The Virginia Society for the Preservation and Appreciation of High-Quality Posts

[GeorgiaModerate]

This is absolutely appalling and one cannot come to any conclusion other than this being racially-motivated. Stephen Miller is an evil man and needs to go. Trump is a loving person with a good heart - this kind of thing would not happen in his administration without bad influences like Miller around.

Good people steer clear of evil people except perhaps in enforcing the law or passing judgment. Good people reject evil counsel.

Good people do not stiff subcontractors, spread falsehoods about political rivals or opponents, brag about grabbing women by their crotches, disparage the service of soldiers, induce people to commit crimes on their behalf, sire children out of wedlock several times...

Good heart? Not even likely medically, in view of his dietary habits.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Fail to see how Blackburn is moving in or Bredesen is trending down.

"he used to have a much larger lead"
"bredesen is trending down"

wut?

There has only been 3 polls of this race this entire summer, and one was Gravis. The last one was Gravis, actually, with Blackburn +4. So if we’re going by that, Bredesen is actually up. The one before that was Emerson with Bredesen +6 with RV, which is barely different than this one’s +4 RV. The one before that was from APRIL and had Bredesen +3. The only poll really out of line here was the Bredesen +10 from March which seemed like a clear outlier. Other than that, this race has been generally pretty damn close the entire time. Y'all are making up a narrative that doesn't exist.

Considering Bredesen has an enormous +40 favorable rating, and Blackburn only a +10… in Tennessee… and Trump has a +4 approval in a state that he won by 25, I’d say I’d rather be Bredesen now with less than two months to go.

With extra points for being the author's first post here.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Was there a Constitutional Right for black folks to eat at Woolworth's lunch counters in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1960?  Or Ollie McClung's BBQ in Birmingham, Alabama in 1964?  Or Lester Maddox's Pickrick Restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia in 1965? 

Again, no, there was not. That's why the Civil Rights Act was necessary. What part of this are you not getting?

Businesses cannot deny service on the basis of race because there is a law that makes it illegal to deny service on the basis of race (and sex, religion, age, disability, etc.). There is no such law that prohibits a business from cutting ties with peddlers of hate-filled propaganda. If you're arguing for the creation of such a law, then make that argument. But the Constitution has nothing to do with it.

[GeorgiaModerate]

So, I've been an internet denizen since 1999, which doesn't make me an oldbie, but this forum tends to skew young. Forums are where most of my time has been spent. I was a lurker here for a long time before I started posting off and on with the lead-up to the 2016 election. I've started interacting more as I felt more confident, and now I feel confident enough to say this:

Y'all are really, really ridiculous about the ignore feature.

There are quite a few folks here who are considered to be trolls. Almost all the active userbase acknowledges this. Instead of acting appropriately and ignoring said user(s), they respond to said user(s) and give them the interaction they crave while also mucking up unrelated threads. Then we add in this whole "ban soandso" thread phenomenon, which is an interesting thing but quite pointless considering built in features of nearly every forum software in existence.

There are also many people who don't reach the level of trolls but quite often do not interact in good faith with other users or users or a particular political party.

Put. Them. On. Ignore.

Don't complain about how they always do x or y. Use the ignore feature. It's not censoring them (they can still post to their heart's content), and it's not "being a snowflake;" it's refusing to fall into their petty arguments and traps. There are a fair number of users who would stop derailing topics if people stopped responding to them. I happily have said users on my ignore list, and would be so much happier if others would do the same, as fewer threads would get derailed. It also allows you to see the posts of folks who do disagree with you but aren't rude about it in a much better light, and allows for a bit more thoughtful discourse!

Seriously. It's not worth your blood pressure going up. If you think they should be gone or you don't expect them to interact in good faith or they just treat you like something that came out of a cow's derrière, use the ignore feature. Save yourself some time and breathe a sigh of relief.

Anyway, I've never seen a forum so full of people who are proud of themselves for not using a normal and acceptable feature of a forum. It's silly and makes an already fraught discussion topic even more difficult to navigate. Some folks claim that by using ignore they're taking away the voice of dissenters. That's ridiculous. There are plenty of folks here who disagree with you who are willing to discuss those disagreements in good faith. SO. Make use of this very normal and acceptable feature and make your own forum reading much more enjoyable! Plus, hey, less off-topic wanderings for the rest of us to wade through.

Thanks for your time.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Another good post from a newcomer:

I don't like O'Rourke.  For one thing, he reminds me of Ted Kennedy (one of the four Democrats from my home state whose name I practically use as a profanity), and his having a drunk driving accident which he tried to flee doesn't help with that.  For another thing, there are plenty of issues where I agree with liberal Democrats and on which a Senate candidate should have a position; so when I contacted his campaign for positions on those issues trying to persuade myself to vote for him and it turned out he had no position on them, I felt that he is either evasive or unprofessional.  

Then finally, he advocated banning AR-15s, and that was the straw that I thought decided me for Dikeman.   Now, I am quite moderate on gun control: I support background checks and high-capacity magazine bans and don't believe the Second Amendment protects an individual right to firearms, and think Wayne LaPierre is a horrible excuse for a human being.  But whenever a Democrat proposes banning one of the most popular firearms, and one which is not an outsized contributor to gun deaths, because it was used in one high-profile shooting and no one technically "needs" one, it tells me that they have not made even the slightest effort to understand gun culture.  And this makes me wonder if O'Rourke is going to be any better about trying to understand people who disagree with him than Cruz is: I feel like the answer to that question is probably "no."

The Kavanaugh hearings, however, have persuaded me that I need to vote for O'Rourke; I've finally come around to George Will's argument that Trump and his cadre of enablers need to be defeated no matter what.  Now, I don't know how many people like me there are: I am atypical of a Texas voter, and probably even atypical of a college-educated white Texas voter who moved here from a blue state: I suspect that most people who hated Cruz and normally vote were planning on voting for O'Rourke anyways.  But I am sure that there are a lot of people who are as jaded as I was and dealt with it by staying home.  I sincerely hope that the Kavanaugh hearings might have jolted enough of them out of complacency to make a difference.

I also remember with both Massachusetts in 2010 and Alabama in 2017, being sure that the state was going to elect an absolutely appalling canddiate because they had the right letter next to their name.  In both 2010 and 2017, I was pleasantly surprised.  I wouldn't say that Cruz himself is as personally reprehensible as Coakley or Moore, but in seeking to promote Kavanaugh he is attempting to install a nakedly partisan conspiracy theorist, shameless perjurer, and probable sexual predator to a lifetime position far more powerful than a mere Senate seat.  Texas isn't as red as Alabama, nor as red as Massachusetts is blue, and the polls have had Cruz only very slightly ahead.  I am therefore cautiously optimistic that the Kavanaugh hearings will lend Texas voters enough moral clarity to evict Cruz from his seat.

[GeorgiaModerate]

I read Poliquin will sue, but on what grounds? Ranked choice is not that different from run-offs.

Presumably, the argument would be that it is unconstitutional to change the congressional election process through citizen initiative, because the Constitution gives the power to regulate congressional elections to state legislatures (subject to federal legislation).

This argument was rejected by the Supreme Court in the Arizona Redistricting Commission case in 2015.  But the vote was 5-4, with Kennedy breaking the tie to side with the four liberals.  With Kennedy replaced by Kavanaugh, the outcome could be different if the Court heard the same argument today.

While this may be grounds to sue, I cannot see how it can have any remedy other than ordering a completely new election under the old rules. This election was run based on a certain law. Had the old law and simple plurality rule been in place, both candidates and voters would have behaved differently: in particular, arguably, many of the voters who went for minor candidates on their first choice would have voted for one of the two major candidates (any amount of political scientists would testify to that as well-established fact: it is, in fact, well-established).  Ordering the count to be done based on the old (plurality) rule would not help establish the result that would have obtained had that rule been in place from the beginning. So, the only remedy available is to annul the election and rerun it. If a court orders simply not counting second preferences, it would not be materially different from ordering one of the candidates to be declared elected without any vote.

[GeorgiaModerate]

NATO may protect western 'corporate' interests (whatever that means) by proxy of defending Western interests, but aboveall it is a collective security organization, built to prevent the sort of 'creeping' aggression which caused the Second World War. The fundamental premise is that if powerful countries (like France or the United States) join their own security at the hip to the security of weak nations (like Czechoslovakia or Estonia), then potentially dangerous aggressive nations (such as Germany or Russia) can be effectively deterred from taking even minor aggressive steps. If anyone in this thread thinks for a moment after the examples of Georgia and Ukraine that the people of the Baltic states would be living in relative freedom and prosperity today had NATO been disestablished at the end of the Cold War, they are deluded. Further, if anyone in this thread believes that the cost of stationing barrier troops in Europe to shore up the alliance is not worth the liberty of Europeans or preventing the potential cost of global conflict, they are both deluded and have a seriously misaligned moral sense. The only reasons anyone would have to support U.S. withdrawal from NATO is either a fundamental lack of understanding of the way the international system works or a vested interest in the advancement of Russian autocratic influence in Europe, or both.

[GeorgiaModerate]

They hate the guy on our $20 bill, they hate the police, they hate borders, they hate the pledge of allegiance, they hate our gun laws, they hate the national anthem, they hate religion (unless it's something muslim or controversial) they hate our electoral college, they hate our President, they hate many of our Supreme Court justices, they hate big gulp sodas, normal bathrooms, even freaking Rudolph the red nosed reindeer.

The list goes on and on. The only thing the left likes about America is the right they have in America to speak about what they hate about America.

I unapologetically love America. So does Trump. Unlike Obama, he can say it without adding a "but". There are no buts. If you don't like it, leave. Please. Leave.

It's really not worth my time to respond to this lunacy, but let me just debunk/explain a few of the incomprehensible talking points you've used here.

1). the guy on our $20 bill was an absolute sociopath who dueled to the death and massacred Native people. secondly, it's odd how you would love a racist Democrat 🤔

2). This is just a strawman, not really much to debate here. I could just as easily say Republicans hate all teachers because they critizice them so often. with that said, criticizing police brutality and cops acting like action heroes who think they're above the law does not = hating police. the number of Democrats/leftists who actually hate police is almost certainly smaller than the number of Republicans who actually hate minorities solely for existing.

3). Again, a strawman that has no basis in reality. the bipartisan 2013 immigration bill would have secured the border and nearly all Democrats in Congress supported it, but of course those on the fringes of the GOP killed it because muh amnesty or something. so to recap on borders; we had a chance to secure the border, Republicans killed it. sit down and shut up.

4). I personally would not pledge allegiance to any country, but to say that the average Democrat shares this view point is yet again another strawman that's devoid of any factual basis. what most Democrats and progressives believe is that no one, particularly children, should be forced to say the pledge of allegiance. the United States is not a personality cult like North Korea - you don't have to tirelessly take an oath saying how much you love this country.

5). This is possibly my favorite part of your rant thus far. there are countless laws that Republicans "hate". look at how Republicans argue against our current abortion or immigration laws, and notice that they claim these laws are leading to death or disaster or whatever scare words they use. Democrats share the same view, and for good reason, on lax gun laws.


6). Every NFL player who kneeled has explicitly said they were not protesting the national anthem or America itself, but only police brutality and institutional racism - two very serious issues that must be addressed. you'll note that right-wingers had no problem with Tim Tebow kneeling during the national anthem in prayer... I wonder why.


7). The absolute base of the Democratic Party (women of color) are extremely religious, more so than most white Republicans. further more, the vast majority of elected Democrats are Christians or belong to some branch of Christianity. calling other religions weird and showing your Islamaphobia here is also a cute little side note. if you truly love this country, you would believe in freedom of - and freedom from - religion.


. They believe the electoral college is unfair  and/or outdated, and so did Donald Trump when he falsely claimed that Romney had won the PV and lost the EC in 2012 - what exactly does this have to do with the left's alleged hatred of America, again?


9). Again, are you under the impression that we live in North Korea? the fact that we have the right to hate our President is part of why America is a good country. also, Republicans hated Obama just as much as Democrats hated Trump so I'm unsure where you're even going with this one. most Democrats hate Trump because they believe his policies are wrong and are harming this country - that's the definition of patriotism.

10). Republicans also hate many of our Supreme Court justices. similarly to your last point, this one also makes no sense considering the exact same is true of Republicans.


11). Wanting to tax unhealthy things isn't something I agree with, but it's also far from being un-American or unpatriotic. people support this because they want Americans to be healthier, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that even though I disagree with this specific policy.

12). trans people have a right to use the bathroom of their choice, and the scare tactic/BS conspiracy theory that predators will use this and claim to be trans so they can assault women or little girls or something is totally invented by the right - like the idea of their being widespread voter fraud or a crisis on our Southern border. you're more likely to be raped by Roy Moore or Dennis Hastert than a sicko pretending to be trans so he can molest children.


13). A tiny, tiny, group of leftists (morons, to be more accurate) said that about Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. again, this is an extremely fringe view so bringing it up as an example of why liberals hate America is like me saying Republicans hate America because they want to make it illegal to criticize the President.

And finally, I'll respond to your last statement here.

No prominent Democrats or liberals hate this country, they hate the injustices and issues that exist in this country and want to fix them. wanting to make this country better does not in any way imply it's not already great - unlike a certain slogan used by our current President. and I'd add that you have a history of racist and anti-Semitic comments, so I would find it really hard to say you love this country unconditionally when you seem to hate anyone who isn't exactly like you. America is not defined by race or religion or ethnicity or sexuality or any of those things, it's defined by a shared goal and a shared belief in our ideals. blindly accepting everything that goes on in this country in the name of patriotism is in fact the opposite of patriotism. true patriotism is not being afraid to criticize your country when she goes wrong, and working to make it a better place for all it's inhabitants. I love this country, I love the wide diversity of people you can find here - people of all different backgrounds, races, and creeds all coming together is fundamentally what America is about. our country has many flaws, but these can be overcome. I believe America is an exceptional country, and her people are among the best in the World. I do not like Donald Trump. I do not like the Republicans and what they want to do to this country - but I do love this country. I love it's people, I love it's ideals. I believe that our best days are ahead of us, and America will be even greater once our long national nightmare is over. I don't hate this country just because I hate the current Government, and I hope Republicans won't either once it becomes majority-minority, or once candidates they don't like win elections. we can disagree on policy, but we can all agree that this country is all we have, and we should make the best of it. we should embrace and love our fellow Americans, and we should put our differences aside and embrace the common goal of making sure this country lives up to what the founders intended.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Ag, nations aren't inherently good or bad - they're collections of people creating a certain mythology out of a perception of historical myths and perceived cultural norms.

In that respect, it is vital, hugely vital, to be cognizant of the darker and less salubrious side of a nation's history - so as to prevent from eulogising a set of myths that are, at best, partially true. But at the same time, you can't condemn a nation on what it did in the past; unless you want to assign people with some sort of collective guilt base on what is, after all, a socially constructed identity.

[GeorgiaModerate]

What many of us have wanted from the beginning is simply to know the truth. What Trump has wanted from the beginning is to keep us from knowing the truth. We’ve known for a while that Russia sponsored a sophisticated operation to interfere in the 2016 election. Trump didn’t even want us to know that much. The American people deserve to know what the scope of the Russian operation was, what could have been done differently to prevent it, and whether any Americans were complicit in it. The simple fact is that Trump has been opposed to letting the American people learn any of this. Whatever his reasons may be , he has been against the very idea of an impartial investigation. That is why a special prosecutor was necessary.

If the Mueller report concludes that Trump’s campaign was not actively involved in coordinating efforts with the Russian agents, then I will accept that conclusion.

But that doesn’t by itself mean that Trump is guilty of no wrongdoing. “No collusion!” is a shifting goalpost that Republicans have set up for themselves. But Trump can still be guilty of obstruction of justice even if there was no collusion. Why do none of the blue avatars here get this? If he took deliberate steps to sandbag an ongoing investigation, even if it was just because the investigation wounded his ego, then that is obstruction.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Edna for a girl and Archibald for a boy.

Who would have guessed that, of all users, Hillgoose would guess the royal baby's name correctly. 😆
But nevertheless: Congrats and kudos! 👍🏻👏🏻🙌🏻

Clearly the royal couple are Atlas lurkers!

[GeorgiaModerate]

snip.

Maybe you should try educating yourself on the geopolitical, religious, and historical factors of the Middle East before making absurd proclamations on the topic. Earlier you mentioned Iran and al-Qaeda. While Iran has had some limited ties with the group, they're certainly not allies as the former are Shia extremists and the latter Sunni extremists. In fact, Iran has a long history of opposing terrorist groups like the Taliban and ISIS that have been indirectly, if not directly, supported by the US-allied Saudis.

In case you want to learn more, I'd recommend this channel as a good starting point.

[GeorgiaModerate]

And last year was an extremely wet year, as well, which lowered yields.

Unfortunately, the neighbor who rents my dad's land still refuses to believe in climate change, and his attitude is reflective of many farmers. The sooner farmers accept the reality of climate change, the sooner they can adjust their crop choices. As awful as this is, maybe it will be the beginning of getting us away from the awful duo-culture of corn and soybeans.

But, yes, things are not looking great for grain farmers this year. The dairy farmers in Wisconsin are already in an awful place with thousands of farms having shut down over the past two and a half years. If this year continues the way last year did, we're going to see more small farms selling out to the large agri-corps, which helps no one (except the share-holders, I guess, who get richer and richer).

It’s been very cold and wet in the central U.S... the opposite of what the climate models indicate for the region.  So “accepting the reality of climate change” (i love the artful choice of words here) would push them into growing crops that are resistant to heat and drought...and would make things even worse.

Stop trying to blame the complex problems facing farmers on “denialisticism” or whatever...it is disingenuous, overly simplistic, and counterproductive.

Dude. My dad is a retired farmer. Most of my classmates are farmers. If my dad wasn't an old fashioned misogynist, I'd be a farmer, too. I'm not trying to put all their issues on denying climate change, and getting that out of what I said is absolutely ridiculous. I know that the difficulties are numerous and certainly complex.

But denying climate change does hurt their chances going forward. Right now, they'd be best off planting for crops that do better in wet climates (which is not what corn and beans are meant for) as it seems to be the direction our locality is moving towards. It's denying one of the major factors impacting their yields and saying "that's not real!" as if magic fairies are making it rain more and delaying the planting season.

Climate change doesn't mean everything is moving toward heat and drought, at least in the short term. But because even admitting there's a possibility of change means that they're "giving in," farmers are hurting themselves by refusing to accept that they might not be able to continue planting the same crops every year. I know that the system is currently built for corn and beans, which is why everyone does it (way easier to harvest than anything else, that's for sure), but someone's going to have to start changing before the climate has changed so dramatically that they're forced to change without any buffer.

So, yeah, the fact that you got the crap you spouted out of what I said shows you have very specific blinders when someone uses the phrase "climate change." Try removing those blinders, and don't assume you're talking to someone who hasn't been involved in the industry and isn't decently educated on what's going on. I've watched my neighbors, one by one, slowly give up and sell (or rent until they die, at which point their children sell) to the big agribusinesses, other than the few who are slowly becoming big agribusinesses themselves. No one likes what's happening except the people getting rich, and being inflexible and stuck in tradition, even when it comes to what crops to plant, is a very big problem.

(Seriously. Take highway 71 down to five miles before the Iowa border, and you'd be in my home stomping grounds, where I go back every month to help my dad with his farmstead. I may not be a farmer, but I'm well aware of the situation.)

[GeorgiaModerate]

I think this overstates the boundaries of the word 'believe'. With such a complicated society, 95% or more of people are simply not qualified to come to a truly informed opinion on 95% or more of issues, and this is a conservative estimate. This is fundamental to a specialized world, and is not necessarily an existential threat to the concept of democracy. However, it does require that individuals be able to trust more knowledgeable surrogates, in the same way one trusts an electrician to know how to fix one's lights or a mechanic to know how to fix one's car. Everyone, even those who consider themselves independently-minded, all but the greatest, cutting edge leaders of particular fields, must necessarily depend on knowledgeable surrogates or accept ignorance, which few are brave enough to do.

This is true both on factual and philosophical issues, as although ethical and moral issues can be thought through more independently than things like climate change or economic trends, they still require more education, brainpower, and patience than most people are prepared to put into independent thinking. I don't mean this as a criticism - I unquestionably do the same for the vast, vast majority of issues. The result of this is we (rationally) trust the opinions of our chosen surrogates more than we do ourselves - multiple studies have shown people are much more likely to support a given policy or moral idea if told beforehand that a trusted institution or person had endorsed it. Again, this isn't necessarily a bad thing - there is no sense in unqualified individuals trying to independently come to conclusions on serious questions which nevertheless require democratic consensus.

The problem, naturally, comes with the choice of surrogate. One way to do so is to find people with independently verified qualifications, but in the cultural absence of trust for intellectual and academic institutions, another (reasonable and rational!) way is to find those who say what you already know (or think you know) to be true. This, I think, is what happened with Trump - he replaced the very concept of expertise in the mind of people who lack trust in other surrogates. What we have here is a classic cult of personality, in which individuals are placing all of their trust - moral, ethical, political, factual - in a single individual, such that his word instantly becomes expert consensus. Does anyone really think that all these people are even considering what comes out of Trump's mouth? There is no more thought going into whether to 'believe' him  than there is to understand the details of how circuits work so long as the light turns on, or of the engine so long as the car drives. If the electrician said so, it's probably true. The only irony is that Trump portrays his support as some sort of revolution against the elitism of trusting 'experts', when it is based on the same concept.

The only way to fix this is to restore trust in true expertise. I would argue this means professionals and academics need to be more active in asserting their qualifications and in communicating directly with the public, rather than letting themselves be filtered through the sensationalism of the popular media. More importantly, they need to retain their expertise and pragmatism in the public eye, and resist the temptation to let simplification blur into dumbing down or worse, pandering to the uninformed. This, I think, is the great missed opportunity with Elizabeth Warren, who should have stayed a technocrat rather than becoming a populist when she entered politics - though it is hard to blame her, since it may well make her President.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Anyone from Atlas Blue want to chime in?

My official response as a Jewish Atlas Republican:


President Trump's comments toward my Jewish brother and sisters on the centrist and progressive side of the political spectrum were completely unwarranted and reprehensible.

American Jews are loyal to the United States of America and owe no loyalties to any politician, political party or ideology.

President Trump's policies on Israel have been, for the most part, very much welcome and appreciated. However, supporting Israel is not enough.

To be an ally of the Jewish community you must be able to demonstrate a respect for our status as a minority group, a religious-ethnic group and as an independent voter's bloc with diverging attitudes on politics and policy issues.

President Trump, in the past few months, has failed to show respect in all of these categories. Mr. President, we are not a trophy to be put on some useless shelf of political prizes.

We are also not a political weapon against your opponents. It is appalling to me, a lifelong Jewish Republican and supporter of Israel, that you would use us, the US-Israel Relationship, and partisanship as wedge issues in the 2020 election campaign.

Last week, U.S. Congressman Ted Lieu (D-CA) made incredibly insensitive remarks about the US Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman. He essentially accused him of dual loyalties - a purely antisemitic canard.

I passionately called on my progressive Jewish friends to denounce Lieu's comments. Many of them did. And eventually Congressman Lieu apologized.

Apologies are usually not enough, in my opinion, but I am glad to see public pressure forced him to delete his tweet.

Mr. President, you must apologize. You must distance yourself from your own comments. You must, for one damn time, put our country first.


Your comments have hurt the Jewish community and have leaned into a dark form of antisemitism for political points.


This comment, in addition to a host of comments you have over the past month, have made it clear that you are not fit for the office of President of the United States.

I cannot support you any longer. Not unless you change course and put our country first.

I will vote my conscience in 2020.

Not in spite of my Republican values, but because of my Republican Values.
Not in spite of my Jewish values, but because of my Jewish Values.
And not in spite of my support of the US-Israel Relationship, but because of my support for the US-Israel Relationship.

[GeorgiaModerate]

This is a topic I've done a quite a bit of research on in my life.

Always best practice to ask undecideds who they are leaning towards, but still allow them to say they are unsure. Almost all will wind up voting for who they say they are leaning towards. Leaners are typically either softer partisans who are slightly but not very persuadable, or extreme partisans disaffected by a bitter primary who will eventually fall in line. Genuine, persuadable undecideds will silo through the second unsure option (~50% won't wind up voting).

Many pollsters attempt complex statistical regressions to predict undecideds (or allocate them based on arbitrary assumptions made by demographic) but these usually overestimate weak incumbents and underestimate strong challengers, and in some instances can be derailed by fluctuating turnout patterns and changing demographic trends.

Forcing undecideds to choose is just an absolutely atrocious choice. Many respondents - both genuine undecideds and leaners - will simply drop out of the poll, understandably. This warps the sample and produces a topline result that overstates every candidate's support and is not representative of the full voting population. Subsequently, this messes up the results of every other question, all of the crosstabs, and can have outsized impact on averages.

Not pushing undecideds has its benefits, mostly in that it shows each candidate's core base of support. However, it doesn't produce an accurate read of how each candidate would do if the election were held that day. Having a "someone else" or "neither" option achieves a similar effect, though it tends to dilute the candidate's vote share even more, especially incumbents, since it is essentially a non-binding protest vote that few voters would actually cast in the booth.

Polling is hard!

[GeorgiaModerate]

The reason the President will be forced to step down is not because of the current composition of the House and Senate Republican Parties. It's because he's a smoking asteroid poised to hit the GOP in non-dark red regions. Yes, the bulk of the caucuses are conservative (and so are most Republican Governors). But this is an analysis that is incorrect and flawed.

There's 1 GOP Senator from Maine, 1 from Pennsylvania, 1 from Ohio, 1 from Wisconsin, 2 from Iowa, 2 from North Carolina, 2 from Georgia, 2 from Texas, and 1 from Arizona. Collectively, these add up to 13 Republican Senator from states that are not solid red states. Each of the aforementioned states were carried by one to three of the following conditions (1) Obama carried the state twice (2) There's an existing bench of Democratic officeholders (3) These states are recognized as rapidly emerging swing states.

In the House, the GOP lost 40 seats in key suburban-dominated districts that also double as key Republican constituencies for statewide office. As of last count, there are 20 House Republicans that won only up to 52% of their races. (So, that's up to 60 seats in range).

Among the governorships, up in 2020 and 2022, Ohio, Florida, Maryland, New Hampshire, Montana, Texas are all up. Again, states that fulfill one of the 3 conditions (or all 3 conditions) aforementioned.

The big reason Trump is going to be booted is because his popularity is non-transferable outside deep red states. The reason they send him to deep red states is because that's the only set of places in the country he's transferable. Reagan and W. Bush were able to transfer their popularity to areas of the country that weren't right wing. Trump can't. This is the reason W and Reagan were able to hold onto their party support for 6 and 8 years respectively (look at '86 - Reagan helped the GOP pick up 8 governorships).

As for the Democrats, since someone is going to point to Clinton and Obama - Clinton lost Congress and a ton of seats but he was the first Democrat in 12 years and demonstrated that he was the only Democrat in the entire country that could win a major office. That is why they stuck with him. As for Obama, he held the Senate for the Democrats for 6 years. (Both Clinton and Obama also had higher approval ratings on balance and were able to demonstrate their viability to win a second term and transfer their political popularity downballot to at least some Democrats).

The main point is that Trump is a huge gigantic vulnerability around the Republican Party. There is literally no upside outside red areas for Republicans to want Trump at the top of the ticket or as President. If Mississippi and Louisiana and Kentucky are close races next week, I expect that point to be reinforced.

And Trump will not change his behavior and not generate numerous scandals that will reinforce his properties as damaging to non-dark red Republicans. In fact, he could in theory survive a three way race but most of the downballot Republicans will only go to 2 way races, meaning they need to pick up anti-Trump supporters along the way. As long as he's President, that will never happen.

Impeachment is a political question. And for most of the Senate Republicans, their fear of Trump's base is overridden by the fact that Trump is a disastrous anchor around their neck. This is why the key dam that could NOT be breached was the House Democrats agreeing to open an impeachment inquiry.

It's why I think Mike Pence (who campaigned in Virginia this week) will ultimately become #46. If I recall, Pence's favorable ratings are higher than Trump.

If Democrats win the LA and KY governorships and hold the MS governorship to like 2-4% for the GOP, and sweep the VA legislature, I think that sets off a panic.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Except we aren't talking about numbers in a data set, we are talking about premature deaths due to preventable spread from a novel virus. These people are someone's mother who loved and nurtured them; a beloved husband who takes care of his elderly partner; a friend and daughter who donates her time helping local kids, but who had the misfortune of a weakened immune system from recently overcoming cancer. I'm willing to sacrifice as much as I can to help make sure none of those people meet an awful, premature death - and I do consider each one of their lives worth immeasurable value, unlike material objects.

[GeorgiaModerate]

If he hasn't lost your vote now, he never will. At this point, I can only say this to my fellow American right-wingers: Every second that Trump spends in the Oval Office is a loss for us. He's cruel. He's unempathetic. He's ignorant, and worse than that, he shows no enthusiasm for rectifying his ignorance. He is stupid. He blames everyone but himself for his failures while trying to take full credit for his successes. He has never read a security briefing. He has never read the Constitution. He is crass. He is racially insensitive. He is a serial sex offender-- if I had a daughter, I would never let him within ten feet of her. He is a slave to special interests. He is nepotistic. He embezzles your tax dollars. He has turned compulsive lying into a reflex. He told Xi Jinping to keep building concentration camps. And perhaps worst of all, he has no loyalty to America or to its people-- he thinks only of himself. If you were honest with yourselves for even a moment, you'd admit how obvious it is. He does not care about capitalism, meritocracy, human rights, social fabric, morals, tradition, or any of the other things we claim to value. He is in this for his personal aggrandizement and enrichment. He is the physical manifestation of the American Id.

Every second that Trump spends in office poisons the youth of this country against the Right. The drooling boomer rubes of this country have chosen him as their mantle, and now my entire generation will associate the word "conservative" with "Trump" for the rest of their lives. You have driven them into the arms of the Sandernistas, all so you could "send a message" to "the elites." There is no making up for what you did in 2016. The only possible redemption comes on November 3, 2020. But from there, it doesn't really matter, because one way or the other you're still off to the nursing home.

If you vote Trump in 2020, you are a bad person. No exceptions. No excuses.

[GeorgiaModerate]

WASHINGTON—United States President Donald J. Trump is widely expected to lose next month's national elections and recent comments indicate he may be intending to go into exile at the expiry of his term in January 2021. At a rally in Georgia Province, a bastion of regime support, Trump told supporters of his plans. "Maybe I'll have to leave the country, I don't know," the 74 year-old president said.

Regime officials have been trying increasingly desperate measures to shore up support for the ruling Republican Party (GOP), including restrictions on mail-in ballots and cutting hours at polling places at a time when many Americans fear the COVID-19 pandemic, which has claimed more than 200,000 lives.
 
While international observers do not believe the regime has the means to rig the election for Mr. Trump outright, they concede restrictions may have marginal impacts that could generate outsized results due to the arcane, byzantine nature of American's presidential election system, which has changed very little from when the former British colony first became independent.

Given the government's Russian backing, a post-presidency in Moscow is possible. Other options being watched by regional experts include Saudi Arabia, Israel, Brazil and India. A major sticking point will likely be Mr. Trump's ability to move his assets abroad. The dissident newspaper The New York Times recently published details of the president's tax returns, showing little tax paid, high debts and opaque sources of income and loans. If the Democratic Party candidate Joseph R. Biden, Jr. is elected, his government may move quickly to freeze or even seize his predecessor's assets. Many Democratic Party supporters have called for retribution against Mr. Trump, including prison or house arrest.

[GeorgiaModerate]

The big problem in the west (as I see it) is that my generation does not have a real affinity for the United States as a nation. It’s a necessary evil—basically, we are in an unhappy marriage and are staying together because the alternative would be much worse. I do not want the dissolution of the US because it would embolden the likes of Russia and China as well as hurting California economically. I have seen what Brexit has done to the UK, and they were not nearly as integrated into the EU as the states are economically and politically integrated into the US. With that said, if some of the more authoritarian elements within the GOP get their way and the left is locked out of power despite commanding a majority of the American people (via gerrymandering, voter suppression, etc) then there may be no other option than secession. I (and I assume a majority of my fellow Californians) will refuse to live in a dominant-party state with the GOP in charge. I see this moment we are living in today as a crossroads. A rejection of authoritarianism in the next 5-10 years will save the US for generations, but if the Trumpists get their way and regain full power within the US government? I would then expect the US to no longer exist (at least in its current form) within my lifetime. No matter what happens, I think we will all look back on this time and be able to point to the decisions made now as the reason for whatever is to come for the American union.

[GeorgiaModerate]

I am a fully vaccinated (including booster) individual who lives in a liberal city, voted for Joe Biden, works in Democratic politics, and holds left-of-center views on virtually every issue of substance. And I am beginning to notice a pattern.

The size and scope of the pandemic starts dying down and things look good. The news cycle is dominated by issues of divisive passion like the latest trial of a racist police officer, the most recent act of mass violence, drama on Capitol Hill, and new developments in the gaggle of investigations into Donald Trump (I've lost count). Then, news of a new variant emerges.

This new variant is bigger/badder/stronger/more infectious/more transmissible/more of a threat than the last one. Concern grows as the latest letter of the Greek alphabet to enter circulation becomes the #1 topic of discussion. Some days later, reports pop up that all of the available vaccines work on this new variant, but not as well as they worked on the last one. The CEO of Pfizer appears on television to announce that his company's vaccine offers robust protection against the new variant.....BUUUUUTTTTTT you'll be safer if you get one more shot. The heads of the other vaccine makers quickly release similar findings. The US government quickly places orders for additional shots at whatever price point and profit margin the pharmaceutical companies name, not even flinching at the cost due to the high demand for vaccines in the midst of the public health crisis we are all facing. Countries that can't afford and/or don't have the infrastructure to distribute the shots are not as lucky.

Then, the conversation shifts. Politicians with a (D) next to their name fiercely encourage vaccination and the taking of measures to end the pandemic and return to their abstract perception of normal. Politicians with an (R) next to their name challenge the science, dismiss the vaccine, and decry measures to end the pandemic as an attack on their abstract perception of freedom. They flock to the media outlets that share their political positions to spout their talking points, and the American people do the same to receive them.

Wide majorities of the country get vaccinated, but the efforts of the politicians and media attempting to dissuade from vaccination are effective at keeping just enough people unvaccinated that the virus is able to persist, much to the chagrin of the vaccinated. This persistence requires measures like mandates and closures that are unpopular even among both the vaccinated (who blame the unvaccinated) and the unvaccinated (who blame the politicians the vaccinated support). Underneath the psychological surface, liberals get to continue to wear masks and talk about getting the vaccine solely to virtue signal and express perceived moral/intellectual superiority, and conservatives explicitly defy these same things for the same reasons. This keeps both groups angry at each other, and more importantly, keeps them willing to vote for the politicians/patronize the media outlets of their chosen party. And the unvaccinated population (as well as the countries that can't afford/distribute the vaccines) lie in wait to churn out the next variant that will restart the cycle.

All the while, the pharmaceutical companies continue to rake in record breaking profits, a portion of which go to the campaign accounts of the politicians who do the handiwork: those with a (D) next to their name who maintain high demand for vaccines so more profits can be made, and those with an (R) next to their name who ensure the pandemic will continue so more profits can be made.

And of course, as those with wealth and power play this game, the bulk of the world suffers from a pandemic that has caused unknowable amounts of death/suffering and subsequent mourning, and has brought potentially permanent trauma upon a global working and middle class (especially those in positions that lack the potential for the virtue of working from home like healthcare workers, teachers, food service works, and mail/package carriers, among others).

Perhaps the saddest part is that these working and middle class people all across the world - lacking the ability to miss work to stay home and stop the spread, lacking the platform and reach with which to persuade large numbers of unvaccinated people to get a shot, and lacking the money and capacity needed to produce and distribute vaccines in poor nations - are the most at risk in the pandemic and simultaneously the least empowered to end it.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Just want to comment around some of the narrative I've heard in some leftist spaces.  There is no doubt that the U.S. has done terrible things on the world stage.  The invasion of Iraq is particularly inexcusable, considering how much of its justification was built on pure lies.

But lets be clear, the invasion of Ukraine is different from anything the U.S. has done in recent decades not merely in degree, but in kind.  When the U.S. bombs Al-Qaeda affiliates in Somalia, its bad because civilians are often killed in these attacks.  But this is not an attempt by the US to subjugate the local population, expand its territory, or to erase an ethnic heritage.  Even in Iraq, while certainly some of the motivations were exploitative in nature, this was not the intention.

Goals matter, not just on a theoretical moral level, but practically.  Because you have to consider what will happen to the people in question when a great power achieves those goals.  The U.S. being unchallenged in the world and achieving all its strategic goals certainly wouldn't be good for everyone- after all the US has shown it can certainly act with greed, corruption, and paranoia.  But not only would that world be far better than a hypothetical Russia or China controlled one, but the U.S. political system actually allows for U.S. citizens to push it to be better.  Anyone rooting for the U.S. to fail should consider what that would actually mean for the world.  The far, far better course is to hope the U.S. succeeds while pushing for it to be better.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Basically no mainstream economists believe that we are currently in a recession. Most mainstream economists don't believe we're teetering on the verge of a recession either. The main issue at play here is that people are confusing a rough heuristic (2 consecutive quarters of negative quarter-on-quarter real GDP growth = recession) with how a recession is actually defined (NBER committee assembles to say we are in a recession). Actual insiders who know how this committee operates don't think they would classify the present as a recession because labor markets remain very strong and this is foundational to how recessions are defined.

No one would argue that the economy isn't softening or that there isn't a large probability of recession over the next year. In fact, I would argue that you'd have to be pretty stupid to bet against the yield curve, which has inverted, and remains the strongest historical predictor of recession. That said, this doesn't mean that we are in a recession now and this should surprise no one. Key facts:

• monetary policy operates with a long-lag - some estimate it is as long as a 2 year lag
• unsurprisingly, we see that consumption isn't cratering, labor markets are strong
• inflation is still very, very hot
• commodity prices and stock prices are affected by monetary prices contemporaneously - they have cratered
• these prices reflect expectations about the future and they don't really say anything about "real" economic activity now.
• one reason why blue avatars on this forum have been wrong about the economy over the past two months is that they are assuming because financial market implosions in the past imply the current stock rout means we are zooming towards recession. This is insanely wrongheaded: financial crises have this affect because lending dries up and firms are forced to shutdown overnight. Equity prices plunging is not the same as a financial crisis.
• red avatars can't have it both ways either. Good news about oil prices is largely due to expectations about the future - investors and others think we will be in recession next year, which affects oil futures.

As usual, partisanship results in magical thinking about economics. Republicans have historically been very prone to magical thinking of ideology, believing that the Laffer curve somehow applies at the state level when taxes are very low, or that cutting spending will increase growth. Democrats have embraced some nonsense related to Magic Money Tree, because it allows them to do things without doing the hard work of increasing taxes. They have also decided that price controls are a magical elixir, presumably because it allows them to not increase taxes. Both kinds of partisans want to believe in perpetual motion machines. You are both wrong - sorry!

[GeorgiaModerate]

But another problem with this is that people like ProudModerate2, Runeghost, and Joe Republic seem to have an intense dislike for anyone who expresses even a remote tendency to "#bothsideism". Understand that they consider the Republican Party to be inherently evil, and any opposition or criticism of Democrats and their priorities is regarded with opprobrium. This view overrides any and all other considerations.

Look, it's as simple as this. People, organizations and political parties need to be judged on their words and actions. PERIOD. They also need to be judged as fairly and as unbiased as reasonably possible. "Both-sideism" is the insane stupid idea that no matter what - LITERALLY, no matter what - one person or party does, you can't criticize them without being partisan and unfair.

If we follow this to it's logical extention - hypothetically of course - then a party could support lynching trans people and socialists, or, if we want to go in the opposite direction, lynching people who wear MAGA apparel in public or protest climate change. You would not be allowed to call that party evil, or bad, or "gone too far", because that would be partisan, and therefore unfair. That's what "both-sideism" is. I know it's a faux-pas to invoke Nazi Germany, but saying "the Nazi party is evil" in 1930s Germany would be considered partisan and unfair according to the ideology of "both-sideism".

It's a flawed way of thinking, because it assumes that the Democrats are properly representing left wing ideas in good faith, nothing else, and the Republicans are properly representing right wing ideas in good faith, nothing else. That's how I viewed North American political parties when I was 11 years old. It's a comical and untrue way to look at things, and only serves as a way to introduce politics to young children.

If you offer "both-sideism" views on topics, people are going to tell you that your ideas are stupid. Because they are. That doesn't mean that you yourself are stupid. You strike me as a rather intelligent individual. I hope you move on to better ideas