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Goodguy  1d ago (text post)   Edited 1d ago   8100 thread views

Midterms Megathread

Cause otherwise midterms discussion will be scattered around a bunch of separate Culture War thread posts. And it's nice to have more off-the-cuff rapid reactions in a dedicated megathread.

The first thing I've noticed so far: if the exit polls are correct, Americans are very pessimistic about AI.

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Good post. Trump II has been a colossal, pathetic waste of what was really a historic opportunity for the American right. I’d add that this is the exact same error the Biden admin committed, taking a mandate for “stabilize the government and focus on things like physical infrastructure and protecting the economy” as an opportunity to go Full Woke, then getting thrown out four years later. Trump’s own personal… idiosyncrasies… just happened to turn it to 11 this time around and speedrun the effect.

Good post. Trump II has been a colossal, pathetic waste of what was really a historic opportunity for the American righ

Unfortunately, that opportunity only existed because of him in the first place, so you can't have one without the other.

Indeed. He deserves credit for running a great campaign and creating that remarkable political moment… and then promptly pissing it all away.

I’ve never been a Trump fan by any means (I voted Dem-Dem-Libertarian for president in 2016-20-24) but I actually had some optimism after he won in 2024, and I certainly was enjoying the cultural vibe shift. “The man himself may be a narcissistic idiot”, I thought, “but the movement around him is vibrant and has attracted people who seem to sincerely care about some of the real problems facing the country. He’ll probably do some stupid shit but this is a great chance to make some positive changes too.” The end result has been, while not 100% bad, below my lowest expectations. Maximal burning of political capital for minimal results.

You don’t think that a Romney Republican would have wiped the floor with Harris/Biden? Trump is a unique candidate to be sure in motivating the base, but he also won against uniquely unlikeable candidates in Clinton and Harris.

Romney Republicans had zero chance against Clinton or Harris

edit links with past discussions about this topic

No, I think any other Republican candidate gets beat in both those elections, though narrowly. Trump boosted Republican voting by low-propensity voters far beyond what it had previously and had major downballot coattails. Given demographic trends, I think it's unlikely any non-populist Republicans can win national elections. ETA: Obviously, if Hillary won the first time, Biden and probably Harris never happens anyways, it would be 8 years of Clinton

any other Republican candidate gets beat in both those elections, though narrowly

The question is poorly conceived. A Romney Republican isn't going to get nominated in 2020 or 2024 in a world in which Trump wins in 2016, even if he dies of diet coke poisoning in his first term. The GOP had already been running hot with a populist revolt when Trump won the nomination, and that only intensified over the course of the first term. If Trump dies of health complications or just decides he's bored of being president, the likely successor is someone like Ted Cruz cosplaying as Trump. And that would go very poorly - the hardcore Trumpists, at least so far, seem to accept no substitutes, while the people who disdain Trump are not going to be drawn back by that messaging.

On the other hand, if Trump just... doesn't run in 2016, I think the likely nominees (Cruz or Rubio, neither of whom are really Romney Republicans, but close enough) handily beat HRC. Clinton was a WEAK candidate who would have lost to almost any credible Republican after eight years of a Democratic presidency on sheer thermostatic backlash if nothing else.

Trump boosted Republican voting by low-propensity voters far beyond what it had previously and had major downballot coattails.

He also repels a lot of traditionally centrist demographics like suburban professionals and has likely calcified a massive amount of winnable votes as near-permanent Democrats. And the suburban professionals vote every year.

I don't agree at all. Obama was still very popular in 2015 (for a lame duck President) and Clinton was the designated successor for his political juggernaut of a coalition. She had experience in the outgoing admin, national politics, and Presidential administration, and had a huge base of institutional DNC support. Bill was still widely liked. She was at least as well positioned as HW Bush was after Reagan.

He also repels a lot of traditionally centrist demographics like suburban professionals and has likely calcified a massive amount of winnable votes as near-permanent Democrats. And the suburban professionals vote every year.

They had already been lost to the Obama coalition and weren't coming back. Certainly not for Cruz or Rubio.

And how would said Romney Republican get into a position to do that? Nikki Haley tried and lost, fair and square.

She lost in the primary to Trump so I’m slightly confused how she would not be a potential counterfactual that could have been the candidate if not for Trump “creating the opportunity”. We would be talking a more traditional style of campaign and policy, probably.

Your response brushed aside the contention that pusher_robot had, that the race against Harris/Biden was only because Trump created the opportunity in the first place. You'd have to establish some mechanism for him exiting the race after his first term. He couldn't and didn't serve just one term, because he's Trump, and he doesn't work like that.

As for my opinion, probably a Romney Republican really could have beat Harris/Biden, and I was really hoping that Nikki Haley would get the nomination.

All it would have taken was him deciding he was too old and lazy and just wanted to golf all day or something. This does not seem that crazy. I do not agree at all that Dem victory would have been inevitable if not for the low propensity voters Trump got support from.

I still don’t understand this “creating the opportunity” idea. The race was always going to be closely contested Democrat vs Republican, in any of 2016, 2020 or 2024.

All it would have taken was him deciding he was too old and lazy and just wanted to golf all day or something.

I am moderately convinced that "leaving the interns in charge" was precisely the main issue with the Biden administration. Voters elected an old man expecting old-school policies and got, well, whatever that was.

I'm not completely convinced that isn't an issue for the current administration, either.

That's the very sad part. Trump created an option to stop America from turning into California and then to Europe, and then he himself - in close cooperation with the GOP - made sure this option was destroyed. Nobody outside Trump on the Republican team is even close to being able to do the same. So people that want change have an option between having no hope at all and having their hopes up and then immediately crushed.

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