U.S. Politics January 2023: Kevin McCarthy's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Life

lol, not to bring down the gas range thread, but the inevitable outcome is that Biden will be impeached and Trump will win reelection.

(I mean, I don't believe that, but that's the kind of up is down reality we are often dealing with.)

Biden’s going to be impeached three times just so Trump doesn’t have the record.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYp28tEAVvs

Biden should just accuse trump's deep state fbi for planting then.

multi-xps Because the primaries favor whoever wins the biggest chunk of the base and because of the strong anti-democratic bias of the electoral college in the general election, Trump still has a real chance to win in 2024 just as he won in 2016, with millions fewer total votes.

exactly, as tight of a spot as the Republican party seems to be in right now the system is massively rigged in their favor and will probably only get worse

lost badly in 2020

if Trump had done slightly better in like two states he would have won the election

I know it's fun to do the Eeyore "Trump's base will never" etc etc grousing, but as far as legal outcomes go, none of that is going to matter. Yes, optics are a thing, but Garland already did one thing that has probably gotten him death threats in even appointing a special counsel to investigate Trump's security breaches.

he's not going to say "well the Justice Department referred me potential criminal charges, and my special counsel also wants to bring charges, but lol Fox News says whatabout Biden, so class dismissed". there might not be any charges, but it won't be for that reason.

xpost nah, he'd have needed to take three of Michigan/Georgia/Wisconsin/Pennsylvania/Arizona, and two of those five he won by more than a percentage point.

election wasn't exactly a blowout, no (much like Trump's win wasn't), but he wasn't a whisper away from winning, either. everybody just panicked when early returns favored him even though Nate Silver literally warned everybody that would happen.

we can do this "every good thing is actually bad and Trump is inevitable hail the lizard people" thing again though if every body likes

but he wasn't a whisper away from winning, either. everybody just panicked when early returns favored him even though Nate Silver literally warned everybody that would happen.

― fentanyl young (Neanderthal), Thursday, January 12, 2023 3:48 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

its was like 30k votes across three states, sort of thing that different weather couldve swung

Also in the middle of a pandemic that had killed what 750k people?

Definitely not a gimme but if he’s heads up with Biden in 2024 it’s a coin flip, again.

(Especially if the Fed manages to cause a painful recession.)

Xxpost The only states Biden won by less than 20,000 were Georgia and Arizona, next closest was Wisconsin at around 22,000. He loses all three of those, it's 269-269, House legislature hands it to Trump

need I remind us that there's a big diff between saying if this one thing happened and these three things happened, like... it's like saying "if not for the three home runs we hit, we would have lost 3-2".

you dont need to remind us of anything

fuck off, joe

you don't have copyright on snark itt

thats a really close election and "these three things" are of course not discrete but rather highly correlated

The Snark tuner?

Snark Hunt

i think if you take 100 people in a room, put 51 on one side (biden) and 47 on the other (trump), and let the other 2 pick their noses, the 2020 election seems like it was pretty close. we're so accustomed to razor-thin margins that 2020 looks like a decisive victory. just a couple months ago, herschel walker, one of the least qualified major political candidates in u.s. history and a national laughingstock, nearly won anyway. examples abound of this stuff.

i hope i don't come across as a 'hail the lizard people' kind of person. but i do think it is folly to count out trump almost exactly 2 years after the GOP response to the failed coup was to kiss his ring and purge almost all members who didn't agree. just last week, the same people who supported his failed coup showed that they're running the house for the next 2 years. for a group of people that is making so many obvious mistakes that everyone hates and aren't supported by the majority of americans, they're getting a lot of second chances.

more importantly, as others have mentioned, the GOP have structural electoral advantages that have not gone away.

also, i still remember 2015/16, and iirc just about every smart person in the room thought it was a complete joke that trump could win, and many even became angry and belittled people who thought it was remotely possible. so many people were completely wrong about that election -- not just in predicting a Clinton victory, but in all but guaranteeing a Clinton victory.

it seems like there's been an uptick of personal attacks here recently, which i think is kind of disappointing. i'm not exempt, i think i have fallen into that a few times before -- and felt awful about it later and resolved to try to be better (key, i think). i think it would be a good idea to try to empathize a little more with those we disagree with. i don't really like the shooshing and belittling of viewpoints which essentially amount to the narcissism of small differences.

also, Milo, in hyper-tribalized America where several big states reliably vote red or blue and no incumbent had lost since 1992, where we couldn't unseat a warmonger in 2004 who everybody hated, 306-232 is a pretty good result, no matter how much bigger we'd have wanted it. had Biden managed to run in 2016 and beat Trump 306-232, that'd have been a fairly shitty win (not to mention how shitty the ACTUAL result was).

the pandemic helped, no doubt, but things beyond each candidate's control always influences the election somewhat. some years it's economy, other years it's death, sometimes both.

trying to prognosticate next year's election now before we know if Biden/Trump will even a) still be alive, b) both running c) that there's not a surprise invasion by a dinosaur between now and then is fruitless. no matter which side of the coin you're on.

joe you're literally suggesting the weather could have swung 40,000 votes, so maybe stfu and sit this one out

or take yr dunning-kruger act elsewhere

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/14/trump-hits-7-year-low-in-new-national-poll-as-biden-approval-climbs.html

means NOTHING, as we learned from Clinton-Trump pt 1, and also doesn't include today's BOMBSHELL special counsel announcement, but between this and anotehr poll that suggests voters want both parties to nominate someone other than Trump-Biden, yeah....who the fuck knows

idk why youre so mad but there were ~160m votes cast in the election and it came down to tens of thousands across three states thats extremely close

This sucks, let's get back to stoves...

some non dunning-kruger graphs in here for visual learners, could the weather have swung the one lil cube on the end there idk ill leave that to the experts https://www.npr.org/2020/12/02/940689086/narrow-wins-in-these-key-states-powered-biden-to-the-presidency

https://i.imgur.com/gzASEcb.png

also, Milo, in hyper-tribalized America where several big states reliably vote red or blue and no incumbent had lost since 1992, where we couldn't unseat a warmonger in 2004 who everybody hated, 306-232 is a pretty good result

I didn't say it wasn't. I pointed out that this close win came in the context of a once in a century pandemic. They're rare enough that we don't have hard numbers on their impact on the people in power but I'm going to say it's usually better to not be President in the Death Year(s). The fact that it wasn't even a 2008 blowout in the context of the Death Year should probably tell us that it's a toss-up if it gets replayed.

yeah. very inexact and very rounded numbers here, but consider that about a million people had died in the u.s. by the time the election rolled around. let's say half of those were conservative-leaning voters. now imagine all the families and friends of those 500K conservative families, watching all year as conservative politicians minimized their tragedy, tried to erase it, made fun of them for caring, mocked them for wanting to prevent additional people from dying, and made a virtue out of being heartless, cruel bastards.

it's true that a good number of those who died, and their families, were so hardcore conservative that they were willing to block it out. and i bet a number of them, kind of stockholm syndrome-like, came to agree with their political leaders that their own continual heartbreak was a joke and not to be mentioned in polite company. still, i have to think that at least a good chunk of those conservatives were deeply offput by their behavior. republicans basically did everything they could throughout the pandemic - to this day - to alienate their own voters and make them reconsider their abject cruelty.

it wasn't just a death year, it was a year of twisting the dagger in the hearts of people who were already hurting year. and yet, the election was still very close.

not trying to be doomery. i am trying to keep my eyes open.

heh

this guy has an electric stove in his house https://t.co/vhja3PdGpd pic.twitter.com/ywEP83RmMX

— https://mastodon.social/@elonjet (@frooook) January 12, 2023

priorities, priorities

In one of her first acts as governor of Arkansas, the former Trump White House press secretary Sarah Sanders banned the use of the word “Latinx” in state documents.

just north, equally substantive issues are being addressed

The Republican-controlled Missouri House of Representatives used its session’s opening day Wednesday to tighten the dress code for female legislators, while leaving the men’s dress code alone.

The changes were spearheaded by state Rep. Ann Kelley (R), a co-sponsor who was among the Republicans seeking to require women to wear a blazer when in the chamber. She was met by swift opposition from Democrats who called it “ridiculous.”

The state House eventually approved a modified version of Kelley’s proposal, which allows for cardigans as well as jackets, but still requires women’s arms to be concealed. Missouri Democrats tore into Republicans for pushing the new restrictions on what women in the chamber could wear.

That's an infringement on their Second Amendment rights.

I used to have the copyright on snark in this thread but I let it lapse ;_;

shoulder pad diplomacy

In one of her first acts as governor of Arkansas, the former Trump White House press secretary Sarah Sanders banned the use of the word “Latinx” in state documents.

so much for freedxm of speech

Do sweat the small stuff

"I got more stoves than the Bible's got psalms"

i read this hours ago and still cannot breaaaathe heeeelppp! XP

lol

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/12/progressives-gleefully-game-out-future-votes-to-boot-mccarthy-00077525

cool guy

“Why not? You know, that sounds like a good idea. I mean, you’re still going to need what, 218 for passage, right? But listen, man, he has a very slim majority,” mused Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.). “Whenever we want to cause complete chaos, we’ll do that.”

nerds

“It’s the furthest thing from my mind at this point,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told reporters. Another senior Democrat, House Rules Committee ranking member Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), said: “I want to get stuff done, and so it’s not where I’m at.”

Yeah, Jim, definitely going to get a lot of important stuff done.

If it was Pelosi, I'd say she allowed them to talk. With this tool?

That's an infringement on their Second Amendment rights.

:)

^^^ yeah, that was a delayed guffaw from me. A+ Jimbeaux.

Yup, but I'm wondering how is making women conceal their limbs that much different from adopting Shariah law?

Before things get washed away by time and circumstance, I just want to say that was a good Karl post.

Broseph, you needn't apologize for doominess when literal doom is involved

(I meant the dagger twisting one, not the cardigan one, but carry on.)