The Rose Garden and White House happenings: Listening to voters’ concerns
drummerboy said:
no roaches here
And the woman is white, Republican, pro-life and, obviously, extremely determined to express her views!
I have always imagined that women, regardless of their beliefs, don't want the government to be part of the discussion when it is their own pregnancy.
tjohn said:
I have always imagined that women, regardless of their beliefs, don't want the government to be part of the discussion when it is their own pregnancy.
But it's other people who they want the government to tell what to do.
Over here, we’re wishing you sanity and peace as the votes are counted and announced. May the non-winners accept these announcements with good grace.
Final control of both chambers remains undecided, but it's clear that Republicans performed well below expectations. They can blame Trumpisim for this. Trump is a loser, and Republicans should dump him and denounce Trumpism if they don't want to continue to be losers themselves.
PVW said:
Final control of both chambers remains undecided, but it's clear that Republicans performed well below expectations. They can blame Trumpisim for this. Trump is a loser, and Republicans should dump him and denounce Trumpism if they don't want to continue to be losers themselves.
The politicians would love to be rid of Trump.
But they can't dump him. The MAGA base controls the Republican primary votes. Most Republican politicians will be primaried out of office if they oppose him. Consequently they continue that façade of bending their knee to Trump.
Which shows us the incredible stupidity of that base.
ps - what needs to be done is to wean the base off Trump. Transfer their worship to someone else such as DeSantis.
nohero said:
tjohn said:
The primary system favors the extremes in both parties.
What?
The people with the most strongly held views tend to occupy the extreme wings of each party. They have an impact on primary results. Right now, it is the Republican extreme that is off-the-scale nuts, but it can happen to Democrats as well. I saw a letter to the editor in the Star Ledger from a resident of Maplewood complaining the Mikie Sherrill was not progressive enough. Imagine what would have happened if she had been primaried by some extreme progressive cabal.
tjohn said:
The people with the most strongly held views tend to occupy the extreme wings of each party. They have an impact on primary results. Right now, it is the Republican extreme that is off-the-scale nuts, but it can happen to Democrats as well. I saw a letter to the editor in the Star Ledger from a resident of Maplewood complaining the Mikie Sherrill was not progressive enough. Imagine what would have happened if she had been primaried by some extreme progressive cabal.
I think the primaries belong to the most involved. And yes, the "more extreme" are often the most involved. But that is not a hard and fast rule.
As for that letter you mention, I saw it as well. There will always be the clueless and the misguided "progressives", as MOL demonstrates.
RTrent said:
PVW said:
Final control of both chambers remains undecided, but it's clear that Republicans performed well below expectations. They can blame Trumpisim for this. Trump is a loser, and Republicans should dump him and denounce Trumpism if they don't want to continue to be losers themselves.
The politicians would love to be rid of Trump.
But they can't dump him. The MAGA base controls the Republican primary votes. Most Republican politicians will be primaried out of office if they oppose him. Consequently they continue that façade of bending their knee to Trump.
Which shows us the incredible stupidity of that base.
ps - what needs to be done is to wean the base off Trump. Transfer their worship to someone else such as DeSantis.
if DeSantis takes the gloves off he'll destroy Trump and finally put him out of his political misery. And if DeSantis and Trump both run, which looks like will be the case, DeSantis will have to take the gloves off.
Will be fun to watch.
RTrent said:
The politicians would love to be rid of Trump.
But they can't dump him. The MAGA base controls the Republican primary votes. Most Republican politicians will be primaried out of office if they oppose him. Consequently they continue that façade of bending their knee to Trump.
Which shows us the incredible stupidity of that base.
ps - what needs to be done is to wean the base off Trump. Transfer their worship to someone else such as DeSantis.
even when Trump is gone, the GOP will not change. It's been trending toward authoritarian, white supremacist extremism for decades. It would be a mistake for anyone to think the departure of Trump will push the Republican Party back to some semblance of reasonableness.
tjohn said:
The people with the most strongly held views tend to occupy the extreme wings of each party. They have an impact on primary results. Right now, it is the Republican extreme that is off-the-scale nuts, but it can happen to Democrats as well. I saw a letter to the editor in the Star Ledger from a resident of Maplewood complaining the Mikie Sherrill was not progressive enough. Imagine what would have happened if she had been primaried by some extreme progressive cabal.
almost any Democrat would have won our district.
And let's be honest about what an "extreme" Democrat looks like. Someone who wants health care for all, and higher taxes on corporations.
An extreme Republican is a neo-fascist.
So maybe we should stop calling someone like AOC an "extremist" when there are literally Nazis on the other side.
ml1 said:
even when Trump is gone, the GOP will not change. It's been trending toward authoritarian, white supremacist extremism for decades. It would be a mistake for anyone to think the departure of Trump will push the Republican Party back to some semblance of reasonableness.
I agree and disagree. General and structural trends are hugely important, but specific individuals matter too -- it made a difference that Pence chose not to go along with Trump's demands, where someone else might have. The capitol assault itself happened specifically because Trump made it happen; were the losing Republican presidential candidate someone else, Jan 6 would not have happened.
I agree that the current GOP is at this point anti-democratic by nature, but how it actually acts still come down to how specific Republicans act. Maybe DeSantis, or some other future Republican, will also goad Republicans into attempting a coup. I don't know that. But we do know that Trump did, and almost certainly will again given the chance, and so having Trump leave forever would be a known improvement, weighed against unknown future bad possibilities.
Are we ‘happy’ Ron Johnson got elected? I thought we agreed some time ago he’s pretty creepy.
PVW said:
General and structural trends are hugely important, but specific individuals matter too -- it made a difference that Pence chose not to go along with Trump's demands, where someone else might have. The capitol assault itself happened specifically because Trump made it happen; were the losing Republican presidential candidate someone else, Jan 6 would not have happened.
I agree that the current GOP is at this point anti-democratic by nature, but how it actually acts still come down to how specific Republicans act. Maybe DeSantis, or some other future Republican, will also goad Republicans into attempting a coup. I don't know that. But we do know that Trump did, and almost certainly will again given the chance, and so having Trump leave forever would be a known improvement, weighed against unknown future bad possibilities.
Agreed. Trump is a singularly loathsome and despicable person.
tjohn said:
I saw a letter to the editor in the Star Ledger from a resident of Maplewood complaining the Mikie Sherrill was not progressive enough.
My gut feeling is Nan penned that letter…
PVW said:
I agree and disagree. General and structural trends are hugely important, but specific individuals matter too -- it made a difference that Pence chose not to go along with Trump's demands, where someone else might have. The capitol assault itself happened specifically because Trump made it happen; were the losing Republican presidential candidate someone else, Jan 6 would not have happened.
I agree that the current GOP is at this point anti-democratic by nature, but how it actually acts still come down to how specific Republicans act. Maybe DeSantis, or some other future Republican, will also goad Republicans into attempting a coup. I don't know that. But we do know that Trump did, and almost certainly will again given the chance, and so having Trump leave forever would be a known improvement, weighed against unknown future bad possibilities.
While I would agree that Trump was a catalyst that got the Republican Party to that destination more quickly, it was clear that it was headed there eventually. Maybe the trip wouldn't have been as blunt and crude, but it would have likely taken place anyway. Somebody smoother and more articulate would have advanced the GOP "vote fraud" narrative as a pretext to attack the integrity of elections. Donald Trump didn't invent the Republican attack on voting. He just capitalized on the foundation that was already laid.
Smedley said:
if DeSantis takes the gloves off he'll destroy Trump and finally put him out of his political misery. And if DeSantis and Trump both run, which looks like will be the case, DeSantis will have to take the gloves off.
Will be fun to watch.
I won't have fun watching two neo-fascists duke it out for an at least 50/50 shot to get to the White House.
ridski said:
mtierney said:
I’m reposting this link which no one read, or if they did, failed to recognize or learn about, what’s happening in America. Call it a public service by me. Of course, AOC failed to acknowledge this young woman’s monumental achievement —a first time win in 100+ years.
While this is not insignificant, this was a special election held because the Democratic incumbent, who is not running for re-election in November, decided to quit early. Flores is already running for election to that district in November, which because of redistricting will be different and more Dem-leaning, and she's running against a different Democrat, Vicente Gonzalez, who is already a sitting Representative for Texas in the 15th District. The guy she ran against in the special election didn't get much backing from the national Democratic Party organizations, while she spent over a million on TV ads alone and had the backing of the Governor and Ted Cruz.
Anyway, great job from her and her campaign, and I'm sure she'll duke it out over the summer and raise a fuckton of money from her rich donors, but it's still a distinct possibly that she won't be in Washington in January.
Spoiler alert: Ms. Flores will not be in Washington in January.
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/11/08/vicente-gonzalez-mayra-flores-texas-34/
The Democratic congressman vanquished the short-term incumbent Rep. Mayra Flores, R-Los Indios, on Tuesday in this hotly contested race to represent the 34th Congressional District, which Republicans had targeted as pivotal to their efforts to sway more Latino voters to their camp. Decision Desk HQ called the races for Gonzalez shortly after midnight.
The race was a high-drama, multi-month affair of desperate pleas, dashed hopes and political gamesmanship that highlighted the stakes of when national forces come into play in a hyperlocal race.
“They spent over $7 million against us, spewing lies and hate and disinformation,” Gonzalez, D-McAllen, said at his election night party here. “Even with these large investments, we showed the Republican party that South Texas is not their home.”
joanne was wondering: "Are we ‘happy’ Ron Johnson got elected? I thought we agreed some time ago he’s pretty creepy."
No, we're not happy. And yes, he's creepy, "alternate electors" and all.
Grossly ugly campaigning, including my favorite: When asked at the end of their debate to say something nice about each other, Barnes said Johnson seemed to be a good family man. Johnson complimented Barnes' parents, then wondered how with that start Barnes came to hate America. so depressingly ugly.
However, i'm not all that unhappy with the overall outcome. Here in Johnson's state of Wisconsin, at least we retained our Democratic governor, and it looks as though the grossly gerrymandered and fairly radical R legislature will not have enough R members to override the governor's vetoes.
Can the "say something positive about your opponent" question be permanently retired from debates? It's stupid and pointless and there's often NOTHING of substance that's positive about some candidates.
continuing off track just for a moment: In Wisconsin we also still have a LaFollette on duty as secretary of state. : )
Most Republican politicians hate Trump. They don't like having to kowtow to him and don't like him in getting in the way of their own chances to run for president. But being the cowards they are they publicly tout him their loyalty and fealty. He turns the MAGA crowd against anyone who publicly opposes him. Look at what happened to Cheney and the very few other Republicans who opposed him. They were primaried out of office.
But the MAGA crowd is not enough to win elections. They also need the independent votes. They now realize independent voters are turned off by Trump and consequently he will be a burden in a 2024 presidential run. As are some Republican voters. The thing is to shift the MAGA crowd's loyalty over to DeSantis who would be an effective candidate.
If the right wing media succeeds in shifting the MAGA loyalty we'll then see more and more Republican politicians touting DeSantis and ignoring Trump.
Trump is scared. He's trying to stay out of jail. No one will put a sitting president in jail. Which is why he wants that job back.
https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/the-magnitude-of-the-gop-midterm-debacle/
The price for the 1/6 debacle — paid in full.
Let the games begin….
From today’s NYT…
“The elections, however, were as much a testament to Republican weakness as an indication of Mr. Biden’s strength. According to an aggregate of surveys tracked by the political website FiveThirtyEight, Mr. Biden’s average 41.5 percent approval rating remains lower at this point in his term than that of all 13 presidents at similar points going back to Harry S. Truman (albeit only slightly lower than Mr. Trump’s was at this stage).”
The elections were:
1. A defeat for Trump and his election denying disciples.
2. A win for democracy
3. A win for women's right to choose.
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