[Discussion] The 2018 Midterms Catch-All

News and discussion related to the 2018 midterms.

It is starting to look like Krysten Sinema may defeat Martha McSally for Jeff Flake's seat.

More mail in ballots have to be counted from all counties but Arizona Republicans have busied themselves suing various recorder's offices around the state to suppress the count of these votes. Seems they are very concerned that mostly Dems in this state vote early. *Fingers Crossed*

So the voters might actually want a representative who will follow through on all the "concerns" they have about the President and the direction of the country? Go figure! I really thought just saying what the POTUS was doing worried you while then backing their every play was enough.

Baron Of Hell wrote:

Also two female native americans have been elected to congress for the first time ever.

Rachel Maddow did a segment on Sharice Davids of Kansas last night, and then interviewed her for another segment. That woman is f*cking impressive. She flipped a district that was not only red, but had been easy double digit wins for the incumbent over the previous four elections. And she won by nine points.

She is not the only hero of the LGBTQ Kansas community, as I saw this shared by Davis Hammet last night on Facebook:

Davis Hammet wrote:

Year 2013: I’m a 22 year old queer who moves to Kansas to paint a rainbow house across from a notorious hate group. I realize the politicians here are more dangerous than the hate group; however, the people seem nothing like the politics that dominate. I start to really like Kansas. My boss asks me when I’m coming back to New York since this project was suppose to only be a few months. I tell him “I think I live in Kansas now.”

2014: The most extreme right-wing one-sided government in KS history is elected.

2015: Brownback rescinds LGBTQ protections by executive order making it legal to fire and harass LGBTQ state workers. The KS government increasingly uses prejudice and scapegoating to distract from their failing economic experiment. In response, we organize the largest protest in many years. I get messages from gay state workers who are scared for their safety and future. Kansas is a very dark place in this moment... A Senator walks by me in the Statehouse and softly mentions how wrong the attacks on the LGBTQ community are.

2016: I leave LGBTQ activism to devote myself completely to voter registration and turnout. I’m convinced that if more young Kansans voted things would be different.

2017: 1/3 of the KS legislature is newly elected as a rebuke to Brownback. The first week of session they are greeted by over a thousand Kansans screaming “Who’s House? Our House.” We’ve united different groups under a Kansas People’s Agenda demanding change. The Legislature starts to turn things around and activism is growing. The Brownback Experiment is repealed… Some random lady messages me saying she wants to talk about the future of Kansas. She’s pretty great.

2018: That random lady, Sharice Davids, is elected the first LGBTQ Congressperson from Kansas. She gives a victory speech surrounded by LGBTQ youth. I’m overwhelmed thinking back to how most my life I thought accepting my sexuality meant forfeiting my future. The same night Brandon Woodard and Susan Ruiz are elected the first LGBTQ Kansas State Representatives.

2019: The Senator who softly spoke words of solidarity to me in 2015, Laura Kelly, is the Governor and her first executive order is restoring LGBTQ protections to state workers.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing happens by accident.
Every drop of decency is fought for.

Jayhawker wrote:

Hope. Actual hope.

Great, and now I'm tearing up at work from a political story. At least this time it's not from rage at people.

Wow, that is uplifting.

I was feeling down after just reading this: Assorted Election Stupidity, from the Lowering the Bar blog. I'm dumbfounded that people would elect (or re-elect): a pimp (accused of multiple counts of rape) who was also dead, people under indictment (including Duncan Hunter and Chris Collins), and someone actively serving jail time.

some awesome human being wrote:

Nothing happens by accident.
Every drop of decency is fought for.

That is pretty potent right there ^

You just KNOW someone is going to spin this into a conspiracy theory...

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...

“Going to”?

Democratic wins in secretary of state races could have big impact on voting rights

On Saturday, Democrat Katie Hobbs was finally declared the winner in Arizona’s secretary of state race, edging out Steve Gaynor, a wealthy Republican who led by more than 44,000 votes on election night. She is the first Democrat to hold the position since 1995. Hobbs is joined by two other Democratic women who won secretary of state positions currently held by Republicans: Jocelyn Benson, who beat Mary Treder Lang to become Michigan’s new secretary of state, and Jena Griswold, who defeated Wayne Williams to become Colorado’s new secretary of state.
Democrats still have a chance to win perhaps the most important secretary of state race in the country, in Georgia, where former Secretary of State Kemp wrongly purged more than 300,000 voters ahead of his election against Democrat Stacey Abrams, which he won by just over 50,000 votes.

Republican Brad Raffensperger led Democrat John Barrow by about 16,000 votes in a race that will now go to a runoff election Dec. 4 because no candidate won a majority of the vote. The Libertarian in the race, J. Smythe DuVal, has endorsed Barrow after his 2 percent of the vote helped send the race to a runoff.

Rep. Mia Love's concession speech after losing to Democratic challenger Ben McAdams in Utah. Love was one of three black Republicans elected to Congress.

She makes a point to call out Trump (which I'm sure will end well considering how Trump just absolutely loves being challenged by women, especially women of color) and the entire GOP:

Rep. Mia Love wrote:

This election experience and these comments shines a spotlight on the problems Washington politicians have with minorities and black Americans. It’s transactional. It’s not personal. You see we feel like politicians claim they know what’s best for us from a safe distance. Yet, they are never willing to take us home.

Because Republicans never take minorities, minorities communities into their home and citizens into their homes and into their hearts, they stay with Democrats and bureaucrats in Washington because they do take them home. At least they make them feel like they have a home. I’ve seen the cost to conservatives for not truly taking people into their hearts. Democrats saw newly-elected black members and women to Congress in this election. This is a matter of fact that Republicans lost in this regard.

However minority communities need to ask themselves a question also: "At what cost?" What is the cost of staying with the Democrat [sic] party that perpetually delivers exactly what you need to stay exactly where you are? To make poverty tolerable instead of temporary? People who judge their success by how many people they put into poverty programs versus how many people they can get out of them?

I am a Republican. I know conservative policies work. They lift everyone. They lift the poor, the young, the vulnerable. The black and the white. Our conservative policies save our young and unborn children.

When the pundits tell us that we're out of luck, the deck is stacked against us, we say "No, no way. Not in this country." Because under conservative policies the deck is not stacked against us and we all have a chance. Conservative policies make it so that no one in this country is predestined to be poor.

I know because I've lived them. I've put them into action. I've promoted them throughout the state and across the country. The problem is not the policies. It's that we're never taken into hearts and homes.

I disagree with her about the efficacy of conservative policies, but I appreciate her passion. I do wonder, though, if she's really ever answered her own question--"at what cost?"--for being a black person who supports a political party that doesn't even want people who look like her to vote.

Rep. Mia Love wrote:

I am a Republican. I know conservative policies work. They lift everyone. They lift the poor, the young, the vulnerable. The black and the white. Our conservative policies save our young and unborn children.

I wish she had expanded on this. Like, with examples.

I think the cost is getting a break(s) on having to work twice as hard for half as much.
She sounds like she has drunk the Kool-Aid but not enough to kiss Trump's ring.
I also find it laughable that she thinks Republicans have policies.

Chumpy_McChump wrote:
Rep. Mia Love wrote:

I am a Republican. I know conservative policies work. They lift everyone. They lift the poor, the young, the vulnerable. The black and the white. Our conservative policies save our young and unborn children.

I wish she had expanded on this. Like, with examples.

There aren't any. Tax cuts just help rich people keep more of their money. "Job creators" are a myth. GoP policies balloon the deficit every time.

Look, if there's one thing that 2016 taught us, it's that having a policy agenda that is (a) rational, (b) evidence based, or (c) just plain even exists, is entirely unnecessary for electoral success.

Stele wrote:
Chumpy_McChump wrote:
Rep. Mia Love wrote:

I am a Republican. I know conservative policies work. They lift everyone. They lift the poor, the young, the vulnerable. The black and the white. Our conservative policies save our young and unborn children.

I wish she had expanded on this. Like, with examples.

There aren't any. Tax cuts just help rich people keep more of their money. "Job creators" are a myth. GoP policies balloon the deficit every time.

That’s why I wish she had expanded. Either to show some examples where those policies did work, or to show examples that could be easily disproven.

Having a policy is just setting your supporters up for disappointment.

Chairman_Mao wrote:

Having a policy is just setting your supporters up for disappointment.

Having a policy is giving the enemy ammo to attack you with. You don't give the other team your game plan.

Oops.

Mia Love wrote:

Democrat [sic] party

Annnnnd... we're done here. I don't listen to anyone who pulls this juvenile Gingrich bullsh*t any more than I'd expect someone to listen to me after I called them a 'Rethuglican' or whatever.

Jonman wrote:

Look, if there's one thing that 2016 taught us, it's that having a policy agenda that is (a) rational, (b) evidence based, or (c) just plain even exists, is entirely unnecessary for electoral success.

Oh, there's a GOP policy- unfortunately for her, it's "We'll help people who look like Real Americans [i.e. not Mia Love] over people who don't [i.e. Mia Love]". She's just not on message any more.

qaraq wrote:
Mia Love wrote:

Democrat [sic] party

Annnnnd... we're done here. I don't listen to anyone who pulls this juvenile Gingrich bullsh*t any more than I'd expect someone to listen to me after I called them a 'Rethuglican' or whatever.

I'm actually of the opinion that this isn't a childish pseudo-slur anymore, and just an evolution of the language. It's entirely possible that someone saying "Democrat party" is trying to denigrate Democratic opponents, but I think in general it's just a short cut of language.

Atras wrote:
qaraq wrote:
Mia Love wrote:

Democrat [sic] party

Annnnnd... we're done here. I don't listen to anyone who pulls this juvenile Gingrich bullsh*t any more than I'd expect someone to listen to me after I called them a 'Rethuglican' or whatever.

I'm actually of the opinion that this isn't a childish pseudo-slur anymore, and just an evolution of the language. It's entirely possible that someone saying "Democrat party" is trying to denigrate Democratic opponents, but I think in general it's just a short cut of language.

I had no idea until people pointed it out here some time ago. I mean "Republican" is always Republican, so I'd always assumed it was the same for "Democrat" and wasn't involved in either party to know the difference, and really didn't care. There are plenty of other things to get ticked off about (harmful policies) than whether or not someone knows all the proper political buzzwords and adjectives.

Atras wrote:

I'm actually of the opinion that this isn't a childish pseudo-slur anymore, and just an evolution of the language. It's entirely possible that someone saying "Democrat party" is trying to denigrate Democratic opponents, but I think in general it's just a short cut of language.

My opinion is that it is 100% disrespect borne from malice or from the ignorance of parroting those using it maliciously.

Chumpy_McChump wrote:
Rep. Mia Love wrote:

I am a Republican. I know conservative policies work. They lift everyone. They lift the poor, the young, the vulnerable. The black and the white. Our conservative policies save our young and unborn children.

I wish she had expanded on this. Like, with examples.

The important part in the above quote is "save...unborn children". The unflinching opposition to abortion is more than enough to keep a lot of people in the Republican party.

Yeah, but f*ck em once they're born.

Rezzy wrote:
Atras wrote:

I'm actually of the opinion that this isn't a childish pseudo-slur anymore, and just an evolution of the language. It's entirely possible that someone saying "Democrat party" is trying to denigrate Democratic opponents, but I think in general it's just a short cut of language.

My opinion is that it is 100% disrespect borne from malice or from the ignorance of parroting those using it maliciously.

... we shouldn’t underestimate the use of words and dilution of meaning over time — I mean, it’s where we’re at today when someone says words like ‘socialism,’ ‘communism,’ ‘gaslighting,’ or ‘libertarian,’ to name a few. Lately, it’s been the neo-nazis and racist a$$holes that have been working hard to subvert language by using terms like alt-right and the like to make the conversation more palatable and push into the mainstream. It muddled arguments and invalidates others because we’re no longer speaking about words that have distinct meanings.

It also promotes a tribal culture when you use a word to whitewash a large segment of a populace, dehumanizing them and putting them on the other team and marking them as an enemy and not as a coworker or fellow citizen. It’s dangerous and, honestly, getting far worse now that the internet and 24 hour news is constantly muddling these terms purposefully and accidentally.

Atras wrote:

I'm actually of the opinion that this isn't a childish pseudo-slur anymore, and just an evolution of the language. It's entirely possible that someone saying "Democrat party" is trying to denigrate Democratic opponents, but I think in general it's just a short cut of language.

Nope. It started as a conservative slur back in the 40s, went out of favor for a while, and then picked up steam again with all the hard core, right wing nutsos of the Reagan years.

NYT way back in 1984 wrote:

Representative Jack F. Kemp, Republican of upstate New York, placed himself in an unusual position today. He defended Democrats before the Republican platform committee.

When a delegate asked unanimous consent to change a platform amendment to read the ''Democrat Party'' instead of ''Democratic Party,'' Mr. Kemp objected, saying that would be ''an insult to our Democratic friends.'' The committee later decided to drop the issue because it lacked unanimous support.

The term ''Democrat Party'' has been used in recent years by some right-wing Republicans on the ground that the term used by Democrats implies that they are the only true adherents of democracy.

Democrats in the House objected so loudly to the terminology several years ago that the House Republican leadership, including Mr. Kemp, openly called on Republicans to say ''Democratic'' to avoid needless rancor between the two parties.

In the 90s, conservative commentator, Nixon speech writer, and columnist William Safire wrote that Democrat of Democrat Party "does conveniently rhyme with autocrat, plutocrat, and worst of all, bureaucrat." Safire should know about the power of language. He came up with Nixon's "nattering nabobs of negativism" and wrote the longstanding column "On Language" in The New York Times Magazine, which covered popular etymology.

The 90s also saw Newt Gingrich politically weaponize language with his infamous GOPAC memo "Language: A Key Mechanism of Control" and use of Republican pollster Frank Luntz. Luntz gave us the phrase "death tax" to popularize the push against the estate tax, something that only a handful of the richest people in the country ever had to deal with. Together they pushed to eliminate the "ic" from the Democratic party and did so purposefully.

Ironically, one of the first big proponents of pushing "Democrat" was the Leonard Hall, the Chairman of the Republican National Committee for most of the 1950s. He "dropped the 'ic ' because, he said, "I think their claims that they represent the great mass of the people, and we don't, is just a lot of bunk." I'm sure he'd be proud that his Grand Old Party receives millions of votes less than the Democratic Party today, but still manages to stay in power thanks to gerrymandering and voter suppression.

Oh, I was aware of a lot of the denigration attempts at the term, I just try to assume someone is being linguistically lazy instead of pathetically taunting unless I know more about their character. Taken in context, the example that kicked this all off, I think it was laziness, not malice.

I would almost prefer to assume Democrat-users are trying to be mean, since it would put people in a category with people who try to use SJW as a slur, or try to equate liberal with 'Soviet spy'. I would know that the speaker is either too stupid to be taken seriously, or too blinded by partisan nonsense to be reasoned with. If someone is just dropping a spare "-ic" syllable out of laziness, they might be worth speaking to, but if they are doing it to "own the libtards" then I know they are garbage.

What do people think of the lawsuit about voter suppression in Georgia?

That settles it. From now on it's the Democrat and Republan parties.

Atras wrote:

Oh, I was aware of a lot of the denigration attempts at the term, I just try to assume someone is being linguistically lazy instead of pathetically taunting unless I know more about their character. Taken in context, the example that kicked this all off, I think it was laziness, not malice.

Because a Republican politician said it, the most generous assumption you could make is that dropping the "ic" has become so common in conservative circles that they honestly think the Democratic party is really called the Democrat party.

Atras wrote:

What do people think of the lawsuit about voter suppression in Georgia?

It's a good thing, though I don't know how effective it will be considering that one of the goals is to eliminate the purge of voter rolls, something that SCOTUS upheld when Ohio did it. Though I believe the new lawsuit will challenge voter purges as a violation of the 14th Amendment and not a violation of the National Voter Registration Act as with Ohio.

I would love, though, to see a push for state laws would require anyone who has any influence over an election to have to resign that position if they want to run for a higher office if only to avoid the appearance of impropriety. I think Kemp did whatever he could as Sec State to tip the election in his favor (just like Kobach did in Kansas).

OG_slinger wrote:

I would love, though, to see a push for state laws would require anyone who has any influence over an election to have to resign that position if they want to run for a higher office if only to avoid the appearance of impropriety.

The fact that this is even a thing is ridiculous. It's absurd that any political figure could have direct influence on their own election, especially when that election is for a higher office.