The Laboratories of Democracy: US state and local politics

[Satchmo Distel]

Did Walker actually concede?

It probably makes McConnell a greater favourite to see off Rick Scott.

[ursus arctos]

https://twitter.com/dylanewells/status/1600344858337558528?s=61&t=cWRaSGLMea3GYOJ0xtgyrg

[Cal Alamein]

Gotta believe Herschel is relieved

[ursus arctos]

Almost certainly true

I hope he gets help

[WOM]

It's still frightening how close it was. Obviously the more serious and qualified candidate won, but not by much....

[caja-dglh]

Frightening takes on many forms with US elections. In some ways it is quite remarkable that Warnock was able to repeat the win despite so many efforts to curate the electorate.

[Flynnie]

Frightening takes on many forms with US elections. In some ways it is quite remarkable that Warnock was able to repeat the win despite so many efforts to curate the electorate.

It is remarkable, but it becomes a little less remarkable when you consider that the MAGAisation of the Republicans has pissed off a lot of white people who went to college. Biden won the white college-educated vote in 2020. Trump was +4 in 2016 and although I can't find exit poll numbers divided by race from 2012 or before*, we know amongst all college graduates that Romney was +2 in 2012 (and Bush +6 in 2004, the last time a Republican actually won the most votes). So you have to guess that Romney probably won white college grads by at least 6-8 points.

*they probably exist somewhere but you'll forgive me not going down the Google rabbit hole for half an hour.

[Hot Pepsi]

It's still frightening how close it was. Obviously the more serious and qualified candidate won, but not by much....

Sure.

But I suspect that most Republicans - or at least, the ones running things - understand that Hershel Walker is not qualified to manage the overnight shift at a Denny's let alone be a US senator. I suspect he knows that too. He's just a vessel for Trumpism. He won the primary based on name recognition* and I suspect there are a lot of racists who don't want to appear to be racist (the old 'I don't mind Black people as long as they behave like White people and don't stir up any trouble' kinda racists). There are also a number of Black people pretty far to the right, although I don't think they add up to much.

Beyond that, Republicans voted for him simply because he was the Republican nominee. Really, the GOP could just nominate a MAGA hat (not a guy in a hat. just the hat) and get 40% in a lot of places. That's essentially what they did do in the Pennsylvania governor's race. They lost badly. (But not badly enough to make me feel good about the politics of 45% of my fellow Pennsylvanians or that one guy down on the corner who I've never talked to but I don't like the campaign signs in his yard.)


Even with Democrats in charge, our system of government and our absurd culture of individual glory and greed is leaving most people feeling alienated and afraid, but they aren't equipped to handle in any way except to blame "the other" or blame the government. So they just vote for "change" whatever that looks like, but nothing really ever changes because the people with all the money don't want it to.

A lot of people follow Trump just because he's "different" and promised to "shake things up,"** but he only "shook things up" by being especially corrupt and incompetent. Otherwise, he just did what big GOP donors have been telling Republicans to do for the last 40 years or so.

It's just going to go on like this, more or less, for a while, but I think the coming ecological disaster will shake things up. For better and worse.


* Although I suspect nobody under 40 really remembers him as a player. He was kind of a bust in the NFL, really. Famously, he was what the Cowboys traded to the Vikings to get a huge haul of picks that turned into the Cowboys/Jimmy Johnson dynasty. He was great college running back back when there was a lot less passing in college football, but him running for senate would be the equivalent of Curt Warner running for office in Pennsylvania. I just can't imagine that working. People my age and a bit older remember him very fondly, but most younger people think you're referring to Kurt Warner, the quarterback, or have no idea who you're talking about.


** As Pete Holmes has eloquently explained, "irresponsible divorced dad" energy, which is appealing to a lot of people.

[Hot Pepsi]

It is remarkable, but it becomes a little less remarkable when you consider that the MAGAisation of the Republicans has pissed off a lot of white people who went to college. Biden won the white college-educated vote in 2020. Trump was +4 in 2016 and although I can't find exit poll numbers divided by race from 2012 or before*, we know amongst all college graduates that Romney was +2 in 2012 (and Bush +6 in 2004, the last time a Republican actually won the most votes). So you have to guess that Romney probably won white college grads by at least 6-8 points.

*they probably exist somewhere but you'll forgive me not going down the Google rabbit hole for half an hour.

I think this is right.
It's bad for the long-term prospects of Trumpism as an electoral strategy outside of the southeast.
It's not good for public education, though. This is not really new - and, of course, not unique to the US - but the narrative that universities are communist enemies of America has more traction now than it did a little while ago. Or at least, it seems that way.

[Amor de Cosmos]

A lot of people follow Trump just because he's "different" and promised to "shake things up,"** but he only "shook things up" by being especially corrupt and incompetent. Otherwise, he just did what big GOP donors have been telling Republicans to do for the last 40 years or so.

I'm guessing that the "Trump may be an inexperienced wingnut/asshole but he'll have competent people around him" vote, which was evident in 2016 might finally have melted away.

[Hot Pepsi]

I'm guessing that the "Trump may be an inexperienced wingnut/asshole but he'll have competent people around him" vote, which was evident in 2016 might finally have melted away.

That's a really good point.

As far as I can tell, the only remotely competent high-level person he picked was Scott Gottlieb, the FDA commissioner. He's an AEI guy and has way more faith in the private sector than is warranted, but unlike a lot of Trump's cabinet, he didn't try to destroy the agency he was tasked to lead. He's pretty much a centrist on FDA issues.

[Satchmo Distel]

Anyone who runs as a Trumper now is declaring that massive tax fraud is not a disqualifier, and will be hammered on that by their opponents. I think that verdict was a big deal: voters pay taxes.

[ursus arctos]

You are going to be in for a great surprise

[caja-dglh]

Yeah, he already said openly that his avoiding paying taxes was because he was clever. His audience loved it. Trump stuff is basically taking away all of the Libertarian votes and putting them into the Republican Party, whilst converting more people closer to that view.

[San Bernardhinault]

It's frightening that Walker can get so close to winning a Senate seat. At the same time it's massively heartening to learn that in places like Georgia you can't just stick a Republican Rosette on literally anyone and they'll win election - which is something I'd probably have assumed would be true for the next half century if I was asked 8 years ago.

It's terrifying that if Republicans nominate people less terrible than Herschel Walker they'll start winning winnable elections. It's reassuring that Republicans still haven't learned this after the last decade of Todd Akin and Christine O'Donnell and Richard Mourdock and Roy Moore.

Anyway, this isn't the end of Trumpism. The only thing that's helping end Trumpism is that parts of the Republican Party are less scared of him right now and it feels like they're spinning against him, and that the Republicans on the Supreme Court have now been released a bit and don't feel a need to defend him in every instance. But that won't end it. I'd still give him a minimum 50% chance of being candidate in 2024.

[Sporting]

I get the impression that the right wing members of the Supreme Court are being more moderate in many areas than feared. Am I over-optimistic?

[ursus arctos]

You are both correct and over-optimistic

[San Bernardhinault]

You're being over optimistic.

[Hot Pepsi]

It's frightening that Walker can get so close to winning a Senate seat. At the same time it's massively heartening to learn that in places like Georgia you can't just stick a Republican Rosette on literally anyone and they'll win election - which is something I'd probably have assumed would be true for the next half century if I was asked 8 years ago.

It's terrifying that if Republicans nominate people less terrible than Herschel Walker they'll start winning winnable elections. It's reassuring that Republicans still haven't learned this after the last decade of Todd Akin and Christine O'Donnell and Richard Mourdock and Roy Moore.

Anyway, this isn't the end of Trumpism. The only thing that's helping end Trumpism is that parts of the Republican Party are less scared of him right now and it feels like they're spinning against him, and that the Republicans on the Supreme Court have now been released a bit and don't feel a need to defend him in every instance. But that won't end it. I'd still give him a minimum 50% chance of being candidate in 2024.

All that.

Trumpism/Desantism puts a cap on the popularity of the party overall, especially among those insipid dipshit white swing voters in the suburbs.* It can win in places where they can suppress voting, but Georgia shows how that approach has limits.

Unfortunately, our outdated confederacy system - the Senate, the electoral college, and the Supreme Court - means that they only need about 30% support nationwide, or less, to run the country into the ground.

In a somewhat more representative democracy - like a Westminster set up - this brand of nasty conservatism would leave them as, at best, a regional party with no hope outside of their stronghold, a bit like the Conservatives in Canada.


Also, the fucker is going to die and/or be seriously incapacitated soon if he isn't already.
I know I said before that being a terrible person seems to be protective against cardiovascular events - and I really think the NIH needs to fund studies of that (probably at Duke or Harvard, I'd guess) - but I think he's got every risk factor imaginable now.


* I picture these people as the sort of people who go on HGTV home shows to pretend to buy boring McMansions with a "man cave," granite counter tops and lots of room for entertaining their shitty friends. The mom has chunky highlights (thanks to Liza Shlesinger for describing that hairdo succinctly) and at least one of their kids is in a high-pressure swim team.

[Lang Spoon]

Anyone who runs as a Trumper now is declaring that massive tax fraud is not a disqualifier, and will be hammered on that by their opponents. I think that verdict was a big deal: voters pay taxes.

But many voters don't want to pay taxes.

[caja-dglh]

Yeah - the Supreme Court is in the business of boiling frogs. They probably misjudged how much a shift in temperature Dodds was.

[San Bernardhinault]

I think Roberts is in the business of boiling frogs. Kennedy was, too. I imagine that Roberts can persuade some of the newbies to join him in frog boiling on certain issues. But Alito and Thomas are not really frog-boilers, and on abortion the others wanted to go all in. They knew what it would do, but on this one issue they didn't care. They'll revert to destroying civil liberties slowly from now on, at least for a year or two to let the public anger dissipate.

[Satchmo Distel]

Do the Dems now have enough of a buffer in the Senate to have another go at voting rights legislation or does that also need the House?

[ursus arctos]

Needs the House

[Snake Plissken]

Sinema is leaving the Dems. I assume being she realises that her personal jig is up with regard to screwing the Party for what she wants.