2022 Midterm Election MEGATHREAD

[Josquius]

Surely if any Dem is going to support the Trumpies she's got to be amongst the top 5 least likely candidates?

[The Minsky Moment]

I am not sure if this is the right thread for this. I am also not sure if AOC should need a lame excuse for talking to people who want to see her dead, but as far as lame excuses go this seems pretty lame. "Factchecking?"

Not sure why she needs an excuse to talk to a fellow member of Congress, that is part of the ordinary way the House operates.

Yeah I'd think the same but the ultra-lame excuse raised my suspicion that she was up to some trickery she wanted to keep hush-hush.

Pretty obvious she is egging them on to keep screwing up the GOP caucus.

[The Brain]

Egging them on what? TV?

[The Minsky Moment]

Encouraging them to keep fighting the McCarthy vote by telling them that Democrats won't cross over and undermine their little rebellion.

[The Brain]

Grown-ups are boring.

[The Minsky Moment]

Grown-ups are boring.

Halloween themed puns are so 3 months ago.

[Valmy]

What I see emerging is a Fidesz like GOP, that actually does care about passing legislation, but is still fairly antidemocratic. If you look at some of the things Josh Hawley and the people around him have been pushing, it is very much a move towards a "socially conservative, economically liberal" party. It will be ironic when/if this occurs (and I think that is the direction it is going), because much of our current trouble can be traced to the astroturfing by libertarian billionaires who helped build the early Tea Party. But I can't think of anything more on life support in the GOP than libertarian principles. It used to be you could just argue the GOP often gave their views short shrift, but a significant number of modern Republicans are actively antithetical to libertarian principles.

One thing that Trump did in 2016 was destroy the consensus around free trade and neo-liberal policies in the Democratic Party. Clearly the idea that you take on these policies to gain moderate voters to win elections for the Democrats was discredited by Trump being able to outflank them to the left with populist notions. Hawley certainly represents this kind of populist left wing economics combined with right wing social ideas (to the point where he teamed up with Bernie Sanders to get direct stimulus checks sent out in 2020). Certainly this has sent centrist Joe Biden and the rest of the Democratic establishment leftwards since 2016. But are the Republicans really coalescing around Hawley? And I have noticed that since the Democrats have regained power Hawley hasn't seemed to be in favor of populist ideas when there isn't a Republican President. But it isn't like I have my finger on the pulse of him and his supporters or know what Republicans are talking about for the most part.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I perceive the GOP to be moving more right-populist, anti-free trade, pro-economic interventionist yes. It's still a big coalition party with a lot of moving pieces, but I see poor prognosis for the Koch Brothers / Libertarian wing--the issue is they have nothing to offer to the new base, who are predominantly blue collar guys who like the idea of shutting down trade with China and Mexico, ideas that the libertarians abhor.

[Valmy]

Trump decisively killed free-trade for a long time. The fact that union voters and workers were lining up behind him for trade wars spooked the Democrats big time.

So it amazed me how Libertarian types were singing his praises despite the fact he represented a decisive blow against their few mainstream policies.

[Sheilbh]

I perceive the GOP to be moving more right-populist, anti-free trade, pro-economic interventionist yes. It's still a big coalition party with a lot of moving pieces, but I see poor prognosis for the Koch Brothers / Libertarian wing--the issue is they have nothing to offer to the new base, who are predominantly blue collar guys who like the idea of shutting down trade with China and Mexico, ideas that the libertarians abhor.

Maybe. I think in terms of policies the GOP have not delivered much in the way of interventionism, while they have delivered tax cuts and judges who want to gut the regulatory state. I think libertarians will absolutely bank that gain.

I think Trump is important as marking a new bipartisan consensus that emerges after 2016 that the US is in real competition with China. So free trade gets entangled into national security, plus emerging industrial interests in the US. I'm not sure how I'd describe Trump's role but I think 2016 is an important shift - I also think that new consensus is correct. Some purist libertarians may get very upset about that - but many of the multi-billionaire rich wing of the GOP will just get involved in benefiting from those subsidies and tax breaks.

I think the GOP is moving at the level of style and rhetoric. I've not really seen much of a sign that they're actually shifting in terms of policy - with the possible exception of DeSantis and Disney. Possibly becaue that's what I think of DeSantis, I think the shift in policy that I think is more likely is not that the GOP becomes economically more left-wing, but that they go in the direction of using the state's subsidies, tax credits, regulatory power etc in order to force certain cultural values.

And I have noticed that since the Democrats have regained power Hawley hasn't seemed to be in favor of populist ideas when there isn't a Republican President. But it isn't like I have my finger on the pulse of him and his supporters or know what Republicans are talking about for the most part.

He was, with Sanders, one of the Senators who voted against imposing a contract on railway workers.

[Valmy]

He was, with Sanders, one of the Senators who voted against imposing a contract on railway workers.

Gotcha but in opposition to Biden 

Pro-Union anti-management Republicans. Corporate America's biggest nightmare.

But even so I don't see the other Republicans uniting behind Hawley on this kind of thing.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Hawley isn't alone, maybe just the most prominent Senator of this ilk. I think Sheilbh brings up a good point about judges--the judges of the Federalist society are definitely in the libertarian wing of the party; but interestingly there is a new legal philosophy some of the Hawley-type conservatives are promoting called "common good constitutionalism", which basically says instead of looking at original intent you look at what is "good for America", it's really squishy and mostly means bad things--like applying a strongly Christian ethical analysis on many decisions, but it is largely against a Lochner court style consensus of government being weakened in its ability to regulate the economy.

And as for not delivering any real key work yet--it takes a big groundswell of support in the party to start setting the agenda. For example the social conservatives didn't just emerge in 2018 and start dominating the judiciary and state governments, that project dates back to the 1980s, and it took decades to build up the framework for it.

[DGuller]

Trump decisively killed free-trade for a long time. The fact that union voters and workers were lining up behind him for trade wars spooked the Democrats big time.

So it amazed me how Libertarian types were singing his praises despite the fact he represented a decisive blow against their few mainstream policies.

Libertarians, just like evangelicals, are far less principled than they were given credit for.  A lot of them hate the government because it protects the people against non-government coercion that they favor.

[Jacob]

Libertarians, just like evangelicals, are far less principled than they were given credit for.  A lot of them hate the government because it protects the people against non-government coercion that they favor.

My impression of modern day libertarians is that their ideology is constructed mostly on a combination of "I'm against any rules applied to me, I should be able to do what I want" and "I'll embrace any philosophical sounding rationale for having zero empathy for others", while still getting indignant about things that are inconvenient or harmful to themselves.

[Zanza]

My impression of modern day libertarians is that their ideology is constructed mostly on a combination of "I'm against any rules applied to me, I should be able to do what I want" and "I'll embrace any philosophical sounding rationale for having zero empathy for others", while still getting indignant about things that are inconvenient or harmful to themselves.

Good description, fits my view. But that's actually a broad social trend, not just people that subscribe to libertarian movements.