The Politics Thread

[JaneAusten]

AMEN. He and Tom Bonier.

[DramatistDreamer]

Considering that elections are going on in Russia and we’re unlikely to be informed of anything other than the most predictable outcome, coming across this vintage Phil Donahue episode that took place in Moscow (an episode I have never seen) seems especially timely.

 

[DRW50]

https://rollcall.com/2024/03/18/biden-team-eyes-expanding-map-to-texas-florida-despite-trump-leads/

There have been some hit pieces lately, one going on about Biden seeing Obama as his rival and gloating about being better than him, another about Biden yelling at aides in January because he was told polling showed that he had lost support in Michigan and Georgia due to Gaza. I have a hard time believing he lost support in Georgia due to Gaza, but if they are considering throwing money at Texas or Florida (especially Florida, which feels like a true lost cause these days), it does make me wonder if there's any truth to how tough some of the state polling has been. 

He's been doing a little better lately in national polling, but I hope the state numbers will improve.

[KristinG79]

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[DramatistDreamer]

The GOP is chaos personified. How many House Republicans are leaving now? I’ve lost count.

Edited March 23 by DramatistDreamer

[DRW50]

I've never seen anything like it. Ken Buck and Mike Gallagher are very right wing figures yet this no longer matters because now it's all about being a MAGA stunt queen. They both ended up leaving in a way that knocks the House GOP in the chops.

I look at polls out today like the one claiming that Trump is leading by 8% in Michigan or all the polls about how well he is doing with minority voters or young voters, and even as I want to think the polls aren't reliable, I still feel like there is such a disconnect with the reality of the GOP and what the public sees them as being. Helped by a media that is more in bed with them than ever.

[Vee]

That's more about polling that oversamples the wrong people, IMO. Or people who still answer landlines. There's a reason polling is often off. The general public does not believe the GOP is great. That's the Beltway. Bad polling promises them there is a huge new youth or Black vote for the GOP every cycle. It has yet to appear.

[JaneAusten]

What do you choose to believe. Polls or actual elections. I keep hearing how black voters are moving to Trump yet every election we see shows 98% and above of voting for Biden in the primary or in general elections, 93 to 98% of black voters voting for the democrat.

There is work to be done in the Arab American community. We are finally seeing some shifts in Israeli policy - moderation.  I never expected Biden and company to do a huge shift. They can't and should not, but movement. Don't for a second believe Schumer made that speech without acceptance from the White House.

As far as young people, BS.  No way would they move from Biden to Trump. I'm sorry. More likely undecided or third party.

There is work to do with all groups, African Americans, Hispanics, and Young people.  I believe and know they will get there.

By the way many new polls coming out now show Biden moving ahead of Trump in the General election. How many of those polls have you heard about. Follow Tom Bonier and Simon Rosenberg. That's who I follow who were both right about midterms. They and Chris Bouzy(spoutible) were the only ones who were right.

By the way stop watching MSNBC who is an arm of the Trump campaign from what I hear. I was listening to a local radio station, WCBT 820 AM the progressive station, and a gentleman called in, a black man, saying he is retired and he loves to listen to news.  He chastized Fox and MSNBC, MSNBC in particular because apparently all they do is talk about Trump non stop. I don't know because I don't watch it anymore.

And here is an example of what trash NBC and MSNBC are

NBC hires former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, who has demonized the press and refused to acknowledge Biden was fairly elected | CNN Business

Disgraceful.  You hire this disgrace of a human being. That says everything about how there is no left in the media just sesationalistic garbage.

[DRW50]

I talked a bit about this in the media thread. I have long had my doubts of anything on MSNBC being liberal. I think it's all just a pushback game. I saw that RFK Jr did an interview with NYT where he went out of his way to trash them as being in the tank for Biden. That is very much BS, as they've gone out of their way to cause him to lose this year alone. Yet when they hear these accusations, they will work even harder to prove they are not supporting him. The same goes for MSNBC, which still gets that tag even after day after day of Kornacki, Katy Tur, Andrea Mitchell, etc. 

I do agree with you about polls to a certain extent, but one of the things that really hurts with Biden getting any improvement on certain issues is many seem to always believe the worst of him, trained by nihilism of social media and by his not fitting what they want to worship the way they worshiped Bernie (before they also turned against him). I don't really know how much social media these days is an indicator, but I also feel like some younger people have become more right wing and socially conservative and bigoted. So when I see polls talking about increasing support for Trump among younger people, or among minority groups, it doesn't feel off to me, but the margins do feel too high. 

I guess it depends on how much I can put my trust in the voters at large not being dumb enough to fall for the RFK Jr stunt, or in forgetting how much damage Trump did. And it's hard to do that. because Trump and the whole cult surrounding him have been chugging along for 8 years now (and so much of that cult was already building before he ever went down that escalator).

[JaneAusten]

What are you basing the idea about those believing the worst of him? Social Media?  Or are we talking about the same people who believed the worst of Hillary and now Biden and believed the same in 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022. I honestly see nothing to make me believe that. And black voters going 20 percent for Trump has not been proven by any election to date. None. So are polls more accurate than actual elections now? I honestly think polls should be ignored. Let the campaign worry about that.

Trump is a symptom of all of this ugliness, but he did put gasoline on the fire which has been simmering for decades.

[DRW50]

That's part of it, and also approval ratings, which just collapsed around late 2021 and never recovered. Even for such polarized times they feel low to me compared to his actual record. I can see why some people would break with him over Gaza (although many of the people who have been most vocal never supported him anyway, as shown with the leaders of the "Trump wouldn't be so bad" leftist movement in Michigan), but this happened before then. There's just a level of complete detachment that does make me uneasy about some voters who do hate Trump being tempted to stay home or throw away their vote. 

Hopefully the polls will be wrong again, as they were in 2022, and Trump won't overperform the way he did in 2016 and 2020.

[Vee]

Social media has never been a good barometer for an election cycle. Especially on the left. Most of the party base is not truly plugged into or caring about the axes being ground by Briahna Joy Gray, Jeet Heer or other dead-enders. Even more prominent jerks like Stancil don't have any pull outside a small sliver of the Very Online element of the left. RTs are not votes.

If I spent all day inside the online left bubble I could convince myself that this is the predominant voice of the party, everything is collapsing, why isn't Biden doing what these loud (and often mostly white) geniuses tell them? But when you step outside of those people (who predicted Dem doom for every cycle in the last four years) the world is a lot more both nuanced and black and white on certain areas (abortion). The reality is they are speaking to a specific echo chamber or pundits like them, that they are not the voice of the base (or a lot of the left, which is a very big and vast tent) and the rest of the base makes up its own minds.

Consider though that even where he overperformed last time, it wasn't enough to win. And it's now four years later.

Edited March 24 by Vee

[DRW50]

RFK Jr's running mate:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/nicole-shanahan-what-know-rfk-vice-president-rcna144299

I'm already seeing people claim she will pull Democrats (Republicans certainly aren't happy with her, even if they likely share her views on IVF and vaccines). One idiot even claimed she will make California competitive. The polls that show him pulling a huge amount of support from Biden may be on their side, but then there's this, whatever it's worth:

 

[Wendy]

House District 10 goes blue. In ALABAMA. Clearly, IVF backlash and, you guessed it, women's rights. Thus why I think outlets are prematurely counting Biden/Dems out in 2024. AGAIN.

Polls don't vote. People DO.

 

[DRW50]

The response is often that special elections are different because more motivated voters come out and Democrats often won them in years where they ultimately lost in November (like 2004), but this happening in Alabama is a better sign, especially as this was a very red area, apparently.