Gop Attacking College Towns and Losing Badly

[Gunnar]

‘This Is a Really Big Deal’: How College Towns Are Decimating the GOP

MADISON, Wisconsin — Spring elections in Wisconsin are typically low turnout affairs, but in April, with the nation watching the state’s bitterly contested Supreme Court race, voters turned out in record-breaking numbers.

No place was more energized to vote than Dane County, the state’s second-most populous county after Milwaukee. It’s long been a progressive stronghold thanks to the double influence of Madison, the state capital, and the University of Wisconsin, but this was something else. Turnout in Dane was higher than anywhere else in the state. And the Democratic margin of victory that delivered control of the nonpartisan court to liberals was even more lopsided than usual — and bigger than in any of the state’s other 71 counties.

The margin was so big that it changed the state’s electoral formula. Under the state’s traditional political math, Milwaukee and Dane — Wisconsin’s two Democratic strongholds — are counterbalanced by the populous Republican suburbs surrounding Milwaukee. The rest of the state typically delivers the decisive margin in statewide races. The Supreme Court results blew up that model. Dane County alone is now so dominant that it overwhelms the Milwaukee suburbs (which have begun trending leftward anyway). In effect, Dane has become a Republican-killing Death Star.

“This is a really big deal,” said Mark Graul, a Republican strategist who ran George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign in Wisconsin. “What Democrats are doing in Dane County is truly making it impossible for Republicans to win a statewide race.”

And if you read the rest of the article, you will see that this is a growing trend, not just in Wisconsin, but in other "swing states" and even in some traditionally red states as well.

There is a sharp difference between how Democrats and progressives aim to win future elections. Their strategy is to promote policies that actually appeal to a majority of voters, so they can legitimately win elections. The current, predominant strategy of Republicans (at least the Trumpist MAGA variety) is to suppress voting turnout (especially by minorities or non-Republicans) and pass legislation that allows Republican-controlled state legislatures to blatantly overturn election results that are not in their favor. It appears that Republicans have concluded that they cannot reliably win elections anymore without cheating.

[ajax18]

Democracy has never been any better than 3 wolves and sheep voting on what to have for dinner. Being popular doesn't make a policy right.

[Gunnar]

Democracy has never been any better than 3 wolves and sheep voting on what to have for dinner. Being popular doesn't make a policy right.

So, you actually agree with the notion that a conservative majority legislature should have the right and power to overturn any election results they don't like, no matter how great the majority vote against them? What about a progressive or liberal majority legislature? Why should either liberals or conservatives have that much power?

You seem to think that single, bullying sheep dictating to the majority what everyone else is allowed to or must eat is somehow better!

Honoring minority rights is only right and just, but it often seems that when conservatives talk about minority rights, they almost always manage to convey the impression that they think that the rights of their own particular minority should always take precedence over majority rights, whenever there is a conflict between the two!

I agree that it is not impossible for majority opinion to be sometimes mistaken, but the only cure for that is a well-informed and well-educated public free and willing to honestly and critically consider the available evidence and all sides of the issues, and committed to changing their minds when warranted by better or more complete evidence. Even you must realize that an honest and well-informed majority is far more likely to be right or to eventually arrive at the truth than a doctrinaire, militant and authoritarian minority that adamantly refuses to even seriously consider any points of view other than their own. There are innumerable mutually contradictory, minority opinions about any given subject or policy. At most, only one of them can be completely right, and the odds are that very few (or even none of them) are better than a well-informed, majority consensus.

[ajax18]

I agree that it is not impossible for majority opinion to be sometimes mistaken, but the only cure for that is a well-informed and well-educated public free and willing to honestly and critically consider the available evidence and all sides of the issues, and committed to changing their minds when warranted by better or more complete evidence.

You would have to have freedom of the press and respect the 1st amendment to have that. The Democratic party controls what is on social media and would like to control what is reported in conservative cable news. The Democrat run FBI controls what the public knows by selectively leaking.

[Brack]

‘This Is a Really Big Deal’: How College Towns Are Decimating the GOP

MADISON, Wisconsin — Spring elections in Wisconsin are typically low turnout affairs, but in April, with the nation watching the state’s bitterly contested Supreme Court race, voters turned out in record-breaking numbers.

No place was more energized to vote than Dane County, the state’s second-most populous county after Milwaukee. It’s long been a progressive stronghold thanks to the double influence of Madison, the state capital, and the University of Wisconsin, but this was something else. Turnout in Dane was higher than anywhere else in the state. And the Democratic margin of victory that delivered control of the nonpartisan court to liberals was even more lopsided than usual — and bigger than in any of the state’s other 71 counties.

The margin was so big that it changed the state’s electoral formula. Under the state’s traditional political math, Milwaukee and Dane — Wisconsin’s two Democratic strongholds — are counterbalanced by the populous Republican suburbs surrounding Milwaukee. The rest of the state typically delivers the decisive margin in statewide races. The Supreme Court results blew up that model. Dane County alone is now so dominant that it overwhelms the Milwaukee suburbs (which have begun trending leftward anyway). In effect, Dane has become a Republican-killing Death Star.

“This is a really big deal,” said Mark Graul, a Republican strategist who ran George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign in Wisconsin. “What Democrats are doing in Dane County is truly making it impossible for Republicans to win a statewide race.”

And if you read the rest of the article, you will see that this is a growing trend, not just in Wisconsin, but in other "swing states" and even in some traditionally red states as well.

There is a sharp difference between how Democrats and progressives aim to win future elections. Their strategy is to promote policies that actually appeal to a majority of voters, so they can legitimately win elections. The current, predominant strategy of Republicans (at least the Trumpist MAGA variety) is to suppress voting turnout (especially by minorities or non-Republicans) and pass legislation that allows Republican-controlled state legislatures to blatantly overturn election results that are not in their favor. It appears that Republicans have concluded that they cannot reliably win elections anymore without cheating.

I like how that article mentioned Pima County within Arizona here.

Among them: the University of Arizona’s Pima County, which has seen Democratic presidential margins grow by nearly 75,000 votes since 2000.

State Republicans and Kari Lake like to complain about Maricopa County, but they seem oblivious to how much more Democratic-leaning Pima County has become over the last several years in this state.

Pima County:
2016 Clinton +13.6%
2018 Sinema +15.54%
2020 Biden +18.62%
2020 Kelly +19.71%
2022 Hobbs +21.12%

[Bond]

Travis Co. Texas, home of Austin and the U. of Texas at Austin, went from voting 46-41% for GWBush in 2000 to 71-26% for Biden, opening a margin of nearly 270k votes in the meantime. Republicans won't hold up in Texas as their rural population shrinks or stagnates while urban and suburban areas explode and fly leftward. Travis Co. went from 800k to 1.3k between 2000 and 2020. Democrats should win Texas by 2032.

[Res Ipsa]

I agree that it is not impossible for majority opinion to be sometimes mistaken, but the only cure for that is a well-informed and well-educated public free and willing to honestly and critically consider the available evidence and all sides of the issues, and committed to changing their minds when warranted by better or more complete evidence.

You would have to have freedom of the press and respect the 1st amendment to have that. The Democratic party controls what is on social media and would like to control what is reported in conservative cable news. The Democrat run FBI controls what the public knows by selectively leaking.

OMG! Elon Musk sold Twitter to the Democratic Party???

[Gunnar]

I agree that it is not impossible for majority opinion to be sometimes mistaken, but the only cure for that is a well-informed and well-educated public free and willing to honestly and critically consider the available evidence and all sides of the issues, and committed to changing their minds when warranted by better or more complete evidence.

You would have to have freedom of the press and respect the 1st amendment to have that. The Democratic party controls what is on social media and would like to control what is reported in conservative cable news. The Democrat run FBI controls what the public knows by selectively leaking.

No one is more antagonistic towards freedom of the press than current, hard right Republicans--especially the cult-like MAGA types. Republican would-be despots like DeSantis are the ones trying to ban books and white-wash American history to cover up problematic aspects of past bigotry and racism--not Democrats. Republicans are the ones trying to limit or ban open, honest discussion about LGBT rights, environmental issues, the reality of anthropogenic climate change, etc. Recall that from the beginning, Trump proclaimed the free press as "the enemy of the people" or the state, a tactic right out of the Nazi and fascist playbooks, a blatant attempt to "poison the well" against any possible attempts to expose real and future attempts at wrongdoing and corruption on their part. Certainly, freedom of the press is currently not in great jeopardy in our country, especially compared to China, Russia and North Korea, where one can be subjected to long prison terms and even execution for saying or printing something the current leader doesn't like. It is glaringly obvious that in this country we are free to say or print virtually anything we like, whether truthful or not with virtually no fear of legal repercussions, except for the most blatant and obvious slander (and sometimes not even that!). We have virtually unlimited access to a wide spectrum of political opinion and comment from a profligacy of news sources from the most extreme liberal to the most conservative, the most honest to the most dishonest. So don't try to delude yourself that your constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech is in significant jeopardy from anyone other than hard right Republicans, like DeSantis.