She has dementia and does not have any idea how stupid her comments are.

Hubris

I hold her in high regards, but the best thing she could do for the Ds is step down.

What an idiot.

Basically I wish every single person over 60 and every person who has held office more than 10 years would go the fuck away.

It wouldn't solve everything. We'd still have some jerks and we'd lose a few good people, but it would be a chance for a fresh start. This woman is so absolutely out of touch with everything, she doesn't even look human and speaks about things like she's from another world and the arrogance is astounding.

Also I really fucking hope she's right about the blue wave, but I don't think it's going to happen and I wonder if the Dems will learn anything ever.

Once again the progressives/liberals are looking at FiveThirtyEight and feeling safe and smug - I even find myself checking the site for solace - but that is a very bad idea. Chickens-hatching-math often doesn't add up, particularly when those same smug folks sit back and fail to take those final steps. "Sad, very sad"

Nancy Smash is the most effective politician of the past 20 years. She's human, which means she's not perfect. And, yeah, she (and Bernie and Biden and even my beloved Elizabeth Warren) are older than I wish most politicians were. So, yeah, this could be a fuckup on her part. I guess we'll find out in just under a week. But if the Dems (oh god please please please) do retake the House, fuckin'-A she should be the Speaker. She got more done with fewer tools than any other Speaker since LBJ. Hopefully she'll groom a younger Dem to take over for her, but in the meantime, rock the fuck on, Ms. Pelosi.

Never underestimate the Democrats' ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Remember when Lin Manuel Miranda rapped "Tim Kayne in the membrane" at a DNC event? Dude is honestly more embarrassing than a rapping dog on a cereal commercial that Grandma Pelosi thinks is so hip.

Genuine question: Why on EARTH would she do this?

How disappointing to be reminded that if the Democrats do take back the House... Nancy Pelosi will be the Speaker of the House again. Shouldn't failure have consequences? She must be one hell of a back room wheeler dealer.

Jude, I think about the Democrats a lot and I honestly am not sure if they are really and truly just so astoundingly incompetent or if they actually don't want to win- just stay relevant enough to keep their jobs and maintain the status quo that is lucrative for them and their donors. When I'm thinking straight (which is not today, admittedly) my conclusion is that it's a combination of the two- they are incompetent, but like many people, they believe things that serve their own self-interest before they will put actual thought/effort into anything that would challenge their self-interest. So even when they keep losing, they keep making the same mistakes because though the rest of us suffer, it really doesn't matter to their own material conditions if they come in first or second place, and a proper analysis of why the party keeps losing would lead them to reflect upon the fact that many of them should lose their jobs and be replaced by people who will serve public interest rather than corporate.

@Ken, I'm not sure how what your saying contradicts what I said. Obamacare is a huge improvement over the nothing that existed before it that undoubtedly helps the lives of millions of people, but it's still a terrible and unsustainable plan that compromised with the medical industry. It's also one of the few things that the GOP was not able to straight out take away because it has been so popular, and universal healthcare is one of the main issues that get people out to vote. Corporate money and propaganda that serves private interests of the very rich is what gets people elected. The only challenge to that is true popular appeal that actually offers people something relevant to their direct material circumstances, and while this can be misled by propaganda, it can also be challenged by people willing to directly engage. That does not happen very often for two reasons- the first is that the opposition party (the Dems) continue to compromise with the right because they serve the same corporate interests and therefore cannot truly be an opposition party. Even still, they are a real threat to Rep power for the very reason that they fuck over fewer people leading to the second, which is the widespread undemocratic structure of our government that makes it not really one person one vote including current campaign finance, state media, the electoral college, the supreme court, the senate, gerrymandering, voter suppression, and voter disenfranchisement (particularly through the justice system for a long time and the immigration system recently). If there were not a real risk of popular engagement challenging the system, there would not be so much suppression and propaganda in the first place. The Dems have to cut through that, and while that's a tall order for anyone, they are absurdly incompetent at it- refusing even to engage with most real issues because it would be biting the hand that feeds them.

As to your two examples, they are different places and Indiana is far less red than Kentucky, having had state governors and US senators from the Dems into the 00s and it went for Obama in 08. And Bernie beat Clinton there in 16. If I were a Democrat, I would reflect on what has happened in recent years to turn them against establishment Dems.

As for Kentucky, it went from blue to red longer ago (during the B Clinton admin) and it's also an interesting story to look into why, though it has since given us two of the most odious senators in DC right now. (And though this isn't too important, Bernie and Clinton tied there. The reason I mention it is because I don't see why they persist on a failed Pelosi style message when it has no benefit anywhere and has already proven to lose. Another strategy may not win either, but it has not yet been tried, and the small attempts during the primary and during Obama's rhetoric in 08 seem to indicate it could at least be less risky for them.)

And as usual, the story between a red/blue split is much more about rural/urban than states being a stronghold of this or that party. If you live in WA state, you are far more likely to have voted for Clinton than Trump than if you live in SC for example, but if you just compare rural populations, then rural people in SC are actually more likely to have voted for Clinton than rural people in WA (a much higher percentage of counties in both WA and NY went for Trump than in SC). I just read some article about this, hence why I mentioned these states and not the ones you named, but the point is the same. Indiana and Kentucky are red because they are more rural, and Kentucky is more red than Indiana because it is more rural, and despite the popularity of Obamacare, the Dems don't offer too much to their self-interest- and even what they do offer, they don't always even bother campaigning there. The Dems did not campaign in my state in 16 (well, Hillary didn't, Bernie did).

I went to vote and said how GLAD I was that was relieved I got in and did my bit. One of the election judges said a lot of people are saying that after they vote. More now than ever before. I said, That is because of what happened LAST time. I agree, never say never, but we can dream.

@19 Because the GOP has been very successful at convincing them that Dems only care about minorities and women. And because they believe that the government services they get are their "God given rights", so they can call themselves self-made, self-sufficient etc and believe it. The social-safety net services that they use are not government hand-outs for them, because only minorities and immigrants get hand-outs, real Americans like them deserve everything they get!

@16

Hey man, what works is what works. Democracy is for fags.

After seeing old white woman after old white woman berate and degrade POC of all ages, can we finally admit to ourselves that they're just slightly less privileged, far more insufferable versions of old white men?

@22 How, exactly, are they "far more insufferable" than old white men? I can only think of one reason, and it's not pretty. Maybe if that reason just smiled more....

This is the most crucial US election in my lifetime. It's also the first in my adult life in which I won't be casting a vote.

Sure, theoretically I could have. But since I'm living abroad right now, it would have been complicated. And, as a Democratic DC voter, what effect would I have had? Why go to the trouble just to weigh in on whether to re-elect Eleanor Holmes Norton as nonvoting delegate to Congress?

At least in the last off-year election, legal weed was on the ballot there for incentive.

Frankly, we don't need to be crowing about 'victory' until victory is actually achieved. If anything will possibly bring out more Republicans to vote on Tuesday it is for them to hear Nancy Pelosi bragging that we've got it in the bag. Now, I respect her and think she's done a wonderful job as Speaker in the past but think it may be time to give some of the younger Democrats in the House a chance to shine.

a) This just smacks of more wanting to drink Republican tears, which worked so well two years ago.

b) Had Ms P wanted a lifetime position, she should have tried for the Supreme Court.

c) If the Democrats can't do any better, they deserve her.

d) A Lieberman Award to Mizz Liz for post #5. A large part of the success of his first Senate campaign (in which each candidate won a majority of votes of the other party) was that Sen Weicker had been in the Senate for THREE WHOLE TERMS and that giving anyone a fourth term was practically indefensible. And then what happened? Not only did he not retire at the end of his third term, but he even refused to accept losing a primary, getting that fourth term by establishing a vanity party and pandering to the non-competitive Republicans.

In other words, Mizz Liz will have better luck imprisoning men than getting rid of seniors, as, however she would write the rules now in her (presumed) thirties, nobody would trust her not to reverse them at age 59.

23 People are more insufferable (that is, there's more cognitive dissonance) when they think they're progressive, but they're really just 1980's progressive.

More white women than white men intend to be progressive.

QED, Nancy Pelosi gets on a lot of nerves, even of people who share a fair percentage of her politics, while they give "lovable reprobate" men a shrug--or the finger. But either way, the guys don't set people's hackles on edge (because, eh, what did you expect, they never pretended to be different).

I have a hard time believing that the D's have nobody else who can do the requisite whipping, dealing, and assorted other forms of vote wrangling. I'd enjoy a new face and new voice. But the male speakers have often held onto power until they were practically embalmed. If she wants to prove women can make all the same (dubious) personal power moves as men, she'll roost on that perch as long as she can grab hold.

Venn Lieberman is a perfect example of what I'm talking about there. Got rid of a GOP Senator as he should have when he was younger. Then stayed too long himself- my ten year limit would've applied to him before his VP run and cut him out at the height of his part in the centrist establishment that enabled the move right. He's the poster boy for my plan especially since he then left the party but stuck around in politics just to make sure we killed a lot more people in the Middle East and expanded the role of the security state at home. As for myself, you have me at least a decade younger than I am, if not more, and as for the olds, yes I'm happy to raise the age restriction up to retirement- up to 65 then let's say. Our Congress is a geriatric center- we should learn from the Spartans. This is my compromise position. My immediate one is that we should burn the Senate to the ground, scoop up all the ashes and stuff them in a volcano guarded by radioactive cats to warn future generations. And I've duly noted your disproportionate and exaggerated indignation to even the tongue-in-cheek one line joke in another thread that men's actions could be restricted vs your complete silence on this actual reality for so many women around the world. There was another incel shooting, I'm sure you saw it, and the militias heading to the border, this after the synagogue shooting and the white supremacist shooting up black grandparents and the maga bomber- all in one week. But yes, the problem is that women on this site bitch too much, and I made a joke that maybe men should have a curfew. Let's defend the elderly members of congress who don't even look or act human and haven't had an actual job or paid their own bills for decades, because they really want to hold onto power until the grave. I should care about that because I too will be old one day? I think the young people who are going to have live in the hell scape these assholes are creating should have some say in it. Loads of them will be dead in the next decade- what do they care.