Isn't that almost impossible? AFAIK the votes were approximately split 3 ways across 2 republicans and 1 democrat. That's the only reason why the democratic candidate was even ahead.
No, there are 2 senate races, and each had a Republican and a Democrat as top two vote-getters. In one race, the Republican came on top and in the other the Democrat did, but neither winner reached the 50% threshold required by state law, so both races are going to runoff.
In the race the Democrat was leading, the Republican candidate had a history of minor (local) scandals, and only held the seat because she was appointed to it.
In the special election, the top 3 candidates (two republicans and one democrat) got ~80% of the vote. There were a lot of other democratic candidates that got a total of ~15% of the vote, so it's plausible that Warnock (the democratic candidate in the runoff) could win.
Well that was the case pre-2016 election. 2017-2020 Democrats did very well in special elections. It remains to be seen what happens to democratic enthusiasm under a Biden presidency.
As a former republican who is afraid of the direction of political dialog in this country. This is the best outcome I could have hoped for. In my option the dismal showing for dems in the congress and many state legislatures and governors and trumps loss is a repudiation for the toxic rhetoric from both groups.
The problem is, I have yet to see any good faith efforts to govern on the part of Republicans in the past decade. Sure, Democrats make missteps all the time, and I'm more than happy to campaign with you against specific things that the Democrats have done over the years, but I can't think of a single good thing that Republicans have done in my adult lifetime. Since Newt Gingrich, it seems that Republican's primary purpose in life is to grab more power - the country be damned. I'm more that willing to vote for a Republican that isn't just a party shill, and has reasonable views on things like gay rights, abortion, the war on drugs, military spending, healthcare, etc, but I have yet to see even a single one. Romney, maybe? But not really, he's still a hyper partisan, except in like 2 things.
> I'm more that willing to vote for a Republican that isn't just a party shill, and has reasonable views on things like gay rights, abortion, the war on drugs, military spending, healthcare, etc, but I have yet to see even a single one.
It sounds like what you're saying is that you'll vote for any Republican that leans Democrat.
> I have yet to see any good faith efforts to govern on the part of Republicans
That sounds super partisan.
> Republican's primary purpose in life is to grab more power
At this point, I've heard both parties say that about the other.
Democrats introduce legislation designed to, they think, help Americans. Republicans block that legislation.
The one major piece of legislation passed and signed into law in the past 4 years by Republicans, who controlled all of the government for 2 of those years, was a giant, unfunded, tax break for the rich. That is it.
Sam Harris did a really fascinating podcast with David Frum, a long time conservative writer and assistant George Bush.
Frum basically says that after the Obama election, republican strategists sat down to decide on whether to shift the platform to changing demographics in America or to double down and declare all out war. They chose the latter.
I think a potential factor is the democrats' anti-gun rhetoric. It's explicitly designed to cater to white suburban moms, i.e. those who think guns are bad and scary and threaten their children. This in spite of the fact that twice as many children die from accidents involving glass tabletops than firearms accidents [0]. Add to that the recent surge in new minority gun owners due to safety concerns [1], the long, racist history of gun control [2] from army/navy laws to those targeting "saturday-night specials", and the recent push to lock certain weapons behind a $200 tax and an arduous process [3] and I think it makes for a big factor in Trump's increased black and hispanic support. This is in spite of the fact that Trump is absolutely terrible as far as gun rights go, but the democrats for some reason insist on being worse. Running on a platform of repealing the NFA, the GCA, and the FOPA, or even getting rid of the Hughes amendment, would probably yield massive dividends.
Do you think there's room for a middle ground on this issue? Can America handle a national discussion on gun rights, health care access, bullying, and mental health simultaneously? Gun laws cut through all of those issues deeply.
I've seen and heard quite a few democrats addressing the need to do better Spanish outreach due to the spread of pro trump propaganda on social media. That mistake has been identified and is being addressed. I have not heard that the black community went big for Trump. Can you cite some sources?
The majority of both went to Biden, but Trump made gains over what he got in 2016 which was better than Romney in 2012. So there appears to be a path to improve minority showing for Republicans, depending on the Republican.
>As a former republican who is afraid of the direction of political dialog in this country.
Specifically what are you afraid of?
>In my option the dismal showing for dems in the congress and many state legislatures and governors and trumps loss is a repudiation for the toxic rhetoric from both groups.
Can you give me some examples of the toxic rhetoric you see from congressional democrats?
I think the media and pundits on both sides have constructed mental pictures of the "enemy" in the minds of naive voters, which don't accurately describe the people in the opposing camps. During the Bush and Obama administrations if you did a study where you asked GOP voters to describe how they think DEM voters would describe there political views and vis-versa there was a much bigger gap between what Democrats thought Republicans believed and what Republicans themselves reported then the other way around. Although I have not seen data from the trump era I suspect that the discrepancy would be in both higher in both comparisons.
Republicans directly oppose all of those things, because they are, at their core, bad people who are only interested in their personal wellbeing, not of what is best for this country.
Most likely hold them to account for enabling poor policy choices by avoiding giving them any position of power in the future, discouraging anyone from voting for them, etc.
But her statement was rather vague and didn't clearly state at all what the purpose of her list would be, so our own biases about her and what she represents would likely color our feelings about what she might do with such a list, no?
>Is anyone archiving these Trump sycophants for when they try to downplay or deny their complicity in the future? I foresee decent probability of many deleted Tweets, writings, photos in the future
The concern is that these enablers will not have their credibility tarnished for their support of trump.
Are you okay with whitewashing?
She wants to prevent Trump's (former?) supporters from whitewashing their actions so that we, Royal we, can face the problems trump exposed.
You're spinning what is essentially "screenshotting tweets" to sound a lot more nefarious than it is. It seems pretty clear to me that she's talking about accountability. It's not about hunting down poor innocent conservatives in their homes, it's making sure that people involved in the administration can't distance themselves from their actions.
Which part needs recovery? The pandemic, of course, but if it were up to democrats the shops would’ve been closed and businesses bankrupt more than by trying to keep stuff open.
Minimum wages have increased, stock market is doing fine, unemployment rate up to SARS-CoV-2 has been lowest, under Obama the national debt grew by 25 (debt-to-gdp) from 40-65 in his first 3 years (!) where Trump only 3 (76-79), people on food stamps lowered drastically in his 3rd year... if you mean that the democrats need to recover from prosperous years by riuning everything, you got it right...