THURSDAY, JULY 23, 2026
Who's going to win in November? Today, we have the reading of polls—for example, of the new SHOCK POLL described below.
The report comes from David Gilmour of Mediaite:
SHOCK POLL: Democrats Open Up Stunning 11-Point Lead on Republicans on Generic Congressional Ballot
Democrats have opened an 11-point lead over Republicans on the generic congressional ballot in a new national poll, underscoring the party’s growing advantage just over 100 days before voters decide control of Congress.
The latest survey from Emerson College Polling found 53% of likely voters backing the generic Democratic candidate for Congress, compared with 42% for the Republican candidate. The result represents a 3-point increase for Democrats and a 2-point increase for Republicans since Emerson’s June survey, widening the overall gap.
The findings place Democrats well ahead of several other national polling averages, even as most continue to show the party holding a measurable advantage heading into the November midterms.
That's the way Gilmour starts. In the course of his report, he makes it clear that this encouraging result for Dems stands at present as a bit of an outlier. On the other hand, he also says this:
[continuing directly]
The Emerson findings are broadly consistent with other recent polling. A Fox News survey released Wednesday found Democrats holding a 7-point advantage on the generic congressional ballot, with 53% of voters saying they would back the Democratic candidate in their House district, compared with 46% for the Republican.
Fox reported the margin was the party’s largest in its polling since 1996 and fell just outside the survey’s margin of error.
Interesting! As of yesterday, a brand-new Fox News survey had Democrats up by 7! In fact, you can examine Fox Digital's report about that poll simply by clicking here.
(Sub-headline: Latest survey shows Trump approval stuck near record low.)
We mention that poll for a reason:
Late yesterday, on The Five, the tools spent a good chunk of their first two segments gushing about the latest poll from the Washington Post, which only had Democrats up by 3. (For the first example, click here.)
No one mentioned the channel's own poll, the one which has Democrats up by 7. Also, no one mentioned the fact that the 3-point edge in the Post poll is the edge among registered voters. Among voters who say they're "virtually certain to vote"—68% of the survey's respondents—the advantage for Democrats rises to eight points.
(For the Post's report on its poll, you can just click this.)
No one know how November's elections are going to turn out. That's especially true in the current circumstance, in which it's entirely possible that the sitting president will do something designed to interfere with turnout.
(Or not.)
No one knows how the worm will turn, but everyone knows how to pick and choose the data which favor their tribe's tribal preference. We'll guess that viewers of The Five will not be told, later today, about that SHOCKING new poll, the one with the Dems plus-11.
Everyone knows that we can't continue this way as a nation. When we've established a "politics of meaning," will this picking-and-choosing of information continue to prevail?
While we're at it, what the heck is a "politics of meaning?" Michael Lerner wrote the book on the topic. Tomorrow, we'll take a look there.
Boycott Nolan’s Odyssey. He shot scenes in Western Sahara, illegally occupied by Morocco.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahrawis#/media/File:Sahrawi&camel.jpg
I included that image because some people say Western Saharan people aren’t black.
DeleteThey are often dark skinned, but are of Arab/Berber descent, and not considered Black, as in sub-Saharan.
DeleteFuck off, stop trolling this blog.
DeleteNolan did not even choose his shooting locations. There is a staff person who does that, taking into account logistics and cost. Stop making this political.
DeleteNote that I don’t capitalize black. Western Saharans are people of color. Dark color.
DeleteAnd they’re being persecuted. They deserve solidarity, but they didn’t get it from Nolan.
Fuck all the way out of here. You are doing harm to whatever cause you are pretending to have. Attacking Nolan is a transparent right wing ploy. You don't gain points by co-opting some colonial struggle and making it racial. You deserve to be banned by a competent moderator, for being OT and spreading right wing talking points at a supposedly liberal blog, but there is no one here to do that, so you will have to self-deport. Bye bye.
DeleteLong movie, good in parts, but overall not very compelling.
DeleteWho was more beautiful, Helen or Penelope?
DeleteHelen was on screen so briefly that her looks were irrelevant. Penelope was the most compelling character, from an acting POV. Calypso was the most beautiful woman in the movie.
DeleteAn excellent movie that is crushing it at the box office and will likely win multiple awards. However, in deference to some jackass with a bizarre agenda, I called my senator’s office and urged him not to see it.
DeleteCalypso was beautiful when she was young, but the most beautiful now is Athena.
DeleteCalypso was a goddess so she didn’t age.
DeleteSomerby visits Fox (a right wing propaganda outlet) and astutely notices that they are spreading propaganda. That isn't exactly media analysis but perhaps it is the best Somerby can do these days.
ReplyDeleteToday was supposed to be about something Caphart said, but that has been disappeared. We are promised a return to Lerner and the "politics of meaning" for tomorrow. I won't hold my breath because Somerby routinely lies in these teases. This is gratuitous because he doesn't have to tell us anything about tomorrow's essay today.
Who tells lies for no reason? Trump of course, but now others are doing it too. How can truth be defended when even a minor vanity blogger like Somerby doesn't respect it? Decades ago, Al Franken talked about the lying liars on the right, back when truth mattered. A whole bunch of people nearly fainted when Clinton lied to defend the privacy of his sex life and was found out. But now no one cares about any of the right wing lies, big or small. But Somerby could try to set a better example for others in the media.
Deleteanons 2:20 & 2:23 (probably the same person) - simple solution. Cancel your subscription to the blog. My understanding is that TDH gives full refunds of what you paid for your subscription.
DeleteSo it doesn’t matter what Somerby says?
DeleteThough I *think* that I know how a “politics of meaning” could possibly be explained, fact is that the term is extremely mushy. To the point of being a near-tautology, if not an actual one, and therefore could probably be interpreted a million different ways – depending on who you ask.
ReplyDeleteLeroy
The key question: what is the meaning of meaning?
DeleteWe also need to decide the meaning of politics.
DeleteThis is why Somerby needs to go a step further and explain what Lerner meant by his phrase, not just what Hillary said about it. The vagueness comes from Somerby -- we still don't know what Lerner said, much less what he meant. If you really want to know, go read Lerner not Somerby, especially before you call Lerner mushy or tautological. That isn't fair.
DeleteOr you could be a nihilist like the troll at 2:28 and 2:32 who mocks the idea that there is any meaning to anything, much as Somerby has done previously.
DeleteHillary had the strengths of being sincere and intelligent so when she said hopeful things they could be believed.
DeleteI agree with Leroy. It’s easy to formulate things that sound like “ can’t we all just get along?”. People have to be willing to get along in the first place. And one would hope or expect that a “politics of meaning “ doesn’t somehow rule out taking sides on issues.
DeleteNot sure that was what Leroy was saying, but tolerance, especially of ideas, has never been a right wing trait. We are back at square one with trying to figure out how to get Others to go along with any Kumbaya plan when they are intolerant of diversity in anything (religion, ideas, appearance, food choices).
DeleteI would also say that, as long as there are unscrupulous people out there, like the ones currently running the country, who are willing to lie about anything and everything, that a “Politics of meaning“ is difficult to achieve.
DeleteAgree -- this may be more about a longing for a time when politics wasn't based on lies and meaning was possible.
Delete2:32, the same bad faith bullshit you can expect here. I didn’t say one fucking word about Lerner, I was simply expressing my view of how this standalone phrase might be interpreted.
DeleteI expressed mine. What’s yours?
Leroy
Leroy, Lerner originated the phrase in a book that Somerby described a day or so ago. Hillary got the phrase from Lerner. Somerby needs to talk about Lerner's ideas, not the phrase in isolation plucked out of any context. Did you think Somerby invented it?
DeleteFor Leroy (via Tom Sullivan at Digby's blog):
Delete"“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”
“Politcs of meaning” is an idiom. Even if we define “politics” and “meaning” we don’t know what this idiom means. The guy who introduces the idiom has to explain it. Maybe Lerner did so, I don’t know. But we’re still not sure Somerby means what Lerner meant.
DeleteSpeaking of polls, Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog has an explanation of why Trump's supporters are not more put off by his lack of meaning:
ReplyDeletehttps://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2026/07/just-say-anything-is-still-sort-of.html
"Do voters really rate Trump's mental sharpness today almost as poorly as Biden's during his presidency?
The "poor" numbers are comparable -- 46% for Trump now, 50% for Biden in retrospect -- but 38% of respondents still rate Trump's mental sharness as excellent or good, as opposed to 24% who say the same thing about Biden when he was president. If we treat this as a binary, with the top two ratings as positive and the bottom two as negative, Trump is at 38%-59% now and Biden as president is at an abysmal 24%-73%. If we treat "fair" as a neutral rating and eliminate it, Trump is at 38%-46% now (which isn't a horrible spread) and Biden as president is at 24%-50% (which is).
A couple of things are happening here. This is a result of GOP hero worship -- Democrats never regarded Biden as a demigod -- but it's also because Trump just talks and talks. He gets to the end of nearly every sentence, and the sentences make sense to the poorly informed because most voters are poorly informed. The sentences often rely on simplistic formulas (Democrats are communists; we're fighting a war because Iran must never get a nuclear weapon), and that's fine because most voters' understanding of the issues is as shallow and simplistic as Trump's.
Biden really did understand the issues at a deep level for most of his life. I think he still understood them in depth at the end of his term, and maybe part of his struggle to communicate was difficulty summoning up the words to convey the complex things he knew. He had a lifelong stutter, and I think speaking became harder and harder for him as he aged, but I'm not sure his thinking about the problems he needed to deal with in his job had really diminished. Biden struggled to craft sentences to convey complex concepts, but Trump just yammers, expressing simple-minded ideas that don't take much brain power.
I believe that Biden in 2024 not only had a sharper mind than Trump in 2026, he also had a sharper mind than Trump in 2017 (or 2000 or 1986). But Biden's tongue was too weak to convey what he knew. Trump knows fuck-all, so that's not a problem for him."
Here is a detailed description of how the Republicans might fuck up the election results in order to maintain a majority and paralyze Congress when Democrats win:
ReplyDeletehttps://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2026/07/this-might-be-how-trump-intends-to.html
Will Democrats stand for this? Will there be protests? Are Democrats preparing legal suits if any of this happens? I believe they are pre-planning legal action and protests. But how can Republicans consider this (or something like it) good for our country? We already have set aside the nation's business for political advantage. Can we spend another year without passing routine legislation, much less important bills?
I think the better solution is to head this off at the pass by voting only for Democrats in the midterms. That seems like the best way to prevent another attempted coup -- don't give the right any excuse to play politics instead of governing.
Yes, voting for any Republican is wrong and will be wrong for the foreseeable future.
DeleteDid Trump choose to sexually harrass Giorgia Meloni because she is one of the victims of those deepfake porn videos? Is that Trump's way of siding with manosphere misogynists and encouraging Republicans in Congress to continue blocking the Defiance Bill? Were his nasty remarks about Meloni part of a campaign against women who support that important legislation? Only those who travel in Republican circles would know for sure, but it looks like Trump set out to deliberately piss off women. Who would do that right before an election, except someone who considers the sexist men's vote more important to his party.
ReplyDeleteOtherwise this seems like an exceptionally stupid thing to be doing. But that's Trump.
The Republican Party is the party of racists and sexists.
DeleteEveryone know this.
Just felt like saying it.
Giorgia Meloni does not vote in the US congress.
DeleteSo that means it is ok to mistreat her?
DeleteHere is another example of the way Republicans do not care about women but are closing ranks around the men called to testify about their associations with Epstein. Comer, a Republican, has set up his investigation so that witnesses before his committee do not have to give sworn testimony. They are lying and there is no way to hold the witnesses accountable for their lies.
ReplyDelete"One Democratic lawmaker is fed up with how the GOP is handling the investigation into the crimes committed by disgraced financier and convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein.
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, joined CNN's Brianna Keilar on "CNN News Central" to discuss an ongoing interview of former Barclays CEO Jes Staley before the committee on Thursday. Garcia said that Staley was untruthful with the committee during the interview, a problem that was created by the way committee chairman Rep. James Comer (R-KY) structured the interview.
"[Staley] is denying having any sort of close relationship or friendship with Epstein, which is completely ridiculous," Garcia said. "And all we have to do is read exchanges where literally there is reference to a best friendship there."
Garcia noted that the committee possesses thousands of pages of documents outlining Staley's relationship with Epstein, which Garcia characterized as "close."
However, the committee seemed to have problems with getting Staley to be forthcoming about their relationship because he was not under oath, meaning there are few, if any, ways for lawmakers to hold him accountable for lying.
"He, like others that we've interviewed, is not under oath, and, I think, is empowered to not be fully honest with the committee," Garcia said. "And so what we have said is ... we're going to bring back [these witnesses] under oath to answer these questions. It's ridiculous and, quite frankly, shameful on the investigation that Chairman Comer continues to not have witnesses under oath."
Comer is a disgusting vile person.
DeleteIt’s still a crime to make false statements to a congressional committee. Even without an oath.
DeleteYet they do it.
DeleteThey lie under oath, they lie not under oath. They don’t care.
Delete