There's this, but if this data is from exit polls, it might be BS.
I'm a bit skeptical of the collapse among White Gen-Xers, because I could see them making extensive use of early voting. However, those are pretty stark numbers for the party of Old White People.
Looks like Russia might be abandoning Kherson. I say "might" because there is some real question as to whether they are trying to bate the Ukrainians into a trap, but let's presume they are actually making the sound decision to retreat across the Dnipro.
While this will simplify some aspects of keeping Russian troops supplied, it will bring Ukrainian HIMARs within reach of the supply bottleneck where Crimea meets the rest of Ukraine.
Allowing Ukraine to establish a defensive line on the Dnipro could also free up troops for an assault in Donetsk or Zaporizhzhia Oblasts.
Looks like I may have been right yesterday. On the one hand, there was no Red Wave. America remains an intensely divided country and that was demonstrated in the midterm. If - and at this point it's still unclear - Democrats can hold on to their Senate seats in Georgia, Nevada and Arizona then they will have a one seat majority. Even losing one of those seats will mean Biden can appoint judges and executive branch officials. However, losing an opportunity to flip Wisconsin (still possible, but...yeah) and North Carolina means that you are stuck with two execrable Senators from states that could, theoretically, elect a Democrat. In fact, I think Democrats need to give up on Florida and work on North Carolina as the next "purple" state.
The House looks like it will tilt to the GOP, but it will not be the wipe out many feared. In some ways it doesn't matter, as the difference between a 4 seat and 40 seat GOP majority isn't especially relevant. With a small majority, the House might not force a debt default, which would be, ya know, a good thing.
The Red Wave that was going to sweep out people like NY governor Kathy Hochul never appeared. In fact, Democrats may do pretty decently in gubernatorial races, especially if Katie Hobbs can hold on to beat the frightening Kari Lake.
In August, I saw a potential to add 3-4 Senate seats and hold the House. The GOP has offered no plan to deal with the very real issues of inflation, crime and energy prices. They shouldn't even be competitive. However, we will take our wins where we can. Plus, Lauren Boebert might lose!
I think Democrats lose the House, but it's not a total rout, as GOP gerrymandering has reduced the number of swing seats held by Democrats. The Senate remains in Democratic hands...I think, I hope. However, I can definitely see a scenario where rankly unqualified candidates like Oz and Walker win. The idea of a thermostatic election that swings from one party to another is predicated on there being enough non-aligned voters. Turnout, too, is a huge issue in the midterms. Can the Dems get enough pissed off women to the polls?
I also predict a messy night of returns. I'm very much considering turning off the news and my phone and going to see a movie or something. I don't want to watch that fucking needle at the NY Times crush my hopes for functional governance.
At any rate, Mandela Barnes and John Fetterman will stop hitting me up for money, so at least there's that.
My gut says if we lose the Senate tomorrow it will be because a fear of crime drove enough suburban women in PA, GA, AZ and OH to forget Dobbs and worry about faceless criminals.
As Scott Lemieux notes (in citing Radley Balko) the actual data on crime is mixed and confusing. Murders went up from 2020-21 but they are trending downwards. They are still higher than 2019. Other forms of crime are NOT up, despite the vibes that they are. (We just exchanged texts with our son who is in Savannah who saw a likely drug deal outside his house. That "feels" like crime is increasing.) With Fox and other news sources blaring crime stories, the actual data doesn't matter.
What is interesting is that the perception - not the reality, but the perception - is that Democrats slashed funding to the police. Didn't happen outside Portland and Minneapolis. There does seem to be some instances of police forces being understaffed, but there was no concerted effort to make that happen. In fact, the Biden Administration spend MORE money on cops.
Yet we will likely get a Republican House and possibly Senate because people just naturally trust the party of January 6th to be the law and order party.
Ugh. I don't know.
I think the politics of "thermostatic" elections, whereby the independent voter throws our politics into chaos because of vibes, is stupid but real. I know that inflation is not a policy problem and that crime isn't a Democratic problem, but it will likely lead to robust GOP turnout. I don't know how Dobbs and January 6th will put a dent in that.
If Democrats manage to hold on to even a 50-50 Senate, I think we have to chalk that up as a win. The GOP nominated terrible candidates in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Ohio, North Carolina and Arizona. Ideally that means Democrats hold on to the ability to staff the Executive and Judiciary branches, but I'm despondent, frankly.
As Paul Campos writes:
Of course this is what reactionary centrists have been saying forever, and it’s easy enough to pick apart the bill of particulars: no elected Democrat above the level of a Berkeley city council member has advocated anything like defunding the police, crime isn’t actually up, national Democrats don’t actually favor more liberal immigration policies, inflation is an international phenomenon at present that has almost nothing to do with any Democratic policies, trans panic is a completely made up issue, “valuing hard work” is just code for there are too many colored people voting for Democrats etc. etc.
Just vote. It's all you can do.
Keep an eye on the burgeoning feud between DeSantis and Trump. The best we can hope for is that Trump signals for enough of his cultists to sit out the Florida election and Crist wins. Then DeSantis and Trump square off in LoserFest 2024. DeSantis would have been a uniquely horrible human being if it wasn't for Trump warping our metrics for what counts as an awful person in politics.
Rooting for injuries.
This nugget from Martin Longman sums it up:
The problem the Democrats have right now is really not that they’re doing an inadequate job of explaining the threat to democracy if the Republicans win, nor is it that their platform is too partisan to attract independents and conservatives. Their problem is that they’re in charge at a time when people are very unhappy. Voters tend to express their unhappiness by punishing incumbents. A winning strategy has to convince a lot of people that the Republicans are the source of their unhappiness, and that’s a heavy lift.
Yglesias lays out what is at stake next Tuesday. I mostly agree, but would make some distinctions.
At the Federal level, maintaining control of the Senate is critical and still possible. Republicans will not confirm either judges or executive branch positions if Dems can't hold the chamber. Ideally, they add to their margins by defending Arizona, Georgia and Nevada (in ascending order of difficulty) and add to it in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida or Wisconsin. If Dems lose the House, we will be faced with the usual Republican fuckery surrounding the debt ceiling and government shut downs, but whatever, I guess. Stupid business as usual.
At the state level, electing election-deniers and Big Lie proponents is a real long term threat to the integrity of the 2024 election. Electing some Big Lie Secretary of State in Arizona won't "secure the border" or stop inflation, it will simply imperil democracy in this country.
Notably, Yglesias has a poll that asks what each side will do if they assume power. People say if Democrats gain control they will pass a national version of Roe. and increase Social Security benefits Yes, they will. They also say that - despite having the power to do so for two years and NOT doing it - they will "open the border" and cut police funding. The last two are solid Fox News talking points that have zero impact on actual governing realities.
Meanwhile, if Republicans take over people think they will increase US energy production. No, they won't because we already ARE increasing energy production. They probably won't try to pass an national abortion ban, because they know it's unpopular and Biden will veto it anyway. Will they follow through on vague threats to impeach Biden? I'm guessing yes. Will they try and overturn Democratic wins in elections? Absolutely.
What's infuriating is that this sort of coverage is largely absent from the media. We get endless stories abut inflation, which is real, but also we are in a period of robust economic growth (plus a war and post-Covid disruptions). For many people, I'm guessing inflation is a nuisance rather than a crisis, but the non-stop drumbeat of inflation stories makes it feel like we are spiraling out of control.
Biden can give a speech talking about the very real threats to America's democracy and all the media can offer is theater criticism and the fact that he didn't mention inflation.
If democracy dies in this country, our news media will be the pallbearers at the funeral.
A "pre-winter" offensive by Ukrainian forces has seemed inevitable since they entered an operational pause after the September offensive. Ukraine is now reporting significant Russian losses in men and armored vehicles in the last 24 hours. This might just be propaganda - how would they know they've killed 800 Russian soldiers? - or it might be the beginnings of the late-Fall campaign.
The seaborne drone attack on Sevastopol could have been designed to drive the Russian navy away from the Ukrainian coast, so that it could not provide cover around Kherson, for instance.
Also, Russia has re-entered the grain deal that allows for Ukrainian grain to be exported under UN auspices. Turkey appeared to be the guarantor of the ships' safety, which would have meant any Russian attack on the grain shipments would have risked direct military contact with NATO. Instead, Russia backed down. At most critical junctures, Russia has been careful to avoid crossing NATO's redlines. Worth keeping in mind as we debate Russia's nuclear threshold.
This is a wonderful takedown of Elon Musk's Twitter takeover. (This isn't bad either.) It's so obviously accurate that Twitter exists in a tiny niche of simmering resentment that it's impossible Musk didn't know what he was getting in to. In fact, it seems as if precisely the awfulness of much of Twitter was what appealed to him in the first place.
The fact that he paid a ridiculous amount of money for an unprofitable company that cannot possibly be anything other than what it is makes this whole thing hilarious.
I've mentioned in the past that I've had my share of interactions with students who see Musk as a sort of tech-messiah, a real life Tony Stark. I never saw it. As far as I know, Musk is not, in fact, some engineering genius. He has bachelor's degrees in physics and economics. He's a venture capitalist of the sort that are thick on the ground in Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley, in fact, is perhaps better understood as a hub of venture capitalism rather than technological innovation.
While is Musk is undoubtedly "smart," he is also a man cosseted from a young age by immense wealth. He grew up within the comforts of apartheid South Africa to the son of a wealthy emerald mine owner. That's not his "fault" but we've seen repeatedly recently - with Trump the Platonic Ideal of this - that wealthy people, especially men, are just wired differently because they have been so insulated from the typical consequences most of us have to face.
So, we have Trump - a pampered scion of a wealthy slumlord - becoming a celebrity despite running multiple business into bankruptcy who decides this is sufficient life experience to become president. The resulting shitshow may yet break American democracy.
Musk, meanwhile, has bought into his own hype about being the next Nicola Tesla. In fact, he's the next Thomas Edison, a man who had a few good ideas, but mostly stole the hard work of those who worked for him. Edison, however, never made as bone-headed a move as buying Twitter. That Musk thought he could somehow make Twitter "work" is a prime example of Wealth-Induced Hubris.
Maybe his fanbois are right and this enfant terrible will make Twitter something glorious and profitable. Or maybe human nature remains human nature and he will fail, because he does not understand people much at all.
"Lula" (Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva) has beaten Jair "Trump With an Actual Tan" Bolsonaro. The election was far too close (50.9% to 49.1%) and that only means that Bolsonaro can embrace a Trumpist rejection of the election results.
On January 6th, there were too many members of law enforcement and the military who were either too slow to respond or too slow to take the threat seriously, but for the most part, senior law enforcement and military figures were on the right side of history. Brazil's democracy is far newer and more fragile and Bolsonaro has closer ties to the military than Trump ever did.
Hopefully, the Brazilian military does the right thing and keeps this vile man from usurping power.
Worth keeping an eye on.
Every year, I have my Comp Gov students write a paper on the electoral systems of either France, South Africa or Japan. They are basically asked to see if these elections are democratically legitimate and functioning as intended by their design. Short answer: France and South Africa are democratically legitimate and Japan's elections are kinda sketchy.
I just read the papers on France and the students overwhelmingly argued that France's elections weren't democratically legitimate because when two unpopular candidates - like Macron and Le Pen - advance to the second round, people are pissed about their choices. Typically, the French vote FOR someone in the first round of their elections and AGAINST someone in the second, but in that first round, they get to choose from a robust slate of candidates - usually over 10. So, you can vote for the Green Party in round one, but then compromise and vote for Macron in the second.
The mindset that people might not like the result is an interesting one, and it was not a position students took even a few years back. On some level, this is politics as retail activity. I ordered a specific item and if I don't get a specific item, I get my money back. The idea that I might have to compromise doesn't enter in to modern consumerism. You can find just about anything online and have it at your door in a few days.
That's not how politics works.
Here's the thing: I like Joe Biden well enough. I think he's a decent president and pretty good guy with some very human flaws. That Obama fellow - great guy, great politician, decent policy chops. But I will never have a Biden or Obama flag displayed in front of my house. That's just...weird AF.
You see the opposite of this, of course, with the Trump cultists. His flaws don't exist and supporting him becomes a litmus test. However, you can also see it when you talk to young people about Biden running again in 2024. He's an old fogey (true); he's not a charismatic communicator (true); he doesn't address things young people care about (false). The first two are "vibes" the last is a misconception that arises from those vibes.
Biden isn't a consumer brand. He's just an old school Irish pol. And that's fine, unless you need him to be your best friend and messiah. And that's just weird.
Paul Campos is right that the media framing of the attack on Paul Pelosi is better understood as an attempted assassination of the Speaker of the House and calling it an attempted murder hides what's really going on here. It will be natural for GOP leaders to dismiss the guy who did it as a mentally ill person, and there is no doubt that he is not 100% rational or mentally stable. The problem is that the constant ad hominem demonizing of Democrats finds really fertile soil among the conspiratorially minded fringes and brings them into the GOP fold.
GOP leaders have (for the most part) condemned the attack, but they will deflect from their role in creating the conditions that led to it. The GOP's transition to the GQP seems pretty complete.
Campos notes Robert Paxton's definition of fascism in his piece:
A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.
That's pretty much the GOP.
If there is a hidden reservoir of Democratic voters who aren't being picked up in the polls, and Democrats overperform next week, the GQP will say that this was a "false flag" attack to bolster support for Socialists. Bank on it.
