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

xp that's what i was thinking of, exactly, was biden jacking it. rip us politics

also i love when wasserman has seen enough

Wasserman has Seen Enough to call the Arizona Senate race for the Dem. Not seeing it called by any news outlets yet.

it'll follow not long after, most likely. a lot of the networks are slower to get around to calls after election day.

I suspect we might not have an official Senate call until next week, as even if there is confidence that the remaining ballots in Nevada are going to go D, they're not likely to call it for the Democrat until they're actually in the lead.

red wave more like a brown wave amirite

every time i read "i've seen enough" i hear it like " You're UNDER aRREST" from heroes and villains

Been in this thread so long

Just got off the road after a long drive, Twitter is saying Rubio has shanked McConnell. As much as I wish, I'm guessing not literally.

He knows what he'd doing.

he's

AZ looking much better

“Young Kin (now that’s an interesting take. Sounds Chinese, doesn’t it?) in Virginia couldn’t have won without me,” said the former president.

JFC. Grandpa, would be please be quiet, please?

Rubio disputes McConnell's calling Jan 6 an insurrection, bcz:

"They were able to delay [it] by a few hours, the vote count but there was absolutely no way did we ever come close in any way shape or form to those people leading to the overthrow of the government of the United States of America," said Rubio.

Rubio seems to be overlooking the well-attested fact that "those people" included the Head of State and Commander in Chief, whose powers can be extended to lawfully declaring a state of national emergency and the suspension of the normal working of the federal government. Which emergency he was actively fomenting.

Dark time in Trump's inner circle. Spoke to several longtime friends, donors, and aides in the past 24 hours. Many say he's listening to very few people, isolated, and meanspirited about his potential rivals. Several of them say they're tired of his rants and are avoiding him.

— Robert Costa (@costareports) November 11, 2022

So, business as usual.

can't believe he's finally become increasingly isolated

Technically everything in the universe is becoming increasingly isolated

Heat death of the Trump Administration

Well, Costa's known for his sources and this isn't a Haberman lather/rinse/repeat tweet, if you will. But more to the point: the results really, truly have fucked him over beyond so many of 'his' candidates crashing and burning. Nothing I'm about to say hasn't been said before already any number of places but it's worth putting it all together:

-- He knows (and endlessly obsesses over and uses half his public statements and rallies and who knows what else in private to rant about) the results of 2020 in all the swing-states-as-such where nearly all the lawsuits and pressure and more were focused and he absolutely wanted 'his' people in charge throughout for 2024, and everything about his endorsements and attention was focused around some combination of governor/secretary of state/legislatures if needed being in place to do just that. But that either all fell apart on Tuesday or further fell apart as the week ground on. There's almost nothing he can rely on now. PA: locked off. MI: totally locked off. WI: Dem gov, Dem SoS may squeak out, no GOP supermajority in legislature. That leaves AZ, which increasingly seems locked off, NV, where there's definitely going to be a Dem SoS at the least, and then there's...Georgia. Trump won't be calling Raffensperger again.

-- The perception of lost leverage is already being pushed back against by some of his various fanboys but if in the end all he can truly claim as a real new recruitment as such was J.D. Vance in a minority party position, that's small potatoes. (GA runoff pending, obv) Scott's attempt to challenge McConnell already fizzled and Rubio's attempt to do something today on that front seems dweebish at best. DeSantis is probably pissing Trump off just by the simple trick of apparently magnanimous silence, Youngkin is likely shrugging and the Murdochs are counting their money.

-- If everything had gone as hoped for, Trump's thoroughly obvious telegraphing of his announcement next week was going to be a triumphal procession and an implied 'can't touch me!' to all his lawsuit opponents, the DoJ, etc. Of course, none of that would stop any investigating/lawsuits regardless, something which he seems to actually believe would happen. But now it seems like at most he would be getting the J6 committee to stop by default and they've clearly been planning for that possibility anyway (though if somehow the House stays as is, bow howdy). Otherwise, pretty much every opposing lawyer, not to mention all the various NY/GA/DOJ folks looking into him, have spent every second since Tuesday ramping everything the fuck up and will shrug off next week, and all the legal deadlines he's already facing won't go away, and neither will the new ones. All those grand juries have kept on keeping on and a number of them have further witnesses scheduled already post-election, or will have them come in whether they like it or not, thus whatever Lindsey Graham will be muttering under his breath soon enough.

So yeah, if I was a delusional conspiracy-theory addled narcissist crunt with a crispy raisin for a brain who had staked everything on one throw and who was impervious to alternate approaches due to a combination of his Norman Vincent Peale mind and his utter fragility, I think I would have long since tired out everyone around me for the past three days to a high degree.

apparently he's trailing a special announcment on tuesday

Yeah but he's been saying that for a while now, thus my comments in the lawsuit etc bit.

There's that famous moment in the Joe McCarthy hearings: "You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency?" And after that, McCarthy's world fell apart and he went off and drank himself to death

I don't think we're there yet with Trump, but it's finally starting to feel like his 'Face in the Crowd' downfall has officially begun; he's already starting the 'You wouldn't be anywhere without ME, you little punk!' monologue, sweating in the spotlight with his makeup running down his face

Yeah trump’s assailing of DeSantis because DeSantis said…nothing….is really weird and seems petty and desperate even by the usual Trump standards. It’s the first time I can honestly say I’ve felt a considerable weakening of the Trump brand. The importance of it is not how much he’s actually weakened but the perception, and the sense that those who were afraid of crossing him might now start to say “fuck it I’m done with him.” I say that knowing his obit has been written many times in the past 7 years.

I don't know that it says anything about Trump's potential in 2024 - he endorsed a bunch of "classroom litter box!!!" freaks and dead-eyed fascists like Blake Masters because they're the ones who came begging but that's not really his style. Xenophobia/"drain the swamp"/crime can still be potent and winnable issues.

And from his hometown rag lol... he must've flipped his lid when he saw this:

https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/11/dfvfdvd.jpg

i must say it must suck to see a little box on the cover that includes both "Analyst John Podhoretz" and "red trickle"

columnist Piers Morgan!!

loooooooooooool

what a strange world this is all happening in

Rupert has dementia, doesn't he? Who's running the Murdoch empire now as it turns on Trump?

His son Lachlan

I think it's interesting that DeSantis did not respond to his dumb taunts. That shows a discipline that few have demonstrated.

I think it's too early for the creature to kill his maker... but it will happen eventually, it has to

He's probably also pissed that he's had to spend a ton of money on Tiffany's wedding this weekend.

NBC News Desk currently projecting a 220-215 R advantage in House, +/- 7 seats.

never imagined it'd even get *that* close, if that winds up being accurate.

"The House is really going to come down to California," @Redistrict says on MSNBC, regarding which party will control the House of Representatives.

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) November 11, 2022

can't believe he's finally become increasingly isolated

A Republican close to President tells me Trump has been increasingly isolated in recent days. Frustrated, avoiding major public appearances

— Robert Costa (@costareports) May 10, 2017

flat circle

i had come to terms with the likelihood that the GOP would take a decent house majority and then use it to pursue extremely annoying, if ineffective, benghazi-style investigations for the next 2 years, along with impeachment. but with a majority of only a few votes, i'm hopeful that even just the presence of a few non-orc GOP-reps would be enough to prevent the dumbest stuff from happening. and with such a tiny majority, on either side, any vote that requires unanimous single-party consent in order to pass will be difficult because it's difficult to get 218 people to all show up to the same place at the same time

Newspapers across the country highlighted a record-breaking election for Dems in the states! This is the first time since at least 1934 (and likely ever) that the president’s party hasn’t lost a state legislative chamber in a midterm year, much less flipped 3 chambers blue. pic.twitter.com/lSeGbyfP8j

— Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (@DLCC) November 11, 2022

Cortez Masto now only down 798 votes.

lol I just made $15 on a $20 investment in two hours just putting money in PredictIt for Dems to take the House.

Senate is going to be Dem.

With Catherine Cortez Masto consistently winning the mail ballots in Nevada by a two-to-one margin, Democrats might just be one large Washoe County mail ballot drop away from holding the Senate

— Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) November 12, 2022

Gesundheit

This has probably already been said on this thread or elsewhere, and it may be too early to say (hubris), but actual voting seems to have worked against predictions that may have deliberately cast as pessimistic or relegated to the sidelines causes most dear.

been sorry

I wondered if the pre announcement of a wave was counterproductive apart from as incentive to vote against.

Like if one is setting out to destroy democracy surely one shouldn't gloat about it beforehand. Shades of the Bond/Marvel villain, like?

Well remember villains never think they’re the villains. But maybe more accurately, a slew of these useless candidates made the calculation that they could present themselves as heroes to people who didn’t think they themselves were the villains. This was not the wisest move.

xxxxps to Karl

The biggest fear about a Republican House is that they were going to use the debt ceiling and the threat of a US default to force Biden to agree to draconian cuts to Social Security and/or Medicare. They openly said this during the campaign and I wish the Dems made more of it!

yeah, i think they might still refuse to raise the debt ceiling (yet again). much more difficult with a slim margin, of course, but i believe that the last time they voted on it, october 2021, every single GOP house rep, all 209, voted against raising the debt ceiling. so...wouldn't be surprising if they go for it (yet again), especially considering that i'm not sure what else republicans are going to be working on in the house other than just being as awful as possible.

uuuuugh, not all 209. all 206. it was 219-206, according to my ultimate insider source on business, https://www.businessinsider.com/all-house-republicans-voted-for-us-to-default-on-debt-2021-10