politics Post Election Thread: Democracy Dies In Darkness And You Can Help

[Walter_Sobchak]

Seems last night went pretty much as the polls predicted.  Perhaps polling is not dead after all.  

[Walter_Sobchak]

I'm happy that here in Michigan, we overwhelmingly passed three state ballot initiatives that a lot of people had been working on.  Recreational pot is now legal in Michigan, Michigan citizens are now automatically registered to vote when they get their drivers license/state ID, and the creation of voting districts will now be in the hands of a non-partisan citizen board, which should reduce gerrymandering.  

[Sturgeon]

4 minutes ago, Walter_Sobchak said:

Seems last night went pretty much as the polls predicted.  Perhaps polling is not dead after all.  

 

Know whose predictions were more on the money than Nate Silver?

>>>>this guy<<<<

[Ramlaen]

 

[Walter_Sobchak]

30 minutes ago, Sturgeon said:

 

Know whose predictions were more on the money than Nate Silver?

>>>>this guy<<<<

 

I'll have to take your word for it.  I have been avoiding this thread for the past few weeks, so I haven't read all the posts here.  

 

Anyhow, here are my observations thus far.  I don't think any of these are particularly controvertial or original:

 

1)  Trump continues to be a polarizing figure, driving up voter turnout both amongst his supporters and opponents.

 

2) The historical trend of Party holding the presidency losing seats in congress holds true, although the Republicans were able to avoid trouble in the Senate due to a very favorable election map (repubs were defending far fewer senate seats than dems).  

 

3) Holding onto the Senate allows the Republicans to continue dominating high court appointments, something that has been a priority for them, and will continue to cause Dems great consternation.

 

4) Gaining control of the House allows Dems to proceed with more investigations against Trump.  Whether this tactic will ultimately hurt or help them remains to be seen.

 

5) While I haven't seen detailed breakdowns of the voting demographics, it would appear that the electorate is becoming more polarized along rural/urban lines and race and gender.  Certainly the election rhetoric was some of the most highly charged that I have seen in my lifetime.

 

6) Republicans should probably be concerned that they lost so many House seats despite the strength of the economy.  They did not seem to be able to capitalize on the economy issue as much as one would expect, although its been a weird sort of recovery in which real wages for working people have not been going up as much as overall economic growth would suggest.  Trump seemed more interested in promoting divisive social issues than in running on the strength of the economy, which probably plays well with his base but less well with the middle.

 

7) Democrats still have yet to come up with a really compelling, unified vision.  They can't just run against Trump, they need to figure out a way to stop letting Trump take up all the oxygen in the room. They also need to make sure the Clintons go away, never to be heard from again.  

 

8) There is a lot of chatter that there may be a good deal of turnover in the Whitehouse following the midterm.  Personally, I hope General's Mattis and Kelly stay onboard, they seem to provide a stabilizing influence on President's Trumps somewhat mecurial and unpredictable tendencies.  

 

9) Be prepared for a couple years of congressional gridlock.  

 

10) I have no idea how the situation at the Justice Dept and the Mueller probe will eventually play out.  Does Trump try to clean house?  If so, does it turn into a modern "Saturday Night Massacre"?  Does Mueller actually have the goods to get more indictments?  What legal powers does he even have to pursue indictments against a sitting president?  Will Trump play the pardon card if push comes to shove?  There are so many x factors regarding this stuff that I could see it going in all sorts of different directions.  

 

It's going to be an interesting couple of years.  And by interesting, I mean my consumption of Alka-Seltzer will probably keep increasing.  What times we live in....

 

 

 

 

[Sturgeon]

I'm mostly bullshitting. I started thinking the House would be close in the last month, and I was way less secure in my predictions this election than last one.

[Sturgeon]

Good analysis though, I don't have much else to say on that.

[Walter_Sobchak]

12 minutes ago, Sturgeon said:

Good analysis though, I don't have much else to say on that.

 

One thing that did surprise me was how debate around the 14th amendment seemed to overshadow debate around 2nd amendment issues this election cycle.  I had assumed that this was going to be the election in which the gun issue was really going to get heated.  Instead, it seemed to take a backseat somethat to immigration.

[Oedipus Wreckx-n-Effect]

Guns don't vote democrat. But illegals do.

[Walter_Sobchak]

The other thing I found fairly shocking was that Axl Rose is anti-Trump.  I would not have guessed that one.

[Sturgeon]

Sessions has resigned.

[Ramlaen]

That was fast.

[Donward]

As I’ve been saying, Sessions has been the biggest failure of the Trump Administration.

[Sturgeon]

Apparently the Stumper in Chief was just waiting for midterms to be over.

[Legiondude]

2 hours ago, Walter_Sobchak said:

5) While I haven't seen detailed breakdowns of the voting demographics, it would appear that the electorate is becoming more polarized along rural/urban lines and race and gender.  Certainly the election rhetoric was some of the most highly charged that I have seen in my lifetime.

I don't have a site, but I have seen it posted on Twitter

It was basically White Men vs Everyone Else

[Donward]

Bold Prediction: Given Trump’s predilection to poaching popular Democrat policies (immigration, tarriffs) this could signal a change regarding drug and prison reform.

[Belesarius]

9 minutes ago, Donward said:

Bold Prediction: Given Trump’s predilection to poaching popular Democrat policies (immigration, tarriffs) this could signal a change regarding drug and prison reform.

Would be one of the smartest things he could do, and might actually do something to make the US a better place to live. The war on drugs is fucking retarded and that has been obvious for a very very very long fucking time.

 

Corporate for profit prisons are also... way beyond sketchy.

 

[CDNcommissar]

1 hour ago, Belesarius said:

Would be one of the smartest things he could do, and might actually do something to make the US a better place to live. The war on drugs is fucking retarded and that has been obvious for a very very very long fucking time.

 

Corporate for profit prisons are also... way beyond sketchy.

 

A lot of "conservatives" (especially socons) don't accept that anti-pot, let alone anti-WOD (as well as anti-gay marriage and anti-abortion), conservative politicians face an uphill battle.

[Collimatrix]

2 hours ago, Belesarius said:

Would be one of the smartest things he could do, and might actually do something to make the US a better place to live. The war on drugs is fucking retarded and that has been obvious for a very very very long fucking time.

 

Corporate for profit prisons are also... way beyond sketchy.

 

 

 

Truth

[Walter_Sobchak]

14 hours ago, Sturgeon said:

Sessions has resigned.

 

He was my favorite Kate Mckinnon character on SNL. 

[Collimatrix]

14 hours ago, Donward said:

As I’ve been saying, Sessions has been the biggest failure of the Trump Administration.

 

I had disagreed, but it looks like you were right.

 

The Onion was surprisingly on point.

[Walter_Sobchak]

16 hours ago, Walter_Sobchak said:

I'm happy that here in Michigan, we overwhelmingly passed three state ballot initiatives that a lot of people had been working on.  Recreational pot is now legal in Michigan, Michigan citizens are now automatically registered to vote when they get their drivers license/state ID, and the creation of voting districts will now be in the hands of a non-partisan citizen board, which should reduce gerrymandering.  

 

Even better, we managed to piss of Ted Nugent.

 

Ted Nugent upset that Michigan is turning 'into a California s***hole' after Election Day

 

 

[Walter_Sobchak]

Apparently, Secretary of Defense Mattis has changed the name of Operation Faithfull Patriot to the somewhat less exciting yet more accurate name of "border support."

[Belesarius]

12 minutes ago, Walter_Sobchak said:

Apparently, Secretary of Defense Mattis has changed the name of Operation Faithfull Patriot to the somewhat less exciting yet more accurate name of "border support."

Well, derp. Who didn't see that coming?

The whole fucking thing is such obvious political theater it is ridiculous.

[Collimatrix]

16 hours ago, Walter_Sobchak said:

 

I'll have to take your word for it.  I have been avoiding this thread for the past few weeks, so I haven't read all the posts here.  

 

Anyhow, here are my observations thus far.  I don't think any of these are particularly controvertial or original:

 

1)  Trump continues to be a polarizing figure, driving up voter turnout both amongst his supporters and opponents.

 

 

I don't think this is quite correct.  Trump did drive up voter turnout for the Democrats, who saw the 2018 mid-terms, among other things, as a referendum on Trump and an opportunity to end his destructive madness.

 

(little do the puny fools know that Trump's madness is completely unstoppable.  The stars are right, and no mortal forces can hinder him)

The problem for the Republicans was that their base didn't see the mid-terms as a referendum on Trump.  Trump wasn't on the ballot, Republicans were.  Republican voters are lukewarm about Republican politicians, and much, much more enthusiastic about Trump.

 

Trump isn't a Republican.  He's a rich eccentric who hijacked the Republican Party because he thought it would be funny (and boy, howdy has it been).  Republican politicians and the Republican base are at odds on a number of issues.  Once you get past his flamboyant personality, Trump is basically what would happen if you had someone who told the Republican base exactly what they wanted to hear.

When Trump went to bat for the Republicans, he and his base both knew that it was a political marriage of convenience.  Trump needed the Republicans to win, or at least hold ground, because he figured they would be somewhat less obstructionist and treacherous to him than the Democrats.  He needed to sell his base on the necessity of such a maneuver, and they were not entirely enthusiastic about it.  Fortunately, Trump knows all about loveless marriages, so he campaigned for the Republicans with gusto, and attempted to drag their useless asses across the finish line.  The Republicans, for their part, did not actively resist his assistance.
 

At the end of the day, however, the only thing that could truly threaten the Democrat's ambitions of sweeping Congress wasn't Trump, it was themselves.  Their handling of the Kavanaugh hearings energized the Republicans more than Trump could ever have dreamed to.  That was an absolutely catastrophic own-goal.

 

16 hours ago, Walter_Sobchak said:

 

2) The historical trend of Party holding the presidency losing seats in congress holds true, although the Republicans were able to avoid trouble in the Senate due to a very favorable election map (repubs were defending far fewer senate seats than dems).  

 

 

While it's true that the Democrats faced an uphill battle in the Senate, the Republicans actually picked up seats.  I think this is consistent with the idea that voters were punishing the Senate Democrats for their shenanigans during the Kavanaugh hearings.  This is a notion that some Democrats have themselves tacitly admitted.

 

16 hours ago, Walter_Sobchak said:

6) Republicans should probably be concerned that they lost so many House seats despite the strength of the economy.  They did not seem to be able to capitalize on the economy issue as much as one would expect, although its been a weird sort of recovery in which real wages for working people have not been going up as much as overall economic growth would suggest.  Trump seemed more interested in promoting divisive social issues than in running on the strength of the economy, which probably plays well with his base but less well with the middle.

 

Republican politicians are, by and large, parasites and Trotskyite wreckers who belong in gulags.  There are two reasons that they didn't drive home the message that the booming economy is a vindication of their vision.  The first is that it's Trump's vision, not theirs, and they still resent him a bit for it.  The second reason is that they're just shiftless losers who are already tired of winning.  Trump fucking delivered this time around, he campaigned on behalf of the Republicans and really drove home the "Jobs not Mobs" message.  What the hell did they do?  Just lay back and think of glowing praise in National Review?

 

16 hours ago, Walter_Sobchak said:

7) Democrats still have yet to come up with a really compelling, unified vision.  They can't just run against Trump, they need to figure out a way to stop letting Trump take up all the oxygen in the room. They also need to make sure the Clintons go away, never to be heard from again.  

 

Very true.  The Democrats are looking around for a hero on a white horse to deliver them in 2020.  What they really need are level-headed, young leaders who can clean their own party's house without too much external drama, and a team of crack forensic accountants to figure out where the hell Clinton and Obama squirreled away all the money.