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theliberaltony · 4 years

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

In 2019, Barack Obama and Donald Trump were America’s most-admired men.

Which is just one reason why Obama’s endorsement of Joe Biden this week was billed as a momentous political event. Obama is a divisive figure — could the first black president in a country like America have ever been anything but? — but he’s the last Democrat to cobble together a winning coalition. He motivated a massive turnout of black voters, played on his pop cultural cache to excite millennials and persuaded upper Midwestern whites to support him.

At its core, Biden’s candidacy is premised on restoring that halcyon Obama era — electorally as much as politically. That’s why Obama will be key to Biden’s success, perhaps more so than any other campaign surrogate in the modern era. The former vice president, while respected, was seen as a weak candidate until his blowout primary victory in South Carolina. Yet the support of those who helped him win that race — black Democrats — is premised largely on his having served under Obama. Biden has yet to crack the nut of gaining sufficient support from white Obama-Trump voters in key states, and his campaign is at an unprecedented stand-still, as at least 28,000 Americans have perished in a pandemic that threatens to overshadow the next months, if not years, of the nation’s life.

Obama, possessed of an almost preternatural equanimity, could be a comfort to Americans as an unsettling presidential campaign plays out. There’s one question that looms large, though: Are Obama’s political powers in 2020 the same as they once were?

The former president retains great political assets. His average approval rating in 2009, the first year of his presidency, which was dominated by the Great Recession, was 56.5 percent, and while it dipped into the 40s for much of his tenure, Obama’s post-presidential approval numbers have been strong. Gallup’s first retrospective job approval rating for Obama in 2018 — a barometer for how his presidential legacy was faring — was 63 percent. An average of YouGov polling collected between February 2019 and February 2020 found that 55 percent of Americans have a positive opinion of Obama. That’s higher than Biden’s approval in polling averages, which is about 45.7 percent, according to RealClearPolitics. Obama also outpaces Trump, who is currently at a 44.1 percent approval rate, according to the FiveThirtyEight tracker. A popular surrogate at his side during a time of crisis should be nothing but a boon to Biden.

Obama’s specific appeal to demographics that turned out in lower numbers during the 2016 election could be another way that he helps his former vice president. Democrats’ narrow loss in 2016 could have been due to any number of factors, but some have pointed to decreased black turnout in key states as a potential culprit. While Biden has done well with black voters already — his win in the South Carolina primary propelled him to the nomination — Obama’s presence will likely continue to help him. The same goes for young voters. While Biden, by dint of being a Democrat, is likely to do well with the youth vote, he struggled with the demographic during the primary. Obama’s presence on the campaign trail — even a virtual one — could be the youthful tonic that Biden needs, after the reputational hit he’s taken with left-leaning millennial and Gen Z voters.

Biden’s ultimate test, though, will be whether he can win back the largely white Obama-Trump voters in the general election, and it’s unclear whether even Obama himself can help him do that.

Obama’s presidency accelerated a political realignment that came to define the 2016 election: whites without a college education making an exodus out of the Democratic Party. States with large populations of these white voters, like Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania, which Obama counted as key to his winning coalitions, slipped away from Clinton. In 2008, roughly half of non-college-educated white people identified as Democrats, and half identified as Republican. By 2015, only a third were Democratic-leaning.

Gallup data shows that Obama’s approval ratings with whites nose-dived over the course of his presidency: In January 2009, 63 percent of whites approved of him, but only 47 percent did by January 2017, when he left office. Biden, who has long played up his “middle class Joe” persona, is not yet faring well with the kind of middle-class white voters his candidacy is premised on winning back. A recent analysis from Nate Cohn at the New York Times shows that Biden doesn’t have a wide lead in key states that swung the election in 2016 — his margin over Trump in states packed with Obama-Trump voters, like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan, ranges from 1 to 4 points, according to the analysis.

That not even Biden has won over these voters could start to smart for some Democrats, especially since the party put forth its most diverse field of primary candidates only to nominate an older, white man. Finding relative political safety in a white nominee, however, was long in the making. In 2017, I wrote about a newly prominent group of young, white male politicians whose political resumes and communication styles reeked of Obama-imitation. They had all of the hallmarks of the former president — type-A discipline, good resumes and relatively moderate politics — but of course, they were all white. They were less likely, perhaps, to spook moderate white voters who had come to resent the party of the first black president.

In some ways, Biden is the ultimate “white Obama” candidate — a white, male Democrat trying to ride the former president’s “hope and change” coattails, but also put the traditional white American male face to the presidency. Much remains fluid about the 2020 election, including what form campaigning and voting will even take, so it’s hard to say if Obama’s resurging presence in the news during a time of crisis — which might very well extend into the high campaign season of the fall — could remind Obama-Trump voters what they liked about him (and Biden by extension) to begin with.

But that’s a big ��if.” America, which has ridden an emotional political roller coaster for the past four years, seems to be only approaching the apex of another steep peak on the ride. The next seven months remain largely uncertain, but, queasily, seem to promise only one thing for sure: a terrifying ride. It’s anyone’s guess if Obama, a figure from our calmer past, will have the power to soothe and motivate key voters in our uncertain times.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Clare Malone

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voltron-s7-8-rewrite · 5 years

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Lions' Pride, Part 1

This is part of my Voltron Season 7 & 8 re-write. If you are interested start HERE

The two Paladin teams successfully deactivate the weapons systems on the Zaiforge cannons that they infiltrated. However, in the time it took to complete that task, the cannons were launched and already made it into space.

The four cannons that the MFE and Lion's attacked were damaged, but are still operational. The Paladins contact the Garrison and let them know they are going after the other cannons in their Lions.

Krolia takes her ship back to the Garrison as the Paladins pull Keith's signature move -launching themselves into space as their Lions come to collect them.

Once in, the Paladins begin attacking the remaining cannons, however they soon find themselves under fire, as the cannon's launch bases double as defences for the cannons. The MFE's see this, and thanks to the Faunatonium upgrade Coran made to their ships, they have the power to attack the bases for the Paladins.

__________

Seeing his weapons attacked on all sides, Sendak tries to divert the Paladin's and MFE's attentions by ordering his main fleet to attack the Garrison.

As Krolia returns from the canon, she sees his fleet on course to the Garrison.

__________

Arriving back to the Garrison, Krolia warns them about the ships heading their way.

Realizing they can't hold out on the ground anymore, Shiro, Coran, and Sam quickly try to figure out a way to get the Atlas flying. Their only option is to use the power from the shield generator, which would leave them vulnerable. Sanda orders them to do it, and prays it will work.

__________

The Garrison's shields go down, and Sendak's ship takes this chance to attack, however, the MFE's return from taking down the last of the bases, and begin to engage his forces.

__________

Even using all the power the Garrison has to offer still isn't enough to get The Atlas flying. Sam offhandedly says that at this rate it would take the power of a black hole to get it working. His statement causes Coran to remember the crystal that was formed from the Castle of Lions, and with pride, places the last piece of the ship his grandfather built into The Atlas' crystal chamber.

With that The Atlas bursts to life; as the systems all come online, Shiro orders the surrounding officers to their stations and tasks, but quickly realizes Sanda is there and apologizes for overstepping his authority and hands the bridge over to her.

Sanda smirks and tells the officers to do exactly what Shiro said, as his commands were made with good judgment. She and Shiro share a nod of respect, then she gives the command for the Atlas to take off.

__________

The Paladins, seeing The Atlas launch, victioursly cheer. The triumph of The Atlas gives them all a second wind as Keith encourages the others to quickly finish bringing the cannons down so they can help their friends.

__________

The Atlas and MFEs engage Sendak's forces together. Sendak's forces sends out their fighters that the MFEs target, as The Atlas attacks the larger ships.

As the battle rages on, Shiro asks Krolia if there is any way they could infiltrate Sendak's ship and take the canons down from there. Krolia says she believes it would be possible, and Shiro asks her to take him over.

Sanda, listening to their conversation, cuts in and tells him that she will go with Krolia instead. Shiro argues that she is needed to command The Atlas, but Sanda says The Atlas needs it's real commander, and that is clearly meant to be Shiro. He is dumbfounded, but she tells him how she's been observing him since their return, and has seen that as he is respected and accepted by both the Paladins and Earth's forces. He's the only one capable to command The Atlas and bring both sides of the coalition together.

To the delight of those on the Bridge, Sanda promotes Shiro to Captain of the Atlas, and to a high position in the Garrison. Shiro is taken back, but realizes this the purpose he's been looking for since he left the Black Lion. He thanks her and accepts the role.

Shiro steps up to the command console as Sanda steps down. Iverson asks for his orders, and with a smile Shiro starts giving commands as Sanda and Krolia head out.

__________

Flying over in Krolia's fighter, she and Sanda are able to get into Sendak's ship without a problem, however, as they land, sentries approach. Not wasting time, Krolia leaps from the ship and takes them all down in several quick moves. Shocked by her abilities, Sanda gets out and tells Krolia that she's glad she's on their side. Krolia smiles, and leads her through the ship.

Avoiding the sentries, the two find the crystal and place charges on it. Not wanting to wait around, they start heading back to their ship, the explosives going off as they run.

The bombs do the trick and the crystal is destroyed, shutting the ship, and even more importantly, the cannons down.

However, the explosion draws the attention of Sendak's soldiers, who spot Krolia and Sanda escaping. The sentries and soldiers begin firing on them as they flee. The two women don't waste time in staying to fight, instead, shooting what they can as they go.

Their luck runs out as one of the Galran soldier's shots hits Sanda. Krolia stops and runs back, taking the soldier out, before going and grabbing the wounded Sanda.

Krolia gets them both back to their fighter, and flies them out of Sendak's ship. Placing her ship on auto pilot, Krolia goes to Sanda and looks the wound over. Sanda can see on Krolia's face that she's not going to make it. Krolia tries to tell her to hold on, but Sanda says it's alright, she accepted this was a possibility when she decided to go.

Krolia offers her hand to hold for comfort, and Sanda accepts it with a smile. She says she doesn't think anyone has thanked Krolia for all she sacrificed in order to protect Earth. She says she recognizes the weight of the choice Krolia made and thanks her for protecting their home. She asks her to continue protecting it, and Krolia promises that she will.

Sanda passes away as the ship docks in The Atlas.

__________

With Sendak's ship and cannon's powered down, the Paladins form Voltron and destroy the cannons first, before quickly taking down the rest of Sendak's fleet.

With Sendak's lone battle cruiser remaining, Voltron and The Atlas face it head on. After all the pain, suffering, and terror Sendak inflicted upon the Paladins, their people, their home, and the rest of the universe, the time for justice has come.

Shiro gives the order to fire.

From his bridge, Sendak shouts in rage and defeat as Voltron and The Atlas unleash all they have on his cruiser, annihilating it, and him from the universe.

__________

Joyous over their victory, and Earth's freedom, Lions disengage from each other as they return to the planet's surface to land.

Exhausted, but euphoric, the Paladins call to The Atlas for an update on how they are doing. However, an object bursts through the atmosphere and crashes into the ground before them.

Shocked and confused, The Atlas comms the Paladins and asks what that was, as their scanners are going haywire, unable to make out what it is.

As the dust clears the Paladins stare in horror as the Robeast that destroyed Olkarion slowly stands.

Notes:

So, while I wasn't trying to completely change people's minds on the canon Sanda, hopefully my version was more tolerable for you all.

I wanted her to be more like a real character, and not just a clichéd antagonistic force to fill a roll. Here she is an active hero, who died a heroic death while doing all she can for the good of her people and universe, and embracing others who have done the same.

I really think this character could have had some great potential to have been heroic, and gone out in a way that would have made viewers feel an impact. But as it is in the show, I sure didn't feel anything towards her, 'Eh, guess she redeemed herself' death.

Now, as for Shiro and The Atlas.

Like I said in my notes for S7E1&2, I do know a lot of people wanted Shiro back as Black Paladin, and saw his role with The Atlas as a demotion. While I completely understand how the story, as it is in canon, gives that feeling, it shouldn't have. I think the problem with it and why it gives that feeling is because of the way his promotion was handled, and then how his relationship to the others diminished and became unnatural in the last two seasons.

See, pre-Kerberos Shiro had been devalued by Sanda and the Garrison due to his illness. They didn't believe in his abilities, instead only saw his disability. They wanted to hold him back from his desires, and then when things went wrong, they used him as their scapegoat.

Having the Garrison -and in my version- Sanda herself, see all the worth they had been blind to before, and promote him to both Captain of The Atlas and a leader in the Garrison should not be a demotion, but actually an exclamation point on his story.

The people who once tried to hold him back and use him, saw the error of their ways, and then choose him to be the one they would listen to and follow. That's a big deal!

I think the thing season 7 and, especially 8 failed to do with Shiro was show how VITAL he is to both the Paladins and the Garrison. That he is the bridge that could bring both sides together in order to become a working unit.

You see people joke about Shiro being "Space Dad" to the Paladins, and it's really kind of true. While he literally did raise one of them, he was a mentor to them all. He laid the foundation for them to become the team they are now.

The Paladins are now out from under his wings and on their own, their path set right due to his guidance. Having him go back to being the Black Paladin would be saying that he didn't lead and guide them well enough the first time.

Instead of having that kind of regression, we get to see that he continues that mentor role that he loves, but on an even bigger level. He, Takashi Shirogane, is the one who will guide Humanity as it takes its first steps into the bigger universe.

That's pretty freaking awesome.

Aside from that; rather then a huge, completely impossible, and absolutely ridiculous fight on the outside of a ship that's burning its way through the atmosphere, The Paladins and Atlas just blow Sendak out of existence.

Yeah, it's not as 'cool' as a one on one fight between Shiro and Sendak, but it's not like Shiro got to take him out anyhow. Besides, while Sendak was certainly an adversary for Shiro, I don't agree with the whole "Sendak was Shiro's archnemesis and Shiro should have taken him out!" mindset.

The guy terrorized all the Paladins. Yes, he tortured and tormented Shiro, but his attack on the castle also nearly killed Lance, he invaded and corrupted Allura and Coran's home, leading to the death/destruction of the last remnants of Alfor, he used innocent people and the Paladins themselves against each other, and that's just some of the things he did in S1E6 & 7. We're not even getting into what he did while leading 'The Fire of Purification' in a spree of terror and subjugation across the Earth and the Galaxy at large.

To me, everyone had a right to take a piece out of him. So, both Voltron and The Atlas get to take part in taking him out.

Thanks for reading, have a great day!

#voltron #takashi shirogane #krolia #keith voltron #Allura #lance mcclain #hunk voltron #voltron pidge #MyVoltronSeasonSummary #mywritings

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claremal-one · 4 years

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How Much Can Obama Help Biden In 2020?

In 2019, Barack Obama and Donald Trump were America’s most-admired men.

Biden’s ultimate test, though, will be whether he can win back the largely white Obama-Trump voters in the general election, and it’s unclear whether even Obama himself can help him do that.

But that’s a big “if.” America, which has ridden an emotional political roller coaster for the past four years, seems to be only approaching the apex of another steep peak on the ride. The next seven months remain largely uncertain, but, queasily, seem to promise only one thing for sure: a terrifying ride. It’s anyone’s guess if Obama, a figure from our calmer past, will have the power to soothe and motivate key voters in our uncertain times.

from Clare Malone – FiveThirtyEight https://ift.tt/34HuDRL via https://ift.tt/1B8lJZR

#clare malone #clarethings

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thedailymonty-blog · 7 years

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Let’s take a look at U.S. taxes vs Swedish taxes.

Read the link below and take a look at his six reasons the Swedish tax system is great while ours is dumb. http://www.vox.com/2016/4/8/11380356/swedish-taxes-love I almost want to go in swinging but it’s a decent enough article so I guess I’ll start with the part I liked. 2. Tax forms come already filled out and 5. We get cash instead of deductions See how these link together? They don’t have to do our complicated bullshit with deductions because they get the money up-front where we’d get a refund, and so the tax documents are simple enough that the average citizen only needs to do minor deductions. I think item two could be implemented for 1040EZs even without item five, but item five is a great idea. The best part is this: we already have an agency that can take care of things like that! The IRS! And we can handle it step by step! The IRS could gradually go from being the monolithic mass of accountants, audit lawyers, and data entry clerks that it is to being a slightly-less-monolithic mass of accountants, audit lawyers, fraud lawyers, rebate clerks, and data entry clerks. This doesn’t sound like a big change but checking rebates for fraud is way easier than going after year after year of taxes to find something, so not only would we have a better system, but we’d be better at finding people who try to cheat that system. Seriously, this is such a good idea that I might dedicate my life to it. 4. Sales taxes in Sweden are higher — but less noticeable and 3. There is no property tax I promise you that the people notice when the sales tax goes up, even in Sweden... But, the basic idea that prices at the store should include sales tax when you see them on the shelves is a nice one, and it’s an easy enough law to write. So, Hell, I’m for that part! And, yes, U.S. property taxes are high, but we need a way for cities to pay for necessary services. Maybe these “less noticeable” sales taxes would work. But the sales tax is considered to be a tax that affects the lower classes more, while the property tax is considered to be a tax that affects the upper classes more, so... Uh... It’s worth pointing out the irony of this though: you have a writer for Vox (a liberal site) favorably comparing a European country to America (a liberal pass-time), and two of his items combined would make any liberal scream: raising a regressive tax to lower a progressive tax. This guy better find a Democrat to suggest that stuff, ‘cause if a Republican does it there’ll be a riot. But, I’m not necessarily against a plan to do this; it’s just that we have our high property taxes for a reason, and the reason is to help the little guy. I guess I’m fine with either on principle, though. Whatever. Let’s get to the areas where I disagree. 1. Swedish income taxes are not much higher than US taxes — but they give you an education This isn’t really a comment on our tax code, it’s about our spending. But, it does go to show why Americans are against high taxes: we pay all that money and get nothing for it. There’s a damn good reason for that, though! We don’t have as much of a budget for stuff like this because our money is going to our ridiculously over-sized military. I say that like it’s a bad thing, but the United States pays for 40% of the NATO Pact that protects twenty-seven other countries, including Sweden. But I should say 40% and rising! Not only because we’re thinking about including some of those new Baltic states and Georgia, but also because other members are cutting their contributions to pay for all that expensive quasi-socialist statecraft and their EU dues (but I repeat myself, ZING!). It’s a common enough criticism to say that we could just shrink our military, but it’s actually not that simple. The whole idea behind the Marshall Plan was, “You can rebuild economically while we defend you. Seriously, don’t break Europe again right after everyone just put the fires out guys.” That just sort of carried over into our current “world police” that defined our foreign policy in the post-WW2 era. By now we have all these treaties that make it tough for us to shirk on our military. Besides the NATO Pact, our naval bases in Japan and the fact that the Korean War is still technically going on are serious complications to any plan that involves making our military smaller. And all this is an important factor in trade deals that favor the U.S., of which there are plenty. Another problem is that healthcare is so damn expensive here. The author mentions this, and that deserves an entry on its own, because there are so many factors involved. But, “Hospitals have no idea what to fucking do anymore,” and, “Health insurance companies have to work with the constantly-panicked hospitals,” combine to make one of the biggies and the cause of that comes down to... Well, the fact that healthcare is so expensive. That’s right! Our healthcare is so expensive because of how expensive it is! The situation went out of control decades ago so it is out of control now, and we need to make huge, painful, confusing changes to fix it because nobody did anything all those decades ago! Fuck Baby Boomers. Fixing all that will be tough, but that carries some complications of its own. That brings me to... 6. High taxes give me more choices and freedoms Look, you’re being naive if you think the politicians are giving you all that stuff because they love you so huggy-muggy much. They do it because they want your vote. We’ll get the occasional politician who cares about the occasional cause, even here, but too much of that idealism crap makes you so inflexible that you can’t actually win an election. I mean, you can tell Al Gore really cares about the environment because he’s willing to stand up for it, even when it costs him. He’s still a pretty standard Democrat the rest of the time. He walks the same tight-rope every suspected liberal does in a country as conservative as ours. And part of that tight-rope is plain ol’ pork barrel politics. That’s where your awesome hiking trail really comes from. Some construction company wants to dig a hiking trail, so they all lobby a politician, and the politician gets some campaign money and all their votes, plus bonus votes from people who live where the trail’s gonna be and decide they just like the idea while the future Congress critter’s campaigning. But let’s say someone really is an idealist that wants to help Americans out: the size is a factor there, too. Look at the size of Sweden: 450,295 square kilometers (or 173,860 square miles in the system we still have to use here because of white trash) with 9.9 million people. Just two of our states - Alaska and Texas - are bigger than that all by themselves. And the third in the list, California, is about the same size as Sweden. Less then 10% smaller. So, any time we wanna spend money on something like that, we have to somehow get people who’ll probably never see it on board. This makes ideas like that hard to put into practice... And frankly? Even if you are an idealist, it kinda makes them bad ideas, all by itself. After all: this is all about helping people by building things they’ll use, right? Like I said: we have fifty states and some of them are huge. With Sweden being about the size of just California by itself, simple distance is enough to keep anyone from ever even seeing any of the nice pork our Congress critters send back to our districts. This is why you’ll sometimes see conservatives say, “Well yeah, they do all this stuff and reap all these benefits, but they’re a geographically small country,” about this criticism of the U.S. Infrastructure spending is just more helpful when more people use that infrastructure. For example, public transportation spending is way more efficient in areas where lots of people live. You can’t have a good bus system in a huge, spread-out city, and most American cities are pretty spread-out. So even if a politician’s “charity” (with other peoples’ money as collected by taxes) really comes from a place of kindness and caring, it has to be the weird sort of wall-building charity where you say, “The people of Oregon deserve the best!” and somehow still say, “The people of Maine do not deserve the best! That money should go to Oregon!” And it’s weird, because you’d think the number of people per square kilometer would factor in and America’s a denser country that way, but that’s not the issue. The issues are, “Where is the thing you want to build going to be?” and “How far away are you from all that?” In Sweden the answers are, “Pretty much in the south part of the country and along the east coast,” and, “Going all the way from the north part of the country where there’s nothing to Malmö in the very southern tip? 22 hours away by car or six hours away by plane.” Every place in Sweden is somewhere that a Swede could take a vacation, basically. In America the answers are, “We have some cities but pretty much just all over the place,” and, “Really fucking far sometimes.” Say the author gets his ferries and stuff? The 23,000-island Stockholm archipelago is still more accessible to huge parts of the country than your 23-island national park. It makes them wonder why they have to spend the money. The fly-over states are called that for a reason: our Important People fly over them just to get from one of our big population centers where all the stuff is (New York) to another (some city in the California metroplex or Seattle, depending on your job). Big, popular infrastructure projects will tend to have the backing of Important People trying to improve the already-very-wealthy areas where they live, so we have these bitter Midwestern and Southern states that just say, “Screw all that! Limited government! Give me my tax money back!” Somehow, this never actually leads to lower taxes, though. (Have I said “Fuck Baby Boomers!” yet?) It’s harder to build a coalition around the idea of doing anything like that, because the coalition will involve a much smaller percentage of the country, so our Congress critters need more wheeling and dealing to make it happen. This means politicians will be using a lot of time and energy on just getting the necessary pork back home. Makes it awful hard to work on other stuff, like healthcare! Not that that frees the Boomers from the responsibilities they’ve shirked. But I digress: think about some of that whenever you see an article about how Europe is awesome and we suck, tumblr. All I ask!

#politics #sweden #taxes #policy proposals #first post #united states

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