I didn’t make any comment about whether I agreed or disagreed with the system for electing the senate or how it related to the other branches of government, which seems to have flown completely over your head.
I merely asked you whether you thought the system of electing the senate was inherently favourable to a Republican majority.
Fighting too many Internet battles, it was always going to start coming apart at the seams. GAA is now beginning to blend into US Politics. For your own sanity kid, would you not take a break for a while?
Are we seeing Trump begin a slow 360 in an appeal to broaden his base. He is a former democrat after all. From reading a brief summary of his speech last night his policies on childcare infrastructure and parental leave would be high on the democratic agenda would they not. Of course he still mentioned the wall but will we see that can getting continuously kicked down the road to appease his base.
All he did was soften his rhetoric. The agenda is still the same, the devil is in the details though when it comes to passing legislation. Replacing Obamacare will be a difficult task, as although it’s collapsing, there are many elements of it that are very popular with a lot of people, pre-existing conditions the most important.
On the wall, the US has been building a wall on the southern border since 1994, funded by legislation passed by both parties. The Secure Fence Act of 2006 was passed by a big majority, those voting for it included Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
You responded to @anon7035031 talking about the state of the Democratic Party nationally. He said they were in the dumps, you said no.
Your entire argument is basically “tot the figures, the Dems are way ahead, they can’t possibly be doing badly!”
You also, as pointed out distorted your tot based on the advantage of less Red State’s voting.
In classic Sidney fashion, you have now pivoted to talking about a structural advantage.
The simple fact of the matter is that you have to campaign in states on local and national issues. They lost the Presidential despite having the most despised candidate to run for President ever. You can say what you want about the GOP being lucky, but you can’t claim that if the GOP didn’t win that a substantial chunk of hierarchy didn’t try and stop Trump. All candidates lined up against him in the primaries and lost. The money went to Bush, Rubio and latterly Cruz and they couldn’t stop him. The Dems despite themselves having the second most despised candidate of all time, did the exact opposite. Going to every effort to help Clinton win.
This had a knock on effect in the general as the huge enthusiasm gap for her cost her not only the election but plenty of seats across the board.
The Dems are not playing the system well. It is a bloodbath for them right now, they are in their worst state in decades. They have a new popular base of more European style left wingers, but more traditional Dem politicians still rule the party.
So on the point at hand, he is correct, it is a bloodbath. Talking about 13 million votes shows not only an ignorance of the hard figures and what they mean, but the American system at large.
The Democratic party hasn’t been in a good state. I didn’t say it was.
But if they can still garner 12.6 million more votes across the three elections, and for people to class that as a “wipe out”, well I’d put it this way - if that’s classed as a “wipeout”, I wouldn’t be writing its obituary just yet. Certain self styled “experts” here have effectively done that.
And the Democrats now have the greatest organisational and motivational tool they’ve ever had.
Some laugh reading the king of deflection and obfuscation accusing somebody else of “pivoting”.
The structural advantage the Republicans hold as regards the senate was a glaring omission from @anon7035031’s post, which he didn’t mention either due to lack of knowledge or due to it not fitting his agenda.
Which is why I mentioned it.
Republicans have a built in advantage in that the smaller states tend to be red ones. There are 23 states that could fairly be classed as “red states”:
1 Alaska
2 Wyoming
3 Arizona
4 Utah
5 Montana
6 Idaho
7 North Dakota
8 South Dakota
9 Nebraska
10 Kansas
11 Texas
12 Oklahoma
13 Louisiana
14 Arkansas
15 Mississippi
16 Missouri
17 Alabama
18 Georgia
19 South Carolina
20 Tennessee
21 Kentucky
22 Indiana
23 West Virginia
There are just 15 that could be classed as “blue states”.
1 Hawaii
2 California
3 Oregon
4 Washington
5 Illinois
6 Minnesota
7 New York
8 Connecticut
9 Massachussetts
10 Rhode Island
11 Vermont
12 Maine
13 Maryland
14 New Jersey
15 Delaware
The other 12 could be fairly classed as swing states:
1 Colorado
2 Nevada
3 New Mexico
4 Iowa
5 Ohio
6 Pennsylvania
7 Wisconsin
8 Florida
9 Virginia
10 New Hampshire
11 North Carolina
12 Michigan
That’s a structural advantage for the Republicans in senate elections in any objective analysis.
Only somebody ignorant about the US political system would be blind to this - but it seems you and others are.
It wouldn’t be a “bloodbath” for them if they had one of the White House or House.
You are pivoting here now, well done for listing out a bunch of States.
You just have to be contrary on everything he says. Everything Trump does must be bad. Anything said against the Democrats by Labane must be picked through as you have to win. Much like the irony of you picking and choosing when data is important to you, you have taken up something that you criticise some of the other side for. You are beyond hope at this point on this topic.
Your tactic of continually and bizarrely using the word “pivot” to cover up for your complete lack of a point and your obvious inability to deal with my points is Kellyanne Conway-esque, which is quite appropriate as you also appear to believe in “alternative facts”.
You don’t answer questions because you can’t come up with answers, you merely try to deflect.
It’s so transparent and it’s pretty boring at this stage.
The Trap by Adam Curtis focusses on Buchanan and a thing called public choice theory which was an effort to privatise public services by stealth using market logic. It led to stuff like the internal market in the NHS which was a disaster.