Interesting Links for 19-04-2020

[andrewducker]

Quarantine baking: forget banana bread, here's how to make an IRN-BRU cheesecake

(tags:food Scotland viajoexnz )

Behind The Scenes Of YouTube's Secretive Top Kids Channel

I found this because I was wondering who created the videos Sophia loves
(tags:YouTube children business )

Second African locust swarm of the year 20 times bigger than the first

(tags:insects Doom Africa )

UK's coronavirus science advice won't be published until pandemic ends

(tags:Pandemic advice science UK viaSwampers )

This does a great job of explaining the American "civic religion" which looks so strange to most of the rest of the world

(tags:USA nationalism religion society )

Here's a police officer totally destroying any trust in police people might have, in full view of his colleagues

(tags:police corruption OhForFucksSake uk )

What most American liberals don't realize about Republican voters

(tags:politics USA society )

An overview of the damning Times investigation into how the government failed to take the pandemic seriously until far too late

(tags:Pandemic UK epicfail BorisJohnson )

Boris Johnson hasn't changed in 40 years

(tags:BorisJohnson OhForFucksSake )

Thinking of farming as "The food industry" is a mistake

(tags:farming food )

Just when Italy really needed some unity, the EU failed it - and continues to do so

(tags:Europe italy OhForFucksSake )

Comments

[heron61]

What most American liberals don't realize about Republican voters

When people vote for actual fascists my concern for their reasons and motives vanishes. We don't need to understand them or find common cause with them, we just need to defeat them, and if the US can get closer to actual fair voting (IOW reducing voter suppression) we can easily do this, and then we don't need to care what these people think or why they are now fascists.

[andrewducker]

I don't thnk you're going to get closer to fair voting without understanding why people keep voting Republican first.

[heron61]

I disagree - there's no point in trying to convince people to vote differently - it largely doesn't work. Instead, winning elections in the US now consists of which side does the better job of motivating people on their side to vote. So, we need to do a better job of understanding what motives people who vote Democrat to do so - we can ignore how and why the fascists vote as they do. I'm basing this on Rachel Bitecofer's theory of negative partisanship, which seems to be the best model for predicting recent US elections.

[andrewducker]

Good point. Encouraging Democrats it's in their interests to vote is definitely the best strategy.

[cyprinella]

It's a bit less of that and more of keeping the GOP from erecting a shitton of barriers for people who vote Democratic. See also the recent WI election where the GOP took the state to court to prevent extending mail in voting in the middle of a pandemic and also closed all but two in person polling places in a major city. Because they know they lose when the voting opportunity is fair.

[mountainkiss]

The article about Republican voters is fascinating. Thank you.

[andrewducker]

Pleasure!

WoW!

[lsanderson]

Ittsa a local!

Rural Republicans

[danieldwilliam]

Very interesting article on rural Republican voters.

I think it is important to remember that there are fivew groups of electors inthe US, Democrats, Republicans, strongly supporting someone else and the largest groups Not Really Paying Much Attention Until the Election and Did Not Vote.

I think demographics probably does for the potency of the Republican voting coalition in about 15 years time.

They currently hold a slim but consistent majority in the Senate and they have a small but consistent advantage in the Electoral College.

They seem hell-bent on alienating Hispanic voters. That's a demographic that is growing in the US and, I think, growing in many of the areas that Republicans tend to win.

From a low base the Hispanic population has doubled between 2000 and 2010 in the following States

South Carolina

Alabama

Tennessee

Kentucky

North Carolina

Maryland

Mississipp

South Dakota

In Texas the population has grown from 32% in 2010 to 39% in 2017, and in Florida from 17% to 25%.

As more people move from rural areas to urban areas that seems to change their voting behaviour. Which doesn't help much if they are moving from rural states to New York City or San Franscisco, but it does make a difference if they are moving to Phoenix in Arizona.

My observation from growing up in Queensland is that a party using illegimate means to win elections only has to lose once for things to change significantly and once a party who is using voter suppression and gerrymandering to win elections loses they lose very heavily for a few terms as the vote-rigging is made illegal and they can't cope.