Originally published at: Ohio votes to add abortion rights to state constitution, legalizes recreational marijuana | Boing Boing
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It’s funny how when voters are asked what they want, they tend to choose the opposite of what the GOP stands for. If only more people knew what the GOP stands for, the party wouldn’t be able to win elections even with all their cheating.
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I think these results bolster my opinion that the polls that show Trump beating Biden are off. We can’t get complacent, but Beshear winning in Kentucky and the Democrats maybe taking control of both houses in Virginia is huge.
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Even the super MAGA county I grew up in Ohio is passing 1 and 2 by wide margins…1 went through 60/40 in the county (100% of precincts are in), which is the margin that Trump won the county back in 2020…so it’s clear Republican women don’t like being told what they can and cannot do with their bodies by men as well.
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Obligs:
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And Danica Roem moved up to State Senator in Virginia! Youngkin had donated $500,000 to her opponent, because she is trans. Mwah!
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Of course they are. We’re a year away from the elections, people are pissed and upset about Israel/Palestine and Biden is bearing some of that blame, and the Democrats STILL can not get their economic message out and tap dance around how strong its been DESPITE all the doom and gloom “recession is coming!” from conservatives.
Those polls are a laughable joke. Wake me when we’re into March, then we can start paying attention.
Tonight, though, we bask in holding the line yet again against those who would take women’s right to have choices over their bodies. That’s what we celebrate. This country teeters on the edge of a precipice, but we once more keep ourselves from pitching over the edge, and I hope Ohioans are celebrating hard.
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If he HAD made a comment, I suspect Mike Johnson would have opined about Satan, demons etc.
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It’s very interesting that whenever abortion comes up for a popular vote, the pro-choice side wins with 55% of the vote or more. It doesn’t matter about nationality - Ireland was 66.4% yes, Gibraltar was 63%, Michigan was 55.1%, Vermont was 74% or so.
And yet, anti-choicers never modify their language. In trawling comments about Ohio’s win today I see all the same stuff I saw Ireland voted yes - they’re falling to sin, women/men want to be irresponsible (though there was of course a lot of racism surrounding how many black people voted yes that’s rooted in Republican attitudes to black people that we didn’t see in demographic analysis over here), and they never seem to get that the language they use and the stunts they pull alienate people. It’s impressive how they can’t understand it.
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I think you’ve hit on the solution to our looming robot apocalypse: legalize recreational marijuana for AI.
Brilliant!
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When asked to vote on a specific issue rather than for a party, the conservative voter’s first consideration is not “is this policy good for society in general” but rather “does this policy have a good chance of affecting me and my clan negatively?”
The Know-Nothing 27% are delusional enough to answer the former question as “yes” and the latter as “no”. However, when looking at an abortion ban the remainder of GOP voters (approx. 24% of the total electorate) generally answer the former as “Society? There’s no such thing” and the latter as “oh dear, yes”.
This is why polls on the GOP’s Xtianist and bigoted social policies usually show around 70% total opposition. But the party will keep pushing them because they can’t win without pandering to the base, and in turn have to cheat and lie to stand a chance of winning.
All that said, plebiscites like this aside American elections are still mainly about personalities and party, with issues and policy trailing far behind (and economic ideology taking precedence over social ideology).
Especially in national elections, the GOP is able to elide and obscure and abstract the issues that might turn off GOP voters who aren’t in the base if stated explicitly. It’s easier for the non-base Republican to endorse the vague white supremacy of a broad term like “MAGA” than it is to openly say “we need to bring back Jim Crow” (even if he believes the latter).
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half-million dollars well lost.
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Speaking for myself, I don’t give a damn about “the economy” beyond my family’s standing in it. Biden’s performance is the only message I care about. And if he’s really doing well, stats among voters should bear that out.
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As has been discussed here before, the financial press is all-in on spinning every piece of news as a precursor to a recession. Lower unemployment? Bad for the economy. Higher unemployment? Bad for the economy. And always omitting the fact that the President has no control over Fed decisions. A recession is indeed coming at some point in the future, but it’s the result of cyclical processes and can only be mitigated after the fact by government policy.
All of which is to say, I don’t blame the Dems too much for not getting the message out when the main channel for doing so is via the corporate media.
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As someone once said of Zero Hedge, they’ve predicted 15 of the last 3 recessions.
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Maybe, but who would replace him who would have any chance of winning? Newsom? No, thank you. He has baggage, and he’s recent actions are pissing off the progressives. Harris? I wish I could say I thought she was electable, but I don’t. She’s been too damaged by near constant criticism, even though much of it is unwarranted, similar to the damage that years of anti-Hillary rhetoric did to Clinton. Bernie? Also old, and way too far left to appeal to independents and centrist Democratic voters, who still, unfortunately, make up the majority of the voter base. Warren? I love her, but it’s not gonna happen. There is no one else. Even if Biden were inclined to step aside, there is no one else, and it’s too late to set someone up.
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Also, the incumbency advantage is a real and significant thing. Trump losing despite being the incumbent is just another sign of how utterly shit he was and is.
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