The Joy of Opening Time Capsules: 2022 Edition
In 2011, we made predictions about 2012 and then, in 2012, enjoyed reading those predictions.
Back in 2015, we made predictions about the coming nominations and then, in 2016, had a real hootenanny looking back again.
In 2018, we made predictions about what would happen in the mid-terms.
And, yes, in 2019, we made predictions about who the Democratic nominees would be.
And, back in 2020, we made predictions about the election itself.
Well, we’re about half a year away from the elections in November. We’re also a month and a half away from the ballot to Recall Chesa Boudin, the District Attorney of San Francisco.
So the questions follow:
1. Is the recall of Chesa a national story on top of being a local one?
2. Is Chesa going to get recalled?
3. There are 36 states having an election for Governor. 20 Republican Governorships and 16 Democratic Governorships are on the ballot. What will the numbers look like after the election?
4. There are 221 Democratic Representatives up for re-election and 209 Republicans up for re-election (5 vacancies). What will the numbers look like after the election?
5. Okay… the senate gets complicated.
There are six incumbents not seeking re-election. 5 of them are Republicans. 1 is a Democrat.
Here are the Republicans:
Richard Burr, North Carolina
Pat Toomey, Pennsylvania
Rob Portman, Ohio
Richard Shelby, Alabama
Roy Blunt, Missouri
And the Democrat is Vermont’s Patrick Leahy.
There are 35 Senate seats up for election. 14 Democratic ones, 21 Republican ones. They are, from left to right,
Hawaii (D)
Alaska (R)
Washington (D)
Oregon (D)
California (D)
Nevada (D)
Idaho (R)
Utah (R)
Arizona (D)
Colorado (D)
North Dakota (R)
South Dakota (R)
Kansas (R)
Oklahoma (R)
Iowa (R)
Missouri (R)
Arkansas (R)
Louisiana (R)
Wisconsin (R)
Illinois (D)
Kentucky (R)
Indiana (R)
Alabama (R)
Florida (R)
Ohio (R)
Georgia (D)
North Carolina (R)
South Carolina (R)
Pennsylvania (R)
New York (D)
Maryland (D)
Vermont (D)
Connecticut (D)
New Hampshire (D)
Okay. It’s currently 14D-21R. What will the numbers be?
If you want to play around with some maps:
Here is 270toWin’s Governors map
Here is the House Map
Here is the Senate Map
6. As for ballot initiatives, Arkansas, Idaho, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, and South Dakota all have ballot initiatives to legalize marijuana to some extent. Of these 8, how many will pass?
Are there any other interesting things that are going to be voted in the upcoming elections?
Remember: you can’t mock someone else as being a shill for some shadowy conspiracy without making your prediction first!
Lay down your marker!
(Featured image is The Crystal Ball by John William Waterhouse. Picture is in the public domain.)
Okay. I will go first.
1. I think that it’s a national story insofar as it is a bellwether for a lot of progressive projects. Chesa getting recalled will signal “Even San Francisco has given up on this particular part of the plan.” Chesa *NOT* getting recalled will signal that, hey, there’s still some hope for that particular part of the plan. Maybe they’ll figure something out. Maybe the thing they figure out will work! Then they’ll be an example to the rest of the country!”
2. Remember the school board recall? Each board member was recalled with numbers in the SEVENTIES. It wasn’t a triple of 50.5-49.5, 51-49, and 51.5-48.5 recalls. Check out the numbers:
Chesa’s twitter feed alternates between threads about his offices accomplishments and threads about how his recall is funded by Republican donors. The polls that I’ve seen show support for the recall in the 60s.
What makes this interesting is that Chesa isn’t an example of a DA getting in office and being incompetent… it’s an example of a DA getting in office and doing more or less exactly what he said he’d do. (This ties back into my question in #1.)
Anyway, I’m going to guess that, yes, he’ll be recalled.
3. Democrats lose 4. We go from 20-16 to 24-12 in those states.
4. The House flips. I’m pretty sure that that’s an uncontroversial take. The question is whether it’ll be a small number of seats changing hands… like, people will be able to argue “this always happens in a president’s first term, nobody is surprised that the House changed hands” or if there will be so many seats changed that that argument will be seen as an attempt to spin a disastrous election.
Like, Republicans have 209 seats and Democrats have 221 and there are 5 open seats. Let’s give the open ones to the Republicans and it’ll be 214 to 221. Just 4 Republicans winning local elections flips the house. 218 to 217.
I think that we could easily argue that that the Republicans winning 4 House contests in November would be *EXCEPTIONALLY* disappointing and, even if it gave them the house, could be pointed out at the weakness of their position.
On the other extreme, the Republicans picking up 84 seats could be spun as a “red wave”. And so we know that, somewhere between 4 and 84 seats is “The Line”. On this side of the line we’ve got “meh, we knew the Republicans would get the house. They didn’t do *WELL*!” and on that side of the line we’ve got “Okay. You win some, you lose some. The pendulum swings. But Trump.”
So where do we want to draw that? 435 seats. Dividing line is 217/218. I’d say that 200 is an important psychological milestone. So I’ll say that a Republican house of 235-200 is the very edge of where you can make the argument that the Republicans had a bad night. And 236-199 is the beginning of the edge where you can make the argument that the Republicans had a good night.
I think the Republicans will have a good night. 240-195.
5. I loved Pat Leahy in The Dark Knight!
I think that the Democrats are mostly insulated by the number of elections. If they merely don’t *LOSE* an election, they keep the Senate. They don’t have to win any. The Republicans, on the other hand, need to win one. And most of the states that have elections are “safe”. But there are three states that aren’t exactly safe: Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia.
A great night for Democrats is picking up a seat. A good night for Democrats is not losing a single seat. An okay night for Democrats is only losing one seat (despite losing the Senate, it’s still an okay night). Losing two is the beginning of “Republicans had a good night” if they win two of those three states. If they win one of those states and New Hampshire, they had a surprisingly good night. I think that Republicans pick up Georgia and… oh Jeez. Nevada. Mark Kelly keeps his seat in Arizona by the skin of his teeth. New Hampshire stays blue but it’s *RAZOR* thin. A shot across the bow.
6. I think that only two of the legalization measures fail. Six pass. We cross the 40-state threshold.Report
Here are mine:
1. Chesa is recalled but it is not a national story. That’s way too 2020. There will be a momentary burst of confirmation of priors among midwits like us at OT and not a single Normie outside of the Bay area will know or care it happened.
2. Uncontroversial- GOP flips house.
3. Controversial- Dems hold single vote tiebreaker majority in the Senate after Trumpist candidates sow discord in critical Republican primaries. GOP is too incoherent to consolidate behind candidates and enough embattled sunbelt and southern Dems hold on by their fingernails plus pick up one or two to mitigate other losses.
4. Governors- I think these are impossible to predict outside of the states in question. I will go with ‘there will be an upset or 2 but nothing notable happens in terms of national numbers.’
I look forward to being totally wrong in November.Report
I’m terrible at predictions, and I haven’t studied any of these. I usually don’t comment on these threads because I don’t have any insights into the regional races. I’ll guess that a lot of people are mad at their governors though. Assuming Republicans hold Georgia, Democrats pick up Arizona, Whitmer loses, and a couple of other things, I’d guess Republicans pick up 5 gubernatoriae.Report
Senate:
53 (R)
47 (D)
House:
245 (R)
190 (D)Report
1. I honestly don’t know. I don’t think the school board recall is a complete proxy for how the DA recall will turn out. They rhyme but are largely not related. It is perfectly possible to vote for the recall of the School Board and not for Chessa’s recall. Note this is what I intend to do. Some people think Haney winning the election to place Chiu in the Assembly is bad for Chessa but I don’t see it. I think Haney v. Campos was about NIMBYism and Campos was a NIMBY supreme.
2. Many on the ground state that the Democratic Party should be preparing for a bloodbath in the midterms. Theromostatic voting is traditional for 70 plus years, no one likes inflation, etc. However, there are wildcards that have not played out yet:
2a. Abortion is a big wild card and the Supreme Court might unleash a blockbuster ruling in June that overturns Roe. This is something that 60 percent of the nation thinks is a bad idea (but most people just list it as one of many factors in how they plan to vote). However, crap might very well get real in June in ways that is not quite hitting yet.
2b. Related to this is how many Republican candidates manage to Aiken themselves during the general campaign based on their primary campaigns and subsequent actions? Aiken snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in 2012. It might happen again. Using Ohio as an example, this should be a hard race for Ryan to win but the GOP primary appears to be a clowshow as far as anyone can see. Gibbons is bad but comes across as “generic Republican business man” Vance and Mandel are so phony that I think Ryan should be able to run against them well. He might even be able to turn Gibbons into a Romney-Aiken combination. Fetterman might do well in PA as well especially if he goes up against Dr. Oz.
Warnock is likely a hard one to reelect but he is a good campaigner. Nevada is concerning but still within margins of error. I think Kelley can get himsel reelected easily and am not concerned that much about Colorado. Most of the states listed are solidly red or blue and unlikely to change.
2c. In terms of the House, the Democrats are better at redistricting/gerrymandering this year but Florida just went for an ultra-partisan map too that eliminates two safe seats and Wisconsin is not a good map for Democrats. This one will be tight.
Abortion is still the big wild card and Rick Scott and other Republicans are basically writing ads which allow Democrats to state “Republicans wants to raise your taxes.”Report
That Pennsylvania Senate primary could be a place for a pro-life swing state to hand Trump a loss.Report
The abortion thing is a good point. The solution is super-saturated and the right seed crystal could turn everything around.
Abortion has done it before (see: Todd Akin).
It could do it again.Report
An overturning of Roe could lead to a reckoning for any state officeholder who doesn’t enact law at the far end of each party’s position. If it were to happen after the primaries, you could see write-ins and independent or third-party candidates unseating perceived moderates, but they just as easily could play spoiler and put the candidate with the least popular position on abortion into office. It’d guarantee Trump the nomination as the Republican who has what it takes. I don’t know about the House and Senate though. It’s not obvious to me that overturning Roe would affect those races except for maybe boosting turnout.Report
It will definitely boost turnout. And with a good many independents and even a plurality of Republicans polling consistently in support of Roe, the anti-abortion crowd is going to have a hard time telling people they are the best replacements representatives since they clearly won’t be representing a position held by many if not a majority of their constituents.Report
Supporting a SCOTUS ruling doesn’t mean anything if the ruling is overturned. The question becomes, what will the law say now? Assuming there isn’t enough support to make national law one way or the other, it comes down to states. Cali and Texas may bristle at what the other one does, but unless you see 38 states on the same page or Congress filled with profiles in courage who also happen to be in agreement, this gets handled at the state level.Report
SO do house and senate elections. And that’s my point. If what Texas has done – and Oklahoma etc now holds how many women in the independent and moderate Republican category will vote for people who can be easily associated with a Party that is taking their rights? Congress should act. Congress needs to act – on this and a whole host of other things. But if Roe gets trashed and all a GOP house candidate has to offer is a shrug – thats not gonna play well in a general no matter how the maps are drawn.Report
There is no abortion backlash (assuming Roe is overturned or weakened). There’s lots of Americans, Latinos especially but others as well, who aren’t necessarily anti-abortion even, who are going to love the opportunity to stick it to the Karens.Report
Take off your partisan hat for a moment. Congress almost certainly won’t act, because there’s no national agreement. If Roe were overturned tomorrow, the House would do…what? And the Senate? And the President? Even if there’s 24 hours of inaction in Washington, there would be – no there already are – state laws in place that respond to it. Some senators would be calling for another 6 justices, but it wouldn’t happen. Congress might take up some life of the mother or 50 yard protest rule, but it wouldn’t substantially affect the status of abortion in the states.Report
If R’s push it far enough D’s will respond. Not now because most of the moves R’s are making are meant to generate SCOTUS cases. But if Roe is overturned or substantially weakened it will be a thing D’s will have to fight down the road.Report
Over half of the states already have laws on the books to respond to a post-Roe world. Not nibbling at one end or the other in the Roe environment like the laws that make the news.Report
To be more specific:
According to the Guttmacher Institute, 19 states have either their pre-Roe ban or a trigger ban (which will activate if Roe is overturned). Some of these include exemptions for rape or life or health of the mother. These states account for 33% of the population of the states.
16 states have laws that guarantee the right to an abortion either prior to viability or throughout the pregnancy. These states account for 38% of the population of the states.
The remaining 15 states may have some restrictions. They represent 29% of the population of the states.
(Any typos are probably my fault. I just banged out the numbers on a spreadsheet.)Report
Some of these include exemptions for rape or life or health of the mother.
And some do not? Yeah, that’s responsible governing.Report
Yeah, yeah. Put your guesses down.Report
Women dying because they live in a red state is “yeah, yeah”?Report
Or because they live in a blue one, but they’re poor and can’t afford to go to the good clinic and Obamacare doesn’t cover it.
Put your guesses down.Report
I’m terrible at this. In 2020 I honestly thought Trump was silly season stuff and people would come to their senses. (As they had been previously with McCain and Romney.)
And I know you have to BSDI this, but the government outlawing lifesaving medical procedures really is a step beyond.Report
So make guesses about Chesa.
You live in San Fran, right?
What was your sense of the school board recalls (before and after)?
Is the Chesa thing like that? What does your Saturday night poker group think?Report
I don’t like in SF. I live nearby, and Chesa never comes up. It’s not only not national, it’s not regional.Report
About a year ago this time, it was becoming clear that the visceral parts of the lib agenda weren’t going to be enacted. I’m talking about court-packing, voting/retaliations for Jan 6, statehood for DC, ending the filibuster, enormous reconciliations bills, etc.
Libs were crying and desperate that they weren’t getting what they wanted and what they hoped. Somehow, it passed beneath notice that they weren’t even getting a hearing or having any kind of meaningful dialog with the people who they needed to persuade.
Manchin, Sinema, House moderate D’s, moderate/lib Republicans outside of Washington, politicians or otherwise, for all these people not only were they not will to agree or acquiesce to what the libs wanted, in a meaningful way they really weren’t even willing to take a meeting or let the libs pitch them either. I actually felt sorry for the libs a little bit, as much as maybe you don’t want to believe that.
Politics of negotiation are becoming increasingly irrelevant. Politics of association are dominating.
We must be able to inject some measure of trust into our political culture. And for that, libs have to be much more trustworthy than what they’ve been.Report
Yeah, conservatives have no agency. If they kill women, it’s because we forced them to.Report
Not on your life. Conservatives have agency, we’re using that agency to freeze out the libs. Aren’t you paying any attention at all?Report
It’s like our own Iranian revolution.Report
Down the road, there will be political ramifications of some kind no matter what, probably more volatile if Roe is overturned or substantially weakened though even that isn’t really certain.
But not in 2022. Demos will try to rally the pro-choice GOP-leaners back to the Democrats but it’s not going to work. And I don’t think it will work wrt similar maneuvers around other issues either.
The problem for Demo optimists like Philip is that he is severely underestimating the determination of the American people to ignore whatever the Democrats try to sell them between now and Election Day.
People have already had their minds made up by Afghanistan, inflation, CRT, immigration, school closures, whatever, there just not reachable or persuadable for libs or Demos, to any end, really. They are going to respond to these agitations by voting Republican, and once they’ve done that, and can see the fallout, whatever it is, then they’ll reassess the Demos. Not before.Report
YOur biggest weakness is that you look at polling saying between 60 and 70 percent of Americans want Roe preserved in some fashion, including significant numbers of independents and Republicans, and still believe that people won’t vote against the party, if not the politicians, that take it away from them.
And we know what the fallout from a Republican wave will be since that’s what we got when Trump came to power and Republicans ran both the senate and the House. People don’t need to do it again to be reminded.Report
Not just pertaining to abortion, but issue polling relating to anything really, especially lib issue polling is deeply corrupt and unreliable. Ie, in spite of libs trying very very hard, libs can never generate election returns commensurate with their supposed issue advantage implicit from issue polls.
And that goes for abortion, Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions for Covid, crime/policing, immigration, guns, etc etc. Anything really.Report
The hard truth that pro-lifers and pro-choicers need to understand is that 70% of the population agrees with them. Neither side wants to accept that.Report
I think that is probably the best and most succinct way to put it.Report
Thanks, I’m not even counting the 120% of the population that doesn’t want to talk about it.Report
Hardly. in 1975, 45% of Americans said abortion should be legal under some circumstances. 22% of Americans said it be unrestricted. 21% said it should be banned completely.
In 2021, those numbers were 48%, 32% and 19% respectively. Despite what the Republican demagogues would have you believe the numbers are consistent across 4 plus decades.
Which means that the majority of Americans want Roe to be preserved but vary in how far it should go. Republicans voting to toss Roe, or expecting the tossing of Roe by SCOTUS to gain them something are misreading the room badly.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspxReport
One of the ways in which people lie about abortion is to take advantage of the fact that the right to abortion is widely supported in the first trimester, with falling support in the second, and outright opposition in the third.
Which not coincidentally matches the framework in Roe.
Which also matches the rate of abortions themselves- i.e., most occur in the first trimester, then fewer and fewer until late term abortions are extremely rare.
Which also matches human behavior. Most women make up their minds very quickly as to whether they want to abort or not, and very few wait until the last trimester, when almost all of those cases are medical emergencies.
Which is to say that even given complete unrestricted freedom of choice, the vast majority of women choose reliable birth control, and for those that fail, the vast majority choose to abort quickly.Report
I went pithy because I loved the phrasing, but I guess I have to spell this out.
Most people find the subject uncomfortable. They may be supportive of some restrictions, cautious about others, and wary of anyone who keeps bringing up the subject. You’ll find that many of those who want to ban it “completely” would support exemptions for rape, incest, and life or health of the mother. You’ll find that many who support it “completely” would favor a ban after the first trimester. Polling is very dependent on phrasing. People are very uncomfortable about the issue, as it involves sex, gore, government, and morals.
You’ll find countries in Europe support abortion in the first trimester and oppose it in the third. I think that’s been the approach for most of Western history. Some blend of considering it illegal and immoral but also looking the other way. That’s where most of the US is.
I wish we weren’t. I wish most people saw it for what it is. And I could find polling that would make me feel comforted. But so can you. The most hardcore pro-choicer has misgivings about abortion, and the most hardcore pro-lifer has misgivings about the legal authority that would be needed to enforce a ban.Report
And yet Republican politicians are clamping down in anticipation of Roe being tossed. They are side stepping the government enforcement issue by using private lawsuits, and in several states they have removed exceptions for rape or incest. The politicians are moving way past their electorates. They aren’t matching the restrictions you discuss – which I would support though only grudgingly so since I don’t believe I have the right to impose restrictions on a woman’s reproduction, much less her medical decision making.Report
Yeah, yeah, you can beat that drum until the head tears but you can’t make anybody care, and they don’t.
America is healing:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president-biden-job-approval-7320.htmlReport
Questions for Saul:
You live there. You see stuff that people who don’t live there don’t.
The polling says that the Chesa recall has about 60% support. Do you feel that this is inaccurate?
Like, in your circle, I’m guessing that there was somewhat broad support for the school recalls (maybe there were quibbles over Moliga) but what is the general consensus of your circle on Chesa Boudin? Is it “He’s doing what we elected him to do!” enthusiasm? Is it “Well, I’ve got buyers remorse but he deserves a chance to turn things around”?
Does anybody in your circle support the recall? If so, would you say that they have legit gripes? Would you say that they’ve watched too much Fox News?Report
There is a good possibility that 2022 is more of a wash than people think: https://wisconsinexaminer.com/2022/04/06/conservatives-school-board-push-yields-mixed-results-in-tuesday-elections/
There were spring term elections in Wisconsin this month and it was largely a wash for Republicans except in all but the most conservative/red areas. Democrats came out and voted and held their own. The Republicans did pick up a judicial seat on the Wisconsin Court of Appeals but it was a seat Democrats held only because of an appoinntment by Evers and the candidate did well for a Democratic candidate running in WOW land.Report
1. Mostly local nothingburger. Frankly I think that Haney v. Campos was by far the bigger news out of that region because it suggests that YIMBY concepts are starting to actually penetrate to the electorate in Cali and that is a HUGE fishin deal.
2. Yes. The locals are pissed about crime and Chesa is the DA. They’ll get the boot for that.
3. No clue. Wouldn’t even dare to guess. I simply don’t have the bandwidth to follow the various races closely. My one hope and agnostic prayer is Trump ratfishes up the GA race so much that Abrams wins the governorship. Heck, I’m going to predict it because why the heck not?
4. Republicans take the house. I’m going to say they have a moderately good night so I’m gonna say they gain 11 seats.
5. I think the Dems Senate candidates are strong and the GOP is especially weak in state wide elections and is prone to their further right wing nonsense contaminating contests so I’m going to predict the Dems hang on to their seats and stay at 50/50.Report
The YIMBY v. NIMBY thing is a bit all over the map. YIMBY’s tend to win the city-wide elections or at least in elections that are bigger than a seat on the Board of Supervisors (I’m not in Haney’s district). However, on the Board, NIMBYs can still have the strong advantage.Report
Oh yeah I’m not gonna be like “Hurrah NIMBY’s are defeated for evah!” but I am deeply gratified to see some movement towards housing policy sensibility in blue regions.Report
4. GOP probably ends up somewhere in the 240’s.
The interesting thing about this is the makeup of Demo “safe” seats and what that means for the GOP upside. Basically, to have a Demo safe seat this cycle, you need
a. a reasonably well regarded incumbent, who
b. won by 15+ points in 2020, and
c. is in a reasonably stable district in terms of partisan demographics.
Anything less than that, you’re looking at a pretty decent chance of Hello, Congressman R. A perfect example of this is Nevada, which could easily go from 3-1 Demo to 4-0 GOP. There are IIRC, 3 seats where Demo incumbents won by ~8 points, and they are all in danger of losing now. The handicappers are usually a little more Demo-friendly than this, and they could end up being right. But it’s also true that the GOP has a _lot_ of upside where “safe” Demo seats aren’t remotely safe.
5. GOP wins 4 net seats, ends up 54-46.
There are 7 reasonably competitive seats at the moment: North Carolina, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, New Hampshire. First three are held by Republicans, last four by Demos. In a vacuum, any prediction of these could be plausible. We’re not in a vacuum, though. We’re not in a vacuum, though, we’re in a GOP wave year. And in a wave, there’s nothing really distinctive enough for any of these, in terms of local issues or incumbency or candidate quality, which would allow a Demo to swim against the tide and win a race. So 7-0 GOP.
The problem for the GOP is that the upside past 54 is really thin on the ground. In a different situation, you could see a GOP candidate make headway in Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Oregon, or Washington. But it hasn’t happened yet, and you’d think we would have heard something by now if it were going to happen, and we haven’t. So gotta figure Demos will hold all five.Report
1. No.
2. Doubtful.
3. I suspect there might be one or two changes of party, but its doubtful you will see a significant swing.
4. Democrats eeck out enough wins against bad but Trump endorsed candidates to keep a majority in the single digits. As Saul rightly notes, of Roe is overturned and more women keep being arrested – especially crossing state lines to seek legal abortions elsewhere – the GOP will have dug themselves a huge hole. Plus, despite polling, the economy is still improving and the last Covid restrictions are lifting (Feds have to start returning to offices nationally on Monday). That means we head into the summer on an upturn that is fairly easy to message.
5. The senate remains as it is.
6. Six of eight pass their referenda, and nothing changes federally. The aforementioned reelected Senators still refuse to vote for cloture, and the FDA doesn’t start rulemaking. A good many pharmaceutical companies get richer however.Report
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president-biden-job-approval-7320.html
America is healing.Report
Does CA have different recall laws than the rest of the country? It seems like every other month someone is facing a recall there.Report
Cali had rich Republicans who are tired of Dems governing but who can’t win elections.Report
I thought I remembered something about that in the comments to the school board post and I did:
Report
https://ballotpedia.org/Political_recall_efforts_by_state#California
This seems to suggest otherwise. Wasn’t a recall how we got Governor Ahnold?
So are the laws different? Or it just happens more?Report
OH!
This is a State thing vs. City thing.
nvmReport
California requires a remarkably low number of signatures to force a recall election compared to other recall states. There have been three recall efforts started against Gov. Polis here in Colorado. All failed, but IIRC, both of the first two would have been successful in CA.Report
Thanks! This is what I was looking for but couldn’t find in any sort of succinct way.Report
My prediction: Things will get worse, before they get better.
We will see more of this:
Broward family savagely beat gay man because they felt he ‘made’ son gay, victim told cops
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article260625882.html
Even after Ron DeSantis is turned out of office, the victim of his hate will still be blind, for life.
Bigotry and authoritarianism is very powerful and very popular, for a while.
So I expect things will become very dark and grim in America for those who are on the receiving end of Republicans hate, like trans and gays and nonwhite people.
The weakness is that authoritarians are notoriously unstable. They can’t resist drawing the circle of “Acceptable” tighter and tighter, excluding more and more people until there reaches a tipping point.
Notice how what started out as modest “bad DEI” reform, suddenly snowballed into seething hatred for trans and gay people, and how the campaign against abortion now includes hostility to contraception.
Authoritarianism is also very brittle, unable to compromise or build bridges. Notice how even a mild statement of opposition to Florida’s law resulted in a jackbooted attempt to silence Disney by whatever means necessary.
Those in society who could be natural allies of Republicans, like educated middle class professionals, are actually demonized because they tend to vote Democrat.
So in the short term, I expect Republicans to do very well over the next few years, but to eventually burn just a bridge too many, to estrange one too many allies, and face a reckoning.
But, as I mentioned, there will be a trail of carnage, a vast sea of victims for whom the reckoning will be too late.Report
And your guesses for Chesa, the Governorships, the House, and the Senate?Report
Oh man, isn’t it frustrating when people don’t focus on what YOU want them to focus on? MAN!Report
They can focus on whatever they want!
After they lay their numbers down.Report
This is a time capsule post after all.Report
Hey, I paid the admission fee, and I hate making predictions. The terms of the deal are pretty clear. But Chip is no stranger to the late-page quasi-tangential link.Report
Neither is Jaybird.Report
How does that tie into the discussion? Except for the way Chip was recently complaining that Jaybird does it. There’s the tie-in. So yes, I agree with your point that Chip was being hypocritical as well as not participating in the spirit of the thread and posting something unrelated to election prediction.Report
Chip made a prediction:
Then he went on to describe an example of why he thinks that. Then he expanded on his prediction:
Report
Come on, this is silly. Chip wanted to post his usual proof-of-natziism link and barely connected it to the article which asked for specific predictions. You don’t have to defend the obviously wrong just because it came from your side of the aisle. Ask yourself, if you switched out this comment with any of his others, would it appear less related to the article?Report
How much does the Hall Monitor job pay?Report
no it wouldn’t. He made predictions. That they differ in from from the request is not really relevantReport
Eh, they’re not exactly *MEASURABLE*, though.
Say what you will about the election, you’ll be able to say “okay, the Republicans had a bad night” or “Why are you saying the Republicans had a good night? You a fan of them or something?”
When it comes to predicting that Desantis will be even worse than Trump who was, himself, reminiscent of Hitler, well…
That’d be like predicting that pundits will find a strange new respect for Trump in a decade or so.
“Say what you will about Donald Trump, but he was so much better at connecting with people from both sides of the aisle than Senator Grendel!”Report
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