Do the mid-term elections matter on a national level (this year)?

Jeeves said:
Think how much damage they've done in the last four years ....
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And that's the accelerated version; they've been at this for decades.

But recall that our neighbor preaches a nearly meaningless gospel↗ that hasn't changed much since the Reagan years. We need not be conspiracist and suggest our neighbor is part of some effort to dampen vote turnout, but once again we find a conservative advocate pitching some sort of argument about how an election just doesn't matter. It's kind of like how people used to try to convince others that there was no difference between the parties.

Meanwhile, I have a prediction set aside, from one of the twitheads I pay some attention to, and while it should cheer me up, it feels more like desperate hope. If she's right, I learn something new about the discourse, both in general and particular. If she's as wrong as it's easy to expect she is, there will be a lot to learn about how the analysis ran awry. Still, the idea of Democratic gains in both chambers depends largely on turnout, but also some balance of what just doesn't matter compared to what Republicans pretend they don't support while voting for it.

And there are more than just Congressional races going on. There are gubernatorial and state legislative races afoot, and also elections offices. While our neighbor might pretend certain↗ things↗ have nothing to do with conservatism, how many conservatives are about to vote for those things? Consider the states' Secretaries of State. How many conservatives are going to vote for conspiracy theorists who support the power of government officials to arbitrarily overturn the popular vote? But remember, it's not because they actually support this stuff. They have their reasons, even if they can't tell you what they are, or have to make believe, or whatever.

Then again, those aspects are not the point↑ of this thread, or, more directly: You get how it goes.
 
geordief said:
Why does Biden have to veto any and all legislation from Congress? Just because "they would have"?

Is it not undemocratic and lacking of respect to systemataticaly gum up Congress in that way?

Doesn't bipartisanship have to raise its head at some point?

Wouldn't such an approach also play into Trump's hands if he runs again?

And what about electoral reform?Is he supposed to veto that too?
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He doesn't "have to". There could be comprise in the way the bill is written so that he won't veto it. That's not likely however. What is more likely is that they would pass a bill so one-sided that they know it will be vetoed. They know it won't pass but they can tell their voters "See, we tried" and then hope that they win the election in 2024.

If both sides wanted campaign finance reform they could get it to pass but neither side really wants it (regarding the politicians, since they are the one's benefiting from it the way it is).
 
Yes, the state elections this mid-term are important (which is why I only mentioned the national election in this thread title).

The only thing that really matters are if those nutjob election board members and gubernatorial candidates (Keri Lake) don't get elected. I have no idea how all that will turn out and that's the only real unknown regarding this election.

Yes, it would take a true conspiratorialist to think that I'm trying to "suppress" the vote. I guess there are nutjobs on "both sides" (even in my own neighborhood).

What do you guys think would be the outcome in 2024 if it turned out to be a contest between Nikki Haley and Biden?
 
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geordief said:
Why does Biden have to veto any and all legislation from Congress? Just because "they would have"?
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No. Because it's all in lock-step with the fascist agenda or dismantling public education, health-care, welfare, plus the electoral process (They've done it possibly fatal damage already) equality under the law, civil rights and individual freedom, as well as the environment and climate.
geordief said:
Doesn't bipartisanship have to raise its head at some point?
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It can't. Its head was detached and kicked into the gutter about a decade ago.
geordief said:
And what about electoral reform?Is he supposed to veto that too?
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He doesn't need to: they have opposed it, vigorously and sometimes violently and will keep opposing it until they get their genarilissimo on the throne.
 
Tiassa said:
Still, the idea of Democratic gains in both chambers depends largely on turnout,
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That could be a problem... They've been escalating the violent voter intimidation as well as all the usual and several unusual voter suppression methods.
Arizona Trump supporters have gotten themselves a new hobby in these last weeks of the 2022 elections: Showing up just outside the legally protected 75' perimeter around public ballot drop boxes in Maricopa County to watch voters turning in their ballots. Sometimes while sporting tactical vests and/or weapons. Sometimes while capturing videos of the voters that arrive or taking pictures of their license plates.
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I Honestly don't see anywhere for this handcart to roll but into the hell of Civil War Part II. Only this time they're involving the whole world.
 
Seattle said:
Melodrama works as well.
How's Brexit working out?
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To listen to some on here Brexit seems to be taking the blame for energy price increases and the consequences on tranport and production of things.
Next it will Brexit caused the Ukraine war.
Funny old world
Btw I was a remainder, but I have to laugh at what gets blamed on Brexit.
 
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foghorn said:
Btw I was a remainder, but I have to laugh at what gets blamed on Brexit.
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Yeah, we Americans are familiar with that sort of concept. Lots of Americans aren't racist, but they just have to laugh at what gets blamed on racism.
 
Tiassa said:
Yeah, we Americans are familiar with that sort of concept. Lots of Americans aren't racist, but they just have to laugh at what gets blamed on racism.
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That's your overkill drama queen coming out there Tiassa, or is it Contessa?
It's a pity you have to equate Brexit with racialism. Are you so eaten up by race issues?
 
So, yeah, that video of Herschel Walker↱, the Georgia Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, telling an audience he was diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder, and saying his wife feared he would kill her, might actually matter on a national level in this year's midterm election.

†​

While we're on the subject of the Georgia Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, let us take a moment↱ with Pastor Jamal H. Bryant:

Ladies and Gentlemen, when the Republican Party of Georgia moved Herschel Walker from Texas to Georgia so that he could run for Senate, it's because change was taking too fast in the post-antebellum South: The state had been flipped blue, and there are some principalities that were not prepared for a Black man and a Jewish man to go to Senate at the esact same time. So they figured that they would delude us, by picking somebody who they thought would in fact represent us better with a football with a degree in philosophy. They thought we were so slow, that we were so stupid, that we would elect the lowest caricature of a stereotypical broken black man, as opposed to somebody who was educated and erudite and focused—y'all ain't ready for me, today. Since Herschel Walker was sixteen years old, white men been tellin' him what to do. Tellin' him what school to go to, where to live, where to eat, where to buy a house, where to run, where to sit down, where to sleep, where to pay for abortions, where to buy a gun. And you think they not go'n' tell him how to vote? In two thousand and twenty-two, we don't need a Walker, we need a runner. We need somebody who go'n' run and tell the truth about January six. We need somebody who go'n' run and push for the cancellation of studen loan debts. We need somebody who go'n' run and make the former president respond to a subpoena. We don't need a Walker; we need somebody who go'n' be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding, knowing that your labor is not in vain. Georgia, I need you to know, the slave Negroes y'all are used to don't live here no more. We can think for ourselves, function for ourselves, and vote for ourselves. Why? 'Cause we don't need a Walker.​

As a personal observation, it has been an extraordinary experience watching the discourse edge toward this point. Pastor Bryant came right out and said it.
____________________

Notes:

@QJames. "Stop what you’re doing and watch this complete takedown of @HerschelWalker by pastor @jamalhbryant. #WeDontNeedAWalker". Twitter. 30 October 2022. Twitter.com. 1 November 2022. https://bit.ly/3NmHVtb
 
Tiassa said:
So, yeah, that video of Herschel Walker↱, the Georgia Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, telling an audience he was diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder, and saying his wife feared he would kill her, might actually matter on a national level in this year's midterm election.
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You are assuming Republican voters care.

The polls in Georgia look to be close enough to be within the error margin. The fact it is that close indicates that voters don't actually care about his diagnosis, his violent past, the fact he admits to blanking out and committing acts of violence, nor do they appear to care that the person who diagnosed and treated him has no medical background. This is where his campaign should fall apart. His diagnosis is murky at best.

The problem is, based on what Walker describes, an experienced psychiatric clinician could raise some doubts about the accuracy and validity of that diagnosis, or at least about the claims that the public figure makes about it. If someone has DID or MPD, the clinical and scientific literature does not support the perspective that it routinely or usually goes away. Though some researchers claim notable improvement with long-term treatment, such improvement is not sudden and usually not absolute.

Another possibility is that we can take this person at his word that his mental health is now fine, but if we do, then the diagnosis of DID or MPD would be thrown into doubt. Journalists who have investigated this matter point out that the clinician who diagnosed Walker is not an individual with advanced psychiatric training. Instead, his clinician, who also was a personal friend, was originally an evangelical pastor. His BA and MA degrees are in Bible studies, and his Ph.D. is reportedly in “counselor education with a minor in psychology.” He expresses an expertise in trauma. Some evidence also exists of his unusual, unscientific views, such as demonic possession.

Just because someone personally examines a patient doesn't mean that clinician is going to make a correct diagnosis. As far as we know, Walker has not had a second opinion or a further evaluation by another psychiatric expert to confirm the supposed diagnosis of DID/MPD.​
Under normal circumstances, this would raise many eyebrows amongst voters. Walker has claimed that he no longer suffers from DID and that he has somehow been healed. But the US is no longer operating under normal circumstances. Republican voters in particular now want people who are anti-establishment - and Walker fits their bill - and I would imagine, how he was treated makes him more popular with these voters. While one would imagine it would matter on a national level, to GOP voters, he's a perfect candidate, because he bucks the establishment, particularly when it comes to how his mental illness was treated.
 
Bells said:
His diagnosis is murky at best.
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In it's way, that's even better.

The more and more unhinged Walker gets, the better we might read what is really going on. Whether it makes enough difference to which voters is its own question, but inasmuch as the U.S. is no longer operating under nominally normative circumstances, our ability to diagnose what is actually going on in this society will influence our ability to respond.

One thing that is hard to explain, because it is so sublimely American, is not so much that Walker is one of the types of Black people Republicans are prepared to accept, but, rather, the underlying type that he is. What makes it hard to explain is that it derives from a quiet contempt within American white supremacism. Herschel Walker is a Black man, famous for sports, with a history of violence and promiscuity, questionable faculties, and is only barely coherent when he speaks. As Pastor Bryant put it, "the lowest caricature of a stereotypical broken black man". It's hard to explain how important and influential this can be. More directly: They will vote for him because it will disrupt the opposition, he will complaisantly toe the line, and if he utterly implodes and disgraces himself and the Party, well, what, really did they expect of him? In this logic, it's win-win. They get a faithful backbencher who isn't capable of doing any more, and if he fails, they get the satisfaction of reminding themselves that they get what they deserve when they vote for a Black man.

That hasn't changed during my lifetime. It's closer to the surface than usual, but also something I've been wary of myself about; I've long worried that I give it too much attention, especially compared to other types of Black people Republicans are prepared to accept, like Alan Keyes and Ben Carson, and then there was this one time, on MSNBC, back when Michael Steele was still RNC Chair, and if I ever had the opportunity to remind and ask him about the occasion because I want to know something about what it was like to do that job, the mere recollection would probably be cruel. I don't even like giving so much attention to the typology in and of itself; Herschel Walker's iteration, though, is extraordinary.
 
Well, that post is about as racist as it gets. What "type" of black man is Michael Steele, Alan Keyes and Ben Carson. Not the type of black man that is barely coherent when they speak, I trust so what "type" are they. Do tell us more...
 
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