Aftermath - Post Midterm Elections in the US

[godfry n. glad]

*sigh*

Never enough.

But, first of all, I want to welcome all of you there in Michigan to the sacred fellowship of inhalation therapy. That's a positive.

And, the House. That's a nice change. The problem is, the Senate got worse. We'll have to keep up the stress level for at least another two years. Of course, that was a given, what with the shitgibbon in place, but now we have to broaden our shrill outrages to include the crowd of gerontological asshats who just confirmed a privileged predator for a seat on the Supreme Court. The Gang of Four (Grassley, Collins, McConnell, and Graham) looks like an excellent set of targets to me; they've clearly demonstrated they are incapable of making sound judgments. They should be removed and replaced.

[Gizmoduck]

I think both extremes, IE, both main parties are incredibly cringe-worthy on every front, so I'm sad to see that only the most extremes wound up winning here.

I was raised more Republican, so while I try and be middle, I can't help but feel more right-wing than left most times, but even I would never let that be my deciding factor.


Some ultra democrat swept because her whole campaign revolved around Anti-Trump, rather than anything about her, and people ate it up.

There was a time a few months ago, I saw an ad for a democrat who didn't attack anyone and who focused simply on him as his plan and I was impressed, so much so I voted for him.

Why not that approach, instead? We might actually grow a little if we worried more about ourselves than the other guy.

Sad that this country is to a state where we vote "against" someone, rather than "for" them.


Again, I'd really like to see what someone from this state could actually do against Trump. Hope the people who fell for the spiel aren't disappointed when nothing happens because of it.

[godfry n. glad]

If one of the parties would field a candidate I could actually support and vote 'for', it might be different. That has not happened in quite some time.

No...The usual state of affairs is that both parties field some lapdog to their donors' dollars and I end up having to vote for the 'lesser of two evils', who all too often ends up being 'the lessor of two evils'. I think that the strangehold that the two major parties have on the process should be minimized. I'd like to see ALL races de-partisanized. No political party affiliations to be listed on any ballot. The primaries should be 'casting call' contests for all positions with no partisans; the general election is a non-partisan run-off between the top two finishers in each of the primary races. Political parties are side organizations trying to get their candidates elected in the primaries to the general election, but those candidates cannot run as partisans. No primary would EVER be closed, as they would ALL be open, non-partisan races. Then we taxpayers will stop paying for political parties (which are private, exclusive organizations) to select their the candidates. Political parties are extra-governmental organizations and should not be enjoying the largesse of the public till.

PS - I was raised in 'building trades Democratic' household. My old man was not union (he was a construction inspector), but supported unions, particularly those in the building trades. His mother was a 'Red-Card Republican', who'd registered as a Republican in order to obtain work, but supported Roosevelt through all four tickets. I ended up well to the left of my old man, being active in the Democratic Socialist movement as a young man and a budding professional economist in the mid-1970s. I explicitly followed Michael Harrington's advice and joined the Democratic Party in 1979. I was a party activist and served as a District Leader and county Executive Committee member, briefly. By the new millenia, I was heartily disgusted and when the sordid past of the state Democratic party's golden boy, fixer, and lead shaker and mover was made public, and the role which other party functionaries covered for him for years, I quit in disgust. I am now proudly NAWAPP....Not Affiliated With Any Political Party. Consequently, it chapped my hide that I had to re-register as a Democrat in order to cast my vote for Bernie in my state's closed primary. I re-re-registered after the primary, but I felt so dirty for that brief interval.

I'm sorry, but these days I tend to only vote for Democrats. But that is not because I want to, but just because the alternatives are even more reprehensible. And, I might note, that my historical ideal of a state politician was a Republican, Governor Tom McCall. But that was a different era all together.

[lisarea]

We have some local races where candidates don't list their party affiliations, and the result is everyone saying that they are pro-family and want a healthy economy, peppered with some dogwhistle sometimes. Unless they get super-nasty and high profile, you can't really tell what the candidates stand for.

I hate families and economies.

[godfry n. glad]

Originally Posted by lisarea

We have some local races where candidates don't list their party affiliations, and the result is everyone saying that they are pro-family and want a healthy economy, peppered with some dogwhistle sometimes. Unless they get super-nasty and high profile, you can't really tell what the candidates stand for.

I hate families and economies.

Which is why intense campaigns tend to get super-nasty and high profile, particularly if there is an asymmetric power distribution.

Yes, we have 'non-partisan' races around here, too. I actually ran as a political candidate for one, once. Anyway, non-partisan candidates can be just as monumental fuckwits as partisan candidates. At present, I am attempting to unseat one who represents me in a metropolitan level government council position (roughly the same position I ran for forty years back). He built his career on land use legal issues and then sold out to special interests once elected (hotels/convention development). He is a sell-out; a classic example.

[lisarea]

Originally Posted by Gizmoduck

Some ultra democrat swept because her whole campaign revolved around Anti-Trump, rather than anything about her, and people ate it up.

I can see how an anti-Trump position could be pretty productive if it were about self sufficiency like local healthcare solutions, municipal broadband, and things like that. That's what I'm looking for these days.

Sad that this country is to a state where we vote "against" someone, rather than "for" them.

I think of elections as being a long series of compromises. You never actually get what you want, and the bigger the race, the more diluted your position becomes. That's the way it just is, and the way it has to be if everyone is going to have a vote. You have the most power in your local elections, like your city council and your state representatives, and the higher the office, the more you have to compromise. So when you get all the way up to national or even statewide elections, you're compromising so much you're never going to get what you want.

I hate it too, kind of. I've never gotten my way really, and I am resigned to the fact that I never will. I do think that we need better education and better journalism and a lot of things so that people can make better informed decisions, but I don't think that's going to naturally conclude with me always getting my way, either. (I do think we'd get closer, though, to be honest.)

[godfry n. glad]

Originally Posted by lisarea

I think of elections as being a long series of compromises. You never actually get what you want, and the bigger the race, the more diluted your position becomes. That's the way it just is, and the way it has to be if everyone is going to have a vote. You have the most power in your local elections, like your city council and your state representatives, and the higher the office, the more you have to compromise. So when you get all the way up to national or even statewide elections, you're compromising so much you're never going to get what you want.

I hate it too, kind of. I've never gotten my way really, and I am resigned to the fact that I never will. I do think that we need better education and better journalism and a lot of things so that people can make better informed decisions, but I don't think that's going to naturally conclude with me always getting my way, either. (I do think we'd get closer, though, to be honest.)

Ramen, pea.

That's where I threw my energies. I served as a volunteer in neighborhood associations, serving as an officer in two separate city-sponsored and recognized districts to address usage of city resources in our neighborhood....crime prevention, traffic calming, zoning. It sounds boring and it is. You have to attend lots of meetings a deal with lots of egos. But, out of three decades, and innumerable public meetings, I have been part of creating two new pocket parks, halting a huge chain burger joint, creating a guiding planning document, and bringing in to being a critical portion of a regional traffic control system to reduce speeds and volumes of auto traffic on our streets....this, in turn, led to streets being recognized as 'bicycle throughways'. I also volunteered to be trained by the city parks arborists to be a 'neighborhood tree liaison' and participated in a community group in recruiting sites and planting street trees. Now we have shady tree-lined bicycle streets. We, a group of pretty ordinary lower-middle class, public servant types, built a cohesive community and gentrified the whole neighborhood to such a point that the elders like myself are now in danger of being priced out of their own community.

Not everybody lives in a trendoid urban city center neighborhood, though.

I've always wondered what might be accomplished with effective P.U.D. organizing. What kinds of alternate governance might be provided at more comfortable scales.

Also...I'm a bit of a secessionist, rather romantically buying in to Ernest Callanbach's Ecotopia model of Cascadia. A sovereign nation built upon ecological boundaries (watersheds) makes a shipload more sense than the silly arbitrary political boundaries drawn by squabbling competitors. It's a totally deluded fancy of mine.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Aftermath, you say?

They’re all starting to be returned now. pic.twitter.com/Z5pcbXfJSQ

— Beaches, Bows & Ball (@ImAprilNotMay) November 9, 2018

[godfry n. glad]

Yeah, in some places, they're still doing the math.

[lisarea]

Greg Palast is the guy you want for election fraud stories:

Commentary: Here’s how Brian Kemp is stealing the Georgia election | Salon.com