The Trump administration therefore followed two contradictory policies - on the one hand it ran an expansionary fiscal policy (which effectively lowered the national savings rate) and on the other it attempted to make imports more expensive.
The consequence is that the overall current account deficit for the US is going to end up at 3.3% for this year - the worst number in a decade.
Fighting America's corner on trade just changed with whom America ran trade deficits, not the fact that it ran them.
Worse: tariffs on production imports like steel actually resulted in job losses in America. By raising the cost of car manufacturing in the US (because Ford in Michigan had to buy more expensive steel because of tariffs), more jobs were lost in auto manufacturing, than were gained in the steel industry.
China did need standing up to, particularly in areas such as intellectual property theft. But Trump's "do a deal" mentality and focus on bilateral numbers, did not have positive results for the US or the world.
For me the pointers are that the Trump coalition is not a winning coalition at the federal level going forwards.
The easier thing for GOP politicians is to cleave to the Trumpsters, because of their enthusiasm. But that is what has driven the ABTs out of the party and has lost the GOP most independents and thus the absolutely essential suburbs.
For me, the way back for the GOP is the painful one. Excise their most passionate supporters, the Trumpsters. Rebuild the center right, win back the suburbs. Regain the trust of women.
To me, this will take at least one more bad election cycle result (2022), which alas is not guaranteed, followed by 4-6 years of rebuilding. It could go faster than that but equally it is not guaranteed to happen at all, but it is my best bet.
On topic: I gaze into the future of the Republican party - not too far, just a couple of years - and I see no Trump or Trumpdom there. What I do see, however and alas, are elements of the MAGA agenda still in the mix.
The million $ puzzle which imo must be solved in order to predict where the party goes is as follows - Of the 73m who voted for Donald Trump what are the approx weightings (adjusted for overlap) for the 4 main categories?
1. Love Trump. Lucky to have him. Helluva guy and a total one off. Just so into everything about the man. 2. Always vote Republican. It's what I am - a Republican. Cut me and I bleed tax cuts & voter suppression. 3. Not big on politics. Only care about the economy. Thought he'd done ok on that. Why change. 4. Trump? Can take him or leave him but I like his hard right national populist rhetoric and policies.
No particular order there except that I've put the last one last for a reason. I think it's the smallest.
Very rough guesses:
1. 10 2. 50 3. 8 4. 5
Although 1 and 4 are largely the same category, if we're being honest.
Much obliged. This is what I'm looking for. Unadorned numbers that I can crunch thro the "Predict the Near Term Future of the GOP" model I've developed (mainly for betting purposes but also to aid my superforecasting and related punditry).
- No bright future for MAGA without Trump. - Republican party v Trump is a mismatch. Party prevails.
Much easier to split the 73, so: 1. 20 2. 45 3. 6 4. 2
That's an interesting one, thanks.
Think we might be saying that the MAGA element - voters who love a bit of hardcore nativist nationalism but are indifferent to the Trump delivery mechanism - is negligible.
So let's drop it and merge me, you, pulpstar, BluestBlue et alia to get -
1. I'm a Republican stupid - 65 2. I'm a Trumpster and I AM stupid - 25 3. It's the economy obvs - 10
Nice clear pointers emerging now.
But what are they?
The problem with that approach of going back to the suburbanites is that (a) they are increasing socially liberal due to college education, (b) are more fickle and so (c) you would have to blow up your base by switching to a more socially liberal / economically right-wing stance in the hope - and it would be no more than a hope - that you can persuade people who deserted you to switch back.
There is another thing here as well. Hispanics, Asian-Americans and Black people, on the whole, tend to be socially conservative. If the Republicans continue to make inroads into the HIspanic vote, then that more than outweighs their losses in the suburbs. Ditch the socially conservative agenda to appeal to suburban types and you have lost that.
If you abandon the cities and the suburbs, you cannot take the House. Period.
Well, the Republicans nearly did.
The tragedy is that the 'rebels' were so exercised at the growing inequalities in income and wealth - and the growing distance between politicians and the people they are supposed to represent - that they turned to a brand of extreme Republicanism that was never likely to want to deliver them any sort of relief.
The big question of our era is why centre-left politicians have proved so unable to put forward a comprehensive platform to rectify the egregious distortions of 21st century society in a way that can carry a majority of sensibly minded voters in the centre of political opinion?
Within our lifetimes, if the centre-left doesn't rise to the challenge of our times, then the future will be left to the extremes.
The simple explanation is that centre-left politicians now spend most of their energy and efforts prioritising culturally liberal stances than the economic concerns that concern most people. I've pointed out here to those that scream racist at Trump voters that a good chunk of them would have voted for Obama in 2008. They didn't care he was Black but they did care about their economic conditions. However, the Democrat party became so embroiled in cultural issues that it dropped the ball on the economic front.
This line of attack might have worked in the past, but it has lost much of its potency given the Democrats' clean sweep in the world's second-largest democracy. And your boy, a poster child for the opposite approach, getting his backside handed to him.
He didn't really get his backside handed to him though did he? Biden won the election by the same number of EV votes as Trump, a victory that we were told at the time was minimal because if only 70K voters had switched sides, Clinton would have won. Only this time, if only 44K (if I remember correctly) had switched sides, Trump would have won. The Democrats nearly lost control of the House. And you have a 50/50 Senate.
And, no, the attack lines are still relevant. It was stupid of Biden et al to use the BLM line last night because it had no relevance in the scheme of things and was done in response to the post on social media showing the response to BLM protests. I pointed out pre-election that the focus on BLM risked driving Hispanics to the GOP, which is one of the few things I got right about November
Surely the argument about Clinton coming close didn't rely so much on the Electoral College vote, which wasn't particularly close as you say and ironically the same as Biden-Trump (ignoring faithless electors), but the popular vote?
So the point is that Clinton had a 3 million vote margin over Trump, but it was very inefficiently distributed so she lost (partly unfortunate for her, partly poor tactics). Whereas Trump had a 7 million vote deficit, which was very efficiently distributed but still left him as far off as Clinton in the Electoral College vote.
It surely isn't controversial that winning the popular vote by 3 million but losing the Electoral College vote by 74 is annoying but provides a reasonably good base for next time, whereas LOSING the popular vote by 7 million and the Electoral College vote by 74 is much more problematic. The illusion is that Trump lost in a squeaker because he scweamed and scweamed and scweamed about it... but that's somewhat misleading.
Now that isn't to say Democrats don't have a problem with how their votes are distributed - they do. But it does mean they were in striking distance in 2016 in a way Republicans aren't now.
It also isn't getting better for the Republicans at the moment in terms of the states they will need to win back in 2024. Georgia is a fairly large state that does now look rather purple and the trends aren't good. Arizona is also now looking pretty blue across the board. The Georgia run-offs means Puerto Rico is quite likely to become a reliably blue state. The rust belt looks better, but arguably Trump had a special blue collar white appeal that it's quite hard to replicate (and, as a reminder, he lost there).
"The illusion is that Trump lost in a squeaker because he scweamed and scweamed and scweamed about it... but that's somewhat misleading."
Indeed, Sir Norfolk, that same point was made by Mitch McConnell in a rather less distinguished forum than this. In the end, the result really wasn't all that close.
Right. Losing 306-232 in the Electoral College and by seven million in the popular vote, and losing the Senate is not a close result. It's a comprehensive beating.
"We have already secured an amount of doses that we need to vaccinate 380 million Europeans, and this is more than 80% of the European population [of 450 million people]," Mrs von der Leyen said.
She said other vaccine authorisations were expected in the coming weeks and months, so "Europe will have more than enough vaccine within a reliable timeframe".
She said the commission had taken the right course of action on vaccines.
"I'm convinced that when we look back at this one day we'll see, well yes, at the beginning, there was a bumpy road [but] well, that's always the case."
It's just ridiculous. They got it wrong, they should just admit it.
In her 380 million doses is she counting vaccines like Sanofi that haven't completed PIII trials and may not even end up getting approval?
No I think they now have deals in place with Pfizer and Moderna for that many. But they are back of the queue....well not front of it. So a lot of it is coming Q2, Q3, Q4 and beyond.
That's right: the EU started incredibly slowly, but has improved. (And it is very important not to "count chickens" here, until we know final results...)
But, my gut is that Israel and a few small states really knocked the ball out of the park.
The UK, Japan and Canada did an excellent job.
The US has been reasonably good, the EU has been worse than the US (albeit not by a huge margin).
And developing countries have been an utter disaster zone.
There's a lot of variation within the EU. Germany is doing good and France is doing bad, as we all know, but it goes deeper than that. Take Ireland, for instance. They've vaccinated just 15,000 people. Poor start. And as for the Dutch...
When our vaccine programme is firing on all cylinders, I think helping ROI is a priority. I think it will happen naturally anyway with the crossover there is in NI.
For me the pointers are that the Trump coalition is not a winning coalition at the federal level going forwards.
The easier thing for GOP politicians is to cleave to the Trumpsters, because of their enthusiasm. But that is what has driven the ABTs out of the party and has lost the GOP most independents and thus the absolutely essential suburbs.
For me, the way back for the GOP is the painful one. Excise their most passionate supporters, the Trumpsters. Rebuild the center right, win back the suburbs. Regain the trust of women.
To me, this will take at least one more bad election cycle result (2022), which alas is not guaranteed, followed by 4-6 years of rebuilding. It could go faster than that but equally it is not guaranteed to happen at all, but it is my best bet.
This is my view too. Except I think it will not be quite such a long and difficult process. Once Trump is not POTUS, my strong sense is he'll fade quicker than most people think. And given MAGA is so wrapped up with HIM, I think that will too. I see a vibrant young Republican emerging in time for the 24 election and running on a small state, libertarian, socially "trad" ticket. He or she will have the challenge of picking up the deplorables without being deplorable. If they can, they have a decent shot.
You cannot be both libertarian and socially conservative, that is logically impossible
Agreed, though practical politics isn't always logical!
There is a current of thinking that assumes that social conservatism is a state of nature and that all the stuff the liberal left argues for is the aberration, only possible with massive state control. Make that assumption and it's not too hard to marry up "state bad, social conservatism good" in a package. Kind of Singapore, or Thatcherism, if you've only read the Ladybird Book on either topic.
Whether it works well enough for the Republicans to win an election is another matter. But without the votes that Trump uniquely reached, they need to try something...
As a self-styled neo-libertarian, I have found something to agree with HYUFD on. Libertarians by definition cannot be socially conservative.
It's a mystery to me that Trump did not tackle the virus crisis head-on. It was made for him - a bold, charismatic, mould-breaking leader prepared to defy convention and carry his fanatical supporters with him. He could have locked down the country. It would have accepted his lead and followed his every word through lockdown. Tens of thousands of lives would have been saved and he would have gone into the election a hero. He might have won all fifty states.
Instead he chose denial, even though he must have known what was in store.
Why?
What confused me is why Trump discouraged people from voting anyway they could vote.
If Trump had got his supporters to use postal votes I do believe he would have won re-election.
I think Trump was setting up the "it was rigged" scenario right from the start: his instinct is always to take the other side to court when he doesn't get his way. He just assumed that the judges he appointed would act to help him rather than uphold the law.
But it is also underpinned by the notion that he knew he was going to lose! Whereas, given it was so close, there must have been an easy strategy that pulled him over the line?
Probably as simple as encouraging his fans to vote postal if they cant vote in person!
Jonathan Van Tam went for a curry on same day Boris Johnson told Londoners to avoid restaurants due to Covid risk - then claimed the £21.77 meal on the taxpayer
I love it when people who are implacably opposed to the Republican Party try to give it lessons. Presumably to maintain the notion that everything is alright in the West and its business as usual, and what you are seeing is not a hologram.
But here's the thing. It really isn't all right.
The right is completely split in America. The party elite and the Trumpist base despise each other totally. The latter will not turn out for the former, as Georgia showed, and what follows is a hugely bitter primaries battle between the two factions ahead of 2022. When millions will not turn out again and the democrat hegemony intensifies.
Meanwhile, the Democrats will be deliberating just how much of a Jihad they want to declare on the many millions of Americans who turned out for Trump and now have zero faith in their country, its electoral system and its institutions.
Trump showed his millions of supporters a glimpse of an America they were comfortable with and where they were welcome and valuable citizens.
They are not going back to the likes of Romney. Not now. Not ever.
Trouble is, their "zero faith in their country, its electoral system and its institutions" is based on delusion. How to cleanse this?
Making the left-behind feel "welcome and valuable citizens". Absolutely.
"A glimpse of an America they were comfortable with". A lot to unpack in that statement. What America was that exactly. Because judging by the comments of Trump and many of his supporters it was an America where blacks could be shot or killed by the police with impunity or denied the vote or where demonstrators could go on marches shouting anti-Semitic slogans and be praised as "fine people".
That sort of America is a horrible one and if that is the vision that these people want then we absolutely should not be pandering to them. There are limits. There are boundaries of decent behaviour. And we don't accept behaviour which breaches those boundaries just because it's the left-behind or the white working-class doing the demanding. They don't get excused from complying with decent civilised behaviour just because they're poor or uneducated or unemployed.
Trump appealed to peoples' basest instincts. The best thing we can do for people who feel ignored is make life better for them not act on their worst instincts.
Cyclefree likes an evidence free moral high horse rant sometimes.
Black employment was at a record high under Trump. Lets see how Biden does. The early signs aren't good. Look at the democrat dominated states already.
Examples where blacks could be shot or killing with impunity? Last I looked the killers of Floyd and others were subject to due process. Did Trump try to interrupt that process or change the laws of due process?
And as for making life better for any American, well, the democrats were already out of ideas for that before the election. Again look at the states and the cities where they have held sway for decades. If this election was fought on the pre-covid economy, Trump won hands down.
That Trump did not have the fancy footwork to see what Covid could do to his chances has spared us four more years.
But I also think Biden will disappoint those who voted for him. Nor will he carry those who didn't. Not a great time ahead for the USA, I fear.
I love it when people who are implacably opposed to the Republican Party try to give it lessons. Presumably to maintain the notion that everything is alright in the West and its business as usual, and what you are seeing is not a hologram.
But here's the thing. It really isn't all right.
The right is completely split in America. The party elite and the Trumpist base despise each other totally. The latter will not turn out for the former, as Georgia showed, and what follows is a hugely bitter primaries battle between the two factions ahead of 2022. When millions will not turn out again and the democrat hegemony intensifies.
Meanwhile, the Democrats will be deliberating just how much of a Jihad they want to declare on the many millions of Americans who turned out for Trump and now have zero faith in their country, its electoral system and its institutions.
Trump showed his millions of supporters a glimpse of an America they were comfortable with and where they were welcome and valuable citizens.
They are not going back to the likes of Romney. Not now. Not ever.
Trouble is, their "zero faith in their country, its electoral system and its institutions" is based on delusion. How to cleanse this?
Making the left-behind feel "welcome and valuable citizens". Absolutely.
"A glimpse of an America they were comfortable with". A lot to unpack in that statement. What America was that exactly. Because judging by the comments of Trump and many of his supporters it was an America where blacks could be shot or killed by the police with impunity or denied the vote or where demonstrators could go on marches shouting anti-Semitic slogans and be praised as "fine people".
That sort of America is a horrible one and if that is the vision that these people want then we absolutely should not be pandering to them. There are limits. There are boundaries of decent behaviour. And we don't accept behaviour which breaches those boundaries just because it's the left-behind or the white working-class doing the demanding. They don't get excused from complying with decent civilised behaviour just because they're poor or uneducated or unemployed.
Trump appealed to peoples' basest instincts. The best thing we can do for people who feel ignored is make life better for them not act on their worst instincts.
Cyclefree likes an evidence free moral high horse rant sometimes.
Black employment was at a record high under Trump. Lets see how Biden does. The early signs aren't good. Look at the democrat dominated states already.
Examples where blacks could be shot or killing with impunity? Last I looked the killers of Floyd and others were subject to due process. Did Trump try to interrupt that process or change the laws of due process?
And as for making life better for any American, well, the democrats were already out of ideas for that before the election. Again look at the states and the cities where they have held sway for decades. If this election was fought on the pre-covid economy, Trump won hands down.
That Trump did not have the fancy footwork to see what Covid could do to his chances has spared us four more years.
But I also think Biden will disappoint those who voted for him. Nor will he carry those who didn't. Not a great time ahead for the USA, I fear.
It's a mystery to me that Trump did not tackle the virus crisis head-on. It was made for him - a bold, charismatic, mould-breaking leader prepared to defy convention and carry his fanatical supporters with him. He could have locked down the country. It would have accepted his lead and followed his every word through lockdown. Tens of thousands of lives would have been saved and he would have gone into the election a hero. He might have won all fifty states.
Instead he chose denial, even though he must have known what was in store.
Why?
Because it wasn't in his script. He doesn't want what is best for America, he wants what is best for Trump. Listening to experts who know what they are talking about isn't his style. If there's a big problem just wish it away - Climate Change is a Chinese hoax, Covid will "magically vanish".
That's it. My sense was always that he could have won a 2nd term if he had stopped being Trump. When the pandemic first hit I had a faint fear he might manage this. But not to worry. He doubled down. He became more Trump. Became so Trump it was ridiculous. The peak was probably "Dettolgate" but it's a crowded skyline.
"We have already secured an amount of doses that we need to vaccinate 380 million Europeans, and this is more than 80% of the European population [of 450 million people]," Mrs von der Leyen said.
She said other vaccine authorisations were expected in the coming weeks and months, so "Europe will have more than enough vaccine within a reliable timeframe".
She said the commission had taken the right course of action on vaccines.
"I'm convinced that when we look back at this one day we'll see, well yes, at the beginning, there was a bumpy road [but] well, that's always the case."
It's just ridiculous. They got it wrong, they should just admit it.
In her 380 million doses is she counting vaccines like Sanofi that haven't completed PIII trials and may not even end up getting approval?
No I think they now have deals in place with Pfizer and Moderna for that many. But they are back of the queue....well not front of it. So a lot of it is coming Q2, Q3, Q4 and beyond.
That's right: the EU started incredibly slowly, but has improved. (And it is very important not to "count chickens" here, until we know final results...)
But, my gut is that Israel and a few small states really knocked the ball out of the park.
The UK, Japan and Canada did an excellent job.
The US has been reasonably good, the EU has been worse than the US (albeit not by a huge margin).
And developing countries have been an utter disaster zone.
There's a lot of variation within the EU. Germany is doing good and France is doing bad, as we all know, but it goes deeper than that. Take Ireland, for instance. They've vaccinated just 15,000 people. Poor start. And as for the Dutch...
I *think* what happened is that a number of countries thought the vaccine would just be another vaccine. Buy it when its available, make it available on the health service. And it time, everyone will be vaccinated. Obviously it was important, but nothing really big needed to be done in addition.
Some words about urgency were spoken. But apart from participating in the fast track approvals, no vast effort was put in.
FPT - nuclear weapons exist to level the playing field against those with massive conventional forces, that we couldn't hope to match, and to deter nuclear blackmail against us by nuclear armed powers.
I know others have equally strong views on this, but count me out from the unilateralists please. It's an ultimate insurance policy that I'm happy to have - and pay for - and helps me sleep soundly at night.
You could sleep soundly at night if you'd paid to be surrounded by a battalion of Grenadier Guards to keep burglars out. But if it meant your children went hungry....?
There is a huge amount of "whataboutery" supporting the UK having nuclear weapons. Would someone like to give me an actual, real life, certifiable example of when they have given me cause to sleep more soundly at night?
Where my slumbers are qualitatively better is the knowledge that some ISIS commander or some Al Qaeda financier is being lit up for delivery of a smart bomb by a special forces guy in the shadows, who has the use of the latest array of technology to call upon.
I'd be very happy for the UK to be known as providing those people the bad guys should lose sleep over. Be the go-to place for the brightest and best fighting men in the world. Hell, I'd pay top dollar to recruit some of the Foreign Legion special forces guys into the team. They were some of the best close protection I've used (and that includes having used a guy from the Bravo 2 Zero patrol).
The ability to insert these into any country - and then safely extract them - would be an ultimate expression of power. And a much more effective use of defence money than the umpteen billions spent having no more than one Trident submarine on patrol at any one time.
Well, our children aren't going hungry. The cost of a few billion a year is easily absorbable within our massive government budget of many hundreds of billions. So I don't think that's a real choice. And I think the safety payback we get for it (in terms of a safe and secure space for economic growth and trade) is worth it.
I can't speak for how you sleep at night but I certainly think they are deterring Russia from taking more serious action over the Baltic States (NATO members) and also China over Taiwan. They were also useful in the first Gulf War in convincing Saddam Hussein not to use chemical or biological weapons. Of course it's difficult to prove a counterfactual where they made *the* difference - the decisive difference - because they are a strategic deterrent, not a tactical one, and such confrontations are rare precisely because they do exist. When that fails they are part of a diplomatic and military deterrent toolkit of why things don't escalate as far as they could.
I agree with you on special forces and on smart weapons. They are essential too. But I wouldn't eliminate our strategic deterrent. I think that'd be dangerous.
I'm more in the @Casino_Royale camp here. I would not wanting to be relying on the "goodwill" of China and Russia not to use their nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear UK in the case of a dispute.
But here we enter the realms of whether we would be allowed to use Trident in that event, or whether we'd find that the system had been (wisely imho) disabled by a higher power.
If you were America, and Britain got itself into a nuclear conflict with a third party, and you had the ability to shut the system down, would you do it? Or would you just let them go ahead with it in case they asked for a refund? It isn't an independent deterrent. Everyone (including Russia and China) is aware of that fact.
It'sd not as if they were Blue Streak missiles launched from North Norfolk silos which could be traced back to the perpetrators. A SLBM is by definition untraceable and launchable from any wet bit on the map within range, and what's a chap to think if Trident-type trajectories come at him?
There is no US "off switch" for Trident. The claims that there are seem to be of the "but there must be" variety.
And claims that there is no 'off switch' are of the 'but there couldn't be' variety. I respect your experience in various fields, but by definition, being party to US nuclear secrets isn't one of them. So logic is really all we have to go on.
Which ally of Britain would you sell independent strategic nukes to by the way? Which country would you happily sell the ability to use British technology to wipe out other countries at will? - Exactly.
Is your point that - certainly at the time Trident was set up - the answer was "the United States of America"?
No. My point is that there is no other country, however loyal, however much a staunch ally, to which one Government could sensibly give/sell/or rent the ability to destroy other countries at a button press, on 'free-for-all' basis. You would need appropriate checks and balances.
It is a matter of public record that without American support, Trident would be out of commission within weeks. I also believe that we could not use it independently in the immediate term without America's express permission. The fact that the last time we tried to hit a target 'off the West coast of Africa', the missile veered off course and went in the direction of America, if it doesn't provide corroboration for this, at least indicates that once a target is identified and put in by UK forces firing it, the missile has the ability to change its course and follow an alternative route.
What on earth is your argument here? That we performed a routine test fire, forgot to warn the US, and the Pentagon panicked and hit the emergency override button?
Seems much more likely it was a genuine malfunction, no?
I would prefer to leave theories to one side and stick to what we can conclusively prove from the event - that the missile can change its course mid-flight, regardless of the instructions given it when fired.
It didn't "change course". It went off course. There is a huge difference.
Actually there is no difference at all between those two statements. When something goes off course, by definition it changes its course.
'Veering' and 'going off course' is just a way of expressing this that makes it sound like it blew a gasket or got hit by a stray seagull, and was a comforting British cock up (if a nuclear cock up can be comforting). All we actually know, is that it changed its course - that where we asked it to go, was not where it went.
Um. No.
If I set out to drive from London to Manchester, and change my mind halfway through the journey and head towards Liverpool, I've changed course. If I lose control of the vehicle and end up embedded in a tree, I've gone off course. The former is deliberate, the latter isn't. You are alleging that the official story (the latter) is wrong, with zero evidence to support it, and have somehow leapt from there to some bizarre conspiracy theory about US off switches.
Jonathan Van Tam went for a curry on same day Boris Johnson told Londoners to avoid restaurants due to Covid risk - then claimed the £21.77 meal on the taxpayer
For me the pointers are that the Trump coalition is not a winning coalition at the federal level going forwards.
The easier thing for GOP politicians is to cleave to the Trumpsters, because of their enthusiasm. But that is what has driven the ABTs out of the party and has lost the GOP most independents and thus the absolutely essential suburbs.
For me, the way back for the GOP is the painful one. Excise their most passionate supporters, the Trumpsters. Rebuild the center right, win back the suburbs. Regain the trust of women.
To me, this will take at least one more bad election cycle result (2022), which alas is not guaranteed, followed by 4-6 years of rebuilding. It could go faster than that but equally it is not guaranteed to happen at all, but it is my best bet.
On topic: I gaze into the future of the Republican party - not too far, just a couple of years - and I see no Trump or Trumpdom there. What I do see, however and alas, are elements of the MAGA agenda still in the mix.
The million $ puzzle which imo must be solved in order to predict where the party goes is as follows - Of the 73m who voted for Donald Trump what are the approx weightings (adjusted for overlap) for the 4 main categories?
1. Love Trump. Lucky to have him. Helluva guy and a total one off. Just so into everything about the man. 2. Always vote Republican. It's what I am - a Republican. Cut me and I bleed tax cuts & voter suppression. 3. Not big on politics. Only care about the economy. Thought he'd done ok on that. Why change. 4. Trump? Can take him or leave him but I like his hard right national populist rhetoric and policies.
No particular order there except that I've put the last one last for a reason. I think it's the smallest.
Very rough guesses:
1. 10 2. 50 3. 8 4. 5
Although 1 and 4 are largely the same category, if we're being honest.
Much obliged. This is what I'm looking for. Unadorned numbers that I can crunch thro the "Predict the Near Term Future of the GOP" model I've developed (mainly for betting purposes but also to aid my superforecasting and related punditry).
- No bright future for MAGA without Trump. - Republican party v Trump is a mismatch. Party prevails.
Much easier to split the 73, so: 1. 20 2. 45 3. 6 4. 2
That's an interesting one, thanks.
Think we might be saying that the MAGA element - voters who love a bit of hardcore nativist nationalism but are indifferent to the Trump delivery mechanism - is negligible.
So let's drop it and merge me, you, pulpstar, BluestBlue et alia to get -
1. I'm a Republican stupid - 65 2. I'm a Trumpster and I AM stupid - 25 3. It's the economy obvs - 10
Nice clear pointers emerging now.
But what are they?
The problem with that approach of going back to the suburbanites is that (a) they are increasing socially liberal due to college education, (b) are more fickle and so (c) you would have to blow up your base by switching to a more socially liberal / economically right-wing stance in the hope - and it would be no more than a hope - that you can persuade people who deserted you to switch back.
There is another thing here as well. Hispanics, Asian-Americans and Black people, on the whole, tend to be socially conservative. If the Republicans continue to make inroads into the HIspanic vote, then that more than outweighs their losses in the suburbs. Ditch the socially conservative agenda to appeal to suburban types and you have lost that.
If you abandon the cities and the suburbs, you cannot take the House. Period.
Well, the Republicans nearly did.
The tragedy is that the 'rebels' were so exercised at the growing inequalities in income and wealth - and the growing distance between politicians and the people they are supposed to represent - that they turned to a brand of extreme Republicanism that was never likely to want to deliver them any sort of relief.
The big question of our era is why centre-left politicians have proved so unable to put forward a comprehensive platform to rectify the egregious distortions of 21st century society in a way that can carry a majority of sensibly minded voters in the centre of political opinion?
Within our lifetimes, if the centre-left doesn't rise to the challenge of our times, then the future will be left to the extremes.
The simple explanation is that centre-left politicians now spend most of their energy and efforts prioritising culturally liberal stances than the economic concerns that concern most people. I've pointed out here to those that scream racist at Trump voters that a good chunk of them would have voted for Obama in 2008. They didn't care he was Black but they did care about their economic conditions. However, the Democrat party became so embroiled in cultural issues that it dropped the ball on the economic front.
This line of attack might have worked in the past, but it has lost much of its potency given the Democrats' clean sweep in the world's second-largest democracy. And your boy, a poster child for the opposite approach, getting his backside handed to him.
He didn't really get his backside handed to him though did he? Biden won the election by the same number of EV votes as Trump, a victory that we were told at the time was minimal because if only 70K voters had switched sides, Clinton would have won. Only this time, if only 44K (if I remember correctly) had switched sides, Trump would have won. The Democrats nearly lost control of the House. And you have a 50/50 Senate.
And, no, the attack lines are still relevant. It was stupid of Biden et al to use the BLM line last night because it had no relevance in the scheme of things and was done in response to the post on social media showing the response to BLM protests. I pointed out pre-election that the focus on BLM risked driving Hispanics to the GOP, which is one of the few things I got right about November
I did the maths on this. Trump would have won 270 v 269 if he had taken Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia.
To win those states he would have needed 10371 voters to vote the other way in Wisconsin, 5228 in Arizona and 5889 in Georgia.
So, adding these, 21459 votes the other way (apportioned in the correct states) would have given Trump victory.
(Happy for someone to check my maths.)
It shows how close this election really was. If it wasn`t for the pox Trump would have won.
The video actually only shows the NY guy (who is absolutely right) forcefully arguing for a painful dose of realism. There are some quiet ones, and maybe they agree with NY guy... but we don't know that and they may (as NY guy directly says) be drinking the Kool Aid.
And he's not a swing voter, of course. The Republicans couldn't give a damn if nobody in NY votes GOP.
What matters is how far NY guy speaks for Republicans in Georgia or Pennsylvania or Arizona where they have to choose Senate candidates to bring it home for the GOP in 2022, and how far he's an unrepresentative, east coast elitist who just happens to vote Republican (because he wants low tax and so on).
Anyone who has had any exposure to Wall Street will have met someone just like Manny from NY. He works in private equity, is on his second divorce, is big on Bitcoin and hates taxes. He's probably great company on a night out, but if you last the night you'll end up doing something you'll regret.
CNN - Assistant House Speaker will move next week to impeach Trump if Pence does not invoke the 25th Amendment.
I’m still undecided whether this is a good idea or not.
Me too. Creates a martyr to little practical purpose. And I know Trump theoretically has power to do damage... But practically? Pence is de facto in charge.
The big worry is that he will pardon all those who were involved on Wednesday. This creates the precedent that a President can attempt a coup with no possible downside if they lose.
The whole unlimited pardon thing seems completely unnecessary in the first place.
If you want to keep it but remove the personal element, you could change it to the pardons also need to be approved by two former Presidents to take effect.
You could do all sorts of things if it were easier to change the constitution.
For me the pointers are that the Trump coalition is not a winning coalition at the federal level going forwards.
The easier thing for GOP politicians is to cleave to the Trumpsters, because of their enthusiasm. But that is what has driven the ABTs out of the party and has lost the GOP most independents and thus the absolutely essential suburbs.
For me, the way back for the GOP is the painful one. Excise their most passionate supporters, the Trumpsters. Rebuild the center right, win back the suburbs. Regain the trust of women.
To me, this will take at least one more bad election cycle result (2022), which alas is not guaranteed, followed by 4-6 years of rebuilding. It could go faster than that but equally it is not guaranteed to happen at all, but it is my best bet.
This is my view too. Except I think it will not be quite such a long and difficult process. Once Trump is not POTUS, my strong sense is he'll fade quicker than most people think. And given MAGA is so wrapped up with HIM, I think that will too. I see a vibrant young Republican emerging in time for the 24 election and running on a small state, libertarian, socially "trad" ticket. He or she will have the challenge of picking up the deplorables without being deplorable. If they can, they have a decent shot.
You cannot be both libertarian and socially conservative, that is logically impossible
You can talk up and celebrate traditional values but not favour them in law.
For me the pointers are that the Trump coalition is not a winning coalition at the federal level going forwards.
The easier thing for GOP politicians is to cleave to the Trumpsters, because of their enthusiasm. But that is what has driven the ABTs out of the party and has lost the GOP most independents and thus the absolutely essential suburbs.
For me, the way back for the GOP is the painful one. Excise their most passionate supporters, the Trumpsters. Rebuild the center right, win back the suburbs. Regain the trust of women.
To me, this will take at least one more bad election cycle result (2022), which alas is not guaranteed, followed by 4-6 years of rebuilding. It could go faster than that but equally it is not guaranteed to happen at all, but it is my best bet.
This is my view too. Except I think it will not be quite such a long and difficult process. Once Trump is not POTUS, my strong sense is he'll fade quicker than most people think. And given MAGA is so wrapped up with HIM, I think that will too. I see a vibrant young Republican emerging in time for the 24 election and running on a small state, libertarian, socially "trad" ticket. He or she will have the challenge of picking up the deplorables without being deplorable. If they can, they have a decent shot.
You cannot be both libertarian and socially conservative, that is logically impossible
Agreed, though practical politics isn't always logical!
There is a current of thinking that assumes that social conservatism is a state of nature and that all the stuff the liberal left argues for is the aberration, only possible with massive state control. Make that assumption and it's not too hard to marry up "state bad, social conservatism good" in a package. Kind of Singapore, or Thatcherism, if you've only read the Ladybird Book on either topic.
Whether it works well enough for the Republicans to win an election is another matter. But without the votes that Trump uniquely reached, they need to try something...
As a self-styled neo-libertarian, I have found something to agree with HYUFD on. Libertarians by definition cannot be socially conservative.
Thinking about that, someone who regards the family as the basic unit of humanity could be libertarian in the sense of not wanting the state to get involved in any thing to do with the family but pretty socially conservative in how they run their family. I'm aware that that calling that Libertarian is a bit of a stretch though.
For me the pointers are that the Trump coalition is not a winning coalition at the federal level going forwards.
The easier thing for GOP politicians is to cleave to the Trumpsters, because of their enthusiasm. But that is what has driven the ABTs out of the party and has lost the GOP most independents and thus the absolutely essential suburbs.
For me, the way back for the GOP is the painful one. Excise their most passionate supporters, the Trumpsters. Rebuild the center right, win back the suburbs. Regain the trust of women.
To me, this will take at least one more bad election cycle result (2022), which alas is not guaranteed, followed by 4-6 years of rebuilding. It could go faster than that but equally it is not guaranteed to happen at all, but it is my best bet.
On topic: I gaze into the future of the Republican party - not too far, just a couple of years - and I see no Trump or Trumpdom there. What I do see, however and alas, are elements of the MAGA agenda still in the mix.
The million $ puzzle which imo must be solved in order to predict where the party goes is as follows - Of the 73m who voted for Donald Trump what are the approx weightings (adjusted for overlap) for the 4 main categories?
1. Love Trump. Lucky to have him. Helluva guy and a total one off. Just so into everything about the man. 2. Always vote Republican. It's what I am - a Republican. Cut me and I bleed tax cuts & voter suppression. 3. Not big on politics. Only care about the economy. Thought he'd done ok on that. Why change. 4. Trump? Can take him or leave him but I like his hard right national populist rhetoric and policies.
No particular order there except that I've put the last one last for a reason. I think it's the smallest.
Very rough guesses:
1. 10 2. 50 3. 8 4. 5
Although 1 and 4 are largely the same category, if we're being honest.
Much obliged. This is what I'm looking for. Unadorned numbers that I can crunch thro the "Predict the Near Term Future of the GOP" model I've developed (mainly for betting purposes but also to aid my superforecasting and related punditry).
- No bright future for MAGA without Trump. - Republican party v Trump is a mismatch. Party prevails.
Much easier to split the 73, so: 1. 20 2. 45 3. 6 4. 2
That's an interesting one, thanks.
Think we might be saying that the MAGA element - voters who love a bit of hardcore nativist nationalism but are indifferent to the Trump delivery mechanism - is negligible.
So let's drop it and merge me, you, pulpstar, BluestBlue et alia to get -
1. I'm a Republican stupid - 65 2. I'm a Trumpster and I AM stupid - 25 3. It's the economy obvs - 10
Nice clear pointers emerging now.
But what are they?
The problem with that approach of going back to the suburbanites is that (a) they are increasing socially liberal due to college education, (b) are more fickle and so (c) you would have to blow up your base by switching to a more socially liberal / economically right-wing stance in the hope - and it would be no more than a hope - that you can persuade people who deserted you to switch back.
There is another thing here as well. Hispanics, Asian-Americans and Black people, on the whole, tend to be socially conservative. If the Republicans continue to make inroads into the HIspanic vote, then that more than outweighs their losses in the suburbs. Ditch the socially conservative agenda to appeal to suburban types and you have lost that.
If you abandon the cities and the suburbs, you cannot take the House. Period.
Well, the Republicans nearly did.
The tragedy is that the 'rebels' were so exercised at the growing inequalities in income and wealth - and the growing distance between politicians and the people they are supposed to represent - that they turned to a brand of extreme Republicanism that was never likely to want to deliver them any sort of relief.
The big question of our era is why centre-left politicians have proved so unable to put forward a comprehensive platform to rectify the egregious distortions of 21st century society in a way that can carry a majority of sensibly minded voters in the centre of political opinion?
Within our lifetimes, if the centre-left doesn't rise to the challenge of our times, then the future will be left to the extremes.
The simple explanation is that centre-left politicians now spend most of their energy and efforts prioritising culturally liberal stances than the economic concerns that concern most people. I've pointed out here to those that scream racist at Trump voters that a good chunk of them would have voted for Obama in 2008. They didn't care he was Black but they did care about their economic conditions. However, the Democrat party became so embroiled in cultural issues that it dropped the ball on the economic front.
This line of attack might have worked in the past, but it has lost much of its potency given the Democrats' clean sweep in the world's second-largest democracy. And your boy, a poster child for the opposite approach, getting his backside handed to him.
He didn't really get his backside handed to him though did he? Biden won the election by the same number of EV votes as Trump, a victory that we were told at the time was minimal because if only 70K voters had switched sides, Clinton would have won. Only this time, if only 44K (if I remember correctly) had switched sides, Trump would have won. The Democrats nearly lost control of the House. And you have a 50/50 Senate.
And, no, the attack lines are still relevant. It was stupid of Biden et al to use the BLM line last night because it had no relevance in the scheme of things and was done in response to the post on social media showing the response to BLM protests. I pointed out pre-election that the focus on BLM risked driving Hispanics to the GOP, which is one of the few things I got right about November
I did the maths on this. Trump would have won 270 v 269 if he had taken Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia.
To win those states he would have needed 10371 voters to vote the other way in Wisconsin, 5228 in Arizona and 5889 in Georgia.
So, adding these, 21459 votes the other way (apportioned in the correct states) would have given Trump victory.
(Happy for someone to check my maths.)
It shows how close this election really was. If it wasn`t for the pox Trump would have won.
There's a lot of variation within the EU. Germany is doing good and France is doing bad, as we all know, but it goes deeper than that. Take Ireland, for instance. They've vaccinated just 15,000 people. Poor start. And as for the Dutch...
Jonathan Van Tam went for a curry on same day Boris Johnson told Londoners to avoid restaurants due to Covid risk - then claimed the £21.77 meal on the taxpayer
I love it when people who are implacably opposed to the Republican Party try to give it lessons. Presumably to maintain the notion that everything is alright in the West and its business as usual, and what you are seeing is not a hologram.
But here's the thing. It really isn't all right.
The right is completely split in America. The party elite and the Trumpist base despise each other totally. The latter will not turn out for the former, as Georgia showed, and what follows is a hugely bitter primaries battle between the two factions ahead of 2022. When millions will not turn out again and the democrat hegemony intensifies.
Meanwhile, the Democrats will be deliberating just how much of a Jihad they want to declare on the many millions of Americans who turned out for Trump and now have zero faith in their country, its electoral system and its institutions.
Trump showed his millions of supporters a glimpse of an America they were comfortable with and where they were welcome and valuable citizens.
They are not going back to the likes of Romney. Not now. Not ever.
Trouble is, their "zero faith in their country, its electoral system and its institutions" is based on delusion. How to cleanse this?
Making the left-behind feel "welcome and valuable citizens". Absolutely.
"A glimpse of an America they were comfortable with". A lot to unpack in that statement. What America was that exactly. Because judging by the comments of Trump and many of his supporters it was an America where blacks could be shot or killed by the police with impunity or denied the vote or where demonstrators could go on marches shouting anti-Semitic slogans and be praised as "fine people".
That sort of America is a horrible one and if that is the vision that these people want then we absolutely should not be pandering to them. There are limits. There are boundaries of decent behaviour. And we don't accept behaviour which breaches those boundaries just because it's the left-behind or the white working-class doing the demanding. They don't get excused from complying with decent civilised behaviour just because they're poor or uneducated or unemployed.
Trump appealed to peoples' basest instincts. The best thing we can do for people who feel ignored is make life better for them not act on their worst instincts.
Cyclefree likes an evidence free moral high horse rant sometimes.
Black employment was at a record high under Trump. Lets see how Biden does. The early signs aren't good. Look at the democrat dominated states already.
Examples where blacks could be shot or killing with impunity? Last I looked the killers of Floyd and others were subject to due process. Did Trump try to interrupt that process or change the laws of due process?
And as for making life better for any American, well, the democrats were already out of ideas for that before the election. Again look at the states and the cities where they have held sway for decades. If this election was fought on the pre-covid economy, Trump won hands down.
You know Trump is still in charge right?
And ran up a massive deficit.
He absolutely did, hands up.
Unfortunately fiscal restraint is out of fashion everywhere
Not with the last two Democratic presidents.
Obama reduced the deficit whilst still getting equal economic growth to Trump Clinton eliminated the deficit.
For me the pointers are that the Trump coalition is not a winning coalition at the federal level going forwards.
The easier thing for GOP politicians is to cleave to the Trumpsters, because of their enthusiasm. But that is what has driven the ABTs out of the party and has lost the GOP most independents and thus the absolutely essential suburbs.
For me, the way back for the GOP is the painful one. Excise their most passionate supporters, the Trumpsters. Rebuild the center right, win back the suburbs. Regain the trust of women.
To me, this will take at least one more bad election cycle result (2022), which alas is not guaranteed, followed by 4-6 years of rebuilding. It could go faster than that but equally it is not guaranteed to happen at all, but it is my best bet.
On topic: I gaze into the future of the Republican party - not too far, just a couple of years - and I see no Trump or Trumpdom there. What I do see, however and alas, are elements of the MAGA agenda still in the mix.
The million $ puzzle which imo must be solved in order to predict where the party goes is as follows - Of the 73m who voted for Donald Trump what are the approx weightings (adjusted for overlap) for the 4 main categories?
1. Love Trump. Lucky to have him. Helluva guy and a total one off. Just so into everything about the man. 2. Always vote Republican. It's what I am - a Republican. Cut me and I bleed tax cuts & voter suppression. 3. Not big on politics. Only care about the economy. Thought he'd done ok on that. Why change. 4. Trump? Can take him or leave him but I like his hard right national populist rhetoric and policies.
No particular order there except that I've put the last one last for a reason. I think it's the smallest.
Very rough guesses:
1. 10 2. 50 3. 8 4. 5
Although 1 and 4 are largely the same category, if we're being honest.
Much obliged. This is what I'm looking for. Unadorned numbers that I can crunch thro the "Predict the Near Term Future of the GOP" model I've developed (mainly for betting purposes but also to aid my superforecasting and related punditry).
- No bright future for MAGA without Trump. - Republican party v Trump is a mismatch. Party prevails.
Much easier to split the 73, so: 1. 20 2. 45 3. 6 4. 2
That's an interesting one, thanks.
Think we might be saying that the MAGA element - voters who love a bit of hardcore nativist nationalism but are indifferent to the Trump delivery mechanism - is negligible.
So let's drop it and merge me, you, pulpstar, BluestBlue et alia to get -
1. I'm a Republican stupid - 65 2. I'm a Trumpster and I AM stupid - 25 3. It's the economy obvs - 10
Nice clear pointers emerging now.
But what are they?
The problem with that approach of going back to the suburbanites is that (a) they are increasing socially liberal due to college education, (b) are more fickle and so (c) you would have to blow up your base by switching to a more socially liberal / economically right-wing stance in the hope - and it would be no more than a hope - that you can persuade people who deserted you to switch back.
There is another thing here as well. Hispanics, Asian-Americans and Black people, on the whole, tend to be socially conservative. If the Republicans continue to make inroads into the HIspanic vote, then that more than outweighs their losses in the suburbs. Ditch the socially conservative agenda to appeal to suburban types and you have lost that.
If you abandon the cities and the suburbs, you cannot take the House. Period.
Well, the Republicans nearly did.
The tragedy is that the 'rebels' were so exercised at the growing inequalities in income and wealth - and the growing distance between politicians and the people they are supposed to represent - that they turned to a brand of extreme Republicanism that was never likely to want to deliver them any sort of relief.
The big question of our era is why centre-left politicians have proved so unable to put forward a comprehensive platform to rectify the egregious distortions of 21st century society in a way that can carry a majority of sensibly minded voters in the centre of political opinion?
Within our lifetimes, if the centre-left doesn't rise to the challenge of our times, then the future will be left to the extremes.
The simple explanation is that centre-left politicians now spend most of their energy and efforts prioritising culturally liberal stances than the economic concerns that concern most people. I've pointed out here to those that scream racist at Trump voters that a good chunk of them would have voted for Obama in 2008. They didn't care he was Black but they did care about their economic conditions. However, the Democrat party became so embroiled in cultural issues that it dropped the ball on the economic front.
This line of attack might have worked in the past, but it has lost much of its potency given the Democrats' clean sweep in the world's second-largest democracy. And your boy, a poster child for the opposite approach, getting his backside handed to him.
He didn't really get his backside handed to him though did he? Biden won the election by the same number of EV votes as Trump, a victory that we were told at the time was minimal because if only 70K voters had switched sides, Clinton would have won. Only this time, if only 44K (if I remember correctly) had switched sides, Trump would have won. The Democrats nearly lost control of the House. And you have a 50/50 Senate.
And, no, the attack lines are still relevant. It was stupid of Biden et al to use the BLM line last night because it had no relevance in the scheme of things and was done in response to the post on social media showing the response to BLM protests. I pointed out pre-election that the focus on BLM risked driving Hispanics to the GOP, which is one of the few things I got right about November
Surely the argument about Clinton coming close didn't rely so much on the Electoral College vote, which wasn't particularly close as you say and ironically the same as Biden-Trump (ignoring faithless electors), but the popular vote?
So the point is that Clinton had a 3 million vote margin over Trump, but it was very inefficiently distributed so she lost (partly unfortunate for her, partly poor tactics). Whereas Trump had a 7 million vote deficit, which was very efficiently distributed but still left him as far off as Clinton in the Electoral College vote.
It surely isn't controversial that winning the popular vote by 3 million but losing the Electoral College vote by 74 is annoying but provides a reasonably good base for next time, whereas LOSING the popular vote by 7 million and the Electoral College vote by 74 is much more problematic. The illusion is that Trump lost in a squeaker because he scweamed and scweamed and scweamed about it... but that's somewhat misleading.
Now that isn't to say Democrats don't have a problem with how their votes are distributed - they do. But it does mean they were in striking distance in 2016 in a way Republicans aren't now.
It also isn't getting better for the Republicans at the moment in terms of the states they will need to win back in 2024. Georgia is a fairly large state that does now look rather purple and the trends aren't good. Arizona is also now looking pretty blue across the board. The Georgia run-offs means Puerto Rico is quite likely to become a reliably blue state. The rust belt looks better, but arguably Trump had a special blue collar white appeal that it's quite hard to replicate (and, as a reminder, he lost there).
"The illusion is that Trump lost in a squeaker because he scweamed and scweamed and scweamed about it... but that's somewhat misleading."
Indeed, Sir Norfolk, that same point was made by Mitch McConnell in a rather less distinguished forum than this. In the end, the result really wasn't all that close.
Right. Losing 306-232 in the Electoral College and by seven million in the popular vote, and losing the Senate is not a close result. It's a comprehensive beating.
It should be remembered that Trump lost six times: He lost the House He lost the popular vote He lost the White House He lost in court He lost the Senate He lost his mind
All he's got left now is his liberty. I'm hoping for 7 from 7.
On topic: I gaze into the future of the Republican party - not too far, just a couple of years - and I see no Trump or Trumpdom there. What I do see, however and alas, are elements of the MAGA agenda still in the mix.
The million $ puzzle which imo must be solved in order to predict where the party goes is as follows - Of the 73m who voted for Donald Trump what are the approx weightings (adjusted for overlap) for the 4 main categories?
1. Love Trump. Lucky to have him. Helluva guy and a total one off. Just so into everything about the man. 2. Always vote Republican. It's what I am - a Republican. Cut me and I bleed tax cuts & voter suppression. 3. Not big on politics. Only care about the economy. Thought he'd done ok on that. Why change. 4. Trump? Can take him or leave him but I like his hard right national populist rhetoric and policies.
No particular order there except that I've put the last one last for a reason. I think it's the smallest.
Very rough guesses:
1. 10 2. 50 3. 8 4. 5
Although 1 and 4 are largely the same category, if we're being honest.
Much obliged. This is what I'm looking for. Unadorned numbers that I can crunch thro the "Predict the Near Term Future of the GOP" model I've developed (mainly for betting purposes but also to aid my superforecasting and related punditry).
- No bright future for MAGA without Trump. - Republican party v Trump is a mismatch. Party prevails.
MAGA and Trump are interchangeable, a distinction without a difference.
I would say:
Republican 63 million MAGA/Trump 9 million Economy 1 million
Ah, Philip. Thank goodness. Can't finalize anything without your input. I was starting to worry I'd have to beg for it.
Interesting too because it's an outlier, which is great news. But just to double check. You think only 1m of the 73m who voted Trump were apolitical floater types who just figured he'd done ok on the economy and so were minded not to change?
Really?
Weren't there detailed polls during the election that had serious numbers of people backing Trump because of the economy? On the I-can't-stand-him-but-my-401k basis?
Yes, the 'Are you better off now than four years ago?' figure popped up before the election and was strikingly positive for Trump (56% to 32%). It's probably what prevented him being wiped out rather than just defeated.
Hence my 8.
Yep. Currently with a "10" on my "100" methodology and if anything I think that's light.
But this is Philip. So I'm hanging fire until I've had a quick tumble with him (on it).
Jonathan Van Tam went for a curry on same day Boris Johnson told Londoners to avoid restaurants due to Covid risk - then claimed the £21.77 meal on the taxpayer
On topic: I gaze into the future of the Republican party - not too far, just a couple of years - and I see no Trump or Trumpdom there. What I do see, however and alas, are elements of the MAGA agenda still in the mix.
The million $ puzzle which imo must be solved in order to predict where the party goes is as follows - Of the 73m who voted for Donald Trump what are the approx weightings (adjusted for overlap) for the 4 main categories?
1. Love Trump. Lucky to have him. Helluva guy and a total one off. Just so into everything about the man. 2. Always vote Republican. It's what I am - a Republican. Cut me and I bleed tax cuts & voter suppression. 3. Not big on politics. Only care about the economy. Thought he'd done ok on that. Why change. 4. Trump? Can take him or leave him but I like his hard right national populist rhetoric and policies.
No particular order there except that I've put the last one last for a reason. I think it's the smallest.
Very rough guesses:
1. 10 2. 50 3. 8 4. 5
Although 1 and 4 are largely the same category, if we're being honest.
Much obliged. This is what I'm looking for. Unadorned numbers that I can crunch thro the "Predict the Near Term Future of the GOP" model I've developed (mainly for betting purposes but also to aid my superforecasting and related punditry).
- No bright future for MAGA without Trump. - Republican party v Trump is a mismatch. Party prevails.
MAGA and Trump are interchangeable, a distinction without a difference.
I would say:
Republican 63 million MAGA/Trump 9 million Economy 1 million
Shrewd post, highlighting an important fact. Many people vote for partisan reasons but aren't honest about the reasons. They'll give reasons like "the economy", "fairness", "sensible governance", "because change is needed", etc. But when that party clearly turns away from that value, they still vote for them. They just find a different rationalisation. There are more than a few on here with that mindset, "my party right or wrong", no better than robots or zombies.
It's why people support a policy until they find out who is supporting/opposing it. People aren't strict about left/rightness they go by feeling.
It takes a lot for people to make a jump even if it makes total sense given their views.
There's a lot of variation within the EU. Germany is doing good and France is doing bad, as we all know, but it goes deeper than that. Take Ireland, for instance. They've vaccinated just 15,000 people. Poor start. And as for the Dutch...
Jonathan Van Tam went for a curry on same day Boris Johnson told Londoners to avoid restaurants due to Covid risk - then claimed the £21.77 meal on the taxpayer
For me the pointers are that the Trump coalition is not a winning coalition at the federal level going forwards.
The easier thing for GOP politicians is to cleave to the Trumpsters, because of their enthusiasm. But that is what has driven the ABTs out of the party and has lost the GOP most independents and thus the absolutely essential suburbs.
For me, the way back for the GOP is the painful one. Excise their most passionate supporters, the Trumpsters. Rebuild the center right, win back the suburbs. Regain the trust of women.
To me, this will take at least one more bad election cycle result (2022), which alas is not guaranteed, followed by 4-6 years of rebuilding. It could go faster than that but equally it is not guaranteed to happen at all, but it is my best bet.
This is my view too. Except I think it will not be quite such a long and difficult process. Once Trump is not POTUS, my strong sense is he'll fade quicker than most people think. And given MAGA is so wrapped up with HIM, I think that will too. I see a vibrant young Republican emerging in time for the 24 election and running on a small state, libertarian, socially "trad" ticket. He or she will have the challenge of picking up the deplorables without being deplorable. If they can, they have a decent shot.
You cannot be both libertarian and socially conservative, that is logically impossible
Agreed, though practical politics isn't always logical!
There is a current of thinking that assumes that social conservatism is a state of nature and that all the stuff the liberal left argues for is the aberration, only possible with massive state control. Make that assumption and it's not too hard to marry up "state bad, social conservatism good" in a package. Kind of Singapore, or Thatcherism, if you've only read the Ladybird Book on either topic.
Whether it works well enough for the Republicans to win an election is another matter. But without the votes that Trump uniquely reached, they need to try something...
As a self-styled neo-libertarian, I have found something to agree with HYUFD on. Libertarians by definition cannot be socially conservative.
Thinking about that, someone who regards the family as the basic unit of humanity could be libertarian in the sense of not wanting the state to get involved in any thing to do with the family but pretty socially conservative in how they run their family. I'm aware that that calling that Libertarian is a bit of a stretch though.
My point is that libertarians, at least in my view of the term, think that most social issues fall outside of their political dogma, not that there aren't libertarians who are socially conservative.
For me the pointers are that the Trump coalition is not a winning coalition at the federal level going forwards.
The easier thing for GOP politicians is to cleave to the Trumpsters, because of their enthusiasm. But that is what has driven the ABTs out of the party and has lost the GOP most independents and thus the absolutely essential suburbs.
For me, the way back for the GOP is the painful one. Excise their most passionate supporters, the Trumpsters. Rebuild the center right, win back the suburbs. Regain the trust of women.
To me, this will take at least one more bad election cycle result (2022), which alas is not guaranteed, followed by 4-6 years of rebuilding. It could go faster than that but equally it is not guaranteed to happen at all, but it is my best bet.
On topic: I gaze into the future of the Republican party - not too far, just a couple of years - and I see no Trump or Trumpdom there. What I do see, however and alas, are elements of the MAGA agenda still in the mix.
The million $ puzzle which imo must be solved in order to predict where the party goes is as follows - Of the 73m who voted for Donald Trump what are the approx weightings (adjusted for overlap) for the 4 main categories?
1. Love Trump. Lucky to have him. Helluva guy and a total one off. Just so into everything about the man. 2. Always vote Republican. It's what I am - a Republican. Cut me and I bleed tax cuts & voter suppression. 3. Not big on politics. Only care about the economy. Thought he'd done ok on that. Why change. 4. Trump? Can take him or leave him but I like his hard right national populist rhetoric and policies.
No particular order there except that I've put the last one last for a reason. I think it's the smallest.
Very rough guesses:
1. 10 2. 50 3. 8 4. 5
Although 1 and 4 are largely the same category, if we're being honest.
Much obliged. This is what I'm looking for. Unadorned numbers that I can crunch thro the "Predict the Near Term Future of the GOP" model I've developed (mainly for betting purposes but also to aid my superforecasting and related punditry).
- No bright future for MAGA without Trump. - Republican party v Trump is a mismatch. Party prevails.
Much easier to split the 73, so: 1. 20 2. 45 3. 6 4. 2
That's an interesting one, thanks.
Think we might be saying that the MAGA element - voters who love a bit of hardcore nativist nationalism but are indifferent to the Trump delivery mechanism - is negligible.
So let's drop it and merge me, you, pulpstar, BluestBlue et alia to get -
1. I'm a Republican stupid - 65 2. I'm a Trumpster and I AM stupid - 25 3. It's the economy obvs - 10
Nice clear pointers emerging now.
But what are they?
The problem with that approach of going back to the suburbanites is that (a) they are increasing socially liberal due to college education, (b) are more fickle and so (c) you would have to blow up your base by switching to a more socially liberal / economically right-wing stance in the hope - and it would be no more than a hope - that you can persuade people who deserted you to switch back.
There is another thing here as well. Hispanics, Asian-Americans and Black people, on the whole, tend to be socially conservative. If the Republicans continue to make inroads into the HIspanic vote, then that more than outweighs their losses in the suburbs. Ditch the socially conservative agenda to appeal to suburban types and you have lost that.
If you abandon the cities and the suburbs, you cannot take the House. Period.
Well, the Republicans nearly did.
The tragedy is that the 'rebels' were so exercised at the growing inequalities in income and wealth - and the growing distance between politicians and the people they are supposed to represent - that they turned to a brand of extreme Republicanism that was never likely to want to deliver them any sort of relief.
The big question of our era is why centre-left politicians have proved so unable to put forward a comprehensive platform to rectify the egregious distortions of 21st century society in a way that can carry a majority of sensibly minded voters in the centre of political opinion?
Within our lifetimes, if the centre-left doesn't rise to the challenge of our times, then the future will be left to the extremes.
The simple explanation is that centre-left politicians now spend most of their energy and efforts prioritising culturally liberal stances than the economic concerns that concern most people. I've pointed out here to those that scream racist at Trump voters that a good chunk of them would have voted for Obama in 2008. They didn't care he was Black but they did care about their economic conditions. However, the Democrat party became so embroiled in cultural issues that it dropped the ball on the economic front.
This line of attack might have worked in the past, but it has lost much of its potency given the Democrats' clean sweep in the world's second-largest democracy. And your boy, a poster child for the opposite approach, getting his backside handed to him.
He didn't really get his backside handed to him though did he? Biden won the election by the same number of EV votes as Trump, a victory that we were told at the time was minimal because if only 70K voters had switched sides, Clinton would have won. Only this time, if only 44K (if I remember correctly) had switched sides, Trump would have won. The Democrats nearly lost control of the House. And you have a 50/50 Senate.
And, no, the attack lines are still relevant. It was stupid of Biden et al to use the BLM line last night because it had no relevance in the scheme of things and was done in response to the post on social media showing the response to BLM protests. I pointed out pre-election that the focus on BLM risked driving Hispanics to the GOP, which is one of the few things I got right about November
I did the maths on this. Trump would have won 270 v 269 if he had taken Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia.
To win those states he would have needed 10371 voters to vote the other way in Wisconsin, 5228 in Arizona and 5889 in Georgia.
So, adding these, 21459 votes the other way (apportioned in the correct states) would have given Trump victory.
(Happy for someone to check my maths.)
It shows how close this election really was. If it wasn`t for the pox Trump would have won.
There's a lot of variation within the EU. Germany is doing good and France is doing bad, as we all know, but it goes deeper than that. Take Ireland, for instance. They've vaccinated just 15,000 people. Poor start. And as for the Dutch...
Jonathan Van Tam went for a curry on same day Boris Johnson told Londoners to avoid restaurants due to Covid risk - then claimed the £21.77 meal on the taxpayer
There's a lot of variation within the EU. Germany is doing good and France is doing bad, as we all know, but it goes deeper than that. Take Ireland, for instance. They've vaccinated just 15,000 people. Poor start. And as for the Dutch...
Jonathan Van Tam went for a curry on same day Boris Johnson told Londoners to avoid restaurants due to Covid risk - then claimed the £21.77 meal on the taxpayer
Quelle surprise! Everything he and his lying toad of a boss have said on Brexit has turned out to be fantasy . Where is the benefit to this farce? Answer; the only benefit is to Michael Gove, Boris Johnson and a few of their cronies.
For me the pointers are that the Trump coalition is not a winning coalition at the federal level going forwards.
The easier thing for GOP politicians is to cleave to the Trumpsters, because of their enthusiasm. But that is what has driven the ABTs out of the party and has lost the GOP most independents and thus the absolutely essential suburbs.
For me, the way back for the GOP is the painful one. Excise their most passionate supporters, the Trumpsters. Rebuild the center right, win back the suburbs. Regain the trust of women.
To me, this will take at least one more bad election cycle result (2022), which alas is not guaranteed, followed by 4-6 years of rebuilding. It could go faster than that but equally it is not guaranteed to happen at all, but it is my best bet.
This is my view too. Except I think it will not be quite such a long and difficult process. Once Trump is not POTUS, my strong sense is he'll fade quicker than most people think. And given MAGA is so wrapped up with HIM, I think that will too. I see a vibrant young Republican emerging in time for the 24 election and running on a small state, libertarian, socially "trad" ticket. He or she will have the challenge of picking up the deplorables without being deplorable. If they can, they have a decent shot.
You cannot be both libertarian and socially conservative, that is logically impossible
Agreed, though practical politics isn't always logical!
There is a current of thinking that assumes that social conservatism is a state of nature and that all the stuff the liberal left argues for is the aberration, only possible with massive state control. Make that assumption and it's not too hard to marry up "state bad, social conservatism good" in a package. Kind of Singapore, or Thatcherism, if you've only read the Ladybird Book on either topic.
Whether it works well enough for the Republicans to win an election is another matter. But without the votes that Trump uniquely reached, they need to try something...
As a self-styled neo-libertarian, I have found something to agree with HYUFD on. Libertarians by definition cannot be socially conservative.
Thinking about that, someone who regards the family as the basic unit of humanity could be libertarian in the sense of not wanting the state to get involved in any thing to do with the family but pretty socially conservative in how they run their family. I'm aware that that calling that Libertarian is a bit of a stretch though.
My point is that libertarians, at least in my view of the term, think that most social issues fall outside of their political dogma, not that there aren't libertarians who are socially conservative.
The difference between thinking "that is wrong/a sin" and thinking "there should be a law against that" you mean?
For me the pointers are that the Trump coalition is not a winning coalition at the federal level going forwards.
The easier thing for GOP politicians is to cleave to the Trumpsters, because of their enthusiasm. But that is what has driven the ABTs out of the party and has lost the GOP most independents and thus the absolutely essential suburbs.
For me, the way back for the GOP is the painful one. Excise their most passionate supporters, the Trumpsters. Rebuild the center right, win back the suburbs. Regain the trust of women.
To me, this will take at least one more bad election cycle result (2022), which alas is not guaranteed, followed by 4-6 years of rebuilding. It could go faster than that but equally it is not guaranteed to happen at all, but it is my best bet.
On topic: I gaze into the future of the Republican party - not too far, just a couple of years - and I see no Trump or Trumpdom there. What I do see, however and alas, are elements of the MAGA agenda still in the mix.
The million $ puzzle which imo must be solved in order to predict where the party goes is as follows - Of the 73m who voted for Donald Trump what are the approx weightings (adjusted for overlap) for the 4 main categories?
1. Love Trump. Lucky to have him. Helluva guy and a total one off. Just so into everything about the man. 2. Always vote Republican. It's what I am - a Republican. Cut me and I bleed tax cuts & voter suppression. 3. Not big on politics. Only care about the economy. Thought he'd done ok on that. Why change. 4. Trump? Can take him or leave him but I like his hard right national populist rhetoric and policies.
No particular order there except that I've put the last one last for a reason. I think it's the smallest.
Very rough guesses:
1. 10 2. 50 3. 8 4. 5
Although 1 and 4 are largely the same category, if we're being honest.
Much obliged. This is what I'm looking for. Unadorned numbers that I can crunch thro the "Predict the Near Term Future of the GOP" model I've developed (mainly for betting purposes but also to aid my superforecasting and related punditry).
- No bright future for MAGA without Trump. - Republican party v Trump is a mismatch. Party prevails.
Much easier to split the 73, so: 1. 20 2. 45 3. 6 4. 2
That's an interesting one, thanks.
Think we might be saying that the MAGA element - voters who love a bit of hardcore nativist nationalism but are indifferent to the Trump delivery mechanism - is negligible.
So let's drop it and merge me, you, pulpstar, BluestBlue et alia to get -
1. I'm a Republican stupid - 65 2. I'm a Trumpster and I AM stupid - 25 3. It's the economy obvs - 10
Nice clear pointers emerging now.
But what are they?
The problem with that approach of going back to the suburbanites is that (a) they are increasing socially liberal due to college education, (b) are more fickle and so (c) you would have to blow up your base by switching to a more socially liberal / economically right-wing stance in the hope - and it would be no more than a hope - that you can persuade people who deserted you to switch back.
There is another thing here as well. Hispanics, Asian-Americans and Black people, on the whole, tend to be socially conservative. If the Republicans continue to make inroads into the HIspanic vote, then that more than outweighs their losses in the suburbs. Ditch the socially conservative agenda to appeal to suburban types and you have lost that.
If you abandon the cities and the suburbs, you cannot take the House. Period.
Well, the Republicans nearly did.
The tragedy is that the 'rebels' were so exercised at the growing inequalities in income and wealth - and the growing distance between politicians and the people they are supposed to represent - that they turned to a brand of extreme Republicanism that was never likely to want to deliver them any sort of relief.
The big question of our era is why centre-left politicians have proved so unable to put forward a comprehensive platform to rectify the egregious distortions of 21st century society in a way that can carry a majority of sensibly minded voters in the centre of political opinion?
Within our lifetimes, if the centre-left doesn't rise to the challenge of our times, then the future will be left to the extremes.
The simple explanation is that centre-left politicians now spend most of their energy and efforts prioritising culturally liberal stances than the economic concerns that concern most people. I've pointed out here to those that scream racist at Trump voters that a good chunk of them would have voted for Obama in 2008. They didn't care he was Black but they did care about their economic conditions. However, the Democrat party became so embroiled in cultural issues that it dropped the ball on the economic front.
This line of attack might have worked in the past, but it has lost much of its potency given the Democrats' clean sweep in the world's second-largest democracy. And your boy, a poster child for the opposite approach, getting his backside handed to him.
He didn't really get his backside handed to him though did he? Biden won the election by the same number of EV votes as Trump, a victory that we were told at the time was minimal because if only 70K voters had switched sides, Clinton would have won. Only this time, if only 44K (if I remember correctly) had switched sides, Trump would have won. The Democrats nearly lost control of the House. And you have a 50/50 Senate.
And, no, the attack lines are still relevant. It was stupid of Biden et al to use the BLM line last night because it had no relevance in the scheme of things and was done in response to the post on social media showing the response to BLM protests. I pointed out pre-election that the focus on BLM risked driving Hispanics to the GOP, which is one of the few things I got right about November
Surely the argument about Clinton coming close didn't rely so much on the Electoral College vote, which wasn't particularly close as you say and ironically the same as Biden-Trump (ignoring faithless electors), but the popular vote?
So the point is that Clinton had a 3 million vote margin over Trump, but it was very inefficiently distributed so she lost (partly unfortunate for her, partly poor tactics). Whereas Trump had a 7 million vote deficit, which was very efficiently distributed but still left him as far off as Clinton in the Electoral College vote.
It surely isn't controversial that winning the popular vote by 3 million but losing the Electoral College vote by 74 is annoying but provides a reasonably good base for next time, whereas LOSING the popular vote by 7 million and the Electoral College vote by 74 is much more problematic. The illusion is that Trump lost in a squeaker because he scweamed and scweamed and scweamed about it... but that's somewhat misleading.
Now that isn't to say Democrats don't have a problem with how their votes are distributed - they do. But it does mean they were in striking distance in 2016 in a way Republicans aren't now.
It also isn't getting better for the Republicans at the moment in terms of the states they will need to win back in 2024. Georgia is a fairly large state that does now look rather purple and the trends aren't good. Arizona is also now looking pretty blue across the board. The Georgia run-offs means Puerto Rico is quite likely to become a reliably blue state. The rust belt looks better, but arguably Trump had a special blue collar white appeal that it's quite hard to replicate (and, as a reminder, he lost there).
"The illusion is that Trump lost in a squeaker because he scweamed and scweamed and scweamed about it... but that's somewhat misleading."
Indeed, Sir Norfolk, that same point was made by Mitch McConnell in a rather less distinguished forum than this. In the end, the result really wasn't all that close.
Right. Losing 306-232 in the Electoral College and by seven million in the popular vote, and losing the Senate is not a close result. It's a comprehensive beating.
It should be remembered that Trump lost six times: He lost the House He lost the popular vote He lost the White House He lost in court He lost the Senate He lost his mind
All he's got left now is his liberty. I'm hoping for 7 from 7.
For me the pointers are that the Trump coalition is not a winning coalition at the federal level going forwards.
The easier thing for GOP politicians is to cleave to the Trumpsters, because of their enthusiasm. But that is what has driven the ABTs out of the party and has lost the GOP most independents and thus the absolutely essential suburbs.
For me, the way back for the GOP is the painful one. Excise their most passionate supporters, the Trumpsters. Rebuild the center right, win back the suburbs. Regain the trust of women.
To me, this will take at least one more bad election cycle result (2022), which alas is not guaranteed, followed by 4-6 years of rebuilding. It could go faster than that but equally it is not guaranteed to happen at all, but it is my best bet.
This is my view too. Except I think it will not be quite such a long and difficult process. Once Trump is not POTUS, my strong sense is he'll fade quicker than most people think. And given MAGA is so wrapped up with HIM, I think that will too. I see a vibrant young Republican emerging in time for the 24 election and running on a small state, libertarian, socially "trad" ticket. He or she will have the challenge of picking up the deplorables without being deplorable. If they can, they have a decent shot.
You cannot be both libertarian and socially conservative, that is logically impossible
Agreed, though practical politics isn't always logical!
There is a current of thinking that assumes that social conservatism is a state of nature and that all the stuff the liberal left argues for is the aberration, only possible with massive state control. Make that assumption and it's not too hard to marry up "state bad, social conservatism good" in a package. Kind of Singapore, or Thatcherism, if you've only read the Ladybird Book on either topic.
Whether it works well enough for the Republicans to win an election is another matter. But without the votes that Trump uniquely reached, they need to try something...
As a self-styled neo-libertarian, I have found something to agree with HYUFD on. Libertarians by definition cannot be socially conservative.
Thinking about that, someone who regards the family as the basic unit of humanity could be libertarian in the sense of not wanting the state to get involved in any thing to do with the family but pretty socially conservative in how they run their family. I'm aware that that calling that Libertarian is a bit of a stretch though.
My point is that libertarians, at least in my view of the term, think that most social issues fall outside of their political dogma, not that there aren't libertarians who are socially conservative.
The difference between thinking "that is wrong/a sin" and thinking "there should be a law against that" you mean?
Yep. I think that brand of libertarian would hold that natural law provides all that is needed.
Quelle surprise! Everything he and his lying toad of a boss have said on Brexit has turned out to be fantasy . Where is the benefit to this farce? Answer; the only benefit is to Michael Gove, Boris Johnson and a few of their cronies.
The benefit is to the Conservative Party. First working 5 year majority since 1987. With all the donations, patronage and funding that entails. Job done. All else is froth.
For me the pointers are that the Trump coalition is not a winning coalition at the federal level going forwards.
The easier thing for GOP politicians is to cleave to the Trumpsters, because of their enthusiasm. But that is what has driven the ABTs out of the party and has lost the GOP most independents and thus the absolutely essential suburbs.
For me, the way back for the GOP is the painful one. Excise their most passionate supporters, the Trumpsters. Rebuild the center right, win back the suburbs. Regain the trust of women.
To me, this will take at least one more bad election cycle result (2022), which alas is not guaranteed, followed by 4-6 years of rebuilding. It could go faster than that but equally it is not guaranteed to happen at all, but it is my best bet.
On topic: I gaze into the future of the Republican party - not too far, just a couple of years - and I see no Trump or Trumpdom there. What I do see, however and alas, are elements of the MAGA agenda still in the mix.
The million $ puzzle which imo must be solved in order to predict where the party goes is as follows - Of the 73m who voted for Donald Trump what are the approx weightings (adjusted for overlap) for the 4 main categories?
1. Love Trump. Lucky to have him. Helluva guy and a total one off. Just so into everything about the man. 2. Always vote Republican. It's what I am - a Republican. Cut me and I bleed tax cuts & voter suppression. 3. Not big on politics. Only care about the economy. Thought he'd done ok on that. Why change. 4. Trump? Can take him or leave him but I like his hard right national populist rhetoric and policies.
No particular order there except that I've put the last one last for a reason. I think it's the smallest.
Very rough guesses:
1. 10 2. 50 3. 8 4. 5
Although 1 and 4 are largely the same category, if we're being honest.
Much obliged. This is what I'm looking for. Unadorned numbers that I can crunch thro the "Predict the Near Term Future of the GOP" model I've developed (mainly for betting purposes but also to aid my superforecasting and related punditry).
- No bright future for MAGA without Trump. - Republican party v Trump is a mismatch. Party prevails.
Much easier to split the 73, so: 1. 20 2. 45 3. 6 4. 2
That's an interesting one, thanks.
Think we might be saying that the MAGA element - voters who love a bit of hardcore nativist nationalism but are indifferent to the Trump delivery mechanism - is negligible.
So let's drop it and merge me, you, pulpstar, BluestBlue et alia to get -
1. I'm a Republican stupid - 65 2. I'm a Trumpster and I AM stupid - 25 3. It's the economy obvs - 10
Nice clear pointers emerging now.
But what are they?
The problem with that approach of going back to the suburbanites is that (a) they are increasing socially liberal due to college education, (b) are more fickle and so (c) you would have to blow up your base by switching to a more socially liberal / economically right-wing stance in the hope - and it would be no more than a hope - that you can persuade people who deserted you to switch back.
There is another thing here as well. Hispanics, Asian-Americans and Black people, on the whole, tend to be socially conservative. If the Republicans continue to make inroads into the HIspanic vote, then that more than outweighs their losses in the suburbs. Ditch the socially conservative agenda to appeal to suburban types and you have lost that.
If you abandon the cities and the suburbs, you cannot take the House. Period.
Well, the Republicans nearly did.
The tragedy is that the 'rebels' were so exercised at the growing inequalities in income and wealth - and the growing distance between politicians and the people they are supposed to represent - that they turned to a brand of extreme Republicanism that was never likely to want to deliver them any sort of relief.
The big question of our era is why centre-left politicians have proved so unable to put forward a comprehensive platform to rectify the egregious distortions of 21st century society in a way that can carry a majority of sensibly minded voters in the centre of political opinion?
Within our lifetimes, if the centre-left doesn't rise to the challenge of our times, then the future will be left to the extremes.
The simple explanation is that centre-left politicians now spend most of their energy and efforts prioritising culturally liberal stances than the economic concerns that concern most people. I've pointed out here to those that scream racist at Trump voters that a good chunk of them would have voted for Obama in 2008. They didn't care he was Black but they did care about their economic conditions. However, the Democrat party became so embroiled in cultural issues that it dropped the ball on the economic front.
This line of attack might have worked in the past, but it has lost much of its potency given the Democrats' clean sweep in the world's second-largest democracy. And your boy, a poster child for the opposite approach, getting his backside handed to him.
He didn't really get his backside handed to him though did he? Biden won the election by the same number of EV votes as Trump, a victory that we were told at the time was minimal because if only 70K voters had switched sides, Clinton would have won. Only this time, if only 44K (if I remember correctly) had switched sides, Trump would have won. The Democrats nearly lost control of the House. And you have a 50/50 Senate.
And, no, the attack lines are still relevant. It was stupid of Biden et al to use the BLM line last night because it had no relevance in the scheme of things and was done in response to the post on social media showing the response to BLM protests. I pointed out pre-election that the focus on BLM risked driving Hispanics to the GOP, which is one of the few things I got right about November
I did the maths on this. Trump would have won 270 v 269 if he had taken Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia.
To win those states he would have needed 10371 voters to vote the other way in Wisconsin, 5228 in Arizona and 5889 in Georgia.
So, adding these, 21459 votes the other way (apportioned in the correct states) would have given Trump victory.
(Happy for someone to check my maths.)
It shows how close this election really was. If it wasn`t for the pox Trump would have won.
That's also a very good point for whether Trumpism has any future or not. There is a strong argument for saying that this election is a one-off given the impact of Covid and its economic effects.
If we had a "normal" election, i.e. where Covid hadn't happened, how many on here are confident - and would have put money on it - that Biden would have won?
For me the pointers are that the Trump coalition is not a winning coalition at the federal level going forwards.
The easier thing for GOP politicians is to cleave to the Trumpsters, because of their enthusiasm. But that is what has driven the ABTs out of the party and has lost the GOP most independents and thus the absolutely essential suburbs.
For me, the way back for the GOP is the painful one. Excise their most passionate supporters, the Trumpsters. Rebuild the center right, win back the suburbs. Regain the trust of women.
To me, this will take at least one more bad election cycle result (2022), which alas is not guaranteed, followed by 4-6 years of rebuilding. It could go faster than that but equally it is not guaranteed to happen at all, but it is my best bet.
On topic: I gaze into the future of the Republican party - not too far, just a couple of years - and I see no Trump or Trumpdom there. What I do see, however and alas, are elements of the MAGA agenda still in the mix.
The million $ puzzle which imo must be solved in order to predict where the party goes is as follows - Of the 73m who voted for Donald Trump what are the approx weightings (adjusted for overlap) for the 4 main categories?
1. Love Trump. Lucky to have him. Helluva guy and a total one off. Just so into everything about the man. 2. Always vote Republican. It's what I am - a Republican. Cut me and I bleed tax cuts & voter suppression. 3. Not big on politics. Only care about the economy. Thought he'd done ok on that. Why change. 4. Trump? Can take him or leave him but I like his hard right national populist rhetoric and policies.
No particular order there except that I've put the last one last for a reason. I think it's the smallest.
Very rough guesses:
1. 10 2. 50 3. 8 4. 5
Although 1 and 4 are largely the same category, if we're being honest.
Much obliged. This is what I'm looking for. Unadorned numbers that I can crunch thro the "Predict the Near Term Future of the GOP" model I've developed (mainly for betting purposes but also to aid my superforecasting and related punditry).
- No bright future for MAGA without Trump. - Republican party v Trump is a mismatch. Party prevails.
Much easier to split the 73, so: 1. 20 2. 45 3. 6 4. 2
That's an interesting one, thanks.
Think we might be saying that the MAGA element - voters who love a bit of hardcore nativist nationalism but are indifferent to the Trump delivery mechanism - is negligible.
So let's drop it and merge me, you, pulpstar, BluestBlue et alia to get -
1. I'm a Republican stupid - 65 2. I'm a Trumpster and I AM stupid - 25 3. It's the economy obvs - 10
Nice clear pointers emerging now.
But what are they?
The problem with that approach of going back to the suburbanites is that (a) they are increasing socially liberal due to college education, (b) are more fickle and so (c) you would have to blow up your base by switching to a more socially liberal / economically right-wing stance in the hope - and it would be no more than a hope - that you can persuade people who deserted you to switch back.
There is another thing here as well. Hispanics, Asian-Americans and Black people, on the whole, tend to be socially conservative. If the Republicans continue to make inroads into the HIspanic vote, then that more than outweighs their losses in the suburbs. Ditch the socially conservative agenda to appeal to suburban types and you have lost that.
If you abandon the cities and the suburbs, you cannot take the House. Period.
Well, the Republicans nearly did.
The tragedy is that the 'rebels' were so exercised at the growing inequalities in income and wealth - and the growing distance between politicians and the people they are supposed to represent - that they turned to a brand of extreme Republicanism that was never likely to want to deliver them any sort of relief.
The big question of our era is why centre-left politicians have proved so unable to put forward a comprehensive platform to rectify the egregious distortions of 21st century society in a way that can carry a majority of sensibly minded voters in the centre of political opinion?
Within our lifetimes, if the centre-left doesn't rise to the challenge of our times, then the future will be left to the extremes.
The simple explanation is that centre-left politicians now spend most of their energy and efforts prioritising culturally liberal stances than the economic concerns that concern most people. I've pointed out here to those that scream racist at Trump voters that a good chunk of them would have voted for Obama in 2008. They didn't care he was Black but they did care about their economic conditions. However, the Democrat party became so embroiled in cultural issues that it dropped the ball on the economic front.
This line of attack might have worked in the past, but it has lost much of its potency given the Democrats' clean sweep in the world's second-largest democracy. And your boy, a poster child for the opposite approach, getting his backside handed to him.
He didn't really get his backside handed to him though did he? Biden won the election by the same number of EV votes as Trump, a victory that we were told at the time was minimal because if only 70K voters had switched sides, Clinton would have won. Only this time, if only 44K (if I remember correctly) had switched sides, Trump would have won. The Democrats nearly lost control of the House. And you have a 50/50 Senate.
And, no, the attack lines are still relevant. It was stupid of Biden et al to use the BLM line last night because it had no relevance in the scheme of things and was done in response to the post on social media showing the response to BLM protests. I pointed out pre-election that the focus on BLM risked driving Hispanics to the GOP, which is one of the few things I got right about November
I did the maths on this. Trump would have won 270 v 269 if he had taken Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia.
To win those states he would have needed 10371 voters to vote the other way in Wisconsin, 5228 in Arizona and 5889 in Georgia.
So, adding these, 21459 votes the other way (apportioned in the correct states) would have given Trump victory.
(Happy for someone to check my maths.)
It shows how close this election really was. If it wasn`t for the pox Trump would have won.
I don't really agree with the metric of "take the majority in the closest states" as a sensible metric of closeness. I recall it being used in 1992 in particular here in the UK, and also in 2017. It cheers people up after defeat to say "we only need to win over a few thousand people" but it misses the bigger picture. The fact is Trump would've needed at least three states he failed to win, and that in an election where he'd actually achieved a really efficient vote distribution.
I see merit in "if it weren't for the pox" but also think that's a more complex counterfactual than that suggests. This would have been a very different campaign, possibly with a different Democrat candidate, and certainly with a different strategy, in another year. The Biden campaign reasoned, correctly as it turns out, that a low volatility campaign with a man hiding in a basement was the best way to play the hand 2020 dealt everyone. But he's actually a very good, empathetic, old skool glad-hander if the campaign had been that sort of thing.
Trump would still have been Trump, and there is still a good proportion of people who are fatigued and plain don't like him as 2018 suggested. I do tend to agree he'd probably have got over the line, but he was less healthy than most incumbents seeking reelection before the virus came.
For me the pointers are that the Trump coalition is not a winning coalition at the federal level going forwards.
The easier thing for GOP politicians is to cleave to the Trumpsters, because of their enthusiasm. But that is what has driven the ABTs out of the party and has lost the GOP most independents and thus the absolutely essential suburbs.
For me, the way back for the GOP is the painful one. Excise their most passionate supporters, the Trumpsters. Rebuild the center right, win back the suburbs. Regain the trust of women.
To me, this will take at least one more bad election cycle result (2022), which alas is not guaranteed, followed by 4-6 years of rebuilding. It could go faster than that but equally it is not guaranteed to happen at all, but it is my best bet.
On topic: I gaze into the future of the Republican party - not too far, just a couple of years - and I see no Trump or Trumpdom there. What I do see, however and alas, are elements of the MAGA agenda still in the mix.
The million $ puzzle which imo must be solved in order to predict where the party goes is as follows - Of the 73m who voted for Donald Trump what are the approx weightings (adjusted for overlap) for the 4 main categories?
1. Love Trump. Lucky to have him. Helluva guy and a total one off. Just so into everything about the man. 2. Always vote Republican. It's what I am - a Republican. Cut me and I bleed tax cuts & voter suppression. 3. Not big on politics. Only care about the economy. Thought he'd done ok on that. Why change. 4. Trump? Can take him or leave him but I like his hard right national populist rhetoric and policies.
No particular order there except that I've put the last one last for a reason. I think it's the smallest.
Very rough guesses:
1. 10 2. 50 3. 8 4. 5
Although 1 and 4 are largely the same category, if we're being honest.
Much obliged. This is what I'm looking for. Unadorned numbers that I can crunch thro the "Predict the Near Term Future of the GOP" model I've developed (mainly for betting purposes but also to aid my superforecasting and related punditry).
- No bright future for MAGA without Trump. - Republican party v Trump is a mismatch. Party prevails.
Much easier to split the 73, so: 1. 20 2. 45 3. 6 4. 2
That's an interesting one, thanks.
Think we might be saying that the MAGA element - voters who love a bit of hardcore nativist nationalism but are indifferent to the Trump delivery mechanism - is negligible.
So let's drop it and merge me, you, pulpstar, BluestBlue et alia to get -
1. I'm a Republican stupid - 65 2. I'm a Trumpster and I AM stupid - 25 3. It's the economy obvs - 10
Nice clear pointers emerging now.
But what are they?
The problem with that approach of going back to the suburbanites is that (a) they are increasing socially liberal due to college education, (b) are more fickle and so (c) you would have to blow up your base by switching to a more socially liberal / economically right-wing stance in the hope - and it would be no more than a hope - that you can persuade people who deserted you to switch back.
There is another thing here as well. Hispanics, Asian-Americans and Black people, on the whole, tend to be socially conservative. If the Republicans continue to make inroads into the HIspanic vote, then that more than outweighs their losses in the suburbs. Ditch the socially conservative agenda to appeal to suburban types and you have lost that.
If you abandon the cities and the suburbs, you cannot take the House. Period.
Well, the Republicans nearly did.
The tragedy is that the 'rebels' were so exercised at the growing inequalities in income and wealth - and the growing distance between politicians and the people they are supposed to represent - that they turned to a brand of extreme Republicanism that was never likely to want to deliver them any sort of relief.
The big question of our era is why centre-left politicians have proved so unable to put forward a comprehensive platform to rectify the egregious distortions of 21st century society in a way that can carry a majority of sensibly minded voters in the centre of political opinion?
Within our lifetimes, if the centre-left doesn't rise to the challenge of our times, then the future will be left to the extremes.
Indeed, one of the most powerful pieces of evidence available to the GOP in elections is the abject failure of cities that have been in the hands of Democratic politicians for decades. Now, it may be that the GOP would have failed equally, because the issues have to do with the concept of cities themselves, rather than with who is in power. But it is still a very strong selling point for the GOP.
By what metric are you measuring "failure"? Cities tend to be much more economically successful than rural areas, for reasons that are quite beyond which party is in control of either.
Maybe you meant something different to the economy, though.
I did not say all cities. I said "the abject failure of cities that have been in the hands of Democratic politicians for decades", so not even all cities that have been in Democratic hands throughout, but the ones that have failed. Detroit, Cleveland, Baltimore (although some recent improvements here), for example, are all cited frequently, and gain traction as examples. In some respects, Chicago.
While some major cities can claim to have been successful economically on a macro level, that is to hide the vast disparity of how that wealth is distributed, both socially and geographically within the cities. Just because a city's economic numbers are doing well, does not mean that all is well. In some areas of NYC, you cannot find fresh fruit and vegetables to buy. Is that you idea of success?
I should perhaps add that the Dems could make the same argument about the failure of GOP policies in the Appalachias and the Deep South, where the GOP has held all the levers of power for some time.
The problems of the Big Cities are often at least partly the result of success. San Francisco and Seattle are unliveable in, because the cost of a single room has probably increased four-fold in the last decade.
SoMa in SF used to be a complete shit hole, where you could rent a room for $350-400/month. Now, you'd be lucky to get one for $1,600, but at least there's decent Internet.
That's made things worse for the urban poor: yes, you may have a job at McDonalds, but it doesn't give you much spending money any more. And you're probably commuting in from way, way out. Or you're homeless.
Jonathan Van Tam went for a curry on same day Boris Johnson told Londoners to avoid restaurants due to Covid risk - then claimed the £21.77 meal on the taxpayer
There's a lot of variation within the EU. Germany is doing good and France is doing bad, as we all know, but it goes deeper than that. Take Ireland, for instance. They've vaccinated just 15,000 people. Poor start. And as for the Dutch...
Jonathan Van Tam went for a curry on same day Boris Johnson told Londoners to avoid restaurants due to Covid risk - then claimed the £21.77 meal on the taxpayer
For me the pointers are that the Trump coalition is not a winning coalition at the federal level going forwards.
The easier thing for GOP politicians is to cleave to the Trumpsters, because of their enthusiasm. But that is what has driven the ABTs out of the party and has lost the GOP most independents and thus the absolutely essential suburbs.
For me, the way back for the GOP is the painful one. Excise their most passionate supporters, the Trumpsters. Rebuild the center right, win back the suburbs. Regain the trust of women.
To me, this will take at least one more bad election cycle result (2022), which alas is not guaranteed, followed by 4-6 years of rebuilding. It could go faster than that but equally it is not guaranteed to happen at all, but it is my best bet.
This is my view too. Except I think it will not be quite such a long and difficult process. Once Trump is not POTUS, my strong sense is he'll fade quicker than most people think. And given MAGA is so wrapped up with HIM, I think that will too. I see a vibrant young Republican emerging in time for the 24 election and running on a small state, libertarian, socially "trad" ticket. He or she will have the challenge of picking up the deplorables without being deplorable. If they can, they have a decent shot.
You cannot be both libertarian and socially conservative, that is logically impossible
Agreed, though practical politics isn't always logical!
There is a current of thinking that assumes that social conservatism is a state of nature and that all the stuff the liberal left argues for is the aberration, only possible with massive state control. Make that assumption and it's not too hard to marry up "state bad, social conservatism good" in a package. Kind of Singapore, or Thatcherism, if you've only read the Ladybird Book on either topic.
Whether it works well enough for the Republicans to win an election is another matter. But without the votes that Trump uniquely reached, they need to try something...
As a self-styled neo-libertarian, I have found something to agree with HYUFD on. Libertarians by definition cannot be socially conservative.
FPT - nuclear weapons exist to level the playing field against those with massive conventional forces, that we couldn't hope to match, and to deter nuclear blackmail against us by nuclear armed powers.
I know others have equally strong views on this, but count me out from the unilateralists please. It's an ultimate insurance policy that I'm happy to have - and pay for - and helps me sleep soundly at night.
You could sleep soundly at night if you'd paid to be surrounded by a battalion of Grenadier Guards to keep burglars out. But if it meant your children went hungry....?
There is a huge amount of "whataboutery" supporting the UK having nuclear weapons. Would someone like to give me an actual, real life, certifiable example of when they have given me cause to sleep more soundly at night?
Where my slumbers are qualitatively better is the knowledge that some ISIS commander or some Al Qaeda financier is being lit up for delivery of a smart bomb by a special forces guy in the shadows, who has the use of the latest array of technology to call upon.
I'd be very happy for the UK to be known as providing those people the bad guys should lose sleep over. Be the go-to place for the brightest and best fighting men in the world. Hell, I'd pay top dollar to recruit some of the Foreign Legion special forces guys into the team. They were some of the best close protection I've used (and that includes having used a guy from the Bravo 2 Zero patrol).
The ability to insert these into any country - and then safely extract them - would be an ultimate expression of power. And a much more effective use of defence money than the umpteen billions spent having no more than one Trident submarine on patrol at any one time.
Well, our children aren't going hungry. The cost of a few billion a year is easily absorbable within our massive government budget of many hundreds of billions. So I don't think that's a real choice. And I think the safety payback we get for it (in terms of a safe and secure space for economic growth and trade) is worth it.
I can't speak for how you sleep at night but I certainly think they are deterring Russia from taking more serious action over the Baltic States (NATO members) and also China over Taiwan. They were also useful in the first Gulf War in convincing Saddam Hussein not to use chemical or biological weapons. Of course it's difficult to prove a counterfactual where they made *the* difference - the decisive difference - because they are a strategic deterrent, not a tactical one, and such confrontations are rare precisely because they do exist. When that fails they are part of a diplomatic and military deterrent toolkit of why things don't escalate as far as they could.
I agree with you on special forces and on smart weapons. They are essential too. But I wouldn't eliminate our strategic deterrent. I think that'd be dangerous.
I'm more in the @Casino_Royale camp here. I would not wanting to be relying on the "goodwill" of China and Russia not to use their nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear UK in the case of a dispute.
But here we enter the realms of whether we would be allowed to use Trident in that event, or whether we'd find that the system had been (wisely imho) disabled by a higher power.
If you were America, and Britain got itself into a nuclear conflict with a third party, and you had the ability to shut the system down, would you do it? Or would you just let them go ahead with it in case they asked for a refund? It isn't an independent deterrent. Everyone (including Russia and China) is aware of that fact.
It'sd not as if they were Blue Streak missiles launched from North Norfolk silos which could be traced back to the perpetrators. A SLBM is by definition untraceable and launchable from any wet bit on the map within range, and what's a chap to think if Trident-type trajectories come at him?
There is no US "off switch" for Trident. The claims that there are seem to be of the "but there must be" variety.
And claims that there is no 'off switch' are of the 'but there couldn't be' variety. I respect your experience in various fields, but by definition, being party to US nuclear secrets isn't one of them. So logic is really all we have to go on.
Which ally of Britain would you sell independent strategic nukes to by the way? Which country would you happily sell the ability to use British technology to wipe out other countries at will? - Exactly.
Is your point that - certainly at the time Trident was set up - the answer was "the United States of America"?
No. My point is that there is no other country, however loyal, however much a staunch ally, to which one Government could sensibly give/sell/or rent the ability to destroy other countries at a button press, on 'free-for-all' basis. You would need appropriate checks and balances.
It is a matter of public record that without American support, Trident would be out of commission within weeks. I also believe that we could not use it independently in the immediate term without America's express permission. The fact that the last time we tried to hit a target 'off the West coast of Africa', the missile veered off course and went in the direction of America, if it doesn't provide corroboration for this, at least indicates that once a target is identified and put in by UK forces firing it, the missile has the ability to change its course and follow an alternative route.
What on earth is your argument here? That we performed a routine test fire, forgot to warn the US, and the Pentagon panicked and hit the emergency override button?
Seems much more likely it was a genuine malfunction, no?
I would prefer to leave theories to one side and stick to what we can conclusively prove from the event - that the missile can change its course mid-flight, regardless of the instructions given it when fired.
It didn't "change course". It went off course. There is a huge difference.
Actually there is no difference at all between those two statements. When something goes off course, by definition it changes its course.
'Veering' and 'going off course' is just a way of expressing this that makes it sound like it blew a gasket or got hit by a stray seagull, and was a comforting British cock up (if a nuclear cock up can be comforting). All we actually know, is that it changed its course - that where we asked it to go, was not where it went.
Um. No.
If I set out to drive from London to Manchester, and change my mind halfway through the journey and head towards Liverpool, I've changed course. If I lose control of the vehicle and end up embedded in a tree, I've gone off course. The former is deliberate, the latter isn't. You are alleging that the official story (the latter) is wrong, with zero evidence to support it, and have somehow leapt from there to some bizarre conspiracy theory about US off switches.
Prefacing something with 'um' doesn't strengthen your argument I'm afraid. I haven't 'leapt' anywhere, I have explicitly declined to do this and I am merely sticking to the un-glossed facts. The missile changed its course.
In your example of losing control and becoming embedded in a tree, you still changed course. You are indisputably wrong in terms of the English language there.
However, more interestingly, you seem determined to use a form of words that implies some form of mechanical failure and the missile belly flopping into the ocean. The fact that it is known to have gone toward America means that it didn't do this - it traveled on its new course for some time. In other words, it was heading toward Manchester, and it changed course to Liverpool.
Surprised he has organized a "real" inauguration for the winner from only legal votes.
Without the riot I am sure he would have (or without anyone dying in the riots, he may not have intended it to be so successful at getting into the building, and piss off even a few Republicans).
Interesting remarks from Guernsey CMO at fortnightly briefing. We've had one case of the B.117 COVID - arriving traveller. Who then went on to infect the other 4 members of the household who they were in quarantine with. Since moving to "mandatory test at Day 14, or self quarantine to Day 21" acceptance of the 14 day test has jumped from 80% to 99%. Guernsey has now banned all non-essential travel. Also discussion of "Why can't (my) special group (teachers/cabin crew/etc.) go up the priority list?" For every group you move up the priority list, you move another group down - and the JCVI list is prioritised by disease morbidity - which she strongly supports. No decision yet on whether to extend time to second dose - they're looking at it (and with 5 cases in total have a luxury the UK does not) - but hints that they may do from Group 3 onwards.
There's a lot of variation within the EU. Germany is doing good and France is doing bad, as we all know, but it goes deeper than that. Take Ireland, for instance. They've vaccinated just 15,000 people. Poor start. And as for the Dutch...
Israel have vaccinated nearly 20% of their population.
That is remarkable, and if people cannot copy them exactly should be doing all they can to copy it as much as possible.
Their advantages -
- Small country. So you can easily centralise vaccination, and still have people walk there - Small amounts of vaccine required - UK actual vaccination numbers is comparable, but goes a long way there - entire population has served in the military, national threat stuff, air raid drills etc - so population used to emergency-everyone-must-do-x - deep respect for science.
For me the pointers are that the Trump coalition is not a winning coalition at the federal level going forwards.
The easier thing for GOP politicians is to cleave to the Trumpsters, because of their enthusiasm. But that is what has driven the ABTs out of the party and has lost the GOP most independents and thus the absolutely essential suburbs.
For me, the way back for the GOP is the painful one. Excise their most passionate supporters, the Trumpsters. Rebuild the center right, win back the suburbs. Regain the trust of women.
To me, this will take at least one more bad election cycle result (2022), which alas is not guaranteed, followed by 4-6 years of rebuilding. It could go faster than that but equally it is not guaranteed to happen at all, but it is my best bet.
On topic: I gaze into the future of the Republican party - not too far, just a couple of years - and I see no Trump or Trumpdom there. What I do see, however and alas, are elements of the MAGA agenda still in the mix.
The million $ puzzle which imo must be solved in order to predict where the party goes is as follows - Of the 73m who voted for Donald Trump what are the approx weightings (adjusted for overlap) for the 4 main categories?
1. Love Trump. Lucky to have him. Helluva guy and a total one off. Just so into everything about the man. 2. Always vote Republican. It's what I am - a Republican. Cut me and I bleed tax cuts & voter suppression. 3. Not big on politics. Only care about the economy. Thought he'd done ok on that. Why change. 4. Trump? Can take him or leave him but I like his hard right national populist rhetoric and policies.
No particular order there except that I've put the last one last for a reason. I think it's the smallest.
Very rough guesses:
1. 10 2. 50 3. 8 4. 5
Although 1 and 4 are largely the same category, if we're being honest.
Much obliged. This is what I'm looking for. Unadorned numbers that I can crunch thro the "Predict the Near Term Future of the GOP" model I've developed (mainly for betting purposes but also to aid my superforecasting and related punditry).
- No bright future for MAGA without Trump. - Republican party v Trump is a mismatch. Party prevails.
Much easier to split the 73, so: 1. 20 2. 45 3. 6 4. 2
That's an interesting one, thanks.
Think we might be saying that the MAGA element - voters who love a bit of hardcore nativist nationalism but are indifferent to the Trump delivery mechanism - is negligible.
So let's drop it and merge me, you, pulpstar, BluestBlue et alia to get -
1. I'm a Republican stupid - 65 2. I'm a Trumpster and I AM stupid - 25 3. It's the economy obvs - 10
Nice clear pointers emerging now.
But what are they?
The problem with that approach of going back to the suburbanites is that (a) they are increasing socially liberal due to college education, (b) are more fickle and so (c) you would have to blow up your base by switching to a more socially liberal / economically right-wing stance in the hope - and it would be no more than a hope - that you can persuade people who deserted you to switch back.
There is another thing here as well. Hispanics, Asian-Americans and Black people, on the whole, tend to be socially conservative. If the Republicans continue to make inroads into the HIspanic vote, then that more than outweighs their losses in the suburbs. Ditch the socially conservative agenda to appeal to suburban types and you have lost that.
If you abandon the cities and the suburbs, you cannot take the House. Period.
Well, the Republicans nearly did.
The tragedy is that the 'rebels' were so exercised at the growing inequalities in income and wealth - and the growing distance between politicians and the people they are supposed to represent - that they turned to a brand of extreme Republicanism that was never likely to want to deliver them any sort of relief.
The big question of our era is why centre-left politicians have proved so unable to put forward a comprehensive platform to rectify the egregious distortions of 21st century society in a way that can carry a majority of sensibly minded voters in the centre of political opinion?
Within our lifetimes, if the centre-left doesn't rise to the challenge of our times, then the future will be left to the extremes.
The simple explanation is that centre-left politicians now spend most of their energy and efforts prioritising culturally liberal stances than the economic concerns that concern most people. I've pointed out here to those that scream racist at Trump voters that a good chunk of them would have voted for Obama in 2008. They didn't care he was Black but they did care about their economic conditions. However, the Democrat party became so embroiled in cultural issues that it dropped the ball on the economic front.
This line of attack might have worked in the past, but it has lost much of its potency given the Democrats' clean sweep in the world's second-largest democracy. And your boy, a poster child for the opposite approach, getting his backside handed to him.
He didn't really get his backside handed to him though did he? Biden won the election by the same number of EV votes as Trump, a victory that we were told at the time was minimal because if only 70K voters had switched sides, Clinton would have won. Only this time, if only 44K (if I remember correctly) had switched sides, Trump would have won. The Democrats nearly lost control of the House. And you have a 50/50 Senate.
And, no, the attack lines are still relevant. It was stupid of Biden et al to use the BLM line last night because it had no relevance in the scheme of things and was done in response to the post on social media showing the response to BLM protests. I pointed out pre-election that the focus on BLM risked driving Hispanics to the GOP, which is one of the few things I got right about November
I did the maths on this. Trump would have won 270 v 269 if he had taken Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia.
To win those states he would have needed 10371 voters to vote the other way in Wisconsin, 5228 in Arizona and 5889 in Georgia.
So, adding these, 21459 votes the other way (apportioned in the correct states) would have given Trump victory.
(Happy for someone to check my maths.)
It shows how close this election really was. If it wasn`t for the pox Trump would have won.
That's also a very good point for whether Trumpism has any future or not. There is a strong argument for saying that this election is a one-off given the impact of Covid and its economic effects.
If we had a "normal" election, i.e. where Covid hadn't happened, how many on here are confident - and would have put money on it - that Biden would have won?
It wasn't the fact that Covid "happened" that did for Trump it was the way he handled it that finished him.
"We have already secured an amount of doses that we need to vaccinate 380 million Europeans, and this is more than 80% of the European population [of 450 million people]," Mrs von der Leyen said.
She said other vaccine authorisations were expected in the coming weeks and months, so "Europe will have more than enough vaccine within a reliable timeframe".
She said the commission had taken the right course of action on vaccines.
"I'm convinced that when we look back at this one day we'll see, well yes, at the beginning, there was a bumpy road [but] well, that's always the case."
It's just ridiculous. They got it wrong, they should just admit it.
In her 380 million doses is she counting vaccines like Sanofi that haven't completed PIII trials and may not even end up getting approval?
No I think they now have deals in place with Pfizer and Moderna for that many. But they are back of the queue....well not front of it. So a lot of it is coming Q2, Q3, Q4 and beyond.
That's right: the EU started incredibly slowly, but has improved. (And it is very important not to "count chickens" here, until we know final results...)
But, my gut is that Israel and a few small states really knocked the ball out of the park.
The UK, Japan and Canada did an excellent job.
The US has been reasonably good, the EU has been worse than the US (albeit not by a huge margin).
And developing countries have been an utter disaster zone.
There's a lot of variation within the EU. Germany is doing good and France is doing bad, as we all know, but it goes deeper than that. Take Ireland, for instance. They've vaccinated just 15,000 people. Poor start. And as for the Dutch...
When our vaccine programme is firing on all cylinders, I think helping ROI is a priority. I think it will happen naturally anyway with the crossover there is in NI.
As someone who has a stretch 2021 prediction in the bank that UK vaccination will be wound down around May (albeit quietly) due to getting through the initial list, very low incidence and doubts about the duration of protection, I'd be very glad to see us helping others, though I think by the time we're ready to do that massively, Ireland will be OK too and the help needed will be farther afield.
For me the pointers are that the Trump coalition is not a winning coalition at the federal level going forwards.
The easier thing for GOP politicians is to cleave to the Trumpsters, because of their enthusiasm. But that is what has driven the ABTs out of the party and has lost the GOP most independents and thus the absolutely essential suburbs.
For me, the way back for the GOP is the painful one. Excise their most passionate supporters, the Trumpsters. Rebuild the center right, win back the suburbs. Regain the trust of women.
To me, this will take at least one more bad election cycle result (2022), which alas is not guaranteed, followed by 4-6 years of rebuilding. It could go faster than that but equally it is not guaranteed to happen at all, but it is my best bet.
On topic: I gaze into the future of the Republican party - not too far, just a couple of years - and I see no Trump or Trumpdom there. What I do see, however and alas, are elements of the MAGA agenda still in the mix.
The million $ puzzle which imo must be solved in order to predict where the party goes is as follows - Of the 73m who voted for Donald Trump what are the approx weightings (adjusted for overlap) for the 4 main categories?
1. Love Trump. Lucky to have him. Helluva guy and a total one off. Just so into everything about the man. 2. Always vote Republican. It's what I am - a Republican. Cut me and I bleed tax cuts & voter suppression. 3. Not big on politics. Only care about the economy. Thought he'd done ok on that. Why change. 4. Trump? Can take him or leave him but I like his hard right national populist rhetoric and policies.
No particular order there except that I've put the last one last for a reason. I think it's the smallest.
Very rough guesses:
1. 10 2. 50 3. 8 4. 5
Although 1 and 4 are largely the same category, if we're being honest.
Much obliged. This is what I'm looking for. Unadorned numbers that I can crunch thro the "Predict the Near Term Future of the GOP" model I've developed (mainly for betting purposes but also to aid my superforecasting and related punditry).
- No bright future for MAGA without Trump. - Republican party v Trump is a mismatch. Party prevails.
Much easier to split the 73, so: 1. 20 2. 45 3. 6 4. 2
That's an interesting one, thanks.
Think we might be saying that the MAGA element - voters who love a bit of hardcore nativist nationalism but are indifferent to the Trump delivery mechanism - is negligible.
So let's drop it and merge me, you, pulpstar, BluestBlue et alia to get -
1. I'm a Republican stupid - 65 2. I'm a Trumpster and I AM stupid - 25 3. It's the economy obvs - 10
Nice clear pointers emerging now.
But what are they?
The problem with that approach of going back to the suburbanites is that (a) they are increasing socially liberal due to college education, (b) are more fickle and so (c) you would have to blow up your base by switching to a more socially liberal / economically right-wing stance in the hope - and it would be no more than a hope - that you can persuade people who deserted you to switch back.
There is another thing here as well. Hispanics, Asian-Americans and Black people, on the whole, tend to be socially conservative. If the Republicans continue to make inroads into the HIspanic vote, then that more than outweighs their losses in the suburbs. Ditch the socially conservative agenda to appeal to suburban types and you have lost that.
If you abandon the cities and the suburbs, you cannot take the House. Period.
Well, the Republicans nearly did.
The tragedy is that the 'rebels' were so exercised at the growing inequalities in income and wealth - and the growing distance between politicians and the people they are supposed to represent - that they turned to a brand of extreme Republicanism that was never likely to want to deliver them any sort of relief.
The big question of our era is why centre-left politicians have proved so unable to put forward a comprehensive platform to rectify the egregious distortions of 21st century society in a way that can carry a majority of sensibly minded voters in the centre of political opinion?
Within our lifetimes, if the centre-left doesn't rise to the challenge of our times, then the future will be left to the extremes.
The simple explanation is that centre-left politicians now spend most of their energy and efforts prioritising culturally liberal stances than the economic concerns that concern most people. I've pointed out here to those that scream racist at Trump voters that a good chunk of them would have voted for Obama in 2008. They didn't care he was Black but they did care about their economic conditions. However, the Democrat party became so embroiled in cultural issues that it dropped the ball on the economic front.
This line of attack might have worked in the past, but it has lost much of its potency given the Democrats' clean sweep in the world's second-largest democracy. And your boy, a poster child for the opposite approach, getting his backside handed to him.
He didn't really get his backside handed to him though did he? Biden won the election by the same number of EV votes as Trump, a victory that we were told at the time was minimal because if only 70K voters had switched sides, Clinton would have won. Only this time, if only 44K (if I remember correctly) had switched sides, Trump would have won. The Democrats nearly lost control of the House. And you have a 50/50 Senate.
And, no, the attack lines are still relevant. It was stupid of Biden et al to use the BLM line last night because it had no relevance in the scheme of things and was done in response to the post on social media showing the response to BLM protests. I pointed out pre-election that the focus on BLM risked driving Hispanics to the GOP, which is one of the few things I got right about November
I did the maths on this. Trump would have won 270 v 269 if he had taken Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia.
To win those states he would have needed 10371 voters to vote the other way in Wisconsin, 5228 in Arizona and 5889 in Georgia.
So, adding these, 21459 votes the other way (apportioned in the correct states) would have given Trump victory.
(Happy for someone to check my maths.)
It shows how close this election really was. If it wasn`t for the pox Trump would have won.
That's also a very good point for whether Trumpism has any future or not. There is a strong argument for saying that this election is a one-off given the impact of Covid and its economic effects.
If we had a "normal" election, i.e. where Covid hadn't happened, how many on here are confident - and would have put money on it - that Biden would have won?
If Covid hadn't happened, I think 2020 would have been a repeat of 2016, where Trump won the electoral college, but lost the popular vote.
But it is worth remembering that Trump - while Trump got "close-ish" in 2020, he still manged to get two of the lowest three percentages of a major party candidate this Millennium.
Think about that: there have been six elections, with twelve major party vote shares. And Trump only managed to beat McCain, who was standing as a Republican immediately after the GFC.
Trump - both times - scored less than Romney or Kerry.
For me the pointers are that the Trump coalition is not a winning coalition at the federal level going forwards.
The easier thing for GOP politicians is to cleave to the Trumpsters, because of their enthusiasm. But that is what has driven the ABTs out of the party and has lost the GOP most independents and thus the absolutely essential suburbs.
For me, the way back for the GOP is the painful one. Excise their most passionate supporters, the Trumpsters. Rebuild the center right, win back the suburbs. Regain the trust of women.
To me, this will take at least one more bad election cycle result (2022), which alas is not guaranteed, followed by 4-6 years of rebuilding. It could go faster than that but equally it is not guaranteed to happen at all, but it is my best bet.
On topic: I gaze into the future of the Republican party - not too far, just a couple of years - and I see no Trump or Trumpdom there. What I do see, however and alas, are elements of the MAGA agenda still in the mix.
The million $ puzzle which imo must be solved in order to predict where the party goes is as follows - Of the 73m who voted for Donald Trump what are the approx weightings (adjusted for overlap) for the 4 main categories?
1. Love Trump. Lucky to have him. Helluva guy and a total one off. Just so into everything about the man. 2. Always vote Republican. It's what I am - a Republican. Cut me and I bleed tax cuts & voter suppression. 3. Not big on politics. Only care about the economy. Thought he'd done ok on that. Why change. 4. Trump? Can take him or leave him but I like his hard right national populist rhetoric and policies.
No particular order there except that I've put the last one last for a reason. I think it's the smallest.
Very rough guesses:
1. 10 2. 50 3. 8 4. 5
Although 1 and 4 are largely the same category, if we're being honest.
Much obliged. This is what I'm looking for. Unadorned numbers that I can crunch thro the "Predict the Near Term Future of the GOP" model I've developed (mainly for betting purposes but also to aid my superforecasting and related punditry).
- No bright future for MAGA without Trump. - Republican party v Trump is a mismatch. Party prevails.
Much easier to split the 73, so: 1. 20 2. 45 3. 6 4. 2
That's an interesting one, thanks.
Think we might be saying that the MAGA element - voters who love a bit of hardcore nativist nationalism but are indifferent to the Trump delivery mechanism - is negligible.
So let's drop it and merge me, you, pulpstar, BluestBlue et alia to get -
1. I'm a Republican stupid - 65 2. I'm a Trumpster and I AM stupid - 25 3. It's the economy obvs - 10
Nice clear pointers emerging now.
But what are they?
The problem with that approach of going back to the suburbanites is that (a) they are increasing socially liberal due to college education, (b) are more fickle and so (c) you would have to blow up your base by switching to a more socially liberal / economically right-wing stance in the hope - and it would be no more than a hope - that you can persuade people who deserted you to switch back.
There is another thing here as well. Hispanics, Asian-Americans and Black people, on the whole, tend to be socially conservative. If the Republicans continue to make inroads into the HIspanic vote, then that more than outweighs their losses in the suburbs. Ditch the socially conservative agenda to appeal to suburban types and you have lost that.
If you abandon the cities and the suburbs, you cannot take the House. Period.
Well, the Republicans nearly did.
The tragedy is that the 'rebels' were so exercised at the growing inequalities in income and wealth - and the growing distance between politicians and the people they are supposed to represent - that they turned to a brand of extreme Republicanism that was never likely to want to deliver them any sort of relief.
The big question of our era is why centre-left politicians have proved so unable to put forward a comprehensive platform to rectify the egregious distortions of 21st century society in a way that can carry a majority of sensibly minded voters in the centre of political opinion?
Within our lifetimes, if the centre-left doesn't rise to the challenge of our times, then the future will be left to the extremes.
Indeed, one of the most powerful pieces of evidence available to the GOP in elections is the abject failure of cities that have been in the hands of Democratic politicians for decades. Now, it may be that the GOP would have failed equally, because the issues have to do with the concept of cities themselves, rather than with who is in power. But it is still a very strong selling point for the GOP.
By what metric are you measuring "failure"? Cities tend to be much more economically successful than rural areas, for reasons that are quite beyond which party is in control of either.
Maybe you meant something different to the economy, though.
I did not say all cities. I said "the abject failure of cities that have been in the hands of Democratic politicians for decades", so not even all cities that have been in Democratic hands throughout, but the ones that have failed. Detroit, Cleveland, Baltimore (although some recent improvements here), for example, are all cited frequently, and gain traction as examples. In some respects, Chicago.
While some major cities can claim to have been successful economically on a macro level, that is to hide the vast disparity of how that wealth is distributed, both socially and geographically within the cities. Just because a city's economic numbers are doing well, does not mean that all is well. In some areas of NYC, you cannot find fresh fruit and vegetables to buy. Is that you idea of success?
I should perhaps add that the Dems could make the same argument about the failure of GOP policies in the Appalachias and the Deep South, where the GOP has held all the levers of power for some time.
The problems of the Big Cities are often at least partly the result of success. San Francisco and Seattle are unliveable in, because the cost of a single room has probably increased four-fold in the last decade.
SoMa in SF used to be a complete shit hole, where you could rent a room for $350-400/month. Now, you'd be lucky to get one for $1,600, but at least there's decent Internet.
That's made things worse for the urban poor: yes, you may have a job at McDonalds, but it doesn't give you much spending money any more. And you're probably commuting in from way, way out. Or you're homeless.
SF and Seattle are a bit sui generis although both have also been made worse by policies that have encouraged homeless people to move there.
The real problem is in places like Detroit, Baltimore et al where there is horrific poverty and the (mainly Black) population face extraordinarily high murder rates. Chicago is moving the same way.
What I would be interested to hear is the counter-argument as to why the problems in the big Democratic-run cities are NOT the fault of the Democrats.
NYC is slightly different because, for many years a la Guiliani and Bloomberg, the Mayor was Republican.
For me the pointers are that the Trump coalition is not a winning coalition at the federal level going forwards.
The easier thing for GOP politicians is to cleave to the Trumpsters, because of their enthusiasm. But that is what has driven the ABTs out of the party and has lost the GOP most independents and thus the absolutely essential suburbs.
For me, the way back for the GOP is the painful one. Excise their most passionate supporters, the Trumpsters. Rebuild the center right, win back the suburbs. Regain the trust of women.
To me, this will take at least one more bad election cycle result (2022), which alas is not guaranteed, followed by 4-6 years of rebuilding. It could go faster than that but equally it is not guaranteed to happen at all, but it is my best bet.
On topic: I gaze into the future of the Republican party - not too far, just a couple of years - and I see no Trump or Trumpdom there. What I do see, however and alas, are elements of the MAGA agenda still in the mix.
The million $ puzzle which imo must be solved in order to predict where the party goes is as follows - Of the 73m who voted for Donald Trump what are the approx weightings (adjusted for overlap) for the 4 main categories?
1. Love Trump. Lucky to have him. Helluva guy and a total one off. Just so into everything about the man. 2. Always vote Republican. It's what I am - a Republican. Cut me and I bleed tax cuts & voter suppression. 3. Not big on politics. Only care about the economy. Thought he'd done ok on that. Why change. 4. Trump? Can take him or leave him but I like his hard right national populist rhetoric and policies.
No particular order there except that I've put the last one last for a reason. I think it's the smallest.
Very rough guesses:
1. 10 2. 50 3. 8 4. 5
Although 1 and 4 are largely the same category, if we're being honest.
Much obliged. This is what I'm looking for. Unadorned numbers that I can crunch thro the "Predict the Near Term Future of the GOP" model I've developed (mainly for betting purposes but also to aid my superforecasting and related punditry).
- No bright future for MAGA without Trump. - Republican party v Trump is a mismatch. Party prevails.
Much easier to split the 73, so: 1. 20 2. 45 3. 6 4. 2
That's an interesting one, thanks.
Think we might be saying that the MAGA element - voters who love a bit of hardcore nativist nationalism but are indifferent to the Trump delivery mechanism - is negligible.
So let's drop it and merge me, you, pulpstar, BluestBlue et alia to get -
1. I'm a Republican stupid - 65 2. I'm a Trumpster and I AM stupid - 25 3. It's the economy obvs - 10
Nice clear pointers emerging now.
But what are they?
The problem with that approach of going back to the suburbanites is that (a) they are increasing socially liberal due to college education, (b) are more fickle and so (c) you would have to blow up your base by switching to a more socially liberal / economically right-wing stance in the hope - and it would be no more than a hope - that you can persuade people who deserted you to switch back.
There is another thing here as well. Hispanics, Asian-Americans and Black people, on the whole, tend to be socially conservative. If the Republicans continue to make inroads into the HIspanic vote, then that more than outweighs their losses in the suburbs. Ditch the socially conservative agenda to appeal to suburban types and you have lost that.
If you abandon the cities and the suburbs, you cannot take the House. Period.
Well, the Republicans nearly did.
The tragedy is that the 'rebels' were so exercised at the growing inequalities in income and wealth - and the growing distance between politicians and the people they are supposed to represent - that they turned to a brand of extreme Republicanism that was never likely to want to deliver them any sort of relief.
The big question of our era is why centre-left politicians have proved so unable to put forward a comprehensive platform to rectify the egregious distortions of 21st century society in a way that can carry a majority of sensibly minded voters in the centre of political opinion?
Within our lifetimes, if the centre-left doesn't rise to the challenge of our times, then the future will be left to the extremes.
The simple explanation is that centre-left politicians now spend most of their energy and efforts prioritising culturally liberal stances than the economic concerns that concern most people. I've pointed out here to those that scream racist at Trump voters that a good chunk of them would have voted for Obama in 2008. They didn't care he was Black but they did care about their economic conditions. However, the Democrat party became so embroiled in cultural issues that it dropped the ball on the economic front.
This line of attack might have worked in the past, but it has lost much of its potency given the Democrats' clean sweep in the world's second-largest democracy. And your boy, a poster child for the opposite approach, getting his backside handed to him.
He didn't really get his backside handed to him though did he? Biden won the election by the same number of EV votes as Trump, a victory that we were told at the time was minimal because if only 70K voters had switched sides, Clinton would have won. Only this time, if only 44K (if I remember correctly) had switched sides, Trump would have won. The Democrats nearly lost control of the House. And you have a 50/50 Senate.
And, no, the attack lines are still relevant. It was stupid of Biden et al to use the BLM line last night because it had no relevance in the scheme of things and was done in response to the post on social media showing the response to BLM protests. I pointed out pre-election that the focus on BLM risked driving Hispanics to the GOP, which is one of the few things I got right about November
I did the maths on this. Trump would have won 270 v 269 if he had taken Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia.
To win those states he would have needed 10371 voters to vote the other way in Wisconsin, 5228 in Arizona and 5889 in Georgia.
So, adding these, 21459 votes the other way (apportioned in the correct states) would have given Trump victory.
(Happy for someone to check my maths.)
It shows how close this election really was. If it wasn`t for the pox Trump would have won.
That's also a very good point for whether Trumpism has any future or not. There is a strong argument for saying that this election is a one-off given the impact of Covid and its economic effects.
If we had a "normal" election, i.e. where Covid hadn't happened, how many on here are confident - and would have put money on it - that Biden would have won?
"If" there was no Covid, Trump would have won. But we did have Covid-19 and he managed the response dreadfully, and as such he lost.
"If" I hadn't missed the boat train from Victoria I would have conquered Everest!
For me the pointers are that the Trump coalition is not a winning coalition at the federal level going forwards.
The easier thing for GOP politicians is to cleave to the Trumpsters, because of their enthusiasm. But that is what has driven the ABTs out of the party and has lost the GOP most independents and thus the absolutely essential suburbs.
For me, the way back for the GOP is the painful one. Excise their most passionate supporters, the Trumpsters. Rebuild the center right, win back the suburbs. Regain the trust of women.
To me, this will take at least one more bad election cycle result (2022), which alas is not guaranteed, followed by 4-6 years of rebuilding. It could go faster than that but equally it is not guaranteed to happen at all, but it is my best bet.
On topic: I gaze into the future of the Republican party - not too far, just a couple of years - and I see no Trump or Trumpdom there. What I do see, however and alas, are elements of the MAGA agenda still in the mix.
The million $ puzzle which imo must be solved in order to predict where the party goes is as follows - Of the 73m who voted for Donald Trump what are the approx weightings (adjusted for overlap) for the 4 main categories?
1. Love Trump. Lucky to have him. Helluva guy and a total one off. Just so into everything about the man. 2. Always vote Republican. It's what I am - a Republican. Cut me and I bleed tax cuts & voter suppression. 3. Not big on politics. Only care about the economy. Thought he'd done ok on that. Why change. 4. Trump? Can take him or leave him but I like his hard right national populist rhetoric and policies.
No particular order there except that I've put the last one last for a reason. I think it's the smallest.
Very rough guesses:
1. 10 2. 50 3. 8 4. 5
Although 1 and 4 are largely the same category, if we're being honest.
Much obliged. This is what I'm looking for. Unadorned numbers that I can crunch thro the "Predict the Near Term Future of the GOP" model I've developed (mainly for betting purposes but also to aid my superforecasting and related punditry).
- No bright future for MAGA without Trump. - Republican party v Trump is a mismatch. Party prevails.
Much easier to split the 73, so: 1. 20 2. 45 3. 6 4. 2
That's an interesting one, thanks.
Think we might be saying that the MAGA element - voters who love a bit of hardcore nativist nationalism but are indifferent to the Trump delivery mechanism - is negligible.
So let's drop it and merge me, you, pulpstar, BluestBlue et alia to get -
1. I'm a Republican stupid - 65 2. I'm a Trumpster and I AM stupid - 25 3. It's the economy obvs - 10
Nice clear pointers emerging now.
But what are they?
The problem with that approach of going back to the suburbanites is that (a) they are increasing socially liberal due to college education, (b) are more fickle and so (c) you would have to blow up your base by switching to a more socially liberal / economically right-wing stance in the hope - and it would be no more than a hope - that you can persuade people who deserted you to switch back.
There is another thing here as well. Hispanics, Asian-Americans and Black people, on the whole, tend to be socially conservative. If the Republicans continue to make inroads into the HIspanic vote, then that more than outweighs their losses in the suburbs. Ditch the socially conservative agenda to appeal to suburban types and you have lost that.
If you abandon the cities and the suburbs, you cannot take the House. Period.
Well, the Republicans nearly did.
The tragedy is that the 'rebels' were so exercised at the growing inequalities in income and wealth - and the growing distance between politicians and the people they are supposed to represent - that they turned to a brand of extreme Republicanism that was never likely to want to deliver them any sort of relief.
The big question of our era is why centre-left politicians have proved so unable to put forward a comprehensive platform to rectify the egregious distortions of 21st century society in a way that can carry a majority of sensibly minded voters in the centre of political opinion?
Within our lifetimes, if the centre-left doesn't rise to the challenge of our times, then the future will be left to the extremes.
The simple explanation is that centre-left politicians now spend most of their energy and efforts prioritising culturally liberal stances than the economic concerns that concern most people. I've pointed out here to those that scream racist at Trump voters that a good chunk of them would have voted for Obama in 2008. They didn't care he was Black but they did care about their economic conditions. However, the Democrat party became so embroiled in cultural issues that it dropped the ball on the economic front.
This line of attack might have worked in the past, but it has lost much of its potency given the Democrats' clean sweep in the world's second-largest democracy. And your boy, a poster child for the opposite approach, getting his backside handed to him.
He didn't really get his backside handed to him though did he? Biden won the election by the same number of EV votes as Trump, a victory that we were told at the time was minimal because if only 70K voters had switched sides, Clinton would have won. Only this time, if only 44K (if I remember correctly) had switched sides, Trump would have won. The Democrats nearly lost control of the House. And you have a 50/50 Senate.
And, no, the attack lines are still relevant. It was stupid of Biden et al to use the BLM line last night because it had no relevance in the scheme of things and was done in response to the post on social media showing the response to BLM protests. I pointed out pre-election that the focus on BLM risked driving Hispanics to the GOP, which is one of the few things I got right about November
I did the maths on this. Trump would have won 270 v 269 if he had taken Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia.
To win those states he would have needed 10371 voters to vote the other way in Wisconsin, 5228 in Arizona and 5889 in Georgia.
So, adding these, 21459 votes the other way (apportioned in the correct states) would have given Trump victory.
(Happy for someone to check my maths.)
It shows how close this election really was. If it wasn`t for the pox Trump would have won.
That's also a very good point for whether Trumpism has any future or not. There is a strong argument for saying that this election is a one-off given the impact of Covid and its economic effects.
If we had a "normal" election, i.e. where Covid hadn't happened, how many on here are confident - and would have put money on it - that Biden would have won?
Well I was one of the biggest foghorns on here saying - and praying - that Trump would lose. I was laying him well before the pandemic. My bets would have lost if Covid hadn`t happened - I admit it.
For the Republicans to have a good chance in 2024 it will need a good candidate combined with election voting procedures reverting to normal. If either of these fails to happen then the Dems will win again.
I`m not betting until things become much clearer than now. Trump could run as an independent I guess. (Best to imprison him to completely take him out.)
That's not them all erupting at each other; it's less than half of them trying to argue with the one guy telling them the truth (who is voluble, angry, and coherent) and the rest of them looking on bemused.
"We have already secured an amount of doses that we need to vaccinate 380 million Europeans, and this is more than 80% of the European population [of 450 million people]," Mrs von der Leyen said.
She said other vaccine authorisations were expected in the coming weeks and months, so "Europe will have more than enough vaccine within a reliable timeframe".
She said the commission had taken the right course of action on vaccines.
"I'm convinced that when we look back at this one day we'll see, well yes, at the beginning, there was a bumpy road [but] well, that's always the case."
It's just ridiculous. They got it wrong, they should just admit it.
In her 380 million doses is she counting vaccines like Sanofi that haven't completed PIII trials and may not even end up getting approval?
No I think they now have deals in place with Pfizer and Moderna for that many. But they are back of the queue....well not front of it. So a lot of it is coming Q2, Q3, Q4 and beyond.
That's right: the EU started incredibly slowly, but has improved. (And it is very important not to "count chickens" here, until we know final results...)
But, my gut is that Israel and a few small states really knocked the ball out of the park.
The UK, Japan and Canada did an excellent job.
The US has been reasonably good, the EU has been worse than the US (albeit not by a huge margin).
And developing countries have been an utter disaster zone.
There's a lot of variation within the EU. Germany is doing good and France is doing bad, as we all know, but it goes deeper than that. Take Ireland, for instance. They've vaccinated just 15,000 people. Poor start. And as for the Dutch...
You think the Dutch are bad... look at the Belgians.
(Although the Belgians have at least managed to suppress the second wave rather effectively.)
SF and Seattle are a bit sui generis although both have also been made worse by policies that have encouraged homeless people to move there.
The real problem is in places like Detroit, Baltimore et al where there is horrific poverty and the (mainly Black) population face extraordinarily high murder rates. Chicago is moving the same way.
What I would be interested to hear is the counter-argument as to why the problems in the big Democratic-run cities are NOT the fault of the Democrats.
NYC is slightly different because, for many years a la Guiliani and Bloomberg, the Mayor was Republican.
2nd amendment + poverty in a high pop density area isn't a great mix.
That's not them all erupting at each other; it's less than half of them trying to argue with the one guy telling them the truth (who is voluble, angry, and coherent) and the rest of them looking on bemused.
Yes, it was basically one guy talking 85-90% of the time with some people disagreeing and most keeping silent. Slightly exaggerated effect by Luntz there.
That's not them all erupting at each other; it's less than half of them trying to argue with the one guy telling them the truth (who is voluble, angry, and coherent) and the rest of them looking on bemused.
The video actually only shows the NY guy (who is absolutely right) forcefully arguing for a painful dose of realism. There are some quiet ones, and maybe they agree with NY guy... but we don't know that and they may (as NY guy directly says) be drinking the Kool Aid.
And he's not a swing voter, of course. The Republicans couldn't give a damn if nobody in NY votes GOP.
What matters is how far NY guy speaks for Republicans in Georgia or Pennsylvania or Arizona where they have to choose Senate candidates to bring it home for the GOP in 2022, and how far he's an unrepresentative, east coast elitist who just happens to vote Republican (because he wants low tax and so on).
Anyone who has had any exposure to Wall Street will have met someone just like Manny from NY. He works in private equity, is on his second divorce, is big on Bitcoin and hates taxes. He's probably great company on a night out, but if you last the night you'll end up doing something you'll regret.
And they're the bleeding heart intellectuals - private equity.
For me the pointers are that the Trump coalition is not a winning coalition at the federal level going forwards.
The easier thing for GOP politicians is to cleave to the Trumpsters, because of their enthusiasm. But that is what has driven the ABTs out of the party and has lost the GOP most independents and thus the absolutely essential suburbs.
For me, the way back for the GOP is the painful one. Excise their most passionate supporters, the Trumpsters. Rebuild the center right, win back the suburbs. Regain the trust of women.
To me, this will take at least one more bad election cycle result (2022), which alas is not guaranteed, followed by 4-6 years of rebuilding. It could go faster than that but equally it is not guaranteed to happen at all, but it is my best bet.
On topic: I gaze into the future of the Republican party - not too far, just a couple of years - and I see no Trump or Trumpdom there. What I do see, however and alas, are elements of the MAGA agenda still in the mix.
The million $ puzzle which imo must be solved in order to predict where the party goes is as follows - Of the 73m who voted for Donald Trump what are the approx weightings (adjusted for overlap) for the 4 main categories?
1. Love Trump. Lucky to have him. Helluva guy and a total one off. Just so into everything about the man. 2. Always vote Republican. It's what I am - a Republican. Cut me and I bleed tax cuts & voter suppression. 3. Not big on politics. Only care about the economy. Thought he'd done ok on that. Why change. 4. Trump? Can take him or leave him but I like his hard right national populist rhetoric and policies.
No particular order there except that I've put the last one last for a reason. I think it's the smallest.
Very rough guesses:
1. 10 2. 50 3. 8 4. 5
Although 1 and 4 are largely the same category, if we're being honest.
Much obliged. This is what I'm looking for. Unadorned numbers that I can crunch thro the "Predict the Near Term Future of the GOP" model I've developed (mainly for betting purposes but also to aid my superforecasting and related punditry).
- No bright future for MAGA without Trump. - Republican party v Trump is a mismatch. Party prevails.
Much easier to split the 73, so: 1. 20 2. 45 3. 6 4. 2
That's an interesting one, thanks.
Think we might be saying that the MAGA element - voters who love a bit of hardcore nativist nationalism but are indifferent to the Trump delivery mechanism - is negligible.
So let's drop it and merge me, you, pulpstar, BluestBlue et alia to get -
1. I'm a Republican stupid - 65 2. I'm a Trumpster and I AM stupid - 25 3. It's the economy obvs - 10
Nice clear pointers emerging now.
But what are they?
The problem with that approach of going back to the suburbanites is that (a) they are increasing socially liberal due to college education, (b) are more fickle and so (c) you would have to blow up your base by switching to a more socially liberal / economically right-wing stance in the hope - and it would be no more than a hope - that you can persuade people who deserted you to switch back.
There is another thing here as well. Hispanics, Asian-Americans and Black people, on the whole, tend to be socially conservative. If the Republicans continue to make inroads into the HIspanic vote, then that more than outweighs their losses in the suburbs. Ditch the socially conservative agenda to appeal to suburban types and you have lost that.
If you abandon the cities and the suburbs, you cannot take the House. Period.
Well, the Republicans nearly did.
The tragedy is that the 'rebels' were so exercised at the growing inequalities in income and wealth - and the growing distance between politicians and the people they are supposed to represent - that they turned to a brand of extreme Republicanism that was never likely to want to deliver them any sort of relief.
The big question of our era is why centre-left politicians have proved so unable to put forward a comprehensive platform to rectify the egregious distortions of 21st century society in a way that can carry a majority of sensibly minded voters in the centre of political opinion?
Within our lifetimes, if the centre-left doesn't rise to the challenge of our times, then the future will be left to the extremes.
The simple explanation is that centre-left politicians now spend most of their energy and efforts prioritising culturally liberal stances than the economic concerns that concern most people. I've pointed out here to those that scream racist at Trump voters that a good chunk of them would have voted for Obama in 2008. They didn't care he was Black but they did care about their economic conditions. However, the Democrat party became so embroiled in cultural issues that it dropped the ball on the economic front.
This line of attack might have worked in the past, but it has lost much of its potency given the Democrats' clean sweep in the world's second-largest democracy. And your boy, a poster child for the opposite approach, getting his backside handed to him.
He didn't really get his backside handed to him though did he? Biden won the election by the same number of EV votes as Trump, a victory that we were told at the time was minimal because if only 70K voters had switched sides, Clinton would have won. Only this time, if only 44K (if I remember correctly) had switched sides, Trump would have won. The Democrats nearly lost control of the House. And you have a 50/50 Senate.
And, no, the attack lines are still relevant. It was stupid of Biden et al to use the BLM line last night because it had no relevance in the scheme of things and was done in response to the post on social media showing the response to BLM protests. I pointed out pre-election that the focus on BLM risked driving Hispanics to the GOP, which is one of the few things I got right about November
I did the maths on this. Trump would have won 270 v 269 if he had taken Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia.
To win those states he would have needed 10371 voters to vote the other way in Wisconsin, 5228 in Arizona and 5889 in Georgia.
So, adding these, 21459 votes the other way (apportioned in the correct states) would have given Trump victory.
(Happy for someone to check my maths.)
It shows how close this election really was. If it wasn`t for the pox Trump would have won.
That's also a very good point for whether Trumpism has any future or not. There is a strong argument for saying that this election is a one-off given the impact of Covid and its economic effects.
If we had a "normal" election, i.e. where Covid hadn't happened, how many on here are confident - and would have put money on it - that Biden would have won?
"If" there was no Covid, Trump would have won. But we did have Covid-19 and he managed the response dreadfully, and as such he lost.
"If" I hadn't missed the boat train from Victoria I would have conquered Everest!
Would you? That's an interesting one!
In seriousness, the debate on here is whether Trumpism has a future. The consensus seems to be no. But, if the reason he lost was because of the impact of an once in a century pandemic which was the overriding factor, then that has implications for the future direction.
For me the pointers are that the Trump coalition is not a winning coalition at the federal level going forwards.
The easier thing for GOP politicians is to cleave to the Trumpsters, because of their enthusiasm. But that is what has driven the ABTs out of the party and has lost the GOP most independents and thus the absolutely essential suburbs.
For me, the way back for the GOP is the painful one. Excise their most passionate supporters, the Trumpsters. Rebuild the center right, win back the suburbs. Regain the trust of women.
To me, this will take at least one more bad election cycle result (2022), which alas is not guaranteed, followed by 4-6 years of rebuilding. It could go faster than that but equally it is not guaranteed to happen at all, but it is my best bet.
This is my view too. Except I think it will not be quite such a long and difficult process. Once Trump is not POTUS, my strong sense is he'll fade quicker than most people think. And given MAGA is so wrapped up with HIM, I think that will too. I see a vibrant young Republican emerging in time for the 24 election and running on a small state, libertarian, socially "trad" ticket. He or she will have the challenge of picking up the deplorables without being deplorable. If they can, they have a decent shot.
You cannot be both libertarian and socially conservative, that is logically impossible
Agreed, though practical politics isn't always logical!
There is a current of thinking that assumes that social conservatism is a state of nature and that all the stuff the liberal left argues for is the aberration, only possible with massive state control. Make that assumption and it's not too hard to marry up "state bad, social conservatism good" in a package. Kind of Singapore, or Thatcherism, if you've only read the Ladybird Book on either topic.
Whether it works well enough for the Republicans to win an election is another matter. But without the votes that Trump uniquely reached, they need to try something...
As a self-styled neo-libertarian, I have found something to agree with HYUFD on. Libertarians by definition cannot be socially conservative.
Thinking about that, someone who regards the family as the basic unit of humanity could be libertarian in the sense of not wanting the state to get involved in any thing to do with the family but pretty socially conservative in how they run their family. I'm aware that that calling that Libertarian is a bit of a stretch though.
My point is that libertarians, at least in my view of the term, think that most social issues fall outside of their political dogma, not that there aren't libertarians who are socially conservative.
I haven't watch the TedX link, but there was quite a strong stream of social conservatism is traditional liberalism. Self-help etc. I don't feel like it's inherently incompatible with libertarianism. It is quite in line with libertarian principles (for example) to refuse to state-sponsor expensive treatments for 'self-inflicted' conditions like AIDS. Libertarianism would preclude banning 'immoral' behaviour but would actively approve of leaving those concerned to deal with the material consequences of their behaviour.
Comments
Fighting America's corner on trade.
The problem is that a country's trade surplus or deficit is a function of its household savings rate. (See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pKS2TCd_3c&ab_channel=RobertSmithson)
The Trump administration therefore followed two contradictory policies - on the one hand it ran an expansionary fiscal policy (which effectively lowered the national savings rate) and on the other it attempted to make imports more expensive.
The consequence is that the overall current account deficit for the US is going to end up at 3.3% for this year - the worst number in a decade.
Fighting America's corner on trade just changed with whom America ran trade deficits, not the fact that it ran them.
Worse: tariffs on production imports like steel actually resulted in job losses in America. By raising the cost of car manufacturing in the US (because Ford in Michigan had to buy more expensive steel because of tariffs), more jobs were lost in auto manufacturing, than were gained in the steel industry.
China did need standing up to, particularly in areas such as intellectual property theft. But Trump's "do a deal" mentality and focus on bilateral numbers, did not have positive results for the US or the world.
Jonathan Haidt is interesting on social vs liberal morality.
https://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_the_moral_roots_of_liberals_and_conservatives/transcript?language=en
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9125621/Jonathan-Van-Tam-went-curry-Boris-Johnson-told-Londoners-avoid-restaurants.html
Although the details aren't quite as bad as the headline. Not exactly a Big Dom or even a Piers Moron.
Some words about urgency were spoken. But apart from participating in the fast track approvals, no vast effort was put in.
If I set out to drive from London to Manchester, and change my mind halfway through the journey and head towards Liverpool, I've changed course. If I lose control of the vehicle and end up embedded in a tree, I've gone off course. The former is deliberate, the latter isn't. You are alleging that the official story (the latter) is wrong, with zero evidence to support it, and have somehow leapt from there to some bizarre conspiracy theory about US off switches.
To win those states he would have needed 10371 voters to vote the other way in Wisconsin, 5228 in Arizona and 5889 in Georgia.
So, adding these, 21459 votes the other way (apportioned in the correct states) would have given Trump victory.
(Happy for someone to check my maths.)
It shows how close this election really was. If it wasn`t for the pox Trump would have won.
https://twitter.com/EMA_News/status/1347514179964514304?s=20
https://twitter.com/alanferrier/status/1347561251388448768?s=20
Do you mean 270-268?
https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1347534160634720257
Denmark is doing particularly well, having of course started later than us; odd that Finland (and also Norway) are so far behind.
Obama reduced the deficit whilst still getting equal economic growth to Trump
Clinton eliminated the deficit.
He lost the House
He lost the popular vote
He lost the White House
He lost in court
He lost the Senate
He lost his mind
All he's got left now is his liberty. I'm hoping for 7 from 7.
But this is Philip. So I'm hanging fire until I've had a quick tumble with him (on it).
It takes a lot for people to make a jump even if it makes total sense given their views.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-vaccination-doses-per-capita?tab=chart&stackMode=absolute&time=latest®ion=World
Israel have vaccinated nearly 20% of their population.
https://twitter.com/Mollie_Malone1/status/1347571264869838849
"President Donald Trump has confirmed that he will not be attending the inauguration of Joe Biden on 20 January."
Pching!
Thank you Paddy Power, and whichever PBer it was who gave the tip. (One trusts they will not be too modest to acknowledge it.)
JVT is awesome in my books, even if he got the masks thing wrong.
Very lucky really, we could be in severe trouble if it was.
First working 5 year majority since 1987. With all the donations, patronage and funding that entails. Job done.
All else is froth.
If we had a "normal" election, i.e. where Covid hadn't happened, how many on here are confident - and would have put money on it - that Biden would have won?
I see merit in "if it weren't for the pox" but also think that's a more complex counterfactual than that suggests. This would have been a very different campaign, possibly with a different Democrat candidate, and certainly with a different strategy, in another year. The Biden campaign reasoned, correctly as it turns out, that a low volatility campaign with a man hiding in a basement was the best way to play the hand 2020 dealt everyone. But he's actually a very good, empathetic, old skool glad-hander if the campaign had been that sort of thing.
Trump would still have been Trump, and there is still a good proportion of people who are fatigued and plain don't like him as 2018 suggested. I do tend to agree he'd probably have got over the line, but he was less healthy than most incumbents seeking reelection before the virus came.
It is said the only reason SDNY haven't already brought charges is that they cannot indict a sitting President.
Deutsche were given a choice, save yourselves, or save Trump, it was a no brainer.
My prediction that the word of 2021 will be 'emoluments' well technically 'emoluments clause.'
https://twitter.com/RalstonReports/status/1347574029352280066
SoMa in SF used to be a complete shit hole, where you could rent a room for $350-400/month. Now, you'd be lucky to get one for $1,600, but at least there's decent Internet.
That's made things worse for the urban poor: yes, you may have a job at McDonalds, but it doesn't give you much spending money any more. And you're probably commuting in from way, way out. Or you're homeless.
PS - Autocorrect tried to change that to 'whores de combat' which seems apt for JFK.
There are plenty like that. I know there are because it's the dead opposite of me and I'm forever arguing with them.
I haven't 'leapt' anywhere, I have explicitly declined to do this and I am merely sticking to the un-glossed facts. The missile changed its course.
In your example of losing control and becoming embedded in a tree, you still changed course. You are indisputably wrong in terms of the English language there.
However, more interestingly, you seem determined to use a form of words that implies some form of mechanical failure and the missile belly flopping into the ocean. The fact that it is known to have gone toward America means that it didn't do this - it traveled on its new course for some time. In other words, it was heading toward Manchester, and it changed course to Liverpool.
- Small country. So you can easily centralise vaccination, and still have people walk there
- Small amounts of vaccine required - UK actual vaccination numbers is comparable, but goes a long way there
- entire population has served in the military, national threat stuff, air raid drills etc - so population used to emergency-everyone-must-do-x
- deep respect for science.
Tyler and LBJ are the only Johns who could and did turn up.
But it is worth remembering that Trump - while Trump got "close-ish" in 2020, he still manged to get two of the lowest three percentages of a major party candidate this Millennium.
Think about that: there have been six elections, with twelve major party vote shares. And Trump only managed to beat McCain, who was standing as a Republican immediately after the GFC.
Trump - both times - scored less than Romney or Kerry.
The real problem is in places like Detroit, Baltimore et al where there is horrific poverty and the (mainly Black) population face extraordinarily high murder rates. Chicago is moving the same way.
What I would be interested to hear is the counter-argument as to why the problems in the big Democratic-run cities are NOT the fault of the Democrats.
NYC is slightly different because, for many years a la Guiliani and Bloomberg, the Mayor was Republican.
"If" I hadn't missed the boat train from Victoria I would have conquered Everest!
For the Republicans to have a good chance in 2024 it will need a good candidate combined with election voting procedures reverting to normal. If either of these fails to happen then the Dems will win again.
I`m not betting until things become much clearer than now. Trump could run as an independent I guess. (Best to imprison him to completely take him out.)
(Although the Belgians have at least managed to suppress the second wave rather effectively.)
68,053 cases, 1,325 deaths.
Terrible figures
Establishment and lineage dynamics of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in the UK
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2021/01/07/science.abf2946
In seriousness, the debate on here is whether Trumpism has a future. The consensus seems to be no. But, if the reason he lost was because of the impact of an once in a century pandemic which was the overriding factor, then that has implications for the future direction.
*Just to make it clear - this is not my view.