My take, honestly, is that the Republican strategy of school board ragers and constant fear and outrage at made up things and outright lies beat the hell out of the Democratic strategy of trying to bore the other side to death and be as quiet and inoffensive as possible. Someday, they will need to wake up from this dream that if they are just nice enough, the Republican voters will come over to our side. From where I sit, the Republicans do not give a damn about getting Dems to vote for them, they get off on being loud, offensive and keeping their base engaged by painting boogie men to be afraid of. The Dems are exhausted, bored and not engaged at all. This bodes poorly for the midterms if someone doesn’t get their act together. But I suspect the answer from the party will be “OK, we need to be nicer and quieter. We can’t get to excited, that will frighten the conservatives and then they will all come out and vote.” BULLSHIT!!! They are already terrified by their own party of the fact that we even have the temerity to exist. Sad, but predictable. Damn, where are the warriors?
Looks like Republicans will come away with a 1 seat majority in the house. Dems still hold the senate (wasn’t up this go-round) so most likely nothing will happen except by executive action, but that will be bad enough. And a right-wing Attorney General could be bad news.
Here are the results from the Metro ATL so far…
Big news is that it will be a run off between Felcia Moore and Andre Dickens and Reed is totally out…
Republicans did well in judicial races in PA. Though they didn’t take over the Supreme Court with that win.
Fuck… how can they do all the shit they’ve done and STILL win races! WTF? What’s wrong with people?
Haven’t seen turnout numbers yet. but fully expecting them to be very low and skew conservative. My suspicion is that Dems stayed home in droves (at least here, but likely elsewhere as well) due to blah messaging and dull candidates. The party heads still think it is up to them to be “reasonable centrists” and reach compromise with the opposition. Which, well,
And let’s not forget the just plain awful candidates.
In better news - the NJ governors race is looking better. Looks like Murphy will win in a squeaker.
The NPR article is saying that it’ll be a run off…
I sort of hate how many of Dana Simpson’s political cartoons still apply so well after almost 20 years. (Though Dana definitely hates it more, heh.)
Youngkin and Ciatarelli were able to do better than Trump did in 2020 in lots of suburban areas — as well as in many cases outpacing Trump in some rural counties.
Lee Atwater must be laughing in his grave at how well, after all this time, the Southern Strategy still fucking works.
Guffawing at us down in hell…
Because far more of our neighbors than we’d ever really want to know are horrible people too. As @docosc pointed out, the general dull and plodding nature of the Democratic party does not help in the least. I hate everything the Republicans have come to stand for, but they do know a lot about firing up their base (e.g., by appealing to their racism and other bigotries.)
Speaking for me, I don’t have for most Democrats out of a particular love for their actions, I vote for them because they’re the least loathsome of my two viable choices. That’s not exactly a strong engagement.
Yeah, we had a nice exchange where we were both bemoaning that fact. “If only someone had warned us how bad things could get!” Oh wait, but many did, didn’t they?
The paradox is that if the Democratic party had that same talent for harnessing blind rage and bigotry to persuade ignorant voters to stake deeply-held positions on issues they don’t understand then I wouldn’t want them to win either.
Oh, don’t I know it. As much as I complain about their slow progress on so many issues, I do prefer actual contemplation and consideration of an issue instead of a headlong blind rush into more problems. “Do something” may feel good, but without thought behind the action, it’s rarely an actual solution.
I was glad to see Democrats won a lot in my county in PA - keeping control of the council and winning key positions. I noticed that most in-person votes in a lot of races went to GOP candidates, but mail-in votes were sometimes 80% (D), 20% (R). So, we can expect the attacks on mail-in voting and election oversight to continue.
It’s an astounding concept since Republicans have no urgency to do any actual governing or otherwise try to take away rights they don’t like. What they are very good at is stoking culture wars and creating a finely honed narrative that inspires the low information voter with no critical thinking skills. “Let’s not have the rich and big business pay more taxes to make schools better, let’s have ‘school choice’ instead! Public schools are only destroying our children with their masks and ‘CRT’!” At least (most) D’s in power are trying to get some shit done.
In any event I don’t blame the Democrats in power so much as the general populace who for some reason keep voting for these Republican fascists despite it definitely not being in their best interests. It just astounds me.
Goodness, yes. Remember how Hillary had this great opportunity to have a really exciting running mate and instead went with Tim fucking Kaine. *groan*
McAuliffe was a terrible candidate that ran a terrible campaign with little to offer beyond “the other guy is Trump Lite, hey look it’s Obama and Biden!” while Youngkin – for as terrible as he was – at least tried to run on issues – as terrible as they were.
Ok, I’ll go first…
“They cheated! Re-count NOW!”
Feels good.
