Tom Rinaldo
Tom Rinaldo's JournalI remember when Bernie was almost mocked here for putting such faith in young voters
The often repeated retort was that young voters can't be counted on to actually vote, so making a major effort to court their support was ultimately a fool's errand, with that time better spent on GOTV efforts with more reliable elements of the Democratic Party base.
Yes there are more reliable elements of the Democratic Party base who should never be taken for granted, who Democrats need to keep doing outreach to. Yes "young voters" tend to turn out at a lower rate than do "old voters." But young voters, particularly those below 30, tend to break for Democrats at a dramatic rate, usually even more so than do women in general. And that tends to be true in just about every state in the nation. What is even more important though is this: Youth votes are, so to speak, "a growth industry". You can only turn to traditional Democratic voter groups so many times and still hope to extract significantly more votes from them.
The same can't be said for young voters though. Their potential support at the ballot box is far from fully tapped, and the efforts made by Bernie Sanders, among others, to increase their voter turnout have been succeeding even while their participation rate still lags behind other age groups. Rather than see that as a glass half empty, it is more than a glass half full. The potential clearly exists for Democrats to win even greater margins of victory as ever more youth votes get counted.
I am singling out Bernie Sanders for praise here not because he is the only one who has championed young voters. Of course he isn't. But Bernie has been a consistent high profile and highly engaged advocate and campaigner for young votes for at least seven years now, and over that time their ranks have swelled significantly, to the Democratic Party's great benefit. His appeal for a democratic "revolution" has always been pitched for younger ears, and it resonated with large numbers of young voters whose support now is critical to Democrats of all center left persuasions succeeding.
Oh the irony. Looks like the MAGA rump in the Senate just might bring down McConnell
They are bitter about Democrats retaining Senate control and might depose McConnell in a hissy fit over it. McConnell of course was smart enough to realize that Trump forced a bunch of loser candidates on Republicans in Senate contests that could have won Republicans control of the Senate. He also has been one of the most effective (toward ill ends) Senate leaders from either party in history. Time to get rid of him, Senate Republicans, you are on a streak. Why stop now?
Where can Democrats go on the offensive nationally in terns of winning Presidential electoral votes?
Having both Florida and Ohio shift red after being seen as the quintessential swing states for so long hurts. Iowa seems to have moved from purple to red as did Missouri before it. They all seem lost to us now in anything other than a major Blue Wave election year. Texas may yet evolve into a purple state, probably it will within a decade or so, but it's clearly not there yet and may not be for two or three presidential cycles.
The last major shifts toward the Democratic column were in Colorado, New Mexico, and Virginia. None are yet deep blue but Democrats remain highly competitive and probably favored in those states. Arizona is promising but still fragile. Same for Georgia except it is probably more red tinted than Arizona still. It's great that the Blue Wall is back for us in the Mid West and Pennsylvania, but it isn't quite as formidable a barrier to Republicans as it once was. Democrats, IMO, have less margin for error in assembling an electoral college majority than we did back in the Bill Clinton era
North Carolina obviously stands out to me as a State that Democrats need to pour more resources into. I think there is the potential for NC to vote almost as reliably blue as Virginia now does. The rest of the South stills seems like a huge stretch. Maybe we can claw our way back into contention in Louisiana, I dunno. Over the decades I've watched Democrats make inroads in the Mountain Time Zone region. Is there any hope for a place like Nebraska? How much of a pipe dream is a State like Kansas? Yes it once was blood red and mostly still is, but there are a lot of more moderate type Republicans there seemingly. Could it evolve to become more like Iowa once was, into a future purple state?
Election Deniers are suddenly facing an unfamiliar landscape that they're not sure how to deal with
The total evaporation of any Red Wave (outside of Florida) has them completely off balance. If election results had been more uneven, with MAGA candidates performing well in some states and not in others, then their play book was simple and straight forward: FRAUD FRAUD FRAUD wherever they lost, and power to the people everywhere else. But their showing was almost uniformly dismal. Trump's high profile picks under performed virtually everywhere, often disastrously so. Even the Florida results are a slap in the face to Trump's most hard core base. Trump's image emerged battered from Tuesday's election. So suddenly, closely identifying with Trump's "the elections are rigged" brand of politics is starting to look like a losing proposition. Who really wants to be the ones hoisting that banner into battle now behind an increasingly discredited leader?
Meanwhile the red mirage ploy that Trump's band used to great effect in 2020 has failed them this time. In PA most notably, Fetterman didn't need days of ballot counting after Election Day to pull off a victory. He won outright on Election Day. Meanwhile in the high profile races in Arizona, Republicans have to pin all of their hopes on votes being counted days after the polls closed to deliver them electoral wins. The favored narrative of election deniers is almost hopefully scrambled. No more cries to stop the counting are being heard.
Of course no one needs facts to be on their side in order to promote a lie. But if the act of promoting a specific lie now seems to work to the disfavor of those who do, the motivation behind pushing those lies starts to vanish. There will no doubt be election deniers out there for many years to come, but the winds have shifted. They no longer are at their back, they now are blowing cold and hard in their face.
Twitter seened almost like a faceless utility to most people
Sure it was a business organized for private profit, most utilities are, but personalities didn't overshadow the platform itself. Twitter operated a popular service seemingly, to most anyway, without embracing any particular ideology or strong political leanings. That meant people of all kinds of stripes felt relatively comfortable using it. It almost had a virtual monopoly in its space, like major network news did in the days before cable and the internet. Twitter's corporate ownership stayed way behind the scenes, where it mostly avoided making waves that could rock its ship...
Well that's all shot to hell now. Twitter is now virtually synonymous with Elon Musk's monumental, childish and highly opinionated ego. No one can ever see or use it the same now. A minority of users will embrace the direction that Musk takes it, but the model that made Twitter successful is shattered. Pretty amazing.
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