Some Luke Warm Takes On NY3
Yes, every special election is a very special snowflake, but trends do emerge
As you have probably heard by now, the Democratic Candidate won the special election for the NY Congressional Seat formely occupied by celebrity cheif, on-call astronaut, and the Nobel Prize winner for embellishments, George Santos. As such, I’m going to take a break from my usual agenda of Trump bashing (where’s that check Joyner?! Or wait, do I need to invoice Soros directly), to engage in a long honored OTB tradition of reminding everyone that just like the name says, special elections are special and we should be careful in drawing too many implications from any single one of them.
That said, there have been more of a few of them over the last few years and that allows us to look at some trends. Here are my armchair takes on the data and analysis I’ve seen so far (I expect everyone will share their takes in the comments and point out where I’m wrong):
- Pre-election polls suggested a closer race than it turned out to be.
The Democrat Tom Suozzi led his Republican opponent, Mazi Pilip, in the last two Emerson College Polls. However both times that lead was within the ~3.5 margin of error. So that was interpreted as the race being a dead heat. While the votes have not been completely counted, Suozzi has an 8 point margin (double the polls) as I write this.
This is one data point, but it suggests that we may find other polls, including State and National ones, may have similiar issues with under-representation.
- Democrats continue to outperform and pick up off-season electoral wins while national polls suggest they should be losing.
While one election should only be treated as a data point, when you look in aggregate you can start to see trends. As ABC News w”An analysis from FiveThirtyEight found that in 38 special elections held so far this year, Democrats have outperformed the partisan lean — or the relative liberal or conservative history — of the areas where the races were held by an average of 10%, both romping in parts of the country that typically support the party while cutting down on GOP margins in red cities and counties, too. (source)” In fact, in many of these elections Democrats are outperforming how they did in 2020.
These elections have been happening during a period that saw peak inflation and issues at the border that former President Donald Trump and other republicans hoped to run on in 2024 and yet the Democrats managed to prevail.
- Given Suozzi’s embrace of the issue, NY3 will be seen as a referendum on approaches to immigration.
A lot of pixels are being pushed this morning about Tom Suozzi leaning into immigration. I expect some Republicans will attempt to argue this is proof of how important a topic it is at the moment. This analysis misses that his opponent, Mazi Philip, ran as an immigration hawk. They differed on the bi-partisan border plan abandoned after months of negotiation at Trump’s order. The rationale for abandoning the decision was that any agreement would appear to be a “win” for Biden and that Trump plans to campaign on the border crisis.
Philip advanced the typical MAGA, maximalist, vaguely defined border policies (which, according to Steven Miller, are more or fewer concentration camps). Suozzi on the other hand, went all in on supporting the bill and the necessity to deal with the immigration issue: “If I was in Congress, I would absolutely support it. It’s what people want and people deserve action on this crisis, at this time.” For better or worse, Suozzi embraced some talking points usually reserved for Republicans to attack the party’s decision to make the perfect (and the political) the enemy of improvement: “[Souzzi] said Pilip would help block a border solution in Congress, paving the way for “more migrants coming to New York — and on top of that, they’re gonna have access to AR-15s.”“
Suppose Democrats see this as proof that they can successfully confront Republicans on immigration in a way that resonates with suburban and swing voters. In that case, they may remove one of Trump’s key wedge issues. Again, that’s a big if, but if I were Mitch McConnell, I’d have that on my mind as last night’s impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas, United States Secretary of Homeland Security, again done at the order of Trump will set up a show trial that will present the Democrats with an opportunity to get said messaging out.
- As always, MAGA cannot fail; it can only be failed.
Former President Donald Trump was quick out of the gate to prove the saying, “Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan.” Last night, he let his thoughts be known in a Truth Social post:
“Republicans just don’t learn, but maybe she was still a Democrat? I have an almost 99% Endorsement Success Rate in Primaries, and a very good number in the General Elections, as well, but just watched this very foolish woman, Mazi Melesa Pilip, running in a race where she didn’t endorse me and tried to “straddle the fence,” when she would have easily WON if she understood anything about MODERN DAY politics in America. MAGA, WHICH IS MOST OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, STAYED HOME – AND IT ALWAYS WILL, UNLESS IT IS TREATED WITH THE RESPECT THAT IT DESERVES. I STAYED OUT OF THE RACE, “I WANT TO BE LOVED!” GIVE US A REAL CANDIDATE IN THE DISTRICT FOR NOVEMBER. SUOZZI, I KNOW HIM WELL, CAN BE EASILY BEATEN!”
Despite advancing MAGA positions, Pilip was not MAGA enough to win. First, that’s not great news for many of the swing district Republicans in Congress (in particular, many who won on Long Island in 2022, helping swing control of the House). Either they go all in, apparently, or they won’t win.
Additionally, there are two specific parts of this reaction I want to call out. First is: “I have an almost 99% Endorsement Success Rate in Primaries, and a very good number in the General Elections.” First, note the un-Trump-like underselling of “a very good number.” This could suggest that Trump even understand that his success rate is primarily tied to endorsing a UUGE! amount of candidates, the majority of whom are incumbents in uncompetitive areas. When you look at endorsements in swing seats and more contested elections, Trump’s endorsement success rate often drops into the negatives. Either way, “very good” isn’t typical Trump branding.
Second, for as much critique there is about Democrats supposedly being ordered to vote for Biden no matter what, can we talk about how weird it is for the presumptive Republican candidate to say “I WANT TO BE LOVED!” after announcing that the reason he stayed out of the race was MAGA wasn’t respected. Or, maybe that’s just the new normal for the Republican party. If so it gets to an interesting inversion of the adage Bill Clinton used “Democrats want to fall in love; Republicans just fall in line.”
If I were a Republican candidate who isn’t on the Trump-Love train, I’d be concerned about the need for total alignment with Trump–especially given the news that Trump’s daughter-in-law is running for RNC co-chair and promising that “Every single penny will go to the No. 1 and the only job of the RNC — that is elected Donald J. Trump as president of the United States and saving this country.“
- This will negatively impact Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s overall power–both within and outside of the House.
The Republican Majority is down to three seats. Barring anything unforeseen, this should remain stable until the fall election. There are a few more open contests, including for former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s seat, but these are all in uncompetitive districts. In the House, Speaker Johnson has to keep his fractured caucus in line (ensuring that hard Trumpers don’t force something like a government shutdown and that moderates in Swing Districts don’t defect to the Democrats on key issues).
That internal weakness is going to weaken Johnson externally as well. Johnson, for the moment, seems to be ignoring this issue and is currently demanding that Biden deal directly with him on the border funding and aid issues. It’s hard to see, given the present circumstances, what leverage Johnson can bring when the Trump-killed compromise bill on border reform, which got the support of the conservative Border Patrol Union and delivered most of what Republicans were asking for a few months ago, is DOA in the House for not being extreme enough.
Further, the conflicts between Senate and House Republicans could explode into the open depending on how the House decides to prosecute Mayorkas–especially given that the result, regardless of what is presented by either side, will be his acquittal.
So those are my big takes from this. Granted I’m a Soros-funded shill (I kid) so YMMV. While this is a one-off, the overall trend, including the overperformance should create some concerns for the backers of Former President Trump. Granted, contextualizing his current (shrinking) lead in national polls with these results could suggest ticket splitting similiar to what happened in Georgia in 2022. Some of his supporters could split the ticket, still voting for him as President while choosing the Democrats for legislative rolls. Then again, let’s not forget that would require Trump to first outperform his election failures from 2020.
What are your takeaways?
My take is: another example of how voters save Democrats’ bacon by getting to the polls and defeating Republicans. Now if the Dems would stop sniveling and actually start kicking ass in Congress…
I think this overlooks the consideration that the ticket-splitting that happened between Senate and gubernatorial races in 2022 (not just in Georgia) was almost always in the service of incumbents:
Kansas: D governor and R Senator reelected
New Hampshire: R governor and D Senator reelected
Vermont: R governor reelected as open Senate race stays in Democratic hands
Wisconsin: D governor and R Senator reelected
The one exception was in Nevada, where a Republican (Joe Lombardo) defeated the incumbent Democratic governor while the Democratic Senator was reelected. But Lombardo made some effort to distance himself from election denial as well as anti-abortionists.
Also, one of the reasons Dems did so poorly in New York was that the gubernatorial race was unusually close for the state (Hochul held on by just 6 points), and this had a downballot effect.
I think to some extent the focus on examples of ticket-splitting in 2022 misses the forest for the trees.
I think that election campaigns that start the day after the last elections is complete are dangerous to liberty. Too much time for $$$ (and the ads, column inches, and dirty tricks that it all pays for ) to play havoc in the minds of voters.
But to your question, I think polling is starting to show it’s limitations because the models seem to not be able to keep up with trends on the ground. Special Elections are even harder to model because there aren’t as many people to smooth out the bad bounces. Polling a year out is worse than tarot cards.
@Kylopod:
Great observation as usual! Thanks!
That’s part of it. There’s also the issue that the entire NY Democratic party was kinda a shit-show at the time, which helped lead to the loss of the House in 2022. More details here:
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/17/redistricting-campaigns-why-new-york-democrats-are-blamed-for-house-flip-00067473
@Not the IT Dept.:
This may also turn out when all the votes are counted, as another case of the Republican (really Trump-led) position on early voting coming to hurt that party. Given the noreaster that hit the area yesterday. Given that Democrats tend to vote early and Republicans tend to vote on election day, that could have also impacted things.
It’s also worth noting that Suozzi had won that seat before and worked his butt off when it came to the retail politics aspect of the job (knocking on a lot of doors in key districts). And various Democratic Committess and groups poured a LOT of ad money into the district too.
So the party and the candidate put the work in this time. Hopefully that doesn’t get lost either.
If you look at the two candidates, there’s a glaring difference:
Mazi Pilip is Ethiopian, Orthodox, has seven kids, and outside of being a Israeli paratrooper never had a job apparently.
Tom Suozzi is about Long Island as any man being could be. He was basically created in a test tube that says Long Island White Male (CPA/Lawyer strain). He also had deep roots in local politics.
I’m guessing a combination of racism and leeriness of someone who has seven kids (which reeks of the culture war) made her do better in the polls against a candidate who looks exactly like a ‘normal’ guy from Long Island and who knew what he was doing on the ground.
@Modulo Myself:
Just a clarification—-she’s an Orthodox Jew, not Ethiopian Orthodox (a branch of Christianity).
@Modulo Myself:
As a proud (sometimes) son of Long Island, I utterly resemble this remark. I am, in fact, a bog-standard middle-aged cis-gendered straight white dude. I just need to figure out which strain (probably the “Embarrass the rest of your once Rockerfeller Republican family whose Bircher-leaning members hopped on the Bob Grant Train” strain).
Part of it is the political realignment that’s been happening – the types of voters (educated, wealthier, civically-minded) that are more likely to turn out for a low-salience special election during a snowstorm have shifted to the Democrats. Basically, low-turnout elections now favor Democrats.
@Andy:
More significantly, the mail in vote skewed heavily Dem, while the R vote was supposed to show up at the polls. R’s can blame one D. Trump for not utilizing mail in voting.
@Matt Bernius:
My question exactly. I will be interested to see that parsed in coming days.
A. Most people aren’t paying attention yet. Those that are paying attention know what a shitshow a 2nd term a Trump presidency would become – even many of those supporting Trump.
B. The Dems will be motivated due to abortion, weed, and Trump.
C. The GOP will be stuck responding to every Trump outrage between now and Nov. 6th. Every day, he says or does something – trying to win the news cycle, good or bad – that forces GOP members of Congress to defend. That will get old, and it will become toxic down-ballot.
D. The more Trump speaks, the more ammo he gives Dems. It’s gonna be a long 9 months, but I’ve been saying for a while that not only do I think Biden will win, I think he will win comfortably. I believe it’s hard to poll accurately.
E. Going under the radar today is another election from last night. Pennsylvania Dems seal House majority with special election win Dems have won 6 consecutive special elections in Pennsylvania in swing districts.
F. The choice will come down to an old man who can run the government properly and efficiently, vs an old man who sows chaos and cozies up to dictators; against most American ideals and values.
Because plenty of voters understand that on these and other salient issues, Republicans have no solutions and are instead blocking progress and dragging us backwards.
Forced birthers screaming “inflation! border! woke! old!” ain’t gonna cut it when most voters see the Republican Party as intellectually and morally bankrupt. The modern right has nothing constructive to offer voters — just the meanness, bigotry, chaos, and extremism of the Trump-Putin cult. Not a recipe for victory.
@EddieInCA:
I agree. And at the same time, the theory is this also demonstrates that Democrats don’t need to just run on those issues–especially when the Republicans have handed them the gift of setting fire to a bipartisan agreement to improve border security. That message is further supported by Republicans also taking the stance that they can’t act on (popular) foreign aid without a full capitulation to their maximalist desires on the board.
The messaging challenge Republicans have created is that the border is an existential crisis for the US, and it is one they are uninterested in solving until their candidate wins.
It’s a bold move, Cotton, and one that can fail spectacularly in many ways- including if they end up agreeing to a border deal over Trump’s protestations.
Early voting for March primary in Texas starts next Tues. I will be voting in the Republican primary due to local issues, principally the incumbent state rep is anti school voucher and needs to be protected. There are additional opportunities to ensure rational Republicans to be nominated. In the general, however, I anticipate voting primarily Democratic for Biden and Colin Allred and other down ballot candidates.
When you live in basically a one party state, you have to be strategic and keep the wackos off the school boards. I can live with rational conservatives.
I wonder if overturning Roe had two consequences, politically: Democrats more likely to be engaged, and Republicans less likely. Abortion has been a huge issue for Republicans ever since they realized they could pretend to give a shit about kids. Now they’ve won. From the GOP point of view, did their signature issue just go bye-bye?
Does immigration or Trump worship create as powerful an impetus as saving babies? Roe was easy, a single unifying target. Make it go away and happy times! Immigration doesn’t have that nice, easy focus because instead of campaigning to ‘end Roe’ you’re campaigning to, ‘do something.’ Single, defined target vs. something something border.
@Michael Reynolds:
What I am desperately hoping for is that Alito gets his way in the Mifepristone case and does something stupid like over ruling Griswold or saying something equally dumb like the Comstock Act makes Mifepristone totally illegal. I would put money on Alito and Thomas doing some stupid stuff to lock in a bad opinion again. I don’t think they care and I’m pretty sure neither of them think that women should have any rights whatsoever.
@EddieInCA:
The Economist has a new poll out today calling Biden v. Trump a tie. Not the only poll to show that, lately.
Also, as an aside, Jon Stewart is back and proving he’s a much cleverer propagandist than Kimmel or Colbert or Seth Meyers. Jon grounded his narrative in a both-sides lament at the ages of Trump and Biden. Lefty nuts are upset because they’re too dumb to see the play. There are not a lot of celebrity types I think are genuinely smart, politically. Hollywood almost always has its heart in the right place, but they’re clumsy and obvious and too scared to alter the existing narrative. Jon is in another class, altogether.
In addition, if nothing else, Jon Stewart is a brilliant casting director. Steven Colbert, Steve Carrell, Sam Bee, John Oliver and more.
@Beth:
Overruling Griswold would cripple the GOP for a generation.
@Michael Reynolds:
That would be spectacular.
I just want to jump in to say something that feels less naive of me to say as each day passes, I, and I bet probably millions of ordinary Joe’s like myself, are shaking their heads at the GOP that they may have honestly and truly screwed themselves out of victory this November.
Instead of thinking of the now deader than roadkill Immigration bill as a win for Biden if it passes, it could have been construed (and quite easily I might add) as something the GOP forced the Democrats to pass dragging them kicking and screaming over the finish line and my gut says the MAGA base would be fine with the GOP bragging that yeah, Biden signed the bill but we are the political party that forced them to accept the reality that yes, many folks in America considered immigration a major issue that had to be fixed. Then the GOPers in Congress could have said to the MAGA base to thank them by voting MAGA at the ballot box in November.
What things am I missing here (I am sure a flood of folks will point out that I am missing a War and Peace size book of things soon enough)?
I am picturing the GOP playing the Dems in the World Series, and the game is tied, the Dems are up to the plate and they succeed in hitting the ball, so all hope is lost for the GOP, right, but wait…it looks like that ball is about to smoothly sail into a MAGA catchers glove, but the person in the field drops the freaking ball, so it does indeed become game over for the GOP who miss a surprisingly plum opportunity to win the World Series.
I am sure that McConnell will do his best to try and turn things around, but the GOP has gotten so used to relying on Trump to tell them how to proceed due to a superpower he no longer seems to have, that vaunted ability of his where he has an uncanny knack to be able to read any room he is in and know what to say to land a zinger, etc..
Like I said, the short reply to my long post is to chuckle at how naive I sound and not spend too much time replying to my post (after all, life is short, right, lol).
I just feel that they squandered an opportunity to achieve another one of their holy grails, to “fix” immigration just like they succeeded in making abortion all but completely illegal outside of a depressingly small number of states that are not going all in on passing draconian abortion laws.
This was a missed opportunity for the GOP and from what I have read on-line, it looks like McConnell is painfully aware of this, but also trapped in the MAGAverse that is the modern GOP. Hopefully the string of losses the GOP has suffered at the ballot box as of late will continue, and maybe, just maybe the GOP will be exhausted by all the winning they are experiencing by listening to Trump and finally see him as a pathetic has-been old cranky man, the type of crank where you might wish him no harm, but would not want to hang out with him to hear about how the world is going to hell in a handbasket, when that is clearly not the case.
The GOP has given Trump so much power that he does not have on his own, he is not a member of Congress, he is no longer our President, he does not seem to be on the board of massive companies like Apple, or Amazon, because as Trump is aware, folks do not like him. He loves to gleefully point that out and wear it like a badge of honor, no sir…be a better person, it is not too late to be a better human being.
@EddieInCA:
Maybe? It seems to me you are gambling on Trump self-immolating and that Trump’s age will cancel out Biden’s age. I don’t think that is a safe bet.
What matters is the extent to which those factors are salient to the key demographics Biden needs in the handful of swing states he needs to win. Biden is currently negative in most of those states, so he’s got to dig out of a hole – not a great place to be as an incumbent.
There’s a saying in the military to hope for the best and plan for the worst. We can certainly hope all these things break in Biden’s direction, but Biden’s campaign and influential Democrats better be planning that they don’t and act accordingly.
@inhumans99:
You’re not alone. I’ve seen multiple pundits, commenters, and randoms on Twitter and Threads make this point. The bipartisan border bill should have been a grand victory for Republicans to sell to voters as their own.
Instead, they shot themselves in the foot with Trumpian “own the libs” hatred of Biden and reflexive opposition to anything Democrats support.
Both CNN and NBC had a voter yesterday tell a reporter that GQP sabotage of that bill sealed their vote for Suozzi. And right on cue, the DSCC is up with an ad today blaming Trump and Republicans for blocking border fixes.
Imagine turning your best issue into a liability for you and an asset for your opponent. Stupid. (Not to mention a Republican voter asking Jake Tapper for Robert Hur’s contact number, because she wanted to complain about his Beau Biden citation. Oops.)
@inhumans99:
@DK:
I’m glad that the GOP shot their own feet off with that bill. Making it dumber for them to do so is I’m pretty sure it would have nuked a ton of support with a bunch of Dem constituencies. I think had that thing actually passed it would have been terrible for Dems. I don’t know how I could explain it to people who already think that Biden is personally murdering babies in Gaza.
@Michael Reynolds: I don’t think the political impact of Dobbs should be considered in isolation: it’s also a reflection of a longer-term realignment that’s been going on gradually over several decades. As the century rolled around, (mostly white) rural and working-class voters largely left the party for good, while Dems made gains in the suburbs and among the college-educated, particularly women.
I think it was a significant moment in 2022 when Bob Casey Jr. said he’d back a national abortion-rights bill. This is the same Bob Casey whose dad led the biggest judicial challenge to Roe until Dobbs. Even Jr. used to be considered a “pro-life Democrat,” but over the years he’s moved more into the “personally pro-life, but” category, in terms of his voting record. You can decide for yourself whether his evolution was due to principle or opportunism (I don’t much care, frankly), but it’s a sign of how the party has shifted on the issue.
“Pro-life Democrats” used to be a much more significant bloc within the party. Part of what happened is that the ones in Congress (remember Bart Stupak?) got annihilated in the 2010 midterms, and when Dems regained the House in 2018, they didn’t really rebuild that bloc. They found a different route to a majority.
So I think in an important sense, Dems were ready, in political terms, to deal with a post-Roe world, in a way I don’t think would have been the case just 20 years ago. The Republicans, meanwhile, have no idea how to handle the situation, so they’re just falling back on the tools they used in the past, such as trying to chop the issue down to later-term abortion, or doing what Haley’s been doing (claiming a national abortion ban will never happen so there’s no point in explaining what she would support), or just being vague and contradictory like Pilip. Due to the evangelical and Catholic base they know they can’t just abandon the issue, but they have no idea how to approach it in a non-ham-fisted way and make it sound appealing to the majority of the electorate, yet they seem not to have realized it yet.
Born in Ethiopia, emigrated to Israel, served in the IDF, and then emigrated to the US. She may not be the right messenger for the anti-immigrant message of the MAGA Republicans.
I don’t know if she is a “very foolish woman” as Trump claims, but she’s a very odd candidate for a party that is based on White Male Grievance Identity Politics.
@Not the IT Dept.:
Honest question: what does that mean? (Because it seems to me that the fact that the GOP controls the House and the GOP can filibuster most things in the Senate that the Dems kicking ass in Congress is kind of not on the table).
@Beth: I think I disagree. I think the border bill would have helped both parties with voting blocs who both have significant electoral power and use it.
I don’t think the loonies who believe Biden is personally murdering babies in Gaza qualify. They are loud on Twitter, but representative of a “bunch of democratic constituencies?” I don’t buy it. These are the same folks who were shocked when Biden ran away with the 2020 Dem primaries because nobody they knew supported him. Some of these people really need to escape the algorithm, go outside, and touch grass once in while.
Twitter is not real life. And in real life, our crazies are vastly outnumbered by people who are not going to punish Democrats for compromise, surely not while the MAGA barbarians are at the gate.
@Matt Bernius:
I wonder if they got their act together yet. It would be fun to gerrymander Elise Stefanik out of a job. Or Claudia Tenney.
@inhumans99:
Under normal circumstances, I think this is correct. Which is why the more pragmatic Republicans were apparently so upset about this. With very little direct leverage, they were able to get a really strong deal.
Part of the issue is that it might have been too strong, hence the fear that this would be seen as a win for Biden. The question, remains, whom would have seen it this way–which gets to:
@Beth:
I think, in general, you would be right. It would definitely have been difficult, if not unsupportable, by the Progressive Wing of the party. And combined with Gaza could have depressed turnout for them.
Perhaps the fear from the Trump campaign (if they thought that much about it) is it would have brought the never-Trump and Biden-supporting Republicans back to the Democratic side for this election.
At this point, we’ll never know, but my sense is that this was a gift to Democrats.
@inhumans99: I hadn’t looked at not like that. It makes sense.
@Gustopher:
They like their tokens. George Santos would know that better than anyone else–not only as an immigrant who took a hardline position on that issue, but as a gay guy who enthusiastically defended DeSantis’s don’t-say-gay bill. It runs at all levels.
The issue of immigration also carries a unique perspective for the Israeli right, who may be strongly anti-Arab, but who live in a country whose Jewish population is almost entirely immigrant-based. And it’s not a matter of historical forgetting either, like it is in the US with the descendants of Poles, Irish, Italians, etc. who go on to disparage the present wave of immigrants from Latin America. The concept of aliyah (Jews moving to Israel) is very central to Israeli identity. Furthermore, some of the biggest supporters of Likud–going back to Begin in the 1970s–are the darker-skinned Jews with long history in the Arab and Muslim world.
As for Ethiopian Jews, as you might expect they’re the target of plenty of racism in Israel. Yet they’re also useful in Israeli propaganda in light of Operation Solomon, the rescue mission in which most of them were sneaked out of a military dictatorship in 1991.
Now, I doubt any of this means much to the average Republican voter, and the issue of black Republicans doing worse in elections needs to be considered. But her politics do make sense in terms of her own history, and many right-wing Jews get it as well.
@DK:
I dunno. Personally, I’m not on Twitter and am better off for it. The group I mostly see being pissed about the deal are queers and especially younger queers. It’s doubly stupid because most of the young people are pissed that this particular deal even happened. Personally, I understand the politics of it, but had this thing passed I’d have been pissed too. It was a bad bill, negotiated in good faith with bad actors. This would have done little to solve any of the actual problems.
But like @Matt Bernius: said, this is a gift. We get all of the political upside and none of the actual downside.
As an aside, the kids that I see screaming about Biden being 100% responsible for Israeli actions are driving me up a wall. To the point I’ve been actively avoiding the trans group I’m part of. It’s just a constant stream of “Genocide Joe” and “Liberals are the same as Conservatives but worse” or even more idiotic “Democrats are the exact same as Republicans, but worse”. Like, it’s gotten to the point where I’m wondering if the Russians are doing an extra good job with trolling and stupid memes. It’s incredibly disheartening.
@Beth:
The Russian troll farms from 2016 didn’t go away, so yes, I think some of those are definitely paid trolls with the conscious goal of weakening Biden among those inclined to vote for him, just as they did with Hillary.
That said, it takes two to tango. People on the left can be just as given to chanting or hashtaging mindless slogans as those on the right, and I think that frankly they’re worse than the right when it comes to pretending to care about an issue just to make themselves feel morally superior.
Just occurred to me: Trump’s Russia love is in conflict with Poles, in particular. Two states with highest number of Polish descendants? Michigan and Wisconsin. We should weaponize this.
@Michael Reynolds: “Lefty nuts are upset because they’re too dumb to see the play.”
I can’t say I was upset by Stewart’s first show, but I certainly was disappointed. Not because he did the patented Jon Stewart “both of these guys” thing, but — both guys are old? This is the take? Off the air for a decade and his big return is all a repeat of “old guy” jokes that just about everyone has been making for years?
What I want from someone like Jon Stewart is a fresh approach, an intriguing insight. Something that will make me think as well as laugh, which is what he used to do at his best.
This was just (mostly) slightly better versions of the jokes people are posting online.
Here’s hoping his next show might be a little fresher…
@Andy: “We can certainly hope all these things break in Biden’s direction, but Biden’s campaign and influential Democrats better be planning that they don’t and act accordingly.”
This is not the first time you’ve posted a message like this, and I have to wonder — do you have some kind of inside knowledge that the Dems in the campaign and the White House are not aware of this? Your default assumption seems to be that you are the only one who has managed to come to this conclusion and the pros better wise up soon…
(I hope this doesn’t sound personal, by the way. You’re not the only poster here who seems to like to chide the Democrats for not having the wisdom and insight of a pseudonymous poster on an internet forum…)
@wr:
This is what I’m seeing in my feeds. Less anger at Stewart, more disappointment that after all the hype, all he had was low-hanging fruit “Trump and Biden are old jokes” that Kimmel, Colbert, Fallon, and Meyers already ran out of last year.
It’s, like, yeah they’re old. Yuck yuck yuck, hardy har har. The comedic geniuses in the writing rooms sit around thinking up jokes for a living, they got anything else?
I haven’t watched yet, so I’ve no opinion as to whether this assessment is fair or not.
@Beth: “As an aside, the kids that I see screaming about Biden being 100% responsible for Israeli actions are driving me up a wall.”
Yup, they’re morons. And I would guess a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the Democratic electorate — if they’re even people who would ever bother to soil themselves by something as corrupt as voting (unless Bernie was on the ticket).
The Michigan primary will be an interesting test. The hardest-core purity ponys are organizing a movement to vote against Biden to protest Gaza. (Although I will say that as protest votes go, this one has very little potential to do harm, since Biden will be essentially unopposed…) We’ll see if the anger of a few really loud folks represents any more than that…
@Andy:
A few points:
(1) Trump doesn’t self-immolate, he’s an arsonist, he burns things down.
(2) Although Trump definitely has cognitive disorder issues, he appears to be active and energetic as he repeatedly confuses Biden for Obama, and NikkiHaley for Nancy Pelosi.
(3) There is no abiding ‘wisdom of The People’ – it comes and goes.
How do we know this? Well, Trump was elected in 2016 despite the fact that people knew he was a malevolent grifter. And 74 million people voted for him in 2020 despite knowing that he completely fabricated the Big Lie that Democrats were stealing the 2020 election.
@wr:
We know where Jon is taking the narrative. Surprise, he’ll support Biden against Trump. He’s grounding his narrative in reality, acknowledging the obvious that we are pretending to ignore. Less that that and he’s Kimmel or Colbert. This gives him an angle. I think he’s also drawing the lines for his co-hosts. Not particularly funny, but I think necessary.
@wr:
I don’t have any inside information, but I can certainly read and listen to what people are saying in public, including some of the movers and shakers, and I see way too much hopium and copium for comfort.
@Michael Reynolds: “Not particularly funny, but I think necessary.”
I get what you’re saying, but I just don’t think he’s necessary at all. I’m not interested in comedians who decide they’re really prophets, whether Jon Stewart or (shudder) Bill Maher. I’ll watch Stewart if he’s funny or original.
But I’ll certainly give him another shot, because he used to be brilliant. I still can’t see Michael Steele without flashing back to the time Steele was on TDS and Stewart had a little blue Muppet playing him to his face.
@wr: Spot on. Manufactured outrage is the oldest cop out there is for sitting on your ass.
My takeaway? FukifIno.
@wr:
At least a couple of them should know better. One’s a tankie that is convinced that the Soviets were not only right, but better. And a bunch are nattering children who have decided they need to be protected from anything that may give the slightest of discomfort.
I have a friend group that’s all ravers. It’s not hyperbole to say that group of people is the freaking Get-Along-Gang*. And they seem to have a much, much, better grasp of reality.
Regarding MI, I read a bunch of articles from pissed off Arab Americans. All of them gave me the impression that while they are rightfully pissed and aren’t going to let up on Biden, they all seem to understand that they are going to have to vote for him in November. I don’t think it would be hard for Biden to take a trip to MI, meet with them, and get them on board. I don’t think he can make them happy, but I think he could give them understanding and comfort and get enough buy in for when it matters.
I keep pushing back on people who say that this election is a choice between two bad options. It’s a choice between a status quo-ish reality that has a good chance of getting better for everyone and the end of the county.
Whoops, almost forgot. *https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Get_Along_Gang in case we need a refresher.