For the none-clickers, here’s the Civiqs link for job approval (demo breakdown including by state.)
https://civiqs.com/results/approve_president_trump?annotations=true&uncertainty=true&zoomIn=true&utm_campaign=ticker
Edit: I think we can identify the problem.
rowe33
4139
Yet another reason why women should be in charge of just about everything right now.
CraigM
4140
Hmm, there certainly seems to be a strong pattern.
Timex
4141
Honestly, the path to electoral victory for the Democrats…isn’t really that hard. You just need to actually give a shit about states like PA.
PA isn’t that heavy a lift for the Democrats. More than 10% of our state’s entire population is in Philly alone. You can carry PA just by turning out the vote in Philly.
And trying to change the mind of Independents is pointless (only about 3% of the population).
I think this is basically right. If Dems can’t win states like PA and MI with Trump on the ticket, then they don’t deserve to win anyway.
PA = Philadelphia & Pittsburgh, and the rest of the State is Alabama.
Timex
4146
Eh, more like Kentucky.
Also, it’s not JUST those two cities… you have a number of blue pieces of the state. Harrisburgh, State College, Scranton, etc.
But Philly and Pittsburgh alone are generally so large as to be a major driving force for statewide elections. And with the reversal of the gerrymandering, PA is a much more democratic friendly state from the perspective of the House.
rowe33
4147
I hope your optimism proves correct!
Timex
4148
Black voter turnout dropped significantly in 2016, and african americans make up a very large chunk of the vote in those population centers in PA. If they show up at the polls, the Democrats should be able to win PA without issue.
JUST NORMAL ELECTION STUFF, WE’RE ALL FINE HERE, HOW ARE YOU? WINCE
" Maryland’s Democratic senators want a Senate committee to require disclosures of foreign investments in U.S. election systems, an alarm bell set off by a Russian oligarch’s connection to their state’s voter registration system.
The request to the Rules and Administration Committee comes from Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin and Sen. Chris Van Hollen. Van Hollen is also the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
The Maryland senators have been alarmed by a Russian oligarch’s investment connection to ByteGrid LLC, which handles the Old Line State’s voter registration database and candidate management operations."
Tim_N
4150
You guys should just hold an auction every four years where Russia and China offer bids and the winner gets to pick the next Leader of the Free World.
As long as only Republicans win, doesn’t everybody? The only true corruption would be to let a liberal in office!
Still though, c’mon. I think it’s things like this that really will kick of massive secession movements in demographically blue states.
The “trap”, if it can be called a trap, for Republicans is that there is a fine, invisible line they’re in constant danger of crossing with open corruption and subversion of Democracy. Somehow everyone working independently winking and nodding with one another avoids the taint of “conspiracy” if they’re “ideological allies”; and if they’re the ones in charge of investigating themselves then lo! see no evil and hear no evil. But that zone of lawless comfort means they’re much more likely in their venality to cross a line that shouldn’t be crossed even if they have the levers of power.
A second American civil war would be indescribably bloody. If a GOP dominated Federal Government were willing to let The Republic of Latte-Sippia depart peaceably, it might work out OK, but I don’t see that happening.
Well since Russia and, possibly China, would love to see it (the only advantages for China would be to regain Taiwan and have a free hand in Africa, as well as being the dominant economic power definitively in the 21st Century, where Russia just wants to screw us in their decline), i’m sure they’d be more than happy to supply secessionists with arms.
As i’ve said i really, really don’t think succession would turn violent unless a illfully, pigheadedly and quite corruptibly blind GOP dominated government used indiscriminate force. I mean, like, let’s say the people of California mob and throw out Federal officials and occupy their buildings, and in response the Federal government starts running air strikes on Los Angeles and blockading California.
That would not have the effect of reducing the bloodshed.
Sorry kind of a run-on conversation. He said “it might work out ok, but i don’t see that happening” and i responded with how China and Russia would happily fan the flames; a sidebar that wasn’t the main point.
The real problem with a “civil war” situation isn’t even direct warfare at all - it might cost thousands or tens of thousands of lives from dislocation. Essentially if states start seceding it would cause a massive, never-before seen in modern times scale, migration as people were sorted or forced to sort ideologically, sort of like how there were massive simultaneous “population exchanges” between Greece and Turkey after WW1.
There are lots and lots of Republicans in blue states and Democrats in red states, and in loss-of-Federal authority breakdown situation those people are going to be heavily pressured to “convert” their ideology or leave, by choice or by compulsion. Alabama didn’t leave the union for a bunch of pansy liberals to prevent them from enacting the Handmaid’s Tale bible school world they so desperately desire, and Liberals in Washington State didn’t leave to allow the state government to be run by climate changing denying FOX News rural white guys. The Great Political Sorting would be incredibly painful even without a shot being fired by any government body.
It’s also likely that passion would be hot enough that there would be mob violence, especially in rural states, against ideological minorities, and would probably the cause of a good portion of possible deaths.
Because it really isn’t “south vs north” anymore, it’s rural vs urban, and almost every state has large rural and large urban populations to greater or lesser extents.
The real problem with the scenario is that it is so incredibly unlikely. I can’t think of a single state whose citizens would see secession as better than the status quo. That could be a lack of imagination, I guess.
It just baffles me that ANY private entity is in charge of the voter registration system for a US state. Why can’t they run it as a state agency?
