2026 Congressional Elections

[gehringer_2]

22 minutes ago, romad1 said:

i remember feeling similar to MB when I saw the clown shows during the 2008 and 2012 GOP primary seasons with the novelty candidates that eventually were driven off by McCain and Romney at great expense.  

In 2016 the novelty candidate happened to win and we* are all made worse for it.  

 

*except those who will be able to grift so hard they can't be proven to have committed a crime 

there is something to the fact that there is a parallel to the public being done with both parties in their traditional forms. For the GOP it came a couple of cycles earlier in the form of Trump and his pseudo populism rolling over the rump of 'competent conservative' Reaganism. And now the same rejection of the previous generation's status quo - call them the Triangulation Democrats, is coming to the Democratic party. It's right there to see in every poll: People may *hate* Trump, but they do not like the democratic party at all either. The only question is whether the people that ultimately capture the Democratic party will be saner than Trump and MAGA because the old guard is gonna be broomed.

But I'm just not so worried about Platner. He was a loud mouth who liked to instigate and be outrageous, and he was an obnoxious 20 and maybe 30 something - and people need to remember that he spent years in combat in the ME where the kind things that sound shocking in his social media posts were garden variety everyday parts of the culture that he was living in. But he hasn't killed any kittens or defrauded any grandmothers (that we know of!)  He's the heir of long family democratic heritage and you can read him as finally coming home to that now. YMMV.

Edited 11 hours ago by gehringer_2

[RatkoVarda]

Dems have not found the secret sauce of booting Collins for years and years.

Is running an "establishment Dem", the current Governor, the person to do it? there does not seem to be much momentum there.

everyone is so angry at the state of the country that voters may boot anyone who is "establishment"

so not unreasonable that a fisherman with a beard would be seen as a great "outsider" even if he is a bad guy

this is where we are as a country and it sucks.

[Motown Bombers]

4 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

there is something to the fact that there is a parallel to the public being done with both parties in their traditional forms. For the GOP it came a couple of cycles earlier in the form of Trump and his pseudo populism rolling over the rump of 'competent conservative' Reaganism. And now the same rejection of the previous generation's status quo - call them the Triangulation Democrats, is coming to the Democratic party. It's right there to see in every poll: People may *hate* Trump, but they do not like the democratic party at all either. The only question is whether the people that ultimately capture the Democratic party will be saner than Trump and MAGA because the old guard is gonna be broomed.

But I'm just not so worried about Platner. He was a loud mouth who liked to instigate and be outrageous, and he was an obnoxious 20 and maybe 30 something - and people need to remember that he spent years in combat in the ME where the kind things that sound shocking in his social media posts were garden variety everyday parts of the culture that he was living in. But he hasn't killed any kittens or defrauded any grandmothers (that we know of!)  He's the heir of long family democratic heritage and you can read him as finally coming home to that now. YMMV.

With all due respect, this is complete horse ****. You are no better than MAGA. Platner is only 41 so this isn't like his 30's are in his distant past. He's a pathological liar. He abused women. He had a Nazi tattoo for decades. He fantasied about killing Arabs. After spending time in the war, he then wanted to go back so badly he became a blackwater op so he could kill Arabs and urinate on their bodies. He has fantasied about raping women. He has blamed women for being raped. This is just what we know so far. This isn't the end. Republicans are sitting on oppo. All the while he has supported Republicans in the past. 

[Motown Bombers]

2 minutes ago, RatkoVarda said:

Dems have not found the secret sauce of booting Collins for years and years.

Is running an "establishment Dem", the current Governor, the person to do it? there does not seem to be much momentum there.

everyone is so angry at the state of the country that voters may boot anyone who is "establishment"

so not unreasonable that a fisherman with a beard would be seen as a great "outsider" even if he is a bad guy

this is where we are as a country and it sucks.

He's not a fisherman. He's a fraud. His oyster farm is a hobby. His image has been crafted from far left media like the Pod Save Losers. The same people who brought you Fetterman and Tulsi are bringing you this loser. 

[Motown Bombers]

I totally reject we have to nominate some ****bag loser because people are angry at Dems. People are angry at Dems because they think there is some magic they can do in the minority that will stop Trump. Dems have nominated normies in North Carolina, Ohio, Alaska, Texas, Florida and Iowa and all those states are in play. 

[gehringer_2]

11 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

I totally reject we have to nominate some ****bag loser because people are angry at Dems. People are angry at Dems because they think there is some magic they can do in the minority that will stop Trump. Dems have nominated normies in North Carolina, Ohio, Alaska, Texas, Florida and Iowa and all those states are in play. 

People are angry at Dems for same reason they are angry at the GOP - it's because the Federal government in the US has ceased to function in the public interest for at least a generation now no matter which party was in power. The Federal Constitutional system has broken down to where you have a minority in control, desperate that they are finally going to lose that control and thus perfectly happy the see the whole system crash and burn, and a majority that can't understand why the things they want, the things they need,  that they know almost everyone else also wants, can't seem to happen no matter who they vote for. 

There is an inchoate sense of 'anybody but the incumbents' underlying everything, while the corporate system corruptly funnels billions to those incumbents to help them keep fighting the rear guard.

Edited 10 hours ago by gehringer_2

[Motown Bombers]

9 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

People are angry at Dems for same reason they are angry at the GOP - it's because the Federal government in the US has ceased to function in the public interest for at least a generation now no matter which party was in power. The Federal Constitutional system has broken down to where you have a minority in control, desperate that they are finally going to lose that control and thus perfectly happy the see the whole system crash and burn, and a majority that can't understand why the things they want, the things they need,  that they know almost everyone else also wants, can't seem to happen no matter who they vote for. 

There is an inchoate sense of 'anybody but the incumbents' underlying everything, while the corporate system corruptly funnels billions to those incumbents to help them keep fighting the rear guard.

And yet the states I mentioned didn’t need to nominate a domestic abusing Nazi who came from that minority in control. The issue is the media is captured on both the left and right. 

[gehringer_2]

1 minute ago, Motown Bombers said:

And yet the states I mentioned didn’t need to nominate a domestic abusing Nazi who came from that minority in control. The issue is the media is captured on both the left and right. 

We'll see who manages to wins the seats. We have three reasonably ordinary Dem candidates in MI and Rogers seems to be polling more or less even with all of them, which I find incomprehensible.

[gehringer_2]

53 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

After spending time in the war, he then wanted to go back so badly he became a blackwater op so he could kill Arabs and urinate on their bodies.

Or he signed up for an easy gig that his service qualified him for because he needed a job? There is a lot of spin on all this stuff from a lot of parties only interested in the win or loss. The voters will decide who they believe. If this is all getting any traction it should show up in the primary vote.

Edited 10 hours ago by gehringer_2

[CMRivdogs]

 

[gehringer_2]

4 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

 

geez - don't give them any good ideas!

[Motown Bombers]

16 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

Or he signed up for an easy gig that his service qualified him for because he needed a job? There is a lot of spin on all this stuff from a lot of parties only interested in the win or loss. The voters will decide who they believe. If this is all getting any traction it should show up in the primary vote.

I mean, he literally wrote it on Reddit. Jesus Christ you’re acting like MAGA. 

[Motown Bombers]

Talarico is an example of a good candidate. 

[gehringer_2]

14 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

I mean, he literally wrote it on Reddit. Jesus Christ you’re acting like MAGA. 

The actual job was on a contract to dept of State, not even DOD, security detail work for the Ambassadorial staff. that's just the fact.

That's the risk with Platner do doubt - it''s that he's a fabulist, what he says about himself is if anything more dramatic than the reality.

Edited 9 hours ago by gehringer_2

[romad1]

43 minutes ago, CMRivdogs said:

 

Paxton is probably be portrayed on various RW media feeds as the literal embodiment of Jesus and Uncle Sam who was birthed by an Eagle in the bosom of the Garden of Eden which is located near the hill country of central Texas. 

[gehringer_2]

13 minutes ago, romad1 said:

Paxton is probably be portrayed on various RW media feeds as the literal embodiment of Jesus and Uncle Sam who was birthed by an Eagle in the bosom of the Garden of Eden which is located near the hill country of central Texas. 

It will be the job of the RW prosperity gospel evangelical pastors to preach against his 'feminized, empathy wallowing, defeatist" brand of Sermon-on-the-Mount Christianity. Might be interesting to be in the pews for that.

[pfife]

What an incredible amout of hypocrisy.   

[chasfh]

19 hours ago, RatkoVarda said:

With any conspiracy theory, the lack of evidence is further proof that the conspiracy is real.

If not for the conspiracy theory, I would be able to offer you proof, but the conspiracy prevents that.

This is brilliant and makes me consider something I had not before: that faith that the conspiracy is real is a fairly direct analog to faith that Christian god, Jesus Christ, Satan, etc. are real, and that lack of proof of their existence is a feature, and not a shortcoming. It's a test of your commitment.

[gehringer_2]

14 minutes ago, chasfh said:

This is brilliant and makes me consider something I had not before: that faith that the conspiracy is real is a fairly direct analog to faith that Christian god, Jesus Christ, Satan, etc. are real, and that lack of proof of their existence is a feature, and not a shortcoming. It's a test of your commitment.

Paul (supposedly) has it exactly right in the Letter to the Hebrews "Faith is the evidence of things not seen"  This statement functions on two levels (at least) - the 1st is individual - the fact that you believe something is a kind of supra-intellectual evidence - at some level you should trust your sense of what is true sort of a priori (gnosis).  But it also functions at a social level: You should take the faith of other people that what they believe is true as evidence that you should believe it too. We all do the 1st to some degree - it's part of human nature, but to me it's the 2nd that can get tricky and be the more dangerous because it's abdication of your own judgement. We all accept the veracity of various 'authorities', you have to in the modern world to survive, you can't know everything, but it's a life's work to learn how to vet the authorities you decide to accept.

Edited 8 hours ago by gehringer_2

[romad1]

18 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

It will be the job of the RW prosperity gospel evangelical pastors to preach against his 'feminized, empathy wallowing, defeatist" brand of Sermon-on-the-Mount Christianity. Might be interesting to be in the pews for that.

You mean Talarico.  

[gehringer_2]

Just now, romad1 said:

You mean Talarico.  

correct

[Motown Bombers]

Even these idiots get it.

 

[gehringer_2]

8 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

Even these idiots get it.

 

Joe Walsh and Bill Kristol advising Dems with the best of intentions. Surely another sign the Apocalypse is at hand.

Edited 8 hours ago by gehringer_2

[Motown Bombers]

Platner is the embodiment of the horseshoe theory. The far left is sacrificing all their principles to support a guy who has the right aesthetic and says the right buzzwords. He's sufficiently anti Jew, at least he says he is, he was very much pro Israel in the past. Buttigieg working at McKinsey was a dealbreaker. Platner working at Blackwater is just shrugged off the same way evangelicals shrug off Trump. Platner is against gun control and that little **** David Hogg supports him but not Peltola. Platner is the first test and Dems are failing miserably. Dems were so united in burying Biden but not this lump of ****. 

[Motown Bombers]