Please stop posting the following idiotic bullshit:

[True Blue Door]

1. Claiming that American culture is conservative.
2. Broad smears about American voters.
3. Media-driven narratives about America as a whole choosing the GOP.
4. Whining about the Democratic Party or its leaders.

We have watched the Republican Party prepare this result for a long time through utterly lawless, criminal, and to some extent treasonous means, including nakedly unconstitutional vote suppression tactics, the elimination of campaign finance laws through fascist revolutionary judicial fiat, and other methods that go far beyond their otherwise legitimate fuckery (e.g., campaign lying). We know for a fact they engaged in crime to produce this result - we just don't know if they would have won anyway.

So we still do not know whether these criminal tactics were decisive. In other words, we don't know yet whether the result bears any meaningful resemblance to what actually happened at the polls. So don't waste anyone's time whining about what this election means, or who is to blame for it, unless you have something factual to contribute to serve as a basis, because you can't know the significance of events whose details you don't even know.

Every election that Republicans win or steal, the same script plays out. The same idiotic bullshit listed above gets said, so predictably that the process might as well be automated. Well stop it. Stop acting like robots. Stop being prompted by the media. Their scripts are written in advance - years in advance, frankly - but yours don't have to be. You are conscious human beings, so act like it.

Start asking important questions and putting together information to answer them. When you have your answers, then start talking about what to do with them. Here are the questions I have:

1. How many voters do we know firmly to have been illegally excluded nationwide?
2. How many local, state, and federal seats were decided on the basis of voter exclusions?
3. Was this decisive in determining the Senate?
4. Was it decisive in determining state legislatures?
5. Governorships?
6. Were other problems that have been identified decisive in any of these races?
7. Is the Party actively investigating these problems, and the effects of vote suppression?
8. Will the Party declare races decided due to vote suppression fraudulent?
9. If it is found that the Senate majority was determined by vote suppression, is the Party prepared to declare GOP attempts to assume control of the Senate fraudulent and resist any illegal actions they attempt to take?

Until we have at least some answers to these questions, there is nothing else to say in a broad way about the election. Individual races can be commented upon competently, but anything broader in the absence of specific facts is just either speculation or media propaganda parroting unworthy of a strong citizen.

[villager]

1. So what is being done, publicly and vocally, about voter suppression

...by Democratic "leaders?"

[True Blue Door]

4. That's one of the questions we all need to ask loudly.

And we need answers before we can decide what this election means.

[busterbrown]

30. My question is...

Where the hell is the DOJ in this matter?...Really....They are the ones who are suppose to investigate voter fraud.. If they can’t do it then we have little chance of attacking back at Republican thugs..

[True Blue Door]

31. It's not just fraud, it's also vote suppression.

DOJ can't investigate that because The Five fascist revolutionaries on the Supreme Court said it was legal "because."

[busterbrown]

33. Suppression and Fraud in my mind are the same..

Apparently they are not.. I understand that,,but Christ if someone is making up lies in order to suppress voters they are committing Fraud..perhaps I’m wrong..

[True Blue Door]

37. I say they're committing treason, but whatever we call it, we need to know about it.

[MADem]

42. If DOJ cannot or will not, then it has to be done at the state level.

There needs to be a critical mass of aggressive and lawyered-up Democrats suing relentlessly and demanding answers. After all, states run elections; this is a battle that will have to be fought state by state--like a lot of other battles are being fought.

[True Blue Door]

51. I don't think we need lawsuits yet. The documentation is public.

We just need journalists to compile the information and do the math.

[MADem]

54. Where are all the journalists? Most of them seem to be Special Interest Scribes, and

in the "non-traditional media," they're either caustic, hate-filled scolds whose negativity is wearying, or pom-pom waving cheerleaders who never saw a team member they didn't like.

Call me old fashioned, but it would be nice to see a newspaper that reports facts without a lot of bullshit attached. I don't know if they exist anymore!

[True Blue Door]

68. Yes, but I have a broad definition of journalist.

A journalist is anyone who practices journalism, and not anyone whose content fails the standards of journalism (thus excluding major swaths of the MSM). So I don't care if someone has the backing of a major institution or not, I only care whether what they deliver is reliable.

[MADem]

72. Even in the non-traditional arenas, though, the "journalists" are few and far between. nt

[zelduh]

36. My question is . . . Did Any Democratic Candidate who turned away from Obama . . .

. . . . get elected? I knew Alison Lundergan Grimes would lose after she turned on the President (I am so pissed off cuz I sent her lots of bux!)

Did others who turned on the President get elected?

And WHO ARE THE POLITICAL ADVISORS THAT TELL CANDIDATES TO TURN ON A SITTING PRESIDENT?

[True Blue Door]

38. That's a question for races where we're confident of a legitimate result.

[Kalidurga]

2. ...

[Cha]

3. Mahalo True Blue Door!

[world wide wally]

5. Nice try to smooth things over, but go back and look at the results

People are damn right the Democratic leaders blew it. They were the ones running from a successful Democratic President. They simply played Jerry Mahoney to the Republicans Paul Winchell. I don't think Karl Rove could have scripted better anti-Obama ads then most of the Dems used this year.

My vote is secret. I am not saying whether I voted for Obama or not…. What courage!

[True Blue Door]

7. While it's true that running from the President was idiotic

that's not really relevant unless we know for certain that the Senate loss was legitimate.

[Hoyt]

6. Sometimes it feels like a baseball or football game your team should have won, but there's a bad

call that costs the game. We shouldn't even be so close that voter suppression makes a difference. I know it happens, but if we were turning out in bigger numbers it wouldn't happen.

Fight photo IDs, gerrymandering, etc., but vote like we care.

[True Blue Door]

9. That's a good attitude to take leading up to the election

but now that it's happened we need answers. We can't tolerate fraudulent results leading to nationwide consequences - never again. So we need to know one way or another what effect the GOP vote suppression and other tactics had on the outcome.

[Hoyt]

11. Sorry, I don't believe we lost because of voter fraud/trickery in most cases.

We are wasting valuable energy if we chalk it up to that.

[True Blue Door]

12. Your belief one way or another in the absence of facts is totally irrelevant.

These questions are vital to determining how we move forward. Ignorance is not an option.

[Hoyt]

13. Fine, you chalk it up to fraud/trikery and see where it gets us.

I'm not saying we ignore it, but it is not why we lost most races and is a lame excuse.

[True Blue Door]

24. I can't chalk it to up to anything yet, because we don't have the facts.

What are you not understanding about the concept of facts?

"but it is not why we lost most races"

You don't know that. Why do you keep saying things you have no basis for?

It's not an attempt to find an "excuse" for anything - it's an attempt to know the reality of the situation so we can formulate a rational response to it.

None of that is optional. We have to stop this cycle of helplessness.

[Dreamer Tatum]

139. The OP essentially begs the question, anyway.

And then when someone has the temerity to question the premises of the OP, he gets righteous. The OP is not an old timer, but the tactic is pretty obvious: erect a premise based on conjecture and opinion, use the premise to make a case, then glorify the premise by assigning homework to anyone who is stupid enough to click.

You, Hoyt, have committed the unpardonable sin of questioning the premise of the OP, to which you got the self-righteous reply of you don't know. And because you don't know, (spoiler alert: no one does) the OP can then say, gee, do my homework for me and prove my premise wrong.

Using logic entirely similar to the OP, I could say, "The missing Malaysian Airlines flight is on dry land. Everyone, let's consider places where the missing plane could be. Do your research and have it on my desk by end of day." And someone, like you, might innocently say,"But Professor, I am not sure the missing plane is on dry land. I am not sure your tedious, pompous homework assignment will help solve the problem." To which the OP would retort, "YOU DON'T KNOW THAT! How DARE you!"

There is a wonderful book called How to Think Straight (http://www.amazon.com/How-Think-Straight-Introduction-Reasoning/dp/1573922390) that I recommend heartily (though I don't intend that for you, Hoyt. You may well have written it, for all I know). This book helps one to distinguish actual critical thought from utter crap.

[Hekate]

8. Excellent rant, True Blue Door. It needs to be said, and repeated....

Then repeated some more. Thanks.

[Drunken Irishman]

10. Sorry. But a vast amount of Americans ARE stupid.

Maybe not a majority - but then, a majority don't even vote in midterms. So, even if 30% of Americans are stupid, if they vote, they automatically become a majority of those voting.

[True Blue Door]

16. Your opinion about the intelligence of other Americans is totally irrelevant.

[Drunken Irishman]

17. Obviously not - since you felt the need to make an entire thread on it.

[True Blue Door]

23. This thread is about focusing on the legitimacy of the election

instead of the irrelevant bullshit in the Standard Script.

[whathehell]

34. Not "stupid", brainwashed and misinformed..

Eliminating Fixed News and Citizens United would result in large improvements in nationwide "ntelligence".

As Elizabeth Warren said "The game is rigged".

[bobGandolf]

14. Get off the pompous soapbox, and join the rest of us. n/t

[True Blue Door]

18. Who exactly is "us"?

If you don't care whether election results are legitimate, I don't care what you have to say. We have no connection whatsoever.

[lame54]

15. fuck that - you stop your bullshit...

allow us to be pissed and disgusted

[True Blue Door]

20. Pissed and disgusted about what? You don't even know what happened.

[Le Taz Hot]

50. And neither do you.

[True Blue Door]

53. Which is why I'm asking questions trying to find out.

And asking people to stop uncritically regurgitating brain-dead media narratives.

[Le Taz Hot]

56. Well, barking orders to people on DU

about what they can and cannot post is an attempt to stifle the discussion. And speaking of "brain-dead narratives" . . .

[True Blue Door]

63. You're not Spartacus for posting irrelevancies.

[Le Taz Hot]

118. What the fuck doees that even mean?

[True Blue Door]

121. It means your indignation is hilarious.

I basically said "Please stop posting irrelevant bullshit" and you replied "I will post irrelevant bullshit whenever I please! Nyeh!"

[Le Taz Hot]

122. No, I said I'll post whatever I please.

Wrong again. Now, before you get tombstoned, and you will be tombstoned, I'll dispose of you as I do all gnat-like posters. <flush>

[True Blue Door]

124. LOL. Thank you for volunteering to be Full Ignored. Your request is accepted.

[lame54]

100. sure I do...

The dems perpetuated the repug myth that Obama is unpopular and ran away from his many accomplishments

They should have trumpeted his acheivements and controlled the conversation

Instead they - once again - let the other side dictate what this election was about and immediately took the defensive

They ran from behind - even those who were ahead

[True Blue Door]

105. That is what they did, but if Republicans thought that was sufficient

they wouldn't have imposed Jim Crow 2.

[lame54]

120. That's an excuse...

You can't beat the odds if you refuse to fight

The biggest underdogs can triumph if they put enough into it

The dems rolled over and played dead

[True Blue Door]

123. And if we're too afraid to find out the answers to the questions I ask

that's exactly what we'll have done - rolled over and played dead.

[G_j]

19. --

Jim Crow returns, By Greg Palast (This is election theft in action!)

Millions of minority voters threatened by electoral purge

http://projects.aljazeera.com/2014/double-voters/index.html

Election officials in 27 states, most of them Republicans, have launched a program that threatens a massive purge of voters from the rolls. Millions, especially black, Hispanic and Asian-American voters, are at risk. Already, tens of thousands have been removed in at least one battleground state, and the numbers are expected to climb, according to a six-month-long, nationwide investigation by Al Jazeera America.

At the heart of this voter-roll scrub is the Interstate Crosscheck program, which has generated a master list of nearly 7 million names. Officials say that these names represent legions of fraudsters who are not only registered but have actually voted in two or more states in the same election — a felony punishable by 2 to 10 years in prison.

--

The Crosscheck list of suspected double voters has been compiled by matching names from roughly 110 million voter records from participating states. Interstate Crosscheck is the pet project of Kansas’ controversial Republican secretary of state, Kris Kobach, known for his crusade against voter fraud.

The three states’ lists are heavily weighted with names such as Jackson, Garcia, Patel and Kim — ones common among minorities, who vote overwhelmingly Democratic. Indeed, fully 1 in 7 African-Americans in those 27 states, plus the state of Washington (which enrolled in Crosscheck but has decided not to utilize the results), are listed as under suspicion of having voted twice. This also applies to 1 in 8 Asian-Americans and 1 in 8 Hispanic voters. White voters too — 1 in 11 — are at risk of having their names scrubbed from the voter rolls, though not as vulnerable as minorities.

If even a fraction of those names are blocked from voting or purged from voter rolls, it could alter the outcome of next week’s electoral battle for control of the U.S. Senate — and perhaps prove decisive in the 2016 presidential vote count.“It’s Jim Crow all over again,” says the Rev. Joseph Lowery, who cofounded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference with Martin Luther King, Jr. Lowery, now 93, says he recognizes in the list of threatened voters a sophisticated new form of an old and tired tactic. “I think would use anything they can find. Their desperation is rising.”

[marions ghost]

21. Thank you

kick for sanity right now...

[True Blue Door]

22. We know the probability is very high of vote suppression.

But we need to know the extent of the effect on the outcome.

Democratic officials need to be on this.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

25. This cannot be accepted. Even if the Dems had won we need to fight for people's rights.

Especially when it is minorities, elderly and the poor who are being screwed. I'm a social worker and that is one of the duties we have: to fight for civil rights and injustice! The National Assn of Social Workers (NASW) needs to get on the ball! There are people in other professions (lawyers) who should also be involved - this is a justice issue.

[G_j]

27. Absolutely!

you nailed it.

[Sundome]

26. The voting fraud was bigger than ever I keep trying to point people

to democracynow.org's show today - the normal show not the election night show.

If you guys think this is bad, wait until the 2016 presidential election when Rove's redistricting kicks in.

What happened tonight had little to do with voters voting - it was voter id laws in the battle ground states, massive voter suppression in the battle ground states, the biggest amount of dark money in history in an election - nationwide, and incredibly blatantly corrupt politicians who oversee the voting that were throwing out votes personally. Again watch democracynow.org's show for today. Everyone should be watching them anyway.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

28. And don't forget a complicit media pushing the meme that Republican victory was inevitable.

[whathehell]

35. +10. n/t

[Chathamization]

95. Even worse, IMHO, has been the constant media message of crisis and Obama being a failure

When most of the "OMG why is Obama letting this happen?!? He needs to do something right now!" either got fixed and wasn't reported on (the exchange websites), turned out to be a lie to begin with (IRS targeting conservatives), turned out to be highly exaggerated (immigrant children crisis, Ebola), or issues with no quick fixes that were soon forgotten (Ukraine, Nigeria, Syria, Iraq). The media has decided that it's going to lurch from crisis to crisis (real or imagined), and place all the blame on Obama.

[malaise]

29. Good post

[kelliekat44]

32. Excellent post. And if we don't push against voter suppression we lose in 2016. nt

[True Blue Door]

40. There won't even be an election in 2016 if these tactics stand.

And if we find that they determined the outcome this time around, we have to do a lot more than push for changes next time - we would have to organize resistance to an illegally seized branch of government.

But again, that's contingent on what we find.

[angrychair]

39. Sorry, don't accept your narrative

It would be nice if that was the "thing" we needed to fix. At least it would give us a goal. A target. "Voter Suppression" is not the droid you are looking for. It is valid to say it is a component but it was not the rain maker of this shit storm of an election.

The questions you ask are almost impossible to prove, even provisionally, much less empirically.

Sadly, like most things, the answers are far more simple and far easier to prove.

the simple answer is: Democratic and general voter apathy.

how do we prove that? Easy. Look at the numbers. The most telling will likely come from some of the bluest counties in the country.

Example #1: King county, Washington state. One of the bluest in the nation. 30% of registered voters voted. no voter suppression here. All mail-in vote that starts weeks before election day. I voted a week and a half before today.

Example #2: Montgomery county, Maryland. Likely one the bluest county in the country. 40% of registered Dems voted. Only 40% of all registered voters voted. Dem state. no voter suppression.

Example #3: Boulder county, Colorado. bluest county in the state. 39% of registered voters voted. only 32% of Dems. Dem-leaning state. No voter suppression.

These are real numbers. From tonight's results. Voters stayed home. Dems stayed home. We lost a Senator in Colorado and a Governor seat in Maryland. Dem voter apathy lost this election.

[True Blue Door]

41. You can cite anecdotes where you don't think suppression happened.

But the flood of suppression reports throughout the country pretty conclusively undermines any claim that it wasn't a significant factor. What we have to do is find out if it was significant enough to be decisive.

Also, it's simply not the case that it's impossible to prove. It's not even difficult to prove. People with the right to vote who were illegally prevented from registering or were stopped from voting have been documented. It's just a matter of arithmetic - subtract the number of disenfranchised in the relevant voting region from the Republican margin. If the result is a negative number, the election result is fraudulent. Call it as such and organize resistance to their taking office, then find ways to resist any legislation they illegally affect.

Working toward more GOTV is two years away, but the legitimacy aspect of the matter is urgent.

[angrychair]

45. I like your vigor

on the subject but calling the numbers I cited "anecdotes" doesn't make any sense. The numbers I cited were not "anecdotes", they are empirical numbers from tonight's elections in some of the largest population centers of their respective states and some of the bluest counties in the country, with no voter suppression, in which rethugs still carried the states. Colorado and Maryland lost good dems today in these states. In both cases, if just 10-15% more Dems had come out to vote than the Dem candidate would have won. I am not going to go county by county, in every state, just to prove a point on a DU post.

Here is the point I think you missed: Dems failed to carry their Dem candidate, in a Dem or Dem-leaning state, not because of voter suppression but because of simple Dem voter apathy.

I do not contest that in red states that voter suppression influenced outcomes against Dem candidates.

I do contest that it was the major factor in the majority of our loses tonight.

If you care so much about voter suppression, lamenting the lose and demanding justice will fall on the deaf ears of a rethug Congress and rethug state legislatures.

If you care so much, than work hard to ensure Dems seek, obtain and hold state government offices at every level. Do this through 2020, so that when congressional lines are redrawn by 2022 that those Congressional lines are more likely to be more in Dem's favor. Do that so state laws, written and passed by Democratic majority state legislatures, revoke voterID laws and truly ensure that every vote counts.

[True Blue Door]

47. But they are anecdotes, by definition. It's data that doesn't add up to a whole picture.

Moreover, the Senate majority margin is small enough that if only two of those races were decided due to vote suppression, they will have swung the entire Senate due to treasonous election interference. Just two seats have to be illegitimate for this to be a coup d'etat.

Are you confident enough that the VAST vote suppression efforts the GOP engaged in, with tens to hundreds of thousands of voters affected in multiple states each, was not decisive in at least two races?

As I said, GOTV is two years away, but this is urgent. Focusing on these matters now does not detract from anything, but your insistence on dismissing them and focusing on events two years from now would clearly be damaging since nothing whatsoever would prevent a repeat or prepare to deal with the crimes of a potentially illegitimate Congress.

You seem to really not want to deal with the "fierce urgency of now," and I just don't think ignoring it is an option.

We are in a state of national crisis even if they won legitimately. And if they didn't, the crisis is a dire Constitutional crisis and can't possibly be resolved with the same "work harder next time" platitudes.

[angrychair]

58. You invalidate your own argument

I have already given empirical evidence that voter suppression played no role in at least 2 states results. By your own definition, your position is no less a anecdote than mine.
I have never stated that we can turn this tide two years from now. I don't think we can turn this tide 6 years from now.
Your voter suppression rant will and has fallen on deaf ears. Your final body of appeal is right-leaning SCOTUS. a SCOTUS that recently gutted one of the most important civil rights legislation we have ever had, the 1964 Civil Rights Act. There has been a very mixed result in all of the legal battles fighting this stuff. Most of it has gone nowhere.Now you have a federal government in which two of the three branches of the government are controlled by rethugs. Your other available avenue of appeal is to the same republican controlled state legislatures that wrote the damn laws. Where do you think your going to appeal? Even if people don't like it, there is little they can do about it, now or a year from now.

You have to change it at the root. Promote, vote and hold Democratic state legislatures. Promote, vote and hold Democratic state offices at all levels. Democratic state legislatures will change VoterID laws. Holding a majority of state legislatures through 2020 will allow us to reshape congressional districts more fairly and allow more Dems to seek and win federal and state offices. Its no short term fix but there is no short term fix. No matter how bad I want it. No matter how bad you want it.

[True Blue Door]

60. I'm not interested in hearing excuses for not dealing with this.

They don't help us. Ignoring the present in some vain hope that time will magically solve problems for you is not a solution.

Thank you for the information you offer, it provides some useful pieces of the picture. But we need more.

Once we have the full picture, then we can discuss what to do with it.

If you don't want to participate in that process, and instead just want to focus on years into the future, that's a separate conversation from this one.

[angrychair]

71. I'm sure you mean well

the points you are making are great. We lost the Senate by 8 seats. Voter surpression cannot begin to explain all of them. My numbers explain the one in Colorado.
I have no problems with independant organizations filing lawsuit after lawsuit to fight the good fight in every state they can manage. Some good will come of at least some of it. It should not be a Party plank or DNC driven effort. It will be loser and drag on the party's resources.
Sadly, you are never going to "sell" the issue to the American people as a whole. Though there is no doubt that voter surpression is real, it comes across as "conspiracy theory" ish and complicated and Americans don't do complicated. Two minutes into your speech, all they hear is "blah, blah...blah" and their mind wanders to the big mac they are having for lunch and what is going to happen on their favorite TV show that night.
You must focus at the problem's root, state legislatures. Sorry, not the answer you want. I wish you the best in your efforts. Its a real issue but going to a legal court or the court of public opinion isn't going to get you the results you want.

Changing the law will. You do that by changing out the people that created and wrote the laws but putting Democratics in their place.

[True Blue Door]

75. No, we did not lose the Senate by 8 seats. We lost 7-8 seats total.

The GOP majority margin is 2-3, depending on how certain things turn out.

Also, I don't care what the general public, the media, or the courts might or might not make of the issue. It's our duty as citizens and human beings to pursue it until we have answers, and once I have some, I'll decide how to proceed. All there is to it.

[JonLP24]

43. Agree with first 3

Using midterm results as an indicator of overall politics is poor. Turnout is low and this typically benefits Republicans.

When it comes to 4, I didn't like the overall strategy of distancing themselves from Obama and their accomplishments was a good idea. I already support them and that rubs me the wrong way. Reality has a liberal bias, use it.

[WinkyDink]

44. Righteous questions. SELF-righteous framing.

[Savannahmann]

46. Pfui

Look at Georgia, before the election the argument was that the SOS was preventing 50,000 people from voting. The Republicans won the Senate and the Governor's mansion by roughly 200k votes. So even if 50k voters were prevented from registering, the difference would have been that we still would have lost by 150k votes.

There are a lot of lessons to be learned from the election. The first one is don't campaign on a single issue, especially a single issue that isn't considered vitally important by a vast majority of the people.

The second is stop pretending that all politics are local and leaving it to the candidates to find their way to victory themselves.

The third is when we're elected, govern. Pay attention to the people, and stop insulting them. It's astonishing that we would act surprised about a defeat when we had the Todd Aikens in our party this year. We were not disciplined in our messages, we were not coordinated in our approach, and we were not active in our issues. We ran on one thing, and I'm not the only one who noticed this. Our approach was sure, we suck. But they suck worse. In every poll that showed how unfavorable the Republicans were, we were viewed a couple points more favorable. That is not a ringing endorsement of love and appreciation by the American People.

You are right about one thing, the next step is 2016, but to win there we have to learn the right lessons here. But I fear our party is determined to make the same mistakes, pretend that everybody really loves us, because the Republicans are slightly more popular than herpes, and we're slightly more popular than the Republicans.

[True Blue Door]

59. Yes, Georgia looks legit.

But if only two Senate races were illegitimate, that means the entire Senate being flipped is illegitimate.

And trying to ignore an urgent question that determines how we proceed in the next days and weeks by focusing on two years from now is ludicrous.

[Savannahmann]

61. You're looking for ammunition to justify the obstruction argument.

The voters have utterly rejected the argument that it's all the Republicans fault. Two races? They're still going to win Louisiana, and they're probably going to win Alaska. Even if we showed that two of the nine they picked up were questionable, they would still have a majority of one or two seats depending how Alaska and Virginia turn out.

The voters know that the House passed bills and sent them to the Senate where the Democrats ignored them. The Voters know that the Senate passed legislation that the House didn't even pay lip service to. That's all true, and we've spent the last two years blaming the Republicans, instead of trying to do something for the people. The Republicans were smart enough not to run on single issues, but to pay lip service at least to the other issues.

Petulantly stomping your foot and saying "I'm not going to talk to you for two years because you didn't win right." Is a recipe, for disaster.

I'm not saying cave on every issue or any issue, I'm saying that we need to talk, to listen, and to work with. We don't have any choice. We can't pretend that the Republicans will just roll over and die because we hate them. They're not going to make the "Real Rape" quote mistake ever again. I'm saying compromise, Politics is the art of the possible. It's rarely fair, and in most cases you can make some small progress on your issues. But you can make some progress. Obstruction rules out the progress, and that harms us all.

In other words, we can be adult, and face the reality, or we can start screaming and stamping our feet. One of them sets us up for victory in 2016, and one sets us up for defeat. You let me know which one you want to see.

[True Blue Door]

62. No, I'm looking for FACTS about what happened.

Why do you keep trying to come up with rationalizations for not dealing with this?

[Le Taz Hot]

48. I'll post anything I choose.

Who the hell died and made you DU Hall Monitor? You've been real fond of barking orders around here the last few weeks. It's almost like you're not new at all.

[Douglas Carpenter]

49. +1000

[True Blue Door]

64. Yeah, way to tell me off - you'll post irrelevant bullshit if you darn well feel like it!

Inspiring.

[PeaceNikki]

67. eye of the beholder and all. it's incredibly arrogant to decry things you disagree with as "idiotic

bullshit" and demand that people who have posted here for years stop posting things you don't like.

[True Blue Door]

69. The point was that we have more urgent matters on the agenda.

[GGJohn]

113. Then don't start a thread telling members what or what not to post.

You could've started this thread with "We have more urgent matters on the agenda" instead of the bullshit title.

[True Blue Door]

114. Point taken.

[GGJohn]

116. I do like your passion though,

I too, would like to find out exactly why we lost and lost so badly, IMO, I think it was a combination of circumstances, some voter suppression, Dems just not coming out in the numbers we needed, Repubs coming out in the numbers they needed, etc.

Hope we figure it out, because 2016 is just around the corner.

[GGJohn]

112. +2000.

[Zorra]

129. Thank you. nt

[davidpdx]

52. I don't particularly find any of your comments or questions helpful

We do need to be complaining about our party leaders because they did a SHITTY job this cycle. They all need to be fired. There are races that we should have won and others where we were challenging that we had a shot at and got whooped.

The media has falsely (and successfully) driven the narrative of the GOP. That is something we are going to have to figure out how to address. Chuck Todd is just one (but it happens to be one of the best) examples of the media trying to drive the GOP narrative. If we lose the narrative, we lose the election.

As for the questions: 7, 8, and 9 the answers are no. The "party" (Democratic Party) isn't going to do jackshit.

[Martin Eden]

55. "you can't know the significance of events whose details you don't even know"

But you pretend you do with your assertions.
Just saying.

[True Blue Door]

65. What "assertions" are you referring to?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

57. 1 and 3 are basically true; not wanting to hear them is foolish.

This election was not stolen, it was lost because more people chose to support the Republicans. That fact needs to be faced.

Ostrich-style posts like this one are both foolish and harmful.

[True Blue Door]

66. Speaking of "ostrich-style." Irony truly is dead.

[LiberalElite]

70. Really.

I can't do a sophisticated political analysis but this is how it appears to me. I have watched the Republicans morph into Nazis 2.0 and the Democratic Party cannot or will not stand up to them. We can tell Democrats till the cows come home that we "have their backs" but THEY DO NOT HAVE OURS.

[True Blue Door]

73. WE are the Democrats. WE are the Democratic Party.

Not the relative handful of people in office. The more we understand that and act on it, the more accountable we can hold them and ourselves.

It's really up to us to deal with this subject.

[LiberalElite]

74. Uh, I am. Just not giving the answers you want. nt

[True Blue Door]

77. I was agreeing with you.

[Warren Stupidity]

76. American culture is deeply conservative and American voters are manifestly idiots.

Thems the facts.

[PeaceNikki]

78. It's true. anyone who denies it is living in a blue little bubble.

Those of us who live in red areas are immensely in touch with that very sad reality.

[True Blue Door]

81. No, you live in a red little bubble and surrender to your environment.

Conservatives who live in blue areas don't have that kind of Stockholm Syndrome.

[PeaceNikki]

82. surrender? bullshit, you don't know me.

Or the definition of "Stockholm Syndrome"

[True Blue Door]

87. I know three things about you.

1. You agreed with the statement "American culture is deeply conservative."
2. You cited as evidence the fact that you happen to live in a conservative area, as if your anecdotal personal experiences define the entire universe.
3. You contemptuously dismissed the entirety of America that isn't a redneck shithole as a "little blue bubble."

In other words, you talk like a Republican, and believe what Republicans believe about America, using the exact same fallacies and shit-talk they do.

But when conservatives live in liberal areas, they don't get brainwashed like that - they stick to the delusional worldview you just advocated, that the America most Americans know isn't the "real" one.

[PeaceNikki]

94. No, you don't. You're seriously delusional.

Carry on, I have better things to do.

[True Blue Door]

101. So you DIDN'T just say what everyone can scroll up a few inches and see you said?

[RiffRandell]

86. You are exactly right Nikki.

I posted this several times last night with no responses.

At least someone agrees with me.

[True Blue Door]

91. Stockholm Syndrome is evidently a very common problem in our Party.

Liberals in conservative areas often seem to make an art form out of trembling weakness and kowtowing to the enemy.

It honestly makes me sick to my stomach watching them fail to represent, surrendering like the French special forces to a German boy scout troop.

I live in a red area myself, but I represent. I take zero shit.

[RiffRandell]

92. You need to take your own advice. nt

[True Blue Door]

93. I know, I know. I get distracted when people post off-topic comments.

[True Blue Door]

79. No, thems the narcissistic fantasies of cafe fauxgressives.

This country is deeply liberal and American voters are manifestly inconsistent.

[RobinA]

98. This Country is Deeply Liberal??

Compared to what? This is the the country where, according to polls, 40% of people think Obama, a centrist Republican in any other era, is too liberal.

Where is this country deeply liberal? I live in the northeast and I find very few people around me to be very liberal at all. Where are all these deeply liberal people of which you speak? You are talking about the United States, right?

[True Blue Door]

104. How about compared to the vast majority of countries on Earth?

That's kind of what it means when you make a statement about a country - comparing it to other countries.

Other countries - prosperous, first-world countries with better healthcare than ours - have state religions, monarchies, hereditary peerages, peremptory state censorship of news media, bitterly racist cultures barely papered over by superficially tolerant bureaucracies, no jury trials, have fewer rights for defendants, etc. etc. They see nth-generation descendents of immigrants as outsiders even in their cosmopolitan capitals. Or they see individual excellence as a quasi-fascist threat to social harmony and economic stability, and consider conspicuous achievement an act of anti-social radicalism.

If you don't think this country is deeply liberal, then your standards have nothing to do with reality. Moreover, this is a really big country - more comparable to the entire continent of Europe than to any one state within it. Imputing the ugliest Republican shithole to "America" would be like imputing Belarus to "European culture."

[Warren Stupidity]

126. We are "liberal" compared to Saudi Arabia.

Compared to other modern industrial democracies we are way over to the right.

[True Blue Door]

136. Bullshit. They just export their military defense to us.

Before we played that role for them, they were literally fascists and totalitarian Communists. And even now they send Neo-Nazis to the European parliament.

But hey, I'm perfectly prepared to accept that Canada and Switzerland and Iceland are more progressive, with their tiny populations, if you want to compare apples and asteroids.

[Warren Stupidity]

137. Um - uh dude, this is not 1980 anymore.

[True Blue Door]

140. Seen the breakdown of GDP contributions to NATO lately?

We massively subsidize every other member.

And once again, I repeat: They send Neo-Nazis to the EU parliament in nontrivial numbers. Recently.

[Warren Stupidity]

125. horseshit.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/166787/liberal-self-identification-edges-new-high-2013.aspx

But I'm sure you know better than all the polling data.

[Hoyt]

134. Gotta agree. Georgia elected a right wing hack who thinks job outsourcing is cool.

One can imagine what other right wing policies he will support. Gonna be a long 6 years.

[maced666]

80. Please stop posting most of your 9 points - geez

Number 2 - they cheated?
roll that over to 3,4,5,6 - DUD - nothing there!
Number 8 - really?!


Okay, we got rolled all over the country not on issues but on cheating and fraud.

Where's your proof?
Thought so.

THIS is why this keeps happening.

[True Blue Door]

84. You're asking where my proof is for asking a set of questions?

Your logic does not resemble our Earth logic.

[LWolf]

83. American culture is conservative. And

American voters are idiots.

Too much of America chose the GOP.

The Democratic Party has been weak and ineffective.

There you go.

I wouldn't really be quite that black and white, but you triggered it when you suggested, oh so politely, that I not post those things. So then I had to.

I really think that too much of America is too conservative for the nation's health, but that America is not as conservative as tptb have portrayed us. Many just THINK they are, because they depend on the msm and party leadership to tell them what they think.

Clearly, the GOP got too many votes.

Also clear, to me, the Democratic Party leadership has been weak and ineffective. There are still great Democrats out there, and the party could still stand for something if the leadership shifts or changes.

As far as the rest of your questions go...I hope somebody cares enough at higher levels to make sure they are answered. Ensuring clean elections would be a great starting line for what comes next.

[badtoworse]

85. Occam's Razor. The election wasn't stolen; the voters just didn't buy what we were selling

[True Blue Door]

89. Occam's Razor depends on knowing the facts.

You can't make any such determination just based on nothing but corrupt media propaganda.

[Puzzledtraveller]

135. what you said.

[demwing]

88. People will rant, it was a bad night

Like you!

Calling people "idiotic"...like that's s productive?

[True Blue Door]

90. I didn't call people idiotic - I called certain statements idiotic. Because they are.

[RobinA]

96. Not Buying It

I know too many people who vote, with no suppression, for Repubs totally against their own interests. While I'm sure there is suppression to some extent, the fact is, people are out there voting Repub whether it makes sense for them to do so or not.

[True Blue Door]

106. So because idiots exist, we should ignore treasonous electoral sabotage?

[Liberalynn]

97. As I said to my sister

If we lost to just the Old Republican guard, meaning folks like Gerald Ford, Bob Dole, even Nixon for Pete sakes I would agree with the "hey I know you're disappointed but let's not exaggerate crowd."

That's not who we are dealing with. People with similar beliefs to those type of Republicans aren't in office any more.

They are gone, victims of their own delusions that no one would be willing to take the train to crazy town with the likes of Bachmann, Palin, and Cruz, but guess what they were. These are people who don't believe even in the basic fundamentals of science, who view the superiority of the white race as unquestionable, who view education as the enemy.

If this country's elecorate were truly as smart as you give them credit for, it shouldn't matter how much people like the Koch's spend on selling the Republican brand. They don't fill out all those ballots, the rest of the people do.

We weren't cheated by voting machines, we were defeated by the ignorance of over half of the electorate, IMHO. Call that elitist, defeatist, whatever. I call it refusing to keep hoping that things will just magically be better if we just work harder and sell our message better. Over half the country voted for this, you can defend that and them as sane, intellectuals, whatever you so choose. The T Party also has the right to vote, think and call themselves smart, mock us etc. Totally agree that's your right and theirs to believe and say, just don't tell me that I don't have the right to believe and say what I want to as well.

[RobinA]

99. Agree With Most

of what you said. Except the part about those type of Repubs not being in office anymore. They are in office, but they are now called Democrats. I mean, whose administration originally came up with Romney/Obamacare? The healthcare plan that was too conservative one decade and too liberal a bunch of years later.

And yeah, I reserve the right to call a dumb voter a dumb voter.

[Liberalynn]

111. That's true about tho old Republican guard being "democrats" now

[True Blue Door]

107. That's a completely moribund viewpoint.

You offer nothing - you just declare the American experiment at an end and tell us to passively crawl into our graves.

[Liberalynn]

115. Sorry but that's where I am at this point.

Look I used to believe like you did that it was all changeable, not any more. Yes we defeated the Nazis in World War II but that didn't end holocaust or anti Semites. Yes our civil rights leaders won rights but as we are witnessing they can just as easily be taken away when over half the country can allow themselves to be convinced that it's all the Jews, People of Color and Women's fault that they aren't wealthy.

I devoted my life to studying history and politics. I am in the God dampened social science honor society. What good was it?

Hegel was right. "The only thing we learn from history is we don't learn from history." We can't eradicate the darker side of human nature that lives in each and everyone of us, including myself.

No point in believing that something that can't be changed can any more, and it's just not this country it's humanity in general.

You can label me, disagree, whatever. I'm not asking you to agree, just exercising my right to voice my own opinion.

[True Blue Door]

119. Then why are you here?

Why voice an opinion you consider moot?

Why dump your despair on others if you don't value and resent their hopeful determination?

Things change for better and worse. That's an inherent part of the bargain of having free will.

But something more is gained than lost. That's the basic axiom of progressivism, and indeed the evidence of human history. And if you don't share it, again I ask, why are you here?

Pessimism is not an intellectual viewpoint, it's a fetish to rationalize personal depression and abdication of responsibility.

[Liberalynn]

133. You Know What You're Right.

There's no point in arguing any more. I am severely clinically depressed, my fault and weakness entirely. My Doctor just gave me some really good advice though. She just said maybe many of my concerns are valid like global warming and bigotry, though she said she still sees a chance to improve those things, even if we can't fix them entirely.

She said regardless I have to start caring only about myself for awhile even if I think that's selfish. She said she knows how deeply I care about those who are bullied and who suffer, but that until I can shore up my own defenses I can't be of help, and that I need to take a mental vacation from thinking about all of it and choose to enjoy what I can here and now.

I am going to try and take her advice.

[Warren Stupidity]

138. Don't let this person bully you out of here.

Just put him on ignore.

[Niko]

102. I feel sorry for you guys, I really do

Your country seems to be irrevocably broken. I don't know how you're going to fix it. Take this from your friends up here in Canada: We feel for you. We're pretty much as liberal as can be up here. Yeah, we have our crazies, but they don't run things. Our conservatives have to be careful here. If they sway too much towards the crazy bullshit that seems to be par for the course in your country, they get their asses kicked out of office.

But you guys seem to have an impossible situation. Your districts are completely gerrymandered so that the total fucking MORONS are the ones who get all the power. It doesn't seem like it'll ever change. I don't know what you can do to change it.

Billions of dollars spent on elections, and somehow your supreme court says money is free speech. We have election laws here that limit that kind of shit. You guys don't, and it looks like you never will. What in the world can you do to change it?

90% for sane gun laws (that don't even go NEARLY as far as they need to go...you need way more than just background checks...), and still nothing changes. And children die while going to school. Not once or twice or every now and then, but ALL THE TIME. Nothing gets changed. Nothing gets done. Children die, nothing gets done.

Your healthcare system? A total joke. Obamacare did do SOME good things, but still not enough. Not NEARLY enough. And what happens? Republicans get control of congress and you can bet they're going to repeal it for the billionth time. Put a Republican president in there in two years and then you're totally fucked. Back to the same old even more broken healthcare system you used to have. Again, people die. They die of cancer and diabetes and God knows what else. And it doesn't change, it doesn't get fixed, it seems like nobody cares, and I just don't know what the hell you guys can do about it.

Iraq. Syria. More war. Even we, with our moron conservative government (and believe me, we're going to kick them out next year. Watch and see) got dragged into THAT particular mess. I just saw a report on CBS that talked about how ISIS was CREATED in an American prison camp. Not to mention going in there and fucking everything up in the first place. Now things are a mess thanks to your government's bullheaded foreign policy. Obama tried to fix it, but you can't unscramble an egg, and he tried as hard as he could to not have more war. But he still bombed people with drones, and now here you are back in Iraq, and now even Syria, with no end in sight. Nothing changes, nothing gets fixed, it just keeps going around and around in a never ending circular nightmare.

I just don't know what to say. I really, really feel for you guys. I know you're the good ones here on this site. You're the ones who wish it wasn't this way. From an observer's point of view here, I can tell you it's just incredibly sad. We know things could be better for you. Don't get me wrong: It's not perfect here. Nothing is perfect anywhere. But you guys are in a really bad situation.

You're the richest country on Earth, and your people live in a dystopian nightmare. You're government is corrupt to the core, run by psychopaths with money. And I can't say I see a light at the end of any tunnel. I wish I could say there was some kind of solution, but I just don't see it. Good luck to you all.

[NRaleighLiberal]

103. thanks and welcome to DU

[DanTex]

108. Yup.

You left out one thing about the elections here. Each state gets 2 senators, no matter how many people live there. This means that a voter in a small population state like Wyoming has around 50x more influence in the senate than a voter in California.

I've read somewhere that the US senate is the least democratic parliamentary body in the developed world (or almost the least, something like that). It's absurd. And it favors conservatives because the rural states with no people in them lean conservative, whereas high-population states with cities in them lean liberal.

[True Blue Door]

109. Right, that's why Canada is pushing Keystone XL and the US isn't buying.

Because your government is so progressive and accountable.

Look at how quickly the Australian government turned on a dime due to one election into Bushian psychosis with Abbott. That will happen to Canada at some point, because it has nothing to do with your level of education or your values. It has to do with money.

And when it does happen - when your government suddenly and without warning is the exact opposite of everything you thought your country was, and you feel totally powerless in the face of its outrages - you will beg the world not to judge you by your government.

[Warren Stupidity]

127. yeah that sums it up pretty well.

[deaniac21]

110. It is truly good that they don't

do this in every election.

[erpowers]

117. Good Points

You made some good points in you post, especially your questions. Yesterday, someone created a post in which the person said they were told by someone working the polls that they needed an ID to vote. The poster disagreed with two poll workers before a third worker told the poster and the other poll workers that the poster could vote without an ID. How many people before they DU poster were told the same thing and left the voting location without putting up a fight? Take that nation wide and think about what happened.

I think it was estimated that the Texas voter ID law was going to make about 600,000 people ineligible to vote in Texas. It was said that the majority of those people would be Democrats. That number may have been an extreme exaggeration and completely meaningless, but that is the number coming out of one state based on one law. Now think about all the other red states where there were voter ID laws and think about how many people could have been prevented from voting.

Your questions are right. We really do need someone from the Democratic Party to look into your questions? Even if the Democratic Party does nothing with the answers we need to know the numbers surrounding the Republican wins last night.

[Rex]

128. If you find out any of this information, please let the rest of us know.

I think most of us are wondering about mass voter fraud and maybe some exceptionally smart DUers can find out that information and put it into a cohesive thread.

[Man from Pickens]

130. Stop fantasizing

Voter suppression tactics aren't the reason we lost in places like Maryland and Massachusetts. Voter suppression tactics didn't generate far-below-historical-norm vote percentages in Democratic strongholds. What would be the point of GOP suppressing votes in Delaware and Rhode Island?

Delaware is a great example. In 2012 we got 66%+ of the vote in a Senate election. In 2014 we got 56%. This is a state in which suppression would be absurd since no amount of it would give Republicans the seat.

Ten percent of the entire electorate switched sides and "dirty tricks" is the least plausible of the reasons why.

Also not plausible is any suggestion that there was anything especially strong about GOP candidates or especially weak about Democratic ones. While the latter may be true in certain races (Coakley comes to mind) the former is not true in any race. None of these Rs were particularly charismatic or influential or unique.

This was an across-the-board result, nationwide, and all roads to explaining this loss lead directly to the White House. There's no other explanation that fits the facts that north, south, east, and west, we got wiped out like hasn't happened in generations.

I return to my original explanation: the 99% are suffering badly in a horribly hyper-corporatist economy and the WH acts like a) it's not happening, b) they don't care, and c) if they had to pick a side it would be with Wall Street.

[Dont call me Shirley]

131. Poll after poll after poll shows that Americans have progressive ideals.

It is counter intuitive to believe they would actually vote against what they believe time after time.

If you want to find out the stats of the mechanics of how the votes were stolen, ask the gop, like sportscasters they love their stats. They just aren't willing to share them, a Chelsea Manning will be needed to extricate the stats from the gop ops.

[onenote]

132. How do you explain Maryland

Democratic stronghold with a Democratic governor, Lieutenant Governor. Dominance in State Legislature (State Senate 35/12; State House of Delegates 98/43). Two Democratic United States Senators; Six of eight House seats held by Democrats.

All incumbents reelected (with the possible exception of first term Democrat John Delaney who was elected in 2012 to a House seat held by a republican for the previous 20 years).

Yet the Democratic candidate goes down to a crushing defeat in the governor's race. Why? Not because of anything the state legislature did to suppress voting. And I've not seen any reports of election day shenanigans in Maryland.

So why did we lose? Because we ran a lousy candidate in a year in which Democratic voters felt little enthusiasm.