It's actually better that the Republicans don't realize what's happening and continue turning that hubris dial just as high as it can go. The more they do, the more people are unhappy, and that means 2018 for Democrats just looks better and better.
This probably was commented already, but man, those Ossoff emails were bad:
"Surely the total lack of hope will raise more money and put people into the polls!" - The DNC, for some reason.
Is this real?
Democratic kerplunchicks have no idea how to raise money or motivate voters. It's shameful, really.
Emails are the best example. It's either DOOOM or shaming the people engaged enough to sign up for emails. Both of which are surefire ways to depress Democrats.
Give us some hope, goddammit. Pep talks, not tongue lashings. It's emblematic of the messaging problems party wide.
Hell, just copy and paste some speeches from The West Wing and slap a "donate" button at the end
This probably was commented already, but man, those Ossoff emails were bad:
"Surely the total lack of hope will raise more money and put people into the polls!" - The DNC, for some reason.
Is this real?
Democratic kerplunchicks have no idea how to raise money or motivate voters. It's shameful, really.
Emails are the best example. It's either DOOOM or shaming the people engaged enough to sign up for emails. Both of which are surefire ways to depress Democrats.
Give us some hope, goddammit. Pep talks, not tongue lashings. It's emblematic of the messaging problems party wide.
Hell, just copy and paste some speeches from The West Wing and slap a "donate" button at the end
Now you mention it they should just pay Aaron Sorkin to write these things.
This does not seem like a healthy or reasonable reaction at all
I'm not supposed to be angry that a woman who said she doesn't believe in a living wage won and that Trump and his dead-eyed kids get bragging rights while Congress is gleefully reassured of their safety while they move to throw tens of millions off their health insurance?
+15
Options
ChanusHarbinger of the Spicy Rooster ApocalypseThe Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered Userregular
A close GOP victory is the same as a massive GOP landslide: it's a GOP victory.
Yes, but it is better than a victory where the Dems getting utterly destroyed. This type of victory gives voters hope, and shows that they're on the cusp of getting actual victories.
I sure am hearing a lot about how this loss shouldn't give anyone hope, and we're tired of losing, and what's the point? though.
We are our own worst enemy if we're going to keep framing this is a huge disappointment gut punch failure.
A Republican House seat just shifted 19 points in favor of Democrats in a special election in the middle of an off-off year, yet some people just want to gripe about how disappointed they are.
Maybe the problem is too much hope and not enough change? I dunno.
A close GOP victory is the same as a massive GOP landslide: it's a GOP victory.
Yes, but it is better than a victory where the Dems getting utterly destroyed. This type of victory gives voters hope, and shows that they're on the cusp of getting actual victories.
I sure am hearing a lot about how this loss shouldn't give anyone hope, and we're tired of losing, and what's the point? though.
We are our own worst enemy if we're going to keep framing this is a huge disappointment gut punch failure.
A Republican House seat just shifted 19 points in favor of Democrats in a special election in the middle of an off-off year, yet some people just want to gripe about how disappointed they are.
Maybe the problem is too much hope and not enough change? I dunno.
The problem is doing better doesn't friggin' matter if you don't translate that to a win at some point. If every Dem in the country got 48% of the vote in their congressional district in 2018, that's a House that's 100% Republican.
The problem is doing better doesn't friggin' matter if you don't translate that to a win at some point. If every Dem in the country got 48% of the vote in their congressional district in 2018, that's a House that's 100% Republican.
It should matter, we can't win every time. It's going to be a long road back to victory again and this will not be easy. That's why it's good to acknowledge what the party does well, this should inspire hope that the Dems do stand a chance and they're going to win again someday. There's a massive difference between almost winning, and getting destroyed at the voting booth.
edit: Every almost victory the party can see what worked, and improved so next time they'll narrow the gap so they can win.
This does not seem like a healthy or reasonable reaction at all
I'm not supposed to be angry that a woman who said she doesn't believe in a living wage won and that Trump and his dead-eyed kids get bragging rights while Congress is gleefully reassured of their safety while they move to throw tens of millions off their health insurance?
I mean, yeah? Getting physically angry at inanimate objects over a result that you had no control over and doesn't actually change anything (they would still do these things if Ossoff had won) is not a healthy response.
I'm not impressed by the argument that forcing the Republicans to spend more money in order to win is a good thing. It's nice that our efforts are costing them, but unless there's some realistic price that the Republican donor class isn't willing to pay in order to control the Federal government it's basically irrelevant.
It's not meant to a be a silver bullet, it's another cut to their machine so they're got less resources to spread around for their candidates - they do the same to us. The candidates with the most money have the best shot at wining their elections.
The race between Handel and Ossoff has been the most expensive U.S. House race in history, and is projected to cost close to $60 million. Democrats outspent Republicans, in the hope of making the race a referendum against President Trump and his agenda. The seat was left vacant by Tom Price, selected by Mr. Trump to be secretary of Health and Human Services.
I'd say a +21 turnaround towards the Dems sure is a referendum against Trump and the GOP
Of course the Republicans and the media won't report it as such (publicly, anyway)
Because it would make them look foolish, since every article would end with 'and then he lost anyway'
The problem isn't too much hope. It's the endemic Democratic focus on the long ball. The biggest, best thing possible has to happen for X to have mattered/been successful/have been worth doing. This had manifested previously as a laser focus on the presidency and federal government, now we're seeing it as talk about how not winning R+20 seats in a scenario we always under perform in is unacceptable.
Democrats, by and large, aren't people who pay attention to politics. We've been pretty hands off as a base for a long time. We're now being confronted with the realities of how long political time scales actually are and how not every race is a toss up with national sensibilities and some significant part of our newly engaged membership is reacting poorly.
A close GOP victory is the same as a massive GOP landslide: it's a GOP victory.
Yes, but it is better than a victory where the Dems getting utterly destroyed. This type of victory gives voters hope, and shows that they're on the cusp of getting actual victories.
I sure am hearing a lot about how this loss shouldn't give anyone hope, and we're tired of losing, and what's the point? though.
We are our own worst enemy if we're going to keep framing this is a huge disappointment gut punch failure.
A Republican House seat just shifted 19 points in favor of Democrats in a special election in the middle of an off-off year, yet some people just want to gripe about how disappointed they are.
Maybe the problem is too much hope and not enough change? I dunno.
The problem is doing better doesn't friggin' matter if you don't translate that to a win at some point. If every Dem in the country got 48% of the vote in their congressional district in 2018, that's a House that's 100% Republican.
But it's not every D in the country.
It's a D in a district that usually goes like 65-35 R.
A close GOP victory is the same as a massive GOP landslide: it's a GOP victory.
Yes, but it is better than a victory where the Dems getting utterly destroyed. This type of victory gives voters hope, and shows that they're on the cusp of getting actual victories.
I sure am hearing a lot about how this loss shouldn't give anyone hope, and we're tired of losing, and what's the point? though.
We are our own worst enemy if we're going to keep framing this is a huge disappointment gut punch failure.
A Republican House seat just shifted 19 points in favor of Democrats in a special election in the middle of an off-off year, yet some people just want to gripe about how disappointed they are.
Maybe the problem is too much hope and not enough change? I dunno.
The problem is doing better doesn't friggin' matter if you don't translate that to a win at some point. If every Dem in the country got 48% of the vote in their congressional district in 2018, that's a House that's 100% Republican.
One seat out of 435 want going to materially change the situation in Congress. Hell, 4 weren't either. At most they were going to be a psychological road block for some Republicans.
I'm not impressed by the argument that forcing the Republicans to spend more money in order to win is a good thing. It's nice that our efforts are costing them, but unless there's some realistic price that the Republican donor class isn't willing to pay in order to control the Federal government it's basically irrelevant.
It's not meant to a be a silver bullet, it's another cut to their machine so they're got less resources to spread around for their candidates - they do the same to us. The candidates with the most money have the best shot at wining their elections.
The race between Handel and Ossoff has been the most expensive U.S. House race in history, and is projected to cost close to $60 million. Democrats outspent Republicans, in the hope of making the race a referendum against President Trump and his agenda. The seat was left vacant by Tom Price, selected by Mr. Trump to be secretary of Health and Human Services.
I'd say a +21 turnaround towards the Dems sure is a referendum against Trump and the GOP
Of course the Republicans and the media won't report it as such (publicly, anyway)
Because it would make them look foolish, since every article would end with 'and then he lost anyway'
You can write an article such that it paints a grim picture for the GOP when they keep losing ground on their super safe seats by 20 points. You can write an article painting that picture across the rest of the landscape, where the GOP does not own every seat by 20+ points, but rather by less than 10. And that historically, special elections to replace a new president's appointees means jack shit all in the grand scheme of things.
Look at the 2009 special elections vs what happened in 2010.
The Dems defended every single seat they had, and even turned a Red district Blue.
Paul Ryan's district doesn't seem to be as safe as I thought it would be. He won massively before running against an unfunded opponent, but the district is R+5.
This does not seem like a healthy or reasonable reaction at all
I'm not supposed to be angry that a woman who said she doesn't believe in a living wage won and that Trump and his dead-eyed kids get bragging rights while Congress is gleefully reassured of their safety while they move to throw tens of millions off their health insurance?
In this particular case? Not really. This is not a seat that Democrats ever win. It's not like "oh no, now there's more Republican voices than usual, we're losing ground." These have been super duper safe Republican seats, they have been filled by people with terrible political opinions because their voters are ignorant fools for years. It's nothing new. These aren't places that ever change no matter who the President has been and how well or poorly he's done. Even if the Democrats had a "normal" wave that swept the House in 2018 and gave us a majority these are seats that wouldn't have been flipped anyway.
So it really is saying something that Trump has managed to be so bad that he's broken such a number of people in these districts out of their stupor to create these huge swings. And that in and of itself is not for nothing, because it is an indicator of how things are most likely going to go in a normal election in places much closer than here.
Democrats, by and large, aren't people who pay attention to politics. We've been pretty hands off as a base for a long time.
We're now being confronted with the realities of how long political time scales actually are and how not every race is a toss up with national sensibilities and some significant part of our newly engaged membership is reacting poorly.
That applies to the other guys, too. And many, many Trump voters.
Can you define the base for me? If it is who I think it is, they haven't been the base for a long time.
This isn't new. People have the memory of goldfish, and the media helps with that. This is the cycle repeating again for x time. Different players, but it's the same game.
For instance, we're in the same stage we got in the latter years of W.'s term. Everyone forgets how bad Republicans are in office.
Paul Ryan's district doesn't seem to be as safe as I thought it would be. He won massively before running against an unfunded opponent, but the district is R+5.
Yeah, going purely on PVI it is a winnable district in the right environment. But I wouldn't get optimistic about it.
This does not seem like a healthy or reasonable reaction at all
I'm not supposed to be angry that a woman who said she doesn't believe in a living wage won and that Trump and his dead-eyed kids get bragging rights while Congress is gleefully reassured of their safety while they move to throw tens of millions off their health insurance?
Georgia 6th District
2002: R win by 59%
2004: R win by 100%
2006: R win by 45%
2008: R win by 37%
2010: R win by 99%
2012: R win by 29%
2014: R win by 32%
2016: R win by 24%
2017: R win by 04%
Paul Ryan's district doesn't seem to be as safe as I thought it would be. He won massively before running against an unfunded opponent, but the district is R+5.
Ryan is theoretically vulnerable, but he's also a very powerful national figure and the party will circle wagons around him if there's a real threat. I would be pleasantly surprised if Iron Mustache Guy can take the seat off him, but just making them fight for it has big upsides too.
I live just outside of GA-06, like literally a block outside. I just want to say that the results were disappointing but the amount of civic participation I saw among my friends in and out of the district was a sight to behold. I'm proud to be friends with them, especially because this is the group that theoretically "doesn't vote" according to common wisdom.
If we can take that energy and the dissatisfaction and keep it focused on phone calls and campaigns with our senators/representatives, we'll be doing some real good. Brass rings aren't the point of democracy. It would have been nice to see Karen Handel out of the picture but we've got a lot going on in Georgia right now and this is a good sign of the change at hand. We've gone from everyone only really giving a shit about the presidential election here to my friends constantly talking about a tiny special election. We can make a bunch of 20 somethings vote and canvass for a local election, a local special election, we can do quite a lot with that political will.
A close GOP victory is the same as a massive GOP landslide: it's a GOP victory.
Yes, but it is better than a victory where the Dems getting utterly destroyed. This type of victory gives voters hope, and shows that they're on the cusp of getting actual victories.
I sure am hearing a lot about how this loss shouldn't give anyone hope, and we're tired of losing, and what's the point? though.
We are our own worst enemy if we're going to keep framing this is a huge disappointment gut punch failure.
A Republican House seat just shifted 19 points in favor of Democrats in a special election in the middle of an off-off year, yet some people just want to gripe about how disappointed they are.
Maybe the problem is too much hope and not enough change? I dunno.
The problem is doing better doesn't friggin' matter if you don't translate that to a win at some point. If every Dem in the country got 48% of the vote in their congressional district in 2018, that's a House that's 100% Republican.
And if every District swings the same as the last 3, that's a Democratic House.
Democrats, by and large, aren't people who pay attention to politics.
That applies to the other guys, too. And many, many Trump voters.
We've been pretty hands off as a base for a long time.
Can you define the base for me? If it is who I think it is, they haven't been the base for a long time.
We're now being confronted with the realities of how long political time scales actually are and how not every race is a toss up with national sensibilities and some significant part of our newly engaged membership is reacting poorly.
This isn't new. People have the memory of goldfish, and the media helps with that. This is the cycle repeating again for x time. Different players, but it's the same game.
For instance, we're in the same stage we got in the latter years of W.'s term. Everyone forgets how bad Republicans are in office.
The base is the group of people that traditionally vote for Democrats. We, in the larger sense, have gotten very lazy about how we engage with politics, and now we're paying the price.
Blue wall, demographic enevitability, increasing urbanization, a black dude got elected president. We have done a lot of storytelling to each other about how we had this whole progress thing in the bag over the last decade or so. So we checked out, cracked open a beer and let other people handle it. Only they didn't, and now we need to get our collective shit back together to fix things.
This does not seem like a healthy or reasonable reaction at all
I'm not supposed to be angry that a woman who said she doesn't believe in a living wage won and that Trump and his dead-eyed kids get bragging rights while Congress is gleefully reassured of their safety while they move to throw tens of millions off their health insurance?
This is not at all what was said.
You punched your monitor seven times in reaction. That really isn't healthy or useful. It's fine to be angry but what you do with that anger is important.
A close GOP victory is the same as a massive GOP landslide: it's a GOP victory.
And if you only ever focus on one point of data and nothing else that's all it will ever be.
I don't recall this level of lamentation and despair every other time a red district went Republican. Focusing solely on the win ignores the rest of the data that's extremely good for 2018.
A close GOP victory is the same as a massive GOP landslide: it's a GOP victory.
And if you only ever focus on one point of data and nothing else that's all it will ever be.
I don't recall this level of lamentation and despair every other time a red district went Republican. Focusing solely on the win ignores the rest of the data that's extremely good for 2018.
Like I said previously, the GOP lost every special election in 2009. Even losing a Red district to a Democrat. You know what they didn't do? Give up. They continued fighting, they continued building up the Tea Party, and guess what happened in 2010.
This does not seem like a healthy or reasonable reaction at all
I'm not supposed to be angry that a woman who said she doesn't believe in a living wage won and that Trump and his dead-eyed kids get bragging rights while Congress is gleefully reassured of their safety while they move to throw tens of millions off their health insurance?
Georgia 6th District
2002: R win
2004: R win
2006: R win
2008: R win
2010: R win
2012: R win
2014: R win
2016: R win
2017: R win
Mourn today, fight tomorrow
I fixed it to remove irrelevant information and distractions, and focus on the outcome that matters.
The base is the group of people that traditionally vote for Democrats. We, in the larger sense, have gotten very lazy about how we engage with politics, and now we're paying the price.
Blue wall, demographic enevitability, increasing urbanization, a black dude got elected president. We have done a lot of storytelling to each other about how we had this whole progress thing in the bag over the last decade or so. So we checked out, cracked open a beer and let other people handle it. Only they didn't, and now we need to get our collective shit back together to fix things.
This is how it's aways been, though. It's unusual whenever every single person voting for party is up to date with politics at the same time.
Dems had good reason too, and like I said the public has a memory of a goldfish. They literally can't remember or care what the last Republican administration did 8 years ago, let alone 20. Yeah, they got over confident, they're human - that's what we do. People check out when they think everything's fine, and they get energized when the world's going to end. This is the cycle.
This does not seem like a healthy or reasonable reaction at all
I'm not supposed to be angry that a woman who said she doesn't believe in a living wage won and that Trump and his dead-eyed kids get bragging rights while Congress is gleefully reassured of their safety while they move to throw tens of millions off their health insurance?
Georgia 6th District
2002: R win
2004: R win
2006: R win
2008: R win
2010: R win
2012: R win
2014: R win
2016: R win
2017: R win
Mourn today, fight tomorrow
I fixed it to remove irrelevant information and distractions, and focus on the outcome that matters.
Christ
Come on. You c an easily see which way the wind blows, don't just put your head in the sand.
Paul Ryan's district doesn't seem to be as safe as I thought it would be. He won massively before running against an unfunded opponent, but the district is R+5.
Wisconsin is a weird state.
Well, I guess not weird, just sort of similar to Michigan/Minnesota/Iowa to some extent.
Deep reds and deep blues, but also that sort of holdover from the Southern Strategy switch where a lot of the traditional Democrats there are blue collar Trump voter types.
So I really have no idea how to read those tea leaves at present.
This does not seem like a healthy or reasonable reaction at all
I'm not supposed to be angry that a woman who said she doesn't believe in a living wage won and that Trump and his dead-eyed kids get bragging rights while Congress is gleefully reassured of their safety while they move to throw tens of millions off their health insurance?
Georgia 6th District
2002: R win
2004: R win
2006: R win
2008: R win
2010: R win
2012: R win
2014: R win
2016: R win
2017: R win
Mourn today, fight tomorrow
I fixed it to remove irrelevant information and distractions, and focus on the outcome that matters.
And if you want to be so reductionist, what would a D win have meant there? That the Republicans still had a majority and control of Congress. This has always been about 2018
If there was high expectations from this election, who's at fault? Turning these special elections in "national referendums of the Trump presidency" has done what exactly, besides giving fodder to "Not Tired of Winning"?
EDIT: What these "national referendums" have done, is to make every defeat that much more humilliating and demoralizing:
The base is the group of people that traditionally vote for Democrats. We, in the larger sense, have gotten very lazy about how we engage with politics, and now we're paying the price.
Blue wall, demographic enevitability, increasing urbanization, a black dude got elected president. We have done a lot of storytelling to each other about how we had this whole progress thing in the bag over the last decade or so. So we checked out, cracked open a beer and let other people handle it. Only they didn't, and now we need to get our collective shit back together to fix things.
This is how it's aways been, though. It's unusual whenever every single person voting for party is up to date with politics at the same time.
Dems had good reason too, and like I said the public has a memory of a goldfish. They literally can't remember or care what the last Republican administration did 8 years ago, let alone 20. Yeah, they got over confident, they're human - that's what we do. People check out when they think everything's fine, and they get energized when the world's going to end. This is the cycle.
This does not seem like a healthy or reasonable reaction at all
I'm not supposed to be angry that a woman who said she doesn't believe in a living wage won and that Trump and his dead-eyed kids get bragging rights while Congress is gleefully reassured of their safety while they move to throw tens of millions off their health insurance?
Georgia 6th District
2002: R win
2004: R win
2006: R win
2008: R win
2010: R win
2012: R win
2014: R win
2016: R win
2017: R win
Mourn today, fight tomorrow
I fixed it to remove irrelevant information and distractions, and focus on the outcome that matters.
Dude what the hell
That is not at all the only outcome that matters. 2018 congressional elections are not decided by GA-06. There is in fact more to the world than the sole outcome of this election.
This does not seem like a healthy or reasonable reaction at all
I'm not supposed to be angry that a woman who said she doesn't believe in a living wage won and that Trump and his dead-eyed kids get bragging rights while Congress is gleefully reassured of their safety while they move to throw tens of millions off their health insurance?
Georgia 6th District
2002: R win
2004: R win
2006: R win
2008: R win
2010: R win
2012: R win
2014: R win
2016: R win
2017: R win
Mourn today, fight tomorrow
I fixed it to remove irrelevant information and distractions, and focus on the outcome that matters.
And if you want to be so reductionist, what would a D win have meant there? That the Republicans still had a majority and control of Congress. This has always been about 2018
The same holds true for even if the Dems had won all 4 special elections.
This does not seem like a healthy or reasonable reaction at all
I'm not supposed to be angry that a woman who said she doesn't believe in a living wage won and that Trump and his dead-eyed kids get bragging rights while Congress is gleefully reassured of their safety while they move to throw tens of millions off their health insurance?
Georgia 6th District
2002-2017: a winner happened
Mourn today, fight tomorrow
I fixed it to remove irrelevant information and distractions, and focus on the outcome that matters.
This does not seem like a healthy or reasonable reaction at all
I'm not supposed to be angry that a woman who said she doesn't believe in a living wage won and that Trump and his dead-eyed kids get bragging rights while Congress is gleefully reassured of their safety while they move to throw tens of millions off their health insurance?
Georgia 6th District
2002: R win
2004: R win
2006: R win
2008: R win
2010: R win
2012: R win
2014: R win
2016: R win
2017: R win
Mourn today, fight tomorrow
I fixed it to remove irrelevant information and distractions, and focus on the outcome that matters.
I mean on the one hand I find nihilism hilarious, on the other hand if you can't see the outright statistical significance of the swing there you're kindof a lost cause.
Like this is deep red country... and it almost swung blue, in a fuckin off year special election.
Keep that fire burning, Trump and both houses of Congress have no problem continuing to shovel accelerant on the blaze, but we need a unified front to hold up, both in opposition to that tire fire and on its own merits. No reason to fall to fuckin pieces when we fail in assaulting a pub stronghold.
It's actually better that the Republicans don't realize what's happening and continue turning that hubris dial just as high as it can go. The more they do, the more people are unhappy, and that means 2018 for Democrats just looks better and better.
I wouldn't count on them being this dense. They're celebrating in public, because that's what you do after a win, even if you privatlely recognize that the contest was closer than you'd have liked, and are carefully strategizing for the next race
Posts
I mean, yeah. That's a truism.
That's how those work.
"A billion dollars is the same as a dollar: they're both currency."
Hell, just copy and paste some speeches from The West Wing and slap a "donate" button at the end
Now you mention it they should just pay Aaron Sorkin to write these things.
I'm not supposed to be angry that a woman who said she doesn't believe in a living wage won and that Trump and his dead-eyed kids get bragging rights while Congress is gleefully reassured of their safety while they move to throw tens of millions off their health insurance?
I sure am hearing a lot about how this loss shouldn't give anyone hope, and we're tired of losing, and what's the point? though.
We are our own worst enemy if we're going to keep framing this is a huge disappointment gut punch failure.
A Republican House seat just shifted 19 points in favor of Democrats in a special election in the middle of an off-off year, yet some people just want to gripe about how disappointed they are.
Maybe the problem is too much hope and not enough change? I dunno.
The problem is doing better doesn't friggin' matter if you don't translate that to a win at some point. If every Dem in the country got 48% of the vote in their congressional district in 2018, that's a House that's 100% Republican.
It should matter, we can't win every time. It's going to be a long road back to victory again and this will not be easy. That's why it's good to acknowledge what the party does well, this should inspire hope that the Dems do stand a chance and they're going to win again someday. There's a massive difference between almost winning, and getting destroyed at the voting booth.
edit: Every almost victory the party can see what worked, and improved so next time they'll narrow the gap so they can win.
I mean, yeah? Getting physically angry at inanimate objects over a result that you had no control over and doesn't actually change anything (they would still do these things if Ossoff had won) is not a healthy response.
Because it would make them look foolish, since every article would end with 'and then he lost anyway'
Democrats, by and large, aren't people who pay attention to politics. We've been pretty hands off as a base for a long time. We're now being confronted with the realities of how long political time scales actually are and how not every race is a toss up with national sensibilities and some significant part of our newly engaged membership is reacting poorly.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
It's a D in a district that usually goes like 65-35 R.
One seat out of 435 want going to materially change the situation in Congress. Hell, 4 weren't either. At most they were going to be a psychological road block for some Republicans.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
You can write an article such that it paints a grim picture for the GOP when they keep losing ground on their super safe seats by 20 points. You can write an article painting that picture across the rest of the landscape, where the GOP does not own every seat by 20+ points, but rather by less than 10. And that historically, special elections to replace a new president's appointees means jack shit all in the grand scheme of things.
Look at the 2009 special elections vs what happened in 2010.
The Dems defended every single seat they had, and even turned a Red district Blue.
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In this particular case? Not really. This is not a seat that Democrats ever win. It's not like "oh no, now there's more Republican voices than usual, we're losing ground." These have been super duper safe Republican seats, they have been filled by people with terrible political opinions because their voters are ignorant fools for years. It's nothing new. These aren't places that ever change no matter who the President has been and how well or poorly he's done. Even if the Democrats had a "normal" wave that swept the House in 2018 and gave us a majority these are seats that wouldn't have been flipped anyway.
So it really is saying something that Trump has managed to be so bad that he's broken such a number of people in these districts out of their stupor to create these huge swings. And that in and of itself is not for nothing, because it is an indicator of how things are most likely going to go in a normal election in places much closer than here.
That applies to the other guys, too. And many, many Trump voters.
Can you define the base for me? If it is who I think it is, they haven't been the base for a long time.
This isn't new. People have the memory of goldfish, and the media helps with that. This is the cycle repeating again for x time. Different players, but it's the same game.
For instance, we're in the same stage we got in the latter years of W.'s term. Everyone forgets how bad Republicans are in office.
Yeah, going purely on PVI it is a winnable district in the right environment. But I wouldn't get optimistic about it.
Georgia 6th District
2002: R win by 59%
2004: R win by 100%
2006: R win by 45%
2008: R win by 37%
2010: R win by 99%
2012: R win by 29%
2014: R win by 32%
2016: R win by 24%
2017: R win by 04%
Mourn today, fight tomorrow
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
Ryan is theoretically vulnerable, but he's also a very powerful national figure and the party will circle wagons around him if there's a real threat. I would be pleasantly surprised if Iron Mustache Guy can take the seat off him, but just making them fight for it has big upsides too.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
If we can take that energy and the dissatisfaction and keep it focused on phone calls and campaigns with our senators/representatives, we'll be doing some real good. Brass rings aren't the point of democracy. It would have been nice to see Karen Handel out of the picture but we've got a lot going on in Georgia right now and this is a good sign of the change at hand. We've gone from everyone only really giving a shit about the presidential election here to my friends constantly talking about a tiny special election. We can make a bunch of 20 somethings vote and canvass for a local election, a local special election, we can do quite a lot with that political will.
And if every District swings the same as the last 3, that's a Democratic House.
As in: If this continues, we win.
Hence the hope.
Steam: adamjnet
The base is the group of people that traditionally vote for Democrats. We, in the larger sense, have gotten very lazy about how we engage with politics, and now we're paying the price.
Blue wall, demographic enevitability, increasing urbanization, a black dude got elected president. We have done a lot of storytelling to each other about how we had this whole progress thing in the bag over the last decade or so. So we checked out, cracked open a beer and let other people handle it. Only they didn't, and now we need to get our collective shit back together to fix things.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
This is not at all what was said.
You punched your monitor seven times in reaction. That really isn't healthy or useful. It's fine to be angry but what you do with that anger is important.
And if you only ever focus on one point of data and nothing else that's all it will ever be.
I don't recall this level of lamentation and despair every other time a red district went Republican. Focusing solely on the win ignores the rest of the data that's extremely good for 2018.
Like I said previously, the GOP lost every special election in 2009. Even losing a Red district to a Democrat. You know what they didn't do? Give up. They continued fighting, they continued building up the Tea Party, and guess what happened in 2010.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
I fixed it to remove irrelevant information and distractions, and focus on the outcome that matters.
This is how it's aways been, though. It's unusual whenever every single person voting for party is up to date with politics at the same time.
Dems had good reason too, and like I said the public has a memory of a goldfish. They literally can't remember or care what the last Republican administration did 8 years ago, let alone 20. Yeah, they got over confident, they're human - that's what we do. People check out when they think everything's fine, and they get energized when the world's going to end. This is the cycle.
Christ
Come on. You c an easily see which way the wind blows, don't just put your head in the sand.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
Wisconsin is a weird state.
Well, I guess not weird, just sort of similar to Michigan/Minnesota/Iowa to some extent.
Deep reds and deep blues, but also that sort of holdover from the Southern Strategy switch where a lot of the traditional Democrats there are blue collar Trump voter types.
So I really have no idea how to read those tea leaves at present.
And if you want to be so reductionist, what would a D win have meant there? That the Republicans still had a majority and control of Congress. This has always been about 2018
QEDMF xbl: PantsB G+
EDIT: What these "national referendums" have done, is to make every defeat that much more humilliating and demoralizing:
Okay, thank you, this tangent is over.
Dude what the hell
That is not at all the only outcome that matters. 2018 congressional elections are not decided by GA-06. There is in fact more to the world than the sole outcome of this election.
They tried to bury us. They didn't know that we were seeds. 2018 Midterms. Get your shit together.
The same holds true for even if the Dems had won all 4 special elections.
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
I think I'm really cutting to the heart of things
I mean on the one hand I find nihilism hilarious, on the other hand if you can't see the outright statistical significance of the swing there you're kindof a lost cause.
Like this is deep red country... and it almost swung blue, in a fuckin off year special election.
Keep that fire burning, Trump and both houses of Congress have no problem continuing to shovel accelerant on the blaze, but we need a unified front to hold up, both in opposition to that tire fire and on its own merits. No reason to fall to fuckin pieces when we fail in assaulting a pub stronghold.
I wouldn't count on them being this dense. They're celebrating in public, because that's what you do after a win, even if you privatlely recognize that the contest was closer than you'd have liked, and are carefully strategizing for the next race