Walker? Oz? Lake? Vance? Mastriano? DeSantis? That ANY of these vile people has

[Atticus]

a CHANCE of winning their election contest is a thought that I confess my mind cannot accommodate.

I know what "the polls" say and there was a time when I would pretty much accept their prognostications as "what is likely". But, just one of the gaping wounds the Trump cult has inflicted on our democracy is our distrust of nearly every traditional source of information. When we've endured 4 years of listening to a pathological liar in the Oval Office, hearing about polls designed to produce a pre-ordained result and having cable TV insist daily that "apples are bananas", we are vulnerable to message manipulation funded by faceless billionaires who own more private jets than the average American has bathrooms.

None of the people named above should poll in double digits---PERIOD. I recall a time---not really that long ago---when every one of them would have been booed off of any stage they dared to mount and spout their undemocratic UNAMERICAN poison. But, there they are---apparently: within the margin of error running against competent decent intelligent candidates.

I choose to trust my gut and conclude that the clear majority of Americans are repulsed by the comparative few flying the Trump banner and eager to destroy our democracy. The question that keeps me awake is simply "Will enough of the majority VOTE or will the multi-millions being spent on discouraging, dividing and suppressing keep them home next Tuesday?"

Do all you can, ok?

[halfulglas]

1. The trouble with trusting my gut is that I can't trust it any longer.

My gut told me Hillary would win. I could not comprehend there were enough people to vote in Trump. Even in 2020, voting Trump out, there were enough people who trusted Republicans to vote for them in the down ballot, senator, congressperson, local officials. How could they trust that party to vote for so many who "liked" these people in the local races enough to vote for them but voting Trump out because they could see his incompetence in handling Covid, and some of these have forgotten already how awful he was. Some people are repulsed but are still a bit entertained by the show. We have done a terrible job in civic education for the last 50 or so years. I am so discouraged by the people who seem to have no idea how our government works, who is supposed to do which job and their responsibility to vote if they are eligible.

[FoxNewsSucks]

20. "My gut told me Hillary would win"

Regardless of the way in which she was cheated out of the presidency, in my mind someone with 3 million more votes is the winner.

Everyone expected her to win, the successful cheating and manipulation was a surprise to MF45 also.

And we all suffered for it.

[Joinfortmill]

2. Me too.

[uponit7771]

3. K&R, When people vote for someone who openly and often claims they'll hurt them then there's

... no doubt something wrong.

[jaxexpat]

4. Hungry for sanity in politics?

Eat the rich! A field dressed bilionaire would feed a family of four through a nuclear winter.

[Raster]

6. We could pack the entrance to their luxury bunker with good smoking wood...

... you know, Mesquite in Texas or a nice Alder in the Pacific Northwest, or a lovely Oak for the Silicon Valley set!

#SmokeTheRich and then #EatTheRich.

Pick your billionaire chow carefully, most of them are so full of shit that it could be an unpleasant culinary experience.

[jaxexpat]

7. Hickory, somewhat green, was always the....

preferred in my neck of the woods. The coals last a long while for an even smoke.

Mesquite is great. A distinctive aroma which reemerges in a special flavor sure to please even the most discriminating pirate cannibalists.

Alder and oak are beyond my epicurial experience.

[rubbersole]

17. A palm tree in Florida...

Not sure it would work for smoking...but if not, just stick it up a billionaire's ass.

[halfulglas]

24. Except it would still have the guts. Eww.

[3catwoman3]

5. "...athought...my mind cannot accomodate."

Ain't that the truth.

To this day, even though we lived thru 4 years of TFG being in office, when I see his ugly face of hear his voice (before I can reach the mute button), part of my mind is still incredulous, and asks, "Seriously? This jackass was really president?"

[Cosmocat]

8. I learned a harsh less in 2010

The polling showed that the Rs were going to have a big win, and I just could not see how the country would flip back to them after they had lied it into Iraq, blew up the economy and were running like lunatics against THEIR version of health car reform.

They actually won by an even greater margin, the biggest mid term win in our lives.

That cemented it to me that this country is indeed that stupid, and will never stop indulging right wing lunacy.

I do what I can, but am resigned to the fact that even if we barely hold on to the Senate, it will be just another last gasp for American democracy.

We care, but the fact is the majority of this country either full on wants a chrisofascist authoritarian idiocracy, or does not even remotely grasp how dark it will be.

[Dr. T]

9. In a solid blood red community near me,

Mukwonago, Wi., there were a bunch of flag waving zealots with posters near the center of town. Much to my chagrin, the posters featured woman's rights and global climate concerns. It took guts to stand there, knowing that unstable, heavily armed, radial rightwing conspiracy whack jobs are thick in that town. I gave them a big fist pump. They cheered.

[onecaliberal]

10. Right there with you.

K&R

[Kablooie]

11. Cultists don't follow logic or reason.

They are mindless zombies that only do what the cult wants them to.
That’s what we are up against now.

[Fritz Walter]

12. Indeed!

It wasn’t all that long ago that merely suggesting cutting Medicare and Social Security would be political suicide. The metaphor I have used here is a “third-rail” — which in (electric-powered) railroad and other railed transportation carries very high voltage. Stepping on it leads to instant death. Or used to.

The ultra wealthy — including and especially big business — have been grooming their hard-of-thinking followers to follow them blindly. And that’s what I see here.

We need to fight back with the facts. And Right now. Six days until the polls close.

[nuxvomica]

13. Could any of them complete their term if elected?

I can see them involved in serial scandals owing to their behavior so far but should they manage to get by, we are nonetheless subject to ongoing clown theatrics that distract us from what's important.

[FoxNewsSucks]

19. "clown theatrics that distract us"

That's their purpose, maybe their primary purpose. Along with signing what is put in front of them, voting the way they're told and appointing judges from the lists they're given.

[Old Crank]

14. Truly stupefying

I spent HS years in Az. Goldwater country and the GOP wasn't anywhere near the level of these guy in crazy.
I mean there were a few. My dad worked with a guy (a minuteman) who carried big weapons and ammo in his car, just in case.

[markodochartaigh]

15. There are separate issues here

I grew up gay in the reddest part of Texas a half century ago. At that time a lot of people whose grandparents had probably happily taken their children to lynching parties or told stories about how they had massacred Native Americans were trying not to say the quiet part out loud. And I think that the majority of corporate Republicans and Democrats in the big cities on the coasts gradually forgot that the quiet part even existed. But the problem with cancer is that it doesn't go away if you ignore it. Those candidates might have "been booed off" any political stage with national exposure, but in churches and on local political stages in many areas those candidates would have been celebrated.

As for the polls, the new issue is that younger people are increasingly probably less represented simply because they don't answer the calls of the pollsters and the pollsters haven't figured a way around that yet. But also this election there are apparently a lot of low quality polls being aggregated the last few days into the mix. Perhaps this is so that Republicans can have one more talking point to discredit the election results. Like so many other government programs that they get their hands on, the Republicans malign it, suck it dry, run it into the ground, and then dance on its grave.

[JohnnyRingo]

16. I was just thinking that before I clicked this link.

They were showing the virtual tie between Walker and Warnock, Oz and Fetterman on the news, and I was wondering how either republican can still be in the running.

Maybe there's something wrong with me that I don't see it.

[Thunderbeast]

18. My faith in the American voter has been shattered more times than not.

Our election process favors money, power, and bigotry. We have never overcome the evil compromises of our original Constitution. Protection of slavery was the price paid for 13 colonies to unite against King George.

Even after a bloody Civil War, the descendents of plantation owners and their northern sympathizers weild their inherited birthright to claim dominance for white Protestant males.

The elections of Nixon, Reagan, both Bush's and Trump make me question just how much I have in common with the values of "my fellow Americans".

[FoxNewsSucks]

21. It's disgusting.

I still am convinced that 2010 was a trial run. The teabaggers. . . rallies. . . candidates like Christina "Teenage Witch" O'Donnell and Sharon "2nd Amendment Solutions" Angle. . .

The Koch empire and every rightwing organization working with them was seeing what they could get away with, and calibrating how to steal enough to get control.

Culminating with the election of crackpots like Boobert, Greene, Cawthorn and far too many more. Along with putting Loser45 in office once and damn near doing it again despite a 7+million vote loss.

It's deliberate, and pretty much going according to plan so far.

[AncientOfDays]

22. Heads I win, ...

... tails you lose.

If their polls end up being somewhat accurate, they use as a selling point
If their polls end up being wrong, they feed the voter fraud, election rigged narrative.

Strikes me the possibility of these right-wing pollsters could have a database of conservative voters and deliberately skew their results while appearing to be random.

[Backseat Driver]

23. I know, right?

For me, researching even some of the local issues are problematic insofar as long-term ramifications because the ballot language these days often seems manipulative, a yes to say no or a no to say yes, etc...Why would one vote to give away the power to choose now or at some future time to unknown others "when the iron is hot"? Who determines when that time has come or who might ultimately benefit from lots more than just a few cents per kwh? Then, to opt out, one's name needs to published in a publicly available database? (the issue: alternative energy aggregation--negotiated community costs).

As for candidates, my parents would wink at kids so bold as to ask who they supported with their votes and why - it was some sort of private secret not to be shared with anyone, especially children, even more specifically perhaps, female children. I'm only a 3rd generation white female American; on my father's side, my "German" grandparents arrived on America's shores from Germany and Prussia before women could vote. What shaped their move here isn't known nor ever discussed. I wasn't around when women's suffrage began or was ratified nor when the abolition of slavery was challenged and changed our constitution. I'd like to think I had a great public education in the ideals of democracy; unfortunately, they failed to teach the mythologies of the country's actual gaslighting politics. What would my parents and grandparents have wanted to stay buried in silence or through the discourse of their unspoken politics? Hmmmm...

I remain horrified by the character of most, if not all, of the GOPs leaders and candidates during my lifetime, and both the new and older horde of "willingly ignorant" that follow along without a critical thought that the GOP is a "protection racket" of lies and corruption that will never, ever lift them from the traumas that shaped them nor the fear that grips their faulty mental processes.

The GOP no longer believes in democracy, justice, civility, negotiation or solutions to problematic issues of daily living in America. They do believe in wealth, in fascist power, and in tyranny over whomever hasn't yet attained wealth, health, nor acquired the power that once moved mountains and that made America like no other country on earth in which to live a better life! That process wasn't, of course, without some growing pains. However, it's clear THAT iron is evidently hot enough and, while we still can make choices by democratic ballot, not by suppressive obstruction, intimidation, and coup, - VOTE!

[Skittles]

25. it makes me sick

so many repukes are not only not likable, they have NO REDEEMING QUALITIES WHATSOEVER - they're just fucking DISGUSTING - it's hard to understand the people who vote for these pieces of shit