If Hillary wins by 8 points and the Democrats take the Senate, that will be great because it means Democrats are likely to establish a long-term majority in the Supreme Court. But to think that the victory will be seen as a mandate or that Republicans will pivot to the center is just stupid:
I don’t think even a massive landslide would crush Trumpism. Goldwaterism didn’t go away after 1964 — it morphed into Wallaceism and, more significantly, the GOP’s Southern strategy. David Duke lost badly when he ran for governor of Louisiana in 1991, but the GOP continued to appeal to its voter base with Duke’s message translated into dog whistles; shortly after that Duke loss, a Louisiana politician named Steve Scalise declared himself “David Duke without the baggage.” He’s now the House majority whip.
In fact, we’ll be told that Democrats have to move farther to the right to become a true majority party. Sure, Ryan Lizza is especially bad but expect a lot of this:
What if Hillary offered Republicans one SCOTUS pick? Would that open the floodgates for skeptical Republicans to rescind support for Trump?
— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) August 2, 2016
I like magical thinking, but the truth is the super-majority coalition never develops, the meteor never hits, the levee never breaks. Hillary wins, most likely, then Trump challenges the results in a half-ass way, Ryan and the rest of the conservative Beltway nobility support his challenge in a half-ass way, while still being hailed as serious moderate thinkers, and then we get back to dealing with filibusters and the usual bullshit.
I don’t mean this to sound pessimistic. To the contrary, it all makes me glad we have a president like Obama and a candidate like Hillary. Because it’s all a tough slog, not an episode of West Wing or a documentary about the Roosevelts.
Update. I shouldn’t say “never”, just not soon. A few more generations of kids voting Democratic 20+ over Republicans (and voting democratic socialist +60 over neoliberal in primaries), and, yes, the levee breaks.
Germy
Life is never like a documentary about the Roosevelts.
Enhanced Voting Techinques
California the GOP has vanished as a viable state level political party, the Dems even have a super majority in the State Assembly. Needless to say the Cal GOP hasn’t made the slighest move towards the center.
The Ancient Randonnuer
The Goldwater candidacy was the trial run for the Southern strategy. Of course, with the GOP’s current nominee they have to deal with the Trump Holy Trinity: Me, Myself & I. Does that make Trump a triple threat? Maybe someone can prompt David Brooks to ponder this particular facet of He, Trump.
schrodinger's cat
Yes, please let’s wallow in cynicism and pessimism as the Trump campaign self-combusts. That’s the way to victory.
dr. bloor
Agreed. But given that the Republicans won’t have a rump demographic to rebuild a winning coalition on this time around, I worry that we’ll be seeing a lot more Sov Cit, Three-Percenter activity on a larger, more violent scale.
catclub
Except it has – in California – which is the future.
Roger Moore
The thing that could really force some long-term change would be winning both the House and Senate and being able to force through a new VRA. I’m not sure if it’s possible to put anti-gerrymander (or how strong it could be) into the VRA, but that would make it even stronger. It has to be first priority if/when the Democrats next control both Houses of Congress.
redshirt
California does provide an interesting case.
But I agree with Doug, at least in the near term (next 15 years or so). The media, the billionaires and assorted flunkies are too deeply nested to be rooted out by one or two more electoral losses.
Now, if we can crush them in the 2020 elections, we’re on our way, since that means Dems will be in charge of redistricting, and we can wipe away the corrupt districts the republicans built in 2010.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
This surprises me only because I’ve always had a high regard for Lizza. I would’ve expected it from Fournier or Friedman or one of the Slate/WaPo boys. I don’t know how anyone could see this as anything but rewarding McConnell et al for their norm-breaking* hijacking of the Garland nomination, when a good part of the reason for picking Garland, or so people who claim to know say, was that he had previously earned such praise from Republicans. Lizza is proposing, at the risk of going quasi-Godwin, negotiating ransom with terrorists. I haven’t bothered to look up this Willett person, who is supposed to be that negotiated ransom.
It’s Broderism on crank, both sides are equally to blame for Republican madness, so it’s clearly up to Democrats to find a way to sacrifice what they believe in, and campaign on, so that Republicans can climb part of the way back on the limb they’ve crawled out on.
* O me O my! however did we come to a point where Donald Trump could win the nomination of the Party of Lincoln!
Ceci n'est pas mon nym
One of my favorite things about the last few years, probably coinciding with the rise of Obama, is that Democratic politicians have realized that Democratic voters like Democrats, not Republicans-light. I love all the fearless stances on immigration, LBGT rights, gun control, abortion, and the other hot-button issues.
Trollhattan
Trump is “insufficiently conservative.” The end. (Duh.)
Now back to bidnez, let’s all gather with the Kochs and start working on 2018 plus our plans to bork the next census.
Germy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Lizza is another bullshit prep school boy New Yorker staff writer.
Archon
If Democrats retake the House with a Clinton landslide then it’s all over for this version of the GOP. If they hold on to the House (which is likely even with a Trump collapse) then I can see the Republicans continuing their rearguard obstructionism, gaining back seats in 2018 for their trouble and treating 2020 as the true referendum with 2016 being looked at as an anomaly that had nothing to do with real conservatism.
JPL
It’s unlikely that the Democratic members can retake the House this year. They will be able to gain seats, but those seats will be taken from moderate Republicans. What will be left are the crazies.
Rob in CT
Step one is crushing Combover Caligula, driving him before us and listening to the lamentations of his
menmanbabies.Then we worry about what rises from the ashes.
Trollhattan
@redshirt:
Everybody would just ignore CA if it weren’t something like a ninth of the US population. But, since we get a measly two senators we don’t have nearly that much clout legislatively.
Anonymous At Work
Science advances one funeral at a time.
Trollhattan
@Archon:
Too lazy to check–what key senate seats are up in ’18? DiFi has to retire but it will remain safely D even in an off year, especially because Jerry exits, stage left.
Hoodie
The super-majority coalition envision by beltway idiots will not materialize because they think in DC club terms, where the coalitions include GOP hacks who are dependent on a declining demographic. However, the dems do have a chance of building a coalition of working people, enlightened business interests, and people with non-insane national security concerns (Clinton just released an add on Trump and Putin that is pretty aggressive). Kind of like if you took the early 60’s era party and replaced the Dixiecrat wing with Rockefeller republicans.
Villago Delenda Est
The GOP is now, without the slightest question, the Party of Jefferson Davis.
Which means they need to be annihilated. They need to go the way of the NSDAP and the CPSU.
Oblivion.
redshirt
@Trollhattan: CA is obviously hugely important, but I don’t think it provides a model for the entire USA when it comes to the Repubs. CA is far more liberal than most of the rest of the country, and this ensures that Republicans will continue to find some level of success nationwide.
I mean, if W., Palin and now Trump aren’t enough to decisively push more people to vote Democratic, what will?
Villago Delenda Est
@Archon: “Conservatism” cannot fail; it can only be failed.
These vile retrogressives who long for Divine Right of Kings will never give up. They can only be marginalized as far as possible.
? Martin
Yeah, Clinton will never be able to claim a mandate given 3 decades of political smears, but thats not the goal here. The goal I think is to break the back of the GOP alliances that have caused it to retrench for the last decade. If the religious right/NRA/anti-tax/blatantly racist coalitions can lose some of their authority (basically by pitting them against each other) then it shakes up the GOP in a way that prevents them from obstructing everything. It opens up the primary process for them, and it gives Dems opportunities to build narrow coalitions with these emerging groups.
The first goal has to be to break Cleeks law. Get the GOP to not be defined as the anti-democrats. So long as they are defined in that way, the Dems are equally shut down. I have no particular optimism on that front, just that if you blow the GOP apart badly enough, that there’s a chance something like that may form, and that may allow Clinton to govern.
But it’s a really tough problem for the GOP. As much agreement as they have about Trump among the leadership, they have the pesky problem of Republicans having voted for Trump, and what do you do with the majority of the voters in your own party? Somehow the GOP leadership needs to pivot the party to some policies that will attract enough latino/college white/black voters to offset the racist Trump base that they know they’ll lose. I have no idea how they do that.
This election may mark the end of Johnson’s prediction regarding civil rights being the defining wedge between the parties. Or Trump supporters may hold enough power to try again in 2020. The GOP is going to look like Aleppo come November.
1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)
@Roger Moore: States where redistricting is done by a nonpartisan committee have a much lower incidence of gerrymandering than those where it’s done by the state legislature. However, at this point, the power to decide how to handle redistricting is still reserved to the states, which means how it will be done is generally decided by the legislature. I suppose ballot initiatives in support of taking it away from the legislatures could be tried, but I don’t know how well that would work.
The Ancient Randonnuer
@Trollhattan: And most of your congressional districts have a
higherlarger population than many states.Archon
@Trollhattan:
Long story short, 2018 is looking like a bloodbath for Democrats in the Senate.
Let’s hope a Trump rout will sufficiently upend the playing board though.
tobie
Can we stop bandying about the descriptor “neoliberal”? I don’t want to revive the flame wars that occurred here during the Democratic primary, but the term was tossed about a lot as an insult with little information to back it up. The choice this past primary season wasn’t between a Democratic socialist and a neoliberal. Both main candidates had policy proposals that were more liberal than anything we’ve seen in years. The difference was whether one should adopt a pragmatic or an ideological approach. The former was seen to entail compromises, the latter to rely too exclusively on moving the public. This was the debate. The DLC has long since faded into oblivion. I’m actually feeling good about the party these days…and consider the term “neoliberal” to be something of an ad hominem critique. Everything is neoliberal from Chomsky’s perspective. But I’m not sure that’s the perspective of even self-avowed democratic socialists.
M31
Here ya go, juiciers, with special thanks to maya, who by using the term “Orange Ozymandias” inspired me.
I present Trumpymandias
“Two small and shrunken hands of stone” HAHHAHHAHA
OGLiberal
Hillary up 4 in new Georgia poll:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/05/politics/clinton-leads-trump-georgia-poll/
GOP Rep. Jack Kingston – “Poll is skewed!”
He apparently didn’t read the crosstabs but, then, of course he didn’t.
piratedan
the part that gets me is that anyone would even think about floating this idea after the last 7+ years of GOP intransigence. These are the guys that refused to work with Obama from day 1. They have shut down the fucking government if their demands were not accepted and wouldn’t even honor the deals that they agreed to (see budget approval and sequester cuts) and somehow we’re supposed to throw them a “fucking bone” of an additional 20 years of SCOTUS control to salve them?
FUCK THEM
How about a public forum where the GOP just comes right out and say that the two main tenets of modern day republicanism are being lackeys to the 1% and racism.With being a wholly owned subsidiary of the NRA.
THAT at lest would be honest.
bluehill
If Hillary wins, I think it will be by a landslide and she will likely have majorities in both houses. It seems like the dems have smartly framed the election as either a vote for American democracy or for Trump autocracy. “Moderate” repubs will rationalize their vote for Hillary as a vote for America. I think that they will likely vote against the tea party congressional candidates because they helped pave the way for Trump and the moderates want to get their party back.
Iowa Old Lady
I’m embarrassed to admit that assuming Trump loses, I’ll kind of miss him when he’s gone. He provides me with my daily dose of horrified entertainment.
ShadeTail
@redshirt: Yes, California is very liberal, but that’s a relatively new development. As recently as the 90s, the GOP was viable there, and Governor Schwarzenegger was even more recent than that.
You know what drove the massive change? Immigration. And California isn’t so unique in that regard. There are immigrants going everywhere, and while some places are diversifying far slower than others, it’s still an advancing tide. Unless the GOP surprises everyone by becoming more immigrant-friendly, the demographics will slowly crush them.
RK
I see Trump is bleeding men. Wow. Keep the pedal to the floor HRC.
Eric U.
@Iowa Old Lady: the last week has been fun, but I don’t see how Trump keeps up this level of entertainment. Of course, he will try.
? Martin
@redshirt: No, the problem they have is the voter demographics. The party correctly diagnosed the problem after 2012, and within a week they buried and forgot about it because they couldn’t resolve how to bring in these new voters without losing a comparable or larger number of existing ones. That is, yes, they need latinos, but do they lose the Trump voters in doing so? Sounds like they would. So they’re trapped – they’ve built a party that appeals to no more than 40% of the electorate, who is attracted to the party because it steadfastly refuses to provide harbor for the other 60%. And that’s because the party is no longer built on policy (even in appearance) but purely on tribalism and personality.
So how do you reconcile that – and I honestly don’t know if they can. There may be no policy prescriptions they can put up to win over the demographic groups that they’ve attacked. This may be the equivalent of a corporate brand that has been so badly tarnished that they need to break up the company – such as when the tobacco brands threatened to take down the non-tobacco brands from conglomerates that owned both. The GOP may have to dissolve and start over to have any hope of getting a voting demographic that can deliver them a victory.
I think that’s why they’ve been successful at the state level – where they can focus on states where demographics still work in their favor, but nationally, they may be done. And that presents another problem for them, do they give up on federal control in order to preserve the state control?
I get the sense that a lot of the Republicans that were truly interested in governing seem to be moving the most strongly toward Clinton. That suggests they never really agreed with the longstanding smear campaign against her, and didn’t agree with the policy of shutting Obama down at every turn. They went along with it because they saw potential for things to change, but thats gone now. I think they’ll quickly run back if the GOP turns back to governance and policy, but it’s unclear when or if they can do that.
greennotGreen
@M31: I am moved beyond words. As another Romantic poet wrote, ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty.”
dr. bloor
@bluehill: Moving the House is going to be much more difficult than you imagine. The Tea Partiers aren’t there by accident. As for the more “moderate” members, constituents often don’t view their own Congress critters as being a piece of a bigger systemic problem, but as “their guy.” I’ll be pleasantly shocked if we’re back to Speaker Pelosi next year.
Trollhattan
@Archon:
“Struggle” is badly overused but wresting control of the country back to the people truly is a lifelong struggle. We keep fighting over Reconstruction.
Thoughtful David
@Archon:
This. When they lose this November, the Republican party is likely to shatter. They already have two, maybe three, components that hate each other. I’m actually amazed that they’ve held it together for so long, but I guess Cleek’s Law is what they’ve had in common.
But a big loss will make the recriminations fly. In the next round they’ll have big primary fights and significant numbers will go off and start voting for the Constitution Party or the Libertarians or the MericaFuckYeah Party or whatever.
If the Democrats can stay united, the wingnuts will have a hard time mounting an opposition.
Mnemosyne
@Ceci n’est pas mon nym:
This. Certain people (like DougJ) seem to have missed that the DNC was a firm swing to the left on both social issues and economic issues, and Hillary and Kaine don’t seem to be letting up on that message.
As even conservatives noticed, the Democrats have now claimed patriotism from them and said that it’s patriotic to support PPACA and civil rights for minorities, women, and LGBTQ. Infrastructure spending is patriotic. Reining in the banks is patriotic.
A swing to the right by the Democrats is no longer needed, and it seems to be taking pundits by surprise.
The Ancient Randonnuer
@ShadeTail:
But only until the children and grandchildren of those immigrants start voting. Not all of them will be Democrats. Given time the GOP will have more Ben Carson’s, Susana Martinez’s, Bobby Jindal’s and Nikki Haley’s. The demographic advantage has a very short shelf life.
Ian
@Roger Moore:
We may want to be careful about this. Previous court rulings have mandated minority-majority districts (i.e. gerrmandering) as the only way for minority groups to get representation in congress and state houses. I agree a new VRA is needed but we shouldn’t throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Trollhattan
@RK:
Since it’s a Doug! thread, I’ll toss this in.
Hillary has you in her glass, Donny and she’s stealing your dooods. Crooked, crooked Hillary. How does it feel?
germy
@Thoughtful David:
Easier said than done. Democrats being Democrats.
Roger Moore
@? Martin:
Strictly speaking, Trump didn’t win a majority of Republican voters; he won a substantial plurality of the Republicans who bothered to show up for the primaries. My gut feeling is that the primary voters who went for somebody else would probably be OK if he could be forced out, and the ones who didn’t vote in the primary would be too passive to do much about it. The problem is that the Trumpites are loud and aggressive, and that makes people afraid of them.
Fair Economist
@dr. bloor:
It’s hard, but not quite as hard as that. Basically, there are still enough districts that weren’t in gerrymandered states or were in states where the Republicans couldn’t gerrymander *everything* (PA, MI) that we can win a majority if we win the Congressional vote by about 8 points. This is a strong win, but not even a landslide, and is actually about where the polls are now.
hovercraft
@Enhanced Voting Techinques:
Aren’t they the most revanchist retrograde neanderthals out there. Maybe if they keep purging the impure they will all be able to fit into one room?
Thoughtful David
@germy:
True, and a critical part and weakness of my argument.
Chat Noir
@piratedan: Thank you. That’s exactly what I barked at the screen when I saw Lizza’s Tweet. Sheesh.
Peale
Well, from a personal standpoint, I can tell you that were she to do that, I would be voting for Jill Stein, even though I think Dr. Stein is completely unqualified, has batshit insane ideas, is as combustible as Donald Trump, and I laugh at the idea that the Greens keep making her their standard bearer. The Democrats basically bowed down to the idea that only Republicans are ever serious about National Security and Defense for decades. Now they are supposed to allow that the Republicans should own the court?
raven
This should make ya’ll wet your pants:
“Donald Trump plans to endorse House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Friday during a campaign rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, according to multiple news outlets. “
Mnemosyne
@Fair Economist:
I think the last list I saw posted was that there are 51 House seats that are contested to some degree this year. Democrats would need to win 31 of those to gain a one-vote House majority, and one vote is all you need in the House.
It won’t be easy, but it may be doable.
Trollhattan
@Peale:
The idea Republicans are owed anything, much something as monumental as a SCOTUS pick, is the very definition of batshit insane. They’ve dug themselves a ditch and keep ordering more backhoes.
rikyrah
@Roger Moore:
This This
100 times THIS!!!
gvg
A voting rights act that mandated certain standards in districting by the states with some kind of preclearance would benefit all of us in the long run. I don’t suppose the democratic party will always be the good guys and we can’t fairly govern if everyones voting rights aren’t protected, not just “our” groups. And obviously we need smarter supreme court justices, who know better than racism is past and the cops are all fair now. Its the states that decide districts, but they could be held to some fair standard.
I’d like our news organizations to be less monopolistic but their financial models are already hurting so it’s hard to know what to make them do.
I really hope Clinton is better in education. That is one area I don’t think Obama was good on. We certainly seem to have a lot of visible idiots.
Trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
And a great opportunity to learn who all the blue dogs are. Ah, sweet memories of 2009.
Roger Moore
@ShadeTail:
I think there’s more to it than that. California is also a heavily urban state, and urban areas trend liberal even when you adjust for demographics. I think cities, especially dense cities, inherently make the case for more powerful government; they can’t exist without strong government providing critical services and protecting citizens from each other.
Doug R
@redshirt: VRA should include census based anti-gerrymandering rules.
hovercraft
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It seems to have become the beltway mantra this week now that the polls are finally reflecting what everyone had expected at the beginning. Hillary and the democrats are not supposed to gloat about winning, they are supposed to line up and give the GOP some consolation prizes so they are not demoralized. When they win, they get a mandate, when we win, we need to consider the feelings of the vanquished and be nice to them.
Trollhattan
@raven:
Ryan must be going, “Uh, guys, does this seem like a good idea to any of you?” He’s like a hound dog who finally caught that car.
Jeffro
I’m excited about the prospect of hearing Republican excuses to try and stall (or even filibuster?) President Clinton’s SCOTUS picks. I suppose we’ll be told to wait until ‘the people render their judgment in Nov 2018’?
raven
@Trollhattan: I know, it’s pretty funny.
Peale
@Trollhattan: Yep. This idea that Dems need to pick someone with a long distinguised resumes late in their careers while Republicans get to pick people barely 40 who can sit on the court for 30-40 years…forget it. Were Hillary to promise to appoint a judge as a goodwill gesture, he’d better be 95 and suffering from stage 11 cancer.
Bill E Pilgrim
Krugman’s been on this same rant in that this-isn’t-directed-at-anyone-in-particular-but-basically-I mean-the-idiot-Thomas-Friedman sort of way:
No right turn
What Friedman wrote
Mnemosyne
@hovercraft:
I’ve posted this several times before, and it actually is about Bernie, but managing the Republicans’ feelings is not Hillary’s job.
bluehill
@dr. bloor: Yes it will be a heavy lift. Just seems like this is such a different kind of presidential election than even the 08 election. It’s not a “change” election but a “step-back-from-the-ledge” election. My biggest concern was whether the electorate would be able to see through Trump, but these past few weeks have laid bare the extent of the threat for all but his true believers. Trump would clearly be a lot worse than if McCain had won in 08, so I’m thinking that those reagan dems, independents, etc that voted for Obama will be there for Hillary as well as the “moderate” repubs who realize what a disaster their party has become and want to hit the reset button. At a minimum, if the repubs keep the house, it could be with a less intransigent group if the Kansas primary is any guide.
Trollhattan
@raven:
Can we get odds on whether Donny alludes to setting Ryan up with one of his daughters?
Jeffro
Also, Brooksie is ready for a GOP-party-in-exile now…came out against Trump enablers today. I guess his house does not contain a single mirror.
Hey Dave, that party-in-exile you’d like, a GOP without racists, it’s going to be pretty small for a while…stay strong!
hovercraft
My comment at # 60 is by undefined, what’s that about?
mike in dc
If we actually do flip the House, I find it hard to believe that the incoming Senate Majority Leader would be so foolish as to leave the 60 vote filibuster intact. Nuke it, for appointments, for legislation, for everything, along with holds and any other minority prerogative that’s been abused to obstruct. Then our duty is to work to get the Congress to do good stuff across the board. Do good stuff that yields good results short, medium and long term, and the Party will benefit in the short, medium and long term. If we lose the Senate later, at least they will be fully accountable for everything they do(or don’t do). They can’t blame the minority party for obstructing their aims. And then they will be held accountable at their next election.
hovercraft
@Mnemosyne:
All too true. But in this case it’s not just a woman thing, Ron Fournier and the beltway are always lamenting Obama not working with the thugs. When it’s pointed out that they don’t want to work with him, they say he’s the president he should be the bigger man. Democrats should cater, republicans get to rule.
JoJo
@Peale:
It would be hilarious to see the republican reaction if Hillary appointed Obama to the Supreme Court.
RK
@Trollhattan: Can’t feel good, if he’s actually intent on winning.
shomi
Another DougJ tacky lyric post fantasizing about what people at Applebees think.
Like your blog posts.
What a bold courageous prediction. Way to put yourself out on a limb.
Chris
Agreed.
Last time, it took years and years of nearly uninterrupted Democratic victories before the GOP finally resigned itself to accept the New Deal and let the Eisenhower/Rockefeller types run the show. And we’re not doing anywhere near that well.
Worse, the modern GOP’s fundamental problem is with its voter base much more than its elites. Even if the elites realize the need to moderate, how are they going to do that? It was just made clear to them that the racists command a majority of the votes in their primary election. They can’t do anything as long as that’s the case.
Keith G
It seems to me that the idea to keep in mind is that there are no silver bullets, no magical outcomes, and nothing is settled…ever. No matter what we win, or by how much, the next step will be more work. And after that, more work.
The concept of an electoral mandate in a closely polarized population is fairy dust, but it does provide a bit of a narrative hook for the weaker writers in the press to latch on to. Hillary will not win a mandate in November. What she will win is the chance to spend a few years trying to lead this society to a better place and receive less thanks than she should for doing so.
If we do take Congress, so much will depend the the quality of the leadership on the Hill and what the margins are.
Roger Moore
@hovercraft:
It’s just one more example of how the beltway media is owned by the Republicans. They think the Democrats have to give the Republicans concessions but not the other way around because they agree with the Republicans policy goals and not the Democrats. They’re just completely unwilling to admit that’s their reasoning because it would eliminate their claims to be free from bias.
Mnemosyne
@hovercraft:
The same dynamic exists for minorities (as I’m sure you well know). You must cater to the delicate fee-fees of white people and not demand equal rights.
(Which is why it pisses me off when my fellow white feminists correctly articulate the gender dynamic but are totally clueless when it comes to the parallel racial dynamic, but anyway …)
Doug!
@Trollhattan:
I like it
glory b
@Trollhattan: Pennsylvania is one. Casey, a dem.
Mnemosyne
@Chris:
Last time around (Great Depression), the Democrats’ voter base was the same racist whites who are now the Republicans’ base. That’s going to be … interesting.
shomi
People who get their information from ball juice or just about anywhere else should on the innertubez have their head examined really.
The latest one I get a laugh out of his how everyone agrees the Rio Olympics will be a disaster. Because just like every other olympics, the media has fed us that bullshit idea. But the innertubez ages has turned everyone into short term short attention span short memory thinkers. Nobody ever seems to remember the repeated pattern of bullshit, internalize, move on to the next shiny object before the real truth starts to leak out.
Yea there will probably be more problems with Rio than normal but it won’t be nearly as bad as the bullshit factories producting daily click bait will have you believe. I remember the same issues and same story about the Greece Olympics. They went off relatively trouble free. The real problem came many years later when it was time to pay the bill.
shomi
@Roger Moore: I think that excuse of Washington wired for Republicans is getting worn out. Maybe true for awhile when everyone there though Reagan represented the good old days. I think we are past that now. Less and less dominated by old white guys so less of that going on now.
It’s not any more true that Repubs thinking the media and Hollywood are too libruuul. The truth is in the middle somewhere.
Fair Economist
@mike in dc:
Oh, absolutely. We were fairly close in 2013 to reducing the filibuster to a time-delay but it was nixed by a couple of holdouts like Levin (who is now gone). And 2013-14 was so extreme the holdouts agreed to the nuclear option to get rid of the judicial filibuster, which was actually a pretty wobbly maneuver parliamentarily. The democratic Senators remember 2009-10 and they are not going to let it happen again, because it’s *their* campaigns that will be endangered by a redo.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore: The Village must be destroyed.
Chris
@? Martin:
Worst case scenario, you do what the Southern Democrats did after Tilden-Hayes – accept that you can no longer rule the nation as a whole, but consolidate your gains like hell in the states where you can still win, and present a united front against the other party and the few rational members of your own party in Washington. That’ll mean going all out on gerrymandering and vote suppression in the states that are still white and rural enough that they’re not being too affected by changing demographics. Then tell Washington “we won’t give you too much shit at the national level, but our fiefdoms are our fiefdoms and you’d better damn well not touch them,” and wait for Washington to get tired.
Of course, that’s a worst-case scenario. At the moment, the GOP is still competitive in far more states than the Democrats were in the late nineteenth century.
Paul Wartenberg
it needs to be a Republican loss so massive – Hillary at 52 percent while Johnson takes SECOND at 28 percent while Trump slides to 19 percent – that every Senate race – all 34 – goes to the Democrats and the GOP House gerrymanders collapse giving Dems control of the House.
It needs to have Texas AND Georgia AND South Carolina AND Mississippi flipping Blue alongside North Carolina and Florida, in a sign that the Southern Strategy no longer works.
MAYBE THEN whatever is left of the Republican Party will go “okay, we’ll stop being d-cks about it.”
…who am I kidding? It’ll also require FOX Not-News getting bought out by the CEO of Ben & Jerry Ice Cream.
Fair Economist
I don’t think the Republicans will give up on racism as the backbone of their party. There’s a lot more racists than economic conservatives. I do think, if we can get the trifecta and enact a substantial fraction of Hillary’s platform, that they may start losing consistently a la California. They’ll still get Congress back in 2018, but that could be their last hurrah.
? Martin
@Paul Wartenberg: If your goal is to make them not be dicks, well, good luck with that even in your scenario.
The goal should simply be to fracture their ability to leverage power and build unassailable coalitions. That would be massive all by itself. They can still be dicks, but they won’t have the votes. That’s what matters.
Barbara
@raven: This is Trump making it clear to everyone that Ryan is his bitch. How Ryan thought he would get away without this happening is beyond me. Susan Collins must be thanking God every night that she is not up this year.
Chris
@Fair Economist:
This.
As someone (I think) here pointed out, the natural constituency of economic conservatism probably maxes out at, like, 15%. The Trump candidacy, whether or not he wins the general, will have made it starkly clear to the GOP establishment that if they want to stay relevant at all, they need to appease the racist majority. Sure, they may be marginalized if they stick with these guys, but if they don’t, if they try to get along without them, they’ll basically end up alongside the Greens and the Libertarians. Not “marginalized” so much as “irrelevant.”
The Sheriff's A Ni-
You’re thinking like a Beltway pundit. There’s no going back. The big con and his FSB backers aren’t going away after 2016. Trump will not only claim the election was rigged against him, but that the Republican party establishment was part and parcel of the whole plot. He was sabotaged. Its not his fault. So give him more power and money so he can truly Make America Great Again.
Paul Ryan and his Beltway buddies are going to be fighting a two front war come January. Hell, they’re fighting one now, they still just don’t seem to comprehend it.
This isn’t Goldwater Part II, its 1840/1850 and the Northern and Southern Democrats are having their split. We’ll have to wait and see what new parties come out of the aftermath.
scav
@Paul Wartenberg: Still won’t fix the roots — those weedy things are either designed to splinter and every little speck rootlet will come back or they go deep, same issue. Just have to keep hoeing away and pulling them out. Working on the Faux and party infrastructure end will at least stop them getting fertilizer and TLC and taken to all the best flower shows as prize specimens.
Jeffro
@Villago Delenda Est:
Ab.So.Lutely.
Here’s part of Villager Chris Czilla’s latest in the WaPo online, “How Donald Trump Can Turn Around His Flailing Campaign, in 4 Steps”…this part is from Step 4, ‘Quit Picking Dumb Fights’:
Steps 1, 2, 3? Endorse Paul Ryan, quit talking so much, and find a message & stick to it. Earth to Chris: if a frog had wings, it wouldn’t bump its ass a-hoppin’, either. Trump may go with #1 today…the other 3 recommendations, not so much.
sigaba
@Paul Wartenberg: I wouldn’t look for a “shattered GOP” scenario where they all just stop voting with each other.
Something slightly more likely is Trump becomes for national Repubs what Prop 187 was and is for California repubs. A horrendous debacle that they can’t ever separate themselves from at risk of pissing off their base, while at the same time making them radioactive to minorities.
Immanentize
@Trollhattan:
This is why the next GOP candidate will be a rock-ribbed religious ‘conservative’ who can whistle pretty. But who? Cruz? I think Pence is finished. Cotton?
I will say it now — the Republicans will again pick a real flawed presidential candidate — one who figures out how to hate Hillary and those people enough to satisfy the Trump voters. And that mistake will be the Democrats’ best chance to keep the whitehouse in 2020.
mike in dc
@? Martin:
Our goal should be to put them in a position where they are essentially powerless to stop Dems from getting stuff that is good(and popular) done. If you do a lot of stuff that people like, it’s easier to defend your seats and perpetuate your majority.
Immanentize
@Anonymous At Work: Max Planck. One of my favorite quotes.
andy
@redshirt: Yep. People never wonder why so few Democrats stood for President. The fact is the Democrats may very well get the Senate back, but the House just isn’t going to happen this decade. If Clinton wins, job one is preserving the gains of the Obama Administration, appointing a few new Supreme Court Justices, and build up the party from the bottom up ahead of the census, and start flipping statehouses. There’s not a thing that’s inspiring about that, just a lot of hard miserable work.
Thing is, I do see another dynamic at work. Nationally, the GOP hasn’t done anything for eight years. At the state level, they cannot govern- it’s all wingnut dogma and doctrine at that level. The nuts and bolts of governance are too goddamn boring for them, but the smallfolk are still going to need roads, sewers, electrical grids that work. With Zika poised to spread through the deep south, you can bet they’ll be focused like a laser on their own necks as it starts dawning on their constituents that their state GOPs haven’t done jack shit for them. At the very least they are going to vote in somewhat less shitty Republicans, as we’re starting to see in Kansas.
Mike in NC
@Immanentize: Cruz definitely sees himself as the frontrunner for 2020. He’ll choose somebody equally bad as a running mate. Cotton or maybe Steve King from Iowa.
Ivan X
@Germy: You’re so right, the New Yorker sure has some poor journalism and its hack writers never take a position on anything. What a piece of crap that rag is. I never learn a fucking thing when I read it!
Cheryl from Maryland
@piratedan: THIS. THEY AREN’T NEEDED. Tim Kaine won Virginia in 2012 by being a proud Democrat. Mark Warner almost lost in 2014 (yes, I know, an off year) by being a Trimmer. What we really need to do now is focus on Democrats at the state level and below.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Peale:
Never understood that one. Just off the top of my head, from the 20th century until today:
Woodrow Wilson: A zillion interventions in Central American countries, World War I
Roosevelt: World War II
Truman: World War II and the atomic bomb; the Berlin Airlift, began the Cold War, Korea
Kennedy: Cold Warrior, Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis, first major escalation in Vietnam
Johnson (not forgetting “Fuck LBJ!” for Raven): Gulf of Tonkin, more major escalation in Vietnam
Carter: nothing major
Clinton: Somalia, Yugoslavia and Bosnia, first action against Al Qaeda, stated first “regime change” policy against Sadam Hussein.
How is that soft on defense?
Immanentize
The only circumstance under which a republican senator should be consulted on a question of judicial appointment is after they have switched to the Democratic Party.
I actually foresee some party realignment among elected officials after the election. This will likely help our majority. Even two or three switching will be enough to create space for action. I believe Shumer (who will likely take the gavel) is a guy who can make the necessary deals.
Mnemosyne
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
“Soft on defense” = “Soft on communist infiltrators in the government.” Plus not wanting to do stupid shit like invading Grenada just to get a “win.”
1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)
@Paul Wartenberg: I don’t think we’ll see too much effect just yet from Ailes’s departure from Fox, but I think we will see more by 2018.
I think the Murdoch boys are more interested in a reasonable rate of return than they are in supporting Grover Norquist’s dreams of a permanent conservative revolution. It won’t turn into Air America, but it’s going to be a different channel than it was. I think at this point they are watching to see who can adjust to a new regime and who will simply be an expensive embarrassment and needs to be cut loose so they can spend more time with the family or write that book or whatever.
1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)
@Immanentize: The thought of Cruz and Cotton going against each other is only slightly scarier than the thought of them teaming up in good faith. Scorpion fight in a bottle, anyone?
1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
@Mnemosyne:
Eugene McCarthy. George McGovern. Fear of cuts in defense spending, no matter how irrational, absurd, ill-considered or badly-executed the project might be. Especially the last of those three.
germy
@Ivan X: Well, I like Jane Mayer.
Miss Bianca
@M31: Like, wow, man…I like it!
Roger Moore
@1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet):
Norquist isn’t a believer in a permanent conservative revolution; he’s a believer in lower taxes for inherited wealth- exactly the kind of think I expect Murdoch spawn to be excited about.
Tripod
@tobie:
White, white collar males whinging about hippie punching? = Shut the fuck up Donnie.
@1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet):
My guess is journalism as yellow as CNN and soft original “news” programming of the NBC sort.
Glennis
What if Hillary offered Republicans one SCOTUS pick?
Fuck that shit. She will win with a HUGE (Yooooooouuuuge!) mandate. She doesn’t owe them jack shit.
gorram
@catclub: We’re talking about two different things here though. The situation in California is constrained by national politics – so there’s still a Democratic Party and there’s still a Republican Party. If we seceded or somehow created a separate political space, you would see something like the case in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and so on develop, where parties would compete for our voters.
The biggest splits I suspect would fall between upwardly mobile members of the global economy (think libertarians but actually meaningfully leftish on some issues, and definitely with a little more sense in their heads about economic policy), a Sanders-esque White labor party (pro-union in some senses, would definitely wins a huge chunk of current scarce Republicans in the state by telegraphing that resources would primarily go to White people and downplaying race, gender, and related issues in favor of class, class, class, class, class), and the driving engine behind Democratic success in the state currently – the multicultural and pro-economic redistribution bloc that includes most of the state’s people of color.
Currently, the first and second camp largely break for the Democrats or at least don’t vote against them, but in an environment that’s no longer constrained by the national Democratic-Republican split, they would probably develop their own parties and contend with each other to be the erstwhile inheritor of what’s left of the Republican Party in the state, shifted well to the left to better pick up currently alienated constituencies. On odd years they might forge some sort of a coalition, but I suspect most of the time they’d still lose to whatever leftist Party emerged to replaced the Democrats (or maybe evolved from them). Basically, once the federal Republican Party ceases to exist, this place could easily become competitive again. Maybe not like Ohio, sure, but there’s untapped constituencies from multiple angles (arguably all three of those groups I listed have felt like the Democratic Party is either the lesser of two evils or their best shot at their policy priorities).
holaitsmonica
Just saw a Facebook friend with a meme for DT asking him to leave his ego out of it and to get off Twitter, please for the sake of the movement he started! Think he would listen?
tybee
@OGLiberal:
jack ain’t jack shit no more. thankfully.
J R in WV
@hovercraft:
In computer speak, “undefined” is a place in a program which is supposed to already have data loaded in it, but does not yet have that data – so “undefined”. Obviously eventually it picked up your nym, or someone fixed it for you, because when I looked, there you were.
Sometimes complicated systems run around some code by accident which is supposed to initialize everything, which is where most undefined stuff is supposed to be fixed.
ShadeTail
@The Ancient Randonnuer: Not as short as you think, given the circumstances. It’s not just that immigrants trend liberal, it’s also that the GOP have been doing everything they possibly can to alienate every immigrant group there is. Here in California, we’re on the cusp of the third generation since Governor Pete Wilson’s bumbling anti-immigrant crusade during the 90s, and the GOP are still the political pariah. Sure, there are plenty of immigrants who would be right at home in a *sane* GOP, but that GOP doesn’t exist anymore. That’s why I said that, unless the GOP surprise everyone by becoming more immigrant friendly, the demographics will slowly crush them.
=====
@Roger Moore: I’ll grant you I over-simplified a bit, but immigration is still involved in pretty much everything here, even if only behind the scenes. The Latino community is a political force that can’t be ignored, merely because of their numbers. They have a hand in every issue, and for good reason, because every issue affects them. And in Silicon Valley, a political powerhouse if there ever was one, all the large players consider immigration reform to be critically important. And nobody, *nobody*, has forgotten Governor Pete Wilson.
low-tech cyclist
I still long for a coherent explanation of why we won’t re-take the House if Hillary wins by 8 points. That would be a slightly larger margin than Obama won by in 2008, and he had 257 Dems in the House. And yeah, I know about 2010 redistricting, but that didn’t cost us 40 seats – more like 15 or 20 at the outside.
And here’s the thing: 2016 is probably the best shot we have of retaking the House between now and 2024. 2018 and 2022 are midterms, and the President’s party usually loses ground in midterms, and doubly so for us because it’s the GOP’s old white base that shows up to vote in midterms. And the gains the President’s party makes when s/he’s running for re-election tend to be modest compared to the gains made when winning the White House in the first place.
So it’s win the House back in 2016, or the strong likelihood of eight years of gridlock. Fuck long hard slogs, we need one short but serious push.
xian
@Germy: hey! #notallpreppies