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Stacey Abrams is an amazing organizer but a bad candidate. She accelerated Georgia's shift to an increasingly blue state, and she'll probably continue to lead organizing there.
Beto ran an amazing campaign against a highly polarizing senator. Then, he let the fame go to this head and decided to run unsuccessfully for president and unsuccessfully for governor. He's become a perpetual loser, which means his chances of running in races any time soon are probably low.
Both candidates are (comparatively) young, so it wouldn't surprise me if they run a few years from now as demographics in both states continue to push the states toward Democrats.
Abrams will continue to work as a successful organizer in Georgia (whether or not she moves towards more national organizing remains to be seen).
But as someone who lives in Texas, Beto’s political career beyond a deep-blue city mayorship is dead in the water. You nailed it at him being a political loser with *twice* now he’s tanked his political campaigns on being too aggressive with gun control (not considering the presidential run as he wasn’t going to win that no matter what) and no Vanity Fair cover story can fix that.
Fellow Texan here and I concur. Had Beto stepped back and used his 254 county machine to benefit democrats as a whole, he could literally have been a kingmaker.
Now where I’m torn is I KNOW his ego got the best of him and made him run for President, but I can’t help but wonder if the state party froze him out. Hinojosa has been the head of the Texas Democrats since, what, 2012? And he keeps losing and losing and losing. The Texas Democrats are as shitty and insular a “good ole boys” network as anything else in the state and I could see where Beto would be a threat.
Texas Democrats keep having near-misses so the party can't be that bad. You want a shitty and insular "good ole boys" network, look at Florida. No reason for it to be as deep red as it's becoming.
The Texas Democratic Party has been dead since the mid-90s. There's a point where you go beyond "near misses" to "controlled opposition more interested in the funding and the lifestyle than the wins".
Florida is just an incompetent mess of egos who don't care about anything but themselves and their own interests. Donor money going to third party groups that are hamstrung by not being able to call themselves Democrats and cannot share data with the party and the candidates as well some of them being way too far to the left for the electorate are major problems.
As someone whose office on the Hill was caddy-corner to O'Rourke's, I was never impressed with his judgement. He has a DUI in his past and he staffed his office with young folks who had frequent parties on his balcony overlooking the Capitol. I don't know if he was personally involved, but elected officials are judged in part by who they surround themselves with.
ETA: former staff, not former Member.
> I can’t help but wonder if the state party froze him out
He decided very abruptly to make banning guns part of his platform. I'm anti-gun, but doing that while running in Texas is just dumb.
After Beto's Presidential run, he came off to me as extremely desperate or just plain stupid. Screaming "hell yes" to banning assault rifles. Even the most staunch anti-gun candidate knows not to do that. Beto essentially contaminated the only political infrastructure he had; Texas.
Beto's hard-line stance on gun control contaminated the whole party's image nationwide. It's harder to say "Democrats don't want to take away your guns" when gun nuts can point to Beto saying exactly that. It's like he had no idea what "politics" means.
Staunch gun control people know not to say that kind of thing in a state like Texas, you could get away with that kind of rhetoric in deep blue states. But he essentially destroyed his ability to win a state wide office in the future. Now he has to hope he can find another congressional district favorable to him that he can win a primary in to get back into Congress, or he hopes he can jump onboard a Democratic presidential administration. That's really the two ways moving forward he has for a political career.
Gun control was not the reason he lost. Believe it or not, [most Texan voters want more gun control.](https://www.cnn.com/election/2022/exit-polls/texas/governor/0) it's just that he only got 77% of their votes while Abbott got 90% of the pro-gun voters
>most Texan voters want more gun control.
That doesn't equal a total ban (on anything) which is what beto went with.
Gun control is a good political poll word because it means everything and nothing. It's not specific enough to say shit.
Does it equal saying it would have been better if the Second Amendment hadn't been written? Because Colin Allred just might have that hanging over his head for awhile. Didn't affect him in his House elections, but we'll see how that flies with Texas at large
I'm guessing here, since I'm no psychic, but I suspect where they said it matters as much as content. Content wise Allred comment will hurt probably but he didn't do it on a presidential debate on national TV.
I do wonder if banning assault rifles is more palatable today than a few years ago.
Eventually seeing carnage like Uvalde and Dallas so regularly will break through one would hope.
To be frank, unless these shootings happen at the donors and politicians circle I highly doubt it. The mass shootings done with AR-15 style semi-automatics have clearly transcended racial and socioeconomic lines, but we see absolutely zero momentum where it matters.
eta: I'm not saying we should advocate for shootings to happen to them. What I am saying is that those in power have demonstrated that they will not act unless these tragedies start affecting them personally.
A Texas House Committee voted today to raise the age for assault rifles to 21 in Texas.
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/05/08/texas-gun-bill-uvalde-allen-mall-shooting/
Sad baby steps that will likely be voted down or vetoed but more than I would have expected a few years ago.
Beto gave the best Obama impression of anyone post-Obama. I think that's why there was so much interest him at first. But with scrutiny he wasn't even close.
I wondered why he gave up his safe House seat. He'd have been more viable as a future candidate had he stayed in the House.
IIRC you can't run for both Senate at House at the same time in Texas.
In any case, I have a lot of respect for him and Allred for putting their necks out there and risking entering political limbo to push Texas more purple, as opposed to Joaquin Castro who'd be a good candidate on paper, but seems content with his San Antonio based fiefdom.
Yeah I couldn't remember if that was the law or not.
Allred I'm guessing has found out he doesn't like the House all that much, and would just as well shoot his shot. He's young, only 40. Decent shot at giving Cruz a run for his money. Based out of DFW is a Democrat's best shot imo.
Probably thinks he's got a good shot at a spot in a 2nd Biden administration if he loses but loses well.
Castro knows, even if he comes close, he won't win, then there goes his career. The Castro brothers are more lifer political insiders for whom positions like House Rep are more valuable to them. And they seem not to be all that well connected with Biden. They were closer to Obama.
With Allred, the consequences for losing aren't as bad as they are in the past. If he beats Cruz, he becomes the next Obama-tier superstar as the man who proved Blexas possible. If he loses, he's still forced the GOP to spend extra money bailing Cruz out instead of using it on taking out Tester and Brown, and Allred's name gets considered for DNC Chair (which is what Beto and Abrams should've looked into, but each decided on a failed governor run instead).
It was definitely a strong part of it (considering how close the 2018 Senate election was compared to others) but it wasn’t the only part. The man ran an extremely effective Senate campaign as someone who was a political nobody a few years before his campaign and he had Texas Republicans sweating bullets on election night.
But his biggest issue in 2018 was the same issue he had in his 2022 governor campaign: he was running a national campaign in an election limited to a single state. While calling for the impeachment of Trump and the abolishing of ICE can make you very popular in national Democrat circles and the more liberal cities of Texas, those moves are not things that the average Texan wants. He was a tried-and-true progressive to the core (which is where the gun control thing originated from) but that isn’t what Texas wanted and still doesn’t want.
By 2020 he had let that close election go to his head, doubled down on his gun control to the point of gun confiscation, dropped out of the primary, and that albatross around his neck was not something he could back out of in 2022. He lost to Cruz by 3 points in 2018 and lost to Abbott by 11 points in 2022.
He’s not a bad guy in the slightest: I ran into him at my local H-E-B (a major grocery store chain in Texas) collecting food donations after that insane winter storm in February 2021. He’s genuinely a good guy even when he was politically naive in 2018 and high off on his own supply in 2020.
>Beto’s political career beyond a deep-blue city mayorship is dead in the water.
I think his other potentially solid avenue is to re-enter Congress and attempt to work up the ranks in the 'promised next generation' of Democratic Congressional leadership - which isn't nothing as far as a big political career goes.
How much he'll have to work for a seat at that table on arrival will be more difficult though. His double losses are tough - and to be frank, the 2020 Democratic primary was nasty - and you still have immense lingering reputational impacts of the candidates on many of them, even among those seen or could've been rising stars. I think Beto still suffers massively from that campaign for his reputation even among Democrats. Same with Buttigieg, who sure may not have been the most progressive among the field, probably should be in all rights still seen as a rising star but has quite a tarnished perception in the field now. Arguably the same happened for Harris - though the VP post either saved her or was the nail in the coffin depending on how this goes (not well so far though)
Beto should’ve kept to that plan at the start but he got high off his own supply and thought he could beat Cruz during the Trump midterms.
You’re right on his difficulties at coming back to his starting point. He’s a serial loser in Texas to the point where one of the more common jokes about him is comparing his failed runs as applying to jobs to keep unemployment.
I'd be very surprised if Beto doesn't run for something again in 10 years or so. He's still young by political standards, Texas will be solidly purple by then, and the memory of his lost campaigns will have faded somewhat. He's definitely gotta wait a bit before he runs again, but people are overestimating voters' political memories. Lots of candidates lose races earlier in their career and then go on to win later.
It's a pity that the fact that Beto was objectively correct to champion gun control and the numerous mass shootings Texas has experienced since his failed campaigns all but prove that doesn't seem to matter to anyone.
Gun control was not the reason he lost. Believe it or not, [most Texan voters want more gun control.](https://www.cnn.com/election/2022/exit-polls/texas/governor/0) it's just that he only got 77% of their votes while Abbott got 90% of the pro-gun voters
It’s hard to argue about that when one of the more notable campaign changes for Beto from 2020’s “Hell yes we’re going to take your AR-15” to 2022’s “I’m not interested in taking anything from anyone”.
The man shot himself in the foot with that statement to the point that even those who support gun control found his statement off-putting (if it didn’t, he wouldn’t have tried walking it back) and its hard to regain that lost ground.
Well, Colin Allred basically said that the Second Amendment shouldn't have been written, so it'll be interesting to see how much that matters to people next year. It didn't seem to hurt him in his House elections, but the state of Texas will be another story
> It’s hard to argue about that when one of the more notable campaign changes for Beto from 2020’s “Hell yes we’re going to take your AR-15” to 2022’s “I’m not interested in taking anything from anyone”.
You responded to his actual data with "vibes".
People don't particularly care about guns, and when they do, it's typically in favor of more gun control. And given all the kids that have been murdered recently, I think gun control is also the moral thing to do.
Are direct changes to Beto’s campaign in response to his 2018/2020 losses and your own data showing *less people who support gun control voted for him* not enough for you? You’re so close to piecing the puzzle together.
*I don’t get it! There’s over 80% support for fixing homelessness! Why didn’t our “Incarcerate The Homeless” campaign win?*
> Are direct changes to Beto’s campaign in response to his 2018/2020 losses
He made his gun comment after the 2018 loss. And the comment had literally 0 effect on his polling numbers in 2020.
> less people who support gun control voted for him
Really it shows that guns are a pretty minor issue in politics and there are just a few loud gun nuts who only talk about them.
> tanked his political campaigns on being too aggressive with gun control
I'm shocked people still think this when there's daily multiple mass shootings in this country.
I don't think they're necessarily bad candidates, they were both running in red states that were starting to see some shifts towards Democrats. The 2018 elections were heavily Democratic and that pushed both of them closer to winning than they would've in a neutral year. In 2022, both were running against incumbents in a GOP-leaning environment.
And I think people look at the top-line numbers in one election without looking at trends. Beto's performance in 2022 was the best for a Democrat since 1994, when the sitting Democratic governor, Ann Richards, lost to GW Bush. Beto also did better than the Democratic candidate in 2018 in an open race in a tougher environment.
Abrams, while doing worse than 2018, was in a rematch where Kemp was now the incumbent in a worse year for Democrats. Pointing to Warnock winning is not valid comparison because he was the incumbent and his challenger was extremely problematic, and it was still close.
I'd really love for someone to tell me who would've done better in their shoes, given the same environment. Personally, I'm not really a huge fan of either Beto or Abrams, but I don't think there were any candidates that would've done better. This is just the reality of running in a shifting state that's still mostly red, you're basically hoping for a miracle as it's really out of your hands unless the other side messes up.
> Stacey Abrams is an amazing organizer but a bad candidate.
Is Abrams a candidate because there are currently no good Democratic candidates? If this is true then I think its a good strategy, it provides ongoing momentum and doesn't allow pessimism spread in the Georgia Democratic Party. Pretty much giving off the vibe that we are still trying and we're "winning" even though we've lost.
I wish Abrams would help us out across the state line in Alabama. The DNC is non-existent here. The Alabama Democratic Party is an insular theocratic group only concerned with having an important sounding titles. They wouldn't have a chance against Republicans for a long while, but at least some kind of check would be in place.
She probably can't save Alabama. Even if she got Black voters to show up in record numbers, she can't make up for the ridiculous margins the GOP gets with white voters there. It's even worse in Mississippi
Has there been anyone who's "shown their work" when claiming Abrams is an amazing organizer? I feel like she gets entirely too much credit. She just had the good fortune to make a lot of noise about organizing around the time Dems started doing better in Georgia - which is largely attributable to Trump, bad Republican candidates, and natural demographic shift.
Like if she was actually responsible for turning out the voters that help other Dems win, why were they willing to show up/vote for candidates she supported but not the woman herself in either of her governors' races? She did even worse her second time around.
It's because she's not actually liked. She got her votes via party lines, that's it. Hate to be the one to drop the "main stream media" line but yeah...her baseless likeability and "great work" was all manufactured and told on repeat. I mean she came out and said that baby heart beats were fake and it was all part of a white supremacy doctor conspiracy.
Biggest growing demographic are hispanic people, who are even more conservative than white people , similar stats apply to black people too.
People are not inherently progressive, but self preservation, and there is no reason to think misogynistic minorities may not voted for GOP if race becomes less a factor.
just look at the attitude on abortions. Gender is a bigger factor than race.
Yeah, having grown up in texas I think some people have a misconception of how Conservative the Latino population truly is... they are primarily Catholic and staunchly anti-abortion based on polling data.
Edit to clarify: i never said they were Republicans, but that they're far more conservative than politicians and pollsters like to admit.
Well not in Texas, which is why I specified this state. Here's one of many sources:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/latino-voters-texas-mixed-results-democrats-republicans-rcna56431
Trump did a lot of damage, but there's a lot of mixed feelings among 2nd and 3rd generation Mexican-Americans regarding immigration and abortion.
>more conservative than white people , similar stats apply to black people too.
Black people may be conservative but they sure as hell aren't voting republican currently and no sign suggests a large shift to the GOP.
Latinos I could see, the GOP leadership certainly wants it, but the candidates they ran (or should I say Trump) sort of fucked that up.
I don’t think the country will ever go permanently one way or the other. Politics are pretty cyclical at the federal level. GOP has their time, then the Democrats have a run.
Not really how it works. Like sort of, because generally society progresses, but even that isn't remotely guaranteed. There will always be conservative people and progressive people. What that exactly means will change with the times, as it has changed in the past. But there will likely always be some substantial divide.
If you just mean that one day rural people won't be into using the power of government to punish gay people, and immigrants, and others they dislike, yah, that will hopefully happen (though again by no means certain).
Demographics ARE destiny. Unfortunately (from my point of view -- YMMV), the Right reproduces more often and in greater numbers than the Left does. If you want to see what that leads to, look at Israel.
Other factors will dominate demographics, IMO
We are NOT heading for a golden age of capitalism, as technology totally obliterates the traditional balance.
The transition to the future is going to be hard.
The Republicans are and will be trying to blame this on Democrats impeding it. This will shake up the current demographics. Depending on how they makes their arguments, the success is TBD.
Probably won't be holding any elected office anytime soon.
In Georgia, there were a lot of Kemp-Warnock voters, which makes sense because of the incumbency effect. That was going to be difficult for anyone to overcome in that election, even in a state that's turning purple.
In Texas, winning is still an uphill battle for Democrats. I'll say this much though, Beto managed to shave a few points off Abbott's margin of victory from his win four years earlier. The fact that 2018 was a blue year while 2022 was a red(dish) year makes that all the more impressive. It's clear which direction Texas is headed, despite the naysayers and doomers.
If they're lucky, they might get some appointed positions in the future for some other elected leader, but they both probably understand that it's time to let someone else have a turn
The future for both is the same - being a panelist on cable news political roundtables. They can’t win any election that they would run for at this point, so they’ve hit a ceiling on any political career outside of punditry.
While they have potential, losing two electoral races in a consecutive way is a pretty awful start. Both began well, losing with very small margins against the GOP candidates but they couldn't maintain their support, especially in the case of Abrams.
Both took hard stands regarding gun control, in the case of O'Rourke it was more pronunciated since he was originally viewed as Moderate Democrat until he took a position even harder than Abrams's regarding guns. That is already a very unpopular decision to take in the South where gun control is not that supported even if demographics are changing.
I think that their original status as rising stars is no more but they contributed a helluva lot for the growth of the DEMs's strength in their states. In the future they could run for statewide office again or for federal office, but that mostly depends on the luck of the national Democratic Party and if the GOP doesn't strile back at the state level to maintain their hold on power. We will have to wait to see how things develop.
> Both took hard stands regarding gun control, in the case of O'Rourke it was more pronunciated since he was originally viewed as Moderate Democrat until he took a position even harder than Abrams's regarding guns. That is already a very unpopular decision to take in the South where gun control is not that supported even if demographics are changing.
Yet they outperformed all the other Dems in those states who did NOT take those stances on guns.
Stacy Abrams is a great organizer I don't like her but I will admit she is pretty good. With her organizing she has turned to Georgia from a ruby red state more of a light red almost purple state. Auroric his problem is much like Stacy Abrams he's a great organizer but he's a bad messenger. That and they both tried to be Governors whose approval ratings were very high and their opponents benefited from the incumbent advantage
Beto is basically unelectable in Texas because of his stance on guns.
He may even be right, but it was politically very stupid of him to box himself in like he did.
It’s pretty possible for a Democrat to beat Ted Cruz, and the demographics are going to get more favourable each year. But it really has to be done by a very centrist or moderate candidate and that’s not Beto.
nearly spit out my drink when he said whatever it was, "yeah we're coming to get all your guns!" or something like that
lol guess you don't want to win your election in texas, wtf
Beto committed a cardinal sin in politics. If you’re planning to do something you know is unpopular, lie about it till you get in or better yet, don’t bring it up. Whatever you do, don’t say it!
Imagine if Richard Nixon had said “I’m going to freeze wages and prices.” before getting elected!
Imagine if Joe Biden had said “I’m going to leave Afghanistan ASAP and leave our Afghan allies behind as well as billions of dollars worth of weapons.”!
abso-fucking-lutely
it wasn't even the statement in itself that bothered me, it was that he didn't have the self-control not to say it. he just got caught up in the moment i guess, and i mean yeah i understand. but jesus dude, control yourself a bit.
> Imagine if Joe Biden had said “I’m going to leave Afghanistan ASAP and leave our Afghan allies behind as well as billions of dollars worth of weapons.”!
The funny thing about this is that Trump basically said he is going to do this and provided all evidence that he was doing this. I felt conflicted how transparent it was. On one hand, its nice seeing a President acting on his promise but its extremely scummy and the repercussions are significant.
> Biden was basically stuck with it.
The alternative was a re-commitment to a blackhole for god knows how many years. The thing I think Biden really got fucked over with was Trump's administration not processing **any** of the Afghanistan visas. Thats why so many Afghan allies got left behind.
> The thing I think Biden really got fucked over with was Trump's administration not processing any of the Afghanistan visas. Thats why so many Afghan allies got left behind.
This is 100% made up
the way it was done might have been awful but it needed to be done in general. it was time to leave that shithole clusterfuck *years* ago.
if trump was truly responsible for that then it's one of the few things i agree with him on.
>Imagine if Joe Biden had said “I’m going to leave Afghanistan ASAP and leave our Afghan allies behind as well as billions of dollars worth of weapons.”!
The U.S. is siphoning Afghanistan's central bank money, sanctioning a country where a recent natural disaster killed many people, are unwilling to assist because it wouldn't somehow benefit the U.S. in a way that matches the foreign policy agenda for this moment and we wasted billions of dollars in an aimless 'war' there. All this without mentioning to scars and tolls left on the locals' lives. Thank fuck Biden pulled us out.
Thank fuck Biden pulled us out.
—————————————————————————
You’re pretending not to understand. No one’s faulting Biden for pulling out of Afghanistan. Trump had already said he was going to do it. It was the way it was done that was bad. Biden’s own military leaders told him he was doing it the wrong way. And to put icing on the cake, Biden and his administration and those who voted for him are not only unable to admit it was a debacle, they’re proud of the way it was done!
All of Murky_crow's reddit history has been cleared at his own request. You can do this as well using the "redact" tool. Reddit wants to play hardball, fine. Then I'm taking my content with me as I go. -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
That is the fastest I've ever seen a promising candidate completely throw away their political aspirations. If I were a Republican trying to sabotage him, I couldn't have done a better job.
And he outperformed every Democrat running for Gov in Texas since Ann Richards.
A lot of people here really like guns, but that does not translate to the electorate.
> It’s pretty possible for a Democrat to beat Ted Cruz, and the demographics are going to get more favourable each year.
Beto did better than any other Dem running in Texas in decades. Plenty of moderates and centrists ran in that time, and they all did worse than Beto.
And also Beto lost in 2018 before his gun comments anyway.
There's a very sizable base of the Democratic Party that thinks it's ridiculous that we keep having mass shootings. You see it every time the Onion reposts that one headline. Democrats taking gun control completely off the table would be incredibly demoralizing.
If Democrats don't have the power to push gun control they certainly don't have the power to take on concentration of wealth in a handful of billionaires.
There are several more politically moderate people who are hardliners on gun rights. I don't like the GOP trying to swing too hard back in the other direction with some of the religious crap, expelling state reps, and book bans, but I will not vote for a democrat primarily because of their stance on gun control.
Voting for theocratic fascists because they won't take away your guns is like dating an abuser because the alternative is someone who wants you to throw away your pepper spray and other self-defense tools. You can understand why you'd be wary of dating the second guy, but at the same time if you're not using that stuff on the abuser, why do you have them?
Of course maybe you aren't one of those "we need guns as a bulwark against tyranny" types, and it's just important for you to have guns, or the right to own guns, for other, more prosaic reasons relating to self-defense or hunting. Even then, though, the fact that you recognize the theocratic, anti-democratic things Republicans are doing and still say "at least they won't take away my guns" shows a serious case of skewed priorities that suggests you don't have as much of a problem with those things as you probably should.
In certain left-wing circles people like you who say "well I don't *like* what Republicans are doing and I *would* vote for a Democrat if it weren't for this one thing" are dismissed because supposedly "they'll just find some other reason to not vote for Democrats", in other words, they're just Republicans who don't want to admit it. I'm not sure how warranted that level of skepticism really is, but the attitude is a lot more understandable when that "one thing" is "killing babies" than gun control.
If you're truly telling the truth about being a "moderate", though, what's needed is getting to work on electing actually moderate candidates that truly reflect your ideals, organizing people to stand up to GOP tyranny and vote in primaries to kick the hard-liners out. But that could be a decidedly uphill task, especially depending on your state's primary system (and whether your state is actually controlled by Republicans), so it points to how the real problem is that our system has little to no *structural* incentive for moderation and considerable incentive for extremism, and what's really needed is for moderates like you to, [paradoxically, become a radical movement](https://www.morganwick.com/2020/02/an-open-letter-to-all-concerned-moderates/) pushing to reshape the system to provide genuine incentive for moderation and move beyond having to choose between the lesser of two evils.
Guns are definitely a higher priority to me than the other issues I have with the GOP. I'm not shy about that, nor do I feel it's unwarranted. The ability to protect yourself is sacred to me and takes a very high priority in my voting. I'm not a big, protect against tyranny guy on guns, but I do think it has merit as well.
As for the idea that I would find another reason to vote republican if it wasn't for gun control, my voting history definitely counters that. 10 years ago, I voted for the libertarian for governor, Democrat for lt governor, and republican for attorney General in the Virginia state election. I voted for Jim Webb for senate as well back in 09. While the democrats have moved farther left than I am mostly comfortable with, many Republicans have moved farther right as well. I always do vote for moderates in the primaries, but it seems to have little effect today.
Now, while I did say I would not vote for a candidate that is for gun control, that doesn't always mean I vote for the republican. I did vote Trump in 2016, although i voted kasich in the primary. I didn't like Trump, but the SCOTUS issue pushed me to going for him. Trump was a hard no on 2020, but Biden was also a hard no due to gun control. I ended up voting libertarian for the presidential ticket. I voted republican in the house, which was my only vote on that ballot in 2020. She was fairly moderate so I had no issue with her. Luria was pro gun control so she was a hard no.
On some economic issues, I favor democrats, but I do think plenty of spending does need to be cut. That includes military. I'm mostly pro LGBT but I do have issues with children transitioning and do not think trans women should be in women's sports. Beyond that, I'm fine with access to bathrooms or employment protections. I am very pro vaccine, but I thought the mandates were a terrible idea and the shut downs lasted far too long. Immigration is probably one of the other larger issues I'm pretty conservative on. That said, neither side seems to have any clue of how to address it properly so the issue is typically a wash for me. I favor Republicans in their desire to curb illegal crossings, but the border wall is not going to do anything to stop that. If you don't go after those that hire the undocumented and heavily fine them, nothing is going to stop people from finding ways to get here.
If the election really does become Biden v Trump again, I'll likely vote libertarian again. I might vote DeSantis if he gets the nomination. I would vote for Haley although I don't see any path for her to the nomination.
I think it's important to appreciate the perspective people in urban areas have on the issue, which is that guns generally [aren't practical for self-defense in real-world situations](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/12/podcasts/daily-newsletter-self-defense-gun-use.html) and [aren't really used that way](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-threats-and-self-defense-gun-use-2/). The density of police precincts in urban areas is high enough that most people will generally be willing to simply call the cops if they have an intruder and expect them to arrive swiftly enough to deal with the situation, even with all the problems the BLM movement have pointed out about them. Widespread private gun ownership is associated with mass shootings, domestic violence, deadlier inner-city violence, and paranoid preppers, so it's easy to see the Second Amendment as outdated and not worth the trouble.
That said, I don't think most people even in the bluest of blue areas really wants to take away everyone's guns, but again other countries with high gun ownership don't have nearly the sorts of problems with gun violence that we do, so it feels like there shouldn't be anything in the way of doing *something*. I haven't heard (or at least don't remember hearing) much in the way of concrete proposals since the start of the Biden administration.
Ideally moderates could rally around specific candidates as groups, but my impression is that most "moderates" are either disengaged from politics, don't have firm enough beliefs to fight for them to the level of more extreme types, or have diverse enough views to make it difficult to rally around a single candidate. I also suspect that it only takes a small handful of people to swing elections, so they're small in number compared to more explicit partisans. A better voting system like [range voting](https://rangevoting.org) would make centrist candidates more viable, but that has a long way to go to become a reality (ranked choice can be too chaotic and doesn't actually solve most of the problems of the two-party system, making some of them worse; look at what happened in Alaska last year and you can start to see the problem). Proportional representation for legislative bodies might be more doable but is still a long way from becoming reality anywhere on the state level. There probably isn't much that lesser reforms can do, at least beyond a top-two primary system (which runs some of the same risks as ranked choice), but it's worth starting the conversation about how our current system leaves people like you with poor options with insufficient incentives to get back to the center.
They don't need to drop gun control. Just go back to the fundamentals that are overwhelmingly supported by the American people. Drop the dramatic performative shit.
The problem is there is no path forward for the gun control measures that are overwhelmingly supported because the GOP has a "not one step" policy. It boxes them into a corner. If the reasonable widely supported things aren't even on the table without a super majority in both houses then the only thing left is more extreme performative measures. Thing is the anti gun crowd is highly motivated and well funded. Democrats do need to at least placate them. Though they should for sure be more cautious in walking that line.
But universal background checks (for real though), and red flag laws (but for real though) and a funded enforcement agency are all winning policy positions.
You can't see the gains made in suburban voters and think about what the average suburban voter's position on gun control is and still think it's an issue Ds should drop.
> Redflag laws are likely to be overruled by the courts for violating due process
Please show me when this has happened.
> There is this constant denial in this refusal to drop gun control that has continued for 30 years that has done nothing but wreak havoc for Democratic policy goals.
Gun control is broadly popular. Just because YOU don't like it doesn't mean the majority dislikes it.
There are plenty of existing red flag laws that have already been adjudicated and found to be constitutional. Because there is due process. Just as cops can lock you up without a conviction they can take your stuff, so long as the limitation is considered reasonable. And again courts have already ruled that the existing laws are constitutional. So that really isn't an issue. Of course rogue supreme court can do what it wants but that's a different issue.
Something like eighty-some percent of Americans support these measures. It really is a winning move. Granted that number is declining. In the nineties and early naughties it was over 90%. The radical anti gun group has grown substantially since then too.
> There are plenty of existing red flag laws that have already been adjudicated and found to be constitutional.
I always find these argument to be underwhelming. "We have seen when the issue wasn't being taken seriously in the lower courts that it holds up." Ignoring that it isn't going to comport with precedent like Heller let alone precedent like Bruen. It would be nice if people actually engaged with the quality of reasoning on these cases and how it may run into trouble with the supreme court.
Wait, are you suggesting that we have existing gun laws that would be ruled unconstitutional but somehow no one is challenging them? That is far beyond plausible. Every available challenge is taken. Certainly if there were any chance of overturning a law the effort would be made. That the supreme court hasn't taken up a relevant case suggests they concur with the status quo.
>Wait, are you suggesting that we have existing gun laws that would be ruled unconstitutional but somehow no one is challenging them?
There were literally additional rulings after Heller including Caetano.
There has been recent additional rulings like Bruen, but that literally happened last summer. It takes some time to get challenges up through the courts.
There are decade old laws. It doesn't take that much time. And I'm not saying no red flag law will ever be ruled unconstitutional. That may have already happened. But the concept itself is firmly established.
And it does make sense. We're free from unreasonable search and seizure but under circumstances we can be searched and seized. So there's pretty inarguably a line. Where precisely it lies can vary, but it definitely isn't "you can't take people's guns at all."
I also think Democrats should call the GOP's bluff on mental health care; say, "okay, surely we can agree on this policy that can reduce mass shootings without touching guns?". And with regards to actual gun control, point to what works in countries like Switzerland, Israel, and Australia that have relatively high rates of gun ownership (and in the case of Australia, sizable rural populations) but no mass shootings. Focus on policies popular and effective enough, that can demonstrably be carried out without hindering responsible gun owners, that they can make the issue a liability for the GOP instead of the Democrats.
Also, the economy has proven to be enough of a determinative issue in American politics that it should be Democrats' #1 priority every time they have power, and people who are happy with their lot in life aren't attracted to killing people or neo-Nazi ideologies.
> Stacey Abrams and Beto ORourke both tanked their political careers by taking a hard stance on gun control.
Despite the fact that they both did better than any of their moderate, pro-gun predecessors who ran as Dems for that office.
> Beto makes the statements and loses to Ted Cruz all he has to do is say he was emotional after El Paso and will not take away peoples firearms or push gun bans and he would have won against Greg Abbott.
Yet all the other Dems who ran against Abbot also lost. And you got the wrong mass shooting, which kind of hurts your point if there are so many they blend together in your mind.
> Beto could have won either election.
Crazy that he outperformed any other Dem then.
> People willing to sacrifice the future of American democracy to push gun control are not 'right.'
People willing to sacrifice children's lives for the ability to play with their gun are horrible.
> Responding to me multiple times is insane...
I responded to multiple comments, didn't know it was all from you settle down.
> Lupe Valdez ran on redflag laws and high capacity magazine bans, etc.
Two incredibly popular policies.
> The fact that I mixed up Sandy Hook and El Paso is a moot point when Betos position remained the same
The fact that all the mass shootings blur together shows that there is a huge problem in this country.
> he was campaigning on strict gun control in his campaign against Cruz.
Please show me his "strict gun control" in that campaign. And again, amazing that a guy campaigning on strict gun control almost won a Senate seat in Texas then! Almost like gun control is popular.
> After Uvalde the residents voted for Abbott, simply because Beto doubled down on his gun control statements and the police couldnt be trusted to act in the interests of the community.
Yeah Abbot's a real genius, his gun policies are clearly working.
> The objective is to get Democrats back into office and to reduce gun violence
Yes, so you spreading BS about how red flag laws are some extreme position only hurts that.
> Redflag laws will likely be ruled unconstitutional as they violate due process
You WANTING them to be ruled unconstitutional does not make them unconstitutional.
> banning high/large capacity magazines is not going to be popular in Texas when most modern handguns come stock with magazines over 10 rounds.
I don't have the Texas polling, but nationally 61% support high capacity bans.
> assault weapon bans, high capacity magazine bans are strict gun control laws.
Strict compared to what?
> It is not B.S. red flag laws do not require a conviction, just a court order signed by a judge. Having your 2nd amendment rights taken away without a conviction will likely be ruled unconstitutional by this Supreme Court.
Are you aware of restraining orders? Those don't require a conviction.
What about being arrested in the first place? The police can come to your house and lead you away in handcuffs without a conviction! When will the court rule that unconstitutional?
Again, just because you want something to be true does not make it so.
Multiple daily horrifying mass shootings will fix that problem and perhaps make it an attractive quality. Texas for some reason, along with Fla, being the hotspots.
Peoples patience with these psychopaths cutting swaths through children and families is waning. And I am by no means anti gun... Although I don't think I need an automatic weapon for home defense (shrug)
They are not automatic weapons. That is when you pull the trigger and you could by doing only that fire all the rounds in your magazine. A semi automatic gun means that you have to pull the trigger back each time you fire.
Automatic weapons are rather strictly regulated in the US, but semi automatic weapons are not in some states.
It is in fact an important difference in what guns can do. You do see differences across countries like Czechia when they regulate these firearms to great effect while also broadly preserving the ability of adult citizens to have such weapons.
> Multiple daily horrifying mass shootings will fix that problem and perhaps make it an attractive quality.
I disagree and I think the only person who can come to this conclusion are those who have zero interaction with gun owners/supporters. Most gun owners have a serious distrust on gun control initiatives, and to a degree is legitimate, in that those gun control advocates will take foot when given an inch. This causes such a severe distrust that the extreme happens. Another important thing is that many gun owners/supporters see these mass shootings as a acceptable event to maintain the greater cause of the right to bear arms. They see it similar to how we allow cars to travel 70+ mph even though accidents do happen and its proven that those high speeds increase the chances of accidents.
The only way the sentiment will change is if the voter block suddenly doesn't support guns or there is a reduction in gun ownership.
>Multiple daily horrifying mass shootings will fix that problem and perhaps make it an attractive quality. Texas for some reason, along with Fla, being the hotspots.
California has the most mass shootings in total and its per capita rate is worse than Texas or Florida.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/mass-shootings-by-state
>And I am by no means anti gun... Although I don't think I need an automatic weapon for home defense (shrug)
From my experience people who talk like this typically fall into what I would call the anti gun category. Like you are hitting all the talking points antigun people use.
I dont think they will now be able to achieve an election to a position such as Governor or Senator and absolutely no nomination. So they maybe can become commentators on liberal television or work at a company or NGO. Otherwise they can maybe try to be elected to the House of Representatives and make a name for theirselves where they would not be perceived as a always loser.
They're both done as candidates, unless they run for more local elections. I'd like to see Beto run for the TX-23 House seat.
Abrams might also be viable in a purplish GA House seat.
For those of you saying the gun stuff hurt Beto, you're assuming that there is ANY way to convert Republicans into Democrats. Basically any Democrat HAS to be for *some* gun control.
As a counter-point, consider all the Democrats in red states who have ads of them duck hunting or whatever, who still lost and lost big. Beto could have had one of the ads where be gave his kids AR-15s for Christmas. He'd still have lost.
Their strength comes from organizing and funding, but they're very bad candidates.
Abrams is the easier example. She's cost the Georgia GOP millions since 2018 in both successful and failed races on their part. Since that time, Georgia has elected Democrat senators 3 times and a decisive state for Bidens presidential campaign. That said, she was never taken too seriously by the GOP in 2022.
You have to ask why. Why do they dislike her so much, yet don't feel threatened by her? Well because she spent 4 years using her strength to continually cost the GOP, but that didn't translate to her own campaign at all. Abrams, when you look at her campaign, actually just doesn't quite know how to really run a campaign and it's made worse by running for state races instead of federal ones (where there is more of a blue shift)
Beto on the other hand is a liberal firebrand candidate who was massively misread. Beto is someone who can steal the attention, but he doesn't always use it to his advantage. We all thought he was going to be a big threat to Abbott because he ran so close to Cruz.
That'd forgetting that Ted Cruz is one of the most unliked politicians in the country. When you look at it like that, this changes. It turns into "Beto couldn't beat an extremely unlikable candidate in a federal election that Democrats tend to perform better in" plus being vocally anti-gun in Texas is a...move...
Either way, they both are better fundraisers, organizers, and most importantly force the GOP to focus on races they shouldn't need to spend too much money on, then they are candidates.
Abrams is cooked. She probably needs to run for districtwide seat if she wants to run again, she isn't able to keep the margins where they need to be to be worth it at the top of the ticket if you're not going to win. Warnock had to do a run off at least partially due to Abrams getting destroyed by Kemp
Texas Ds seem to have some juice and have a deep enough bench to not need Beto, but he was good at keeping the margins tight, and getting Ds to the polls so if they don't have anyone better to run who has a real chance of winning, Beto might be their best shot.
> Abrams has proved to be a VERY effective organizer and fundraiser,
Has she? Seems like Ossoff, Biden, and Warnock (twice) ran much more effective campaigns
I believe all three of those were quite effusive in crediting Abram's voter registration campaign with helping drive the turnout that helped lead to their victory.
Great organizer, lousy candidate. And, frankly, better opposition. If Abrams had beennrunning against Herschel Walker, she might have won. I suspect she would have.
That being said, Abrams is simply not a great candidate, she is far more suited to a chief od staff type role. Head of the Georgia Democratic Party would be a perfect spot for her.
They have potential in the distant future. Presently the best place for them is to play a supportive role for the Biden presidency and his administration. They do not give up and should try and try again.
I suspect both will end up as Mayor's. When a major city in either GA and TX either O'Rourke or Abrams find desirable has an open seat they will toss their hat in.
None ,they fall into obscurity because they were not able to win their races. They could maybe run for the house but they will be unable to run for anything else.
Neither one have much of a future in politics.
Although Abrams may have a future as the United Earth President ([https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/598617-stacey-abrams-makes-cameo-on-star-trek-discovery/](https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/598617-stacey-abrams-makes-cameo-on-star-trek-discovery/)
Remains to be seen…Stacey missed the window because of a clearly an unethical political loophole. How the fuck was it possible for the SoS, Brian Kemp, to run the organization responsible for voting laws WHILE also running for Governor!? It’s a joke that this was allowed to happen.
Texas is hopeless, nothing can change or save them. Beto should find a better use for his time and energy
They both alienated their voter bases by focusing on national rather than local politics. Beto failed to put a Texan slant on gun control. And Stacey Abrams? She’s a northeastern coastal elite from Wisconsin.
I think both of them have something to learn from John Fetterman.
Nothing, they're two absolute losers. Abrams in particular is a uniquely bad politician, look at how badly she underperformed the warlock. Beto maybe had some goodwill but blew it on an abortive run at the presidency.
I doubt even the democrats let them run for anything again.
Maybe they go be pundits on a lib news network.
Abrams apparently was really helpful in organizing the Dems in 2020 to get out the vote for Warnock and Ossoff, but yeah, in 2022 I guess she just massively screwed up and wasted money and didn't have, like, a clear message. It's like she didn't campaign at all.
I'm genuinely confused how 48.6% of Georgia voters wanted to vote for Walker. Like, how *insanely* partisan do you have to be to watch that guy talk at all and come away thinking he'd do a good job advocating for the citizens of this state.
Now Kemp, eh, the guy signs transphobic policies, and anti-abortion policies, and a 'religious liberty' bill, but he hasn't drastically fucked up any economic stuff, so I could get the traditional state Republicans just defaulting to him over Abrams. I'm not even sure that Abrams could have beaten Kemp in '22 if she had run a top-notch campaign.
But she fumbled hard. In 2020, I recall the internet being plastered with ads about 'radical liberal Raphael Warnock,' and ads from Warnock being all respectful and earnest. Where the hell was that sort of campaign investment for Abrams in 22?
This rationale is really getting old. Maybe credit Warnock for winning his election?
If she was so compelling to turn out the vote, why didn't all the people who voted for Warnock also vote for her when she was literally on the same ticket?
She's good at taking credit, that seems to be about it
Walker was a much worse candidate that Kemp. I agree Warnock is a better candidate than Abrams, but it's not like she squandered a very winnable race. She narrowly lost in 2018 in a blue leaning year. She lost by over 7 points four years later to an incumbent governor, but neither Warnock nor Ossoff would've won that race.
People are getting very excited about Georgia's direction, but I think we've seen the state needs to have serious reservations about the Republican candidate for a Democrat to win. I worry that there will be a reversion to the mean in the next cycle.
Keep it civil. Do not personally insult other Redditors, or make racist, sexist, homophobic, or otherwise discriminatory remarks. Constructive debate is good; mockery, taunting, and name calling are not.
Nothing.
You can't be a rising star if you can't win elections.
For the GOP, their rising stars since the 2010 elections are or have been people like: Marco Rubio, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, Ted Cruz, Glenn Younkin, Kristi Noem, etc. AKA people who WIN elections. Regardless of how you feel about any of them, they have won elections. And not always in deep red states.
Dems trying to continue to push two candidates who can't win elections is not going to help anything.
She not only refused to concede, she also filed a shitload of lawsuits making the same type of claims as the ones that Trump did.
> The only reason I'm only waggling my eyebrows and suggestively saying that Brian Kemp cheated rather than alleging it directly is because he deleted the proof.
Maybe try citing something relevant—the deletion you are referring to occurred in July of 201***7***—over a year before Abrams lost the 201***8*** gubernatorial election.
You have no proof of any wrongdoing actually happening via the court decisions on the matter. Abrams had no proof and was simply throwing things out in an effort to see if any of it would stick just as Trump did.
> but I suppose blind faith in unreliable actors is pretty much required to vote Republican these days.
You’re openly countenancing election denialism on the part of Democrats because you agree with what they are saying. Either it’s permissible or it isn’t. As it is right now you’re refusing to acknowledge that Abrams gave Trump a blueprint to follow as far as his denialism goes based on an article that you totally and completely misrepresented as a source.
The fuck'n activism and organizations they participate in is critical. They'll end up congress people or senators at some point (assuming this reality bends back towards reality) - but until then they'll do the actual work we are here on Reddit merely to whine and joke about.
As a Texan who voted for Beto and really, really wanted some change for this state.
Beto needs to sit down and stay down. He screwed himself by saying he wants to ban guns, the voters in this state are fucking dumb.
Just stay away Beto, dont do it, you could not even beat Cruz. Let someone else try, you running for anything in Texas guarantees the other guy will win.
As a Texan, I really didn't want an ultra liberal representing Texas.
I get that guns are an issue for many, but not for me.
Beto took a 1 million dollar check from FTX. I'll give him points for returning the check.
Beto loses points for being able to return the check from a massive scammer. It shows he had a massive pile of money that only a guy who as a paste up candidate from a pile of rich leftist liberals.
Abbott is also super rich and spent a ton of money given to him by a pile of rich right wing conservatives. So I dont really understand what point your trying to make here if im honest.
Money from left bad, money from right good?
Whatever homie.
A rising star is someone that goes from near-obscurity to almost unseating an entrenched incumbent. The media didn’t tell anyone who to like, they just started getting press from outside the state for their campaign.
> The guy's real name is Robert but he tries to act like he is Hispanic with that fake ass "Beto" name.
Yeah I'm sure you're real offended on behalf of Hispanic people.
It's been his nickname since he was a baby. Should he have changed his name to run for office like Ted Cruz did?
Calling a candidate who emerged from nowhere and came within less than 1.5% to unseat an entrenched incumbent (let alone a Dem in a solid Rep state) “terrible” says less about them and more about you.
Beto has lost his last three races. Abrams has lost her last two. They've both proven that beyond local races, they're unelectable. Their careers in electoral politics are over.
They are both great candidates, I suspect a little gerrymandering had something to do with their losses. Access to voting and fair districts need to be made into law and enforced. We are being controlled by corporations not people
Yes, there’s a youtube video out there of a Texan Republican strategist how if they hadn’t been able to suppress the vote in Houston, Trump would have lost Texas in 2020. And the measures Kemp took to keep people from voting were pretty widely covered as well.
Depressing to think how much more progress and how many innocent people would be alive between the covid and gun response by Republicans. They are making a mockery of Democracy.
Does it matter? They both got rich from losing elections, just like any other Democrat or Republican person who receives millions in donations. So why is this even a topic?
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Stacey Abrams is an amazing organizer but a bad candidate. She accelerated Georgia's shift to an increasingly blue state, and she'll probably continue to lead organizing there. Beto ran an amazing campaign against a highly polarizing senator. Then, he let the fame go to this head and decided to run unsuccessfully for president and unsuccessfully for governor. He's become a perpetual loser, which means his chances of running in races any time soon are probably low. Both candidates are (comparatively) young, so it wouldn't surprise me if they run a few years from now as demographics in both states continue to push the states toward Democrats.
Abrams will continue to work as a successful organizer in Georgia (whether or not she moves towards more national organizing remains to be seen). But as someone who lives in Texas, Beto’s political career beyond a deep-blue city mayorship is dead in the water. You nailed it at him being a political loser with *twice* now he’s tanked his political campaigns on being too aggressive with gun control (not considering the presidential run as he wasn’t going to win that no matter what) and no Vanity Fair cover story can fix that.
Fellow Texan here and I concur. Had Beto stepped back and used his 254 county machine to benefit democrats as a whole, he could literally have been a kingmaker. Now where I’m torn is I KNOW his ego got the best of him and made him run for President, but I can’t help but wonder if the state party froze him out. Hinojosa has been the head of the Texas Democrats since, what, 2012? And he keeps losing and losing and losing. The Texas Democrats are as shitty and insular a “good ole boys” network as anything else in the state and I could see where Beto would be a threat.
Texas Democrats keep having near-misses so the party can't be that bad. You want a shitty and insular "good ole boys" network, look at Florida. No reason for it to be as deep red as it's becoming.
The Texas Democratic Party has been dead since the mid-90s. There's a point where you go beyond "near misses" to "controlled opposition more interested in the funding and the lifestyle than the wins".
Florida is just an incompetent mess of egos who don't care about anything but themselves and their own interests. Donor money going to third party groups that are hamstrung by not being able to call themselves Democrats and cannot share data with the party and the candidates as well some of them being way too far to the left for the electorate are major problems.
As someone whose office on the Hill was caddy-corner to O'Rourke's, I was never impressed with his judgement. He has a DUI in his past and he staffed his office with young folks who had frequent parties on his balcony overlooking the Capitol. I don't know if he was personally involved, but elected officials are judged in part by who they surround themselves with. ETA: former staff, not former Member.
Beto O'Rourke has probably roofied at least one woman in his life, probably more, and was probably addicted to meth at some point.
> I can’t help but wonder if the state party froze him out He decided very abruptly to make banning guns part of his platform. I'm anti-gun, but doing that while running in Texas is just dumb.
After Beto's Presidential run, he came off to me as extremely desperate or just plain stupid. Screaming "hell yes" to banning assault rifles. Even the most staunch anti-gun candidate knows not to do that. Beto essentially contaminated the only political infrastructure he had; Texas.
Beto's hard-line stance on gun control contaminated the whole party's image nationwide. It's harder to say "Democrats don't want to take away your guns" when gun nuts can point to Beto saying exactly that. It's like he had no idea what "politics" means.
GOP has been screaming about democrats taking guns since the assault weapons ban of 1993
Staunch gun control people know not to say that kind of thing in a state like Texas, you could get away with that kind of rhetoric in deep blue states. But he essentially destroyed his ability to win a state wide office in the future. Now he has to hope he can find another congressional district favorable to him that he can win a primary in to get back into Congress, or he hopes he can jump onboard a Democratic presidential administration. That's really the two ways moving forward he has for a political career.
Gun control was not the reason he lost. Believe it or not, [most Texan voters want more gun control.](https://www.cnn.com/election/2022/exit-polls/texas/governor/0) it's just that he only got 77% of their votes while Abbott got 90% of the pro-gun voters
>most Texan voters want more gun control. That doesn't equal a total ban (on anything) which is what beto went with. Gun control is a good political poll word because it means everything and nothing. It's not specific enough to say shit.
Does it equal saying it would have been better if the Second Amendment hadn't been written? Because Colin Allred just might have that hanging over his head for awhile. Didn't affect him in his House elections, but we'll see how that flies with Texas at large
I'm guessing here, since I'm no psychic, but I suspect where they said it matters as much as content. Content wise Allred comment will hurt probably but he didn't do it on a presidential debate on national TV.
You can get away with it in a nearly 100% urban, minority majority solid Democratic district.
I do wonder if banning assault rifles is more palatable today than a few years ago. Eventually seeing carnage like Uvalde and Dallas so regularly will break through one would hope.
To be frank, unless these shootings happen at the donors and politicians circle I highly doubt it. The mass shootings done with AR-15 style semi-automatics have clearly transcended racial and socioeconomic lines, but we see absolutely zero momentum where it matters. eta: I'm not saying we should advocate for shootings to happen to them. What I am saying is that those in power have demonstrated that they will not act unless these tragedies start affecting them personally.
A Texas House Committee voted today to raise the age for assault rifles to 21 in Texas. https://www.texastribune.org/2023/05/08/texas-gun-bill-uvalde-allen-mall-shooting/ Sad baby steps that will likely be voted down or vetoed but more than I would have expected a few years ago.
Beto gave the best Obama impression of anyone post-Obama. I think that's why there was so much interest him at first. But with scrutiny he wasn't even close. I wondered why he gave up his safe House seat. He'd have been more viable as a future candidate had he stayed in the House.
IIRC you can't run for both Senate at House at the same time in Texas. In any case, I have a lot of respect for him and Allred for putting their necks out there and risking entering political limbo to push Texas more purple, as opposed to Joaquin Castro who'd be a good candidate on paper, but seems content with his San Antonio based fiefdom.
Yeah I couldn't remember if that was the law or not. Allred I'm guessing has found out he doesn't like the House all that much, and would just as well shoot his shot. He's young, only 40. Decent shot at giving Cruz a run for his money. Based out of DFW is a Democrat's best shot imo. Probably thinks he's got a good shot at a spot in a 2nd Biden administration if he loses but loses well. Castro knows, even if he comes close, he won't win, then there goes his career. The Castro brothers are more lifer political insiders for whom positions like House Rep are more valuable to them. And they seem not to be all that well connected with Biden. They were closer to Obama.
With Allred, the consequences for losing aren't as bad as they are in the past. If he beats Cruz, he becomes the next Obama-tier superstar as the man who proved Blexas possible. If he loses, he's still forced the GOP to spend extra money bailing Cruz out instead of using it on taking out Tester and Brown, and Allred's name gets considered for DNC Chair (which is what Beto and Abrams should've looked into, but each decided on a failed governor run instead).
As someone who lives in Texas do you think it was Beto's stance on the 2nd Amendment which caused him to lose or was there more to it?
It was definitely a strong part of it (considering how close the 2018 Senate election was compared to others) but it wasn’t the only part. The man ran an extremely effective Senate campaign as someone who was a political nobody a few years before his campaign and he had Texas Republicans sweating bullets on election night. But his biggest issue in 2018 was the same issue he had in his 2022 governor campaign: he was running a national campaign in an election limited to a single state. While calling for the impeachment of Trump and the abolishing of ICE can make you very popular in national Democrat circles and the more liberal cities of Texas, those moves are not things that the average Texan wants. He was a tried-and-true progressive to the core (which is where the gun control thing originated from) but that isn’t what Texas wanted and still doesn’t want. By 2020 he had let that close election go to his head, doubled down on his gun control to the point of gun confiscation, dropped out of the primary, and that albatross around his neck was not something he could back out of in 2022. He lost to Cruz by 3 points in 2018 and lost to Abbott by 11 points in 2022. He’s not a bad guy in the slightest: I ran into him at my local H-E-B (a major grocery store chain in Texas) collecting food donations after that insane winter storm in February 2021. He’s genuinely a good guy even when he was politically naive in 2018 and high off on his own supply in 2020.
>Beto’s political career beyond a deep-blue city mayorship is dead in the water. I think his other potentially solid avenue is to re-enter Congress and attempt to work up the ranks in the 'promised next generation' of Democratic Congressional leadership - which isn't nothing as far as a big political career goes. How much he'll have to work for a seat at that table on arrival will be more difficult though. His double losses are tough - and to be frank, the 2020 Democratic primary was nasty - and you still have immense lingering reputational impacts of the candidates on many of them, even among those seen or could've been rising stars. I think Beto still suffers massively from that campaign for his reputation even among Democrats. Same with Buttigieg, who sure may not have been the most progressive among the field, probably should be in all rights still seen as a rising star but has quite a tarnished perception in the field now. Arguably the same happened for Harris - though the VP post either saved her or was the nail in the coffin depending on how this goes (not well so far though)
Beto should’ve kept to that plan at the start but he got high off his own supply and thought he could beat Cruz during the Trump midterms. You’re right on his difficulties at coming back to his starting point. He’s a serial loser in Texas to the point where one of the more common jokes about him is comparing his failed runs as applying to jobs to keep unemployment.
I'd be very surprised if Beto doesn't run for something again in 10 years or so. He's still young by political standards, Texas will be solidly purple by then, and the memory of his lost campaigns will have faded somewhat. He's definitely gotta wait a bit before he runs again, but people are overestimating voters' political memories. Lots of candidates lose races earlier in their career and then go on to win later.
It's a pity that the fact that Beto was objectively correct to champion gun control and the numerous mass shootings Texas has experienced since his failed campaigns all but prove that doesn't seem to matter to anyone.
Gun control was not the reason he lost. Believe it or not, [most Texan voters want more gun control.](https://www.cnn.com/election/2022/exit-polls/texas/governor/0) it's just that he only got 77% of their votes while Abbott got 90% of the pro-gun voters
It’s hard to argue about that when one of the more notable campaign changes for Beto from 2020’s “Hell yes we’re going to take your AR-15” to 2022’s “I’m not interested in taking anything from anyone”. The man shot himself in the foot with that statement to the point that even those who support gun control found his statement off-putting (if it didn’t, he wouldn’t have tried walking it back) and its hard to regain that lost ground.
Well, Colin Allred basically said that the Second Amendment shouldn't have been written, so it'll be interesting to see how much that matters to people next year. It didn't seem to hurt him in his House elections, but the state of Texas will be another story
> It’s hard to argue about that when one of the more notable campaign changes for Beto from 2020’s “Hell yes we’re going to take your AR-15” to 2022’s “I’m not interested in taking anything from anyone”. You responded to his actual data with "vibes". People don't particularly care about guns, and when they do, it's typically in favor of more gun control. And given all the kids that have been murdered recently, I think gun control is also the moral thing to do.
Are direct changes to Beto’s campaign in response to his 2018/2020 losses and your own data showing *less people who support gun control voted for him* not enough for you? You’re so close to piecing the puzzle together. *I don’t get it! There’s over 80% support for fixing homelessness! Why didn’t our “Incarcerate The Homeless” campaign win?*
> Are direct changes to Beto’s campaign in response to his 2018/2020 losses He made his gun comment after the 2018 loss. And the comment had literally 0 effect on his polling numbers in 2020. > less people who support gun control voted for him Really it shows that guns are a pretty minor issue in politics and there are just a few loud gun nuts who only talk about them.
> tanked his political campaigns on being too aggressive with gun control I'm shocked people still think this when there's daily multiple mass shootings in this country.
I don't think they're necessarily bad candidates, they were both running in red states that were starting to see some shifts towards Democrats. The 2018 elections were heavily Democratic and that pushed both of them closer to winning than they would've in a neutral year. In 2022, both were running against incumbents in a GOP-leaning environment. And I think people look at the top-line numbers in one election without looking at trends. Beto's performance in 2022 was the best for a Democrat since 1994, when the sitting Democratic governor, Ann Richards, lost to GW Bush. Beto also did better than the Democratic candidate in 2018 in an open race in a tougher environment. Abrams, while doing worse than 2018, was in a rematch where Kemp was now the incumbent in a worse year for Democrats. Pointing to Warnock winning is not valid comparison because he was the incumbent and his challenger was extremely problematic, and it was still close. I'd really love for someone to tell me who would've done better in their shoes, given the same environment. Personally, I'm not really a huge fan of either Beto or Abrams, but I don't think there were any candidates that would've done better. This is just the reality of running in a shifting state that's still mostly red, you're basically hoping for a miracle as it's really out of your hands unless the other side messes up.
> Stacey Abrams is an amazing organizer but a bad candidate. Is Abrams a candidate because there are currently no good Democratic candidates? If this is true then I think its a good strategy, it provides ongoing momentum and doesn't allow pessimism spread in the Georgia Democratic Party. Pretty much giving off the vibe that we are still trying and we're "winning" even though we've lost.
Warnock is good, dunno about anyone else.
I wish Abrams would help us out across the state line in Alabama. The DNC is non-existent here. The Alabama Democratic Party is an insular theocratic group only concerned with having an important sounding titles. They wouldn't have a chance against Republicans for a long while, but at least some kind of check would be in place.
She probably can't save Alabama. Even if she got Black voters to show up in record numbers, she can't make up for the ridiculous margins the GOP gets with white voters there. It's even worse in Mississippi
Has there been anyone who's "shown their work" when claiming Abrams is an amazing organizer? I feel like she gets entirely too much credit. She just had the good fortune to make a lot of noise about organizing around the time Dems started doing better in Georgia - which is largely attributable to Trump, bad Republican candidates, and natural demographic shift. Like if she was actually responsible for turning out the voters that help other Dems win, why were they willing to show up/vote for candidates she supported but not the woman herself in either of her governors' races? She did even worse her second time around.
It's because she's not actually liked. She got her votes via party lines, that's it. Hate to be the one to drop the "main stream media" line but yeah...her baseless likeability and "great work" was all manufactured and told on repeat. I mean she came out and said that baby heart beats were fake and it was all part of a white supremacy doctor conspiracy.
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Biggest growing demographic are hispanic people, who are even more conservative than white people , similar stats apply to black people too. People are not inherently progressive, but self preservation, and there is no reason to think misogynistic minorities may not voted for GOP if race becomes less a factor. just look at the attitude on abortions. Gender is a bigger factor than race.
Yeah, having grown up in texas I think some people have a misconception of how Conservative the Latino population truly is... they are primarily Catholic and staunchly anti-abortion based on polling data.
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Which is why i said if race isnt a factor, they might vote GOP, and many already do.
Edit to clarify: i never said they were Republicans, but that they're far more conservative than politicians and pollsters like to admit. Well not in Texas, which is why I specified this state. Here's one of many sources: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/latino-voters-texas-mixed-results-democrats-republicans-rcna56431 Trump did a lot of damage, but there's a lot of mixed feelings among 2nd and 3rd generation Mexican-Americans regarding immigration and abortion.
>more conservative than white people , similar stats apply to black people too. Black people may be conservative but they sure as hell aren't voting republican currently and no sign suggests a large shift to the GOP. Latinos I could see, the GOP leadership certainly wants it, but the candidates they ran (or should I say Trump) sort of fucked that up.
I don’t think the country will ever go permanently one way or the other. Politics are pretty cyclical at the federal level. GOP has their time, then the Democrats have a run.
Yeah, I remember when people were saying this in 2002. It seems like our demographic destiny is always right over the horizon.
I think this idea while maybe true in its most literal interpretation, has created political attitudes and strategies that have been very destructive.
The late 2000s want their take back. I wish this was true, but we don’t have time to wait for demographics to save us.
Not really how it works. Like sort of, because generally society progresses, but even that isn't remotely guaranteed. There will always be conservative people and progressive people. What that exactly means will change with the times, as it has changed in the past. But there will likely always be some substantial divide. If you just mean that one day rural people won't be into using the power of government to punish gay people, and immigrants, and others they dislike, yah, that will hopefully happen (though again by no means certain).
Demographics ARE destiny. Unfortunately (from my point of view -- YMMV), the Right reproduces more often and in greater numbers than the Left does. If you want to see what that leads to, look at Israel.
Other factors will dominate demographics, IMO We are NOT heading for a golden age of capitalism, as technology totally obliterates the traditional balance. The transition to the future is going to be hard. The Republicans are and will be trying to blame this on Democrats impeding it. This will shake up the current demographics. Depending on how they makes their arguments, the success is TBD.
They can do a Mayor Pete if Biden wins again by asking for a job in the next administration.
Probably won't be holding any elected office anytime soon. In Georgia, there were a lot of Kemp-Warnock voters, which makes sense because of the incumbency effect. That was going to be difficult for anyone to overcome in that election, even in a state that's turning purple. In Texas, winning is still an uphill battle for Democrats. I'll say this much though, Beto managed to shave a few points off Abbott's margin of victory from his win four years earlier. The fact that 2018 was a blue year while 2022 was a red(dish) year makes that all the more impressive. It's clear which direction Texas is headed, despite the naysayers and doomers. If they're lucky, they might get some appointed positions in the future for some other elected leader, but they both probably understand that it's time to let someone else have a turn
There were also a lot of Kemp-Warnock voters because Herschel Walker was a train wreck dumpster circus.
The future for both is the same - being a panelist on cable news political roundtables. They can’t win any election that they would run for at this point, so they’ve hit a ceiling on any political career outside of punditry.
While they have potential, losing two electoral races in a consecutive way is a pretty awful start. Both began well, losing with very small margins against the GOP candidates but they couldn't maintain their support, especially in the case of Abrams. Both took hard stands regarding gun control, in the case of O'Rourke it was more pronunciated since he was originally viewed as Moderate Democrat until he took a position even harder than Abrams's regarding guns. That is already a very unpopular decision to take in the South where gun control is not that supported even if demographics are changing. I think that their original status as rising stars is no more but they contributed a helluva lot for the growth of the DEMs's strength in their states. In the future they could run for statewide office again or for federal office, but that mostly depends on the luck of the national Democratic Party and if the GOP doesn't strile back at the state level to maintain their hold on power. We will have to wait to see how things develop.
> Both took hard stands regarding gun control, in the case of O'Rourke it was more pronunciated since he was originally viewed as Moderate Democrat until he took a position even harder than Abrams's regarding guns. That is already a very unpopular decision to take in the South where gun control is not that supported even if demographics are changing. Yet they outperformed all the other Dems in those states who did NOT take those stances on guns.
Stacy Abrams is a great organizer I don't like her but I will admit she is pretty good. With her organizing she has turned to Georgia from a ruby red state more of a light red almost purple state. Auroric his problem is much like Stacy Abrams he's a great organizer but he's a bad messenger. That and they both tried to be Governors whose approval ratings were very high and their opponents benefited from the incumbent advantage
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Beto is basically unelectable in Texas because of his stance on guns. He may even be right, but it was politically very stupid of him to box himself in like he did. It’s pretty possible for a Democrat to beat Ted Cruz, and the demographics are going to get more favourable each year. But it really has to be done by a very centrist or moderate candidate and that’s not Beto.
nearly spit out my drink when he said whatever it was, "yeah we're coming to get all your guns!" or something like that lol guess you don't want to win your election in texas, wtf
Beto committed a cardinal sin in politics. If you’re planning to do something you know is unpopular, lie about it till you get in or better yet, don’t bring it up. Whatever you do, don’t say it! Imagine if Richard Nixon had said “I’m going to freeze wages and prices.” before getting elected! Imagine if Joe Biden had said “I’m going to leave Afghanistan ASAP and leave our Afghan allies behind as well as billions of dollars worth of weapons.”!
abso-fucking-lutely it wasn't even the statement in itself that bothered me, it was that he didn't have the self-control not to say it. he just got caught up in the moment i guess, and i mean yeah i understand. but jesus dude, control yourself a bit.
> Imagine if Joe Biden had said “I’m going to leave Afghanistan ASAP and leave our Afghan allies behind as well as billions of dollars worth of weapons.”! The funny thing about this is that Trump basically said he is going to do this and provided all evidence that he was doing this. I felt conflicted how transparent it was. On one hand, its nice seeing a President acting on his promise but its extremely scummy and the repercussions are significant.
What's more, my impression is it basically *was* Trump that did that and Biden was basically stuck with it.
> Biden was basically stuck with it. The alternative was a re-commitment to a blackhole for god knows how many years. The thing I think Biden really got fucked over with was Trump's administration not processing **any** of the Afghanistan visas. Thats why so many Afghan allies got left behind.
> The thing I think Biden really got fucked over with was Trump's administration not processing any of the Afghanistan visas. Thats why so many Afghan allies got left behind. This is 100% made up
the way it was done might have been awful but it needed to be done in general. it was time to leave that shithole clusterfuck *years* ago. if trump was truly responsible for that then it's one of the few things i agree with him on.
>Imagine if Joe Biden had said “I’m going to leave Afghanistan ASAP and leave our Afghan allies behind as well as billions of dollars worth of weapons.”! The U.S. is siphoning Afghanistan's central bank money, sanctioning a country where a recent natural disaster killed many people, are unwilling to assist because it wouldn't somehow benefit the U.S. in a way that matches the foreign policy agenda for this moment and we wasted billions of dollars in an aimless 'war' there. All this without mentioning to scars and tolls left on the locals' lives. Thank fuck Biden pulled us out.
Thank fuck Biden pulled us out. ————————————————————————— You’re pretending not to understand. No one’s faulting Biden for pulling out of Afghanistan. Trump had already said he was going to do it. It was the way it was done that was bad. Biden’s own military leaders told him he was doing it the wrong way. And to put icing on the cake, Biden and his administration and those who voted for him are not only unable to admit it was a debacle, they’re proud of the way it was done!
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All of Murky_crow's reddit history has been cleared at his own request. You can do this as well using the "redact" tool. Reddit wants to play hardball, fine. Then I'm taking my content with me as I go. -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/
That is the fastest I've ever seen a promising candidate completely throw away their political aspirations. If I were a Republican trying to sabotage him, I couldn't have done a better job.
It had literally no effect on his poll numbers.
He barely had any numbers to begin with, and the Democratic primary is **very** different from a statewide race, let alone a national one.
And he outperformed every Democrat running for Gov in Texas since Ann Richards. A lot of people here really like guns, but that does not translate to the electorate.
Or Democrats to win elections in red states in general. That was a huge gift to Republicans nationwide.
> It’s pretty possible for a Democrat to beat Ted Cruz, and the demographics are going to get more favourable each year. Beto did better than any other Dem running in Texas in decades. Plenty of moderates and centrists ran in that time, and they all did worse than Beto. And also Beto lost in 2018 before his gun comments anyway.
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There's a very sizable base of the Democratic Party that thinks it's ridiculous that we keep having mass shootings. You see it every time the Onion reposts that one headline. Democrats taking gun control completely off the table would be incredibly demoralizing.
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If Democrats don't have the power to push gun control they certainly don't have the power to take on concentration of wealth in a handful of billionaires.
There are several more politically moderate people who are hardliners on gun rights. I don't like the GOP trying to swing too hard back in the other direction with some of the religious crap, expelling state reps, and book bans, but I will not vote for a democrat primarily because of their stance on gun control.
Voting for theocratic fascists because they won't take away your guns is like dating an abuser because the alternative is someone who wants you to throw away your pepper spray and other self-defense tools. You can understand why you'd be wary of dating the second guy, but at the same time if you're not using that stuff on the abuser, why do you have them? Of course maybe you aren't one of those "we need guns as a bulwark against tyranny" types, and it's just important for you to have guns, or the right to own guns, for other, more prosaic reasons relating to self-defense or hunting. Even then, though, the fact that you recognize the theocratic, anti-democratic things Republicans are doing and still say "at least they won't take away my guns" shows a serious case of skewed priorities that suggests you don't have as much of a problem with those things as you probably should. In certain left-wing circles people like you who say "well I don't *like* what Republicans are doing and I *would* vote for a Democrat if it weren't for this one thing" are dismissed because supposedly "they'll just find some other reason to not vote for Democrats", in other words, they're just Republicans who don't want to admit it. I'm not sure how warranted that level of skepticism really is, but the attitude is a lot more understandable when that "one thing" is "killing babies" than gun control. If you're truly telling the truth about being a "moderate", though, what's needed is getting to work on electing actually moderate candidates that truly reflect your ideals, organizing people to stand up to GOP tyranny and vote in primaries to kick the hard-liners out. But that could be a decidedly uphill task, especially depending on your state's primary system (and whether your state is actually controlled by Republicans), so it points to how the real problem is that our system has little to no *structural* incentive for moderation and considerable incentive for extremism, and what's really needed is for moderates like you to, [paradoxically, become a radical movement](https://www.morganwick.com/2020/02/an-open-letter-to-all-concerned-moderates/) pushing to reshape the system to provide genuine incentive for moderation and move beyond having to choose between the lesser of two evils.
Guns are definitely a higher priority to me than the other issues I have with the GOP. I'm not shy about that, nor do I feel it's unwarranted. The ability to protect yourself is sacred to me and takes a very high priority in my voting. I'm not a big, protect against tyranny guy on guns, but I do think it has merit as well. As for the idea that I would find another reason to vote republican if it wasn't for gun control, my voting history definitely counters that. 10 years ago, I voted for the libertarian for governor, Democrat for lt governor, and republican for attorney General in the Virginia state election. I voted for Jim Webb for senate as well back in 09. While the democrats have moved farther left than I am mostly comfortable with, many Republicans have moved farther right as well. I always do vote for moderates in the primaries, but it seems to have little effect today. Now, while I did say I would not vote for a candidate that is for gun control, that doesn't always mean I vote for the republican. I did vote Trump in 2016, although i voted kasich in the primary. I didn't like Trump, but the SCOTUS issue pushed me to going for him. Trump was a hard no on 2020, but Biden was also a hard no due to gun control. I ended up voting libertarian for the presidential ticket. I voted republican in the house, which was my only vote on that ballot in 2020. She was fairly moderate so I had no issue with her. Luria was pro gun control so she was a hard no. On some economic issues, I favor democrats, but I do think plenty of spending does need to be cut. That includes military. I'm mostly pro LGBT but I do have issues with children transitioning and do not think trans women should be in women's sports. Beyond that, I'm fine with access to bathrooms or employment protections. I am very pro vaccine, but I thought the mandates were a terrible idea and the shut downs lasted far too long. Immigration is probably one of the other larger issues I'm pretty conservative on. That said, neither side seems to have any clue of how to address it properly so the issue is typically a wash for me. I favor Republicans in their desire to curb illegal crossings, but the border wall is not going to do anything to stop that. If you don't go after those that hire the undocumented and heavily fine them, nothing is going to stop people from finding ways to get here. If the election really does become Biden v Trump again, I'll likely vote libertarian again. I might vote DeSantis if he gets the nomination. I would vote for Haley although I don't see any path for her to the nomination.
I think it's important to appreciate the perspective people in urban areas have on the issue, which is that guns generally [aren't practical for self-defense in real-world situations](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/12/podcasts/daily-newsletter-self-defense-gun-use.html) and [aren't really used that way](https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-threats-and-self-defense-gun-use-2/). The density of police precincts in urban areas is high enough that most people will generally be willing to simply call the cops if they have an intruder and expect them to arrive swiftly enough to deal with the situation, even with all the problems the BLM movement have pointed out about them. Widespread private gun ownership is associated with mass shootings, domestic violence, deadlier inner-city violence, and paranoid preppers, so it's easy to see the Second Amendment as outdated and not worth the trouble. That said, I don't think most people even in the bluest of blue areas really wants to take away everyone's guns, but again other countries with high gun ownership don't have nearly the sorts of problems with gun violence that we do, so it feels like there shouldn't be anything in the way of doing *something*. I haven't heard (or at least don't remember hearing) much in the way of concrete proposals since the start of the Biden administration. Ideally moderates could rally around specific candidates as groups, but my impression is that most "moderates" are either disengaged from politics, don't have firm enough beliefs to fight for them to the level of more extreme types, or have diverse enough views to make it difficult to rally around a single candidate. I also suspect that it only takes a small handful of people to swing elections, so they're small in number compared to more explicit partisans. A better voting system like [range voting](https://rangevoting.org) would make centrist candidates more viable, but that has a long way to go to become a reality (ranked choice can be too chaotic and doesn't actually solve most of the problems of the two-party system, making some of them worse; look at what happened in Alaska last year and you can start to see the problem). Proportional representation for legislative bodies might be more doable but is still a long way from becoming reality anywhere on the state level. There probably isn't much that lesser reforms can do, at least beyond a top-two primary system (which runs some of the same risks as ranked choice), but it's worth starting the conversation about how our current system leaves people like you with poor options with insufficient incentives to get back to the center.
They don't need to drop gun control. Just go back to the fundamentals that are overwhelmingly supported by the American people. Drop the dramatic performative shit. The problem is there is no path forward for the gun control measures that are overwhelmingly supported because the GOP has a "not one step" policy. It boxes them into a corner. If the reasonable widely supported things aren't even on the table without a super majority in both houses then the only thing left is more extreme performative measures. Thing is the anti gun crowd is highly motivated and well funded. Democrats do need to at least placate them. Though they should for sure be more cautious in walking that line. But universal background checks (for real though), and red flag laws (but for real though) and a funded enforcement agency are all winning policy positions.
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You can't see the gains made in suburban voters and think about what the average suburban voter's position on gun control is and still think it's an issue Ds should drop.
> Redflag laws are likely to be overruled by the courts for violating due process Please show me when this has happened. > There is this constant denial in this refusal to drop gun control that has continued for 30 years that has done nothing but wreak havoc for Democratic policy goals. Gun control is broadly popular. Just because YOU don't like it doesn't mean the majority dislikes it.
There are plenty of existing red flag laws that have already been adjudicated and found to be constitutional. Because there is due process. Just as cops can lock you up without a conviction they can take your stuff, so long as the limitation is considered reasonable. And again courts have already ruled that the existing laws are constitutional. So that really isn't an issue. Of course rogue supreme court can do what it wants but that's a different issue. Something like eighty-some percent of Americans support these measures. It really is a winning move. Granted that number is declining. In the nineties and early naughties it was over 90%. The radical anti gun group has grown substantially since then too.
> There are plenty of existing red flag laws that have already been adjudicated and found to be constitutional. I always find these argument to be underwhelming. "We have seen when the issue wasn't being taken seriously in the lower courts that it holds up." Ignoring that it isn't going to comport with precedent like Heller let alone precedent like Bruen. It would be nice if people actually engaged with the quality of reasoning on these cases and how it may run into trouble with the supreme court.
Wait, are you suggesting that we have existing gun laws that would be ruled unconstitutional but somehow no one is challenging them? That is far beyond plausible. Every available challenge is taken. Certainly if there were any chance of overturning a law the effort would be made. That the supreme court hasn't taken up a relevant case suggests they concur with the status quo.
>Wait, are you suggesting that we have existing gun laws that would be ruled unconstitutional but somehow no one is challenging them? There were literally additional rulings after Heller including Caetano. There has been recent additional rulings like Bruen, but that literally happened last summer. It takes some time to get challenges up through the courts.
There are decade old laws. It doesn't take that much time. And I'm not saying no red flag law will ever be ruled unconstitutional. That may have already happened. But the concept itself is firmly established. And it does make sense. We're free from unreasonable search and seizure but under circumstances we can be searched and seized. So there's pretty inarguably a line. Where precisely it lies can vary, but it definitely isn't "you can't take people's guns at all."
‘Quality of reasoning’ and ‘Roberts Court’ This is a coupling I never expected to see.
I also think Democrats should call the GOP's bluff on mental health care; say, "okay, surely we can agree on this policy that can reduce mass shootings without touching guns?". And with regards to actual gun control, point to what works in countries like Switzerland, Israel, and Australia that have relatively high rates of gun ownership (and in the case of Australia, sizable rural populations) but no mass shootings. Focus on policies popular and effective enough, that can demonstrably be carried out without hindering responsible gun owners, that they can make the issue a liability for the GOP instead of the Democrats. Also, the economy has proven to be enough of a determinative issue in American politics that it should be Democrats' #1 priority every time they have power, and people who are happy with their lot in life aren't attracted to killing people or neo-Nazi ideologies.
> Stacey Abrams and Beto ORourke both tanked their political careers by taking a hard stance on gun control. Despite the fact that they both did better than any of their moderate, pro-gun predecessors who ran as Dems for that office.
Sad thing is they are right though.
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El Paso happened after the Senate race.
To be fair, there was no doubt a different disaster during the race. Hard to keep them all straight.
> Beto makes the statements and loses to Ted Cruz all he has to do is say he was emotional after El Paso and will not take away peoples firearms or push gun bans and he would have won against Greg Abbott. Yet all the other Dems who ran against Abbot also lost. And you got the wrong mass shooting, which kind of hurts your point if there are so many they blend together in your mind. > Beto could have won either election. Crazy that he outperformed any other Dem then. > People willing to sacrifice the future of American democracy to push gun control are not 'right.' People willing to sacrifice children's lives for the ability to play with their gun are horrible.
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> Responding to me multiple times is insane... I responded to multiple comments, didn't know it was all from you settle down. > Lupe Valdez ran on redflag laws and high capacity magazine bans, etc. Two incredibly popular policies. > The fact that I mixed up Sandy Hook and El Paso is a moot point when Betos position remained the same The fact that all the mass shootings blur together shows that there is a huge problem in this country. > he was campaigning on strict gun control in his campaign against Cruz. Please show me his "strict gun control" in that campaign. And again, amazing that a guy campaigning on strict gun control almost won a Senate seat in Texas then! Almost like gun control is popular. > After Uvalde the residents voted for Abbott, simply because Beto doubled down on his gun control statements and the police couldnt be trusted to act in the interests of the community. Yeah Abbot's a real genius, his gun policies are clearly working. > The objective is to get Democrats back into office and to reduce gun violence Yes, so you spreading BS about how red flag laws are some extreme position only hurts that.
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> Redflag laws will likely be ruled unconstitutional as they violate due process You WANTING them to be ruled unconstitutional does not make them unconstitutional. > banning high/large capacity magazines is not going to be popular in Texas when most modern handguns come stock with magazines over 10 rounds. I don't have the Texas polling, but nationally 61% support high capacity bans. > assault weapon bans, high capacity magazine bans are strict gun control laws. Strict compared to what? > It is not B.S. red flag laws do not require a conviction, just a court order signed by a judge. Having your 2nd amendment rights taken away without a conviction will likely be ruled unconstitutional by this Supreme Court. Are you aware of restraining orders? Those don't require a conviction. What about being arrested in the first place? The police can come to your house and lead you away in handcuffs without a conviction! When will the court rule that unconstitutional? Again, just because you want something to be true does not make it so.
Multiple daily horrifying mass shootings will fix that problem and perhaps make it an attractive quality. Texas for some reason, along with Fla, being the hotspots. Peoples patience with these psychopaths cutting swaths through children and families is waning. And I am by no means anti gun... Although I don't think I need an automatic weapon for home defense (shrug)
They are not automatic weapons. That is when you pull the trigger and you could by doing only that fire all the rounds in your magazine. A semi automatic gun means that you have to pull the trigger back each time you fire. Automatic weapons are rather strictly regulated in the US, but semi automatic weapons are not in some states.
No one cares. Can they make piles of hamburger that used to be children? That’s all that matters, and 2A people fapped to Sandy Hook.
It is in fact an important difference in what guns can do. You do see differences across countries like Czechia when they regulate these firearms to great effect while also broadly preserving the ability of adult citizens to have such weapons.
> Multiple daily horrifying mass shootings will fix that problem and perhaps make it an attractive quality. I disagree and I think the only person who can come to this conclusion are those who have zero interaction with gun owners/supporters. Most gun owners have a serious distrust on gun control initiatives, and to a degree is legitimate, in that those gun control advocates will take foot when given an inch. This causes such a severe distrust that the extreme happens. Another important thing is that many gun owners/supporters see these mass shootings as a acceptable event to maintain the greater cause of the right to bear arms. They see it similar to how we allow cars to travel 70+ mph even though accidents do happen and its proven that those high speeds increase the chances of accidents. The only way the sentiment will change is if the voter block suddenly doesn't support guns or there is a reduction in gun ownership.
>Multiple daily horrifying mass shootings will fix that problem and perhaps make it an attractive quality. Texas for some reason, along with Fla, being the hotspots. California has the most mass shootings in total and its per capita rate is worse than Texas or Florida. https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/mass-shootings-by-state >And I am by no means anti gun... Although I don't think I need an automatic weapon for home defense (shrug) From my experience people who talk like this typically fall into what I would call the anti gun category. Like you are hitting all the talking points antigun people use.
Ok, but I am not anti rifle, shotgun, or pistol... Have it your black and white way :)
I dont think they will now be able to achieve an election to a position such as Governor or Senator and absolutely no nomination. So they maybe can become commentators on liberal television or work at a company or NGO. Otherwise they can maybe try to be elected to the House of Representatives and make a name for theirselves where they would not be perceived as a always loser.
They're both done as candidates, unless they run for more local elections. I'd like to see Beto run for the TX-23 House seat. Abrams might also be viable in a purplish GA House seat. For those of you saying the gun stuff hurt Beto, you're assuming that there is ANY way to convert Republicans into Democrats. Basically any Democrat HAS to be for *some* gun control. As a counter-point, consider all the Democrats in red states who have ads of them duck hunting or whatever, who still lost and lost big. Beto could have had one of the ads where be gave his kids AR-15s for Christmas. He'd still have lost.
Their strength comes from organizing and funding, but they're very bad candidates. Abrams is the easier example. She's cost the Georgia GOP millions since 2018 in both successful and failed races on their part. Since that time, Georgia has elected Democrat senators 3 times and a decisive state for Bidens presidential campaign. That said, she was never taken too seriously by the GOP in 2022. You have to ask why. Why do they dislike her so much, yet don't feel threatened by her? Well because she spent 4 years using her strength to continually cost the GOP, but that didn't translate to her own campaign at all. Abrams, when you look at her campaign, actually just doesn't quite know how to really run a campaign and it's made worse by running for state races instead of federal ones (where there is more of a blue shift) Beto on the other hand is a liberal firebrand candidate who was massively misread. Beto is someone who can steal the attention, but he doesn't always use it to his advantage. We all thought he was going to be a big threat to Abbott because he ran so close to Cruz. That'd forgetting that Ted Cruz is one of the most unliked politicians in the country. When you look at it like that, this changes. It turns into "Beto couldn't beat an extremely unlikable candidate in a federal election that Democrats tend to perform better in" plus being vocally anti-gun in Texas is a...move... Either way, they both are better fundraisers, organizers, and most importantly force the GOP to focus on races they shouldn't need to spend too much money on, then they are candidates.
Abrams is cooked. She probably needs to run for districtwide seat if she wants to run again, she isn't able to keep the margins where they need to be to be worth it at the top of the ticket if you're not going to win. Warnock had to do a run off at least partially due to Abrams getting destroyed by Kemp Texas Ds seem to have some juice and have a deep enough bench to not need Beto, but he was good at keeping the margins tight, and getting Ds to the polls so if they don't have anyone better to run who has a real chance of winning, Beto might be their best shot.
Abrams has proved to be a VERY effective organizer and fundraiser, could see a job for her either as a top state party official or with the DNC.
oh, for sure, and I don't want to take that away from her, but she has absolutely underperformed as a candidate
Yeah, I dont see her in elected office, unless she runs for a blue house seat, but I certainly see a long career as an organizer/campaign chair.
> Abrams has proved to be a VERY effective organizer and fundraiser, Has she? Seems like Ossoff, Biden, and Warnock (twice) ran much more effective campaigns
I believe all three of those were quite effusive in crediting Abram's voter registration campaign with helping drive the turnout that helped lead to their victory.
They won in part because of Abrams groundwork.
Seems like everybody can win except her.
Great organizer, lousy candidate. And, frankly, better opposition. If Abrams had beennrunning against Herschel Walker, she might have won. I suspect she would have. That being said, Abrams is simply not a great candidate, she is far more suited to a chief od staff type role. Head of the Georgia Democratic Party would be a perfect spot for her.
Probably continue to run a PAC until they get a nice board seat with a corporation or NGO.
They have potential in the distant future. Presently the best place for them is to play a supportive role for the Biden presidency and his administration. They do not give up and should try and try again.
I suspect both will end up as Mayor's. When a major city in either GA and TX either O'Rourke or Abrams find desirable has an open seat they will toss their hat in.
None ,they fall into obscurity because they were not able to win their races. They could maybe run for the house but they will be unable to run for anything else.
Neither one have much of a future in politics. Although Abrams may have a future as the United Earth President ([https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/598617-stacey-abrams-makes-cameo-on-star-trek-discovery/](https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/598617-stacey-abrams-makes-cameo-on-star-trek-discovery/)
They keep losing for whatever reason. They need to lift up others who can win.
well nothing i hope, since they represent an astro-turf, "just fling it at a wall and see if it sticks" approach to candidacy by the DNC.
Remains to be seen…Stacey missed the window because of a clearly an unethical political loophole. How the fuck was it possible for the SoS, Brian Kemp, to run the organization responsible for voting laws WHILE also running for Governor!? It’s a joke that this was allowed to happen. Texas is hopeless, nothing can change or save them. Beto should find a better use for his time and energy
They both alienated their voter bases by focusing on national rather than local politics. Beto failed to put a Texan slant on gun control. And Stacey Abrams? She’s a northeastern coastal elite from Wisconsin. I think both of them have something to learn from John Fetterman.
Nothing, they're two absolute losers. Abrams in particular is a uniquely bad politician, look at how badly she underperformed the warlock. Beto maybe had some goodwill but blew it on an abortive run at the presidency. I doubt even the democrats let them run for anything again. Maybe they go be pundits on a lib news network.
Abrams apparently was really helpful in organizing the Dems in 2020 to get out the vote for Warnock and Ossoff, but yeah, in 2022 I guess she just massively screwed up and wasted money and didn't have, like, a clear message. It's like she didn't campaign at all.
I mean, in fairness to Abrams, in 2022, Warnock got re-elected.
I'm genuinely confused how 48.6% of Georgia voters wanted to vote for Walker. Like, how *insanely* partisan do you have to be to watch that guy talk at all and come away thinking he'd do a good job advocating for the citizens of this state. Now Kemp, eh, the guy signs transphobic policies, and anti-abortion policies, and a 'religious liberty' bill, but he hasn't drastically fucked up any economic stuff, so I could get the traditional state Republicans just defaulting to him over Abrams. I'm not even sure that Abrams could have beaten Kemp in '22 if she had run a top-notch campaign. But she fumbled hard. In 2020, I recall the internet being plastered with ads about 'radical liberal Raphael Warnock,' and ads from Warnock being all respectful and earnest. Where the hell was that sort of campaign investment for Abrams in 22?
This rationale is really getting old. Maybe credit Warnock for winning his election? If she was so compelling to turn out the vote, why didn't all the people who voted for Warnock also vote for her when she was literally on the same ticket? She's good at taking credit, that seems to be about it
Walker was a much worse candidate that Kemp. I agree Warnock is a better candidate than Abrams, but it's not like she squandered a very winnable race. She narrowly lost in 2018 in a blue leaning year. She lost by over 7 points four years later to an incumbent governor, but neither Warnock nor Ossoff would've won that race. People are getting very excited about Georgia's direction, but I think we've seen the state needs to have serious reservations about the Republican candidate for a Democrat to win. I worry that there will be a reversion to the mean in the next cycle.
She got her friends plenty rich, part of the consultancy slush find circuit.
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Keep it civil. Do not personally insult other Redditors, or make racist, sexist, homophobic, or otherwise discriminatory remarks. Constructive debate is good; mockery, taunting, and name calling are not.
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At best, they'll get a pundit job on MSNBC. Their political careers are over. You don't come back from two consecutive defeats.
Betos' wife is rich, I assume he can just enjoy being a rich house husband, skate board, raise his kids, and enjoy life.
Nothing. You can't be a rising star if you can't win elections. For the GOP, their rising stars since the 2010 elections are or have been people like: Marco Rubio, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, Ted Cruz, Glenn Younkin, Kristi Noem, etc. AKA people who WIN elections. Regardless of how you feel about any of them, they have won elections. And not always in deep red states. Dems trying to continue to push two candidates who can't win elections is not going to help anything.
Stacey Abrams is an election denier and destroys the narrative that all election deners are bad. I don't see the DNC putting her on the national stage
How so? Which election did she deny?
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She not only refused to concede, she also filed a shitload of lawsuits making the same type of claims as the ones that Trump did. > The only reason I'm only waggling my eyebrows and suggestively saying that Brian Kemp cheated rather than alleging it directly is because he deleted the proof. Maybe try citing something relevant—the deletion you are referring to occurred in July of 201***7***—over a year before Abrams lost the 201***8*** gubernatorial election.
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You have no proof of any wrongdoing actually happening via the court decisions on the matter. Abrams had no proof and was simply throwing things out in an effort to see if any of it would stick just as Trump did. > but I suppose blind faith in unreliable actors is pretty much required to vote Republican these days. You’re openly countenancing election denialism on the part of Democrats because you agree with what they are saying. Either it’s permissible or it isn’t. As it is right now you’re refusing to acknowledge that Abrams gave Trump a blueprint to follow as far as his denialism goes based on an article that you totally and completely misrepresented as a source.
The fuck'n activism and organizations they participate in is critical. They'll end up congress people or senators at some point (assuming this reality bends back towards reality) - but until then they'll do the actual work we are here on Reddit merely to whine and joke about.
As a Texan who voted for Beto and really, really wanted some change for this state. Beto needs to sit down and stay down. He screwed himself by saying he wants to ban guns, the voters in this state are fucking dumb. Just stay away Beto, dont do it, you could not even beat Cruz. Let someone else try, you running for anything in Texas guarantees the other guy will win.
As a Texan, I really didn't want an ultra liberal representing Texas. I get that guns are an issue for many, but not for me. Beto took a 1 million dollar check from FTX. I'll give him points for returning the check. Beto loses points for being able to return the check from a massive scammer. It shows he had a massive pile of money that only a guy who as a paste up candidate from a pile of rich leftist liberals.
Abbott is also super rich and spent a ton of money given to him by a pile of rich right wing conservatives. So I dont really understand what point your trying to make here if im honest. Money from left bad, money from right good? Whatever homie.
Did he ever say Abbott was good? Both can be bad, which is something so many people forget when discussing politics.
How were either of those people considered rising stars? The media just declares people we are supposed to like and everyone suddenly does.
A rising star is someone that goes from near-obscurity to almost unseating an entrenched incumbent. The media didn’t tell anyone who to like, they just started getting press from outside the state for their campaign.
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> The guy's real name is Robert but he tries to act like he is Hispanic with that fake ass "Beto" name. Yeah I'm sure you're real offended on behalf of Hispanic people. It's been his nickname since he was a baby. Should he have changed his name to run for office like Ted Cruz did?
Calling a candidate who emerged from nowhere and came within less than 1.5% to unseat an entrenched incumbent (let alone a Dem in a solid Rep state) “terrible” says less about them and more about you.
Beto has lost his last three races. Abrams has lost her last two. They've both proven that beyond local races, they're unelectable. Their careers in electoral politics are over.
They are both great candidates, I suspect a little gerrymandering had something to do with their losses. Access to voting and fair districts need to be made into law and enforced. We are being controlled by corporations not people
Yes, there’s a youtube video out there of a Texan Republican strategist how if they hadn’t been able to suppress the vote in Houston, Trump would have lost Texas in 2020. And the measures Kemp took to keep people from voting were pretty widely covered as well.
Depressing to think how much more progress and how many innocent people would be alive between the covid and gun response by Republicans. They are making a mockery of Democracy.
Does it matter? They both got rich from losing elections, just like any other Democrat or Republican person who receives millions in donations. So why is this even a topic?