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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   36180 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022

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What in the fresh hell, Pennsylvania?

Has the Motte discussed John Fetterman? If so, I missed it... I admit there are enough races I'm watching across the country that it is hard to keep track of them all. But in case you, too, have missed it, John Fetterman is the Democratic candidate for the seat of outgoing Senator Pat Toomey, one of 7 Republican senators who voted to convict Donald Trump in his second impeachment circus. Seven days before winning the Primary, John Fetterman had a stroke.

I am not a medical doctor. For all I know, Fetterman will make a full recovery, eventually. But as of right now, the guy is one step above monosyllabic. Which made tonight's debate absolutely excruciating to watch. Over the course of the night, PredictIt shifted ten cents in favor of Fetterman's opponent, the Wizard of Mehmet Oz. And yet most media accounts of the debate are steadfastly reporting only the substance, such as it was. No surprise--the media has been carrying water for Fetterman for weeks. But like... really? You can't report a single sentence saying, "Fetterman was clearly not up to the task." Watching people hit Twitter to unironically praise him for "doing really well, for a stroke victim!" is shocking. The level of partisanship required to vote for Fetterman at this point simply boggles the mind. On the flip side, #Festerman was briefly trending on Twitter before (I presume) someone elbowed their censors.

Of course, we can trust our outspoken President to just tell it like it is. Perhaps President Biden understands better than anyone, given the possibility that he, too, might simply be functioning as a sock puppet for the Democratic establishment. The counterargument that criticizing Fetterman's cognition is some kind of "ableism" is just hollow. This is not a man who can do the job of Senator, at least not right now, and to pretend otherwise just seems exploitative to me. (And calling that a "bad faith" argument seems willfully ignorant. The man can barely speak, that's much more than an "auditory processing" problem.)

Of course, voting has been open for a month in Pennsylvania, and the state has already declared its intention to turn a blind eye to a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling as it counts undated ballots. So in addition to potentially electing someone with the mental faculties of a young child to high federal office, Pennsylvania is also setting up a judicial crisis for its election process.

And all because Oz is, well, a Trumpist. If this is what midterms look like, 2024 is going to be... just something else. I can't even imagine. It's simply too much.

The level of partisanship required to vote for Fetterman at this point simply boggles the mind.

In general Congressional elections, most people don't vote for candidates. They vote to give their party control of the House or Senate. Showing up and voting the party line is 95% of the job. Fetterman demonstrated that he can do that; anything more is gravy.

Same deal with Oz. He's a garbage candidate, but a vote for him is a vote to block a Democratic trifecta, and that's literally all I care about in this election. If I lived in Pennsylvania, I'd vote for him.

This would be my stance on Herschel Walker if I lived in Georgia. The man is clearly a moron, clearly immoral, and clearly lies on a regular basis. I wouldn't want him to be part of my life in any way whatsoever. Would that nudge me over to preferring Warnock? Nah.

Still, having people so clearly unfit for office (or managing a Dairy Queen) in the Senate speaks volumes about American institutional collapse.

Yep been in fights on Reddit on this. I think most people get it that your just voting for Senate control and candidate quality isn’t that important. There’s always one person who wants to argue how bad the individual candidate is.

It’s not the old legislature where legislatures had more freedom to vote.

How does having poor quality Senators speak to “institutional collapse” - doesn’t it imply our institution’ quality is high that an idiot can run them? It reminds me of Buffetts quotes that you want to own businesses that still produce even if an idiot is in charge because some day an idiot will be in charge.

The Senate realistically needs about 5-10 competent people per side to set the agenda and then they just need warm bodies.

doesn’t it imply our institution’ quality is high that an idiot can run them?

No, it implies that the institution isn't where the power, control, and prestige actually sits, because smart people want power, control, and prestige, and smart people outcompete morons (most of the time).

How does having poor quality Senators speak to “institutional collapse” - doesn’t it imply our institution’ quality is high that an idiot can run them? It reminds me of Buffetts quotes that you want to own businesses that still produce even if an idiot is in charge because some day an idiot will be in charge.

I'd agree, if I thought we were actually maintaining functional institutions. I don't see this as idiots being capable of keeping the lights on, I see it as the lights flickering while the new maintenance guys don't know the first thing about electricity.

Of course, that will depend on where you think the United States is in the cycle of national success and failure.

I think it corrodes the facade that reasoned discourse happens 'behind the scenes' where Senators talk with each other, bounce ideas, debate, and coordinate efforts to pass legislation and actually decide the course of the nation.

I think that's what most people imagine when they claim that a given politician 'represents' them in Congress, not JUST their public-facing role (which, admittedly, is what gets the most media attention).

Lets just tear the mask off and send 80 people with Locked-In Syndrome to congress since if they can blink, they can communicate a 'yes/no' answer to proposed legislation.

The Senate realistically needs about 5-10 competent people per side to set the agenda and then they just need warm bodies.

The Senate is a bit different. The length of their terms and the rules of the chamber itself gives individual Senators a lot of independence to attempt to shape policy. The entire run of bipartisan legislation this term more or less comes down to a group of centrist/compromise oriented Senators getting fed up with leadership and creating a legislative agenda independently.

Not all Senators are actually going to be policy innovators, but a Westminster style parliamentary chamber it is not.

In general Congressional elections, most people don't vote for candidates.

I'm sure many people do not vote for candidates, but I'm not sure "most" holds up in this case. Remember that about 25% of voters haven't got a party at all, and many partisan voters do not vote straight-ticket. It's not unusual for states to elect, say, a Republican governor and a Democratic senator. So even if most people do vote straight-ticket, enough people don't that the qualifications of individual candidates, beyond partisan affiliation, clearly makes a difference.

25% of voters haven't got a party at all,

I think "independents" are overrated. In my area, there's a lot of so-called "independents" who would never vote for a Republican. It seems in other areas there are party-line Republican "independents" as well. They don't want to think of themselves as party loyalists so they don't register with the party, but they are.

There's some interesting efforts at vote splitting from Shapiro, the Democrat currently favored to win the PA governor's race. Ads on crime and personal story that have a strong undertone of "Even if you're turning away from Fetterman, still vote for Shapiro!"

Yeah... and as others have pointed out, Shapiro would then be in a position to appoint Fetterman's replacement (until the next general election) should Fetterman win and opt out. We live in interesting times.

This sounds like an incredibly simple fix for the Dems winning PA senate seat.

  1. Fetterman declares he’s opting out if he and Shapiro wins.

  2. It’s unlikely Fetterman wins if Shapiro loses but then just declares he will 100% vote with leadership

At this point I don’t think Fetterman could do any worse.

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