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

xp Wait, I think I forgot to factor in the death of Scalia.

I mean, that could really go either way, depending on whether Mitch McConnell still plays hardball in 2016. But even if Trump got to appoint Gorsuch in 2017, it would still put the liberals in a better position now.

hotter than Brokeback slash fiction

Wait, what would slash fic bring to to the BM universe? An Anne Hathaway cosplay 3some?

lol remember people wetting their diapers about this Dem strategy

And with this race call, every single Republican who won their primary with help from Democratic meddling has lost in the general election. https://t.co/jwu7diAq1N

— Kevin Robillard 🇺🇸 (@Robillard) November 9, 2022

Yeah, I'm still wetting my pants about it because it opens a really stupid can of worms that I can easily see the GOP taking advantage of.

Stop the steal type republicans taking the biggest losses here by looks of it?

― anvil, Wednesday, November 9, 2022 9:05 AM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yea I mean we've had three big elections since 2016 and it seems pretty clear that the Trumpy/fascist shit just doesn't work anymore. given inflation/gas prices/Biden's general unpopularity this should've been like a +50 seat pickup for Republicans and instead they're faceplanting because they decided to go full bore on relitigating 2020 and whining about trans people. also glad that the Never Trump Republican that the Ds ran in Florida totally ate shit because they need to get that dumb fucking idea out of their head for good. I mean they weren't beating DeSantis anyway but this might actually convince him to go for it in the general which would be pretty hilarious

what can of worms would that be xpost

I mean, that could really go either way, depending on whether Mitch McConnell still plays hardball in 2016. But even if Trump got to appoint Gorsuch in 2017, it would still put the liberals in a better position now.

Sorry, I'm dumb. If McConnell sits on the Garland nomination and Trump appoints Gorsuch, then everything still plays out as planned because the conservatives keep a 5-4 majority. And Trump would obviously still be able to appoint Kavanaugh in 2018 to replace Kennedy. The main thing that changes is that Ginsburg's death in 2020 doesn't matter, so Biden comes into office with the ability to change it to a liberal majority in 2023.

Their help = "How about not voting for this extremist asshole?" And the GOP took the bait.

I was firmly convinced Oz had it

Genuinely curious why. To me, "stridently local guy with existing power base and strong populist appeal" beats "smirking TV asshole from out of state" 1000 times out of 100. Was it just fatalism that made you think Oz was gonna win — a general "we suck, we're gonna lose" mindset? Because to me his candidacy was 100% a media creation.

it's gonna be wild to see half the maga types pull for Desantis and the culties go toward Trump

only because of the polls in days leading up. it seemed like momentum was shifting. definitely not anything OZ did to earn it.

If DeSantis wins the nomination (more fan fiction), Trump will absolutely go third party.

as a caretaker of a disabled stroke victim, Oz losing meant twice as much to me, esp since he fucking used the stroke as a point of attack.

I'm relieved Fetterman won. I found the responses to the debate completely disgusting, and it caused a lot of worry when this led to polls narrowing.

I don't think there's any way DeSantis wins the nomination. He doesn't have anything like the cult of personality that Trunp does. He's got the personality of a gym teacher/used car salesman

xp

DeSantis's national appeal will be shockingly (to, you know, political journalists and other idiots) low. He won't be as bad a national candidate as Giuliani (or Biden the first few times he ran), but a lot of people in states not named Florida are gonna respond to him with real disgust.

Their help = "How about not voting for this extremist asshole?" And the GOP took the bait.

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, November 9, 2022 3:26 PM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yep. 100%

lol remember people wetting their diapers about this Dem strategy

My diaper was wet due to moral reasons more than strategic, but I'll admit I was wrong to worry about it backfiring.

But on the moral front, billionaires being able to purchase their opponents is bad not good imo:

Illinois Gov. J.B. Prtizker, a billionaire businessman, was the first to deploy the strategy, pouring tens of millions of dollars of his own money into the Democratic Governors’ Association, which aired ads boosting ultra-conservative state Sen. Darren Bailey in the primary. As of midnight on Tuesday, Prtizker was winning his race by roughly 14 percentage points.

The sooner you realize morals are out the window with this country the better off we will be.

I don't think there's any way DeSantis wins the nomination. He doesn't have anything like the cult of personality that Trunp does. He's got the personality of a gym teacher/used car salesman

― a (waterface)

or private school teacher hanging out at student parties.

on the moral front

Who's talking about morality? We're talking politics (and in that case, Illinois politics, so double LOL).

i mean

John Gibbs got washed in #MI03, the seat the DCCC took endless heat over after it helped him beat Peter Meijer in the primary. 13-point defeat in a seat Biden only won by 8.5 points. https://t.co/nGJA8xohlz

— David Weigel (@daveweigel) November 9, 2022

hahaha yeah that fits too, the private school teacher thing. I feel like a lot of people have had teachers like him and most people HATE teachers like him

The great lesson from Fetterman’s win is no matter what challenges you face, no matter how hard it’ll take to recover, cyberbullying the shit out of your enemies works

— Aaron Stewart-Ahn (@somebadideas) November 9, 2022

Pritzker's victory speech was interesting

Not sure why people think conservatives nationwide won't embrace DeSantis? Like both Bush Jr and Trump before their candidacies were sorry sacks of dumb shit. The GOP + the press will spackle DeSantis with the same crumbly electability, and it'll take way less work.

Apparently Pritzker made an astonishingly inspiring speech at his victory party, a speech you might almost call "presidential."

xp mh!!!!!

Glad Evers won in WI but feeling pretty gutted about that demon Ron Johnson likely winning as well

Not sure why people think conservatives nationwide won't embrace DeSantis? Like both Bush Jr and Trump before their candidacies were sorry sacks of dumb shit.

He has none of those guys' strange un-charm.

only because of the polls in days leading up. it seemed like momentum was shifting. definitely not anything OZ did to earn it.

― Fash Gordon (Neanderthal), Wednesday, November 9, 2022 9:27 AM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yea I think it's gonna become clear in the coming days that those polls were planted by GOP operatives

Not sure why people think conservatives nationwide won't embrace DeSantis? Like both Bush Jr and Trump before their candidacies were sorry sacks of dumb shit. The GOP + the press will spackle DeSantis with the same crumbly electability, and it'll take way less work.

It'll depend entirely on how gerrymandered the Electoral College is, but if DeSantis is the nominee his popular vote numbers will be fucking dismal. Yes, "conservatives" (gun-polishing knuckle-walkers waving Confederate flags) will be all in, but normal people will recoil en masse. Because remember, Trump wasn't fascist at first — he was showbiz. DeSantis is just an old-school Southern fascist goon. He's George Wallace.

He has none of those guys' strange un-charm.

For sure--there have been some profiles done on him recently (one in the New Yorker maybe) and dude has the charisma of a bowl of applesauce

Also: DeSantis has never faced opposition in his life. He won his district easily as a congressman. We have no serious Democratic opposition in Florida. He redrew the districts after the state GOP and state Dems reached a good faith deal. Imagine this guy with a divided legislature.

some highlights from Pritzker’s speech in this thread, but I’m laughing at this line

Pritzker: "...Our values are under siege. But they are worth fighting for, and I will not let our challenges crush the spirit that I've always brought to this job. Facing this moment requires that every happy warrior find a little bit of a nomadic warrior in them, as well. ...

— Kelly Bauer (@BauerJournalism) November 9, 2022

lol remember people wetting their diapers about this Dem strategy

And with this race call, every single Republican who won their primary with help from Democratic meddling has lost in the general election. https://t.co/jwu7diAq1N
— Kevin Robillard 🇺🇸 (@Robillard) November 9, 2022
― a (waterface), Wednesday, November 9, 2022 9:19 AM (thirty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

maybe it was a good strategy after all. i mean who knows more about how to lose a general election

after Bush II and trump, i don't know why anyone thinks the repubs could find anyone to lead them who isn't truly unelectable.

I am not online enough to know what this is but apparently there's been people calling themselves "Nomads for Pritzker" for a while now??

https://twitter.com/Nomads4Pritzker?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

a circus animal last night somehow made it onto the floor of a county's election headquarters and disrupted the vote-counting.

an aggrieved GOP voter screamed "STOP THE SEAL!"

I've always liked Pritzker, one of those politicians that ran on a certain platform and, go figure, afaict did everything he promised to do, or at least tried. And when covid came up, handled it with calm and actual leadership, and not in a dickhead way like Lightfoot (or, hey, Desantis) did. I remember when Pritzker was running for governor, I was talking with a really progressive candidate for local office around here and she was complaining about him having toilets removed from his mansion to reduce his taxes or something, and I remember telling her, who gives a shit? He's worth $3 billion, of course he's going to do some rich people shit, which has nothing to do with his politics and positions, which are good.

Herschel Walker could have been the first Senator traded to another state for 5-6 other Senators

Boebert still hanging in there?

Kentucky rejected the amendment to negate abortion rights, official

that is excellent news! as are the results in VT, MI, and CA

Good. Them and Michigan and ... Montana? Almost Montana? I'm surprised there was not a (more) extreme law on the ballot in Florida, unless there was and I missed it.

It'll depend entirely on how gerrymandered the Electoral College is

Obviously, we don't know yet what the House is going to look like. But if the Republicans end up with control by seven seats or fewer, it seems like we ought to talk about how #SCOTUS's orders in the Alabama and Louisiana cases helped to make that happen:https://t.co/yRyWngZnOV

— Steve Vladeck (@steve_vladeck) November 9, 2022

RE: DeSantis I believe the stuff upthread about him having no charisma, but I feel stuff like keeping the beaches open during a pandemic and flying immigrants to Martha's Vineyard *is* a malevolent cult-of-personality thing that he has that other GOP hopefuls don't. Shitty base loves shitty behavior. I don't know that that could translate to success in a national election, but then I never thought Trump could win.

But I'm deferring to Alfred's wisdom on this one.

There are conservatives in Florida that outright love him. I've seen DeSantis hats in the wild