Trump keeps winning, Democrats are screwed, more “questionable” Democratic vote drops, a couple of disturbing deaths (only one TDS-related), and a Disney princess dines on shoe yet again. Plus: Satan!
It’s the Friday LinkSwarm!
There is a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth among Democrats, following Donald Trump’s unexpected (by them) victory. How could this possibly have happened? is the question newspapers, television hosts, and Democratic pundits are asking.
It actually isn’t a hard question to answer. The Biden/Harris administration had an indefensible record, and Kamala Harris didn’t seriously try to defend it, absurdly presenting herself as the candidate of change, while at the same time unable to identify a single respect in which her administration would be different from Biden’s.
Voters were unhappy about inflation, about the economy in general, and about the border. The Democrats, having created these problems, had no solutions to offer. Instead, they tried to tell voters that their concerns were imaginary.
Also, Kamala herself was a lousy candidate.
But the reality is worse than that. As the dust settles, I think Democrats will realize they are in a deeper hole than they thought. It was no coincidence that Harris refused to say what her position was on a variety of issues, earning the title of the “no comment” candidate–something that must be unprecedented in presidential history. The problem wasn’t that Kamala was tongue-tied, the problem was that the Democrats no longer have a coherent policy agenda.
The one issue that Harris never refrained from talking about was abortion. That is, today, the Democrats’ signature–and arguably only–issue. Apart from a fervent devotion to abortion, up to the moment of birth and beyond, what do they stand for?
A few years ago, the energy in the Democratic Party was in its socialist wing. Several of its seemingly up-and-coming representatives were members of the Democratic Socialists of America, and Bernie Sanders is the grand old man of socialism. On one memorable occasion, Nancy Pelosi was unable to explain how a Democrat is different from a socialist.
But the bloom is off that rose. Socialism was never a serious alternative for America; it is a discredited ideology that has been rejected around the world. And socialism is not a plausible ideology for a party whose core demographic is people who earn over $200,000 a year.
The Democrats are the party of DEI and Kamala Harris was a DEI candidate, but DEI is widely unpopular. The United States has labored under affirmative action, of which DEI is the current iteration, for 50 years. But Americans don’t like race discrimination or sex discrimination, and they believe in merit. An unbroken history of polling, stretching back for decades, has found that race and sex discrimination in employment and education are unpopular. Despite the massive corporate, government and cultural pressure that has tried to force DEI on Americans, that remains true. DEI, now on its way out, can hardly be the basis for future Democratic campaigns.
Opening the borders and admitting millions of illegal immigrants has been the core policy priority of the Biden administration, as reflected in Biden’s day-one executive orders. But it was a policy prescription that Democrats were never able to openly articulate and defend. Thus, as the 2024 election approached they were reduced to making the absurd claim that “the Southern border is secure.” Open borders are deeply and correctly unpopular, and do not provide a platform on which any future Democrat can run, although no doubt we will see plenty of tearjerking stories about illegals who are being deported.
Etc. Democrats are on the loser side of pretty much every issue.
The Texas Democrat Party Chairman, Gilberto Hinojosa, has announced his resignation after a significant statewide electoral defeat in Tuesday’s election.
Hinojosa, a South Texas lawyer first elected to the role in 2012, has overseen a period marked by Democrat losses, particularly among Hispanic voters and in border counties.
Despite ongoing claims that Texas was on the verge of “turning blue” for over a decade, Democrats have failed to secure a statewide victory in 30 years. In Tuesday’s election, President Donald Trump won Texas by more than 13 points, including victories in 12 of the state’s 14 border counties. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz also defeated his Democrat opponent by approximately nine points.
Speaking to KUT News on Wednesday, Hinojosa attributed the party’s loss partially to its focus on radical gender ideology. For example, during the party’s convention in June, delegates were addressed by a female drag queen (a woman dressed as a man dressed as a woman). When asked about “transgender rights,” he responded, “I think what the Democratic Party has to realize is that there’s some things that we can support and some things that we cannot. And when we’re pressed upon to take votes of these kinds, we need to be mindful of the long-term consequences of these choices.”
Of course, then he had to issue a groveling apology to the alphabet people. And that’s why you continue to lose…
I VOTED TRUMP/MAHA/UNITY. I hope others will do the same.
For some reason, many people seem to think I’m not voting. For the record, that is NEVER my move. My typical approach is: “If you don’t have a candidate in this election, vote (as if) in the next one.” That usually means…
— Bret Weinstein (@BretWeinstein) November 4, 2024
Major Nielsen ratings plunge at MSNBC since Trump won, practically every day since. Just one example – 10/30 Wednesday vs Fri 11/8 –
Morning Joe 1st hour – down 39.6%
Morning Joe 2d hour – down 36.9%
Andrea Mitchell – down 39.7%
Ari Melber – down 49.6%
Joy Reid’s Reidout – down…— Elizabeth MacDonald (@LizMacDonaldFOX) November 12, 2024
The wife of a well-known transgender writer has been charged with murdering her father with an ice axe the night of Donald Trump’s election to the presidency. She then allegedly shattered the windows of the $800,000 Rainier Valley, Washington, home in which she and her father lived in what she claimed was an “act of liberation,” according to charging documents.
Corey Burke, 33, who is married to transgender writer Samantha Leigh Allen, the author of “Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States,” was discovered after the death of her father, Timothy Burke, 67 — who had health issues — “smiling and clapping covered in her loved one’s blood, cops said,” according to The New York Post, which added that Burke “allegedly confessed to investigators the next day that she killed her father with the ax and also by strangling him. She also admitted to biting her father while choking him, the docs alleged.”
Yikes. I guess a lesbian who married a guy pretending to be a woman isn’t the most stable person in the world…
Tags: 2024 Election, 2024 Presidential Race, American Indians, Antar Lumumba, Ashley Danielle Blackcloud, Asif Rahman, Babylon Bee, Border Controls, Brad Williams, Bucks County (PA), butter, California, CIA, Clownfish TV, Corey Burke, Crime, Critical Drinker, Dallas Mudd, Deanna Crystal West, Democrats, Derrick Bernard Jr., Disney, dogs, Elections, Elon Musk, Gavin Newsom, gay, Gilberto Hinojosa, hate crime hoax, Hawaii, Hollywood, House of Representatives, Iran, Israel, Israel-Hamas War, Jackson (Mississippi), John Cornyn, John Hinderaker, John Thune, Kamala Harris, LinkSwarm, Media Watch, Mississippi, Nancy Pelosi, National Labor Relations Board, Neom, Pennsylvania, Planet Fitness, Rachel Zegler, Republicans, Rick Scott, Samantha Leigh Allen, samurai sword, Satan, Saturday Night Live, Saudi Arabia, Social Justice Warriors, spiders, Tennessee, Texas, Texas Democratic Party, Tren de Aragua, Trump Derangement Syndrome, Twitter, unions, video, voting fraud, Wisconsin, Yemi Mobolade
Nobody Wants Ranked Choice Voting
Malthus wants ranked choice voting because:
1.) It saves money compared to runoff elections
2.) It clearly establishes the consensus candidate
3.) It eliminates “spoiler” candidates
4.) It prevents vote splitting
5.) It encourages third party candidates
6.) It draws more participants into the election process by lowering the barriers to entry
Conceptually, RCV AKA “Instant Runoff Voting” involves running a jungle primary that establishes the winning candidate without having to run the top two vote getters in a subsequent election. The successful candidate is awarded a majority of all votes cast. No candidate can win such an election by a mere plurality. So while the process seems to invite fragmentation by drawing in more candidates and more voters, the “instant runoff” feature inevitably produces consolidation.
This makes it harder to game the system by placing greater authority in the electorate. Admittedly, it has its detractors:
“[T]here are many reasons to oppose jungle primary schemes. They often lead to candidates from just one party advancing to the general election. Candidates can ‘win’ a top-two primary with very small pluralities (rather than the majority now required) if many candidates run. Minor parties completely disappear. POLITICAL PARTIES LOSE POWER, which shifts to individual donors and outside groups.”
https://ocpathink.org/post/analysis/jungle-primary-ballot-measures-go-down-in-flames
So yes, the party power brokers get sidelined when RCV is implemented. However, this is a feature, not a bug. Don’t protest the Uniparty’s dominance if you are presented with an opportunity to end run the status quo and reject the only viable alternative.