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naraburns  nihil supernum  3yr ago (text post)   Edited 3yr ago   20311 thread views

USA Election Day 2022 Megathread

Tuesday November 8, 2022 is Election Day in the United States of America. In addition to Congressional "midterms" at the federal level, many state governors and other more local offices are up for grabs. Given how things shook out over Election Day 2020, things could get a little crazy.

...or, perhaps, not! But here's the Megathread for if they do. Talk about your local concerns, your national predictions, your suspicions re: election fraud and interference, how you plan to vote, anything election related is welcome here. Culture War thread rules apply, with the addition of Small-Scale Questions and election-related "Bare Links" allowed in this thread only (unfortunately, there will not be a subthread repository due to current technical limitations).

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Just another reason why primaries are a bit of a mess. Strong party elites who can clear the field of detritus straightforwardly improve their party's chance of winning, but what little control the GOP once had over the process has evaporated post 2016.

One of the great ironies of US politics is that the Republican party has always always been far more democratic in its operation than the Democrats, with the GOP having relatively little say it's constituent parties' operations compared to the power that the Democratic National Committee wields over it's state and municipal-level subcommittees.

I'm not sure there was that much difference between them before 2016. The DNC is by no means a kingmaker either, and the experience with Sanders' campaigns has only served to weaken it further. Of course, both parties are astoundingly weak compared to peer countries'.

As someone who's actually gotten to peak behind the curtain I'm going to have to disagree.

On what point? That 2016 was a significant inflection point or that centralised control under the dems were not also weak (but perhaps stronger than today). Your linked post largely agrees on the importance of 2016 (even if painting it as the apotheosis of an ongoing trend) and doesn't address symmetries or lack thereof.

On what point?

First, that this is a recent development (IE from 2016 on). Second, that the DNC is "by no means a kingmaker".

I agree that it didn't come out of the blue on 2016, though I'd consider the view that it is largely a reaction to 2012 to be an agreement that it is actually quite recent.

For all the hay made of The Party Decides that became fodder for Getting It Wrong come 2016, to actually drop the conspiratorial lens on all the DNC leaks paints a picture of an astoundingly ineffectual institution.

I don't think it's a reaction to 2012 though because the relative decentralization of the GOP dates back to at least Coolidge in the 1920s

apologies for misreading your reddit post then

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