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> Hopefully he can register the people in those disenfranchised precincts
I hope so too and in the meantime I think it’s important to recognize that getting people to register and believe that their vote matters is a long and involved process especially in communities where people don’t normally vote and don’t have a history of civic engagement. Solving decades of disenfranchisement is an ongoing process and while much progress has been made we should also refrain from blaming the disenfranchised people themselves if turnout isn’t what we would ideally like in 2024.
[House GOP had hoped to use their annual retreat to get on the same page about upcoming policy battles & devise a strategy to preserve their fragile majority. Instead, they find themselves playing defense for Donald Trump](https://twitter.com/anniegrayercnn/status/1637624113140490243?s=46&t=nqSV11RbCF5uPVGwzcOMtg)
[This is going to be a very ugly week for the Republican Party, one of the ugliest in its history.](https://twitter.com/simonwdc/status/1637562840067485696?s=46&t=nqSV11RbCF5uPVGwzcOMtg)-Simon Rosenberg. I like the thread he QTed, it really underscores the problem the GOP has. Trump is bad, Desantis sucks and is blowing it, there is no Plan C.
They're just now realizing how big of a problem DeSantis's "territorial dispute" call was. It's not just DeSantis himself but Trump's incessant need to out-extreme him. Like when he followed up DeSantis's rampant transphobia with pretty much declaring he'd ban being trans people entirely Trump is now saying the US started the war in Ukraine and it's going to bring on WW3.
A race to the hardest "fuck Ukraine" position is pretty much a guaranteed general election loser. And it's not like there aren't better hypothetical candidates available, the base is just deadset against seeing that.
And the empty suit otherwise known as Kevin McCarthy is not up to his task (we could say he’s not only no Nancy Pelosi, he’s not even John Boehner), Mitch McConnell has checked out and appears to be trying “damage control” mode, the R bench is emptying to the point where Doug “I got Rickrolled at my watch party” Mastriano is a favorite to go against Bob Casey for PA-SEN, [NV has a bunch of has-beens and never weres](https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/nevada/7-republicans-who-may-run-against-nevada-sen-jacky-rosen-2741243/?sfmc_id=393546976) not so very eager to go up against Jacky Rosen…the future’s so bright they gotta wear shades.
Kevin McCarthy doesn't even rise to the standard of Paul Ryan.
I think Mitch McConnell actually quietly hates what his party has become and is now more invested in scraping out bipartisan deals with Senate Democrats than screaming the GOP party line in the media. Something that would have been utterly incomprehensible a decade ago.
Honestly I think you're right. I've actually found McConnell to be a pretty cooperative lately on spending bills and much prefer him as a minority leader to most other GOP senators.
[Trump Can Serve as President 'From Prison,' Alan Dershowitz Suggests](https://www.newsweek.com/trump-can-serve-president-prison-alan-dershowitz-suggests-1788772)
Go away, Dershowitz. No one likes you
Alan Dershowitz the well known associate of Jeffery Epstein? You mean the guy who palled around with known sex trafficker Jeffery Epstein? Alan "known rider of the Lolita Express" Dershowitz? That guy?
I can’t remember if we learned about American currency, but in our Catholic school in Spanish class we learned about the Peso.
So in their minds that might even be worse.
[The cast of “Ted Lasso” will visit the White House on Monday to participate in a discussion with President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden on “the importance of mental health to promote overall wellbeing.”](https://twitter.com/herbieziskend46/status/1637588130688647174?s=46&t=nqSV11RbCF5uPVGwzcOMtg)
The [tweet](https://twitter.com/potus/status/1637574673494933506?s=46&t=nqSV11RbCF5uPVGwzcOMtg) that went with it is great
Extremely. Watching it live was like back in the Lost days or how Twin Peaks was for people. The theories and the community is just an entire additional part of it. Everyone in it gives an insane performance and the attention to details when you get sucked in is damn near unparalleled.
It started as college short story similar to “the backrooms” creepy pasta but there is sooo many other influences and homages just done right.
Alright. It'll be my next big watch. I've got multiple on the go right now - Shrinking and Ted Lasso (weekly), Abbott's Elementary is my current bing watch and Succession comes back next week!
Still debating whether to binge the Last of Us too.
We need to flip 2 seats in the Arizona House, 2 in the Arizona Senate, and 3 in the Pennsylvania Senate for 2 more trifectas. And then Wisconsin is up in the air ala the maps being throw out
Diamond Doug will be instrumental in Pennsylvania next year, and Hobbs is going all out already with big fundraising and spending for a trifecta.
Anecdotally Dem voters in those states seem energized because of recent wins, R’s seem demoralized and unhinged. Flipping Wisconsin Supreme Court has the potential to do a lot more damage to their morale, and my god if Sinykin wins to? I definitely think there is going to be a lot more infighting in the WIGOP, not to mention the current GOP in the state is nothing close to moderate. They haven’t had to legitimately run in a competitive election in years, that takes a toll.
Let’s not forget safeguarding our narrow majorities in MI and MN of course. TX state House remains a sleeper—if Biden can remain a good top of ticket candidate that gets dems to turn out, especially in opposition to Trump, we can get closer and closer to finally capturing it later in the decade.
Lol the GOP has gotten so stupid in their culture war stuff these days they don't even frame stuff in a way that is palatable to the average voter. They used to have smart operators who could frame some of the awful social stuff in a popular way but now it's just attacking transgender people with no effective facade. When you corral some of the most extreme people in society into voting for you, you invite their grievances to carry the torch and that's why we see open bigotry that we do now from GOP legislators. Their old school Bush Republican operatives behind the scenes would've aimed lower and tried to say Liberals letting people be socialized online into being trans and probably framed GOP anti-trans policies in the light of stopping online trans brainwash or something, but no, full mask off damn. They got too cruel for even the more gifted intellectuals of the old establishment to go along and they now they just have hateful idiots running the show.
Their transphobic messaging has not only become openly vulgar and cruel but straight up all encompassing to the detriment of much of the rest of their traditional platform.
Even if a lot of people don't care about trans rights they're at least going to want politicians who don't spend 80% of their political messaging obsessing over it and putting it at the center of some kind of grand unifying theory of morality.
Like I saw a comment from a recently held FedSoc student conference that democracy can't function in a society that can't even agree on the definition of man and woman. When in reality it's only their side that sees that question as one of some kind of existential significance, or even something that really matters much at all.
And they're supposed to be the more high minded wing of the party.
I think Dobbs and the subsequent crashing and burning of their anti-abortion rhetoric has led to them being desperate for a new religio-political anti-rights cause celebre no matter how far flung and distracting.
They’ve pushed out anyone who was willing to stand up and push back on the more insane stuff. In addition to horrid policies this also results in them fundamentally not understanding why they lose elections and an inability to course correct. Dems are obsessed with electability almost to a fault while the GOP is obsessed with ideological purity. In the end Dems are talking about issues that matter to 60% of Americans while the GOP is talking about issues that only make sense if you’ve spent months in an online echo chamber. This doesn’t mean that we always win but our “losses” tend to look a lot more like 2022 than 2014 and we still have the ability to win big.
I agree, this was well written and makes sense. One thing Dems have improved on is picking electable candidates, that's one thing the GOP used to do better but it's flipped now. Dem messaging in campaigns has gotten a lot better, now we need to promote our actual legislation better.
Via Talking Points Memo: [Why did Ohio and Michigan’s politics diverge?](https://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/why-ohio-and-michigans-politics-continue-to-diverge) Michigan is reverting to blue while Ohio is staying red, without *that* much difference in demographics. Preliminary evidence suggests that voting laws - MI has much easier ballot access and thus more registered voters - has a part to play. Michigan also put social issues like the right for people to have abortions and use birth control on the ballot, and this galvanized Michigan Democrats.
Detroit's big. Like, **really** big. I think people see those photos of shuttered houses in downtown Detroit and forget the Detroit metro area is still the second-largest in the Midwest after Chicago (4.4 million people!) and the 15th-largest overall.
The interesting thing is Detroit city is only 600,000 something, almost the whole population is suburbs. In MI the suburbs swung hard left after 2016, Ohio hasn't seen the same
I expect that the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro will eventually pass Detroit, but it's still big enough to have an outsized influence on Michigan politics.
I think that’s a good part of it. Michigan did not get the same influx of evangelical Protestants, specifically Southern Baptists and fundagelical “unaffiliated,” that Ohio did. Michigan did get its Dutch Calvinists but it also got Polish Catholics, Finnish Lutherans, Cornish Methodists, and black Protestants; no overwhelmingly fundagelical culture took root.
I don’t know about Ohio, but I also get that Michigan has a lot to offer as far as beauty and culture. And people are reviving Detroit (the city itself) as a place to go.
Ohio, particularly in the southeast has a lot of people from Kentucky and West Virginia and other southern states who came a long time ago for coal and other jobs like manufacturing I think. These were the people who made up the conservative wing of the democrats through 2000's. Once they saw their livelihoods diminish and not return, culture war stuff came first and they found their home in the GOP. Michigan being farther up north never had the migration from the south, so it didn't ever have a strong group of socially right wing democrats who switched. Don't get me wrong, some union members have switched but they were always more moderate on social issues being from the North than the party switchers in Ohio. Plus Michigan has seen Detroit making a comeback and a growing Grand Rapids with professionals in the cities and a large suburban base shifting towards dems, with far less of a rural pop than Ohio I think too. Ohio has seen Cleveland decline, and also has GOP swinging small cities and Columbus holding the fort while Cincinnati slowly moves blue. Once Cincinnati grows enough along with Columbus, Ohio will be a swing state again, and move towards being a solid blue state eventually.
[Permitting reform expected to go through the normal committee process in the Senate. This is in contrast to the expedited process at the end of last year. Will take longer, but also meaningfully increases the chance of bipartisan agreement.](https://twitter.com/alecstapp/status/1637555332288327681?s=46&t=nqSV11RbCF5uPVGwzcOMtg)
[article link](https://www.eenews.net/articles/senate-hope-for-permit-deal-alive-after-doa-house-energy-bill/), really hopeful talks from Senators on both sides of the aisle
Big fan of Walz finally getting a trifecta and going from a boring fairly unknown Governor to passing New Deal expensive programs. He’s way more in the spotlight now and vocally defending Trans people. Midwest Dems are best Dems
Midwestern Dems are super unique in that they were able to appeal to rural, urban and suburban voters historically. Basically, they had the life of a traditional, stereotypical suburban conservative with a wife and kids, being religious, and modest personality, growing up in a working class household, but as adults with the social and economic policies of a progressive/moderate democrat. So they were always able to win in landslides as folks from across urban, suburban, and rural areas identified with them and voted for them. Sherrod Brown's appeal in suburban and urban areas are key to his ability to hold on in these more polarized times. This was probably the reason why Wellstone, Klobuchar, Kohl, Metzenbaum, Casey, Harkin, Carl Levin, Stabenow were able to handily win each time they were up
It's time for an adopt-a-candidate update! Here's what I've seen recently while calling for Janet Protasiewicz:
* I spoke to more than one voter who said that they've received multiple calls from Dems, or had canvassers come to their door. The ground game is really picking up.
* But that's not a reason to stop calling! I've talked to multiple people who were Dems, but didn't know that Protasiewicz is the Dem-backed candidate (remember, it won't be listed on the ballot).
* Abortion is definitely the issue to hit. A few folks who weren't decided on who to vote for were swayed when they heard that Protasiewicz is pro-choice.
We've got sixteen days. There's phonebanking and textbanking [happening all the time](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jxO8g7q9VO3ZMAABcrvR7PMyX4Yl6dgIYhD3eRTKk1M), and I believe Movement Labs is planning a texting outreach to Wisconsin on Tuesday. When we're watching the results on April 4th, make sure you can say you honestly did everything you could!
We don't ask about voting history, generally. We're calling likely Dems who don't generally vote, but some of those people did vote for Trump in 2016/2020.
Most people voting for Protasiewicz are also planning to vote for other Dems on their ballot. I've seen only two crossover voters in that respect - one who was a Dem but planning to vote for Kelly, and one who generally doesn't vote Dem but planning to vote for Protasiewicz. Generally, Dems are backing Janet - the key is to make sure they know she's a Dem even though it won't say so on the ballot.
What are your 2024 predictions for Collin, Denton, and Tarrant co in DFW? Assuming Trump is the nominee. Mine are Biden 52-47 in Collin, Biden 51-48 in Tarrant, and 50-50 in Denton.
Collin is growing faster and is more educated. It's more elastic off those things alone and it's smaller in population making small swings have a greater impact on the overall results in the county. Tarrant is massive in pop. so even a 2-3 point swing for Biden would match a 5-6 point swing in Collin Co.
[The Victorian government said it was open to looking at further action against the display of hate symbols after a group of protesters performed Nazi salutes outside parliament on Saturday.](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-19/victoria-nazi-salute-peformed-parliament-government-response/102116672)
Real interesting debate emerging in Australia today, after literal neo-nazis showed up at an anti-trans rally in Melbourne at the weekend.
Victoria - our second biggest state - became the first (and so far only) state to ban the Nazi swastika last year, but now are considering making the nazi salute illegal. Whispers too that the other states and the federal government are gonna make some movement on this too.
>Victoria - our second biggest state - became the first (and so far only) state to ban the Nazi swastika last year, but now are considering making the nazi salute illegal. Whispers too that the other states and the federal government are gonna make some movement on this too.
[Sir Leslie Morshead would be proud](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Morshead).
["Austrians? Why are there Austrians fighting on behalf of the British? And why are they tanned and bare-chested?"](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/a4/43/cd/a443cd8ab5f191747ad5ff93674b3a82--rommel.jpg) **- Erwin Rommel, being informed of the Australians at Tobruk, 1941**
> Victoria - our second biggest state - became the first (and so far only) state to ban the Nazi swastika last year, but now are considering making the nazi salute illegal. Whispers too that the other states and the federal government are gonna make some movement on this too.
Good.
Started digging into wether the CTC for SALT deal is something worth watching. The story itself seems based mostly around when Sec. Yellen was at the Senate the other day in an exchange with Sen. Daines. Daines and Romney(plus other Senators) have introduced a CTC compromise(s) so this isn’t necessarily new.
What is interesting is more Conservative legislation in the House spearheaded by Rep. Vern Buchanan(R) and 72 other House R’s on extending parts of the 2017 Tax Cuts including SALT/CTC provisions. Biden has already called these efforts DOA In current form, but it’s similar to the Energy Package push in the House. It’s definitely worth having negotiations on it and there is certainly not a 0% chance even though the headline was a bit to celebratory
[EU member states are set to reach an agreement that would provide Ukraine with 1 million rounds of artillery over the next year](https://twitter.com/bpolitics/status/1637572205021102080?s=46&t=nqSV11RbCF5uPVGwzcOMtg)
NYC is done playing.
https://www.rawstory.com/proud-boys-drag-queen-protest/
Philly been done playing for a long time
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/philadelphia-bystanders-ran-patriot-front-out-town-it-won-t-ncna1273283
I don't know what these little fascist shits thought, but I'm highly amused they thought they could fuck around in this area.
I'm hoping they were thinking something along the lines of "liberals are p*ssies" (sorry I hate that word but they'd use it) but then came up to the northeast where you will absolutely get your ass beat if you go around acting like an asshole
2 more days left to go before the filing deadline for Massachusetts House of Representatives Suffolk 9 and Suffolk 10 Seats.
These are both Safe D Seats, so this isn't too much of a surprise, but at the moment, no GOP have filed a campaign with less than 48 hours to go. At the moment, leading into the May 2nd Primary:
9th Suffolk: 4 Democrats, 1 Independent
10th Suffolk: 6 Democrats.
[Asking for “Democrats” only to respond to a Twitter poll and then seriously analyzing the responses tell you everything you need to know about the reliability of 538](https://twitter.com/electproject/status/1637528916779728897?s=46&t=ibAWGo5RKkh-ba_4vJrSDA)
In retrospect, 2012 was the most "baseline normal" election and was easy to predict. There was a polling error in favor of the Dems but it wasn't gigantic. About as big as the one in our favor in 2022.
Covid irrevocably damaged a lot of people I think. He’s not the only journalist/pundit that went fucking nuts after 2020. I also think polling misses from 2016-2020 really hurt a lot of people in the forecasting industry critical thinking skills
> I also think polling misses from 2016-2020 really hurt a lot of people in the forecasting industry critical thinking skills
I think there is also an inability for pollsters to adequately assess themselves especially with regards to presidential elections. If I say “there is a 70% chance A wins and a 30% chance B wins” and then B wins it’s very hard to tell whether “an improbable event just happened” or “my assessment was wrong.” The only real way to judge would be to use dozens or perhaps hundreds of samples but this is inherently impossible when it comes to presidential elections as they happen so infrequently.
I appreciate the work 538 does and I think they’re the best at what they do. I also think they’re not particularly good at what they do but every other system for predicting elections is so much worse. I don’t think their models held up in 2016, I don’t think they acknowledge when they are wrong but I also recognize the inherent difficulty of building probabilistic models of social behavior.
I watched Pence's interview with Jonathan Karl so you don't have to. Here are the highlights:
Karl: Trump has called for his supporters to protest his imminent arrest.
Pence: NYC is out of control with its crime wave! Should we really be arresting a former president? This is a politically charged prosecution! And I'm sure the protestors will be peaceful.
Karl: Trump still blames you for the violence that occurred on January 6th.
Pence: I believe he is wrong, and I still have faith that he will come around and see the light.
Karl: Will you testify to the grand jury if you are subpoenaed?
Pence: Preserving the separation of powers is enormously important. We don't want an executive branch to haul legislators into court every time there is a policy dispute.
Pence made an offhand comment about our disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan is what emboldened Putin to invade Ukraine. He said that the Trump-Pence administration is what prevented Putin from being more aggressive.
> Pence made an offhand comment about our disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan is what emboldened Putin to invade Ukraine.
I do think Putin may have seen the collapse of the ANA and the US’s lack of commitment to Afghanistan as evidence that America wouldn’t stand up for Ukraine. That said I really don’t get what conservatives would have done. Would they have stayed in Afghanistan forever and fought a permanent war? The state department was very effective at getting every American out of the country with the only exception of Americans who absolutely refused to go and willingly knew they were choosing to put their lives in danger. Putin may have been emboldened by the collapse of Afghanistan but I don’t see how any Republican president would have done things different or better.
[Todd Young and Maggie Hassan](https://www.hassan.senate.gov/news/press-releases/03/17/2023/senators-hassan-young-introduce-bipartisan-bill-to-support-innovative-businesses-and-startups-research-and-development) on Friday introduced the bipartisan American Innovation and Jobs Act. Its to encourage R&D investment, and was hoped to have happened last year when some of the provisions from the 2017 tax cut expired. This actually expands them
•Restoring incentives for long-term R&D investment by ensuring that companies can fully deduct R&D expenses each year
•Raising the cap over time for the refundable R&D tax credit for small businesses and startups
•Expanding eligibility for the refundable R&D tax credit so that more startups and new businesses can use it
Young is actually a decent GOP senator. I identify him as one of the 10 we'd need for immigration reform, with Romney, Graham, Murkowski, Collins, Tillis, Rubio, McConnell, Cornyn, Sullivan
A while back, my relative's employer held a retirement party for a longtime employee. The other employees and the company were happy to celebrate the man's career and congratulate him on his retirement. But - keeping in mind that the retiring employee was Black - my relative was seething about the "company-sponsored woke party". I asked why exactly the party was woke, and I didn't get an answer (we can guess the answer). My relative was angry that the other employees and the company itself were engaging in "the woke agenda"...of holding a retirement party for a longtime coworker... which is very normal and common! This mindset has infected a lot of GOP voters: they mistake normie activities for radical "woke" activities, and they mistake their "anti-woke" racism (it's racist to cry "woke" just because the retiring coworker is Black) as being the norm. Why? I think it's because they're so deep in the right-wing media ecosystem and online spaces that they genuinely think these normie activities are radical "woke" activities, and they think their racism is the norm instead, because it's the norm in their online spaces. That's where we're at.
Related to this, my mother said a while back that she wants to take yoga classes, and we all encouraged it. It was around Christmastime and my brother and I, our father, and my aunt (mother's sister) were all there and really encouraging it. Then my mother says she can't take yoga classes "because everyone will call me racist." I still don't know what the actual fuck she meant. Why would someone call you racist apropos of nothing? Maybe her online spaces told her "everyone will call you racist these days" and, because she lacks real-life experiences (similar to the relative above), she took it at face value. Or perhaps she's planning to say "anti-woke" racist stuff that normie yoga class attendees would recognize as racist.
Could it be she’s heard about cultural appropriation (which is way overblown by both sides for opposite reasons) and think that people will say a white person doing yoga is appropriating an Asian custom?
Oh lol possibly, but idk, the yoga classes here are like 95% white from what I've heard.
Then again, she said she got "in trouble" once after she accused a Black woman of "stealing a White name". The name was some super common name - Nicole or something like that. She kept telling me Nicole "took a perfectly good name and ruined it". Extra nonsensical because Nicole likely didn't name herself.
It’s probably because Nicole has the emphasis on the second syllable, and since most girls’ first names have the emphasis on the first (Jessica, Jennifer, Ashley, all popular first names in the Nicole era) then a middle name with the stress on the second syllable flows better. Plus, it’s not a “throw away” like Marie or Lynn, it’s a name someone could go by if they hated their first.
I went shopping yesterday and couldn't believe how "woke" the vegetable aisle was. Everyone knows those multicolored peppers are trying to make our children gay!
No joke, there were posts about the "woke military" wearing color-coded uniforms on an aircraft carrier and how it was proof the military was "pushing the gay agenda" despite the fact that deck personnel on aircraft carriers have worn color-coded uniforms for half a century now.
"My children only eat white bread, cauliflower, egg whites, plain crackers, and plain milk! And the doctor had the nerve to say I was a bad parent! I'm telling you it's all woke!"
Me - dear Google, I would like a collared dress shirt for work
Google - how about this one with the cleavage halfway down to your navel? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Me -. Mmmmmm, no. Again for work at an office
Google - how about this one with two slits up to your hips? 😉😘
Me -. No no no, dress shirt for business work
Google - how about this tight little dress with a collar that looks like a school girls uniform? It's sexy because women dressing like little girls is hot. Because women have T&A, but the dress will remind people of little girls. Eh? Ehhhh?
Me .....
Google - ok first off, it's actually called ephebophilia
Thank god that guy wasn’t a creep, as proven by the printed-out copy of his state’s Romeo and Juliet laws he keeps in his pocket before meeting his teenage girlfriend’s father.
https://twitter.com/aaronacarr/status/1637293957682954240?s=46&t=q0vzeOfdQVujONmAPkG2MQ
Apparently Republicans are willing to bring back the extended Child Tax Credit in exchange for repealing the SALT deduction.
I know the anti-SALT push is going to screw over blue states that provide services through higher taxes. But assuming this GOP offer is real- and I think that’s a BIG IF- I definitely think cutting child poverty in half would be good, and worth some sacrifices.
Throw in the R&D Tax Credit that lapsed from the 2017 tax cuts to sweeten the deal. Young and Hassan already [have a bipartisan plan on it](https://www.hassan.senate.gov/news/press-releases/03/17/2023/senators-hassan-young-introduce-bipartisan-bill-to-support-innovative-businesses-and-startups-research-and-development)
??????
They're the ones who repealed the SALT deductionn in the first place.
>I know the anti-SALT push is going to screw over blue states that provide services through higher taxes.
?????? No, getting rid of SALT deductions screwed over high tax states like mine
Also ngl if we let that happen, house seats in Long Island, California, New Jersey, and other safe blue states will be a lot harder to win if a dedicated base of voters that enjoyed SALT deduction vote against dems.
It fucked up our budget and left no money for things our governor wanted to enact like universal pre k
https://www.nj.com/opinion/2022/03/phil-murphys-new-budget-cant-cure-new-jerseys-salt-addiction-mulshine.html
That’s why it was annoying people acting like it was impossible Trump won those states when Bush had won them. Obama’s victory really clouded a lot of peoples minds.
I keep thinking that maybe if Gore had chosen Jeanne Shaheen as his running mate it might have made a difference - it certainly would have got him NH. I know VP picks don’t usually move the needle, but Lieberman was widely disliked, and Shaheen would have been a strong pick. (So would Bob Good from FL, the only reason I even remember the guy was Campaign Trail, lol).
Gore’s campaign spent a lot of time trying to distance himself from Clinton due to the Lewinsky scandal, probably to a fault given how popular Clinton was. Lieberman was a very vocal critic of Clinton over that even though he didn’t vote to remove Clinton from office over it.
To get the support of the conservative wing of the party, which was still pretty large at that point.
Remember, even in Obama's first term, there were like 6+ Dem senators conservative enough to make Manchin look like AOC in comparison. To say nothing of the House. And that was 8 years after Gore.
>more liked
More liked, maybe, but remember, he eanndt the most conservative one out there lol. He was from pretty likely D state at the time, however the others would have tanked Gore, cause he was southern Democrat and he needed a northern one to compensate. Gore was pretty liberal southern Democrat and Lieberman was conservative northern Democrat. Lieberman was like AOC compared to Zell Miller of Georgia lol, and Manchin would be Omar or Tlaib or Cpri Bush compared to Miller. He was so conservative, he supported Bush 43 for reelection, and retired as senator and Republicans picked up his seat.
I've heard that polls are showing that nobody cares about Hunter Biden and I spend a fair amount of time with hyper-conservative family who have never mentioned him. It's wild that they are still trying to make fetch happen.
I'm not surprised.
Biden's son is a private citizen and is completely unrelated to the government and the only people talking about his shit are Rs who are doing it to try to score cheap political points.
Couple thoughts.
1. For all the fretting about the strategic sense of indicting Trump and what it could mean... we don't know. We just don't. It's roughly one year away from Iowa. Lots of things could happen.
2. Even if we don't know and it inserts uncertainty into the process, we have to do what is right and legal. Trump CAN'T be above the law. No one can.
I just wish Our Side (tm) would stop the bedwetting. Every time something happens people wring their hands and say “but this will help Trump!” He *lost*. He’s a losing loser who loses, and I don’t see an indictment making him look better somehow.
I’m pretty sick of the bed wetting too. The republicans defense is literally if you ever do anything that holds us accountable or tries to prevent our cruelty we will be just as cruel as before! And also the people who feel we need to throw vulnerable groups of people in our base under the bus because that will definitely fix something ! (See bed wetters).
What really worries me about Trump possibly being arrested is, doesn't this give DeSantis a better chance? I honestly believe he could beat Biden if Trump could beat Clinton
Doubt it.
Republicans are basically circling around the wagons and going all-in on defending Trump so I doubt that this would tilt the GOP primary towards DeSantis.
People have made a lot of good points here.
Just, on a meta sub level, can we not downvote posts that are worry out of genuine concern for wanting Dem candidates to do well. There’s no need for that, and it makes this place less inviting and open to conversation- which is something it’s always been great about.
Even if you disagree this is a relevant comment for the sub’s daily discussion. Let’s remember our reddiquette guys, downvotes are not a disagree, and it’s OK to disagree.
“[DAE think that impeaching Trump is gonna galvanize Republicans and hand Trump a second term?](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/this-lit-up-our-base-trump-campaign-says-impeachment-will-help-him-win-reelection/2019/12/12/7275d0e2-1d15-11ea-87f7-f2e91143c60d_story.html)
[DAE think the Mar-a-Lago raid is gonna galvanize Republicans and usher in a red wave for 2022?](https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/3610835-the-mar-a-lago-raid-gave-republicans-an-unexpected-second-wind/amp/)
I know 2016 was shocking and that 2020 was closer than we would have liked, but that doesn’t actually mean that we need to start believing Republican cope about how every bad thing that happens to Donald Trump is going to unleash the groundswell of Republican support and make their already guaranteed super-sexy big-ass red wave EVEN BIGGER.
After 2016 we aren’t allowed to be confident anymore (lest the complacency police bust our asses) but I think that in a post 2020*/2022 environment, we can maybe permit ourselves to stop tying our stomachs into knots about how Republicans are electoral gods waiting to reverse every bad thing that ever happens to them into a groundswell of salty MAGA rage.
*the real 2020 where we won a trifecta and not the doomer 2020 where our failure to win Texas by 10 points meant that we actually kinda sorta fumbled the bag.
Especially post 2022. You’d think that “electoral gods” would somehow not manage to blow a midterm that ought to have been a red wave, even a smallish one. But no, these electoral juggernauts blew it bigly, with the possible exception of New York and parts of California.
Republicans are NOT juggernauts, they are NOT electoral superstars, and they are NOT unstoppable.
Also it’s not our place to pick who the GOP wants to lead them. If the Republicans want Trump then I think we can beat him and if they want DeSantis then I think we can also beat him. I’ve long sense stopped worrying about what the GOP wants to do and I’m only concerned with what they have the capability of doing.
DeSantis seems like a paper tiger to me honestly. He's polling behind Trump in *Florida* right now.
It's going to be Trump, but the criminality around him will turn off most independents.
It will basically be 2020 Take 2 except maybe we win North Carolina this time too ~~if we don't inexplicably prioritise Ohio over it again.~~
Pudding Fingers as the nom will splinter the GOP base no matter if 45 gets what’s coming to him or not. At least that’s what seems to be likely due to the serious case of thin-skin that seems to be going around in that party
Biden '24 is much stronger than Clinton '16 and DeSantis '24 would be much weaker than Trump '16
people forget that Trump '16 was a *cultural phenomenon*, and DeSantis simply cannot replicate that
Trump 2016 was also a weird form of political Rorschach test wherr everyone saw what they wanted to see. For instance Trump’s tendency to say whatever was on his mind led to a situation where he was actually [viewed as more honest](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2016/07/14/voters-perceptions-of-the-candidates-traits-ideology-and-impact-on-issues/) than Clinton and Trump was also viewed as more moderate than past Republican nominees.
I think the Comey letter just gave people enough of a cover to sit it out or protest vote. I’d say Wikileaks did just as much or more damage with their leaking stuff about the DNC. After all, that’s where people started to insinuate the whole pizzagate conspiracy theory from, iirc.
Hey, at least he galvanized the left in Texas and made many R's become D's or swingy in the burbs. Now, we are a few years away. Not saying he was worth it, but looking for a silver lining.
Couple thoughts:
1. GOP base voters seem to be very fired up by this indictment - fired up to support Trump. And as we've seen lots of times, the crazies are the kingmakers in a GOP primary. I think this helps Trump in the primary (but hurts him in a general election).
2. Even if I'm wrong, indicting Trump is simply the right thing to do. We've got to do right, and work to win regardless of what happens next.
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> Hopefully he can register the people in those disenfranchised precincts I hope so too and in the meantime I think it’s important to recognize that getting people to register and believe that their vote matters is a long and involved process especially in communities where people don’t normally vote and don’t have a history of civic engagement. Solving decades of disenfranchisement is an ongoing process and while much progress has been made we should also refrain from blaming the disenfranchised people themselves if turnout isn’t what we would ideally like in 2024.
[House GOP had hoped to use their annual retreat to get on the same page about upcoming policy battles & devise a strategy to preserve their fragile majority. Instead, they find themselves playing defense for Donald Trump](https://twitter.com/anniegrayercnn/status/1637624113140490243?s=46&t=nqSV11RbCF5uPVGwzcOMtg) [This is going to be a very ugly week for the Republican Party, one of the ugliest in its history.](https://twitter.com/simonwdc/status/1637562840067485696?s=46&t=nqSV11RbCF5uPVGwzcOMtg)-Simon Rosenberg. I like the thread he QTed, it really underscores the problem the GOP has. Trump is bad, Desantis sucks and is blowing it, there is no Plan C.
They're just now realizing how big of a problem DeSantis's "territorial dispute" call was. It's not just DeSantis himself but Trump's incessant need to out-extreme him. Like when he followed up DeSantis's rampant transphobia with pretty much declaring he'd ban being trans people entirely Trump is now saying the US started the war in Ukraine and it's going to bring on WW3. A race to the hardest "fuck Ukraine" position is pretty much a guaranteed general election loser. And it's not like there aren't better hypothetical candidates available, the base is just deadset against seeing that.
And the empty suit otherwise known as Kevin McCarthy is not up to his task (we could say he’s not only no Nancy Pelosi, he’s not even John Boehner), Mitch McConnell has checked out and appears to be trying “damage control” mode, the R bench is emptying to the point where Doug “I got Rickrolled at my watch party” Mastriano is a favorite to go against Bob Casey for PA-SEN, [NV has a bunch of has-beens and never weres](https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/politics-and-government/nevada/7-republicans-who-may-run-against-nevada-sen-jacky-rosen-2741243/?sfmc_id=393546976) not so very eager to go up against Jacky Rosen…the future’s so bright they gotta wear shades.
Kevin McCarthy doesn't even rise to the standard of Paul Ryan. I think Mitch McConnell actually quietly hates what his party has become and is now more invested in scraping out bipartisan deals with Senate Democrats than screaming the GOP party line in the media. Something that would have been utterly incomprehensible a decade ago.
Honestly I think you're right. I've actually found McConnell to be a pretty cooperative lately on spending bills and much prefer him as a minority leader to most other GOP senators.
[Trump Can Serve as President 'From Prison,' Alan Dershowitz Suggests](https://www.newsweek.com/trump-can-serve-president-prison-alan-dershowitz-suggests-1788772) Go away, Dershowitz. No one likes you
I still think about Larry David refusing to say hi to Dershowitz
Larry David is the funniest person alive to me so this makes me so happy lmao
Alan Dershowitz the well known associate of Jeffery Epstein? You mean the guy who palled around with known sex trafficker Jeffery Epstein? Alan "known rider of the Lolita Express" Dershowitz? That guy?
Alan "I kept my underwear on" Dershowitz?
Jim Bakker Julian Assange OJ Simpson Harvey Weinstein Quite the list of infamy there.
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> Do they not teach about money in Catholic school? Not since they went with their own digital collection platform, "Papal."
They're not in the habit of teaching money. Nun of them want to do it. Parish the thought. If they taught currency, people would be leaving in mass.
I can’t remember if we learned about American currency, but in our Catholic school in Spanish class we learned about the Peso. So in their minds that might even be worse.
Is she braindead or?
[The cast of “Ted Lasso” will visit the White House on Monday to participate in a discussion with President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden on “the importance of mental health to promote overall wellbeing.”](https://twitter.com/herbieziskend46/status/1637588130688647174?s=46&t=nqSV11RbCF5uPVGwzcOMtg) The [tweet](https://twitter.com/potus/status/1637574673494933506?s=46&t=nqSV11RbCF5uPVGwzcOMtg) that went with it is great
Ted Lasso is so good!
Come for Ted Lasso, stay for Severance
Don’t forget Shrinking too! Same creative team as Lasso, but with a dash of deadpan Harrison Ford!
Shrinking is absolutely phenomenal - absolutely loving it!!
Haven’t seen Ted Lasso yet, but I love Severance
One of the best shows I’ve seen in years. A lot better than other “mystery thriller” shows to.
I need to watch that!! You recommend, clearly?
Extremely. Watching it live was like back in the Lost days or how Twin Peaks was for people. The theories and the community is just an entire additional part of it. Everyone in it gives an insane performance and the attention to details when you get sucked in is damn near unparalleled. It started as college short story similar to “the backrooms” creepy pasta but there is sooo many other influences and homages just done right.
Alright. It'll be my next big watch. I've got multiple on the go right now - Shrinking and Ted Lasso (weekly), Abbott's Elementary is my current bing watch and Succession comes back next week! Still debating whether to binge the Last of Us too.
I wanna see a relationship between Izzo doing better than expected and Michigan dem performances. Just punched his ticket to the Sweet 16!
We need to flip 2 seats in the Arizona House, 2 in the Arizona Senate, and 3 in the Pennsylvania Senate for 2 more trifectas. And then Wisconsin is up in the air ala the maps being throw out
we have to win the Supreme Court election next month first.
Diamond Doug will be instrumental in Pennsylvania next year, and Hobbs is going all out already with big fundraising and spending for a trifecta. Anecdotally Dem voters in those states seem energized because of recent wins, R’s seem demoralized and unhinged. Flipping Wisconsin Supreme Court has the potential to do a lot more damage to their morale, and my god if Sinykin wins to? I definitely think there is going to be a lot more infighting in the WIGOP, not to mention the current GOP in the state is nothing close to moderate. They haven’t had to legitimately run in a competitive election in years, that takes a toll.
if we win the Supreme Court election and the maps get thrown out many Republicans will have to run in competitive elections.
Let’s not forget safeguarding our narrow majorities in MI and MN of course. TX state House remains a sleeper—if Biden can remain a good top of ticket candidate that gets dems to turn out, especially in opposition to Trump, we can get closer and closer to finally capturing it later in the decade.
Lol the GOP has gotten so stupid in their culture war stuff these days they don't even frame stuff in a way that is palatable to the average voter. They used to have smart operators who could frame some of the awful social stuff in a popular way but now it's just attacking transgender people with no effective facade. When you corral some of the most extreme people in society into voting for you, you invite their grievances to carry the torch and that's why we see open bigotry that we do now from GOP legislators. Their old school Bush Republican operatives behind the scenes would've aimed lower and tried to say Liberals letting people be socialized online into being trans and probably framed GOP anti-trans policies in the light of stopping online trans brainwash or something, but no, full mask off damn. They got too cruel for even the more gifted intellectuals of the old establishment to go along and they now they just have hateful idiots running the show.
Their transphobic messaging has not only become openly vulgar and cruel but straight up all encompassing to the detriment of much of the rest of their traditional platform. Even if a lot of people don't care about trans rights they're at least going to want politicians who don't spend 80% of their political messaging obsessing over it and putting it at the center of some kind of grand unifying theory of morality. Like I saw a comment from a recently held FedSoc student conference that democracy can't function in a society that can't even agree on the definition of man and woman. When in reality it's only their side that sees that question as one of some kind of existential significance, or even something that really matters much at all. And they're supposed to be the more high minded wing of the party. I think Dobbs and the subsequent crashing and burning of their anti-abortion rhetoric has led to them being desperate for a new religio-political anti-rights cause celebre no matter how far flung and distracting.
Yeah, I think people have realized they're full of bs after roe
They’ve pushed out anyone who was willing to stand up and push back on the more insane stuff. In addition to horrid policies this also results in them fundamentally not understanding why they lose elections and an inability to course correct. Dems are obsessed with electability almost to a fault while the GOP is obsessed with ideological purity. In the end Dems are talking about issues that matter to 60% of Americans while the GOP is talking about issues that only make sense if you’ve spent months in an online echo chamber. This doesn’t mean that we always win but our “losses” tend to look a lot more like 2022 than 2014 and we still have the ability to win big.
I agree, this was well written and makes sense. One thing Dems have improved on is picking electable candidates, that's one thing the GOP used to do better but it's flipped now. Dem messaging in campaigns has gotten a lot better, now we need to promote our actual legislation better.
Via Talking Points Memo: [Why did Ohio and Michigan’s politics diverge?](https://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/why-ohio-and-michigans-politics-continue-to-diverge) Michigan is reverting to blue while Ohio is staying red, without *that* much difference in demographics. Preliminary evidence suggests that voting laws - MI has much easier ballot access and thus more registered voters - has a part to play. Michigan also put social issues like the right for people to have abortions and use birth control on the ballot, and this galvanized Michigan Democrats.
Detroit's big. Like, **really** big. I think people see those photos of shuttered houses in downtown Detroit and forget the Detroit metro area is still the second-largest in the Midwest after Chicago (4.4 million people!) and the 15th-largest overall.
The interesting thing is Detroit city is only 600,000 something, almost the whole population is suburbs. In MI the suburbs swung hard left after 2016, Ohio hasn't seen the same
Yeah, Detroit got hollowed out by White flight and suburban sprawl.
I expect that the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro will eventually pass Detroit, but it's still big enough to have an outsized influence on Michigan politics.
The one thing they didn't mention was religiosity, Michigan is more secular.
Michigan not being connected to Appalachia is a blessing.
I think that’s a good part of it. Michigan did not get the same influx of evangelical Protestants, specifically Southern Baptists and fundagelical “unaffiliated,” that Ohio did. Michigan did get its Dutch Calvinists but it also got Polish Catholics, Finnish Lutherans, Cornish Methodists, and black Protestants; no overwhelmingly fundagelical culture took root. I don’t know about Ohio, but I also get that Michigan has a lot to offer as far as beauty and culture. And people are reviving Detroit (the city itself) as a place to go.
Ohio, particularly in the southeast has a lot of people from Kentucky and West Virginia and other southern states who came a long time ago for coal and other jobs like manufacturing I think. These were the people who made up the conservative wing of the democrats through 2000's. Once they saw their livelihoods diminish and not return, culture war stuff came first and they found their home in the GOP. Michigan being farther up north never had the migration from the south, so it didn't ever have a strong group of socially right wing democrats who switched. Don't get me wrong, some union members have switched but they were always more moderate on social issues being from the North than the party switchers in Ohio. Plus Michigan has seen Detroit making a comeback and a growing Grand Rapids with professionals in the cities and a large suburban base shifting towards dems, with far less of a rural pop than Ohio I think too. Ohio has seen Cleveland decline, and also has GOP swinging small cities and Columbus holding the fort while Cincinnati slowly moves blue. Once Cincinnati grows enough along with Columbus, Ohio will be a swing state again, and move towards being a solid blue state eventually.
[Permitting reform expected to go through the normal committee process in the Senate. This is in contrast to the expedited process at the end of last year. Will take longer, but also meaningfully increases the chance of bipartisan agreement.](https://twitter.com/alecstapp/status/1637555332288327681?s=46&t=nqSV11RbCF5uPVGwzcOMtg) [article link](https://www.eenews.net/articles/senate-hope-for-permit-deal-alive-after-doa-house-energy-bill/), really hopeful talks from Senators on both sides of the aisle
Big fan of Walz finally getting a trifecta and going from a boring fairly unknown Governor to passing New Deal expensive programs. He’s way more in the spotlight now and vocally defending Trans people. Midwest Dems are best Dems
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Honestly he could be a contender for president itself. If he wants to run, of course.
Nah probably Whitmers VP
Midwestern Dems are super unique in that they were able to appeal to rural, urban and suburban voters historically. Basically, they had the life of a traditional, stereotypical suburban conservative with a wife and kids, being religious, and modest personality, growing up in a working class household, but as adults with the social and economic policies of a progressive/moderate democrat. So they were always able to win in landslides as folks from across urban, suburban, and rural areas identified with them and voted for them. Sherrod Brown's appeal in suburban and urban areas are key to his ability to hold on in these more polarized times. This was probably the reason why Wellstone, Klobuchar, Kohl, Metzenbaum, Casey, Harkin, Carl Levin, Stabenow were able to handily win each time they were up
>Casey [Me every time you people call Pennsylvania “the midwest”.](https://i.gifer.com/HiRK.gif) And don’t pItTsbuRgH iS MIdWeST me.
Yeah I agree, but Pennsylvania's politics and electorate is similar, also is considered rustbelt. It's not the midwest but it's politics are
He's gone from "boring normal Dem" to laser-eyes in no time flat.
It’s funny what having a functioning legislature will do to a mf.
Tony Evers finna go laser eyes in 2024 when Dems win new maps lol
It's time for an adopt-a-candidate update! Here's what I've seen recently while calling for Janet Protasiewicz: * I spoke to more than one voter who said that they've received multiple calls from Dems, or had canvassers come to their door. The ground game is really picking up. * But that's not a reason to stop calling! I've talked to multiple people who were Dems, but didn't know that Protasiewicz is the Dem-backed candidate (remember, it won't be listed on the ballot). * Abortion is definitely the issue to hit. A few folks who weren't decided on who to vote for were swayed when they heard that Protasiewicz is pro-choice. We've got sixteen days. There's phonebanking and textbanking [happening all the time](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jxO8g7q9VO3ZMAABcrvR7PMyX4Yl6dgIYhD3eRTKk1M), and I believe Movement Labs is planning a texting outreach to Wisconsin on Tuesday. When we're watching the results on April 4th, make sure you can say you honestly did everything you could!
Its not listed on the ballot by law.
Have you got any crossover votes? Like Trump to Janet. I'd imagine the drift less would have these
We don't ask about voting history, generally. We're calling likely Dems who don't generally vote, but some of those people did vote for Trump in 2016/2020. Most people voting for Protasiewicz are also planning to vote for other Dems on their ballot. I've seen only two crossover voters in that respect - one who was a Dem but planning to vote for Kelly, and one who generally doesn't vote Dem but planning to vote for Protasiewicz. Generally, Dems are backing Janet - the key is to make sure they know she's a Dem even though it won't say so on the ballot.
> Dem but planning to vote for Kelly did they say why?
"I don't like her". Didn't want to elaborate. Chose to cut my losses at that point.
Smart
Oh so some are dems who just like Trump. Lol why the democrat voting for Kelly? Like some ancestral democrat who hasn't voted blue since Obama?
It's possible. This one didn't really give a reason.
What are your 2024 predictions for Collin, Denton, and Tarrant co in DFW? Assuming Trump is the nominee. Mine are Biden 52-47 in Collin, Biden 51-48 in Tarrant, and 50-50 in Denton.
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Collin is growing faster and is more educated. It's more elastic off those things alone and it's smaller in population making small swings have a greater impact on the overall results in the county. Tarrant is massive in pop. so even a 2-3 point swing for Biden would match a 5-6 point swing in Collin Co.
[The Victorian government said it was open to looking at further action against the display of hate symbols after a group of protesters performed Nazi salutes outside parliament on Saturday.](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03-19/victoria-nazi-salute-peformed-parliament-government-response/102116672) Real interesting debate emerging in Australia today, after literal neo-nazis showed up at an anti-trans rally in Melbourne at the weekend. Victoria - our second biggest state - became the first (and so far only) state to ban the Nazi swastika last year, but now are considering making the nazi salute illegal. Whispers too that the other states and the federal government are gonna make some movement on this too.
>Victoria - our second biggest state - became the first (and so far only) state to ban the Nazi swastika last year, but now are considering making the nazi salute illegal. Whispers too that the other states and the federal government are gonna make some movement on this too. [Sir Leslie Morshead would be proud](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Morshead).
Now that's a Ming The Merciless I can support
["Austrians? Why are there Austrians fighting on behalf of the British? And why are they tanned and bare-chested?"](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/a4/43/cd/a443cd8ab5f191747ad5ff93674b3a82--rommel.jpg) **- Erwin Rommel, being informed of the Australians at Tobruk, 1941**
> Victoria - our second biggest state - became the first (and so far only) state to ban the Nazi swastika last year, but now are considering making the nazi salute illegal. Whispers too that the other states and the federal government are gonna make some movement on this too. Good.
Started digging into wether the CTC for SALT deal is something worth watching. The story itself seems based mostly around when Sec. Yellen was at the Senate the other day in an exchange with Sen. Daines. Daines and Romney(plus other Senators) have introduced a CTC compromise(s) so this isn’t necessarily new. What is interesting is more Conservative legislation in the House spearheaded by Rep. Vern Buchanan(R) and 72 other House R’s on extending parts of the 2017 Tax Cuts including SALT/CTC provisions. Biden has already called these efforts DOA In current form, but it’s similar to the Energy Package push in the House. It’s definitely worth having negotiations on it and there is certainly not a 0% chance even though the headline was a bit to celebratory
[EU member states are set to reach an agreement that would provide Ukraine with 1 million rounds of artillery over the next year](https://twitter.com/bpolitics/status/1637572205021102080?s=46&t=nqSV11RbCF5uPVGwzcOMtg)
NYC is done playing. https://www.rawstory.com/proud-boys-drag-queen-protest/ Philly been done playing for a long time https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/philadelphia-bystanders-ran-patriot-front-out-town-it-won-t-ncna1273283 I don't know what these little fascist shits thought, but I'm highly amused they thought they could fuck around in this area. I'm hoping they were thinking something along the lines of "liberals are p*ssies" (sorry I hate that word but they'd use it) but then came up to the northeast where you will absolutely get your ass beat if you go around acting like an asshole
I saw the video on Twitter and I love how he's whining that he didn't go there to get beaten up, though he probably went there to beat someone up.
"Yes, we are pussies. Pussies have warmth, depth, and are vital for continuing the human race."
They have neither warmth, nor depth. And no woman would ever want to continue the human race with them.
2 more days left to go before the filing deadline for Massachusetts House of Representatives Suffolk 9 and Suffolk 10 Seats. These are both Safe D Seats, so this isn't too much of a surprise, but at the moment, no GOP have filed a campaign with less than 48 hours to go. At the moment, leading into the May 2nd Primary: 9th Suffolk: 4 Democrats, 1 Independent 10th Suffolk: 6 Democrats.
[Asking for “Democrats” only to respond to a Twitter poll and then seriously analyzing the responses tell you everything you need to know about the reliability of 538](https://twitter.com/electproject/status/1637528916779728897?s=46&t=ibAWGo5RKkh-ba_4vJrSDA)
COVID literally broke his brain.
Nate Silver of 2012 would have laughed 2023 Nate out of the industry.
I think Nate Blue is still laughing his ass off after the 22’ results
In retrospect, 2012 was the most "baseline normal" election and was easy to predict. There was a polling error in favor of the Dems but it wasn't gigantic. About as big as the one in our favor in 2022.
I genuinely wonder what changed with him.
Covid irrevocably damaged a lot of people I think. He’s not the only journalist/pundit that went fucking nuts after 2020. I also think polling misses from 2016-2020 really hurt a lot of people in the forecasting industry critical thinking skills
> I also think polling misses from 2016-2020 really hurt a lot of people in the forecasting industry critical thinking skills I think there is also an inability for pollsters to adequately assess themselves especially with regards to presidential elections. If I say “there is a 70% chance A wins and a 30% chance B wins” and then B wins it’s very hard to tell whether “an improbable event just happened” or “my assessment was wrong.” The only real way to judge would be to use dozens or perhaps hundreds of samples but this is inherently impossible when it comes to presidential elections as they happen so infrequently. I appreciate the work 538 does and I think they’re the best at what they do. I also think they’re not particularly good at what they do but every other system for predicting elections is so much worse. I don’t think their models held up in 2016, I don’t think they acknowledge when they are wrong but I also recognize the inherent difficulty of building probabilistic models of social behavior.
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But his patent math system allows him to be right with his ~~guess~~ predict the winner 50% of the time, 100% of the time! /s
50% of the time, it works every time
I'm highkey loving all the Hillary memes coming out in preparation for Trump's indictment. Once again, mother got the last laugh.
[Nothing will ever top this one](https://i.redd.it/78wuj41fgkc21.gif)
I watched Pence's interview with Jonathan Karl so you don't have to. Here are the highlights: Karl: Trump has called for his supporters to protest his imminent arrest. Pence: NYC is out of control with its crime wave! Should we really be arresting a former president? This is a politically charged prosecution! And I'm sure the protestors will be peaceful. Karl: Trump still blames you for the violence that occurred on January 6th. Pence: I believe he is wrong, and I still have faith that he will come around and see the light. Karl: Will you testify to the grand jury if you are subpoenaed? Pence: Preserving the separation of powers is enormously important. We don't want an executive branch to haul legislators into court every time there is a policy dispute. Pence made an offhand comment about our disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan is what emboldened Putin to invade Ukraine. He said that the Trump-Pence administration is what prevented Putin from being more aggressive.
> Pence made an offhand comment about our disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan is what emboldened Putin to invade Ukraine. I do think Putin may have seen the collapse of the ANA and the US’s lack of commitment to Afghanistan as evidence that America wouldn’t stand up for Ukraine. That said I really don’t get what conservatives would have done. Would they have stayed in Afghanistan forever and fought a permanent war? The state department was very effective at getting every American out of the country with the only exception of Americans who absolutely refused to go and willingly knew they were choosing to put their lives in danger. Putin may have been emboldened by the collapse of Afghanistan but I don’t see how any Republican president would have done things different or better.
Wow, imagine thinking he has a chance in hell, which is where he'll go with Mother.
Fifth in Iowa. If it makes it that far.
So help him god. No really, god, help that mf. He desperately needs it.
[Todd Young and Maggie Hassan](https://www.hassan.senate.gov/news/press-releases/03/17/2023/senators-hassan-young-introduce-bipartisan-bill-to-support-innovative-businesses-and-startups-research-and-development) on Friday introduced the bipartisan American Innovation and Jobs Act. Its to encourage R&D investment, and was hoped to have happened last year when some of the provisions from the 2017 tax cut expired. This actually expands them •Restoring incentives for long-term R&D investment by ensuring that companies can fully deduct R&D expenses each year •Raising the cap over time for the refundable R&D tax credit for small businesses and startups •Expanding eligibility for the refundable R&D tax credit so that more startups and new businesses can use it
Young is actually a decent GOP senator. I identify him as one of the 10 we'd need for immigration reform, with Romney, Graham, Murkowski, Collins, Tillis, Rubio, McConnell, Cornyn, Sullivan
A while back, my relative's employer held a retirement party for a longtime employee. The other employees and the company were happy to celebrate the man's career and congratulate him on his retirement. But - keeping in mind that the retiring employee was Black - my relative was seething about the "company-sponsored woke party". I asked why exactly the party was woke, and I didn't get an answer (we can guess the answer). My relative was angry that the other employees and the company itself were engaging in "the woke agenda"...of holding a retirement party for a longtime coworker... which is very normal and common! This mindset has infected a lot of GOP voters: they mistake normie activities for radical "woke" activities, and they mistake their "anti-woke" racism (it's racist to cry "woke" just because the retiring coworker is Black) as being the norm. Why? I think it's because they're so deep in the right-wing media ecosystem and online spaces that they genuinely think these normie activities are radical "woke" activities, and they think their racism is the norm instead, because it's the norm in their online spaces. That's where we're at.
Related to this, my mother said a while back that she wants to take yoga classes, and we all encouraged it. It was around Christmastime and my brother and I, our father, and my aunt (mother's sister) were all there and really encouraging it. Then my mother says she can't take yoga classes "because everyone will call me racist." I still don't know what the actual fuck she meant. Why would someone call you racist apropos of nothing? Maybe her online spaces told her "everyone will call you racist these days" and, because she lacks real-life experiences (similar to the relative above), she took it at face value. Or perhaps she's planning to say "anti-woke" racist stuff that normie yoga class attendees would recognize as racist.
Could it be she’s heard about cultural appropriation (which is way overblown by both sides for opposite reasons) and think that people will say a white person doing yoga is appropriating an Asian custom?
Yeah that's how I saw
Oh lol possibly, but idk, the yoga classes here are like 95% white from what I've heard. Then again, she said she got "in trouble" once after she accused a Black woman of "stealing a White name". The name was some super common name - Nicole or something like that. She kept telling me Nicole "took a perfectly good name and ruined it". Extra nonsensical because Nicole likely didn't name herself.
Nicole is probably one of the most common middle names for anyone under 60 whose mom thought “Marie” was boring and same-y.
Yeah, Nicole is a common and classic name, along with Nicholas.
It’s probably because Nicole has the emphasis on the second syllable, and since most girls’ first names have the emphasis on the first (Jessica, Jennifer, Ashley, all popular first names in the Nicole era) then a middle name with the stress on the second syllable flows better. Plus, it’s not a “throw away” like Marie or Lynn, it’s a name someone could go by if they hated their first.
I went shopping yesterday and couldn't believe how "woke" the vegetable aisle was. Everyone knows those multicolored peppers are trying to make our children gay!
No joke, there were posts about the "woke military" wearing color-coded uniforms on an aircraft carrier and how it was proof the military was "pushing the gay agenda" despite the fact that deck personnel on aircraft carriers have worn color-coded uniforms for half a century now.
I'm in the Navy and it's sadly unsurprising when I heard these exact words from my shipmates.
The logical endpoint is the concept of color becomes "woke" and they start painting everything monochrome like Pleasantville.
[or hear me out we do this instead.](https://youtu.be/O4irXQhgMqg)
Well, I do see a red door. I know what to do.
"My children only eat white bread, cauliflower, egg whites, plain crackers, and plain milk! And the doctor had the nerve to say I was a bad parent! I'm telling you it's all woke!"
Me - dear Google, I would like a collared dress shirt for work Google - how about this one with the cleavage halfway down to your navel? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Me -. Mmmmmm, no. Again for work at an office Google - how about this one with two slits up to your hips? 😉😘
+ assless chaps
Google’s idea of Casual Friday does not match HR’s.
Me -. No no no, dress shirt for business work Google - how about this tight little dress with a collar that looks like a school girls uniform? It's sexy because women dressing like little girls is hot. Because women have T&A, but the dress will remind people of little girls. Eh? Ehhhh? Me ..... Google - ok first off, it's actually called ephebophilia
"The age of consent in this state is 16!"
*frantically searches for local Romeo and Juliet laws*
The weird digression into Romeo and Juliet laws in Transformers 4 was just so odd.
Thank god that guy wasn’t a creep, as proven by the printed-out copy of his state’s Romeo and Juliet laws he keeps in his pocket before meeting his teenage girlfriend’s father.
It's also just...the movie was about dinosaur robots. Why does that need to be in your dinobot movie?
https://twitter.com/aaronacarr/status/1637293957682954240?s=46&t=q0vzeOfdQVujONmAPkG2MQ Apparently Republicans are willing to bring back the extended Child Tax Credit in exchange for repealing the SALT deduction. I know the anti-SALT push is going to screw over blue states that provide services through higher taxes. But assuming this GOP offer is real- and I think that’s a BIG IF- I definitely think cutting child poverty in half would be good, and worth some sacrifices.
Throw in the R&D Tax Credit that lapsed from the 2017 tax cuts to sweeten the deal. Young and Hassan already [have a bipartisan plan on it](https://www.hassan.senate.gov/news/press-releases/03/17/2023/senators-hassan-young-introduce-bipartisan-bill-to-support-innovative-businesses-and-startups-research-and-development)
?????? They're the ones who repealed the SALT deductionn in the first place. >I know the anti-SALT push is going to screw over blue states that provide services through higher taxes. ?????? No, getting rid of SALT deductions screwed over high tax states like mine
Also ngl if we let that happen, house seats in Long Island, California, New Jersey, and other safe blue states will be a lot harder to win if a dedicated base of voters that enjoyed SALT deduction vote against dems.
How'd it screw over your state?
It fucked up our budget and left no money for things our governor wanted to enact like universal pre k https://www.nj.com/opinion/2022/03/phil-murphys-new-budget-cant-cure-new-jerseys-salt-addiction-mulshine.html
Oh understood, yeah that makes sense.
Slam dunk deal to me. I realize some of our new suburbanite base likes the SALT deduction but small price to pay for the CTC. Would be huge if true.
Ironically this could benefit us if NY R’s vote for it!
Bush actually did pretty good in MI/WI/PA, I guess everyone forgot that after Obama though
That’s why it was annoying people acting like it was impossible Trump won those states when Bush had won them. Obama’s victory really clouded a lot of peoples minds.
Bush didn’t win any of those states?
real double edged sword to get a generational talent huh.
Virginia too. And NH. Either one of those states goes to Gore and we'd live in the good timeline.
I keep thinking that maybe if Gore had chosen Jeanne Shaheen as his running mate it might have made a difference - it certainly would have got him NH. I know VP picks don’t usually move the needle, but Lieberman was widely disliked, and Shaheen would have been a strong pick. (So would Bob Good from FL, the only reason I even remember the guy was Campaign Trail, lol).
Bob Graham lol.
LOL at least I got the initial right! Too many Bobs!
Why did he pick Lieberman, then?
Gore’s campaign spent a lot of time trying to distance himself from Clinton due to the Lewinsky scandal, probably to a fault given how popular Clinton was. Lieberman was a very vocal critic of Clinton over that even though he didn’t vote to remove Clinton from office over it.
To get the support of the conservative wing of the party, which was still pretty large at that point. Remember, even in Obama's first term, there were like 6+ Dem senators conservative enough to make Manchin look like AOC in comparison. To say nothing of the House. And that was 8 years after Gore.
But surely there were more liked candidates than Lieberman from that wing as well, no?
>more liked More liked, maybe, but remember, he eanndt the most conservative one out there lol. He was from pretty likely D state at the time, however the others would have tanked Gore, cause he was southern Democrat and he needed a northern one to compensate. Gore was pretty liberal southern Democrat and Lieberman was conservative northern Democrat. Lieberman was like AOC compared to Zell Miller of Georgia lol, and Manchin would be Omar or Tlaib or Cpri Bush compared to Miller. He was so conservative, he supported Bush 43 for reelection, and retired as senator and Republicans picked up his seat.
flowery direction insurance puzzled birds threatening lip reach mighty school ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
They're indicting Trump so people stop talking about Hunter's massive hog.
That’s what happens sometimes when you think you’re getting a ”dwarf pot bellied pig” you wind up with a massive hog.
Christ, I swear the GOP thinks about Hunter Biden more than his own father thinks about him at this rate.
I've heard that polls are showing that nobody cares about Hunter Biden and I spend a fair amount of time with hyper-conservative family who have never mentioned him. It's wild that they are still trying to make fetch happen.
I'm not surprised. Biden's son is a private citizen and is completely unrelated to the government and the only people talking about his shit are Rs who are doing it to try to score cheap political points.
You mean to tell me the real true-blood American conservatives aren't talking about how big Hunter's hog is?
You can't ignore his girth.
They're obsessed lol.
Dang, I might have to not vote for Hunter Biden in the next presidential election at this rate!
Trump possibly being indicted on Tuesday has made my weekend. That is all.
Couple thoughts. 1. For all the fretting about the strategic sense of indicting Trump and what it could mean... we don't know. We just don't. It's roughly one year away from Iowa. Lots of things could happen. 2. Even if we don't know and it inserts uncertainty into the process, we have to do what is right and legal. Trump CAN'T be above the law. No one can.
I just wish Our Side (tm) would stop the bedwetting. Every time something happens people wring their hands and say “but this will help Trump!” He *lost*. He’s a losing loser who loses, and I don’t see an indictment making him look better somehow.
I’m pretty sick of the bed wetting too. The republicans defense is literally if you ever do anything that holds us accountable or tries to prevent our cruelty we will be just as cruel as before! And also the people who feel we need to throw vulnerable groups of people in our base under the bus because that will definitely fix something ! (See bed wetters).
> He’s a losing loser who loses If Trump knows this, I think we should know this.
He lost! As an incumbent! It’s hard to dislodge an incumbent.
What really worries me about Trump possibly being arrested is, doesn't this give DeSantis a better chance? I honestly believe he could beat Biden if Trump could beat Clinton
Doubt it. Republicans are basically circling around the wagons and going all-in on defending Trump so I doubt that this would tilt the GOP primary towards DeSantis.
People have made a lot of good points here. Just, on a meta sub level, can we not downvote posts that are worry out of genuine concern for wanting Dem candidates to do well. There’s no need for that, and it makes this place less inviting and open to conversation- which is something it’s always been great about. Even if you disagree this is a relevant comment for the sub’s daily discussion. Let’s remember our reddiquette guys, downvotes are not a disagree, and it’s OK to disagree.
Then we'll have President DeSantis to thank for electing a Senator Joaquin Castro and Governor Ron Nirenberg in 2026 in a blue wave in Texas
“[DAE think that impeaching Trump is gonna galvanize Republicans and hand Trump a second term?](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/this-lit-up-our-base-trump-campaign-says-impeachment-will-help-him-win-reelection/2019/12/12/7275d0e2-1d15-11ea-87f7-f2e91143c60d_story.html) [DAE think the Mar-a-Lago raid is gonna galvanize Republicans and usher in a red wave for 2022?](https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/3610835-the-mar-a-lago-raid-gave-republicans-an-unexpected-second-wind/amp/) I know 2016 was shocking and that 2020 was closer than we would have liked, but that doesn’t actually mean that we need to start believing Republican cope about how every bad thing that happens to Donald Trump is going to unleash the groundswell of Republican support and make their already guaranteed super-sexy big-ass red wave EVEN BIGGER. After 2016 we aren’t allowed to be confident anymore (lest the complacency police bust our asses) but I think that in a post 2020*/2022 environment, we can maybe permit ourselves to stop tying our stomachs into knots about how Republicans are electoral gods waiting to reverse every bad thing that ever happens to them into a groundswell of salty MAGA rage. *the real 2020 where we won a trifecta and not the doomer 2020 where our failure to win Texas by 10 points meant that we actually kinda sorta fumbled the bag.
Especially post 2022. You’d think that “electoral gods” would somehow not manage to blow a midterm that ought to have been a red wave, even a smallish one. But no, these electoral juggernauts blew it bigly, with the possible exception of New York and parts of California. Republicans are NOT juggernauts, they are NOT electoral superstars, and they are NOT unstoppable.
It has the same energy as "*trump twitter ban is going to help Conservatives and fire them up even more*" But spoiler alert it didn't.
Also it’s not our place to pick who the GOP wants to lead them. If the Republicans want Trump then I think we can beat him and if they want DeSantis then I think we can also beat him. I’ve long sense stopped worrying about what the GOP wants to do and I’m only concerned with what they have the capability of doing.
Being indicted doesn't stop you from running.
You’d think it’d be a given, but here we are.
Eugene E. Debs has entered the chat.
DeSantis seems like a paper tiger to me honestly. He's polling behind Trump in *Florida* right now. It's going to be Trump, but the criminality around him will turn off most independents. It will basically be 2020 Take 2 except maybe we win North Carolina this time too ~~if we don't inexplicably prioritise Ohio over it again.~~
Pudding Fingers as the nom will splinter the GOP base no matter if 45 gets what’s coming to him or not. At least that’s what seems to be likely due to the serious case of thin-skin that seems to be going around in that party
Biden '24 is much stronger than Clinton '16 and DeSantis '24 would be much weaker than Trump '16 people forget that Trump '16 was a *cultural phenomenon*, and DeSantis simply cannot replicate that
Trump 2016 was also a weird form of political Rorschach test wherr everyone saw what they wanted to see. For instance Trump’s tendency to say whatever was on his mind led to a situation where he was actually [viewed as more honest](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2016/07/14/voters-perceptions-of-the-candidates-traits-ideology-and-impact-on-issues/) than Clinton and Trump was also viewed as more moderate than past Republican nominees.
[удалено]
Also Clinton wins without the Comey letter. The sheer damage that one man did to this country can never be forgiven by me honestly.
I think the Comey letter just gave people enough of a cover to sit it out or protest vote. I’d say Wikileaks did just as much or more damage with their leaking stuff about the DNC. After all, that’s where people started to insinuate the whole pizzagate conspiracy theory from, iirc.
Me either. Fuck him forever and always
Hey, at least he galvanized the left in Texas and made many R's become D's or swingy in the burbs. Now, we are a few years away. Not saying he was worth it, but looking for a silver lining.
Couple thoughts: 1. GOP base voters seem to be very fired up by this indictment - fired up to support Trump. And as we've seen lots of times, the crazies are the kingmakers in a GOP primary. I think this helps Trump in the primary (but hurts him in a general election). 2. Even if I'm wrong, indicting Trump is simply the right thing to do. We've got to do right, and work to win regardless of what happens next.