#2018 midterm election

[ridaoujba]

Check out this awesome 'Your Vote Matters 2024 Election' design on @TeePublic!

[roseband]

also w/ how cheap flights to atl are, now i wanna do atlanta as our like right after the wedding pre-honeymoon (cuz there's no way we're doing tokyo/seoul in november lol)

but also idk if it's safe to go to atl right after the election???

[cleoselene]

Did you know?

Democrats have won the popular vote in seven out of the last eight presidential elections going back to 1992? The only time the GOP has won the popular vote in the last 36 years in a presidential election was in 2004, and it was a pretty narrow margin. This was a wartime election and the first election post-9/11. The Democratic candidate was the unfortunately uninspiring John Kerry, who had been lied about. You know how in politics we say someone has been "swiftboated" when a successful lie is told about them? That term originates with the 2004 election because a bunch of people concocted an elaborate lie about John Kerry's military service. He wasn't super inspiring as a candidate, but that was the worst thing he did. He wasn't a bad guy. He was just running in a very gross, jingoistic time after the worst terror attack in American history, and had a bunch of successful lies told about him to the point where a whole word about a specific kind of lie was invented about it. THIS is the only time since 1988 that the Republican party has won the popular vote. George W. Bush did not win the popular vote in 2000. The Supreme Court ordered that votes stop being counted in Florida and handed the victory to Bush.

Donald Trump has never ever won the popular vote. The electoral college handed him the victory in 2016, less than 15,000 votes across three states decided the election. Hillary Clinton in total won about 3.7 million more votes than Donald Trump. Trump HATES hearing this number. He hates even more that Joe Biden got about 7 million more votes. He hates even more that you bring up the fact that he lost his midterm elections for his party in 2018, badly. And that the "Red Wave" in 2022 did not happen because of backlash at his Supreme Court. Or that in 2023 voters continued to reject his Supreme Court at the polls.

He knows, the Republicans know, that if more people vote, they lose. They don't want small d democracy. They want authoritarianism. They want to suppress it.

So when you get cute about not wanting to vote, you're not doing activism. You're surrendering.

[crookedfandomquill]

This is very situational, and sadly may not be realistic for everyone, but I need y’all to understand that a very important part of political activism is fucking talking to your conservative or moderate friends and family.

My dad voted for Trump in 2016. He’s a middle class white evangelical from Arkansas. He raised me with conservative Christian values, just like his parents raised him. When he voted Trump, he was holding his nose, but he didn’t feel too bad about it, and went on to vote red down the ticket in the 2018 midterms, as well.

But I started college in 2017. Higher education and independence changed everything for me, and I went home over holidays and summers with fire in my belly and a thousand arguments ready at the drop of a hat, to my father’s dismay.

I remember crying in my room after emotional, intense arguments with him. I told him over and over that I felt betrayed by his choice to vote for a man who admitted to sexually assaulting women, who built his platform on dehumanizing immigrants and the disabled, who spread overtly-racist rhetoric, who flouted the values of kindness and self-discipline that I’d been raised on. And my dad always had some justification about the “greater good”: fighting against abortion, bolstering the economy, getting other Christian politicians into office.

But over time, as we grew further apart and I lost my will to discuss anything with him at all, he softened. He started asking me why I thought the way I did about the things we disagreed about. He would listen to my answers without interruption, and mull them over afterward instead of expressing his own opinion. And all the while, he watched the Trump presidency become cruel and absurd and devastating.

The first time he openly expressed regret to me, I had come home for a weekend after Kavanaugh was confirmed to SCOTUS. My dad realized he had helped elect a man who preyed on women… and that man had opened the door to more predators. I can’t tell you what it felt like for him to admit that he’d made a mistake, not just in voting for Trump but in defending him for so long. We kept arguing, but it was more debating than fighting. I knew he was capable of seeing my side of things, even if it took a while, and he knew I wasn’t just a sensitive college student with shallow new ideas about the world.

And then 2020 hit. Specifically, George Floyd was murdered, and the events that followed played out on the national stage. My dad was incredibly shaken by it. He asked me if I had any books from college about racial issues. I loaned him The New Jim Crow, one of the required readings for my Race and the Law class. Then I gave him Just Mercy. Then he watched the documentary 13th. Then he joined a racial harmony group he learned about through one of the few Black families at our church and insisted our whole family come. He held up signs at a protest against Confederate monuments in our conservative southern town. In three years, he went from defending Trump’s comments about “Black-on-Black crime” to publicly advocating for racial justice and opposing the death penalty.

We went together to vote in the 2020 primaries. I couldn’t help asking who he’d voted for; I didn’t even know if he’d asked for the Republican or Democratic ticket. He admitted he’d voted for Bernie. fucking. Sanders, then made me promise not to tell my grandma he’d voted liberal. When the election rolled around in November, he voted Biden. I’m sure he held his nose to do it, just like he held his nose voting in 2016. But I know he doesn’t regret it.

I am, of course, unbelievably lucky to have a parent who loved me enough, and was empathetic enough, to choose his relationship with me over his strongly-held opinions. He kept searching for truth because, as much as he’ll deny it, he’s a very smart and curious person. No degree of intelligence or curiosity makes you immune to propaganda, especially if you were raised not to question the party line. It’s easy to dismiss our conservative, conspiracy-pilled loved ones as stupid, hypocritical, and cruel. Sometimes they are. But sometimes they aren’t. Sometimes they will bend to keep their relationships from breaking. Sometimes, if they can be made to understand that their beliefs and actions are harming someone they love, they will make concessions. And sometimes they just need one person in their life to put a foot down, to be vulnerable and assertive and argumentative, to bring the impact of their politics close to home.

As the most important election of our lifetimes approaches, do not put peace over progress. If you have someone like my dad, someone who is good-willed and smart and loves you more than their own opinions, tell them how you feel. Tell them what their choices will mean for you, for your friends, for your community. Tell them what they could lose: your trust, your affection, your respect. Don’t avoid conflict if it could be productive. Because my conflict with my dad didn’t just win him over–it won over my moderate mom and one of my conservative brothers. And it put us in community with other like-minded people and led my parents to a healthier and kinder faith.

All of this to say, there is hope in conflict. There is hope in our relationships with people who think differently from us. There is hope in exposing your fear and anger and pain to people you love. And hope is a form of activism.

[batboyblog]

I've seen this meme and the pop wisdom idea behind it a lot, that if Democrats just manned up like the South Koreans they could stop Trump. SO! its now my job to explain BASIC FUCKING facts to people because they're talking nonsense about easily googlable information.

This is South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol of the center-right, conservative, People Power Party. He was elected President in 2022. Like in the United States, South Korea has mid-term elections, where South Korea's Congress, the National Assembly is up for elections while the President isn't. Unlike America South Korea's National Assembly has only one House. Any ways they had their midterm in 2024:

The opposition center-left, liberal Democratic Party won, overwhelmingly. The election was April 10th, they took office May 30th. Soon the opposition was doing what an opposition given power does, it was fighting President Yoon about his disastrous budget plans and trying to hold the First Lady Kim Keon-hee to account for alleged corruption. If this all sounds a bit like Trump, good job Yoon has been called "South Korea's Trump".

any ways 6 months into having an opposition run National Assembly Yoon declared martial law and sent soldiers to try to shut down the National Assembly. Everyone watched Democratic Assembly Members bravely climb fences and barricade the chamber doors to vote to end martial law. Here's what you have to understand about that vote

190 National Assembly members voted, 172 of them? We're Democrats and their allies. The President's People Power Party mostly stood by him. They keep standing by him in the days that followed. Four Days after President Yoon tried to use the Military to throw out the elected National Assembly and make himself dictator, the first try to impeach him, failed

105 out of the 108 the President's PPP party in the Assembly stood by him, after he tried to coup the country. Only 7 days later after overwhelming public pressure and the arrest of many key Presidential aids did an impeachment vote pass (he still hasn't been convicted)

only 12 PPP members broke with their Party and its President, 12 was enough, but the overwhelming majority? voted to protect the President who just tried to overthrow the country.

SO! Much like Donald Trump President Yoon didn't need to overthrow the country for the first 2 years of his term because he had a puppet Congress willing to go along with his corruption. With-in 6 months of dealing with a National Assembly that stood up to him the wheels came off and he imploded. But even after the most spectacular implosion on the International stage I've ever seen his party stood by him. If the Democratic Party didn't have a majority? and most important a BIG majority, a majority where even a small number of PPP defections was enough to get the 2/3rds they needed Yoon would still be President right now, if Democrats had a 2-3 seat majority in the National Assembly? they would have never gotten the votes to impeach.

We can see overlap in the American experience. In Trump's first term his own party in Congress never challenged him and largely stayed united behind him. In 2018 he lost the midterm elections which meant he was held to account and in fairly short order impeached, it took 8 months from Democrats taking office to an impeachment inquire to get underway. Like President Yoon Trump was not able to function under any kind of pushback. But unlike the South Korean Democrats the American Democrats didn't have an overwhelming majority in the Senate (Koreans don't even have a Senate) so Trump was not convicted. And the second time he was impeached after like Yoon trying to overthrow the Congress and become dictator, there were like in South Korea a handful of defectors from his own party, but unlike Korea The Democratic majority in the 2021 Senate wasn't large enough to have those Republican votes matter

So brave displays are good and important, but they don't mean much without the power, the votes to back it up. Elect Democrats in 2026 and they will, in less than a year of taking office, impeach Trump. Trump can't function with an opposition, he can't do it, he'll do something and they will HAVE TO vote to remove him. But the key is they need to votes to do it, because most Republicans? will go down with the ship, there's no red lines for them, if Democrats don't have big majorities, Trump hanging onto 90% of his party in the Senate will save his ass, again.

[tomorrowusa]

Democrats won TWO special elections for the Pennsylvania legislature yesterday. One was sort of expected but the other was an upset which gives Democrats a boost in morale – in addition to an unexpected Pennsylvania Senate seat.

In the western part of the state, Democrat Dan Goughnour won in PA-House-35. He fills a vacancy left by another Dem who died suddenly. This victory returns the Pennsylvania House to Democratic control. It had been tied.

Dan's victory was largely anticipated. But the Democratic win in a more conservative part of Pennsylvania's southeast is considered an upset. In a race to fill a Pennsylvania Senate vacancy caused by a resignation, Democrat James Malone edged out a MAGA extremist to become the first Dem elected from PA-Senate-36 since the Carter administration. Four months ago, Trump carried this district with 57% of the vote.

Democrats claimed a majority in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and held a narrow lead in a Lancaster County state Senate district where Republicans have a strong advantage, according to unofficial results in special elections late Tuesday. Democrat Dan Goughnour won the 35th House District seat, previously held by Rep. Matthew Gergely (D-Allegheny), with 63.4% of the vote, according to unofficial results. His victory restores the 102-101 seat majority Democrats held in the House before Gergley died in January after suffering a medical emergency. A Democratic victory in the Lancaster County race would not change Republican control of the Senate, but would be a significant upset in the district, where President Donald Trump won by 15 percentage points in November. Unofficial results in the 36th Senate District election showed Democratic East Petersburg Mayor James Malone ahead of Republican County Commissioner Chairman Joshua Parsons by fewer than 500 votes, or 0.89% of the 54,000 votes cast.  [ ... ] The 36th District covers a swath of northern Lancaster County including suburbs of the city of Lancaster, Elizabethtown and rural areas.

A general shift of 7% away from Republicans in the 2026 midterms would make the 2018 blue wave look pale. The upset of the GOP Pennsylvania Senate candidate should make Capitol Hill Republicans think twice about supporting the disastrous chaos emanating from the Trump administration.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Dan Pfeiffer at The Message Box:

The pace and breadth of the Trump/Musk Administration's actions feel overwhelming. Anything and everything is under attack. One day, it’s USAID; the next, it’s the National Institute of Health, air traffic controllers, and the Education Department. How can we keep up with what’s happening and respond before Trump moves on to the next thing? This is by design. This is the “flood the zone” strategy described by Trump ally Steve Bannon. Bannon explained in a 2018 interview:

[Every day we hit them with three things. They'll bite on one, and we'll get all of our stuff done. Bang, bang, bang. These guys will never—will never be able to recover.]

If the Trump presidency's first month taught us one lesson, it is that playing whack-a-mole doesn’t work. We need a broader strategic framework to stay ahead. There are no easy answers. Democrats are at a massive media disadvantage. We have neither the messengers nor the platforms to compete with Trump and Musk (And don’t get me started on the message). We need to solve these problems as soon as possible without stepping back and while simultaneously addressing our long-term challenges. To that end, I want to put forward a framework to simplify the task ahead for Democrats. Make Donald Trump unpopular. This task is easier said than done, but it’s the only way to slow down — and eventually stop — Trump. As with everything in politics, the most significant forces are beyond our control. Despite messaging and media advantages, the primary reason that the GOP is now in power was a global spike in inflation as the world came out of COVID. But there are methods to bring down Trump’s numbers.

Why Make Trump More Unpopular?

A president’s power is directly related to their popularity in three ways. One, vulnerable members of the president’s party are more likely to take tough votes when the president is popular. Two, party performance in the midterms is historically correlated with the incumbent president’s approval rating. Finally, the media narrative around a president is based on their poll numbers. When the numbers are good, the president is portrayed as strong and successful; and when the numbers go down they are seen as weak and feckless. In the first six months of Joe Biden’s presidency, he was treated as a transformational figure akin to FDR or LBJ. Once his poll numbers took a dive after Afghanistan, his press coverage turned. While legacy media coverage matters less these days, it can still set the tone and tenor for larger online conversations. The less popular Trump is, the more challenging it will be for him to pass his agenda in a narrowly divided Congress; and the more likely it will be that Democrats win the majority in 2026; and the sooner members of Trump’s coalition will abandon him. While Trump is less popular than any recent newly elected president, he is more popular than he has ever been before. [...] Therefore, Democrats need to adopt a “no layups” rule. This is a concept borrowed from basketball. There are no easy shots. If the other team tries to make a layup, you foul them before they can. This is the mentality Democrats need. We must complicate everything for Trump and the Republicans and use every lever of power to slow things down and gum up the works. Time is the only non-renewable resource in politics. Every day that Trump doesn’t move his agenda is a day he won’t get back. This is what McConnell did to Obama and it’s what Democrats need to do to Trump. The real test will come when government funding runs out and the debt limit expires. The Democratic approach must be in total opposition to any Republican proposal. We have all the leverage. If Republicans want Democratic votes, they must pay in concessions. This doesn’t mean we demand Medicare For All or an expansion of Social Security, but we can insist on concessions to protect many of the priorities being slashed by Musk and his minions. To be clear, Democrats are not forcing a shutdown. Republicans have the votes to keep the government up and running. I am simply saying that Democrats shouldn’t bail out the Republicans due to some sense of civic duty.

Dan Pfeiffer is right: The Democrats must drive Donald Trump’s approval ratings into the negatives, especially with all the evil and anti-American things he’s done in his time in office.

[contemplatingoutlander]

"The gerrymandering alone undermines Wisconsin’s status as a democracy. If a majority of the people cannot, under any realistic circumstances, elect a legislative majority of their choosing, then it’s hard to say whether they actually govern themselves."

--Jamelle Bouie, Opinion Columnist, The New York Times

Jamelle Bouie points out the disturbing way that Republicans in Wisconsin have basically destroyed democratic representative government on all levels by:

Creating an unbreakable gerrymander to ensure a Republican legislative majority, even if more people vote for Democrats.

Weakening the power of a Democratic governor,.

Targeting a liberal Wisconsin supreme court justice for removal or suspension so that the state SC won't have the power to rule against gerrymandered districting maps, and won't be able to prevent a 19th century ban on abortion from becoming law.

This is chilling. Below are some excerpts from the column:

For more than a decade, dating back to the Republican triumph in the 2010 midterm elections, Wisconsin Republicans have held their State Legislature in an iron lock, forged by a gerrymander so stark that nothing short of a supermajority of the voting public could break it. [...] In 2018, this gerrymander proved strong enough to allow Wisconsin Republicans to win a supermajority of seats in the Assembly despite losing the vote for every statewide office and the statewide legislative vote by 8 percentage points, 54 to 46. No matter how much Wisconsin voters might want to elect a Democratic Legislature, the Republican gerrymander won’t allow them to. [...] Using their gerrymandered majority, Wisconsin Republicans have done everything in their power to undermine, subvert or even nullify the public’s attempt to chart a course away from the Republican Party. In 2018, for example, Wisconsin voters put Tony Evers, a Democrat, in the governor’s mansion, sweeping the incumbent, Scott Walker, out of office. immediately, Wisconsin Republicans introduced legislation to weaken the state’s executive branch, curbing the authority that Walker had exercised as governor. Earlier this year, Wisconsin voters took another step toward ending a decade of Republican minority rule in the Legislature by electing Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal Milwaukee county judge, to the State Supreme Court, in one of the most high-profile and expensive judicial elections in American history. [...] “Republicans in Wisconsin are coalescing around the prospect of impeaching a newly seated liberal justice on the state’s Supreme Court,” my newsroom colleague Reid J. Epstein reports. “The push, just five weeks after Justice Janet Protasiewicz joined the court and before she has heard a single case, serves as a last-ditch effort to stop the new 4-to-3 liberal majority from throwing out Republican-drawn state legislative maps and legalizing abortion in Wisconsin.” Republicans have more than enough votes in the Wisconsin State Assembly to impeach Justice Protasiewicz and just enough votes in the State Senate — a two-thirds majority — to remove her. But removal would allow Governor Evers to appoint another liberal jurist, which is why Republicans don’t plan to convict and remove Protasiewicz. If, instead, the Republican-led State Senate chooses not to act on impeachment, Justice Protasiewicz is suspended but not removed. The court would then revert to a 3-3 deadlock, very likely preserving the Republican gerrymander and keeping a 19th-century abortion law, which bans the procedure, on the books. If successful, Wisconsin Republicans will have created, in effect, an unbreakable hold on state government. With their gerrymander in place, they have an almost permanent grip on the State Legislature, with supermajorities in both chambers. With these majorities, they can limit the reach and power of any Democrat elected to statewide office and remove — or neutralize — any justice who might rule against the gerrymander. [color/emphasis added[

"It’s that breathtaking contempt for the people of Wisconsin — who have voted, since 2018, for a more liberal State Legislature and a more liberal State Supreme Court and a more liberal governor, with the full powers of his office available to him — that makes the Wisconsin Republican Party the most openly authoritarian in the country."

--Jamelle Bouie, Opinion Columnist, The New York Times

[edited]

[septembermonologues]

i am so fucking terrified, i don't know how to get through this waiting

I guess I'm asking if there's any hope left to be had

the wait is so brutal but yes, i firmly believe that there is always hope!! some things i'm trying to keep in mind are:

- the red haze-- early results seem widely red because in-person votes lean republican. those votes are also counted first and faster because they're smaller counties compared to denser ones that lean democrat. make sure you're looking at the % of ballots counted because projected results aren't true results. the race won't start to actually solidify until tomorrow morning.

- keep an eye on your state and local reps! the nitty gritty stuff can be more positive than the national (i live in a pretty rural area but i just happily voted for rep underwood--a younger progressive black woman--a second time).

- just because results come short of what we hoped doesn't mean they represent popular opinion. in florida, marijuana and abortion rights have fallen short even with a 50%+ majority because they require a 60% majority to pass. i know it's incredibly disheartening to not see popular opinions supported by law but i also believe that you have to remember that people, especially people in historically red states, don't necessary tow the stereotypical line. there is room for movement and change.

- there are ballots that currently aren't being counted because they have errors that are CURABLE and CAN be counted if corrected. i already reblogged something about it but if you voted (esp if by mail) please answer unnamed calls because it could be about your ballot. if you go here at vote.com you can also track your ballot.

- there are always, always things for us to do between elections. encourage your friends and family to look forward at the 2026 midterms (they can have huge effects on congress) and start planning, see if there are any campaigns that could use your help moving forward, look into working polling stations in the future (i did it in 2018 and it was a long but fulfilling day), get the fuck outside and moving around. find out where you can volunteer around you- homeless shelters, food banks/kitchens, community events. read some history and some theory-- we aren't actually in completely unprecedented times and it's important to remember where we've progressed from.

- honestly? stop giving batshit crazy people the attention they want. no rage engagement. its what they want. focus on raising awareness without directly interacting with them.

- it fucking sucks ass that its this close and that extremists win. i will never ever say that it doesn't. but it will not be the end. it will be hard but thats when we have to lean on each other. we can't be afraid to ask each other for help and we have to find things to be excited and hopeful for. there is some truth to "other people have it worse so i have to keep going". who are we to give up on the whole?

maybe im just tipsy but i just find so much hope and inspiration in the work so many people put into civil service. people want better than what we have and are fighting for us. i can't let myself get too negative because it doesn't do any good to wallow. just in general i love humanity too much to let the bad win.

[qqueenofhades]

Hi just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to thoughtfully respond to these anon messages. I work in dc w a fairly wonky set and i cant overstate how haunted the DC Professional Thought Havers are by the spectre of the "low propensity voter." I think these ppl (myself included LOL) thought we had everything figured out ahead of the 2016 elections and then never recovered from the way it ended up going......i feel like in all the years that followed.....the liberal bubbles.....the coastal elites.......the hillbilly elegies......the real america....the ohio diners....the pennsylvania diners.......the polls......the 2020 horserace....while part of an earnest attempt to understand What Happened, were primarily self-indulgent, self-flagellation for being "out of touch" bc of a self-diagnosed "elite" status that then turned into ANOTHER myopic view of the world, just opposite, where the "libs" are hapless and everyone else remotely to the left are primarily victims to the unstoppable supernatural forces of the Right. Then in 2020 the narrative flipped AGAIN and once again, instead of taking the opportunity to expand a worldview and having the bravery to confront their own shortcomings, the opinion havers and wonks and beltway pressers have decided to groupthink their way into writing off democracy altogether. Its BEYOND frustrating to see! Like damn volunteer at a soup kitchen or smthn instead of being obsessed w the fact that i vote lol

Yes, and there are several reasons for that. First, despite all the factors that contributed to Trump's shock win in 2016 (anti-Clintonism, white backlash to Obama, general low voter enthusiasm, Russian disinformation, etc) we should never forget that until James Comey decided to announce 10 days before the election that he was reopening the EEEEEEEMAILS case, even though we all knew there was nothing there, she was leading fairly comfortably in the polls. And while we will never know how the 2016 election would have gone without that, which imho was one of the most unforgivable acts of blatant sabotage by a public official in American history, it's also true that we saw her poll averages start sliding almost in real time, as people who hadn't really been keen on voting for her anyway decided firmly not to and Trump was able to scrape out 16,000 votes across PA, MI, and WI to take the Electoral College. Which... we all remember how we felt that night, right? (Or in my case, early morning, since I was overseas?) We don't, we really, really don't want to feel that way again. Just saying.

As such, the media (which had already beat up Clinton nonstop during the BUT HER EEEEEMAILS saga) drastically overcorrected and as you say, began writing endless angsty handwringing pieces about Trump Voters in Rural Ohio Diners and giving endless sympathetic airtime to how "economically left behind" they felt, regardless of the fact that open racism, especially Obama backlash, was and remains the principal animating feature of Republican politics (since their only economic platform is that which makes very rich people even richer and Democratic economic policies are the only ones actually targeted at helping ordinary people). The hangover was so strong that even when Democrats had a massive 2018 midterm result and flipped the House blue for the first time since the post-ACA backlash lost it in 2010, the Conventional Wisdom was now beyond any doubt that Democrats were doomed for a generation or something, and not that Trump had squeaked out a fluky win (while losing the popular vote) due to endless Russian/Comey/third party-etc interference and wasn't actually that powerful. Even in 2020 when Biden was leading fairly steadily and things were going to hell with Covid, etc. etc. TRUMP IS UNSTOPPABLE, TRUMP IS GOING TO WIN.

(And now. Like. I know Trump thinks Trump won in 2020, as do a large majority of his cultists, but that doesn't mean he did.)

Even after that, when Roe went down in 2022, that made no difference to the RED WAVE COMING!!! narrative, and the amount of smug white male pundits insisting that abortion just wasn't very important and people weren't going to base their entire vote on it reached truly disgusting levels. We're now seeing the same thing with the constant "people won't vote for democracy and/or abortion rights" blast, when as you say, this narrative has just been completely made the fuck up by a lot of groupthinking DC media who are determined that this time, Trump really is going to win and then they get to be principled chroniclers in opposition or something. Not to mention, the basic principle of "democracy and abortion rights are good" do in fact win by thumping margins every time they're on the ballot, including in deep red states. But there is literally not a single piece of empirical evidence despite the massive amounts of it supporting the truth (i.e. that Democrats are doing historically well in competitive elections since 2018 and there's not really a major reason to think this will change in 2024) that will get the media to change the "Democrats in disarray and Biden Iz Doomed" horserace BS they so love. They don't like Biden because he's boring and competent and just does the job without being insane, because it's totally a great idea to treat American government like a reality show! (Recall the infamous comment by the CBS CEO who literally said that Trump was bad for America but great for CBS, because he pulled in high ratings and therefore lots of money and visibility for CBS. We live in the worst timeline.)

As such, the mainstream media has a vendetta against Biden, is determined that this time Trump is super definitely going to win and everyone will see how genius they are, and not-so-secretly wants Trump back because a) he's good for money and ratings, and b) because the media conglomerations are owned by oligarchs who have a vested interest in making sure that Democrats and their policies never get too popular. Notice how the once self-proclaimed centrist independent Elon Musk has turned into a rabidly alt-right fanboy ever since the Democrats really got serious about taxing billionaires as a key part of their platform. Likewise, insisting that Biden Iz Doomed makes Democrats nervous (and thus more likely to tune in) and Republicans gleeful (and thus more likely to tune in), so there's literally no incentive for the media to even try to report things accurately. You could create a very different narrative of the 2024 election if you just remotely bothered to write about things that have actually happened as they have actually taken place, rather than bending over backward to insist that Biden being four years older than Trump is a worse crime than 91 felony indictments, 2 impeachments, 1 insurrection, 450 million dollars and counting in punitive jury verdicts, more major criminal trials coming down the pipe, and just demonstrably being the worst human being alive in so many ways. I mean. Wow.

The good news, as I said in my other post, is that when people actually vote, these utter bullshit narratives get routinely blown out of the water, and that's a good thing. Because it turns out that unlike Super Smart Beltway Pundits' Super Smart Predictions, the average American does actually like democracy and freedom for women to make their own personal healthcare decisions, and they vote accordingly. So while yes, it's being made harrowingly much harder than it needs to be because of how much the media simply refuses to report that basic fact, and there is no amount of evidence that will convince them otherwise, at least we're trending in the right direction and, if we all pull our weight, can do it one more time. I realized the other day that I hadn't heard a fucking peep about Ron DeSantis in the last two months, and oh, how glorious it was. I yearn beyond words for the day (God willing, soon) when the same is true of Trump as well.

[kurtsvonneslut]

Wheres the hot ex boss story

AH thank you for the reminder. long post incoming:

so, when i was 20, i got my very first dentistry job as a front desk receptionist. i worked very closely one-on-one with my boss (we’re going to refer to her as carol, no that is not her real name). at the time i was hired, she was 40 and had a husband and two teenagers. but god she was so hot and i was so whipped IMMEDIATELY.

it started literally on my first day in the office. i had a month of offsite training, so for my first official day in the practice, carol got me a beautiful potted plant to welcome me.

shortly after that was the midterm election (this was 2018), and i voted but didn’t get a sticker. carol overheard me complaining about this to a coworker and came out of her office to give me her sticker. that’s probably when i fell fully.

she was very physical with me, touched my shoulder a lot, and when she needed to show me something on the computer she would wrap her arm around the back of my chair and lean over so she was just inches away from my face. she did not do this with anyone else in the office, just me.

we had a pretty solid flirtationship for a while, definitely a two way street. i remember she would always tell me how pretty i was, and how much she enjoyed my company. a couple of our conversations:

as time went on, the flirting got more and more blatant. more banter, more touching, etc. if we were on a network television show, our writers would be called out for queerbaiting. there would be thousands of works under our ship on ao3.

ya know how when you make a gay joke to straight people they’ll get uncomfortable, like they don’t know if they’re allowed to laugh? one time we were hanging something on the wall and she asked me “is this straight?” and i said “you’re asking the wrong person” and instead of getting uncomfortable, she giggled, put her hand on my arm, and said “you are so funny”.

another time, i did her whole astrology chart (i was really into astrology at the time) after guessing that she was a virgo, and it turned out she had double virgo placements in her big three. she looked so in awe and said “you are amazing, you know?”.

still another time, i was showing her my wrist tattoo that i had just gotten done, and she told me she had a tattoo of an elephant on her hip. i decided to be bold and i said, “wow id love to see it sometime” and she said “maybe you will”.

i think the moment that makes me most insane is that one of the many times she was complaining about how shitty her husband was, she exasperatedly said “i just need a wife”. i said “carol, i’m right here, just say the word”. and she giggled. and winked at me.

i am fully convinced that if the universe hadn’t intervened, that something would have happened between us eventually. but instead, her mom passed suddenly and she ended up having to leave town for about four months to manage that. when she came back, she gave me a super tight, super long hug the second she walked in the door, then immediately put in her two weeks notice.

on her last day she gave me another really long and tender hug and said she would miss me most of the whole team. and that’s the last i ever saw her.

i considered asking her to drinks a few times, but i never did because at the end of the day, she was married and there were kids involved in the marriage. i’m a lot of things but a homewrecker isn’t one of them. but i still think about the whole thing and wonder what might have happened if the timing had been better, if she had been bold enough to leave her marriage, if if if. i think everyone has the one that got away, and carol is mine

[posttexasstressdisorder]

Marc Elias' Democracy Docket Newsletter

Friday, January 24

ON THE DOCKET THIS WEEK

A slew of Trump executive orders were met with multiple lawsuitsDeSantis appoints Florida attorney general to vacant Senate seat, calls for special electionsState Supreme Court rejects Jefferson Griffin's attempt to dismiss 60,000 ballots

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

A slew of Trump executive orders were met with multiple lawsuits

Trump kicked off his presidency with the exact kind of brutal ruthlessness we expected: dozens of executive orders (EO) to roll back Biden administration policies, civil rights protections and directives to remake the federal workforce in his image. These EOs were met with a slew of lawsuits challenging their constitutionality, setting up for some major legal battles.

Among the most significant EOs is one that ends birthright citizenship for future children born in this country to some noncitizen parents. The order, which takes effect Feb. 19, strips hundreds of thousands of children of the right to automatic U.S. citizenship, specifically targeting those whose parents aren’t citizens or are temporary but lawful residents at the time of their birth.

Naturally, Democrats and pro-voting groups filed lawsuits to block the order. On Tuesday, Democratic officials in 22 states, along with Washington, D.C. and San Francisco, filed two lawsuits asking federal courts to declare the order unconstitutional and prevent the administration from enforcing it. Another one was brought in Maryland by two immigrant rights organizations. In total, there have been six lawsuits over Trump’s birthright citizenship EO. On Thursday, a Republican-appointed federal judge granted a request from Democratic attorneys general in Arizona, Illinois, Oregon and Washington to temporarily halt the EO.

Trump also signed an order known as “Schedule F,” which reclassifies the employment status of tens of thousands of civil service employees, essentially putting them in a less-protected employment class that makes it easier to dismiss them for political disloyalty. Shortly after Trump signed the EO, the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) — a government union that represents workers from 37 federal agencies — filed a lawsuit to reverse the order, claiming that it is “contrary to congressional intent.”

And finally, there’s the Department of Government Efficiency, better known as DOGE. The Elon Musk-led faux agency tasked with slashing federal programs, regulations and workforce — was sued three times.Two of the lawsuits were filed by the progressive consumer rights advocacy group Public Citizen and the pro-democracy organization Democracy Forward. A third lawsuit was filed by public-interest firm National Security Counselors. Read more about the legal challenges to Trump’s executive orders here.

FLORIDA

DeSantis appoints Florida attorney general to vacant Senate seat, calls for special elections

There’s a lot happening in The Sunshine State in the coming months, as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) appointed a replacement for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by recently confirmed Sec. of State Marco Rubio (R) and set the date for a special election for two vacant seats in the legislature.

Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody (R), DeSantis’ appointee to fill Rubio’s senate seat, has a history of election denialism and voter disenfranchisement. Moody was elected as Florida’s attorney general in 2018, and about two years later, signed on to a brief filed in the U.S. Supreme Court in support of a Texas case seeking to overturn the 2020 election. The petition, which alleged there was widespread fraud in mail-in voting, was rejected by the nation’s highest court. This was the first of numerous times she threatened voting rights and democracy for Floridians and voters across the country.

Moody will serve in the Republican-controlled Senate until the 2026 midterm election when the seat will be back on the ballot.

Meanwhile, DeSantis finally scheduled the dates for a special election to fill the seats held by state Rep. Joel Rudman (R) and state Sen. Randy Fine (R), who both announced their resignations in November to run for Congress. The election dates come after the ACLU — on behalf of two Florida voters — filed a lawsuit against DeSantis, arguing that he violated his mandatory duty under the Florida Constitution and state law to call special elections when legislative vacancies arise. Both special elections are scheduled for June 10, with the primaries taking place April 1. Read more about Ashley Moody here and read more about the Florida special elections here.

NORTH CAROLINA SUPREME COURT ELECTION

State Supreme Court rejects Jefferson Griffin's attempt to dismiss 60,000 ballots

In an unexpected move Wednesday night, the North Carolina Supreme Court dismissed GOP candidate Jefferson Griffin’s petition challenging over 60,000 ballots cast in his November 2024 race for a seat on the bench, which he lost to incumbent Democratic Justice Allison Riggs by over 700 votes.

It’s a win for voters but the ruling does not mark the end of Griffin’s ongoing legal dispute over his recent election loss.

Wednesday’s order specified that the Wake County Superior Court must hear Griffin’s protests concerning three separate categories of ballots — all of which were previously rejected by the state board of elections — before the state’s highest court ultimately weighs in. The three buckets of ballots challenged by Griffin include those cast by overseas voters who did not submit a copy of their photo IDs, voters who never previously resided in North Carolina and individuals whose voter registrations were allegedly incomplete.

The state Supreme Court also noted that its previous Jan. 7 order halting certification of the contested election will remain in place until the matter is fully resolved, leaving the final outcome of the race hanging in the balance. Democratic Justice Anita Earls dissented from her colleagues’ decision to leave the stay of certification in place, noting that it “prevents the Wake County Superior Court from deciding for itself whether Griffin is likely to succeed on the merits and whether a stay is justified.”

Riggs responded to the court’s latest action in a statement saying that “​​while I agree with the North Carolina Supreme Court’s decision yesterday to dismiss Judge Griffin’s inappropriate request for a writ of prohibition, I am disappointed that the door has been opened to dragging this out for so long.” Read more about the North Carolina Supreme Court’s order here.

OPINION

The Resistance We Need From Senate Democrats Under

Trump 2.0

During his first term, President Donald Trump appointed 234 lifetime judges to the federal bench — many of whom received broad support from Senate Democrats in their confirmations and have already done untold harm to our civil rights and rule of law that will last for generations, at the very least.

“We can’t have a repeat during Trump’s second administration; we need to block every judge possible because we already know how unqualified they will be and how harmful they will be to our rights,” writes Keith Thirion, interim co-president and vice president of strategy at Alliance for Justice. Read more here.

NEW EPISODE

The Lawyers Fighting Trump's Executive Orders

Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward, joins Marc to discuss the legal efforts to fight against Trump's illegal and unconstitutional executive orders. You can watch on YouTube here.

What We’re Doing

This week the Sundance Film Festival kicks off in Park City, Utah. While the films that debuted at the storied independent film festival used to be exclusive to those who could make the pilgrimage in person, the festival started making most of their slate available digitally in the pandemic era — something that Senior Staff Writer, and noted film buff, Matt Cohen looks forward to every year. Some of the films he’s most excited to watch next week include a documentary about Selena Quintanilla, a post-apocalyptic zombie film and a documentary about the legendary TV show To Catch a Predator.

This is a weekly newsletter that provides the highlights of the week, along with our analysis and recommendations for how you can get involved. For questions about your subscription or general support, visit our FAQ page here.

[notyouraryang0dd3ss]

Scrolling through twitter every day and seeing countless of people begging for donations in order to fucking survive while knowing that celebrities like Taylor could literally solve everything makes my blood boil. Ariana Grande did the bare minimum by sharing (not even donating) a link and thousands of dollars were gathered immediately. In conclusion, fuck any swiftie who says 'oh what is taylor going to do/it wont help'. Like genuinely go fuck yourselves. I hope people keep reminding her for the rest of her fucking life how she remained absolutely silent when children were being butchered by the fascist she encouraged her fans to vote for (yeah i remember your little biden cookies bitch)🤬🤬🤬🤬

how was your day?😇

Oh my god do I feel this ask down to my soul. Seeing Palestinians having to get down on their knees and beg for people to help them flee their homes so they and their families aren’t murdered by the Israeli government next to people posting and praising their faves who have said NOTHING…I want to commit heinous crimes to say the least.

I said this before but Taylor Swift could pay to evacuate every single person in PALESTINE and have hundreds of millions left over. The financial impact it would have on her would be so small it’s laughable.

What is going on isn’t localized to TS but a reflection of the active downfall of the celebrity and celebrity culture. I’m grateful for #Blockout2024 movement currently happening, forcing celebs to act, but it isn’t enough. Especially with fanbases like Swifties, where they are experiencing infighting about whether or not Taylor should speak up. If your favorite celebrity is your moral compass, you are beyond lost.

This is so consistent with her past behavior, staying silent during the 2016 elections and then conveniently rebranding once she had seen which direction the culture had gone (and then rebranding to fit that current moment as she is always a trend follower). She is going to release a documentary 2 years from now about her regrets on not speaking up and being afraid (using the exact justification Swifties are using now) to speak out because of her safety. Let’s be honest, if she does speak out, it’ll be after she finishes her European leg of the Eras tour, so she could maximize those zionist dollars. She did the same thing with the Reputation tour, where the day after her North American leg ended, she spoke out and openly endorsed Marsha Blackburn, a Democratic Tennessee representative, for the 2018 midterm elections, on Instagram.

Fuck Biden. Fuck those who defend and will vote for Biden in the upcoming election. I doubt Taylor will endorse him again either. FUCK THOSE BIDEN COOKIES!

Fuck Miss Activisticana. Genocide enabler.

tl;dr

🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸 FREE PALESTINE! 🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸

🌊 FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA, PALESTINE WILL BE FREE! 🍉

[redistrictgirl]

Is election forecasting broken?

Both presidential candidates are skeptical of what the polls currently say, and I've seen a lot of debate over the trustworthiness of election forecasting at large. I thought, to that end, that it might be nice to go over the philosophy behind my forecast about polling error and what what some possibilities could be if the polls are "off".

The primary metric that can be gleaned from a poll is not strictly the margin, but how close each candidate is to receiving a majority. In this sense, we could actually say that (aside from arguably the Southeast) the polls were fairly accurate in 2016 - both candidates received at least the support they were projected to in advance. The disparity between Ms. Clinton's apparent strength and her loss on Election Night can be chalked up to Mr. Trump getting the lion's share of undecided voters and third-party leaners. 2020 is a better example of a genuine whiff in that department - future-President Biden was said to have more support secured than he actually did. This *can* happen from time to time, and my model accounts for that possibility.

Another phenomenon at play is the difference between the accuracy of state-level and national polls. 2020 aside, national polls are typically good at predicting the margin as well as the base of each party's level of support, while state-level polls are much more of a crapshoot. This is part of the reason why polling is perceived as more accurate in midterms than presidential years, though that isn't guaranteed to be the case - people are looking at the popular vote (or generic ballot) much more intently than individual races in single states or districts when there's no Electoral College at play. There were some big misses in 2022, actually - New Hampshire's and Pennsylvania's Senate races immediately spring to mind. A good forecast keeps this disparity in mind and adjusts how polling averages translate to probabilities accordingly.

So, what does this all mean for 2024? I like to envision the range of scenarios as a deck of cards. Let's say that each suit represents a different scenario relative to forecasts - a great outcome for Republicans would be a heart, a good outcome for the GOP would be a diamond, a good outcome for Democrats would be a spade, and a great outcome for Democrats would be a club. Our last four drawn cards, then, would be a heart in 2016, a diamond in 2018, another heart in 2020, and a spade in 2022. Drawing three red cards in four tries happens fairly often, and we got three different suits despite polling errors happening in cycles where we got each. Certainly, it doesn't look like forecasting is broken when you frame it like this!

So, what's our hand?

Here are 85th-percentile and 65th-percentile outcomes for each candidate, based on Sunday's forecast. These are reasonable representations, I think, of each "bracket" of outcomes.

None of these outcomes line up exactly with polling at the moment, nor are they strictly likely to be the final outcome. But the stories each tells about the election is quite different, and it's possible to imagine that each narrative is roughly equally likely. So as I said at the end of 2022's cycle, no one knows exactly what will happen in November, and if they tell you they know, they're lying.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

The New Yorker

* * * *

[Robert Hubbell Newsletter]

I want to begin by acknowledging the many emails I am receiving from volunteers across America sharing uplifting stories of positive interactions with voters. I have read them all but could not respond to any emails today. I thank all of you for your hard work. And I also acknowledge the comments and emails about hostile reactions and incivility from voters. It takes a special kind of fortitude to tolerate such abuse and continue the hard work of reclaiming democracy one voter at a time.

Jill and I spent the day completing six different canvass lists with the help of a rented van, Jessica Craven, and readers Steve Hill, Ellen Hill, and Mary Bartlett. It was a little tougher going today as some of the neighborhoods became more insular and upscale, but when we were able to connect, it was almost always positive and productive.

Jessica continues to be a star canvasser. With all six of us packed in the van, we drove up to a residence with a long driveway and expansive lawn. Jessica volunteered to get out and knock on the door. A young woman (who identified as a registered Republican) came out and engaged in conversation with Jessica. The rest of us watched from afar in the van. After about five minutes, Jessica did an “endzone dance” and hugged the voter. We knew she had added another vote to Kamala’s column!

I continue to be impressed by the incredible organization, efficiency, and technology of the MeckDems. The process of canvassing is seamless and automated. Voters who answer the door and say, “I already voted,” are impressed as we are able to ask about others in the same household who have not yet voted.

We covered about 150 residences consisting of voters identified as Democrats and Undecideds. After a full day of canvassing, we saw only two residences with Trump “door hangers” on the front door. We respectfully placed door hangers for Harris / Walz on top of the Trump literature and moved on after receiving no response to our knock. I have been surprised by the general absence of signs, literature, and billboards for Trump.

Later in the evening, the out-of-state canvassers gathered at a local restaurant to hear from Drew Kromer, the Chair of the Mecklenburg Democratic Party. Drew told us that over 1,000 readers of Today’s Edition and Chop Wood Carry Water newsletters have volunteered for MeckDems. Without getting into specifics, the results are encouraging. To all who have or will volunteer for MeckDems, please know that you are making a difference that may make a difference in the electoral college count and statewide races in North Carolina.

The same goes for every reader who is volunteering across the nation. I wish I could capture the enthusiasm and excitement exuded in the emails that flood my inbox. Every vote in every race everywhere matters. We must win up and down the ballot. And we must ensure that Kamala Harris has a commanding margin of victory in the popular vote to protect the integrity of the election.

At the gathering on Sunday evening, Jessica and I gave remarks. I include the notes of my remarks below—because they apply to all of you, dear readers, who have helped us arrive at this moment filled with hope and promise!

Remarks 11/3/2024

First, let me introduce you to a true patriot and hero of democracy. Turn to your left and your right. Give a pat on the back and hug to the person standing next to you. Everyone where is a true hero and patriot. Bless you all for your work to save democracy!

I want to recognize what it took for us to arrive safely at this moment—one that is bursting with possibility and hope. We are here because your work carried to the point where we stand on the verge of victory.

For many, the journey began with Hillary’s devastating loss in 2016. But you did not give up. You picked yourselves up and vowed to do whatever it took win back our democracy.

You fought and won in 2018 in the midterms.

In 2020 with Joe Biden’s victory.

In 2021 in special elections.

In 2022 in defeating the predicted “red wave.”

In 2023 in special elections.

And now, in 2024, you will carry us to victory again.

We have arrived at this moment because you have abided, because you have kept the faith and maintained your spirits by

-gathering in community; -calling; -postcarding; -doorknocking; -fundraising; -Zooming; and -lifting up friends, neighbors and family members when they flagged from fatigue, anxiety, and despair.

We arrived safely at this moment because you refused to give up.

Because you refused to wait for permission to act.

Because you refused to “get in line” or “wait your turn.”

You took democracy into your own hands and saved it.

I am hopeful about this moment because I believe that pollsters and pundits have made the grievous error of underestimating

-the grassroots movement; -women, who have been denied the full liberty afforded all other citizens; -Black and Hispanic voters; -young voters; -older voters; and -voters who care about democracy.

I am filled with confidence about the future of democracy because we are not going back!

It doesn’t matter if we win the Electoral College by 200 votes or lose by 2; we are not going back! This moment has changed us. We will not quit—no matter what happens on election day. We are not going back.

Historians will look back on this period and your efforts. They will conclude that you saved democracy. Literally. Not figuratively. Not metaphorically. Literally. You saved democracy.

So, as we head into Election Day, we should be

-confident;

-proud; and

-joyful.

Because we are on the right side of history. We are going to win. There is no question about our ultimate victory. The only question is when the full, final, and redemptive victory will occur.

If we keep the faith, if we work, if we fight, and if we vote, we will win.

Concluding Thoughts

Polling, predictions, and punditry are red hot. Ignore them. Votes are real. That is all that matters.

Jill posted a video blog about our canvassing and attending the Kamala Harris rally in Charlotte on Saturday. See Everyday With Jill, Canvassing, Rallying, & Celebrating FOR KAMALA!

A reader who is a friend and former law partner, Brent Rushforth sent a note that resonates in this moment.

On my way home from canvassing for Kamala in Gettysburg yesterday, I stopped at the battlefield along a fence line adjacent to the field through which Robert E Lee sent General Pickett's massive assault against the Union forces dug in on Cemetery Hill. It was Lee's audacious gamble to end the war and permanently establish the confederacy.

The Union troops, at enormous cost, held—and the United States survived. Now Trump is once again seeking to render us asunder . . . I am filled with hope over the next couple of days that the center will hold and that the Union Jack will stand proudly over our republic as it did on Cemetery Hill twice our lifetimes ago.

“Twice our lifetimes ago,” Americans gave their lives to defend the Union created by the Constitution in 1789. Now, two lifetimes later, we are asked to once again save our Union. But all we need do is vote—and convince others that they must do so, too.

We can do that. We are doing it. Votes are real. That is all that matters at this point. Vote and urge others to vote!

Talk to you tomorrow!

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[mariacallous]

It is a measure of the divisiveness and tolerance for violence in the United States that the possibility of civil war looms so large over the 2024 presidential election—no matter which candidate wins. It is even the subject of a hit dystopian thriller. Though an actual civil war resulting from the election’s outcome remains unlikely, a range of sufficiently alarming politically violent scenarios are nevertheless quite possible.

Former President Donald Trump’s conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records has sharpened frictions, with threats to the judiciary and his opponents immediately intensifying. “Time to start capping some leftys. This cannot be fixed by voting,” was one typical reaction tracked by Reuters on Gateway Pundit, a right-wing news site. Far-right media personality Stew Peters said on his Telegram channel that “our judicial system has been weaponized against the American people. We are left with NO option but to take matters into our own hands.”

Meanwhile, our assessments suggest that elements on the far left in this country are also escalating militant threats. A call to “Fuck the Fourth” recently appeared on an anarchist website, heralding a day of action on July 4 targeting the ports of Seattle, Oakland, Los Angeles, Boston, New York, New Jersey, and Baltimore. Additional summons to “Flood The Gates: Escalate” over the Gaza War both on college campuses and in communities across the nation this summer and fall are circulating on social media. At a pro-Palestine protest at the White House in June, one protester held up a decapitated likeness of President Joe Biden’s head, while crowds chanted “Revolution.”

These would-be violent extremists represent a microcosm of a U.S. political landscape that is increasingly willing to tolerate violence. A survey conducted last year found that 23 percent of Americans agreed with the statement that “because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.” Another more recent poll similarly found that 28 percent of Republicans strongly agree or agree that “Americans may have to resort to violence in order to get the country back on track.” Meanwhile, 12 percent of Democrats agreed with the premise.

Among gun owners in the United States, these sentiments are even more prevalent. According to a survey conducted by the University of California, Davis, “About 42% of owners of assault-type rifles said political violence could be justified, rising to 44% of recent gun purchasers, and a staggering 56% of those who always or nearly always carry loaded guns in public

As the United States approaches its November election, the risks of violence will thus rise. This should not be surprising. Historically, violence is actually quite common in the United States, especially during election seasons. During the Reconstruction era, much of white supremacist violence directed against freed Black men and women was intended to intimidate would-be voters, ensuring that segregationist Democrats maintained their grip on power in the Deep South.

More recently, the 2022 midterms saw an assassination attempt target the speaker of the House of Representatives in an attack that seriously wounded her husband. The 2020 election, of course, sparked the Jan. 6, 2021, terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol. In the 10 days leading up to the 2018 midterms, there were no fewer than four far-right terrorist attacks, most notably the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. The mail bombs that circulated that same week showed that threats to politicians have in fact been particularly frequent during the Trump era.

Despite that disquieting pattern, 2024 appears to provide even more fertile ground for militant responses to electoral developments. Trump’s court cases, coupled with the insistence from both parties that—in Trump’s words—“If we don’t win this election, I don’t think you’re going to have another election in this country,” have painted the election in existential terms.

As the United Nations Development Program concluded from its research into election violence around the world, “A common cause of election violence is that the stakes of winning and losing valued political posts are in many situations … incredibly high.”

Rendering the threat yet more severe is the range of possible locations and individuals that extremists may target, spanning the duration of election season. But how might violence differ at various stages of the campaign? Before the election, extremists may be more likely to target politicians on the campaign trail, seeking to intimidate them into changing their policies or deter them from running in the first place. Presidential candidate Nikki Haley had, for instance, requested Secret Service protection during her Republican Party primary challenge, while prominent Republican Rep. Mike Gallagher hinted that he was forced into retirement by threats against his family.

Based on experience, the election itself will likely feature armed intimidation at polling places and threats levied against election officials. A database analyzed by scholars Pete Simi, Gina Ligon, Seamus Hughes, and Natalie Standridge found that threats against public officials are likely to hit an all-time high in 2024. The data initially jumped in 2017, the year of Trump’s inauguration.

In the weeks after the forthcoming election, depending on the results, extremists will likely direct their animus toward representatives of the government—especially on one of the many ceremonial dates accompanying the transition of power—such the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, for instance. An exact repeat of that attack is probably less likely; law enforcement agencies will be far better prepared this time, and the groups that led the assault on the Capitol have been effectively dismantled by seditious conspiracy charges targeting their leadership.

Although white supremacist and anti-government extremists will be the likeliest to lash out, in line with trends over the past decade, violence from the far left cannot be discounted. Stabbing attacks have repeatedly targeted right-wing political leaders in Germany, for instance, and the harassment and violence targeting American Jews on U.S. college campuses have highlighted a more militant political left that has historically been quite open to violent action, including in the United States. This violent fringe has frequently deployed armed threats against politicians in particular—never more seriously than the lone gunman who targeted the Republican team practice for the congressional baseball game in 2017, or the far-left extremist from California who brought weapons to the home of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh to threaten him in 2022.

Salafi jihadi actors are also emboldened by recent successes in Afghanistan, Iran, and Moscow, and they may seek to take advantage of this particularly divided moment in the United States to elbow themselves back into the national consciousness. FBI Director Christopher Wray has suggested that his organization is growing increasingly concerned about the “potential for a coordinated attack here in the homeland, not unlike the ISIS-K attack we saw at the Russian concert hall back in March.” The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has similarly warned that “threat actors” will likely “converge on 2024 election season,” with foreign adversaries using influence operations to further divide the U.S. populace and create new sources of divisiveness and violence.

Is the violence likely to lead to civil war? Trump and many of his allies have repeatedly warned that another election loss—coupled with forthcoming trial verdicts—would trigger one or lead to revolution in the United States. A post on Truth Social shared by Trump, for instance, suggested that 2024 might resemble 1776, “except this time the fight is not against the British, it’s against communist Americans.” The threat doubled down on Trump’s previous warning that his defeat would spark a “bloodbath” in this country.

Punditry, however, is not prophecy. Despite the warnings from scholars, policy wonks, journalists, and others, civil war is in fact unlikely in this country. Geographic distinctions between would-be warring factions today run urban-rural rather than north-south, robbing any potential seditious movement of the geographical safe haven it would need to engage in nationwide conflict. But political rhetoric and the proliferation of threats is almost certain to lead to some level of violence.

Making the threat even more serious is that the Biden administration carries little-to-no legitimacy among most hardcore Trump supporters—who still persist in believing that the 2020 election was stolen. The vice grip that these conspiracy theories hold on many mainstream Republicans means that any response by the Biden administration will be regarded as illegitimate—whether that response is deploying additional law enforcement or even the National Guard to polling places or seeking to educate the public about the veracity and integrity of U.S. elections.

In other words, the United States finds itself in a security dilemma, where any defensive measures designed to safeguard the electoral process will in fact likely be interpreted as an offensive strike—that is, to ensure a repeat electoral fraud. As the aforementioned White House protests have demonstrated, Biden also has little legitimacy in the eyes of the far left, meaning that particular movement would not likely be sated by a Democratic election victory.

Countermeasures will need to focus on education and law enforcement preparation. In particular, the Biden administration should champion education tools that reassure the U.S. public about the resilience of its electoral system from hacking or cheating while also pioneering digital literacy measures that might help protect Americans from disinformation and conspiracy theories shared online, including through artificial intelligence.

In particularly high-risk areas, which might include swing states, the administration should also consider raising the law enforcement presence to deter violent actors from targeting such locations. Successfully stopping violence, however, will require a bipartisan commitment to accept election results and publicly praise the integrity of the election and its many officials—which seems completely unrealistic at this stage.

Americans are therefore left with a political landscape defined by existential rhetoric and violent threats, with very little that the government can do to effectively counter these charges. Accordingly, the threat may be less of another civil war than of the total breakdown of the democratic electoral process that has defined the country since its creation.