Ate My Balls Redux posted:

This is really unfair. I remember the Wisconsin outrage over Walker's poo poo. You can't blame the citzenry for gerrymandering

quote:

Unhappily for Mr Lance, who is known for his decency, bipartisanship and opposition to last year’s tax cuts, they may not. Having won his district, a belt of New York commuter-country packed with affluent college graduates, by 37,000 votes two years ago, he is now trailing his opponent, Tom Malinowski, a former human-rights specialist for Barack Obama. That represents a broader recoiling of well-educated voters against the Trump party. Yet while coverage of the mid-terms has focused on such ways in which Mr Trump has rearranged the electorate, the degree to which he has not done so is far more remarkable.

He may take a different tack from Ronald Reagan, on trade, Russians and racists, but their coalition is essentially the same: most white Americans, with a stress on evangelicals and small-government and gun enthusiasts. Mr Trump is not president mainly because working-class strugglers flocked to him. The vast majority of his 63m supporters were regular Republican voters, and most consider his presidency a roaring success. That is why the president’s party could yet hold both the House and Senate. And if it does not, it will not be because the Democrats filched many Republican voters, but because they did a better job of turning out their own. The media focus on Mr Trump’s appalling behaviour can make this hard to fathom. An evening spent with a crowd of Mr Lance’s remaining supporters, in a community hall tacked onto a fire station near the congressman’s house, made it easier to understand.

Several of the assembled activists and other loyalists, around 30 in all, including men and women and many retirees, acknowledged that Mr Trump’s behaviour could be suboptimal. That was typically expressed as a wish that he would tweet less. One woman, a carer for the elderly, said he could be “crass”; another wished he would “dial it down a bit”. Yet even these mild reservations came with an apologetic smile and an inevitable qualifier. Mr Trump was a reality tv star, a New Yorker, a fighter, not a politician, so what else could he do? Everyone was strongly supportive of him.

Asked to explain why, most said it was because they liked his policies. “Who said ‘poopy’ today in the media? That doesn’t interest me,” said Steve, a firefighter who had looked in from next-door. For a few, this seemed self-explanatory. A couple of retirees from Wall Street, Mike and Sharon, were concerned about over-regulation, and Mr Trump is cutting rules faster than his predecessor. A trio of evangelical women, Lisa and Debbie and her daughter Heather, said they could never vote for a pro-choice party. Yet many struggled to name a policy of Mr Trump’s they liked. Across America, most Republicans would probably say his tax reform, but that is harder in New Jersey, where Mr Trump’s changes combined with high state taxes have left many worse off.

It must be said that the characterisation of Mr Trump and his administration offered by everyone except Mr Lance, a cautious critic of the president, was extremely selective. No one thought him a particularly divisive figure. Mr Obama was polarising too, said Bev, which is true, though arguably he, unlike Mr Trump, did not want to be. Beth insisted there had never been any allegation of racism against the president’s businesses. When it was put to her that there had been, she said, “I mean allegations against him personally.” She was also angry that Mr Trump was reported to have said there were good people among the white supremacists in Charlottesville last year. But he did say that. “I don’t think his policies are those of white supremacists,” her friend Todd chipped in.

The main reason most people loved Mr Trump did not seem to concern his qualities or policies at all. It was because above all they hated Democrats, a force political scientists refer to as “negative partisanship”. Hardly anyone said what they liked about Mr Trump without in the same breath lambasting his opponents. This, more than Mr Trump’s nationalism, populism or chauvinist dog-whistling, is the essence of his divisive appeal. It is what he strives to amplify. It was why Hillary Clinton, the right’s favourite bogie, was his perfect opponent. “I wake up every day and thank God she is not president,” said Beth, when asked how Mr Trump is getting on.

Young Freud posted:

Lot of people on Twitter calling out NYT's "Both Sides"-ism.

Groovelord Neato posted:

yeah leonard leo is worse than trump by nearly every measure but conway can still be buddy buddy with him. gently caress off georgie boy.

Ate My Balls Redux posted:

This is really unfair. I remember the Wisconsin outrage over Walker's poo poo. You can't blame the citzenry for gerrymandering

Groovelord Neato posted:

https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1069953255231381504

yronic heroism posted:

There were statewide elections those years. Gerrymandering didn’t cause him to get through the recall and 2014.

Ice Phisherman posted:

No you're not. Go away, Joe. You'll win against Trump by running some standard campaign if you win the primary, but so would any competent human being who can connect with people. We don't need your blue dog rear end. Stop creeping on women.

eke out posted:

"We've definitely gotten screwed so far, so the only thing to do is further legitimize Kim"

https://twitter.com/kaitlancollins/status/1069955844639322112

pookel posted:

AFAIK, Leonard Leo is not a supporter of massive personal financial fraud, at least. OTOH, he's willing to overlook it as long as his judges get nominated.

My personal theory is that Kellyanne agrees with everything her husband says, but has no soul & is happy to lie for Trump as long as she gets to keep her job/salary/status. Pure mercenary.

Taerkar posted:

I was listening to NPR on the way in this morning (Because there was nothing better) and they had some political professor on who was talking about it. He went on to mention that Democrats have done the same thing in the past, though not as blatantly, but for some strange reason didn't actually name any specific events.

Groovelord Neato posted:

The Trump cult


https://www.economist.com/united-states/2018/11/01/the-trump-cult

Hellblazer187 posted:

Hey, a while back I remember people used to post this macro that said something like "liberals prefer fascism to socialism" or something and it made me mad then but kinda I agree with it now does anyone have that macro?

Groovelord Neato posted:

I love him using "qualified" which shows how out of touch he is.

jklfdsa posted:

At this point, Kellyanne Conway could leave the Trump administration and walk into a wingnut welfare/lobbying job that pays her easily 10 times what she's making at the White House. If she's purely a mercenary, she's terrible at it.

Gort posted:

eke out posted:

"We've definitely gotten screwed so far, so the only thing to do is further legitimize Kim"

https://twitter.com/kaitlancollins/status/1069955844639322112

pookel posted:

Yeah, but I'm sure they have plenty of money already, & maybe she cares more about status & power.

Pollyanna posted:

She is not exactly getting that at the WH.

Taerkar posted:

I bet Mike and Sharon would be hard pressed to name even one federal regulation that was keeping them down.

Ague Proof posted:

This guy:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1069960017204469760

Hellblazer187 posted:

I'm arguing with a person on facebook who says they won't vote for Bernie if he's the nominee, because of what his supporters did to Clinton. I was a Clinton primary vote and I was pretty peeved at Bernie by the end of the process but drat if that isn't a pretty disgusting thing to say. The liberal-left alliance against the right needs to go both ways or it isn't an alliance at all. For 50 years the left has been told "you gotta vote for liberals, or else the Republicans win!" and now even the possibility of a marginally left wing person competing for the presidency is enough to make some people lose their minds.

This is why I wanted that macro.

Dad Jokes posted:

Getting food poisoning to own the libs

friendbot2000 posted:

5.1 Million Pounds of Beef has been recalled due to salmonella

Hmmm...I am going to take a WILD guess in light of the most recent romaine lettuce recall that relaxed regulations had something to do with this. Isn't it pretty rare that the FDA does a recall? Usually its the company that sells the product....

Edit: Jesus Christ. This is an expansion of the recall in October of 6.5 million lbs of beef

Dad Jokes posted:

*trump cuts food regulations for no reason*

*food poisoning outbreaks skyrocket*

Wow, what a weird coincidence.

Sir Lemming posted:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1069970500535902208

Tariff Man, Tariff Man
Tariffs don't work like he thinks they can

Fitzy Fitz posted:

the free market will sort this out when the poison beef causes rational consumers to die

Sir Lemming posted:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1069970500535902208

Tariff Man, Tariff Man
Tariffs don't work like he thinks they can