The US Mid-Term Elections 2022

[Stavros]

The only race that I have been really paying attention to here in New York State is the one for Governor. Back in the summer, Governor Hochul (D) had a double digit lead over her opponent, Lee Zeldin (R).

I think Hochul falls into the category of the Democrat that doesn't seem to be good at it. I also get the feeling that she thought could do the bare minimum when it came to campaigning and cruise to an easy victory. But I don't think she realized until it was too late how fed up people are with the direction NYC and the overall state is going in.

Thanks for this and the link to the Post article -I don't know enough about the policy on education to comment, and I don't know why crime has increased in the City. The obvious question is, if Zeldin wins, will it make a difference? My impression is that governing New York as a City fluctuates between Democrats and Republicans, and because of its historic size and influence, I am not sure what impact the Governor has on City policies. Quality of candidate is discussed below.

[Stavros]

Why do they seem to have trouble finding effective candidates? Where are the future FDRs going to come from, or even just the Bill Clintons or Obamas? It was hardly a good sign that they had to turn to a man who has clearly past his best in 2020, and it'll be even worse next time.

One of the big problems with politics these days is that good people don't want to go into it because it's such an unpleasant business. As a result, we are left mostly with careerist hacks, egomaniacs and zealots.

Your last paragraph is bang on, and is part of a trend seen in countries like Israel and India. In the latter case, the dominance of the Congress Party after Independence, at least up until the assassinations of Indira, and then Rajiv Gandhi, tended to mean that elected politicians in the Lok Sabha were educated men (and mostly men) whose bookshelves were lined with Shakespeare, Tagore and Asimov alongside the Bible, the Quran and the Upanishads. I think I first read about the decline in the intellectual quality of MPs in India 20 years ago, and with the growth of the BJP and the legitimization of the more extreme Hindu Nationalist parties, the political landscape of India is fundamentally different from what it was in 1947, and more accepting of discrimination and violence.

A similar process has taken place in Israel, as indicated in the thread I began yesterday, where people with extreme political views can get elected because the PR system enables them access to the Knesset if they win just more than 3% of the vote -in Germany a party must get at least 5% of the vote to sit in the Bundestag.

What happens, it seems to me, is that the admission into Democratic political systems of parties and people who don't believe in it, except as a tool to gain power, allows them to create narratives which first of all divide people along an 'either/or' axis and then exclude from the debate those who don't agree. Furthermore, any achievements made by previous Governments, of whatever party, are dismissed as worthless, or even a cause of the present 'crisis' whatever that is. Thus, in Israel the 'crisis' has been made by the same people who rejected the Peace Treaty of 1993 that had a better chance of healing Israel-Palestinian relations, but required the kind of compromise on land by Israel that the 'Rejection Front' characterised as 'surrender'.

By contrast in India, the BJP and its satellite parties, are attempting to create a narrative in which India's Muslims are presented as intruders into thousands of years of Hindu culture who have no right to be there -so those Mosques were built on Hindu Temples, and all the social problems India has are caused by Muslims. How the BJP deals with millions of people they don't like and blame for all their problems is chilling, as I have seen video footage of the tactics they use to intimidate Muslims in towns and cities.

Michael Walzer has addressed these trends against Liberal Democracy in his short but perceptive book The Paradox of Liberation (2015). Although it deals with Israel, India and Algeria, his theses may now also apply to the US, and to a lesser extent in Brexit Britain.

It doesn't mean 'the Left' has lost the plot completely, but it does mean that we are living through an era where many left-wing parties are unable to both create an alternative narrative, and when in office, prove that their policy making is of long-term benefit even if it has been -I assume Affordable Care in the US is better than what came before it, for example.

I am not sure why this is, because the policy frameworks of Reagan, Thatcher and their successors has also failed. The dominance or persistence of Personality in politics is also regrettable if it gives power to people who are merely good at the Media, like Trump, or not good, like Biden and Corbyn. We have had demonstrably good and effective policy making in the past, so why are contemporary politicians either incapable to doing as well, while often blaming past successes for present-day failures?

Or maybe in five or ten years time we will be in a different place, though the 'crazies' can do a lot of damage between now and then.

[broncofan]

The question I was getting at is why do people bother with mail-in voting if early in-person voting is easy. According to that article, 57% of early votes have been by mail, so it's not just people who can't get to a voting place. (In Australia, only about one-fifth of early votes are by mail these days.) It sounds like there is a greater risk that mail-in votes may not be counted; eg because the post was slow or the date stamp was unclear.

I sent my ballot in by mail for the first time in 2020 and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I was planning to go in person this year but I forgot I had opted in for a ballot by mail when I registered. It arrived, I filled it out and sent it in. I got an email saying that my ballot had been received and I should not vote in person.

It is laziness but if you're careful with the ballot and follow the instructions, you get a confirmation email and there won't be an issue. But I agree that more can go wrong but the process was smoother this time than it was for 2020 (for a lot of reasons).

[blackchubby38]

Why Democrats Are Losing Hispanic Voters.


www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2022/11/hispanic-voters-fleeing-democratic-party/671851/

[Stavros]

Thanks for this link, Blackchubby. It goes a long way to explaining some of the Democrats problems, not least with their 'messaging' which to some is more focused on social rather than economic issues.

I am not sure if explains why Latino Immigrants of whatever generation are deserting the Democrats for the Republicans, given that the GOP has a poor record on the economy and an even worse one on social issues -and If 'Latinos' are not a monolithic bloc of Democrat voters are they all indifferent to social issues that do impact them, such as Abortion? I can see the link between the Catholic Church and the debate on Abortion and family planning, but is it not possible that some immigrants have gone to the US because it is freer and more liberal on these issues than the 'Catholoc' States of Central America?

It raises the question that has been asked in this country with regard to former Labour constituencies voting Tory -Why do people vote against their own interests?

Just as the Tories here are more concerned to reduce the taxes of the rich and the corporate world, ditto the GOP in the US, with the additional fact that ought to be a major talking point, that Trump himself is as corrupt as a Central American dictator helping himself the national treasury.

Where the article does touch a nerve is in the argument that immigrants want to prove themselves capable of survival and growth without the aid of the State, that their focus is more on work, and education for their children and that in recent years the Democrats have lost the plot here, by relentlessly backing, as Biden did just the other day - the 'Middle Class' which most immigrants are not. That historic link with Blue Collar workers may have gone, but it's not as if there is no industry in the US so I wonder if Democrats have calculated that there are now more votes with the college educated professionals and the staffs of City Hall and the State, assuming Blue Collar workers are in decline? The article suggests this is so.

Whatever it is, the Democrats seem poor at expressing what they believe in, terrified of giving voice to anything that sounds like Socialism even as Trump and his supporters use expressions like 'Radical Left' or 'Socialist' where it does not apply -because to them, anything that involves the re-distribution of wealth is Socialism and is to be demonized, and the US has not had any Socialism since the IWW became ineffective in the 1920s and 1930s, their thunder stolen in part by FDR and the New Deal Administration. I am inclined to the view that if the US had experienced some Socialism, the Democrats might not be in the dumps as some say they are now, after all, Socialism is the natural condition of humankind.

That said, with a few exceptions, the 'left' has been in retreat for some years across Europe, notably in France and Italy, with the German SPD a centrist party these days.

Lastly, I think immigration is one of the least understood of topics, and one that has a tortured history. From what I have read, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have a 'solution' to the situation on the Southern Border, but neither does the UK Government with regard to illegal migrants crossing the English Channel, while the policy to send a proportion of Asylum Seekers to Rwanda, is as expensive as it is morally outrageous and politically insulting to all involved.

And let's face it, unrestricted immigration is what gave the US its economic prosperity in the last quarter of the 19th century, the first Immigration legislation, the Immigration Act of 1882 was designed to stop Chinese immigrants entering the US. It is an old, old story, but there is a potent question here too-

-The population of China is 1.4 billion, India 1.3 billion -the USA 331 million- room for another 700 million?

[filghy2]

Why Democrats Are Losing Hispanic Voters.


www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2022/11/hispanic-voters-fleeing-democratic-party/671851/

This is essentially the same argument that has been advanced for why they have lost white working class voters; ie they feel taken for granted and alienated by the focus on progressive social and environmental issues.

The question that also needs to be asked is how more educated and progressive voters would have responded had the Democrats remained focussed on traditional working class issues. Would they have still voted Democrat anyway, or would a third political force have emerged to appeal to these people?

[filghy2]

Where the article does touch a nerve is in the argument that immigrants want to prove themselves capable of survival and growth without the aid of the State, that their focus is more on work, and education for their children and that in recent years the Democrats have lost the plot here, by relentlessly backing, as Biden did just the other day - the 'Middle Class' which most immigrants are not. That historic link with Blue Collar workers may have gone, but it's not as if there is no industry in the US so I wonder if Democrats have calculated that there are now more votes with the college educated professionals and the staffs of City Hall and the State, assuming Blue Collar workers are in decline? The article suggests this is so.

Let's not forget that Democrats have won the popular vote in 7 of the last 8 presidential elections. In a different political system people would be writing articles about why Republicans have lost certain sections of the electorate by focusing too much on less educated white voters.

[Stavros]

Let's not forget that Democrats have won the popular vote in 7 of the last 8 presidential elections. In a different political system people would be writing articles about why Republicans have lost certain sections of the electorate by focusing too much on less educated white voters.

In aggregate terms, yes, but if 'all politics is local' then both the persistence of hard core Republicans in some States, and their campaigns to 'firm up' the base in the offices of the State is the measure, they are doing either better than, or as good as Democrats. One thinks of the former Confederate States, but northern States like Wisconsin and Idaho are not safe Democrat states locally. I think Bannon has copied the radical politics that might be said to have begun with Gramsci and which Saul Alinksy used in Chicago -campaigning among voters at the 'base', many of whom believe the 2020 election is stolen, who don't question the content of the film 2000 Mules -by organizing at this level, Republicans can capture the machinery of electoral poltics at the local level and turn it to their advantage, just as the Electoral College served Trump in 2016.

I think the only way to break this duopoly in the US is to abandon 'first past the post' and go for some form of Proportional Representation, not sure if this has ever had much traction in the US. It would encourage the formation of alternative parties if they believe they can get into office in the State, maybe even in Congress. But what system?

[Stavros]

I saw the clip and the thing is, I don't think it is satire. Maybe he knows something we don't, or is he really just thick?

"While standing at the pulpit, the former football player turned politician proclaimed: “If you’re a martian and you live in the United States of America, I’m gonna protect you too. Because you belong to my family.”
Herschel Walker tells rally he’ll protect any ‘martians living in the US’ as they are ‘my family too’ (yahoo.com)

Shouldn't there be a capital letter for Martians?

[filghy2]

I think the only way to break this duopoly in the US is to abandon 'first past the post' and go for some form of Proportional Representation, not sure if this has ever had much traction in the US. It would encourage the formation of alternative parties if they believe they can get into office in the State, maybe even in Congress. But what system?

This looks like a worthwhile option (it exists already in Alaska). The top 5 candidates from each party go on the ballot; and the winner is then decided by ranked-choice voting. This addresses the big problem in the US, that candidates can get nominated only by appealing to the partisan base.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...katherine-gehl

We have ranked-choice (or preferential) voting in Australia, and the duopoly has been well and truly broken. It's now roughly one-third of the votes going to each of the major parties and the other third to small parties and independants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_A...deral_election

Ranked-choice may be a better option than PR because it allows more stability, but still means than votes for small parties and independents are not wasted and the major aprties need to make an effort to appeal to them.