https://www.ft.com/content/a4fe1974-0461-11ea-9afa-d9e2401fa7ca

“Assertive majoritarian.”

«In important respects, Mr Trump and Mr Modi are ideological soulmates. They are both assertive majoritarians, scornful of liberal concerns with minority rights. They have promised to crack down on illegal immigration and have stoked fears of Islamic extremism — partly as a way of consolidating their political base.

Mr Modi’s many defenders argue that one of his great strengths is that, like Mr Trump, he is in touch with “the common man” — he cares little for the opinions of urban elites.»

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/10/world/americas/evo-morales-bolivia.html

Seems to me this is how democracies run off the rails: packed supreme court, one party in the tank for the dictator, substantial support among the electorate, which is getting some benefit over non-suupporters.

«In 2016, he had asked voters to do away with the two-term limit established in the 2009 Constitution, which was drafted and approved during his first term. Voters narrowly rejected the proposal in a referendum — which, under Bolivian law, was supposed to have been binding.

But Mr. Morales found a workaround. The Constitutional Court, which is packed with his loyalists, held that term limits constricted human rights, giving Mr. Morales the right to run for office indefinitely.»

https://westernjurisdictionumc.org/safe-harbor-declaration/

Statement by the Western Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church:

«We do not intend to withhold or challenge ordination based solely on a person’s gender identity or sexual orientation. We are unwilling to punish clergy who celebrate the marriage of two adults of any gender or sexual orientation seeking the blessing of God and the Church for their covenanted life together. At the same time, we recognize and will uphold the requirement that LGBTQ+ clergy, with all clergy, “maintain the highest standards of holy living”xiv in their personal and professional relationships.»

The ship is sailing.

https://givingpledge.org/

I would be interested to know what U.S.-based signatories to the Giving Pledge think about Warren’s M4A plan and her candidacy in general.

(Also, whether they are ACTUALLY following through on their pledge.)

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1192113630348795904.html

https://twitter.com/JoeDunman/status/1192036205426286592?s=17

Joe Dunman (@JoeDunman) Tweeted:
Every down-ballot race in Kentucky was a GOP landslide. Bevin, the most disliked governor in the country, barely lost. Kentucky doesn’t fit easily into any national narrative (as usual).

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-state-of-the-polls-2019/

«As a simple rule of thumb, we’ve found polls “call” the right winner 80 percent of the time, meaning they fail to do so the other 20 percent of the time….

Polls in our database that showed a lead of 3 percentage points or less identified the winner only 58 percent of the time — a bit better than random chance, but not much better.»