“Frankly, I don’t see how anyone could look at these data and trends and not think the Democratic forecast for party renewal remains cloudy at best”. Agree my only conclusion is there is little to no rational decision making going on that a normal person can see. That the Democratic leadership is following a cult like religious determination set of beliefs that will walk them off a cliff. I read an interview yesterday where the person interviewed said a lot of what is covered here and the interviewer said something like “ but how can we compromise in what we believe is moral and right”. That told me everything I needed to know
Yes the ‘moral and right’ with no middle ground, which is usually where the best answer lies. And they do not or cannot see the unintended consequences, which are not moral and right. IE trans rights moral and right, jeopardizing children and women’s safety not moral and right. Solution - trans women will have to accommodate in certain circumstances, they cannot go into women’s safe spaces as it opens the door for any man to do so. Protecting a truly trans kid moral and right but jumping the gun with medicalisation when that may not be the kids problem, not moral and right. Solution .. wouldn’t it be better to examine every possibility and give the child time and space to hopefully become comfortable with themselves as they are?
Yes! This is truly why it is so hard to abandon these positions. Having claimed righteousness of belief, it takes conversion to walk it back. You can’t just say “well that didn’t work”.
For many years there has been a revolving door between democratic held positions in government and when Dems lose--Dems have decamped to universities or NGOs. This pattern had little public focus until recently with DOGE. Recognition of this by the wider public after DOGE has discouraged rank and file Dems. It underscored the affluence of top Dems and their insulation from the economic winds that affect the base.
Keep beating the drum Ruy. :) I’ve said often that a split is necessary. The progressive left hates the right but it hates moderate Ds even more I think (It’s hard to say - it hates a lot of things).
It's human nature to hate heretics more than nonbelievers. But it's worth unpacking "hating the right." People on the right are basically ordinary Clinton voters but a bit more suspicious of the administrative state. They are patriotic people who believe in God, family, and hard work. For those values to be deserving of hatred you have to:
* Option A: genuinely believe in far-left principles like gender ideology and critical theory (which holds that structural racism exists and "hard work" is a slimy way to justify an oppressive status quo).
* Option B: become manipulated by the Orwellian two minutes of hate, which now seem to last 24 hours a day
I don't see how it's possible to be a "moderate" Democrat and hate the right. Trump, sure. The right in general? Not possible.
Yes, I never really got the part of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus stated: "You have heard it said to love your neighbor and hate your enemies, but I tell you to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." I always took it like this: "there's Jesus once again showing how radical our love should be, very nice, very lovely, wonderful ideal." But I've come to learn that it is just as much about caring for your own heart. If you hate your enemies, your hatred will consume and destroy your own heart. That's what we're seeing on the left, particularly after Charlie Kirk.
I think I've read every article referenced here, so I'm familiar with the basic material. And I'm still a Democrat, if a skeptical one. I guess the greatest obstacle is that the message isn't getting through, not even to these well intentioned groups. Many people know things are headed south for the party, and everyone wants to make a break from what doesn't work, and everyone wants a part of that working class vote, but no one, not any of these groups, wants to stick their necks out and earn the ire of the scolds. Even the issues questions are careful with wording and which questions make the cut to even get mention.
The flip side is that the left isn't really that far left, economically. Currently government is closed down, ostensibly for health care, and now food stamps. Who loses out? People not covered for sure but the big losers are health insurance companies losing a huge subsidy, and hospital groups losing subsidies for the ER. Why 18 years after we voted for health care are we still are relying on some convoluted insurance subsidy? Why in the richest nation on earth are 10% of people getting food stamps and probably twice that number eligible. Why not pay those of us who aren't lazy and do work?
This week there was an editorial in the Times by a woman who has written for all the high brow media. She qualifies for food stamps and was complaining about not being able to go to her local farmers market and spend food stamps because of the shut down. I have to ask myself why a woman who writes books and is published in all the right places, why she can't work at Walmart with the rest of us proles.
Thanks for writing Ruy and thanks for writing in TLP.
Interesting about the woman… and I would think shopping at the farmers market is also more expensive.. at least it is where I live.
My stepson has this mentality you describe. He likes socialism bc he would want to be paid to write songs all day. But that would mean someone else has to make money to fund this. But to his credit, he does work managing restaurants and that is hard work. So he is doing what he needs to do
I also didn’t realize we still had all of these ACA subsidies? I really do not want the government in charge of health care, im for as small a govt as possible. However, I can understand the appeal of single payer which gets rid of the profit portion thus reducing costs. However, we trade that for a big government bureaucracy that if history proves correct just continues to grow. And to keep that solvent, care will have to be rationed.. ie elective surgeries etc will take much longer to get. It’s depressing.. medicine is a victim of its own success. People live longer which is great, but it drives up the healthcare costs.
I think the healthcare debacle is also the victim of horrendous management , and the attitude of many, someone else should pick up their healthcare tab.
Happy to help those with real need, but the WSJ just ran a piece on a couple that retired in their 50's, with combined pensions of $130K a year. They also have other retirement savings. They are now 60 and 61. They were complaining if the ACA subsidies are not restored, one of them will have to go back to work part time, due to the rise in their health insurance costs. Seriously?
Neither was sick or physically challenged, in any way. They were not downsized out of a job, and seeking another, without success. Even the French consider retirement at 60, let alone during someone's 50's, early retirement. Now they are whining other Americans will not pay part of their health insurance costs, until they turn 65? Cry me a river.
with health care the goal is low cost good health for everyone. If the goal is profit then costs are as high as possible, and if people are in bad health it's more profit to be made. Many things are best done not as a business.
There are really just two choices, capitalism and socialism, the freedom to voluntary exchange and the use of force to direct exchange. There are Republican and Democrats on each side; t’s just a matter of degree. A little capitalism seems to just lead to more personal freedom. A little socialism seems to lead to just more socialism. And “Eventually you run out of others peoples money.” Margaret Thatcher.
Under Thatcher GDP and median incomes increased, and the number of people living below the poverty line also increased. Thatcher made a lot of working class people in England more poor.
The problem for the Democratic Party is not Democrats. It's progressives.
Progressives have a fascinating mind-set. One dimension is that winning is not that important to them. It's nice, of course, but of more importance is the warm inner glow they get from being morally "right" and superior to others.
Another part of that mind-set is the data showing that progressives are 4 times (not a typo) more in favor of dumping a family member who disagrees with you than conservatives are. My way or the highway thinking.
Another fascinating piece is that despite MOUNDS of evidence that the public doesn't like progressive views and they are costing Democrats is that in not a single publication or comment board have we ever seen a progressive say: "Maybe I am wrong."
Finally, progressives slam white people, males, boomers, police, financially successful (not rich, but just comfortable) people all of the time. And then, oddly, expect to win people over to their side.
Progressives spend too much of their time in progressive circles. They don't get out and see the real world, and find out that many Trump voters have valid and legitimate concerns and worries. Instead, they write Trump voters off as being "low information voters."
We know a LOT of Trump voters. They are nice, good people, and good Americans. Get out of your bubble, progressives, and learn something about the world.
Liberal Patriot is just about the only group of Democrats who make sense to me. I was a Dem for 40 years. My mantra was: "I'm a Democrat, but I'm not stupid about it." Well, now the idiots are running that show, and have been for more than a decade. They only get worse. Another mantra, more recent: "You can always tell a 'progressive,' but you can never tell a 'progressive' anything."
The insularity of the Democratic Party astounds me. I realize that a party has to hold together, and part of that is to reject some things and embrace others. It's why parties exist. Still, the utter arrogance, hostility, and even hatred coming from the Democrats is amazing.
I've written this before and will write it again: What passes for a Democratic Party brain trust badly needs to study American political history between the Civil War and the Great Depression, the 64 years between 1869 and 1933. The Republicans ran the show. Only 16 years of Dem presidents, with one (Cleveland) being very conservative and undistinguished. Only 10 years of Democratic Congresses. Only 10 years of Democratic "trifectas" -- control of Congress and the White House.
The "progressives" who run the Democratic Party are upset about a 6-3 Supreme Court? Just wait until Vance is elected in '28 (the economy will have to cooperate) and it goes to 8-1 during his time in office, which will be greatly bolstered by the '30 census and reapportionment. The one left will be Katanji Brown Jackson, an intellectual weakling and an embarrassment. Yikes!
I am no longer a Democrat, but I very much want the Democrats to survive. We need the voice. If not, then maybe they collapse like the Whigs did, and get replaced. One way or another, they are not sustainable.
p.s.: Maybe it's my idiosyncrasy, but I wish the Dems would quit putting it in terms of their "brand" and their "messaging." Does it get any shallower and more trivial than that?
Ruy, you just keep hitting the ball, out of the park. Next week will be interesting because conventional wisdom has Mikey Sherrill winning in NJ, and she seems to be a very flawed "moderate" candidate. I can find little to no daylight between her voting record and AOCs. Sherrill, the Mother of daughters, refuses to keep girl's school facilities, exclusively female, babbling communities should decide, while sprinting away from the question. Likewise, she mumbles about immigration, only finding any concern, 3 years after ignoring Biden's Open border.
All, after she arrived at the House, and magically morphed into Warren Buffett, producing a miraculous $7 million dollar stock trading windfall. Mikey explained her new found trading skills, with all the articulation of my chubby Golden Retriever, caught in the pantry with his head in a bag of Cheetos. Nothing to see here.
To add insult to injury, Ms Sherrill's daughters, coincidently, both received Naval Academy appointments this year, a feat that is nearly unknown. A NA seat is nearly impossible to land. Applications require a Letter of Recommendation from a member of Congress, and over the top academic and athletic skills. Maybe 1 , but 2? And in an election year? Ms Sherrill evidently believes her nepotism is not just acceptable, but should be celebrated by families who cannot pull strings for their kids.
Still Sherrill is up in both polls and the betting markets. Should Mikey happen to lose, Dems might suddenly be more open to your advice.
Clearly Democrats and Republicans prioritize some elements of morality more than the others. In addition they may seem to disregard the more important values of the other party. As Americans are lining up behind the party of their choice, the numbers are more lopsided than at any other time in my lifetime.
Could it be that Democrats want to use government to the exclusion of other social institutions? Government creates and maintains the guard rails of society. Its rules are enforced upon the population with force. Best to use that institution with great wariness. It is not a cure-all.
Oh no! You've summoned my hobby horse with this. I love Haidt's work, but believe his moral foundations work has major flaws:
"What Haidt found is that both conservatives and liberals recognize the Harm/Care and Fairness/Reciprocity values. Liberal-minded people, however, tend to reject the three remaining foundational values—Loyalty/betrayal, Authority/subversion, and Sanctity/degradation—while conservatives accept them. "
I submit that this is simply untrue. Instead these questionnaires use right-coded terms. If you used left-coded terms the left would score much higher on them.
* Sanctity/degregation. I think everyone is familiar with the case of the Portland teens who were arrested for leaving skid marks with their scooters on pride crosswalks? Lime then went and disabled the ability to apply gas to scooters on pride crosswalks. Liberals care just as much about sanctity, you just have to switch American flags for pride flags.
* Authority/subversion. Liberals would likely score *higher* here, but their authority figures are credentialed experts, not parents, pastors, CEOs and military generals.
* Loyalty/betrayal. This is astonishing, because a good summary of the past 15 years is that we're living in a giant Ashe Conformity experiment in which anyone who slightly departs from leftist orthodoxy faces the might of a fully armed and operational cancel culture. See also: JK Rowling.
The Ashe conformity experiment is a group experiment where the subjects are presented with a line and asked to find another line that matches it the best. But unknown to the subject, the other subjects are actually stooges, and deliberately pick a line that is clearly the wrong length. Under social pressure, most subjects go against their best judgment and agree with the group's consensus. However, a single confederate on their side is enough to allow the subject to defy group consensus. That's why heretics are punished so severely. If one person can break group consensus and get away with it, everyone else will follow.
It takes hitting rock bottom to force true and necessary change for many. It is scary that the Dems haven’t hit rock bottom and I wonder how bad that has to be for them to change.
Wow, Ruy. You do lay it out. Expect a blizzard of attacks.
Let me just support your comments with a few more (as I always provide) voter registration numbers which are NOT abating:
NC now Ds have an astonishingly small 6,000 lead in a state where just four years ago they led by 175,000. However, among active voters, Rs lead by 100,000. NC wasn't even a swing state in 2016. It's miles away from one now.
NM which is the most Hispanic state in the Union, Rs gained 5,000 net since Oct. 1. That's nearly unimaginable for a state so small. NM's D lead is now much smaller than when NV was a tossup in 2020. (I can't recall off the top of my head, but I think NM is D+47,000, while NV was D+88,000 when it was tied.
FL (we really don't even need to include this, as it's getting ridiculous, but it is now R+1.4 million when Ds had a LEAD in 2021. If the Amazing Zohran gets elected NYC mayor, look for FL's red advantage to grow by another half million.
AZ Rs continue to gain, not +360,000. I don't think AZ will have a D governor by Nov. 2026.
One bright spot, kinda, is PA, where Ds gained back a net of 2,000, all from Philly, all due to a primary there. The outlying counties that flipped hard to Rs have not shown any erosion at all. I'm guessing both NC and PA are +R by 2026.
When you pile on top of that the structural stuff I've been harping on---deportations, voter roll purges, redistricting, and the Supreme Court's likely end of racial districting---Rs will likely gain 10-20 seats in 2026 (they are already at net +8 after TX, MO, NC, KS redistricting with OH [+2[, FL [+2], IN [+1] and CA [D+5[ on deck for a net shift of an additional 10 Rs waiting in the wings. I do think CA redistricting will pass.
There will be a silght euphoria over the VA gov race (D+2), but NJ is literally a tossup. NYC will be Zohran, which is think is horrible news for Ds because . . .
HE WILL LIKELY BE THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE, no matter what the Constitution says. You heard it here first!
James Carville was much criticized earlier this year (in January) when he said that the best strategy for Democrats is to play possum, to let Trump "punch himself out" as the negative consequences of his actions became clear to the public, thus lowering his standing in opinion polls. Carville thought that Trump would ruin himself within six weeks of inauguration, a forecast that was way too optimistic for Democrats.
In the long run, though, letting Trump ruin himself has an excellent chance of bringing Democrats back to power in 2028. If there is a serious economic downturn occurring in 2028, JD Vance will be hard-pressed to win even with all the crazy wokeness that controls the Democratic base. As the graphs above show, Democrats are in the deep negative for almost all of the most salient issues, especially the cultural issues. But if the economy gets bad enough, almost any Democratic candidate could win the White House. Trump and his sycophantic Congressional Republicans have no desire to control the nearly $2 trillion annual deficits, and the inflation rate hangs stubbornly around 3%. Trump is trying to pressure the Federal Reserve to lower both short-term and long-term rates by 3%. The bottom line is that doing that would ignite inflation to far above 3% to Biden-era levels - thereby crushing the GOP in 2028.
Yes, the Democrats are crazy and they won't change an iota on their wokeness because their primary voters won't allow them to do so. But they can still win in 2028 if Trump's reckless economic ideas come to fruition.
Relying on the failure of another is not a winning strategy. If you can’t win on your policies, you don’t deserve to be in charge and will just fail again. And the independents, those who now determine who gets elected, have learned this lesson well. It is the attitude of perpetual losers.
“Frankly, I don’t see how anyone could look at these data and trends and not think the Democratic forecast for party renewal remains cloudy at best”. Agree my only conclusion is there is little to no rational decision making going on that a normal person can see. That the Democratic leadership is following a cult like religious determination set of beliefs that will walk them off a cliff. I read an interview yesterday where the person interviewed said a lot of what is covered here and the interviewer said something like “ but how can we compromise in what we believe is moral and right”. That told me everything I needed to know
Yes the ‘moral and right’ with no middle ground, which is usually where the best answer lies. And they do not or cannot see the unintended consequences, which are not moral and right. IE trans rights moral and right, jeopardizing children and women’s safety not moral and right. Solution - trans women will have to accommodate in certain circumstances, they cannot go into women’s safe spaces as it opens the door for any man to do so. Protecting a truly trans kid moral and right but jumping the gun with medicalisation when that may not be the kids problem, not moral and right. Solution .. wouldn’t it be better to examine every possibility and give the child time and space to hopefully become comfortable with themselves as they are?
I could go on and on.
Yes! This is truly why it is so hard to abandon these positions. Having claimed righteousness of belief, it takes conversion to walk it back. You can’t just say “well that didn’t work”.
For many years there has been a revolving door between democratic held positions in government and when Dems lose--Dems have decamped to universities or NGOs. This pattern had little public focus until recently with DOGE. Recognition of this by the wider public after DOGE has discouraged rank and file Dems. It underscored the affluence of top Dems and their insulation from the economic winds that affect the base.
Keep beating the drum Ruy. :) I’ve said often that a split is necessary. The progressive left hates the right but it hates moderate Ds even more I think (It’s hard to say - it hates a lot of things).
It's human nature to hate heretics more than nonbelievers. But it's worth unpacking "hating the right." People on the right are basically ordinary Clinton voters but a bit more suspicious of the administrative state. They are patriotic people who believe in God, family, and hard work. For those values to be deserving of hatred you have to:
* Option A: genuinely believe in far-left principles like gender ideology and critical theory (which holds that structural racism exists and "hard work" is a slimy way to justify an oppressive status quo).
* Option B: become manipulated by the Orwellian two minutes of hate, which now seem to last 24 hours a day
I don't see how it's possible to be a "moderate" Democrat and hate the right. Trump, sure. The right in general? Not possible.
I’m with you. in fact, hate is a self-defeating approach in general, regardless of whether someone is deserving of hate.
Yes, I never really got the part of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus stated: "You have heard it said to love your neighbor and hate your enemies, but I tell you to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." I always took it like this: "there's Jesus once again showing how radical our love should be, very nice, very lovely, wonderful ideal." But I've come to learn that it is just as much about caring for your own heart. If you hate your enemies, your hatred will consume and destroy your own heart. That's what we're seeing on the left, particularly after Charlie Kirk.
https://www.tiktok.com/@chattin01/video/7560712250714000695
Yes! Hate is a boomerang.
I think I've read every article referenced here, so I'm familiar with the basic material. And I'm still a Democrat, if a skeptical one. I guess the greatest obstacle is that the message isn't getting through, not even to these well intentioned groups. Many people know things are headed south for the party, and everyone wants to make a break from what doesn't work, and everyone wants a part of that working class vote, but no one, not any of these groups, wants to stick their necks out and earn the ire of the scolds. Even the issues questions are careful with wording and which questions make the cut to even get mention.
The flip side is that the left isn't really that far left, economically. Currently government is closed down, ostensibly for health care, and now food stamps. Who loses out? People not covered for sure but the big losers are health insurance companies losing a huge subsidy, and hospital groups losing subsidies for the ER. Why 18 years after we voted for health care are we still are relying on some convoluted insurance subsidy? Why in the richest nation on earth are 10% of people getting food stamps and probably twice that number eligible. Why not pay those of us who aren't lazy and do work?
This week there was an editorial in the Times by a woman who has written for all the high brow media. She qualifies for food stamps and was complaining about not being able to go to her local farmers market and spend food stamps because of the shut down. I have to ask myself why a woman who writes books and is published in all the right places, why she can't work at Walmart with the rest of us proles.
Thanks for writing Ruy and thanks for writing in TLP.
Interesting about the woman… and I would think shopping at the farmers market is also more expensive.. at least it is where I live.
My stepson has this mentality you describe. He likes socialism bc he would want to be paid to write songs all day. But that would mean someone else has to make money to fund this. But to his credit, he does work managing restaurants and that is hard work. So he is doing what he needs to do
I also didn’t realize we still had all of these ACA subsidies? I really do not want the government in charge of health care, im for as small a govt as possible. However, I can understand the appeal of single payer which gets rid of the profit portion thus reducing costs. However, we trade that for a big government bureaucracy that if history proves correct just continues to grow. And to keep that solvent, care will have to be rationed.. ie elective surgeries etc will take much longer to get. It’s depressing.. medicine is a victim of its own success. People live longer which is great, but it drives up the healthcare costs.
These are interesting times
I think the healthcare debacle is also the victim of horrendous management , and the attitude of many, someone else should pick up their healthcare tab.
Happy to help those with real need, but the WSJ just ran a piece on a couple that retired in their 50's, with combined pensions of $130K a year. They also have other retirement savings. They are now 60 and 61. They were complaining if the ACA subsidies are not restored, one of them will have to go back to work part time, due to the rise in their health insurance costs. Seriously?
Neither was sick or physically challenged, in any way. They were not downsized out of a job, and seeking another, without success. Even the French consider retirement at 60, let alone during someone's 50's, early retirement. Now they are whining other Americans will not pay part of their health insurance costs, until they turn 65? Cry me a river.
Yes, that article was so tone deaf.
Not sure of any benefit eliminating the profit portion, but I know it eliminates the customer service portion, as every monopoly does.
with health care the goal is low cost good health for everyone. If the goal is profit then costs are as high as possible, and if people are in bad health it's more profit to be made. Many things are best done not as a business.
There are really just two choices, capitalism and socialism, the freedom to voluntary exchange and the use of force to direct exchange. There are Republican and Democrats on each side; t’s just a matter of degree. A little capitalism seems to just lead to more personal freedom. A little socialism seems to lead to just more socialism. And “Eventually you run out of others peoples money.” Margaret Thatcher.
Under Thatcher GDP and median incomes increased, and the number of people living below the poverty line also increased. Thatcher made a lot of working class people in England more poor.
Thanks (I guess) Rui:
The problem for the Democratic Party is not Democrats. It's progressives.
Progressives have a fascinating mind-set. One dimension is that winning is not that important to them. It's nice, of course, but of more importance is the warm inner glow they get from being morally "right" and superior to others.
Another part of that mind-set is the data showing that progressives are 4 times (not a typo) more in favor of dumping a family member who disagrees with you than conservatives are. My way or the highway thinking.
Another fascinating piece is that despite MOUNDS of evidence that the public doesn't like progressive views and they are costing Democrats is that in not a single publication or comment board have we ever seen a progressive say: "Maybe I am wrong."
Finally, progressives slam white people, males, boomers, police, financially successful (not rich, but just comfortable) people all of the time. And then, oddly, expect to win people over to their side.
Progressives spend too much of their time in progressive circles. They don't get out and see the real world, and find out that many Trump voters have valid and legitimate concerns and worries. Instead, they write Trump voters off as being "low information voters."
We know a LOT of Trump voters. They are nice, good people, and good Americans. Get out of your bubble, progressives, and learn something about the world.
Liberal Patriot is just about the only group of Democrats who make sense to me. I was a Dem for 40 years. My mantra was: "I'm a Democrat, but I'm not stupid about it." Well, now the idiots are running that show, and have been for more than a decade. They only get worse. Another mantra, more recent: "You can always tell a 'progressive,' but you can never tell a 'progressive' anything."
The insularity of the Democratic Party astounds me. I realize that a party has to hold together, and part of that is to reject some things and embrace others. It's why parties exist. Still, the utter arrogance, hostility, and even hatred coming from the Democrats is amazing.
I've written this before and will write it again: What passes for a Democratic Party brain trust badly needs to study American political history between the Civil War and the Great Depression, the 64 years between 1869 and 1933. The Republicans ran the show. Only 16 years of Dem presidents, with one (Cleveland) being very conservative and undistinguished. Only 10 years of Democratic Congresses. Only 10 years of Democratic "trifectas" -- control of Congress and the White House.
The "progressives" who run the Democratic Party are upset about a 6-3 Supreme Court? Just wait until Vance is elected in '28 (the economy will have to cooperate) and it goes to 8-1 during his time in office, which will be greatly bolstered by the '30 census and reapportionment. The one left will be Katanji Brown Jackson, an intellectual weakling and an embarrassment. Yikes!
I am no longer a Democrat, but I very much want the Democrats to survive. We need the voice. If not, then maybe they collapse like the Whigs did, and get replaced. One way or another, they are not sustainable.
p.s.: Maybe it's my idiosyncrasy, but I wish the Dems would quit putting it in terms of their "brand" and their "messaging." Does it get any shallower and more trivial than that?
Ruy, you just keep hitting the ball, out of the park. Next week will be interesting because conventional wisdom has Mikey Sherrill winning in NJ, and she seems to be a very flawed "moderate" candidate. I can find little to no daylight between her voting record and AOCs. Sherrill, the Mother of daughters, refuses to keep girl's school facilities, exclusively female, babbling communities should decide, while sprinting away from the question. Likewise, she mumbles about immigration, only finding any concern, 3 years after ignoring Biden's Open border.
All, after she arrived at the House, and magically morphed into Warren Buffett, producing a miraculous $7 million dollar stock trading windfall. Mikey explained her new found trading skills, with all the articulation of my chubby Golden Retriever, caught in the pantry with his head in a bag of Cheetos. Nothing to see here.
To add insult to injury, Ms Sherrill's daughters, coincidently, both received Naval Academy appointments this year, a feat that is nearly unknown. A NA seat is nearly impossible to land. Applications require a Letter of Recommendation from a member of Congress, and over the top academic and athletic skills. Maybe 1 , but 2? And in an election year? Ms Sherrill evidently believes her nepotism is not just acceptable, but should be celebrated by families who cannot pull strings for their kids.
Still Sherrill is up in both polls and the betting markets. Should Mikey happen to lose, Dems might suddenly be more open to your advice.
Clearly Democrats and Republicans prioritize some elements of morality more than the others. In addition they may seem to disregard the more important values of the other party. As Americans are lining up behind the party of their choice, the numbers are more lopsided than at any other time in my lifetime.
WHY CONSERVATIVES CAN’T UNDERSTAND LIBERALS (AND VICE VERSA)
https://fee.org/articles/why-conservatives-cant-understand-liberals-and-vice-versa/
Could it be that Democrats want to use government to the exclusion of other social institutions? Government creates and maintains the guard rails of society. Its rules are enforced upon the population with force. Best to use that institution with great wariness. It is not a cure-all.
Oh no! You've summoned my hobby horse with this. I love Haidt's work, but believe his moral foundations work has major flaws:
"What Haidt found is that both conservatives and liberals recognize the Harm/Care and Fairness/Reciprocity values. Liberal-minded people, however, tend to reject the three remaining foundational values—Loyalty/betrayal, Authority/subversion, and Sanctity/degradation—while conservatives accept them. "
I submit that this is simply untrue. Instead these questionnaires use right-coded terms. If you used left-coded terms the left would score much higher on them.
* Sanctity/degregation. I think everyone is familiar with the case of the Portland teens who were arrested for leaving skid marks with their scooters on pride crosswalks? Lime then went and disabled the ability to apply gas to scooters on pride crosswalks. Liberals care just as much about sanctity, you just have to switch American flags for pride flags.
* Authority/subversion. Liberals would likely score *higher* here, but their authority figures are credentialed experts, not parents, pastors, CEOs and military generals.
* Loyalty/betrayal. This is astonishing, because a good summary of the past 15 years is that we're living in a giant Ashe Conformity experiment in which anyone who slightly departs from leftist orthodoxy faces the might of a fully armed and operational cancel culture. See also: JK Rowling.
The Ashe conformity experiment is a group experiment where the subjects are presented with a line and asked to find another line that matches it the best. But unknown to the subject, the other subjects are actually stooges, and deliberately pick a line that is clearly the wrong length. Under social pressure, most subjects go against their best judgment and agree with the group's consensus. However, a single confederate on their side is enough to allow the subject to defy group consensus. That's why heretics are punished so severely. If one person can break group consensus and get away with it, everyone else will follow.
It takes hitting rock bottom to force true and necessary change for many. It is scary that the Dems haven’t hit rock bottom and I wonder how bad that has to be for them to change.
Wow, Ruy. You do lay it out. Expect a blizzard of attacks.
Let me just support your comments with a few more (as I always provide) voter registration numbers which are NOT abating:
NC now Ds have an astonishingly small 6,000 lead in a state where just four years ago they led by 175,000. However, among active voters, Rs lead by 100,000. NC wasn't even a swing state in 2016. It's miles away from one now.
NM which is the most Hispanic state in the Union, Rs gained 5,000 net since Oct. 1. That's nearly unimaginable for a state so small. NM's D lead is now much smaller than when NV was a tossup in 2020. (I can't recall off the top of my head, but I think NM is D+47,000, while NV was D+88,000 when it was tied.
FL (we really don't even need to include this, as it's getting ridiculous, but it is now R+1.4 million when Ds had a LEAD in 2021. If the Amazing Zohran gets elected NYC mayor, look for FL's red advantage to grow by another half million.
AZ Rs continue to gain, not +360,000. I don't think AZ will have a D governor by Nov. 2026.
One bright spot, kinda, is PA, where Ds gained back a net of 2,000, all from Philly, all due to a primary there. The outlying counties that flipped hard to Rs have not shown any erosion at all. I'm guessing both NC and PA are +R by 2026.
When you pile on top of that the structural stuff I've been harping on---deportations, voter roll purges, redistricting, and the Supreme Court's likely end of racial districting---Rs will likely gain 10-20 seats in 2026 (they are already at net +8 after TX, MO, NC, KS redistricting with OH [+2[, FL [+2], IN [+1] and CA [D+5[ on deck for a net shift of an additional 10 Rs waiting in the wings. I do think CA redistricting will pass.
There will be a silght euphoria over the VA gov race (D+2), but NJ is literally a tossup. NYC will be Zohran, which is think is horrible news for Ds because . . .
HE WILL LIKELY BE THE 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE, no matter what the Constitution says. You heard it here first!
James Carville was much criticized earlier this year (in January) when he said that the best strategy for Democrats is to play possum, to let Trump "punch himself out" as the negative consequences of his actions became clear to the public, thus lowering his standing in opinion polls. Carville thought that Trump would ruin himself within six weeks of inauguration, a forecast that was way too optimistic for Democrats.
In the long run, though, letting Trump ruin himself has an excellent chance of bringing Democrats back to power in 2028. If there is a serious economic downturn occurring in 2028, JD Vance will be hard-pressed to win even with all the crazy wokeness that controls the Democratic base. As the graphs above show, Democrats are in the deep negative for almost all of the most salient issues, especially the cultural issues. But if the economy gets bad enough, almost any Democratic candidate could win the White House. Trump and his sycophantic Congressional Republicans have no desire to control the nearly $2 trillion annual deficits, and the inflation rate hangs stubbornly around 3%. Trump is trying to pressure the Federal Reserve to lower both short-term and long-term rates by 3%. The bottom line is that doing that would ignite inflation to far above 3% to Biden-era levels - thereby crushing the GOP in 2028.
Yes, the Democrats are crazy and they won't change an iota on their wokeness because their primary voters won't allow them to do so. But they can still win in 2028 if Trump's reckless economic ideas come to fruition.
Relying on the failure of another is not a winning strategy. If you can’t win on your policies, you don’t deserve to be in charge and will just fail again. And the independents, those who now determine who gets elected, have learned this lesson well. It is the attitude of perpetual losers.
Aren’t there any 80/20 issues, which 80% of the voter support, that the Democrats can run upon?