#UP Election 2022 Results

[maddy-ferguson]

i love that the last people heard the leftist coalition won the french legislative elections so they think we have a leftist government now lol

[potofsoup]

Happy July 4th, everyone, and good luck to the UK voters out there!

Wow it's Year 11 of doing these!! Here's the AO3 link to the past 10 years, and here's the tumblr link.

Reminder that this is a long game -- some of the judges making decisions were appointed back in the 80s. Many of the cases that were decided this round were from Trump's term. So it's going to take long-term, consistent voting over a decade to start tipping things in the other direction. (Which I talked about in 2018 re: Trump shenanigans and 2022 re: Dobbs).

A lot has been done by the Biden administration (I'm assuming most folks have seen this post by boreal-sea with their very helpful sources), and much of that will be overturned by Trump, especially if he gets the Senate, and especially now that he would have a blank check for anything "official". So let's make sure that doesn't happen.

And even if Trump does get elected, your decisions down-ballot might effect control of the House or Senate, or might make it easier to vote next time, plus the whole plethora of state and local issues. It's Republican state attorney generals who are challenging climate regulations, for example.

Plus, when you really get down to it, only one of the candidates plans on pardoning himself and all his friends if he wins, and attacking the government if he loses. Maybe that guy shouldn't be the President.

If you're new to voting, remember to check voter registration deadlines! I'm a permanent vote-by-mail voter and it's so nice. :)

Transcript under the readmore

Page 1: Sam and Bucky meet up with Steve for a picnic. Steve: Thought you guys were still in Sudan? Bucky: I’m forcing Sam to take a break.

Sam collapses onto the picnic blanket. Sam: Oof, it just never stops, does it? Steve: Nope.

Bucky hands Sam an orange popsicle. Bucky: Eat and relax for a bit, Sam. Sam: Thanks.

Page 2: Bucky asks Steve: How are things state-side? Steve responds: HORRIBLE. Bucky: I thought you’ve been tentatively hopeful about what Biden has been able to achieve? Steve: I was! Student loans, child care, climate regulations, infrastructure, labor, trans rights … he’s quietly done a lot through regulatory improvements and congress bills. But now all people will talk about is how he’s OLD. And then there’s the Supreme Court’s decisions … Chevron and immunity… Steve puts his head in his hands, while Sam and Bucky look on with some concern.

Page 3: Bucky hands Steve a blue/raspberry popsicle: Steve, take a deep breath, and a popsicle. Sam: Sounds like we missed a lot. What’s going on? How bad is it? Steve: Pretty bad. The Supreme Court has made some decisions that give the Court and the President A LOT of discretionary power. Sam: Yikes, that doesn’t sound good. Steve: Well, the Chevron thing means that judges with life-term appointments can override policies made by government agencies. And now it’ll be harder to hold a President accountable because he will have immunity for any “official” actions.

Page 4: Sam: So if the President tries to, say, overturn a democratic election result, he’ll be allowed to as long as it’s in his job description? Steve: I don’t think threatening state electors is “official” business, but that will be decided by federal judges. Who get their jobs by approval from both the President and the Senate. Bucky: Yeesh. No wonder you’re stressed. Any good news? Steve: Well, thanks the Biden and the razor-thin Senate majority, the newer bills don’t rely on the Chevron deference. Still not great but not catastrophic. Sam, squirting ketchup on his hot dog: So what I’m hearing is that it’s now more important than ever to have a President and a Senate who you can trust to appoint fair judges, pass bills, and not commit crimes.

Page 5: Steve: Plus all of the state level offices, now that more and more deciding power has been thrown back to the states — abortion, LGBTQ rights, voting access… Bucky: Hey, at least this is a big election year so we can actually do something! Steve, with his arms crossed, looking surly: Except that all people want to talk about is how Biden is “too old” and “not doing enough,” as if that is on par with Trump’s desire to dismantle basic rights! As if the candidate who doesn’t embody ALL their ideals is not worth voting for! Bucky interrupts with a smart and a loud “PFFT.”

Page 6: Bucky: Um, Steve. YOU were like that in 1940. Sam, nudging Bucky: “Oh, this I gotta hear. Spill, Barnes.” In sepia, Steve is pacing around their apartment while Bucky is sitting and reading a newspaper. Steve: I can’t believe he’s running for a 3rd term! we need a fresh candidate to vote for! This is hardly a choice at all! AND he refuses to engage in Europe! All of Europe under fascist control and we’re just twiddling our thumbs? He’s letting millions die through his inaction! Bucky: Most people don’t want another war, Steve. If he came out for it, he would lose. Steve, indignant: But Buck, it’s your Polish relative who are in danger! Bucky, closing his newspaper and looking at Steve: Yeah, and between FDR and Willkes, I trust FDR to help if he could.

Page 7: Steve, in sepia, looking away: Should he be encouraged to do more? Maybe I should vote for Browder. The Communists have historically be Anti-Fascist.

Sam interrupts off-screen: Waitaminute! STEVE was going to PROTEST-VOTE? Steve: We were in a Blue State, Sam! Sam: But what about the down ballot races?! Steve: RELAX, I did my due diligence down-ballot. I wanted a senate that’s more progressive than the President.Voted LaGuardia for Mayor, too. Steve hesitates: Then, when I got to the President… I realized that the Best case scenario would be that my vote did nothing, versus if it actually spoiled the election. And when I asked myself who I could trust to work with my Senator… well, FDR had a good record with Labor. (sepia shot of young Steve voting) Bucky interrupts: Hold on, Steve.

Page 8: Bucky, eating a cookie, arching an eyebrow: You didn’t vote for Browder? Why didn’t you tell me? Steve: And have you say “I told you so” for the next century? Bucky: Heh.

Steve, with hand on his chin: What’s weird was that, despite everything, I still felt HORRIBLE when I ticked that box. Sam: Sounds like you built up the meaning of that vote far too much in your head. Logically, we know that a single box can’t represent all of the complexity of a whole system, but the desperately WANT it to. Just look at how people have built up so much around the term “Zionis” that it’s made productive conversations difficult.

Page 9: Sam and Steve speak in the background while Bucky reaches into the cooler and pulls out a box. Steve: Sigh. And that’s something that goes beyond the election. Sam: Which is why we need to vote, AND do other things. Bucky, looking at Steve and Sam: Like how Steve works to push organizations on the local level? Or like all the work you do as Captain America? Sam: Exactly. Vote AND.

Sam looks at Bucky fondly: Like how you vote AND make me and Steve take breaks. Bucky, looking stern because he can’t handle compliments: Shush, Sam.

Bucky holds up a cake that has the number “107” on it: It’s time for cake. Happy Birthday, Steve.

[lok-shakti]

200 करोड़ का टारगेट... ऑनलाइन पैसे भेजकर खरीदे गए वोट, मैनपुरी हारकर क्या बोले रघुराज शाक्य

200 करोड़ का टारगेट… ऑनलाइन पैसे भेजकर खरीदे गए वोट, मैनपुरी हारकर क्या बोले रघुराज शाक्य

मैनपुरी: उत्तर प्रदेश के मैनपुरी में बीजेपी के प्रत्याशी रहे रघुराज सिंह शाक्य ने मैनपुरी लोकसभा उपचुनाव (Mainpuri By-Poll Result) में सपा पर पैसा बांटकर जीतने का आरोप लगाया है। हार के बाद रघुराज ने पहली प्रतिक्रिया दी है। रघुराज सिंह शाक्य ने सीधे-सीधे पैसे बांटने का आरोप लगाया है। मुलायम सिंह यादव की पैतृक सीट मानी जाने वाली मैनपुरी में उपचुनाव डिंपल यादव ने रेकॉर्ड मतों से जीत हासिल की…

[reasonsforhope]

"A trial programme providing a free meal a day has yielded not just financial relief for households but also improved child nutrition and student outcomes such as attendance and focus.

The free school lunch initiative for children from poor or disadvantaged families was introduced by President-elect Prabowo Subianto and Vice-President-elect Gibran Rakabuming Raka as one of their key campaign promises. Mr Gibran is President Joko Widodo’s elder son...

The pair – who won the Feb 14 presidential election by a landslide and will be inaugurated in October – had in the lead-up to the polls pledged to offer free lunches and milk for students as well as nutritional aid to toddlers and pregnant women in a bid to lower the country’s stunting rate.

Over 20 per cent of Indonesian children under the age of five experienced stunted growth in 2022, according to the United Nations. Stunting, which is being too short for one’s age as a result of poor nutrition, can result in long-term development delays.

When fully implemented by 2029, the programme will cover 83.9 million beneficiaries across the world’s fourth-most-populous nation of nearly 280 million, and cost over 400 trillion rupiah (S$33.7 billion) a year – about 2 per cent of annual gross domestic product.

But on the ground, a trial that was first rolled out in January at 16 schools in Sukabumi, in West Java, has been warmly received by around 3,500 students, their parents and school leaders, who have seen positive changes.

For one thing, saving on the cost of lunches for four of her nine children has provided significant finan­cial relief for Indonesian house­wife Rofiati, 46.

Her husband, a teacher at an Islamic boarding school in Sukabumi, earns 2.5 million rupiah a month on average, and the free school meals have helped them save about 420,000 rupiah monthly, which she can put towards other household needs.

Her children do not usually have breakfast before school. Before the free lunch programme, her children would eat lunch only upon returning home from school. Lunch would usually consist of instant noodles, or dishes of vegetables, eggs, tempeh or salted fish.

“I am not worried any more because I know they will eat at school. They have more appetite as they eat together with their friends,” Ms Rofiati told The Straits Times, adding that her children’s appetites have improved and they also like the variety of the meals provided. In fact, her 11-year-old daughter has gained 4kg since the programme started.

Every day, students on the programme receive a lunch package worth 15,000 rupiah, containing rice, meat such as chicken, fish or beef, vegetables, fruit and milk.

At home, the family usually eats meat only once a week.

It is not just the financial savings that parents are happy about. Ms Depi Ratna Juwarti, who has two out of three children benefiting from the free lunches, has noticed other encouraging results.

“They rarely get sick now. They are more motivated to study and spend a longer time studying at night,” Ms Depi said.

Her eldest daughter, Adifa Alifiya Mahrain, 12, also has good reviews. “The food is always delicious and the menu changes every day. I always eat everything. It’s a lot of fun to eat together with my friends,” said Adifa, who hopes to become a paediatrician in the future.

Mr Shalahudin Sanusi, principal of Gelarsari Islamic primary school in Sukabumi, which is trialling the programme, said he has noticed that pupils have been able to concentrate better and understand lessons more.

He said the initiative has raised the attendance rate of its 110 pupils from 85 per cent to 95 per cent. “They eat modestly at home – mostly rice and salted fish. Rice and eggs are the best they can get,” he told ST. “Now, they are so excited, some even arrive in school at 6am, an hour before lessons start.”"

-via The Straits Times, May 18, 2024

[decolonize-the-everything]

Article from July 27, 2022

Party representatives have claimed it’s because they want to highlight the extremism of today’s GOP, knowing that even candidates who are running as “moderates” will feel pressure to appeal to voters on their right flank. They have denied that it’s with the intent of making extremist candidates more appealing to a Republican primary base and because they think it will be easier to beat those kinds of opponents in November.

But that’s what it looks like to some Democratic operatives, who have mixed reviews of that strategy. Some think it’s too dangerous and that it could lead to some of those extremist candidates actually getting elected. Democratic strategist Howard Wolfson told Politico that the strategy of “putting people into positions where they may actually get elected and have control over the election system in this country — people who don’t believe in democracy — is a very, very risky strategy.”

Article from May 31, 2022

Diane Murray struggled with her decision all the way up to Election Day. But when the time came, the 54-year-old Georgia Democrat cast a ballot in last week’s Republican primary for Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. While state law allowed her to participate in either party’s primary, she said it felt like a violation of her core values to vote for the Republican. But it had to be done, she decided, to prevent a Donald Trump -backed “election denier” from becoming the battleground state’s election chief. “I feel strongly that our democracy is at risk, and that people who are holding up the big lie, as we call it, and holding onto the former president are dangerous to democracy,” said Murray, who works at the University of Georgia. “I don’t know I’ll do it again because of how I felt afterward. I just felt icky.”

Raffensperger, a conservative who refused to support the former president’s direct calls to overturn the 2020 election, probably would not have won the May 24 Republican primary without people like Murray. An Associated Press analysis of early voting records from data firm L2 found that more than 37,000 people who voted in Georgia’s Democratic primary two years ago cast ballots in last week’s Republican primary, an unusually high number of so-called crossover voters

Article from August 28, 2024

The lawsuit, filed before a state judge in Atlanta, argues the rules violate a state law that makes certification a mandatory duty. The suit asks the judge to find the rules are invalid because the State Election Board, now dominated by allies of former President Donald Trump, is exceeding its legal authority.

The actions of the board alarm Democrats and voting rights activists, playing out against Georgia's background of partisan struggles over voting procedures that predates even the 2020 presidential election. It's a battle in yet another state over what had long been an administrative afterthought: state and local boards certifying results.

Just another day of totally healthy and fair elections and their outcomes thanks to Democrat's inability to stop literally sponsoring and platforming Trump supporters with their party's funds.

Yeah, that $81 million Kamala raised in a day?

This is most definitely what she's using it for.

And they think our rights are worth the win. The house fucking speaker said it herself in 2022

But hey at least democrats are doing this to us right

At least Trump didn't say he wanted us to have the most lethal military on earth, right? If HE said it'd be bad. But with Kamala it's fine.

Four years later, the DNC sounds a lot different, reflecting how public opinion toward immigration in general has soured as concerns over how secure the border is have risen. Gone are the heartfelt testimonies from undocumented immigrants, the repudiation of Trump-era policies, and the calls for better treatment of migrants and expansion of asylum protections. Instead, Wednesday evening’s speakers embraced tougher policies for asylum seekers, praised President Joe Biden’s attempts to negotiate a bipartisan border security bill, and conceded the changed reality of immigration politics since the pandemic’s dawn. In other words, Democrats’ speeches on immigration and the border were drastically different than the ones at the conventions of 2012, 2016, or 2020 — because reality and the public’s feelings have changed drastically too.

[obsessivevoidkitten]

I don't bring up politics and world events up on here very much, that isn't what this blog is about. This blog is for escapism from reality, but those who are not willing to speak out against brutality are complicit. And this is my largest platform.

Don't continue reading if you don't want to read about war and violence.

Regarding Israel and Palestine I have seen many inaccurate assumptions and outright lies.

1ST CLAIM: One claim I hear ad nauseum is that Gaza elected Hamas and therefore they deserve punishment.

Let's break this down.

A. Hamas was elected around 2006. 17 years ago. They have not allowed elections since.

B. Roughly half of the Gazan population are under 18. This means half the population wasn't born during the last election. This means that of the Gazans who were alive many were too young to vote.

C. Hamas won by a 45 percent plurality, not a majority. This means that less than half of the Gazan who did vote did so for Hamas.

So taking these facts together we can conclude that only a fraction of a fraction of Gazans alive today elected Hamas.

In fact Netanyahu was happy to fund and prop up Hamas because doing so meant dividing Palestinians between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza. So Netanyahu is more to blame for Hamas than Palestinians are.

2ND CLAIM: Another thing I hear a lot is that this conflict and all of the casualties are the fault of Hamas. Let me be clear, I do not support Hamas or the October 7th attack that ended up with a civilian casualty rate of around 50 percent, but that one attack doesn't exist alone or without context and nuance as many on the pro-Israel side would have people believe.

No, that attack was one incident in a line of many. Starting with the brutal apartheid, displacement, and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by Israel.

A slow motion genocide taking place over the course of many decades.

Let's look at some events leading up to and then following Oct. 7th.

It starts with the beginning of Israel. Even the often recited phrase "a land without people for a people without land" erases the existence of native people who had lived there for centuries.

In 1948 you have The Nakba. A mass displacement of Palestinians as Israel took their land. This flew in the face of the UN partition plan, after The Nakba Israel controlled 78 percent of the land, 25 percent more than the UN plan.

This trend of land theft has only continued.

Let's fast forward to more recent events.

2018-2019 The Great March of Return: For over a year there were peaceful marches protesting the Gaza border, this resulted in Israeli forces killing over 220 peaceful Palestinian protesters.

In 2019 Netanyahu admitted support for Hamas to prevent a 2 state solution.

In 2022 journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was targeted and killed by Israeli forces. Israeli forces also attacked her funeral.

Note that during this entire time Palestinians are arrested, even children, and kept in indefinite detention without trial.

In 2023 we then have the October 7th attack. But as you are now aware this isn't where the conflict started.

And clearly not where it has ended.

3RD CLAIM: And that brings us to the 3rd and most blatantly bullshit lie you will here on repeat. The notion that Israel only targets Hamas.

More UN workers have been killed in a 2 month period than have died in any other war since the UN's formation. Over 130.

If they were targeting Hamas then why have so many UN buildings, refugee camps, and hospitals been bombed?

If there goal wasn't civilians then why do civilians make up the majority of the casualities?

Why the medieval style siege/blockade that has caused hospitals to lose fuel and medicine and civilians to go hungry and thirsty?

Why parade civilians around in their underwear? Why laugh and cheer as a UN school is exploded?

Why leave babies in the NICU and force the hospital staff to leave with the promise an ambulance would be provided for the babies only for people to return once the IDF left and find the baby corpses rotting because the ambulance was never provided?

We can even leave Gaza to prove this is not about Hamas. Hamas does not lead the West Bank. And yet Palestinians there are being murdered and arrested at increased rates, their homes stolen by illegal settlers.

Israel officials have called this the Gaza Nakba, they have claimed they will make Gaza inhospitable, they have claimed there are no civilians in Gaza.

Netanyahu has said to remember Amalek.

What is Amalek? Amalek refers to Israels enemy in the bible. This phrase specifically, "Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys"

Israel wants to steal the little land the Palestinians have left. Even now they are herded and concentrated into ever smaller camps with no resources.

Idk what we can do about the situation. This post seems silly for all the good it will do. But maybe it will open the eyes of a couple people. I think that would make it worth it.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Is there any chance we could have a round up of the Circus? I am so lost on how the dominoes fell over the last 40 days

Okay this is not comprehensive, because (a) my husband the politics nerd is currently on his way to a gig in west Wales somewhere and so cannot chime in and also (b) all our political journalist friends are understandably quite busy right now doing political journaling, but I seem to have an influx of new followers who are also very confused and don't understand what's going on, so I shall try.

Alright so what we're seeing here is the Second Clownfall of 2022, the hotly anticipated sequel to the Adventures of Big Dog the Clown. However it revolves around the character of Liz Truss, and will use some terminology, so

Previous Reading

Important Terminology - Required Reading

What is a Whip?

How do Whips work?

Shadow Cabinet

Front Benchers, Back Benchers and the Cabinet

What do we need to call an early General Election?

The Adventures of Big Dog the Clown - Suggested Reading

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Elanor's Guide to Liz Truss - Suggested Reading

Character-based prequel

...okay I think that's everything. On with the show!

The Premiership of Liz Truss (2022-2022)

Week One

We begin our tale on September 5th, 2022. Coincidentally, that was also the date that I personally started my new job. Let's see which of us does better!

The Daily Mail is delighted, and runs a headline proclaiming "Cometh the hour, cometh the woman". Tory rag in a frock coat the Financial Times runs an op-ed:

So the results ARE IN! She will definitely fuck us up! But that's a good thing for vague reasons! Blitz spirit everyone. Tally ho, pip pip, shoot a servant and have sex with a wall, hey what. Good old Blighty.

(That's my best impression of Tories I'm good at their accents I hope you like it)

Truss does an interview with Laura Kuenssberg, and fellow guest and comedian Joe Lycett wildly and effusively applauds her every word. Even Liz realises no one would sincerely applaud her. Bafflingly, the entire right wing press and every member of the Tory party freak out about this, because they don't understand the function of a satirist and don't know how to defend against it. It is extremely funny. Joe Lycett announces he's a right-wing comedian now, and begins a new extended career bit effusively and sarcastically praising right wing politicians. They all cry extensively and call him mean.

SO, it's been a long hard leadership campaign! But she made it. For years, Tories have been blighted by the curse of the PM/Chancellor relationship, backstabbing and cheating and lying about each other to try and get power. But not our Liz, oh no; her Chancellor is Maths Mate and BFF Kwasi Kwarteng, an insipid and poisonous gnome known for three (3) things:

He once wrote a stupid book with Liz Truss about his stupid opinions on how he thinks economics work and everyone laughed at him and stuffed him in a locker

On the night of the Brexit vote he was overheard by a journalist gleefully saying “Who cares if sterling crashes? It will come back up again“ which are of course the words of a man who knows all about economics and how they work

This fucking bullshit back in July:

But hey IT'S OKAY! Everything is fine! Because Liz and Kwasi are BFFs who certainly never had an affair and are marching in lockstep and have each other's backs and both love maths more than their own children if they had any! Maths Friends!

Multiple resignations immediately follow.

Among them is Ben Elliot, the Tory Party chair, which is a pretty big deal from a man who just lived through the Johnson years; also, shockingly, Priti Patel, the deportation-happy Home Secretary, decides that even as an animatronic goblin she cannot support this nonsense.

It's not a resignation per se, but at ten to seven in the evening it's announced that Andrew Bridgen, the Troy MP for Leicestershire North West, has been evicted from his home and ordered to pay £800,000 in legal costs, and a possible £244,000 in rent arrears. Also described as "dishonest" by a judge.

This is not directly relevant to Liz Truss but look, it was a staggeringly weird day and this was basically the topper.

Anyway.

Liz goes to the Palace and is duly sworn in by the Queen, who promptly keels over and dies the very next day. Parliament is instantly shut down for mandatory mourning. As omens go, this one was not subtle.

This triggers the circulation of some very awkward footage of Young Truss talking about how she thinks the Monarchy should be abolished for being a gross relic of horrifying social stratification. However you must understand that it's not awkward because anyone thinks she murdered the Queen. It's because Liz Truss's attempts at public speaking are like sitting through a children's Christmas play when you're the only person in the audience and they can all see your face so you have to look encouraging for four hours when inside you are shrivelling into something approximating an apricot pit travelling to the core of Jupiter.

Take a look at her acceptance speech and wither.

Anyway we're now several MPs and a queen down so she's got to get on replacing those so she can focus on her real love: the much-anticipated mini-budget that she is preparing with Kwasi to save the UK from the harrowing quagmire of crippling poverty that Big Dog managed to drive us into (all while pretending it wasn't Big Dog who did it.)

Fortunately, she does not need to replace the queen! Monarchies take care of themselves, which many people would argue is very much the problem, of course. They had a proper reunion with Meghan From Suits and Meghan From Suits' husband, both of whom were banned from visiting Balmoral, and also the Nonce flew in, who was allowed to visit Balmoral. Such heartwarming scenes.

But the Cabinet, that's another matter. That's something Liz DOES have to do, and it's important she gets it right, Tumblrs, because you see, every time a Cabinet minister is replaced it's expensive and a hassle and it weakens a government by making them look all crumbly, like a packet of biscuits that's been rammed against a wall and now someone is opening it and everyone is bracing for Crumbs.

So, step forward to the Cabinet soulless ghoul Suella Braverman, the new Home Secretary. She immediately distinguishes herself by trying to legalise torture.

And then, naturally,

YEAH THAT'S RIGHT IT'S TICK TOCK TERF O'CLOCK also FUCK the sovereignty of the Scottish Parliament amirite ladies lol Girl Power uwu

Not that she can actually do anything at this point, of course. As I say: Enforced Mourning is in process, which means Parliament is shut down for ten days. No work, no speeches, no appearances, no announcements, just taxpayer's money going on legal fees to see if she can interfere with another nation's elected government in order to strip away the human rights of queer people.

However, while we all weep over the corpse of Queen Lizzie Two and beat our breasts in grief, the already-beleaguered pound is slowly bleeding out through this inaction. And this, to the Maths Mates, is unacceptable.

Two things get quietly slid into the news cycle.

Thing the First:

BIG YIKES LADS

Thing the Second:

Fracking ban in England lifted in bid to boost UK gas supply - BBC News

For those who don't know, fracking is an energy extraction process. Water, gas and dust are pumped at high pressure into shale bedrock to crack it open, releasing pockets of natural gas that can then be harvested for fuel. It's environmentally disastrous for multiple reasons, both direct (earthquakes, groundwater pollution, social impacts) and indirect (IT'S STILL A FOSSIL FUEL YOU STUPID CUNTS ARE YOUR SKULLS FUCKING EMPTY). The Welsh and Scottish governments have both banned it outright, a straight-up "Foot down no, petal". England, though, is the Tory paradise, so the ban was less complete.

However, this is still a Huge Deal - the 2019 Tory manifesto was very clear that fracking would only be unbanned IF "the science shows categorically that it can be done safely". In fact, most Tories don't like it either. Their constituents REALLY don't. Also in March Kwasi Kwarteng literally went on record and said it wouldn't lower European gas prices anyway; but not anymore! Now he thinks it's a zippy idea. Just spiffing. Top hole, pip pip (I'm so good at their accents :))

Scientists who have been studying the environmental impacts of fracking produce their report -

And it is quietly buried, so as not to offend the corpse of Lizzie Two.

Here ends the first four days of the Reign of Liz Truss.

Second Week

Anyway, royalists have gone insane and started a REALLY BIG queue to see a box that supposedly contains the rotting cadaver of the old queen. Multiple people have to be hospitalised because they join the Queue and don't take food, water, warm clothes, or essential daily medications with them, even though the Queue is literally days long. Some die. Many take the ashes of their own loved ones so they can wave them at the box for the thirty seconds they get to be in front of it, like a sort of play date for ashes.

Prince Charles, now King Prince Charles, starts swanning about as King, demanding everyone be sad for him and clap him to cheer him up. Someone holds up a sign saying 'Not my King' and gets arrested. This triggers a whole wave of protests and arrests as free speech slides out the window, until the Met Police chief has to step in and explain to the police like they're five-year-olds that they can't do that, actually, and need to cut that shit out.

But we can't wholly blame the police, because the main pressure to clamp down on protestors actually came from...

The government.

Meanwhile the country goes bat shit fucking insane. In order not to offend the fragile sensibilities of royalists, now so brittle they need to be treated with the same delicate touch normally reserved for unstable nitroglycerin, the UK sees supermarkets lowering the volume of self-serve checkout desks, people's funerals cancelled, vital operations and other medical interventions postponed, Centre Parcs cancelling holidays, FOOD BANKS CLOSING, Nintendo Direct cancelling its live stream in Britain (but not cancelling the release of the recording onto You Tube an hour later because as we all know Queen Elizabeth II was a MASSIVE livestream fan and would have been DEVASTATED to miss it but she was very 'meh' about YouTube), cycle racks being closed, and this unhinged shrieking harridan:

Very normal, lads. Very normal.

Oh and also they cancelled Owain Glyndwr Day so as a Welsh person I am now legally allowed to forcibly ram a daffodil into the urethras of the landed English gentry.

However, the protests grow as the suppression wanes. By the time King Prince Charles comes to Wales, he is met with silent protests, this guy who learned a sentence in Welsh specially for the occasion, and a petition to abolish the Prince of Wales title.

Except government is still shut down, so the petitions are all suspended.

But not to worry! That gives the Maths Mates more time to work on their special mini-budget.

Week Three

More of the same at first, really, but she finally addresses the nation to announce that the Queen was the "rock" on which "modern Britain was built".

Also someone finally spots that the necklace she always wears is a day collar, so that was fun.

BUT THEN

The moment we have all been waiting for, with baited breath.

On the 23rd September, 2022, the mini-budget finally arrives. The golden egg of Kwasi and Liz, their beloved, beautiful child, the crowning glory, the culmination of their economic beliefs and values. They are so proud of it, so sure of it, that they do not even submit it for the approval of the Office for Budget Responsibility. Why should they? This is the moment Kwarteng can finally show the world that he was right; that this is the way to do economics after all; that he alone in his brilliance and genius has reinvented the field and will lead the country to a new era of riches and prosperity.

And the pound does this:

Yikes.

Truss goes into hiding for a day and a half, during which time her aids claim all her relatives have died so she won't have to speak to the press, which is obviously a simply fantastic quality in a Prime Minister. Finally, she resurfaces by doing a series of radio interviews for regional stations around the UK, hoping they'll be easier on her, starting with Radio Leeds. The good journalists of Yorkshire eviscerate her and strew her corpse through Adel Woods. It's downhill from there.

Week Four

One poll puts Labour 33 points ahead of the Tories.

It can be a little difficult to translate polls, because the electoral system is complex, so I asked my journalist friends. They cheerfully informed me that, if translated into a General Election, the Tories would have just 3 seats left.

Except! Of course, naturally, that is me reporting naught but the most extreme result, Tumblrs, dancing upon the bones of my enemies as I chant the rites to make the Tory party die faster. If I were to be fair about this - and I am, of course, a journalist of Integrity and Morals - I would actually give the average poll result. And I am wise and fair to all, ancient rites aside, so I shall.

The average poll result is still 19 points ahead.

Tony Blair's landslide Labour victory in 1999 was 12 points.

Rounding off the day, Labour declare that they are backing a change to a proportional representation voting system in place of the UK’s archaic first past the post system. Funny that.

Anyway, that mini-budget is going poorly. Realising unlimited borrowing rather than tax cuts for the rich is maybe Bad Actually, the Maths Mates decide to get the money for their bail-outs some other way. Can you guess, Tumblrs? Can you guess where they decide to get the money from?

Naturally.

Week Five

In a fascinating little twist, the papers claim Liz banned King Prince Charles from going to the Climate Summit in Egypt. This is interesting for about a billion reasons, not least of which is that the papers seem very angry about this and yet also that it's an unsubstantiated rumour - the phrase "it's understood that _" gets a hell of a workout.

She then does not go herself. Makes sense. They'll probably be mean to her about the fracking.

She then loses the support of the Daily Mail, a paper that five weeks before were ecstatic about her rise to power :( so sad. But why? What made them change their minds?

Well. What else from Truss, but a massive and catastrophic u-turn on the economy?

And she does! The absolute nutter!

Plans to cut the 45p tax rate for those earning upwards of £150,000 were abandoned, as were:

abolishing the planned rise in corporation tax

cutting the basic rate of income tax

the two-year energy bill support plan

scrapping the planned dividend tax hike

VAT-free shopping for international tourists

freezing alcohol duty

easing of IR25 rules for the self-employed

ALL GONE! All gone. The mini-budget is not working so lol jk we'll think of something else, that's how government works, right? The pound promptly implodes further. Of all people, Nadine Dorries is the one to criticise

WE ARE IN A TOPSY TURVEY UPSIDE DOWN WORLD

The Daily Mail still finds a way to say it's all Michael Gove's fault, though.

Anyway, the 5th October dawns bright and beautiful and YouGov polls rural voters:

THIS IS HUUUUUUUUUGE, because farmers just will not fucking stop voting Tory, AND YET. Wowsers. Not just popularity. Voting intention. She might as well have personally infected every farm in the South Downs with foot and mouth disease.

Truss realises her popularity is plummeting and she needs a new audience. She tries to appear down with the kids and declares that she's the only PM to have gone to a comprehensive school.

This is not true. Gordon Brown and Theresa May both did. However, it's certainly true that all three of them became PM by ousting a sitting PM, so there's that I guess.

Week Six

At this point I can start putting in PRECISE DATEs just call ME Robert Peston.

13th October

News reporters start speculating that she'll be done by the end of the month as the first rumoured letter of no confidence reaches us. People realise that her competition for shortest serving PM was a guy who died in office of TB at about the four month mark RIP king sorry about your lungs.

(A reminder - normally, if MPs want to oust a party leader, they must send in 54 letters of no confidence. This makes the 1922 Committee - a bunch of back benchers who preside over this shit - hold a vote of no confidence. A leader who loses gives way - this is very rare. A leader who wins is then immune to another such vote for 12 months, but they almost always crumble within a month or two anyway - this is much more common.)

This is extremely funny, because a newly-elected leader of the party has a 12 month immunity to votes of no confidence, same as people who've won such a vote. Likes charge reblogs cast apparently. MPs are getting desperate.

Pressure mounts. Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng announces that he is "Not going anywhere."

14th October

Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng is sacked and blamed for the entire economic mess.

Incredibly, Liz does this without first planning a replacement, so it's several hours before Jeremy Cunt suddenly reappears like the spectre at the fucking feast.

Meanwhile here's Ed Milliband on Twitter

Seven and a half years he waited to retweet that. Seven and a half long years, look, to have the last laugh.

In the end, he still went too soon.

15th October

Deputy PM and also Health Minister Therese Coffey (side note - have they always doubled up in roles like that? Or are there just not enough of them anymore?) announces that she loves antibiotic resistance and dead kids and also breaking laws:

16th October

The Sunday Times calls for Extremely Corrupt Former Grand Vizier Rishi Sunak to take over, and then a General Election so that Labour can take the reins.

The SUNDAY TIMES

Calling for LABOUR

The Sunday Mail tries to stir up support for Ben Wallace taking over, because no one has heard of Ben Wallace so he needs the boost, but then accidentally publish their front page with a different man

In another YouGov poll for the Times, not a single political group, age group, area of the country, gender, or other demographic said that Liz Truss was the right choice for PM

This is the new predicted election graph:

Yikes

17th October

The projected election results are a Labour victory so complete the opposition would be the SNP. Legend suggests Nicola Sturgeon's cackle on finding out was so powerful she accidentally resurrected a witchfinder.

18th October

Meanwhile in the Senedd, Welsh Tory leader Andrew RT Davies, a sort of humanoid boil dressed in ham, tries to accuse placid and gentle First Minister for Wales Mark Drakeford's Labour of being responsible for long ambulance waiting times.

T'was a mistake.

19th October

Oh boy.

Well, first of all, Suella Braverman sends an official email from her private email address, and then promptly leaves the Cabinet at cannonball speeds as though she's seen a brown child about to be given citizenship. Was she quietly fired by Jeremy Cunt? Did she do it deliberately to resign? On her way out, she blames the true source of our problems - the Guardian-reading, tofu-eating Wokerati.

Nigella Lawson spends the day tweeting tofu recipes.

Meanwhile, Graham Brady, the Chair of the 1922 Committee, comes to Liz Truss to inform her that he has in fact now received 54 letters of no confidence. Normally, of course, that would be considered enough to trigger a vote in her leadership; but not now.

However, these are unprecedented times. So he changes the threshold - if half of the Tories send him letters, her immunity will be revoked.

But the thing is, Tumblrs, the thing is...

It is all about to kick off in the most spectacular and catastrophic fireworks since Guy Fawkes had a dream.

Because Ed Milliband, once accused of leading the country to chaos and now riding high on the joy of his well-timed Twitter jab of Some Days Ago, wakes this morning and chooses violence.

He has spotted, of course, that no one likes fracking; even the Tories are against it.

He has also spotted that Liz Truss is very stupid.

So he goes into the House of Commons, and he digs a big pit and covers it over with twigs and leaves so it can't be seen, and he bakes a big cake and he places it in the middle of the twigs, and he sets up a net to fall as well and a big stick of ACME dynamite, and he hammers in little signs everywhere saying CAUTION - TRAP, by which I am of course being metaphorical because what he actually does is table a motion to extend the moratorium on fracking. The signs aren't necessary, really. This trap is easy to avoid.

All Liz Truss has to do, you see, is not use a three-line whip on this vote.

The three-line whip, as you'll all recall, is the highest level of coercion. MPs cannot defy a three-line whip. MPs cannot even abstain on a three-line whip. MPs have two choices on a three-line whip: to vote as they're told, or to be removed from the party. You obey or resign. That's all.

For this reason, it's sometimes called a 'confidence vote', as it is effectively a stand-in for one. The vote is not about the issue at hand - this is now a vote of confidence in your leader.

(He's also laid lesser traps. Years back when fracking was first being heavily discussed, Ed was Labour leader and one of the main figures in those discussions. During today, before it all Kicks The Fuck Off, a Tory stands and challenges him on previous statements about fracking, trying to accuse him of hypocrisy.

He was fucking ready for it.)

Graham Brady pops his head back around the door. He's changed his mind - a third of the party is all that's needed now to trigger a vote of no confidence in Liz Truss. And legend says he's only 17 off.

This is presumably the reason for what comes next.

Liz panics. Liz sees she's desperately unpopular. Liz sees that she has to do something to shore up support; and she sees that her important fracking rule, which her party hates her for, is now being challenged by a former Labour leader, and if he wins (which he will) she'll lose all credibility and maybe they'll take her nice office away and tell her she was a Bad Girl.

And so, with the inevitability of gravity on the now-leaden pound sterling, she makes it a three-line whip, and a confidence vote in her government.

INSTANT CHAOS.

There is uproar! There is rage! There is blinding fury! Tory MPs are standing up in the Commons and snarling and pissing and moaning! No one likes fracking except Jacob Rees Mogg! For TWO HOURS they shriek and scream and gnash their teeth, yelling at Liz Truss, demanding to know why this is happening.

(Legend has it chaos-deity Ed Milliband simply leaned back, put his feet up on the chair in front, and made Christian Wakeford hand-feed him grapes and fan him with a palm leaf, but this is unsubstantiated.)

And then, at 6.55, FIVE MINUTES before voting is ready to begin, the Tory Minister for Climate Graham Stewart stands up and declares that everyone should vote how they want because it's not a confidence vote.

Did I say there was chaos before?

Lol. Lmao, even. Rofl, in fact.

Now Tories leap to their feet and basically all scream one long, unending breath of WHAT-DO-YOU-MEAN-IT'S-NOT-A-CONFIDENCE-VOTE-WHAT-THE-FUCK-IS-HAPPENING-IS-IT-OR-IS-IT-NOT-A-CONFIDENCE-VOTE and so Stewart gets up again and says, right to everyone's faces, "It's not for me to say whether it's a confidence vote or not," which is an even faster and more spectacular u-turn than Truss herself could pull off given that he literally just said it wasn't and did so while being a minister.

And then the voting starts. MPs are now milling about like chickens who've sighted the hawk, clamouring to know if they're going to lose their jobs unless they vote for Satan. The Whips - specifically Chief Whip Wendy Morton and Deputy Chief Whip Craig Whittaker - descend upon them like fucking wargs on the hunt. They don't just spit vitriol and blackmail into MPs ears. They fucking bodily drag people into the right voting lobby. MPs are legitimately screaming. Grown men are crying literal tears. Labour's Chris Bryant reports holding multiple Tory MPs as they sob into his shoulder. Multiple MPs report similar scenes.

And Tories still don't know if this is even a damn confidence vote, or if they should just knock the Chief Whip's teeth out.

And then the Whips, filled with bloodlust and frenzy, suddenly realise that NO ONE IS LISTENING TO US, YOU'RE ALL SUPPOSED TO LISTEN TO US SO WE FEEL POWERFUL -

Cue sudden meeting in a locked room with Liz Truss. For over HALF AN HOUR.

So is it a confidence vote? No one is sure. Deputy PM Therese Coffey thinks so, so in the absence of the Whips she decides physical assault is her job now and is seen by David Linden MP (SNP) physically carrying someone into the voting lobby. Jacob Rees Mogg thinks not and starts yelling "It's not a confidence vote!", to which his colleagues reply, "Fuck off." Meanwhile the Whips have possibly resigned, no one is sure. It is still uncertain if this was a confidence vote.

And Ed Milliband basks in the chaos, playing the fiddle while it all burns around him.

Finally, voting concludes. The Whips reappear to lurk.

The votes are in - the government wins, and fracking will go ahead. But.

32 MPs abstained.

And one of those is Liz Truss.

Which is WILD??!? What possible benefit could she get from that??? No one knows. Everything is uproar again. Guess who else abstained? Well, riveted reader, here's a list with important names highlighted:

Nigel Adams, Gareth Bacon, Siobhan Baillie, Greg Clark, Sir Geoffrey Cox, Tracey Crouch, David Davis, Dame Caroline Dinenage, Nadine Dorries, Philip Dunne, Mark Fletcher, Vicky Ford, Paul Holmes, Alister Jack, Boris Johnson, Gillian Keegan, Kwasi Kwarteng, Robert Largan, Pauline Latham, Mark Logan, Theresa May, Priti Patel, Mark Pawsey, Angela Richardson, Andrew Rosindell, Bob Seely, Alok Sharma, Chris Skidmore, Henry Smith, Ben Wallace, Sir John Whittingdale, and William Wragg.

Kwasi still smarting about that p45, I see.

In any case it then turns out that Liz DID vote, but incompetently, because her voting card didn't read properly, which is actually fair given that she was being screamed at by angry Whips waving Graham Stewart's severed dick and balls around while they demanded power and authority. While she's clearing that up, the press are understandably waiting open-mouthed for comment, but don't worry Liz! Your old pal Jacob Rees Mogg is here to fill in for you!

And thus it is that JRM willingly chooses to go on the live news and calmly confirm to the nation that no one knows if it was a confidence vote or not.

Chaos. Chaos again. Unbridled chaos. The Whips are furious. Everyone is furious. The rebels are now in limbo, unsure if they're now out of a job. Tories are weeping, trying to work out if Rees Mogg WANTS to sink the party. Back bencher Charles Walker MP delivers a frank interview to the press absolutely SHIVERING with rage, like the drummer in a Fleetwood Mac concert. Ex-Lib Dem leader Tim Farron, a bland man known only for the time he himself willingly chose to go on the news and calmly explain that he's a homophobe without provocation, tweets that Liz Truss is a Lib Dem sleeper agent they sent in to destroy the Tories, sparking what is likely to be a whole slew of conspiracy theories by next week. No one knows what is going on. They all decide to sleep on it.

The good folks at Wikipedia ultimately decide to make three separate pages for the UK 2022 government crisis, and to label them with the month "to leave room for another by the end of the year."

Ed Milliband skips all the way home, and treats himself to a bacon sandwich.

20th October

Okay, Liz thinks, the morning after. Okay. Last night was bad. But today will be better.

So first... the vote.

Because there's bad news for Tories who like money and good news for people who like liveable planets - there are problems with the vote. For one, the vote counts are being called into question. Are the results reliable?

For another, the Speaker of the House of Commons calls for an investigation into the reports of, um, assault. So will the result stand?

It's so unclear! And so is that ongoing issue of whether or not the damn thing was a confidence vote. Angry whips say YES, JRM says NO, Downing Street refuses to pick up the phone to the BBC, but does send ITV's Robert Peston a text at 1am to say it was definitely a confidence vote and, unrelatedly, the Whips aren't resigning :)

I think we have found the price paid to keep the Whips.

Meanwhile. Let's see what this has done for Liz's leadership stability!

13 letters of no confidence are confirmed submitted by Sky, 5 of which came in overnight. The 1922 Committee reconvenes the coven to discuss matters. Simultaneously, the One Nation Conservatives reconvene their coven to discuss the same. Presumably there is much "Girl what are YOU doing at the Devil's Sacrament?"-ing and "Same cloak, how embarrassing"-ing. MPs are CLAMOURING for her head. It is VICIOUS. It's like cartoon piranhas in a supervillain's lair; which is highly appropriate, because that's exactly what Tory MPs are.

Graham Brady, head jester of the 1922 Committee, demands to see Liz Truss.

He walks into a room with her, and the doors are closed. Half an hour later, he walks back out of the room.

Ten minutes later, she calls a press conference.

45 days after being appointed, Liz Truss breaks the record, and becomes the shortest-serving British Prime Minister.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How to design a tech regulation

TONIGHT (June 20) I'm live onstage in LOS ANGELES for a recording of the GO FACT YOURSELF podcast. TOMORROW (June 21) I'm doing an ONLINE READING for the LOCUS AWARDS at 16hPT. On SATURDAY (June 22) I'll be in OAKLAND, CA for a panel (13hPT) and a keynote (18hPT) at the LOCUS AWARDS.

It's not your imagination: tech really is underregulated. There are plenty of avoidable harms that tech visits upon the world, and while some of these harms are mere negligence, others are self-serving, creating shareholder value and widespread public destruction.

Making good tech policy is hard, but not because "tech moves too fast for regulation to keep up with," nor because "lawmakers are clueless about tech." There are plenty of fast-moving areas that lawmakers manage to stay abreast of (think of the rapid, global adoption of masking and social distancing rules in mid-2020). Likewise we generally manage to make good policy in areas that require highly specific technical knowledge (that's why it's noteworthy and awful when, say, people sicken from badly treated tapwater, even though water safety, toxicology and microbiology are highly technical areas outside the background of most elected officials).

That doesn't mean that technical rigor is irrelevant to making good policy. Well-run "expert agencies" include skilled practitioners on their payrolls – think here of large technical staff at the FTC, or the UK Competition and Markets Authority's best-in-the-world Digital Markets Unit:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/12/13/kitbashed/#app-store-tax

The job of government experts isn't just to research the correct answers. Even more important is experts' role in evaluating conflicting claims from interested parties. When administrative agencies make new rules, they have to collect public comments and counter-comments. The best agencies also hold hearings, and the very best go on "listening tours" where they invite the broad public to weigh in (the FTC has done an awful lot of these during Lina Khan's tenure, to its benefit, and it shows):

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/events/2022/04/ftc-justice-department-listening-forum-firsthand-effects-mergers-acquisitions-health-care

But when an industry dwindles to a handful of companies, the resulting cartel finds it easy to converge on a single talking point and to maintain strict message discipline. This means that the evidentiary record is starved for disconfirming evidence that would give the agencies contrasting perspectives and context for making good policy.

Tech industry shills have a favorite tactic: whenever there's any proposal that would erode the industry's profits, self-serving experts shout that the rule is technically impossible and deride the proposer as "clueless."

This tactic works so well because the proposers sometimes are clueless. Take Europe's on-again/off-again "chat control" proposal to mandate spyware on every digital device that will screen everything you upload for child sex abuse material (CSAM, better known as "child pornography"). This proposal is profoundly dangerous, as it will weaken end-to-end encryption, the key to all secure and private digital communication:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/jun/18/encryption-is-deeply-threatening-to-power-meredith-whittaker-of-messaging-app-signal

It's also an impossible-to-administer mess that incorrectly assumes that killing working encryption in the two mobile app stores run by the mobile duopoly will actually prevent bad actors from accessing private tools:

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/09/04/oh-for-fucks-sake-not-this-fucking-bullshit-again-cryptography-edition/

When technologists correctly point out the lack of rigor and catastrophic spillover effects from this kind of crackpot proposal, lawmakers stick their fingers in their ears and shout "NERD HARDER!"

https://memex.craphound.com/2018/01/12/nerd-harder-fbi-director-reiterates-faith-based-belief-in-working-crypto-that-he-can-break/

But this is only half the story. The other half is what happens when tech industry shills want to kill good policy proposals, which is the exact same thing that advocates say about bad ones. When lawmakers demand that tech companies respect our privacy rights – for example, by splitting social media or search off from commercial surveillance, the same people shout that this, too, is technologically impossible.

That's a lie, though. Facebook started out as the anti-surveillance alternative to Myspace. We know it's possible to operate Facebook without surveillance, because Facebook used to operate without surveillance:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3247362

Likewise, Brin and Page's original Pagerank paper, which described Google's architecture, insisted that search was incompatible with surveillance advertising, and Google established itself as a non-spying search tool:

http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/papers/google.pdf

Even weirder is what happens when there's a proposal to limit a tech company's power to invoke the government's powers to shut down competitors. Take Ethan Zuckerman's lawsuit to strip Facebook of the legal power to sue people who automate their browsers to uncheck the millions of boxes that Facebook requires you to click by hand in order to unfollow everyone:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/02/kaiju-v-kaiju/#cda-230-c-2-b

Facebook's apologists have lost their minds over this, insisting that no one can possibly understand the potential harms of taking away Facebook's legal right to decide how your browser works. They take the position that only Facebook can understand when it's safe and proportional to use Facebook in ways the company didn't explicitly design for, and that they should be able to ask the government to fine or even imprison people who fail to defer to Facebook's decisions about how its users configure their computers.

This is an incredibly convenient position, since it arrogates to Facebook the right to order the rest of us to use our computers in the ways that are most beneficial to its shareholders. But Facebook's apologists insist that they are not motivated by parochial concerns over the value of their stock portfolios; rather, they have objective, technical concerns, that no one except them is qualified to understand or comment on.

There's a great name for this: "scalesplaining." As in "well, actually the platforms are doing an amazing job, but you can't possibly understand that because you don't work for them." It's weird enough when scalesplaining is used to condemn sensible regulation of the platforms; it's even weirder when it's weaponized to defend a system of regulatory protection for the platforms against would-be competitors.

Just as there are no atheists in foxholes, there are no libertarians in government-protected monopolies. Somehow, scalesplaining can be used to condemn governments as incapable of making any tech regulations and to insist that regulations that protect tech monopolies are just perfect and shouldn't ever be weakened. Truly, it's impossible to get someone to understand something when the value of their employee stock options depends on them not understanding it.

None of this is to say that every tech regulation is a good one. Governments often propose bad tech regulations (like chat control), or ones that are technologically impossible (like Article 17 of the EU's 2019 Digital Single Markets Directive, which requires tech companies to detect and block copyright infringements in their users' uploads).

But the fact that scalesplainers use the same argument to criticize both good and bad regulations makes the waters very muddy indeed. Policymakers are rightfully suspicious when they hear "that's not technically possible" because they hear that both for technically impossible proposals and for proposals that scalesplainers just don't like.

After decades of regulations aimed at making platforms behave better, we're finally moving into a new era, where we just make the platforms less important. That is, rather than simply ordering Facebook to block harassment and other bad conduct by its users, laws like the EU's Digital Markets Act will order Facebook and other VLOPs (Very Large Online Platforms, my favorite EU-ism ever) to operate gateways so that users can move to rival services and still communicate with the people who stay behind.

Think of this like number portability, but for digital platforms. Just as you can switch phone companies and keep your number and hear from all the people you spoke to on your old plan, the DMA will make it possible for you to change online services but still exchange messages and data with all the people you're already in touch with.

I love this idea, because it finally grapples with the question we should have been asking all along: why do people stay on platforms where they face harassment and bullying? The answer is simple: because the people – customers, family members, communities – we connect with on the platform are so important to us that we'll tolerate almost anything to avoid losing contact with them:

https://locusmag.com/2023/01/commentary-cory-doctorow-social-quitting/

Platforms deliberately rig the game so that we take each other hostage, locking each other into their badly moderated cesspits by using the love we have for one another as a weapon against us. Interoperability – making platforms connect to each other – shatters those locks and frees the hostages:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

But there's another reason to love interoperability (making moderation less important) over rules that require platforms to stamp out bad behavior (making moderation better). Interop rules are much easier to administer than content moderation rules, and when it comes to regulation, administratability is everything.

The DMA isn't the EU's only new rule. They've also passed the Digital Services Act, which is a decidedly mixed bag. Among its provisions are a suite of rules requiring companies to monitor their users for harmful behavior and to intervene to block it. Whether or not you think platforms should do this, there's a much more important question: how can we enforce this rule?

Enforcing a rule requiring platforms to prevent harassment is very "fact intensive." First, we have to agree on a definition of "harassment." Then we have to figure out whether something one user did to another satisfies that definition. Finally, we have to determine whether the platform took reasonable steps to detect and prevent the harassment.

Each step of this is a huge lift, especially that last one, since to a first approximation, everyone who understands a given VLOP's server infrastructure is a partisan, scalesplaining engineer on the VLOP's payroll. By the time we find out whether the company broke the rule, years will have gone by, and millions more users will be in line to get justice for themselves.

So allowing users to leave is a much more practical step than making it so that they've got no reason to want to leave. Figuring out whether a platform will continue to forward your messages to and from the people you left there is a much simpler technical matter than agreeing on what harassment is, whether something is harassment by that definition, and whether the company was negligent in permitting harassment.

But as much as I like the DMA's interop rule, I think it is badly incomplete. Given that the tech industry is so concentrated, it's going to be very hard for us to define standard interop interfaces that don't end up advantaging the tech companies. Standards bodies are extremely easy for big industry players to capture:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/30/weak-institutions/

If tech giants refuse to offer access to their gateways to certain rivals because they seem "suspicious," it will be hard to tell whether the companies are just engaged in self-serving smears against a credible rival, or legitimately trying to protect their users from a predator trying to plug into their infrastructure. These fact-intensive questions are the enemy of speedy, responsive, effective policy administration.

But there's more than one way to attain interoperability. Interop doesn't have to come from mandates, interfaces designed and overseen by government agencies. There's a whole other form of interop that's far nimbler than mandates: adversarial interoperability:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/10/adversarial-interoperability

"Adversarial interoperability" is a catch-all term for all the guerrilla warfare tactics deployed in service to unilaterally changing a technology: reverse engineering, bots, scraping and so on. These tactics have a long and honorable history, but they have been slowly choked out of existence with a thicket of IP rights, like the IP rights that allow Facebook to shut down browser automation tools, which Ethan Zuckerman is suing to nullify:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

Adversarial interop is very flexible. No matter what technological moves a company makes to interfere with interop, there's always a countermove the guerrilla fighter can make – tweak the scraper, decompile the new binary, change the bot's behavior. That's why tech companies use IP rights and courts, not firewall rules, to block adversarial interoperators.

At the same time, adversarial interop is unreliable. The solution that works today can break tomorrow if the company changes its back-end, and it will stay broken until the adversarial interoperator can respond.

But when companies are faced with the prospect of extended asymmetrical war against adversarial interop in the technological trenches, they often surrender. If companies can't sue adversarial interoperators out of existence, they often sue for peace instead. That's because high-tech guerrilla warfare presents unquantifiable risks and resource demands, and, as the scalesplainers never tire of telling us, this can create real operational problems for tech giants.

In other words, if Facebook can't shut down Ethan Zuckerman's browser automation tool in the courts, and if they're sincerely worried that a browser automation tool will uncheck its user interface buttons so quickly that it crashes the server, all it has to do is offer an official "unsubscribe all" button and no one will use Zuckerman's browser automation tool.

We don't have to choose between adversarial interop and interop mandates. The two are better together than they are apart. If companies building and operating DMA-compliant, mandatory gateways know that a failure to make them useful to rivals seeking to help users escape their authority is getting mired in endless hand-to-hand combat with trench-fighting adversarial interoperators, they'll have good reason to cooperate.

And if lawmakers charged with administering the DMA notice that companies are engaging in adversarial interop rather than using the official, reliable gateway they're overseeing, that's a good indicator that the official gateways aren't suitable.

It would be very on-brand for the EU to create the DMA and tell tech companies how they must operate, and for the USA to simply withdraw the state's protection from the Big Tech companies and let smaller companies try their luck at hacking new features into the big companies' servers without the government getting involved.

Indeed, we're seeing some of that today. Oregon just passed the first ever Right to Repair law banning "parts pairing" – basically a way of using IP law to make it illegal to reverse-engineer a device so you can fix it.

https://www.opb.org/article/2024/03/28/oregon-governor-kotek-signs-strong-tech-right-to-repair-bill/

Taken together, the two approaches – mandates and reverse engineering – are stronger than either on their own. Mandates are sturdy and reliable, but slow-moving. Adversarial interop is flexible and nimble, but unreliable. Put 'em together and you get a two-part epoxy, strong and flexible.

Governments can regulate well, with well-funded expert agencies and smart, adminstratable remedies. It's for that reason that the administrative state is under such sustained attack from the GOP and right-wing Dems. The illegitimate Supreme Court is on the verge of gutting expert agencies' power:

https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2024/05/us-supreme-court-may-soon-discard-or-modify-chevron-deference

It's never been more important to craft regulations that go beyond mere good intentions and take account of adminsitratability. The easier we can make our rules to enforce, the less our beleaguered agencies will need to do to protect us from corporate predators.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/20/scalesplaining/#administratability

Image: Noah Wulf (modified) https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thunderbirds_at_Attention_Next_to_Thunderbird_1_-_Aviation_Nation_2019.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[tanadrin]

This series of four videos on Ukraine and the Russia-Ukraine conflict is very interesting. The first is basically just a narrative political history of Ukraine from about 2000 to 2014, talking about different political factions that were relevant in the country in the period, and how different internal and external pressures shaped politics. It's very helpful for understanding the Ukrainian political context, including just how recent and just how shallow the supposed tensions between monolingual Russian and bilingual Ukrainian-Russian speakers was in 2014.

The second video is an overview of the Donbass war from 2014-2022, which you might have been vaguely paying attention to at the time. But it's very helpful to have it all laid out in chronological order with the benefit of hindsight, especially due to the obfuscation of Russian operations at the time that made it hard to work out what, exactly, was going on. It's a combination of a good old 19th century-style filibuster (the military expedition, not the parliamentary maneuver), Fox News-style propaganda, and some (rather badly failed) attempts at astroturfing civil unrest--why Russia thought that would work becomes important in Part 4.

Part 3 is just an extended argument that NATO expansion is not relevant to the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and while I already agreed with that assessment, it's nice to have it laid out in detail. The very very short version is that by NATO's own public criteria, Ukraine was simply not a candidate to join NATO, and had given up on joining NATO, and that had been painfully obvious since at least the Obama administration. Even more frustratingly, there were multiple points where Russia had an offramp to escalation, where it had gotten everything it could have possibly wanted from the conflict in Donbass, and it refused them all.

Part 4 is the author's attempt to explain why it refused them. The very short explanation is that Russia's government is led by idiots, who are very enamored of a flavor of conspiracy theory that has its origins in the LaRouche movement, and which has been bubbling in both left-wing and right-wing circles since 2000. In this worldview, the US government acting through the CIA (or the British royal family, or George Soros, or Jewish bankers, or whoever your bogeyman of choice is) has an almost supernatural ability to overthrow any government on earth by funding performance art groups (seriously), civil society NGOs, and protestors, and that almost every revolution, actual or so-called, since 1989 has been their direct work, from the post-Soviet revolutions, to Euromaidan, to the Arab Spring.

This belief, in its more overt or fragmentary forms, is incredibly popular, spurred on no doubt by historical instances of CIA malfeasance and actual aggressive wars waged by the Bush administration. But the problem is, it's bunk. During Russia's initial moves against Ukraine in 2014, they tried essentially the same playbook in the Donbass, and of course it failed miserably--you cannot actually astroturf a popular uprising. (The CIA has preferred to stage coups and assassinations, which are a different animal from color revolutions.) The separatists in the Donbass eventually had to be supported by a few thousand Russian troops and direct military aid.

But Putin, driven by his own paranoid misunderstanding of world events, the clique of yes-men he has embedded himself in, and his fear of gay Nazi Jewish CIA agents, simply got Russia in over its head. There is no offramp because Russia cannot articulate what its goals are, and because "stop trying to use George Soros to overthrow the Russian government" is not something the US can agree to, since they are not doing it. The only thing that might have prevented Putin fucking with Ukraine in the first place was maybe if rigging the parliamentary election in 2011 hadn't resulted in protests, in which Putin saw the specter of the hand of the CIA--but of course the US and NATO and the EU had nothing to do with that!

And to cap it all off, since the 2010s the LaRouche movement and its theory of color revolutions has been making inroads in China, so we have that to look forward to in coming decades.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

WaPo: How car bans and heat pump rules drive voters to the far right

Shannon Osaka at WaPo:

More than a decade ago, the Netherlands embarked on a straightforward plan to cut carbon emissions. Its legislature raised taxes on natural gas, using the money earned to help Dutch households install solar panels. By most measures, the program worked: By 2022, 20 percent of homes in the Netherlands had solar panels, up from about 2 percent in 2013. Natural gas prices, meanwhile, rose by almost 50 percent. But something else happened, according to a new study. The Dutch families who were most vulnerable to the increase in gas prices — renters who paid their own utility bills — drifted to the right. Families facing increased home energy costs became 5 to 6 percent more likely to vote for one of the Netherlands’ far-right parties. A similar backlash is happening all over Europe, as far-right parties position themselves in opposition to green policies. In Germany, a law that would have required homeowners to install heat pumps galvanized the far-right Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, giving it a boost. Farmers have rolled tractors into Paris to protest E.U. agricultural rules, and drivers in Italy and Britain have protested attempts to ban gas-guzzling cars from city centers.

That resurgence of the right could slow down the green transition in Europe, which has been less polarized on global warming, and serves as a warning to the United States, where policies around electric vehicles and gas stoves have already sparked a backlash. The shift also shows how, as climate policies increasingly touch citizens’ lives, even countries whose voters are staunchly supportive of clean energy may hit roadblocks. “This has really expanded the coalition of the far right,” said Erik Voeten, a professor of geopolitics at Georgetown University and the author of the new study on the Netherlands.

Other studies have found similar results. In one study in Milan, researchers at Bocconi University studied the voting patterns of drivers whose cars were banned from the city center for being too polluting. These drivers, who on average lost the equivalent of $4,000 because of the ban, were significantly more likely to vote for the right-wing Lega party in subsequent elections. In Sweden, researchers found that low-income families facing high electricity prices were also more likely to turn toward the far right. Far-right parties in Europe have started to position themselves against climate action, expanding their platforms from anti-immigration and anti-globalization. A decade ago, the Dutch right-wing Party for Freedom emphasized that it wasn’t against renewable energy — just increasing energy prices. But by 2021, the party’s manifesto had moved to more extreme language. “Energy is a basic need, but climate madness has turned it into a very expensive luxury item,” the manifesto said. “The far right has increasingly started to campaign on opposition to environmental policies and climate change,” Voeten said.

The pushback also reflects, in part, how much Europe has decarbonized. More than 60 percent of the continent’s electricity already comes from renewable sources or nuclear power; so meeting the European Union’s climate goals means tacklingother sectors — transportation, buildings, agriculture.

[...] Some of these voting patterns have also played out in the United States. According to a study by the Princeton political scientist Alexander Gazmararian, historically-Democratic coal communities that lost jobs in the shift to natural gas increased their support for Republican candidates by 5 percent. The shift was larger in areas located farther from new gas power plants — that is, areas where voters couldn’t see that it was natural gas, not environmental regulations, that undercut coal.

Gazmararian says that while climate denial and fossil fuel misinformation have definitely played a role, many voters are motivated simply by their own financial pressures. “They’re in an economic circumstance where they don’t have many options,” he said. The solution, experts say, is todesign policies that avoid putting too much financial burden on individual consumers. In Germany, where the law to install heat pumps would have cost homeowners $7,500 to $8,500 more than installing gas boilers, policymakers quickly retreated. But by that point, far-right party membership had already surged.

The Washington Post explains what may be at least partially causing the rise of far-right extremist parties in Europe, Conservatives in Canada, and the Republicans in some parts of the US: rising energy costs that low-income people are bearing the brunt of.

In the US, right-wing hysteria about gas stove bans and electric vehicles are also playing a role.

[potofsoup]

i love your fourth of july comics every year but this years feels extremely optimistic about biden’s abilities in the face of him letting roe get overturned and funding a gen*cide at worst or letting it happen at best by taking the bare minimum of regulatory action… i mean can he really be trusted at all anymore to do the right thing or act in line with the people’s demands? and how do we know the people behind project 2025 won’t just rig the election again to get in under false pretenses?

Hihi! Thank you for reading and enjoying my July 4th comics every year! I am in a non-US airport en route to a month-long trip in a place with sketchy internet, so sorry in advance for sloppiness in my response (and potentially going radio silent).

But:

I don't think he "let" Roe get overturned, since that was the Supreme Court's overwhelming conservative majority, which really started with Mitch McConnell refusing to approve Obama's appointee and forcing it into a 2016 election issue. The fact that Trump got to appoint 3 Supreme Court Justices is what got us here.

Re: Biden and the Israel/Hamas war ... on the one hand, there's definitely more that he could have done, but on the other hand, they are a whole other country over there. It's Hamas that initiated the Oct 7 attacks and took the hostages. It's Netanyahu and his right-wing government who decided to retaliate to such extreme extent. Biden can talk about how he would really like Netanyahu to stop fighting and step down, but at the end of the day that's not his call, any more than he can stop the Sudan fighting that is near-genocidal either.

So, to come to your question #1: "Can he really be trusted at all anymore to do the right thing or act in line with the people’s demands"?

For me, it's a resounding YES. Guyz, he has passed so much good domestic policies. My spouse works in green energy and the passing of the Inflation Reduction Act halved his anxiety and gave him legitimate hope. The tumblr post I linked to in my comic has links to many of the other great things that Biden has done. Tbh I voted for him in 2020 because "a moldy onion is still better than Trump", and I've been pleasantly surprised. Like how he tried to cancel student loans, the Supreme Court overturned it, and then he came back 6 months later with a different way to do it that didn't lead to a court challenge.

Is he perfect? Hell no. There's tons of stuff that I wish he did more about, or he went further on, but also he's just one guy heading one branch of government who is heading into an election year. (Just like FDR promising not joining WWII, while behind the scenes doing all the Lend-Lease Act stuff). And "the people" have lots of demands, many of them conflicting.

I'd also like to push at the unspoken part of your question... "Can he really be trusted to do the right thing..." compared to whom? Because right now the answer is "compared to Trump." And compared to Trump... I don't even trust Trump to respect the results of a legitimate election. Heck, he might just take his favorite state secrets, sell them to the highest bidder (or just show them off to someone for funzies), and then claim Presidential immunity. A decent Democrat who got stuff done vs someone who probably wants to pardon himself and all his friends and do Project 2025 stuff is not even on the same level. (Do I wish that there was a viable Democratic alternative to Biden? Sure! But who?) Heck, at this point -- imagine if it's Kamala Harris vs. Trump. Who would you vote for?

As for your question #2: "How do we know the people behind project 2025 won’t just rig the election again to get in under false pretenses?"

We don't. But also what can we do besides showing up to vote?

Actually, I need bullet points for this:

The 2022 midterm elections brought in fewer-than-expected election-deniers into crucial electoral offices at the state level, which means that hopefully most state electoral boards will continue to have integrity

Yes, voting is harder but at least we can still vote. So it's about getting out there and getting your vote counted. For some states, it involves waiting in 8 hour lines. For some states, it involves bringing 2 forms of ID. Document. Track. Make sure it's dropped off in a real ballot box and not a fake one. Don't believe messaging that the voting is happening on a different day or location, etc.

A 50.1% majority is easily challenged. A 55% majority, less so. Which means getting people out to vote.

The more people know about and think about the reality of a second Trump term (versus being disappointed by a Biden term), the more they will be motivated to vote against Trump.

Finally, let's be real here: I'm braced for a 2nd Trump term. That said:

I'm still going to go and vote for Biden, because the only way to prevent a 2nd Trump term is to vote.

A Trump term where either the House or Senate is controlled by the Democrats will be *very* different from a clean Republican sweep.

Even with a clean Republican sweep on the federal level, States have so much more power now, and voting the state level stuff will help shore up Democratic goals for the future. States get to draw voting districts however they want. States get to decide on abortion policies. If you live in a deep Red state, there still might be things to vote for that make it easier to live in now, and turn it purple a few elections down the line.

So at the end of the day, it's "Vote AND". Vote and keep living your best life. Vote and tell others about Project 2025. Vote and have hope. Even if Trump wins, at least you'll have voted against him. Vote and stay to build up a progressive wave for the next election.

[lok-shakti]

Mainpuri By-Election Result: मैनपुरी उपचुनाव में भाजपा क्यों हारी ? जानिए ये तीन प्रमुख कारण

Mainpuri By-Election Result: मैनपुरी उपचुनाव में भाजपा क्यों हारी ? जानिए ये तीन प्रमुख कारण

सीएम योगी के पास खड़े भाजपा प्रत्याशी रघुराज सिंह शाक्य – फोटो : अमर उजाला ख़बर सुनें ख़बर सुनें मुलायम सिंह यादव के निधन के बाद मैनपुरी लोकसभा सीट पर हुए उपचुनाव में भाजपा की बड़ी हार के पीछे कई कारण हैं। इसमें सबसे बड़ा कारण जिले की राजनीति में जाति विशेष के नेताओं का दखल ही रहा। इसके चलते न केवल भाजपा का कोर वोट मानी जानी वाली अन्य जातियों ने भाजपा को नकार दिया, तो वहीं कार्यकर्ताओं ने भी…

[mariacallous]

The nomination of Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic presidential candidate has shaken up the race in ways that have yet to fully play out. However, given the fact that she could become the first woman U.S. president, it is surely worthwhile to consider the role of the women’s vote in November’s election.

One need only look back to the 2022 midterm election, where the women’s vote was arguably instrumental in rebuffing a predicted “red wave,” leading Democrats to exceed electoral expectations. That election occurred less than five months after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, allowing states to greatly restrict access to abortion. This led to a greater-than-expected Democratic vote among women, especially young women, for House of Representatives and other state candidates.

Now, just weeks after most polls had President Joe Biden trailing his Republican rival Donald Trump, the emergence of Vice President Harris as the Democratic candidate has already injected enthusiasm among many Democrats, especially women. As my Brookings colleague Elaine Kamarck has argued, women’s health, abortion, and reproductive freedom—issues Harris has championed—will once again be leading issues for this election. Harris has also voiced support for issues important to women including paid parental leave, child care, and the economy, as well as other policies that have the support of many younger and minority women. Indeed, the broader support of women’s groups for Harris’s candidacy has already been evident in funding and outreach.

With Harris’s nomination, will new enthusiasm and a voting surge among women be enough to power her to victory in November? To address this question, this analysis first reviews the role of women’s votes in recent presidential elections and which women’s demographic groups were most favorable to Democratic candidates. It next shows how gender differences in voter turnout have provided women with a numerical electoral advantage over men. The analysis proceeds to look at changes in the demographic make-up of women voters, from 2012 through the present, showing the rise of Democratic-favorable groups within their ranks. It concludes with a voter simulation of 2024 election results showing what recent polls imply, if we assume that the new enthusiasm for Harris translates into higher voter turnout and increased Democratic support among women, both dynamics that could help increase her chances for victory in November.

Women have a history of backing Democratic candidates in presidential elections

Examining gender differences in presidential voting preferences shows that women have voted for Democrats over Republicans in every presidential election since 1984.1

This is evident for recent elections, as seen in Figure 1, which shows the D-R (Democratic minus Republican) vote margins by gender for presidential elections between 2000 and 2020. In each case, the D-R margins are positive for women and generally (though not always) negative for men, and women voted more strongly Democratic than men, regardless of whether a Democrat or Republican ultimately won the presidency.

Election year 2020 showed sharp gender disparities for the seven battleground states, displayed in Figure 2. In each of these states, only one of which (North Carolina) Trump carried, women registered positive D-R margins compared with negative margins for men. The widest gender disparities were in the three “blue wall” states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, as well the southern state of Georgia.

Gender differences also pervaded demographic groups in the 2020 presidential election (see figure 3), as was the case in earlier elections. D-R margins are higher for women than for men in groups where women voted strongly Democratic: Black voters, Hispanic voters, and voters aged 18 to 29. Even for non-college white women voters—who favored Republicans—the negative D-R margins are not as large as those of men. Only among Asian American voters were men’s D-R margins higher than women’s.

Women’s turnout rates are higher

Perhaps even more important than partisan preferences, turnout rates—the share of eligible voters who vote—will help dictate women’s influence in the coming election. Turnout rates for women have exceeded those for men in presidential elections dating back to 1980. Figure 4 depicts gender differences in turnout for presidential elections since 2000. The 2020 election showed the highest overall turnout rates in decades. Because of their higher turnout rates, and the fact that women live longer than men, the 2020 election had 9.7 million more female than male voters.

Largely because of their higher turnout rates, women comprised more than half of all voters (53%) in 2020. Yet their shares vary across demographic groups (see Figure 5).  Women comprised 58% of all Black voters, 55% of Asian voters and 54% of Hispanic voters. Fifty-four percent (54%) of voters aged 65 and older were also women. And among white non-college graduate voters, a group that tends to vote Republican, women still comprised a majority (52%).

The female electorate is becoming more diverse and highly educated

As the size of the female electorate increases, its demographic makeup is changing. Figure 6 shows the shifts in the profile of eligible women voters between 2012 and 2024 by race and education. Notably, there are gains in women’s groups that tend to vote Democratic—white college graduates and people of color—and a decline in the women’s group that tends to vote Republican—white non-college graduates. For the first time in a presidential election, the latter group will make up less than 40% of the women’s electorate.

The seven battleground states, shown in Figure 7, also display similar shifts in the demographic profiles of their female electorates. In each, there is a decline in the share of white non-college graduate women, and an increase in the share of women of color. This is occurring in the “whiter” states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, as well as the more diverse states of Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and North Carolina. In Nevada, for example, the share of women who identify as white non-college graduates declined from 48% in 2012 to 35% in 2024, while at the same time the share of women who identify as Black, Hispanic, Asian or other nonwhite races rose from 36% in 2012 to 47% in 2024. Thus, with respect to demographic attributes, the female electorates in each state have become more Democratic-leaning in their voter profiles.

Simulating the 2024 election after Harris announcement

Polls taken both before and after the shift from Biden to Harris as the likely Democratic nominee offer crude indications of what the 2024 election might hold. Three polls of likely voters conducted by the New York Times/Siena College on June 26, July 3, and July 25—after Biden bowed out of the race and endorsed Harris—reveal the changes that took place in men’s and women’s D-R voting margins (see Figure 8).

The D-R margins for women–at 14% for Harris vs. Trump on July 25, were especially high, though countered by a still-high negative D-R margin of 17% for men.

Still, the high women’s D-R margin favoring Harris greatly reduced the overall D-R margin compared with the earlier two Biden vs. Trump margins shown in Table 1. That is, in the two polls taken while Biden was still the assumed Democratic nominee, the negative D-R margins of -4% and -6% (44%  Biden vs. 48% Trump on June 26; and 43% Biden vs. 49% Trump on July 3) strongly favored Trump. Yet, the July 25 poll for Harris vs. Trump reduced the D-R margin to just -0.6% (47.5 for Harris vs. 48.1 for Trump) when we applied this to a simulation model discussed below.

Of course, the July 25 poll was taken just after Biden withdrew and endorsed Harris as the likely Democratic nominee. Clearly, Harris’s campaign had not yet fully begun and the immediate support from many women’s groups suggests that both female turnout and voting preference could increase on Harris’s behalf in the weeks and months ahead. To estimate these likely effects, we conducted simulations of national D-R margins—a base simulation—and two additional simulations based on assumptions of greater women’s turnout and a stronger voter preference for Harris (see Table 1).

All three simulations begin with the 2024 national female and male eligible voter populations reported in the Census Bureau’s monthly Current Population Survey. The “base” simulation applies the 2020 election female and male voter turnout rates, presented above, and the Harris vs. Trump voter margins from the July 25 poll shown in Figure 8. The second simulation alters the base simulation by increasing women’s turnout rate by 10%, from 68.4% to 75.2%, larger than the 5.1% rise in female turnout which occurred between 2016 and 2020. The third simulation alters the second simulation by also increasing the female D-R voting margin by 5 percentage points.

The results in Table 1 show that while the base simulation yields a small Trump advantage, a 10% rise in women’s turnout would bring a small Harris advantage. Moreover, both increasing women’s turnout by 10% and the women’s D-R vote advantage by 5 percentage points would yield a clear Harris win (49.2% Harris vs. 46.3% Trump). These assumptions, reflecting a rise in women’s enthusiasm for Harris between now and Election Day, could put a popular vote win for her well within reach. It is also possible that the strong Trump voter preference for men, reported in the New York Times/Siena College poll, could shift as more male voters become familiar with her campaign.

The impact of an energized women’s voting base

The simulations conducted here make plain that rising women’s enthusiasm for Kamala Harris’s candidacy could lead to consequential shifts in the 2024 election through increases in voter turnout and voter preference. This is especially notable given the recent history of women’s support of Democratic candidates in national and congressional elections. Beyond looking at polls alone, simulations such as these show how taking into account the eligible voter base and rising voter turnout rates can affect election results.

These simulations should not be viewed as predictions; much will depend on how well Harris can continue to energize an already favorable female voter base. It also depends on her performance in crucial battleground states, which will determine how she fares in the Electoral College. What these simulations do show is how an enthusiastic voting bloc, when translated into voter turnout and voting preferences, could impact the final election result this coming November.

[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.

[anamericangirl]

Hey, Project 2025 anon.

It took me a while to find more unbiased sources (and get through some of the document itself because whoa it really is that long) since all of the results are bloated with leftist fear-mongering. I didn't notice that when I first looked it up. The left really are the only ones talking about it.

When I first looked into it (right after my friend mentioned it to me), I noticed that it was also labeled as a collection of "proposals"...which literally means nothing. Proposals aren't finite and it was one of the first indicators to me that people were freaking out for no reason. In summaries, I found *maybe* one or two things I didn't fully agree with, but because I don't believe our rights are being taken away, I don't really care.

Also, this thing has been around since 2022 and there hasn't been much uproar until now. (Granted, I didn't know about it until recently either). You'd think that if it was such a threat that leftists/politicians would have brought attention to it when it's been there for nearly three years, instead of waiting until when supposed doom is literally right around the corner.

What a coincidence, almost like there's an election coming up or something. But what do I know?

I haven't been able to get through to my friend. She's completely locked in and by now I'm just worried for her mental health because she's essentially tormenting herself for no reason. Regardless, thank you for your response yesterday. It helped a lot. I suppose my anxiety just makes me easily susceptible to others' nerves LOL.

P.S. Kind of unrelated, but I've been getting Harris ads about abortion rights that say, "The government has no right to tell women what they can and can't do with their bodies." Suddenly now the left knows what a woman is (we're not "bleeders" and "birthing people" anymore y'all!) and is against government overreach? LMFAO. I also find it interesting that I haven't gotten a single campaign ad about Project 2025, unless it's specifically focused on abortion. You'd think that if they cared about how "everyone's" rights are going to be taken away, they'd be focusing on more topics than just abortion. But abortion and just parroting, "Our rights are going to be taken away under Project 2025!" without elaborating is the best they can do, I guess.

Exactly 👍 the left just thinks if they say “Project 2025” enough it will scare people into voting for them which unfortunately is true in a lot of cases but Project 2025 is, as you saw, nothing more than policy proposals from the Heritage Foundation that have been around for a couple of years now and have nothing to do with anyone’s presidential campaign.

And like, I don’t know everything that’s in Project 2025 because I’m not about to sit there and read a 900 page document but also I don’t care what’s in it because it’s irrelevant. I know none of the leftists crying about it have read a single page so I just assume they are wrong about whatever they claim is in it lol

And for a plan that’s supposed to take all of our rights away it’s funny the only one they’re crying about is abortion which is the one “right” they say is at stake every election.

But yes they always seem to remember what a woman is every time abortion comes up for some reason 🤔

[whatsuphoneybee]

i wanted to piggyback off this very good tweet and remind everyone that-

Ohio's current voting maps are fucked!

The maps that were used in Ohio's 2022 election were ruled unconstitutional by the Ohio Supreme Court. And were found to be gerrymandered in favor of the Republican party (surprise surprise).

So the government currently in charge of handling the East Palestine disaster was elected unconstitutionally! :)

You can read up about that here! [1] [2] [3] [4]

Additional fun facts about Ohio's government! - A former members of said government's political party is currently on trail for corruption! - They slipped in a bill banning trans women from competing in school sports at 11:56 PM, putting it into an unrelated bill, so it couldn't be reviewed! (it was later shot down but they still used a shitty tactic to try and get it passed)

So yeah! Fuck the "Elect shitty people, live with the shitty results" attitude that's use to downplay and victim blame people living in rural, blue collar, "republican" states.