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[DonShula]

Joe Donnelly is going to vote for Gorsuch

I'm disappointed. While I don't think the Gorsuch hill is where liberals should be dying right now, I'm also pretty frustrated with the messaging on this. Some Dems are out saying Gorsuch is fine and they want to be bipartisan (like Donnelly) and that's an unnecessary concession. You can easily oppose him by linking him to Trump and insisting an administration under investigation has no business nominating someone for a position with a lifetime appointment until that investigation is complete. Full stop. There is no other argument to make. It's a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too scenario. Everyone fall in line and make that the standard response. Ignore the freezing trucker stuff and the rest. Yet we have people like Donnelly crossing the aisle for no good reason because Gorsuch kinda looks OK. It doesn't make sense to me.

 

[Carpe Libertatem]

Joe Donnelly is going to vote for Gorsuch

I'm disappointed. While I don't think the Gorsuch hill is where liberals should be dying right now, I'm also pretty frustrated with the messaging on this. Some Dems are out saying Gorsuch is fine and they want to be bipartisan (like Donnelly) and that's an unnecessary concession. You can easily oppose him by linking him to Trump and insisting an administration under investigation has no business nominating someone for a position with a lifetime appointment until that investigation is complete. Full stop. There is no other argument to make. It's a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too scenario. Everyone fall in line and make that the standard response. Ignore the freezing trucker stuff and the rest. Yet we have people like Donnelly crossing the aisle for no good reason because Gorsuch kinda looks OK. It doesn't make sense to me.

For no good reason? How about the fact that Trump won Indiana by 20 points and Donnelly has an election next year?

Unless he's the 60th Senator, he can do what he needs to do

 

[jtb]

Listening to Axelrod interviewing McCain was just sad. He so desperately wants to believe that there are rational, sane Republicans left.

Joe Donnelly is going to vote for Gorsuch

I'm disappointed. While I don't think the Gorsuch hill is where liberals should be dying right now, I'm also pretty frustrated with the messaging on this. Some Dems are out saying Gorsuch is fine and they want to be bipartisan (like Donnelly) and that's an unnecessary concession. You can easily oppose him by linking him to Trump and insisting an administration under investigation has no business nominating someone for a position with a lifetime appointment until that investigation is complete. Full stop. There is no other argument to make. It's a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too scenario. Everyone fall in line and make that the standard response. Ignore the freezing trucker stuff and the rest. Yet we have people like Donnelly crossing the aisle for no good reason because Gorsuch kinda looks OK. It doesn't make sense to me.

Donnelly fluked his way into a win in 2012 against a horrible candidate. He knows he's got enormous target on his back and he's trying to save his job.

Eh. I don't know if it will work, but there's no real cost for Democrats if he does this, so he might as well.

 

[kirblar]

Joe Donnelly is going to vote for Gorsuch

I'm disappointed. While I don't think the Gorsuch hill is where liberals should be dying right now, I'm also pretty frustrated with the messaging on this. Some Dems are out saying Gorsuch is fine and they want to be bipartisan (like Donnelly) and that's an unnecessary concession. You can easily oppose him by linking him to Trump and insisting an administration under investigation has no business nominating someone for a position with a lifetime appointment until that investigation is complete. Full stop. There is no other argument to make. It's a have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too scenario. Everyone fall in line and make that the standard response. Ignore the freezing trucker stuff and the rest. Yet we have people like Donnelly crossing the aisle for no good reason because Gorsuch kinda looks OK. It doesn't make sense to me.

Is he vote 41?

If not, it doesn't matter. This is how you play the game, folks.

When the ACA passed, 219 Dems voted Yes. 34 Dems voted no. This was deliberate.

 

[DonShula]

For no good reason? How about the fact that Trump won Indiana by 20 points and Donnelly has an election next year?

Unless he's the 60th Senator, he can do what he needs to do

If Indiana is as rabidly red as you say, he's already lost his seat. Evan Bayh got trounced in November and he was the damn governor. As one of Donnelly's constituents, I don't have any use for him if he's going to break ranks on stuff like this. If, as so many people argue, SCOTUS doesn't matter to middle America, this will earn him zero points.

 

[kirblar]

If Indiana is as rabidly red as you say, he's already lost his seat. Evan Bayh got trounced in November and he was the damn governor. As one of Donnelly's constituents, I don't have any use for him if he's going to break ranks on stuff like this. If, as so many people argue, SCOTUS doesn't matter to middle America, this will earn him zero points.

It gives him (fake) Maverick credibility for making the (fake) Maverick argument in his re-election campaign. This is the same shit Graham/McCain do. Voters think their representatives are far less partisan than they actually are, and it's a fallacy politicians routinely exploit.

This whole thing with equating symbolic votes with actual ones that's going on among Democrats is absolutely insane.

 

[BlastProcessing]

It applies to the fact that in order to prop up small businesses that have been displaced by hyper-efficient big box stores, you have to break up/dismantle those operations, which is a big net negative to consumers. You're creating "work" by destroying efficient machines.

Propping these places up is a bad thing because these places make people racist. That's the trick to all of this - the root cause of why these patterns keep reoccuring is the geography. When people grow up in small isolated homogeneous towns, it causes them develop a pattern of behavior that's absolutely awful. To move forward on social/economic progress, we have to let these places go. We can't be subsidizing people's attempts to cling to a world now gone. I'm not saying don't help- I'm saying we give them what they (and we) need, not what they want.

But we are talking about retail. Which is being supplanted by the internet, which encourages people to move even less. Everything I have seen has indicated that interstate migration has been dropping. So i'm not sure how the current dismantling of our existing retail economy is going to force people out of homogenous situations.

We are getting the worst of both worlds. The internet is creating a sort of nationwide homogeny that is discouraging people from moving while simultaneously allowing people to create their own social bubbles online. It all feels like a giant step backwards.

 

[kirblar]

But we are talking about retail. Which is being supplanted by the internet, which encourages people to move even less. Everything I have seen has indicated that interstate migration has been dropping. So i'm not sure how the current dismantling of our existing retail economy is going to force people out of homogenous situations.

We are getting the worst of both worlds. The internet is creating a sort of nationwide homogeny that is discouraging people from moving while simultaneously allowing people to create their own social bubbles online. It all feels like a giant step backwards.

The retail economy isn't the primary force causing people to stop moving - the rates have been dropping since the '80s. There are far more important things to address on that front that would actually be a net social good if we took care of them (issues w/ homeownership being a big one.)

It's not a step backwards, the country is more liberal than it's ever been. What you're seeing right now is a reactionary party (the GOP) reacting to the fact that they're literally dying off. These social bubbles already existed- what you're seeing is the nationalization of them. Rural areas nationwide now vote the same, same w/ urban areas.

 

[DonShula]

It gives him (fake) Maverick credibility for making the (fake) Maverick argument in his re-election campaign. This is the same shit Graham/McCain do. Voters think their representatives are far less partisan than they actually are, and it's a fallacy politicians routinely exploit.

This whole thing with equating symbolic votes with actual ones that's going on among Democrats is absolutely insane.

I understand it. I just don't like it when it my guy doing it. At least not in this particular situation.

 

[Carpe Libertatem]

If Indiana is as rabidly red as you say, he's already lost his seat. Evan Bayh got trounced in November and he was the damn governor. As one of Donnelly's constituents, I don't have any use for him if he's going to break ranks on stuff like this. If, as so many people argue, SCOTUS doesn't matter to middle America, this will earn him zero points.

No, he hasn't lost his seat already. Bayh had been out of politics for years and he was definitely seen as a political insider in a year when outsiders did well - and he also came pretty close! He most likely would've won in a wave election and 2018 is looking like it.

If Donnelly supporting Gorsuch - without being the vote that breaks filibuster -is a deal breaker for you, then I guess don't vote for him? I don't think your other options would be much better.

 

[BoogieWoogie]

It is so unbelievably sad that the Democrats seemingly have to step on eggshells to retain votes and Republicans can flat out admit to sexual assault and be fine. This is the world we live in?

 

[jtb]

I understand it. I just don't like it when it my guy doing it. At least not in this particular situation.

Would you vote for a Republican instead?

 

[kess]

Liberals are never going to win a election telling people what they "need" (which could be open to anyone's interpretation) but can only offer a vision of what people will want. Newsflash, not everybody wants to live in a city, and simply put, not everybody can.

Human nature is not prone to create efficient machines that work for everyone, which is why we have systems of government designed to regulate and balance the needs of corporations and individuals.

 

[Carpe Libertatem]

It is so unbelievably sad that the Democrats seemingly have to step on eggshells to retain votes and Republicans can flat out admit to sexual assault and be fine. This is the world we live in?

A Republican in Connecticut would not be able to flat out admit to sexual assaults and be fine

Though I do think there is a double standard (and a lot of people think that what Trump said wasn't sexual assault!)

 

[ezrarh]

It applies to the fact that in order to prop up small businesses that have been displaced by hyper-efficient big box stores, you have to break up/dismantle those operations, which is a big net negative to consumers. You're creating "work" by destroying efficient machines.

Propping these places up is a bad thing because these places make people racist. That's the trick to all of this - the root cause of why these patterns keep reoccuring is the geography. When people grow up in small isolated homogeneous towns, it causes them develop a pattern of behavior that's absolutely awful. To move forward on social/economic progress, we have to let these places go. We can't be subsidizing people's attempts to cling to a world now gone. I'm not saying don't help- I'm saying we give them what they (and we) need, not what they want.

I'm going to jump in the middle of this conversation to add a caveat to the "hyper-efficient big box stores". While in many aspects they may be more efficient than traditional locally owned small businesses, let's not pretend big box stores aren't subsidized as well. They depend heavily on public infrastructure investment on the edge of town to support the land required for big box retail. In many cases, the sales tax and property taxes are not enough to cover the cost of infrastructure construction and on-going maintenance. By the time maintenance is due, these companies are more than likely gone as the strip mall is not designed the last longer than 20 years or so. Unlike smaller stores in core ares of a town or city, these urban edge developments are rarely adaptable. There's legitimate reason to question the belief that these stores supposedly add wealth to a locality.

 

[DonShula]

Would you vote for a Republican instead?

We don't get many moderate Republican candidates in this state. So very, very unlikely I'd find someone better to vote for. I'm well aware what I'm asking Donnelly to do is irrational. I live in the wrong state.

 

[jtb]

We don't get many moderate Republican candidates in this state. So very, very unlikely I'd find someone better to vote for. I'm well aware what I'm asking Donnelly to do is irrational. I live in the wrong state.

Well, unfortunately, that's exactly the calculus that gives Donnelly the green light to defect. Just be glad it's a meaningless vote.

 

[kirblar]

I'm going to jump in the middle of this conversation to add a caveat to the "hyper-efficient big box stores". While in many aspects they may be more efficient than traditional locally owned small businesses, let's not pretend big box stores aren't subsidized as well. They depend heavily on public infrastructure investment on the edge of town to support the land required for big box retail. In many cases, the sales tax and property taxes are not enough to cover the cost of infrastructure construction and on-going maintenance. By the time maintenance is due, these companies are more than likely gone as the strip mall is not designed the last longer than 20 years or so. Unlike smaller stores in core ares of a town or city, these urban edge developments are rarely adaptable. There's legitimate reason to question the belief that these stores supposedly add wealth to a locality.

I live in a suburban area where these stores are well-integrated everywhere-they're not on the edge of town, they're in the middle of business developments across the region.

Many of them have taken up residence in strip malls as part of an effort to revitalize them. We've had a Wal-Mart and Best Buy take up shop in older housing in the past 5 years here. And the regular Big Box versions are surrounded by tons of other businesses for the most part, you only get the "BOX WORLDS" in the exurban areas where they actually have the open land free to pull it off.

 

[Dubbedinenglish]

Maxine Waters on CNN preaching lol

 

[mo60]

If Indiana is as rabidly red as you say, he's already lost his seat. Evan Bayh got trounced in November and he was the damn governor. As one of Donnelly's constituents, I don't have any use for him if he's going to break ranks on stuff like this. If, as so many people argue, SCOTUS doesn't matter to middle America, this will earn him zero points.

Welll Donnelly doesn't have to deal with the same anti-elite/lobbylist message that damaged Bayh during his lastest senate run.

 

[Ryuuroden]

It gives him (fake) Maverick credibility for making the (fake) Maverick argument in his re-election campaign. This is the same shit Graham/McCain do. Voters think their representatives are far less partisan than they actually are, and it's a fallacy politicians routinely exploit.

This whole thing with equating symbolic votes with actual ones that's going on among Democrats is absolutely insane.

Yeah, this fucking thing with dems targeting dems over stuff like this is ridiculous and damaging. Its like people don't know how you work politics... But then again, this is why there are symbolic meaningless votes because as is shown in here repeatedly is how everyone sees it at face value and is generally ignorant which is why people like McCain's and graham are so popular.

 

[Dominican Power]

Greta was awful on MTP today. Trying to equally put the blame on Democrats and Republicans. Fuck off.

 

[ArkhamFantasy]

How many democrats does gorsuch need to get on the supreme court?

 

[Armaros]

How many democrats does gorsuch need to get on the supreme court?

8 to override a filibuster, none if they go nuclear.

 

[ArkhamFantasy]

8 to override a filibuster, none if they go nuclear.

What are the downsides for the republicans if they nuke the fillibuster? (if any)

 

[modernlifeisANDY]

So I just bought istrumpatmaralagogolf.club

Anyone wanna build a tracker?

 

[B-Dubs]

What are the downsides for the republicans if they nuke the fillibuster? (if any)

Rumor is they don't have the votes for the nuke in the first place. So if they Dems manage to maintain the filibuster it's over.

Even if they do nuke it, the next time a court seat opens up and they're out of power they won't be able to do what they did to Garland. They'll be stuck with the most liberal pick the next Dem president can possibly make with no real way to stop it.

Garland was a gift, a moderate centrist for a deeply conservative seat. The next Dem in power won't be as kind.

 

[Gotchaye]

But urban voters, especially urban voters of color (aka base of the party), sort of want more gun control?

The voters also favor protectionism but both parties see a lot of reason not to give them what they want. So you've got to make the argument to primary voters that this makes sense, or just convince every serious candidate that this is too important in the general to make an issue in the primary. But the appeal seems obvious. Efforts to institute gun control have mostly been massive failures. I mean, when we elect Democrats they can't change the law and gun sales go up. Even if you could pass something, policy is pretty tightly constrained by the courts; the best long-term thing you can do about gun control would be making sure that you're appointing Supreme Court justices who are fine with it. Right now we fight about things like assault weapons bans that would have barely any effect on death rates. Technology might also end up making it much easier for people to get guns through 3D printing to the point where there's basically no way you're keeping guns away from criminals - at that point the gun control argument is pure paternalism about how you can't be trusted with a gun.

If the party's going to bend on something, this seems like a pretty good option. Nobody expects to see significant positive change in policy for probably decades, it's a huge culture war issue that motivates voters whose interests are otherwise well-represented by the Democrats, and we're not bound to support it out of respect for persons - there's not much of a bigotry angle here where if you're not for gun control you're a racist.

 

[RastaMentality]

Maxine Waters is a rockstar with POC and young people right now. I hope they use her appropriately in '18 to rally the vote because people think she's awesome.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

This doesn't explain to me how the polls were so close for the Republican primary though. Was it that the Republican base in general is more representative of uneducated, rural whites (clearly true)? Is it that they were more willing to speak out during the primary (maybe)? It's not like there was a social shaming problem there; Trump's polling performance was relatively predictive. I don't get it.

If you are voting in the primary, you are more politically interested than the normal person (by far). So as a pollster, you're less likely to have non-response issues in the primary than in the presidential.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

This is a broken windows fallacy. Putting people out of work because you can do it cheaper and more efficiently due to economies of scale doesn't mean you need it isn't a bad thing for society- it means they're freed up to do something else.

Food, Consumer Goods- these things are incredibly cheap and easily available now. All the heavy costs are now housing, transportation (cars) and medicine. It's a big change in the world and we're struggling to adapt to it, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't evolve. Wanting "all those small businesses back" is just another form of Nostalgia Glasses like MAGA.

Doesn't work like that, though. Pushing people out of work doesn't free them up because we're not robots and we can't magically shift between jobs. It usually requires some amount of training to be able to pick up a new, reasonably well-paid job - training that the state doesn't provide. Instead, these big retail stores come into town, drive a bunch of people out of work, and force those people to then just shift to working for the retail store at lower pay then they did before.

It's not better for consumers because these people *were* consumers - their breakfast may be cheaper but they're in a lower paid job and a job that affords them considerably less dignity. They were probably okay with their breakfast being a few dollars more expensive! The people this kind of policy benefits are those consumers whose jobs aren't affected - and that's the urban liberal elite who currently are under no threat from automation and the formation of megacorporations. Those liberal elite then go on to spout nonsense about the Broken Window fallacy to a community that's hurting and needs respite, not terrible economic parables that haven't held any kind of weight in a hundred years.

It's not surprising they don't vote for you.

 

[Bonen no Max'd]

Doesn't work like that, though. Pushing people out of work doesn't free them up because we're not robots and we can't magically shift between jobs. It usually requires some amount of training to be able to pick up a new, reasonably well-paid job - training that the state doesn't provide. Instead, these big retail stores come into town, drive a bunch of people out of work, and force those people to then just shift to working for the retail store at lower pay then they did before.

It's not better for consumers because these people *were* consumers - their breakfast may be cheaper but they're in a lower paid job and a job that affords them considerably less dignity. They were probably okay with their breakfast being a few dollars more expensive! The people this kind of policy benefits are those consumers whose jobs aren't affected - and that's the urban liberal elite who currently are under no threat from automation and the formation of megacorporations. Those liberal elite then go on to spout nonsense about the Broken Window fallacy to a community that's hurting and needs respite, not terrible economic parables that haven't held any kind of weight in a hundred years.

It's not surprising they don't vote for you.

It doesn't just hurt them as consumers, it also takes away their political power by removing institutions that provide organizing power and agency. Black-owned businesses and unions like the UAW were both important supporters both in organizing and financially backing the civil rights movement, I doubt Walmart or Best Buy are all that interested in doing either.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

It doesn't just hurt them as consumers, it also takes away their political power by removing institutions provide organizing power and agency. Black-owned businesses and unions like the UAW were both important supporters both in organizing and financially backing the civil rights movement, I doubt Walmart or Best Buy are all that interested in doing either.

Yup. People organize politically as communities. One of the best predictors of how much working class turnout varies in UK constituencies is by union membership. After Thatcher smashed the unions, working class turnout nosedived, and never really recovered until, well, Brexit.

 

[Sirpopopop]

Crab, it's not like these people vote for your guys when given an opportunity to do so either.

So, I'm not sure your broadsides have any effect at all here.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Crab, it's not like these people vote for your guys when given an opportunity to do so either.

So, I'm not sure your broadsides have any effect at all here.

Who are my guys?

 

[Aaron Strife]

Maxine Waters is a rockstar with POC and young people right now. I hope they use her appropriately in '18 to rally the vote because people think she's awesome.

The Justice Democrats want to primary her lol

Spoiler

lol at them, not at what you said

 

[TiredofWinning]

Justice Democrats are still a thing?

 

[B-Dubs]

Justice Democrats are still a thing?

They'd like to be.

 

[Sirpopopop]

Who are my guys?

Don't play dumb. This is a similar comment to, "Define Far Left."

if you want to be more specific: The Sanders wing of the party.

 

[RastaMentality]

The Justice Democrats want to primary her lol

Spoiler

lol at them, not at what you said

Do they have a reasoning? A certain bill or is it just random nonsense.

 

[Stinkles]

Young (black) Republican on MSNBC panel just now said that you don't have to worry about losing your health insurance because the emergency room in his hospital is obliged to treat you if you have a life threatening event whether you're insured or not


Completely ignoring that you would subsequently be billed and even prosecuted for the full uninsured cost, or that waiting till you're almost dead to seek care is counterproductive.

Now a hot white girl is yelling all lives matter and saying private schools would solve inner city violence


Kill me nao

 

[Surfinn]

Young (black) Republican on MSNBC panel just now said that you don't have to worry about losing your health insurance because the emergency room in his hospital is obliged to treat you if you have a life threatening event whether you're insured or not


Completely ignoring that you would subsequently be billed and even prosecuted for the full uninsured cost, or that waiting till you're almost dead to seek care is counterproductive.

Now a hot white girl is yelling all lives matter and saying private schools would solve inner city violence


Kill me nao

Who would know better than her?

 

[Deleted member 231381]

Don't play dumb. This is a similar comment to, "Define Far Left."

if you want to be more specific: The Sanders wing of the party.

They're not "my guys", though. I don't think much of the Sanders wing understands why Sanders did so well in certain states. They think it was because of how leftwing he was, which is not really true, and therefore just run on being the most left of the left and liberal of the liberal, which doesn't work.

 

[kirblar]

Doesn't work like that, though. Pushing people out of work doesn't free them up because we're not robots and we can't magically shift between jobs. It usually requires some amount of training to be able to pick up a new, reasonably well-paid job - training that the state doesn't provide. Instead, these big retail stores come into town, drive a bunch of people out of work, and force those people to then just shift to working for the retail store at lower pay then they did before.

It's not better for consumers because these people *were* consumers - their breakfast may be cheaper but they're in a lower paid job and a job that affords them considerably less dignity. They were probably okay with their breakfast being a few dollars more expensive! The people this kind of policy benefits are those consumers whose jobs aren't affected - and that's the urban liberal elite who currently are under no threat from automation and the formation of megacorporations. Those liberal elite then go on to spout nonsense about the Broken Window fallacy to a community that's hurting and needs respite, not terrible economic parables that haven't held any kind of weight in a hundred years.

It's not surprising they don't vote for you.

In the long run? It does work like that. The less people living in rural areas you have, the fewer voters you have voting for white supremacists.

They're not voting for you either in the UK either. They just sent your country into the shitter far worse than what we're having to deal with.

 

[nature boy]

Anybody got some hopium

 

[kirblar]

It doesn't just hurt them as consumers, it also takes away their political power by removing institutions that provide organizing power and agency. Black-owned businesses and unions like the UAW were both important supporters both in organizing and financially backing the civil rights movement, I doubt Walmart or Best Buy are all that interested in doing either.

Somehow, magically, people in urban/suburban areas have managed to avoid voting for white supremacists even though unions have gone downhill.

If you don't understand how intrinsically interlinked these two things are, you are going to keep missing the point.


Here's white population density by county:

Here's an animated map looking only at counties that are 90/92/94/96/98% white:

And here again is that Obama/Romney->Clinton/Trump change map:

And to quote @jbouie-

I think this is the most important part of this column. https://t.co/Y87TH1Tafz

"Spending for people like me is good, spending for people like them is bad and wasteful" is a typical dynamic. And it is racialized. Which is how people can hear Trump promise to make large spending cuts but believe it won't affect them. (This is boosted by Trump's racism, which as I've said before, provided a kind of racial authenticity—a sense he was really for them.) But let's not give Trump too much credit: The idea that blacks and others are inherently undeserving runs incredibly deep.

 

[shinra-bansho]

Oh you communists want to break up everything now, not just banks.

 

[Deleted member 231381]

In the long run? It does work like that. The less people living in rural areas you have, the fewer voters you have voting for white supremacists.

In the long-run, we're all dead.

Especially if in the short-run we keep voting for Trump.

They're not voting for you either in the UK either pal.

"my guys" aren't running in the UK at the moment, sadly, so we'll not find out yet.

On the bright side, MPs associated with Blue Labour are gathering together and will probably coalesce around a challenger to Corbyn or his successor, but they'll have find to contend with Progress' faction and Open Labour's faction and Tribune's faction and Compass' faction and Labour First's faction and so on. Not very clear who will win the internal battle. At least the Democrats have fairly cleanly schismed in two - the Labour Party has just totally disintegrated. The above is actually an incomplete list of the internal factions, too, I just can't be bothered running through the more obscure ones.

 

[BlastProcessing]

Anybody got some hopium

Not exactly hopium but this just happened.

@OliverCooper
Congratulations to Guillermo Lasso on his election as President of Ecuador: ending ten years of socialist, Chavista rule.

Lasso has said that he wouldn't allow Assange to keep freeloading in his embassy.

So hey Julian, you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.

 

[kirblar]

Not exactly hopium but this just happened.

@OliverCooper
Congratulations to Guillermo Lasso on his election as President of Ecuador: ending ten years of socialist, Chavista rule.

Lasso has said that he wouldn't allow Assange to keep freeloading in his embassy.

So hey Julian, you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.

A quick google makes it sound like they're liberaltarian as well? Seems great.