Roe vs Wade overturned

[Farm Boy]

Annoyingly Peter Meijer (moderate who voted to impeach Trump) narrowly lost to John Gibbs (Trump loyalist and election denier) by 51.9 to 48.1%. I guess we will never know for sure, but that extra boost the Dems gave by running adverts to help Gibbs may have gotten him over the finish line. If the 'more beatable' Gibbs goes on to win in November the Dems are going to look mighty silly and I am going to be mighty annoyed!

More directly related to Roe vs Wade, it was interesting to note that on the generic ballot the GOP have dropped from a close to high of +2.3 just before the decision down to +0.1 since the decision.

Generic ballot Polls

The latest political polls and polling averages from FiveThirtyEight.

projects.fivethirtyeight.com

The GOP will likely win the house comfortably in November (and maybe the senate), but Roe vs Wade being overturned, plus the Republican voters predilection for voting out moderate and replacing them with election deniers and MAGA fanatics will likely slightly blunt the red wave.

They're just being who they've always been.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Annoyingly Peter Meijer (moderate who voted to impeach Trump) narrowly lost to John Gibbs (Trump loyalist and election denier) by 51.9 to 48.1%. I guess we will never know for sure, but that extra boost the Dems gave by running adverts to help Gibbs may have gotten him over the finish line. If the 'more beatable' Gibbs goes on to win in November the Dems are going to look mighty silly and I am going to be mighty annoyed!

More directly related to Roe vs Wade, it was interesting to note that on the generic ballot the GOP have dropped from a close to high of +2.3 just before the decision down to +0.1 since the decision.

Generic ballot Polls

The latest political polls and polling averages from FiveThirtyEight.

projects.fivethirtyeight.com

The GOP will likely win the house comfortably in November (and maybe the senate), but Roe vs Wade being overturned, plus the Republican voters predilection for voting out moderate and replacing them with election deniers and MAGA fanatics will likely slightly blunt the red wave.

I'm not convinced that running hardcore Trump supporters hurts the Republicans at all, let alone enough to cost them in Congressional races. Trump got the second most votes in American history in 2020. Why democrats think supporting/being endorsed by Trump is a negative is a little bit zany to me . Trump energizes and motivates Republican voters, and the 2020 congressional election seemed to demonstrate that. The strategy of funding/boosting/promoting Trumpist candidates based on an expectation that they will be easier to defeat just seems dumb.

 

[El_Machinae]

Edit for clarity, I'm still rambling about the idea of voting in the primary, and the game theory around the idea.


They're just different scales. Unless your entire contribution is going to be a total of 40 minutes or whatever it takes to register and vote in a primary, it's not like it's an either/or. I didn't advise 'spending time' recruiting others to do the same, I said it's what I'd recommend. Efficacy per unit effort matters, though, like the decision to vote locally or use the same time to work and donate the proceeds elsewhere. I think the only presumption I'm making here is a vote against Trump is more valuable than any vote in the Democratic Party.

Won't disagree that it's scuzzy. Anonymous game theory doesn't care about scuzzy.

 

[Farm Boy]

I can only assume they're funding the candidates they want to see in office. Which is why one funds candidates. Utterly faithless.

Bleh. But sure, if you want to actually vote against all these guys we complain about here, I could use some non assclowny company.

 

[Hygro]

They're just different scales. Unless your entire contribution is going to be a total of 40 minutes or whatever it takes to register and vote in a primary, it's not like it's an either/or. I didn't advise 'spending time' recruiting others to do the same, I said it's what I'd recommend. Efficacy per unit effort matters, though, like the decision to vote locally or use the same time to work and donate the proceeds elsewhere. I think the only presumption I'm making here is a vote against Trump is more valuable than any vote in the Democratic Party.

Won't disagree that it's scuzzy. Anonymous game theory doesn't care about scuzzy.

I really don't think it works. Like, I really really don't think it works.

Edit: and aside from safeguarding the Republic, Trump was bad because he was a Republican appointing Republicans to be Republicans. "National Republicans" to make room for the few of you who hold the GOP in a more complex regard.

But also rofl "National Republicans" has a dirty ring to it.

 

[El_Machinae]

Yeah, that's fair.

Edit for clarity, I'm still rambling about the idea of voting in the primary, and the game theory around the idea.

The way I figure, you get two votes. One primary, one general. The primary vote is more powerful, so if you're tight on resources, use that one. If you're tight on time, donate to the more important race.

In general, we constantly waffle on whether we're voting for a candidate or against a candidate, and make this choice through sucked teeth every time we do. The outcome you want is either the candidate you want or (at the very least) not the one you don't want. It seems scuzzy, but it's only scuzzy in the same way that walking away from an underwater mortgage seems scuzzy. But all votes are either for your preferred candidate or against the one you don't want. After that, it's allocation. The Dems are weird upthread for pushing for the (R) candidate they most wanted to beat. But voting in a primary to vote against the candidate you'd least like to win is just as honest as doing so in the general. Voting against Trump is honest if you don't want Trump.

I'd also recommend doing a great deal more than just voting. Like I've said, I'd even literally ship t-shirts to gerrymandered states.

(Also, it was weird reading a post from someone articulate that voting was the most useless political contribution and then see later recommendation on how to vote. It's like a pharmacologist watching smokers argue about whether eating more broccoli was better than eating more cauliflower )

 

[Takhisis]

I'm not convinced that running hardcore Trump supporters hurts the Republicans at all, let alone enough to cost them in Congressional races. Trump got the second most votes in American history in 2020. Why democrats think supporting/being endorsed by Trump is a negative is a little bit zany to me . Trump energizes and motivates Republican voters, and the 2020 congressional election seemed to demonstrate that. The strategy of funding/boosting/promoting Trumpist candidates based on an expectation that they will be easier to defeat just seems dumb.

What you're missing is that rejection of Trump was a factor in a lot of people showing up to vote and thus giving Biden more votes than Trump got.

I still agree that it's a self-defeating strategy and highly risky to aim for such a polarised environment, in which you ensure that nobody on the other side will want to help you.
Do notice that all of the US' international rivals, whatever else they might do, are still not taking the US head-on militarily, because they don't want the US to actually be, well, united.

 

[Farm Boy]

Well, the people of Kansas showed up. With both houses of Congress and the White House, is anybody going to put forward a serious federal bill on this Most Important Issue? Or are they going to sit around like **** bags, whining and whipping for voter turnout for thier cushyass jobs, funding the opposition(derp, literally treason!!1! so I'm told), and generally just being well, (I guess treasonous)**** bags? Why is Biden having to sign executive orders on this? It's a democracy, make compromises and attempt to govern you cowards.

We can wait for Republicans to start trying to do it when they land the House and maybe the Senate. I'm sort of fine with that.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

Well, the people of Kansas showed up. With both houses of Congress and the White House, is anybody going to put forward a serious federal bill on this Most Important Issue? Or are they going to sit around like **** bags, whining and whipping for voter turnout for thier cushyass jobs, funding the opposition(derp, literally treason!!1! so I'm told), and generally just being well, (I guess treasonous)**** bags? Why is Biden having to sign executive orders on this? It's a democracy, make compromises and attempt to govern you cowards.

We can wait for Republicans to start trying to do it when they land the House and maybe the Senate. I'm sort of fine with that.

the aristocrats

 

[Farm Boy]

Aristocrats would govern for good or for ill. This is something... lesser than that.

 

[Hygro]

Well, the people of Kansas showed up. With both houses of Congress and the White House, is anybody going to put forward a serious federal bill on this Most Important Issue? Or are they going to sit around like **** bags, whining and whipping for voter turnout for thier cushyass jobs, funding the opposition(derp, literally treason!!1! so I'm told), and generally just being well, (I guess treasonous)**** bags? Why is Biden having to sign executive orders on this? It's a democracy, make compromises and attempt to govern you cowards.

We can wait for Republicans to start trying to do it when they land the House and maybe the Senate. I'm sort of fine with that.

Yeah I’m with you you can’t be funding supporters of the capitol attack.

 

[Gorbles]

Why is Biden having to sign executive orders on this? It's a democracy, make compromises and attempt to govern you cowards.

We can wait for Republicans to start trying to do it when they land the House and maybe the Senate. I'm sort of fine with that.

Republicans literally already did this under Trump. You don't have to wait. It already happened. Why only get mad when one party does it?

Oh, right. Because of the topic. I know you have no love for Trump. Its the topic that's setting you off.

 

[Lexicus]

Why democrats think supporting/being endorsed by Trump is a negative is a little bit zany to me

In Congressional elections it heavily depends on the breakdown of the district, which is kind of like saying the extent to which the district is gerrymandered. In some of the districts that don't have a strong Republican bias you have to figure going with the lunatic candidates hurts them.

I mean, you do if you believe in the "responsible center" or whatever, which I don't, but...yeah. I do think it's dependent on the district.

 

[Farm Boy]

Republicans literally already did this under Trump. You don't have to wait. It already happened. Why only get mad when one party does it?

Oh, right. Because of the topic. I know you have no love for Trump. Its the topic that's setting you off.

They've sold me out to Trump! They are Trump now. Anything that's self-interested. That they'd kill their young(the topic) for their faithlessness? In keeping. The men, at any rate.

It's who. they. are.

 

[Arwon]

Possibly partially spurred by the dark goings on in the US, our govt has finally gotten around to making abortions free in the ACT. Some excellent news, out of pocket fees were in the several hundreds of dollars range.

I believe this may be an Australian first, though am not 100% on that. I think it may be free in SA where it's possibly only done in public hospitals.

Next up, trying to make surgical abortion actually available locally after 16 weeks, so people don't have to spend money travelling to Sydney to access that. We don't have gestation limit laws, but the practical lack of availability has similar affects.

 

[Sommerswerd]

What you're missing is that rejection of Trump was a factor in a lot of people showing up to vote and thus giving Biden more votes than Trump got.

I still agree that it's a self-defeating strategy and highly risky to aim for such a polarised environment, in which you ensure that nobody on the other side will want to help you.
Do notice that all of the US' international rivals, whatever else they might do, are still not taking the US head-on militarily, because they don't want the US to actually be, well, united.

One thing that also gets missed is how much of an impact mail in voting had on the 2020 election. There's no question in my mind that the number of eligible voters in the US who don't want Trump in office is substantially greater than the number who do want him in office. At the same time, I'm expecting that Republicans aren't going to get blindsided/surprised by their disadvantage in mail in voting next time around. Measures have already been taken to diminish and/or nullify the factors that caused alot of anti-Trump votes to be counted.

So even assuming that the aversion to Trump getting back in office is as strong as it was in 2020, which I regard as unlikely, for numerous reasons, I'm not as confident that as many of those folks against Trump are actually going to be able to, a) get their vote cast/counted and/or b) get the results of their election certified and/or upheld.

As it relates to the thread topic, I don't think the Roe v. Wade issue alone is going to be enough to get Biden re-elected, let alone keep Democrats from losing the House and/or Senate. It's a longshot gamble for the Democrats to be depending on negative reactions over the loss of abortion rights to carry the day.

 

[Sommerswerd]

In Congressional elections it heavily depends on the breakdown of the district, which is kind of like saying the extent to which the district is gerrymandered. In some of the districts that don't have a strong Republican bias you have to figure going with the lunatic candidates hurts them.

I mean, you do if you believe in the "responsible center" or whatever, which I don't, but...yeah. I do think it's dependent on the district.

You're right that in a voting district that isn't competitive, the Trump factor probably does not mean much either way. My thought is that in competitive races, the motivational factor of Trump on Republican voters will at least cancel out any de-motivational impact on anti-Trump Republican voters + motivational impact on Democratic voters, especially given the voter suppression/nullification measures being put into place by Republicans.

 

[Samson]

Real world case of tech companies supporting the police in criminal prosecutions of abortion cases

When local Nebraska police came knocking in June – before Roe v Wade was officially overturned – Facebook handed the user data of a mother and daughter facing criminal charges for allegedly carrying out an illegal abortion. Private messages between the two discussing how to obtain abortion pills were given to police by Facebook, according to The Lincoln Journal Star. The 17-year-old, reports say, was more than 20 weeks pregnant. In Nebraska, abortions are banned after 20 weeks of pregnancy. The teenager is now being tried as an adult.​

​

The affidavit in support of the search warrant reveals that a detective with the Norfolk police department asked Facebook for extensive user information for the teen’s mother, Jessica Burgess, dating back to 15 April 2022 including, “profile contact information, wall postings, and friend listing, with Facebook IDs”. The warrant and its details were first published by Motherboard. Authorities also requested all photos Burgess uploaded and was tagged in and her private messages from April to the day the warrant was issued.​

​

Burgess was charged with two additional felonies after Madison county authorities served the search warrant, according to The Lincoln Journal Star. Documents show Burgess is charged with hiding a dead human body, performing an abortion as a non-licensed doctor and performing an abortion at more than 20 weeks. The latter two are considered felonies in Nebraska.​

​

“Both of these warrants were originally accompanied by non-disclosure orders, which prevented us from sharing any information about them. The orders have now been lifted,” said Meta spokesman Dave Arnold.​

​

The warrant

 

[Arwon]

They're building a surveillance state theocracy in the rectangular states

 

[Hygro]

They're building a surveillance state theocracy in the rectangular states

We of the concave hexagon object!