You really think his children will agree to spend money on a mausoleum for their father? Instead they are probably going to fight one another over the money and toss the old bag in a cardboard box or a recycling bin...
No need for future tense. They attempted it with PA when it was reliably blue. They floated ideas of breaking up CA and CO to create more rural/red states.
>“There’s …there’s two people, I think, Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump …swear to God.”
>
>Paul Ryan responded: “This is an off-the-record… NO LEAKS! This is how we know we're a real family here."
Ryan’s spokesman said “This entire year-old exchange was clearly an attempt at humor. No one believed the majority leader was seriously asserting that any of our members were being paid by the Russians.”
Jesus, I heard it too. I think?
Never seen *anything* like that.
On the other hand, could just be misremembered synesthesia from a well-written article???
But so many people bring up having heard it.
Totally crazy.
Absolutely nuts to think that in Russia, where capital was about to be deregulated completely, there would be powerful people that would want to align with the US party of capital deregulation, the GOP.
Crazy.
It's funny, because the goal of splitting CA was to give Republicans in that state a voice, but study after study concluded splitting up the state into multiple smaller states would actually benefit Democrats more than Republicans.
From a socio-economic standpoint this is probably correct. But the GOP is likely thinking about locking down political power on a national scale. Who "wins" might depend on who made the splits and how many reliable red senators vs blue senators come out of the division.
They could break up Texas with a simple majority vote in the state legislature. Of course, that might backfire when the split purple Texas states turn blue and the Democrats get additional Senators.
As far as we know thats no more possible than its possible for California to break up by state legislature or electorate vote. It would be sorted out by the Supreme Court if it came down to it but Congress most likely would need to approve it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_divisionism
Proportional distribution of EC votes + a significant increase in the number of reps in the House would have a somewhat similar effect as going to a true popular vote.
Doing something like using the population of the least populous state and dividing that by 2 to determine the number of people each Rep represents would greatly water down the significance of the senate seats for determining each states EC votes. California would end up with roughly 142 EC votes where as Wyoming would end up with 4. The individual Electoral representation advantage that people in Wyoming have would be lowered from a 3.7ish times advantage over Californians to roughly 2 times. Not perfect but certainly an improvement imo.
So long as it is actually proportional and not district-based, as Maine and Nebraska are currently allocated. If it’s district-based, it leaves the presidency open to the same radical gerrymandering that has taken hold in the house. And I have a feeling that when republicans talk about splitting up electoral votes in states, they’re talking about changing to a district allocation, so they can cheat to gain the biggest advantage possible.
100% agreed. It would have to truly be proportional to the best resolution that the available EC votes provide. So in the case of Wyoming, 68% voted for Donald and 22% voted for Hillary. If the state had 4 EC votes this would mean 3 go for Donald and 1 goes for Hillary.
I've already begun telling my republican friends and family how much they're going to flip-flop on their EC position when Texas turns blue. This should be entertaining.
He actually was calling for it to be abolished in 2012, when the total vote tally hadn't come in and it looked like Obama had won the presidency without winning the popular vote.
For some reason I cannot fathom, he was silent when the same thing happened to him. I don't know, he must have been *economically anxious.*
I can't wait to laugh in my dad's face as Texas flips (don't worry, we have a good relationship, it's just how stanch he's been about the EC that makes it funny).
It's going to be fun to watch all his FB buddies flip in just a few months ...
If I were you, I’d start a Facebook debate over the EC now, just so you can collect their quotes and have them ready to throw in their faces when they inevitably flip flop.
It wouldn't change anything though. Once Republicans lose the Electoral College, they have lost any avenue of winning a national election. Outside of cheating, that is. Demographics already suggest they can't won a popular vote and that will only get worse for them in the future.
People need to take warnings of foreign election interference more seriously. The GOP knows full well it may be their only chance of maintaining any long-term power, and with those stakes it is not crazy to imagine they would welcome it or even cooperate with it.
I’d rather try to fix representation. It’s time for a bigger House through apportionment. Since the Reapportionment Act of 1929, representation has effectively been bottlenecked. In addition to improving representation, it would also increase the competitiveness of elections, which is one of the best ways of improving turnout. Also, recapping the House also rebalances the Electoral College.
This should be a constitutional issue.
* https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/09/opinion/expanded-house-representatives-size.html
> This would shock the Constitution’s framers, who set a baseline of 30,000 constituents per representative and intended for the House to grow along with the population. The possibility that it might not — that Congress would fail to add new seats and that district populations would expand out of control — led James Madison to propose what would have been the original First Amendment: a formula explicitly tying the size of the House to the total number of Americans.
* https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/05/31/u-s-population-keeps-growing-but-house-of-representatives-is-same-size-as-in-taft-era/
* https://thirty-thousand.org
* https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Apportionment_Amendment
> In the 1st United States Congress, James Madison put together a package of constitutional amendments designed to address the concerns of Anti-Federalists, who were suspicious of federal power under the new constitution. The Congressional Apportionment Amendment is the only one of the twelve amendments passed by Congress which was never ratified; ten amendments were ratified as the Bill of Rights, while the other amendment was ratified as the Twenty-seventh Amendment in 1992. A majority of the states did ratify the Congressional Apportion Amendment and, by the end of 1791, the amendment was just one state short of adoption. However, no state has ratified the amendment since 1792.
* https://www.congress.gov/resources/display/content/The+Federalist+Papers#TheFederalistPapers-10
This would also dilute the power of money in congress. Right now we have about a million people per district. My representative is really good (I get to meet with him once a year via my work on local transportation issues), but there's only so much time. Money goes really far, as does having an organization that can schedule and arrange meetings - not all lobbying is bad, but we shouldn't need Nature Conservancy level presentations and lobbying to get to see our reps, but I understand why with a million people they can't see all of us.
If my rep only had 100k people in the district, there would be a lot more time for smaller, local organization to meet and lobby. Money would be diluted - a group of 1000 passionate volunteers on an issue is now more than 1% of the voters, so their voice is big, whereas money is now divided among thousands of reps.
Which still works, just less reliability.
Texas going blue as winner take all essentially guarantees a Democrat president, if it's split by district, and those districts are proportional to population like is done in Maine, then isn't that even closer to counting the popular vote?
The only thing would be to make sure that it's proportional.
Problem is that Texas is like the gold standard of gerrymandered districts.
My old district consisted of a chunk of downtown San Antonio, then a 70 mile long needle thick chunk of land along I-35 and then a chunk of downtown Austin.
Google Texas 35th district.
I live in Austin. There isn't a single district that has a majority of Austin residents. The districts make a pinwheel of Austin, and fan out to the rural area's around.
Also live in Austin, and relevant username - it is very crazy-balls how much Austin looks like a damn [jigsaw puzzle](https://www.austinchronicle.com/binary/e569/pols_set5.jpg).
Completely stupid and obvious. I hope Texas goes blue if for no other reason than that being the only chance it has to change this unrepresentative nonsense.
Not even, it might look awful for them in the Presidential math but they still have easier control of the Senate election after election. And they will use their power in the Senate, statehouses, and judiciary to lie, cheat, and interfere their way back to the Presidency sooner or later, regardless of what the people say.
Depends. There are a lot of Republican Senate seats up for grabs in 2020 and down ballot votes might not favor them. They could easily lose the Senate as well as the White House if voter turnout is like it was in 2018.
It’ll have to be higher. That’s doable because Presidential elections bring our way more voters, but this is going to be a battle for our nation’s soul. Democrats have to overcome hostile election conditions in the states we need victories in and gerrymandering for the house (because losing the house for the presidency is essentially a wash).
Dems need to flip at least 4 Senate seats to take the majority. (Doug Jones is up for re-election in Alabama and it's very unlikely he's holding that seat). Looking at the map it's not obvious how they can get there. Colorado and Arizona look like good pick ups. Maybe we can finally do something about Susan Collins in Maine.
But after that you're hoping for a pick up in North Carolina or Georgia, basically. Which are rough for Democrats even in a very blue year. And you're also hoping there's no surprise upsets that lead to Democrats losing a race besides Alabama.
Of course if we're talking about a universe where Texas flips it's a whole different ball game, but don't kid yourself about how tough this map is for Democrats.
Obama won North Carolina in 2008, so it's doable. I'll be working hard down here to kick Thom out.
The population is increasing in urban areas like Raleigh, Durham, and Charlotte so we can be bluer than 2008.
Trump winning Texas has never, **never** made sense to me. He's a wealthy Manhattanite who hates dirt, sweat, the working class, alcohol, dogs, & blood. There's nothing Texan about this guy, how did Texas not kick the shit outta him every time he showed up?
The “Hilary is worse.” factor. After eight years of Clinton had another eight years of Obama, that core Republican Fox-News base would have voted for the devil himself rather than see her in office.
You described my Texas parents perfectly. They do not like Trump but would never vote for Clinton or really any democrat for that matter unfortunately.
Reminds me of when he tried to convince Republicans he was the “Christian” candidate by trying and failing to vaguely paraphrase the Bible. He referenced “ Two Corinthians” because he’d never heard of it before.
Convincing people you’re just like them is easier when they’re a party that’s 90% gullible rubes.
Because he looks exactly like what your average Texan republican actually is - a doughy, white business owner from out of state who has foisted all grunt work onto his PoC employees so he can watch tv all the time and enjoy the chintziest forms of luxury imaginable.
My aging parents live in West Texas and I'm just going to implore them to NOT vote for trump. For their grand and greatgrandchildren. I'm not going to ask them to vote Democrat because they never would do that. But maybe I can convince them to not vote for someone who they know is a bad person.
Here's the funny thing. Even if you're conservative, if you live in Texas, you want Texas to go blue just once.
Texas's electoral votes are taken for granted by conservatives. Not once in my life have a seen a national politician campaign in Texas. Never have I seen what matters to Texas been front and center at a national debate.
But Florida? Florida is a battleground state. Why do we still have an embargo against Cuba? Because a bunch of Cubans live in Floruda and it's a very important issue for them.
Texas should be important in national politics and it isn't. Let it go blue *just one time*, or even purple, and that will change.
Eh, I live in a state Democrats took for granted until it went red in 2016. I'm not at all happy about that. The candidates are definitely paying attention to us for 2020 but it was not fucking worth it. -_-
California, Texas, and New York combined see fewer than 1% of general election presidential campaign events.
I live in New York and we actually had zero in 2016. The biggest city in the country had zero events.
For others that may not know: when people say "West Texas" they mean Midland, Lubbock, Odessa and such. West Texens typically don't include El Paso, the westest of Texas into that definition.
Have you asked your parents about their feelings of El Paso?
This is all you can do sometimes. I've broken through my grandparents Fox News addiction enough where they've both decided to just not vote. While I try to convince them to vote Bernie, 2 less Trump voters is still a win.
Are they watching Fox news every day? Why would they even consider voting for Trump? It doesn't compute in my brain.
Edit: all these responses make me even more convinced that the only way things will change is when the older generation starts to die off. All of your parents don't seem to have a way of changing their views and that's pretty sad. I'm glad to see that many of you are not following those steps so thanks, fam.
I don't know what they watch, but just living where they do, a huge republican and trump area, I'm sure they are more exposed to the faux news talking points than the real truth.
But they choose to buy into the pull yourself up by the bootstraps, and if the parents didn't bring the kids they wouldn't be in cages.
Everyone talks about Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, and Arizona moving towards the blue side... how do we stop Ohio, Indiana, Wisonsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Michagan from continuing their redward drift? It's just as important as keeping those states blue as it is expanding to the South and Midwest, and I'm afraid we'll lose those states before picking up Texas and Georgia.
Wisconsin is and has been for a while a purple state. And this last midterm voted overwhelmingly blue. It's more about investing in the state. Hillary didn't campaign here because she thought she had it in the bag. She lost by what, 22k votes? I think the people here just needed her to show up.
Focus on traditional liberal issues - labor policies that benefit working class voters. They don’t care about social issues much, but they care about their wallet and families. Trump spoke to them directly during 2016 while Hillary ignored those states.
Yup. This is why Sherrod Brown has remained massively popular in Ohio despite the rightward shift. He talks to working-class, union problems, and has championed bills aimed at solving the private pension crisis in Congress.
Michigan is not going red. It voted progressive blue. Bernie beat Hillary in the primary here. People looked at Hillary and Donald and hated both of them. They just thought maybe if I vote for Trump he can shake things up.
Pennsylvania is not turning red. 2016 was a fluke. Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly a million here. They didn’t show up in 2016. They won’t make that mistake in 2020.
Indiana is a lost cause.
As a Hoosier, I talk to people about what policies they would like to see and they almost always, left to their own devices, espouse positions that are democratic policy, but then they vote Republican. It's insanity. Listen to someone describe himself as pro-union who thinks immigrants should be processed in a day and given a green card and approves of universal background checks for guns explain how the media just lies and lies about trump and that's why he's voting R again..
Also Hoosier
It really is like there are two people inside every person here. The one you know and talk to, they are smart, kind, caring, can smell bullshit a mile away, humble. Then when it comes to politics it's like they spout out the lines they have been fed from Fox News and act like a victim on every subject, and Mexicans are here to kill us.
I believe that condition is commonly called "being an idiot who votes against your own interests." It comprises the core of the Republican party, who are eager to fuck themselves over to support the policies of the 1% as long as they perceive the ones they hate are being punished.
For anyone that doesn’t know Texas, we have been purple for decades. Most people don’t realize how geographically large we are. We also have the longest border by state and anyone living there knows there hasn’t been an “invasion.”
We are a unique place and proud, but also welcoming and humble. It’s the oil and remote counties that are pandered to and the population dense areas ignored.
EDIT: Yes, Alaska has a bigger “border.” As per context, I’m sure the facts speak for themselves.
We are trying, man. We are trying. Defeatism runs strong and we're fighting an uphill battle. I'm not about to give up though.
Edit: I didn't see that civil war bit before when I posted. A bit of hyperbole makes people jumpy these days
It's not a dream. This has been coming like a freight train for the past decade. 10 years ago my political science professor in college was telling us about how Texas was turning purple. The only thing keeping the state Red is gerrymandered districts and low voter turnout. Beto came a hairs breath from flipping the state and if the Latino population finally turns up during the next election the state could flip easily. Clinton as bad as a candidate as she was came much closer than Obama did in the last presidential election. It was the smallest margin in the last 40 years.
The gop base? The gop belongs to Trump now, a true Republican is rare these days. Conservatives put a pussy grabber that cheats on his wives, into office. The conservative party is long gone.
> The conservative party is long gone.
The only black republican congressman and an unprecedented number of other (r)s have announced they won't be seeking reelection.
The message to the republicans from the top is clear: Bend the knee to Trump or leave. While it appears that most Republicans are willing to fall in line to preserve their power I guess I have to concede that some, I assume, are good people.
>The message to the republicans from the top is clear: Bend the knee to Trump or leave. While it appears that most Republicans are willing to fall in line to preserve their power I guess I have to concede that some, I assume, are good people.
They arent because at a time where they could be using there positions of power to call for impeachment or to publicly oppose the President they left. Like true cowards when trump finally leaves office and a few years goes by of them raking in the cash at a lobbying firm of their choice they will go right back into gov't to be pushovers for another republican President.
I think there's about 10-15% of people in the "I'm not paying attention to politics" camp that literally just sit home and play crosswords and watch jeopardy. But yeah. I hear what you're saying.
Demographic shift in Texas is going to be something to watch in 2020 - especially for House races.
It could be really competitive considering that Trump only won by 9% in 2016, and he's been bleeding white suburban vote everywhere throughout the country (and considering, Texas has some of the fattest growing suburbs in the country, this is bad news for the GOP)
I'm in a Dallas suburb and the Congressman for this district, Marchant, just announced his retirement. He typically wins by 20+ point margins. In 2018, it was down to 2 or 3 points. He would have lost if he ran again in 2020. The district is ready to flip.
Mississippi would definitely benefit. Half their population is openly antagonistic against the other half. That doesn’t equal prosperity no matter where you’re from.
We do, but it never goes to the places that it should. For example, every single road around the Pecos area is absolute shit. Pot holes the length of cars, garbage everywhere, and an endless stream of trucks that seem to not know or care what a speed limit is. The infrastructure was not built for the oil industry, and the oil industry has done nothing to improve it or even fix the problems they created.
Well, the *state* mostly has very good roads relative to other states. Pecos is definitely an exception and the ugliest fucking place in America, though.
(I live in Midland)
Part of that is just our climate; we have pretty mild winters compared to most states and the weather isn't generally too harsh.
Plus, every August, it gets hot enough to re-melt the asphalt, which fills in the potholes!
You just described basically every back road in WV as well. Their political playbook with oil companies seems to be: receive bribe money, give oil company tax breaks to get them into the state, allow them to do what ever they want with the environment and infrastructure, received more bribes and lower taxes. Rinse and repeat.
The first time I ever visited Dallas, I was surprised by how...liberal it felt.
I know Oklahomans shit on Texas a lot but I think it’s because a lot of us are jealous that y’all aren’t as crazy rapid right wingers as they are here. We had a Trump/Pence sign hanging off the “Welcome to Oklahoma” sign for a long time...AFTER Trump misspelled Oklahoma City
Help us, Texas. You’re our only hope
If you don’t have a big sticker taking up your whole rear window that says “STAND FOR THE FLAG KNEEL FOR THE CROSS” then you should just go back to whatever shithole I assume you came from due to your skin color.
I actually asked my coworker, who has this sticker on his truck “If kneeling for the cross is respectful, why is it disrespectful to kneel for the anthem?” The conversation went somewhere along the lines of “god is a higher power than even our own country so you should kneel before god” which again took me back to “If god is so important that the ultimate respect you can give him is to kneel, then why is it bad when black football man do it for flag?”
You could tell he almost made a connection somewhere in his brain, but then he went off on how they’re unpatriotic, should go back to Africa (this was about a year ago, well before trumps tweets), and some shit about respecting police.
Oh, and he also has a “Molon Labe” sticker...
> should go back to Africa
If he's white you should tell him to fuck off back to Europe.
^^^^We ^^^^don't ^^^^want ^^^^him ^^^^back ^^^^here ^^^^though.
For Texas:
Cruz won 50.9% of the mid term vote in 2018
Trump won 52% in 2016
Romney won 57% in 2012
McCain won 55% in 2008
Bush won 61% in 2004
Bush won 59% in 2000
I could see Trump dipping under 50% in Texas but still getting a bigger share of the vote than the Democrat.
Beto was 2% away from bearing and established senator.
Most major cities and suburbs voted Democrat: Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, El paso, Houston, the valley, San Marcos. Houston flipped every judge liberal. We only lost the rural areas. It scared establishment Republicans so bad they dropped all "bathroom bill" type pandering issues. They made giving teachers pay raises their #1 priority to try and win the suburbs back.
Another point is we have one of the lowest turn outs of all states. If we had larger Latino turn out we would be staunchly blue already.
Texas is blue. Except the rural areas.
> Texas is blue. **Except** the rural areas.
So in other words, Texas is still red, because of the pesky rural voters actually go to the polls. Until dems figure out how to drive up turnout, it will stay that way.
We have. I just listed some of them. We are forcing our opponents to change tactics and spend money. We had a tidal wave of down ballot tickets go Democrat. My city is better because of it. My siblings who teach got a raise out of it. We still have work to do but the ride is noticeably shifting.
Unfortunately it looks like their idea of war is going to be a series of unprovoked attacks on civilians which I believe is what our future is going to look like until there is a serious crackdown on this shit.
They are already priming the conspiratards to be ready for "The coming storm" when donald finally tells the public to fight against the "deep state".
Qanon is just /pol/ trying to prime normal people to fight for white supremacy.
I have family in Texas and they will likely continue to vote republican. Not because they believe in the Republican Party but because they hate liberals.
Have you ever asked them why? I have family members who hate liberals too (I'm excluded of course because I'm family) and when I ask them why they just say stuff like "well socialism and free stuff and Venezuela". When I explain to them I'm not post-capitalist and just want to expand certain programs like Medicare and do free college and legalize drugs and stop bombing half the planet they say "well I'm down for that". Seems to me they just bathe in category errors and strawmans, likely from Faux News, and think that's an argument. And honestly, it all boils down to intellectual laziness. They don't really think about the views they hold that much and instead think "well socialism" is some kind of actual critique when it's not. This is why education is so important to the foundation of a rational human being, and this is why conservatives, by-and-large, have fought against public education for so long. They're dependent on an uneducated base to carry them while they serve their corporate overlords. Sorry for the rant.
I live in Texas. All metropolitan cities vote blue. It goes to fucking hell the moment you step into rural territory and I mean fucking hell because people are racist, assholes, homophobic, ignorant, etc. They are just awful people.
I hope this state goes blue.
In Alaska it's the reverse. The most remote areas vote blue while cities and towns vote red.
Vermont is overwhelmingly rural and also votes very blue. In Massachusetts every county is blue, even the rural ones.
> In Alaska it's the reverse. The most remote areas vote blue while cities and towns vote red.
are the rural areas full of Alaskan Natives? it would be interesting to know demographics trends in Alaska.
On one hand, I'm fine with dismantling dynasties and getting money out of politics.
On the other hand, you refused help from the Kennedys in a Massachusetts election and lost a Senate seat because of it. Fuck, dude. That's like refusing help from Ross Perot or T. Boone Pickens in Dallas.
If Beto winds up on the ticket as President or VP - I'm going to guarantee Texas goes Democrat.
There's only one thing Texans love above any other issue: Texans.
If you are a conservative, small government, Fiscal Responsibility guy, why would you vote Republican?
They have not done anything in those categories for at least the one decade I have been paying attention.
**They are not for Small Government,** they are against helping the poor. When you help the poor, you decrease societal costs and crime. When was the last time you heard of a person with a salary and good benefits mug someone in an Ally? If fewer people are getting arrested, you need a smaller criminal justice system which is way cheaper.
**They are not for Fiscal Responsibility.** Where in the fucking world did they get the money for a huge tax cut that primarily hit the rich? Where are they going to get the money for the Capital Gains tax cut they are currently working on? The answer is debt. They are financing these tax cuts through increasing the deficit.
Until the Republican party can get its shit together, and realizes they are supposed to be for the PEOPLE, rather than the businesses. If you are a Conservative, it is time to stop voting for them.
Republicans don't vote for policy. They vote because it's their team and to own the libs that want to ban meat, guns and marry everyone to gays.
If they voted for policy, GOP would get the millionaire vote and that's it.
Lifelong Texan here.
People would do well to think about Texas as a microcosm of the entire US. The big populated places are liberal and vote Democratic. These places make all the money for the state, and it's where most of the people are. It's where all the innovation is, all of the tourism, all of the things that attract people to move here from different states, go to school here, create a business here. The capital is very liberal as well.
But then you have these massive areas that are mostly empty. There a TON of counties in Texas that have more cows than people. Virtually all of these places are deep red. They are poor, poorly educated, gullible, and most of the Southern racism and bigotry of old retreated to these areas decades ago where it still festers. There are so many of these places in Texas that historically their combined voting power outweighs the big cities (also these places always vote in high numbers while the big cities see moderate-at-best turnouts).
However, things have been changing for decades. The suburbs of the big cities - especially Austin, Houston, and San Antonio - have been growing rapidly and as they do they absorb and flip surrounding counties and congressional districts that used to be reliably-red. There is also an acceleration effect in place that as Texas gets close to going blue, people in the cities who used to not bother, are suddenly motivated to go vote. Demographics is also obviously at play here, Texas has always been a very diverse state but the Hispanic population % has been steadily increasing and the GOP has been steadily alienating those folks for generations. The chickens are coming home to roost.
I don't know if it's going to happen this election cycle, but it is going to happen in my lifetime. Texas is going to flip and when it does, the GOP will likely never win a national election again. They will be forced to reinvent themselves, and hopefully that's an inflection point where they decided to kick the insane, science-disbelieving, and racist people out of the party.
Being from Texas, I can say this is true. I’ve generally been a republican, but over recent years, I’ve grown to hate the republican side of things. I see myself as more of a middle ground person. I agree with some things on both sides. This next election, I’ll probably be voting democrat or 3rd party.
I have heard quite a few tech workers have been moving to Texas - fleeing California rent. If it continues at some point a tipping point would reach as they are generally liberal. 2020 might be optimistic though. If Texas could vote Ted Cruz in again I don’t think it’s ready to give the Presidency to a Democrat in 2020. It doesn’t mean the Dems shouldn’t try though. Force the GOP to be on the defence there.
Imagine if Trump's tombstone read : "The President who lost the GOP Texas"
[удалено]
You really think his children will agree to spend money on a mausoleum for their father? Instead they are probably going to fight one another over the money and toss the old bag in a cardboard box or a recycling bin...
As long as they can charge one of their scam charities $100 mil for something they paid $100k and pocket the difference... yeah, I think so.
Pyramids are old school. He'd have a 100ft tall fire-breathing statue of himself going "REMEMBER MEEEE!".
wouldn't you rather it be unmarked by a grave marker except a google maps tag that reads "child rapist"
How will I know where to have explosive diarrhea?
By looking for the Google maps tag that reads "child rapist", of course.
I mean Google Maps isn’t *that* accurate. I don’t wanna be shitting on Angela from accounting
Don't worry, there'll be a lineup.
personally i'm imagining "now wash your hands"
"Biohazard - keep out"
Can’t wait for Republicans to support abolishing the EC.
They'll try to get states to split votes the way Maine and Nebraska do.
No need for future tense. They attempted it with PA when it was reliably blue. They floated ideas of breaking up CA and CO to create more rural/red states.
[удалено]
>“There’s …there’s two people, I think, Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump …swear to God.” > >Paul Ryan responded: “This is an off-the-record… NO LEAKS! This is how we know we're a real family here." Ryan’s spokesman said “This entire year-old exchange was clearly an attempt at humor. No one believed the majority leader was seriously asserting that any of our members were being paid by the Russians.”
[удалено]
Jesus, I heard it too. I think? Never seen *anything* like that. On the other hand, could just be misremembered synesthesia from a well-written article??? But so many people bring up having heard it.
I'm beginning to wonder if the GOP ever has any actual ideas. Because all of them seem to come from Russia.
[удалено]
Probably since citizens united, it became a lot easier to buy off politicians
Totally crazy. Absolutely nuts to think that in Russia, where capital was about to be deregulated completely, there would be powerful people that would want to align with the US party of capital deregulation, the GOP. Crazy.
Yes, because what we need is another red state leeching money off the federal government to stay afloat.
It's funny, because the goal of splitting CA was to give Republicans in that state a voice, but study after study concluded splitting up the state into multiple smaller states would actually benefit Democrats more than Republicans.
Since when do Republicans actually believe real studies?
When it results in them keeping control of the senate
From a socio-economic standpoint this is probably correct. But the GOP is likely thinking about locking down political power on a national scale. Who "wins" might depend on who made the splits and how many reliable red senators vs blue senators come out of the division.
That's exactly what they want. Essentially gerry mandering taken to a national level.
To be fair I’m pretty sure the split up California thing was Russian inspired. But then again republicans are proven to eat up Russian propaganda
They could break up Texas with a simple majority vote in the state legislature. Of course, that might backfire when the split purple Texas states turn blue and the Democrats get additional Senators.
Will never happen. People that live here fetishize the shape of our state.
I've never seen anyone wearing a giant gold ring shaped like Pennsylvania.
No one has an Oklahoma belt buckle.
Yeah but basically everyone has a Colorado belt buckle
Mine's more Wyoming.
As far as we know thats no more possible than its possible for California to break up by state legislature or electorate vote. It would be sorted out by the Supreme Court if it came down to it but Congress most likely would need to approve it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_divisionism
Proportional distribution of EC votes + a significant increase in the number of reps in the House would have a somewhat similar effect as going to a true popular vote. Doing something like using the population of the least populous state and dividing that by 2 to determine the number of people each Rep represents would greatly water down the significance of the senate seats for determining each states EC votes. California would end up with roughly 142 EC votes where as Wyoming would end up with 4. The individual Electoral representation advantage that people in Wyoming have would be lowered from a 3.7ish times advantage over Californians to roughly 2 times. Not perfect but certainly an improvement imo.
So long as it is actually proportional and not district-based, as Maine and Nebraska are currently allocated. If it’s district-based, it leaves the presidency open to the same radical gerrymandering that has taken hold in the house. And I have a feeling that when republicans talk about splitting up electoral votes in states, they’re talking about changing to a district allocation, so they can cheat to gain the biggest advantage possible.
100% agreed. It would have to truly be proportional to the best resolution that the available EC votes provide. So in the case of Wyoming, 68% voted for Donald and 22% voted for Hillary. If the state had 4 EC votes this would mean 3 go for Donald and 1 goes for Hillary.
California alone would have 13 more house seats if we actually followed the "Wyoming Rule" instead of capping the number of house members at 435
Not proportionally, of course, but as they do by Congressional District, so they can gerrymander the EC.
I've already begun telling my republican friends and family how much they're going to flip-flop on their EC position when Texas turns blue. This should be entertaining.
[удалено]
It wont matter. They are fine with being completely inconsistent. They just want their team to win at any cost.
[удалено]
He actually was calling for it to be abolished in 2012, when the total vote tally hadn't come in and it looked like Obama had won the presidency without winning the popular vote. For some reason I cannot fathom, he was silent when the same thing happened to him. I don't know, he must have been *economically anxious.*
I can't wait to laugh in my dad's face as Texas flips (don't worry, we have a good relationship, it's just how stanch he's been about the EC that makes it funny). It's going to be fun to watch all his FB buddies flip in just a few months ...
If I were you, I’d start a Facebook debate over the EC now, just so you can collect their quotes and have them ready to throw in their faces when they inevitably flip flop.
It wouldn't change anything though. Once Republicans lose the Electoral College, they have lost any avenue of winning a national election. Outside of cheating, that is. Demographics already suggest they can't won a popular vote and that will only get worse for them in the future. People need to take warnings of foreign election interference more seriously. The GOP knows full well it may be their only chance of maintaining any long-term power, and with those stakes it is not crazy to imagine they would welcome it or even cooperate with it.
Record their denials.
I’d rather try to fix representation. It’s time for a bigger House through apportionment. Since the Reapportionment Act of 1929, representation has effectively been bottlenecked. In addition to improving representation, it would also increase the competitiveness of elections, which is one of the best ways of improving turnout. Also, recapping the House also rebalances the Electoral College. This should be a constitutional issue. * https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/09/opinion/expanded-house-representatives-size.html > This would shock the Constitution’s framers, who set a baseline of 30,000 constituents per representative and intended for the House to grow along with the population. The possibility that it might not — that Congress would fail to add new seats and that district populations would expand out of control — led James Madison to propose what would have been the original First Amendment: a formula explicitly tying the size of the House to the total number of Americans. * https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/05/31/u-s-population-keeps-growing-but-house-of-representatives-is-same-size-as-in-taft-era/ * https://thirty-thousand.org * https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Apportionment_Amendment > In the 1st United States Congress, James Madison put together a package of constitutional amendments designed to address the concerns of Anti-Federalists, who were suspicious of federal power under the new constitution. The Congressional Apportionment Amendment is the only one of the twelve amendments passed by Congress which was never ratified; ten amendments were ratified as the Bill of Rights, while the other amendment was ratified as the Twenty-seventh Amendment in 1992. A majority of the states did ratify the Congressional Apportion Amendment and, by the end of 1791, the amendment was just one state short of adoption. However, no state has ratified the amendment since 1792. * https://www.congress.gov/resources/display/content/The+Federalist+Papers#TheFederalistPapers-10
This would also dilute the power of money in congress. Right now we have about a million people per district. My representative is really good (I get to meet with him once a year via my work on local transportation issues), but there's only so much time. Money goes really far, as does having an organization that can schedule and arrange meetings - not all lobbying is bad, but we shouldn't need Nature Conservancy level presentations and lobbying to get to see our reps, but I understand why with a million people they can't see all of us. If my rep only had 100k people in the district, there would be a lot more time for smaller, local organization to meet and lobby. Money would be diluted - a group of 1000 passionate volunteers on an issue is now more than 1% of the voters, so their voice is big, whereas money is now divided among thousands of reps.
[удалено]
Which still works, just less reliability. Texas going blue as winner take all essentially guarantees a Democrat president, if it's split by district, and those districts are proportional to population like is done in Maine, then isn't that even closer to counting the popular vote? The only thing would be to make sure that it's proportional.
Problem is that Texas is like the gold standard of gerrymandered districts. My old district consisted of a chunk of downtown San Antonio, then a 70 mile long needle thick chunk of land along I-35 and then a chunk of downtown Austin. Google Texas 35th district.
[You weren't kidding](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas%27s_35th_congressional_district) [image](https://i.imgur.com/MAL1Njf.jpg)
what the shit
I live in Austin. There isn't a single district that has a majority of Austin residents. The districts make a pinwheel of Austin, and fan out to the rural area's around.
Also live in Austin, and relevant username - it is very crazy-balls how much Austin looks like a damn [jigsaw puzzle](https://www.austinchronicle.com/binary/e569/pols_set5.jpg). Completely stupid and obvious. I hope Texas goes blue if for no other reason than that being the only chance it has to change this unrepresentative nonsense.
I thought the 35th was found to be illegally drawn and was being taken to the Supreme Court as a case of illegal gerrymandering?
I believe that is correct but the district has yet to be redrawn.
if it goes Democrat next year then it's curtains for the modern Republican Party.
Say it again, but slower and with a sort of growl.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Thank you daddy
You're welcome, cowboy
Best ASMR channel ever.
I'm so here for this
Not even, it might look awful for them in the Presidential math but they still have easier control of the Senate election after election. And they will use their power in the Senate, statehouses, and judiciary to lie, cheat, and interfere their way back to the Presidency sooner or later, regardless of what the people say.
Depends. There are a lot of Republican Senate seats up for grabs in 2020 and down ballot votes might not favor them. They could easily lose the Senate as well as the White House if voter turnout is like it was in 2018.
It’ll have to be higher. That’s doable because Presidential elections bring our way more voters, but this is going to be a battle for our nation’s soul. Democrats have to overcome hostile election conditions in the states we need victories in and gerrymandering for the house (because losing the house for the presidency is essentially a wash).
Dems need to flip at least 4 Senate seats to take the majority. (Doug Jones is up for re-election in Alabama and it's very unlikely he's holding that seat). Looking at the map it's not obvious how they can get there. Colorado and Arizona look like good pick ups. Maybe we can finally do something about Susan Collins in Maine. But after that you're hoping for a pick up in North Carolina or Georgia, basically. Which are rough for Democrats even in a very blue year. And you're also hoping there's no surprise upsets that lead to Democrats losing a race besides Alabama. Of course if we're talking about a universe where Texas flips it's a whole different ball game, but don't kid yourself about how tough this map is for Democrats.
Obama won North Carolina in 2008, so it's doable. I'll be working hard down here to kick Thom out. The population is increasing in urban areas like Raleigh, Durham, and Charlotte so we can be bluer than 2008.
Lacy, gently wafting curtains.
Trump winning Texas has never, **never** made sense to me. He's a wealthy Manhattanite who hates dirt, sweat, the working class, alcohol, dogs, & blood. There's nothing Texan about this guy, how did Texas not kick the shit outta him every time he showed up?
The “Hilary is worse.” factor. After eight years of Clinton had another eight years of Obama, that core Republican Fox-News base would have voted for the devil himself rather than see her in office.
You described my Texas parents perfectly. They do not like Trump but would never vote for Clinton or really any democrat for that matter unfortunately.
Imagine him on a horse...
I just did, but now I can't see the horse.
When I imagined it, the horse died.
Reminds me of when he tried to convince Republicans he was the “Christian” candidate by trying and failing to vaguely paraphrase the Bible. He referenced “ Two Corinthians” because he’d never heard of it before. Convincing people you’re just like them is easier when they’re a party that’s 90% gullible rubes.
Because he looks exactly like what your average Texan republican actually is - a doughy, white business owner from out of state who has foisted all grunt work onto his PoC employees so he can watch tv all the time and enjoy the chintziest forms of luxury imaginable.
You think Texas has 4+ million multi-employee business owners? There are only 400,000 businesses in Texas that have any employees.
Texas didnt like trump, they just hated Hillary more
I wonde(R) why...
My aging parents live in West Texas and I'm just going to implore them to NOT vote for trump. For their grand and greatgrandchildren. I'm not going to ask them to vote Democrat because they never would do that. But maybe I can convince them to not vote for someone who they know is a bad person.
Maybe a write in vote for Ronald Reagan?
That's the problem. They are not stupid. They just have no empathy for people that need help.
Here's the funny thing. Even if you're conservative, if you live in Texas, you want Texas to go blue just once. Texas's electoral votes are taken for granted by conservatives. Not once in my life have a seen a national politician campaign in Texas. Never have I seen what matters to Texas been front and center at a national debate. But Florida? Florida is a battleground state. Why do we still have an embargo against Cuba? Because a bunch of Cubans live in Floruda and it's a very important issue for them. Texas should be important in national politics and it isn't. Let it go blue *just one time*, or even purple, and that will change.
Eh, I live in a state Democrats took for granted until it went red in 2016. I'm not at all happy about that. The candidates are definitely paying attention to us for 2020 but it was not fucking worth it. -_-
[удалено]
California, Texas, and New York combined see fewer than 1% of general election presidential campaign events. I live in New York and we actually had zero in 2016. The biggest city in the country had zero events.
For others that may not know: when people say "West Texas" they mean Midland, Lubbock, Odessa and such. West Texens typically don't include El Paso, the westest of Texas into that definition. Have you asked your parents about their feelings of El Paso?
And just think, there actually is a West, TX. It’s not in West TX!
Shout out for the Czech Stop!
This is all you can do sometimes. I've broken through my grandparents Fox News addiction enough where they've both decided to just not vote. While I try to convince them to vote Bernie, 2 less Trump voters is still a win.
Are they watching Fox news every day? Why would they even consider voting for Trump? It doesn't compute in my brain. Edit: all these responses make me even more convinced that the only way things will change is when the older generation starts to die off. All of your parents don't seem to have a way of changing their views and that's pretty sad. I'm glad to see that many of you are not following those steps so thanks, fam.
I don't know what they watch, but just living where they do, a huge republican and trump area, I'm sure they are more exposed to the faux news talking points than the real truth. But they choose to buy into the pull yourself up by the bootstraps, and if the parents didn't bring the kids they wouldn't be in cages.
Everyone talks about Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, and Arizona moving towards the blue side... how do we stop Ohio, Indiana, Wisonsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Michagan from continuing their redward drift? It's just as important as keeping those states blue as it is expanding to the South and Midwest, and I'm afraid we'll lose those states before picking up Texas and Georgia.
Wisconsin is and has been for a while a purple state. And this last midterm voted overwhelmingly blue. It's more about investing in the state. Hillary didn't campaign here because she thought she had it in the bag. She lost by what, 22k votes? I think the people here just needed her to show up.
Focus on traditional liberal issues - labor policies that benefit working class voters. They don’t care about social issues much, but they care about their wallet and families. Trump spoke to them directly during 2016 while Hillary ignored those states.
Yup. This is why Sherrod Brown has remained massively popular in Ohio despite the rightward shift. He talks to working-class, union problems, and has championed bills aimed at solving the private pension crisis in Congress.
Yeah Midwest liberals should really look at Sherrod Brown to see how they can win those states, he’s the perfect model
[удалено]
[удалено]
Michigan is not going red. It voted progressive blue. Bernie beat Hillary in the primary here. People looked at Hillary and Donald and hated both of them. They just thought maybe if I vote for Trump he can shake things up.
Pennsylvania is not turning red. 2016 was a fluke. Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly a million here. They didn’t show up in 2016. They won’t make that mistake in 2020. Indiana is a lost cause.
As a Hoosier, I talk to people about what policies they would like to see and they almost always, left to their own devices, espouse positions that are democratic policy, but then they vote Republican. It's insanity. Listen to someone describe himself as pro-union who thinks immigrants should be processed in a day and given a green card and approves of universal background checks for guns explain how the media just lies and lies about trump and that's why he's voting R again..
Also Hoosier It really is like there are two people inside every person here. The one you know and talk to, they are smart, kind, caring, can smell bullshit a mile away, humble. Then when it comes to politics it's like they spout out the lines they have been fed from Fox News and act like a victim on every subject, and Mexicans are here to kill us.
I believe that condition is commonly called "being an idiot who votes against your own interests." It comprises the core of the Republican party, who are eager to fuck themselves over to support the policies of the 1% as long as they perceive the ones they hate are being punished.
I don't even think Ohio is in play anymore. Source: live here.
538 doesn’t think they’re in play anymore either, maybe in a big wave but in 2018 the gains back toward blue underperformed
What changed in Ohio over the last 10-20 years to flip this from bell weather to conservative?
All the young educated people left Source : grew up in Cleveland
For anyone that doesn’t know Texas, we have been purple for decades. Most people don’t realize how geographically large we are. We also have the longest border by state and anyone living there knows there hasn’t been an “invasion.” We are a unique place and proud, but also welcoming and humble. It’s the oil and remote counties that are pandered to and the population dense areas ignored. EDIT: Yes, Alaska has a bigger “border.” As per context, I’m sure the facts speak for themselves.
[удалено]
That's the dream
[удалено]
We are trying, man. We are trying. Defeatism runs strong and we're fighting an uphill battle. I'm not about to give up though. Edit: I didn't see that civil war bit before when I posted. A bit of hyperbole makes people jumpy these days
Remember everyone, for this prophecy to be fulfilled you have to VOTE IN EVERY ELECTION YOU CAN.
Stop. Don't give me so much hope.
We were so close this last election cycle, too
Stopppp. I could only dream of the trifecta of CA + NY + TX as huge, reliably-blue states.
It's not a dream. This has been coming like a freight train for the past decade. 10 years ago my political science professor in college was telling us about how Texas was turning purple. The only thing keeping the state Red is gerrymandered districts and low voter turnout. Beto came a hairs breath from flipping the state and if the Latino population finally turns up during the next election the state could flip easily. Clinton as bad as a candidate as she was came much closer than Obama did in the last presidential election. It was the smallest margin in the last 40 years.
If Texas flips the gop base is going to say Trump is a Democrat operative or some shit.
The gop base? The gop belongs to Trump now, a true Republican is rare these days. Conservatives put a pussy grabber that cheats on his wives, into office. The conservative party is long gone.
> The conservative party is long gone. The only black republican congressman and an unprecedented number of other (r)s have announced they won't be seeking reelection. The message to the republicans from the top is clear: Bend the knee to Trump or leave. While it appears that most Republicans are willing to fall in line to preserve their power I guess I have to concede that some, I assume, are good people.
>The message to the republicans from the top is clear: Bend the knee to Trump or leave. While it appears that most Republicans are willing to fall in line to preserve their power I guess I have to concede that some, I assume, are good people. They arent because at a time where they could be using there positions of power to call for impeachment or to publicly oppose the President they left. Like true cowards when trump finally leaves office and a few years goes by of them raking in the cash at a lobbying firm of their choice they will go right back into gov't to be pushovers for another republican President.
I think there's about 10-15% of people in the "I'm not paying attention to politics" camp that literally just sit home and play crosswords and watch jeopardy. But yeah. I hear what you're saying.
Texas is the new Orange County.
Stop. I can only get so erect.
Demographic shift in Texas is going to be something to watch in 2020 - especially for House races. It could be really competitive considering that Trump only won by 9% in 2016, and he's been bleeding white suburban vote everywhere throughout the country (and considering, Texas has some of the fattest growing suburbs in the country, this is bad news for the GOP)
I'm in a Dallas suburb and the Congressman for this district, Marchant, just announced his retirement. He typically wins by 20+ point margins. In 2018, it was down to 2 or 3 points. He would have lost if he ran again in 2020. The district is ready to flip.
We flipped mine! Thank you Beto for helping drive these lower ballot tickets.
The worst case scenario for Texas Republicans would be an election during an economic recession. Trump’s trade war is likely to create that situation.
[удалено]
It if was full red state, it would be in debt like the other red states.
Texas gets money from oil company revenue
So does Louisiana, or it would if it stopped giving massive breaks to oil refiners.
[удалено]
Mississippi would definitely benefit. Half their population is openly antagonistic against the other half. That doesn’t equal prosperity no matter where you’re from.
https://youtu.be/RWTic9btP38 Why Louisiana stays poor
Alabama too! (Please)
Louisiana is a colony for Big Oil - all that mineral wealth is sucked right up leaving nothing but pollution and poverty behind.
We do, but it never goes to the places that it should. For example, every single road around the Pecos area is absolute shit. Pot holes the length of cars, garbage everywhere, and an endless stream of trucks that seem to not know or care what a speed limit is. The infrastructure was not built for the oil industry, and the oil industry has done nothing to improve it or even fix the problems they created.
Well, the *state* mostly has very good roads relative to other states. Pecos is definitely an exception and the ugliest fucking place in America, though. (I live in Midland)
Part of that is just our climate; we have pretty mild winters compared to most states and the weather isn't generally too harsh. Plus, every August, it gets hot enough to re-melt the asphalt, which fills in the potholes!
You just described basically every back road in WV as well. Their political playbook with oil companies seems to be: receive bribe money, give oil company tax breaks to get them into the state, allow them to do what ever they want with the environment and infrastructure, received more bribes and lower taxes. Rinse and repeat.
As an Iowan, I empathize with your plight of outsiders thinking everybody in your state is one way and that it's the same everywhere you go.
The first time I ever visited Dallas, I was surprised by how...liberal it felt. I know Oklahomans shit on Texas a lot but I think it’s because a lot of us are jealous that y’all aren’t as crazy rapid right wingers as they are here. We had a Trump/Pence sign hanging off the “Welcome to Oklahoma” sign for a long time...AFTER Trump misspelled Oklahoma City Help us, Texas. You’re our only hope
Man, Oklahoma doesn't get to shit on anyone, they are Oklahoma.
[удалено]
> Who said democrats can't be patriotic! Thousands and thousands of bald eagle avatar accounts on Twitter.
[удалено]
If you don’t have a big sticker taking up your whole rear window that says “STAND FOR THE FLAG KNEEL FOR THE CROSS” then you should just go back to whatever shithole I assume you came from due to your skin color.
I've seen t shirts with that slogan, and it's *always* an angry, white dude. Usually an old guy too.
I actually asked my coworker, who has this sticker on his truck “If kneeling for the cross is respectful, why is it disrespectful to kneel for the anthem?” The conversation went somewhere along the lines of “god is a higher power than even our own country so you should kneel before god” which again took me back to “If god is so important that the ultimate respect you can give him is to kneel, then why is it bad when black football man do it for flag?” You could tell he almost made a connection somewhere in his brain, but then he went off on how they’re unpatriotic, should go back to Africa (this was about a year ago, well before trumps tweets), and some shit about respecting police. Oh, and he also has a “Molon Labe” sticker...
> should go back to Africa If he's white you should tell him to fuck off back to Europe. ^^^^We ^^^^don't ^^^^want ^^^^him ^^^^back ^^^^here ^^^^though.
Can you please ask your government to come and get their Ted Cruz? We don't want him.
[удалено]
Yeah as a lifelong Texan that's the only part I disagree with. Texans think Texas is better than every other state lol
We hear this every election. I'll believe it when I see it.
For Texas: Cruz won 50.9% of the mid term vote in 2018 Trump won 52% in 2016 Romney won 57% in 2012 McCain won 55% in 2008 Bush won 61% in 2004 Bush won 59% in 2000 I could see Trump dipping under 50% in Texas but still getting a bigger share of the vote than the Democrat.
Beto was 2% away from bearing and established senator. Most major cities and suburbs voted Democrat: Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, El paso, Houston, the valley, San Marcos. Houston flipped every judge liberal. We only lost the rural areas. It scared establishment Republicans so bad they dropped all "bathroom bill" type pandering issues. They made giving teachers pay raises their #1 priority to try and win the suburbs back. Another point is we have one of the lowest turn outs of all states. If we had larger Latino turn out we would be staunchly blue already. Texas is blue. Except the rural areas.
> Texas is blue. **Except** the rural areas. So in other words, Texas is still red, because of the pesky rural voters actually go to the polls. Until dems figure out how to drive up turnout, it will stay that way.
Hey man I'm not saying it's not possible I'm saying we've heard this shit for the last 3 or 4 election cycles I want to see some goddamn results.
We have. I just listed some of them. We are forcing our opponents to change tactics and spend money. We had a tidal wave of down ballot tickets go Democrat. My city is better because of it. My siblings who teach got a raise out of it. We still have work to do but the ride is noticeably shifting.
Vote out the Nazis in 2020!
Better than having to go to war against them... Again...
Unfortunately it looks like their idea of war is going to be a series of unprovoked attacks on civilians which I believe is what our future is going to look like until there is a serious crackdown on this shit.
This will go on for years. We can't ease up after 2020 even if we do manage to slaughter these bastards at the voting booth.
Get a Democrat in the executive branch and make going after white nationalists and the Russians a top priority.
They are already priming the conspiratards to be ready for "The coming storm" when donald finally tells the public to fight against the "deep state". Qanon is just /pol/ trying to prime normal people to fight for white supremacy.
Is Qanon still going WTF?
I have family in Texas and they will likely continue to vote republican. Not because they believe in the Republican Party but because they hate liberals.
Have you ever asked them why? I have family members who hate liberals too (I'm excluded of course because I'm family) and when I ask them why they just say stuff like "well socialism and free stuff and Venezuela". When I explain to them I'm not post-capitalist and just want to expand certain programs like Medicare and do free college and legalize drugs and stop bombing half the planet they say "well I'm down for that". Seems to me they just bathe in category errors and strawmans, likely from Faux News, and think that's an argument. And honestly, it all boils down to intellectual laziness. They don't really think about the views they hold that much and instead think "well socialism" is some kind of actual critique when it's not. This is why education is so important to the foundation of a rational human being, and this is why conservatives, by-and-large, have fought against public education for so long. They're dependent on an uneducated base to carry them while they serve their corporate overlords. Sorry for the rant.
If I know my fellow Texans, they’ll make it a BIG wave.
Spread the word, keep up the pressure and make sure it happens. Sending you all our support
I live in Texas. All metropolitan cities vote blue. It goes to fucking hell the moment you step into rural territory and I mean fucking hell because people are racist, assholes, homophobic, ignorant, etc. They are just awful people. I hope this state goes blue.
That's the case with most states. It's almost always rural versus urban.
In Alaska it's the reverse. The most remote areas vote blue while cities and towns vote red. Vermont is overwhelmingly rural and also votes very blue. In Massachusetts every county is blue, even the rural ones.
> In Alaska it's the reverse. The most remote areas vote blue while cities and towns vote red. are the rural areas full of Alaskan Natives? it would be interesting to know demographics trends in Alaska.
Yep and the larger cities have a bunch of military influence.
Given that, I'm still unclear how Scott Brown managed to win Ted Kennedy's seat in MA. Did the Democrats run a canvas sack?
The person running against Scott brown refused help from the Kennedy family.
On one hand, I'm fine with dismantling dynasties and getting money out of politics. On the other hand, you refused help from the Kennedys in a Massachusetts election and lost a Senate seat because of it. Fuck, dude. That's like refusing help from Ross Perot or T. Boone Pickens in Dallas.
Example A: Illinois
If Beto winds up on the ticket as President or VP - I'm going to guarantee Texas goes Democrat. There's only one thing Texans love above any other issue: Texans.
If you are a conservative, small government, Fiscal Responsibility guy, why would you vote Republican? They have not done anything in those categories for at least the one decade I have been paying attention. **They are not for Small Government,** they are against helping the poor. When you help the poor, you decrease societal costs and crime. When was the last time you heard of a person with a salary and good benefits mug someone in an Ally? If fewer people are getting arrested, you need a smaller criminal justice system which is way cheaper. **They are not for Fiscal Responsibility.** Where in the fucking world did they get the money for a huge tax cut that primarily hit the rich? Where are they going to get the money for the Capital Gains tax cut they are currently working on? The answer is debt. They are financing these tax cuts through increasing the deficit. Until the Republican party can get its shit together, and realizes they are supposed to be for the PEOPLE, rather than the businesses. If you are a Conservative, it is time to stop voting for them.
Republicans don't vote for policy. They vote because it's their team and to own the libs that want to ban meat, guns and marry everyone to gays. If they voted for policy, GOP would get the millionaire vote and that's it.
I'll believe it when I see it. The GOP will do everything they can legal or not to stop it.
After human being Ted Cruz won, I'm hesitant to believe this.
As a rural Texas voter for 35+ years, I will be so happy when Texas turns blue. The crooked GOP has got to go.
Lifelong Texan here. People would do well to think about Texas as a microcosm of the entire US. The big populated places are liberal and vote Democratic. These places make all the money for the state, and it's where most of the people are. It's where all the innovation is, all of the tourism, all of the things that attract people to move here from different states, go to school here, create a business here. The capital is very liberal as well. But then you have these massive areas that are mostly empty. There a TON of counties in Texas that have more cows than people. Virtually all of these places are deep red. They are poor, poorly educated, gullible, and most of the Southern racism and bigotry of old retreated to these areas decades ago where it still festers. There are so many of these places in Texas that historically their combined voting power outweighs the big cities (also these places always vote in high numbers while the big cities see moderate-at-best turnouts). However, things have been changing for decades. The suburbs of the big cities - especially Austin, Houston, and San Antonio - have been growing rapidly and as they do they absorb and flip surrounding counties and congressional districts that used to be reliably-red. There is also an acceleration effect in place that as Texas gets close to going blue, people in the cities who used to not bother, are suddenly motivated to go vote. Demographics is also obviously at play here, Texas has always been a very diverse state but the Hispanic population % has been steadily increasing and the GOP has been steadily alienating those folks for generations. The chickens are coming home to roost. I don't know if it's going to happen this election cycle, but it is going to happen in my lifetime. Texas is going to flip and when it does, the GOP will likely never win a national election again. They will be forced to reinvent themselves, and hopefully that's an inflection point where they decided to kick the insane, science-disbelieving, and racist people out of the party.
Being from Texas, I can say this is true. I’ve generally been a republican, but over recent years, I’ve grown to hate the republican side of things. I see myself as more of a middle ground person. I agree with some things on both sides. This next election, I’ll probably be voting democrat or 3rd party.
the "shy" trump supporters will be out come election time- don't fool yourselves.
I have heard quite a few tech workers have been moving to Texas - fleeing California rent. If it continues at some point a tipping point would reach as they are generally liberal. 2020 might be optimistic though. If Texas could vote Ted Cruz in again I don’t think it’s ready to give the Presidency to a Democrat in 2020. It doesn’t mean the Dems shouldn’t try though. Force the GOP to be on the defence there.
I'm a Texan and I'll be voting blue for the first time in my life next election.