Well... It's not quite that simple. A Republican can always successfully run on a ticket of strong gun rights, lower taxes, and smaller government. On the flip side a democrat can't exactly run on higher taxes and bigger government. Also, 76% of people aged 65-74 voted. And they tend to vote Republican. On the flip side only 51% of people aged 18-24 voted. And they tend to vote Democrat. We're in kind of a strange place. Of course retirees want laws that make their retirement easier. Whether or not their needs represent what's best for prosperity into the future becomes irrelevant. And to be quite clear, both parties are guilty of gerrymandering. But according to the Guardian it's more prevalent in Republican districts. It's also the Republicans looking to pass voter restriction laws such as banning mail in voting or passing registration laws. Talk about making election day a National Holiday and you'll get laughed at. Moreover... Republicans almost never represent the will of the people. 55% of people are for 100% legal abortion. 69% want Medicare for All. 83% of the population is for expanded Federal background checks on all sales of firearms. None of this has passed. It's maddening.
This actually makes a lot of sense. It's not so much Democrat versus Republican as it is young versus old. "A new survey is finding that the only group voting Republican by a majority are those 65 and older." https://thehill.com/homenews/campai...ng-for-republicans-are-americans-65-or-older/ Admittedly this is only one source... But again, it makes sense. As an older American you've worked your entire life and now it's time for retirement. Of course you're going to vote Republican. You'd want lower taxes. You want a strong stock market to protect your investments. A 30 year old pays more in taxes physically working than an older person living off long term capital gains. Older people have repeatedly voted to lower their own taxes. We forget taxes used to be as high as 91%. Older people own the wealth. Older people own the housing. Older people want to protect what they already have. It's common sense. On some level I understand where they're coming from. I don't know what the solution is. I thought it was interesting. Makes me think.
You’re making my point though Republicans don’t actually represent majority opinions but they hold inordinate power because they get out and vote at level. If people who support most Democrat causes, maybe not all were, to vote in the same numbers especially young voters things would change. The solution is obvious is to get out and win elections. Any other solution such as packing the court changing Senate rules, or even changing voting rights won’t happen unless you can win elections first. Now it is true that Republicans have made it harder to win but keep in mind for 40 years they couldn’t win the House because Democratic machines were making it hard for them win local races. It took decades to build up the advantage they have now and if Democrats want they back it will take time to do so. It has to start though with contesting and winning at every level.
It's a real problem. There are members here who consider themselves to be liberal or progressive, whatever handle is fashionable these days, who didn't vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016, throwing away their vote on the Green Party candidate, or simply not voting. While in Texas it may not have made a difference in the presidential race, if they voted the same way down ballot, or didn't vote at all in a fit of pique, it's possible we might have had a slightly better result in the legislative races. If not in Texas, in a couple of other states with very close races it might have cost Ms. Clinton the election, in my opinion. Sure, she ran a god-awful race, James Comey went against FBI internal regulations to stab her in the back at the worst possible time (and he still thinks he didn't, or at least claims that...delusional!), and the Russians did what they could for trump on social media. Still, things might have gone Hillary's way and we could have saved ourselves from the trump nightmare had those who typically vote Democratic simply come out and voted that way in 2016, In my opinion. Think about this. How many members here openly call themselves Democrats? I do, and have never been shy about doing so. I considered myself an independent voter for years, voting against Nixon and Reagan, and sometime late in the '80's decided that I may as well call myself a Democrat and go to some precinct meetings and a couple of county conventions. So I did. How many members have you seen call themselves Democrats here? Aside from myself, I can't think of anyone. Oh, there's one fellow who is very pro-Republican and on many issues very conservative, and who is constantly cut and pasting columns and articles critical of Democrats, but claims to be a Democrat. I'll let you guess who that is. I'm not saying. Other than him, who else?
The Hillary thing depends on the state. I live in California. Hillary was going to win my state no matter what. So it made sense for me to vote for the candidate that better represented my liberal ideals in hopes of letting the powers that be know that there was a voice for candidates who are more in line with my positions on issues. If I lived in Wisconsin or any battleground state, I would have voted for Hillary. But there were legitimate reasons why, in my state, it made sense to vote for a more progressive principled candidate.
lol. other than the bolded, that fellow sounds like a wonderful guy, though not necessarily "very pro-Republican." More like "ashamed of Democrats" if you ask me. I bet he's a big fan of literacy standards, too, and of teaching people how to read
The 2016 election is appearing to be the most consequential election in recent history given that Trump had 3 USSC picks along with several more other court picks. Trump wouldn't have had that though if Mitch McConnell hadn't been majority leader. That was due to several earlier elections. More than that consider that GW Bush appointed Roberts and Alito. If the Democrats controlled the FL state house in 2000 there is a good chance that Gore is President then and not GW Bush. Yes winning the Presidency is very important. So is winning Senate and Governorships. Winning control of State Legislatures and Secretary of State races is too.
It's a hard choice but man that 2000 election really does still sting, and of course... it was the Republican Supreme Court who stepped in and ordered the county to not do a recount because "George W Bush would be harmed...."... yeah okay.... Had there been just a few more votes for Gore, you are looking at not only just a different type of country, but really huge global implications. I can't really say 9/11 wouldn't have happened, but given that the Clinton admin knew and was tracking Bin Laden, and warned Bush, there's a chance that keeping in the Clinton intelligence, and military folks leads to better continuity in tracking him, and his cohorts, etc. etc. etc. Maybe SOME of that happens and maybe even Gore sends troops in Afghanistan to hunt down Bin Laden, but I'll go to the bank now with the statement Iraq NEVER happens. Then there is Climate.... OMG where would we be now with our energy infrastructure with those 8 years under a Gore admin?? With consequential elections, it's hard to find one more than 2000. But yeah 2016 with the Ginny Thomas Court... who knows, but I do know that people are waking up to the fact that it no longer has credibility and like the NRA before it, I think when the veil is lifted, and they lose their legitimacy, there is certainly ramifications to that. I forget which president said "The Supreme Court has made their decisions, now lets see them enforce it." But the Ginny Thomas Court certainly is aiming to test their actual powers when the entire world knows they are full of sh$t. You are already seeing Dallas and other cities in red states state loud and clear that they are going to "not prosecute" certain newly found crimes via the Ginny Thomas Court and the radical state Republican parties trigger laws. What does that say about the rule of law now and moving forward with a completely delegitimized Supreme Court?? ....... What do Democrats do about this though???.... hard to say when Democrats have Joe Manchin and Kirstin Sinema governing the party with their veto power on damn near everything and the Ginny Thomas court is partially there because of Joe Manchin's vote. It's hard to run on defeating Joe Manchin, but that actually is more of a reality than most would like to admit because it looks like Dems finding an excuse. But had Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema been any other Democrat, the For the People Act would be law which would have been a godsend for stripping the power of corruption out of government including the Supreme Court. I think running again on the For the People Act with renewed vigor and pointing towards the anti-corruption elements needs to be front and center for 2022.
I believe you when you say you aren’t a Republican. But you are remarkably consistent in only criticizing only one of the parties. It would appear that you believe the Democratic Party and it’s platform is doing far more harm to the country than the Republican Party.
in certain contexts, yes, I think that's a fair assessment. But not all. I'd say the two parties are pretty much evenly split down the middle these days. I just don't pay as much attention to Republicans because a lot of them are dumbasses, whereas I still retain the optimism of youth that Democrats ought to know better
More than 1 million voters switch to GOP in warning for Dems https://apnews.com/article/2022-mid...presidential-e50db07385831e67f866ec45402be8b9 excerpt: A political shift is beginning to take hold across the U.S. as tens of thousands of suburban swing voters who helped fuel the Democratic Party’s gains in recent years are becoming Republicans. More than 1 million voters across 43 states have switched to the Republican Party over the last year, according to voter registration data analyzed by The Associated Press. The previously unreported number reflects a phenomenon that is playing out in virtually every region of the country — Democratic and Republican states along with cities and small towns — in the period since President Joe Biden replaced former President Donald Trump. But nowhere is the shift more pronounced — and dangerous for Democrats — than in the suburbs, where well-educated swing voters who turned against Trump’s Republican Party in recent years appear to be swinging back. Over the last year, far more people are switching to the GOP across suburban counties from Denver to Atlanta and Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Republicans also gained ground in counties around medium-size cities such as Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Raleigh, North Carolina; Augusta, Georgia; and Des Moines, Iowa. more at the link
Poll shows Democrats losing strength with Asian Americans in key Senate battlegrounds https://thehill.com/homenews/campai...-asian-americans-in-key-senate-battlegrounds/
Democrats should stop demonizing the Dems that don't agree with them on everything. There isn't going to be "any other Democrat" from West Virginia. Get rid of him and you just lose a seat. You don't see the GOP demonizing Collins, Murkowski, Romney, McCain, etc when they defied the party on major issues. Beyond that, you figure out how to run a campaign to win over the purple seats you've been losing the last 12 years with other Dems that were alienated the same way as Manchin. Remember, just 13 years ago, Dems had *60* seats in the Senate. They had seats in places like Nebraska, Louisiana, Montana, Missouri, etc. You have to craft a campaign message that appeals in places like those instead of what appeals to left leaning states. You also have to find outside-the-box candidates that have appeal to people who hate politicians (the Fetterman types). Then you have to do the same in state houses, and make an 8 year effort to regain control of state legislatures in purple states, so that you then rebuild the House by controlling redistricting in 2030. You also have to recognize you're losing latino and black voters that are inherently moderate/conservative and have, at least in the short run, irreversibly lost white blue collar voters. You need to figure out what demographics to take from the GOP, and ideally you make sure its a demographic that votes reliably (suburban women is an ideal group here) - not just for President, but in local and mid-term elections. Then you have to craft a message that appeals to them. You also have to keep random lefties from going off the rails and driving the party off the cliff. The best way to do that is the Contract with America idea, where you build a popular agenda and just repeat those talking points over and over.
Completely understand that, and folks like you and me who are steeped in the nuances of legislation can be honest that yes.... it is about Joe Manchin and Sinema. I mean the For the People Act would change everything about good government. However as a party, yeah, you have to be able to hold the coalition that got Biden elected in the first place, and not allow narratives to fraction the party, and lead to a falling apart of the voting block that can easily win any election if everyone shows up. I would say there are things the Dems can do right now that still hold the coalition, but shows a recognition that they need to do more. I think finding a way to replace Chuck Schumer with a much more media savvy majority leader is a good start, and doesn't lose you any coalition votes unless it puts a risk some sort of minutia that could potentially rig a vote for McConnell based on weird Senate rules.
If Democrats had won the Senate seat in NC Manchin would be largely neutralized. If they had also won the seat in IA Sinema would largely be neutralized. Many are complaining that why can’t Democrats get more done with a majority when a 50 seat Caucus is only technically a majority. The answer for Those saying how many seats is enough the answer should be “100”. A majority in the Senate where every senator has their own agenda and thinks they can be President is never big enough.
probably deserves its own thread The Vanishing Moderate Democrat Their positions are popular. So why are they going extinct? https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/29/magazine/moderate-democrat.html?smid=url-share excerpts: The bigger, more consequential question — not just for the moderates but for all Democrats — is whether this projected midterm wipeout is merely a cyclical occurrence or the manifestation of a much deeper and more intractable problem. Over the last decade, the Democratic Party has moved significantly to the left on almost every salient political issue. Some of these shifts in a more ambitiously progressive direction, especially as they pertain to economic issues, have largely tracked with public opinion: While socialism might not poll well with voters, Democratic proposals to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy, increase the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour and lower the age of Medicare eligibility do. But on social, cultural and religious issues, particularly those related to criminal justice, race, abortion and gender identity, the Democrats have taken up ideological stances that many of the college-educated voters who now make up a sizable portion of the party’s base cheer but the rest of the electorate does not. “The Democratic Party moved left,” says Will Marshall, the president and founder of the Progressive Policy Institute, a moderate Democratic think tank, “but the country as a whole hasn’t.” *** “There’s a sense among voters that Democrats are too focused on social issues,” says Brian Stryker, a Democratic pollster, “and those are more left-wing social issues that people think they’re too focused on.” In May, CNN asked 1,007 American voters for their opinions on the country’s two major political parties. After four years of Trump in the White House, an insurrection and unsuccessful attempt to overturn a presidential election and now a Republican Party that can be fairly described as a cult of personality and is moving further right on many of the same social issues, 46 percent of those surveyed considered the G.O.P. to be “too extreme.” But 48 percent of them viewed the Democratic Party the same way. All of which has occasioned not just the normal midterm agita but something closer to an existential crisis among moderate Democrats. While some of them remain reluctant to publicly concede the reality that the Democratic Party has indeed shifted left — either out of fear of angering their fellow Democrats or validating Republican attacks — they will readily acknowledge that voters perceive the party as having drifted out of the mainstream. And they are convinced that this is threatening their political survival. “There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that the Democratic Party has a problem as a toxic brand,” says Max Rose, a moderate New York Democrat who lost re-election to his House seat in Staten Island in 2020 — his Republican opponent characterized Rose’s attendance at a George Floyd protest march as anti-police — and is running to reclaim the seat this year. “There’s a perception that the party is not on the side of working people, that it’s not on the side of the middle class.” That perception has penetrated even the immediate families of Democratic politicians. “My own mother-in-law, a Republican, believes I’m some sort of unicorn because I can put sentences together and I’m not rabid and left-leaning,” says Chrissy Houlahan, a moderate Democratic congresswoman who represents a swing district in the swing state of Pennsylvania. “I believe the national Democratic Party is where I am. I don’t believe that the way people perceive the national Democratic Party is where I am.” *** “For Democrats to win, we have to cater a lot more to moderates,” Sean McElwee told me recently at an Australian coffee shop in Washington’s Logan Circle neighborhood. Just 29 years old, with a baby face that makes him appear even younger, McElwee runs Data for Progress, a left-leaning polling firm and think tank that in only four years has come to occupy a central place in the Democratic Party firmament. Its ascent is especially remarkable considering where the firm — and McElwee — started. He burst onto the political scene early in Donald Trump’s presidency as a Resistance Twitter personality who popularized the slogan “Abolish ICE” and hosted a weekly East Village happy hour for New York’s left-wing activists and writers. He started Data for Progress in 2018 with the express intent of driving the Democratic Party to the left. As a self-proclaimed socialist, McElwee’s early activism revolved around helping far-left candidates win Democratic primaries in safe blue districts. He was an adviser to the left-wing political group Justice Democrats, which fueled the rise of Ocasio-Cortez, as well as Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, a.k.a. the Squad. He liked to call himself an “Overton window mover.” (The term refers to a reframing of what is politically possible.) But during the 2020 presidential primaries, just when practically every Democratic candidate except Joe Biden was jumping through that window by promising to abolish ICE and provide Medicare for all and eliminate student debt, McElwee himself started favoring what he calls “a more pragmatic approach.” The reason? While he personally still supported many of these left-wing policy proposals, Data for Progress’s polling showed that they weren’t actually popular with voters — or at least not with the working-class, non-college-educated voters Democrats need to win outside those safe blue districts. McElwee concluded that if Democrats ever want to accomplish their progressive goals, they need to get elected first — and the way to do that is to do a lot of polling to determine the popularity of various policy proposals. Then, when talking to voters, Democratic candidates should emphasize the popular ideas and de-emphasize the unpopular ones, even if that means emphasizing smaller, more incremental, more moderate policies. “I’m now just interested in a fundamentally different set of tactics and tools than I was six or seven years ago,” McElwee told me. long article, much more at the link
Congressional climate hawks demand action after ‘alarming’ Supreme Court decision https://thehill.com/policy/energy-e...action-after-alarming-supreme-court-decision/
