Ok guys, fuck the election. The news of the injury to Gomez is far more serious!!
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It’s never been about Trump. It’s been about his ability to weaponize his support against the party. They take the step the moment they think Trump’s power over them has waned and a not a moment before.
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After the Georgia runoffs.
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This isnt about Dems not voting. This is about Red leaning purple districts reverting back to their natural order once they had Trump on the ticket to vote against him directly. In 2018, turning these districts blue was only electoral protest that was available to them and so we saw a blue wave. With Trump on the ticket it allowed ticket splitting, something that enabled a direct protest against Trump, but also allowed people on the fence about Biden and his socialism to vote for him while mitigating against their worst concerns of his presidency by balancing that with a vote for Republicans in congress.
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Surely the GOP realize that the longer trump does this shit , the more it fucks them up at the 2024 , if they get trump to concede , still gives them a chance and a very good chance at that to get back to power with similar policies and a less repugnant person upfront …
The longer this plays out , the more trump is going to make a case against them in 2024
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I think its about calling his bluff. Call him out and let the criminal cases against him happen to hinder him making a run again even on an independant ticket.
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The interesting thing is that Congress ran ahead of Trump in this election. They don’t need him. They’re just not sure how to try to cut ties with him while still staying connected to his base.
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Is that the American version of Delhi Belly?
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Theres def a case to be made of people voting pro Republican and against trump. That’s part of the reason as to why i stated that the republicans got what they wanted off of him. Anything more and he turns out to be a bigger liability for them than he already is
Is that really the whole answer ? Seems unlikely. I accept most of what you write here as facts, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California's_39th_congressional_district must surely at least be a swing district ?
I don’t think you can paint this as the Democrats doing well in the Congress at current, but I am open to anything you have to say, you know a lot about this. But so do those sources I read that speak of the Congress battle being awful for Dems so far. Imo, that is super strange given that it is during a Trump tenure, and I am reading several “the Dems forgot to vote” takes. Thom Nichols for instance, is an incredibly knowledgeable Political Scientist.
I don’t buy the ‘Democrats forgot to vote’ argument, simply because turnout is high. CA 39 is an area that historically leans more Republican than Democrat, but is not particularly fertile ground for Trump-level nuttery. Cisneros won in 2018 with 126k to 118k, Royce won it for the GOP in 2016 with 151k to 113k. Right now, Kim (R) is leading with 168k to Cisneros at 164k. That is more for either candidate than any winner ever. That is not a Dems forgetting to vote problem.
I don’t think you can underestimate the effect that Trump had on GOP fortunes in 2018. In places like California, turfing your Congressman was how you showed displeasure.
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But the polls as far as I know, showed much stronger Dem support in the Congress battles than what we have seen so far. Why are political scientists dejected ? Doesn’t make sense if this was all expected.
And the CA 39 was just an example I highlighted to show that it was surely a swing-district, and swing districts should surely all go to Dems if Trump and the Republicans are so awful ?
Voter turnout is higher on both sides. But traditionally, as far as I know, voter turn out among democrats in Congress elections have traditionally all been very low, so is a bit higher turnout really something commendable given that it is an incredibly special situation with Trump ? Trump and the current situation ought to naturally lead to much higher turnout on both sides, surely ?
Am I really so wrong about this ? It is being called a disaster not only by Thom Nichols, but by journalists and other political scientists. I haven’t even seen a positive take yet.
Anyway, I appreciate both posts, both yours and @Limiescouse 's. But I am very skeptical of your take at current, because it is not what I am reading on twitter. There all the takes I have seen so far are “this is awful” etc.
I didnt say that, although they do still hold the majority. What I said was that these loses were not down to Democrats not voting. Even in the 39th, this is a great example of a swingy red leaning district that just reverted to the norm once vote splitting was available to them.
But also one thing you have to remember when consuming post-election coverage over here - there is always a “Dems did terrible…how did they fuck up?” narrative. It is just built into the only way these fucking people know how to cover an election. As I used as an example, the party got pilloried for its failures in 2016, with their entire platform being questions. Yet, on the cold light day they had a candidate that won the nationwide presidential vote by 3 million, won a majority in the house and earned more votes in the senate races being contested and ended the night with a majority of the population represented by Democratic Senators.
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To be blunt, Thom Nichols has a fairly thin understanding of American politics - he is an international guy. Researchers who actually study American voting behaviour are not ‘dejected’, nor are they at anything like the same loss to explain, though right now that is in the early stages. What Nichols is seemingly unaware of is one of the puzzles of the Tea party-Trump era. Historically, high turnout has benefited Democrats, but with Trump he has clearly activated a population of those who would not otherwise vote, so the results are more complicated and won’t play out the same everywhere.
CA-39 is a Republican district that swings Democratic from time to time, in a state that has become more Democratic over the last 30 years. Before Sanchez took it in 2002, it was solidly Republican. The premise ‘swing districts should surely all go to Dems if Trump and the Republicans are so awful’ is simply false, they won’t all swing the same way. Royce knew he was in trouble, so did not run, because of that anti-Trump vote that had nowhere else to go in 2018. With the ability to vote against Trump on the ballot, a lot of voters there have done exactly that. In 2016, Clinton won that district despite it going R in the House. We don’t have the 2020, but it seems very likely something similar happened, given what we know about the component counties.
Is it a great outcome for the Democrats? I am not sure who is saying that it is, I certainly am not. But it is not a wildly surprising one. Anyone who was assuming that all swings would be Democratic positive was not paying close attention to well-known effects in voting behaviour.
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But if thats the case, is there then an even stronger Republican support among the general populace than what most analysts assume ? To explain a bit more about my post above, a take I read from political scientists is that when it really matters, Republican voters will go through hellfire to vote on every level , while dem voters are a lot less resilient and often votes just for president if that. That take may indeed be wrong, but it comes from several knowledgeable people.
And if it is so that general Republican support is under-communicated to such a degree, isn’t the situation even worse then ? When the GOP is so resilient I mean ? I trust both you and Arminius. You are very knowledgeable, but I have to point out that other experts view it differently though they may indeed be wrong.
It is just hard for me to know what is real and what is subjective takes. I just wish this nightmare to come to an end. Dont really know what to believe, I thought I knew more about US politics than most Europeans but I am quickly finding that I lack a lot of relevant knowledge to understand the situation well.
The swing votes surely going mostly to Dems if Reps are so awful" was Magnus logic, not anyone else, I just find that natural. Obviously wrong though.
As for what you say about Nichols lack of knowledge, maybe that is true. But it is the wrong assumption if you think that I was merely leeching knowledge from him. I am not just parroting what he says, I read a lot of sources, mostly professors and journalists.
But I accept that I am wrong. I just don’t understand how the republicans can do so well after Trump having been in power for 4 years when the Congress elections are so important. I assumed, based on what is then likely hopeful analyses and polls, that many Reps would be toppled and that Dems would keep their seats most over the place. I was much too optimistic though.
I just don’t understand the United States. Doesn’t operate based on conventional logic, I don’t get the US anymore. Maybe I never did. Fox News and OAN obviously much more powerful than what I had assumed even in my worst nightmares, that, or Americans are, I don’t know.
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I think there probably is. One of the trends we’ve seen since Bush started becoming toxic is a erosion in the % of the electorate that is registered Republican as more and more felt they had to leave the party. I’m sure you saw the statistic at some point that gave Trump record approval among republicans. However, in light of the trend I just spoke about that has to be seen differently, right? What it means, is the only people who are left who identify as Republican are explicitly pro-trump. But it also means that many independents are really just Republicans looking for an excuse to vote that way. I think that gets lost in a lot of general polling.
This is generally considered correct, but I think the way it plays out is a bit different. Remember, we have elections every two years, plus a hand full of special elections, but the president is only on the ticket every 4 years. Turn out for the mid term elections tends to be about 20 points lower than for the elections in the Presidential year and so that difference you describes tends to present itself as lack of Dem turn out for an entire election rather than showing up and not completing their ballot.
A lot of post-election coverage is about point scoring - cherry picking or misrepresenting data to make the case you had argued prior to the election. There are just a lot of incredibly bad and poorly motivated takes. You can get something worthwhile from many of them, but even the ones that hit on something correct tend to try wrap too tidy a bow on a story (2016 was about economic anxiety not racism…when in fact you cannot untie one from the other).
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In my mind you’re the most Norwegian person ever
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It can be read as a compliment or an insult, depending on the cliche you use; but coming from you I don’t believe it was an insult, so thanks I guess ! 
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Vipin Narang is one of my regular sources for Geopolitical news, have forgotten to read him, Ankit Panda and Jeffrey Lewis in a while due to elections. Seems Mr. Narang is not impressed:
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