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.
While that's true, once the popular vote lead inches past 3.5-4.0 percent, it becomes very, very difficult to win.
Don't forget Joe Biden got almost 10 percent more votes - in absolute numbers - than Donald Trump. That's a pretty big miss.
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.
Such a grim thought but, yes, maybe.
In which case, "it's an ill wind" and "every cloud" and similar.
I'm building a wall....and the neighbours are going to pay for it.
We are staying at home and awaiting our vaccinations
Asda delivered quite a big order yesterday and everything was fulfilled including fruit and veg
Our son who is a key worker has decided to send his two children to their primary school this time, (he did not last lockdown) and says there are a lot more attending
It does raise an issue of fairness if these children are getting a school education while many are not, but I do not know the answer
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
Although the details aren't quite as bad as the headline. Not exactly a Big Dom or even a Piers Moron.
The details are nowhere near as bad as the headline implies - he ate alone (albeit in a restaurant) while working away from home. Possibly he could have got a takeaway instead to either take back to the office or hotel, depending where he was heading next. Or to eat on a park bench, perhaps? He was also perfectly entitled to claim the meal, as pretty much everyone is when working away from home, no? I certainly am. What else did they dig up - a two night hotel stay for £190 (that's pretty reasonable, in my experience in London) and a £30 taxi receipt. All from a FOI request presumably intended to dig up some dirt - they must have been disappointed! I wonder whether they gave any thought at all to whether it is constructive to go after scientific advisers in this way and try and make it clear to future potential applicants that it surely isn't worth the hassle.
(Ferguson, I accept, was fair game - he broke the actual rules clearly and knowingly and that presumably came from a tip-off, not a fishing expedition like this one)
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.
Ok, so poverty and gun rates. Fair enough.
So what couldn't Democrat controlled cities - most of which are in Democrat controlled states - do to reduce poverty?
PS the same point is relevant for poor areas in the South in Republican states. My view is that both sides are quite happy to keep people poor in many areas because it suits their political agendas.
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.
*Just to make it clear - this is not my view.
That's absolutely correct: look at the traditional Celtic fringe liberals - people like David Penhaligan.
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.
Fortunate that my sister got back from the mainland before Christmas. However, now, since she needs several medical and medical-type interventions, I suspect she'll be in PEH for quite a while. Which she doesn't like.
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.
*Just to make it clear - this is not my view.
I'd agree. In its purest form (which in my view is impractical in a crowded world), libertarianism boils down to the individual being sovereign and autonomous. That is not incompatible with either conservative or liberal social views.
PS Do take the time to watch the TED talk. It is both educational and entertaining.
Admissions to hospital and patients in hospital are also rising at an undiminished rate. The only bit of good news is that testing has also reached new highs, so the rise in the number of cases is perhaps not quite as bad as it looks.
My wife is just back from the frozen wastes otherwise known as our local retail park where, amongst other things, she was picking up click and collect ink for our printer. She says that she has never seen it so busy, not even on a Saturday, with queues everywhere and lots of people picking up from every store. Tesco's was bursting at the seams and none of the restrictions that were in place in the earlier lockdowns, such as 1 way aisles or distancing at the checkouts or limits on numbers in the store were apparent.
The reality is that this lockdown is simply not happening around here for all intents and purposes. It is absolutely nothing like February-April last year when the streets were deathly quiet. In light of this these figures are hardly a surprise. As @Leon pointed out the other day delivery of the vaccine is not a marathon but a sprint, a race to the finishing line with our hospitals as the prize. It's going to be close.
I'm building a wall....and the neighbours are going to pay for it.
Some previous neighbours of mine actually put up a higher fence between our properties, so my untidy garden wouldn't appear in their daughter's wedding video.
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.
This is the Christmas hall pass showing through in the numbers?
Imagine if it had of been the original plan !!!!
I know.
What really really annoys me is that we had the vaccines approved and rolling out, if he had told the country look I need you to sacrifice this Christmas so many more of us can enjoy future Christmases.
But no, Boris Johnson didn't want to be the Grinch that cancelled Christmas.
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
Although the details aren't quite as bad as the headline. Not exactly a Big Dom or even a Piers Moron.
The details are nowhere near as bad as the headline implies - he ate alone (albeit in a restaurant) while working away from home. Possibly he could have got a takeaway instead to either take back to the office or hotel, depending where he was heading next. Or to eat on a park bench, perhaps? He was also perfectly entitled to claim the meal, as pretty much everyone is when working away from home, no? I certainly am. What else did they dig up - a two night hotel stay for £190 (that's pretty reasonable, in my experience in London) and a £30 taxi receipt. All from a FOI request presumably intended to dig up some dirt - they must have been disappointed! I wonder whether they gave any thought at all to whether it is constructive to go after scientific advisers in this way and try and make it clear to future potential applicants that it surely isn't worth the hassle.
(Ferguson, I accept, was fair game - he broke the actual rules clearly and knowingly and that presumably came from a tip-off, not a fishing expedition like this one)
This is the Christmas hall pass showing through in the numbers?
Yes.
So bloody avoidable.
Boris Johnson is a complete moron.
The worst part is that we're now dealing with a the new variant so there's no guarantee that the lockdown will actually bring the R below 1 to any significant degree so if it stays at around 1 then this could be the new baseline while we await vaccination. The NHS funnel looks absolutely horrific, to me it equalises at around 45k hospitalised with well over 1k deaths per day until at least the end of January.
We've bet the farm, the house, the livestock and 100 years of wheat futures on the vaccine so we've got to get this right.
My wife is just back from the frozen wastes otherwise known as our local retail park where, amongst other things, she was picking up click and collect ink for our printer. She says that she has never seen it so busy, not even on a Saturday, with queues everywhere and lots of people picking up from every store. Tesco's was bursting at the seams and none of the restrictions that were in place in the earlier lockdowns, such as 1 way aisles or distancing at the checkouts or limits on numbers in the store were apparent.
The reality is that this lockdown is simply not happening around here for all intents and purposes. It is absolutely nothing like February-April last year when the streets were deathly quiet. In light of this these figures are hardly a surprise. As @Leon pointed out the other day delivery of the vaccine is not a marathon but a sprint, a race to the finishing line with our hospitals as the prize. It's going to be close.
Gulp.
TBH, in semi-rural N Essex, we've just been out and about and it was very, very quiet.
"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.
That's in interesting prediction and in a way would be quite good.
I have doubts about the long term viability of us all having vaccine shots all the time - I'm glad to do it to get back to normal in this instance.
In the long term, I'd like to see us aiming for disease robustness - being so healthy that we can withstand these things. I appreciate though that this argument is so niche at present as to be nowhere near anyone's priority list.
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, as popcorn fodder goes I was disappointed.
On the other hand, as a proxy for the near future of the Republican party, it's probably more accurate than many of Luntz's focus groups.
The problem the Republicans have is that they cannot win with Trump, and they cannot win without his base.
Or, to put it another way, if you think of the US as Cities, Suburbia, and Rural & Small Town America. The Dems win Cities, the Republicans Rural & Small Town America.
That's 30% each.
You can't discard Suburbia. Indeed, historically the Republicans ran up big leads there. The question is how you fuse the desires of Rural & Small Town America with Suburbia?
If Trump were to fade from the scene, and someone smart (and not Ted Cruz) were to appear on the populist Right, they might stand a chance. But Trump is ultimately selfish. He wants to be President and to avenge his 2020 loss. He doesn't want a new standard bearer. He wants to be the standard bearer. I can't see him supporting and championing Josh Hawley or Tom Cotton. And so long as he looms, then the Republican civil war will continue. In this, I think @contrarian is absolutely correct.
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
Although the details aren't quite as bad as the headline. Not exactly a Big Dom or even a Piers Moron.
The details are nowhere near as bad as the headline implies - he ate alone (albeit in a restaurant) while working away from home. Possibly he could have got a takeaway instead to either take back to the office or hotel, depending where he was heading next. Or to eat on a park bench, perhaps? He was also perfectly entitled to claim the meal, as pretty much everyone is when working away from home, no? I certainly am. What else did they dig up - a two night hotel stay for £190 (that's pretty reasonable, in my experience in London) and a £30 taxi receipt. All from a FOI request presumably intended to dig up some dirt - they must have been disappointed! I wonder whether they gave any thought at all to whether it is constructive to go after scientific advisers in this way and try and make it clear to future potential applicants that it surely isn't worth the hassle.
(Ferguson, I accept, was fair game - he broke the actual rules clearly and knowingly and that presumably came from a tip-off, not a fishing expedition like this one)
It's a bit pathetic having a go at him for that.
Yes; they ought to be congratulating him for his economical expenses.
This is the Christmas hall pass showing through in the numbers?
Imagine if it had of been the original plan !!!!
I know.
What really really annoys me is that we had the vaccines approved and rolling out, if he had told the country look I need you to sacrifice this Christmas so many more of us can enjoy future Christmases.
But no, Boris Johnson didn't want to be the Grinch that cancelled Christmas.
Yes, as soon as we approved the Pfizer vaccine the light at the end of the tunnel became visible. People would have understood if it was explained to them properly.
I'm building a wall....and the neighbours are going to pay for it.
Some previous neighbours of mine actually put up a higher fence between our properties, so my untidy garden wouldn't appear in their daughter's wedding video.
My wife is just back from the frozen wastes otherwise known as our local retail park where, amongst other things, she was picking up click and collect ink for our printer. She says that she has never seen it so busy, not even on a Saturday, with queues everywhere and lots of people picking up from every store. Tesco's was bursting at the seams and none of the restrictions that were in place in the earlier lockdowns, such as 1 way aisles or distancing at the checkouts or limits on numbers in the store were apparent.
The reality is that this lockdown is simply not happening around here for all intents and purposes. It is absolutely nothing like February-April last year when the streets were deathly quiet. In light of this these figures are hardly a surprise. As @Leon pointed out the other day delivery of the vaccine is not a marathon but a sprint, a race to the finishing line with our hospitals as the prize. It's going to be close.
Gulp.
TBH, in semi-rural N Essex, we've just been out and about and it was very, very quiet.
The UK was hit with more than 1,000 separate introductions of Covid during the first wave - with a third coming from Spain, researchers have found.
Spain accounted for 33 per of transmission chains during the first wave, according to the researchers, with France accounting for 29 per cent of the imports and Italy 12 per cent.
China, meanwhile, was responsible for only 0.4 per cent of the introduction of transmission chains in the UK.
Based on the findings, published in the journal Science, the researchers said earlier travel and quarantine interventions could have helped reduce the intensity of the UK’s first wave of cases.
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.
I think you make a fair point.
Then again, Hilary might have won in 2016 if Comey hadn't released that late email briefing.
That's a solid point. A full 100,000 more tests were done on the 4th compared to the 29th.
Alistair, as someone who follows this and has thought about it a lot, do you see any point in our current testing capacity? I don't. Not when you consider we already have ONS studies for whole population estimates.
This is the Christmas hall pass showing through in the numbers?
Imagine if it had of been the original plan !!!!
I know.
What really really annoys me is that we had the vaccines approved and rolling out, if he had told the country look I need you to sacrifice this Christmas so many more of us can enjoy future Christmases.
But no, Boris Johnson didn't want to be the Grinch that cancelled Christmas.
What’s even more annoying is that they prioritised Christmas shopping over Christmas itself!
My wife is just back from the frozen wastes otherwise known as our local retail park where, amongst other things, she was picking up click and collect ink for our printer. She says that she has never seen it so busy, not even on a Saturday, with queues everywhere and lots of people picking up from every store. Tesco's was bursting at the seams and none of the restrictions that were in place in the earlier lockdowns, such as 1 way aisles or distancing at the checkouts or limits on numbers in the store were apparent.
The reality is that this lockdown is simply not happening around here for all intents and purposes. It is absolutely nothing like February-April last year when the streets were deathly quiet. In light of this these figures are hardly a surprise. As @Leon pointed out the other day delivery of the vaccine is not a marathon but a sprint, a race to the finishing line with our hospitals as the prize. It's going to be close.
Gulp.
TBH, in semi-rural N Essex, we've just been out and about and it was very, very quiet.
Pretty quiet around Woking today.
Exceptionally quiet in my area of London today, too.
My wife is just back from the frozen wastes otherwise known as our local retail park where, amongst other things, she was picking up click and collect ink for our printer. She says that she has never seen it so busy, not even on a Saturday, with queues everywhere and lots of people picking up from every store. Tesco's was bursting at the seams and none of the restrictions that were in place in the earlier lockdowns, such as 1 way aisles or distancing at the checkouts or limits on numbers in the store were apparent.
The reality is that this lockdown is simply not happening around here for all intents and purposes. It is absolutely nothing like February-April last year when the streets were deathly quiet. In light of this these figures are hardly a surprise. As @Leon pointed out the other day delivery of the vaccine is not a marathon but a sprint, a race to the finishing line with our hospitals as the prize. It's going to be close.
Gulp.
I think that's right. When I drove into work back then, there were a couple of weeks when I encountered maybe two or three other vehicles on a ten mile journey. Now traffic is like any normal school holiday.
My wife is just back from the frozen wastes otherwise known as our local retail park where, amongst other things, she was picking up click and collect ink for our printer. She says that she has never seen it so busy, not even on a Saturday, with queues everywhere and lots of people picking up from every store. Tesco's was bursting at the seams and none of the restrictions that were in place in the earlier lockdowns, such as 1 way aisles or distancing at the checkouts or limits on numbers in the store were apparent.
The reality is that this lockdown is simply not happening around here for all intents and purposes. It is absolutely nothing like February-April last year when the streets were deathly quiet. In light of this these figures are hardly a surprise. As @Leon pointed out the other day delivery of the vaccine is not a marathon but a sprint, a race to the finishing line with our hospitals as the prize. It's going to be close.
Gulp.
TBH, in semi-rural N Essex, we've just been out and about and it was very, very quiet.
Wasn't it ever thus for Constable country 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.
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.
Sure; but then it's equally fair to ask why the permanent Republican strongholds such as Appalachia and the Deep South have such terrible economic performance and life expectancy.
It's almost like there might be factors beyond simply the colour of the rossette that effect outcomes.
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.
Detroit, Baltimore, Cleveland and other cities have problems because their base industries have declined significantly, if not completely. New York successfully transitioned because as jobs in industries like manufacturing declined, it had finance, services and other areas to take up the slack. And New York has had fewer Republican mayors in the last century than Detroit or Cleveland.
Boston, Houston, Dallas, Philadelphia, Denver, Minneapolis - all have had many more Democratic mayors than Republican. Cities tend towards the Democratic party because their industries, working class populations and access to education and information promote support for Democratic policies.
Choose two or three cities that are in decline, seeing they have got Democratic administrations, and deciding that the latter causes the former, is not a good way to analyse data.
This is the Christmas hall pass showing through in the numbers?
It's about a week from actions to detected cases, isn't it? So more likely reverting to tiers after Christmas, rather than going straight into full lockdown. (This time last week, a lot of schools were due to return as normal. Insane.)
But also, there's a pile of deaths coming down the track, and approximately nothing we can do about them.
Poor people. Poor friends and families. Poor medics.
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.
We need to be clearer about what the question is. We've identified: 1. The economy 2. Availability of fresh fruit / vegetables 3. Crime 4. Rent / wages / influx 5. Poverty / inequality
and then we want to quantify where these things are worse depending on the party in charge, which could mean: 1. The President 2. Congress overall 3. The senators/reps for the city 4. State governor 5. Mayor 6. The other state-level politicians for that area
Not sure which of those people think are more important in this exercise. Only the mayoralty has been specifically mentioned. Then you need to enumerate the problems and benefits in part 1, and correlate them to your politicians in part 2. Anything short of that is probably handwaving and evidence-free assertions based on your own political preferences. I doubt MrEd started with this kind of evidence and probably isn't interested in this kind of evidence-based approach, which means the conversation is virtually guaranteed to go nowhere.
But just so you know, "cities are bad, and Dems run cities" isn't a very convincing argument without evidence, when you start to think about it for more than about ten seconds. And since none of us can be bothered to gather the evidence needed to make an analysis, let alone do the analysis, I'll put this particular debate down as a pointless dead end and duck out of it.
This is the Christmas hall pass showing through in the numbers?
Yes.
So bloody avoidable.
Boris Johnson is a complete moron.
The morons are surely the people who thought putting households together on Christmas was a good idea, legal or not legal.
And the absolute fucking morons who thought it would be a good idea to have one day of school of household mixing for 3m kids. Absolutely huge amount of negligence.
My wife is just back from the frozen wastes otherwise known as our local retail park where, amongst other things, she was picking up click and collect ink for our printer. She says that she has never seen it so busy, not even on a Saturday, with queues everywhere and lots of people picking up from every store. Tesco's was bursting at the seams and none of the restrictions that were in place in the earlier lockdowns, such as 1 way aisles or distancing at the checkouts or limits on numbers in the store were apparent.
The reality is that this lockdown is simply not happening around here for all intents and purposes. It is absolutely nothing like February-April last year when the streets were deathly quiet. In light of this these figures are hardly a surprise. As @Leon pointed out the other day delivery of the vaccine is not a marathon but a sprint, a race to the finishing line with our hospitals as the prize. It's going to be close.
Gulp.
TBH, in semi-rural N Essex, we've just been out and about and it was very, very quiet.
Wasn't it ever thus for Constable country though ?
Haven't seen a constable around here for months! Actually we're a bit South of John's beat; Pritis territory, I'm rather ashamed to admit.
This is the Christmas hall pass showing through in the numbers?
Yes.
So bloody avoidable.
Boris Johnson is a complete moron.
And Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster in fairness
Come on BigG. You were the one laughing at Drakeford because he had to cancel Christmas, and lockdown on December 20th due to the disastrously short "fire-break", when Boris didn't have to.
I believe Arlene cancelled Christmas too.
Yes, Drakeford is useless, but you are putting him behind the 8 ball whatever shot he plays.
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.
Fortunate that my sister got back from the mainland before Christmas. However, now, since she needs several medical and medical-type interventions, I suspect she'll be in PEH for quite a while. Which she doesn't like.
Residents are allowed back in - "Medical treatment" counts as "essential travel" - its those eying the ski slopes this was aimed at. Has she had her jab yet?
My wife is just back from the frozen wastes otherwise known as our local retail park where, amongst other things, she was picking up click and collect ink for our printer. She says that she has never seen it so busy, not even on a Saturday, with queues everywhere and lots of people picking up from every store. Tesco's was bursting at the seams and none of the restrictions that were in place in the earlier lockdowns, such as 1 way aisles or distancing at the checkouts or limits on numbers in the store were apparent.
The reality is that this lockdown is simply not happening around here for all intents and purposes. It is absolutely nothing like February-April last year when the streets were deathly quiet. In light of this these figures are hardly a surprise. As @Leon pointed out the other day delivery of the vaccine is not a marathon but a sprint, a race to the finishing line with our hospitals as the prize. It's going to be close.
Gulp.
TBH, in semi-rural N Essex, we've just been out and about and it was very, very quiet.
Interesting. And several others saying the same. Really don't get why it has broken down so badly in Dundee.
I'm worried that the Oxford/AZ vaccine may not be sufficiently efficacious to halt the spread of the new variant virus. I'm not terribly knowledgeable about vaccines, though. Is this a justifiable concern, or can we be pretty sure that it is good enough?
My wife is just back from the frozen wastes otherwise known as our local retail park where, amongst other things, she was picking up click and collect ink for our printer. She says that she has never seen it so busy, not even on a Saturday, with queues everywhere and lots of people picking up from every store. Tesco's was bursting at the seams and none of the restrictions that were in place in the earlier lockdowns, such as 1 way aisles or distancing at the checkouts or limits on numbers in the store were apparent.
The reality is that this lockdown is simply not happening around here for all intents and purposes. It is absolutely nothing like February-April last year when the streets were deathly quiet. In light of this these figures are hardly a surprise. As @Leon pointed out the other day delivery of the vaccine is not a marathon but a sprint, a race to the finishing line with our hospitals as the prize. It's going to be close.
Gulp.
TBH, in semi-rural N Essex, we've just been out and about and it was very, very quiet.
Wasn't it ever thus for Constable country though ?
You've clearly never been to the Purple Dog on New Year's Eve.
I'm worried that the Oxford/AZ vaccine may not be sufficiently efficacious to halt the spread of the new variant virus. I'm not terribly knowledgeable about vaccines, though. Is this a justifiable concern, or can we be pretty sure that it is good enough?
Well Pfizer seem to think not, and I think AZ will be the same (I hope anyway)
This is the Christmas hall pass showing through in the numbers?
Yes.
So bloody avoidable.
Boris Johnson is a complete moron.
The morons are surely the people who thought putting households together on Christmas was a good idea, legal or not legal.
And the absolute fucking morons who thought it would be a good idea to have one day of school of household mixing for 3m kids. Absolutely huge amount of negligence.
That was bewilderingly stupid. Although, once again, there were apparently 140 kids in my son's school on Wednesday, mainly the children of doctors. This is an order of magnitude higher than were being sent in in May and June before the summer holidays. Attitudes are different, at least around here, despite this awful death toll.
This is the Christmas hall pass showing through in the numbers?
Imagine if it had of been the original plan !!!!
I know.
What really really annoys me is that we had the vaccines approved and rolling out, if he had told the country look I need you to sacrifice this Christmas so many more of us can enjoy future Christmases.
But no, Boris Johnson didn't want to be the Grinch that cancelled Christmas.
Not just that. He wanted a win at PMQs by putting Starmer in the Grinch suit.
Trouser update: they have been sitting in f*cking Cologne since Wednesday waiting for export. Buying anything from abroad is a right PIA right now, clearly.
This is a sprint, not a marathon, and right now it is a sprint we are LOSING. We are hurtling towards the brick wall of a crashed health system, the brakes are nearly gone, the throttle is jammed, we are accelerating.
I fear I wasn't exaggerating when I said these coming weeks are potentially the most dangerous for the UK since WW2
This is a sprint, not a marathon, and right now it is a sprint we are LOSING. We are hurtling towards the brick wall of a crashed health system, the brakes are nearly gone, the throttle is jammed, we are accelerating.
I fear I wasn't exaggerating when I said these coming weeks are potentially the most dangerous for the UK since WW2
I think one problem is there was such a big deal made about the health system crashing last March, flatten that curve etc and it didn't, no Nightingales were used, that when the message comes around again, too many people say yeah yeah, you said that last time. I doubt they fully grasp how bad Cockney Covid is.
This is the Christmas hall pass showing through in the numbers?
It's about a week from actions to detected cases, isn't it? So more likely reverting to tiers after Christmas, rather than going straight into full lockdown. (This time last week, a lot of schools were due to return as normal. Insane.)
But also, there's a pile of deaths coming down the track, and approximately nothing we can do about them.
Poor people. Poor friends and families. Poor medics.
My wife is just back from the frozen wastes otherwise known as our local retail park where, amongst other things, she was picking up click and collect ink for our printer. She says that she has never seen it so busy, not even on a Saturday, with queues everywhere and lots of people picking up from every store. Tesco's was bursting at the seams and none of the restrictions that were in place in the earlier lockdowns, such as 1 way aisles or distancing at the checkouts or limits on numbers in the store were apparent.
The reality is that this lockdown is simply not happening around here for all intents and purposes. It is absolutely nothing like February-April last year when the streets were deathly quiet. In light of this these figures are hardly a surprise. As @Leon pointed out the other day delivery of the vaccine is not a marathon but a sprint, a race to the finishing line with our hospitals as the prize. It's going to be close.
Gulp.
TBH, in semi-rural N Essex, we've just been out and about and it was very, very quiet.
Interesting. And several others saying the same. Really don't get why it has broken down so badly in Dundee.
The belief that "it's not that bad around here" coupled with all the morale boosting stuff about vaccines, when the reality is that it's still many weeks until they'll make a significant dent in the R rate.
I'm worried that the Oxford/AZ vaccine may not be sufficiently efficacious to halt the spread of the new variant virus. I'm not terribly knowledgeable about vaccines, though. Is this a justifiable concern, or can we be pretty sure that it is good enough?
That's one of the worries, especially in the single shot format. There are some numbers on it that suggest it's just under 70% effective with a single jab after three weeks but it is a big gamble. However, with the AZ vaccine we may not have much choice as the numbers support a 12 week gap as it looks to give 95% efficacy two weeks after the second shot with the 12 week gap.
My wife is just back from the frozen wastes otherwise known as our local retail park where, amongst other things, she was picking up click and collect ink for our printer. She says that she has never seen it so busy, not even on a Saturday, with queues everywhere and lots of people picking up from every store. Tesco's was bursting at the seams and none of the restrictions that were in place in the earlier lockdowns, such as 1 way aisles or distancing at the checkouts or limits on numbers in the store were apparent.
The reality is that this lockdown is simply not happening around here for all intents and purposes. It is absolutely nothing like February-April last year when the streets were deathly quiet. In light of this these figures are hardly a surprise. As @Leon pointed out the other day delivery of the vaccine is not a marathon but a sprint, a race to the finishing line with our hospitals as the prize. It's going to be close.
Gulp.
I think that's right. When I drove into work back then, there were a couple of weeks when I encountered maybe two or three other vehicles on a ten mile journey. Now traffic is like any normal school holiday.
Same here. I live on a main (urban) road and I've no idea where all the cars are going.
Perhaps the problem is that some people absolutely must do some leisure shopping and if the supermarket is the only place open, then that's where they'll go. A bit like those that must have foreign holidays but on a local scale.
Those pox numbers are fucking awful and it'll get even worse before it gets better.
Boris Johnson is an irresponsible cnut. It doesn't seem to matter to him how many people die as long as he gets positive headlines and scores a few political points. The cretin at the top and his death cabal are bad. The brainless morons out there who have utterly given up trying to keep themselves or anyone else safe are worse.
But the worst of all? The Parrots. The people who know that what they are saying is only going to encourage or gaslight the morons to behave even more irresponsibly and kill even more people. But its all worth it to promote their team and put down the other team. Scoring cheap and transient political points is worth more than human life.
My wife is just back from the frozen wastes otherwise known as our local retail park where, amongst other things, she was picking up click and collect ink for our printer. She says that she has never seen it so busy, not even on a Saturday, with queues everywhere and lots of people picking up from every store. Tesco's was bursting at the seams and none of the restrictions that were in place in the earlier lockdowns, such as 1 way aisles or distancing at the checkouts or limits on numbers in the store were apparent.
The reality is that this lockdown is simply not happening around here for all intents and purposes. It is absolutely nothing like February-April last year when the streets were deathly quiet. In light of this these figures are hardly a surprise. As @Leon pointed out the other day delivery of the vaccine is not a marathon but a sprint, a race to the finishing line with our hospitals as the prize. It's going to be close.
Gulp.
TBH, in semi-rural N Essex, we've just been out and about and it was very, very quiet.
Wasn't it ever thus for Constable country though ?
You've clearly never been to the Purple Dog on New Year's Eve.
Only ever been there in the daytime. Can imagine it, though!
Comments
Don't forget Joe Biden got almost 10 percent more votes - in absolute numbers - than Donald Trump. That's a pretty big miss.
You would think people would be au fait with lagged data by now but :shrug:
I fear we have a couple more weeks of those sorts of numbers though.
A televised apology would be best. Take full responsibility.
Boris Johnson is a complete moron.
In which case, "it's an ill wind" and "every cloud" and similar.
Asda delivered quite a big order yesterday and everything was fulfilled including fruit and veg
Our son who is a key worker has decided to send his two children to their primary school this time, (he did not last lockdown) and says there are a lot more attending
It does raise an issue of fairness if these children are getting a school education while many are not, but I do not know the answer
(Ferguson, I accept, was fair game - he broke the actual rules clearly and knowingly and that presumably came from a tip-off, not a fishing expedition like this one)
So what couldn't Democrat controlled cities - most of which are in Democrat controlled states - do to reduce poverty?
PS the same point is relevant for poor areas in the South in Republican states. My view is that both sides are quite happy to keep people poor in many areas because it suits their political agendas.
PS Do take the time to watch the TED talk. It is both educational and entertaining.
there is actually a chance that New Years day has created a similar effect to the 29th Dec. Delayed seeking of tests.
The reality is that this lockdown is simply not happening around here for all intents and purposes. It is absolutely nothing like February-April last year when the streets were deathly quiet. In light of this these figures are hardly a surprise. As @Leon pointed out the other day delivery of the vaccine is not a marathon but a sprint, a race to the finishing line with our hospitals as the prize. It's going to be close.
Gulp.
What really really annoys me is that we had the vaccines approved and rolling out, if he had told the country look I need you to sacrifice this Christmas so many more of us can enjoy future Christmases.
But no, Boris Johnson didn't want to be the Grinch that cancelled Christmas.
We've bet the farm, the house, the livestock and 100 years of wheat futures on the vaccine so we've got to get this right.
I have doubts about the long term viability of us all having vaccine shots all the time - I'm glad to do it to get back to normal in this instance.
In the long term, I'd like to see us aiming for disease robustness - being so healthy that we can withstand these things. I appreciate though that this argument is so niche at present as to be nowhere near anyone's priority list.
But then I think why bother.
Or, to put it another way, if you think of the US as Cities, Suburbia, and Rural & Small Town America. The Dems win Cities, the Republicans Rural & Small Town America.
That's 30% each.
You can't discard Suburbia. Indeed, historically the Republicans ran up big leads there. The question is how you fuse the desires of Rural & Small Town America with Suburbia?
If Trump were to fade from the scene, and someone smart (and not Ted Cruz) were to appear on the populist Right, they might stand a chance. But Trump is ultimately selfish. He wants to be President and to avenge his 2020 loss. He doesn't want a new standard bearer. He wants to be the standard bearer. I can't see him supporting and championing Josh Hawley or Tom Cotton. And so long as he looms, then the Republican civil war will continue. In this, I think @contrarian is absolutely correct.
Spain accounted for 33 per of transmission chains during the first wave, according to the researchers, with France accounting for 29 per cent of the imports and Italy 12 per cent.
China, meanwhile, was responsible for only 0.4 per cent of the introduction of transmission chains in the UK.
Based on the findings, published in the journal Science, the researchers said earlier travel and quarantine interventions could have helped reduce the intensity of the UK’s first wave of cases.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/uk-covid-introducton-spain-first-wave-b761018.html
Then again, Hilary might have won in 2016 if Comey hadn't released that late email briefing.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-comey-letter-probably-cost-clinton-the-election/
When I drove into work back then, there were a couple of weeks when I encountered maybe two or three other vehicles on a ten mile journey.
Now traffic is like any normal school holiday.
Said forklift drivers may be called Mr Lefthand and Mr Righthand.
It's almost like there might be factors beyond simply the colour of the rossette that effect outcomes.
Boston, Houston, Dallas, Philadelphia, Denver, Minneapolis - all have had many more Democratic mayors than Republican. Cities tend towards the Democratic party because their industries, working class populations and access to education and information promote support for Democratic policies.
Choose two or three cities that are in decline, seeing they have got Democratic administrations, and deciding that the latter causes the former, is not a good way to analyse data.
But also, there's a pile of deaths coming down the track, and approximately nothing we can do about them.
Poor people. Poor friends and families. Poor medics.
1. The economy
2. Availability of fresh fruit / vegetables
3. Crime
4. Rent / wages / influx
5. Poverty / inequality
and then we want to quantify where these things are worse depending on the party in charge, which could mean:
1. The President
2. Congress overall
3. The senators/reps for the city
4. State governor
5. Mayor
6. The other state-level politicians for that area
Not sure which of those people think are more important in this exercise. Only the mayoralty has been specifically mentioned.
Then you need to enumerate the problems and benefits in part 1, and correlate them to your politicians in part 2. Anything short of that is probably handwaving and evidence-free assertions based on your own political preferences. I doubt MrEd started with this kind of evidence and probably isn't interested in this kind of evidence-based approach, which means the conversation is virtually guaranteed to go nowhere.
But just so you know, "cities are bad, and Dems run cities" isn't a very convincing argument without evidence, when you start to think about it for more than about ten seconds. And since none of us can be bothered to gather the evidence needed to make an analysis, let alone do the analysis, I'll put this particular debate down as a pointless dead end and duck out of it.
I believe Arlene cancelled Christmas too.
Yes, Drakeford is useless, but you are putting him behind the 8 ball whatever shot he plays.
today
yesterday
England hospital admissions from bottom of the dip (Nov 27 - 1055!) to now
https://twitter.com/NAChristakis/status/1347582687251410945
From case data
From hospital data
https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1347517695164612608
https://twitter.com/mugecevik/status/1345350165767614464
Evil.
I fear I wasn't exaggerating when I said these coming weeks are potentially the most dangerous for the UK since WW2
https://twitter.com/RichardHRBenyon/status/1347548573727121409?s=20
Perhaps the problem is that some people absolutely must do some leisure shopping and if the supermarket is the only place open, then that's where they'll go. A bit like those that must have foreign holidays but on a local scale.
This isn't stopping the new variant. No chance.
Thanks, once again, Malmesbury. The whole point of this site is to discuss new information, and make forecasts on it. You assist that.
World Beating single day death rate as a % of population today?
Boris Johnson is an irresponsible cnut. It doesn't seem to matter to him how many people die as long as he gets positive headlines and scores a few political points. The cretin at the top and his death cabal are bad. The brainless morons out there who have utterly given up trying to keep themselves or anyone else safe are worse.
But the worst of all? The Parrots. The people who know that what they are saying is only going to encourage or gaslight the morons to behave even more irresponsibly and kill even more people. But its all worth it to promote their team and put down the other team. Scoring cheap and transient political points is worth more than human life.