https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...s-could-be-in-the-minority-for-years-to-come/ Why down-ballot Democrats could be in the minority for years to come Some results are still coming in, but it looks as if in 2017, Republicans will continue to control up to 69 of 99 state legislative chambers. And controlling state legislative chambers is one of the keys to controlling government. Once a decade, in most states, lawmakers get to draw the very lines that elect state and congressional lawmakers. ... Democrats are trying to outmaneuver Republicans by creating a redistricting-focused group — led by former U.S. attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr., backed by Obama and filled with some of the smartest minds in Democratic down-ballot politics — dedicated to winning back seats by 2020. (In 2014, Democrats launched Advantage 2020, a super PAC that hopes to raise $70 million to play exclusively in states where redistricting is on the line.) But their efforts may come too late for this next redistricting battle. They have got only two election cycles — 2018, 2020 — to catch up before it is time to redraw the maps for the next 10 years. And Democrats are in such a big hole that it may take even more time to rebuild their majorities in state chambers, which means they could be locked out of the redistricting process in some key states for another decade. The next U.S. Senate map is brutal for Democrats November was a tough election cycle for Senate Republicans, who were defending 24 of the 34 seats up for grabs, many in states that Obama won twice. It will basically be the reverse in 2018. Democrats are defending 10 seats in states that Trump won, sometimes by double-digit margins. Midterms are normally kind to the party not in power, but this map shows serious head winds for Democrats. Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.), Joe Donnelly (Ind.), Claire McCaskill (Mo.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.) and Jon Tester (Mont.) are running for reelection in states that voted for Trump over Clinton by 19 points or more. (In West Virginia, Trump won by 42 points.) If these Democratic-held seats and a few others fall to Republicans in 2018, it's possible the GOP's 52-seat majority becomes a 60-seat supermajority. At the very least, it looks likely Republicans will pick up a few seats. More bad news for Democrats: Some political analysts think that if Republicans turn seats in red or red-leaning states, such as West Virginia, Indiana and Missouri, those seats could stay Republican for a long time. Especially if 2016's presidential election is any indication.
http://www.richmond.com/opinion/our...cle_9035dbef-a567-5438-9600-6a01fa510654.html Then there’s a second school of thought, which holds that liberals don’t need to learn to understand the typical Trump voter — they already do. As The New Yorker put it, “The unexpected election of Trump is suspected to owe debts to both niche extremism and rampant misinformation.” This is the effete way to call someone a brain-dead bigot. “Niche extremism” means the alt-right, which conveniently held a convention in Washington last weekend and about which the media have been telling an endless series of ghost stories. The alt-right is a neo-fascist, white-identity movement whose members like to throw around Nazi-era terms like lugenpresse when they aren’t menacing Jews, Muslims, Latinos, and other minorities. The movement is dangerous and needs watching; as C.S. Lewis put it in The Chronicles of Narnia, when there’s a wasp in the room you want to know where it is. But attributing Trump’s election to the alt-right is like giving credit for Barack Obama’s re-election to Rhode Island: Yes, it helped — but much bigger forces were in play. The “misinformation” meme is just plain funny. Real journalists are suddenly fascinated by the ostensible problem of fake news — writing front-page profiles of its purveyors, “view-with-alarm” editorials and self-important condemnations and whatnot. But as explained at greater length in this column on Wednesday, fake news is not a sudden epidemic and it is not at all new. Only the direction it comes from is. For the liberal establishment, however, the fake-news meme is a dangerous self-deception. Behind the notion that “misinformation” elected Donald Trump lies this assumption: People wouldn’t have voted against Hillary Clinton if they knew the truth. This is a seductive delusion not unlike the one conservatives tell themselves when they lose elections. A candidate could stand to the right of Attila the Hun and a certain segment of the American right would insist that he lost because he just wasn’t conservative enough. Conservatism is never at fault, in this reading — only the inadequate application of it is. (Ideologues are all alike: Somewhere out there is the world’s last Communist true believer, plaintively insisting that real Communism never actually failed because it was never actually tried.) Six months of fake news stories about Hillary Clinton didn’t doom her election chances; two decades of real news stories did. But the fake-news meme provides Democrats with an excuse to avoid self-reflection; it clears Clinton (and them) of any responsibility for the loss. Unfortunately for Democrats, assuming there are no lessons to be learned only increases the odds that Democrats will nominate another flawed candidate next time.
I'm a registered Libertarian, so I really don't give a shit about either of these parties, but I do worry about single party rule, no matter who is in charge. The tyranny of the majority ultimately leads to rampant abuses of power, corruption and an inevitable backlash often in the form of violent civil unrest. My only real hope is that both of these parties eat themselves alive and people wake up to the fact that picking a team and then letting it do your thinking for you is a bad bet and should be rejected out of hand.
Yeah. Read a lot of different viewpoints, study history, have real conversations with people you don't agree with without being dismissive or insulting. Be skeptical of any grandiose claims made by leaders that" only they can save you," but keep an open mind so you can be persuaded by real evidence and don't get emotionally invested in tribal thinking.
Well, I really did ask a question, perhaps you did offer an alternative somewhere, but I guess not. I asked because in our representative republican system, all we can do is pick our team. I fail to get the meaning of your message when you advocate picking a Libertarian (team) vs a Republican (team) or Democrat (team). My opinions is we would all be better off if the choices were between Libertarians and Republicans. At least chances are both team would operate within the boundaries of the Constitution instead of seeking power so the court can be manipulated to ignore the Constitution or find rights not documented in it.
"Picking a team", IMO, equates to voting along party lines at all times, irrespective of the quality of the candidates offered up. Preferable to that would be to actually evaluate the candidate offerings and select, on an individual basis, the one you feel best able to discharge the office sought, regardless of political affiliation.
This next term determines the direction of the next election and who controls things...I think the adults in the room may very well blow it up and rebuild from an independent platform and hopefully govt will trim some election fat off the campaign to begin with....even the playing field for a change and do what most countries do and get it over with in a couple of months....might be refreshing to not have an elected president coming into office exhausted and stressed from a year and a half long marathon of anger and conflict.
I am afraid I find that naive to find a Democrat the best person. Sure it can be, but voting for him/her just adds to their team. They come out on the wrong side of each issue about 90% of the time compared to my view.
This is good and there's a lot of what I mentioned above in my prescription above (whether you agree with anything being said or not, this is closer to how we should be having conversations with one another, IMO):
