Everyone decent is either out or looking for a way out.
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) December 12, 2025 at 2:44 PM
A thing that I feel is underappreciated about Trumpism – and this a perspective informed in particular by reporting from Michigan and Wisconsin but maybe now applies to Indiana – is that it has hollowed out the actual Republican Party with infighting in a way that could totally screw them
— Daniel Knowles (@dlknowles.bsky.social) December 12, 2025 at 2:37 PM
Politics relies on having committed, organised people who work super hard for no pay to get their candidates into office. The reason I thought – wrong obviously – that the Democrats would win last year is that they obviously had those people and it wasn’t clear at all to me Republicans had them
Democrats won Senate seats last year in four states Donald Trump won, and came wildly close in a fifth. The marginal Trump voter who got him into office is a flake & maybe a loon. Whereas if you look at a state like Indiana, a lot of old-school Republicans who worked for the party have given up
A brief moment on election night last year when I thought Harris would win was when the results from Carmel, Indiana came out, quite early. Carmel is a rich suburb that is Mike Pence’s home. It also turned out to be one of about five places where Harris outperformed Biden a bunch
Harris lost ground with basically every demographic except older white wealthy suburbanites.
You know the thing about older white wealthy suburbanites? They are basically the organisational core of every political party
I'm a lawyer in Indianapolis and a lot of my colleagues are the kind of Republicans who live in Carmel or Fishers or Zionsville and they are mostly *very quick* to distance themselves from Trump, and to be really glad the Indiana Senate just voted against further gerrymandering the State.
— Fake George Julian (@smhten.bsky.social) December 12, 2025 at 3:20 PM
I've been saying since before MAGA, that the Republican party will do one of two things in my lifetime:
1) achieve a fascist state or
2) disappear for trying to achieve a fascist state
I think we're at that precipice.
And "America first" as Nazi adjacent isn't new. Dr. Seuss saw it:— Prime157 (@prime157.bsky.social) December 12, 2025 at 4:06 PM
Authors In Our Midst – Jennifer Schiff – An Obsession With Murder
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
You have to think that when the GQP has basically lost people like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, there’s not much left of the party except idiocy and fascism.
Baud
I thought infighting made a party stronger.
trollhattan
BiG’s comet photo is {chef’s kiss}.
Baud
While I’ve heard about the percentage shift from 2020 as nauseum, 2024 also had lower turnout than 2020. Does anyone know who stayed home? I haven’t heard much about that.
Baud
@trollhattan:
100%. Amazing.
Baud
Speaking of right wing authoritarian.
Trivia Man
@Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq): dont forget looters and grifters
Cheez Whiz
The Republican party has relied on stimulating the passions of its core base since Reagan to deliver volunteer work and votes, and it has worked in the long run, so far. But as they ratchet up the stimulation the core gets more passionate but smaller, and with a huge chunk of the passion based on the celebrity of Trump it makes it even harder for Republicans to get the needed work done for state and district candidates. But thinking the Republican party will “disappear” is just wishful. Whether the name survives its constituency will reorganize, funded by billionaires.
trollhattan
@Baud:
Can comment on California. Trump held his 2020 total and Harris shed 2 million Biden voters. That trend occurred in other states but I can’t say which.
Nationally, Trump gained 3 million and Harris lost 6 million compared to Biden, vs 2020—meaning a third of that drop did not hurt her, given she still carried the state.
All of the above has been framed as THE MOSTEST OVERWHELMING AND AWESOME WIN BY ANY WINNER IN AMERICA’S HISTORY.
Fucker can’t even remember Reagan.
Mike E
@Baud: not to be too reductive, the youngest cohort vote (18+) in ’20 was novel as they saw people around them get sick and die but come ’24 that motivation was gone and they did not repeat/sustain a civic sense of voting we olds have cultivated.
Apart from compulsory voting a la Australia (they do mail-in there) and general vra reform (haha) it’s on us going forward (we’re doomed).
Suzanne
I enjoy and appreciate their despondency. They can join us over here in Punitive-Taxes-for-Rich-Muthafuckas and Abortions-For-Everyone-Even-The-Dudes Land.
The snow started a couple of hours ago and continues to dump.
trollhattan
@Baud: Been wondering if Orban would die in office or something else might take him down. Maybe? Does Hungary still have a functioning democracy?
eclare
Signed up for insurance through the Affordable Care Act today. Republicans must be destroyed next November.
Baud
Baud
@eclare:
New, or were you on an ACA plan before?
Suzanne
Also, I will note….. we got our pupper a new harness and coat. Previous harness was worn and frayed, and last year’s coat was too small. She looks so dapper!
eclare
@Baud:
I have been for several years. The biggest shocker was that both of the “establishment” insurance companies, like Cigna and BCBS, dropped coverage at our two biggest hospital networks.
So I went with a company I’ve never heard of.
Baud
@eclare:
I hope the price increase won’t hit too bad.
Suzanne
@Mike E:
To be more accurate: the Gen Z age cohort was the bluest-voting age cohort, followed by Millennials. Gen X and Boomers voted majority-Trump.
eclare
@Baud:
The price increase wasn’t too bad, it just went up about $50 per month. The biggest surprise was the lack of coverage options.
zhena gogolia
@trollhattan: Yes, it’s beautiful.
mrmoshpotato
American Psycho Dipshit Jr and his brother GUMS really need to fuck off into the Sun.
JoyceH
What strikes me about Trumpism is that once they take power, they employ a lot of people who simply don’t know how to do the job. I know a lot of people will say that’s deliberate, but I don’t think so – the incompetence means they haven’t been able to do stuff that the Big Boss wants done, almost obsessively. They haven’t been able to bring charges against Comey and James, they haven’t been able to dump Abrigo Garcia into an Africa war zone, or even deport people at the rate that Trump wants. Don’t get me wrong, they’re doing a lot of damage, much of it deliberate but a lot of it through sheer ineptitude. But these are Trump’s signature issues, the ones closest to that dried up husk he uses for a heart. Must drive him nuts.
Baud
@Suzanne:
True. But my original question was about who didn’t turn out, not how those who turned out voted.
I appreciate the responses, but I was hoping to see actual data if there was any.
prostratedragon
From the Sun-Times, finding Greg Bovino’s roots.
Suzanne
@Baud: I am curious about it, too. Data on non-voters is probably harder to gather!
TheOtherHank
@Suzanne:
So you’re saying it’s the lead poisoning?
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@mrmoshpotato: There’s a story about the survivors of the Hitler family after World War II, who supposedly made a pact that they would never have children of their own, so that the bloodline would go extinct.
On the other hand, Mussolini’s heirs are in politics today.
Mike E
@eclare: I re-upped my silver plan paying an increase of $143, not great but beats the alternative…when I get that $2,000 Trumplan check it’ll all pay for itself! (Oh boy)
mrmoshpotato
Anyone else thinking Knowles is taking a massive shit on Black women here?
Sure, older white wealthy suburbanites probably organize for Republicans, because “Fuck you, I got mine.” but there’s another side of the aisle that has a political party on it too.
WTFGhost
@Baud: Yeah, they’re “battle hardened” or something.
@Cheez Whiz: If the Republican Party isn’t in the same trash bin as the Nazi Party by the time we’re done, either the people, or the party, would have to change in major ways, for America to reach its fullest potential. They are actively criminal right now, and corrupted to the core. Their existence and continued power will continue to weaken and worsen America. So there’s a strong hope they end up Nazified.
Finally! NOW I understand why Trump is so upset at a boy experimenting with transition in the school. He’s afraid they’ll turn him into a girl, she’ll get pregnant, and get an abortion!
With Trump, figuring out why he’s upset is difficult, because he’s so stupid you don’t know why he’s bothered by something. Windmills, that’s easy, he’s old and stupid. Immigrants, that’s easy, he’s old and bigoted. But trans stuff? He must think transwomen get pregnant and have abortions.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
I heard a discussion on MSNEW yesterday with Michael Steele discussing MTG and her discovery of the misogyny of Squeaker Johnson (and Trump, et al). As he put it, “Nancy Pelosi became Speaker, and Republican women cannot get a committee chairmanship”. And as he also pointed out, white, middle class, suburban women have been the worker bees of the Republican party for forever. Lose them, and you lose
ETA: as mrmoshpotato was discussing above at #30
Baud
@mrmoshpotato:
Fair. For is it probably varies by geography, but we are definitely more diverse organizationally.
Geminid
@Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq): Cheney and Kinzinger are two of the highest profile elected Republicans to leave the party recently. Geoff Duncan, the former Georgia Lt. Governor, is another.
They were part of a much larger group of Republicans who have for the most part stayed; what I call the Chamber of Commerce/Country Club/ Wall Street Journal Republicans.* Those folks used to dominate Virginia’s Republican party. Then an alliance of Tea Party cranks and Bible-thumpers got the upper hand early in the last decade, as Eric Cantor found out in his 2014 primary. In 2021, Glenn Youngkin managed to paper over the split with large checks.
I think the 21 Indiana Senators who defected on the gerrymander bill could be identified as Chamber of Commerce types. Reports are that former governor Mitch Daniels helped organise the “resistance.” I don’t think these senators are leaving the party. Some could retire, but I think the rest will stay and fight it out with the MAGA radicals.
* Numerically, the Wall Street Journal-subscibing Chamber of Commerce and Country Club members in a given jurisdiction are not that large a group. But they are the center of a larger network of medium and small business owners plus many of their employees; also, professionals like accountants, attorneys, real estate agents etc.
These folks used to call the shots in the GOP, and I think they intend to salvage the party once the radicals finally run it into the ditch. But it may in fact be a hollowed out party by then because some of the voters leaving it won’t come back, at least not for several cycles (if they don’t age out first). And that’s if the radicals don’t cling to power through unlawful means.
Baud
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan):
I hope so. But what part of tradwife is confusing?
Scout211
@prostratedragon:
I posted that article in an earlier thread. Very detailed and well worth a read.
Cliosfanboy
@Suzanne: Is there a breakdown between early and late Boomers? I’ve found my fellow late Boomers (pot 1955) tend to be more red (UGH!) than earlier ones. i blame reagan,.
Baud
@Geminid:
Agree. They probably pitch themselves as saviors who can rescue the country from the worst parts of Trumpism without people having to go all communist like Andy Bashear.
Suzanne
@mrmoshpotato: Democrats now routinely win individuals making over $100K-and-up per year, as well as college-educated people of every race. My personal experience indicates that the Dems also have a significant number of wealthy white suburbanites doing a lot of work in the party.
None of that should be interpreted as minimizing the effort that Black women put forth on behalf of the Democrats. But our coalition is not the same as it was in the 90s.
kindness
I can’t speak for the midwest. The Trumpers out here in California still love him more than their own children.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Baud: I can’t explain it, except willful non-seeing what is in front of your eyes. I can sympathize (a very little) because I see myself do that occasionally, too.
ETA: Log Cabin Republicans: discuss
Cliosfanboy
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: One of his nephews said that’s a myth, but they mostly gone.
Mike E
@Suzanne: welp, they stayed home for various reasons and that blue support vanished. My 30 year old daughter votes, but I’m sure she is tired of hearing me apologize for my generation completely abandoning hers and she has to struggle with all of the repercussions… I do hope the younger folks are better people than those who came before them but that’s probably too large a burden to overcome, sad to say.
Geminid
@trollhattan: I read recently that Victor Orban is making plans to stay in power even if he loses the elections scheduled for next year, which is the expected result.
Suzanne
@Cliosfanboy: Here’s the Pew report about the 2024 election (page 3 of the whole report, scroll down about halfway). They do not break out age cohorts as precisely as you are looking for. But the Gen X cohort was the most Republican, followed by the Boomers, so your theory is probably correct.
Baud
@Geminid:
Wouldn’t the EU then officially get to kick Hungary out?
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Cliosfanboy: I’m an early Boomer (1951), and have been a yellow dog Democrat my entire life. My first vote was for George McGovern in the CA primary (back when it was in June and you had to be 21 to vote). My husband was born in 1952 and skews more radical than me (voted for Nader, supported Bernie, etc.)
Kelly
For some folks being pissed off is a hobby. Today’s example: I slowed to 25 in a 30 zone 2 blocks from the grocery store to allow some space for cars to exit the lot. The lot exit always backs up. The old fart behind me began waving his arm out his window and honking his horn for slowing him down 5 mph. Worth noting lots of people drive 40~45 in this 30 zone so in his mind I was slowing him down 15~20 mph FOR 2 ENTIRE BLOCKS.
Suzanne
@Mike E: If you read the Pew report that I just linked, you’ll see that almost every demographic shifted rightward. If you look at the age cohort breakout, voters that were 44 and under last year voted for Harris, while 45-and-ups went for Trump. The Gen Z group did probably see a bigger drop in turnout, but that’s not the same as switching to Trump.
One thing to note is that the American population is the oldest it has ever been, on average. There are a lot more older people than there used to be.
Jackie
I’m absolutely stunned! FFOTUS actually approved FEMA funding for WA St! Both sides of the Cascades have been hit with severe flooding following a bomb cyclone.
The counties listed include my county – Benton. Currently the flooding Yakima River is causing a major impact to my home town.
I worry about the quid pro quo.
wjca
Any of them with two brain cells to rub together (surely there at least a couple) will realize they can just flat out lie, and tell him what he wants is happening. And any reports otherwise are fake news.
mappy!
I wouldn’t say it’s hollowed out, replacement bodies don’t seem to be a problem.
But I do get the sense that the intellect, skill and talent is Hoovering at floor level.
This has been going on with the state party for a number of years now. State candidate qualities bottomed out years ago (advent of the Tea party). Local old school held out until recently.
Scout211
@Jackie: Wow. That’s a welcome surprise. My daughter and her family are in Thurston County but their area saw no flooding. Other parts of the county did.
I hope the needed services and funds arrive.
Baud
@Jackie:
I’m glad for you. Are the effected areas red?
Trump can’t afford to lose any more of his supporters. Hopefully that means he’s a little more constrained.
mrmoshpotato
@trollhattan: Oh! New picture! Very nice!
Mike E
@Suzanne: yeah, my original comment addressed the youngs staying home and I didn’t mean to imply that this rightward trend didn’t occur, just to clarify.
wjca
Actually, we know what his motivation is on that one. There were plans to put a wind farm near one of his golf courses (one in Scotland, IIRC), and he thought it would wreck the view.
In short, windmills attacked him. And he always lashes out after a perceived attack.
Geminid
@Baud: Georgia Governor Brian Kemp could be this faction’s standard bearer in 2028.
Kemp seems to have kept the upper hand over Georgia’s Republican radicals. When they took over the state party apparatus, Kemp developed his own network and worked around them until his allies took it back.
In the meantime, Kemp crushed Trump-endorsed challenger David Perdue in the 2022 primary, and then went on to beat Stacey Abrams that November. Abrams was a strong candidate who ran a good campaign, and Kemp could not have beaten her by 5 points if he hadn’t had a united party behind him.
Citizen Alan
@mrmoshpotato: I thought his point was simply that the republicans are losing the demographic that is their organizational core.
Baud
@Geminid:
I’ll be shocked if he doesn’t run. But it’ll be interesting to see if he can satisfy Trump’s core base during the primary.
Gin & Tonic
@trollhattan:
Does Hungary still have a functioning democracy?No.ETA: Not sure why the font changed there.
edit by WG: I removed the code and end code HTML. I imagine what you will see below will be in the normal font. Looks like you must have been in Code mode and accientally clicked on the “code” box inside the CODE tab.
Does Hungary still have a functioning democracy? No.
Another Scott
@Baud:
Maybe not what you’re looking for, but I found MIT.edu (43 page .pdf):
Many of the reasons for not voting could easily be mitigated by having 30 days of voting before election day, automatic absentee ballots, etc., etc.
Also too, UMD.edu:
We all know that in-person voter fraud is as common as people getting hit by meteorites. These ID laws are intended to keep certain groups of people from voting, and they are succeeding in doing that (and disillusioning them when their nominal representatives do not represent their concerns).
There are still systemic issues in US voting. The GQP would not push for these ID laws and voting restrictions if they thought they would hurt their chances for winning office. POSIWID.
Grr..
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
trollhattan
@Suzanne:
I’m stumped at the R-D/D-R swap in college and above/less-than college degree cohort over the last decade.
On one hand: yay, welcome, educated people and on the other: wait, do you know what they think of you and what they’re going to do to you?
‘Tis a puzzle.
Jackie
@Baud:
Both blue and red counties were impacted. Population-wise, blue counties effected more so than red.
Baud
@Jackie:
Then it is welcome surprise.
Geminid
@Baud: EU expulsion would probably be threatened, although that could be a drawn-out process. But my hunch is Orban will fail first on account of domestic opposition.
Sister Golden Bear
@Baud: So our billionaire betters are just the common clay of the New West?
Harrison Wesley
@wjca: Truly a Don Quixote for our time.
laura
@Mike E: Mike, unless you were a Republican activist over the last 30 years, you have nothing to apologize for. Democrats organize and run for office to make all our lives better, more equitable, healthier and to ensure everyone’s children gets a fair shot at the so called American Dream.
Sing her that song, sing it loud and sing it proud. You’ll feel better, she’ll feel better and together we’ll deliver an electoral ass kicking that they so deserve. I’m just an old Cali boomer, and I can’t help it that that’s my cohort, and I’m not ashamed at all to be one- though being raised by Democrats and always having been one, I take comfort in being on the correct side of history. Buck up my Brother, there’s a fight still worth having.
Suzanne
@Mike E: Yeah, I get you. There just seems to be a bit of a narrative here that young people, especially progressive students on Ivy League campuses, failed the Dems by voting for Trump or not showing up. And this is just not borne out by any data that I can find, and so I push back on it. Except for Pennsylvania, all the states with Ivy League campuses went for Harris. And there was rightward shift in almost every demographic relative to 2020. So no single group should get blamed. It was a systemic failure and that requires a systemic solution.
Older people have been a GOP-voting mainstay for decades, and this election was no exception.
eclare
@Jackie:
That is surprising.
Geminid
@trollhattan: This shift in the party alignment of college educated Americans has been going on since 1976, when Gerald Ford won a majority of this group. It accelerated with Obama.
I think part of this shift is a matter of demographics. There are many more non-White college grads now than there were then. But White college grads are also majority-Democratic now, I think.
JoyceH
@wjca:
Is it just me? I think wind turbines are pretty. (And a whole heck of a lot better than a coal mine!)
Suzanne
@trollhattan:
I’m not surprised by college-educated people turning toward the Democrats. I am deeply, deeply disheartened by working-class white people putting their racism and patriarchal social conservatism in front of their economic best interest and switching to the GOP. I can comprehend (disagree with, but comprehend) why working-class white people might be deeply disappointed with electoral politics in recent years and thus stay home. But becoming a Republican-voting bootlicker is fucking embarrassing and there is no legitimate reason for it.
Just look at that parking lot
I’m seeing a good number of woman cadets & midshipmen in the stands at todays Army/Navy game. Hopefully Pete “Watch my drink, I need to take a piss” Hegseth ,got to wasted before kickoff to notice.
Geminid
@Baud: Kemp might beat the MAGA candidate (or candidates) in the primaries. Then the question will be, can he get their supporters to back him in November?
Suzanne
@Geminid:
Yes, this is true. There are also lots more women who are college grads than there were back in the day.
Gin & Tonic
Some kind of shooting situation here at Brown University. Details are sparse.
zhena gogolia
@Kelly: Probably a Trump voter.
Geminid
@Suzanne: A lot of White working class voters made the switch in the Reagan years. White working class voters in the South started making the switch a decade before that.
But one important aspect of the White working class voter problem is: this is a shrinking demographic group. I’m not sweating winning them back, although it would be good if we can prevent further losses. In my opinion, it’s more important to win over Hispanic working class people, male and female.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Go here and scroll down to Pew’s “Age Cohorts” section:
pewresearch.org/politics/2025/06/26/voting-patterns-in-the-2024-election/
Pew’s conclusion in that link was “Harris’ advantage among voters born in 1990s and 2000s was far smaller than both Biden’s and Clinton’s”.
This is another report from Pew and the headline, like it or not, says it all:
pewresearch.org/politics/2025/06/26/behind-trumps-2024-victory-a-more-racially-and-ethnically-divers…
Others have looked at this from donors (not corporate):
x.com/owasow/status/1930315361976557815
Trump’s biggest demographic gains happened among lower-income donors, not wealthy ones. Among the bottom 50% by wealth, women gave 300%+ more than in 2012, noncollege white voters 500%+, PoC 400%.
archive.ph/BL4zQ
(That’s a podcast)
This piece goes into detail on where donations came from:
x.com/owasow/status/1930315361976557815
Dems pulling in the majority of people (or maybe households) earning more than $100K but under that, we were in the minority. And many of those under-$100K types used to vote Dem.
Of course none of this dives into the “stay at home, non-voter” issue we saw when comparing 24 to 20.
Scout211
NBC
Suzanne
@Geminid:
White people are a shrinking demographic, period. (Love that.)
frosty
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan):
Hmmm. I think it was changed to 18 in CA by ’72 because I voted in the primary in June and I wasn’t 21 yet. I didn’t vote for McGovern – pulled the lever for Shirley Chisholm because McGovern was too conservative.
Shana
@JoyceH: I’m with you. I think wind farms are beautiful. We were driving recently and came to the top of a hill to find an array of dozens of windmills laid out ahead of us. It was glorious.
Gin & Tonic
@Scout211: ”Barus & Holley” is a cafe in the School of Engineering. Keep in mind that Brown is an urban campus – it is in, and intertwined with, the City of Providence.
Scout211
@Gin & Tonic: Another NBC update
Local news:
Baud
cain
@Suzanne:
and they are getting what they voted for. A complete collapse of support for them with healthcare, gas, and groceries going way up it’s going to be hard living for some of them. Some of them alienated themselves from their families with their votes.
I don’t know what they plan on doing but I hope the GenXers understand they are going to get fucked if things don’t fix themselves. Many GenXers are even more racially diverse than the Boomers I think.
cain
@Baud:
I will never understand DeSantis voters.
Gin & Tonic
@Scout211: It’s actually about 4-5 blocks away from the engineering building, in a primarily residential area,
HopefullynotCassandra
@JoyceH: our president should put his regulations where his mouth is and allow construction of a “beautiful” “clean” coal fired power plant near Mar-a-Lago
Miss Bianca
@Scout211: Oh, man. Just another horrible day in gun-nut America. :(
Baud
Suzanne
@cain:
Each generation is less white and more racially diverse than the preceding one. The Boomers are 75% white, Millennials are 50% white. Gen X is somewhere in between those two. Gen Z is the most racially diverse.
Also, white people are old, on average. I asked AI:
Baud
RFK Jr is envious
Castor Canadensis
A spirited debate makes it stronger: both sides come away with more understanding of their and their opponent’s circumstances. Stabbing each other in the back? Less so
Suzanne
@Baud: RFK looks like he has leprosy. Or has been hanging out near Chernobyl.
Castor Canadensis
@JoyceH: Same thing happende with the actual Nazis.
AxelFoley
@eclare:
Baud
Bored so I logged into Blue sky and apparently Nate Silver is complaining about Heather Cox Richardson and folks are reacting to that this fine Saturday night.
Baud
zhena gogolia
@Scout211: This is horrible.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Good thing we don’t have an old president.
Scout211
@Baud: To be fair, the university first reported that the subject was in custody and all news sources did, too. But they had to walk it back and send out another alert to the community to stay sheltered in place.
I posted the updates above in this thread.
I loath to be fair to Trump but he wasn’t the only one who first reported that.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
It could be worse. We could have had a younger black woman president.
Baud
@Scout211:
Thanks. I value accuracy.
MagdaInBlack
@Baud: I just happen to be listening to her chat with JoJo from Jerz. on the “Sane-ish” podcast. Why is he complaining?
( Sane-ish = as sane as possible given all that’s going on)
Baud
@Baud:
For the sake of fairness
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Yeah.
Baud
@MagdaInBlack:
I honestly didn’t even read what he wrote.
MagdaInBlack
@Baud: Can’t say I blame you.
Gin & Tonic
Local news now saying two dead.
Jackie
@Baud:
No shit, Sherlock! No one in his malistration should – but they all do.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
That’s less than some of the numbers I’ve seen tossed around. Still horrible.
munira
@Baud: A mixture of red and blue. King county has Seattle – Whatcom county, where I live has Bellingham – both exceedingly blue. I’m also surprised I must say.
Geminid
@MagdaInBlack: Nate Silver might just be grasping for attention and relevancy by picking a fight with Richardson. He’s pretty much a has-been. Or at least, that’s how I see him.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: see my edit at your #61.
Jackie
@Gin & Tonic: Two dead; 20 injured per MSNOW.
Archon
@Suzanne: Trump was able to convince a large section of white voters who had always had to weigh their racial and cultural grievances against Democrats against Republican economic darwinism that they could have their cake and eat it too.
Thats why I think Republicans are in existential trouble in the midterms. Voters thought they were getting white socialism but instead got a level of white oligarchy that would make your average country club Republican in the Reagan era blush.
This was a profound betrayal by the Trump administration to all but the most cult like MAGA.
Jackie
The Engineering School was holding exams today in several classrooms. The shooting occurred inside the building.
MagdaInBlack
@Geminid: She does not strike me as someone likely to rise to his bait. So..move along, Nate. Find another fishin’ spot.
Mike E
@laura: heh, I tell people my mom didn’t raise no repubs…she was an officer with our local League of Women Voters along with my oldest sisters and pretty much every Dem from our area came through our house at some point
Doc Sardonic
Silver would have been well served to stick with Sabermetrics, fantasy sports and gambling.
Paul in KY
@mrmoshpotato: Being ‘white’ also seems to favour going with GQP, data says.
Suzanne
@Archon:
…..and this is precisely where any emotionally generous impulse I may ever had evaporates like a puddle in the Sahara. Anyone who actually thought they were gonna get white socialism by voting for FFOTUS is dumber than a bag full of hammers.
ETA: This is why I noted that, IMO, none of his voters have ever bought a used car, and it shows.
MagdaInBlack
…and on the podcast I’m listening to: Heather Cox Richardson just pointed out something I feel kinda dumb for not thinking of.
When we see trump, we’re seeing him at his best.
Yikes.
Kayla Rudbek
@JoyceH: wind turbines are awesome, and you can recycle the long blades into other structures! You just need to paint one blade black so the birds don’t fly into them (and I’m sure there’s an equivalent thing to do for bats although the bats can probably hear or echolocate the turbines pretty well)
Gin & Tonic
@Jackie: Mayor of Providence says two dead, 8 critical at R.I. Hospital. News conference ongoing at the moment.
Paul in KY
@Another Scott: The voting leave thing will never happen as last thing GQP wants is educated voters.
Elizabelle
@MagdaInBlack: She is right. And somehow that made me laugh. Still a horror show, though.
Jackie
@Gin & Tonic: Thanks for the update. Watching it now.
piratedan
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: and while all of that is true, Trump has gone on to deliver both a societal and economic apocalypse over the length of the year and I believe that the most recent polling showing that Trump has not only jettisoned those voters from his coalition, he’s also bleeding core support from formerly leaning independents and chamber of commerce types.
The key question is will he even survive his current term as he destroys the entire US diplomatically, financially, environmentally and institutionally. I can only hope that we do survive and that those that follow have started to plan on how to fix all that has been busted.
Paul in KY
@Suzanne: His voters think they put one over on the used car dealer!
Narrator voice: ‘No, they did not.’
Miss Bianca
@Suzanne:
A lot of them probably *sell* used cars, however.
Baud
@Miss Bianca:
Those that don’t sell real estate.
cain
@Baud:
Modern society seems to be unraveling fast.
RaflW
@Another Scott: “These ID laws are intended to keep certain groups of people from voting, and they are succeeding in doing that”
New layer just dropped: DHS officials are now saying openly that Real ID is not, erm, real. I know that it isn’t meant to be proof of US citizenship, but it is meant to prove that you are who you claim to be, and that you do reside in the United States.
Residing here used to mean you had a presumption of constitutional rights. Trumpers are doing all they can to wipe that out, but I didn’t expect them to openly admit that Real ID is now just a “get thru TSA so you can fly” card. What a fucking rip off, as well as a severe jump towards “Papers please!” (Where please isn’t even operative).
RaflW
@Baud: Nate’s sour grapes are amazing.
Also, I mostly don’t ever want to speak of him again, so it’s complicated.
They Call Me Noni
I would bet my last dollar that he will not be spending a lot of time in Indiana next year. Firstly, he’s too fucking lazy and infirm to do anything and secondly he no longer gives a damn about MAGA. He’s wrung everything he can get from his cult. They’ve bought all his bullshit shoes and bibles and now he’s moved on from grifting from them to being gifted millions from billionaires (domestic and foreign).
I long for the day when he isn’t in the news every damn day. There’s only one headline I want to read about him.
MagdaInBlack
@Elizabelle: She also said that the real promise of this country is not getting rich, it is the promise of self-determination and she believes that the American people are not going to give that up easily.
And that seems to be something I needed to hear =-)
lamh47
Evening BJ!
Life has been life-ing lately. Between moving to DFW from Cali (went well) to starting new job (been a month and I think it’s going pretty well), moving into my new apartment (2 weeks ago!) I just have not have as much time to comment online. Life is still life-ing tho, but I’m working on trying for full settlement before the new year!
Anyhoo, let’s use this a a sign of life…Hope all is well with everyone!
Suzanne
Off the topic, but great news for sunblock users.
FDA proposes allowing sunscreen ingredient already used in Europe and Asia
As someone who uses a lot of sunblocks, due to a family history of skin cancer…. this is fantastic news. I have had multiple allergic reactions to sunblocks and anything that provides more options and better performance is very welcome.
Baud
@lamh47:
Good to see you.
Suzanne
@lamh47: Glad to hear from you! Sounds like busy-but-good is your MO these days.
trollhattan
@piratedan:
You’ll be unsurprised to learn they don’t reeeally blame him and besides, a lot of economy things are better.
reuters.com/world/us/pinched-by-higher-prices-many-trump-voters-say-dont-blame-president-2025-12-13/
Gin & Tonic
@Jackie: Very little actual information. Nobody in custody, no weapon recovered, nothing even on type of weapon. Shooting happened inside a university building, so, on a Saturday, probably controlled access, but that’s never foolproof. Shooter just walked off and vanished.
schrodingers_cat
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): Are these the same women we were counting on to save us?
schrodingers_cat
@lamh47: Waves, good to see you!
Elizabelle
@MagdaInBlack: I have started listening to Heather CR more this past week, and she is marvelous. I generally read my news, cuz it’s faster, but HCR is worth the listen. Always, always learn something, and her calm demeanor is soothing, even while the current event idiocies she is addressing are not.
Elizabelle
@Gin & Tonic: Shooter described as male in black clothing. Quel surprise.
Matt McIrvin
America First and the Nazis weren’t even unrelated by blood– it’s just, you know, the same blood as me, Donald Trump and Dr. Seuss himself, and having experienced bigotry over that he wasn’t going to emphasize it.
The conjoined beard guys showed up in “The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T” with the political metaphor removed.
Miss Bianca
You know, I keep thinking AP is better than some of the other news sources, and then I see a headline with this framing: “Trump Blames Biden for the Agriculture Trade Deficit. It’s Not That Simple”.
How about just saying, “It’s a LIE”, you BS artists?! Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ – WHY does everyone in the media ALWAYS give this obvious headcase the benefit of any doubt whatsoever?
UncleEbeneezer
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Didn’t Vote-By-Mail in 2020 due to Covid, create unprecedented turnout? Then Republicans erased that boon to Dems in 2024 and an active voter suppression campaigns targeting Biden/Harris voters convinced people not to bother.
Scout211
In other news, more problems for the Comey prosecution.
frosty
@lamh47: Good to hear from you, and good to hear things are going well on all fronts. Life is life-ing here, too, but not to an extent that I can give up spending way too much time on this almost Top 10,000 blog.
Baud
@Miss Bianca:
I find AP these days to be better than the others, but they’re certainly not immune to that sort of thing.
I would probably put Reuters above AP.
Matt McIrvin
@Elizabelle: I’m starting to really hang on her videos. Much deeper perspective than most of the Resistance ranters out there.
cain
@Scout211:
Surprised that Trump hasn’t done an EO stating all prosecutions must go through Cannon.
Another Scott
@lamh47: Thanks for checking in! Glad things are going pretty well. Stop by when you can.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
My sample size of her work is limited, but she does seem quite good.
Matt McIrvin
@MagdaInBlack: I mostly see the cruelty, selfishness, stupidity and craven subservience of Americans when I think about politics these days and I don’t particularly see myself as a mighty freedom fighter personally, and it’s nice to know someone thinks we still have it in us to be something better.
barbequebob
@wjca: From what i have read, He sued to try and stop the windmills, and after he lost the suit, the government went after him to pay for their legal expenses. I’d be amazed if they ever saw that money.
TONYG
Interesting. I’ve thought of the Republican Party as being rotten to the core since the beginning of the Reagan era in 1981. But I guess that Trump is too putrid even for those people.
Eric S.
@munira: I’m seeing some pics from my friend north of Seattle in the Snohomish area. Devastating flooding.
trollhattan
BTW, the U.S. Dept of Energy is making funny.
Think I’m kidding?
x.com/ENERGY/status/1999873251674116339
MagdaInBlack
@Elizabelle: I listened to her entire ” History of the Republican Party” and it answered a lot of my questions about how they evolved.
(devolved?)
Elizabelle
@Matt McIrvin: Yes. I still have to watch her conversation this week w K-Thug (Paul Krugman).
It is a pleasure to listen to people who can present complicated topics well.
Elizabelle
@MagdaInBlack: Was that an episode or a series?
Castor Canadensis
@Kelly: I like putting the emergency flashers on and asking them if they’re OK, do they want me to call them an ambulance (:-))
Elizabelle
@lamh47: Hello you. You have been relocating more than career military. Glad to hear you are settling in.
Resilience is your middle name.
MagdaInBlack
@Elizabelle: 15 part series on her YouTube channel.
youtube.com/@heathercoxrichardson
( I listen to this stuff, as if it were radio, while doing other stuff)
Another Scott
Meanwhile, in the “no matter what MotUs and their enablers say, billionaires are not special” file …
(via Popehat)
Best wishes,
Scott.
Castor Canadensis
@Geminid:
There is no real expulsion mechanism (it requires unanimity). However, the “rule of law conditionality mechanism allows EU funds to be withheld from member states that backslide on rule of law “. Hit Mr Oban in the pocketbook (:-))
I agree: he will fail first on account of domestic opposition. It may be helped along by the EU
Mr. Bemused Senior
Those are my two Substack subscriptions I read every day.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@lamh47: I’m glad you are doing well, good to hear from you.
Castor Canadensis
@Kayla Rudbek: Birds rarely have troubles, incautious bats can be badly disoriented and crash (source: Ontario Field Ornithologists)
Martin
I think we need to shift how we think about this stuff because the idea that the GOP will simply be hollowed out isn’t really adequate. The consequence of that here in California is trivial and the consequence of that in Alabama is immense. How did West Virginia, which up until as late as the mid-aughts had some of the highest % democratic voter registration in the country wind up where it is now? How did California flip from the state that brought you Reagan and Nixon (sorry about that) to where it is now? Those are also stories of what happened inside the political parties, how local/regional priorities (like Jim Crow) intersect with political power and how those localities/regions align with the various factions often throwing some babies out to preserve those priorities. While the world is a much smaller place now and those regional differences are much less, you still have large agricultural interests in lots of the country, you have greater immigration concerns in some regions, but mostly you have this growing urban/rural divide that I suspect will be central to whatever happens.
Elizabelle
@MagdaInBlack: Thank you.
Elizabelle
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Thank dog K-Thug left the FTF Putz Sulzberger Times.
Martin
Hard to say. Covid alone would have created unprecedented turnout. Crises always drive turnout. The problem Covid created was that it made the activity of voting risky, and that’s what vote by mail sought to address. Did it also boost turnout in addition? Probably based on what we know from the vote by mail states, but I don’t think you can attribute all of it to vote by mail. Colorado turnout increased 12% and they were already vote by mail. But it boosted turnout to 87% which was 21% higher than the national average, and I think you can attribute that much higher baseline turnout to universal vote by mail rather than some particular feature of the Colorado culture.
TS
@Baud: And as usual trump blamed someone else for his incorrect statement.
Martin
Just want to note that all of my student/gun situations took place at the end of the term either during or just prior to finals. Lots of stressors at that time – not just exams but returning home, being separated from friends/partners when graduating, and so on. Finals is also one of the hardest times to do passive shooter precautions into place because you’re operating on this entirely different schedule with a very different cadence. Buildings need to be more open than usual, people move about differently, etc.
zhena gogolia
@lamh47: Glad things are going well!
They Call Me Noni
@Martin: Fun fact- here in red as a baboons ass Indiana in 2020 I tried to vote by mail. I figured surely being 60+ and being in a pandemic situation it would certainly be an option. NOPE! Had to be 65. So I voted early. Stupid, just stupid.
Melancholy Jaques
@Geminid:
Cheney is the most interesting of the Republican Loyalists because prior to her opposition to that asshole, there is nothing about her career that isn’t just standard right-wing evil. I mean, her dad is the prince of fucking darkness. I would like to know how she & he felt about the fact that almost nobody in the Republican electorate or hierarchy followed them out the door. That includes the Bush family. Do we think they never discussed it?
WaterGirl
@lamh47: Great to see you here. Glad to know we’ll be seeing more of you as things settle down.
SeattleDem
@munira: The parts of King and Snohomish county that are most affected are red zones compared to the urban parts of the counties. Up near the Canadian border, where Sumas is completely underwater, is where people go to get away from the liberals. Lots of anti-vaxxers in that area. Big parts of the flooded areas are tribal lands, too, so I am shocked that Trump signed the disaster declaration.
Eolirin
@Suzanne: I think we can still blame white people, especially men, for obvious reasons. The directional shifts aren’t that relevant to the vote share totals, which remain the core issue that keeps things close.
WTFGhost
@mrmoshpotato: To be fair, I don’t know the context of Knowles. I wouldn’t see it as a crap on Black women, unless I knew he was a D who had done some organizing. I could be convinced he was stupid, and didn’t know anything about Democratic organizing, but not that he was talking smack. That said: I also know it could, in fact, be a deliberate slight.
@Baud: Whether or not they’re into BDSM. If they’re into BDSM, they might be having fun, but if they’re not, whoo, I’m worried for them. Maybe I am wrong to be worried about all of them, but I am. BDSM isn’t about spanking your tradwife (though if she feels guilty…), it’s about understanding consent, and what you want, and your willingness to ask for what you want. A tradwife won’t be rewarded for her labors, unless those around her know how to reward her, and when. A BDSMer might not have that complicated of a notion of trade, but they know “you haven’t given me any special happy time in too long!”
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): Yeah, while I’m somewhat flippant over the notion of a BDSM-aware tradiwife, it’s because I know some people want some form of BDSM 24×7, and that’s the closest analog I can come up with. When I hear “tradwife” all I think is “you kink is okay, it’s just not my kink,” but if I hear it coming from a person who doesn’t really understand submission, consent, and getting one’s needs met, it’s really hard to force out “your kink is okay,” because it’s not entirely based on informed consent.
Archon
@Melancholy Jaques: Dick Cheney and George W Bush were misguided, ruthless imperialists which I’ll take 10 times out of 10 over what we have now.
Kayla Rudbek
@Suzanne: yeah, I would say that the EU is stricter on drug and food regulation than the FDA is
Martin
@Suzanne: My read of the data is that the main shifts were lower income voters regardless of race – but were most pronounced by the shift of black and latino voters mainly because low income whites were more likely to already vote Republican. Low income voters are no longer part of either the Democratic or Republican coalition and are largely free-floating and there are enough of them to throw elections until one of the parties decides to come through for them.
The fact that the share of Democratic votes that was white has climbed in each of the last 3 elections and the share of Republicans votes that was white has fallen in each of the last 3 elections is very telling. That isn’t necessarily a story of voter defection by race when you factor in non-voters, but I do think it’s a continued defection by class.
Blaming the loss on whites is a bit hard to reconcile with the fact that the one race/gender demographic that Harris gained with was white women. She lost every other demographic – many by double digits. We expected that black women would help carry her and they didn’t – Trump picked up black women.
I think that’s a story of income and economic opportunity not of race and gender. I think that’s why young people didn’t show up as strongly for Harris as we expected based on culture war issues.
Bill Arnold
@trollhattan:
That link is broken; here:
I replied with
(Today, about 9 cents per gallon more than in late October 2024, locally (NYS), from my notes.)
Jackie
@Bill Arnold:
FFOTUS has turned me into my dad: Keeping grocery and gas receipts.
It’d be fun to make copies and send to him – but of course they’d never reach him. Much less he understood how to read them.
laura
@lamh47: Great tidings of Comfort & Joy!
Suzanne
@Martin: If one is working class, the GOP will not do anything helpful for you. What they have to offer instead is culture war stuff. I mean, people harm themselves all the time, so it’s not surprising, but it also isn’t rational and I’m not going to pretend that it is.
Other than the MOTU, anyone who thought that Trump or theGOP would actually serve them well….. fell victim to one of the classic blunders.
Matt McIrvin
@Bill Arnold: Based on GasBuddy’s charts it looks to me like there’s a big regional divergence: gas prices *are* down in most of the country, just not in the Northeast.
Bupalos
@trollhattan: don’t love your phrasing that makes it sound like Harris was a problem. Harris didn’t “lose voters compared to Biden.” She almost certainly improved our totals versus the expectation. Polling says we cratered in 2023. We were a weaker party with a worse brand in 2024 than in 2020.
Bupalos
@Jackie: gas is about to get cheap because the economy is going to stall out.
Bupalos
@Suzanne: fills me with dread when I read this “demographics is destiny stuff.” Pretty much how we got where we are, how can we still be doing this? Trump is in office because younger non-white voters broke for him in an unprecedented way. The crackdown on immigrants was empowered by Hispanics. Nothing about ethnic voting preference is cast in stone. Frankly nothing about the definition of “white” is either.
That said, Hispanics swinging back is also a big part why he’s losing power now.
Chris T.
@WTFGhost:
I thought it was “battle tenderized”…?
rikyrah
@JoyceH:
The thing about immigration is that he hasn’t been able to deport as many as Biden did the legal way
Matt McIrvin
@Bupalos: Gas was super cheap during the 2008 crash and during the COVID shutdowns. It didn’t endear the administration to anybody, but in both cases, Republicans did try to make people feel nostalgic about it afterward.
Matt McIrvin
@Cliosfanboy: it shows some of the inanity of “generational” thinking: I suspect the late Boomers, especially the ones born in the early 60s who were too young for the Vietnam draft, have more in common psychologically with the older GenXers like me… and my mom, a World War II baby who is technically Silent Generation, thinks a lot like the older Boomers.
Matt McIrvin
@JoyceH: In authoritarian systems, fanaticism and ass-kissing count more than competence, and incompetents with the right kind of shamelessness use this to get ahead. So there’s always some of this. The people who know what they’re doing mostly don’t want anything to do with these clowns, or have already been purged.
Paul in KY
@lamh47: Glad all going good down there in the DFW!
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: At the height of the COVIDian era, I bought gas at $1.25 a gal. That was cheapest I ever experienced (during those sad days).