#not even presidential voter polls!!! fucking approval polls!!

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

13 Keys to the White House: 2024

Historian Allan Lichtman has produced an astonishingly accurate system for predicting presidential elections; although first implemented in 1984, going backwards it correctly accounts for every election since 1860, with the only hiccup coming from the hotly contested 2000 election. He predicted Gore would win, and he wasn’t entirely wrong, there was just some brotherly nepotism and Supreme Court fuckery. Anyway, his system posits 13 yes or no scenarios about the state of the union; if at least 8 are true then the incumbent party wins another term, less than 8 and the challenging party wins. Simple.

It’s pretty early in Biden’s term to tell for sure, but we can make some soft predictions that we can refine over the next few years before solidifying in 2023 or 2024.

Midterm gains: after the midterms, the incumbent party holds more seats in the House than they did in the previous midterms. Almost certainly false. 2022 will see new districts drawn by the predominantly Republican statehouses, giving them an immediate advantage. Democrats have a razor thin majority as is, it’s never been this close to tied before, I can’t see them holding on when you take into account new census data and partisan gerrymandering.

No primary contest: is there no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination. Almost certainly true. Like him or hate him, Democrats are stuck with Biden. There hasn’t been a serious primary challenge in either major party since Reagan tried to take on Ford in 1976.

Incumbent seeking re-election: the incumbent candidate is the president. Again almost certainly true. There was an unspoken agreement that Biden would only run for one term, considering the fact that he’ll be 82 at the end of it, but o think he thinks he’s in for the long run now. If he does in office, Harris will become president and run for re-election herself, so the only way this would flip false would be if Biden just decides not to run again. In that case, the #2 might also flip false because I could see a weak senator like Joe Manchin running against Harris to get out of his own impending failure in West Virginia.

No third-party: no significant third party challenger. Too soon to tell, though I’m leaning towards true. The last nationally successful third party candidate was Ross Perot in 1992 and 1996. He didn’t win any states, but he split some states nearly in thirds; Clinton and Bush and Dole all won states with less than 50% of he vote because Perot split the ticket. In 2000 Ralph Nader lost New Hampshire for Al Gore, giving it and the presidency to George W. Bush, and the same thing happened with Jill Stein in 2016 in the Midwest. Spoilers don’t need to be major on the National scale to have significant effects in specific states. Lichtman only flips this one false when a third party candidate wins 10% of the vote, so I’m going with true.

Short-term economy: the economy is not in recession. Probably true, but still too early to tell. We are either in the middle or nearing the end of a covid recession, I can’t see it lasting three more years without recovering at least a little, especially with the $2 trillion stimulus package they just passed. The economy is random, but if you look at a plot of unemployment since the Great Depression you will see that it consistently trends up under Republicans and trends down under Democrats. Trump was the only president is recent history to actually destroy more jobs than he created, so Biden could. It have inherited an easier path to victory. He shouldn’t be able to fuck up when the bar is so low, but I’m not holding out hope.

Long-term economy: real pet capita growth equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms. Probably true, too soon to be sure. We’re so deep in the hole after Trump that any even remotely upwards tick will count as growth. I can’t see us dipping deeper than 2020 anytime soon, but then again that’s what they said in 2008, so who even knows?

Major policy change: the incumbent administration effects major change in national policy. False, I can call it now with utmost confidence. With Manchin and Sinema protecting the filibuster, Biden will get absolutely nothing substantive done in his first two years. He’ll end up losing one or both houses in the midterms, accomplishing even less in his next two! If he loses the Senate, it’s all over. It’ll be 2016 2.0, no more appointments, no more nominees, complete and utter obstruction until the Republicans take back he presidency and fill all the vacancies themselves.

No social unrest: no sustained social unrest during the term. Too soon to tell, but maybe true. 2020 was an anomaly, a once in a generation thing like 1968, so many crises all compounded together; the pandemic, the George Floyd protests, the wild fires, the hurricanes, utter chaos. I don’t see 2024 being as bad, but don’t quote me on that.

No scandal: incumbent administration is not tainted by scandal. Who knows?!? Biden seems pretty white bread/plain vanilla/mayonnaise, but Republicans insist he’s the most corrupt politician since their own guys (Trump and Nixon; lowering the bar for all their successors). They milked Benghazi for years and found nothing, but still tanked Clinton’s integrity going forward, I’m sure they’ll try to milk whatever BS They can find on Hunter Biden, especially if they retake the House or Senate. Whether any accusations will stick is up in the air, but I could see Republicans impeaching Biden just because they can.

No foreign/military failure: incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign/military affairs. Who knows? Biden’s foreign policy isn’t significantly different than Trump’s, so there’s no telling what could go wrong. The Saudis will keep cutting people’s heads off, North Korea will never disarm itself, Iran will probably arm itself, Afghanistan will drag on forever, and I can smell war brewing in the Caucasus, Venezuela, and Bolivia. The future is as clear as milk.

Foreign policy/military success: incumbent administration achieves major success in foreign/military affairs. Probably not, but too soon to tell. Succeeding is very different from not failing, so 10 and 11 aren’t necessarily linked. You can not fail AND not succeed, they’re not mutually exclusive. I don’t see anything good happening overseas for a very long time. If we pull out of Afghanistan, the power vacuum will pave the way for ISIS 2.0, so our hands are tied there. Our best bet would be to renegotiate a nuclear deal with Iran, but then we’ll just be back to status quo anteTrumpum, zero sum gain.

Charismatic incumbent: the incumbent party nominee is charismatic or a national hero. False, false, a million times false. Biden isn’t even beloved by his entire party, let alone the country; Republicans hate him even more than they ought to just because he wears a blue tie instead of a red one (his policies are so middle-of-the-road inoffensive to them that they shouldn’t have a problem with him, but Trump told them to, so they do). If Biden dies or refuses to run, Harris is even more divisive because she’s a woman and a disingenuous liar (she pretends to be super progressive, but she’s a cop, a Clintonesque moderate through and through). Obama in 2008 was a breath of fresh air which got very stale by 2012; 2008 was lightning in a bottle, and neither Biden nor Harris could ever dream of catching it again. They’re nowhere near as nationally beloved as the Roosevelts or Kennedy or Reagan.

Uncharismatic challenger: the challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero. True, true, a million times true. It will almost certainly be Trump again in 2024, and he is even more despised than Biden. Sure, he’s beloved by his own party, but they make up less than half of he country. He never had majority approval and lost the popular vote twice, he’s a loser! If by some miracle he chooses not to run, the Republicans will be running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to appoint a successor. They’ll want one of his kids to run, maybe even his daughter in law who is looking to run for senate in 2022, but they’re tainted by affiliation to the Gonad Lump himself; they’re all the same. Ted Cruz sucks ass, Ron DeSantis might actually have an intellectual disability so I feel bad making fun of that piece of shit bastard, I pray that Rick Scott and Josh Hawley and Matt Gaetz suffer debilitating brain aneurysms on live TV, Nikki Haley is a nobody, and Lauren Boebert and Majorie Taylor Green are too regional to have national appeal (though Green will probably run against Raphael Warnock in 2022, so she will almost certainly be a senator by 2024). There are no nationally beloved politicians on either side of the aisle, so I would expect Republicans to cheat like they tried in 2020 to stop black people in swing states from voting.

So, the tally stands thus:

3 are certainly true

4 are probably true, leaning uncertain

2 are uncertain

1 is probably false, leaning uncertain

3 are certainly false

Democrats need 8 true to win, Republicans need 6 false to win. Right now, Biden had a slight edge because it is historically difficult to defeat an incumbent, Trump just sucked. I don’t see a rematch being significantly different, I suspect Biden would still win the popular vote, but Trump could eke by with the electoral college like he did in 2016, especially now that Republicans are taking over the judiciary in Pennsylvania (they’re changing the rules so that judges are elected in gerrymandered districts instead of statewide races). You saw how hard Republicans fought in 2020, they’re not going to change tactics in 2024, they’re gonna double down and try even harder next time. Fewer polling places, fewer drop boxes, shorter early voting, shorter hours, more stringent ID laws. Their MO is systemic voter suppression because their rhetoric has become too toxic to win on a national level. The majority of Americans vote against them in almost every election, general and midterm, but they continue to rule in the minority.

Something has got to give, this can’t go on forever, eventually the situation is going to boil over, be it in a civil war or a constitutional convention to overhaul the entire country; neither are probable, and either outcome would almost certainly hurt people of color in predominantly conservative states.

Biden thought he would be an arbiter president, he thought he would be able to unite the country, heal the divide, being both sides together under mutual compromise, but he failed to understand that Republicans hate him on principal. Doesn’t matter how much he tries to appease them, they still hate him because they have to hate him, even if they agree with him. It would be political suicide for any of them to side with Biden on anything, Trump has already vowed to support primary challengers, his presidency was the final nail in the coffin of bipartisanship. Bipartisanship is dead, it hasn’t been alive in decades, and the only people who call for it are the minority party.

Trump is hard liquor, unappealing to anyone but his alcoholic voters; Biden is diet ginger ale, inoffensive and boring, nobody really wanted him, he only ran to try and settle everyone’s stomachs, and he hasn’t been very successful yet. He honestly believed he would be a neutral alternative for the alcoholics; that level of optimism would be adorable if it weren’t so pathetic. It’s gonna take a lot more than 12 steps to break the country’s addiction.

#2024 #2024 prediction #Biden #Joe Biden #Harris #Kamala Harris #2024 election #2024 presidential election #donald trump #fuck donald trump #fuck trump #13 keys to the white house #13 keys #prediction #future prediction #future president #biden harris 2024 #hellscape #dumpster fire #Hindenburg #the hindenburg #titanic #the titanic

[garrettrulefivewhitlock]

Why saying “Fuck the entire South” is incorrect and toxic

The Republican voting record of the Southern region in the US is not reflective of the entire population. It is reflective of the white population.

Since this country started giving the right to vote to people other than white man, the South has done all it can to stop these people from voting.

- After the Civil War, white men stood outside voting centers with weapons to intimidate black people who came to vote.

- State constitutions were rewritten to suppress the votes of newly enfranchised African Americans.

- Colfax Massacre: Former Confederate soldiers/KKK/White League mob opened fire on courthouse full of black men. After the black men surrendered, many were shot and hung. It’s estimated that anywhere from 60 to 150 free black men were killed.

- Efforts to deny black men the right to vote was so bad, we literally made a new Amendment to further protect the right (14th).

- Texas, in particular, worked to stop black women from voting decades after the 19th Amendment was passed. There was poll tax, literacy test, grandfather clause, violence, economic coercion that kept most black women ineligible.

- In 1923, Texas created the white primary, by declaring the Democratic party was a private organization, which cleared the way for Democrats to allow only white people to vote in the primary. At the time, the Republican party barely existed in Texas. The white primary was, in effect, the general election. (Keep in mind at this point in history, Democrats were conservative and Republicans were liberal).

- Texas had a pole tax until it was banned in 1964. The tax discouraged many from voting, as it cost $1.50 and later $1.75, which was a day’s wage. If you were poor, you couldn’t afford to spend a day’s wage on the vote.

- It wasn’t until 1965, with the passing of the Voting Rights Act, that literacy tests were banned and federal oversight of elections across the country was applied.

These efforts to stop anyone but white men from voting have created systematic oppression, government built upon decades of law created by white men, and a society that perpetuates all of this.

Sources: https://www.history.com/news/voter-suppression-after-reconstruction-southern-states https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/1873-colfax-massacre-crippled-reconstruction-180958746/ https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/in-depth/2019/06/28/338050/100-years-ago-with-womens-suffrage-black-women-in-texas-didnt-get-the-right-to-vote/

Here are modern examples to show how the South does all it can to remove non-white voters/votes.

- “In the 2000 presidential election...Florida kept African Americans from the polls or ensured that their votes would never be added to the state’s tally...On election day, there were faulty voting machines, purged voter rolls (purges that targeted minorities) and locked gates at polling places that should have been opened. There was also a Florida Highway Patrol checkpoint at the only road leading to the polls in key, heavily black precincts in Jacksonville. Then there were the piles of ballots, especially in counties with large minority populations, left uncounted. The US Civil Rights Commission ‘concluded that, of the 179,855 ballots invalidated by Florida officials, 53% were cast by black voters. In Florida,’ the commission’s report continued, ‘a black citizen was 10 times as likely to have a vote rejected as a white voter’ ”.

****Bush won Florida by 537 votes. According to the article, about 95,323 black votes weren’t counted. If even a fraction of those votes had been Democratic, Bush could have lost the election.

- In North Carolina, “after the US supreme court gutted the necessary protection of the Voting Rights Act in 2013...The state required ID’s which its research showed a disproportionate number of black people did not have...the GOP slashed the number of early voting sites in Guilford county, which is nearly 30% African American, from 16 in 2012 to a single location in 2016. Pleased with what they had accomplished, North Carolina Republicans ‘celebrated’ mowing down black access to the voting booth.”

- In Indiana, “The Republican-dominated legislature mandated that counties with more than 325,000 residents could only have one early voting location unless approved on a bi-partisan basis. The governor, Mike Pence, signed this into law in 2013. Once again, the targeting was clear. Only three counties in Indiana have more than 325,000 people and account for 72% of the state’s black population. The result, as the Indianapolis Star reported, is that Marion county, including the state’s largest city, Indianapolis, lost two of its sites and was reduced to only one early voting precinct, which was inaccessibly located downtown with no available parking. Not surprisingly, by design, in the 2016 election, early voting in the county plummeted by 26%.”

- There are a number of states who have laws in place to stop felons from voting. Georgia and Florida have laws saying anyone convicted of a “felony involving moral turpitude” cannot vote or require that “convicted felons must wait at least five years after serving their full sentences before they can apply” respectively.

Here’s incarceration rates by race in Georgia:

Here’s incarceration rates by race in Florida:

Here’s another statistic: “about one out of every 37 blacks in Florida is living in a prison, jail or detention facility, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Tuesday. Blacks make up 48 percent of all Florida inmates -- far exceeding their 15.5 percent share of the state's population.”

- In 2019, voters in Texas face new barriers like the Texas voter ID law and the recent statewide voter purge that removed 95,000 people from the rolls.

- Gerrymandering is still a very real issue.

- Disenfranchisement is not unique to black voters. The Asian and Hispanic voter turnout is also far lower that white turnout:

There is conclusive evidence that non-white populations do not vote as much as white populations in the South. This is not because they are lazy, this is not because they don’t have differing opinions, this is not because they don’t care. Non-white populations do not vote in Southern elections because they live in a society that tells them their votes don’t matter. The local/state governments have created a system that does everything in its power to stop these people from voting. They stop criminals from voting (again incarceration rates are significantly disproportionately non-white across the country), they make voting centers hard to access, they require ID that non-white people rarely have, and so on.

The non-white voters who do come out to vote, tend to disagree with white voters.

Here are exit polls from the 2016 presidental election:

If more non-white people voted, it is easy to assume this difference in opinion would remain, if not increase. If more non-white people voted, maybe non-white votes would have an impact on elections. But in the current state of the South, that won’t happen.

Do not dismiss these minority groups. They are victims of a biased system that works against them with a malicious tenacity. Dismissing the whole region and saying “Fuck the entire South” does nothing but further disenfranchise these people. They have grown up in a society that says they don’t matter and statements like “Fuck the entire South” further isolates the good people stuck in the quagmire of racism and oppression that is the South. Say “Fuck the white conservative South”. Say “Fuck the Southern government that enables this to continue in 2019”. But do not say “Fuck the entire South”.

Sources: https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/in-depth/2019/06/28/338050/100-years-ago-with-womens-suffrage-black-women-in-texas-didnt-get-the-right-to-vote/ https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/07/black-voter-suppression-rights-america-trump https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/21/us/felony-voting-rights-law.html https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/georigia-s-strictest-possible-reading-law-stop-felons-voting-n1011056 https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-2001-07-25-0107250314-story.html https://www.texastribune.org/2017/05/11/hispanic-turnout-2016-election/ https://www.cnn.com/election/2016/results/exit-polls/texas/president https://www.prisonpolicy.org/profiles/FL.html https://www.prisonpolicy.org/profiles/GA.html

TL;DR: Saying “Fuck the entire South” is incorrect as the entire Southern population is not responsible for the current red wall of Republican voting that occurs in the region. Minorities have been silenced and/or oppressed by the society and legislature of the area to the point that their votes don’t matter. Saying “Fuck the entire South” is toxic because it doesn’t help the situation and discourages disenfranchised minorities from continuing to fight the uphill battle for their voices to be heard. Statements like “Fuck the entire South” are ignorant and make you a part of the problem.

#rant #this is so long but it needed to be said #the issue is the government and super conservative racists dont blame the people trapped in this situation #also location of baseball team or supporting a baseball team /= agreeing with the area’s politics?? #not an astros fan but had to be said

[fapangel]

"Trump's approval rating is at 37%, the lowest at this point in the presidency of any president since Gallup began tracking it in 1945. Correspondingly, his disapproval rating has hit 58%." (From ABC) Have you stopped drinking the flavour-aid yet?

So it’s improved since the election, then: 

http://www.gallup.com/poll/197231/trump-clinton-finish-historically-poor-images.aspx?g_source=scalometer&g_medium=search&g_campaign=tiles

Trump had the highest unfavorable score in “presidential polling history,” challenged only by... Hillary herself, only 9 points behind. And remember that this is skewed towards older voters by the realities of modern polling (cell phone polls being very expensive, and most people under 30 don’t have a landline at all anymore.)

And yet, he still won the election! Magic!? 

See, this is the problem with you shitheads - the endless self-affirming back-patting ego-stroking circlejerk. Fuck the blatant facts of reality, such as, you know, who won the election. All you need is one tidbit snatched out of context to lube up with and away you go, wanking into my inbox. Recent example - one day I pulled out my phone, checked Google News, and found (as I often do) several papers running the same headline on the same week:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/01/20/donald-trump-will-start-his-presidency-with-the-smallest-confirmed-cabinet-in-decades/?utm_term=.fce37216561a (Feb. 2nd) 

http://www.dispatch.com/news/20170219/trumps-cabinet-pick-confirmations-are-taking-longer-than-obamas-did (Feb. 19th)

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/blame-trump-not-democrats-the-administrations-empty-offices (Feb. 20th)

http://ktla.com/2017/02/25/nearly-2000-positions-remain-vacant-in-president-trumps-cabinet-data-shows/ (Feb. 25th)

SECOND VERSE FAKE AS THE FIRST A WHOLE LOT LOUDER AND A WHOLE LOT WORSE

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/03/03/trump-is-blaming-the-democrats-for-cabinet-delays-that-are-normal-and-his-own-fault/?utm_term=.9be258c12465 (March 3rd) 

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/25/politics/donald-trump-cabinet-vacancies/ (March 25th) 

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/24/trumps-cabinet-waiting-for-confirmation.html (March 24th)

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/03/trump-still-hasnt-done-very-much-214932 (March 20th)

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/445709/trumps-skeletal-crew-sub-cabinet-positions-unfilled (March 12th) 

Endless circlejerking over how many empty cabinet seats Trump has - despite it being entirely the fault of dogged, deliberate and bullheaded Democratic obstructionism, as these same media outlets reported: 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/confirmation-no-votes/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/02/23/democrats-insatiable-opposition-to-donald-trump/?utm_term=.1728575c1eef

http://a.abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/democrats-delay-fight-trump-cabinet-picks-45187865

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/democrats-boycott-committee-votes-trumps-picks-treasury-health/story?id=45168280

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/inside-dncs-war-room-trump-cabinet-confirmation-hearings/story?id=44718051 (”WAR ROOM”.) 

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/trump-s-cabinet-nominees-slog-through-messy-confirmation-process-n716166

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/how-senate-democrats-have-voted-each-donald-trump-s-cabinet-n715561

Oh, fuck son, I’m not done. You know how the media has kept putting the OMG RUSSIA thing on their front pages by openly reporting lies, slanders and “leaks” from “~sources~ we can’t name teehee?” Here’s them all circlejerking over it, as if they had nothing to do with it: 

https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2016-11-02/questions-linger-about-trumps-relationship-with-russia (reprinted AP wire story)

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/national/2016/11/questions_linger_about_trumps_relationship_with_russia

http://buffalonews.com/2017/01/11/despite-decent-news-conference-questions-linger-trumps-readiness/

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/15/politics/trump-russia-issues/

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38966846

So, back to Gallup polls: 

http://www.gallup.com/poll/195542/americans-trust-mass-media-sinks-new-low.aspx

Do you understand what I’m telling you, here? We’re used to this. We’re used to you smug fucks calling us “idiots that voted against our own self-interest” and sneering that we’ll soon be wallowing in regret. This is typically followed by increasing desperation and passive-aggressive nastiness (they’re not wallowing yet why won’t they fucking wallow!?) followed by a shift to exploring why Republicans are all fucking sheep led by the nose and/or how is the love child of the Pied Piper and Robspierre. This is the definition of the smug style. There you are, sneering in my inbox, wondering if I’m tasting the bitter fruits of not following the correct opinions yet. 

As usual the WaPo provides many reliable examples: 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-supporters-see-a-successful-president--and-are-frustrated-with-critics-who-dont/2017/02/19/496cb4b4-f6ca-11e6-9845-576c69081518_story.html?utm_term=.4a027830df89

Their audience literally needs it explained to them that supporters of a President think he’s successful and are frustrated with those that don’t. This isn’t common sense or even “the most basic of human psychology” to them, they need this explained. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/02/24/meet-5-people-who-think-president-trump-is-off-to-a-great-start/?utm_term=.50bf801b67f4

“Inside the minds of Trump supporters.” Like they put out a MAGA hat and an American flag on a lawn, and when a Trump supporter approaches Chris Hansen steps out and asks them to take a seat so we may probe the mysterious recesses of their warped minds. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/02/23/trump-will-likely-sell-out-his-working-class-white-base-heres-how/?utm_term=.70cc66e2f614

“H-HE’LL BETRAY THEM, ANY DAY NOW!” 

In case you haven’t realized yet - Trump won the election. Not only that, but Republicans swept Congress, too. The media was smugging over the candidates who tried to distance themselves from Trump during the campaign, only for those candidates to do worse, on average, then ones that embraced him. Your party has been repudiated in the most final and meaningful way possible, in large part by the very people you claim to represent and champion, in states that haven’t voted Republican since Reagan - or Reagan’s VP, Bush Sr.  A lot of the people you’re sneering at as beguiled, misled fools are union guys who’ve voted Democrat most, if not all their lives. 

And you can’t comprehend it. Instead, you - of the party that reviled, slandered and ultimately destroyed McCarthy, you, of the party who’s last President smugly sniped at his opponent for indulging in outdated cold-war paranoia of Russians - now see evil Russkies under every couch cushion as a way to rationalize your defeat. You use hashtag #RESIST like you’re hiding in the woods fighting fucking Nazis, you call us Nazis, you make lurid and increasingly demented predictions of Trump’s impending impeachment for the high crime of not agreeing with you, and in the most extreme cases, you resort to complete and total fantasy without any veneer of reality left: 

http://www.hillarybeattrump.org/

This is a site full of “news articles” from an alternate reality where Hillary won. It’s literal fantasy. Here’s another splendid dose of utter bugfuck insanity from a published YA author on his twitter: 

https://twitter.com/TimFederle/status/831540537467469824

Hillary the Druid, living in the wilderness as she becomes One with Gaia and prepares to take the fight to the HALLS OF THE TRUMPEN KING. You cannot make this shit up. Scott Adams was 100% right when he called this “hallucinating.” There is no other word for it. Everything else falls far short of the level of total delusion and disconnect from reality required. 

So yeah, before you go asking me about kool-aid, y’might wanna yank the hose out of your mouth. 

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Nearly 25 years before the NBA shut down for several days to protest racial injustice, before LeBron James tweeted, “FUCK THIS MAN!!!! WE DEMAND CHANGE. SICK OF IT,” and before the Milwaukee Bucks left the court in support of Jacob Blake, Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf made a protest of his own.

During the 1995-96 season, Abdul-Rauf, the Denver Nuggets’ leading scorer, refused to stand with his teammates for the pregame playing of the national anthem — saying the flag was a symbol of racism and oppression.

But Abdul-Rauf’s protest was met with scorn, not support. He was suspended by the league until he agreed to stand for the anthem and was traded after the season to the Sacramento Kings, where his NBA career effectively ended in 1998. And in a perfect encapsulation of partisan politics on race in the 1990s, the GOP’s 1996 presidential nominee, Bob Dole, criticized Abdul-Rauf’s anthem protest while his Democratic opponent, President Clinton, stayed silent on the issue.

Abdul-Rauf’s plight says a lot about how far the NBA and the general public have shifted on political activism, race and the role athletes should play in these issues.

The NBA of the 1990s was dominated by Michael Jordan and his adamantly apolitical persona. Jordan — who infamously joked that he wouldn’t get involved in the racially polarized 1990 U.S. Senate campaign in his home state of North Carolina because “Republicans buy sneakers, too”— exemplified an era in professional sports when profits were clearly prioritized over politics. In this environment, neither Jordan nor any other NBA All-Star came to Abdul-Rauf’s defense. Some even openly criticized him.

It’s hardly surprising, then, that most white people were also against Abdul-Rauf’s actions. The one national opinion survey on the subject, a March 1996 ABC/Washington Post poll, showed that 76 percent of white people thought the NBA made the right decision by suspending Abdul-Rauf for refusing to stand during the national anthem. In contrast to the huge partisan divides in public opinion about racial controversies today, 72 percent of white Democrats and 86 percent of white Republicans supported the suspension.

The country has come a long way since then in support of protesting athletes, though.

When NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick first knelt during the national anthem four years ago, public opinion was still largely against him. Only about one-third of Americans approved and thought that kneeling during the anthem was an appropriate form of protest. But as the country’s racial attitudes liberalized in response to President Trump’s administration and the Black Lives Matter movement, so has public opinion about athlete protests.

Support for athletes kneeling during the national anthem has steadily increased over the past four years. For example, the share in Fox News Polls who thought that kneeling during the anthem was appropriate increased from 32 percent in September 2016 to 41 percent in September 2017 to 48 percent in July 2020. Recent polls from NBC/Wall Street Journal and YouGov-Yahoo found that a majority of Americans now either support kneeling or think it’s appropriate to kneel during the national anthem.

In keeping with those trends, polling shows that most Americans support the NBA players’ decision last week to strike during the playoffs after a Kenosha, Wisconsin, police officer shot Blake seven times in the back. Online pollster YouGov found that 57 percent of adults supported the NBA boycott, compared to only 28 percent who opposed it, while a live-caller poll of registered voters conducted Aug. 28-31 by Suffolk University/USA Today found 54 percent support and 35 percent opposition.

With the players united and public opinion on their side, the unprecedented wave of sports activism following the Blake shooting and the police killings this year of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd was met with a much different response from sports and political leaders than Abdul-Rauf and Kaepernick’s earlier protests. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver penned a letter to league employees after last week’s strike that said, “I wholeheartedly support NBA and WNBA players and their commitment to shining a light on important issues of social justice.” The Democratic Party’s most prominent voices — including Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton — took to Twitter to applaud the players. Even Michael Jordan, now the only Black majority owner of an NBA team, is taking strong positions in support of racial equality and player protests. And NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell apologized in June “for not listening to NFL players earlier,” and he encouraged “all players to speak out and peacefully protest.”

That doesn’t mean there isn’t still division on the issue. Trump has been a vocal critic throughout his presidency of athletes who protest, and he said the NBA players’ protests were going to “destroy basketball.” Most Republicans seemed to share his opinion. While 82 percent of Democrats surveyed by YouGov supported the NBA’s protest, just 21 percent of Republicans did.

But something has clearly changed since Abdul-Rauf first refused to stand. It is now less costly for Black athletes to advocate for racial justice than it was for Abdul-Rauf or Kaepernick. Those reduced barriers seem likely to lead to even more athlete activism that shines a spotlight on racial injustices in America going forward.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Michael Tesler

[thisdaynews]

‘Clever’: Biden plays the Obama card

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/clever-biden-plays-the-obama-card/

‘Clever’: Biden plays the Obama card

The ad, stitched together from Obama’s speech presenting Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom before they left office together in January 2017, is part of Biden’s closing argument in the days leading up to the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 3. It’s a way to convince Democratic voters that they should put him in the Oval Office because Obama — the most popular figure in the party — put him a heartbeat away from it.

“This a very effective ad … it is a clever way of signifying Obama’s feelings about Biden, implying an endorsement the president has not made,” said David Axelrod, a top Obama adviser.

“His testimonial from the Medal of Freedom speech goes to what are perhaps the most salient and appealing qualities of Biden: character, empathy, decency,” Axelrod continued. “Barack Obama is a highly esteemed figure in the Democratic Party and perhaps nowhere more than Iowa, which really embraced him and launched him to the presidency.”

Iowa has been a tough haul for Biden, who has quit two previous presidential campaigns after failing to catch fire there. But this time, Biden began as a frontrunner in the first-in-the-nation caucus state, and he is now locked in a four-way race for first place, according to the averages of recent polls in the state.

Knowing Obama wouldn’t endorse before a clear winner emerged in the crowded Democratic primary, Biden began the campaign saying he privately told Obama he didn’t want him to endorse anyway. Those who have spoken to Obama about Biden have issued conflicting accounts about whether Obama wanted him to run, with some saying the former president approved — especially because Biden is running on a platform of unabashedly furthering his legacy — to those who said Obama wasn’t enthusiastic.

One Democrat who is neutral in the 2020 race and spoke to Obama about Biden’s gaffe-prone nature recalled the former president saying: “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to fuck things up.”

An Obama spokesman said his team does not discuss private conversations — but raised no objections with the ad. A Biden adviser said Obama was made aware of the ad beforehand. The Biden campaign used a Medal of Freedom clip in a campaign announcement video last year, but that announcement video wasn’t solely based on Obama lavishing praise on Biden

Even without endorsing, Obama has been central to Biden’s standing in the presidential primary. Obama offered kind words praising Biden when he announced his 2020 campaign, and Biden’s role as Obama’s vice president has contributed to Biden’s crucial and outsized edge among black voters, which has kept him atop the primary polls for the last year. And when Biden’s campaign was hitting a low point, Biden leaned into his past with Obama.

Biden later said he didn’t need Obama’s endorsement to win — though he seldom misses a chance to call the former president by his first name to emphasize their personal friendship, a liberty none of the other dozen candidates can take.

The new ad’s release coincides with the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday and Biden’s ongoing efforts to consolidate the support of black voters. At the same time his campaign released this ad — which comes in 30-second and 60-second versions — it announced Biden’s 11th endorsement from a Congressional Black Caucus member: Rep. Terri Sewell, whose Alabama district is the home of the Civil Rights movement, stretching from Birmingham through Selma to Montgomery.

The use of a president’s speech and likeness to intimate an endorsement that hasn’t been made is nothing new in politics. In 2004, during Mel Martinez’s successful first bid for U.S. Senate in Florida, he used an excerpt of President George W. Bush announcing his selection as housing secretary. The ad was cut in such a way that it looked like an endorsement, prompting primary rival Bill McCollum to bitterly complain because of the crucial edge it gave Martinez.

In this primary, none of Biden’s opponents have raised objections.

Read More

#Foreign #Obama #plays #Politics

[kidsviral-blog]

Some low-information voters think GOP nominee is named ‘McRomney’

New Post has been published on https://kidsviral.info/some-low-information-voters-think-gop-nominee-is-named-mcromney/

Some low-information voters think GOP nominee is named ‘McRomney’

http://twitter.com/#!/Red_Reckless922/status/258744657368973313

Yesterday we discovered that some voters will go to the polls looking for the name “Nick Romney” on their presidential ballot.

Today we learn that other voters, equally misinformed, can’t wait to cast a vote against the Republican presidential candidate named “McRomney.”

Was in deep conversation with@neviinev and we came to the conclusion that if McRomney become president we all are going to die

— Mrs. understood91 (@lovely_lee1234) October 18, 2012

I think MCROMNEY IS LIKE THE NEXT HITLER

— SAMMY NEWTON (@I_amDavis) October 13, 2012

McRomney is like the New York Yankees: all the money and arrogance in the world can’t make you a winner.

— TruthtoConservatives (@ToConservatives) October 21, 2012

im tired of hearing , I’m Mcromney & I Approve this message -_-

— YBB_Lashay$$$ (@YBB_lashay) October 21, 2012

Did anyone see Obama snap & shut McRomney up lastnight on the debate.

— Justin Case (@big_BOSSlady) October 18, 2012

Fuck mcromney!!

— Brieanna (@Bre_ski) October 17, 2012

McRomney need to go over here interrupting the president

— *Prewddie & Thick * (@Its_Meh_Lexi) October 17, 2012

Is it correct to say that McRomney has a foreign policy? Heck can he even name more than 1 or 2 foreign countries? @mynameisrickyy @deppraw

— TruthtoConservatives (@ToConservatives) October 20, 2012

Mcromney full of SHIT!

— ying yang_twin (@snapback_vell) October 17, 2012

This fuck nigga mcromney said high school degree! Tf

— Dennis the menace (@trey_pappi) October 17, 2012

McRomney? mann….. Fuk McRomney

— Darrius Preston (@LiveInHD_9) October 20, 2012

Mcromney full of SHIT!

— ying yang_twin (@snapback_vell) October 17, 2012

Obama Just Need to Beat McRomney… Literally #BlackAndBlue

— Cookie Snatcher’ (@Mi_AndYou) October 18, 2012

I Have NO RESPECT For Liars , Cheaters , Or McRomney ! #Andrea

— #TeamOneFemale❤Nazim (@Only1_HotPocket) October 18, 2012

McRomney’s one of those bitch niggahs

— OB€¥_theD0P€$T (@Kids_So_Dope) October 14, 2012

Yo how awesome would it be is Obama just dropped the shit out of McRomney

— Kayla Hill (@Kay_dork) October 17, 2012

How can McRomney be president if he can’t follow simple rules?!

— Van Piear™ (@VanPiear) October 17, 2012

Fuck mcromney no racism shit

— ☆★LETZ GO-2-THA MO☆★ (@DoubleCupMolly) October 17, 2012

Mcromney over there smirking ain’t shit funny bitch

— R.I.p. Daddy(@ILoveitWenHeEat) October 17, 2012

Fuck McRomney Yeah Fuck You Ol Head #TeamObama

— Bob2Times (@_Bob2Times) October 17, 2012

– Fuck McRomney Ima AssassinateHis Ass !

— BeyondPRETTY™ (@__xDaijahMONAE) October 17, 2012

President Obama, whatever his last name is, may not be running the strongest campaign, but to his credit it appears he has locked up the moron vote.

Read more: http://twitchy.com/2012/10/21/some-low-information-voters-think-gop-nominee-is-named-mcromney/

[robgrayofficial]

HAPPY SATURDAY ALL YOU BEAUTIFUL PATRIOTS ♥HOW’S EVERYONE DOING THIS FINE MORNING?!! This is u/Ivaginaryfriend here to spend another lovely Saturday with all of you TREMENDOUS ‘pedes!!AAAAAAAAAAAAAND YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS :)TIME FOR OUR WEEKLY PRESIDENTIALLY DANK RECAP!LET'S GET TO IT!!(Click here to check out any past recaps!)Sunday, April 1st:TODAY'S ACTION:President Trump Makes a Statement on DACAPresident Trump and the First Lady Host the White House Easter Egg RollWhite House Easter Egg Roll: Reading Nook with First Lady Melania TrumpWhite House Easter Egg Roll: Reading Nook with Press Secretary Sarah Sanders🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:HAPPY EASTER!Border Patrol Agents are not allowed to properly do their job at the Border because of ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws like Catch & Release. Getting more dangerous. “Caravans” coming. Republicans must go to Nuclear Option to pass tough laws NOW. NO MORE DACA DEAL!Mexico is doing very little, if not NOTHING, at stopping people from flowing into Mexico through their Southern Border, and then into the U.S. They laugh at our dumb immigration laws. They must stop the big drug and people flows, or I will stop their cash cow, NAFTA. NEED WALL!These big flows of people are all trying to take advantage of DACA. They want in on the act!SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:google is pathetic.@PotusThump sends his Easter Greetings this morning.Easter: NYC 1956. Please Lord help us Make America Great Again.Warning to fellow T_D patriots. Posting on T_D automatically invalidates your arguments, but criticizing the Parkland survivors political viewpoints makes you a monster. I don’t care, nobody is above criticism, we have our 2nd Amendment to protect the 1st Amendment.Not an April Fool’s joke. A real NBC News headline on Easter. What. The. Fuck.🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:BREAKING: Leaked photo exposes The_Donald top mods!!Happy Easter Pedes! 🐇🇺🇸In celebration of Easter, let us read a passage from Trump 20:20‘Member when Matt Furie tried to kill Pepe? Happy Easter, pedes!Monday, April 2nd:TODAY'S ACTION:President Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Nominate and Appoint Personnel to Key Administration PostsWhite House Easter Egg Roll 2018Statement by the Press Secretary on the Extradition of Yevgeniy Aleksandrovich Nikulin🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:Mexico has the absolute power not to let these large “Caravans” of people enter their country. They must stop them at their Northern Border, which they can do because their border laws work, not allow them to pass through into our country, which has no effective border laws ... Congress must immediately pass Border Legislation, use Nuclear Option if necessary, to stop the massive inflow of Drugs and People. Border Patrol Agents (and ICE) are GREAT, but the weak Dem laws don’t allow them to do their job. Act now Congress, our country is being stolen!DACA is dead because the Democrats didn’t care or act, and now everyone wants to get onto the DACA bandwagon... No longer works. Must build Wall and secure our borders with proper Border legislation. Democrats want No Borders, hence drugs and crime!Mexico is making a fortune on NAFTA...They have very strong border laws - ours are pathetic. With all of the money they make from the U.S., hopefully they will stop people from coming through their country and into ours, at least until Congress changes our immigration laws!So funny to watch Fake News Networks, among the most dishonest groups of people I have ever dealt with, criticize Sinclair Broadcasting for being biased. Sinclair is far superior to CNN and even more Fake NBC, which is a total joke.Only fools, or worse, are saying that our money losing Post Office makes money with Amazon. THEY LOSE A FORTUNE, and this will be changed. Also, our fully tax paying retailers are closing stores all over the country...not a level playing field!So sad that the Department of “Justice” and the FBI are slow walking, or even not giving, the unredacted documents requested by Congress. An embarrassment to our country!An honor to host the Annual @WhiteHouse Easter Egg Roll!“President Donald J. Trump Proclaims April 2, 2018, World Autism Awareness Day”As ridiculous as it sounds, the laws of our country do not easily allow us to send those crossing our Southern Border back where they came from. A whole big wasted procedure must take place. Mexico & Canada have tough immigration laws, whereas ours are an Obama joke. ACT CONGRESSHonduras, Mexico and many other countries that the U.S. is very generous to, sends many of their people to our country through our WEAK IMMIGRATION POLICIES. Caravans are heading here. Must pass tough laws and build the WALL. Democrats allow open borders, drugs and crime!39% of my nominations, including Diplomats to foreign lands, have not been confirmed due to Democrat obstruction and delay. At this rate, it would take more than 7 years before I am allowed to have these great people start working. Never happened before. Disgraceful!“President Trump's approval rate among likely U.S. voters hit 50 percent on Monday, which puts him higher than former President Barack Obama's score at the same point into his first term, according to a new poll.” Via: @Anna_Giaritelli @DCExaminer#AutismAwarenessDay #LightItUpBlueSIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:Trump presidential approval poll hits 50%!SESSIONS SUES CA AGAIN!!This must be an April Fools joke? Right guys...?California Commits Massive Medicaid Fraud By Illegally Insuring Illegals... Someone Needs To Go To Jail!MyPillow refuses to participate in the left's targeted harassment of Laura Ingraham. Show them some love!🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:When parody becomes reality in the UK...Democrat voters and their only platform.Reminder: Disney has a Princess who open carries.Top meme on imgflip right now.Tuesday, April 3rd:TODAY'S ACTION:President Trump Hosts a Joint Press Conference with the Baltic States Heads of GovernmentPresident Trump Participates in a Working Lunch with the Baltic States Heads of GovernmentPresident Donald J. Trump’s Support for Estonia, Latvia, and LithuaniaLeadership is Here to Fight OpioidsPresident Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Nominate Personnel to Key Administration Posts🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:The Fake News Networks, those that knowingly have a sick and biased AGENDA, are worried about the competition and quality of Sinclair Broadcast. The “Fakers” at CNN, NBC, ABC & CBS have done so much dishonest reporting that they should only be allowed to get awards for fiction!The big Caravan of People from Honduras, now coming across Mexico and heading to our “Weak Laws” Border, had better be stopped before it gets there. Cash cow NAFTA is in play, as is foreign aid to Honduras and the countries that allow this to happen. Congress MUST ACT NOW!Check out the fact that you can’t get a job at ratings challenged @CNN unless you state that you are totally anti-Trump? Little Jeff Zuker, whose job is in jeopardy, is not having much fun lately. They should clean up and strengthen CNN and get back to honest reporting!Thank you to Rasmussen for the honest polling. Just hit 50%, which is higher than Cheatin’ Obama at the same time in his Administration.I am right about Amazon costing the United States Post Office massive amounts of money for being their Delivery Boy. Amazon should pay these costs (plus) and not have them bourne by the American Taxpayer. Many billions of dollars. P.O. leaders don’t have a clue (or do they?)!Today, it was my honor to welcome Estonia President @KerstiKaljulaid, Lithuania President @Grybauskaite_LT, and Latvia President @Vejonis to the @WhiteHouse. Congratulations on your 100th anniversaries of independence! #BalticSummit: http://bit.ly/2qcziaw WILL PROTECT OUR SOUTHERN BORDER!Was just briefed on the shooting at YouTube’s HQ in San Bruno, California. Our thoughts and prayers are with everybody involved. Thank you to our phenomenal Law Enforcement Officers and First Responders that are currently on the scene.SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:TRUMP SENDS MILITARY TO PROTECT SOUTHERN BORDER!Hero who helped victims of YouTube shooting, “I didn’t have a gun on me but I wish I did”Over 1 Million illegals got California drivers license....but Democrats say none votedA conservative street artist is putting up these #ZuckSchumer posters across NYCIdiots wanted more government, so they got more government. Enjoy!🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:When the Gunman turns out to be a Woman...So true..The_Donald user calls his shot, two days later it comes trueNEW WALL PROTOTYPE! BEST ONE YET!HELLLLOOOOOO CHEATIN' OBAMA !!!!!!!!!!!Life comes at you fast (when you’re a tentacle porn-loving pedo).Wednesday, April 4th:TODAY'S ACTION:Dr. King's Legacy | 50 Years LaterA Declaration to Celebrate 100 Years of Independence of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and Renewed PartnershipPresident Donald J. Trump Proclaims the 50th Anniversary of the Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.Trump Infrastructure Plan Provides Skilled JobsWhat You Need To Know About Loopholes Allowing Unaccompanied Alien Children To Stay In The CountryPresident Donald J. Trump Signs H.R. 3731, S. 2030, and S. 2040 into LawPresident Donald J. Trump Signs H.R. 4851 into LawStatement by the Press Secretary on the Anniversary of the April 4, 2017 Chemical Weapons Attack on Khan ShaykhunWhat You Need to Know About the President’s Authorization for the National Guard to Deploy to the Southern Border🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:Our Border Laws are very weak while those of Mexico & Canada are very strong. Congress must change these Obama era, and other, laws NOW! The Democrats stand in our way - they want people to pour into our country unchecked....CRIME! We will be taking strong action today.When you’re already $500 Billion DOWN, you can’t lose!Our thoughts and prayers are with the four U.S. Marines from the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing who lost their lives in yesterday’s Southern California helicopter crash. We pray for their families, and our great @USMC.Today we honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the 50th anniversary of his assassination. Earlier this year I spoke about Dr. King’s legacy of justice and peace, and his impact on uniting Americans. #MLK50 Proclamation: http://45.wh.gov/DrKing50th“Still Rising: Rasmussen Poll Shows Donald Trump Approval Ratings Now at 51 Percent”SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:You think there’s any chance whatsoever that a mass shooters hateful Instagram and YouTube channels would be pulled immediately if they were NRA members as opposed to liberal Vegan PETA activists? Asking for a few million friends in the @NRA - DT Jr.Trump to sign proclamation sending National Guard to the border immediately🚨🚨BREAKING! Mueller: Trump is NOT a criminal Target at this point.TRUMP HITS 51% APPROVAL!!!After being down voted for pointing out simple consistency, I'm joining T_D. Welcome your new Pede.PRESS BRIEFINGS, INTERVIEWS, RALLIES:Press Beating🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:50 years ago today this patriot died because he stood up for his right, CAN WE GET SOME LOVE FOR MLK?Logic is hate speech REEEEEEMomma made a meme...how’d I do?But they promised me it was "Meuller Time" They promised In Peach!MRW I see liberals screaming their heads off after GEOTUS orders the national guard to protect the border.Roseanne with the fully semi automatic BTFO of Kimmel when he questions why she voted Trump..Thursday, April 5th:TODAY'S ACTION:President Trump Participates in a Roundtable Discussion on Tax ReformPresident Trump Participates in a Roundtable Discussion on Tax ReformLoopholes in Child Trafficking Laws Put Victims—and American Citizens—At Risk“MAGAnomics” is Working and Defying CriticsStatement from President Donald J. Trump on Additional Proposed Section 301 RemediesPresident Donald J. Trump Announces Intent to Nominate Personnel to Key Administration Post🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:The Caravan is largely broken up thanks to the strong immigration laws of Mexico and their willingness to use them so as not to cause a giant scene at our Border. Because of the Trump Administrations actions, Border crossings are at a still UNACCEPTABLE 46 year low. Stop drugs!The Fake News Washington Post, Amazon’s “chief lobbyist,” has another (of many) phony headlines, “Trump Defiant As China Adds Trade Penalties.” WRONG! Should read, “Trump Defiant as U.S. Adds Trade Penalties, Will End Barriers And Massive I.P. Theft.” Typically bad reporting!Thanks to our historic TAX CUTS, America is open for business, and millions of American workers are seeing more take-home pay through higher wages, salaries and bonuses!Thank you @WVGovernor Jim Justice. It was my great honor to be with the amazing people of West Virginia today! #MAGASIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:Students hold Second Amendment rally to counter walkout pushing for stricter gun laws7 killed within 12 hours in one Neighborhood! NO MARCHES! NO BREAKING NEWS! Why?She's a CA senatorPrepared Remarks? The MADMAN Doesn't Need Them!LEGAL Immigrant Lays Down The Law To Illegals: If I Can Do It So Can YouYoutube are increasing security at their offices, in other words they want more people with GUNS to protect them while they sit in their offices and ban gun channels.🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:Thank you to this based pillow merchant for standing by his principles and Making America Great Again!They Tricked Actors Reading Cold Facts on Illegal Immigration. Their responses are priceless.tfw your family starts saying things like, "maybe we should build that wall"This is 15 year old Anthony Borges who used his body to hold a door shut during the Parkland shooting. He took 5 bullets and was then visited in the hospital by Sheriff Scott Israel who should have been thanking Mr. Borges for doing his job for him.Friday, April 6th:TODAY'S ACTION:President Donald J. Trump Is Standing Up To Russia’s Malign ActivitiesWhat You Need To Know About President Donald J. Trump’s Actions Responding To China’s Unfair Trade PracticesAmerica Is Open For Business🔥🔥TRUMP TWEETS🔥🔥:Despite the Aluminum Tariffs, Aluminum prices are DOWN 4%. People are surprised, I’m not! Lots of money coming into U.S. coffers and Jobs, Jobs, Jobs!We are not in a trade war with China, that war was lost many years ago by the foolish, or incompetent, people who represented the U.S. Now we have a Trade Deficit of $500 Billion a year, with Intellectual Property Theft of another $300 Billion. We cannot let this continue!China, which is a great economic power, is considered a Developing Nation within the World Trade Organization. They therefore get tremendous perks and advantages, especially over the U.S. Does anybody think this is fair. We were badly represented. The WTO is unfair to U.S.Do you believe that the Fake News Media is pushing hard on a story that I am going to replace A.G. Jeff Sessions with EPA Chief Scott Pruitt, who is doing a great job but is TOTALLY under siege? Do people really believe this stuff? So much of the media is dishonest and corrupt!AMERICA IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS!“BET founder: Trump's economy is bringing black workers back into the labor force"Congratulations to @bernieandsid on their new @77wabcradio morning radio show in New York City. It was an honor to join you two – good luck!SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:Based Patriot calls out looney left on gun controlRED LIGHT Special! Trump signs memo ordering end to 'catch and release' practicesBUILD THE WALL 🚧HO-LEE! HANNITY CALLS KIMMEL "WEINSTEIN JR." ON TWITTER-HASHTAG "PERVERT KIMMEL"Justice Department announces 'zero-tolerance' policy on illegal border crossingsPRESS BRIEFINGS, INTERVIEWS, RALLIES:Press Beating🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:Mark Zuckerberg offers a heart felt apology for the recent data breaches at Facebook.Just a picture of the worst President in the history of United States.Texas National Guard Deploying 250 to Border Within Next 72 HoursHE BROWSES T_D!! (Hi, Mr. President. Please end the Fed next 😊)Saturday, April 7th:SIGNIFICANT TWEETS AND NEWS:Yuuuuuuge: DOJ Will Allow House, Senate Intel Committees Access To Carter Page FISA DocumentsBelgian Islamic Party Announces 'Islamic State' End GoalWeekly Address: 4/7/2018🐸 TOP SPICE OF THE DAY 🐸:Democrat Caravan vs Trump CaravanCountry music Trumps style.Election Night :)WEEEEEEEEEEEEEW!!As always, a couple of jams to get you grooving through this list of WINNING!!I Love You BabyGood VibrationsKodachromeMrs. RobinsonLuck Be A LadyUptown GirlMAGA ON PATRIOTS! #robgray

#robgray

[thefabulousfulcrum]

The Democrats Need a New Message

After another demoralizing loss to a monstrous candidate, Democrats need a reboot

via Rolling Stone

by Matt Taibbi

The story of Greg Gianforte, a fiend who just wiped out a Democrat in a congressional race about ten minutes after being charged with assaulting a reporter, is déjà vu all over again.

What to make of Republican Greg Gianforte winning despite beating up a reporter on the eve of his election

How low do you have to sink to lose an election in this country? Republicans have been trying to answer that question for years. But they've been unable to find out, because Democrats somehow keep failing to beat them.

There is now a sizable list of election results involving Republican candidates who survived seemingly unsurvivable scandals to win higher office.

The lesson in almost all of these instances seems to be that enormous numbers of voters would rather elect an openly corrupt or mentally deranged Republican than vote for a Democrat. But nobody in the Democratic Party seems terribly worried about this.

Gianforte is a loon with a questionable mustache who body-slammed Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs for asking a question about the Republican health care bill. He's the villain du jour, but far from the worst exemplar of the genre.

New Yorkers might remember a similar congressional race from a few years ago involving a Staten Island nutjob named Michael Grimm. The aptly named Grimm won an election against a heavily funded Democrat despite being under a 20-count federal corruption indictment. Grimm had threatened on camera to throw a TV reporter "off a fucking balcony" and "break [him] in half … like a boy." He still beat the Democrat by 13 points.

The standard-bearer for unelectable candidates who were elected anyway will likely always be Donald Trump. Trump was caught admitting to sexual assault on tape and openly insulted almost every conceivable demographic, from Mexicans to menstruating women to POWs to the disabled; he even pulled out a half-baked open-mic-night version of a Chinese accent. And still won.

Gianforte, Trump and Grimm are not exceptions. They're the rule in modern America, which in recent years has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to vote for just about anybody not currently under indictment for serial murder, so long as that person is not a Democrat.

The list of winners includes Tennessee congressman Scott Desjarlais, a would-be "family values" advocate. Desjarlais, a self-styled pious abortion opponent, was busted sleeping with his patients and even urging a mistress to get an abortion. He still won his last race in Bible country by 30 points.

 The electoral results last November have been repeated enough that most people in politics know them by heart. Republicans now control 68 state legislative chambers, while Democrats only control 31. Republicans flipped three more governors' seats last year and now control an incredible 33 of those offices. Since 2008, when Barack Obama first took office, Republicans have gained somewhere around 900 to 1,000 seats overall.

There are a lot of reasons for this. But there's no way to spin some of these numbers in a way that doesn't speak to the awesome unpopularity of the blue party. A recent series of Gallup polls is the most frightening example.

Unsurprisingly, the disintegrating Trump bears a historically low approval rating. But polls also show that the Democratic Party has lost five percentage points in its own approval rating dating back to November, when it was at 45 percent.

The Democrats are now hovering around 40 percent, just a hair over the Trump-tarnished Republicans, at 39 percent. Similar surveys have shown that despite the near daily barrage of news stories pegging the president as a bumbling incompetent in the employ of a hostile foreign power, Trump, incredibly, would still beat Hillary Clinton in a rematch today, and perhaps even by a larger margin than before.

If you look in the press for explanations for news items like this, you will find a lot of them. Democrats may have some difficulty winning elections, but they've become quite adept at explaining their losses.

According to legend, Democrats lose because of media bias, because of racism, because of gerrymandering, because of James Comey and because of Russia (an amazing 59 percent of Democrats still believe Russians hacked vote totals).

Third-party candidates are said to be another implacable obstacle to Democratic success, as is unhelpful dissension within the Democrats' own ranks. There have even been whispers that last year's presidential loss was Obama's fault, because he didn't campaign hard enough for Clinton.

The early spin on the Gianforte election is that the Democrats never had a chance in Montana because of corporate cash, as outside groups are said to have "drowned" opponent Rob Quist in PAC money. There are corresponding complaints that national Democrats didn't do enough to back Quist.

 A lot of these things are true. America is obviously a deeply racist and paranoid country. Gerrymandering is a serious problem. Unscrupulous, truth-averse right-wing media has indeed spent decades bending the brains of huge pluralities of voters, particularly the elderly. And Republicans have often, but not always, had fundraising advantages in key races.

But the explanations themselves speak to a larger problem. The unspoken subtext of a lot of the Democrats' excuse-making is their growing belief that the situation is hopeless – and not just because of fixable institutional factors like gerrymandering, but because we simply have a bad/irredeemable electorate that can never be reached.

This is why the "basket of deplorables" comment last summer was so devastating. That the line would become a sarcastic rallying cry for Trumpites was inevitable. (Of course it birthed a political merchandising supernova.) To many Democrats, the reaction proved the truth of Clinton's statement. As in: we're not going to get the overwhelming majority of these yeehaw-ing "deplorable" votes anyway, so why not call them by their names?

But the "deplorables" comment didn't just further alienate already lost Republican votes. It spoke to an internal sickness within the Democratic Party, which had surrendered to a negativistic vision of a hopelessly divided country.

Things are so polarized now that, as Georgia State professor Jennifer McCoy put it on NPR this spring, each side views the other not as fellow citizens with whom they happen to disagree, but as a "threatening enemy to be vanquished."

The "deplorables" comment formalized this idea that Democrats had given up on a huge chunk of the population, and now sought only to defeat and subdue their enemies.

Many will want to point out here that the Republicans are far worse on this score. No politician has been more divisive than Trump, who explicitly campaigned on blaming basically everyone but middle American white people for the world's problems.

This is true. But just because the Republicans win using deeply cynical and divisive strategies doesn't mean it's the right or smart thing to do.

Barack Obama, for all his faults, never gave in to that mindset. He continually insisted that the Democrats needed to find a way to reach lost voters. Even in the infamous "guns and religion" episode, this was so. Obama then was talking about the challenge the Democrats faced in finding ways to reconnect with people who felt ignored and had fled to "antipathy toward people who aren't like them" as a consequence.

Even as he himself was the subject of vicious and racist rhetoric, Obama stumped in the reddest of red districts. In his post-mortem on the Trump-Clinton race, he made a point of mentioning this – that in Iowa he had gone to every small town and fish fry and VFW hall, and "there were some counties where I might have lost, but maybe I lost by 20 points instead of 50 points."

Most people took his comments to be a dig at Clinton's strategic shortcomings – she didn't campaign much in many of the key states she lost – but it was actually more profound than that. Obama was trying to point out that people respond when you demonstrate that you don't believe they're unredeemable.

You can't just dismiss people as lost, even bad or misguided people. Unless every great thinker from Christ to Tolstoy to Gandhi to Dr. King is wrong, it's especially those people you have to keep believing in, and trying to reach.

The Democrats have forgotten this. While it may not be the case with Quist, who seems to have run a decent campaign, the Democrats in general have lost the ability (and the inclination) to reach out to the entire population.

They're continuing, if not worsening, last year's mistake of running almost exclusively on Trump/Republican negatives. The Correct the Record types who police the Internet on the party's behalf are relentless on that score, seeming to spend most of their time denouncing people for their wrong opinions or party disloyalty. They don't seem to have anything to say to voters in flyover country, except to point out that they're (at best) dupes for falling for Republican rhetoric.

But "Republicans are bad" isn't a message or a plan, which is why the Democrats have managed the near impossible: losing ground overall during the singular catastrophe of the Trump presidency.

The party doesn't see that the largest group of potential swing voters out there doesn't need to be talked out of voting Republican. It needs to be talked out of not voting at all. The recent polls bear this out, showing that the people who have been turned off to the Democrats in recent months now say that in a do-over, they would vote for third parties or not at all.

People need a reason to be excited by politics, and not just disgusted with the other side. Until the Democrats figure that out, these improbable losses will keep piling up.