It looks a lot like 2022 will be a problem for Democrats to maintain at least the House where Republicans seem best able to retake the House while the Senate seems open to either or. And, there’s conjecture of Trump seeking a boost in the EC Votes.
“His critics accuse him of gaslighting voters, claiming he and his GOP loyalists are planning a 2024 heist.
As he teases another White House bid, Trump on Sunday taunted Democrats in a statement, claiming — without providing evidence — “they cannot argue that facts in states including Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, New Hampshire, and others such as New Mexico, where the Democrat Secretary of State changed the voting laws without legislative approval just prior to the Election, making it virtually impossible for the Republican presidential candidate to win.”” (qtd)
In other words, Trump is maintaining 2020 election cycle was stolen and points towards Democratic changes in voting laws without legislation prior to the election cycle. Meanwhile the author is analyzing an EC heist, he believes Trump’s weapon in 2024.
“Analysts and former officials warn of a scenario during a tight 2024 vote count in which a senior state official in Georgia, or perhaps Arizona or Wisconsin, refuses to certify the Democratic nominee’s apparent Electoral College win there.”
If a Presidential candidate fails to achieve 270 EC votes, the vote goes to Congress. In other words, they analyze a Republican majority will result in a President Trump second term in office. I’m not so sure about that as there are plenty of anti Trump sentiments within Congress in simple distancing in the cases of ardent supporters as Greene and per say Mace who had a Twitter spat more on that via McCarthy later.
“Georgia’s legislature voted along party lines to remove the secretary of state, who resisted Trump’s pleas to “find votes” last November, from the process in favor of a hand-picked official.
Texas’ Republican governor signed into law a GOP-written measure that targets election officials and poll workers with penalties while installing measures that pare voting access.
“Nineteen states have passed laws making it harder to vote. Many of these changes targeted early voting and absentee ballots,” which typically favor Democrats, according to Elaine Kamarck of Brookings.” (qtd)
On to McCarthy,
McCarthy faces headaches from far-right House GOP
“The House minority leader and California Republican is facing a barrage of criticism from far-right lawmakers skeptical of his conservative credentials and loyalty to former President Trump.
Vocal GOP Trump critics like Reps. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.) and Nancy Mace (S.C.), are pressing McCarthy to take a tougher approach with a small band of conservative rabble-rousers whose incendiary comments and antics have caused unnecessary distractions for the GOP.
Meanwhile, Democrats are accusing McCarthy of being spineless, showing a blind fealty to Trump and posing a threat to democracy.”
In other words, McCarthy is focused on his ambitions to be Speaker, and he’s from California that isn’t very Trump friendly. Democrats probably knows linking McCarthy to Trump is a solid bet that it’ll help them in California but not in other States such as articles as this one
“The centrist think tank Third Way sought out Bryan Stryker to help determine why a state that elected President Biden by a 10-point margin in 2020 elected a Republican governor just a year later. His focus groups targeted Virginia voters who supported Biden, but voted or strongly considered voting for Republican Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin.”
“He noted, however, that the $1.2 trillion legislation “didn’t overcome their opinions that we have spent the last year infighting and careening from crisis to crisis.”
He also told the Times in an interview published Thursday that voters view the party as disproportionately focused on social issues rather than the economy, even though financial matters are top of mind for Democratic voters of all backgrounds.”
““They aren’t hearing solutions from us, they don’t think we’re doing anything to address the big issues (lack of workers + rising prices), and in general they just aren’t seeing the smoother ride they thought they’d get after having voted out Trump,” Stryker wrote in the memo.” (qtd)
In other words, Democrat’s focus on social issues are distracting from the supply chain crisis, inflation, and the resulting unhappiness of the direction of the country that spells trouble for Democrats in 2022 and likely 2024.
“The Democratic pollster also wrote in his memo that the party’s strategy in Virginia to tie Youngkin to Trump “fell flat with these voters.” He told the Times that participants in the focus group “kind of laughed at that approach” because they disliked Trump as a person — not his policies — and didn’t connect him to Youngkin, who tended to conduct himself much differently.”
In other words, Democrats might find success linking a candidate to Trump in a solid Blue State as California and potentially New York, but it wouldn’t work in a Red State as Texas or battleground State as Virginia.
Mitch McConnell’s great Trumpian miscalculation
“Most policies are rife with trade-offs. They have an intended outcome and some regrettable side-effects. Our recent studies suggest that political polarization in the United States runs so deep that it leads partisans to see the other side’s intended outcome as a ruse and the side effects as the real intention. In other words, Democrats and Republicans not only disagree about policy matters; they believe the other party’s agenda is intentionally designed to do harm.”
As I’ve written before, if it’s systematic, it cannot be considered unintended. Why should I trust any politician anyway?
“We call this tendency the partisan trade-off bias, and it applies to both parties. To a Democrat, the purpose of an environmental policy that reduces carbon emissions, for example, is to preserve the environment, and a corresponding loss of coal mining jobs is an unfortunate side effect. But a Republican, our research finds, might look at that same policy and see a plot to eradicate jobs in the fossil fuels industry. Meanwhile, a Democrat might presume a Republican push to lower corporate tax rates is more about helping the wealthy and hurting the poor than fueling economic growth.”
“Of course, skepticism about motives is sometimes warranted.”
I argue that the moment someone runs for appointed or elected office that they cease to be trusted. I expect them to not only persuade me but to provide me a pro and con data of their policy objectives. I spend a lot of my time reading outlets, think tanks, and etc, so I am as informed as I possibly can on any given topic of interest. I don’t trust rhetoric at all; I want to see the hard data.
“We documented the partisan trade-off bias across five studies using online samples of a total of 1,236 participants, a mix of Republicans and Democrats. As an example, in one of our studies participants were randomly assigned to view a set of policy trade-offs, some proposed by Republicans and some proposed by Democrats. The policies dealt with taxes, environmental regulation, gun control and voting rights. Participants then rated how intentional they perceived the negative side effects of each policy to be. The more participants identified with the Republican Party, the more intentional they perceived the side effects of the Democratic-proposed policies to be, and the more participants identified with the Democratic Party, the more intentional they perceived the side effects of Republican-proposed policies to be.”
Trust in Congress and President are in the lows; in fact, many people consider Congress run by a bunch of felons around my neck of the woods.
“In a nutshell, our studies showed that the negative side effects associated with different policy trade-offs are not interpreted by opponents as side effects at all, but as intended goals of the policy.”
Systematic unintended consequences cannot be unintended. It’s plain and simple. If it was a true compromise; instead of, consensus building the legislation would seek to mitigate those unintended consequences.
“This means that rather than focusing only on the main goal of a policy, they need to communicate clearly to the public what is intentional and what is a regrettable side-effect of that goal.”
You’ll have to do better than that as it remains attempting to promote a pro instead of focusing on minimizing the cons of a given policy. Why should I trust a politician? Why should anyone really?
“Politicians need to make it clear that they are speaking with and listening to those likely to be affected by a policy’s side effects. In the context of climate policy, a politician might visit coal miners in West Virginia or oil and gas workers in Texas while in the process of formulating a plan to reduce emissions, for example. The more widely the politician can advertise these efforts — across multiple types of media and across the ideological spectrum — the better.”
Ultimately, I expect more out of people running, appointed, or elected than just providing lip service to areas that are negatively impacted by policies; I expect to see attempts to minimize the damage done. What I see is systematic unintended consequences, it’s thus cannot be unintended. And that goes for Democrats and Republicans.
2022 and 2024 election cycles will continue as they always have peaceful verbal wars that people determine the victor. I suspect that I’m not the only one who sees them as distrusted officials who really should be doing more than just providing lip service to their rivals and dissidents and focused on their supporters at best. At worst, they focus on themselves and their political careers.
theproblematicmy2cents 