Your Midterms Questions, Answered

Emperor Palpatine moves to the Ramada.

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With less than a week before the midterms, Sarah, David, and Jonah come together to answer your questions: Can voters push their parties to be better? What’s the best way to engage with your representatives? And when is Nick Cattogio joining the pod?

Plus: the panel reacts to Biden’s Democracy in Peril, Pt. 2 speech.

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  1. Paviroti

    Is it just in my head or did ALL of them for the most part get their election predictions wrong?

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  2. Hartzlk

    Some of us are more likely to vote in midterms now than 4 years ago because the threat of COVID forced us to develop news-reading habits we didn't have before.

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  3. Johns2ev

    A comment on the permanent Daylight Savings Time bill—sleep experts agree we need permanent standard time, not permanent DST. Permanent DST happened once before in 1974 and it was quickly undone. We definitely need to stop switching, but the current bill goes against what our bodies need to be healthy.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/01/daylight-saving-end-standard-time-permanent/
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/03/18/daylight-saving-seventies-history/

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    CarsonJ

    I can't like posts anymore but really appreciate any time we get a Dune reference.

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  5. Yoshi

    Thanks for answering my question. I can understand why it might feel intimidating to join the podcast. I think it's a good idea for him to get his feet wet with a prerecorded podcast where he can do as many takes as he wants

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    Jonmckny

    I’m going to start a petition to change the name of Sarah’s newsletter from the Sweep to Buckets and Vibes.

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  7. Anthony O'Brien

    Surprised to hear that Jonah and, especially, David would vote for Tim Ryan if they lived in Ohio. Ryan now is against any restrictions on abortion through birth. He used to be pro-life. Possible, of course, that he genuinely changed his mind after thinking the issue through more carefully. Much more likely that he changed his view because he knew he was obliged to if he wanted to run for Senate or for president as a Democrat.

    I would think that David, at least, would find Ryan's view on abortion and how he arrived at it as disqualifying.

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    EmmyCab

    I live on the far western edge of the Central Time zone in Texas. Geographically, I am 200 miles into the Mountain time zone, but we observe Central Time in order to keep most of the state in the same time zone (El Paso is on Mountain time). So during Standard time, "noon" already happens at almost 1:00 in the afternoon for us. During DLS time, this pushes "noon" back to almost 2:00 in the afternoon. It is miserable and unnatural. I used to feel like a real night owl who just had trouble waking up in the morning, but once I realized how far off our clocks are from solar time, I realized that I actually keep quite normal hours (when I don't have to wake up to an alarm).

    I would do almost anything to move to permanent Standard time. As 7-8 months every year of DLS has been the case for my entire life, my current plan is simply to boycott clocks whenever I retire and just live according to solar time (sweet relief!).

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  9. BGraham640

    A couple of comments/questions for David French: 1) I am in the Florida Congressional District 1. There were only 2 candidates on the ballot and both were unacceptable to me. I did not have the option to write in a third candidate. So I did not vote in this race. In my circumstances, is that what you would have done? 2) Regarding the nutcase candidates that both parties are putting forward. I have championed the slogan JUST DON'T BE INSANE (JDBI) for a number of years. The problem for the Republicans recently is that they have been nominating extreme candidates (on some peripheral issues). This has prevented them from fully capitalizing on the current favorable environment for conservative candidates. The problem for the Democrats is that they are nominating extreme candidates (on many core issues: education, crime, medical care, transgenderism, etc.). This sets up an environment where normal Americans would vote for the less insane candidate (in many cases the GOP, but not always) because their insanity would have a smaller effect on the way they would govern. If either party would follow the JDBI mantra, they would clean up electorally. Your thoughts? And how does the GOP get to the point where they would start nominating normal, sane candidates again? Conservatives need a place to go.

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    Ben Connelly

    If we ever get a law mandating voting, I will vote for whichever candidate runs on a platform of making voting voluntary again.

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