American Politics

[shionoro]

The question really is whether Trump's behavior will help democrats in georgia.
If they do it successfully, they could make the senate runoff another referendum on Trump which they'd have a good shot at winning again.


On the one hand, there were more people supporting biden than the democratic senator contenders, which makes it probably that a significant amount of people voted red senate but blue presidency.

Usually, the black support especially wanes in the runoff, which cost democrats lots of senate elections in georgia. But this time, some factors help them:

• Georgia is going to decide the senate, so there is a bigger importance on going to vote here.
• There is a boost in motivation for georgia democrat leaning people to vote again because they just flipped the state.
• Loeffler and Purdue are bad candidates that are relatively vulnerable.
• Trump is not playing for the Team. He goes out and tells people to vote red, which will have an effect, but on the other hand, he raises money for himself instead for the senate candidates and does not push back hard against the 'dont vote' movement. There might be a small but significant margin of people who like trump but still will not vote, especially after Biden got confirmed now even by Mc Connell as president elect.
• Stacey Abrams is doing amazing work and democrats are catching up to it finally. They listen to her more, they are willing to give funds. That is important, they seem to have wised up and appeal to the black population in georgia more than just putting out a candidate they think white conservatives might vote for.

So far, the turnout regarding ballot requests and early voting looks promising. I will not Jinx anything here and this is still a toss up, but at least I think that democrats are not in a hopeless situation when it comes to winning both seats.

 

[Newkerzy]

The question really is whether Trump's behavior will help democrats in georgia.
If they do it successfully, they could make the senate runoff another referendum on Trump which they'd have a good shot at winning again.


On the one hand, there were more people supporting biden than the democratic senator contenders, which makes it probably that a significant amount of people voted red senate but blue presidency.

Usually, the black support especially wanes in the runoff, which cost democrats lots of senate elections in georgia. But this time, some factors help them:

• Georgia is going to decide the senate, so there is a bigger importance on going to vote here.
• There is a boost in motivation for georgia democrat leaning people to vote again because they just flipped the state.
• Loeffler and Purdue are bad candidates that are relatively vulnerable.
• Trump is not playing for the Team. He goes out and tells people to vote red, which will have an effect, but on the other hand, he raises money for himself instead for the senate candidates and does not push back hard against the 'dont vote' movement. There might be a small but significant margin of people who like trump but still will not vote, especially after Biden got confirmed now even by Mc Connell as president elect.
• Stacey Abrams is doing amazing work and democrats are catching up to it finally. They listen to her more, they are willing to give funds. That is important, they seem to have wised up and appeal to the black population in georgia more than just putting out a candidate they think white conservatives might vote for.

So far, the turnout regarding ballot requests and early voting looks promising. I will not Jinx anything here and this is still a toss up, but at least I think that democrats are not in a hopeless situation when it comes to winning both seats.

Stacey Abrams has been on the radar for a while, I wouldn’t be surprised if she had a better shot in 2024. Hell, here’s a long-shot candidate: Adam Silver.

 

[shionoro]

Stacey Abrams has been on the radar for a while, I wouldn’t be surprised if she had a better shot in 2024. Hell, here’s a long-shot candidate: Adam Silver.

She almost won before. Honestly, I think if she manages to flip georgia blue a second time, only little can stop her if she tries.
And that is not the end of it. What works in georgia might also work in other southern states for democrats. If they find a winning strategy for georgia, i would not be surprised if they improve their overall performance.

I know people here are not especially Biden fans (while I am absolutely fine with Biden, I think he is an honest politician as far as honesty in politics goes), but Biden might be very useful to win the midterms, no matter whether they win georgia or not.
Democrats struggle in the more rural states, but a guy like Biden who is really cozy with the Gop takes the edge of 'they are all leftist extremists' from them.

That alone is not going to win a senate race, but coupled with an effective strategy for the state it does takes one of their strongest bullets from the republicans that did in fact help them to win a lot of house races this time.

The other question would be if biden is able to do that while still maintaining workable relations to the democrat left wing.

 

[kkck]

I don't think this year is much of a reference to anything, election wise. You have trump, a historically unpopular president, a pandemic... compounded with people voting against trump. It almost didn't matter that it was biden running...

For the next midterms to be good for democrats... *sight* Welp, biden needs to get shit that people like done. But he isn't actually likely to win the senate, he wants to work with republicans who will take every concession biden makes and give nothing back, and in general just isn't running on anything. All biden will have left is foreign policy, which isn't exactly what people in the US specifically care about.

Senate wise, the current state of things is probably as good as it gets for democrats in the foreseeable future. If the georgia race doesn't favor democrats now then it's a pretty safe bet it won't get much better in the future, when trump is less of a factor and republicans have milked biden for all he is worth.

Biden just isn't really running on anything nor does he have a winning strategy. He keeps telling people he will work with the party that tried to end democracy... Add to that 2/3s of all republicans believing biden and democrats in general run massive child sex trafficking rings who then get harvested for brain juice to get high or something. Trump lost but... things look bleak.

 

[M3J]

I can see the GA dems losing because Biden hasn't inspired Dems and the left to keep voting, Trump keeps playing it off as unfair election and inspires the reps to vote even more, and Reps will try to play dirty to win. I hope I'm wrong since as shitty as most Dems are, I'd rather they control things over the Reps.

 

[kkck]

I can see the GA dems losing because Biden hasn't inspired Dems and the left to keep voting, Trump keeps playing it off as unfair election and inspires the reps to vote even more, and Reps will try to play dirty to win. I hope I'm wrong since as shitty as most Dems are, I'd rather they control things over the Reps.

Well, it generally isn't good for your own odds to make the case that elections are literally fraudulent. So it's basically a battle between biden not really giving anyone a reason to vote and trump telling his base their vote is pointless.

 

[shionoro]

I don't think this year is much of a reference to anything, election wise. You have trump, a historically unpopular president, a pandemic... compounded with people voting against trump. It almost didn't matter that it was biden running...

For the next midterms to be good for democrats... *sight* Welp, biden needs to get shit that people like done. But he isn't actually likely to win the senate, he wants to work with republicans who will take every concession biden makes and give nothing back, and in general just isn't running on anything. All biden will have left is foreign policy, which isn't exactly what people in the US specifically care about.

Senate wise, the current state of things is probably as good as it gets for democrats in the foreseeable future. If the georgia race doesn't favor democrats now then it's a pretty safe bet it won't get much better in the future, when trump is less of a factor and republicans have milked biden for all he is worth.

Biden just isn't really running on anything nor does he have a winning strategy. He keeps telling people he will work with the party that tried to end democracy... Add to that 2/3s of all republicans believing biden and democrats in general run massive child sex trafficking rings who then get harvested for brain juice to get high or something. Trump lost but... things look bleak.

I don't think things look bleak right now. First of all, Biden might be more successful than Obama in striking deals with republicans. This is not about republican niceness and 'giving things back', this is about knowing how they work and finding offers that they cannot refuse well.
What cannot be forgot: With Trump out of the picture, that does not mean democrat chances decline. Trump was very unpopular by the end of his term, but Trump was also a huge driver of voters that ONLY came for him. In important states. These people might be lost for the GOP with the drama unfolding right now.

About the Senate: Democrats have a great chance to flip/retain the senate in 2022. The reason for that is lies in the system. Simply put, there are mostly republican seats up for grabs and only few vulnerable democrat ones.
Of these races, right now (which, admittedly, is early, but in american politics you can usually tell these things long in advance) only few get counted as potentially competitive (like, california will elect a democratic senator, but florida might not pick a republican one).
Of the competitive ones, it is a toss up that very slightly skews towards the democrats.

Biden is probably not going to push through with very divisive matters, even in a 50/50 senate. That also means that the usual pattern of midtermflipping (because lots of voters are angry) might play less of a role here.

In my opinion, democrats' biggest problem here is the house. But they can find a proper messaging until then.

 

[kkck]

I don't think things look bleak right now. First of all, Biden might be more successful than Obama in striking deals with republicans. This is not about republican niceness and 'giving things back', this is about knowing how they work and finding offers that they cannot refuse well.
What cannot be forgot: With Trump out of the picture, that does not mean democrat chances decline. Trump was very unpopular by the end of his term, but Trump was also a huge driver of voters that ONLY came for him. In important states. These people might be lost for the GOP with the drama unfolding right now.

About the Senate: Democrats have a great chance to flip/retain the senate in 2022. The reason for that is lies in the system. Simply put, there are mostly republican seats up for grabs and only few vulnerable democrat ones.
Of these races, right now (which, admittedly, is early, but in american politics you can usually tell these things long in advance) only few get counted as potentially competitive (like, california will elect a democratic senator, but florida might not pick a republican one).
Of the competitive ones, it is a toss up that very slightly skews towards the democrats.

Biden is probably not going to push through with very divisive matters, even in a 50/50 senate. That also means that the usual pattern of midtermflipping (because lots of voters are angry) might play less of a role here.

In my opinion, democrats' biggest problem here is the house. But they can find a proper messaging until then.

Democrat's have had a severe messaging problem since... obamacare got passed at least. Going into 2016, hillary pretty much didn't run on anything. Her campaign was associated with no policy. She pretty much ran on not being trump and lost. Then coming 2016... you have biden's campaign that also didn't really run on any policy. His main message was basically that he wasn't trump and that he was a decent guy. And the only reason it didn't fail spectacularly was because people showed up to vote against trump. Trump lost but that doesn't mean democrats stand for anything nowadays.

 

[shionoro]

Democrat's have had a severe messaging problem since... obamacare got passed at least. Going into 2016, hillary pretty much didn't run on anything. Her campaign was associated with no policy. She pretty much ran on not being trump and lost. Then coming 2016... you have biden's campaign that also didn't really run on any policy. His main message was basically that he wasn't trump and that he was a decent guy. And the only reason it didn't fail spectacularly was because people showed up to vote against trump. Trump lost but that doesn't mean democrats stand for anything nowadays.

I think people are underestimating biden severely.
Biden had a message, and a pretty strong one: Unity. And that message was powerful independent from Trump. That is what net him the primary, it is what net him the presidency.
Trump is not an easy target. Even with Corona, the incumbent bonus and his base, coupled with the republican voter suppression would have made it hard for any candidate to win.
Biden won. He also won against sanders. He also won against Buttigieg and Warren which were embraced by the obama crowd. While everybody thought he is to old and telling him his campaigning is bad.

The truth is that biden's campaign was incredibly competent at what they did.

It all sounds easy when you are not the guy who is campaigning. Now people say 'biden had to do nothing, he just let trump defeat himself'.
Well, when Biden was campaigning, freaked out liberals shouted at him to get out more and he was ridiculed as basement dweller. It worked, it was the winning move against trump, who you cannot compete with on the ground of attention.

Biden, unlike clinton, was able to get people like Sanders to campaign for him in a believable way (he campaigned for clinton, but the two would not even shake hands on some occasions, it was clear sanders despised her. It is also clear sanders genuinely likes Biden, even tho their policies differ).
He was able to get republicans on stage to campaign for him, showing that he meant it with the unity message.

People told Biden he is bad at campaigning and to old throughout all the year. And these people all lost, or the candidates they embraced lost. Biden won, and they kept and keep on telling how uninspiring he is and how democrats cannot win like that.

Trump is not only an obstacle to the GOP. He is also an asset. The GOP civil war right now will hurt them on the long run and is far more severe than any leftie/moderate divide in the democrat party ever was. Trump drove a lot of turnout of people who would not have voted the republican party otherwise. The storyline of him diminishing their chances to win is, in my opinion, a misleading one.

The best tools of the republican party against democrats is fear of the left. That is how they made gains in the house, because they demonized defund the police and even moderate democrats with it.
Biden is exactly the antithesis of that. He is not the guy who will build a socialist utopia (which i, as a utopia socialist do not find ideal), but he certainly is the guy who can legitimately embrace the unity message and that is RARE in modern US politics.

And he and his campaign executed that message and strategy with very little fuck ups. People talked about Biden's gaffes and claimed he does not know where he even is... While Biden kept winning. Against the people saying that. It boggles my mind how people still think it is Biden of all people who has a messaging problem.

The problem of democrats is not that they have no message. It is that they cannot find consensus about how to bring their message out, which is used by the republicans to distort the messages.
Biden is very useful in not letting that happen, because it gets more unbelievable even for republicans (and i hang out on their social media) that biden is some kind of radical.
But similarly, Biden is honest and fair enough as a politician for people like sanders and warren to not rip him apart, which can help him to actually have workable relationships to both the left and the moderate republicans.

He is, at the moment, the right guy for the job and the right guy to reclaim the senate and keep the house. There is a bigger problem with Nancy Pelosi and the countless of house and senate democrats that do not have their messaging sorted out. It is not Biden's fault.

 

[xi0]

About the Senate: Democrats have a great chance to flip/retain the senate in 2022. The reason for that is lies in the system. Simply put, there are mostly republican seats up for grabs and only few vulnerable democrat ones.

You're ignoring the factor of how Biden's first year or so in office will play into it. Midterm elections are largely a referendum on the current administration. Even if Senate Republicans get blame for blocking every piece of legislation put forth, people will still vote Republican if Biden is seen as ineffective. And let's be honest, many people will see that regardless of what he does.

 

[shionoro]

You're ignoring the factor of how Biden's first year or so in office will play into it. Midterm elections are largely a referendum on the current administration. Even if Senate Republicans get blame for blocking every piece of legislation put forth, people will still vote Republican if Biden is seen as ineffective. And let's be honest, many people will see that regardless of what he does.

That depends on the pitch tho. I think it is a good pitch to say "I would like to do some popular policies, but I need the senate/a bigger senate majority for that".
Usually, like in the first Obama term, we saw the midterms slip because obama did things people did not like. If Biden's first term focuses on getting some popular moderate things done (Covid relief, minor healthcare improvements, at least minor tax relief) that will not be unpopular, coupled with his likely robust foreign policy.

It also cannot be ignored what happens with the Republican party until then. It is definitely possible that Trump gives them a huge fuck off once he is out of office that could make quite lots of the loonies not vote at all. Right now, he is playing nice because he probably still thinks he can twist out of this, but once he is out of the white house, a lot of his fans are done with the GOP.

It also means two more years of demographics change in GOP keystates like Georgia. And while it also means 2 more years of voter suppression, I think the demographic change is the stronger one.

 

[xi0]

That depends on the pitch tho. I think it is a good pitch to say "I would like to do some popular policies, but I need the senate/a bigger senate majority for that".
Usually, like in the first Obama term, we saw the midterms slip because obama did things people did not like. If Biden's first term focuses on getting some popular moderate things done (Covid relief, minor healthcare improvements, at least minor tax relief) that will not be unpopular, coupled with his likely robust foreign policy.

It also cannot be ignored what happens with the Republican party until then. It is definitely possible that Trump gives them a huge fuck off once he is out of office that could make quite lots of the loonies not vote at all. Right now, he is playing nice because he probably still thinks he can twist out of this, but once he is out of the white house, a lot of his fans are done with the GOP.

It also means two more years of demographics change in GOP keystates like Georgia. And while it also means 2 more years of voter suppression, I think the demographic change is the stronger one.

Demographic changes don't matter if there is no impetus to vote. And there will be even less of that among those demographics if Biden obsesses over "moderate" changes that have common ground. How many of those things even exist any longer?

 

[kkck]

Republicans and democrats only ever agree on, as far as I remember, tax cuts, military budget increases and spying on people. basically, moderate positions are actively bad for everyone... Moderate positions don't seem to have jack shit to do with stuff people want or need.

 

[M3J]

Well, it generally isn't good for your own odds to make the case that elections are literally fraudulent. So it's basically a battle between biden not really giving anyone a reason to vote and trump telling his base their vote is pointless.

It kind of is if it inspires your base or your party's base to be more active in voting and to be more... menacing and "watchful."

Thing is though, Loeffler and her republican buddy should be losing considerably, given their history from just this year. Plus, Dems winning GA means stuff like stimulus are more likely to be passed, so there's no reason why the Dems shouldn't win. I think a lot of it depends on Biden and Trump though, and people angry at Trump's loss might be inspired to support the GA REps, esp to stick it to the liberals.

Biden had a message, and a pretty strong one: Unity. And that message was powerful independent from Trump. That is what net him the primary, it is what net him the presidency.

His message sucked, he was just lucky enough that Trump's shittiness made people realize Biden was better, and on top of Trump's mishandling of covid, even Clinton could have won this one, maybe. His plan could have cost him the election had the further left like Stacey Abrams didn't convince and help people vote.

What got him the primary was people thinking being moderate is better, and the division amongst the Dems and the left, even among the Bernie and Warren camps. Then Biden somehow managed to get some of his primary opponents in his camp, like Yang and Harris, and they brought over most of their supporters as well.

Biden got liberals with his half-assed message. The rest just thought he was better than Trump, especially when he could be pushed left. That helped him win the election.

 

[Sanity Check]

Republicans and democrats only ever agree on, as far as I remember, tax cuts

Medicare for all. Green new deal. UBI. Free healthcare for illegal immigrants. Forgive student loan debt.

Democrats have very big spending and deficit aspirations for "supporters" of tax cuts.





How do they intend to pay for all that stuff.

...

Trump made tax cuts popular by using them to stimulate the US economy. Generating significant job and wage growth.

Can democrats do the same? Ha.

 

[kkck]

Tax cuts haven't stimulated the economy... They stimulate the stock market but the economy's growth before the pandemic was pretty similar to obama's second term, if not exactly the same. Obama even made bush tax cuts permanent back in the day and it didn't exactly skyrocket the economy either. Tax cuts simply aren't magic... In the long term, tax cuts have simply resulted in more deficit and less money going towards social services and education (compounded by the US having destroyed it's social services since the 80s, including all the education subsidies that allowed the previous generations to pay for their education as they studied).

Add to that, biden is very overtly against medicare for all, GND and UBI.

 

[shionoro]

Demographic changes don't matter if there is no impetus to vote. And there will be even less of that among those demographics if Biden obsesses over "moderate" changes that have common ground. How many of those things even exist any longer?

If that does not matter, how did Obama, the most inspiring candidate 2008 in recent american history (certainly more exciting than bush 1, 2, clinton 1, 2) lose by more percentage points than clinton in Georgia 2008 and Biden won there?

You can't have it both, either Biden had messaging that actually worked in Georgia, or the demographic change is something that matters no matter which candidate goes there.

The truth is that 'exciting' is pretty much just as made up as 'likability'. All over the world, there are really many boring-but-effective high profile politicians. Gubernationally, the same is true in the US, and even as far as presidents go, it isn't exactly like the majority of the US presidents were super exciting people.
Some were flashy, certainly not most of them.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 21, 2020, Original Post Date: Dec 21, 2020 ---

Republicans and democrats only ever agree on, as far as I remember, tax cuts, military budget increases and spying on people. basically, moderate positions are actively bad for everyone... Moderate positions don't seem to have jack shit to do with stuff people want or need.

Bidens tax raise is a popular moderate position.
So is Biden's healthcare plan or the Covid relief.
There are uneciting but popular steps to be done, like an infrastructure overhaul, reinstating some things trump has broken or his education plan.

No, his education plan is not free college. But it is free college for some and laxer repayment for most. That will be popular if he gets it done. There will be lefties saying it is not enough, but nonetheless it is something that the figureheads of the left will endorse and fight for, as it is a useful compromise.

You do not need to pack the courts and defund the police to make it clear to people that your moderate plan will still be a significant improvement for them, if you message that in a competent way.

His message sucked, he was just lucky enough that Trump's shittiness made people realize Biden was better, and on top of Trump's mishandling of covid, even Clinton could have won this one, maybe. His plan could have cost him the election had the further left like Stacey Abrams didn't convince and help people vote.

What got him the primary was people thinking being moderate is better, and the division amongst the Dems and the left, even among the Bernie and Warren camps. Then Biden somehow managed to get some of his primary opponents in his camp, like Yang and Harris, and they brought over most of their supporters as well.

Biden got liberals with his half-assed message. The rest just thought he was better than Trump, especially when he could be pushed left. That helped him win the election.

His messaging worked wonders, and it was taylored on trump so it makes no sense to say 'it just worked because trump'.
It also worked in the primary.
The 'somehow' here is misleading. Biden managed to make all the moderates fall in line with him. Sanders did not managa to make warren leave the race and endorse him?

Why? Because the biden campaign was really competent in networking and finding common ground and the sanders campaign ended up having bad blood with the warren campaign and others.
And after that? Sanders fell in line with biden, because biden, again, is a very effective networker who can actually do big tent policy.

 

[xi0]

If that does not matter, how did Obama, the most inspiring candidate 2008 in recent american history (certainly more exciting than bush 1, 2, clinton 1, 2) lose by more percentage points than clinton in Georgia 2008 and Biden won there?

You can't have it both, either Biden had messaging that actually worked in Georgia, or the demographic change is something that matters no matter which candidate goes there.

You're going to give more credit to Biden's campaign than Stacy Abrams and other activists registering 800k new voters in Georgia? Enough of those voters came out to swing the state, you can't give full credit to Biden as a candidate when the prospect of 4 more years of Trump was seen as an existential threat for so many groups of people. Biden benefits from Obama's legacy to a degree, the fact that there's an ongoing pandemic that Trump failed to address competently, the fact that he's not a woman (sad but true), and the fact that he's not a Clinton. Those are the reasons Biden won this election.

It's the latter more than the former IMO. And Biden has a tall task ahead of himself if he wants to keep another 2010 from happening to his presidency. I hope that won't be the case, but there's very little reason for me to be optimistic IMO.

 

[shionoro]

You're going to give more credit to Biden's campaign than Stacy Abrams and other activists registering 800k new voters in Georgia? Enough of those voters came out to swing the state, you can't give full credit to Biden as a candidate when the prospect of 4 more years of Trump was seen as an existential threat for so many groups of people. Biden benefits from Obama's legacy to a degree, the fact that there's an ongoing pandemic that Trump failed to address competently, the fact that he's not a woman (sad but true), and the fact that he's not a Clinton. Those are the reasons Biden won this election.

It's the latter more than the former IMO. And Biden has a tall task ahead of himself if he wants to keep another 2010 from happening to his presidency. I hope that won't be the case, but there's very little reason for me to be optimistic IMO.

We were talking about demographic change making georgia winnable. Stacey Abrams said that herself in an interview that the demographic change is what's the difference between now and ten years ago.

Biden certainly has one of the hardest imaginable presidencies ahead of himself, more so if he does not have the Senate. But with Trump, it is not easy for republicans, too. It cannot be judged now what lasting effects Trump will have, but it is clear that it will not be beneficial for the GOP on the long run to have a base with a huge amount of conspiracy nuts that hate the established GOPs as much as they hate the democrats and just voted GOP due to Trump and other grifters.

Republicans supporting the lawsuits to steal the election is not exactly a move that is going to win them the few undecided voters america still has.

 

[Sanity Check]

Tax cuts haven't stimulated the economy... They stimulate the stock market but the economy's growth before the pandemic was pretty similar to obama's second term, if not exactly the same. Obama even made bush tax cuts permanent back in the day and it didn't exactly skyrocket the economy either. Tax cuts simply aren't magic...

...

China economy: Beijing unveils $298bn tax cuts to boost growth

China's premier told its annual parliamentary session the country faces "a tough struggle".

www.bbc.com

What is this.

Add to that, biden is very overtly against medicare for all, GND and UBI.

Biden is overtly against medicare for all. The way he was overtly against obamacare. Makes sense.

There's no one in politics more consistent and reliable than democrats and Biden after all.