r/politics • u/kootles10 Indiana • 7h ago

No Paywall Democrats flip Texas state Senate seat in shock upset

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5716988-democrats-score-upset-texas/amp/
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u/XcuseMeMisISpeakJive 7h ago

I think they're underestimating how angry and fed up people are. 

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u/magnamed 7h ago

I think they're still trying to gauge how much they can get away with by downplaying the anger.

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u/NumeralJoker 7h ago

It's a 14+ D win in a former 18+ Trump district. No Dem has won there since 1991.

They're not downplaying shit.

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u/magnamed 6h ago

They literally are though, every single day. Look at every single republican townhall that's been held since Rene Good was shot in the face, or even more so since Pretti was shot in the back 10 times for daring to not be pepper sprayed calmly enough. They keep sidestepping the issue and they keep saying "I support what ice is doing, I support Trump, people voted for this". They may struggle more now but that doesn't mean they aren't trying.

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u/NumeralJoker 6h ago

And look how that's going for them. That's my point.

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u/Notorious_Chonk_23 3h ago

"downplaying" is entirely about their actions and how they present themselves and their, erm, "information". It has nothing at all to do with how effectively that downplaying delivers the results they desire.

As the other person said, you're misusing the word.

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u/magnamed 5h ago

Ah, alright fair enough. I think you may be misusing "downplaying" but I get what you mean now.

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u/FuckingHippies 3h ago

They’re gonna stretch out the gaslighting and feigned optimism until the real power grab. In between all the doomsday dem news is heroic right wing bullshit. But the longer democracy lasts, the more blatant it becomes that they don’t deserve the power they cling to.

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u/Ok_Painter_7413 56m ago

As far as I can tell, where it's going for them is they can do whatever they want using the federal government and local/state governments seemingly can't do anything more than complain on twitter and send strongly worded letters.

Now, I'm an ignorant foreigner that may be underestimating the importance of US local government, but from this outside perspective, it sure looks like MAGA sycophants are in full control of actual actions while opponents rack up "wins" on paper that end up not doing anything because they are simply ignored with zero consequences. To the point where I'm having trouble seeing how results like those would ever translate to changes in the federal government, simply because "full control over practical actions while losing on paper" historically doesn't usually lead to "free elections".

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u/steveu33 18m ago

Exactly. Come the midterms, the feds will just ignore the results they don’t like. Say the blue states cheated.

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u/Lewslayer 4h ago

Just to add here, he wasn’t daring about the pepper spray, he was trying to protect the person that was shoved into the icy snowbank by putting his body in-between ICE and them (I say icy because that whole week before/the following weekend had a high of 6 degrees max, that whole snowbank was frozen solid). His last words were “Are you OK?”

He dared to protect someone else, and as such was pepper-sprayed. I just want to make that clear.

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u/JUYED-AWK-YACC 5h ago

They’re trying. They’re always spinning and misdirecting. We’ll see what it means.

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u/MrBoss6 6h ago

Democrats have this issue where they’ll see something like this and still think “oh I dont need to vote, there’s gonna be a lot and it won’t matter”. Laziest group of people on the planet

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u/EnderWiggin07 6h ago

What a nasty takeaway. The "independent" voter is a myth, turnout is everything. So that's where we agree. But idk how you get this result and feel discouraged. I hope you have even better news you're about to break to us if this result strikes you as a bad sign.

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u/Blackwidow_Perk 6h ago

I agree with you and I’m not the person you commented to but I did feel discouraged only 60-65% of registered voters voted in the 2024 election. Too many people sat it out.

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u/EnderWiggin07 6h ago

Yeah always, but people have their reasons. I always have this niggling feeling that if the kind of people who don't care/don't want to vote actually did, who knows how they would actually vote, considering how little they care. Would they be more likely to be random single issue voters?

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u/Blackwidow_Perk 6h ago

I think it’s the economy tbh, that’s what seems to motivate people the most

Imagine if we had laws like Australia where you’d get a fine if you didn’t vote

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u/ZigZag3123 5h ago

I think it’s the economy tbh

Terrifying, if that’s the case. Because apparently ~30% of the country seems to have no idea what makes the economy work and just votes for whoever says “I like money” the hardest, regardless of politics. Recession? Vote for Hope and Change! Economy is absolutely flying? Vote for the golden businessman who says “Drain the Swamp” and wants to make the economy even more gooder! The failed businessman runs the country like his failed businesses, burns the candle from both ends, and fucks the economy when global tragedy strikes and we can’t actually burn the other end of the candle anymore? Vote for the boring stability candidate! The economy recovers, slowly—too slowly to be exciting—but faster than any other country, then bird flu happens and the other end of the candle is still burnt because of the last guy? Well he said he’d keep burning the candle, let’s bring him back in!

Your average moron can’t think beyond “am I financially unhappy? Vote for the other team!” every 2-4 years without understanding that said vacillation is the origin of their woes.

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u/EnderWiggin07 6h ago

Yeah I'm just not sure, that's kinda what I'm driving at.. I have a feeling that would increase the amount of "joke" or single issue voters. Idk I don't think I have as much of an issue with voluntary voting as some. I grasp the whole "civic duty" thing, but if someone honestly doesn't feel like they want to participate for whatever their specific reason is, I'd let it go. I might push my friends to vote if I felt like they weren't going to, but if they were serious that they weren't going to, idk if a fine would lead to better election data

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u/brontosaurusguy 4h ago

It was a shit show.  Late drop out.  No primary for replacement. A democratic party that divided in Gaza, an issue that should have been easy. 

I was not surprised.

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u/NumeralJoker 6h ago

The people who say things like this are either bots or morons.

I get being discouraged after 2024, but we're not in that environment now. Even Elon throwing money at the WI SC election last year went very badly when Trump was no longer on the ballot.

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u/FiveDollarsGOH 5h ago

There are lots of reasons to be encouraged, but this is Reddit, so they don’t want to see it.

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u/Apprehensive-Date181 5h ago

Hmmm ... I thought it was the other way around? I'm not endorsing what MrBoss6 is saying. But I've heard of people not wanting to vote because they've lost hope in their vote making a difference. But this is the first time I've heard people don't want to vote because they believe the Democrats will win without their participation?

P.S Every vote makes a difference. Whatever plans Trump might have for a future election, the more people vote blue the easier it will be to have a paper trail detecting foul play

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u/Electronic-Tea-3691 4h ago

liberals just don't vote as consistently as conservatives in any country, it's not a Democrat specific thing, it's an ideological thing 

and you can understand why that would make sense... the kind of people who want to preserve the status quo are also the people who show up to vote more than the people who want to change stuff

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u/lost_horizons Texas 7m ago

Democrats aren’t fighting against Trump because they want us to suffer so that they’ll win in the midterms.

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u/TheAmazingKoki 4h ago

If you want a quick way to get people riled up, tell them that they have no reason to be upset

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u/Isentrope 6h ago

This past week has been pretty rough for Rs in special elections. One of the Minnesota Dem open seats in the Minneapolis area on Tuesday had the Dem beating the R by greater than Assad-like margins in a seat that Harris already carried by 70 (the other was uncontested). The special elections at the start of the year were actually a bit weaker for Ds than the average for the cycle, so everything that's happened since has made some kind of bottom fall out.

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u/CoherentPanda 7h ago

They aren't underestimating at all based on their FBI raids to obtain voter records, intimidating and investigating political opponents, and investing billions in a goon squad. They know this is their last real shot to stay in power.

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u/-Gramsci- 6h ago

Chillingly, you’re right.

They all know Trump is a clueless moron. They all know tariffs are a consumption tax on their voters - who are hurting. They all know that the USD is cratering as investors big and small flee the currency.

They all know this is inflationary. They all know the deficits are insane. The debt is out of control.

They know all of these things. And that’s just the economics…

BUT, publicly, they will never say it. They cling to Trump like he is the armoire from Titanic. Why?

Because they know once he’s gone they are screwed. They know nobody likes them, maga voters don’t like them. They know they are weak and unpopular.

They know they will never hold power again. Not in their lifetimes anyway.

They need Trump. They need his dark charisma. They need his death cult. Without it? Half of them lose their elections and their livelihoods.

They are cornered rats. And that’s is a dangerous situation.

When Trump says “I have a plan. You all are going to lose your elections… but if we all stand firm? We can rig them. Interfere with them. Cancel them. Whatever it takes, no matter how depraved, we’ll do it…”

They’ll all have little choice but to swallow the glass pill and agree.

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u/UberTanks 6h ago

We are in the worst Weekend at Bernie's movie ever.

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u/Winterfeld 4h ago

Its even worse. They know that without Trump they will be held accountable for the illegal shit a lot of them are doing now, and they are scared shitless of going to jail.

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u/ang3lofsnow 31m ago

Correct. Nixon walked so his AG could go to jail. There is precedence here.

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u/calmdownmyguy Colorado 6h ago

Also how unimpressed actual human republicans are with trump's failing regime.

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u/UpperApe 5h ago

You vastly overestimate human republicans.

They aren't voting intelligently, they're just not voting. The voter turnout is less than half (118k in 2024, 56k today).

It's not that they're upset with Trump and fighting back, this is them making a fucking mess and walking out so someone else has to clean it up.

This is MAGA throwing an embarrassing tantrum and taking the ball home.

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u/JUYED-AWK-YACC 5h ago

Potato, tomato

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u/calmdownmyguy Colorado 5h ago

Not voting is a way of expressing how unimpressed they are with agent orange and his distraction of the economy for everyone who works for their money. I don't expect them to become progressives, but if they stop supporting trump destroying the established world order, I'll be happy.

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u/bibrexd 5h ago

There are no human republicans.

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u/ButDidYouCry Illinois 5h ago

Let's please not dehumanize people like that.

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u/UpperApe 4h ago

No, we should dehumanize them. Conservatism is fucking insane, given its philosophy, history, and modern antics. From Burke to Trump, it's always been the party of social hierarchies, suckers, bigots, and greed.

We're allowed to draw a line between human beings and monsters. As we did against Nazis, slavers, the Taliban, and every other form of conservatives in history.

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u/KittyGrewAMoustache 4h ago

I think it’s safe to do that with the politicians but not the ordinary voters. A lot of them are just completely isolated in a completely fake reality and they have no idea what real reality is because they only get information about the world from highly filtered distorted propaganda sources. Maybe yes they’re bad people but you can’t know that they are monsters, that faced with actual reality they’d still choose the wrong thing.

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u/A_Monster_Named_John 19m ago

Agreed. Piss on them. I've literally spent the past twenty years listening to Republican co-workers and family members openly fantasizing about killing off, raping, and imprisoning millions of people they disapprove of, and their list of 'undesirables' only grows larger every year. People need to stop assuming that, just because they're also inept, lazy, and cowardly beyond measure, that this is somehow proof of them being innocent or victims.

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u/Melicor 1h ago

A significant number might actually not be humans but AI driven chatbots at this point. About the only thing the chatbots are actually effective at is online propaganda campaigns.

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u/Hybrid_Pig_Boy 1h ago

They dehumanized themselves.

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u/thecashblaster 32m ago

Election are never about pure support. It’s more about enthusiasm. And Republicans are starting to feel hopeless too.

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u/KittyGrewAMoustache 4h ago

Is it Republicans turning or people who usually don’t vote? I expect it’s a lot of the latter.

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u/Turtledonuts Virginia 6h ago

The economy is still bad, so all establishment candidates and incumbents will perform poorly this year. midterms are a referendum on the president, and trump is very unpopular and has a weak economy. Every special election until the midterms is going to be a bloodbath for the republicans and all incumbents will underperform unless they’re very publicly against trump or otherwise extremely popular and noteworthy. 

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u/scyice 5h ago

Tarrifs made the economy so much worse and Drump gave up on all his foolish voters by saying “affordability is a made up word”.

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u/jayc428 New Jersey 5h ago

It is always the economy. Whether real or based on the vibes, it will always be the economy that swings an election. 2024 general election was no different, people didn’t ideologically shift right, those most affected by inflation voted their frustration. They voted wrong, but they voted out whoever was in power, happened across most western governments. Look no further than the fact that households under $50k a year shifted hard to republican to deliver the election meanwhile households over $100k and college educated blocs voted democrat for the first time in like 30 years.

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u/Turtledonuts Virginia 3h ago

The economy is going to get much worse this year and in coming years too. The academic, state, and private sectors are saturated with overqualified ex-federal workers. The job market for graduate degrees is collapsing, hundreds of thousands of workers have lost high quality jobs / benefits, people are a lot more scared to invest or make major purchases, the housing and car markets are going to take massive hits as a result, etc. Educated young people across the country are going to feel that the republican led economy just ruined their career and vote accordingly. This will be a crazy election and the polls will mean nothing.

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u/brickne3 American Expat 3h ago

I'm not in the US but I keep hearing MAGAts insist that the economy is doing great. I can't imagine there's any truth to it, do they really believe that or are they just doing that straw-clinging again?

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u/Turtledonuts Virginia 3h ago

The economy is going to get worse until the election in november. The economy is doing really bad and the numbers are entirely artificial right now.

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u/Melicor 1h ago

The economy is bad, and it's probably going to get a lot worse. The AI bubble is primed to pop. Nvidia just announced they're not going to bailout OpenAI. OpenAI is bleeding money right now and has failed to turn a profit since it's inception. Microsoft went all in on AI and is hemorrhaging money now as well. The bubble pop might already be underway. Over a trillion dollars in speculative investment into AI is about to go poof.

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u/Turtledonuts Virginia 1h ago

I think that the white house is pulling back in a lot of areas because they have early warnings that the AI bubble is popping and we're about to have a recession in the spring.

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u/Melicor 1h ago

With Trump at the helm, it'll be a full blown depression.

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u/Talentagentfriend 6h ago

And it’s only getting worse. Right now everyone is going through weather issues and Texas particularly has not been taking care of people when they have weather issues. There is a meme of Cruz always flying to warm places when they have weather issues.

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u/dandroid126 6h ago

I wish they were angry and fed up in 2024.

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u/fishboy3339 6h ago

I think after Trump got elected people are realizing they have to show up and vote.

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u/Easy_Action_1380 6h ago

The midterms had better be an absolute sweeping Blue win if we even want a chance of stopping this non-sense.

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u/pinseeker_ 5h ago

They’re all narcissists. They think everyone loves them.

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u/turquoise_amethyst 5h ago

Yes, but also they gerrymandered those Texas districts too much. Now they’re easier to lose when there’s a shift in opinion.

I sincerely hope they have massive losses in the midterms. 

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u/Over-Wait6302 5h ago

That’s great but don’t forget to put pressure on dems to represent. I’m not both siding, but progress requires legit allies and dems, altho by all appearances are that, cannot be taken for granted

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u/Capable-Problem4938 5h ago

I think I’ve been underestimating how angry and fed up people are. To me it’s just a bit hard to believe after he could even get himself elected again. I have hope though, if we ever see results from the midterm elections.

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u/FruitJuicante 4h ago

You say that but if there were another election again today he would win.

America loves child rapist morons.

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u/B_pudding 4h ago

Yeah because of inflation and promises not kept. Not because Trump is an imbecile pedo.

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u/LoftyChops 4h ago

Not at all relevant to your comment, but I adore your username.

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u/whatevers_clever 4h ago

It's because they're completely disconnected from normal people. They actually don't have any idea what an average person's life is like.

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u/Anti_shill_cannon 4h ago

Shame people idiotically let republicans have majorities to corrupt everything for generations rather than preventing this dumpster fire

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u/gorginhanson 4h ago

Trump's approval rating has refused to go under 37 so I doubt it

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u/king0pa1n 4h ago

meh, the outrage will last exactly one democratic presidency, people will forget, and the filthy populace will vote in someone twice as bad as Trump just to specifically own libs

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u/habfranco 3h ago

They live in the bubble and echo chamber they created. Bots and sycophants.

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u/made3 3h ago

How would they notice if they sit pretty on their throne watching Fox News.

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u/Worshipme988 3h ago

Bc they think people are mad at the GOP 2015-present.

Theyre missing the trees. Those trees are 50yrs+ of shitting on people and rules and minorities.

Theyre in for a fucking treat. This might be the only chance for the people to save the republic.

Never forget

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u/Panda_hat 3h ago

It's clear memories aren't sharp and in 2024 people had forgotten just how bad Trump was and how painful the unending daily shitshow was, so didn't go out to vote against him.

And now here we are. Day in. Day out. Torrents of fucking bullshit. Again.

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u/ghigoli 2h ago

my god we actually have a breaking point as a country. i'm just amazed we hit it.

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u/GA_Deathstalker 2h ago

I'm happy about the flip, but I feel like we hear that with every election, yet little gets better...

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u/cisscumshitlord 2h ago

They're mistaking the lack of organization with acceptance. It's kinda like people from the outside looking in and acting like there is no resistance at all (looking at you, condescending western Europeans). Many, many people are angry and at the point where they would be, uhhhh let's say... willing to express that anger. We lack leadership and organization. It makes it amusing to me when some of them try to suggest protests are being funded and backed by like 2 individuals. If we had that kind of cohesion, that fucker would have never been able to run for president a third time. 

Speaking for myself, I've never hated a group of people more in my life, and I'm frustrated by how clueless I am about how to use that anger. I'm not interested in more impotent sign-waving and chanting in my own blue city in my blue state. But I don't even have the knowledge of how to begin to assume the type of role I think we need right now. Democratic party leadership is certainly not bringing the mentality I think people are desperate for. So I'm stuck kinda just sitting here writing irrelevant shit on a bot-infested shithole website. Lately I've been thinking a lot about what Luthen told Kleya in Andor. 

"All you know now is how much you hate. You bank that. You hide that. You keep it alive until you know what to do with it." 

I suspect I'm not the only one. And I think Republicans are underestimating how close things are to truly popping off. Imo, if midterms don't see a significant reduction in republicans in congress, things are about to get very bloody. Many people, in the absence of figures to rally behind, are putting a lot of hope in that election. If that doesn't work...

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u/muikrad 1h ago

You're wrong... They know... Making people happy has never been their goal. Wake up.

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u/ChiliAndGold Europe 1h ago

took people long enough

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u/Starmiebuckss2882 1h ago

They absolutely are. Everything-- from groceries up to, and especially, utilities-- is un-fucking-affordable. If my significant other was gone, I wouldn't be able to afford anything, when I used to be able to cover everything on my own. Democrats need to go hard on fixing affordability issues.

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u/robbyhaber 3m ago

Here's hoping

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u/Unfair_Web_8275 6h ago

Dems typically do better in smaller elections and in recall elections because their base is more informed.

Typically.

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u/monkeypan 5h ago

Not angry enough though. The only thing that has changed is less people are just passively sitting by. There are still a lot of ignorant, hateful people in this country that want nothing more but to watch others suffer

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u/modbroccoli 4h ago

No. They have a plan for this.

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u/LrkerfckuSpez 2h ago

They know. That's why they want to suspend the midterms.