American Politics 3.0 - Back to Brunch

[GirlySports]

Republicans just playing both sides. Outraged over what happened on Jan 6 but hiding behind the Constitution to not impeach. And over the next 2 or 4 years going to try to incorporate the good elements of Trumpism and of course, they're not going to turn away Trump voters. It's not like Trump voters are going to suddenly vote Democrat. They'll keep beating that slippery slope socialism drum to their benefit.

[ernie]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

Republicans just playing both sides. Outraged over what happened on Jan 6 but hiding behind the Constitution to not impeach. And over the next 2 or 4 years going to try to incorporate the good elements of Trumpism and of course, they're not going to turn away Trump voters. It's not like Trump voters are going to suddenly vote Democrat. They'll keep beating that slippery slope socialism drum to their benefit.

The problem with the explanation they are putting forth is that it ignores a key step. That was a vote by the senate that decided it was constitutional to have the trial. They may not have voted for it but that’s the system they play under.

So that excuse doesn’t hold water and only means that they have decided not to be governed by the rules put in place. It’s not shocking. It will fall on deaf ears of trumpers but it WON’T fall on deaf ears on many independents and never trumpers in the GOP. Expect the same problem with continued further movement to the democrats if they somehow nominate Trump again.

[JohnnyB]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

They don't care about representing those people, they care about locking in their votes. It's why they constantly talk up emotional social issues that rarely affect them, while stabbing those same people in the back on basically every other issue of substance. It's an odd kind of abusive relationship where the abused doesn't even realize they are being abused. Or they do realize they're being abused, but don't care because it's "owning the libs" or whatever.

Originally Posted by opendoor

The Republicans who are supporting Trump just for political reasons aren't doing it to represent their electorate; they're doing it to avoid losing in a Republican primary where the rabid base has an outsized influence. It's the same reason why Conservative candidates in Canada court social conservatives even though they make up a pretty small slice of the overall electorate.

I agree that they are cynically motivated and likely don't actually care about the people voting for them, but making decisions because doing so will get them votes is basically the definition of democratic representation. It could be materially better for the electorate to have people in office who would govern on something other than what drives votes, but that would be less democratic and would presume that someone in office knows better what their electorate should want than the voters do.

I'm just saying, democracy is only as good as the people who vote. The people in office are there because of the people who show up to vote. Garbage in, garbage out. Such is the will of the people.

[Fozzie_DeBear]

...except when systemic disenfranchisement leads to the politicians choosing their voters

[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by JohnnyB

I agree that they are cynically motivated and likely don't actually care about the people voting for them, but making decisions because doing so will get them votes is basically the definition of democratic representation. It could be materially better for the electorate to have people in office who would govern on something other than what drives votes, but that would be less democratic and would presume that someone in office knows better what their electorate should want than the voters do.

I'm just saying, democracy is only as good as the people who vote. The people in office are there because of the people who show up to vote. Such is the will of the people.

Entirely true from a theoretical standpoint, but the situation has become distorted by anti-democratic mechanisms such as voter suppression, gerrymandering, electoral college, and the wildly-disproportionate US senate.

The senators who voted not guilty in the impeachment trial represent only about 30% of the American electorate (from what I've heard).

[GGG]

In terms of the impeachment outcome representing the will of the American people it appears the vote was over representing support for conviction. Though in any winner take all system like the senate you will always get distortions based on size of district California vs Montana and margin of victory. California and Mississippi vs Georgia.

So despite those voting against conviction only representing a minority of the population I don’t think you can say the will of the American people was not carried out.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/impeachment-polls/

As far as gerrymandering goes we need to remember that no one likes competitive districts so beyond the gerrymandering for Red vs Blue individuals also want to ensure they don’t face competition so less competitive districts are created. This in turn allows more radical politicians to enter primaries as there is no longer a need to move to the middle to win the election.

The California model of combined primary with the top two vote getters going on the ballot regardless of party would be good to look at to see if it reduces partisanship in house members.

[Senator Clay Davis]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1362087161898688512

[rubecube]

Originally Posted by GGG

In terms of the impeachment outcome representing the will of the American people it appears the vote was over representing support for conviction. Though in any winner take all system like the senate you will always get distortions based on size of district California vs Montana and margin of victory. California and Mississippi vs Georgia.

Last I checked, crimes were supposed to be tried and judged on evidence, not the will of the electorate.

[Coach]

I thought I felt a slight bit better today for some reason.

[PostandIn]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

https://twitter.com/user/status/1362087161898688512

"I have never killed anyone, but I have read some obituary notices with great satisfaction."

- Clarence Darrow (1857-1938)

[devo22]

his Wikipedia entry right now reads "Limbaugh died on February 17, 2021, of lung cancer, and returned to the pits of hell". Fitting.

[rubecube]

So Cuomo sure seems like a real piece of garbage.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/17/n...?smid=tw-share

For months, Assemblyman Ron Kim has been one of the few Democratic lawmakers willing to criticize Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo for his handling of the state’s nursing homes during the pandemic, pressing for investigations into the matter.

So when a top aide to Mr. Cuomo recently admitted that his administration had withheld nursing home data from state lawmakers, Mr. Kim, whose Queens district was hit hard by the coronavirus, said it appeared the governor was “trying to dodge having any incriminating evidence.”

Hours after Mr. Kim made that comment to The New York Post last Thursday, he said he got an irate late-night call from the governor. Mr. Cuomo began with a question — “Are you an honorable man?” — and then proceeded to yell for 10 minutes, Mr. Kim recalled, threatening to publicly tarnish the assemblyman if he did not issue a new statement clarifying his remarks.

Mr. Cuomo made good on his threat on Wednesday afternoon.

In a remarkable retort, the governor used his press briefing to lob allegations of impropriety at the assemblyman, saying that he and his administration have had a “long and hostile relationship” with Mr. Kim, now in his fifth term.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Remember the 5 minutes he was going to be the substitute nominee from Biden? Methinks he would have been one of the few who could lose to Trump.

[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by GGG

In terms of the impeachment outcome representing the will of the American people it appears the vote was over representing support for conviction. Though in any winner take all system like the senate you will always get distortions based on size of district California vs Montana and margin of victory. California and Mississippi vs Georgia.

So despite those voting against conviction only representing a minority of the population I don’t think you can say the will of the American people was not carried out.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/impeachment-polls/

Opinion polls regarding impeachment are misleading, because they don't take into account that there are various reasons why a person may have voted a certain way. In this case, it's plausible that many of the people who voted against the idea of impeachment only did so because they saw it as not worth it, because they knew ahead of time that 2/3 of senators would be required for conviction, so conviction was impossible in this case.

In other words, if the system was not set up in such a way that made conviction impossible, it seems very likely that many more people would have supported impeachment and conviction.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

Opinion polls regarding impeachment are misleading, because they don't take into account that there are various reasons why a person may have voted a certain way. In this case, it's plausible that many of the people who voted against the idea of impeachment only did so because they saw it as not worth it, because they knew ahead of time that 2/3 of senators would be required for conviction, so conviction was impossible in this case.

In other words, if the system was not set up in such a way that made conviction impossible, it seems very likely that many more people would have supported impeachment and conviction.

Why are we discussing polling of the first impeachment?

[Itse]

Originally Posted by opendoor

The Republicans who are supporting Trump just for political reasons aren't doing it to represent their electorate; they're doing it to avoid losing in a Republican primary where the rabid base has an outsized influence. It's the same reason why Conservative candidates in Canada court social conservatives even though they make up a pretty small slice of the overall electorate.

Trumpists don't have outsized influence in the primaries, they have quite proportional influence.

Recent polling puts Trumpists at somewhere between 50-60% of the Republican base. You're not going anywhere within a party if half your base thinks you're soft or a sellout.

[combustiblefuel]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

https://twitter.com/user/status/1362087161898688512

#restinpiss

[curves2000]

Originally Posted by rubecube

So Cuomo sure seems like a real piece of garbage.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/17/n...?smid=tw-share

I don't follow Cuomo's political politics very closely or know a lot about NY's political scene.

I do know that Cuomo was getting a ton of press at the start of Covid and a lot of very friendly press I may add. He was on CNN constantly getting his stock pumped up by his brother about the amazing job they were doing in NY with this whole thing and how the federal government response was a disaster. I do think Trump's response was a gong show but blame goes all around.

There was a segment perhaps around June? Chris was interviewing Andrew on CNN and they both kept raving about how history will remember how well NY climbed the Covid mountain and all the wonderful things that had occurred and the perseverance's. I just know a lot of people in the press and friends of mine in NY just had a look of "What?? What is he talking about? Why is CNN allowing this freakshow? Cause it makes Trump look bad?

It was almost as if NY wasn't the center of the Covid nightmare in America and that somehow the Governor saved everybody. It was hard to watch and even veteran reporters said it was very strange that CNN, Chris and everybody was trying to rewrite history.

In any event, this "Killer Cuomo" situation where there were a ton of deaths in nursing homes that were 100% a result of the policy put in place by the Governor seems to have some legs from some of the reporting. For a long time it was thought to be some right wing, Fox News hot garbage to make to Democrats look bad.

From recent reporting it sounds like there is a lot of garbage that happened and that people are going to want some answers.

[GirlySports]

It wasn't FoxNews hot garbage. It was reported back then. FoxNews' Janice Dean lost both her in-laws in New York. She writes about the details here.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usa...amp/5472713002

Your friends were right, they lived it. Meanwhile the Cuomo Brothers were yucking it up. Gov. Cuomo even got an Emmy for his press conferences. And it just wasn't the nursing homes, it was the abuse of power and the lockdowns too.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

Why are we discussing polling of the first impeachment?

Because I suck at reading dates and confused 2020 with 2021