This isn’t a prediction, but my gut feeling is Trump is going to lose in November more decisively than generally supposed right now. I also believe his candidacy will have a measurably negative effect on his party’s fortunes, partly because of stuff like this: (Politico)
Donald Trump’s bid to oust a Florida Republican who backed Ron DeSantis over him is reviving a long-running GOP anxiety: that he can’t be dissuaded from the grudges and inflammatory rhetoric that plagued his party’s lawmakers during his first term.
Trump’s call for a challenger to Rep. Laurel Lee (R-Fla.), the only House Republican from DeSantis’ state to endorse the Florida governor in the primary, reveals a campaign with little interest in courting his former rivals and their supporters.
The article quotes sundry Republicans who are shocked — shocked! — that Trump seems indifferent to the electoral fate of any GOP candidate not named Donald J. Trump. But as the noxious orange fart cloud is fond of braying at his hate rallies, “You knew I was a snake when you took me in!”
Lee, the targeted rep in the Tampa Bay area, will likely win her primary. IIRC, the candidate filing deadline had already passed before the alleged political savant Trump tried to gin up a MAGA challenger.
But local Dems have identified an excellent candidate to oppose Lee in the general, Hillsborough County Commissioner Pat Kemp. I know Kemp a little from working with the Democratic Party in that county before we moved. Like all Florida districts, the 15th is heavily gerrymandered, but Kemp seems exactly the type of experienced and disciplined pol who could pull off an upset.
Anyhoo, some in the crappy national political media are finally noticing that substantial portions of the Republican base are still voting for Trump opponents in primaries long after those candidates flamed out, and these savvy pundits are belatedly concluding that this isn’t a positive sign for GOP unity. All I can say is welcome to the party, pals!
I’m not confident about anything. The past several years revealed the galloping stupidity and malevolence of a greater portion of our electorate than I fully comprehended before 2016.
But today, the Trump-led Republicans are failing on the basic blocking and tackling parties must do to succeed, like not turning the party institution into a personal grift operation and not gratuitously attacking incumbents with seats in a closely divided chamber. May they reap what they sow in abundance.
Open thread.
schrodingers_cat
Rs and going to lose decisively and the whining from the usual suspects especially the Orange One is going to be epic
Happy Easter!
Chief Oshkosh
Trump is bigly in every way.
Jeffro
Plenty of reasons to think that the orange moron will lose even more badly than he did 4 years ago.
its all right there, for those with eyes to see
schrodingers_cat
OT: From the last thread
India’s caste hierarchy on full display. The President of India stands while the PM sits.
SteveinPHX
The rule I remember from when I was a kid was you made the tent bigger before the election. Then once you had won you were in good shape to go after those you felt were traitorous.
You’re right. Trump is not doing this.
West of the Rockies
@Jeffro:
Is anyone going to challenge your view and say, “Nope”?
I say that Nope is not a strategy.
GOTV. But I’m feeling reasonably optimistic, too.
Ten Bears
I don’t think he’s even gonna’ be in it. Maybe as No Labels
Mitt, and Darth’s Daughter …
Almost Retired
@schrodingers_cat: Agree heartily! Just read an excellent Michael Hiltzik column in the Los Angeles times laying out the budget proposals for 2025 by the Republican Study Committee.
All sorts of crowd pleasers like taking away your healthcare, slashing your Social Security and Medicare benefits, functionally outlawing IVF, tons more abortion restrictions, and several measures which can only be described as pro-global warming.
The strategy seems to be expanding the universe of people whose faces will become leopard food. There’s a lot of fodder in that loathsome document for some great campaign ads.
jackmac
The best result would be an LBJ-style blowout and squash the Orange menace once and for all.
That won’t likely happen. Too many red states and voters clinging to various resentments while blindly worshiping Trump. Still, it feels like a pretty decisive Biden / Dem win is coming that will also bring along the House and Senate.
Matt
I don’t see how the irrelevant choices of fascists in a meaningless primary says ANYTHING about the general; just because they liked Nikki’s or Ron’s flavor of hate-milkshake better doesn’t mean they aren’t going to goose-step in tempo come November.
Fair Economist
After the clusterfuck of Trump’s term, it’s hard to believe any result is possible other than him losing in a landslide. But man, those polls.
Egorelick
I’m worried about loss of support from Jews and Muslims over Gaza. Also, Ukraine may get worse so some might want to abandon them. Finally, covid was terribly handled which benefitted Biden. Voters were stupid in 2016; I will never trust this country again.
Frankensteinbeck
As I recall, Trump is running 50/50 at best with endorsing primary candidates, and that’s including his tendency to jump in and endorse the guy who’s already winning. In general elections, his candidates outside of completely safe seats get their asses kicked.
He does love to endorse someone who’s already winning in a safe Republican seat and then count up all those numbers and pretend they mean he’s a winner.
In 2020 he had the Republican base, including the hardcore white supremacists who don’t usually bother to vote, feeling like they were inches from absolute, permanent victory. Now he’s covered in loser stink. They haven’t abandoned him, but the romance is gone.
RaflW
I hope it’s not too large a quote of paid content, but Josh Marshall was on this theme two days ago as well. I’m probably a bit less hedge-y than he is (I think the likely incompetence and money diversion at the RNC will hurt more than is currently expected, in part because it will trigger more intra-party infighting and bickering over scraps).
— —
Parties aren’t what they used to be. But the two party committees still play an important mobilization role and an important role supporting state parties. If the RNC is significantly weakened or turned into a Trump legal defense fund, that has big implications for the whole election.
Even when you step back and look at the rest of the party committees there’s a similar picture. Democratic House and Senate committees are significantly outraising Republican ones. The NRCC and the NRSC are still under standard management, as far as I know. But the money differential is still important.
I don’t think we can count out the possibility that a combination of demoralization and division, structural breakdown and insufficient funding could lead to a dramatic underperformance in GOP congressional and other campaigns this year. Again, I’m not predicting this. I definitely would not bet on it. There’s a very decent chance Republicans could have a trifecta next year, though I’m increasingly dubious about their chances in the House.
— —
I’ll add that, given what incompetent noobs Trump-associated folks have been, we can expect the housecleaning at the RNC to mean that people with ‘loyalty’ to J6 getting installed means the RNC will get notably worse at data management, list building, and all the things that matter close in for turnout.
To reverse a metaphor, they’re disassembling the plane while flying it (and, hey, maybe the RNC will hire some ex-Boeing folks!)
Glidwrith
@Fair Economist: You would think after that clusterfuck of a term, more people would wise up, but even more people turned out to vote for SFB than in the 2016 election. We just happened to turn out even more than the fascists did and eked out just enough in the right places to win the electoral college.
The margin, IIRC, was only 40,000 votes. It still makes me break out in a cold sweat.
Frankensteinbeck
@Egorelick:
I’m not. For all the loud voices, it hasn’t shown up anywhere in the primaries. Michigan, the place that was the biggest worry, the ‘choose none of the above’ campaign didn’t get even a blip. 14% sounds scary, except that’s actually normal for ‘none of the above’. Context is everything.
There’s not even a suggestion of that on the Democrat side. I hope Ukraine crushes Russia, but any Ukraine losses only make Republicans look worse.
True enough, but Trump has plenty of new negatives, on top of everyone who hated him then still hating him now. He has legal troubles, he’s not an incumbent, and we have Dobbs.
We’re fine. The national press desperately wants you to think Biden is as unpopular as Trump. Take one look at the primaries and you know they failed.
sab
@Egorelick: I think Kay is right and a lot of people are quietly outraged. I hope they realize before November how much worse the Republicans are on the issue.
Scout211
Thanks Betty! I am always looking to find sources that boost my addiction to hopium. I need to have hope that there will be an end to this Trump nightmare. Every little bit helps And when the media starts writing stories for the normies that we already know about here on balloon-juice, it gives me hope.
I commented yesterday that links two of the posts on balloon-juice from yesterday were listed on Memeorandum. Now this one is, too. What is happening here? Are we getting more clicks, more notice? Are we [gulp) mainstream?! 😳
Mike in NC
Fat Bastard has a favorite saying: “Always win and always get even”. He’s the most vindictive fucking prick that ever lived.
Spanky
The OP and comments so far have been mostly on the way things are today. Trump is only going to get worse as the year progresses, and his trials are going to be getting more airplay. I hope the Biden campaign starts stressing that Donnie needs to come out and debate. Trump’s handlers would be crazy to let that happen, but when he hides out that’s going to shake a lot of his followers.
He’s a babbling idiot now. I suspect we can add “drooling” by the time October rolls around.
pacem appellant
@schrodingers_cat: @betty cracker: Trump and the GOP are going to lose badly this November despite the gerrymander in the House. The Senate, I dunno. I can’t see a way our f’ed up country gets that one right. But regardless, the media will learn all the wrong lessons when they’re caught with their pants around their ankles wondering why their wunderkind Trump failed to recapture the White House.
JWR
One thing I noticed about Trump is that in the video, where he talks about having ‘many Bibles’ at home, he’s barely concealing an evil little grin. I think he’s getting lazy with his fleecing, especially when he tells such obvious lies.
May he lose bigly and forevermore, amen.
Jackie
BettyCracker, I’m with you re TIFG losing yuugly; my concern is the Senate and judges. This doesn’t help:
I hope this ends up being much ado about nothing… our chances of holding on to the senate will be vastly diminished if Gallegos loses. 🤞🏻
p.a.
I always credited the Republican Party with a kind of vicious intelligence, a success at appealing to the worst aspects of an all-too-often sufficient number of people to be an effective party- effective at controlling the reins of power if not effective at actual governing. But the continuing… ummm… coitus with the human black hole that is Donald tRump is vicious, but not intelligent.
I think I should edit this to mean the institutional Republican Party. What is currently the Republican Party is a Frankenstein’s monster of bigots, grifters, flat-earthers, and other assorted idjits. Also, Frankenstein’s monster was self-aware and literate; so maybe it’s more like the agglomeration of beasts that appeared occasionally in John Carpenter’s The Thing.
Mike E
Nice John McClane movie line, I’m feeling a Die Hard With A Vengeance vibe with this election tho without a Simon bringing the vexing brain teasers… the media is getting played like the NYC police in the movie, and playing us in turn.
Starfish
@Matt: They were voting against Trump after his competitors had left the primary. Some of them will return to the Republican Party. Some of them will sit it out. Some of them will decide to show the Republican Party their decisive distaste for their agenda by voting for Democrats.
Getting rid of people like Boebert and Sinema means that people are tired of very self-involved politicians.
RaflW
I know evangelical protestantism in the US is totally broken, but I’d still like to think on this Easter Sunday that a significant number of pastors outside that nationalistic, authoritarian bent would rise up and publicly express their revulsion over this latest blasphemy: The Washington (Moonie) Times has a piece up on “The Crucifixion of Trump”, which of course Donnie Dinglehands has quote-posted on his grift-site.
The electoral whomping that this nation needs, but that may or may not come in November, needs to move through evangelical American institutions like a tsunami. Their embrace of the money changer is so profane and toxic.
Scout211
Republicans in disarray articles are also good the read, like this one .
LOL. Unity no more, Republicans!
RaflW
@pacem appellant: Yep. If Biden is retained and the House flips Dem, the press response will be “We didn’t understand the shifts in the Republican base voters, so we have to dig even deeper into the greasy-spoon index. To the diners, post haste!!”
They won’t even notice that they aren’t curious about the Democratic coalition, which they pretend to already understand fully, and misapprehend as embarrassing combination of boring and silly.
artem1s
I took a look at 270toWin this morning for the first time in about 4 years. The biggest change I see is that that are a lot less states considered to be ‘in competition’ or ‘leaning’ on the electoral map than there were this time 4 years ago. For instance, most pollsters have conceded FL and TX are in the solid Red camp rather than leaning or too close to call (can’t believe FL was ever TCTC but the MSM must have a horse race story). On the Dem side CO and MN are already solid Blue whereas they were in the TCTC column right up until election day.
In the Sabatos Map, 5 states are still TCTC.
WI, GA, MI, AZ, and NV – PA (Sabatos has PA leaning Blue – Consensus has it TCTC)
However, there are more that are solidly Blue now than 4 years ago. And because of the census redistricting, CO and CA could throw 2 more EC votes to Biden right off the bat.
There are currently 3 scenarios with the Sabatos map where Blue wins and only 1 for Red. Right now it all comes down to wrapping up PA early and keeping WI Blue. If NV and MI both lean stronger blue it’s going to be obvious by summer that this will indeed be a blow out. GA is not as big a factor as it was 4 years ago and that makes me breath a lot easier.
trnc
He’ll support Lee very publicly at some point. It’s all done for attention.
Another Scott
@Glidwrith:
Yeah, that number is scary, but remember Frankensteinbeck’s admonition that “context is everything”.
44,000 votes would have changed the result if they were the “right” votes in the “right” states. IOW, it’s the minimum number needed to get a different result if nothing else changed.
I’m not sanguine. Every vote matters. But counter-factuals are counter-factuals. Take the win and build on it.
In 2020 TIFG had incumbency and the whole apparatus of the federal government, many state governments, and much of the press. He lost. He doesn’t have those advantages now.
PewResearch.org has a big (3 page) story on slicing and dicing voter responses in the 2020 election, and a link to their 2022 story on the midterms.
Turnout drives the results, baby. The GQP and many state parties are broke so it’s hard for them to have a decent turnout effort.
Hang in there.
Cheers,
Scott.
geg6
Let me add some other signs that are keeping the optimism and hope burning in my heart (at a very low flame right now). His fundraising numbers are terrible, especially among small donors. The RNC numbers are even worse. His DIL has fired all staffers who are deemed insufficiently loyal, including pretty much all state level organizers. He’s still demonizing mail-in voting. And all the quitters and quitters-in-waiting in Congress are some of the most experienced people they have there. No one likes his surrogates. And although pundits dismiss this completely, all the Dem special election and referenda wins have to mean something.
Kelly
@Fair Economist: Here in rural Oregon Trump got a slightly higher percentage of the vote in 2020.
Miss Bianca
@artem1s: Aren’t some of these toss-up states among those that Four Directions is targeting for GOTV efforts among Native Americans? WaterGirl can set me straight on this.
TaMara
To recap: Women of all political flavors are PISSED and the GOP keeps stepping in it regarding body autonomy. The men who love them are also pissed.
Thinking Republicans are exhausted with his antics
Despite MSM trying to sabotage people’s minds – the economy is booming, the stock market is booming (well, except DJT stock which was down 13% by end of the week if I’m reading it right), crime is down, etc etc and that seems to be finally getting through the noise
Trump is decompensating (decomposing) hourly and it’s harder to hide.
Oh, and let’s not forget – he’s got trials coming up (finally! fucking judges) and that’s going to put that behavior front and center.
Oh, and the RNC is being drained for his bills.
I’m more worried about House and Senate – we need them so we can start to seriously undo the damage the current GOP has created (may they all rot in hell)
My 🪙🪙
stinger
@Scout211: BJ has moved into the top 9,000 blogs.
Betty Cracker
@Matt: Would you rather be the guy whose primary voters overwhelmingly support him or the one with an unusually large percentage of base voters who are still casting ballots for losers who’ve already washed out? As I said, I’m not sure of anything, but there are signs of Trump’s weakness that our craptacular political press has all but ignored until recently.
sab
@artem1s: As an Ohioan aren’t you gobsmacked that we turned so red so fast?
hells littlest angel
I admit to a tendency to be overly optimistic, but it seems like Republicans are trying to trounced in November, with the whining and the racism and the abortion banning.
Nukular Biskits
Good (late) mornin’, y’all.
Recovering a bit from yesterday’s activities so I’m mostly chilling today.
NotMax
@Fair Economist
“Public opinion polls are rather like children in a garden, digging things up all the time to see how they’re growing.”
– Adlai Stevenson
.
geg6
@Scout211:
Awww, hell no! Nobody wants that! 😉
H.E.Wolf
I anticipate a Democratic victory… if we all do a share of the work. Hence the “little fish working together to overwhelm the big fish” illustration that accompanies the 2024 Balloon Juice GOTV fundraising posts.
Taking one small, concrete action also has an effect on the doer. Worriers will worry a bit less; the discouraged will be heartened.
Anyone who doesn’t believe that, give it a try and see what happens. If it doesn’t boost your spirits in the slightest, you’ve still helped push the plough a little further along the field.
sab
@sab: Emilia Sykes could use some $. Her formerly safe district got redisricted to a tossup because the GOP is afraid of her. She is mild mannered but persistant.
Almost Retired
@Miss Bianca: Yep, WaterGirl posted earlier that Four Directions is going hard into AZ, NV, WI, MI and MT.
Melancholy Jaques
I am in accord with you, but want to avoid jinxes, so this is not a prediction but merely a framework. Always the first question in our horrible election system is which states that Biden won last time will he lose this time? I’d guess Georgia.
I’d also suggest the possibility, a thing that may never happen but could, that once Trump’s support drops a little, it will drop a chunk. It will never go down too far with the huge percentage of racists and assholes, but it only needs to drop like five points to show that he is a certain loser.
oldgold
MAGA is starting to murmur about revoking the 22nd Amendment that limits a President to 2 terms.
In the past, I could have argued the merits of the 22nd Amendment round or flat. And, in fact, I did. I was at times for it and other times against it.
Now, after watching the dangers posed by Don Poorleone and his cult for the last 8 years, as much as I disliked sending talent like Obama permanently to the presidential bench of history, I am and will remain a firm advocate for the 22nd Amendment.
sab
@Almost Retired: NV is a weird state because there is so much migration in and out. They don’t have a solid voter base because so many people are new.
I lived there for four years and I could not wait to leave. The natives are lovely, but the transients (and I was one of them) are not. And there are a lot of transients.
H.E.Wolf
My recollection (from the Zoom event last fall) is that Four Directions plans to get out the Native vote in NV, AZ, and WI for sure.
(The Native voter turnout in NV and AZ has been greater than the margin of Democratic victory, in some decisive elections in the recent past.)
Four Directions is also going to be very active in MT in 2024, thanks in part to Balloon Juice – and there’s at least one more state on their 2024 list that I’m forgetting.
H.E.Wolf
Michigan! Thank you. :)
bbleh
I concur, and similarly cautiously. A big external shock could overwhelm all the trends that seem slowly to be emerging. But as those trends continue and grow and reinforce each other, it will take a bigger and bigger shock, which means it’s less and less likely.
I think Biden is right to get out of the WH, take the campaign to Trump, and make HIM the issue. A Rose Garden strategy would leave him vulnerable to all the usual grumblings and grousing about “the world isn’t doing exactly what I want and why isn’t the President doing something about it?” Make the choice not between the imperfect (if damn good by all measures!) status quo under Biden and some imagined Better World under an imagined Better Candidate, but rather between the imperfect-but-damn-good and the horrifyingly awful. I think a LOT of people are open to getting the “horrifyingly awful” message, but it’s gotta be stuck in front of them every day and their faces pushed into it.
Soldier on! Donate! Volunteer! Organize! And FFS VOTE, and make sure your friends do too!
VFX Lurker
Some thoughts on MI:
No one here should let up on the gas, but MI is possible this November.
Betty Cracker
@Melancholy Jaques: That sounds about right to me. I think both Trump and Biden are unpopular (only one deservedly so), but my guess is Trump has a solid ceiling, whereas Biden has room to improve. The folks who noted the upcoming trials have a great point too — Trump is on full display as an entitled asshole, and more people will be paying attention as November gets closer.
SiubhanDuinne
@schrodingers_cat:
Is any of that misogyny as well as caste hierarchy?
P.S. Love your daffodils!!
Baud
So no one in this thread thinks highly of RFK Jr’s chances apparently.
rk
@Egorelick:
I have a friend who voted “uncommitted” in the Michigan primary. She and a bunch of her friends decided to vote uncommitted. They’re all planning to vote for Biden in the general.
Having said that, I know a lot of young people who’re absolutely disgusted by what’s happening in Gaza. Don’t know how they’re going to vote.
Princess
I’m hopeful but I don’t trust myself. So here’s some devil’s advocate thinking: one thing we have a really hard time measuring here on BJ is what the toots are thinking, feeling and hearing. I think there’s a lot of ratf*king directed at this group, a lot of propaganda and disinformation, which in turn props up a lot of genuine and legitimate concern about what’s going on in the world and how they see their own futures. I could imagine the Dem youth vote falling off a cliff. That’s my biggest concern.
Old Dan and Little Ann
Waving on vacation from Anna Maria Island. I wouldn’t want to live in this gd weather for more than a week.
Brachiator
I hope you’re right. The early enthusiasm for Biden is a good sign.
This is the Trump that the GOP wants. They shrugged off warnings from Christie and Haley about the consequences of giving in to Trump. And the GOP faithful, the MAGA crowd, absolutely swoon over the Orange Beast precisely because he wallows in grudges and delights in inflammatory rhetoric. He does what they would like to do. He says what they want to hear.
Ruckus
@Jeffro:
I hope and believe that this is the near future for SFB.
However.
There is an old saying, don’t count your chickens till the eggs hatch.
And I think this is a better strategy. We really need to win, and win as big as possible, otherwise this shit show is going to continue. Now of course we’ve got a number of points on our side. First, SFB is likely to be their candidate, unless he continues to show how well and rapidly his mind seems to be aging out. His parents lived into their 90s so there is that history. Next is his “campaigning” or whatever the hell it is that he’s actually doing. I sort of doubt that half the country wants a rage monkey that makes less and less sense as the seconds tick by. Some will because they think that the country will fall unless SFB wins. But that segment was never going to vote for reality and humanity. My point is that if SFB continues to age as “well” and as fast as he currently is, many people on his side that pay any attention are at least going to stay home, because insanity/senility does not make a good leader.
RaflW
@oldgold: Yeah, The American Conservative (a small fry in the MAGA infirmament) published a “Trump 2028” article calling for the Court to end the 22nd Amendment.
Because of course ‘conservatism’ meant both inventing a reason to pass the 22nd in response to FDR, and inventing a reason to get rid of it for an incompetent, narcissistic con-man who will be 82 years old in 2028.
I’m starting to think conservatism has no ‘core principles’. (Except preserving white male power).
Eolirin
@Jackie: Diminished? They’ll be practically nonexistent. I can’t see a universe in which Gallego loses but we somehow win in Florida or Texas, and I don’t see any other pickup opportunities.
We’d be having such a good night if we got either of those that Gallego probably wins even with a scandal.
JWR
Meanwhile, Mike Turner (Repuke OH), was on Face the Nation, and he was asked if he thought it appropriate for Trump to be
sellinghawking Bibles. He answers, paraphrasing, obvs, “I haven’t seen it yet, but you know what I’m more concerned about? It’s this WH preventing innocent little children from putting religious symbols on their Easter eggs! These are Little Children, dammit!”Then they had a couple of religious weirdos on, and one of them, the Archbishop of D.C., dismissively calls Biden a “Cafeteria Catholic” because he ignores the “Life” issue, (never uses the word ‘abortion’), and just picks and chooses the elements of the religion that are easy. Well excuuuse me, Mr. Perfect Catholic! Now F the Hell off with your “he’s doing it wrong” schtick!
WaterGirl
@Miss Bianca: Four Directions states this cycle:
WI, MI, AZ, NV, Montana
Except for Montana instead of Georgia, it’s a perfect match. The plan is for us to raise money for all 5 of those states with Four Directions and other organizations.
No senate seats to fight for in GA, and Tester is in MT.
We already did Montana – AZ and NV are up next, starting on Tuesday. We didn’t want to be raising money over the holiday.
edit: I see that Almost Retired and H.E. Wolf are already on it. Great job, you guys.
MattF
I generally agree that TFG will lose in November, and will probably lose badly. There’s a hard numerical ceiling on his vote, so the way to win is GOTV. GOTV, GOTV. I think that’s whole story.
Almost Retired
@sab: That’s exactly right. I read somewhere that Nevada has the most voter churn of any state with its nonstop in-and-out migration. Anecdotally, I’ve known many priced-out* Californians (I’m in Los Angeles) who move to Las Vegas for awhile, decide it’s not for them, and go elsewhere or come back. Some stay. It’s hard to put Nevada in the red or blue column because it’s a different state every cycle.
The SEIU has an extraordinarily effective ongoing voter registration and GOTV effort that recognizes this fact.
*Las Vegas ain’t that cheap anymore….
RepubAnon
@West of the Rockies: Campaign as though you’re behind – if you win in even a bigger landslide than predicted, all good.
bbleh
@rk: @Princess: re younger voters, it’s always a risk — they’re the least likely to turn out, for all sorts of reasons — and in this case I think the key is (somewhat as noted above) to get them to realize that while Biden is imperfect (esp wrt Gaza, although that likely will change), Trump is SCARY AF, and that is NOT likely to change. Women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights: Trump wins those are GONE for another generation. Hope notwithstanding, fear is a great motivator in politics.
ira
Biden is going to win VERY COMFORTABLY. The fundamentals are there. And if it weren’t for Cannon and the SC doing all in their power to help Trump, the victory might have been — one can hope that it still might be — a landslide of epic proportions.
rk
@schrodingers_cat:
I so hope you’re right. But what I really want is for the orange clown to have a stroke in August and the entire GOP to fight to the death over a successor.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: Wow. What an image.
Baud
@JWR:
I want a job with the Easter Egg Police.
JML
Turnout is everything right now. There are in reality very few so-called “independent” voters that can be swayed for an election; the vast majority of the people who self-identify as independents actually vote pretty consistently for one party or the other. (they’ve just been trained by the idiot media to believe that calling yourself “independent” makes you superior to people who admit to party allegiance) If they vote, of course.
Turning out voters that will vote for your candidates is a huge priority for every campaign (at least ones that are competent). And I think this election is going to be a huge test of the turnout models. Will TFG be able to keep his low-information, grievance-based base coming out to vote for him, especially if he’s not showing out large rallies and doesn’t have the same resources as the Biden campaign? Will the constant parade of free media be enough in and of itself? (I refuse to call it “earned” media any longer since the media just hands over time to TFG at will and covers him so poorly)
There’s a real possibility of a wave election for Democrats if TFG’s base stays home along with the fed-up old-school GOP (who just want endless tax cuts, foreign wars, corporate giveaways and to push down on any minority group quietly) who think TFG goes too far and is too incompetent even for them. But this is why the media will be trying to pump up ideas of dissention in the democratic ranks constantly over the summer: the horserace stays tight if they can find reasons to depress democratic turnout.
Jeffro
@West of the Rockies: no idea what this means so I’ll take it as a compliment 😁
cautiously optimistic here!
Ruckus
@Matt:
Yes it is early. But as Almost Retired at #8 states, many republicans are attempting to go back to a time to long before any one alive today, to create a kingdom rather than a democracy.
I don’t think that will go as well as they think, on either side of the aisle.
Baud
Not happy having to learn the new Samsung One UI 6.1 gestures.
I blame Biden.
catclub
Not an Ohioan but still surprised by that. North carolina has also gone surprisingly red. Maybe that will reverse?
WaterGirl
@sab: We raised money for Emilia Sykes in 2022, and we will consider raising money for her as things get closer.
If she’s close in the polls but super well funded, our money is better spent on someone who is close but short on funds. But if she needs our help in October, where money can make a difference, we’ll be there for sure.
stinger
@TaMara: I like the way you think!
Ruckus
@Frankensteinbeck:
They haven’t abandoned him, but the romance is gone.
Aww, the early smell of political divorce.
zhena gogolia
@rk: They’ll love Trump’s policies with regard to Gaza. I hope they enjoy themselves.
JML
@bbleh: it’s my biggest fear related to turnout, that a strain of voters (mostly younger, but not always) will make perfect the enemy of good and decide that since Biden doesn’t agree with them on everything that they won’t reward him with their vote. It was a real issue in 2016 for Hillary; you would think that the people who claimed there was no difference between Hillary and TFG would have been buried by now, but like weeds those clowns seem to pop up every election.
(I know some people who still refer to Obama’s presidency as a continuation of the Bush presidency, literally calling it “W’s 3rd and 4th terms”)
cain
@Mike E:
They ain’t getting played. This is all part of their own operations for clicks and attention. The media is all about capturing your eyes and make you watch endlessly.
Bill Arnold
@Scout211:
In boxing terminology, this place punches above its weight; always has.
One reason is that the comments are indexed by search engines, at least the early parts of the comments sections.
(The archives are still not (fully) indexed, though, sigh. I have to use grep on an offline mirror.)
Eolirin
@catclub: North Carolina is horrifically gerrymandered, and now they’ve lost their Supreme Court, but the voting patterns of the last several elections have been damn close to 50/50. A less than 1% swing blue in the state will win us statewide races. Ohio is much redder atm.
cain
@RaflW:
The fact that they are even comparing the two would have been blasphemy. Remember when John Lennon said the Beatles were more popular than Jesus and the shit hit the fan and he had to apologize?
Citizen Alan
@rk: I wish someone could ask these unhappy young voters ” What would you be doing with regard to Gaza if you were the President of the United States, were faced with an aggressively hostile opposing party in the house and the senate, and had to balance the needs of palestinians in Gaza against literally everything else that is happening in the world?”
Baud
@JML:
You know some dumb people.
Luther Siler
2016 convinced me I know nothing about politics. That said, though, I find it odd that the polls say one thing about this election and literally every other aspect of reality that I can see tells me another.
artem1s
@sab:
Yes and no. I grew up in rural Ohio and kept telling my neighbors and friends here in NE Ohio all thru the 90’s that they needed to be afraid, be very afraid of what the GOP was doing in the ‘heartland’ and how retired white union members were turning Red – I got mine f*ck you. Friends poo-pooed me up until W but they all thought we were OK after Obama won Ohio twice. And there was the brief Strickland administration that Brown launched off of. Then the state party promptly started to ignore the African American base again in favor of established white guy candidates (Ryan, Fisher) and crazy Green party and Occupy favorites (remember when they ran Fitzgerald for governor, yikes! remember what an ass Kucinich was about ACA?). Karl Rove screwed up this state good – but he had a lot of triangulating possibilities to work with. Obama (Organize) for American never had strong ties in Ohio and it’s shown over the last 10-12 years and they never played well with Emily’s List or Planned Parenthood who did.
I mean I like Strickland but they should have never nominated him to run against Portman. Unfortunately they lost Stephanie Tubbs-Jones in 2008 to a brain hemorrhage. I think she was being groomed for bigger things. I honestly think Hillary was considering her as a running mate in 2008. There have been some Akron area African American candidates who have come on strong lately. But Cleveland and Cuyahoga county is not looking great right now for GOTV in the Black neighborhoods. Turnout has been abysmal since 2008 and 2012. And it’s not going to get better with the idiots who think the answer is to center White candidates who are single issue, climate change, anti-business, anti-Wall St screeds. It’s hard to get candidates who have good legislative experience while the state districts are so badly gerrymandered.
Dennis Doubleday
Not to mention that he’s prepared to suck up every last dollar donated to the RNC for his own campaign and legal expenses, leaving nothing for down-ballot races.
Jackie
Does Nancy Mace have a strong Democratic challenger this year? Apparently she was on Faux today doubling down with her whining about how mean Stephanopoulos was to her two? weeks ago…
Baud
@Luther Siler:
Same.
Baud
@Jackie:
cain
@Kelly:
Here in sunny Portland, I have not seen any Trump flags or any performance art. Jan 6th broke them.
sab
OT: The only thing I have against Michelle 9bama is that she liked the Brady Bunch as a child. My husband likes it a lot. I always hated it and time has not mellowed me. Snotty kids. Why is it on my tv now?
stinger
@rk:
What do they think would be happening in Gaza under Trump?
There are many ways to make your opinion heard and to influence government policy. Not voting or voting for Trump is NOT one of those ways.
artem1s
@oldgold:
Good, let’s threaten to run Big Dog again. That will stop that shit right quick. That fundraising photo (and Lieberman dying) made me wish more than once the last few days that he’d had a shot at a third term.
Jackie
@Baud: Is one preferred over the other by us? And, any chance (maybe McKevin will help?🤔) she can be taken down? Mace is trying hard to move up as most annoying MAGAt in the House.
sab
@artem1s: Agree. Lisa Forbes was somehow better than Terri Jamison? The statewide party always goes for the white candidate even though we cannot win without black turnout. And the statewide party does everything it can to suppress black turnout.
cain
@sab: I sure am. Crazy pivot. What blows my mind is that their resentment is so bad that when jobs are coming they are upset that property values are going to go up. These people are clearly retired or on fixed income which would make their complaint valid but still a dumb take.
Mike E
@cain: you’re “no, but” on this subject and I am “yes, and”… the media contain multitudes and are a monolith, a real tough nut to crack. C.R.E.A.M. as Cole would say.
@Eolirin: NC is a fickle electorate and we could choose to thumb our noses at the TEApublican cabal by resisting their scheme but, I am not sanguine about that happening after 36 years of living here. Alas.
Melancholy Jaques
@Baud:
RFK Jr will be a continuing problem. The press loves to promote him and will shield the public from his more ridiculous positions. I am hoping he will be a minor factor and draw more from Trump than Biden. And for that, hope is all I have.
RaflW
@JWR: the Catholic Church in America has not once, ever, in any meaningful way, held any elected Republican accountable for their enthusiastic embrace of the death penalty.
Oh, sure, some bishop will issue a sternly worded letter after a prisoner is killed, occasionally. But if we want to talk about cafeteria style religious values, let’s go there, Catholic bigwigs. Threaten to take your voters away if Rs don’t repent on this other ‘pro life’ plank.
But US Catholicism let itself become instrumental in GOP abortion politics, and lost all power to influence any other issue.
rk
@Citizen Alan:
We can’t treat them as if they’re stupid. Yes Trump would be worse. But if they ask why is Biden giving arms and money to Israel, why does the US blindly support Israel? How am I supposed to answer that? Why are we giving them arms and aid? My only answer has always been I despise US foreign policy and always have. Between the two parties the republicans are far far worse, and if I voted based on foreign policy I’d never vote at all.
Ruckus
@Frankensteinbeck:
THIS.
My major worry is that many people may not see the entire picture. However, just because it’s my major worry does not make it a big one. There is a reason I call him SFB, and have even more reason to these days. (Actually a few reasons…) He isn’t going to recover and become a better human anytime soon, he’s on a/the downhill slide and that hill get’s steeper and steeper as the days go by. We all age. We all age differently and start aging (and end) at different ages. A few make a century or more, some only make 6 months. Some age gracefully, some have never had any idea of graceful. SFB is in that second category. And he’s past where he’s showing signs. His signs are no longer post it notes, they are huge overhead signs, like on the freeway. He is aging out on the side of more rather than less rapidly. And even some of his supporters seem to be seeing the progress.
stinger
@Baud: As an iPhone user, I only have one gesture. And I tend to save it for rolling-coal Trump-bannered pickup truck drivers.
Melancholy Jaques
@Betty Cracker:
Those of us who follow politics are familiar with every Trump outrage and every step toward fascism. The general public, thanks to the political media and thanks to their own inattention, are not aware of these things. I have to believe that when I see polls showing 50% want Trump back or 50% say things were better in 2020. There is something really really wrong going on in this country. But it’s not something we can fix by November.
We can only hope that once they start paying attention, the so-called low information voters will wake up.
artem1s
@VFX Lurker:
I think the forecasts of a lot of those 2020 nail-biter states are going to be a lot less murky this year. IMO those who mailed in ballots in 2020 will largely opt for early voting. Remember the 2020 counts all were affected (delayed) by the volume of mailed ballots. That’s not going to be the case this year. Voters will get out early – I’d love to be a fly on wall when the Dems internal/exit polls start coming in after early voting has started.
Another Scott
And another thing: Second term winning margin is usually larger than the first..
2nd term losers are an anomaly is the USA. TIFG, GHWB, Carter, Hoover, etc. Something has to go pretty badly wrong for an incumbent president not to be re-elected.
A blowout presidential race usually has coattails. We should work like hell for that.
Cheers,
Scott.
Bill Arnold
@Baud:
The standard photo for a RFK Jr media piece should be that one with RFK Jr and former Trump national-security adviser Michael Flynn, anti-vaccine business owner Charlene Bollinger and longtime Trump ally Roger Stone
That is a representative sample of the company RFK Jr keeps.
cain
@Betty Cracker:
Biden not taking Bibi’s shit should be a big factor. Hamas has to go but am seeing some interesting moves. The PA no longer paying families for killing Israelis. Israelis no longer letting the hard right Jews opt out of taxes and Israeli defense.
Baud
@Another Scott:
Like the end of Reaganomics and white privilege?
Ruckus
@Mike in NC:
He’s the most vindictive fucking prick that ever lived.
Naw, there have been far more vindictive fucking pricks alive in history, and actually some smart ones, with actual fortunes and countries under their belts.
He’s just the current leader in vindictive fucking pricks alive today.
artem1s
@rk:
I get that they are concerned about human rights. But how many of them are ready to enlist and go overseas to fight in a war with Israel over their concerns? Or even volunteering for an NGO for a year to get food and medical supplies to Gaza? The humanitarian crisis existed before Israel started bombing and it’s not going to end even if Joe finds that one weird trick to make Israel stop bombing them.
schrodingers_cat
@SiubhanDuinne: Its both. Traditional Hindu society is very hierarchical and misogynstic. BJP is promising to bring those values back.
JoeyJoeJoe
@Jackie: The district was gerrymandered in 2022 for Mace. There was actually a lawsuit over the district, plaintiffs argued that the district was drawn in a racially discriminatory way. If it remember right, a court agreed, and said that South Carolina had to redraw the district. The defendants appealed, and the Supreme Court sat on the case for like six months and then that the state can use the district as currently drawn for 2024 at least
cain
@bbleh: Biden is imperfect on Gaza because this country is imperfect on it. The leader generally reflects the general sentiment. Trump is even more extreme on Gaza and is pro- Palestinians elimination and will be more than happy to participate personally.
Another Scott
@Baud: Nope. If that were enough then Democrats wouldn’t be up around 10% on average in special elections, etc, since 2017.
🤪
You know, things like a giant recession/depression, etc., lead to people taking a chance on a new direction.
Cheers,
Scott.
Melancholy Jaques
@sab:
On the one hand, it is shocking that it is such a quick and complete transformation. From a state that went for Obama twice to one where a Democrat with long years of centrist service gets blown out by a right-wing clown.
But if you look at the Democratic counties “north of the Turnpike” there has been a steady decline in the population. Lucas, Lorain, Cuyahoga, and Mahoning have together lost about a million people since 1970. Franklin has grown and grown bluer, but not enough to offset those losses.
Ruckus
@RaflW:
There are people who would like to BE SFB. Wealthy, past president, complete fucking idiot, vindictively
orientatedmotivated, far worse than useless….These are all standards that some see as the highest level to aspire to. We may all be human (there are legitimate reasons to think this is not necessarily a good thing……) and as such we do not all aspire to the same end results.
rk
@artem1s:
But how many of them are ready to enlist and go overseas to fight in a war with Israel over their concerns? Or even volunteering for an NGO for a year to get food and medical supplies to Gaza? The humanitarian crisis existed before Israel started bombing and it’s not going to end even if Joe finds that one weird trick to make Israel stop bombing them.
None. And that’s not a fair question. It’s like when I express concern for migrants a republican will pipe up and ask “well why don’t you open your house to them”?
That’s not how it works.
True, the humanitarian crises existed before (also due to Israel’s actions), and now it’s become much, much worse. Biden cannot magically stop the bombing, but he need not send arms to Israel. Young people are not morons.
Melancholy Jaques
@JML:
The most evident parts of “the young voters” are those who reject the two parties, who rebel against whatever is going on at the time they are in their late teens and early twenties, and who almost never vote.
Don’t get me wrong, the youngsters’ complaints about Gaza are well-founded. It’s a disaster. But because they are young, they get angry that their causes are not immediately addressed and solved.
Jackie
@JoeyJoeJoe: I’m aware of that; but McCarthy is gunning after her as one of the ‘eight’ GQPers who voted to oust him, and just curious if a strong Dem candidate would have a fighting chance against her.
cain
@sab:
We should absolutely be concerned and I think Biden acknowledging the protestors and Kamala talking about it are good trial balloons to show that we are listening.
One thing I would ask young people is how well are your outreach efforts doing with that GOP? Why only the Democrats? If the Democratic party is the only party who will give you the time of day why would you weaken them to a party you made no inroads in?
Melancholy Jaques
@rk:
The answer (not a good or happy one) is that the number of young voters plus Arab-American voters who will desert Biden over Gaza is dwarfed by the number American Jewish voters who will abandon the entire Democratic Party if Biden fails to support Israel.
The other thing is that the protestors and people like Atrios seem to think that Biden has a magic button in his office that he only needs to push and Presto! Ceasefire! Or a rope he can pull on to make Netanyahu do what Biden wants. But there is no magic button and if Biden pulls hard on the rope, Netanyahu will cut it at his end to help put Trump back in the White House.
And in all this, I’m not hearing anyone calling on Hamas to do anything. Because of Israel’s brutality, they’ve somehow gotten a total pass for October 7.
Kelly
@cain: The enthusiastic local Trumpists that have kept multiple flags and signs out since 2016 have deployed fresh flags and signs. To early to tell what the less enthusiastic Republicans are thinking. The presidential vote won’t be close with Portland, Bend and Eugene etc swamping the rural racist vote. I’m hoping the abortion issue and Trump disgust sweep Chavez-DeRemer out of Congress and we pick up a few more seats in the legislature.
artem1s
@rk:
It’s also not a fair expectation that the US would suddenly withdraw all arms support for Israel. And when did I say it was going to be Biden who starts the war? Again, any misstep could result in armed conflict in the Middle East. Anyone who thinks otherwise isn’t being honest about their concern for Gaza. Pointing out the truth isn’t unfair. Not pointing out the truth is irresponsible and dangerous. Do they have any idea how fast Trump would reinstate the draft if he thought it would help him turn the US into an authoritarian state?
rk
@Melancholy Jaques:
The ones I know all voted for Biden in 2020. And they all hate his Gaza policy. They also hate republicans. It’s a complicated situation. I think that Biden needs to stongly come out against Israel. The kids I know have a lot of Jewish friends and the whole situation is a mess.
I also don’t know how to talk about the situation with my Jewish friends, so I’ve never actually spoken to any of them about it.
rk
@artem1s:
No. But this is not how conversations go in the real world with a bunch of kids. I don’t disagree with anything you say. We argue, and I end up by telling them that I’ll vote for democrats because I can’t get everything I want. With Biden I get to to ensure women’s rights, gay rights and transgendered rights and a whole host of other things. I’m not going to die on the hill of Gaza.
gene108
@RaflW:
That shit’s not going to he handled by the RNC. It’s handled by savvy data and marketing analysts with funding from the likes of Peter Thiel. The only issue is how these outsiders can integrate into the larger Republican infrastructure.
They will definitely be handling these things for the Trump campaign, like they did in 2016 and 2020.
There are many stupid Republicans. There are just enough intelligent amoral cynical ones to make them truly dangerous.
sab
@Fair Economist: Who under the age of eighty still has a landline to answer pollsters?
gene108
@Betty Cracker:
I think the trials will only seriously matter if Trump faces any consequences.
A lot of folks, who hate Trump, get discouraged that so much reckoning gets delayed and now the bond in the NYS civil fraud trial not only gets delayed but also reduced.
If Trump doesn’t have a day of reckoning, he’ll, and I guess the media, will treat it as vindication for Donnie Dollhands.
Matt McIrvin
@artem1s: I’ve seen one person pushing for the US to declare Israel an enemy, invade Israel and “end the Zionist enterprise”. I think they’re going to be disappointed by any imaginable US administration.
The good-faith critiques are more like liberal YouTuber Steve Shives: saying that we simply can’t consider ourselves as having a decent foreign policy while implicitly supporting this–that we don’t have to “abandon Israel” but we do have to set better conditions. When he posted that, the current distancing moves by the administration had not yet happened. But the point stands. But he’s not a kid, he’s 43, on the cusp between Gen X and millennial.
Ruckus
@oldgold:
I’ve always been for the limit.
This is supposed to be a democracy. Of, by and for the people. ALL THE PEOPLE. We get to decide who-what-when-where-how, we get to operate, as the governing body. Sure we have people that are supposed to do the day to day work, but they are the employees, we are the bosses. Now of course any entity this big has to have a workforce that does the day to day stuff. But we don’t belong to them, they work for us. ALL of US. We have to remember that it’s not our gender, our skin color, our religion or our whatever that makes this place work it’s that we do this together. Which of course means it will sometimes be messy, sometimes worse because we are ALL capable of being the exit orifice, it’s just that it’s far better when we work at not being one. My point is that if one person stays too long things can shift into this NOT being what it is and is supposed to be, an actual democracy, of-by-and for all the people. Not just the wealthy, not to screw over the poor, not just the pale skinned, it is to make it better for every damn one of us.
Ruckus
@Baud:
Listen to him speak.
Both the delivery and the delivered words sound abby normal. This human does not sound normal, healthy, effective, reasonable. He’s running on the name – or possibly trying to destroy it, to me it’s difficult to tell the difference.
Matt McIrvin
@Melancholy Jaques:
My gut feeling has been like this, but I wonder if it’s obsolete–I’ve had people tell me that the people who would do this are just a minority of right-wing Jews who have already abandoned the Democratic Party.
But then again, I hear so many people feeling alienated from their congregations because of the pro-Israel line getting pushed at synagogue–seems like a lot of that is happening.
Fair Economist
@sab: Pollsters use cellphones and internet polling as well. You are correct that the response rates are getting so low, and the biases of who responds are getting so significant it’s hard to get a good number. But polling was still pretty accurate in 2022.
Matt McIrvin
@Ruckus: I am not, in general, fond of term limits. When applied to legislators, they tend to result in lobbyists having more institutional memory than the people they’re lobbying. I’m not even sure they should exist for state governors.
The President, though, is so close to being an American King, with a dual role as ceremonial/symbolic head of state and head of government, that it may be the one role for which a rigid term limit is actually appropriate. The Presidency has a power to swing opinion in a demagogic way that no other office in this country does. So maybe we need to be extra careful about it.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Melancholy Jaques: nobody support Hamas or has any influence with them whatsoever. All my life I’ve heard that opposition to US bombing means that everyone in the opposition “supports bin Laden” or “supports Saddam Hussein” etc. etc.
Know what? I have never supported Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, or Hamas, and I am never going to, no matter how many anti-war protests I may attend.
Know who likes bombing and killing? Terrorists. And in that crowd I include our local militia, neo-Nazis, Proud Boys etc.
So you support those people? good to know!
See how this works?
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Kelly: Who do you like in the CD-5 primary?
Melancholy Jaques
@rk:
@Matt McIrvin:
Check the percentage of the Jewish vote of Democratic presidential candidates post New Deal.
Even the ones that got blown out did better than 60% – McGovern got 65%, Dukakis 64%.
Who got the lowest? Carter in 1980, 45% And that was after he got 71% in 1976. What happened between those elections? Camp David, which some American Jewish voters did not think was a great thing.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
This.
Kelly
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: Janelle Bynum. She beat Chavez-DeRemer for her seat in the Leg. Reputation as a solid team member in the Leg. Small business person.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Melancholy Jaques: But look at the difference in the evangelical Christian vote in between 1980 and now. Those people once voted for religious Jimmy Carter, now they vote for Trump.
I don’t think it’s worth it to continue bad policies to hang onto a demographic that’s turning crazy.
Ruckus
@RaflW:
(Except preserving white male power).
Naw, they want not just to preserve it but to increase it back to where it was the only power.
And for this old white male – “That is TOTAL bullshit.”
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Kelly: Nice – I can’t vote in the district, but I’ve sent Bynum a few checks.
Brit in Chicago
@Glidwrith: The margin was seven million votes. True: if exactly the right 40,000 votes in exactly the right states had been taken from Biden and given to Trump then the latter would have won. That reflects the quirks of the EC, not the relative popularity of the two candidates. (But we are of course stuck with the EC.)
m.j.
For me it boils down to how strong is the racism? This is the major driver of Republican politics these days. It seems pretty strong now.
As an example, I’m watching this Caitlin Clark thing happening all the while knowing that if her skin was brown the bandwagon wouldn’t be nearly as large.
Gretchen
Re: the Senate: when Larry Hogan was governor, he pushed for the Baltimore port to take those huge container ships, against the advice of bridge engineers, safety experts, and insurance companies. He argued in favor of deregulation and business interests. That won’t play well in the Maryland Senate race.
Baud
@Gretchen:
Oh, that’s really interesting.
Ruckus
@Matt:
I don’t see how the irrelevant choices of fascists in a meaningless primary says ANYTHING about the general; just because they liked Nikki’s or Ron’s flavor of hate-milkshake better doesn’t mean they aren’t going to goose-step in tempo come November.
This. I think it is vital to understand that while there are segments in the rethuglican party, they do seem to understand that only one person can win any office.
Humans seem to often think – “Hey this one person is great! Greater than all the rest of the people because he/she once said the magic word – whatever that word was at the time.
I’ve learned over my lifetime that there is always more than one word that makes a better candidate than others. And I think that is one of the characteristics that makes someone a democrat. There is more than one word, more than one person, more than one way.
It’s a democracy, it’s coming together for the betterment of ALL of us. Some will benefit more, which is OK, some need more benefit at any one time, but the equality part is that we live our lives but if we need help, which many/most of us do at one time or another we can get that. The other side seems to mostly be “I got mine – fuck you.”
Geminid
@Jackie: Mace won in 2022 by 56 to 42.4%, so right now that district is a tough one for Democrats.
Mace has a serious primary challenger though. That would be Catherine Templeton, who sounds like some soap opera character but is a real former state cabinet officer.
One of the Democratic candidates, 61 year-old Michael Moore, has a unique personal connection to the district. Moore is the great-great grandson of Civil War hero Robert Smalls, who represented the 1st Congressional District during Reconstruction.
@JoeyJoeJoe:
Matt McIrvin
@Melancholy Jaques: That was 44 years ago. I can easily believe that people who were voting in 1980 and are still voting today would have that reaction.
Ruckus
@bbleh:
SFB will change. But it is in the right direction for the future.
HWGW – He Will Get Worse.
There is only one direction for shitforbrains – worse.
He is aging out.
His parents lived longer but all things considered they lived more like actual humans. SFB always wanted to be the center of attention – for his self perceived greatness. But he’s proven, to a large percentage of humans that it is a greatness for all the wrong reasons.
Miss Bianca
@H.E.Wolf: Way late to the the thread but I just want to say I love your examples of cheerful (but practical) optimism. As well, of course, as your concrete examples of action. A happy warrior, indeed!
bbleh
@Ruckus: he’s also an Adderall junkie, and that ain’t helping.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Speaking of Trump, I just saw an advert on you tube where Donny Dumbass was asking for donations and he was really showing his age. I am starting to wonder if Trump will make it to the election physically.
Tehanu
I read that too, and every Democrat in the country should shove it in the faces of every Republican.
Great idea!
JoyceH
If this thread is still alive, I’d like to ask opinions on whether Trump’s legal team would keep up their delay tactics if he loses the election. I hope not – I’d like to see 2025 being Retribution – the Democracy Tour.
And I have to say that I love whoever in the Biden campaign is bringing the snark. I love that they’re throwing back in Trump’s face the ‘campaigning from his basement’ accusation. Of course, in 2020 when Biden was accused of campaigning from his basement, that was because he was observing safety protocols during a historic pandemic, while the Trump campaign was throwing superspreader rallies, and this time around, Trump is campaigning from his basement because he’s becoming too demented to be let out in public.
Ruckus
@gene108:
I am obviously no fan of SFB but that first bond amount he got was, at least to me, an amount that extremely few humans would be able to meet, and he is not one of them, or even close. And the point of a bond is that it is more than enough to get the person to follow the rules so he doesn’t lose it. His reduced bond is still likely far more cash than he has. He is a lying sack of shit and the likelihood that he even has enough cash even though he says he does, for what it was lowered to, is close to zero. He is not a well human being, who makes up his own “truth” and really, he hasn’t been well for some decades. Most of the ones he been alive.
Pittsburgh MIke
I’ll be fairly surprised if Trump wins.
He’s talked about cutting Social Security and Medicare.
He’s promising a nationwide abortion ban, and we already know that ‘exemptions’ mean nothing in real life. He’s *proud* of gutting Roe vs. Wade, and can’t help himself from boasting about it.
He’s still trying to get rid of the ACA, which would mean that even employer-based health insurance wouldn’t have to cover pre-existing conditions. As for a viable individual market, or subsidies for middle-class people to get insurance, kiss that good-bye.
Many Republican politicians are talking about starting to ban contraception.
My biggest concern is I don’t see many ads about these things. All I see are appeals for me to give more money. Of course, maybe their targeting is so good that they know I’m a solid D vote.
Ruckus
@bbleh:
Nothing he does actually helps him because he thinks his shit doesn’t stink but people that have been around him know that it does because he proves it regularly.
mrmoshpotato
Shocked that a narcissistic, fascistic, orange shitstain only cares about himself!
Pittsburgh MIke
@Frankensteinbeck:
@geg6: All those special election results mean that women don’t want to go back to being 2nd class citizens.
Matt McIrvin
@Pittsburgh MIke: If Trump wins it will not be because he gained any voters over 2016–he can’t, not in the aggregate. It will be because Biden lost voters. Because now he’s not the guy who will save us from Trump, he’s an actual President with a record, out of his brief honeymoon period, and times have been rough in some ways so people don’t like everything about it.
My gut feeling is bad, that we will lose and a time of unimaginable horror will follow. But my gut feeling is always bad.
Frank Wilhoit
What do people get fired for? Making the company look bad. Trump is now into making-the-Party-look-bad territory. That is a new dynamic.
Noskilz
I also feel pretty confident Cheezus is going to lose by a significantly larger margin than in 2020 – and his seemingly uncontrollable need to steal anything that isn’t nailed down will wreak havoc in GOP races.
Take nothing for granted, obviously, but I don’t see that anything he is doing improves his normie voter standing. He’s alienated non-trivial portions of the GOP, and he’s just going to get crazier and more desperate as his legal problems continue to eat him alive and soak up whatever money is coming in.
Misterpuff
Remember Jan. 6. Remember!
Melancholy Jaques
@Matt McIrvin:
I can give you a more recent example from about 20 years ago. I was working as volunteer for a fundraiser for Howard Dean in Los Angeles, we were working off a list of Gore donors from 2000. Many of these donors were Jewish, West LA. Reliable Democrats.
In some speech somewhere, Howard Dean said something like “America needs to be even handed” in its approach to Israel and Palestine. I wish I had a few recordings of the things people said to me on the phone. Single issue voters? Yes, apparently. Even people I knew, who had to know that Dean was not anti-Israel, went completely ballistic.
This is a very touchy subject because some people have a tendency to accuse anyone broaching the subject of anti-semitism. But it’s just a fact. Any Democrat who demonstrates anything short of complete support for Israel will lose a significant portion of the Democratic electorate.
Biden will never say this or anything like it, but his actions show that he knows it
Soprano2
@Melancholy Jaques: In MO I think a lot of what happened is that St. Louis and Kansas City shrank. That’s where Democrats are strongest. Also, sometime in the ’90’s the R’s got the voters to impose term limits on the state legislature, which meant a lot of long-serving Blue Dog Dems were eventually termed out and replaced with Republicans. Then 2010 happened and R’s gerrymandered themselves a super majority in the state legislature. We had a Democratic governor in 2016!
Matt McIrvin
@Noskilz: Nothing is going to improve Trump’s standing. The danger is the drop in Biden’s standing motivating our voters to stay home. If we win it will be because negative partisanship was stronger–the need to beat Trump. But young voters in particular seem to be repelled by that kind of pitch, like their vote is being extorted.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Melancholy Jaques: maybe, or maybe AIPAC’s money funnel just created a pro-Israel block that only now splintering under pressure.
Anyhow, the next election will turn on Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada and Arizona, none of which are heavily Jewish.
rikyrah
He is also ROBBING THEM BLIND!!
there IS NO MONEY LEFT FOR DOWNBALLOT RACES
No One You Know
@cain: True in the City, but beware north 47 to the Columbia–a drive I will avoid on future trips north– and Seaside, and of course the folks who would rather live where they are, but in Idaho. There were Trump and Gadsden flags about, and more than a few decals west of City limits. I’m not seeing growth, though.
No One You Know
@Matt McIrvin: If the emails read like the moneybleg texts, I’m not surprised. I’ve declined every bully-bleg threatening to tag me in their database as a SFB supporter if I don’t pay up.
If they’re willing to sacrifice data integrity, why would I trust them with actual money? And we call TFG “SFB.”
brantl
@Melancholy Jaques: Yep, Hamas baited the Israeli government into acting like Shylock, and they went into the role like they wanted to win an Oscar.
brantl
@rk: The Gazans will.