U.S. Politics, November 2022: “I don’t know, you hear the same things I do”

Someone looked up the word for him.

DeSantis is going to be the midpoint between JEB! eating shit and Ted Cruz eating shit but asking for more, please, sir

this is good news!

Quick 🧵 thread on California, weather, and election day, focusing on House seats.

It's going to be windy, rainy, snowy all day on Tuesday in CA, from the top to the bottom of our state. Since we have the *most* competitive districts, this will matter nationally. 13 comp. races https://t.co/jeDIdQeVRE pic.twitter.com/Mrb3nhg5S2

— Flip California State Senate 38! (@FlipperForty) November 6, 2022

So, friends, is anything happening in American politics this week

i took a dump this morning and it kinda looked like DeSantis

so basically, Senate a toss-up, House heavily favored for Repubs, but could stay Dem with a Trump-esque polling error, and everything else in Florida is gonna suck.

thinking about voting tomorrow

glad i got it out of the way cos i couldn't squeeze it in tomorrow if I tried.

tulsi gabbard endorsed chuck grassley so i know how to vote now

Yes, we might have reasons for optimism if Neanderthal and I didn't live in the state with the prettiest name.

As I said elsewhere, I think we're fucked:

There's a very strong possibility that this country's gonna go Nazi tomorrow. And a lot of people are going to vote for that without realizing that's what they're doing — they're thinking, "I'm gonna vote Republican and then my gas prices and my grocery bill are gonna go down, because that's how voting works." And all the other people, the people who are already full Nazi, are smiling inside and waiting patiently. (And the "political press" don't give a fuck, because they're gonna stay rich and safe no matter what happens, so they can be theater critics.)

THERE IS NO REPUBLICAN PARTY ANYMORE. THERE IS ONLY THE CHRISTOFASCIST PARTY, AND THEY ARE GONNA TAKE ALL YOUR RIGHTS AWAY, WITH BOTH HANDS, AS FAST AS POSSIBLE.

So, friends, is anything happening in American politics this week

How do you do, fellow kids?

Lol

Jan 6 testimony from the Oath Keepers guy is going well

"I've been carrying a gun my entire adult life, with zero use of force incidents, by the way," said Rhodes, who lost his eye when he dropped a gun.

— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) November 7, 2022

nothing and I mean nothing keeps me up nights more than thinking of the words "Ohio Senator J.D. Vance." I may have to be placed on watch tomorrow night.

I have said this before but: Do. Not. Stay. Up. Watching. Returns. It does not change who wins and it just makes you crazy from hope/despair pendulums.

Eight PM: "Well, it looks like Jones is up three thousand with three percent or precincts reporting!"

Hours later: "Well, now Smith is up by five hundred with six percent in! Jones really needs to close that gap with the rural vote from Buttgulch County!"

Hours later: "Smith and Jones are neck-and-neck, but I'm hearing that the college vote from Choadville is starting to trickle in. Smith really needs to thread the needle here! Maybe the lacrosse moms will come through for Smith."

Hours later: "Still too close to call, but there are still some precincts here (points to monitor) around Assmunch that could be critical for either candidate. Smith might do okay with the field-hockey dads, but you can't count out the heavy presence of Graeco-Roman wrestling uncles."

They're talking like things are happening, when they already happened.

Eat a weed brownie, pound a bottle of Pinot Grigio, and go to bed. The news will be the same in the morning as if you'd stayed up.

Amen

i'm watching over two friends getting married in a low key ceremony tomorrow, so fortunately that decision has been made for me

I’m gonna watch as much Reservoir Dogs as possible until I’m exhausted

Ha, sorry, Reservation Dogs

Eat a weed brownie

Will do.

I'm going to campaign headquarters #whynot

The little bit of television news I see in public leads me to believe that pandemic school closings have broken 80% of white suburban parents’ brains and they’ll never recover.

Ha, sorry, Reservation Dogs

Hanging Senators’ ears around my neck like an extra from a Vietnam War movie.

pandemic school closings have broken 80% of white suburban parents’ brains and they’ll never recover

'hey no one told us we were going to have to be around our kids ALL DAY'

I mean yeah, it’s pretty difficult to have a full time job and take care of children at the same time

lol so tomorrow morning actually begins with a full blood moon from like 4-7 a.m. eastern. That doesn't seem ominous at all.

Anyway, tomorrow night I have to cover local election returns for our state legislative races. I covered Republican HQ for the primaries but I got my colleague to agree to cover the GOP and let me go to the Dems' gathering because I don't think I can take being in a room full of MAGA exuberance at the moment.

xp spooky season continues into november this year

at least this year, expectations being low unlike previous elections means it's not going to feel as big of a blow to the solar plexus if/when it goes south

I just really hope we don't lose the Senate

I think there’s a distant non-zero chance we won’t re-elect Chuck Grassley but I regret to inform I’m obligated to vote for him. u kno why

lol the one arrest during the Astros World Series parade was a guy who hit Ted Cruz in the chest with a half-full White Claw can.

give me his bail bill, i'll pay it

If you know you're gonna get the chance to throw a can at Ted Cruz, why would you drink any of it?

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ted-cruz-hit-beer-astros-world-series-parade-houston-man-arrested-rcna56113

This also happened:

Ted Cruz got booed heavily at the parade. pic.twitter.com/6VaAe4bUDn

— Connor Murphy (@Connor_P_Murphy) November 7, 2022

Beer flies at Ted Cruz during Astros World Series Parade pic.twitter.com/lRALgyXCe2

— Alien Truther Wildwest (@wcgroovy) November 7, 2022

"a guy who hit Ted Cruz in the chest with a half-full White Claw can"

I love this detail, it's like "i am not going to waste a perfectly good beer" on this guy get me a nasty White Claw or a Mike's Hard Lemonade.

I wish the Plankton, Florida's senior senator, had earned similar treatment.

Florida’s junior senator Rick Scott, the guy who’s company Columbia/HCA scammed billions from Medicare and Medicaid while he was chief executive and was fined $1.7 billion, is now a Florida Senator complaining that Medicare is going bankrupt and that we need congress to reconsider funding it every 5 years. Rubio is awful, but he is so much more despicable

Putting this here for reference in the near future:

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/01/28/turnout-soared-in-2020-as-nearly-two-thirds-of-eligible-u-s-voters-cast-ballots-for-president/

Maybe a bit more relevant for that

https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2022-11-04/early-vote-totals-point-toward-record-breaking-turnout-for-midterm-elections

It's glib and meaningless and I live 3,000 miles away but I hope to whatever higher power there is and against hope itself that somehow, somehow the republicans get a fucking tanning today. That the vote might even be close, given their transparent hatefulness and corruption, and the horrors that would result, sends me in tailspins of desperation.

Good luck USA

yeah it really does boggle the brain. like I get that inflation & gas prices might be some people's #1 issue right now, a lot of families really are hurting, but it's not like Republicans are even pretending to have a plan. on the contrary, they gleefully vote against every bill that comes up to curb corporate profits and drive prices down, then turn around and say it's all Biden's fault, hoping their voters won't look at what's going around in the REST of the world, since honestly the USA hasn't had it all that bad. it's crazy to me that people my age can look around at what happened the last two times Republicans had control and say "yes, more of this please". owning the libs must be a hell of a drug.

I just wish the dems had packed the court, had prosecuted Trump sooner and quicker. I know there were obstacles, there were two dems who basically voted like repubs, etc. I think Biden has been better than I could have hoped, has pushed policies more daring and worthwhile than I would ever have imagined. But still, I worry that he's a Jimmy Carter-esque blip, and will be undone by a catastrophe not of his own making (and this is no slight on Carter who seems one of the most decent men to hold the office).

I agree with those posts. It is hard to see why or how anyone sensible or sane could think it was a good idea to vote Republican in the USA today.

I can only speak to what I've seen on the ground the last couple weeks, and it may be as hard for libs here as it was for me to realize. It's sobering.

I suspect what state and national Democrats miss about Hispanics is their willingness to accept what many of us who are ourselves Hispanics consider a motheaten fiction about the American Dream. The loudest Cuban-Americans at the early voting site where I volunteered last Saturday were not my parents' age: they looked about twenty years younger and had the mien and manners of recent arrivals (we locals can spot them in a crowd). They want smart phones, new cars, a summer trip to Longboat Key. Immigration-as-synecdoche they could give a good goddamn about. Trans rights, access to abortion, "saving democracy" -- they matter but not as much gas prices for those new cars and puzzling through the byzantine social mores of persuading Cousin Raul in Hialeah to let them crash in his efficiency for a couple months as they delude themselves into thinking Miami-Dade has affordable housing.

This quote from a local satrap who gets it speaks to my own experience:

“You see, that’s a perfect example. I’m telling every single one of my candidates here, do not talk about abortion in this campaign,” López said. “You have a lot of Latinos who are fine with abortion being the law of the land—but they are against it morally. They may not be, quote-unquote, pro-life, but don’t shove the issue in their face. Don’t force them to choose sides. They might not choose the side you would think.”

I think we'll realize tomorrow that the national party's emphasis on abortion-as-winning-issue may have been a mistake in many local races. It's fucking cornball, but HOPE AND CHANGE and YES WE CAN is precisely what Hispanics want to hear. The Obamans got that right in 2008 and 2012 -- even HRC did in 2016. Cubans, Nicaraguans, and Puerto Ricans fuckin' hate whiners. You know how I felt this weekend on the phone and campaigning? Like John Fucking McCain in 2008: defensive and cranky, offering no platform except what the other side will do.