I’m still hung up on suburban voting, because I think the suburbs are going to turn on Trump in 2018 and 2020.
Imagine you’re a middle management wage earner at some corporation or small company. You and your 1.75 children live in a tract home. You and your spouse both work. Juggling day care is tough, and it isn’t getting cheaper. Your concerns are living in a town with good schools, making sure your kids do well in that school, saving for college, and paying as little tax as possible. You generally vote for Republicans because the Republican party of Reagan and the Bushes promised to cut your taxes and keep you safe. You voted for McCain and Romney. Your parents watch Fox News but you think a lot of what they’re saying is nonsense. If you watch TV at all, you’re binging Stranger Things or Mindhunter on Netflix. Mostly, you’re too busy helping the kids with their homework and juggling dinner prep to pay close attention to the news.
Your suburb is majority white, by a large margin. But the good schools also attract Muslim, Hindi, Asian, Black and Hispanic middle management wage earners. They live on your street, their kids play with your kids, they come to school events. Some of them are your friends, some are your acquaintances. They are all “good people” in your mind. You all share the same concerns.
Now imagine that your 8 year-old kid asks whether his friend is going to be deported. Imagine that your 14 year-old daughter comes home asking how you can be a member of a party that has a Senate candidate who felt up someone her age. And imagine that your Republican Member of Congress, who earned your unreflective vote last cycle, votes for a tax plan that won’t let you deduct the thousands of dollars of state tax that you pay every year.
Do you think that maybe, just maybe, you will vote for anyone with a “D” behind their name for the next few years?
Our job as Democrats is simple: give these people good candidates to vote for, and to help the suburban Democratic parties to organize and influence these former Republicans.
(I realize this sounds like a Mark Penn microtarget or David Brooks Applebee salad bar fantasy, but given what happened in my little suburb last Tuesday, there’s nothing fantastical about it.)
Davebo
It could happen. It would take a lot of work, but it could come to be.
Chip Daniels
FWIW, Orange County, CA, home of John Wayne and Dana Rohrabacher, is in the process of turning into a reliable blue county. Hilary took the county last November.
It began with just the majority-minority precincts in Santa Ana, but its spreading to the very type of white multi-cultural suburbs of Irvine, Costa Mesa, Anaheim and the rest.
We can win this. Not just 2018, but the longer battle to become the dominant party and ethos in America. And we can do it without needing to accept the framing of “government is the problem”.
Doug
This is very close to what I think is going to happen here. I’m in Wisconsin 6, and one of Herb Kohl’s kids is running against Glenn Grothman (who is a human pimple).
As long as the Ds don’t get self-righteous and try and run a Raul Grijalva because purity, this district may well be in play.
Tuesday showed that the white working class loves them some Trump but white center-right college educated folks CAN be peeled off.
Baud
Urban voters vote Dem, rural voters vote R, and suburban voters swing. Hasn’t it always been thus?
rikyrah
Your first paragraph is my point.
These folks vote GOP because they are members of the IGMFY Club.
Their lifestyles are funded by those taxes.
They will not be distracted by the little Baby Jesus, or abortion, or guns.
They are about TAXES, And the GOP reps that vote to take away those tax breaks…So that the Koch Brothers can get a tax break?
I don’t see it. I don’t see them NOT skinning alive any GOP rep that votes to raise their taxes.
Major Major Major Major
I think it’s entirely possible that this happens with enough people that we might be able to take the House next cycle and the rest of the enchiladas in 2020.
It’s also entirely possible that it doesn’t.
So I agree, that:
But I’m not sure what you mean by:
Amaranthine RBG
Well, number one, if you live in the suburbs because you want your kids to go to a good school, you are a racist. Just ask Erik Loomis about that ….
But, seriously, you are absolutely correct. The task before the democrat party is to try to round up the most votes it can from whatever source. Period.
The Virginia results underline the importance of scrapping for every vote. In 2016, Clinton won blacks and Hispanics by 88 and 65 percent, respectively. Northam’s won those groups by 87 and 67 – basically identical. But Clinton won only 35 percent of the white vote, while Northam won 42 percent. That 7 percent jump is just about Northam’s margin of victory.
This shit isn’t complicated. It’s math.
japa21
@Doug: The Kohl name still has power in Wisconsin. In fact, I think Herb’s approval rating went up after he sold the Bucks.
Mike J
There was a Flip the 8th training session in Sammamish today. Dino Rossi thinks he’s going to take over the reasonable Republican mantle from Riechert, but I don’t think it’s going to play out that way.
Brachiator
You have to offer people solutions to their problems, not just give them “good candidates.”
Trump supporters are deluded dopes,but they are consistent in saying that they believe that Trump will fight for them. This is a lie and built on scapegoating, but there has to be an honest version.
Adam L Silverman
He’s locked himself into Air Force 1’s lavatory and he has his phone with him. We’re doomed!!!
Thru the Looking Glass...
I read recently that 900 or so women approached Emily’s List about running for office in the 2015-2016 election cycle… since Drumpf occupied the WH, Emily’s List has had 19,000 plus ask… that’a a 2,000% increase, in one year, if I’ve got the math right…
2,000%… I’ve never seen anything like it… could be a frickin’ political tsunami building up out there…
I expect to see Republicans shift into complete panic mode soon and try to pass every self-serving, vile piece of crap legislation they can dream up because if that figure – a 2,000% increase of women running for office – holds up, they’re just not going to lose control of the govt to Democrats, they’re going to be answering to angry female Democratic legislators…
debbie
@Baud:
i wonder if rural voters might be more likely to go Dem after Trump’s shitting all over NAFTA?
Baud
@Adam L Silverman: The first step to a good relationship is coming clean.
ant
Yeah, I guess.
I’m still feeling cynical.
People are dumb.
They’ll tell you they don’t want their guns taken away, or something.
That’s what happened here in Wisconsin (appleton) a year ago. People I know either voted for the loquacious loquat, didn’t vote at all, or voted for nater, or what ever the fuck her name was.
The one girl I know was politically aware enough to drive all the way to South Dakota to protest the oil pipeline, but still couldn’t bring herself to vote for “that women”.
I’ve given up.
Baud
@debbie: Maybe. But who knows how that’ll end up?
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
I guess “Little Rocket Man” was a term of endearment?
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
Has any Democrat said it in exactly this way?
The Republicans don’t care about you. They are raising your taxes to give big tax breaks to the wealthy.
Amaranthine RBG
@Adam L Silverman:
I honestly can’t tell if that is a parody account.
Adam L Silverman
@Baud: Every time AF1 changes time zones he get’s to start sundowning all over again!
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: I’m not even going there…
Adam L Silverman
@Amaranthine RBG: Unfortunately that’s the real deal.
Patricia Kayden
@Adam L Silverman: Fake tweets? Please tell me those are fake tweets.
Adam L Silverman
@Patricia Kayden: Nope that’s the President.
schrodingers_cat
How do you solve NK, Syria and Ukraine, is that like solving a partial differential equation?
Baud
@Adam L Silverman: Maybe the time change made it worse.
raven
@Amaranthine RBG: You’re a fuckin parody.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Brings back fond memories of colluding with Russia in Calculus I.
schrodingers_cat
@raven: How was your birthday? Happy belated birthday.
Mr Stagger Lee
Meanwhile Black women who vote loyally for the Democratic Party, who again voted overwhelming in the majority for Northam in VA, as opposed to White women. Are they going to get something out of this?
ant
And remember, whatever Hillary’s faults are, Russ Fiengolds campaign fell on its face even harder than Clintons did here in Wisconsin.
I still haven’t herd any plausible explanation for that, other than people are dumb.
That shit wasn’t Hillarys fault.
dmsilev
@Adam L Silverman: I can’t even. Next, he’s going to be standing outside Putin’s house holding a boombox over his head.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Amaranthine RBG:
The really good schools around here are the La Crescenta School(public elementary school), most of the influx into that area is Korean and Armenian. So you’d be a racist for moving there? Really?
Adam L Silverman
@schrodingers_cat: In my best attempt to type like Einstein sounded when he talked: Zee sqvair uf zee hypoteenuz eez ekwil tu vun haf uf zee DPRK tymez Crimea difeyded by zee Lefant. Carry zee two und place under zee radeekal!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@debbie: Yup, now its “short and fat*”.
*Trump should be careful with that one.
schrodingers_cat
@dmsilev: He has chemistry with Putin. Does he write Putin’s name in the corner of his notebook and play FLAMES.?
Brachiator
Jesus, Trump on his “chemistry” with Putin. Sounds like Trump wants to Make America Russian Again.
Goddam, he must be deep in Putin’s pocket.
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: This song:
Or this one:
Baud
@Mr Stagger Lee: Black women are the best. What do they want? I’ll make it happen.
Matt McIrvin
I’m wondering what happens with the 2020 redistricting if the census is just blatantly, deliberately screwed up. “Oh, sorry, turns out California now has a population of 5,000.” Is there any conceivable way of dealing with that?
schrodingers_cat
@Adam L Silverman: Sorry the answer is a null set.
Adam L Silverman
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman: REO, really? What did we do to piss you off that you’d do that?
kdaug
The GOP is now the party of pedophiles, pussy-grabbers, and Nazis.
Complicity is endorsement. I’ll take no part.
Adam L Silverman
@dmsilev: @schrodingers_cat:
Matt McIrvin
(That, of course, is assuming that the population of California isn’t actually reduced to 5,000, which is also possible.)
Adam L Silverman
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Just trying to pick the worst genre examples I could find.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Should we tell Kim about “little hands” or does that increase the possibility of World War?
dmsilev
@schrodingers_cat: You just know that the ‘i’ has a little heart above it.
Baud
@Adam L Silverman: Air supply.
Amaranthine RBG
@raven:
Look, I understand that you are butt-hurt because I had the temerity to remind you that your support of concussion ball contributes in a teensy tiny measure to the painful disablement and death of a number of football players. I get that you don’t like to be reminded of that, but it’s really poor form to follow me into other threads and try to pick fights about things I said 3 or 4 threads ago.
I don’t follow you around from thread to thread and remind you about your complicity in disabling people, so maybe just give it a break, ummmkay?
Adam L Silverman
@Baud: True.
raven
@schrodingers_cat: Thanks, we went to the mountains and it was beautiful.
Baud
@Adam L Silverman: I hadn’t seen that before. Awesome.
Spanky
@schrodingers_cat: No, that’s a total deferential equation.
raven
@Amaranthine RBG: Tough shit, I’m going hassle you every chance I get, if you don’t like pie me or just stick it up your ass.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman: Good to see that lack of exercise pays off.
Adam L Silverman
Great, he and Stephen Miller’s speechwriting have gone viral:
MattF
@Adam L Silverman: My dad’s mother used to send us postcards like that. If you read them aloud, with an accent, they’d be quite intelligible.
Kay
It’s hard to watch. The country is committing suicide. You could deal with it if this were some kind of invasion of a hostile power, but people VOTED for this. He’s a blogger, this guy, and he’s going to receive a lifetime appointment as a federal judge.
Where do they find them? It’s like they’re actively seeking out the least qualified people- affirmatively bad hires. Let’s search the country and find the absolute worst people. Who makes these recommendations, draws up these lists? There’s a list somewhere that some Trumpster drew up and this guy’s name was at the top.
Amaranthine RBG
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Go over to LGM and peruse Loomis’ threads about this. Short answer, Yes, if you live in the suburbs b/c of the schools, you are a racist. Full stop.
I mean, it is kind of hard to take anything he says seriously, given his seriously unbalanced views about ketchup, but there you are.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
And he’s playing pocket pool with his tongue.
And yes I know that is a massively disgusting thing to read, even typing it makes me want to sandpaper my fingers off. But……
AndoChronic
Fuck that. Let them choke on their fucking vomit.
Mike J
23andme, ELOQUII, Keurig, Nature’s Bounty, and realtor.com all pulled ads from Hannity for his defense of pedophilia,
https://theguardiansofdemocracy.com/five-major-companies-pull-ads-sean-hannitys-fox-news-show-roy-moore-defense/
Mike J
@AndoChronic:
You’re saying we should be openly hostile to people who might vote for us?
Adam L Silverman
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Given my sinus infection, that I wasn’t in the gym this week because of it and am out for another nine days till off the antibiotics, I feel all ballooned up and not in a good way.
Spanky
@Kay:
It’s not like, Kay. It’s their intent. This is in service of Bannon’s (and obviously others) goal of crippling the Federal Government.
If that ain’t treason, I don’t know what is.
Adam L Silverman
@MattF: And you never saw her and Einstein together in the same place. Coincidence? I think not.//
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Amaranthine RBG:
Bullshit, parents want the best schools for their kids.
MattF
@Brachiator: I do wonder about that. My current assumption is that Trump knows from his intel briefings that Putin is extraordinarily wealthy– and so therefore, by Trump’s standards, Putin is the winningest person on the planet. And Trump wants a piece of that. More generally, Putin is the successful autocrat that Trump wants to be.
raven
Touchdown Miami!!!!!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman:
Prunes, Adam, prunes.
Spanky
@Mike J: Ever seen that nym before? I haven’t.
Adam L Silverman
@Kay: He worked for Senator Strange when Strange was the Alabama AG. From there he went to the DOJ on the transition landing team. And then Senator Strange recommended him for this appointment. That’s where they found him.
Adam L Silverman
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I have the usage guidelines from the Elders right here. I’m still at least 15 years too young for the prunes.
Amaranthine RBG
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Yes, Loomis’ position is absurd. That’s why, after I stated that, I started the next paragraph with “But seriously …”
Sorry if I was unclear
dmsilev
@Adam L Silverman: Unlike Putin (or Obama), so far as we know Trump has never posed shirtless. This is probably for the best. I have, however, obtained advance copy of what such a photo would look like:
“It was a terrible, indescribable thing vaster than any subway train — a shapeless congeries of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and un-forming as pustules of greenish light all over the tunnel-filling front that bore down upon us, crushing the frantic penguins and slithering over the glistening floor that it and its kind had swept so evilly free of all litter.”
Adam L Silverman
Gonna go rub doggie bellies for an hour or so and then I’ll be back with a Veterans Day post.
Kay
@Spanky:
I like to imagine the people who know him “he’s a federal judge now? WTF?”
He must be related to someone. Could be just about anyone- Trump’s bodyguard, whatever.
They should just generate random lists of attorneys from state bar sites. You’d probably end up with a better-qualified bench leaving it to chance.
MattF
@dmsilev: You goin’ all Lovecrafty on us?
Brachiator
@MattF: Aside from any financial connection, there is something seriously warped about Trump’s Putin fixation.
Maybe it’s that May of the UK and Merkel of Germany are women. And China, well. Putin is one of the few powerful white male leaders.
I really can’t recall other presidents braying like an ass over how much America needed to be in sync with a foreign leader.
Maybe Trump calls Putin “Daddy” when they are alone.
dmsilev
@MattF: Can’t you just see Trump oozing forth from his non-Euclidean tunnels, uttering his signature cry of tekeli-li-maga?
Another Scott
I like to think that people are pragmatic, but too often people get stuck in ruts and just do what they’ve always done.
I dunno if chasing hard after “swing” voters makes sense. It might make more sense to work hard on getting a well-distilled message and pushing to increase turnout. Virginia’s turnout was only 47% – the highest turnout for a similar election since 1997.
When Democrats turnout, Democrats win.
That means pushing voter registration like there’s no tomorrow (and their might not be, if we don’t continue to win before Redistricting). That means fighting for every vote, for every method to reduce barriers to voting, and against every voter suppression tactic they try to employ.
As Scott Surovell says, let’s grow early voting:
There are lots and lots of things that can be done to increase turnout. We need to be agitating to get them done.
Cheers,
Scott.
MattF
@dmsilev: Well, y’know… I suppose I can.
Brachiator
@dmsilev:
Trump has Melania for that.
Sorry. Too easy.
Betty Cracker
@Brachiator: The only explanation that fits the facts is that Trump is comprised. Seriously, nothing else makes sense.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman:
My nurse recommends prunes for all ages.
Kay
@Adam L Silverman:
Great! Connected to the Alabama mess. Does he stalk high school sophomores, I wonder? Probably hasn’t had time, what with his lifetime appointment immediately after law school. Sessions is bad but at least we’ll be rid of him for good when he has to resign. This jerk could hang around for decades.
MattF
@Betty Cracker: Yes, indeed. One basically takes that for granted.
debbie
@schrodingers_cat:
With a little heart over the “i”!
Mary G
I saw a chart somewhere that shows the percentage of people in each congressional district itemize deductions on their tax returns. Here in Issa-land it’s 42%. Many people who aren’t really bothered by Trump will have a cow next March when they fire up the TurboTax or visit the accountant. I think we’ve got a good chance to run the table.
dmsilev
@Mary G: Issa’s aware of that; he had a statement out a few days ago saying that he’s currently a no on the tax bill. I doubt he’ll stick to that, but at least for now he’s scared. Good.
Kay
I would literally bet 50 dollars there’s more on Moore. I’m trying to imagine what could be worse but I can’t.
The problem Republicans have with him is not only is he a deviant who pursues children, he’s also a liar. They can’t even defend him on his habit of “dating” teenagers because he LIES and says he didn’t.
Raoul
Not really a representative demographic, but the BJ for Doug Jones at ActBlue has already raised $11,565 from 257 people. Doug said he may raise the goal above 10K, but that first increment got passed quick. People are pissed at the GOP, and somehow Republicans are completely ostriching the results from last week.
Betty Cracker
@Another Scott: I’ve been registering voters for about 10 years, and it’s easier to get folks to sign up now than it has been at any point in the past decade. Still way too much apathy, but it seems like there’s less than there was.
H.E.Wolf
@Mike J:
Oh, Dino Rossi. Bless his heart. He’s an almost 60-year-old white man. He’s deservedly notorious for his dodgy real-estate activities, for omitting financial assets from disclosure paperwork in previous campaigns, and (less well-known, because he keeps it on the down low) for his deeply Dominionist right-wing religious beliefs.
None of that’s a good look right now.
rikyrah
@Kay:
The GOP Senate Committee are complicit in going along with this. With this incompetence.
debbie
John McCain on Trump:
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/11/11/politics/john-mccain-donald-trump-russia/index.html
Suzanne
@Amaranthine RBG:
Oh, for fuck’s sake, just shut up.
MattF
@Kay: Note that Larry Hogan (popular R Governor of MD) has said publicly that Moore is unfit for office. So disavowing Moore is not beyond the capabilities of Republican politicians. They (mostly) just don’t want to.
dmsilev
@Kay: I certainly wouldn’t bet against you on that. The interview Moore did with Hannity, where he said he “generally” didn’t date teenagers? Yeah, that’s a bit of a tell.
OGLiberal
The white, not rich, educated suburban voters I know think a) the Dems are keeping the browns poor on purpose, b) the browns are too stupid to realize this, c) I will be rich some day, I know it, so tax cuts for the one percent are great…in fact, I think I’m in the one percent already (you aren’t…not even close) and d) we spend half our budget on foreign aid.
You can’t change these folks’ minds because you can’t undo racism.
Just convince the people who agree with us to vote and don’t worry about John/Jane not flying the Confederate flag but also “some of my best friends are…” assholes…they’re not worth it…even if you get them for one cycle they’ll revert to their norm, which is lazy brown people are preventing the government from giving me free shit.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Moore telegraphed additional shoes to drop when he went on Hannity’s show. As you probably saw, the assistant DA who worked with him while he was pursuing kids in the 70s said everyone knew about it and thought it was weird. More people will talk.
Baud
@dmsilev: 10%. 15% tops.
MattF
@Betty Cracker: It looks like Moore has decided to simply lie about it. Why not?
dmsilev
@MattF: For some schadenfreude, check out this, where GOPpers try and figure out what to do.
First off:
McTurtle looks for a way out:
Maybe election fuckery is the answer:
(she has, so far anyway, ruled that out)
I’n sure this will solve everything:
Kay
@rikyrah:
God, I’ll say. They’re destroying the whole concept of “merit”. Anyone can be anything in the Trump Administration.
ANY-one.
I could wake up tomorrow and the lady at the dry cleaners could have been appointed Secretary of State. People wouldn’t blink an eye. “Carol is the Secretary of State now and she’ll do fine, I suppose”.
MattF
@dmsilev: I’d say that appealing to Trump as the preeminent moral authority here is a stretch, even for Alabama. But, I’ve been wrong before.
AndoChronic
@Mike J: Vote for us? After they voted for this shitshow? There’s not a Dem. centrist in existence that could quench their bloodlust, except perhaps Hillary! Will she be running again?
Major Major Major Major
@?BillinGlendaleCA: yeah a little extra fiber is basically good for everybody.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: @Kay: The head of the state is a Reality TV star, at least the judge went to law school.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
Here’s one:
Kay
@dmsilev:
Oh, there’s more. There were a whole bunch who didn’t want their names used and an assistant DA who worked with him is saying everyone knew, because of course they did. It’s fucking weird to go after 14 year old girls- it got their attention. They remember that about him. People know all kinds of things. I know one of our asst prosecutors is married to a diabetic. I don’t know why I know this but I do. That was probably a very small legal community. They know him WELL.
Major Major Major Major
@AndoChronic: there are people who voted for Obama and then trump. You think we should give up on them?
Baud
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: I saw that earlier today. And people ask why I don’t like him.
AndoChronic
@Major Major Major Major: Yes.
Baud
@Kay: I wonder if delaying the election will only make it worse for them. Moore won’t step down and the delay allows more info to come out.
Patricia Kayden
@Mr Stagger Lee: Not having Gillespie who ran on a blatantly White Supremacist agenda in the Governor position is huge. Northam has promised to advocate for healthcare which I’m sure is beneficial to Black women and their families.
Matt McIrvin
@Raoul:
It sounds now as the Republicans may hang on to Virginia House of Delegates control by the slimmest of margins (could be 51-49, thanks to massive gerrymandering). As long as they can say they didn’t lose, they can keep insisting that things are fine. Just like all the special elections over the past year in which a Democratic challenger did unexpectedly well in a red district, but didn’t quite win.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: Duncan’s gone ’round the bend.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: Did he have an opinion on LBJ?
TriassicSands
@ant:
Bingo!
And that is why the answer to this question:
…will be “NO!” for most Republicans.
Will raising their taxes be enough? Not if they don’t know (or believe) their taxes have been raised. Fox will tell them the “truth” and that will be enough.
The Republicans in DC have been screwing their base for decades and it hasn’t made a difference.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin: That’s too bad but still an amazing achievement.
Kay
@Baud:
“What is known” is interesting. It’s like he wants to put down that marker quick before “what is known” is worse :)
Major Major Major Major
@AndoChronic: why?
raven
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Steady. . .
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: But…but…SUPERTRAINS!
dmsilev
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: Is there anyone who (a) holds or has held elected office and (b) rises to what he deems to be an acceptable level of purity?
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: he hasn’t been worth reading in some time.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Forget it Baud, its Balloon Juice, where we only focus on the negative.
raven
#1 Georgia lost and #2 Bama and #3 Miami are losing too!!!
Baud
@dmsilev: I would guess de Blasio is the best they have.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@TriassicSands: After Obama was elected, a woman at the gym told me how terrible it was that all our taxes had been raised. I said mine had gone down. She backpedaled to talk about property tax instead. I’m sure she thought Obama raised her taxes.
Another Scott
AL.com:
That’ll leave a mark. Unfortunately, Moore and his followers are too brain damaged to realize it…
Cheers,
Scott.
dogwood
@H.E.Wolf:
Several years ago I read an interview with John Harwood that was interesting since it was a pretty honest evaluation of the problem with journalists being required to invent balance. In 2004 he wrote a piece about Barack Obama as the most promising young politician in America. The WSJ liked the piece, but wouldn’t publish unless he found a young republican to tout as well. He scrambled around and came up with Dino Rossi. He knew they weren’t equally talented, interesting, or significant, but he had no choice.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: I didn’t think Matt’s comment was negative.
Major Major Major Major
@dmsilev: that’s the entire post.
Patricia Kayden
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: No more Eschaton blog for me. Attacking our last two Democratic Presidents makes zero sense to me. I’m sick and tired of these purist lefties.
Citizen Alan
@Amaranthine RBG:
Wow. I mean, there’s a pretty good argument that you are taking advantage of an inherently racist system if you move to the suburbs for the schools. But on the other hand, I think it’s asking a lot of even the most moral, ethical, and race-blind people to say that if they don’t go out of their way to disadvantage their own children, it means they are racists.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: That is interesting phrasing, isn’t it?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: ?
Baud
@Patricia Kayden: Maybe they have access to a wormhole that allows them to witness the one universe that has achieved progressive Utopia.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@Kay: Moore went walkabout in Australia in the 80’s apparently, so folks are wondering about that.
Kay
@Baud:
They are so completely insane. The prospect of a Democrat is so horrible to Republicans they will back LIT-erally anyone.
Normal people can make this comparison because they are reading about this shit every day. I don’t think 3 months go by here without someone being accused, arrested, fired, or otherwise implicated in some underage solicitation thing. So they’re looking at regular people getting hammered for this SAME behavior. It doesn’t have to involve even physical contact! Kids are savvier now so they tell an adult. Just the solicitation is enough.
I cannot imagine an assistant prosecutor approaching a litigant and asking to “watch” her teenage daughter. It’s WAY out of the norm. It gives me the creeps because it’s so grossly paternal- as if he is somehow “rescuing” these girls from the threat of modernity. I mean, honestly, why is it any of his fucking business that she’s sitting with her mother at a custody hearing? Is he the Father of the World, monitoring the womenfolk? Just keep walking buddy. We’re FINE.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: I thought that universe banned humans.
AndoChronic
@Major Major Major Major: It’s perhaps just a personal thing. They need to really feel this one, not just intellectually but really FEEL it. After that, then maybe we can talk about it and see what happens.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: I came here from there somewhere aroundn late 2007/early 2008.
JPL
@Kay: I think he did ask the mother’s permission for those teens he met in a high school, but the ones he met in the courthouse, probably not. He’s a creep that belong in jail, but will be rewarded with a senate seat instead.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I am just tired of the inability of not being able to take joy in the great night we had this Tuesday, and yes-butting it. Pundits have been doing it all this week, do we have to follow their lead too?
edited
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@raven: A horrifying day in college ball.
BBA
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: Bad Democrat/bad president, no. Given where the country was he’s the best we could’ve gotten.
Bad man, though, is undeniably true.
raven
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: Miami just went up 27-0.
Omnes Omnibus
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: Wisconsin won.
Gelfling 545
@Adam L Silverman: A little slow Tai Chi would help restore balance without over exerting.
Omnes Omnibus
@BBA:
I’ll dispute that. Flawed man, sure. Bad man, no.
Baud
@Kay: To be fair, they didn’t have Tinder back then.
@Major Major Major Major: Exterminated humans, for political impurity.
@schrodingers_cat: On Tuesday. Monday was crappy. ETA:. You fixed it.
Another Scott
@Major Major Major Major: The comment section there is bizarre. Maybe 0.001% of the comments are on topic, the rest is all kinds of weird inside-Eschaton-baseball stuff.
I tried to pushback a little on that post of his, but it was quickly buried (625 comments at the moment).
I think he’s right about SUPERTRAINS and reserved parking in cities and self-driving cars and the failure of 401Ks and the importance of increasing Social Security benefits, but if Clinton was HORRIBLE and Obama was PRETTY SHITTY, then what were Reagan and Bush and Trump??!?
It’s a weird position to take on a mostly kinda-sorta sensible lefty blog. I thought he was trolling, but maybe he’s just in a cranky mood or something.
Cheers,
Scott.
Gin & Tonic
@BBA:
I will deny it. He is, as many powerful men are, complicated and contradictory. Certainly there are aspects of his behavior which are “bad”, but how do you weigh that against those aspects of his behavior which are “good”?
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@Another Scott: Sometimes I think he’s just playing the hipster above it all type part. I used to go there all the time years ago, but it is a weird place now.
raven
@Gelfling 545: I’ve been thinking about that myself. My balance is definitely
declining.
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
Yeah. He is comprised, but there’s something else at play here that may also fit the facts. He has a huge ego, and has never been deferential to anyone other than his daddy, even when he was tangled up in botched business deals.
There is something desperate in his attachment to Putin.
But who knows. We have had presidents who were blind to corruption going on around them, but few whose own wealth and business dealings could be involved in malfeasance on a massive scale.
And I don’t think that Trump is so smart that he could conceal his own involvement for very long.
Still, there is something…off…in the way he defends and excuses Putin. And his defense is easily contradicted by intelligence. The GOP leadership has got to be bone stupid to defend Trump without some assurance that things won’t blow up big time.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: well that’s not very progressive.
Amaranthine RBG
@Suzanne:
Context.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: Isn’t it?
Amaranthine RBG
@Citizen Alan:
Yeah, the gets a bit expansive with his pronouncements.
Lest anyone thing I overstate: here’s a tweet: https://twitter.com/ErikLoomis/status/919762882610335744
He has said the very same thing with more detail on LGM.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: maybe if we go back to when eugenics was ‘in’ but who wants to play that game?
J R in WV
@Amaranthine RBG:
You mutherfucking piece of crap!!
It IS NOT the democrat party!!!
It’s the Democratic Party and that’s how we all know YOU are not a Democrat!!! You can’t even say the name of OUR party correctly!
Fuck you with a rusty barley scythe.
Omnes Omnibus
@J R in WV: Barley scythe?
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
I don’t know anymore. It’s a weird time in our universe.
frosty
@J R in WV: Yeah, I saw that tell too, and ignored everything after it. But “rusty barley scythe”! A new oxidized farm implement to put in my toolshed.
FlipYrWhig
@Another Scott: Atrios is a shitty blogger who has been unhappily going through the motions of his nominal job since about 2003. Josh Marshall, Matt Yglesias, Kevin Drum, Ezra Klein, Amanda Marcotte: they’ve been at it about as long and at least _appear_ to enjoy themselves. Atrios has been a miserable git for a decade and a half.
BBA
@Omnes Omnibus: @Gin & Tonic: I’m saying, if you reexamine his record in the face of the current wave of sexual harassment scandals, Clinton ranks somewhere around Louis CK in terms of awfulness. Not nearly as bad as Trump or O’Reilly or Weinstein, but still awful. And if we’re not going to tolerate it any longer, as well we shouldn’t, we might as well be consistent about it.
Major Major Major Major
@Another Scott:
And it would be great if he wrote about those. Or about anything! His median post is shorter than a tweet.
Amaranthine RBG
@J R in WV:
Dude, you’re a white guy in West Virginia. The democrat party don’t care none about you and your kind. You need to find another home. Maybe the “Mountain Party” they had some cool sweatshirts: http://www.mountainpartywv.com/mountain-party-platform/
chris
@Another Scott: Atrios is an old master. Look, he even managed to troll this blog.
FlipYrWhig
@Another Scott:
I think we overstate the importance of “message.” What I take away from the Virginia results is that it truly might be enough to have the message be “I’m not a dick, but my opponent is,” especially when you can follow it up with “and, good God, have you SEEN the president?”
Baud
@Amaranthine RBG: On behalf of the Democratic Party, I can assure you that J R is is a highly valued member of our organization.
Bill Arnold
@Adam L Silverman:
The timing of those tweets freaked me out a bit. (reasons) Where was he exactly?
Anyway, he’s prompting more 25th amendment talk with those tweets.
It’s possible. Felt a glitch in the matrix about an hour ago. :-) :-( :-) …
Gin & Tonic
@BBA: That JFK was a real monster too, huh?
sdhays
@Baud: If they delay the election, I assume they’ll have some cunning plan for pushing him out. If they can do that, their voters who are balking at voting for Moore will breathe a sigh of relief, Moore’s supporters will howl with screams of rage, and they’ll all vote for whatever nasty moron they get to replace him and the Republicans will hold the Alabama Senate seat.
Right now, I’m hoping that they dither long enough to the point where changing the date of the election is no longer an option, because I think it’s their only realistic way of getting out of this mess and they will definitely do it if they become convinced they’re going to lose. We are tantalizingly close to the election so that people will be voting just as more and more shit hits the fan (if Kay wins her bet, and I think she will). Even with that, I won’t bet that Doug Jones will win, but it makes it much, much more likely.
Amaranthine RBG
@Bill Arnold:
I know it easy to do, but I can’t believe that anyone on AF1 knows how to schedule tweets.
Adam L Silverman
@Betty Cracker: While I doubt we’ll find out about it, and I can’t prove it, but I think it is reasonable to accept that he didn’t just start this behavior in his early 30s after he got out of the Army and started working in the local DA’s office. I would put money on the fact that he did this with teenage Vietnamese girls while he was deployed to Vietnam as an MP company commander. And he was able to do so and get away with it because 1) he was an MP, 2) it happened in Vietnam, and 3) he was preying on Vietnamese teenage girls.
Major Major Major Major
@Gin & Tonic: not my favorite tbh.
Amaranthine RBG
@Baud:
You can’t serve two masters! Its either Baud 2020 or bust.
J R in WV
@Amaranthine RBG:
Every time, every thread, you type things that are repellent, hateful, despicable. Again, fuq you with a barley scythe!! A rusty one!
I really really need to re-pie you again.
mainmata
@Baud: When the Constitution creators made their hopelessly compromised document, they were trying to persuade southern slave states to agree to a stronger federal government that would be a positive “national” structure. The wealthy plantation owners, many of our most admired founders, were skeptical and so voting rights were strictly reserved to the states and the Senate was skewed to small population states and the Electoral College was clearly anti-democratic. The US began as an oligarchy (initially only white, male substantial property owners could vote nationally; state laws were different). Democracy in the US has always been a struggle against oligarchy and economic oppression. With the exception of a few episodic exceptions, like the New Deal, it continues to be an ongoing struggle.
raven
@J R in WV: Oh don’t be such a meanie to this fucking asshole.
Amaranthine RBG
@J R in WV:
And you wonder why our marvelous democrat party ain’t got no use for you and your kind? It’s your attitude, Son.
mainmata
@Adam L Silverman: A lot of shit like that happened in Vietnam (and in Thailand).
Ruckus
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap:
Haven’t gone there in a while, can’t remember exactly why, maybe just political overload, but for sure now I know why I won’t bother to even drop in.
Ruckus
@Baud:
Maybe the governor is hoping for exactly that, Moore information to come out. He’s toxic now what if you could make him radioactive?
JR
@Adam L Silverman: A truly dark interpretation might indicate that he was reenacting Casualties of War (i.e. not teenagers).
Adam L Silverman
@mainmata: Unfortunately.
Ohio Mom
I live in a suburb and I would say that most of my white* neighbors are racist, though very unself-aware about it. They are aware they are afraid of Black people but think that only makes sense.
I don’t think you can separate out that racism from the good schools angle. It is too intertwined. In this respect, I agree with Loomis.
That said, people move to the suburbs for a variety of reasons. For my family, I admit it *was* the schools, because if you have a special needs kid, you need a district with deep pockets.
We’ve had plenty of company; during my kid’s days in elementary school, the school had over three times as many autistic kids enrolled as the national prevalence rate would suggest. Also, the trend in our district is that the number of kids with severe disabilities is increasing rather dramatically. We are families that are using the results of a racist system for our own extenuating circumstances.
Also, there are some surprisingly affordable pockets here in the suburbs, especially in contrast to formerly affordable neighborhoods in the city proper that are becoming gentrified. I look at the rents in some of the areas I would like to move to after we are done with the school system, and if an area has a walkable business district, the rents are usually more than my mortgage.
* There are a fair number of Asian immigrants here, but I don’t know them well enough to gauge their feelings about American minority groups.
efgoldman
@raven: Kirby get fired yet?
mainmata
@Matt McIrvin: This will not last. We are MD-ers but have a farm in the heart of Shenandoah Co., which is very conservative voting but which is also rapidly changing economically, especially in the towns and cities. There is a real grassroots movement for eco-agriculture and renewable energy that the local GOP doesn’t understand. This is partly because of immigration from blue states and actual immigrants. It will take a couple of electoral cycles but this region will flip given the current GOP. (And its current highly reactionary rep. Bob Goodlatte has decided to retire.)
scott (the other one)
@Brachiator: Someone who’s a billionaire makes $25,000…in interest.
I feel like that’s a fact which should be pointed out to WWC voters A LOT.
Steeplejack (phone)
@dmsilev:
You know what’s more than “a bit of a tell”? “Didn’t date anyone without permission from her mother.”
You know who you don’t have to get Mom’s permission to date? Women age 30, which was about Moore’s age when all this was happening.
Ohio Mom
@efgoldman: Good, no great, to see you again.
Betty Cracker
@BBA: I agree. Bill Clinton’s behavior toward women was sleazy at best and criminal at worst.
J R in WV
@Omnes Omnibus:
There are different scythes for different grains, depending on how hight they grow, whether you intend to bundle shocks, etc. So I was inspired. I’ll be having a barley-based beverage in a few minutes, too.
U Miami is beating Notre Dame 34-0 right now!
Sab
@Amaranthine RBG: What’s the deal with your persistent use of “Democrat” as an adjective? That’s just rude.
Gelfling 545
@raven: Been doing it for 5 years now. I’m in better shape now at 67 than I was at 50. If there’s a branch of the Taoist Tai Chi Society in your area I can heartily recommend it. If not, there’s probably a decent martial arts school that has good instruction. It doesn’t really take too long to notice improvements.
Uncle Ebeneezer
@Citizen Alan: “I want what’s best for my kid” is a super-easy way to rationalize White Flight and continuing inequality in areas like education. It perpetuates systemic racism no matter how hard we try to deny that fact. Is there an easy solution…no, absolutely not. And that’s part of why the problems that White Supremacy cause are so difficult to address/fix. But the bottom line is White people wanting what’s best for their child often results in making things worse for Black/Non-Black children of color. People might want their kid to have 2 slices of pizza at the school party but if that results in another kid getting none, no amount of good intentions changes the moral calculus. Confronting our privilege is hard. Sacrifice is hard. Etc. But until White people start getting comfortable with making sacrifices (yes, even for their kids) all we do is raise the playing field without ever actual balancing it.
Amir Khalid
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well, they do look just like the Grim Reaper’s weapon of choice.
Edwin Mix
@FlipYrWhig:
For what it’s worth, he thinks W was a lot worse than Trump. As bad as W was, I think that opinion is insane.
Amir Khalid
@Sab:
That’s the deal with this commenter, whose nym is essentially a wish for a liberal Supreme Court Justice’s expeditious death.
J R in WV
@Raoul:
I signed up using Doug’s tool, but when I got to Act Blue, I went weekly on the donation. I don’t think any of the subsequent donations have registered on Doug’s “Thermometer.” But Doug Jones is getting the money, anyway!!!
Bill Arnold
@Gelfling 545:
I haven’t found a good instructor in my area. (There was a high level guy, wrote a bunch of books, but he died a few years ago. Have examined the books…). However, even doing the kata (or appropriate word for a non-japanese style) for other martial arts (or any motion, hard or soft, for that matter), in the dark with eyes closed, helps a lot to develop proprioception.
Amaranthine RBG
@Amir Khalid:
Wrongo. I want her to live forever.
But I know she won’t and that’s the problem.
rikyrah
@Adam L Silverman:
I read that from you in a previous post, and I had to nod in agreement.
Sab
@Amir Khalid: Yeah, I know. Most days trollisms, but sometimes thoughtful. I guess today is trolling.
rikyrah
@Ohio Mom:
Asians believe in good PUBLIC SCHOOLS.
In the Suburbs with our best school districts, the second highest demographic is Asians.
rikyrah
@efgoldman:
Hi efg???
Omnes Omnibus
@Amaranthine RBG: Eh, you are a gun troll.
msdc
@Tilda Swintons Bald Cap: Twenty Million People With Health Care Can’t Be Right.
Aleta
TenguPhule
@Adam L Silverman: I miss having a country and government I could be proud of.
NobodySpecial
Yeah, no. White flight in the 60’s and 70’s and 80’s to the suburbs was exclusively for one thing: Getting away from the ‘thugs’ and the ‘bad schools and the taxes that supported those ‘welfare queens’. Those folks are now in their 60’s to 80’s, their kids grew up in white enclaves and most of them are terrified of any place full of the Angry Negroes. It’s why all your city cops and firefighters move to suburbs or rural areas. They are absolutely consistent in this, especially in the Midwest. Low taxes and racism, the bedrock of American conservatism. You’re not peeling off any significant numbers of white voters there.
Kathleen
@kdaug: How about GOPPP – Pedophiles, Putin and ProtoFascists?
JR
@Aleta: maybe Power was right after all.
Matt McIrvin
@Uncle Ebeneezer:
Speaking as a parent, I think the problem here is that they’re not seeing it as “making sacrifices for their kids”, they’re seeing it as “sacrificing their kids”.
The fear is that maybe 95% of children in this country are completely doomed, doomed to short lives of poverty and degradation as the middle class hollows out. 5% of them might be able to get on a lifeboat that comes with wealth and privilege. And if you can get your kid on that lifeboat, to keep them from being incinerated in the doom that’s coming… forget it, any notion of fairness goes out the window. The sacrifices you make will be to get your kid on the lifeboat, instead of somebody else’s kid.
That’s a huge part of the reason strong social safety nets and decent jobs for the masses are so important. That fear needs to be reduced.
DHD
I think the obsession about “good schools” certainly has racist origins, but it’s perfectly capable of existing without racism, because of the simple fact that the way schools are funded in North America, based on property taxes, is practically designed to prevent social mobility.
To whit: up here in Canada, the island of Montreal is sliced into three school boards (well, actually five or so counting the English-language ones but whatever) – the CSMB, the CSDM, and the Pointe de l’Île. The CSDM’s buildings are like centuries older than the other two and they are full of asbestos and mold. Its territory is also conveniently drawn to exclude all of the old-money neighborhoods and demerged suburbs in the west of the city, including Outremont (where politicians live) which is literally surrounded by CSDM territory.
On top of that, for historical reasons, the provincial government subsidizes private schools, which are allowed to selectively admit students. The result is a “death spiral” in the public school system in the East End of Montréal (CSDM), though locally we call it “ségrégation scolaire”, which has basically nothing to do with race (arguably the CSMB and Pointe de l’Île territories are more ethnically diverse…)
Probably in the US race is still a factor, but I have a feeling IGMFY is an even bigger one. Funding for schools is like the quintessential social good yet we treat it as if it were some kind of weird accessory to the housing market.
Matt McIrvin
@DHD: Even if non-racist in individual intent, it’s racist in the sense that it contributes to a racist system (this is the distinction that kept people going around and around in Erik Loomis’s threads on the subject on LGM). And it tears me up in that I can see my own decision processes being affected by the system.
I live in a working-class suburb in Massachusetts that has an underfunded school system, much worse than average for the state–if I lived closer in to the city the schools would actually be better. The schools my daughter has gone to so far are actually not bad, but opportunities for advanced students are limited, and the high school has a pretty bad reputation. So the question is whether to move, or put her in a private school… or keep her there and maybe foreclose some of the educational opportunities I had growing up in NoVa and make her whole life harder going forward in the name of social justice. It’s a hard thing to accept when you know you have another alternative.
msdc
The question every parent in your situation faces is, what would making their kid’s life harder actually accomplish in terms of social justice? I mean, I suppose sending your daughter to a bad high school would incrementally improve the high school for the four years she’s there, but how much of a lasting benefit would it have – and would it be worth the potential restrictions it places on her future opportunities?
Expecting individual parents to “solve” racism through individual school decisions makes about as much sense as expecting individual taxpayers to solve shortfalls in anti-poverty programs through charitable contributions – or expecting individual homeowners to solve climate change through lightbulb purchases. (It’s actually more ridiculous in that it asks the kids to bear the brunt of the parents’ decisions.) In both of the latter examples we recognize that collective problems require collective solutions. Schools are no different. Unless you can get an entire neighborhood (at least) to buy into a course of action, your local schools’ problems are better solved through political action.
Another Scott
@msdc: It’s a both/and problem, but you’re right, individual parents usually are going to try to give their children every advantage and that means trying to get into the best schools possible (if all else is equal).
This reminds me of TNC’s ‘The Case for Reparations’. The quality of neighborhoods and neighborhood schools was set on its path long before the white-flight of the ’60s and ’70s – but that did have a profound effect, of course. But “redlining” as an official government policy was a huge factor.
My high school was involved in “school busing” in the late ’70s in Dayton. My side of the street didn’t have to ride the bus to our “home school”, but the other side did. In my last 2 years, I rode the bus to the “magnet” school on the other side of town. It was a huge disruption (too long on the bus every day, missing out on activities at the home school) for too many students, but it did help to get students (and teachers) to see a much more diverse population of students. And it didn’t cause sudden equalization of the quality of facilities and educational opportunities – ultimately the system needs to be fixed in tangible ways rather than just moving a few of the students around.
“Follow the money” is a good mantra, but it doesn’t work well when there is such a huge difference in the quality of the physical plant and economic circumstances of a new, rapidly growing suburb and a 200 year old shrinking inner city neighborhood. I don’t know what the solution is, but relying primarily on city- or county-level property taxes has been a failure.
It’s a tough problem, but it’s a solvable one.
Cheers,
Scott.
Adria McDowell
Is it racist for people of color to move to the suburbs for good schools? Or send their children to private schools?
The increasing gentrification in the cities has started pushing people of color out of their neighborhoods, because they can no longer afford to live there. We need to remember that people of color live in suburban and rural areas, and not necessarily by choice.
Matt McIrvin
@msdc: There’s also the possibility that the school isn’t actually all that bad and people don’t like it because it has black and brown people in it and they’re racist. But it’s definitely underfunded and crumbling and has had some well-publicized violent incidents.
Matt McIrvin
@Adria McDowell: Yeah, to some extent the Seventies white-flight narrative is obsolete–“drive till you qualify” reversed it to some degree. People now flee to the suburbs because they can afford to live there. That’s part of the reason Prince William County in Virginia turned deep blue.
Lurking Canadian
@msdc: The interesting thing is that on Loomis’s other hobby horse issue (industrial conditions and worker rights in the context of global trade) he gets this. He says over and over that buying your own clothes in thrift shops, or even sewing your own clothes at home, don’t have any practical effects except making one consumer feel better.
However, on schools, he thinks individuals deliberately putting their own children into schools known to be “bad” is the way forward. I suspect the fact that Loomis does not, himself, have children is related.
Matt McIrvin
@Lurking Canadian: Well, I also get a definite sense that Loomis thinks affluent parents having children in the modern West is a bad, selfish thing for them to do anyway, because the kids will inevitably have a massive carbon footprint, contribute to inequality at home and the exploitation of workers overseas, etc. So he’s not going to have a lot of sympathy for these parents to begin with.
As a corrective to supposedly environmentalist tut-tutting about Third Worlders increasing the surplus population, he has a point. (Though the people who do this often aren’t even aware of how much of the less-developed world has gone through the demographic transition already–they’ll believe India still has a gigantic total fertility rate.)
Marcia
@Amaranthine RBG: But seriously… “democrat” party?
Marcia
@debbie:
That vocal burp from Dolt45 was just plain odd. “Rocket Man” basically means “astronaut.”
Can you imagine someone using that in a moment of rage? “I’ve had it with you! You know what you are? An astronaut! That’s right, an effing ASTRONAUT!!!!”
msdc
@Another Scott: Agreed. Reforming the way we fund schools would do far more good (which is to say, any amount of good) than expecting individual kids to desegregate our schools for us. So would reforms to housing policy generally.
msdc
@Lurking Canadian: I have the same read, especially on your last point.
Matt
Said middle-management person has likely been getting fucked in the ass by the GOP every day of their adult life; why would they suddenly develop an objection to it?
Also, this idea that people can vote for the Moores or Trumps of the world and “not be racist” is garbage – like posing for the commemorative photo at a lynching but insisting *you* were only there to have a nice afternoon out. They knew exactly what those guys are, and they picked them up anyways.
WaterGirl
@Matt:
For all the ones I know who voted for Trump, they knew exactly what Trump was, and it was still better than voting for the lying bitch. In my opinion, anyone who thinks a racist hateful sociopath like Trump was better than a lying bitch must be pretty comfortable with racism and sexual assault and is okay with a sociopath as leader of the free world. I am having trouble seeing those people in the same way again.
burnspbesq
@Chip Daniels:
You must be new here. Here’s the view from the Orange-Tustin border, where I’ve lived since 1991.
There are no potential Democratic candidates with enough name recognition to pose a serious threat to Rohrbacher, Royce, or Walters. Applegate will probably beat Issa, but that’s because of Oceanside, not San Clemente.
Democratic candidates will carry OC in statewide elections in 2018, but the Congressional delegation and (arguably more important, because this is where you grow your future Congressional candidates) the Board of Supervisors are going to remain blood red for the foreseeable future.
OC will turn blue at about the same time as places like WilliamsonCounty, Texas (north suburban Austin) or Suffolk County, New York (eastern LI).
burnspbesq
@Lurking Canadian:
I guarantee that if push ever comes to shove, Loomis will behave exactly like the parents he loves to hate. His children will never set foot in a Providence public school. He’ll move to whatever suburb has the best public schools, or they’ll go to Moses Brown.