Key takeaways from this election

Author: thett3

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#61
Greyparrot
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@AddledBrain
 I'd like to see your solution to not seeing children starve in the streets in front of us.

Well, that's a slam dunk easy thing.

Make every child a ward of the state from the moment of conception, and the mother then has to prove her fitness or else child protective services steps in and takes care of the child.

Done. No more abortions or child starvations.

If a mother somehow eludes the law and lets a child die in her care due to reckless negligence, then she should serve hard prison time and/or mandatory sterilization.
We already have laws on the books for this, and we already have a government-funded CPS department. We just need to take the extra step.

Stop bitching about not having 100% safety if you are not willing to live in a totalitarian state to achieve it.
#62
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@Greyparrot
parrot, it's incredibly incoherent for you to have this :

Make every child a ward of the state from the moment of conception
and this :

Stop bitching about not having 100% safety if you are not willing to live in a totalitarian state to achieve it.
in the same post.  One side of your head can't stop fighting with the other side !

#63
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@thett3
 Unfortunately this corporate sponsored "culture" is the death of all real culture, both American and otherwise, but that's a different discussion.
I was talking with Dr. Franklin about this one time. I told him that the best way that I have heard it put is that, under a multicultural country where people have next to nothing in common, all "art"/movies/songs/etc. has to appeal to the lowest common denominator. What does an African immigrant, a White born in America, and an Indian immigrant have in common? Not religion, not cultural values. Just the fact that they all enjoy sex, eat food, and go sh*t. So, naturally, darn near every song is about sex. But I agree, that is a different discussion. Just thought I'd make a comment on that.

The remaining cultural trappings are just that--trappings. This is also why all the "cultural appropriation" stuff is even a thing, btw. People feel the need to aggressively defend their groups traditional clothing and food and such because that's all they have left, and they know it.

I think that is a good potential point, but if you'd notice, most people complaining about cultural appropriation are privileged White people. Decent amount of Blacks are starting to do that, though, especially the "eDuCaTeD" ones who have a sociology degree.

But if you wear a sombrero, I would highly doubt that any Mexican immigrant would care. They appreciate that you celebrate their culture.

For immigration not to be toxic for the mainstream society the immigrant (or at least their children) has to lose their uniqueness, what makes them THEM, and replace it with something different. It's not a fair thing to ask of people.
I agree. It is cruel to make people give up their culture, which is why it needs to be clear coming in that they must do so. That is the only way to ensure our social fabric doesn't unravel rapidly.

If they are to truly be "American", they must give up their past. I think the really only way to accomplish this is to take back the schools and put patriotism at the heart of education during history and government classes. Show them what makes American liberty so great.

Well. Yes, in a way. But I can't help but notice that the flavor of right wing politics I prefer (right wing populism) is much more palatable to minorities than Bush/Romney style austerity. Immigration did kill the old Republican consensus but honestly that surprisingly turned out to be a good thing. A white-working class and Latino coalition might actually be in the works (https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1325524794570313730). I certainly hope it is. 

I also do like this new flavor of right-wing politics. Nationalism, populism, protectionism. I think that a Latino coalition is possible, although again I'm not sure that their support will ever reach 50%. A lot of them are becoming less religious and more favorable towards abortion as they assimilate to leftism, though, so I'm not going to hold my breath. Mass immigration will be a net negative to the GOP, just like illegal alien amnesty will kill our country (something that Biden said he would do). He phrased it as "path to citizenship", but they result in the same thing.
Hispanic:
Control gun ownership support: 62%
Protect gun freedom: 36%

They also majority support hate speech legislation if I remember correctly.

However, they are still as a total group good on abortion and are against weed legalization.

And as for the Black vote, voting Democrat is part of their little subculture lol. Even though illegal immigrants kill their wages, they will never vote for the GOP unless Dems bring back slavery or something.

I wouldn't have allowed mass immigration if I were in charge in the 1960's, but honestly it's a fait accompli at this point. The good news is that I anticipate Biden's presidency to be the last great wave of immigration before the spigot is turned off again for a while. 

I sure hope you are right, but if he can give citizenship to those 11 million illegal immigrants, we are electorally boned for life. Same way California turned permanently blue after Reagan did amnesty.

They will reward that citizenship bribe with a vote for the DNC.
#64
fauxlaw
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Joe Biden is not the President-Elect. Sure, the media has given that crown, but it's paper and gold paint. It's not even as official as the Burger King crown. Joe Biden stands before a background blazoned with "Office of the President-Elect," complete with seal, but there is no such office. It's a charade. It's sleight-of-hand. There is no President-Elect by popular vote, and there never has been since Geo Washington. The Constitution says otherwise. Title3 U.S.C. §7 says otherwise. The Electoral College meets on the Monday following the second Wednesday of December, the 14th, by which time, the 8th, the States have ALL submitted their certified election results. Media be damned, only then is the President-Elect designated. Just because we now have a minute-by-minute news cycle, we didn't with Washington's first election of 1793, and it makes no bloody difference now. Anything else is blowing up a wish balloon. Save your breath.
#65
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@thett3
Susan Collins is an unbeatable political goddess 

nobody knows how
#66
lady3keys
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@thett3
Donors who worked for Facebook and Google skewed 97%-3% for Biden. Apple was 92%-8%. Amazon was a mere 80%-20%. These companies are definitely left wing bastions, and if right wingers use them successfully it is absolutely against the wishes of those who own and work for those companies. They've been cracking down on right wing speech pretty rapidly lately.
I have been reading the discussion between you and Danielle.  And yes, Hollywood and California do have a bit of a monopoly culturally.   But Hi-Tech?  They may vote liberally, but they allowed Trump to spout his lies all over their platforms because they believe in Freedom of Speech.  I, personally, think that when it comes to voting  ---  nothing should be published that is an objective lie.  I'm not talking about subjective crap like "I am the better choice" or "Make America Great Again".  I mean facts.  There should be a bi-partisan fact checking MEDIA group that works in real-time.  I know I am dreaming.  But damn, you get one set of "facts" from one news outlet and another from Fox News   (ummm  . . .  I mean . . . and another from a different news outlet).  Seriously, just teasing here.  But I wish there was an Associated Press (AP) News type deal for major elections.  ONE FACT-CHECKED SOURCE.

My point is this.  Despite the "cultural" control you talk about, it was Trump's misinformation that got the most attention.  He and Tucker and Hannity and podcasts like InfoWars DOMINATED social media.  People who work for Tech companies (like myself) are generally moderate to liberal --  this is TRUE.  But, we will defend Freedom of Speech to the end.



#67
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@fauxlaw
Joe Biden is not the President-Elect. Sure, the media has given that crown, but it's paper and gold paint. It's not even as official as the Burger King crown. Joe Biden stands before a background blazoned with "Office of the President-Elect," complete with seal, but there is no such office. It's a charade. It's sleight-of-hand. There is no President-Elect by popular vote, and there never has been since Geo Washington. The Constitution says otherwise. Title3 U.S.C. §7 says otherwise. The Electoral College meets on the Monday following the second Wednesday of December, the 14th, by which time, the 8th, the States have ALL submitted their certified election results. Media be damned, only then is the President-Elect designated. Just because we now have a minute-by-minute news cycle, we didn't with Washington's first election of 1793, and it makes no bloody difference now. Anything else is blowing up a wish balloon. Save your breath.
SOUR GRAPES?

Everyone knows this.  People have been shouting it from the rooftops.  Biden is only the "APPARENT" President-Elect, just like Trump was in 2016 at about the same time.    No one is saying it wasn't a close race.   Geez!   Yes, we have an electoral college.  If we didn't, Trump WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN President.  Can't you just allow people to celebrate the "APPARENT" win? 
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#68
thett3
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@lady3keys
But Hi-Tech?  They may vote liberally, but they allowed Trump to spout his lies all over their platforms because they believe in Freedom of Speech.  I, personally, think that when it comes to voting  ---  nothing should be published that is an objective lie.  I'm not talking about subjective crap like "I am the better choice" or "Make America Great Again".  I mean facts.  There should be a bi-partisan fact checking MEDIA group that works in real-time.  I know I am dreaming.  But damn, you get one set of "facts" from one news outlet and another from Fox News   (ummm  . . .  I mean . . . and another from a different news outlet).  Seriously, just teasing here.  But I wish there was an Associated Press (AP) News type deal for major elections.  ONE FACT-CHECKED SOURCE.

My point is this.  Despite the "cultural" control you talk about, it was Trump's misinformation that got the most attention.  He and Tucker and Hannity and podcasts like InfoWars DOMINATED social media.  People who work for Tech companies (like myself) are generally moderate to liberal --  this is TRUE.  But, we will defend Freedom of Speech to the end.
You're contradicting yourself when you say that you have an absolute commitment to free speech and will defend it to the end, while also believing that "lies" should be censored. Like it or not, part of freedom of speech is the ability to lie. More importantly, who decides what's a "lie"? Is it a "lie" to suggest that Trump colluded with Russia in 2016? It's something I certainly think is inaccurate, but people should be allowed to have their little conspiracies, especially when there is a kernel of truth. Russia really did interfere in the election, sure it was hyped up and sure the Mueller investigation found no evidence of collusion...but collusion could've happened. Should speculation about Russia be censored? 

Honestly, you lose me when you even try to suggest that organizations that skew left by a 94% margin can be trusted to fairly arbitrate conservative speech. That's just absurd on it's face. Would you trust an organization that skews 94% Republican to be the arbiter of all information in our society? Come on. You complain about Fox News, but that organization is far less to the right than big tech is to the left. We need regulation. 
#69
Danielle
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@thett3
Joe Biden became the Democratic nominee because of nonwhite democrats.
So you think electing Bernie Sanders would have destroyed the Democratic Party? I agree. Wish I had that moral support from you back in March :) 

Are there any other examples? You said it was routine. I'd like to think about the trends and see if they tell a story. 


If you don't believe there is a power disparity between the right and the left in terms of culture, I don't know what to tell you.
In addition to Fox News, there's Breitbart, The Washington Times, National Review, Red State, Ben Shapiro, Alex Jones, The American Conservative, The American Spectator, Candace Owens, and many more very popular right-wing commentators and publications. Virtually every NASCAR and country music star is pro Trump, and middle America tends to resent Hollywood and the media anyway. Again it doesn't matter that Big Tech staff is liberal because they routinely push right-wing propaganda and sources if that is what you prefer, if that is what outrages you enough to engage with it, or if people pay them to do it. Despite cries of censorship, conservatives dominate social media. Multiple studies have disproven that there is an "anti conservative" bias. If people are being censored, it's probably not because they're advocating for conservative positions like gun rights and lower taxes, and more likely because they're calling people ni99ers or saying coronavirus spreads through 5G cell towers thanks to deep state pedophiles out to get Donald Trump. 


As for the riots, there have been spontaneous outbursts of rioting and civil unrest throughout the country over the past six months
Almost all seem to have died down in July after about a month and a half, except a few might have popped up in cities where a black person was shot. I believe there was one in Philly not too long ago. I haven't heard of anything else. I think a lot of the civil unrest could have been thwarted if Trump took a more balanced tone instead of thriving off the "Dems hate law and order" narrative though. He barely acknowledges the problem of unchecked police unions, choosing instead to focus on the "thugs." I get that it's politics but he could have done a much better job at being a good leader. 

 Why do you think Hispanics shifted so hard to Trump this time around?
I think it depends on which Hispanics you're referring to; Trump only increased his share of Hispanic support by 4 percent. Biden still got 2/3 of the Latino vote. I do think some of it has to do with establishing an "us vs. them" distinction between good immigrants and bad ones.  Why do you think so many Hispanics support Trump? Is it just anti BLM stuff + social conservatism, or do you think they hate themselves given many of them are first generation Americans with both legal and illegal immigrant family members and friends?


 You can't honestly say that there's no difference between Trump and Sanders other than Trump's "bigotry"--Sanders is a lot better than the Dem establishment, but he's a left wing populist, not a right wing populist. There's a distinct difference.
That's true, I think extending benefits to illegal immigrants (healthcare and college) is the most significant difference if we leave out abortion. The Green New Deal isn't even a policy proposal and it's wildly unpopular across the board, though concern for the environment is picking up steam. Personally no Trump supporter I'm close with is a populist. If anything they're more impressed with 401K gains.  Most where I live are middle class (or upper middle class compared to the rest of the country) and the only "policy positions" I could see them agreeing with Trump on are racist and xenophobic narratives (anti immigrant, anti Islam).  They tend to buy into and prioritize his law and order rhetoric, believing Dems want to see gangs take over the city. The defund/abolish police narrative from progressives definitely hurt Democrats, but was never a serious consideration. 

Again why do you think Republicans who emphatically endorsed "free market capitalism" for the last 40 years suddenly did a 180 for Trump though? And do you believe Trump delivered significant results for the poor and working class, particularly in the heartland where he promised to do so? I read a study that found relative stagnation in economic conditions throughout the Midwest.  Apparently median household income grew at a slower pace (2.1%) during Trump's first three years in office compared to the last three years of Obama’s presidency when annual average income growth was 2.6%.  Another report says  under Trump, annual pay also grew more slowly in counties that voted for Obama twice but then voted for Trump in 2016. In fact, the average annual wage growth during the Obama presidency was nearly twice that of the Trump presidency in the counties that swung for Trump.

I mean even if we take the best case scenario during Trump's best time in office and pretended we can attribute those gains solely to him, how much did blue collar people's wealth really increase the last 4 years? Has your family got a lot more wealth? (I ask because you live in the midwest irrc.) More property? More assets? A significant increase in take-home pay?  I think we can all agree Trump prioritized the stock market and Wall Street over "Main Street" which is fine but seems like a dishonest narrative from the people who pretend Trump has changed their lives. They're still poor. They still can't afford healthcare. 

Do you even know any Trump supporters in real life?
Unfortunately my entire extended family and some of my closest friends are Trump supporters. There's only one Republican district in NYC and I live here. 


Donors who worked for Facebook and Google skewed 97%-3% for Biden. Apple was 92%-8%. Amazon was a mere 80%-20%. 
That is 100% irrelevant though. These stories of alleged suppression tend to be simply anecdotal because the facts simply don’t back up sweeping assertions. People at Media Matters have done study after study after study after study showing that conservative content on Facebook receives significantly greater engagement than other content. The New York Times’  has shown that the top-performing link posts on U.S. Facebook pages are dominated by conservatives like Trump, Ben Shapiro and Fox News contributors. The examples that conservatives give of alleged censorship are usually just examples of individuals breaking the rules or people who don't know how social media works. 

the left has more power right now they are far more effective at it. .  . I'm talking about the modern phenomenon of random individuals being "canceled."
This "phenomenon" of being cancelled is not new at all though. Here is an apropos meme. History is chock full of firings and harassment and lawsuits against people who were targeted and taken down for disagreeing with the status quo. You should look into how people were treated if they spoke out against the Vietnam War. I agree there is a huge problem with Cancel Culture and silencing dissent and punishing people with different POVs, but I completely disagree this is a new thing or that it is unique to the left. That's whiney ass Tucker Carlon crying again about things he cannot back up. And if you challenge that notion that this is not new or unique to the left, I'll just inundate you with tons more examples proving that straight up factually isn't true (I believe I already gave like a dozen examples). It's nothing personal I just loathe this demonstrably false take. As I stated there is a difference between having your Facebook profile silenced for 30 days and having the government demand loyalty oaths. There's a difference between being kicked of twitter and being fired for being gay. If conservatives really have a problem with Cancel Culture, why not fight against at-will employment or worker discrimination? Conservative speakers are just as welcome on liberal college campuses as liberals are at Trump rallies I guess.

As for the shy Trump vote thing--there absolutely are vocal supporters of Trump, but they don't tend to live in or work in leftist areas.
I don't know one Trump supporter that is shy lol. I work in midtown Manhattan and not only is my direct manager a huge Trump fan, but one of my subordinates has a picture of Trump shaking Ronald Reagan's hand hanging up in his office. My uncle has a poker room in his house littered with Trump paraphernalia and so do most of his cop friends in the NYPD. If you drive around Staten Island NY (I don't live there but it's part of my district) there are literally massive Trump flags on every street. You may be right about the northwest part of the country, but aside from that there are a lot of city folk all over the rest of the US who love Trump's bravado. That machismo thing plays right into so many New Yorkers. They're particularly fond of the Trump flags that say "No more bullshit." The only shy Republican I can think of is an evangelical who is so embarrassed to support such an undignified and crass human being that behaves in a way contrary to everything they consider holy, but is voting for him solely on the anti-choice position alone.

I digress.

Republicans over performed big time in this election.
Probably. Here's some quick figurations I did about the presidential race the other night - In 2016 Trump won Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania by 77,744 votes. Biden was winning those three states by 212,002 votes and counting as of Monday which means the Dems gained 290,000+ votes in those three swing states. Dems also gained an extra 328,674+ votes as of Monday night to win Georgia and Arizona. So in flipping all five of those states, Dems gained 618,000+ votes since 2016.

Maybe it's true Republicans overperformed because I wasn't paying attention to specific races, but if it's true that people voted Republican down-ballot and against Trump then it's just as much a signal that Americans dislike his style as much as they like it. I feel like focusing on how dire things are for Democrats though is just a red herring. Like it's true but can't we all breathe a collective sigh of relief to have this chimpanzee out of the highest office? I think everyone knows it's an uphill battle from here. 

Arizona has around 40k left but they are actually predicted to skew in Trumps direction.
Well those shouldn't count because mail in ballots are all fraudulent. Hopefully the GOP doesn't delay counting them next time though. 
#70
Danielle
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@fauxlaw
Joe Biden is not the President-Elect. Sure, the media has given that crown, but it's paper and gold paint. 

I wonder why Trump claimed victory last Wednesday morning.
#71
fauxlaw
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@lady3keys
Apparent win? What's the "Office of the President-Elect" bit? A bit over the top if you ask me. You didn't, so I ereminded all of you. Your hero is polishing his nails. And he's still just hairy. And creepy about it. What? Can't take a little ribbing about it? Trump has endured quirte ewnough for every President who ever served. Excuse me if payback is warranted.
#72
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@Danielle
Because he IS the President, and he DOES have an office.
#73
Danielle
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@fauxlaw
Because he IS the President, and he DOES have an office.

He said "Frankly, we did win the election."  
#74
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@Danielle
And Biden said, "I am running for the U.S. Senate." Do you believe him? I do. He said it at least twice in this campaign, alone. What a maroon.
#75
Danielle
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@fauxlaw
I don't care about your deflection to what Joe Biden said during the campaign, especially since I can deflect to plenty of Trump gaffes. I'm wondering why Trump falsely said he won the election (way before most votes were counted). 
#76
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@Danielle
Who's deflecting? Who?  We will not know if it's false until after the Electoral College votes. Get it? Meantime, Both sides claim victory. Are you ereally so bothered by that? relax, your vote was counted. Mine, too. Now, it's up to others.
#77
Danielle
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@fauxlaw
I asked why Trump claimed victory on Wednesday. You replied with an irrelevant point about what Joe Biden said during the campaign. That's called deflecting. 

There is a 99% chance the projections are correct,  so I'm definitely relaxed. I don't have a problem with anyone claiming victory with those odds. 
#78
fauxlaw
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@Danielle
Projections are probabilities, and probabilities depend on margins of error. Most media outlets use pathetic margins of error, mostly depending on MoEs of greater than ±3%, generally closer to ±4%, or more which allows for no better than a 95% confidence level, and often less; not 99%. At 99% confidence, your MoE must be a maximum ±2%, and there is not one media outlet sponsoring surveys who will attempt that level of confidence by MoE. Not a single one. I happen to be a Six Sigma Black Belt. Look it up.
#79
Danielle
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@fauxlaw
The media is reporting on what the counted votes reflect. You're just deflecting again. Have at it.  
#80
fauxlaw
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The media is reporting on an incomplete count ands projecting. And doing it poorly. That's no deflection. And we're done. I cease argument with a stuck mudded stick.
#81
Danielle
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@fauxlaw
#1 almost all of the ballots are counted, and #2 you don't need all of the ballots to be counted to project winners if the outstanding votes are mathematically incapable of changing the outcome. 

For instance if Biden is winning NY by 100 votes and there are only 25 votes still outstanding, then even if every single one of the outstanding votes went to Trump, Biden would still win New York. That's how they're able to "predict" New York would go to Biden. 

It's true what they say: common sense really is not so common. 
#82
n8nrgmi
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@Danielle
if faux is correct, you're claiming victory with 99% confidence, while you should only be claiming a 95% confidence. how do you have the audacity? 
#83
Danielle
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@n8nrgmi
how do you have the audacity?
You're right 😬 Better keep those fingers crossed!
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#84
thett3
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@Danielle
So you think electing Bernie Sanders would have destroyed the Democratic Party? I agree. Wish I had that moral support from you back in March :) 

Are there any other examples? You said it was routine. I'd like to think about the trends and see if they tell a story. 
I don't think it would've destroyed the democratic party, may have even been better in the long term, but he would have lost this specific election. The exact same thing happened in 2016, although Clinton failed to win, I seriously doubt Bernie would have pulled it off. It happens in downballot races all the time because white democrats tend to be more liberal on everything (including racial issues lol) than nonwhite dems

In addition to Fox News, there's Breitbart, The Washington Times, National Review, Red State, Ben Shapiro, Alex Jones, The American Conservative, The American Spectator, Candace Owens, and many more very popular right-wing commentators and publications. Virtually every NASCAR and country music star is pro Trump, and middle America tends to resent Hollywood and the media anyway.
Come on, now. If you believe that Breitbart, the Washington Times, and the National Review have anything comparable to the influence of The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic, you're out of your mind. Of course leftists have more "star power" in culture.

I think it depends on which Hispanics you're referring to; Trump only increased his share of Hispanic support by 4 percent. Biden still got 2/3 of the Latino vote. I do think some of it has to do with establishing an "us vs. them" distinction between good immigrants and bad ones.  Why do you think so many Hispanics support Trump? Is it just anti BLM stuff + social conservatism, or do you think they hate themselves given many of them are first generation Americans with both legal and illegal immigrant family members and friends?

I'm not sure where you're getting the number that he only increased his support with Latino's by 4%, but I would assume that's from the Exit Poll. I don't blame you for not knowing this because it's pretty esoteric knowledge, but the Exit Poll is notoriously unreliable. For example, in 2016 it said that Trump won white college graduates, but just looking at the massive swings in white suburban precincts called that into question, and every other more comprehensive study that followed such as the national voter file study found that Clinton won the white college educated vote by a large margin.

All that is to say there is no way that he only improved by 4%. The biggest swings to Trump were in heavily Latino areas (https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1325524794570313730), and if you isolate by precinct,  it becomes even more obvious. Here is Harris County, Texas, which contains Houston just as an example: https://twitter.com/JMilesColeman/status/1325267759769546753 Hell, LA county even swung 5% to Trump, and they are all but completely done counting. I don't know just how much he improved but it was by a very, very significant amount. 

Anyway to get back to the point, Hispanics are swinging right because American politics are getting less polarized by race and more polarized by class. Peak racial polarization (in the modern era) = 2012 election, peak class polarization = ?, but I'm thinking it will be 2024.

Again why do you think Republicans who emphatically endorsed "free market capitalism" for the last 40 years suddenly did a 180 for Trump though? And do you believe Trump delivered significant results for the poor and working class, particularly in the heartland where he promised to do so? I read a study that found relative stagnation in economic conditions throughout the Midwest.  Apparently median household income grew at a slower pace (2.1%) during Trump's first three years in office compared to the last three years of Obama’s presidency when annual average income growth was 2.6%.  Another report says  under Trump, annual pay also grew more slowly in counties that voted for Obama twice but then voted for Trump in 2016. In fact, the average annual wage growth during the Obama presidency was nearly twice that of the Trump presidency in the counties that swung for Trump.
The Republican party hasn't completed abandoned it's free market worship (sadly) but they've gotten a lot better, mostly because Trump won and demolished the old consensus. Soooo many GOP senators and reps retired during his term and were replaced by people who are actually on board, but there's a lot of work to be done. Someone made a good point that Trump was like chemotherapy for the GOP. Yes he was very toxic, which is why he lost, but he was ultimately necessary because Bush/Romney style conservatism just was not a viable coalition going forward. It had to take being beaten by DONALD TRUMP and seeing him prevail in states Republicans hadn't touched in 30+ years for the establishment to kinda sorta start to understand.

As for pay growing slower in Obama-Trump counties...that makes perfect sense. They voted for Trump because things aren't going well for them. Trump's efforts to help the working class were largely ineffectual. To be fair you need congress to get on board for there to be serious reform, but he squandered his first two years on an unnecessary tax cut. But he did do some good things. Renegotiating NAFTA was a very big deal. Hopefully a more competent version of Trump comes in 2024 and brings congress with them, allowing us to implement some real pro-worker reform...and that would include a lot of "leftist" ideas like higher minimum wage and mandating maternity/paternity leave, so maybe we'll be able to work together then. Who knows.

That said comparing wage growth under Obama and Trump isn't fair because Obama got to ride the recovery from the greatest economic crisis since the depression. The economy, pre-COVID, under Trump really was EXTREMELY solid and low wage earners were finally seeing some improvements. However if we're being honest the President alone really has little to do with the economy.


Almost all seem to have died down in July after about a month and a half, except a few might have popped up in cities where a black person was shot. I believe there was one in Philly not too long ago. I haven't heard of anything else. I think a lot of the civil unrest could have been thwarted if Trump took a more balanced tone instead of thriving off the "Dems hate law and order" narrative though. He barely acknowledges the problem of unchecked police unions, choosing instead to focus on the "thugs." I get that it's politics but he could have done a much better job at being a good leader. 
If you pay close attention to this stuff, as I have, you'll also notice that democratic administrations in the big cities also wouldn't even prosecute the people doing it. For example, in Portland the same rioters were released again and again and again. There has been incessant and spontaneous bouts of violence and vandalism from Antifa since at least 2016. I can get on board behind an argument that the scale of the lawlessness is exaggerated, but you won't be able to point to a similar contemporaneous conservative movement. You just won't be able to. A lot of stores in big cities boarded up their windows on the eve of the election, and it wasn't out of a fear of Trump supporters. 

That is 100% irrelevant though. These stories of alleged suppression tend to be simply anecdotal because the facts simply don’t back up sweeping assertions. People at Media Matters have done study after study after study after study showing that conservative content on Facebook receives significantly greater engagement than other content. The New York Times’  has shown that the top-performing link posts on U.S. Facebook pages are dominated by conservatives like Trump, Ben Shapiro and Fox News contributors. The examples that conservatives give of alleged censorship are usually just examples of individuals breaking the rules or people who don't know how social media works. 
Yeah, that's because Facebook is dominated by boomers/silent generation people...unless you seriously believe that a company whose employees skew 97%-3% liberal are for some reason writing algorithms that amplifies conservative thought for some reason. I am enjoying having this conversation with you, but it might be time to table this part of the discussion because if you believe that the big tech companies are biased in favor of the right, we are so far apart that it's not going to be fruitful. 

This "phenomenon" of being cancelled is not new at all though. Here is an apropos meme. History is chock full of firings and harassment and lawsuits against people who were targeted and taken down for disagreeing with the status quo. You should look into how people were treated if they spoke out against the Vietnam War. I agree there is a huge problem with Cancel Culture and silencing dissent and punishing people with different POVs, but I completely disagree this is a new thing or that it is unique to the left. That's whiney ass Tucker Carlon crying again about things he cannot back up. And if you challenge that notion that this is not new or unique to the left, I'll just inundate you with tons more examples proving that straight up factually isn't true (I believe I already gave like a dozen examples). It's nothing personal I just loathe this demonstrably false take. As I stated there is a difference between having your Facebook profile silenced for 30 days and having the government demand loyalty oaths. There's a difference between being kicked of twitter and being fired for being gay.
We agree that it's a problem, that it should be stopped and that we need norms and perhaps laws allowing for absolute freedom of speech and expression. You could well be right that it's not "new" (not worth getting into--don't really care), but what IS new is just how visible it is today. We can really see the sausage being made here, with ordinary working class people like this guy getting fired over literally nothing but leftist hyseria: https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/502975-california-man-fired-over-alleged-white-power-sign-says-he-was 

And in the status quo, it is overwhelmingly coming from the left. That's just a fact.

Conservative speakers are just as welcome on liberal college campuses as liberals are at Trump rallies I guess.
I would feel much safer going to a Trump rally wearing a Biden hat than I would be wearing a Trump hat at a black lives matter rally--and so would you. 

Maybe it's true Republicans overperformed because I wasn't paying attention to specific races, but if it's true that people voted Republican down-ballot and against Trump then it's just as much a signal that Americans dislike his style as much as they like it. I feel like focusing on how dire things are for Democrats though is just a red herring. Like it's true but can't we all breathe a collective sigh of relief to have this chimpanzee out of the highest office? I think everyone knows it's an uphill battle from here. 
Yes, that's absolutely the case. And it gives me a lot of hope for 2022/2024...there was a lot of low hanging fruit that Trump didn't grab, politically speaking (like just acting like a President...) 2024 will probably be a Republican blow out.
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Although panned as a "slip of the tongue," by forgiving media outlets, such as Reuters n Oct 29, there is no doubt to the clarity of Joe Biden's words on video a day or two earlier, saying, "We have put together the most, I think, extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics." Reuters explained that the comment was in context with talking about a "voter protection program" in his campaign, but, as usual, reader Joe messed up, again, because although the teleprompter can tell him what to say, it cannot say it for him. Y'all Democrats keep excusing him his gaffes, but y'all complain when Trump has apparent gaffes when speaking about Russia, Putin, or Noko and Rocketman, but you excuse Biden? Why? You count the incidents of gaffes between Biden and Trump, Biden wins, going away, with the length and breadth of them, even in talking about himself, such as claiming that he ran for the Senate, and that he would beat Joe Biden, his hairy legs, and kids rubbing them, confusing his wife with his sister, forgetting the pledge of allegiance, "the thing," [he meant God], the other thing [he meant liberty], and on, and on...  Too many slips of that wagging, octogenarian tongue for anyone's comfort.

IF Joe Biden is going to be the Electoral College pick, who will be the President, because it isn't going to be Joe?
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I don't think it would've destroyed the democratic party, may have even been better in the long term, but he would have lost this specific election. 
If you acknowledge that Bernie would have lost in both 2016 and 2020, I assume you understand and agree with the DNC "rigging" the election against him for the good of the party then? I was so happy they did that in 2016 and even happier it was Democratic voters that handedly rejected him in 2020. 

If non-whites are more moderate and the influence of non-whites is growing, should the party remain closer to moderate? 


Of course leftists have more "star power" in culture.
I don't deny that leftists have more "star power" in culture; I deny that it's significant. Celebrities have the most clout with young people who notoriously do not show up to the polls. The most reliable voters are old people who couldn't care less about who Cardi B is endorsing. And if it's true that celebrities had a ton of sway then we wouldn't see Republicans being so dominant for so long. Obama was a centrist with a Republican Congress for the majority of his term. And then we got Trump whom every celebrity hates. Obviously "the failing New York Times" has more readers than Breitbart, but Steve Bannon made a very convincing case for how conservative media led to Trump's victory. Do you disagree with that? 

I don't know just how much he improved but it was by a very, very significant amount. 
Yeah I'm only going by exit polls. Can you explain how increased turnout in some places though means increased turnout overall? For instance if Trump got 100 more voters in Houston than he did in 2016, but 100 more Hispanic New Yorkers showed up for Dems in 2020 than in 2016, is that really Trump increasing the Hispanic vote? I haven't followed this closely. 

Hispanics are swinging right because American politics are getting less polarized by race and more polarized by class.
 Are they voting Republican because they're getting richer or poorer? 



Someone made a good point that Trump was like chemotherapy for the GOP. 
That's a great analogy. I think if Trump had not dog whistled to the alt-right on social issues, he could have been a DOMINANT force as president. 



 Renegotiating NAFTA was a very big deal. . . The economy, pre-COVID, under Trump really was EXTREMELY solid and low wage earners were finally seeing some improvements.
Not to have too much overlap in threads, but Democrats deserve credit for their role in trade reform. 

I'd like to talk more about the economy. I agree the president has very little to do with it overall, but I disagree we can write off the statistics I provided if deferring to statistics at all. I wasn't giving numbers from 2008 when Obama took office; I compared the last three years of his presidency with Trump's first three years. The growth trajectory was basically the same.

And something I find interesting about the perspective "well at least Trump tried" is why would we not give that same benefit of the doubt to Dems who also failed to provide results? Trump failed to deliver on promises of manufacturing jobs. Thousands more people lost jobs at car factories in places like Michigan and Ohio after he took office, which is the exact opposite of what he said would happen. Why is Trump not accountable for this but other leaders would be? Why is it the fault of "Congress" when things don't get done if Trump is in office? Nobody had a more obstructionist Congress than Obama. The irony of this excuse is also touted by Trump's supporters regarding his response to Joe Biden in the debate: "If you had any good ideas, why not do them in the 47 years you were in Congress?" As if one person can get things done. 

You said the economy was EXTREMELY solid under Trump, so again I will ask: how much did blue collar people's wealth really increase the last 4 years? Has your family got a lot more wealth? (I ask because you live in the midwest iirc.) More property? More assets? A significant increase in take-home pay?  I think we can all agree Trump prioritized the stock market and Wall Street over "Main Street" which is fine but seems like a dishonest narrative from the people who pretend Trump has changed their lives. They're still poor. They still can't afford healthcare. 

It sounds like you're trying to have it both ways in portraying Trump as some sort of guru who saved the economy, while at the same time knowing low-income earners and the working class did not improve their class status much if at all. The gap is still there and may have even been widened. Earning $2 more per hour is nice, but did the working class gain any substantial wealth at all?


 A lot of stores in big cities boarded up their windows on the eve of the election, and it wasn't out of a fear of Trump supporters. 
A lot of liberals I know applied for gun licenses before the election, and it wasn't out of fear of Biden supporters. 

I acknowledge riots and protests have been problematic for big cities (and only big cities) which is why I don't agree Dems are indifferent to them. I think cities are in a tough spot politically. Just as conservative politicians cow tow to President Trump because their voters worship him, politicians who represent very liberal constituents have to actually represent those constituents by doing what they want so long as they are adhering to the Constitution. Consider Portland where people overwhelmingly voted for police reform. The cops are now suing the city because they don't like what the vast majority of voters have asked for. Who should prevail in this situation? It's tough. 

It's also important to remember the riots did not occur in a vacuum. They were a response to (another) horrific murder by a police officer in a profession that routinely gets away with misconduct. Race aside, it is just an absolute fact that police unions are extremely powerful entities and have many tools in place that allow for the continued employment of "bad apples." Coupled with a perfect storm of other variables, there was violence this Summer but it was not something we expect to see every day or have seen since. I would be so much more sympathetic to the "we need law and order" position IF there was any type of meaningful change to be expected in policing. Instead there has been zero reform insofar as new considerations for police immunity and other protections across most of the country. It's like people keep saying "Democrats aren't being hard enough" on protesters, but not saying "Republicans aren't being hard enough" on cops. The protests are a response TO bad cops. I think if concessions were made to support getting rid of bad police, a lot of the defunding rhetoric would be abandoned. 

ANTIFA is a different animal and belongs in the same category as those right-wing vigilante militias looking to kidnap politicians or whatever. 


If you believe that the big tech companies are biased in favor of the right, we are so far apart that it's not going to be fruitful.
I didn't say they are biased in favor of the right - I said the staff's personal preferences are not relevant. The algorithms are generally designed to keep people engaged; not to promote a particular point of view. I cited six different studies  proving there is no evidence of conservative censorship (unless you consider something like overt racism or conspiracy theories to be inherently conservative). But I agree we should probably drop this part of the discussion. There is no data to substantiate the misguided perception of "anti conservative bias." It's something that has been disproven over and over, and until someone comes forth with good evidence to validate this claim, it should just be ignored. 

but what IS new is just how visible it is today.
The Salem Witch Trials, Jim Crow laws, interracial marriage bans, injustice against the LGBT community --  yeah good thing social media wasn't around to amplify a deep and sorted history of perpetual Cancel Culture by white right wing conservatives.   Here is a woman fired for not wearing makeup. It would be an unproductive waste of time to get into the innumerable examples of unjust firings and Cancel Culture in all forms, but I disagree with your assessment that it is overwhelmingly coming from the left and wonder how you have come to establish that "fact." My guess is the slew of anecdotal examples that make headlines like the one you cited about the alleged white power sign. Those will dominate in the media because of their absurdity, and of course I find things like that to be completely ridiculous. But I don't find it any more egregious than firing someone for being gay which conservatives keep fighting for the right to do. I don't think it's much different than burning books, denying evolution or climate change in the classroom and promoting abstinence only sex education. That's censorship. That's cancel culture. Nike featured Colin Kaepernick in an ad and conservatives burned all their Nikes (lol) after Trump said the NFL should be cancelled as I said earlier.  There is just nonsense all over.

Like I said I think where the left has dominated Cancel Culture in a problematic way is academia and throughout real attempts at intellectual discourse. I couldn't care less if Milo Yiannopolis is heckled out of some university. Silencing someone that is not being intentionally provocative though? That's shitty and it's a real problem. Again my issue with calling it a "leftist problem" is that it seemingly hand waives away all the times conservatives do it, and they do it a lot. I maintain when the President is asking for certain media personnel to be fired because they portrayed him unfavorably, and proceeds to tag the chairman of the FCC, it creates just as much if not more problematic Cancel Culture trends as unjustified blowback in the private sector. I take issue with people who champion the right to discriminate and who would be the first ones to demand boycotts and firings ("HAPPY HOLIDAYS? FUCK STARBUCKS") having such a yuge problem with trigger happy firings by liberals. It just annoys me.

I would feel much safer going to a Trump rally wearing a Biden hat than I would be wearing a Trump hat at a black lives matter rally--and so would you. 
I dunno. Trump said he would pay the legal fees for people who "knocked the crap out of" hecklers at his rallies, and BLM rallies are mostly white liberals who don't scare me.


2024 will probably be a Republican blow out.
You think so? I hardly ever make predictions like this. I think it's too soon to tell. Who do you think some Republican frontrunners will be for POTUS?
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-“It’s my or the left” worked for almost every Republican in a close race and almost worked for Donald Trump himself. It’s going to work in every close race in 2022 and 2024 if Biden doesn’t temper the more violent and anti civilizational undercurrents on the left.  
I'm really not sure about this. I haven't seen anything concrete but from what analysis people have made it seems support for progressive policies won votes. https://i.imgur.com/VFVhbmY.png

Not only that but some of their policies seem really popular: https://twitter.com/PpollingNumbers/status/1323755297119363072

Lastly branding them as "violent" and "anti civilizational" seems very much like an ideological attack rather than a real criticism.
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Damnit. I misspelled sordid in my last post and it's too late to edit.
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If non-whites are more moderate and the influence of non-whites is growing, should the party remain closer to moderate? 
It's a good question--I'm not sure what's going to happen. It's possible these voters will remain democratic and essentially freeze the white progressives out of power. It's possible that enough of them shift republican that progressives end up being the dominant faction, particularly once the current youth gets older and starts to take charge. I really don't know for sure

I don't deny that leftists have more "star power" in culture; I deny that it's significant. Celebrities have the most clout with young people who notoriously do not show up to the polls. The most reliable voters are old people who couldn't care less about who Cardi B is endorsing. And if it's true that celebrities had a ton of sway then we wouldn't see Republicans being so dominant for so long. Obama was a centrist with a Republican Congress for the majority of his term. And then we got Trump whom every celebrity hates. Obviously "the failing New York Times" has more readers than Breitbart, but Steve Bannon made a very convincing case for how conservative media led to Trump's victory. Do you disagree with that? 
I think conservative media is a lot weaker than liberal media FOR SURE. CNN and Fox News are about equally biased. CNN is MUCH more effective at their job than Fox is, which tends to come off as pretty blatant propaganda. If you had to go toe to toe in a propaganda war against Breitbart or the New York Times its obvious which foe is easy to defeat.

When it comes to celebrities, sure, old people don't care about who Cardi B is endorsing, but 12 year olds listening to songs with titles like "Wet Ass Pussy" has to have some effect, right? Surely that isn't something that's beneficial to conservatism lol. The people influencing the youth are generally very progressive. That matters.

Yeah I'm only going by exit polls. Can you explain how increased turnout in some places though means increased turnout overall? For instance if Trump got 100 more voters in Houston than he did in 2016, but 100 more Hispanic New Yorkers showed up for Dems in 2020 than in 2016, is that really Trump increasing the Hispanic vote? I haven't followed this closely. 
I'm interested to see what happened in NYC when all the votes are counted. Your state is the worst in the country for election administration, no offense. We got another precinct map out of Phoenix today and once again it showed Trump improving in Hispanic neighborhoods from 2016 but doing worse in white areas.

You said the economy was EXTREMELY solid under Trump, so again I will ask: how much did blue collar people's wealth really increase the last 4 years? Has your family got a lot more wealth? (I ask because you live in the midwest iirc.) More property? More assets? A significant increase in take-home pay?  I think we can all agree Trump prioritized the stock market and Wall Street over "Main Street" which is fine but seems like a dishonest narrative from the people who pretend Trump has changed their lives. They're still poor. They still can't afford healthcare. 

It sounds like you're trying to have it both ways in portraying Trump as some sort of guru who saved the economy, while at the same time knowing low-income earners and the working class did not improve their class status much if at all. The gap is still there and may have even been widened. Earning $2 more per hour is nice, but did the working class gain any substantial wealth at all?
I'm from Texas, actually. My family isn't a good test case because although I do come from a blue-collar background, we've always been blessed with good financial fortune. My father has no college degree, but his job is one of those unicorns that is very manual and blue collar/union while also being very cognitively intensive (not a lot of jobs require you to know basic machining, welding, AND how to code.) My parents have gotten better off over the past four years, but they were doing well before and it had little if anything to do with Trump.

If you want a picture of what the economy under Trump was like for normal people pre-COVID, the most comprehensive source is the Federal Reserve Family Finance Report (https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/scf20.pdf) Amazingly, the income gap between 2016-2019 started to decline for the first time in ages: "Between 2016 and 2019, median family income rose 5 percent, and mean family incomedecreased 3 percent (figure 1). These changes suggest that the income distributionnarrowed slightly over the period, particularly as the decrease in mean income wasmainly driven by families in the top 1 percent of the income distribution (see box 1, “TheData Used in This Article”). These patterns stand in contrast to the 2010–16 period,during which mean income growth vastly outpaced median income growth and theincome distribution widened considerably." 

"Families at the top of the income and wealth distributions experienced very little, if any,growth in median and mean net worth between 2016 and 2019 after experiencing largegains between 2013 and 2016...Families near the bottom of the income and wealth distributions generally continued toexperience substantial gains in median and mean net worth between 2016 and 2019." For people in the bottom 40% of the income distribution, median household net worth increased by roughly 40%. Median Household Income went up $6000 between 2016 and 2019 (https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-10-30/trump-s-economy-really-was-better-than-obama-s), it had grown only $257 between 1999 and 2016 (inflation adjusted)

So the economy really was improving a great deal for the working class. How much of this is thanks to Trump? I don't know. I do actually believe that the corporate tax cut was good and necessary despite being unpopular (but it should have been offset with higher taxes on large personal incomes.) I also think his slow but steady cuts to immigration resulted in a much tighter labor market that drove unemployment levels to historic lows. His efforts to keep manufacturing jobs in America likely had a chilling effect on companies planning to outsource even if jobs didn't come back (taking your word on this)

That said I really am a strong believer in macro economic factors being the most important thing, the economy would've been very good under Clinton as well. But overall he did a good job and helped things on the margins.


It's also important to remember the riots did not occur in a vacuum. They were a response to (another) horrific murder by a police officer in a profession that routinely gets away with misconduct. Race aside, it is just an absolute fact that police unions are extremely powerful entities and have many tools in place that allow for the continued employment of "bad applaes."
I agree, public sector unions are very bad in general. Police really do get away with some pretty horrific stuff and many police officers are trigger happy retards. SWATing isn't a thing in other developed countries. Most people, even Republicans, would agree that there is a problem and to some reform, but the "defund the police" rhetoric is extremely toxic. I don't want to live in a country without police! And the response that "Oh no, we just mean redirecting some funding!" strikes me as evasive.  I understand the politics of the thing, but it's hard to expect the police/their supporters to negotiate with the other side when the other side is using "All Cops Are Bastards" as a slogan. 

Like I said I think where the left has dominated Cancel Culture in a problematic way is academia and throughout real attempts at intellectual discourse. I couldn't care less if Milo Yiannopolis is heckled out of some university. Silencing someone that is not being intentionally provocative though? That's shitty and it's a real problem. Again my issue with calling it a "leftist problem" is that it seemingly hand waives away all the times conservatives do it, and they do it a lot. I maintain when the President is asking for certain media personnel to be fired because they portrayed him unfavorably, and proceeds to tag the chairman of the FCC, it creates just as much if not more problematic Cancel Culture trends as unjustified blowback in the private sector. I take issue with people who champion the right to discriminate and who would be the first ones to demand boycotts and firings ("HAPPY HOLIDAYS? FUCK STARBUCKS") having such a yuge problem with trigger happy firings by liberals. It just annoys me.
I don't know if there is any way to quantify who does it more, but it's very easy to see who does it better. I just looked it up, Nike did their thing with Collin Kapernick in September 2018. Their stock price was in the $80 range back then. It's $126 now. Doesn't seem like conservative attempts to "Cancel" Nike were that effective. Part of the reason corporations always toe the progressive line is because progressives have a robust history of boycotting and scaring corporate boards into submission when they don't. It seems more to me that conservatives impotently rage, meanwhile leftists not only achieve real policy outcomes through boycotts/social media mobbing they also dominate things that actually matter, like Academia. You also never see random people fired for having an argument at a grocery store where they say something mean about white people or Christians or whoever. 

I get what you're saying and I'm not necessarily denying that conservatives would do it just as much if they had the cultural power (I'm torn), but it's clear that in the status quo they don't have this power.

You think so? I hardly ever make predictions like this. I think it's too soon to tell. Who do you think some Republican frontrunners will be for POTUS?
I mean I am an idiot for making a prediction, but that's my prediction. The way I see it, this election was repudiation of Trump as a person, for sure, but it was also a repudiation of the left. When all the votes are counted, Republicans will have come close within a few seats of winning the house, they also retained their positions in state legislatures. I think Republicans are well set up to dominated the 2020's. The 2030's will almost certainly be dominated by democrats because millennials will be the dominant voting block by far at that point. Past then I have no clue. I could also be wrong about all of this but it's fun to speculate.
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We got another precinct map out of Phoenix today and once again it showed Trump improving in Hispanic neighborhoods

I'll take your word that Exit Polls are unreliable, but increased Hispanic turnout in one city doesn't mean Trump has the support of most Hispanics across the country. I still haven't seen any evidence to that effect.  Latinos are not a unified voting bloc and tend to vote per geographic location just like white people do. It also tends to be Latino men that support Trump and it's for similar reasons that white men love Trump: his disgusting personality lol. It's that brash, crass, in your face, IDGAF attitude that people find appealing which they have repeatedly said over and over when asked why they support President Trump, so pretending it's about policy is disingenuous IMO, especially since Trump has been so politically ineffective. 


I think conservative media is a lot weaker than liberal media FOR SURE.
I'm not sure I agree that conservative media is weaker, but I wholeheartedly agree pop culture promotes socially liberal ideas. Thank god.


If you want a picture of what the economy under Trump was like for normal people pre-COVID, the most comprehensive source is the Federal Reserve Family Finance Report
It's undeniable that we had a pretty strong economy these last few years. One thing I think is interesting about the report you shared being from 2016-2019 is that Trump did not  take office until 2017, meaning 33% of the data considered for that report isn't even applicable to Trump's presidency. I also think it's worth noting that Trump has ripped Fed Chairman Jerome Powell a new asshole at every single turn and has done nothing but heap criticism at him while simultaneously taking credit for the booming economy. 

Regarding tax cuts, those did not take effect until 2018. So by that time, unemployment had already dropped, household incomes had already increased, and millions of new jobs had already been created per the report. Therefore it's not honest for the GOP to credit the tax cuts for any of those achievements.  They were already underway and there was no measured relationship between the size of the tax cut companies received and their subsequent investments as far as I can tell. 

Furthermore similar gains could have been made years earlier had it not been for an insanely obstructionist Republican Congress. Obama repeatedly tried to get Republicans to sign on to additional spending and tax cuts for the middle and lower class, but the GOP refused every single time. You had Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, Mitch McConnell, et. al insist that higher deficits were philosophically unacceptable and financially ruinous. Even when the Obama admin proposed a moderate stimulus plan in 2016 that would have targeted infrastructure, Republicans would not budge. However under Trump the GOP has presided over the largest two-year deficit in U.S. history outside of a recession with no care in the world. You really think they're going to continue that philosophy once a Dem administration is back? I don't but we shall see.


Police really do get away with some pretty horrific stuff and many police officers are trigger happy retards. 
Almost everyone acknowledges that it is notoriously hard to convict a cop, and that unions + other systemic policies make it hard to get rid of bad cops. But nobody ever wants to budge on policy. I don't want to hear "of course we need to get rid of bad apples" ever again. I want to know what policy changes, specifically, are being promoted, implemented and enforced. I don't want to live in a society without police either (even though I was very much of the ACAB philosophy and  still maybe kinda sorta am). I don't think any cop is blameless under the status quo because of the thin blue line / blue wall of silence, plus just the inherent nature of police business. I resent the fact that off duty cops can drive around going 90 mph on their cell phone with marijuana on them and nobody's going to think twice about it. Maybe that's childish of me but I watch too many documentaries and have had too many personal experiences and observations to let it go. Of course I think decriminalizing drugs would have a great impact on policing but I know you probably disagree. 

Nike did their thing with Collin Kapernick in September 2018. Their stock price was in the $80 range back then. It's $126 now. Doesn't seem like conservative attempts to "Cancel" Nike were that effective.
Nick Sandmann spoke at the RNC and won a lawsuit for millions of dollars.  His negative experience with the media did not usher him into obscurity, but instead promoted him to fame and fortune beyond his wildest dreams. How is he the poster child for Cancel Culture then?

it's clear that in the status quo [Conservatives] don't have this [Cancel Culture] power.
I have mixed feelings on this. Some conservatives I know are cheering the decline of NBA ratings since players have gotten "too political." Whether or not that's true doesn't matter so much as their perception that calls for NBA boycotts are working. They definitely TRY to utilize and implement Cancel Culture just as much as liberals. For instance conservatives go ape shit when Disney threatens to even hint that a character might not be straight. I mean Disney is still going strong of course,  but conservatives absolutely act like whiney snowflakes who call for Cancellations over things they don't like. It's probs not as effective in part because it's hard to mount a PR campaign against liberal causes. What are they gonna say: "stop being so inclusive and uplifting!" 


The way I see it, this election was repudiation of Trump as a person, for sure, but it was also a repudiation of the left.
Yeah, progressive policies are not very popular. There's also the possibility it was about maintaining a Republican check on Dems so they didn't hold all three branches of government. But more likely it was just the way the votes fell in those particular districts. As I said I live in the only Republican district of NYC. Nicole Malliotakis beat incumbent Max Rose which was not surprising. This has always been a very Republican district (fuck Staten Island, I hate that we're affiliated with them) but in 2018 a lot of Dems went out to vote and defeat Trump. It was the first time I've ever voted for a Democrat in my life. A lot of Trump supporters stayed home because he wasn't on the ballot. I knew the second Trump was on the ballot again this seat would flip back to the GOP. It doesn't really surprise me that Republicans won seats where they did. Democrats kept many seats in places Trump won in 2016, but will surely lose many in 2022. I think the average loss for the presidential party is about 27 seats in midterm elections. I do find it hilarious that the party which claims to loathe identity politics has been touting how they won House seats with a bunch of (intentional) female and minority candidates though. It might be true Republicans dominate the 2020s but I'd need to see what they do post Trump. I don't even know what their identity as a party is anymore without him.