Bunch of thoughts on the midterm election.
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I'm disappointed with the results, but things could have been worse. A lot worse. I was at a viewing party with other Republicans, and they were downright cheerful, as they fully expected the House to go to the Democrats.
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This was a strange midterm. For the past generation, midterm elections have been nationalized, with a singular theme driving the winning party to power, and the outcome percolating throughout all levels of government (e.g. 1994, 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014). That was not the case here. Both sides had victories and defeats. More specifically, the results were highly idiosyncratic in ways that defies normal political patterns. The Dems outperformed in the House while the GOP did better than expected in the Senate. GOP managed to win governor races in FL, GA, OH, NH, VT, and kept control of most of the state legislatures. At the same time, the Dems got surprise wins in GOP held House districts that were categorized as lean Republican by the pollsters. So yeah, I don't know what to make of it from a macro sense.
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Time for brutal honesty. If it wasn't for the GOP Senators' courageous unified stance for Kavanaugh and Trump's nonstop rallies, the outcome would have been devastating for the GOP. And the single person who bears the most blame for us losing the House is not Trump but Paul Ryan, who will go down as one of the most ineffective House speakers in history. Despite the GOP majority, Ryan did nothing, unable to pass Trump's agenda. He spent his time pontificating about ideological purity and policies that the American people (unfortunately) will never accept. The House's ineffectiveness on enacting the Trump agenda, especially on immigration and healthcare, cost us control. If you look at the races where the GOP incumbents lost, the margin was quite narrow, and they were mostly anti-Trump Republicans who lost to purported "moderate center-left" candidates. The conservative base punished these incumbents.
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More brutal honesty. The GOP has a YUGE problem with not just cities but the suburbs of large cities, the places that are teeming with growth and economic opportunities. I know that the rural and exurban voters are our base, but we need to improve our margins here. The fact that Cruz won by just 2-3 points in Texas should send chills down the spine of conservatives. Dallas and Harris counties (Houston), once bastions of Texas Republicanism (they went GOP long before other parts of the South) are now rock solid blue, with margins increasing in every election. Yes, Beto spent $70 million and the media made him into a messianic figure, but nonetheless, the margin is worrisome.
The same thing in Georgia. The governors race was too freaking close, especially when the Democratic nominee is far left, who burned the American flag as a student and openly talked about the possibility of gun confiscation. How did this happen? The suburbs of Atlanta are super diverse now (Gwinnett County is now 45% white), and the Latino and Asians are voting Dem by large margins. In 2004, W Bush won Gwinnett county by a whopping 33 points. Hillary won it by 6 in 2016. Stacey Abrams won it by 14!!! Republicans, we have a problem.
- Still more brutal honesty. Conservatives have a big uphill battle. The Left controls the media, cultural institutions, and universities, shaping the minds of young people and forming powerful narratives. This is a nearly impossible obstacle to overcome, and it is a major reason why I'm ok with Trump's bombastic style and aggressiveness. The good news is that with social media and the decentralization of news, conservatives can rely on alternative platforms to get our message out. Of course, Facebook, Google, and Twitter, are downright banning and censoring conservatives, but I'm glad that my side is at least fighting back on this.
A more worrisome issue is demographics. When we import 1.5 million legal immigrants annually, many of whom are low skilled immigrants from Third World countries, conservatism will lose. When those people become citizens, they will vote for Democrats by large margins, as their lower economic status will make them vulnerable to grandiose promises of socialism and big government programs. And no, Latinos are not "natural" conservatives. The Bush era Republicans who say that need to STFU. No Republican presidential nominee has EVER won the Latino vote. In his epic 49-state landslide in 1984, Reagan got just 30% of the Latino vote. So you're gonna tell me with a straight face that the GOP can win them with a message of fiscal conservatism, personal responsibility, and tough immigration laws? I got a unicorn to sell you if you believe that.
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The Bernie progressives lost last night (Cruz, Gillum, Abrams, Jealous), which is a huge plus, as I want the Democrats to be a moderate center-left party that expunges the elements of socialism and open borders.
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Money matters in House races. Bloomberg pouring in millions helped flip many of those seats. It's also amusing that the Left is not complaining about Citizens United, in the aftermath of the election. I'm glad they support the SCOTUS decision on that case!
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What do the midterm results portend for 2020? Not much. Two years is an infinity in American politics. Anyone who says they have an insight into the 2020 race based on the midterms is full of horseshit. Tune them out. Having said that, the Democrats' primary choice will be the following: do they nominate a moderate who can win back the swing states, or do they go hard left and nominate a Bernie style socialist who is also a minority? I'm pretty sure they will opt for the latter. We shall see.
I agree with most of your analysis.
1) The overall result was essentially a draw. Dems can be happy they took the House, but there was no ''blue wave''. At a certain point of the night, they were seeing 2016 ghosts. CNN was in panic. Reps gaining seats in the Senate allows a few nice things, especially if Ginsburg retires or dies within the next 2 to 6 years, and that's possible. Statistically, the party of the President performs poorly in midterms and Trump did far better than most.
2) I have been saying this for a while, the Republican leadership (or formerly so, let's say Bush era) is fundamentally worthless and doesn't understand the existential threat posed by the Democratic ''demographic destiny'' agenda. The goal is clear, plainly stated by their media and think thanks, the model is California: radically alter the demographics of the US, flood it with poor ''latinos'', promise them handouts and race quotas, turn the country into a one-party state. This is communist level subversion. Occasionally it fails because ''latinos'' is actually a superficial evaluation: Florida Cubans aren't Mexicans, and despise socialism. Hispanic men vote GOP with rather high percentages (35-40%). Regardless, it has been the goal since at least Obama 08 and they have quadrupled on this since 2016.
3) Fortunately, the extremism of the above mentioned agenda is turning off people. Democrats wanted to build the ''coalition of the oppressed'' (by white men), including white women, but since they lean Republican, there has been a lot of bashing against them for allegedly betraying the Democrats cause. Overall this is bad for the country because it's going to end up as ''the party of whites'' against ''the party of non-whites''.
4) The ''grievance studies'' scandal should be utilized by Trump to cut the funding to the academia that supports such fraudolent ''research''. It's also the ideological core of the Dems identity politics and activism, it stems from sheer Marxism, there's plenty of material to dub these elements subversive and hostile to the nation. Similarly, the way these people moved is to infiltrate HR departments with ''equity (aka equal outcome, meaning communism), diversity and inclusion'' officers. Again subversive crap. Under this aspect, I look forward the Supreme Court ruling on discrimination against Asians by Harvard. A sentence against the diversity agenda can be devastating for that matter.
5) Social media: there's a free market solution for those, break them. Most of them enjoy a quasi-monopolistic advantage, split them, make them compete. All you need here is put a company that doesn't censor against a company that heavily censors. The market will do the rest.
5) They are most definitely not monopolies by current definitions that we have. There are no barriers to entry to create a social media site. You can even use an existing social media site to advertise and campaign for your own. Although we've seen the results of this happening. Take Reddit getting rid of some of the.. uhh.. not so wholesome subreddits. People got pissed and went and created VOAT. It basically quickly just devolved into a quasi-4chan though.
Do you think that California is a bad influence on the US? If you do, you might want to consider that they contribute almost 15% of the GDP in the US.
They're also not even in the top 5 in GDP per capita
I would hope so, given the population and land mass. What does that have to do with the price of tea in China? It's falling apart, the private sector is thriving in spite of the horrifying governance there, not because of it. Literally no one with a brain who lives there would tell you otherwise.
Almost everyone I know or know of who lives there and has attained any level of success is looking to get the fuck out.
The dems fell short of expectations that were probably too high. However, now they have control of the house, which is a victory for them. It will be extremely difficult for any legislation to pass. As a result, we will have grid lock for the next two years. The POTUS said the outcome was almost a complete victory for repubs, which does make any sense at all. He actually said that it will be easier to negotiate with the dems, which also does not make any sense. Then, he went to throw his own repubs under the bus.
The right faces an uphill battle because they've done nothing to bring in young people and minorities, their policies skew too far towards the rich, they waste time on bullshit social policies like anti-gay marriage (before) and bathroom laws, they rely on fear mongering to rally their base while alienating everyone else, they somehow still haven't come up with a real solution on healthcare - something that the public clearly wants (see the medicare expansion props that passed). Currently, they're relying on heavily gerrymandered districts to retain representation in the house, how long can that last? Sure, they did well in the senate but that's probably going to change when more toss-up republican seats (rather than stuff like Dakota) are up for grabs in 2020. Blame the media and democrats "control of institutions" all you want. Currently, I predict a 3/3 House/Senate/President sweep in 2020. Of course, this can change. But if this awesome economy doesn't rally Trump's approval rating, nothing will. BTW, you are completely wrong on Trump not being at fault for the losses and close wins, exit polls make that quite clear. Your point on suburbs also completely contradicts that sentiment.
The Democrats have a tough hill to climb in 2020 in the Senate (I believe the seats up for re-election are not favorable to them then either). I can see them keeping the House and winning the Presidency, although I think the Presidential race is a toss-up.
It's an interesting time. The GOP will have to change within the next decade or so or they'll get decimated. They'll have to move more towards the center on certain social issues. However, at the same time, I'm not sure if these Bernie-type Democrats will be able to successfully take the next step and win a Presidency in the next 2-10 years. It's working for now probably because of Trump (where half or more of the country dislikes him greatly and wants to be the exact opposite), but if you have a more moderate Republican run in 2024 and beyond vs. a democratic socialist-type, I think the Republicans will have the edge. For someone on the extreme left to win, they need to be as passionate as Bernie, but have the charisma of an Obama. It'd be interesting to see how well the Republicans might do if they had someone like Nikki Haley (obviously a woman, from an Indian-American Sikh family) run in 2024. The Republicans haven't done well with women or minorities, but some of them would likely be willing to vote for a candidate like her.
2024 is too far out to think about. I think the democrats will probably nominate a populist (not necessarily a socialist) in 2020, or a bloomberg-type.
I was JUST about to comment the first half of this. With Healthcare being a focal point issue, if the GOP does nothing I see them losing ground in the House. The Presidency will be close regardless because of partisanship. I don't see the Senate happening although it is possible now because of the Montana hold.
The GOP needs to champion issues like marijuana legalization to attract different demographics but they also don't want to lose Evangelicals that way.. I'm not going to predict the Presidency though. Too far out and I have no idea.
My observation is that we haven’t heard one peep from the Right about the Caravan since the midterms. It’s almost like the GOP used their standard fearmongering to the geriatric Fox News crowd to win votes, and it worked as always!
Red areas got redder, blue areas got bluer. Both sides seem ready for electoral war, so the idea of a turnout/enthusiasm gap is probably gone for awhile (one reason Dems gains in House were muted, along with gerrymandering).
GOP continues to get older, whiter, more rural, and less educated - and their policy platforms reflect it. In Ted Cruz’ own words "The Democrats are the party of Lisa Simpson and Republicans are happily the party of Homer, Bart, and Marge." Why anyone who runs in high finance circles would want to hitch their horse to that wagon, I have no idea.
I would say this was a pretty expected outcome. I thought the Senate would be either 52 or 53 GOP but the Florida vote definitely was the surprising one. I don't really think there was much to cheer about though.
From a macro sense and from looking at exit polling data... it doesn't look pretty moving forward. Trump riling up the base with immigration and fear helped voter turnout and the GOP did what they do, they voted GOP. From a Dem side, we saw moderate Dems like Missouri senate, Tennessee Senate, and Indiana Senate get blown out while quite a few full progressives over performed. This would mean I don't see why the Dems wouldn't become MORE partisan moving forward, just in the opposite direction of the GOP. The Tea Party did the hyper partisan thing in 2010 and post and it has clearly worked. I would expect the Dems to now also adopt the strategy and increase the fracturing of the country.
You need to understand that Paul Ryan and a lot of the Tea Partiers like him never gave a shit about any of the constituents. He was willing to burn everything to get the tax cut that we have had. He accomplished what he wanted. Same when Gary Cohen was an advisor, didn't care, just stayed for the tax cut push.
The GOP is not going to do better there with Trump in office. Suburban educated women are RUNNING the opposite direction from the GOP because of Trump. First Republican in 50 years to lose the college educated vote in 2016 and right now with women it is getting worse and worse.
The Left controls a larger # of NATIONAL media stations. The local level is dominated by Fox and more conservative media along with talk radio. Universities are not the main proponent of shaping the minds of young people, its the internet and other young people. When someone from deep woods Kansas goes to Uni in Florida and meets people from all walks of life and realizes there are many more things that unite them rather than divide them, if a GOP candidate pushes for ideas that clearly hurt a certain group, that individual becomes resentful. Blacks/Latinos are more religious than any other bloc in the country. How. The Fuck. Are the GOP unable to get these blocs? Just dial down the disdain and it would be a wrap every election.
I don't like the wing of the Dem party that is very left, but you can overperform without winning. It is not zero sum when you look at it in a macro sense.
Money has always won elections. You cannot blame the Left for not continuously pounded on Citizens United while not giving a damn that the GOP has never opposed it.
The midterms were damn close to a mirror of the 2016 election in a large number of states. The Northeast will vote Dem, the South will vote GOP, the West will vote Dem, the Central will vote GOP, and the Rust Belt/Upper Mid West will be a tossup. Clear Rural/Urban splits and quite a few of the ballot initiatives supported by Dem candidates were passed, even while that candidate ended up somehow losing those races.
Hey, all liberals who champion women in politics. Here's the first Korean-American woman in Congress. She's a Republican! Why isn't this front page news? I haven't seen a single "feminist" post about her success. Hypocrisy. https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/271882/media-uninterested-first-kore…
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-firsts-factbox/factbox-…
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/california-republican-young-kim-aims-1s…
She lost, you moron.
Good. Men win again!
On a side note, I see the US going down the path of Brazil and Bolsonaro after Trump.
1) Hard left take over for 8-12 years. 2) Rampant violent crime and corruption. That's pretty clear seeing how Democrat megalopolis are run. 3) Growth eventually hampered. 4) Out of desperation, people pick someone with a military background to restore the order. This person will also probably be the first Republican president to receive the majority of Hispanic votes. +
Bonus 5) He'll be called ''totally Hitler''. This time, however, it won't be without reason. There's plenty to fear from Bolsonaro.
crime rate has consistently gone down for decades across the country, stop the fear mongering (your entire post is fear mongering). Democrats run pretty much every city in the country.... some have higher crime than others. Stop the fear mongering.
And speaking of fear mongering.... are you a straight white male? Because I have bad news for ya.
Whenever I need a good laugh I just picture one of these alt-right WSO clowns actually walking over to their office water cooler and spewing their nonsense to colleagues/clients in real life.
How on earth are you gainfully employed? Do you really say these things out load to people or does internet anonymity encourage you to go off the rails?
Fun fact, I'm not going to participate into flamebaiting games anymore or at least I'm trying to. Not sure if it's a driving cause of political polarization, but nonetheless, it's worth a shot. If you want to proceed and call anyone who's not far left ''a Nazi that should be deplatformed'', go for it.
I don't think it's helping anyone.
It was almost exactly as predicted. Democrats were supposed to win the House and not win the Senate because of the specific seats available. They won the House and didn't win the Senate.
shrug
Any thoughts on Maxine Waters becoming the chair the House Financial Service committee?
I feel like it went pretty much as expected with a better than expected night for republicans pulling ahead in the senate. I also think it was a little disappointing that moderate republicans were losing yet at the same time glad extreme liberals were as well. That being said it looks like Trump is in full panic mode after firing Sessions yesterday. The press conference he held was filled with incoherent rambling and then they revoke Acosta's press card for "assault"? LOL.
I dislike CNN, but whatever your thoughts this was a blatant lie with video evidence. It blows my mind how many people are ok with an administration that can lie to them like this.
The POTUS is indifferent between the truth and lies. He says whatever pops into his head at the moment.
I never liked Paul Ryan. The guy was weak and I'll never forget what Biden did to him in that debate. He was torn apart. That said, this obsession to scapegoat the man for legislative failures, mostly from the BB crowd, makes absolutely no fucking sense.
Why? Well, because Ryan actually got everything through the House!!! Tax law - through the house; Repeal and Replace - through the house; Immigration - through the house. Everything literally died in the Senate.
It's amazing to me that Ryan takes shit for passing bills through his chamber but which died in the Senate.
The Breitbart crowd just needs somebody to blame, anybody that they can label a "Globalist"
[EDIT] On another note, the narrative is this: Extremely left wing socialists (call themselves "progressives") overpreformed. It's clear that much of the country wants socialism. 40 years of government schooling and Marxists professors has taken its toll (mass waves of South American migration and the lack of assimilation has also contributed). The average mind of a 20 something year old is basically mush at this point, and there aren't the intellectuals in place to undo the damage (the Friedman's, the Sowell's, the Hayek's, etc., etc.).
At the same time, tax cuts just aren't appealing as they used to be. When 50% of the population (i.e., the "middle class") doesn't pay anything in net federal income taxes, and when the populace is taught that the wealthy accrued their wealth through expropriation and exploitation, tax cuts are a hard sell.
It has long been known that true Democracy is a path to totalitarianism. We're in the middle-latter stages of this process. Also, red states are becoming purple states, precisely because conservative policies are so effective. Good bye Texas.
Pretty much everybody in this country is guilty of blaming one or two people for all the things they don't like. I don't equivocating everyone but it is actually true that all sides do this.
Thanks bro for telling me that "it's done on all sides." I'm sure that will score you SBs from the "I'm a sensible moderate" crowd.
You are right, people shouldn't be blaming Paul Ryan for bills dying in the senate. People should blame the republican party for having a terribly unpopular platform. Repeal and replace? Lmao, check those polls out. Meanwhile medicare for all continues to gain steam. Corporate tax law... lol the avg. American doesn't give a shit. Immigration is a toss-up.
Absolutely no doubt that the true conservative platform is unpopular. People undoubtedly love shit that's ultimately really bad for them. No doubt about it.
The problem of GOP is they are horrible at public relation. There is a negative perception of Republicans which makes it difficult to draw support from the young idealists of the world. Take a young college student in a liberal state, there is little incentive to be a conservative since you can get shut down socially for supporting unpopular things. I knew a moderate conservative who became complete Bernie leftist just because the girl he likes is one. He explained that he feels like he a better person because of the approval from his peers (UC Berkeley types).
OP's post reads like a recap of the Ohio State and Michigan rivalry. Us vs them.
We are all Americans. Don't forget that.
Unfortunately there are a handful of deeply unhappy users who have made “us vs them” politics their entire personality and dominate the off topic forum with pathetic nonsense.
Not a single respected person in the finance community acts or thinks like them.
3 out of 4 of the forum is conservative. Weak try.
Even weaker considering you consistently pretend to speak for the entire ''financial community''. Jesus Christ dude. Zero self-esteem.
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