PurpleAmerica Week in Review (11/3-11/10)

Elections, Debates, Trials, Polls and More!

We’re going to start offering week in review postings on Fridays to be a little more reflective of what is going on and what is coming up on the calendar.

For the most part, this week was dominated by three things, all on the GOP side of the ledger; Trump’s fraud trial in New York, or which he testified this week, the off year elections in which the GOP was roundly trounced, and the third GOP debate in Miami which showcased the consolation prize competition. Sure, there was some progression in the war in Gaza, but so far it’s stayed the course from where it was a week ago.

But the most impactful news this week is that Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia has decided against running for Senate again. This is huge for a number of reasons

1. Manchin had always been a more moderating force with the Democratic caucus, dragging his feet to the whims of the much more liberal wing of his party. Without that anchor there, you can anticipate a more vocally and practically liberal Democratic Senate caucus. This can have huge implications on the ability of Democrats to win in the middle of the country and Rust Belt states.

2. This all but ensures a Republican pick up in West Virginia, as it was the state that Donald Trump had his greatest margin of victory. Democrats may not even contest it; they certainly won’t spend money there, and begin the 2024 cycle one Senate Race in the hole they need to make up somewhere.

3. Jon Tester immediately becomes the number one target of Republicans, and you can bet they’ll dump a ton of money in that state to win it.

4. This frees up Manchin to run for President as an independent, or as a member of the No Labels Party, if he so chooses. Such a move could prove disastrous for Joe Biden and the Democratic Party’s chances for the White House in 2024.

It remains to be seen what Machin’s plans are, but he may have a huge role to play next year as the election season gets underway.

PurpleAmerica’s People of the Past Week

The Good

Andy Beshear, son of Kentucky political scion Steve Beshear, and current Democratic Governor of Kentucky cruised to re-election in the deeply red state. What was his secret? Turns out being a good Governor for all Kentuckians and meeting voters where they are is a pretty good strategy. As the late, great Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill once said, “All politics is local.” Get ready for some Beshear 2028 talk coming your way.

Tracy Chapman became the first African-american to win Country Music Awards’ “Song of the Year” for her 30+ year old song, “Fast Car,” which was covered by Luke Combs this year. It really is a classic song. Congratulations Ms. Chapman.

The Bad

The talk was that Glenn Younkin, Governor of Virginia, was demonstrating a path forward for the GOP in the post-Dobbs world, and if he was successful in switching the Virginia Legislature red then there would be some talk of him getting into the Presidential Primaries. Unfortunately for Younkin, not only did he not take over the Senate, he lost the Virginia House of Delegates too. His presidential aspirations dried up faster than you can say the word “Macaca.”¹

Also, anyone who took part in the third GOP debate in Miami. I’d say it was a trainwreck, but you can’t avert your eyes from a trainwreck. This was unwatchable and worse, irrelevant.

The Ugly

Have to give this one to Donald Trump on the stand at his own fraud trial in New York. It’s not often you get a former President on the stand for illegal activity of their own doing, but they way that he disparaged every government institution that he purportedly wants to run as the head of was particularly galling. He cried and played the victim card over and over again in a childish display unfit for a leader of any kind. It’s so rare to get such an unvarnished look into this man-child.

On the flip side, Joe Biden received another truly atrocious set of polls, this one from the CNN/SSRS, showing him losing to Trump again. The worst numbers were related to people preferring Trump to Biden by 20 points on being a world leader and fighting to a draw with the Latino and Youth votes. As Van Jones noted on Tuesday night, these poll numbers are demonstrative of non-college educated, working class voters across all demographics (but primarily males) sliding over to the GOP. It’s pretty much what Ruy Teixeira of the Liberal Patriot has been saying for years now, and it seems to be coming home to roost. Not only should Biden reset his campaign consultants now, he should fire his entire press department who cant seem to inform the public of all the exceptional things he’s done for them that they don’t seem to know anything about.

Have a nominee for us to consider? Send an email to purpleamericanunity@gmail.com!

PurpleAmerica Pop Culture Random Top Five

This week: The Top 5 Election Movies

These are all films that have an election as the backdrop to which the story plays out.

5. Election. Matthew Broderick is a High School Civics Teacher conducting a Student Council election between perky overachiever Reese Witherspoon and an injured football player he wants to win. Such a hilarious microcosm of politics in general, and if you squint enough, Witherspoon seemed like Hillary Clinton in 2016 long before she ever ran. Hilarious film.

4. Bob Roberts. This fake documentary about a candidate played by Tim Robbins is a riot. He’s always down for a folksy song on the guitar to deflect any story and watching it recently, I still chuckle at some of the one liners.

3. The Manchurian Candidate. Angela Lansbury is downright evil in this film. To tell you how gives away too much. An ambushed squad in Korea are brainwashed and upon return to the U.S. go about their lives. Lansbury’s son runs for office and, well… Considered one of the 100 greatest films of all time.

2. Primary Colors. Based on the novel, a Southern Democrat not so loosely based on Bill Clinton careens from scandal after scandal and its up to the exasperated team of campaign staff to fix. Travolta is great and likeable as the philandering Stanton.

1. Wag the Dog. The President was caught fondling a firefly girl outside the Oval Office and it is up to ace Political Consultant Conrad Brean, perfectly played by Robert DeNiro, to distract America long enough to win the election. He recruits top Hollywood Producer Stanley Motss (Dustin Hoffman) to help produce a war in Albania. When this film came out, everyone saw the parallels with the Monica Lewinsky scandal, but if you step back and look at the language, the pageantry, the coordination of message, you’d realize every political campaign operates on this level in some capacity.

PurpleAmerica’s Best Articles/Podcasts of the Week

Tom Nichols hates Daylight Saving. So do I.

Obama official Dan Pfeiffer takes the very bad polling information and puts the data into context, better than any other article I read this week on the subject.

Catharine Rampell covers the reverberations through the local economy that are caused when Day Cares shut down and its too expensive to work.

Amanda Carpenter and Ben Raderstorf drill down into why No Labels would result in disaster.

This is a couple weeks old, but I just got to it this week. Malcolm Gladwell talks with Adam Grant on his new book, “Unlocking Hidden Potential.”

PurpleAmerica’s Subscriber Mail

When we here at PurpleAmerica Respond to the Teeming Millions (well, we’re still working on that first million)

Dear PurpleAmerica:²

Why are you down on the Dems so much? You claim to be “purple” but you spend most of your time talking about the Republicans and ripping on Dems. You seem more Red to me. Like just a Republican trying to poach voters.

Sincerely,

ProudLiberal

Dear ProudLiberal,

I’ve been a generally moderate Democrat for most of my life. I’ve never been a liberal nor completely bought into the whole-hog mentality of any political movement; I’m just not the true believer type. However, given how I grew up, my principles and what I think we should aspire to as a society, that tends to conform with what old school Democrats like Joe Biden tended to reflect. I like Joe a lot. As for Republicans, there hasn’t been much for me to like about Republicans in a very long time. I abhor Donald Trump and MAGA and have found common ground with many of the never-Trump Republicans now free to speak their mind without pushing a party line.

However, where the Democratic Party has been going in the past 10-15 years worries me. They cater to an ever narrower cosmopolitan area, highly educated demographic and base, and leave the rest of the country to Republicans. They are hard adherents to an increasingly ideological bent, and then they talk openly about changing the electoral institutions that prevent them from obtaining their goals rather than compromise on that vision. They talk less about “all Americans” and talk more about discrete and select groups. In my opinion, they are losing their way.

I want the Dems to get back to being and talking about farmers, laborers, manufacturing, and heartland issues more. I want them to compete everywhere—yes, that’s right, all 50 states. My version of the Democratic Party is very different from yours, and the more it looks only like the one you want, the less inclined I am to support it.

You are right that I have been focusing on Republicans a lot lately, mostly because that seems to be where the activity is. If you think I’m down on Dems, I’m REALLY down on Republicans. I’ll work to rectify that in the coming weeks with more stories focused on the blue side of the electorate.

Thanks, and keep reading.

PurpleAmerica

Have a question you want us to answer? Email us at purpleamericanunity@gmail.com

PurpleAmerica’s Historical Note from This Week

On November 8th, 1972, Home Box Office (HBO) debuted, bringing movies, sports and other programming directly into people’s homes. For those who remember the early days of cable, you remember how mindblowing this was. I’m sure this opening is enmeshed into most everyone’s brains if you grew up in the 1980s.

I mean think about it. At the time, there were only THREE network channels, along with PBS. Cable was just about to kick off, ESPN was still a few years away as was CNN. And here was HBO, which turned into a cornerstone of Gen X’s development. It was not uncommon to invite whole neighborhoods over to your house to watch the premiere of STAR WARS or JAWS on HBO. Many a curious teen would stay up late to watch some “R” rated material from their own living rooms. And if you didn’t subscribe to HBO?—no problem. Illegal black descrambler boxes were common in the 80s and 90s and adjusting the tracking on your VCR to watch the channel were easy ways to pirate the signals.

Today, just think of it as streaming with no control over what was being aired, and everyone in America watching it at the same time.

Here are a few trivial tidbits about HBO:

• First thing aired on HBO was a hockey game between the NY Rangers and Vancouver Canucks from Madison Square Garden.

• The first movie aired, which was immediately after the hockey game, was a 1971 western starring Paul Newman and Henry Fonda titled “Sometimes a Great Notion.”

• It largely focused on sporting events early in it’s existence. But the sport that would differentiate it from the networks and prove to be it’s real cash cow was Boxing. HBO aired the “Thrilla in Manila” and became a go-to channel for promoting live Boxing events. Fight nights became a huge source of subscription revenue.

• The innovation that really pushed HBO nationally? Giving subscriptions to hotels. As people traveled and saw this fantastic channel, they began pushing local cable operators to get it.

• The most watched moment in HBO history? The final episode of Game of Thrones, which had a rating of 19.3. It is also the least liked episode of Game of Thrones according to IMDB. Second most watched moment? The final episode of Sex and the City.

PurpleAmerica’s Dad/Uncle/Cheesy Joke of the Week

A skeleton walks into a bar and says “I’ll take a drink of anything and a mop please.”

And with that…

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Footnotes and Fun Stuff

1. IF you don’t get the reference, google it.

2. The email forwarded to me didn’t start this way, but I’m a stickler for introductions.