I unintentionally started a series of posts on what it means to fight by asking questions about the Colin Allred campaign in Texas (post 1) and the Tim Ryan campaign in Ohio (post 2). I was cleaning out my feed reader and found two posts about Texas that are deep dives into what it takes to win in that state and, more importantly, how we judge progress even if we lose there.
First, from the people that run the LBJ account on Twitter, who are a bunch of historians as far as I can tell, a summary of how they would judge “success” for Allred:
THE STANDARD, AGAIN: Beto won Harris by 15.5. He won Ft. Bend by 12. He won Tarrant by less than one. He lost Collin by 6. He lost Denton by 8. He won Williamson by 2.5. Beto won Hays by 15.
THE TARGETS: And here, we’ll set the target margins based on the minimum for what a Democratic statewide victory would look like in Texas. In a cycle a Democrat won in Texas — Harris would be +30. Fort Bend +20. Tarrant, Collin and Denton in the +5-7 range. Williamson +10. Hays +20. Those are the numbers Allred should be reaching for. Those are numbers, for the most part, I don’t expect Allred to reach. Anything between the numbers Beto put up and the targets of where those numbers need to be is measurable progress.
WHY I HAVEN’T DISCUSSED THE RGV: Because, while it’s not unimportant, it isn’t and shouldn’t be the central focus of the Democratic strategy here. The field of battle is in the suburbs. It shouldn’t be the focus of Hispanic voting outreach either. Quickly — The entire RGV is 1.3 million people. Harris County has 2 million Hispanic people. The choice isn’t Hispanic outreach or the suburbs. The key is Hispanic outreach in the suburbs.
If the county names are confusing, read the whole thing, because they explain both the location of the counties and how they have evolved over the years. “RGV” is the Rio Grande Valley, a heavily Latino area which everyone in Democratic politics was concerned about when it swung towards Republicans in 2020. Over at Split Ticket, a couple of the data nerds have mined as much as they can from RGV voting statistics, and have an interesting theory tying the Sanders primary vote to the Trump general election vote:
While it’s true Democratic primary voters are not representative of all general election voters, the sheer correlational strength suggests there is at least some relationship between Trump’s success in Latino communities with economic populism. Additionally, because most Latinos identify as Democrats (44–25%), heavily-Latino areas have much more overlap between their Democratic primary and general electorates. Even if it was not pro-Sanders Latino Democrats who shifted towards Trump, it was their neighbors and family members. These voters live in the same communities and face the same economic realities, and were subsequently attracted to both economically populist candidates.
Looking ahead to 2024, a campaign which wishes to be successful among these voters must have a strong, populist economic plank. Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign appears to be starting to do just that. Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson notes that Harris could be climbing in the polls because she is regaining trust that President Joe Biden lost on handling the economy while simultaneously reviving Latino support that Biden had lost.
Beyond the 2024 election, the growing “nonwhite populism” could transform American partisan politics. If Democrats want to contest increasingly-Latino Texas, they should consider Sanders’ success in Latino areas when forming their economic legislative agenda and electoral platform. If someone seen as racially inflammatory as Trump can win record vote shares along the Mexican border, a Democratic Party seen as weak on working class economic issues could slow or even reverse Democrats’ ascent in Texas and flip the RGV’s 3 congressional districts — and swing Latino communities beyond Texas.
So, just to re-emphasize their point, it isn’t that a bunch of Democratic primary voters voted for Sanders and then decided to vote for Trump in the general, it’s that Sanders’ economic message resonated with them, and the same message delivered by Trump resonated with their lower-information friends and neighbors, who chose to vote for Trump, despite his racism.
Anyway, this is pretty Texas-specific, but Texas is a long-term Democratic project. Allred might lose, but if he beats Beto’s numbers in the spots that the LBJ team identifies, his campaign did something right. If the Trump gains in the RGV are reversed, Harris’ message is better for non-college-educated, non-white voters. And, just like Republicans, we need to keep and nourish our long-term projects, and Texas is definitely a key one of those.
Geoduck
I’ve read complaints that Allred isn’t really trying hard enough to win this thing. Is he out there pushing, or is he on cruise-control?
Baud
@Geoduck:
Don’t know, but he spoke at the convention, and I happen to catch him on MSNBC since then, and I don’t really watch MSNBC much anymore.
rm
I don’t think Sanders-Trump voters are motivated by good-faith interest in economic populism. I think they like shouty, angry old men.
HumboldtBlue
Dudes with serious mommy issues need to get the fuck outta politics.
Baud
Misogyny aligns voting for Sanders with being conservative and voting for Trump.
Mai Naem mobile
@Geoduck: That’s what I’ve been wondering. I sometimes wonder if some of the good candidates who run in the high profile hard to win races aren’t doing it for the $$$ made from campaign fundraising and the attached grifting. I just remember reading a piece several years ago about how the Rand+Ron Paul extended families were making big $$$ from their campaign infrastructure. You get a cut of the TV ads you get paid for strategy, PR, office space, media presentation skills teaching, clothing etc etc I’ve been getting the Obama ad on YouTube for donations for Kamala. She’s already got $500M and she needs more $$$. Seriously ??? GTFO.
Jerry
If we want “fight” to be our motivation this year, I nominate Negative Approach’s classic early ’80 hardcore song, “Ready to Fight“. I mean, it fits very well:
We won’t take any shit and we’re not about to leave
Just cause you don’t like who and what we want to be
Who are you to say what’s wrong what’s right
If it’s what it takes, we’re ready to fight
Ready to fight, ready to fight
Ready to fight, fight, fight, fight, fight
piratedan
@Geoduck: I spoke to my elderly step-mother-in-law who lives in the DFW area and she noted that there is a definite buzz about what is going on with Harris/Walz. The problems that are Texas mimic a lot of the issues elsewhere…
to say that might chill some of the organizing fervor could be expected but it very much depends on if latinos feel that they are being targeted and there’s a portion of texas latinos that see themselves as “white” regardless if their last name ends in “ez”.
perhaps there’s a long simmering sense of resentment going on? Also, the Texas actions on Abortion and Immigration could finally be fracture points… I dunno, but I assume that we have to let Allred run his own campaign. Ted Cruz is NOT well liked. Perhaps with Ms. Crocket being named a campaign co-chair will make a difference.
Belafon
@rm: They were the reason Trump had his name put on the stimulus checks.
UncleEbeneezer
@Baud: Yes, but “economic populism” will get more clicks/attention than pointing out the obvious.
Trollhattan
The Walz’s father-daughter show has been in the works for a good while.
https://youtu.be/oOYyEi9kNZA?si=drbQ0GF3EoTQRWt-
dm
@Baud: That was my first thought as well, but that would apply to 2016, not the 2020 numbers under discussion in your quote.
rikyrah
I have said that I am unimpressed with Allred’s campaign.
Beto came that close – in an OFF-ELECTION YEAR
I would have duplicated what Beto did, and then try to run up the score in Blue areas to pull me over the hump- during a Presidential Election Year.
I don’t understand why Jasmine Crockett is going to Georgia to campaign for the Vice President
and NOT doing the same for Allred in Texas
Makes no sense to me.
He needs to GET OUT DEMOCRATIC PARTY VOTERS.
OId Man Shadow
Yes, curse that bastard for personally raising prices at the grocery store.
rikyrah
@Mai Naem mobile:
Will never forget someone commenting on the 2008 Election.
Obama raised nearly 1 Billion Dollars.
Someone wrote- he needed every penny to combat the White Supremacist tropes against Black men that had been baked into this country since 1619.
Harris has to deal with the racism against her being Black.
And the misogyny against her being a woman.
Trollhattan
Meanwhile, California Republicans’ One Weird Trick done broke.
“Victory” not unlike how George Custer stole several arrows for himself that day.
Baud
@dm:
Good point.
rikyrah
@HumboldtBlue:
More proof that they only vetting done with him was if Thiel’s check cleared.
Every other day, we get NEW proof of his hatred towards women/
They don’t have to recycle it. New shyt every few days.
JML
@rikyrah: we’ll see what Allred is looking like in a couple of weeks. Labor Day is frequently the kickoff for ad blitzes and so forth, and you can have very successful campaigns that spend the summer doing organizing and fundraising efforts that don’t necessarily generate much media. It’s hard for me to believe that he’s raised this much money and is just going to coast. But you never know. I knew a congressional candidate who raised a ton of money and held back a portion at the end for “transition” costs. If they’d spent it, they might have actually won.
SatanicPanic
I love this. “Mom, I know I didn’t sweep the entire garage, but the process is time consuming and I felt that I had done what I needed to do.”
OId Man Shadow
@Trollhattan: We have a lot of crazy out here in California.
Baud
@OId Man Shadow:
Baud! 20XX!: Low wages and cheap junk food!
Geminid
@JML: I read that Rep. Scott Tipton, the Republican incumbent bone-headed Boebert beat in 2020, finished that primary with $300,000 in the bank. He took Boebert lightly so he saved the money for the general election campaign he never ran.
Redshift
While our questions about what oppo Ryan should have employed against Vance are fair, it should be noted that Vance won by 6% in the same election where the R governor won re-election by 25%. Per Wikipedia:
Of course we want to win, but that doesn’t always mean the person who didn’t win didn’t try hard enough.
Trollhattan
@SatanicPanic:
Right? They set out intending to remove him from the governor’s office and now that he’s not going to be [checks notes] president, “Our work here is done.”
IIRC the Sec of State’s office tallied total costs for the Newsom recall special election at $200 million.
Baud
Biden did do better in Texas overall than Hillary did. And the goal is to win the state, not win any particular demo. I don’t get paid enough to figure out how to untie that Gordian knot.
BR
@HumboldtBlue:
This gif of Vance failing at a fist bump is the other side of his weirdness:
https://giphy.com/gifs/uYTW5nvFWqz3MUB7eu
SatanicPanic
WaPo has an interesting investigation into the CCP basically hiring or recruiting goons to attack anti-China protesters during Xi’s visit to San Francisco. Kind of nuts that China thinks it can do this on US soil.
VFX Lurker
This, plus the media gifted the convicted felon $2 billion in free media coverage in 2016. Plus the shenanigans of purging voter rolls in Texas, Georgia and Ohio. Plus Elon trying to put his thumb on the scale at Twitter.
2024 will NOT be a fair contest.
Burnspbesq
@rikyrah:
Allred apparently thinks that the key to beating Cruz is hiding the fact that he’s a Democrat to the greatest extent possible. He’s keeping Harris at arm’s length, and he wants nothing at all to do with Crockett (which IMO is a real, and potentially fatal, mistake).
Now is the time for Dems to stop cowering in the corner. Allred either hasn’t gotten the memo or is ignoring it.
Fake Irishman
@rikyrah:
In a off-year in which a full-fledged backlash to Trump happened. It wasn’t just Beto: three other statewide Dems came within five points. Dems picked up 13 state legs seats and a pair of House seats (including Allred, who took down a ten term incumbent)
Also remember that Allred isn’t Beto. They have different strengths. They can’t run the same campaign.
SatanicPanic
@Trollhattan: The first failed recall didn’t lower his profile, but a recall that didn’t even make it to a vote was the one that ended his presidential ambitions? OK.
Hoodie
@Baud: That could be part of it, but there may be an underlying transactional economic logic at work that’s tied to the persistent polling advantage that Trump gets on “managing the economy.” These voters may have been interested in Sanders because Sanders promises to provide direct, tangible economic benefits to them, e.g., better health insurance, social security, etc. Other Dems haven’t given them as much of a direct offer. In the absence of that, they may think “well, the economy will be better under Trump, so maybe that’s a better choice.” They have to be convinced that they will get a tangible benefit, which either involves offering them direct benefits like Sanders did (Harris’ $25k for down payment assistance is a good example) or convince them the economy is better under Dems. The latter is hard to do when mythology about who is best for the economy is so deeply entrenched in the current narratives in media and elsewhere.
There was a recent discussion of this with a pollster on PSA with respect to the small but persistent group of black voters who say they’re leaning towards Trump. The pollster said that in focus groups these folks will acknowledge that Trump is a racist, but they think all white pols are racists. Therefore, it comes down to who is offering what they think is a better deal.
Betty Cracker
I don’t understand how Trump could have any “economic populism” appeal after his single term. His one policy achievement was a tax cut so skewed toward the rich that it was actually unpopular with the public, which might be an unprecedented achievement. If you want to be extra charitable, maybe it made sense in 2016 because he lied a lot. But in 2020? Even the low-infos knew what he was.
Trollhattan
@Baud:
Governor: monster; lt. governor: monster; AG: monster; US senators: monster, Zodiac.
It’s a big knot.
OId Man Shadow
@Baud: “Sure, the DOW is down, my boss cut my wages and hours, my friends got laid off, and the factory might close, but McDonald’s dollar menu is back!!!! WOOOOO! HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN!”
Geminid
@Redshift: Tim Ryan’s triangulation campaign strategy still angers a lot of Democrats, but my take is that’s how he lost, not why he lost.
BR
@SatanicPanic:
Yeah, and China has even sent actual police to do policing on US soil. Other countries do it too — India has sent killers after Sikhs in the US and Canada. Russia has poisoned people in Europe.
HumboldtBlue
This is laugh out loud hilarious.
Trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
My large bag ‘o nickels is one each from every individual who I’ve heard claim and/or believe “the economy did great” 2017-2020.
I was apparently elsewhere, then.
Burnspbesq
@SatanicPanic:
Erdogan got away with it. Why shouldn’t Xi think he can?
SatanicPanic
@BR: I remember a similar thing with Turkey as well. It should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law but I gather it’s not.
JML
@Geminid: well, it’s a little different having money “left over” after a primary, because it’s not unusual for an incumbent to have raised general election funds at the same time they’re raising for the primary. But it does happen that incumbents lose primaries because they’re banking all their money and don’t take the threat seriously.
There seem to be real questions about Allred’s messaging and tactics. But I think we’ll know a lot more about what his campaign is (or isn’t) in 2 weeks.
Baud
@Trollhattan:
He did inherit the Obama economy. Dems have yet to inherit a good economy. Harris would be the first, but she’s essentially Biden’s second term.
Kirk
re Allred, I’ll offer the data point that there are two yard signs for him in my east Dallas almost Mesquite neighborhood that weren’t there last week.
BR
@Betty Cracker:
My understanding it’s 95% the stupid COVID stimulus checks which he put his name on. It was so obvious that he was going to pull that stunt, and Dems could have put it in the bill that the checks had to bear the name of the US treasurer, but they didn’t. (I saw some “man on the street” interviews during the DNC that didn’t seem cherrypicked among young Black voters in Chicago, and one of the women chastised her guy who was standing next to her that he likes Trump because of the checks.)
squid696
I live in Houston and Allred ads have been running here since long before the primary in March. For the longest time they were the typical introduce the candidate ads and then in the summer they shifted to attacking Cruz on the border. The last couple of weeks Allred has gotten much more agressive in his ads. He is going after Cruz on raising the retirement age and raising prescription drug prices while reminding voters that Cruz bailed on Texas during the ice storm. In response, Cruz has started running ads against Allred on the border and including audio of Allred saying he wants to “bring down the racist wall”. I don’t know what else Allred’s campaign is doing, but they are spending money on TV ads in Houston (Harris, Montgomery, Fort Bend counties).
OId Man Shadow
@Betty Cracker: Vibes. Just vibes. Trump is a “billionaire”, so he must know money.
Meanwhile, the price of eggs went up during Joe’s first term! I’m paying for all these workers at McDonald’s making $20 an hour!!! Joe sucks!
Baud
@Hoodie:
Who knows? Biden sent out checks to help people recover from covid and was derided for it. From the left because they weren’t big enough and from the right because of inflation.
BR
@OId Man Shadow:
During the CNN interview Bash was like “housing prices were lower during Trump’s presidency” and I wanted the response to be “Yeah, and they were lower under president Obama than under Trump, so?”
Another Scott
I’m reluctant to jump in and say the results are wrong, as my engineer brain is wont to do sometimes, but looking at the precinct map and red vs green, there’s a bright green spot on the Mexico border that seems to be in the middle of nowhere. I don’t see all the data on github yet (only an explanatory table without the raw numbers), but that area of the border seems to have ghost towns and similar things. I hope that small numbers with big swings aren’t dominating the results.
Humans are weird.
Cheers,
Scott.
OId Man Shadow
@BR: And housing prices were really low in the 1950’s when the top tier tax was 90-95%.
Chet Murthy
@Baud:
This. And furthermore, that Split Ticket quote is ….. damn, everybody who read came out knowing less afterwards, than before they started. That’s some world-class stupid right there. TCFG is “economically populist”? Biden was “weak on working class issues” ? Only if you believe these people have all sustained near-fatal doses of lead as infants and children. Yeah, no, that’s too complicated a theory. A simpler one is that (like BernieBros everywhere) there’s way too many misogynists down there in the RGV, and when their Bro object-of-adulation left the stage, they turned to another.
Kay
This exact scenario happened to me with my youngest child, but I got “best practices” emergency health care (misoprostol) immediately so I survived and my youngest is entering his senior year in college. Hopefully I’ll see him graduate.
This will kill some women.
BR
@Chet Murthy:
This is a real contingent, for sure. It’s like Matt Stoller and the other horseshoe left dudes, who are all about Vance the VC and Trump the racist landlord as the everyman types (seriously — it’s nuts) vs. Harris the neoliberal shill.
I mentioned in the other thread I know someone who fits the bill. He won’t vote for Trump, but he’s almost certain to vote third party — he liked Bernie, thinks there was some DNC conspiracy that prevented him from being the nominee in 2016 and 2020, and curiously hates every woman on the left — Warren, AOC, etc. — and thinks that incels get a bad rap.
SatanicPanic
@HumboldtBlue: That’s somehow worse than I thought it would be.
Trollhattan
@BR:
Houses were really cheap in the late ’20s-30s.
Mister we could use a man like Herbert Hoover, again.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Collateral damage.
Their forced birth rules must be upheld..
Maxim
Excellent post, thanks.
@rm: We know Walz is a good guy, but I’ve seen several clips of his campaign appearances now, and a lot of his presentation could come across in a not-dissimilar way to normie voters. Just saw one this morning in which he was more or less ranting about the felon giving tax cuts to the rich while telling everyone else they make too much money. Sure, it’s righteous anger for legitimate reasons, but voters who want some shouty economic populism might like Walz a lot.
If what they really want is the racism and the misogyny, on the other hand, then Walz won’t have much appeal. I think it will be very instructive to see how Harris-Walz do in those heavily-Latino areas, in Texas and elsewhere, that went for Sanders and then Trump.
Scout211
And I wanted to say, “We bought our first starter home in 1978 and it was only only $44,000. In California! I owe it all to President Jimmy Carter!” 🙄
This myth that the president controls all economics during their term is just absurd.
Big Mango
I believe Trump’s gain in the RGV with Hispanics was due to covid and cries to open up the economy.
A condition that will not be in place this year. Texas is huge geographically with 5 fairly major cities…
the dem infrastructure is weak and the GOP suppression efforts are strong.
I block walked for Allred in his first run. He isn’t a dynamic personality; he is a worker.
If Texas is to go blue it is up to the Texans to outwork the GOP.
Baud
I accept thay many voters aren’t logical in their “vibes” but I dislike experts who insist that voters are in fact logical.
BR
@Maxim:
Yeah, I’ve been thinking the same — Walz can definitely pull in some of the Bernie curious low-info voters. I hope they send him on an economic populist tour of sorts.
Here’s one from yesterday:
https://www.tiktok.com/@meidastouch/video/7410156609856474410
Dorothy A. Winsor
@BR: It’s just heartbreaking how we’re going backwards.
rikyrah
Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) posted at 8:05 AM on Tue, Sep 03, 2024:
Joe Scarborough: “I hate criticizing the mainstream media…almost a desperation for them to pretend this race is like every other race. And the false moral equivalency is getting pretty bad” Jeffrey Goldberg: “he is saying abnormal things and we’re treating them the same” https://t.co/5LD0oHiII5
(https://x.com/alexchristy17/status/1830955196731507034?t=vVCGvKrsqZ_TjtRth8oa8w&s=03)
Scout211
I’ve read this label here often but what is the definition of “horse shoe left?” The names mentioned that get that label seem like just attention-seeking contrarians with big egos. But what is their political point of view?
ETA. Removed redundancy
Hoodie
@Baud: No doubt it is more a matter of perception than reality, but that’s what you’re dealing with. It’s probably easier to manage perceptions with direct offers than by selling more abstract ideas about the economy, however.
Jackie
@Baud:
Allred has been on MSNBC about a half dozen times since the DNC convention. Reports from others besides Allred seem cautiously optimistic.
I’m starting to suspect Allred seems quiet to “us” – because he doesn’t want his campaign race to go national. He wants a more mano a mano battle – Texas-style.
Most pollsters seemed to think Beto didn’t beat Cruz because a lot of Texas voters resented Beto taking his campaign national.
Just my developing hunch. I could be completely off base.🤷🏼♀️
BR
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I blame the online algorithm radicalization pipeline. This guy I’m talking about at one point got sucked into watching hours and hours of recommended Youtube videos every day until he was literally telling me about “interesting economic analysis that talked about how all the greatest inventions in history come from Russia” and I was like “what are you talking about and where did you see that?” and he said “oh I was watching Youtube and a lot of stuff from something called RT”. Yikes.
Baud
@Hoodie:
Maybe. We offer to raise the minimum wage and it just seems to create resentment among people making just above the minimum wage.
Just gotta keep trying to find the magic formula.
Baud
@Jackie:
Sounds plausible.
Chet Murthy
@Scout211:
I think it refers to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory#:~:text=In%20popular%20discourse%2C%20the%20horseshoe,a%20horseshoe%20are%20close%20together.
Kirk
@Scout211: Horseshoe – a bar that’s been bent so the ends are approaching each other.
The simple political spectrum is not the straight bar typically pictured. Instead that the extreme ends of both left and right start curving toward each other, sometimes even meeting in their extremism.
More serious study shows it’s a multidimensional matrix with fuzzy positioning, but there are a few curves of points that tend to move similar to one another such that we can get a very rough approximations with models like the horseshoe or the Nolan chart.
Matt McIrvin
@Scout211: The idea is that in some abstract political space, the extreme ends of the political spectrum bend toward each other, like a horseshoe–that you can be so left you’re kind of right.
I use it to refer to people like Matt Taibbi or the Red Scare podcast people who somehow behave exactly like MAGA folk except that they claim it’s a radical leftist position. Or Glenn Greenwald insisting that Tucker Carlson is a socialist (and that’s a good thing). Or the guy who popped up here the first time Putin invaded Ukraine and kept supporting Putin’s party line on “leftist” grounds.
I think it’s an oversimplification but there’s some truth to it, and the people who most loudly scream “THE HORSESHOE THEORY IS BULLSHIT”? Yeah, they’re the horseshoe leftists.
Baud
@Kirk:
LOL. I love explanations that require more explanation.
Kirk
@Baud: <taking a bow>
Jackie
@Trollhattan: I think this is my favorite video of Tim and Hope 🥰
Walz is a cool dad!
Matt McIrvin
(Though honestly, some of them like Greenwald are not really horseshoe leftists so much as transparently fake leftists–he was a right-winger from square one who just got associated with the left because he criticized George W. Bush a lot after the Iraq war had already gone sour.)
Trollhattan
@Matt McIrvin:
See also: antivaxxers. When California ended the religious exemption for school vaccination requirements, the two in our area with highest unvaccinated %s were the Waldorf school and the Christian megachurch primary school.
Fake Irishman
@Burnspbesq:
1. Most polling I’ve seen suggests he’s running a few points ahead of Biden and Harris, so I’m not sure he’s making a mistake.
2. He’s been pretty out and proud about abortion rights.
3. Beto ran on a pretty non-partisan message. He wielded it against Cruz and somewhat against Trump, but his campaign wasn’t straightforward progressive.
eclare
@Trollhattan:
Walz and his daughter are adorable together.
The Audacity of Krope
@Matt McIrvin: Another way to approach that question is a two-axis system; one being liberty vs authority, the other communitarian vs individualist (left v right). This gives you a little more latitude to describe a wider range of ideologies and recognize that the tendency toward authoritarianism doesn’t necessarily arise from an absolutely community-based or individual outlook.
dm
@Mai Naem mobile: I read today that the Harris campaign is sharing some of its wealth with down-ballot Democrats, I imagine hoping for a Dem trifecta, and causing Republicans heartburn, as their fundraising hasn’t been as good (as well as having to get past the Trump grift vacuum suck).
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
I prefer to use a 6 dimentional tensor.
Scout211
@Chet Murthy: @Kirk: @Matt McIrvin:
Thank you all, especially Chet with the wiki link. It’s all clear as mud. It still doesn’t seem as though those two opposite political theories are at all similar. I guess I need to learn more.
This from the wiki link:
That is how it looks from my point of view. They just don’t seem at all similar, except for the personalities of the theorists.
But I guess I have more to learn. Or maybe not since it seems to be above my pay grade.
Baud
@Scout211:
The biggest thing is that they are united against a common enemy, namely, us.
The Audacity of Krope
Like me? I won’t be resentful. I’d be happy for the negotiating leverage that provides me. I’m not so attached to the work I carry a professional license for to the point where I wouldn’t happily walk away for less responsibility if it paid the same money.
Scout211
Yes, that makes more sense to me.
Matt McIrvin
@Scout211: What really got people talking about the “horseshoe” idea in recent years was pretty simple: it was hatred of Hillary Clinton.
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
No, like people who are worse than you.
Fake Irishman
@Jackie:
Could you point me toward some of that pollster analysis about Beto losing to Cruz because he ran a national style campaign? I had never heard that theory before and am genuinely curious.
That’s certainly a (not the) reason why he got beat by Abbott — the positions he took in his 2020 presidential campaign bit him in 2022.
All I remember in 2018 is a being skeptical of the polling showing him close and being happily gobsmacked to be wrong.
sab
@Geminid: Sherrod Brown was running a similar sort of campaign this summer, and he certainly knows Ohio. But with Labor Day he started really attacking Moreno on a personal level. Maybe Tim Ryan just couldn’t be that mean.
Though to be fair, I don’t think anyone in Ohio realized what a vile piece of work Vance actually is.
The Audacity of Krope
If you can demonstrate to me that this increases precision while maintaining clarity, I’m in.
There aren’t a lot of standards that will define this as a particularly large population
Fake Irishman
@Baud:
Of course the issue with that take is when minimum wage increases go on the ballot, they almost always get passed, even in red states (Arkansas comes to mind)
Baud
@Fake Irishman:
Yeah, that sort of thing happens a lot.
Scout211
Re: “horse shoe left.” edit: or “online left”
The thing that bothers me when I read it here is it seems to be used as a form of triangulation of Democrats. I don’t see it as helpful, but YMMV.
@Matt McIrvin: Yes, exactly like that.
Baud
@sab:
If they had, he might have won by more. #NakedCynicism
Trollhattan
Well lookie there, RFK Jr. can still siphon Trump votes in MI. Great work all around, fellas.
Old School
The Audacity of Krope
My problem is that this is a simple way of dismissing the left broadly without engaging the ideas involved. It gets applied here on BJ even if the interlocutor is making an effort to argue in good faith.
Gloria DryGarden
@Kay: I keep waiting for this kind of scenario to turn into lawsuits. Practicing medicine w/o a license, person v state congress, or wrongful death suits in the cases where women have died.
a friend from high school bled out after labor, and while she was under, I guess the drugs weren’t working, bcs her husband, also a friend from hs, had to decide, a. sign here we will take out her uterus b.she’s going to die.
this whole range of gyn care being interfered with, and the damages and risks of death, have been bothering me a lot.
im glad you got the care you needed, and lived. Your body knows what a big deal this was.
Trollhattan
Well lookie there, RFK Jr can still siphon votes from Trump in MI.
Fake Irishman
@Big Mango:
well done in block walking for Allred. He and Lizzie Fletcher were the two races I took a ton of satisfaction in.
I’d concur with your thoughts on statewide Dems. There are county parties that are pretty strong, tho. It’s been very
i’ll be interested to see how your theory about COVID plays out.
Also a reference for everyone here: Hillary 2016 and Obama 2013 were high water marks for Hispanics. Bush in 2004 got something like 44 percent of the Hispanic vote.
For all his success, Beto fell back significantly in the RGV. If he had performed at Clinto’s percentages (not raw votes) down there, he wouldn’t have won, but would have delayed the networks’ calls by several hours. I don’t know what his statewide numbers were with Hispanics.
SatanicPanic
@Scout211: Just to preface- I think it’s kind of a facile theory. But in my life, my Berner mother, embraces the horseshoe theory concept and loves to find right-wingers she can bro down with. Based on what I’ve observed, the main things that far right and far left people can often agree on include:
The government is corrupt
Big business is corrupt
The media is corrupt and not telling you everything
War is bad
Natural things are better than human created things, usually
and, finally, Jews are untrustworthy (sorry mom)
IOW a lot of conspiratorial thinking, and usually some naturalistic fallacy clouds their thinking. Obviously the two sides disagree on a lot- racism, sexism, national healthcare, etc. so in the end most don’t end up working together. But they can tend to think alike in certain contexts, hence the horseshoe.
TBone
@Scout211: I simply think of it as they are so far to the left that they can reach the right. And frequently do, as they spout Kremlin talking points and pretend to be unaware that’s where it came from.
Baud
@TBone:
Yeah, I think some overlap in messaging is what makes them “horse shoe” rather than a separate group thay opposes us.
Gloria DryGarden
Back in the day, my dad was registered republican, mom, too. Dad insisted he’d vote for Ralph Nader, and I insisted that took a possible dem vote, and helped bush. He didn’t want bush, but said he felt strongly about voting for such an important third party candidate. We went back and forth. A few years later he conceded that he’d help put bush in the WH, by voting for Nader.
but the idea of a third party candidate, here, seems to be a consistent conflict between, promoting someone beyond the 2 parties, and diluting the vote for one of the main party’s candidates.
oh dear.
there was a news piece this morning, maybe AP, About elections in Germany. So many parties and factions, and someone way far R won in a province. And another slightly less conservative won in a different province. And it all sounded like a hot mess. The European Parliament is being affected.
I don’t have ideas, or enough clarity to pose an actual question.
Geminid
@Burnspbesq:
@SatanicPanic: I have a theory about that incident where the Turkish embassy guards assaulted the protesters. I can imagine a conversation between President Erdogan and his intelligence chief Hakan Fidan, before Erdogan’s Washington visit:
Mousebumples
@squid696: thanks for the local, on the ground account!
Matt McIrvin
@SatanicPanic: It’s actually not “War is bad” so much as “the foreign policy of the United States is bad, whatever that may be”. They’re usually fine with Vladimir Putin doing any war he likes, or they blame Americans or NATO for it.
And, yes, it’s an understandable reaction to the post-9/11 embrace of neocon ideas by mainstream liberals in the 2000s. There’s a neocon/paleocon split on the right over foreign policy and the paleocons tend to be the ones who ally with anti-liberal leftists. The most neocon neocons are more likely to be never-Trumpers these days.
The Audacity of Krope
Voting ought to be improved so that we can rank preferences. This can ensure elected officials with broader bases of proven electoral support.
As far as the Presidency, I’ll just say you need to build a pretty rigorous support structure before you shoot for the moon.
Mousebumples
@Big Mango: thanks for the local report, and for your GOTV efforts!
ArchTeryx
@Baud: Which is just plain stupid. The minimum wage goes up, EVERYONE’S wages are forced up. Seeing that in New York as they’ve raised their MW to $15/hr. My state worker’s union, PEF, is already in heavy negotations to bump everyone’s salary grade up +2, because the lowest grades were rendered illegal by the minimum wage raise.
But then, this is the American electorate we’re talking about.
brantl
Pet peeve: define the goddamn acronym the first time you use it. Don’t bury it , don’t put it 2 paragraphs down, parenthetically define it right there; I very nearly didn’t even finish the piece, since I didn’t know what the f*ck you were talking about. TL:DR starts with this shit.
SatanicPanic
@Matt McIrvin: Sure, because the parallels that people drawn only work if you really don’t look too closely at the details. The far left think government is corrupt because it’s bought off by business, Libertarians think government is corrupt because it’s not like a business. Horseshoe theory is overall pretty shallow.
Coyoteville
I just donated $55 for Four Directions Montana 2024 Phase II.
Coyoteville
And I see that it shows up on the Thermometer.
Maxim
@BR: That’s almost DeSantis territory.
@HumboldtBlue: It’s really difficult for me to believe that’s real.
Kent
I lived in central Texas for a decade and a half (Waco area) and knew a ton of Hispanics. I coached youth soccer for a decade and my coaching partner for many of those years was a Hispanic dad who was an ex-marine who owned a tile and stone contracting business. Probably a third of my students in all the years I taught were Hispanic and I knew a ton of their parents.
The way to think of Hispanics in Texas is to think of them as “White Working Class adjacent” A lot of the BS we have heard about the white working class in the Midwest pretty well describes a lot of Hispanics in Texas. Most are in the trades or own small businesses (although their kids are going on to more educated professions). They live in the suburbs and rural areas (especially in Texas). They drive big trucks and have a culture of machismo. They can be racist as hell towards African Americans. They have disdain for welfare programs and people who don’t work. Many are religious Catholics or evangelicals. Most of the 2nd and 3rd generations who are citizens are of Mexican roots and they have disdain for more recent immigrants from Central America, Venezuela, etc. Common language is not that unifying. For example, do white liberals from Brooklyn or Marin County feel unifying solidary with rednecks from Alabama just because they share a common race and language? I think not.
Political campaigns who don’t come to grips with these realities are not going to be successful. And tone-deaf crap like using “Latinx” is not going to win anyone over. You want to appeal to the kinds of Hispanics that I know? Talk about economic issues, jobs and rewarding hard work, schools, crime, and that sort of thing.
The Audacity of Krope
As a person with consistent trouble with both social cues and handsy stuff, this is the most relatable I have ever seen Vance.
Like a single grain of relatability on the vast shores of creepy weirdness.
Jackie
@Fake Irishman: I’m still searching, but this is a hint of what I’m remembering…
And this:
So maybe no official polls, but these articles, plus Allred’s recent interviews suggest Allred is chilly about seeking too much national support.
billcinsd
@Baud: Misreading what was said, isn’t really good for anyone
Geminid
@Kent: I think the “Latinx” thing is pretty much played out. Some proponents switched to “Latine” for a while but that didn’t get any traction either.
Ed. I agree about what issues to center in courting Hispanic voters. I think the ones I’ve worked and interacted with want good jobs with good pay, decent medical care, good education for their kids and the potential for upward mobility. In short, what any perceptive working class person would want.
Baud
@billcinsd:
It happens. People need to learn to deal with it.
Maxim
@The Audacity of Krope:
Rotating tag!
Hoodie
@Baud: That might be more about a perceived failure to deliver the promised benefit. Example being student loans, e.g., Biden promises student loan relief but is stymied by Republicans and SC. To some of these voters, this means Biden didn’t deliver. In contrast, the prevailing myth, reinforced by media, is that Trump delivers a good economy because he cuts taxes and that makes the economy boom. So he gets away with it. Again, we get back to the Democrats not being able to control the message space.
The Audacity of Krope
@Maxim: Aww, thanx.
cain
@Burnspbesq: Didn’t he talk at the DNC? That would be awkward if he is holding her at arms length and she’s got money she is willing to give.
Big Mango
@Fake Irishman:
You are most welcome…
I got about 5 minutes with John Lewis and a picture) as he pulled over to talk to the two us out there door knocking. There were about 30 of us at the start and roughly 160 to hear john Lewis speak…..All I could think was “you sorry folks show up for a picture but not the work”
Kineslaw
Beto’s biggest contribution to Texas politics was changing the permission structure to allow people in the suburbs to show public support for a Democrat. Biden would not have won Tarrant County (population 2m), if Beto had not gotten yard signs out to everyone that would take one. All of a sudden you saw indications of more Democrats than you ever thought existed.
Allred seems to be taking the opposite approach. Allred should be making a push for Tarrant County, but I have seen fewer than five Allred ads. Based on conversations, I suspect he’s put way more money into cable/broadcast than streaming. My sense is consultants have told him to run a campaign straight out of the 90s.
Even if he wants to stay arms-length from Harris, he needs to get Walz down here. Early voting starts October 21, so he is running out of time to shift strategies.
Fair Economist
@Matt McIrvin: The real cause of “horseshoe theory” is people pretending to be leftists to get rightists elected. See Roseanne Barr. Wealthy ones are ideological, most are paid. Real hardcore leftists like Chomsky may criticize Democrats, but they’re all in on defeating Trump.
Proof? You never see “horseshoe rightists”. We’re too honest, and we don’t have enough billionaires to fund the troll armies.
Geminid
It sounds to me that Rep. Allred is running a campaign similar to Sherrod Brown’s. If Allred wins he’ll be a genius, and if he loses he’ll be a lousy Centrist.
wenchacha
@rikyrah: The amount of money it takes is hard for me to imagine. It’s just an obscenely expensive endeavor, which bugs me no end.
Since I don’t have any realistic plans for changing it, I guess I have to be okay with it, until we come up with something better.
But I imagine whatever entities collecting the big bucks are going to put up a big fight before we can ever have campaign fund reform.
piratedan
@Scout211: easiest way to consider it….
extreme end of the RW horseshoe – fascism with GOP in charge
extreme end of the LW horseshoe – fascism with the LW Dems in charge
Manyakitty
@Burnspbesq: I thought he spoke at the DNC?
wjca
The President has total control over the entire government; everybody knows this. Including the Congress (no matter which party has a majority of members) and the Supreme Court. It’s the Unitary Executive Theory. Oh yes, and all the state governments, too. So if any part of the government does something you don’t like, it’s entirely the President’s fault.**
On the other hand, if the government does something you do like, things are more nuanced. Somebody else may get credit, even if it was one of those cases where the President really was responsible — think Obamacare in Kentucky.
** For that matter, if bad things happen at all (hurricane, earthquake, OPEC shutting down production and driving a huge spike in inflation, whatever), blame the President anyway. He’s omnipotent, you know. Or should be.
wjca
Another way to look at it is to consider how many college rabid leftists turn up, a decade or two later, as RWNJs. They didn’t get there by passing thru being moderates along the way. They took the shorter and more direct route.
The obvious similarity at both extremes is an absolute insistance that everybody (else) must conform, willingly or not, to The One True Way. What that “way” is being, apparently, of very secondary importance.
Big Mango
@Mousebumples: you are welcome…I was local then…now I live in the PNW (but stay in touch with folks and events back in Dallas).