Compare/contrast American Presidential elections

[pbrower2a]

Here's a map of the top 15 most obese states (over 27.7% of the population) -- in red.




Yikes! Except for Michigan, those states usually vote Republican in Presidential elections (and 2020 is unlikely to change that assessment). 

Aside from Michigan, only one of those fifteen states (Indiana, in its flukish vote for Obama in 2008) has ever voted for the Democratic nominee for President since 1996.

[Hintergrund]

Maybe they eat too much because they're frustrated.

[pbrower2a]

(11-14-2018, 11:20 AM)Hintergrund Wrote: Maybe they eat too much because they're frustrated.

Poverty and over-eating are closely-related, and these are mostly poor states. The most prosperous of these states is probably Texas. Poorer people tend to eat more sweets, smoke, drink pathologically, and to not exercise. But notice that one of the poorest states in America, new Mexico, is not among these states.  Hispanic difference? When I lived in Texas I noticed that Hispanics seemed to be less obese than other Texans.

Poverty creates frustrations, especially where people are atomized. Poverty usually connects to a contempt for formal learning.  I think of the song from the musical from Annie Get Your Gun, "Doin' What Comes Natcherly". Sure, she is from Ohio, but she's from Appalachian Ohio.

Note that every state among the fifteen voted for Donald Trump in 2016. Most (least likely will be Michigan, which usually votes for Democratic nominees for President except in Republican blowouts and Texas) will vote for Trump in 2020. Trump appeals to white people more likely to have problems with impulse control. Impulse control is essential to not overeating, and to stick with an exercise program.

Having had difficulty with weight control (but I struggle and always will), I am often tempted to examine the lives of the obese for 'negative advice' -- basically, do what they don't do. All that one need do is look at the contents of their carts in a place like Wal*Mart. I see lots of sodas (people already overweight may be replacing sugary drinks with diet sodas), mass-market beer, pastries, chips, high-fat cuts of meats, cakes, candy, and cookies to see what they eat. Look where they do not go -- like museums of any kind or even bookstores. To be sure, reading is not physical exercise, but it is not so easy to devour fattening snacks while reading a book as when watching television. I figure that the obese generally have a low level of curiosity, so their experiences can be severely limited.

If I were to write an article on weight loss I would give this advice:


LIVE THE WEIGHT THAT YOU WANT TO HAVE!


If you weigh 240 and want to weigh 160, then act like someone who weighs 160. You might not get to 160, but you will get close. You will not need a crash diet; just eat like someone who weighs 160, and be similarly active. You will not pig out at buffets. You will go for walks, and maybe do some jogging or even take up skiing or swimming. You will get away from the TV as entertainment because you will find passive viewing of anything on television a bore. If you are at family get-togethers, you will not go for second helpings of turkey at the Thanksgiving dinner, and you will not sample every dessert. You will not buy quite the same foodstuffs as you did. Maybe you will do more honest-to-Julia-Child cooking instead of having prepared meals that you simply put into the microwave so that you can watch television.

The Net? I find that eating while typing is impossible. Hands are obviously not holding onto food.

[Classic-Xer]

(10-02-2017, 12:57 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Here's a map of the top 15 most obese states (over 27.7% of the population) -- in red.




Yikes! Except for Michigan, those states usually vote Republican in Presidential elections (and 2020 is unlikely to change that assessment). 

Aside from Michigan, only one of those fifteen states (Indiana, in its flukish vote for Obama in 2008) has ever voted for the Democratic nominee for President since 1996.

I wonder how many of the obese in those states are Democratic voters?

[pbrower2a]

(01-12-2019, 12:48 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(10-02-2017, 12:57 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Here's a map of the top 15 most obese states (over 27.7% of the population) -- in red.




Yikes! Except for Michigan, those states usually vote Republican in Presidential elections (and 2020 is unlikely to change that assessment). 

Aside from Michigan, only one of those fifteen states (Indiana, in its flukish vote for Obama in 2008) has ever voted for the Democratic nominee for President since 1996.

I wonder how many of the obese in those states are Democratic voters?

Are they voters? I would expect the terribly-obese to be less likely to go out to do anything, even grocery-shopping and dining out. They might deputize others to do such for them. There is much fat-shaming, and that might keep them from going out to register to vote.

...Obesity obviously creates problems of health and medical costs. Obese people are more likely to have diabetes, a costly medical condition, and any surgeries performed upon them are more costly and less successful. Weight control (like smoking cessation) should be a legitimate object of public health care.

I would suggest that as a condition of collecting food aid that adults be obliged to take a state-paid courses on cooking and nutrition, and that they get a cookbook (of course promoting good eating habits) at public expense. Do you have any problem with that? I would also encourage governments to disqualify sodas, candy, pastries, and chips.  (Maybe we could allow people to get dish-washing and clothes-washing detergents as compensation.

[David Horn]

(01-12-2019, 12:48 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(10-02-2017, 12:57 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Here's a map of the top 15 most obese states (over 27.7% of the population) -- in red.




Yikes! Except for Michigan, those states usually vote Republican in Presidential elections (and 2020 is unlikely to change that assessment). 

Aside from Michigan, only one of those fifteen states (Indiana, in its flukish vote for Obama in 2008) has ever voted for the Democratic nominee for President since 1996.

I wonder how many of the obese in those states are Democratic voters?

Why is that even a question?  Obesity may have a higher correlation with one party than the other, but, if so, the correlation is more likely to be with the GOP.

[pbrower2a]

(01-13-2019, 12:30 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-12-2019, 12:48 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(10-02-2017, 12:57 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Here's a map of the top 15 most obese states (over 27.7% of the population) -- in red.




Yikes! Except for Michigan, those states usually vote Republican in Presidential elections (and 2020 is unlikely to change that assessment). 

Aside from Michigan, only one of those fifteen states (Indiana, in its flukish vote for Obama in 2008) has ever voted for the Democratic nominee for President since 1996.

I wonder how many of the obese in those states are Democratic voters?

Why is that even a question?  Obesity may have a higher correlation with one party than the other, but, if so, the correlation is more likely to be with the GOP.

Probably this relates to some states having more severe poverty than others -- and being less effective in doing anything about it. These are not the best states in America in which to live. Michigan shocks me, as I live there. It is still not a great place to live. There are nice parts, but much of it is rotten.

Obesity and poverty connect in part because severe obesity makes one less likely to hold a job. But why do people get obese? Because they indulge excessively in wonderful food? Not likely. People are not getting grotesquely obese on pâté de foie gras and lobster; they are getting fat on candy, pastries, pie, cake, donuts, chips, sugary sodas, and mass-market beer -- mostly bad stuff. I had a cousin who died at age 48 of a heart attack related to obesity; family members told me that he typically went to a fast-food place and asked to super-size the meal and double it. This fellow had a recipe for macaroni and cheese; it says "add sugar". He got up to nearly 500 pounds.

One way to look for fattening food is to look for the label 'comfort food', typically processed food high in fat and carbohydrates, especially in 'generous' portions. Or something convenient and quickly satisfying, like some single-serving of pie. So it might tide me over until dinner that might be delayed? Of course -- with 400 calories.

But that is the consumption of calories. The other side is their disposal. At some point one is unable to walk. Extreme obesity is a literal handicap. They usually end up huffing and puffing after even mild exertion. You see these people riding carts in grocery stores. (Sure, I have, but I then had a gout attack, and if you know what gou8t is like, you would understand) or when I drove such a cart back for someone. 

I'm trying to figure what they do for entertainment. Television, I guess. Did you expect them to play chess or bridge? Do they seem to suggest that they read books? I can think of places where I never see them -- museums of any kind, whether of science, machinery (cars or aircraft), science, history, or art. It's not that one can't deal with such places if one is overweight; it is that one needs a curious mind to appreciate what is available there.

It is worth remembering that even box stores that are not really grocery stores by any stretch of the imagination typically have candy, packaged donuts, and trashy magazines available as impulse purchases. One must ask the clerk for cigarettes to get them, but those are in plain sight. If you think, you avoid them. If you do not think, you grab them (or ask the clerk for cancerettes).

Getting obese is easy. One simply must avoid thinking. That cousin, from what I heard, never read a book after he ended his high-school education. He didn't say that he dropped out, but I would not be surprised if he did.

[Eric the Green]

Blue states are usually better than red states at everything, except the cost of doing business. That's because they have the right idea about things in general, and are willing to be well-informed. However, I notice that the northwestern mountain and plain red states do OK on some of the indexes, while the southeast is invariably the worst. These southeast ones are, after all, mostly the states that defended to the death their right to own and abuse slaves. It's been a long climb out of that hole, and they are nowhere near finished climbing out.

[David Horn]

(01-21-2019, 03:09 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Blue states are usually better than red states at everything, except the cost of doing business. That's because they have the right idea about things in general, and are willing to be well-informed. However, I notice that the northwestern mountain and plain red states do OK on some of the indexes, while the southeast is invariably the worst. These southeast ones are, after all, mostly the states that defended to the death their right to own and abuse slaves. It's been a long climb out of that hole, and they are nowhere near finished climbing out.

True enough, but not so much for that reason.  The problem with the Old South is a love and admiration of a rigid class structure.  The class structure is well maintained by people on the bottom who feel they belong there, as much as those on top who believe it too.  Worse, folks near the bottom find it fully appropriate that "their betters" should pay them poorly and treat them as less, yet they also embrace their position as somehow superior.  It's a bit weird to me, and I've been here for decades.  No one's prouder than a redneck, and redneck culture permeates the entire region.

For all that, it seems to work in an odd way, but it's far from ideal.

[pbrower2a]

(01-22-2019, 12:24 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-21-2019, 03:09 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Blue states are usually better than red states at everything, except the cost of doing business. That's because they have the right idea about things in general, and are willing to be well-informed. However, I notice that the northwestern mountain and plain red states do OK on some of the indexes, while the southeast is invariably the worst. These southeast ones are, after all, mostly the states that defended to the death their right to own and abuse slaves. It's been a long climb out of that hole, and they are nowhere near finished climbing out.

True enough, but not so much for that reason.  The problem with the Old South is a love and admiration of a rigid class structure.  The class structure is well maintained by people on the bottom who feel they belong there, as much as those on top who believe it too.  Worse, folks near the bottom find it fully appropriate that "their betters" should pay them poorly and treat them as less, yet they also embrace their position as somehow superior.  It's a bit weird to me, and I've been here for decades.  No one's prouder than a redneck, and redneck culture permeates the entire region.

For all that, it seems to work in an odd way, but it's far from ideal.

A rigid class structure is one consequence of neoliberal economics -- promotion of bloated, vertically-integrated monopolies and near-monopolies with bureaucratic elites that establish low, rigid ceilings for advancement. The seeming rationale for such low glass ceilings is that anyone who has endured genuine hardship at any time will have loyalty to something other than pure plutocracy. The tax structure is designed to favor extant elites over small business that, however politically conservative, is more likely to create opportunities for people not born to advantage and beyond judgment for incompetence.

We have largely been conditioned to believe that elite power, indulgence, and indulgence are the sole measures of economic success because those elites have defined themselves as the measures of social virtue. Those elites have survived the worst economic meltdown since 1929-1932 only to get a firmer hold on the political process (and I say this on the tenth anniversary of the Citizens United decision that has essentially established that buying the political process is the definitive exercise of free expression. Meanwhile Corporate America insists that people pretend that their agony is delight and that their frustration is wish-fulfillment. In such a climate a political phenomenon as odious as Donald Trump now seems an inevitability. 

Those on the Right can ask themselves whether someone acting much like Trump with a left-wing agenda would be ominous for reasons other than the agenda. We Americans can live with the usual partisan swings inevitable in our system; we cannot long endure pervasive corruption and official deceit, let alone the debasement of the traditions of rule of law and separation of powers.    

To spoof the state motto of Michigan Si quaeris amoenam peninsulam circumspice  (If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look around) -- Si quaeris foedem plutocratiam circumspice ... if you seek an ugly plutocracy, look around).

Politics are ugly. Language is debased. Intellectual curiosity makes one a pariah. Twenty years from now about all that anyone will want to remember from this time is some of the entertainment, mostly in cinema (heavily Pixar and Marvel). Should things go really haywire, then people might see the current time as the last sort-of-OK time in their lives -- only to have ignored what the historian Barbara Tuchman said of the years before World War I, that truly good times do not implode in calamity. People may have waxed nostalgic about such a time after the disasters of WWI, especially if those people had been physically or economically ruined -- but that time was known by all to have its faults at the time.

[pbrower2a]

Fewer than 50 days may remain before I get to compare the 2020 election to others. Biden does appeal to much the same people who voted for Obama, so unless he makes headway among people who voted for Romney in 2012, I already expect the Biden 2020 map to fit something closer to the Eisenhower-Obama overlay than anything else.

[Eric the Green]

(01-22-2019, 12:24 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(01-21-2019, 03:09 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Blue states are usually better than red states at everything, except the cost of doing business. That's because they have the right idea about things in general, and are willing to be well-informed. However, I notice that the northwestern mountain and plain red states do OK on some of the indexes, while the southeast is invariably the worst. These southeast ones are, after all, mostly the states that defended to the death their right to own and abuse slaves. It's been a long climb out of that hole, and they are nowhere near finished climbing out.

True enough, but not so much for that reason.  The problem with the Old South is a love and admiration of a rigid class structure.  The class structure is well maintained by people on the bottom who feel they belong there, as much as those on top who believe it too.  Worse, folks near the bottom find it fully appropriate that "their betters" should pay them poorly and treat them as less, yet they also embrace their position as somehow superior.  It's a bit weird to me, and I've been here for decades.  No one's prouder than a redneck, and redneck culture permeates the entire region.

For all that, it seems to work in an odd way, but it's far from ideal.

Yes, it is a medieval society, or not fully evolved out of one, as you say, and I have said too. Of course slavery was part of that class structure, as the lowest class, like serfs or untouchables; and thus part of the hole they haven't climbed out of, given the lingering racism there that Trump is stoking and Reagan dog-whistled, and given that in the South people vote largely according to their race.

[David Horn]

(09-24-2020, 02:41 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Fewer than 50 days may remain before I get to compare the 2020 election to others. Biden does appeal to much the same people who voted for Obama, so unless he makes headway among people who voted for Romney in 2012, I already expect the Biden 2020 map to fit something closer to the Eisenhower-Obama overlay than anything else.

On the appeal issue, don't forget that evaluation systems are different for different people.  Yes, the two are similar on policy, but far from alike on the coolness factor.  The people who found Obama cool may not be finding anything in Biden to like ... or dislike.  He's just old and boring to them --  unlike Bernie.

[Marypoza]

(09-24-2020, 04:00 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(09-24-2020, 02:41 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Fewer than 50 days may remain before I get to compare the 2020 election to others. Biden does appeal to much the same people who voted for Obama, so unless he makes headway among people who voted for Romney in 2012, I already expect the Biden 2020 map to fit something closer to the Eisenhower-Obama overlay than anything else.

On the appeal issue, don't forget that evaluation systems are different for different people.  Yes, the two are similar on policy, but far from alike on the coolness factor.  The people who found Obama cool may not be finding anything in Biden to like ... or dislike.  He's just old and boring to them --  unlike Bernie.

-- he's senile af

[Eric the Green]

(10-26-2020, 09:18 PM)Marypoza Wrote:

(09-24-2020, 04:00 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(09-24-2020, 02:41 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Fewer than 50 days may remain before I get to compare the 2020 election to others. Biden does appeal to much the same people who voted for Obama, so unless he makes headway among people who voted for Romney in 2012, I already expect the Biden 2020 map to fit something closer to the Eisenhower-Obama overlay than anything else.

On the appeal issue, don't forget that evaluation systems are different for different people.  Yes, the two are similar on policy, but far from alike on the coolness factor.  The people who found Obama cool may not be finding anything in Biden to like ... or dislike.  He's just old and boring to them --  unlike Bernie.

-- he's senile af

Still functioning and speaking well, though. I think Bernie was better as far as vitality coming through, but he had the unfortunate habit of getting stuck on statements that he repeats too often, and an unwillingness to drop his self-identified label that is unpopular. So people voted for the guy they thought could beat Trump. 

Obama is more cool. But Biden may actually win by a higher margin. That is due largely to who is on the other ticket, who has proved himself a failure. Trump won't be able to repeat his own performance art well enough to cover that up, this time. His act is getting old, and so is he. The dueling convention speeches were not as well known as they should be, but Biden beat Trump by a wide margin in that contest.

Given the lower hurdle he has to beat of defeating a failed president, which Obama never had to do, he doesn't have to be as cool and young as Obama. And Biden has attractive qualities too, despite his approaching senility. He is likable and empathetic, and he doesn't get stuck in speaking ruts like Bernie does.

Biden needs to continue as president and live out at least one term, and maybe even run for re-election. Either that, or another candidate needs to challenge Kamala Harris and be the nominee in 2024. Kamala Harris cannot win an election for president, and probably is never destined to be president. Kamala and the new Barrett Kangeroo Court are the two chief obstacles to any progress in the 2020s. The Democrats need to be aware of this and take appropriate action.

[jleagans]

Texas is going blue and is the future of the Democratic party. When it goes blue its an earthquake, Democrat party officially becomes the "keep Texas blue party" and will move heaven and earth to do it.

And when Texas goes blue, the Republican party will IMMEDIATELY become the party of Electoral College abolition.

If you doubt me, pull up the Texas election results in 2012 and 2016 and take a good long look.

___________________________________________________________

To the topic, the degree of overlap between this era and the gilded age I just cant get out of my head. There are 1896 comparisons, Roosevelt bull moose comparisons, pandemic comparisons, yellow journalism comparisons....in the end I think this is the 1896 election. Not an often thought of election (though KARL ROVE wrote an amazing book on it explaining why history is remembering its importance wrong), but politics post-Lincoln was totally frozen and Mckinley in 1896 broke the frozen/polarized nature and basically "won" American politics until FDR.

[pbrower2a]

(10-27-2020, 09:13 AM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(10-26-2020, 09:18 PM)Marypoza Wrote:

(09-24-2020, 04:00 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(09-24-2020, 02:41 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Fewer than 50 days may remain before I get to compare the 2020 election to others. Biden does appeal to much the same people who voted for Obama, so unless he makes headway among people who voted for Romney in 2012, I already expect the Biden 2020 map to fit something closer to the Eisenhower-Obama overlay than anything else.

On the appeal issue, don't forget that evaluation systems are different for different people.  Yes, the two are similar on policy, but far from alike on the coolness factor.  The people who found Obama cool may not be finding anything in Biden to like ... or dislike.  He's just old and boring to them --  unlike Bernie.

-- he's senile af

Still functioning and speaking well, though. I think Bernie was better as far as vitality coming through, but he had the unfortunate habit of getting stuck on statements that he repeats too often, and an unwillingness to drop his self-identified label that is unpopular. So people voted for the guy they thought could beat Trump.

I can excuse stuttering. I can't excuse word salad and Newspeak that I associate with Donald Trump and the people around him even if the people delivering such are brilliant. Joe Biden may not be perfect, but at the least he is a solid transition to something much better than what we have now... and obviously something better than the All-for-the-Few ethos of the neoliberal era that began with the inauguration of Ronald Reagan. 

The dream of the Right on economics has been for an order in which 95% of the people suffer for 2%, with about 3% of the populace being the sorts of people who would thrive in any social order (physicians, accountants, engineers, entertainers... and above all else, the police and military officers). Why does that 3% do so well in al social orders? Because revolutions succeed when the revolutionaries start paying the cops and soldiers, as Vladimir Lenin so clearly illustrated. See also more benign leaders such Corazon Aquino, Vaclav Havel, and Nelson Mandela. 

The 3% who know how necessary they are know that they don't need Donald Trump, who is more likely to do something that can hurt them. The 3% think that the world is far safer if the 95% (basically the proletariat identifiable by modest means and fear of the savagery of the Master Class, so that now includes such people as schoolteachers, clergy and even small-business owners who know that Trump can burn them as well as the classic proletariat. If I redefine "proletariat" to mean the people that the System can step on, then such better describes neoliberal economics than it does the proletariat as Marx saw it. The tendency for the gatekeepers of opportunity and prosperity to exploit people as they monopolize the means without creating more means of prosperity  (and happiness) for people other than themselves is one to reverse. Americans will demand such over the next few years. 

... It is Trump who shows more signs of senility... not that he ever shed off his juvenile character. By all accounts, Donald Trump is a non-drinker, which is about the only thing that I can say about him. On the other hand I have known plenty of alcoholics, and one pattern that I see is people who never grow up to fully accept adult roles in life. The difference with Donald Trump is that as a non-drinker he does not have alcoholic cirrhosis. (If he has cirrhosis, then it is most likely from diabetes, which would not surprise me. But diabetics can be as normal as anyone else despite a perverse metabolism. Obesity often contributes to diabetes). Donald Trump thinks like many pathological drinkers that I have known without drinking. Drink may not be the cause for people maintaining a juvenile mentality deep into old age.

Quote:Obama is more cool. But Biden may actually win by a higher margin.

Obama was running against a certifiable war hero in 2008, and he ran against an unusually-strong challenger than an above-average President normally faces. Mitt Romney would have won by a landslide in 2016 against Hillary Clinton and probably be in place to deliver at least an Eisenhower-scale landslide if running for re-election. I'm guessing that it is his wife's MS that stopped him from running in 2016.

Quote:That is due largely to who is on the other ticket, who has proved himself a failure. Trump won't be able to repeat his own performance art well enough to cover that up, this time. His act is getting old, and so is he. The dueling convention speeches were not as well known as they should be, but Biden beat Trump by a wide margin in that contest.

The point. Incumbent Presidents win by offering more of the same to people who like what came before. They run on a successful record and win, or they run from their record and lose. The only exceptions seem to be those times when the time is up for one Party's hold of the White House (Ford 1976, Bush 1992). In the last hundred years the most obvious failures as President have been Hoover (economic meltdown), Carter (international chaos), and Trump (social unrest that he egged on, and a climate of corruption and disgrace). 

No, there are not "good people on both sides" when it comes to violent racism or plots against elected officials. Trump having protesters tear-gassed so that he can make a photo-op while wielding a Bible that he neither reads nor heeds (OK, I admit that it is hard for me to get into Acts without finding it easy to stop... maybe I should have been brought up Jewish) may be the definitive expression of the moral compass of this President -- well, if you want to use the word "moral compass" to describe Charles Manson.

Quote:Given the lower hurdle he has to beat of defeating a failed president, which Obama never had to do, he doesn't have to be as cool and young as Obama. And Biden has attractive qualities too, despite his approaching senility. He is likable and empathetic, and he doesn't get stuck in speaking ruts like Bernie does.

America is not ready for the Bernie Sanders agenda. I might be, but if I must choose between someone as Establishment as one can be and someone who would create a new political order in which 95% of the people suffer for 2% and risk imprisonment or some combination of hunger, homelessness, and exposure to the worst rot possible in a depraved order, then I go with Joe Biden. Donald Trump must go if we Americans are to keep our essential liberties, let alone an economic order that allows more people to find happiness and meaning in life. It is not until the Millennial Generation becomes dominant in American politics (it is not yet there) that America can make the fundamental changes that bring us a social-market order in which social class and proximity to power do not define who is happy and who is consigned to hopeless despair.

Besides, Obama is no longer quite young. He turns 60 next year.  

Quote:Biden needs to continue as president and live out at least one term, and maybe even run for re-election. Either that, or another candidate needs to challenge Kamala Harris and be the nominee in 2024. Kamala Harris cannot win an election for president, and probably is never destined to be president. Kamala and the new Barrett Kangaroo Court are the two chief obstacles to any progress in the 2020s. The Democrats need to be aware of this and take appropriate action.

Alito and Thomas are getting up there in years, and Bart Kavanaugh sounds like the sort whose liver will impeach him. Donald Trump's idea of politics is to stick it to people who will never support him. It is primitive behavior, but that is exactly what one expects of a man of primitive impulses without intellectual refinement, a respect for tradition, or a moral compass. But first, Donald Trump must go. A second term of Donald Trump is the death of a political experiment that arose when brave and wise people in Massachusetts decided that a King going despotic was unnecessary and undesirable, and that the elected officials that they knew well enough for whom to vote could deliver liberty that Almighty God had granted or that was inherent in human nature. 

We haven't before had a leader who stooped to the level of sticking the unpopular and detrimental to anyone who runs afoul of him. We do now.

[pbrower2a]

(10-29-2020, 12:21 AM)jleagans Wrote: Texas is going blue and is the future of the Democratic party.  When it goes blue its an earthquake, Democrat party officially becomes the "keep Texas blue party" and will move heaven and earth to do it.

And when Texas goes blue, the Republican party will IMMEDIATELY become the party of Electoral College abolition.  

If you doubt me, pull up the Texas election results in 2012 and 2016 and take a good long look.  

___________________________________________________________

To the topic, the degree of overlap between this era and the gilded age I just cant get out of my head.  There are 1896 comparisons, Roosevelt bull moose comparisons, pandemic comparisons, yellow journalism comparisons....in the end I think this is the 1896 election.  Not an often thought of election (though KARL ROVE wrote an amazing book on it explaining why history is remembering its importance wrong), but politics post-Lincoln was totally frozen and Mckinley in 1896 broke the frozen/polarized nature and basically "won" American politics until FDR.

We are in a Crisis Era. 1896 was in the opposite of a Crisis Era, an Awakening era. We have a pandemic, but that would in itself describe 1920.

We have a pandemic being handled horrendously and without an excuse. The best analogue for this pandemic is AIDS, which people could stop with wiser behavior and competent medicine. Of course, AIDS made its ugly appearance in an Awakening Era. Cultural life in America is as low as it could be in intellectual content -- if one looks at recorded music. Looking for some sound equipment? I miss the stereo boutiques in which one could listen to whatever music was one's passion. The retailer now chooses what music you will use for testing the equipment that you buy... and that music will be country music (which sounds alike on everything) or rap (which isn't music). What did I use as a test? Classical music for string quartet -- two violins, a viola, and a cello. That is the acid test for music even if it doesn't allow one to crank up the volume. Two violins, a viola, and a cello are a fair proportion of most of the performers of a symphony orchestra (yes, I always brought a piece of loud orchestral music, often a symphony or a piano concerto) to judge how good the equipment sound at high volume -- but only after I had given the equipment (especially the critical speakers) the acid test of a string quartet. If a string quartet sounds bad on speakers, then buying those speakers will be a mistake. But here I have digressed too far. 

Deaths from COVID-19 are in the numbers that most of us associate with the casualties of a war going badly, most obviously a costly stalemate that will eventually exhaust the nation. We have already surpassed in about eight months the combat deaths of the Union side in the Civil War, and we are rapidly approaching those of the USA against Hitler and Tojo. At the least, America was freeing slaves of the Confederacy, the Third Reich, and Thug Japan before we approached even 100,000 deaths in combat. Under Trump, America is achieving no high purpose. No slaves are being freed.

The economy is getting sketchy, and much of the economic relief is intended to keep share values at high levels. We already had an economic meltdown due to the collapse of the real estate market, and we are on the brink of another. I would not be surprised if Trump and his Senate allies tank the economy to stick it to the Biden Administration as well as an electorate that both believe 'betrayed' them. 

... The point is that the Republican Party as we now know it has no future. Such could be said as well in 1932. But eventually the GOP got a few things together and started looking to local races in which they could contest an incompetent or corrupt Democrat who got swept in with one of the waves from 1930 to 1934. It took until the 1940's for the Republicans to get control of the House again, and until 1952 to win the Presidency. I expect the Republican Party to return to pre-Reagan ways for lack of alternatives, or for the Democratic to become the place where conservatives have a chance based on local issues before an unwieldy Big Tent party splits. But I am getting ahead of myself. 

Trump and his enablers must go.

[David Horn]

(10-26-2020, 09:18 PM)Marypoza Wrote:

(09-24-2020, 04:00 PM)David Horn Wrote:

(09-24-2020, 02:41 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Fewer than 50 days may remain before I get to compare the 2020 election to others. Biden does appeal to much the same people who voted for Obama, so unless he makes headway among people who voted for Romney in 2012, I already expect the Biden 2020 map to fit something closer to the Eisenhower-Obama overlay than anything else.

On the appeal issue, don't forget that evaluation systems are different for different people.  Yes, the two are similar on policy, but far from alike on the coolness factor.  The people who found Obama cool may not be finding anything in Biden to like ... or dislike.  He's just old and boring to them --  unlike Bernie.

-- he's senile af

I thought about this, and have to disagree.  Biden isn't senile, any more than Trump.  He's just past his Use-By date.  His benchmarks are all in a no longer valid past.  We can't go there, but that hasn't sunk in yet. Biden would prefer comity to reign, as it had for decades after WW-II. So would I, but it's a total nonstarter.  Until that hits home, Biden will be ineffective.  If it takes too long to hit, the entire enterprise will be lost -- something we can't afford.  So yes, he's not the right guy for the times, but not for that reason.

[David Horn]

(10-29-2020, 12:21 AM)jleagans Wrote: Texas is going blue and is the future of the Democratic party.  When it goes blue its an earthquake, Democrat party officially becomes the "keep Texas blue party" and will move heaven and earth to do it.

And when Texas goes blue, the Republican party will IMMEDIATELY become the party of Electoral College abolition.  

If you doubt me, pull up the Texas election results in 2012 and 2016 and take a good long look.

Texas has been going Blue for decades, except it never does. The only difference today is urbanization, which will push Texas above California in population at some point. I just can't see it now, though I wish I did.

jleagans Wrote:To the topic, the degree of overlap between this era and the gilded age I just cant get out of my head.  There are 1896 comparisons, Roosevelt bull moose comparisons, pandemic comparisons, yellow journalism comparisons....in the end I think this is the 1896 election.  Not an often thought of election (though KARL ROVE wrote an amazing book on it explaining why history is remembering its importance wrong), but politics post-Lincoln was totally frozen and Mckinley in 1896 broke the frozen/polarized nature and basically "won" American politics until FDR.

There is movement ... finally! I'm not sure 2020 parallels any previous election, because Trump is a oner. But having a total miscreant in office has defined the terms in bold colors. Trump will have followers in the future, just as he does today. I can't say that's true for Biden, or any Democrat other than Bernie, perhaps.

What will tell the tale, is how Trump takes defeat, if he even does. In FDR's time, there was the Business Coup. If failed miserably because of one man: Smedley Butler. Who can play that role today, if the coup comes around again? If there is an attempt, will it be Shay's Rebellion 2020? The Constitution is broken. There is no natural (i.e. legal) fix that's possible, so is it guns in the street again?