Fogbow

Tiredretiredlawyer wrote: ↑Tue Jun 01, 2021 5:47 pm Orlylicious- You are quoting the Bible back at ‘em!!! Way to go!!!!!!

A QWERTY died magnificently for that quote.

John Thomas8 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 02, 2021 10:03 pm Democracy in the US is over. In less than 2 decades and it'll be a religious fascist state. The left in this country doesn't have the stomach for a fight.

neeneko wrote: ↑Thu Jun 03, 2021 9:37 am

John Thomas8 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 02, 2021 10:03 pm Democracy in the US is over. In less than 2 decades and it'll be a religious fascist state. The left in this country doesn't have the stomach for a fight.

Not sure I agree. I see this as the right trying to race the clock. They are losing and using increasingly desperate tools to hold onto social power, and it will probably work for short bursts, but the overall trend is against them.

As for the left, the younger you get, and the less white you get, the more up for a fight people tend to be. Old white democrats are generally treading water, but even there I think time is on their side. They don't have to fight, their enemies are dying faster than they are being replaced.

neeneko wrote: ↑Thu Jun 03, 2021 9:37 am

John Thomas8 wrote: ↑Wed Jun 02, 2021 10:03 pm Democracy in the US is over. In less than 2 decades and it'll be a religious fascist state. The left in this country doesn't have the stomach for a fight.

Not sure I agree. I see this as the right trying to race the clock. They are losing and using increasingly desperate tools to hold onto social power, and it will probably work for short bursts, but the overall trend is against them.

As for the left, the younger you get, and the less white you get, the more up for a fight people tend to be. Old white democrats are generally treading water, but even there I think time is on their side. They don't have to fight, their enemies are dying faster than they are being replaced.

northland10 wrote: ↑Thu Jun 03, 2021 9:54 am I tend to agree. John has always seen things through pessimistic glasses and I get that.

Dems breathe sigh of relief after New Mexico blowout
Rep.-elect Melanie Stansbury's 24-point win Tuesday has Democrats feeling more optimistic about their fragile House majority.
By ALLY MUTNICK and SARAH FERRIS 06/03/2021 04:30 AM EDT

After months of disappointing retirements, redistricting fears and a high-profile electoral shutout, House Democrats got some good news on Tuesday: They’re still in the fight for 2022. Democrat Melanie Stansbury trounced her GOP opponent by two dozen points in a special election for a traditionally blue district in New Mexico. And while it’s hard to draw sweeping conclusions from a single race — especially in a safe seat — Democrats say the fact that Stansbury actually outperformed Joe Biden in the district has offered them a sliver of hope ahead of a midterm election that is typically brutal for the party in power.

“We’re very excited about what this race suggests — nothing is certain for 2022,” Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.), chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said of his party’s long odds going into the president’s first midterms. “If there’s a backlash to Biden coming, there’s no visible evidence of it," he added. "To the contrary, it sure seems like people like the president’s agenda because that was the core of our candidate’s message.”

In a post-election analysis Wednesday, nearly a dozen Democratic lawmakers and strategists hailed the unexpectedly strong margins in New Mexico as a sign that their majority might not be doomed just yet. Stansbury’s triumph offers a template of how candidates can beat back the GOP’s “defund the police” attacks and ride on the popularity of Biden’s agenda, they said — particularly if Donald Trump's voters decide to stay home.

covfefe wrote: ↑Thu Jun 03, 2021 9:55 am

The trend is clear, unless the RWNGs can take some extraordinary action in the coming years to destroy our democracy, the demographics of the nation are going to go against them over time. AND- they are alienating more and more of their supporters as they move forward (backward?) IMO. I'm extremely concerned about the short term in the coming years, decade, but less concerned regarding future decades.

Trump looms large over fractured Arizona GOP
BY REID WILSON - 06/05/21 01:26 PM EDT

PHOENIX — After losing two U.S. Senate seats in consecutive elections, Arizona Republicans are eager for the chance to take on first-term Sen. Mark Kelly (D) in what they hope will be a more favorable political environment in the 2022 midterm contests. But some fear that the party is on the brink of squandering that opportunity by failing to learn the lessons of the last election, which marked the first time in a generation that a Democratic presidential candidate carried Arizona’s electoral votes. Instead, state Senate Republicans are conducting an audit of the 2.1 million votes cast in Maricopa County last year, in search of evidence of fraud or malfeasance that is unlikely to emerge.

Former President Trump, unable to accept his defeat in Arizona, has been closely monitoring the audit. He has castigated Republican officials for failing to take action that is beyond their power to reverse his loss. In a statement this week, Trump called Gov. Doug Ducey (R) a “RINO,” or a Republican in name only. He criticized Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R), “who has done little so far on Voter Integrity [sic] and the 2020 Presidential Election Scam [sic].” Ducey, who has won three statewide elections and who won reelection in 2018 with 56 percent of the vote, is the object of national Republican affection. Ducey has said he has no interest in making a run. Advisers and allies privately leave open the prospect of a late entry, though they say his thinking has not changed recently. Brnovich has hired a top Arizona Republican strategist to plot his own campaign for Senate.

In a state that is home to a rich mythology of the lawless and vigilante American West, half a dozen Republicans interviewed this week separately compared the schism within their party as a shootout in which there would be no winners. “I don’t care if it’s Donald Trump or anybody else, any time you’re in a circular firing squad firing at each other, it’s not a good thing,” state Sen. T.J. Shope (R) said in an interview. “We continue to make these same types of mistakes over and over and wonder why Democrats seem to be closing the gap.”

Even without Brnovich or Ducey, the race for the Republican nomination is getting crowded. Solar energy executive Jim Lamon (R) has already run advertisements on cable networks in the New York area, intent on winning Trump’s attention between rounds at his Bedminster golf club. Former state Adjutant General Mick McGuire (R) is in the race. Venture capitalist Blake Masters (R) is likely to run with the backing of a $10 million super PAC funded by his old boss, mega-donor Peter Thiel. Rep. Andy Biggs (R) is said to be considering a race as well.
***
There have long been deep divides within the Arizona Republican Party between arch-conservatives in rural enclaves and business-backed interests in the booming Phoenix metro area, bolstered by a large Mormon population scattered through the eastern suburbs and exurbs. Those with closer ties to the business community — the late Sen. John McCain, former Sens. Jon Kyl and Jeff Flake, Ducey himself — tend to win statewide, while the arch conservatives like Reps. Biggs, Paul Gosar (R) and Debbie Lesko (R) dominate the U.S. House delegation. After four years of Trump, and a steady drumbeat of losses up and down the ballot, some Republicans say the path back to dominance will mirror an earlier era of Arizona conservatism. “The party will want to go back to some sort of its roots. There are a lot of people in the party who are sick of the in-your-face confrontational kind of person,” said state Rep. Ben Toma (R), the House majority leader. “They’re kind of done with the extremism.”
***
If Republicans nominate a candidate who emulates Trump too closely in a primary that will take place in August 2022, just weeks before the November midterm elections, against the well-funded Kelly, who already has more than $4 million in the bank, some believe the GOP is headed for a repeat of the last two Senate contests. “If the Republican candidate is capable of garnering 85 to 90 percent of their base, and then you need to pick up a plurality of unaffiliated voters, Trump’s been unable to do that,” said Chuck Coughlin, a longtime Republican lobbyist in Arizona. “So the party cast in Trump’s visage is not capable of winning statewide elections.”

orlylicious wrote: ↑Mon Jun 07, 2021 11:14 pm More exhibits

...


Maybe we should swap Manchin for Murkowski, she seems much more reasonable.

One of Florida's leading Democrats just launched an ingenious effort to beat GOP voter suppression

People Over Profits launched an effort last week to qualify a ballot amendment that would make most formerly incarcerated Floridians eligible to vote as soon as they’ve completed their full sentence. If passed, the initiative would finally end a legal disenfranchisement that reaches all the way back to 1845, when Florida was a slave state.

It is one of three voting rights amendments the organization is working to put on the 2022 ballot.

To rehash what I went over last week: In 2018, 65% of Floridians approved Amendment 4, a ballot initiative intended to restore the voting rights of over one million people and end the permanent disenfranchisement of returning citizens going forward. It was a massive triumph of grassroots democracy, but just a few months later, Republicans in the state neutered the amendment with a law that stipulated returning citizens must pay off onerous fines before gaining access to the ballot.

With more than 750,000 Floridians unable to meet or even track down those financial requirements, the GOP’s law quickly returned Florida to a Jim Crow status quo; Black people make up about 17% of Florida's total population but nearly half of its prison population. In 2018, Black Floridians accounted for nearly a third of the 1.4 million permanently disenfranchised — nearly 20% of Florida’s entire Black voting-age population.

The other two amendments are focused on making registering to vote easier for everyone: One would enact same-day voter registration while the other would update the state’s Motor Voter law so that eligible Floridians would be automatically registered to vote or have their registration info updated if necessary.

Tiredretiredlawyer wrote: ↑Tue Jun 08, 2021 10:26 am https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/6 ... uppression

One of Florida's leading Democrats just launched an ingenious effort to beat GOP voter suppression

People Over Profits launched an effort last week to qualify a ballot amendment that would make most formerly incarcerated Floridians eligible to vote as soon as they’ve completed their full sentence. If passed, the initiative would finally end a legal disenfranchisement that reaches all the way back to 1845, when Florida was a slave state.

It is one of three voting rights amendments the organization is working to put on the 2022 ballot.

To rehash what I went over last week: In 2018, 65% of Floridians approved Amendment 4, a ballot initiative intended to restore the voting rights of over one million people and end the permanent disenfranchisement of returning citizens going forward. It was a massive triumph of grassroots democracy, but just a few months later, Republicans in the state neutered the amendment with a law that stipulated returning citizens must pay off onerous fines before gaining access to the ballot.

With more than 750,000 Floridians unable to meet or even track down those financial requirements, the GOP’s law quickly returned Florida to a Jim Crow status quo; Black people make up about 17% of Florida's total population but nearly half of its prison population. In 2018, Black Floridians accounted for nearly a third of the 1.4 million permanently disenfranchised — nearly 20% of Florida’s entire Black voting-age population.

The other two amendments are focused on making registering to vote easier for everyone: One would enact same-day voter registration while the other would update the state’s Motor Voter law so that eligible Floridians would be automatically registered to vote or have their registration info updated if necessary.

Atticus Finch wrote: ↑Tue Jun 08, 2021 10:31 am If Manchin were the Captain of the Titanic he would be more concern about the layout of the deck chairs than about the iceberg.

Why the GOP Just Got Blown Out in a Congressional Race
New Mexico, a once-purple state, is turning increasingly blue.
By BRYAN METZGER 06/08/2021 04:30 AM EDT
Bryan Metzger is a freelance reporter who covers New Mexico politics.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.—Two weeks before the GOP had its first chance to pick up a seat in Congress since Joe Biden became president, the Republican Party of New Mexico hosted a three-day event dubbed “Operation Freedom.” State Sen. Mark Moores, who was running for the open seat, addressed a crowd of a few hundred party leaders, activists and donors in a hotel conference center. Afterwards, he left the hotel and drove nearly 300 miles back to Albuquerque, where he was actually competing for votes. New Mexico Republicans had opted to hold their marquee event in Amarillo, Texas.

When the votes came in, Moores had lost to Democratic State Rep. Melanie Stansbury by 24 percentage points—even more than the margin by which Joe Biden had won the district. Nationally, it was seen as a referendum on Biden’s first months in office. But in New Mexico, the story is longer and more complex. For some frustrated New Mexico Republicans, the Amarillo episode and Moores’ loss last Tuesday highlight deeper problems with the state party’s leadership and direction over the last few years—including a turn towards Trumpism that has galvanized some of the party’s base but has seemingly turned off swing voters in the state’s traditionally purple electorate.
***
“The party had every incentive to try to make it reasonably close,” said Rod Adair, a Republican consultant and demographer who represented a southeast New Mexico state senate seat from 1997 to 2013. “The striking thing about the results is that you would expect, in a special election, for the party opposite the White House to get a little bit of a bump,” he added. “It was actually worse.”

Moores, one of only two Republicans left representing Albuquerque voters in either chamber of the state legislature, even lost his own state senate district by 3.5 points, according to the special election’s unofficial results. “Nobody’s surprised that Melanie won. I think everybody was somewhat shocked at the margin,” said Darren White, a former sheriff of Bernalillo County and the 2008 GOP nominee for the district. But the problems run deeper than one congressional district. The state party is now caught in a catch-22, beholden to a right-wing, Trumpist base, while struggling to regain the votes of more moderate, suburban voters, like the ones who used to buoy Republicans across the first district. “I liked Trump’s policies, but his rhetoric is toxic, and it hurt people, and I think that Mark got the backlash from that,” said Lisa Torraco, a Republican former state senator who represented a suburban, northeast Albuquerque district adjacent to Moores’ before losing re-election in 2016. “And the state party hasn’t done anything to try to heal that.”

The GOP's strategy is galvanizing Democrats ahead of 2022
BY MICHAEL STARR HOPKINS, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 06/09/21 05:00 PM EDT
The GOP's strategy is galvanizing Democrats ahead of 2022

Less than a year after a brutal election that only further divided an already fractured nation, members of both sides of the aisle have begun to turn their attention to the upcoming 2022 midterm elections. It may seem entirely too early to begin talking about the midterm elections, but as we all recognize, election season is now a never-ending cycle. Historically, the party in power loses seats in Congress during the midterms. Nevertheless, Democrats stand a strong chance at bucking that trend in 2022, if Republicans aren’t careful.

Democrats' win in Georgia during the 2020 general election, and subsequent runoff in 2021, was a blueprint on how to win Southern states with a progressive message and energetic turnout among communities of color. Winning one Senate seat in Georgia would have been a big deal for Democrats heading into a presidential election, but winning two Senate seats in Georgia would have been a bet that practically no Democrat would have taken this time last year; yet, here we are. Some of the credit for Republicans’ wipeout in Georgia certainly sits at the feet of former President Donald Trump and his mishandling of COVID-19. Changing demographics in the suburbs of Atlanta, coupled with Trump’s insistence that going to the polls was a wasted effort, undoubtedly played a role in Democrats' big win. But the most important takeaway for Democrats to implement around the country heading into the midterm elections is that year-round party infrastructure and organizing matters.

For far too long, Democrats thought they could drop into ruby red states during election season and attempt to persuade voters that they were the best party to speak to their issues. Unsurprisingly, those efforts were routinely rebuffed. Not because Democratic policies weren’t the best fit for Southern states, who often rank at the very bottom on issues of access to healthcare and economic mobility, but because — like everything else in politics — it’s all about relationships. When Democrats meet voters where they are and spend time understanding what motivates them, the investment tends to pay off. After losing the gubernatorial election in 2018, Stacey Abrams and her Fair Fight organization doubled down on their efforts to register new voters and combat voter suppression efforts across the South. That investment of both time and resources paid off handsomely when it came time for Democrats to mobilize voters during an international pandemic that upended door-to-door campaign efforts.

Democrats' decision to strengthen party infrastructure and adapt to a year-round campaign model isn’t the only move that has them positioned to overperform in 2022. Trump continues to motivate turnout among a large swath of the Democratic party. Historically, supporters of the party in power are lulled into a sense of complacency by their recent victory and a belief that they now control the immediate direction of the country. This year feels much different from previous post-election years, when settling usually takes place among the electorate. Much of that can be attributed to the Jan. 6 insurrection and a lack of political courage among Republicans to speak honestly about how and why the events unfolded. Most of which is a direct result of the power that Trump still yields within the Republican party. His ability to bend the party to his will and remake it in his own vision has left few Republicans willing to speak truth to power.

More so than any policy or piece of legislation, Democratic voters are worried about whether institutions can sustain Republicans returning to power and continuing the divisive and damaging tone that gripped the nation over the last four years. To put it simply, Trump may turnout Republicans, but he supercharges Democratic turnout. Most Democrats see no difference between Trump and Republicans actually on the ballot, for good reason. The more that Trump continues to push conspiracy theories and implement litmus tests for Republican office holders, the more likely it is that Democrats continue to see Trump as an existential threat, thereby driving up turnout.

What’s more detrimental to Republicans' chances of retaking the House or Senate in 2022 isn’t just Trump’s attacks on Democrats and the Democratic process — it’s his attacks on members of his own party. The “Big Lie,” as it’s commonly referred to, hasn’t just suppressed Republican turnout and made them believe that voting is a fool's errand; it has also created an environment where communities of color would rather crawl over glass than give in to suppression efforts. The more that Republicans attempt to implement laws directly intended to deny Black voters their full voting rights, the more motivated African Americans will be to turn out to the polls. It’s not rocket science — instead of lulling Democrats to sleep and taking advantage of a party in complete control of every level of government, Republicans have found a way to activate the base of the Democratic party and ensure another cycle of record turnout. History may not be on the side of the party in power, but Republicans’ strategy of feeding their base an endless amount of red meat, while rationing universal truths, could backfire spectacularly and lead to Democrats maintaining control and bucking the trend.

Michael Starr Hopkins is a senior vice president at Firehouse Strategies