Howdy y’all!
Because the election is so close, I’m in a bit of a panic about getting the “right” posts up before the last day of voting, so I’m doubling up on the call for comments. Isn’t that the way we should start referring to Election Day nowadays, the last day of voting? Let me know what you think in the comments. Crap that’s three things. Okay, I’m tripling up on the possible comment threads.
The Republican Women’s Vote
I read this NBCNews article about all of the newly registered voters who have voted early. They break them down by battleground state, party affiliation, and gender. They come to the most obvious conclusions: The party with the most newly registered voters who have voted early has a pretty good chance of winning that state.
Pennsylvania
While they don’t give us the exact figures, they note that in Pennsylvania the following interesting factoids about the number of new voters in several categories:
- BIDEN’S MARGIN OF VICTORY has already been exceeded by the number of new early voters.
- WOMEN VOTERS: There are almost twice as many new Democratic women voters as there are new Republican women voters.
- MEN VOTERS: Democratic men voters are slightly greater than new Republican men voters.
- UNAFFILIATED VOTERS: The difference between new Democratic and Republican voters is the same as the number of new unaffiliated voters.
NBC News brilliant conclusion: Harris wins Pennsylvania because every Democrat votes Harris and every Republican, Trump… oh, but wait a minute, what if every new unaffiliated voter voted Trump? Dang. That could throw the election to Trump… I guess that means we don’t know, right?
Our muddled up mixed up political press, everybody! Really? I’ll give you my take after we visit Arizona.
Arizona
Meanwhile in Arizona, there are fewer new early voters, and a fascinating trend appears there:
- BIDEN’S MARGIN: New voter votes are already EIGHT times the margin that Biden beat Trump by in 2020. EIGHT TIMES! That’s over 86,000 new voters having voted.
- MALE VOTERS: There are almost twice as many new Republican men voting than new Democratic men! Spooky, right? I just got chills. It’s like they cancel each other out.
- FEMALE VOTERS: New Republican women are only slightly greater than new Democratic women.
- UNAFFILIATED VOTERS: There are only slightly fewer new unaffiliated voters than new Republican voters and slightly more than new Democratic voters.
NBC’s brilliant conclusion, Trump wins Arizona! Wait, if all the unaffiliated voters voted for Harris, then she’d win. So, poop. What can you do, amirite or amirite, iamrite, right?
Republican Women Voters
Since Dobbs was overturned, we’ve been seeing abortion win every election where it was on the ballot whether it was a Constitutional amendment, a ballot measure for a new law, or candidate’s with an extreme anti-abortion position. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter whether the state was a traditional red state, purple state, or blue state. The only thing that mattered was that abortion was on the ballot.
In red states, who was voting for abortion measures in such great numbers that they all won? Republican women. So, if even half of the new Republican women vote for Harris in Pennsylvania or Arizona, what’s gonna happen?
- PENNSYLVANIA: If all the new Democrats voted for Harris (they will), that gives her, 55,000 votes than Biden had in 2020. And, if half of the new Republican women vote for Harris that gives her an additional, 8,000 votes, or 63,000. What about the unaffiliated? Let’s give her half of all their votes, or another 8,000, for a grand total of 71,000 of the 103,000 new voters voting early.
- ARIZONA: If we award all the new Democratic registrees to Harris, she gets 24,000 more votes than Biden in 2020. Half of the new Republican women voters is 8,000 votes (32,000 running total). Half of the unaffiliated voters, 15,000 (47,000 running total) out of a possible 90,000 new votes.
- CONCLUSION: Harris and abortion win the day.
How likely is that scenario? That’s the question. What do you think? Because, I think it is pretty darn likely that Harris carries a big old hunk of the traditional female white Republican vote and the “independent” female white vote, too. Do you think it’s going down any other way across the country?
A Harris Landslide Helps Trump
Much has been made of how “badly” Trump is campaigning. He seems to be deliberately trying to alienate large swaths of the electorate, especially women and Communities of Color. I’m surprised he isn’t talking more about the LGBTQ+ community and furries, kitty litter boxes and sex change operations in schools.
It occurs to me, though, that if Trump loses by a landslide when everybody is saying that it is within-the-margin of error, it makes it easier for him to cry foul and claim that he’s been cheated.
Proportionality bias says that the larger the violation of expectations, the larger the cause must be. A landslide makes his claims of election fraud all the more credible. And, it is just the kind of stupid “evil genius” plan that he and his brain trust would cook up.
The only thing that keeps me from signing on to the theory is that he hasn’t boasted about it like he has all of his past dumbass genius plans. He’s a narcissist. What is the good of having an evil genius plan go off without a hitch if no one knows about it? Of course he has to tell you. And, of course, he’s going to tell us through projection.
Has he ever predicted he’d win in a landslide? If he has, it is very likely this is the plan. What do you think? I’d love to discuss it in the comments.
The Psy of Life 
“A Harris landslide helps Trump” has to be the hottest take I think I’ve heard yet.
He’s ALWAYS claimed ‘huge fraud at every level’ He claimed that if it wasn’t for ‘all the illegals voting’ he’d have carried California in 2016. California!
It will help him whine and piss and moan about how he was cheated, CHEATED!!!11!!!Eleventy!!! but it will not move reality at all. Yes he has predicted a landslide win, “if the cheating democrats don’t get their way!” He DID make a lot of noise about how “he got more votes than any incumbent president in US history!” Which was true. Alas Joe Biden got 3 million more.
A Harris win on this scale would not convince even the trumpiest judges in the country to think about overturning the election. Nor would it inspire his followers to do much in the way of trying.
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Howdy Bruce!
I believe Trump’s goal is to tie the finalization of the vote count up in the courts until Safe Harbor Day, 11 December. That’s the date the SCOTUS stepped in in Bush v Gore. That is the day that all voting controversies must be resolved and the states submit their slates of electors. They need to gum up the works in enough states to keep the election results unclear and rely on the Roberts Court to hand the election to Trump. Nothing else actually makes sense for them as a strategy.
All they need is enough smoke to make people think fire, which is the point of front loading the news with claims of the only way I lose is if I cheat, the lying press, and the race is tied. The courts may react like they did in 2020 and deny standing, but they’ve had our years to work that one out. Few of the 2020 lawsuits actually got a hearing based on the “evidence,” most were thrown out due to a lack of standing. Like in Trump’s legal cases, they just need to ply the courts with enough objections to keep the case active but delayed and hope that judges issues stays for the counting or certification of votes.
How many Eileen Cannons and Matthew Kacsmaryks out there?
Huzzah!
Jack
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I adore both YOU and your writing…but I simply can not emotionally deal with anything else to do with the Cheeto, either pro or con. It’s all con actually. SO, I am not going to read.
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Thank you Suze. I appreciate the kind words, and I understand completely. We are living through excruciating and exhausting times. It’s been a rollercoaster for me as well.
Blog on Sibling!
Jack
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Even if Trump were to lose by just one vote in just one precinct, and win everywhere else, he would still cry fraud. If he were to win, but not by a landslide, he would still say there was cheating. The only outcome that would satisfy him would be for his opponent to get zero votes.
In some ways, the more enduring question would be what message the Republican Party would take from a Blue landslide. I’m thinking they might be well advised to heed this from Abigail Adams:
“If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice, or representation.”
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Howdy Bob!
In the immediate aftermath of a Trump loss of any size, but especially a landslide, I suspect they would have an internal evaluation similar to the one they had in 2008, was it? Conclude that they needed to broaden the tent and then proceed to double down on the racism and misogyny. MAGA Republicans are not going quietly into the night with or without Trump. It will take the 2026 losses to really get the “moderate” Republicans to claim they were always never Trumpers and never MAGA supporters and start shifting towards the center and returning to a truer version of the Southern Strategy.
Huzzah!
Jack
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It may even take more then two elections. The presumptive heirs of Trump will be shooting for 2028. In some ways, the down ballot races could make a real difference if more moderate Republicans can win primaries.
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I’m afraid that once you’ve gone oligarch, you’re never going back. I think we’ve lost an entire generation of Republicans to cockamamie anti-democratic scheming from SCOTUS to the Proud Boys.
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It does seem that way. It will take repeated punishment at the polls all down the ballot to break that hold, although meaningful changes in the money flow would help a lot, that and the primary process, and redistricting reform. And doing something about the SCOTUS problem has to be high on the To Do List if Democrats can get the White House and both the House and Senate. My sense is that unless the GOP does a full about face on the climate, they have to be kept out of power until further notice, a generation at least if we are to have any chance of avoiding the worst case.
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The problem is that as a group white people don’t seem to want to punish Trump and the Republicans for their anti-democratic, climate, racist, misogynist ways. The vote as it is rolling in seems to be breaking Trump’s way.
Jack
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7:15 AM Wednesday: A hell of a lot of people in this country have signed up for some very nasty surprises. We in deep shit.
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I feel like I can go back to my posts from 2017 and just revise a lot of them. The worst part of it all is that Trump is likely to die in office and we’ll end up with the brat, JD Vance, who is less capable and more ideologically driven than Trump.
Jack
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Trump might not even make it to Inauguration. He looks bad. Right now, he’s high, as in potentially manic, and that doesn’t go well with an obesity stressed cardio-vascular system. One thing about Vance, if he were to have to step up into the job is that the MAGA base doesn’t love him and will be less forgiving when he screws up, but he will do the bidding of the oligarchs.
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Howdy Bob!
In some ways Vance worries me more than Pence ever did. Both have executive functioning skills and a real agenda to pursue. We knew Pence’s because of his governorship in Indiana. He would be a religious zealot. We don’t really know Vance’s, but he, like Trump, seems to be available to the highest bidder. And, he, like Trump, is vulnerable to the sweet ego stroking talker.
Anyway you slice it or dice it, we’re cooked. I don’t think I’ve ever been this pessimistic in my life. I’m with James Carvel on this one. I’m in a real real dark place. My comment to friends and colleagues about the election, you can’t hide from climate change.
Blog on Sibling!
Jack
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Vance is more of a problem because he will follow orders, at least for a while. He’s in it for becoming an oligarch in his own right. Wave money at him, and he will follow.
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Howdy Bob!
It’s the just show me the money crowd that is the most troubling in our government. Unfortunately, that is all of Trump’s cabinet and most of Congress and much of the judiciary. We’re bought and paid for now. It is the worldwide oligarchy.
Huzzah!
Jack
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All the way back to Pericles and Thucydides it has been clear that too great a wealth gap is deadly to democracy. The Romans knew it too. Demagogues thrive on getting the people to blame the wrong villains.
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We aren’t going to be closing that wealth gap anytime soon, either. I think implosion is our only way out of this mess at this point.
Jack
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Well, if the Republicans keep the House, which is seeming more likely, they will go hog wild, and none will dare vote against anything Trump sends them. They will do their worst on every issue, to erase any trace of legacy for Biden or Obama, even FDR. Millions who have relied on the ACA will wake up one day to find their health insurance gone. The Dream Act will be repealed making the Dreamers immediately deportable. Temporary Protected Status will follow, and probably Refugee status. Forgiving Student Loan Debt will stop, and loans already cancelled or reduced possibly reinstated. And the tariffs put on everything from everywhere all at once will raise a great many prices rapidly. I think implosion is the right word, and may be the path to a cure. In 12 Step programs there is a saying, “The only way out is through.” That path may be a walk on hot coals, probably will be, maybe even a Second Great Depression, but that would at least drastically cut carbon emissions.
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Howdy Bob!
This election puts the truth in the only way out is through. We have to move forward and focus on the future. Unfortunately, the things that worked the first time through: mass protests and pressuring Congress probably won’t work this time round.
Protests will just trigger an over reaction like setting aside the Constitutional protection of rights, invoking the Insurrection Act, utilizing the ICE secret police, and national guard to put down the protests.
Republicans are like an overly full tick right now. They’re so full of MAGA euphoria that they won’t listen to their constituents no matter what. They believe their voter suppression efforts have completely insulated them from any voter accountability, and they are right.
We have to come up with new tactics that citizens can take part in. And, we have to make racism and misogyny bad things again because right now, they aren’t.
I’m not sure what the solution is here, but from what I’ve heard on all of the punditing shows, no one else does either. They’re still talking about REALLY listening to voters like that is going to work.
Blog on Sibling!
Jack
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That “listening to voters” line is one of the things that always sounds condescending, especially when those voters have just spoken so clearly that they don’t believe you hear them.
One way to look at went wrong is that the Democrats were fighting the last war, just as much so as the Republicans were in 2020. So, the question now is who will invent the nest one.
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Howdy Bob!
I think the real lesson from 2024 is that the Republican voter suppression efforts all worked and that every election hereafter is going to be a repeat of this one… or, at least, that’s what Republican’s think. Trump’s “appointments” all suggest that he plans on ruling as an autocrat, that he believes that he neither wants nor needs input from from the cabinet, he only needs sycophants who will dismantle the government departments and turn them all into rubber stamps.
The Republican Dystopia is that we all are now living in the hellscape of Trump’s mind.
Blog on, Sibling!
Jack
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If Trump does what he says he will do with tariffs on Day One by executive order, taxing everything from everywhere (China 60%) all at once, the sticker shock will be awesome, and only get worse from there.
I did a little research:
House of Representatives election results
1928 – D=164, R=270
[1929 – Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act > Tariff War > Stock Market Crash > Great Depression]
1932 – D=313, R=117
1934 – D=322, R=103
Trump thinks he can win a tariff war. Nobody wins a tariff war, especially the one who started it.
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Howdy Bob!
I think one of the problems we’re facing that we’ve yet to find an answer for is the effectiveness of the Russian disinformation campaign. The Russians and their useful idiots are the reason people think crime is up, the economy is down, and climate change is a hoax. Other than climate change, it is probably the biggest challenge of our time.
I hope that when we are all suffering under Trump’s tariff regime, we assign blame appropriately. We’ll see. I’m in a dark enough place to think that we won’t, though.
Huzzah!
Jack
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Trump appears to plan on making a huge splash of action on Day One, with the tariffs, reversing Biden’s executive orders, pushing for fast repeal of the ACA and Biden’s climate and job creation actions, and, of course, deportations and revenge. The opposition needs to make sure that he owns every bit of the misery that follows for those who voted for him.
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Howdy Bob!
That is one of those really hard conundrums to crack. How do you break through the mesmerizing effect of nine years of fear mongering and scapegoating? Other than the effectiveness of voter suppression and disinformation, the only other way to interpret the election is that lots of Americans were energized and encouraged to vote by Trump’s plans.
In 2016 we were not moved by the prospect of losing the Supreme Court to vote, and that got us to Dobbs. In 2020, we were moved by the #COVID19 pandemic chaos to vote, and that got us Biden and the best economy in decades. And in 2024, we were not moved by the prospect of losing democracy and returning a felonious, authoritarian, rapist, traitor and the damage that would do to the climate and the world, and what will that get us?
I am just not getting over this very easily or quickly.
Blog on, Sibling!
Jack
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Well, we do have a very Good News/Bad News situation in the fact al almost none of Trump’s appointment picks so far are eve remotely qualified for those jobs, and they are going to fire, drive away, or ignore those in their departments who do understand the job.
I’ve been pondering what will happen when the ACA is repealed and 21 Million people wake up to find their health insurance gone.
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If nothing else, we are in for a very chaotic traumatic two years. It maybe that the immediacy of the multiple crises such as the loss of the ACA, curtailment of the social safety nets, privatization of education, and others will drive the vote in 2026. Counterbalancing this is the further work of state legislatures, Congress, and the courts to further voter suppression to disenfranchise Democratic voters. I’m not confident that we’ll get another bite at the democracy apple.
Jack
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One small bit of good news here in NC is that although Trump took the state, we took all the administrative offices (Gov, AG, L-Gov) and broke the veto proof GOP majority in the state house. A state supreme court set was still undecided (counting mail in ballots). If the GOP can piss off enough people, which looks like a significant possibility, 2026 can be a “Throw the bums out” election even in dark Red places. Getting folks to vote for change, any kind of change, even crazy change, is easy when they are angry and/or afraid, and especially both.
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Howdy Bob!
I think that that pattern was repeated in several states. It is confounding. Now, we’re hearing that the Muslims for Trump and Abandon Harris folks are upset because Trump isn’t sufficiently supportive of peace in Gaza. Where were they over the past nine years? They were big contributors to the loss in Michigan and Pennsylvania. It just defies all reason, this election. It is enough to make a conspiracy theorist out of you.
Huzzah!
Jack
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The split ticket with people voting GOP for President and Dem for Governor has been consistent in NC for a while. And both congress and the state legislature are so far Gerrymandered that it is almost impossible not the get Repub majorities in those. The Sate Supreme Court has been flipping majority in most recent elections. If not for the Gerrymandering, this would be a truly purple state.
I can’t imagine how those Muslims and others wanting to punish the Dems for Biden not accomplishing the impossible about Gaza could have imagined that Trump winning would be anything but the end of any hope for the Palestinians. Right after the election, one of Bebe’s crew announced that they are “putting the infrastructure in place” (whatever that means) to formally annex Juda and Samara, the West Bank, early next year and “return the Homeland to Jewish sovereignty”. That was 100% predictable unless the Netanyahu government was overturned.
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Howdy Bob!
I think NC is the poster child of Newt’s permanent majority. It is exactly what they want in terms of gerrymandering and protection by the court. I still can’t believe anyone would vote Democratic in a statewide race and Trump for president, but I guess that is just me.
I’m still shaking my head about Muslims voting Trump… hello? Muslim ban? WTF?
Blog on, Sibling!
Jack
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Those are both puzzles we may ponder for a long time. I suspect that a lot of those split ticket voters were unable to vote for a woman for President. As for the Muslims, it seems to have been that the boss of one candidate didn’t end a war and the other said he would. They forgot to ask how.
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I’ve often said that 2016 proved that misogyny trumped racism in the American totem of psychic phobias.
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It is at the core of patriarchy. The deep beliefs that support that system are well described in this recent article, because in Purity Culture they are explicit.
https://www.psypost.org/purity-culture-horrible-sex-new-research-sheds-light-on-white-christian-womens-sexual-well-being/
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Howdy Bob!
The way sex is represented in American culture is amazingly dysfunctional as dysfunctional as our relationship with racism and just as systemic. It is probably at the root of all the transphobia on the right, too.
Jack
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Americans have been morally and politically at least schizophrenic if not MPD or bipolar, or simply completely confused about sex and gender and identities since the Mayflower dropped anchor off Plymouth Rock.
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They brought it all with them, didn’t they?
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Yep, all the way from that bit with the apple and getting kicked out of Eden saddled with Original Sin, which is, of course, all about sex and sensual pleasure in general, to suffer in this vale of tears trying to prove worthy to get back in. All three of the Abrhamatic religions have deep and strong strains of misogynistic patriarchy trying to have a soul without a body ever since. Once you personify the transcendent creative essence as a disembodied male monarch, you’re trapped there. The myths and legends and metaphors of the polytheistic pantheons are all family dramas with characters who not only have sex, but even procreate, as well as identifying with the processes and creatures of the natural world.
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I guess Eve was the first scapegoat. We’ve been mired in shifting blame and looking for the easy way out ever since.
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Humans do seem to have a hard time either our own selves or G-d for the bad outcomes.
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I was thinking today of that class of jokes in which someone is granted a wish and it comes in a way they had not imagined. Trump does want to be President For Life. Perhaps, the Lords Of Cosmic Jest are listening.
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I don’t see there’s anyway to avoid living through the Republican Dystopia now. The best we can hope for is that Trump dies in office and Vance and the Republicans are tied up in endless conflicting interests, incompetence, and confusion. Unfortunately, Putin’s trillions — does anyone doubt that Putin is actually sitting on a fortune in excess of a trillion dollars? — and Musk’s billions — this morning Tesla was valued at a trillion — will buy lots of cooperation, laws, and policies.
Jack
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