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

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.

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.

― the pinefox, Tuesday, November 8, 2022

And this is why we're losing Hispanics. We can't patronize them.

Good morning!

Negronis for all!

it's true, I'm not sure exactly what the Dems have to offer besides "things will get much worse if we lose", which, ok, that's fair. I mean yes, obviously they're on the right side of many of these issues, but the truth is that the vast majority of voters will never need an abortion, know somewhere between 0-2 people who are trans, and will never be in an active shooter situation. I don't wanna be one of those dipshits who brings up "virtue signaling" but yes, running on issues that won't directly impact most of your voters doesn't feel like a winning formula. the appeal to 'democracy' doesn't really work either, since democracy is already fucked, and the MSM is so insistent on treating "the 2020 election was rigged" like a legitimate viewpoint that it probably all just feels like noise to the average voter. and it's frustrating because the Biden admin HAS made a lot of progress - they did pass the biggest climate bill in history after all - but they campaign in the same fear-mongering manner that Republicans do. I don't know how well that works on their base.

Well, I voted. It was bitterly amusing in a way, because Crooked Bob Menendez's (presumably) crooked son is running for the House. I felt like I was in Louisiana or someplace.

It took ten days of this shit to realize "obviously they're on the right side of many of these issues" is precisely the problem. It's not enough. And paying more for gas and milk would've defeated the GOP incumbents too in any other year.

And the "obviously" part is what comes off so insulting and condescending to the Hispanics I talked to. It's like, "Fuck you, dude, DeSantis is positive!"

(I'm not at all zinging you, frogbs. I have the same posture).

According to every "swing voter" interviewed by NPR, the real problem is that the Democrats are TOO WOKE, and "out of step" with "the country" on social issues, so if they can't talk about abortion/LGBTQ rights and they can't talk about democracy or gun control, and no one cares/the media doesn't adequately report this administration's progress on climate, energy, predatory lending/student debt, or drug price caps, and voters are liable to DISAPPROVE of taxing corporations (taxes bad) or adequately funding the IRS (TAXES BAD), I'm honestly not sure what's left. Like it's an un-thread-able needle.

Please run for local electoral seats, people.

Get on your goddamn library board.

The economic moment is a large problem. Campaigning with low gas prices + no inflation makes selling positivity easier.

perfect time to run on legal weed for all

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.

― the pinefox, Tuesday, November 8, 2022

And this is why we're losing Hispanics. We can't patronize them.

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, November 8, 2022 6:50 AM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

But hopey-changey buzzword shit is also patronizing— it might work, but it is patronizing. And tbh, pinefox is right— anyone who can't recognize that the Republican party wants them and their children and their children's children (if that even happens) to work as wage slaves and then die, preferably early, well...that's on them, afaic. It's not patronizing to be truthful, and anyone voting Republican is a fascist, a moron, or both. Period.

And this is why we're losing Hispanics. We can't patronize them.

Is that patronizing, though? It's very difficult to see what the appeal of the Republican message is now. Maybe it's just a failure of empathy on my part.