The moral panic comes for uplifting school murals

This applies to multiple threads, especially because of the conclusion. Kevin Drum tries to analyze the late Republican poll resurgence, especially David Brooks' explanation of the effectiveness of the "new" culture/class war

Democrats seemed to be doing well this summer as their approval level surged following the Dobbs decision. But now Republicans are surging back. This is partly because the out party always does well in midterm elections, but David Brooks thinks there's more to it:


The Trumpified G.O.P. deserves to be a marginalized and disgraced force in American life. But I’ve been watching the campaign speeches by people like Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for governor in Arizona. G.O.P. candidates are telling a very clear class/culture/status war narrative in which common-sense Americans are being assaulted by elite progressives who let the homeless take over the streets, teach sex ed to 5-year-olds, manufacture fake news, run woke corporations, open the border and refuse to do anything about fentanyl deaths and the sorts of things that affect regular people.


Sure, I guess. But this is the farthest thing imaginable from something new. The details change from election to election, but this narrative began with Richard Nixon and became fully weaponized by Newt Gingrich and Fox News in the 1990s. It's been part of the core Republican message for 50 years, and it's been their nearly exclusive message for the past 20.
Practically all the evidence suggests the United States is fundamentally a strong country right now. Probably the strongest in the world, and with the brightest future. It's extraordinary to think of just how good a place it could be if only we could figure out a way to overcome the debilitating fear that so many people still have of progress and change.

Why are Republicans surging as the midterms approach? - Kevin Drum

 

It remains to be seen if they are really surging. There are so many problems with polling right now.

 

The subject of this thread reminded me of a controversial picture painted on a water tower in San Diego back in the late 70's. I looked for a record of the incident on the 'Net but could not find one. Any way, it was a large depiction of 'Our Lady of Guadalupe' an ancient traditional Catholic image of Mary.

The water tower image was sponsored by a Catholic church in SD and was similar in shape and form to the pasted image below. Critics charged it was vulgar, suggestive and wanted it removed. If you are familiar with female genitalia, use your imagination. There will always be those who see what they want to see.

 

And of course San Diego owes its very name to Our Lady and the miracle of the Tilma. Though the Cathedral to her appearance is outside Mexico City.

So many of the place names in our largest state reflect this relationship and historic linkage. OLG is the Patroness of the Americas. The state capital is literally named after the Blessed Sacrament

 

Recent polls have produced hard-to-believe results. One had a Republican winning governor of New York. A few had a Democrat winning governor of Oklahoma. A couple polls, including the most reputable pollster in Iowa, had Chuck Grassley barely leading his Democratic opponent. And thus far, there has been surging early-voting turnout in swing states, indicating that Democrats aren't sitting this election out.

This is all to say that I don't think pollsters have a good model for the electorate right now because nobody really knows what's happening. Trying to be realistic, I think the Republicans take back the House (winning 10-15 seats), and the Democrats add a seat in the Senate. But that's pure speculation. It's not out of the realm of possibilities for the Republicans to win the House and Senate or for the Democrats to hold the House and add a couple seats in the Senate. I don't think anybody can predict with certainty what the electorate will look like.

 

Not to mention African Americans dominating early voting in Georgia.

 

Remember they will arbitrarily "challenge" a lot of those ballots from black areas and if not closely monitored, many local voting officials may throw them out, either out of them proper sympathies or because they fear what will happen to them if they do not.

Georgia county validates thousands of voters challenged by Trump allies

And also, Brian Kemp and Brad Raffsenberger, despite admirably standing up to Trump, I've been purging the voter rolls for now three elections, using methods that seem calculated to knock out black voters. Brian Kemp did it when he was actually running the election where he was on the ballot for Georgia and it has been continued by his successor

Georgia officials seek to remove 102,000 voters from rolls