"10 Days That Shook the House Map and Democratic Confidence."
That's the top headline at the NYT this morning.
You know the story: "Just two weeks ago, Democrats felt increasingly emboldened about taking control of the House in November after seeming to fight the redistricting wars to a draw. But two court rulings — one by the Supreme Court and another by Virginia’s top court — and an aggressive new push by red states to carve up congressional maps have delivered the Republican Party its biggest burst of momentum in many months. Put bluntly, Republicans have roughly 10 more House seats that favor them than they did just 10 days ago, and Democrats are suddenly grappling with a new landscape."
This feels like one of those NYT articles that's mainly performing the service of tending to the readers' emotions. Let's all do panic together this morning. When I encounter that sort of thing, my natural instinct is to go somewhere else. If we're doing group emotion, I'm looking for the door.
So: I'm interested in the history of titles in the blank-days-that-shook-the-blank form. The original is "10 Days That Shook the World," the 1919 first-hand account of the Russian Revolution by John Reed. His editor described Reed's frenzy:
He was gaunt, unshaven, greasy-skinned, a stark sleepless half-crazy look on his slightly potato-like face—had come down after a night's work for a cup of coffee."Max, don't tell anybody where I am. I'm writing the Russian revolution in a book. I've got all the placards and papers up there in a little room and a Russian dictionary, and I'm working all day and all night. I haven't shut my eyes for thirty-six hours. I'll finish the whole thing in two weeks. And I've got a name for it too—Ten Days that Shook the World. Good-bye, I've got to go get some coffee. Don't for God's sake tell anybody where I am!"
It's absurd to portray the Democratic Party's distress about the 2026 midterms as anything like that. Drama queens.
But the blank-days-that-shook-the-blank format has been used a lot since the days of John Reed. For example, there's a documentary titled "Diana: Seven Days That Shook the World and the Windsors."
But I wouldn't compare the Democrats' emotional turmoil to the death of Princess Diana, which might have toppled the British monarchy. Here in America, we have a system of state legislatures drawing districts and various parties challenging them in court. That's what happens and there are winners and losers. The world is not shook. Oh, but their confidence is shook.
Yes, Democrats thought they could coast into control of the House and even the Senate. Suddenly, they need to wipe that smugness off their gaunt, unshaven, greasy-skinned, half-crazy-looking, potato-like face.
Good! Now, get to work.
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75 comments:
The walls are closing in.
Even worse for the democrats is the generic republican vs democrat congressional polling.
We are in the silly season right now. 6-10 months before EVERY election democrats are 20 points ahead in the polls.
Then magically as the election approaches the polls get closer.
Nobody is falling for that anymore. The only reason democrats get elected at all is because of fraud in big blue cities and shenanigans like race based districts.
It is all coming to an end.
OMG, the Democrats are not going to take control by default without campaigning on anything? That's how Starmer took power, he got an "overwhelming mandate" with thirty percent of the vote in a country where people were disgusted with the sellout Tories, and he got to make up his own mandate, and the Democrats were hoping to be given the keys to power without articulating any policies to the voters, just to their funders and other cronies in private, but now they are going to have to deal with the voters.
"What a world! What a world, where the voters have to be considered!"
Expect (D) Party operatives to get to work on Fetterman. Yes, he's a Senator, but they'll lean on him anyway to toe the party line.
No Senate primary this year here in PA, for which I am grateful.
Prog Panic Porn.
but muh democracy!
The left ignore the unfair congressional maps of New England.
Sound and Fury. Significance to be determined later.
Meanwhile, "events, dear boy, events."
Newspapers have less space to fill that they once did, but it's enough to get this kind of stuff into print. There will be more.
I know you want to talk about the headline format, but I just want to say that I don't think any of this midcycle redistricting happens without the census being rigged in 2020. It has been well established that the errors kept blue districts at the expense of new districts in red states.
"gaunt, unshaven, greasy-skinned, a stark sleepless half-crazy look on his slightly potato-like face"
Why, that sounds just like Warren Beatty.
Since Trump has kicked a significant part of his coalition to the curb in favor of a country, whose leader just said that the Iran war will not end until Israel's borders have expanded, just like Huckabee said, well, we will see how wrong the polls are. They certainly overstepped in VA, which was a bald faced grab for seats without considering the voters, but I am not so sure that the numbers are wrong.
Look at the UK. Starmer was totally pro-war, and has promised Ukraine billions of Euros when the country is broke, look at Germany, where the AfD is the largest party now, on a platform of peace and cooperation, same with France, where Macron is incredibly unpopular, yet still clings to power, despite support in the teens for his war-mongering.
You go ahead and tell us how rich we are all going to be after we get done stealing the resources of all of the other countries, maybe there is a majority for that, but I doubt it.
My recollection is that race-based districting ended up benefitting Republicans, not Democrats. It allowed map-drawers to segregate a super-majority of blacks into one district and then spread Republican voters over more districts so there were more 51% Republican districts.
It's an election year. The question isn't whether the NYT will become hysterical, the question is what will the NYT become hysterical about.
When Biden took power, he immediately adjusted the census, and once the districts had been drawn, it was admitted that 'mistakes were made," in favor of the Democrats of course, and we all know that the immigration flood is to game the system, since districts are assigned based on total number of people living in a state, not citizens, residents.
So let's hear what the Democrats have to say, all I need to hear is that they plan to impeach and remove Trump for getting dragged into this catastrophe of a war, while putting a foreign country first. But the Democratic leadership, despite the feelings of their rank and file, have no appetite to bring Trump to account on that score. They will probably make something up again, like the last impeachments. But that's all right with me. I want the error of my last three presidential votes mended as best is possible, by whatever means.
I remember all those days Democrats fled Texas to prevent the legislature from meeting. It was embarrassing as a state to have such childish behavior from our representatives, yet it made headlines across the country. Still, it didn’t shook the resolve. It simply delayed business.
I predict that every state that redistricts for this coming midterm will be unhappy with the results in their own states. When you try to gerrymander, you necessarily have to make some of your safe seats less safe by spreading out your voters.
Birches. indeed.
If the dems cannot cheat - they cannot win.
imTay said...
You go ahead and tell us how rich we are all going to be after we get done stealing the resources of all of the other countries, maybe there is a majority for that, but I doubt it.
Historically illiterate dishonest losers who hate the United States should leave.
You just cannot be honest about what the war in Iran is actually about.
Sorry Tim, China does not get to monopolize heavy manufacturing and Lloyd's or London does not get to determine who can ship goods internationally.
People like you belong in Europe where you can be ruled by men like Starmer. it is what you deserve.
When Progessives lose, this is what they crank up the hysterical reactions and histrionics to Get Out The Vote.
The Democrats confidence has been shaken - but not stirred. I hope it recovers.
The fact of the matter is that midterm swings can be a lot bigger than 10 seats. The most amusing parts of this saga?
- Gov Healey threatening, redistricting of MASS, from 9-0 to???
""Donald Trump, Greg Abbott, Ken Paxton have left us no choice. That’s the reality."
- the Faux outrage at TENN redistricting that will "disenfranchise black voters" when the seat is now held by a white male Jew who will be challenged by a black female GOP
- the next nails in the DNC voting coffin are:
-- purging voter rolls
-- the 2030 census that should reflect BOTH the blue-red migration and claw back the seats stolen during the 2020 census when technical issues only impacted red states negatively...
I always love how John Reed - a bloodthirsty commie became such a hero. Even Warren beatty made a movie about him and turned him into a lovable lug who gosh just loved those workers and peasants.
Reed always talked about "Storming the winter palace" giving people the impression the Communists overthrew the Czar, when in fact they overthrew the democratically elected politicians running the Government headed by Kerensky.
What hath Roberts wrought
I would pay to hear ann karaoke Gimme Three Steps...
Lol.
Freeing Venezuelans from tyranny and opening up the oil to them and us - was a cool idea and it's working.
The biggest push with all of the house cleaning is forcing corrupt Chinese Communists into a corner.
The democrat party - Chinese communist money flow alliance is real.
Peace sells: https://www.zerohedge.com/political/germanys-afd-verge-absolute-majority-eastern-saxony-anhalt-just-months-election
No matter how many times the actual Nazis call AfD "Nazis"
When you're building a house of cards you're very sensitive to any shaking.
The (usually) unspoken premise of all dem electoral outrage is that dems have the inherent, exclusive right to govern the U.S., regardless of election laws, the Constitution, the actual will of the people, etc. That's why we have executive branch employees who openly engage in "resistance," lawsuits and injunctions against any policy Trump attempts to put into place, approval of gerrymandering in blue states but condemnation of it in red states, opposition to voter ID, and proposals to eliminate the electoral college, pack the Supreme Court, and carve out 16 new states from DC. When dems talk about "our democracy," they really mean their unitary control over the country.
Althouse said…
You have to be very deeply into Democratic Party politics to write a blank-days-that-shook-the-blank headline about this."
Or be Gene Rayburn hosting the Match Game in the 1970s.
"By the bedpan of Gene Rayburn, Ron Burgundy is back!"
In Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues...Ron Burgundy, frequently uses the exclamation "By the bedpan of Gene Rayburn!" The phrase is one of the film's absurd, vintage-style exclamations, fitting the 1980s setting of the movie. Gene Rayburn was the iconic, witty host of the classic television game show Match Game. The phrase is part of the character's signature fast-paced, improvisational dialogue designed to highlight the colorful, over-the-top nature of 70s/80s media personalities.
itStain: Look at the UK. Starmer was totally pro-war, and has promised Ukraine billions of Euros when the country is broke ...
This is exactly the kind of historically illiterate bollocks you continually spew.
Starmer cannot have possibly have promised billions of Euros. Why? Because the UK is not in the EU, and the UK's currency is the pound, not the Euro.
It is obvious why you never include links, because you are BS all the way down.
My reflexive response to any Dem complainer about redistricting: "Massachusetts. 9:0 Democrat reps for 25 years."
@ Dogma
Add to the list, funding their campaigns by massively defrauding the social welfare system and laundering tax money and foreign contributions through a system of NGOs.
The only work the left have are lying, cheating, hiding, etc..
In COLO - the left banned open records - Open records of what our democratic betters are doing behind closed doors.
The left are busy - institutionalizing and enshrining their power and corruption.
boo hoo to their set backs. Telling the left to get to work = More Trump hate and more schemes. The left do not work for the greater good - they work for their own power and access to our money.
A decaday that will forever bray in infamy.
"and an aggressive new push by red states to carve up congressional maps"
Blue states already did that. There was no whining from the left.
And importing literally millions of new dependents to vote for them.
Starting around January 25, 2025 we be reading the pre-packaged narrative about the inevitable takeover of the House by the Democrats in the 2026 elections. "The incumbent President's party always loses seats" is asserted without argument.
Consistent patterns may be evidence of some underlying dynamic or they may just be coincidences, but they are not Natural Laws.
It's the same error as thinking that a batting average is some inherent characteristic of a hitter when it really is an observed pattern of the interaction of the hitter, multiple pitchers, fielders, game situations, and physical conditions plus the randomness caused by the spinning round ball, the round bat, and the variations in the playing field surface.
The "party out of the White House gains in midterm elections" rule is only relevant if the dynamics of the current situation are the same as in previous examples. Is that true this year? The 'normal' dynamic was for a party to gain the White House and then fail to do most of what was over-promised in the campaign, with the result that many supporters became disillusioned and did not turn out, and some switched sides.
I don't have a sense that Trump voters feel this way about the President. It just isn't there. The tiny but exceedingly loud minority constantly screeching about Iran and gas prices and the midterms* doesn't seem to reflect day-of-day conversations (even among very left-wing academics) in the real world.
*I recognize that a substantial fraction of these people are just monomaniacally anti-Israel, many are paid, and even more are bots of the functional equivalent of bots.
Did the earth move for you?
Wasting our money and lining their pockets - is job one for the modern Democratic Party.
The Day the Earth Stood Still was a demonstration of Alien Intelligence (AI) superior to Anthropogenic Intelligence (AI).
"They took down a few confederate monuments so we took down some of the civil war era congressional districts. I would say we came out ahead there." - somebody on the internets
Deeply embedded. The Ass doctor's selfie-treatment in 10 days goes horribly wrong.
Media will churn out all kinds of scare stories between now and the midterms to gin up the Dems base. It’s like what they do before every Presidential election when they post the panic stories about how Republicans are raising more cash than Democrats. Then the election happens and it turns out Dems outspend Reps by about a 4 to 1 margin. It’s all theater.
Democrats are always using procedural tricks to retain power, and running away from the issues.
It doesn't matter which side or who it helps. The lines cannot be drawn racially. If your group is only 13%, then that's the most votes you can get. Anything else is unfair and undemocratic. Everybody is in some minority group, and that group shouldn't get outsized representation unless people in other groups agree with them. It's pretty simple.
I think AI can draw fair lines, emphasizing geography only, to keep the districts as contiguous and compact as possible, using township, county, and state lines, plus rivers and roads when needed.
Cranial inversion not easily treated,
Yes they have given assumption which are almost wrong
Recall the kabuki kickboxer delivery man in 18, in '22 pelosis duaper wearing stalker (who they pretended was maga)
Yes reed got most everything wrong from the kornilov on, he wasnt a times reporter that honor went to duranty
And i use the word advisedly gareth jones a welsh workman got the holomodor right only hearst would publish it
Brendan boyle is the worst stakhsnovite
There is no paper that does the same cheerleading for the red team
"Dem panic porn"
I'm gonna use that.
What's Tim having vapors about today?
Sometimes the law and or state constitutions get in the way and block Democrat's wet dreams of seizing power. Sad--but true.
“…titles in the blank-days-that-shook-the-blank form. The original is "10 Days That Shook the World”…”
10 Mentos that shook the Diet Coke bottle.
EVOLUTION :( The Cost to Public Trust)
When voters can see that district maps are drawn to protect incumbents and predetermine outcomes, the message is clear: the system isn’t designed to represent you. That perception erodes confidence in elections regardless of whether your preferred candidate wins. If the map itself was rigged, what does winning or losing even mean? Gerrymandering undermines democracy by letting politicians choose their voters instead of the other way around. Beautiful degradation of what was once a good thought , DEMOCRACY..... :(
@ Hey Skipper: Starmer joined the EU's promise to provide Ukraine with billion of Euros. Of course his nation's contribution to that pledge would be in his nation's currency. He also pledged to loan them billions directly in pounds. Is this comment a joke?
I wanted to find out if John Reed was bipolar, or if that was just Warren Beatty. Louise Bryant may have had the same problem. No word online about any of that, but I did find out that Reed was on the Harvard water polo team and possibly its captain. Water polo in 1910?
I dont think so, she did marry william bullitt who went from a staunch lenininst to one of the staunchest anticommunists because of his experience as ambassador
DINKY DAU 45 said...
EVOLUTION :( The Cost to Public Trust)
When voters can see that district maps are drawn to protect incumbents and predetermine outcomes, the message is clear: the system isn’t designed to represent you. That perception erodes confidence in elections regardless of whether your preferred candidate wins. If the map itself was rigged, what does winning or losing even mean? Gerrymandering undermines democracy by letting politicians choose their voters instead of the other way around. Beautiful degradation of what was once a good thought , DEMOCRACY..... :(
Democrats hate democracy.
That is why they demand mail in ballots with no chain of custody and why they gerrymandered every state they control.
Now you cry when republicans do the same.
Get fucked you dishonest scum.
Democrats do not clear 40% nationwide in honest elections. Nobody wants what they are doing to the places they control.
Super, duper delegates. #NoKinks
@ Hey Skipper: Starmer joined the EU's promise to provide Ukraine with billion of Euros. Of course his nation's contribution to that pledge would be in his nation's currency. He also pledged to loan them billions directly in pounds. Is this comment a joke?
No, it isn't a joke. itStain continually spews stuff without any attribution, and frequently it makes no sense.
If, instead, itStain had said how many UK pounds Starmer wanted to send to Ukraine, then his comment would have made sense.
Moreover, EU/UK loan package discussions are still ongoing, with no amount yet specified for the UK.
itStain is dead wrong that the UK has promised any amount.
One wonders why itStain never links to anything, considering how dead simple it is.
Darn, forgot to include the link.
Moreover, EU/UK loan package discussions are still ongoing, with no amount yet specified for the UK.
“ When Biden took power, he immediately adjusted the census, and once the districts had been drawn, it was admitted that 'mistakes were made," in favor of the Democrats of course, and we all know that the immigration flood is to game the system, since districts are assigned based on total number of people living in a state, not citizens, residents.”
Here is the thing. Trump(45) had the Census apportioning using the number of citizens and, I believe, legal resident aliens, in each state. But within a week of taking office, the Biden Administration switched this to counting everyone, legal or illegal, and using those counts for allocating House seats among the states. Never been done before, at least in our lifetimes.
What this (obviously) meant that the states, for the first time in memory, got credit for their illegal populations. Which means overrepresentation by the big Blue states, and especially with their large (to get larger shortly) population of illegals.
I worked for the Decennial Census Division in the late 1970s. We had one of few really hard deadlines in the govt - to get counts to Congress. It was their seats that were at issue. Which was good for us. Normal employment rules were routinely waived by the Census Director. Esp involving overtime, and how much comp time you could carry forward, month to month, and year to year. We ran double the allowable comp time, year to year, and some of us ran triple. You would get a deadline late. Tell your manager you couldn’t do it without exceeding the current limits, and the next day you would have a waiver signed by the Director and sometime Sec of Commerce.
The downside was that our Asst Dir was able to have the Dir personally block my lateral transfer to the Systems Programming branch. It would have come with an immediate promotion, and greatly increased chance to make GS-14 before the end of the decade. Probably faster. One of the only places in Census to get there without being on a management track. In any case, the branch chief who had been trying to hire me, after such a high level denial, mentioned it to a good friend working for the company supplying Census with their computers. He offered me even more money to do what I had been going to do with that lateral. And assigned me to NOAA, one wing over and one floor up, in the same building (FOB 3, Suitland Federal Center). And ultimately got me transferred back to CO.
“I'm interested in the history of titles in the blank-days-that-shook-the-blank form.”
I’ve always preferred the “Now it can be told!” format.
Having mastered epidemiology, large language models, balloon dynamics, submarine design, naval military history, toilet paper supply chain logistics, Austrian economic theory, and elementary Farsi, I'd like to explain why the Virginia court decision is correct...~ Achilles
I suspect the Republicans have diluted their advantage in most of those states that have set new maps. They may find there are more competitive districts than they thought. If they are using 2024 and 2022 voting patterns, they are likely to find their political brand fares substantially worse than those elections. They could just be making a blue wave bigger.
(Repeat comment): Democrats are upset that the redistricting wars are not going their way. They had expected a Democrat Speaker, third in line for POTUS, to be elevated as their assassin-promoting rhetoric paid off. Regardless of the midterms, expect an uptick in Democrat provocation.
Before I read this post, I bought a paper copy of the NYT here in Omaha. On nearly every page, there is a story about how Trump is "destroying" America. There's even a letter titled, "Trump the Destroyer" allegedly written by Marc Chafetz of Washington.
Mr. Chafetz claims he is 73 and tht he has grandchildren. Trump is engaged in "malicious actions" that will cause "long-term damage" that will harm his grandchildren.
I'm guessing that Mr. Chafetz is Jewish. I suggest that he open his eyes to the plain fact that our President has eliminated the possibility of the IRGC dropping a nuke on Israel. Maybe some of his kids or grandkids live Israel. That's possible.
In the same Saturday edition of the NYT there is a two-page spread with the body count and pictures of the drug smuggling boats we have eliminated.
The NYT spins its opinion on this practice by writing it is a "drastic departure." To which I say, good. What we were doing before wasn't working.
Then more spin by quoting unnamed legal experts who have reached a legal conclusion that the strikes are "illegal extrajudicial killings." To that I say, I'm sure that the War Department's lawyers disagree.
When I first saw the two pages my reaction was: Great! Narcoterrorists were killed and deadly drugs didn't reach our shores. More Americans will live as a result of this pro-America and pro-life action by the Trump Administration. But I suppose the coke heads in NYC are seeing higher prices.
The NYT is one of the most malign forces in American life. A total and complete disgrace. The sad part is that so many people swallow its twaddle daily and believe it.
Verdad que si, that is true mr Begley
"10 Days That Shook the World" was the basis of the movie "Reds," an exceptionally well made (but now largely forgotten) epic that portrayed the Russian Revolution mostly from the perspective of American supporters. (It starred Warren Beatty as Reed, Diane Keaton as fellow journalist Louise Bryant, and Jack Nicholson as playwright Eugene O'Neill.) Some people saw it as way too sympathetic, but it does depict the characters becoming disillusioned when Bolsheviks almost immediately started purging their own ranks. According to Wikipedia, the film was screened at the White House for President Reagan.
Hey, Kak (IEE)--why don't you explain to us all why the Virginia court decision is not correct?
The NYT is group therapy for rich progressives
Yes maureen stspleton as emma goldman who tries to get some sense into beatty's reed without success
And there are the real witnesses james eastman among them who came to realizr the truth
Andy garcias The golden city is the only Film that depicts the cuban revolution and its precursors in totalitarian
I
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