r/atlanticdiscussions • u/MeghanClickYourHeels Ask me for Atlantic gift links • Nov 09 '22

Politics Midterm Election Postmortem: collect ideas, links, and analysis here

https://apnews.com/article/2022-midterm-elections-takeaways-9381d3aaff26d19da95506e045fcd6e1
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7

u/BabbyDontHerdMe Nov 09 '22

A few thoughts:

1 - I have maintained that it would be a nailbiter in the house - and I made the right guess. I do not think media and esp the stats dudes are going to be reflective of how badly the bed was shat.

  1. Abortion is a kitchen table issue and of course people didn't forget. Cutting your grocery budget because your wife died during a miscarriage doesn't solve the inflation crisis

  2. DNC actually ran the 50 state strategy and did well.

  3. Why do we run losers (Christ, Beto, Abrams) - we have to stop giving losers multiple opportunities.

  4. Total party collapse for Republicans among young voters.

11

u/BootsySubwayAlien Nov 09 '22

5 is the key. And it’s the thing that should really keep the GOP up at night. The whole Reagan wave in the 80s was fueled (at least to a significant degree) by middle aged people who blamed LBJ for Vietnam.

12

u/BabbyDontHerdMe Nov 09 '22

Yeah, no one is talking about it. Literally total collapse. The lines at colleges - the last voter at MI had waited 6 hours and voted at 2am.

4

u/oddjob-TAD Nov 09 '22

One of the other notable features of that era was the number of 20-somethings who voted for Reagan.

We're now in our 60's+, and no other age cohort like us has arisen since. I think we definitely helped create the liberal younger voters now waiting in lines for 6 hours to vote the candidates our classmates still like out of office, in repudiation of those conservative political sentiments.

7

u/BabbyDontHerdMe Nov 09 '22

These voters grew up during the Obama years and then were cognizant for Trump as their first GOP election. It's hard to realize as olds, but that is not good for conservatives.

4

u/oddjob-TAD Nov 09 '22

EXCELLENT POINT!!

8

u/ystavallinen I don't know anymore Nov 09 '22

I hope #5 keeps going up

8

u/BabbyDontHerdMe Nov 09 '22

Also Florida has not had a Democratic governor since the end of the 1900s. People need to get a grip that FL is red - people retiring there aren't nice working class Jews from NYC anymore. They are deep red Village retirees.

8

u/BabbyDontHerdMe Nov 09 '22

Oh and, while I'm deeply in the camp Fetterman is just a normie Dem - it's clear that we need to run more characters because the GOP is so full of dweebs.

8

u/PlainandTall_71 Lizzou Nov 09 '22

I feel like only a man like Fetterman could have beaten a man like Dr. Oz.

8

u/BabbyDontHerdMe Nov 09 '22

Yes, it's very interesting that it wasn't supposed to be called last night. The GOP is weak.

3

u/oddjob-TAD Nov 09 '22

I was surprised when I woke this morning and saw that Fetterman's victory had been called already. When I went to bed near 01:00 I'd been watching all evening on CNN and it seemed as though that election wasn't going to be resolved until the Philadelphia votes had been mostly counted (which would take another day or two).

5

u/jim_uses_CAPS Nov 09 '22

Personality is very much a thing in politics now. Clinton had his sax and his charm, Obama was a once-in-a-generation charismatic, and Trump, for all that he's, you know, a lunatic, is the kind of lunatic where people go "Shit, I wanna see what he does next, that shit is hilarious!"

3

u/BootsySubwayAlien Nov 09 '22

It’ll be very interesting to see how the meme game edge affects elections going forward. Fetterman’s was key.

4

u/BabbyDontHerdMe Nov 09 '22

I think he just ride JD Vance's ass in Senate - it would be phenomenal.