December 26, 2018

The suburbs abandoned Republicans in 2018, and they might not be coming back.

By Dylan Scott at Vox

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/12/19/18129448/suburbs-midterms-2018-democrats-republicans-congress

"SNIP.....

Suburban voters worry about health care and education. Not immigration.

Suburban voters tend to be better off than the rural Americans traditionally thought of as Trump’s base. Immigration, the White House’s big bet in this election, holds less sway over them as a result.

Because they are often better educated, suburban voters tend to have higher incomes and feel more economically secure. Comstock’s district, one of the biggest swings on election night, is ranked 18th among 435 House districts in voters with a bachelor’s degree; the median income is high too, at $120,000. California’s 45th Congressional District in Orange County, which sent a Democrat to Congress for the first time ever, ranks 12th in bachelor’s degrees and 19th in median income.

Those voters are more comfortable and secure than people in poorer, more rural parts of the country — white working-class places where Trump might have won districts that went for Barack Obama before him. The suburbs don’t respond to Trump’s hardline rhetoric on immigrants and a border wall in the same way rural voters do.

“Threats of jobs going overseas, that sweet spot of Republican talking points with more downscale voters, doesn’t check the box for these suburban voters,” Molly Murphy, another Democratic pollster, said. “It just doesn’t resonate with what their needs and wants are.”

......SNIP"

Seems it is true that the GOP have to get people to vote out of financial anxiety to vote irrationally for them. I wonder how they will spread financial anxiety? Even tougher student loans? Fewer unions?

December 14, 2018

Didn't they also publish the rumour about Ted Cruzes father hanging

with Oswald and killing JFK or something? Right about when Cruz and Trump were really the last two left in the GOP nomination race?

December 8, 2018

I looked up what Jews in Europe who survived WWII felt and they

apparently saw themselves as unlucky. As part of a group of the unlucky they are still connected to the world. Having ptsd myself from being stalked and harrassed I know how much power you take away from evil and give to yourself if you don't see it as human caused. I try to see them under the category of a volcano. And i see myself as unlucky. Likewise the succesful or affluent people I know, knew growing up saw themselves as lucky. They were all liberals. And voted liberal. Except my dad voted for the progressive conservatives a few times back when they were the Progressive Conservatives. When people think they are solely responsible for their own success they are less connected and less happy. And they act that way And the workers notice the elites have pulled up the ladder and are not sharing the increasing wealth. And the workers elect nutbars populist authoritarians like in the US and Europe. Of course we don't want to go back to having an embeded wasp elite with the barriers and predudice. But big picture thinking is needed again and so is going back to seeing people seeing others and themselves as lucky or unlucky depending on their circumstances, so we are all connected to the greater group of us, all in this together, for the first time ever.

December 5, 2018

Great book i am reading breaking down how America votes:

https://twitter.com/bumblebee134/status/1070198116148801537?s=20

No wonder they want to end financial regulations and end consumer protections. No wonder they want students in crippling debt after university. Not to mention destroying unions and not sharing America's growing wealth one bit with the middle and working classes. No wage increases. Predatory financial sales types consulting on people's financial future will come back if we can't stop it. Bet that group to the far extreme of intuitions thinking are the tea party people. And now Trump's base. And probably a few of the people on the left rational end who don't have financial anxiety are voting republican because of lower taxes on their riches. That is quite the electoral plan. Grow the voters at each end of the financial anxiety scale and pick off voters from both ends of the resulting expanded rational intuition scale. And grow both the selfish wealthy and the financial anxious at both those ends to vote republican. Inequality works wonders for the GOP. Of course the scale is for holding other things constant.