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I just got the news, Mitch McConnell to step down as GOP Senate leader in November?! If the GOP takes the Senate and a dipshit like Thune takes over... https://apnews.com/article/mitch-mcconnell-senate-republican-leader-stepping-down-ba478d570a4561aa7baf91a204d7e366
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Feb 28, 2024 18:30
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https://twitter.com/seungminkim/status/1762890621415506053?s=46&t=BHs6Pl38GJXGN2Y4xeriNA Good riddance
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Feb 28, 2024 18:30
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Oh man Scott vs. whoever (Thune?) is going to be brutal. I guess we'll find out how much of the GOP Senate caucus' (relative) order was due to sheer force of will by Mitch.
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Feb 28, 2024 18:30
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FlamingLiberal posted:https://twitter.com/seungminkim/status/1762890621415506053?s=46&t=BHs6Pl38GJXGN2Y4xeriNA Kind of curious if this means he does/doesn't endorse Trump. But good riddance no matter what. He's a hateful little troll and actually good at the mechanics of politics ; I don't think the GOP is aware of how bad this is going to leave them in the medium-to-long term.
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Feb 28, 2024 18:32
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FlamingLiberal posted:https://twitter.com/seungminkim/status/1762890621415506053?s=46&t=BHs6Pl38GJXGN2Y4xeriNA Good riddance, but I think this probably doesn't change much. Some Republicans freaked out when Mitch started doing his thing and were sure that Americans would turn against them for it, but he proved them wrong and the playbook is written now. Thune or whoever just has to copy it again and everyone in the caucus is already used to it. Once the norms are broken, there isn't any going back. At this point, it seems like whoever the successor is would have to be crazy to not just keep the McConnell playbook going.
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Feb 28, 2024 18:33
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:At this point, it seems like whoever the successor is would have to be crazy to not just keep the McConnell playbook going. Sentences spoken just before disaster.
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Feb 28, 2024 18:39
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Xiahou Dun posted:Kind of curious if this means he does/doesn't endorse Trump. That's the thing about McCarthy and McConnell, they were the fundraisers of the GOP. You get the Trumps in charge of the RNC, and it's a dry well. You can still run on the (R) by a candidates name in the most secure places, but the races that count need that cash and there's nothing there. Dark money only goes so far.
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Feb 28, 2024 18:41
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Surely no one crazy could accede to the position of Senate GOP leader.
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Feb 28, 2024 18:41
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Byzantine posted:Sentences spoken just before disaster. Crazy from the perspective of political self-preservation. McConnell was also smarter than the House leadership and understood that causing the country to default on its debt or shutdown the government until the next election were self-destructive moves. He just blocked all of the opposition's policy priorities and kept the ship mostly running to significant success for the conservative public policy movement. It is kind of ironic that a certain part of the Republican base hates him because he is without a doubt the most effective single person in American government at actually getting conservative public policy victories and he has written the playbook for leaders going forward. His pure cynicism and shamelessness powered through a strategy that a lot of people doubted and he turned out to be right because his cynicism enabled him to stick to the plan.
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Feb 28, 2024 18:42
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On the plus side, if they're not as good at brinksmanship as McConnell then we might finally get rid of the legislative filibuster
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Feb 28, 2024 18:44
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I wonder if this means Mitch doesn't think the GOP can take back the Senate. I mean, WV is a pickup but does he think everywhere else holds? It doesn't make sense to step down when you have a chance to take back control. Unless he is being selfless (hah!) and is pulling a Pelosi to groom his successor.
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Feb 28, 2024 18:51
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VorpalBunny posted:I wonder if this means Mitch doesn't think the GOP can take back the Senate. I mean, WV is a pickup but does he think everywhere else holds? It doesn't make sense to step down when you have a chance to take back control. Unless he is being selfless (hah!) and is pulling a Pelosi to groom his successor. I'm guessing he may have an illness that he hasn't disclosed yet.
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Feb 28, 2024 18:53
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VorpalBunny posted:I wonder if this means Mitch doesn't think the GOP can take back the Senate. I mean, WV is a pickup but does he think everywhere else holds? It doesn't make sense to step down when you have a chance to take back control. Unless he is being selfless (hah!) and is pulling a Pelosi to groom his successor. His health has also been pretty not-great. We shouldn't forget that. There are a lot of reasons, many of which we 100% can't know, so it's pretty hard to make predictions from this.
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Feb 28, 2024 18:54
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VorpalBunny posted:I wonder if this means Mitch doesn't think the GOP can take back the Senate. I mean, WV is a pickup but does he think everywhere else holds? It doesn't make sense to step down when you have a chance to take back control. Unless he is being selfless (hah!) and is pulling a Pelosi to groom his successor. He is also old and has been promising to let new blood into leadership for a while. I don't think he runs for re-election. He'd be 91 at the end of his next term. The 2024 Senate map is very unfavorable to Dems. It would take a big series of failures for Republicans to not win the Senate. It happened in 2014 and 2010, so it isn't impossible, but it will be very difficult to throw that.
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Feb 28, 2024 18:54
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VorpalBunny posted:I wonder if this means Mitch doesn't think the GOP can take back the Senate. I mean, WV is a pickup but does he think everywhere else holds? It doesn't make sense to step down when you have a chance to take back control. Unless he is being selfless (hah!) and is pulling a Pelosi to groom his successor. Zapp Brannigan posted:I'm guessing he may have an illness that he hasn't disclosed yet. I think it’s both. He is old and probably has health issues and whatever demon he met wants their deal finished. But I also think he sees the party is headed for a rough time even if trump pulls a win. He got his hosed up goals accomplished and would like to get out before it gets really bad.
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Feb 28, 2024 18:57
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2024 is a very unfavorable map that's kept Dems viable in the Senate because there have been very lucky years in 2018, 2012, and 2006. It's still a question mark how 2024 will go.
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Feb 28, 2024 18:58
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Xiahou Dun posted:His health has also been pretty not-great. We shouldn't forget that. There are a lot of reasons, many of which we 100% can't know, so it's pretty hard to make predictions from this.
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Feb 28, 2024 18:58
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koolkal posted:There are 212 House members and 51 Senate members. 69 / (212 + 51) = 26% vs. 70% of Dem voters. That is absolutely insane. It compares well to the 0% of Republicans calling for a ceasefire. And considering that majorities have only been supporting a ceasefire for a few weeks at most, it's not surprising for support to lag a bit. Besides, that list of 69 only counts people who've called for a permanent ceasefire. So it leaves out people who've backed a humanitarian ceasefire but not a permanent ceasefire, such as Bernie Sanders. Why's that matter? Because polls don't always distinguish between the two types of ceasefire. It's actually a fairly complex situation that deserves far better than the pollsters trying to boil it down to just 2-3 simple current-events questions to tuck in at the end of their poll. While polling is still spotty and scattered, there's some evidence suggesting that while voters are increasingly thinking that "Israel has gone too far", they don't think that position is incompatible with "it's impossible for Israel to have peace with Hamas, which must be destroyed". This means that people can have a dizzying array of seemingly-contradictory stances, and that polling results can seem to vary wildly depending on what exactly the pollster asked. A perfect example is Bernie Sanders. He feels that Israel is going way too far and causing a "humanitarian disaster", and so he favors a short-term humanitarian ceasefire and has pushed for the US to condition aid to Israel on Israel meeting humanitarian metrics...but on the other hand, he actively opposes a permanent ceasefire, on the grounds that: quote:I don't know how you could have a permanent ceasefire with Hamas who has said before October 7, and after October 7, that they want to destroy Israel. They want a permanent war. I don't know how you have a permanent ceasefire with an attitude like that. How the heck would that show up in polls? He supports a humanitarian ceasefire but opposes a permanent ceasefire. He thinks that Israel has gone too far, but also seems to think that the war should be continued until Hamas is defeated. He supports aid to Israel, but only when it's tied to humanitarian conditions. When answering the Morning Consult poll, he'd seem to be against the war; when answering the HarrisX poll, he'd seem to be for the war. But that's really just the fault of pollsters (and internet commentators) not allowing for sufficient nuance on a complex issue with far more possible stances than the punditry are willing to acknowledge.
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Feb 28, 2024 18:59
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Yeah I would say it's mostly health, somewhat not wanting to deal with the Senate any more, and also a chance to go out on top with all his goals accomplished and locked in. He's going to die thinking the government will be conservative for the foreseeable future, unless we can do something about it before then
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Feb 28, 2024 19:00
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Overturning Roe has had a very minimal impact on the number of abortions performed in the U.S. It has just made them massively more inconvenient and expensive for women in states that banned abortion, but they are still going to get them. Overturning Roe has not "saved" many babies, but it is making life objectively harder for about 10,000 to 15,000 more women every year. A massive success for the pro-life movement. A large chunk of the damage is being prevented by the new availability of abortion drugs via mail, but the Supreme Court will be ruling on that shortly and several Republicans in congress (and Trump) have vowed to pass a law banning it. If that happens, then many more women would be impacted. But, it is not possible to tell how many would just be additionally impoverished and inconvenienced vs. how many would actually be unable to obtain an abortion if that were to happen. It may be another scenario that has a minimal impact on the total number of abortions, but just makes it more expensive and inconvenient for tens of thousands of people. This is personal speculation on my part, but I think if they ban getting abortion drugs via mail/telehealth, then it will probably be worse in terms of people actually being unable to get an abortion than overturning Roe was. The newly available ability to get it all done via mail - anywhere in the country - is a huge dam holding back a lot of potential damage that hasn't happened yet. https://twitter.com/AP/status/1762893142955597921 quote:About as many abortions are happening in the US monthly as before Roe was overturned, report finds Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Feb 28, 2024 |
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Feb 28, 2024 19:00
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I think because of the long terms that senators serve for that their descent into full chud-ism has been somewhat delayed compared to the house. So while it's great that McConnel is leaving, whoever succeeds him is probably going to be even worse.
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Feb 28, 2024 19:03
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Would the conservatives on the Supreme Court be stupid enough to step on the abortion rake again? During an election year?
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Feb 28, 2024 19:05
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B B posted:Nate is right. There's really no reason to fret over what ~100,000 voters are going to do in Michigan. I will keep saying this to everyone who will listen: the polls are still not predictive yet and are literal coin flips. They start to get marginally predictive around mid-April, not now, and their predictive power will increase very slowly but linearly until election day. https://archives.cjr.org/united_states_project/its_way_too_early_for_2016_polls_to_be_predictive.php quote:These matchups may be fun to speculate about, but the evidence suggests that even national trial heat polls conducted this far in advance of a presidential election are completely uninformative about its outcome. (Individual state trial heats are likely to be even less useful.) In their book The Timeline of Presidential Elections, the political scientists Christopher Wlezien and Robert Erikson find that polls conducted even 300 days before an election have virtually no predictive power; their forecasting power comes later in a campaign:  Never forget Clinton winning by 10+ in August 2016.
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Feb 28, 2024 19:07
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Charliegrs posted:I think because of the long terms that senators serve for that their descent into full chud-ism has been somewhat delayed compared to the house. So while it's great that McConnel is leaving, whoever succeeds him is probably going to be even worse. It’s also because the whole state votes. So sure you will get crazies in deep red states but house allows for districts to send whatever nuts can be found.
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Feb 28, 2024 19:07
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Ither posted:Would the conservatives on the Supreme Court be stupid enough to step on the abortion rake again? That's the great thing about being a justice, you're not walking around, just throwing rakes into the road willy-nilly. The candidates for lesser office are walking around but you don't have to care about them any more
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Feb 28, 2024 19:09
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Ither posted:Would the conservatives on the Supreme Court be stupid enough to step on the abortion rake again? Why would anyone on the Supreme Court care about the outcome of any election
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Feb 28, 2024 19:09
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small butter posted:I will keep saying this to everyone who will listen: the polls are still not predictive yet and are literal coin flips. They start to get marginally predictive around mid-April, not now, and their predictive power will increase very slowly but linearly until election day. Never forget the intense 2008 general election campaign between Hillary Clinton and Giuliani
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Feb 28, 2024 19:15
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small butter posted:I will keep saying this to everyone who will listen: the polls are still not predictive yet and are literal coin flips. They start to get marginally predictive around mid-April, not now, and their predictive power will increase very slowly but linearly until election day. But have you considered that the noisy, non-predictive data set can be read in a way to confirm my prior beliefs? Maybe some very accurate haruspicy would convince you?
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Feb 28, 2024 19:16
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FlamingLiberal posted:https://twitter.com/seungminkim/status/1762890621415506053?s=46&t=BHs6Pl38GJXGN2Y4xeriNA He really didn't like being a minority I guess.
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Feb 28, 2024 19:24
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Aztec Galactus posted:Why would anyone on the Supreme Court care about the outcome of any election Because the conservatives on the court have an agenda. And that agenda gets stalled if the abortion backlash gets bigger and causes a blue wave.
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Feb 28, 2024 19:51
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McConnell utterly remade the Senate (and the GOP for that matter) into a completely obstructionist, utterly partisan institution. Now, the obstructionism was also baked in from the beginning, but McConnell elevated it to the level of common practice - doing whatever he could to deny the opposition party any accomplishments, no matter how small. The Republican Party followed suit - and obstructionism became a principle. In a way, I have no moral opposition to this as a way to organize your political party - I would be over the moon if there was a Leftist/Social Democratic/Labor party that saw politics as a war between competing worldviews and practices, but unfortunately, we have the Democrats. I'm also not worried that anyone can be "worse" than McConnell, because what Mitch does is very simple: just say No to everything. It doesn't really carry a lot of nuance to it, plus I am confident that whoever replaces him will be significantly *dumber* than he is, considering the next wave of GOP politicians. Mike N Eich fucked around with this message at 20:15 on Feb 28, 2024 |
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Feb 28, 2024 20:12
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Mitch could also control his caucus, which we can see isn't something to be taken for granted.
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Feb 28, 2024 20:18
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Morrow posted:Mitch could also control his caucus, which we can see isn't something to be taken for granted. He wasn't really particularly great at that, honestly. What Mitch was prevent anything he personally disagreed with from ever coming up to a vote, meaning that even his own caucus had no real chance to defy him by voting for something he opposed.
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Feb 28, 2024 20:26
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There may have been a historical window where such obstructionism works as a political strategy for a party, but where outside that window it's a huge loser for your party. Material conditions and political realities may be different for the successor of a dying traitor party. No reason to assume this though
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Feb 28, 2024 20:31
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Morrow posted:Mitch could also control his caucus, which we can see isn't something to be taken for granted. Not always. I still have the moment McCain voted against the GOP efforts to kill Obamacare saved to my DVR, that iconic thumbs down. McConnell couldn't look him in the eye. Such a great moment in gently caress You politics.
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Feb 28, 2024 20:32
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VorpalBunny posted:Not always. I still have the moment McCain voted against the GOP efforts to kill Obamacare saved to my DVR, that iconic thumbs down. McConnell couldn't look him in the eye. Such a great moment in gently caress You politics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz1XKVvHroo
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Feb 28, 2024 20:36
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It's Johns all the way down to replace McConnell.quote:The three leading candidates to replace McConnell are John Thune, John Barrasso, and John Cornyn. The one clever thing that Mike Rounds has ever done.
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Feb 28, 2024 20:42
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:It's Johns all the way down to replace McConnell. I think they got sent the joke as part of the talking points https://twitter.com/reesejgorman/status/1762900248823808501
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Feb 28, 2024 20:46
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Tom Cotton also wants to get into leadership, but isn't running for Majority/Minority leader. Tom Cotton, Josh Hawley, and Rick Scott are probably the most objectively awful people to have any leadership position. https://twitter.com/burgessev/status/1762909291462242683 quote:Sen. Tom Cotton, who is close to McConnell, is considering running for a leadership position in the GOP amid the coming leadership shuffle and is being encouraged to look at a bid, said a person familiar with Cotton’s thinking.
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Feb 28, 2024 20:49
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small butter posted:I will keep saying this to everyone who will listen: the polls are still not predictive yet and are literal coin flips. They start to get marginally predictive around mid-April, not now, and their predictive power will increase very slowly but linearly until election day. Also if you're going to use the Michigan primary to predict the general election, it's only fair to include that Trump has underperformed the polls in every primary so far and did so by double digits yesterday. That probably doesn't mean anything for November, but neither does the vote uncommitted campaign.
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Feb 28, 2024 20:53
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