This is key. Many suburban Republicans got screwed by the 2018-2019 tax plans (SALT deduction limits especially), don’t particularly like the premiums for family plans on their insurance doubling, and aren’t enthusiastic “social conservatives”. Plus states like Virginia are becoming blue. Republicans in Texas, Georgia and and Florida increasingly have to resort to gerrymandering and election fraud to maintain their political clout
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I don’t think there is a path to normalcy of the neoliberal world order. It’s in tatters at this point. The fact that fascists rule over several major countries (the US included) basically puts to bed that notion. Biden is just another silly fool that thinks you can unwind the hatred, blood, and violence. If anything, I expect stuff to get worse regardless of who’s in office. The riots here in Minneapolis exposed a vital flaw in the Democratic Party’s strategy of incrementalism and appeasement via ineffectual change.
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No, and Biden would eat Trump’s lunch. Trump’s people are probably enough aware of this that they will find a face-saving way for him to duck debating.
Honestly, this is my biggest worry. While there is no way the economy will get back anywhere near where it was pre-pandemic by Noveber, it might look enough better then than it does now that Trump can claim a trend.
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people aren’t going to be coming out to vote for grandpa Biden and whatever 100 gaffs he stumbles out by election day
it’s the VP pick
I had always wanted Warran but you know what, I have no problem with any other woman, even Kamala Harris who I’d rather see run the Department of Justice because wow that would be -amazing- (yeah I know she is flawed to hell, don’t fall for that nonsense)
No it’s not going to be Stacey Abrams, she is a wonderful person and awesome community leader but she is not ready to be a very likely one-heartbeat away from President. She better end up on the cabinet though.
Hadn’t thought about Susan Rice. That would be a fascinating compromise perhaps?
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Some of these fine people will be dead. Others will have loved ones die because they believed Trump. Some may even make that connection.
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An awful lot of people will, if the primaries are anything to go by. Just because the highly online leftists don’t care for Biden or find him inspiring doesn’t mean the Democrats, or Americans in general, agree with them.
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Sadly, I have to agree. If Biden somehow miraculously manages not to blow his lead and remembers to take the Electoral College into account, the best I can expect is four more years bought for what remains of liberal democracy in America before the late-stage capitalism he continues to enable finally consumes it. During that time, a Biden win will give the DNC reason to keep excluding progressives, while the GOP will start laying the groundwork for a run by Josh Hawley or Tom Cotton or (why wouldn’t they?) Ivanka.
So, yeah, that’s what my vote in November (which I’ll absolutely be casting for Biden) will get me, at best. Whoop-de-doo.
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I’m not convinced they get it. They might understand that something is wrong. But the gaffes committed in the last few months tell me they’ve learned nothing in the last 40 years in office. I think most of us agree they are disconnected from the problems average people face in the real world. If they can at least be a useful tool for us then we can keep using them. If they have lost their edge, we should replace them with a sharper tool.
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It’s also important to look where those suburban short falls are coming from.
White women, and college educated whites. Counter to the usual assumption these groups have been a reliable majority block for the GOP for a long while. College educated Americans overall skew Democrat, but College educated whites in specific skew GOP. Same deal with Women.
These people are clustered up in the (highly segregated) suburbs. Making suburbs some of the rare population dense areas the GOP can reliably control.
The shift in female voters, including a pretty god damn huge shift among white women, is the biggest driver here. It’s what drove the blue wave in 2018, and elected the most diverse set of officials to ever take office up and down the ballot.
And that particular shift has escalated in the last two years.
This is really bad for the GOP. Cause while their majorities in these demographics can be narrow, they are key to pushing their ideological base over the line. And those suburbs are exactly the districts they’ve gerrymandered to preference.
They’re already trying that with this new jobs report.
It doesn’t seem to be sticking.
But in terms of the economy’s impact on votes. It seems to be more about what the bulk of voters are experiencing on the ground. Rather than which markers and stats say what. Obama consistently improved the economy throughout his terms, but he lost ground in each subsequent election as many voters weren’t feeling the impact yet.
A soaring stock market doesn’t help much when millions are out of work. And we’re starting to see legit food shortages as roving epidemic spikes shut down food processing. The major driver on that unemployment has been the service sector. But people aren’t just running back to restaurants and movie theaters as they open. While these are industries that can’t survive 6 months with reduced business without failing.
We really haven’t even seen them start to fail yet. But they will.
The sort of problems we’ll be facing moving out of this are likely to be less pervasive. But they’re gonna be a lot more serious and persistent.
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i mean, they won’t even give it a hearing. there are almost four hundred hundred bills – including dozens of substantive, bi-partisan bills – that mcconnell won’t even bring to the floor.
why would he even bother with this?
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Not many people recall about this gesture directed to a Russian journalist who asked Putin an embarrassing question, in a place and time where journalists were actually killed.
This scumbag, although now he plays the moderate role to appease older fascists, still attracts votes.
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Don’t underestimate Gop cheating. I remember hearing that the only states where exit polling (which favored Clinton) differed from announced results were those battleground states controlled by the Republican election machinery, and they gave the Electoral College to DFT.
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Hopefully the anger at the protests will be channeled into votes. The protesters need to be reminded that Trump wants them to go to work for low wages, praise their rich employers for the opportunity to eat their shit, shut up and do as they are told.
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I came here today to scrawl the exact same words.
Remember, the disruptive predator doesn’t need to pick off the strongest (or in this case, the best informed) to achieve success.
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It’s no wonder that this slogan didn’t play out well in the DNC focus groups. Too wordy.
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He didn’t have the power of the executive branch of the government either, and I think it’s clear he’ll stop at nothing to retain power.
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So did Hillary. The press still declared Trump the winner. And if you say it often enough people believe it.
Edit: my original comment said “Pepe believe it” thanks to autocorrect. Why the FUCK is that even in there?
(to head off the obvious question: AFAIK I’ve never used it, I don’t think it’s from user input)
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I share that feeling of dread when I hear anyone anticipating a Biden win. For purely emotional reasons, I think it it’s critical to believe with every fiber of your being that Turmp will win decisively in November.
With that said, this piece by Josh Hawley did strike me as a plausible argument that things might finally be going south for Turmp. I am not sure if the article is paywalled but the gist is that – unlike most of the previous crises – neither the rona nor the protests are crises of his own making. Which rings true, because what makes him invulnerable has always been his ability to evade scandal by creating new scandals. When he can’t change the subject, he’s got nothing, and that might start to sink in even with his base.
OTOH, by November, the media will probably fall back into letting him set the agenda, and I think the dipshit population will be happy to forget they ever felt doubts. One thing I know for sure, there isn’t going to be a national period of quiet reflection about all the news of 2016-2020.
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Prepare yourself for deepfake footage of Biden xxx’ing a xxx.
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