Eric the Blue

Mostly politics, sports, literature, arts reviews

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Nerdy Minnesotan

  • Running some numbers

    If you’re any kind of an election junkie, you’ve studied the state map depicting counties colored either blue or red, depending upon the party of the candidate who won the most votes within its borders. It’s probably a source for some of the bitterness with which outstaters regard “The Cities.” They love to post pictures showing an almost completely red Minnesota–“almost,” because the exceptions are where everyone lives. In area, the state is red, but, as is often said, neither soybean fields nor pine trees vote.

    The above data, courtesy of a Gustavus professor and elections nerd, is different from what one gleans from that ubiquitous map. It shows, not who won a county, but what percentage of their total Minnesota vote the red and blue teams won, by county, in the 2024 presidential election. To me, it’s really surprising even if, once the surprise subsides, I understand that it could hardly be another way. But would you have guessed that, of 87 counties, the one in which Trump/Vance got the highest percentage share of their aggregate vote was Hennepin? Harris carried Hennepin by 70 to 28 percent, but that 28 percent–well, actually, 27.5 percent–was essentially 13 percent of all the votes Trump got in Minnesota.

    It’s also somewhat startling to notice that the ten highest counties on the opposing lists overlap by nine. Stearns (St. Cloud) is missing from the Harris counties, and Carver (western Twin Cities exurbs) is missing from the Trump list. The eleven named counties map perfectly to the eleven most populous counties in the state. You can see what’s going on by noting that Carver County, with a population of 110,000, is the eleventh most populous, while Nobles County, in the middle of the range at 44th out of 87, has a population of just 22,000. Thirty-eight of the 87 counties have fewer than 20,000 people living in them. The population of the small suburb I grew up in is greater than that of more than half the counties in the state.

    The rural versus metropolitan divide is evident mainly in the “other 77” category. Harris got less than a quarter of her vote total in 77 counties, whereas Trump got nearly half of his in the bottom 77. This reminds me of an interesting factoid I picked up relating to the 2020 presidential election in Minnesota. Trump carried 74 counties, but Biden carried Hennepin County by 327,000 votes, which was more than Trump’s cumulative advantage in the 74 counties he won. Yet in that election Trump got an even higher share of his statewide vote in Hennepin County–206,000 out of a total of 1.484 million, 13.9 percent.

    The partisan disparities, though stark, are swamped by the population disparities. I’m no political strategist, but if I were advising Republicans, I think I’d tell them that trying to squeeze more votes out of places where no one lives is a fool’s game. They need to do better in Hennepin, Ramsey, Dakota, and Washington Counties. Maybe stop talking about AKs the way normal people talk about their 9th-grade crush.

    I see that the new White House press secretary took to the podium for the first time yesterday:

    Poor girl must have been putting on her makeup when the other kids were learning to read. DEI, but for airheads.

  • Falstaff’s catechism

    I just finished Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, a play that famously juxtaposes high and low scenes: the king and his counselors, Falstaff holding court at the tavern; the king and his counselors, Falstaff as inept petty criminal; the conspirators plotting against the king, Falstaff arguing with the tavern hostess about his unpaid tab; &c. The judgment of anyone you would ever want to hang out with is that the low scenes are way better. The likely reason for a Part 2 was to meet the demand for “more Falstaff,” and the theory is plausible largely because it would be weird if the judgment of the first audiences was different from that of all the subsequent ones, four centuries worth by now.

    Had he been only a comic character, Falstaff would not take his place among Shakespeare’s greatest creations. HIs friendship with the dissolute prince places him adjacent to the geopolitical plot, and he is in the middle of the play charged with being an agent of “the king’s press”–we call it a military draft. Falstaff’s approach is one of the origins for the adjective, “Falstaffian.” To potential recruits of means he sells exemptions and uses the proceeds to bank roll his debauchs. The platoon he ends up with is made of witless and impoverished vagrants who can be cheated out of their pay, another revenue stream. This is the backdrop for the following passage, when the prince lays eyes on Falstaff’s recruits:

    PRINCE: But tell me, Jack, whose fellows are these that come after?

    FALSTAFF: Mine, Hal, mine.

    PRINCE: I did never see such pitiful rascals.

    FALSTAFF: Tut, tut! good enough to toss; food for powder, food for powder. They’ll fill a pit as well as better. Tush, man, mortal men, mortal men.

    Tossed on a pike refers to impaling an enemy soldier on a giant spear and then, by lifting the weapon, throwing his corpse, or soon to be corpse, in the air. Powder is cannon fodder. Regarding “fill a pit,” Falstaff means that the members of his ragtag troop will fill a mass grave as well as their betters would. He’s excusing his self-interested recruiting tactics, but the argument is stronger than he realizes, unless he does realize it. On the eve of the big battle, in conversation with the prince, Falstaff expresses his nervousness, and receives from the prince the elevated reply that we all owe God a death. The prince then exits and Falstaff soliloquizes:

    ‘Tis not due yet: I would be loath to pay him before his day. What need I be so forward with him that calls not on me? Well, ’tis no matter; honor pricks me on. Yea, but how if honor prick me off when I come on? How then? Can honor set a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief of a wound? No. Honor hath no skill in surgery then? No. What is honor? A word. What is that word honor? Air–a trim reckoning! Who hath it? He that died a Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. “Tis insensible then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I’ll none of it. Honor is a mere scutcheon–and so ends my catechism.

    The high plot, relating to the plans and histories of kings and their well placed enemies, including preeminently Prince Hal’s moral ascent into that world, is conducted all in verse. Falstaff’s ironic commentary, a rebuttal in prose, is not less compelling on account of being tossed off rather casually by someone in need of a covering story. Who has honor? Someone, dead since Wednesday, who was over valiant that day. All his honor does nothing for him now. Falstaff’s catechism seems “modern” but the drama in which he plays his part was composed at the end of the sixteenth century.

  • State of play, updated (I’m obsessed)

    Republican candidates head for the hills when Trump comes to their state to campaign, but he did manage to get four players from the Baltimore Ravens to be photographed with him today. I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole team was invited. I don’t know what’s between the president’s ass and his britches but it looks like it could accommodate a place setting. Or maybe it’s the Speaker of the House.

    The Cook Political Report has shifted a lot of its ratings since I mentioned, back on Sept. 19, that it seemed like maybe the vibe favored the Democrats more than the numbers. Back then, Cook thought there were 208 seats that at least leaned Republican and 206 that the Dems were more likely to win. That left only 21 “toss-ups” in a landscape defined by gerrymandering intended to hold competitive races to a minimum. Cook now gives 208 seats to the Dems, 205 to the Republicans, and characterizes the remaining 22 as “toss-ups.”

    Just today, Cook moved three Senate races in the Dems’ direction: North Carolina from “Lean D” to “Likely D,” New Hampshire from “Toss Up” to “Lean D,” and Kansas [sic] from “Lean R” to “Toss Up.” The upshot is that there are still seven Toss Ups, but now, assuming nothing Cook considers an upset occurs, the Democrats need only four of the seven, not five, to win the majority.

    I have thought for awhile that the race in Minnesota seems weirdly quiet despite close public polling results. For what it’s worth, Cook characterizes the race here as “Likely D.” The Republicans have boat loads of money that they aren’t sharing with their retired sideline reporter so I guess they see it as Cook does? It seems that, compared to other outfits like it, Cook places less emphasis on recent polling and more on a state’s “fundamentals,” including election results from the recent past. If so, that might be a reason to worry about Minnesota, but it would then also tend to suggest that the Dems might have an edge in Ohio, Texas, and Alaska, where their candidates have consistently had small leads in most public polls.

    By the way, Kansas hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1932. Trump might achieve what no Republican since Hoover has been able to pull off–drive Kansans into the arms of the Democrats. I think he should campaign there! Roger Marshall, the Republican incumbent, wouldn’t be able to attend–“the senator regrets he has a previous commitment”–but maybe there are some footballers or golfers or NASCAR guys who would stand behind Trump near a wheat field and nod their heads while he says stupid stuff. The Democrats could make an ad out of it soon as he left.

  • Bumblers bumble

    In the category of dog-bites-man news items, I see that the Billy Bobs of Tennessee who love capital punishment are incapable of carrying out a death sentence to its intended conclusion. I had thought previously that the leading ghoulish detail in these sickening dramas pertained to the fulfillment of the condemned person’s last meal request, the details of which were always duly memorialized in press accounts. But the menu items have been displaced by the need to have an ambulance idling in the parking lot so that, when the bumblers bumble, their victim, having frustrated the executioners’ best efforts while strapped to a gurney, can be raced to the hospital for treatment. You must have to be a Christian moralist, Tennessee-style, to comprehend the logic of this.

    Lincoln should just have let the South go.

  • Tough times for Erics

    I’ve found it quite informative to uber around a teenager who recently completed the classroom component of driver’s education.

    Another big mistake I’ve made–unrelated to rolling stops and turn signal use–is commenting on political posts I see on social media. My guiding principle has been that, though entitled to their own opinions, users should not take shelter in what George Conway’s ex once called “alternative facts.” I’ve therefore been lured into occasionally contradicting the lies and correcting the factual assertions of MAGA enthusiasts. Since this involves “interacting” with their “content,” the algorithm now fills my feed with their posts, and also those of their demented friends, with the resuIt that I can only with difficulty avoid the conclusion that everyone in the country is losing their mind.

    On a related point, is innocence of the distinction between “your” and “you’re” a prerequisite for membership in the cult? I probably qualify as a scold for even noticing, but what about when the confusion turns up in a screed about how the other side is dragging down educational standards? I’ll also volunteer, for the edification of Karoline Leavitt and many of her fellow travelers, that it’s not a flip-flop to alter your course or opinion by 360 degrees. You mean 180, but alas and alack, if you said what you meant you’d still be wrong, because your deficiencies are multifaceted and layered like an onion. Sad!

    If three people read this, one will say I’m picking on the barnacles that attach to any hull. Maybe, but it happens that Jack Smith was testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee today, and one of the senators, Eric Schmitt, Republican from Missouri and pretty well dressed for a barnacle, accused the witness of having been to a basketball game in Atlanta a day after a local prosecutor there admitted to an affair with a colleague while they were investigating Trump’s effort to reverse the result of the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. If Smith had been in Atlanta . . . well, I’m not sure where the line of questioning was headed, but the text messages that the senator thought placed the witness at an Atlanta Hawks home game, thereby establishing that he is a liar and a “total dirt bag,” were actually referring to an Iowa Hawkeyes game many hundreds of miles away, in Maryland. “Yes, yes, Senator, on the day in question I saw Caitlin Clark play for the ‘Hawks’ against Maryland near my home in the D.C. area. What’s this about Atlanta again?” You can watch the amusing exchange below–it takes Amy Klobuchar around 8 seconds to figure out that the elaborately planned gotcha moment fails on account of the false assumption that a basketball team named the Hawks could only be the Atlanta Hawks. (It would have failed anyway because so what if Smith was in Atlanta? Another instance of layered dumbassery.)

    The cameos are also prize worthy. If you watch the clip, check out the senator from Louisiana over Schmitt’s left shoulder. Apparently chewing his cud is part of the hillbilly act he’s spent a career in the Senate perfecting. He’s so proud to help display the poster board of worthless “evidence”! It’s as if Trump has managed to dumb down the entire Republican party to his level. A few years ago, I would not have placed it at a sufficient altitude to fall this far. They have to hit hard ground soon, right? Maybe first week in November.

    Was it a week or a day ago that a Republican senator was bewailing, on the Senate floor, all the furries working as airline pilots?

    In a way, it’s too bad that the news out of the hearing will be Schmitt’s clownish ineptitude, because the focus belongs on the president’s criminality. Fortunately it’s not necessary to wait until Election Day to vote. I can report that it’s quite satisfying to fill in the ovals next to the names of everyone all these sad sacks snort and snarl at, whether it be on Facebook or in a Senate hearing room.

  • R’s commit to the bit

    Though not a fan of the Republican party, I harbor within myself a kind of grudging admiration for what, if the R’s were trying to be funny, might be called their wobbly “commitment to the bit.” They hate DEI, because everyone should rise only as high as their own merit merits–which explains why their candidate for US Senate in South Carolina is Lindsey Graham’s sister. And has Laura Ingraham instructed Sophie Cunningham to “shut up and dribble”?

    Regarding Ms Cunningham, I haven’t been so tempted to find political significance in athletic outcomes since in 1938 Joe Louis knocked out Max Schmeling, a representative of the master race, 2 minutes and 4 seconds into the first round. The YouTube video of the entire fight is around 5 minutes long, including introductions and slo-motion replays of Louis just beating the crap out of him. I read about that as a kid, but the other night I watched on live TV the Fever play the Lynx and, having formed the impression that Cunningham played poorly, made a point to check out her line in the box score: 16 minutes, 0 points, 4 missed shots, 2 rebounds, 0 assists, 3 turnovers. Her plus/minus was negative 20, and in her defense, that’s not as bad as it sounds considering that her team also lost by 20. She’s done worse. Back on August 8, she logged a negative 28 in a game her team won by 4 points. Gotta be some kind of a record. Can’t really blame her for trying her hand at punditry.

    A couple of weeks ago I saw a clip of someone, probably a Communist, interviewing people who were protesting all the trans players who are taking over the WNBA. When he asked individual protesters to name some of their favorite players., the most common response was Caitlin Clark and Sophie Cunningham followed by an attack of brain freeze. Maybe he suppressed an interview with someone who knew the names of some other white players. Yes, DEI really sucks–it’s so unfair! By the way, in that game I watched the other night, Clark scored 2 points on 1-for-12 shooting and was a negative 27.

    Having seen Lindsey Graham’s sister on the campaign trail, Cook Political Report has switched its characterization of the Senate race in South Carolina from “solid Republican” to “likely Republican.” Lindsey’s sole heir appears to be several bricks shy of the proverbial full load, but it’s South Carolina, and there will be an R after her name on the ballot. Her opponent, a medical doctor, is probably trying to discern the outlines of the vaunted Meritocracy. To be fair, one of the Republican Senate incumbents is also a medical doctor. He practices in the areas of obstetrics, gynecology, and debt collection from poor women. According to this New York Times article, the lead in the below campaign ad could have been played by 81 women if you had to be arrested, or by hundreds if you only had to be sued:

    Also, he doesn’t live in the state he represents. It seems that the 18 per cent interest paid by his sued patients helped pay for his 7-figure home in Sarasota, FL. Smell the coffee Kansans, South Carolinians, et al. These people have no interest in your problems.

  • Lunchroom repartee

    Still enjoying my conversations in the school lunchroom. About a week ago, I sat down with a class of 1st-graders. Adopting the closest thing I have to a cheerful and enthusiastic tone, I say, “How’s school today guys?” Little girl across from me immediately gives an emphatic thumbs down, like John McCain voting against his party.

    Me: Oh no! Did something bad happen?

    Her: No, I just hate school.

    Today I forced myself on a 2nd-grade class. We were talking about teeth, mainly because several of them were missing a few. One of them pointed out that my teeth “aren’t that white.” Not wanting to blame red wine consumption, I said it was because of all the coffee I drink. At this point, someone who had been listening in silence spoke up for the first time–a girl with very black skin and a head covering said, in a distinct British accent, “Have you ever considered drinking tea?” I was surprised by the diction and the accent and I think I just gazed at her like a dope because after a second or two she added, as if she thought she had better elaborate on her recommendation, “My papa drinks a lot of tea.”

  • State of play

    I meant to make fun of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who, according to the Wall Street Journal, is planning a “State of the Force” address in which only servicemen who exhibit “impeccable grooming” and appropriate “waist-to-height” ratios will be invited to attend. Short little slobs like General Grant aren’t good enough for Pete. Besides, Grant fought for the wrong side, and could hold his liquor.

    But that was two days ago, and it slipped my mind because–well, this kind of bullshit is quotidian in Trumplandia. Yesterday I saw that RFK Jr., the Secretary of Health and Human Services, gave a speech in which he promised to look into the possible harmful health effects of electromagnetic fields and chem trails (aka contrails, the water vapor trailing jet planes in flight). His audience applauded enthusiastically these contributions to numbskullery. What will it be tomorrow? Perhaps a controlled study designed to get to the bottom of whether stepping on sidewalk cracks is bad for anyone’s back.

    As I’ve said before, the Daily Show performers get too much credit. All you have to do is roll the tape, then cut to Josh Johnson or one of his colleagues looking into the camera with a dazed expression.

    Horse race journalism has a bad name, but if your own thoughts about public affairs don’t extend much beyond the prospect of getting rid of these buffoons, or at least limiting their power to do damage, there’s no hotter topic. According to my researches, the vibe is more favorable than the numbers. Republicans are nervous, Democrats expectant, but, regarding the House of Representatives, the nonpartisan Cook Political Report thinks there are 208 seats in which a Republican is favored, and 206 in which a Democrat is favored. This leaves only 21 “toss-up” races. The gerrymandering wars were in the end won by Republicans and had the effect of lifting the floor and dropping the ceiling for both sides. If Democrats were to win 16 out of 21 toss-ups, and have three more upset victories than Republicans, the next Congress would have 225 Democrats and 210 Republicans. No “wave” by standards developed back in the day when voters chose their elected officials instead of the other way around.

    The situation is similar in the Senate, where in Cook’s view the Republicans, barring upsets, will have at least 47 seats after the election, to at least 46 for the Dems. The majority, then, currently appears to hinge on the outcome in seven states: New Hampshire, Maine, Ohio, Michigan, Texas, Iowa, and Alaska. Two years ago, Trump carried five of these states, which is the number Democrats likely must win for a majority. Trump has never lost four of the seven. In those four–Ohio, Texas, Iowa, and Alaska–his winning margins in 2024 were, in order, 11%, 14%, 13%, and 13%.

    On the bright side, Cook has already put two Trump-state Senate seats in the “lean Democratic” column–Georgia, where incumbent Jon Ossoff is ahead, and North Carolina, where Democrat Roy Cooper leads in a race for a seat left open by the retirement of Republican Thom Tillis. It’s not impossible that the trend could spread, though if it does it will be to states considerably more Trump-friendly than Georgia and North Carolina have been. The battleground for control of the Senate shows just how unfriendly that terrain always is for Democrats. Trump lost the popular vote two out of three times, yet there are 25 states that he’s never lost. Of course those 25 states have 50 seats in the Senate, and right now all 50 are held by Republicans. With Trump in the White House, that alone is sufficient for a Republican majority.

    Probably the “vibes” shouldn’t be completely dismissed. They are for sure enjoyable in the moment. It was pleasant for me to read the other day in The New York Times that what I had taken to be the stinginess of Trump’s super PAC, named MAGA Inc., probably has an explanation even more embarrassing to Trump World–namely, that campaign laws require ads to include the name of the payor, and Republicans worry any ad could be spoiled by the tag “paid for by MAGA Inc.” There are also an accruing number of telling little details like this one, from the same New York Times story:

    On Tuesday Representatives Zach Nunn and Mariannette Miller-Meeks, both Iowa Republicans, voted with Democrats to direct the president to end the war with Iran. Their votes came as [Ashley] Hinson, [the Republican Senate candidate in Iowa], boasted in a new television ad about how she had “worked with Democrats” in Congress.

    [Vice President] Vance is scheduled to speak at a rally on Friday for Iowa Republicans–but Ms Hinson said she would not attend.

    Two years ago, Trump won Iowa by 13 points. Ms Hinson, as the Times’s style sheet insists she be called, would have been there.

    I have a theory about why Republicans are so nervous. It relates to their gerrymandering successes. The old-fashioned way of winning elections is to persuade people that you’re a better choice. Failing that, you can draw circles in different places, so that the same number of votes yields more seats and more power. The drawback to this method is that at some point the greediness leaves you more vulnerable than you otherwise would have been. For example, the “average” Republican district in a red state might formerly have been rated R+15. But the effort to squeeze out some more Republican seats almost inevitably reduces the expected margin in the “average” Republican district–let’s say, to R+10. Most current polling indicates that, asked which party they want to control Congress, Americans prefer Democrats by 5 to 8 points. That’s enough to win a majority but not enough to crash through the gerrymandered dam. If the margin were to creep a little higher, however, an extra one or two percent could suddenly yield 3 or 4 or 5 more seats in just one Republican gerrymandered state–and there are a lot of Republican gerrymandered states.

  • The current political scene

    I like to keep up with the topics and arguments of the other side, which is why I sometimes scroll over to the website of National Review–America’s foremost journal of conservative political opinion, according to National Review. Last time I visited, a day or two ago, I took a picture of what I saw on the home page, and now I’ve pasted it in above. I think the question asked by the first headline is answered in the affirmative by the second headline.

    Not that all conservatives are witless. I believe Jonah Goldberg used to write for National Review before the rise of Trump startled him half way to sanity. I heard him being interviewed on public radio while driving to work one day this week. The topic was the Trumpalooza, or whatever they’re calling it, that’s ongoing in Dallas. The question came up whether, given Trump’s roughly 1-in-3 approval rating, it helps the Republican cause for him to make the campaign all about himself. Goldberg said the situation reminded him of the sales guy who, when informed that the company was losing money on every transaction, replied that he’d fix that with his high volume.

    Obviously I don’t know what’s going to happen but it’s sure fun to watch Republicans squirm. Trump’s MAGA PAC has been sitting on a sum best expressed in scientific notation and it just made its first outlay–the Texas Senate race. Squirm, squirm.

    “I’ll give you $5,000 to vote for me!” Squirm, squirm; crime, crime.

  • Almost heaven? West Virginia?

    Don’t worry, I’m a subscriber, so didn’t pay anywhere near $10.99 for the current New Yorker. Although, considering that it’s a weekly and I’ve usually not glanced at the last one when the next one shows up, a financial adviser would probably tell me not to renew. The main loss would be that I don’t get to work the crossword at the back of the magazine with my daughter. The puzzle is labeled either “challenging,” “moderately challenging,” or “beginner friendly.” We work the two easier kinds. If it’s “challenging,” I’m on my own, and generally can finish it only with some assists from Google.

    But the above issue is a gem: a nice tribute to Dolly by Kathryn Schulz; “Anatomy of a Siege,” about Operation Metro Surge, reported by Minneapolis native Emily Witt; “The Scare” about divorced parents fighting over whether to vaccinate their kids; a short story by Helen Simpson about some middle-aged London women facing mortality by way of aging parents; a book review I haven’t yet read that’s tagged “Jamaican gay life in Marlon James’s new novel”; a couple of poems more comprehensible than is common; a “challenging” crossword, &c.

    I read Witt’s article first, and it was engrossing, but the piece on family court and children’s medical care was a punch in the stomach. It features a divorced West Virginia couple. The mom is a kind of displaced hippie into “natural healing” and other such rubbish, including preeminently RFK’s MAHA agenda–predictably, she didn’t want her kids to receive the normal childhood immunizations. I feel I know that type, but her ex is arguably a more interesting case: a Trump-supporting Covid skeptic who is driven, partly by the impulse to disagree with his ex and partly by the sight of his sick and vulnerable children, to accept the recommendations of orthodox medical practice. The last straw for their marriage occurred when the fellow, noticing his wife’s increased and secretive preoccupation with her phone, got his hands on it late one night. He was expecting to discover texts to a boyfriend but found instead that she was corresponding with an online “spiritual adviser and healer.” The article reproduces a couple of the exchanges; here’s one–Donnie is one of their sick kids:

    “Offering.” “I thought I said 20.” “What time tomorrow.” Jeezus. These are people whose troubles included having their mortgage foreclosed.

    The article highlights medical disagreements and legal struggles, but honestly, I just ended up feeling awful for their three kids. The oldest is 8 years old. What chance do they have in life? At one point, it is revealed that they are being home schooled by their mom. Of course! The woman who is sending Bitcoin to the fraudster she found online! That’s who’s in charge of the kids’ education! In an intrusion of sanity, a family court judge ruled that the children had to attend public school, but, all things considered, my dim view of West Virginia lives on.