Midterm elections are always bad for the President's party. The only two exceptions in recent history prove this rule:
- 2002 when the country was united after 9/11 and a blitzkreig special forces operation to remove the Taliban. Does anyone think that this country is united? Oh, and the contrast to the 2001/2002 Afghanistan war and Biden's botched pullout speaks for itself.
- 1998 when the economy was roaring and the GOP was making all sorts of noises about impeaching a popular President. Is the economy roaring? Is Biden popular/
Other than these two elections, you have to go all the way back to 1934 - in the midst of the Great Depression to find a midterm election where the President's party didn't get clobbered.
A President's popularity is a key factor here - see Bill Clinton in 1998. Joe Biden is under water by double digits, and 75% of the country think that it's on the wrong track.
And yet Democrats did well last night. They did very well. Hmmmmm ...
UPDATE 9 NOVEMBER 2022 09:52: Mike leaves a comment:
It looks like either the red side decided voting doesn't matter (possible after 2020, but wrong) or people are largely fine with how things are going. Either is depressing and gives little hope for the future.
But people aren't fine with how things are going. As I pointed out, 75% of people say the country is on the wrong track. The top issues (according to pollsters) were inflation/the economy and border security. Both of these are pocketbook issues. People continually report that their families are being hurt by these. I guess it's possible that they all shrugged their shoulders and said "It's all good, brah" but this doesn't seem enormously likely to me. It's another thing that makes you go "Hmmmm ..."
27 comments:
I will not comment on whether there were any shenanigans with the election.
I will mention that there seems to be a general overwhelming stupidity in the American Voter. I mean, Fetterman, REALLY?
One last thing: ARIZONA: fire EVERYONE involved with running the elections, and I mean right down to the janitors, throw all the machines into dumpsters throughout the state, and START OVER! What a cosmic embarrassment.
I have no doubt that there was fraud, especially in PA, GA, and AZ. However, the house results don't point to fraud. It would be far, far harder to line up many independent teams to target all those small house races. That can't be done with a few corrupt groups in the big cities like we saw in 2020. It looks like either the red side decided voting doesn't matter (possible after 2020, but wrong) or people are largely fine with how things are going. Either is depressing and gives little hope for the future.
Well, I guess we could go with the stolen election thing but just maybe, the GOP might want to consider a few realities.
Here’s a few ideas should that “rigged elections” well runs dry.
For 1 might want to regroup on their abortion message. Ruby red KY rejected an abortion amendment yet stayed red. Kinda telling about how people feel about that. As recent history shows (which McConnell has been warning) don’t primary incredibly unfit candidates. Another idea would be not to be running their mouths about gutting SSI and Medicare if given power (albeit I get that sets well with their corporate and wealthy donors). Also, might consider actually coming out with policies of governance rather than simply saying “Biden bad”. I mean seriously, when in the last half century have they come out with legislation or policy for working Americans or suburban women? And no, tax breaks for the wealthy ain’t it nor is it going to be. Another thing too, I think the general public have had their bellies full revenge investigations which was pretty much the jest of what the GOP was running on.
I get the rigged election ploy (and, I understand why Trump, Tucker, Cruz, Graham, et al have been priming GOP voters as a go-to in the event the election didn’t go their way). And that stratagem might be a useful tool to some extent (getting a bit old but may still have some value) but if this is the best they can do in a with a low approval President, skyrocketing inflation, and a very disgruntled electorate, in the frigging midterms, just maybe they might want to reevaluate what and who they stand for.
Ronald -
... if this is the best they can do in a with a low approval President, skyrocketing inflation, and a very disgruntled electorate, in the frigging midterms...
While I'm happy to buy into GOP stupidity, you're basically saying it's (a) abortion and (b) weak candidates. I'm not buying that.
As to (b), both Joe Biden and Barack Obama were weak candidates (although the media carried both of them in a way they would never do for a Republican).
As to (a), you're saying that working class families facing bankruptcy are all wound up about abortion? Really?
I don't buy it.
- Borepatch
No Borepatch, I'm not saying there's a binary issue that turned what should have been a bright red tsunami into a clear ripple.
I think abortion played a pole. I think unqualified candidates played a role. I think the GOP openly saying that sunsetting SSI and Medicare played a role. I think their talk of taxing the working class $1Trillon over the next decade played a role. And I think that the bare knuckle stumping in the final days of Biden and Obama closed the deal for a few.
I agree that inflation and families facing bankruptcy was top priority of voters. But I think the GOP came up short with how precisely they were going to help.
Oil companies, major meat producers, and top corporations are seeing record profits. Republicans have spent decades deregulating them, monopolizing them, lowering their taxes, and seeing to it they were making as much profit as possible. By what logic is the American voter to assume the GOP was coming in to lower their profits in order to ease the pain of their constituents at the pump or grocery check out?
Take that as you may but they did well at pointing at the problem but came up short with a solution. I think they failed to make the sale.
I'm sure the pundits will be quick arranging their tealeaves but getting back to unqualified candidates (as just a slice of last nights outcome), maybe when Grim Reaper Mitch starts warning about the likes of candidates such as O'Donnell (who isn't a witch btw), Angle (who wants to barter chickens for medical checkups) and "legitimate rape" Akin, maybe the party of Trump might want to pay heed.
Perhaps one glimmer of hope - I interpret this as a strong sign than Trump would be unable to win against most generic blue offerings. Perhaps this will get him to sit down and shut up and let a more fitting candidate run in 2024. DeSantis would be a good choice.
I haven't heard anything (outside of DemonRat scaremongering) about the GOP ending the SS/Medicare welfare programs. I wish they *would*. I've been getting robbed for the past 35 years or so to pay for other peoples' retirements and medical care. In exchange I get the promise (and political promises aren't worth spit) that when I'm old enough, I'll get to receive monies stolen from other peoples' children and grand-children.
Yay. Because I always wanted to be a thief in addition to being robbed myself.
I haven't heard anything (outside of DemonRat scaremongering) about the GOP ending the SS/Medicare welfare programs.
For starters, your take on the programs, and mine, are irrelevant. For the general electorate, it's a pretty big deal (which brings into question as you say you've been working for 35 years, unless you are extremely financially secure, why would you want to end it now after paying into it so long?). That you haven't heard of the GOP promising to sunset these programs in order to pay for the deficit incurred from tax cuts is interesting.
I mean, it was a pretty hot topic in the final weeks of the election. Sen Rick Scott gave a rather weak tea defense last week on Meet the Press. It's been echoed by Sen Ron Johnson and a good deal of the others. Biden and Obama took it to the campaign trail.
That you didn't know anything about it suggests you are either listening to those who don't want you to know or you have selective hearing.
Of course the left cheated. Some of them even told us they were going to. So don't act surprised that they did. Want your country back? You aren't going to get it back by voting.
Trump isn't the kind of guy to sit down.
Put the hash pipe down, man.
And win or lose, he's going to rub the country's nose in what happened in 2020, good and hard.
Like no one else can, or will.
This wasn't a fizzle. It's enemy action.
In all likelihood, you're also going to see a do-over in Georgia from 2020, and with the possible balance of the US Senate at stake, the vote steal efforts in Cobb and DeKalb counties is going to be EPIC.
They tuned their machinery better this time, and only worked on a dozen or so races, rather than trying to jerk you around in every contest.
In a country that so loathes the White House, this is the thinnest flip in history, and contrary not only to all history, but common sense.
And the RINO Right is already busily at work, gaslighting their own supporters.
Banana Republic is set in stone, and Clown World will continue until people start voting from rooftops.
For the faint of heart, look to Brazil, where they haven't all turned in their nuts and decalcified their spinal cords yet.
@Ward: I don't watch television, which is probably why I missed it. As for why I want to end it, I thought "I don't want to be a thief" was pretty clear.
The welfare programs as designed are all immoral and will all screw over someone (or everyone) one way or another. I'm not "extremely financially secure", but I've planned my savings (which were doing quite well before 2020, and have tanked since) on the assumption that SS would be bankrupt by the time I could start stealing from your children (I have none of my own).
We'll see what happens I guess. But the Welfare State is not supportable for much longer. I read that demand for Treasury Bonds is now tanking, which I'm assured is a Very Bad Sign.
AZ (Maricopa), Nevada (Clarke), GA (Fulton) all 'seemed' to have problems with machines and or counting... Odd that.
Has anyone considered that America - the land of the free and the home of the brave - is now the worlds premier idiocracy?
Of course there was gross fraud. the only caveat is I'm waiting to see what Republican turnout was.
Democrats are liars and cheaters, we see that every day in EVERYTHING that they do.
There is no hemming or hawwing about it. A serious nation would no allow voting without ID. They wouldn't allow mail in votes either. If you have those, you will have cheating, period. You can't have respectable countrymen that believe otherwise. In a real first world country, it used to be they'd go to great lengths to make sure such accusations couldn't be made in the first place.
There is no fixing this either. To do that you will have to kill the people responsible. The guys doing this will probably not stop at election fraud but whadda I know...?
Jabrwok, once again, it has nothing to do with how you or I feel about social net programs but RATHER how the overall electorate feels about them and how that plays out on the overall elections.
Granted, running a campaign on ending SSI, Medicare, ACA, and so on in order to offset tax cuts for the most wealthy might play well in a few affluent or solid libertarian far right wing neighborhoods and win a congressional seat. But it's not a good political stratagem to run on in most cases, particularly in working class precincts and even more so, in statewide senatorial seats.
Eventually, the GOP is going to have to quit hiding behind their debunked "rigged election" nonsense and come to terms on how to run and effective campaign.
This was their best opportunity. The stars were aligned in their favor. And they blew it. Bigly!
I realize the welfare programs aren't going to be dissolved until the country collapses. They still suck.
And the 2020 election WAS stolen. No one has debunked that, they've just asserted it repeatedly and too many LIVs have bought into the Big Lie.
"...or people are largely fine with how things are going." The fact that ALL polls have shown that between 80 and 90% of the responders say otherwise should be a red flag for "electoral improprieties... But... "Nothing to see here, folks. Move it along..."
Also; am I the only one who noticed HOW QUICKLY the Pelosi residence "break-in" was memory-holed?... ...Funny how that happens...
The thing is Jabarwok, Biden won in accordance with the nation’s lawful constitutional process. EVERY state’s election result was certified to be accurate and legitimate by it’s lawfully authorized state official; EVERY official recount that was conducted affirmed the original result; the electoral college count was an accurate reflection of those results in EVERY case, and the electoral vote was publicly tabulated, presented, and affirmed in Congress. THAT IS THE ONLY LEGITIMATE CONSTITUTIONAL PROCESS THAT EXISTS. NO OTHER PROOF IS REQUIRED, NOR EVEN POSSIBLE. ANY DEVIATION FROM THAT PROCESS WOULD BE UNLAWFUL.
That most definitely includes the deliberate effort of a riled-up mob to stop the final step of the process because they don’t happen to like the outcome.
NONE of the endless accusations of a stolen election have been backed up with credible supporting evidence. NONE. When there’s no credible evidence that a thing happened, it’s irrational to insist that it must have because no one has produced proof that it didn’t.
So here's a question- why did every court in the land, including courts stacked with Trump appointed judges, not side with Trump's lawyers.
Answer- Because they never enter any evidence.
Question- Why did they not enter it?
Because Trump, Rudy, Tucker, and the endless crowd can stand in front of cameras and rally audiences and lie to them all day long without penalty. But they cannot do it in a courtroom because they'd be disbarred and or charged with a crime.
And here's an interesting reality. For 4 years, Trump hammered a message to his supporters that went something like this (not verbatum): "Okay so here's the deal. If I'm not reelected, that means it was stolen. Got it? If I don't win, the election was rigged and I want you to get real mad". Got it?"
And the basket of gullibles bought it hook, line, and sinker.
Refusal to examine evidence or to conduct forensic audits of clearly questionably tabulations (more ballots cast than registered voters in a district ring any bells?) doesn't not constitute lack of evidence, it constitutes cowardice on the part of those entrusted with the process.
The courts that rejected Trump's claims did so on grounds of *standing* not on ground of the evidence, which they refused to examine. Those which *did* examine the evidence often found for Trump.
Big lies, like "no evidence" don't become truth just because the DemonRat Propaganda Corp repeats them incessantly.
My WAG is that it is a combination of fraud and apathy on the part of repub voters. For example, I voted for JD Vance in Ohio because I don't know anything about him but did not vote for Jean Schmidt because she is a useless self-enriching repub. Ohio.
Of course I never vote for a dem.
Okay Jabrwok, from your own admission, the courts rejected giving Trump’s defense any relief due to lack of “standing” or “ locus standi ” or more simply put “the right to be heard”.
So simply, it goes (or went in case after case after case): Trump’s defense asks the courts for a right to be heard. The courts respond by basically saying to approach the bench and submit a rationale to be heard. The defense response is something like “well, we got nothing”. The court responded, “well, get out and come back when you do”.
Why did this happen over and over and over again? Same answer. These people can get on Fox News or on GatewayPundit or live stage or at Trump rallies and shovel this horseshit down your throats all day long without penalty and walk unscathed but that’s not how it works in a court of law.
Even the predominantly far right SCOTUS told them to not even bother them without “standing” or “locus standi” or a reason to be heard in order to get legal relief.
You say that “those courts who “did” examine the evidence often found for Trump”. I’m not much of an “alternative facts” guy so you’ll need to expound or clarify what courts were presented evidence and “found for Trump”. There are none that I’m aware of. And if there were some that went for Trump after reviewing evidence, why did Trump’s defense just drop the ball? I mean, that in itself would be an appeal on “standing” or “ locus standi ” or the right to be heard.
Your argument fails to stand to scrutiny.
The 2020 elections were STOLEN by fraud. Massive faud occurred in this election. The left never even TRIED to hide the fraud. They didn't need to because the courts REFUSED to hear any evidence of fraud and ALWAYS dismissed such suits without hearing any evidence in court. The media and good little commie stoolies like Ronald Ward Always come to their defense to LIE repeatedly in support of the fraud. Nobody with the IQ of a soap bubble believes the left won most of the races they won honestly. The issue is that leftists DON'T CARE how they win. Winning is ALL that matters....by any means required. And lying about the fraud is just one more thing required for winning. Thus Mr. Ward is doing yeomans duty for his leftist masters and is lying.
Danielbarger, yours is an example of problem with so many of the Trump cultists. It isn’t so much that they are unable to distinguish what is true and what isn’t true but they just don’t care.
It wasn’t as you say, courts refusal to hear evidence but that there was no evidence for Trump’s defense to present. You just don’t get to ever turn an election because you didn’t like the outcome. And this was the decisions that came from both Democratic-appointed and Republican-appointed judges, including federal Trump appointed judges.
State Supreme Courts in Arizona, Nevada and Arizona each rejected or declined to hear Trump’s appeals to overturn results in those states, while the Pennsylvania and Michigan supreme courts denied multiple lawsuits because there was no evidence presented by team Trump.
What part of that trips you up so? Maybe you can name a specific case that says otherwise?
And I’ll get back to my other argument, that for 4 years prior to the 2020 election, Trump had repeatedly groomed his cult to not accept the election results should he lose. Get it? This was all a plan- prime his supporters to help him retain power int the event the electorate rejected him. And that is precisely what they did, and what you are doing now.
Ronald Ward....you are nothing but a propagandist for the left. Your opinion means absolutely nothing to rational people who WATCHED the left steal the White House in 2020 and saw the massive fraud STILL UNDERWAY in this election. The only question being are you paid by the left to lie or do you do it willingly for free.
Nope Danielbarger, that ain’t the way constructive debate and inductive reasoning works. That’s not the way a systematic process of troubleshooting or problem solving an issue operates.
You are arguing under the strategy of “alternative facts”, facts which are not actually real but rather what you want to believe (or have been instructed to believe)in order to justify what you want to be true. 2 plus 2 does not equal a horse regardless of how desperately you so desire a horse.
I’ve laid out a detailed path that concludes the 2020 results were consistent with our Constitution, our judicial processes, and that the repeated claims to the contrary continues to ring hollow- even pointing out how election deniers were groomed and spoon fed instructions to join in this nonsensical scam in the event Trump was rejected at the polls.
But getting back to my original comment way up near the top, yeah, you guys can continue to play that stolen election card if you want. But from all appearances and after several autopsies and soul searching as to what happened to that red wave, I’d say your GOP think tanks will conclude that they’re going to have to do better than that.
You’ve given, well, nothing. You say I’m a “propagandist of the left”, that rational people (a vague unknown faction) rejects my opinion (which is actually closer to facts) and that for some reason, someone has hired me and is giving me a check to come to a small far right wing blog and try to convince a few glazed over Trump cultists on a subject that has become politically irrelevant.
Yeah, maybe that’s it.
@RJW,
You've tried throwing everything at the wall to make your point, and none of it sticks.
Trump told people "If I don't win, the election was stolen"??
Link to the YouTube videos of that. There should be hundreds. Why don't you find any five.
From before the general election.
You can have your own opinions.
You can't make up your own facts.
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