title: america votes for more of the same, then gets upset when they get more of the same

And got exactly what we (the national, collective "we" --not the DU "we," and not you or me) voted for.

When we are addicted to our own outrage, vote for more opportunities to be outraged, and get a virtual outrage blank check as a result, the only truly logical response is to yell "OUTRAGE!"

It's an Internet meme in the making:

They are going to pass everything they want. Now that is scary!

you voted for this so here it is

50% believe the GOP majority is bad but...what % think "their Republican" is bad.

We always joke about IOKIYAR, It's OK if you're a Republican. That's a symptom of judging the actions of others but not being willing to recognize and, in effect, judge the same actions in one's self.

I always wonder when I see these stats about the macro institutional vs micro personal assessment. I hear people around here bitch about Republicans in congress and it almost always ends with "but at least Portman is sane" or "but Brad [Winstrup] is a good guy"

It's like the guy in the video made by Pelosi's daughter. From Mississippi I think. He was cursing up a storm about all this people on welfare and food stamps and medicaid. Of course, he was on welfare, food stamps, and medicare. His response when she asked him about it "Yeah well, that's because I need it...I'm upset about those other lazy bums who take advantage of the system to get it". The big picture and the little picture don't go together.

Anyway - just a thought at how this makes sense. I know the voter turnout issue is a big part of it but there seems to be something about the different between republicans in general vs. "MY" republican.

gerrymandering

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/2014-midterm-election-turnout-lowest-in-70-years/

The War on Women wasn't working 90 days out from the election. Yet we stuck with it despite all the evidence we had that it was not working. So what did we campaign on? Our message boiled down was We suck, but they suck worse.

we either get behind policies that help people get out of the game

Some old BS. You always forget the no brainers, like keeping democrats in control of the senate in case a new Supreme court justice needs to be seated. Or the most important of all "republicans can do a lot of damage to things that have already been accomplished, even though I am sure you don't think the president has done "anything" since he was elected, the fact is the has done a hell of a lot that republicans will now try and change, for the worse, if they can. But hey who gives a damn, right, just let the republicans have control and screw things up, no big deal!

Your kind of thinking helps only the republicans and their goals. I may not like some people who were running on the democratic ticket, but I sure as hell know that the best republican out there is a thousand times worse than the worst democrat. The idea that things will get better once republicans mess things up again is insane, and the damage they do will take even longer to fix.

is something else that makes me want to shoot myself in the face. along with " i have to have something to vote for not something to vote against" the democrats dont give people their particular brand of sparkle pony they hand the government over to the republicans.

them not voting does nothing excpt enable the cons and push our dems to the right. it's so infuriating. so many people working so hard to get dems in office and people in our own party say bullsht like "im not voting for just anyone because they have a d by their name".

it's all about scotus,people

Or are you putting words into my mouth. I was talking about our party in 2012, in which we campaigned on none of that. We read the polls enough to know that the President, and the ACA were unpopular, but that was all. We didn't campaign on one populist issue, not one. We ignored the biggest one, the Economy. We Democrats ran on the War on Women to the extent that Senator Udall was called Senator Uterus by the reporters covering the election.

Here is the crowd laughing at Democrat candidate for the House from New York Martha Robertson who broke it out during a debate.

We brushed other issues aside. They didn't matter, or we had nothing for them. That is what I was saying, now I watched the election as close as anyone. I was warning about the danger to the Senate back in March.

I was talking about polling and populist issues in other posts back then, begging the Democratic Party to address and embrace those issues. I wrote candidates and told them they had to address the populist issues. We got squat in return except more demands for donations. Why did we have to donate? Why if we didn't the Republicans would continue their war on women.

Now, if reading the truth upsets you so much, then I don't know where you can go to read liberal posts. Because I'm not going to walk into 2016 with our eyes closed. Our plan was for the Republicans to self destruct, to hand us the election with another Real Rape quote. Instead, the Republicans ran smart, and professional campaigns, and we got our asses kicked because we didn't.

Now you can bemoan the Republicans taking the Senate if you want, but they won because we didn't fight. We expected them to do all the work for us. We declared their party dead. We declared them dead after Romney lost, after Obama won in 2008, after the Government Shutdown, after the Sandy Hook background vote debacle, and after a dozen other incidents. Yet, the Republicans still won. What did we have to get our voters to the polls? Why we had the War on women. They had populist issues and they ran on them. We ignored Populist issues including demilitarizing the police, decriminalizing Marijuana, reigning in the NSA.

I could go on, but can you tell me what potential Presidential Candidate is addressing those populist issues? Someone is reading the polls, and it's not on our side. They see that the people favor those reforms in at least a plurality, and most often in a majority. Yet we continue to ignore the issues because we don't want to look weak on crime, weak on the war on drugs, and weak on terrorism. We're more afraid of being blamed for something, than standing for something.

So blame me like my posts here are somehow hurting the Democrats. Frankly I'd be astonished if they were, because the Democratic Party is self destructing as fast as possible without any input from one blue collar guy from Rural Georgia.

They didn't do it. That is the we suck but they suck way worse plan.

It's got a natural bias towards small and rural states. If it weren't for a few small eastern states like Delaware and Rhode Island, it would be far more heavily tilted towards Republicans than even the House.

Two years from now a bunch of Republicans in moderate to left states are up for re-election. Democrats will re-take the Senate by a larger margin than Republicans will enjoy in the interim.

as long as the Dem party keeps fielding corporate candidates they will continue to garner zero enthusiasm from the base (aka the majority of voters). I really think it is just that simple.

The polls they do before elections are polls of "likely voters".

Republicans almost always trail in polls that do not attempt to correct their samples for likelihood to vote.

That's a lot of idiots.

-- Mal

our shitty voting system

- What the poll means is that the people are sick of all of them. That's all.

The problem is, no one knows what to do now that we KNOW THEY ALL SUCK!

K&R

It's enough to make you buggy!!!

The things people think can be awesome:

He had been campaigning for Reagan because he told me that under Republicans, he'd be a millionaire by the time he was in his 30's while I'd still be making minimum wage. He was a volunteer campaigner this time for Greg Abbott. The guy is unemployed. He got his degree in Polisci, which there's about as much a demand for as basket weaving and all he could do was whine about how Obama had wrecked the economy. He asked me smugly what I was doing. I told him I was a housewife. I normally don't go around announcing the fact that I'm in the upper middle class financially because I didn't earn it. I married a man who earned it. But, I couldn't resist making sure that he saw me getting into my husband's Mercedes as I walked away. That guy made my life hell when I was a single mother in college, telling me his taxes were supporting parasites like me. It was petty of me, but it gave me a grim satisfaction.

And you never know what that impression did. Some people need a wake up call and maybe that was it. At least MAYBE he will stop judging people.

That 13% number really speaks to the way the RW messaging has duped people into voting against their own best interest. My guess is that 99% of those 13% sit around Amway and Herbal Life meetings telling[i/] themselves they're 1%ers.

to identify "the 99%/1%" distinction.

twice as many effing idiots shopped on Black Friday as voted on Dull Gray Tuesday. Maybe if we moved the election to Black Friday, set up polling places in the malls, and gave people a 10% discount with their ballot stub?

Along with the high rates of incumbent victories, way too many people think congress sucks, but "my person is okay, it's the people others elect that are the issue."

GOD DAMN SHIT FUCK BALLS TITS ASS AND SHIT, fucking VOTE, you stupid complacent lazy fuckwits, you ball of lint-riddled uselessness, you appetizer on the plate of those who are FUCKING EATING YOU, summon the requisite calories from your last pasty feast of whatever it was that isn't food to raise your hand ONCE every TWO YEARS and TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR OWN FUCKING DESTINY. You can do it. Really, you can. The WHOLE FUCKING SYSTEM was designed to let you, yes you, do EXACTLY AND PRECISELY THAT. When shit goes sideways and everything sucks, it's because you aren't levitating off of your pillow-ass to waddle down to a polling station IN YOUR OWN GODDAM NEIGHBORHOOD - literally, like a couple of blocks down - to fill in a box with a felt pen in order to have a say about your future. YOUR FUCKING FUTURE, AND MINE, you fucking baggage.

WHAAAAAAARGARBLE THIS SHIT MAKES ME CRAZY. However you may feel about Bill Clinton, he said this in his first inaugural address, and nailed it: "There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be fixed by what is right with America." One thing that is right with America: VOTING. Decisions are made by those who show up, period, end of FUCKING file.

Ermahgerd, half the country thinks a GOP congressional majority is bad? IF HALF THE GODDAM COUNTRY HAD BOTHERED TO SHOW UP, just half, just a meager fucking 50%, THIS WOULDN'T BE A PROBLEM.

Ugh.

...who could possibly refuse!?!?!?

- It positively sneers at the Republican's ham-handed outreach to blacks, Hispanics and women! We'll show them!!!

it is very possible a majority don't want Republican representation but that is what we have.

Frankly, Dems have only themselves to blame for this result. They did not give any reason to vote for them (in their campaigning), and so people did not go and vote.

Voting for the lesser evil has never been a winning argument.

- In the ''Recrimination Threads,'' you're only allowed to speak Truth in half-strength. Unvarnished Truth is so uncouth and undignified. It simply isn't done.

Giddy up!

Or at least plenty of them didn't vote. The purists spent all their time telling them it was pointless because Democrats are just as bad. We got Dubya last time. Let's hope this round is not as bad.

yes, yes, fine, i certainly agree that everyone who can vote should.


but every citizen over the age of 18 should be able to vote easily and conveniently, and this is not the case in the vast majority of america.

- voters should be able to vote early.

- voters should be able to vote by mail.

- voter identification, if required at all, should be minimal, free, and easily and conveniently obtained (including, e.g., expired ids).

- lines at the polls should be minimal.

- voting roll purges should require notification of affected voters well in advance of the election and in any event should not affect voters who object and appeal (if they purge you and you show up, how likely is it that you're actually dead? let them vote normally, not on provisional ballots, and sort it out afterward for the next election.)

- the government should *never* have the right to take away anyone's right to vote for any reason. this includes current and ex felons. disenfranchisement is not about punishment or keeping the public safe, it's *all* about partisan politics.

- gerrymandering should be subject to far greater and far more skeptical scrutiny. the partisanship is transparent and should be illegal.

...using reason instead of emotionally charged and knee-jerk blaming responses?

- I dunno. It could work I guess. Has it ever been tried!?!?

again, yes, if and where we can vote, we should let no obstacles prevent us. fine and dandy.

but we're still playing on a lopsided field because of all this disenfranchisement.

have a difficult time trying to vote.
I don't think that is true.
Voting restrictions are being implemented in red states. I don't think that counts as a majority of Americans who are eligible to vote.
I think you are adding another reason to the "nothing to vote for" and the "our guy isn't any better than their guy" reason.

i think more states than you might think do have some form of restrictions that i listed, though not all of them and not as egregious as in the redder states. on the other hand, there are also restrictions in "battleground" states such as ohio and florida. i'm not claiming that we would have kept the senate had there been fairer elections in the reddest of red states. we're not winning wyoming any time soon regardless. but there are states where elections are closer, and it doesn't take much to tip the scales in the republicans' favor.

they don't need to actually affect a "vast majority" of americans, in fact their strategy is highly targeted. they only need to affect a few percent in a few states. this is why they love voter id crap, or taking the vote away from felons or ex-felons, or long lines in poor districts. because most well-off, upstanding citizens (who skew republican) aren't remotely inconvenienced by any of this. the people it does affect skew democratic. the vast majority of americans are subject to some for of such law, though many are not inconvenienced by it. but enough are to skew elections.

again, i'm not saying this is an excuse not to vote if you are able to do so. hardly, it makes it all the more important. what i am saying is that it's facile and insulting to complain about other people not voting while ignoring that republicans have made it hard, expensive, or impossible for people to vote.

It isn't hard for us to out vote them even with the restrictions in place.

I blame genetically modified organisms. The food has to be the source of what is eating peoples brains, lowing their IQ and putting us in this terrible mess.

WTF, America. WTF.

instead of just trying to deflect GOP lies things might be different.
But they never do.

To Complain, and I have a right to worry about the right wing Ayn Rand Paul Ryan austerity programs coming down the proverbial right wing pike in the next two years from the likes of ALL of the right wing republicans.
For all you that did NOT vote, this mess is on your shoulders because you are STUPID and I MEAN STUPID: banghead:

other than "get Roorda and McCulloch in office because you don't want to think about the alternative" XD

does stand for a lot. There's women's rights, raising the minimum wage, gun control, protecting voting rights, strengthening health care, education, gay rights, and more. Yes, Democrats could've been on the offensive more often and tout the President's record, and not to mention reminding people of the non-stop obstruction from the GOP. With that aside, there were a number of stark differences between each Democrat and each Republican running, but people don't do their research and thus succumb to blind cynicism and falsely equate the two parties.

meanwhile, others are dying for the right to vote.

When will we see POLLS for what they are...
NOT a MEASURE of public sentiment
but a TOOL to CONTROL public sentiment!

Whem the MSM says 50% blah blah blah
but fail to say 50% of how many, or who...
they are WORKING TO MANIPULATE YOUR PERCEPTION!
Wake up and smell the coffee.

Drill down through the survey results and look at
the demographics regarding ages, education, income
and how they view Govt.
The last few pages are revealing.

Even this last election where the polls were off by an average of 4% which is a big margin, they still had the general direction of the election right.

Did polls reporting Dems would lose to repubs
lead to lower turnout in the last election?
If people think their "team" can't win do they stay home?

Any poll that does not disclose sample method,
and specific demographics is untrustworthy.

The only reason to withhold sampling method
and demographics is if it invalidates the poll
and thus would appear on it's face to be an attempt
to manipulate perceptions.

Does the Poll we are discussing give racial demographic data?
Does the poll provide combined race and gender data?
Does it provide geographic demographic data?
Did the sample accurately reflect the national demographics?

It almost leaves me speechless.

It would be interesting to see the take.

Yet we still have some people here on DU who think it's best if some Democrats lose to Republicans & cheer for that outcome. We still have some people here who spend their time running down Democratic candidates for President, while they try to boost the campaigns of "candidates" who have repeatedly said they aren't running & have no interest in doing so.

Are these people just stupid? Or is there some ulterior motive?