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On November 25 2018 19:53 iamthedave wrote:Show nested quote +On November 25 2018 02:12 Biff The Understudy wrote:On November 24 2018 23:08 Gahlo wrote:On November 24 2018 23:07 iamthedave wrote:On November 24 2018 21:56 farvacola wrote:
Meh, those fears are overblown, particularly because of the key fact that there is literally nothing fearful white people can do about the coming demographic switchover. If we're drawing historical comparisons with other nations that went full blown fascist at one point or another, there was nothing remotely comparable. Further, the US has already shown itself to trend towards civil war-esque infighting than unified fascist movements, and I'd be far more concerned about something resembling a cold civil war (which is already being fought imo) than a fascist takeover. There's also that possibility. Either way I don't think it'll happen inside our lifetimes. Also, the demographic change doesn't necessarily mean anything provided they vote GOP. The conundrum there is that the GOP is constantly making it more and more difficult for the growing demographics to vote - leading to those that do to generally not vote in their favor. So, assuming behaviors stay constant, it will come down to whether the GOP efforts to block votes is able to offset gains from the shifting demographics. Well as we start to witness, supressing voters and gerrymandering only works for as long as you are in power. You lose one election and it is all undone by the opposition. And it looks like the GOP is going to lose a lot in the years coming. The GOP is fighting a losing battle, and the violence, the irrationality and the resentment it voices shows it best. Call me crazy but I am generally optimistic. I think Trump is the worst of that far right wave we will see in our lifetime in the US. I don't know, I see nothing positive to hang my hat on. If I lived in the US I'd be genuinely fearful. 2 years of a Trump Presidency led to a really tepid Democrat response in the mid-terms, and a vibrant Republican turnout. Trump isn't just there, he's enthusiastically been embraced by the American right. That isn't the signs of a one-off event, that's the sign of someone people will want to emulate. It isn't just a cult of personality, Trump's politics are popular. And they're not the turn off they should be. Remember, Trump did well with educated white voters. Smart people looked at him and thought 'yep, that's my President'. The Democrats are doing a shitty job of galvanising the base and trying to stick to an old formula when really Bernie Sanders demostrated that it's time for a change. Voters on the left aren't going to vote for not-Trump, they'll stay home unless they see something they want to vote for. Where is that?
The mid terms were in no way "tepid" for Democrats.
They absolutely destroyed Republicans in the House. They gained an incredible amount of seats, and a huge amount of those were in historically Republican districts (e.g. suburbs, Orange County, etc.).
They gained ~7 governorships, a whole slew of legislatures are now either partially or fully controlled by Democrats, and have lost at most only 2 seats in the best Senate map for Republicans that any party has had in nearly 100 years.
Democratic turnout was also significantly better than Republicans. Turnout for these mid terms was the best that it's been in decades, and higher turnout = win for Democrats, every single time.
Trump's party also got crushed in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, which is a very bad sign for him since those are the states that won him the election in the first place. His party also looked very weak and barely able to hold onto Texas and Georgia (two Republican strongholds).
Stop with the lazy spin. Any objective analysis showed that Democrats did extremely well in the mid terms.
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Republicans got crushed so hard in Michigan that, after having campaigned there numerous times on behalf of Republicans, Ted Nugent declared the state to be a "California shithole" after the results came in 
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On November 25 2018 21:22 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On November 25 2018 19:53 iamthedave wrote:On November 25 2018 02:12 Biff The Understudy wrote:On November 24 2018 23:08 Gahlo wrote:On November 24 2018 23:07 iamthedave wrote:On November 24 2018 21:56 farvacola wrote:
Meh, those fears are overblown, particularly because of the key fact that there is literally nothing fearful white people can do about the coming demographic switchover. If we're drawing historical comparisons with other nations that went full blown fascist at one point or another, there was nothing remotely comparable. Further, the US has already shown itself to trend towards civil war-esque infighting than unified fascist movements, and I'd be far more concerned about something resembling a cold civil war (which is already being fought imo) than a fascist takeover. There's also that possibility. Either way I don't think it'll happen inside our lifetimes. Also, the demographic change doesn't necessarily mean anything provided they vote GOP. The conundrum there is that the GOP is constantly making it more and more difficult for the growing demographics to vote - leading to those that do to generally not vote in their favor. So, assuming behaviors stay constant, it will come down to whether the GOP efforts to block votes is able to offset gains from the shifting demographics. Well as we start to witness, supressing voters and gerrymandering only works for as long as you are in power. You lose one election and it is all undone by the opposition. And it looks like the GOP is going to lose a lot in the years coming. The GOP is fighting a losing battle, and the violence, the irrationality and the resentment it voices shows it best. Call me crazy but I am generally optimistic. I think Trump is the worst of that far right wave we will see in our lifetime in the US. I don't know, I see nothing positive to hang my hat on. If I lived in the US I'd be genuinely fearful. 2 years of a Trump Presidency led to a really tepid Democrat response in the mid-terms, and a vibrant Republican turnout. Trump isn't just there, he's enthusiastically been embraced by the American right. That isn't the signs of a one-off event, that's the sign of someone people will want to emulate. It isn't just a cult of personality, Trump's politics are popular. And they're not the turn off they should be. Remember, Trump did well with educated white voters. Smart people looked at him and thought 'yep, that's my President'. The Democrats are doing a shitty job of galvanising the base and trying to stick to an old formula when really Bernie Sanders demostrated that it's time for a change. Voters on the left aren't going to vote for not-Trump, they'll stay home unless they see something they want to vote for. Where is that? The mid terms were in no way "tepid" for Democrats. They absolutely destroyed Republicans in the House. They gained an incredible amount of seats, and a huge amount of those were in historically Republican districts (e.g. suburbs, Orange County, etc.). They gained ~7 governorships, a whole slew of legislatures are now either partially or fully controlled by Democrats, and have lost at most only 2 seats in the best Senate map for Republicans that any party has had in nearly 100 years. Democratic turnout was also significantly better than Republicans. Turnout for these mid terms was the best that it's been in decades, and higher turnout = win for Democrats, every single time. Trump's party also got crushed in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, which is a very bad sign for him since those are the states that won him the election in the first place. His party also looked very weak and barely able to hold onto Texas and Georgia (two Republican strongholds). Stop with the lazy spin. Any objective analysis showed that Democrats did extremely well in the mid terms.
Gotta go with 'right back at you' on that last point.
Most objective analysis I've heard has come out with 'Democrats did about as well as expected'. There were barely any surprises, and the biggest 'hits' that could have happened were mostly misses. The hope was a huge galvanised left firmly rebuking Trump at the polls, not 'the Democrats won all the places it looked likely they'd win in the first place, and we'd guessed they'd get the house months ago'. That's the general feedback from left, right, and centrist sources I've looked at over this month. Both sides think they won, which probably means it's a draw.
Trump's popularity is at a good point, and it's as like to go up further as it is to drop.
It's all to play for of course, it's now on the House Democrats not to fuck this up and give Dems something to be proud of and be energised for.
On November 25 2018 20:41 Liquid`Drone wrote:dave, the mid terms really didn't end up good for Trump. The popular vote as of writing this post is at 59,379,804 for democrats vs 50,449,312 for republicans. Compare to the presidential election, where it was 65,844,610 for Hillary and 62,979,636 for Trump, we can see that the difference has moved from 2,864,974 to 8,930,492. The midterm elections tend to favor a) the opposition and b) the republican party (democrats tend to lose big when they have the presidents, republicans tend to lose small), but this was a big loss - the biggest loss for republicans since 1974, an election happening a couple months after Nixon resigned after watergate. In terms of popular vote numbers, it's the biggest midterm election victory through history. ( source) The initial reports seemed less positive for democrats, but now, it basically looks like the blue wave did happen. Voters did vote for non-trump. The fact is that Trump is great at galvanizing both parties. Republican turnout was higher than normal, but democrat turnout was much higher than normal. 2014 saw 83 million people voting - 2018 saw 110 million people. I'm not able to find the popular vote numbers for earlier elections, but democrats increased their numbers significantly more than republicans did, despite having inspirational president Obama in 2014, and essentially being leader-less in 2014, united only in their opposition to Trump. And this despite exit polls showing that people think the economy is going well. I don't want to predict how the 2020 presidential election is going to end up cuz I have no idea how the electoral college map works out. But I am confident the popular vote victory will be significantly higher than it was in 2016.
I'm not going to argue any of the claims you made there, but the sources I've looked at and listened to don't muster that enthusiasm. Sure, Trump got a punch in the nose. But it's not like the Dems now overwhelmingly control the House,and it isn't like they haven't backed the Republicans at every juncture so far during the last two years (nothing Trump has passed passed without Democrat votes).
For me it'll depend what the Dems do with their position in the House.
Of course had the map been more open I'd perhaps have more to be joyful about, but with what was there, nothing truly amazing happened.
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How do you see the House Democrats giving something to be proud of and energised for, when everything they do will be shut down by the Senate?
Its going to be 2 years of nothing happening.
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Attempts at offering positive descriptions of "how things are" are themselves bits of political theatre, which is why Democrats (and leftists generally) so often sound like losers after winning. Barring obvious situations where there are are clear winners and losers (like '16 or '08, for example), the fight over interpreting the results of elections is something Republicans routinely excel at because they literally don't care for objective descriptions, they simply insist that they won, no matter what. The same thing can be said for their representative relation to electoral populations; they do not care whether enlarging the voting power of rural voters is objectively indefensible or logically inconsistent, they will insist that rural voters deserve their disproportionate power because doing so benefits them politically. The exact same thing can be said for gerrymandering and the general problems of the rural/urban divide.
Dems must learn this lesson, and folks like Bernie provide a good example of how to go about it. Politically, it makes no sense for anyone who claims to be in the political fight on behalf of the left to cast the '18 election results in negative terms. There were victories and there were defeats, no doubt, but the predictions and the results are ambiguous enough to serve as political fodder that needs to be utilized positively if Dems are to continue to fight back against Trumpist Republican politics. That'd be why I think the '18 results are not only objectively defensible as an outright victory for those who oppose Trump, they are iteratively, politically a victory for Dems because to suggest otherwise is to join the chorus of see no evil, hear no evil Republicans who will insist that literally every development is actually a victory for Trump and his fans if one simply ignores the "fake news." A huge part of why those stupid "fake news" cries actually work is because objective takes on "how things are" are practically always subject to huge disclaimers that result from the vast disconnect between media representations and "reality," however incoherent the latter actually is.
Dems and leftists generally have a "bookie in the head" and a "we must never engage in puffery" problem that Trumpists are all too happy to encourage.
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Okay that's a fair argument and I'll accept that. There is certainly something to be said for being glass half full over half empty.
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Also, I'd point out that "Democrats are projected to win a bunch of House seats" followed by "Democrats win a bunch of house seats plus a few" doesn't mean it was a tie. It just means the big win was predicted.
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Fivethirtyeight has written extensively on the scale of the blue wave. It looks like a tie, because republicans won a couple of seats in the senate, but apparently in a normal year and considering the map, they should have wiped out democrats there.
Now they also warned it probably means very little for 2020...
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On November 26 2018 23:35 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Fivethirtyeight has written extensively on the scale of the blue wave. It looks like a tie, because republicans won a couple of seats in the senate, but apparently in a normal year and considering the map, they should have wiped out democrats there.
Now they also warned it probably means very little for 2020...
I think a lot of the “disappointment” around the midterm election is due to a lack of context when it comes to congress. People didn’t know what victory would look like. After all, Democrats were well known for not turning out in the midterms. It was also compounded by the 2016 election where people were unwilling to put to much stock the predicting power of polls.
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On November 26 2018 23:52 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On November 26 2018 23:35 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Fivethirtyeight has written extensively on the scale of the blue wave. It looks like a tie, because republicans won a couple of seats in the senate, but apparently in a normal year and considering the map, they should have wiped out democrats there.
Now they also warned it probably means very little for 2020... I think a lot of the “disappointment” around the midterm election is due to a lack of context when it comes to congress. People didn’t know what victory would look like. After all, Democrats were well known for not turning out in the midterms. It was also compounded by the 2016 election where people were unwilling to put to much stock the predicting power of polls.
The result also looks way better now than it did right after the election. A lot of the close/undecided house seats ended up going to the democrats. It's a clear victory now.
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Election night Tester and Sinema were both trailing in their Senate races too, though additional counted ballots got them over the finish line.
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On November 27 2018 00:17 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On November 26 2018 23:52 Plansix wrote:On November 26 2018 23:35 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Fivethirtyeight has written extensively on the scale of the blue wave. It looks like a tie, because republicans won a couple of seats in the senate, but apparently in a normal year and considering the map, they should have wiped out democrats there.
Now they also warned it probably means very little for 2020... I think a lot of the “disappointment” around the midterm election is due to a lack of context when it comes to congress. People didn’t know what victory would look like. After all, Democrats were well known for not turning out in the midterms. It was also compounded by the 2016 election where people were unwilling to put to much stock the predicting power of polls. The result also looks way better now than it did right after the election. A lot of the close/undecided house seats ended up going to the democrats. It's a clear victory now.
Yeah, elections do not function on the “Game Night” format for enjoyable TV viewing and instant gratification. It can take weeks for elections to fully resolve. My bet is in 2020, people will have a bit more patience when it comes to how congress shakes out. But that is a lifetime away.
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On November 27 2018 00:03 JimmiC wrote:
Man when the Mueller report drops I might have to take the day off work. It is going to be such a wild day no matter what it says!
I like how Trumps defense on twitter is now 'Mueller never talked to the people in my campaign that weren't involved with russians'
Like no, Donald, he didn't. That would make it an actual waste of time and money like you always say it is.
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On November 27 2018 00:33 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On November 27 2018 00:20 Plansix wrote:On November 27 2018 00:17 Nebuchad wrote:On November 26 2018 23:52 Plansix wrote:On November 26 2018 23:35 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Fivethirtyeight has written extensively on the scale of the blue wave. It looks like a tie, because republicans won a couple of seats in the senate, but apparently in a normal year and considering the map, they should have wiped out democrats there.
Now they also warned it probably means very little for 2020... I think a lot of the “disappointment” around the midterm election is due to a lack of context when it comes to congress. People didn’t know what victory would look like. After all, Democrats were well known for not turning out in the midterms. It was also compounded by the 2016 election where people were unwilling to put to much stock the predicting power of polls. The result also looks way better now than it did right after the election. A lot of the close/undecided house seats ended up going to the democrats. It's a clear victory now. Yeah, elections do not function on the “Game Night” format for enjoyable TV viewing and instant gratification. It can take weeks for elections to fully resolve. My bet is in 2020, people will have a bit more patience when it comes to how congress shakes out. But that is a lifetime away. American elections don't. Other places it is all sorted out that night or at worst by the next day.
All those countries are really small and have tiny populations.
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On November 27 2018 01:10 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On November 27 2018 00:33 JimmiC wrote:On November 27 2018 00:20 Plansix wrote:On November 27 2018 00:17 Nebuchad wrote:On November 26 2018 23:52 Plansix wrote:On November 26 2018 23:35 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Fivethirtyeight has written extensively on the scale of the blue wave. It looks like a tie, because republicans won a couple of seats in the senate, but apparently in a normal year and considering the map, they should have wiped out democrats there.
Now they also warned it probably means very little for 2020... I think a lot of the “disappointment” around the midterm election is due to a lack of context when it comes to congress. People didn’t know what victory would look like. After all, Democrats were well known for not turning out in the midterms. It was also compounded by the 2016 election where people were unwilling to put to much stock the predicting power of polls. The result also looks way better now than it did right after the election. A lot of the close/undecided house seats ended up going to the democrats. It's a clear victory now. Yeah, elections do not function on the “Game Night” format for enjoyable TV viewing and instant gratification. It can take weeks for elections to fully resolve. My bet is in 2020, people will have a bit more patience when it comes to how congress shakes out. But that is a lifetime away. American elections don't. Other places it is all sorted out that night or at worst by the next day. All those countries are really small and have tiny populations. Total population doesn't matter when each voting location has a limited number of ballots to count. Bigger population just means more voting locations that still each count (roughly) the same number of ballots.
And adding them all up is a trivial affair.
The problem is the US doesn't use nearly enough locations nor staff per population which leads to long lines (Standing in line for hours is utterly unheard of over here) and long times spend counting.
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On November 27 2018 01:21 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On November 27 2018 01:10 Plansix wrote:On November 27 2018 00:33 JimmiC wrote:On November 27 2018 00:20 Plansix wrote:On November 27 2018 00:17 Nebuchad wrote:On November 26 2018 23:52 Plansix wrote:On November 26 2018 23:35 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Fivethirtyeight has written extensively on the scale of the blue wave. It looks like a tie, because republicans won a couple of seats in the senate, but apparently in a normal year and considering the map, they should have wiped out democrats there.
Now they also warned it probably means very little for 2020... I think a lot of the “disappointment” around the midterm election is due to a lack of context when it comes to congress. People didn’t know what victory would look like. After all, Democrats were well known for not turning out in the midterms. It was also compounded by the 2016 election where people were unwilling to put to much stock the predicting power of polls. The result also looks way better now than it did right after the election. A lot of the close/undecided house seats ended up going to the democrats. It's a clear victory now. Yeah, elections do not function on the “Game Night” format for enjoyable TV viewing and instant gratification. It can take weeks for elections to fully resolve. My bet is in 2020, people will have a bit more patience when it comes to how congress shakes out. But that is a lifetime away. American elections don't. Other places it is all sorted out that night or at worst by the next day. All those countries are really small and have tiny populations. Total population doesn't matter when each voting location has a limited number of ballots to count. Bigger population just means more voting locations that still each count (roughly) the same number of ballots. And adding them all up is a trivial affair. The problem is the US doesn't use nearly enough locations nor staff per population which leads to long lines (Standing in line for hours is utterly unheard of over here) and long times spend counting.
We also run +400 elections across 50 states, each with their own rules and varying level of staff. Most of the elections resolve without a problem. The minority are close races and require more time to finalize. I am sure other countries have dragged out close local elections as well, but just not as frequently as the US because they don’t deal in the sheer volume of races that the US does.
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Zurich15327 Posts
On November 27 2018 01:10 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On November 27 2018 00:33 JimmiC wrote:On November 27 2018 00:20 Plansix wrote:On November 27 2018 00:17 Nebuchad wrote:On November 26 2018 23:52 Plansix wrote:On November 26 2018 23:35 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Fivethirtyeight has written extensively on the scale of the blue wave. It looks like a tie, because republicans won a couple of seats in the senate, but apparently in a normal year and considering the map, they should have wiped out democrats there.
Now they also warned it probably means very little for 2020... I think a lot of the “disappointment” around the midterm election is due to a lack of context when it comes to congress. People didn’t know what victory would look like. After all, Democrats were well known for not turning out in the midterms. It was also compounded by the 2016 election where people were unwilling to put to much stock the predicting power of polls. The result also looks way better now than it did right after the election. A lot of the close/undecided house seats ended up going to the democrats. It's a clear victory now. Yeah, elections do not function on the “Game Night” format for enjoyable TV viewing and instant gratification. It can take weeks for elections to fully resolve. My bet is in 2020, people will have a bit more patience when it comes to how congress shakes out. But that is a lifetime away. American elections don't. Other places it is all sorted out that night or at worst by the next day. All those countries are really small and have tiny populations.
Not sure if serious or joking but there is no reason why a process that works perfectly well for 10, 20, 40, 50, 80mio people shouldn't scale to 300mio.
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On November 27 2018 01:44 zatic wrote:Show nested quote +On November 27 2018 01:10 Plansix wrote:On November 27 2018 00:33 JimmiC wrote:On November 27 2018 00:20 Plansix wrote:On November 27 2018 00:17 Nebuchad wrote:On November 26 2018 23:52 Plansix wrote:On November 26 2018 23:35 Biff The Understudy wrote:
Fivethirtyeight has written extensively on the scale of the blue wave. It looks like a tie, because republicans won a couple of seats in the senate, but apparently in a normal year and considering the map, they should have wiped out democrats there.
Now they also warned it probably means very little for 2020... I think a lot of the “disappointment” around the midterm election is due to a lack of context when it comes to congress. People didn’t know what victory would look like. After all, Democrats were well known for not turning out in the midterms. It was also compounded by the 2016 election where people were unwilling to put to much stock the predicting power of polls. The result also looks way better now than it did right after the election. A lot of the close/undecided house seats ended up going to the democrats. It's a clear victory now. Yeah, elections do not function on the “Game Night” format for enjoyable TV viewing and instant gratification. It can take weeks for elections to fully resolve. My bet is in 2020, people will have a bit more patience when it comes to how congress shakes out. But that is a lifetime away. American elections don't. Other places it is all sorted out that night or at worst by the next day. All those countries are really small and have tiny populations. Not sure if serious or joking but there is no reason why a process that works perfectly well for 10, 20, 40, 50, 80mio people shouldn't scale to 300mio.
In theory? Sure. But in practice there are more factors at play, like logistics and the number of elections. I should have explained myself better in saying that the sheer volume of elections held in the US in the mid terms meant that several of them are like to go into “overtime” because the race is close. And all of our voting infrastructure is not equal as well. I don’t think that transposing the system that, say, the UK uses would necessarily result in those close races being certified earlier.
We also have not established when the election is “resolved” in this discussion. There is a difference between the race being called by the media and the results being certified.
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EPT
