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Combed Thunderclap posted:Agreed. Unless the GOP does get ahold of enough state legislatures and is crazy enough to call a convention, and then all bets are off. Frankly even I don't think they're that crazy, the current system is working too well for them to want to change it even if they did take over enough states. Unless the country reverses the trend of concentrating population in the cities, the GOP is long-term hosed. No amount of gerrymandering is going to save them. They will retain senators and governorship of the very rural states, but that's all. If another supreme court justice dies or retires in the next four years, they will also lock up the supreme court. That's not going to save the party either. Everything seems dire right now to Democrats and the left because of the most recent election, but the long-term trend is both clear and showing no signs of actual reversal. Trump won because despite having an overall majority, too many democrats stayed home instead of voting. The Republican tactic of suppressing votes in cities also likely had an effect. Those are stopgaps, though. Something very significant has to change or the Republicans won't be able to hold a majority in either house of congress, or the presidency, long term. The party has to convince city-dwelling liberals and (legal) immigrants and their families to not just not vote, but to vote R. That's not impossible, of course: over the last century or so, the Republican and Democratic parties essentially switched places on the conservative/liberal spectrum, as the Dems abandoned their segregationists and the Reps embraced social conservatism as their core tenet. It could happen again, who knows for sure. A hell of a lot can change in 50 to 100 years, far more than most people fully realize. But I see no particular signs that the Republican party is going to suddenly start embracing the issues that matter to urban, multicultural, well-educated lower and middle class Americans. Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 19:54 on Jan 27, 2017 |
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Jan 27, 2017 19:52
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Demographics are not destiny.
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Jan 27, 2017 21:42
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I wouldn't underestimate the GOP ability to suppress votes and keep red states red indefinitely.
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Jan 27, 2017 22:46
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You realize this attitude is one of the big reasons Hillary lost, right? Dems decided they didn't have to pay any attention to the blue wall because the demographics said they'd win handily, meanwhile Trump came in and flipped them out from under Hillary.
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Jan 28, 2017 00:07
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Sydin posted:You realize this attitude is one of the big reasons Hillary lost, right? Dems decided they didn't have to pay any attention to the blue wall because the demographics said they'd win handily, meanwhile Trump came in and flipped them out from under Hillary. I disagree. The #1 reason Hillary lost was because Hillary was deeply unpopular. The vast majority of republicans and democrats voted party lines. But overall turnout among democrats in the key swing states that everyone assumed were safe for Clinton - specifically Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan - was down compared to 2008 and 2012. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/voter-turnout-2016-elections/ Polling, contrary to most of what you see in the media, was very accurate. However polling tests likely voters' responses for the prior few days or ~1 week before the poll is run. Polling actually showed the race tightening dramatically during the last week before the election - which correlated very strongly with the FBI/Holder horseshit. By the day or two before the election, polling put Clinton ahead of Trump in those three states by less than the margin of error of the poll - in other words, polls accurately showed that the contest was a dead heat. Clinton lost to Trump in Wisconsin by a margin of 0.8%, in Michigan by a margin of 0.3%, and in Pennsylvania by a margin of 1.2%. (She lost Florida by a margin of 1.2% as well, but everyone understood Flordia wasn't a lock.) Now, your point is that Dems presumed the "blue wall" was safe, when it actually wasn't, and it's true that - having lead by very comfortable margins throughout the entire year - Clinton herself did very little direct campaigning or advertising in those states. But their presumption wasn't based on demographics, it was based on polling. Clinton campaigned wherever polling was close - there were times that included states like Georgia. Trump closed the gap in the final week because of - basically - the head of the FBI's decision to interfere in the outcome of the election by intentionally attacking Clinton without any evidence or nonpolitical reason to do so. Clinton was vulnerable, again, not because of demographics, but because of her severe unpopularity from the outset. Too many Democrats simply hated her, and couldn't bring themselves to turn out and vote for her. You can also see that the demographics didn't change much by the fact that both the Green and Libertarian party candidates had historically high vote tallies. A lot of voters voted third party. That doesn't change the demographics but it does eat into the Democrats' presumptive lead in the battleground states. Voter suppression may well have had an effect, too. Republicans in these states have gone out of their way to make it harder for people in the cities to vote. If even 1% of Democrats in the cities didn't vote because it was too inconvenient, that was enough to flip the election. If you re-ran the election today, she'd win in a landslide. Trump is the least popular president on day 1 of his first term ever since modern polling began. So I don't think my "attitude" that there is an undeniable multi-decadal trend in the United States of populations concentrating in cities, becoming overall bluer, and thereby putting a demographic squeeze on the Republican party is challenged by the election results. Certainly any given Democratic candidate can lose - of course! If a political party runs a terrible candidate, that outweighs the demographic advantage. But I'd wager we will have many more Democratic than Republican presidents in the next 30 years, the Republican majority in the Senate will be gone within the next 12, and - absent a major change in party platforms - the Republicans will become a near-permanent minority party by 2040.
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Jan 28, 2017 01:26
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That's a very good explanation but most people will throw it straight into the garbage because feels = reals and POLLS WERE WRONG!
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Jan 28, 2017 02:16
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Over 3 million more people voted for Clinton over Trump, how is that deeply unpopular?
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Jan 28, 2017 02:39
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Because that's a smaller fraction of total Demographic voters than Trump's fraction of Republican voters. Plus many of them were likely motivated more by Trump's odiousness than a love for Clinton, as polls on voters' reasons for voting showed. Also it was only like 2.8 million last I checked.
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Jan 28, 2017 02:47
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Panfilo posted:Over 3 million more people voted for Clinton over Trump, how is that deeply unpopular? She should have won by a Reagan-like landslide, and if the Democratic party had had a reasonable candidate to run, he or she would have. Hillary Clinton won the nomination because she was pre-selected by the Party - it was her turn, you see. An old male socialist kooky man that most of the country had never heard of before 2016 gave her a serious run for her money in the nomination, that's how unpopular she was and is. The republicans picked their most unelectable candidate and he won because the Democrats also picked their most unelectable candidate.
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Jan 28, 2017 02:50
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fyi there's an entire thread for debating the election: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3796651
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Jan 28, 2017 02:58
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Yeah that's fair enough, this is a tangent. The main point is, I don't think there's much chance of a constitutional convention successfully ratifying conservative amendments that lead to a secession.
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Jan 28, 2017 03:00
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Leperflesh posted:Yeah that's fair enough, this is a tangent. The main point is, I don't think there's much chance of a constitutional convention successfully ratifying conservative amendments that lead to a secession. If Californians were serious about wanting to secede, the US constitution wouldn't matter all that much.
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Jan 28, 2017 03:14
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As a catalyst, not a legal requirement. I'm responding to this post https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?goto=post&postid=468800935#post468800935
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Jan 28, 2017 03:21
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Leperflesh posted:She should have won by a Reagan-like landslide, and if the Democratic party had had a reasonable candidate to run, he or she would have. Hillary Clinton won the nomination because she was pre-selected by the Party - it was her turn, you see. An old male socialist kooky man that most of the country had never heard of before 2016 gave her a serious run for her money in the nomination, that's how unpopular she was and is. I don't know that the party picked her so much that her intent to run sucked all the air out the room for other more vanilla democrats to run as well. If she's locked up all the if donors, better for other candidates to wait it out from their perspective. It's less a smoked filled room pick for Clinton than a display of the lopsided power of big donors. Concur on all your other points.
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Jan 28, 2017 04:03
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Sydin posted:You realize this attitude is one of the big reasons Hillary lost, right? Dems decided they didn't have to pay any attention to the blue wall because the demographics said they'd win handily, meanwhile Trump came in and flipped them out from under Hillary. Despite a rigged party apparatus, Clinton ties to money and power across the nation, and every celebrity endorsement possible, she still lost to a loving gibbering orange clown.
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Jan 28, 2017 10:42
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pfffffffffffffft. Nevermind.
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Jan 28, 2017 11:04
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FRINGE posted:Despite a rigged party apparatus, Clinton ties to money and power across the nation, and every celebrity endorsement possible, she still lost to a loving gibbering orange clown. And, ironically, she lost because the apparatus is rigged in the other direction as well.
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Jan 28, 2017 13:54
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Panfilo posted:LMAO there goes half of Fresno's taxpayers right there. People fail to realize, that Fettucini Alfredo, that plate of California Rolls, Pad Thai, Curry chicken, Pollo con crema, etc they were all likely made by some undocumented worker just needing a paycheck working in some kitchen. Most of these folks are already paying taxes already. Maybe if the capitalistic overlords and robber barons would stop siphoning wealth off the backs of their workers long enough to pay them a living wage this wouldn't happen?
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Jan 28, 2017 15:14
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LeJackal posted:Maybe if the capitalistic overlords and robber barons would stop siphoning wealth off the backs of their workers Also when cornucopia machines fall from the sky* scarcity will disappear! *For entertainment try "Singularity Sky" by Stross
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Jan 28, 2017 17:50
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reminder that calexit is probably funded by russia.
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Jan 28, 2017 18:03
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I'll take a good idea from a bad source. Russia wanting to destabilize the US makes sense. And unlike Texas, an independent California would would be both an actual economic powerhouse and in need of resources now locked away in another (presumably somewhat hostile) country. The real reason to oppose it is that the people actually putting Calexit on the ballot are the same people that've tried "Break California into six states" and a number of other dumb moves like that in the past.
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Jan 28, 2017 18:07
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LeJackal posted:Maybe if the capitalistic overlords and robber barons would stop siphoning wealth off the backs of their workers long enough to pay them a living wage this wouldn't happen? Trump could have gone in an opposite direction, fighting illegal immigration by coming down hard on companies that hire undocumented workers. He could have claimed these companies were un-American for not hiring 'real' Americans at fair wages. But then again think of how many undocumented people probably work for him, not to mention the kingmakers that got him to this point. So of course it's easier to focus on the 'other' and let these companies do business as usual.
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Jan 28, 2017 18:33
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Guy Farting posted:reminder that calexit is probably funded by russia. Yes California is funded by Russia, but I could have sworn there were two different "calexit" movements (i can't remember what the other less-known one is called though...or am i making this up?).
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Jan 28, 2017 18:52
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Nah, I heard the same. The other Calexit movements also hate Yes California apparently, which is amusing.
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Jan 28, 2017 18:54
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Given that secession of any state is a practical impossibility, I'm not really sure that the funding source of a secessionist movement matters all that much.
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Jan 28, 2017 19:00
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Rah! posted:Yes California is funded by Russia, but I could have sworn there were two different "calexit" movements (i can't remember what the other less-known one is called though...or am i making this up?). The other one is California National Party.
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Jan 28, 2017 19:51
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Paradoxish posted:Given that secession of any state is a practical impossibility, I'm not really sure that the funding source of a secessionist movement matters all that much. it will siphon political energy which should be spent against the trump ryan agenda. less dissent would be good for russia it also gives conservatives another dumb reason to dismiss our concerns about federal overreach (not that they need any reason)
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Jan 28, 2017 20:44
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So a lot of people are planning on calling Feinstein's offices tomorrow to demand thirty hours of debate for every Trump nominee and that she vote no on some/all of them (depends on who you ask, though DeVos, Sessions, Tillerson, and Mnuchin are the names I see named), and to thank her for the two bills she's introducing tomorrow to stop Trump's executive order and future ones like it. Terrible as she may be, this seems like a good idea to me. Make sure her phones are ringing all day, making it clear that we all want her to do something rather than approve Trump's horrible picks.
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Jan 30, 2017 09:53
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Roland Jones posted:So a lot of people are planning on calling Feinstein's offices tomorrow to demand thirty hours of debate for every Trump nominee and that she vote no on some/all of them (depends on who you ask, though DeVos, Sessions, Tillerson, and Mnuchin are the names I see named), and to thank her for the two bills she's introducing tomorrow to stop Trump's executive order and future ones like it. Terrible as she may be, this seems like a good idea to me. Make sure her phones are ringing all day, making it clear that we all want her to do something rather than approve Trump's horrible picks. If I were you, I'd also mention that you've heard she's planning to run for re-election and it would be a shame if Democrats didn't turn out for her. Regardless of how empty the threat, a politician's blood runs cold at the thought of losing their seat and Trump just proved it can happen.
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Jan 30, 2017 09:55
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Cup Runneth Over posted:If I were you, I'd also mention that you've heard she's planning to run for re-election and it would be a shame if Democrats didn't turn out for her. If I thought that there any chance of it working (and I was going to be thirty in 2018) I'd try to campaign against her myself if I had to, but, yeah. Hell, unless she undergoes a complete change of character from this point forward I'm still probably going to support any attempts to primary her (but not, you know, voting for a Republican or worse over her) that may happen. She really doesn't deserve any more chances. Too bad she's, you know, basically invulnerable.
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Jan 30, 2017 10:05
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Trump's proving the power of backlash right now what with his backpedaling. She may be a stubborn old dyed-in-the-sheets Blue Dog, but the government's power still comes from the people. She can't be so confident in her seat that she'd be willing to gently caress us if we had something to say about it. We voted for Reagan and Schwarzenegger. The Californian people will shoot themselves in the foot if Democrats won't represent them.
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Jan 30, 2017 10:14
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Rep. Mark Takano gave a wonderful speech on the floor today: https://www.facebook.com/RepMarkTakano/videos/1060361654092904/ I wish he represented me 
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Jan 31, 2017 05:02
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If you're having problems getting DiFi's phones to ring, or voicemail is full, try faxing. GotFreeFax will let you send two free (including no ads) faxes a day, which nicely covers both your Senators. I've been finding it very, very difficult to even get to DiFi's voicemail.
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Jan 31, 2017 05:53
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Arsenic Lupin posted:If you're having problems getting DiFi's phones to ring, or voicemail is full, try faxing. GotFreeFax will let you send two free (including no ads) faxes a day, which nicely covers both your Senators. I've been finding it very, very difficult to even get to DiFi's voicemail. That's a fantastic idea. DiFi doesn't answer her phone and she doesn't empty her voicemail box. She deserves to get buried in faxes. Edit: Also, FiveThirtyEight did an analysis comparing how willing congresspeople are to support Trump's proposals with how much their district supports Trump. Guess who landed at the top of the list of Trump supporters? Baby Babbeh fucked around with this message at 06:05 on Jan 31, 2017 |
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Jan 31, 2017 05:56
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Baby Babbeh posted:Edit: Also, FiveThirtyEight did an analysis comparing how willing congresspeople are to support Trump's proposals with how much their district supports Trump. Guess who landed at the top of the list of Trump supporters? That's actually so perfect and funny it loops back around to being absolutely infuriating. I hate DiFi so loving much.
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Jan 31, 2017 18:55
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Whenever someone tells me we shouldn't primary DiFi because she's been there for a long time and is very experienced and all that poo poo I want to grab them by the collar and shake them while screaming 'THAT'S WHY WE NEED TO DO IT"
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Jan 31, 2017 18:57
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Baby Babbeh posted:That's a fantastic idea. DiFi doesn't answer her phone and she doesn't empty her voicemail box. She deserves to get buried in faxes. Feinstein sucks don't get me wrong, but this is a little misleading since it's counting her abstention on a vote while she was getting surgery as a support.
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Jan 31, 2017 18:58
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At least she's drawing the line somewhere: https://twitter.com/SenFeinstein/status/826448182993383424
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Jan 31, 2017 19:06
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As far as I can tell the only Senate votes so far are the vote about the ACA and confirmations.
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Jan 31, 2017 19:08
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ShutteredIn posted:Feinstein sucks don't get me wrong, but this is a little misleading since it's counting her abstention on a vote while she was getting surgery as a support. Is it? Their article explaining the methodology says this (emphasis mine): https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/introducing-the-trump-score/ posted:To calculate it, we add the member’s “yes” votes on bills that Trump supported and his or her “no” votes on bills that Trump opposed and then divide that by the total number of bills the member has voted on for which we know Trump’s position. That would seem to suggest that abstentions don't count either way. (It would be helpful if they listed each Congressperson's votes so we could see how they contribute to each score.)
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Jan 31, 2017 19:36
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