I stopped reading all the “kids don’t vote” hot takes, because they were rotting my brain, and I suggest everyone do the same:
Harvard’s Institute of Politics reports that approximately 31% of young people aged 18 to 29 turned out to vote in the 2018 midterm elections, an extraordinary increase over the 2014 elections and the highest rate of turnout in at least 25 years.
Update. Where does the [insert name of liberal voting group] doesn’t vote fixation come from? Remember when we were going to lose Alabama because African-Americans weren’t going to turn out? Why?
MattF
Nothing personal, but we don’t need a hot take on hot takes.
Doug!
@MattF:
Young people turned out in droves is not a hot take. It’s a fact.
schrodingers_cat
So what is the final tally of D wins in Congress.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@MattF: you could be reading Cole’s twitter feed, where he is waxing euphoric about his foot care regimen
Doug!
@schrodingers_cat:
Around 35. It was a GREAT night in the House. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Major Major Major Major
I don’t know about you but I enjoy learning about demographics.
@MattF: you’re reading the wrong blog if you don’t want hot takes complaining about hot takes
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Doug!: people are talking about the “East Coast bias” in the coverage, which is true and real. Just think of when sports coverage leaks into broader coverage, or the coverage snowstorms get in NYC. But I think because of Gillum and Abrams it was specifically south-east coverage, especially Florida, where just a couple of close seats that went R had a lot of people, including here, including me, feeling like the world was spinning out of control. Nate Silver’s moving ranking and that needle (still don’t know what that needle is) had everybody freaking out.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Major Major Major Major: complaining about hot takes is the new avocado toast.
Doug!
@Major Major Major Major:
Sorry I meant the “why doesn’t this group vote” stuff.
AliceBlue
@Doug!: It’s probably been mentioned in other threads but Lucy McBath won GA-6! And in GA-7, Carolyn Bourdeaux has not conceded–GOP incumbent Rob Woodall is ahead by about 850 votes and provisionals and absentees are still being counted.
Corner Stone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I was going to suggest Cole had suffered a mental break and could use a wellness visit.
MattF
And here‘s a hot take on Whitaker’s appointment as acting Attorney General.
Corner Stone
@Doug!:
IMO it’s so they can stay in the “Dems Have No Message” lane. Because clearly we aren’t picking the right candidates or doing outreach to the right kind of voter. So since Group X didn’t turn out the D’s need to seek the vote of the white man harder next time.
Mike J
31% is considered great turnout? Yeah, it’s better than it has been. It still sucks compared to old people, or rich people.
Georgia had a 57% turnout rate. If the youth turnout matched the overall turnout we would have a Dem sweep. Florida had a 62% turnout rate. Youths were half as likely as the average citizen to vote.
Congrats on getting better. The Browns have won two games this year too. They still ain’t going to the super bowl.
evap
@schrodingers_cat: There are still 12 unresolved seats, according to Nate Silver. And 3 unresolved Senate seats! The Arizona Senate might yet flip to blue, Florida could also go to Nelson ultimately. See : Races that are still too close to call.
Barbara
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: This is why I exited BJ for a while, as well as 538, and started looking at the results through the raw data on the NYT site, which can be organized by state and allows you to follow any race you want several different ways. We lost the marquee matches, is what I would say, and that stings and hurts, a lot, actually, and hurts even more to know that those losses were enabled by brazen cheating. But it shouldn’t overshadow the very real gains, which I believe are likely to be more durable than those acquired in 2006. Nonetheless, because of the way we are artificially divided in the Senate, the country continues to be on a collision course that’s hard for me to see turning itself around because at the end of the day, it requires someone to give up power, and those someones are very aggrieved even if they don’t deserve to be.
Steve in the ATL
@AliceBlue: I live in that district. Been busy all week with meetings and wine and golf and wine and hiking and, uh, wine, and I just learned a few minutes ago that soon the odious Handel will no longer be my rep.
Hell yes! Nice work, CD06.
ETA: hopefully Subaru Diane and her neighbors next door in CD07 will be celebrating shortly as well.
Major Major Major Major
@Doug!: I find it infuriating that my co-millennials don’t vote at the same rate as even Gen X’ers did at comparable ages, but I guess I also don’t pay attention when it’s about any other demographic ?
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: My new office has a pile of avocados in the kitchen every morning, people make a lot of avocado toast.
Kdaug
People opining about people they know nothing about. News at 11:00
Corner Stone
@schrodingers_cat: One reason, of many, that I never want to see another poll again.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I’m interested in seeing if the WH press corps reacts to Acosts’s credentials being revoked. I’d love to believe they’ll refuse to cover any presidential event until they’re restored
Bobby Thomson
@Doug!: that comes from being burned in the past on a prediction or hope that ______ would vote.
Doug!
@Major Major Major Major:
It’s not true though. They voted at the same or higher rate than Gen X this time.
Major Major Major Major
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: the 538 model was acting super weird during early returns, at a time when the NYT wisely decided not to display any prediction at all due to insufficient input data. I’d say “there’s a lesson for Silver here” but it got him clicks.
@Doug!: a point is not a trend though. But I am obviously happy to see it.
Hitlesswonder
I think X doesn’t vote is a media trope is just another way of saying liberals are lazy and stupid. The stereotype is that conservatives vote because they are responsible upstanding citizens.
Also, it absolves the government of doing anything to help X (students with crushing debt….or African-Americans). Because if those people can’t even be bothered to vote, they deserve whatever happens to them. It’s propaganda.
Doug!
@AliceBlue:
Yeah, it looks like at least 35 seats now. Dems have gained 30 already. The 5 the Dems are leading in are unlikely to be reverse. There are maybe one or two that Rs are leading in that might reverse.
dmsilev
@schrodingers_cat: There won’t be a final tally for another week or so. You can blame us in California for that; counting all of the mail-in and provisional ballots takes a while, and there are two or three House seats which are close enough that the result might change.
Roger Moore
@Doug!:
Young people turned out at the highest rate in 25 years, and it was still well below the rate at which old people turn out every election. If we’re so excited about Millennial votes turning the elections for us, we need to make sure we get at least this level of voting regularly. Voting at the rate older people vote would be even better.
Corner Stone
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
They are more spineless than Ted Cruz after Trump attacked his dad and insulted his wife. IOW, get ready for a whole lot of nothin’.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’ve been reading Cole’s wisdom on foot care(especially socks) in the sidebar. This wisdom has been around for a long time. First day of practice for his new players, Coach Wooden would spend a hour on the proper way to put on socks, it’s quite important and it’s nice to see that Cole has discovered an old truth.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I seem to remember that members of congress change offices when they’re party gains the majority. Is that true or did I make that up?
schrodingers_cat
@Doug!: Oh you don’t have to tell me that, I take whatever the so called liberal media punditry dishes out with a grain of salt. They downplay D achievements and hector Ds for failings real and imagined. I am looking at you Nazi Times and Snooze Hour.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Major Major Major Major: My new office has a pile of avocados in the kitchen every morning, people make a lot of avocado toast.
Dear god. Is it in Brooklyn? Park Slope? Bushwick?
(I have never been to Brooklyn. I know those places exist because of the internets)
JMG
@Major Major Major Major: Silver went on twitter to say something was hinky with the model’s reaction to early data. For laughs, check out Nick Kristof’s column in the Times, posted today but clearly written before the polls closed in more than the country. Lazy hack wouldn’t even revise it. So in his world, the Dems lost. I wonder if the editors put it out when they did to punish him through public ridicule.
Kdaug
@Major Major Major Major: The local HEB (grocery store) had avocados rolling in the isle – the piles in the bin were too high.
Trends take a while to work through the supply chain, and by that time we’ve moved on.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
Dunno yet. Some states still counting votes.
Major Major Major Major
@Hitlesswonder: it also perpetuates the notion that only liberals have agency; fascist votes just fall from the sky.
burnspbesq
In fairness, some states (notably TX and NC) go out of their way to suppress the college student vote.
TenguPhule
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
“Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine!”
They are fucking seagulls.
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major:
Immaculate Comprehension.
Yarrow
@schrodingers_cat:
The fever and congestion I’m having with this cold is affecting my reading comprehension. I read your above sentence as “liberal medial poultry dishes.” Seems appropriate.
Ella in New Mexico
Jesus H. Christ on a crutch not being able to bring yourself to vote for a person BECAUSE OF THEIR RACE is the God-damned definition of racist, Bernie
I hate to do have to be the one to burst their bubble, but one of my many tasks over the next few months will be to tear down the image of Bernie as the “Hippy Grampa who got fucked over and would have beat Trump if it weren’t for corrupt Hillary and the DNC” in the minds of a LOT of young voters i know.
jl
@MattF: I keep reading that as ‘hot cakes on hot cakes’. But I love stacks of those little pancakes, covered in butter and syrup.
I think most of the hot takes, and hot takes on hot takes, on voter turnout are wrong. For regaining power and putting it in responsible hands, I think we need to think backwards from how you win the damn election. And for the vast majority of federal positions, that is a purely first past the post, 50% plus one vote, winner take all system. If you can increase youth vote enough from your last -2% or whatever loss to get you first past the post, you win. If you can get just enough disillusioned white working class mean who are not hard core bigots off their asses to go vote, or realize that their GOP Rep has been lying to them to switch, you win.
So, even though I am probably more lefty progressive than a lot on this blog, I have no problem with the ‘Whole foods’ establishment Dem strategy of going after moderate GOP soccer moms and t-ball dads in suburbs and convincing them to switch. In a lot of districts you just need a few of them and you win. It seems like that was a good strategy in many parts of the country My disagreement is that too many DLC centrist type politicians think that the best way to do that is to run around crapping on Democratic core principles and policies, so you end up saying a lot of nice stuff about GOP BS, but conservaDEm me does goes along with that BS nicer than the nasty bigot GOPer so you think of some reason why you want a GOP-nice-‘n’-lite person like me (who is a Dem for some mysterious reason rather than running as a moderate GOPer) rather than the real thing. Seems to me those Whole Foods people can be gotten with straightforward arguments for Dem policies that have very wide support across the voting population, like lower Medicare eligibility age, protecting Medicaid, and getting kids medical care.
Huge increases in youth vote that are enough to get you 50% + 1 vote gets you a win and it is a success. Should be glad of that and work to improve next time, not gripe over irrelevant statistical benchmarks. If a 13% increase got the Dems wins, then it is a success, and some doom and gloomers and hot take cynics will just need to learn to live with that.
TenguPhule
@Hitlesswonder:
To be fair, this is actually true.
TenguPhule
@Yarrow:
Turkeys stuffed and ready for roasting.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JMG: I was gonna say: Silver was telling people to step back and stop looking at every tick in his graph, to his credit.
and Kristof has always been his own special kind of useless
Platonailedit
Less than 1/3rd is not a bfd. No wonder gop doesn’t give a shit about them ever.
jl
@jl: Sorry. Didn’t mean “a 13% increase”, I meant to type ‘an increase to 31%’.
dexwood
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
My grandfather was fond of saying take care of your feet and your teeth and they’ll take care of you. So far, on my slide to 70, that’s been pretty good advice.
Major Major Major Major
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: San Francisco.
I guess as of today it’s just another old office though, since I’m leaving.
Barbara
@Ella in New Mexico: I know. I have a close friend who voted for Bernie in the NJ primary and was surprised to find out a number of things that ought to be common knowledge. His idea that the kind of voters who could not vote for Gillum “are not necessarily racist” depends on a definition of racism that limits the concept to its most obvious outward expression, rather than as the outcome of an intentional structural framework that feeds into racial stereotyping that even the most talented individuals struggle to rise above. They may not personally be racist in that manner, but they benefit from racially biased systems, and they hold stereotypes based on the impact of that original bias. And that’s being charitable to them.
jl
@TenguPhule: A person can think up lots of arguments to support that. What useful information comes out of that exercise is not clear to me. Why not focus on what can be done to increase the percent who get out and vote?
bemused
Minnesota has a Kids Voting Program working with schools to educate kids ranging from kindergarteners to high school seniors on the voting process in all MN eight congressional districts. More than 30,000 kids MN schools voted in the 2018 midterms. They make the youth voting as similar as possible to the real thing hoping they will remember it when they’re older because adults often don’t vote because they are intimidated and don’t want to look stupid.
People ask “why bother, the kids are going to vote how their parents vote” but Amy Anderson said “over and over, they don’t”. In 2016 45% of MN adults voted for Trump but the kids vote was 62% for Hillary Clinton. Anderson has no idea why but says “the younger the kids are, the more democratic they are, even if they have conservative parents”.
This year the kids in the 8th district, my district, chose Joe Radinovich over Pete Stauber. They also voted Dems by large margins for US Senators, Gov and Lt Gov, State Auditor, Secretary of State and Attorney General.
Don’t change kids. Stay just the way you are when it’s your turn to vote for real.
Matt McIrvin
31% is still low, compared to other age groups. But it’s a big increase from, say, four years ago.
Complaints about African-American turnout, on the other hand, are usually bullshit, because they turn out, despite heroic efforts to prevent it. I think to some extent it’s people thinking of numbers from decades ago. The number was down a little in 2016, which caused a lot of handwringing, but it was 67% to 60%.
Hispanic turnout for eligible voters tends to be just a little under 50%; the handwringing there is generally from a sense that the number “should” in some sense be higher. But you’ll notice that Trump was trying hard to give them the notion that going to vote could be risky.
Luthe
@Roger Moore: Old people have more free time to vote. Old (white) people also don’t have to deal with vote suppression in the form of making it harder for college students to vote. Old people are also less diverse than young people, who are more likely to be minorities and therefore have to deal with racially-based vote suppression. And even in this age of digital media, old-school forms of media are wired for old people.
Also, are we talking “share of X population that voted,” “share of X population eligible to vote (but not necessarily registered),” or “share of registered voters”? Because those numbers vary based on things like citizenship status and voter suppression.
ruemara
It’s easier than wondering why a higher percentage of olds & whites show up to vote for racism, ignorance, & hatred. Like, if the undead existed, they’d vote republican because they know a vote for them is a vote against the living. It’s a lot like the “Why won’t blacks fix racism” hot takes that are essentially “why won’t blacks just sit back down quietly and return to be 3 or 4th class citizens we can beat, rape or murder freely like we did in the past”.
Barbara
@bemused: Kids are much less likely to be religious even when their parents are very religious. The most obvious issue separating kids from their religious parents is the acceptance of gay people. Many kids are also turned off by the overtly political nature of a lot of their religious experience. There is a significant negative halo effect that is being burnished by the same kind of people who wanted to shove Kavanaugh down our throats. Kids might be offended by the demonizing of immigrants, but I think that varies more based on whether they live in a relatively diverse community. I think a lot of older people are surprised at how diverse their local public schools have become.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@TenguPhule: I think it’s a few weeks too early for that.
Roger Moore
@Major Major Major Major:
Before the returns came in, he talked a little bit about tuning their method. The basic idea was that they would start with their district-by-district predictions, but that as returns came in they would switch over from the predictions to the actual results. How much to weight each of them depending on how complete the returns were was their main tunable parameter.
My guess is that they were screwed up by the classic problem of returns coming in non-random order. We’ve all seen it. The early precincts tend to be in smaller, more rural, and consequently more Republican-leaning areas, while the late precincts skew Democratic. That meant that as the early returns came in, the algorithm saw them as more Republican-leaning than the prediction and consequently decreased the Democratic chances. Worse, part of their method depends on comparing districts and using data from one district to fill in missing data in other similar districts. That meant those early returns not only fooled the system about the Democratic chances there but also about their chances in districts where the results hadn’t started to come in yet.
The most obvious solution to the problem is to make the system less sensitive to early returns. Wait until there’s plenty of data before relying more heavily on that data than on your predictions. The harder but probably better solution is to dig into the fine details and look at areas smaller than the whole Congressional district. Ideally, you’d want to look at individual precincts, but at least look county by county. Then compare the results in this election to the same results from the same areas in previous elections. This is what experience poll watchers do, and there’s no fundamental reason why you couldn’t write a program to do the same thing. It would be much more processor intensive, but it would give better results.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
OT: MSNBC using a helicopter cam to follow the van carrying the mass shooter’s body to the coroner’s office. What the fucking fuck.
schrodingers_cat
Amy Giggles Walter, proves my earlier comment
Elizabelle
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: No, I think it is the fallen sheriff’s deputy. Not the shooter.
It’s a tribute.
SiubhanDuinne
@Steve in the ATL:
Yeah, I have a lot invested in Carolyn Bourdeaux and am thrilled she’s insisting on having every vote counted. Like Stacey.
Thrilled too, of course, that Lucy McBath will be representing the 6th. Nice to get the Gingrich-Price-Handel stink off that district.
ETA: Brian Kemp has just officially stepped down as SOS. Of course it’s because he’s claimed victory in the Gov race, but Stacey hasn’t conceded and, I think and hope, will push to see and count every vote and challenge anything sketchy.
Matt McIrvin
@Roger Moore: The early returns for Georgia governor, in particular, made it look like Kemp was crushing Abrams in a landslide. The numbers really looked shocking. As it turns out, of course, it was a close race that might not even be 100% over.
There were some other races like that. Kim vs. MacArthur in the New Jersey 3rd looked like a grim pounding by MacArthur early in the evening, but Kim apparently won.
jl
@Luthe: “Old (white) people also don’t have to deal with vote suppression ”
I think that depends on whether an old white person has been ID’d by some political consultant as part of a group that might really need good health care policy and vote Dem because of it. Or, if GOP needs voter ID restrictions to get rid of youth and racial minority vote, a few white oldsters who can’t drive anymore get screwed, well, that is just necessary collateral damage.
Mistake to think that the GOP gives a rat’s ass about anyone who is not rich and willing to dump piles of money on them.
Bigotry and racism against African-Americans is so embedded in many parts of the white community that they could never be in the club. But remember that, long ago, the GOP did try to get Hispanics and East Asians. But those communities looked at the policies and general attitudes, and decided that they suck and are stupid and will end up hurting people, so they eventually wouldn’t support the GOP. And the GOP is now throwing Jews under the bus in a very ugly old-school Nazi anti-Semitic way, just because they need to scrape the bottom of the barrel for racist white support.
The GOP’s attitude towards all voters, is purely instrumental, what can they do to help us wield power. Trump fanatics are fools not to see this. He doesn’t give a damn about them or any of their rights. Any group of them not necessary for win will go under the bus at any moment if it helps their con-person political masters.
Elizabelle
@SiubhanDuinne: Her team just did a rip roaring press conference. They are insisting on counting every vote. And looking at the anomalies.
Roger Moore
@dmsilev:
The final final tally in California won’t be until December. The law gives counties 30 days to certify their results, and plenty of them take it. I’m personally happy that we refuse to rush the process and work hard at ensuring the count is as accurate as possible.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Elizabelle: The coroner’s office is about 30 miles away in Ventura. Thousand Oaks is on the eastern edge of the county, on the border with LA county.
ETA: Thousand Oaks doesn’t have it’s own police force, the Ventura County Sheriff provides police services for the city.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Doug!:
Rush Limbaugh yesterday was furiously trying to spin the results. 30+ seats is not a blue wave apparently. And because a majority of the Senate candidates that Trump stumped for won means Trump is a genius and all these guys owe their careers to Trump or something. Oh and House Dem leadership is going to have a hard time with them new young whippersnappers.
It was as stupid and desperate as that sounds.
TenguPhule
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Its cheap protein this time of the year. Which means eating it on more days then Thanksgiving here.
Kent
@burnspbesq:
Well the out-of-state college student vote anyway. I’m willing to bet that a pretty small percentage of local Texan college students don’t have Texas drivers licenses. That said, the voter suppresson that the local racists do every year at Prairie View NW of Houston is a whole different category. But I doubt that has a statistically meaningful effect on statewide voting by college students. The vast majority of college students who don’t vote do so out of laziness or apathy.
Kay
This is the same Handel, right?
Given …events that’s just great. Getting rid of her and Kobach is a real national victory for voting rights.
Mike in DC
Dems win presidency by 30 points, win 100+ seats in the House, hold 70 Senate seats. “We discuss the implications of the election with my all-Republican panel on this week’s Meet the Press.”
geg6
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I thought it was the murdered cop’s. Are you sure?
TenguPhule
The fight goes on.
jl
@jl: Actually, IIRC, the GOP did have big chunks of the East Asian vote almost locked up years ago. So, not only could they not attract minority groups with their incompetent and cynical bogus outreach programs, they drove away several groups, through dishonest, stupid and hate-filled policies and PR.
So, what? East Asian community is small, right. But again, if that group gets you 50% plus one vote, you win. So, if GOP policies drive away the vast majority of, for example, Vietnamese youth, who will be Dem or Independent, and who would rather beat themselves in the head with hammer than vote GOP, the GOP would rather double down and go double racist on immigration (which affects East Asians bigly) rather than sit down and so some self-reflection about whey their policies suck.
TenguPhule
@jl:
Hell, pre-9/11 they held most of the American Muslim vote.
Kent
@evap: @evap:
Although I dispise the top-2 “jungle primary” we have here in WA and also in CA, I do think it is the case that if AZ had a top-2 primary then Sinema would be the next AZ Senator by now. On the other hand, Stacy Abrams would have been further behind.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: The East Asian vote seemed to move from Republican to the Democratic party during the Clinton administration.
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle:
I was just listening to it!
Kay
@TenguPhule:
That was one of my favorite Obama moments, when he defended the birth control rule. It was just so nice to see a man defend it with such dignity and seriousness with none of the Right’s disgusting “the sluts want free birth control” leering. It’s basic health care, assholes. Stop smirking like 7th graders. Grow up.
Major Major Major Major
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: who cares what that impotent waste of teeth thinks?
RobertB
@Roger Moore: “My model is gefuckered! But I fixed it 10 minutes ago and it looks good now,” is to me just about the exact opposite of a statistical model. It’s definitely a failure in testing prior to going live – a run with 2016 (or any year’s) data would have exposed that problem.
JPL
@SiubhanDuinne: Bourdeaux ran a great campaign and if they count every vote then she has a chance.
TenguPhule
@Major Major Major Major:
20 million white fascists.
Kent
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
And I’m guessing that a lot of it has more to do with urban/rural trends than ethnicity. Here in WA the great majority of Asian Americans live in reliably blue cities. Do Asian Americans in Seattle vote Dem because of race/ethnicity? Or because they are Seattlites who as a whole vote 85% for Dems?
TenguPhule
@Kay:
Preach it Kay!
I miss Barack who was sane Obama.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Major Major Major Major:
I don’t really. I was flipping through the bands on my car radio yesterday and he happened to be on the local AM radio station. I think it’s important keep up on how our opponents “think”, at least for limited periods of time. Otherwise, we’d probably lose too many neurons.
danielx
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Man likes his pedicures.
TenguPhule
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Like all forms of harmful radiation, please remember to keep your exposure limited.
trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
At COB yesterday Sac County alone had a 175k ballot backlog so yeah, some additional time required. IIUC there’s a three-machine processing sequence, so a built-in bottleneck. They may need a couple more of each for 2020.
Another good outcome of the big turnout: it keeps the signature count quite high to qualify ballot initiatives. We won’t be seeing a list of two dozen in 2020.
Mary G
@Roger Moore: @dmsilev: I haven’t been online to read all the threads yet, so sorry if this has been linked before. This article in the LA Times saying that California’s late votes tend to increase Democratic candidates’ totals by as much as 2% and that Mimi Walters and Young Kim may lose their leads and seats gives me life. It would mean that no Republicans hold any seat in Congress in Orange County, something that hasn’t happened since the 1930s.
I know Juicers often get impatient with California’s count taking so long, but they really do strive to give as many people their voice as possible. Absentee ballots received through tomorrow count as long as they are postmarked on or before Election Day, and provisional and problem ballots are investigated rather than just tossed like I suspect some Republican-governed states do. We had some major wars for City Council in 2004, and one of my mother’s friends, who was getting a bit dotty, voted for four people instead of three. The county sent a worker down to ask her which three should count and had her sign an affidavit.
Major Major Major Major
@Kent: anecdotally, a lot of east/southeast Asian Americans were refugees from communism, and while the GOP’s simplistic anti-communist branding worked for a while, eventually it became apparent that they didn’t actually offer policies that aligned with “asian-American values.”
SiubhanDuinne
@Kay:
Yep, same Handel. I don’t know where or when she’ll pop up next — I doubt we’ve seen the last of her — but for this cycle, at least, I hope we’re well rid of her. And, yes, Kobach for sure.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Kent: Somewhat true, but there was a noticeable change in the mid-90’s and that was not due to the urban/rural split.
Kent
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
I have Facebook for that. Although now that the election is over, all my MAGA cousins from northern MI, IN, and central PA can get back to posting their hunting pics, trite religious memes, and pics from their annual time share visits to Gatlinburg TN for country music and whisky.
Mike in DC
On the turnout obsession: I have two basic theories about Latinx turnout. First, it’s a younger demographic compared to other racial groups, and that tends to skew turnout downward. Second, people who come here from corrupt democracies may not put much faith in the voting franchise and may need convincing that it’s worthwhile.
The language issue may have some peripheral effects as well.
SiubhanDuinne
Here’s some good DACA news:
https://www-m.cnn.com/2018/11/08/politics/daca-9th-circuit/index.html?r=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F
Corner Stone
@Kay: Like the MI state legislature that banned a female legislator for saying the word “vagina” in 2012. Link to NPR:
Michigan State Rep Barred From Speaking After ‘Vagina’ Comments
“Brown called a press conference, today, the Detroit Free Press reports. She defended her use of the word “vagina,” saying it is the “anatomically medically correct term.”
“If they are going to legislate my anatomy, I see no reason why I cannot mention it,” she said according to the Free Press.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Good, if kinda weird, news
I guess political lawyers are truly non-partisan. Abbe Lowell is working for Kushner, and Emmet Flood, trump’s WH Counsel, worked for both Clintons.
The Thin Black Duke
@TenguPhule: So? Who gives a fuck, Sparky?
TenguPhule
So apparently there was an angry protest/demonstration by a group of people outside of Tucker Carlson’s House (yes, that asshole from FOX news)
My reaction: whomp whomp.
Corner Stone
This whole disappearing nym thing has become quite tedious.
Matt McIrvin
@RobertB: Historically, Nate does a lot of that. I remember him constantly tweaking his model over the course of the campaign in 2008 and 2012, which would sometimes change the predicted results distribution radically. It’s a thing that bothers me about him–it makes trends meaningless. Better to pick something and stick with it through a cycle; if it’s obviously wrong, well, then, you’ve learned something. I almost wish he’d let the wacky panic-attack model keep running through the night as an object lesson.
The old dust-ups between Sam Wang and Nate Silver were over a number of things. Where I think Wang was actually right was that he complained about Silver’s model being too complex and opaque–with Wang’s the math was pretty much out on the table, and it was a very simple model.
What mostly affected their top-line projections, though, was their assumptions about the probability of correlated polling errors, which are just that, assumptions pulled out of their butts, with little evidence to support them. Sam Wang’s guess for the correlated poll variability was way too low, and Silver’s was probably not too far off from correct, judging from the past several cycles. But if you were judging just from 2008 and 2012, it looked like Wang was right and Silver was ridiculously over-hedging about his own ability to predict stuff.
(But Wang missed bigger in 2010 and 2014–he insisted that was a thing about presidential elections vs. midterms, but that was proven wrong in 2016 and really in 2018 as well.)
TenguPhule
@The Thin Black Duke: Hey, asshole.
JPL
@SiubhanDuinne: I assume she’ll find a job in D.C., but I doubt she runs for state office again, since her track record is not great. Personally I don’t want her to run for city council, but she would win that race.
Kay
@TenguPhule:
It was just nice for us to get some DIGNITY for once – I felt ably represented. And by a man!
waspuppet
Relatedly, those “THIS time Jewish are gonna vote GOP NO REALLY THIS TIME” are usually a biennial feature. They didn’t come out this year for some incredibly mysterious reason.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Major Major Major Major: That would account for the change occurring in the mid-90 with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 90’s.
TenguPhule
@Corner Stone:
The godawful RAM drain from the site now is even worse.
Kent
@Major Major Major Major: People are diverse, even within subgroups. My wife works with a young Filipina doctor who is a Trump supporter and who is intolerant of any immigrants who are on medicaid and who didn’t go through the same long excruciating immigraton process that she did.
SiubhanDuinne
Here’s some good DACA news.
Major Major Major Major
@Matt McIrvin: Silver is not a data scientist or trained statistician (BA economics). He was a hobbyist who struck oil. It shows.
cleek
Where does the [insert name of liberal voting group] fixation come from?
it comes from the data.
https://civicyouth.org/official-youth-turnout-rate-in-2010-was-24/
Jim, Foolish Literalist
from 9:53, eastern
@geg6: ah, sorry. Glad to be wrong.
The Thin Black Duke
To quote Edward Albee, “If you existed, I’d despise you.” And you never answered the question, by the way— who gives a fuck?
bemused
@Barbara:
Rural and other communities that are less diverse are much slower to accept change. Other small MN communities with a population that is much more diverse and revving up their economy with new businesses have found out change has been good and saved their communities from dying out. Our families are changing and will change whether people are ready to accept that or not. It’s inevitable.
Roger Moore
@jl:
Nationally, yes. In some areas, though, they’re an important voting bloc. Hawaii is the obvious example, but there are plenty of Congressional districts here in California (including mine) where they’re a major political force. And California did just elect Chinese Americans to two of our eight statewide offices.
Kay
@Corner Stone:
That was profound for my daughter. She was sputtering mad. “Why do they keep talking about us?” I’m not sure they realize what a gross visual it is for young women, all these ancient jowly old men OPINING on their birth control practices.
SiubhanDuinne
@JPL:
I assume trump will nominate her to some cabinet position as soon as there’s another vacancy. Which could come at any old time.
Major Major Major Major
@Kent: Filipino-Americans consistently poll as more conservative than other East/Southeast Asian-American demographics.
Matt McIrvin
@Major Major Major Major: And, for that matter, Wang isn’t a statistician either (he’s a neuroscientist).
Kent
@Mike in DC:
There is also something of a reflexive tendency in Latino communities to keep your head down, especially in communities with lots of undocumented immigrants. It’s not lack of faith in the voting franchise per se I don’t think. Anyone who has been in Mexico or Central America during a major election knows that they can be more wild and intense than anything we have here. But I think it is more of a general reluctance to interact with government authority of any kind more than one needs to.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@SiubhanDuinne: I’m sure there will be a number of cabinet vacancies in the next few weeks, John Kelly will be a busy guy.
Kent
@Major Major Major Major: Well that makes sense then. She has huge extended family in the Portland metro area and I doubt that she formed her political opinions all on her own.
Major Major Major Major
@Matt McIrvin: Wang doesn’t pretend to be anything other than a hobbyist though.
opiejeanne
@JMG: I figure they put out Kristoff’s column to make people think that Democrats lost. FTFNYT.
Hitlesswonder
@Luthe: I think we would be stupid to ignore the fact that in general voting is easier for older people. And that certainly is intentional in some cases. As an example, a local University had a single on-campus polling station and predictably huge lines. A local nursing home hosted a polling station as well and it’s population is nowhere near that of the campus…
Matt McIrvin
@Major Major Major Major: True.
Kay
I love that these lawyers think “arguments in the NYT” still matter. The appointee is a clown. If Trump gave a rat’s ass about anything he never would have appointed him. I’m sure he’ll definitely be swayed by this excellent NYTimes op ed! Yes, sir. That’ll show him!
They’re not really…adjusting well to the new reality, our elites. They’re clinging to norms that just aren’t operative anymore and there’s a stubbornness to it, an insistence that it’s about “the argument” when it’s so clear to me this is ABOUT thugs with power. Stop him or he keeps going. Physically, even. Might need actual restraints. How can they not know that by now?
They’re just not up to the task. It’s like “clinging to guns and religion” but for fancy lawyers. They’re clinging to NYTimes op eds and norms.
Kent
My nomination for the most ridiculous right wing concern troll bullshit yet published about this election. Come on Atlantic!
“Beto’s Loss Was a Blessing in Disguise for Democrats” by Frum.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/11/why-democrats-won-2018-midterms/575179/
Roger Moore
@RobertB:
I wholeheartedly agree. My suspicion is that this was something they threw together quickly just before the election and didn’t have the time to test adequately. I wouldn’t even be surprised if they lacked the detailed data to test it correctly. It would have required somebody to keep records of just what returns came in at what time in a previous election, and that seems like the kind of data people tend to toss once the returns are in.
That said, one of the problems with this line of business in general is that our elections keep changing. Trends in things like the fraction of the vote in the form of absentee and other early voting keeps changing, and that could throw things far enough off that a method that worked OK with previous elections’ data would make this kind of mistake with this year’s results. But we know that in advance, and it’s an argument in favor of adopting a very conservative approach to all this stuff. I think overall it’s a symptom of treating news as entertainment. Even people like Nate Silver, who are supposed to be hard-headed data people are focused on making the news exciting and immediate rather than accurate.
Gravenstone
@Kent: Pull that ladder up behind you, why don’tcha? Not like anyone else in your former circumstance might need it. I harbor a particular hatred for folks like that.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@The Thin Black Duke:
Are you talking to me?
Chyron HR
@Ella in New Mexico:
Well, jinkies, Bernie, maybe Your Revolution shouldn’t have fucking nominated Gillum and Jealous, then.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Kay: In the meantime, the WH sends out actual doctored videos. Trumpists don’t care.
Mike in DC
@waspuppet: Not a coincidence that many of the most prominent conservatives to defect or reject Trumpism are Jewish.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Major Major Major Major:
Did I say something wrong?
opiejeanne
@?BillinGlendaleCA: ACK!!! We started the Great Turkey Hunt yesterday and recoiled at the price of an 11 pound bird offered at $77 at the only grocery store in town. It was the only one that hadn’t been filled with “broth” and salty water.
This morning we’re heading to Trader Joe’s to check out their birds, then on to Whole Foods of all places because their prices are reasonable on the birds that have not been filled with water and salt or pre-brined. We do a dry brine on ours which gives a lovely crispy skin. I don’t see the point of wet-brining a turkey, I can’t tell the difference. BUT! The ones that have the broth added on their labels, the texture of the meat is changed in a way that really bothers me. I want to say it’s like plastic, but that’s not it. It’s like reconstituted meat. The texture is all wrong.
ruemara
@Kent: She’s Pinoy. That’s not that uncommon.
@Ella in New Mexico: Obligatory fuck Bernie.
Mnemosyne
@Kent:
And even that is very regional. Massachusetts’ House delegation is now all Democratic, even from rural districts. Many East Coast states have rural areas that vote blue. In the Confederate states, it’s solid red pretty much everywhere you go.
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
Wait a minute. I thought he wrote hot cakes.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
If this math is right…. Great googly-moogly! Has the hand recount begun?
Corner Stone
@Kay:
First of all, I don’t ever care to hear from Neal “Brett Kavanaugh is the finest, most honorable carpool driver I have ever known” Katyal. But to the quote, IMO Trump asked clownshoe one question, “Is there any reason that could ever happen where you would agree to recuse yourself?” Not if someone could justifiably make tht recommendation in the DoJ, but if he would agree to do it. That’s all.
Major Major Major Major
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: ??♂️
Kent
@Gravenstone: Yes, I find that doctors often exhibit a particular brand of narrow-minded intolerance. The white boy doctors my wife worked with in TX were also the same way. I think its a combination of always having been the smartest person in the room plus the brutal time and effort and it takes to get there professionally to the expense of all else in your life. Then, at least in primary care, you get dumped into a job where you encounter a whole lot of people on a daily basis who aren’t taking the slightest initiative at all to maintain their health. My wife is quite liberal and a loyal Dem but she often comes home infuriated by many of the patients she sees. Not immigrants (of which she is one) but mostly middle aged and older white women, which is the patient population she dislikes caring for the most.
Brachiator
@Kent:
This ranks up there with some nonsense I heard that “Beto deliberately loss so that he could run for president in 2020.”
Corner Stone
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I honestly don’t know why any D politician would ever concede any election that was under 5% in the South.
opiejeanne
@Roger Moore:
That makes so much sense as an explanation. Those early results had a lot of otherwise quietly hopeful people running around with their hair on fire saying that all was lost, everything will turn to dust, AIEEE!
I like your solution, and wish 538 would do that.
Roger Moore
@Kent:
The Asian Americans I know in Southern California tend to skew Democratic because they’ve rationally determined that the Democrats are more likely to have their best interests in mind. They’ve been watching American politics for long enough to know who the Republicans really are, and they aren’t going to vote for people who don’t accept them as real Americans, even if they agree with some of their political opinions.
I know I’ve told this story here before, but a bunch of my Chinese coworkers really had their eyes opened after the 2008 election. None of them were really politically active, but they were huge fans of Dancing With the Stars. When Bristol Palin was on DWTS, they (correctly) thought she sucked and deserved to be voted off. They were really upset when a bunch of Tea Partiers made it their mission to vote for her every week no matter how badly she danced. For whatever reason, it really showed what kind of people the Republican base are in a way nothing before had done.
Roger Moore
@trollhattan:
Praise FSM!
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Major Major Major Major:
Ok. Did I say something that bothered you?
Spanky
One of those emails from Kamala Harris just landed in my Spambox too:
Yeahno.
AliceBlue
@Major Major Major Major: Michelle Malkin comes to mind.
Brachiator
@Major Major Major Major:
Really? I’m in California, and I think you used to be, and one problem I saw was that Asian American communities were so small relative to the total electorate that they were not polled at all, or numbers were severely skewed, and sometimes that Asian Americans were simply lumped in with other disparate Asian groups.
And here, as always, Filipino Americans are not a monolith and younger groups do not necessarily poll the same as the older generation.
trollhattan
@Kent:
So not clicking through, but the title seems akin to “Sorry about the cancer but with the weight loss you look GREAT!”
ETA Each bad thing that happens to Ted Cruz is a good thing for humanity.
schrodingers_cat
@Brachiator: Asia is the biggest continent. Asian-American classification is so broad that it is useless.
JPL
@Kent:
Frum needs to visit Applebee’s in both states to gain additional insight into the makeup of Texas and Illinois.
Matt McIrvin
@Mnemosyne: In New England, as far as I can tell, the right-wing strongholds are exurban/far suburban, not rural. Maine is probably an exception.
Spanky
@Chyron HR:
Ya know, I sure would like to know how much Jealous raked in and where it went, ’cause it sure looked like he didn’t spend anything on campaigning.
cain
@SiubhanDuinne:
It would be awesome if they made her the winner and teh guy not only lost the governors race, but also his SoS position at the same time. NO take backs, asshole!
Kent
@Matt McIrvin:
Why can’t New Englanders manage to elect Democratic Governors? As a westerner that has been a mystery to me. It’s not just one race but across the board in multiple states and for a long time.
jl
@Roger Moore: I agree. Most older Vietnamese were GOP. Almost everyone of their kids are independents or Dems. As I said, they would rather hit themselves with a hammer than vote GOP. Why? They tell me the GOP is stupid, they don’t believe in science, they don’t believe in education, they’ve fixed things so you have to basically be a second class citizen debt slave to get a decent education after HS. The GOP is screwing up their cousin’s status, who’s been here since grade school but for BS bureaucratic reasons hasn’t gotten citizenship yet. The GOP hates their Hispanic, Black, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Jewish, friends, or boyfriend for girlfriend.
Older Chinese used to be fanatically anti-tax raise even in liberal SF Bay. So, they drifted to anti-tax GOP. Now more and more of them have realized that the GOP is going to use tax cuts to give to their rich friends, kill off access to health care and kill old Chinese on fixed incomes asap. So, that is changing.
The reasons I hear personally, and local people plugged into politics tell me, are very personal and real life. Not vague urban zaitgeist stuff. Not, stuff like ‘well, my friends vote that way.’
Small businesspeople Sikhs are drifting way. What good are bogus small-business-friendly propaganda that never amounts to anything going to me if the racism gets me shot?
Minorities are turning Dem for very specific reasons that they are glad to explain to you in detail.
debit
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: I have bit my tongue, but enough is enough. Stop attention whoring and creating personal drama. Email. Use it.
Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot
@Hitlesswonder:
It’s not a “media trope” (or rather, not just a media trope). It’s frustratingly true for younger cohorts and for LatinX citizens. Dismissing inconvenient facts isn’t just for rightwingers, apparently.
On the LatinX voting front, Mike in DC’s theories at comment 96 do get at some of the causes of perennial low turnout, from what I found in my experience attempting to both register voters and do GOTV in the barrios here in Maricopa County. I worked at those tasks over several election cycles for the local Dem Party here, going back to the 80s, but I stopped doing so because it was so dispiritingly futile — for all of us, including the LatinX activists from Chicano por la Causa helping us.
Whatever the underlying causes, the overwhelming attitude I found, in person, when trying to get people from these communities to vote was sheer indifference. I don’t see that it’s changed much at all in almost 40 years here. If it had, Kyrsten Sinema would have won going away, instead of hoping against hope for the recount to put her in the Senate.
Matt McIrvin
@Kent: I think it’s a coalition of the actual right-wing minority, and totebagger centrist sorts whose policy preferences are mostly liberal but who place a high value on non-partisanship. Some of it may be a holdover from old-style city Democratic machine politics, which these people really hate. They think of voting straight tickets as a sign of stupidity or corruption, they’re aching to reach across the aisle somehow, and the idea of a Republican who isn’t a horrible person really resonates with them. And it’s easier to be a moderate Republican if you’re the governor of a liberal state, rather than a legislator.
Why this is a stronger effect in New England than anywhere else, I have no idea. Maybe New England is so blue otherwise that it stands out more.
Roger Moore
@opiejeanne:
The huge swing from “sure the Democrats are going to win” to “toss up” made me actually physically ill. I had to close the web site and do something else. I actually promised myself I wasn’t going to check up on the election until morning, but I couldn’t do it. Fortunately, by that point it was obvious the big swing was a huge mistake and the Democrats were going to take the House. So if the goal was to keep people glued to their web page, it was a huge failure in my case.
schrodingers_cat
@Mnemosyne: It has been all D for a long time.
ETA: Except for the short Scott Brown stint after Ted Kennedy died.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kent: I’m not a NE-er, but I think there’s a lot of nostalgia among political moderates for the romantic notion of the flinty, independent, socially-liberal-fiscally-conservative idea of Republicans. I think that’s how Susan Collins survives. It’s also the Village’s idea of a ‘real Republican’, so they project it, to a greater or lesser degree, onto anyone who doesn’t actually spook the horses, dogs and small children: McCain, Dole (now a full on trumpet as his sun sets), Willard, Sweet Paulie with the Blue Eyes and Green Eyeshade, all the Bushes, Kasich in the 90s and again (probably) now, Nikki Haley’s waiting in the wings. All of those people, with the exception of the Masshole version of Mitt, are quite socially conservative, but they don’t have that Michelle Bachmann-Rick Santorum-Jim Jordan creepy factor, so they’re “moderates”
Raven
@jl: Most older Vietnamese were boat people or some kind of refugees from the war and they weren’t really to hot on redistribution of the wealth.
jl
Filipinos another group that is swinging Democratic bigtime around here. I remember for a while they were torn. I heard traditional Catholic concerns about gay marriage during the GW Bush and Obama years. But anything that that attacks immigration attacks that community on a very personal level. A lot of Filipinos got to US legally through military. I know that Trumpster BS like attacking ability to get citizenship through military service that are obscure to most people, is headline news in the Filipino community. A lot of my Filipino friends are horrified that Trump is being smoochy with what they consider to be horrifying trends in their home country’s politics.
So, more and more of another minority group that used to very split (mainly I think due to traditional Catholicism) are now in the ‘better beat myself with a hammer than ever vote GOP’ group.
Matt McIrvin
@Raven: Reagan’s anti-Communism was a huge attraction for refugees from the Communist world, understandably so. And he actively welcomed them, too. But that was a long time ago.
Raven
Og god, Barrow in a runoff fort Georgia Sec State. Now I have to listen to his phony ass on TV for three more weeks. (and probably vote for him) UGH!
Kent
@schrodingers_cat: I’m talking governors not senators. MA, VT, and NH all just elected GOP governors and Maine had one until this election. Deval Patrick was the only DEM elected governor in MA in the past 27 years.
Raven
@Matt McIrvin: I remember. There is always a large contingent of ARVN’s at the Wall on Vets Day.
guachi
I can see why predictions were out of whack Tuesday. I wasn’t looking at the 538 predict-o-meter, I was making my own predictions.
At one point in the night, the Democrats had +2 pick ups and had missed an estimated 2.3 seats already. Though all the misses were in marginal seats with low chances of success. Right now, even if several of the California seats don’t flip, the Democrats are looking at +36 seats and they had a predicted +39.3 seats. So after the early bad news, the Democrats went +34 seats and only missed 1. As most of you know, a lot of those seats were called really late. The two pick ups in Florida were the last two called in the state, for example.
North Carolina was a complete miss. An estimated 1.5 seats for the Democrats to gain (all with <50% odds) and the Democrats got nothing. They received 49% of the vote and still only have 3 of 13 seats.
When both of those states started showing no Democratic gains, it looked initially really bad for the Democrats.
Personally, I think the Democrats will take CA 10, 39, and 45 after all the counting is done despite the Democrat currently trailing. If that happens, the Democrats will be right at +39, which is spot on what my estimate from Cook Reports would be as well as the 'Classic' forecast from 538.
jl
@Raven: From what I see around here, most of their kids think very differently. Redistribution GOP style means they’re going to lose, not win. And this includes kids that come from fancy neighborhoods in San Jose. They don’t want to live forever with their parents, or grandparents, and that is the only way they will ever get to stay in a nice big house in a tony neighborhood.
Aleta
@Kent: Maine Dems will control both houses and the governorship starting in in 2019. And there’s still a chance that both Maine Reps to DC will be Democrats.
Matt McIrvin
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Vermont and Maine have a real thing for liberal-leaning but independent candidates, too: Bernie Sanders and Angus King are local institutions. Maine elected Paul LePage twice because Eliot Cutler kept splitting his opposition with independent runs.
schrodingers_cat
@Kent: Mnem was talking about the House delegation.
TenguPhule
@Kay:
When a man’s job depends on their ignorance….
jl
@Raven: And also, Vietnamese kids experiences visiting Vietnam are not the same as their parents and grand parents memories of horror suffering and social destruction. I think that makes a big difference too.
Obsessing over the Vietnamese War, trying to keep track of what party was in power when this victory or that disaster happened in Vietnam. That is irrelevant ancient history. Something old old very old relatives waste their time on who can’t find anything better to do.
Kent
@Matt McIrvin: Oregon and Washington are not as blue as MA and VT at the presidential level but neither have elected a GOP governor since the mid-1980s. It just seems like there is a particular fixation with electing GOP daddies to the governors office in New England that doesn’t happen in other blue parts of the country and for other offices, just governor.
Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot
@Raven: I had a Vietnamese engineer working for me here in Phoenix a while back; he and some of his family had been rescued from a rickety boat escaping Vietnam (he had been in a “re-education” camp for some time, and bore a few obvious marks of that, such as a half-torn ear). Got to know him and his family a little (went to his wedding when he married a young Vietnamese woman who had similarly escaped as a kid in the late 70s; his uncle was in upper management with my company at HQ back east — the uncle had been a colonel in the ARVN during the war and had come to the U.S. prior to the war’s end). All had become naturalized citizens and were solidly Republican. They told me they believed the North would have been defeated if Nixon hadn’t been hounded from office, and blamed American liberals/hippies/Democrats for communists taking over their country. They were aghast that I was a Democrat, I never told them that I had protested the war as a young teenager in the late 60s/early 70s, figuring that was a bridge too far. No doubt they’ve all remained Republican, don’t know about the younger generation of them born here (long been out of contact).
Raven
@jl: I flew to LA next to a really nice, young Vietnamese couple and that they had gone there and really felt out of place.
Raven
@Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot: Of course they feel that way, if we had just killed another half a million or so the place would be Macau.
joel hanes
@TenguPhule:
The godawful RAM drain from the site now is even worse.
I had to tinker with my noscript settings:
one of the ad sites was auto-reloading so often
that the “refresh/stop” button on my Firefox was flickering at about 2 Hz.
Advertising is the root of most evil, and information pollution to boot.
Which reminds me: time for another donation to Cole in lieu of ads.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@debit:
Sorry. I don’t mean too.
jl
@Raven: I hear two kinds of stories, mostly. One is like yours, I think. “Vietnam is really cool, fun place to visit, saw some extended family, but I’m an American dammit, its not my culture now” Others are proud of how much it has recovered and proud to to have it as part of their heritage. They think about doing something to help. But I teach a lot of engineer health professional grad school types. So, a big part of the community I don’t see. But my students tell me the whole generation is turning against the GOP. Contempt and hatred is the vibe I get. They do acknowledge the generational split. It is an issue for many of them. One of them told her parents were the only Democrats on the block, but every single kid she knew was voting Dem now.
Edit: ” I’m tried of this old country schtick’ is something I hear from a lot of East Asian kids.
Kent
@Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot: For today’s youth, the Vietnam war is exactly as far in the past (50 years) as World War I was to the 1960s Vietnam War generation. For the Vietnamese themselves, it was about 4 wars ago.
TenguPhule
@joel hanes: Thanks for the tip.
different-church-lady
Clickbait, plain and simple.
Raven
@Kent: WW2 was 20 years away from the 60′. I went in 52 years ago Saturday.
tybee
@Raven: i voted for him repeatedly when he was my congress critter. the rethugs finally gerrymandered him out of his seat.
and i voted for him this time, too. :)
Raven
@jl: I’d like to go to Ireland and Norway sometime.
Kent
@Raven: Right. I was talking about WW – I.
1918 to 1968 = 50 years
`968 to 2018 = 50 years.
Gin & Tonic
@Raven: Norway is beautiful, but good God it’s expensive.
Roger Moore
@Matt McIrvin:
This is a massively underrated factor. It’s not just a change between generations; it’s also a change by individual voters. There are still some diehard anti-Communists, but there are also people for whom the anti-Communism seems less and less relevant as time goes on. Big international political issues eventually get overwhelmed by worries about whether the schools are any good and who’s going to pay for healthcare. Starting to care more about American politics than politics in the old country is part of assimilation.
Matt McIrvin
@Kent: Also, New England being super-blue is really a recent phenomenon; it used to be that NH and Maine were the conservative states. There’s some holdover from that.
Kristine
Late to the party, but according to abc7 news on Tuesday: “In Chicago, young voters outpaced older voters. As of 2 p.m., 140,000 voters ages 18-35 cast a ballot, compared to 104,000 of voters ages 55-64.”
It may have changed, of course, but still.
J R in WV
@The Thin Black Duke:
For a long time I thought your nym was The Thin Black Dude, rather than the Duke you actually are. Sorry to be so wrong for so long about something so not important as a ‘nym on the web…
Take care, keep in touch!
J R in WV
@Matt McIrvin:
Actually, in both Econ and Neurology, statistical analysis is central to doing real work in either field. I don’t think either group is that much better than just reading the news.
Brachiator
@schrodingers_cat:
I was looking at a Pew Research study that seem to lump all Asian Americans together in reaching this conclusion:
But they also include a note that makes the data look even weaker: “Note: Only English-speaking Asian American voters are included in the data.”
RobertB
@Roger Moore: That 8:00 crap just about gave me an aneurysm, so I said the hell with it, and went to play on the PC. Not thirty seconds into it I managed to knock my drink right into my fancy gaming keyboard. I was pissed, and being completely my fault didn’t help.
Ithink
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
As if Rush Limbaugh has ever been anything but!