#electoral speculation

[signode-blog]

"Political Pundits Predict: Lok Sabha Elections 2024 in India Set to Shake NDA's Majority"

As the anticipation builds for the upcoming Lok Sabha Elections in 2024, political analysts and pundits are scrutinizing every indicator, from public sentiment to the betting trends in places like Phalodi Satta Bazar. While the outcome remains uncertain, one prevailing sentiment emerges: the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) might face challenges in securing a resounding victory. Contrary to…

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#betting trends #coalition politics #coalition-building #electoral dynamics #electoral speculation #Indian democracy #Indian politics #Lok Sabha Elections #Lok Sabha Elections 2024 #NDA #NDA majority #opposition alliances #Phalodi Satta Bazar #political analysis #political dynamics #political speculation #regional parties #voter preferences #voter sentiment

[reasonsforhope]

It was a really, really good political news day today in the US (4/4/23)

For anyone who hasn't heard, not only did Trump get arrested, but also:

-We found out that the legal case against him in this prosecution (stormy daniels hush money case) is SIGNIFICANTLY stronger than people had speculated. Like, wow do they have receipts.

-In fact, the evidence was so entirely there that the new question on prime time news (well, at least on msnbc lol) is "Hey, why didn't the federal courts prosecute him for this already???)

-Trump FAILED UTTERLY in his attempts to rally mass protests and demands for "death and destruction" if he was arrested. There was no violence at the arrest at all, and as for Trump supporters? They failed to show up in any kind of numbers--reportedly only about a hundred people were protesting the arrest

-We (aka Judge Janet Protasiewicz) WON what is widely considered to be the most consequential election of 2023, a Wisconsin state supreme court election that handed control of the state supreme court to the left

-Because of that election win, it is now extremely likely that abortion will be legal in Wisconsin, and that Wisconsin won't be able to throw out electors in the 2024 presidential election

-ALSO bc of this, Wisconsin, the most gerrymandered state in the country, will probably get nonpartisan, accurate maps, which COULD FLIP THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES in 2024

-In Chicago, Brandon Johnson, union organizer and former teacher, won the election for mayor, in a decisive win progressives, esp for meaningful criminal justice reform and investment in mental health (whereas the other guy was campaigning on hiring hundreds of new cops and being super tough on crime)

#united states #us politics #wisconsin #supreme court #criminal justice reform #progressive politics #democrats #VOTING MATTERS #brandon johnson #janet protasiewicz #state supreme court #elections #gerrymandering #chicago #illinois #mayor #donald trump #trump indictment #trump arrest #alvin bragg #grand jury #manhattan #stormy daniels #good news #hope

[cemeterything]

can you explain what's the silt verses or what is it about? i saw the god-bitten post and got curious

the silt verses is a speculative fiction/folk horror audio drama based on the premise of a society built on polytheistic worship of gods, which are empirically real and tangibly affect the world the characters live in. these gods, and the sociocultural and political frameworks surrounding them, are used as a narrative vehicle for themes of anticapitalism, body horror, alienation, the nature of humanity, relationships between people and how they form and fracture, grief, consumerism, cycles of abuse, and the idea of power, among other things. it draws inspiration from true detective season 1, the works of horror fiction writers such as robert w. chambers, existing folk horror stories such as the wicker man, and of course real life. the primary protagonists you follow are are carpenter and faulkner, two worshippers of an outlawed river god - one a naive, zealous neophyte, the other an old, jaded child of the faith - but supporting cast gradually take up paths that widen the scope of the narrative - paige, a disillusioned marketing executive who wants to find a way to use her skills as a driving force for real change; hayward, a cynical law enforcer aware and resentful of his own dead-end existence; shrue, a controversial electoral candidate hoping to reform the system from within; and VAL, an experimental sentient weapon with her own perspective and will.

[qqueenofhades]

do you think there's a considerable amount of (young) people refusing to vote for biden because of i/p, or do you think theyre just a loud minority? i cant really tell, myself

I have been keeping a fairly close eye on polls (at least the good high-quality large-sample ones, not the numerous trash ones which currently flood the sphere), actual voting results, and other empirical data that relies on non-social-media blathering. And while we will still need more data and see if anything changes, at this point I think we can presume that any electoral effect of the I/P situation is already baked into Biden's expected results and performances, and I honestly don't think there's much, if any, of a measurable effect.

I say this because first of all, one of the most recent high-quality, large-sample youth polls (I think it was YouGov, but I can't be sure) had precisely 0% of voters between 18-29 listing foreign policy as their top priority in 2024. There were other expected priorities: the environment, the economy, American democracy, abortion rights, LGBTQ+ rights, etc -- but not foreign policy. Now, caveat emptor about this being only the people who respond to polls, the fact that most polls have been largely junk this primary cycle (notably, they have way overestimated Trump's performance and way underestimated Biden's), and so forth. However, even in libertarian New Hampshire, which tends to wander more than the other solidly-blue presidential election New England states (as a number of them still have Republican governors), "ceasefire" only garnered 1% of all write-in votes, and Biden won commandingly despite not being on the ballot. In South Carolina, he just won 97% statewide, and even the Democrats who skipped the primary due to it not being particularly interesting or competitive (as compared to the highly competitive open primary in 2020) still generally say that they plan to vote for Biden in November. So overall, Biden is doing even better at this point in the primary cycle than he was in 2020, where Sanders' early wins in Iowa and NH were generating chatter about an upset. Once again, this is early and we are working with a limited sample size, but despite everything, I think we can posit that the "Democrats/Black people/Hispanics/young people won't vote for Biden because of xyz issue and therefore We Are All Doomed" thesis is at best, considerably overinflated and at worst, totally untrue.

Likewise, to be blunt: the loudest voices shouting about how they will never vote for Biden because of the Gaza situation either don't vote at all, only voted once in 2020 under extreme duress and haven't voted since, and otherwise aren't being taken into account either in polls (which are bad data because they are by nature experimental and speculative) or actual voting results (which reflect the way real people actually voted in elections). The reason the YouGov sample might not have pulled any voters between 18-29 listing foreign policy as their top priority very well could be because these people flat out don't vote and therefore won't pass any "likely" or "registered" voter screens, so despite all their yelling on social media, there's not been any actual impact. Now, this is not to say that there won't be; there has, for instance, been speculation that Biden might be hurt in states like Michigan, which have a large Arab-American population. Michigan is obviously one of the traditional Blue Firewall states that Hillary lost in 2016 and which Biden retook in 2020, and any electoral wobbling there would be ominous for his overall results. However, this is also reckoning without the fact that there is now a largish chunk of old-school GOP/independent voters who say they will not vote for Trump under any circumstances, with that number growing if he's explicitly convicted of a felony. Some of these voters might sit out, or vote for Biden, or maybe decide to vote for some stupid crackpot like RFK Jr., but the point is, if they do in fact not vote for Trump or even vote for Biden, that changes the electoral math.

Likewise: there are about 40,000 Arab-American voters in Michigan. Biden won the state by 154k votes, or 3.35%, in 2020. Even if every single one of those voters voted FOR Trump this time (which would be insane, but never mind), that alone would not be enough to flip the state from Biden, and that's reckoning without the votes that Trump will lose elsewhere. I've seen a few left-leaning publications such as the Guardian picking up the "will Biden's stance on Gaza hurt him in November" question, and the loud social media blabbermouths want to insist that it will because it makes them feel important, but at this point, I honestly don't see widespread electoral evidence of it, because, put bluntly: Democrats vote. Posturing social media "progressives" largely don't. Therefore for all the screaming they do, their views do not get incorporated into the actual results, which is a damn good thing for us.

So in short: No, as of right now, I don't think there is in fact a substantial anti-Biden protest vote, and the people threatening it the most were never going to vote for him anyway. This has gone on long enough that if it was going to flag up as a major thing, I think it would have. There will always be the idiots throwing away their vote on some stooge like Cornel West or Jill Stein (lol), but once again, these people were never going to vote for Biden in the first place and it is not necessarily the case that we need to put undue credence in their threats. Not that we can slack our vigilance, as we cannot and every single person who can vote blue in 2024 needs to fucking do so if they're interested in continuing to live in a democracy, but the situation is not apocalyptic, and yet again, the Online Leftists are far from the most reliable metric of how effective their screaming actually is. So, yeah.

#anonymous #ask #politics for ts

[thenyanguardparty]

what made you realize that marxism is correct?

hard to reduce it to a specific one thing but learning about the realities of actually existing socialist states and coming to the conclusion that at the very least they are an improvement over capitalism all else being equal was essential for me. i was an anarchist so i had no faith in The System and was already on board with revolution rather than electoralism in principle but realizing that anarchism has proven historically to just not actually achieve any lasting victory while at the same time marxism was miles ahead actually challenging the dominance of capitalism and materially improving people's lives during the same historical moments (which i actually had to learn, since by default we are taught Stalinism Bad Killed One Trillion Innocent Ethnic Kulaks) made me lose faith in the former and made me more open to the latter. so i guess in short: pragmatism over dead-end idealism and learning about the truth of actual marxist states

i briefly contemplated still being an anarchist but supporting stste socialism as a stage just like how capitalism was progressive relative to feudalism lol

regarding my anticapitalism in general, while i was still just somewhere between a liberal and a social-democrat the inherent contradiction of technological unemployment made me consider alternatives to capitalism, at first just as far-future speculation but it served as a gateway into more immediate stuff later

#anonymous #asks

[blueteehood]

Ok. So. Muskrat (aka Elon Musk) decided it was a normal and reasonable idea to pick a fight with one of the Brazilian Supreme Court’s Ministers. Allow me to explain it.

Context is essential here. Alexandre de Moraes* is the minister responsible for 2 ongoing extremely high profile cases against Brazilian democracy: the domestic terrorist attack in Brasilia in January 8th (yes, our own version of January 6th) and another one that investigates digital militias that are being accused of spread misinformation, hate speech and trying to diminish the legitimacy of our electoral process**.

During the course of those investigations (that have been going on for a few years) de Moraes has determined the suspension of social media accounts of some of the people being investigated. Among that, people who have claimed that ‘maybe nazism was fine, actually’ and a lot of other shit. And because of that, Muskarat is accusing the minister (and by extension, our Supreme Court) of censorship and attempting against Brazilian democracy. Because obviously he knows more about Brazilian Law than us mere Brazilians. 

Well, can de Moraes do that? Yes. Yes he can. Free speech is a constitutional right (art. 5º, IV) (unless you hide behind anonymity), but you know what else is determined by our constitution? That ANY attack to our fundamental rights or freedom is to be punished by law (art. 5º XLI) AND racism is a non-bailable and imprescriptible crime (art. 5º XLII). So no, YOU CANNOT say racist shit or things that go against Brazilian democracy, because the right to free speech is not an absolute right, there are plenty of exceptions to it (in the same article where it’s established, even). 

I guess it's kind of obvious, but let me make it clear: Elon Musk, famous for saying things that would be considered a CRIME according to Brazilian Law, is accusing our Supreme Court of “censoring” people that are being investigate exactly for using social media to commit crimes. 

I could go on a wild tangent here about how our Constitution is, notably and  historically, a product of our civil rights movement post 40 years of dictatorship, or how Brazilian Justice System is based on Civil Law while the American System is Common Law and there are fundamental differences on how they both work, or or I could go on a whole spiel about the social and political and ethical implications of some guy deciding he could wildly and publicly speculate about the works of a democratic country as if we didn’t have, you know, SOVEREIGNTY, but you know what? Fuck him. Brazil is not your goddamn back yard, Muskarat. We can take care of our own problems, fuck you very much. 

* There is a lot of shit going on in our Supreme Court, and I’m not here to defend Alexandre de Moraes from criticism.  Just, ya know, stating the obvious.

** Brazilians are very proud of the safety and speed of our electoral process

#brazilian stuff #the muskrat is at it again #elon musk #Brasil #VAMPETAÇO NELE PORRA

[eightyonekilograms]

My hot take is that the purported rise in sexlessness among young men could easily be solved by raising boys for marriage and then pawning them off to the highest bidder as soon as possible, the way we used to do with girls (and still do in some cultures). Okay, I'm obviously not serious as that'd be ethically abhorrent, but if you buy the manosphere line that women can afford to only fuck Chad if given the option because men are just that sexually opportunistic, then boys would have no reason to complain about this arrangement.

I know you're not being serious, but this is as good a time as any to give my opinion on the general phenomenon of "coercive suggestions on fixing mating". With so many complaints about sex/dating markets, the discourse has seen a rise in the number/volume of "illiberal/post-liberal" suggestions on how to fix dating/sex/marriage. Here I don't mean "illiberal" in the sense of electoral politics (although certainly a bunch of the people making these suggestions also have illiberal politics), but in the linguistic sense of "hmm, focusing on individual freedom as the value to be maximized, and the self-actualized person as the fundamental unit of society, seems to have a produced a global outcome that makes everybody miserable. We should instead move to a system that requires more coordination/coercion." Obviously this exists on a spectrum of soft (more people should try matchmaking services, we should try to move culture away from treating marriage as a life capstone, etc.) to hard (I'm sure I don't need to provide examples if you're remotely plugged into this discourse).

And my response, as it is with most post-liberal speculation, is, yeah, that all sounds nice on paper, but

when the rubber has to meet the road and cash out to concrete policy suggestions, what are you going to do when people don't go along. Some equilibria, such as "we are where we are now but a lot more people voluntarily use matchmaking services" are stable against defection, but others, including a lot of the "how to fix dating markets" suggestions by the more ornery commenters out there, are not. What coordination and/or coercion mechanisms do you propose, are you really ready to inflict them on the unwilling, and do you have the cultural or political muscle to back it up if a sufficient mass of people start pushing back that your plan no longer works.

you are attributing to cultural changes sociological phenomena which are mostly material in origin (and the remaining ones which genuinely are cultural are cultural shifts that nobody wants to undo). Your proposed change is not stable against the relentless pressure of material conditions being what they are in a wealthy, post-industrial society.

I know this is all a bit abstract, but if I went to Twitter and started hunting around for specific examples of what I'm talking about, it would just make me angry, so you'll have to live with the generalities for now.

[mariacallous]

Last month’s local election results in Turkey delivered a harsh blow to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP). Just under a year since the presidential election, in which Erdogan won another five years in power, Turkey’s opposition party—the Republican People’s Party (CHP)—won big victories in the majority of the country’s largest cities, including Istanbul, the economic powerhouse of Turkey. Thirty-five provincial capitals (out of a total of 81) now have a CHP mayor, while the AKP-led People’s Alliance has just 24. The CHP also scraped past Erdogan’s party in the country overall, garnering 37.8 percent of the votes compared to 35.5 percent for the AKP.

The CHP’s victory is a hopeful signal of the resilience of Turkish democracy and its electoral system. After the CHP’s disappointing results in last year’s presidential election, where it only managed a little over 47 percent of the vote, its share of the national vote came as a shock to many experts. It was a surprising achievement, not least because nearly 90 percent of Turkey’s media is in the hands of the government or its supporters, granting the ruling party a lopsided advantage when campaigning.

For years, analysts have argued that Turkey has slid away from democracy and given way to authoritarian politics—with Erdogan leading the way. A single election does not erase years of calculated efforts to centralize power and remove checks and balances on the president. And yet, despite an uneven playing field, the opposition largely prevailed. Even Erdogan himself acknowledged that “regardless of the results, the winner of this election is primarily democracy.”

There may or may not be any real feeling behind the president’s statement. But the fact that he gave these conciliatory remarks on the night of the election is, in itself, surprising. Erdogan is not in immediate political peril himself. The next presidential elections will not take place until 2028. But it turns out that he has less space in which to maneuver than some analysts previously assumed.

At present, Erdogan is constitutionally limited from running for election in 2028. There’s been speculation that a new constitution could lift that limit. But the uncertainty introduced by the recent opposition victories makes that much less likely, buying democratic forces in Turkey more time.

It’s not clear what would be in a new constitution, but it could include an end to current term limits on the president, a move away from Turkey’s long-enshrined status as a secular state, and the strengthening of the central government’s power over the judiciary. However, introducing the constitution—which the president has stated he intends to do—would require a public referendum. Moving forward with a new constitution after these election results could risk strong public rebuke, and Erdogan may now feel far less confident in a referendum victory.

The requirement to hold a referendum for amendments to the constitution (enshrined in the document since 1982) provides a level of protection for Turkish democracy. Compare this to Hungary, where the erosion of democracy has largely been carried out through legal means. Hungary’s original constitution tipped the balance in favor of large parties and, in 2010, when Fidesz (Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s right-wing populist party) won 53 percent of the vote, it was able to convert its small majority into 68 percent of the seats in parliament. Subsequently, though the bar for writing a new Hungarian constitution was set at a four-fifths majority, the rule itself could be overturned by a two-thirds majority—which Fidesz did and immediately began drafting a constitution that gave the government significant new powers.

In contrast, the Turkish constitution means that Erdogan is still beholden to the public. He has already made significant changes to the constitution, including amending it in 2017 to shift from a parliamentary system to a presidential one. Those amendments were accepted both by parliament and—narrowly—through a referendum. Further revisions, and the introduction of a new document, will require significant public support the president may not have.

Turkey’s democracy also benefits from its decentralized voting process, which makes manipulating results on election day more difficult—and voter turnout is consistently high, with turnout at around 76 percent in last month’s elections. Allegations of election fraud are not unheard of, but the diffuse, paper-based nature of the process makes systematic fraud harder to accomplish.

In another indication of the resilience of the Turkish electoral system, electoral authorities overturned a decision by the local election board in Van, which had handed the mayoralty to the AKP candidate, despite the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) party candidate besting him by 28 percentage points. This may be a small victory for democracy but is an unusual outcome in the Kurdish-dominated southeast, given the central government is traditionally not disposed to side with Kurdish voters.

Critically, Turkey’s political opposition is still an effective force and has not been excised from the electoral system, as it has been in other countries. Closing political and civic spaces is a common tactic for authoritarian leaders—such as in Venezuela, where arbitrary arrests and the criminalization of opposition parties’ activities were reported during regional and municipal elections in 2021. The disproportionate resources at the AKP’s disposal have made campaigns increasingly unbalanced, and the government has taken advantage of the legal system to jail and disqualify opposition candidates. Still, the CHP’s victory in seven of the 10 most populous Turkish cities and its overall share of the vote show that real political opposition, key to a functioning democracy, can still operate.

A single, if surprising, election doesn’t mean Turkey’s democracy is thriving, or even on the mend. It may be difficult for the opposition to sustain its current approach for the next four years. Ekrem Imamoglu—Istanbul’s mayor, often touted as a potential CHP presidential candidate—faces multiple court cases that could be used to bar him from running for president. Erdogan may turn to more authoritarian tactics to hold onto power, and how he chooses to respond politically could impact the future of Turkish democracy. If he doubles down on restricting the political space, including by following up on the outstanding court cases against opposition candidates—it will be for the worse.

But first, Erdogan will have to start by addressing his country’s economic woes. Inflation climbed to nearly 70 percent in March, and interest rates hit 50 percent the same month. Though the crisis hardly touched Erdogan’s popularity in the presidential election last year, the same does not seem to be true for his party. To have any hope of recouping the AKP’s political losses, Erdogan will have to improve the outlook for millions of Turks hit hard by the economic crisis.

If he succeeds, it would be a win for the general population—though it may also mean he seizes the opportunity to capitalize on any upswing in public opinion to introduce his proposed new constitution. He may also seek the support he needs for a referendum by pursuing a closer relationship with right-wing nationalists and Islamists. By tempting traditionally conservative AKP voters back into the fold, he could regain those he lost to the Islamist New Welfare Party in last month’s election.

Turkey has a long way to go before it can be considered a liberal democratic country. Its democracy has declined precipitously in the past 15 years; but this election signals that there are pockets of resilience. That’s worth paying attention to. A more resilient Turkish democracy merits encouragement and hope—not least because, as a global swing state, the choices that Turkey makes may have an impact beyond its borders.

[olderthannetfic]

I wish Republicans didn't read fanfic. Homeschooled "I'm a centrist but I vote Republican" idiots who don't know very basic things like the electoral college existing, Donald Trump having done bad things (even the really widely-talked about things like his love of grabbing unconsenting people by their genitalia), that Jewish people are called Jewish people and not "the Hebrew race", and that non-Christians do in fact know about the incredibly obscure fact that the Old Testament and the Torah are the same thing are a fucking plague in the Undertale fandom. They regularly comment on how "unrealistic" something in post-Pacifist endng fanfics are and then have to be told no, Amazon overworking their workers isn't an invention of the author, no, the author isn't a SJW for saying Native Americans had cities in pre-colonial times, no, Jewish people aren't all rich and in fact poverty touches all demographics, etc. Despite this, they believe themselves to be incredibly intelligent and deep thinkers, which results in them coming to fanfic comments' sections to leave their insight/attempts at "gotcha" moments everywhere. You can often identify them by their pathological need to speculate on what Frisk and/or Chara have inbetween their legs, because thinking about children's genitalia is something they can't stop doing no matter how much the rest of us wish they would.

Giving up on writing and fanfic has been a blessing in many ways but by far the biggest is that if you're not in a fandom anymore, you can't encounter these people even when they're a fucking plague within a fandom. I will never have to explain to someone in their 30s shit I knew middle school while they pitch a fit about how hard it is to be a conservative ever again. I am so, so tired. I have no idea how people who stay in fandom spaces filled with these people manage it. At times I felt like the babysitter trying to explain to little Timmy that yes, Amazon does mean things, mean things happen and no, Elon Musk isn't Iron Man, Iron Man isn't real. If this is what parenting is like I am not into it.

I pity everybody stuck in fandoms rich with these people, truly, because there is nothing fun about this. It must suck to have to just live with this regularly. Personally I wish they'd just go fill up fandoms without pesky things like reality, queer characters, etc. so they'd be able to exist without throwing their fits, but alas, they're not only in fandom, they're stubbornly insisting on being in specific fandoms that anger them.

--

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Bobby Lewis at MMFA:

Within two weeks, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem went from a potential GOP vice presidential nominee to a pariah among right-wing media.  First, it was reported that her autobiography proudly tells of the time she shot and killed her 14-month-old dog Cricket, and then that there was no record of her alleged meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, also recounted in the book -- until it was removed after several painfully awkward interviews on the topic.  The typical response for a self-immolating conservative is a tour of friendly right-wing media outlets. But for Noem, even this is going poorly, with various on-air clashes and missed off-ramps, even though the most obsequious of hosts tried to walk her through the storm. Her book tour, now canceled, devolved into a circus of disastrous appearances in both mainstream and right-wing media.

Noem’s multifront collapse has right-wing media voices speculating about whether she “might be done” not just as a vice presidential contender, but potentially as a politician.  “The whole thing reeks of desperation,” said The Five co-host Jeanine Pirro, while others complained that Noem’s “delusional” and “scary” self-sabotage not only harms her but, perhaps worst of all, embarrasses Trump by association. “I’ve always been an advocate of a woman as a VP,” claimed War Room host Steve Bannon on April 29.  Appearing on Donald Trump Jr.'s Triggered podcast, Bannon began laughing as he explained that Noem was “maybe a little too based” for the job after “shooting the puppy in the gravel.”  “That was not ideal,” Trump Jr. said between laughing fits, an understatement of the backlash to come.

By the time of the May 6 edition of The Ben Shapiro Show, “it appears that Kristi Noem might be done,” said the eponymous host, “so that’s good.”  The Facts guest rapper added that “we need fewer clowns on the right.”  “Kristi Noem, who was at one point considered a vice presidential candidate,” Shapiro said, “it turns out that she spent the last two weeks claiming that it was good to shoot a puppy, a 14-month-old dog,” incredulously repeating her argument that “it was good to shoot the dog.”  “And also claiming that she met Kim Jong Un. So she had an awkward weekend,” he said, noting Noem’s remarkable suggestion that President Joe Biden should shoot his dog Commander. “It’s a unique approach to American electoral success, shooting dogs.”

[...] Trumpworld is full of unlikely political survivals and comebacks. But the gleeful, almost Trumpian manner in which right-wing media are mocking and attacking one of their own suggests that Noem may be in the doghouse for good. 

Right-wing media to Kristi Noem's VP dreams: drop dead.

#Kristi Noem #2024 Veepstakes #2024 Presidential Election #2024 Elections #Donald Trump #Cricket #Kim Jong Un #Greg Gutfeld #Laura Loomer #Donald Trump Jr. #Ben Shapiro #Stephen Bannon #Katherine Timpf #Jeanine Pirro

[ohsalome]

what's your take on thw whole Nazi veteran in canada thing? since zelensky himself is jewish i really don't understand how it happened. this isn't meant to be against ukrainians, just an honest question. i know it might seem purposely controversial but i promise you it's not.

(source)

2. Regardless of media wrongly accusing the veteran of participating in the Holocaust, Anthony Rota, who allegedly invited him, has been either catastrophically incompetent (because there is no way this wouldn't have been a huge reputational damage to Ukraine), or intentionally malicious. Overal a huge mess that only benefited to the enemies of Ukraine.

If you are interested in my speculations, I'm guessing that Rota wanted to get electorate points by showing his support of Ukraine (hence the whole "he's from the same area as I"), but didn't bother to do any research about which army the veteran had served in. While yes, SS Halychyna didn't participate in the Holocaust, and their motivation was in fighting for Ukrainian independence; they did fight with the allied forces on the Western frontier and the international outrage is (at least partially) justified.

I am not happy that the same people who are criticising Ukraine for being "not good enough" to join their cool kids club are as incometent as us.

#response

[reasonsforhope]

Note: I super don't like the framing of this headline. "Here's why it matters" idk it's almost like there's an entire country's worth of people who get to keep their democracy! Clearly! But there are few good articles on this in English, so we're going with this one anyway.

--

2024 is the biggest global election year in history and the future of democracy is on every ballot. But amid an international backsliding in democratic norms, including in countries with a longer history of democracy like India, Senegal’s election last week was a major win for democracy. It’s also an indication that a new political class is coming of age in Africa, exemplified by Senegal’s new 44-year-old president, Bassirou Diomaye Faye.

The West African nation managed to pull off a free and fair election on March 24 despite significant obstacles, including efforts by former President Macky Sall to delay the elections and imprison or disqualify opposition candidates. Add those challenges to the fact that many neighboring countries in West Africa — most prominently Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, but other nations across the region too — have been repeatedly undermined by military coups since 2020.

Sall had been in power since 2012, serving two terms. He declined to seek a third term following years of speculation that he would do so despite a constitutional two-term limit. But he attempted to extend his term, announcing in February that elections (originally to be held that month) would be pushed off until the end of the year in defiance of the electoral schedule.

Sall’s allies in the National Assembly approved the measure, but only after security forces removed opposition politicians, who vociferously protested the delay. Senegalese society came out in droves to protest Sall’s attempted self-coup, and the Constitutional Council ruled in late February that Sall’s attempt to stay in power could not stand.

That itself was a win for democracy. Still, opposition candidates, including Faye, though legally able to run, remained imprisoned until just days before the election — while others were barred from running at all. The future of Senegal’s democracy seemed uncertain at best.

Cut to Tuesday [April 2, 2024], when Sall stepped down and handed power to Faye, a former tax examiner who won on a campaign of combating corruption, as well as greater sovereignty and economic opportunity for the Senegalese. And it was young voters who carried Faye to victory...

“This election showed the resilience of the democracy in Senegal that resisted the shock of an unexpected postponement,” Adele Ravidà, Senegal country director at the lnternational Foundation for Electoral Systems, told Vox via email. “... after a couple of years of unprecedented episodes of violence [the Senegalese people] turned the page smoothly, allowing a peaceful transfer of power.”

And though Faye’s aims won’t be easy to achieve, his win can tell us not only about how Senegal managed to establish its young democracy, but also about the positive trend of democratic entrenchment and international cooperation in African nations, and the power of young Africans...

Senegal and Democracy in Africa

Since it gained independence from France in 1960, Senegal has never had a coup — military or civilian. Increasingly strong and competitive democracy has been the norm for Senegal, and the country’s civil society went out in great force over the past three years of Sall’s term to enforce those norms.

“I think that it is really the victory of the democratic institutions — the government, but also civil society organization,” Sany said. “They were mobilized, from the unions, teacher unions, workers, NGOs. The civil society in Senegal is one of the most experienced, well-organized democratic institutions on the continent.” Senegalese civil society also pushed back against former President Abdoulaye Wade’s attempt to cling to power back in 2012, and the Senegalese people voted him out...

Faye will still have his work cut out for him accomplishing the goals he campaigned on, including economic prosperity, transparency, food security, increased sovereignty, and the strengthening of democratic institutions. This will be important, especially for Senegal’s young people, who are at the forefront of another major trend.

Young Africans will play an increasingly key role in the coming decades, both on the continent and on the global stage; Africa’s youth population (people aged 15 to 24) will make up approximately 35 percent of the world’s youth population by 2050, and Africa’s population is expected to grow from 1.5 billion to 2.5 billion during that time. In Senegal, people aged 10 to 24 make up 32 percent of the population, according to the UN.

“These young people have connected to the rest of the world,” Sany said. “They see what’s happening. They are interested. They are smart. They are more educated.” And they have high expectations not only for their economic future but also for their civil rights and autonomy.

The reality of government is always different from the promise of campaigning, but Faye’s election is part of a promising trend of democratic entrenchment in Africa, exemplified by successful transitions of power in Nigeria, Liberia, and Sierra Leone over the past year. To be sure, those elections were not without challenges, but on the whole, they provide an important counterweight to democratic backsliding.

Senegalese people, especially the younger generation, have high expectations for what democracy can and should deliver for them. It’s up to Faye and his government to follow."

-via Vox, April 4, 2024

#senegal #africa #bassirou diomaye faye #elections #2024 elections #democracy #voting matters #young people #political corruption #coup attempt #good news #hope #international politics #african politics #fair elections #autocracy #macky sall

[deadpresidents]

Russian archival records obtained for this book show that [Joseph] Stalin colluded with his favorited U.S. candidate in 1948, Henry Wallace, [Franklin D.] Roosevelt’s Soviet-friendly wartime Vice President.

The nature of Wallace’s relationship with the Kremlin has long been a subject of speculation. Soviet intelligence is known to have unimaginatively code-named the Vice President CAPTAIN’S DEPUTY during the war. But no evidence has ever emerged that Wallace was recruited as a Soviet agent. He was, however, we can now discern, a Soviet tool. He sincerely believed that “peaceful coexistence” between the Soviet Union and the United States not only could be achieved, but was essential for world peace. All the while, he looked away from (and naively followed Soviet propaganda denying) the existence of Stalin’s mass forced labor and terror programs. According to [President Harry S.] Truman’s counsel Clark Clifford: “It was never clear to me how aware he [Wallace] was of the uses to which the Communist Party was putting him, but whether he knew it or not, he was following the communist line, serving communist ends, and betraying those Americans who supported him as a serious alternative to the two main candidates [in 1948].” Wallace’s naivete about Soviet communism turned him into an asset for Stalin, if not a recruited Soviet agent.

Wallace decided to run in the 1948 U.S. election as the Progressive Party nominee. In April and May that year, he secretly liaised with Stalin about public policies that would be advantageous for the Soviet Union, coordinating his public statements with the dictator. Wallace secretly met with the youthful Soviet ambassador to the UN in New York, Andrei Gromyko, who dispatched the candidate’s messages to the Soviet foreign minister, [Vyacheslav] Molotov, and to Stalin himself. In his memoirs, Gromyko admitted to meeting Wallace, but downplayed the meeting’s significance, suggesting that after talking with him he considered that Wallace had lost contact with the pulse of American life. Archival documents in Moscow reveal that in fact Stalin took Wallace’s position and candidacy seriously, approving his public positions, and answering questions that the former Vice President put to him, which Stalin annotated in his distinctive pencil. Their alignment produced a published open letter from Wallace to Stalin, vetted by the Soviet leader in advance, to which Stalin then publicly replied, all as agreed between the two men.

Wallace’s Presidential election bid in November 1948 dismally failed; he ended up getting barely 2 percent of the vote, while Truman, to his and the nation’s surprise, won a second term. He defeated New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey in one of the greatest upsets in U.S. Presidential history. Ironically, the staff of Wallace’s failed 1948 campaign included none other than the Soviet atom spy Ted Hall. Following his unsuccessful White House run, Wallace had a crisis of faith in his pro-Stalinism. This may have been caused by his realization that Stalin had used and discarded him after the election. Stalin had gotten what he wanted from Wallace. In 1952, Wallace published an article, “Where I Was Wrong,” describing “Russian Communism” as “utterly evil.” The Kremlin and its intelligence services nevertheless learned an important strategic lesson for later in the Cold War: that it could use the freedoms inherent within American electoral campaigns to influence candidates favorable to the Soviet Union.

-- From Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West by Calder Walton, Simon & Schuster, 2023 (BOOK | KINDLE | AUDIO)

#History #Henry A. Wallace #Vice President Wallace #Soviet Union #Cold War #Cold War History #Joseph Stalin #Stalin #Stalinism #Communism #Soviet History #Espionage #1948 Election #Harry S. Truman #President Truman #Thomas E. Dewey #FDR #Franklin D. Roosevelt #President Roosevelt #Roosevelt Administration #Politics #Political History #Russia #Russian History #Soviet Communism #Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West #Spies #Calder Walton #Simon and Schuster #Simon & Schuster

[qqueenofhades]

Speaking of Jack Smith and the indictments, follow up questions if you feel like answering! What do you think the chances of a conviction before the 2024 elections are? And (more worryingly to me), how much will convictions matter given they don't actually stop Trump from running or potentially being elected?

I've been following the investigations pretty closely, until I figured out last night that there are no laws against running for president from prison, and nothing stopping an imprisoned president from pardoning themselves. @_@ And while no one running for president from prison has ever gotten much of the vote, I have a terrible feeling that's one of those terrible firsts Orange-kun could pull off.

The thing with all this is that it is, for America, completely unprecedented political and legal territory. As such, while we can speculate and infer from what has happened thus far and what would normally be on schedule to happen next, we simply can't be sure. As I have said and as we all need to prepare ourselves for, Trump WILL be the GOP nominee at the time of the 2024 election, and if you thought he and his deranged cultists were dangerous to American democracy before, that's nothing compared to what they would be now. Which means we have the obvious task of all working as hard as we fucking can to get Joe Biden re-elected and given back full Democratic control of Congress. That is and remains Job Number One.

Next, Trump's only play is to delay, delay, delay as long as possible, in hopes of miraculously winning and canceling all the charges against himself like a proper banana-republic Autocrat-for-Life. That is obviously a terrifying idea, so see above: need to make sure it doesn't happen. The good news is that Biden beat Trump last time and if we do our part, he can do it again. Democrats are over-performing their 2020 margins by an average of 7+ points in the last 20 special or off-cycle elections, and while this isn't a sign to think we've got it in the bag and can just relax, it also means that the electoral trends are overall much better for Team Blue than they are for the Group Of Pfascists over there, especially since state-level Republican parties are basically bankrupt after throwing away so much money on pointless Big Lie challenges. Trump and his entire vindictive fascist apparatus is, again, terrifying. But it is not genuinely popular or in the actual majority, and we need to approach it like something that can and must be defeated, and not some unstoppable demonic force.

As such, we also need to recognize that even if Trump does go on trial and get convicted on any number of things before November 2024, which is still something of a long shot just because Merrick Garland dragged his feet on this for so long, he will try every bullshit delay tactic and appeal that he possibly can, in hopes of elevating it to a Trump-appointed judge and/or SCOTUS (he will try AS HARD AS POSSIBLE to get it to SCOTUS, since like every good mob boss, he thinks he owns them and they're obliged to bail him out). We don't know the timeline on that or what the effects will be, but as I noted last night, the benchmark for "progress on holding Trump accountable" constantly shifts and doesn't seem to be acknowledged, even when we are in the realm of the unprecedented for any former American president. And yet we do continue to make progress, and as I say whenever there's a development on that front, the LAST thing we should do is pre-emptively throw up our hands, despair about how it still doesn't mean anything, or just won't work. I know pessimism is easy and hopelessness feels like our default setting; the last almost-decade has kicked the absolute SHIT out of us and I won't pretend otherwise. But nonetheless, this is still happening. We just have to hang in there and do our part.

If we do that, and trust that Jack Smith and co. do theirs (as they have been doing so far), then things will probably, in fact, be okay. We cannot ever make the mistakes of 2016 again, which is why it's so maddening that a significant minority of leftist-identifying people seem determined to do exactly that, but it's certainly not as if all hope is already lost and the indictments will be a magic wand to speed Trump back to the White House (again, God forbid). We have to keep that in mind and our eyes on the goal, so yeah. We can do it and we must, and that's about all there is to it.

#anthropicmoose #ask #politics for ts #the giant orange monster

[johnschneiderblog]

Lest we forget (even though we may want to)

If you've been trying for three years to erase from your mind the images associated with this T-shirt, I apologize. But maybe we should be forced to remember certain things - for our own damn good.

This particular T was a Christmas gift from one of my kids. I wore it a couple of times on the pickleball court when it still meant something; it got a few laughs.

Memories faded; images got supressed; the shirt soon lost its punch.

Let's revisit: On Nov. 7, 2020, four days after the presidential election, the defeated Donald Trump's attorney, Rudy Giuliani, hosted a bizarre state-of-denial press conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping near Philadelphia.

It was a baffling choice of venue and although the Trump campaign never admitted it, speculation was that somebody meant to book the posh Four Seasons Hotel Philadelphia. Oops.

Nontheless, the presser proceeded. Trump's legal team hurled wild and baseless claims about electoral malfeasance while rivulets of hair dye trickled down Rudy's cheeks.

Remember?

#John Schneider #Four Seasons Total Landscaping #Trump press conference #Rudy Giuliani #three-year anniversary

[theworstfoundingfathers]

Who is the worst founding father? Round 5: Henry Laurens vs James Monroe

Henry Laurens (March 6, 1724 [O.S. February 24, 1723] – December 8, 1792) was an American Founding Father, merchant, slave trader, and rice planter from South Carolina who became a political leader during the Revolutionary War. A delegate to the Second Continental Congress, Laurens succeeded John Hancock as its president. He was a signatory to the Articles of Confederation and, as president, presided over its passage.

Laurens had earned great wealth as a partner in the largest slave-trading house in North America, Austin and Laurens. In the 1750s alone, this Charleston firm oversaw the sale of more than 8,000 enslaved Africans.

Laurens’ oldest son, Colonel John Laurens, was killed in 1782 in the Battle of the Combahee River, as one of the last casualties of the Revolutionary War. He had supported enlisting and freeing slaves for the war effort and suggested to his father that he begin with the 40 he stood to inherit. He had urged his father to free the family’s slaves, but although conflicted, Henry Laurens never manumitted his 260 slaves.

---

James Monroe (April 28, 1758 – July 4, 1831) was an American statesman, lawyer, and diplomat who served as the fifth president of the United States from 1817 to 1825. He is perhaps best known for issuing the Monroe Doctrine, a policy of opposing European colonialism in the Americas while effectively asserting U.S. dominance, empire, and hegemony in the hemisphere. He also served as governor of Virginia, a member of the United States Senate, U.S. ambassador to France and Britain, the seventh Secretary of State, and the eighth Secretary of War.

As president, Monroe signed the Missouri Compromise, which admitted Missouri as a slave state and banned slavery from territories north of the 36°30′ parallel. 

Monroe sold his small Virginia plantation in 1783 to enter law and politics. He owned multiple properties over the course of his lifetime, but his plantations were never profitable. Although he owned much more land and many more slaves, and speculated in property, he was rarely on site to oversee the operations. Overseers treated the slaves harshly to force production, but the plantations barely broke even. Monroe incurred debts by his lavish and expensive lifestyle and often sold property (including slaves) to pay them off. 

Two years into his presidency, Monroe faced an economic crisis known as the Panic of 1819, the first major depression to hit the country since the ratification of the Constitution. The severity of the economic downturn in the U.S. was compounded by excessive speculation in public lands, fueled by the unrestrained issue of paper money from banks and business concerns.

Before the onset of the Panic of 1819, business leaders had called on Congress to increase tariff rates to address the negative balance of trade and help struggling industries. Monroe declined to call a special session of Congress to address the economy. When Congress finally reconvened in December 1819, Monroe requested an increase in the tariff but declined to recommend specific rates. Congress would not raise tariff rates until the passage of the Tariff of 1824. The panic resulted in high unemployment and an increase in bankruptcies and foreclosures, and provoked popular resentment against banking and business enterprises.

The collapse of the Federalists left Monroe with no organized opposition at the end of his first term, and he ran for reelection unopposed. A single elector from New Hampshire, William Plumer, cast a vote for John Quincy Adams, preventing a unanimous vote in the Electoral College. He did so because he thought Monroe was incompetent. 

#semifinals! #founding father bracket #worst founding father #founding fathers #amrev #brackets #polls #henry laurens #james monroe