01-17-2022, 05:12 AM
(01-16-2022, 01:33 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: The demographics look good for the Democrats in the future, but this advantage is becoming more doubtful. The white rural areas that have so much disproportionate power are usually able to brainwash their young to their extremism. Most of the immigrants are Hispanics, and they are only marginally more Democratic or liberal.
Aside from Cuban-Americans, especially in Florida, Hispanics are still relatively liberal. They are liberal enough to be the difference in Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Cuban-Americans were drifting D until a bunch of right-wingers convinced many that the ideal President would "liberate" Cuba and re-install many Cuban-Americans as semi-feudal exploiters to lord it over the people still in Cuba. Many of those who fall for that pitch had grandparents who abandoned Cuba who really had little to lose there because they were doing at best middling-well. There just isn't enough land to return to allow easy living from an aristocratic lifestyle by those who dream of it. It's hard to figure what the remaining Cubans want, but I doubt that they want to be lorded over by True Believers in pure plutocracy.
Recent immigrants of course do not vote. They will not vote until they reach 18 or achieve citizenship, whichever comes last. Let's consider what is going on in some rural areas. Giant farms are buying out small farmers who move to Suburbia. The voting population shrinks, but those who own and manage those giant farms need a large rural proletariat to work in the feedlots, dairies, and slaughterhouses. Those workers serve as much of the basis of representation in Congress by people who hold them in contempt. When such people start voting, then the game is up for the Hard Right in rural America.
Quote:The right-wing is solidifying its power with extreme gerrymandering and takeover of election officials.
Republicans used their opportunities to gerrymander in 2000 and 2010. There isn't much more opportunity left. Republicans made significant gains in the House in 2020, so there isn't much low-hanging fruit to pick off. Add to this, Donald Trump remains toxic, and such will remain so it such few swing districts as there will be. Takeover of election officials? Such is not as reliable as it might look. Consider that Trump tried to finagle 'just enough votes to win Georgia'. Whether out of principle or a desire to avoid a prison term for doing so, that official refused to nullify a result that he likely voted against. Trump is the one potentially in legal trouble for felony crimes for that.
Quote:I'm not sure there's anything that can be done to stop this voter subversion at this point.
Criminal statutes. Both Parties have recently made legislation to prevent electoral fraud and even innocent errors. People in charge of elections have soft, often well-remunerated, jobs that they will not risk being fired from, let alone being imprisoned for electoral fraud.
Quote:The Democrats do not have the Senate majority that we thought they might have. The Courts in red states will support whatever the tyrant Republicans do. The Supreme Court will not stop gerrymandering. The House is likely to revert to Republican control, ending all reform proposals. How much more damage will the white power faction do to our climate and our inequality while they can still block all progress? How much can strong campaigns for congress do to offset the gerrymandering in 2022, and can Democrats retake the Senate too, now that Biden is unpopular?
Republicans hold two Senate seats that are "low-hanging fruit". I have no faith in any Republican who sold out to Trump.
Quote:According to my astrological reading, progress was indicated to restart this year after the long period of reaction. But the Lord of Spirit in the Cosmos cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. The USA may simply too backward and ignorant ever to make any progress ever again. If it doesn't restart in the 2020s, we are toast, and we can have no hope for any future turning.
That depends to a great extent how much of the American people is like the "Real Americans" that Classic X'er touts.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.