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On December 14 2017 02:33 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On December 14 2017 02:30 Gorsameth wrote:On December 14 2017 02:23 LegalLord wrote:On December 14 2017 02:14 Gorsameth wrote:On December 14 2017 02:09 LegalLord wrote:On December 14 2017 01:14 Trainrunnef wrote:On December 14 2017 01:04 LegalLord wrote:On December 14 2017 00:57 kollin wrote:On December 14 2017 00:40 LegalLord wrote: Perhaps what one could learn from all this is that it’s not just about the other person sucking but also about finding people who genuinely want to vote for you, not just reluctantly, and getting them to vote. I know it’s easy to play the shitty game of identity politics and “have you seen the other guy” but Jones did what both Trump and Sanders did to fight well above their weight class: they inspired key voting blocs to turn out in droves for them. Isn't inspiring key voting blocs to turn out an extremely euphemistic way of saying identity politics? Only if you already intended to say identity politics in the first place and want to shoehorn it in. You dont have to play identity politics to get people to turn out and vote, you have to inspire them. There are plenty of universal issues that need to be addressed, and can be addressed without going off the deep end. Yeah, this. But some people insist on seeing things only in terms of race or gender or something and stoke tensions just because they think identity is the underlying issue. gee I wonder if addressing a minorities specific issues would 'inspire' that minority to vote for you. Also I wonder how much the fact that Moore came out to say the US was better when black people were slaves (not in quite those exact words) helped bring out the black vote. Undoubtedly so, but if the takeaway from all this, as it has been with previous candidates, is that you should campaign on "my opponent is a racist, sexist, evil bigot" - rather than on getting a candidate who is able to inspire positive change - then evidently we're going to see 2016 on repeat for years to come. For example - do you think Jones' record prosecuting the KKK counts for anything, or is it just that he's a warm body opposing Moore? Jones is a great opportunity, a sign of a 2018 chance to undo the damage done by losing the best chance Democrats had to take back Congress in 2016. It can be wasted if it turns into a game of trying to find the nastiest ways possible to paint the opponent as a bad dude, rather than seek to inspire people to vote for a candidate with a genuine message. And the latter isn't about identity politics and stoking racial tensions, it's about offering real solutions rather than name-calling. Ofc you need a good candidate as a base, Moore proved this. He was so bad he couldn't even win Alabama. But I think its also wrong to pretend that 'just be like Jones' is going to get you to win red states. Jones, no matter how amazing he is as a candidate, could not win Alabama without Moore being the worst possible shit ever. It's always a combination of factors. But the thing is, there are lots of bad Republican candidates all over the place and it's not hard to find one of those that could potentially be unseated. The real problem is that the Democrats are stupid enough to think that drawing attention to that badness - generally in a fashion akin to identity politics circlejerking - will influence voting in any meaningful way. When the reality is that you need to offer some sign of change to actually get anywhere. That was not how democrats turned out the vote in Alabama. That was the national coverage, but the DNC and party leaders mostly stayed out of the state election.
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Hence the security, makes sense.
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On December 14 2017 02:33 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On December 14 2017 02:30 Gorsameth wrote:On December 14 2017 02:23 LegalLord wrote:On December 14 2017 02:14 Gorsameth wrote:On December 14 2017 02:09 LegalLord wrote:On December 14 2017 01:14 Trainrunnef wrote:On December 14 2017 01:04 LegalLord wrote:On December 14 2017 00:57 kollin wrote:On December 14 2017 00:40 LegalLord wrote: Perhaps what one could learn from all this is that it’s not just about the other person sucking but also about finding people who genuinely want to vote for you, not just reluctantly, and getting them to vote. I know it’s easy to play the shitty game of identity politics and “have you seen the other guy” but Jones did what both Trump and Sanders did to fight well above their weight class: they inspired key voting blocs to turn out in droves for them. Isn't inspiring key voting blocs to turn out an extremely euphemistic way of saying identity politics? Only if you already intended to say identity politics in the first place and want to shoehorn it in. You dont have to play identity politics to get people to turn out and vote, you have to inspire them. There are plenty of universal issues that need to be addressed, and can be addressed without going off the deep end. Yeah, this. But some people insist on seeing things only in terms of race or gender or something and stoke tensions just because they think identity is the underlying issue. gee I wonder if addressing a minorities specific issues would 'inspire' that minority to vote for you. Also I wonder how much the fact that Moore came out to say the US was better when black people were slaves (not in quite those exact words) helped bring out the black vote. Undoubtedly so, but if the takeaway from all this, as it has been with previous candidates, is that you should campaign on "my opponent is a racist, sexist, evil bigot" - rather than on getting a candidate who is able to inspire positive change - then evidently we're going to see 2016 on repeat for years to come. For example - do you think Jones' record prosecuting the KKK counts for anything, or is it just that he's a warm body opposing Moore? Jones is a great opportunity, a sign of a 2018 chance to undo the damage done by losing the best chance Democrats had to take back Congress in 2016. It can be wasted if it turns into a game of trying to find the nastiest ways possible to paint the opponent as a bad dude, rather than seek to inspire people to vote for a candidate with a genuine message. And the latter isn't about identity politics and stoking racial tensions, it's about offering real solutions rather than name-calling. Ofc you need a good candidate as a base, Moore proved this. He was so bad he couldn't even win Alabama. But I think its also wrong to pretend that 'just be like Jones' is going to get you to win red states. Jones, no matter how amazing he is as a candidate, could not win Alabama without Moore being the worst possible shit ever. It's always a combination of factors. But the thing is, there are lots of bad Republican candidates all over the place and it's not hard to find one of those that could potentially be unseated. The real problem is that the Democrats are stupid enough to think that drawing attention to that badness - generally in a fashion akin to identity politics circlejerking - will influence voting in any meaningful way. When the reality is that you need to offer some sign of change to actually get anywhere. Drawing attention to Moore being a child molester got half of Republican voters to stay home. The only reason Moore lost is because half of Republican voters stayed home.
Ignoring how bad Moore is means Jones would have lost.
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United Kingdom13774 Posts
On December 14 2017 02:37 Gorsameth wrote: Ignoring how bad Moore is means Jones would have lost. No one said you should ignore it. It's just not sufficient.
Was Trump being bad sufficient to defeat him?
On December 14 2017 02:37 Gorsameth wrote: The only reason Moore lost is because half of Republican voters stayed home. No, the fact that black voters turned out in significantly higher than average numbers played a substantial role as well. If they didn't, Jones would have lost even if Republicans stayed home or did a write-in.
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Half of voters find sexual misconduct accusations against President Donald Trump to be credible, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll conducted against the backdrop of a national discussion on sexual harassment.
Fifty percent of registered voters think the allegations against Trump are credible, more than the 29 percent who think they are not credible. The remaining 21 percent of voters don’t know if the allegations are credible.
Trump, during last year’s presidential campaign, was accused of sexual abuse or harassment by more than a dozen women — some of whom have resurfaced in recent days in hopes that a renewed focus on sexual harassment would lead their claims to gain more traction. Six Democratic senators have seized on those allegations this week, calling on Trump to resign.
The new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll surveyed 1,955 registered voters from December 8-11, with most of the interviews completed before three of those women held a press conference on Monday to tell their stories.
Trump has denied their claims, both through the White House press office and on his widely read Twitter account, tweeting that they are “false accusations and fabricated stories of women who I don’t know and/or have never met. FAKE NEWS!”
Democratic voters believe the allegations are mostly credible, however, by a 62 percent to 25 percent split. Independents find the claims of misconduct credible by a 2-to-1 margin, 50 percent to 24 percent.
Republican voters are split evenly: 38 percent find the charges credible, but the same percentage thinks they are not credible. Similarly, self-identified Trump voters in 2016 are also divided: 39 percent think the charges are credible, and 37 percent think they are not credible.
Source
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The language is vauge and abstract but I think identity politics should be referred to politics that appeal to a group by putting them against another group. Ie white people are racist or black people are criminals, in more seemingly polite terms ofc.
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Racism is extremely hard to talk about and often comes to the uncomfortable subject of complicity and indifference in relation to racism in the US. When states are double and tripling down on voter ID laws specifically designed to suppress the black vote, its hard not to see that as a pressing issue.
I can turn it into a universal issue if people want. If we suppress the black vote long enough and do nothing to combat it, black folks will riot. As some point they will give up on the whole system being fair and just turn to the ago old tactic of lighting a bunch of white peoples shit on fire until the laws are changed. That is what lead to the voters rights act. Race riots for years, followed by MLK preaching peace and then finally white people deciding that protecting minority voting rights were better than another decade of riots.
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Oh, this is pretty insane. The 7th district includes basically all 3 major urban areas plus the Black Belt in AL. Probably like 40% of the population and over half the state's economic output.
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idk if i’m a total idiot or anything but that doesn’t really shout ‘gerrymandered’ to me. of course the biggest cities are going to vote democrat and hold a significant portion of an otherwise unpopjlous state. and i mean there’s only so many ways to draw a map. that the rest of the map was so evenly split, to me, speaks to some very equitable lines. the only questionable piece is that odd leg through 6, and just *how* red 4 is (knowing nothing of the area though there might be an explanation i’m i aware of.)
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do you not see the little feelers going into mobile (southwest corner) and birmingham (center)? assuming those bits were part of districts 1 and 6, 1 and 6 would likely be blue or toss ups.
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If anything is to be learned its that the dnc should wake up to the very real value they can get by championing black voter issues and the turnout the black community can produce even in an special election.
Granted they need to show a competence to hold white blue colour union voters at the same time.
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On December 14 2017 03:23 brian wrote:idk if i’m a total idiot or anything but that doesn’t really shout ‘gerrymandered’ to me. of course the biggest cities are going to vote democrat. and i mean there’s only so many ways to draw a map. that the rest of the map was so evenly split, to me, speaks to some very equitable lines. the only questionable piece is that odd leg through 6, and just *how* red 4 is (knowing nothing of the area though there might be an explanation i’m i aware of.) That 40% of the population does not make up 40% of the seats the states gets. 40% of the population gets 12% of the political power in the state. Of course I am sure it has nothing to do with the fact that all the black people in the state live in the city.
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yea sorry i must’ve edited that in too slowly. but again that it’s just so equitable elsewhere(in a deeply red state) seems to say the opposite. perhaps i am just too unfamiliar with the state. maybe i need a district map with the cities specifically highlighted. which would be pretty useful when talking about gerrymandering i suppose.
On December 14 2017 03:27 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On December 14 2017 03:23 brian wrote:idk if i’m a total idiot or anything but that doesn’t really shout ‘gerrymandered’ to me. of course the biggest cities are going to vote democrat. and i mean there’s only so many ways to draw a map. that the rest of the map was so evenly split, to me, speaks to some very equitable lines. the only questionable piece is that odd leg through 6, and just *how* red 4 is (knowing nothing of the area though there might be an explanation i’m i aware of.) That 40% of the population does not make up 40% of the seats the states gets. 40% of the population gets 12% of the political power in the state. Of course I am sure it has nothing to do with the fact that all the black people in the state live in the city. i think this still speaks to my point though. in an otherwise deeply red state, that the only district that gets the blue vote is the one with the biggest city and highest population should be wholly unsurprising?
but yea otherwise, assuming those stretchers do encompass birmingham and mobile my bad. i did not think they were all so close. i’m just an idiot. it should be hard to argue against the results but i’m still having a hard time seeing it.
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On December 14 2017 02:28 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
This profile on Omarosa is full of gems:
There’s been some confusion about Omarosa’s precise role in this White House. She is formally the communications director for the Office of Public Liaison, the same office where Kal Penn of Harold & Kumar fame worked. But I wanted Omarosa to help me understand what keeps her busy during the workday and how one of the biggest reality stars of the early aughts—apart from her own boss—was reshaping the administration.
Before Ivanka, before Jared, before even Melania, Omarosa was the most prolific one-named celebrity in Donald Trump’s orbit. Her role as a surrogate on his campaign was the reward for 13 years of unshakable devotion, beginning as America’s favorite villain on The Apprentice, where she curried favor with Trump for her bombast. She returned later as a contestant on the spin-off Celebrity Apprentice, where she dumped wine on Piers Morgan’s head. ...
But on this particular Friday morning, Omarosa simply does not have the time to explain what, exactly, it is that she does. She can give me 15 minutes at most, she says, despite the hour-long appointment. It’s a very, very busy day, she tells me, and asks if I’d rather shadow her for the morning. “You can see me in action,” she says. ... It’s tough to sneak in a question to Omarosa—about her job, her life, her goals, about where exactly we are heading at this precise moment—because we are always walking, quickly and seemingly aimlessly across the West Wing, and in and out of rooms at the EEOB. At some point we are looking for a certain Josh, though we don’t ever locate him, and I never find out why he’s needed. As we knock on the door to one office, she finally muffles an answer as to what we’re doing: “… the faith communities, does anyone need to be blessed…”
Many of her answers go this way, with sentences accomplishing the syntactical feat of never seeming to begin or end. Or they begin and end at the same time: “Everything,” she says when I ask about the contents of her job portfolio right now. ... After the abrupt end to our day in March, I called a Republican source in constant contact with the White House and asked what they thought Omarosa’s job entailed. “No clue,” the source said. I told the source about our whirlwind of a morning.
“Wait, Hope [Hicks] let you follow [Omarosa] around?” the source asked. No, I hadn’t spoken with Hope, who now serves formally as the White House communications director. “So Sean [Spicer] let you?” Ditto. “Christ,” the source said. “No one in the comms department knew a random reporter was walking around the West Wing. This is why people think we’re a shit show.”And while she does pop up in White House press briefings from time to time, there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to which ones. During our morning together, for example, she toyed with whether or not to attend that day’s session. “I may go, I may not,” she said. ... If Omarosa’s White House sounds less like a storied institution than a personal playground, well, that’s precisely because she intends it to be. As she writes in The Bitch Switch, a woman in control—of her life, of her relationships, of her career—“determines her own rules of engagement for every situation.” No One Knows What Omarosa is Doing in the White House
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United Kingdom13774 Posts
That definitely looks like some deep gerrymandering.
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On December 14 2017 03:23 brian wrote:idk if i’m a total idiot or anything but that doesn’t really shout ‘gerrymandered’ to me. of course the biggest cities are going to vote democrat and hold a significant portion of an otherwise unpopjlous state. and i mean there’s only so many ways to draw a map. that the rest of the map was so evenly split, to me, speaks to some very equitable lines. the only questionable piece is that odd leg through 6, and just *how* red 4 is (knowing nothing of the area though there might be an explanation i’m i aware of.)
It's gerrymandered because it means that seats (what you are trying to win) are assigned to the regions people vote in such a way that as many democratic voters are looking to vote for 1 seat as possible. So even if you theoretically were to have dems somehow take ~70% of the vote (with most of it in district 7), they'd still get only 1/7 seats.
Basically, let all the dems take 1 district uncontested, but claim all the others. "Fair" representation would be where the number of seats assigned to each party matches the vote percentages, or something to that effect (say, if 40% of people vote Dem, then ~3/7 seats should be blue).
The entire electoral college system favours republicans in this way ("state" as well as headcount contribute to EC votes per state, so more people in a state actually means those people have less EC representation).
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On December 14 2017 03:34 Ciaus_Dronu wrote:Show nested quote +On December 14 2017 03:23 brian wrote:idk if i’m a total idiot or anything but that doesn’t really shout ‘gerrymandered’ to me. of course the biggest cities are going to vote democrat and hold a significant portion of an otherwise unpopjlous state. and i mean there’s only so many ways to draw a map. that the rest of the map was so evenly split, to me, speaks to some very equitable lines. the only questionable piece is that odd leg through 6, and just *how* red 4 is (knowing nothing of the area though there might be an explanation i’m i aware of.) It's gerrymandered because it means that seats (what you are trying to win) are assigned to the regions people vote in such a way that as many democratic voters are looking to vote for 1 seat as possible. So even if you theoretically were to have dems somehow take ~70% of the vote (with most of it in district 7), they'd still get only 1/7 seats. Basically, let all the dems take 1 district uncontested, but claim all the others. "Fair" representation would be where the number of seats assigned to each party matches the vote percentages, or something to that effect (say, if 40% of people vote Dem, then ~3/7 seats should be blue). The entire electoral college system favours republicans in this way ("state" as well as headcount contribute to EC votes per state, so more people in a state actually means those people have less EC representation). The EC is set up to favor rural regions/states who get under-represented in other systems. Rural just happens to vote Republican.
Not to say Gerrymandering doesn't exist. The US really should learn to let independent/bi-partisan organisations decide on district lines, rather then elected politicians.
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On December 14 2017 03:27 brian wrote:yea sorry i must’ve edited that in too slowly. but again that it’s just so equitable elsewhere(in a deeply red state) seems to say the opposite. perhaps i am just too unfamiliar with the state. maybe i need a district map with the cities specifically highlighted. which would be pretty useful when talking about gerrymandering i suppose. Show nested quote +On December 14 2017 03:27 Plansix wrote:On December 14 2017 03:23 brian wrote:idk if i’m a total idiot or anything but that doesn’t really shout ‘gerrymandered’ to me. of course the biggest cities are going to vote democrat. and i mean there’s only so many ways to draw a map. that the rest of the map was so evenly split, to me, speaks to some very equitable lines. the only questionable piece is that odd leg through 6, and just *how* red 4 is (knowing nothing of the area though there might be an explanation i’m i aware of.) That 40% of the population does not make up 40% of the seats the states gets. 40% of the population gets 12% of the political power in the state. Of course I am sure it has nothing to do with the fact that all the black people in the state live in the city. i think this still speaks to my point though. in an otherwise deeply red state, that the only district that gets the blue vote is the one with the biggest city and highest population should be wholly unsurprising?
Without trying to be cheeky, if you've ever had the math behind gerrymandering explained to you, equal-ish districts that lean toward you is precisely what you want, so that is, if anything, evidence *for* it.
Example: 30 people live in 6 districts, 5 people each. Let's say the population is 50/50, so 15 Rs and Ds. You'd expect each side to get 3 districts. But if I get to split it up, and I make the districts I win close and the ones you win blowouts, then it's not even close:
District 1: 3R 2D District 2: 3R 2D District 3: 3R 2D District 4: 3R 2D District 5: 3R 2D District 6: 0R 5D
Result: 5 R districts and 1 D district, even though the population is split 50/50. So the map above, with close-ish districts with R victories and one blowout D district is precisely what I would want to see if I had been put in charge of gerrymandering a state.
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On December 14 2017 03:26 Sermokala wrote: If anything is to be learned its that the dnc should wake up to the very real value they can get by championing black voter issues and the turnout the black community can produce even in an special election.
Granted they need to show a competence to hold white blue colour union voters at the same time.
the turnout was exceptionally irregular in this case; not somethin that can be reliably duplicated without an opponent as blatantly bad as Moore. also, blacks are ~26% of alabama, while being more like ~13% nationally.
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