Midterm Election Gameday Thread

[keepthefaith]

3 hours ago, B-Man said:

WILLIAM MURCHISON: What posturing and positioning we can expect from the next Democratic House.

 

The New Deal, without precisely turning Democrats into the Planning Party, planted in them an enthusiasm for giving orders and directions to people not necessarily enthusiastic about being told what to do. And so came to pass the progressive vision: Progress our way, because we know what’s good for you.

 

What’s ahead? Other than attempted impeachment of the president? The progressive agenda will take shape in the House: probably a $15 minimum wage; maybe free college tuition and broad legalization of marijuana; almost certainly, tighter control of pharmacy prices and laxer oversight of immigration. Higher taxes on business will be proposed. Also, mandatory maternity leave from work. A federal support check for every taxpayer is a progressive notion looking better and better to poverty-fighters.

 

And what items on this large and luscious list will become law? None of them, actually. Not in 2019 and 2020. The Republican-controlled, and easily more conservative, Senate will shoot down all of them.

 

 

I expect that with the Senate (hopefully) going back to its traditional role of the chamber where bad ideas go to die, that the Democratic House is going to be an even bigger circus than usual — especially given the unprecedented numbers of vocal “democratic” socialists about to join Pelosi’s caucus.

 

If nothing else, it should prove entertaining.

 

 

Entertaining, but controlling the house alone is built-in protection for Dems.  Without control of more they can't politically ***** themselves up much.  Well positioned to create chaos for 2020. 

[billsfan89]

6 hours ago, Tiberius said:

Ignorant people always laugh at things they do not understand, so that in no ways bothers me. 

 

Congrats   on winning in Mississippi. Dodged a bullet. Trump keeps making places like that competitive. Love it. 

 

Trump isn't always the one making these places competitive, the GOP has run some of the worst candidates in these deep red states and they take what should be a layup and put it in doubt. 

4 hours ago, B-Man said:

WILLIAM MURCHISON: What posturing and positioning we can expect from the next Democratic House.

 

The New Deal, without precisely turning Democrats into the Planning Party, planted in them an enthusiasm for giving orders and directions to people not necessarily enthusiastic about being told what to do. And so came to pass the progressive vision: Progress our way, because we know what’s good for you.

 

What’s ahead? Other than attempted impeachment of the president? The progressive agenda will take shape in the House: probably a $15 minimum wage; maybe free college tuition and broad legalization of marijuana; almost certainly, tighter control of pharmacy prices and laxer oversight of immigration. Higher taxes on business will be proposed. Also, mandatory maternity leave from work. A federal support check for every taxpayer is a progressive notion looking better and better to poverty-fighters.

 

And what items on this large and luscious list will become law? None of them, actually. Not in 2019 and 2020. The Republican-controlled, and easily more conservative, Senate will shoot down all of them.

 

 

I expect that with the Senate (hopefully) going back to its traditional role of the chamber where bad ideas go to die, that the Democratic House is going to be an even bigger circus than usual — especially given the unprecedented numbers of vocal “democratic” socialists about to join Pelosi’s caucus.

 

If nothing else, it should prove entertaining.

 

 

If the Dems were a smart political party they would push the populist left agenda of Universal Healthcare, paid maternity leave, raising the minimum wage, no student cost to public universities, and legalization of marijuana. 

 

Pass all of those insanely popular ideas and make the Republicans come out against them. The Dems have a big base that they need to over serve in order to win elections (The Republicans over serve their base and it works )

 

The Dems won't get that populist left agenda passed but it would state to the public where they stand on the issues and what the Republicans stand against. 

 

But the Dems are morons, they will do a soft centrist agenda mostly focused on subpoenas. They consistently fail to understand where the momentum and enthusiasm in their party is. 

[TakeYouToTasker]

10 minutes ago, billsfan89 said:

If the Dems were a smart political party they would push the populist left agenda of Universal Healthcare, paid maternity leave, raising the minimum wage, no student cost to public universities, and legalization of marijuana. 

 

Many of these ideas are not nearly as popular as you seem to think they are.

 

"If you vote for us we promise to enslave others to give you a bunch of free stuff," is wholly unappealing to anyone with morals and dignity.

[billsfan89]

4 minutes ago, TakeYouToTasker said:

 

Many of these ideas are not nearly as popular as you seem to think they are.

 

"If you vote for us we promise to enslave others to give you a bunch of free stuff," is wholly unappealing to anyone with morals and dignity.

 

Based off of polling numbers they are popular and not by slim margins either. Medicare for all has a 70% approval rating including 52% of Republicans approving. All those other policies poll well above 60%. 

 

Wither or not you find it to be philosophically justified is not the point and a different conversation. 

Edited November 28, 2018 by billsfan89

[TakeYouToTasker]

9 minutes ago, billsfan89 said:

 

Based off of polling numbers they are popular and not by slim margins either. Medicare for all has a 70% approval rating including 52% of Republicans approving. All those other policies poll well above 60%. 

 

Wither or not you find it to be philosophically justified is not the point and a different conversation. 

 

What will it take for you to come to the realization that polling data isn't accurate.

 

Further, that it isn't intended to be accurate. It is a mechanism used to drive narrative, nothing more.

[Buffalo_Gal]

4 minutes ago, billsfan89 said:

 

Based off of polling numbers they are popular and not by slim margins either. Medicare for all has a 70% approval rating including 52% of Republicans approving. All those other policies poll well above 60%. 

 

Wither or not you find it to be philosophically justified is not the point and a different conversation. 

Is this one of those WSJ or NYT polls?  And how are the questions being phrased? "In a Shangri-La world where money and resources are no object, would you like A, B, C, and D!?" or was it phrased "Would you endorse A, B, C, and D if your taxes rise 50%?" 

[billsfan89]

39 minutes ago, TakeYouToTasker said:

 

What will it take for you to come to the realization that polling data isn't accurate.

 

Further, that it isn't intended to be accurate. It is a mechanism used to drive narrative, nothing more.

 

Polling isn't 100% accurate but it's the best tool we have at the moment to measure a populations opinions. Polls are usually pretty accurate or at least accurate enough to be something worthy of consideration. Even if you just look at the candidates that ran in 2018 under a populist left agenda they performed extraordinarily well. There is plenty of evidence that the populist left agenda is extremely popular.

 

But you know maybe I should just defer to the metric of wither or not you think it is. 

40 minutes ago, Buffalo_Gal said:

Is this one of those WSJ or NYT polls?  And how are the questions being phrased? "In a Shangri-La world where money and resources are no object, would you like A, B, C, and D!?" or was it phrased "Would you endorse A, B, C, and D if your taxes rise 50%?" 

 

It was a Reuters and Gallop poll, the question was around Medicare for All, checking now to see the exact methodology. I remember looking at it but I can't 100% say but I do know they asked the even if it increases taxes qualifier.

[TakeYouToTasker]

7 minutes ago, billsfan89 said:

 

Polling isn't 100% accurate but it's the best tool we have at the moment to measure a populations opinions. Polls are usually pretty accurate or at least accurate enough to be something worthy of consideration. Even if you just look at the candidates that ran in 2018 under a populist left agenda they performed extraordinarily well. There is plenty of evidence that the populist left agenda is extremely popular.

 

But you know maybe I should just defer to the metric of wither or not you think it is. 

 

Again, polling is not used to gauge opinion.  Polling is used to drive opinion.  You have a fundamental misunderstanding of what it is used for, and as such are engaging in a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, and are not even doing it very well.

 

Polls are a psy-op control mechanism.  There is a natural tendency amongst humans to reflexively do what is popular, because humans are social pack animals who fear being ostracized; and there is a sizable portion of the country who have, unwittingly in many cases, outsourced their critical thinking to propaganda outlets posing as news media.

 

Polls are a tool used by these propaganda outlets to back their narrative/agenda with "data" in order to manipulate that portion of the public.  These propaganda outlets told you that there was "no electoral path to a Trump presidency" and that "Brexit was an unpopular impossibility".

 

So again, no, polling data is not accurate.  It is not intended to be accurate.

[IDBillzFan]

1 hour ago, billsfan89 said:

 

Based off of polling numbers they are popular and not by slim margins either. Medicare for all has a 70% approval rating including 52% of Republicans approving. All those other policies poll well above 60%. 

 

Question: why didn't the Dems do all of this during Obama's first two years when the left controlled everything? That would be the perfect time to provide a pathway for these wildly popular items.

 

Answer: because the polls are crap because they're skewed to be a foil against the GOP when they are in control of everything.

[Tiberius]

22 hours ago, DC Tom said:

 

Ambassador Stevens would find this ironic...

You don't know that. 

 

Anyway...the midterms seem to have woken the GOP up as more Republican senators--those that see the writing on the wall for 2020---are now not afraid to vote against Trump's wishes. The midterms electorate has spoken and they heard, 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/28/us/politics/trump-saudi-arabia-yemen.html

[billsfan89]

On 11/28/2018 at 6:18 PM, LABillzFan said:

 

Question: why didn't the Dems do all of this during Obama's first two years when the left controlled everything? That would be the perfect time to provide a pathway for these wildly popular items.

 

Answer: because the polls are crap because they're skewed to be a foil against the GOP when they are in control of everything.

 

The Dems didn't push for Universal Healthcare because their donors from the Heatlhcare industry didn't want them too. The Dems are a corrupt party, they could have an insanely popular platform but they don't want to lose their donor base no more than the Republicans do. Universal Healthcare's popularity had been rising during the Bush Administration and has continued to rise since fairly consistently so its not as though all of a sudden the pollsters rigged it when Republican got control. Your narrative of polls say things I don't like so they must be rigged  against the GOP just doesn't make sense. 

On 11/28/2018 at 5:31 PM, TakeYouToTasker said:

 

Again, polling is not used to gauge opinion.  Polling is used to drive opinion.  You have a fundamental misunderstanding of what it is used for, and as such are engaging in a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, and are not even doing it very well.

 

Polls are a psy-op control mechanism.  There is a natural tendency amongst humans to reflexively do what is popular, because humans are social pack animals who fear being ostracized; and there is a sizable portion of the country who have, unwittingly in many cases, outsourced their critical thinking to propaganda outlets posing as news media.

 

Polls are a tool used by these propaganda outlets to back their narrative/agenda with "data" in order to manipulate that portion of the public.  These propaganda outlets told you that there was "no electoral path to a Trump presidency" and that "Brexit was an unpopular impossibility".

 

So again, no, polling data is not accurate.  It is not intended to be accurate.

 

So if Polls are just a psy-op control mechanism, then how do you gauge what public opinion is? I would like some metric other than wither or not you think it is. Polls predicted the 2018 election with a high degree of accruacy and most non-2016 elections pretty well (I would say the 2016 election was a Bradley effect for Trump, more of an outlier.) So their predictive power is fairly decent enough to not be ruled out from a scientific perspective. 

Edited November 30, 2018 by billsfan89

[Warren Zevon]

[KD in CA]

On 11/28/2018 at 1:32 PM, Buffalo_Gal said:

Is this one of those WSJ or NYT polls?  And how are the questions being phrased? "In a Shangri-La world where money and resources are no object, would you like A, B, C, and D!?" or was it phrased "Would you endorse A, B, C, and D if your taxes rise 50%?" 

 

"Would you support Universal Health Care that is free for all, or would you prefer to step over people dying of scurvy on the sidewalk in the morning*?"

 

 

 

 

* saying this as perhaps the only member of this forum that actually might have to step over someone dying of scurvy on my morning commute.

[Doc Brown]

On 11/28/2018 at 4:02 PM, billsfan89 said:

 

Trump isn't always the one making these places competitive, the GOP has run some of the worst candidates in these deep red states and they take what should be a layup and put it in doubt. 

 

If the Dems were a smart political party they would push the populist left agenda of Universal Healthcare, paid maternity leave, raising the minimum wage, no student cost to public universities, and legalization of marijuana. 

 

Pass all of those insanely popular ideas and make the Republicans come out against them. The Dems have a big base that they need to over serve in order to win elections (The Republicans over serve their base and it works )

 

The Dems won't get that populist left agenda passed but it would state to the public where they stand on the issues and what the Republicans stand against. 

 

But the Dems are morons, they will do a soft centrist agenda mostly focused on subpoenas. They consistently fail to understand where the momentum and enthusiasm in their party is. 

They'll do both at once.  Pushing those policies along with Trump being Trump helped Dems flip 40 House seats (most since Watergate) with insanely high turnout for a midterm.  I think Republicans did a decent job of both holding ACA repeal votes and investigating Benghazi to the point of overkill.

 

Healthcare remains the number one issue and the Dems would be smart to introduce and vote on bills that reduce the cost of prescription drugs and reinstate CSR payments to help stabilize the market and lower premiums.  Let the Republicans come out in opposition.  The more interesting fight will be between the public option and single payer.  It's a more progressive House than in 2006 where they passed the more centrist ACA so it should push the party to pass single payer legislation.

[DC Tom]

1 hour ago, KD in CA said:

* saying this as perhaps the only member of this forum that actually might have to step over someone dying of scurvy on my morning commute.

 

I think I have to, too.

 

Did watch a homeless guy die in front of me from an OD a few weeks ago.  

[Nanker]

5 hours ago, DC Tom said:

 

I think I have to, too.

 

Did watch a homeless guy die in front of me from an OD a few weeks ago.  

If only he had Medicare!

Oh well. Look at the other side. The Dems now have another sure voter for the next several decades. 

[Chef Jim]

9 hours ago, KD in CA said:

 

"Would you support Universal Health Care that is free for all, or would you prefer to step over people dying of scurvy on the sidewalk in the morning*?"

 

 

 

 

* saying this as perhaps the only member of this forum that actually might have to step over someone dying of scurvy on my morning commute.

 

Ugh. I don’t miss that at all.  

 

In our little slice of paradise on the other side of the orange curtain we point and stare at homeless people. And they are fairly well dressed usually wearing a new pair of Nikes. 

Edited November 30, 2018 by Chef Jim

[IDBillzFan]

11 hours ago, peace out said:

 

[billsfan89]

13 hours ago, Doc Brown said:

They'll do both at once.  Pushing those policies along with Trump being Trump helped Dems flip 40 House seats (most since Watergate) with insanely high turnout for a midterm.  I think Republicans did a decent job of both holding ACA repeal votes and investigating Benghazi to the point of overkill.

 

Healthcare remains the number one issue and the Dems would be smart to introduce and vote on bills that reduce the cost of prescription drugs and reinstate CSR payments to help stabilize the market and lower premiums.  Let the Republicans come out in opposition.  The more interesting fight will be between the public option and single payer.  It's a more progressive House than in 2006 where they passed the more centrist ACA so it should push the party to pass single payer legislation.

 

I hear your point that they can do both but I just don't trust the more center and corporately affiliated members to vote with the more progressive caucus. The Centrist/Corporate Dems remain too corrupted by money from the Healthcare industry and various other interests that bribe them with campaign contributions. So even if the Medicare for All bill comes to a vote the Republicans will vote against it and enough of the corporately vested Dems will too. The Dems also won't pass or even attempt to pass other aspects of the populist agenda because their corporate interests will demand they don't. 

 

The Dems are also incompetent when it comes to framing a narrative. The Republicans are masterful or coordinating a narrative and pushing it out to the public. When an event happens the Republicans craft a message and go on all media and repeat the same talking points. The Republicans also message to their base much more heavily. So even if the Dems were to push Medicare for All they won't market it properly or they will instead generally ignore it and push the Russia probe instead. 

 

I am telling you that Legislatively the Dems will not use their House Majority properly and in terms of public opinion they won't drive home the populist agenda they should be. The Dems in general are incompetent due to fear of losing their donors driving their acts more so than pursuing the policy agenda their base (Which just turned out big for them in House and Governors races.)

 

My only hope for the Dems is that the progressive caucus grows more and more within the party. Primaries in 2020 are going to be huge if the progressive/populist base of the party wants to continue to push the party more left. Right now the progressive wing of the party only makes up between 10-15% of the party seats in total. Not insignificant but they need to push 50% in order to really accomplish more than just token gestures. Its also a process that is going to take more than 1-3 election cycles to complete. The populist left has to realize that it is a 20 year process and not something that is going to happen by 2020. 

Edited November 30, 2018 by billsfan89

[Tiberius]

He should have grown a beard years ago