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Post by Disciple of Fate on Jul 3, 2024 3:41:47 GMT -5
It wasn't a red wave, but GoP votes in 2022 still outnumbered Dem votes, hence them flipping the House. No such thing as a sure thing here. Midterms typically go against the party of the incumbent president though and the distribution of seats up for grabs favoured the Republicans, so the GOP underperformed even by their own recent standards, nevermind getting a red wave. Typically yes, but a typical midterm doesn't follow the attempted overthrow of democracy (with majority support of said party) and a seeming attempt on a total abortion ban. That they won, even by such a small margin, should be terrifying. |
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Post by Peregrine on Jul 3, 2024 4:20:23 GMT -5
The only thing I disagree with is the part about what has been revealed to be at stake, as the GoP still managed to flip the House despite this reveal. Turnout might be high enough to carry Dems every 4 years for the President, but the stakes sure didn't seem to turn the midterms into a Dem victory. They did manage to flip the house but they did so by much smaller margins than expected, both based on poll numbers leading up to the election and on historical trends for midterms. And remember that, unlike the senate and president, the house is subject to gerrymandering. If you eliminate the blatant gerrymandering in states like NC and OH the democrats would hold the house and probably by a solid margin. |
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Post by Disciple of Fate on Jul 3, 2024 4:35:57 GMT -5
Maybe, but Dem voters did not outnumber Goap voters in the case of the House election. Plenty of voters seem entirely unbothered by the visible post 2020 GoP anti-democratic switch.
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Post by Haighus on Jul 3, 2024 4:36:55 GMT -5
I fully agree the GOP winning the house in 2022 was terrifying, the fact US politics is balanced on such a fine knife edge is definitely terrifying.
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Post by Peregrine on Jul 3, 2024 5:22:26 GMT -5
Maybe, but Dem voters did not outnumber Goap voters in the case of the House election. Plenty of voters seem entirely unbothered by the visible post 2020 GoP anti-democratic switch. But total voters is a meaningless number when there is no national election. Does poor turnout in NYC or San Francisco, districts that are safe democrat seats, reflect a lack of care for the republican threat or simply the fact that no republicans need to be defeated in those districts? Does it matter if a mob of MAGA cultists shows up to a 70% republican district in Missibama where no serious democrat is even bothering to run and make it a 90% district just because voting for their favorite MAGA clown is fun?
The actual numbers show that republican actions between 2020 and 2022 did cost them votes and seats in congress, and that the only reason they hold the house is because heavy gerrymandering skews the house in their favor. Despite that massive gerrymandering advantage they still almost lost it in an election where historical precedent says they should have had a decisive win. That's absolutely voters going against them.
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Post by Disciple of Fate on Jul 3, 2024 5:37:02 GMT -5
Maybe, but Dem voters did not outnumber Goap voters in the case of the House election. Plenty of voters seem entirely unbothered by the visible post 2020 GoP anti-democratic switch. But total voters is a meaningless number when there is no national election. Does poor turnout in NYC or San Francisco, districts that are safe democrat seats, reflect a lack of care for the republican threat or simply the fact that no republicans need to be defeated in those districts? Does it matter if a mob of MAGA cultists shows up to a 70% republican district in Missibama where no serious democrat is even bothering to run and make it a 90% district just because voting for their favorite MAGA clown is fun?
The actual numbers show that republican actions between 2020 and 2022 did cost them votes and seats in congress, and that the only reason they hold the house is because heavy gerrymandering skews the house in their favor. Despite that massive gerrymandering advantage they still almost lost it in an election where historical precedent says they should have had a decisive win. That's absolutely voters going against them.
It matters in a sense that numbers still allowed them to flip a certain number of seats. House seats were lost over local turnout, in seats that weren't out of reach, as shown by their previous holders. We're well outside historical precedent, and it's still a close struggle. Too close for comfort, given the nature of the US electorate. |
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Post by Peregrine on Jul 3, 2024 6:12:25 GMT -5
House seats were lost over local turnout, in seats that weren't out of reach, as shown by their previous holders. This is true but somewhat misleading. Remember that this was the first election after a round of redistricting so some of those seats were the same in name only and had different boundaries. And at least some of those flipped seats were clear cases of gerrymandering districts to be more favorable to republicans. Some of them were genuine wins but OTOH there were also democrats that flipped seats and won in districts they weren't expected to win, so it's not like republicans had an across the board advantage in turnout.
IMO the problem 2022 highlights is not a lack of voter reaction to republican abuses, it's how absurdly rigged in favor of republicans the current system is. The house, the senate, and the electoral college all favor republicans and it isn't enough for democrats to merely have a majority, they need to win decisively to overcome the inherent bias in the system. Even a significant leftward swing like we saw in 2022 still fell short because of that bias.
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Post by Haighus on Jul 4, 2024 13:45:00 GMT -5
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Post by A Town Called Malus on Jul 4, 2024 14:25:14 GMT -5
One note I see people say is that the US President now has the powers of a king.
This is largely inaccurate, as seen by the number of kings convicted of crimes and executed, including one English king. The US President now has powers exceeding any king in the western world.
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Post by Haighus on Jul 4, 2024 14:38:36 GMT -5
Well... the nations of those kings typically had to fight a war for the power to try their king. That seems pretty comparable.
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Post by Disciple of Fate on Jul 4, 2024 15:30:24 GMT -5
Of the top of my head, I can't really think of any monarch that went to trial without some form of violence required.
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Post by easye on Jul 15, 2024 9:12:16 GMT -5
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Post by adurot on Jul 15, 2024 10:26:27 GMT -5
About time. Now they can appeal it and hopefully get a non-hack judge who wasn’t blatantly inexperienced and in Trump’s pocket.
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Post by Hordini on Jul 15, 2024 10:49:31 GMT -5
One note I see people say is that the US President now has the powers of a king. This is largely inaccurate, as seen by the number of kings convicted of crimes and executed, including one English king. The US President now has powers exceeding any king in the western world. This is only true if you're comparing the President to modern kings that are mostly figureheads. |
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skyth
OT Cowboy
Posts: 487
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Post by skyth on Jul 15, 2024 11:33:04 GMT -5
The president not being able to be prosecuted for pretty much anything they do doesn't mean that they will be able to get other people (Who can still be prosecuted) to obey illegal orders. Granted, the president can just pardon them if they do it without repercussions as well.
Yes, the president is subject to impeachment, but I can only see a Democratic president actually being successfully removed by the Senate as too many Republicans see nothing wrong if it's someone with an R next to their name doing stuff. Democrats actually seem to care about genuine hypocrisy. (Not the false equivalencies that Republicans like to trot out...)
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