If the vast majority of independents say and concur the same, too, instead of Democrats, then maybe we’d have an objective view.
This must just be a fundamental disagreement between us that we’ve hashed out before: you see elections as the main thing that matters. I see elections as just one part of our system. So where you see Democrats as 2-2 over the last four elections, I see a Republican Party in control of just about everything except the White House and a few blue states.
The “independents” aren’t actually independent, for a significant part – 2012 proved that a big chunk of independents are just Republicans who stopped calling themselves Republicans. It wasn’t just a coincidence that the polling saw a considerable drop in self-identified Republicans at the same time as a considerable increase in self-identified independents.
We’ll have an objective view of Obama in several years.
Yes, the Republicans control everything but the most important political office in the country and most of the largest and most economically important states in the country. And this could change considerably in 2016.
Not surprisingly, you have no idea (once again) about what I think of as “the main thing that matters”. Just stop trying to imagine what I think – if you want to know, then ask.
I agree that running away from it is bad politics. They should be touting its benefits, while the Republicans tout its drawbacks. That’s how arguments about policy are supposed to work during campaigns.
However, I understand why Democrats don’t want to talk about it. The polls don’t lie. It’s just not popular. And you can say all you want how some people hate it because it doesn’t go far enough, but it still means they aren’t too pleased with it and probably won’t be motivated to vote for Democrats who tout how awesome the national health care plan based on private insurance companies is.
It’s reasonable to assume, given that you don’t seem to think Obama’s popularity matters since he’s not running for office.
Hopefully this election gave you a reality check on that count. 2016 is actually the last referendum on Obama, not 2014.
What you consider reasonable to assume about what I or other Democrats think is usually not reasonable to assume. Again, what you say that I “seem to think” is wrong. If you want to know, ask. Quit assuming you have any idea what I think.
So you no longer believe that Obama’s popularity doesn’t matter?
When did I ever believe this? Please cite, and show the context – I may have said it doesn’t matter in relation to some specific thing, but I’m pretty sure I never said it doesn’t matter at all for everything.
I’m not interested in trying to prove you wrong, I’m satisfied that you don’t believe this. Perhaps I was wrong about you believing it before.
My argument before, which you seemed to disagree with, is that winning elections isn’t enough. Low approval= low political capital. No Republican will ever be defeated for obstructing a President with a 41% approval rating.
If this is all your argument is, then I have no problem with it. But you’ve said a lot of stuff that goes way beyond this pretty mundane statement.
BTW, interesting little tidbit related to the 2016 map: Manchin is getting sick of Senate gridlock and is thinking of running for governor again.
That’s an open seat that’s bright, bright red in all likelihood if Manchin decides he wants out. Makes taking back the Senate tougher.
Yes, the only thing that claim has going for it is that it’s almost certainly true. Republicans abhor gun control and civil rights for black people … what could be more predictable than their election leading to more shooting of black people?
All these places where black folks are getting shot by cops, or beaten, tend to be run by Democrats, or Democrats at least hold a large portion of the power. Now I’m not saying Democrats are responsible for shootings and beatings of black citizens, but this isn’t exactly a problem in Wyoming, you know? If Republicans hated civil rights and loved to shoot black people in the streets, you’d tend to see more violence against African-Americans in red states. Where we’re actually seeing most of this violence is in big cities with Democratic machines.
Big cities happen to be more Democratic, and they happen to have more crime. The shootings don’t happen because cities are Democratic – they happen because they’re cities. And for many or most of these incidents, there’s a serious demographic problem with the police force in which it doesn’t come close to matching the population.
You’re right about all of that. I was just rejecting the idea that electing Republicans makes this stuff more likely. There is nothing about the police brutality problem or inner city violence that implicates Republican policies. Republicans can fairly be accused of being insensitive to such problems, but they have rarely had a chance to address them in the places they are actually a serious problem. And the places Republicans do control, it’s not nearly as big a problem. If Republicans were as these ads portray them, then it would be more dangerous for a black man to live in Boise than Los Angeles.
It depends – crime is probably a lot higher in LA than Boise… but how do the cops in Boise treat the relatively small number of black people? How does Boise culture treat minorities? How do they treat interracial families? It’s probably safer overall in Boise, but that could just be the result of the differences in size and density.
Sure, but regardless, you can’t pin those issues on Republicans. Those are primarily issues affecting the big cities. Merely electing Republicans to Congress and the White House will not create more of those atrocities just because. The Bush years didn’t feature any more police brutality than the Clinton years.
Since a general police power is one of the things specifically prohibited the federal government, it’s an issue they couldn’t exercise much control over even if they wanted to. Police ethics are entirely up to the cities and states. There’s no one to blame for these incidents other than the city and state governments under whose watch these things happened.
adaher, don’t take the bait. Don’t facilitate the Dems’ strategy of keeping this “issue” alive simply by having people continue to talk about it. Democrats tried hard to run on the Michael Brown shooting, and Eric Holder is still going around talking about the Ferguson PD needing change, long after it became clear it was a justifiable homicide. Let them rave on. If you keep talking about it, it turns into another Sacco and Vanzetti. Sacco was guilty as sin but after decades of “debate”, even Michael Dukakis thought he was innocent.
Of course… it’s only coincidence that most police departments refuse to keep statistics on police shootings, and those few statistics that can be found show that young black men are 21 times more likely to be killed by police than young white men (when the crime disparity is much, much smaller). We shouldn’t talk about this issue at all – we should just trust that the police are treating black people fine, just like police in America have always been immune to things like racism and bias.