US midterms

Been watching a bit.... but looking all to depressing frankly.

Fetterman has beaten Oz in PA! This is great news.

It's pretty standard for the pendulum to swing against the president in the midterms - add to the mix current inflation (the causes being a mix of global factors, and both Trump and Biden administration spending bills, but Biden has been left chairless when the music stopped) But I'm enjoying seeing the so called "Big Red Wave" being downgraded to more of a ripple.

Rand Paul is an ophthalmologist, no?

This is all potentially terrifying; as has been said elsewhere, how can American democracy continue to function when the Republicans have given up on the notion of democracy?

Still, Trump has had a pop at De Santis…

America has never been a real democracy and its got further and further away from a true democracy for a long time

Trump claims to have diet on everyone who might stand against him. If only they had some on him

Looks like the Democrats will lose the house, as predicted, but there is a sliver of a chance that they'll hold on to the Senate

but looking all to depressing frankly.

This ^ goes nicely with the shower of shite we have running this <insert non upsetting-to-you description of State of your choice >

It looks to me like the Democrats are not doing as badly as feared. The President's party usually loses congressional seats in mid-term elections, but the predicted red wave hasn't happened. I think Trump and the MAGA nutters have actually hurt Republican hopes - they turned out base voters, but turned off moderates in the swing toss-up elections by putting up lunatic candidates.

The Senate is the key thing. Having the White House and Senate will let Democrats block any crazy stuff that comes out of the House.

You can follow the Senate races here:
https://www.270towin.com/2022-election-results-live/senate/

And also this.

https://twitter.com/DecodingFoxNews/status/1590244462470791168

Trump claims to have diet on everyone who might stand against him

Trump is iDave?

Looks much closer than what was being claimed. The mess our own government is in just now I’ve little interest though in America.

There's going to be Civil War, dirty bombs, public disorder, militia on the streets, etc.

I read it on here, or in the tea leaves or maybe it was another equally reliable source?

I think for the first time the Republicans are paying a significant electoral price for their extremism. GOP were aiming for 60 seats in the House, it looks like they'll get 25, and looks increasingly like Dems will keep the Senate

Interesting that the Trump backed  Election "deniers" are doing worse than the Republicans who've distanced themselves from him

There’s going to be Civil War, dirty bombs, public disorder, militia on the streets, etc.

Thing is, it's easy for people to go onto Facebook, Twitter, etc. and post pictures of posturing with guns and other nonsense, but most of them are not really prepared for a real battle with armed police or National Guard units. The January 6 insurrection was a bunch of clowns who had a fantasy about overthrowing the government, but that failed and many of them are facing serious jail time. They may have sympathizers, but very few people are actually willing to face jail time or to get into a gun battle with professional soldiers. They'll moan and complain, but the threatened civil war won't happen unless there is a revolt among military personnel and they join anti-government militias.

The mess our own government is in just now I’ve little interest though in America

Agree!

Yeah definitely looks like GOP will have some soul searching to do (the ones that have souls😳)

It's Musk I feel sorry for
£44bn and he didn't even get to swing an election, the way he wanted

Rand Paul is an ophthalmologist, no?

You're thinking of Paul Gosar,  a holocaust denier, white supremacist and dentist

and post pictures of posturing with guns and other nonsense

Considering the state of some of those gravy seals, posture is actually quite difficult

Interesting that the Trump backed Election “deniers” are doing worse than the Republicans who’ve distanced themselves from him

Is there anywhere doing a good “tracker” of how the MAGA Reps are doing in isolation to the rest of the Reps?

From what I've hears so far, sounds like I've been hearing the same thing as nickc, which is more positive than I'd been expecting.

I'd like to see De Santis standing up to Trump and calling him out from now. He could be the unifier that GOP needs (but not America or the rest of the world)

The mess our own government is in just now I’ve little interest though in America

The USA is a massive influencer of world politics, the exporting of american political imperialism over the past 40 years has been nothing short of evil IMO. The complete sellout of political power to oligarchs in the US has spread widely and has been copied rather too closely by british politics.

The fact that the republicans even have a chance too win 1 house should be a warning to labour, that the current collapse of the tories must be used to actually affect and improve lives for the majority (especially the disenfranchised) and not just conduct business as usual ignoring the public to comply with the wishes of the extremely wealthy and assuming that any lead will be lasting.

The democratic agenda has been uninspiring and for that they are in a precarious state, they are just the flip side of a coin in the oligarchs pockets to the republicans, and people can see that and lose hope. Labour must not fall into the same trap.

I could see the republicans ditching trump now, the worry for them is that he's so petty & spiteful that he will be a thorn in their side

Looks like Lauren Boebert may, just may, lose her seat in Colorado, it's still incredibly tough to call but sweet lord that'd be good to see, she really is one of the absolute worst.

I could see the republicans ditching trump now, the worry for them is that he’s so petty & spiteful that he will be a thorn in their side

Depends how this all plays out maybe, the Reps should have done a lot better, and if the MAGA Rep fair worse than average they may asses to cut their losses and assune a 2 term Democrat admin whilst sorting their own shit out?

"Maybe" and "may" doing an awful lot of uneducated optimistic guesswork heavy lifting there.

The USA is a massive influencer of world politics

Especially the brand of "free marketeers" than are currently masquerading as the Conservatives (Truss, Steve Barker, Kwasi Kwarteng, JRM, Dan Hannan et al) hence the idiotic budget once they finally got their hands on the levers of power. They look across the Atlantic and listen to the same economists and Ayn Rand worshippers, and believe that UK=USA, I mean, if you never leave London, it's easy to imagine that you live in the same environment as New York or Los Angeles, I'd imagine that all of them can tell you who the Senate candidates for Arizona or Georgia are, but have never once in their lives followed the Greek or Romanian elections.

"But I’m enjoying seeing the so called “Big Red Wave” being downgraded to more of a ripple"

More like a plop to be fair...

And tj's right, a country where a third of the population is denied the right to vote is not a democracy.

^^ Genuine question here, how are they denied the right to vote?

(Nice to see the Republicans aren't doing as well as predicted. A small sliver of positivity. Election "rigging" going to be blamed at a guess...)

I could see the republicans ditching trump now, the worry for them is that he’s so petty & spiteful that he will be a thorn in their side

Problem is that the Republican base love him because he airs all the grievances that they feel. They basically feel that the world is heading in the wrong direction and that they've been denied the respect they deserve. Total fantasy, but that's what animates them. In order to run as a Republican candidate, you have to win a primary election in which only Republicans vote, which means appealing to the right-wing nutjobs. Moderates have mostly been driven out of the Republican party, so they keep losing seats that should be easy wins for them because their nutty candidates alienate normal people. Those losses only anger the Trump nutters even more, so the Republican Party is in a death spiral caused by Trump, but they can't pull out of it because he owns the base voters. People like J.D. Vance, Ted Cruz, etc. know it's all bullshit but they have so little self-respect that they willingly sign on so they can keep their seats at the table.

Unlike in th UK, where you continually get contacted to make sure you are on the electoral register and unlike many developing countries where there are drives to get the population registered, the US makes getting on, and staying on the electoral register as difficult as possible for certain demographics.

And even if you can get on the register, many republican controlled States make it as difficult to vote in poorer districts as possible by closing or understaffing polling stations. For example; in the last election, black Georgians spent on average 10 times as long queuing to vote as their white counterparts.

Many States don't allow people who have been to prison the right to vote, encouraging law enforcement to double down on voter suppression.

The stripping of names from the register that aren't typically European on eronious grounds, often because names have been miss spelt (deliberately or otherwise) when being processed.

Then there's the extrodinary levels of gerrymandering, where black neighbourhoods are specifically targeted for absurd redistricting (look at some of the maps of redistricted areas for a laugh!) in order to render minority votes meaningless.

Voting in the US is definitely more a privilege than a right.

^^ Genuine question here, how are they denied the right to vote?

I'm skeptical that a third of U.S. voters are denied a right to vote, but vote suppression is pretty bad in many states. A common thing is to deny convicted felons the right to vote until they have fully discharged their sentence and any fines they owe. If they can't pay their fines, they don't get to vote. However, I don't know how big of a difference that would really make, even though I think felons should have the right to vote, even if they're still in prison.

Other things are just bureaucratic. Limiting the types of I.D. that can be used and making it a requirement to register in person, not by mail. Poorer people struggle to get time off work to register, plus the required I.D.s are expensive, so that's a sneaky way of discouraging poor people. Another trick is to limit where registration offices are located so that people in Democratic leaning areas have to travel further to register (which is a huge hassle if you don't have a car and have to go across town by public transport.)

There's always a little bit of stuff like this, sometimes there are honest disagreements about what level of I.D. should be required, for example, but the Republicans have pretty much made vote suppression one of their core strategies. When a party decides that it can only win by suppressing people's votes, they have rejected democracy and should be voted against on principle, regardless of whether any of their candidates or policies might have appeal. There simply aren't any good Republicans any more.

A quick peruse of Fox News and the cries of voter fraud, stolen elections etc have yet to start..

Perhaps because the Republicans were surfing on a wave of optimism they forgot to pre-plan the scam the way Trump and Bannon hadd. Cant see stop the steal getting much traction this time, (though I could be wrong!).

"I’m skeptical that a third of U.S. voters are denied a right to vote,"

Well I was exaagerating, perhaps I should have said ' don't enjoy the right to vote.'

Cheers for the thoughts on voter suppression guys.👍

Heard of one District where a bunch of the voting machines weren't working which will mean counting by hand...

Here we go - 9 hours ago:

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/voting-machine-problems-battleground-arizona-seized-by-trump-election-deniers-2022-11-08/

So IF the dems keep the senate, republicans get the house, Biden's first term could be viewed as one of the more successful then?

Good to see Boebert still losing this morning. I'm in FL, with only Newsmax and Real America First on the TV. Both are pushing DeSantis for 2024 now.

Even those that do vote have some strange views. I've worked for US companies for 25+ years and have met or worked directly with hundreds and hundreds of them.

I can group them as follows:

NY, Boston, Washington - gobby but okay with varying political views

California - mostly okay, mainly Democrats but some very vocal Republicans

Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois - Republican farmers

Texas - Very right wing Republican nutjobs but very polite

Colorado - same as CA within the university towns and ski resorts

Florida - mostly retired people who don't care

When it was Trump v Hillary Clinton many people would not vote for her because she was a woman.  Obama lost votes for not being white.

The scary thing is that these people are all educated, they work in engineering, banking, insurance sectors. If they have the luxury of an education how do the poor, under-priviledged, disenfranchised people think?

Split in the middle.

Disunited State of Murica.

Where's a tiny violin GIF when you need one?

https://twitter.com/AdamParkhomenko/status/1590216896326295552

Atlantic writer taking a positive tone on things (for the Dems)

https://twitter.com/TimAlberta/status/1590173139576635393?t=0TSeyItfZ5_BelFR21vQ6w&s=19

Interesting that the Trump backed  Election “deniers” are doing worse than the Republicans who’ve distanced themselves from him

As soon as it looks like Trump is a vote loser rather than a winner he'll be dumped by his party, the same as Johnson

Is there anywhere doing a good “tracker”

Sorry @piemonster, missed this, I follow @ddale8 on twitter, he's a fact checker for CNN.

As soon as it looks like Trump is a vote loser rather than a winner he’ll be dumped by his party, the same as Johnson

While he was President, the Republicans lost the house and senate, then he lost the White House. Those were historically terrible results that came back to Trump alienating moderate voters. He's always been a vote loser but his base voters don't care. Republican establishment leaders know he's a loser but the Republican party is a Trump cult now and the base voters won't abandon him.

If they have the luxury of an education how do the poor, under-priviledged, disenfranchised people think?

American Dream, isn’t it? If you just work harder…

I remember hearing an interview a while back with an out of work blue collar worker who was going to vote for Marco Rubio because he embodied the American dream.

If you type US elections into Google it gives you a nice dashboard too.

Those were historically terrible results that came back to Trump alienating moderate voters. He’s always been a vote loser but his base voters don’t care

We have been through this before, there were **** all "moderate" republicans that flipped to democrats, Biden won because the normally disenfranchised came out to oppose Trump (who actually got more votes in 2020 than in 2016). It fits the centrist myth to keep repeating that elections are won in the middle ground, but it just doesn't match reality. What it does do is help to disenfranchise millions of voters who are repeatedly ignored by the policy agenda of all the major parties.

Could get really interesting if trump declares and potentially devastating for the republicans. The grass roots of the party have been inundated with election deniers and trumpists. With desantis romping in like this he looks like a sure thing for presidential candidate but it could get really ugly if it comes to desantis Vs trump for the nomination.