[Hong Wu]

I'm putting a bit of effort into predicting the 2018 House map. The left is (unsurprisingly) arguing for a "blue wave". I have a few reasons to suspect this won't happen. Mostly, let's look at a picture of the 2018 House map and the 2016 federal elections map by county.

2018 house map: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epoll ... e_map.html
Can't get it to save as a picture and don't have time to figure it out right now

2016 county map:


Ok soooooo here's what I'm thinking. If you go through the trouble of looking at these images side-by-side, you'll see that most of these seats are predominantly in areas that Trump carried in 2018. Also, Republicans generally outperformed Trump in many ways in 2016. There's a few points to consider here.

(1) The number of "never Trump" Republicans has declined.
(2) The maps suggests that Republicans have a terrain advantage if trends remain the same.
(3) Republicans usually perform better in the midterms. A "blue wave" might only make the Dems break even; if they break even, this map suggests they lose.
(4) National polls are pretty useless here as congressional races are for federal seats but are local in nature. They've also been inaccurate recently.
(5) Less specific polls suggest that Trump's black and Hispanic support is unusually high for a Republican, which should be significant in theory but for some reason it hasn't been moving the national polls very much.

With these points in mind, a quick comparison of the maps (based upon which districts voted for Trump only, which as I've explained, may be a fair way to measure this since Trump's support has either remained the same or gone up), suggests that a blue wave is wishful thinking. RCP is listing seats in places like eastern Arizona, Southern Nevada, western Minnesota and Missouri as "likely Dem". These places all went heavily or entirely for Trump in 2016. Meanwhile, places like southwestern Texas, eastern Kansas, norther Maine, southern Florida etc. are listed as "tossups" even though these places also went mostly or entirely for Trump. The two maps don't appear to match up at all unless you're in California or Oregon. Very interesting I think!

[Torus34]

As I watch footage of President of the United States of America Donald Trump, I become more and more aware of the 'cult of personality' which drives his popularity. Though not a sociologist or psychiatrist, I suspect there's an interesting difference between the emotions driving the Obama-istas in the early years of his presidency and those now evident in this, the Trump Era.

A case can be made that the thrust of the changes taking place at the federal level reflect a shift from a people-centered approach to a property-centered one. This leads to the risible spectacle of middle- and lower-class Americans cheering the undercutting of their own security. I'm reminded once again of comments by an authority:

"It is not necessary to put the people into shackles. It can be accomplished by helping them to forge their own chains out of their emotions, ignorance and prejudices."

"Providing bread and circuses for the masses is a time-tested tradition. Make the circus gaudy. The people will be distracted and will not notice the lack of bread."

A Beginner's Guide To Government, Aloysius Goldpen.

[Hong Wu]

Anyway, https://www.npr.org/2018/10/03/65401587 ... =hootsuite

Just over a month away from critical elections across the country, the wide Democratic enthusiasm advantage that has defined the 2018 campaign up to this point has disappeared, according to a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll.

In July, there was a 10-point gap between the number of Democrats and Republicans saying the November elections were "very important." Now, that is down to 2 points, a statistical tie.

Well played as usual Dems. It's like "hey guys, we are looking good in this midterm, you know what would make it better? Stressing how strongly we believe in guilty until proven innocent when dealing with our opponents!" Because those other guys are fascists...

[Libertarian353]

Well played as usual Dems. It's like "hey guys, we are looking good in this midterm, you know what would make it better? Stressing how strongly we believe in guilty until proven innocent when dealing with our opponents!" Because those other guys are fascists...

But they are fascists and you don't give a shit.

[Hong Wu]

^^ I don't think you know what fascism is.

Here's some thoughts for anyone who might be frustrated by the way the Democrats seem to have screwed the pooch, again, or who might be frustrated when they do it again in the future.

First, virtue signaling is by nature always directed towards the in-group.

Second, since it's directed towards the in-group and not an out-group, it never receives any push back, which is why it naturally snowballs into idiocy like "guilty until proven innocent" except that if we are being honest, they are actually beyond that point. They don't want to even allow an attempt to prove innocence, they just want to declare people part of the out-group and then have consequences follow. Yet these are the same people who talk about diversity and multiculturalism... idiocy is probably too kind of a word.

Third, you might want to start asking yourself why leftists and progressives are the ones who routinely fall into this cycle of behavior right now (stop the feeble histrionics about fascists etc.) and not the conservatives.