This is what I fear about the far right endorsements in the GOP... Steve Bannon, who is closely tied to the America First Secretary of State Coalition, said it outright: "We're taking over all the elections." "We're going to take this back village by village … precinct by precinct," In Arizona, the leading Republican candidate is Trump-endorsed Mark Finchem, a member of the white supremacist group the Oath Keepers, who tried to decertify President Joe Biden's win in the state and attended the January 6 insurrection. In Nevada, the Republican candidate is insurrectionist Jim Marchant, a member of Nevada's fake slate of pro-Trump electors seeking to overturn President Biden's victory in 2020. In Michigan, Trump has endorsed Kristina Karamo, a far-right conspiracy theorist who claims that demonic possession can be sexually transmitted. Karamo to this day continues to spread the absurd lie that Trump is the true president of the U.S. Trump is trying to put people in power to certify him as the winner in 2024, whether he loses or not. This is scary. This is not what our Democracy stands for. This is more like what happens in a corrupt regime. Trump will do anything to win, as we saw before. If corruption has no punishment, he, or any other GOP Presidential candidate will succeed in stealing the next election. They need to throw the book at Trump and everyone else who was involved in the coup.
The Real Math on Moderation Democrats need to heed electoral reality. https://www.thebulwark.com/the-real-math-on-moderation/ excerpt: To keep control of Congress this fall, Democrats must answer the question of how to reach and persuade swing voters, particularly in rural America. To do this, they must meet these voters where they stand—not just geographically, but ideologically. Research demonstrates that moderates do better and are more popular than extreme and ideological candidates. The record of the past few years drives that point home: Justice Democrats and Our Revolution, organizations that have been stalwarts of the progressive left’s post-2016 insurgency, have supported more than 100 candidates since 2018 but have yet to flip a single swing district. In fact, the four Justice Democrats-backed candidates who won in 2018 (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar) did so in such dark-blue strongholds that Joe Biden carried their districts two years later with more than 73 percent of the vote. When it comes to which kinds of candidates win the critical races that decide who controls the government and protects democracy, the progressive left lacks any electoral evidence to point to. *** The hard facts of the case are clear: In general, moderates who can distance themselves from the Democratic party’s far-left national brand tend to do better in swing states than progressives who run toward it. Yet these facts have been overlooked by major national media in favor of a glossy story that suggests to progressives that they don’t have to make hard choices when trying to win swing districts. Not only have Maxmin and Woodward been featured in the Times, they’ve been highlighted by everyone from the New Yorker to Teen Vogue to Bill Maher. In making the fact-free case that Democrats can run as unabashed progressives without penalty in swing districts, such uncritical coverage only serves to weaken and divide us at a moment when our strength and unity against Donald Trump’s radicalized Republican party is paramount. With the stakes of our political moment as high as they are right now, it’s time to tell a more honest story about what it takes for Democrats to win and save democracy. more at the link
No surprise here. SC decision on Roe (6/28/22) has a sharp effect on Independent. Democrats’ Generic Ballot Lead Among Independents Swells to New High - Morning Consult
Repugs doing their best to ensure a Dem-controlled Congress GOP controlled SCOUS repealed legalized abortion; the incompetent double-talking Kevin McCarthy reversed his position on assigning GOP members to the Jan 6 Committe; that's how the committee ended up w Liz Cheney and Adam Kinsigner, which has led to the unclothing of the orang hair
The problem moderates face since Gingrich (then unlimited donations from everywhere) has been survivorship bias. Obama won a score of Blue Dogs only to have them wiped out during the midterms of his first term. It's incredibly difficult to keep those swing districts because those constituents more likely to vote with their wallets and economy in mind rather than their core political values/principles. Moderates can promise a good and reasonable game (which enhances their Fresh Face Appeal), but Congress has its own numbers game. These freshmen/sophomores need strong district backing if they're ever going to rise up to earn any seniority or leadership in a top tier committee. But without a strong platform or conviction for each candidate, they eventually caucus with the rest of the party most of the time. For the op/ed's "reasonable" idea to survive, the author would need to dig into the "Blue Dogs" who recently won and see how they're fairing as freshmen and how their popularity has fared as Biden's numbers decline. Elissa Slotkin from Michigan gained attention for winning a hard fought campaign, but I haven't seen her in any recent soundbyte, nor do I really expect for her to do that as a freshman moderate. Media also plays a lot in distorting each Representative's power. I don't see why Slotkin's vote is necessarily less than AOCs though AOC definitely carries a bigger pulpit and resides in a safe district as allowance risk taking and shameless aggrandizing. The main problem I see isn't a Radicalization of Democrats, but rather their cozy relationships with Wall Street and Silicon Valley. When Dem Leadership wants to claim moral certitude by hailing bonafides from 70's era civil rights, environmental legislation, and union support, the relationships from the former creates a cognitive dissonance sharply felt by the middle to lower rungs of society. Maybe blue collar workers don't give a crap about culture wars/identity politics, college loan forgiveness or even a deeper rewrite to workplace discrimination, but they do know an unfair game with wages, jobs, and the economy when they see one. The fact that both parties now cede that responsibility to the Fed or even draw from the same pool of neoliberal advisors (except Trump) hasn't gone unnoticed. I don't think a moderate Dems would solve that. Moderates would probably rely on it more as its the economic orthodoxy, especially when ideas to directly help lower classes (outside of direct handouts for Everyone) are shunned as radical or "unfair and costly entitlements". That's one of the problems Trump appealed to his lowbrow followers that he was going to solve. Bernie made direct appeals to address that his following on the left when he ran for president.
Also, the Republicans have apparently closed a 40 point gap with Hispanics since 2018, reducing the national margin to just 3 points.
The Political Environment Might Be Improving For Democrats By Nate Silver JUL. 29, 2022, AT 8:10 AM ILLUSTRATION BY EMILY SCHERER As was the case when we launched the forecast a month ago, the Deluxe version of FiveThirtyEight’s midterm model still rates the battle for control of the Senate as a “toss-up.” But within that category there’s been modest, but consistent movement toward Democrats. Their chances of winning the Senate now stand at 55 percent. That’s up from 47 percent from forecast launch on June 30. It’s also up from 40 percent in a retroactive forecast dated back to June 1. Our retroactive forecast is based on information that would have been available at the time. This is matched by Democrats’ improved position on the generic congressional ballot, which asks voters which party they would support in a congressional election. Democrats are now essentially tied with Republicans in our generic ballot polling average, after having trailed by 2 to 3 percentage points over most of the late spring and early summer. In the Classic version of our forecast — which doesn’t use the race ratings published by the Cook Political Report and other expert groups — the movement toward Democrats has also been steady. There, their chances sit at 67 percent, up from 56 percent at launch on June 30 and 52 percent in the June 1 retroactive forecast. (We discussed some of the differences between our Classic and Deluxe versions of the forecast on this week’s podcast, and it’s a theme we’ll revisit in the coming weeks.) It’s always hard to know how much to emphasize relatively modest movement in the forecast. Sure, the difference between a 47 percent chance and a 55 percent chance might matter to a poker player (raises hand) or an options trader. But in practical terms, the story is the same, which is that the battle for Senate control is highly competitive and neither party has a clear advantage. What would losing big in the midterms mean for Biden? In this case, though, I think the shift is worth discussing. One reason, as I’ve discussed previously, is that our model is designed to be pretty conservative — at least at this relatively early stage of the race. It may not feel early if you’re a political junkie, but for many voters, it is — consider that more than a dozen states still haven’t held their primaries. It takes a fair amount of data to get the model to change its opinion in July, more so than in October. So although the shift may be modest, it probably isn’t just statistical noise. The other reason is that there are plenty of news developments to help explain the shift; the political climate would appear to be getting better for Democrats. The most important of these is probably the Supreme Court’s June decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Democrats have made a fairly clear improvement in the polls since then. And although abortion may not be as important to voters as the economy, it did rank as the second-most-important issue in this week’s Suffolk/USA Today poll. That’s not the only factor working in Democrats’ favor, though. Consider: Congress has been surprisingly productive, with bipartisan bills on gun safety and funding semiconductor manufacturing passing, a possible breakthrough on a Democratic spending and climate bill and movement toward bills to codify same-sex marriage and to reform how presidential elections are certified. It’s not clear how much the Jan. 6 hearings have changed public opinion, but they have highlighted an issue where the public is relatively sympathetic toward Democrats, with 79 percent of voters saying former President Donald Trump acted either unethically or illegally in a new CNN poll. COVID-19 — an issue that was something of a no-win for President Biden — is on the backburner for most voters. In the aforementioned Suffolk/USA Today poll, so few voters mentioned COVID-19 as their most important issue that it wasn’t broken out as one of the 25 issues respondents named. Cases remain high, but deaths are low compared to earlier stages of the pandemic. Granted, the economic news hasn’t been good for Democrats. Most voters think the economy is in a recession, even though the bureau that determines recessions in the U.S. hasn’t declared one yet and may never do so. But at the same time, some highly visible indicators have improved: Gas prices are down and the stock market has been in a rebound over the past five to six weeks. I do buy that Dems’ energizing over abortion evens midterms equation: Silver There are a lot of “ifs” here. Economists are unsure about what to expect with inflation going forward; the next COVID-19 variant could be more deadly; there are still a lot of hurdles to clear in the Democratic legislative progress (*cough* Sen. Kyrsten Sinema*cough*); and Democrats may not be able to sustain the same level of attention currently given to abortion and the Jan. 6 hearings. Plus, Biden’s approval rating remains terribleto the point where even most Democrats say they want a different presidential nominee in 2024. But ultimately, Democrats have a lot of outs to a winning hand in the Senate, even if they’re drawing thin in the House
The biggest impediment to Republican dominance is the candidates that they are running. There are several issues that are helping the Democrats but they would still have a harder time if not for the Mehmet Ozs and Herschel Walkers that the GOP is running.
+1....insanity, fear, corruption and greed rules the GOP. Fear also rules the Democrats, along with indecision and feelings.
No doubt she is toast, but as I have said before I respect her for what she has done, I consider her the kind of politician who can work both sides of the aisle when needed. Cant help that the gop folks in her state believe in the big lie and the far right media agenda. One thing she can say that most cant, is she will go out with dignity and a clear conscious...............RESPECT
The people in the video were saying that Jan 6 was a big lie, the hearing were a witch hunt and kangaroo court. There's ****ing video of the entire thing. Everyone watched it live. How deluded can you be to not believe your own eyes?
The big lie with regards to the January 6 protests and vandalism of the capital is that 1) it was an insurrection intended to overthrow the US government and 2) President Trump orchestrated and approved of the way that these people behaved inside the capital. Both of those ideas are absolute pure lies and anyone who actually supports or believes either one, not to mention both, is either a completely unprincipled partisan hack or a serious dumbass, and very possibly a bit of both. That goes for you too, by the way.
