for lefties too stubborn to quit
Gewerkschaftler suggested this recently:
I suggest this blog should have a regular (weekly) slot where people can post happenings at the personal or political level that gives them hope that we’re perhaps not going to hell in a handbasket as quickly as we thought. Or as the phlegmatic Germans put it “hope dies last”.
Any contributions this week?
| Tomboktu on Campaign posters | |
| irishelectionliterat… on What you want to say – 8th May… | |
| Hamid on What you want to say – 8th May… | |
| Donal on Campaign posters | |
| irishelectionliterat… on Vote Left, transfer Left . . .… | |
| Donal on Vote Left, transfer Left . . .… | |
| irishelectionliterat… on The Journal poll | |
| Hamid on What you want to say – 8th May… | |
| tomasoflatharta on What you want to say – 8th May… | |
| Wes Ferry on Tories lose to the centre and… | |
| Wes Ferry on The Journal poll | |
| banjoagbeanjoe on Campaign posters | |
| crocodileshoes on Campaign posters | |
| banjoagbeanjoe on The Journal poll | |
| Tomboktu on Campaign posters |
worldbystorm2014ATgmailDOTcom
The Cedar Lounge Revolution
For those like myself who’ve been worried by the coming Fascist USA, (on top of Imperialist USA) it looks increasingly pushed back 4 years ;
As was mostly thought afaik, Trump’s team is so far looking too incompetent to pull off a coup as they prove unable to persuade key allies to go along. Georgia’s key officials (Gov and Sec. of State) are both Republicans and Michigan’s legislature has a Republican majority . I would guess large sections of the Republican establishment is preparing to deal with Biden, who is of course a long time centrist ‘triangulator’ willing to oblige them. The long time danger of course is that Biden will so disappoint Progressive voters that the next election will be closer and easier for the Republicans to steal .
As for Trump’s motives see other speculation below (among many)
https://theanalysis.news/interviews/trumps-coup-bidens-dilemma-and-the-chinese-challenge-foroohar-and-blyth/ (complicated fiddle ?)
https://jacobinmag.com/2020/11/donald-trump-anti-democratic-congressional-apportionment-count-republicans
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” According to early polls, voters with household incomes of less than $50,000 in 2019 broke for Biden by 55 to 43 percent — a 12 point margin, compared to 8 four years ago. This helped overcome Trump’s gains among households with incomes above $100,000 — from 45 percent in 2016 to just over half in 2020.
At least 6 million more people in low-income households voted in 2020 compared to 2016…..
In key battleground states such as Michigan, poor and low-income voters showed up in large numbers in support of Biden. According to the Associated Press, 54 percent of low-income Michiganders voted for the Biden-Harris ticket. Biden wound up winning the state with 50.6 percent of the vote.”
https://www.ncnewsonline.com/opinion/columns/low-income-voters-turned-out-to-help-elect-biden-now-they-need-relief/article_83824458-2da5-5e6b-b286-d5b4a8ffdc59.html
” When you consider that Trump improved over 2016 among Americans who make more than $100,000 a year, it’s clear that this crack in Trump’s imagined “populist” base was the real key to Biden’s victory. Trump lost because his explicit appeals to fear and division increased turnout among poor Black and brown people and their white allies….
But increased turnout, especially among Black, brown, Native and low-income Americans of every race, not only flipped the rust belt but also broke through the sun belt in Arizona and Georgia….
Republicans are standing by a delusional president because they cannot yet imagine a future apart from the imagined past they promised to white America…..
As we watch Republicans deny reality, we remember the observation of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa: a dying mule always kicks the hardest. While we acknowledge its danger, we can’t let its braying overwhelm the united voice of a historic coalition that has stood together in this election for a new day.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/19/us-election-showed-republican-racist-southern-strategy-falling-apart
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That’s good
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” The biggest stinker coming from cable news talking heads in 2020 is the concept that Latinos are responsible for President Trump’s slight overperformance of his polling averages ahead of the election…..
But the real big takeaway of the election we just witnessed is that people of color, and especially Latinos, exercised their right to vote in an unprecedented manner. 20.9 million Latinos voted in this election, according to projections from Bloomberg News, give or take a few hundred thousand. That’s an astounding increase of 65 percent from the 12.7 million who voted in the last election, which was itself a record for Latinos.
Because the growth of the total electorate far exceeded any slight shift towards Trump, that means the gap between Republican votes and Democratic votes coming from our communities grew by millions. By one calculation, 7.1 million more Latinos voted for Biden than they did for Trump, handily besting results from 2016, when it is estimated 4.7 million more Latinos voted for Hillary Clinton than they did for Trump.”
https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/525748-what-really-happened-with-latinos-this-election
“Much of the increased turnout was powered by people of color, while the total number of votes cast by white Americans barely increased from the last presidential election. “The main story is that in an election which saw historic turnout, people of color — and especially Latinos — had an unprecedented increase in voting,” says Democracy Now! co-host Juan González.
All of this fixation on Latinos, however, ignores the fundamental question of this election, which very few political observers I’ve seen have dared to tackle: Why the heck did 58% of white Americans vote for Donald Trump, including 55% of white women?”
https://www.democracynow.org/2020/11/11/juan_gonzalez_latinx_voters_2020
Overall Trump received 58 percent of the white vote in 2020 as against 54 percent in 2016.
Biden increased his share of the white working class vote in the key states of Wisc. Mich and Penn.
Biden received 87 per cent of the Black vote, and 65 percent of the Asian American vote, but only 42 percent of the white vote.
These metrics explain Biden’s winning margin of 6 million votes.
The system is structurally biased against the Democrats.
The Republican Senate majority represents 15 million fewer Americans than are represented by the Democratic senators.
And this allows conservative control of the Supreme Court.
Many of the districts of state legislatures are gerrymandered to give Republican control while receiving less votes than Democrats. In turn this state legislative control allows the Republicans to gerrymander congressional districts.
Nevertheless the Democrats do control the House, and if,-a big if-they win the runoff elections in Georgia on Jan 5. they could control of the senate also.
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Trouble is opinion polls including exit polls have come out with what seemed like contradictory data . showing Trump gains among non Whites without college education (especially Latinos I think, but even among such African Americans) . Moreover Republicans gained in the House of Representatives as it seems the well-off suburbanites who swing to Biden voted Republican there (as logic would seem to suggest).
Complicated picture I’m afraid (of course such polling may be out as they were out on the overall results). Anyhow with the high turnout (by US standards) , both sides more or less maxed their votes . The most sombre of the Jacobin vids after the election but several others had serious rumblings about Biden/Harris’s centrist strategy turning off poor voters. Not everyone has hours to spare to watch them I know !
My guess is that relatively well off (or at least 3rd level educated) young Progressive voters swung it in the swing states . If Jacobin has it right (and you only have to look at low turnouts in poor areas here in Dublin to see they probably are) there remains a big problem with switched off or Fake News deluded poorer voters
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there remains a big problem with switched off or Fake News deluded poorer voters
The ‘Facebook Problem’ is real. Regulation of that bad-faith actor cannot come soon enough.
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And sort of at a tangent to that. Note the phrase ‘DownBallot Disaster’ (referring to the Democrat near debacle in the House of Reps )
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