Nope, I'm not worried about independents because I think they'll break heavily for the Democratic candidate. Despite what polling might tell us. Despite what polling told us in 2016. This is an entirely different race.

This time around if every single person who voted for Trump votes for him again he will still lose.

Okay,

Clinton was an extremely unpopular candidate. She won the election by nearly 3 million votes. We have no candidates carrying that kind of baggage this time around. Except Trump. Has he gained any new voters? Has he done anything to get out the vote among Republicans? has he made a lot of enemies? Pissed off Democrats on a daily basis?

No, I'm not worried about independents, Democrats, or Republicans. I'm not worried about third party voters, I'm not worried in the least about which party will win a year from now. I'm not even terribly concerned about which candidate wins the Democratic nomination. I don't want it to be Biden but all the others are fine with me.

Every election is about turnout. The polls can effect the turnout as was the case in 2016 when polling assured voters that Clinton would win handily so they didn't turn out in sufficient numbers. If Democratic voters ever imagined that Donald Trump could actually win they'd have got off their asses and voted. We owe Donald Trump's victory to the media and to the pollsters.

There will be no such apathy this time around. This time it's personal. This time voters will be seeking revenge.

It's going to be a bloodbath.

I'm not trying to convince you or anyone else.

But the recent elections in Kentucky and Louisiana should go a ways to show how even reliably red states are no longer reliable. These are "polls" that count, polls that should have gone the other way. With any other president they would have gone the other way.

Hide and watch, bucko, it's gonna be a hoot!

I think that, a couple of years ago, I posted a list of stuff that the Trump administration had done. I think it was pages long and Trump had been in office less than 1 year. Since then the number of what I consider offenses against citizens has, at least, quintupled. I would be nice if somebody with the time could re-capitulate offenses that can be described in single sentences, like:
Trump administration has:
reduced drinking water regulations
changed law to allow coal
wants to log the Tongass national forest
assaulting national monuments
caging children
throwing military veterans out of country
assaults lifelong civil servants for speaking truth
lies approximately 80% of the time
changed law to allow coal waste to pollute streams
etc.

My thought is the Dems should produce such a list of items so that candidates, when lacking for something to say could simply read a any number of such things, for the edification of those held in thrall, by Trump, due to their incredible ignorance. I suspect, for instance, that his administration has, at least, 200 environmental changes that could be added to such a list.

The political economist, Mark Blyth, had predicted the possibility of Brexit fatigue being the major factor in the run up to yesterday’s vote. Here’s an article he referenced a few weeks before yesterdays historic Labor Party wipe out:

‘In 2016, voter dissatisfaction in the US mid-west, and in large swaths of the central and northern UK, gave rise to an electoral earthquake. First it was the June Brexit referendum, where a narrow majority of UK voters opted to leave the European Union. Five months later, it was Trump's similarly narrow victory.

‘In one case it was a man who served as the hammer that forged an electoral realignment. In the other it was a single-issue vote. But at the heart of both was a conservative populism centred around trade and immigration. This week's UK general election is a key test to see whether 2016 was a sign of a durable political shift in the UK. And, like the 2016 Brexit vote, there will be many in the US watching carefully to see if British politics once again foreshadows events to come in the US.’

Will the U.K. elections for shadow the U.S.?

The knives are out and Corbyn has already announced plans to step down. It looks as though the north central areas have confirmed they’re position on Brexit and have left the Labor party.
One wonders if the same dynamic will be happen here in 2020. Will the impeachment be viewed as an attempt to overturn an election?

The world's gone crazy. I honestly don't know enough about the European economy but it seems like Brexit is likely to do a lot more damage than it does good. Or at least that's what I've gleaned from the headlines and such.

But maybe Brentrance was a bad idea in the first place?

Let's not forget that the British Isles have been at war with the continent for literally thousands of years. There could be some tribal issues with the merger.

If the conservative victory is a harbinger of things to come, then so be it. We're fecked and there's nought to be done. Did you know we're overdue for a recession? And it's not really looking like there's gonna be one anytime soon. The tax cuts will keep the economy propped up as they slowly bankrupt the government.

The number one rule of the government game is not to get caught with that tarbaby in your lap. Like W passed it to Bams right before the music stopped.

A lot of folks vote their pocketbooks, whoever is in charge gets the blame or the credit for their personal financial well being. The myth of the good economy is that everyone in the country is just going deeper and deeper in debt and the government is going deeper and deeper into debt and a handful of megacorporations are pulling all the strings to funnel all of the wealth int the world into the hands....oh dear...am I ranting...nevermind.

No, that's a fair summary. Democrats really need to start fixing things soon. Personally, I think Brexit is a result of Putin's guys meddling to stir up racism and xenophobia in England before Brexit ever came up. (They certainly did exactly that here.) I'm sure Vlad loves the idea of a divided and weak EU. They used the internet to get people riled up about Muslim refugees, so they would want to cut off their flow as part of the EU. They also did the same with Poles, and other Europeans living and working in England.

England had Commonwealth immigrants for decades before this, including lots of brown people from Africa and India. And yes, including Muslims. It's only recently they have decided to shoot themselves in the face (Brexit) to prevent more immigration.

Vlad is chuckling.

Yesterday the house had a 14 hour of 'debate'. I didn't watch much of it as it was, except for a few instances, got incredibly boring after the first hour or so. I did notice that whilst the Republicans charged the Dems with everything but the kitchen sink the Dems, for the most part, stuck to the story. When one actually stepped out of the story, and actually attacked Trump for stuff, it was a genuine boredom breaker. Anyway, it was, as far as I was concerned another effort, by the Dems that fell flat on their collective faces. The only real amusement was when the Dems shut it down to continue in the morning and the Republicans, who had spent the entire time trying to extend the boredom infinitely went ballistic that the Dems chose not to have the vote in the middle of the night.

I also watched the vote which came, and went, rather swiftly.

All in all, so far, I actually saw little that would encourage voters to all come out and vote. Instead we were treated to congressional process. That being said I remember one Republican who was on a geniune run, and, obviously, thrilled with the sound of his own braying, and claiming the entire process was the reason congress was held in such low regard. That got my attention. Their current approval rating seems to be about 20% https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/01/politics/poll-of-the-week-congress-approval-rating/index.html
Congress is also less popular than hemeroids (amonst other things)
https://www.politifact.com/california/st...oids-and-herpe/

They just don't seem to get it. NONE of them get it! I am going to beat a dead horse on this one - sorry about that. The simple fact is that the founders set up a system wherein two sides would sit down and base decisions on what they could both live with. Its that simple. Congress, however, doesn't seem to see it that way. I believe that those on the left are more agreeable to this system than the right but I am not sure by all that much. One would think that they could come to this conclusion all on their own but, I guess not. Instead everybody wants to have a fight and 'win'. The simple fact is that the system isn't about winning and losing but doing their f***ing jobs! ie. sitting down and hammering out stuff they can both live with without rancor, accusation, hate, screaming, yelling, and making much noise.

I was going to suggest that gov establish an office that regulated congressional behavior which did not support sides. When somebody acted up, or even a party acted up, it got excoriated by this office and every news media in the land would be forced to carry the story. Then I changed my mind. Seems to me, given the current crop of jerks, they would glory in their lunacy.

I am sure there are people who are experts at getting two sides together to reach some kind of agreement. My solution is to gather all the jerks of congress (most or all) in a big room and make them listen to how they are supposed to behave - the whole damned bunch of them. They get to say nothing they just must sit there and listen. That should occur every morning for a solid month. No days off, no vacations, no 3 hour days, they just get lectured on how to behave and what they are there to do (the nation's business and NOTHING else!). Its unfortunate that we don't have a national election where we could get something like this passed (just to see what would happen).

Then, just maybe, they might get the message. One would think that they just might want to be more popular than hemorrhoids. Then, again, considering how the whole bunch of them behave, and their obvious inability to behave like people with a job to do and actually do it eventually the whole bunch will get fired and there will be blood on the streets. I was going to mention they probably need a good spanking but, on reflection, that is probably an error in that they know how high they are thought of and yet they just continue to behave like kindergarten children battling over toys when nobody is looking. That being said they might just want to be spanked (which is a bit disgusting). Instead they don't do their jobs with the entire world watching and, obviously, either don't understand the system or just don't give a damn!

Just saying..................

Again implying both Parties are equally at fault.

Since 1965:

Republicans in power for 28 years
120 indictments
89 convictions
34 prison sentences

Democrats in power for 25 years
3 indictments
1 conviction
1 prison sentence

Remind me again how both Parties are basically the same?

Even while the impeachment is going on, Democrats are passing bills that the country needs. The impeachment just crowds them out of the news and the Senate refuses to even vote on them. "Do nothing" is not a Congress problem. It's a Republican problem.

I don't recall doing any "both-siderism" on this issue.