55 Comments

All I can say about this, if there is in fact a red wave and we lose both House and

Senate? All those who voted for it will

finally find out exactly how stupid they

really are.

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Nice thought, but being abysmally stupid means you never have to realize how dumb you are.

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If Republicans get their way, their

voters won't be spared. They'll be cut off just like everyone else. Not

all are abysmally stupid, although

they act it.

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I don’t want to listen or see any more of this doom and gloom.

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I understand the feeling; I had the same initial reaction. It's not posted as "doom and gloom" here, but hopefully as reason to keep working hard. That's my reaction, anyway.

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I understand. I am looking forward to a massacre of Red assholes in two weeks.

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Me too! But only with 100%+ effort.

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As with any political issues in ‘Murikkka, it’s the economy, stupid! As long as gas and groceries are cheap, that’s all the average American voter cares about, so like Esau in the Bible, they are willing to sell their birthright (democracy) for a bowl of pottage…

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Welp, keep on keeping' on. Dems do need to explain the causes of inflation better and pounce on what the eradication of SS and Medicare would do "for" folks' parents and grandparents. In the meantime, text, postcard, letter, bonfire, whatever it takes 😈

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No takers on the wager, he might not even wait that long.

The 'strategists' guiding the Democratic campaign effort are at least as stupid as you give voters credit for being as they re-emphasize the healthcare choice issue while voters are screaming about inflation. Codifying Roe is a great idea that should have been done long ago; raising taxes on people making over $400,000 annually was a campaign promise that Biden didn't keep and one that would come in handy right now as a way of showing concern over budgetary largess that the GOP will, as usual, beat into the ground until Nov. 9 when they will go back to not governing or worrying about a budget.

Memo for 2024, when a candidate has a serious medical condition they should drop out; I like Fetterman but Conor Lamb would already be picking curtains for his office against Oz. I still think he and Barnes will win but there were unforced errors that will make it much closer and more nerve-wracking than either race should have been. I also think the press is generating some of the uncertainty because, let's face it, controversy and doubt sell.

I'm doing what I can before going in at 5AM on the 8th to open up the polling place and hope everyone else is too. Mike Franken deserves a lot of support and might be the surprise of the season.

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Don't ya just love the 5am call time?🧐 Mine is 6am, and 8am for the three days before. But it's all worth it!

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Every minute, I have a great team that I work with and it goes really well. Expectations are for a very high turnout, especially for a midterm; we have legalized weed on the ballot this time.

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Will be thinking of you, brother, with energy sent your way.

Democracy will prevail.

🗽

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Thanks Christine. As long as we stick together we will prevail.

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Seems that whenever people feel a pinch to their pocketbook, it triggers fight/flight/survival mode and for many all reason goes out the window, as it feels more personal and therefore threatening than any other issue. The timing of all this has been unfortunate.

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It appears H.L. Mencken was right. Well, should the apocalypse hit and the Repubs take Congress, it is not too late to hope for another asteroid..... The bloodbath will be epic, and the people who will be most hurt by it are the fools voting for the Republicans. If they do take back both houses of Congress, nothing will be done because Biden can veto anything they pass and they cannot overturn his vetoes but they WILL use the debt limit to undo as much as they can of everything the Dems have passed to help the American people. The only way Biden and the lame duck Congress can stop that is to take the debt limit off the table in a reconciliation move to eliminate the debt ceiling (likely a non-starter) OR raise it so high (to $900 trillion) that we will never get there, so the debt limit will not be useful as a political cudgel. Look, we KNOW the Republicans no longer can govern - they do not have a platform, the economics they support are actually dying (thank God) and they instinctively want to take away the things the public actually wants. At some point, even the thickest rube will see that he and all his family and friends are going down the dumper, and they will look at the ruling party to blame. When the Republicans and their rich backers have run the country into the ground, then some hapless Republican president gets to channel his inner Herbert Hoover and we have a new landslide and a new 'New Deal'..... All the tumult and hurt will have been for nothing at all.....

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Democrats can defuse the debt limit bomb in the lame-duck session. They can either fund the government to September 2024 and dare the Republicans to crash the economy in the middle of Trump's re-election run, or fund the government for the next 10 years and wipe out the debt limit, or enact the Gephardt Doctrine as law (the debt limit is deemed raised by voting for funding government programs). The last would be the least good, and best of all would be to abolish it altogether, but there aren't the votes for that.

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Let’s hope the young aren’t paying attention to the pundits.

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They aren’t. Many of them think it’s stupid.

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I will also say, the Republican agenda will

NOT stand.

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I hope that you’re wrong, TC, but fear that you’re not ...

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I didn't post it to be "right" - I hope it's wrong! - but to convince people to keep working.

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I’m with you on that!!!

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Here in NY we're looking at an ever-closer race between Lee Zeldin and Kathy Hochul. Hochul has not been campaigning aggressively and has focused on abortion, while Zeldin has been blaming Democrats for inflation and Hochul for the high (up to 9 percent in Rochester and 11 percent) unemployment upstate, despite her being in office only one year and bringing over 50,000 jobs upstate. The GQP have told blatant lies about crime in the state, blaming New York bail reform (absurd because it affects mostly misdemeanor and nonviolent arrests). Like I always say, the Democrats are very good at screwing themselves over.

The Jan 6th hearings have had no effect, nor have Trump's many crimes that have come to light. Americans only care about their money and would put the devil himself in the WH if it means being able to buy all the crap they see in the TV commercials. Americans know nothing about suffering, however, and if the Republicans win, they'll finally find out.

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There is no convincing left to do. All minds are made up. It's just a question of whether Americans are too lazy to defend democracy, the rule of law and the truth or not. Who and how many will show up. Then we get what we deserve.

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Turnout, turnout, turnout, turnout.... GOTV.

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Which will be democracy.

🗽

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If you don’t like “doom and gloom”….focus on TC’s message to “leave nothing on the field.”

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TC, Don’t know how you do it…. I was a 24/7 caregiver(hubby retired early to help )until last year and could not even begin to imagine doing what I do now if I’d that responsibility alone. Keep pushing us, keep being controversial..and yes, keep being the best kind of badass!😜

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thi is just after I forced myself to read today's NYT (I know, I know...don't yell), which featured a long piece on MTG, co-starring the truly astonishing--and I mean ASTONISHING--stupidity of Kevin McCarthy, who can't decide whether it's better to shun her or (gag!) fuck her (I meant metaphorically...or something). this was followed by one of their swell new "focus groups" on the back page of the Opinion section. the people who are doing the focusing have, since the very first time this (gag again) "feature" began, been uniformly extremely ill-informed when they haven't been downright stupid. this week it was Hispanic voters who said they might be "open" to voting for a Republican. I refuse to summarize...it's already depressing enough (obviously, anyone interested can find this crap online).

I've been saying for years that there was what felt like an actual conspiracy to create a generation that doesn't know any history, because for as long as I worked in the NYC public school system, any kind of actual knowledge (or the ability to critically take in such knowledge as there was) was eschewed in favor of the NCLB agenda (Tom has talked about this approximately as much as I have). well, the conspiracy has borne fruit. and this is it. the sequelae of these efforts include historical memory that sunsets at about three weeks.

on the on hand (the hand I usually rely on, at least thus far), I care about all of this profoundly, as everyone here does (or they--we--wouldn't be here, right?). the other hand is the more nihilistic one (remember Robert Mitchum's tattoos in "The Night of the Hunter" which is --alas!--the only movie Charles Laughton got to direct?), and sometimes, every now and then, I find myself thinking insupportable things. you know, like, "if they want to wreck it so badly and no one gives a fuck...." I won't go on.

and I have a sick dog....

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Charles Laughton. ***sigh***. I actually wrote the other day that if Dr. Oz and Hershall Walker win, we deserve what we get. But no, I don’t deserve this.

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the only ones who DO deserve them would be the ones who voted for them. and I'd probably, at this point in my life, be fine with that. but that's not how it works over here. and that's MY sigh...'

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The ones who vote for them will be the ones that suffer the most, as most red states (except possibly for Texas) are essentially welfare wards of the US government, and when the Repubs heedlessly strip out Medicare and Social Security, it's the red states that will go bankrupt the fastest.....but then in the general depression that will certainly follow, they will be joined by many other entities.....

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What is a winning question? One that really directly concerns 85% of the population, or one that really directly concerns 15%? I wish it was not that simple.

For many years now Sweden has had a goal of reaching up to 2% inflation, continually failed and most people did not mind. Now, when inflation is soaring, and we would like it to stop, we are failing again. The conclusion should be that we, or anyone, is not really in control of this. Gas companies can push up prices in swing states for political reasons, but I guess only when there is an upgoing trend.

Is there an evolution within democracies to vote more against recent history, for imagined 'good old times', and forgetting about the future?

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I think it has to do with hving raised at least three generations of political/social/intellectual morons. Generation Y(both)er, Millenials and Gen Z. If you look at the "edumacation" most of them got, in the 80s and 90s they were taught functional illiteracy with "whole Word", they just as that was gong away, they got his with No child Left Behind and "teach to the rest. Rote memorization is NOT education. Look at the numbers of them who qualify to get in college and have to take a year of remedial high school work to have a chance with what passes for college.

I thought we were miseducated from my experience, but we were attending Socrate's Academy in comparison.

Kids who didn't go to public schools didn't suffer this, and guess what?

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MANY years ago, I read a piece by someone that said that high school students graduating in the 1950s had the equivalent education of a college junior then (dated to the mid 1980s).....God alone knows that the equivalent would be today in 2022.

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I guess that is what would be included under 'voting against recent history'. When my father finished high school he was one of 5% of his generation, when i finished high school I was one of 25% of my generation. Now, the Swedish school system is considered to fail if not 100% are finishing high school.

The original 'myth' of the Social Democrat's school policy was: 'Both the teacher and the parish priest said dad should be given a chance to continue studies after the 6th grade, but grandpa said he had to start working and help support the family'. That is, the injustice was that not all who had the ability to study were given a chance. Now, as many as possible should be going through 12 years of schooling, with grades to allow study at college. BECAUSE WE HAVE STATISTICS showing that people who have done so have a much better chance to find a place on the labour market. There must not be any mention of a difference between kids who have been supported with good results in school, and those who have gone to school every day to learn that they are not very good at this. And no question of weather prolonged time in school is also a nice way of covering up unemployment.

'...everyone is born equal' is in Swedish translated as '..everyone has the same value', which is propagated as some kind of egalitarian idea. Any look into the nearest payroll would of course prove this nonsensical. What it shows about this supposedly nonreligious country is an unconsciously applied other existential level, a soul level; without religion

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I don't know that any amount of effort will change the voters minds about punishing the Democrats for ruining their lives (sarcasm). What's more I am willing to disagree with those that claim Americans are dumber than the Germans, French , Polish, Finns... That's right, I've got the scoop.

'There’s no winning with voters on inflation and rising living costs. Incumbent governments—prepare to get whacked.'

'As recent Global Progress/YouGov data from 11 leading democratic countries shows, inflation is a political wrecking ball for incumbent governments. Although citizens don’t have a consistent idea of what should be done about inflation—and many opposition parties have no clear alternative policy ideas on the matter—most voters don’t like the situation and are apt to punish sitting parties for rising costs regardless of their actions.'

Which countries' citizens are as dumb as Americans -- UK, France, German, US, Italy, Spain, Canada, Australia, Sweden, Poland, Finland. (We were included in the data)

‘…more than half to nearly 70 percent of citizens in each of the 11 countries surveyed say they lack confidence in their own government’s ability to control inflation.’

'These numbers should give incumbent parties everywhere night sweats, especially if they have elections soon. It doesn’t particularly matter if the governments are run by technocrats or leftists or right-wingers—they will suffer. Ruling governments in Sweden and Italy have already fallen....

President Biden and Democrats are on track to lose the House of Representatives and maybe the Senate despite passing a huge bill called the “Inflation Reduction Act” that most Americans support but don’t believe will reduce inflation in the short-term. '

'The problem for sitting governments regardless of their ideological make-up is that voters don’t really like any traditional ideas for combating inflation, such as increasing interest rates or cutting spending, and don’t have patience for excuse-making by leaders.'

'Voters in multiple national political contexts basically just want prices down now, along with subsidies or offsets for energy and other household costs in the meantime. Understandably, they don’t want any personal pain or larger economic sacrifices to deal with inflation.'

'Since it’s nearly impossible for any government to deliver this in a timely fashion, the result will likely be the same across many democratic countries: Vote ‘em out!'(The Liberal Patriot) See link to article below.

'Vote em-out!' That's the story.

https://theliberalpatriot.substack.com/p/inflation-is-a-political-wrecking

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Yeah. Churchill's comment didn't come from talking to Americans. "The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."

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I come with the goods and this is what I get! Damn! I did not intend to give you a like, and I can't get rid of it. Just pretend it's not there because its not what you deserve! Wow, the like went away. Thank you substack. I like you.

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Some information we definitely don't "like" but we do "need."

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So, where's the NEED button? Forget about it. I like being alone tonight.

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No - the information is needed by all of us, whether we like it or not. :-)

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I 'needed' this 'like' from you like a loch in kop.

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😔

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sometimes, you need to hit the "Refresh."

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I can't "like" your post, I wish substack had other icons , like a sad face to express agreement but not joyfully... My confidence in holding the House and Senate has fallen even further after reading your post. 😔

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All the more reason to do postcards or texts - these last two weeks are when they'll be most effective, with a "jump shot" election.

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I understand, Nancy. I didn't like that report either, but I believe it. It is a solid source. I was not optimistic before I started researching beyond Politico, the Times, WAPO, Atlantic...which were also not singing 'everything is coming up roses'. TC didn't like the piece either, instead, he seemed to ratify it with a Churchillian nod of agreement. I believe we keep trying, but the odds for the midterms are awful now. Might that change? Some Democrats have to break through with a different message and different strategies before and after the midterms We are not dead if we lose the midterms, but we need to be convincing about what the Democrats will deliver. We need leadership, strategies and organization to turn this around. Neither of us go for the BS, but that means fighting harder--finding and promoting the leaders who will move us forward.

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I guess you could call the Churchill ratifying, but I just put it up because I was so pissed off at all these @#$$%#@@!!! MORONS who think they are my "fellow Americans."

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obviously, I'm right there with you, Tom.

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