Fox clobbers everyone on cable when it comes to ratings. Tucker Carlson is usually the #1 show on cable TV as well. They clean up in the 60+ rating group as well ( way worse for every other age group).
I'm exactly in your boat. I think the Russians, with the help of the media, got what they want which is a divided and dysfunctional country. The other issue is that the democrats still haven't figured out that they alienated the white people that didn't grow up with "white privilege" When you start throwing the term "white privilege" around, you are pretty much saying to these people that even with all your privilege, your life still sucks and you aren't good enough. These people were historically democrats until Trump. BLM doesn't address them getting their asses beat by the same racist cops. They also don't like the college educated liberals telling them what's good for them. I'm saying this as a college educated minority, that has voted for Democratic presidents since I voted for Ross Perot.
There are 3 terms that need to be changed and should have never been created in their current form: Global Warming Defund the Police White Privilege
I don't consider myself either a republican or a democrat. If Biden wins and the republicans hold the senate I got exactly what I predicited and wanted.
Bingo. It's not so much that people want to have a beer with Biden, they just don't want to be in the same f***ing room as Trump. Trump had the benefit of the doubt in 2016 whereas Hillary was the hated one. Personality politics is everything. Joe is just nice and moderate enough to squeak by.
I think even a Mayor Pete or Cory Booker would be enough...even Kamala Harris if the next 4 years go well. Just not an octogenarian white guy with low enthusiasm
What Senate races do you think Dems would have flipped, if only they had run to the left? You think running further left would help in places like Iowa or Montana? If anything, Biden's strength in Georgia and North Carolina is the only reason why the Senate is even in play in the first place. NC is probably lost - sexting scandal didn't help - but one or both GA races is going to a runoff, meaning Georgia will be ground zero for control of the Senate if Peters can hold Michigan.
Short answer is a lot of my analysis prior to election was based on polling and turnout, and it turns out the polls were wrong. I have ideas as to why (my biggest being it grossly miscounted Latino vote, which shifted to Trump way more than predicted), but we won't know until we have full numbers and can do a zoomed out view. My faith in polling has certainly been heavily shaken and I'm going to reconsider how I analyze elections moving forward. I do like the optimism and the song, sorry if I brought you down at all
This is a post from an excellent blog and very timely. Well worth reading, regardless of one's political milieu. THE CONSERVATIVE WAHOO FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2020 Concerning Forgiveness Addicted as I am to both binge-watching and foreign language programming, I have been slowly making my way through a Danish production called "Herrens Veje" or "Ride Upon the Storm". This is essentially a family drama in which the father is the latest of a centuries long dynasty of ministers in the Danish Church. He is a very, very flawed man, a husband and father to two grown sons, one of whom has followed him into the ministry, the other having dropped out of seminary before ordination. The relationship between the father and sons is fraught, and both sons deal with it in their own ways. The one who dropped out of seminary eventually finds himself in Nepal, and he is taken in by a group of Buddhist monks after falling from a steep trail upon which he was traveling. In the course of his time, he is befriended by one of the monks who serves to help him confront the anger he carries, most of which is aimed at his father. The monk is particularly wise, and I suspect the dialogue is influenced by real Buddhist teaching, but having no background therein, I cannot be sure. The monk at one point talks with the recovering man, and talks about anger and forgiveness. While I have always understood the essential message he conveys, it is one I have been unable consistently to practice. He tells the man to let go of the anger. That the only person he is punishing by holding onto it, is himself. That only he is carrying the burden of his anger. He should learn to forgive his father, to let go of the anger. Cut to this morning. On many quiet pre-sunrise days, when I arrive on station at my computer to begin my labors, I start by calling up an app on my phone called "Calm". It is a wonderful resource, with relaxing music, stories to put you to sleep, and the thing I use it for the most, which is "The Daily Calm", a ten-minute guided meditation conducted by one of the stars of this realm, Tamara Leavitt. Since I am very unlikely both by demeanor and activity level to be in this Zen state again during the day, I tend to value this ten minutes of reflection to start things out. Today's meditation was on "Forgiveness", and the message conveyed was pretty much the same as what the Buddhist monk passed along during my binge-watching. This concept of forgiveness, at least this Buddhist conception of it, is something I've been wrestling with. You see, I carry a lot of anger around with me, anger created and sustained by the Trump presidency. And I'm having a really hard time "letting go" of the anger, and I think it is because of my understanding (or perhaps misunderstanding) of forgiveness in the Christian sense of the word. Now I am not a fundamentalist, or even a very serious Christian. I am however, shaped by the Catholic Church, its teachings, and my own sense of connection to that which there is no greater than. I am angry with a lot of people. Some of them know it. Some of them don't. Most don't care, far as I can tell. But I'm angry with them nevertheless. I am angry at them for supporting the President and embracing his divisive, lawless, uncivil, unconstitutional, embarrassing, and dangerous approach to his awesome responsibilities. I am angry at them for appearing to have an ideological base and then exchanging it for power, fame, or something as prosaic as the belittling of those on "the other side". I am angry with them for not maintaining the level of moral and ethical standards and basic humanity that is the baseline for my friendship. Many of the people with whom I am angry were beside me in the GOP foxhole for years. Many were close friends. And then there are the family members. The Daily Calm and my TV Buddhist monk would tell me, let go of the anger. Forgive. You (me) are the only one suffering with this burden, so let go of it. I see people on social media writing about how they don't let politics get in the way of their friendships/relationships. I'm sure they believe this. I suspect they are also virtue signaling, as most of the time they are very much fans of the President and are potentially rationalizing their choices. But here is my problem with all of this. Where is the atonement? If I am to forgive, for some odd reason, I have this sense that there should be atonement. I have the strange idea that the ledger should balance. Given that the likelihood of these people ever seeking forgiveness or atoning for their behavior approaches zero (more likely they will double down even as the consequences mount), this (perhaps misinformed) application of Christian forgiveness fates me to the burden of this anger. It is obvious that the burden of carrying this anger is entirely my choice. Or at least that part of my conscious being over which I exercise dominion. But deep down, I am having trouble taking the (eminently wise, kind, and clearly therapeutic) Buddhist approach. I guess we'll see how it turns out. https://conservativewahoo.blogspot.com/
I want to push back slightly- Biden did not run a "PC campaign" and I didn't see him throwing around white priveledge or whatever. Like of all the potential candidates, he was the least "pc culture/performative wokeness" sort of candidate. My reading is that for a lot of the electorate, they just aren't going to untie whoever the Democrat is with the further left parts of the party, which is part of why I see the party as a whole going further left. If they are going to think every single Dem nominee is a socialist SJW then why not just nominate an actual one? That's how a lot of the party is going to think after this I predict
Mayor Pete would need to get swole and Booker would need to develop a mean look, maybe a beard or something. Not even kidding. They look like little kids next to a bully like Trump, and even if Trump loses this election, the GOP primary voters will find a new, abrasive version.
Trump doesn't get much credit as an entertainer and social media influencer. He gets the perception of "keeping his promises" by making a scattershot of EOs that might not even work but gets picked up by the media as evil and illegal. Dems would probably win with Oprah or even a Kardashian. Follow the script of keeping promises over reality and that's enough to satisfy the base that elected you. We dum. Hardcore lying with a troop of lawyers focused on winning litigation against hardcore lying.
To win more consistently, Dems need to trade appealing to an extra million far-left California voters and figure out how to appeal to a million more voters in competitive states. Those states seem to be FL, GA, NC, MI, WI, PA, IA. Going left is not the way to do that. Otherwise, they'll consistently rack up big wins in meaningless states while losing them in critical states. The GOP is the same - they need to trade voters in Utah and Oklahoma and Wyoming for more in those same competitive states. Whichever party does that best will win Presidential elections.
One more quick thought- That so much of the GOP wants to label everything they don't like as socialist is a huge chunk of the reason that socialism as a whole is more popular than its ever been in the US. If you hate socialism, you should know you contributed to the rise of it if you ever called politicians like Barack Obama and Joe Biden socialists.
They moderate their message anymore . . .they would be indistiguishable from Republicans Rocket River
Californians are mostly snobs. Will hate on Texas until they find out about cheaper housing and no property taxes...
