The 2022 Midterms

[fooferdoggie]

I am not minimizing what Trump did, but to put a gun to someone's head and threaten to shoot them... That is way beyond normal, even for a local sports hero. I haven't heard that claim about Trump.

well ya but trump raped his wife. raped a underage girl.

 

[lizkat]

You live in the south and know just how big SEC football is. And how crazy UGA fans are and he was a star for them.

Think about how Nancy Pelosi described AOC's district in that a "glass of water with a "D" beside its name could win in that district". Similar concept.

It's true that Ocasio-Cortez won by running in a district where the incumbent was asleep at the switch because it had been a "safe" district and past that the incumbent was a member of party leadership, doubling down on the idea of what "safe" means.

Nonetheless what AOC did was to stand in a primary for a Democrat's House seat (at all, never mind as a progressive) and so disrupt the whole idea of a safe district. That is also a part of what the extreme right has done with MAGA candidates.

The difference (in my humble opinion) is that AOC and other progressives like Pramila Jayapal have advanced progressive ideas and actually influenced policy over time in the Democratic Party. This despite the occasional efforts of Ms. Pelosi --in the understandable interests of keeping her party together-- to minimize the impact of any one particular member if that impact would impede passage of key legislation.

As far as I can tell, and in contrast to the behavior of the Democrats, the consistent focus of the GOP with respect to standing up MAGA oriented members of the US House has been to try to remove effective Republican moderates from government, to derogate the role of federal government in general, and to attempt a rollback of rules and laws that are actually favored by the majority of Americans.

The GOP didn't prevent Trump from trying to bring that tactic over to the US Senate. It failed. I will except the candidacy of Vance, since he is just a venture capitalist in populist clothing. He is a more typical Republican candidate of yesteryear... "Trust me I'm not a socialist."

The five Senate races that the GOP otherwise lost (including the one flipped in Pennsylvania) were a direct result of the Republicans failing to understand that what may work in a House race does not work statewide for a Senate race. The extreme views of today's Trump-encumbered GOP cannot attract enough independent and regular conservative votes in a statewide race. The governor's races also reflect that, although in a number of those, the successful R governorship winners, incumbent or otherwise, were more moderate than some of the downballot races like attorney general or secretary of state.

The Democrats may (and ordinarily would) have a hard time in 2024 because of need to defend 23 of the 26 Senate seats up that year besides trying to hold the Presidency. But the Republicans need to take a lesson from what happened in 2020 and 2022 if they mean to be able to capitalize on the Ds' potential vulnerabilities.

So far it doesn't really sound to me like the lessons are sinking in. The Rs remain political cowards, even after Trump nowadays turns out to be just a millstone around their necks. But rrom them I'd only expect more interim attempts at state levels now to try to make it easier to restrict voting and set aside unwanted results going foward.

There's only so long McConnell can try to dance that dance of suggesting that someone saying what Trump has been saying lately "isn't likely" to be able "to be elected" or "to be sworn in" as the American president.

I actually took it as ominous that the second time Mitch opened his mouth on the subject of Trump lately is that he even said "to be sworn in" but then maybe so should Trump. I was thinking,,,, what, Mitch figures that the GOP figures Trump could be sworn in without being elected? But Trump should maybe be thinking that McConnell figures Trump could land in prison orange no matter what else happens.

The midterms are over. The Rs have a skinny margin in the House. The Ds have a savvy pol in the White House and a majority in the Senate. Time for the Rs to quit vamping while the Special Counsel wraps up Trump's career. Get out in front of a trainwreck for once and renounce Trump before the justice system moots the possibility of his splitting the Republican Party.

 

[Herdfan]

Ok that puts some of the really extreme exceptions, but how do you justify voting for someone who beat his wife, threatened her with a gun to his head, and paid for abortions then claim to be pro-life? That would be a hard thing to overlook, even for a local sport hero.

Walker got over 1.7 million people to overlook that, which makes zero sense for 1,699,900 people who mostly claim to be god fearing Christians.

Well SEC football fans have never been reasonable.

 

[rdrr]

Well SEC football fans have never been reasonable.

I guess, but they all can't be UGA fans, some have to be GT fans right? I mean, the yellow jackets have the best fight song. The debate over cheer vs join aside of course.

 

[lizkat]

I will never understand how this election was as close as it was. How did almost half the state vote for Walker?

When the primaries are over and it's general election time, a lot of people will vote their usual party preference, no matter if the candidate who won the primary is someone they have to hunt up a clothespin to put over nose before going to the polls to support.

Still the fact that the Rs did not withdraw support for Walker as more about his character and lack of fitness surfaced during his initial campaign would just astound me, if I weren't already stunned by their longstanding and ongoing failure to throw Donald Trump overboard with the barest of blessings.

There is usually a limit on what a party will tolerate in a candidate for a general election. but there's no limits on anything when a party is digging a bottomless pit for itself. I don't get the craven GOP leadership these days, nor its lockstep MAGA supporters, nor even the choice of the rest of the conservative electorate in that Georgia runoff. I understand policy differences, but not in a vacuum as a standalone criterion.

Maybe that election will serve as a turning point. Interesting if some who voted for Walker but who are secretly relieved that he did not win will take that one step further and ask publicly why the Republican Party didn't put up a candidate actually worthy of their vote. What the GOP did to the Georgia voters. and to Herschel Walker as well, was unconscionable and an insult to the whole state. By not withdrawing support of Walker, the Rs signaled zero interest in vetting whether their candidate was capable of representing in the US Senate the interests of the people of Georgia. By now they certainly know that Trump doesn't make that sort of assessment.

 

[Herdfan]

Still the fact that the Rs did not withdraw support for Walker as more about his character and lack of fitness surfaced during his initial campaign would just astound me, if I weren't already stunned by their longstanding and ongoing failure to throw Donald Trump overboard with the barest of blessings.

I'm still kind of surprised he wasn't vetted better. Maybe they just looked at the name and said "GoooooDawgs!".

 

[Eric]

I'm still kind of surprised he wasn't vetted better. Maybe they just looked at the name and said "GoooooDawgs!".

Typically they're pretty well vetted on either side, this was a Trump pick and he rammed him through. We've been hearing from a lot of rational Republicans (whether we agree with them or not they're just standing by their own beliefs) that have called this out and want to get back to their party values.

I don't see that happening until they're able to put Trump behind them, frankly I'll be glad to go back to a time where we just disagreed on issues but showed some mutual respect.

 

[mac_in_tosh]

I think most of the people who voted for Walker did so only because he had an "R" next to his name. Even the ones who were aware of his extreme unfitness to hold any elected office figured he'd vote and do as he was told in the Senate.

Yes. I try to imagine that if Walker were a Democrat would I hold my nose and vote for him just to prevent the likes of Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham et al from gaining a majority in the Senate?

 

[lizkat]

I'm still kind of surprised he wasn't vetted better. Maybe they just looked at the name and said "GoooooDawgs!".

I maintain the leadership of this GOP are cowards. They didn't want to risk losing Trump's base... even when it began to become apparent that the independents and traditional conservatives were tiring of Trump. But now the midterms are over and really they don't have an excuse any more. They know who and what Trump is and that there's apparently no bottom to his range of misbehavior.

AND they and all of us now know that Trump loses conservative votes that the Rs could have secured with more traditional conservative candidates.

Time to face the music the Rs scored for themselves back in 2016. Renounce Trump on the most reasonable grounds there are for a party to renounce a member as candidate: he threatens the viability of the party itself. If he stands for the prez primary and loses he'll make the threat overt, split the party and return Biden or some other Dem to the White House.

So the Rs need to remake that party to appeal to more people. Reinstate a policy-based platform to replace the "Trump is our god" absurdity of 2020. Eat the relatively small further losses of MAGA support in the meantime, perhaps including some off-year races and special elections that Trump might decide to try to wreck out of rage. Not cutting their losses during Trump's presidency has already cost them dearly in 2020 and 2022.

How long do the Rs want to spend in the desert anyway? How can it matter now if they stand up a regular conservative in a special election and lose to some MAGA touted by Trump from the sidelines? How long do we think conservative Americans will like the show that MTG and Jim Jordan expect Kevin McCarthy to put up with in the House on his skinny majority there?

The general electorate tires of MAGA... and it's the general electorate that installs the winners into seats of government. Americans expect more of government than a circus after all. It's what they said in 2022 and again in the Georgia runoff.

 

[fooferdoggie]

the way he lost so many elections he has less real power then pence's fly but the yellow belly sapsuckers still quake in fear. even the turtle.

 

[lizkat]

the way he lost so many elections he has less real power then pence's fly but the yellow belly sapsuckers still quake in fear. even the turtle.

Yeah I don't get now why McConnell still dances like that.. except that there was actually some opposition to his remaining leader of his party in the Senate this time around, and it came from MAGA-supporting guys during attempt of Scott to wrest the post away from McConnell.

There is ongoing pressure from the same crowd to make things difficult for McConnell in the upcoming term as he leads the minority in the Senate. But, I don't happen to think that those guys are reading the election results correctly. And I don't think Americans expect or want the US Senate to act like the House does in terms of pot stirring on issues of the moment. It's supposed to be a place where negotiation takes place on key legislation. After all, how else work out how to represent the national interests of a nation made of entire states full of people with varied cultural and commercial interests.

Senate MAGA mutineers work on new ways to punish Mitch McConnell

Senate Republicans irate about having to spend another two years toiling away in the minority are vying to exert more influence as a MAGA clique that can muck things up for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell from now on.

"The way the Senate operates today with backroom deals and bills being added and subtracted behind closed doors is not not the way this place is supposed to operate," Sen. Ted Cruz said between votes at the US Capitol.

The Texas Republican called the unsuccessful leadership challenge Sen. Rick Scott of Florida mounted against McConnell last month "good and healthy," and said that the collective frustration with the status quo was still simmering.

"I believe we should stand up and fight. And we haven't been doing that nearly as much as we should," Cruz told Insider, adding, "And I think that discussion will remain ongoing."

Cruz is one of the McConnell foils Politico says have formed an informal "breakfast club" designed to replicate the leadership-needling power of conservatives involved with the Trump-aligned House Freedom Caucus and culture war-inclined Republican Study Committee.

So lemme get this straight. These guys figure that the way to get ahead while being in the minority is to make things difficult for their own party leadership to negotiate effectively and help get things done? They may have had their heads up someplace where the sun don't shine for far too long while expressing loyalty to The Don.

 

[Yoused]

I'm still kind of surprised he wasn't vetted better. Maybe they just looked at the name and said "GoooooDawgs!".

The QOP is the party of stupid. Their primary broad base appeal is to stupid people. That was a major reason for them to promote Walker, because who better for their stupid base to support and trust than a well-known idiot? The Republican base is not particularly comfotable with intelligent people (after all, intelligence, that is what the CIA does, ewww).

 

[lizkat]

The QOP is the party of stupid. Their primary broad base appeal is to stupid people. That was a major reason for them to promote Walker, because who better for their stupid base to support and trust than a well-known idiot? The Republican base is not particularly comfotable with intelligent people (after all, intelligence, that is what the CIA does, ewww).

Maybe a few are starting to rethink the wisdom of appealing to stupid when (somehow, against increasing odds?) the genpop still includes people capable of critical thinking when push comes to shove.

Raphael Warnock, because of Georgia's runoff election law and the fact that he first ran in a special election to fill out a term, has now won four straight elections for his Senate seat... all inside of two years. Georgia does have quite a collection of people with active brain cells, seems like.

Now Warnock gets to occupy that seat and continue to work for the people of Georgia for six years. At least he can quit campaigning for a couple of months and catch his breath...

Meanwhile, per the WaPo in its rolling update today on the Georgia election result, it was noted that two Republican US Senators have publicly distanced themselves from Trump in the wake of Herschel Walker's failure to dislodge Raphael Warnock from that Senate seat.

One is John Cornyn (Texas) and the other John Thune (South Dakota).

Thune said "I think [Trump's] obsession with the 2020 election became an albatross and a real liability for people who were running, especially in swing states."

Cornyn, after noting that the result in Georgia proved the GOP need to broaden their base of support past Trump fans: "...in this business you have to win elections before you actually govern. It’s not like coming in second and getting a trophy like you did in junior high school. You can’t win unless you get more votes than your opponent.”

Leaving the result of Georgia's Senate race aside, Trump may be more than disappointed to hear his supposed compatriots talk like that. In his mind what needs to happen is just ditch the inconvenient pieces of the Constitution and install him as President for life. What could be simpler? Just shred the underpinnings of our rule of law and roll with a strongman government. All the freedoms he'll decide are necessary will be ours when he's in charge.

To hear Donald Trump talk sometimes, we don't even need a Senate or a House of Representatives. After all, he alone can fix everything.

Just look at how all that has worked out so far, right? Right? [crickets sing in the twilight]

The rats may not be leaving the GOP's sinking ship, and Trump still has fans onshore, but some of the less stupid officers and other crew are now toying with the idea of giving Trump a shove before that ship of fools ever has to try to make port at another polling place again. For my money they could start with Ronna McDaniel at the RNC and clean that ship of fools too.

 

[lizkat]

This opinion piece is a good read... "The tragedy of Herschel Walker" (WaPo, paywall removed)

Herschel Walker could be basking in his former glory, his many offenses against women, children, honesty and the English language neatly masked by the invisibility cloak of celebrity. He is, after all, a walking personification of University of Georgia football, and Georgia is flying high: undefeated and ranked No. 1. Every great season stirs memories of past triumphs, and Walker is — or was, anyway — triumph personified.

In three seasons before turning pro after his junior year, the powerful running back scored 52 touchdowns, rushed for more than 5,000 yards and won 33 games against just three losses. He won the 1982 Heisman Trophy by a mile over a Stanford University quarterback named John Elway. Walker was the marquee player of the short-lived U.S. Football League, then entered the National Football League, where he racked up 61 touchdowns.

Perhaps, to borrow a phrase, he got tired of winning, because today he is known for his humiliating campaign for U.S. Senate from Georgia.

What compels a person to shower in gasoline and light up a cigar? In Walker’s case, it is a familiar story. He came into the orbit of that serial destroyer of other people’s reputations, Donald Trump.

The two men bonded after Trump acquired the New Jersey Generals of the USFL in 1983. Walker was the Generals’ superstar; luring him away from college the previous year had been a coup for the upstart league. Trump believed that Walker’s on-field prowess could help him force a merger with the established NFL.

Instead, like many of Trump’s enterprises, the league went bust. The mogul and his athletic marvel split on friendly terms after the 1985 season, the USFL’s last, during which Walker gained an incredible 2,411 yards. Despite going their separate ways — Walker to the NFL, Trump to the money pit of Atlantic City — they remained friendly. And we all know what becomes of Trump’s friends.

By encouraging Walker to run for the Senate and endorsing him in the Republican primary, Trump reminded the world of his contempt for American government and American ideals. One hot mess is as good as the next when it comes to burning down the GOP and replacing it with a cult of Trump. As usual, voters disagreed and rejected Walker — just as they rejected Trump’s unready candidates in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona in November.

 

[Yoused]

Herschel is absolutely shocked that he only got 74% of the vote in Johnson County, where he grew up and says he is going to call the Sheriff to find out who did not vote for him.

 

[Yoused]

Recent poll says that two-thirds of Americans feel that the country is "on the wrong track", and that neither party is well suited to fixing our problems. The poll reveals that most Americans consider the Republicans too extreme and the Democrats too much of the opposite extreme.

The Democrats are extreme? WhoTF is running the damn media? Because that is some powerful effective messaging that gets that many people seeing the Ds as extreme.

 

[lizkat]

I found this FiveThirtyEight piece interesting, particularly about the Dems flipping the Senate seat in Pennsylvania. Apparently what helped put the Dem over the top was that white voters without a college degree voted blue for a change and went for John Fetterman by numbers that overperformed Biden's 2020 numbers.

That wasn't an accident, since the Dem campaign did focus on them, and it may have been in part because some of that base is rural and might not have been all that impressed by the celebrity of Dr. Mehmet Oz. So it might have been part strategy, part the respective backgrounds of Fetterman and Oz, part turnout effort plus "a wing and a prayer" for parts of rural PA that can often vote deep deep red.. but whatever it was, it worked out great for the Dems.

The Voters Who Helped Democrats Keep the Senate

How Democrats broadened Biden’s 2020 coalition in key states.

fivethirtyeight.com

 

[GermanSuplex]

The difference (in my humble opinion) is that AOC and other progressives like Pramila Jayapal have advanced progressive ideas and actually influenced policy over time in the Democratic Party. This despite the occasional efforts of Ms. Pelosi --in the understandable interests of keeping her party together-- to minimize the impact of any one particular member if that impact would impede passage of key legislation.

As far as I can tell, and in contrast to the behavior of the Democrats, the consistent focus of the GOP with respect to standing up MAGA oriented members of the US House has been to try to remove effective Republican moderates from government, to derogate the role of federal government in general, and to attempt a rollback of rules and laws that are actually favored by the majority of Americans.

I was reading an article with a quote in it that pretty much sums it up and echoes what you’re saying…

Sarah Longwell, a Republican strategist, told me, “The Dems’ extreme people are extreme on progressive policies. The Republicans’ extreme are extreme on the level of the insane taking over the asylum.”

What Kevin McCarthy Will Do to Gain Power — The New Yorker

The Republican leader’s ambition has always been his defining characteristic. Attempting to placate both Trumpists and moderates may lead to his downfall.

apple.news

 

[lizkat]

I was reading an article with a quote in it that pretty much sums it up and echoes what you’re saying…

Sarah Longwell, a Republican strategist, told me, “The Dems’ extreme people are extreme on progressive policies. The Republicans’ extreme are extreme on the level of the insane taking over the asylum.”

What Kevin McCarthy Will Do to Gain Power — The New Yorker

The Republican leader’s ambition has always been his defining characteristic. Attempting to placate both Trumpists and moderates may lead to his downfall.

apple.news

Longwell's not wrong about that. The more vocal of the House Freedom Caucus have been an irresponsible bunch of legislators since they first gathered and started obstructing just about every move that then speaker Boehner made. Not because they objected to specific legislation. They mostly just object to federal government. They're there to dismantle it from within.

But I'm starting to think they'll end up dismantling the Republican Party instead. Couldn't happen to a more deserving crowd. I mean the rest of the GOP legislators have stood around and either watched the circus or else have even joined in sometimes.The problem with that is that the novelty is finally wearing off. Voters who lean right and actually show up at the polls are starting to resent the choices they end up with in the general election, after years of the right primarying its own with farther right candidates.

The HFC crowd have just about got out too far ahead of the Rs' base now. That might not show up in 2024 depending on how it goes with Biden, but the dissatisfaction of conservatives over the not-serious behavior of the extreme right of their own party is growing.

So 2026, 2028 is probably the farthest out the Rs can keep ignoring that elephant in their own living room, at risk of spending decades as a minority. Americans are more about inclusion any more than exclusion. Choice. Choice is freedom. Freedom is not what the extreme Rs say it is. Freedom is not imposing THEIR choice on everyone.

But how does the House Freedom Caucus deal with that? By doubling down on the idea of saying NO, NO, NO. They don't have a platform. They are why the Trump-kowtowing Rs had a platform of "Trump is our guy" in 2020 and it's why they lost in 2020 and won a skinny majority instead of a landslide in 2022. They say no to Dems but they don't have alternate ideas to offer to all of America, nothing to expand their appeal and grow their party's base.

 

[Herdfan]

I found this FiveThirtyEight piece interesting, particularly about the Dems flipping the Senate seat in Pennsylvania. Apparently what helped put the Dem over the top was that white voters without a college degree voted blue for a change and went for John Fetterman by numbers that overperformed Biden's 2020 numbers.

That wasn't an accident, since the Dem campaign did focus on them, and it may have been in part because some of that base is rural and might not have been all that impressed by the celebrity of Dr. Mehmet Oz. So it might have been part strategy, part the respective backgrounds of Fetterman and Oz, part turnout effort plus "a wing and a prayer" for parts of rural PA that can often vote deep deep red.. but whatever it was, it worked out great for the Dems.

Maybe I should run. I wear as much Carhartt as Fetterman did.