#46 President Joe Biden

Ledbetterman10

static111 said:

mrussel1 said:

Ledbetterman10 said:

Joe's approval rating continues to plummet, folks. He should push for federal marijuana legalization or something. Get people back on his side. 

How Popular Is Joe Biden? | FiveThirtyEight

The Democrats have terrible messaging.  The infrastructure fight went on so long that everyone forgot about it. Worse, they pass it AFTER election day.  That's idiotic.  You pass it two weeks before to campaign on it.  Unfortunately the far left and the two senators had their heads up their collective asses.  

It is strange... unemployment is low, jobs are high, pandemic is abetting quickly, stock market is at a record, GDP  will be doulbe this year compared to last year, and yet only 30% of people have a positive outlook on the economy.  I'm sorry, that is crazy.  I know inflation is up right now but that is absolutely temporary and connected to the supply chain.  All this tells me that we have a messaging issue.

There's also a contradiction in place.  Can the economy be great and positive while the left pushes for transformational changes in our social structure?  It creates a paradox.  How do you run on a great economy while blasting it at the same time.  

When it comes to kitchen table issues that get the voters in the booths, GDP and the stock market have nothing to do with the economy.  Inflation, the cost of groceries, cost of gas and stagnating wages are what gets swing voters to the polls.  All the messaging in the world about any of this being temporary won't hold water. Since when has anything the government said is temporary actually been?  Im with Ledbetterman, Dems need to push for legalization, maybe show that their policies will help ease the current frustrations facing the "folks" out there. It isn't crazy to have a negative outlook on the economy especially for millennials and zoomers that are the first generations in a long while to actually have it worse off in terms of creating net worth etc than their parents.

Of course pushing for programs that might actually help is easier said than done, especially with one party and two senators that don't want to see any progress.

And I say this not just because I'm a strong proponent for such legislation, but for Christ's sake, change things up a little. Both parties have pigeonholed themselves by pushing for the same stuff every single election. 

The Democrats have the presidency and both houses, how hasn't this happened yet? This is what I would say to my Trump-loving friends following the 2020 election. Well...at least they'll legalize marijuana finally. But nope. 

Has any legislation been at least introduced regarding federal legalization? 

mrussel1

static111 said:

mrussel1 said:

Ledbetterman10 said:

Joe's approval rating continues to plummet, folks. He should push for federal marijuana legalization or something. Get people back on his side. 

How Popular Is Joe Biden? | FiveThirtyEight

The Democrats have terrible messaging.  The infrastructure fight went on so long that everyone forgot about it. Worse, they pass it AFTER election day.  That's idiotic.  You pass it two weeks before to campaign on it.  Unfortunately the far left and the two senators had their heads up their collective asses.  

It is strange... unemployment is low, jobs are high, pandemic is abetting quickly, stock market is at a record, GDP  will be doulbe this year compared to last year, and yet only 30% of people have a positive outlook on the economy.  I'm sorry, that is crazy.  I know inflation is up right now but that is absolutely temporary and connected to the supply chain.  All this tells me that we have a messaging issue.

There's also a contradiction in place.  Can the economy be great and positive while the left pushes for transformational changes in our social structure?  It creates a paradox.  How do you run on a great economy while blasting it at the same time.  

When it comes to kitchen table issues that get the voters in the booths, GDP and the stock market have nothing to do with the economy.  Inflation, the cost of groceries, cost of gas and stagnating wages are what gets swing voters to the polls.  All the messaging in the world about any of this being temporary won't hold water. Since when has anything the government said is temporary actually been?  Im with Ledbetterman, Dems need to push for legalization, maybe show that their policies will help ease the current frustrations facing the "folks" out there. It isn't crazy to have a negative outlook on the economy especially for millennials and zoomers that are the first generations in a long while to actually have it worse off in terms of creating net worth etc than their parents.

Of course pushing for programs that might actually help is easier said than done, especially with one party and two senators that don't want to see any progress.

I don't fully agree with this.  Economic optimism spans the lower to the upper class.  McAuliffe lost VA by 2 points because VA wen from +19 D with independents in 2020 to -9. last week.  And you can see these numbers play out specifically in the suburbs of NOVA which are middle to upper middle class.  These are people with 401ks and know exactly what the macro conditions are.  Sure gas and groceries are part of that equation, but it's more than that.

And I disagree that federal legalization swings independents back to Biden.  I don't think it hurts them, but it's not an issue that puts D's on the offense.  

Halifax2TheMax

From the NYT email blast. Check the link to the poll.

Good morning. A creative new poll tries to understand blue-collar swing voters.

‘Just a fantasy’

Political pundits often talk about swing voters as if they were upscale suburbanites, like “soccer moms” or “office-park dads.” And some are. But many are blue-collar. They are the successors to the so-called Reagan Democrats, who let Republicans win the White House in the 1980s and Democrats retake it in the 1990s.

This century, blue-collar swing voters helped elect Barack Obama twice, Donald Trump once and Joe Biden in 2020. They have also played a deciding role in congressional and state elections, including in Virginia last week.

In the current polarized political atmosphere, many college graduates follow politics obsessively — almost as if it were a sport — and identify with one of the two parties. Many working-class voters, on the other hand, vote for both parties and sit out some elections.

Figuring out what moves these swing voters is a crucial question in American politics. It has become an urgent question for the Democratic Party, which is struggling to win working-class votes in many places, including some Asian and Latino communities.

This morning, a creative new poll exploring these issues is being released. It asks working-class respondents — defined as people without a bachelor’s degree — to choose between two hypothetical candidates. The candidates are described both personally (their gender, race and job category) and politically (including a sound bite in which they talk about their views).

A central conclusion is that infrequent voters are not a huge Democratic constituency just waiting to be inspired by a sufficiently progressive economic message. “That’s just a fantasy,” Bhaskar Sunkara, the founding editor of Jacobin, a socialist magazine and one of the poll’s sponsors, told me, “and it’s a fantasy we ourselves have engaged in.” (In fairness, numerous other people — including Trump and, well, me — have believed that same misplaced idea.)

The poll instead finds that working-class swing voters hold a swirl of progressive and conservative views. “To mobilize these voters will take a lot of grass-roots organizing efforts, particularly more labor-union-centered organizing,” Sunkara said. “There is no simple programmatic solution” — for either party.

Below, I walk through themes from the poll, focusing on those respondents who said they did not lean toward either party. About 33 percent of them voted for Trump last year and 22 percent voted for Biden, with the remaining voting for a third party or not voting.

YouGov, a large nonpartisan pollster, conducted the poll, in collaboration with Jacobin and the Center for Working-Class Politics, a new progressive group.

Politics isn’t just issues

Nothing produced a more positive response from poll respondents than hearing that a candidate was a small-business owner. It offered a bigger lift than any political position or demographic feature, and it was popular across Black, Latino and white respondents.

Voters also had positive feelings about candidates who were listed as being teachers, veterans or construction workers. Lawyers fared less well, and Fortune 500 C.E.O.s did worst of all.

It’s a reminder that big business and small business have very different images — and that Trump’s victory depended on selling himself as a brash entrepreneur rather than a bland corporate manager like Mitt Romney.

Race is undeniably vexing

Many Black working-class swing voters are attracted to candidates who focus on racial justice — by promising to “end systemic racism,” for example. Many white working-class swing voters are turned off by these same positions. There is no simple answer on race for the Democratic Party, given that it must attract a multiracial coalition to win.

But the political costs of a campaign message focused on ethnic identity seem significantly larger than the benefits, Sunkara said. Among five different candidate sound bites presented to respondents, the worst-performing was one that the pollsters internally described as “woke moderate.” Its first sentence sounds like something out of a corporate mission statement:

Our unity is our strength, and our diversity is our power. But for too long, special interests have blocked critical progress in addressing systemic racism, climate change, and access to affordable health care. We need creative leaders who will fight for our values, listen to the experts, and make real change happen.

Populism is popular

The second best-performing sound bite was one that pollsters internally referred to as “Republican.” It warned that “freedom is under threat from radical socialists, arrogant liberals and dangerous foreign influences.”

Yet the most successful sound bite was the “progressive populist” one. It was as pugnacious as the Republican entry, albeit with different targets:

This country belongs to all of us, not just the superrich. But for years, politicians in Washington have turned their backs on people who work for a living. We need tough leaders who won’t give in to the millionaires and the lobbyists, but will fight for good jobs, good wages, and guaranteed health care for every single American.

Populism has its limits

Working-class swing voters tend to favor generous versions of Medicare, Social Security and other universal government benefits, polls consistently show. But they also responded positively in this poll to candidates promising vaguely to “cut government spending.”

And while Democratic-leaning working-class voters liked a “Medicare for all” message, swing working-class voters preferred candidates who instead promise to “increase access to affordable health care.”

Americans are mostly progressive on economics, but Democrats can still run too far left on these issues.

You can read the full poll results here. (If you do, note that the beginning of the report focuses on a Democratic-leaning group of working-class voters — who are relevant to primary elections — rather than the swing voters who have been my focus.)

Related: Representative Sean Patrick Maloney of New York says Democrats need to do a better job getting the message out about their achievements, starting with the president. “Free Joe Biden,” he says. Read the Q. and A.

https://jacobinmag.com/2021/11/common-sense-solidarity-working-class-voting-report?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20211109&instance_id=44937&nl=the-morning&regi_id=68667721&segment_id=73890&te=1&user_id=7695fe4e79d142724bde22adcc3ed4bc

OnWis97

mrussel1 said:

static111 said:

mrussel1 said:

Ledbetterman10 said:

Joe's approval rating continues to plummet, folks. He should push for federal marijuana legalization or something. Get people back on his side. 

How Popular Is Joe Biden? | FiveThirtyEight

The Democrats have terrible messaging.  The infrastructure fight went on so long that everyone forgot about it. Worse, they pass it AFTER election day.  That's idiotic.  You pass it two weeks before to campaign on it.  Unfortunately the far left and the two senators had their heads up their collective asses.  

It is strange... unemployment is low, jobs are high, pandemic is abetting quickly, stock market is at a record, GDP  will be doulbe this year compared to last year, and yet only 30% of people have a positive outlook on the economy.  I'm sorry, that is crazy.  I know inflation is up right now but that is absolutely temporary and connected to the supply chain.  All this tells me that we have a messaging issue.

There's also a contradiction in place.  Can the economy be great and positive while the left pushes for transformational changes in our social structure?  It creates a paradox.  How do you run on a great economy while blasting it at the same time.  

When it comes to kitchen table issues that get the voters in the booths, GDP and the stock market have nothing to do with the economy.  Inflation, the cost of groceries, cost of gas and stagnating wages are what gets swing voters to the polls.  All the messaging in the world about any of this being temporary won't hold water. Since when has anything the government said is temporary actually been?  Im with Ledbetterman, Dems need to push for legalization, maybe show that their policies will help ease the current frustrations facing the "folks" out there. It isn't crazy to have a negative outlook on the economy especially for millennials and zoomers that are the first generations in a long while to actually have it worse off in terms of creating net worth etc than their parents.

Of course pushing for programs that might actually help is easier said than done, especially with one party and two senators that don't want to see any progress.

I don't fully agree with this.  Economic optimism spans the lower to the upper class.  McAuliffe lost VA by 2 points because VA wen from +19 D with independents in 2020 to -9. last week.  And you can see these numbers play out specifically in the suburbs of NOVA which are middle to upper middle class.  These are people with 401ks and know exactly what the macro conditions are.  Sure gas and groceries are part of that equation, but it's more than that.

And I disagree that federal legalization swings independents back to Biden.  I don't think it hurts them, but it's not an issue that puts D's on the offense.  

That's what makes it so hard for the Dems. What was the difference?  I would not be surprised if it was CRT, the Willie Horton of 2021. It's a lot harder for the Dems to scare people, whether it's because they're poorer at it or their potential voters are just not as jittery.

mrussel1

OnWis97 said:

mrussel1 said:

static111 said:

mrussel1 said:

Ledbetterman10 said:

Joe's approval rating continues to plummet, folks. He should push for federal marijuana legalization or something. Get people back on his side. 

How Popular Is Joe Biden? | FiveThirtyEight

The Democrats have terrible messaging.  The infrastructure fight went on so long that everyone forgot about it. Worse, they pass it AFTER election day.  That's idiotic.  You pass it two weeks before to campaign on it.  Unfortunately the far left and the two senators had their heads up their collective asses.  

It is strange... unemployment is low, jobs are high, pandemic is abetting quickly, stock market is at a record, GDP  will be doulbe this year compared to last year, and yet only 30% of people have a positive outlook on the economy.  I'm sorry, that is crazy.  I know inflation is up right now but that is absolutely temporary and connected to the supply chain.  All this tells me that we have a messaging issue.

There's also a contradiction in place.  Can the economy be great and positive while the left pushes for transformational changes in our social structure?  It creates a paradox.  How do you run on a great economy while blasting it at the same time.  

When it comes to kitchen table issues that get the voters in the booths, GDP and the stock market have nothing to do with the economy.  Inflation, the cost of groceries, cost of gas and stagnating wages are what gets swing voters to the polls.  All the messaging in the world about any of this being temporary won't hold water. Since when has anything the government said is temporary actually been?  Im with Ledbetterman, Dems need to push for legalization, maybe show that their policies will help ease the current frustrations facing the "folks" out there. It isn't crazy to have a negative outlook on the economy especially for millennials and zoomers that are the first generations in a long while to actually have it worse off in terms of creating net worth etc than their parents.

Of course pushing for programs that might actually help is easier said than done, especially with one party and two senators that don't want to see any progress.

I don't fully agree with this.  Economic optimism spans the lower to the upper class.  McAuliffe lost VA by 2 points because VA wen from +19 D with independents in 2020 to -9. last week.  And you can see these numbers play out specifically in the suburbs of NOVA which are middle to upper middle class.  These are people with 401ks and know exactly what the macro conditions are.  Sure gas and groceries are part of that equation, but it's more than that.

And I disagree that federal legalization swings independents back to Biden.  I don't think it hurts them, but it's not an issue that puts D's on the offense.  

That's what makes it so hard for the Dems. What was the difference?  I would not be surprised if it was CRT, the Willie Horton of 2021. It's a lot harder for the Dems to scare people, whether it's because they're poorer at it or their potential voters are just not as jittery.

Yes it was CRT in part.  Second, the exit polling in VA showed voters with a 42% approval rating of Trump and over 50% of Youngkin.  This tells you that Trump is poison and the D's were not effective in tying Trump and Youngkin.   But education "choice" become a topic and abortion was not.  

Listen, I think the language of the educated left, the younger left, does not play well with parents.  This is a quote from Youngkin's big education speech:

We all know education starts with curriculum. We will teach all history, the good and the bad. America has fabulous chapters and it’s the greatest country in the world, but we also have some abhorrent chapters in our history, we must teach them. We can’t know where we are going if we don’t know where we came from.

But let me be clear: what we won’t do is teach our children to view everything through the lens of race, where we divide them into buckets; one group’s an oppressor and another group is the victim; and we pitch them against each other … We know it’s not right. We know in our hearts it’s wrong. We are all created equal and we’re trying so hard to live up to those immortal words of Martin Luther King Jr., who implored us to be better than we are; to judge one another based on the content of our character and not the color of our skin.

Jemele Hill proclaimed on Twitter that the Youngkin win proves the country loves white supremacy.  Is this quote and this perspective meet that bar?  I don't think so.  And this is not far off (if at all) from Obama's perspective.  Is Youngkin overstating the oppressor/victim equation?  Yes maybe a bit.  But Hill did nothing by reinforce it.  

This is a big part of why Terry lost.  He lost our edge in teh suburbs.  Trump repulsed people like me.  Youngkin did not. 

Ledbetterman10

mrussel1 said:

OnWis97 said:

mrussel1 said:

static111 said:

mrussel1 said:

Ledbetterman10 said:

Joe's approval rating continues to plummet, folks. He should push for federal marijuana legalization or something. Get people back on his side. 

How Popular Is Joe Biden? | FiveThirtyEight

The Democrats have terrible messaging.  The infrastructure fight went on so long that everyone forgot about it. Worse, they pass it AFTER election day.  That's idiotic.  You pass it two weeks before to campaign on it.  Unfortunately the far left and the two senators had their heads up their collective asses.  

It is strange... unemployment is low, jobs are high, pandemic is abetting quickly, stock market is at a record, GDP  will be doulbe this year compared to last year, and yet only 30% of people have a positive outlook on the economy.  I'm sorry, that is crazy.  I know inflation is up right now but that is absolutely temporary and connected to the supply chain.  All this tells me that we have a messaging issue.

There's also a contradiction in place.  Can the economy be great and positive while the left pushes for transformational changes in our social structure?  It creates a paradox.  How do you run on a great economy while blasting it at the same time.  

When it comes to kitchen table issues that get the voters in the booths, GDP and the stock market have nothing to do with the economy.  Inflation, the cost of groceries, cost of gas and stagnating wages are what gets swing voters to the polls.  All the messaging in the world about any of this being temporary won't hold water. Since when has anything the government said is temporary actually been?  Im with Ledbetterman, Dems need to push for legalization, maybe show that their policies will help ease the current frustrations facing the "folks" out there. It isn't crazy to have a negative outlook on the economy especially for millennials and zoomers that are the first generations in a long while to actually have it worse off in terms of creating net worth etc than their parents.

Of course pushing for programs that might actually help is easier said than done, especially with one party and two senators that don't want to see any progress.

I don't fully agree with this.  Economic optimism spans the lower to the upper class.  McAuliffe lost VA by 2 points because VA wen from +19 D with independents in 2020 to -9. last week.  And you can see these numbers play out specifically in the suburbs of NOVA which are middle to upper middle class.  These are people with 401ks and know exactly what the macro conditions are.  Sure gas and groceries are part of that equation, but it's more than that.

And I disagree that federal legalization swings independents back to Biden.  I don't think it hurts them, but it's not an issue that puts D's on the offense.  

That's what makes it so hard for the Dems. What was the difference?  I would not be surprised if it was CRT, the Willie Horton of 2021. It's a lot harder for the Dems to scare people, whether it's because they're poorer at it or their potential voters are just not as jittery.

Yes it was CRT in part.  Second, the exit polling in VA showed voters with a 42% approval rating of Trump and over 50% of Youngkin.  This tells you that Trump is poison and the D's were not effective in tying Trump and Youngkin.   But education "choice" become a topic and abortion was not.  

Listen, I think the language of the educated left, the younger left, does not play well with parents.  This is a quote from Youngkin's big education speech:

We all know education starts with curriculum. We will teach all history, the good and the bad. America has fabulous chapters and it’s the greatest country in the world, but we also have some abhorrent chapters in our history, we must teach them. We can’t know where we are going if we don’t know where we came from.

But let me be clear: what we won’t do is teach our children to view everything through the lens of race, where we divide them into buckets; one group’s an oppressor and another group is the victim; and we pitch them against each other … We know it’s not right. We know in our hearts it’s wrong. We are all created equal and we’re trying so hard to live up to those immortal words of Martin Luther King Jr., who implored us to be better than we are; to judge one another based on the content of our character and not the color of our skin.

Jemele Hill proclaimed on Twitter that the Youngkin win proves the country loves white supremacy.  Is this quote and this perspective meet that bar?  I don't think so.  And this is not far off (if at all) from Obama's perspective.  Is Youngkin overstating the oppressor/victim equation?  Yes maybe a bit.  But Hill did nothing by reinforce it.  

This is a big part of why Terry lost.  He lost our edge in teh suburbs.  Trump repulsed people like me.  Youngkin did not. 

I agree with the bolded. If people want chapter one of American History textbooks to depict the Europeans invading West Africa and enslaving the native people, have at it, because that's exactly what happened. But don't tell the white kid in the class he did something wrong because of it, and tell the black kid he's had something wrong done unto him because of it. 

You can throw Joy Reid and Nicole Wallace in the same boat as Jemele Hill because they spout the same sort of crap on MSNBC. 

Kat

Is this accurate about the 41 seats being flipped? If so, it's good news, right?

https://twitter.com/TheRickyDavila/status/1457571002775339012

OnWis97

mrussel1 said:

OnWis97 said:

mrussel1 said:

static111 said:

mrussel1 said:

Ledbetterman10 said:

Joe's approval rating continues to plummet, folks. He should push for federal marijuana legalization or something. Get people back on his side. 

How Popular Is Joe Biden? | FiveThirtyEight

The Democrats have terrible messaging.  The infrastructure fight went on so long that everyone forgot about it. Worse, they pass it AFTER election day.  That's idiotic.  You pass it two weeks before to campaign on it.  Unfortunately the far left and the two senators had their heads up their collective asses.  

It is strange... unemployment is low, jobs are high, pandemic is abetting quickly, stock market is at a record, GDP  will be doulbe this year compared to last year, and yet only 30% of people have a positive outlook on the economy.  I'm sorry, that is crazy.  I know inflation is up right now but that is absolutely temporary and connected to the supply chain.  All this tells me that we have a messaging issue.

There's also a contradiction in place.  Can the economy be great and positive while the left pushes for transformational changes in our social structure?  It creates a paradox.  How do you run on a great economy while blasting it at the same time.  

When it comes to kitchen table issues that get the voters in the booths, GDP and the stock market have nothing to do with the economy.  Inflation, the cost of groceries, cost of gas and stagnating wages are what gets swing voters to the polls.  All the messaging in the world about any of this being temporary won't hold water. Since when has anything the government said is temporary actually been?  Im with Ledbetterman, Dems need to push for legalization, maybe show that their policies will help ease the current frustrations facing the "folks" out there. It isn't crazy to have a negative outlook on the economy especially for millennials and zoomers that are the first generations in a long while to actually have it worse off in terms of creating net worth etc than their parents.

Of course pushing for programs that might actually help is easier said than done, especially with one party and two senators that don't want to see any progress.

I don't fully agree with this.  Economic optimism spans the lower to the upper class.  McAuliffe lost VA by 2 points because VA wen from +19 D with independents in 2020 to -9. last week.  And you can see these numbers play out specifically in the suburbs of NOVA which are middle to upper middle class.  These are people with 401ks and know exactly what the macro conditions are.  Sure gas and groceries are part of that equation, but it's more than that.

And I disagree that federal legalization swings independents back to Biden.  I don't think it hurts them, but it's not an issue that puts D's on the offense.  

That's what makes it so hard for the Dems. What was the difference?  I would not be surprised if it was CRT, the Willie Horton of 2021. It's a lot harder for the Dems to scare people, whether it's because they're poorer at it or their potential voters are just not as jittery.

Yes it was CRT in part.  Second, the exit polling in VA showed voters with a 42% approval rating of Trump and over 50% of Youngkin.  This tells you that Trump is poison and the D's were not effective in tying Trump and Youngkin.   But education "choice" become a topic and abortion was not.  

Listen, I think the language of the educated left, the younger left, does not play well with parents.  This is a quote from Youngkin's big education speech:

We all know education starts with curriculum. We will teach all history, the good and the bad. America has fabulous chapters and it’s the greatest country in the world, but we also have some abhorrent chapters in our history, we must teach them. We can’t know where we are going if we don’t know where we came from.

But let me be clear: what we won’t do is teach our children to view everything through the lens of race, where we divide them into buckets; one group’s an oppressor and another group is the victim; and we pitch them against each other … We know it’s not right. We know in our hearts it’s wrong. We are all created equal and we’re trying so hard to live up to those immortal words of Martin Luther King Jr., who implored us to be better than we are; to judge one another based on the content of our character and not the color of our skin.

Jemele Hill proclaimed on Twitter that the Youngkin win proves the country loves white supremacy.  Is this quote and this perspective meet that bar?  I don't think so.  And this is not far off (if at all) from Obama's perspective.  Is Youngkin overstating the oppressor/victim equation?  Yes maybe a bit.  But Hill did nothing by reinforce it.  

This is a big part of why Terry lost.  He lost our edge in teh suburbs.  Trump repulsed people like me.  Youngkin did not. 

It's kinda tricky...because the party still pretty much exists in the image of Trump. But the Dems have to do more than just say that Trump's bad. The more removed the person is from Trump (even if they are effectively trumpian), the more the ties to Trump will fall on deaf ears or even turn voters off. 

As for his quote on education, he did a good job of playing both sides. He didn't say "we have to teach the other side of the holocaust" but he did feed the fears that the goal is to vilify white people, which is crap. Not exactly sure what's going on...did the VA GOP decide to go a bit moderate because VA is purple? Did they just have no good nutbars to run? Either way, watch this guy because it'll be interesting to see whether he becomes Trumpian. There's a lot pressure in that party to do so.

cblock4life

OnWis97 said:

mrussel1 said:

OnWis97 said:

mrussel1 said:

static111 said:

mrussel1 said:

Ledbetterman10 said:

Joe's approval rating continues to plummet, folks. He should push for federal marijuana legalization or something. Get people back on his side. 

How Popular Is Joe Biden? | FiveThirtyEight

The Democrats have terrible messaging.  The infrastructure fight went on so long that everyone forgot about it. Worse, they pass it AFTER election day.  That's idiotic.  You pass it two weeks before to campaign on it.  Unfortunately the far left and the two senators had their heads up their collective asses.  

It is strange... unemployment is low, jobs are high, pandemic is abetting quickly, stock market is at a record, GDP  will be doulbe this year compared to last year, and yet only 30% of people have a positive outlook on the economy.  I'm sorry, that is crazy.  I know inflation is up right now but that is absolutely temporary and connected to the supply chain.  All this tells me that we have a messaging issue.

There's also a contradiction in place.  Can the economy be great and positive while the left pushes for transformational changes in our social structure?  It creates a paradox.  How do you run on a great economy while blasting it at the same time.  

When it comes to kitchen table issues that get the voters in the booths, GDP and the stock market have nothing to do with the economy.  Inflation, the cost of groceries, cost of gas and stagnating wages are what gets swing voters to the polls.  All the messaging in the world about any of this being temporary won't hold water. Since when has anything the government said is temporary actually been?  Im with Ledbetterman, Dems need to push for legalization, maybe show that their policies will help ease the current frustrations facing the "folks" out there. It isn't crazy to have a negative outlook on the economy especially for millennials and zoomers that are the first generations in a long while to actually have it worse off in terms of creating net worth etc than their parents.

Of course pushing for programs that might actually help is easier said than done, especially with one party and two senators that don't want to see any progress.

I don't fully agree with this.  Economic optimism spans the lower to the upper class.  McAuliffe lost VA by 2 points because VA wen from +19 D with independents in 2020 to -9. last week.  And you can see these numbers play out specifically in the suburbs of NOVA which are middle to upper middle class.  These are people with 401ks and know exactly what the macro conditions are.  Sure gas and groceries are part of that equation, but it's more than that.

And I disagree that federal legalization swings independents back to Biden.  I don't think it hurts them, but it's not an issue that puts D's on the offense.  

That's what makes it so hard for the Dems. What was the difference?  I would not be surprised if it was CRT, the Willie Horton of 2021. It's a lot harder for the Dems to scare people, whether it's because they're poorer at it or their potential voters are just not as jittery.

Yes it was CRT in part.  Second, the exit polling in VA showed voters with a 42% approval rating of Trump and over 50% of Youngkin.  This tells you that Trump is poison and the D's were not effective in tying Trump and Youngkin.   But education "choice" become a topic and abortion was not.  

Listen, I think the language of the educated left, the younger left, does not play well with parents.  This is a quote from Youngkin's big education speech:

We all know education starts with curriculum. We will teach all history, the good and the bad. America has fabulous chapters and it’s the greatest country in the world, but we also have some abhorrent chapters in our history, we must teach them. We can’t know where we are going if we don’t know where we came from.

But let me be clear: what we won’t do is teach our children to view everything through the lens of race, where we divide them into buckets; one group’s an oppressor and another group is the victim; and we pitch them against each other … We know it’s not right. We know in our hearts it’s wrong. We are all created equal and we’re trying so hard to live up to those immortal words of Martin Luther King Jr., who implored us to be better than we are; to judge one another based on the content of our character and not the color of our skin.

Jemele Hill proclaimed on Twitter that the Youngkin win proves the country loves white supremacy.  Is this quote and this perspective meet that bar?  I don't think so.  And this is not far off (if at all) from Obama's perspective.  Is Youngkin overstating the oppressor/victim equation?  Yes maybe a bit.  But Hill did nothing by reinforce it.  

This is a big part of why Terry lost.  He lost our edge in teh suburbs.  Trump repulsed people like me.  Youngkin did not. 

It's kinda tricky...because the party still pretty much exists in the image of Trump. But the Dems have to do more than just say that Trump's bad. The more removed the person is from Trump (even if they are effectively trumpian), the more the ties to Trump will fall on deaf ears or even turn voters off. 

As for his quote on education, he did a good job of playing both sides. He didn't say "we have to teach the other side of the holocaust" but he did feed the fears that the goal is to vilify white people, which is crap. Not exactly sure what's going on...did the VA GOP decide to go a bit moderate because VA is purple? Did they just have no good nutbars to run? Either way, watch this guy because it'll be interesting to see whether he becomes Trumpian. There's a lot pressure in that party to do so.

So what he said makes it fairer for both sides especially if the students are younger, but give us the solution for what’s happening right now in our current society.  The number one goal of minorities is respect and equality.  Tells us how to handle that now if you don’t want to teach where, how, and who started the white supremacy in the first place. You have to know where you came from to know where you’re going. 

The Juggler

mrussel1 said:

OnWis97 said:

mrussel1 said:

static111 said:

mrussel1 said:

Ledbetterman10 said:

Joe's approval rating continues to plummet, folks. He should push for federal marijuana legalization or something. Get people back on his side. 

How Popular Is Joe Biden? | FiveThirtyEight

The Democrats have terrible messaging.  The infrastructure fight went on so long that everyone forgot about it. Worse, they pass it AFTER election day.  That's idiotic.  You pass it two weeks before to campaign on it.  Unfortunately the far left and the two senators had their heads up their collective asses.  

It is strange... unemployment is low, jobs are high, pandemic is abetting quickly, stock market is at a record, GDP  will be doulbe this year compared to last year, and yet only 30% of people have a positive outlook on the economy.  I'm sorry, that is crazy.  I know inflation is up right now but that is absolutely temporary and connected to the supply chain.  All this tells me that we have a messaging issue.

There's also a contradiction in place.  Can the economy be great and positive while the left pushes for transformational changes in our social structure?  It creates a paradox.  How do you run on a great economy while blasting it at the same time.  

When it comes to kitchen table issues that get the voters in the booths, GDP and the stock market have nothing to do with the economy.  Inflation, the cost of groceries, cost of gas and stagnating wages are what gets swing voters to the polls.  All the messaging in the world about any of this being temporary won't hold water. Since when has anything the government said is temporary actually been?  Im with Ledbetterman, Dems need to push for legalization, maybe show that their policies will help ease the current frustrations facing the "folks" out there. It isn't crazy to have a negative outlook on the economy especially for millennials and zoomers that are the first generations in a long while to actually have it worse off in terms of creating net worth etc than their parents.

Of course pushing for programs that might actually help is easier said than done, especially with one party and two senators that don't want to see any progress.

I don't fully agree with this.  Economic optimism spans the lower to the upper class.  McAuliffe lost VA by 2 points because VA wen from +19 D with independents in 2020 to -9. last week.  And you can see these numbers play out specifically in the suburbs of NOVA which are middle to upper middle class.  These are people with 401ks and know exactly what the macro conditions are.  Sure gas and groceries are part of that equation, but it's more than that.

And I disagree that federal legalization swings independents back to Biden.  I don't think it hurts them, but it's not an issue that puts D's on the offense.  

That's what makes it so hard for the Dems. What was the difference?  I would not be surprised if it was CRT, the Willie Horton of 2021. It's a lot harder for the Dems to scare people, whether it's because they're poorer at it or their potential voters are just not as jittery.

Yes it was CRT in part.  Second, the exit polling in VA showed voters with a 42% approval rating of Trump and over 50% of Youngkin.  This tells you that Trump is poison and the D's were not effective in tying Trump and Youngkin.   But education "choice" become a topic and abortion was not.  

Listen, I think the language of the educated left, the younger left, does not play well with parents.  This is a quote from Youngkin's big education speech:

We all know education starts with curriculum. We will teach all history, the good and the bad. America has fabulous chapters and it’s the greatest country in the world, but we also have some abhorrent chapters in our history, we must teach them. We can’t know where we are going if we don’t know where we came from.

But let me be clear: what we won’t do is teach our children to view everything through the lens of race, where we divide them into buckets; one group’s an oppressor and another group is the victim; and we pitch them against each other … We know it’s not right. We know in our hearts it’s wrong. We are all created equal and we’re trying so hard to live up to those immortal words of Martin Luther King Jr., who implored us to be better than we are; to judge one another based on the content of our character and not the color of our skin.

Jemele Hill proclaimed on Twitter that the Youngkin win proves the country loves white supremacy.  Is this quote and this perspective meet that bar?  I don't think so.  And this is not far off (if at all) from Obama's perspective.  Is Youngkin overstating the oppressor/victim equation?  Yes maybe a bit.  But Hill did nothing by reinforce it.  

This is a big part of why Terry lost.  He lost our edge in teh suburbs.  Trump repulsed people like me.  Youngkin did not. 

Great point. I forget where I saw it but the way the republicans have successfully branded CRT as sort of reverse racism it's given a lane for seemingly moderate republicans to make themselves actually sound like Obama. Lol....

Just another example of the liberal wing of the democratic party shooting themselves in their collective feet yet again. 

Lerxst1992

The Juggler said:

mrussel1 said:

OnWis97 said:

mrussel1 said:

static111 said:

mrussel1 said:

Ledbetterman10 said:

Joe's approval rating continues to plummet, folks. He should push for federal marijuana legalization or something. Get people back on his side. 

How Popular Is Joe Biden? | FiveThirtyEight

The Democrats have terrible messaging.  The infrastructure fight went on so long that everyone forgot about it. Worse, they pass it AFTER election day.  That's idiotic.  You pass it two weeks before to campaign on it.  Unfortunately the far left and the two senators had their heads up their collective asses.  

It is strange... unemployment is low, jobs are high, pandemic is abetting quickly, stock market is at a record, GDP  will be doulbe this year compared to last year, and yet only 30% of people have a positive outlook on the economy.  I'm sorry, that is crazy.  I know inflation is up right now but that is absolutely temporary and connected to the supply chain.  All this tells me that we have a messaging issue.

There's also a contradiction in place.  Can the economy be great and positive while the left pushes for transformational changes in our social structure?  It creates a paradox.  How do you run on a great economy while blasting it at the same time.  

When it comes to kitchen table issues that get the voters in the booths, GDP and the stock market have nothing to do with the economy.  Inflation, the cost of groceries, cost of gas and stagnating wages are what gets swing voters to the polls.  All the messaging in the world about any of this being temporary won't hold water. Since when has anything the government said is temporary actually been?  Im with Ledbetterman, Dems need to push for legalization, maybe show that their policies will help ease the current frustrations facing the "folks" out there. It isn't crazy to have a negative outlook on the economy especially for millennials and zoomers that are the first generations in a long while to actually have it worse off in terms of creating net worth etc than their parents.

Of course pushing for programs that might actually help is easier said than done, especially with one party and two senators that don't want to see any progress.

I don't fully agree with this.  Economic optimism spans the lower to the upper class.  McAuliffe lost VA by 2 points because VA wen from +19 D with independents in 2020 to -9. last week.  And you can see these numbers play out specifically in the suburbs of NOVA which are middle to upper middle class.  These are people with 401ks and know exactly what the macro conditions are.  Sure gas and groceries are part of that equation, but it's more than that.

And I disagree that federal legalization swings independents back to Biden.  I don't think it hurts them, but it's not an issue that puts D's on the offense.  

That's what makes it so hard for the Dems. What was the difference?  I would not be surprised if it was CRT, the Willie Horton of 2021. It's a lot harder for the Dems to scare people, whether it's because they're poorer at it or their potential voters are just not as jittery.

Yes it was CRT in part.  Second, the exit polling in VA showed voters with a 42% approval rating of Trump and over 50% of Youngkin.  This tells you that Trump is poison and the D's were not effective in tying Trump and Youngkin.   But education "choice" become a topic and abortion was not.  

Listen, I think the language of the educated left, the younger left, does not play well with parents.  This is a quote from Youngkin's big education speech:

We all know education starts with curriculum. We will teach all history, the good and the bad. America has fabulous chapters and it’s the greatest country in the world, but we also have some abhorrent chapters in our history, we must teach them. We can’t know where we are going if we don’t know where we came from.

But let me be clear: what we won’t do is teach our children to view everything through the lens of race, where we divide them into buckets; one group’s an oppressor and another group is the victim; and we pitch them against each other … We know it’s not right. We know in our hearts it’s wrong. We are all created equal and we’re trying so hard to live up to those immortal words of Martin Luther King Jr., who implored us to be better than we are; to judge one another based on the content of our character and not the color of our skin.

Jemele Hill proclaimed on Twitter that the Youngkin win proves the country loves white supremacy.  Is this quote and this perspective meet that bar?  I don't think so.  And this is not far off (if at all) from Obama's perspective.  Is Youngkin overstating the oppressor/victim equation?  Yes maybe a bit.  But Hill did nothing by reinforce it.  

This is a big part of why Terry lost.  He lost our edge in teh suburbs.  Trump repulsed people like me.  Youngkin did not. 

Great point. I forget where I saw it but the way the republicans have successfully branded CRT as sort of reverse racism it's given a lane for seemingly moderate republicans to make themselves actually sound like Obama. Lol....

Just another example of the liberal wing of the democratic party shooting themselves in their collective feet yet again. 

For a party that just cut child poverty in half, doesn't it seem crazy that the dems didn't highlight that in the VA race? Anyone contending that's a federal issue should be countered that every state wide race is actually a federal one because states are changing election laws impacting federal elections. 

10 months after a violent attempt to override a presidential election (and a coordinated cover-up by republicans) a solid lean blue state flips red based mostly on a make believe CRT? And Biden is at 38% approval after all the crap trump pulled? Yeah, America is screwed.

Bentleyspop

Kat said:

Is this accurate about the 41 seats being flipped? If so, it's good news, right?

https://twitter.com/TheRickyDavila/status/1457571002775339012

It's good news for Georgia. Not sure what it means for the rest of the country. 

shecky

mrussel1

shecky said:

Ooooooh sources... scary. 

mrussel1

OnWis97 said:

mrussel1 said:

OnWis97 said:

mrussel1 said:

static111 said:

mrussel1 said:

Ledbetterman10 said:

Joe's approval rating continues to plummet, folks. He should push for federal marijuana legalization or something. Get people back on his side. 

How Popular Is Joe Biden? | FiveThirtyEight

The Democrats have terrible messaging.  The infrastructure fight went on so long that everyone forgot about it. Worse, they pass it AFTER election day.  That's idiotic.  You pass it two weeks before to campaign on it.  Unfortunately the far left and the two senators had their heads up their collective asses.  

It is strange... unemployment is low, jobs are high, pandemic is abetting quickly, stock market is at a record, GDP  will be doulbe this year compared to last year, and yet only 30% of people have a positive outlook on the economy.  I'm sorry, that is crazy.  I know inflation is up right now but that is absolutely temporary and connected to the supply chain.  All this tells me that we have a messaging issue.

There's also a contradiction in place.  Can the economy be great and positive while the left pushes for transformational changes in our social structure?  It creates a paradox.  How do you run on a great economy while blasting it at the same time.  

When it comes to kitchen table issues that get the voters in the booths, GDP and the stock market have nothing to do with the economy.  Inflation, the cost of groceries, cost of gas and stagnating wages are what gets swing voters to the polls.  All the messaging in the world about any of this being temporary won't hold water. Since when has anything the government said is temporary actually been?  Im with Ledbetterman, Dems need to push for legalization, maybe show that their policies will help ease the current frustrations facing the "folks" out there. It isn't crazy to have a negative outlook on the economy especially for millennials and zoomers that are the first generations in a long while to actually have it worse off in terms of creating net worth etc than their parents.

Of course pushing for programs that might actually help is easier said than done, especially with one party and two senators that don't want to see any progress.

I don't fully agree with this.  Economic optimism spans the lower to the upper class.  McAuliffe lost VA by 2 points because VA wen from +19 D with independents in 2020 to -9. last week.  And you can see these numbers play out specifically in the suburbs of NOVA which are middle to upper middle class.  These are people with 401ks and know exactly what the macro conditions are.  Sure gas and groceries are part of that equation, but it's more than that.

And I disagree that federal legalization swings independents back to Biden.  I don't think it hurts them, but it's not an issue that puts D's on the offense.  

That's what makes it so hard for the Dems. What was the difference?  I would not be surprised if it was CRT, the Willie Horton of 2021. It's a lot harder for the Dems to scare people, whether it's because they're poorer at it or their potential voters are just not as jittery.

Yes it was CRT in part.  Second, the exit polling in VA showed voters with a 42% approval rating of Trump and over 50% of Youngkin.  This tells you that Trump is poison and the D's were not effective in tying Trump and Youngkin.   But education "choice" become a topic and abortion was not.  

Listen, I think the language of the educated left, the younger left, does not play well with parents.  This is a quote from Youngkin's big education speech:

We all know education starts with curriculum. We will teach all history, the good and the bad. America has fabulous chapters and it’s the greatest country in the world, but we also have some abhorrent chapters in our history, we must teach them. We can’t know where we are going if we don’t know where we came from.

But let me be clear: what we won’t do is teach our children to view everything through the lens of race, where we divide them into buckets; one group’s an oppressor and another group is the victim; and we pitch them against each other … We know it’s not right. We know in our hearts it’s wrong. We are all created equal and we’re trying so hard to live up to those immortal words of Martin Luther King Jr., who implored us to be better than we are; to judge one another based on the content of our character and not the color of our skin.

Jemele Hill proclaimed on Twitter that the Youngkin win proves the country loves white supremacy.  Is this quote and this perspective meet that bar?  I don't think so.  And this is not far off (if at all) from Obama's perspective.  Is Youngkin overstating the oppressor/victim equation?  Yes maybe a bit.  But Hill did nothing by reinforce it.  

This is a big part of why Terry lost.  He lost our edge in teh suburbs.  Trump repulsed people like me.  Youngkin did not. 

It's kinda tricky...because the party still pretty much exists in the image of Trump. But the Dems have to do more than just say that Trump's bad. The more removed the person is from Trump (even if they are effectively trumpian), the more the ties to Trump will fall on deaf ears or even turn voters off. 

As for his quote on education, he did a good job of playing both sides. He didn't say "we have to teach the other side of the holocaust" but he did feed the fears that the goal is to vilify white people, which is crap. Not exactly sure what's going on...did the VA GOP decide to go a bit moderate because VA is purple? Did they just have no good nutbars to run? Either way, watch this guy because it'll be interesting to see whether he becomes Trumpian. There's a lot pressure in that party to do so.

A nut job ran in the primary but he was crushed.  Republicans had run idiots for a decade.  This was the first Romney type guy in a while. 

The Juggler

Lerxst1992 said:

The Juggler said:

mrussel1 said:

OnWis97 said:

mrussel1 said:

static111 said:

mrussel1 said:

Ledbetterman10 said:

Joe's approval rating continues to plummet, folks. He should push for federal marijuana legalization or something. Get people back on his side. 

How Popular Is Joe Biden? | FiveThirtyEight

The Democrats have terrible messaging.  The infrastructure fight went on so long that everyone forgot about it. Worse, they pass it AFTER election day.  That's idiotic.  You pass it two weeks before to campaign on it.  Unfortunately the far left and the two senators had their heads up their collective asses.  

It is strange... unemployment is low, jobs are high, pandemic is abetting quickly, stock market is at a record, GDP  will be doulbe this year compared to last year, and yet only 30% of people have a positive outlook on the economy.  I'm sorry, that is crazy.  I know inflation is up right now but that is absolutely temporary and connected to the supply chain.  All this tells me that we have a messaging issue.

There's also a contradiction in place.  Can the economy be great and positive while the left pushes for transformational changes in our social structure?  It creates a paradox.  How do you run on a great economy while blasting it at the same time.  

When it comes to kitchen table issues that get the voters in the booths, GDP and the stock market have nothing to do with the economy.  Inflation, the cost of groceries, cost of gas and stagnating wages are what gets swing voters to the polls.  All the messaging in the world about any of this being temporary won't hold water. Since when has anything the government said is temporary actually been?  Im with Ledbetterman, Dems need to push for legalization, maybe show that their policies will help ease the current frustrations facing the "folks" out there. It isn't crazy to have a negative outlook on the economy especially for millennials and zoomers that are the first generations in a long while to actually have it worse off in terms of creating net worth etc than their parents.

Of course pushing for programs that might actually help is easier said than done, especially with one party and two senators that don't want to see any progress.

I don't fully agree with this.  Economic optimism spans the lower to the upper class.  McAuliffe lost VA by 2 points because VA wen from +19 D with independents in 2020 to -9. last week.  And you can see these numbers play out specifically in the suburbs of NOVA which are middle to upper middle class.  These are people with 401ks and know exactly what the macro conditions are.  Sure gas and groceries are part of that equation, but it's more than that.

And I disagree that federal legalization swings independents back to Biden.  I don't think it hurts them, but it's not an issue that puts D's on the offense.  

That's what makes it so hard for the Dems. What was the difference?  I would not be surprised if it was CRT, the Willie Horton of 2021. It's a lot harder for the Dems to scare people, whether it's because they're poorer at it or their potential voters are just not as jittery.

Yes it was CRT in part.  Second, the exit polling in VA showed voters with a 42% approval rating of Trump and over 50% of Youngkin.  This tells you that Trump is poison and the D's were not effective in tying Trump and Youngkin.   But education "choice" become a topic and abortion was not.  

Listen, I think the language of the educated left, the younger left, does not play well with parents.  This is a quote from Youngkin's big education speech:

We all know education starts with curriculum. We will teach all history, the good and the bad. America has fabulous chapters and it’s the greatest country in the world, but we also have some abhorrent chapters in our history, we must teach them. We can’t know where we are going if we don’t know where we came from.

But let me be clear: what we won’t do is teach our children to view everything through the lens of race, where we divide them into buckets; one group’s an oppressor and another group is the victim; and we pitch them against each other … We know it’s not right. We know in our hearts it’s wrong. We are all created equal and we’re trying so hard to live up to those immortal words of Martin Luther King Jr., who implored us to be better than we are; to judge one another based on the content of our character and not the color of our skin.

Jemele Hill proclaimed on Twitter that the Youngkin win proves the country loves white supremacy.  Is this quote and this perspective meet that bar?  I don't think so.  And this is not far off (if at all) from Obama's perspective.  Is Youngkin overstating the oppressor/victim equation?  Yes maybe a bit.  But Hill did nothing by reinforce it.  

This is a big part of why Terry lost.  He lost our edge in teh suburbs.  Trump repulsed people like me.  Youngkin did not. 

Great point. I forget where I saw it but the way the republicans have successfully branded CRT as sort of reverse racism it's given a lane for seemingly moderate republicans to make themselves actually sound like Obama. Lol....

Just another example of the liberal wing of the democratic party shooting themselves in their collective feet yet again. 

For a party that just cut child poverty in half, doesn't it seem crazy that the dems didn't highlight that in the VA race? Anyone contending that's a federal issue should be countered that every state wide race is actually a federal one because states are changing election laws impacting federal elections. 

10 months after a violent attempt to override a presidential election (and a coordinated cover-up by republicans) a solid lean blue state flips red based mostly on a make believe CRT? And Biden is at 38% approval after all the crap trump pulled? Yeah, America is screwed.

Yep. And I am continually amazed at how infrequent they harp on the abortion issue. Seeing what Texas and other states are doing, it's not just a supreme court national issue anymore either.

mrussel1

The Juggler said:

Lerxst1992 said:

The Juggler said:

mrussel1 said:

OnWis97 said:

mrussel1 said:

static111 said:

mrussel1 said:

Ledbetterman10 said:

Joe's approval rating continues to plummet, folks. He should push for federal marijuana legalization or something. Get people back on his side. 

How Popular Is Joe Biden? | FiveThirtyEight

The Democrats have terrible messaging.  The infrastructure fight went on so long that everyone forgot about it. Worse, they pass it AFTER election day.  That's idiotic.  You pass it two weeks before to campaign on it.  Unfortunately the far left and the two senators had their heads up their collective asses.  

It is strange... unemployment is low, jobs are high, pandemic is abetting quickly, stock market is at a record, GDP  will be doulbe this year compared to last year, and yet only 30% of people have a positive outlook on the economy.  I'm sorry, that is crazy.  I know inflation is up right now but that is absolutely temporary and connected to the supply chain.  All this tells me that we have a messaging issue.

There's also a contradiction in place.  Can the economy be great and positive while the left pushes for transformational changes in our social structure?  It creates a paradox.  How do you run on a great economy while blasting it at the same time.  

When it comes to kitchen table issues that get the voters in the booths, GDP and the stock market have nothing to do with the economy.  Inflation, the cost of groceries, cost of gas and stagnating wages are what gets swing voters to the polls.  All the messaging in the world about any of this being temporary won't hold water. Since when has anything the government said is temporary actually been?  Im with Ledbetterman, Dems need to push for legalization, maybe show that their policies will help ease the current frustrations facing the "folks" out there. It isn't crazy to have a negative outlook on the economy especially for millennials and zoomers that are the first generations in a long while to actually have it worse off in terms of creating net worth etc than their parents.

Of course pushing for programs that might actually help is easier said than done, especially with one party and two senators that don't want to see any progress.

I don't fully agree with this.  Economic optimism spans the lower to the upper class.  McAuliffe lost VA by 2 points because VA wen from +19 D with independents in 2020 to -9. last week.  And you can see these numbers play out specifically in the suburbs of NOVA which are middle to upper middle class.  These are people with 401ks and know exactly what the macro conditions are.  Sure gas and groceries are part of that equation, but it's more than that.

And I disagree that federal legalization swings independents back to Biden.  I don't think it hurts them, but it's not an issue that puts D's on the offense.  

That's what makes it so hard for the Dems. What was the difference?  I would not be surprised if it was CRT, the Willie Horton of 2021. It's a lot harder for the Dems to scare people, whether it's because they're poorer at it or their potential voters are just not as jittery.

Yes it was CRT in part.  Second, the exit polling in VA showed voters with a 42% approval rating of Trump and over 50% of Youngkin.  This tells you that Trump is poison and the D's were not effective in tying Trump and Youngkin.   But education "choice" become a topic and abortion was not.  

Listen, I think the language of the educated left, the younger left, does not play well with parents.  This is a quote from Youngkin's big education speech:

We all know education starts with curriculum. We will teach all history, the good and the bad. America has fabulous chapters and it’s the greatest country in the world, but we also have some abhorrent chapters in our history, we must teach them. We can’t know where we are going if we don’t know where we came from.

But let me be clear: what we won’t do is teach our children to view everything through the lens of race, where we divide them into buckets; one group’s an oppressor and another group is the victim; and we pitch them against each other … We know it’s not right. We know in our hearts it’s wrong. We are all created equal and we’re trying so hard to live up to those immortal words of Martin Luther King Jr., who implored us to be better than we are; to judge one another based on the content of our character and not the color of our skin.

Jemele Hill proclaimed on Twitter that the Youngkin win proves the country loves white supremacy.  Is this quote and this perspective meet that bar?  I don't think so.  And this is not far off (if at all) from Obama's perspective.  Is Youngkin overstating the oppressor/victim equation?  Yes maybe a bit.  But Hill did nothing by reinforce it.  

This is a big part of why Terry lost.  He lost our edge in teh suburbs.  Trump repulsed people like me.  Youngkin did not. 

Great point. I forget where I saw it but the way the republicans have successfully branded CRT as sort of reverse racism it's given a lane for seemingly moderate republicans to make themselves actually sound like Obama. Lol....

Just another example of the liberal wing of the democratic party shooting themselves in their collective feet yet again. 

For a party that just cut child poverty in half, doesn't it seem crazy that the dems didn't highlight that in the VA race? Anyone contending that's a federal issue should be countered that every state wide race is actually a federal one because states are changing election laws impacting federal elections. 

10 months after a violent attempt to override a presidential election (and a coordinated cover-up by republicans) a solid lean blue state flips red based mostly on a make believe CRT? And Biden is at 38% approval after all the crap trump pulled? Yeah, America is screwed.

Yep. And I am continually amazed at how infrequent they harp on the abortion issue. Seeing what Texas and other states are doing, it's not just a supreme court national issue anymore either.

I literally saw one commercial about 'choice'.  Considering what was happening in TX at the same, that's political malpractice.  

One thing to keep in mind is that Youngkin is a multi millionaire and he was blanketing the airwaves for months with is own money, way ahead of the D's.  So much of the opinions were locked in well before the DNC started running ads to support McAuliffe. 

cincybearcat

Hobbes said:

Gern Blansten said:

https://twitter.com/washingtonpost/status/1457829352813498371

This guy needs karma

This guy needs to be removed from office.

Where else can one do this about a coworker and still have a job?

The whole elected to office thing makes this more complicated.

shecky

gimmesometruth27

lol dailywire.com