2021 American Political Scene

[TopHatter]

Or...it could be the Democrats picked a poor candidate (which the party did) and GOP folks are more energized as the Dems were in 17, 18 & 20.

The keys are NOVA suburbs, Richmond and its suburbs and Tidewater. Low turn out there spells bad news for the DEMs.

Supposedly this will be a "close" race. I don't see that at all. I see Youngkin by a comfortable couple of points for your reasons I bolded.

Caveat: Obviously I'm not a Virginia resident, so there could be factors (besides the NOVA 'burbs that you mentioned) that I'm blissfully unaware of.

What's the word on the ground there?

[TopHatter]

Frustration with D.C. Democrats has infected Virginia voters ahead of Tuesday's election
There's just one day left in the race to become the next governor of Virginia, and while the fight between Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Glenn Youngkin is ostensibly concentrated locally, many state voters have expressed disappointment with the party at large — including the lawmakers on Capitol Hill and President Biden himself, reports The Washington Post. All in all, the "profound sense of frustration" is "dragging down hopes of another party victory and making the state look, once again, more like a battleground than a Democratic stronghold."

"I don't think a lot of people have a lot of faith in Biden, like they were expecting at first," said 2020 Biden voter Eutopia Hall. "Nothing has changed and we're just stuck in the same place."

Other voters also expressed disappointment that the "benefits of Democratic control" hadn't found their way into "their lives or their wallets."

"I voted for Biden. Really, I was going to vote for anybody but Trump. But it seems like it was all talk," said Tia Scott of Norfolk. "Just because you say you can do all that stuff on an ad doesn't mean you can do it."

Some fear the party infighting is hurting not only progress, but also the president's reputation. Al Riutort told the Post that while he still favors Biden, he's had a difficult time highlighting the president's accomplishments outside of simply being different from Trump. "I think the Democrats not being able to move forward with some important bills is really hurting him and it's going to hurt McAuliffe," Riutort said.

Similarly, Kayce White said it's upsetting to her to watch progress stalled by "a minority of people," in reference to Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.). "Them not finding a way forward, that part of it is very frustrating for me."
_____

[statquo]

QAnon Rally Fails to Revive JFK Jr. From the Dead

It’s hard to know when to give up on something you like that consistently disappoints you, a lesson QAnon supporters learned for the umpteenth time when at least 100 conspiracists gathered in Dealey Plaza in Dallas on Tuesday. The die-hards — who have kept the plot in the air despite its likely architect bailing on Q after the Capitol riot — traveled to the place where John F. Kennedy was assassinated 58 years ago this November in the hope that his son, JFK Jr., would appear and reveal himself as their no longer anonymous leader.

Will Sommer
@willsommer
There's a sizable crowd of QAnon believers in Dallas's Dealey Plaza, where they're convinced JFK Jr. and plenty of other dead celebrities will return. Lots of talk online about Kobe Bryant and Robin Williams.

Clayton Neville
@ClaytonNeville
Hundreds pack Dealey Plaza in Dallas in anticipation of return of JFK Jr. Conspiracy theorists in crowd tell me he’s expected to announce he’s running for office alongside Donald Trump. ETA was just before 12:30pm
@WBAP247NEWS
@570KLIF

Like many of their prior hopes, this was a forlorn dream, as John F. Kennedy Jr. died after crashing his six-seater plane in the Atlantic off Martha’s Vineyard in 1999. But as reporter Steven Monacelli documented, scores of people began arriving before the alleged 12:29 p.m. resurrection to witness the fulfillment of the online prophecy.

It was a dud, which should have been expected. Q even told followers in an official 2018 drop that JFK Jr. was not alive. But that didn’t stop rallygoers from wondering if they saw other deceased celebrities — like Robin Williams, Dale Earnhardt Sr., and Michael Jackson — joining them at the rally. In the end, all they got were their “Trump-JFK Jr. 2021” T-shirts and an ouroboros moment for American conspiracism: Q followers rooting for the return of an idol, gathering at the same time of day on the grassy knoll where his father was killed in an event that opened decades of speculation about the mysterious factors surrounding his assassination. The clock passed 12:29, and the crowd lingered in the afternoon rain.

TRUMP’S QANON SUPPORTERS THOUGHT JFK JR., FAMOUSLY DEAD, WAS GOING TO SHOW UP IN TEXAS TODAY

Unfortunately for Trump and his Q followers, he did not end up winning the election. But this is a group that is not deterred by facts or anything else, and it quickly shifted gears to the idea that Trump was going to be reinstated as president on August 13, 2021.

Once again, this did not happen. So Q adherents pivoted to another theory, one they were pretty sure was airtight: that (1) John F. Kennedy Jr., who famously died in a plane crash more than 20 years ago, was going to appear in Texas today, and that (2) it was going to all be part of a larger story in which a man belonging to a Democratic dynasty was going to run on the 2024 ticket with Trump. Congratulations if you followed all of that.

The person added that after winning the election, Trump would step down and JFK Jr. would become president. But wait, you say: Why would QAnoners stand for anyone being president but Trump? And the answer, according to the fantasy, is that Trump would subsequently become “1 of the 7 new Kings. Most likely the King of Kings.”

Anyway, this somehow resulted in a disturbingly large number of people showing up in Texas in hopes of witnessing history:

Will Sommer
@willsommer
There's a sizable crowd of QAnon believers in Dallas's Dealey Plaza, where they're convinced JFK Jr. and plenty of other dead celebrities will return. Lots of talk online about Kobe Bryant and Robin Williams.

Sadly, though, it was all for naught—but the true believers were apparently undeterred as always:

Will Sommer
@willsommer
JFK Jr. and the other dead celebrities failed to show in Dallas. But the QAnon crew has moved on, and now believes they'll make an appearance at the Dallas Rolling Stones concert tonight. "Rolling Stones? Rolling away the stone!" says one.

Anyway, if you’re wondering why these whack jobs deserve any coverage whatsoever, remember that, at this very moment, there are members of Congress who literally believe this shit, and many more candidates for office who proudly subscribe to such theories too. Even scarier, if such a thing is possible? As Slate’s Ben Mathis-Lilley notes, “many political observers are currently projecting that voters across this country will sweep the party that these people belong to back into power in the 2022 midterms.” Get ready for Rep. QAnon (R-AZ).

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Was a tough day in Dallas today for Trump supporters. Trump supporters were out in the hundreds believing today was the day JFK Jr. was going to come back and reinstate Trump as president. I guess there were sightings of Robin Williams, Dale Earnhardt Sr. and even Michael Jackson at the event. But, hey, we're supposed to be concerned about Sleepy Joe Biden and communism coming to America!

[TopHatter]

Was a tough day in Dallas today for Trump supporters. Trump supporters were out in the hundreds believing today was the day JFK Jr. was going to come back and reinstate Trump as president. I guess there were sightings of Robin Williams, Dale Earnhardt Sr. and even Michael Jackson at the event. But, hey, we're supposed to be concerned about Sleepy Joe Biden and communism coming to America!

"Conspiracy theories are the new mythology of the contemporary world. They are attempts to explain and give meaning to the complex, ofttimes frightening and contradictory world humans find themselves in. They are rooted in a section of the population that still mentally resides in the pre-modern, pre-Enlightenment world. A population that does not think systemically and for whom emotions play a vastly more important role than logical argumentation."

No wonder Trump's cult is so obsessed with conspiracy theories.

[TopHatter]

Glenn Youngkin: Republican seizes lead in Virginia governor race

Republican Glenn Youngkin has a commanding lead in the Virginia governor's election, widely seen as a referendum on Joe Biden's presidency.

Democrat Terry McAuliffe, who served as governor from 2014-18, saw his opinion poll lead vanish in recent weeks.

The race is still too early to call, but Mr Youngkin is ahead by almost double digits as results trickle in.

A Democratic loss in a state that Mr Biden won by 10 points just a year ago would unnerve his governing party.

If he wins Tuesday's vote, Mr Youngkin would be the first Republican elected to statewide office in Virginia since 2009.

The political newcomer focused during the bitterly fought election on crime and the economy, as well as how schools handle race, gender and mask mandates.

Mr McAuliffe campaigned on other cultural issues, such as abortion rights and voting reform.

But the Democrat's critics hammered him for saying during a debate: "I don't think parents should be telling schools what they should teach."

According to exit polls by the BBC's US partner, CBS, education and the school curriculum were top issues for slightly more than half of all voters.

At a news conference earlier on Tuesday, Mr Biden predicted his party would win the first major election since he took office 10 months ago, but he acknowledged "the off-year is always unpredictable".

Mr Biden's popularity has been sliding amid rising inflation, a slow economic recovery, a deadlocked legislative agenda and the aftermath of a disorderly US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The Democratic president's approval rating has fallen to 43%, according to an opinion poll average by RealClearPolitics.

The McAuliffe campaign tried to liken the challenger to former President Donald Trump, who remains unpopular in Virginia.

But Mr Youngkin, a mild-mannered private equity tycoon, sought to appeal to moderates by keeping Mr Trump at arm's length, while tapping into the former president's supporters in the state.

His balancing act may offer a template for Republicans seeking to win back suburban moderate voters who were turned off by Mr Trump's firebrand style of politics.

The race could shape party messaging and battle-plans for next year's mid-term elections, when the Democrats will defend their wafer-thin majorities in Congress, and the 2024 White House election.

Mr Trump was quick to project victory for Mr Youngkin.

He said in a statement: "I would like to thank my Base for coming out in force and voting for Glenn Youngkin."

He added: "The MAGA movement is bigger and stronger than ever before."

The winner will succeed outgoing Democratic Governor Ralph Northam.
____________

Maybe this will be a kick in the ass for the Dems to realize that Trumpism is alive and well and isn't going anywhere....

[zraver]

Right on cue.... According to Tinfoil, it's not that his statist buddies ham fisted attempts at tyranny and desire to shove everything square into round racist holes and push high taxes and centralized planning. Nope despite losing both VA and NJ by double digits, and both states decade plus blue voting records, the Dems rout is due to Trump.

It's not due to Trump, this is a self inflicted rout. Murphy may pull it out in NJ, but he started with a million voter lead..... Having to play catch up with that kind of starting advantage is a purely Blue on Blue political failure. In VA despite not winning a statewide office in a decade, the GOP had a sweep last night.

[Parihaka]

As I keep saying if it weren't so tragic for the United States, the bewilderment of the Liberati would be hilarious

Why they fear Let's Go Brandon


Dan Rather now knows what the frequency is, Kenneth. And it bothers him to the bone. He is so upset with the mocking of Joe Biden that Rather accidently outed his ghost writer, sharing a byline with Elliot Kirschner on a column that was written in first person.


Rather/Kirschner wrote, "I have tried for some time to avoid commenting on a topic that I felt should be so far beneath our political discourse that to give it the oxygen of attention would be to play into the strategic hopes of those who are seeking to debase our democracy. But as Yoda, the wise sage of Star Wars, might say if he was trying to fight those who have turned to the dark side of our national polity, ignore it no longer I can.

"The issue at hand can succinctly be summed up in three words: 'Let’s go Brandon.'"

Rather called "Let's Go Brandon" a vulgarity, which seems like nonsense. It is a euphemism for the vulgar phrase Fuck Joe Biden.

Vulgar also means characteristic of or belonging to the masses. This second meaning has fallen out of use outside of academia. But that second definition fits this situation perfectly.

Student sections at college football games began chanting Fuck Joe Biden. At an auto race, an NBC reporter interviewing driver Brandon Brown tried to turn it into Let's Go Brandon. The masses said, OK. Let's Go Brandon.

Now Rather and the rest of the media are afraid of the uprising because they cannot squelch it as they have in the past.

Way back in 2020, the media could bully Republicans into denouncing their own supporters. But this time Republicans won't do it. Media scolds are baffled. Their powers no longer work.

They try again.

Rather cited a column by Dana Milbank, who said, "Democrats clear the way for passage of a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that will provide broadband Internet and lead-free drinking water to every American, and better roads, bridges and ports for all to enjoy. And Republicans reply: Let’s go Brandon."

(That's bullcrap and Milbank knows it. Republicans agreed to the $1.2 trillion giveaway. The holdup is by Democrats who want a Democrat-only spending spree that is 50% larger than the infrastructure bill.)

Rather's fear is real. He brought up the January 6 protest in the Capitol in which one of Pelosi's Palace Guards shot and killed an unarmed woman who was a mother and an Air Force veteran.

That protest, too, struck fear in Washington because Trump supporters got in their space and got in their face.

For years and decades Washington bigshots have gotten away with murder and mayhem. An earlier Dan Rather ghost writer won the Pulitzer for a very fine column, "Trump and the Rise of the Unprotected."

Yep, Peggy Noonan once wrote for Rather and she called him her best boss ever.

On February 27, 2016, she wrote, "We’re in a funny moment. Those who do politics for a living, some of them quite brilliant, are struggling to comprehend the central fact of the Republican primary race, while regular people have already absorbed what has happened and is happening. Journalists and politicos have been sharing schemes for how Marco parlays a victory out of winning nowhere, or Ted roars back, or Kasich has to finish second in Ohio. But in my experience any nonpolitical person on the street, when asked who will win, not only knows but gets a look as if you’re teasing him. Trump, they say.

"I had such a conversation again Tuesday with a friend who repairs shoes in a shop on Lexington Avenue. Jimmy asked me, conversationally, what was going to happen. I deflected and asked who he thinks is going to win. 'Troomp!' He’s a very nice man, an elderly, old-school Italian-American, but I saw impatience flick across his face: Aren’t you supposed to know these things?

"In America now only normal people are capable of seeing the obvious."

The woman who detested Palin and loved Obama knew who would win 9 months later.

She saw the bubble, from inside it.

Through her Wall Street Journal column, she tried to warn her fellow Bubblonioans.

She wrote, "There are the protected and the unprotected. The protected make public policy. The unprotected live in it. The unprotected are starting to push back, powerfully."

She was right.

She made another dead-on prediction in that column.

Noonan wrote, "Because they are protected they feel they can do pretty much anything, impose any reality. They’re insulated from many of the effects of their own decisions.

"One issue obviously roiling the U.S. and Western Europe is immigration. It is the issue of the moment, a real and concrete one but also a symbolic one: It stands for all the distance between governments and their citizens.

"It is of course the issue that made Donald Trump.

"Britain will probably leave the European Union over it. In truth immigration is one front in that battle, but it is the most salient because of the European refugee crisis and the failure of the protected class to address it realistically and in a way that offers safety to the unprotected."

I am not really sure why Noonan got it because journalists protect the protected class. That's why the media buried Hunter Biden's laptop with its spreadsheets of bribes and pictures of him with underage girls.

That's why no media outlet looked at the vote counting.

That's why the media ignores the unconstitutional lockup of hundreds of Capitol protesters.

That's why the media never challenged the FBI clearing Hillary or Obama spying on Donald Trump.

Public officials in America live in a gated community guarded by the media.

The vulgar masses are at the gate. Mocking them. Baiting them. Glenn Reynolds reads his comments and shared this one, "It’s that ol’ Irish Democracy:

"More regimes have been brought, piecemeal, to their knees by what was once called ‘Irish Democracy,’ the silent, dogged resistance, withdrawal, and truculence of millions of ordinary people, than by revolutionary vanguards or rioting mobs.

"Just keep screwing with them and know that it makes them crazy."

Obama led a coordinated insubordination effort against Trump by the bureaucracy. Obama called it a resistance.

Americans are showing the bastard what a real resistance is. No masks. No vax. No CRT. No boys in skirts in the girls' bathroom.

And no let up on the mockery. A year ago, the Fake Fact Checkers went after Babylon Bee for daring to satirize lefties as well as Trump. The power of humor is devastating to the powerful. I called the Bee the most important site on the conservative side. A great reader disagreed with me. But now he sees it. We can make the factual and logical arguments all day long. They are no fun. The Bee is fun.

Instead of squelching the Bee, the fact-checking horde encourage the Bee.

The mockery has grown beyond the Bee. Fuck Joe Biden begat Let's Go Brandon. On Monday, in New York City, New Yorkers greeted the vice president's motorcade with "Kamala is a whore."

This rebellion has grown well beyond Trump supporters because there never were many Biden supporters outside the bubble. Dan Rather gets it. Peggy Noonan gets it. Whether any of the rest do does not matter.

The protected are losing their protection.

Once upon a time you dressed so fine
Threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn't you?
People call say 'beware doll, you're bound to fall'
You thought they were all kidding you
You used to laugh about
Everybody that was hanging out
Now you don't talk so loud
Now you don't seem so proud
About having to be scrounging your next meal
How does it feel, how does it feel?
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone

[TopHatter]

Right on cue.... According to Tinfoil, it's not that his statist buddies ham fisted attempts at tyranny and desire to shove everything square into round racist holes and push high taxes and centralized planning. Nope despite losing both VA and NJ by double digits, and both states decade plus blue voting records, the Dems rout is due to Trump.

It's not due to Trump, this is a self inflicted rout. Murphy may pull it out in NJ, but he started with a million voter lead..... Having to play catch up with that kind of starting advantage is a purely Blue on Blue political failure. In VA despite not winning a statewide office in a decade, the GOP had a sweep last night.

Let me...um, let me just see if I have this straight:

I first made a post predicting that Youngkin was going to win because, as Buck said "the Democrats picked a poor candidate (which the party did) and GOP folks are more energized as the Dems were in 17, 18 & 20"

I then made a further post that squarely placed the blame on the D.C. Dems, most especially Biden, for the impending Youngkin win.

Then I made one more post that reiterates those same reasons for Youngkin's clear lead, and then added a comment on the overall national political climate, based on Trump's own assertion that his Base turned out in force for Youngkin and that, in his words, "The MAGA movement is bigger and stronger than ever before", which is clearly factual and not "tinfoil", as a recent poll indicates that 47% registered Republican and independent voters support Trump in a primary, (vs DeSantis who came in a distant second at 10%)....


But someone how you interpret all of that as me saying "The Dems loss was all Trump's fault".

Hoooookay.....

[zraver]

Youngkin did better in almost every county than Trump did. Hard to blame Trumpisn when Trump's numbers last year were smaller than Youngkin last night. Trump lost VA by 10, Youngkin may end up winning by 2 a 12 point swing.

[TopHatter]

Youngkin did better in almost every county than Trump did. Hard to blame Trumpisn when Trump's numbers last year were smaller than Youngkin last night.

Again, that was a side comment on the overall national political climate.

Trump lost VA by 10, Youngkin may end up winning by 2 a 12 point swing.

Not terribly surprising. I already predicted Youngkin win by "a comfortable couple of points"

[zraver]

Still you think someone who lost by ten is the key ingredient to someone who won by 2.....

[TopHatter]

Still you think someone who lost by ten is the key ingredient to someone who won by 2.....

Show me where I said that. Based on the last several posts I've made, show me where I said that was a key ingredient. Go ahead, I'll wait.

[zraver]

Maybe this will be a kick in the ass for the Dems to realize that Trumpism is alive and well and isn't going anywhere....

The VA races had zero to do with Trump. Trump lost VA by 10. Youngkin appears to have won by 2.

[Albany Rifles]

Still you think someone who lost by ten is the key ingredient to someone who won by 2.....

As someone who actually lives in Virginia, let me weigh in.

Last year the Democrats won because they turned out in very high numbers (something which didn't occur this year) and many Republicans stayed home. Plus Biden won the suburbs last year, Youngkin yesterday.

What did Youngkin win? He pushed the entire CRT bullshit line. CRT is not and has never been a part of any K-12 Virginia curriculum. I should know...my son went through K-12 in our local Virginia school system and their history curriculum was basically crap. I know cause I regularly checked it and wrote to the schoolboard repeatedly about the blatant Jim Crow-ism on those books. Why? Cause Virginia, like so many states, are chained with text books determined by the TX State Education Board since they have an outsize impact of school texts used around the country. Texas has so many high schools that textbook companies use what they buy as the template for all books sold. If you as a state want something different, that state needs to update the book and then cover all costs for conversion. And they are only going for your state. I had long conversations over beers with our former School Supervisor, Bobby Broward, about this subject years ago.

Fortunately, as I am an historian, I was able to get the straight word to my son...I was appalled by the whitewashing of the Confederacy. But then again we had Monument Avenue until this year so...

So as for Trump and Virginia...Those who voted for Trump in voted for Youngkin yesterday. The yard signs were a one to one match from last year...hell, some still have his signs up. And the CRT "issue" was right out of what Trump was saying this year. Same with people's reactions to how our Governor, a medical doctor, handled the COVID issue. As I said on other threads we got killed early in Virginia because per earlier agreements, because so much of the federal personnel and government officials live in Virginia, we are dependent on the federal government for PPP...and the federal government by Executive decision did not hold up their end of the bargain. Eventually Governor Northam us dug out and insisted on a professional response to COVID by locking down, etc. All that was covered in the COVID threads. That, coupled with social distancing and eventually the vaccine got us out of the crisis. Still not all over (I live in a low vax county) but we are doing okay.

So if you look at those 2 issues you see where the Trump Administration the the former POTUS's rhetoric had an impact yesterday.

And I'll reiterate...Youngkin beat a badly flawed candidate in Terry McAuliffe.

[TopHatter]

The VA races had zero to do with Trump. Trump lost VA by 10. Youngkin appears to have won by 2.

Riiiight....so despite my reiterating (twice!) that this was a side comment on the overall national political climate, AND making multiple prior posts clearly laying the blame on the Dems and Biden.....

....you still believe that's my opinion. Wow. Just...wow.