Monday, October 25, 2021

For the Record: Make it so, Democratic senators!

 Couldn't help diving back into the economics a bit, because Shapiro thinks he DEVASTATED my girl Senator Warren:

And then I got annoyed by the very distinguished historian Timothy Snyder, retailing a silly formula in place of an argument:


And it's still that much more likely that Trump will be reelected in 2024 than that his thugs will do a more effective version of what they did in January, by putting the pressure on Vice President Harris. Almost any scenario you can imagine is more likely than that. 

We can all imagine, as Steve M has said, the case where Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania all have elected Republican governors in 2022, and new laws on the books allowing the state legislature to overturn the electoral count, alongside Arizona, Texas, Georgia, and Florida, and doing it on grounds of "election fraud", and five or six Supreme Court justices ready to go along with that. Or Trump could simply win in those states, between gerrymandering and vote suppression measures taken in all those states and general discouragement on the part of the Democratic base. Or he could even become popular again—Argentina's Juan Perón, a kind of autogolpe artist when his autocratic behavior (following Evita's death) got him deposed in 1955, made a comeback 18 years later.

I'm really finding little reason left for the usual optimism, and just a tiny bit of the hope alternative, which is completely wrapped up in the current legislative initiative and my 1934 fantasy: if voters really feel the change, if they're getting the roads and bridges and tax credit by next summer, and starting to get the day care and pre-K, and Sanders wins on the glasses and hearing aids and dental work, and if that beautiful billionaire tax (on the annual value increase in their stock portfolios and other assets) comes through, and if Covid feels under control the way it hasn't done in the past few months, it is really possible that Democrats could pick up six or seven Senate seats in the 2022 elections and a stronger majority in the House, kill the filibuster, and finish some of the work they're unable to work through this year, particularly in voting rights (countering Republican suppression efforts) and climate change, 2024 starts to look pretty good.


And Trump is helping, by making Republican candidates look so stupid in their quest for his endorsement! I'm convinced Tim Ryan will win the Ohio Senate seat over the winner of the clown contest between Yalie Hillbilly J.D. Vance and Judaeo-Christianist maniac Josh Mandel, and the reelection chances of Florida governor Ron DeSantis after his terrible mishandling of the pandemic could affect those of Marco Rubio as Rubio helplessly gets Trumpier and Trumpier. Retiring less-Trumpy Richard Burr in North Carolina and Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania if are very likely to be replaced by Democrats if the Republican candidates are as bad as the Ohio ones, and so is vile Ron Johnson in Wisconsin.

Iff (that's "if and only if" in the language of symbolic logic) Democrats and Democrat-leaners (or "swing voters"—the concept is coming back into fashion at the moment) feel there's a reason for voting. Make it so, Democratic senators! It's really up to you!

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