Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[Winstonm]

External polls are not the ones that politicians pay any attention to.

This is why the polling that we got to see in 2016 was hopelessly wrong and not much better last year.

They have their own internal polling mechanisms that account for things like voting intention in an individual household.

It's harder in America where people are not required to vote (as they are in Australia).

Now that the Republicans at the state level are making it harder to vote things will only get worse.

With people like Manchin in the Senate, the problem is compounded.

Much of the polling data is no doubt stored in the Cloud - let's hope the forces of good are using Akamai and not Fastly tonight.

Which is why it is so problematic that Manafort passed internal polling data to a Russian intelligence operative.

[hrothgar]

 

Much of the polling data is no doubt stored in the Cloud - let's hope the forces of good are using Akamai and not Fastly tonight.

 

I would be very surprised if the outage that Fastly experienced impacted long term storage / caching.

 

You really don't want the stuff that is being stored at your origin to have a dependency on the behaviour of the CDN.

(Says the guy who works at Akamai)

[kenberg]

I must be weird as I don't view luck as having anything to do with it. My parents were both Americans so it would have been odd not to have been born and reared here, though not impossible. I think the question you are trying to get to is: do you think you would be better off had you been born a citizen of another country. All I can say is I don't think so but how can you rule out that possibility?

 

I really think it is a simple question. And, as always, I see value in simplicity. I guess you could say I am simple-minded. And proud of it.

I regard myself as lucky to have been born in 1939 rather than 1439. Of course I could not have been born in 1439 because my mother got pregnant in 1938, Still, I think people know what I mean.

 

As far as comparisons go, I am not comparing life in the US with, say, life in France. Although if we were to compare it with life in France I would say my life in the US from 1940 through 1945 was probably better than life was for many in France at that time. That's not the comparison I am looking at when I feel lucky. I grew up making great use of a bicycle and skates, I had a free education for elementary school and high school, I made good use of the free public library, College wasn't free but there was a scholarship and I got paid decently, not great but decently, for working. Of course I understand that this is not unique to the US. But in many places and in many times, this all would seem like a dream. So I feel lucky. Even if my lucky birth was pre-determined by the fact that my mother was living in Minnesota.

 

Bad luck that I was not born into wealth? A minor detail, no importance at all.

[Winstonm]

I really think it is a simple question. And, as always, I see value in simplicity. I guess you could say I am simple-minded. And proud of it.

I regard myself as lucky to have been born in 1939 rather than 1439. Of course I could not have been born in 1439 because my mother got pregnant in 1938, Still, I think people know what I mean.

 

As far as comparisons go, I am not comparing life in the US with, say, life in France. Although if we were to compare it with life in France I would say my life in the US from 1940 through 1945 was probably better in the US than life was for many in France at that time. That's not the comparison I am looking at when I feel lucky. I grew up making great use of a bicycle and skates, I had a free education for elementary school and high school, I made good use of the free public library, College wasn't free but there was a scholarship and I got paid decently, not great but decently, for working. Of course I understand that this is not unique to the US. But in many places and in many times, this all would all seem like a dream. So I feel lucky. Even if my lucky birth was pre-determined by the fact that my mother was living in Minnesota.

 

Bad luck that I was not born into wealth? A minor detail, no importance at all.

I admire simplicity of thought - it is not something I do easily. I start by wondering what luck and lucky mean . Perhaps that is due to parents involved in teaching kids to read who often brought that work home to their own kids. Words to me are similar I think as numbers are to you: precision is critical to the meaning. I have spent many years learning that I do not have to act the same way I feel. so how I feel about something is irrelevant.

 

So how can I know that being born Australian or Canadien isn’t better without that experience to compare? How I feel really doesn’t matter, does it?

 

Emotional voters elected Trump. Perhaps we could do better with less emotion and more precision of thought.

[kenberg]

I admire simplicity of thought - it is not something I do easily. I start by wondering what luck and lucky mean . Perhaps that is due to parents involved in teaching kids to read who often brought that work home to their own kids. Words to me are similar I think as numbers are to you: precision is critical to the meaning. I have spent many years learning that I do not have to act the same way I feel. so how I feel about something is irrelevant.

 

So how can I know that being born Australian or Canadien isn't better without that experience to compare? How I feel really doesn't matter, does it?

 

Emotional voters elected Trump. Perhaps we could do better with less emotion and more precision of thought.

 

Of course it matters how people feel. Firstly it matters to the person who is doing the feeling, but also how people feel affects how they act.

 

In geometry, the parallel postulate is logically connected to the angle sum of a triangle. I have no emotional attachment to either the parallel postulate or the angle sum of a triangle. Precise thought is very useful for geometry. Of course clear thought is useful always, but when we move from geometry to life, how we feel matters. That will not change, and I don't think that I would want it to change.

 

Logic is good. It is also not the whole story. Never has been.

 

I think we can list your response to my poll Q as "declined to answer".

 

And right, polls are definitely limited. Maybe this Q illustrates the limitation.

[awm]

There are certainly many countries around the world whose citizens are worse off than those of the US. I’m glad to have grown up in the US rather than in Honduras or Guatemala or Nigeria… or many other places. It’s clear that citizens of those places often feel the same because many of them are desperate to leave!

 

But with that said, there are places I’d rather be from than the US; for example many Scandinavian countries or Switzerland or Canada or the Netherlands. It does seem that in modern times the US has fallen down the list a bit (for example kids now in Germany are better off than Americans in many ways but this was not true when I was born in the 1970s and definitely not true when Ken was born in the 1930s!)

 

I think the concern is not that the US is terrible (it’s not) or that other places are better (a few are, most are not) but rather that things seem to be getting worse in the US.

 

For example, the recent wave of anti-Semitic violence in the States is again reaffirming my choice to move to Switzerland, and despite the election of a Democratic government a quarter of the country seems consumed by conspiracy theories and voting rights/democracy is being further restricted in many states with certain Democratic senators refusing to take action to correct it. Much of Biden’s agenda is DOA in the Senate and the justice department is still defending Trump administration abuses.

 

And of course a third of the country is refusing to vaccinate.

[Winstonm]

I think Adam hits on the truly important theme: the U.S. is in decline. Whether that is the beginning of the end or only a relapse prior to recovery is dependent on new generations. I am not nearly so upbeat as Biden claims to be; but I hope that I should be.

[johnu]

And of course a third of the country is refusing to vaccinate.

 

Of course, in many of the Confederate States that's 2/3 of the population.

[y66]

Why the GOP Just Got Blown Out in a Congressional Race

 

Next year’s gubernatorial election represents a key opportunity for Republicans to prove that they can still compete statewide [in New Mexico]. But the special election result last week became yet another data point for Republicans in the state who think their party is heading in the wrong direction. “This is a district that has definitely changed, but this was embarrassing. It’s embarrassing for Mark. Who’s going to run now? Who are you going to get to step up?”

Who you gonna call?

[pilowsky]

Why wouldn't you get vaccinated? It's a real shot in the arm.

[johnu]

Why the GOP Just Got Blown Out in a Congressional Race

 

 

Who you gonna call?

 

Not that big a deal IMO. Biden won that district by 23% in 2020, Stansbury won by 24%. Statistically it's not significant in a heavily blue district. Just as it wouldn't have been significant if a Republican had easily won in a heavily red district.

[awm]

Not that big a deal IMO. Biden won that district by 23% in 2020, Stansbury won by 24%. Statistically it's not significant in a heavily blue district. Just as it wouldn't have been significant if a Republican had easily won in a heavily red district.

 

The relevance is that special elections like this often favor the “out of power” party significantly; for example special elections from 2017-2018 had a large Democratic swing which carried over into the 2018 midterms. This basically happens because special elections are low turnout affairs and the out if power party is angry about losing the presidency and more enthusiastic to turn out.

 

The fact that Democrats won this by roughly the same margin they won in 2020 suggests that the midterms might go better for them in 2022 than usual for the president’s party. Of course there are many other factors (NM Republican Party seems disfunctional, not a lot of outside spending to prop up either candidate) so it may not be that meaningful.

 

But there’s reason to think that Dems were fired up in 2017-2018 because they hate Trump. Republicans are upset now because “the election was stolen” but this is not so good a motivator for them to vote! It’s hard to drum up hatred for the (elderly, white, male, soft-spoken) Joe Biden.

[cherdano]

There are certainly many countries around the world whose citizens are worse off than those of the US. I’m glad to have grown up in the US rather than in Honduras or Guatemala or Nigeria… or many other places. It’s clear that citizens of those places often feel the same because many of them are desperate to leave!

 

But with that said, there are places I’d rather be from than the US; for example many Scandinavian countries or Switzerland or Canada or the Netherlands. It does seem that in modern times the US has fallen down the list a bit (for example kids now in Germany are better off than Americans in many ways but this was not true when I was born in the 1970s and definitely not true when Ken was born in the 1930s!)

 

I think the concern is not that the US is terrible (it’s not) or that other places are better (a few are, most are not) but rather that things seem to be getting worse in the US.

 

For example, the recent wave of anti-Semitic violence in the States is again reaffirming my choice to move to Switzerland, and despite the election of a Democratic government a quarter of the country seems consumed by conspiracy theories and voting rights/democracy is being further restricted in many states with certain Democratic senators refusing to take action to correct it. Much of Biden’s agenda is DOA in the Senate and the justice department is still defending Trump administration abuses.

 

And of course a third of the country is refusing to vaccinate.

 

This is all true as far as you write about the US, I am just not sure it holds up positively in comparison to Europe. Anti-vax sentiments are strong everywhere except in the UK. [The German equivalent of ACIP likely won't be recommending covid vaccines for 12-17 year olds.] Anti-semitism might not be as prominent in Europe, but it certainly exists, both in the hard right and in the Corbynist left. And in fact part of the reason it is not prominent is that xenophobia and racism is usually targeted at Muslims, in particular Arabs, or African immigrants. Or, for that matter, ask any Chinese person who has lived in Germany or in the US where they feel more comfortable. US might not be a democracy by 2024, but then if you picked a European country at random in 2024, chances aren't small you won't live in a democracy either. Meanwhile, as abysmal as the US public health response was to covid, the same is true for most of Europe, and at least the US acted efficiently to soften the economic damage (it's stimulus was quite a bit larger than what most European countries enacted).

[johnu]

The relevance is that special elections like this often favor the “out of power” party significantly; for example special elections from 2017-2018 had a large Democratic swing which carried over into the 2018 midterms. This basically happens because special elections are low turnout affairs and the out if power party is angry about losing the presidency and more enthusiastic to turn out.

 

The fact that Democrats won this by roughly the same margin they won in 2020 suggests that the midterms might go better for them in 2022 than usual for the president’s party. Of course there are many other factors (NM Republican Party seems disfunctional, not a lot of outside spending to prop up either candidate) so it may not be that meaningful.

 

But there’s reason to think that Dems were fired up in 2017-2018 because they hate Trump. Republicans are upset now because “the election was stolen” but this is not so good a motivator for them to vote! It’s hard to drum up hatred for the (elderly, white, male, soft-spoken) Joe Biden.

 

For the past 6 months, Republican voters have been pounded with the message that the 2020 presidential election was stolen and that their vote doesn't count. Many people, with me towards the top of the list, have demanded that Republicans boycott every future election until the Manchurian President and Grifter in Chief is magically reinstated as president.

 

Further, the Republican voters had a massive turnout for Individual-1 in 2020, and he's been out of the public eye for months due to his social media suspensions and the fact that he isn't in the news daily as president. Also, he wasn't officially on the ballot in New Mexico. To me, the New Mexico Republicans did better than expected, but there's a core base that is always going to vote Republican. That core base isn't going anyplace in 2022, and Republican voter suppression laws will suppress the Democratic vote in future elections.

[pilowsky]

Anti-semitism might not be as prominent in Europe, but it certainly exists,

 

...and your evidence for this is?

Anti-semitism is everywhere.

"Surging" in Germany and elsewhere in Europe.

One example - https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/05/17/europes-worrying-surge-antisemitism

White nationalism and hatred of Jews are everywhere - especially In Europe.

[kenberg]

A few words of a somewhat hopeful note.

 

On Tuesday PBSNewhour had Marget Spellings on explaining why she favored expanded Pell grants instead of free community college. Last night John King was on explaining why he favored free community college.

 

The point is that they had a Republican, Stallings, and a Democrat, King discussing sensible ideas in a civil manner.

 

Spellings thought that the grant would give a student more choice, which I think is right. Upon high school graduation, I got a scholarship and I could use it at any college in Minnesota. I couldn't use it at Stanford or at MIT, but I could use it at Carleton, or Macalester, or at my choice, the University of Minnesota. If there had been community colleges in MN back then,  I would have been very happy that the financial help gave me a choice. I certainly would have chosen the U of M over any CC. Others, some others, would have chosen a CC. Or Macalester. Or...You get the idea.

 

So I favor Spellings's view, based on what I heard.

 

But my real point is that this is the sort of discussion we can hope to have more of. Neither one took to Twitter to explain that the other was an idiot or part of a deep state conspiracy, or at least I hope that they didn't.

 

There was a time when this sort of discussion was the norm. I greatly miss it.

[Winstonm]

A few words of a somewhat hopeful note.

 

On Tuesday PBSNewhour had Marget Spellings on explaining why she favored expanded Pell grants instead of free community college. Last night John King was on explaining why he favored free community college.

 

The point is that they had a Republican, Stallings, and a Democrat, King discussing sensible ideas in a civil manner.

 

Spellings thought that the grant would give a student more choice, which I think is right. Upon high school graduation I got a scholarship and I could use it at any college in Minnesota. I couldn't use it at Stanford r at MIT, but I could use it at Carelton, or Macalester, or, my choice, the University of Minnesota. If there had been community colleges in MN back then, but I would have been very happy that the financial help gave me a choice. I certainly would have chosen the U of M over any CC. Others, some others, would have chosen a CC. Or Macalester. Or...You get the idea.

 

So I favor Spellings's view, based on what I heard.

 

But my real point is that this is the sort of discussion we can hope to have more of. Neither one took to Twitter to explain that the other was an idiot or part of a deep state conspiracy, or at least I hope that they didn't.

 

There was a time when this sort of discussion was the norm. I greatly miss it.

 

And both valid arguments.That too is important, although without pointing out..,you know, Hillary’s e-mails...I can’t see how McConnel can support either idea .

[cherdano]

...and your evidence for this is?

Anti-semitism is everywhere.

"Surging" in Germany and elsewhere in Europe.

One example - https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/05/17/europes-worrying-surge-antisemitism

White nationalism and hatred of Jews are everywhere - especially In Europe.

Just stay the f* out of other people's discussion if you can't read statements in context, ok?

[kenberg]

There are certainly many countries around the world whose citizens are worse off than those of the US. I'm glad to have grown up in the US rather than in Honduras or Guatemala or Nigeria… or many other places. It's clear that citizens of those places often feel the same because many of them are desperate to leave!

 

But with that said, there are places I'd rather be from than the US; for example many Scandinavian countries or Switzerland or Canada or the Netherlands. It does seem that in modern times the US has fallen down the list a bit (for example kids now in Germany are better off than Americans in many ways but this was not true when I was born in the 1970s and definitely not true when Ken was born in the 1930s!)

 

I think the concern is not that the US is terrible (it's not) or that other places are better (a few are, most are not) but rather that things seem to be getting worse in the US.

 

For example, the recent wave of anti-Semitic violence in the States is again reaffirming my choice to move to Switzerland, and despite the election of a Democratic government a quarter of the country seems consumed by conspiracy theories and voting rights/democracy is being further restricted in many states with certain Democratic senators refusing to take action to correct it. Much of Biden's agenda is DOA in the Senate and the justice department is still defending Trump administration abuses.

 

And of course a third of the country is refusing to vaccinate.

 

I'll explore this a bit, it has several aspects.

 

I'm not Jewish but being in math I have known several Jewish mathematicians who departed from the USSR back when it was the USSR. They had to say (I am sure you know) that they were leaving to go to Israel but after they left they were of course free to choose. One who came here was explaining that the US was his first choice, and strongly so.

Would that be the case today? This gets to your discussion of changes in the US over time, and I confess that I do not know the answer. And believe me, you do not have to be Jewish to have substantial concern about the direction we are headed.

 

My father, not Jewish, not educated, happily left Europe behind to come here, as many have done in the past. And now? Well, certainly many who live in Guatemala would rather be in the US. Well, yeah. But I would hope that "better than living in Guatemala" is not the best that can be said about the US.

 

Those of us who believe we are lucky to have been born here can think about how to pass on that luck to others. It is hardly simple. We cannot do everything, we can do something. And "lucky to have been born here" was never intended as "can't imagine anywhere better".

[y66]

Economic nationalism, Biden style by Paul Krugman

 

One thing is clear: If you thought the revival of economic nationalism was purely a Trumpist aberration, you’re wrong. The Biden administration isn’t going to go in for dumb stuff like Trump’s obsession with bilateral trade imbalances, but it isn’t going back to the uncritical embrace of globalization that has characterized much U.S. policy for decades. Will this lead to a new era of trade wars? Probably not — but don’t expect a lot of big trade deals in the years ahead.

[pilowsky]

Or, to put it another way: "It's a good thing I was born in America and not China because I don't speak Chinese."

Or, if that doesn't work for you, try to understand why so many victims of domestic violence don't leave.

[barmar]

My father, not Jewish, not educated, happily left Europe behind to come here, as many have done in the past. And now? Well, certainly many who live in Guatemala would rather be in the US. Well, yeah. But I would hope that "better than living in Guatemala" is not the best that can be said about the US.

I heard one refugee said something like "I would rather be in a US prison than free in" whatever Central American country he was trying to escape from.

Those of us who believe we are lucky to have been born here can think about how to pass on that luck to others. It is hardly simple. We cannot do everything, we can do something. And "lucky to have been born here" was never intended as "can't imagine anywhere better".

Right. If you win $1,000 in the lottery, you should consider yourself pretty lucky. If you win $1,000,000, you're even more lucky.

 

Even poor Americans live far better lives than average citizens in third-world countries. Unless you're homeless, you almost certainly have indoor plumbing, a phone, television, and reasonably modern kitchen appliances. Everyone can get inexpensive food at supermarkets and fast food restaurants. People at our poverty line would be considered rich in the developing world.

 

There may be better places to live than the US, probably quite a few more than a generation or two ago. But there are still far more worse places.

[barmar]

I must be weird as I don’t view luck as having anything to do with it. My parents were both Americans so it would have been odd not to have been born and reared here, though not impossible.

That's a weird way to view it. You were lucky to have been born to parents who lived in the US in the first place. It's not like you had any choice, it just happened to you.

[pilowsky]

Here's a link to the "best country to live in 2021 list". According to the US news - whatever that is.

The best cities - according to CNBC are:

1. Auckland, New Zealand (96.0)
2. Osaka, Japan (94.2)
3. Adelaide, Australia (94.0)
4. Wellington, New Zealand (93.7)
5. Tokyo, Japan (93.7)
6. Perth, Australia (93.3)
7. Zurich, Switzerland (92.8)
8. Geneva, Switzerland (92.5)
9. Melbourne, Australia (92.5)
10. Brisbane, Australia (92.4)

[Winstonm]

That's a weird way to view it. You were lucky to have been born to parents who lived in the US in the first place. It's not like you had any choice, it just happened to you.

I was conceived by two Americans; that is not luck, just biology. Luck has something to do with what happens during your life but is not concerned with residency.

 

In other words, ‘I’ could not have been born anywhere else or it wouldn’t be me. How is that lucky or unlucky?