BC POLITICS
Saved by @WebbDarrrel

I don't think that "Democrats were cowards and couldn't stand up to McConnell" is the correct framing. Dems clearly made a political calculation. Plenty to potentially criticize about that calculation, but it was informed by factors unrelated to generalized "fear of republicans"

 What we largely know now:
-There would never have been enough GOP votes to convict
-GOP had the power to hold up *all* Senate business & that means COVID relief (Dems would have been blamed for this hold up)
-Witnesses were uncooperative & would have had to have been subpoenaed
So I think the correct framing is that Democrats made a political calculation that the benefit of adding witnesses (who would not change the outcome) was not worth the political & moral cost of holding up COVID relief, as well as important confirmations. . . .
This calculation can be criticized on its own merits, but it's categorically different than just being scared of McConnell & the GOP.
For my own part, I think an error Democrats made w/r/t witnesses was not calling cooperative police officers who had been attacked that day. Just a few personal narratives from the police would have deeply embarrassed the GOP. That's a missed opportunity, in my view.
But is even that missed opportunity worth both the short term and long term costs of holding up COVID relief? Costs that have implications for millions of Americans, as well as Democrats' success in the midterms? That's a more complicated question w/ less clear answers.
Overall, I understand why some are angry w/ Dems. I think it's good that we are all willing to criticize our own side. However, I also think it will be unfortunate if we let the extent of this criticism obscure the real villainy here: the GOP's craven disregard for our democracy
I think this dynamic--Dems willingness to hold other Dems accountable, paired w/ the GOP's refusal to do any such thing--has somewhat shaped the nature of the W.Bush presidency & the Iraq War in our public discourse & consciousness. It would be a shame if this happened w/ Trump.
The media, of course, has also played a part here. And, again, I think it's *good* that we hold our own side accountable &, in the case of Iraq, I think it's commendable we have not let any Senators wave away their 2002 AUMF votes.
That said, the justifiable accountability applied to Dems is striking in contrast to the absolute lack of accountability applied to the GOP, given the war was *their* project in the 1st place.
We have to be willing to forcefully criticize our own party. But we also have to be cautious about balancing this criticism, such that the actions of the GOP are not minimized in public memory.

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That new attack piece about Seth Abramson is full of easily debunked false claims. Whenever the mainstream media gets annoyed at an indie pundit like Seth, it just publishes a bunch of bullshit about him, and most people mistakenly believe it. They've done the same thing to me.

The sad part is that when the author of that piece tried to smear a bunch of mainstream media journalists for daring to compare notes with him, they all responded by lying and said they've never compared notes with him. Even though Abramson has proof that they have.

This is the EXACT same strategy that certain mainstream media outlets used against me in 2017-2018. First they lied about me. Then they attacked my mainstream media associates for associating with a "fake news" pundit like me. Then some in the media felt compelled to disown me.

Sadly, it didn't matter that I had overwhelming proof that everything said about me in those attack pieces was false. When you defend yourself, no matter how factually, the average observer merely decides you're being "defensive" and therefore guilty as charged.

Ask yourself why the mainstream media is choosing now to dishonestly attack Abramson. The media's ratings are way down now that Trump is gone. Abramson presumably still has his entire niche audience intact. So the media gets jealous and takes it out on him.
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1) FL absentees, early voting:

*Dems as expected ("souls to the polls Sunday") had a good day and FINALLY take the early walk-in vote lead by 6,100 votes.

Rs total: 1,151,593
Ds total: 1,092,547

Rs +59,046 combined lead. This is very good for this point in the campaign.

2) At this point in 2016, Rs only led by 40,000. I could be mistaken but I think yesterday was the last day polls were open on Sunday, so the final "souls to the polls" Sunday.

3) As of yesterday, four red counties were yet to report. That would likely boost the lead back to 70k

4) I don't think the FL Rs in their wildest dreams expected to lead this late in the campaign.

5) Likewise in NV:
Clark (with its union "encouragement" for members turned out big yesterday and added net 6,000 voters.

However---big however---neither Washoe nor the rurals . . .

(5) contd. . . were open yesterday. My guesstimate is that would slice that number in half.

While this helped, the NV Ds are still looking at a significant--to potentially massive--shortfall from their 2016 numbers coming out of early voting.

6) Gotta make sure you compare days to days. Calendars and voting days differ.
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1/Politics thread time.

To me, the most important aspect of the 2018 midterms wasn't even about partisan control, but about democracy and voting rights. That's the real battle.

2/The good news: It's now an issue that everyone's talking about, and that everyone cares about.

3/More good news: Florida's proposition to give felons voting rights won. But it didn't just win - it won with substantial support from Republican voters.

That suggests there is still SOME grassroots support for democracy that transcends

4/Yet more good news: Michigan made it easier to vote. Again, by plebiscite, showing broad support for voting rights as an

5/OK, now the bad news.

We seem to have accepted electoral dysfunction in Florida as a permanent thing. The 2000 election has never really
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Robert Saunders
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"3 million people are estimated not to have official photo ID, with ethnic minorities more at risk". They will "have to contact their council to confirm their ID if they want to vote"

This is shameful legislation, that does nothing to tackle the problems with UK elections.THREAD


There is no evidence in-person voter fraud is a problem, and it wd be near-impossible to organise on an effective scale. Campaign finance violations, digital disinformation & manipulation of postal voting are bigger issues, but these are crimes of the powerful, not the powerless.

In a democracy, anything that makes it harder to vote - in particular, anything that disadvantages one group of voters - should face an extremely high bar. Compulsory voter ID takes a hammer to 3 million legitimate voters (disproportionately poor & BAME) to crack an imaginary nut

If the government is concerned about the purity of elections, it should reflect on its own conduct. In 2019 it circulated doctored news footage of an opponent, disguised its twitter feed as a fake fact-checking site, and ran adverts so dishonest that even Facebook took them down.

Britain's electoral law largely predates the internet. There is little serious regulation of online campaigning or the cash that pays for it. That allows unscrupulous campaigners to ignore much of the legal framework erected since the C19th to guard against electoral misconduct.
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『𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘶𝘴』...
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On loving one's neighbour/enemy.

The often-quoted "Love your enemies" (Mt. 5:44, Lk. 6:27) reads "diligite inimicos vestros," αγαπατε τους εχθρους, and not "diligite hastes vestras".

No mention is made of the political enemy. What’s the difference here? The political enemy is the outside. Is “hostis”. “Inimicus” is within the order.

To illustrate an example, within the order of Catholic Christendom, two politically competing orders, say the Dominicans and Franciscans in the late Middle Ages, are inimicus. They should love each other.

As Carl Schmitt points out, Never in the millennia of political struggles between Christians and Muslims did it occur to Christians to surrender rather than defend Europe out of love toward the Saracens or Turks.

The enemy in the political sense, hostis - the definition of which clearly demarcates an exteriority, need not be hated personally, but with regards to interior factions, only then does it make sense to love one's “enemy”, i.e., one's adversary.
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