Sure – but I often scan quickly through the arguments of everyone except the person I’m directly engaging with. And sometimes I read a bad argument and think “that’s stupid, but I don’t feel like engaging this particular bit of stupidity today”.
I just think the whining about not refuting certain posts is pointless – everyone is going to look at what they’re interested in, and post on what they’re interested in.
Bricker is an attention whore, plain and simple. Every. Fucking. Thread. he participates in he manages to turn into a thread about him. It’s always about him. Notice how he’s gotten everyone to change the subject from the uncomfortable one about how Republican legislators gamed the system to win, to being about whom he replies to, how he replies, whether or not we reply to our own side, and so on.
Stop it. Just fucking stop it. This thread is not about this arrogant prick, it’s about this:
This election wasn’t won on policy, it was won by Republicans doing back flips to keep Democratic voters away, period.
How can I make such a bold and declarative statement?
The proof is in the polling, my friends.
Poll after poll after poll after poll had strong enough Democratic support to have won many, many, many of the contests that took place across this country.
But somehow the actual contests – especially in states with strict voter suppression rules – came out way, way, way different from the polling. Way.
That may happen occasionally, like, once in a blue moon. But everywhere? All at once? All the polls were that wrong about almost all the results? All the Democrats who were polled simultaneously decided not to bother voting in this critically important election?
As fucking if.
No. They were blocked. They answered polls based on how they intended to vote, then couldn’t vote as intended. Turned away. Registrations somehow “lost.” ID demanded where none was required by law. DMVs closed. Voting days or hours cut.
When we testify in a court of law, we are presumed to be telling the truth when we swear or affirm we are who we say we are when asked our name upon taking the stand. Our oath has been good enough for centuries in this country, including for the purposes of registering to vote.
It damn well still ought to be.
If the ID-demanding GOP vote-suppressors really and truly only wanted every citizen who wants to vote to have to show ID, then there’s no reason on G-d’s green Earth they shouldn’t put photo booths in every fucking polling place and allow citizens to swear or affirm they are who they say they are, show ANY document that has their name and address on it, and have their picture taken for a photo ID on the spot.
Easy. Done. Free. No hurdles.
But that is decidedly NOT what they want. They want exactly what they got Tuesday night: victory by any means, even dirty pool.
Congratulations, America.
Shayna, you ignorant slut. (And I mean that in the nicest way. because some of my very favorite people…but I digress…)
I frankly doubt that the election was won solely by way of voter suppression, too many factors to be considered. More likely, the voter suppression had a negative effect in most all of them, but was only decisive in a few of them. Gonna need a lot of numbers to make that case.
And not to forget, a massive impact was not the goal, the goal was to trim away just a few points, win the close ones, figuring they were likely to be close ones. If we are going to say that their dark schemes exceeded all their cynical expectations, we are edging painfully close to attributing unearthly power to them. Which would creep me out.
If it hadn’t worked at all, should we have forgiven it? I think not.
I’m pretty sure that it would be factually wrong to make a blanket statement, as Shayna did, that dems lost the senate due to voter suppression. And in fact doing just makes us look paranoid, and it makes the point easier to rebut. Better to make a more nuanced, truthful and insidious claim.
I was scrolling through this thread and for two full seconds I thought you ended your post with insidious clam.
It’s still a good post, but not as good as I initially thought.
Band name!
I think it likely the Democrats lost the North Carolina Senate seat and the Kansas governor’s race because of suppression. Likely some lower level elections, especially in Texas, as well.
There may have been others. Analysis still is being done, but it was a very effective GOP tactic.
Insidious Clam’s Discography:
Butt Pearl
Shuck My Love
Bearded Clam
Shellfish Heart
Chowder
Honest question: What do you guys mean by the term “the election”. There were, of course, many elections, but I think the one thing that dominates everything else is the Senate flipping to Republican control. And if “a few” of them were decisively lost by the Dems due to voter suppression, then “the election” was indeed lost because of it. Assuming we mean winning control of the Senate was “the election”.
If by “the election”, you mean all the various elections, federal state and local, then your post makes more sense. But did the Republicans win that election?
Yes, this.
In nearly every race, Republican Senate candidates outperformed the polls
Those weren’t anomalies, they were results seen consistently across the board. That kind of thing just doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Every poll is never that wrong all at once. There’s usually a crazy outlier, but the averages are never far from the ultimate results. Why do you think pollsters bother to take polls in the first place? Because they tell us what to expect with very, very good accuracy.
We’re just supposed to believe all the polling firms suddenly fucked up in race after race after race, all in favor of Democrats, for no apparent reason?
Now that’s just crazy talk.
OK, I went back and looked at the various state races. I didn’t realize the Republicans did so well at the state level.
The only excuse I can offers is: I live in CA, where “The Republicans won” is heard about as often as “gee, I wish I lived in New York”.
Oh, and also this:
Appeals court overturns states’ proof-of-citizenship requirements on federal voting forms
A federal appeals court has ruled that Kansas cannot require proof-of-citizenship documents from prospective voters who register using a federal voter-registration form – and that a federal agency doesn’t have to alter the form to fit Kansas requirements.
Nice timing, huh?
From my previous link:
In the Kansas gubernatorial race, Weiser explains, Gov. Sam Brownback (R) beat challenger Paul Davis (D) by “less than 33,000 votes”… “We know from the Kansas secretary of state that more than 24,000 Kansans tried to register this year but their registrations were held in ‘suspense’ because they failed to present the documentary proof of citizenship now required by state law.”
Those more than 24,000 people should have been allowed to vote in that race, but were effectively disenfranchised. Who knows how many more would have tried to register but didn’t because they knew they didn’t have the required proof of citizenship because they were born at home or in another state and don’t have access to birth certificates?
Davis, by the way, was predicted to win based on polling.
**RCP Average 10/18 - 11/3 -- -- 44.6 42.6 Davis +2.0**
PPP (D)* 11/1 - 11/3 963 LV 3.2 46 45 Davis +1
FOX News* 10/28 - 10/30 907 LV 3.0 48 42 Davis +6
YouGov* 10/25 - 10/31 1137 LV 4.8 38 39 Brownback +1
SurveyUSA* 10/22 - 10/26 623 LV 4.0 46 43 Davis +3
NBC News/Marist*10/18 - 10/22 757 LV 3.6 45 44 Davis +1
Brownback won by 3.9%, well outside the margin of error.
John, my assembly district was won by a Tea Partier. It’s been held by Democrats for over a decade (possibly longer, but it’s difficult to track due to redistricting giving us different assembly district numbers over time).
We did not, however, have voter ID laws or restricted registration or early voting days. We were simply redistricted to include a very conservative area that swung us the other way this time.
yay
I don’t have any evidence but I think every time something didn’t go my way it’s because the other guy cheated. And I’m very mad about it.
Not that I think the snark here is entirely well placed (vote suppression isn’t just a figment of sore liberal losers’ rationalizations), I do agree that it’s a bit rash to attribute the poll inaccuracies to successful suppression efforts, or particularly to new voter ID laws (which aren’t even in play in many precincts where GOP candidates did much better than predicted).
Only one third of eligible voters -including a whole damn bunch of “committed” Democrats who were properly registered and had available ID- chose not to vote, as usually happens in mid-term elections. GOP voters tend, as a much larger percentage of base voters than the Dems, to vote every time.
It’s hard to counter “fundamentals” that favor one political party when voters of the other party don’t participate. If we ever want to see that change, we should recognize it, admit it and address it. Yes, we can do that at the same time we recognize and address voter suppression efforts, but even if you get rid of most of that, it won’t help if we haven’t sufficiently addressed the participation problem.
“Only one third of eligible voters… chose not to vote,” should have been “Two thirds of eligible voters…”
Sorry. That is all.
Sucks to be you.
You lost, and there’s no fixing it. My advice is to focus on all the power the Republicans have to change laws and steal elections in blatant view of everyone, and no one stopped them! They won!
According to you, the Senate is in GOP hands now because the GOP changed the laws, and no one stopped them. No one. They had the power to do that, and they did it.
It’s like it’s hopeless for you now. What can you possibly do?
Nothing. It’s over. January 3rd, 2015, all those new senators are going to be sworn in.
We can learn from them. Filibuster every bill they put forward. Use every tool available to the minority to put sticks in their wheels. Then, in 2016, we say, “Look how ineffective Republicans are when you give them power!”
Not sure about the thrust of your argument here, Bricker, outside of your fervent desire to gloat yourself comatose. Are you saying that voter suppression had no effect whatsoever? Because it failed of its purpose or because no such effort ever happened?
You are on record as accepting that “some” Republicans had precisely that motivation, are you saying they were stupid and misguided, because no such thing was possible? Be an odd defense in court, “Your Honor, we plead not guilty by reason of stupid! This crime could not have been committed! My clients had the means, the opportunity, the intention, but are simply too fucking dumb to have done it!”.
A novel approach, at the very least.
For my two bits, my main reason for skepticism is the availability of wonks on the side of the angels. Where’s Daily Kos, or ThinkProgress, or Talking Points Memo? Got lotsa numbers wonks in each and every one, it this is so obvious, where are they?
I don’t doubt for a minute that they tried, and succeeded, to suppress a number of voters. But did they succeed beyond their wildest dreams? Gonna needs some math wonk type evidence before I can go there. Simply being evil doesn’t mean they are brilliant.
If voter ID laws had any voter suppression effects, then they are just like the threat of a voodoo curse having voter suppression effects: I don’t care that some people chose to not vote because of a burden so minor as belief in a voodoo curse or inability to get free ID.