US Politics, November 2018: "There is no blame. There is no anything."

Nope. Can't avoid it. To quote Morrissey, angel, we go down together.

I guess we'll see. The memory of Election Night 2016 - which never officially ended for me, because I couldn't sleep - is still very raw.

ray netflix is right on the dang internet!!!!

j., you know what I meant.

ayo how does one watch election results on the west coast of the USA?

― Sing The Mighty Beat (sic), Sunday, November 4, 2018 5:39 PM (yesterday)

yeah i for one am lining up some dense and wine-oriented movie watching i think, the november 2016 double-feature of "duck soup" and "saboteur" was totally inadequate at skipping forward through time, esp since as soon as the credits started rolling someone near the back of the theater checked their phone and yelled out "it's america that's being sabotaged, because trump is winning!" i dismissed them as superficial followers of early precinct information or w/e but a few hours later my little household, deep in some sad cups, was switching between bob ross and "airheads" just to try and blot out the minutes until the last, miserable make-or-break states came in. netflix must be sitting on fascinating data of what ppl reached out for that night. i'm going to need continuous distraction, minimal news, unless it's amazing news.

it's not going to be another upset like that

i've probably posted all that on one of these threads before, sorry

sure i just don't need to be sitting there watching ppl say "checking back in the texas senate race, it is still TOO CLOSE TO CALL although o'rourke is probably hoping that THESE precincts break in his favor" etc etc til 2 in the morning

"nate, since we're still waiting on those Fargo precincts to figure out if heitkamp has a chance, are there any state senate races where the exit polling so far has surprised you?"

I'm going to sit through every last second of the election returns and then hate myself after.

oh yeah. i will try not to watch that stuff either.

it's not going to be another upset like that

― Trϵϵship

538 gives republicans a 1 out of 7 chance of holding the house. just for fun, i'd suggest googling "random number generator", putting a min of 1 and a max of 7, and clicking "generate" until a 7 comes up

it took me 8 times

but

idk

(got a 7 on my second try)

this is my idea of wild sunday night fun btw

i posted this over on the mid-term thread and no one gave a shit about it, but i think it's worth thinking about

there are all sorts of assumptions built into the models, and minor adjustments to them can yield pretty different results.

i really like the whole NYT live polling thing especially if you drill down into an individual race (like dave brat v spanberger: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/upshot/elections-poll-va07-3.html)

i realize that might be paywalled off for some people, or you might have run out of free articles for the month. but just to give you an idea, for each individual race they provide these kinds of alternative projections and then update the results in real-time as they conduct the poll:

https://i.imgur.com/imS0QOL.png
https://i.imgur.com/P2Jfngx.png

I’m going to go to a national park after I vote

can I recommend that ppl torrent some classic robert altman movies to occupy their time? altman is good iirc

We're going to a Ethiopian restaurant in the East Village for my birthday and then catching up on South Park. Already voted by mail.

I voted absentee aaaaaaages ago, and although I can only vote on federal races because: expat I’m still getting hundreds of badly personalised begging emails from DFL state races. Must have deleted 20 yesterday alone.

I have most of the Altmans, will loan them to the cause if it keeps y'all out of trouble.

I'm absolutely not watching any of the returns. Voting immediately after work on Tuesday, coming home and distracting myself with non-internet/tv/radio stuff until blessed sleep falls over me. I'm pretty much just bracing myself for the worst because I will never again put myself through the turmoil of two years ago (partly because it might literally kill me).

I honestly don't see much of a future if this week isn't a repudiation of Trump. Anything else will be perceivable and perceived as a tacit approval of him and everything he stands for, and proof that people who outwardly profess not to be racist are tolerant of racism if it doesn't upset their own personal apple cart.

I mean, there will still be a future in that scenario, just probably not for America as a livable country.

For many segments American hasn't been livable since the mid 2000s.

Or 1800s.

ANYWAY.

Here's why we need some hope:

This is wild. My grandparents could not vote because they were black. They fled Florida with my uncle and mother so they wouldn't go to Jim Crow schools. Now Florida could have a black governor. https://t.co/bDR4sXACCF

— Student Loans 🍝 (@AdamSerwer) November 5, 2018

Given Trump is the most disliked president, and given his policies have had and will have dire consequences, and given there are Republicans saying they're voting Dem (however few) and I presume not the other way around, and given a potentially record midterm turnout, and given an apparently relatively huge number of young people and college educated white women voting, and one hopes Latinos and African-Americans as well, and given the record amount of money being spent, on presidential levels of ads and gotv campaigns, is it fair to say that this midterm election, however it turns out, will be The Best We Can Do? I'm not really thinking about it that much, but if after all of this the Dems still fail to take the house, then ... I don't know what else there is to do.

Parallel argument: there was lots of hand-wringing, here and elsewhere/everywhere, about what Trump and his supporters would do had he lost the election and claimed it was all rigged/corrupt (which he did anyway, but still) and refused to accept the results. We have indications of election tomfoolery, both at the behest of active participants (like Kemp) but also ongoing thanks to outside interference that has yet to be resolved or fixed. So if, despite the aforementioned momentum and numbers, the Dems fail to perform as predicted/expected ... do the Dems just roll over?

All of the factors you mention are heartening but it remains to be seen if they will offset the GOP's enthusiasm for gaming the system in their favor and cheating their way to victory.

*taps fingers on desk*

because I will never again put myself through the turmoil of two years ago (partly because it might literally kill me).

Not dumb. 2016 was a lot easier for me to handle, (and SO much more quickly sussed- i was offline by 8p MST!) having lived 2004.

thots and prayers

staying up to watch a good election > going to bed early and ignoring the election >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> staying up to watch a bad election

2018 isn't the last gasp for democracy. In 2020, the Senate electoral landscape is dramatically better for Democrats, with 11 Democratic incumbents and 20 Republican incumbents.

Demographic trends are in the Dems favor. The median age of a primetime Fox News viewer is 65. Younger generations are more ethnically diverse and have lower religiosity. With its embrace of Trump and nationalists/nativists, the GOP has damaged its brand among younger voters for decades to come.

Economic and environmental news will also drive change voters in 2020. We're going to have $100+/bbl oil by 2020 if current production trends continue, Trump's trade wars will extend their effects, the stock and bond markets are at historic overvaluations. More climate deniers homes will be destroyed by the changing climate.

It's going to take decades before the U.S. recovers from the damage the Republicans have done to the judiciary since 2000, but 2020 looks a lot like 2008 to me.

I'm not accustomed to playing Polyyanna, but these are strange times. I'd like to caution the mostly white cis men posting in this thread that when you're in line cheerfully for hours like these residents of North Miami were yesterday in the hopes of electing the first black governor in Florida's history and first Democrat since 1994 you're not thinking about the Future of the Republic.

Demographic trends are in the Dems favor.

People have been saying this for years. The numbers are in Dem favor, both in terms of demographics and presumed voting inclinations as well as in (I want to say) total number of registered Dem voters. Hasn't really done much good, if every election in recent memory has been some bloody battle to the death determined largely by attrition.

With its embrace of Trump and nationalists/nativists, the GOP has damaged its brand among younger voters for decades to come.

Remember when, after Obama was elected, the GOP (led by the likes of Priebus, I want to say) was all "we have to look deep inside ourselves and change, because the country and its demographics are changing?" The GOP sure doesn't. Alfred, I want to thank you for the disheartening but informative book about America and its courts/laws during Reconstruction, which shows how hard it is to get things done for the good of the country when 50% (or more) of the country disagrees over what is good.

I mean, prove me wrong, America. But Trump proved everyone wrong. Maybe he cheated, maybe he was lucky, but the fact that he was elected at all does not bode well.

i posted this over on the mid-term thread and no one gave a shit about it

In fairness this may also be because this is the mid-term thread.

There are lots of good trends! The GOP has been driven to such psychotic extremes of late because the majority of the country is moving in an increasingly-progressive direction.

I have to say that of the few Dem political ads I've seen, I've been very impressed by the lack of punches pulled. All Republicans are getting the Trump albatross hung around their necks, the NRA is being explicitly painted as an extremist organization, etc. The only GOP commercial I've seen featured a fake smiley Rauner and his wife taking turns reading cue cards, with Rauner ineptly mouthing his wife's lines while he awaits his turn to talk.

is it fair to say that this midterm election, however it turns out, will be The Best We Can Do?

I mean its definitely worth mentioning that the map is pretty brutal for the Dems this go around. if we were dealing with 2020's map in this environment I have no doubt it would be a historical wave.

Iowans, for personal reasons I hope you’ll vote Steve King out. I’m tired of being confused with this racist dumbbell.

— Stephen King (@StephenKing) November 4, 2018

a King without a crown

Steve King getting owned would be delightful.

judd legumes compiles various governments borrowing trump's words to excuse atrocities:

Nigeria isn't the only authoritarian regime to feel emboldened by Trump. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, for example, blasted a media outlet critical of his regime, Rappler, as "fake news." The Philippine Securities and Exchange Commission shut down the outlet.

In a January press conference, Duterte denied personal involvement in the move against Rappler and blasted the publication in a Trumpian rant. "You can stop your suspicious mind from roaming somewhere else. But since you are a fake news outlet then I am not surprised that your articles are also fake. You went overboard, you are not only throwing toilet paper, you are throwing shit at us," Duterte said.

In August, a government spokesman responded to reports that Duterte was in poor health by saying anyone that publishes such information should kill themselves. The spokesman told reporters that anyone suggesting Duterte was sick should "just hang themselves because what they want will not happen."

Trump's criticism of "fake news" has been adopted by "prominent leaders or state media in at least 15 countries," according to a report by Politico. Authoritarians are typically using the phrase to "undermine and discredit" critical media coverage.

Syrian President Bashar Assad, for example, brushed off an Amnesty International report that 13,000 people died in a military prison, by claiming "we are living in a fake news era."

https://i.imgur.com/7QeoO7K.png

seems fine

Happy Monday morning to the editors at the Washington Examiner! pic.twitter.com/AzVLIgI7nL

— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) November 5, 2018

woulda been a way better hack without that last sentence

Agreed.

c'mon kids
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/powerup/2018/11/05/powerup-will-there-be-a-youth-wave-early-voting-points-to-yes/5bdf5c391b326b39290545bd/?utm_term=.52ee170159a2

today i had a lyft driver who repeatedly expressed his pride in the 18 year old rider in the back seat who'd voted early

What makes me the most pessimistic about potential Dem mid term gains is that Republicans voters are very motivated, GOP politicians and voters are enthusiastically embracing the crazy on another level. It will be the obvious overriding factor but won’t be addressed in lieu of other kinds of hand wringing because no one knows what to do about it.