin). Isn’t Hispanic/Latino more a linguistic and geographic marker? The only way you would know that they are Hispanic is by their first and last names.
ETA: FWIW they are Ds my friends/acquaintainces from PR.
rikyrah
@Baud:
As long as they tapdance for White Supremacy and know their place, the buckdancers will be fine. And, they will be fine with them in the GOP. They are useful to them.
Baud
@eclare:
Baud! 20XX! supporters can get a little carried away. Don’t worry, we’re riding with Biden all the way to November.
Eyeroller
@Betty Cracker: Some recent data I’ve seen suggests that a lot of this phenomenon is men of all races (and in several countries) moving to the right, while women move to the left but apparently not yet enough to completely counter the men. So there’s a substantial contribution by good ol’ patriarchical resentment and misogyny to this effect. And that seems to be stronger than racism in many cases.
Marcopolo
@Betty Cracker: Yes to your points. One thing that really delights me is how joyful Kim & his supporters appear to be. They are happy. They like him. He likes them. We need more of this in our politics. I mean I don’t have a crystal ball 🔮 and can’t guarantee a Kim win but it would be nice. As for the gov’s wife, she’s already committed some stupid ham handed self-entitled shit on the campaign trail w/ folks. Makes for a pretty clear choice—at least for this outsider.
And for folks who’ve never heard of Andy Kim, he’s the Rep who was so moved/angry about J6 that he stayed after all the Jan 6 couping to help clean up the trash 🗑 and broken glass and other crap left behind in the Capital Rotunda by the MAGAs.
Chris
@Matt McIrvin:
I still remember going through several European countries in 2008 and seeing all this speculation about whether Obama could win or whether America was still too racist to let it happen.
It’s been a trip watching the stereotype of the United States go from “a bunch of racist rednecks who’re one beer away from a lynching at all times” to “a bunch of wide-eyed radicals who want to burn everything down (not something we French would ever have thought of on our own, of course).” All in barely fifteen years.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Yep. So far Rs have not been able to crack 30% of the Indian American vote for all the Haleys and Viveks tap dancing for white supremacy.
I do see BJP’s troll farms echo Trumpian talking points though. That was true in 2020 and it has only increased.
Matt McIrvin
@Chris: The same United States Army that fought in the cause of liberation in the US Civil War was an army of genocide against Native Americans. And the Confederates and their successors quite definitely were willing to game that for support and sympathy.
Chris Johnson
@Matt McIrvin: I mean, ‘dirtbag left’ just means Putin so yes, absolutely a loser.
Some things just move forward because they work better in a growing, multicultural society, and don’t move back again unless there’s catastrophic society failure. For instance, during my lifetime my Mom gained the ability to have a credit card in her own name (kind of like having a bank account that’s hers not her husband’s). That’s after I was already born, and I’m only 55. Women aren’t going to be stripped of the vote and the ability to have bank accounts and such, outside of crazy fundie hellholes.
By the same token, gay, gender, trans stuff was once not very practical to take action on, but now all manner of things make that stuff way more malleable than we thought it was. I always fall back on remembering my friend Zane, who was a dude even when we were teenagers in a band (that he led), and even when he was pre-transition and nobody had words for what he always, constantly, was. Now in 2024 all that is a lot more adjustable. Back when it wasn’t, I still knew what Zane was. There was just nothing to be done about it, so he suffered for decades.
It’s like that. Some genies don’t go back into bottles because the genie was natural and it was the bottle that was a myth.
Soprano2
@Kay: I hope you have a scarf to go with it. I wore scarves two days last week and thought of you. I still don’t know why they’re giving you a hard time about it, scarves are fashionable!
Uncle Cosmo
@mrmoshpotato: Calling caucuses “anti-democratic” obscures the real problem: They make a mockery of the secret ballot, which is a cornerstone of the democratic process.
One of my late friends, who I helped get elected to office twice back when we were both young, used to say, The only ones beside me who know how I voted are God and the voting machine: God’s not saying and the machine can’t.
I suppose there’s an argument that caucuses allow voters to make the case for their candidate with other voters. But that assumes everyone is acting in good faith. If one faction uses the caucus process to intimidate other factions and target them for retribution if they don’t “get in line”…
Which is something that concerns me for the general election: that heavily and obviously armed Trumpistas at polling places as “observers” will attempt to obstruct the process and intimidate Biden voters. IIRC the system in MD requires a printout of one’s voting form to be fed into a scanner and then submitted as a paper backup. That’s a great way to establish a paper trail for recount purposes – unless some “observer” with a Glock on his hip and a menacing look on his face demands to see the printout before it reaches the scanner and just trashes any he doesn’t like while officials (including any cops) look the other way out of complicity or fear, n’importe quoi. I hope our people are thinking long and hard about that and making plans to prevent it.
Marcopolo
@Soprano2: Here’s a piece w/ two anecdotes from two caucuses—I think the StL County one & one somewhere on the western side of the state (KC/Springfield maybe). According to these caucus attendees Haley supporters were made to stand in the center of the room (in both cases) while Trump supporters yelled nasty crap at them.
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-fans-missouri-caucus-wellman/
Edited to add: none of the caucuses in MO let reporters in to observe to you won’t hear any eye witness accounts from journalists.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: There’s one thing my mother did that I wish I had talked to her about. We inherited land from my sister – we had equal shares. In her trust my mother left the land to charities rather than to me, which meant I was forced into a sale. I wish I had talked to her about it to get her to leave it to me. Her estate (and I) will be paying a substantial capital gains tax this year because of the sale. I could have waited another year to sell, but I want to get the estate settled and it wasn’t a bad time to sell. It’s just that I hated to be forced into a sale.
Soprano2
@trnc: I think that should change. I think everyone over the age of 65 should take one every year, to establish a baseline and track if there is a problem. By the time you can get a doctor to give one, there is most certainly a problem.
eclare
@NotMax:
Royce Rolls is a badass name!
Betty Cracker
@Suzanne: Excellent points — it’s rarely just one thing
@Matt McIrvin: Also great points!
Matt McIrvin
Obama couldn’t win today. We’ve gotten more racist– well, not exactly, what’s happened is that the racists have gotten more permission to be violently loud and proud.
eclare
@mrmoshpotato:
That’s a good question, maybe. But they still should have known it would be shortened to Candy.
Soprano2
@Kay: I’m contemplating consulting with an elder law attorney just to make sure I have all our bases covered. We did trusts in 2014 so I already have the durable power of attorney and all the health care stuff for my husband. I don’t know enough about the ins and outs of the law to know if this covers everything or if there’s more. We won’t be eligible for any income-based help, I know that for sure.
Matt McIrvin
@Chris: … the French seeing the Americans as crazy sex/gender libertines is hilarious though.
eclare
@Marcopolo:
How can you see those photos of Andy cleaning up the trashed Capitol and not be impressed? I so hope he wins the primary. As you said, we need happy people.
Chris
@Matt McIrvin:
Definitely. And some of it was purely pragmatic response to that genociding – “both these people suck, let’s align with the one who’s less harmful to us.” But some of it went further than that, as with the Cherokee where the slave ownership went hand in hand with being one of the “Civilized Tribes.” They weren’t just betting that the South would be less harmful than the North, they had a real stake in the survival of Southern society as it currently existed.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Kay:
There is a new influx of immigrants from Venezuala whose stories about how socialist leaders wrecked their economies sounds just like their Cuban grandparents stories. Plus, they are socially conservative, especially when it comes to women’s roles in society. Even if the children of these immigrants vote Democratic because of GOP racism, they will mostly be conservative, not progressive, Dems.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@mrmoshpotato: Didn’t Dr. Doofenshmirtz have a daughter? As a general rule, that doesn’t happen unless you get lucky at least once.
TBone
@Chris Johnson: 💜and your previous comment. Women are the majority but you’d never know it if you’re listening 😉
Miss Bianca
@NotMax: Hey, my primary ballot has been counted, so let Super Tuesday roll! (Colorado still has the cumbersome caucus process for non-Presidential candidates for office. To me, it’s incredibly stupid and a waste of time having a hybrid system, but I’ll still be at the Dem caucus on Saturday morning.)
TBone
@NotMax: great Scott! Exclamation!
TBone
My elementary school was (is) named Aronimink (indigenous for “beaver”) and we danced around a Maypole like proper heathens.
different-church-lady
@rusty: Yeah, but if it fucks with the TRUMP INVINCIBLE narrative even slightly, it’s a good thing.
Chris
@Matt McIrvin:
The French view of the Americans as uptight prudes has always had a nasty undercurrent of what we’d now call “toxic masculinity.” Yes, part of it is “oh my God, why can’t those uptight fucking puritans understand that people are going to have sex before marriage and that’s okay.” But “those uptight fucking puritans” can be used to refer to the #MeToo types just as easily as the Religious Right types, and it’s not much of a leap from that to gay-bashing and trans-bashing.
Harrison Wesley
I guess I’m pretty lucky – the polling place is a 10-minute walk from my apartment, and I’m already registered to vote by mail. Usually I don’t bother with either one – the bus transfer stop going into downtown Bradenton is about 10-15 yards from the Supervisor of Elections’ office, which has a drop-off slot in the wall. So I know my ballot gets in; what they do with it, I have no idea.
Steeplejack
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
Doofenshmirtz has a daughter, Vanessa. He is (somewhat amicably) divorced and receives alimony from his ex-wife.
Why, yes, I have been using kids’ shows to zone out occasionally from politics. Bluey is the gold standard.
Chris
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
Even outside of Cuba and Venezuela (which are genuine horror stories), the fact is that Miami is the capital-in-exile of every country south of the border. (See Bolsonaro running away there as soon as he’d lost the election). That makes for a really strong nexus of reactionary politics, which inevitably bleeds down into the local politics as well as the international one.
Princess
@Baud: I’m likely too optimistic— most will probably vote for him and whether they are enthusiastic or not doesn’t matter.
lowtechcyclist
@Chris:
Tangential to your point, I know, but that narrative was still in my fourth grade Virginia history text in the 1962-63 school year.
Miss Bianca
@Chris T.: I dunno, I think I’m still partial to “Donnie Demento”, personally.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: I find myself hoping that doctors will also get a clue about treating older people. They always want to fix things, when sometimes the better course is to not fix it and instead wait to see if it gets worse or even needs fixing.
Matt McIrvin
@Chris Johnson: Some of the people who whine about “woke” have this idea that all this is a fad that will go away soon and everything will go back to the their imaginary version of the way it was. Goils are goils and men are men, gay people go back in the closet, everyone stops saying “Happy Holidays” and we’ll ban the metric system.
Soprano2
@Marcopolo: I guess I need to seek someone out to sign that petition, because so far here in Springfield I haven’t been approached to sign it yet.
Frankensteinbeck
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
And we need to remember that Hispanics are not one ethnicity, they’re at least a dozen. Some of them are as racist as any white person against those other ethnicities and are delighted by Trump’s promise to put Mexican immigrants in camps. They are sure the leopard won’t eat their face.
Seriously, the fact that Hispanics are many different ethnicities is a big deal even liberal Democrats ignore, to our peril. I remember how shocked I was to find out there are many different dialects of Spanish, and that they are very different and it’s a big deal to Spanish speakers.
Frankensteinbeck
@Steeplejack:
Would you like some recommendations?
Soprano2
@Marcopolo: Messing up the Star Spangled Banner is more common than you might think. Even seasoned singers do it every now and then.
252man
@Kay: I wonder if religion plays into this?
Suzanne
@Soprano2: To be fair to medical providers….. a lot of people don’t want to take care of themselves and go into medical clinics demanding medications or easy fixes. And this creates a vicious cycle of neglect and demand.
The truth about many things relating to physical and mental health is that a lot of maintenance is involved, over your whole life.
Marcopolo
@Soprano2: well, I’d mess it up too but then no one in their right mind would ever ask me to sing it. Otoh, the Pledge is like what, 30-35 words tops (too lazy to count it out atm). How do you fuck that up? If you are one of these MAGA types aren’t you saying it almost every day—it’s like the Lord’s Prayer or saying the rosary for them (or so I thought).
Matt McIrvin
@Chris: Still hilarious, because the American view of the French as sexual perverts was soaking in toxic masculinity and homophobia too.
tybee
@NotMax:
you left out Georgia
lowtechcyclist
@H.E.Wolf:
But that’s the way the Founders intended it!
/s
Ironcity
@SFAW: Makes him an ideal subject matter expert to cite. He is in no position to correct you.
Geminid
@Chris: My understanding is that the Cherokee Nation had a Unionist faction (led by John Ross), a larger Confederate faction and a sizable component that favored neutrality in the White Men’s war. The Confederate Cherokies and other Oklahoma Territory Natives made up an “Indian Brigade” that fought in several bsttles in the Tran-Mississippi theatre.
When the war began, a Creole Regiment was raised from New Orleans volunteers. I think that when the U.S. Navy took New Orleans in the Spring of 1862, a lot of those Creole Confederates drifted home and stayed out of the fighting.
New Orleans was a big loss for the Confederates. It was the South’s largest industrial center and would have yielded a lot more soldiers had it remained under Confederate control. Later that Spring, Grant’s victories in central Kentucky and Tennessee similarly denied the Confederates a wide swath of material resources and potential draftees. The Union gained advantages in the first half of 1862 that made a difference in the three years of war that followed.
The fall of New Orleans was felt acutely by one Louisiana regiment serving in Virginia. Its volunteers were mainly upper-crust New Orleans citizens, and they brought their own French chef with them who was supplied with fine food shipped from home. When the shipments ceased, the chef threw up his hands and took himself and his pet fox back to the Big Easy.
UncleEbeneezer
@Suzanne: When the GOP stops using Black People and Immigrants (and we all know they don’t mean Swedes) as the predominant face of their constant scare tactics to attract voters, I’ll believe that race is no longer the primary driver of US politics. Race may be diminishing as a predictor of how someone votes but it is still absolutely central to any discussion when racist policies, stereotypes, myths are still being used to court votes. The GOP has only been successful at increasing margins of POC votes by spreading the hatred around to everyone. I’m fairly certain Cuban-American Trump supporters in FL will talk your ear off about Crime In Chicago, Welfare Queens, BLM Terrorists and countless other racist FoxNews talking points. Conservative Latinx voters eat that shit up just as bad as white ones. If they are Republican voters, I guarantee they hold fucked up views about Black People. If they are Black, then they hate Women/LGBTQ People, Immigrants (and maybe Black People too, see: Clarence Thomas, Candace Owens, Tim Scott etc.) Of course there are POC who hate other groups enough to support the GOP. Bigotry is sadly very popular and always will be.
But yes, you are absolutely right. All of this shit overlaps which is why it’s damn near impossible to ever find just one thing or one group to focus on. You can always slice the demographic another way and see things differently. Just as we can’t look solely through a lens of Race or we’d miss the huge impact of Misogyny and vice versa. It’s both/and not either/or. It’s complicated and always will be, unfortunately.
CarolPW
@Chris T.: Sounds like a type of dinosaur. ETA: DementedDon.
Jackie
@Soprano2: MSNBC covered it, so it DID happen; don’t know why your local news omitted it, unless it was in a caucus that was outside of your caucus region?
Ksmiami
@Soprano2: make sure if your spouse has IRAs and 401ks that you are the beneficiary because they are solely his property and will only be distributed quickly if the beneficiary is named.
Cheryl from Maryland
The flaws in caucuses were brought home to me when I phone banked several years ago. It was in the evening; I guess close to half of the people I reached were at work. Caucuses like Iowa’s are for middle class professionals who can take an evening off. That’s not representative. Heck, voting in the actual election can be hard enough.
TBone
@Geminid: 👍💜
Geminid
One key to winning over Hispanic voters is providing visible representation in higher offices. In 2022, Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes was a strong candidate in his own right, but I think his victory served a wider purpose of giving Arizona Hispanic voters representation. This group has lagged behind their Anglo counterparts in voter registration, but they are catching up now. Mr. Fontes and now Ruben Gallego are giving Arizona Hispanics good reason to vote, and vote Democratic.
Fontes and Gallego are an interesting contrast in that Gallego’s mom was born in Mexico, while Fontes’ forbears arrived in what is now Arizona during the 1740s. One thing Fontes and Gallego have in common: both men are Marine Corps veterans.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: That’s true as far as it goes. I wish I had asked the urologist “What happens if we don’t do anything” regarding my husband’s kidney stones. When someone has dementia, the calculus for fixing things changes, but oftentimes doctors don’t take that into account. This whole ordeal hubby has been though has caused major changes in his condition that I’m convinced wouldn’t have happened otherwise. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to get him to leave the house again! Would that have happened eventually anyway, perhaps, but did it have to happen now? No, it did not.
Soprano2
@Jackie: It probably was, they covered the one that happened locally.
Soprano2
@Ksmiami: Yeah, we did all of that when we did our trust. You’re absolutely right about that. He never put my name on his checking account, so eventually I’ll have to take the POA to his bank in order to be able to do anything with his account, although the truth is that I could make an online account for him right now and do almost anything.
NotMax
@tybee
Georgia is on March 12.
@eclare
In fairness, only heard it, never saw it written out so for all I know may have been something like Rowles.
Kay
@Soprano2:
Do it. Worth every penny, IMO. I think you (as the spouse) will find it reassuring – US law really does give spouses a privileged legal position but it woudn’t be a bad time to ask about nursing homes – who pays, what that might mean to planning. You’re protected from any Medicaid clawbacks as long as you, as a spouse, are alive but people can also “spend down” their own estates by giving gifts to younger relatives. There’s often resistance to doing that because it’s a control issue – the olders want to control the youngers.
Kay
@Frankensteinbeck:
I actually think the focus on ethnicity among Latinos hurts Democrats. The Latinos where I live (primarily of Mexican descent) consider themselves Americans. As they should! I think we keep making this mistake over and over where we attribute their opinions to their country of ethnic origin in a way we do with no other group. It’s bizarre to believe a 3rd generation ethnically Mexican college student has anything at all in common with “Mexico”, anymore than a 4th generation Polish person has a connection to Poland.
We should maybe start treating them like Americans -they are Americans.
Kay
@Frankensteinbeck:
There’s a real griftery aspect to “Latino outreach” in politics too. Whoever Democrats are hiring to tell them how to talk to Latinos in FL, for example – that person is not adding any value. I think we start with “they are American voters” and go from there.
wjca
@NotMax:
Local family initially were going to name their son John. Just a matter of both parents liking the name. Which sounds innocuous, but…
Then they realized that, since the family name was Smith, this was a TERRIBLE idea, and switched to something less fraught.
wjca
Perhaps more to the point, it typically isn’t strategic at all. It’s tactical. A strategic vote would be to get the most sensible candidate on the other side, so that if we lose the election there will still be somebody decent in office.
Voting to the worst candidate in the other party’s primary is a matter of going all in on him then losing. If the race is close enough to make you hope an extreme opposing candidate would have enough less support for you to win, it’s too close to make the risk worthwhile.
Citizen Alan
@Baud: He would also be a vastly superior President than Shitgibbon would.
cain
@Frankensteinbeck:
Puerto Ricans speak spanish really fast and they have a tough time with Mexicans because they speak it so slow. lol. They complain “GET TO THE POINT!” – I find that kind of funny.
cain
@Chris: I will never understand those socialist govts. When you hear the stories – it doesn’t seem like anything you’d expect. I expect unions, strong worker protections, and a swathe of other things that was good about socialism. But instead abject poverty, and a wide gulf between rich and poor coupled with rampant corruption and crime.
Chris
@cain:
It turns out that democratic accountability really is important, and any regime that rejects it will soon enough end up reproducing most of the same problems as the old regime, if under a different name.
Murc (of Murc’s Law fame) over at LGM has a pretty solid refrain going that some combination of liberal politics and leftist (by which he broadly means socialist) politics is vital to running a just society; they cover each other’s blind spots pretty well. Communist societies are a case in point – they’re what happens when you try to run left-wing politics without the liberal niceties of freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, free and fair elections, etc. Since there’s no one to hold the leaders accountable, they gradually reproduce the same kind of oligarchic corruption that came before.
Steeplejack
@Frankensteinbeck:
Sure. Always looking for new stuff.
sab
@Kay:
@artem1s:
I early voted today. I had my preference and talked my husband into it ( otherwise he would have just been throwing darts) but I am very comfortable with either candidate.
Whole huge long ballot but only three opposed, Biden and that Minnesota loon, the two judges, and state rep/senate (I forget which) with one candidate I truly despise.
Took me forever to fill in all the dots for the unopposed candidates.