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Haven't posted in a while, consolidating some thoughts.
1. The democrats have done nothing with the senate.
2. The democrats have a very hard fight ahead in 2022 to even retain the house, due to the challenger effect.
3. While not AS bad as in 2012, 2022 will have awful, awful maps due to GOP control of so many state houses.
4. The Biden admin is sending monthly reminders to people that student loans will restart in January. (Note that Trump's admin never did this, even when it was supposed to expire in a month. They probably knew they'd delay it forever, but still).
All in all, I'm extraordinarily pessimistic about midterms. The democrats are facing impossible odds, but they're acting like it's another Tuesday. The party leadership isn't taking anything seriously enough.
Look, I'm glad Biden got elected. It stemmed the worst of the bleeding.... but the house/senate have been literally fucking useless, outside of the house investigation into an insurrection.
At this point, I think, strategically, the democrats are better off ejecting Sinema from the party and giving up control of the Senate sometime in the next few months. Sinema has clearly demonstrated she's of no use, even compared to Manchin.
Manchin has (albeit unclearly) signalled that he is willing to break the filibuster on more than one occasion, while Sinema is busy curtsying to goddamn Mitch McConnell in the MIDST of displaying her support for overturning abortion.
This illusion that they have control is only hurting 2022 prospects and we've gotten nothing from it.
They need the senate to approve Biden nominees? Why didn't that apply to Trump? He just appointed acting directors illegally to everything. If they aren't punishing the tactic, then it's an acceptable one.
Other things :
The only reason I think there's a chance at all are these factors :
1. 2010 GOP republican candidate effect taken to extremes.
The GOP lost several easy seats in 2010, due to some atrociously bad candidates like "Legitimate Rape" Todd Akin. This will be taken into hyperdrive, but with partisanship as it is, not sure it'll matter.
2. The afghanistan rigamarole is nonsense.
No one is going to care about it within a few months and the GOP can't help but present the case of "well, we should've stayed another 20 years" every time it comes up. Additionally, I think this is the inverse of a war bounce : those are extreme but short lived and typically lower the approval rating after the war starts to set in. I don't really think there's any reason to suspect that any lowered approval ratings from this are permanent.
3. Covid deaths.
These mostly affect the elderly, and those refusing to take it are now basically all Republicans.
It's not a huge effect, but 700K dead and some amount incapable of voting does add up.
edit:
One thing to note, I don't actually think SCOTUS overturning Roe V Wade matters. If Americans actually gave a shit about women's rights, they would've voted in the past. They're also dumb enough to easily persuade "well, they didn't technically overturn it...", despite their actions being far, far worse than just overturning.
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On September 22 2021 01:20 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2021 16:57 Salazarz wrote:On September 21 2021 13:39 Mohdoo wrote:On September 21 2021 13:33 Salazarz wrote:On September 21 2021 12:45 Mohdoo wrote:On September 21 2021 11:09 Salazarz wrote:
The US needs Europe way more than Europe needs the US, especially if the US continues to drum up its conflict with China. The way things are going, it's not unthinkable to see US turning pretty much the entire world against them in the coming years, meanwhile EU would be perfectly fine with increasing their economic cooperation with Russia and China to make up whatever deficits they have from the US, especially as belt & road picks up steam.
China's 'perspective on personal liberties' are absolutely irrelevant for Europe's future, since unlike the US, China does not insist on exporting their own 'values' all over the world. I think you're totally misjudging China's ambitions. They will not be satisfied until they have all of Asia minimum. Are you familiar with Chinese nationalism? Chinese racial superiority complex regarding Koreans and Japanese? China isn't in a position to take over those countries but everyone involved knows it is 1000% their goal. China will never be satisfied with just China. One thing to keep in mind is the culture of the US compared to the culture of China. The average American has zero desire to ultimately take over Canada or Mexico. The average Chinese citizen is totally insanely nationalist. Even among educated folks. Oregon State University had a big problem with Chinese international students being openly aggressive towards TW/HK students. The level of conquering ambition in China is incomparable to the US. I have no idea how this dynamic is with Russia. It isn't clear to me if the average Russian wants to retake the USSR or whatever. I have zero perspective on that. But as it is extremely relevant to point out the 100 year ambitions of the US vs China are totally different. China's ambitions are chilling and they are definitely the greatest threat to the world. As for your other point, I think its fair to just say both EU and US benefit a great deal from each other. Neither would ever in a million years let that relationship sour. Married couples fight. So do allies. France has a craaaazy level of pride. Of course they will cry about this. It will pass. None of this is an actual big deal IMO. This is such a ridiculous make-believe take, I don't even know how to address it. You've just discounted an entire fucking continent as subservient dicksuckers a couple comments ago, and now you're talking about insane Chinese nationalism? Come on. It's actually incredible how your typical American is so eager to discuss the 'open aggression' and 'nationalism' and 'dangerous ambitions' of whatever your current enemy is while remaining entirely oblivious to what your own country does and how others might see you. The only way someone thinks what you are typing is if you don't have experience with it. There's nothing I can do to convince you of its existence if you aren't aware of it or haven't encountered it. You're just one person, I'm not bothered by you not being convinced. I just wanted to explain why I believe what I believe. Chinese nationalism dwarfs any other country, even the US and France, who are generally regarded as the two distasteful ones. I hope you never encounter what I described. It is really sad and scary. Don't have experience with it? I've been living in East Asia for the past 10+ years, I run an international business of my own and travel routinely between all of the 'hot spots' of Asia -- our offices are in Seoul, Taipei, Shenzhen, and Singapore, with clients pretty much all over Asia as well as West Coast US. I have not met a single Chinese person who actually believed in any of the ridiculous 'Chinese Manifest Destiny' nonsense you're talking about, and I've met plenty of Chinese people. China does not have any 'territorial disputes' with Korea; the only 'territorial disputes' they have with Japan are over some worthless islands that Japan is claiming, similar to Japan's row over Dokdo, Sakhalin, and half a dozen other island claims. Mao-era 'five fingers' bullshit nobody cares about at this point. Even IF they actually wound up taking over Nepal and Bhutan (and that's a massive fucking if), that still wouldn't be anywhere close to matching the amount of suffering and invasions that the US has caused in the last few decades. Their claims in South China Sea have nothing to do with the asinine fairy tales of wanting to conquer Vietnam or Philippines, it's entirely about securing maritime resources and shipping routes. Annoying for their neighbors, perhaps, but hardly world-ending, and given the US' propensity for sea-based provocations, hardly inexcusable. You're painting all these apocalyptic scenarios of Chinese world domination, but none of them make sense. It's the same stories as Putin's supposed desire to conquer Sweden and Latvia or Kim Jong Un's quest to turn California into a nuclear inferno -- it's just entirely implausible and unwanted by anyone aside from a handful of nutcases who would never survive at the top of a political pyramid anywhere ever. Think about it for a second. What does China stand to gain from invading Vietnam? Like, literally what would be the point of that? It's just such a dumb idea in 21st century. Call CCP what you want, but they aren't idiots, and they don't do evil shit just for the sake of being evil. Besides, all this conjecture about China taking over the world is ignoring the most important point I'm trying to make here. Moving towards a multipolar world isn't an invitation to turn international politics into a 'might makes right' free for all. If anything, having more equitable nations on top of the world would lead to more credible international law and more respect for the said international law. As it stands, the US routinely flaunts any and all international agreements whenever it suits their interests -- and now that China is becoming something bigger than a regional power, they're starting to ask, why can't we do the same? For international law to matter, everyone needs to abide by the same rules, and the US losing its status as sole super power leading to such an outcome is a far more realistic scenario than China randomly deciding to send troops into Okinawa or whatever wild bullshit some of you seem to think will happen the moment Uncle Sam is forced to take a step back. After how close the EU got to letting Huawei build their internet infrastructure, I lost a lot of confidence in the EU. It appears to be USA or nothing for the foreseeable future. What exactly is the problem with Huawei building internet infrastructure in the EU? To this date, none of the accusations about supposed backdoors and spying from Huawei have been proven, never mind that to a EU citizen, CIA spying is hardly better than CCP spying. A lot of this is just whataboutism while outright dismissing the findings of multiple organizations and countries. Not good enough. Conducting business with Chinese people is not the same as understanding the less business side of China. Overall this post is a big swing and a miss. You seem defensive and unable to grasp any perspective other than whatever is already in your head for some reason. There has been plenty of evidence of Huawei's data gathering. It sounds like you are also denying uyghur genocide, so I get the feeling this conversation isn't going anywhere. uyghur genocide denial is way further than I thought you'd go, so I think I'll just call it here and wish you well.
So you calling all of China 'wildly nationalistic' and speculating that CCP wants nothing less than to conquer all of Asia is entirely reasonable and based on obvious evidence (it's so obvious that it doesn't even need to be provided, I suppose), whereas my counter-arguments are just worthless anecdotes that are 'not good enough' and clearly 'lack any perspective other than whatever is already in my head.'
Glad we had this talk!
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Texas is already looking to follow up on its success in effectively outlawing abortion by making it effectively illegal for children to be trans. It's currently just a bill that was introduced, but I can't imagine a Republican voting against that adds providing or supporting trans healthcare to the part of their legal code that defines child abuse of types such as sexual assault and child pornography, so I'd expect that it becomes law.
This is the relevant section:
https://capitol.texas.gov/BillLookup/Text.aspx?LegSess=873&Bill=SB28
(xiv) administering or supplying, or
consenting to or assisting in the administration or supply of, a
puberty suppression prescription drug or cross-sex hormone to a
child, other than an intersex child, for the purpose of gender
transitioning or gender reassignment; or
(xv) performing or consenting to the
performance of surgery or another medical procedure on a child,
other than an intersex child, for the purpose of gender
transitioning or gender reassignment;
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On September 21 2021 16:57 Salazarz wrote:
Think about it for a second. What does China stand to gain from invading Vietnam? Like, literally what would be the point of that? It's just such a dumb idea in 21st century. Call CCP what you want, but they aren't idiots, and they don't do evil shit just for the sake of being evil.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War
I don't know, better ask the CCP that one. They aren't idiots for sure, so just why did China invade Vietnam some 40 years ago, curiously as far away from the 21st century as we are currently into it.
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On September 22 2021 08:03 Kyadytim wrote:Texas is already looking to follow up on its success in effectively outlawing abortion by making it effectively illegal for children to be trans. It's currently just a bill that was introduced, but I can't imagine a Republican voting against that adds providing or supporting trans healthcare to the part of their legal code that defines child abuse of types such as sexual assault and child pornography, so I'd expect that it becomes law. This is the relevant section: https://capitol.texas.gov/BillLookup/Text.aspx?LegSess=873&Bill=SB28Show nested quote +(xiv) administering or supplying, or
consenting to or assisting in the administration or supply of, a
puberty suppression prescription drug or cross-sex hormone to a
child, other than an intersex child, for the purpose of gender
transitioning or gender reassignment; or
(xv) performing or consenting to the
performance of surgery or another medical procedure on a child,
other than an intersex child, for the purpose of gender
transitioning or gender reassignment;
They're just using Texas as saber rattling for midterms. They will likely also do an immigration thing soon. The two issues that hurt democrats in control of the house/senate are always immigration and abortion. There are a lot of mostly decent people who have extremely hard stances on immigration or abortion.
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On September 22 2021 08:30 Dangermousecatdog wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2021 16:57 Salazarz wrote:
Think about it for a second. What does China stand to gain from invading Vietnam? Like, literally what would be the point of that? It's just such a dumb idea in 21st century. Call CCP what you want, but they aren't idiots, and they don't do evil shit just for the sake of being evil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_WarI don't know, better ask the CCP that one. They aren't idiots for sure, so just why did China invade Vietnam some 40 years ago, curiously as far away from the 21st century as we are currently into it.
You do realize that this war was a skirmish that China started (with US' blessing, ironically enough) in response to Vietnam's repressions against their own local minorities and occupation of Cambodia and that China never had any intent of actually occupying any territory or anything of the sort in this war, yes? Like, this is about as far from 'imperialistic, Asia-conquering ambition' as it gets.
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Given Roe v Wade is going to die pretty soon, when do we collectively decide it’s okay for Democrats to abuse the system against Republicans the same way Republicans abuse the system in general? Feeling pretty bitter about Republicans making off with a third of the Supreme Court like hypocrites and then facing no consequences for it. They seem to just find free wins whenever they can, and Democrats don’t seem to manage to do th same.
Kind of tired of having to pray for Democrat supermajorities to get anything major done.
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On September 22 2021 13:43 Zambrah wrote:
Given Roe v Wade is going to die pretty soon, when do we collectively decide it’s okay for Democrats to abuse the system against Republicans the same way Republicans abuse the system in general? Feeling pretty bitter about Republicans making off with a third of the Supreme Court like hypocrites and then facing no consequences for it. They seem to just find free wins whenever they can, and Democrats don’t seem to manage to do th same.
Kind of tired of having to pray for Democrat supermajorities to get anything major done.
On this vein (and the texas thing) i have had a thought.
What about abandoning texas? Have as many of the sane people from texas move to some of the smaller red central states. Dunno, build a city somewhere in a rural red state or something. There are millions of sane people in texas, meanwhile some of these smaller states have only a few million people in total. If enough people emigrate from texas to a smaller state, they can basically elect whoever they want there.
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The problem is the small red states totally suck and have fuck all for real economies, so only a select few can really uproot from Texas to like Montana and what have you. Texas is doing its best to make itself uninhabitable for people coming in from the tech boom theyre experiencing, but I don’t think people will be willing to go to Oklahoma, they’ll likely just go back to California.
It would be smart to all go to Montana though, if you can work from home it’s a cheap low population state that could be impacted legitimately by an influx of wfh tech people from Cali.
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For now, but if they keep passing shitty scumbag laws like the abortion bounty hunter shit then its going to drive tech workers/companies away because tech workers aren't going to want to live in that kind of conservative hellhole, they'll head on back to California, or just refuse to get transferred there. Its not an industry thats going to be super beholden to the whims of the employer imo.
With the GOP's flagrant voter suppression I have a hard time imagining a blue Texas, and I'm positive that as it gets technically closer to happening the GOP will do more and more insidious shit to make sure Texas is red forever.
I think its more likely to see work from home drive people to red states in search of cheap cost of living than to see Texas turn blue off of basically Austin.
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Ya texas is staying red no matter how much in votes blue. We have already seen the blueprint in other states where they just overturn any votes they dont like. Just take all the blue areas like Austin,Housten, San Antono and Dallas and claim your imaginary voter fraud and throw those votes out.
As for the midterms it does not seem that bad. Yes they probably lose the house but they have good odds of keeping the senate. With the GOP playing there old game of refusing to do anything cant get much done anyway so losing the house does not do much.
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I see two primary issues with that, 1. is that Democrats wont do anything like that because theyll be afraid of alienating Republicans, 2. it presumes the Supreme Court would do anything.
It assumes the US is in a place where the Republicans have to adhere to any sort of consistency and the Democrats are willing to fight them tooth and nail, unfortunately I dont see the US as in a situation where either of those things are the case.
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United States42008 Posts
On September 22 2021 22:56 JimmiC wrote:
Could blue states just use the Texas framework for their shit and force the supreme court to destroy it all?
To paraphrase Michelle Obama “when they go low we talk about how shitty that was but never retaliate”.
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On September 23 2021 00:17 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2021 22:56 JimmiC wrote:
Could blue states just use the Texas framework for their shit and force the supreme court to destroy it all? To paraphrase Michelle Obama “when they go low we talk about how shitty that was but never retaliate”.
Democrats take pride in being bullied
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On September 23 2021 00:17 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On September 22 2021 22:56 JimmiC wrote:
Could blue states just use the Texas framework for their shit and force the supreme court to destroy it all? To paraphrase Michelle Obama “when they go low we talk about how shitty that was but never retaliate”.
While i agree that is an admirable sentiment its also why we are slipping into a religious sharia state. That idea only works when the other side gives a dam about the rules. As of know those rules only exist for the dems. How far back to dems let the country slip into the middle ages trying to take the high road.
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On September 23 2021 00:33 Shingi11 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 23 2021 00:17 KwarK wrote:On September 22 2021 22:56 JimmiC wrote:
Could blue states just use the Texas framework for their shit and force the supreme court to destroy it all? To paraphrase Michelle Obama “when they go low we talk about how shitty that was but never retaliate”. While i agree that is an admirable sentiment its also why we are slipping into a religious sharia state. That idea only works when the other side gives a dam about the rules. As of know those rules only exist for the dems. How far back to dems let the country slip into the middle ages trying to take the high road.
The road to hell is paved on a high horse, or something. As long as Democratic congresspeople are more concerned about looking right and not offending anyone than they are about calling out the wrong thing and doing the right thing, this will continue and Republicans will be able to do whatever they want, even when they lose.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
Democrats were certainly willing to play dirty where it matters, like stopping Bernie Sanders from winning the nomination. I can only conclude that they aren't willing to do so for legislation because though they notionally support some of the things they say they do, it isn't actually very high on their priority list.
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EPT
