DCUM Weblog

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Psyched! He's closing the Department of Education in Washignton (sic) DC", and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster, who managed to misspell the name of our country's capital city, very excitedly posted a video of President-elect, cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump saying that he would "close down" the U.S. Department of Education. Trump's plan is to send the Department's functions back to the states. While my predictive powers have been shown wanting recently, I am fairly confident in suggesting that the next several years will feature a torrent of complaints about leopards eating faces from those who voted for the leopards eating faces party. In fact, I expect that this cliché will be used so often in coming years that, if you are not sick of hearing it already, you will be soon. Nowhere is that more likely than in the event that Trump is actually successful in shuttering the Department of Education. It is pretty clear from the get-go that most MAGAs have no idea what the department actually does. Nor do they understand the right-wing motives for getting rid of it. What they know is that their cult leader supports it and, therefore, it must be good. That's enough to provoke this moment of near ecstasy from the original poster. As several posters point out, Trump doesn't actually have the power to shut down the department. That would require Congressional legislation. With a Republican majority in the Senate and a probable majority in the House, such legislation might be possible. However, given the Senate's filibuster and the very slight majority House Republicans are likely to have, passing any controversial legislation could be a struggle. As a result, MAGAs may be saved from themselves. But, in the case that they are not, they will likely be surprised by the results. Some of the MAGA posters in this thread believe that there is a national school curriculum that the Department of Education oversees. Of course, no such curriculum exists. Similarly, many of the MAGAs are convinced that it is this national curriculum that has resulted in "woke" education such as teaching about LGBTQ issues. They believe that with authority over education returned to the states, curriculums will return to emphasizing the fundamentals of reading, writing, and arithmetic. What is more likely, however, is that there will be fragmentation as states take different paths. Based on what we have seen so far, Republican states, far from returning to the basics, will focus on putting religion, specifically Christianity, into the classroom. Oklahoma, for instance, has already decreed that every classroom must have a Bible. By sheer coincidence, the only Bible that meets the state's requirements is the one sold by Trump. Many of the liberal posters warn that another result will be to weaken, if not destroy completely, public education. They suggest that some states will favor vouchers and charter schools — including those run by for-profit organizations — instead of traditional public schools. The biggest fear cited by posters is the impact on special education. Currently, funding for special education programs comes from the Department of Education. If that funding goes away, states will need to fund such programs themselves. Poor states, which tend to be Republican states, will likely be hit harder than states with more money. This highlights why liberals should be cautious about taking pleasure in seeing MAGAs "finding out". As in this case, where the impact would likely fall on kids with special needs in red states, the victims of MAGA policies will tend to be powerless innocents.

Over the weekend, the most active threads were, once again, all related to the election. The most active of the bunch was the one about Democrats engaging in self-reflection that I discussed last week. After that was a thread titled, "Did you really think Kamala would win? Deep down inside, did you?", and, of course, posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster says that she had doubts about whether Vice President Kamala Harris would win the election. I think we should stipulate that, by nature, nearly every Democrat is predisposed to pessimism. Harris could have had a poll lead of 40 points, and the majority of Democrats would still be having sleepless nights and imagining scenarios for an upset. In this case, the polls always showed a very tight race that was never anything more than a toss-up. Therefore, a certain amount of doubt was justified. But now with the benefit of hindsight, you would get the impression that nobody thought that she could win. Some posters say that they always feared that what they believe to be the innate sexism and racism of American society would be too strong for a Black woman to overcome. Others claimed that race and gender were not issues but rather Harris' own shortcomings. The same criticisms that were made during the campaign — such as complaints about her media interviews — were repeated. I often felt during the campaign that many people were looking for an excuse not to support Harris instead of reasons to support her. Votes for President-elect, cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump would be justified by the smallest fault that could be found in the Vice President. This impression is strengthened by responses in this thread. There is a general feeling of, "Well, Harris has this or that flaw, so I had no choice other than to vote for Trump". Never mind Trump's innumerable more and worse flaws. For my part, I believed that Harris would win the election, but I also had reasons for concern. One, that I voiced here repeatedly, was the impact of her position regarding Israel's wars in Gaza and Lebanon. This did turn out to hurt her in Michigan and likely had a negative impact elsewhere. My other worry also appears to have turned out to be true. Harris clearly predicated her campaign on the assumption that moderate Republicans, particularly women, could be persuaded to vote for her. My belief is that these Republicans may not like Trump, but were prepared to vote for him minus a compelling enough alternative. Late in the campaign, I became convinced that Harris was not successfully providing that alternative and, therefore, moderate Republicans would return to form and vote Republican. I still thought, or perhaps hoped, that Harris could pull out a victory, so I am not retroactively claiming that I didn't think Harris would win. The other thing happening in this thread — and I know I am paddling upstream trying to change anyone's mind about this — is that Harris' defeat is being exaggerated. With the exception of Arizona, her losses in swing states were by less than 2%. All the geniuses in this thread who claim that it has been obvious all along that Harris would lose should realize that it wouldn't have taken much to swing 2% of the voters in those states a different direction.

The most active threads yesterday continued to be related to the election. The most active thread of the day was titled, "Time for reflection as a dem?" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster asks whether, as a result of the resounding Republican victory in the election, Democrats should have a moment of reflection and stop pushing so hard to the left. This thread is 37 pages long, and I don't have time to read much of it, so I am just going to give my own thoughts on this topic. From what I've seen in DCUM discussions, "The Left" normally refers to those who have certain views on social issues rather than economic policies. Those on the left are identified by a commitment to "woke" issues and, especially, support for the rights of trans people. From what I've read in this thread, this is how the term is used in the discussion. In this thread, as well as many other recent threads, posters are eager to attack support for transgender people and blame "the left's" support of trans rights for the election loss. Let me be as clear as possible with regard to this point. For me, trans rights is a moral issue and, as such, not something that I will abandon for political expediency. Moreover, I have no plans to open DCUM to additional anti-trans discussion. If not being able to attack trans rights is a deal-breaker for you, my only response is, "see you". I am sure you will find a website more accommodating to your views elsewhere. The millions of dollars that President-elect, cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump spent demonizing trans people during the campaign is really the epitome of bullying. He went after a small, marginalized community that is basically harmless. Let's accept the anti-trans narrative for a second and assume that occasionally a trans girl or woman competing in sports deprives a non-trans woman of an award or maybe a scholarship. That is concerning, true, but do you know what is worse? Trump's party's support for anti-abortion laws that are literally killing women. If you are withholding your support for the Democratic Party because your opposition to trans rights is stronger than your concern about women dying, I am skeptical that your true concern is women's rights. Beyond social issues of this sort, Democrats may want to reflect, but could logically come to the opposite conclusion of the original poster. Almost all analysis of voting behavior in this election suggests that inflation was the number one concern. If that is true, Vice President Kamala Harris should have spent more time addressing that issue rather than campaigning with Liz Cheney and Mark Cuban. Harris clearly moved her campaign to the right and ran as a centrist. Perhaps she would have been better served by running on a message closer to what Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders might propose? Imagine that she had spent the bulk of the campaign criticizing the high price of groceries and promising to punish corporate price gouging? Imagine her standing in front of the headquarters of State Farm and demanding that they get car insurance rates under control? Maybe she could have said that one issue on which she differed from President Joe Biden was his deference to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who kept interest rates too high and waited too long to lower them? Wouldn't this have appealed more to the blue-collar workers who abandoned her for Trump than the billionaire Cuban criticizing Harris' own proposal to tax unrealized capital gains? Yes, Democrats should have some self-reflection. Do they want to be nothing more than a warmed-over version of the Republican Party, or do they want to fight for the votes of those they lost in this election? Or, do they simply want to scapegoat transgender people and call it a day?

Yesterday the most active threads were again all related to the election, but at least there was enough differentiation that I can write about them separately. The most active of the bunch was titled, "Why did Kamala lose ?" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Ultimately, Vice President Kamala Harris lost because she did not get as many votes as her opponent, President-elect, cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump. That may sound trite, but Harris saw support drop from the level received by President Joe Biden in 2020 almost across the board. As a result, there are surely multiple reasons for her defeat. I don't think this was a case of one major failure, but rather more like a death of a thousand cuts. Certainly, as I wrote yesterday, her association with Biden's support of Israel's wars in Gaza and Lebanon cost her votes among important constituencies. Voters upset about inflation also turned to Trump in great numbers. As this 58-page thread demonstrates, there are a host of reasons voters had for not supporting Harris. There are the traditional Republican complaints about immigration, crime, and the economy, but there are a slew of other issues as well. There is a tendency in threads like this for posters to highlight their own pet issue. For instance, there is a longtime DCUM poster who is absolutely obsessed with H1B visas. There is no topic for which the poster will not find an H1B connection, and no surprise, this poster blamed Harris' loss on the Biden administration's support for H1B visas. Another poster blamed Harris' selection of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz for her defeat. For others, the issue was not really Harris herself, but more a reflection of their disenchantment with Democrats in general. These posters tended to blame an alleged leftward tilt of the party, particularly when it comes to so-called "woke" issues and specifically support for transgender rights. This highlights one other factor in Harris' loss. She explicitly ran to the right, campaigning with Liz Cheney and hoping to appeal to moderate Republicans who were believed to be reluctant to support Trump. That strategy failed, not only with Republicans, but with some centrist Democrats as well who remained convinced that she would fill high school locker rooms with trans girls. Many simply did not believe that Harris deserved to be President. They tended to describe her as a "DEI candidate" who had only been selected as Vice President due to her race and gender and then "selected" as the Presidential nominee rather than winning the position in a primary. I am sure that there are some interesting Ph.D. theses on the topic of voter motivation, but the DCUM political forum has been a sort of laboratory that I've observed for nearly 20 years. My conclusion is that, for many, the decision between two candidates is emotional rather than rational. For reasons that they probably can't explain, posters prefer one candidate over the other. They then simply fill in the blanks to come up with a rationale. This used to be described as choosing the candidate with whom you would rather have a beer. Because of this, I think that there may be more to the accusations that racism and misogyny played a significant role in Harris' defeat. It has been well-established that women are held to higher standards concerning what is acceptable behavior than men. A disconcertingly high number of people didn't like Harris because of her laugh, and it is hard to argue that those opposing her because of "DEI" are not motivated by race. I'm no expert, and with my track record of being wrong about this election, you should probably ignore anything I have to say. But if I had to pick one reason for Harris' loss, it would probably be her inability to escape blame for inflation. Also, as much as I hate to say it, some credit must be given to the Trump campaign for effective campaigning. Sometimes you lose, and sometimes you just get beaten. I think this election was a bit of both.

All of the most active threads yesterday were about the election and, while they might have started out discussing different aspects of the topic, they eventually ended up talking about the same things. Therefore, rather than writing about four threads that are essentially the same, I'll just write one entry today. For the record, the most active thread yesterday was titled "2024 Election Results" and was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The thread, which was only started around 6:30 p.m. yesterday, is currently 174 pages long. That is almost 2,000 posts. As everyone surely knows by now, the outcome of the election was not what I either expected or hoped it would be. The morning after an election, everyone is suddenly an expert and, in this regard, I guess I am no different. However, it is with quite a bit of humility that I write this today. MAGA posters seem to have a strong desire to hear folks like me admit that we were wrong. So, let's get that out of the way. I was wrong. Right up until about 9:00 p.m. last night, I was expecting Vice President Kamala Harris to win. In the daylight of a morning after what was, for me anyway, an electoral disaster, I am not even sure where to start when trying to make sense of things. As such, here are a few random, early thoughts.

The most active thread yesterday was one that was started on Sunday, but gained traction yesterday. It was titled, "Anxiety level going uppppp.." and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. I suspect that many DCUM users can relate to the original poster who says that her anxiety level has gone up, resulting in her eating a bunch of her kids' Halloween candy and increasing her anti-anxiety medication. She asks if anyone else is getting anxious about Tuesday and suggests that she should probably start watching less news. Whenever someone brings up anxiety surrounding politics, there are posters who react almost with scorn, suggesting that the outcome will have little impact. For instance, one poster wrote, "The world will still keep turning no matter who is elected. It’s only 4 yrs. All the doom and gloom talk on both sides is just theatrics." Such posters don't seem to understand the real effect that politics can have on people's lives. I can only assume that such posters live privileged lives because for a great many people, the outcome of an election does have a direct impact on them. It is popular to suggest that both parties are guilty of exaggerating the threat posed by the other side. There is an important difference, however. The campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz bases its warnings on the actual statements and actions of former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump. When they warn that Trump is a threat to abortion rights, it is based upon Trump's bragging that he is responsible for Roe v. Wade being overturned. When they warn about Project 2025, they know that, despite his distancing himself, Trump has praised the project and several of his closest associates were responsible for the effort. When they warn about a national sales tax on imported goods, it is based on Trump's repeatedly expressed plan for tariffs on all imports. The naysayers either think Trump is lying or won't be successful in imposing his plans. Trump, on the other hand, simply lies in his warnings about Harris. He says the country will be destroyed. He claims that we will be involved in World War III. He says that the doors will be opened to millions of immigrants who will be granted citizenship. There is no basis to believe any of these things. The result is that while MAGAs could legitimately be advised to calm down and maybe take a Xanax, liberals are justified in being anxious. Imagine being a transgender person — or the friend or relative of one — and being told that, after millions of dollars of anti-trans advertising by the Trump campaign, the outcome of the election doesn't matter? The threat posed by having Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. — a nutcase anti-vaxer who would be a threat to food safety — responsible for food and medicine or Elon Musk made responsible for government efficiency is huge. We should feel anxious about those possibilities. But another question is now to control that anxiety. At this point, there is little that the average person can do about the election once they have voted. Being able to accept that something is outside your control and that all you can do is wait is an important skill and one that many people will need to exercise today.

The most active thread over the weekend was titled, "Harris beating Trump in Iowa" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. For years, the Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll has been referred to as the "gold standard" for polls of Iowa politics. Pollster J. Ann Selzer has not been afraid to deviate from conventional wisdom and other pollsters and has often announced findings that are surprising at the time but later prove prescient. In 2016, Selzer spotted a trend toward former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump that other pollsters had missed. Her polling predicted that Trump would win Iowa by 7 points. He ended up winning by 9. Four years later, the DMR poll showed that Trump would win Iowa by 7. The actual result was Trump winning by 8 points. Selzer's final poll of this cycle showing Vice President Harris leading Trump 47% to 44% among likely voters was easily the most surprising news over the weekend. For Democrats, this was an invigorating shot of adrenaline. Democrats are by nature a pessimistic bunch, likely to see black clouds regardless of the amount of sunshine. For once, they began showing a hint of optimism as a result of the poll findings. Selzer found that the impetus for Harris' lead was support from older women. For many DCUM posters, this was not surprising because, they argued, many of these women had lived in a world where abortion was prohibited and were well aware of the dangers such a state of affairs can bring. They are furious about rights being stripped away. Moreover, this is one of the most dependable voting blocks in existence. As such, the Iowa findings might also translate to other states. The general attitude among DCUM liberal posters was that even if Trump were to pull out a slim victory in Iowa — something that is within the DMR poll's margin of error — he would be in terrible circumstances nationwide. The conservative response was one of disbelief and anger. Ignoring Selzer's history of accurately predicting Trump victories, Republican posters accused the poll of being a "Democratic poll," something that is obviously not true. Some suggested that Selzer had been bribed by the Democrats. Others argued that she is retiring and that the poll was her parting gift to Democrats. Others pointed to poll results by Emerson that were released the same day. That poll showed Trump leading by 10%. However, the DMR poll has a much better record than Emerson. Many of the conservative posters mocked liberals for taking the DMR results seriously, saying that there is no way that Iowa would vote for Harris. There is no doubt that if this poll turns out to be a big miss, it will be reputation-ending for Selzer. On the other hand, if the results are correct, it is likely that Trump has no hope of winning the election. As one pundit in my social media feeds said, this poll will either be the end of Selzer or Trump. They both can't survive these poll results.

Once again, the top most active threads were all political in nature. The topics are starting to get repetitive and, in some cases, bordering on the absurd. The most active thread, by some measure, was titled, "Trump giving speech in garbage vest" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. Unless you have been living in a cave for the past few days, you will guess that this thread is about former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump showing up at a rally wearing a reflective vest similar to those worn by trash collectors. Trump also climbed into a garbage truck — not without difficulty, it must be said — and was driven around in circles. Trump was attempting to draw attention to President Joe Biden's statement that Trump rally speaker Tony Hinchcliffe is "garbage". Because much of the mainstream media is made up of click-chasers who long ago gave up on their own profession, several outlets wrongly reported that Biden had referred to Trump supporters as "garbage" rather than just Hinchcliffe. MAGAs, for whom a primary motivator is resentment, immediately jumped on this appellation and have reached heights of joy rarely seen previously. Hinchcliffe, of course, had referred to Puerto Rico as a "floating island of garbage" during his remarks at Trump's Madison Square Garden Rally. Biden, in his stuttering manner, defended Puerto Rico and said that the only garbage he saw was Hinchcliffe, referring to him as Trump's "supporter". MAGAs immediately proclaimed that this would not only undo the damage caused by Hinchcliffe, but would cause more voters to rally to Trump. Trump, by dressing like a garbage man, was supposed to be drawing attention to Biden's remark. The original poster of this thread considers this a demonstration of Trump's "uncanny ability to change the narrative" that "highlighted the Left’s hatred of the Right". As a result, claims the original poster, "This race is over". Consider the mental gymnastics involved here. First, Trump and his cult followers — as well as a disappointing number of members of the mainstream media — distorted Biden's remark. Then, the original poster is misrepresenting this manufactured insult to represent the feelings of the entire left, ignoring that Vice President Kamala Harris explicitly disassociated herself from any such insult, and then the original poster claimed that Trump's stunt had succeeded in changing the narrative and that the antic would win the election for Trump. This is how we have come to live in separate realities. In the other reality, the one in which I live, Puerto Ricans were offended by Hinchcliffe and, by extension, Trump, who has not condemned the remarks. Their opinion is unlikely to be changed by a suggestion that Trump supporters are "garbage", even if such a statement had actually been made. They probably agree with that sentiment. Indeed, the day after Biden's remark, Puerto Rican reggaeton artist Nicky Jam, who had previously endorsed Trump, withdrew his endorsement. Moreover, by keeping attention on the topic of garbage, Trump was not only drawing attention to Biden, but to Hinchcliffe's initial insult of Puerto Rico. I am not sure that this is the genius message management that the original poster believes it to be. Finally, Trump certainly has an ability to change the narrative, but generally he does that by stepping on the message that his campaign is attempting to put forth. For instance, I am not sure what message the Trump campaign was hoping for today, but Trump has ensured that his call for Liz Cheney to face a firing squad will get most of the attention.

The most active thread yesterday was the thread that I've already discussed about being offended by the suggestion that someone else is raising your kids. That thread is a classic stay-at-home-mom versus work-out-of-the-house-mom thread, and I probably should put it out of everyone's misery. After that was a thread titled, "Gov. Youngkin issues statement after DOJ files lawsuit over noncitizen voting in Va." and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum, which is the case with all the threads I will discuss today. The background of this thread is that on August 7, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin issued an executive order requiring non-U.S. citizens to be removed from Virginia's voting rolls. The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit to stop the action because it violates the National Voter Registration Act, which requires a 90-day quiet period during which maintenance of voter rolls must be paused. The justification for the pause is that mistakes are often made during the mass removal operations. Youngkin's executive order fell on the 90th day before this year's election. Youngkin claims that his order is aimed at removing non-citizens, who are not allowed to vote in any case, from the voting rolls. The U.S. Justice Department's position is that the effort violates the NVRA and can wrongly hinder eligible voters' right to vote. In at least one case, the Justice Department has been shown to be correct. For instance, Nadra Wilson of Lynchburg, VA, who was born in Brooklyn, NY, and moved to Virginia 9 years ago, had her registration cancelled. A federal court ruled in favor of the Justice Department and ordered Youngkin's voter removal effort to stop. However, the case was appealed, eventually reaching the U.S. Supreme Court, which stayed the lower court decision and allowed Youngkin's program to continue. What complicates cases like this is that it is never clear if the actors involved are acting in good faith. Republicans, claiming to be acting in the interest of election integrity, have raised continual barriers to voting. They have also repeatedly alleged that Democrats encourage non-citizens to vote. The idea that Democrats are encouraging mass immigration and then allowing those migrants to vote is central to the racist "great replacement theory" that once was confined to QAnon types and mass shooters, but has rapidly become part of mainstream Republican thought. Youngkin, who postures as a serious Republican in contrast to extremist MAGAs, attempted to provide plenty of leeway to those who are being removed to demonstrate that they are citizens and should remain eligible to vote. However, in the real world, many of those provisions fail. For instance, in the case of Wilson, the letter sent to inform her that her registration would be cancelled was sent to a previous address. Once it made its way to her, the deadline to respond had passed. Wilson can still take advantage of same-day registration in order to vote and can prove her citizenship with a passport, but not everyone has a passport, and, in some cases, birth certificates are not easily located. As a result, there is still some chance that eligible voters will be wrongly stripped of their registrations. Most troubling about this is the action of the U.S. Supreme Court. The conservative majority has made a number of voting-related decisions. There has been no legal consistency among the rulings. Rather, the common element has been that the decisions generally favor Republicans. Such decisions often are handed down even, as was the case in this instance, the Court is clearly ignoring federal law.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Harris ‘closing argument’ speech next Tuesday on the mall" and was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. This thread was started a week ago in anticipation of an address delivered by Vice President Kamala Harris last evening at the Ellipse on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. In the style of a true Democrat, the original poster is fearful that Harris is taking a "big swing" that could miss. But the original poster does express interest in taking her daughter to see Harris speak. The first part of this thread is almost funny, marked by a discussion of electoral votes provoked by a poster who was unaware that the District of Columbia has three electoral votes. Moreover, several posters didn't seem to understand that this is an equal number of electoral votes to the Dakotas, Wyoming, Vermont, and Alaska. Several posters questioned why Harris would choose D.C. for such an important speech given that she can already count on the District's votes. Once Harris began her address, however, the answer to that became obvious. Harris had several goals with this speech, but primary it was about sending a message. With the backdrop of the White House and staged in the same location from which former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump launched an insurrection on January 6, 2021, Harris positioned herself as the "adult" alternative to Trump. Harris' message was clear. Where Trump caused chaos and division, she would unite the country and solve problems. "Donald Trump wants to put his opponents in jail. I will give them a seat at the table", Harris said. The Doubting Thomases who seem to dominate the Democratic Party were hopefully assured by this address. Harris will never be an orator on the level of former President Barack Obama, but her delivery was competent and miles above what we've come to expect from Trump. In my opinion, the content of the speech was nearly perfect. With a crowd size estimated to be in the range of 75,000, this was easily the largest crowd of the campaign and puts Trump's crowds to shame. Personally, it is difficult for me to find much about which to complain. If I were forced to identify a fault, I guess I would point to the absence of any mention of the Middle East. But I am not sure that there would have been much value in reiterating another empty call for a ceasefire. This also draws attention to the fact that despite Harris' promise to give opponents a seat at the table, supporters of the Palestinians have repeatedly been refused such a seat. Other posters had a litany of complaints. As usual, Harris' voice and speaking style were criticized. Some posters wanted more policy details. But for the most part, critics were left with distortions of her words, claiming that she had neglected issues that she actually mentioned, or desperately trying to change the subject. Harris was never going to please everyone, but overall, I think she achieved everything that she set out to do with this speech. She left Democrats excited, full of hope, and reinvigorated.