.
It absolutely, positively, was a Blue Wave!
Two days out makes it increasingly clear: Dems will win btw 35 and 40 House Seats. They flipped at least 7 governorships. They will likely win over 400 state legislative seats. IN, MO and ND were big losses. But this was a big wave election. There's no question.
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) November 8, 2018
Some things since Tuesday night that reshape midterm thinking:
-4 more House R->D seats called
-Florida Gov & Senate move to recounts
-Tester wins
-GA Gov closer to run-off
-AZ Senate still in air, keeping Dem hopes of another pick-up alive
-Dems closing in on 400 state leg flips— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) November 9, 2018
This election is more like Hanukkah than Christmas. Instead of opening all our gifts on one day, they're spread over eight days.
— Sarah Waites (@Addicted2Poli) November 9, 2018
One thing I'm seeing, both out there and in some correspondence, is an amazing reluctance of the media to acknowledge that Democrats won big in the House. Bigger vote margin than 1994 or 2010; >35 seat gain; but "Dems are out of touch losers" seems to be impervious to facts
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) November 8, 2018
In 2006/2010, the party "riding the wave" won an average of 57% of Toss Ups, 19% of opposite Leans, & 9% of opposite Likely races per @CookPolitical ratings.
In 2018, Dems won/are leading in 57% of Toss Ups, 7% of Lean R races & 3% of Likely races. In the House, this was a wave.
— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) November 8, 2018
Narratives that died last night:
— Trump has magical political powers, and his lies are "working"
— Democrats have no answer to the "nationalist backlash"
— Democrats can't assemble a multi-racial majority against Trumpism
My take on what happened:https://t.co/e20bzwvjGs
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) November 7, 2018
PaulWartenberg
I would suggest reading the I KNOW WHY YOU’RE SAD article at Gin and Tacos.
Why despite the huge gains the Democrats earned this 2018 a lot of people still feel like it’s a loss.
rikyrah
Good Morning,Everyone ???
NotMax
Open thread?
1:30 in the a.m. and realized haven’t eaten anything since Wednesday. Plenty in the fridge ready to be reheated. Guess I can force something down.
WereBear
@PaulWartenberg: Excellent article, thanks!
I used to read more political stuff, and being flattened by both the 2016 election (long term) and the recent monster-who-won’t-die flu (short term) has done a number on my online participation.
Immanentize
Hello All. At least it is Friday. And for many (myself included) a long weekend because of armistice day. Whooppee!
Immanentize
@NotMax: I can’t imagine going 36 hours without food…. Please have a nosh.
OzarkHillbilly
‘Black girl magic’: 19 black women ran for judge in Texas county – and all 19 won
Meanwhile, one can always depend on the losing Republican to go out with class and grace:
NotMax
@Immanentize
Not at all unusual for me. Put some leftover sweet ‘n’ sour boneless pork ribs in the nuker.
Technically, did ingest something yesterday, if black coffee (no sugar, thank you very much) counts as a meal.
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
Baud
@PaulWartenberg:
I appreciate that good people feel that way, but I internalized this on Election Night 2016.
Immanentize
@NotMax: black coffee (also no sugar) is not a meal, but it sure is a requirement for sustaining my life.
In Boston: Regular coffee = coffee with cream and a heap of sugar
Black coffee = coffee with a heap of sugar. If you want it straight, you gotta order “Black no sugar.” Weird place, Boston.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Black sheriffs make history in sweep of seven largest NC counties
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Good Morning? We had a mass shooting and the whole damn place is on fire.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: I was wondering where you were, I’m thinking of sending in some pics of the Brand Library for my next OTR submission.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Immanentize: Best infrastructure week ever!
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
That’s excellent.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Blech to you, sir.
p.a
Taking the House back is YUGE, but the state/local stuff is the most inspiring. Don’t know how much the national D apparatus helped, but props to whoever is responsible.
Baud
@p.a:
DLCC coordinates state house races. It really is an incredible number.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: OK, I did get my copy of “The Beatles” 50th Anniversary album that I ordered a day early.
(The whole area around TO where they had the shooting really is on fire. Bunch of houses have been lost and 75,000 house have been evacuated.)
Patricia Kayden
The votes are still being counted in Florida and the margin between Gillum and DeSantis is tightening. Nothing would surprise me. Count every single vote.
Cermet
The media is owned by the elites, and they don’t want the people to know facts; democrats are the wave of the future, and the future is NOW!
Also, good morning to all our Jackals!
OzarkHillbilly
I love Michelle Obama but £72,181 to hear her speak is a wee bit too much.
Kay
They were all tweeting this yesterday, this bit about how Fox dropped coverage of the scary brown people invasion the minute the polls opened, but we all saw the truth- the truth is they all flogged this story and they all dropped it the minute the polls opened.
In some ways I respect the FOX celebrities more- at least they didn’t try to drape it in phony “humanitarian concern” for the refugees.
We should start a pool on what the scary black/brown people invasion story will be in 2020. Look around globally and predict- we can narrow it down- so far we’ve seen a Syrian refugee invasion panic, an Ebola invasion panic and then the caravan panic. All trumped up prior to an election, all disappeared immediately after the election. We could get ahead of the next one.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
In addition to the seven black sheriffs in the seventh largest counties, NC also did this:
Pitt County voters elect first African American female sheriff
Baud
@Kay:
Jackal invasion!
Patricia Kayden
So what’s up with Bernie and his inability to acknowledge that racism may be the motivation for some people’s votes? He has a blind spot when it comes to race that he needs to overcome if he hopes to attract voters of color in 2020.
Quinerly
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: read this yesterday. I’m originally from Pitt and went to undergrad in Greenville at East Carolina University. Love this!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@PaulWartenberg: That article was right on. My fellow citizens once again showed me who they are.
Baud
@Patricia Kayden:
He has always been clear that the white working class are the people he covets most. He will never say anything to upset them (this is why he won’t call himself a Democrat). Any supporter of his who expects something different is lying to themselves.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
There, fixed it for ya Doc Krugman.
Our Feckless Corporate Media acting like it always does.
debbie
@Kay:
The military isn’t necessary anymore. Real patriots are massing to the border. What could go wrong with that? //
Chyron HR
@Patricia Kayden:
No, he just needs to make the DNC stop
letting black states have delegatesrigging the primary.Dorothy A. Winsor
@Immanentize: I’m hoping we’ll get some indictments today.
satby
@NotMax: are you ok? Other than not ever feeling hungry?
Kay
@Baud:
I had actually forgotten about the phony Syrian refugee panic. That was like Patient Zero for this epidemic of bullshit.
The numbers just kill me. “1000 people are invading the United States!” It’s like “a high school auditorium full” and 250 of them are babies.
Quinerly
@Patricia Kayden: I posted the original piece yesterday on the Book of Faces and tagged some hardcore Bernie lovers (all but one did end up voting for HRC but regularly blame her for the 2016 loss). Crickets. Particularly love the Twitter comment, “Those post offices aren’t going to name themselves.”
Schlemazel
@Patricia Kayden:
Technical term is “white privilege” he suffers from it badly as do a very large number of his fans. I doubt you could explain it to him in a way he would be convinced he is too steeped in it to understand.
satby
@Patricia Kayden: fuck Wilmer.
He’s not going to attract women or a lot of white people either. Just stupid ones.
Schlemazel
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Fridays has been the day for them, I have my fingers crossed
Kay
@Patricia Kayden:
I feel like he’s making this much more complicated than it is. He keeps describing racism and then saying it isn’t racism. This is actually the way he speaks on everything- he’ll say something clear and true and then he adds some rambling incoherent bullshit “modifier” that contradicts the prior. It makes me want to strangle him. It’s like this in my mind : +1-1= 0 He may as well not say anything. It’s always a wash.
OzarkHillbilly
@Patricia Kayden: Even if he isn’t a racist he’s OK with white people’s inherent racism, that’s the norm he grew up with. He doesn’t want to talk about it because it makes his imagined base uncomfortable.
Kristine
@Baud: I made a monthly contribution to them. It was money well spent.
Baud
@Kristine: They had a lot of 5X matching, which I did. Agreed on money well spent. ALEC just got a lot weaker.
Kay
Well, after an extensive nationwide search my daughter and her husband are moving to NY. It’s oddly kind of a let down because they were so open! They interviewed in Alabama, West Virginia, Atlanta, Ann Arbor, New Mexico. Wide open. I thought we’d get some weird-ass decision, something I consider exotic. They should consider that I’m living vicariously thru them and be more adventurous.
NotMax
@BillinGlendaleCA
Oh, I’ve been around. Simply haven’t had anything much to say or add.
Mr. Mack
Nice to find more than a thin silver lining in the election results. I’m ecstatic about a real Democratic infrastructure being built, and since I’m a Howard Dean fan, a real 50 state strategy. Now…how do we get ahead of the inevitable internecine battles we all know and love?
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
Children are so selfish. Whatever gave them the idea that they could live their lives?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Schlemazel: I just read the Mueller’s grand jury meets on Fridays, so I’m guessing that’s why it’s Indictment Day.
Baud
@Mr. Mack: Just gotta fight the bullshit one day at a time.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: I blame their mother.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax:
That never stopped anybody else around here.
Kay
Always with the passive voice, as if the speakers aren’t “setting the narrative”. Love “get set”. Magically. Organically. Like the phases of the moon. Not by anyone…specific. Mistakes were made.
Trump is their editor. They should just own it.
debbie
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I’ve heard he’s writing the final report. That’s a good sign, no?
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
Hey! I resemble that remark!
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: I blame Obama.
HeleninEire
Just woke up. I landed at 4:30 this morning, almost 1/2 hour early. I was in the house by 5:15 and in bed before 6. (Yeah I’m the person who unpacks as soon as she gets home.) Loved NY but it sure is nice to be back in my own bed. I got more that 6 hours of sleep without waking. That’s rare.
Good to be home.
raven
@PaulWartenberg: He rocks, he used to be at UGA but moved on.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Remember this?
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/326820-sanders-defends-trump-voters-i-dont-think-theyre-racists
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: I doubt he is. He may be writing A final report, but not THE final report.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: I miss that.
Kay
@OzarkHillbilly:
If I knew they they were gonna go “traditional” I would have lobbied for Ann Arbor. It’s closer. They threw Alabama in there to just to throw me off.
Karen S.
@PaulWartenberg:
I read that the other day. I appreciate the points made in it, but if it’s the case that some liberals are sad about the Tuesday election results because of the reasons the Gin & Tacos guy asserts, then I’ve been sad at least since junior high school. Growing up as a member of one of a handful of black families in a predominantly white Chicago suburb will do that. I had some awful classmates and their parents were just as bad. Thing is, I’m NOT sad about the results from Tuesday at all. Overall, Democrats did very well, especially at the state and local levels. I think liberals focus too much on the big, sexy, headline-grabbing national races and ignore or forget that it all starts locally. Republicans have always known this and never forget it.
Raven
“So I get it. It’s depressing. There’s no amount of positives that can take away the nagging feeling that lots and lots of people in this country are just…garbage. They’re garbage human beings just like the president they adore. These people are not one conversation, one fact-check, and one charismatic young Democratic candidate away from seeing the light. They’re reactionary, mean, ignorant, uninteresting in becoming less ignorant, and vindictive. They hate you and they will vote for monsters to prove it.
Remember this feeling. Remember it every time someone tells you that the key to moving forward is to reach across the aisle, show the fine art of decorum in practice, and chat with right-wingers to find out what makes them tick. Remember the nagging sadness you feel looking at these almost entirely positive results; it will be your reminder that the only way to beat this thing is to outwork, outfight, and out-organize these people. They are not going to be won over and they will continue to prove that to you every chance they get.”
Platonailedit
Lock him up.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: We all do.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: Sneaky.
NonyNony
@Baud:
What Ed posts there is pretty much why I’ve been angry every day for the past two years.
It’s not like it was news to me that people are shits, but damn.
debbie
@Raven:
This is what kills me. They hate us, but we’re not the ones who have screwed them over. The people who screwed them over are the people who own the places where they work and who ordered the layoffs and who created the economic policies that have given them such anxiety. All their hate is doing is perpetuating the power of the people who have been fucking them over. At least hate the right people!
OzarkHillbilly
@Raven: Yep.
Aleta
@Kay: Good idea. When I don’t know, but I’m expecting that as flooding/hurricane damage of low lying coastal areas displaces residents in large numbers, right wingers (having denied climate change, then fallen back on ‘god’s will) to raise fears about people in motion, instead of doing something to help. Or prepare now.
clay
@Baud: I think the part after the bolded sentence is even more damning of Sanders. What a dick.
Another Scott
@OzarkHillbilly: Scalpers gotta scalp. Those are offer prices, no telling how many will actually go for that price, of course.
Good morning, everyone.
Cheers,
Scott.
OzarkHillbilly
Those poor Aussies, They just can’t get mass murder right.
One dead and 2 injured, that’s page A-23 news in Amurika. Pikers.
Raven
@NonyNony: Remember the “Hard Hat Riots”? This shit is old business.
OzarkHillbilly
@Another Scott: I’m assuming nobody is quite that stupid and rich enough. But maybe I’m just making an ass out of me.
R-Jud
@Kay: I did my mother a favor by moving from Pennsylvania to England. When she comes to visit I know I’m in for a lot of visits to castles and megaliths and the gardens of stately homes.
I’m not complaining, mind.
Another Scott
@OzarkHillbilly: Heh. :-)
(Not picking on you, I just had to click over because I couldn’t believe that she would actually demand prices like that from mere mortals (as opposed to Giant Evil Banksters Trust, NA).)
Have a good day!
Cheers,
Scott.
Emma
@debbie: Hating the right people would mean accepting the horrific idea that POC and minorities and immigrants from the “wrong” places are actually to be seen and treated as human beings with equal rights. As kids used to say, “as if.”
A Ghost To Most
@debbie: A lot of them screwed themselves over by being so gutless. Now, they’re looking for someone to blame for choosing poorly.
Raven
@R-Jud: OOOO, “mind”!! Do you sat “pray” and “you lot” too?
Platonailedit
Emma
@Another Scott: Prices for speakers are set by demand. The only groups/people who sometimes get a break are librarians. And that’s only sometimes.
A Ghost To Most
Random thought: Perhaps SNL could bring back Jon Lovitz and Master Thespian to play “Acting!” Director of DOJ.
Procopius
@Mr. Mack: I’m with you, although I’ve gotta say Howard Dean has made some awful choices the last few years. I’m pretty sure the DNC/DCCC/DSCC did not help much with the excellent local results. They are totally opposed to spending money on anything except their seven consultants. The consultants, in turn, are totally convinced that we live in a center-right country and will only direct the Party to support candidates that are dedicated to conservatism. That’s why we have the Red to Blue Movement. One of the things that gave me some satisfaction in the last several elections is that since 2008 Blue Dogs lose. Oh, the party keeps spending tons of money getting new ones elected, but they don’t last long, and the overall number keeps going down.
danielx
@Baud:
And every day since, unfortunately. Note: haven’t heard word fucking one from Tangerine Torquemada about the migrant caravan since Tuesday. It’s almost like he didn’t really care about it in the first place.
Platonailedit
@A Ghost To Most:
lovitz is a fucking rwnj birther. Fuck him and his type of stupid comedy.
satby
First snow! 1-2 inches expected. Guess those leaves will have to wait to be raked ?
A Ghost To Most
@Platonailedit:
That sucks. No wonder I hadn’t heard about him for so long. Thanks.
Elizabelle
I love that Toles cartoon. Go, Democrats!
danielx
Title of today’s encomium by David Brooks, which I cannot bring myself to read nor yet link to:
What the Working Class Is Still Trying to Tell Us
As all know, there is no greater expert on the thoughts of the working class than David Brooks. That’s how he avoids belonging to it.
A Ghost To Most
I see the christian fascists are acting up again down in Dobson Springs
Aleta
Bernie won’t give up his belief that he can win if he can just win the hearts of lower income Trump voters. He’ll never win the hearts of racists and the hate base. In addition I think he is perpetuating the media distortion that ignored the wealthy who gave Trump his primary win and a very large or higher proportion of his votes.
Those wealthy working class and white collar individuals, and the ‘not college educated’ (like Zuckerberg, Jobs, Tiger Woods), and the law firm/corporate employees who donate to both sides through their firms to protect themselves. The media ignores them to concentrate on the ‘working class poor’ to protect itself and imo Bernie effectively does too, because working class wealthy is his ID. (Though he does target their hs/college age children.)
(It’s OK to point out the holes in my rant-reasoning.)
BC in Illinois
From Julia Davis:
Russia in Dismay and Despair!
Trump / Russia in Disarray!
Aleta
@satby: Did you ever see that recipe for a broth that calls for a mixture of this years’ fallen leaves and last years’ partially decomposed ones? If not I’ll find it when I see you some other day.
chopper
@OzarkHillbilly:
to wilmer, racism is guys in white hoods. crypto-racism and the sort of thing people say behind closed doors isn’t racism to him, it’s just people’s deep seated opinions that have to be acknowledged and respected. sickening.
Aleta
@NotMax: Is that because you just don’t feel hungry, get involved so forget to eat, or have nausea, or ?
rikyrah
@PaulWartenberg:
Um…not me. I knew November 2016.
November 2018 lifted my spirits immensely.
Maybe those of you still upset still held out hope..
Why, I don’t know.
But. As Kay said long ago…they showed their lack of character when they voted for Dolt45. That his approval ratings aren’t in the teens confirmed that lack of character.
Why you would need election results from November 2018 to confirm who they showed you they were in November 2016….
well, that’s on you.
I was sad about Beto, Stacey and Andrew.
FlipYrWhig
@Procopius:
Uh, I’m going to need a bit more information here. Are you thinking of a particular person who the DNC/consultant-ocracy allegedly backed (in a primary?)? Because this sort of sounds like what people said about Rahm Emanuel when he was head of the DCCC in 2006, but I sure didn’t get a sense that the Democratic slate “dedicated to conservatism” in 2018.
FlipYrWhig
@chopper: He’s still dreaming of a class-based revolution where the rednecks and the hardhats and the hippies and the hipsters are all on the same side, and they’re all white, and they’re going to get revenge against rich people and/or corporations and/or the military, and black people and Spanish-speakers and women can benefit from the something something that the movement ushers in somehow. It’s dumb and outdated, much like its champion.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Word. We have begun fighting back and we won a major victory. That buoys my spirit. That people would choose Cruz over Beto, Kemp over Abrams, and DeSantis over Gillum is horrible but not unexpected in those particular states.
Miss Bianca
@Mr. Mack: How you doing? Think I saw a post the other day from you indicating that you were fighting cancer. Just wanted to say that another jackal wishes you well.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: I don’t like Amy Walter. She is always pushing the R POV under the guise of a bubbly, giggly centrist pundit who happens to be lesbian.
Tenar Arha
@danielx: I occasionally read other people who force themselves to read David Brooks, but I’ve refused to pick at that particular zit (except by accident) for a while now. Him & Sullivan were & are bad, & they were bad for me. Not that I believe avoiding them will get them out of fricking print or off tv, but my brain appreciates daily I’m not loading it up with more of their pablum.
Ladyraxterinok
@rikyrah: Just recently William Lindsey (grew up SoBapt in Arkansas, later became Catholic) in his blog bilgrimage.blogspot.com reminded us of the old hymns that state ‘through the blood of the Lamb we will be washed white as snow.’ He juxtoposed that with the 81% white Evangelical support of Trump and left his remarks for his readers to ponder.
PaulWartenberg
@rikyrah:
Still, tag Gin and Tacos as a must-read blog.
Didn’t there use to be a list of links here? I know it got horribly outdated but it was a good way to track the stories and keep informed.
Kathleen
@Procopius: I thought DCC funded special elections last year including workers.
Tenar Arha
@Ladyraxterinok: Yup. Just yesterday Cook came out
It’s worth reading the whole report in full, but I bastardized the old quote & said to the few people I shared it with, “IOW it isn’t the economy it’s the religion, stupid.” Obviously it’s more than that, bc patriarchy & racism have gone hand in glove our entire history. And the more I think about it the more I remember my father grousing about how the “holy rollers” were going to kill the GOP for everyone else. So, it’s finally happened.
Tenar Arha
@Tenar Arha: ugh, too slow…
Addendum: Please note, I am quite sure there’s also plenty of non-religious racism all the way to the top of the billionaire donor bloc, but the most reliable Republican voting bloc is now clearly white evangelicals, which means that transformation begun in the 50’s & 60’s is complete enough that someone like Sanders has to have his own racist blinders on not to see it.
Mnemosyne
@rikyrah:
It’s not over yet for Stacey and Andrew. I’m going to donate some recount money to both of them today.
NotMax
@Aleta
Just the way I roll. You wouldn’t know it to look at me but generally speaking I don’t eat much, and never more than one meal a day (been doing that since 1964).
bjacques
@Platonailedit: I read about that awhile back. Shame, because I really liked Hanukkah Harry.