Well, that wasn’t much of a red wave. Why ? There was probably some fraud but that did not determine these surprising results.
Here is a pretty good analysis
* Fantasy vs. Reality. It turns out that there are a great many voters who don’t care much about what traditionally have been considered decisive issues: inflation, crime, illegal immigration, lousy schools, etc. Many millions of Democrats, confronted with these facts, didn’t conclude that they should consider voting for someone else. Rather, they seem to have thought, My team is in trouble! All the more reason why I need to support my team. This was an election in which, to an extraordinary degree, issues were subordinated to party loyalty.
I agree this was a party loyalty election. The issues we all thought would dominate were ignored. Why ?
Maybe Democrats are living in a fantasy world. Not phased by inflation or gas prices yet. Was Trump a factor?
* Donald Trump. I thought the Democrats’ endless yammering about “our democracy” and “fascism” was incredibly stupid, born of desperation, and would be ignored by voters. I was partly right: those themes were stupid, and they were born of desperation. But it turned out that they were not ineffective. To cite just one example, a young woman I know posted a photo of herself at the polls on Instagram, with the text, “I’m voting against fascism.”
Trump did not do well with the candidates he endorsed. I was not surprised when Oz lost in PA. I was astounded by the candidate who won. Fetterman is obviously not qualified and I assume his wife will serve in his stead or the Democrat governor will appoint some typical pol. Pennsylvania is also the home of vote fraud. In 2020, they changed the rules, violating the law and ignored a Supreme Court Justice ruling that they must sequester late mail in ballots.
This is probably the end of the Trump magic. It’s not fair but the left has taken control of the country and will not be displaced short of war or economic collapse. I think either or both are coming.
“Our democracy” and “fascism” were code for Donald Trump. At this point, Trump is a giant anvil around the neck of the Republican Party. In many areas, likely most, he is absolute poison. To be associated with Trump is to lose. Pretty much everything he has done in the last two years has been not just ill-advised but massively destructive to the Republican Party and to the United States. He has teased a “big announcement” in the next few days. I hope he announces that he is moving to Bulgaria.
I think that is too strong and it is unfair but Trump has been successfully vilified. His rallies did not seem to help his chosen candidates.
* Polls. We Republicans have gotten used to the idea that polls generally underpredict Republican performance. When liberal pollsters started reporting more favorable numbers for Republicans in the days leading up the election, it looked like the usual script was being followed. But this year, if anything the polls may have understated Democratic support, not Republican. What–to cite just one instance–happened to the 26-point swing among suburban women toward the GOP, which led Steve to dub this the “Desperate Housewives Election?” They were desperate, all right–desperate to vote in favor of abortion and against Donald Trump. But how could so many polls be so wrong?
DeSantis did outstandingly well in Florida and he is now the leader for 2024.
One consideration is that the things we thought would dominate the election as issues are not going away. I was concerned that the GOP Congress would get blamed for the troubles which will get worse. Inflation, oil prices and shortages, supply chain issues, school indoctrination of children, the “transsexual” fad. All these will get worse now. But Republicans cannot be blamed. As HL Mencken said, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” I suspect they will be getting it good and hard. Sadly to say, we will be getting it good and hard, too.
We will be lucky not to get into a war we lose in the next two years.
It seemed rather improbable 2 years ago that an already doddering old white guy with ties to unpleasant/illegal activities would win the Presidency with many millions more votes than Barack Obama ever achieved. And the fact that the Democrats fought so hard to make sure there was never any official investigation of this anomaly seemed to prove that there was in fact fire behind the smoke of dubious election results.
Now we have the US going into recession, possibly facing nuclear war with both Russia & China, and with unsolvable budget/spending problems — and yet the Democrats have apparently managed to reduce the incumbent Party’s traditional losses in the mid-terms to a previously unknown low — another election anomaly.
Short of a major investigation to demonstrate to everyone with two brain cells to rub together that the current elections results were real, we have to assume that there is something rotten in the state of Denmark.
I’m not believing these results at all. I’ve noted previously that my polling precinct replaced perfectly good voting with dominion internet devices this year, for some reason- I wonder what it could be? Hmmm.
About DeSantis, I think he was set up to be the great white hope to take out the bad orange man. The wings of the dc uniparty have united against the Trumpian hordes, in the same way the English aristocracy united the to face terrible social threat of Revolutionary France.
The gop base is now supposed to turn to Obi Wan DeSantis as our only hope against the empire of wokeness. I note the gop pick up of a few house seats in Florida has been ascribed to the redistricting genius of the blessed governor. I suspect what actually happened is that the vote fraud machine was turned off for Florida to make him look better.
On the other hand, the fraud was cranked up to stop Trump endorsed candidates, like Kari Lake.
Interesting times…
Kari Lake might still pull it out but the Maricopa County shenanigans are evidence that Katie Hobbs worked her magic on voting again. No wonder George Soros chose her for Secretary of State.
It was probably a mistake to do the Roe vs Wade thing, that got done. A great many women turned out, that may not have, had this not been pushed out.
“There was probably some fraud but that did not determine these surprising results.”
The fraud was the overwhelming dominant factor.
I wonder what impact the Lindsey Graham Federal 15 week abortion bill had. He seemed to think he was being clever in introducing it as a counter to the democratic bill to legalize abortion in all states. The democratic bill would have never passed. Massive stupidity on the part of Lindsey.
In contemplating Trump’s viability going forward, I have one queston. Trump has definitely lost some of his supporters since the 2020 election. What supporters has he picked up since then?
Losing now will probably help in 2024. The Dems will take the blame for the economy tanking next year, if not sooner.
I think malice, explains it more that more than error
We have had the last two national general elections blatantly stolen. That is now the norm. No one should assume the integrity of any vote, or that anyone in power has “consent of the governed”, which has effects on judging the legitimacy of the government’s actions.
I also agree with Michael Kennedy that we will get into a war we will lose in the next two years. Maybe more than one. Note that civil wars count as wars. I am at the point where I believe the electoral paradigm has failed, that likely there will not be any more real elections, and the concept of interesting times is upon us.
Any civil conflict is not going to be states -v- states. Our divisions are both political, ethnic, and cultural and are more urban -v- rural/suburban. If you are a conservative living in hostile territory, coming back to America may be a good idea. And if you have loved ones in urban areas who will not leave, at least be prepared to receive them and care for them without warning if things go TANGO UNIFORM.
Subotai Bahadur
Heretical opinion: could it be that our fellow citizens dislike Donald Trump even more than Joe Biden?
The polls were a mess… I would like to see the analysis of which polls did better or worse than 2020. My sense is that polling these days is going to be a shoot as firms try to find the bearings. That’s going to mean come 2024 we aren’t going to have a clear sense until we.count the votes and in these uncertain times that will be dangerous
Bottom line? Very disappointing…. but not too discouraging. It looks like we take the House which means the Progressive legislative agenda is dead if we want it to be. A
Also it will investigativepoolaza in the House; I do wish we would get the Senate because Rand Paul going about Fauci is worth the juice. Also I bet the Democrats think the.electoral results.mean steady as it goes… Can you say Biden_2024? Yes it.is.now.a.possibility
We have alot.of.work.to over the next 2 years. Not only do we need.to halt the Democratic agenda and.bring people.to.account but try to.make.sure.we get through the next few years,.it will be a rocky ti!e.coming g.for.all us..We.need.to be ready for 2024 which means we not only need.to take the lessons.from.2022/(better candidates and better attack profile) but we need.to.figure from.now.through Super Tuesday 2024 what the Republican Party will do fora.presidential nominee. Perhaps this experience will lead.to a good.nomination contest.that all can benefit from
The election/fraud nonsense? We need.to.pjt.a.halt.to that. I cannot believe what is.going down with Maricopa.County….I will coming into Phoenix.tomorrow. to see what I can fimd.out
No wonder George Soros chose her for Secretary of State.
Indeed.
I vaguely recall reading of a European kingdom where the actual power became invested in the palace security chief or some such. The king was a mere figurehead.
When I read of elected officials like katie hobbs or the fetterman creature I’m reminded of that hazy memory. They’re nothing more than placeholders for the people behind the scenes with actual power.
Shrug. Interesting times, again, alas.
I think we are in for The Even Greater Depression.
The fraud was the overwhelming dominant factor.
Here is an article on fraud which makes sense.
Whitmer and Fetterman were not campaigning for votes, that is old school. Instead, the machinery behind both candidates focused on the modern path. The Democrat machines in both states focused on ballot collection and ignored the irrelevant votes as cast.
Since the advent of ballot centric focus through mail-in and collection drop-off processes, votes have become increasingly less valuable amid the organizers who wish to control election outcomes. As a direct and specific result, ballot collection has become the key to Democrat party success.
The effort to attain votes for candidates is less important than the strategy of collecting ballots.
It should be emphasized; these are two distinctly different election systems.
The system of ballot distribution and collection is far more susceptible to control than the traditional system of votes cast at precincts.
I’m just not sure it affected more than PA and AZ. Kari Lake might still win.
Kari Lake was on Tucker tonight. She says there are still over 600,000 votes still to be counted. Many if not most of them are from Republican districts around Phoenix. She said 275,000 and mail in ballots dropped at ballot boxes by voters who didn’t trust the USPO. Our two were two of those.
275,000 are mail in ballots.
Mike: “It looks like we take the House which means the Progressive legislative agenda is dead if we want it to be.”
That is a very big IF !
We know that Congressional Democrats will stick to the Party line, no matter what. Just look at how fast that group of Anti-War Democrats backed off and pledged total loyalty to the Ukraine when the whip cracked over them — less than 24 hours to abandon their anti-war beliefs.
We also know that there are lots of Institutional Republicans who are sitting on the edge of their seats, ready to reach across the aisle at the first opportunity and get some TV time bad-mouthing fellow Republicrats.
We, the citizens, have no representation in the halls of Congress, regardless of the “results” of any election.
A – Foolish voters
B – Trump hurt more than he helped
C – GOP whiffed it
D – Fraud
E – Really foolish young voters
F – All of the above
My vote’s on F.
[updated]
A few general thoughts as I prepare for my BFD (BeFore Dawn) flight to Phoenix…. after all as the good Gunny/mentor used to tell me it’s always tactically sound to maximize day light and as my Mother would tell me as she would kick me out of bed that I could sleep when I was dead. Me I tend toward that line from an old Star Trek movie where “Time is the fire in which we all burn.” As soon as the plane lands I will have the obligatory In-N-Out burger and then get to business which will culminate with some late afternoon drinks with a couple of old friends who are political insiders and will have better insights than me. However I had some thoughts as I was at the gym this morning watching the TV monitors
1) First we didn’t why things happened, we srae starting to see what happened but not why. The heads at CNN and Fox are busy spinning narratives and they need to as one needs to both set the narrative early in information war and plus they have time to fill. However we don’t need to and we should approach this all with deep skepticism, as we are detectives in a murder mystery – don’t fall for the easy answers especially ones that others want you to believe. Keep in mind also that it wasn’t just public polls that were seriously wrong but politicians’ private polling as well – look at the Dems like Hochul who ended up winning comfortably but had called in last minute help or the DNC and related Dem PACs who were pulling out of swing races to shore up 10+ point blue seats. One of the keys from that is that if nobody got it right before the election why do we think anyone has got it right 24 hours later on snap exit polls?
2) The Dobbs issue and its effects is interesting and several dimensions leap to mind. The first is what was Lindsey Graham thinking? The Democrats were about to resurrect their old internal fights about the filibuster on their own abortion bill and instead Graham focused the narrative onto what the Republicans would do – a political basic is never get in the way of an opponent making a mistake and Graham just belly flopped right in the way/ More thoughts on that tonight
3) After we finish processing what happened on Tuesday we need to be crystal clear on what needs to be done for 2024, if you think this is the inflection point then we need to act like it. What we don’t need is people already going Benedict Option like this Mallard Reborn guy on Twitter that Instapundit linked to (https://instapundit.com/553183/), I read it and found it demoralizing at hell. Such attitudes after a normal period of grieving are not only counterproductive but you already should have had your escape route planned. Mine is in the hills around Pie Town, NM (which is a joke meant to mislead the feds who monitor this blog because we all know that there are no hills in Pie Town, you will never find me coppers) Let’s process this and figure out the size of the hill to climb and get to work solving the problem. and if things do go “Tango Uniform” we’ve already planned ahead
Like Steve Hayward at Powerline, I tend to the optimistic/happy warrior vibe most of the time. In his first post-election post, he brought up the resemblance of this election to 1978 which was another first-term mid-term where the wind in GOP sails mostly died on Election Day. Inflation was bad, the oil shocks were still rocking the US economy, and Carter was deeply unpopular but the GOP could only eek out modest gains. Still, if you combine 2020 with 2022 the GOP will have picked up 20-30 House seats, including 2022 wins in places like VA, MI, and south Texas as well as knocking out the DCCC chair in New York. We didn’t win Senate seats where hoped (PA, AZ) but we didn’t lose any the Democrats had expected to flip (WI, NC) and it looks like we’ll trade NV for PA. The biggest disappointment is losing a number of races for governor, state legislatures, and other state offices with big givebacks happening in PA, MN, and MI.
Given the low unemployment numbers, and that crime is mostly a local issue, I think there was a tendency on the part of Democrat-leaners to return to the fold, and give the Dems another chance. Anecdotally from my area in Louisville, we’re seeing a pretty big construction boomlet right now though the housing market is getting a bit soft.
I also agree with Mike@7:49 above… the silver lining in this cloud is since the Democrats escaped by the skin of their teeth they won’t have the fire to replace Biden before 2024, and if he declines to run Harris is likely to be in a stronger position to win the 2024 Dem primary than she should be.
All I really care about is that the House goes for the R’s and we can get the country back to some good, healthy gridlock. The sideshow investigations will also be hilarious, but that’s just icing on the cake.
I’m sure President Manchin is pretty happy about all of this, as well.
Dan, I am very disappointed that we did not get rid of the Evers administration, but very pleased to hold on to Senator Johnson.
Vikki McKenna had UW professor on yesterday, who had asked his students how many had learned the platforms if the candidates running in this election, none had.
He asked how many had followed the news stories about the election coming up, none had.
When he asked who was going to vote, they all raised their hands.
When he asked some of them why, it was to defeat the threat to democracy.
@Scott – I have absolutely no idea how tens of thousands of people would split their ballots if they voted for RoJo to vote for Evers. It’s hard to believe.
RoJo would have likely lost if the D’s put up anyone worth a crap. But we put up Michels so there’s that. Thanks Trump.
Kleefisch would have routed Evers – but the split votes have me shrugging my shoulders. I don’t get it.
It isn’t all bad, however. Gridlock is good and if Michels were gov, it is likely that the R’s would pass all sorts of stupid and unpopular legislation and this way we can just point the finger at Evers and say “it’s your fault”.
its possible, but evers has proven he is evil, and he will push on more dangerous counterproductive legislation, its so much easier to break and maim things, the momentum is on the former, than to fix things, and we are running out of time, to straighten the ship of state
Good comments. We are entering terra incognita as younger people with PC educations become a major voting bloc while boomers age out and a smaller fraction of the population has kids.
Agree about the bad attitudes. It’s never over, nobody in any political faction ever knows entirely what’s going on, and always the only question is what to do next. There’s a lot of good with the bad out there. Gridlock and muddling through are desirable political goals.
Tangential comment, continuing what feels like a one man mission to correct John Della Volpe’s tweet that “Gen Z” voted D+28. I’m sure his stats are right but he’s applying the wrong generation moniker.
The Boomer generation is generally assumed to have ended at the latest in the mid-1960s. At the time of the writing of their work on generation theory, Strauss and Howe termed the generation following the Boomers “13th” since it was the 13th in their sequence since the American Revolution. However, the use of ‘X’ soon eclipsed the numeric nickname since much discussion of the generation born between the mid-1960s and mid-1980s occurred while its character was still unknown. Strauss and Howe, among others, then began using the designation ‘Y’ for the generation that would logically follow Generation X sometime in the 1980s. Since that generation would begin reaching adulthood right around the turn of the 20th century to the 21st, they became better known as ‘Millennials’, and the letter designation given to the next subsequent generation which would be born beginning around the year 2000 was, quite logically, ‘Z’.
In other words, *hardly anyone in what is logically called Generation Z is old enough to vote*, the oldest members being at most 22 and by some definitions as young as 17. The vast bulk of voters age 18 to 29 are *Millennials* who are also the largest voting age generation in the US at about 105M, with Gen X next at about 62M, and Boomers around 55M. Gen Z currently comes in at about 73M.
Mike
November 10, 2022 at 3:36 am
The more I think about it, the more I think that we are not going to be worrying about elections in two years. There may be something called an election, or there may not; but I think we have voted for the last time.
There are some signs, not yet confirmed, that the Republicans may barely eke out a majority in the House. But to be honest, unless there is a purge of the leadership of the Republican party, nothing will be done with it because a) it will interfere with the flow of payoffs, and b) because it is something that is simply not done. I will say that one conservative tactic may have worked in Arizona. Conservatives do not trust the USPO with votes. [Would you mail a $100 bill? Then why a vote?] No matter who is in the presidency, they work for the Democrats.
As an example of how they could easily cheat, say you have a city that is hard core conservative. So the USPO people snatch up 1000 ballots totally at random. That will net out with a lot more Republican votes being removed than Democrat, which is a gain for the Left. The voters assume that once they mail their ballot it will be counted. But . . .
Now it turns out that like here in Colorado, Arizona voters were warned not to trust the USPO, and instead of mailing in early, they handed them in at ballot drop boxes on election day. Which means the counting had to be done all at once. If there were going to be more real elections, it would be a good tactic to remember.
We are coming up on an economic collapse due to internal and foreign trade supply chain and energy shortages. Confidence in the electoral paradigm is pretty much gone. Keeping in mind that belief in the integrity of elections is like an on-off switch, not a dimmer. It is either there, or it is not there. And in the absence of elections that people believe in, what is the legitimacy of government beyond force majeure?
Subotai Bahadur
Subotai,
It’s hard to argue against your points after what I saw today in Arizona. It now looks like Maricopa County won’t report election results until next week. This is a political subdivision that was Will Smith slapped by the President of the Arizona State Senate in the last election cycle, knew.for.the.better part of a year that quite possibly control of the Senate would rest of on the county, and with all of that it served up a stinker of broken machines and a week to count ballots.
Arizona and especially Maricopa has always had a split Republican personality between its old conservative roots and those who would rather be squishy because they are embarrassed to be seen siding with the likes of not only Paul Gosar but also have the Republican caucus in the state legislature – the same ones who just gave us school vouchers. McCain exploited that difference for years.
The question they need to answer and really all of us is what time is it. As I commented on a previous post I thought the crisis would come now and not in 2024…. Put republican under performance doesn’t look like.it.will cause.the Democrats to break the seals quite yet. Some of the things we discussed over drinks this afternoon would have made more sense A few years ago Building up a reliable cadre of state election officials but that time has come and gone… That is a decade.long project and we have less than 2 years. By the same token, with time so.short we cannot afford to have vanity projects like what Trump.did.in the gubernatorial races in Wisconsin and.Pennsylvania – 2 critical swing states with whatever slim hope.we had to counteract fraud for.2024 almost gone
So yes while time is short It doesn’t do us good to not work on parallel tracks… To work both om.tryimg.to reform the electoral process while at the same time preparing a.”response” if.widespread fraud is.found. We can walk.on chew gum. We did discuss that all states will
have at least 2 legislative sessions between now and the 2024 election to fix fraud if they so wish. It also means to take the offensive Given the electoral procedure success stories in Georgia and.Florida, Joe Biden and the democrats need to pay a price for how Georgia as Jim Crow and.Kemp.and Desantis.are the guys.to do.it and breathe.life into reform.
Maybe it is too late as credibility and faith once squandered is not easily recovered But we still have some options and at least a little bit of ti!e left.
Breakfast meeting tomorrow and then an afternoon spent hiking up in Rim country
FOR THE LOVE OF BOB.
The two states that cleaned up their vote showed huge GOP margins. The one non-voting delegation flipped.
But you’re going with “it’s all above board” are you?
Has everyone lost their minds. Did you forget 2020?
Yes, they did it more subtly this time.
I feel like I did early in covidiocy. I’m screaming “It’s plain as the nose on your face.” And you’ve all lost your minds.
Dominion voting machines, people. They don’t even need potentially obvious fraud like the open stuffing of ballot boxes, or changing election law just before the election. They can simply use software to adjust the electoral outcome to whatever they desire.
But in actual practice they’re still working to make fraud easier. Michigan had a proposal (#2) on the ballot that effectively banned requiring photo ID to vote, required the setting up of drop boxes for ballots, and required that anyone watching the drop boxes could be arrested for “harassing conduct”.
And of course there are the various large democrat-run cities, where vote tallies can be simply made up without anyone disputing them. I note Detroit in 2016 had so many problems that they simply couldn’t do the recount requested by Jill Stein. One ballot box had something like 70 actual votes to match up to a machine that recorded 360ish votes for Hillary Clinton.
How bad is it for them, actually, when they need to continually find new ways to commit fraud to win- and yet they still have access to the old ones? And where is the GOP on all this?
I don’t care how much mastery Mitch McConnell has of the obscure rules of Senate. He’s like an idiot spending his time trying scrape some gum off his shoe while his house burns down on top of him. Eventually the whole thing is going to come down on top of him. He should have found a way to work with Donald Trump, period. Paul Ryan, too.
But they didn’t, because the Geee Ohhh Peeeeee is quite rightly known as the stupid party.
By the same token, with time so.short we cannot afford to have vanity projects like what Trump.did.in the gubernatorial races in Wisconsin and.Pennsylvania – 2 critical swing states with whatever slim hope.we had to counteract fraud for.2024 almost gone
What did Trump do, aside from endorsing candidates he supported and who presumably also would support him? Is that beyond the pale, now? Should Trump have tamely promised to support candidates so oblivious that they saw nothing wrong with the conduct of the 2020 election and who would also not support him in 2024? Why, exactly?
At the risk of repeating what I said in my prior comment, the gop should have found a way to work with Trump instead of spending its time attempting to chase him and his supporters out of the party.
From that quote above, I get the sense that the party establishment wouldn’t work with either Trump-endorsed candidate and would rather lose the election than have an outsider win. This dovetails horrifyingly well with what I’ve heard about the Michigan gop.
That’s why you lose, gop. You hate your supporters and will not represent them.
That’s why you lose, gop. You hate your supporters and will not represent them.
I made a bad edit, so I’m going to quote myself and put part of it back.
The GOP should should be winning Vladimir Putin levels of support, considering the murderousness of the left. But it doesn’t, because it spends far too much of its time attempting to chase bad thinkers like Donald Trump out of the party.
Trump brought swarms of new voters into the party- and the establishment was quite happy to accept the votes, utterly unwilling to accept the new people into the club. Hence the nastiness aimed at Trump endorsed candidates.
I’ve already said that fraud gave us the results we were given- but if the gop was competent, the fraud would not be possible.
I’ll just note that the party has controlled the US government several times withing living memory, and nothing was done.
Enough rambling.
Saw on a few sites where they were not expecting a Red Wave, based on the voting fraud as seen previously. They were expecting to see a number of close elections where enough Democrats would win to prevent a wave, but enough Republicans would win in order to make it appear that everything was aboveboard.
Where did the thought of the Red Wave come from, who promoted it, and why were people believing it? Did it start with, or get hijacked by, people who wanted to give the Blame-Trump crowd more ammo?
Xennady,
The issue with PA connects with problems with Trump but in a more subtle way. After what happened during his presidency It was pretty clear that If trump was going to run again he was going to need allies to support him when he got to Washington
That is in part how you got him supporting Oz… but Oz was a flawed candidate who only got as far as he did because of Trump because Trump wanted to show that he was the GOP kingmaker. Ok that is Trump big pluses and big minuses….I have accepted that
The problem was the gubernatorial election with Mastriano. Just from a purely self Just from purely self interest Trump needs PA to win in 2024 and he will not get it unless he has somebody to clean up the electoral system. Unlike with Oz which just made my eyes roll, Trump’s actions with Mastriano made me angry because it shows a.lack of strategic.judgment that could cost us the.last chance in PA in 2024. Is it so important for him to back a long shot loyalist that it ensures a Democrat in such a critical position
Back to Sarah’s point above, we win when we can clean up the electoral systems especially in swing states.A Governor Lake, while not having the direct constitutional authority over elections, can help get the legislation done to clean up the despair that Maricopa has become. The chance to do that, whatever chance there was, in PA is gone and Trump played a big part in it. He needs to do better for us to win 2024
All good points above about the statistically highly improbable ruling party limited losses in a time of major economic & social problems. Which says that “FRAUD” cannot be ruled out as a major factor in the ruling party’s apparent success.
But let’s stop trying to blame everything wrong with the Institutional Republicrats on President Trump! One man alone cannot bring back honest elections. If we want honest elections in the future, it is up to us — the people — to make it happen.
Look in the mirror, folks. WE are the problem!
I am SURE that Dominion Machines, that are related to Soros, were just an investment done out of the goodness of his heart. And if you question it, you can be like Fox, that is going to a Jury Trial next year on the issue. Great use of lawfare! And auditing by hand count is not allowed. And when a hand count is allowed, the difference is just a one off! Amazing how the eGOP does not question voting machines…
Trump has moved the Overton Window on Election Fraud. The negative is the GOP that could do something on the issue, are doing the minimal. They seem more focused on destroying Trump, and his MAGA Followers.
Interesting if true..,
“Trump’s 93% Endorsement Success Rate.
Not only did President Trump win 219 of his 235 endorsed races (that’s a 93 percent success rate at last count)”
https://thenationalpulse.com/2022/11/10/dr-gina-the-uniparty-needs-you-to-believe-there-was-no-trump-led-red-wave-its-a-lie-and-heres-why-and-how-theyre-doing-it/
Another view on Trump’s Success, not as good, but still good:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/here-s-how-candidates-endorsed-by-trump-performed-in-the-midterm-elections/ar-AA13VaPz
Hmm on Ga…
Warnock’s campaign has spent $135.8 million, while Walker’s campaign has spent $32.4 million, according to data from the Federal Election Commission.
https://news.yahoo.com/runoff-election-georgia-may-decide-141409864.html
And in NY Hochul spent 7X her opponent.
Oz is super pro Vax, that may have also impacted GOP turnout.
And the establishment GOP has a long history of horrible candidates they backed. The GOP nominee in CO is just the latest. McSally in AZ, what’s her name in GA, Romney for President, etc.
Why is there no talk on the horrible job that the GOP Party did? Ronna Romney McDaniel should be offering up her resignation now based on what happened.
Why did they allow the Democrats to pick the GOP Nominee in the primaries? Either through funding, or through disqualifying them?
Why no GOP ground game for ballot harvesting in states this is legal?
…but Oz was a flawed candidate who only got as far as he did because of Trump because Trump wanted to show that he was the GOP kingmaker.
This is the typical logic of the gop establishment. Oz was quite literally running against a man who cannot talk or understand questions- and yet somehow the problem was Oz. I say again, Fetterman cannot speak. Oz wasn’t the problem here.
The problem was the gubernatorial election with Mastriano.
He can talk, right? He wasn’t the problem either. I note the demonrats didn’t spent their time whining that Fetterman was a brain damaged moron, they closed ranks. The gop should learn from this.
Unlike with Oz which just made my eyes roll, Trump’s actions with Mastriano made me angry…
I’m not interested in hearing about your feelings. But I will note this attitude is what I’ve observed of the gop establishment for many years. If a candidate they don’t like wins a primary, they sit on their hands and pout, like a bunch of spoiled children. If that candidate loses, they then blame the candidate and the voters and demand everyone vote as they’re told the next time. If the non-establishment candidate wins, then they busy themselves undercutting and sabotaging them in every way possible.
…in PA is gone and Trump played a big part in it.
Trump, it’s Trump’s fault, see! We had nothing to do with it! Don’t blame us for failing again!!
I’d like to know just what has to happen for the GOP to notice they’ve got a problem. Trump was quite literally a quasi-democrat reality TV star when he ran for president- and he went through what was supposedly the best field of candidates the Republican party ever had like that proverbial knife through the proverbial butter.
A political party with adult leadership would take note and react accordingly. Instead, the GOP spent the next four years refusing to work with Trump and scheming against him at every turn. I think it’s rather obvious that the party leadership was quite happy with the fraud that cost him the 2020 election, even if they weren’t actively involved.
They certainly haven’t raised any concerns about vote fraud.
Why is that, exactly?
the tories haven’t figured it out since they through thatcher overboard, cameron may johnson, was perhaps the best of the three, but he squandered the opportunities given by brexit,
the young ladies who voted for golem and hochul, should have the handmaid bonnets, stapled to their heads, to remind themselves of the misery they have visited upon himself,
“the tories haven’t figured it out since they through thatcher overboard, cameron may johnson, was perhaps the best of the three”
They had to toss the mad bat, pure self preservation. If you think Boris was the best of anything, I have this really nice bridge in Brooklyn that I can let you have really cheaply.
Boris is all about Boris, and he has squandered the entire Brexit advantage he briefly had. Then he preformed as badly as the US in fighting Covid. Being in the bottom 20 countries is actually hard to do.
Brexit is suicide, but its not a fast working drug, although very deadly. It will end Great Britain as Scotland splits off and maybe Northern Ireland too.
Why did/didn’t the GOP do whatever?
Why the Maginot Line? It wasn’t created by a conspiracy of pro-Nazi French military planners. It was part of a reasonable plan to block German invasion. Unfortunately, the Germans had a competing plan to invade which turned out to be more effective.
The Democrats outcompeted the Republicans in using mass-media, in using social-media to ID likely voters (as the Trump campaign had pioneered in 2016) and deliver effective pro-Democratic appeals to specific constituencies, in lawfare (as the losers call successful efforts to change the law to benefit one side), in using tech-boosted GOTV tactics to deliver mail-in Democratic ballots, and in fraud. None of these tactics prevented the use of any of the others. The degree to which specific Democratic tactics were effective varied by voting region.
The losers need to up their game, even though it appears that the winners in some of the blue states have fixed the game to such an extent that they can’t lose in the future. Maybe they can’t lose, maybe they can. Things change, events happen, people have new ideas, mass perceptions about the other side’s supposed invulnerability may prove false. It’s never over. The first battle is to select/elect Republican officials who oppose cheating. The second battle is to do something about Democratic cheating.
Trump may have been a drag on Republican candidates, but that’s hindsight and not a basis for decision making. He may remain a significant part of the political process unless/until a plurality of Republican primary voters rejects him. The Republican Party remains a broad coalition while the Democrats have become a narrow coalition of white leftists and people at all income levels who are on the dole.
The Dominion voting system may be corrupt. Even if it’s honest it may have bugs and/or be vulnerable to hacking. It’s insane to use an electronic voting system that runs on proprietary software. It’s a bad idea to use a system that many voters don’t trust. Paper ballots and other basic voting reforms are obvious but nothing will change until Republican officials become serious about reform. Electing pro-voting-reform Republicans is much more important than electing Republicans who are for/against Trump.
Jonathan: “Electing pro-voting-reform Republicans is much more important than electing Republicans who are for/against Trump.”
Exactly! Yet how many of us made voting reform a key issue in any primary or any campaign? The whole question of apparent significant voting reform was rarely raised, and was treated by all the right people as the equivalent of passing gas in church.
The fault dear Brutus, lies not in our stars (not even in President Trump) but in ourselves …
Very true, and why?
“ The whole question of apparent significant voting reform was rarely raised, and was treated by all the right people as the equivalent of passing gas in church.”
“A political party with adult leadership would take note and react accordingly.”
The Bush wing of GOPe wants their power back. Adults/citizens/patriots are not involved.
Has anyone done a Venn diagram showing the overlap of the Never-Trumpers with the GOPe who don’t want election reform?
Xennady
Lets put our dispute into a different perspective. The great contribution Trump made for all us is that he fights, I do believe you can tell alot about a person based on his formative influences. Biden till he became VP spent more than 1/2 his life in the Senate and is there anyone in our history that we can say that has the soul of a senator more than he? To me Trump will always be the guy from Queens, the outsider who tells the opponent that in the end he will dance on their unmarked grave. I love that, I love the resiliency. I feel the same way about him that Lincoln felt about Grant when confronted with the latter’s drinking “I cannot spare this man he fights”
The problem is he fights the wrong battles.
We know that type of person, not afraid of a good scrap but can be easily distracted from their strategic goals by provoking them. We have all done it, push the right button and off the other side goes.
Oz making my eyes roll?.Add.Walker to the mix. Personally while not winning the Senate this cycle is frustrating, I’ m not going to fall into the pit of despair because with the Senate map for 2024 if we take care of business those 2 guys won’t matter. My concern is not them its why Trump felt he should have picked them in the first place… they are a distraction
If you, Donald Trump, tell me that you lost because of fraud then I expect you to be focused laser like in these wilderness years on spending your precious political capital on getting electoral reform done in critical swing states. Why? Because you have implicitly told that without eliminating such fraud you will lose in 2024
Let’s do a thought experiment on how Trump can use the next few months to use those great combative instincts. He should give a speech, maybe just remarks, commenting on the problems with the past election and how such actions, fraud, undermines our democracy. Then he mentions the great election Georgia had, with all the turnout, after the Democrats decried Georgia’s reforms as voter suppression and Jim Crow. He says he hopes other states will follow Georgia’s lead and then works to get a bunch of GOP governors to issue a joint statement that they will push such legislation in their upcoming sessions.
That would be electric because 1) it shows everyone he is.leading the party not just tearing down the opposition 2) that he has got his head in the game to win 2024 3)we know he doesn’t like Kemp in Georgia but by throwing him a bone it shows me Trump can be a fighter but not be petty.
Why should that be beyond him?
Right now.I’m interviewing candidates for.the 2024 nomination. Mr. Trump you tell me you got.forced out.of your last job because of fraud, what have you done.since then to better your situation since then?
I’ m not going to fall into the pit of despair because with the Senate map for 2024 if we take care of business those 2 guys won’t matter.
I don’t advocate despair, not least because it accomplishes nothing. But I recall circa 2009 when the left was anticipating 65-70 senate seats after the 2010 election, thanks to the map. Then came the actual event.
If you, Donald Trump, tell me that you lost because of fraud then I expect you to be focused laser like in these wilderness years on spending your precious political capital on getting electoral reform done in critical swing states.
This sounds like what he’s been doing the last two years- look for candidates who notice that vote fraud is a problem and want to solve it. And, by the way, it should be called what it is- vote fraud. Don’t mince words. It doesn’t help your argument.
He should give a speech, maybe just remarks, commenting on the problems with the past election and how such actions, fraud, undermines our democracy.
Again, your suggestion strikes me as something he has already been doing. Also, by the way, we don’t have a democracy. We have a representative republic.
Then he mentions the great election Georgia had…
I wouldn’t call the Georgia election great. I’ve been continually reading of issues in Georgia with the 2020 election and I don’t find it credible that the Trump-endorsed candidate for secretary of state did as badly as claimed. Plus, I think the GOP should stop considering elections that result in expensive run-offs as successful.
And as usual I note that Trump is in this scenario expected to kiss the ring of the establishment politician who has not been a supporter. Why exactly should Trump do this, noting that the gop establishment has been viscerally hostile to him? If Trump actually did it, I expect the response from Kemp would be yet more hostility.
…then works to get a bunch of GOP governors to issue a joint statement that they will push such legislation in their upcoming sessions.
The problem here is that the swarm of Geee Ohhh Peeee nullities presently taking up space in the various governor’s mansions have shown no particular inclination to work with Trump or worry about vote fraud. I’ve already mentioned Georgia, and I know when Michigan discovered significant fraud in Detroit after the 2016 election the response from the GOP-led state government was a worthless fig-leaf to make the headlines go away.
That would be electric…
No, sorry. For some reason, the political establishment of the United States is utterly unwilling to work with Donald Trump, even when it would be in the interests of at least the GOP portion to do so.
You do you, but I’m not that interested in wasting my time voting for these imbeciles anymore.
The Bush wing of GOPe wants their power back
Yep.
They don’t deserve it.
To paraphrase a statement made long ago by a Supreme Court justice, three generations of political imbeciles is enough.
Let’s do a thought experiment on how Trump can use the next few months to use those great combative instincts. He should give a speech, maybe just remarks, commenting on the problems with the past election and how such actions, fraud, undermines our democracy.
The trouble is that he has obsessed about it and even attacked Youngkin because Youngkin was not grateful enough for his endorsement. As I recall, Youngkin did not have Trump campaign with him and, to some degree, distanced himself. That election was won on the school issue, which I don’t recall Trump making as much of as DeSantis did.
If Trump were nominated, I would vote for him but the midterms were not a triumph for him.
Here is an interesting poll result:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/11/reader-poll-looking-ahead-to-2024.php
Trump fans can tend to be vocal in their enthusiasm. Since democrats made financial contributuions to Trump endorsed primary candidates with considerable success in later defeating them, I suspect they will give it their all to ensure Trump wins the republican primary.
The one thing I haven’t seen mentioned above (I haven’t read every word of every comment.) is that some substantial number of people and their close relatives were given 10,000 reasons to vote Democrat. While I’m pretty confident that the overwhelming majority here see this as the blatantly unconstitutional travesty that I do, and fully expect the Supreme Court to end it, we and those like us weren’t voting for Democrats anyway. Those inclined to believe in Biden’s largess were likely realistic enough to realize that whatever hope they had for this windfall required a Democrat government. What will happen to their motivation when this check bounces?
I note that Biden has extended the “emergency” to next April.
Raymondshaw
November 12, 2022 at 1:22 pm
Just noting the assumption that there will be real elections in 2024. I personally think we are not going to have them. YMMV, of course.
Subotai Bahadur
I agree with Master Subotai — there won’t be an election in 2024.
The GOP is broken and cannot be fixed. The Wall Street vs. Main Street dynamic is at play, and the institutional GOP is firmly on the side of Wall Street, note the recent re-appearance of Paul Ryan. Ace of Spades has a post on this, which explains why Trump went off on DeSantis and Youngkin. (Hint: the Bushies are back and have co-opted DeSantis):
“The McFailure Plan to Kneecap Trump” https://ace.mu.nu/archives/401856.php
I’ll close with something I wrote on another site:
I’ve come to the opinion that the country is lost. The key reason is entropy.
– The entrenched moneyed interests in DC control the Republican party (the Wall Street vs. Main Street dynamic). Absent a repeal of the 17th Amendment (ain’t happening) to fix the Senate, no amount of grass roots MAGA enthusiasm will overcome this.
– The Democrats long ago figured out that votes don’t matter, ballots matter. They have successfully created a machine that harvests and collects ballots, and yes, creates as needed. All in the open, and with cover from a corrupt judiciary. The institutional GOP doesn’t have the testicles to fight any of this. Nor are they interested; the current corrupt system is how they got into power in the first place.
-A large swath of the public doesn’t care. Our educational system has failed to pass down our unique heritage of individual liberty. Not too long ago, the current election buffoonery would have generated several re-enactments of the Battle of Athens. Alas, that cultural backbone (heck, even the memory of it) is now absent.
Thus, absent some massive Black Swan event that upends the status quo, inertia dictates that the US will go down the tubes. We are not voting our way out of this, because voting within the current system is merely kabuki.
ADDED: the two most likely Black Swans are, IMO, an external war that we lose badly, or an internal civil war (actually, I would prefer a “Second American Revolution,” as that more properly describes the fight as one between lovers of individual liberty vs. a centralized oppressive regime.)
Buckle up.
I had a good talk with a friend who also voted for Trump today. Both of us will be supporting DeSantis. For us Trump has been moving from the “supported” category to possibly “becoming a jerk” category.
The big test will be during the upcoming primaries if DeSantis is winning how vicious Trump gets – and if so, will he do a Perot?
You think 2024 will be the end of a left leaning President? It all might depend on Trump.
All that being said, I think he did a great job while President – how many past GOP Presidents would nominate truly conservative Supreme Court Justices?
He was getting the border secured despite Congress.
But he alienates people, making unnecessary enemies.
Don’t get me wrong, if he wins the primaries I will support him (given the alternatives) but if he doesn’t it would be just as nice if he moves to Bulgaria.
I agree with Master Subotai — there won’t be an election in 2024.
I’m going to quibble with this- I think we’ll have something called an election, but it will be a complete and utter sham. Much like 2022, 2020, and I suspect others going back much further than almost anyone suspects. Absent the black swans, at least.
Ace of Spades has a post on this, which explains why Trump went off on DeSantis and Youngkin.
Interesting link- “The GOP would provide funding, support, and a clear path to the nomination. If DeSantis declined the offer, the second choice is Glenn Youngkin.”
“By not fighting for seats in the House and Senate, they wanted to reduce the number of MAGA Trump supporters in their chambers, and they assumed that the political environment of the moment would allow them to still gain both chambers, but blame the “disappointing” results on Trump.”
It seems to me that DeSantis has plainly accepted the offer and the establishment is lying when they claim they thought they’d still win control of both chambers.
They can’t openly tell supporters that they’re fine with losing the recent election because their highest priority is eliminating the threat Trump poses to their control of the party. And DeSantis seems to have amazingly good political luck, somehow.
I find that mighty suspicious. Normally a GOP governor is about as interested in challenging the left as a bag of turnips, but DeSantis just keeps the base-pleasing headlines coming. I’ve already mentioned in this thread that I find the wonderful election results in Florida a tell and I’m pretty sure Wall Street didn’t stuff two hundred million dollars into his campaign coffers for nothing.
The big test will be during the upcoming primaries if DeSantis is winning how vicious Trump gets – and if so, will he do a Perot?
How vicious Trump gets- surely you’ve noticed the endless and bottomless hostility Trump has received from not only the left but also the usual suspects of the GOP? Does Trump get to be angry about this? Or are only the miserable set of gop losers- Jeb!, Pence, Ryan, Yertle, all the rest- allowed to be angry at Trump, for opposing them and their endless failure.
But he alienates people, making unnecessary enemies.
I can see why you’d write this, but I can’t agree. Trump ran for office, won, and quite reasonably expected to be treated as the President of the United States. He wasn’t.
Should he decide to do a Perot I won’t blame him- and I won’t vote be voting for the establishment’s pet governor, either.
This is pretty funny. The people of America could not have made those choices, so the elections were stolen. You really believe this?
I take things as they are not as I wish it to be, Desantis by default became the head of the free state not only on public health, but a whole host of cultural and social policies, this is why newsom attacked him, and used charlie cheetah as a proxy, yes he took ken griffins money,
but he disdained a number of his priorities, like hanging mickey’s head on a mantle, his challenge to the redistricting game is why there is an advantage of 3 seats, he was physically targeted by progs see alexandria,
Xennady: “Trump ran for office, won, and quite reasonably expected to be treated as the President of the United States. He wasn’t.”
That is a key issue — one that the Institutional Republicans have failed even to mention (along with election skullduggery).
The refusal of the bureaucracy to implement the elected (Not-the-Democrat) president’s policies was quite blatant in the case of the Bad Orange Man — but we have to presume that a milder form reduced the effectiveness of previous Republican presidents. And we have to recognize that any future Not-the-Democrat candidate who manages somehow to prevail over ever-larger vote fraud will face the same problem of opposition within the bureaucracy.
If the Institutional Republicans were anything other than useless tossers, their two big issues would be (1) election integrity, and (2) serious reform of the bureaucracy.
The people of America could not have made those choices, so the elections were stolen
I’m expressing my evaluation of events, based upon my decades of observing American politics, living in America, talking to Americans, and hearing/reading/being told in person about the astonishingly extensive vote fraud activities of the demonrat party.
I’m certainly not saying the public could not have made those choices, I’m saying they did not.
You do not have to agree.
If the Institutional Republicans were anything other than useless tossers, their two big issues would be (1) election integrity, and (2) serious reform of the bureaucracy.
I can agree with this.
…his challenge to the redistricting game is why there is an advantage of 3 seats…
I certainly admit that my present negative opinion of DeSantis could be wrong and could change.
But for now, I’m going to stand by my assertions about events involving him, despite their tinfoil-y nature.
Remember all the Far-Left & media whining when their presidential candidate got a narrow majority in the popular vote but did not win the presidency? Unfair!
As the numbers slowly come out, it is now apparent that the Democrats lost the nationwide popular vote by a significant margin — but have gained seats in the Senate and lost only a few in the House. Is this fair? Or is this evidence of election skullduggery in various forms — from gerrymandering to dead people voting in selected places?
There is no basis whatsoever to say that fraud wasn’t huge. None. Lots and lots of evidence of fraud. The presumption of a rational observer is to conclude that the known fraud made a difference as we know it did in 2000. To say it didn’t requires some proof.
This is happy, silly talk better suited to a child in preschool.
I know never Trumpers are desperate to find a way to blame the Donald. They are even willing to disbelieve their lying eyes if doing so allows them to blame Trump.
Sad.