What lessons, strategies, and reasons to hope or despair do you think came out of this past Election Day for both sides? Is abortion a winning issue for the left? What does the right think of what happened? Go nuts!
Takeaway: the D’s will win smashing victory in 2024 and should feel highly confident and relaxed
Yeah, no.
The takeaway is that the D’s can win smashing victory in 2024 and should remain pissed off.
I’m a big fan of the Jimmy Johnson approach: First publicly taunt-guarantee that your side will win, thus pissing off your opponents, then proceed to win big, thus pissing them off even further.
It would be a sight to behold if Democrats began chanting, “Guaranteed! Guaranteed! Guaranteed!” at every election rally, and the MAGAs would foam at the mouth. Instead of saying “If I am reelected,” Biden should say, “When I am reelected.” “When we get a 55-seat Senate majority,” “When we take back the House,” “After we sweep the swing states.” etc
That doesn’t work for Democrats, who get complacent easily. The point is not to win the taunting game; it’s to win the elections.
In this, Hannity was right that Democrats are trying to frighten people by claiming that Republicans want a total ban on abortion. Because Republicans do. And it’s working for the Dems.
We flipped the Virginia House of Delegates, the oldest legislature in the Western Hemisphere. The new Speaker of the House will be Don L. Scott Jr., the first Black speaker in Virginia. Right here in Virginia is where racism was first codified, the first place in the world where African chattel enslavement was enshrined in law. Virginia bears the heaviest responsibility for racism of anywhere, because this is where the racist curse on America was first determined. Mr. Scott’s ascent to speaker is of tremendous historical significance. Hearty congratulations to him!
Yes! A Pennsylvania Supreme Court seat was won by the Democrat Daniel McCaffery. The Republican candidate was Carolyn Carluccio. Their big difference was their stand on abortion.
I got mailings daily from mid-October on from the Republicans telling me that McCaffery wanted to kill babies. I voted for the baby killer and he won the state (although the county I live in was carried big time by Carluccio).
Right. You need to keep up the beat that there are things more important than what a tankful of gas costs vs. what you sort of vaguely think you remember it costing back when you were not paying attention.
And that it *&^%$ counts to vote for the county boards, judges, ballot proposals, etc. The POTUS is not the be all and end all of voting.
…
Meanwhile…
OK as one born in the part of the Americas that was in business 100 years before Jamestown, that one is a new one to me?
In the 17th century, there were two indentured servants in Virginia who sued for their freedom, one white and one Black. The court ruled that the white guy could go free but the Black guy had to remain enslaved for life just because he was Black. That tore it.
Yes, but… first “in the world”?
The first explicit formulation in law that Black people are to be of lower status than white.
Stamped From the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi tracks the origin of chattel enslavement of Africans by Europeans beginning with the Portuguese adventurers in Africa in the 15th century. There developed a general attitude that Black people should be held inferior to white. 17th-century Virginia is where that first became law, to rule that the color of your skin should determine what civil rights you can have.
If you’re the NY Times, the takeaway is, “how are these Democratic victories bad for Joe Biden?”
For me, though, I’m happy with the results and the takeaway is, keep pounding on the abortion issue, and the white supremacist book banning brigade seems to have run its course.
Jeez… there’s people out there who really, really, really want to talk themselves into accepting losing well in advance, aren’t there? This whole damaged syndrome by which they can’t possibly believe things will turn out well is so self-fulfilling.
It’s a tricky balancing act. I’m not sure Biden would have won the last election if Democrats weren’t sufficiently panicked about a second Trump term. Democratic over-confidence in 2016 was the key to Trump’s victory.
Would that be the city of Puerto Rico on the island of San Juan? Spanish colonial law must have had racial regulations about the castos. I meant specifically the Virginia law that Black people had to be of a permanent lower status. Rather than the difference in status between criollos and peninsulares.
If Chuck Todd still ran Meet the Press, the whole hour would be “Democratic victories- bad for Democrats?”
What I see is hope but no guarantee. Abortion is the Democrats’ ace in the hole and it should be played at every opportunity. LGTBQ rights are the same in my opinion, but aren’t getting their share of play. MAGAsses are going to vote R as long as they draw breath, but others are persuadable. The playbook should be come after Republicans on social issues and the criminal cases against their nominee. Democrats can hold the White House and Senate and can retake the House but it isn’t going to come by sitting on their laurels from Tuesday.
Ah, got it. The Old Virginians couldn’t just be doing what everyone else was doing “because that’s how it is”, they had to write it down somewhere official. “Fine people.”
And yah, the different law history creates a whole other set of obnoxious myths down here. For some other thread some other day.
As goes Ohio, so goes the nation.
Ohio passed a constitutional ammendment guarenteeing abortion rights and was the 24th state to legalize recreational marijuana. Democrats need to take notice of this and run on it. Being the party of womens rights and personal freedoms is the way to combat the vile hatred coming out of the Republican party.
Some good news maybe. Here in Texas, people are wildly enthusiastic about high school football, and like to build insane stadiums for the kids. In recent years some have topped $80,000,000.
In this election, two bond issues to build over-the-top high school sports arenas were soundly defeated. This is a good sign, I hope.
100% agree. That victory in Ohio is very encouraging, but I hope it translates into D votes and not just one-issue votes. More importanly, it shows how perceptions of solid red states are not a guarantee. The next election, like the prior, will come down to several key states, and where their EC votes go. If Democrats can chalk a win in Ohio, maybe they can do the same in PA, GA, WI, and AZ as well. There is promise, but a lot of work to do, and using abortion as a cudgel on Republicans does seem to work.