Doesn’t Matter Who Wins the K Race; We’re All the Same

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Adder

I have exactly zero faith in any state level head-to-head polling more than a year out.

This isn't true. You definitely are paying attention to who's polling where and watching for trends (especially the ones you want) because you already mentioned Texas being a possibility. Things can change quickly, but don't act like there is no significance to the fact that as it stands now Biden has Texas a bit purple.

Originally Posted by Adder

But I want Castro on the ticket so the GOP has to at least think about Texas (not that I'm certain he will make that much difference).

If he's not on the ticket, offer him SoS early.

TM

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Jeet Heer said some stuff about John McCain's funeral that Sebby will agree with.

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Jeet Heer said some stuff about John McCain's funeral that Sebby will agree with.

Not as current as the bit by Jeet Heer (whose name I genuinely enjoy), but John Mulaney said some things about the Trump presidency that I agree with:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhkZMxgPxXU

[Icky Thump]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

So, this guy is basically saying what I've been saying, except he hasn't yet come to the conclusion that Biden's numbers are strongest in these states because he is a safe, old white man. He'll get there.

Let me know when he starts digging in to the difference between a Biden candidacy and a Warren candidacy when it comes to flipping crucial senate seats. If there is even a whiff of a chance of getting McConnell the fuck out of his seat and/or retaking the Senate because Biden is polling 1% higher than Warren in those states, motherfuckers better get over this "I need a true progressive" bullshit, vote for Biden and watch him rubber stamp everything Dems force down Republicans' throats for the next 8 years.

TM

A-Fucking-Men.

Just win baby.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

Not as current as the bit by Jeet Heer (whose name I genuinely enjoy), but John Mulaney said some things about the Trump presidency that I agree with:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhkZMxgPxXU

I haven't looked at your link, but I've lately found I have psychic powers! Let me guess, they are unfavorable things?

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

I haven't looked at your link, but I've lately found I have psychic powers! Let me guess, they are unfavorable things?

I guess it depends on your perspective.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

This is good news, for sure. Although I think every single point will count when it comes to flipping the Senate, if whoever gets the nomination can crush Trump, I'm happy.

But these are national numbers, I assume. I really need to know how everyone is doing relative to Biden in (i) the states that will matter most (Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, etc.) for the electoral and (ii) the states in which Republican Senators are vulnerable.

TM

I've been thinking about the Senate a lot. We have a really narrow window right now - win Maine, Arizona, and Colorado and hold, uh, Alabama. That's a tough combo in anything but a blowout.

We have to find a way to expand the field. The two seats in Georgia are the biggest target I think. After that, maybe North Carolina is possible with the turnout caused by redistricting, maybe Moscow Mitch is actually unpopular enough to lose Kentucky but, you know, it is Kentucky, Texas is the perennial longshot. The two I'd add that no one is talking about now are Montana, where we already hold a Senate Seat, and Alaska, where I have a college friend running and where the sitting senator won last time with less than 50% of the vote.

But the Senate is scaring the shit out of me, because I don't think we'll hold Alabama.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Jeet Heer said some stuff about John McCain's funeral that Sebby will agree with.

The most astute commentaries in it:

5. As I've been arguing for the last 3 years, Trump wasn't created out of an immaculate conception but is the true heir to generations of bad politics, notably GOP "Southern Strategy" of race-baiting.

7. Beyond the Southern Strategy & Palin, think of all the other elite choices that led to Trump: the lies of the Iraq war, the mainstreaming of Islamophobia, the casino economics that led to the 2008 meltdown, Obama's failure to prosecute bankers.

10. The message of the funeral was "The American establishment has a bipartisan contempt for Trump." What was missing was any sense of responsibility by that establishment for creating Trump.

11. The failure of the elite to come to terms with its own responsibility vitiates everything at the funeral -- Meghan McCain's righteous anger, Obama's eloquent thoughtfulness, Bush's cutesy candy-sharing.

13. "If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?" -- Anton Chigurh. That's the question we have to ask the establishment. The rules they followed brought us here, and now they want us to return to those rules.

The most frustrating phenomenon of the past three years has been the bipartisan/establishment push to define Trump as the cause of problems. Everybody, and I mean everybody, from your surgeon to your broker to your kid's college professor to your drunken goateed brother in law on a lawn chair, with his life laid out before him like a thundercloud, knows this:

Trump is the end result of an underlying disease. He is not what is ruining America. He is what you get in an already largely ruined America.

When confronted with this, everyone will agree to an extent. But when you get a bunch of people together who all have something to lose if the status quo is upended a bit (i.e., people who are in the top 15%), they all agree to observe the fiction that Trump is the problem, and all we have to do is get rid of him.

These people - people we hang around with, people in our social strata - will happily go along with narratives that paint rosy pictures about our economy. Narratives we know are false or obscure the truly bleak character of life in this country for those outside the top 15%. "Unemployment is at an all time low!" "The market is rocking!" "Look at housing! Millenials are going to drive it even higher!"

The reality is, it sucks to live in this country if you're not in the top 15%. Your life's trajectory will become increasingly uncertain as you move forward. Labor has no power anymore. We know this lopsided favoring of capital will end badly, but we don't know any other way to create growth besides financial alchemy. Financialization has ruined this county. Our courts and legislatures are controlled by corporate interests. Our health care system and college tuition increases are stealing enormous amounts of money and providing lousy multipliers.

No sane person can defend Donald Trump. But equally, no sane person can defend the policies that led to Donald Trump. If you run a country so that a very thin slice of us near the top cream off all the gains, and you make it near impossible for people outside the top to reach the top, and if you lie to the 85% below the top endlessly, and you pretend everything is fine and just keep kicking the can down the road, you will see some awful result. Donald Trump is just the beginning of a terrifically awful situation. Heer nails it in his last tweet:

13. "If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?" -- Anton Chigurh. That's the question we have to ask the establishment. The rules they followed brought us here, and now they want us to return to those rules.

I would add this: A man with no hope, who thinks the deck is stacked or that forces are aligned against him (and I think this describes most Trump voters and populists, the latter group including a ton of Bernie and Warren voters) might as well vote for a fascist or candidate offering debt relief unlikely to be passed by Congress. Why? Because it can't get any worse for him. Whether its protection of a status quo that fucks him (and whether Ds or Rs are in power, the 85% below the top gets fucked), a fascist lunatic fucking him, or disappointment when debt relief does not come to pass, he's still pretty much getting fucked the same way. It's entirely rational for him to vote for anyone seeking to "burn it all down," anyone seeking to do something radical.

Populism isn't the problem. Trump isn't the problem. Our systems and their corporate masters, which created both, are the problem.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

I haven't looked at your link, but I've lately found I have psychic powers! Let me guess, they are unfavorable things?

Watch it. You can't spend four minutes in any better way. Possibly the best bit I've seen by Mulaney (who is generally awesome, btw).

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

The most astute commentaries in it:

5. As I've been arguing for the last 3 years, Trump wasn't created out of an immaculate conception but is the true heir to generations of bad politics, notably GOP "Southern Strategy" of race-baiting.

7. Beyond the Southern Strategy & Palin, think of all the other elite choices that led to Trump: the lies of the Iraq war, the mainstreaming of Islamophobia, the casino economics that led to the 2008 meltdown, Obama's failure to prosecute bankers.

10. The message of the funeral was "The American establishment has a bipartisan contempt for Trump." What was missing was any sense of responsibility by that establishment for creating Trump.

11. The failure of the elite to come to terms with its own responsibility vitiates everything at the funeral -- Meghan McCain's righteous anger, Obama's eloquent thoughtfulness, Bush's cutesy candy-sharing.

13. "If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?" -- Anton Chigurh. That's the question we have to ask the establishment. The rules they followed brought us here, and now they want us to return to those rules.

The most frustrating phenomenon of the past three years has been the bipartisan/establishment push to define Trump as the cause of problems. Everybody, and I mean everybody, from your surgeon to your broker to your kid's college professor to your drunken goateed brother in law on a lawn chair, with his life laid out before him like a thundercloud, knows this:

Trump is the end result of an underlying disease. He is not what is ruining America. He is what you get in an already largely ruined America.

When confronted with this, everyone will agree to an extent. But when you get a bunch of people together who all have something to lose if the status quo is upended a bit (i.e., people who are in the top 15%), they all agree to observe the fiction that Trump is the problem, and all we have to do is get rid of him.

These people - people we hang around with, people in our social strata - will happily go along with narratives that paint rosy pictures about our economy. Narratives we know are false or obscure the truly bleak character of life in this country for those outside the top 15%. "Unemployment is at an all time low!" "The market is rocking!" "Look at housing! Millenials are going to drive it even higher!"

The reality is, it sucks to live in this country if you're not in the top 15%. Your life's trajectory will become increasingly uncertain as you move forward. Labor has no power anymore. We know this lopsided favoring of capital will end badly, but we don't know any other way to create growth besides financial alchemy. Financialization has ruined this county. Our courts and legislatures are controlled by corporate interests. Our health care system and college tuition increases are stealing enormous amounts of money and providing lousy multipliers.

No sane person can defend Donald Trump. But equally, no sane person can defend the policies that led to Donald Trump. If you run a country so that a very thin slice of us near the top cream off all the gains, and you make it near impossible for people outside the top to reach the top, and if you lie to the 85% below the top endlessly, and you pretend everything is fine and just keep kicking the can down the road, you will see some awful result. Donald Trump is just the beginning of a terrifically awful situation. Heer nails it in his last tweet:

13. "If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?" -- Anton Chigurh. That's the question we have to ask the establishment. The rules they followed brought us here, and now they want us to return to those rules.

I would add this: A man with no hope, who thinks the deck is stacked or that forces are aligned against him (and I think this describes most Trump voters and populists, the latter group including a ton of Bernie and Warren voters) might as well vote for a fascist or candidate offering debt relief unlikely to be passed by Congress. Why? Because it can't get any worse for him. Whether its protection of a status quo that fucks him (and whether Ds or Rs are in power, the 85% below the top gets fucked), a fascist lunatic fucking him, or disappointment when debt relief does not come to pass, he's still pretty much getting fucked the same way. It's entirely rational for him to vote for anyone seeking to "burn it all down," anyone seeking to do something radical.

Populism isn't the problem. Trump isn't the problem. Our systems and their corporate masters, which created both, are the problem.

Of course, the biggest problem was people in swing states not voting for Clinton.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

So, this guy is basically saying what I've been saying, except he hasn't yet come to the conclusion that Biden's numbers are strongest in these states because he is a safe, old white man. He'll get there.

Let me know when he starts digging in to the difference between a Biden candidacy and a Warren candidacy when it comes to flipping crucial senate seats. If there is even a whiff of a chance of getting McConnell the fuck out of his seat and/or retaking the Senate because Biden is polling 1% higher than Warren in those states, motherfuckers better get over this "I need a true progressive" bullshit, vote for Biden and watch him rubber stamp everything Dems force down Republicans' throats for the next 8 years.

TM

Josh's analysis of the Marquette poll is the best argument based on "electability" I've seen so far. If only Biden hadn't blown it so often before, and if only it weren't one poll before labor day.

But I'm not at all sure a Senate based analysis would say the same thing. To the extent we're focusing on suburban voters (Colorado, Arizona), I think Warren probably runs at least as strongly and has a better record in a clutch. To the extent we're focusing on African American voters (e.g., Alabama, but not really Maine, Colorado, or Arizona), Biden probably is the stronger of the two.

I actually think if we were looking solely at electability there would be several candidates deeper in the pack who would be stronger. To really analyze that, you need cross tabs in polls that weed out the people voting based on name recognition, and you'd need to look at hardness versus softness of support and persuadability, but I'm betting only the candidates and the parties have polls at those levels right now.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski

A new place, the Elgor, something like that. I heard its landlord is actually a Trump controlled shell company.

Wow. You cut me deep, Shrek.

No secret over here (although I haven't told the firm yet). I'm opening a bar called The Elgin with a couple friends.

www.elginnyc.com

TM

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

Not as current as the bit by Jeet Heer (whose name I genuinely enjoy), but John Mulaney said some things about the Trump presidency that I agree with:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhkZMxgPxXU

I was not aware of John Mulaney until last weekend, but he is really very good at what he does, isn't he. A friend of mine worked for his father at Skadden.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

So, this guy is basically saying what I've been saying, except he hasn't yet come to the conclusion that Biden's numbers are strongest in these states because he is a safe, old white man. He'll get there.

Let me know when he starts digging in to the difference between a Biden candidacy and a Warren candidacy when it comes to flipping crucial senate seats. If there is even a whiff of a chance of getting McConnell the fuck out of his seat and/or retaking the Senate because Biden is polling 1% higher than Warren in those states, motherfuckers better get over this "I need a true progressive" bullshit, vote for Biden and watch him rubber stamp everything Dems force down Republicans' throats for the next 8 years.

TM

Interestingly, the first of those two posts suggested that Biden had had that edge nationally but that some other Dems have caught up. The second post says he has that edge in Wisconsin.

I think it's too early to read too much into any of these polls, especially on the (important) question in your second paragraph.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

The most astute commentaries in it:

5. As I've been arguing for the last 3 years, Trump wasn't created out of an immaculate conception but is the true heir to generations of bad politics, notably GOP "Southern Strategy" of race-baiting.

7. Beyond the Southern Strategy & Palin, think of all the other elite choices that led to Trump: the lies of the Iraq war, the mainstreaming of Islamophobia, the casino economics that led to the 2008 meltdown, Obama's failure to prosecute bankers.

10. The message of the funeral was "The American establishment has a bipartisan contempt for Trump." What was missing was any sense of responsibility by that establishment for creating Trump.

11. The failure of the elite to come to terms with its own responsibility vitiates everything at the funeral -- Meghan McCain's righteous anger, Obama's eloquent thoughtfulness, Bush's cutesy candy-sharing.

13. "If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?" -- Anton Chigurh. That's the question we have to ask the establishment. The rules they followed brought us here, and now they want us to return to those rules.

The most frustrating phenomenon of the past three years has been the bipartisan/establishment push to define Trump as the cause of problems. Everybody, and I mean everybody, from your surgeon to your broker to your kid's college professor to your drunken goateed brother in law on a lawn chair, with his life laid out before him like a thundercloud, knows this:

Trump is the end result of an underlying disease. He is not what is ruining America. He is what you get in an already largely ruined America.

When confronted with this, everyone will agree to an extent. But when you get a bunch of people together who all have something to lose if the status quo is upended a bit (i.e., people who are in the top 15%), they all agree to observe the fiction that Trump is the problem, and all we have to do is get rid of him.

These people - people we hang around with, people in our social strata - will happily go along with narratives that paint rosy pictures about our economy. Narratives we know are false or obscure the truly bleak character of life in this country for those outside the top 15%. "Unemployment is at an all time low!" "The market is rocking!" "Look at housing! Millenials are going to drive it even higher!"

The reality is, it sucks to live in this country if you're not in the top 15%. Your life's trajectory will become increasingly uncertain as you move forward. Labor has no power anymore. We know this lopsided favoring of capital will end badly, but we don't know any other way to create growth besides financial alchemy. Financialization has ruined this county. Our courts and legislatures are controlled by corporate interests. Our health care system and college tuition increases are stealing enormous amounts of money and providing lousy multipliers.

No sane person can defend Donald Trump. But equally, no sane person can defend the policies that led to Donald Trump. If you run a country so that a very thin slice of us near the top cream off all the gains, and you make it near impossible for people outside the top to reach the top, and if you lie to the 85% below the top endlessly, and you pretend everything is fine and just keep kicking the can down the road, you will see some awful result. Donald Trump is just the beginning of a terrifically awful situation. Heer nails it in his last tweet:

13. "If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?" -- Anton Chigurh. That's the question we have to ask the establishment. The rules they followed brought us here, and now they want us to return to those rules.

I would add this: A man with no hope, who thinks the deck is stacked or that forces are aligned against him (and I think this describes most Trump voters and populists, the latter group including a ton of Bernie and Warren voters) might as well vote for a fascist or candidate offering debt relief unlikely to be passed by Congress. Why? Because it can't get any worse for him. Whether its protection of a status quo that fucks him (and whether Ds or Rs are in power, the 85% below the top gets fucked), a fascist lunatic fucking him, or disappointment when debt relief does not come to pass, he's still pretty much getting fucked the same way. It's entirely rational for him to vote for anyone seeking to "burn it all down," anyone seeking to do something radical.

Populism isn't the problem. Trump isn't the problem. Our systems and their corporate masters, which created both, are the problem.

You say stuff like this a lot, but your answers are usually along the lines of, it needs to all burn down, which sounds more like the problem than a solution. Other than voting for Gary Johnson, what is to be done?