j reacts to the democratic primary results in massachusetts not making any sense

well, they've counted all the votes in massachusetts now, and she managed to win by one delegate.

the proper scorecard is:

hillary: 6
bernie: 4
& one tie

but, it's the delegate count that matters. and he kept her under 600 pledged delegates (the superdelegate talk is establishment scare mongering - they are free to change their vote at any time, and would be committing suicide if they voted against the primary process). she's less than 200 ahead. he can catch her on that, if he can beat her in pennsylvania and washington and ... by the same margins that he beat her in minnesota and colorado - and if he can split, or win, michigan and florida. and, he can do this. the democratic nominee should not be determined by the bible belt! and, you can't blame liberals for bailing, if it is.

but, the race is pivoting this week. clearly. there are less red states coming up. logic and abstraction needs to yield to concrete results.

it's just better than the media would like you to believe, that's all i'm saying.

i'm more interested, right now, in trying to understand this map. maybe it's evidence that a canadian should be taken skeptically - and i've warned you repeatedly. but, i think it's a little more sinister.

this map makes absolutely no sense. clinton's ability to disproportionately swing blacks makes no sense. and, when things consistently fail to make sense, it's reasonable to question their legitimacy.

i don't claim to have an understanding of data on the urban/rural split in america, and the fact that the parties have been so interchangeable for so long throws some wrenches into everything. but, in canada, this map would be equivalent to suggesting that the ndp swept the rural farming communities and suburbs, while the liberals swept the downtown cores - which had a certain level of coherence 100 years ago, but is impossible to understand, today.

the wealthier people live outside the urban cores. they own property. they have good jobs. they're less interested in "socialism". the less wealthy people live inside the urban cores. they work minimum wage jobs. they rent. they're more interested in "socialism".

so, how does sanders sweep the rural areas and clinton sweep the urban areas? it's the same incoherent proposal as clinton sweeping urban, southern blacks. but, at least you can jump through some hoops on that. i don't see any hoops to jump through on hillary sweeping boston and sanders sweeping the countryside.

i'm only able to come up with two explanations, and they both reduce to an unfair election:

1) turnout is remarkably low. now, why this is is maybe complex. apathy. voter suppression techniques, perhaps? you don't think the democrats are above that, do you?
2) it's just rigged from the start.

no, i can't prove anything. apathy is the least complex hypothesis, but i'm not entirely convinced it's the right one.

we'll have to see, as time goes on, if any of this starts to make any sense or not. but, i can't explain my inability to make sense of that map in purely cultural terms. this is a class analysis, and that ought not be corrupted by inconsistencies in canadian v american culture.

that map is simply impossible to understand as an accurate reflection of popular will. and, it's not just that sanders lost in boston - it's that he won outside boston, too. it's completely the opposite of what anybody ought to expect.

http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/massachusetts

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just to add to this: you can see the "boston upper crust" on the map by looking at the republican map. they voted for kasich. one would expect to be able to reasonably super-impose those two maps around the boston area - albeit not outside of it. so, yes - one would expect that upper crust that swung to kasich to also swing to hillary. but, one would equally expect the famous boston working class (that clearly swung to trump) to swing to bernie, as well. the map suggests otherwise.

that's the part of it that i can't make sense of. and, yes, the urban/rural split ought to be inverted. but, i can't understand how the urban poor in massachusetts of all places is voting against it's class interests like this...

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the only other answer here - and, i'm sorry, but it is - is that lower class americans (across racial and geographic divides) are simply so unaware of what their class interests actually are that they're unable to make a decision that is in their proper self-interest. and, that throws the whole basis of democracy out the window. it reduces the entire thing to a pointless charade.

01-03-2016: super tuesday reactions, as distraction from archiving

tracks worked on in this vlog:
https://jasonparent.bandcamp.com/album/period-1

americans don't understand sarcasm or irony

this pisses me off over and over again.

feel free to make suggestions.

vet (vĕt)
v.t.

3. to ensure that a candidate's perspectives demonstrate proper consistency with the "washington consensus" of establishment objectives, principles and tactics. the bankers vetted the politician.

see, conservatives think this is terrible and proof that trump is a liberal. i think it's just as valid to point out that it's evidence that hillary is a shill. drop hitlery. godwin's law. shillary is better.

you had the opportunity to make chocolate milk. if you wanted to be uber hipster, you could have made strawberry or even banana milk. but, you went with the most boring choice possible.

total fail.

also: your bedroom is a green screen. wtf?

you don't really believe this, do you?

if you really wanted to know what would happen if you put marshmallows in a vacuum, you would eject conan* o'brien's head into space.

*ted kennedy is dead, so conan ipso facto becomes the punchline of all of his own jokes.

j reacts to super tuesday half-debunking the media race narrative

last post for the night...

i think i've demonstrated that clinton isn't winning in the south because of black or minority support - that she would be winning there anyways, and that what's going on is more cultural than racial: conservative voters are supporting her, across racial lines.

i don't think i've demonstrated that bernie is able to win black liberal voters. the demographics haven't provided for it, yet. i misunderstood virginia (what i was thinking is more applicable to maryland).

so, michigan is massive in trying to chart out the rest of this.

it's less that bernie has to win the state, although it would help. he'll be ok if he splits the delegates. michigan is kind of purplish, and it's not reasonable to expect a bernie blowout. in fact, i believe that clinton is currently leading most polls...

it's more that bernie absolutely has to win some black voters. he simply cannot get beaten down like he has been in these southern states. black voters in michigan are liberals. there is a measurable black middle class around detroit. the data has to uphold the idea that the split is ideological, not racial.

if the data starts coming in and you see these huge margins with black voters, bernie is going to have to acknowledge that he has some problems. it doesn't make any sense. but, he's going to have to address it.

so, that's the date to circle: michigan. and the key question is whether bernie can swing some northern black liberals or not.

j reacts to super tuesday - bad scheduling for sanders, projections moving forwards

yeah, bernie's come out of this ok.

is colorado a blue state, now? well, it's acting like one. and, he got nearly 60%.

he got over 60% in minnesota. clinton got over 60% in a few southern states. so, it kind of balances out, even if the delegate count is a little lopsided because there were more red states in play.

and, massachusetts was a clean split.

when the situation reverses, and there's more blue states at play, the numbers will start to right themselves. it all hinges on the question of whether he can win states like oregon, washington and california by the same kinds of margins. how about pennsylvania?

and, i think he can.

like i say, this is just a bad schedule for bernie. louisiana and mississippi are likely to also be bad. but, he's just gotta break even after that until some of those liberal states come up. if he can win them by the same margins that he won colorado and minnesota, it will start to balance out before june.

i think it's clear that it comes down to california.

j reacts to the disappointing (and confusing) results in atlanta

sanders, however, was not at all able to breakthrough in atlanta. those numbers suck, there's no way around it. one would have hoped he would have done well in atlanta, even if he crapped out everywhere else.

http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/georgia

j reacts to her own misunderstanding of virginia's racial geography

i think i may have misunderstood virginia.

i thought there was a substantial black population south of dc, being that it is in dc, and i know there are plenty of blacks in dc (and baltimore).

but, this map suggests that:

(1) this area has few blacks
(2) clinton won this area.

it also suggests that the black population is higher around norfolk, and that sanders won some of those counties. so, my logic may have worked out in the end, despite misunderstanding the demographics of the state.

it seems that clinton win both white and black voters in virginia.

if i'm right, though, that would suggest that sanders should expect to do well in maryland.

http://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/virginia

j reacts to (and deconstucts the) media race baiting in the democratic primary

the "clinton wins massachusetts" thing is a good example of what i was talking about, and what many people have pointed out.

it's currently at 95% reporting:

clinton: 50.3%
sanders: 48.5%

you can't truly call that. especially not with the last precincts coming from the most populated areas around boston (and everybody being aware of that).

but, they call it early to get the headlines before everybody goes to bed. and it's this reinforcing thing, right.

people just have to be able to see it for what it is. it's the only way to deal with it.

the delegate count, btw, is 45/43. given that the three precincts still to report are known to be heavily populated boston area precincts, it's actually likely that he'll win the delegate count. barely.

if i understand right, it's not strictly proportional but based on who wins what precinct. that happened to clinton in 2008. she won the popular vote but lost the delegate count because she got beaten in the urban cores.

anyways. it's 1:00, now. it'll close down within a few hours, no doubt. we'll see how that works out. but, it's just a good example of how this works.

i'm going to need to wait until some more data comes in to do a closer analysis and debunk the race theory. but, considering that i caveated oklahoma (which seems to have finished voting very quickly, indicating low turnout - and a small base of exaggeratedly liberal voters, as i hypothesized. oklahoma is just so overwhelmingly republican. all the businesses are republican. all the social advancement is republican. you don't bother joining the democratic party unless you're ideologically aligned with it. you'll probably see the same thing in places like nebraska and wyoming. very red states, sure. but the ten people that bother showing up to vote are going to be doing so purely out of conviction. i mean, i understood this, i was just a little skeptical about it.), we're just waiting on a winner in massachusetts.

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again, i need data. but, combining 2008 race data with 2016 numbers...

arkansas: 80% white. 66% clinton.
tennessee: 67% white. 66% clinton.
texas: 46% white. 66% clinton.
virginia: 61% white. 64% clinton.

so, we can see that race is fluctuating all over the place, while support for clinton is remaining pretty stable.

it's not enough to point out that high numbers of southern minorities are voting for clinton. clearly, high numbers of southern whites are, too.

it's clearly something else about the south rather than race, isn't it?

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the other two southern states are:

alabama: 51% black. 78% clinton.
georgia: 51% black. 71% clinton.

i suspect you will see that the number of clinton supporters was higher amongst both whites and blacks, when you compare these states to the other four - indicating that it wasn't just that more blacks were voting for clinton, but that more whites were, too.

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but, this is what the media does, right.

if you don't support the establishment candidate, you must be white trash racist scum.

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i was hoping he could keep her under 60 in virginia.

i do still suspect you'll see a higher number of black liberals supporting sanders, particularly around dc. i have to wait for data...

the results to this point are really not making any sense. and, the republican results are making sense, so it's not like we've entered the twilight zone or something. there's something going on that's not quite right....