"For all the anger, energy, and money swirling at the grassroots level, Democrats didn’t manage to pick off the first two Republican-held congressional seats they contended for in the Trump era, and the prospects aren’t markedly better in the next few House races coming up: the Montana race at the end of May, and the South Carolina contest on June 20...."
Politico channels Democratic emotion.
I get really tired of Democratic partisan emotion. I'm someone who sometimes votes for Democrats, and I've voted for a lot more Democratic candidates than Republicans over the years, but I have nothing but a negative reaction to all this anger at losing. If they'd won, they'd be exulting and gloating, with no empathy for the other side. Republicans don't act like that. I mean, maybe some Republicans somewhere do, but mostly they're better sports about winning and losing. It makes them look more responsible and more respectful of democracy. Could the Democrats grow up and stop being so offputting... so ossoffputting?
April 19, 2017
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1 – 200 of 218 Newer› Newest»It makes them look more responsible and more respectful of democracy.
That's because they are.
When America starts to lose?
I get really tired of Democratic partisan emotion.
Wait...I thought you were in favor of feelz over reason?
This is where belief in feelz gets you...feelz are the only thing that matters.
Republicans don't act like that. I mean, maybe some Republicans somewhere do, but mostly they're better sports about winning and losing. It makes them look more responsible and more respectful of democracy.
WTF are you talking about?! Do you even bother to read the comments in your own blog?! You've got people commenting on this very blog about how awful California is for handing Hillary Clinton a decisive win (or that the results could only be the result of fraud). You listen to Rush every day and claim that Republicans "are better sports about winning and losing".
You are truly delusional.
Most of Democratic politics are based on emotion and virtue signaling. If you take that away, what is really left at the core?
The worst part of the Dems is Soros' Paid Thug Brigades who wear KKK type masks to the beatings the peaceful protesters.
"Could the Democrats grow up and stop being so offputting... so ossoffputting?"
Well, there was a time, not all that long ago, when the Dems managed to behave like adults. That's harder to pull off now that they've gone full-bore Torquemada, convinced they are in possession of the Truth on all subjects and intent on burning at the stake any who might disagree. That problem is especially acute at the universities today, the social institution so completely dominated by the lefty-Dems today.
"You are truly delusional."
Hilarious. This blog has more lefties than all other blogs I read. Lefties blogs ban anyone who disagrees.
Keep thinking that, Freder.
Trump Derangement Syndrome followed Bush Derangement Syndrome. A lot of us thought Obama was a weak candidate and president but there were no riots.
I mean, maybe some Republicans somewhere do, but mostly they're better sports about winning and losing.
That's proven every day on your blog. Leftists are such poor winners they're even poor winners after losses.
Why isn't the Democratic Party Fifty Points Ahead! (Obvious link -- apologies)
Democrats will win when they offer credible solutions.
Ann, asked and answered.
The Democrats are what they are. To expect them to be any different right now is to deny reality.
Give them a few election cycles of losses and they will ditch the extremists and come back to the American normality. Besides the Democrats can always rely on the Republicans snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory.
I think the counter example is that Romney/McCain did what they could to smooth the transition.
Clinton needed Podesta to give her concession speech election night. Republicans, in general, respect institutions more than Democrats, but lately they've been willing to fight dirtier and ignore perfectly good precedents.
Note to Democrats: The green beer you're peddlin' ain't any good.
Dems might win the race for Mayor of Omaha. Current mayor has been very good but has run a poor campaign. Hillary won Omaha. Bernie in town tomorrow for a rally.
Like, McCain took out an ad congratulating Obama on his primary victory and called him a good man, while Obama backed out of his promise to stick to public financing and made fun of McCain's physical inability to type due to his injuries received while being tortured.
So, maybe the problem is that the left keeps nominating people who don't hide their nastiness as well.
The Media coverage disparity (Ossoff vs. The Rest) was really striking. He got a bit closer than I thought he would (I predicted 46%, he got 48%) but given the level of national support and funding he received I don't doubt it's dissapointing to the Dems. Heck, up in the Dunwoody/Perimeter Mall area all the signs were Ossoff--I saw ONE Handel yardsign!
Is the opposite of being tired of not winning being tired of "so much winning?"
Last weekend there was one pro-Trump rally in Berkley. It was disrupted by violence from the Left. There were multiple anti-Trump rallies all over the U.S.. None were disrupted by violence from the Right.
Speakers on the Right are constantly prevented from speaking. When was the last time the Right prevented a Lefty from speaking?
Wait. Wasn't Althouse in favor of embracing emotion and not relying completely on rationalism?
Yes.
Seems like is a flop flop.
and not the only one.
Wait. Wasn't Althouse in favor of embracing emotion and not relying completely on rationalism? Seems like is a flop flop. So Republicans wouldn't act like the overly emotional Democrats? Really? We went through 8 years of Obama derangement syndrome when everything was all about obstructionism. How about when Trump himself pushed the lunatic idea that Obama wasn't a legitimate President because he supposedly wasn't born here. What emotion drove Trump to push this birther notion? Hate, jealousy? How about when people were buying up all the ammo out of Walmart? How about when people were stocking their garages with beans and rice? What emotion drove Rightists to go all apocolyptic when Obama became President? Hate, jealousy? Sheesh, get a grip.
"A lot of us thought Obama was a weak candidate and president but there were no riots."
And the lack of riots was used by the left as proof the only people who disapproved were fringe white supremacists. They must riot against Trump lest people get the idea he is fit to govern.
It's not the vote that counts to the left, it's the rioting or lack thereof which determines legitimacy.
"We went through 8 years of Obama derangement syndrome when everything was all about obstructionism."
-- You do know that for several years Obama had a majority in the Congress, that Obama managed to appoint multiple Supreme Court Justices and, in fact, people like McCain often argued for working with Obama? this "8 years of obstructionism" meme shows a complete misunderstanding of Obama's presidency.
Liberals are immature, the main reason to be a liberal is because you want free stuff handed to you, and to have big daddy government think for you. You think you deserve everything, including winning an election without having to work for it.
"Wait. Wasn't Althouse in favor of embracing emotion and not relying completely on rationalism?"
Quote me something I wrote that you're paraphrasing that way.
My reaction to emotion is itself emotional. I'm telling Democrats their anger and exaggerated response to elections isn't working on me. You have to reach people emotionally to win. I say things like that. To generalize that into being "in favor of embracing emotion" is really missing the point. I am being rational in recognizing the role of emotion in human thought. That's science. I'm not for just letting go and "embracing emotion." Blech.
Like, on the right you had mainstream Republicans say things like, "Let's make Obama a one-term president." On the left you have mainstream Democrats saying Trump is a Russian agent who paid to have people pee on a bed Obama slept on.
That's... that's a big difference.
The child candidate was a blank slate the Dem Propagandists introduced to voters two months earlier than the GOP candidates committed to run.
The Dem's PR campaign has Ossoff pledging that he will weed out Government waste, stop deficit spending, and support the Military.That is the old Sam Nunn persona fighting the liberals that many rural Georgians always fell for when the Dems actually were that party, pre Clinton.
So we expect some Visits by the Persuader in Chief. He is the only one who can turn around the Dem's nifty Presuasion job.
I don't get all of the emotion in any event. We don't make these Congressional districts up as "fair fights"; it's not like this was a jump ball in basketball or a faceoff in hockey.
I do like learning about all of the quirks and nuances of each individual district; and they all have discrete personalities. The Georgia 6th (and I have visited GA-6) is structured as a 9-10 point cushion for any Republican. When Tom Price was their Congressman, the 6th gave him a 23-point win in 2016. He was a good Congressman, a stern and informed critic of Obamacare, and a generally attractive candidate. As such, he pushed out any attractive/serious Democrats. Victory breeds victory.
But Mitt Romney did really well in GA-6 too. He got 60.8 percent of the district's vote in 2012. Again; an attractive candidate who was well-suited to the education level of the district.
Trump did remarkably poorly in the 6th. He vastly underperformed the incumbent Congressman Price in that same (2016) election, and consequently underperformed Romney '12.
Trump's personal involvement in the 6th also seems to have done absolutely nothing, to slow down Ossoff. Ossoff was polling in the low 40's when Trump jumped into the race with his own media presence. A few weeks later, Ossoff was in the upper 40's.
Karen Handel is a well-liked candidate among the Republican Party leadership. She should win by 10 or 12 points, with lots of national help. Notwithstanding the Democrats' moneybomb in the 6th. What is interesting is the question of it being a referendum on Trump. Normally, I don't put too much stock in Congressional elections being referenda on Presidents. But since Trump is seemingly happy to insert himself in the race, I have to think that there is something to it in this case.
It's a good Republican district; it's a mediocre Trump district.
Quote me something I wrote that you're paraphrasing that way.
Wait...are you denying that you have said that emotion is part of reason, and should be?
Are you denying that you have said that we need to get beyond the meaning of words and the intentions of the writer and instead rely on the emotions generated by the words?
Used to be said that the Democrats were the mommy party and the Republicans were the daddy party. The modern day Democrats have become the baby party.
Liberals are right to be very upset. Citizens United! With all that dark money arrayed against them, how can decent Americans get the elected officials they deserve? Why, Ossoff was probably badly outspent by his opponents! http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/can-any-amount-of-money-win-jon-ossoff-georgias-sixth-district-w477132. 8.3 million vs. 463,000!
That's right: Exhibit 1 as the very model of the modern gracious winner: Donald J. Trump. All class, all the time. :-)
Could the Democrats grow up...
They could, but then they wouldn't be Democrats anymore, would they?
"Wait. Wasn't Althouse in favor of embracing emotion and not relying completely on rationalism?"
Quote me something I wrote that you're paraphrasing that way.
"Emotion is a necessary and inextricable part of reasoning."
Trump is a Republican anomaly that I expect will be incredibly interesting historically. He's... just weird.
""Democrats begin to wonder: When do we win?""
Just spitballin' here, but, maybe, say...nominate Candidates who live and are registered to vote in the Congressional District for which they are campaigning.
Among other things, if every vote counts then Mr. Ossoff (and in his case, his girlfriend) can vote for himself.
Democrats are still Democrats, but the loony left has pretty much taken over the party structure.
Soon the rock-throwing moonbats, race baiters, illegal aliens, snowflakes, genitalia obsessives, professors, atheists, would-be dhimmis, welfare queens, socialists and circle-jerking celebs will exceed 50%. Then the Dems will have a resurgence unless we are living under Sharia Law, in which case they won't.
"Just spitballin' here, but, maybe, say...nominate Candidates who live and are registered to vote in the Congressional District for which they are campaigning."
-- Hillary Clinton pulled off carpet bagging to New York. But, her name was Clinton and New York is solidly blue. I'm surprised someone did as well as they did trying the same thing in somewhere not deep blue and not named Clinton or Kennedy or Obama.
So here's an anecdote. I'm here in Utah, where there are only a few democrats around. They have a lock on Salt Lake City though, so the Mayor of Salt Lake is typically the highest, most well known Democrat and thus the mascot, so to speak.
Given that, you would think a party would be desperate to put their best face forward with their highest candidate.
Our current mayor of Salt Lake is a lesbian who's first action on being elected was to attack the LDS church (headquartered in the city and who pumps in billions of dollars in money on projects the city doesn't have to fund) and demand that they change their doctrines. That.... didn't happen.
So now she's been forced to actually govern. And she's a complete and total incompetent. She's had to withdraw at least two appointees within days because she didn't vet them and they had minor things like jail time served for corruption; things like that. She's completely messed up the homeless shelters to the point that everyone hates her. Even our local fascist Democrats who praise Castro and Marx are saying she's a complete failure and an idiot.
But she's the best the Democrat party has, apparently. After all, they chose to run a transgendered grocery clerk for US Senate against Mike Lee last year. I think the biggest threat was Mike Lee dying of laughter, to be honest.
The Democrat party is full of lunatics anymore, and clearly they do not value competency.
--Vance
So Trump almost gave Ossoff a victory, eh Chuck? I'm laughing my ossoff. What a tool!
I am being rational in recognizing the role of emotion in human thought. That's science.
No one denies that. It is your insistence that reasoning, a process designed to eliminate the use of emotion in thinking, must include emotion that is irrational and absurd.
Freder: "WTF are you talking about?! Do you even bother to read the comments in your own blog?! You've got people commenting on this very blog about how awful California is for handing Hillary Clinton a decisive win...."
Right, Freder, comments on a blog equate with blocking streets, breaking windows, arson on campus, attacking opposition demonstrators with clubs, etc.
If speech equals action, what's next for your ilk, thought policing?
"When you can convince people you're not dead-end losers with a broken platform."
I mean, Democrats should buck up and stop whining, but Republicans as responsible and respectful of democracy? That's a real eye-roller.
--2008: Obama wins, Democrat Congressional majority, GOP immediately, publicly announces plan for total obstructionism, "make Obama Presidency a failure" is #1 stated goal.
--Obamacare: Democratically elected government puts new program in place. GOP spends 7 years throwing a tantrum about it, until they finally get power and are forced to admit they have no better, achievable idea.
--Merrick Garland: Duly elected Democratic President nominates Merrick Garland, who is not even a liberal. GOP refuses to give the man a hearing.
The idea that the GOP are "good sports" is absurd, I don't care how many Democrats you've voted for in your life.
This isn't new. Remember the Wellstone Funeral? Remember Gore v. Bush? Remember "Bush hitler"? Remember the endless crap thrown at Palin? Remember Bork, the Thomas' "high-tech lynching"? Remember Harry Reid saying Romney didn't pay any taxes, and then laughing that his lie worked? Remember the constant smears of the tea party as "racists" or the attacks on Trump supporters at his rallies?
The Liberals and Democrats are nasty pieces of work. They pride themselves on "really caring" which means they're not going to let anything like civility, truth, or tradition get in their way.
Exhibit 1 as the very model of the modern gracious winner: Donald J. Trump
You believe the media lies instead of watching the tape of Trump yourself. Trump was very gracious when he beat Cruz in Indiana and sealed his primary victory. He talked about Cruz being an incredible fighter and candidate and he asked for applause for Cruz. Twice. He also said kind things about Hillary's efforts in his victory speech. The videos should still be up on YouTube.
Possibly not what you're asking for, but this comment (or one like it) stuck in my memory.
5/2/16, 11:50 AM
Ann Althouse said...
@Qaestor Have you read "Descartes' Error"? Emotion is a necessary and inextricable part of reasoning. Your sense that it is not is itself emotional. I recommend learning about the human body, the brain, and the nervous system and coming to terms with the reality of being an organism.
link
If Russ Feingold is right, you don't win until just before the game's over.
Again, stop repeating internet memes without doing an extra layer of thinking. Each point you list is ... limited in accuracy at best.
"--2008: Obama wins, Democrat Congressional majority, GOP immediately, publicly announces plan for total obstructionism, "make Obama Presidency a failure" is #1 stated goal."
-- Yes. Republicans wanted Obama's presidency to not succeed. That's basic politics. They did not organize a resistance to illegally leak documents to the press to undermine his legitimate government. They openly declared their political aims, which frankly, no one didn't realize they already had. No one thought Democrats sat around thinking, "How can we help this Bush fellow succeed?"
"--Obamacare: Democratically elected government puts new program in place. GOP spends 7 years throwing a tantrum about it, until they finally get power and are forced to admit they have no better, achievable idea."
-- The GOP was literally locked out of the process of writing Obamacare. As in, Democrats lied to them about the room the meeting would be in, then locked the doors to the real room and wouldn't open it for them. Democrats poisoned the process and are now suffering for it.
"--Merrick Garland: Duly elected Democratic President nominates Merrick Garland, who is not even a liberal. GOP refuses to give the man a hearing."
-- A. He is a liberal. B. They were following the Biden-rule, which Biden himself enforced previously. They had no problem letting Obama appoint other liberal justices.
The difference here is that Obama and the left's agenda was objectively evil and ruinous to the country, and defeating it was national priority number one.
After all, Obama and the left openly argue that we need to destroy the country and the citizenry. They openly despised the Constitution and came out against the entire Bill of Rights. Is there any one of the first ten amendments that the left doesn't want gutted and gone?
Possibly the 3rd Amendment. Maybe. More likely, they haven't gotten around to violating that one yet.
But if you love the US Constitution and our current country, Obama and the left simply must be stopped. Obstructing them is a mark of patriotism, so it's an honorable thing.
What the left is doing to Trump is, if not treason, at least in the same room passing a joint around with sedition, treason, and rebellion.
--Vance
Its fascinating to follow Memorandum during these two special congressional elections. Before the elections we got endless stories and links like: "Polling in Important special election shows Trump is in trouble" "Special election may rock Trump's world" "Republicans worry they will lose Special election - may show Trump is finished"
After the election results. Nada. Before the voting, the most important elections ever, ever. After the Dems lost, radio silence.
The Democrats will keep losing until they move more to the center. They abandoned the blue collar white vote in favor of a coalition of minorities and various aggrieved interest groups. But the problem with that is that those groups aren't generally consistent voters, those groups will only vote when they feel inspired by a superstar candidate. They need emotionality.
The current Democrat political machine has been built around the idea of the superstar candidate. It was designed for a candidate like Barrack Obama. It only functions when you have a highly charismatic person that can be mythologized as a transformative figure. It doesn't work when you have regular old rank and file Dem pols.
"Wasn't Althouse in favor of embracing emotion and not relying completely on rationalism?"
The problem is the Democrats don't rely at all on rationalism.
I'm reading a book recommended by Michael K. right now, "Paris in the Terror." There was a aristocratic official in Caen who was, in truth, very much of a dick and pissed off the populace. When the mob finally got ahold of him, they literally tore his body to pieces and a woman ate the heart that had been ripped out of his chest. That mob was really "in favor of embracing emotion" as are the antifas who beat Trump supporters over the head and put college professors in the hospital.
Of course, people aren't coldly rational Vulcans and their emotions enter into their decisions. But letting one's heart rule one's head can lead to very dark and ugly places, as history has shown time and time again.
"Democrats begin to wonder: When do we win?"
You know what they sound like to me?
Cubs fans!
I can almost pitch this movie...
In a back room filled with cigar smoke, the Chicago machine makes a deal with the devil. Just let the Cubs win one World Series. We'll do anything, anything! Just let us win one World Series. And the devil says, "how do you feel about being out of the White House for 108 years?"
I agree that emotion is part of reasoning, so why isn't this what Democrats are doing? How did Trump win over so many angry people? By playing on their emotions. Blaming Democrats emotions and relying on their base's emotions seems hypocritical. It's emotion that keeps people engaged, keeps people interested enough to show up at the polls on election days.
You're making the same mistake we all make when we look at our opponents (and despite your protests, you are no Democrat)--we think "if they're turning me off, they're doing it wrong!" Dems aren't trying to win you or me over, they're trying to fire up their own base--and their base wants rage. If they're motivated, they have a much better shot in 2018 (despite the ground advantages of the GOP). So what they're doing isn't necessarily stupid.
Freder Frederson said...WTF are you talking about?! Do you even bother to read the comments in your own blog?! You've got people commenting on this very blog about how awful California is for handing Hillary Clinton a decisive win (or that the results could only be the result of fraud). You listen to Rush every day and claim that Republicans "are better sports about winning and losing".
You are truly delusional.
That's uncharitable, Freder. May I offer a compromise--one that allows the Professor to not be delusional but also addresses your point re: Repub. reactions to losing?
The Media.
Yes, the Media! They're Lefties, those Media folk, and they take Lefty conversations, Lefty concerns, and Lefty complaints seriously. They agree with most of them, and even when they don't they speak the same language and are largely sympathetic to the kinds of things the Left says are important. The Media takes Lefty reactions and emotional responses seriously, and makes sure those are publicized and covered extensively. When the Left complains, it's news.
When the Right complains...well, it's whining. It's sour grapes, it's sad songs from pathetic flyover rubes, it's...not important. It's not covered, or if it's covered, it's covered with derision! The complaints of privileged regressive Red-state troglodytes aren't treated as serious, aren't given any importance, and aren't treated seriously. They're not publicized as much--and that helps explain how someone like Trump can win. The Hillbilly Elegy stuff should be read as a sequel to the What's the Matter With Kansas stuff--lots and lots of people have problems and complaints that the Media just doesn't find compelling (in the way they find alleged discrimination against a lesbian couple having trouble buying flowers for their wedding, say) and so doesn't cover.
Complaints from the Right aren't publicized with the demand that they be taken seriously--that they are important and have meaning and must be addressed. People who get their info from the Media--esp. from the NYTimes!--are therefore subjected to lots of articles about Lefty whining and few articles about Righty whining, even when the actual population of whining is not distributed in that way. It's a sampling problem! The sampling problem is caused by Media bias and may in fact be unintentional, but it leads to the discrepancy you identify.
Maybe you're not exactly wrong, but maybe the Professor's not exactly delusional. What do you think?
I get really tired of Democratic partisan emotion....Could the Democrats grow up and stop being so offputting... so ossoffputting?
I think the Dems enjoy indulging their inner child, if my FB feed is any indication. The alternative would be having to own their shortcomings, which is unpleasant enough to scroll through on a daily basis.
There are alot of "normals" (people who don't post comments at Althouse or bookmark HuffPo or Instapundit) who are put off by that. People in, say, Wisconsin or Pennsylvania or Michigan or Ohio or Florida who voted in 2012 for Pres. Obama and then in 2016 for Pres. Trump. The ongoing "partisan emotion" helps them feel more comfortable with (or at least rationalize) their votes.
"How did Trump win over so many angry people?"
-- Did he? It seems to me Trump supporters weren't that angry. They didn't show up to Clinton events to shout them down. They didn't threaten enough violence that Clinton literally had to cancel campaign events to prevent people from being injured.
Are you *SURE* Trump supporters were the angry ones?
Freder said: "WTF are you talking about?! . . . "
Freder, I do not know where you live, but if you really believe there is not a difference, wear a MAGA cap and walk through nearby urban neighborhoods and see what happens. See how your progressive ilk treat you with kindness and civility. Of course you will never try this, even as an experiment, because (i) you couldn't face the cognitive dissonance, and (ii) you know there's a good chance you could get the ever loving shit beat out of you.
Brando said...they're trying to fire up their own base
That's probably a losing strategy. They already have their base. They don't need to keep winning them over, they don't have to worry about them voting against Trump.
Freder,
The point completely sailed right over your head. Ann isn't talking about anonymous comment board posters- she is talking about the party members and the essayists who support them in the media. I can't think of a single Republican writer or office holder who wrote such an article as the one Ann linked to above during the tough times between 2006 and 2010- not a single one.
However, even if we limit ourselves to the comment section here- her point still holds. Those on the right here are routinely more mature sounding and behaving than their outnumbered left-leaning combatants.
Blogger Matthew Sablan said...
"How did Trump win over so many angry people?"
Like Ashley Judd, for instance?
"That's probably a losing strategy. They already have their base."
-- But, their base is splintering and didn't show up. If a small percent more of their reliable base had come out, Clinton would be president. They honestly think anger and theatrics will inspire their base; they don't get that all this trashy carrying on is exactly the reason that some of them are gone.
There's also a lot of their base that *liked* Blue Dog Democrats that now don't have a home, and so they either vote Republican because Blue Dog Democrats clearly spoke to them on important issues to them where they don't feel they can compromise, usually abortion issues, and Republicans routinely are more willing to meet Democrats in the middle on economic policy and the like compared to Democrats moving to meet Republicans in the middle on abortion. Blue Dogs gave socially conservative, but fiscally liberal people a home in the Democrat party. Then they stamped them out, alienating part of their base.
Althouse:
But emotion is part of reasoning, and it's impossible to function in the real-world lives we live without jumping steps intuitively. When you think you already know the answer, you don't study the details so much. That makes it harder to get to people with new information or to readjust biases, but it's not depressing. It's the normal functioning of the mind, and it's exactly what one would expect. We don't rebuild our understanding from ground level every time we think about a familiar topic. We'd never get as far as we do putting ideas together if we had to stop and scrutinize and recheck every element of what we believe and what we think we know.
link
I apologize, Matthew, my comment above makes it look like you were asking why Trump won over so many angry people. You were quoting Inga.
Chuck said...It's a good Republican district; it's a mediocre Trump district.
Yes, that's a fair statement and likely an accurate characterization.
Trump's personal involvement in the 6th also seems to have done absolutely nothing, to slow down Ossoff. Ossoff was polling in the low 40's when Trump jumped into the race with his own media presence. A few weeks later, Ossoff was in the upper 40's.
See, that's silly. If I didn't like you I'd say "that's stupid." You have to ignore a hell of a lot to get to that conclusion (that Trump's "jumping in" did nothing)...so much that it's pretty clear you don't have any basis for saying it. In fact, it's a bit of a logical fallacy, isn't it, Chuck? The absence of evidence not being evidence of absence, that kind of thing?
Anyway the counterpoint would be that Ossoff did much better in early voting than he did on election day, and that Trump only "jumped in" very late in the race (well after most early voting). That would seem to argue that whatever effect Trump had it was to push the vote away from Ossoff. See, there's not a ton of evidence FOR Trump just based on that, but there's a lot more than the assertion that Trump's intervention "did nothing" based on Ossoff polling higher pre-Trump intervention than post. Anyway, let's stick to logic as much as we can, yeah?
Democrat crybaby stuff is just normal Democrat crybaby. Most people just finally see it in the press.
And it's one reason I won't EVER vote Democrat. Republican or Libertarian, yes. Democrat no. They have just sullied their reputation for so many years I'm just turned total off.
Matthew Sablan said...
...
...
-- Yes. Republicans wanted Obama's presidency to not succeed.
You are being too conciliatory on behalf of Republicans, Matthew.
The only person who notably "want[ed] Barack Obama to fail [as president]" from the outset was Rush Limbaugh. Rush says stuff like that for effect (it's not an effect designed to win elections; it is designed to win audience numbers), and in that case Rush did some explaining as to what it was he meant by the line.
It was Mitch McConnell who said that Republicans' goal was to make Obama a one-term president. And McConnell didn't say that when Obama was inaugurated in 2009; he said it as the 2010 midterm elections approached. McConnell had an electoral aim to his comment. Obamacare had already been signed into law. I thought McConnell's comment was spot-on when he made it, and I have fought the miscommunications and misinterpretations of that comment ever since.
So there you go; yet another one of my pro-lefty/Hillary/Dem comments. ;-)
Althouse trolling her liberal readers. The good news is that there are finally enough of them to make it sort of worth the effort. If only there were more moderates like me. One day I would like to be a member of a troll-worthy group.
Matthew Sablan said...
-- But, their base is splintering and didn't show up. If a small percent more of their reliable base had come out, Clinton would be president.
That's probably true, but my point was that if "firing up their base" didn't work before, why would it work in the future? I'm not convinced that the current Dem party policy of pure rage and obstructionism will get anymore of their base out, in fact it seems far more likely to turn off more main stream voters
Honestly, if the left wants to start winning more elections, there's several things they could do, along with they general idea of just moving more to the center.
- Lay off the identity politics for a while.
- Stop insulting potential voters by endlessly accusing them of racism, sexism, bigotry, homophobia, and xenophobia.
- Try to not rely so heavily on Hollywood celebrities for messaging. It seems disingenuous and manufactured.
In short, make an effort to appear more reasonable and less emotional.
But emotion is part of reasoning, and it's impossible to function in the real-world lives we live without jumping steps intuitively. When you think you already know the answer, you don't study the details so much. That makes it harder to get to people with new information or to readjust biases, but it's not depressing. It's the normal functioning of the mind, and it's exactly what one would expect. We don't rebuild our understanding from ground level every time we think about a familiar topic. We'd never get as far as we do putting ideas together if we had to stop and scrutinize and recheck every element of what we believe and what we think we know.
Which is why building these elaborate intellection models that clash with the real world when applied is a fool's errand. See everything from gender theory to Obamacare to climate prediction.
Of course the reasonable inference to be drawn from Unknown's statement is that we should be extremely careful about changing things that actually work at all. Her whole comment is an argument for conservatism, summarized neatly as "better than nothing is a high standard."
WTF is it with Safari's autocorrect? "Intellection"? Who knew it was a word?
Inga and OGWiseman are upset that Republicans actually dared to oppose Obama.
Obama had a Congressional majority the first two years. They chose to do healthcare, a long term Democrat goal but not the problem that was hurting the country at the time. The "Stimulus" rewarded long term Democrat clients. No "burly men" were wanted.
Obama nominated a leftist judge to replace a conservative justice who died in an election year.
Big Surprise ! The GOP did not want to confirm him.
Sorry, kids. Santa Claus left coal in your stocking.
Harry Reid ended the filibuster to pack the DC Circuit with lefties.
What goes around comes around.
"That's probably a losing strategy. They already have their base. They don't need to keep winning them over, they don't have to worry about them voting against Trump."
But they need to keep them motivated and showing up. In midterms expecially when turnout drops, Dems need their base active and moving. Whether that's enough in most races is debatable, but it's essential for them to bring them out.
GOP has the same dynamic, except GOP voters tend to show up more in off-year elections and have some geographic advantages with a lot of districts anyway.
"If only there were more moderates like me."
I'm sticking to my resolution. No matter the temptation.
I'm not angry. (Not with O'reilly not coming back from the Vatican.)
Democratically elected government puts new program in place.
After completely perverting the rules of the Senate, even the Constitution, by cutting and pasting a Senate bill into a House bill and passing it through reconciliation after losing a critical election in fucking MASSACHUSETTS.
One day I would like to be a member of a troll-worthy group.
You're troll-worthy all by yourself -- don't ever change! (I mean that).
HoodlumDoodlum said...
...
See, that's silly. If I didn't like you I'd say "that's stupid." You have to ignore a hell of a lot to get to that conclusion (that Trump's "jumping in" did nothing)...so much that it's pretty clear you don't have any basis for saying it. In fact, it's a bit of a logical fallacy, isn't it, Chuck? The absence of evidence not being evidence of absence, that kind of thing?
Anyway the counterpoint would be that Ossoff did much better in early voting than he did on election day, and that Trump only "jumped in" very late in the race (well after most early voting). That would seem to argue that whatever effect Trump had it was to push the vote away from Ossoff. See, there's not a ton of evidence FOR Trump just based on that, but there's a lot more than the assertion that Trump's intervention "did nothing" based on Ossoff polling higher pre-Trump intervention than post. Anyway, let's stick to logic as much as we can, yeah?
Hey, you have made some good points. And as always, I meet respect with responsive respect.
Let's review one of your good points, and expand on it.
~Early voting. Great point! The New York Times made much the same point, here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/18/upshot/georgia-election-expect-the-early-vote-count-to-be-misleading.html?_r=0
Moreover, let's remember how early voting works, even when it isn't a special election with a jungle primary. It's disproportionately blacks, from the Fulton County part of the district, getting bussed from their churches to early voting stations.
So, yeah; the early vote was conducted without regard to Trump, but the early vote was always a hugely Democratic vote.
There are some other points that might explain the Ossoff performance too:
~Trump didn't endorse a single GOP candidate. So yeah, since Trump was only going negative on Ossoff, that might not be the best test of his influence.
~The Dems spent a huge amount, especially at the end. Also true.
~Special election polling and single-district polling is fraught with more than the usual polling difficulties. Self-explanatory.
But these are all reasons why I didn't suggest that Trump was supposed to move big numbers toward Republicans. I made a much more careful and cautious statement; that "Trump seems to have done absolutely nothing to slow down Ossoff." I thought it was inarguable; Trump got involved in the race; and the best evidence available "seems" (my word; "seems") to be that Ossoff was hovering around 40-42%, before Trump's public involvement, and Ossoff ended up with about 48.1% on election day, after a couple of weeks of Trump involvement. I still think my statement was perfectly defensible.
So there; an interesting interchange. Thanks for your post.
""Democrats begin to wonder: When do we win?""
Maybe when they stop acting like Democrats.
I'm puzzled here. What's wrong with the Republicans saying they wanted to make Obama a one term president? Isn't that, you know, the point? The party out of power is trying to remedy that, and make the other guy a one term guy.
Unless the left is saying they put up Mondale and Kerry as token sacrificial lambs without any hope or desire to beat Reagan and Bush II?
Somehow, I doubt that the left will happily let Trump get a second term, you know?
--Vance
Michael K said... [hush][hide comment]
"If only there were more moderates like me."
Leftists who believe they are moderates are the problem - for the left anyway. As a voting bloc there are no left leaning moderates. Althouse is one but the left accurately perceives she's not one of them. Since they believe they are moderates they believe she's a conservative.
It works fine for me though, these delusions keep them out of office.
Good comment, chuck.
Good points.
"Missed it by THAT much." - Maxwell Smart
"Democrats run photogenic, young, privileged, white male against Republican woman. Finance him with $8 million of dark money. Support him with fly-ins by Hollywood celebrities. Lose. Claim moral victory. Blame the RNC for interfering in a local race." - Me
My worry is MT. Will be back up there in time for the special election. While giving Trump a handy win, the popular Dem gov was reelected, and said gov is pushing the Dem candidate hard. The GOP candidate is the guy who just lost the race for gov, partly because he is a newby to the state (at least he lives in the district). The Dem candidate started out strong, but the GOP guy may be catching up. Normally, the Dem would be too inexperienced to win, but like the other special elections this spring, a lot of Dem money Is flowing into the state. Maybe a month to go. We shall see.
Dems might win the race for Mayor of Omaha.
Well then it's obviously a national referendum on Trump.
"It was Mitch McConnell who said that Republicans' goal was to make Obama a one-term president. And McConnell didn't say that when Obama was inaugurated in 2009; he said it as the 2010 midterm elections approached. McConnell had an electoral aim to his comment. Obamacare had already been signed into law. I thought McConnell's comment was spot-on when he made it, and I have fought the miscommunications and misinterpretations of that comment ever since."
I think some of the context was left out of McConnell's statement. He had said his goal was to get Obama to take the correct policy path, and that failing that he wanted to make him a one term president. That's normal, and it's what an opposition leader should always want. His critics just took the last part of that, and made it out like McConnell would never be able to act in good faith with Obama, even if Obama tried to compromise with him.
"Could the Democrats grow up and stop being so off-putting." No. Reason: there's no need to "grow up," since everyone knows they are right, and the political science on that is settled, and there's no need to be "off-putting," since only a dying breed of nice midwestern moderates is actually put off.
Ossoff being from outside the district which seat he seeks could be a problem if the Dems need his and his girlfriends' votes in the General.
The Democratic Party is relying very much on a national level, to turn out their voters and rase money, on their alleged moral superiority, and they want people to think they're not just a little bit morally superior, but vastly, and the Republicans are basically disqualifieds from consideration.
That way nobody has to look at any details.
@Dr K - after Chuck's inevitable Never Trump rants, he does something like that post that goes a long way to redeeming him in my eyes. Indeed, as long as Trump isn't directly involved, I can actually believe that he is the thoughtful lifetime Republican that he claims to be. More and more, every day, as we get further from the last election.
"The base" of both parties are out there in fly-over country and are not "filled with anger," but are rather thoroughly disgusted with both parties.
The extreme fringes of the parties make more colorful copy for the media, but they are not "the base."
"as long as Trump isn't directly involved, I can actually believe that he is the thoughtful lifetime Republican that he claims to be."
I agree.
And, besides my resolution.
The ball is now in Ryan's court, or maybe Rand Paul's.
There is only so much Trump can do. He needs to get his administration staffed.
I think the Democrats actions in 2001 may have partly blinded the Bush people before 9/11.
Nobody seems to talk about that.
Trump is not a "Republican." That is one large reason he won the votes of "the base."
My hypothesis is that people arrive at their connection to HillEY through an emotional path, and then they address the question But is she qualified? Since they already want to vote for her, it affects their understanding of what it means to be "qualified" and it biases them toward saying she is qualified based on being handed every accomplishment she touts on the basis of being the wife of a powerful man.
Fixed it for you!
Althouse:
My hypothesis is that people arrive at their connection to Trump through an emotional path, and then they address the question But is he qualified? Since they already want to vote for him, it affects their understanding of what it means to be "qualified" and it biases them toward saying he is.
link
Not to mention that Hillary fucked up every position she was given, using her Senate seat to vote for the Iraq War, Hillarycare was a disaster. As Secretary of State she was a ham handed war-monger and apparently, a favorite of the CIA, who appreciated her support in getting them the toys they needed to wreak havoc in Syria, for example.
But people "wanted to vote for her" so none of it mattered. It is too rich to hear that it was the Trump voters ignoring the facts in this past election. An honest reading of the comments here would find half of the commenters here at least voted for Trump in sorrow over being presented with such a choice.
If only there were more moderates like me.
I can't find a link, but Dan Rather once described the New York Times as "middle of the road". It may be that ARM isn't intentionally lying when he describes himself as moderate (although I have yet to see him embrace any position that doesn't align with the Democratic Party) - he simply doesn't have an accurate view of the American political spectrum.
Oh yeah, and parking her cronies in the Clinton Foundation, destroying records of her meetings as Secretary of State with major donors to that fund, destruction of emails that recorded these interactions. Only an emotional fool would have taken those facts into account.
Unknown, do better next time. You sold your soul for that corrupt pair. The rapist and the warmonger.
" Could the Democrats grow up and stop being so offputting... so ossoffputting? "
The rage continues. My benchmark is neighbor Bonnie. A sweet woman with gentle, generous nature. Her social media rages, constantly, at Trump. No lefty talking point is too extreme to not be gospel. The Impeachment is LONG over due and inevitable. All those that don't HATE Trump are idiot, delusional or Nazis.......
Offputting would be a welcome change.
@Brando My brother is a lifelong pro-union Democrat who is currently working on a job near Trump tower.He is not ready to pull the lever for Republicans yet, but having to fight through the protesters daily is only motivating him to question what he has in common with pussyhat wearing loons.
Inga said...Althouse:
My hypothesis is that people arrive at their connection to Trump through an emotional path,
Inga's hypothesis is that Scott Adams is correct--people react emotionally first then rationalize backwards from there.
I didn't realize you were an Adams-ite, Inga.
"The Impeachment is LONG over due and inevitable. "
My intelligent daughter is convinced he'll be impeached. I haven't the heart to ask her how that will happen.
I find Inga's point about Trump's qualifications interesting, in view of yesterday's thread on the Crooked Hillary campaign exposé. Imagine an Administration run through surrogates, esp Huma Weiner (whose family is tied closely to the Muslim Brotherhood), with little direct interaction with her other top aides, and esp her cabinet. Where bad news is guaranteed to get the bringer of such excoriated, publicly demeaned, and likely fired. Where POTUS is probably drunk much of the time, and likely experiencing other debilitating illnesses (such as, possibly, Parkinson's), and is capable of working only sporadically as a result. A President famous for her towering, vengeful, often violent, rages. A woman with such bad international judgment that 1 (Lydia) of her Arab Spring countries is now a failed state and terrorist hotspot, a 2nd (Egypt) threw out her handpicked regime (closely allied with Huma's family) w/I a year, and the 3rd (Syria) just used chemical weapons on its own people, as well as being the primary source of the immigration problem currently destroying Europe. The same woman who took Russian money, then let them buy control of 1/5 of our uranium. I would enjoy hearing more about why Trump was the lesser qualified of the two candidates running last Nov.
"@Brando My brother is a lifelong pro-union Democrat who is currently working on a job near Trump tower.He is not ready to pull the lever for Republicans yet, but having to fight through the protesters daily is only motivating him to question what he has in common with pussyhat wearing loons."
Dems may have decided that turning off voters like that in order to energize their base (which is now less the union Dems and more the "cosmopolitan" base) is the trade that they want. I'm guessing your brother is more likely to become a GOP voter anyway, as the working class is drifting in that direction.
I recall during the Tea Party era my own reaction was "they really shouldn't be turning off the party's moderates" but then I was undervaluing the benefit of getting the base fired up. After all, moderates tend to not vote in midterms or downballot races, and tend to be turned off by both parties. An ideal strategy would be to get both, but an unmotivated base seems to be the kiss of death.
At least, that's what the parties have both calculated since the Bush era.
"My intelligent daughter is convinced he'll be impeached. I haven't the heart to ask her how that will happen."
Only way I see that happening is if the bottom drops out of his support among the GOP (and among the GOP when I last checked he was in the 80s). Really doesn't matter what he does or does not do, that's the only figure that matters.
Michael K: "I think the Democrats actions in 2001 may have partly blinded the Bush people before 9/11.
Nobody seems to talk about that."
Word. Nobody has written that book. Maybe it can't be written --because the thesis is loopy, or because there were not good enough records of what had been dismantled or destroyed in the intellectual infrastructure as one Administration picks up from its predecessor.
I would think that, as the Republic grows more complicated, that intellectual infrastructure becomes bigger and more difficult to "teach/learn" by one group of fallible humans to the next. Especially when the "teachers" are being told to, or at least not discouraged from, screw up the process.
Particularly when the problem was not, "Here's an issue, sorry it's on fire, good luck" but "...." People handing off to the Bush Administration either did not even know about the OBL and Al Qaeda threat, or they had not understood it, and thus could not convey any urgency to their successors.
9/11 was as much a failure of our system, as it was an affirmative success by the enemy. See also: Pearl Harbor, any number of other fiascos.
"My hypothesis is that people arrive at their connection to Trump through an emotional path, and then they address the question But is he qualified? Since they already want to vote for him, it affects their understanding of what it means to be "qualified" and it biases them toward saying he is."
I didn't want to vote for him. Your party left me no choice. Emotion had nothing to do with it.
"9/11 was as much a failure of our system, as it was an affirmative success by the enemy."
Did you ever watch the ABC program, "The Path to 9/11?"
It was so well done that I am not surprised Disney sat on it all these years.
At one point, after a terror attack (I forget which one, Maybe Africa) a CIA guy says "Who could have done this ?" The other (Harvey Kietel as I recall,) says, "Who do you think ? The fucking Martians ?"
Blogger tim in vermont said..."Oh yeah, and parking her cronies in the Clinton Foundation, destroying records of her meetings as Secretary of State with major donors to that fund, destruction of emails that recorded these interactions. Only an emotional fool would have taken those facts into account."
Yeah, talk about the ability to rationalize.
"My hypothesis is that people arrive at their connection to HillEY through an emotional path, and then they address the question But is she qualified? Since they already want to vote for her, it affects their understanding of what it means to be "qualified" and it biases them toward saying she is qualified based on being handed every accomplishment she touts on the basis of being the wife of a powerful man."
"Fixed it for you!"
Tim, you fixed Althouse's comment, that wasn't my comment. I quoted her. You still want to "fix" her comment?
The Path to 9/11 miniseries is now available !
The election is really over. Disney kept it suppressed as long as Hillary was a viable candidate.
"Democrats will win when they offer credible solutions."
Yes, and they must first come to the realization that their present course is a cruise to the icebergs of continuing losses.
They must stop being Republicans Lite--lickspittles to the wealthy and deranged--and start offering solutions for the people of the United States.
9/11 was as much a failure of our system, as it was an affirmative success by the enemy. See also: Pearl Harbor, any number of other fiascos.
Specifically when talking about any system involving lots of humans, generally the larger and more complex a system becomes, the more points of failure there will be, and the more inefficient and prone to failure it will become.
Look at our intelligence community for example. By all accounts the various US agencies (FBI, CIA, NSA, ect.) gather insane volumes of data on all potential threats foreign and domestic, and are generally the most advanced technologically relative to any other Nation State. This vast effort should make us feel more secure. All this should make us feel confident that practically nothing gets by them.
In reality we know that these various agencies are all staffed by humans who have all the petty failings of human beings. Failings like jealousy, greed, incompetence, and petty inter and intra agency rivalries protecting their little fiefdoms.
I see you're quoting but not necessarily endorsing, Inga--sorry if I misinterpreted.
Inga said..I agree that emotion is part of reasoning, so why isn't this what Democrats are doing? How did Trump win over so many angry people? By playing on their emotions. Blaming Democrats emotions and relying on their base's emotions seems hypocritical. It's emotion that keeps people engaged, keeps people interested enough to show up at the polls on election days.
Sure, but if I said "how did Obama win over so many emotionally-unsophisticated people? By playing on their emotion--their unreasoning idealism, etc" then I'm a bad guy.
Anyway I'd bet the people of WI can tell you a thing or two about angry non-Republicans! It'd be hypocritical to call anger on one side of the partisan divide ugly, scary, and dark while calling anger on the other side righteous, noble, and patriotic. Good thing no one here is hypocritical in that way.
AReasonableMan said...
If only there were more moderates like me.
The nature of bias is that the purveyor of bias cannot recognize their bias.
"Everyone is extreme but me!"
-Every moderate everywhere.
If they'd won, they'd be exulting and gloating, with no empathy for the other side. Republicans don't act like that. I mean, maybe some Republicans somewhere do, but mostly they're better sports about winning and losing. It makes them look more responsible and more respectful of democracy. Could the Democrats grow up and stop being so offputting... so ossoffputting?
Who are we talking about here? Some people in Georgia or some D party person or somebody on cable or some rando on the internet?
Or is this a generalization of half the country? if so that's a lotta people.
The rage continues. My benchmark is neighbor Bonnie. A sweet woman with gentle, generous nature. Her social media rages, constantly, at Trump. No lefty talking point is too extreme to not be gospel. The Impeachment is LONG over due and inevitable. All those that don't HATE Trump are idiot, delusional or Nazis.......
I have some old friends who I keep in touch with on FB. Nice, upstanding folks who just lose control when the topic is Trump. Yesterday they publicly went back and forth fantasizing about shooting down AF1 with a sidewinder. This after spending 8 years of being horrified by even the slightest negative comment concerning Obama. The cognitive dissonance is stunning.
"-lickspittles to the wealthy and deranged"
In fact they are mainly the party of the government and the commanding heights of the economy, as well as many powerful institutions like the entire educational system. The prevailing culture of the places where they incubate the next generation of leaders tells the whole story. The ideological climate of Harvard and Yale tells you all you need to know.
They ARE the wealthy. Whether those of them that actually matter (Tom Steyer say, Yale alumnus) are deranged or not is not clear. I doubt it. But they are busy pushing derangement on their own side.
"My intelligent daughter is convinced he'll be impeached. I haven't the heart to ask her how that will happen."
Yes Michael K, your daughter is indeed intelligent. Why not go ahead and ask her, maybe she'll give you a very enlightening answer.
Democrats have been undone by their own "entitlement" political philosophy. Anger comes from expectations which have not been realized. "How many losses before they realize they are not entitled to power?" is my question.
"If only there were more moderates like me."
Says the Truther.
hombre said...
"If speech equals action, what's next for your ilk, thought policing?
We are already there.
Michael K: thanks for the heads-up on "The Path to 9/11." Ordered.
Nonapod: yes, complex systems can end up being that much more vulnerable. I guess there is some law, like Moore's Law, that suggests (if not dictates) how failure scales with the number of nodes or other structural elements in a system. When you talk about the insane volumes of data our security services collect, I think first about "false positives." When you look at enough crap, some of it is going to look important. Even when it isn't.
Your error-testing systems need to evolve. You can't run after every potential bogey, and shoot it out of the sky, and examine the wreckage, and declare, "Ooops. That was a waste of our time. Record it as such." It is impossibly wasteful and, as a political matter, suicidal for whomever is in charge. You want to record valid kills, 100% of the time.
This stuff truly is complicated. What burns me most about 9/11 --apart from the cold-blooded evil of the attack-- is the DELIBERATE destruction of our defenses, thanks to the Gorelick "firewall" memo. What on EARTH could possess anyone to conceive of such a position, let alone endorse it? And for her to walk away, and end up scoring 8-figure bonuses working at Fannie Mae as a "banker"? **seethe**
I live in that contested district in Georgia, and a more unappealing bunch of lackluster Republicans I've never seen. Ossoff, a repellent, Clintonian liberal yuppie ("liberal yuppie"--is there a more repellent hybrid this side of the island of Doctor Moreau?), would have been easily picked off by Cruz, or even Trump; instead you got a bunch of mediocrities all squabbling against each other.
"Why not go ahead and ask her, maybe she'll give you a very enlightening answer."
I want to keep thinking she is very intelligent. There is no there there.
"Sure, but if I said "how did Obama win over so many emotionally-unsophisticated people? By playing on their emotion--their unreasoning idealism, etc" then I'm a bad guy."
Remember the "Obama is gonna pay my rent" lady? Or the other one who voted for him because she got a free cell phone? Yeah, no emotion involved in those decisions.
A huge percentage of Democrats vote D because they want free shit from the government. That's all that's about. That includes middle class college students who think someone else should pay for their education - excuse me, their indoctrination.
"Anyway I'd bet the people of WI can tell you a thing or two about angry non-Republicans!"
Oh, yes indeed.
"Why not go ahead and ask her, maybe she'll give you a very enlightening answer."
"I want to keep thinking she is very intelligent. There is no there there."
---------
Michael K, maybe she's "smarter" than you, ever consider that? You don't know that there is no there there. The investigations are ongoing.
"Michael K, maybe she's "smarter" than you, ever consider that?"
Inga, did you ever consider that Michael K. is smarter than you?
FTR some inside baseball on Metro Atlanta. This 6th District was carefully drawn by the Dems still running the Georgia House following an added Representative due to the 1990 Census. It used to be south and west of Atlanta where a West Georgia College Professor won it on his third try.
But to rid the Dems of that thorn in the US House of Representatives, the 6th was moved north of Atlanta, and half of its old voters reassigned to a new District going south to Columbus and the other half in the new District.
The strategy was based on regional jealousies. The north of Atlanta people are the better educated suburbs mostly in Cobb County. Cobb County lying north of the Chattahoochee has always seen itself as the Never Atlantans with a 100 year old hatred for the race mixing and Jew loving semi-Yankee transplant City of Atlanta.
Gingrich was supposed to lose, because his had been the old rural District lying south of even Atlanta. It had been in in the LaGrange Warm Springs area which was very rural.
But the talkative Emory History Graduate originally, from Pennsylvania, fooled them and won anyway by a slim margin.
Today's 6th is still upper middle class but much of its culture is semi international. Ossoff may win it on his personality. Karen Handle doesn't have one.
Exiled, I think Michael K's daughter might be smarter than he is. I didn't compare myself to Michael K. I see you're once again looking for trouble. I suggest heeding Althouse's admonition from a couple of weeks ago. How quickly you forget.
"You don't know that there is no there there. The investigations are ongoing."
Hope springs eternal.
Yes, and they must first come to the realization that their present course is a cruise to the icebergs of continuing losses.
They must stop being Republicans Lite--lickspittles to the wealthy and deranged--and start offering solutions for the people of the United States.
Robert, you and I are not that far apart in some ways. I am a fan of Angelo Codevilla and have even met him. I agree with him that we have a ruling party and a country party. Trump was wise enough or lucky enough to latch onto the country party agenda and win the election.
Now, the question is whether the ruling party segment of the GOP, like Ryan will choose self preservation over the donor class.
The Democrats have abandoned their traditional voters and have only identity supporters like blacks.
The blacks might be open to logic on immigration. Not the BLM idiots but there is a segment of black voters who go to church and who want good schools.
Trump's severe weakness is that he has no party behind him. Perot would have had the same problem.
There are some Republicans, like Sessions and Gingrich, who are willing to see that the donor class want only self enrichment.
It's a little worrying to see the Goldman Sachs types but you may have to set a thief to catch a thief.
I think your politics are unworkable but I do agree with you a lot on how bad the situation is at present.
I was simply making an observation, Inga.
And I suggest you heed Althouse as well. I don't believe the last one was aimed at me, although you firmly believe you are the innocent wronged party at all times.
Which is why you vote Dem.
And I have no idea if Michael K's daughter is smarter than he is or not.
If she is a Democrat and he is a conservative that certainly means he is wiser.
"Hope springs eternal".
Yep, I'm being an emotional Democrat, but as Althouse has said, "emotion is part of reasoning".
It would be good to see actual reasoning.
Inga, I agree she is smarter in some ways., Not math but she speaks four languages.
She is, like her arty friends and her neighbors in Santa Monica, ignorant about economics. (although she told me a couple of years ago that, rather than being poor all her life as she had previously vowed, she would like the make some money now.)
She is a very pretty, charming girl but I doubt she has any idea of how you impeach a president.
She also refused to read Steven Pinker's "The Blank Slate" and is a determined fan of Stephen Jay Gould.
That alone would make anyone suspect to me.
Michael K,
She sounds like a smart cookie to me.
"You don't know that there is no there there. The investigations are ongoing."
For future reference, if the investigations determine nothing happened, will you actually accept that? Or will it merely represent proof of a coverup? How far can we expect today's goalposts to move?
"For future reference, if the investigations determine nothing happened, will you actually accept that? Or will it merely represent proof of a coverup? How far can we expect today's goalposts to move?"
Oh, it's beginning to look like the end result of the investigation that the Democrats started will be even better than "nothing".
"I get really tired of Democratic partisan emotion."
Causation is often misidentified.
Getting to the real problem: increasing the time allotted for nap time should help w/ that.
You're welcome.
The quotes of mine you've come up with don't make the point you are trying to make. They are about how the nervous system is part of the brain and always inherently part of human thought. That matters if you are trying to influence or persuade a human being like me. I am telling you in this post how I am affected by the presentation of rage and sore-loserdom. I feel aversion. What argument is being made to me that might persuade me? It's a terrible presentation.
It's another matter how the people expressing anger actually feel themselves and what their thought processes have been. I don't know what the connection is between their internal mental life and the expression they put out there in the world in an effort to influence me and others. It might be perfectly honest or utter lying or somewhere in between. But since they are political communicators, my default view of them is: propagandists.
Is the expression of anger effective propaganda? I am saying no. It is not effective on me.
But as far as their internal thoughts and beliefs, of course these have a necessary emotional component. My post does not address that.
Considering where all these special elections are taking place, the Dems really shouldn't be so depressed about losing close races.
It would be an absolute shock if Dems won a seat formerly held by a Price or a Mulvaney.
Montana and Kansas not exactly Dem strongholds either. Build on the fact that you are making impossible races a lot closer than they ought to be, and don't get all bent out of shape, Dems.
Althouse has said, "emotion is part of reasoning".
Gaining weight is a part of dieting.
Ignorance is a part of learning.
When do the Democrats start winning? How about when they stop putting the interests of their party above the interests of the American people? Just a thought.
"For future reference, if the investigations determine nothing happened, will you actually accept that?"
-- A fair question to anyone still fighting for Florida for Gore.
They are about how the nervous system is part of the brain and always inherently part of human thought.
Yes..but reason and thought are not the same thing, and reason is the process of removing emotion from your thinking. To say that emotion should be part of reason is frankly ridiculous.
"reason is the process of removing emotion from your thinking. "
Exactly. Nobody can do it completely. But it's something you should try to do, not wallow in your feelings and take them for accurate representations of what the world is and how it operates.
That's what adolescents do.
Maybe Democrats need to not care what Trumpists think about the Dems emotional reaction to Trump winning the Presidency. Maybe we should continue doing what we're doing and not be swayed by the discomfort our emotionalism gives to people like Althouse and conservatives who may be turned off by it. Maybe we should say "Who cares if you don't like it, or if turns you off."
I'd encourage Dems and liberals to "keep hope alive". Don't give up and don't give in.
"Maybe we should continue doing what we're doing"
Because that has been working so well for you.
On second thought, keep right on doing what you're doing! You're right! Don't listen to us! Pay no attention to the GOP gains at all levels from local to state to federal.
Hey, if it feels good, that's all that's important!
A really interesting phenomenon is Tom Perez and Bernie Sanders traveling together to resurrect the Democratic party. As far as I can tell from their comments they are making an effort to push the party even further to the left. I can't see that will help in any way. Looking at the red/blue precinct map of the presidential election would have me, if I were a Democrat, asking: how can we develop policies that will make inroads in those red districts? The solution the DNC has come up with seems the polar opposite of the answer to that question. They appear to think that the Democratic party was not liberal enough in this last cycle and by becoming more liberal they can turn those red districts blue. That these evil twins are campaigning on being even more liberal is okay with me, but it make me wonder who, in the Democratic party, is going to play the adult and drag the party back to a position where it might appeal to the red districts. A continuation of special interest politics won't do it and I don't see Trump making any really big mistakes (sorry, Inga). He may not get everything done that he campaigned on, but I don't see him creating something like the ACA that so knee-capped he D party.
Freder Frederson said... [hush][hide comment]
Republicans don't act like that. I mean, maybe some Republicans somewhere do, but mostly they're better sports about winning and losing. It makes them look more responsible and more respectful of democracy.
WTF are you talking about?! Do you even bother to read the comments in your own blog?! You've got people commenting on this very blog about how awful California is for handing Hillary Clinton a decisive win (or that the results could only be the result of fraud). You listen to Rush every day and claim that Republicans "are better sports about winning and losing".
You are truly delusional.
4/19/17, 11:05 AM
LOL!
So, conservatives use their words when they win and when they lose.
Liberals use their words when they win but they use Judges and lawsuits, sticks and stones, clubs and Molotov cocktails when they lose.
Who is more respectful of Democracy?
"reason is the process of removing emotion from your thinking."
I log on only to find the Althouse blog has traveled back in time to 1895.
I think our hostess has been very consistent in her views about how she reacts to politics. In that regard, she has been somewhat like the coal mine canary. When she rolls over, toes and beak up, it's a pretty good indication that it's time to run like hell.
Since I'm not a girl, I may not agree with her reaction on occasion, but it's a warning that should generally be taken seriously. It's a stark example of cruel neutrality.
- Krumhorn
I'd encourage Dems and liberals to "keep hope alive". Don't give up and don't give in.
The rest of us would be happy if you would just stop starting riots.
The Women's March had no violence or riots, 3 Million strong.
Build on the fact that you are making impossible races a lot closer than they ought to be, and don't get all bent out of shape, Dems.
Reasonable comment but not the tone of recent Democrat comments.
Maybe we should continue doing what we're doing and not be swayed by the discomfort our emotionalism gives to people like Althouse and conservatives who may be turned off by it. Maybe we should say "Who cares if you don't like it, or if turns you off."
That is the present tone and it is fine with me. The big problem that I see for Democrats is that they are increasingly limited to urban centers for voters and a couple of blue states, like California, where the middle class is fleeing. That's why they are mad at the electoral college.
But Inga is not interested in my advice. I used to try to engage with leftist blogs, like Washington Monthly when Kevin Drum was there. I got a lot of nasty and personal abuse that sounded like Ritmo but it was at a time when I was trying to see if there was any common ground on health care, for example.
First, they began to delete my comments but let the abuse ones stay, which made no sense as they referred to comments that had disappeared. Then I was blocked.
"The Women's March had no violence or riots, 3 Million strong."
Do you even understand what you just said ?
Leftist demonstrations are not attacked. Do you not see why ?
You're making the same mistake we all make when we look at our opponents (and despite your protests, you are no Democrat)--we think "if they're turning me off, they're doing it wrong!" Dems aren't trying to win you or me over, they're trying to fire up their own base--and their base wants rage. If they're motivated, they have a much better shot in 2018 (despite the ground advantages of the GOP). So what they're doing isn't necessarily stupid.
The Democratic base is at best around 30% of the voting public, just like that of the Republicans. It's perfectly reasonable to fire up your base, but you can't do it if it costs you votes in the mushy middle. Sending out "they're trying to take your healthcare!" emails is SOP and not something people in the middle will care about.
But the pussy hats, and the riots, and the penchant for taking snide shots at Trump in conversations that had nothing to do with politics? Counterproductive. Particularly the latter.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-probably-wont-defy-midterm-gravity/
Here’s the other thing we know and which cases like the Georgia special election on Tuesday — and the one in Kansas last week — serve to demonstrate: Trump can’t defy gravity. These were bad results for Republicans. They’re consistent with what you’d expect from a public that would like to elect some Democrats to counterbalance an unpopular president and the Republicans’ hold on both branches of Congress.
You can debate exactly how bad these elections were for Republicans, of course. Each special election is subject to its own circumstances. But the narrative that “Democrats don’t have any wins yet” is dumb. Kansas’s 4th Congressional District, where Democrat James Thompson lost to Republican Ron Estes by just under 7 percentage points, is as red as Alabama. A Democrat coming close there is the sort of thing you’d see only in a really bad or perhaps even catastrophic midterm for the GOP.
What we do have, however, is an increasing amount of evidence that Trump is facing real and sustained resistance from the public. This evidence comes not only from the special election results so far, but also from his poor approval ratings, his difficulty in passing key pieces of legislation such as health care reform, and from Republicans’ problems in recruiting top-tier candidates for next year’s races.
And none of it should really be surprising. Trump was elected only narrowly — losing the popular vote to Clinton — and he hasn’t made much effort to reach out beyond his base. Some of his supporters were reluctant to begin with."
"These were bad results for Republicans. They’re consistent with what you’d expect from a public that would like to elect some Democrats to counterbalance an unpopular president and the Republicans’ hold on both branches of Congress."
-- Wait -- didn't Democrats lose one election and fail to get the runaway win, being forced into a second contest?
Also... 7 percentage points is not close. This is... really kind of sad "analysis" from 538. There's many things that say Republicans may not do well in the midterms. These two special elections are not it.
"I’d consider a pretty bad outcome for Republicans to be one in which they lost one to two dozen House seats next year, leaving them with only a narrow majority."
-- ... Wow. It's "pretty bad" to have a majority.
How terrible must Democrats be doing then?
Why don't they lay out what a "good" outcome is? Here's why: Because they don't care. They just want to give the left a pick-me-up.
Also: "and he hasn’t made much effort to reach out beyond his base."
This is flatly wrong. He may have failed at his efforts, but he has done more than Obama ever did to reach out to both disaffected Republicans and to the other side. He isn't actively encouraging locking Democrats out of Congressional meetings, so, hey, he's up on that. /hollowvictory
This is... really kind of sad "analysis" from 538.
This is the type of loaded push poll style crap that perpetuates leftie derangement. Pumping up lefties with GOTV inflated expectations disguised as objective analysis of leftie inevitability, then have those expectations crash in a heap of gotta stay home from school fake ailments.
... Wow. It's "pretty bad" to have a majority.
How terrible must Democrats be doing then?
If Democrats don't at least take back the House, they're badly underperforming. The party of the sitting president nearly always does badly in the first mid-term election regardless of other circumstances. In this case it should be worse than normal, both because Trump is walking back so much of his platform and also because the mid-term effect is more pronounced when one party holds the presidency and both houses of Congress. This should be a perfect storm in favor of the Democrats.
[You can make a case that the midterms may help Democrats recover some ground. But... not from Republicans edging out, what, two wins and a draw? If anything, those data points point to a status quo election... but it is still a year out, so we can't really tell too much.]
Inga ,Not to say that you are wrong, because few midterm elections are helpful to the incumbent president's party, but to rely on 538 as your prophet is a mistake. Good ol' Nate had Hillary at a 71.4% chance of winning the presidency and Trump at 28.6%. Didn't work out that way, you may recall. Graph.
It's fine to be enthusiastic and resist and all that, but at some point the Dems have to reveal the substance of their appeal to the electorate. If it's what Perez and Bernie are on the road selling now, I think they are still in trouble.
Democrats begin to wonder: When do we win?
The more I look at this title the more I think the whole discussion is infected with the participation trophy disease. You get the win when you take it. Not before.
"Democrats begin to wonder: When do we win?"
-- Republicans spent years in the Obama Wilderness asking "How do we win?" ... Then they won midterms, states and Congress... and then we got Trump, so, eh.
Democrats should ask that question.
Good ol' Nate had Hillary at a 71.4% chance of winning the presidency and Trump at 28.6%. Didn't work out that way, you may recall.
As a bit of a nit: Silver provided odds. It's not really correct to say it "didn't work out that way", because he never said Clinton had a 100% chance of winning. Just that she was heavily favored.
"Democrat James Thompson lost to Republican Ron Estes by just under 7 percentage points, is as red as Alabama. A Democrat coming close there is the sort of thing you’d see only in a really bad or perhaps even catastrophic midterm for the GOP"
Sure, if he came close. 7% is a slaughter. Keep looking, keep hoping.
Trump was elected only narrowly — losing the popular vote to Clinton — and he hasn’t made much effort to reach out beyond his base.
Inga, you are still dreaming. "Narrowly" is what happened with Bush. Trump won comfortably in the electoral college.
If you want to call Hillary "President of California," it's OK with me. She lost the rest of the country, even with Mass and NY.
What we do have, however, is an increasing amount of evidence that Trump is facing real and sustained resistance from the public.
The "resistance" is coming from violent groups like "Antifa" and BLM. That will not help with normal voters who might be amenable to a reasonable appeal.
Perez and Bernie are going on a looney bin tour of the country. I don't think it will help.
Democrats are well on their way to becoming a Socialist Party.
The US has never been interested in a Socialist Party.
The Congressional GOP are trying to help with stupid moves but I don't think it will be enough.
I wonder at the education level of those who say Trump failed to pass this or that piece of legislation. Trump does not pass legislation, he signs or vetoes it. The Congress passes - or not - legislation. Our system is not like the Brits where a failure by the PM means he loses his job. If a bill is not good enough to pass the House and/or Senate then it most likely is not as good a bill as it could be. The question I have is: whether the Freedom Caucus will have had their positions affected by their visits home during the recess. I would think that a lot of their constituents would not be happy that they stalled the new health care bill. If not, then they were right to do so.
The Founders intended that making legislation be difficult. Compromise is the key. Right now no one on either side of the aisle seems to understand that compromise is required. They are too concerned with their own egos and press clippings to worry about how to do right by the American people. It's a damn shame.
Complaints about Nate Silver's predictions drive me a little nuts. He gave Hillary 2:1 odds of winning. That's it. Horses lose at 2:1 odds all the time. In his columns he repeatedly stressed that Trump was only a normal sized polling error away from winning. And he took a great amount of flak for doing so from people who wanted him to have different numbers, like the ridiculous >95% numbers other supposedly reputable sources were coming up with. He was one of the few honest data analysts available this election and the fact that he, alone among prominent mainstream sources, gave Trump a reasonable chance of winning counts as a huge success for 538, rather than a failure.
@Bob Loblaw I read Nate's graph as saying that Hillary had a 70% chance of winning and Trump a 30% chance. I am no statistician, but those look like pretty overwhelming odds to me. I am not sure what the nit is you are trying to pick. If you are trying to tell me Silver wasn't 100% wrong I have to agree, but he sure was a long way from 100% right. As I said a very weak reed for Inga to use as the basis for her argument. History is a better predictor.
Is the expression of anger effective propaganda? I am saying no. It is not effective on me.
On the question of effective propaganda, by definition propaganda is dishonest and misleading so who among us is going to consciously acknowledge being manipulated?
Democrats are well on their way to becoming a Socialist Party.
The conditions are ripe. It's interesting to note the role of pre-Socialists in corruption of a Republic preceding the rise of a left-wing regime.
For the Democrats to grow up, they will need a Reformation. Suggested platform elements:
1. A recommitment to the Constitution.
2. The economy is not an enemy.
3. Identity politics was a grave mistake.
4. In order to help those who need help, weed out the free riders.
5. Everyone goes to work having to do more with less every day. Government must do better work for less money every day.
6. We must assist people until they no longer need government assistance. Dependence on government must end.
7. No more political dynasties, career politicians, grow a bigger bench.
8. Every system gets gamed. Big system, big game. Small system, small game. A small and effective government is possible and moral.
Anything else?
@Ficta I agree that Silver probably does as good a job as anyone with his poll analysis. I enjoy reading him because he seems more grounded than most. As was discussed ad infinitum on this blog, there was something very wrong with the polling this cycle. Nate probably came closer than most while interpreting funky data. He definitely spotted Trump's closing momentu, his numbers just did not take him far enough soon enough.
He definitely spotted Trump's closing momentu, his numbers just did not take him far enough soon enough.
I don't think there was a way to predict what happened. Trump was amazing with his energy at the end. Hillary campaigned like an old lady who wasn't well. Naps in the afternoon, etc.
I wonder at the education level of those who say Trump failed to pass this or that piece of legislation. Trump does not pass legislation, he signs or vetoes it. The Congress passes - or not - legislation.
The GOP Congress had better figure out what voters want or a bunch of them will be retired next year,
The donor class hates Trump but they are not the voters.
A scenario: the Economic Royalists of Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and Hollywood will groom Chelsea as the Princess in Exile, who will eventually return to restore the Monarchy and oust the Usurper, Donald of Orange.
After all, Democrats, whose party is it really ?
What argument is being made to me that might persuade me?
The whole point of relying on emotion is to avoid the necessity of having to create an argument, or an acknowledgement that you have no winning argument.
Take perhaps gay marriage. The opponents of gay marriage develop several arguments to back their position, including precedent and the will of the people. The best arguments the proponents of gay marriage came up with are "You hate gay people" or "it's not fair and you're just a big meanie who hates gay people.". Then then found judges who were willing to either over rule the will of the people, (picking a gay judge was a good start) or twist Constitutional Amendments to mean whatever they would need to mean to allow them to bestow victory on any party the judge feels empathy with. You simply cannot rationally argue that those who wrote the 14th Amendment meant to create a right to sexual privacy that would lead to a right to gay marriage, or that the plain meaning of the text of the 14th Amendment does so, so you avoid the argument by using emotion.
Inga
In Georgia the Democrat could not beat the sum of 14 opponents. He does not live in the district. You can put whatever cheerful spin on the numbers but he is toast in June.
M
Or take perhaps Climate Change. When you ask to see the data, they give you adjusted data. When you ask for the original observed data, they have lost it. When you ask why their models don't work and their predictions have not come to pass, they call you a denier. They deliberately use the term "denier" to delegitimize any opposition to their position so they don't have to support an argument.
How about vote fraud. The left's position is "There is no evidence of voter fraud". When the Right suggests investigating the issue to find the evidence, the Left screams Racist! (Who is being racist here, the side that acknowledges that anyone can easily get identification, or those that are arguing that minorities are incapable of doing so?)
The Left's reliance on emotion over reason is intentional, universal and business as usual.
The Democrats are (or were) convinced that if they made a huge push they could win special elections in Kansas and Georgia. They made a huge push - Hollywood, hype and cash. And the final results were very close to the election results. Osoff, a more attractive kind of person than Hillary had more views more in line with Georgia Republicans than Hillary did. But Osoff only did 1 point better than Hillary and he did not win a popular majority. All the Dem hysteria, all the negative stories, all the organizing, all the Resisting - it has done nothing. Essentially, the Dems are simply repeating Hillary's mistake which was to run away from the issues and toward a simple negativity about Trump. And they are getting the same result as Hillary. Close - but they lose.
This maybe why Althouse is saying that she is tired of the empotionalism.
The Dems don't understand economics. They do understand that those on the lower economic rungs have less power, freedom and pleasure, than those on the higher rungs. But they have no clue on how to move up the ladder.
Example: I have a lifelong friend, in his early 50s. Good athlete, but poor grades in high school. Didn't go to college. But he learned how to paint houses, and became good at it, but struggled financially for many years. He was persistent though. He hired a few painters, taught them well. One became his project manager. By his early 40s, he's driving a BMW, has 10 employees, spends his time getting business, while his crew paints. He's making significant 6 figures now.
Simple, boring story, right? No. His painting, his business acumen, his hard work, enables him to own a nice big house, pay for his kids schooling, and hire 10 young men (many are minorities) to earn a living and provide for their budding families.
Dems have absolutely zero to offer this man - except more red tape, higher taxes, and potential lawsuits.
Nothing like a small, successful businessman to learn by experience why voting Dem is such a bad idea.
Bay Area Guy said...
Dems have absolutely zero to offer this man
The Dems allowed all the illegal immigrants he is employing into the country. You guys won't give the Dems credit for anything.
Blogger Ficta said...
Complaints about Nate Silver's predictions drive me a little nuts.
Hear, hear. Silver did a pretty good job in the last election. They are called predictions for a reason.
Democrats now make Pol Pot look like a moderate agrarian reformer. This is not going to end well.
If they'd won, they'd be exulting and gloating, with no empathy for the other side.
You mean like, what they are doing to Bill O'Reilly right now?
@Gahrie Article today in the WSJ about melt water in Antarctica. From what they have learned from satellite photos of melt water scientists feel they need to rethink the whole question of how glaciers are melting. Reaffirms what so many here have said: "models are not science."
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