[Discussion] What comes next? Liber-all

American liberals and progressives now face their biggest challenge in a generation: What do we do with 4 years of a trump presidency, a republican congress, a likely conservative supreme court and most states under complete republican control?

This thread is not meant as a forum for discussing HOW or WHY democrats got destroyed in the 2016 election. It's meant for finding a way forward.

Wordsmythe wrote:

Robear wrote:
If we had more Blue Dogs, we'd have fewer Republican representatives. Socially conservative liberals have nowhere to go with today's Democratic party.

1) I don't think I believe you, and

2) I have a hard time really seeing where Lipinski is liberal. Is it that he's merely mixed on foreign wars?

I don't mean Lipinski, necessarily, but the assertion that he was a "conservative Democrat" was what I keyed on for that response. My point is that for people in that category, who used to run as Blue Dogs and helped balance out the extremes in both parties, they generally have to go Republican to be elected these days, where 10 years ago they could have viably run as a Democrat. It's the hollowing out of the middle that has in this way benefited Republicans more than Democrats, because people who are socially conservative but sympathetic to other liberal causes will identify with the party that is more accepting of their religious beliefs, when they have to make that choice. If they feel Democrats will *never* back their ideas, then they take their support for other things (like environmental stewardship, programs to support the poor, and many other liberal agenda items) and bottle them in the name of religious ideological purity.

wordsmythe wrote:
Robear wrote:

If we had more Blue Dogs, we'd have fewer Republican representatives. Socially conservative liberals have nowhere to go with today's Democratic party.

1) I don't think I believe you, and

2) I have a hard time really seeing where Lipinski is liberal. Is it that he's merely mixed on foreign wars?

It is Illinois, though. The only way the GOP wins anything important is when the previous incumbent goes to federal prison.

Robear wrote:
Wordsmythe wrote:

Robear wrote:
If we had more Blue Dogs, we'd have fewer Republican representatives. Socially conservative liberals have nowhere to go with today's Democratic party.

1) I don't think I believe you, and

2) I have a hard time really seeing where Lipinski is liberal. Is it that he's merely mixed on foreign wars?

I don't mean Lipinski, necessarily, but the assertion that he was a "conservative Democrat" was what I keyed on for that response. My point is that for people in that category, who used to run as Blue Dogs and helped balance out the extremes in both parties, they generally have to go Republican to be elected these days, where 10 years ago they could have viably run as a Democrat. It's the hollowing out of the middle that has in this way benefited Republicans more than Democrats, because people who are socially conservative but sympathetic to other liberal causes will identify with the party that is more accepting of their religious beliefs, when they have to make that choice. If they feel Democrats will *never* back their ideas, then they take their support for other things (like environmental stewardship, programs to support the poor, and many other liberal agenda items) and bottle them in the name of religious ideological purity.

I get what you mean, and the hollowing of the middle is a scary thing... but... "socially conservative" often translates to "enabling the persecution of LGBTQ" and "making it as difficult as possible for women to access reproductive health services" and I cannot really make myself regret that the people who support those things no longer have a home in the democratic party.

cube wrote:
wordsmythe wrote:
Robear wrote:

If we had more Blue Dogs, we'd have fewer Republican representatives. Socially conservative liberals have nowhere to go with today's Democratic party.

1) I don't think I believe you, and

2) I have a hard time really seeing where Lipinski is liberal. Is it that he's merely mixed on foreign wars?

It is Illinois, though. The only way the GOP wins anything important is when the previous incumbent goes to federal prison.

Statewide, maybe, but this is a largely suburban district. Plenty of elephants out there, in the right towns.

wordsmythe wrote:
cube wrote:
wordsmythe wrote:
Robear wrote:

If we had more Blue Dogs, we'd have fewer Republican representatives. Socially conservative liberals have nowhere to go with today's Democratic party.

1) I don't think I believe you, and

2) I have a hard time really seeing where Lipinski is liberal. Is it that he's merely mixed on foreign wars?

It is Illinois, though. The only way the GOP wins anything important is when the previous incumbent goes to federal prison.

Statewide, maybe, but this is a largely suburban district. Plenty of elephants out there, in the right towns.

It's a good joke. Adding context ruins it.

I am become as context, destroyer of jokes.

Daily Kos: HUGE: Democrats flip Kentucky seat Trump won by 49 points, making this the 37th red-to-blue pickup

Break out the bourbon—Democrats just won their 37th red-to-blue state legislative flip of the cycle. This latest win came in Kentucky, where former state Rep. Linda Belcher (not to be confused another important Linda Belcher) defeated Republican Rebecca Johnson 68-32 percent in the 49th state House District.
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This seat went for Donald Trump in a 72-23 landslide in 2016, making Belcher’s win tonight an astonishing 86-point swing. Belcher herself lost this seat 50.4-49.6 percent in 2016 after flipping it from red to blue by a 53-47 margin in 2014. (She’d previously lost HD-49 in 2012 after serving two terms.) The Republican who ousted Belcher in 2016 was Dan Johnson, the self-styled “Pope” of the controversial Heart of Fire church.
Jayhawker wrote:
The Republican who ousted Belcher in 2016 was Dan Johnson, the self-styled “Pope” of the controversial Heart of Fire church.

AKA the fake biker preacher/multiple arsonist and scammer who raped one of his teenage daughter's friends and then offed himself when the authorities finally got off their asses and investigated the assault years after the fact.

OG_slinger wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:
The Republican who ousted Belcher in 2016 was Dan Johnson, the self-styled “Pope” of the controversial Heart of Fire church.

AKA the fake biker preacher/multiple arsonist and scammer who raped one of his teenage daughter's friends and then offed himself when the authorities finally got off their asses and investigated the assault years after the fact.

There was a big long article about him posted here shortly after he committed suicide, which was very conveniently timed shortly after refuting that article including the allegations by the daughter's friend.

His original election was up there with McConnell winning on a blatantly anti-equal pay platform (along with the usual KY chant of "coal coal coal coal" and Governor Bevin winning "Obamacare is the devil" followed shortly thereafter by "no no no, your Obamacare is OK, I won't do anything to that, pinky promise... but the REST is really bad for everyone, ignore how much it's helping you all right now," that I basically wrote off the state as just... yeah.

Nice to be proven wrong though about it being a lost cause.

Jayhawker wrote:

Daily Kos: HUGE: Democrats flip Kentucky seat Trump won by 49 points, making this the 37th red-to-blue pickup

Break out the bourbon—Democrats just won their 37th red-to-blue state legislative flip of the cycle. This latest win came in Kentucky, where former state Rep. Linda Belcher (not to be confused another important Linda Belcher) defeated Republican Rebecca Johnson 68-32 percent in the 49th state House District.

Too late, headcanon has been accepted.
IMAGE(https://media.giphy.com/media/xT1XGHkP7hqm0JvWrS/giphy.gif)

I don't usually wade in here, but I figured some of you might find this interesting:

The Do-Nothing Discipline: How political science fell into the thrall of fundamentalist forecasting

It's about how an approach to statistics has influenced political strategies.

Working my way through the link but one problem I have with statistical models applied to historical races is that the circumstances (or variables in the equation) are always different. Sure, some inferences are possible, even useful. But the America of 1970 had very different variables from 2016 and since not all of them are captured in the model, how can we be sure we haven't missed THE key variable(s)?

x + y = z (1970)
a - b(g+2r) + x - y = z (2016)

It kinda depends on the values of a, b, g and r. Only focusing on x and y misses the mark.

The problem with looking at graphs or charting things over time is that the peaks and valleys even out. When during those peaks and valleys, the experiences are anomalous but very real to those living them. And the averages don't mean much or provide comfort.

Top_Shelf wrote:

It kinda depends on the values of a, b, g and r. Only focusing on x and y misses the mark.

As they pointed out, the sample size we have for US presidential races is ridiculously small, yet a number of political assumptions have been based around statistical models derived from them. And surprise: those statistical models couldn't predict 2016. And maybe contributed to the problem.

They came really close, though. And at least one well-known model clearly predicted Trump's win.

Robear wrote:

They came really close, though. And at least one well-known model clearly predicted Trump's win.

If it's the model I'm thinking of, it was specifically not a fundamentalist model and did take into account things like the polling data.

Robear wrote:

They came really close, though. And at least one well-known model clearly predicted Trump's win.

The taller candidate?

I think that people put waaaaay too much effort into diagnosing the 2016 polls as being "wrong" when an examination of all of the polls led to a prediction of Trump having around a 1/3 chance of winning.

If I remember right the polls, which generally measure the general populace, were spot on with Hillary Clinton ahead by 2 million in the popular vote. It was weirdness with the electoral college system that couldn't really be measured because opinion polling isn't granular enough that gave the win to trump even through a popular vote loss.

To expand a bit more, there were indeed people (most memorable CNN) saying that Clinton had something like a 99% chance of winning. However there were also people looking at the same data and saying "Clinton has around a two thirds chance of winning". The problem wasn't the data, it was that some of the analysts of that did an impressively crummy job of actually soberly analyzing that data instead of just glancing on it and running wildly in the direction of their misconceptions.

As I remember 538's take on it, there were way more undecided voters way closer to election day this time around than in 2012. The polls weren't wrong, it's the people who interpreted the polls who ignored that difference this time around.

Nothing yet on the Special Election in Penssylvania's 18th district?

A moderate to conservative Democrat beating a Republican in a highly gerrymandered district that went Trump by 20 points is big, but not the most important takeaway. The race could have gone both ways, with the difference being 0,2% or 641 votes right now. The victory margin is within the recount limit (0,5%), meaning that Lamb might not be in the House for more than a few months anyway.

The biggest takeaway is what this means for the November midterm elections:
- It's one more datapoint in which Dems gain about 15 points as compared to the 2016 elections. This historically is aligned with previous wave elections that hurt the incumbent party (2014, 2010).
- The enthusiasm gap is showing: 80% of Clinton voters turned out for Lamb, only 53% of Trump voters showed up for Saccone. Generic ballot polls (in which Dems lead by 8 points) only take into account registered voters, and generally underestimate the impact of the enthusiasm gap. Meaning that a tight race for control of the House (if generic ballot polls are correct) could turn into a tsunami (if these indicators are correct).
- Previous special elections with good results for the Dems had low turnouts, this one had a normal turnout for midterm-type elections (60% of Presidential ones).

Interesting times...

Also of note, the seat goes away in 2019 due to redistricting.

WizKid wrote:

Also of note, the seat goes away in 2019 due to redistricting.

Is this part of an anti-gerrymandering ruling, or a gerrymander as a result of losing this election?

thrawn82 wrote:
WizKid wrote:

Also of note, the seat goes away in 2019 due to redistricting.

Is this part of an anti-gerrymandering ruling, or a gerrymander as a result of losing this election?

Part of the anti-gerrymandering ruling.

thrawn82 wrote:
WizKid wrote:

Also of note, the seat goes away in 2019 due to redistricting.

Is this part of an anti-gerrymandering ruling, or a gerrymander as a result of losing this election?

The PA State Supreme Court ordered all of the (very gerrymandered) districts redrawn by the 2018 election. This was based on a State Constitution, and it will definitely stand, the US Supreme Court has already abstained.

WizKid wrote:
thrawn82 wrote:
WizKid wrote:

Also of note, the seat goes away in 2019 due to redistricting.

Is this part of an anti-gerrymandering ruling, or a gerrymander as a result of losing this election?

Part of the anti-gerrymandering ruling.

Yes, it is entirely possible that Lamb and Saccone both run for Congress and win in different districts. In other words, they could be serving in Congress together in 2019.

But again, the main takeaway is that this is one more data point towards a probable wave election for the Dems come November.

So, an interesting note on gerrymandering and wave elections. There is actually a really, really good chance that the Republicans enormous success at gerrymandering is actually going to backfire spectacularly for them in this election. (And if that is the case the PA redistricting will actually be a blessing in disguise for them). These gerrymanders are all predicated on packing the Democratic districts so that they go huge for Democrats, and then spreading the Republicans out so that they waste fewer votes in passing that 50% margin in a lot of districts. But if you have a big wave election those Democrats may be able to surpass the tiny margin you gave yourself in almost every district!

Lets take the enormously gerrymandered North Carolina as an example, where 53.22% of the vote got the Republicans 76.92% of the representation.

Here is a chart of the results by district. For example, in district 1 the Democrat got 68.62% of the vote, and the Republican got 28.96% of the vote, so the margin is 39.66%.

District . Party . Margin
1 . . . . D . . 39.66
2 . . . . R . . 13.42
3 . . . . R . . 34.4
4 . . . . D . . 36.44
5 . . . . R . . 16.8
6 . . . . R . . 18.46
7 . . . . R . . 21.82
8 . . . . R . . 17.54
9 . . . . R . . 16.36
10 . . . . R . . 26.28
11 . . . . R . . 28.18
12 . . . . D . . 34.04
13 . . . . R . . 12.2

They have a buffer, definitely, they've packed the Dems so effectively that a smaller wave of even 10% would still lead to the same results (yes, meaning even only getting 48.22% of the vote would still have gotten them that 76.92% representation), but as we start approaching the wave of 15% they lose their two weakest seats. In the unlikely (assuming we don't get into an unpopular war and the economy doesn't start to suffer) event that the 20% wave of the Pittsburg election actually continues then they rapidly lose most of their seats, as that surpasses their margin of safety. That leads to 6 lost seats, meaning that the theoretical 56.60% Democratic vote share would get them 69.23% of the seats: a backfire of Republican gerrymandering.

Edit: TLDR, Gerrymandering in NC means that a 20 point wave in the popular vote would mean that the Democrats would pick up 44 points in the Representation of the State.

Yonder wrote:

These gerrymanders are all predicated on packing the Democratic districts so that they go huge for Democrats, and then spreading the Republicans out so that they waste fewer votes in passing that 50% margin in a lot of districts. But if you have a big wave election those Democrats may be able to surpass the tiny margin you gave yourself in almost every district!

Yeah, that would be amazing. The 2010 gerrymandering effort was so much more organized and so much more advanced, it cut the margins way closer than past efforts, maybe making these gerrymanders historically vulnerable to the unforseen:

The smart set that denies this also doesn't understand how profoundly the technology changed between 2000 and 2010, let alone between 1990 and 2010. In 1990 and even in 2000, the computers and the data sets were primitive. In some cases, they were still laying out actual parchment maps and using markers. By 2010, programs like Maptitude--and all of the public data sets that are available, as well as private data sets that the parties can purchase and add on to Maptitude--made it as easy as clicking a mouse to shift a line one block in any direction. And the data was so good, and our partisanship had hardened in such a way as to make it pretty clear how individual blocks vote, that you could see how shifting the lines would likely shift the results. As a result, you can draw districts so precisely that they might even look like competitive 51-49 districts, but they can still be reliable partisan performers. It is a completely different world. The Republicans know this. The Democrats and the media are still catching up.

I'd say that Trump was the Out of Context Problem that upended the Republican technocratic plans, but really they should have seen this coming. It's just the entire political class put their heads in the sand for the past half-decade.