I'm not that much up on the details of political campaigning. But I do understand that part of it involves motivating your side to get to the polls, and another part of it involves demoralizing the opposition so that they are too discouraged to go to the polls.
So, the question is: how does the Mueller investigation work out for the midterms? Does it demoralize the Republican voters or does it rile them up? I have no idea. I suppose that the Manafort conviction and the Cohen plea bargain are supposed to demoralize the Republican faithful. But does it?
On the other side is the censorship of conservative voices on social media. I wrote about this yesterday as a kind of cluelessness of the social media companies that up to now have been censoring conservatives because that is what the lefty activist groups like Media Matters have been demanding. So, for social media and for other corporations, the path of least resistance is to accede to the demands of the lefty activists. But, I argued, the censorship of conservative voices riles up the conservative faithful, and may encourage a bigger turnout of Republicans in the midterms.
The normal result in a midterm election is for the president's party to lose seats in Congress. That is basically because the president's supporters are usually happy with things, and thus are not all riled up, and thus do not all turn out to vote. On the other hand the opposition party's supporters are all riled up, outraged at the monstrous corruption and injustice of the current administration. Take the Reagan era from usmidtermelections.com. The Democrats gained 26 seats in 1982, 6 seats in 1986, and 8 seats in 1990. In the Clinton era the Dems lost 54 seats in 1994 but gained 8 seats in 1998.
Yeah, what was going down in the 1990s? Well, Hillarycare was on the ballot in 1994, and that rallied Republicans from far and wide. And the Clinton impeachment was on the ballot in 1998, and that rallied Democrats to support their president.
So what happens in 2018? On the one hand, as I said, we have the Mueller investigation. Does that rally Democrats or does it rally Republicans? Or both?
On the other hand, we have the social media attack on conservatives. Does that rally Republicans railing against social media injustice, or does it encourage Democrats uniting against white supremacy? Then there is immigration. Does that unite Republicans against illegal immigrant killers or does it rally Democrats against separating children from their parents?
Then we have the improving economy. Does that help Republicans, or just put Republican voters to sleep?
Because I am a conservative partisan I naturally rally to the conservative and Republican side of these issues. I would like Republicans to hold Congress and for Trump to win reelection in 2020, and for the Democratic left to be well and truly humbled as the left was after the Reagan era. But I realize that the world is full of people that disagree with me, and it may well be that we are going to see a revival of the left: a Democratic "blue wave" in the midterms and a rounding defeat of President Trump when he runs for reelection.
Of course the standard conservative fear right now is that if the Dems win the midterms and the social media companies continue to censor conservative voices then any non-lefty voice in America is finished, because, after all, anything that disagrees with the lefty line of the moment is "hate speech." No doubt that kind of fear is an overreaction, because, after all, nobody is going to start rounding conservatives up. I mean, this is America!
All true, except for one thing. Republicans and conservatives believe that politics and government are blunt instruments that aren't good for much more than defending against enemies foreign and domestic. But our liberal and Democratic friends believe in politics as a saving truth. Bully for them. But that means that they believe that force is appropriate to move America towards that saving truth of a world free of oppression and exploitation, racism, sexism, and homophobia. Because government is force.
So what do you do when your guys think that force is seldom useful, and the other guys think that force -- instantiated through politics and government -- is a saving truth?
Unfortunately the answer is obvious. You have to meet force with force until the other guys cry uncle.
And I don't like that at all.
So, the question is: how does the Mueller investigation work out for the midterms? Does it demoralize the Republican voters or does it rile them up? I have no idea. I suppose that the Manafort conviction and the Cohen plea bargain are supposed to demoralize the Republican faithful. But does it?
On the other side is the censorship of conservative voices on social media. I wrote about this yesterday as a kind of cluelessness of the social media companies that up to now have been censoring conservatives because that is what the lefty activist groups like Media Matters have been demanding. So, for social media and for other corporations, the path of least resistance is to accede to the demands of the lefty activists. But, I argued, the censorship of conservative voices riles up the conservative faithful, and may encourage a bigger turnout of Republicans in the midterms.
The normal result in a midterm election is for the president's party to lose seats in Congress. That is basically because the president's supporters are usually happy with things, and thus are not all riled up, and thus do not all turn out to vote. On the other hand the opposition party's supporters are all riled up, outraged at the monstrous corruption and injustice of the current administration. Take the Reagan era from usmidtermelections.com. The Democrats gained 26 seats in 1982, 6 seats in 1986, and 8 seats in 1990. In the Clinton era the Dems lost 54 seats in 1994 but gained 8 seats in 1998.
Yeah, what was going down in the 1990s? Well, Hillarycare was on the ballot in 1994, and that rallied Republicans from far and wide. And the Clinton impeachment was on the ballot in 1998, and that rallied Democrats to support their president.
So what happens in 2018? On the one hand, as I said, we have the Mueller investigation. Does that rally Democrats or does it rally Republicans? Or both?
On the other hand, we have the social media attack on conservatives. Does that rally Republicans railing against social media injustice, or does it encourage Democrats uniting against white supremacy? Then there is immigration. Does that unite Republicans against illegal immigrant killers or does it rally Democrats against separating children from their parents?
Then we have the improving economy. Does that help Republicans, or just put Republican voters to sleep?
Because I am a conservative partisan I naturally rally to the conservative and Republican side of these issues. I would like Republicans to hold Congress and for Trump to win reelection in 2020, and for the Democratic left to be well and truly humbled as the left was after the Reagan era. But I realize that the world is full of people that disagree with me, and it may well be that we are going to see a revival of the left: a Democratic "blue wave" in the midterms and a rounding defeat of President Trump when he runs for reelection.
Of course the standard conservative fear right now is that if the Dems win the midterms and the social media companies continue to censor conservative voices then any non-lefty voice in America is finished, because, after all, anything that disagrees with the lefty line of the moment is "hate speech." No doubt that kind of fear is an overreaction, because, after all, nobody is going to start rounding conservatives up. I mean, this is America!
All true, except for one thing. Republicans and conservatives believe that politics and government are blunt instruments that aren't good for much more than defending against enemies foreign and domestic. But our liberal and Democratic friends believe in politics as a saving truth. Bully for them. But that means that they believe that force is appropriate to move America towards that saving truth of a world free of oppression and exploitation, racism, sexism, and homophobia. Because government is force.
So what do you do when your guys think that force is seldom useful, and the other guys think that force -- instantiated through politics and government -- is a saving truth?
Unfortunately the answer is obvious. You have to meet force with force until the other guys cry uncle.
And I don't like that at all.
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