The Atlas Asylum of absurd/ignorant posts IX

[Geoffrey Howe]

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=440253.0
GeneralMacArthur’s comment shows why this forum needs a dislike option

Sorry Yang fanboy, that’s standard political forum stuff. If you can’t handle it then you don’t have to be here. But I think you can, since you do it yourself:

Her campaign was so cringe that she deserves to never be heard from again

Gillibrand’s campaign was much more of a joke than Yang’s campaign ever was. Saying that Yang needs to be treated MORE like a joke when MSM already goes around saying he’s an anti-Asian bigot who also supports hitting women is completely ridiculous and just makes you look like an establishment shill

His campaign slogan was literally MATH, a joke, a gimmick, you name it

Lol this comment itself deserves to be uploaded to this thread, if it wasn’t already here. Let me get this straight, Andrew Yang is a joke of a candidate because he had the audacity to create a slogan that served as a mockery of Trump’s infamous “MAGA”, while also managing to have the acronym of his slogan actually spell out a word? Wouldn’t this suggest that he’s actually a more serious candidate since he put enough thought into his slogan to have its acronym spell out a coherent word while also taking a shot at Trump? MATH is an objectively superior slogan than any other Democrat slogan in the primaries. The rest were so lame and forgettable that I can’t even remember any of them, not even Biden’s.

How are slogans a measure of seriousness?

[Geoffrey Howe]

Hartlepool is an absolute tossup as to who will win

Talk about expectations management.

This seat was easily won by Corbyn even in 2019, and when allegations against the Labour candidate were already known IIRC. BXP voters, who couldn't even bring themselves to vote Tory with that party running on a "Get Brexit Done" ticket, are very unlikely to vote Tory now; in this part of the world they are by and large ex-Labour. Add to that government by-election gains being rarer than hen's teeth.

This seat by all rights should be a Labour hold, even if they have troubles at local level. I doubt it would be fatal to Starmer's leadership, but failure to hold Hartlepool when a more toxic leader managed it would seriously undermine his position. You can imagine the crowing from the nuttiest parts of Labour.

Funny.

Not really, it was a fairly reasonable assumption at the time. The irony is that what happened was easy to "predict" if you don't know much about British politics, but quite surprising if you do (at least the size of the margin, but even the result itself). On Vote UK filled with British anoraks and generally centre-right leaning c. 70% of those voting in the poll thought it would be a Labour hold right up to the final day, including most Conservatives. The media narrative was that it would be a Tory win, but given the low quality of both political journalism and constituency polling in the UK that was hard to take entirely seriously.

No, it wasn't. But it's a good example of things be harder to observe the closer you get up to them.

[Geoffrey Howe]

Although, to be honest, a quick poke around Wokingham on Google Maps wouldn't make me guess it was the least-deprived constituency in the whole UK, or even particularly far above the top 25%, so perhaps the rankings mean less than I would have thought.

Can someone explain why the UK is honestly so hideous in terms of housing? The houses look shoddily built, are far too close together, and seem mostly attached to each other. I'm assuming some of this has to be due to the shockingly high number of council estates everywhere, but I've never lived in the UK. Not to mention the embarrassingly low average salaries to the point where $100k seems to be higher than even a doctor's income somehow.

Back to the point at hand, it seems that there is a pretty interesting difference in dynamic at hand here between the US and the UK. The UK has the bottom falling out for Labour akin to the Democrats hemorrhaging support across the Midwest and in White Working Class locales nationwide. Based off the table attached, however, it is clear that Tories somehow still enjoy massive support across the board in the wealthiest constituencies as well while LibDems seem to be second to them as opposed to Labour in certain areas.

It's honestly sort of funny seeing that the Democrats easily made up for their losses with the growing and prosperous suburban areas across the country while Labour could not make such gains, at least at a similar scale. Of the 10 wealthiest places in the country (according to Bloomberg, which doesn't include certain areas in the Northeast properly that also would have voted Biden), every single one except Highland Park, TX voted for Biden, and he even flipped Cherry Hills Village, CO. Something like this doesn't seem possible in the UK at all given the concentration of wealth in Southern England around London, with the wealth outside of this area being rural/exurban rather than properly urban or suburban. You have the odd spots like Cheshire south of Manchester or the Oxbridge areas maybe, but other than that I really can't think of any other wealthy suburban areas in the country, whereas every decently sized US metro has at least one suburban constituency/district.

Tories in the UK seem absolutely dominant in such areas within London somehow even after realignment, which would be like if Republicans consistently held the NJ-7s, IL-6s, and CA-45s of the country as Democrats lost the MI-5s, OH-13s, and IL-17s, but even had places like NY-10 or NY-12 that are considered safely Democrat here but boast several billionaires. It seems that the UK is just too poor compared to the US, less educated, and less diverse, to the point where this sort of suburban educated wealth based shift is not properly possible. That isn't even getting into the massive age gap in voting patterns, which doesn't affect Democrats to the extent it does Labour, who need to paint a better image as the working class party (a lost cause unless they become anti-immigration or go down other unsavory social policy paths, imo) or accelerate trends faster and capture Tory strongholds in the wealthy suburbs/exurbs. They certainly can't afford to lose the Hartlepools of the nation if they go with the former and need to win places like Kensington and even the outer areas like Esher and Walton or Epsom and Ewell for the latter strategy to capture a majority.

This one is just extraordinary. I wonder whether any British posters have ever come up with something comparable for America.

[Geoffrey Howe]

Yes, as should Wales and NI. They can rejoin the EU and a hard border can be instituted and the English can be punished for their mistake with tariffs and sanctions.

[Geoffrey Howe]

The UK would be way better if England seceded.

[Geoffrey Howe]

The UK would be way better if England seceded.

I still stand by this statement.

I’ll stand by my putting it here...

[Geoffrey Howe]

No. Although the end of the ROC would be good, it's not worth giving the USA and its corporate satellites free reign to imperialize the entire Korean peninsula. The humanitarian consequences would be incalculable and represent an unacceptable stab-in-the-back against the Korean civilization. It would probably represent the most despicable act ever made in Chinese history.

Especially because barring a black swan event, Taiwan is not a healthy society and will cease to be a distinct one from the Mainland in 50 years, while the DPRK is still going strong after seven decades of an American-led siege.

I wonder what jaichind thinks.

[Geoffrey Howe]

How can you vote 100 % of the time with Nancy Pelosi [...] and not be a socialist?

You edited part of that out quite disingenuously, you know.

[Geoffrey Howe]

How can you vote 100 % of the time with Nancy Pelosi [...] and not be a socialist?

You edited part of that out quite disingenuously, you know.

Nothing about including the part about the Squad makes the post any less absurd. The point is still that "Nancy Pelosi is a socialist" which is so detached from reality that nothing else could modify its absurdity. There's even an argument to be made that voting in line with the Squad doesn't necessarily make one a socialist.

Then there was no reason to exclude it except to make the poster seem idiotic.
Now I don’t really think “the Squad” is socialist, but IIRC they go about calling themselves socialist, so I suppose it’s stooping to their level.

[Geoffrey Howe]

How can you vote 100 % of the time with Nancy Pelosi [...] and not be a socialist?

You edited part of that out quite disingenuously, you know.

How is the full sentence any less ridiculous?

How can you vote 100 % of the time with Nancy Pelosi and 94 % of the time with the Squad (including 95 % with Ayanna Pressley) and not be a socialist? That kind of record shows how close it is to socialism.

These are the words of someone whose use of ideological labels has lost touch with reality. R2D2's only mistake was failing to post this in the Comedy Goldmine.

Why did he edit out the bit about the Squad?  This post is obviously quite idiotic, and there’s no need to remove what seems to me the key part of the sentence. As I said above, as far as I am aware, the people in the Squad call themselves socialists, so it’s only really stooping to their level. I’m not arguing the post shouldn’t be here!

[Geoffrey Howe]

Tbh if French food is anything, its just a tad over-rated?

[Geoffrey Howe]

The right eventually needs to be permanently removed from political relevance for racism to end on a large scale. It is the right-wing who is always talking about race and the left only talks about it in response.

[Geoffrey Howe]

I think GMAC's point is broadly not a bad one, and it isn't inconsistent with seeing flaws in America. It's just that given who wrote, it couldn't escape from being at the same time extremely unctuous and grating in that way that the worst sort of American jingoism can be.