Definitely he comes off as a nice grandfather. It’s quite a contrast from Donald Trump, whom I don’t see spending time with his grandchildren.
I keep hearing people talk about right-wing violence after an electoral defeat as if it’s a bad thing. It would further accelerate Democratic dominance, win the Ds even more votes down the road, and make the Republican image look worse than ever.
That’s what I thought after Jan 6.
And result in people being hurt and killed. Which is why it’s a bad thing in the first place.
I agree with the last two posts.
If Trump’s supporters do not care about his loss sufficiently to commit felonies on his behalf, we are on the road back from the brink.
As for the hypothesis that right wing violence, after an electoral defeat, hurts the GOP, that’s not what I am seeing in the polls. This day in 2020, the Democratic ticket was about 9 points ahead, while now it is only approximately 2 points ahead. There is reason to think pollsters are operating in a different manner this time, explaining some of that. But, by the best evidence we have today, election violence does not hurt the GOP. Let’s hope it is kept to the minimum.
No, because the gradual shift to a less white electorate is roughly matched by the declining political significance of race. It is explained here:
Despite Harris running an excellent campaign I fail to discern polls moving in her direction. I am sticking with my earlier prediction of a close Trump win. (And I still hope I’m wrong.)
People have been claiming for decades that the Republicans will make up the difference by recruiting non-white conservatives, but it never actually works out that way because racism is a core value of the American Right. Every so often conservative non-white try cozying up for the Republicans and get rejected. Trump himself is a racist.
But that’s exactly what the link PhillyGuy linked to shows - that the Trump party is, in fact, becoming more diverse and non-white.
And I know the plural of anecdotes is not data, but I can’t tell you how many MAGA Hispanic and Asian folks I’ve encountered in the last 4 years. There is definitely something about it that transcends race to some extent, especially when certain strains of Christianity are mixed in.
My first voluntary response will be to shop for new pants, because my first involuntary response will be to shit my pants in joy.
I predict that whichever way the election (and the subsequent court- and perhaps even street-fighting) goes, we’ll end up with a thread titled something close to “Where were you when you got the news that [whoever] was for sure our next President?”.
I predict, like the JFK assassination, the first Moon landing, the 9/11 attacks, etc., this chunk of news will be one of those things most Americans and many non-Americans will remember the when and where of for the rest of their days.
There are even non-Christian MAGA loyalists like Vivek Ramaswamy who can’t blame the religion for liking Trump.
Only if Trump wins will people remember the day, the day democracy died.
If Harris wins people will just say, see democracy works and then get back to their lives. Forgetting that there is a wounded fascist animal lurking around that called itself Maga that refuses to crawl back under its rock and takes on a new disgusting name to disguise itself out in the open again. The beast that slouches towards Bethlehem to be born.
Agreed.
What I’ve seen at least at the precinct caucus level is that many non-whites are disenchanted with the Democrats counting on them as dependable foot soldiers for the cause even though racial minorities are no more or less likely to be progressive on any other subject. There are blacks and hispanics who are homophobes and transphobes, pro-life, etc.
What’s new about that, though? I’ve been hearing that for most of my adult life.
Not to mention Ivanka!
I may be doing this wrong.
What’s new (or so I’ve heard it argued on a podcast – maybe the New Yorker Radio Hour or the Brian Lehrer Show, not sure) is the gradual movement away from “race” as the overwhelming factor in self-identity.
What most Democratic-leaning folks have been looking forward to all these decades – a world in which skin color and racial identity doesn’t matter much – is really happening, slowly but surely (despite all the obvious ways that identity politics, racial pride, and race obsession is persistent and even resurgent).
There’s a bit of irony here, I think. Shouldn’t we be celebrating that at least a few people are voting based on something other than their racial self-identity? I get why, if it’s more than a “few,” that’s less a cause for celebration – among other reasons, because it’s clear that many, many White Americans still see in black and white and brown, and not in a good way.
If Harris wins, my first reaction will be a sigh of relief. Then, it will quickly be followed by a keen interest in the shenanigans that MAGA-world will inflict on the country between November and January 6th. What we learned in 2020 is that MAGA won’t accept an election loss, as they consider the result illegitimate. And they will try to engineer an over-turning of the election again this year.
So, if Harris somehow gets enough votes to get to 270 electoral votes, we can all breathe a sigh of relief for about 10 minutes. Then, we need to do whatever we can to help the Democratic party and their lawyers fight off the challenges that will certainly come at the state level, as well as another potential wave of right-wing political violence.
And despite all the obvious ways in which blatant racism is persistent and even resurgent?
That may well be a reaction to the society moving slowly if unsteadily towards “a world in which skin color and racial identity doesn’t matter much”; but ignoring it in your “despite” above seems to me a pretty drastic omission. And it puts in serious danger the society’s movement in the stated direction.
It’s certainly possible that some people see mostly the one and not the other. And it’s even more possible that, as has through the history of the country often been true, people in some groups think that they’ll wind up included in the in-group instead of continuing to be considered an out-group. Some of them may think that joining in snarling at a different out-group will help in that transition; for which they may also reasonably think they’ve got historical precedent, if they’re thinking about the history of this process at all.
Moderating:
Quite a few recent posts are drifting off topic. Let’s get back on track, please.