General Politics Discussion VII [ARCHIVED] • Page 1383

David Shor’s Unified Theory of American Politics

Yeah. So the other positive thing is that age polarization has also gone up. It’s not just that every new generation is more Democratic. Something much weirder has happened. People who were 18 years old in 2012 have swung about 12 points toward Democrats, while people who were 65 years old in that year have since swung like eight points toward Republicans. Right now, that’s a bad trade. Old people vote more than young people. But the age gap has gotten so large that cycle-to-cycle demographic changes are actually worth something now. On the Obama campaign in 2012, I calculated that demographic change between 2008 and 2012 — holding everything else constant — would gain Democrats like 0.3 points. Now, I think that number is probably two-to-three times higher. Young white people are now very liberal. And that’s going to be important.

The bad news is, over the next ten years, our institutions’ structural biases against Democrats are going to become very large. People say this a lot, but I don’t think they truly appreciate how bad things are. The Electoral College bias is now such that realistically we have to win by 3.5 to 4 percent in order to win presidential elections. Trump is historically unpopular, so this year we can maybe pull that off. But for the past 30 years or so, most presidential elections have been pretty close. So the fact that we need to win by four points is going to decrease the amount of time we hold the presidency. People like to say things like, “Oh, but the Sun Belt will trend towards us” — I think if you actually go and simulate things, barring some large realignment, the Electoral College bias is probably going to hold steady over the next decade.

Been saying/seeing that for a while now and it's ... extremely bad.

 

I’d argue how do you think in 2018 people like AOC and Omar won? Or this year how Bowman won or Charles Booker almost won against someone who out raised him by millions upon millions of dollars? Democratic leadership in the house has unveiled some robust bills on things like climate change with a lot of support in Congress that they wouldn’t have done a few years ago. It’s not to the extent we want to see but I do see movement to the left in a number of ways. It’s just hard to see when the government is 2/3 controlled by republicans right now.

 

I think part of that attitude is driven by the "all or nothing" attitude that generally gets pushed by left wingers on social media. Obama passed a lot of progressive shit! As progressive as we want, or relative to say, New Dealism? No def not. But progressive compared to what the previous Dem president was/what the Dem party of the 90's-mid 2000s was? definitely. That was an obvious shift and since Clinton lost we haven't had a chance to see if the shift continues (aka if her platform was actually put into action) or if they kind of plateau and stay in this area somewhere between the New Deal coalition and the Third Way Dems.

Unfortunately, electorally right now, staying in the middle area probably wins you more elections than drifting further back towards New Deal progressivism. Hoping that changes as more Millennials and GenZers replace boomers and Silent generationers as voter.

 

The party was against AOC and Omar. They’ve pretty much said as much haha. I don’t know how that’s an example. And dems in power have been horrible on climate change, dem governors and state legislators pretty much everywhere have only moved off coal at the last minute and promote and opened up the states to natural gas development. I could go on, all the ways in which the party is still very much centrist at every opportunity vastly outweigh its progressive movements.

 

Yeah we probably just disagree so much on Obama and what is actually progressive that it’s probably not worth either of our time on this one.

 

My good friend was interviewed about his perspective on Biden as a progressive. Article was just released!

Should Joe Biden be elected president? This progressive shares the reason for his enthusiastic “Yes!”

 

Fair enough. I think, when were discussing a "shift" in Dem priorities/policies, relativity is an important aspect of that discussion. A lot of what Obama was actually able to get done was decently progressive relative to where the Democratic Party was before that. Not even getting into the even more actual progressive stuff that he tried to get done/supported but got fucked by 2-3 moderate blue senators. I mean, this centrist Dem party we're talking about actually passed a public option in the house, 10 years ago.

 

Genuinely hope this leads to his supporters wearing masks

 

Oxford coronavirus vaccine triggers immune response

 

My boss who I think voted third party or wrote someone in last time because he didn't like Trump and hated Hillary. He leans more republican than democrat is probably going to vote for Biden and I think the Kasich endorsement will seal it. He has a high opinion of Kasich from my talks with him.

 

Yeah these people might only comprise of like half a percent of the population but even that would be 1.5 million people. They are out there....somewhere haha

 

Also wonder if he won't admit he voted for Trump...so there is that as well. I was actually quite surprised he said he will be voting for Biden.

 

so dark

 

I'm both happy we're getting baseball back this weekend and yet utterly horrified that we think playing any sports are a good idea right now.

 

You’ll see some start wearing mask. The rest will then be pissed at him and feel like he’s turned his back on them, which he was never there for them to begin with so whatever.

 

Yep. I'm of the exact same two minds. Like "oh shit, this is fun" and "oh god this is such a bad idea our stupid government failed so badly" ... but I guess if I'm stuck at home ... at least I can watch some dingers.

 

LETS GO METS!

LETS GO METS!

LETS GO METS!

 

Proceeding with any sport other than, like, NASCAR and golf right now is supremely irresponsible.

Maybe tennis could work too actually.

 

Gotta love that tradeoff.

“Ok fine I’ll wear a mask but in return I get to be openly racist and nobody can give me shit about it.”