Oh. There was another primary election yesterday, in New Hampshire. Given that the voters had an unappealing choice between two unpleasant people, it was predictable, I think, that the Republicans would choose the very worst.
Let’s stop for a second and appreciate the gravity of this moment. The Jan. 6 Capitol riot occurred three years ago, and the first chance the Republican Party had to rebuke this atrocity in a presidential election resulted in their endorsing it, via nominating the man responsible for inciting said riot.
The Republican party must be crushed.
with damage to the original Latin:
“GOP napalma est”
Well, OK, no surprise.
It was surprising though and somewhat encouraging how close the race in NH actually was.
Trump 54.5% to Haley 43.2%.
Trump may have his rabid fan base of white racists but there is a large segment of the GOP that don’t like him all that much.
It could have been much worse.
Enthusiasm for DeSantis, who had already given up anyway, was really low at 0.7%.
I guess his national platform of beating up on a cartoon mouse, Trans children, and Drag Queens didn’t go over very well. None of that is on most people’s lists of serious problems the USA has to deal with.
Haley did better than expected due to independents sick of Trump. That’s a good sign because it means they’re likely to either vote for Biden or not vote at all. Remember, you can’t win a primary without Trump but you can’t win a general with him.
god told them to support trump. and also buy crytocurrency.
Really hope you guys here who think the Orange Rapist will lose the general election turn out to be correct. Quite a few people seemed pretty sure the Republicans had shot themselves in both feet when he ran in 2016…
Sure, the situation is different than back then, with his incompetence, criminal behaviour and fascist goals being even more open, but damn there are a lot of people out there who honestly think these are admirable qualities.
The Trumpists in the US and all the fascist parties here in Europe getting stronger makes me think about praying to Cuthulhu, to be eaten first.
I have no expectations for the next elections.
I still don’t understand why he won in 2016 and why he ran a close election with Biden after doing a terrible job of running the USA, notably a bad job handling the Covid-19 virus pandemic, which ended up killing 1.4 million Americans.
I don’t understand why he is going to be the GOP candidate again either despite more and more obvious signs of age related cognitive decline.
I don’t know.
Sometimes it seems that every once in while the lemmings have to get together and run over a cliff.
@6:
I’ve heard that’s actually not true. When talking about lemmings at least, with our species it seems to be a typical behaviour.
Here’s Robert Reich’s brief take on the NH primary vote for Trump: Trump’s poor showing in New Hampshire.
Make no mistake, the pab is just the current manifestation of the entire regressive party and voters that support him. If he loses or gets incarcerated, the regressive nominee will still be the representation of the misogynistic, pro-corporate, pro-1%, anti-union, anti-education climate denying authoritarians. Do not let your guard down.
An abnormally large number of non-Republicans voted in the primary. There were likely many, many liberals voting Haley in yet another goofy, floundering attempt to stop Trump.
Given that, Trump has much more than half of the Republicans voting for him. It’s a “mandate.”
On the positive side, Trump will probably help Biden keep his promise to be a single term President. Politicians keeping promises is good, isn’t it?
Only 3 % of registered voters in that state voted for the serial sexual assaulter (SSAT) .
OT: The GOP controlled Ohio legislature overrode the governor’s veto to a bill banning transgender treatment. Here’s the WaPo story if you want to read it (paywall).
drew @ #10 — I’m not sure how “probably” it is that Trump will win if he’s up against Biden. But if he does, it’s only good if you consider a would-be dictator a good thing. Trump is one of the few people I’ve ever wished dead.
From the Australian perspective it seems amazing that you don’t at least have a meaningful quorum before a vote is valid.
Trump got a fraction of a fraction of the registered republican voters in each state.
How is that democracy at all?
DanDare, those primaries/caucuses are for the parties to select who should be their candidate for President.
They are not the election itself. Different system entirely.
And it’s democratic in the sense that people affiliated with the party (or in this case, unaffiliated with the opposing party in what’s effectively a two-party system) get so select who the party will nominate as presidential candidate. In oz, party officials make that determination, which arguably is less democratic.
as for the 2016 vote the question is how much of the vote then was anti Obama reaction and anti Clinton result of years and years of negativity from the republicans and how much was really pro Trump?
@5 mordred:
The people paying attention and not blinded by partisan view knew what was happening. The Republicans shot themselves in the foot but so did the Democrats. Both sides nominated historically unpopular candidates at the same time.
JM,
And yet, one side will win by being less unpopular. That’s how it goes.
(And I note I am amused when people bring up 2016 without also bringing 2020 up; first time was a fluke and Trump being a novelty as a polly, second time he was a known quantity and thus lost bigly)
@ ^ Or one side – usually th Repug one will “win” by being more unpopular but having the rigged Electorial College intheir favour.
@6 raven:
Two reasons:
1. His followers are in a cult and he is the cult leader.
2. He is actually charismatic and the way he speaks makes him sound authentic. Obviously, you will need to turn off your brain for his charisma to work but a lot of Republicans were already doing that anyway.
Reminder – something I’ve posted before here but still for those who haven’t yet seen :
Plus :
In addition to :
Source : https://www.huffpost.com/entry/its-time-to-end-the-electoral-college_b_12891764
Not sure how the updated maths works for this year but I expect it is still much the same. Maybe worse if anything?
It immensely astonishes me that people in the populated leading states of the USA like California put up with this injustice and unfairness – and then there’s the absurd over-importance given the voters in the first states to hold primaries eg Iowa & New Hampshire..
SevoR, you wrote “the rigged Electorial College”.
Be aware it’s not “rigged”, it’s what it is. How the system there works. It’s in the Constitution.
As per Wikipedia:
I tire of foreigners like us wanking on about whether or not it’s fair.
Again, it is what it is. Like non-compulsory voting. Like first-past-the-post.
All its features are what they are.
You gotta remember the USA is basically like 50 normal countries grouped in a federation.
United, in some sense, but still their own thing.
That’s their system.
@22 To be fair, much like universal health care, immigration reform, and quite a few other examples of albatrosses that we know we need to address in the US, but which certain politicians think are just “too useful” to ever actually fix, instead of lyin.. err, I mean campaigning on, but never actually doing, there has been talk, and talk, and more talk, about getting rid of the freaking electoral college. Unlike ranked voting though, which each state could do, and a stupid small number have, its in the constitution, so would require going through a mad process of getting the whole fed to actually do it, then all the states to ratify. Given that we even have existing freaking law, like women’s rights, in the category of, “Well, most states did, and follow it, so its sort of ratified, but there are some hold outs…”, it would not surprise me in the least if, even if we did try to actually end it, some state would drag their heels for decades before sighing and going, “Ok, yeah, I guess we have to follow that too now.”, instead of immediately freaking ratifying the change to the constitution to end it.
Kagehi @ 23, well we only require 3/4 of states to ratify a Constitutional amendment. Indeed, we’ve a number of amendments pending ratification, some since 1789 and most amendments since 1979 have expiration dates on their ratification.
So, an pro-slavery amendment, the Corwin amendment remains pending that would render states’ “domestic institutions” immune to Constitutional amendments remains pending, but amendments prohibiting child labor and for equal rights expired.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amendments_to_the_Constitution_of_the_United_States#Synopsis_of_each_unratified_amendment
Just as well, the Titles of Nobility amendment would’ve stripped citizenship from those accepting a title of nobility, or who accepts any present, pension, office or emolument from a foreign power without the consent of Congress. Hence, one could literally lose citizenship under that amendment for the temerity of accepting a Nobel Prize, should Congress not approve of the prize in advance.
I’ll have to take issue with something John said, regarding 50 normal nations. Perhaps, a qualification of 50 abnormal nations…?
@22. John Morales : Be aware it’s not “rigged”, it’s what it is.
Its rigged because of what it is – an anti-democratic abomination that makes American votes unequal as the article I linked in #21 points out. It gives small rural Republican states an unfair advantage and disadvantages and disempowers and reduces the votes of those in more densely populated blue states. That gives the wishes and choices of the poorly educated and willfully ignorant a vastly greater disproportionate say over the better educated and the more reasonable and more moderate (slight but still) majority of its peoples. It gives those who express and exhibit the worst aspects of USA culture an unfair advantage over those who exhibit and express its best aspects.
(Metaphorical better angels vs worse devils with the better angels having their hands tied becoz of the EC.)
That hurts them. It harms the USA and it harms the rest of us becoz, well, US of A. is US of A and global context.
Also I loathe that fatalistic “It is what it is” cliche which is basically saying “Yeah, its shit but put up with it and don’t discuss it anymore.”” It often excuses things that are badly unfair, broken and wrong and is saying “Don’t bother trying to point out flaws and change things for the better.
I tire of American politics having such huge impact on our own country including critically when we go to war and have whole generations of people killed and traumatised and suffering. When the USA says “Jump!” Australian pollies tend to say “How high?” and that tends to get a lot of our people (as well many other ahtions and their own) killed for very little if any positives. Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and more. The USA shapes the world. It is a rogue, argubly failed or heading towards being failed superpower So the flaws in its systems don’t just affect it but the rest of the world too. here too. Everywhere globally just about too. It has huge political and cultural and economic and military power and enough nuclear WMDs to destroy the world as we know it many times over. It wants “full spectrum dominance” or at least some of its politicans do and if it wants that then I don’t think its unreasonable for the rest of us to say : “Hey, guys do you wanna, y’know, at least have a better, fairer, more democratic governance system that’s less likely to result in you being led by total racist, extremist, dangerous to others and the world we all share douchebags?”
Oh and the USoA always claims they are the world’s best and leading and key example of Democracy which just ain’t so but if they’re going to claim that, well, they should expect people to point out that it isn’t and why ait isn’t and suggest ways it might become better.
If the Americans want to lead the world even just one hemisphere of it and / or the “free”” parts thereof then I don’t think its unfair for them to listen to and think about what those they wish to lead have to say about that and them and how they might do things ever better. Which I say as someone who is actually a fan of the United States and many of its people and a lot of its culture and ideals.
^ Clarifying that’s a “slight but still” majority of Americans that I meant to say not slightly more moderate in their politics / views generally. IOW. The “slight but still” refers tothe demographics NOT the opinions. Most Americans are a lot more liberal (in the USA sense of that word) than the noisy and excessively, undemocratically powerfully miniority of authoritarian Trump kultists and Christianists make them seem. I think and sure hope.
@26 “…are a lot more liberal…” Thems fighting words…
Oh, sorry, was accidentally channeling half the flipping people I work with. And they are very confused people. The sort that, on one hand, don’t “care” about gays being gay, but are terrified of gays, “stealing marriage” from them, and a whole long list of other mad things. Pretty much 90% of them, if they didn’t watch Fox, and gravitate to freaking right wing propaganda sites exclusively to get their news, would side with Democrats on every issue, with the only “problem” being how to fix the problems, not if they where problems in the first place. But they let themselves be fed bullshit 24/7 by these people, and echo it back to each other, to the point where if the GOP decided that the “problem” was that orange and blue had the wrong names, they would freaking stand there and both tell you about how a) their favorite color is blue, point right at their blue car, then in the next sentence start rambling about how the names of the colors where a liberal conspiracy someone is forcing on them. Sure, its not “mental illness”, but it freaking looks and sounds like they need professional help from a psychologist to regain a grasp on reality.
As for the other 10%… lets just say that they have “reasons”, ranging from their religion, to other social connections, which demand they continue to utterly fail to grasp the inconsistencies, unrealities and/or absurdities of some of their positions – case in point, the one nitwit that insists that because they know a “nurse”, who has repeated the false covid claims about hospitals faking results for money, would rather ignore both how freaking co-morbidity information is presented as, “this contributed to their death, and if they hadn’t had it they would probably still be alive”, as well as the very principle that a freaking nurse is not a doctor, never mind a coroner, to insist that, “They lied about what killed people!” As always, those who have an invested interest in not understanding the truth will never accept it. I would add to that as well – those who have an invested interest in not telling the whole truth will never do so. Put these people in the same room, never mind political party, and you get the current freaking MAGA movement. Oh, I suppose you should also add “social media” to that too, since it seems like 100% of the MAGA republicans function as they do based on, “How many likes did I get this week?”, and kind of like a onlyfans artist, the only thing that counts is how many people show up to watch, tweet, and/or throw money at them (even if all they do is sit on their ass with a camera pointed a them, and never say/do/play anything). I get the temptation of making money, and getting famous for doing absolutely nothing, other than lying to the people that voted for you, but… seriously, I want to unsubscribe. lol