I appreciate the analysis, but to be brutally honest, you undercut it with statements like, "many Democrats are also racial minorities who can face steeper barriers to voting."
Can someone please explain to me what specific barriers black or brown people face to voting? In 2024, not 1964? Not based on class (poor and broke people have a variety of barriers to many things, some of which are unjust) but based on their skin color. Can anyone actually think of any?
The SA article addresses longer wait times not fewer polling stations. That minorities wait longer is likely true so Nate is correct. I think the argument is whether there is a racial bias, where I think it is mostly about urban vs rural, where you wait a lot more urban for all sorts of things- DMV, your latte, etc. On the other hand if you looked at drive times to polling stations it is longer in rural and that skews against white voters.
I think there is a liberal narrative that this reflects conscious racism where I dont think that is true and eg in the case of the more restrictive Georgia voting laws they actually introduced solutions to reduce waiting time in those precincts where it occurred even as they reduced early voting and photo ID etc.
The article is about the effect of sending postcards out to inform voters of ID requirements not about showing whether ID laws effect turnout.
Since few Americans lack picture ID, and it is not hard to get it, I dont see where this will have a huge effect but likely some.
Intuitively, some on the right may be more encouraged to vote, but I dont think there is much evidence that people are not voting because they suspect fraud. If Trump wins, and as of this moment he is favored, despite all the people that complain about fraud (only when Dems win, they avoid the real documented fraud that involves the GOP like the only cancelled HOR election in recent history, Google McRae Dowless) they seem to vote. Most of the voter fraud believers think it is the Dems who do it, but the Rs win half the elections so I dont think they are deterred from voting in elections where Rs have a chance.
And on the left, I think again intuitively that there has to be some amount of, not highly motivated voters , without drivers licenses, who wont bother to go through the hoops to get ID who might otherwise vote, and that this is a cohort that leans Dem (one study showed that 8% of white voters have no picture ID vs 25% of black voters).
Either way I dont think it would effect a lot of people, but of the two groups- voters who dont vote because they dont trust election integrity, vs voters who have no picture ID and dont make the effort to get it, I think the latter is a bigger group.
My own feeling is that voter ID is OK, but it needs to be in a way where it is very easy to get said ID other than just drivers licenses.
_Renewing_ a government ID isn't that hard. Getting even a replacement (let alone the first government-issued photo ID) is a lot harder than you might assume, if you haven't recently tried it. It is less difficult if you are still a minor, when either school ID or parent's ID can count to establish (to the issuing office) who you are.
Voting is a habit and as people invest time into the process they become increasingly comfortable with the process and their internal efficacy (fancy talk for confidence) goes up. And if you put the effort in your dang straight going to vote or you wasted your time!
easier just to say fewer polling stations than the litany of causes that stem from the same issue of underfunded electoral infra: "... the researchers acknowledged the phone data were only a proxy for voting wait time, which could result from anything—ballots that take a while to fill out, a lack of parking spaces or too few voting machines". article mentions the conclusion of the study is black people wait ~29% longer, plus other potential interaction effects like less flexible working hours and the like that make longer waiting times more punitive. happy for georgia, and i'm sure there is a narrative like that in SJL/progressive circles, but there's still a good amount of evidence indicating such
Longer wait times don't imply fewer polling stations. I suspect urban environments likely have longer wait times and rural environments likely have longer travel distances.
The second article is a perfect example of why mail voting is a lousy idea: too many opportunities for nefarious actors (of either party) to influence what gets counted.
Is there really something hard about showing up at a location within walking distance of your house (except for rural folks, of course) at any point between 6 AM and 8 PM on a single given day, showing your ID, filling out a form on a computer screen, and dropping the resulting printout in a box? If you are even a marginally functional human being, this isn't a high barrier to cross.
but to your main point about perceived laziness: yes. if you read the article, you'll see it mentions interaction barriers with longer wait times like lack of flexible hours or childcare resources. plus, further, there are less polling stations in blacker neighborhoods (https://www.npr.org/2020/10/17/924527679/why-do-nonwhite-georgia-voters-have-to-wait-in-line-for-hours-too-few-polling-pl) and i suspect they aren't walking distance, although it seems like neither have a basis to claim distance
The fewer polling boxes/voter is pretty clearly established as sometimes still intentional, though I don't know how widespread that is. (Not every county commission or clerk goes on the record with planned bad behavior, though some do.) I have had trouble with out-of-town work schedules changing on short notice. City polling places are physically closer, but they're more likely to be a place you've never gone (or couldn't even get into) otherwise, and there is a lot more room for "nope, you're at the wrong precinct" shenanigans. These obviously also hit white folks like me, but whether they hit me as often ... is hard to know. Just because the election worker was wrong about me (or my Mom) doesn't mean they weren't actually correct about the strangers who got a similar story.
Many countries with their shit together manage to handle mail voting without nefarious actors, why does it need to be such a big deal in the US? Such a nothingburger
I suspect those countries have much simpler ballots, and that many of them also have postal service that remains more reliable even in bad neighborhoods. The increase in deliveries (and porch pirates) is probably starting to equalize the not-actually-delivered problem within the US.
It’s also likely a significant amount of blacks are not in the habit of voting as machine politics is not uncommon in many areas making local elections somewhat moot. When politicians are getting 90 percent of the vote and the only marginaly important race is the primary what’s the point if turning out
I mean the actual data has shown that voter fraud happens in the dozens per election and that voter ID + signature laws suppress thousands of mostly minority votes per election. Just like Jim Crow, none of these laws specifically target skin color but they are researched, designed, and enforced in a way that disproportionately targets people of color.
Any talk of voter fraud is Russian disinformation. American elections are 100% secure. Oh, you mean voter fraud by Republicans? Well, certainly that's real. :-)
More seriously, yes, voter fraud happens. I was involved years ago in B-1 Bob Dornan's Congressional re-election campaign in Orange County. When he lost by about 1000 votes, Bob was convinced that illegal immigrants voting had skewed the results. He may well have been right, but it's essentially impossible to prove that an illegal immigrant voted, since (at the time) most used fake names, IDs and social security numbers. (This was before we started issuing ID's and TINs to illegals.) I think we found 3 or 4 confirmed cases of fraud by illegals -- miniscule -- and Bob lost.
Ironically, had Bob been smarter (he was pugnacious but not that bright) he might well have won his case. Dead people vote all the time in America, especially in states like CA that don't cross-reference death certificates and voter reg files. We found a number of cases of that in his race, but Bob was too focused on illegals to pay attention.
I agree. Certainly things like class, lack of transportation, lack of babysitter, lack of citizenship, criminal record, can play a role, and those do disproportionally effect minority populations, but that is not a matter of race, and many of those issues are mute with polls of registered voters.
I guess that is irrelevant if they are only polling registered voters but I might guess some polls just poll anybody that answers the phone or are reached on line.
The Left's "voter suppression" kind of seems like a mirror of MAGA's "voter fraud". Both are convinced it's real, but when you try and pin it down in a court (for example) it always seems to evaporate.
I don’t trust journalists takes. You haven’t provided data. A few articles I couldn’t read because they have pay walls. We have so many people in academia doing research it’s unfortunate we can’t get to a more solid truth instead of politically partisan journalists putting out nonsense. I should read more about the NC case. That one may have legs. But the left has taken a position of any laws that create any barrier to voting is racism. Just like any laws that restrict immigration is racism. I need more than that. Why is a voter id law racist? I do think Republicans favor them because they think it provides political advantage. But that’s not necessarily racism. I also wonder if the economic demographics of Republicans change (less education) they may be wrong about the impact of stricter I’d laws.
Do you have a *right* to vote if the state has moved your polling drop box a day’s drive away and your boss will not let you take time off from work to vote, and you really need your job?
Saw it explained by a young abortion supporter on Mark Elias’s YouTube channel “Democracy Docket” last night. As in “I saw it on the Internet”. Happy? I see no need for any statistics with a situation like that.
Was this in Alaska? I don’t think too many states are big enough for polling stations to be a day’s drive away, even if they only had one polling station.
You could take out the whole polling place distance, call it five minutes away, but if you cannot get off work to vote, the important thing is whether you can be said to have a ”right” so easily defeasible.
Just a tip: in fraught discussions like this where bad faith abounds and suspicions are understandably high, making a statement you know to be false for rhetorical effect does not do your position any favors in the long run.
It’s a matter of correlation. As you said, class may matter in terms of barriers to voting.Class is correlated with race and (non-white) race has been correlated with voting for Democrats. So the statement is correct in terms of correlation rather than causation.
It is the causation which matters in this case though. "Black people face barriers to voting because they're mote likely to be poor and live in violent areas" is very different than "black people are systematically denied their right to vote because they're black".
They've systematically made it somewhat more difficult for the urban poor to vote. They aren't targeting minorities specifically, they are casting a wide net and hoping to reduce more D votes than R votes.
You haven't made the case that it's systemic or even intentional at all. For example, urban blacks are far more likely to live in "food deserts", where the nearest major grocery store is at least 5 miles away. That's not because grocery store owners are all Klansmen who hate black people. It's because urban black neighborhoods have FAR higher rates of both property and violent crime, problems which make it very hard to be profitable in such locations. The correlation has nothing to do with race at all.
"Casting a wide net and hoping to reduce more X than Y votes" is something that every party in power does, and always has. That's called politics. Mayor Daley was great at it.
I think it's shitty to try to reduce legitimate voting. I get annoyed when anyone does it, and annoyed when partisans bend over backwards to excuse it.
But to your point, I was agreeing with you that it's not "racist". Even if they explicitly targeted minorities, because they know minorities tend to be democrats, it's not a sign that they are racist. It's just shitty people who are trying to "win" the game by cheating a little.
Of course, racist or not, it might still be unconstitutional.
I agree with you about being annoyed when politicians put up roadblocks to voting. I am equally annoyed when politicians seek to eliminate all access rules to the ballot box (like Merrick Garland announced this morning -- going after the 8 states that require ID to vote, something that about 70% of all Americans believe is a good idea.)
People who are non-felonious citizens should be able to vote (relatively) easily.
Others must be denied access to voting.
These goals are both important but often in conflict.
Is it your position that Democrats are making it harder for minorities to vote in urban areas? The vast majority of urban areas are run by Democrats, and for the largest urban areas that advantage is enough to carry the state as well (NY, IL, CA).
If you're not claiming that Democrats are the ones causing this issue, then the scope of the "voter suppression" is necessarily much smaller than you are implying, and should not be relevant at all in most cases.
No, I'm talking about state laws and state level rules, in red and purple states. And as I said, they aren't explicit about making it harder for minorities to vote, they just *happen* to make it harder for minorities to vote.
If you're a shithead who doesn't believe in democracy, then it feels good to make a law that results in 30,000 fewer R votes and 50,000 fewer D votes.
It's hard to tell the "scope", because the United States always has these stupidly tight elections. The House, Senate, and Presidency always come down to like a 1% margin.
"Many Democrats are also racial minorities who can face steeper barriers to voting." Very weird that a statement of fact bothers you this much. Whether or not the reason that minorities experience difficulties voting is because of their minority status is completely immaterial to nates points. Its just a statement of fact, who cares if its because they are poor or because of cities or whatever other excuse you made up to delegitimize nates actual point. It still has the very real impact of reducing a specific demographics' ability to vote and their representation. In this case, ala nates point, democrats risk losing votes from this demographic. It doesn't matter the reasons for this in the context of this article . I suggest adhering to the topic at hand, as all of your comments are completely imatterial to the point being made when referencing that quote that sent you so.
FWIW I found your tone pretty biased and pretentious.
It's not a "statement of fact", Taylor. It is a theory, a hypothetical, the veracity of which can be determined by appealing to facts. Which is precisely my point. I am unaware of any significant obstacles that racial minorities face to voting in 2024. Nor can I realistically think of any that could be implemented post-VRA -- courts are pretty strict about disparate impact rules.
You're correct that it's not relevant to Nate's overall point, which is why I mentioned it. It's a throwaway comment from a very serious political pundit that reinforces a perception that likely is not accurate. The folks who have commented here, even those like spencer who believe it be a more serious problem than I do, are reticent to attribute the policies to racial targeting, and as Mr. Doolittle said, the urban areas we're talking about are all deep-blue, with elections run (machined sometimes?) by Democrats top to bottom.
Voting legitimacy means making sure that those who are allowed to vote can do so relatively easily while those not allowed do not pollute the ballot box. Often a policy that makes A easier makes B harder and visa versa, but they are both necessary for fair and legitimate elections. The erosion of electoral legitimacy among Americans is very bipartisan, and is a far bigger "threat to democracy" than either candidate.
The irony is that because of their decentralized nature, our Presidential elections are probably the most reliable and secure in the world. The perception (in this case) is completely incorrect. Where ballot box stuffing would be easy to implement (those areas under solid single-party control, of either party) are the exact areas where the electoral college ensures it wouldn't help anyway.
I think you’re being a bit pedantic. Most “facts” in the soft sciences are built on the back of other facts. Ps I’m typing on my phone here so the formatting is impossible to decipher for me.
I think you’re misunderstanding my comment to an extent. The only part of the comment irrelevant to Nate’s point is your interpretation of it. Your weird assertion that the very real issues minorities face when voting have to be because of race directly to matter is the irrelevant part. The barriers to voting minorities face are relevant to Nate’s point as they directly impact, albeit marginally, dems voting totals. That being said your critique that it’s a throw away point isn’t uncalled for as like I said it’s likely a marginal impact. But idk if we know enough to truly say how large this impact is or could be during a close election.
Incredibly anecdotally the idea of a line at my voting location is hilarious to me. Every time I’ve voted I walk in, walk up to a person at a desk, sign my name, get handed a ballot, vote, put it in the machine and leave. There’s like 5 voting locations for 5-7 thousand people in the suburban and rural towns around my area all at most a 10 minute drive from the others. Including my drive I can usually vote on my lunch break and still get lunch.
It’s not exactly a far leap to assert than since a higher percentage of minorities live in cities where, idk, they actually have lines, sometimes for hours, to vote that that may disproportionately discourage minorities from voting. I mean damn I’m not voting in my primaries if I have to take two hrs off work to wait in line. That’s wild to pretend it’s not a detrimental factor.
That’s just a very basic example as many people have brought that up and many other relevant points that you’re pretty dismissive of. But I’ll definitely have to reread your comments tomorrow to further understand your perspective.
I think you bring up some good points further along in your comment but see below lol.
Pss I will look at this in the am to reanalyze all of this as I’m pretty tired after a 10+ hr work day.
Cities are crowded and things tend to take longer. It's true at the SS office, the DMV, WalMart, and the voting booth. My polling place is like yours, but I live in a city of 20K people. More than half of my town is minority though and I can assure you their wait is no longer than mine, since there are only 2 polling locations in town.
If minorities are commonly waiting hours in major cities, when those cities are all run by Democrats and said minorities vote Democratic by 70%+ margins, it seems the Democrat-dominated election boards should open more polling places.
Ok, well, seeing as what dems could do in the future to address this issue is immaterial to nate's point, I'm not sure what your point is there. Granted I don't disagree entirely with your conclusion that dems should address this going forward.
Additionally you're trying to have your cake and eat it too at this point. Are minority voters disenfranchised or not? You presented points seemily attempting to argue both perspectives.
Lastly I dont think you're taking into account the effects of things like gerrymandering that can be used to intentionally weaken minority voter strength leading to less confidence in the voting process and less voting frequency among constituents. Voter enthusiasm is definitely a barrier to voting on a community wide scale.
So inconclusion I dont think its fair to throw shade at Nate for referencing a very real phenomena, so real you cant seem to pick which side of the debate you're on, that can have an impact in many ways on the very thing nate is talking about, voter turnout impacting elections.
There are a lot of ways. In red states from voter ID laws to where ballot boxes are placed are almost always purposely skewed to apply more to voters of color than white voters. Just like Jim Crow laws, they don't explicitly day black people have to jump through more hoops, but they are researched, designed, and enforced so as to disproportionately put more and more hurdles up in front of voters of color. Pretty much every look at the data has shown people of color's votes are still getting suppressed, the most common counterargument is that it often doesn't suppress those votes *quite enough* to have swung some specific elections.
I’m mid 60’s. Democrat my entire adult life. Gave thousands of dollars. After Covid, and all that it revealed about democrats, never again. None of your speculations apply to me and others who see the party as illiberal (that’s the kindest word I can use to describe the despicable conduct since 2016).
I was being kind by referring to them as "illiberal." But that is the essence of it. The dem response to Covid, which I don't really think was a "thing," other than a power and money grab, caused me to look more closely at the Russia collusion mess, the DEI monster and all the rest, seeing how they (dems) behaved similarly in various contexts -- that is, lying, opposing freedom of thought and speech, and having no regard for bodily autonomy (except for abortion on demand, at any time, without restriction -- oh, and the freedom of children to surgically alter their bodies). Add to that their alignment with the defense and intelligence complex, as well the pharma industry, and I'd say it's not the party of a 1970's liberal (which is how I would characterize myself).
I'm sorry to say, you're not typical of the kind of person this poll is capturing. For one thing, you've donated thousands of dollars, so you're politically active. You very likely voted in 2022. We know you're not typical because Biden's donation numbers are setting records (including number of individual donors), and people who voted in 2022 were more likely to vote for Democrats than expected.
What this poll is saying is that there is a large group of people who don't really pay attention to politics, probably didn't vote in 2022 or any of the other elections since 2020, certainly didn't donate to any political candidate, voted for Biden in 2020, and currently plan to vote for Trump in 2024.
I would posit illegal immigration is a key reason. When even left leaning cities are flooded with illegals and they have to share the cost traditionally borne by border towns, they realize that Democrats have intentionally allowed up to 10 million illegals in. Schools and hotels in NYC being used to house illegals. Female students being murdered by illegals. Crime gangs in Southern California originating from South America conducting a rash of burglaries and robberies. This is the issue Biden polls weakest in.
No I don't oppose vaccination but a lot of what RFKjr says on other topics deserves to be heard. I would never vote for JB due to his chairing of the Senate Judiciary Hearings and his treatment of Anita Hill. Also, Biden's role in creating the student debt crisis when he was Senator from Delaware was inexcusable. I voted for Howie Hawkins in 2020. HRC in 2016.
I am not irrelevant. I'm a registered D who will be living in a swing state in time to have residency to vote in the General election. Have been D precinct captain for years. It is mistaken to write off anyone. That is how elections are lost.
Bull crap, she has every right to vote Third part or not vote at all. Your ire at her choice points to the fact that you recognize her decision will have impact, that is the exact opposite of being written off.
I don't vote against any candidate. I vote for the candidate whose platform and historical record seems best to me. I take the time to do this for all state offices including county commission, county offices and judicial positions. I have been a delegate to state Democratic conventions. I have belonged to the local DEC and attended its monthly meetings. I attend forums and debates among candidates. I have interviewed candidates for my central labor council. I have worked exclusively on Democratic campaigns including county commission, governor and president. I have donated to candidates. What I do not do-- vote as someone tells me to vote.
Obviously it is not so simple. In the US we don’t provide or recommend every vaccine that exists to children; we recommend some. As an example, when I brought my kids to India for 6 months in 2010 we got additional vaccines for them that they otherwise would not have had as part of the regular US schedule.
So, not all vaccines are recommended for children in the US. Some medical reasoning is required to determine which ones belong on the schedule. And since COVID the CDC’s recommendations for vaccines & boosters for children are out of step with most of the world’s - say, Europe’s & Japan’s, for instance.
And these recommendations of the CDC *are* controversial.
And, frankly, hard to defend in the case of COVID boosters for, for instance, healthy 4 year olds who’ve been previously vaccinated and infected twice, say. Quite frankly, the recommendations are not even defendable scientifically in some cases, and will certainly be changed over the next couple years.
The sad thing is that the CDC has damaged its credibility substantially. Predictably, this leads to lower vaccine uptake of vaccines that really are clearly in the best interest of children.
The vaccines you got for India is because the diseases are in India. Obviously there's no point in getting a shot if you can't catch the disease.
With COVID it's more like the disease doesn't usually do much, and the vaccine also doesn't do much. Which I guess is a controversy but it's a pretty boring one.
Florida is safely Republican so it won't be determinative. Christian Nationalism is by far the biggest threat to this country and by extension to the world, and a Republican win will mean all the 'guardrails' are gone as the party will have more power than anyone since at least the 1960s. America does not understand this yet and may have to learn it the hard way.
And look how that’s turning out. Record depression in our youth. Addicted to social media. Teens out of control wilding in malls. Assaulting teachers. But hey at least they aren’t Christian!
But yes, I agree it's pretty unfortunate that we invented Fentanyl and the Internet. Not sure you can really blame the kiddos for either of those things.
Trump will win Florida by double digits. Florida is a red state now. Don't you like it? Move to California, your democratic heaven with insanely high taxes, unaffordable housing, and out-of-control crime. That's exactly what you want. don't worry Uhals going to California are 500 times cheaper than one moving out of California because everyone is fleeing that liberal sh*thole, and you want to bring those policies to Florida because you don't have common sense.
California housing prices are certainly higher than they should be if we allowed more building to take place.
Having said that, the main reason for the price difference between Florida and California is that far, far more people want to live here rather than Florida. Also, the violent crime rates are almost identical in California and Florida (although the murder rate in Florida is much higher).
But increasingly overtly, the racists and 'women-hood' protectors (always linked in the southern patriarchy & WS tradition) are co-opting the religious right, thanks to tfg's divisive encouragement of hate toward their fellows.
I'm a preacher's kid, long line of evangelists..., gave my first fire-and-brimstone sermon at age 15... pretty familiar with both the good and bad of this group.
Most who claim the name of Christ in this country these days (I'm not one) are neither philosophical nor religious followers of Christ's teaching; most (not all) are simply tribesmen born into a tradition of domination of others, and who wrap themselves in a flag of superiority and 'the cloth' of self-righteousness. They are characterized by a concept of 'freedom' FROM moral or legal oversight of their desired dominion of others - First Americans, slaves, minorities, women.
Also suggest 'Freedom's Dominion' by Jefferson Cowie - a good read and excellent synthesis both.
... but seems I'm balking at allowing this group to be called, or to call themselves 'Christian' anything, since they are not, in my view. And I seriously respect the approach to peace and co-existence that Christ exemplified. Think in a nuclear age a little forgiveness and tolerance gets human civilization a bit further along than the old testament 'eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth' (e.g., Zionists v Hamas).
Multiple round prisoners dilemma games show that Tit for Tat is a superb strategy in a world where communication is perfect. In a world where miscommunication is quite possible, i.e. the real world, Tit for Tat with forgiveness is a superior strategy.
"Do unto others twenty-five percent better than you expect them to do unto you to correct for subjective error."
Yes I saw this result (perhaps even the one you cite - was it published in Scientific American? or was it some hacker contest? I forget - would love it if you can point me back to the source of this demonstration!!)
Such a fascinating result - and I've been an advocate (on both humanist and science bases) of a little turning of the cheek ever since!!! And my respect for the insight/intuition of that guy Jesus definitely went up a few notches.
PS Around 50 years ago, in college, I was fascinated by the observation that 'altruistic' behavior could be selected by a gene-based natural selection of the fittest. E.O. Wilson's work in Sociobiology (ants), and also a guy named Trivers (who worked with blue jays as I vaguely recall?), and made a mathematical model for the evolution of 'reciprocal altruism' (1971). I used that idea for decades before reading the tit for tat gaming results... fun stuff for nerds.
Yes I think it's probably more accurate to say the interest groups and the 'elites' behind this incarnation of the Republican party tend to subscribe to Christian Nationalism, which is definitely distinct from Christianity. They want to remake America into a country where men dominate women, Whites dominate people of color, LGBT people don't exist, and science, art, and intellectualism are debased. They also have no interest in preserving democracy here or elsewhere. They claim the bible as their source but only accept their own interpretation of it. They've had the most success of all the Republican factions at controlling the party, and they're particularly devoted to Trump because they have determined they can use him for their own ends. As to what motivates individual voters, many of them do what they are told by the leaders of their communities.
The irony then. I live in Southern California and am not white. I am a follower of Christ. All of my family and close friends are not white. They are Trump supporters. The racist trope is so very 2016. We support Trump not because he’s a moral man but because his policies are moral. The left is destroying everything they touch.
The strange part is it’s counterproductive, even if it was hard fight Biden would likely win. But a fever pitch election motivates the voters and gets them pumped for the big show against the other party. An example would be 2008, the most contested primary I could think of between Clinton and Obama . When it was over things were patched and a motivated party swept the election
Obama was able to register new voters during each state nominating contest in 2008…the long primary benefited him although Bush was so awful that Obama would have still beat McCain even with a short primary just with fewer votes. But what most people forget is that Hillary won what would become Trump’s best counties when he ran.
This is my plan also. If I vote for RFK, Jr., it will be the first time in my life that I did not vote Democrat for President. Now, I may change my mind - I don’t want to throw away my vote. But as it stands today, I am supporting RFK, Jr. I detest Trump, I like Biden (although I don’t love him) but I think he is aging too significantly to serve another term.
It wasn’t really a problem for two entire decades before Trump became president and he was yelling just as loudly about it then and tbh, it makes it really hard to give a fuck as a younger person when the same rhetoric existed when it seemingly wasn’t a problem too.
Get with the times, man, you are not a 'young person' Boomer.
Also, you fucking idiot, two decades ago, millions of illegals weren't storming the border every year; it didn't reach a million in 8 years. The invasion has reached a breaking point.
You're a fucking idiot because you believe millions of criminals entering the country is a good thing. If only we could give the illegal immigrants and cartels a special device that would tell them to only kill, steal, and kidnap liberals like you who would deserve it, as that's literally what you asked for and wanted (sadly, it's almost always innocent people who suffer, not you disgusting liberal vermin living in your gated community), then the approval rating of cartel gangs could exceed Biden's approval rating, but then again, that isn't that high of a bar to exceed.
If it’s THAT much of a problem, illegal immigrant murders must have been tracked year over year and known to be specifically higher right now, right? Not *just* anecdotes.
*millions of criminals* is childish fucking hysteria. Aren’t you in Europe ffs? Beyond the *misdemeanor* of illegal immigration, they commit crimes at a comparable or lower rate than native born Americans.
I don’t think the president alone could fix the border. Any impactful executive action would be overturned by some activist judge, and it would stay overturned for at least months in court. Plus, executive orders tend to not be popular with voters, so Biden taking action alone would not help him.
It seems like they don’t want to do anything different to win, just drive more base voters to the polls. Not a whole lot of political persuasion going on these days.
The Times Board implored Biden to come in and sit for a serious interview and instead Biden went on a late night tv show. Dowd and the new Times poll along with Ezra Klein has started the ball rolling and Biden will have yo do extended serious interviews that last not 10 minutes but one or two hours. Better than Trump is a thin argument.
I think engaged people can say this until they are blue in the face but they'll still be wrong and sound stupid to boot. It's actually an extremely strong argument, one among many.
It is not a two man race though. Kennedy is polling well enough that he belongs in the conversation. Or at least there is a chance his candidacy is not dead-on-arrival, like the typical 3rd party candidacy. If he really has a shot, it is because both Trump and Biden are not wildly popular. So, we will see. But if it is not a two man race, the “better than Trump” is extremely thin. It is so thin it is basically irrelevant.
That is true. Clearly Kennedy is not a perfect candidate. But I think if people are unhappy with both Biden and Trump, they may look at 3rd party candidates this year. Obviously, I may be wrong. History says that 3rd party candidates are not credible. But I think this election is different than usual. We shall see..
I would be satisfied with this outcome. I’d feel a whole lot better if it were certain though. It does look like Trump has a meaningful chance of winning this race. That concerns me.
Kennedy is on two ballots and democrats are waging war to keep him off as many states possible, until he is officially on more I would call this a two man race
There are plenty of spaces on Substack with generally high-quality comments. It's crappier on free posts with very high visibility. But I think this place has the crappiest comments of any Substack I read regularly, large or small. I'd say it's mainly a handful of highly loquacious bad actors that are basically just throwing feces at the other side, without ever saying anything insightful or interesting. Exclude them, and it's an OK mix of prosaic and truly insightful comments.
They show him that not everyone is in lockstep in the world. Indeed, that there might even be a majority of people that think, quelle horreur, differently.
I think the DNC is not the determinant. I do think they favored Biden by moving up the SC primary, but other than that, they are not omnipotent, and the reality, is that other than Dean Phillips, it was the cowardice of our Senators and Governors that brings us here. Roy Cooper or Gretchen Whitmer could have run. I will vote for Phillips, but I also blame the voters for dismissing him. Sure he is a lowly congressman but a reasonable smart guy with fairly standard Democratic ideology. If Dems wont support an alternative that is available, blame them, not the DNC.
Agree with your primary voting strategy at this point - my son and I listened to Dean Phillips on an Ezra Klein interview the other day and will both vote for him I expect, unless there is/are more info/options forthcoming. A good man, well spoken, reasonably confident, reasonably humble (for a candidate). Seems sharp enough, communicates well. Lots of energy.... understands national defense... understands risk to democracy.
But I still hold, that while DNC is not the sole determinant, statistically it is the 'primary' determinant (so to speak), and unless there we see a response to the now majority of option-oriented Dems by the DNC (that we haven't yet seen!!!; or unless Biden has a serious viral moment or more), this will have determined that we are locked into B v tfg.
Things happen. We need a Plan C.
DNC actively discouraged all other serious candidates (with all the leverage it had), and it HAS 'huge' leverage, to summon Bernie's ghost.
It did this with two types of considerations:
a) they truly believed that, whether or not Biden wins, he has (had) the best shot, and allowing any other debate, lowered his chances, and
b) the party institution is a power monopoly that, like all monopolies, believes it is best for them to have the power, and in their wisdom, to make the decisions.
A is understandable. B is anti-democratic.
However, I'm NOT one who believes all decisions SHOULD be voted, (see 14-3!! we had a smart plan to preclude even a vote for candidates who are known to oppose the legitimacy of our elections & government); I DO believe in a representative government, where the people try to choose their best experts to consolidate decision-making in the hands of a rotating practical number of experts. But this is NOT the DNC.
In what way is the DNC the determinant. If Newsome or Whitmer chose to run, could they stop them. They didn't stop Phillips who was a lot less known. Not that they cant lean on the scales some but not in a way that would stop a popular candidate from winning. I dont know what you mean by discouraged candidates. Why is it that Phillips ran. No the truth is that no well known candidate chose to get in.
I think the ideas that the DNC and RNC is so all powerful is conspiratorial. For example the RNC clearly favored Jeb Bush in 2016 and it could be argued that they initially favored Clinton in 2008. I wouldn't say they have no effect, like moving up SC obviously helps Biden, but I would guess it is 5% or so.
I'm not perhaps the most knowledgeable about national party politics, I confess.
But control of campaign money and with-holding of coordinated party 'blessing' has gone a long way to reduce the harm to the party from 'friendly fire' during primaries. I do suspect that Biden owes his presidency to party blessing; but perhaps we also owe thanks to DNC for Trumps subsequent defeat.
I think some would-be candidates have stayed out of the primaries because they had good data that they were not winners, and because tfg's candidacy is now widely perceived as an existential threat for America among those who voted for Biden simply as a compromise last time. But mostly because an incumbent normally has a huge advantage; but so far Biden has not been leveraging it, due to reluctance of his team to expose him, rightly or wrongly - I think it is wrongly... he needs to be vetted PRIOR to convention.
(I don't find Newsome a very inspiring 'person of integrity', despite his running head start in delegates and claim to 'running one of the largest economies in the world' - smarmy is the word that comes to mind; I much prefer Phillips despite his 'lower' government experience both on basis of personal integrity AND electability/appeal - he has fewer negatives with the independent and soft republican vote than Newsome; have yet to see Whitmer in a clear light, but there is MUCH to be said for a woman candidate in this election, and she's my best bet so far; Michelle is the favorite in this poll, but is NOT interested... and I'm not certain she has the governing will; Kamala would lose, as would Amy; personally think there is no one more qualified, OR polarizing, than Hillary!)
But I DO think DNC had a LOT to do with the absence of party regulars throwing hats in the ring... just not able summon the specifics of the articles I've read - getting old. Here's one dimension, as reported in The Hill, an R orifice:
"The Democratic National Committee (DNC) far outperformed its Republican National Committee (RNC) counterpart in fundraising in October.[2023]
The latest Federal Election Commission (FEC) campaign filings show the DNC, chaired by Jaime Harrison, brought in $13.1 million last month, compared to the RNC’s $7.1 million.
The DNC spent $15.9 million and had $17.7 million on hand at the end of the month, with $238,000 in debt. The RNC, chaired by Ronna McDaniel, spent $7.3 million and closed the month with $9.1 million on hand and $2.9 million in debt."
Agree that an incumbent has a big advantage, none have been defeated in modern times whether Reagan's challenge to Ford or Ted Kennedy's to Carter.
I dont think the DNC ever contributes to a primary campaign and if they were out to help Biden in 2020 it is belied by the fact that Biden was well outspent by Sanders. It wasnt the DNC that led to his win, but a combination of the black vote which Sanders could never attract and the fact that the moderate candidates -Klobuchar, Buttigieg, and Bloomberg- all dropped out and supported Biden. Maybe if Warren and Harris had backed Sanders, he would have won.
The Party Decides was a thing a few years ago…it got shot down very quickly. Facebook was more important in 2008 and 2016 and I go on Facebook now maybe once a year. Btw, Obama got a founder of Facebook on his team very early and Kushner’s brother is a billionaire because of Instagram which is owned by Facebook.
This comment is on point, but seems a bit cryptic to me - would you elaborate?
Think you are saying that social media is powerful, and I agree; but I don't have the sense that it has a central nervous system. It is powerful like a mob, not like the person steering the mob...?
My theory in 2008 was that Obama voters could see they weren’t the only Obama voters out there because of social media and so they stuck with Obama when it was time to vote instead of going with the safe choice in Hillary. So in 2004 Dean could raise money via digital fundraising and I lived in a college town and I saw lots of Dean signs in college kid windows…but when it came time to vote people went with the safe choice in Kerry. But just remember that through luck Obama’s staff was Daschle’s staff and Daschle was an early backer and so the Democratic establishment wasn’t all in for Hillary but the conventional wisdom was that Hillary was the safe choice. But all through 2007 Obama voters could communicate with other Obama voters via Facebook and they knew they were committed to voting for Obama.
As an aside I volunteered for Kerry in 2004 in a non swing state and we had a pretty good crowd meet up at a coffee shop and everyone gave their emails to someone supposedly with the Kerry campaign…we never heard back from that person and that huge group never met again as all the email addresses vanished. We attempted to salvage the group and we had a little party to write checks and one of the guys didn’t write a check and said he was just there to meet women. I have no clue if the Kerry campaign ever received the 5 checks we sent or not??
I think there’s just too much uncertainty with the mood of the electorate. Biden is much weaker than he was in 2020. People have forgotten about the surliness of living under Trump or see him as not being that awful compared to Biden. I think this year is a toss up. I wish Dems had chosen or will choose a stronger candidate.
I dont think it is a tossup if you have any faith in polls. Nate could do the math, but if this were the day before elections then I would just guess Trump would be a 70-80% liukelihood being ahead in almost all the swing states. Dont forget he won the three states that put him over the top by no more than 0.7% in the vote, where his poll numbers vs Trump have dropped about 8% with Trump now ahead in the npv by about 2% (and Dems likely need to be about +2-3 to counteract the Electoral College R advantage)
What liberals, and I am sort of one, a conservative Dem,, seem to repeat is that he should win, which I agree, but should has no bearing on whether he will win, which is a matter of public perception and he now has the worst approvals of any incumbent president running for re election since FDR, including worse than the losers- Carter, Ford, Bush Sr, and Trump.
As a Dem I can only hope that he reads the tea leaves and drops out.
Yup. Every word of this. I’ve been screaming it into the ether for 6 months. I find it immensely frustrating and infuriating that he hasn’t dropped out and that almost no prominent Dem has called for him to do so.
Well, if he dropped out, at least as soon as possible there would still be time for an abbreviated primary campaign that would not necessarily mean Harris had the green light or if he stays in long enough to have electors he could influence them toward whomever he pleases, though they would be free to vote as they please. I think what it would require is that the most prominent Dems- Obama, Clinton, Pelosi, Shumer - would need to intervene and push the scales.
Mountain State Independent here who voted Third-Party in both 2016 & 2020, who perhaps can give some non-biased, dispassionate perspective.
1. The number of voters who find Trump 'Appealing' is roughly equal to the number of voters who find Trump 'Appalling'. BOTH of those numbers combined are a minority of voters.
2. Other than regular readers of the NYT, WSJ and WAPO, most voters don't care much about politics. And while the readers of those three publications are passionate, vocal, and highly visible, all three groups COMBINED are a MINORITY of voters.
3. The majority of voters don't use dis-embodied statistics to judge things: Whether the economy is good or bad is determined by whether they have more or less money in their checking accounts at the end of each pay-period. Whether crime is up or down is determined by whether or not the toothpaste is locked up in Walgreens and CVS. Whether the country is going in the right or wrong direction is determined by whether or not they have to walk past homeless encampments in their towns.
4. The election will be determined by whether voters think their INDIVIDUAL lives will be better or worse with candidate 'A' or candidate 'B'.
5. As the late Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill correctly said so many years ago, "All politics is LOCAL".
JFC enough with this nonsense about early polls. The race is a RE-MATCH between two people who have BOTH been President before. We’ve not had a race like this since 1892. There weren’t even pollsters back then, so how can you draw any conclusions about how polls in a race like this perform? Without paying a single second of attention to either campaign, the voters can ALREADY DETERMINE who they like better, because they have SAMPLED both presidencies before. The Biden-Trump “Pepsi challenge” is OVER.
Polling in January 2016 and 2020 was more accurate than polling in October 2016 and October 2020. Liberals are just coping and grasping at straws and can't accept that Trump is crushing Sleepy Joe
No no no, it's so obvious how are you missing it? Young, progressive, self identifying BIPOC or LGBTQIA+ voters are so upset with Biden's handling of Gaza or his not being hawkish enough on climate change that they're going to vote for the notoriously pro-Palestine, pro-green energy, social justice minded Donald Trump.
Overall I agree with you, although I do think there's a risk of lower base turnout. The more leftish voters are younger who are less likely to vote in general, more easily disillusioned (due to everything being a new experience, not having seen how things work before, etc.) and are less likely to remember what the Trump administration was like, so if I had to bet on a politically engaged group most likely to sit things out it's them. Which is just one more reason Biden should have been pushing hard for swing voters from the beginning.
'and are less likely to remember what the Trump administration was like' pretty sure they remember the no wars and good economy you libtard propagandist
Aaron, I dont want to get in a pissing contest with anybody. I am somewhat of a conservative myself, and I dont like Biden, but I also believe in being nice and respectful, even to people you disagree with, and arguing using reason and not insults. Public discourse could be a way to learn and grow instead of a constant food fight. If you look at everything RealEuropeanPatriot says, it is pretty much constant insults and thumb in the eye post. Very little reason, just giving people the middle finger that he doesn't like. That to me is a troll. He is not discussing ideas but just using the anonymity of the internet to vent his anger and hatred. He wouldn't talk like that to anybody in his family or friends.
There was a time, and I am old enough to remember, when conservatives were polite, indeed it was part of our ethos, people like Buckley Jr. and it was the left that were the boors, and some still are. Is it too much to ask people of differing views to be respectful. We are all Americans, and I see little advantage to us hating each other. Lincoln said it well "A House Divided Cannot Stand".
'Anger and hatred' says the idiot from the party that called Trump
Takes a deep breath, clears throat, ahem: ''RACIST SEXIST LSMAPABHOPBIC HOMOPHOBIC FASSACIST NAAAZI INSUUUREECIUTONIST TREASON RUSSIAN AGENT STUPID FAT ORANGE MAN bla bla bla impeach!!!@!!!!'' and other stupid nonsense
Oh yes, 'when conservatives were polite' you mean when they were spineless and accepted being slandered as every 'ism' by the fake news media without saying a word back besides, 'Obama is my good friend'-Romney
Thankfully, that Republican Party is dead and never returning. You really hate that Republicans fight and win instead of losing quite as they used to. You hate Trump because he tells the truth and will jump down to your democrat level and beat you down in the mud. No matter how many propaganda articles CNN or MSNBC put out, he will call those propagandists fake news to their faces, and that's why we love Trump.
Why cant we get rid of this guy. He is just a troll that is looking for attention. He just posts thumb in the eye things to see if he can get people mad. It is senseless to argue with him.
This level of stupidity is expected from a liberal.
You moron The US is fighting a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, and the US is fighting Hamas together with Israel. This is not war for you. How stupid are you?
Also, yes, Americans have already died in Ukraine as dead NATO officers.
Very true about Obama, but his 2012 victory actually shows the downside of the turnout strategy. If he was a generational talent, and I agree he was, it’s surprising that he won by a slimmer margin in 2012 than 2008. That’s the opposite of the norm; he was the first president in since Roosevelt to win in that fashion. There is absolutely no substitute for persuasion.
One must be circumspect on Obama, which people seem to have a very hard time being. He was a talented orator and helped build a superior campaign effort. But he benefitted greatly from his "story," which was carefully crafted with a blend of reality and fiction (It's in his books). On governing, he was almost a complete failure as the Democratic party failed to ride his coattails and lost ground in every other dimension. He actually has been more successful in pulling the strings of the Biden administration and skirting constitutional safeguards through Biden's presidential powers. This is neither great leadership nor principled democracy. Voters are suspicious, which contributes to Biden's weakness. And, of course, Trump is always the bull elephant in the room.
As we get further from Obama’s presidency I think it’s pretty clear he was a solidly above average president. Considering what he inherited and what he handed off to Trump might be the biggest improvement in 8 years. So Reagan inherited a bad situation but we know Carter had actually started making some of the tough reforms necessary to change the economic trajectory…Bush was making things worse while walking out the door like escalating Afghanistan. If you think Trump’s first 3 years was good then you actually think Obama was a very good president.
Obama was a bad president. His choice to cement a partnership between the us government and the tech oligarchs made him an anti progressive. He should have used the states tax and regulatory power to curtail their power. Instead he sold out for political gain and personal gain as he and admin ended up getting lucrative payouts and jobs from these titans. He destroyed Libya for little reason, pulled out of Iraq creating a vacuum so we had to pour troops back in. Ignored Iranians slaughtered by their government and instead rewarded those murders with billions of dollars via sanctions relief. Money used to fund the very groups attacking America and Israel. He drew a red line in Syria that was ignored and empowered Putin in the region rather than follow through on his threats. On Ukraine he blathered about the wrong side of history and tried to economically blackmail Putin and failed setting the stage for the current disaster. Many of the problems we have now , including a barely functioning president can trace right back to him, but what does Obama care? He is sitting pretty in his Martha’s Vineyard compound while the rest of the country is trying to afford basic staples.
Agree. Obama sold out to Wall St first because that was how the Clintons became successful and that's what put him in office during the GFC. To pass the ACA he sold out to the big HC providers and insurers. I suspect he fully expected these capitalists to hoist themselves from their own petards when populist politics subsequently turned against them = mission accomplished. Unfortunately, we plebes are left with much higher healthcare and insurance costs and WS has created a financial oligarchy.
yup, ill never forget when he made a deal with Big Pharama in exchange for their support and a 60 million dollar ad buy. Perhaps it was smart politics but it ended up being bad policy.
Agree. The Obama admin was all smart political tactics to overcome policy resistance. (Pelosi and Schumer are the legislative "experts.") It's the Progressive Dilemma: how to pass policies that the electorate won't vote for but are deemed by progressives as "for the public good." This was most evident in the ACA politics. Smart politics or anti-democratic?
Pangolin: Your argument is devoid of accomplishments, but rather that some things improved while he was sitting in the chair. That's hardly a ringing endorsement. Many things degenerated, especially internationally and socially. The most egregious failure I believe is that the country became far more divided, racially, economically, and ideologically. He was not the uniter, and like most politicians, great at shifting blame. But you can also see I'm not evaluating him in comparison to other POTUSes but to the results we got from his weak leadership. Most POTUSes have very mixed results and historical context matters, but the question is whether they get the big things right. Obama really did not. And he had an historic opportunity as the first mixed race POTUS.
Again, you're trying to burnish Obama by comparing him to Bush or any other POTUS, and with pure conjecture. Those are interpretations driven by opinions and there's little point to arguing opinions. Like I said before, people can't objectify Obama.
I can, America was much stronger in 2016 than in 2008. In fact the biggest problem in 2016 was energy was too cheap which is the best “problem” for America to have.
Btw, if a candidate has a problem with swing voters it's because their policy platform and/or their campaign strategy stinks. Democracy is about appealing to the center, not GOTV.
You sort of touched on this in your other comment, but I think both Biden and Obama failed to govern as much from the center to the degree promised, and this is why Obama lost some votes in 2012 and why Biden appears to be currently set to lose votes (whether or not he loses the election).
And from where I’m sitting, the gap in the Biden Admin’s campaign from its reality seems larger than under Obama. Yet I knew a number of people in 2008 who had mostly leaned R historically, took a chance with Obama and regretted it, flipping back to Romney in 2012.
Clinton was a President who did manage to shift to the center after the 1994 mid-terms, which probably had something to do with his expanded success in 1996.
But it seems it’s harder to do than Clinton made it look. It’s probably especially hard if you’re very old and don’t have the energy to force your staff to stay on message and govern farther to the right than they would care to.
Agree, it is almost impossible to appeal to the unaffiliated center because both parties have validated the extremes in their platforms and their down-ballot candidates. The political failure we are experiencing is that the parties and the media are driving the electorate into undemocratic territory. Both need to stay relevant to survive at the cost of sustainable, stable democracy. This is a thorough failure of elite leadership.
I would certainly agree that that's how democracy *should* work, but in a polarised, low-swing political culture like the USA I can see how differential turnout would be relatively more important compared to other democracies.
"Nevertheless, Biden does have a lot of substantive, bipartisan accomplishments that he can tout. The White House often doesn’t focus on this, instead devoting a high percentage of their bandwidth to the dangers of Trump." So true--scares lifetime Dems maybe but indicative of failures to inform/tout so many good things. Google "Biden for President" and all you get is a site that lets you donate, donate, donate and a video. Nothing about his accomplishments. Look further down in Google search list and it will suggest a White House site. There you get wonky lists and lists of great things he has indeed done, but it is all college-level answers and no sense of a designed-to-inform format. Nor are you invited to ask a question if you click on what seems like an opp to do that. True, websites don't win elections, but just indicative of not even trying to message wherever possible. Moreover, strong Democrats who want to help don't get any sense of what their polling says will resonate with independents to help convey that message in letters to the editor or in conversations.
But national politics is never really about "messaging" and talking a good game; it's about results that people experience. Partisans who don't like the political results always seem to blame it on messaging rather than the policy direction. Voters are not sheep.
Unfortunately, you reveal your own biases in your analysis. Seems that nobody in the political media can resist their ideological and partisan biases, but the problem comes when it slants their analysis. Why carry water for Democrats? Or Republicans? Or either Trump or Biden? We need better political leaders and the problem is systemic.
Biden is in a whole heap of trouble with the electorate, but nobody who's poisoned by the TDS Kool-aid can admit it. So they put the ball in their opponent's court and Trump is no slouch when it comes to outplaying his enemies. C'est la guerre.
I appreciate the analysis, but to be brutally honest, you undercut it with statements like, "many Democrats are also racial minorities who can face steeper barriers to voting."
Can someone please explain to me what specific barriers black or brown people face to voting? In 2024, not 1964? Not based on class (poor and broke people have a variety of barriers to many things, some of which are unjust) but based on their skin color. Can anyone actually think of any?
Fewer polling stations (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/smartphone-data-show-voters-in-black-neighborhoods-wait-longer1/), worse mail service (https://www.propublica.org/article/whether-the-ballot-you-mail-is-counted-may-depend-on-where-you-vote), closures of govt offices to register (could be a class thing as I only read synopsis and not the paper), higher felony conviction rates (although that one's a small group)
The SA article addresses longer wait times not fewer polling stations. That minorities wait longer is likely true so Nate is correct. I think the argument is whether there is a racial bias, where I think it is mostly about urban vs rural, where you wait a lot more urban for all sorts of things- DMV, your latte, etc. On the other hand if you looked at drive times to polling stations it is longer in rural and that skews against white voters.
I think there is a liberal narrative that this reflects conscious racism where I dont think that is true and eg in the case of the more restrictive Georgia voting laws they actually introduced solutions to reduce waiting time in those precincts where it occurred even as they reduced early voting and photo ID etc.
Laws such as voter ID can actually increase turnout as people become increasingly vested in the electoral process.
Rob, that is actually fascinating. I didn't realize that and when I went looking to verify it, you're 100% correct.
https://www.povertyactionlab.org/evaluation/effects-voter-id-notification-voter-turnout-united-states
The article is about the effect of sending postcards out to inform voters of ID requirements not about showing whether ID laws effect turnout.
Since few Americans lack picture ID, and it is not hard to get it, I dont see where this will have a huge effect but likely some.
Intuitively, some on the right may be more encouraged to vote, but I dont think there is much evidence that people are not voting because they suspect fraud. If Trump wins, and as of this moment he is favored, despite all the people that complain about fraud (only when Dems win, they avoid the real documented fraud that involves the GOP like the only cancelled HOR election in recent history, Google McRae Dowless) they seem to vote. Most of the voter fraud believers think it is the Dems who do it, but the Rs win half the elections so I dont think they are deterred from voting in elections where Rs have a chance.
And on the left, I think again intuitively that there has to be some amount of, not highly motivated voters , without drivers licenses, who wont bother to go through the hoops to get ID who might otherwise vote, and that this is a cohort that leans Dem (one study showed that 8% of white voters have no picture ID vs 25% of black voters).
Either way I dont think it would effect a lot of people, but of the two groups- voters who dont vote because they dont trust election integrity, vs voters who have no picture ID and dont make the effort to get it, I think the latter is a bigger group.
My own feeling is that voter ID is OK, but it needs to be in a way where it is very easy to get said ID other than just drivers licenses.
_Renewing_ a government ID isn't that hard. Getting even a replacement (let alone the first government-issued photo ID) is a lot harder than you might assume, if you haven't recently tried it. It is less difficult if you are still a minor, when either school ID or parent's ID can count to establish (to the issuing office) who you are.
Voting is a habit and as people invest time into the process they become increasingly comfortable with the process and their internal efficacy (fancy talk for confidence) goes up. And if you put the effort in your dang straight going to vote or you wasted your time!
easier just to say fewer polling stations than the litany of causes that stem from the same issue of underfunded electoral infra: "... the researchers acknowledged the phone data were only a proxy for voting wait time, which could result from anything—ballots that take a while to fill out, a lack of parking spaces or too few voting machines". article mentions the conclusion of the study is black people wait ~29% longer, plus other potential interaction effects like less flexible working hours and the like that make longer waiting times more punitive. happy for georgia, and i'm sure there is a narrative like that in SJL/progressive circles, but there's still a good amount of evidence indicating such
Longer wait times don't imply fewer polling stations. I suspect urban environments likely have longer wait times and rural environments likely have longer travel distances.
The second article is a perfect example of why mail voting is a lousy idea: too many opportunities for nefarious actors (of either party) to influence what gets counted.
Is there really something hard about showing up at a location within walking distance of your house (except for rural folks, of course) at any point between 6 AM and 8 PM on a single given day, showing your ID, filling out a form on a computer screen, and dropping the resulting printout in a box? If you are even a marginally functional human being, this isn't a high barrier to cross.
but to your main point about perceived laziness: yes. if you read the article, you'll see it mentions interaction barriers with longer wait times like lack of flexible hours or childcare resources. plus, further, there are less polling stations in blacker neighborhoods (https://www.npr.org/2020/10/17/924527679/why-do-nonwhite-georgia-voters-have-to-wait-in-line-for-hours-too-few-polling-pl) and i suspect they aren't walking distance, although it seems like neither have a basis to claim distance
can see my response to the other guy, but it would've been better for me to have summarized as "fewer polling station resources"
The fewer polling boxes/voter is pretty clearly established as sometimes still intentional, though I don't know how widespread that is. (Not every county commission or clerk goes on the record with planned bad behavior, though some do.) I have had trouble with out-of-town work schedules changing on short notice. City polling places are physically closer, but they're more likely to be a place you've never gone (or couldn't even get into) otherwise, and there is a lot more room for "nope, you're at the wrong precinct" shenanigans. These obviously also hit white folks like me, but whether they hit me as often ... is hard to know. Just because the election worker was wrong about me (or my Mom) doesn't mean they weren't actually correct about the strangers who got a similar story.
Many countries with their shit together manage to handle mail voting without nefarious actors, why does it need to be such a big deal in the US? Such a nothingburger
I suspect those countries have much simpler ballots, and that many of them also have postal service that remains more reliable even in bad neighborhoods. The increase in deliveries (and porch pirates) is probably starting to equalize the not-actually-delivered problem within the US.
It’s also likely a significant amount of blacks are not in the habit of voting as machine politics is not uncommon in many areas making local elections somewhat moot. When politicians are getting 90 percent of the vote and the only marginaly important race is the primary what’s the point if turning out
I'm reminded of an old line that I've forgotten the source of: 51% is a win. 60% is a mandate. 70% is a landslide. 90% is North Korea.
Washington D.C. voted 92% for Joe Biden in the last election.
I really do not understand this idea at all. In FL one can register when getting a library card.
I mean the actual data has shown that voter fraud happens in the dozens per election and that voter ID + signature laws suppress thousands of mostly minority votes per election. Just like Jim Crow, none of these laws specifically target skin color but they are researched, designed, and enforced in a way that disproportionately targets people of color.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/voter-suppression/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/12/20/voter-fraud-prosecutions-2020/
https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/ensure-every-american-can-vote/vote-suppression
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/north-carolina-voting-rights-law/493649/
https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2021/04/13/desantis-wants-voters-signatures-to-match-would-his-pass-the-test/
https://ballardbrief.byu.edu/issue-briefs/disenfranchisement-and-suppression-of-black-voters-in-the-united-states
Any talk of voter fraud is Russian disinformation. American elections are 100% secure. Oh, you mean voter fraud by Republicans? Well, certainly that's real. :-)
More seriously, yes, voter fraud happens. I was involved years ago in B-1 Bob Dornan's Congressional re-election campaign in Orange County. When he lost by about 1000 votes, Bob was convinced that illegal immigrants voting had skewed the results. He may well have been right, but it's essentially impossible to prove that an illegal immigrant voted, since (at the time) most used fake names, IDs and social security numbers. (This was before we started issuing ID's and TINs to illegals.) I think we found 3 or 4 confirmed cases of fraud by illegals -- miniscule -- and Bob lost.
Ironically, had Bob been smarter (he was pugnacious but not that bright) he might well have won his case. Dead people vote all the time in America, especially in states like CA that don't cross-reference death certificates and voter reg files. We found a number of cases of that in his race, but Bob was too focused on illegals to pay attention.
I agree. Certainly things like class, lack of transportation, lack of babysitter, lack of citizenship, criminal record, can play a role, and those do disproportionally effect minority populations, but that is not a matter of race, and many of those issues are mute with polls of registered voters.
Lack of citizenship?
I guess that is irrelevant if they are only polling registered voters but I might guess some polls just poll anybody that answers the phone or are reached on line.
This is a good question. I would love for Nate to take it on. I am curious what the data shows that supports his statement.
It shows that minority voters are disproportionately targeted.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/voter-suppression/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/12/20/voter-fraud-prosecutions-2020/
https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/ensure-every-american-can-vote/vote-suppression
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/north-carolina-voting-rights-law/493649/
https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2021/04/13/desantis-wants-voters-signatures-to-match-would-his-pass-the-test/
https://ballardbrief.byu.edu/issue-briefs/disenfranchisement-and-suppression-of-black-voters-in-the-united-states
The Left's "voter suppression" kind of seems like a mirror of MAGA's "voter fraud". Both are convinced it's real, but when you try and pin it down in a court (for example) it always seems to evaporate.
I don’t trust journalists takes. You haven’t provided data. A few articles I couldn’t read because they have pay walls. We have so many people in academia doing research it’s unfortunate we can’t get to a more solid truth instead of politically partisan journalists putting out nonsense. I should read more about the NC case. That one may have legs. But the left has taken a position of any laws that create any barrier to voting is racism. Just like any laws that restrict immigration is racism. I need more than that. Why is a voter id law racist? I do think Republicans favor them because they think it provides political advantage. But that’s not necessarily racism. I also wonder if the economic demographics of Republicans change (less education) they may be wrong about the impact of stricter I’d laws.
Do you have a *right* to vote if the state has moved your polling drop box a day’s drive away and your boss will not let you take time off from work to vote, and you really need your job?
"a day's drive away": any credible reporting of that?
Saw it explained by a young abortion supporter on Mark Elias’s YouTube channel “Democracy Docket” last night. As in “I saw it on the Internet”. Happy? I see no need for any statistics with a situation like that.
Was this in Alaska? I don’t think too many states are big enough for polling stations to be a day’s drive away, even if they only had one polling station.
You could take out the whole polling place distance, call it five minutes away, but if you cannot get off work to vote, the important thing is whether you can be said to have a ”right” so easily defeasible.
No, somewhere in the south. The comment she made was an obvious exaggeration to make a point that should be more than obvious.
Just a tip: in fraught discussions like this where bad faith abounds and suspicions are understandably high, making a statement you know to be false for rhetorical effect does not do your position any favors in the long run.
Who needs a polling drop box when people like Zuckerberg were paying people to pick up ballots, illegally, and “assist” with filling them out.
It’s a matter of correlation. As you said, class may matter in terms of barriers to voting.Class is correlated with race and (non-white) race has been correlated with voting for Democrats. So the statement is correct in terms of correlation rather than causation.
It is the causation which matters in this case though. "Black people face barriers to voting because they're mote likely to be poor and live in violent areas" is very different than "black people are systematically denied their right to vote because they're black".
They've systematically made it somewhat more difficult for the urban poor to vote. They aren't targeting minorities specifically, they are casting a wide net and hoping to reduce more D votes than R votes.
You haven't made the case that it's systemic or even intentional at all. For example, urban blacks are far more likely to live in "food deserts", where the nearest major grocery store is at least 5 miles away. That's not because grocery store owners are all Klansmen who hate black people. It's because urban black neighborhoods have FAR higher rates of both property and violent crime, problems which make it very hard to be profitable in such locations. The correlation has nothing to do with race at all.
"Casting a wide net and hoping to reduce more X than Y votes" is something that every party in power does, and always has. That's called politics. Mayor Daley was great at it.
I think it's shitty to try to reduce legitimate voting. I get annoyed when anyone does it, and annoyed when partisans bend over backwards to excuse it.
But to your point, I was agreeing with you that it's not "racist". Even if they explicitly targeted minorities, because they know minorities tend to be democrats, it's not a sign that they are racist. It's just shitty people who are trying to "win" the game by cheating a little.
Of course, racist or not, it might still be unconstitutional.
I agree with you about being annoyed when politicians put up roadblocks to voting. I am equally annoyed when politicians seek to eliminate all access rules to the ballot box (like Merrick Garland announced this morning -- going after the 8 states that require ID to vote, something that about 70% of all Americans believe is a good idea.)
People who are non-felonious citizens should be able to vote (relatively) easily.
Others must be denied access to voting.
These goals are both important but often in conflict.
Is it your position that Democrats are making it harder for minorities to vote in urban areas? The vast majority of urban areas are run by Democrats, and for the largest urban areas that advantage is enough to carry the state as well (NY, IL, CA).
If you're not claiming that Democrats are the ones causing this issue, then the scope of the "voter suppression" is necessarily much smaller than you are implying, and should not be relevant at all in most cases.
No, I'm talking about state laws and state level rules, in red and purple states. And as I said, they aren't explicit about making it harder for minorities to vote, they just *happen* to make it harder for minorities to vote.
If you're a shithead who doesn't believe in democracy, then it feels good to make a law that results in 30,000 fewer R votes and 50,000 fewer D votes.
It's hard to tell the "scope", because the United States always has these stupidly tight elections. The House, Senate, and Presidency always come down to like a 1% margin.
https://www.npr.org/2020/10/17/924527679/why-do-nonwhite-georgia-voters-have-to-wait-in-line-for-hours-too-few-polling-pl
"Many Democrats are also racial minorities who can face steeper barriers to voting." Very weird that a statement of fact bothers you this much. Whether or not the reason that minorities experience difficulties voting is because of their minority status is completely immaterial to nates points. Its just a statement of fact, who cares if its because they are poor or because of cities or whatever other excuse you made up to delegitimize nates actual point. It still has the very real impact of reducing a specific demographics' ability to vote and their representation. In this case, ala nates point, democrats risk losing votes from this demographic. It doesn't matter the reasons for this in the context of this article . I suggest adhering to the topic at hand, as all of your comments are completely imatterial to the point being made when referencing that quote that sent you so.
FWIW I found your tone pretty biased and pretentious.
It's not a "statement of fact", Taylor. It is a theory, a hypothetical, the veracity of which can be determined by appealing to facts. Which is precisely my point. I am unaware of any significant obstacles that racial minorities face to voting in 2024. Nor can I realistically think of any that could be implemented post-VRA -- courts are pretty strict about disparate impact rules.
You're correct that it's not relevant to Nate's overall point, which is why I mentioned it. It's a throwaway comment from a very serious political pundit that reinforces a perception that likely is not accurate. The folks who have commented here, even those like spencer who believe it be a more serious problem than I do, are reticent to attribute the policies to racial targeting, and as Mr. Doolittle said, the urban areas we're talking about are all deep-blue, with elections run (machined sometimes?) by Democrats top to bottom.
Voting legitimacy means making sure that those who are allowed to vote can do so relatively easily while those not allowed do not pollute the ballot box. Often a policy that makes A easier makes B harder and visa versa, but they are both necessary for fair and legitimate elections. The erosion of electoral legitimacy among Americans is very bipartisan, and is a far bigger "threat to democracy" than either candidate.
The irony is that because of their decentralized nature, our Presidential elections are probably the most reliable and secure in the world. The perception (in this case) is completely incorrect. Where ballot box stuffing would be easy to implement (those areas under solid single-party control, of either party) are the exact areas where the electoral college ensures it wouldn't help anyway.
I think you’re being a bit pedantic. Most “facts” in the soft sciences are built on the back of other facts. Ps I’m typing on my phone here so the formatting is impossible to decipher for me.
I think you’re misunderstanding my comment to an extent. The only part of the comment irrelevant to Nate’s point is your interpretation of it. Your weird assertion that the very real issues minorities face when voting have to be because of race directly to matter is the irrelevant part. The barriers to voting minorities face are relevant to Nate’s point as they directly impact, albeit marginally, dems voting totals. That being said your critique that it’s a throw away point isn’t uncalled for as like I said it’s likely a marginal impact. But idk if we know enough to truly say how large this impact is or could be during a close election.
Incredibly anecdotally the idea of a line at my voting location is hilarious to me. Every time I’ve voted I walk in, walk up to a person at a desk, sign my name, get handed a ballot, vote, put it in the machine and leave. There’s like 5 voting locations for 5-7 thousand people in the suburban and rural towns around my area all at most a 10 minute drive from the others. Including my drive I can usually vote on my lunch break and still get lunch.
It’s not exactly a far leap to assert than since a higher percentage of minorities live in cities where, idk, they actually have lines, sometimes for hours, to vote that that may disproportionately discourage minorities from voting. I mean damn I’m not voting in my primaries if I have to take two hrs off work to wait in line. That’s wild to pretend it’s not a detrimental factor.
That’s just a very basic example as many people have brought that up and many other relevant points that you’re pretty dismissive of. But I’ll definitely have to reread your comments tomorrow to further understand your perspective.
I think you bring up some good points further along in your comment but see below lol.
Pss I will look at this in the am to reanalyze all of this as I’m pretty tired after a 10+ hr work day.
Cities are crowded and things tend to take longer. It's true at the SS office, the DMV, WalMart, and the voting booth. My polling place is like yours, but I live in a city of 20K people. More than half of my town is minority though and I can assure you their wait is no longer than mine, since there are only 2 polling locations in town.
If minorities are commonly waiting hours in major cities, when those cities are all run by Democrats and said minorities vote Democratic by 70%+ margins, it seems the Democrat-dominated election boards should open more polling places.
Ok, well, seeing as what dems could do in the future to address this issue is immaterial to nate's point, I'm not sure what your point is there. Granted I don't disagree entirely with your conclusion that dems should address this going forward.
Additionally you're trying to have your cake and eat it too at this point. Are minority voters disenfranchised or not? You presented points seemily attempting to argue both perspectives.
Lastly I dont think you're taking into account the effects of things like gerrymandering that can be used to intentionally weaken minority voter strength leading to less confidence in the voting process and less voting frequency among constituents. Voter enthusiasm is definitely a barrier to voting on a community wide scale.
So inconclusion I dont think its fair to throw shade at Nate for referencing a very real phenomena, so real you cant seem to pick which side of the debate you're on, that can have an impact in many ways on the very thing nate is talking about, voter turnout impacting elections.
There are a lot of ways. In red states from voter ID laws to where ballot boxes are placed are almost always purposely skewed to apply more to voters of color than white voters. Just like Jim Crow laws, they don't explicitly day black people have to jump through more hoops, but they are researched, designed, and enforced so as to disproportionately put more and more hurdles up in front of voters of color. Pretty much every look at the data has shown people of color's votes are still getting suppressed, the most common counterargument is that it often doesn't suppress those votes *quite enough* to have swung some specific elections.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/voter-suppression/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/12/20/voter-fraud-prosecutions-2020/
https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/ensure-every-american-can-vote/vote-suppression
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/07/north-carolina-voting-rights-law/493649/
https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2021/04/13/desantis-wants-voters-signatures-to-match-would-his-pass-the-test/
https://ballardbrief.byu.edu/issue-briefs/disenfranchisement-and-suppression-of-black-voters-in-the-united-states
I’m mid 60’s. Democrat my entire adult life. Gave thousands of dollars. After Covid, and all that it revealed about democrats, never again. None of your speculations apply to me and others who see the party as illiberal (that’s the kindest word I can use to describe the despicable conduct since 2016).
I'm curious-- and I don't disagree that it was mishandled - what do you think COVID revealed about Democrats?
In my opinion, it revealed their totalitarian tendoncies.
It made it crystal clear that Democrats are the party of authoritarians. The mask is off.
Well democrats brought back segregation again so there is that.
I was being kind by referring to them as "illiberal." But that is the essence of it. The dem response to Covid, which I don't really think was a "thing," other than a power and money grab, caused me to look more closely at the Russia collusion mess, the DEI monster and all the rest, seeing how they (dems) behaved similarly in various contexts -- that is, lying, opposing freedom of thought and speech, and having no regard for bodily autonomy (except for abortion on demand, at any time, without restriction -- oh, and the freedom of children to surgically alter their bodies). Add to that their alignment with the defense and intelligence complex, as well the pharma industry, and I'd say it's not the party of a 1970's liberal (which is how I would characterize myself).
This is so me. Every single point.
I'm sorry to say, you're not typical of the kind of person this poll is capturing. For one thing, you've donated thousands of dollars, so you're politically active. You very likely voted in 2022. We know you're not typical because Biden's donation numbers are setting records (including number of individual donors), and people who voted in 2022 were more likely to vote for Democrats than expected.
What this poll is saying is that there is a large group of people who don't really pay attention to politics, probably didn't vote in 2022 or any of the other elections since 2020, certainly didn't donate to any political candidate, voted for Biden in 2020, and currently plan to vote for Trump in 2024.
Huh, I thought both parties responded exactly how I would expect to a pandemic.
(Obviously Trump himself was weird, but his response was typical Trump)
It was interesting watching individuals respond in such wildly different ways.
I would posit illegal immigration is a key reason. When even left leaning cities are flooded with illegals and they have to share the cost traditionally borne by border towns, they realize that Democrats have intentionally allowed up to 10 million illegals in. Schools and hotels in NYC being used to house illegals. Female students being murdered by illegals. Crime gangs in Southern California originating from South America conducting a rash of burglaries and robberies. This is the issue Biden polls weakest in.
Trump will put the fear of God into these groups. Peace through strength.
Registered college grad D, lack of primary in FL very discouraging.
Will prob vote for RFKjr. Will not vote for Biden.
You oppose vaccination? There's literally a measles outbreak in Florida thanks to RFK Jr and his ilk.
Who did you vote for in 12, 16, and 20?
RFK’s kids were vaxxed. There’s more to the story. Listen/read what he has to say about it all. Not the untruth that keeps getting repeated.
No I don't oppose vaccination but a lot of what RFKjr says on other topics deserves to be heard. I would never vote for JB due to his chairing of the Senate Judiciary Hearings and his treatment of Anita Hill. Also, Biden's role in creating the student debt crisis when he was Senator from Delaware was inexcusable. I voted for Howie Hawkins in 2020. HRC in 2016.
Lmao so you’ve already proven to be irrelevant to this conversation focusing on Biden to Trump voters
I am not irrelevant. I'm a registered D who will be living in a swing state in time to have residency to vote in the General election. Have been D precinct captain for years. It is mistaken to write off anyone. That is how elections are lost.
you're asking to be written off yourself.
it's not tricky to understand what making an ultimatum does.
all this is going to do is encourage Biden to try to capture those disgruntled haley voters who'd otherwise pull the level for donny.
Bull crap, she has every right to vote Third part or not vote at all. Your ire at her choice points to the fact that you recognize her decision will have impact, that is the exact opposite of being written off.
I don't vote against any candidate. I vote for the candidate whose platform and historical record seems best to me. I take the time to do this for all state offices including county commission, county offices and judicial positions. I have been a delegate to state Democratic conventions. I have belonged to the local DEC and attended its monthly meetings. I attend forums and debates among candidates. I have interviewed candidates for my central labor council. I have worked exclusively on Democratic campaigns including county commission, governor and president. I have donated to candidates. What I do not do-- vote as someone tells me to vote.
Must be pretty weird being a liberal in Trump country and not voting against Trump.
Oh no, someone has the measles. Better shut down the world.
Yes we should vaccinate children. This is not a controversial idea
Obviously it is not so simple. In the US we don’t provide or recommend every vaccine that exists to children; we recommend some. As an example, when I brought my kids to India for 6 months in 2010 we got additional vaccines for them that they otherwise would not have had as part of the regular US schedule.
So, not all vaccines are recommended for children in the US. Some medical reasoning is required to determine which ones belong on the schedule. And since COVID the CDC’s recommendations for vaccines & boosters for children are out of step with most of the world’s - say, Europe’s & Japan’s, for instance.
And these recommendations of the CDC *are* controversial.
And, frankly, hard to defend in the case of COVID boosters for, for instance, healthy 4 year olds who’ve been previously vaccinated and infected twice, say. Quite frankly, the recommendations are not even defendable scientifically in some cases, and will certainly be changed over the next couple years.
The sad thing is that the CDC has damaged its credibility substantially. Predictably, this leads to lower vaccine uptake of vaccines that really are clearly in the best interest of children.
The vaccines you got for India is because the diseases are in India. Obviously there's no point in getting a shot if you can't catch the disease.
With COVID it's more like the disease doesn't usually do much, and the vaccine also doesn't do much. Which I guess is a controversy but it's a pretty boring one.
It would be pretty funny if Americans went back to dying of measles.
Yeah the 10 million people who have come from areas with health care less then ours have nothing to do with the reemergence of certain diseases
100% agree, we should vaccinate migrants too
Florida is safely Republican so it won't be determinative. Christian Nationalism is by far the biggest threat to this country and by extension to the world, and a Republican win will mean all the 'guardrails' are gone as the party will have more power than anyone since at least the 1960s. America does not understand this yet and may have to learn it the hard way.
“Christian Nationalism is by far the biggest threat to this country and by extension to the world,”
What color is the sky on your planet, you absolute loon? 🤣
The Founders were Christian Nationalists. It’s not we who are flooding the nation with illegals, terrorists, fentanyl and trafficked minors.
No they weren't. A ton of the founders weren't even Christian. Thomas Jefferson wasn't a Christian for example.
If not Christian, then deists at least.
Christianity is rapidly dying in the US. The only young people who believe in God these days are your illegals.
And look how that’s turning out. Record depression in our youth. Addicted to social media. Teens out of control wilding in malls. Assaulting teachers. But hey at least they aren’t Christian!
Violent crime is about 1/2 what is was in my day.
But yes, I agree it's pretty unfortunate that we invented Fentanyl and the Internet. Not sure you can really blame the kiddos for either of those things.
FL is only safely R. now because Florida Ds didn't make good choices in state races esp. Crist who had been R. and FL Ds remembered that.
So FL Ds got discouraged. Until mid 1990s FL was blue. Not having a D primary in FL this year is a really a poor decision.
Lol deranged democRAT lunatic believes Dementia Joe can win Florida LMAOO
I'm not deranged. I think a primary along the I-4 corridor would have created support, but FL decided not to have one.
Trump will win Florida by double digits. Florida is a red state now. Don't you like it? Move to California, your democratic heaven with insanely high taxes, unaffordable housing, and out-of-control crime. That's exactly what you want. don't worry Uhals going to California are 500 times cheaper than one moving out of California because everyone is fleeing that liberal sh*thole, and you want to bring those policies to Florida because you don't have common sense.
California housing prices are certainly higher than they should be if we allowed more building to take place.
Having said that, the main reason for the price difference between Florida and California is that far, far more people want to live here rather than Florida. Also, the violent crime rates are almost identical in California and Florida (although the murder rate in Florida is much higher).
Followers of Christ among the so-called 'Christian Nationalists' are rare as hen's teeth.
Suspect 'White Supremacists' is a more apt a description of this group's center.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/10/27/in-their-own-words-how-americans-describe-christian-nationalism/
But increasingly overtly, the racists and 'women-hood' protectors (always linked in the southern patriarchy & WS tradition) are co-opting the religious right, thanks to tfg's divisive encouragement of hate toward their fellows.
America's enemies must be thrilled!
Check out some of the posts on this substack:
https://open.substack.com/pub/project2025istheocracy?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=l0fb9
She grew up among these people so she recognizes what's going on in a way that a lot of the rest of us might not.
I'm a preacher's kid, long line of evangelists..., gave my first fire-and-brimstone sermon at age 15... pretty familiar with both the good and bad of this group.
Most who claim the name of Christ in this country these days (I'm not one) are neither philosophical nor religious followers of Christ's teaching; most (not all) are simply tribesmen born into a tradition of domination of others, and who wrap themselves in a flag of superiority and 'the cloth' of self-righteousness. They are characterized by a concept of 'freedom' FROM moral or legal oversight of their desired dominion of others - First Americans, slaves, minorities, women.
Also suggest 'Freedom's Dominion' by Jefferson Cowie - a good read and excellent synthesis both.
... but seems I'm balking at allowing this group to be called, or to call themselves 'Christian' anything, since they are not, in my view. And I seriously respect the approach to peace and co-existence that Christ exemplified. Think in a nuclear age a little forgiveness and tolerance gets human civilization a bit further along than the old testament 'eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth' (e.g., Zionists v Hamas).
Multiple round prisoners dilemma games show that Tit for Tat is a superb strategy in a world where communication is perfect. In a world where miscommunication is quite possible, i.e. the real world, Tit for Tat with forgiveness is a superior strategy.
"Do unto others twenty-five percent better than you expect them to do unto you to correct for subjective error."
Great comment!!
Yes I saw this result (perhaps even the one you cite - was it published in Scientific American? or was it some hacker contest? I forget - would love it if you can point me back to the source of this demonstration!!)
Such a fascinating result - and I've been an advocate (on both humanist and science bases) of a little turning of the cheek ever since!!! And my respect for the insight/intuition of that guy Jesus definitely went up a few notches.
PS Around 50 years ago, in college, I was fascinated by the observation that 'altruistic' behavior could be selected by a gene-based natural selection of the fittest. E.O. Wilson's work in Sociobiology (ants), and also a guy named Trivers (who worked with blue jays as I vaguely recall?), and made a mathematical model for the evolution of 'reciprocal altruism' (1971). I used that idea for decades before reading the tit for tat gaming results... fun stuff for nerds.
Survival stuff for normal humanoids.
Yes I think it's probably more accurate to say the interest groups and the 'elites' behind this incarnation of the Republican party tend to subscribe to Christian Nationalism, which is definitely distinct from Christianity. They want to remake America into a country where men dominate women, Whites dominate people of color, LGBT people don't exist, and science, art, and intellectualism are debased. They also have no interest in preserving democracy here or elsewhere. They claim the bible as their source but only accept their own interpretation of it. They've had the most success of all the Republican factions at controlling the party, and they're particularly devoted to Trump because they have determined they can use him for their own ends. As to what motivates individual voters, many of them do what they are told by the leaders of their communities.
Think that's fair.
Its not white nationalist who might put Trump in the White House it going to be..
Black Nationalists
Asian Nationalists
Gay Nationalists
Women Nationalists
Hispanic Nationalists
and on and on. Your view of the Trump coalition is a caricature.
The irony then. I live in Southern California and am not white. I am a follower of Christ. All of my family and close friends are not white. They are Trump supporters. The racist trope is so very 2016. We support Trump not because he’s a moral man but because his policies are moral. The left is destroying everything they touch.
Christianity is a deeply immoral belief system. Christains, like all religious people, lack critical thinking and rationality needed to be moral.
Zach is lost.
Yes , I am not a democrat but letting party types rig the game is bad for all of us
So many in FL feel let down.
The strange part is it’s counterproductive, even if it was hard fight Biden would likely win. But a fever pitch election motivates the voters and gets them pumped for the big show against the other party. An example would be 2008, the most contested primary I could think of between Clinton and Obama . When it was over things were patched and a motivated party swept the election
Obama was able to register new voters during each state nominating contest in 2008…the long primary benefited him although Bush was so awful that Obama would have still beat McCain even with a short primary just with fewer votes. But what most people forget is that Hillary won what would become Trump’s best counties when he ran.
Likely true but firing up the party certainly helped the Tsunami of victories Congressional Democrats also scored.
HRC won FL in 2008 but because the party had changed the date of the primary the DNC decided to split the electors.
This is my plan also. If I vote for RFK, Jr., it will be the first time in my life that I did not vote Democrat for President. Now, I may change my mind - I don’t want to throw away my vote. But as it stands today, I am supporting RFK, Jr. I detest Trump, I like Biden (although I don’t love him) but I think he is aging too significantly to serve another term.
A lot of good points, but no emphasis on the border. Something Biden can do more to fix and it’s important to voters.
And then you will demand credit for reducing the fire you started? the border didn't need fixing until Biden destroyed it
It wasn’t really a problem for two entire decades before Trump became president and he was yelling just as loudly about it then and tbh, it makes it really hard to give a fuck as a younger person when the same rhetoric existed when it seemingly wasn’t a problem too.
'Younger person'
'two decades ago'
Get with the times, man, you are not a 'young person' Boomer.
Also, you fucking idiot, two decades ago, millions of illegals weren't storming the border every year; it didn't reach a million in 8 years. The invasion has reached a breaking point.
Yes, it was higher or comparable to this over two decades ago.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/11/09/whats-happening-at-the-u-s-mexico-border-in-7-charts/
But I’m the fuckin’ idiot because I’m not going off of vibes and number of videos taken at the border, I guess. Who hurt you?
You're a fucking idiot because you believe millions of criminals entering the country is a good thing. If only we could give the illegal immigrants and cartels a special device that would tell them to only kill, steal, and kidnap liberals like you who would deserve it, as that's literally what you asked for and wanted (sadly, it's almost always innocent people who suffer, not you disgusting liberal vermin living in your gated community), then the approval rating of cartel gangs could exceed Biden's approval rating, but then again, that isn't that high of a bar to exceed.
People are being killed, you scumbag.
Gimme stats.
If it’s THAT much of a problem, illegal immigrant murders must have been tracked year over year and known to be specifically higher right now, right? Not *just* anecdotes.
*millions of criminals* is childish fucking hysteria. Aren’t you in Europe ffs? Beyond the *misdemeanor* of illegal immigration, they commit crimes at a comparable or lower rate than native born Americans.
You could be so much more persuasive without the foul language.
Lost me with the language.
I think you're thinking of Obama's time.
But before Obama it was pretty bad.
You’re correct, was still high through the bush years:
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/11/09/whats-happening-at-the-u-s-mexico-border-in-7-charts/ft_21-11-01_mexicoborder_1a/
The thing that still blows my mind, Trump rode that issue to victory in 2016, when it was near all time low of an *actual* issue.
It’s almost like Trump made migrants get more creative to get into America legally…at least that’s what the data indicates.
It was always a problem. Trump was just the first to try and do something g about it.
Republicans voted down his proposals. He should be making the point loud and clear that border issues are their fault.
That’s because the bill codified 5,000 illegals per DAY. Please be honest instead of spouting press talking points.
If the border was important to Biden wouldn’t he have addressed it by now? Now it’s only for votes.
That's fine. I love when politicians do things for votes.
The alternative is they sit on their ass and whine all the time.
I don’t think the president alone could fix the border. Any impactful executive action would be overturned by some activist judge, and it would stay overturned for at least months in court. Plus, executive orders tend to not be popular with voters, so Biden taking action alone would not help him.
What if he just started by reversing the 94 executive orders he issued as soon as he was sworn in that opened the border? Just start with that.
But b won’t, because the only change the the left actually wants at the border is to open it even more.
It seems like they don’t want to do anything different to win, just drive more base voters to the polls. Not a whole lot of political persuasion going on these days.
The Times Board implored Biden to come in and sit for a serious interview and instead Biden went on a late night tv show. Dowd and the new Times poll along with Ezra Klein has started the ball rolling and Biden will have yo do extended serious interviews that last not 10 minutes but one or two hours. Better than Trump is a thin argument.
>Better than Trump is a thin argument.
I think engaged people can say this until they are blue in the face but they'll still be wrong and sound stupid to boot. It's actually an extremely strong argument, one among many.
It is not a two man race though. Kennedy is polling well enough that he belongs in the conversation. Or at least there is a chance his candidacy is not dead-on-arrival, like the typical 3rd party candidacy. If he really has a shot, it is because both Trump and Biden are not wildly popular. So, we will see. But if it is not a two man race, the “better than Trump” is extremely thin. It is so thin it is basically irrelevant.
Most people haven’t heard Kennedys decrepit voice, makes Biden sound like Obama
That is true. Clearly Kennedy is not a perfect candidate. But I think if people are unhappy with both Biden and Trump, they may look at 3rd party candidates this year. Obviously, I may be wrong. History says that 3rd party candidates are not credible. But I think this election is different than usual. We shall see..
I think people will take a step back and realize their lives are way better than they were 4 years ago and re-elect the incumbent
I would be satisfied with this outcome. I’d feel a whole lot better if it were certain though. It does look like Trump has a meaningful chance of winning this race. That concerns me.
It is indicative that people who were more likely to support RFKjr were more likely to literally mistake him for his father. https://open.spotify.com/episode/3YALcmOyLbzysOPinuoEui
Kennedy is on two ballots and democrats are waging war to keep him off as many states possible, until he is officially on more I would call this a two man race
The quality of comments on this substack is unworthy of Nate’s fine career.
That's Substack for you. The price of you get for freedom of speech is a mountain of guff in the comments. I think it's a worthwhile trade-off.
There are plenty of spaces on Substack with generally high-quality comments. It's crappier on free posts with very high visibility. But I think this place has the crappiest comments of any Substack I read regularly, large or small. I'd say it's mainly a handful of highly loquacious bad actors that are basically just throwing feces at the other side, without ever saying anything insightful or interesting. Exclude them, and it's an OK mix of prosaic and truly insightful comments.
Why ?
They show him that not everyone is in lockstep in the world. Indeed, that there might even be a majority of people that think, quelle horreur, differently.
But OUR problem is how the DNC doesn't trust democracy to select our candidates.
I think the DNC is not the determinant. I do think they favored Biden by moving up the SC primary, but other than that, they are not omnipotent, and the reality, is that other than Dean Phillips, it was the cowardice of our Senators and Governors that brings us here. Roy Cooper or Gretchen Whitmer could have run. I will vote for Phillips, but I also blame the voters for dismissing him. Sure he is a lowly congressman but a reasonable smart guy with fairly standard Democratic ideology. If Dems wont support an alternative that is available, blame them, not the DNC.
Agree with your primary voting strategy at this point - my son and I listened to Dean Phillips on an Ezra Klein interview the other day and will both vote for him I expect, unless there is/are more info/options forthcoming. A good man, well spoken, reasonably confident, reasonably humble (for a candidate). Seems sharp enough, communicates well. Lots of energy.... understands national defense... understands risk to democracy.
But I still hold, that while DNC is not the sole determinant, statistically it is the 'primary' determinant (so to speak), and unless there we see a response to the now majority of option-oriented Dems by the DNC (that we haven't yet seen!!!; or unless Biden has a serious viral moment or more), this will have determined that we are locked into B v tfg.
Things happen. We need a Plan C.
DNC actively discouraged all other serious candidates (with all the leverage it had), and it HAS 'huge' leverage, to summon Bernie's ghost.
It did this with two types of considerations:
a) they truly believed that, whether or not Biden wins, he has (had) the best shot, and allowing any other debate, lowered his chances, and
b) the party institution is a power monopoly that, like all monopolies, believes it is best for them to have the power, and in their wisdom, to make the decisions.
A is understandable. B is anti-democratic.
However, I'm NOT one who believes all decisions SHOULD be voted, (see 14-3!! we had a smart plan to preclude even a vote for candidates who are known to oppose the legitimacy of our elections & government); I DO believe in a representative government, where the people try to choose their best experts to consolidate decision-making in the hands of a rotating practical number of experts. But this is NOT the DNC.
In what way is the DNC the determinant. If Newsome or Whitmer chose to run, could they stop them. They didn't stop Phillips who was a lot less known. Not that they cant lean on the scales some but not in a way that would stop a popular candidate from winning. I dont know what you mean by discouraged candidates. Why is it that Phillips ran. No the truth is that no well known candidate chose to get in.
I think the ideas that the DNC and RNC is so all powerful is conspiratorial. For example the RNC clearly favored Jeb Bush in 2016 and it could be argued that they initially favored Clinton in 2008. I wouldn't say they have no effect, like moving up SC obviously helps Biden, but I would guess it is 5% or so.
I agree with you about a plan C.
I'm not perhaps the most knowledgeable about national party politics, I confess.
But control of campaign money and with-holding of coordinated party 'blessing' has gone a long way to reduce the harm to the party from 'friendly fire' during primaries. I do suspect that Biden owes his presidency to party blessing; but perhaps we also owe thanks to DNC for Trumps subsequent defeat.
I think some would-be candidates have stayed out of the primaries because they had good data that they were not winners, and because tfg's candidacy is now widely perceived as an existential threat for America among those who voted for Biden simply as a compromise last time. But mostly because an incumbent normally has a huge advantage; but so far Biden has not been leveraging it, due to reluctance of his team to expose him, rightly or wrongly - I think it is wrongly... he needs to be vetted PRIOR to convention.
(I don't find Newsome a very inspiring 'person of integrity', despite his running head start in delegates and claim to 'running one of the largest economies in the world' - smarmy is the word that comes to mind; I much prefer Phillips despite his 'lower' government experience both on basis of personal integrity AND electability/appeal - he has fewer negatives with the independent and soft republican vote than Newsome; have yet to see Whitmer in a clear light, but there is MUCH to be said for a woman candidate in this election, and she's my best bet so far; Michelle is the favorite in this poll, but is NOT interested... and I'm not certain she has the governing will; Kamala would lose, as would Amy; personally think there is no one more qualified, OR polarizing, than Hillary!)
But I DO think DNC had a LOT to do with the absence of party regulars throwing hats in the ring... just not able summon the specifics of the articles I've read - getting old. Here's one dimension, as reported in The Hill, an R orifice:
"The Democratic National Committee (DNC) far outperformed its Republican National Committee (RNC) counterpart in fundraising in October.[2023]
The latest Federal Election Commission (FEC) campaign filings show the DNC, chaired by Jaime Harrison, brought in $13.1 million last month, compared to the RNC’s $7.1 million.
The DNC spent $15.9 million and had $17.7 million on hand at the end of the month, with $238,000 in debt. The RNC, chaired by Ronna McDaniel, spent $7.3 million and closed the month with $9.1 million on hand and $2.9 million in debt."
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4321630-democrats-nearly-double-republicans-in-october-fundraising/
Agree that an incumbent has a big advantage, none have been defeated in modern times whether Reagan's challenge to Ford or Ted Kennedy's to Carter.
I dont think the DNC ever contributes to a primary campaign and if they were out to help Biden in 2020 it is belied by the fact that Biden was well outspent by Sanders. It wasnt the DNC that led to his win, but a combination of the black vote which Sanders could never attract and the fact that the moderate candidates -Klobuchar, Buttigieg, and Bloomberg- all dropped out and supported Biden. Maybe if Warren and Harris had backed Sanders, he would have won.
The Party Decides was a thing a few years ago…it got shot down very quickly. Facebook was more important in 2008 and 2016 and I go on Facebook now maybe once a year. Btw, Obama got a founder of Facebook on his team very early and Kushner’s brother is a billionaire because of Instagram which is owned by Facebook.
This comment is on point, but seems a bit cryptic to me - would you elaborate?
Think you are saying that social media is powerful, and I agree; but I don't have the sense that it has a central nervous system. It is powerful like a mob, not like the person steering the mob...?
My theory in 2008 was that Obama voters could see they weren’t the only Obama voters out there because of social media and so they stuck with Obama when it was time to vote instead of going with the safe choice in Hillary. So in 2004 Dean could raise money via digital fundraising and I lived in a college town and I saw lots of Dean signs in college kid windows…but when it came time to vote people went with the safe choice in Kerry. But just remember that through luck Obama’s staff was Daschle’s staff and Daschle was an early backer and so the Democratic establishment wasn’t all in for Hillary but the conventional wisdom was that Hillary was the safe choice. But all through 2007 Obama voters could communicate with other Obama voters via Facebook and they knew they were committed to voting for Obama.
As an aside I volunteered for Kerry in 2004 in a non swing state and we had a pretty good crowd meet up at a coffee shop and everyone gave their emails to someone supposedly with the Kerry campaign…we never heard back from that person and that huge group never met again as all the email addresses vanished. We attempted to salvage the group and we had a little party to write checks and one of the guys didn’t write a check and said he was just there to meet women. I have no clue if the Kerry campaign ever received the 5 checks we sent or not??
I think there’s just too much uncertainty with the mood of the electorate. Biden is much weaker than he was in 2020. People have forgotten about the surliness of living under Trump or see him as not being that awful compared to Biden. I think this year is a toss up. I wish Dems had chosen or will choose a stronger candidate.
I dont think it is a tossup if you have any faith in polls. Nate could do the math, but if this were the day before elections then I would just guess Trump would be a 70-80% liukelihood being ahead in almost all the swing states. Dont forget he won the three states that put him over the top by no more than 0.7% in the vote, where his poll numbers vs Trump have dropped about 8% with Trump now ahead in the npv by about 2% (and Dems likely need to be about +2-3 to counteract the Electoral College R advantage)
What liberals, and I am sort of one, a conservative Dem,, seem to repeat is that he should win, which I agree, but should has no bearing on whether he will win, which is a matter of public perception and he now has the worst approvals of any incumbent president running for re election since FDR, including worse than the losers- Carter, Ford, Bush Sr, and Trump.
As a Dem I can only hope that he reads the tea leaves and drops out.
Yup. Every word of this. I’ve been screaming it into the ether for 6 months. I find it immensely frustrating and infuriating that he hasn’t dropped out and that almost no prominent Dem has called for him to do so.
I wonder if it’s ego with Biden or the fact that no one really wants a Kamala Presidency either
Well, if he dropped out, at least as soon as possible there would still be time for an abbreviated primary campaign that would not necessarily mean Harris had the green light or if he stays in long enough to have electors he could influence them toward whomever he pleases, though they would be free to vote as they please. I think what it would require is that the most prominent Dems- Obama, Clinton, Pelosi, Shumer - would need to intervene and push the scales.
Mountain State Independent here who voted Third-Party in both 2016 & 2020, who perhaps can give some non-biased, dispassionate perspective.
1. The number of voters who find Trump 'Appealing' is roughly equal to the number of voters who find Trump 'Appalling'. BOTH of those numbers combined are a minority of voters.
2. Other than regular readers of the NYT, WSJ and WAPO, most voters don't care much about politics. And while the readers of those three publications are passionate, vocal, and highly visible, all three groups COMBINED are a MINORITY of voters.
3. The majority of voters don't use dis-embodied statistics to judge things: Whether the economy is good or bad is determined by whether they have more or less money in their checking accounts at the end of each pay-period. Whether crime is up or down is determined by whether or not the toothpaste is locked up in Walgreens and CVS. Whether the country is going in the right or wrong direction is determined by whether or not they have to walk past homeless encampments in their towns.
4. The election will be determined by whether voters think their INDIVIDUAL lives will be better or worse with candidate 'A' or candidate 'B'.
5. As the late Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill correctly said so many years ago, "All politics is LOCAL".
It’s really not that complicated.
I was in charge of Local Arrangements when the American Library Association met in New Orleans. We had Tip O.Neill as speaker. That was his message.
JFC enough with this nonsense about early polls. The race is a RE-MATCH between two people who have BOTH been President before. We’ve not had a race like this since 1892. There weren’t even pollsters back then, so how can you draw any conclusions about how polls in a race like this perform? Without paying a single second of attention to either campaign, the voters can ALREADY DETERMINE who they like better, because they have SAMPLED both presidencies before. The Biden-Trump “Pepsi challenge” is OVER.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1R62oMlZBoLMCkuVTJsoo_6Sp6uvmgadST9nDPfx9iWY/edit
Polling in January 2016 and 2020 was more accurate than polling in October 2016 and October 2020. Liberals are just coping and grasping at straws and can't accept that Trump is crushing Sleepy Joe
I don’t know about your assessment of the polling in 2016 and 2020, but I certainly agree that the Dems are deluded.
No no no, it's so obvious how are you missing it? Young, progressive, self identifying BIPOC or LGBTQIA+ voters are so upset with Biden's handling of Gaza or his not being hawkish enough on climate change that they're going to vote for the notoriously pro-Palestine, pro-green energy, social justice minded Donald Trump.
Overall I agree with you, although I do think there's a risk of lower base turnout. The more leftish voters are younger who are less likely to vote in general, more easily disillusioned (due to everything being a new experience, not having seen how things work before, etc.) and are less likely to remember what the Trump administration was like, so if I had to bet on a politically engaged group most likely to sit things out it's them. Which is just one more reason Biden should have been pushing hard for swing voters from the beginning.
'and are less likely to remember what the Trump administration was like' pretty sure they remember the no wars and good economy you libtard propagandist
Why cant we get rid of this guy. He is just a troll that is looking for attention
The guy talking about how the Biden economy is great and the world more peaceful with no wars? That troll?
Aaron, I dont want to get in a pissing contest with anybody. I am somewhat of a conservative myself, and I dont like Biden, but I also believe in being nice and respectful, even to people you disagree with, and arguing using reason and not insults. Public discourse could be a way to learn and grow instead of a constant food fight. If you look at everything RealEuropeanPatriot says, it is pretty much constant insults and thumb in the eye post. Very little reason, just giving people the middle finger that he doesn't like. That to me is a troll. He is not discussing ideas but just using the anonymity of the internet to vent his anger and hatred. He wouldn't talk like that to anybody in his family or friends.
There was a time, and I am old enough to remember, when conservatives were polite, indeed it was part of our ethos, people like Buckley Jr. and it was the left that were the boors, and some still are. Is it too much to ask people of differing views to be respectful. We are all Americans, and I see little advantage to us hating each other. Lincoln said it well "A House Divided Cannot Stand".
'Anger and hatred' says the idiot from the party that called Trump
Takes a deep breath, clears throat, ahem: ''RACIST SEXIST LSMAPABHOPBIC HOMOPHOBIC FASSACIST NAAAZI INSUUUREECIUTONIST TREASON RUSSIAN AGENT STUPID FAT ORANGE MAN bla bla bla impeach!!!@!!!!'' and other stupid nonsense
Go fuck yourself; your DemocRAT party is scum.
Oh yes, 'when conservatives were polite' you mean when they were spineless and accepted being slandered as every 'ism' by the fake news media without saying a word back besides, 'Obama is my good friend'-Romney
Thankfully, that Republican Party is dead and never returning. You really hate that Republicans fight and win instead of losing quite as they used to. You hate Trump because he tells the truth and will jump down to your democrat level and beat you down in the mud. No matter how many propaganda articles CNN or MSNBC put out, he will call those propagandists fake news to their faces, and that's why we love Trump.
Oh, sorry, libtard, did I disrupt your Trump-hating echo chamber?
No wars and a good economy describes today actually
Why cant we get rid of this guy. He is just a troll that is looking for attention. He just posts thumb in the eye things to see if he can get people mad. It is senseless to argue with him.
So true bro there is peace in Ukraine and Israel today that's what MSNBC told you ( retard )
Are you claiming we have troops in Gaza and Ukraine?
This level of stupidity is expected from a liberal.
You moron The US is fighting a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine, and the US is fighting Hamas together with Israel. This is not war for you. How stupid are you?
Also, yes, Americans have already died in Ukraine as dead NATO officers.
No, it's not a war we are involved in. By that logic we have been at war in Ukraine since 2014 lmao but I guess you're a European and not that smart
Are you a patriot for the country of Europe? Why are you just running around here slobbing the knob of a near octogenarian American?
Very true about Obama, but his 2012 victory actually shows the downside of the turnout strategy. If he was a generational talent, and I agree he was, it’s surprising that he won by a slimmer margin in 2012 than 2008. That’s the opposite of the norm; he was the first president in since Roosevelt to win in that fashion. There is absolutely no substitute for persuasion.
One must be circumspect on Obama, which people seem to have a very hard time being. He was a talented orator and helped build a superior campaign effort. But he benefitted greatly from his "story," which was carefully crafted with a blend of reality and fiction (It's in his books). On governing, he was almost a complete failure as the Democratic party failed to ride his coattails and lost ground in every other dimension. He actually has been more successful in pulling the strings of the Biden administration and skirting constitutional safeguards through Biden's presidential powers. This is neither great leadership nor principled democracy. Voters are suspicious, which contributes to Biden's weakness. And, of course, Trump is always the bull elephant in the room.
As we get further from Obama’s presidency I think it’s pretty clear he was a solidly above average president. Considering what he inherited and what he handed off to Trump might be the biggest improvement in 8 years. So Reagan inherited a bad situation but we know Carter had actually started making some of the tough reforms necessary to change the economic trajectory…Bush was making things worse while walking out the door like escalating Afghanistan. If you think Trump’s first 3 years was good then you actually think Obama was a very good president.
Obama was a bad president. His choice to cement a partnership between the us government and the tech oligarchs made him an anti progressive. He should have used the states tax and regulatory power to curtail their power. Instead he sold out for political gain and personal gain as he and admin ended up getting lucrative payouts and jobs from these titans. He destroyed Libya for little reason, pulled out of Iraq creating a vacuum so we had to pour troops back in. Ignored Iranians slaughtered by their government and instead rewarded those murders with billions of dollars via sanctions relief. Money used to fund the very groups attacking America and Israel. He drew a red line in Syria that was ignored and empowered Putin in the region rather than follow through on his threats. On Ukraine he blathered about the wrong side of history and tried to economically blackmail Putin and failed setting the stage for the current disaster. Many of the problems we have now , including a barely functioning president can trace right back to him, but what does Obama care? He is sitting pretty in his Martha’s Vineyard compound while the rest of the country is trying to afford basic staples.
Agree. Obama sold out to Wall St first because that was how the Clintons became successful and that's what put him in office during the GFC. To pass the ACA he sold out to the big HC providers and insurers. I suspect he fully expected these capitalists to hoist themselves from their own petards when populist politics subsequently turned against them = mission accomplished. Unfortunately, we plebes are left with much higher healthcare and insurance costs and WS has created a financial oligarchy.
yup, ill never forget when he made a deal with Big Pharama in exchange for their support and a 60 million dollar ad buy. Perhaps it was smart politics but it ended up being bad policy.
You are just nitpicking. Americans get the drugs they need and Medicare spending per capita is down substantially.
Agree. The Obama admin was all smart political tactics to overcome policy resistance. (Pelosi and Schumer are the legislative "experts.") It's the Progressive Dilemma: how to pass policies that the electorate won't vote for but are deemed by progressives as "for the public good." This was most evident in the ACA politics. Smart politics or anti-democratic?
Pangolin: Your argument is devoid of accomplishments, but rather that some things improved while he was sitting in the chair. That's hardly a ringing endorsement. Many things degenerated, especially internationally and socially. The most egregious failure I believe is that the country became far more divided, racially, economically, and ideologically. He was not the uniter, and like most politicians, great at shifting blame. But you can also see I'm not evaluating him in comparison to other POTUSes but to the results we got from his weak leadership. Most POTUSes have very mixed results and historical context matters, but the question is whether they get the big things right. Obama really did not. And he had an historic opportunity as the first mixed race POTUS.
Um, we now down to under 10 combat deaths per year after it hit 800 a year under Bush…that is the only thing the American president can control.
Again, you're trying to burnish Obama by comparing him to Bush or any other POTUS, and with pure conjecture. Those are interpretations driven by opinions and there's little point to arguing opinions. Like I said before, people can't objectify Obama.
I can, America was much stronger in 2016 than in 2008. In fact the biggest problem in 2016 was energy was too cheap which is the best “problem” for America to have.
Btw, if a candidate has a problem with swing voters it's because their policy platform and/or their campaign strategy stinks. Democracy is about appealing to the center, not GOTV.
You sort of touched on this in your other comment, but I think both Biden and Obama failed to govern as much from the center to the degree promised, and this is why Obama lost some votes in 2012 and why Biden appears to be currently set to lose votes (whether or not he loses the election).
And from where I’m sitting, the gap in the Biden Admin’s campaign from its reality seems larger than under Obama. Yet I knew a number of people in 2008 who had mostly leaned R historically, took a chance with Obama and regretted it, flipping back to Romney in 2012.
Clinton was a President who did manage to shift to the center after the 1994 mid-terms, which probably had something to do with his expanded success in 1996.
But it seems it’s harder to do than Clinton made it look. It’s probably especially hard if you’re very old and don’t have the energy to force your staff to stay on message and govern farther to the right than they would care to.
Agree, it is almost impossible to appeal to the unaffiliated center because both parties have validated the extremes in their platforms and their down-ballot candidates. The political failure we are experiencing is that the parties and the media are driving the electorate into undemocratic territory. Both need to stay relevant to survive at the cost of sustainable, stable democracy. This is a thorough failure of elite leadership.
I would certainly agree that that's how democracy *should* work, but in a polarised, low-swing political culture like the USA I can see how differential turnout would be relatively more important compared to other democracies.
See previous comment to Spouting Thomas...
"Nevertheless, Biden does have a lot of substantive, bipartisan accomplishments that he can tout. The White House often doesn’t focus on this, instead devoting a high percentage of their bandwidth to the dangers of Trump." So true--scares lifetime Dems maybe but indicative of failures to inform/tout so many good things. Google "Biden for President" and all you get is a site that lets you donate, donate, donate and a video. Nothing about his accomplishments. Look further down in Google search list and it will suggest a White House site. There you get wonky lists and lists of great things he has indeed done, but it is all college-level answers and no sense of a designed-to-inform format. Nor are you invited to ask a question if you click on what seems like an opp to do that. True, websites don't win elections, but just indicative of not even trying to message wherever possible. Moreover, strong Democrats who want to help don't get any sense of what their polling says will resonate with independents to help convey that message in letters to the editor or in conversations.
Nate, the DNC propagandist, believes 'bi-partisanship' is when Democrats get what they want and Republicans get nothing.
But national politics is never really about "messaging" and talking a good game; it's about results that people experience. Partisans who don't like the political results always seem to blame it on messaging rather than the policy direction. Voters are not sheep.
Unfortunately, you reveal your own biases in your analysis. Seems that nobody in the political media can resist their ideological and partisan biases, but the problem comes when it slants their analysis. Why carry water for Democrats? Or Republicans? Or either Trump or Biden? We need better political leaders and the problem is systemic.
Biden is in a whole heap of trouble with the electorate, but nobody who's poisoned by the TDS Kool-aid can admit it. So they put the ball in their opponent's court and Trump is no slouch when it comes to outplaying his enemies. C'est la guerre.