This is how it happens, right? There’s a hot take, and it gets picked up, and 20 years later there are still arguments and accusations about who voted for Nader or how X group didn’t show up in year Y, and lie helps divide our side.
Hot takes ≠ Facts
Yeah, data and information take time, and hot takes are readily available. Right now!!! Because a hot take isn’t hot for very long, so everybody’s got to get theirs out there. Because fast is more important than true.
Can we at least make a pact not to be our own worst enemy?
It’s Not About Turnout
There’s a popular and wrong theory floating around twitter that Trump’s win can be attributed to “millions of Democrats who stayed home” or “14 million missing Democratic votes”. This theory is, as far as I can tell, the result of a mistake made by people who want to run takes before all the results are in, and shows up most years. It is also extremely wrong, and the evidence so far shows turnout roughly in line with 2020.
Origins of the Take
The laziest possible turnout analysis is to load up the NYT election night page and compare the popular vote numbers at the top to the numbers in the 2020 page.
If you do that, as of right now, you see around 68 million votes for Harris, and around 81 million votes for Biden in 2020. So, 13 million missing Democratic voters, right? No, not right.
The Votes Aren’t All In Yet
Counting votes is a slow process, and some states are slower than others.
Open thread.
J. Arthur Crank
Yeah, California will take some time to count all of the votes.
Chief Oshkosh
Agreed — it’s not turn-out per se.
The big picture, as near as I can tell, is that several decades of billionaire-funded rightwing media has turned ALL Democratic candidates into Hillary. It no longer matters to about 80M voters who runs, they will vote R and never D for POTUS.
All the talk in the (more-or-less complicit) media about the Democrats needing to reassess, etc. it utter, complete bullshit. This is purely a problem of disinformation and the media at almost every level is complicit. Since there’s nothing to be done about this in regards to policy/ethics/behavior, we may as well behave as ethically as possible and propose and execute on the soundest policy possible while we figure out the media mess.
That’s not to say that we shouldn’t use power when we have it (I’m thinking of he-who-cannot-be-blamed here) — I think the soundest policy possible is to vigorously pursue our objectives within the bounds of the actual laws on the books.
something fabulous
Nice to see you back! Thanks again for everything (so far!) this election cycle. And yes, the slow vote counting is so maddening. and so annoying that it gets run over in the hot takes still after all these cycles. Gah. More coffee for me!
New Deal democrat
Respectfully, “It’s not about turnout” still looks to be too strong of an assertion.
We know that the original hot take of a decline of 14-18 million votes was wrong, because of CA. But I also recall readin an article a couple of days ago that even *excluding* the West Coast, there was a significant decline.
in fact, an article went up somewhere else That Shall Not Be Named suggesting that once CA is done, the drop off will still be about 5 million.
I guess I’m just saying, don’t replace one hot take with another.
NobodySpecial
So the takeaway of that article is that the Democratic party is too far left for the electorate.
Time for more Blue Dogs, I guess. Is Heath Shuler still on the bench?
Chief Oshkosh
@NobodySpecial: That’s what the media want to convince everyone is the issue, but it’s pretty clear that it’s not. There are almost no Democratic policies that are not supported by wide majorities when the policies are separated from the Democratic name.
greengoblin
Another hot take is every state moved to the right. Washington state is bluer after the election and may provide clues to a way forward for Dems.
WaterGirl
@NobodySpecial: Just say no to Blue Dogs.
rk
What about the down ticket Democratic vote and Trump for president voters. If it’s all media misinformation then why vote for a Democrat all?
Sure Lurkalot
The vote for president is moot (at least in 2024) in Colorado and in Denver County Harris garnered almost 80% of the vote. But, turnout was less than 50%. One of the easiest states in the country to vote…get sent a ballot, drop it off in hundreds of locations.
Couldn’t be bothered about US House seats, local representatives or over 20 ballot issues.
Lazy and apathetic people make me furious too.
different-church-lady
Additionally:
14 to 18 Million Fewer
Democratspeople Votedinfor the Democrat in 2024 than in [2020].We know that far fewer people voted for Harris than Biden. But we don’t know that they were all Democrats.
Steve LaBonne
Voter support for Democratic policies is a lot like their support for women presidential candidates. I want that benefit but not that way, from that party.
NobodySpecial
@WaterGirl: Yeah, but that article seriously wants that, while not noticing how votes changed state to state. Here in Illinois, Harris got ~600K fewer votes than Biden did in 2020 while Trump lost ~40K himself. That’s just people staying home, not any rightward shift.
Jacel
Here’s where you can keep track of progress on the counting of California’s votes.
https://electionresults.sos.ca.gov/unprocessed-ballots-status
At present there’s 11,492,704 ballots processed, 4,953,569 not yet counted, and 142,335 ballots “yet to be cured”.
Lyrebird
@greengoblin: I am also excited that Tulsa residents just elected a person who may be their first ever African American mayor (DKos link)
I am also really down today. Tossed a few more dollars to the PA-Sen and house recounts. Tried to sign up for ballot-curing calls, but the shift was longer than I can commit to with family & overtime commitments.
@Sure Lurkalot: Can understand feeling furious.
Can we all largely agree that even when the facts are in, there’s probably more than ONE reason for this election’s outcome?
Bill Arnold
Yep. Probably, some of the theories being pushed without sufficient evidence have even the sign wrong; i.e. the effect helped, not hurt Democratic party results.
WaterGirl
@different-church-lady: I’ll take that correction! Just want make it until I am done eating lunch. :-)
SomeRandomGuy
Random thought: take cop use-of-force videos, take “DO NOT” scenes, and play them out with police officers laughing at the victim.
“It’s just a JOKE, where’s your sense of humor?”
Play freeper comments – is freeper still a thing? – to a room of cops (all sorts – we don’t discriminate) who all jump to their feet and applaud at every hateful comment.
People will say “they hate cops!” but the point will still be made – no, they don’t hate cops, they just hate the cops that cops should hate.
[email protected]
@rk: My guess is that those people couldn’t bring themselves to vote for a black woman for president, but wanted some checks on the other candidate.
[email protected]
@Sure Lurkalot: Or they thought she had this and their vote wouldn’t matter. Probably not the case, but just a thought.
ArchTeryx
@[email protected]: All I know is I never want to hear “She’s got this” before a Presidential election ever again.
No. She does not. The majority in enough states is what you need.
WereBear
They say it isn’t over until the fat lady sings, but when the fat man can’t even serve as a figurehead, I’m hoping for a nasty, draining, fight for control. Keep them pre-occupied.
And since there will be a loyalty oath and forced conversion to Christian Nationalism, I’m sure the Protestants and the Catholics will get along just fine. All historical evidence points to smooth sailing!
Redshift
Several election cycles ago, I established a personal rule that anyone declaring “this outcome proves what I was already saying/what I want to be true” should be ignored. Following that rule, I’m ignoring pretty much all “takes” at this point.
cmorenc
Looks like the final Senate election result will be a 53-47 R to D split. Rosen looks to have narrowly won in Nevada, but Casey is 40K behind @98% of the vote counted, and is toast unless there is a huge cache of heavily D-leaning votes in the remaining uncounted votes. Given the overall results (especially in the Presidential election) we were fortunate to pull out four close races (Nv, Az, Wi, & Mi) in states we lost at the Presidential level, even though Oh and Pa disappointed our hopes. It could have been a lot worse.
The Ds faced a tough Senate map to defend in 2024. How does the 2026 Senate map, in terms of risk to each respective party of flips? Nominally, which seats are up for election in 2026 will be identical to 2020, and there’s a couple years’ history between now and then that will obviouly influence the odds, but just on its face from the view today, how hospitable is the 2026 map for a D recovery toward a majority?
Geminid
@NobodySpecial: Part of the difference might be attributed to Biden voters who came out again but voted for Trump. I doubt if many Democrats voted this way, but Biden got a lot of votes from Independents in 2020. There are a lot of Independents out there, and a substantial swing in this group could amount to several million votes.
I’m not sure there are good numbers out yet for Indie voting behavior this election. When there are, a comparison to 2020– when Biden carried a majority of Independent voters– could shed more light on this question.
brantl
@rk: Because statewide ads generate name recognition for statewide candidates, and associate the candidate with the policy.
snoey
@cmorenc: NBC shows 60,000 uncounted in Philadelphia which is breaking slightly more than 4:1 Casey
[email protected]
@ArchTeryx: I actually never heard anyone say it, but based on the way she ran things and handled the debate she was an exceptional candidate, and they like I, may have thought that, but I voted where as some of the other people who made the same observation may not have voted. I also believed there weren’t that many people who would vote for Trump again, given his history for for being so bad at being the president the first time and the insurrection and being an awful person and all his other garbage. I underestimated their stupidity.
different-church-lady
@WaterGirl: Well, I’m not really correcting you, I’m amplifying that there is even more error in the initial take than people are calling out.
[email protected]
@cmorenc: I haven’t looked yet, but I do know that Thom Tillis is up for reelection, and if Roy Cooper needs me I am there.
Constance Reader
We want these policies and programs but we won’t vote (even in secret) for the candidates who would give us these policies and programs. So…we voted for the people who will move hell and high water to deny us these policies and programs.
Not sure there’s any way to shift people away from this stupidity. It’s the same impulse by which people want the social status of Christianity without having to do all that Xtian stuff like loving your neighbor and serving your community.
ArchTeryx
@[email protected]: Lots of people were saying it here and everywhere before the election because of tea leaf reading. The polls turned out to be right, and everything broke TCF’s way. We may just BARELY take the House though that is in very serious doubt, and we lost the Senate and the Presidency. Game over for a lot of us.
[email protected]
@snoey: I hope Casey pulls through.
Dangerman
Being in some states is slower than other states; wait, that is the pain medication.
i don’t advise major surgery the day after an election. Coming out of Anesthesia I got the questions. What year is it. Answered it. Where are you. I think I answered it. Who is President. I grumbled something. She said, yeah, we’ll skip that one.
Thor Heyerdahl
@WereBear: and all the Protestants and Protestants will get along too.
Villago Delenda Est
The problem with this refutation of hot takes is that the numbers for Obama, Clinton, and Biden were in general known soon after election day. Particularly the numbers in the popular vote, that held true despite later election returns. The deficit is just too huge to wave away.
piratedan
some thoughts….
there is a suspicion that the hyperbole is getting to folks. Each side calls the other a menace to society, Trump will end Democracy as we know it, Harris whatever they throw at her….
endless texts of campaigns in crisis, short attention spans, so only the most esoteric things linger, narratives set and stay set, rarely change… real change is hard to see, especially so when most people have withdrawn as much as they have or just grinding thru their days.
I think our biggest issue is those institutions that have trust are no longer trustworthy.
TooManyJens
@rk:
At a guess, I’d say they might have already been familiar with the downticket Democrats and thought they were OK, but Harris was defined for them solely by media coverage and whatever they heard about her from other people (who were influenced by god knows what).
It’s also possible that some Trump voters came out to vote specifically for him and didn’t even bother with the downballot races. We’d have to look at how much drop-off there was and comparing it with other election years.
Tony G
This is not the important point, of course — but why the hell are votes still being counted five days after Election Day? It’s 2024, not 1824. Serious question.
japa21
There is little doubt there was a significant fall off for Harris/Walz and down ticket Dems from 2020. Very few Biden voters, IMO, switched to Trump. For all the talk about ticket splitting, there appears to have been little of that as, specially in the swing state Senate races, Harris performed pretty much the same as the Dem candidates. It will be a long time before we have all the answers, but these were the thoughts I posted a couple nights ago:
japa21
November 8, 2024 at 8:48 pm
Some thoughts occurred to me while a neighbor and I were discussing the results. So many people have talked about what a great campaign Harris/Walz ran. And they did except for one thing, which I will talk about at the end of this comment.
Anyway, we all pretty much made fun of the Trump campaign as being disorganized, off the rails, etc.
Looking back, I think the Trump campaign will be studied and marveled at, not for the voters it brough to the polls, but for the voters it kept from the polls. And I am not talking voter suppression, or anything like that.
Remember when Trump said, “We don’t need any more votes, we have all the votes we need”? Everybody thought that meant they were going to sabotage the election. But no, it meant exactly what he said. The campaign had to decide: Do we do everything we can to keep our base or do we try to attract new voters. Going after new voters would have been risking the base. Solidifying the base would mean not attracting new voters. They also knew that the base was solid as long as they didn’t do anything to alienate them. So their decision was to focus on the base.
But they also knew that there weren’t enough base voters to beat the numbers Harris would get if she kept all Biden’s voters. Oh, they knew she might lose a few due to misogyny or racism. But thew question was, would it be enough? The answer was probably not.
Somehow, they had to convince Biden voters not to vote for Harris, which likely also meant not voting for other Dems down ticket. The developed a plan, and I think it was evil, devious and, unfortunately effective. They decided to focus on 3 things.
1. The economy, which has been talked about a lot. Sure they lied, but it struck chords. There were just enough Biden voters that looked at their circumstances and said, “Yeah, there’s something to that”. They couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Trump, so they stayed home.
2. Immigration. Again, lied their heads off, but it worked. Again with just a small percentage of Biden voters, maybe 1-2%, but it made a difference.
3. Transphobia. The last few weeks of the campaign really hit hard on this, including ads focusing on Harris being for funding sex-change operations for illegal immigrants with federal money. Transphobia, or nonunderstanding of transgender issues has always been an Achilles heel for the Dems. Probably another 2-3% drop here.
All these added up. Very few of the voters impacted by this actually switched their votes from Harris to Trump. But it was enough to demoralize them into not voting.
The Harris/Walz campaign was as fooled as we were by the veneer of incompetency and never figured out how to counter this approach by the Trump campaign. Sort of how Adam points out how Russia has been attacking the West through various propaganda techniques and the West still hasn’t figured out how to counter it.
There are a few there reasons Dem votes dropped which I’ve discussed before. But I think this approach by the Trump campaign was the final touch.
My point is, the Trump campaign was able to chip away at Harris support without jeopardizing his own.
Tim C.
@piratedan: Yeah, you are 100% right here. I mean, I do believe Trump is really really awful and what we face a horrific set of challenges that will last for the rest of my life.
On the other hand, there’s a lot of people who simply voted to have the same economy and situation as 2017 again. Most of the Trumpy abuses weren’t hitting white middle-class people till nearly 2020 anyhow and then COVID upended everything.
The thing is, without the old institutional Republicans keeping the guard rails up, this is going to get insane very very quickly. What happens then? I don’t know.
Final thing. Keep taking care of each other and yourselves.
The return of Mo Salad
I’ve set up a Jackal Starter pack over at Bluesky and have included the profiles of people with Jackal in their bio.
If you would like to be added to that starter pack, reply with your BS handle.
I’ll add you later tonight.
Consider setting up an account there. It does feel like they are achieving critical mass this weekend.
Citizen Alan
@NobodySpecial: That’s impossible. The DSA socialist twits on my Facebook insist it’s because the corporate dems need to embrace more socialism. Oh, and something something Gaza.
Baud
@Citizen Alan:
Bluedog/DSA unity ticket.
Saw a reddit post where Bernie is doubling down on hating on Dems.
Citizen Alan
@Baud: good. That means I can hate the fucker again without feeling guilty about it.
piratedan
@The return of Mo Salad: peeps have been finding me over there, as I am on the system as Piratedan7 as my bsky handle. If you wish to add me, feel free to do so.
Geminid
@Baud: Yes! Marie Gluesenkamp Perez and Greg Casar for 2028!
But who gets the top spot?
Betty
@snoey: Gotta love the news that McCormick has gone home to Connecticut to wait for the vote count to be finished. Argh!! Casey has been a good Senator, responsive to constituents while McCormick is a multimillionaire living out-of-state whose hedge fund outsourced jobs away from Pittsburgh.
BeautifulPlumage
OT. BRUNCH ALERT!!! The Rusty Pelican has a 1 hour 15in wait for a table for 4.
I’m decamping elsewhere for eats.
The return of Mo Salad
@piratedan: done.
Starfish
@Sure Lurkalot: Our Colorado ballots were extremely large and intimidating with all those ballot initiatives. Remind people to vote “no” on ballot initiatives if they are feeling lazy.
PJ
At the end of the vote counting, it is likely that millions (how many remains to be seen) fewer people voted for Harris than for Biden. Probably these were mostly independents and never Trumpers who would come out to vote for Biden but not Harris. Why is that? Some of it may be down to just pinning inflation on the Democrats, but I think there are two main things at work: 1) a lot of people are sexist and racist; 2) as a genial old white guy perceived as a moderate, a lot of people liked Biden enough to vote for him, but would not make the effort to vote for a “liberal” Democrat.
Kent
As I wrote on the other thread. I think political forces are simpler than we give credit.
In the past 60 years, every successful non-incumbent Democratic candidate ran as a change candidate against a Republican Administration. Kennedy/Johnson, Carter, Clinton, Obama, and Biden all ran as challengers and change candidates to Republican rule (or mis-rule).
By contrast, every non-incumbent Democratic candidate running to extend Democratic rule lost: Gore, Hillary Clinton, and now Harris.
Americans are perennially disgruntled with government and it is a uphill battle to run as an incumbent party candidate without the advantages of incumbency. Not just in the US but everywhere in the world. I think a younger and sharper Biden running as an incumbent could have beaten Trump. Democrats were just in an impossible position of having a candidate with very visible age issues who was just nowhere near as good on the campaign trail as Clinton in 1996 or Obama in 2012. And so we wound up with Harris who had the disadvantages of being the status quo incumbent party without the actual advantages of being the incumbent
In fact, I think in the past 100 years, the only successful non-incumbent but incumbent party presidential candidate from either party was George H W Bush in 1998 who was following up Reagan as Reagan’s VP. I can’t think of any other example of an incumbent party candidate who was not the incumbent winning in over 100 years
Put simply. Incumbency is a big disadvantage if you are not the actual incumbent. And perhaps the main reason why both Hillary Clinton and Harris lost.
beckya57
@J. Arthur Crank: CA is indeed really slow (KDrum was ranting about this), and since CA is both blue and Kamala’s home state I suspect we’ll find a lot of the “missing” votes there. That said, I have seen suggestions that there may be some lost Dem votes (though not nearly as many as stated in these idiotic reports) d/t voting being made easier during the pandemic in 2020. The Dems should really put some major efforts into voter registration to counteract all the GOP suppression.
Mike in Pasadena
No, no, Watergirl, I received assurances on this site a couple days ago that California doesn’t matter. Insignificant. Ignore it. Voters here don’t matter. Just pretend those votes don’t matter, cuz, you know, the electoral college and it’s all over anyway. Or something something something makes no difference.
karen marie
@Chief Oshkosh:
The most obvious evidence that it’s complete and utter bullshit is that that “advice” was never given to Republicans when they lost in 2020. Or 2008 or 2012. Or any other motherfucking year.
Nor were Republicans told they should compromise when they lost those elections, or when they held onto the House with a two vote majority.
It’s infuriating.
Baud
@karen marie:
People who are not us thrive on looking down on us.
Welcome to representing people who society doesn’t value.
karen marie
@cmorenc: I’d say it will be pretty good, because there will be another Republican mess to clean up.
Steve LaBonne
@Kent: As I said earlier, voters treat Democrats as a disaster cleanup crew. You don’t invite them to live with you after they finish the job.
Baud
@karen marie:
I’m already blaming Dems for not doing enough in 2029.
Kent
I think that is not true.
The lessons they learned from McCain and Romney’s losses in 2008 and 2012 was that they needed to abandon blue blood establishment GOP candidates and go with a populist demagogue like Trump.
There were plenty of GOP establishment McCain and Romney clones in the 2016 GOP primary. Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, etc. Republicans rejected all of them and went full bore with Trump who was the most opposite candidate possible.
Gretchen
@The return of Mo Salad: I’m prairiegrass1@bskysocial
frosty
@Mike in Pasadena: Right. California is blue, insignificant, the voters don’t matter, Kamala will win it, no reason to do anything.
I wrote 300 postcards to CA-47 intermittent Democratic voters. Last I looked Dave Min was ahead. The House races matter. I like to think my postcards made a difference!
Kent
It depends on your definition. I think both OR and WA may have ended up shifting slightly towards Trump at the national level while at the same time increasing Democratic majorities at the statehouse level.
So WA and OR should both have bluer state governments even if they might have shifted slightly more red at the presidential level.
Warren Senders
@The return of Mo Salad: on bluesky as warrensenders.
Jackie
@greengoblin:
I saw that about WA yesterday, and my immediate thought was Trump will do all he can to punish us for going Bluer. Federal aid for wildfires and floods? Not on his watch. See CA.
During his first term when he tried to enact the Muslims ban, our Attorney General Bob Ferguson, led the way successfully suing the Trump Administration, and I’m sure Trump hasn’t forgotten. Our newly elected governor? Bob Ferguson.
Gov Inslee fought Trump over medical equipment badly needed for patients dying of Covid.
I’m very concerned for WA.
WaterGirl
@cmorenc: Four Directions contact said yesterday that the 2026 map for Rs is as bad as the 2024 map was for Ds.
Prescott Cactus
@The return of Mo Salad:
Your account was created successfully.
PrescottCactus@bskysocial
Oh my !
WaterGirl
@The return of Mo Salad: You do known that Mousebumples had already set up a BJ starter pac for BlueSky a couple of weeks ago?
WaterGirl
@Mike in Pasadena: I guess we all get to choose who we listen to.
Gretchen
Blue dog Seth Moulton is saying moms want abortion access but don’t want their daughter mowed down on the playing field by a trans kid. Since Trump ran so hard on trans issues in Michigan, a Detroit reporter actually asked how many trans girls play sports there. The answer is 2 – 2 trans girls play high school sports this year. Since proposed legislation forbade anyone from playing on a team not for your sex at birth, he asked how many girls were playing on boy’s teams. The answer was 440, mostly because the school didn’t have a girls team in lacrosse, golf, diving, hockey. They don’t even count how many girls wrestle on boy’s teams. There are a lot, but there’s a separate girl’s championship so they don’t count. So they’re hyperventilating about 2 kids, while wanting to take away sport opportunities for hundreds.
I met a Trump voter last weekend who hadn’t heard about any of Trump’s atrocities, but was very concerned about the government paying for trans surgeries for prisoners. Again, there have been 2, both under a program started in the Trump administration.
df
It’s because America is now chock full of morons. I will brook no dissent.
zhena gogolia
@df: I am done with “you go girl” and women’s solidarity. Women could have stopped this. We didn’t. We have no right to complain about how we’ll be treated.
Jackie
Open thread? I don’t know if this has been posted?
Sound familiar?😡
Bolded is mine.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: We damn well do have the right to complain about how we’re treated.
The ones who voted for Trump do not.
eemom
I find it interesting that the commentary here consistently ignores or undermines the sickening reality that rejection of a Black woman president drove this outcome. That is not a fucking hot take.
OTOH it’s never going to be provable by “data and information”. So yeah, go ahead and keep fixating on bullshit.
tam1MI
Ironically, Gaza will no longer be an issue by the time the next Presidential election rolls around. Mainly because Gaza and Gazans will be wiped off the map by then.
greengoblin
@Jackie: All true. Which is why Ferguson and the new AG are preparing like the other blue state admins.
Buckle up but don’t knuckle under.
Still so glad I live here.
tam1MI
So, a friend of mine told me yesterday that the dude who made the “Your Body, My Choice” video (Nick Fuentes?) has been doxxed and is currently in hiding. Any truth to this? I’d love it if it were true, but I have my doubts…
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@WereBear: I like the way you think!
lowtechcyclist
@WaterGirl:
2026 and 2028 will both have better maps than 2024, but we’re not going to see a Senate map with a plethora of pickup opportunities until this country comes to its senses. (In the year 2525…) We’ve got a couple of purple state pickup opportunities in each year – Maine (Susan Collins) and NC (Thom Tillis) in 2026, WI (Ron Johnson) and NC (Ted Budd) in 2028.
In 2026, after those two, the best pickup opportunity is if Mary Peltola challenges Dan Sullivan in Alaska. (ETA: And that’s uphill.) After that it gets really dicey. Maybe someone can give Joni Ernst a run for her money in Iowa, but now that we know it’s still very much a red state, that seems dubious. Or maybe Doug Jones can take on Tommy Tuberbrain in Alabama. Or Jon Tester trying to get back into the Senate by taking on Steve Daines in Montana. Seriously, that’s the sort of thing we’re looking at in 2026. Again, just look at the table:
Classes of United States senators – Wikipedia
Barbara
@eemom: This election was much more like 2016 than 2008, so I think misogyny accounts for most of the difference from 2020. I have some other thoughts but honestly I think that’s going to be most of it.
I am staying far away from hot takes — because they often come wrapped in messages for why I should send money to try to “fix” the specific hot take.
different-church-lady
@Jackie: Trump can demand my middle finger and that’s about it.
Bobby Thomson
Why are Democrats not loudly demanding hand recounts in the closest states, or at least in all stations that received bomb threats and were “swept” by ACAB?
Kent
It was more like 2000 and 2016 than 2008 or 2020. It is much easier to run as a challenger than the incumbent party candidate. Biden was running as a challenger against Republican (and Trump) mismanagement and malfeasance. He was the change candidate in 2020 just like Obama in 2008 and Clinton in 1992. By contrast, Hillary and Harris were running as incumbent party candidates asking to extend the current party rule. Same as Gore in 2000. That is a much tougher task in a country that always dislikes government and always wants “change”
Bobby Thomson
As Bart Simpson says, we need another Vietnam. Thin their ranks out a little.
greengoblin
@Kent: According to the Seattle Times, Trumpy got fewer votes than down ballot Rs. Trumpy was “an anvil” for Rs in Washington. Residents across the board hate him.
mrmoshpotato
@Kent:
Sounds like something we can thank Ronnie for.
cmorenc
@WaterGirl: Thx. It’s helpful to keep in mind that in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 election, the Rs were in a far worse position than we are in the immediate aftermath of the 2024 election. And look at how big their bounce-back was in 2010, the aftershocks of which are stil in place 14 years later.
Also, unlike Obama in 2012, Trump will be termed-out in 2028 and the Presidency will be an “open” seat for both parties. Even aside from his age and condition, Trump has no viable path to repeal the 22nd Amendment, and even this RW SCOTUS will be able to find a loophole for him, even if they were so inclined.
Quaker in a Basement
Yes, it is indeed too early for the hot take. The numbers show that the vote for Harris in the key swing states was comparable to the vote for Biden in 2020. Somehow, Trump managed to gain new votes in those important states.
Figuring that out is going to take a minute.
Quaker in a Basement
@cmorenc:
“…and even this RW SCOTUS will be able to find a loophole for him…”
I’m guessing there’s a “not” that fell out of this sentence somewhere. I fear an indavertent truth.
Suzanne
Charles Gaba has a good thread on Xhitter about this. I don’t know how to link but you can go find it.
The pattern seems to be that Trump is really good, maybe uniquely good, at turning out low-propensity voters. And the Pod Bros pointed out that we are now in an environment in which high turnout is bad for Democrats.
eemom
@Barbara:
I guess it’s possible to look at it that way. The country twice elected a Black man and twice rejected a woman, so it’s more about misogyny than racism.
Anyway, assuming there are more elections, doubt we’ll ever see anything other than a white man in the oval office again in our lifetimes.
Suzanne
@tam1MI: It’s true Fuentes was doxxed. Not sure if he’s in hiding.
He paid Google to blur his house on Google Maps, and now it’s the only blurry house on the block, LMAO.
It’s like when you play peekaboo with a baby and they cover their eyes and think you can’t see them.
karen marie
@Tony G: No, it’s not a serious question.
MobiusKlein
@eemom:
I think we’ve seen different comments. I see here (and with my IRL friends) many mentions of racism / mysogony as quite impactful on the outcome. Was it the *only* effect? No, but certainly in the top 3.
TooManyJens
@tam1MI: I sure hope it’s true.
Meanwhile, another tale of a “Your Body, My Choice” guy getting what he richly deserves:
https://newsie.social/@servelan/113460215786544509
TBone
@Suzanne: thanks, I’d seen that yesterday also but couldn’t confirm. It is thrilling to hear he’s now in hiding, lmao! And the Streisand Effect! 😆
karen marie
@Kent: Maybe you didn’t read what I wrote. I’m not talking about what Republicans did, I’m talking about “advice” handed out by political commentators. At no point have Republicans ever been advised to compromise or take “centrist” positions. In fact, the same political commentators who lecture Democrats that they should “move to the center,” praise Republicans for “sticking to their principles.”
TBone
@TooManyJens: 🏆😎
Punching Nazis will never go out of style.
Spanky
@Bobby Thomson:
What we’re almost certainly going to get is another pandemic. So my personal goal going forward is to actively discourage MAGAs from vaccinating while encouraging like- timing folks to get them (although folks I know need no encouragement).
Prescott Cactus
@TooManyJens:
“Your Body, My Choice”now it’s “Your House, My Choice” as he cowers in the basement. FAFO.karen marie
@tam1MI: He was doxxed. The three-unit building in which he lives has been blurred on google maps. Zillow has pictures of the outside of the building and inside all three units though. Hahaha.
TBone
@karen marie: 😆😊
TBone
Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman! The big hand reaches right into the tiny house…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RYRWvMaFJjE
UncleEbeneezer
@tam1MI: I suspect all the energy for Gaza protests will dissolve long before that. People who are usually plagued by harassment from FreePalestine accounts with watermelon emojis are seeing their followers suddenly drop by the hundreds. Almost like bots were a significant portion of the movement. I also suspect assholes like Medhi Hasan will still be whining about Genocide Joe/Kamala even once Trump is the actual POTUS again. Just like people continued to b*tch about Hillary/Obama but forget all about Dronez!!1!, during Trump’s first term. So much of the Gaza Protest movement was clearly aimed at shitting on Dems, by people who just love to shit on Dems. It’s one of the reasons I always found it toxic and sketchy AF.
Chris Johnson
@Suzanne: If they didn’t have Fuentes, they would have had to invent him. It’s interesting to see.
This doesn’t happen in a vacuum. That sort of outburst could have been buried, could have been clocked as ‘scaring the normies’ and yet it wasn’t, it was a big deal. On, presumably, Twitter. Which is now state media. So they WANTED to provoke a reaction.
Why? It ain’t winning women votes or making them feel good about having voted for Trump.
It’s the same thing we constantly see. It’s a performative tirade calculated to provoke a violent reaction that can then be spun as ‘you see? Told you so’.
Bait. 100% bait. There’s so much of that, because the Trump regime MUST have those reactions to take the actions they need to take to escalate power. They have to have a counter-Jan-6 so big that America is declared over.
I am very suspicious of performative tirades like that. Step beyond the base level and ask who benefits from a provocation like that, and how?
TBone
@Chris Johnson: good point.
But I’m still doing cannonballs into Lake Schadenfreude.
Torrey
@karen marie:
Not so. In fact, there was a rather famous Republican “retreat” (Jeb Bush was among those leading it) in 2008, as they tried to figure out what went wrong and how they lost to that Obama fellow. SNL even did a skit on it. And there was certainly post-Romney 2012 discussion, as Kent has noted. And, while it’s further back, some discussion about how war hero Dole managed to lose to draft dodger Clinton in 1996. There were a number of panels on news shows about how the Republican party needed a reset in each case. (I recall a few Republicans complaining that that never happened when Democrats lost.) Confirmation bias, I guess.
Lobo
From everything, it seems to to drop in these three categories. These categories seem are not independent and reinforce each other.
* Race & Misogyny, especially at the top of the ticket.
*Meidia(Traditional & Social Media) outgunned
*They hit us with economy, immigration and trans-fear.
Messaging seems to be our deadly fault. Why don’t we hire marketing execs? We should also take highly performative actions, e.g., price controls on eggs, etc, as per Loomis at LGM. One other self-goal was the Democratic Establishment telling us Trump was a dangerous criminal, but then taking so long to do anything. Actions and words have to align. I am sure a lot of people saw that delay and inaction as proof as Trump not being as bad as everyone said he was. My two cents. It is probably worth even less than that. :)
Splitting Image
@MobiusKlein:
It’s a “chicken or the egg” question. The Republicans obviously made a lot of hay out of trans girls playing high school sports, but as many people have pointed out, the number of trans girls involved in sports at that level is vanishingly small. It takes a solid dose of misogyny to argue that mandatory genital checks (which all girls now have to submit to to play sports in some states) to protect girls from having trans teammates isn’t a cure that is far worse than the disease. They also demogogued the “illegal immigrants raping women” issue, and how that they are in power, they will make it easier for everyone else to rape women. How can that be explained except by misogyny?
Ditto with Gaza. Trump obviously capitalized on a voter rebellion on the Gaza issue, but considering what it likely to happen there now, it is difficult to believe that many of the protestors regarded the lives of actual people in Gaza as of any real importance. It was really about Biden bending the knee to them. And it takes a healthy dose of racism to hold the lives of Palestinians in such contempt.
None of that has anything to do with Harris, but with racism and misogyny running through Trump’s campaign, as evidenced by what they ran on, and it working so well for them, as evidenced by the results, how can it be argued that Harris’ own identity didn’t factor into it as well?
mrmoshpotato
@TBone:
Must be in the southern US.
Suzanne
@Lobo:
I do t know why people think messaging is the primary problem. And we do hire marketing/PR executives.
Saying that messaging is the problem carries an implicit conclusion, which is that if we said different things about ourselves that people would like us more. I don’t think that’s a safe conclusion to draw.
Splitting Image
@Lobo:
Clinton did this in the 1990s. It’s how Dick Morris and Mark Penn became national figures.
dc
@Lyrebird:
You can leave a shift when you want. I just did a PA one. I had not good luck, but my neighbor got about 15 hits. So yay and I have two people I need to call back because they couldn’t talk when I called.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Agree. We still won’t admit that about half of America is simply not like us.
Jackie
@Kent: @greengoblin: This blurb was in an article from The Guardian:
Jacel
@Kent: Your post about incumbency is insightful.
Suzanne
@Splitting Image: I think misogyny worked a little bit differently in this election. It wasn’t just that some people can’t bring themselves to vote for a woman. That’s part of but not the whole story.
For a lot of people, especially various religious conservatives, a good life — the life they want and believe they deserve — is a life in which a man is a breadwinner and has financial control of his wife and children. And there are social forces working on women to reduce their ability to make their own money, which of course would allow some degree of independence.
The manosphere has been working very hard to convince young men that their “birthright” to be a patriarch has been taken away by HR departments, “feminization” of society, wokeism, and by higher education (since women are currently kicking men’s asses at it).
This election wasn’t just a rejection of a woman as a leader. It’s about an attempt at driving all women out of public life back into the home.
Lobo
@Suzanne:
@Suzanne:
Probably should have said, messaging is one of our deadly faults. We have pretty much overdone the policy instead of the personal. What was our message? If my solution is not ideal, what is? I am open to throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks.
Suzanne
@Baud:
At core, it is because we are mostly kind and rational people here, and we have a hard time entering the headspace of cruel and irrational people. There is no reason to think that Trump voters would be reasonable people if Fox News and Joe Rogan didn’t exist. That assumes facts not in evidence.
CindyH
@Suzanne: agree completely
Baud
Where racism and misogyny played the biggest role is in people giving a pass to Donald Trump.
Lobo
@Splitting Image: To add. Messaging is a support service to the other efforts. If the main things suck and public is not open to the messaging, then it is all for naught. People love stories not statistics. It is easier to sell fear than hope, sadly. Trump had his three, economy, immigration and trans. What was our three? Again, I really don’t care how we get better that we get better. My main point is that messaging is a problem for us and it hurts our other efforts rather than helps.
Splitting Image
@Suzanne:
Yup. I completely agree, unfortunately.
On the plus side, I expect this to fail miserably. On the minus side, these chuds are as sore losers as they are sore winners, so many of them will get even worse when women don’t do as they are told.
Steve LaBonne
@Suzanne: Marketing messages from a brand won’t make an impression if the brand is already for shit. On the other hand, the Republicans, to the extent (not much I think) that they as opposed to Trump have an actual brand, are about to start trashing it. And they don’t have any more Trumps. The only way out is through, and hot takes won’t help.
mrmoshpotato
@Suzanne:
Maybe the Democratic party should try being as racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, and transphobic liars as the GOP. /S
cmorenc
@Quaker in a Basement: Yep, my “not” came untied. I meant to say that even the current version of SCOTUS will be unable and unwilling to find any loophole in the 22nd Amendment 2-term limit allowing Trump to run in 2028.
Suzanne
@Steve LaBonne:
Yeah, agreed.
And the tricky thing about this super-saturated media environment is that everything kind of “coded” the same just gets blended together in most people’s minds. So, we become the DEFUND THE POLICE party, even if our elected politicians don’t take that position. And that’s now our brand.
I worked in marketing (super low-level) for a little while. One of the things I learned is about the power of aspirations. People align with messages that reflect not who they are, but how they want to be. And they want to see themselves reflected positively. So, like, shitting on billionaires obviously is not compelling, because more people would rather be rich.
And the other lesson is that if people are unhappy, believe them. I have to admit that this is a thing I think we did really badly. People said, and said, and said that they felt the economy sucked. The official response was that we had the best economy in the world. The message received is you are not listening.
Geminid
@Chris Johnson: I was checking out out Gaza/Israel elated Twitter a few months ago and ran into some Groypers, and that rabbit hole led me to Nick Fuentes and his allies.
What struck me was how Fuentes seemed to be building a rival power center, adjacent to adjacent to Trump but yet critical of him. Fuentes was pushing the view that Trump had been captured by the corporatist, globalist Republican establishment and was no longer a reliable leader for the “America First” Movement. It reminded me some of Ernst Rohm’s critique of Hitler before Hitler put an end to Rohm.
I haven’t followed up so I don’t know what Fuentes’ line is now, but I assume he’s still intent on building his following as a sort of “loyal opposition.” I have noticed though that Fuentes does a good job keeping his name in the national news media..
Splitting Image
@cmorenc:
I stand by my prediction that Trump will be far too sick to run in 2028 if he is even still alive then.
The one little bit of joy we will all get in this dark period is watching that fucker decay in public in a way you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.
Geminid
@Jackie: Tom Watson reposted a map of New York City that showed that just about every part trended red to some extent this presidential election
zhena gogolia
@Suzanne: So why did so many women vote for the fuckhead?
I’m done with women. It’s every person for themselves now.
zhena gogolia
@Splitting Image:
This I can wholeheartedly agree with.
TBone
@Baud: 🎯
TBone
@Splitting Image:
…”watching that fucker decay in public
in a way you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy”exactly as I hope to see, especially after he didn’t shuffle off this mortal coil when airlifted out of the White House infected with Covid.FTFM
Mai Naem mobile ¹
@rk: are you sure of what you’re saying. I think its more likely the MAGats voted for TFG and left the rest blank. Look at the ME-2 congressional race. Tfg won the district but Golden is ahead with a bunch of ballots(IIRC 11000 votes) where people left the House race blank.
Geminid
@Gretchen: Seth Moulton is not a member of the Blue Dog Caucus and never has been. Tim Walz on the other hand was a Blue Dog when he was a Congressman.
Steve LaBonne
@Suzanne: This is one of multiple reasons why galloping inequality is deadly to democracy. It is perfectly possible for the economy to look great in the measures used by economists, yet genuinely suck in the lived experience of many people- when the rising tide lifts only the giant yachts. People know the status quo isn’t working for them and needs to be torn down, but they don’t understand who is really responsible and what needs to be done. I expect continued thermostatic voting which sooner or later will swing against Republicans (who will not be able to replace their charismatic Leader) yet this will do little to halt the bad trends that are dragging us down. I wish I had a therapy and not just a diagnosis.
Steve LaBonne
@TBone: Damn virus had one job.
tam1MI
Sadly, the only long term effect the protest movement will have (besides getting Trump elected and dooming Gaza and the people living there) is making college campuses very bad places to protest. It didn’t get much coverage during the summer, but colleges across the country over those months put draconian new policies in place to crack down on the types of things the Gaza protesters did.
Geminid
@Suzanne: Some Democrstic Representatives did in fact adopt the “Defund the Police” slogan in 2020. If you look up “Ocasio-Cortez defund the police” you’ll see plenty of intances of her pushing it that spring and summer. Rep. Ocasio-Cortez was still arguing with Barack Obama about the slogan that December.
Suzanne
@zhena gogolia: Because lots of women are socialized to love patriarchy. No one thinks their husband is going to cheat on them and divorce them when they’re 45 and leave them with no money or skills.
Ella in New Mexico
There’s a dark, deep part of me that worries we’re all just believing these numbers a little too easily. Something is just not adding up.
In our never ending quest to be bigger, better people than the Republicans, we don’t want to be accused of being election deniers. I get it.
But I stil think we should be demanding audits and or recounts in swing states where shit doesn’t add up. States that STILL don’t use paper ballots to back up voter’s choices. States where the down ballots went Democrat but the top line went Trump, for instance. Or states where they voted to turn over abortion bans overwhelmingly even if they were red. States that threw voters off the rolls at the last minute–we need to be seeing that they did indeed get to remedy that with a same day registration/provisional ballot that got counted.
Trump told crowds over and over again not to worry about voting. He had enough votes, didn’t even need theirs. Joked that he and Mike Johnson had a “little secret” that would take care of the election. Musk came on board in the last weeks of the campaign and essentially was talking to Putin and other dictatorships that have the technology and relationships with people on the dark web to play games with us already, hacking utilities and banks and medical claims processing companies quite easily.
I’m sorry, but NOTHING in Harris’s campaign should have driven THIS many voters away from the Democratic ticket. Especially the issues affecting so many women from both parties.
Hearing all they had to do was get Trump 118,000 votes in a few swing states isn’t making me feel less confident this election wasn’t tampered with at a low level way.
Mai Naem mobile ¹
@Sure Lurkalot: our AZ ballot was 4 pages long. Propositions, judges, school boards, county elections, bond overrides. I didn’t even have city elections but the city of Phoenix did. I am normally a fast voter. I usually go in with a cheat sheet of how I need to vote on props and the lesser known raced. I had forgotten my judge retention cheat sheet at home so I had to look up the ones I didn’t remember on my phone which took a while. I was in there for over 30 mins. Way too long.
Layer8Problem
@Suzanne: Well, come late January, hell, probably starting last week I expect we’ll be hearing “The economy? Best economy EVER!” And nothing will have changed.
Suzanne
@Geminid: Oh, agree about AOC. But the point is that even though Biden, Harris, etc didn’t say it…. “Defund the police” is now part of the Democratic brand.
karen marie
@Torrey: Again with the “they” – “they had a retreat.”
Is there something about “political commentators never went on and on about how they had to be more centrist” that I am not communicating well?
It’s been a constant drumbeat against Democrats for as long as I’ve been conscious to politics – going back to the mid ’70s – but Republicans are never told they should moderate.
I don’t know how I can be more clear.
Sure, they had a “retreat” to think about their options. We all know what Republicans decided. No matter how far out they go, Republicans continue to be lauded as “real Americans” and Democrats as “extreme.”
Slightly_peeved
@Chief Oshkosh:
yeah, it’s potentially a thornier problem: the Democrats have an image of being too left for America that is completely untethered from what Democrats say and do
Mike in Pasadena
@frosty: i gave money, $500, to a Dem in the San Joaquin Valley. In a red district.Still don’t know about the results. Not much hope though he is an incumbent. But we don’t matter. CA just doesn’t matter. Ignore California.
Slightly_peeved
@Suzanne:
also, it’s an adversarial problem. It’s football, not golf; you can’t focus on playing better without also taking into account what the people on the other side will do in response.
Mike in Pasadena
@zhena gogolia: As the young lady in yesterday morning’s post said, white women, I repeat, WHITE women, voted for trump because white privilege is more important to them than protecting themselves and their own sex. Go figure.
Mai Naem mobile ¹
@Ella in New Mexico: I’ve got a couple of family members who are politically aware but not political junkies who think there’s something fishy with the vote numbers. They both independently said the same thing – that the numbers just fit too well. My inclination is to not go there because it just becomes an election denial thing and you just destroy even more trust in the voting system.
Mai Naem mobile ¹
@Lobo: its not the messaging. Its the media ecosphere. Somebody on bluesky has put together a very large spreadsheet on all the RW organizations involved in the elections. I wish I knew how to link to it. I’d be willing to bet the left may have five percent of those on the spreadsheet and that spreadsheet doesn’t even have FOX, Newsmax and the other RW online news orgs or radio stations.
Mike in Pasadena
@eemom: I did not ignore it. A couple minutes ago posted a comment that white women voted for trump because preserving white privilege was a higher priority than protecting women. And that was made plain in a front pager’s post yesterday morning. Perhaps you did not have a chance to see the lengthy video by the young woman.
Geminid
@Suzanne: Yes, no Democrat Representative has espoused the phrase since 2020, with the possible exception of Cori Bush.
Personally, I am sympathetic to the activists who adopted the slogan and I respect their learned experience. But for politicians it was a real clunker in just about every city or district it was tried in.
Ed. One state legislator scrubbed mention of the slogan from the social media accounts when she ran for Congress in 2022. Allesandria Biaggi still lost her primary to blog favorite Sean “Fu*king” Maloney.
Some anecdotal evidence: there is 30-something gay Black man who Rikrah sometimes reposts here, “WonderKing 82.” He grew up in a very violent part of the Bronx. His brother survived a shooting, but his estranged father died by gunshot.
“WonderKing 82” earned a sociology degree at Hampton University and then returned to the Bronx where he is now a middle school counselor. I remember him saying back in 2022 that he thought highly of Maya Wiley and supported her in the previous year’s Mayoral election. But Wiley had talked about the defunding the police, and he figured she would lose and she did. He said people in his largely Black neighborhood thought it was a really bad idea.
Mike in Pasadena
@Barbara: From what I’ve read, white women are pretty misogynistic, not just men. Is that correct?
sab
@Geminid: Emilia Sykes ran heavily on funding the police. She carried Summit County but not the bits of Medina and Portage County in her district. And she won handily against a well-known Republican, so she is going back to Congress for her second term. And Akron ( her city) is where Jaylind Walker was killed by the police, with protests for weeks afterwards that forced out the mayor and the police chief.
Mike in Pasadena
@Bobby Thomson: Again, no. Democrats must always cave in and concede as soon as possible lest they be called names like in 2000 Gore Badloserman
MagdaInBlack
@Mike in Pasadena: Yes.Can’t have the wimmins all liking each other, they might join forces.
eemom
@Mike in Pasadena:
I did not see that video, but point taken. White women have been front line warriors for white supremacy since the 1950s.
Mai Naem mobile ¹
@Geminid: maybe the Dems need to use the ‘your body,my choice’ slogan against the GOP like the GOP used the defund the police against the Dems.
japa21
@Mike in Pasadena:
I will give you credit for obstinacy, stubbornness, and stick-to-itiveness. I guess what you are saying is that no one should ever concede in a Presidential election until every vote is counted.
Geminid
@sab: Emilia Sykes is an impressive politician, I think. I like almost all our Democratic Representatives, but she’s one that stands out.
I’ll have a new Representative next year. I may not have Rep. Eugene Vindman for long though, because a lot of people want see him and his brother Alexander tried for treason. I don’t think that’s gonna happen but it might.
A more likely prospect is that Republicans will put a ton of money behind the lonely Derrick Anderson for a rematch. They might even buy him a real family!
Bill Arnold
@Steve LaBonne:
Trump did lose the 2020 election.
prostratedragon
Holy crackers, but the Cowboys are Stengelian bad today! I don’t even care, and it hurts to watch them
Ramona
@The return of Mo Salad: reply to what? If I haven’t gotten a blueksky account yet should I still reply with the handle I intend to adopt?
Geminid
@Mike in Pasadena: Who’s the Democrat? That sounds like Jim Costa.
There were a lot of close races in the Central Valley and Southern California. It looks like George Whitesides will flip the 27th CD that Katie Hill won in 2018, but Republican incumbents Michelle Steel and Ken Calvert will hang on to their purple districts for another term.
Geminid
@prostratedragon: I heard Dak Prescott will have season-ending surgery now. That might be a relief for Prescott.
Mike in Pasadena
@japa21: At least until most of the official count is reported including California. But go ahead, keep encouraging Dems to throw in the towel before the fight is over if you want.
prostratedragon
@Geminid: Ah, I did notice he wasn’t out there; only started watching 3rd quarter. It’s a good time to take care with one’s rehab.
Lyrebird
This is true, but at the same time Mitch Effing McConnell was working to *actually* defund the police forces in our city and other blue-state cities affected by Covid, and he never took any reputational damage from that.
I’m not sure what to search on – I think Rep. C. Bush lost her primary in St Louis partly because of the double whammy of “defund” + paying lots of $ for a private security detail, some of that going to her husband’s company, something like that.
Anyhow, you are quite right, and I would say the bitter irony @Suzanne: described is also very real.
Lyrebird
@Mike in Pasadena: FWIW, I agree that counting EVERY vote should be front and center.
ETA: and thanks WaterGirl for reworking the menu to have it RIGHT THERE!
and thanks @dc: for the essential info! Rock on!!
mrmoshpotato
@Bill Arnold:
That’s not the one job COVID-19 had.
Mike in Pasadena
@japa21: What happens when we concede prematurely? The media starts reporting the margins before the margins are known. Big loser stink is reinforced again and again. That doesn’t help democrats in future elections. You can call me names like stubborn pigheaded obstinate, but conceding early has bad consequences, worse than waiting until the results are in. It also reinforces apathy in California Dems that their votes are meaningless. No reason to vote. I guess more democrats in the House is a worthless goal. Discourage turnout by Democrats. Is that a worthy goal? I guess in your opinion it is. But I accept your insults, no matter how puerile, ignorant and misguided they might be.
bluefoot
@Mike in Pasadena: I f*cking hate that. EVERY vote should be counted before anything is decided or conceded. We should have learned that lesson hard in 2000.
I remember telling my dad back then that several Middle Eastern nations had questionable elections and that led to mass protests and the Arab Spring. Americans just rolled over for Bush plus Scalia’s so-called reasoning without even completing the vote count. I said that we were a nation of complacent assholes.
and here we are
jonas
@Steve LaBonne: I totally get this. And, like you suggest, the problem is that people don’t know enough to identify the real culprits. In the case of inflation, there was the complex situation of supply chain bottlenecks, but the price of eggs and beef, e.g. were largely the result of drought and bird flu, neither of which is the president’s fault, but which are going all get markedly worse in the future because now we’ve elected a climate-denying moron whose puppet strings are held by people with a vested interest in not divesting from fossil fuels. Our food security is going to get ever more precarious thanks to Trump, but expect the electorate to start just blaming witches or something. Democracy + ignorance = populist authoritarianism. The Greeks knew it. The Founding Fathers knew it. And now we’ve fucked around with it and are about to find out.
Geminid
@Lyrebird: I think Cori Bush’s vote against the Infrastucure.bill and her stance on the Israel/Hamas war also hurt her in addition to the controversy over her security detail. I believe Bush said last year that she is the subject of a federal criminal investigation over her expenditures.
Bush also had a strong opponent in Wesley Bell. I remember a St. Louis jackal who was very happy to see Bell throw his hat in the ring.
And I agree: it was very hypocritical of McConnell and other Republicans to use the “Defund the Police” issue against Democrats the way they did.
Ksmiami
@Steve LaBonne: the solution which now will ever happen is massive taxation on the top .01 percent and estate taxation that folds 90 percent of monies back into the public weal.
Mike in Pasadena
@japa21: I’m beginning to understand one of the reasons so many former Democrats no longer want the label. Being associated with quitters disgusts most people. Democrats have been too eager to give up. It’s part of the brand.
Ksmiami
@Mike in Pasadena: overall voting should be easier, safer and the electoral college should be eliminated.
Dan B
@Suzanne: Messaging is about more than words. It’s about creating a narrative that links to facts not just dry facts. It’s about when and how many times you speak up. Biden’s team didn’t push back on non-existent inflation and “bad economy”. They trotted out numbers and facts and only once. It’s about knowing your target audience. Mant Trump voters felt disrespected. Biden called out conservatives as bad people. The backpeddaling should have continued for weeks, not apologizing, see Streisand Effect, but promising to address real and imagined concerns. Democrats skip many communication and messaging components.
mrmoshpotato
@Ksmiami: What do you mean voting should be easier and safer?
And good luck eliminating the electoral college within your lifetime. That’s a heavy, Constitution-amending lift.
Dan B
@Suzanne: Agreed. The focus should have been on we’re working on making it better and include examples. The message “You’re misinformed and wrong.” is like hearing from the mean teacher who revels in your failure.
Lyrebird
Thanks @Geminid:
I am so glad you have had so many Virginia victories to celebrate even during this dismal time.
WaterGirl
@Mike in Pasadena:
Totally agree with you.
I think every Dem candidate should stand their ground until every vote is counted.
Darkrose
@Tony G: In PA, I believe they can’t start counting mail-in ballots until Election Day. In CA, we have over 22 million registered voters. That’s a hell of a lot of ballots to count.
Geminid
@Lyrebird: That “Defund the Police” controversy might come up again in next year’s Virginia Governor’s race. After losses in the 2020 election cut the Democrats’ House majority down to five, Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries convened a meeting for members to discuss the election.
It was private meeting, but accounts and (I guess) recordings came out shortly after. One of the highlights was a rant by a Blue Dog Congresswoman from Virginia about how stupid it was for anyone there to adopt that slogan and how Democrats had better avoid similar dumb stuff if they wanted to keep their majority next time.
So now Abigail Spanberger will be running in next year’s Virginia Governor’s race. Considering current circumstances, most Democrats will cheer Spanberger on. But there will also be plenty of grumbling along the lines of: “Really? A hippie-punching ex-CIA Blue Dog? Surely we can do better than this!”
Actually, Spanberger left the Blue Dog Caucus in January of last year, along with . Ed Case (HI), Lou Correa (CA) Mikie Sherrill (NJ) and two others. That left the Caucus with only ten members even after the addition of freshmen Mary Peltola and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez.
This cycle has seen their numbers decline even more. Wiley Nickel (NC) was gerrymandered out of his seat, and it looks like Mary Peltola will lose her election. Jim Costa is in a very close race in California and he might not return to Congress.
If Costa doesn’t, that would leave seven Blue Dogs. Sanford Bishop (GA) is 79, and Bill Thompson (CA) is 73, and they might retire in two years. Henry Cuellar (TX) is a fit 71, but Cuellar may well be playing checkers with Robert Menendez this time next year, with George Santos looking over his shoulder.
So I guess you could say Blue Dogs have become an endangered species. Cause: loss of habitat due to increased polarization.
Mike in Pasadena
@bluefoot: I’ve carried the 2000 memory for 24 years and most everyone has forgotten the lesson. It really depressed many Democrats’ enthusiasm for working for the party. We experienced those results in 2004. Yes, Bush campaigned as a warrior in 2004, but democrats were already discouraged before 9/11.
Gloria DryGarden
@Starfish: the colorado ballot was brutal. 24 issues to decide on.
SFAW
@WaterGirl:
Because I’m a bad person, I saw “stand their ground” and my mind junped to the Dems taking “appropriate action” because they felt their lives were threatened by their Rethug opponent. [Bad mind! BAD! No treats for you!] I know FL has SYG laws, wondering if certain other states do.
Trollhattan
@Mike in Pasadena:
In that year prior to 9-11 I was calling him one-term George because he got his damn tax cut, blew up the balanced budget, re-ignited the deficit, and privatizing SS was going nowhere. Legit felt he was really vulnerable come ’04.
Thanks for nothing, Osama.