Timex
5575
I would offer that a bigger source of your issues today, are that after Obama won in 2008, the Democratic party basically said, “Yay, we won!” had a party, and went to bed. And then they got their asses beat in 2010, because they didn’t show up.
That led to a sequence of events where they were able to seize control of tons of state legislatures, which gave them oversized power in driving the democratic processes themselves moving forward. This included taking control of the legislatures of key states like Ohio and Pennsylvania.
That was where things started going way off the rails, and the system of government itself started to crack.
Now, maybe it’s not too late to fix stuff… but I fear that even if we beat back the fascists, folks are going to be so relieved, that we’ll drop our guard again like in 2010. That can’t be allowed to happen.
Folks need to get out and fucking vote, even when there isn’t a rockstar on the ballot. Shit matters in EVERY election cycle. And frankly, the local and state level stuff can matter a lot more than the federal stuff that you see on the national news.
Person A: Let me point out that conservatives and Republicans spent decades selling racism and bigotry and contempt for facts and truth and how that causes us so many problems now.
Person T: Let me explain why that is all your fault.
Yeah. The people at fault are the ones who voted these Republicans into power. Our erstwhile convertees on Qt3 largely included, perhaps why they are so eager to displace blame ;-)
The party in power often loses seats in the midterms. It happened in 1994 too when the Rs grabbed the House while Clinton was president.
What the Democrats need to do if they win the White House and the Senate is push through a lot of legislation in the first two years. Get rid of the filibuster is the Rs will be petulant children insistent only they are allowed to govern.
Here’s to hoping there’s no Franken/Coleman-style fuckery that costs us 6 months of prime legislatin’ time this time around.
magnet
5580
This is generally true in the House.
In the Senate, the party in power has less effect than the actual states in play. For example, in 2018 there was a clear blue wave in the House due to disapproval of Trump. Despite that, the Senate map was favorable to Republicans and McConnell increased his majority. In 2020 and 2022, the Senate map favors Democrats.
Timex
5581
You guys can try and place the blame on someone else all you want if you just want to feel better.
But if you want to actually WIN, then you need to address your own weaknesses. And the stuff I’m talking about regarding the 2010 elections is not stuff I’m making up. There is a ton written about it.
The 2010 election was not simply a case of the Democrats losing seats in the house.
What set up the GOP for the next decade, was the fact that they took control of all the state legislatures. They played a long game, and it absolutely worked. And that’s the shit that Democrats need to focus on. You need to win at the state level, because that’s where the power to enforce fair play lies.
This piece highlights how bad the democrats lost, at every level.
Not sure why anyone would argue against this, unless you WANT to have this shit happen again. Blaming everyone else might make you feel better, but it doesn’t make you win.
This was all pretty heavily covered during the Aughts. The GOP had a long-term plan, starting with establishing a lot of think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, eyeing control of state legislatures and governors houses, redistricting/gerrymandering, taking over the judiciary, etc. All backed by a (relatively) new conservative news apparatus.
Democrats simply didn’t have that kind of long-term vision, or recognize what the GOP was doing. Hell, it’s an effort for them to show up every presidential election, which is the only thing that seems to get them energized (and that’s only sometimes).
Shit like midterms are critical. Local and state races are critical.
Timex
5583
And it absolutely doesn’t need to be that way.
The Democrats can absolutely play that same game. And they should.
And now we’ve all gotten to see what happens if you don’t. You get Trump, and all of the garbage that came with him. That should motivate anyone to improve the party’s overall strategy.
The projection is strong with this one.
Lol.
It’s like we need a candidate whose name is Harvard Law, so we can say “Oh, her? She’s Harvard Law.”
“How’d you hurt your back?”
“Old injury during Vietnam.”
“Oh yeah??”
“I fell off a barstool watching the Army-Navy game.”
Thrag
5588
You will all be happy to know a reporter actually corrected her on that during the conference. The press pool is getting more and more restless.
Menzo
5590
Oh but guys, she’s a judge first. We don’t know how she’ll rule on Roe v. Wade.
“That was many years ago and also I didn’t go to that party with Squee and here is my calendar to prove it. Can someone get me a beer?”
Alstein
5592
The good news is a Biden landslide should help in some of these states.
NC is going to be an interesting and perhaps explosive case. I don’t think Dems can win the legislature here, but they have the courts. The governor cannot veto redistricting.
Prediction: The courts are going to try and draw the maps, and legislature is going to ignore the court completely. It’s going to be up to Cooper and the judges to go to the mat to deal with the legislature. I suspect we’re going to see legislators fleeing to rural counties to evade contempt orders and impeaching the judges in 2021, and a string of violence.
Timex
5593
Oh, it absolutely will. It’s part of why I’m hoping for that.
And, when you look at how Gore v Bush, Citizens United, and Shelby v Holder led to where we are now in 2020, you know what? They were absolutely right to so. To bad it wasn’t enough to prevent the ascension of the Anti-Christ (complete with the number of the beast.)
But hey, so far we’ve only got two of the four horsemen out. So count your blessings, right?
