It's official: Trump Is History, Says The Prediction Professor

[tassojunior]

I'm not sure headlines like this don't create backlash.

 

[stevenkesslar]

4 hours ago, tassojunior said:

And Kaisch may be a charmer but he got so popular by practically outlawing abortion in Ohio, passing Right to Work and other union-busting laws, vetoing raising the minimum wage,  supporting the Iraq invasion, and scrapping state bank and environmental regulations, but he did sign expanding Medicaid (important). Typical Bush conservative Republican, no better. 

I mostly agree with you about Kasich.  Everything you said is why I would never vote for him.  I'm a Democrat.  In the context of 2020, I'd call myself a Warren Democrat.  

That said, I'd make the same caveat I did already.  If the Democrats had elected, or ever elect, a "homegrown Mussolini", I hope I'd have the courage to do what Kasich is doing right now.  If you are right, and he is as conservative as you think he is, speaking up for "Socialist Radical Wannabe/But Senile Now" Joe Biden has to be painful.  Not to mention "Even Crazier Radical We're Conservative And White And We Say She's An Extremist And Not Really Black" Kamala Harris.  Ugh!  Poor Kasich.

(By the way, just how racist can White conservatives get?  Is there no bottom?  Do they not realize that Whites were supposed to be out of the business of telling Blacks who they think is Black a very long time ago?  Really?  White conservatives are saying let's forget slavery ever happened, because it just doesn't matter in 2020.  Except for that part about Whites deciding who is Black.  Because that part was really cool, for Whites at least!  So we've decided Kamala is not Black.  Really?  Really?)

I've started kind of a voodoo thread here.  It's about predictions and "keys" which can easily be dismissed as bullshit.  And I've elevated the voodoo element of it by speculating about what this election might be like on an alternative Earth with no COVID-19.

So while I was watering my plants another question popped into my mind which I think is worth thinking about.  At least to me, it helps me think about what's moving the dial in 2020.  

So if you want to play, here's your homework question.  Think about this:

What would America be like right now if John Kasich was nominated by the Republicans in 2016 and won?  What if he was now President Kasich, and running for re-election?  And would he win, based on Lichtman's keys?

I'll tell you some things I thing would be very different relating to both the recent past and near future.  And in all of this I'm just going to assume that all Lichtman's key are correct. I'm also going to intentionally mention some things that are small picture and personal and anecdotal, and some that are big picture and totally political.  My point in doing so is that this national shit show is affecting everybody in different ways.  On a personal level, it is tearing many families and friendships apart.

First, Kasich would have won in 2016.  When Lichtman, a Democrat, called it for President Toxic in September 2016, he got a lot of shit from other Democrats.  He actually built in a caveat.  He said that his system predicts the incumbent party will lose, in a close race, based on fundamentals. So any Republican is likely to win, he said.  But he also said Trump could thwart his keys.  Because he is so unprecedented, and so divisive, that Clinton might win even though history is kind of stacked against her.   Kasich would likely have just made the predicted Republican victory a bit easier, I think.  

I'm going to go with you, @tassojunior, and assume that that what Kasich did in Ohio after winning is a good model for what he would have done with a Republican House and Senate.  Which is to say, he would have taken some key "conservative" pieces - like he did with Right To Work in Ohio - and run with them.  So one thing for sure:  similarly conservative judges. 

The interesting question is:  which "conservative" legislative pieces?  I put the word "conservative" in quotations because it's not clear to me that running up a $1 trillion annual deficit in good times is "conservative".    I'm not sure whether @pete1111 was supporting Laurence O'Donnell or scolding him for going after Mayor Pete for being wrong about Democrats and deficits.  But what O'Donnell said in a clip posted above is 100 % true.  He was there.  In 1993 the Democrats unilaterally passed a bill that set the course for a budget surplus in the late 90's.  And as O'Donnell said, several Congressional Democrats lost their jobs over that vote.  In my alternative Earth, it would be interesting to see whether President Kasich would have showed courage when wealthy Republican donors asked for their payback in the form of huge tax cuts that once again ran up a $1 trillion deficit - in what was supposedly "the best economy ever".

You mentioned Medicaid, @tassojunior.  So I'll go with that on my alternative history, as well.  Which is to say, President Kasich would not have gone to court to kill Obamacare and inflame things even more,  so that nothing actually happened in the end.  He very likely would have tried to cut a deal from the center.  Whether that's because he's more Christian than President Toxic, or he has different political radar, who knows?  But if Kasich did the same thing as President that he did in Ohio, he would have pushed his party to compromise with Democrats and the voters on a very popular health care program.  What President Biden ends up doing if he has a Senate majority won't actually be all that different.  It will move the dial significantly, like Kasich did in Ohio.  But not nearly as much as Bernie or AOC want.

On a personal level, I would probably have more Republican friends.  I recall a very fun dinner in Spring 2016 with two Republicans I was quite close to.  They said, not at all surprisingly, they wish their party would nominate Kasich - which was clearly not going to happen by that point.  I said that if you told me Hillary was going to lose, but I could pick which Republican she lost to, I'd pick Kasich in a heartbeat.  A year later we had a very similar fun get-together on the day that happened to be Gorsuch's confirmation hearing.  Both my former friends were surprised how mild and civil my reaction was.  And I was surprised they were surprised.  Like after 15 years, you don't think I know you are Republicans?  You don't think I know this is a Holy Grail for Republicans?  You don't think I know that Donald Trump is no Dwight Eisenhower, so he won't be appointing a William Brennan?

The real nails in the coffin had nothing to with Bernie Sanders, or AOC, or Elizabeth Warren.  I get that Republicans tend to despise those types.  Nor did it have to do with my inability to tolerative conservatism, or principled conservatives like Gorsuch. 

The nails for me were when Republican friends started telling that "RINOs" like John McCain and Jeff Flake and John Kasich and Susan Collins (on Obamacare) had to shut the fuck up and fall in line, or get out of the way.  Right or wrong, I became convinced - based on the exact words coming out of these people's mouths - that they decided Trump was right, winning mattered at all costs, winning was certainly more important than compromise or unity, and the ends justified almost any means.  It didn't help that one of these awful "RINO" attacks happened right after McCain and Collins and Murkowski "saved" Obamacare.  Obamacare (Covered California) is my health care plan.  And it has had a huge positive impact on poverty and health care affordability for millions.  The idea that the ends justify the means is even more distasteful when the end itself seems just plain cruel.  Which is pretty much who President Toxic is.  Just plain cruel, I think.  These are the things that gradually moved the dial from respect to contempt.

So if there were a President Kasich, none of this would have happened - if we use what he did in Ohio as our guide.  Like I said, he likely would have cut some deal with the Democrats that put the health care issue to bed, at least for a while.  Like in the real world in Ohio, it would have been something very popular with voters.  That is exactly the kind of major policy that helps win elections, according to Lichtman.  Which is, of course, part of what Kasich might have had in mind.  On a personal level, I never would have had nails being pounded into the coffin of my friendships with Republicans.  Because Kasich, based on performance, is not a "win at all costs, because the ends justify the means" kind of guy.  

You can of course argue that someone who is pro-abortion like Kasich is isn't exactly "unifying".  But you are dead wrong about this part of what you said above: 

Quote

Kasich may be a charmer but he got so popular by practically outlawing abortion in Ohio, passing Right to Work and other union-busting laws ...

Actually, Kasich lost on right to work because the voters overturned the law he signed.  So it hardly made him "so popular". Here's what Wikipedia says:

Quote

Ohio voters rejected Senate Bill 5 in a 61 percent to 39 percent vote, which was viewed as a rebuke to Kasich.^{[150][151][155]} On election night, Kasich said in a speech at the Ohio Statehouse that "It's clear the people have spoken. I heard their voices. I understand their decision. And frankly, I respect what the people have to say in an effort like this."^[150][155] Following this defeat, Kasich dropped efforts to pass broad-based collective bargaining restrictions, although in 2012 he supported a bill including "provisions reminiscent of Senate Bill 5" but applying only to the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.^[150]

At the very end of his second term, he also said this: 

Quote

“We are not a right to work state. We don’t intend to be, at least as long as I’m here – but I’m only here four more months.

First, let me make the most cynical interpretation.  Kasich conceded on principle after he got his ass kicked.  But he didn't change, really.  That may actually be true.  He is a conservative.  But he at least knew when when to stop the bleeding - including the political bleeding that could destroy him.  President Toxic doesn't play it that way.

I think you can make a fair apples to apples with Kasich on Right To Work and President Toxic on The Wall.  And specifically the shutdown with Pelosi.  She absolutely kicked his ass.  It was very easy to guess she would win.  Because The Wall was wildly unpopular by early 2019.  And the programs affected by the shutdown were wildly popular, and badly needed by millions of people.  Pelosi actually got President Toxic to say, on camera, that fighting for The Wall was worth shutting down all those programs.  That it was his idea.

So imagine Donald Trump saying this, to paraphrase Kasich, after he lost on the shutdown and The Wall:  "It's clear the people need these programs operating.  I heard their voices.  I understand the pain this has caused.  And frankly, I read the polls and respect what the people have to say about this."  A President Kasich would never have divided America over The Wall to start with.  But I can imagine him saying something like that as President, since he did say it as Governor.  President Toxic?  Give me a fucking break.

The final substantive comparison I'll make is the most important one, in terms of speculating about whether an imaginary President Kasich could avoid the fate of President Toxic and actually be on path to win re-election - at least based on Lichtman's keys.

Part of why I think there is a God, and she has a sense of gallows humor, and justice, is that President Toxic did this to himself.  China reports that their GDP grew by 3.2 % in the second quarter of 2020.  Even if they are lying, independent data from outside China seems to confirm economic growth there, not contraction.  Germany is having a rebound of COVID-19.  But their unemployment rate went from 5.1 % in March to 6.2 % in June.  In the US unemployment went from 4.4 % in March to 10.2 % in June, hitting a peak of 14.7 % along the way.  I don't think it's reasonable to think the US could have been just like China, or Germany.  But I also don't think it had to play out this badly in the US, either.

Anything more I say about how Kasich might have handled COVID-19, and the economic impact, would be wild ass speculation.  But my strong guess is that Kasich would have been much more like Maryland's Larry Hogan, than like President Toxic.  As I said above, Republican Hogan still has 75 % approval on his handling of COVID-19 in Maryland.  President Toxic has 32 % approval in the US.  Kasich's protege, Mike DeWine, fell from 81 % approval on COVID-19 in late March - the best rating of any Governor - to 58 % in late July.  Even so, President Toxic would kill to have approval ratings like that.  On anything.  Which he has never had.  And never will.

Would Kasich have been able to keep the economy out of recession, and stop the turning of these two economic keys that Lichtman says are the final nails in the Republican coffin?  Who knows.  But I do feel I know for sure that Republicans would be in a much better political position today under a President Kasich than under a President Toxic.  Even with COVID-19. 

Lichtman would also point out that after impeachment, President Toxic needed to lose two more keys, for a total of six.  He has lost three more.  Kasich would never have been impeached.  So even if there were a minor recession, if he was perceived as being as competent as someone like Hogan, you can make a good case that Kasich might have been able to limit the pain of recession and the number of deaths, and survive politically.  He would have had more much more political wiggle room than President Toxic, I think.

And on the subject of impeachment and ethics, I'll end my diatribe with one other example of the likely difference between President Toxic and President Kasich. 

This one goes back to something very personal and anecdotal.  I've been having some pretty surprising heart to hearts with one of my escort buddies.  It's surprising because he's about 90 % less political than me, at least most of the time.  So the way it has worked for years is I'll go off and rant.  And he'll be kind enough to listen to my rant.  But now he's doing a lot of the ranting.  He's having a very difficult time with a sibling who he has been very close to, and who strongly supports Trump.

His sibling has always been more conservative than him, and voted for President Toxic in 2016.  So none of this is new.  But like with me, he's experienced this as a slow and painful downward spiral. And, sorry, Richard Grenell.  What particularly agitates this escort buddy, who is actually pay for Gay (as opposed to Gay for pay) is his strong feeling that President Toxic gives LGBTQ folks lip service, and then stabs us in the back regularly.  His sibling and him have always been close.  And being Gay and also an escort has always been okay.  But this is causing a serious and deepening rift between them.  

The first line of a draft email he wrote his sibling that he read to me started with this line:  "I have lost all respect for you."  Happily, before he read me the draft email or sent a final version he already decided to edit that line out.  Most of the email was a very thoughtful explanation of why he thinks President Toxic sucks.  Most of the reply was a thoughtful explanation of why his sibling thinks Trump is a swell guy, who is getting all kinds of undeserved shit just because he really wants to make America great again.

I spent pretty much all of 2017 and 2018 avoiding saying to Republican friends, "I have lost all respect for you."  So I certainly get why my friend felt like saying that.  What struck both of us about the response was the complete absence of any awareness that President Toxic is .............. well, toxic.  Or divisive.  Or unethical.  Or mean.  Or that he was impeached.  Or that most of the people he's been closest to, who guided or greased his rise to power - Bannon, Manafort, Stone, Cohen - have been convicted of federal crimes (or in Bannon's case is accused of committing them).  This email argued that President Toxic is just a swell guy, who is getting all kinds of shit he doesn't deserve.  Meanwhile, my friend feels strongly that Trump is throwing Gays like him - who aren't rich and aren't conservative - right under the bus.

So this is far worse than watching a political shit show between President Toxic and Biden and Pelosi.  It's ending friendships and tearing families apart - or threatening to - in ways I've never seen or experienced in my adult lifetime.  I'm someone who has spent my whole adult life working closely with Republicans - including getting them to front bipartisan amendments, or jumping in bed with them as an escort.  This really hasn't happened to me before President Toxic.  I'm even more surprised with people like my buddy, who has never been particularly political. 

My interpretation of reality is this:  when you elect a President who only knows how to win by dividing, you should expect that there is going to be unprecedented division.

One of my former friends actually fell into a rant about how he doesn't like having to hear all this loud noise about Trump back in Spring 2017, when we were going out to dinner one night.  Since we were going out to dinner, I really didn't want to point out that he voted for President Toxic, so he can just blame himself for the mess.  But I did ask him one question, which was something like this:  "When you voted for him, what did you actually expect?"  I think the answer was something like.  "Not this."  I let it pass, and we had a nice dinner.  But that is a question for the historians.  What did the base that elected President Toxic expect?  What do they expect now?

I really can't imagine what I just described happening with my friend and his sibling playing out the same way under a President Kasich.  I would argue that, like Joe Biden, Kaich has been just slightly ahead of his party on most LGBTQ issues.  Which is not saying much, for either Kasich or Biden.  Here's an old (I think 2016) HRC fact sheet on Kasich if anyone wants the details.  Like with Biden, if you judge what they said or did in the 1990's based on the standards of what we've won, and what we are fighting for in 2020, it all sounds very bad.  I'd argue that Kasich on LGBTQ issues is very much like Kasich on Right To Work.  He knows when he has lost.  And he deals with it by trying to find a way to move on.  Hopefully, in a somewhat unifying manner.  The word "unify" is basic to his vocabulary.

President Toxic, of course, does not know how to do that.  Or maybe he can't do it, because his base won't tolerate it.  The key point I try to always remember is he is symptom, not cause.  If President Toxic wasn't constantly playing to his base, would they vote for him, or give him money? 

So on LGBTQ matters here is a June 2020 comprehensive list from HRC on all the ways President Toxic is throwing our community under the bus.  I doubt there will be a similar list in 2021 when Joe Biden is President.  Sorry, Richard Grenell.  Take your purse from your skit with Don, Jr. and shove it up your ass.

If we had a President Kasich rather than a President Toxic, I think a lot of the worst parts of the last 3+ years might never have happened.  I don't think we'd be in worse shape with COVID-19.  Or with the economy.  I think there is very good reason to think we'd be in better shape on both counts.  I definitely think the nation would be less divided.  There would be much less tearing apart of friendships and families.  And for all these reasons, my guess is that Lichtman would be at least somewhat less likely to have already concluded that the incumbent Republican administration is headed toward defeat in November.

 

 

 

 

Edited August 25, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[AdamSmith]

20 minutes ago, stevenkesslar said:

I mostly agree with you about Kasich.  Everything you said is why I would never vote for him.  I'm a Democrat.  In the context of 2020, I'd call myself a Warren Democrat.  

That said, I'd make the same caveat I did already.  If the Democrats had elected, or ever elect, a "homegrown Mussolini", I hope I'd have the courage to do what Kasich is doing right now.  If you are right, and he is as conservative as you think he is, speaking up for "Socialist Radical Wannabe/But Senile Now" Joe Biden has to be painful.  Not to mention "Even Crazier Radical We're Conservative And White And We Say She's An Extremist And Not Really Black" Kamala Harris.  Ugh!  Poor Kasich.

(By the way, just how racist can White conservatives get?  Is there no bottom?  Do they not realize that Whites were supposed to be out of the business of telling Blacks who they think is Black a very long time ago?  Really?  White conservatives are saying let's forget slavery ever happened, because it just doesn't matter in 2020.  Except for that part about Whites deciding who is Black.  Because that part was really cool, for Whites at least!  So we've decided Kamala is not Black.  Really?  Really?)

I've started kind of a voodoo thread here.  It's about predictions and "keys" which can easily be dismissed as bullshit.  And I've elevated the voodoo element of it by speculating about what this election might be like on an alternative Earth with no COVID-19.

So while I was watering my plants another question popped into my mind which I think is worth thinking about.  At least to me, it helps me think about what's moving the dial in 2020.  

So if you want to play, here's your homework question.  Think about this:

What would America be like right now if John Kasich was nominated by the Republicans in 2016 and won?  What if he was now President Kasich, and running for re-election?  And would he win, based on Lichtman's keys?

I'll tell you some things I thing would be very different relating to both the recent past and near future.  And in all of this I'm just going to assume that all Lichtman's key are correct. I'm also going to intentionally mention some things that are small picture and personal and anecdotal, and some that are big picture and totally political.  My point in doing so is that this national shit show is affecting everybody in different ways.  On a personal level, it is tearing many families and friendships apart.

First, Kasich would have won in 2016.  When Lichtman, a Democrat, called it for President Toxic in September 2016, he got a lot of shit from other Democrats.  He actually built in a caveat.  He said that his system predicts the incumbent party will lose, in a close race, based on fundamentals. So any Republican is likely to win, he said.  But he also said Trump could thwart his keys.  Because he is so unprecedented, and so divisive, that Clinton might win even though history is kind of stacked against her.   Kasich would likely have just made the predicted Republican victory a bit easier, I think.  

I'm going to go with you, @tassojunior, and assume that that what Kasich did in Ohio after winning is a good model for what he would have done with a Republican House and Senate.  Which is to say, he would have taken some key "conservative" pieces - like he did with Right To Work in Ohio - and run with them.  So one thing for sure:  similarly conservative judges. 

The interesting question is:  which "conservative" legislative pieces?  I put the word "conservative" in quotations because it's not clear to me that running up a $1 trillion annual deficit in good times is "conservative".    I'm not sure whether @pete1111 was supporting Laurence O'Donnell or scolding him for going after Mayor Pete for being wrong about Democrats and deficits.  But what O'Donnell said in a clip posted above is 100 % true.  He was there.  In 1993 the Democrats unilaterally passed a bill that set the course for a budget surplus in the late 90's.  And as O'Donnell said, several Congressional Democrats lost their jobs over that vote.  In my alternative Earth, it would be interesting to see whether President Kasich would have showed courage when wealthy Republican donors asked for their payback in the form of huge tax cuts that once again ran up a $1 trillion deficit - in what was supposedly "the best economy ever".

You mentioned Medicaid, @tassojunior.  So I'll go with that on my alternative history, as well.  Which is to say, President Kasich would not have gone to court to kill Obamacare and inflame things even more,  so that nothing actually happened in the end.  He very likely would have tried to cut a deal from the center.  Whether that's because he's more Christian than President Toxic, or he has different political radar, who knows?  But if Kasich did the same thing as President that he did in Ohio, he would have pushed his party to compromise with Democrats and the voters on a very popular health care program.  What President Biden ends up doing if he has a Senate majority won't actually be all that different.  It will move the dial significantly, like Kasich did in Ohio.  But not nearly as much as Bernie or AOC want.

On a personal level, I would probably have more Republican friends.  I recall a very fun dinner in Spring 2016 with two Republicans I was quite close to.  They said, not at all surprisingly, they wish their party would nominate Kasich - which was clearly not going to happen by that point.  I said that if you told me Hillary was going to lose, but I could pick which Republican she lost to, I'd pick Kasich in a heartbeat.  A year later we had a very similar fun get-together on the day that happened to be Gorsuch's confirmation hearing.  Both my former friends were surprised how mild and civil my reaction was.  And I was surprised they were surprised.  Like after 15 years, you don't think I know you are Republicans?  You don't think I know this is a Holy Grail for Republicans?  You don't think I know that Donald Trump is no Dwight Eisenhower, so he won't be appointing a William Brennan?

The real nails in the coffin had nothing to with Bernie Sanders, or AOC, or Elizabeth Warren.  I get that Republicans tend to despise those types.  Nor did it have to do with my inability to tolerative conservatism, or principled conservatives like Gorsuch. 

The nails for me were when Republican friends started telling that "RINOs" like John McCain and Jeff Flake and John Kasich and Susan Collins (on Obamacare) had to shut the fuck up and fall in line, or get out of the way.  Right or wrong, I became convinced - based on the exact words coming out of these people's mouths - that they decided Trump was right, winning mattered at all costs, winning was certainly more important than compromise or unity, and the ends justified almost any means.  It didn't help that one of these awful "RINO" attacks happened right after McCain and Collins and Murkowski "saved" Obamacare.  Obamacare (Covered California) is my health care plan.  And it has had a huge positive impact on poverty and health care affordability for millions.  The idea that the ends justify the means is even more distasteful when the end itself seems just plain cruel.  Which is pretty much who President Toxic is.  Just plain cruel, I think.  These are the things that gradually moved the dial from respect to contempt.

So if there were a President Kasich, none of this would have happened - if we use what he did in Ohio as our guide.  Like I said, he likely would have cut some deal with the Democrats that put the health care issue to bed, at least for a while.  Like in the real world in Ohio, it would have been something very popular with voters.  That is exactly the kind of major policy that helps win elections, according to Lichtman.  Which is, of course, part of what Kasich might have had in mind.  On a personal level, I never would have had nails being pounded into the coffin of my friendships with Republicans.  Because Kasich, based on performance, is not a "win at all costs, because the ends justify the means" kind of guy.  

You can of course argue that someone who is pro-abortion like Kasich is isn't exactly "unifying".  But you are dead wrong about this part of what you said above: 

Actually, Kasich lost on right to work because the voters overturned the law he signed.  So it hardly made him "so popular". Here's what Wikipedia says:

At the very end of his second term, he also said this: 

First, let me make the most cynical interpretation.  Kasich conceded on principle after he got his ass kicked.  But he didn't change, really.  That may actually be true.  He is a conservative.  But he at least knew when when to stop the bleeding - including the political bleeding that could destroy him.  President Toxic doesn't play it that way.

I think you can make a fair apples to apples with Kasich on Right To Work and President Toxic on The Wall.  And specifically the shutdown with Pelosi.  She absolutely kicked his ass.  It was very easy to guess she would win.  Because The Wall was wildly unpopular by early 2019.  And the programs affected by the shutdown were wildly popular, and badly needed by millions of people.  Pelosi actually got President Toxic to say, on camera, that fighting for The Wall was worth shutting down all those programs.  That it was his idea.

So imagine Donald Trump saying this, to paraphrase Kasich, after he lost on the shutdown and The Wall:  "It's clear the people need these programs operating.  I heard their voices.  I understand the pain this has caused.  And frankly, I read the polls and respect what the people have to say about this."  A President Kasich would never have divided America over The Wall to start with.  But I can imagine him saying something like that as President, since he did say it as Governor.  President Toxic?  Give me a fucking break.

The final substantive comparison I'll make is the most important one, in terms of speculating about whether an imaginary President Kasich could avoid the fate of President Toxic and actually be on path to win re-election - at least based on Lichtman's keys.

Part of why I think there is a God, and she has a sense of gallows humor, and justice, is that President Toxic did this to himself.  China reports that their GDP grew by 3.2 % in the second quarter of 2020.  Even if they are lying, independent data from outside China seems to confirm economic growth there, not contraction.  Germany is having a rebound of COVID-19.  But their unemployment rate went from 5.1 % in March to 6.2 % in June.  In the US unemployment went from 4.4 % in March to 10.2 % in June, hitting a peak of 14.7 % along the way.  I don't think it's reasonable to think the US could have been just like China, or Germany.  But I also don't think it had to play out this badly in the US, either.

Anything more I say about how Kasich might have handled COVID-19, and the economic impact, would be wild ass speculation.  But my strong guess is that Kasich would have been much more like Maryland's Larry Hogan, than like President Toxic.  As I said above, Republican Hogan still has 75 % approval on his handling of COVID-19 in Maryland.  President Toxic has 32 % approval in the US.  Kasich's protege, Mike DeWine, fell from 81 % approval on COVID-19 in late March - the best rating of any Governor - to 58 % in late July.  Even so, President Toxic would kill to have approval ratings like that.  On anything.  Which he has never had.  And never will.

Would Kasich have been able to keep the economy out of recession, and stop the turning of these two economic keys that Lichtman says are the final nails in the Republican coffin?  Who knows.  But I do feel I know for sure that Republicans would be in a much better political position today under a President Kasich than under a President Toxic.  Even with COVID-19. 

Lichtman would also point out that after impeachment, President Toxic needed to lose two more keys, for a total of six.  He has lost three more.  Kasich would never have been impeached.  So even if there were a minor recession, if he was perceived as being as competent as someone like Hogan, you can make a good case that Kasich might have been able to limit the pain of recession and the number of deaths, and survive politically.  He would have had more much more political wiggle room than President Toxic, I think.

And on the subject of impeachment and ethics, I'll end my diatribe with one other example of the likely difference between President Toxic and President Kasich. 

This one goes back to something very personal and anecdotal.  I've been having some pretty surprising heart to hearts with one of my escort buddies.  It's surprising because he's about 90 % less political than me, at least most of the time.  So the way it has worked for years is I'll go off and rant.  And he'll be kind enough to listen to my rant.  But now he's doing a lot of the ranting.  He's having a very difficult time with a sibling who he has been very close to, and who strongly supports Trump.

His sibling has always been more conservative than him, and voted for President Toxic in 2016.  So none of this is new.  But like with me, he's experienced this as a slow and painful downward spiral. And, sorry, Richard Grenell.  What particularly agitates this escort buddy, who is actually pay for Gay (as opposed to Gay for pay) is his strong feeling that President Toxic gives LGBTQ folks lip service, and then stabs us in the back regularly.  His sibling and him have always been close.  And being Gay and also an escort has always been okay.  But this is causing a serious and deepening rift between them.  

The first line of a draft email he wrote her that he read to me started with this line:  "I have lost all respect for you."  Happily, before he read me the draft email or sent a final version he already decided to edit that line ought.  Most of the email was a thoughtful explanation of why he thinks President Toxic sucks.  Most of her reply was a thoughtful explanation of why she thinks Trump is a swell guy, who is getting all kinds of undeserved shit just because he basically wants to make America great again.

I spent pretty much all of 2017 and 2018 avoiding saying to Republican friends, "I have lost all respect for you."  So I certainly get why my friend felt like saying that to his sister.  What amazed both of us about her response was the complete absence of any awareness that President Toxic is .............. well, toxic.  Or unethical.  Or mean.  Or that he was impeached.  Or that most of the people he's been closest to, who guided or greased his rise to power - Bannon, Manafort, Stone, Cohen - have been convicted of federal crimes (or in Bannon's case is accused of committing them).  This email laughably argued that President Toxic is just a swell guy, who is getting all kinds of shit he doesn't deserve.  Meanwhile, my friend feels strongly that Trump is throwing Gays like him - who aren't rich and aren't conservative - right under the bus.

So this is worse than a political shit show between President Toxic and Biden and Pelosi.  It's ending friendships and tearing families apart - or threatening to - in ways I've never seen or experienced in my adult lifetime.  I'm someone who has spent my whole adult like having to work with Republicans - including jumping in bed with them as an escort.  This really hasn't happened to me before President Toxic.  I'm even more surprised with people like my buddy, who have never been particularly political.  My interpretation of reality is this:  when you elect a President who only knows how to win by dividing, you should expect that there is going to be unprecedented division.

I really can't imagine what I just described happening with my friend playing out the same way under a President Kasich.  I would argue that, like Joe Biden, he's been just slightly ahead of his party on most LGBTQ issues.  Which is not saying much, for either Kasich or Biden.  Here's an old (I think 2016) HRC fact sheet on Kasich if anyone wants the details.  Like with Biden, if you judge what they said or did in the 1990's based on the standards of what we've won, and what we are fighting for in 2020, it all sounds very bad.  I'd argue that Kasich on LGBTQ issues is very much like Kasich on Right To Work.  He knows when he has lost.  And he deals with it by trying to find a way to move on.  Hopefully, in a somewhat unifying manner.  The word "unify" is basic to his vocabulary.

President Toxic, of course, does not know how to do that.  Or maybe he can't do it, because his base won't tolerate it.  They key point I try to always remember is he is symptom, not cause.  If President Toxic wasn't constantly playing to his base, would they vote for him, or give him money? 

So on LGBTQ matters here is a June 2020 comprehensive list from HRC on all the ways President Toxic is throwing our community under the bus.  I doubt there will be a similar list in 2021 when Joe Biden is President.  Sorry, Richard Grenell.  Take your purse from your skit with Don, Jr. and shove it up your ass.

If we had a President Kasich rather than a President Toxic, I think a lot of the worst parts of the last 3+ years might never have happened.  I don't think we'd be in worse shape with COVID-19.  Or with the economy.  I think there is very good reason to think we'd be in better shape on both counts.  I definitely think the nation would be less divided.  There would be much less tearing apart of friendships and families.  And for all these reasons, my guess is that Lichtman would be at least somewhat less likely to have already concluded that the incumbent Republican administration is headed toward losing in November.

 

 

 

 

 

[AdamSmith]

YES YES YES

[Pete1111]

5 hours ago, stevenkesslar said:

I mostly agree with you about Kasich.  Everything you said is why I would never vote for him.  I'm a Democrat.  In the context of 2020, I'd call myself a Warren Democrat.  

That said, I'd make the same caveat I did already.  If the Democrats had elected, or ever elect, a "homegrown Mussolini", I hope I'd have the courage to do what Kasich is doing right now.  If you are right, and he is as conservative as you think he is, speaking up for "Socialist Radical Wannabe/But Senile Now" Joe Biden has to be painful.  Not to mention "Even Crazier Radical We're Conservative And White And We Say She's An Extremist And Not Really Black" Kamala Harris.  Ugh!  Poor Kasich.

(By the way, just how racist can White conservatives get?  Is there no bottom?  Do they not realize that Whites were supposed to be out of the business of telling Blacks who they think is Black a very long time ago?  Really?  White conservatives are saying let's forget slavery ever happened, because it just doesn't matter in 2020.  Except for that part about Whites deciding who is Black.  Because that part was really cool, for Whites at least!  So we've decided Kamala is not Black.  Really?  Really?)

I've started kind of a voodoo thread here.  It's about predictions and "keys" which can easily be dismissed as bullshit.  And I've elevated the voodoo element of it by speculating about what this election might be like on an alternative Earth with no COVID-19.

So while I was watering my plants another question popped into my mind which I think is worth thinking about.  At least to me, it helps me think about what's moving the dial in 2020.  

So if you want to play, here's your homework question.  Think about this:

What would America be like right now if John Kasich was nominated by the Republicans in 2016 and won?  What if he was now President Kasich, and running for re-election?  And would he win, based on Lichtman's keys?

I'll tell you some things I thing would be very different relating to both the recent past and near future.  And in all of this I'm just going to assume that all Lichtman's key are correct. I'm also going to intentionally mention some things that are small picture and personal and anecdotal, and some that are big picture and totally political.  My point in doing so is that this national shit show is affecting everybody in different ways.  On a personal level, it is tearing many families and friendships apart.

First, Kasich would have won in 2016.  When Lichtman, a Democrat, called it for President Toxic in September 2016, he got a lot of shit from other Democrats.  He actually built in a caveat.  He said that his system predicts the incumbent party will lose, in a close race, based on fundamentals. So any Republican is likely to win, he said.  But he also said Trump could thwart his keys.  Because he is so unprecedented, and so divisive, that Clinton might win even though history is kind of stacked against her.   Kasich would likely have just made the predicted Republican victory a bit easier, I think.  

I'm going to go with you, @tassojunior, and assume that that what Kasich did in Ohio after winning is a good model for what he would have done with a Republican House and Senate.  Which is to say, he would have taken some key "conservative" pieces - like he did with Right To Work in Ohio - and run with them.  So one thing for sure:  similarly conservative judges. 

The interesting question is:  which "conservative" legislative pieces?  I put the word "conservative" in quotations because it's not clear to me that running up a $1 trillion annual deficit in good times is "conservative".    I'm not sure whether @pete1111 was supporting Laurence O'Donnell or scolding him for going after Mayor Pete for being wrong about Democrats and deficits.  But what O'Donnell said in a clip posted above is 100 % true.  He was there.  In 1993 the Democrats unilaterally passed a bill that set the course for a budget surplus in the late 90's.  And as O'Donnell said, several Congressional Democrats lost their jobs over that vote.  In my alternative Earth, it would be interesting to see whether President Kasich would have showed courage when wealthy Republican donors asked for their payback in the form of huge tax cuts that once again ran up a $1 trillion deficit - in what was supposedly "the best economy ever".

You mentioned Medicaid, @tassojunior.  So I'll go with that on my alternative history, as well.  Which is to say, President Kasich would not have gone to court to kill Obamacare and inflame things even more,  so that nothing actually happened in the end.  He very likely would have tried to cut a deal from the center.  Whether that's because he's more Christian than President Toxic, or he has different political radar, who knows?  But if Kasich did the same thing as President that he did in Ohio, he would have pushed his party to compromise with Democrats and the voters on a very popular health care program.  What President Biden ends up doing if he has a Senate majority won't actually be all that different.  It will move the dial significantly, like Kasich did in Ohio.  But not nearly as much as Bernie or AOC want.

On a personal level, I would probably have more Republican friends.  I recall a very fun dinner in Spring 2016 with two Republicans I was quite close to.  They said, not at all surprisingly, they wish their party would nominate Kasich - which was clearly not going to happen by that point.  I said that if you told me Hillary was going to lose, but I could pick which Republican she lost to, I'd pick Kasich in a heartbeat.  A year later we had a very similar fun get-together on the day that happened to be Gorsuch's confirmation hearing.  Both my former friends were surprised how mild and civil my reaction was.  And I was surprised they were surprised.  Like after 15 years, you don't think I know you are Republicans?  You don't think I know this is a Holy Grail for Republicans?  You don't think I know that Donald Trump is no Dwight Eisenhower, so he won't be appointing a William Brennan?

The real nails in the coffin had nothing to with Bernie Sanders, or AOC, or Elizabeth Warren.  I get that Republicans tend to despise those types.  Nor did it have to do with my inability to tolerative conservatism, or principled conservatives like Gorsuch. 

The nails for me were when Republican friends started telling that "RINOs" like John McCain and Jeff Flake and John Kasich and Susan Collins (on Obamacare) had to shut the fuck up and fall in line, or get out of the way.  Right or wrong, I became convinced - based on the exact words coming out of these people's mouths - that they decided Trump was right, winning mattered at all costs, winning was certainly more important than compromise or unity, and the ends justified almost any means.  It didn't help that one of these awful "RINO" attacks happened right after McCain and Collins and Murkowski "saved" Obamacare.  Obamacare (Covered California) is my health care plan.  And it has had a huge positive impact on poverty and health care affordability for millions.  The idea that the ends justify the means is even more distasteful when the end itself seems just plain cruel.  Which is pretty much who President Toxic is.  Just plain cruel, I think.  These are the things that gradually moved the dial from respect to contempt.

So if there were a President Kasich, none of this would have happened - if we use what he did in Ohio as our guide.  Like I said, he likely would have cut some deal with the Democrats that put the health care issue to bed, at least for a while.  Like in the real world in Ohio, it would have been something very popular with voters.  That is exactly the kind of major policy that helps win elections, according to Lichtman.  Which is, of course, part of what Kasich might have had in mind.  On a personal level, I never would have had nails being pounded into the coffin of my friendships with Republicans.  Because Kasich, based on performance, is not a "win at all costs, because the ends justify the means" kind of guy.  

You can of course argue that someone who is pro-abortion like Kasich is isn't exactly "unifying".  But you are dead wrong about this part of what you said above: 

Actually, Kasich lost on right to work because the voters overturned the law he signed.  So it hardly made him "so popular". Here's what Wikipedia says:

At the very end of his second term, he also said this: 

First, let me make the most cynical interpretation.  Kasich conceded on principle after he got his ass kicked.  But he didn't change, really.  That may actually be true.  He is a conservative.  But he at least knew when when to stop the bleeding - including the political bleeding that could destroy him.  President Toxic doesn't play it that way.

I think you can make a fair apples to apples with Kasich on Right To Work and President Toxic on The Wall.  And specifically the shutdown with Pelosi.  She absolutely kicked his ass.  It was very easy to guess she would win.  Because The Wall was wildly unpopular by early 2019.  And the programs affected by the shutdown were wildly popular, and badly needed by millions of people.  Pelosi actually got President Toxic to say, on camera, that fighting for The Wall was worth shutting down all those programs.  That it was his idea.

So imagine Donald Trump saying this, to paraphrase Kasich, after he lost on the shutdown and The Wall:  "It's clear the people need these programs operating.  I heard their voices.  I understand the pain this has caused.  And frankly, I read the polls and respect what the people have to say about this."  A President Kasich would never have divided America over The Wall to start with.  But I can imagine him saying something like that as President, since he did say it as Governor.  President Toxic?  Give me a fucking break.

The final substantive comparison I'll make is the most important one, in terms of speculating about whether an imaginary President Kasich could avoid the fate of President Toxic and actually be on path to win re-election - at least based on Lichtman's keys.

Part of why I think there is a God, and she has a sense of gallows humor, and justice, is that President Toxic did this to himself.  China reports that their GDP grew by 3.2 % in the second quarter of 2020.  Even if they are lying, independent data from outside China seems to confirm economic growth there, not contraction.  Germany is having a rebound of COVID-19.  But their unemployment rate went from 5.1 % in March to 6.2 % in June.  In the US unemployment went from 4.4 % in March to 10.2 % in June, hitting a peak of 14.7 % along the way.  I don't think it's reasonable to think the US could have been just like China, or Germany.  But I also don't think it had to play out this badly in the US, either.

Anything more I say about how Kasich might have handled COVID-19, and the economic impact, would be wild ass speculation.  But my strong guess is that Kasich would have been much more like Maryland's Larry Hogan, than like President Toxic.  As I said above, Republican Hogan still has 75 % approval on his handling of COVID-19 in Maryland.  President Toxic has 32 % approval in the US.  Kasich's protege, Mike DeWine, fell from 81 % approval on COVID-19 in late March - the best rating of any Governor - to 58 % in late July.  Even so, President Toxic would kill to have approval ratings like that.  On anything.  Which he has never had.  And never will.

Would Kasich have been able to keep the economy out of recession, and stop the turning of these two economic keys that Lichtman says are the final nails in the Republican coffin?  Who knows.  But I do feel I know for sure that Republicans would be in a much better political position today under a President Kasich than under a President Toxic.  Even with COVID-19. 

Lichtman would also point out that after impeachment, President Toxic needed to lose two more keys, for a total of six.  He has lost three more.  Kasich would never have been impeached.  So even if there were a minor recession, if he was perceived as being as competent as someone like Hogan, you can make a good case that Kasich might have been able to limit the pain of recession and the number of deaths, and survive politically.  He would have had more much more political wiggle room than President Toxic, I think.

And on the subject of impeachment and ethics, I'll end my diatribe with one other example of the likely difference between President Toxic and President Kasich. 

This one goes back to something very personal and anecdotal.  I've been having some pretty surprising heart to hearts with one of my escort buddies.  It's surprising because he's about 90 % less political than me, at least most of the time.  So the way it has worked for years is I'll go off and rant.  And he'll be kind enough to listen to my rant.  But now he's doing a lot of the ranting.  He's having a very difficult time with a sibling who he has been very close to, and who strongly supports Trump.

His sibling has always been more conservative than him, and voted for President Toxic in 2016.  So none of this is new.  But like with me, he's experienced this as a slow and painful downward spiral. And, sorry, Richard Grenell.  What particularly agitates this escort buddy, who is actually pay for Gay (as opposed to Gay for pay) is his strong feeling that President Toxic gives LGBTQ folks lip service, and then stabs us in the back regularly.  His sibling and him have always been close.  And being Gay and also an escort has always been okay.  But this is causing a serious and deepening rift between them.  

The first line of a draft email he wrote his sibling that he read to me started with this line:  "I have lost all respect for you."  Happily, before he read me the draft email or sent a final version he already decided to edit that line out.  Most of the email was a very thoughtful explanation of why he thinks President Toxic sucks.  Most of the reply was a thoughtful explanation of why his sibling thinks Trump is a swell guy, who is getting all kinds of undeserved shit just because he really wants to make America great again.

I spent pretty much all of 2017 and 2018 avoiding saying to Republican friends, "I have lost all respect for you."  So I certainly get why my friend felt like saying that.  What struck both of us about the response was the complete absence of any awareness that President Toxic is .............. well, toxic.  Or divisive.  Or unethical.  Or mean.  Or that he was impeached.  Or that most of the people he's been closest to, who guided or greased his rise to power - Bannon, Manafort, Stone, Cohen - have been convicted of federal crimes (or in Bannon's case is accused of committing them).  This email argued that President Toxic is just a swell guy, who is getting all kinds of shit he doesn't deserve.  Meanwhile, my friend feels strongly that Trump is throwing Gays like him - who aren't rich and aren't conservative - right under the bus.

So this is far worse than watching a political shit show between President Toxic and Biden and Pelosi.  It's ending friendships and tearing families apart - or threatening to - in ways I've never seen or experienced in my adult lifetime.  I'm someone who has spent my whole adult life working closely with Republicans - including getting them to front bipartisan amendments, or jumping in bed with them as an escort.  This really hasn't happened to me before President Toxic.  I'm even more surprised with people like my buddy, who has never been particularly political. 

My interpretation of reality is this:  when you elect a President who only knows how to win by dividing, you should expect that there is going to be unprecedented division.

One of my former friends actually fell into a rant about how he doesn't like having to hear all this loud noise about Trump back in Spring 2017, when we were going out to dinner one night.  Since we were going out to dinner, I really didn't want to point out that he voted for President Toxic, so he can just blame himself for the mess.  But I did ask him one question, which was something like this:  "When you voted for him, what did you actually expect?"  I think the answer was something like.  "Not this."  I let it pass, and we had a nice dinner.  But that is a question for the historians.  What did the base that elected President Toxic expect?  What do they expect now?

I really can't imagine what I just described happening with my friend and his sibling playing out the same way under a President Kasich.  I would argue that, like Joe Biden, Kaich has been just slightly ahead of his party on most LGBTQ issues.  Which is not saying much, for either Kasich or Biden.  Here's an old (I think 2016) HRC fact sheet on Kasich if anyone wants the details.  Like with Biden, if you judge what they said or did in the 1990's based on the standards of what we've won, and what we are fighting for in 2020, it all sounds very bad.  I'd argue that Kasich on LGBTQ issues is very much like Kasich on Right To Work.  He knows when he has lost.  And he deals with it by trying to find a way to move on.  Hopefully, in a somewhat unifying manner.  The word "unify" is basic to his vocabulary.

President Toxic, of course, does not know how to do that.  Or maybe he can't do it, because his base won't tolerate it.  The key point I try to always remember is he is symptom, not cause.  If President Toxic wasn't constantly playing to his base, would they vote for him, or give him money? 

So on LGBTQ matters here is a June 2020 comprehensive list from HRC on all the ways President Toxic is throwing our community under the bus.  I doubt there will be a similar list in 2021 when Joe Biden is President.  Sorry, Richard Grenell.  Take your purse from your skit with Don, Jr. and shove it up your ass.

If we had a President Kasich rather than a President Toxic, I think a lot of the worst parts of the last 3+ years might never have happened.  I don't think we'd be in worse shape with COVID-19.  Or with the economy.  I think there is very good reason to think we'd be in better shape on both counts.  I definitely think the nation would be less divided.  There would be much less tearing apart of friendships and families.  And for all these reasons, my guess is that Lichtman would be at least somewhat less likely to have already concluded that the incumbent Republican administration is headed toward defeat in November.

 

 

 

 

I was scolding MSNBC's Lawrence O. 

Buttigieg was stating a fact that Dems weren't talking about deficits.  O'Donnel tried to build a case against the comment and Buttigieg.  But O'Donnell had twisted the facts.  No candidate was talking about deficits.  That O'Donnell went after Pete was BS and seemed contrived.  That was near the end of my watching MSNBC and NBC.  They ought to do a better job of at least appearing agenda-free.  It's insulting.

 

As far as Lichtman, I am not convinced his methodology is the perfect predictor of who will end up in the WH, for example Gore v Bush, he picked Gore.  Michael Moore also predicted a Trump win.  His methodology was entirely different than Lichtman and up until COVID he warned Trump might win again.  I'm worried too.

Edited August 25, 2020 by Pete1111
Grammar

[Buddy2]

This professor predicted Trump would win the popular vote, not the electoral college.

 

And I doubt  nominee Joe  Biden will breath more easily untill and if  he  actually defeats Trump on election day, or untill the  is decided.  

Also families were split over the Vietnam War (or as "da 5  Bloods reminds us the American war).

 

And families were split over Richard Nixon and later Ronald and Nancy Reagan.

[Latbear4blk]

We could find a lot of wrongs to point out in the Dems and their anti Trump coalition. Trump allies are doing a very good job about it in this forum. 

I would rather focus on making sure EVERYONE you can reach to goes to vote or submit a vote via email. Once the election is over, if Biden wins, we will have a lot of lobbying to do to fight the moralists and the Conservative in the winning coalition.

 

[JKane]

[stevenkesslar]

6 hours ago, Pete1111 said:

Buttigieg was stating a fact that Dems weren't talking about deficits.  O'Donnel tried to build a case against the comment and Buttigieg.  But O'Donnell had twisted the facts.  No candidate was talking about deficits.  That O'Donnell went after Pete was BS and seemed contrived.  That was near the end of my watching MSNBC and NBC.  They ought to do a better job of at least appearing agenda-free.  It's insulting.

Thanks for the clarification.  I think we're both right.

I did misunderstand you at first.  I thought you were agreeing with O'Donnell's point about Democrats and deficits.  I just watched the clip you posted.  The context about what Mayor Pete said that O'Donnell was pissed about was not clear to me.  So I won't comment on whatever that was between O'Donnell and Mayor Pete.  But I think the point O'Donnell made about Democrats and deficits was important, and true.  I also think it's probably relevant to why Biden will win, and what happens after he wins.

When Carter was President I was a kid.  My Dad, a lifelong Republican who'd occasionally split tickets and voted for moderate Democrats, used to have a rant about "the god damn Democrats and their deficit spending".   I'm a Clinton/Kasich deficit hawk.  And in that sense, I am very much my father's son. 

So in a very brief history of what happened since Carter, there is Dick Cheney, who famously said that Reagan proved that deficits don't matter.  There is that 1993 vote, that at the time Republicans argued would raise the deficit and destroy millions of jobs.  Bill Clinton still jokes that the Republicans were wrong by like 10 million jobs.  Many Republicans still argue that we has a budget surplus despite, rather than because of, Clinton.  Except for Republicans like Kasich, or Dole, who I think based on what I've read are actually among the Republicans who cut the deals with Clinton that got us where we were at the turn of the century.

Obama inherited a trillion dollar + annual deficit, and cut it by about half.  After a few year's of President Toxic's "best economy ever", we were back to $1 trillion + deficits.  Which in the awful era of COVID-19 now looks modest, of course.

I watch MSNBC a lot.  The progressive part of me gets that true Berniecrats think MSNBC has become the mouthpiece for former Republicans like Nicole Wallace and Steve Schmidt - who arguably created the problems that led to President Toxic.  That's a very long discussion I'll mostly jump over.  Other than to mention that the words "deficit" and "conservative" keep coming up. 

So this week you have Morning Joe, a former GOP House member, going off repeatedly about how "conservative" used to mean you were for small government and surpluses and NATO.  Former GOP guru Stuart Stevens was on the Daily Show last night.   This is a very interesting conversation that tangents on all these points about Lichtman and Kasich and Meacham.

STUART STEVENS - THE LINCOLN PROJECT AND "IT WAS ALL A LIE"

I don't recall Stevens getting into the deficit specifically.  But he has one of the bleakest views I've heard so far of any Lincoln Project type about the future of the Republican Party.  His guess is that we'll have three parties in the future:  the Sanders Democrats (which maybe should be called progressives or progressive Independents), the Biden Democrats, and the Republicans.  increasingly, many Republicans like Stevens and Scarborough call themselves Independents.

As a political proposition for 2020, these are just more very big nails and very big hammers in the coffin of President Toxic.  As a Democrat, I can't say I'm depressed about this.

It will have big implications for what happens after 2020 with President Biden, or maybe someday President Harris.  Part of the reason I posted this is that Stevens says that in the future the important decisions will be made by Biden Democrats and Sanders Democrats.  The Republicans will gradually become less and less relevant.  I suspect part of the deal that is being cut, in effect, is that Kasich and Stevens want a place at the table when those deals are cut.  Stevens notes that eventually, the US will have universal health insurance of some form, like every other Western capitalist nation.  Kasich may be a Cabinet member on Team Biden come January.  We'll be paying for this plague for decades to come.  But if the Kasichs of the world want to be at the table, and they plan to do what they did in the 90's and argue for getting to surpluses again, I welcome them to speak up and be at the table.  Like I said, I am my father's son. 

I can't tell for sure, but sometimes it at least sounds like Sanders and AOC (but not Warren, also a former Republican) believe that deficits don't matter.  In that regard, if I'm correct, they agree with Dick Cheney.  How weird is that?

None of this - deficits, universal health care, Republicans like Stevens bailing on his former party - are directly measured by Lichtman's keys.  But I think they all come in through the back door - via his keys involving how people feel about the candidates, or whether they got important policy done, and  how that all impacted the overall economy.  Like Lichtman, I sense it's all more nails and hammers in President Toxic's coffin.

 

[Pete1111]

2 minutes ago, stevenkesslar said:

Thanks for the clarification.  I think we're both right.

I did misunderstand you at first.  I thought you were agreeing with O'Donnell's point about Democrats and deficits.  I just watched the clip you posted.  The context about what Mayor Pete said that O'Donnell was pissed about was not clear to me.  So I won't comment on whatever that was between O'Donnell and Mayor Pete.  But I think the point O'Donnell made about Democrats and deficits was important, and true.  I also think it's probably relevant to why Biden will win, and what happens after he wins.

When Carter was President I was a kid.  My Dad, a lifelong Republican who'd occasionally split tickets and voted for moderate Democrats, used to have a rant about "the god damn Democrats and their deficit spending".   I'm a Clinton/Kasich deficit hawk.  And in that sense, I am very much my father's son. 

So in a very brief history of what happened since Carter, there is Dick Cheney, who famously said that Reagan proved that deficits don't matter.  There is that 1993 vote, that at the time Republicans argued would raise the deficit and destroy millions of jobs.  Bill Clinton still jokes that the Republicans were wrong by like 10 million jobs.  Many Republicans still argue that we has a budget surplus despite, rather than because of, Clinton.  Except for Republicans like Kasich, or Dole, who I think based on what I've read are actually among the Republicans who cut the deals with Clinton that got us where we were at the turn of the century.

Obama inherited a trillion dollar + annual deficit, and cut it by about half.  After a few year's of President Toxic's "best economy ever", we were back to $1 trillion + deficits.  Which in the awful era of COVID-19 now looks modest, of course.

I watch MSNBC a lot.  The progressive part of me gets that true Berniecrats think MSNBC has become the mouthpiece for former Republicans like Nicole Wallace and Steve Schmidt - who arguably created the problems that led to President Toxic.  That's a very long discussion I'll mostly jump over.  Other than to mention that the words "deficit" and "conservative" keep coming up. 

So this week you have Morning Joe, a former GOP House member, going off repeatedly about how "conservative" used to mean you were for small government and surpluses and NATO.  Former GOP guru Stuart Stevens was on the Daily Show last night.   This is a very interesting conversation that tangents on all these points about Lichtman and Kasich and Meacham.

STUART STEVENS - THE LINCOLN PROJECT AND "IT WAS ALL A LIE"

I don't recall Stevens getting into the deficit specifically.  But he has one of the bleakest views I've heard so far of any Lincoln Project type about the future of the Republican Party.  His guess is that we'll have three parties in the future:  the Sanders Democrats (which maybe should be called progressives or progressive Independents), the Biden Democrats, and the Republicans.  increasingly, many Republicans like Stevens and Scarborough call themselves Independents.

As a political proposition for 2020, these are just more very big nails and very big hammers in the coffin of President Toxic.  As a Democrat, I can't say I'm depressed about this.

It will have big implications for what happens after 2020 with President Biden, or maybe someday President Harris.  Part of the reason I posted this is that Stevens says that in the future the important decisions will be made by Biden Democrats and Sanders Democrats.  The Republicans will gradually become less and less relevant.  I suspect part of the deal that is being cut, in effect, is that Kasich and Stevens want a place at the table when those deals are cut.  Stevens notes that eventually, the US will have universal health insurance of some form, like every other Western capitalist nation.  Kasich may be a Cabinet member on Team Biden come January.  We'll be paying for this plague for decades to come.  But if the Kasichs of the world want to be at the table, and they plan to do what they did in the 90's and argue for getting to surpluses again, I welcome them to speak up and be at the table.  Like I said, I am my father's son. 

I can't tell for sure, but sometimes it at least sounds like Sanders and AOC (but not Warren, also a former Republican) believe that deficits don't matter.  In that regard, if I'm correct, they agree with Dick Cheney.  How weird is that?

None of this - deficits, universal health care, Republicans like Stevens bailing on his former party - are directly measured by Lichtman's keys.  But I think they all come in through the back door - via his keys involving how people feel about the candidates, or whether they got important policy done, and  how that all impacted the overall economy.  Like Lichtman, I sense it's all more nails and hammers in President Toxic's coffin.

 

Me, I was raised thinking that a huge deficit leads to inflation and worse.  And really, when some people in my town pay $1,000,000 for a 1800 square foot home, while other people live along the river because housing is too expensive, perhaps the point has already been proven, how the cost of housing and many other things has gone sky high.

That said, as long as the rest of the world believes our currency is the best currency (Trump still hasn't fucked that up) then perhaps we can continue to party like it's 1999.

 

What O'Donnell was getting at was the equivalent of click bait by twisting the facts.

In the end,  Mayor Pete would probably agree with you. 

 

 

 

 

 

[tassojunior]

ok, @stevenkesslar......I sense maybe a secret DC fling between a Proxmire staffer and a young Congressman?  

I admit I used to be fond of Kasich also. Good looking, friendly, charming. Smooooooth talker. Then I read on his positions and yikes......as a committed Reaganite he moved Ohio further to the right than anyone had ever dreamed a top union state like Ohio ever could have gone. And it's stuck with his pick for the present governor keeping it far right in the last election upset by DeWine. . https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/11/john-kasich-ohio-moderate-voting-record-republican-president-campaign Now that the Democrats are proudly the Reaganite's home (while the Trumpists rule the GOP) maybe it's fitting he was a prime speaker for the DNC. Hell, the Overton Window has surged so far to the right that he's probably too liberal for the Democratic party today. Anyway we're a long way from the '80's. The Democrats are now the party of the rich and the warmongers who give platitudes about the poor and the Republicans are the party of the poor uneducated peasants because they're they're inexplicably led by a rich former liberal Democrat posing as a crude Jacksonian commoner.  Someone might think parties don't mean much except for the one somebody can make most $$ through. Big Dummy went to a catfish fry by a police union while Kamala is in LA raking in fundraiser checks from hedge funds, banks, media companies, Silicon Valley and the war industry (and giving out IOU's). It's not which party is the party of the rich anymore, it's which party isn't? Conservative vs. liberal is meaningless now. 

I don't care about personalities anymore. I just want to know the policies they will follow (not just say they will either). When you fall for personalities you end up as as victim to the best bullshitter, the smoothest liar. Like St. Barrak. When people are spoken with not on personality or political party but as people on their own economic interest they almost always respond differently than on their political affiliation. The Trump voters hate Wall Street the banks and Pharma more than anyone and on those issues have no reason to be supporting either tool of Wall Street. Neither should they be supporting our perpetual racist wars where the body bags are always the poor and never the rich and the emirs, shieks and rabid rabbis they kill and die for who never risk any of their kids or money either.  Politics should be  economics a lot more and personalities a lot less.  A huge problems I have with Lichtman's "keys" in 2020 is that the economics is not clear anymore.  "Unemployment" can be kept exceptionally low , as in Europe, during this recession by keeping people technically "employed" with the government paying 70% of their former salary to them. We tried that with the PPP . And the Wall Street economy is soaring past all previous levels. Not because the economy is soaring but because the government is about to give more corporate welfare to Wall Street. So Lichtman would say absent the pandemic, that Trump was a shoo-in? People do not feel that good about their own economics right now no matter how well Wall Street is doing. Trump should not be anywhere close to even being in the running. 

I want to know on policies:

1. Who will stop the perpetual genocide and continual war that America has devolved into? Committing genocide is a human sin that trumps all. When we're stuffing people into ovens let's not skip to other issues. Let's open the oven doors and figure out how we get out of that mess first. How do war criminals responsible for Iraq, much less Yemen, Somalia, Syria and Libya even have credibility as candidates ? 

2. Who will stop the corporate welfare ("socialism for the rich") where working people's hard-earned tax money is funneled to the big corporations that are "too big to fail" and who fatten the wallets of their benefactors? 

3. Who will respect democracy and allow people to control their own life even if objectively they may make a bad decision? Democracy is always the best method. Consensus is also good but a democratic process is paramount. Germany chose Hitler. But then he stopped democracy for a reason. The US needs to be a democracy. 

4. Who will respect freedom of speech? The one outstanding thing about American is not capitalism, it's our freedom of speech where a "marketplace of ideas" lets anyone say any nonsense they want for risk of losing new ideas that improve our lives. People posting on boards about escorts should be especially worried about this issue after SESTA and Backpage.  Our heroes want to put us in prison for life and at least one has it as a hallmark achievement and campaign. 

5. Who will get America universal healthcare at lowest cost to average people through premiums or taxes. Remember when Trump said "why not just put everyone on Medicare"? Obama probably fainted worried about paying for one of his new mansions. Remember Dole's joke about how he proposed that with all the favorable tax treatment of real estate we should just stop taxing real estate income and a dozen lobbyists fainted. The accelerated depreciation was worth a lot more than the income. 

6. Who will stand up to China the strongest? Russia is #14 in GDP and Iran is not even in the top 50. China is the #1 country now and we're going to start moving into Chinese world hegemony. It's a surveillance state like Orwell never dreamed of and it's a cruel society. The war lobby here has drained most of our money for super-expensive weapons that are all but worthless in the 21st century. Those F-35's we have instead of healthcare are great in short-distance but against an enemy so far away are worthless as their required refueling planes would be shot down immediately. Drones and cyberwar are today's weapons and are cheap. (And America does have plenty of drone power, ask the 100,000 dead in Yemen and Somalia and the many more dead across the dark-complexion world.). 

Unless people get candidates to take positions on policy they can be held to, or at least make sure those issues are out there and discussed, elections are just beauty contests. 

Anyway, as a DC voter my preference for president is as meaningless as yours in California. So it gives me the luxury of working on issues and specific reform Democrats and independents I care about and can lobby for. The National Vote Compact is a big one I lobby for and am fine getting support from Democrats, Republicans, independents, Know-Nothings, anyone in a non-partisan way. Kasich opposes it and like most Republicans knows it will hurt them a lot, but most ordinary people agree it's the fair way to elect presidents. I gave my political money this year to Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush and the "colored girl squad" who were viciously under attack from foreign government money. (I also slipped an email to Katie Porter in CA as a Thank You for her clarity.)

Also I'm in the half of Democratic voters who the K Hivers want to go away and stay out of the party. lol, fooled them as I changed from considering myself a party lemming to being an independent a couple years ago, joining all the younger people I know who laughed at me being a Democratic party relic. 

And on deficits (most of which is to the Chinese) , the New Economic Theory seems to be proven out by Trump's deficits that they don't really matter so long as they're in your currency and you own the printing presses. (Why we'll go to extreme lengths against countries that try to avoid the Dollar Standard). 

Here's a very good piece today on our political bullshit obsession:  https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/08/24/thanks-obama-you-lie/

[stevenkesslar]

8 hours ago, Buddy2 said:

This professor predicted Trump would win the popular vote, not the electoral college.

Wrong.  He was incredibly clear about that after 2000.  Again, I've watched him on YouTube a lot.  His point about this resonates with me.

Before Gore/Bush, no one was really thinking much about the electoral college.  Because in our lifetimes, the guy who won the popular vote was elected President.  It was that simple.  It is, of course, how almost every other democracy in the world works.  But 2000 changed that.

Lichtman's explanation of this is that in the 21st century version of US politics, so far, you have millions of votes in two states - California and New York - padded into the vote totals.  And they are absolutely irrelevant to who actually becomes President.  As a Californian, I agree.  In effect, 10 humans in California count less than a cow in North Dakota.  The cow doesn't vote, of course.  But because people in North Dakota want open land and cows, somehow that counts for more than the millions of votes Hillary actually won by in 2016.  In any other country, Hillary Clinton would have been President.  That's a fight for the future, though.

So after the reality of Gore and 2000, Lichtman said he was going to forget about popular vote and focus on who will actually be President.  In 2016 he did not say President Toxic would win the popular vote.  If you can find anywhere he said that, please post it and educate me.  I think what he said is that the winner of the election is likely to be Trump, based on his keys.

Lichtman is an interesting guy who is quite aggressive in saying his system is right.  That said, he admits it involves subjective judgments.  And he says he gets "butterflies in my stomach" every time he makes one of these calls.  Because this time he may be wrong.

While Lichtman's model is not explicitly mathematical, I actually take it that way.  Which is to say that if Reagan had 9 or 10 of the keys working in his favor in 1984, he was a shoo in.  He did, in fact, win in a landslide.  Meanwhile, Lichtman said Gore had 5 keys turned against him.  He said Clinton had 6 turned against her.  The model is based on every actual election since 1860, when the Republican/Democrat duel actually started.  And he said in every election it took exactly six keys for the incumbent party to be thrown out.  So whether you think this is voodoo or not, my point is that inherent in his model is that when it is 5 or 6 keys, that right there suggests this is going to be a close call.  Which it actually was, in both 2000 and 2016.  Meanwhile, his keys system predicted that Mondale in 1984 and McCain in 2008 didn't even have a chance, since so many fundamentals ("keys") were working against him.  He was right.

Lichtman is saying this one will be close.  He's also saying voter suppression and Russian interference are two good reasons it could be close.  But if he's talking 7 keys, that actually suggests that Biden should win by a healthy margin.

Here's another model I've been paying attention to, which I think reinforces the validity of all of Lichtman's main points.  You can call this one "Lichtman Lite".  Or you can call it the "it's only the economy, stupid" model.

A Coronavirus Recession Could Doom Trump’s Reelection Chances

The headline speaks for itself.  Note it was published on March 19, 2020, just as the plague was hitting US shores - or at least, just as we were all learning the plague was silently infecting many people who would soon die.  The article above was a follow up to this paper written in April 2019 that spelled out the model.  So when this guy published his theory last year, I think it's fair to say that Biden looked like a has been.  And President Toxic looked like he had a 50/50 shot, or better.

Many of the assumptions are the same as Lichtman.  As an American and a small-d democrat, they are assumptions I actually wish to believe.  First, that elections are driven by serious judgments on fundamentals by voters, not dishonest ads or slogans or silly red hats.  Second, the primary judgment is an up or down referendum on the party in power in The White House.  Although how your party did in the last midterms builds in whether you're winning or losing Congressional races as well.   Third, both models assume that what is being judged by voters can be quantified objectively. 

Lichtman's "charisma" is a hard one to quantify, and he admits it.  So this alternative model is superior in that sense.  The author says it accurately predicted who won every Presidential election since World War 2 in which an incumbent was running.  And it predicted both the winner of every election, and the electoral vote total (within about 25 electoral votes, on average) .  It did this based on only two variables:  GDP in the 2nd quarter of the election year, and the incumbent's approval rating in June of the election year. 

That chart, from the March 2020 article above, gives you the guts of it.  To quote the guy's conclusion verbatim:

Quote

Based on the results of presidential elections since World War II with running incumbents, a president with an upside-down approval rating and an economy in recession would have little chance of winning a second term in the White House. If President Trump’s net approval rating remains where it is now or declines further, and if the recession is severe, with real GDP shrinking by three points or more in the second quarter, the result could well be a defeat of landslide proportions.

Again, you can call this the "it's only the economy, stupid" model.  Lichtman factors in things like foreign policy and scandal (impeachment).  That said, right now if you go to RCP you can find President Toxic has an upside down -11.2 % approval rating.  But if you click on the tabs he has + 1 % approval on the economy, - 12 % on foreign policy, and - 18 % on Coronavirus.  You can make a good argument that that overall -11.2 % approval rating is measuring how voters judge all these things.  It's much like stock market technical analysts who say that you can read a lot about the fundamentals of Apple stock.  Or you can look at the price chart and see how the price keeps going up, and that will tell you pretty much everything the market knows about the value of Apple.

Lichtman and this theory end up in the same place.  President Toxic is going to lose.  It's going to be mostly because of the economy, stupid.  And this other theory quantifies that maybe President Toxic will lose in a landslide.

Again, this was a theory published in 2019 and updated this Spring for COVID-19.  So the chart above was based on knowing Trump was running, and knowing the economy was likely to dive.  The actual initial decline in GDP in Q2 2020 is - 9.5 %.  President Toxic's average approval rating was between -10 % and - 15 % depending on which day in June you pick.  

So this is off the charts.  There is no precedent, at least since World War 2.  So you can say this is voodoo, and none of this matters.  But if it does matter, it suggests that Trump might be lucky to get 131 or 144 electoral votes, which is what would be predicted if the GDP figure for Q2 2020 was - 5 %, not - 9.5 %

Under either of these models, President Toxic loses, because history (the fundamentals) says he deserves to.  What may actually matter more is the US Senate.

Right now, today, the "no toss up" map on RCP says that if the election were held today, and the polls are right, Biden would win 337 electoral votes, and President Toxic would win 201 electoral votes.  While that's a big loss for Trump, it's not clear what it means for the US Senate.  In 2016, every state that voted for Hillary elected a Democratic US Senator.  Every state that voted for President Toxic elected a Republican Senator.  In 2018, it was very close to that.  President Toxic was not on the ballot, of course.  And Democrats Manchin and Tester held on in states that Trump won handily in 2016.  But my point is that it's a pretty reasonable guess to say that in the states President Toxic will win, so will the Republican Senator.  Period.

I sent money to Amy McGrath in 2018, when she was running for a Kentucky House seat, because I like her and her message about unity and bipartisanship and compromise so much.  I won't do the same in 2020, and this is why.  I'd love to see McConnell gone.  I'd love to see Amy elected.  But given "the fundamentals" and history and what these political scientists point to, it seems unlikely.  Sorry, Amy.  Congratulations, Mitch.  You asshole.

Here's my point.  If you view this very rigidly, the map today says Trump will get 200 electoral votes, and Republicans will just barely hold on to Senate seats in Iowa and North Carolina.  So if you go by today's no toss up map, and view it simple-mindedly, it means a 51-49 Republican Senate majority.  

Now let's just assume for a minute that the fundamentals of every election since 1948 tells us that with a - 10 % or worse approval rating, and negative GDP of -9.5 % that is worse than any past President running for re-election, President Toxic will be lucky to get over 100 electoral votes.  Look at the map and the polls for each state that you can see by clicking on the state.  Which states are most likely to fall that would move Trump from 200 electoral votes to 100?  

There are three states I count where President Toxic is currently ahead by one or two points, at best.  North Carolina.  Georgia.  Iowa.  As it turns out, there are 4 Senate seats in play in those four states.  So, again, let's just be simple-minded and assume that 2020 will play out just like 2016 and 2018.  If President Toxic wins the state, he'll bring a Republican Senator back to DC with him.  If history is a guide and we know that President Toxic won't get his 200 electoral votes, the states most likely to fall are the ones I just cited.  And that means Democrats could pick up four more Senate seats, if this plays out like in 2018 and 2020.

Again, Manchin and Tester won in Trump states in 2018.  If there is an exception to the rule in 2020, I'd nominate Bullock as most likely to succeed.  Like Tester and Manchin, he is not seen as a Sandernista, or a puppet for the Warren Wing of the Democratic party.  People know him and like him.  I could see him winning, even as President Toxic picks up his state.

I obviously don't see these theories as voodoo.  It's not certain, of course.  But I think both Lichtman and Abramowitz are right.  History - or what MLK or John Lewis or Jon Meacham would call the arc of the moral universe - are all bending in 2020, I think.  If they are right, I don't have to to do anything, since history will do the job for me.  But I'm sending $100 a month to the Democrats in Montana, and Georgia, and North Carolina, and Iowa, and Maine, and Arizona, and Colorado.  Because all this tells me, I think, that if we see the arc of the moral universe actually bend on Election Night, those are the places it is most likely going to bend.

If I take Lichtam's insights as wisdom rather than voodoo, this part about the Senate matters for another reason.  Whether Democrats can pass legislation in 2021 - on poverty, or job creation, or health care, or infrastructure, or climate change, or racial justice - matters a lot in terms of whether they can keep power in 2024.  Mitch knows that, which is why he will obstruct everything - just like he did in 2009.  So this is like Groundhog Day for Joe Biden.  Same shit, different decade. 

Bottom line:  kill the fucking filibuster dead for this period of US history, since it depends on the idea of compromise and unity.  That's not how President Toxic or Mitch play.  We need at least 50 Senate Democrats, who can agree on important things.  If we have that, some other Republicans might go along.  It works out that means people like Kelly, or Hickenlooper, or Gideon have to win - to name the three most likely.  All of whom probably are just as comfortable working with Republicans like Stuart Stevens or John Kasich as they are with Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren.  In terms of the challenges at hand, and the idea that it will take years to dig our way out of the huge hole we are in, that all works out fine with me.

Poor Joe Biden.  Really.  This is going to be like Groundhog Day for him.  It's like 2009, only worse.

Edited August 25, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[Buddy2]

The  professor is a historian not a political sciencist who's  field is the presidency, Constitutional aw and politcal parties. A political sciencist wouldn't just dismiss  the popular vote or the Electoral College as inconveniet 

 

@stevenkesslar

[tassojunior]

If Lichtman's so good he should be rich.  Vegas has Biden 55 to 44. In 2016 Clinton was 5 to 1 and one bettor made $2.5 million. 

2016: https://fortune.com/2016/11/09/donald-trump-president-gamble/

 

Today:

Edited August 25, 2020 by tassojunior

[AdamSmith]

33 minutes ago, Buddy2 said:

The  professor is a historian not a political sciencist who's  field is the presidency, Constitutional aw and politcal parties. A political sciencist wouldn't just dismiss  the popular vote or the Electoral College as inconveniet 

 

@stevenkesslar

What defenses of the Electoral College are there? What are its utilities today?

[tassojunior]

You think Krystal reads Boytoy?

[stevenkesslar]

1 hour ago, tassojunior said:

I admit I used to be fond of Kasich also. Good looking, friendly, charming. Smooooooth talker. Then I read on his positions and yikes......as a committed Reaganite he moved Ohio further to the right than anyone had ever dreamed a top union state like Ohio ever could have gone. And it's stuck with his pick for the present governor keeping it far right in the last election upset by DeWine.

All true.  Again, I'm a Democrat.  I am not a Kasich Republican.  So I'm not endorsing his ideology in any way. 

I am endorsing his style of politics.  Particularly his willingness to compromise, and end battles in the interest of unity.  Perhaps to some degree I'm endorsing his values (but not on abortion, for sure). 

If people like Sanders or Warren or AOC ran in Orange County or Missouri or Indiana and won, maybe Kasich just wouldn't matter.  A Warren protege from the CFPB did run against DeWine for Ohio Gov, and lost.   I think DeWine has the warm glow of Kasich Republicanism to thank for that.  You, in a way, seem to agree.

Warren, the former Republican from Oklahoma, would have been an interesting case, had she been nominated for POTUS.  In the end I think Lichtman is right.  Any Democrat would beat President Toxic.  But Sanders would have made it easiest for him to argue this is a choice between America as we know it, and socialism.  Meanwhile, I'm not going to be like my former Republican friend and say Kasich should just shut the fuck up and fall in line behind President Toxic.  I'd rather have him on our side.

I'd argue that Bill Clinton, aka Slick Willie, did the same thing Kasich did in Ohio.  But Clinton did it in the US in the 1990's.  He moved everything to the left.  Here's proof from Pew:

The shift in the American public’s political values Political Polarization, 1994-2017

There's a great "picture is worth 1000 words" animation in there.  

First click on 1994 and see where the median Democrat and median Republican was.   

Then click on 1999.  You should see that both median Democrat and median Republican moved to the left a bit.  Thank Clinton for that, I think.

Then click on 2017.  You should see the median Democrat move way to the left.  And the median Republican move way to the right.  Now I'll break ranks.  Thank Obama for that, I think.

If there is a virtue to centrism, this is it.  Clinton intentionally played to the center left.  And in so doing, he actually did move the center a little more left.  And it also meant there was a big center, and he could get a lot of shit done.  When he left office trust in government was higher than at any point since LBJ.

I'll revisit one thing I said earlier in this thread when I trashed Republican Scott Jennings.  If Scott had just said, "the Obamas can be awfully arrogant", he would have had me.  At the very least, I'd agree that many Republicans were not crazy to see Barack, and to some degree Michelle, that way. 

Scott lost me when he went further and said that the Obamas felt that either you agreed with them, or you were "stupid or racist", to quote Jennings verbatim.  Neither Obama ever said that.  It's a Republican distortion - maybe honest, maybe intentionally polarizing.  And if we're being honest, they should admit that on Election Night 2008 McConnell and Gingrich were already telling the troops we are going to obstruct everything Obama does.  Everything.  That's now a matter of historical record, I believe.

All that said, I think Bill Clinton had an even worse asshole than Mitch to deal with, named New Gingrich.  So Clinton just made offers that he knew the Republican Party could not refuse.  Gingrich still refused them.  But Dole and Kasich and others couldn't.  How much of that was their principles, and how much was politics - who knows?  But Clinton did know that what he stood for and drew the battle lines over were popular policies with the majority of Americans.

Historians have already decided, so far, that both Clinton and Obama were better than average Presidents.  They give Obama particularly good grades for integrity and ethics, which is what drags Clinton  down.  Conversely, they give Clinton much better grades for dealing with Congress than Obama gets.  I agree with the historians.

Biden is more like Bill Clinton than Barack Obama in regards to dealing with Congress.    (Hopefully he is not like Bill on personal ethics.  I think Tara Reade was thoroughly discredited.).  I don't have a problem with Biden chumming up with Congress in a way Obama didn't, really.  Especially in the context of the mess we're in.

It will be defining that Biden has to deal with a Democratic Party whose center is probably to his left.  But he will also have a Republican party way to his right.  He of course knows this way better than I do.  

It's hard to imagine things can actually become more polarized.  So under a President Biden, my best guess now is we'll have a median Democrat who is always disappointed that their President is selling out - just like what Clinton and pretty much Obama had to deal with.  The really interesting question is whether the Republicans will move back toward the center.  I agree with Stuart Stevens.  If the Republican Party post-President Toxic ossifies into a sort of White nationalist "Racism 'S Us" Party, they will stay far to the right.  Or maybe even move further.  This is where you'd say Satan, or at least Nikki Haley, will take over that type of Republican Party and lead it to victory in 2024.  

Maybe.  I'd first check with Stuart Stevens and John Kasich and Rick Wilson about that.  They are Republicans, or former Republicans.  And they seem to have a different plan in mind.  Again, I think this is why it's critical that we have 50 Democratic Senators, and trash the filibuster.  That way we can pass laws that dig us out of the hole we're in and end the misery and death.  If some Republicans want to join the party and have their own ideas, we're going to have to listen.  I think even Bernie and Elizabeth know that.

Since I'm back to Clinton and the 1990's, this is a good point to make another tangential point regarding Lichtman I've been wanting to make.  Which, if you buy it, again suggests that there is a God, and she has a gallows sense of humor.

Back when I was still willing to have open-minded conversations with Republican friends or clients who supported President Toxic, I had multiple discussions about how Trump was no worse than Bill Clinton.  Republicans argued that unless you can show me the letter you wrote calling for Clinton's impeachment and resignation, just shut the fuck up.

It's a fair enough point.  My response was this.  First, just on ethics and integrity, President Toxic is actually far worse.  Second, Trump has none of the offsetting positives Clinton did.  Toward the end of his second term, about 2 in 3 Americans approved of the job he was doing.  After eight years of Clinton, half of Americans said they trust government.  That was the highest that public trust had been since LBJ.  I don't think history will say that President Toxic was widely approved of, ever.  Or that he restored trust in government.

If you want a case for why Bill Clinton should have been forced to resign, Alan Lichtman makes the best case I've ever heard.  He says had Clinton resigned, Al Gore would have been President in 2001.  There would never have been an Iraq War.  I agree with him.

Lichtman's theory as published in 1981 was about popular vote winner.  And in 2000 he did say Gore would win the popular vote, narrowly, because Democrats had only 5 of his 13 keys turned against him, and it takes six.  So you can say Lichtman is voodoo.  Or you can say he predicted it would be close, and it was.  Gore did win the popular vote.  My point is this.  One of the five keys turned against Democrats was incumbency.  So if Al Gore was the relatively new incumbent President, he would have been more likely to win.  It would not have eliminated Democrats having Lichtman's "scandal" key turned against him.  But it might have mitigated against it.  Lichtman points to exit polls in 2000 that show that a substantial minority of voters were particularly concerned about issues like personal integrity and ethics.  And those voters heavily tilted toward Bush.

Lichtman has been absolutely apoplectic about this for the last few years, in regards to impeaching President Toxic.  He even wrote a book about it.  The people who disagree with him, like on Morning Joe, tend to be lifelong Democrats who argue, correctly, that Bill Clinton got impeached and Newt Gingrich lost his job over it.  Lichtman's rebuttal, which I buy, is the Republicans lost the battle over impeachment, but won the war in 2000.  Based on the fundamentals, Al Gore should have won.  He actually did win the popular vote.  So I buy the idea that had Clinton kept his hands and his cigar in his pocket, or had he resigned and let Al Gore run as an incumbent because he couldn't, there would have been no W. and no Iraq War.

Maybe, maybe not.  Woulda, coulda, shoulda.

There's one other point about your arguments, @tassojunior, that I'll plant here. 

I agree with you that the most likely effective attack on Biden would have to center on his ethics and integrity.  I think Burisma itself is a weak argument, if you go with the facts.  The fact is that Biden did brag - but about getting the BAD guy fired.   Even if you think Hunter is a jerk, Hunter is not Joe.  That said, the image that indicted Joe Biden the worst, I think, was him and Hunter stepping off Air Force Two in China.  At the very least, Biden should have known better.  It looks like endorsement.  I said that on this forum last year.  One of my best arguments for Warren is that she could go to town on a "he's corrupt to the bone" argument in a way Biden just can't.  They will of course try to say Biden is corrupt to the bone.

That said, I think the issue is pretty much off the table.  This is partly why I watch Morning Joe.  Joe rants more than I do.  So he had a great rant this past week about this.  What is Team Toxic gonna say, really?  China?  Really?  China?   Can we play the tape about all the cuddly things President Toxic said about how well Xi was handling the virus?  And how, meanwhile, how Kuddly Kim and him were falling in love?  How sweet.  Kuddly Kim and Xi and The Donald.  So in love.  So sweet.

And, yeah, sure.  I know that Beau Biden just got arrested palling around with some Chinese billionaire on his yacht.  Oh, wait.  That's right.  That was Steve Bannon.  Who I guess will be advising President Toxic from jail about how to kick Biden's ass on China.  And, yeah.  I know.  It's not that Bannon is chums with pro-Xi Chinese billionaires.  It's that they were planning how to create an alternative China while palling around on a yacht off the East Coast.

I think I'll go with Alan Lichtman and my alternative election without COVID-19, thank you.  Because this alternative reality about kicking Biden's ass before he hands us over to China on a silver platter is pretty much a joke.

Good news is that when the history of this miserable Presidency is written, it will be a comedy instead of a tragedy.  At least we'll get some laughs out of all the lies and suffering and death.

And call me a super bitch, but I have to say this.  I'm disappointed I don't see Don Jr.'s USA Gay purse on the table next to him.  I thought Grenell was serious last night.  And Don Jr. had a Gay purse just to show he was cool with everything LGBTQ.   They weren't lying about that, too???  Were they?

 

[stevenkesslar]

1 hour ago, tassojunior said:

You think Krystal reads Boytoy?

No.  Maybe the Pretty Boy who sits next to her does.

We're all grown women here.  So can we have a very frank discussion about sloppiness?

I kind of like the way The Pretty Boy looks with his mouth open.  And when it comes to things like that, I can be all for sloppiness.  Yeah, his teeth can be a problem.  But I can deal with teeth when a Pretty Boy starts sucking.  And maybe he's one of those sloppy kissers.  I don't care.  Hell, he could even be one of those guys who isn't very good at anal cleansing.  That's cool, too.  I can deal with sloppy bottoms.

Call me a prude, but I draw the line at sloppy journalism.  Which is why I never allowed Pretty Boys like Saagar  to take courses at the Steven Kesslar School Of Writing And Sexual Finishing.  I know.  I'm an asshole.

But here's the thing:

For the first time, there are fewer registered Republicans than independents

So, yeah.  By definition, the crumbling edifice (or is it orifice?) of the Toxic Party is more pro-Trump than ever before.  That is, of course, why they are registered Trump Republicans.

As John Kasich, or George Will, or Stuart Stevens, or Rick Wilson will tell you, there's a word for lifelong Republicans who abhor President Toxic.  The word is "Independent".

I'd be impressed if Krystal or The Pretty Boy had an in-depth analysis of who voted for Biden in the primaries in Virginia and Massachusetts and Minnesota.  No one has ever explained how Biden not only stopped Sanders in places like Texas, but won states that he didn't have offices in, run ads in, organize in, or pretty much spend a penny in.

I think the answer is that there was a grassroots tidal wave, which we've seen building all over the US for years - notably including the 2018 midterms.  So all these moderate Democrats or moderate Republicans or Independents or whatever they should be called came out of the woodwork and voted for Biden.  And he won.

Meanwhile, all those White working class men - and women - in  Michigan and Wisconsin who voted for Bernie in 2016 because they like socialism?  Well they voted for Joe Biden this time.  Is it because White men like other old White men more than socialism?  Is it that White women can't stomach white female leaders like Hillary, but they like Joe because he reminds them of their ex?  I don't know.  But I do know for some reason they all voted for Biden.

I had a minor epiphany this Spring.  Or maybe I should say I just didn't see the logic in swimming into a tidal wave.  I'm still really not sure what to think.  But reading this stuff from Lichtman and Abamowitz does influence my thinking about what is really happening here.  I am growing increasingly convinced the tidal wave is near.

So if Krystal or The Pretty Boy can explain that to me, I'll listen.  But telling me that former Republicans are abandoning the Toxic Party in droves is not news, or deep analysis.  So, yeah, the remaining Republicans who are willing to stay in President Toxic's stinky edifice (orifice?) are willing to lick any kind of shit his ass can spew out.  I think that is a reasonable enough explanation of what happened last night.

And talk about sloppy.  That President Toxic shit is sloppier and stinkier than any shit I've ever seen.  So as far as I'm concerned, the Republicans can have 100 % of it all to themselves.

That's said, I can't fault these Republicans for being sloppy shit lickers.  Or Krystal or The Pretty Boy for being sloppy journalists.

My party is made up of cannibals who secretly feed on the blood of children.  Most reasonable people would say that's even worse.

Edited August 26, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[AdamSmith]

13 minutes ago, stevenkesslar said:

No.  Maybe the Pretty Boy who sits next to her does.

We're all grown women here.  So can we have a very frank discussion about sloppiness?

I kind of like the way The Pretty Boy looks with his mouth open.  And when it comes to things like that, I can be all for sloppiness.  Yeah, his teeth can be a problem.  But I can deal with teeth when a Pretty Boy starts sucking.  And maybe he's one of those sloppy kissers.  I don't care.  Hell, he could even be one of those guys who isn't very good at anal cleansing.  That's cool, too.  I can deal with sloppy bottoms.

Call me a prude, but I draw the line at sloppy journalism.  Which is why I never allowed Pretty Boys like Saagar  to take courses at the Steven Kesslar School Of Writing And Sexual Finishing.  I know.  I'm an asshole.

But here's the thing:

For the first time, there are fewer registered Republicans than independents

So, yeah.  By definition, the crumbling edifice (or is it orifice?) of the Toxic Party is more pro-Trump than ever before.  That is, of course, why they are registered Trump Republicans.

As John Kasich, or George Will, or Stuart Stevens, or Rick Wilson will tell you, there's a word for lifelong Republicans who abhor President Toxic.  The word is "Independent".

I'd be impressed if Krystal or The Pretty Boy had an in-depth analysis of who voted for Biden in the primaries in Virginia and Massachusetts and Minnesota.  No one has ever explained how Biden not only stopped Sanders in places like Texas, but won states that he didn't have offices in, run ads in, organize in, or pretty much spend a penny in.

I think the answer is that there was a grassroots tidal wave, which we've seen building all over the US for years - notably including the 2018 midterms.  So all these moderate Democrats or moderate Republicans or Independents or whatever they should be called came out of the woodwork and voted for Biden.  And he won.

Meanwhile, all those White working class men - and women - in  Michigan and Wisconsin who voted for Bernie in 2016 because they like socialism?  Well they voted for Joe Biden this time.  Is it because White men like other old White men more than socialism?  Is it that White women can't stomach white female leaders like Hillary, but they like Joe because he reminds them of their ex?  I don't know.  But I do know for some reason they all voted for Biden.

I had a minor epiphany this Spring.  Or maybe I should say I just didn't see the logic in swimming into a tidal wave.  I'm still really not sure what to think.  But reading this stuff from Lichtman and Abamowitz does influence my thinking about what is really happening here.  I am growing increasingly convinced the tidal wave is near.

So if Krystal or The Pretty Boy can explain that to me, I'll listen.  But telling me that former Republicans are abandoning the Toxic Party in droves is not news, or deep analysis.  So, yeah, the remaining Republicans who are willing to stay in President Toxic's stinky edifice (orifice?) are willing to lick any kind of shit his ass can spew out.  I think that is a reasonable enough explanation of what happened last night.

And talk about sloppy.  That President Toxic shit is sloppier and stinkier than any shit I've ever seen.  So as far as I'm concerned, the Republicans can have 100 % of it all to themselves.

That's said, I can't fault these Republicans for being sloppy shit lickers.  Or Krystal or The Pretty Boy for being sloppy journalists.

My party is made up of cannibals who feed on the blood of children.  Most reasonable people would say that's even worse.

’The very Oedipus of reason crumbles beneath us.’

[stevenkesslar]

17 hours ago, AdamSmith said:

YES YES YES

Sorry to be so long-winded.

But when I read your cogent analysis, Adam, it reminded me of one other thing that would be different if we had President Kasich instead of President Toxic.

I think Steven Kesslar would be terser.  Because he would have less to bitch and moan about.

Then  again, maybe not.

That could just be wishful thinking on my part.  

[AdamSmith]

14 minutes ago, stevenkesslar said:

Sorry to be so long-winded.

But when I read your cogent analysis, Adam, it reminded me of one other thing that would be different if we had President Kasich instead of President Toxic.

I think Steven Kesslar would be terser.  Because he would have less to bitch and moan about.

Then  again, maybe not.

That could just be wishful thinking on my part.  

LOL. Please Ignore all my previous snark. We need more public thought & discourse, not less, today.

Your considered reflections are valued very much.

[Latbear4blk]

 

[tassojunior]

1 hour ago, stevenkesslar said:

No.  Maybe the Pretty Boy who sits next to her 

 

Steven, more people register as independents than Republicans OR Democrats. People with minds don't have to have a party tell them what to think. 

And I was wrong about you and Kasich. It's Clinton, Obama and Biden you have a seriously romantic view of. You repeat the partyline rationalization of why they were ok in their time if minor flawed. They were crooks and mass murderers. If you accept what they did and what they supported as just normal then you lose the ability to advocate as a reformer or any sort of progressive. We were immersed in the 80s as this stuff being ok because its our side doing it. It was never ok and we look like fools defending it while trying to stop others from doing it. Maybe we'll have revisionist historians wipe out mention of the horrible evil those three (and others) did, but hypocites like them are nothing to look up to. And that's why most people don't care enough about American government to vote anymore. It's evil bullshit vs evil bullshit. Its too speculative as to who's more evil. It's best to break with the past and start new and clean and moral but we're trapped in this evil system. Most people, especially younger and poor, are sick of the establishment, Republican and Democratic. I'm versed well in normal politics but sometimes morals have to count. I refuse to defend those three while trying to advocate for good. I like and respect you but don't be a captive rationalizer of evil things just because it's "us" doing it.

Edited August 26, 2020 by tassojunior

[tassojunior]

3 hours ago, stevenkesslar said:

When he left office trust in government was higher than at any point since LBJ.

 

Did you really just say that ? Without an lol? LBJ who had to go on tv sobbing to agree not to run for reelection because there were millions of people (Democrats) in the streets marching and rioting over his genocide policies in Vietnam?  Do you read anything not "published by DNC"?  Have the revisionist historians already started fucking with 1968 while we're alive?  Are you pretending to be too young to remember 1968? I remember it like the back of my hand and there was nothing but hate for LBJ. My professors got me out to independent study at Santa Cruz because it was one of the few campuses open in the country for three years. Every year my home campus would open,  students would riot and burn buildings, students would get tear gassed and shot, and campus would close for the year. In three years I was in jail 8 times, bit by a police dog twice, and tear gassed dozens of times. Only France was closer to full-scale popular revolution against the government than the US. And it was all hate for LBJ. 

 

 

 

Edited August 26, 2020 by tassojunior

[Buddy2]

21 hours ago, AdamSmith said:

What defenses of the Electoral College are there? What are its utilities today?

I am not defending the Electoral College,  or calling for change.  The extremely long posts in this thread  make me think it's about everything but this year election. Pardon me, I seem to be the only one concerning about November and the difficult tasking of defeating a sitting a sitting president.