It also bears on the narrative of what the D’s need to do. That they need to appeal in more places is somewhat less then a new idea. But it’s not just the dreaded D’s in D places that vote leading to winning the pop vote. D’s in Repub voting states count ( and vice versa of course).
The bigger point for me is how the Demos think of themselves and where they want to go from here. It's not at all obvious for me.
The one thing that held the party together was antagonism to Trump and Red State America in general. Well, Trump is gone now, and antagonism for us doesn't have a lot of juice left, especially since such a big percentage of Red State America votes Demo (or has recently).
It's also pretty clear that there's very large chunks of the party who do not want to be associated with anything too radical, whether it's 1970s era socialism or contemporary woke identity politics. And they have proven they will jump ship and start playing for the other team as soon as they see something they don't like, and that goes both for primaries and general elections.
So, I guess what's left is generic postwar American liberalism running on autopilot. And in this case it's personified by Joe Biden, who is pretty dim even in the best case. Are the other factions of the party really going to sit still for that? I dunno, but it's also kinda hard to see where they should go.
As far as 2022 goes, at least the logic isn't complicated. The Trump years have shown the GOP where the votes are, but now we don't actually have to have Trump with his gale-force negative approval headwind.
I'm not involved in the George stuff here at the League, and I'm not much a buyer in George-style conservatism. But, given what's happened yesterday, I think there's a lot of libs who owe George an apology.
If there's anything we've learned from the Trump years, there's a lot of stuff going on that sounds like ridiculous bullshit, that ends up being true.
What makes anyone think either side did anything wrong?
Or what if they did. What if the Demos invested themselves in haterade against us, but it turns out that's not really what their voters were looking for.
And now that Trump is presumably gone, there's not much percentage in that anyway.
Yeah, this election came in better than I could have legitimately hoped for. One guy on twitter I respect wrote that John James winning in Michigan while Trump loses is better than the country deserves and I gotta admit that's basically where I am as well.
More bullish on Trump now than at any time for the past six months. Still not enough to think he wins, but less ridiculous now than even say, a week ago. Let's say Trump 220-240 EVs.
I'll predict the GOP holds the Senate, though I'm not completely sure that I believe it myself. It could be that the effect of the 3-5 days of GOP momentum is that GOP holds all their Senate seats except the ones that have been obviously vulnerable the whole cycle, so GOP holds Mississippi, Kentucky, both Georgia seats, South Carolina, Kansas, Texas (and picks up Alabama). That part I am pretty comfortable with.
With the Selzer poll out, I am convinced Iowa is safe for the GOP. Libs and even most neutral observers are reasonably confident that GOP is lost in Maine, Arizona, Colorado, Minnesota and Michigan. I'm not buying it, but if the GOP wins as many as one of these, they're probably doing as well as you could hope. North Carolina is a pure tossup, don't even have a guess of that one. Montana is going GOP but by the thinnest of margins.
"I’m OG Dreher…before he sold out to big Benedict."
Imo, Crunchy Cons is his least interesting, least mature book. Everything he's written since then is much better.
It was foolish for him to believe that he could make a separate peace with the Left (and frustrating for me to watch him). To a large extent, the reason the Left hates us is because they think we're traditional religious like Dreher.
The same. Which is kind of unfortunate, really. Between Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig and Freddie DeBoer the League has two legitimately powerful and credible voices from this generation of the Left as alumni (and frankly there aren't very many).
"I listed NRO, The Daily Wire, and The Federalist as go-to sites for me. Shapiro is at The Daily Wire. I think Domenech is at The Federalist."
Gotta admit, I'm not following this line of comments at all. Ross Douthat and Rod Dreher are obviously in the top tier of right wing thought leaders.
The Federalist and Daily Wire are obviously second tier at best. NRO used to be a big deal, but they have lost a lot of their talent and don't really know how to position themselves any more. Ben Shapiro is kind of the same way. He has a big podcast, but not big enough to live in the same world as Fox News. He wants to be respectable and I don't have any particular complaints against him but Trump doesn't place much value on respectability which undermines his position quite a bit.
Jamelle Bouie is hackiest hack in all of media, like hackier than Sean Hannity. He can't string together 10 words in a sequence that's not utterly hackworthy.
"What am I missing? What are you (and Koz) seeing that isn’t hitting me? Or, for that matter, the 83%+ of the Republicans that like him?"
Pretty simple really. There are things we think we believe in that lead us to support Trump. There are lots of supporters out there and not all of them have the same reasons. Eg, immigration reform, better paying manufacturing jobs in America, strategic opposition to China, etc. Whatever those reasons are for you, we need to make a case for among the American people in general. We can't do that while Trump is President, because we're with Trump and they're tuning Trump out.
Like the OP, for example. There's lots of Americans who don't like antifa, and not all of are right wingers by any means. But, there not going to care very much about getting rid of them while Trump is President. And Kristin can vote for Trump if she wants, but that isn't materially going to change anything.
I sympathize with most of what Kristin write in the OP, but the same reasons that are leading her to support Trump for reelection are the motivations for me to oppose him.
There is no way the libs would be pro-riots and pro-arson if it weren't for the distortion field surrounding Trump as President. The GOP would skyrocket in the polls if they did, but frankly the libs would be able to get it together enough to oppose arson and riots even before then.
For some people, Kristin in this case, support for the reelection of Donald Trump feels like such an extreme and emotionally charged thing, that there has to be a lot of leverage in actually going through with it. Unfortunately, in the plain light of day I don't think there is.
I have found UK politics to be fascinating for the last 18 months or so, and this stuff is definitely one part of the drama.
I think the accusations behind moves like this are likely bogus, in a literalist sense. But they are or will be very popular in any event, and Corbyn and his fans will have no recourse against them.
Probably not. As several people pointed out in the 2016 primaries, Trump did especially poorly in the "nice people" states and dominated everywhere else. Utah was foremost among the former.
The point being, that contrary to the beliefs of a lot of libs, they don't have to bring the nasty in order to meaningfully participate in American politics.
"Utah hated Mitt Romney’s impeachment decision, and his favorability rating went badly under water. By March it had only recovered to minus 13 points."
Whatever extent this has any validity it is probably being driven by Republicans. And if it is, they need to be getting with the program. Their perception of what the alternatives are is woefully misplaced.
I agree with the OP, in that I want us to move toward Urah and away from Weimar.
The problem is that the OP omits or glides over the extent to which civility and mutual respect is itself a political issue, and a highly partisan one at that. In fact, there is an obvious piece of evidence to that end here, in that Utah is highly Republican state, one of the most Republican in the country, no matter what happens regarding the outcome of this particular election.
And furthermore, which ought to registerer libs, is that Demos can very much get a fair hearing in Utah, even though it is a Republican state.
Well yeah. I haven't followed George in particular too closely, but there's been plenty of George-y stuff that's turned out to be true during the Trump era, and a lot of it was significantly surprising to me at the time.
And there's been plenty of libs writing plenty of ridiculous and disgraceful things for a long time here at the League.
So yeah, I do think the nasty directed against George is probably unfair.
"Trump is the most corrupt politician since Harding. Maybe ever. If you vote for him, you are not into draining the swamp. You are into white supremacy and authoritarian plutocracy."
With the threading in the comment section, it's not completely clear what this is in response to. Whatever it is, this is almost certainly an exercise in hyperbole and self-deception.
"......Big Scandal that will Definitely Get Trump This Time, and ....."
Yeah, that's exactly right, except that as things stand right now, the shoe is on the other foot.
Trump partisans want to talk about party registrations in Pennsylvania China payoffs to Biden through some scummy Hunter stuff. And when push comes to shove there may be a little bit of traction there.
But not enough. There is a huge desire in normie white America for Trump not to be around, and on that point we've got nothin'.
Whatever. This is six of one, half dozen of the other.
For this purpose, it doesn't make that much difference if Trump is a substantively great President or a substantively poor one. We in generic Right America simply can't carry the baggage Trump brings with him, end of.
This is the point that I think Aaron (and George for that matter) misses.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “The Destructive High Water Mark of MAGA”
Well goolllllee Sergeant!!! What was the issue?
"
This is a comment
"
This is a comment.
On “Election Day, Part Deux: Recap, Open Thread, and Latest News”
The bigger point for me is how the Demos think of themselves and where they want to go from here. It's not at all obvious for me.
The one thing that held the party together was antagonism to Trump and Red State America in general. Well, Trump is gone now, and antagonism for us doesn't have a lot of juice left, especially since such a big percentage of Red State America votes Demo (or has recently).
It's also pretty clear that there's very large chunks of the party who do not want to be associated with anything too radical, whether it's 1970s era socialism or contemporary woke identity politics. And they have proven they will jump ship and start playing for the other team as soon as they see something they don't like, and that goes both for primaries and general elections.
So, I guess what's left is generic postwar American liberalism running on autopilot. And in this case it's personified by Joe Biden, who is pretty dim even in the best case. Are the other factions of the party really going to sit still for that? I dunno, but it's also kinda hard to see where they should go.
"
As far as 2022 goes, at least the logic isn't complicated. The Trump years have shown the GOP where the votes are, but now we don't actually have to have Trump with his gale-force negative approval headwind.
"
I'm not involved in the George stuff here at the League, and I'm not much a buyer in George-style conservatism. But, given what's happened yesterday, I think there's a lot of libs who owe George an apology.
If there's anything we've learned from the Trump years, there's a lot of stuff going on that sounds like ridiculous bullshit, that ends up being true.
"
Or what if they did. What if the Demos invested themselves in haterade against us, but it turns out that's not really what their voters were looking for.
And now that Trump is presumably gone, there's not much percentage in that anyway.
"
Yeah, this election came in better than I could have legitimately hoped for. One guy on twitter I respect wrote that John James winning in Michigan while Trump loses is better than the country deserves and I gotta admit that's basically where I am as well.
"
At this point, you gotta figure the GOP chances of taking the House in 2022 are somewhere north of 80%
On “The Joy Of Opening Time Capsules: Global Pandemic Edition”
More bullish on Trump now than at any time for the past six months. Still not enough to think he wins, but less ridiculous now than even say, a week ago. Let's say Trump 220-240 EVs.
I'll predict the GOP holds the Senate, though I'm not completely sure that I believe it myself. It could be that the effect of the 3-5 days of GOP momentum is that GOP holds all their Senate seats except the ones that have been obviously vulnerable the whole cycle, so GOP holds Mississippi, Kentucky, both Georgia seats, South Carolina, Kansas, Texas (and picks up Alabama). That part I am pretty comfortable with.
With the Selzer poll out, I am convinced Iowa is safe for the GOP. Libs and even most neutral observers are reasonably confident that GOP is lost in Maine, Arizona, Colorado, Minnesota and Michigan. I'm not buying it, but if the GOP wins as many as one of these, they're probably doing as well as you could hope. North Carolina is a pure tossup, don't even have a guess of that one. Montana is going GOP but by the thinnest of margins.
On “The Antifa Case for Voting Trump”
"I’m OG Dreher…before he sold out to big Benedict."
Imo, Crunchy Cons is his least interesting, least mature book. Everything he's written since then is much better.
It was foolish for him to believe that he could make a separate peace with the Left (and frustrating for me to watch him). To a large extent, the reason the Left hates us is because they think we're traditional religious like Dreher.
"
"*League/Ordinary Times alumnus Jamelle Bouie."
The same. Which is kind of unfortunate, really. Between Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig and Freddie DeBoer the League has two legitimately powerful and credible voices from this generation of the Left as alumni (and frankly there aren't very many).
Jamelle Bouie, otoh, utterly hackworthy shameful disgrace.
"
"I listed NRO, The Daily Wire, and The Federalist as go-to sites for me. Shapiro is at The Daily Wire. I think Domenech is at The Federalist."
Gotta admit, I'm not following this line of comments at all. Ross Douthat and Rod Dreher are obviously in the top tier of right wing thought leaders.
The Federalist and Daily Wire are obviously second tier at best. NRO used to be a big deal, but they have lost a lot of their talent and don't really know how to position themselves any more. Ben Shapiro is kind of the same way. He has a big podcast, but not big enough to live in the same world as Fox News. He wants to be respectable and I don't have any particular complaints against him but Trump doesn't place much value on respectability which undermines his position quite a bit.
"
"Jamelle Bouie is excellent."
Jamelle Bouie is hackiest hack in all of media, like hackier than Sean Hannity. He can't string together 10 words in a sequence that's not utterly hackworthy.
"
"What am I missing? What are you (and Koz) seeing that isn’t hitting me? Or, for that matter, the 83%+ of the Republicans that like him?"
Pretty simple really. There are things we think we believe in that lead us to support Trump. There are lots of supporters out there and not all of them have the same reasons. Eg, immigration reform, better paying manufacturing jobs in America, strategic opposition to China, etc. Whatever those reasons are for you, we need to make a case for among the American people in general. We can't do that while Trump is President, because we're with Trump and they're tuning Trump out.
Like the OP, for example. There's lots of Americans who don't like antifa, and not all of are right wingers by any means. But, there not going to care very much about getting rid of them while Trump is President. And Kristin can vote for Trump if she wants, but that isn't materially going to change anything.
"
I sympathize with most of what Kristin write in the OP, but the same reasons that are leading her to support Trump for reelection are the motivations for me to oppose him.
There is no way the libs would be pro-riots and pro-arson if it weren't for the distortion field surrounding Trump as President. The GOP would skyrocket in the polls if they did, but frankly the libs would be able to get it together enough to oppose arson and riots even before then.
For some people, Kristin in this case, support for the reelection of Donald Trump feels like such an extreme and emotionally charged thing, that there has to be a lot of leverage in actually going through with it. Unfortunately, in the plain light of day I don't think there is.
On “Jeremy Corbyn “Suspended Pending Investigation” From Labour Party”
I have found UK politics to be fascinating for the last 18 months or so, and this stuff is definitely one part of the drama.
I think the accusations behind moves like this are likely bogus, in a literalist sense. But they are or will be very popular in any event, and Corbyn and his fans will have no recourse against them.
On “Utah or Weimar”
"Coincidence?"
Probably not. As several people pointed out in the 2016 primaries, Trump did especially poorly in the "nice people" states and dominated everywhere else. Utah was foremost among the former.
"
The point being, that contrary to the beliefs of a lot of libs, they don't have to bring the nasty in order to meaningfully participate in American politics.
"
"Utah hated Mitt Romney’s impeachment decision, and his favorability rating went badly under water. By March it had only recovered to minus 13 points."
Whatever extent this has any validity it is probably being driven by Republicans. And if it is, they need to be getting with the program. Their perception of what the alternatives are is woefully misplaced.
"
I agree with the OP, in that I want us to move toward Urah and away from Weimar.
The problem is that the OP omits or glides over the extent to which civility and mutual respect is itself a political issue, and a highly partisan one at that. In fact, there is an obvious piece of evidence to that end here, in that Utah is highly Republican state, one of the most Republican in the country, no matter what happens regarding the outcome of this particular election.
And furthermore, which ought to registerer libs, is that Demos can very much get a fair hearing in Utah, even though it is a Republican state.
On “The Curmudgeon’s Case for Biden”
"But we’re supposed to respect him for it?"
Well yeah. I haven't followed George in particular too closely, but there's been plenty of George-y stuff that's turned out to be true during the Trump era, and a lot of it was significantly surprising to me at the time.
And there's been plenty of libs writing plenty of ridiculous and disgraceful things for a long time here at the League.
So yeah, I do think the nasty directed against George is probably unfair.
"
"Trump is the most corrupt politician since Harding. Maybe ever. If you vote for him, you are not into draining the swamp. You are into white supremacy and authoritarian plutocracy."
With the threading in the comment section, it's not completely clear what this is in response to. Whatever it is, this is almost certainly an exercise in hyperbole and self-deception.
"
"......Big Scandal that will Definitely Get Trump This Time, and ....."
Yeah, that's exactly right, except that as things stand right now, the shoe is on the other foot.
Trump partisans want to talk about party registrations in Pennsylvania China payoffs to Biden through some scummy Hunter stuff. And when push comes to shove there may be a little bit of traction there.
But not enough. There is a huge desire in normie white America for Trump not to be around, and on that point we've got nothin'.
"
Whatever. This is six of one, half dozen of the other.
For this purpose, it doesn't make that much difference if Trump is a substantively great President or a substantively poor one. We in generic Right America simply can't carry the baggage Trump brings with him, end of.
This is the point that I think Aaron (and George for that matter) misses.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.