Trump's Card

[Tubby Isaacs]

How come our rust belt (or rust islands - south Yorkshire, the Welsh valleys etc) have managed to stay Labour (I know there's a sizeable UKIP vote in those regions but they're still very much labour. South Yorkshire has only Labour MPs for the first time in history at the moment

There's been some movement in C2DE to Tory that's swung Copeland, Mansfield and a couple of others to them. But yeah, mostly it's very impressive Labour performance. Especially when you add in ageing populations in post-industrial areas.

[Satchmo Distel]

How come our rust belt (or rust islands - south Yorkshire, the Welsh valleys etc) have managed to stay Labour (I know there's a sizeable UKIP vote in those regions but they're still very much labour. South Yorkshire has only Labour MPs for the first time in history at the moment

Political affiliation runs in the family there. Coal mining communities hitched to Labour around the Attlee era and are never going to forgive the Tories for the brutal suppression of the 1984 strike and the vicious closure program.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Moore is not going to stand down.

As far as I can tell, if he withdraws now, he needs to instruct the Alabama Secretary of State not to record votes in his favour.

I believe that Alabama has kept candidates who have died during the campaign on the ballot.

I asked this before.

Can Sessions run as a write- in?

[Satchmo Distel]

Why would Moore step down rather than brazen it out Trump style?

[Hot Pepsi]

How come our rust belt (or rust islands - south Yorkshire, the Welsh valleys etc) have managed to stay Labour (I know there's a sizeable UKIP vote in those regions but they're still very much labour. South Yorkshire has only Labour MPs for the first time in history at the moment

In the US its destruction of the unions, racism, homophobia, resentment.

Most importantly, neither the Democrats or Republicans can actually return these places to their former glory. Partly because, as SB said, it was never really that glorious to begin with, and partly because there's just now way to bring the manufacturing jobs back, because even if the factories do come back - and some do - they won't employ nearly so many people. Automation and what not.

So if nobody is going to really do anything to help them,* they'll vote for the guy who at least gives expression to their frustration (I believe some Marxist or other said that exactly about the Nazis) and assure them that the people to blame for their towns' decline is not the capitalists, the corporations, the very real and very urgent need to switch to clean energy, or the simple fact that the post-war boom could never be maintained indefinitely. No, they are told that the people to blame are environmentalists, atheists, university professors, feminists, immigrants, and minorities.

Not only are Democrats incapable of bringing the manufacturing jobs back - partly because they are also in the pocket of big business but partly because it's just not possible - but the Democrats emphasis on improving public health and education can exacerbate the alienation. The implication - well, sometimes it's not even implied. It's just stated as fact - of those policies is that these people need better education and need to be healthier. Even if the Democrats go out of there way to not blame the people for their plight, it's often received as an insult. Nobody likes to be told the school they went to sucked and that their lifestyle is unhealthy.

That's what happened in the US. Why it hasn't gone down like that in the UK (or Canada or most places, as far as I can tell) isn't so clear to me. Perhaps in the UK, because of the old class shit and the Queen and all of that, it's a lot harder for Tories to pretend to care about the working class than it is for Republicans. And something something something Trade Unions something. I don't really know.


*Trump also found that he could pick up voters by merely promising to bring the jobs back. I don't recall Romney or Bush ever going that far. They just waffled on about "growing the economy" and "opportunity" and "investment" and so forth, as I recall. My understanding is that not many white working class in declining mill towns really believe that high-paying manufacturing jobs are coming back. But apparently at least a few of them really do.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Political affiliation runs in the family there. Coal mining communities hitched to Labour around the Attlee era and are never going to forgive the Tories for the brutal suppression of the 1984 strike and the vicious closure program.

It's funny that the Tories got away with the 80s pit closures electorally, but not the 90s ones. Cheltenham had a big march against them, as did other places.

Alwyn Turner suggests that this was because pit villages were seen as having community by the wider public.

Perhaps also people realized the strikers had a point. Not something we generally do except with junior doctors.

[Amor de Cosmos]

That's what happened in the US. Why it hasn't gone down like that in the UK (or Canada or most places, as far as I can tell) isn't so clear to me.

I've wondered about this too, at least so far as Canada's concerned. I think some of it has to do with the country not having much major manufacturing, and also a willingness to up sticks and move when the resource industry drys up. Right now nowhere is clearer example of that than Fort MacMurray. It still exists but most of the workers left with the fire, and oil price declines almost certainly mean it'll never regain it's former size. Secondly, multiculturism is an article of faith for all parties. Not to say there isn't racism, especially in rural areas but in political terms it has no coherent organised voice, at least not at the moment, or the foreseeable future. Thirdly when we need an "other" to blame for how shitty our lives are, well we only have to look to the south.

[ursus arctos]

Tubbs, the ballot does allow for write-ins.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Thanks.

Could he be one? Or Luther Strange even?

[ursus arctos]

Micky Mouse could be

He got three votes against my mum back in the day

[ursus arctos]

https://twitter.com/sopandeb/status/928728188989202432

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

I am shocked to discover that Roy Moore is probably a creepy sexual predator.

[Tubby Isaacs]

He just seemed so normal.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Moore had already refused any debate with Doug Jones.

[ursus arctos]

https://twitter.com/politics1com/status/928723923017129984

[anton pulisov]

god damn fuckin' carpenters

[Satchmo Distel]

Did Joseph ask 14 year old Mary to touch his erect penis?

[tee rex]

If he thinks Jesus' real dad was Joseph, then he's got bigger problems in Alabama.

[Incandenza]

https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/928730998380093441

https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/928732444710326272

of course they found a Republican to say that, they only did that so people would believe the media...

https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/928755255537520641

[Nefertiti2]

That hokey sovereignty schtick would never play in Britain.

[Cal Alamein]

Contribute a few bucks to the opponent of the scumbag, Doug Jones - the election is December 12.

https://dougjonesforsenate.com/

[Nefertiti2]

from the Wall Street Journal(generally fairly pro Trump)

At the time Flynn was the incoming NSA adviser. This was during the transition.

WASHINGTON—Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating an alleged plan involving former White House National Security Adviser Mike Flynn to forcibly remove a Muslim cleric living in the U.S. and deliver him to Turkey in return for millions of dollars, according to people familiar with the investigation.

[ursus arctos]

The long standing tension between the Journal's reporters and its increasingly unhinged, but always reactionary, editorial staff continues is approaching open warfare.

Flynn and his son have both deleted their Twitter accounts.

Even within the alternate universe of this administration, this allegation stands out as being batshit crazy.

[Ginger Yellow]

I'd heard the Gulen thing before, but not with direct monetary compensation attached.

[ursus arctos]

Yes, that's the batshit crazy part. Getting Gulen back has always been Erdogan's number one goal vis-a-vis the US.