College conundrum & other shifts

    "How College Towns Are Decimating the GOP

    Growing population in America’s highly educated enclaves has led to huge gains for the Democratic Party. And Republicans are scrambling for answers."

    2 in 3 college counties grew more Democratic since 2000

    Of those 171 [college towns], 38 have flipped from red to blue since the 2000 presidential election. Just seven flipped the other way, from blue to red, and typically by smaller margins. Democrats grew their percentage point margins in 117 counties, while 54 counties grew redder. By raw votes, the difference was just as stark: The counties that grew bluer increased their margins by an average of 16,253, while Republicans increased their margins by an average of 4,063.

    https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/07/21/gop-college-towns-0010...

    Comments


    Lots of Reds care about healthcare - at least their own, sometimes others'.

    Yes, from 0 to 9 months there's eventually a baby. A freakout that a woman self-aborted 6 1/2 months in is pretty sick. I've tried to take it the other direction - "what if 98% are chemical (pill) abortions by week 10?" (which is doable if you don't close abortion facilities for those who can't/shouldn't do it remote). No organs, neural channels... Not many takers.

    And oddly, racists in 1970s complained that blacks didn't use contraception - now they complain they do?

    "Neither party does enough for blacks". Well one spends a lot of time actively disenfranchising blacks, and are actively against any gun control where blacks are being killed in massive numbers. When a Dem ran on improving the black situation in 2016, activists pulled out a single sound bite tied to then-rampant criminal gangs and used that to say she was heavily racist, and when she campaigned for women's issues, woke activists trashed her because she was white hetero - not far enough on the identity chain, previous wave feminism.. Yes, much of the woke Dem thing about removing higher math so black scores look better is plain stupid. But the pandemic rebates prolly helped a lot of poorer black families (versus Obama resisting individual relief in 2009). Expanding Obamacare did proportionally help blacks more. Yes, George Floyd protests hurt blacks more. Etc.

    "More public dialogue with community members during the pandemic". Well, when the Ted Nugents of the world wail about their rights to not wear masks and not self-diatance while millions are dying, and other public figures alike Trump are saying masks aren't needed anyway, and that maybe hydroxychloriquine will fix it, and wouldn't it be great to have something like bleach to quickly cleanse it all... It's hard to have that adult public debate. Even now people are arguing whether they should've waited on the vaccine (no), and exaggerating the number of PostVac cases and way downplaying vaccine successes. It used to be public health officials were treated with respect, but here they were attacked for political purposes.


    Book censorship - woke red herring (and fundraiser tool for the right) - not Fahrenheit 451, read at home like I did Playboy and Anarchist Cookbook *at 12 or 13*. And all the kids around me did too.

    But that expresses a number of debates - if I don't embrace your wording, your point of view, I'm not censoring you, I'm not committing microagression - I'm just being me, in however my right to free speech moves. Lots of people have upset me with their speech, made me feel uncomfortable, volume, content, argumentation and duration, sometimes their unwillingness to speak. I've learned to argue back, or not care, or go around them, or just unwillingly STFU. Pick your battles 

    On Twitter, everyone thinks they're a warrior  but there are 10s of million books on a million topics. Not all can be right, not all acceptable, not all healthy, not all even literate. I know people who grew up under Communism, had to sneak through books and albums. As long as we can buy these or easily download, we're not being hurt. Maybe we should make books seem more verboten, so kids would sneak into closets with flashlights to read, rather than the easy conversational junk on mobile phones 


    Seattle Pop cancels Rowling

    http://opr.news/7cfab8c230807en_zz

    Odd, because she could be the patron Saint of homelessness, but her I sistent femaleness keeps coming up. If only she had a dick or something. 


    And in a major legal shift... 

    https://mastodon.social/@Popehat/110826155145302918

     

    Popehat

    Ken White@[email protected]

    Looking at the six co-conspirators, only one — Kenneth Chesebro - went to Harvard or Yale Law. This is disappointing. In this great nation’s history and culture, Harvard and Yale have played prominent and indispensable roles in destroying the Republic. Letting me down here.

    Yes, two went to Georgetown Law. Nice work Georgetown. Way to get on the board! It’s a good start but see if you can start a few wars or overthrow something and get back to us.


    Wisconsin boy does good. Kind of. 

    3. Kenneth Chesebro, a Wisconsin Native, Graduated From Harvard Law School

     

    Harvard

    GettyA view of Harvard Yard on the campus of Harvard University on July 08, 2020 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

     

    According to his LinkedIn page, Chesebro is a Wisconsin native “who graduated from Northwestern University (B.S. 1983) and Harvard Law School (J.D. 1986), where he was an editor of the Law Review.”

    Kenneth Chesebro is named in a lawsuit in Wisconsin that was brought by Democrats against “Wisconsin Republicans who posed as electors in 2020,” Urban Milwaukee reported.

    The Democrats argued that “the 10 Republicans and two attorneys who advised them broke a variety of laws, including one that bans people from falsely acting as public officials. Plaintiffs are seeking punitive damages of up to $2.4 million,” the Wisconsin-based news site reported.


    Teacher exodus decimating education, 

    FastTrack teachers-on-the-cheap ruse didn't wirk

    (yes, "decimating"  means 1/10th officially) 


    and he thinks:


    Social media is overwhelmingly political partisanship warfare uber alles (just like the blogoshere only extropolated.)And then when the normies who don't partake of that kind of partisanship come out to vote, elections don't turn out like the political partisans agitated for and they go "it must be rigged". The cognitive dissonance grows ever more, as political activists think more of their childish insults and warring are winning somebody over when in actuality they are just preaching to choir and the normies just get further turned off by politics and do 'a pox on both your houses'

    Great example: Ross Douhat is not a talented and interesting nuanced op-ed and essay writer, he is the enemy and evil personified and must never be given any attention much less have his writing read:


    Fighting Woke back then? 


    President Biden fist bumps striking UAW union workers on the picket line outside of Detroit. pic.twitter.com/fDMGPzLhMK

    — Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) September 26, 2023

    It is what it is, he's a longtime believer.


    Stereotype busters at work:

    .


    Education and political partisanship do not synch:


    EDITORIAL: Open primaries in Pennsylvania would mean more than 1 million registered independents and third-party voters would no longer be shut out of elections their taxes help fund. https://t.co/QpNqQ7E0R5 pic.twitter.com/5P536BIMHY

    — Open Primaries (@OpenPrimaryUSA) September 28, 2023

    Record number of Americans say they're politically independent

    By Mike Allen @ Axios.com, April 17, 2023

    Share of U.S. adults who identify with select political affiliations

    We spend our days captivated by people with the most power and the biggest mouths. But it turns out a rising number of Americans want something else — political independence.

    Driving the news: Gallup polling last month found that a record 49% of Americans see themselves as politically independent — the same as the two major parties put together.

    • By far the dominant U.S. party isn't Democrats or Republicans. It's: "I'll shop around, thank you."

    Why it matters: This trend means rising future challenges to the might and money of the two traditional parties, and helps explain how volatile and evenly split our politics are. There's no sign either will ebb any time soon.

    What's happening: Gallup analyst Jeff Jones says a big reason for this change is driven by younger generation.

    • "It was never unusual for younger adults to have higher percentages of independents than older adults," Jones said. "What is unusual is that as Gen X and millennials get older, they are staying independent rather than picking a party, as older generations tended to do."

    The big picture: Jones also points to a megatrend — "the disillusionment with the political system, U.S. institutions and the two parties, which are seen as ineffectual, too political and too extreme."

    Fun fact: Every election since 2004 — except 2012 — has seen the White House, Senate or House flip control. Antsy, unsatisfied independent voters are the reason.

     

    ^ POLITICAL PARTISANS ARE TRULY THE BLIND, THEY CANNOT SEE THE PROBLEM!

    Turns out George Washington is right as never before:

    AND FURTHERMORE, THIS IS NOT AS DIFFICULT TO SOLVE AS PARTISANS FREQUENTLY ARGUE:

    RANKED CHOICE VOTING


    BLM and other woke defund-and-abolish types need to say hello to the GOP and Trump on this front:



    Claudine Gay scandal deepens - Harvard tries to play hardball, blows up in collective face.

    How does this reflect on the bigger "woke" picture and those Democratic bastions of liberalism on campus? Will there be blowback or at least some evolutionary reform? What do students think anyway, since I haven't seen much non-campus paper response?

    https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1741981079056052273.html

    Ugh, the students' response is mostly hijacked over the antisemitism question. Of course "speking out for genocide" can take various levels from vague weasel words to an outrageous support or encouragement - which level triggers suspension, expulsion or other sanctions? Her response seems careful, but didn't ignore the problem. But the plagiarism is pretty outrageous.


    Fear of hooking up (or having a longer relationship)?

    Or simply  laziness and convenience of "good enough" substitutes?

    Some inmate contradictions, such as "the world is overpopulated" (but not the 1st world developed portions). Or "white male privilege", on-the-job sexy talk and other socially scolded "inappropriate" behavior is shut down (so traditional young male idiot testosterone-fueled come-ons and variants are funneled into doom scrolling and video games?). Or social media simply takes away enough of the bite of loneliness I felt as a kid so that nothing has to be done to counter it?

    Young humans are awkward. Twitter shows us even older humans are awkward. So the idealism of how these "Love Truly" Hugh Grant/Julia Roberts romances is farther and farther from daily life. 

    Whatever the case, breeding and mating and long-term bonding opportunities have gone way down. 45% of 18-25 year-old boys have never approached a girl? Something's odd.

    Thoughts sparked by this great post from @freyaindiaa https://t.co/swrE67GrZg

    — Rob Henderson (@robkhenderson) January 2, 2024

    https://goat.com.au/relationships/this-graph-showing-how-couples-meet-is...

     


    Bad embed...


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