By next year, Trump will be known as the “Boy Who Cried Caravan.”
Time for new material.
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100 women will serve in the House next year. 51% of the population only has 25% of the seats, yet it is an historic outcome.
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You’d think so, but in practice he’s so good at driving trollies the media and the public that nobody ever holds him accountable to the things he was talking about months or years ago.
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The symbolism of an impeachment cuts both ways.
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They’re impeaching him over this?
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They’re acquitting him in the face of this?
Now, the Senate’s majority will be comprised of Trump Loyalists. A political drive towards impeachment can only succeed if the evidence is such that the average American will punish those who vote to acquit.
Imagine a scenario in which Trump’s attorney argues not against the evidence, not against the substance of the crime but purely on the basis of partisan loyalty.
And, until we get an impeachment scenario that fits this political criteria, it would be wiser to just (publicly) accumulate evidence in hearing after hearing after hearing.
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The bar has to be even higher than that, the “average” American already hates Trump. The evidence must be such that a significant portion of Republicans who supported Trump will punish those who vote to acquit.
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Gerrymandering has no effect on senate races (or on governor races). It only impacts house seats and state legislatures.
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I have hoped this as well. But right now I really hope I get a job before this happens.
I have to say that I don’t feel too happy.
There was no blue wave. I feel like Trump has been normalized.
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I’m sorry. But that’s bullshit that’s like saying you don’t know what the right says about Obama, Hillary, George Soros, Immigrants. You’d have to be deeply misinformed to have missed Pelosi the right wing Boogieman.
Pelosi’s got her issues. Chief among them being she’s never been a particularly effective Speaker/minority leader. Her politics aside she’s bad at the job. But she’s not wrong on pushing for impeachment. Current state of affairs. With the GOP running the Senate any impeachment is a deadend and a quagmire. You’d need something absolutely undeniable and indefensible to get any GOP Senators to vote to convict. And a failed impeachment, or something that looks politically motivated can have a serious backlash in terms of Trump’s popularity and the 2020 election.
Obstruct and investigate needs to be the byline. Pelosi likely fucks that up though.
That’s most of the reason right there. Not many Senate races this year. Very few Republican senators were up for reelection out of those. And almost all of the Demcrats on the ballot were in GOP friendly districts. The GOP were almost guaranteed pickups just based on geography.
The election manipulation gives them representation disproportionate to their popular support across the board. But it’s not as simple to figure with the Senate since it’s not tied to congressional districts. So gerrymandering has less of a direct impact.
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Playing right into the Fox News/Right Wing Talking Points trap, I see. Pelosi is far from ideal but she’s not the monster the right constantly smears her as being.
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Yeah, I guess, thinking about it, that they would been to redraw state boarders for that to work 
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That’s not so much paradoxical as it is simply a lie. North Korea is not a republic, even if it has the word “republic” in it’s official English-language name. I’m pretty sure their government says a lot of things that aren’t true.
It’s a fair point about, say the UK, where you could say they aren’t a republic because they have a monarch. And while I acknowledge the correctness of that, I would still call the UK a republic, because the monarch doesn’t actually own the country or have any real power, and seems to be about as much of a monarch as the DKRP is a republic. (God save the Queen!)
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Democracies and republics are orthogonal. A historical example is the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which was a democratic monarchy. Anyone with noble blood at all was eligible to vote for the new king. Many commoners also lied about being nobles and voted that way. For an example of a non-democratic republic, you can look to pretty much any of the Italian city-states, Venice being the classic example. If you want to, you can make the argument that the dictatorships are indeed democratic republics too: they’re certainly republics run by some legislative chamber, and the people at large do vote, they just only have one choice 
ETA:
I forgot where I started on this. Switzerland is nominally a republic, but if I recall correctly, it’s actually pretty darn close to direct democracy with many things going through referenda.
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Even so, republicanism isn’t a guarantee of democracy. The USSR’s system of elected soviets – who gather principally to elect representatives to progressively higher soviets, and so on – is very republican, and in theory (very indirectly) accountable to the people, but not very democratic in practice.
That being said, I myself have said it not because they’re wildly distinct species, but because some comments seem deliberately ignorant of the fact that there’s more to the process than simple majority rule. You can easily carry 55% of the population, but if they’re concentrated in the wrong spot, it won’t get you any more seats. (In fact, it was well-known that this was going to be a headwind for the Democrats in many races this election cycle, because their most reliable demographics concentrate themselves in larger cities, where their votes tend to be disproportionately wasted in self-agreement.)
On a die note, I find it disheartening how quickly people seem to forget basic (middle- and high-school) civics. There is no reason, for example, I should have to explain how states get electoral college votes to a man from Michigan with postgraduate degrees 15 years my senior. That’s just ridiculous. None of it has changed meaningfully in 50 years.
There’s an overall supressive effect on turn out caused by non-competitive races in those offices that are tied to districts.
Basically far fewer people vote, when it seems their vote will have little impact. And the fewer offices contested, the more individual races seem like forgone conclusions. The less impact a vote has. And that supressed turn out has an impact on votes across the board. Gerrymandering creates as much of that sort of lack of competition as is practically possible.
It tends to benefit the GOP for a variety of reasons.
But there’s no direct impact.
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Except for voter disfranchisement, using control of the state assemblies to exclude voters at the at large elections.
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I’d prefer “Raise Hell, and keep the pressure on”. That applies to every Democrat, from the most left leaning DSA member to Joe Manchin.
No Compromise with Fascists and Quislings!
Compromise with conservatives who hate what the Republicans have become is acceptable under certain circumstances, as long as no vulnerable group is thrown under a bus in the process.
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It’s still a republic, though. It’s just that decision making is far more local and far less national than other republics. Their head of state is much weaker than many other heads of state, but they are there and the torch is certainly handed on in a very “republic-ish” way.
But thanks for the historical examples. My mental equation of republics and democracies is very tied up in the contemporary world.
I actually try to reinforce to people that democracy is specifically not majority rule. No one would agree that 51% of the population voting to take the other 49%'s stuff is a functioning democracy. Without mechanisms that hold the government to rule of law and individual rights, I don’t think it’s fair to call a society a democracy (otherwise, as @tekk pointed out, you can call nepotismic despotism a “democratic republic”).
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Andrew George: To ask the Secretary of State for Justice (1) who the absolute owner of land is in (a) England, (b) Scotland, (c) Northern Ireland, (d) Wales, (e) Cornwall and (f) the Isles of Scilly; [255057]
(2) who has responsibility for land in (a) England, (b) Scotland, (c) Northern Ireland, (d) Wales, (e) Cornwall and (f) the Isles of Scilly under circumstances in which deeds to land have been lost. [255058]
Bridget Prentice: : The Crown is the ultimate owner of all land in England and Wales (including the Isles of Scilly): all other owners hold an estate in land. Although there is some land that the Crown has never granted away, most land is held of the Crown as freehold or leasehold. If there is no other owner, land will belong to the Crown, the Duchy of Lancaster or the Duchy of Cornwall.
The loss of title deeds does not alter the ownership of land or responsibility for it in England and Wales (including the Isles of Scilly). Title deeds are evidence of ownership of unregistered land. If the deeds have been lost, other evidence could be used to prove ownership. Title to registered land is derived from the register of title maintained under the Land Registration Act 2002.
Responsibility for land law and succession law in Scotland and Northern Ireland is devolved. Questions about land law in these jurisdictions should be addressed to the Scottish Executive and the Department of Finance and Personnel in Northern Ireland respectively.
