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Thursday’s Forum
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24 responses to “Thursday’s Forum”
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At -17.4 on RCP, Trump has the second-worst presidential approval ever recorded on or around Labor Day of a midterm year.
(We don’t have RCP before the 21st century, but we do have data from Gallup going back to Truman. Unfortunately, Gallup ended its presidential approval tracking poll earlier this year; so I don’t have an exact consistent point of comparison. I checked both when they were available.)
Who was #1? It was Harry Truman, who was 19 points underwater on Labor Day of 1946. His party went on to lose 55 seats in the House and 12 in the Senate.
Now, there isn’t any clear rule that the worse a president’s approval, the more seats his party loses. Obama’s approval on Labor Day 2010 was strikingly okay (dead-even on Gallup, just 3 points underwater on RCP), and that was one of the worst midterm years of the modern age. Biden in contrast was 12-13 points underwater on Labor Day 2022, and Dems suffered comparatively mild losses.
It’s not just Dobbs that explains the disparity. I looked at a bunch of bad midterm years historically—including Truman in 1950, Ford in 1974, Reagan in 1982, Clinton in 1994, Bush in 2006, and Trump in 2018–and there isn’t a discernible pattern, other than a general observation that negative approval ratings are never good news for the president’s party. It’s important to note that Trump’s approval right now is worse than it was in 2018 (-13 on RCP, -16 on Gallup).
There are always structural factors that need to be considered in any midterm cycle. In 2010 Dems were overextended, having picked up many red districts in the wave elections of 2006 and 2008. In fact a majority of the districts Republicans flipped in 2010 had voted for McCain two years earlier, which cuts against a narrative that the results reflected buyers remorse on the part of Obama voters.
In 2022, even before Dobbs some of the data-oriented pundits noted that Republicans had limited terrain for gains, due to there being relatively few Dems representing R-leaning districts. In 2020, just 7 districts, a historic low, simultaneously voted for Trump and a Dem for House.
Taken together with the uber-gerrymandering we saw this year, it makes sense that most forecasts have not shown Dems enjoying a wipeout in the House, even with the near-certainty they gain control. But Trump’s record-low approval needs to be taken into account. It’s the type of metric that could tear through these structural limitations.
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Apple released its folding smartphone yesterday, following their longstanding business strategy of waiting to see if a market is significant, then spending years evaluating the competitive products, while fine tuning and perfecting things before making their offering. It’s not for me. I’m a big guy with (literally) big pockets and so the largest non-folding smart phone fits just fine in my pocket so I don’t see any need to pay a $700 premium for a folding option), but I find this move fascinating nonetheless. I’m sure they will sell as well as anyone in the US and most of the rest of the world, but the real consumers of foldable phones is China, where they are super-popular, despite being priced out of most peoples reach. The Chinese bought more foldable phones last year than the rest of the world combined. Apple has somehow continued to do well in the Chinese market even without a foldable model, where other non-Chinese companies have seen serious declines, so I suspect that preserving that momentum was the main reason for them to finally act.
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Taken together with the uber-gerrymandering we saw this year, it makes sense that most forecasts have not shown Dems enjoying a wipeout in the House, even with the near-certainty they gain control.
It will be interesting to see how all the gerrymandering will impact who gets elected. There is increasing talk in Texas about how the gerrymander conducted may turn out to be a “dummymander”. Weakening solid Republican seats by moving their voters into fairly balanced district may just backfire.
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Supreme Court nixes Missouri GOP-friendly maps for midterm
The Supreme Court granted an emergency appeal from Missouri organizers on Thursday barring the use of Republican-friendly congressional maps in the November election.
Led by Richard von Glahn, the group proposed a statewide referendum before the redrawn maps could be used. But Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins fought the petition seeking to implement the gerrymandered map for the upcoming midterm election.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Donald Trump appointee, quashed an emergency appeal from Hoskins earlier this week, but a conflicting lower court ruling sent the case back to the Supreme Court.
In a brief order, the full court granted the referendum organizers’ emergency appeal. There were no noted dissents.
Like the undead, this issue keeps rising in Missouri.
Judge Kavanaugh nixed it the first time but a conservative District Judge revived it requiring the full court to put the stake back in to the undead issue.
My question is this: After the SC ruled, a US District Court judge revived it. Was this seen as a big defiant middle finger from the District Court Judge to the Supreme Court?
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I don’t think it was a “big defiant middle finger,” so much as a parlay between two competing cases.
The district judge was ruling on a different case. There are two active court cases on this issue, but both of them are about which lines to use. Shorthand, there’s the ballot initiative case and the individual candidate case. Kavanaugh’s original ruling was on the ballot initiative case, and the District court judge ruled on the candidate case.
It’s a sh!tshow. Missouri never should have done a mid-cycle redistricting, because this was all so very predictable.
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An update: the Missouri Secretary of State’s office has just issued a statement that reads:
“Following the United States Supreme Court’s stay, the only governing court order in effect is from the Missouri Supreme Court. In accordance with that order, my Office is directing local election authorities to use the 2022 congressional map.”
No word (or direction) on how this will work given the primary was held using the new lines. It’s probably only going to be a problem in instances where a candidate resided in a given district using the 2025 lines, but does not live in the district using the 2022 lines.
Fun times!
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Tomorrow is the 25th anniversary of the terrorist strikes in NYC, and I, for one, am already tired of it. In the days immediately after the attacks, our airwaves were filled again and again and again with images from the events. We were all saturated-supersaturated-with these pictures. Our national response was a moderately ineffective military attack in Afghanistan where I believe the Taliban still rules today and a smashing attack on Iraq, a country that had little to do with 9/11. Also, we had to endure flag-waving and chest-thumping by every self serving politician ever.
I understand and sympathize with those who suffered personal losses that day. Mourning is their right. Turning that into political posturing is distasteful.
I was about twenty on the 25th anniversary of the attacks on Pearl Harbor. I don’t recollect huge commemorations; yes, there were some events but nothing like we are experiencing.
I was watching a baseball game on my TV last night, and they had several self congratulatory messages about baseball’s response to the events. Please shut up!
Yes, we should have some dignified commemoration, but let’s stop this endless scab picking.-
On St. Vitus Day, June 15th, 1389 the Serbian army under Prince Lazar held back the invading Ottomans led by Sultan Murad I. Both armies were destroyed and both leaders killed.
The battleground in Kosovo became known as the Field of Blackbirds, due to the local wildlife feasting on the countless remains, and Prince Lazar became a martyr and a key part of the Serbian national identity — Serbs were victims who held back the Muslim hoard and saved Europe and Christianity.
It was celebrated throughout the ages, sometimes being incorporated into a more pan-Slavic myth. There’s a long history of how the stories and myths were seized by various groups, muddled further by events that coincided with that day, like the assassination of Franz Ferdinand or the Tito-Stalin split. A big complicated mess of different groups commemorating it and trying to use it for their own purposes.
Tito was notably not a big fan.
600 years later, this mythologized event would come up prominently in the resurgent Serbian nationalism that led to genocide in Bosnia and Kosovo.
So, yes, the celebration of 9/11 is just vile and will never lead to anything good.
Also, the Twin Towers were fucking ugly. An eyesore for each eye.
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Part of the reason making Kirk into a modern right-wing martyr failed is that his death divided the right. It’s part of what opened up, the far-right, anti-Trump, Nazi-adjacent faction we’ve been seeing over the past year, as it involves the idea that “they” had Kirk offed when he started questioning his support for Israel. While this take still presents him in a somewhat positive light, it depicts his widow as complicit and what’s left of TP-USA as compromised.
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Yay…(waves little tiny flag)…
Anthropic Says It Blocked Possible Efforts to Build Biological Weapons
In a new report, the A.I. start-up added that it could not determine if the research was legitimate or nefarious, leading the company to shut down the work.
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Ever since I cancelled Audible, I’ve been getting offers to resubscribe, First it was that I’m missing out, then a reduced rate, then a $5 credit for books, then a reduced rate for three months.
I ignored them all.
Until this week they offered one free month and one credit for new books. I accepted that. I can use up the credit and cancel, “keeping” the new book until Audible decides to revoke the rights to it, however they go about it. It’s still free.
BTW; Libro.FM claims they don’t suspend digital rights. They also let you download the files for any book you purchase.
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Last year (2 years ago?) I cancelled my HBO subscription and commented to the family that I would renew it after they started sending crazy offers (6 months free or reduced rate), but they never went there which, to be honest, surprised the heck out of me. OTOH, no one in the family asked about it, so I’ve save a boatload of money.
There are a few shows I’m interested in so at some point I’m going to the library and see what they have on dvd, and then dig up my dvd player that’s definitely around here somewhere…
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I need to use a bunch of Audible credits and cancel. They won’t let me pause my membership since I’ve done so once this year, so I think I will just “buy” a few of the most expensive books to cost them as much money as possible.
Spite is a powerful motivator.
I wonder how the backend contracts go. Do they pay publishers a lump sum or for each play. Probably best to just have my laptop playing them on repeat forever — quietly enough that I don’t have to hear.
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In his substack today, Dr. Krugman kills Bessnet’s attempts in one line: “…those efforts are failing with flying colors.”
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Oh my word.
“I am the house now … And you can bet against me if you want.”
What an ass.
The market guys in New York and London are going to very impressed, I’m sure.
Bond rates are rising globally, for a variety of reasons.
It’s likely, tbf, that Bessent’s moves have prevented a Japanese sell-off of US assets.But if he thinks he can hold down bond rates AND prop the dollar to prevent an inflation hit, he’s delulu.
Warsh at the Fed is obvs signalling higher rates due to inflation pressures, though being the Fed, likely after November.
Markets are pricing that in.
Capital costs are going north and that’s that.Question is: north enough to choke US consumer markets, business investment, the AI build boom, and bugger the US budget?
UK and European budgets are looking a bit queasy also.
Happy fun times are not on the schedule.
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Jen
I seriously doubt it will work, except among the true die-hards.
Because by November the obvious inflation impact is going to be clear and ongoing, and even if the Fed does not raise rates, the market will and Fed be damned.
And even among MAGA the Iran war and its consequences are about as popular as herpes.Maybe we can avoid a real crash till winter, but it’s going to be clear to most sentient that he economy is not rosy.
The obvs Trumpian play of “everything was fine till the Dems won!” might get some ex post facto traction.
But enough to get JD and the GoP in power in 2028?
Dubious.
