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US Midterms 2022 - Read OP before posting

  • 31-10-2022 10:27am
    #1
    Administrators, Social & Fun Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 78,393 Admin ✭✭✭✭✭Beasty


    A thread to discuss the mid-term elections. Please keep general Trump and Biden talk out of this thread. It is though fine to discuss b]when they are actively supporting candidates, and topics that are being discussed by candidates.

    Do not just drop in tweets or other links. This site is for discussing topics and if you have nothing to say do not post.

    And yes if posters are uncivil they will be threadbanned.

    Threadbanned:

    Jarhead_Tendler

    breezy1985

    Brutestock

    Post edited by Beasty on


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Comments

  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 40,550 CMod ✭✭✭✭ancapailldorcha


    I've never really understood the concept of midterms. They seem to be quite popular with the US public as a tool to give the sitting president a kick in the teeth, resulting in paralysis that makes it harder to get things done.

    The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.

    Leviticus 19:34



  • Site Banned Posts: 12,341 ✭✭✭✭Faugheen


    It’s a referendum really isn’t it? Although I can’t remember in my time following US politics that a sitting President has ever kept control of both House and Senate.



  • Posts: 13,688 ✭✭✭✭ Giuliana Wrong Rite


    Fetterman is the better man



  • Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 16,648 Mod ✭✭✭✭Manic Moran


    FWIW, 2002 is the last time the President's party gained seats in both chambers.

    The only other time since then that a sitting president's party increased in either chamber was 2018, where the Republicans lost House seats but gained in the Senate, but that could just have been a quirk of which states' senate seats happened to be up for election that cycle. The last time that both houses flipped in a mid term was 1994.

    Though not inaccurate to say that there is a referendum effect on the President, the root of "all politics is local" appears to still be valid. Looking at the causes of the "major swing events" (eg 1994, 2010, 2018) a lot of the results seem to be based on the matter of how the representatives voted on significant issues, especially on matters that were not part of the presidential campaigns. Clinton did not run on an assault weapons ban, Obama ran opposed to H Clinton's individual mandate for Healthcare.

    I think it's a fault of an effectively two-party system trying to cover a range of voter positions. Senior leadership see a "mandate" for their party's positions, when in actuality the positions of voters do not support such a thing. Congresspersons who vote lockstep with their parties in swingable constituencies are quite likely to get punished by the voters. Those who do not are quite likely to get punished by their party leadership. (eg if they are angling for committee positions etc)

    The US electorate as a result is quite likely to issue "corrective actions" with a preference for limiting the ability for the federal government to act as opposed to continuing Carte Blanche to do whatever. (It is for this reason that I think the 2018 election was also partially an aberration as the 2016 one didn't go anywhere near as anticipated. Most everyone thought Hilary would win I'll bet a lot of the 2016 Republican vote was to prevent Clinton from enacting many policies) Remember, that doesn't shut down the government as much as such a policy would in many European counties. Most of the laws and policies which affect the citizenry are passed by the States after all, not the federal government, and those elections deserve a lot more attention than they often get.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,729 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    So far the midterms are a complete mess but everyone knew that.

    Surprised to learn Herschel isn’t from GA. I knew Oz was not from Pa but I didn’t realize the GOP was astroturfing several people for the Senate this year.

    Also weird to see rightwing commentators complain about politics from the altar when they do it themselves so fluently.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,454 ✭✭✭ceadaoin.


    Saw the name and thought, it couldnt be. but yep, it is. you know you must be bad when 'Pastor holy whore' (look it up) is preaching against you lol



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,729 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    Five Thirty Eight basically concedes they have no **** clue who will win the senate anymore

    Democrats had previously been expected to gain seats and hold on to the majority there, while the house was always likely to be lost to Republicans in what is sort of a tradition for the Congress on being that 'referendum on POTUS' halfway through a term.

    I think a lot of the polling is confusing anyway - there was one poll that suggested 70% of Americans think the country is out of control. The GOP research accounts took this to mean that everyone things Joe Biden is asleep at the wheel, it could also reflect sentiment about the election denialism and the campaigns to install deniers into critical election roles IMHO (for which there is no 'control' over - voters angry enough and entrenched enough could vote in a Kari Lake sure, to only certify ballots for their guys)

    I don't envision Warnock losing to Walker in GA - Walkers a bit of a liar, a yes-man, and way to obsessed with honorary police badges.

    Oz I could see maybe winning to Fetterman but its close - Fetterman's stroke has concerned swing voters, Oz being an astroturfing ass who thinks PA isn't a landlocked state (hard to claim you're in touch with pennsylvanians when you can't find it on a map) which could be doom for him but don't underestimate the celebrity-tv effect.

    Such is US politics and the drive the both-sides dichotomize the **** out of everything that everything always comes down to the bare skin of half a percentage point even in cases you'd expect there to be a lot more gap.

    And of course: Republicans are already laying the foundation to claim the midterm elections are going to be rigged (unless, of course, they win)




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,273 ✭✭✭xxxxxxl


    Can someone explain this to me like I'm 6 years old what is the point of Midterms ? I appreciate anyone's time on this in advance.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,582 ✭✭✭✭kowloon


    The term length for the lower house is two years so they're voting for all those seats plus some of the upper house seats which are up every six years.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,381 ✭✭✭Yurt2


    J.D. Vance doing his level best to turn Ohio blue by p*ssing off the not insignificant Ukrainian-American community there - who would 9 times out of 10 normally vote GOP.

    A bit more erudite than your average MAGA scuzzbucket, so it would be delicious to see him get a shiny boot up his ar*e thanks to his utterances on the matter.

    The GOP is a sad husk now. Needs a towering moral and intellectual figure now to rescue it from complete ethical collapse. Don't see anyone forthcoming.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,273 ✭✭✭xxxxxxl


    Thanks for that knew there was a simple explanation.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,729 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    All by design. The House of Reps are the most populous, each member 1 district apportioned among the states by census (min. 1 per state, eg. Vermont). The 2nd chamber the Senate, 100 members, 2 per each state. The House gets fully re-elected every 2 years (435 members, districts). The Senate is staggered, every 2 years, 1/3rd of the Senate is up for re-election. And the POTUS every 4 years. So it's often thought the House is the 'hot temper' of the people and the senate is the place to cool the hot tea, as reportedly said by George Washington themself. A Bicameral legislature like this has become a mainstay of modern republics.

    George Washington is said to have told Jefferson that the framers had created the Senate to "cool" House legislation just as a saucer was used to cool hot tea.

    https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Senate_Created.htm



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,729 ✭✭✭✭Overheal




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,729 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    And Steve Bannon is campaigning for Kari Lake while he's saying the Brazil election is rigged, blaming the CIA etc.

    Remember when I said the midterms are a mess because holy **** they are. He was sentenced to 4 months in jail for contempt of congress - under appeal.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,582 ✭✭✭✭kowloon


    Two years always struck me as being a little short and keeps the representatives in a constant election cycle. They could also do with term limits in both houses and the USSC. But in Ireland neither our senate nor presidency have any teeth and the senate isn't democratically elected. so the US system isn't all bad IMO.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,729 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    Well it's become a constant election cycle as they figured out a way to make so much money off it. The problem has gotten so much worse since Citizens United v FEC.

    The normal goal was always that the House of Representatives should always need to be in touch most of all with their constituencies. Classically, this wasn't out campaigning, but it was. These members are powered by the direct endorsement of their local voters, so they should always be out doing town halls etc.

    Term limits for the House would be a good move, as we already have a term limit now on the President, which is a more recent amendment to the Constitution. The problem is the lack of political will to do that. My own Congressman got into the House on a 3-term limit agenda. He's running unopposed for term 7. 🙄



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,729 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    Oh man they've been hyping up this special for days.


    He shows up first at a Doug Mastriano campaign in Harristown, PA. Mastriano is running for governor. He was at January 6. Crowdgoers complained about the size of the crowd being small and supressed by the media (even though Klepper found the rally) - I posit it was the woman pacing the steps with the fetus poster that shied the vast majority of people from walking across the street to listen to the rally. The conspiracy theories from the crowd are also wild as ever. He also has an interview with Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R).

    He shows up at a rally for Tudor Dixon in Michigan and finds several people who don't have any regard for Dixon one way or another - they're just there because of her Trump endorsement.

    "Can you name a Michigan candidate?"

    "No, but I can name Trump."

    A lot of them still seem completely ass backwards about election integrity and what happened in 2020.

    One lad in Mesa, AZ (Kari Lake rally) reckons James Woods is actually playing the role of Joe Biden and the real Joe Biden died in Vietnam. There were also numerous people at her rally who attested they were Poll Watchers during the 2020 election in AZ - they didn't see any fraud in the election, hm.

    He even sits down with a group of.... Oathkeepers. @17:30. They seem to believe in Santa-Clausing the elections: ie. 100% in person voting, all counted in 1 night, no machines. Big believers in 2000 mules here. They defend their armed poll-watching operation because they're armed and waiting in their vehicles, see, totally not intimidation.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,717 ✭✭✭✭Muahahaha


    The Hill have a poll out in the last couple of hours which shows Oz now leading Fetterman post their debate

    Pennsylvania Republican Senate candidate Mehmet Oz is narrowly leading his Democratic opponent, John Fetterman, in a new survey from Emerson College Polling and The Hill conducted after last week’s highly watched debate. 

    The poll, released Thursday, finds Oz leading Fetterman 48 percent to 46 percent among very likely voters, well within the survey’s 3-point margin of error. Four percent said they were undecided. The poll marks a steady improvement for Oz, whose support has increased by 5 points since September. Fetterman’s support has only ticked up by 1 point.

    What actually happens if the Dems lose the House but keep the Senate, does that mean the Reps can block any legislation they want in the House from even reaching the Senate making it a dead duck for two years? Or is there a mechanism that can get legislation straight to the Senate



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,729 ✭✭✭✭Overheal


    It’s a bicameral legislature if one chamber disagrees with the other nothing will be passed.



  • Site Banned Posts: 12,341 ✭✭✭✭Faugheen


    If some of these MAGA candidates win those Governor races, then the Americans deserve everything they get quite frankly.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 296 ✭✭Ham_Sandwich


    With a bit of luck the nazi-wait I mean "repblican" party will be washed out once and for all.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,536 ✭✭✭Silentcorner


    You aren't paying much attention to what's happening there are you?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,381 ✭✭✭Yurt2


    And what good do you expect to come to America if you get your "red wave"?

    Genuine question. Because all most people see from the outside is a constellation of dunces and extremists feasting on the corpse of the GOP.

    Have to ask what you are crossing your fingers for.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,582 ✭✭✭✭kowloon




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 24,616 ✭✭✭✭pjohnson


    Can only be for the comedy that will come as the conspiracists get elected.

    With Bolsanaro, LePen, BoJo, Truss, Trump all having lost theres not many laughing stocks left.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,536 ✭✭✭Silentcorner


    Perhaps avoid a nuclear war? Maybe ask yourself why people would vote Republican, and come up with an answer that doesn't involve thinking they must be stupid....maybe you are very poorly informed, ever ask yourself that?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,381 ✭✭✭Yurt2



    🤣 Nuclear war. Right.

    So voting in a conflagaration of morons who think the moon landings didn't happen, refuse to recognise the legitimacy of the president, and believe that abortions are the devil will...prevent a nuclear war...that the Kremlin are threatening to start (and have already started a large scale conventional war).

    Champ, don't go around calling people poorly informed when you're dropping steaming hot turds like the one above.



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    The majority of republicans support the US Ukraine position and many argue that US are not doing enough

    Republican on the House foreign affairs committee, Michael McCaul, who is likely to run the committee in the event of a Republican win in November, argued that arms supplies to Ukraine should be stepped up.

    There are still a few sensible conservatives.

    But of the new wave of MAGA candidates, when Mehmet Oz is the most level headed of them you need to be asking questions



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,536 ✭✭✭Silentcorner


    So the only reason people would vote Republican is because they are stupid...and you aren't!!!



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,536 ✭✭✭Silentcorner


    Maybe you need to ask questions...or do you,an Irish person, really believe you know more about US politics than the people of the US? Are you that arrogant?

    Do you think ordinary Americans want a nuclear war over Ukraine?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,381 ✭✭✭Yurt2


    People who vote for MAGA plonkers are themselves idiots, 100%.

    With everything we know about MAGA idiocy, if you cast a ballot in favour of these knuckleheads, a tapeworm must have migrated towards your brain and attached itself to the frontal lobe.

    The GOP in 2022 is party fully hijacked by an extremist movement riddled with conspiracy theorists and culture war obsessives.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,536 ✭✭✭Silentcorner


    Well, then, they will get wiped out next tuesday!! I doubt a man as smart as you could be wrong!!



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,381 ✭✭✭Yurt2


    I made no predictions as to the outcome or the percentage of idiots that make up the electorate. Merely that anyone who casts a ballot in favour of MAGA Republicanism is an Olympic level moron and needs a brain scan.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,536 ✭✭✭Silentcorner


    Bu you think you are better informed and smarter than the tens of millions of Americans who are going to vote for candidates you don't like!!!



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,381 ✭✭✭Yurt2


    Where are you pulling nuclear war out of? Who's threatening nuclear war?

    If the Kremlin pop off nuclear device in Ukraine, the Russian army lost over their borders will be excoriated by the tens of thousand via conventional means by NATO. And they'll have earned it.

    Instead of backstopping the European security architecture and European peace against facism, MAGA sofcocks are more interested in denying women access to abortions, beating up on Mexican immigrants and gargling Putin's cum.

    They're an extremist organisation that are tapeworms on American national life.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,536 ✭✭✭Silentcorner




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,275 ✭✭✭Billy Mays


    Obviously he is smarter and better informed than the millions of idiots who believe nonsense like the election being stolen, Democrats are involved in child sex trafficing rings etc..



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,536 ✭✭✭Silentcorner


    Which election are you referring to, the 2016 or 2020? Both were stolen according to the defeated candidates!



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,381 ✭✭✭Yurt2


    MAGA voters have congealed slop in their skull, yes.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,536 ✭✭✭Silentcorner


    Ha ha haaaa....let me guess, they froth at the mouth too!!!



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,381 ✭✭✭Yurt2




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,275 ✭✭✭Billy Mays




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,381 ✭✭✭Yurt2




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,536 ✭✭✭Silentcorner


    What percentage of Democrat voters believe that a bunch of unarmed, unorganized morons tried to over throw the most powerful government in the world?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,275 ✭✭✭Billy Mays


    No idea

    Do you have a poll that could tell us?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,536 ✭✭✭Silentcorner


    I don't have a poll I can trust...you know how manipulated polls are right?

    You'd hope that it is a high percentage given the effort the DMC put into convincing ordinary Americans that that is what happened on that day.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,275 ✭✭✭Billy Mays


    So you're basing your opinion on "hope"

    Cool 👍🏻



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,381 ✭✭✭Yurt2


    There we have it folks. Don't trust any polls, don't trust any media, "do your own research" (4Chan and QAnon sewer pipes) - just listen to the corpulent fake tan pensioner who has the attention of a gnat and his merry band of dunces.

    F*ck sake.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,536 ✭✭✭Silentcorner


    What an unusual take, the Democrats have expended a lot of effort trying to convince Americans a bunch of unorganized, unarmed morons tried to over throw the Government, they'd hope that they have managed to convince enough!!!



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 6,536 ✭✭✭Silentcorner


    There is no fooling an articulate man such as yourself I see...

    Trust in media is at an all time low in the US, all media. I have no trust in media, I don't believe the polls that have Republican candidates up by 10 points in Swing states either, We shall see on Tuesday whether I was right!!



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