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applegrove

applegrove's Journal
applegrove's Journal
December 26, 2018

The suburbs abandoned Republicans in 2018, and they might not be coming back.

By Dylan Scott at Vox

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/12/19/18129448/suburbs-midterms-2018-democrats-republicans-congress

"SNIP.....

Suburban voters worry about health care and education. Not immigration.

Suburban voters tend to be better off than the rural Americans traditionally thought of as Trump’s base. Immigration, the White House’s big bet in this election, holds less sway over them as a result.

Because they are often better educated, suburban voters tend to have higher incomes and feel more economically secure. Comstock’s district, one of the biggest swings on election night, is ranked 18th among 435 House districts in voters with a bachelor’s degree; the median income is high too, at $120,000. California’s 45th Congressional District in Orange County, which sent a Democrat to Congress for the first time ever, ranks 12th in bachelor’s degrees and 19th in median income.

Those voters are more comfortable and secure than people in poorer, more rural parts of the country — white working-class places where Trump might have won districts that went for Barack Obama before him. The suburbs don’t respond to Trump’s hardline rhetoric on immigrants and a border wall in the same way rural voters do.

“Threats of jobs going overseas, that sweet spot of Republican talking points with more downscale voters, doesn’t check the box for these suburban voters,” Molly Murphy, another Democratic pollster, said. “It just doesn’t resonate with what their needs and wants are.”

......SNIP"

Seems it is true that the GOP have to get people to vote out of financial anxiety to vote irrationally for them. I wonder how they will spread financial anxiety? Even tougher student loans? Fewer unions?

December 14, 2018

Didn't they also publish the rumour about Ted Cruzes father hanging

with Oswald and killing JFK or something? Right about when Cruz and Trump were really the last two left in the GOP nomination race?

December 8, 2018

I looked up what Jews in Europe who survived WWII felt and they

apparently saw themselves as unlucky. As part of a group of the unlucky they are still connected to the world. Having ptsd myself from being stalked and harrassed I know how much power you take away from evil and give to yourself if you don't see it as human caused. I try to see them under the category of a volcano. And i see myself as unlucky. Likewise the succesful or affluent people I know, knew growing up saw themselves as lucky. They were all liberals. And voted liberal. Except my dad voted for the progressive conservatives a few times back when they were the Progressive Conservatives. When people think they are solely responsible for their own success they are less connected and less happy. And they act that way And the workers notice the elites have pulled up the ladder and are not sharing the increasing wealth. And the workers elect nutbars populist authoritarians like in the US and Europe. Of course we don't want to go back to having an embeded wasp elite with the barriers and predudice. But big picture thinking is needed again and so is going back to seeing people seeing others and themselves as lucky or unlucky depending on their circumstances, so we are all connected to the greater group of us, all in this together, for the first time ever.

December 5, 2018

Great book i am reading breaking down how America votes:

https://twitter.com/bumblebee134/status/1070198116148801537?s=20

No wonder they want to end financial regulations and end consumer protections. No wonder they want students in crippling debt after university. Not to mention destroying unions and not sharing America's growing wealth one bit with the middle and working classes. No wage increases. Predatory financial sales types consulting on people's financial future will come back if we can't stop it. Bet that group to the far extreme of intuitions thinking are the tea party people. And now Trump's base. And probably a few of the people on the left rational end who don't have financial anxiety are voting republican because of lower taxes on their riches. That is quite the electoral plan. Grow the voters at each end of the financial anxiety scale and pick off voters from both ends of the resulting expanded rational intuition scale. And grow both the selfish wealthy and the financial anxious at both those ends to vote republican. Inequality works wonders for the GOP. Of course the scale is for holding other things constant.
November 26, 2018

What are you doing to relieve the stress of the Trump show? I'm

listening to CBC's As It Happens on the radio. Reminds of when I was a teen and my parents had it on on both floors of our House every weeknight. Good times. When things happened in the world and it actually is tried to be solved by leaders. I've had a bug of the mind all afternoon today that the republican 1% orchestrated the 2007 banking collapse because it creates a good buying opportunity for hedge fund manager (to buy up the suddenly struggling small and mid sized companies to then grow them internationally and then sell them off) and it would turn working people against global liberal elites and towards populist authoritarians as people do when their lives are unstable and they made a killing on sub prime mortgages by, as the Chinese said, training America's smartest people in finance, to come up with tools to take money from regular people. So I'm off to listen to Canadian news where politicians in power do not see the people as an enemy to be destroyed. And calm down. I know, I know, I'm too dark. I did not used to be this way.

November 26, 2018

White House admits Trump climate policies will cost Americans $500 billion a year

https://thinkprogress.org/white-house-admits-trump-climate-policies-will-cost-americans-500-billion-a-year-fa82c1557333/

Joe Romm at Political Wire


"SNIP....

The congressionally-mandated National Climate Assessment (NCA) by hundreds of the country’s top scientists warns that a do-nothing climate policy will end up costing Americans more than a half-trillion dollars per year in increased sickness and death, coastal property damages, loss of worker productivity, and other damages.

Building on a 600-page analysis of climate science from 2017, the NCA details just how dangerous Trump administration’s policy of climate inaction is to Americans.

The White House oversaw the report’s review and clearance process — and tried to bury the findings by releasing it at 2 p.m. on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

But the reality of climate change cannot be buried. Indeed the report concludes that “the evidence of human-caused climate change is overwhelming and continues to strengthen, that the impacts of climate change are intensifying across the country, and that climate-related threats to Americans’ physical, social, and economic well-being are rising.”

.....SNIP"


This will devastate the working class and make them less able to fight elections. Maybe more inequality like this looks good to the republican 1%. Because people will loose all the wealth they had in their homes. They will become desperate and afraid, less open, and vote more often authoritarian than before.
November 25, 2018

What should we call turning goodwill on it's ass?

* Aeroflot, the Russian national airline, will now cancel your frequent flyer miles if you publicly criticize the airline.

* China’s plan to judge each of its 1.3 billion people based on their social behavior is moving a step closer to reality, with Beijing set to adopt a lifelong points program by 2021 that assigns personalized ratings for each resident. 

It used to be that government or business tried to stay in the goodwill of the people.


Both of these at:


https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211469866

Should we call it "Badwill"? "Treason"?

November 25, 2018

Scary. Is this the start of business microtargeting people's social media behaviour online?

If so they have flipped the concept of goodwill on its' ass.

https://twitter.com/Billbrowder/status/1066373460203642880?s=20

And this:

Bloomberg: Beijing To Start 'Rating' Every Citizen By 2020

By Nicole Belle

https://crooksandliars.com/2018/11/bloomberg-beijing-start-rating-every/amp?__twitter_impression=true

"SNIP.....

China’s plan to judge each of its 1.3 billion people based on their social behavior is moving a step closer to reality, with Beijing set to adopt a lifelong points program by 2021 that assigns personalized ratings for each resident.

The capital city will pool data from several departments to reward and punish some 22 million citizens based on their actions and reputations by the end of 2020, according to a plan posted on the Beijing municipal government’s website on Monday. Those with better so-called social credit will get “green channel” benefits while those who violate laws will find life more difficult.

The Beijing project will improve blacklist systems so that those deemed untrustworthy will be “unable to move even a single step,” according to the government’s plan. Xinhua reported on the proposal Tuesday, while the report posted on the municipal government’s website is dated July 18.

.....SNIP"

What should we call it? "Badwill" instead of goodwill?

November 23, 2018

Me too. I hope he isn't tapping down Trump now to create a precedent for

not allowing democrats to complain when the right wing Supreme Court gets going on enforced monogamy or whatever they have planned.

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