Soul-Searching, Recriminations Within Democratic Party

[stuffandthings]

Nov 14, 2024 15:49:24 GMT -5 laladypoet said:

Nov 12, 2024 12:53:01 GMT -5 stuffandthings said:

I definitely support looking into concerns and doing recounts when needed! What I don't support is conspiracy theories about the election outcome, especially ones predicated on the statements of a man who is A) a well-known liar, and B) famously a close friend of Vladimir Putin, who has been attempting to disrupt American elections for the past 20-some years. Every state has a chain of custody for their balloting process. Every single state has a final canvass where representatives from all parties are involved.

Rare instances of election fraud are almost always super obvious to experts because of how mathematically precise turnout data is these days. Remember Mark Harris in NC in 2018? That was obvious to most folks following the count in real time. The amount of time and money needed to pull off an election fraud of this scale is nearly impossible, and definitely impossible for people with as little self-control and subtlety as the Trump campaign's leaders.

I would urge people not to share any election theories or information unless it is reported in a news source. I despise Trump, but one important prerequisite to fascism is a belief on the behalf of the people that democracy doesn't work.

Also, I just want to say--in Wisconsin, we have to hand-order the ballots at the end of the night to tally the write-ins. (Tabulators can see that a write-in was selected but can't read people's handwriting to know who they voted for as a write-in). And I SAW, with my own eyes, a sizable number of ballots where people voted for Trump and then voted for Democrats down the ballot. I saw ballots where people voted third party or write-in and then voted for Democrats down the ballot. One person even voted for all Democrats, including our Senator, but wrote in Gretchen Whitmer for president. I live in the bluest county in Wisconsin, and I saw these ballots with my own eyes. Our margins were smaller here than in 2020 and that's what tipped Wisconsin red. I have a copy of the elections tape to prove it, if anyone wants to see it. (We're allowed to keep copies of the unofficial results tape, which print out of the tabulator before the votes are electronically sent in, if we want them.)

I'm coming back to this because I do believe what you're saying HOWEVER I think mail in and provisional ballots were suppressed or denied. here's one article I found.

www.koat.com/article/election-day-absentee-ballots-rejected-2024/62816770

couldn't this have had an effect?

I'm not sure I understand the question you're asking as it relates to the article you posted.

From the article: "According to the Bernalillo County Clerk's Office, 400 of those 800 rejected ballots have been validated after voters provided additional information to confirm their identity. When an absentee ballot is rejected, letters are sent by election officials to the voter within 24 hours of the rejection. These let voters know of the issue and what they need to do to correct it and make their vote count."

So that means there were 800 total ballots that were not submitted by the voter correctly, and of those, half were corrected by the voters and counted as expected in the end. That's actually a pretty decent cure rate, as ballot curing goes. There's not really anything suspicious about this, and nothing was "suppressed"--the ballots that were valid were counted!

[ellipses84]

[mention]wildrice [/mention]

If you think that’s bad, 3.2 billion was bet on Polymarket on the election alone. You know, the gambling site that is not authorized to operate in the U.S. and cannot take bets or election bets from people in the U.S. (although you can get around it with a VPN). One person won 85 million.

The FBI raided the CEOs home and confiscated his phone and other electronics.

It’s disgusting. I saw a stat about how many people are going hungry in PA and on waiting list for food charities and it was stark.

[wildrice]

Nov 14, 2024 16:50:58 GMT -5 ellipses84 said:

[mention]wildrice [/mention]

If you think that’s bad, 3.2 billion was bet on Polymarket on the election alone. You know, the gambling site that is not authorized to operate in the U.S. and cannot take bets or election bets from people in the U.S. (although you can get around it with a VPN). One person won 85 million.

The FBI raided the CEOs home and confiscated his phone and other electronics.

It’s disgusting. I saw a stat about how many people are going hungry in PA and on waiting list for food charities and it was stark.

The amount of money spent in this world while people suffer from poverty (not to mention other worthy causes) will never not make me extremely angry and sad. At least a campaign is better than gambling, but only barely - especially when you end up with nothing in the end. 

[Jalapeñomel]

Nov 14, 2024 16:50:58 GMT -5 ellipses84 said:

[mention]wildrice [/mention]

If you think that’s bad, 3.2 billion was bet on Polymarket on the election alone. You know, the gambling site that is not authorized to operate in the U.S. and cannot take bets or election bets from people in the U.S. (although you can get around it with a VPN). One person won 85 million.

The FBI raided the CEOs home and confiscated his phone and other electronics.

It’s disgusting. I saw a stat about how many people are going hungry in PA and on waiting list for food charities and it was stark.

Is this not sketchy as hell? Who would bet that kind of money without guarantee to win?

#tinfoilhat

[neverfstop]

Hmmm....not sure how I feel about this. i do think i would be go to have somebody who is "fiery" just don't know abuot rahm....

www.axios.com/2024/11/15/rahm-emanuel-democrats-chair
Rahm Emanuel weighs bid for DNC chair

[jeaniebueller]

The Ezra Klein segment on Pod Save America and Ezra's latest podcast episode are really interesting, I thought.

[neverfstop]

I'm still here...trying to process...lol.

This Is the Dark, Unspoken Promise of Trump’s Return
www.nytimes.com/2024/11/15/opinion/donald-trump-orban-putin.html

For those bewildered by why so many Americans apparently voted against the values of liberal democracy, Balint Magyar has a useful formulation. “Liberal democracy,” he says, “offers moral constraints without problem-solving” — a lot of rules, not a lot of change — while “populism offers problem-solving without moral constraints.” Magyar, a scholar of autocracy, isn’t interested in calling Donald Trump a fascist. He sees the president-elect’s appeal in terms of something more primal: “Trump promises that you don’t have to think about other people.”

[neverfstop]

I was never a huge Bernie fan, but I'm happy to listen to him now...his rallying cry is "working class" and I think the Dems are too far into the elite/educated/donor bubbles...

This was a good interview.
www.nytimes.com/2024/11/15/podcasts/the-daily/bernie-sanders-democratic-party.html?rref=vanity

Trump saw a problem (affordability crisis, inflation, 60% of people living paycheck to paycheck) & offered a (wrong, idiotic) solution (get rid of immigrants, tariffs, corporate tax cuts). The dems offered to complicated tax credit, SL forgiveness (limited reach + backlash/resentment), 1st time home buyer tax credits (limited reach + backlash/resentment).

Where were the Dems screaming about paid leave, minimum wage increases, and more affordable/universal healthcare as a solution to many people's economic crunch?

[karinothing]

neverfstop, Biden was literally walking picket lines with union workers, supported union organizing efforts, increased funding into the n national labor relations board, infused the teamster pension plan with 36Billion! He signed the inflation reduction act, the CHIPs act, the infrastructure app all which led to LOTS of manufacturing jobs. Under Biden the working class saw a higher increase in wages than any other group in America. He changed OT eligibility rules boosting wages for four workers and increased pay for construction workers on federal jobs.

Black voters who are working class too voted for Biden. Workers making under 30K voted for Biden. Biden did the work and helped improve the quality of working-class voters' lives. White voters just chose to ignore it. I just get really annoyed when folks say Biden ignored the working class. Because he didn't, he fought alongside of them and bettered their lives. Just none of that matters, because it isn't really about any of that.

[stuffandthings]

Nov 15, 2024 10:46:49 GMT -5 neverfstop said:

I was never a huge Bernie fan, but I'm happy to listen to him now...his rallying cry is "working class" and I think the Dems are too far into the elite/educated/donor bubbles...

This was a good interview.
www.nytimes.com/2024/11/15/podcasts/the-daily/bernie-sanders-democratic-party.html?rref=vanity

Trump saw a problem (affordability crisis, inflation, 60% of people living paycheck to paycheck) & offered a (wrong, idiotic) solution (get rid of immigrants, tariffs, corporate tax cuts). The dems offered to complicated tax credit, SL forgiveness (limited reach + backlash/resentment), 1st time home buyer tax credits (limited reach + backlash/resentment).

Where were the Dems screaming about paid leave, minimum wage increases, and more affordable/universal healthcare as a solution to many people's economic crunch?

@@@@

The problem is--paid leave, minimum wage increases, and universal healthcare are also things that will only help some people and therefore might cause resentment. We've already seen it--"I don't have kids; you should only have kids if you can afford to take leave!" "I'm a [insert profession here] and I make $15/hour, why should people make that much flipping burgers?" "I don't want to pay for someone else's poor health habits!" Etc. etc. etc.

The problem is that everyone's economic situation is different, so appealing to people's personal economic situation is always going to help some but not all. I think we need a cultural shift away from short-term to long-term thinking, and to seeing the ways in which we are all connected, but I don't know how to do that without a complete overhaul of the educational system.

[neverfstop]

Nov 15, 2024 10:56:33 GMT -5 karinothing said:

neverfstop , Biden was literally walking picket lines with union workers, supported union organizing efforts, increased funding into the n national labor relations board, infused the teamster pension plan with 36Billion! He signed the inflation reduction act, the CHIPs act, the infrastructure app all which led to LOTS of manufacturing jobs. Under Biden the working class saw a higher increase in wages than any other group in America. He changed OT eligibility rules boosting wages for four workers and increased pay for construction workers on federal jobs.

Black voters who are working class too voted for Biden. Workers making under 30K voted for Biden. Biden did the work and helped improve the quality of working-class voters' lives. White voters just chose to ignore it. I just get really annoyed when folks say Biden ignored the working class. Because he didn't, he fought alongside of them and bettered their lives. Just none of that matters, because it isn't really about any of that.

Agreed, but for whatever reason (messaging? messenger?) this didn't break through to the general public.   It's so frustrating that the Dems accomplished all this, saved our economy from the recession that everybody told us was coming, and we still got trounced. 

It's just not Biden's style or personality to be loud & super active/engaged/busy body about all this work.  Maybe Kamala all along should have been his surrogate at every single new factory that was opened or ribbon cutting on infrastructure projects putting their achievements into the new.  Or did like Obama & Trump and personally put their name/project/legislation front & center on everything they did/accomplished. 

What's it really about then? I think economic factors + cultural/class issues were the main issues in this election, throw in a heavy dose of racism & misogyny . 

[Bad Dingo]

I'm just going to leave this here (comments by Keith Boykin):
spoiler alert - what happened? white supremacy

www.instagram.com/reel/DCSUZyWt7yX/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

[sonrisa]

Nov 15, 2024 12:01:27 GMT -5 Bad Dingo said:

I'm just going to leave this here (comments by Keith Boykin):
spoiler alert - what happened? white supremacy

www.instagram.com/reel/DCSUZyWt7yX/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

I needed that pep talk today. Thank you.

[neverfstop]

Inside the Republican false-flag effort to turn off Kamala Harris voters
A multipronged dark money effort by advisers to Elon Musk targeted liberals, Jews, Muslims and Black voters with ads that were not quite what they seemed.

GIFT wapo.st/4fMMdHw

What voters had no way of knowing at the time was that all of the ads were part of a single, $45 million effort created by political advisers to Tesla founder Elon Musk who had previously worked on the presidential campaign of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), according to a presentation about the group’s efforts obtained by The Washington Post.

The project, funded with anonymous donations, micro-targeted messages across the battleground states, often with ads that appeared to be something they were not — a tactic the organizers sometimes referred to internally as “false positives.”


With digital spots, direct mail, text messages, influencer marketing and mobile billboards, the overall project was a high-tech experiment in misdirection — an old political tactic that has been sharpened in recent decades with increasingly precise targeting techniques.

Ads tested better if Muslims felt they were seeing a message meant for Zionists, “Bernie bros” felt they were hearing from the far left, and “Zyn bros” felt they were hearing from activists who wanted “a world without gas-powered vehicles,” a ban on fracking and affordable housing for undocumented Americans — policies Harris did not actually support during her campaign.

[spinnaker5]

Nov 11, 2024 12:13:40 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

The single thing I want to focus on now, 15 pages later, is the fact that AOC was re-elected but her district voted for Trump. Knowing the demographics of her district, we need to figure that shit out to move forward. She posted the responses but that needs to inform the direction we head in.

So, people like outsiders and they like politicians who make you BELIEVE they are for the working class. And that’s something Trump does really really well - pretends he’s for the little people and that he was never an insider despite occupying the WH for four whole years already. And people buy it. I’ll never understand why, but that’s the reality we are working with.

New York Magazine has an interesting take:

nymag.com/intelligencer/article/donald-trump-new-york-election-results-turning-red.html

[fortnightlily]

I found this really moving:

"I’m 16. On Nov. 5 the Girls Cried, and the Boys Played Minecraft."
www.nytimes.com/2024/11/16/opinion/donald-trump-women-girls.html?unlocked_article_code=1.aU4.7l-T.YeI3JF-BiXz3&smid=url-share

[sonrisa]

Nov 16, 2024 17:00:14 GMT -5 fortnightlily said:

I found this really moving:

"I’m 16. On Nov. 5 the Girls Cried, and the Boys Played Minecraft."
www.nytimes.com/2024/11/16/opinion/donald-trump-women-girls.html?unlocked_article_code=1.aU4.7l-T.YeI3JF-BiXz3&smid=url-share

sounds better than DD’s school. The toxicity of some middle school boys is off the charts.

[basilosaurus]

I recently read something in USA today where they asked turdy's supporters a set of questions. They predictably gave really really dumb answers. For instance, one person said we need better education and that she hoped he'd improve the situation and provide equal access. The man who wants to end DoE.

There were a bunch of generic eceonomy, lower taxes and interest rates, and keep out illegals build that wall answers. If they were to get somewhat specific it was things outside of presidential control.

One person said dumpy's message is all about unity, that that was the whole message from the RNC convention which she attended. How can those people walk away thinking this?!

So, I guess the answer is lie, lie often, make the lies simplistic, and people will believe it.

I'll try to dig up what I read.

ETA www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/11/17/trump-supporters-explain-their-hopes-second-term/76293038007/

I'd forgotten the person saying he wants better access to healthcare and veterans need to be taken care of and get solid benefits. So, vote for the guy who wants ACA VA to disappear? Yeah, makes sense.