[insert title here] 2025-26 Election Cycle Thread

[Raptorpat]

 

[Raptorpat]

 

[Top Gun]

Try it bitch.

[tsar4]

[Raptorpat]

^ the context here is that the Dem establishment is pushing Gov. Janet Mills (who is 77 years old!) to run against Collins, and Platner is trying to position himself as the grassroots alternative.

[tsar4]

 

[katt_goddess]

That's great but people shouldn't get cocky. We've reached the stage where in some areas the losing R will go to an R-friendly court to sue to have votes tossed until they are the winners and no one seems to think that person should actually just be yeeted into the sea for everyone's sanity. 

[Top Gun]

I saw this bit on the national nightly news about how Republicans could take some hope from the Democratic Party's general favorability numbers polling below theirs, and it's amazing how much that misses the point. A lot of Democrats view the Democratic Party unfavorably precisely because those in power aren't doing enough to fight back. The candidates who are promising to fight back are the ones doing well in these special/odd-year elections.

[André Toulon]

I tend to watch news that i hate. Not going as far as Fox News, but News Nation shows up in my YT rotation when i opt for news instead of my "for you" recs.

NN is one of the most disingenuous outlets I've ever encountered but it has a lot of "young" journalists and frankly, I find them more engaging than the stammering, elderly masses that loom over the more popular outlets....

That said, one thing I believe they are spot on about is the Dems waste a lot of time pushing back against Trump blindly instead of making themselves a more favorable choice.

Spouting rhetoric about how Trump is lying, using gross overreach, and racist isnt going to sway anyone....They love that shit. So stop yelling about it. Instead, just focus on things THEY will do to make America "great".

Honestly, I dont even think video evidence of Trump forcing a teen to touch his willy is going to be the nail in the coffin that people think.  It's painfully evident that the mental gymnastics will allow these people to still absolve him of any wrongdoing....Tell the people what you will change....unless the answer is nothing. In which case, i guess everything is just going according to plan.

 

[scoobdog]

9 hours ago, André Toulon said:

I tend to watch news that i hate. Not going as far as Fox News, but News Nation shows up in my YT rotation when i opt for news instead of my "for you" recs.

NN is one of the most disingenuous outlets I've ever encountered but it has a lot of "young" journalists and frankly, I find them more engaging than the stammering, elderly masses that loom over the more popular outlets....

That said, one thing I believe they are spot on about is the Dems waste a lot of time pushing back against Trump blindly instead of making themselves a more favorable choice.

Spouting rhetoric about how Trump is lying, using gross overreach, and racist isnt going to sway anyone....They love that shit. So stop yelling about it. Instead, just focus on things THEY will do to make America "great".

Honestly, I dont even think video evidence of Trump forcing a teen to touch his willy is going to be the nail in the coffin that people think.  It's painfully evident that the mental gymnastics will allow these people to still absolve him of any wrongdoing....Tell the people what you will change....unless the answer is nothing. In which case, i guess everything is just going according to plan.

 

I think the issue with that is a variation of the old "Dems are out of touch with the voters."  It's not so much that the Democrats don't have good ideas; rather, it's that all of the really great ideas that are coming from the progressive wing of the Dems aren't landing with voters for a litany of stupid reasons.  That tends to impede the party's ability to come up with an effective and compelling plan.  It's a catch-22 - do you keep professing a vision for American that actually can work but no one wants or do you stoop to the level of your opponent?  Both make you unpopular but only one seems to be effective.

[Raptorpat]

 

[_lost_username_]

On 9/8/2025 at 7:08 PM, Raptorpat said:

^ the context here is that the Dem establishment is pushing Gov. Janet Mills (who is 77 years old!) to run against Collins, and Platner is trying to position himself as the grassroots alternative.

I remember under Gingrich where Democrats campaigned against term limits. Not that it make much of a difference in regards to Mills running but Collins would be gone, Schumer would've been gone since the first Obama term, Pelosi and Grassly would've been gone in the early 1990s. At the time, the people on the ground were telling us that all the experienced politicians in Washington who knew how things worked would be gone. Now those old switches of power that came with holding office a long time don't work nearly as well. 

Democrats are being a little braver on term limits for judges but I really think running on term limits for House members and Senators would be something that resonated as well. You could argue that after so many years, a politician becomes more stagnant and amicable to deal making that doesn't benefit their voters. 

[Raptorpat]

The problem with legislative term limits is still that the institutional memory devolves from the elected, responsible decision makers to the staff, and if you find a way to term limit the staff then the institutional memory devolves to the private sector lobbying class outside of the institution itself.

Legislative term limits would have to be much less restrictive than either the exec or judiciary.

[_lost_username_]

2 hours ago, Raptorpat said:

The problem with legislative term limits is still that the institutional memory devolves from the elected, responsible decision makers to the staff, and if you find a way to term limit the staff then the institutional memory devolves to the private sector lobbying class outside of the institution itself.

Two terms for a Senator and six for a House Rep seems plenty of time to accomplish something. I've always heard the institutional knowledge argument but that knowledge has always been with the staff and unelected bureaucrats that keep things going behind the scenes. Elected officials are meant to be temporary. If they're around too long, they become complacent do-nothings or use that institutional knowledge to their own advantage. 

[scoobdog]

2 minutes ago, _lost_username_ said:

Two terms for a Senator and six for a House Rep seems plenty of time to accomplish something. I've always heard the institutional knowledge argument but that knowledge has always been with the staff and unelected bureaucrats that keep things going behind the scenes. Elected officials are meant to be temporary. If they're around too long, they become complacent do-nothings or use that institutional knowledge to their own advantage. 

Doesn't appear that staff and unelected bureaucrats are keeping things going, and that's because the knowledge they offer isn't be listened to or utilized.

Term limits do nothing other than force voters to not become complacent, and that's where the real issue is.  Voters aren't voting what's best for everybody, they're voting what's best for themselves, and they're not learning any lessons from the failures that result.

[Raptorpat]

I guess my response is that means legislators are effectively just for show masking the real institution (the staff), who aren't elected to anything.

[katt_goddess]

North Dakota's voters voted for term limits.

The legislators then turned around and declared that first it couldn't apply to incumbents since that was unfair to them. Then they declared that it wasn't going to happen at all because it needed to be studied first and no one had thought about studying it first before putting it on the ballot. Then they turned around and are now trying to set up roadblocks for any and all future voter initiated ballot measures because those people are all obviously not from the state and totally don't know what they are doing. 

[tsar4]