.
The best part of this?
Trump never sold himself as anything other than what he was. Party officials told themselves this was an act.— Brandon Finnigan (@B_M_Finnigan) August 4, 2016
A little schadenfreude for breakfast, from the Washington Post — “Did Paul Ryan just predict that Clinton will win in a landslide?”:
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) sent an urgent fundraising appeal Thursday evening that warned: “If we fail to protect our majority in Congress, we could be handing President Hillary Clinton a blank check.”
Whether or not it was intentional, the phrase “blank check” has a political echo — one that suggests a deep fear by congressional Republicans that a sinking presidential candidate could take their majorities in the House and Senate with him, and that they are getting ready to desert him.
It goes back 20 years, to an infamous chapter in internecine Republican politics. In the weeks before the 1996 presidential election, as it became clearer and clearer that GOP nominee Bob Dole would not defeat incumbent president Bill Clinton, Republican operatives began urging their struggling congressional candidates to begin making the argument: “Let’s not give Clinton a blank check.”…
For Dole, the implication that even his own party had given up on him was a devastating blow.
One of Dole’s top strategists that year was Paul Manafort, who is now Trump’s campaign chairman. Dole’s personal assistant was Michael Glassner, who has worked for Trump’s campaign for more than a year. A number of other Dole staffers now work for Trump…
In the 1996 election, Republicans lost nine seats but managed to hold the House, the first time they had done so in consecutive elections in more than 60 years. This year, Republicans have a bigger cushion — their strongest House majority since 1930.
However, they also have a standard-bearer who is far more toxic. In 1996, Dole was viewed positively by most voters, even as he lost. Trump, on the other hand, has the most unfavorable ratings of any candidate ever to lead a major party ticket since the advent of polling…
I don’t know if this is actually Ryan trying to gin up the remaining hardcore Repub base, or just an accident of phrasing coming back around to bite him in the butt. Either way, I applaud anything that sparks further infighting and mutual recriminations among the Disloyal Opposition…
**********
Apart from spectacular dumpster fires — at GOP headquarters, or in Rio — what’s on the agenda as we wrap up the week?
Why is @realDonaldTrump's campaign sending out an email with headlines about his campaign imploding? pic.twitter.com/uqZX3gMo3b
— Emily Cahn (@CahnEmily) August 5, 2016
(Maybe Donald really is Max Bialystock, after all?)
rikyrah
Yeah
Good Morning ?, Everyone ?
aimai
Things are going too well. I’m starting to worry. We just can’t afford any complacency. I’m not concern trolling, I’m straight up scared. And good morning to you, rikyrah!
Baud
Morning post after a Mayhew post? What’s next? Cats and dogs living together?!
MattF
Fareed Zakaria points to Harry Frankfurt’s famous essay on bullshit as a key to understanding what Trump is up to. I (mostly) agree– although I think Trump’s dishonesty goes above and beyond ‘classic’ bullshit. But both Zakaria and Frankfurt are very much worth reading.
Baud
@aimai: It’s like a movie, where you know there’s a twist at the end, but you don’t know what it is.
PsiFighter37
A tad worried that people are spiking the football early. The NYT has an FP story about reformicons and Trump. They’re already moving on…
MattF
@Baud: Yeah, we’re still in the middle of the story.
aimai
@Baud: The Candidates are coming from inside the House!
Baud
Although you know who doesn’t seem to be celebrating early? The Clinton team. So that’s good.
Kay
It’s just bizarre. I think this is the only lie he’s backed off from so someone is getting thru to him.
Cermet
Assuming the tRump loses and I so very much want that to occur – GO HILLARY – Democrats really need to re-examine their policies and start to accept that there is a place for white, non-college educated males and woman in the party/policies. I notice that the areas of the country that spend a lot on education (see coastal areas, especially; and hence, whites in these areas benefit the most but minorities do, too) are doing well in this economy. So, as per my post in the previous thread, democrats need to focus on this issue of improving rural education in this country; the deep south will also benefit helping all – whites, blacks and browns. Win-win.
Kay
@Baud:
They’ve been unflappable. I like how they’re not blabbing on tv constantly. Pols should be the surrogates, not campaign people, especially because she has such a talented line-up of surrogates and Trump has none.
Nominus
Just make sure there’s a fire watch over at the Reichstag
Baud
Oh, another serial killer in Phoenix.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@aimai: We’re Democrats. Worry is what we do. Except for Raven, who mocks us for it.
Keith P.
Even better, after all the preaching on Sunday TV about how if they got Congress back, they would lead, all they’ve done under Obama is bring about reflective gridlock. So if they lose that, too, they may be able to blame Trump for it, but they’ve got some of their own blame by doing a horrible job in the first place. A near default on debt, a government shutdown, how many jobs bills (defunding PP doesn’t count)? how many Repeal Obamacare votes? How many Benghazi investigations? How many jobs bills? Great job.
Emma
@Cermet: It’s funny. No Democrat I know says we won’t help the non-college educated white. What they are saying — and it is true — is that they seem unreachable. What do we offer those people at Trump rallies who seem to feed on bigotry and hatred?
Maybe you could make a couple of positive suggestions that do not include taking the focus away from important issues while we get them educated. Especially since in the US education in general is left to state and local agencies. ETA: I don’t see the Texas school boards letting go of their power any time soon.
El Caganer
@Cermet: What if they don’t want the place the Democratic Party creates for them?
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Kay: But that’s not true either. That plane had nothing to do with the latest release of captured Americans. Were they even hostages, BTW? I thought they were detained for crossing into Iran’s claimed territory. If so, that isn’t a hostage situation.
debit
@PsiFighter37: Yeah, seconding that. I remember laughing at GW all during the campaign thinking no one would be stupid enough to vote for such an idiot. I went to bed before they called the election, certain that I’d wake up to President Gore.
HRA
I believe dropping the ads in VA does send a signal of a form of celebration.
Baud
@debit: Bush/Gore was always close in the polls.
@HRA: not at all. They are simply allocating resources. They’ll be back in Virginia.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud:
I think that’s happening as we speak at Casa de Cole.
MJS
@Cermet: When has there not been such a place? There are no democratic policies or policy proposals that leave white non-college educated people out of the mix. Don’t confuse inclusion for exclusion. I wasn’t aware that Democrats are against improving rural education in this country. But when said education policies are frequently set at the local level, and rural school districts are run, as a rule, by Republicans (and exceedingly conservative Republicans, at that), there’s not a whole lot Democrats can do at the national level. See Expansion of Medical Assistance, Refusal of Republican Governors To Do So.
Hal
I’m still bugged by Hillary not breaking 50% in so many of these polls. Is that typical at this point in an election? I just want less wiggle room for a Trump recovery I’m sure the media bigwigs are hoping for since a runaway campaign success is kind of boring story wise.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@HRA: No, that’s just redirecting limited resources based on the conditions in VA. There’s no reason to poor money into a state that appears to be locked up, especially since Trump seems to be making no moves there. If conditions change they will go back in.
Kay
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
I didn’t consider them hostages but he’s “on message” there- all Republicans are repeating that lie. I think what got media all worked up about this particular lie Trump was telling was how bizarre it was- it was an elaborate story he made up based on something he saw fleetingly on tv. He crossed over into “really, scarily crazy” territory- delusional. I think they were horrified.
Baud
@MJS: There was a large portion of the convention focused on the opioid epidemic. Did the Republicans even mention it? Will it matter?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Cermet: You can’t push a chain. The folk in these places vote for low taxes and low services, and that’s what they get. I agree that needs to change, but how do you convince them of that?
Baud
@Hal: I don’t think Obama often broke 50% in 2012.
MJS
@debit: I was just the opposite. I was quite sure that the country had feasted on the anti-Gore media blitz long enough that they were ready to elect a complete dumb-ass as President. I was shocked watching the returns to see that Gore was actually winning. Then I went to bed. Then I woke up to an 8 year nightmare.
Donut
@aimai:
Yeah. I feel like Henny Penny in reverse, but I don’t necessarily feel worried, either. I really want the Democratic Party to keep that sense of urgency on display at the DNC and push hard to get the Senate back and at least put a big-ass dent in the current House majority. The sky is not falling, far from it, but it should not be this easy, this soon out of the gate. Maybe this year we are just blessed that way, though …
TS
@Baud: They showed a new add on MorningJoke – I can’t find it online – but it was good.
And on that show – Ole Chuck cannot understand why Trump is so behind in the polls.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Hal: Given how high Clinton’s unfavorables were going into the election, I’m not surprised. Many people still are voting for Hillary as a LEV. The good news is that her unfavorables are dropping. If that continues you’ll see her numbers go higher.
MomSense
@aimai:
I hate that we have to wait for Wikileaks to take another dump.
MJS
@Baud: They didn’t mention it because to most of them it isn’t happening. To them, drug addiction is confined to those inner city dwellers, and the cure for that is incarceration (preferably in a privatized jail). With a few exceptions, the solution for Republicans to the explosion of opioid addiction is 1) be rich enough so that you can get your kid treatment and 2) lock up the bastards who sell the stuff.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@TS: Remember back when Chuckles was the quant guy, and everyone thought he brought a bit of sanity to election reporting? He really became overly impressed with himself. Kinda like Nate, before he swerved off into explaining his results.
Kay
@Donut:
It has its own momentum, though, seeming to be ahead. People just like to be on the side most people are on. Romney was able to keep that going- Republicans here were utterly convinced it was in the bag. It’s important. That’s why they all fight so hard against any perception of losing ground. I’m much more a believer in the positive effects of enthusiasm than I am in the negative effects of complacency.
Ryan
Megyn Kelly has a breakdown and questions why Trump makes it so easy for the media to despise him and Trump’s campaign has the temerity to question whether MSNBC is in the tank for the Dems? Incredible.
Baud
@MJS: That’s the point. A Dem policy response to a problem facing rural white America. Will that convince those voters to support Dems?
The tax plans of the two candidates couldn’t be more different. Where are all the occupy and income inequality folks? Quiet, as far as I’ve seen.
Better policies only work if there are constituencies that will be attracted to them.
satby
@?BillinGlendaleCA: They not only vote for low taxes and low services, they then bitterly complain about how useless the government is because all [those people] get all the services that rural people don’t. Except they do, almost every single person living around me here is getting something from the government they hate. SNAP, SSDI, SS, Medicaid, etc.
But Michigan is busy ripping up pavement and letting rural road return to dirt. Just breathtaking how the folks here don’t put 2+2 together.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@MomSense: To an extent the “Russian hackers deployed by Putin” story provides some inoculation against another dump. How much depends on whether there is another dump (remember the Whitey Tape), how potentially damaging that dump is, and how effectively the Clinton Campaign can spin the story. If you really want to worry, worry about hackers altering election results. We can really get into Alex Jones territory, if you want to clutch pearls.
Baud
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
There’s still hope for Baud! 2016!
Kay
It’s just fun to imagine the pros in the GOP freaking out:
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Baud: You’ve got my 5000000 votes, Baud. Just let me get off this tablet and back to my puter.
Baud
@Kay: Hahahaha. I guess the Devil will have to go down to Georgia now.
JPL
AJC has a new poll that shows Hillary with a small lead in GA. link I still think GA stays red.
Kay beat me to it.
Hafabee
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Well, they certainly vote for low taxes but they still complain about the poor services. They do not seem to connect the two. Here in my corner of WV, though, the ONE issue ALWAYS on the table is abortion. Most R candidates, down to county clerk, has a “proudly endorsed by [anti-abortion org]” ad. On the 27-mile drive from our place to the county seat, there are no less than 3 anti-abortion billboards, including one with a drawing of a fetus saying “Mommy, please don’t kill me”.
Baud
I did not know that Sasha’s full name is Natasha.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Kay: I really, really want to see that reflected in the down ticket results. If Ryan’s comments reflect a broader GOP view, they’ve already given up on POTUS. The real test is whether we can get back one or both houses. If so, we’ll have two years to make some changes.
rikyrah
@aimai:
I am with you. Keep the nose to the grindstone. Find 10 people to take to vote.
RUN UP THE SCORE
raven
@Baud: Good luck with that.
Mike in DC
I think you can peel off the rural white voters and non college educated white voters, bit by bit. You go to their districts, talk and listen to them, politely but firmly push back against racial resentment, point out how Republican pols have lied to them, manipulated them and let them down time after time, and ask and show how you can help them. Also, run people who have some points of cultural commonality in their districts, while holding true to a progressive policy agenda. If we win a point or two more each time out, within a generation we will be competitive with this group as well, and the Republicans will be on the verge of collapse (unless and until they too adapt and adjust).
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Baud: If they had only had a son…
Kay
@Baud:
It’s within the margin of error + Clinton but it was also within the margin of error + Trump way back in May, so the truth is he was never strong there. She’s “winning” now by the same margin he was “winning” preconvention.
Donut
@Kay:
Agreed.
And I could not be more pleased to see Trump going to ME, WA, et al. Stupid wastes of time and money. He should still be trying to shore up his base, yet he thinks he can expand the map. Fucking bonkers. I think/hope that as the stupidity of that strategery becomes evident it will help depress his supporters further.
PsiFighter37
@Kay: Georgia has 15 EV I think? Pretty decent chunk to swipe if it can be had…
TS
@Comrade Scrutinizer: I can remember when MSNBC called out the GOP for what they were – but remembering Chuck in a good way – that was a loooong time ago
Kay
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
I’m optimistic but I think the House is near-impossible in one swoop. That would have to be some wave.
debbie
@Kay:
Conservatives never see anything other then their own viewpoint. I don’t know if it’s what makes for such levels of delusional self-confidence, but they have zero ability to step back and see the big picture, let alone consider how they’re being perceived by others or how others could be impacted by their decisions. They have zero empathy for anyone other than their own group.
Baud
@PsiFighter37: Sweet as a Georgia peach.
Matt McIrvin
@aimai: Worry about Congress. Without the Senate, not even a Supreme Court appointment can happen. Without the House, no legislation. And 2018 will be tough.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Mike in DC: This. Changing these attitudes will be incremental, and it is definitely going to take more than a few cycles to accomplish. Look at the history of labor organizing in the south, before the right to work
in feudal bondagelaws were passed.Kay
@PsiFighter37:
I think the “Johnson” voters will come home and vote for the GOP. She’s picking up independents already in that poll so that leaves only the “libertarians” and libertarian voters are often mentioned but rarely seen :)
They’ll screech about the Supreme Court enough to get most of them to vote for Trump. Trump himself does this now. He says they “have” to vote for him. It’s true, too. Losing the SCOTUS is devastating for “movement” conservatives.
JPL
@Mike in DC: Rural America has been sold a pack of lies, and it will be difficult to convince them, that not all blacks are on food stamps.
Baud
@Kay: And to us.
NonyNony
@Hal:
List of 2008 general election polls from RCP.
List of 2012 general election polls from RCP.
I think 2008 is instructive here. If you go by the dates you can see that Obama didn’t really start breaking 50% until the end of August with a few polls, and didn’t consistently start polling over 50 until October. Of course the Dem convention wasn’t held until the end of August (August 25th) and you’ll notice that the week after that is when he started breaking 50% in a few outlier polls, so Clinton is right on target.
2008 is the closest election we’ve had in my lifetime to a Democratic “sure thing” (though ’96 and ’12 are both close seconds) which is why I consider it a good example. If you want to use 2012, Obama didn’t start really breaking through the 50% in polling until September – but then the convention wasn’t held until the first week of September either. And Obama was polling at 48% or less regularly right up until election day (he ended up with over 51% – showing that many of the pollsters need to correct their models).
Regardless, looking at historical polls, polls rarely show a candidate going over 50% until closer to election day. Whether this is because there’s really an untapped pool of undecided voters out there who don’t make up their minds until election day, or because the polling agencies have a vested interest in tweaking their LV models to keep the race appearing close when you’re far for the election but a strong incentive to get it right closer to the election is a question I ponder a lot. (Not really – I’m pretty sure book cooking is a regular practice for a number of pollsters these days).
Cat48
@Baud:
@Hal
Hillz is setup for ads to run through the Olympics, so stopping a state ad not a big impact. VA & CO can watch those.
Try not to think about it all day.
rikyrah
@HRA:
Spreading the resources. Spending it in a possible Arizona.
Patricia Kayden
Trump supporters alright with illegal immigrants as long as they’re White. Who knew?
http://www.mediaite.com/online/trump-fans-tell-buzzfeed-reporter-theyre-fine-with-europeans-coming-here-illegally/
Kay
@Baud:
It’s just nice to see happy Democrats so I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts. We had labor people come into the office all week to pick up signs and they’re all chirpy, bustling about :)
If you’ve seen them when it;s going the other way there’s just no question I’d rather they believe they’re ahead. Moping around blaming people- it’s awful.
Baud
@Kay: Real life imitating blogs, or the other way around?
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Kay: I’m looking at the Senate myself, and hoping that the house becomes a little more manageable, but I don’t see the Republicans giving that up without a donnybrook. I think Ryan et al have a big problem, though. Repudiating Trump might mean that Trump’s supporters don’t show up in November, while continuing to support Trump alienates sane voters. I think that might be an interesting needle to try and thread. I think 2018 will be hard though, so I’m concerned that if we don’t get it now, we may not for a while.
Cermet
@Emma: Understand that and that isn’t what I was getting at; what democrats need to do is set a policy to aid them via education in the rural areas. Not a big statement that you hicks are needed and we have programs just your you …ok, over-the-top here. But the absolute fact of the matter is relative to education in poor, rural areas – like the deep south, Appalachia – these areas have, for generations been allowed for ttheir education systems to fall behind (local & state support; which are too poor to change this problem.) What I am proposing is we drop the ridiculous “No child left behind” and just require a proper mix of advanced courses, AP courses, and better language programs and these are paid 100% by the Feds and are Mandated for all US schools. The Feds would also provide extra salary money for required increase in quantity and quality of teachers.
JMG
It is pointless to worry about the next election when there’s one at hand.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Cermet: Soshialist schools teaching our kids democrat propaganda? Are you insane, man?!
Cermet
@El Caganer: Who’s asking? Recall we mandated school for all children (and lets extend that to 18 universally); why not mandate quality school programs and have the Fed pay for them?
Cermet
@MJS: Really? You believe that? Then why has the deep south and especially Appalachia been allowed for generations to rot both relative to education and training? The statement “Its a State issue” allows us to dodge the question and responsibility – the fact that the majority of these people are white is just an accident. They still need help to have a chance to enter the modern age which requires education. Stop acting like a republican and look at the facts that this has been going on for generations and is destroying generations of children.
Kay
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
IMO, Strickland in Ohio is losing so that’s a big blow for Democratic Senate hopes. He’s always been weak. He was elected governor in a wave year and he couldn’t even hold that and the vast majority of governors win re-elects. When he was elected governor he absolutely enraged local Democrats in R counties by appointing conservadem or even GOP judges, because he believed he was popular in areas Democrats don’t usually win so had to appear “nonpartisan”. Democrats in those counties wait years to get a Democrat in to appoint judges for midterm vacancies. They were furious. He’s a 1990’s pol. His time has come and gone. The Left/Right coalition he believes he can put together doesn’t exist anymore in the Ohio Democratic Party. They’re just more liberal then they were- all of them. The whole coalition moved Left.
It’s the one real downer so far.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@JMG: Not really. Sure we focus on the one at hand, but we also have to think about how this election, and the next, and the next, affect our ability to govern and to achieve our legislative agenda.
Cermet
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Again, Federal mandates that force the change; the Feds provide money for critical parts, and creating matching funds for more general needs. We can fucking afford to have the ability to move armies around the world but not fund a school in rural Tennessee? The democrats need to change this priority and that is what I am saying about solving the low educated whites in the party.
Weaselone
@Kay:
I’m not so certain all the voters that show up as supporting Johnson in the polls are disaffected Republican voters. Many of the polls that include both Stein and Johnson show as more favorable to Trump than the binary choice despite the Libertarians capturing more support than the Greens. Seems to suggest that there’s a group of anyone but Trump voters still out there who will vote for Hillary if pressed, but still take other outs if available. It’s probably consists of Republicans who don’t want a nuclear armed Trump and millennials where Trump’s level of support is below that of the Libertarians and Greens in some polls.
evodevo
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Yes. This. People here in rural KY – 99% white, HS graduates – want prayer back in the schools, can’t afford the Xtian private school, so they want religion back in the public sector, are rabidly anti-“welfare” even though there really isn’t such a thing any more (except when it’s THEIR granny on it lol), listen to Rushbo and Talk Radio 24/7 and have NO idea of history, or current events, except what they glean from that. By age 18 they are screaming “baby killers”, are either working at the local tire store or blitzed out on oxy – oops, now heroin – and are rabid Teabaggers. Reaching this part of the electorate would require YEARS of commitment to on-the-ground proselytizing/education by Dems, and I don’t see it happening in MY county. I do what I can, one redneck at a time, but it is very slow work LOL (just yesterday tried to convince ONE about the FACTS of Benghazi, not to mention Iran-Contra and embassy attacks under W, and it was a true uphill battle.). Don’t even know if I succeeded.
JPL
The newsies are talking about Trump’s correction on the money transfer in Iran. lol They must realize that he is not in control of his tweets.
Kenneth Kohl
@Cermet: Very good point.
IMO, GOP governance in the “heartland” may also have an impact on educational programs.
MattF
Trump advisor Carl Paladino (via TPM):
So… they’ve decided that the best way to attack Hillary is through Obama. What is it about Obama that makes them think that, I wonder…
raven
@evodevo: A friend of mine lives in Lousia.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Put money and get serious voter registration going
Peale
@Comrade Scrutinizer: so they were arrested for breaking laws? Yeah. Ummmm. Not hostages.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@HRA: I never saw a Hillary ad in NoVA even before they supposedly dropped them. But I don’t watch a lot of local TV.
it’s still very early to be spending lots of money on TV, IMO. I don’t think that reducing spending on ads in VA is a sign that they’re over-confident. But I have no inside knowledge…
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Immanentize
Hello Morning Crew!
It’s nice to travel, and it is nice to come home. I have been hiking in Glacier National with Mrs. Imm and my son, Immp. It was so amazing but also quite moving/sad to see climate change on the ground, so to speak. We went this year because by 2020-2030 they predict no more Glaciers in the park that is named — for Glaciers. Thought Immp should see them before they aren’t.
In the park there is no cell reception and really limited wifi. It was so nice to be off grid. But when I could, I would pirate some wifi, download the morning thread, and read it when we had a few moments off trail. You guys really are a wonderful well-knit discussion melange. (OK, one evening when in Kalispel, Montana, I both had wifi and felt compelled to comment on a night thread)
Meanwhile, when I was away, another leadership change at the top of my institution…. So I am sad to be out of nature and happy to be home to my cat and garden but not so glad to be back.
Weaselone
@Cermet:
You make it sound as if the whites of Appalachia and the Deep South have no agency.
The reality is that the Deep South, Appalachia and rural areas are in many cases are already heavily subsidized by the rest of us. If programs are carefully targeted, they can and have been refused by the states. We can’t force them to buy a new school, or hire more and better teachers in high need areas. We can offer carrots and sticks to do so, but they can always choose to refuse the carrot and beat themselves with the stick. See Obamacare as an example. If the programs are not carefully targeted, the states will use them as an opportunity for a new round of tax cuts or simply as a way to shuffle funds to other areas. This is a common practice for the use of Federal Funds provided in the form of block grants to the states.
Oldgold
Jobs: 255K . Beats expectations.
Cat48
Plus 255,000 jobs. UE rate same. July Jobs Report
amk
@Cermet: Let those ‘folks’ elect democrats first, instead of repeatedly putting in office corrupt crooks.
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud:
You’re right about that. The HRC organizers and volunteers are working as hard as if it were a close race. We’re taking nothing for granted. More volunteers are always welcome: for phone banking (not as discomfiting you might think), voter registration, canvassing, data entry, house parties, youth outreach, neighborhood GOTV, and providing snacks!
ETA: We luvs our snack-bringers.
MattF
@Oldgold: Also, wages inching up.
MattF
@O. Felix Culpa: Clinton team assumes it will be a slog. Which I agree with.
Emma
@Cermet: I’m with you there. But that means essentially overriding local control of the school boards. “Mandated” stuff is always resisted by red states even when it would benefit them greatly. Without passing some serious education laws, I don’t see how we do it. And that means having the House and Senate under Dem control.
(added) Was No Child Left Behind passed by Congress or imposed by the Dept. of Education?
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Peale: Look up the definition of hostage. Then we’ll talk.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Kay: I’m getting regular e-mails from Ted, asking for money. I’m hoping that things aren’t as dire for him as you paint it! It’s still early. If Trump can’t win Ohio, it has to be a drag on the rest of the Teabagger ticket, doesn’t it?
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who will be sending him some money in a few weeks.)
Ben Cisco
@Cermet: I asked in the last thread where you mentioned this: How do you convince those voters to vote for the party/policies (last I checked Dems weren’t anti-education/jobs for all) instead of voting against their interests?
ETA: I see @Emma and @El Caganer beat me to it.
debbie
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Portman’s not a Teabagger. The best scenario is that Ted will lose narrowly. He’s been a horrible candidate and his opponents have run tons of ads, using his own words against him. Frankly, it’s futile.
Jeffro
@Cermet:
I’d go a little bigger than just rural education. Dems need to think strategically, talk about, and act on “pocketbook issues”. While there is still a lot of work to be done, they have essentially cornered the market, in a positive way, on “identity & equality issues” – everyone gets that about the Democratic party. The GOP still has an opening, though, as being the party that looks out for workers of all levels by trying to keep taxes low, fight gubmint regulation, etc. Cruz & Co. will be pitching themselves as the party of economic freedom & opportunity, which is complete BS of course but that won’t stop them. It’d be great to really pound home – as you’ve noted – that investing in education means higher wages and a better standard of living for everyone.
I have been encouraged at how Sanders and Clinton have been openly talking about raising tax rates on the rich again (to include taxing capital gains at the same rate as income), particularly to pay for social goods like infrastructure, education, and health coverage. We’re smart people – unlike the Republicans, we can walk AND chew gum – so that’s my hope, that the Dems home in on pocketbook issues just as they have on equality issues.
Immanentize
@Ben Cisco: also too, a real question this year is what is the voting record/probability of Trump enthusiasts actually being voters? Ironically, Trumps “This election is rigged” is just the type of message that drives down turnout among seldom-voters. It provides (I hope) the perfect reason for not voting at all.
Just One More Canuck
@Kay: It’s odd that there hasn’t been any polls released for Ohio since before the Democratic convention. This same issue came up in a discussion of how close the presidential race was for Ohio – there isn’t anything that reflects the impact of the convention as well as all of the self destruction Trump and his acolytes have been engaged in
MJS
@Cermet: Hey Cermet, go screw yourself. I’m not acting like a Republican when I point out that school issues are decided locally. I’m not acting like a Republican when I say that rural school districts are run, by and large, by conservatives. I’m not acting like a Republican when I say that there is no chance that the changes you propose will be enacted/implemented. Do you propose a Federal law to get these changes through? Good luck with that (hint look at the current make-up of the House and Senate, and the likely make-up of the House after November). Or do you propose it be done by regulation? Get ready for the myriad of lawsuits from states telling the Feds to butt out. How obtuse are you that you can’t see the similarity between what you propose and the ACA? Do you think it’s that great a leap from “Get the government out of my healthcare” to “Get the government out of my school district”? Is it a sad thing that rural education is in the state it’s currently in? Absolutely. Is there any real way to improve it other than to turn red states blue? No. Lastly, I’d like you to point to Federal education programs or dollars that are available to urban areas that are not also available to rural areas, or do not have a corollary program/funding for rural areas. You know, to show that Democrats have in fact ignored rural education, which is your central thesis.
Immanentize
Voter turnout by income 2008
rikyrah
@Kay:
Was there any Dem that could have run for that position and been really competitive, Kay?
ICAM that Portman should be beatable.
tarragon
@MattF:
Oh good, I was hoping that Carl ‘Horse Cock’ Paladino would have something insightful to say.
He’s a family friend of a friend. It’s probably good we’ve never been invited to the same parties.
Kay
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
Oh, don’t give up! :)
If Strickland wins it will be because Clinton wins and we have lots of straight-ticket Democrats in Ohio. Strickland has somehow managed to let Portman get to the Left of him on trade. It’s just a lie. Portman is no more a “fair trader” than I am a “free trader”. Portman actually negotiated CAFTA and Strickland let him portray himself as fair trade. He’s just weak. He’s dated, politically. His idea of pulling together Dems who are NRA members with urban Dems and younger people won’t work. That was literally the approach in the 1990’s, what he’s trying. There aren’t enough “Dem NRA members” in the Appalachian counties to win anything. It’s like he thinks he’s running for county commissioner in a R-leaning county, like something a local Dem would do where I live. It’s not a state-wide strategy- it doesn’t reflect the actual Dem coalition in the state.
rikyrah
@Oldgold:
What would our economy look like if one political party had not chosen ECONOMIC TREASON AGAINST THIS COUNTRY JANUARY 20, 2009?
Immanentize
@rikyrah: It would look a lot happier and less treason-y? And there would then be no need for a Trump Festivus.
MomSense
@Cermet:
Follow the money, or the lack of money. For almost forty years the Republicans have been systematically shifting the tax burden to property and sales taxes. Feds cut income taxes mostly for the wealthy. States (red, purple and swing) cut income taxes mostly for the wealthy. They create budget shortfalls and then respond by raising sales taxes. The towns that want to keep their schools funded and property values higher (good schools are key to this) raise property taxes so they can keep teachers or let go of fewer teachers. People who can afford to move to towns with better schools do so leaving behind the people who are really stuck for all kinds of reasons.
The burden for paying for schools, roads, and the basics has been shifted so that retirees and people with lower incomes are paying substantially more than their fair share. We keep saying well Obama has lowered our federal income taxes but people are viewing taxes as all of the fees and taxes they pay for basic services, food, shelter, clothing, transportation, etc. Remember when we peeled back the layers in Ferguson and found out that the town was looking to the police to issue tickets and fines to generate revenue? That is happening everywhere but especially in rural communities.
If you want to see truly the worst sort of IGMFY in action, look at the exclusive resort towns in states like Maine. Summer people buy houses where they can see a Bush from their porch and then fight the property tax increases every year because they are already paying them in Greenwich or wherever.
MomSense
@rikyrah:
“What would our economy look like if one political party had not chosen ECONOMIC TREASON AGAINST THIS COUNTRY JANUARY 20, 2009?”
It wouldn’t look like potholes, rusted bridges, decrepit water and waste treatment facilities, and power grids that can’t meet demand. That I know for sure.
Brachiator
@aimai:
I don’t know if it is good strategy or complacency, but Maddow noted that the Clinton campaign pulled advertising out of Virginia and Colorado, seeing those states as in the bag.
Kay
@rikyrah:
I think Cordray could have, but he’s like the princess- he gets to pick and I think he wants to be governor.
Portman isn’t extreme enough in temperament for Ohio people to hate- he’s a chillingly calm and soothing plutocrat :)
amk
@Brachiator: They can always revisit those states if necessary.
Soylent Green
And I believe that Margot Robbie will knock on my door and ask me to marry her.
Perspecticus
I think WaPo went a little too deep on the “blank check” thing. None of these guys have historical perspective, first off, and he’d just gotten done saying his endorsement of Trump is not a “blank check” (as if there was some damage he can do to Trump by withdrawing his endorsement). Basically, it’s a go-to phrase for him, and probably little else.
Xenos
The price for the majority of the non-college whites seems to be the active disparagement of visible minorities, lgbtq, and religious minorities. That is too high of a cost electorally speaking, even if it can somehow be rationalized. Which it can’t.
Doug R
@MJS: This is where expanding high speed internet to everywhere and trying to improve education works together. Having these people off their chain emails actually taking free courses online and conversing with the rest of the population will help.
MomSense
@Cermet:
Count the votes in the House and Senate. Hell, the Feds never even fully funded EHCA now IDEA going back to 1975.
rikyrah
@MomSense:
DING DING DING!!
I look at the rest of the Industrialized world.
how can you have gone on a train in Europe or Japan and not understand how far behind we are?
Our infrastructure, IS FALLING APART.
To fix it, THOSE JOBS CAN’T BE OUTSOURCED.
It’s just disgusting that those muthaphuckas could get away with 50 Obamacare repeal votes…
AND NEVER BRING THE AMERICAN JOBS ACT UP FOR ONE VOTE.
Because, they were afraid IT WOULD PASS AND ACTUALLY EMPLOY PEOPLE.
THIS is why we have to break them. Crush them. Into dust this November.
rikyrah
@Kay:
He needs to stay where he is until the new Adminstration. He has been SO effective in running the Consumer Protection Board.
nominus
@MJS: Exactly. People need to remember that the religious Right was born out of “get the goddamned government out of our schools so we can keep segregating them”. They’ve been primed and ready for that fight for 40 years, that’s why they have been really good at fighting it with ACA. Trying to do it again with education is going to be the same challenge, we’ll literally be fighting a battle they are more experienced with and used to winning.
MomSense
@rikyrah:
I don’t think you and I should ever watch the news together. Actually I think we would enjoy it very much but we would have to ban all heavy objects and make sure no pets or small children are around to hear us yell at the television.
jonas
@Kay:
He still hasn’t explained why his highly placed Iranian intelligence sources would show him a bit of widely-available newsreel and claim it was “top secret” footage of the payoff. He should probably look into that.
Paul Wartenberg
@Baud:
As John Cole gathers more puppies to him, alongside overlord Steve, the answer is YES.
hovercraft
New Clinton Ad Unfit
Bill
@Cermet: Your theory is that a federally mandated education reform bill, to strengthen rural education and allow graduates to compete in the new economy, will bring rural southern white voters in to the Democratic Party?
Unless that bill includes mandatory prayer in schools, a curriculum on how slavery wasn’t that bad, and a rider outlawing abortion, it will do nothing to change the voting patterns of poor rural whites.
Doug R
@MomSense: Hillary’s plan to add 500,000,000 solar panels could help. Homeowners would save money. This coupled with cheap high speed internet and smart grid upgrades could really bring these folk into the rest of the world.
NotMax
Picturing Boehner, his feet up on the coffee table, watching the TV while sipping another dry martini and repeatedly intoning “Thank you, God. Thank you, God.”
ruemara
@Cermet: yes. Won’t someone please think of the poor white male? Excised from political power for so long. At some point, we’ll have to do something to help him overthrow his oppression by the forces of minorities getting equality and his rejection of education being filled with nasty liberal vices, like education.
Sorry, I just get gobsmacked at this view that the economic insecurity is causing the racism as opposed to the racism has decided economic insecurity is a fair price to pay for the racism.
Kay
@jonas:
Halperin is thrilled with his progress. Says he’s finally taking direction. The idea was to PIVOT off his insane, made-up story and then cleverly tie it to Hillary Clinton. He has issued the 2 Tweets to execute that strategy.
He’s on a roll now. Look out!
hovercraft
Even Mark Halpern is concerned. SAD!
Cat48
@Cermet. Did u see Chris Hayes last night? He had a white guy on who had written a book about the problem with white people w/o college education. He agreed with Hayes though, that besides “the elitist problem DEMS have, a lot of it has to do with RACE. “. You might be able to get the book name on MSNBC, Chris Hayes website or his MSNBC Facebook. You should try to read it.
Hillary & Kaine are also talking about apprentice programs & free junior college on the trail, so they are reaching out to anyone who shows up. Also infrastructure packages
MomSense
@Doug R:
The problem is getting enough votes in Congress. The jobs bill the President proposed includes funding to retrofit public buildings and private homes (based on income qualifications) to make them more energy efficient and to upgrade heating/cooling, etc. My point is that Republicans in Congress have no interest in creating jobs or improving our infrastructure, competitiveness, and quality of life.
Major Major Major Major
@ruemara: Bad conditions can exacerbate racism, but it’s still racism.
This last two weeks’ howls of “won’t somebody think of the white man!” brought to you by a big article in The American Conservative, by the way, so maybe let’s give it a smidge less credence. Full disclosure: I actually find that site pretty good if you want to get actual conservative thought, not ‘conservative’ ‘thought’ like you find everywhere else. But it’s still conservative.
ETA: @Cat48: Yes, it was by that guy. “Hillbilly Elegy”. Sounds like an anecdata-loaded version of the Charles Murray book about how white people’s lot in life sucks as much as black people’s do now. And, being conservatives, they’re only now asking themselves the hard question: maybe it isn’t (only) because the people themselves suck?
ruemara
@Mike in DC: calmly but firmly push back against racial resentment? lol, ‘k. Wow. I have wondered why “plucky white girl solves racism with some noble blacks” movies get made so often. This clears that up. Don’t know about you, but I’ve seen that not really result in good things. Do you really think all bigots require is a dad talk on racism?
Kay
We should also enjoy this because it’s genuinely unusual:
You’re all witnesses to history :)
Cat48
@hovercraft:
Watching MoJo today was,like watching a comedy show. Desperate people which sounded like Halperin tweet. They were screaming at each other over whether to desert the Hair Furor. Mika decided the email thing wasn’t a big deal, compared to Trump having nukes. Heh
Major Major Major Major
@ruemara: Why did/does WV go so heavily Dem except for president? Is it labor? Pork-barrel stuff? Maybe we can bribe them. It works on terrorists.
Miss Bianca
@Cermet: Oh, you mean, like Common Core? Or what rural education districts are already doing? I don’t know where you’re concern-trolling from, but here in deep-red rural CO we’re already doing all that stuff. Even distance-learning collaborations with community colleges, so that kids are being graduated from high school with AA degrees – or at least, substantial steps toward AA degrees.
And they still hate the Democrats.
ETA: And if you try new federal mandates, all they’re going to do is start screeching that the Evil Federal Government is Making Them Do Stuff. Remember that the idea of universal public schooling came from New England, and was wildly resisted in the South. And a lot of that anti-education bias came spilling into the Western states as well. As the parent of one of the kids I taught said to me one time, “Here in Delta Education we respect education, but it’s not very well-liked.”
So, you reach the people you can. Rural white people have to get over their own shit before they get with the program.
Redshift
@MattF:
Oh, good, someone with a big megaphone has finally gotten a clue about this! I’ve been throwing Frankfurt at any journalist I encounter on Twitter who talks about Trump’s “incoherent policies” and stuff.
I disagree that Trump is beyond BS. Being a full-scale BS artist is much worse than being dishonest, especially because our media have no idea how to handle a candidate who has complete disregard for the truth. Their weak fact checking is even more ineffective when every statement needs to fact checked, and even reporting what the candidate says without a blanket dishonesty warning is helping his BS become widespread.
ruemara
@Major Major Major Major: personally, I could be bribed by pork. Smoked for a day, with a good dry rub.
But they have been bribed. Medicare, ssi, etc. once those programs were opened to the unworthy, they turned against what improved their lives. This is why out of the two angry system changing old white guys, St. Berlin’s European Style Socialism did not beat Augustus Trump’s Nativist Drumbeat.
gogol's wife
@Baud:
I wish Barack and Michelle had asked my advice on that one. Sasha is short for Aleksandra, and Natasha is short for Natalya. There’s no such thing as “Sasha is short for Natasha”!
cmorenc
@Kay:
That’s what I would have assumed about a substantial portion of voters currently supporting Johnson in polls, especially given historical trends for a substantial portion of voters expressing 3P support to drift back to the major party they had previously been “at home” in as election day grows more imminently close. THAT IS, UNTIL I realized that in most polls this election which simultaneously polled a two-party choice AND a four-party choice, it was Clinton who actually bled more potential support to Johnson than Trump when the election was posed as a four-party rather than a two-party choice. What that indicates to me is that a more substantial portion of Johnson’s current support comes from Sanders supporters not quite ready to come home than Trump supporters not quite ready to come home. That observation still leaves open the important question of whether one camp or the other of disaffected voters currently supporting Johnson will prove more resistant to drifting back home (or more susceptible). A month ago, I would have assumed the Sanders supporters who had jumped to Johnson would prove to be the harder cases to crack, but now I’m not so sure that’s the case after Trump’s recent self-destruction, which has to be frightening and offensive to any GOP-leaner disaffected enough to have at least temporarily left the reservation for Johnson in the first place.
Miss Bianca
@Miss Bianca: Delta County. That’s Delta County. FYWP.
Cat48
@Kay:
Ryan is going to.put all money into House & Senate candidates & he’s begging for money in email he sent out so Clinton wouldn’t have a blank check. Same strategy used in 1996 that allowed them to limit losses. I’ve only been giving to Hillary, but we can’t match them bc Koch’s will give to keep House & Senate, but not Trump. Do you think we will have enough money?
Jeffro
@hovercraft: (like)
The Other Chuck
If you didn’t want a drumbeat of negative headlines, maybe you shouldn’t have gone around attacking reporters and banning entire news orgs from your events. That old saw about ink by the barrel…
But anyway, please proceed, Mr. Circus Peanut.
Jeffro
@Miss Bianca:
Just a side note: I bet if Common Core were rebranded as the “Freedom Core”, half of its opposition would melt away.
Gelfling 545
@Baud: Yep. https://flic.kr/p/Gi8nFx
Cat48
@Donut:
Trump may be going to WA & OR searching for the white nationalists vote. There are extremist groups in both states.
cmorenc
@rikyrah:
The GOP resistance to raising the revenue for mass transit goes beyond IGMFY fiscal stinginess – and crosses over into ideological resistance to mass transit, especially support of light rail in urbanized areas, because the current dominance of individual cars and roads both symbolizes FREE-DUMB and expresses their rejection of AGW or the notion that continued reliance on fossil fuels represents any sort of threat (except that they think we need more, not less gas & oil drilling and exploitation) The Triangle area (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill) is a case in point, where the GOP legislature has conducted a campaign of open sabotage of local leaders efforts to begin construction of a light-rail system, abetted by the RDU airport authority who resist permitting a potential light-rail stop at the otherwise ideally centrally located airport in the region because they constructed a huge parking deck that is a revenue cash cow.
cmorenc
@Cat48:
I’ve been rather surprised that Oregon is still listed in many polls as close enough to be toss-up or only very insecurely leaning blue, rather than more solidly blue so far.
NotMax
You can’t make this stuff up.
Granted, it’s from twelve years ago, but still…
hovercraft
@Cat48:
Mika jumped ship back on Monday or Tuesday, but that was also when she started throwing republicans the life line that Trump is not one of them, but actually a democrat and so they should jump ship too.
Major Major Major Major
@ruemara: können wir das Sozialismuswort ohne FYWP sagen?
Yeah, I know. They’re beyond gone. Hate is a hell of a drug. Sucks to be them. We should still seek to improve their lives, mind you, but fuck ’em.
Cat48
@cmorenc:
The GOP has tried b4 to win Oregon & came close. There are right wing extremists there, and lots of disappointed Bernie supporters probably. Maybe Bernie needs to visit.
Major Major Major Major
@cmorenc: good transit also lets Those People into your neighborhood.
hovercraft
@Jeffro:
Between this new one and the one that came out Tuesday or Wednesday (LINK), Trump will not enjoy watching the Olympics. Seeing republicans call him “unfit” to be commander in chief and then watching David Letterman make a fool out him for two weeks will not be fun. Chukles said this morning that since she had booked the ads so far in advance that she got discounted rates, he did not, so now that he has the money if he buys ads they will be at the premium rate.
And this goes all the way through the election, so even if they are on par in money, what that money buys will not be equal. Lesson well leaned from the Kenyan who is the king at rigging elections.
Gelfling 545
@Cermet: It’s easier to move troops arount the world because that fundamentally requires the say so of one person. If you believe you will get local school boards to accept federal plans, well, you’re quite the optimist. Also, the last few decades of plans from the federal level have sucked sewage so resistance isn’t totally unwarranted. You have state ed bodies looking for text books to deny science and talk about happy, well treated slaves for dog’s sake. And at the local level? Let me just say that Carl Paladino is on the school board in my district and that’s here in “liberal” NY State.
Enhanced Voting Techinques
Sitting at work, appalled by my allegedly professional immigrants utter lack of basic English writing skills and listening to them yell at each other over who is the better English speaker… The worst part is the way they are going on like Biblically literalists over their differing interpretations of the same badly written document.
I have to say between this and Trump, I am having a bit of an existential crises. The world really can’t be this ludicrous, can it?
Major Major Major Major
@Gelfling 545: I (apparently) work in ed reform now, and it’s hard enough managing the multiple levels of bureaucracy and ego in the schools that want help.
Tim C.
@ruemara: so much this. The idea that economic policies had much to do with less educated whites leaving the party is a load. Now, I do think there is some merit to the idea that AFTER the Regan democrats decided to listen t dog whistles that the party paid less and less attention to them, but that’s coalition politics.
Ruviana
@Major Major Major Major: I want to jump in on this dead thread to comment about Hillbilly Elegy. The book is a memoir so a lot of it is the author’s own experiences as someone from Appalachia. As an anthropologist, I give a lot of credence to people telling their own stories about their own culture, things that I would not see or understand as an outsider. What I was able to read on Amazon was very interesting. The author himself was trying to understand what made what he identifies as “his people” so unwilling to change and to do things that are so explicitly against their interest. This isn’t a “pity the uneducated white person” observation but rather trying to figure out why they are the way they are–what keeps them attached to their way of life beyond inertia or ignorance.
stinger
@aimai: This is the best pun I’ve seen in weeks! And I love puns!
bupalos
@Mike in DC:
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about this whole issue especially with regard to the rural vote. I like your general line of a long slow point by point battle, but I think this part right here is exactly the wrong tack to take. I think both flattering them for their shallow defensiveness (ie picking “culturally rural” candidates) and telling them they have been rubes that are being manipulated is simply gas on a fire. In a way, it’s what Trump is doing right now, and it’s mostly going to burn bright and flame out. Democratic outreach to rural America should be intensely opposite to that I believe.
What would that look like? An emphasis on what is right about rural America, without the retrograde bullcrap flattery. Rural America needs to reestablish an honest pride of place, from my time out here (going on 20 years now) I think that is what is missing and what makes the politics so messed up. Rural America has internalized decades of disrespect and decline. A lot of the politically-inflected assets they cling to (ethnic homogeneity, guns, religion, fetuses, militaristic patriotism) I think stems from this and is just a kind of defense mechanism to try and establish a pride in physical place that they do not actually feel, because the real rural assets have been so thoroughly discarded in American mass culture for so long.
One thing I’ve noticed that can open some of these people to more liberal positions (or at least allow them to listen and not head for the shotgun) is to speak about the real classical virtues of the country – the potential for solitude, peace, a slower pace, reflectiveness, a chance to see the stars and smell the roses. That is to say, the actual physical virtues as opposed to the phony political-cultural ones that really have been eclipsed by positive cultural progress. Even what to me are total redneck racists tend to respond to that kind of talk very positively, in fact, more positively than to the clinger-stuff to which they themselves will revert in day to day life. And I think it helps build a base from which some of the rest of the challenges can be addressed. I’d like to hear democratic policy frame things in terms of keeping rural america beautiful and healthy and natural and as something to be positively cherished rather than as a place with maladies to be treated or brought up to par with cities. Talk about it as part of America that can benefit more than any other from a new economy and the information revolution that makes piling into cities much less necessary.
Trump is nothing if not a fin de siècle character, and I think the Dems would do well to recognize this and see it as an opportunity to do more than swing the pendulum further and crush the opposition. I think there’s a real opportunity there to change the mindset by changing self esteem and pride in place. And there are some very natural Democratic themes (renewable energy, the environment, rights of people over corporations, infrastructure, education) that can work very well in a long slow slog to help accomplish this kind of conversion. I’m not particularly hopeful about Clinton on some of these scores, but I am eager to hear her drive home and fight for her lines about shutting down the mines and creating new opportunities that are real, as opposed to pandering to what the very people who engage in it admit is little more than mindless defensiveness and wounded pride.
1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)
@Cermet: You’re facing several problems, speaking as someone who grew up in Missouri, has lived in Mississippi, and now lives in Tennessee.
One is the disagreement on what constitutes “good basic education”–many local school boards and quite a few state boards are dominated by conservative Christians who are very uncomfortable with modern science–in part because they have been trained to be (Belmont University here in Nashville had to forcibly [and expensively] split itself off from the Southern Baptist Convention in order to maintain any level of adequacy in its science programs, for a private sector example). As long as state and local government has any say (and changing that will be impossible in the short run and improbable in the long run) in what goes on in the schools in their community, you must deal with local opinions about what is a good education, and what is desirable in the public schools–and you are going to be dealing with constant input from other outsiders who may seem more sympathetic to local preferences.
Another is that in rural areas, many of the people who were devoted to good education took advantage of offerings in that direction 70, 50, 40, years ago, and ended up leaving for greener pastures with better employment–Homer Hickam is just one example of someone who took the chance to do better for himself–but the people they leave behind are often not motivated to pursue education to the same extent. Any teacher with more than a year’s experience can tell you it’s nearly impossible to teach someone who just isn’t interested in doing the work of learning. As annoying as James Webb can be, it’s hard not to feel that he’s spot-on about the results of the Scots-Irish indifference to education and downright anti-intellectualism in parts of the southern US.
Related to this problem is that once people have that education, what are they going to do with it? What opportunities do you have to offer them? Will these opportunities require them to go somewhere else, to a place they may not care for, and leave their families behind? A lot of people who live in rural areas do so because they prefer that, and we cannot tell them they must not feel any distress or resentment or ambivalence over having to leave in order to find adequate employment. Travelling the Hillbilly Highway to Detroit or Chicago may have been economically beneficial for many people from Appalachia, but it was a painful choice, both for the ones who made it and for the people they left behind.
I also get the feeling you really don’t understand what motivates rural people, in the southern US or elsewhere in the country, and until you manage that, it’s not possible to effectively prescribe for their needs or convince them to make effective changes.
1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)
@Cat48: I think you have a point; I just don’t think there are enough of them to make a difference when it comes to getting an electoral vote. Certainly there are enough to cause trouble of one kind or another, outside of that.
J R in WV
@raven:
My Grandma was from Louisa, KY. I have visited there as a tiny young person; we stayed in the big old farmhouse. Last return was when Great Aunt died (94) and we convoyed to the old town cemetery where her grave was ready under a huge spreading oak.
Plan was after graveside service, everyone would leave to go home. Mrs J and I drove instead into “downtown” Louisa, looking for the parking lot where the old farmhouse stood. I went right to it, even though I had never driven there myself, and it was long gone.
I walked in circles in the church parking lot the Louisans turned the old house into, tears running down my face for a forgotten way of life. Not really for Great Aunt, who lived a full and long life.
Cousins and aunts and uncles drove there too, so the lot was more full than usual on a weekday afternoon… a little strange….
Uncle Cosmo
@hovercraft: Those fucking videos STILL will not play for me! Anyone got a different link to them?