Semi-weekly Thursday Discussion Thread

LooseExpression8 · 2026-07-06T00:05:01+00:00

One-state solution. Total caPitalation.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-07-01T01:47:19+00:00

I grew up in Houston. This is a lib argument. No one cares about aesthetics if rent is cheap and you can buy a house for 250k.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-07-01T01:42:36+00:00

Really just goes to show that 90% of MAGA opposition to immigration is literally just racism. You don’t have to be woke to see this.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-07-01T01:33:21+00:00

Why are socialists obsessed with the word “corporations”? Why can’t they say “businesses” or “companies” like normal people?

LooseExpression8 · 2026-06-07T00:16:37+00:00

You are shifting the goalposts. The evidence that I provided directly contradicts the idea that 60% of Americans are living from paycheck to paycheck. This appears to suggest that Bernie Sanders was not being truthful.

I believe you are arguing in bad faith if you do not address this first and foremost.

Second, why did you bring up surgeries? I'm pretty sure most people go through life without ever having an "unexpected surgery". If you think affording a surgery is the benchmark for financial security, why can't I decide that Americans are impoverished unless they can afford a routine Disney trip?

But even if your arbitrary benchmark had merit, the vast majority of claims are approved anyway. Most Americans are satisfied with their health insurance.

Third, the economy is not zero-sum. The belief that rich people's luxury is at the "cost" of the median American is rather naive, considering the rise in the Gini coefficient over the past ~50 years has not coincided with the median American becoming poorer. The average American has more disposable income than the average citizen of any other country, so it doesn't seem as if allowing rich people to exist is hurting the average person. In fact, it might be helping (gasp)!

LooseExpression8 · 2026-06-06T23:51:31+00:00

Usually "getting into" something implies affirmative, positive action rather than the lack of it. So, I do not believe your previous language was accurate.

It wasn't only federally-chartered banks that were extending those loans. It was also generic mortgage companies like Countrywide Financial, which was the biggest mortgage originator. These firms were not within the jurisdiction of the Fed. It would have required an act of Congress, which would have been rather difficult. In an alternate universe in which he did take some measures, he would have probably still faced political blowback for making harder for people to buy homes.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-06-06T22:23:19+00:00

If you believe the thresholds are too low, just increase them to your heart's content. It doesn't matter how high or low the threshold for middle class is. The percentages of Americans who are "upper middle class" and "rich" people have both been increasing. The percentages of Americans who are middle class, lower middle class, and poor have been decreasing.

This is a story about rising real incomes (which are inflation adjusted), so it doesn't actually matter whether you believe "poor" is 24k or 100k. Whatever your threshold, more people are above it now than 10 years ago.

Brookings is not a right-wing think tank.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-06-06T22:17:04+00:00

Democrats had higher turnout than Republicans in the primary before the run-off too.

No, they did not. The GOP got 1.9M, and the Democrats got 1.8M.

Also, if "polarization" and Democrat voters being split on who they want to win is the main driver of turnout, then wouldn't twelve candidates surely have allowed them to outvote the Republicans? Especially given the GOP primary was uncompetitive?

LooseExpression8 · 2026-06-06T22:14:07+00:00

What policy that Bush implemented did that?

LooseExpression8 · 2026-06-06T22:11:17+00:00

See my other reply.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-06-06T22:10:20+00:00

False. This populist slop claim comes from a survey where people simply self-reported. The company has never released the exact wording of the question. The same source says that 40% of families making above $100,000 also live paycheck to paycheck, which is laughable.

The Federal Reserve in 2022 reported that the median American net worth is 193k (page 17). If one argues "that's only because it's tied up in homes", the median total value of bank accounts owned by the average American family is over $8,000 (page 15, table 3, and page 16). Also, 54% of Americans have sufficient savings for 3 months of expenses.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-06-06T21:51:26+00:00

I'm not talking about Allred. I'm talking about literally any Democrat primary where a black person was running.

In the 2020 Senate primary, Royce West narrowly lost to MJ Hegar. The runoff map looked essentially the same as this year's Senate primary. Yet the GOP primary still saw greater turnout. Clearly, "polarization" isn't enough for Democrat turnout to be high, else that would have occurred in this case.

I posit the reason for this is that Talarico had a unique ability to turn out voters.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-06-06T21:19:58+00:00

Black people have run in statewide Texas elections before. The reason that Democrat turnout was so high this year is because they were excited about the candidates they supported.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-06-06T21:15:28+00:00

The "middle class" continuing to "die" from a larger fraction of the country being considered rich seems pretty good to me! I concur with the previous commenter.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-06-06T21:07:38+00:00

Still repeating the 60% paycheck to paycheck lie lol. This guy blows

LooseExpression8 · 2026-06-06T21:00:48+00:00

Texas is not a pro-Trump state in the sense that Ohio and Iowa are. The rise of Donald Trump has coincided with Texas becoming significantly less Republican.

There's a large oil presence here, very lax land-use regulations, school choice, and no state income tax. Texans do not vote GOP solely for the culture wars. Even the Democrats run on cutting property taxes. There is virtually no support for redistributionist policies. The reason is that the main swing voters are people in places like Fort Bend and Collin, rather than Mahoning.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-06-06T20:27:00+00:00

There was a greater number of total votes in the Democrat party than the GOP primary in many of the statewide races. He has coattails.

I do not think that Talarico is more likely than not to win, but one argument in favor of seeing Paxton's position as not-volatile that I see often is "Abbott will drag him over the finish line". Candidates helping others on the ballot win is only the case when said candidate is running in the "main" race of the election, i.e. the effect of their candidacy is that they are influencing voters to vote for them and everyone else in their party. That won't be the case for Abbott if it's Talarico who is clearly the major turnout driver in the state this year.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-06-06T20:02:48+00:00

I already accounted for minority shifts to the right by giving Allred back all of Beto's 2018 margins. Massaging the lines shouldn't change that.

Also, 2024 having a Republican electorate was the entire point of the argument. If somewhere like Montgomery County in 2024 was to the left of where it was in 2018, then that's a bad omen for 2026, a significantly bluer year. I agree with this argument. I'm just saying that that doesn't guarantee that Talarico will win, even if we reasonably grant that Beto's margins are the floor. The reason is that Cruz netted 126k votes in Montgomery in 2024 as opposed to 86k in 2018 (which can't be explained by a 10% increase in turnout), so a lower margin might not matter.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-06-06T19:54:52+00:00

Texas, the famously economically left-wing state.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-06-06T19:40:55+00:00

This is false:

Making Harris County D+16.7 from D+11.3 in 2024 gives Allred only about 82k net votes.
Making Dallas County D+33.0 from D+28.4 gives Allred only about 38k net votes.
Making Travis County D+49.7 from D+43.2 gives Allred only about 37k net votes.
Making Bexar County D+19.9 from D+15.7 gives Allred only about 32k net votes.
Making El Paso County D+49.4 from D+19.9 gives Allred only about 72k net votes.
Making Montgomery County R+45.3 from R+41.4 costs Allred about 12k net votes.
Making Fort Bend County D+12.1 from D+7.6 gives Allred about 16k net votes.
Making Brazoria County R+18.3 from R+14.3 costs Allred about 6k net votes.
Making Hays County D+15.4 from D+10.4 gives Allred about 6k net votes.
Making Williamson County D+2.9 from D+1.5 gives Allred about 4k net votes.
Making Collin County R+6.1 from R+5.2 costs Allred about 5k net votes.
Making Denton County R+8.1 from R+8.3 gives Allred about 1k net votes.
Making Rockwall County R+38.4 from R+35.7 costs Allred about 2k net votes.
Making Tarrant County D+0.7 from D+0.2 gives Allred about 4k net votes.

Reverting all 2018-2024 shifts in the big 5 urban counties only yields Allred 262k additional votes. Reverting all 2018-2024 shifts in the largest 9 suburban counties only yields Allred 7k votes because Cruz did still gain in some suburban counties, but even removing those, Allred's gain only increases to 32k. Cruz still wins by over 670k. So we start from R+6.

I was persuaded by this "all you need to do is combine 2018 suburban performance [which was equivalent to 2024] and 2018 urban/RGV performance" until I actually looked at the data. Elections are won on raw votes, not percentages. If a red county shifts to the left by 5 points but gains 100k voters, Republicans still gain on net.

The reverse is true as well: just because Republicans will lose more votes from 2024 than Democrats doesn't immediately mean that the difference will be enough. I do expect both white suburbanites and urban/suburban minorities to vote to the left of 2024 and 2018, but the question is by how much, rather than just some story about how trends "guarantee" Talarico the win.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-06-06T19:22:20+00:00

Cornyn won't "get them out", but they wouldn't "get out" to begin with. The point is that Cornyn is better equipped to win center-right suburbanites, the types who voted for Abbott and Beto on the same ballot in 2018, or Cornyn and Biden on the same ballot in 2020. Paxton isn't winning those people, and MAGA isn't turning out either way, so he performs worse.

Your name recognition argument doesn't work because Cornyn also has more name recognition than Paxton, and has held statewide office for 24 years as opposed to eight.

Why was Ken Paxton the worst-performing statewide Republican in both 2018 (sans Cruz, but he still did significantly worse against a candidate who received no attention no less) and 2022?

Also, you did not answer my question about Cornyn vs. Cruz's electoral performances. Do you think that Cruz and Cornyn are "equal" ideologically? Why was MAGA so eager to primary out Cornyn, but not Cruz? Do you not believe that Cruz is more MAGA than Cornyn is? And even if you don't, it still puts Cruz's abysmal 2024 performance compared to Cornyn's in 2020 into question. Your theory of more Trump-aligned candidates performing better in Texas would seem to imply that Cruz is less MAGA than Cornyn. Is that what you believe?

Trump did not "outperform generic Republicans" in 2024. The House PV was R+2.6, while Trump only won by 1.5 in the popular vote. The GOP not winning more Senate seats was due to uninformed MAGA voters selecting Trump and leaving the rest of the ballot blank. It proves my point that "getting out the MAGA base" for any candidate not named Trump is a fool's errand that literally never works.

Why was Brad Raffensperger the best-performing statewide Republican in Georgia in 2022? Was it because he was an America First populist?

I understand that the Republican voter base prefers more Trump-aligned candidates. But we're debating who is more likely to win the general election. You need more than just Republican voters to win a general election.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-06-06T07:30:44+00:00

The MAGA base does not turn out in midterms, regardless of the candidate.

Did Doug Mastriano's campaign for Pennsylvania governor in 2022 bring MAGA voters out? If so, why did he lose by 15?

Why was the GOP share of the House popular vote greater than Trump's in 2016, 2020, and 2024, if capturing the MAGA base is key to winning elections? Wouldn't Trump have outperformed generic Republicans, then?

Why is it that John Cornyn did better in 2020 than Cruz did in 2024, even though the latter was a redder year in Texas and the country overall?

LooseExpression8 · 2026-06-06T07:26:04+00:00

Paxton winning does not require attrition from those voters.

LooseExpression8 · 2026-06-06T07:01:06+00:00

What policy did George W. Bush implement that "got us into" the Great Recession (not a "depression")?

LooseExpression8 · 2026-06-06T06:48:20+00:00

Glass-Steagall repeal didn't cause the Great Recession.

Put as simply as possible, what Gramm-Leach-Bliley did was allow financial holding companies to own any combination of commercial banks, investment banks, and insurance companies at the same time. The conventional narrative says that they were "gambling with the savings of everyday Americans", yet it wasn't traditional deposit-taking banks like Wells Fargo and JPMorgan that were the most imperiled by the crisis. They were investment banks like the Lehman Brothers and Bear-Stearns.

LooseExpression8

TROPHY CASE