This is one of the sentiments that got us here
I found the following comment on a thread at Legal Insurrection:
…[I]ts hard to get excited or even care about who controls the Senate. I can expect a Dem controlled Senate will be firebreathing and ram through whatever they want. But I can also expect that the GOPe will talk talk talk about doing a bunch of things and then cave in the “spirit of bipartisanship” as they sell us out for more Donor Dollars.
Shorter: The Dems will spit in my face, but at least I can see it coming. The GOPe will shiv me in the back while I am defending them.
Those days are over.
This cynical stance of false equivalence, this “if they don’t do what I want, then they’re just as bad as the opposition or really worse” attitude is what might get us a Democratic-controlled Senate to go with a Hillary Clinton president, to give her just what she wants.
I can’t remember how long ago I first encountered this “They’re all the same, but the GOP is worse because they’re back-stabbers” sentiment. But I think it was already present when I first started blogging, back in the Bush days (2004-2005). At first, it was something you saw only every now and then. But during the Obama years, it grew and grew and grew, until during the 2012 campaign I found myself fighting against it more or less constantly in the comments section (that year it had to do with both Congress and presidential nominee Mitt Romney).
In the four years since then, it has only grown, and has borne fruit in the Trump candidacy. Whoever is the victor tonight in the presidential contest, it seems obvious to me that the makeup of Congress (the Senate in particular, since that is most at risk) would be key. If Trump were president, they are needed to keep his agenda from being blocked, so if you believe in his agenda you should care very much about Congress. And if Hillary is president, Congress is obviously the way she could be blocked.
When I write “blocked,” I don’t mean completely or magically, or in every instance and every way. I mean far far more than would ever occur with a Democratic Senate. And yes, although there are some ways in which the GOP members of Congress were disappointing, the GOP-controlled Congress did block Obama’s agenda in many important ways. To deny that is to believe a destructive, emotionally-satisfying myth.
It’s probably a subspecies of the old “they are all crooks” and “there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between any of them” cynicism poses beloved by the negligent citizen as cover for his habit of passivity and indifference.
You walk neighborhoods handing out literature and canvassing votes, and you will see just how much difference there is between even a GW Bush Republican party platform, and the average man-faced pixie haircut adorned NEA activist you are likely to run into in front of her house or when she gets into local office.
In a possible strike against our Senate during PresidentPseudonym’s second term, we may ask “What was PresPseudo’s greatest aim in his second term?” and return the answer “An alliance with the Islamic Republic of Iran, leading to a wholly changed balance of power in the Middle East, and only the Dog knows where else in the world.”
We then ask, did the Senate block that? “No, not really,” we have to answer ourselves, if we intend to be honest about that.
“Any chance that the Senate could have blocked such an alliance?”, we may query again.
We’ll yes, it appears that there was such a chance, though it had been slim. Yet, the Senate fumbled the chance away. Badly done, US Senate, very badly done.
A lot of this type are really LIV who don’t bother to think about strategy and tactics. They think you can just stomp your feet and get whatever you want, even if you don’t have the votes. These were the people turned on by Trump’s Deport Them All talk.
If such people really cared about an issue, they would have stood up to Trump’s flip flops. I don’t think most have studied the issues at all. They just want soundbites.
Expat – Exactly. If the words “low information voters” has any meaning, it refers to these people who make their political decisions without even a cursory review. Then they quote Twain or Mencken to cover for it.
My Trump friend was well-informed, but he was also a big Michael Savage fan and constantly in a state of high indignation.
I understand. By 2016 I was pretty hot too, but not so hot as my friend.
I think there was something of a bubble effect at work. I think a lot of Trump people going to rallies, following the news on Fox, talk shows and conservative blogs got the impression Trump was going to sweep the country like Obama and hula hoops.
Trump had enough strength via his celebrity and media exposure to elbow his way through the crowded GOP primaries, but the general election was always going to a be a very different propositon even given Hillary’s weaknesses.
Today I am perplexed by the optimism of some Trump voters. Either they are in a bubble or I am. We’ll see.
It’s another symptom of the mass hysteria of Trumpkins. It’s always the apocalypse with them; either that, or an incredibly cynical ploy to manipulate voters.
From 538, these are the key swing states:
Nevada……….. +1.2 +4.2 -1.8 – 6 ecv
North Carolina +0.7 +3.5 -2.1 – 15 ecv
Florida…………. +0.7 +3.6 -2.3 – 29 ecv
Maine CD-2…. +0.4 +3.7 -3.0 – 2 ecv
The first #: clinton margin, per 538 polls only forecast
The 2nd #: clinton margin + margin of error towards clinton
The 3rd #: clinton margin – margin of error towards trump
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/final-election-update-theres-a-wide-range-of-outcomes-and-most-of-them-come-up-clinton/
That’s 52 ecv swing. But to narrow it down, if NC and FL swing both the same way, it will be either a very tight race (trump) or a blowout (clinton).
“It’s another symptom of the mass hysteria of Trumpkins. It’s always the apocalypse with them” – Matt SE
It shouldn’t be lost on us that we hear the same from the left… global warming / climate change anyone?
Anger, grievance and fear motivates, and there are actors out there who know this who use it to their profit.
Anyone who doesn’t buy in to these extremes are targets for derision.
Neo you are correct again. Remember when Trump criticized the House Benghazi and Email hearings as accomplishing nothing? But both were under the steady, careful control of experienced former prosecutors. So Hillary would have sailed scot free into the election without that. Donald doesn’t work well or share credit with others to say the least.
Scott Walker accomplished the goal of almost every Republican of crippling the public employee unions, restoring budget control to the legislature and reducing spending. Again Trump criticized him as a “failure”.
The job is half done but Trump is doing nothing to help.
Don’t I recall Mitch McConnel running on blocking Obama’s agenda in 2014 and then the day after an historic win (9seats) in the senate he proclaims he is going to ” work” with Obama? Pretty sure that is what happened. I mean I get the points you have made but how is my example not a conniving dishonest betrayal of his parties’ voters wishes?
The explanations stink. Did you email/write your congressman or Senator about issues that you cared about? I did – and when I got any reply at all, it was late and whining and talked about how important it was to keep from closing the government! See the Ted Cruz speech on the theatrics. THis is the same condescension we get on every issue –there there you just don”t understand how hard it is to be a politician (pats head). I understand why the D’s stopped having Town Hall meetings after the Obamacare fiasco, but why did the R’s?
Admittedly we screw up by electing 84% of incumbents and the Tea Party tried to work on that. ANd got Thad Cochran – again. I suppose Haley Barbour is just waiting for the election to be over so good ole THad can retire and Haley can appoint the son or Nephew for whom Thad is warming the seat.
THe Republican Party is over – most of the people I have worked with in the party structure are completely through with the Party. NO more money, no more shoe leather, no more sticking your neck out admitting you are a “deplorable”/ Going Galt is looking better and better. THe only people still concerned are those with grandchildren.
“Could” block? Will? There is a difference.
Even in 2012, there were people online that started to talk about the apocalypse which I also predicted and described. The Apocalypse is not a phenomenon that Trum supporters own.
NO more money, no more shoe leather, no more sticking your neck out admitting you are a “deplorable”/ Going Galt is looking better and better.
People should have figured out that paying money into corrupt organizations is just another cult or Roman Catholic indulgence con.
Then again, we are talking about humans, so expectations must be adjusted.
Anger, grievance and fear motivates, and there are actors out there who know this who use it to their profit.
Anyone who doesn’t buy in to these extremes are targets for derision.
There was no profit in declaring an inevitable US Civil War II after 2012 or during 2007.
There was no political election to deride people for either.
What people like Big are ignoring is the fact that the Apocalypse is coming, and it is independent of whose side or faction wins in 2016. For people whose experience with prophecies comes from Jim Jones, Gaia warming cultists, and Republican talking heads, their ability to judge is severely compromised.
Especially for those who believed Shinigami Shinseki had a point about Iraq or much of anything relating to the military.
“What people like Big are ignoring is the fact that the Apocalypse is coming”
There have been predictions of the end of the world for as long has humanity had come to live in complex societies.
I doubt a generation went by where prognosticators great and small were announcing this as if they “knew” it was coming within their lifetimes.
Should we prepare now for the eventuality that the sun will burn out? And this we CAN predict.
Thing is, if/when it comes, we will never know until it is on our doorstep.
.
Yet, in 2008, 2012, and, now, 2016 we’ve heard very similar arguments, as if the immediate election choices represent the end of America over the next four years.
So, which version was true? Clearly, 2008 and 2012 were wrong. With 2016, we won’t ever know if clinton represented the end. They are simply all exaggerations to generate a political boost from the fear it generates?
So, yes, ignore these predictions because they are false.
No doubt the left are now making that argument wrt trump’s win, as unpredictable as he has been.
There have been predictions of the end of the world for as long has humanity had come to live in complex societies.
How many of them did I make?
Should we prepare now for the eventuality that the sun will burn out? And this we CAN predict.
If rely we rely on scientific models. They’re never wrong, right.
You know how many models of the atom there have been? Ever hear of the Standard Model in quantum physics?
What humans know barely what exists. What they think they know, is a lot more.
Yet, in 2008, 2012, and, now, 2016 we’ve heard very similar arguments, as if the immediate election choices represent the end of America over the next four years.
And how many of those were things I said concerning the immediate election choices representing the end of America?
So, which version was true?
If I was to believe everyone who said at the time that Ohms was wrong, do I believe in the genius of Ohms that he touched upon God’s truth or do I believe in the majority opinion that declared that Ohms could not possibly be right?
Who is Ohms and what did he propose?
IR=V
Current times resistance equals voltage.
In other words I believe in my own judgment, not the 99% of humanity who are idiots on top of being wrong.