Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 40 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Was it really a red wave?
The legacy media are full of reports of the impending demise of the Democratic party, while the alternative right-wing media are self-congratulatory and happy. I would warn against smugness and complacency. We really did not win by that much.
Kamala was a historically poor candidate, as has been litigated endlessly this last week. The Dem message does not resonate with the voting public. People are unhappy with the direction of America and with the status of their leadership. (Etc, etc.)
Despite this combination of propitious circumstances, the Donald (all praise be upon him!) managed to exceed his historical ceiling of 48% approval by only 2 points, taking the popular vote 50.3% to 48.0. Think for a minute what that means. A change of only one voter’s mind in fifty would have us hanging crepe rather than popping champagne.
We only have 52 seats in the Senate (without Pennsylvania) — enough, thank God, to confirm a SCOTUS judge but barely so — not enough to advance meaningful legislation past the filibuster. Whoever is elected Majority Leader should take some lessons in Parlimentarianism from Senator McConnell. The House is dicey. As of this morning, we’re at 214 to 205 with 16 in play, so again, any majority we achieve will be by the thinnest of margins.
Mr. Trump’s ability to advance important legislation will be greatly inhibited. He’ll do all that he can by fiat, of that I have no doubt, but the excesses of the Biden era show how executive orders are only worth the paper they are written on.
Finally, we have the States. It looks like we had a good night, taking 8 of 11 contested mansions. This leaves us with 27 Republican and 23 Democrat governors.
I think this is actually very sobering news. Given the state of the nation, this election should have been a historic blow out, a 65/35 Presidential contest, 250 seats in the House, and 55 or more Senators.
What are we doing wrong?
How is it that right-wing thinking cannot prevail even in these unique times?
We have a lot of work to do.
Published in General
Nominating Kari Lake was an unforced error. I forgot the name of the previous unforced error the Repubs kept nominating in Arizona. Candidate selection matters. The repubs nominated weird candidates in 22 in Michigan, and picked Kristina Karamos as party chair ( later overthrew her, but tremendous damage was done.). Kristina was either insane, or a democratic plant, or both. In Michigan, Repubs did 24 right, but the hole from 22 and Kristina was too much. McSally was the previous unforced error in Arizona.
The fact that The Turtle spent $0.00 to support Ted Cruz and Kari Lake while sinking millions on a slug like Hogan says a lot about what “our” problems are. Even Mark Levin, no friend of Democrats, advised against voting for Hogan even if it meant the Democrat was elected.
According to the polls, which were wrong. How many Trump supporters failed to turn out in blue states because they live in blue states?
Underthinking is the bête noire of the Democrats, overthinking for Republicans.
Republicans in AZ voted for her in the primary. It wasn’t a back room pick. 55-40 in the primary. That’s not a small margin. I don’t have a clue about the party dynamics in the State, but letting McConnell pick who gets money seems a losing system for people he doesn’t like. He for sure has no interest in furthering Trump’s agenda. He’s happy with a slim margin.
But Hogen was one of them. Therefore deserving.
I don’t follow you, Percival. His ceiling of 48% was really 51%, is that what you’re saying? How is this overthinking?
My wife and I both voted for Trump, in Massachusetts.
While on the stump, Trump made a point of saying it is necessary to “get rid of” Mitch McConnell. He pointed out that The Turtle had endorsed him, laughed and said it must have been one of the most painful things McConnell has done.
I read that Josh Hawley has endorsed Cornyn as McConnell’s heir. Can’t wait until I get another fund-raising request from that [redacted].
So, Mr. Justice Talk Show Host has no problems with Democrats taking the Senate as long as the “wrong” type of Republican loses? And Mitch McConnell is your problem?
“The Turtle” spent more in the state of Ohio to elect the very Trumpy Bernie Moreno than on any other race in America – to the tune of $161M.
As for Lake, according to the National Election Pool Exit Poll, she got 99% of the Republican vote but trailed Trump among independents by 4 points.
In four years Trump will be exiting the White House and (the recently re-elected) Josh Hawley will still be in the US Senate.
The Turtle is not my only problem, but he’s been near the top of the list since Tea Party days.
I take it you have no problem with him spending nothing to support Cruz when polls said the race was tight?
So will Cornyn I suspect, more’s the pity. If either he or Thune decided to stall the Trump agenda, you can expect to lose both the Senate and the House in the mid-terms. (Standard Disclaimer: I could be wrong, but I never have been.)
The polls undercount Republican support all the time. They were wrong last time. They were wrong this time. I have no idea what the actual support for Trump was, and neither do they. So the “historic ceiling” of a set of flawed measurements isn’t something I’m prepared to put a lot of stock in.
I know people in Illinois who thought that though Trump frequently says stupid things, Kamala never fails to say stupid things. They preferred Trump to Kamala, but not enough to bother voting for him in Blue Illinois.
I wish there was a poll telling how much of this “wave” was a Trump wave as opposed to a GOPe wave.
Charles Payne is an economist I often listen to on Fox Business. He has said a couple of times that I know of, and perhaps more often, that the result of the post pandemic economic dislocations was that the rich-poor divide in the United States and elsewhere widened. In other words, the rich got richer, and the poor got poorer.
That would explain a lot of the funny-looking election results. Half the country really didn’t see the Biden administration as a problem.
There seem to be two competing realities:
Cornyn is up in 2 years (he’ll be 74) and Thune is good until 2028.
We have too many Republicans and others viewing true Constitutional orientation as right-wing thinking. Many Democrat and Independent votes should have been cast for Trump since he is not right-wing at all. Try some introspection. Stop agreeing to label Constitutional think as right-wing extremism.
At least Rand Paul has the good sense to support Rick Scott.
Does Thune have private sector work experience and has he always been a politician like Joe Biden?
All I know for certain is I’ve read that The Turtle groomed him to be his successor, but wikipedia says “Thune has worked in politics and civic organizations since completing his MBA degree.”
Always been in politics. Senate aide, Director of SD GOP, other public service jobs and then election to the House in 1996, the Senate in 2004.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/11/keep-heat-gop-senators-feeling-bullied-as-maga/
I believe there was a red wave, as @Ekosj described last week in his post featuring the New York Times red and blue arrows graphic.
That does not mean right-wing although the base has shifted from supporting leaders who support “moneyed-class” objectives to those supporting “working-class” objectives.
That arrow graphic is just indicating a baseline shift. If a NYC district went from +50 Biden in 2020 to only +40 Harris it got a red arrow. That doesn’t mean the electorate there produced a “red wave” or Trump win.
Maybe not a tsunami, but definitely some powerfully strong ripples.
The Massachusetts Republican Party is in a state of euphoria: “My lord, we’re still alive!” :) :) :)
[It’s been very sad on this side of the Massachusetts aisle for a few years now. The last time I saw a Republican friend, she said, “Well, Marci, at least we don’t have to organize any victory parties anymore. So there’s that.” :) :) :) ]
Martha McSally lost 2 Senate elections in a row for the Republicans. Lake has now lost two statewide elections in a row, first for Governor and now for Senator.
This was obviously not a red wave. It was a squeaker.
The bombastic rhetoric about this, on both sides, is simultaneously strange and typical. Strange in that it’s hard to see how anyone could be persuaded that such a narrow victory is somehow a blowout, or unprecedented, or a catastrophe for the other side.
Typical in that, over and over again, I see this sort of thing. The media puts forward all sorts of narratives that are plainly not true, and large numbers of people seem to believe those narratives.
It’s not clear, to me, whether the people or the media are to blame. People want to hear what they want to hear, and the media delivers it to them. This is the nature of a free-market press.
I am cross posting my beliefs about this situation from a same but different topic also on the ricochet member feed. I have only added a sentence or two to my original statement.
I imagine our Deep State “liberal” owned -media is merrily running with this story. That there are additional numbers of ballots being counted, which show that Trump may not be a winner in terms of the popular vote.
My thinking: Any candidate whose forces include the ability to manufacture vast numbers of votes from using the names of newly arrived immigrants, as well as the use of ballot drop boxes is likely to be able to pull off a re-adjustment of the final vote count such that the popular vote dwindles for the winning candidate.
I suspect much of the Harris/Walz popularity will occur in well-established cheat zones inside the Dem-held states.
Of course this is speculation. And never forget we have Dem leaders telling us how the reason we don’t need to insist on voter ID at the polling places is because “that would be a measure that we would only need if we were planning to cheat, which is something we do not do.”
So why shouldn’t I trust them?
However here is my recent experience in looking into the drop boxes all across California.
I had thought of maintaining a vigil over one of the drop boxes here in my county to see to it that nobody would be dropping off bundles of ballots.
So I called the local Registrar of Voters office in the county. I explained that I planned on such a vigil. “Why would you do this?” asked the top election official, Maria.
“I would be doing this as a way to ascertain the integrity of these boxes.”
She conceded that I had the right to do this. But I needed to be aware that it was entirely possible that some people had been authorized to drop off bundles of ballots.
“You mean like one spouse dropping off the bundle from their household. That might include a husband and that of a young working adult to slammed with overtime to go into the polling place?”
“Well it could be that,” she conceded.
“So it would mostly be one family member dropping off ballots for their household?”
Yes that could be the case. But sometimes people are authorized to drop off bundles of non-family members, and as long as they are using authorized ballot envelopes, that would be okay.”
“So what numbers of ballots are we talking about? Five? Twenty five ballots? Or could it be forty ballots at a time?”
“It could be forty,” she said reluctantly.
The conversation continued along the lines that although I could from a distance of 100 feet or so, watch the ballot drop boxes. But I could not approach anyone dropping off a thick fat bundle of ballots to ask if each envelope had the signature of the voter authorizing this to happen. If I questioned anyone I would be interfering in an election. (I believe this charge would be a felony.)
I gave up on the idea of having such a vigil.
Feel free to draw your own conclusions about such a thing going on inside the most populous state in the nation!
####
I blame the pearl clutchers, not Lake.