The Election Thread To Talk About The Election

[Low Down Low]

Was listening to a democrat commentator earlier blaming the poor performance in the congressional and house elections on the party "adopting the cultural positions of the hard left". By cultural positions he means lgbt, reproductive and other fundamental human rights. I often wonder what some people would do if they didn't have the left to bash around for their own failings and shortcomings.

Given that Democrats have fundamentally adopted the economic position of the right over the past 40 years, this person also wants them to endorse the right's attitudes on social policy? "We can't win until we fully surrender."

Yeah, i think he does. He also said the democratic party had become unwelcoming to people of conservative values and that the hard left drift was why the latino vote was down. Sounds like he just wants to push right on all fronts and fight the gop and trump heads on their turf and when it goes wrong, they'll still always have an easy target to blame.

[Dr. Medulla]

Was listening to a democrat commentator earlier blaming the poor performance in the congressional and house elections on the party "adopting the cultural positions of the hard left". By cultural positions he means lgbt, reproductive and other fundamental human rights. I often wonder what some people would do if they didn't have the left to bash around for their own failings and shortcomings.

Given that Democrats have fundamentally adopted the economic position of the right over the past 40 years, this person also wants them to endorse the right's attitudes on social policy? "We can't win until we fully surrender."

Yeah, i think he does. He also said the democratic party had become unwelcoming to people of conservative values and that the hard left drift was why the latino vote was down. Sounds like he just wants to push right on all fronts and fight the gop and trump heads on their turf and when it goes wrong, they'll still always have an easy target to blame.

Even tho, as a tactic, it's been shown to fail more often than not. Choosing between the undeniably right-wing party and the us-too option, voters will usually pick the former, and with good reason. Not being antediluvian on human rights is the best card in the Democrats' hand, so yeah, better throw away that jack and hope you can draw a three.

[Low Down Low]

Was listening to a democrat commentator earlier blaming the poor performance in the congressional and house elections on the party "adopting the cultural positions of the hard left". By cultural positions he means lgbt, reproductive and other fundamental human rights. I often wonder what some people would do if they didn't have the left to bash around for their own failings and shortcomings.

Given that Democrats have fundamentally adopted the economic position of the right over the past 40 years, this person also wants them to endorse the right's attitudes on social policy? "We can't win until we fully surrender."

Yeah, i think he does. He also said the democratic party had become unwelcoming to people of conservative values and that the hard left drift was why the latino vote was down. Sounds like he just wants to push right on all fronts and fight the gop and trump heads on their turf and when it goes wrong, they'll still always have an easy target to blame.

Even tho, as a tactic, it's been shown to fail more often than not. Choosing between the undeniably right-wing party and the us-too option, voters will usually pick the former, and with good reason. Not being antediluvian on human rights is the best card in the Democrats' hand, so yeah, better throw away that jack and hope you can draw a three.

Absolutely, yes. I'm not gonna use the B word, because that ship long since sailed, but it's the difference for me between a Trump v Not Trump election and a Trump v genuine principled alternative with expansive vision election.

[Inder]

Was listening to a democrat commentator earlier blaming the poor performance in the congressional and house elections on the party "adopting the cultural positions of the hard left". By cultural positions he means lgbt, reproductive and other fundamental human rights. I often wonder what some people would do if they didn't have the left to bash around for their own failings and shortcomings.

This is the best response I have seen to this genre of whining:

[JennyB]

Missouri was a bloodbath. An absolute bloodbath. The way this state has been gerrymandered to death pretty much guarantees that no dem can win in my district. Where I live is heavily blue, but my district is so large that it contains bedroom communities and rural areas. No dems won any of the statewide races. Our governor, who wasn't even elected his first term (he came to office when our disgraced former governor resigned), wiped the floor with his challenger. Our governor, who had COVID and then thought it was a good idea to hold a fall hootenanny. Our governor, who is so far up Trump's ass he could give him his colonoscopy results.

65% voter turnout in the city of St. Louis. It's shocking.

I'm in St. Louis County and I voted for the first time yesterday (I was 17 at the time of the 2016 Election). I voted Democrat all around. I know Missouri is very Conservative, but I wanted to do my part and make our state slightly less red. Every vote counts, we can make a difference.

Thank you for voting and nice to see a fellow St. Louis Countyian on IMCT! I was really pulling for Jill Schupp and really thought she had a chance. Wagner just sucks.

Yeah, I wanted Jill Schupp to win too. Not only do I disagree with Wagner's politics, Wagner also seems like the definition of a "Karen". She has that "I demand to speak with the manager" look

She's awful. Never meets with constituents. Never holds town halls. I work in advocacy, and our organization spoke to her once - we happened to spot her in the capitol in DC and ambushed her. She suuuuuccccckkkkkssss.

[Dr. Medulla]

There's a common belief amongst conservatives that conservatism never fails, it's that individuals fail conservatism. Both Bush presidents, for example, were seen as failures because they abandoned "true" conservatism. So this is the liberal version: corporate liberalism or corporate liberals never fail, it's that the left infects it/them.

[Low Down Low]

Was listening to a democrat commentator earlier blaming the poor performance in the congressional and house elections on the party "adopting the cultural positions of the hard left". By cultural positions he means lgbt, reproductive and other fundamental human rights. I often wonder what some people would do if they didn't have the left to bash around for their own failings and shortcomings.

This is the best response I have seen to this genre of whining:

Honestly, i just find it impossible to get a handle on a political climate where to subscribe to the view that the most basic of human rights should be a given automatically implies that you are "hard", or belong to the "far", left. And to see not just republicans but supposed moderate democrats legisitmise that viewpoint kind of depresses me. Also, this from Sullivans former paymasters, just to remind us this is in no way confined to America.

[eumaas]

I think stuff like that is referring to the lip service paid to BLM and LGBT+ issues by the major corporations in the US. These kinds of social issues get recuperated (Debordian sense) or incorporated by capital relatively easily. On the right it's popular now to speak of woke capital, but it's really just capital working as it always has. I mean you can see Marx praising the way capital dissolves cultural distinctions and hierarchies. The case the new right are pointing to the most is how in California rent control and labor protections for gig workers failed but they still went for Biden. Capital is highly adaptable, which the populist right mistakes as a kind of collusion between the radical left and "woke" capital. It's not collusion, it's just capital performing as it always has.

[eumaas]

I guess the old school fusionism that ruled the GOP led them to believe that the free market would somehow protect traditional culture and values. I have no idea how they could be so deluded. There are a number of philosophers on the Catholic left (I'm thinking of Charles Taylor and Alasdair MacIntyre especially) who can give a forensic analysis of how capitalist modernity dissolved Christendom. You see some Christians go to the economic left for precisely this reason (e.g. Liz Bruenig at the Times; I think even Ross Douthat is moving that way). You can find parallel analyses between Marxists, Heidegger, Foucault etc on the dissolution of norms.

[Dr. Medulla]

I think stuff like that is referring to the lip service paid to BLM and LGBT+ issues by the major corporations in the US. These kinds of social issues get recuperated (Debordian sense) or incorporated by capital relatively easily. On the right it's popular now to speak of woke capital, but it's really just capital working as it always has. I mean you can see Marx praising the way capital dissolves cultural distinctions and hierarchies. The case the new right are pointing to the most is how in California rent control and labor protections for gig workers failed but they still went for Biden. Capital is highly adaptable, which the populist right mistakes as a kind of collusion between the radical left and "woke" capital. It's not collusion, it's just capital performing as it always has.

Right, of course. There's no reason to think that corporate interests truly believe in human rights. It's raw calculation about bringing in more people to be exploited. No disagreement there. But we need to appreciate that capital is responding to social shifts that find marginalization on the basis of race and sexual orientation to be contrary to basic decency. If the older bigotries were still the norm, the marketplace would reflect that. Corporate interests aren't heroes here, but we can read in their opportunism the changing attitudes of larger masses of people.

[Flex]

for my own campaign (that I had been managing), we're down a couple hundred with some provisional ballots and such still to come in. state party is mounting a ballot curing campaign. shit's unlikely, but may pull this one out yet. Pretty out of my hands at this point tho.

Conceded this morning, the numbers just weren't there to keep chasing ballots. Ah, well. We actually hit our voting targets but the district leans so republican we needed depressed turnout in the trumpy/Qanon-ist parts of the district and they were super fired up to vote too, so we actually lost some ground in those areas despite our raw vote numbers being where we wanted them. So it goes.

[Dr. Medulla]

for my own campaign (that I had been managing), we're down a couple hundred with some provisional ballots and such still to come in. state party is mounting a ballot curing campaign. shit's unlikely, but may pull this one out yet. Pretty out of my hands at this point tho.

Conceded this morning, the numbers just weren't there to keep chasing ballots. Ah, well. We actually hit our voting targets but the district leans so republican we needed depressed turnout in the trumpy/Qanon-ist parts of the district and they were super fired up to vote too, so we actually lost some ground in those areas despite our raw vote numbers being where we wanted them. So it goes.

Sorry it didn't happen, but Soros can only fix so many elections. Did you enjoy running a campaign (this was your first at that, no?)?

[JennyB]

for my own campaign (that I had been managing), we're down a couple hundred with some provisional ballots and such still to come in. state party is mounting a ballot curing campaign. shit's unlikely, but may pull this one out yet. Pretty out of my hands at this point tho.

Conceded this morning, the numbers just weren't there to keep chasing ballots. Ah, well. We actually hit our voting targets but the district leans so republican we needed depressed turnout in the trumpy/Qanon-ist parts of the district and they were super fired up to vote too, so we actually lost some ground in those areas despite our raw vote numbers being where we wanted them. So it goes.

I'm sorry, Flex. Blame my aunt. I know it has to be her fault, somehow.

[Flex]

Sorry it didn't happen, but Soros can only fix so many elections. Did you enjoy running a campaign (this was your first at that, no?)?

No, I use to do more campaign managing like this and I've spent most of my adult life doing campaign consulting work on local stuff. I got out of it because there's very little of the work that I particularly enjoy. I like the basic mechanics of outreach, but there's a bunch of bullshit that comes along with it too that I'm not a big fan of, particularly the relentless grind on fundraising. But, I needed to pick up some work and wanted to reconnect with some of the political scene, and I believed it was a race that was at least worth a shot at.

[Dr. Medulla]

Sorry it didn't happen, but Soros can only fix so many elections. Did you enjoy running a campaign (this was your first at that, no?)?

No, I use to do more campaign managing like this and I've spent most of my adult life doing campaign consulting work on local stuff. I got out of it because there's very little of the work that I particularly enjoy. I like the basic mechanics of outreach, but there's a bunch of bullshit that comes along with it too that I'm not a big fan of, particularly the relentless grind on fundraising. But, I needed to pick up some work and wanted to reconnect with some of the political scene, and I believed it was a race that was at least worth a shot at.

Ah, my mistake. Serious respect to your effort, especially because I couldn't fathom doing that kind of work.