This data update from the Gray Lady’s Upshot team (one of the good silos there) gives me hope–not (just) on the election, but for America as well. It says Trump’s problem isn’t simply, or even mostly the gender gap. Rather:
The more meaningful story in this race is the 2016-to-2020 election gap. Polls suggests that almost all groups are moving away from President Trump relative to how they voted in 2016.
The chart accompanying the article is fascinating–plotting different demographic subgroups in 2016 against their preferences now. Everyone including white guys, and men in general, have moved away from Trump. Not far enough in many cases, to be sure–the “all men” group has slid from just over 56% Trump in 2016 to (eyeballing here) about 52% now. But a 4 point shift in half the population ain’t chump change either.
Bigger moves become apparent in finer grained segments:
To see how the 2020 campaign has played out, however, you don’t have to look at independents or women in the suburbs — you can look at almost any group in the electorate.
Men, women, independents, suburban men and women, people 65 and over — people in these groups all report less support for Mr. Trump in 2020 than they did in 2016. But so do registered voters in rural America. Nationscape data reveals that among voters in rural America, men report moving away from Mr. Trump by six points (from 66 percent in 2016 to 60 percent in 2020), and women by four, from 54 percent to 50 percent.
The election will soon show us if these moves are enough to begin to rebuild American democracy. But even as we wait, these numbers help me with my despair over the state of the Republic. Yeah, the Trumpanzees are loud, violent, and unrelenting in their willingness to impose their foulness on the rest of us. But they are a shrinking minority: exposure to Trump over the last four years has persuaded more and more of our fellow citizens that he–and they–are unacceptable.
That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
Chat about whatever.
Image: William Hogarth, Canvassing for votes from the Humours of an Election series, 1754-5
Baud
The rural stat is interesting. That too me is the biggest unknown with regard to turnout and support.
cain
Thanks for posting a ray of sunshine – I’m nervous mostly because of ratfucking than the actual voting. Also what will be done during the lame duck session.
Chief Oshkosh
If the Dems take the WH and Senate, we must get serious about white collar crime and RW terrorists. Three quarters of this shit wouldn’t happen if the right people were thrown in jail.
debbie
MAGAts have become noisier because they want people to think there’s many more of them.
While running errands today, I drove through neighborhoods I haven’t been in since before the pandemic. Every street was covered with Biden signs and only one or two yards had Trump signs. Even if all the yards with no signs were shy Trump voters, I think we might wipe out whatever advantage the Ohio rural counties think they may have.
bbleh
Pretty much all the numbers geeks agree. Among the more interesting to me was David Wasserman of Cook etc., who (says he) sees a lot of the much more granular, Congressional-District-level data, and says they’ve moved away from Trump by 8-10 points across the board — notably including the exurban / rural heavily white non-college districts. IOW, the triple-bank-shot inside-straight that won it for Trump in 2016 just ain’t there this year.
Personally I’m much less worried about the actual vote and more about (1) legal shenanigans afterward (which might matter IF the vote is close) and (2) the 2-1/2 months left in Trump’s term, during which he will smash and burn things out of sheer spite.
MazeDancer
Here’s the sign I made for my, how shall we say, “mixed” neighborhood. As in less Trump than last time, but still some, basically, male holdouts.
Sebastian
Yup, for Trump to win he has to hold as much as he can and gain what he has lost. So the question is, which group will make up for the losses with suburban women?
He is toast.
cain
Tomorrow – let’s try to start off with a positive note and root for our people.
Kent
100 people standing around on the sidewalk holding signs doesn’t look like much. 100 Trump trucks in a parade will stretch for 1/2 mile of noise and chaos. Trucks and flags are a 100x multiplier and they know it.
debbie
@MazeDancer:
I noticed quite a few Biden/Harris signs were festooned with small American flags. I’d hate to think that any MAGAt patriot would even try to sully them in an attempt to vandalize the sign. //
catclub
I suspect that is rural WHITE voters.
Barbara
It’s hard to plot the “but for Covid-19” state of affairs with some of these groups. Biden was leading in polling that preceded the outbreak, but it’s not clear how that would have held up. Some of these groups were already moving away from Trump in 2017 and 2018 (midterms), or maybe more of them were voting. It’s just so hard to interpret data like this, but Trump’s failed Covid response has been epic and obvious. I do think that Democrats have to use House and (God willing) Senate majorities to make significant progress and tune out what will surely be the deafening backlash from the right.
Baud
@Kent: It’s a live action version of what wingnuts do with comment sections and on other online platform. In the year 2020, we still have people who read comment sections at places other than Balloon Juice and believe that they represent reality.
Archon
At the time I agreed with Hillary in 2016 when she said about half of people voting Trump were “deplorable”.
This time every single person voting for Trump in 2020 is a deplorable, every single one.
zhena gogolia
I just jumped around to a few twitter feeds I usually read, and I realize I can’t tolerate anything right now except BJ, and Paul Bronks for funny animals.
This site better stay up for the next few days. I’m hanging on it.
zhena gogolia
@debbie:
My Biden-Harris sign got vandalized one Saturday night. Now I bring it in at night. A neighbor’s Black Lives Matter sign seems to get vandalized every other day or so, but she keeps straightening it back out. To be fair, the neighbors across the street had their WE BACK THE BADGE sign flattened one day — had to have been in the middle of the day, because it happened while we were at work.
Baud
@zhena gogolia: This is definitely my safe space. Has been for four years.
geg6
The Cook Report people have been saying this for a couple of weeks, from what I’ve seen. I have decided that they, a fairly conservative bunch when it comes to making bold statements, have the most credibility. This is purely an opinion, so don’t come at me with reasons I am wrong.
J R in WV
Every person who participated in that TX clusterfuq in heavy traffic on I-35 should be arrested on terrorism charges, just as if they were Islamic terrorists using trucks to run over people on the Riverfront in downtown Austin.
Trying to run a presidential race candidate off the highway is attempted murder, and every participant was part of that murderous conspiracy.
I’m pretty sick of RWNJ terrorists and criminals getting away by saying “It was just a joke!!” Bullshit it was a joke! Drag them to DC to stand trial by a jury that will be willing to convict RW terrorists.
Another Scott
(via NotLarrySabato)
Cheers,
Scott.
trollhattan
@Kent:
IMHO a parade of flag-displaying sinking boats is the best possible MAGA public event, and I wish they would have even more of these.
Cheryl Rofer
Looking like a couple of court victories.
I’m off to text captaining. See you all later.
Baud
@J R in WV: If it’s the incident I’m thinking of, I don’t think our candidates were on the bus.
James E Powell
Looking at the whole internet, Republican Never-Trumpers are showing more confidence in a Biden victory than Democratic or unaffiliated. What’s up with that?
I saw an NBC news tweet that described Biden 51, Trump 46 as “Biden has a slight edge” – if Trump were up 5 and over 50%, would they call that a slight edge?
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
They weren’t. But it’s still attempted murder.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
former aide to John Boehner and Paul Ryan predicts Biden takes GA, NC, PA and A
ETA: I wonder if trump announcing he’s going to fire Fauci will push any votes at this point? I honestly have trouble imagining anyone being on the fence. I can imagine the dumb racists, the jesus freaks, the tax-obsessed. I can’t construct in my head someone who’s trying to make up their mind.
Baud
@James E Powell:
It’s partly because Republican Never-Trumpers have less to lose. That said, our side does need an attitude adjustment.
Baud
@zhena gogolia: I just don’t want misinformation to spread if I can correct it, even when it’s an honest mistake (of which I have made many).
jl
Even a small decline in white support for Trump should have serious consequences for his reelection.
Trump got the presidency by vote margins of less that 1 percent in 3 states. Any reduction in white support means big losses. Enough whites, rural, suburbam, and urban, college and non college educated, have defected to cause big problems. Probably because it’s so obvious by now that Trump didn’t deliver on anything, and actually made many problems much worse. That doesn’t mean that, for example, there are not still big problems with general purpose and entrenched bigotry against all sorts of groups, and misdirected resentment against a perceived establishment out to get them (there is such a thing of course, but it’s the GOP and Trump that they follow so slavishly).
But winning a first past the post election is about changes at the margins. HRC said about half of Trump supporters were irredeemable, which leaves half that can be salvaged to make rational decisions. Dems need far less than that for big wins. Let’s hope for the best tomorrow.
Edit: forgot to say that I’ve read several pollsters and poll analysts say the same thing after looking at different mixes of polls, and most importantly, various Congressional and state house district polls that the GOTV people look at for allocation of resources.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Well I know we voted for Biden in PA. I’ll be very pissed if the Republicans manage to find a judge who decides that we didn’t.
I’m beginning to think there’s a chance that even with just the Tuesday votes, it’s not going to be in Trump’s favor.
Roger Moore
@Kent:
And doing ever crazier things with those trucks and flags is another multiplier. They weren’t getting enough attention just with trucks and flags, so they decided to shut down highways and try to run a Biden campaign bus off the road to get the media to pay attention. I’m not sure it’s good attention, but just like their God Emperor, they figure any attention is better than none.
Baud
@Another Scott: I hope we do a little better. I would like to actually win the white vote this year for the first time in a very long time. But that’s just icing on the cake.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@zhena gogolia: I was watching a vid from a photographer I follow on YouTube and was a bit surprised to see a “Black Live Matter” sticker over the logo on his computer.
Sebastian
@bbleh:
I am moderately worried about the grab, less about the smash. He forgot to install loyalists in the civil service like GWB and he will have difficulties finding people who will execute his orders.
I predict his cronies running scared shitless and complete and utter panic in his ranks as he attacks and blames everyone.
At the same time many of his henchmen will try to sell him out and negotiate for lenient punishment.
Kent
If Trump only gets 50% of the white vote then he loses every state in an epic landslide. That a majority of white Americans, after all that has happened in the past 4 years, STILL think that Trump is the right choice to lead this nation for the next for years is the herd of elephants in the room. And if he wins again on the backs of white voters then this country is beyond repair.
On the other hand, I’d much rather be in the position we are in right now. Where we are looking at good numbers all over and hand wringing about worst case scenarios and what can go wrong. Rather than the opposite where we are looking at mediocre numbers and looking for what needs to go right and how the stars need to align to pull it out.
Roger Moore
@debbie:
They’ve been perfectly willing to sully the American flag by flying their fascist thin blue line flag in its place.
jl
Interesting that at least one big polling outfit started factoring vote suppression into it’s calculations on vote margins. I forget which one, but saw them on a couple of poll watcher twitter feeds this morning. If the pollsters and early vote watchers are right, Dems were good on getting their vote in so early that Trump voter suppression by throwing out what they deem to be illegitimately late votes will damage GOP almost as much as Dems, since there is evidence GOP voters started early mail in later than average Dem voter.
So, wow, this will be interesting as well as scary as hell. I’ve read the submissions for a few of the GOP lawsuits. They GOP have completely ridiculous arguments on their face, and by originalist and textualist standards too. If federal courts accept them, then a very serious problem with completely corrupted federal judiciary, that will persist and needs to be corrected.
Baud
@Kent:
Well, no, because distribution matters.
Baud
@jl: The Texas judge is a really piece of work and will probably accept the GOP’s arguments today, but I expect it’ll be a bridge to far for the 5th Circuit or even this Supreme Court.
Suzanne
I’m stressed out. Can’t concentrate. DEEP FUCKING BREATHS.
Jager
A friend and I were talking about the RW Militias the other night, I told him about a guy I used to work with, who was backpacking with his grandson in the Sangre de Christos in Colorado a few years ago. My old co-worker was an Infantry squad leader in Vietnam. He and his grandson walked right through a militia “training session”. (standing around bullshitting while armed) One of the militiamen yelled, “Hey what do you think you’re doing?” The old sarge said, “I think you mother fuckers ought to tighten up your perimeter security.”
divF
In the last decade, we seem to have been following nationally the pattern that California followed 25 years ago. Proposition 187 was the high-water mark of right-wing revanchism, combined with anti-majoritarian veto points in state government (2/3 majorities required to pass a budget). Since then, the backlash has been steady, to the point that the California GOP is now an irrelevant crazy rump, and all of the non-crazies (especially educated suburbanites) have migrated to the Dems. It’s taken a while, but that is how tipping points work – slowly, then suddenly (who would have thought that Hemingway knew calculus?).
Tipping points are scary – in the moment, it looks like the other side is going to win. I hope we will see in the next couple of days the next increment in the acceleration process – these polling results seem to indicate that.
jl
@Kent: There will be suspense. When I read poll analysts, particularly the ones looking at district polls who get into the cross tabs on demographics, they claim that the likely voter screens of major polling organizations could be off, and assuming a turnout that is overly white.
Hard to know what will happen since this is probably an election with results that depend on both persuasion and turnout. Dems were so good at getting out early vote that they can really concentrate on a much smaller group of likely voters for day of election voting. So, not to late for a few contributions today for GOTV tomorrow.
artem1s
Pretty much the die is cast. Hillary got more votes than any white man running for president, ever. Looks like the early vote is just over 70% of the total vote in 2016 as of this morning. And newly registered voter numbers suggest we might have more people vote in this election than ever. If we had info on party affiliation from all the states on early voters, I wonder what the math would tell us? Are there enough R leaning likely voters left to affect the outcome? Keep in mind that the shenanigans that led to an EC with for Trump were at least partially put in place by some folks who are pretty well versed in ratfucking elections. Rove had that election all lined up for JEB! to sweep in and squeak out an EC win in FL just like his brother. Too bad the GOP did such a good job of distancing themselves from the Bush Crime Family after W’s depression. They kind of killed any chance the base would vote for another Bush (please clap) and so we got Trump instead. This year, I kind of suspect the really competent election fixers are working for the Lincoln Project or just sitting this one out. Thus we get the brilliant scheme to cast doubt on mail in ballots. Trump kills everything he touches including Turdblossom’s voter suppression disinformation machine.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: IANAL, but…
Kent
@Roger Moore:And doing ever crazier things with those trucks and flags is another multiplier. They weren’t getting enough attention just with trucks and flags, so they decided to shut down highways and try to run a Biden campaign bus off the road to get the media to pay attention. I’m not sure it’s good attention, but just like their God Emperor, they figure any attention is better than none.
I guaran-fucking-tee that parades of obnoxious white assholes in monster trucks isn’t winning them any of the women’s vote. And probably not much of the Black/Hispanic/Asian vote either. Swapping out the confederate flags for Trump flags doesn’t fool anyone. And sometimes they don’t even swap those out. The newest Trump flags I saw yesterday on trucks at our local Trump rage-gasm was red white and blue American flags in which the stars and stripes were all made by little machine guns. These are the flags they are flying now around here with the Trump flags
https://www.historicaviation.com/mobile/Guns-US-Flag/productinfo/109339/
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
OT: I’m headed to The Huntington in a bit, the Chinese Garden’s expansion open a few weeks ago.
Also, there was a SteveintheWTF sighting downstairs.
Baud
@divF: I think Virginia’s recent history is similar.
patrick II
@Kent:
I guy I know wants to vote for Trump but says he can’t afford the
pickup truck.
Ken
Thank goodness we have this calm center of objective, reasoned, reality-based analysis.
Sebastian
@James E Powell:
Because they are not suffering from 2016-PTSD and don’t have the general “Chicken Little”-syndrome which all Democrats seem to have (me included).
During the Obama Clinton primary and Obama McCain general, Al Giordano posted almost every day a Chicken Little picture and talked everyone off the edge.
It’s what we do. We worry.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Oh wow. I didn’t hear about that news. If they’ve lost Hanen, they are really in bad shape.
Kristine
@Kent:
I wonder if it bothers Ford/Chevy/GMC at all that their high-end pickups are the preferred vehicles of RWNJ/white supremacists/Trumpist bullies. Hell of a marketing image. Not.
LuciaMia
Re: that non-scalable fence theyre putting up around the WhiteHouse. I wonder exactly who Trump is imagining attacking the WH?
Dorothy A. Winsor
This podcast from the Crooked Media people might lighten the mood. It’s about how Trump lies and cheats at golf. The two women doing it delight in getting petty. They golf themselves so see faux pas where I don’t. (Their mannerisms actually annoy me but I’m tense enough right now that everything annoys me.)
jl
@Baud: Yes the dishonestly labeled curbside voting suit that actually attacked drive-through voting that was obviously legal by black letter state level legislation, was insane. The GOP arguments for the couple of other court cases I read were almost as ridiculous and dishonest and filed in bad faith. Nice thing about emergency hearings is that most of the filings were short. And the GOP arguments were so asinine, was fun for even IANAL me to read. Put together they read like a farcical parody of the law.
zhena gogolia
About to teach my last War and Peace class for this fall. That should make life easier.
This morning they read a story about the Russian Revolution and Civil War, and somebody said, “It’s so violent!” I said, “Yeah, a revolution is not something you want to wish for.” They seemed a little surprised.
James E Powell
@Baud:
I think it may also be that Never Trumpers do not have the wounds-that-shall-never-heal that Democrats have.
Calouste
@Baud: If Biden or Harris had been on the bus, their Secret Service agents woud have taken action. Of course, they weren’t, so their was no Secret Service around.
mrmoshpotato
Throwing this up here too.
What to Expect on Election Night with Jen O’Malley Dillon and Bob Bauer from the Biden/Harris campaign
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Interesting. GA and NC but no Florida.
Kent
I don’t know how they are doing things in Harris County. But have they really segregated out all the paper ballots handed off at drive-through polling places from the ones received via mail or in drop boxes? Is it even possible for them to sort out the ones that were received this specific way?
And does a US circuit court really outweigh the Texas supreme court on a matter of state law? If I was Harris County I’d just ignore them and proceed with vote counting.
jl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: IANAL, but look like some of the worst GOP lawsuits may be a bridge too far for even corrupt Trumpster judges. Maybe they expected better material. They need at least a non asinine crumb to work with. Let’s hope they don’t get many lawsuits that can manage even crumbs.
Baud
@James E Powell: Sure, but their side has lost elections too. They are not scarred by it because Democratic governance isn’t a real threat to anyone.
Brachiator
@zhena gogolia:
This is definitely one of the more reasonable corners of the Internets.
dmsilev
@🐾BillinGlendaleCA: Should be nice, from what I hear. I haven’t had a chance to see the new garden yet; am hoping to snag a ticket when the next block gets released tomorrow.
Baud
@Kent: I don’t know the status of those ballots. And a federal court should only act under federal law, but conservative judges have taken an aggressive view of what federal law says on the issue of voting procedures.
James E Powell
@Kent:
They may not think that, but they do hate the rest of us. Their beliefs about Democrats generally and our candidates specifically are almost comically warped.
John S.
@Baud: When I started coming here 20 some odd years ago, it wasn’t a safe space — it was a hive of conservatives, including Cole.
My how times have changed. 🙂
H.E.Wolf
I’m a very low-level numbers nerd… or maybe a patterns nerd.
I’ve been volunteering (from home) since 2017 as a data-entry person with our state Democratic Party. The pattern for the 2018 election cycle was: lots and lots of volunteers, most of them (approx. 75%) women.
The pattern for 2020 is that men are joining in, along with women. This is why I am hopeful: If men are now stepping up to help do the work of correcting course, then *everyone* in our coalition is stepping up. The common thread is determination.
Kent
It’s their target market. Who else buys a truck that gets 15 mpg and that you can’t park in any normal urban parking place?
There may not be enough MAGA faithful to give Trump a second term. At least let’s hope not. But there are most certainly enough of them to provide massive profits for US auto makers.
Gravenstone
@zhena gogolia: They’re just doing that to allay suspicions.
//
(maybe)
dmsilev
@Kent: My understanding is that the ballots weren’t segregated at all, that “drive through” voting meant that you handed your sealed ballot envelope to a county worker, who immediately put it in the same box as all the other mail-in etc. paper ballots.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@LuciaMia: Antifa, of course.
Ken
<div class=”vader_voice”>Then we must show them how wrong they are.</div>
Baud
@John S.: I arrived after the Great Conversion. What a journey for you long-timers.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Just checked the early voter tracker. Nearly 96 million votes in now, 61 million by mail.
PA stands at 2.4 million mail ins now, 66% of the Democratic and only 23% Republican.
Somewhat worryingly, my county shows only 67% requested ballots returned. I’m not sure what that means. Mail delays (which would play into Trump’s hands)? People who decided to vote on Election Day? Don’t know.
Statewide, 82% of ballots requested by Dems have been returned.
Kent
Yes, there is some owning the libs involved here. But there is honestly a tremendous amount of Trump worship too. I’m related to a bazillion of these folks. My enormous extended family is probably about 75% pro Trump. These are my people. They love him. They especially love him because he is THEIR asshole.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@zhena gogolia: didn’t Trotsky and Lenin just tell the czar to look out the window?
(yes, I know pretty much nothing about the actual Russian revolution)
Ken
@Kent: Several auto makers have announced that their next big electric vehicle push will be for the pickup truck and SUV markets. That should annoy some people. I wonder if MAGA-land will end up looking like Cuba twenty years ago, with everyone driving carefully-maintained fifty-year-old vehicles.
Roger Moore
@Kent:
I don’t think this is quite true. If he wins 50% of the white vote, that will be because he’s getting way below 50% in the bluest states and way above 50% in the reddest ones. Given how white states like Wyoming and the Dakotas are, that probably gives him a victory in those places, and probably in some of the reddest Southern States, where a big win among whites would be enough to drown out the minority vote.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@dmsilev: If my OTR submission made it in time for Wed. morning’s post, you’ll get to see what it looks like.
Baud
@Ken: Honestly, I think Dems have been holding onto the notion that we’re not like Republicans and that we believe that our leaders represent even people who didn’t vote for them. Which Biden says explicitly. But if we lose this one, I think we’ll give that up and basically adopt a left-wing version of GOP political theory. It would not be good for the country but, if push comes to shove, we have to protect our own.
Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)
Kent
It could actually mean only 67% returned. Or it could mean 90% returned but 23% are still sitting in boxes in the county elections office waiting for staff to verify them and enter them into their database.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ken: GM is already advertising the electric Hummer (yeah, I see it), and Ford the electric F150
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Roger Moore: It seems like a dumb thing from a popularity standpoint. I mean if I were one of the undecideds and these yahoos caused a traffic jam that had me stuck for a half hour on the highway, I’d be like, that’s the last straw, Biden’s getting my vote because screw you assholes.
Kent
@Roger Moore: Oh, I know. I was being hyperbolic. But still, if Trump only hits 50% of the white vote then he loses most of the country outside of places like Utah and Nebraska.
patrick II
@Calouste:
At least one of the pickup drivers was a state cop.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@jl: They are saying even the Texas Republicans are fighting the suite to throw out the Austin drive in votes because it’s so batshit nuts to would toss out states rights.
raven
@Ken: Mine is older than 50! And look, it’s in the new Kevin Costner movie (except for the small back window)
jl
@Roger Moore: We’ll see. As I noted above, analysts that dive into district polls that drive GOTV efforts say that the reduction in white support is very broad based, and is occurring enough all over to potentially produce a GOP route.
And these analysis are based on pretty fundamental rural/urban, education, income, gender and race categories. Not made up on the fly Mark Penn style imaginary micro slices, like yoga pants wheatgrass soccer moms below 50 in suburbs less than 20 years old.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@John S.: It was a safe space when I found it about 15 years ago, and Jesus has it really been that long?!?!
Ken
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I just hope we don’t end up with charmers like Baron von Ungern-Sternberg running their own private cult-militias in whatever is the US equivalent of Siberia. Idaho, probably.
Roger Moore
@Kent:
I will also say the Trump Truck Parades also make it really hard to believe in the “shy Trump voter” theory. At the very least, there are plenty of extremely outgoing Trump voters. They also seem to love driving through areas they think may be Biden strongholds to try to intimidate people, which again makes it a little hard to believe that Trump’s problem is with his voters being unwilling to admit their views.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
An observation of the Trump Regime COVID response:
It is the apotheosis, the sine qua non of American conservatism to choose to ignore a problem and let it “fix itself”. In the advanced economies of Europe, Aus/NZ and Asia, the lockdowns and trace/quarantine work to keep their numbers low BECAUSE their economic and political leaders are capable of making a decision to materially support idled businesses and affected workers so that everything can emerge intact at the other end of the pandemic.
Not so here in the US – you have the same filthy creatures grubbing for bucks at the expense of everyone, all wearing a fig leaf of ideology to excuse the destructive recklessness of their actions. A proper response would have resulted in 60% of the cases, half the deaths and an intact economy.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
The kid just posted a selfie with her “I Voted” sticker.
divF
@Baud: Definitely – Virginia is almost through the process.
I think that Texas, Georgia and North Carolina (in reverse order) are teed up to be next. They are sufficiently urban / ethnically diverse to be close, and in-migration is changing the politics of the suburbs to look more like Virginia and California.
Also, this election is making it obvious that voting does not have to be difficult. We need to lock that in and expand it with a robust VRA.
jl
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: That may or may not mean much. Some of those GOPers are by Trumpster standards traitors who are responsible, and worry about election chaos and down ticket races. Not relevant at all to Trump victory, and disrespectful to worry about that.
But if a GOP lawsuit is completely mindless and asinine, and obviously in bad faith, might be a good excuse for a Trumpster judge to get out of an unpleasant dilemma. And they have loyalty to McConnell who got them confirmed as well as Trump. McConnell has signaled his own plans in which Trump is very disposable if the GOP is going down this cycle no matter what.
Citizen Alan
@Roger Moore:
Hell, the Deplorables are delighted every time they see Shitgibbon sodomize a flag in the middle of a speech.
Roger Moore
@Kristine:
I doubt it’s a big worry for them. I’ve seen a few Trump Trucks, and the manufacturer of the truck was the last thing on my mind when I saw them.
J R in WV
@Baud:
If the only guy on that bus was the driver, then it’s just one count of attempted homicide. More than just a single driver, then that many separate counts.
Put those violent terrorists away!
Confiscate all the trucks!
HumboldtBlue
trollhattan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It was actually captured on film.
Kent
It’s really an urban/rural split more than anything else. Both TX and GA are rapidly urbanizing and having declining rural populations. That probably accounts for most of the blueward shift in both states. And it’s why OR is blue an ID is red. If Portland were the size of Boise then OR would probably be a red state.
Mallard Filmore
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
It reminds me of a record? Radio recording? something? from a few decades ago called “Girls Together Outrageously”
ETA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_GTOs
Ken
@J R in WV: Yeah, this isn’t an RPG where you’ve got the important character-candidates, and everyone else is a mook.
Although, some years ago I read that there are groups who think in exactly those terms. I’m wanting to say it was one of the *chan communities.
trollhattan
@Ken:
Gonna be really tough to “roll coal” from an EV pick-m-up.
mali muso
Watching Obama speak in GA in support of Rev Warnock and Jon Ossof. I miss this man and we are so lucky to have him as one of the party “elders”.
Kent
@trollhattan: We are going to have a nostalgia market in old American gas and diesel pickups for generations still. There won’t be any shortage of ordinary pickups for a LONG LONG time. They are literally everywhere.
LurkerNoLonger
Does anyone in New York know how to check the status of their absentee ballot? The Check My Ballot thing on the NY state site only works for military and international voters.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Mallard Filmore: Missed that one! They’d have been the right era for second wave feminism though.
Ken
@trollhattan: The modifications will be more elaborate than currently required, and may use up most of the cargo capacity. On the plus side, they might not void the vehicle’s engine and powertrain warranty.
germy
But we knew that.
Geoduck
As I recall it now, I started mostly-lurking here because I was looking for a half-sane conservative so I could at least be exposed to their viewpoint, and John at the time fit the bill. Then he did the full flip, but I’ve enjoyed it here and stuck around.
Geoduck
@Ken: Yeah, there’s a subset on the right that literally calls their opponents NPCs, cuz they’re just “preprogrammed meatbags following orders” or somesuch.
germy
J R in WV
@patrick II:
Then that guy should be fired first, and then indicted for their criminal activity. Loosing his pension at the same time. Fuck those crooked cops!!
Kay
My daughter made calls into Texas last night. She said they were really friendly and nice compared to making calls into Florida :)
Maybe it’s because they haven’t been a swing state so they’re not sick to death of it yet.
Roger Moore
@Ken:
I don’t know how much electric trucks will piss people off. Hybrids are no longer something only weirdo granola-lovers drive; they’re just another kind of vehicle these days. I think electric trucks could wind up in the same general category faster than you’d expect, especially when the people who buy trucks start to appreciate the functional advantages of electric drivetrains, like massive low-end torque.
germy
Klasfeld has been live tweeting the Harris decision:
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@mrmoshpotato: I told my husband about the Bob Bauer video where he assures us the post-election lawyering is under control (in an attempt to ease his – my husband’s – election anxiety) and he said “what do you expect him to say?”. The PTSD, it runs deep.
jonas
Word. The IRS, the white-collar crime unit at the FBI, all need to be beefed up big time and we need to make Zuckerberg feel the pain if he won’t pull the plug on the radical groups who have taken over his platform (with his complete acquiescence).
Gravenstone
@Ken: Considering that GM has resurrected the Hummer brand name – as an electric vehicle, that seems to be where the market overall is headed.
Citizen Alan
Don’t know about the other two, but Ford was founded by the only American I know of to be personally awarded the Iron Cross by Hitler himself. I wonder if it’s on display somewhere at the Ford HQ.
J R in WV
@mali muso:
Wife is calling Obama our “President Emeritus!” I like it, Jimmy, too! But not Bush, never.
Mary G
I actually feel very hopeful. We’ve said for years that high turnout means Democrats win, and turnout is off the charts. The people who waited for hours in long lines to early vote wore masks and stayed six feet apart, so they weren’t Trump voters. Young people are fired up and ready to take over from us dinosaur boomers.
The Republicans have been against learning for so long they have atrophied their brains. Bart Kavanaugh wrote that insane opinion as a trial balloon, and it was roundly mocked. He even had to change it because he got facts wrong about Vermont. Mike Lee tried to say democracy was bad and got nowhere.
I hated that Uncle Joe got into the race – but black voters led the way and he has been a rock star campaigner. Even Trump supporters are tired of his shenanigans. We’ve got this. Let’s enjoy it.
Capri
@Kent: One of the pundits on the Hacks on Tap podcast blamed the Trump tax bill, specifically taking away the deduction for state and local taxes. He said there was a lot of flight from blue states with high state income taxes to red states with low.
mali muso
@J R in WV:
I love it! Maybe will start calling him that too. :)
germy
debbie
Whatever happened to those drop-off ballot boxes set up by the CA GOP?
Fair Economist
@Roger Moore:
Electrics are already cheaper for lifetime ownership, and they will be cheaper to buy around 2023. By 2024 most purchases would be of electrics if the supply were available. It won’t be, and the auto companies will keep the price up because of it; but they are going to be gangbusters to convert to EVs up and down the line because they will be making more money.
I expect by 2030 gas-powered cars and trucks will be niche vehicles for people who do lots of long-distance driving and those who can’t get access to chargers (but most of those are less well off, and they’ll be buying used).
Calouste
@Roger Moore: Just the other day I saw a
Deadhead sticker on a CadillacNRA sticker on a Prius.Nora Lenderbee
There are plenty of obnoxious white asshole women. Having a uterus doesn’t make you immune.
Calouste
@germy:
Or they could be just grift. Btw, the statement doesn’t say “finance election-related legal battles”, just “legal battles”.
Sloane Ranger
@Kent: I believe the Post Office has reported significant backlogs of mail in several swing States. Up to 40% in some cases. A Federal judge has ordered the managers of the sorting offices to do a sweep and deliver all postal votes found by tomorrow.
Ocotillo
I am reluctant to get into things before the election is decided but if the right wing has shown anything since Reagan, it has been their ability to take strong decision for a Democrat and two years later have whipped enough of the country into a frenzy to neuter the new administration.
See ’94 and ’10.
We have to figure out away to combat the rightwing noise machine.
Amir Khalid
@HumboldtBlue:
I dunno, man. To flee the country, Lame Duck Trump would have to elude his White House staff and his Secret Service detail; arrange some clandestine means of transport out of the country; and persuade some similarly corrupt autocrat, who at that point would have nothing more to gain by sheltering him, to grant him some kind of asylum.
I’m not saying all that can’t be done. But I reckon it would take a lot of planning and execution and discipline, which are things not in his skill set, and political leverage which he won’t have anymore.
debbie
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
“Let the market sort it out.”
Ken
@Calouste: Nice catch. And didn’t I see that Letitia James told Trump she’ll be handing down some indictments soon after the election?
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Ken: I was astonished to learn recently that yes, Ford F-150s etc. are working on EV versions. There is hope (and apparently the big car companies are looking realistically ahead to the future). I really wish they would hurry up with EV SUVs. I replaced my 2003 Honda CRV with a new one in 2018 and there wasn’t even a hybrid available. I looked at the Toyota RAV-4, which did have a hybrid, but I turn out to be a Honda woman at heart.
mad citizen
@germy: America has always been at war with ‘Merica.
Reminded of so many of Adam’s posts about “low intensity warfare”
Gin & Tonic
@Fair Economist: Curious how you think the charging infrastructure will develop in older, dense, urban areas where people tend not to have garages and park on the street.
debbie
@J R in WV:
There was a pickup driven by a Biden worker that actually got side-swiped. Adam shared a few tweets with the genius’s words and photos. Nothing to pin anyone’s future hopes on.
geg6
@Geoduck:
We probably joined about the same time and for the same reason. I was looking to read stuff from a non-insane conservative and someone pointed me here.
cain
@Roger Moore:
I expect an antifa / proud boy melee tomorrow or wednesday night. I expect proud boys to kick up their presence.
Calouste
@Kent: I wonder what’s going to happen to the supply of diesel and gas. There will be fewer gas stations, because they will have fewer customers. I don’t know what will happen to refineries, they won’t want to make a product that doesn’t have many customers, but there are limits to what kind of products (gas, diesel, kerosene etc) you can make from oil and in which proportions.
Mike in NC
Generally not a fan of Washington Post pundit Henry Olsen, but he’s resigned to a blue wave coming tomorrow and a bad night for the GOP.
mad citizen
@Ocotillo: Although his audience is a fraction of what it once was, a dead Rush Limbaugh is a start.
Gin & Tonic
@Amir Khalid: He will never leave. If, Inshallah, he loses, he will simply declare he’s running again in 2024 and keep collecting those sweet donations; plus he’ll get all the airtime he wants on OANN and Fox, so we won’t be rid of him until his stroke or MI.
cain
@Baud:
But there will be a backlash against this judge – that’s for sure. When Texas turns blue, and congress is unbashedly blue, we need to revisit this decision because it is clearly unconstitutional.
Also, the judge can’t rule on the local and state races can they? That would be outside their permit.
James E Powell
@Sloane Ranger:
I’m sure they’ll get right on it.
otmar
Bad news from Vienna. Shots fired near one of the synagogues. One dead (according to one source an attacker), multiple injured. Smells like a terror attack.
Manhunt still ongoing.
And I still need to get home.
J R in WV
@Amir Khalid:
Try this scene; Trump flies to Mar-a-Lago for his annual Xmas party. AF1 lands in Palm Beach. Trump has his Trump One aircraft right there, walks over to it, flies away, away, to Qatar or Dubai, or Paraguay — not too complicated for the Trump crime family?
Baud
@otmar: I just heard about that. Good luck to all of you over there. I hope in a few months, we’ll be in a position to pay more attention to the rest of the world.
mali muso
@otmar: Vienna, VA? Or Vienna, Austria? Sorry…I live not so far from the former, so that’s where my mind went first.
Calouste
@Gin & Tonic:
That describes about 80% of Europe. Where a number of countries are aiming to phase out the sale of fossil fuel vehicles by the end of the decade. So it can be done.
Fair Economist
@Gin & Tonic: I think we will see charging meters put into the sidewalks like parking meters. Plus charging stalls in almost all parking lots. I know it’s expensive, but the demand – economic and political – will be intense.
indycat32
@James E Powell: My “I quilt so I don’t kill people” coffee mug was delivered by the post office on Sunday. So something’s going on.
otmar
@mali muso: Austria.
cain
@John S.:
Hah, I came about a year before Cole’s betrayal to the conservative cause. I enjoyed the space though plenty of different types of people. But I think over time the liberals took over as Cole himself moved further leftward.
Once the bubble is broken it’s really hard to look at your old party with anything other than prejudice.
Ken
https://twitter.com/KlasfeldReports/status/1323360824753270785
BREAKING: Judge Hanen holds the plaintiffs don’t have standing in Texas drive-thru voting case. GOP challengers lose.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: His vote among white voters is not evenly distributed.
mali muso
@otmar:
So sorry to hear it. Please be well. The world feels so scary these days. :(
Dan B
@🐾BillinGlendaleCA: I hope they expanded the restaurant or added another. Five years ago it was like a crowded school cafeteria. It’s the curse of being too gorgeous and too successful.
I hope you get pics of the desert garden.
otmar
@Baud: Vienna police twitter is here. Bilingual.
MisterForkbeard
@Ken: “Don’t have standing” is a nice way of not turning them down on the merits, but I’ll take it.
Kent
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan):@Ken: I really wish they would hurry up with EV SUVs. I replaced my 2003 Honda CRV with a new one in 2018 and there wasn’t even a hybrid available. I looked at the Toyota RAV-4, which did have a hybrid, but I turn out to be a Honda woman at heart.
Check out the KIa Niro EV: https://www.kia.com/us/en/niro-ev
It is getting really good reviews and is in the same size category as the Honda CR-V.
Comrade Colette
@Baud: @John S.: Same, I came here before John crossed the Great Divide because I was looking for a conservative voice or two to balance my all-liberal blog-reading and was kinda tired of LGF.
Also, I’m done being a collaborator. Sticking to the shorter nym from now on.
Ocotillo
@mad citizen: I was actually going to end the post with, “at least Rush will be dead” and thought I would go high instead of going low. You are 100% right though.
Oklahomo
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?: I found it by way of Tbogg by way of The News Blog. Goddamned that is a long strange journey to now.
Ocotillo
@mad citizen: I was actually going to end the post with, “at least Rush will be dead” and thought I would go high instead of going low. You are 100% right though.
CaseyL
@Ken: If he denies it as a matter of standing, does that mean the GOP can still appeal it to the 5th Circuit? I’ve seen comments that decisions of non-standing can’t be appealed, since the decision isn’t on the merits of the case.
mad citizen
@J R in WV: I like this Trump Crime Family exit plan. Is there a kickstarter for it?
Interesting reading the public opinion poll numbers for Nixon here today. Was thinking the other day that our nation lost something when he didn’t serve any prison time.
Miss Bianca
Unlike in 2016, I am not going to be following the news, or even BJ, my safe space, or anything really, tomorrow night. Instead, I am going to spend my time watching something I know will prove uplifting – Downfall.
Yeah, I’m a sick puppy. So sue me.
Ken
@MisterForkbeard: From the additional comments, it seems to be based on lack of injury. The only theory of injury the GOP had was that the drive-through ballots would be counted. As one attorney noted, that isn’t an injury, it’s an election.
Also some issues of timeliness, since the drive-through mechanism was approved months ago. As another wag noted, the GOP didn’t realize they might need to rig Texas this year.
(All of this coming from Klasfeld’s twitter stream.)
Amir Khalid
@J R in WV:
Would his Secret Service detail let him do that? I doubt it.
Comrade Colette
@Kent: @A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan):
We LOOOOOOOVE our Kia Niro! It’s the mostly guilt-free SUV, and it’s a crossover that meets passenger car (not truck) safety standards and is short enough for urban parking to not be a nightmare.
Cermet
@HumboldtBlue: My money is on rump needing to fly to Moscow for an important meeting with asswipe putin on Janurary 19th.
mad citizen
@Ocotillo: Thanks for throwing a softball! I read the Slate article the other day. I can’t imagine listening to him and trump for 2-3 hours or however long that “rally” was. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/10/rush-limbaugh-donald-trump-right-wing-media.html
otmar
@otmar: facts are still scarce, but it doesn’t look like the synagogue was the target.
Dan B
@James E Powell: Wounds from 2016 that never heal. 2016 Thanksgiving we were asked to stay late at my partner’s brother and sister in law’s. I said we were feeling anxious about the election. SIL screamed at us that Marriage Equality is settled law. Brother joined in. SIL is a family law attorney. We were attacked for our quietly stated feelings.
We haven’t been back for the holidays. This year they don’t believe in the hoax or masks, or global warming, etc.
J R in WV
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan):
I read on a car site recently (probably The Drive?) where Chevrolet is releasing a “crate” EV Drivetrain to replace a gas-fueled V8 motor in any vehicle. Evidently the drivetrain from the Chevy Bolt, you can take the engine/fuel tank out of your internal combustion vehicle and install this 200-hp motor/battery pack.
So if you have an older vehicle and can’t get replacement parts for engine repair, you can just order a Bolt crate motor. Shops will be able to become certified to install these EV units. Amazing!!
Kent
There are tens of thousands of post offices across the country, mostly staffed with union workers who I’m guessing are mostly Dems, especially in the big cities where there might be caches of Dem ballots. There is only a very thin veneer of political appointees at the top fucking things up. I have to be optimistic that loyal rank and file postal workers in facilities across the country are going to do their best to make it work. But maybe I’m naïve. I don’t know.
Kent
@J R in WV: Maybe, but seems like it will end up being a crappy kludge conversion because true EVs have the heavy batteries built into the superstructure to provide appropriate balance and weighting and stability to the car. And some of them are direct-drive to all 4 wheels. Plus all the systems electronics to control everything The dash of a gas truck will also need to be swapped out to make it a modern EV. There is much more to an EV than just the drive train.
Amir Khalid
@CaseyL:
I am not a lawyer, I was only ever a court reporter. But when a judge dismisses a case because the plaintiff lacks locus standi, doesn’t that preclude the plaintiff from appealing?
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Fair Economist: Honestly, I think a lot of urban centers will abandon automobiles to a large extent. I live in the DC area and a bike is a very practical way to get around now that they’ve installed the infrastructure for it. Electric bikes and scooters eliminate the physical exertion and are super practical. Why pay $20k or more and for parking and insurance when 90% of your trips can be made as easily on a device that costs a fraction of that and can be parked for free? Other than for inter-city trips cars are not very necessary and you can rent on the occasion you need one for a few days
Oklahomo
@Miss Bianca: I’m going to watch Threads. That way I’m either bottomed out or ready to be uplifted.
CaseyL
@Amir Khalid: Apparently not: I’m seeing tweets that a finding of non-standing CAN be appealed. Judge Hanen has indicated that if the 5th Circuit reverses, he will issue an injunction to STOP curbside voting on Election Day itself, but – so far as I can tell – the 127,000 votes already cast are a done deal and will be counted.
JPL
@Baud: You missed the Terry Schiavo days. One thing about Cole, he was a sane republican. In the olden days republicans weren’t all bat shit insane.
N M
@CaseyL: I agree – my reading of the Tweet thread linked above was that the judge not only stated “no standing” but also gave his reasoning, including that he would not have thrown out the already-in votes, to provide some background should the case be appealed.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Oklahomo: I found it by way of Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish blog, during the one brief moment when Sully was right about something – namely torture. I was a Dem even back then but hadn’t really discovered blogs until that era.
Miss Bianca
@Roger Moore:
The one thing I *never* see or hear anyone address, though, with electric vehicles is towing capacity. Which, with my little hybrid, I was warned would be nonexistent and chancy to try, particularly out here in the mountains. Some of us actually tow trailers with our trucks!
jl
@Amir Khalid: I think the judge said even if the plaintiffs had standing he’d still throw the damned thing out. So, looks like he doesn’t want that GOP stunt in court anymore.
debbie
@N M:
Then they’d have lost anyway. Good.
HumboldtBlue
@Oklahomo:
Same here, TBogg put up a post about a reasonable conservative guy and linked here. Cole was still suffering from the effects of Clinton derangement syndrome and he was still pretty wingnutty.
But it wasn’t too long before he had the full come to the light moment.
Miss Bianca
@Ken: Ha! Good news that there are Bridges Too Far for even Trump-appointed judges.
And for democracy too, of course. : )
Omnes Omnibus
@J R in WV: Disappearing Bill Clinton, are we?
WaterGirl
@Ken: Oh my god, that is such good news. I have goosebumps!
Oklahomo
@HumboldtBlue: Oh, and let’s not forget the epic trolling of Cole by the crew at Sadly No!. God, how I miss the Poorman.
Miss Bianca
@Oklahomo: Ooh, that’s dark. Waaaayyy darker than Downfall.
Oklahomo
@Miss Bianca: Like I said, I’ll be ready for either outcome. Or like the poor bastards under city hall, waiting and waiting and waiting…
Dan B
@Gin & Tonic: In our moderately dense neighborhood the chargers are at shopping areas, car dealers, casinos, and other sites where a half hour stop for, sob, indoor dining would be fine. The next step is to get them into parking garages in older buildings. We have chargers in new low rise retail/ residential construction. I wish we had chargers at the local coop-grocery. Supportive state government is essential. In Seattle the word is Tesla is selling more cars than all the luxury brands combined. It would be interesting to know how many of the hundreds of luxury medium and high rise apartments have chargers.
Roger Moore
@jonas:
I would go further: the whole apparatus of the regulatory state needs to be built up to be big enough to do its job. The Republicans have been de facto negating regulations by sabotaging the agencies in charge of promulgating and enforcing them. We need to reverse that sabotage and rebuild those agencies into the kind of place that can effectively enforce the rules. That means more experts to write the rules, more investigators to see who’s following them, and more prosecutors to go after the people who violate them.
Dan B
@otmar: Hang in there. We are dreading the same here in the USA tomorrow night and beyond.
HumboldtBlue
@Oklahomo:
Yup, them were the days.
Boris Rasputin (the evil twin)
@Miss Bianca: Or you might like “A Night to Remember” the good movie about the Titanic sinking. It doesn’t have those damned kids in the way.
Dan B
@J R in WV: Retrofit is great! We’ve leased Nissan Leafs for 6 years. They’re not the sportiest but we can still frighten friends with the torque. We keep a Toyota pickup but very rarely drive it. My partner would love to get a Tesla Y – SUV. The price tag means: dream on.
evodevo
@Kent: No you aren’t…we do our best to accomplish the job, even with the various handicaps the supervisors/suits make us operate under…
otmar
@Dan B: I am safe at home now.
Dan B
@Miss Bianca: Towing capacity is being addressed although I don’t have any links since it’s not in our future. My partner says big ev’s have plenty of tirque for towing but range is reduced. The Tesla Y has 5,000 # capacity but the range drops to 100 – 150 miles. Batteries are still pricey. The Y starts at $40 grand as is the Cyber Truck
My partner is a gear head. Do you watch electric vehicle bloggers on You Tube for fun in the evening? Whee!
trollhattan
@Calouste:
They’ll likely become fewer in number and larger, essentially continuing the trend of the last several decades.
Compared to the complexity of a gas station’s storage tanks, lines, pumps, vapor controls, leak monitoring, etc. a charging station is cheap and simple and will become even simpler as the car builders settle on a universal charging format. Lucky duckies with the ability to charge at home and the office will seldom even need those.
smedley the uncertain
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yeah, at 112 Grand. Let ’em buy them up. Let’s bankrupt the MAGAts.
Dan B
@otmar: Good to hear. Vienna gets great marks as one of the best cities in the world so this violence seems especially stark.
Roger Moore
@Fair Economist:
I don’t expect lack of access to chargers to be a long-term problem. First, states are likely to start passing laws requiring apartment buildings with assigned parking to provide EV chargers in each space. That will cover a lot of people who otherwise would have problems charging their cars. Second, it’s way easier to install EV chargers than gas pumps, so it will be relatively easy for businesses that control their parking to turn some of their parking spaces into paid EV charging stations. It’s not a solved problem by any means, but it’s definitely a solvable problem.
Geminid
Predictions are that Democrats will have a net gain of over 10 Congressional seats. Hopefully that includes my own VA 5th, and the OH 1st, home of commenter Kathleen, where Jan Schroder is giving republican Steve Chabot a run for his money. And the CO 3rd, home of eminent local journalist Miss Bianca, where Democrat Diane Mitsch Bush faces pistol packing Lauren Boebert. And it looks like Ms. Kennedy will take out turncoat Jeff van Drew in south Jersey. But I have my fingers crossed on Xochitl Torres-Small’s reelection in the NM 2nd, and, 1800 miles east, Max Rose’s reelection in the NY district including Staten Island and part of Brooklyn.
Roger Moore
@Calouste:
Catalytic cracking means they aren’t stuck with the components that are present in the petroleum to start with; they can change one hydrocarbon into another with great control. That’s a lot more expensive than just distilling off various fractions and selling them, but it’s what most refineries do these days. Eliminating some of the stuff those refineries are designed to make will require retooling them, but it’s certainly doable.
JaneE
I can’t begin to figure out what this might mean, but in my super red county 138 registered Republicans voted for someone else in this primary. Maybe the GOP didn’t bother to turn out because the outcome was already determined. Over 1400 people who voted for him last year in the general did not turn out for the primary. The Democratic field was split with Bernie Sanders getting the lions share, about 400 more than Biden, but the total ballots cast in the Democratic primary totaled more than Trump in his primary, even though they are one third of the total registered voters, and about 800 voters fewer than registered Republicans. We have a fair number of minor parties represented here 4 minor plus non-partisans.
I would like to think that Trump is not all that popular. There were a lot of signs for John McCain in 2008, and a fair number for Romney in 2012. More Trump signs are appearing but not that many.
J R in WV
@Kent:
Everything you mention is discussed in the article, as well as many thing you don’t mention, like electric pumps for various systems normally run by the engine.
I find it at least interesting, if not past revolutionary… Let’s not make perfect the enemy of the pretty good!
J R in WV
@otmar:
OH, great! I think most of us were worried, I know I was!!
Miss Bianca
@Geminid: Mitsch Bush has a 1-point lead over Boebert according to 538’s latest – as of October 26. That’s too damn close for my comfort. Going to make the final round of calls to Custer County Dems this afternoon/evening in an attempt to get out every last vote
@JaneE: Still seeing way too damn many Trump signs out here in my neck of the woods for comfort.
Roger Moore
@Miss Bianca:
I know the Tesla SUVs can be equipped with a tow hitch. The Model X can tow 5,000 pounds, and the Y can tow 3,500. They have listed some very impressive towing capacity for their upcoming pickup truck. Pure electric vehicles are a reasonable choice for towing because they have incredible low-end torque. The only problem is that they rely in part on good aerodynamics for their range, so adding a trailer is going to hurt them badly in that department.
Miss Bianca
@Roger Moore: Yeah, and at Tesla’s prices I predict I will be making my own biodiesel for the F250 in 2030 rather than buying an electric truck!
Quiltingfool
@indycat32: I need that mug!
Ruckus
@Ken:
Probably not. The hot rod craze is now in lowered, loud imports here in socal, with a few of the real expensive latest hot production cars. And while one sees plenty of brand new up model pickups, most of the jacked up, big tires, loud, 4x4s are a few to several years old. By the time the new electric pickups go on the market the price will be out of the range of a lot of people. The US car companies will sell ICE motor vehicles in the us for a long time. People who refuse masks, carry the flag/stars & bars will refuse every attempt to bring them into the 21st century just like they have everything else in their lives, health/politics/realism. Neanderthals have been around for a lot of centuries, they refuse to die off easily,
Another Scott
@Roger Moore: My step-mom worked for L’eggs/Hanes for ages. A decade or two ago there was some worldwide shortage of
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexamethylenediamine
because of some refinery issues so nylon for stockings was in short supply.
Crude oil is amazing stuff. We shouldn’t burn it.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruckus
@Nora Lenderbee:
Yep. Neither a vagina nor a penis have an actual brain, although many women believe that men only think with what would have to be the tiny one, but everyone has an asshole, and it doesn’t take much to get a lot of people to walk around proudly displaying theirs.
Ruckus
@Roger Moore:
Yes. The issues with oil’s recovery, shipping, refining, delivery, storage, and cost really don’t make a lot of sense when there is solar and wind generation of electric power, with a relatively safe/dependable delivery system especially in most places in the world and how easy it is to add solar to homes. Add batteries and battery farms for peak use times/night time and oil starts to look a lot worse. Of course that means that we can’t have that, being as the 21st century is a curse of the devil.
smedley the uncertain
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): GMC EV Hummer. 112,000 USD. It’s here.
Geminid
@Roger Moore: One unit of the IRS that needs to be reinforced is the one auditing the carbon capture tax credit. The $25 dollar per ton credit for injecting CO2 to recover “carbon neutral” oil supports a technology that can can make air transport- ~4% of global carbon emissions- and heavy land transport carbon neutral. But predictably, regulation under the current administration is slack, basically an “honor system.”
WaterGirl
@otmar: Good to hear.
ballerat
@Baud: Agree with this. There is no other way to fight this, no other way to respond to that kind of behavior, other than to retaliate in kind.
I just never forget, they chose this path, as much out of out of spite and meanness as anything else. They’ve earned everything ugly that’s coming right back to them.