US Current Events November: D&D's Afghanistan

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > US Current Events November: D&D's Afghanistan

Epinephrine: Nov 7, 2008

Heck Yes! Loam! posted:

I too like to throw away information that doesn't line up with my worldview

How about this one
https://twitter.com/nataliemj10/status/1455139127465291785

Another report showing some rather alarming trends.

I think you two are talking past each other on this one.

# ¿ Nov 1, 2021 16:20

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 20:56

Epinephrine: Nov 7, 2008

lil poopendorfer posted:

They do that anyways

Voting for leftist candidates, regardless of their chances to win is the only way to push Democrats left. Your vote is the only leverage you have. Always voting for the Democrat bc they're the lesser of two evils gives them zero reason to legislate to you

That's only true if you ignore the primary process.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2021 16:23

Epinephrine: Nov 7, 2008

Epic High Five posted:

IMHO Dems should encourage protest voting more enthusiastically because conservative independents voting libertarian has been by far more damaging to the GOP than commies voting for commies has to the Dems. Instead of fussing about the disloyalty of Lee Carter types or whatever who they are otherwise at war with, they should be boosting the Libertarian party candidate with peripheral orgs or arranging for one to run if the spot on the ballot is empty. The simple fact is that progressives hold their nose more reliably than any other ideology and every time I hear it coming up again I just file it away as another fundraising scare tactic like those terrible emails.

Both the GOP and the Dems do this in various ways, with varying degrees of effectiveness. McCaskill pulled something like that off successfully during the 2012 GOP primary by running ads about how dangerously far-right Todd Akin was. Akin won his primary and lost to McCaskill by 15 points because, of course, he was a far-right shithead who gave us the line "legitimate rape." There have been a couple attempts to repeat this iirc. Most recently, Jamie Harrison, running against Linsday Graham, ran ads of the same kind against the right-wing Constitution candidate. The Constitution candidate got 1.3% of the vote (even though he dropped out and endorsed Graham) and Graham won by 10 points. On the other side, the GOP and Republican donors give legal and financial support to the Green party, and in 2020 tried to help Kanye West (still loling at this one) in the same way.

Epinephrine fucked around with this message at 16:51 on Nov 2, 2021

# ¿ Nov 2, 2021 16:49

Epinephrine: Nov 7, 2008

RBA Starblade posted:

It's Tuesday

US Current Events November: It was Tuesday

# ¿ Nov 2, 2021 21:49

Epinephrine: Nov 7, 2008

That number is consistent with the CBS poll we discussed earlier in the month.
Data here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/16F-niG5FT7AYonia--9uOMoePRUkBAma/view

# ¿ Nov 3, 2021 00:53

Epinephrine: Nov 7, 2008

VitalSigns posted:

According to CNN's exit poll a literal Nazi won 13% of black voters

https://www.cnn.com/election/2021/november/exit-polls/virginia/governor

Hm maybe if the plan was to run on what a racist Nazi the other guy is, the Democrats shouldn't have rallied around the governor whose defense to a blackface scandal was "at least I wasn't the other guy in the KKK hood, probably?"

That's about the same proportion that voted for Gillespie in 2017, not much there to read into.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2021 02:01

Epinephrine: Nov 7, 2008

Willa Rogers posted:

whoa, that Hispanic split. eta: And Asian, jesus.

Missed this one. Hispanic exit results are also consistent with 2017. I don't have data for Asian voters.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2021 02:29

Epinephrine: Nov 7, 2008

SourKraut posted:

Well none of that will probably matter since Republicans are about to un-do it all.

Democrats still control the VA Senate, so the damage will be at least limited somewhat.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2021 02:47

Epinephrine: Nov 7, 2008

FlamingLiberal posted:

This strategy doesn't always work, but Brown did everything he could to gently caress over Walton and it seems like it succeeded

I really don't think a write-in campaign can scale up, at least reliably.

In 2010 Alvin Greene won the Dem primary in SC in, umm, really strange circumstances. Alvin Greene spent $0 (zero) on his campaign, had no endorsements, no ads--really this whole thing could be a whole other post, because Alvin Greene under no circumstances should have won that primary. Literally the worst candidate run by either major party I've seen (not in terms of platform, GOP is pretty evil, although even there things were lol).

Anyway, the Greens and the Dem who was favored to win capitalized on this, the later of whom (backed by Clyburn and the state party) started a write-in campaign (others also began write-in campaigns). The Greens got 9% of the vote. The sum total of write-in votes was just over 1%. Alvin Greene, who was officially the Democrat on the ballot, got 27% of the vote.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2021 03:33

Epinephrine: Nov 7, 2008

Angry_Ed posted:

India Walton has nobody to blame but herself:
https://twitter.com/thehousered/sta...ingawful.com%2F

If leftism/progressivism is going to succeed we have to actually be different from what we're trying to replace instead of being duplicitous and pissing off our allies.

Can't talk about the rest, but I don't need to buy into a evidence-less theory about advisors to believe that she supported charter schools. About 6-in-10 black Americans support expansion of the charter school system, and given the reliance on property taxes to fund public schools it's entirely understandable.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2021 06:23

Epinephrine: Nov 7, 2008

Looking at the WaPo exit polling: https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/interactive/2021/exit-polls-virginia-governor/

The voters that went Biden -> Youngkin were predominately white women without a Bachelor's or equivalent who have kids at home. College educated voters and black voters voted the same way they did last year, and McAuliffe actually made gains among hispanic and asian voters. [EDIT: and white no-college women swung big time, going from 56-44 for Trump to 75-25 for Youngkin. That is absolutely massive.] Education was a much bigger issue than usual this go around. A majority of respondents said parents should have "a lot" of say in their curriculum, and those who responded that way broke 3-to-1 for Youngkin.

The culture war stuff still works and Youngkin found a new way to capitalize on it. That's the takeaway.

Epinephrine fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Nov 3, 2021

# ¿ Nov 3, 2021 15:59

Epinephrine: Nov 7, 2008

HonorableTB posted:

The president cannot legalize marijuana with a stroke of a pen, it will require Congressional action to change the Controlled Substances Act to deschedule it from Schedule I.

Similarly, we still don't know if the executive can lawfully cancel student debt.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2021 19:40

Epinephrine: Nov 7, 2008

VitalSigns posted:

I think everyone wants those things to happen, but I still think the arguments are bad faith because they're rationalizations for why it's ok for Biden not to use the power of the office, not any real principled belief.

For example remember the discussion around the eviction moratorium? This exact same Rule Of Law argument was brought up when people asked why Biden didn't just reword the EO like Trump did when the courts slapped him and buy some more time that way. No, that's an authoritarianism, that's a fascism, that's a left-wing Trumpism etc. But then when Biden did just that nobody protested or clutched their pearls about The Rule Of Law. So it seems it was more about rationalizing Biden's inaction than a principled stance against trying to get around court rulings.

No, people really do care about the rule of law.

Anyway, let's put it this way. Right now there is a team of lawyers in the White House somewhere working on getting an answer to the question of legality, and they may well find a legal path. We don't know in the present which path that will be (if there is a path). Issuing the EO after learning what path that is so that your EO follows that path makes it vastly easier to defend in court and increase the chance that loans will be forgiven. And if the lawyers come back and say "sorry, not legal", then sure Biden could try to forgive the loans but that would get challenged in court, there would be an injunction preventing the executive from acting on the EO while the case was working through the courts, and the courts would almost inevitably rule against the executive. No loans would be forgiven. The whole issue would be put effectively into stasis until SCOTUS takes up the case and makes a ruling and who knows how long that whole process could take. Ironically, if Biden wanted to look like he was forgiving debt without actually forgiving a single loan, this, as I'm writing it, sounds like a way to do that. If an EO is all but guaranteed to be overturned then pushing something through Congress, for all the trouble that will be, is more likely to actually get action than going through the courts.

Epinephrine fucked around with this message at 00:42 on Nov 4, 2021

# ¿ Nov 4, 2021 00:15

Epinephrine: Nov 7, 2008

Eric Cantonese posted:

For me McAuliffe's failure again emphasizes a couple of basic principles that beltway "experts" tend to talk themselves out of:

1) A candidate has to stand for something on his or her own and not just as an "anti-________" choice. You otherwise give the other side free rein to define themselves and define you.
2) Outsiders are always more appealing than insiders. People who have seen any basic high school election should know that "I'm so experienced!!!" is not a great pitch, especially when there's anger at the status quo.
3) You can never go back in after taking time out. It makes you soft. Once you decide to get out of politics and active campaigning, you need to stay out. A lot changes and your experience means less and less the more time you're out of circulation.

I'm sure you guys can pick that all apart, but that's what bothered me during the primary and the campaign and it just makes the end result feel worse.

I agree on points (1) and (2), but not sure I agree on (3). It certainly depends on how long they've been out of politics. How long of a retirement is too long in your view?

# ¿ Nov 4, 2021 16:26

Epinephrine: Nov 7, 2008

selec posted:

How long has the house of Saud been in power? Oh I guess that�s not really a factor then.

It really is just economic warfare and the desire to insist there�s some good reason the US is interfering in an upcoming election on a scale that dwarfs whatever Russia did in �16 is hilarious. Scraping the bottom of the barrel to defend the empire is not a good look! You can just say it�s lovely and not our business rather than doing unpaid unwitting Raytheon internships in front of all of us.

I'm struggling to imagine what interference could be bigger than arresting, forcing into exile, and suspending the campaigns of 9 of your 10 opponents.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2021 21:35

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 20:56

Epinephrine: Nov 7, 2008

ST, DST, I don't really care. Stop making me change my clocks, relearn how many hours difference are between here and London, and move my sleep cycle twice a year.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2021 23:04

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > US Current Events November: D&D's Afghanistan