No Red wave. No Blue Tsunami.

[Kurt]

Just people voting pretty much the same as they did before.

No violence at least. So that is a "win" I will take.

[seektravelinfo]

I’m so relieved and happy for Pennsylvania. And Michigan’s governor race. Ohio not so much: J.D. Vance beat Ryan and gerrymandering has skewed voting to the GOP but at least Marcy Kaptur kept her seat. The Georgia Senate race going to a run-off. That’s a nail-biter, but I’m hopeful it will go to Warnock. Mark Kelly won in Arizona thank the gods. It looks like that awful Kari Lake lost?

I’ve been reading that Trump is absolutely feral and beside himself today, blaming Melania for his choice of Oz in his self-proclaimed role as kingmaker. That’s pretty funny.

[Kurt]

I’m so relieved and happy for Pennsylvania. And Michigan’s governor race. Ohio not so much: J.D. Vance beat Ryan and gerrymandering has skewed voting to the GOP but at least Marcy Kaptur kept her seat. The Georgia Senate race going to a run-off. That’s a nail-biter, but I’m hopeful it will go to Warnock. Mark Kelly won in Arizona thank the gods. It looks like that awful Kari Lake lost?

The Gerrymandering states had it work for them. Ohio, NC and Florida for the GOP and New Mexico and Iowa for the Dems.

I used to work for the Redistricting Council for NYS and basically it was Democrats + GOP moving metes and bounds to keep one another in office. But Demographics and GIS programs can actually make a district that reflects population only and not demographics. Then you read off the metes and bounds to a cartographer and they check to make sure the program functioned correctly, THEN that data is sent to a joint political committee to debate on how to change it.

So redistricting could be handled quickly and fairly without gerrymandering, but no party is gonna give it up because it works too well.

[Tarkan]

Give the Democrats their due, they love electing themselves some cognitively impaired white dudes.

[Michael]

The Republicans do have a knack for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory...

[Tarkan]

The Republicans do have a knack for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory...

That they certainly do. It’s always funny to read the dialogue from the left when they lose elections about how unified and effective (and diabolically evil of course) the Republicans are and how fragmented and disorganized the left is, but the left managed to throw their weight behind a clearly dementia addled Joe Biden and get him elected and a stroke induced severely cognitively impaired Fetterman (who looks and sounds like a fat Karl from Slingblade) elected as PA Senator - all while they have overseen the destruction of the economy through rampant inflation brought by suicidal energy policies and monetary policy.

Which is to say if you can’t win is environment, you must really fucking suck.

On the flip side, apparently the folks in Michigan really like their police state. Apparently every single county (all of them, even the rural ones) shifted strongly towards the Dems this cycle.

[snaark]

I don't recall an election in any country, when the losers behaved so much like winners.

[seektravelinfo]

I don't recall an election in any country, when the losers behaved so much like winners.

It’s because they are cognitively impaired. But we knew that already.

[Tarkan]

I don't recall an election in any country, when the losers behaved so much like winners.

What are you even talking about Snaark? Most of the right of center folks are pretty despondent about the election results.

[Kurt]

I don't recall an election in any country, when the losers behaved so much like winners.

True.

It's stupid because the Dems are like: We win because we did not lose as bad as we anticipated!

But the "not killing each other" part is pretty big.

[seektravelinfo]

I don't recall an election in any country, when the losers behaved so much like winners.

True.

It's stupid because the Dems are like: We win because we did not lose as bad as we anticipated!

But the "not killing each other" part is pretty big.

True. And true. The races are close. In the end, the winner is determined by who got the most votes (except for the 2016 Presidential election when HRC won the popular vote.)

Even though some Democrats have won on slim margins and the jury is still out in Arizona, the optimist in me regards this as baby steps on the road back to democracy.

[Tarkan]

I don't recall an election in any country, when the losers behaved so much like winners.

True.

It's stupid because the Dems are like: We win because we did not lose as bad as we anticipated!

But the "not killing each other" part is pretty big.

True. And true. The races are close. In the end, the winner is determined by who got the most votes (except for the 2016 Presidential election when HRC won the popular vote.)

Even though some Democrats have won on slim margins and the jury is still out in Arizona, the optimist in me regards this as baby steps on the road back to democracy.

Ah, I see that elections only count as democracy when you get the candidates you prefer elected. In cases where your preferred candidates lose, it's the death of democracy.

[snaark]

I think it counts as democracy when the loser concedes and doesn't incite a violent insurrection. But hey, what would I know.

[Kurt]

I think it counts as democracy when the loser concedes and doesn't incite a violent insurrection. But hey, what would I know.

Yep, your choices are Socialist Europe and Pre-Chinese Invasion Authoritarian Australia.

Speaking of, I hear Oz lifted their COVID restrictions so the GDay-Gestapo seems to have been part of the imagination of nutbars in the Anglosphere anyway.

[Tarkan]

I think it counts as democracy when the loser concedes and doesn't incite a violent insurrection. But hey, what would I know.

So when Stacey Abrams refused to concede in 2018, was that a strike against democracy, or was it (D)ifferent?

When Hillary Clinton and Obama admin hold overs in the NSA, CIA, and FBI conspired together to engineer an impeachment over fraudulent Russia claims, was that democracy in action because Orange Man was bad?

I mean, on the face of it, you guys are some pretty fucking miserable hypocrites that will endlessly justify illegal and anti-democratic actions (or pretend they didn't happen) to remove politicians you don't like and claim that when the population elects Republicans, "democracy is dying" and that it's a failure of the democratic system.