Post Trump era

[pErvinalia]

I think conservatives should be in zoos. But I'd be happy to allow hunting of the more egregious conservatives.

Since you've pointed out that liberals and conservatives are the same, that's a mighty big zoo. What about moderates?

There's not that many ideological liberals out there. As for the moderates, while they do give some legitimacy to conservative policies, I think a compulsory 2 weeks of homelessness and poverty will highlight the errors of their ways to them.

Marxists and their hyper regressive-left buddies can have a section of the zoo. In fact chuck them in with conservatives. That'll be a good laugh.

[Brian Peacock]

"the Resistance"

...is fertile.

[Tero]

Contrary to most accounts, Democrats are not despondent. We are not giving up hope for 2018. Special election results are not predictive of midterm elections, and these results in no way indicate that the party is in disarray.

There are so many factors that played a part in last night’s election. First and foremost, let’s remember that this is a district that should NEVER have been in contention. It is a ruby-red district held by Republicans since 1972. Seven months ago, Republican Tom Price, Trump’s new health secretary, won the district by 23 points. Karen Handel, the Republican running against Democrat Jon Ossoff, won by less than four points.

While these victories will not add up to an additional Democratic seat in Congress, they will add to the universe of possibilities Democrats see in November 2018. According to the Cook Political Report’s Partisan Voting Index, there are 71 districts that are more competitive than GA-06. Democrats need to capture 24 seats to take control of the House.

So, as gleeful as Republicans are Wednesday from their win Tuesday — and they should be — they should not let it go to their heads.

Trump’s dismal performance as commander in chief, the GOP’s dreadful record so far and Democrats dramatic over performance in the last four special elections in reliably red districts, all make for a mix of energy and optimism for us going into 2018.

Republicans, celebrate your victory. It very well could be a short-lived one.

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/n ... ms-will-be

[Tero]

Next presidential candidate will need a simple message (healthcare for all Americans?). Because we don't want a bunch of issues, we want a SOUND BITE!

Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, says Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election to President Trump because "she never got a real message out, whereas Donald had us saying ‘Make America Great Again.'"

"Hilary never got a real message out," said Bloomberg, who considered running for president as an independent, in an interview Tuesday night with CNN's Anderson Cooper. "It was don't vote for that guy and the gender issue. Whereas Donald had us saying ‘Make America Great Again,'" said Bloomberg in an interview Tuesday night with CNN's Anderson Cooper. "I don't know what again means. But America — that's patriotic. And great, that's a good word. I thought, it's not quite that simple, but we do live in a world of 140 characters, and slogans matter."

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/micha ... le/2626591

[pErvinalia]

What a fucking idiot.

[Tero]

He's partly right. About half the voters who show up to vote have the Trump attention span of 140 characters.

[pErvinalia]

I was going to say that people are sick of the bullshit slogans, but you (and he) are probably right. I forgot about #MAGA. I'm thinking more of Australia where the public is over that sort of stuff (not that that stops the pollies doing it and the voters falling for it)..

[Tero]

[Tero]

http://billmoyers.com/story/ironworker- ... paul-ryan/

A campaign ad went viral last week — something that, despite political consultants’ best efforts, doesn’t often happen. It begins with an elderly woman sitting in her living room in Wisconsin. As her middle-aged son listens, she describes her concern that she someday may not be able to pay for the drugs she needs to treat her multiple sclerosis.

Her son, it turns out, is Randy Bryce, a first-time candidate for federal office. Bryce’s opponent in 2018 will be one of the Republican health care plans’ most prominent advocates, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. As the ad circulated through social media last week, Bryce — or @IronStache, as he’s known on Twitter — quickly became internet famous as an advocate for expanding, not taking away, health care.

[pErvinalia]

Meh. He'll be crushed by Ryan.

[cronus]

Whilst you lot are dreaming of a return to normalcy, in your way, Trump is already trying on military suits for his role as supreme dictator following the coming dollar crash....FEMA camps are real, dreams are for those asleep.

[pErvinalia]

Don't you get bored posting nonsense?

[Tero]

GOP will pretty much hold on to ALL the regular voters through 2020, 2024. Jan 2021 people on Medicaid start dying.

Nov. 2020 — Presidential election
By now, some pain may have kicked in for some Americans. Some who were formerly eligible for tax credits for individual market insurance premiums — that is, those between 350 and 400 percent of the federal poverty level — will no longer be eligible.

The cost-sharing reduction payments that benefit lower-income people on the exchanges will also end. That could lead to lower-income people paying premiums near where they are now, but also having much higher deductibles, the CBO reported this week. In other words, health care would be more expensive for many lower-income people in the individual markets, so many may simply choose not to purchase insurance.

And the amount the federal government spends to reimburse states for Medicaid will be dropping by then. If states want to maintain current levels of coverage, they will have to spend more and more of their own money. Otherwise, as the CBO wrote, states would cut spending in a number of ways:

"...cutting payments to health care providers and health plans, eliminating optional services, restricting eligibility for enrollment through work requirements and other changes, or (to the extent feasible) arriving at more efficient methods for delivering services."
Furthermore, some older Americans would by now paying more for their health insurance, though some younger Americans could be seeing smaller premiums.


But then, the number of people on the exchanges in the first place is small — around 6.4 million right now. If people on the exchanges are getting less care for more money, and if it affects their votes (that is, if those people vote), it may not be a huge bloc of voters. And the effects of these changes may be slow in coming.

"Those changes do start in 2020 and could be a problem for the election [for Republicans], but I think those market effects would be more gradual," said Caroline Pearson, senior vice president for policy and strategy at Avalere Health.

(But then, once again, all of this is contingent upon people pinning negatives and/or positive to Republicans.)

January 2021
Medicaid expansion starts to roll back: matching rate for the expansion population starts to decline
"Trigger laws" start going into effect, ending Medicaid expansion altogether in some states

NPR

The healthcare effects will not turn the 2018 or 2020 elections. But by then Trump himself will have become TOXIC.

[Tero]

Need to work on those reluctant Trumpsters for 2018

We can’t go back and find the voters who cast an unenthusiastic ballot for Trump.1 But FiveThirtyEight partnered with SurveyMonkey to survey more than 7,000 American adults during the first week of April and asked Trump voters how enthusiastic their vote for the president had been. (We gave respondents five levels of excitement to choose, from “very excited” to “not excited at all”.)2 About 15 percent of Trump voters said they weren’t excited to cast a ballot for him. This group differs demographically and has different policy priorities from the rest of the Trump cohort.

Who are the reluctant Trump voters? Like most Trump supporters, they are overwhelmingly white — 85 percent — and middle age and older. Forty-three percent of reluctant Trumpers were 55 or older, as were 49 percent of other Trump voters.

The biggest difference between the two groups is education level: 37 percent of reluctant Trumpers had at least a college degree, while only 25 percent of other Trump supporters had a college or postgraduate degree. This enthusiasm gap for Trump among better-educated Trump voters partly explains why Republicans — most prominently the president — are keeping an eye on the special election today in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District, Republican Tom Price’s old seat. Georgia’s 6th has one of the highest levels of educational attainment in the country, and the race is tight, with Democratic newcomer Jon Ossoff making a strong showing in polls and fundraising.

Reluctant Trumpers are also less loyal to the Republican Party brand; when it comes to party identification, 75 percent of them said they are Republican or Republican-leaning, while 91 percent of other Trump voters called themselves Republican or Republican-leaning.

But as of right now, reluctant Trump voters approve of Trump, and not even reluctantly, though at nowhere near the same levels of other Trump voters: 74 percent of reluctant Trumpers approved of the president, while a whopping 97 percent of more enthusiastic Trump voters approved of him.

Despite this general approval rating harmony among Trump voters, reluctant Trumpers prioritized issues slightly differently than other Trump voters did; they seem more moved by traditional Republican Party issues than the president’s law-and-order/build-the-wall-focused campaign promises. While a plurality of all Trump voters said the economy was the most important issue to them, reluctant Trump voters rated health care as their second priority — standard Republican talking points during the Obama years hammered away on the need to “repeal and replace Obamacare.” But the other Trump voters did not consider health care to be quite so important; it came in fourth on their list of priorities, after terrorism and immigration.

Given their interest in health care, reluctant Trump voters’ reactions to the failed Republican health care bill are of particular interest, and they were far less happy with how Trump handled the process than the president’s other supporters. A slim majority, 54 percent, of the reluctant Trump voters approved of Trump’s role in the health care process, compared with 88 percent of more enthusiastic Trump voters.

Reluctant Trump voters are more in line with the rest of Trump’s base on other issues. One thing reluctant Trump voters seem unwaveringly pleased by is the placement of Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court; 86 percent of them approved of the nomination; 96 percent of other Trump voters approved as well. Three-fourths of the reluctant voters think the investigation into collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia is a distraction; 89 percent of other Trump voters do.

But there are danger signs for Trump and the GOP: Nearly 80 percent of Trump’s enthusiastic voters said they approved of his budget proposal, which essentially serves as an outline of the White House’s priorities. Only about half of reluctant Trump voters approved of the budget. That should worry the administration — a sign that the group that pushed him over the finish line in November 2016 isn’t on board with parts of Trump’s agenda.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/re ... hes-doing/