US Politics Mega-thread - Page 421

Democrats counting on President Trump’s hard-line immigration policies to spark energized Hispanic turnout and a wave against GOP candidates in this year’s midterms will be surprised to see what’s transpiring. Even during the heat of the family-separation crisis, Democrats are underperforming in heavily Hispanic constituencies, from GOP-held border battlegrounds in Texas to diversifying districts in Southern California to the nation’s most populous Senate battleground in Florida.

If immigration affects the battle for Congress, it will be because of the anti-Trump backlash among suburban women as much as any increased mobilization in the Hispanic communities. The early returns are a sobering reminder for Democrats that, even as the Republican Party is becoming a more nativist institution, GOP candidates are still holding their own in diverse battlegrounds by distinguishing themselves from Trump.

Rep. Will Hurd of Texas once looked like one of the most vulnerable House Republicans, representing a border district where Hispanics make up 70 percent of the population—a seat Hillary Clinton carried by 4 points in 2016. Hurd has long been an independent GOP voice, emerging as a critic of Trump’s border-wall proposals and a supporter of a path to citizenship for Dreamers. But, as Democrats frequently bring up, he’s also a congressman whose partisan affiliation will help keep Republicans in charge of the House.

He’s in surprisingly good shape as he vies for a third term against Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones. Despite holding one of the 25 GOP seats that Clinton carried, he’s not on the list of The Cook Political Report’s most endangered 31 members. His Texas colleagues John Culberson and Pete Sessions, representing suburban Houston and Dallas districts where Republicans traditionally dominate, are in deeper trouble. It’s a crystal-clear sign that the anti-Trump anger is concentrated within whiter, affluent suburban communities, not the Hispanic battlegrounds with the most at stake.

There are also plenty of other clues suggesting Hispanic voters won’t be rushing to the polls this November. In a special election to fill the vacant seat of former Rep. Blake Farenthold of Texas last Saturday, there were few signs of a Democratic wave. The reliably Republican district is majority-Hispanic, yet GOP candidates on the ballot tallied the same 60 percent vote share that Trump did in 2016. There were no signs of increased Hispanic engagement—even with the border crisis raging not far away.

Those results mirror the results from the March Texas primaries, in which the Democrats’ Senate nominee Beto O’Rourke, a progressive favorite, badly underperformed in many border towns with large Hispanic populations. O’Rourke carried 87 percent of the vote in millennial-friendly Travis County (Austin), but fell well short of a majority in most counties along the border.

Move to the West Coast, and the results look similar. One of the Democrats’ must-win targets in California, the seat of retiring Rep. Ed Royce, is looking surprisingly competitive. Even though this is a plurality-Hispanic district that Clinton comfortably carried, a recent poll commissioned by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee found Republican Young Kim leading Democrat Gil Cisneros by 2 points (45-43 percent). It’s another sign that Hispanics may not be turning out to vote at a level commensurate to their representation.

Florida is offering an even bigger shock to the Democrats’ system, given its perennial battleground status. In the state’s marquee race pitting Gov. Rick Scott against Sen. Bill Nelson, the governor’s standing with Hispanic voters is keeping him competitive despite the difficult political environment for Republicans. Two recently released polls show Scott, a longtime Trump ally, tallying noticeably higher popularity scores than the president in Florida. One poll, conducted by CBS News, shows Nelson leading by only 1 point among Hispanics (37-36 percent) while an NBC/Marist survey showed Nelson with a 10-point lead (52-42 percent) among the demographic. Either outcome shows Scott significantly outperforming Trump, who lost the Hispanic vote in Florida by a whopping 27 points in 2016 (and still carried the state).

Digging deeper, a Florida International University survey of Puerto Ricans in Florida—typically a Democratic-leaning demographic—found that 55 percent held a positive view of Scott, with 57 percent holding a positive view of Nelson. Democrats had been optimistic that a wave of these new voters in the wake of Hurricane Maria would give them an advantage for the midterms. But Scott’s frequent travel to the island and his campaign’s aggressive Spanish-language television advertising has kept them in play.

Down in South Florida, one of the few Republicans to represent a majority-Hispanic district is also showing his resilience. In a recent Democratic survey conducted in his district, Rep. Carlos Curbelo sported a solid 42-27 favorability score, with 48 percent of voters approving of Trump’s job performance. Clinton won this district by 16 points, so if anything, these results suggest Trump has gained ground with the district’s substantial Cuban-American community since becoming president.

On July 06 2018 02:10 JonnyBNoHo wrote:
If you'er accumulating enough debt you'd have this issue when you want to rollover.

Maybe I'm just not sure what you're on about? If MMT, that's not radically different from what we already have in terms of actual policy.

On July 06 2018 10:41 Stratos_speAr wrote:


The declining birthrate isn't the problem.

The problem is the severe aversion to risk-taking and other big economic decisions that the current generation suffers from. Car purchases, home buying, education choices, family planning, etc. etc. All of this is heavily influenced by naive, unfounded "market-based" economic policies that were mostly pushed by Baby Boomers that have ruined the economy for huge swaths of the current working generation.

On July 06 2018 10:18 zlefin wrote:
plansix, I don't see how the problem of such things being unaffordable would be to capitalistic monetization rather than other factors.

I mean, it does in the wage parts; poor wages make it hard to handle the rest; but childcare expenses itself shouldn't be a result of monetization per se, but of other factors. Not really sure what's up with college education costs, I've never seen an adequate accounting that explains them.

I guess it depends which specific factors you're talking about; in some cases the source of the problem is due to greed; but in others the sourcing is quite different.

I also doubt it'll reach crisis in level 10 years; as there's plenty of nations that have it worse than the US by a greater degree; and with worse alternate solutions available to them.

On July 06 2018 11:10 Sadist wrote:



Not sure about other cities but its easy to have childcare costs in excess of $1200/mo around here if you have 2 kids. $150/wk per kid.

I feel like this is part of the reason there is a push for full day kindergarten. Having to pay for daycare for half a day can make or break some people.

I feel like if i had children and planned on having several id consider having me or my wife take a few years off of work until they reached school age.

On July 06 2018 11:19 Plansix wrote:
And a flat national birth rate means an economy that is also flat. Or a recession. Having children is a thing that drives the economy, since the economy is just a measurement of the people participating in it.

On July 06 2018 05:36 plasmidghost wrote:
Sold all my stock in preparation for the upcoming trade war. Trump's speculated about putting $400 billion in total tariffs on China alone, and I wouldn't put it past him to do just that

On July 06 2018 11:19 Plansix wrote:
And a flat national birth rate means an economy that is also flat. Or a recession. Having children is a thing that drives the economy, since the economy is just a measurement of the people participating in it.

On July 06 2018 13:03 GreenHorizons wrote:
We need tougher penalties for people calling the police because they are paranoid racists.

https://twitter.com/TheRoot/status/1014546642656165889

I don't know what it is about white people calling the police whenever they are uncomfortable but they need to stop it. It's a waste of resources and gets innocent people killed.

(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is closing in on his next Supreme Court nominee, with three federal judges leading the competition to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy. Trump’s top contenders for the vacancy at this time are federal appeals judges Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and Raymond Kethledge, said a person familiar with Trump’s thinking who was not authorized to speak publicly.

Working closely with a White House team and consulting with lawmakers and outside advisers, Trump has spent the week deliberating on the choice. He conducted interviews on Monday and Tuesday. He has not yet publicly indicated that he has narrowed the list and could still consider others in the mix.

With customary fanfare, Trump plans to announce his selection Monday night, kicking off a contentious nomination process as Republicans seek to shift the court to the right and Democrats strive to block the effort.

Vice President Mike Pence has also met with some of the contenders for the Supreme Court vacancy created by Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement, The Associated Press has learned.

The meetings took place in recent days, according to a person familiar with the search process. The person did not specify which candidates Pence met with and spoke on condition of anonymity Wednesday to describe the private search process.

Trump is choosing his nominee from a list of 25 candidates vetted by conservative groups. Earlier in the week, he spoke with seven people on the list. Other contenders that have received serious interest include federal appeals judges Amul Thapar, Thomas Hardiman and Joan Larsen.

The president also spoke by phone with Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah on Monday. He’s the only lawmaker on Trump’s list. That call was not characterized by the White House as an interview and Lee is not viewed as a top prospect, though he has some support on Capitol Hill.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, advocated for Lee in a Fox News op-ed, warning Trump not to repeat “mistakes” of past Republican presidents by picking a Supreme Court nominee who turns out to be insufficiently conservative.

Cruz said Lee would be a “sure thing.” He cited former justices William Brennan, John Paul Stevens and Harry Blackmun, who authored the Roe v. Wade decision that established a woman’s right to abortion. All three were nominated by Republican presidents.

Trump’s choice to replace Kennedy — a swing vote on the nine-member court — has the potential to remake the court for a generation as part of precedent-shattering decisions on abortion, health care, gay marriage and other issues. Recognizing the stakes, many Democrats have lined up in opposition to any Trump pick, and Republican lawmakers and activists are seeking to shape the president’s decision.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has told colleagues he may not vote for Kavanaugh if the judge is nominated, citing Kavanaugh’s role during the Bush administration on cases involving executive privilege and the disclosure of documents to Congress, said a person familiar with Paul’s conversations who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

Some conservatives have pointed to Kethledge as a potential justice in the mold of Neil Gorsuch, Trump’s first Supreme Court nominee last year. Both Kethledge and Gorsuch once served Kennedy as law clerks, as did Kavanaugh. Kethledge, a Michigan Law graduate, would add academic diversity to a court steeped in the Ivy League.

Since Trump said his short list includes at least two women, speculation has focused on Barrett, a former law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia and a longtime Notre Dame Law School professor who serves on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Conservative groups rallied around Barrett after her confirmation hearing last year featured questioning from Democrats over how her Roman Catholic faith would affect her decisions.

On Wednesday, Sen. Susan Collins, a moderate Republican from Maine, reiterated that she could not vote for a nominee with a “demonstrated hostility” to Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that established a woman’s right to an abortion.

“I think I’ve made it pretty clear if a nominee has demonstrated hostility to Roe v. Wade and has said that they’re not going to abide by that long-standing precedent, that I could not support that nominee,” Collins told reporters at a holiday parade in Bangor.

But Collins said she also wouldn’t blindly vote to confirm someone she thinks is unworthy in other respects — even if he or she supports Roe v. Wade.

On July 06 2018 13:12 micronesia wrote:
Garland isn’t a choice? Just an other?

On July 06 2018 09:33 Plansix wrote:
Weirdly enough, the Hispanic population is diverse within itself. It is not “the black vote” made up of the decedents of former slaves, all with a similar collective American experience. Political thinknpeice writes continue to write as if Cubans will somehow feel solidarity with Mexicans living in different parts of America because they all speak Spanish. Some day this really stupid attempt to lump these distinct groups of people into a single group will die. But today is not that day.

And I have not heard a lot about Democrats gunning for the elusive Hispanic vote based on anything beyond most Hispanic communities fucking hate ICE.

https://twitter.com/lizzieohreally/status/1014934357419741184

In other news, this article details the decline in the birth rates in the US for the second straight year. This might be the most important issue the US is facing right now. The capitalistic need monetize every aspect of existence on a free market has reached the point where it is smothering potential families. Child care costs a equal to a mortgage, education costs are through the roof. Student debt is out of control.

I bet we have another 10 years before this reaches true crisis levels. And no conservative free market theory is going to improve this. Shit needs to get cheaper or americans are just going to stop taking risks on anything.