Zoe Lofgren's report on the GOP/anarchists who colluded and conspired with the anarchist invaders. Coloradan anarchists fighting police, overturning a car, having a big sulk because of masks. More police murders of black people. Looks to me we're witnessing turmoil that will only settle down when the anarchists are castrated.
Do you know of any visualizations or articles showing the ideological breakdowns of Republican voters comparable to this link? I really like this one from Pew about Democratic voters but haven’t been able to find something similar for Republicans.
That’s interesting! I’m more interested in whether the two parties are mirror images of each other in terms of ideology. So, do Democrats have the same percentage of people who identify as liberal as Republicans who identify as conservative? And do both parties have the same percentage of people who identify as moderate?
I’m thinking about self reported party identification and ideology, not party registration.
My hunch is that there are more conservatives that identify as Republican than there are liberals who identify as Democrat.
Yes! Thank you! I was exploring the idea of how moderates and conservatives who still identify as Democrats continue to pull the party to the center despite high profile activism on the left trying to pull the party towards the left. I was thinking about it this week because of how many Dem senators voted against trying to get a $15 wage into the Covid bill. IMO, there are more “moderate” Dem senators than Manchin and Sinema and that reflects the makeup of the Democrats party electorate.
The more difficult to avoid pervasive sources of aggregated polling error, such as partisan nonresponse, pose a enlarged serious risk to the accuracy and trustworthiness of a national resource, the polling industry. Can we call upon government, notably the federal government, for some aid? The federal government has the resources, time perspective, ability to compel, and incentive to provide benchmarks that lesser survey researchers might use to calibrate their weightings.
I think you ought to calibrate your reaction to recent pre-election polling errors. The average pro-Dem bias in 2016 and 2020 is two percentage points on vote share. That is large and potentially devastating when you’re forecasting an election where one party has 50.5% of the vote on average. But most policy preferences are not that evenly divided — even if polls on the recently-passed covid relief bill were as biased as the 2020 election polls, they would have shown that 68% of people on average supported it, compared to the 70% that a raw polling average showed. I reckon the depressed numbers don’t have any downstream implications for policy messaging as compared to the higher ones.
Minimum Wage seems like the kind of thing that'll get some level of bi-partisan support. Do you think it'll have a gradual increase to $15? Or will it be set at a lower level ($11?) and we'll see greater movement at the state level? Also tied to inflation would likely take some of the wind out of this argument, but is that likely?
It seems unlikely to me that we’ll get a major minimum wage hike after the Senate parliamentarian’s ruling last week. Manchin and Sinema are both against repealing the filibuster for it, and Sinema is outright against the $15 minimum in the first place. It’s worth mentioning that, due to state and local laws, the effective minimum wage in America is about $11-12 already.
What about the rumblings from Hawley/Romney, etc. Is it all bluster and push comes to shove they won't do it? I agree with your point that localities and states are pushing the edge regardless of federal policy. At what point does the argument become semantics and posturing? I'll confess I'm not sure who's impacted by minimum wage laws specifically the overlap between federal and state rules.
Hawley and Romney don't get you to 60 votes to avoid the filibuster, though. Maybe they would support a carveout for wage bills? I think this thought exercise really illustrates how precarious the situation is for any real federal legislative relief. What could Democrats trade McConnell to avoid the filibuster on a $12-15 minimum wage?
McConnell might be willing to retire, but I doubt it. If he wants to stay in office, he needs the support of his donors and of his voters. My old daddy often told me Count the money and count the votes.
I've been following Biden's cabinet confirmations for a while now and Biden's cabinet is being confirmed at slowest pace of any cabinet in modern history. Given the history of Republican obstruction in Congress during the Obama administration and now the Biden administration, it appears that Republicans and their voters do not believe a Democrat should be allowed legitimately govern the country. We know that a lot Republicans voters do not believe the election was legitimate. This is a huge long term problem for the United States. In the short term, how is the government expected to function during a national crisis?
I remember seeing a chart that confirmations of presidential nominations are at their slowest pace in recent history. This is due in large part to the weeks-long battle over Senate rules that happened at the beginning of the Dem-controlled Senate in Jan/Feb. The issue has started resolving itself, I think.
The broader lesson of the past week is that bureaucrats, while necessary for the government to function well, are less important when you have a competent executive. Biden seems to be getting on just fine without a confirmed OMB head, for example, and Dems just passed the biggest government stimulus ever. So... maybe we need to reconsider the role bureaucrats play during crises?
I wouldn’t necessarily bet on that. Democrats in Congress don’t seem to be making statehood as a means to democracy reform that big of a priority, and it will take a lot of public pressure on Congress and the presidency to get it done. 2023 is not that far away, in terms of the legislative calendar.
Zoe Lofgren's report on the GOP/anarchists who colluded and conspired with the anarchist invaders. Coloradan anarchists fighting police, overturning a car, having a big sulk because of masks. More police murders of black people. Looks to me we're witnessing turmoil that will only settle down when the anarchists are castrated.
Anarchists and 90+% of republicans?
For what it’s worth, around 40% of Republicans are women, so you will encounter quite hard barriers to castrating 90% of the party.
Well, shucks. Psilocybin for all, then. It works, and costs less.
Martha, have you read Michael Pollan's "How to Change Your Mind," a book about the history of shrooms? It is very good, would recommend it.
Well, Elliott, back in the day I had a pound of psilocybin and I knew how to use it. Many of my friends became enlightened by my hand.
We need Breyer to retire as soon as possible..
Adam,
I have been perplexed to see Democrats ignore this as a potential part of Biden's 100-day agenda. Seems like a no-brainer
What happened to Biden’s proposed court reform committee?
Elliott,
Do you know of any visualizations or articles showing the ideological breakdowns of Republican voters comparable to this link? I really like this one from Pew about Democratic voters but haven’t been able to find something similar for Republicans.
Maybe I am just googling the wrong thing.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/01/17/liberals-make-up-largest-share-of-democratic-voters/
Aaron,
I can produce estimates for you using data from the Nationscape + UCLA surveys. What are you curious about?
Maybe this answers your question: https://twitter.com/gelliottmorris/status/1367320705872838660?s=20
That’s interesting! I’m more interested in whether the two parties are mirror images of each other in terms of ideology. So, do Democrats have the same percentage of people who identify as liberal as Republicans who identify as conservative? And do both parties have the same percentage of people who identify as moderate?
I’m thinking about self reported party identification and ideology, not party registration.
My hunch is that there are more conservatives that identify as Republican than there are liberals who identify as Democrat.
Not sure if that makes sense.
Here's what you're looking for! https://news.gallup.com/poll/328367/americans-political-ideology-held-steady-2020.aspx
Yes! Thank you! I was exploring the idea of how moderates and conservatives who still identify as Democrats continue to pull the party to the center despite high profile activism on the left trying to pull the party towards the left. I was thinking about it this week because of how many Dem senators voted against trying to get a $15 wage into the Covid bill. IMO, there are more “moderate” Dem senators than Manchin and Sinema and that reflects the makeup of the Democrats party electorate.
The more difficult to avoid pervasive sources of aggregated polling error, such as partisan nonresponse, pose a enlarged serious risk to the accuracy and trustworthiness of a national resource, the polling industry. Can we call upon government, notably the federal government, for some aid? The federal government has the resources, time perspective, ability to compel, and incentive to provide benchmarks that lesser survey researchers might use to calibrate their weightings.
I think you ought to calibrate your reaction to recent pre-election polling errors. The average pro-Dem bias in 2016 and 2020 is two percentage points on vote share. That is large and potentially devastating when you’re forecasting an election where one party has 50.5% of the vote on average. But most policy preferences are not that evenly divided — even if polls on the recently-passed covid relief bill were as biased as the 2020 election polls, they would have shown that 68% of people on average supported it, compared to the 70% that a raw polling average showed. I reckon the depressed numbers don’t have any downstream implications for policy messaging as compared to the higher ones.
Minimum Wage seems like the kind of thing that'll get some level of bi-partisan support. Do you think it'll have a gradual increase to $15? Or will it be set at a lower level ($11?) and we'll see greater movement at the state level? Also tied to inflation would likely take some of the wind out of this argument, but is that likely?
It seems unlikely to me that we’ll get a major minimum wage hike after the Senate parliamentarian’s ruling last week. Manchin and Sinema are both against repealing the filibuster for it, and Sinema is outright against the $15 minimum in the first place. It’s worth mentioning that, due to state and local laws, the effective minimum wage in America is about $11-12 already.
(IE for the average worker, not true everywhere)
What about the rumblings from Hawley/Romney, etc. Is it all bluster and push comes to shove they won't do it? I agree with your point that localities and states are pushing the edge regardless of federal policy. At what point does the argument become semantics and posturing? I'll confess I'm not sure who's impacted by minimum wage laws specifically the overlap between federal and state rules.
Hawley and Romney don't get you to 60 votes to avoid the filibuster, though. Maybe they would support a carveout for wage bills? I think this thought exercise really illustrates how precarious the situation is for any real federal legislative relief. What could Democrats trade McConnell to avoid the filibuster on a $12-15 minimum wage?
McConnell might be willing to retire, but I doubt it. If he wants to stay in office, he needs the support of his donors and of his voters. My old daddy often told me Count the money and count the votes.
Good point. I mean literally nothing would convince McConnell. Maybe eliminating the entire government except the Senate lol
Hi Elliott,
I've been following Biden's cabinet confirmations for a while now and Biden's cabinet is being confirmed at slowest pace of any cabinet in modern history. Given the history of Republican obstruction in Congress during the Obama administration and now the Biden administration, it appears that Republicans and their voters do not believe a Democrat should be allowed legitimately govern the country. We know that a lot Republicans voters do not believe the election was legitimate. This is a huge long term problem for the United States. In the short term, how is the government expected to function during a national crisis?
I hope you are having a good weekend,
Elliot
https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-biden-cabinet-cabinets-health-coronavirus-pandemic-bccc2909b63177a38945efa138811af8
Hi Elliot,
I remember seeing a chart that confirmations of presidential nominations are at their slowest pace in recent history. This is due in large part to the weeks-long battle over Senate rules that happened at the beginning of the Dem-controlled Senate in Jan/Feb. The issue has started resolving itself, I think.
The broader lesson of the past week is that bureaucrats, while necessary for the government to function well, are less important when you have a competent executive. Biden seems to be getting on just fine without a confirmed OMB head, for example, and Dems just passed the biggest government stimulus ever. So... maybe we need to reconsider the role bureaucrats play during crises?
My best, and good question,
Elliott
If someone offered you 3-1 odds on Dems eliminating the filibuster for any additional kinds of bills, would you take that deal?
I bet 3 dollars for every 1 I bet? Yes, I’d take the deal. Manchin seems willing: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/manchin-says-he-still-supports-filibuster-may-back-more-party-n1259902
Meant to say “get” 3 for every bet.
Thanks, I got what you were saying. Follow-up question: does the partial or total elimination of the filibuster mean we get new states before 2023?
I wouldn’t necessarily bet on that. Democrats in Congress don’t seem to be making statehood as a means to democracy reform that big of a priority, and it will take a lot of public pressure on Congress and the presidency to get it done. 2023 is not that far away, in terms of the legislative calendar.