Tom Clancy’s US Politics Thread

It's well underway already. Just localised.

The thing that’s resoundingly clear now is that Trump is done as the kingmaker. The sheer underperformance of the GOP tonight can almost solely be placed on him, nearly every candidate he backed lost, every candidate he didn’t surged, and you can fully expect right wing media to absolutely throw their weight at DeSantis 2024 starting pretty much immediately.

There’s also been a wholesale rejection of Dobbs. 5 states had it on the ballot to enshrine Roe into the state constitution, and all 5 passed handily. If the Dems do still pull off the unexpected and retain both the house and senate, then it’ll be codified federally.

Even if that doesn’t happen tonight, there’s been a fairly profound shift nearly across the board. Florida and Texas are garbage, but practically everywhere else that counts is now decidedly in play for 2024, and the GOP are hanging on by gerrymandering alone - and crucially in most places so far they haven’t retained the state races to keep that going. Not fully out of the woods yet but this has been an absolutely massive night for Biden.

What would it take to make Puerto Rico a state?

Majority/supermajority in both houses and that's it?

The first step is up to Puerto Rico itself, they need a binding vote to adopt a constitution ahead of submitting to Congress to become a state, and then it’s a simple majority vote.

DC has already done the first part too, so if things do continue to go the Dems’ way, it’s a safe bet that may happen soon, especially after Lindsay Graham’s recent comments that it and Puerto Rico would “dilute” the R’s power (read - too many non-white liberals)

Another thing this has shown is that pre election polls are absolutely worthless. Given they’re still handled through phone calls and door knocking, and that most people under 30 would rather slice off their own face than answer a phone or door knock, it becomes more and more irrelevant.

"We have yet to see whether some of the more controversial candidates endorsed by Mr Trump can win.

In a TV interview with NewsNation, he said: "Well, I think if they win, I should get all the credit, And if they lose, I should not be blamed at all.""

This is a bit on the nose even for him.

glol. Also love that he's announced he has 'compromising material' on 'Ron DeSanctimonious'

Trump won't run as an independent - it's a guaranteed loss and a dream scenario for Democrats.

He'll do a Bojo and withdraw if the weight gets put behind DeSantis.

I agree this is likely, but he is holding all the GOP grassroots donations (didn’t Rafa ‘Ted’ Cruz say $100,000,000) and show me one time he’s acted in the interests of ‘his’ party when they didn’t align with his own?

Eh, I can dream.

The best dream.

I too watched John Oliver, but I tend to find he's peddling outrage to some degree nowadays.

I feel like this was said in a snarky 'akshully' voice.

Even with that though, US politics is so gridlocked that GOP taking the House is enough to block Biden’s agenda. Checks and balances my arse, more like paralysis where one side doesn’t give a shit about the rules and both sides are utterly beholden to their lobbyist funding.

I don’t think the house matters that much in this cycle imo. There’s enough that the senate and executive can do to carve off some of the bigger issues like the economy, should the GOP retake the house it’s going to be by such a slim minority that none of their plans for impeachment and so on will take off. The only big hurdle would be if a Supreme Court position opens up. There’s also additional mitigation options available to them like DC statehood. They’ve staved off enough state government stuff that gerrymandering shouldn’t be an issue for 2024, so really all they need to do is hope the economy doesn’t go south and that the GOP don’t find new momentum in a post-Trump world (and let’s face it, he’s more likely to bring the party down with him, kicking and screaming all the way), and 2024 should be a wash, especially if they don’t field Biden again - he’s had a spectacular second year after a terrible first, but he’s just too damn old.