If you voted for Trump bc you wanted "insurance for everybody" and worried about a POTUS under FBI investigation, my condolences.
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) March 20, 2017
.
Apart from saying I TOLD YOU SO, what’s on the agenda for the day?
Even Spicer has had it with Trump's tweets https://t.co/D8sY5grNVm
— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) March 21, 2017
…The testimony of Mr. Comey and that of Adm. Michael S. Rogers, his National Security Agency counterpart, will most likely enervate and distract Mr. Trump’s administration for weeks, if not longer… But it’s the obsessiveness and ferocity of Mr. Trump’s pushback against the Russian allegations, often untethered from fact or tact, that is making an uncertain situation worse.
Mr. Trump’s allies have begun to wonder if his need for self-expression, often on social media, will exceed his instinct for self-preservation, with disastrous results both for the president and for a party whose fate is now tightly tied to his.
And Mr. Trump’s fixation on fighting is undermining his credibility at a time when he needs to toggle from go-it-alone executive action to collaborative congressional action on ambitious health care, budget and infrastructure legislation…
The problem, from the perspective of Mr. Trump’s beleaguered political fire brigade, is that the president insists on dealing with crises by creating new ones — so surrogates, repeating talking points the president himself ignores, say they often feel like human shields….
Focus groups and polls conducted by two Democratic strategists this month have shown that many voters, even some who support Mr. Trump, have grown weary of his tweets as president. That was also borne out by a Fox News poll last week, showing that a mere 35 percent of Trump voters approve of his Twitter habits, and that only 16 percent of all voters approve of them. Some 32 percent said they “wish he’d be more careful” with his feed.
“His tweeting defines him, and not in a good way,” said Geoff Garin, a veteran Democratic pollster. “Voters not only think Trump’s use of Twitter is unpresidential, they also see the tone and content of his tweets as an indication that he is lacking in self-control.”…
COULD NOT HAPPEN TO A MORE DESERVING BUNCH OF GONIFFS.
That fight, the adviser said, is between Trump's instinct to never back down, which is now bumping into his fear of failure.
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) March 21, 2017
today was a convergence point for pretty much every major symptom of political dysfunction from the last few years
— Simon Maloy (@SimonMaloy) March 20, 2017
David ?¡Mere Campaign Volunteer!? Koch
7 years ago, today:
David ?¡Mere Campaign Volunteer!? Koch
Blup….blup….blup….
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone???
David ?¡Mere Campaign Volunteer!? Koch
@rikyrah: goodmorning :)
amk
Why is a key Hillary person asking the twitler to move on instead of putting pressure on him by asking him to explain the russian connections? Sheesh woman, think of all the caterwauling if the roles had been reversed.
bystander
Good morning!
Who’s Don? What’s RE?
Scarborough is savaging Trump and he was shocked by the repubs on the committee making fools of themselves. Glad he recognized what buffoons Trey and Devin are, but surprised? Please.
sukabi
If his feces flinging on Twitter causes his presidency to abort sooner rather than later, then I’m all for having him continue impaling himself with his digital quill.
OzarkHillbilly
Geeee,… Lacking in self control? Who’da thunk it?
sukabi
@bystander: don=Drumpf RE=real estate
Michael Bersin
I had a cousin visit with a friend this weekend. His grandfather is my uncle, my mother’s brother.
We did little painting:
The 1440 Clock Project – two minutes in Warrensburg, Missouri
“…The artist, from France, living in New York; a friend, Norwegian, living and working in Ethiopia, who used her vacation time and flew 38 hours to get to Warrensburg from Addis Ababa to help; and six other people from Warrensburg who thought painting on a wall and filming the process on a hot Sunday afternoon would be kind of fun.
It was.”
SFAW
@bystander:
I hope there’s a “Truth and Reconciliation” committee which eventually imprisons them for their anti-American shenanigans.
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
David ?¡Mere Campaign Volunteer!? Koch
Oh, this is why Trump has spent the last year focusing on her. Putin hates her so Trump is bashing her to please his paymaster.
Baud
@amk: Maybe she believes in the “distraction” theory.
SFAW
@Baud:
As in “it’s all just a distraction from Gorsuch/Defense budget/ADCA/pick-your-major-issue”?
Baud
@SFAW: Yes.
germy
Spicer press conferences as controlled theater:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/20/is-trump-trolling-the-white-house-press-corps
amk
@Baud: eleventy dimensional chess? dems suck at messaging.
debbie
I hope Trump is losing sleep. I hope he has many, many restless nights ahead.
Bruce K
What worries me about the war in the cheeto’s head is that the collateral damage looks like it could be widespread and utterly catastrophic.
Honestly, at this point, waiting for the 116th Congress to convene (hopefully with a Democratic Speaker of the House) may be too long a wait.
msdc
@amk: I want to know why anyone from the Clinton campaign is snarking about the campaign “death spiral” of the guy currently sitting in the Oval Office.
debbie
Another genius way to MAGA!
Baud
@amk: Complaints about messaging are a distraction.
rikyrah
@amk:
They really do suck at messaging
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: I am shocked, shocked I tell you! I guess there is somebody at the State Dept who doesn’t have their resume updated yet.
amk
@msdc: yup. what I said. This could have been spun in many ways. The twitler must clear his name and honor the post of presidency instead of trying desperately to dismantle healthcare of millions of murkans etc.
Taylor
@David ?¡Mere Campaign Volunteer!? Koch: I remember the time of the molestation of women in New Years Eve crowds in Cologne a year ago, there were eye-witness accounts that it appeared to be organized. At the time, I couldn’t figure out the end goal.
Then there’s the Cologne police chief who seemed at best incompetent, and was fired after lying about the extent of the attacks.
rikyrah
@debbie:
Uh huh
Uh huh
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Anne Laurie: disastrous results both for the president and for a party whose fate is now tightly tied to his.
While it certainly freuds my schade to read commentary like this and imagine it [the part in boldface] is true for a few blissful seconds, that feeling doesn’t last long. The Republican Party has a remarkable ability to keep coming back from the dead, zombie-like.
James E Powell
@OzarkHillbilly:
If only his election opponent had pointed out that his tweets showed he was unfit for office.
NotMax
Fill score upon score of federal positions? Nah.
Hire and install loyalty police? Check.
debbie
Was she not listening? Exactly what did she think would happen?
Trump: “Help this, sister.”
Baud
@James E Powell: Or that he was Putin’s puppet.
NotMax
@debbie
The unfortunate answer is yes, she was listening. To FOX.
GIGO manifested.
Baud
@NotMax: Then how did she find out about Meals on Wheels?
JPL
CBS News just told me that Tillerson is going to skip the NATO meeting in order to meet the Chines President at Mar Lago. On April 12th Tillerson will then travel to Russia. The administration doesn’t even attempt to hide their distrust of Europe.
We’re fked aren’t we.
Immanentize
@NotMax: Alles Klar, Herr Kommisar?
Shaa!!
Iowa Old Lady
@JPL: This is what the Meal on Wheels woman brought on us all. To hell with her.
Baud
@JPL: some fool on Reddit said Trump wants to form an alliance with China and Russia as the three major world powers controlling everything.
JPL
@Baud: Cool! Madman in the White House.
Baud
@JPL: But we knew that. It’s time for everyone else to learn.
hueyplong
This site seems highly motivated to plant Falco ear worms.
Fine. But I’m choosing the German-only version for download so at least the lyrics won’t all be drilled in.
Patricia Kayden
@debbie: Why would Trump allow even more of “those” people in when he’s trying to figure out how to get rid of the ones already here? Sheesh!!
Ella in New Mexico
@Baud: they called her on her land line ?
Aleta
Oh come on they voted FOR him for these reasons.
Baud
@Ella in New Mexico: People with land lines shouldn’t be allowed to vote.
Spaniel
Spicer has sold his soul to the company store. He has, he contnues, and will also in the future defend Trump; regardless of what truth is out there. Yesterday he was parsing the differences between investigation and the results in the Congressional briefings — not that he is wrong but rather their is some hidden trove of knowledge in which only Trump has access to and when revealed EVERYONE is going to see the truth. How long has Trump and his lack of weseals been saying this for the last two weeks about some questionable tweets and months for others?
rikyrah
One of the proposed changes to Trumpcare is a bait and switch about a fund for the Seniors. They are not serious about it. If they were, they would be putting the money in for the funding in the House.
They have some bullshyt about it being put in in the Senate, then going back to the House… Knowing damn well that it will die in the Senate.. but they will try and blame the Democrats for it failing.??
Immanentize
@hueyplong: Yesterday, talking about this ear worm issue, Yutsano noted that at times like these, it is always appropriate to go with the Austrians. So Falco it is!
WereBear
It’s not like they are alive. They are propped up by enormous amounts of crazy billionaire cash.
However, their voters are literally dying off. The younger the person, the more likely they are feel nauseated about Republicans. I guess they think they can rig the game so it doesn’t matter.
OzarkHillbilly
@James E Powell: If only she had….
Aleta
Put his campaign’s ties to Russian intelligence together with his numerous pro-Putin statements and there’s no reason for Congress to believe that any of his nominees or any other action is “what’s best for the country.”
ETA ‘for Congress’ to clarify
?BillinGlendaleCA
@NotMax: Gota make sure there’s no talk about invoking the 25th, Section 4.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Hey wait a minute…
Kay
Republicans are really cranky here. The Republicans I talk to about politics are “moderates” (or they think it’s more socially acceptable to be a moderate) and the truth is they don’t like Trump as a person. He talks too much, he’s rude, and he’s reckless. They’re embarrassed by him. It’s the excess- just too much of everything.
It’s so funny because people who have teased me for years about my politics all of a sudden don’t want to talk about politics. “So divisive! Can’t we all just get along?”
I think they want him to disappear for a while. Fat fucking chance. The Trump Family know no boundaries.
Baud
@WereBear:
From what I understand, we have the same problem with Latino turnout.
Gin & Tonic
@OzarkHillbilly: OT, but FYI, I have an appointment with the knife on Thursday morning. He can’t know in advance how complicated it will be.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: I have a land line.
satby
@Michael Bersin: very cool.
satby
@rikyrah: Good morning?
different-church-lady
@debbie: Oh she was “Under the influence” of something, no doubt…
Nora
I wish people would stop pretending Trump has any interest in infrastructure. He just pretended he was interested in building up America’s infrastructure to get votes. He has done nothing — and his budget makes it clear he’s not GOING to do anything — to fix roads or bridges or work on any of America’s crumbling infrastructure. Pretending his campaign promises meant anything is just enabling him to lie some more and give him seriousness he doesn’t deserve.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
@Gin & Tonic:
Do you want universal suffrage or do you want to win?
Baud
@Nora: Who’s pretending?
efgoldman
@NotMax:
Great opportunity for trolling and planting false information, also for different departments to record contradictory information.
Like the party commissars, none of these shitweasels know the first thing about the departments in which they’re planted, so some undersecretary could tell them, for instance, that Grand Fenwick was about to launch a manned flight to Mars to negotiate the right to all the gold-plated latinum, and somebody would take it seriously.
different-church-lady
@Baud: shorter: GODDAMN HIPSTERS TOO COOL TO VOTE
different-church-lady
@Baud: Winning is a thing you might not want to be giving advice about.
Baud
@different-church-lady: I blame people with land lines.
satby
@Gin & Tonic: best of luck! It must be killing you to have to wait.
Another Scott
@Baud: I hope real surveys are done to figure out why turnout has been low among these groups. It’s easy to think that they’re just apathetic, but I don’t think that’s the whole (and maybe not even the biggest part of the) story. (If it were, the GOP wouldn’t fight so hard to make it difficult to vote (not accepting college IDs, e.g.).)
I get suspicious of simple explanations that confirm “what everyone knows” about a topic that involves millions of people, myself. The data is probably out there (e.g. compare turnout before and after vote by mail was implemented)…
Cheers,
Scott.
Bruce K
@efgoldman: I want to be a fly on the Oval Office wall when the cheeto tries to order the Pentagon to nuke the Duchy of Grand Fenwick.
Iowa Old Lady
@debbie: I’m sure the people denying the visas were all the least racist people you’ve ever met.
different-church-lady
@Another Scott: I got a “scientific” survey right here.
Baud
@Another Scott: I’d like to know the reason as well.
Chris
@Kay:
I trust you’ve pointed out the double standard.
NeenerNeener
@Nora: Jared promised the trillion dollar infrastructure repair contracts to his creditors. They’re having a tough time with the Tea Party tightwad faction and funding.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gin & Tonic: Good luck.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
I guess I shouldn’t be amazed that you backwoods hillbilly types have land lines, although you probably still have to ring up the Operator to get connected to them people in the Big City. But if someone told me you had an Internet connection … well, THEN I would be shocked.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: I want to vote. Selfish of me, I know.
Another Scott
@NeenerNeener: Nah. It’s always been about tax breaks, not the federal government spending real money. BI:
Finance and companies get the tax benefits, Uncle Sam gets all the risk, and the there isn’t a line item on the budget for more spending. What’s not to like?!?!?
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
(“Other than the fact that it’s horribly efficient and won’t actually do much to address the real infrastructure problems, that is…”
SFAW
@Gin & Tonic:
Best of luck for needing the least amount of “work” on the shoulder, and for a short recuperation period.
amk
@Kay: A lil embarrassment is all they got? After, what they have inflicted on the world ?
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
It’s selfish bastards like you what are bringing down Shitgibbon’s America.
sunny raines
“Voters not only think Trump’s use of Twitter is unpresidential, they also see the tone and content of his tweets as an indication that he is lacking in self-control.”
really! they’re just discovering this now? imbeciles – rip van republican.
Baud
@Another Scott: I’ll admit, I don’t even understand even the theory of how tax credits can lead to a nearly 10x multiplier in infrastructure spending.
Jeffro
@bystander:
@OzarkHillbilly:
@James E Powell:
@Baud:
ALL. OF. THIS.
I think we’re overdue for some of our major Ds to stand up and speak out (preferably, in prime time) about how “this is what ‘unfit for office’ looks like”, and remind America that we don’t have to keep limping along with a toddler-traitor at the helm.
SFAW
@Another Scott:
INefficient?
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: There aren’t enough of us backwoods hillbilly types to make the installation of a working cell tower profitable. As to my internet, I have satellite for that. It works… Kinda…. Sorta…. Most of the time.
SFAW
@Jeffro:
And Rs will yawn, and say “He’s white, ain’t he? So what’s the problem?”
low-tech cyclist
@debbie: Just one more instance of
If I were a billionaire, I swear I’d put that on billboards all through Trump country, just to see how long it took them to realize what it was really saying.
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it.
Peale
I will admit. I like flying foreign carriers over US carriers when going abroad. Much better in flight service. So the us carriers can’t compete with Emirates and are losing business class customers because my God, you get treated like a prince on that airline if you are in business class or above. Fuck that laptop ban the US just put in place.
Jeffro
@SFAW: some of them will yawn, sure. But some won’t. There’s a reason Trump’s approval rating continues its plunge…support for him IS peeling away, slowly but surely. It would help to remind folks that there were better choices available in the past and will be again in the future.
Possibly the VERY near future…:)
low-tech cyclist
Where’s my quantum-scale violin?
If it’s too hot for these guys, they could always quit and go on wingnut welfare. I’m sure Fox News or the Washington Examiner or Heritage would take them on. That’s what they’re there for.
rikyrah
@Kay:
So..they’re as quiet as church mice pissing on cotton?
LOL
No, Boo. We all just can’t get along.
rikyrah
@Nora:
And, the infrastructure plan that he put forth was nothing more than privatization scam.
Gin & Tonic
@SFAW: It’s the forearm/wrist, but I appreciate the good thoughts. I am not looking forward to this.
rikyrah
@Peale:
So the ban ISN’T for Domestic carriers going overseas?
It’s only for FOREIGN carriers?
PHUCK.OUTTA.HERE!!!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Kay: In the approval polls you can see them doing the same thing with the way the approval keeps on bouncing back and forth while slowing going down. They latch on to the slightest sliver the Trump is really what they imagined him to be then Trump goes back to being a jackass he is.
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic:
I’m hoping for a good outcome and a quick recovery.
WereBear
@Baud: Yes! Exactly why we should write off Trump voters: I’m all about “See what happens when you don’t vote? Because: assholes do vote.”
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Another Scott:
I suspect when you get down it in their eyes both Trump and Clinton were just two Boomers only concerned about Boomers things.
An artical was pointing out that of the last four presidents; Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump, Obama was the only non-Boomer (at lest culturally). Makes one wonder if a lot of that screaming about “uppity” and “disrespectful” from the Right was more of a generational thing. Obama was disrespectful in their eyes because he wasn’t only solely concerned about the Boomers. Trump is “making America great again” but putting the Boomers back on top and scaring the young ones, and so on. Stupid old white people addicted to TV thinking.
debit
@rikyrah: I keep thinking about Tweety’s most recent commercial. He’s sitting in a gym with boxers in the background, bemoaning the fact that we can’t seem to get along. Can’t we stop fighting and get stuff done, he cries.
The answer is no, Tweety, you miserable little walking pustule. Also, too, where was this sudden and profound need for comity during Obama’s term?
hedgehog mobile
@rikyrah: And to you!
amk
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Guess allowing one to stay in their parents’ insurance, cutting out sharks in the student loans, spending on education, LGBT rights etc. don’t count. I never bought the myth the millennials are color blind and will somehow save the country in future.
satby
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: the millennials I know personally (sons, nephews, nieces, and friends of) fell into two camps generally. The somewhat engaged ones were Wilbur fans, only about 1/2 of which were swung to Clinton after the primary (suspect the rest went Stein) and the disengaged ones didn’t vote and were adamantly resistant to the idea that there was a difference in the parties and / or that it mattered at all (and one of those was my out and proud nephew, who didn’t feel that his life was materially affected by whoever the winner was). It was beyond torture to try to reason with them between the BS rightwing talking points Wilbur helpfully supplied and or the insistence that both parties were corrupt and votes wouldn’t matter.
They had been immersed in our dysfunctional system their entire lives, and propaganda works.
gene108
@Baud:
I do not know if f this has any correlation to voting, but the millenials I know (Limited sample size) have a massive distrust of authority.
Is the corn safe to eat? Maybe not, because most corn is GMO corn and just because the government says it is safe doesn’t mean a thing, because Monsanto bought the government.
I have not seen that level of skepticism to be as prevalent in older folks.
Another Scott
@SFAW: Yes, sorry. Missing closed parenthesis, also too.
:-/
My kingdom for a Preview function!!
Cheers,
Scott.
satby
@gene108: oh it’s there. The goofy fluoride debate, originally pushed by the John Birch Society, is still going on and has adherents on the left now too. The mountains of misinformation, now spread even faster via Facebook, will take years to remove.
I had to spend my St. Patrick’s day debunking the “Irish white slaves” meme. At least it was a distraction for my dog woes.
Brachiator
Nope.
Trump is a creature of habit. He’s like a shark, who only knows attack mode. He also enjoys having the power to force others to defend him.
He believes that nothing and no one can touch him. And so far, he’s right, especially with Congressional Republicans willing to back him up.
Some Republican dope being investigated for some bribery scandal recently invoked the idea that Obama’s deep state shadow government was behind his woes. Trump would approve this spread of his insane conspiracy bullshit, particularly since it legitimizes the crazy and makes it mainstream.
hovercraft
@debbie:
There’s the answer she was drinking the MAGA koolaid, I guess she’s beginning to lose her buzz right about now. She thought the tears of the blah’s and Mexicans could sustain her, but it turns out you can’t pick and choose who to take “stuff” away from, it’s across the board. Oops.
liberal
@gene108: Skepticism is great. What’s not great is stupid skepticism.
liberal
@satby: The form I’ve seen is “fluoridation lowers IQs.”
Kristine
@Gin & Tonic: Best of luck.
hovercraft
The stupid it burns.
California Waiter Demands Latina Women Provide Proof Of Residency Before Serving Them
Twenty-four-year-old business analyst Diana Carrillo was out with her sister and some friends when they decided to stop at Saint Marc in Huntington Beach. But before serving the ladies, the waiter demanded to see identification, saying:
“I need to make sure you’re from here.”
According to The Washington Post, once the shock from the appalling request lifted, they approached the restaurant manager, who offered to seat them in another section and his business card. Instead, they decided to walk out.
Still fuming from the insult, Carrillo posted about her experience on Facebook, saying:
“For a few seconds I thought maybe he was being a smart ass or joking but the fact that he said ‘I need to make sure you’re from here before I serve you’ was completely unacceptable. How many others has he said this too? I hope this employee is reprimanded for his actions. No establishment should tolerate discriminatory actions from their employees.”
Senior director of operations at Saint Marc, Kent Bearden told WaPo that the waiter had been fired. According to his records, the employee had never done such a thing before and had never “received so much as a write-up.” Bearden said:
Bearden said:
“I don’t know if he had an agenda or not. My concern is he violated a company policy. We’re very specific about how we treat our guests. That individual did not treat a table of guests to the expectations that we set forth in that company policy, and that caused him to be terminated.”
Bearden also explained to WaPo that employee behavior was impossible to control:
“The true measure is how you then handle it as a company. I feel very proud of our team and how we tried to take a proactive approach, trying to create a positive out of this situation.”
Carrillo also spoke with WaPo and said that she wondered if “who is president” had some effect on the waiter’s request……….
Along with just exhibiting disgusting xenophobic behavior, the unnamed waiter lost his job over abject stupidity. California, like many coastal states, enjoys a large influx of tourists and international visitors. No keen hospitality professional would require “proof of residency” for service in any restaurant.
Racism and nationalism isn’t just morally and socially repugnant, it’s bad for business. In 2016, California hosted about 17.6 million visitors from other countries, including 7.9 million tourists and travelers from Mexico. International business and tourism put $125.9 billion into the state’s economy in 2016, and supported over 1 million jobs. These jobs put earnings totaling $44.3 billion into California workers’ pockets; it’s karmic justice that that unnamed racist waiter won’t be getting any more of them.
different-church-lady
@liberal: Children’s ice cream, Mandrake!
Kay
@Chris:
I say “he’s a bad person” because I mean it. He is a bad person! There’s nothing wrong with identifying them. Stay away from them!
I refuse to get into demographics or political philosophy. “Bad person- yes or no?” They could have started and ended right there. What do they admire about him? The constant lying? How petty and nasty he is? How he doesn’t pay his bills? How he’s a terrible manager? How he’s constantly accusing other people of committing crimes? How he hires all his relatives? I mean, Jesus. He has no redeeming qualities.
This has nothing to do with education. They show poor judgment. They can’t identify bad people.
different-church-lady
@Kay: Clearly it’s the pussy grabbing.
rikyrah
@debit:
Tell it and keep bringing receipts.
different-church-lady
@Kay: Clearly it’s the pu.ssy grabbing.
liberal
@different-church-lady: God, I love that movie.
Kay
@different-church-lady:
I forgot that. How he’s gross with women, in a specifically gross 1980’s way.
I bet he says “she’s a TEN” :)
They voted for someone who went backstage at teen pageants to leer at 16 year olds. Bad person! Flashing neon!
liberal
@Another Scott:
LOL. Yeah, sure. Good old trickle down, this time through the construction industry.
FlipYrWhig
@satby: When I’m in the mood to cut them some slack, I think about how if the first president they ever really knew anything about was Obama, then they were spoiled. If Obama to you is just normal, and you expect Obama-like excitement and cool _as a baseline_, then everyone else is going to be extremely disappointing. People my age whose first votes were for Michael Dukakis never really learned to expect much, which means we never really learned to be disillusioned.
When I’m not in the mood to cut them some slack, I think about how much they honestly care about fracking, mass incarceration, and trans rights if they can’t even get off their asses to vote for a fucking reasonable human feminist president because she was sooo boring and said “superpredator” once before they were even born.
Barbara
@Baud: Either some nice person at her church, or, since she is disabled, she probably works with a social worker through her hospital or local aging department. When you go to a hospital they don’t make a visit from the social worker optional. They don’t want to see you back because you can’t manage your needs at home. These organizations basically specialize in getting people linked up with private and public resources who can help them.
hovercraft
@debit:
Obama was too busy being divisive and not listening to republicans who were speaking for the “American people”, to allow for comity. Much as Tweety “loved” Obama, he refused to compromise with the other side, he insisted on staying hard left, and everyone knows that American is still a center-right country.
Tweety is a moron who should have been shuffled off the air years ago, he adds no value to any discussion.
RM
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: As an actual Millennial on the older end of the spectrum, I think that voting being made difficult was part of it and targeted disinformation might have been part of it–not to mention that a lot of us who are left wing are left of the Democratic party–and only the very oldest of us (me) were old enough to have realized what happens when you don’t suck it up and vote against the Republican even with an imperfect candidate.
But! Honestly, the incredible Boomer-ness of both candidates was a huge turn off for people in my generation. We don’t trust Boomers. Even our parents. We see Boomers as people who were given every opportunity and who then turned around and took them away from the people who came after–and then castigated us for not doing as well as them. We look at Boomers and see a million thinkpieces about how much we suck.
Throw in how about half of the male half of our demographic got radicalized into proto-fascists by /Pol/ and Gamergate and ‘Wilmer’s’ positioning himself as ‘our’ candidate, nevermind that he was really as Boomer as the other… that basically gives you the election. We’re sorry we couldn’t save the Boomers from themselves, but on the other hand we find it Typical that our failure is yet another reason we get trashed by them.
(This is nothing against any individual Baby Boomers on this site! But as a whole we do feel like Boomers hate us for existing and we in turn are so Done with them.)
hovercraft
@Baud:
It can’t be said enough, these people are insane. That the fool believe this shows that they are as delusional as him. The entire world can see everything he says and does, NO ONE CAN TRUST HIM, period. He lies about everything, he goes back on his word about everything, why would they trust him? They may own him, but even they know that this mofo is crazy, and can’t be trusted. They can use him to further destabilize the west, but form a pact with him, never.
JPL
There’s a special election for City Council today, and I just returned from waving signs. Anyway there is a local polling place that has a steady influx of neighborhood women voting. It’s located in a Baptist Church. I was outside the 150 ft limit required, and the minister decided he didn’t want anyone waving signs, on the public sidewalk in front of his church. Did I mention the church is a polling place? I moved, but I’m thinking of contacting Ossoff’s office, so he can get it fixed by the 18th.
JPL
@debit: lol
RM
@RM: PS I did my part by voting for Hillary. I didn’t have to suck it up. I honestly liked her as the candidate and voted for her in the primary too. But a lot of my contemporaries were swayed by ‘Wilmer’ trying to directly appeal to them. Like anybody, we like it when people tell us everything is actually not our fault.
Again, nothing against anyone specific here.
But I wanted to put in my two cents as an Actual Millennial before this was overwhelmed by anecdotal evidence based on Millennials You Know.
germy
@JPL:
He doesn’t want to see his taxpayer dollars go towards…. oh, wait.
different-church-lady
@RM: I hate boomers with a passion, but I was still smart enough not to throw away my goddamed vote.
If someone’s reason for letting Trump into office was “boomers suck” then they deserve three times more slagging than they’ll ever get.
rikyrah
Republicans scramble to rescue flailing health care bill
03/21/17 08:45 AM—UPDATED 03/21/17 09:18 AM
By Steve Benen
The quote may be apocryphal, but when Nancy Pelosi was Speaker of the House, she came to be associated with a simple phrase: “First you get the votes, then you take the vote.”
It seems like a strategy so obvious that it’s hardly worth articulating – along the lines of, “First you put on the shoes, then you tie the laces.” And yet, the Pelosi Principle of passing bills is routinely overlooked by her Republican successors.
Take, for example, the ongoing GOP plan to pass the Republican health care legislation. Instead of “First you get the votes, then you take the vote,” House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is moving forward with a different tack: “First you schedule the vote, then you search for votes, then you significantly change the bill two days before the vote, and then you take the vote without any certainty about the outcome or the CBO score.”
Politico reported last night on the latest developments.
There are quite a few tweaks: more tax breaks for the wealthy, more punishments for the poor, some regional provisions targeted at specific GOP lawmakers, and a weird anti-abortion provision. Vox’s Ezra Klein explained that none of the new provisions “meaningfully change the underlying legislation,” nor do they “fix the old bill’s problems.”
But for Republican leaders, improving the legislation isn’t the point; passing the legislation is.
Librarian
@Nora: Yes, and the first one who should do that is Wilmer. I want to break my TV whenever I hear him say he wants to work with Trump on anything. How can he be such a gullible idiot?
Chyron HR
@RM:
If you’re a registered voter you are, by definition, an adult. It’s no longer mommy’s fault if you put your hand on a hot stove.
rikyrah
Trump picks the wrong slogan: ‘Promises made, promises kept’
03/21/17 09:20 AM—UPDATED 03/21/17 09:31 AM
By Steve Benen
Donald Trump held the latest in a series of presidential rallies last night in Louisville, where he pretended the FBI director hadn’t just told the world that Trump campaign operation is under investigation for its ties to Russia. The New York Times noted that the event included the unveiling of a new slogan.
For Mr. Trump, who is enduring one of the most difficult stretches of his young presidency, the rally was a chance to bathe in the adulation of a campaign crowd, a sea of people waving placards that said: “Buy American. Hire American” and “Promises Made. Promises Kept.”
Those placards weren’t the result of organic, grassroots enthusiasm; they were part of a specific push from Team Trump, which apparently finds the phrase compelling.
And at a certain level, it’s easy to understand the motivation. The more the White House struggles and Trump’s approval rating sinks, the more the president and his aides stick to the idea that they’re simply following through on the platform presented to voters during the 2016 campaign. Love Trump or hate him, the argument goes, he’s simply keeping the promises he made before he was elected.
The problem, of course, is that this isn’t even close to being true.
different-church-lady
@Chyron HR: If you don’t register, you never have to grow up.
Barbara
@RM: Wilmer was technically not a boomer. Maybe that’s why he didn’t turn off millennials in the same way. It’s a mistake — including for you — to generalize so much about any generation. Even if you look at boomers, it’s clear that those born earlier (1945-1955) are closer to your stereotype than those born after 1955, like me. Boomer voters — as a class — are responsible for the massive disinvestment from public education that has been a hallmark of our national experience since around 1980. As they entered the job market, they became obsessed with lower taxes, which they pulled from schools and other public services that they no longer needed for themselves. For that reason alone, I have felt like an alien in my own country beginning sometime in November of 1980, when Ronald Reagan was elected. While, on the left, boomers are annoying for taking credit for things like Civil Rights that they really had very little to do with. They also are, IMHO, too concerned with old people who no longer consider voting for them at all. Even my 82 year old mother told me to stop worrying about her generation and focus on younger people.
So yeah, it’s easy to castigate boomers as a generation, while millennials have different flaws, largely because they have had to deal with a vastly different childhood landscape. I have three millennial kids so I feel these differences keenly. Even apart from technology, just for instance, no one ever got divorced when I was a kid, and everyone played outside. A huge percentage of millennials have grown up in homes where separated or “blended” families are the norm and it seems like almost no one plays outside anymore.
But there is a bottom line here, and you are never going to have influence if you don’t vote. And what is most disheartening is the failure to understand that even if your own situation is relatively inflexible to political change, there are other people that millennials claim to support, like gay people, and young Latinos and African-Americans and others, whose situations are not impervious to political change. You can’t just pretend to support people. To support people you have to support them.
rikyrah
BREAKING NEWS: COMEY Confirms That DNI JAMES CLAPPER Was _Not_ Briefed on #Russiagate; GOP Talking Point Disappears: https://t.co/Utu0BkOlvV
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) March 20, 2017
Folks, _this_ (see thread) is a big deal. The GOP has been using James Clapper as a shield and Comey just shattered that shield permanently.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) March 20, 2017
germy
“When all the old boomers die out, we’ll finally have the progressive paradise we deserve because all the young folks are…”
Oh, wait.
rikyrah
What the everloving phuck?
American college students allegedly disrupt ‘pirate’ show in Cancun, chanting ‘build the wall.’ More: https://t.co/L15GD9dqxq #ABC13 pic.twitter.com/yyX2Vttq5j
— ABC13 Houston (@abc13houston) March 21, 2017
cmorenc
@Baud:
Trump probably thinks this is a simple brilliant plan – just like his plan to defeat ISIS amounted to “let’s become allies with the Russians”. All ya gotta do is, make a deal….
germy
@rikyrah: Don’t worry. Those young folks will “fix the mess” the nasty boomers left them.
different-church-lady
@germy: But… but… ALL THAT ICKY BOOMERNESS!!!
germy
@different-church-lady: Damn boomers, so racist and selfish. But someday that unfortunate boomer generation will die out and we’ll have a Utopia.
MomSense
@FlipYrWhig:
My first vote was Dukakis, too but I also got to vote for a lot of great local and state candidates. In my case it was not an option to skip voting for a Democrat. My parents and maternal grandmother would have disowned me.
RM
@different-church-lady: Dude, Millennials came out harder for Hillary than any other demographic despite any reservations about her. That we’re being blamed for not having a large enough margin to carry everyone else through only makes us more likely to think that all older people care about is trashing us.
Iowa Old Lady
@different-church-lady:
Uh, ok then.
hovercraft
@germy:
The misogyny evidenced in “Gamergate”, by some NOT ALL “Bernie-Bros”, and all those viral videos that circulated after the shitgibbon’s win were not boomers. Just look at the crop of teabaggers who’ve been elected to the house and senate the last few cycles, they are definitely not boomers. So yes there is a concentration of FYIGM proponents among boomers, there are new ones replacing them all the time. Where our hope lies is in the fact that where they outnumbered us for the last few decades, we are starting to outnumber them. That’s why they are fighting so hard to throw roadblocks into the voting process. Our challenge is to mobilize and motivate our side to actually get out and vote. They vote because they are desperate to preserve their privilege, we need to show that voting can level the playing field. Twitler and Co. are helping us by showing all those people who said “how bad can he be”, that the answer is bad, worse than their worst case scenario. That with some good candidates and a better GOTV effort could make 2018 another 2006.
different-church-lady
@Iowa Old Lady: Understand that I don’t hate people born between 1945 and 1964. I just hate “boomers.” There’s a difference.
MomSense
@Gin & Tonic:
Best of luck with your surgery and recovery. Please keep us posted if you can. One hand blogging?
germy
@hovercraft: Thank you. Excellent comment.
RM
@Barbara: Dude, you’re not talking to a non-voter and I do realize that generational stuff is more complicated than how I generalized. And the older you get in my cohort the better they are about putting their money where their mouths are.
But I think people not in our generation underestimate how much we feel like all hands are against us.
Barbara
@germy: I infer the strong influence of strong drink on a lot of these people. But yeah, what idiots. Also, getting arrested for public drunkenness and ending up in a Mexican jail is not for the faint of heart.
germy
@different-church-lady:
I know what you mean. A realtor we had to do business with last year was a Boomer (with a capital “B”). Narcissistic personality disorder on full display.
Tenar Arha
@debbie: I’m trying to figure out cui bono on all these stories of Trump voter regrets. I’ll admit that I have liked one or two for the “I told you so” “leopards eating my face” of it all. But I’ve never seen this phenomenon before, of the news media scrambling to interview the supposed winning side in an election about how they were so mistaken.
It makes no logical sense to me that the side that supposedly won is the one that has hooks to hang stories on. So, it must be serving a psychological purpose for both the media and the poor pitiful “how could I have known” interviewee. I notice most of these stories, but I’ve basically stopped reading them. The stench of the excuses is usually too much for me to bear. IMHO it seems a lot like white/cis/male fragility behaviors.
(I guess I should consider it good that I’m noticing how it’s all just bullshit that lets the media, the reporter & their subject off the hook. However, it’s time for people who voted for Clinton because they knew what 45, Dence, & the ZEGS would do to them to get to be the subjects of viral interviews. — ETA Actually maybe that’s why so few of these interviews exist, because then these same people who knew what would happen to them, would become targets twice over).
germy
@Barbara:
I was a teenager in the ’70s and I remember the stories about Mexican jails. Not a place any U.S. teen would want to end up.
It shows how far we’ve regressed that the same stories can now be told about American prisons.
I’m thinking specifically of Kalief Browder’s experience.
different-church-lady
@RM: yeah, well, you’re going to have to GET OVER THAT FUCKING FEELING if this kind of catastrophic shit is ever going to be avoided in the future.
Christ almighty I’m twice too old to be a millennial and I feel the same way, but I don’t get to indulge in the special narrative that it’s only happening to me and my friends.
Barbara
@RM: I know, it’s like Andrew Sullivan blaming the California referendum nullifying legalized gay marriage on African-American voters. The issue isn’t with how millennials vote, it’s with their propensity to vote. And I also blame the Democratic party a little bit here, because for too long we have operated on the principle that the presidential contest matters disproportionately. It does, but not as much as we like to think. Younger voters have always voted less during midterms, but that pattern has now been amplified, and amplified even further because the way younger people vote has never been further apart from the way older people vote.
RM
@hovercraft: Millennials have right-wing nut jobs just like any other generation. Gamergate in particular radicalized a LOT of young men, enough so I don’t necessarily trust any straight, white men in my hobbies unless they’ve had time to prove to me that they aren’t proto-fascists, because an alarming number of nerdy men are creeps like PewDiePie and JonTron.
I am the last person to say that millennials are going to save us all. I just wish we’d stop getting blamed for not saving everyone.
Yarrow
@RM:
Is this something that is backed up by data? I hear it anecdotally all the time, but I’m not sure if I’ve seen any kind of actual data on it.
hovercraft
@Barbara:
The fact that they are “college kids” is disheartening because this is the same ignorance evidenced by the morans at the teabagger rallies railing about keeping government hands off of Medicare and Medicaid. Yes inebriation lowers your inhibitions and can make you say and do stupid shit, but the fact that these dumbasses would actually go to Mexico to voice their support of the wall, shows that you can “educate” fools, but that doesn’t remove the stoopid.
debit
@RM:
That would be every generation.
Peter
@Baud: Doesn’t change the fact that the people who DO vote for republicans are going to be dead in twenty years.
RM
@different-church-lady: Dude, I voted. I vote in the mid-terms. I personally have been doing my part.
But you’re kind of proving my point that even when we do do our part we get blamed for not doing it enough.
germy
@Peter:
There’s a republican born every minute.
hovercraft
@RM:
I hear you, as a black woman, we are in the same boat, another reason for Hillary’s loss is the drop-off in turnout by African American voters. AA women had the highest turnout of any group period, but it wasn’t enough to hold WI, PA, and MI. Yes the AA turnout could have been higher, but that’s not why we lost, there was a perfect storm of forces working against us, and we lost. Finger-pointing and fighting amongst ourselves is not helpful, yes we need to look at ways to improve turnout amongst our various constituencies, but too many people took her win for granted and didn’t bother to turn out, that’s on all of us.
germy
All those college kids screaming “build the wall!” are actually liberals who will vote for a progressive candidate in 2024.
RM
@Yarrow: I have no clue if anyone’s done a survey. Anecdotally, I can tell you that almost every person in my cohort that I know is Damned Tired about being told how much we as a generation suck.
Mnemosyne
@RM:
You may need to re-read the statistics above before you make that assertion again.
And before you sneer “Boomer!” at me, I’m a Gen-Xer. We were getting screwed by the Boomers before you were even born.
Tenar Arha
@RM:
1) Gen X’er here. This was helpful.
2) Now that you guys (not you specifically, but your “generational cohort”) have seen what not voting does, is there a new resolve? Do you all understand that it’s a lifetime fight?
3) It always starts locally. Politics starts locally. Continuing on the same theme about participating/voting, do you all understand you need to come out for every election, & that you could vote for a local Green candidate who might either push local & state Democrats further left now or as they move up?
rikyrah
Reince Priebus’ FBI contacts suddenly look even worse
03/21/17 10:19 AM—UPDATED 03/21/17 11:03 AM
By Steve Benen
When there’s a major development in an ongoing controversy, it’s important to consider the news at face value, but it’s also important to reconsider previous details in light of new evidence.
Take White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus’ communications with the FBI, for example.
We learned about a month ago that Priebus spoke with FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe about Team Trump’s Russia scandal, and by some accounts, the White House chief of staff hoped to persuade FBI officials to reach out to journalists to downplay the significance of the controversy.
As we discussed at the time, there are rules in place that severely limit the communications between the FBI and the White House, though in this case, Reince Priebus either didn’t know or didn’t care about those restrictions. Politico had a report over the weekend – before yesterday’s testimony from FBI Director James Comey, obviously – about the communications.
In other words, Priebus’ chats with the deputy director of the FBI – communications that the White House has already acknowledged – were problematic on their face.
But in light of yesterday’s news, they seem quite a bit worse.
PJ
@RM: But is it an Actual Millennial or is it Millennials You Know who is/are the True Voice and Representative of Millennials?
Tenar Arha
@RM: Tried to add this & it didn’t save.
I totally get the frustration with think pieces. As a former subject of these kinds of think pieces, all I can tell you is that it’s a genre of every lazy columnist ever, but now instead of the occasional one in a local paper or national magazine, your generation got stuck with the whole Internet. I can understand how that actually sucks.
rikyrah
Republicans hope the ‘Buffalo Bribe’ can make a difference
03/21/17 11:09 AM
By Steve Benen
How concerned are congressional Republican leaders about dragging their health care bill across the finish line? Enough to start adding last-minute sweeteners intended to buy off specific on-the-fence members. The New York Times reported overnight:
So why add it? Because many upstate Republicans believe New York’s existing Medicaid policy adds a significant tax burden in their area. GOP leaders on Capitol Hill inserted language into the American Health Care Act last night that’s likely to make Reps. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.), Claudia Tierney (R-N.Y.), Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), John Faso (R-N.Y.), and John Katko (R-N.Y.) happy – or at least happier – and given how narrow the margins are likely to be on Thursday, every vote counts.
debit
@RM:
I went back and read over your comments and can’t figure out what you’re trying to accomplish here. Are you looking for some sort of validation? Because you voted? You don’t get a participation trophy for simply doing your civic duty.
prob50
@debbie:
Yes, and the Meals were supposed to be Faaahhbuuulous
rikyrah
@Tenar Arha:
As a Black person, it is frigging ridiculous looking at all these stories about folks who now ‘ regret’ their vote.
Phuck them.
Kay posts almost everyday about how these people KNEW THAT HE WAS A DISGUSTING AND AWFUL PERSON.
and, they voted for him anyway.
I am NOT going to understand that. I’m not going to pretend that I will. They do not get any understanding.
What they will get is an eternal FUCK YOU for putting MY COUNTRY into this kind of peril.
White people are so used to being able to escape into ‘rugged individualism’.
Shoot up a theater?
Lone wolf
Shoot up a school?
Lone wolf
Shoot up a church?
Lone wolf
While anyone non-White, they will try and find any connection to anything anti-Black or anti-Muslim that they can find. We Black people are ALL responsible for the killers in our community. EVERY Muslim must be held responsible for a shooting like at Ft. Hood.
But, White people? Always get the lone wolf treatment.
Not this time. Your collective vote for Dolt45 DEFINES YOUR CHARACTER.
Kay is right. He never hid how horrendous he was as a human being. Yet, you decided to vote for him anyway.
EVERYTHING that happens to this country IS ON YOU.
I think they are stunned at the pushback and the non-understanding. They are stunned by folks going ‘ FUCK YOU FOR PUTTING US IN THIS POSITION’ and telling it to their faces.
Stan
@NotMax: This is standard practice in New York State government also. Has been for decades.
RM
@hovercraft: Thank you.
You get it. I’m glad someone does.
You’re right. We should have come out stronger, we didn’t, and that’s on us. We know better now. No matter how awful an opposing candidate is, we can’t be complacent. We figured a literal sexual predator had no chance and just enough of us in strategic places pissed our votes away. We were wrong.
But at the same time, that our demographic groups were relied on so heavily to save the rest of America from itself that we’re getting slammed for not doing it… that’s pretty messed up.
In the end, though, we need to focus on moving forward and Resisting.
RM
@debit:
I never asked for a participation trophy but I’m not surprised that you’d imply I was, since that’s everyone’s favorite insult for Millennials. And I’ve been doing more than just voting. I’ve been calling my senators and representatives too. My friends have too. The election was a shock to our system.
But whatever. I’m disengaging with you now before I lose my temper.
Barbara
@RM: Hey, you should get in a time capsule and go back to the 60s, where the original Generation Gap was born. My mother in law was still bemoaning hippies as late as 1995 (it didn’t help that her daughter and niece married people she viewed as hippies). If your generation feels like that, maybe it needs to read some history to see how many prior generations were castigated by the very people who gave birth to and raised them. Seriously, and even more important, no one actually likes getting old. To the extent that your generation is being called out by boomers, it’s in large part because those boomers are particularly alarmed about losing their youthful cachet. And if you think that age takes precedence over youth — well, there are somethings that only time can teach. Whether it’s the job market or just getting noticed when you are standing at a bar waiting to get served, being old is not an advantage. For a generation that defined itself by its youthful rebellion this is beyond painful. Seriously, look at the kinds of commercials that are being aimed at boomers reaching retirement — it’s all about reassuring them that they will be youthful and active in the “best” years of their lives.
ETA: In other words, they are jealous and scared. Don’t let yourself by defined by their fears.
Yarrow
@RM:
Thanks. Your cohort may or may not be representational of millennials as a whole. I’d be curious to see if the group has been surveyed on this issue.
Stan
@Another Scott:
Well, I have a whole bunch of adult children and their partners. They are the opposite of apathetic. But they all work multiple jobs so they don’t have a lot of time. They are angry as hell about their economic situation (they all ‘did the right thing’ – stayed in school, got degrees, worked hard, stayed out of trouble…..very few have what we’d consider a good job) and all liked Bernie and Elizabeth Warren a hell of a lot. They are disengaged for the very good reason that they don’t see any other politicians who have anything useful to say to them.
On the other hand, if you’re a retired 70 year old there are politicians all over the country who are falling all over themselves to pander to you.
PJ
@Barbara: I’m not excusing anyone for shirking their responsibilities in a democracy, but Millennials have lived their entire lives on a diet of Republican messaging, which was adopted and spread by most mainstream journalists as a fact of life, that government is the problem with society and that participation in government, and, by extension, democracy, renders one helplessly compromised, if not corrupt (not that this ever stopped Republicans from engaging in every unethical, illegal, or corrupt activity they could to obtain and maintain power, but that’s another story). That message has been widespread since Reagan came to power, and because everyone walks around in it as if it were natural, it becomes very difficult to see that it might actually just be political bullshit used to make the rich richer and keep Republicans in power.
In this context, when some (many?) young people voted for Obama, they expected that he might lead the country to some liberal paradise right away, which, even if Obama hadn’t been a “moderate” Democrat, was never going to happen due to Congress. Due to the media’s obsession with the Presidency, versus the power in Congress, some people see that as a failure on the part of Obama, and thus that voting changes nothing.
(I think this attitude actually started in the 60s and 70s, with the hippies and the whole idea that society/government is hopelessly corrupt, which was only helped by the Watergate revelations, but I wasn’t around for most of it and it would take too long to explicate here. I can say that the notion of civic engagement as a responsibility and powerful tool basically disappeared when I was in school, and has only started to come back into the mainstream as a means of opposing Trumpism.)
It doesn’t help that Obama consistently embraced Reagan as a great President, and never put forth a consistent vision that, contrary to the government being the problem, the government is actually the means by which society resolves problems and improves the lives of all citizens. That used to be the message that the Democrats professed, and until that message replaces the Republican vision, many young people will continue to believe that government and voting is “just bullshit, man.”
Miss Bianca
@RM: OK, but you all do realize that the Boomers, in their turn, had been blamed by THEIR elders for every bad thing that ever happened? And that the Boomers, in turn, in their youth, blamed THEIR parents for everything? Nuclear warheads, the Cold War, Vietnam? That this complaint of “your generation is responsible for every bad thing that ever happened, and you suck” is…hardly unique to our era? And that that attitude therefore, is quite possibly…worthy of examination for bullshit factors?
Asking for a friend.
chopper
@debbie:
well that much is true.
Yarrow
@RM:
Where’s the proof of this? People may have regrets but will that affect future elections? Do whoever “we” is understand that voting is not just a privilege but a responsibility? That being a citizen means doing your civic duty and voting (as a bare minimum)? How do we know that anyone “knows better now?”
hovercraft
@rikyrah:
Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap.
Preach it Sister, I’m sick and tired of this shit. They were told, they let their hate guide them now they want sympathy, fuck em. I save my sympathy for the innocent, not for facilitators.
Barbara
@Stan: I agree with this. No one is talking about their situation and their concerns, not even Sanders. I almost fell over when I read this op-ed by Mark Warner that actually mentioned the rise in contract labor and the need to consider reforms for the way things are actually heading instead of continually harping about the way things used to be, which is what Sanders did a lot when talking about labor issues. I thought it was fairly shallow, even so, but at least he showed awareness of the actual circumstances of an increasing number of working people. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/what-a-21st-century-safety-net-should-look-like/2016/11/29/3ac806d6-b5aa-11e6-959c-172c82123976_story.html?utm_term=.45181af8d4db
But it’s a chicken and egg problem. If politicians know you are likely to vote, they pay a lot more attention to your concerns.
germy
@PJ:
That’s simply not true.
Obama said Reagan was influential, and he hoped he would be as influential. But he didn’t embrace his policies or his “greatness”
Barbara
@RM: Look, I am going to again ask you to see this through a slightly different lens. My entire adult life I have been at odds with the generational patterns that formed with the election of Ronald Reagan. I have been dying to see my children’s generation grow up and start voting to correct the distortions in public life that have pervaded the last 30+ years. I am not blaming you. I was hoping for progress and I got something very different. I am on the verge of retirement and I don’t have a lot of financial worries and I hope I never do. This isn’t existential for me, but I can see that it is for other people. It’s incredibly disappointing that so many people who are socially and economically progressive were waylaid by what for me were issues of style and substance rather than focusing on the existential threats that were looming. I live to fight another day as I have been doing for more than 30 years.
J R in WV
@msdc:
Because Clinton WON that election, by 3 million votes.
Is your mother tongue Russian, or Ukrainian ? or even Uzbek?
PJ
@germy: I didn’t mean to imply that Obama embraced Reagan’s policies, but that he considered him an effective, transformative President. There’s an article here about it: http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2044712,00.html . I certainly don’t recall him ever criticizing Reagan.
Stan
@rikyrah:
Many democrats also believe this. Me, for example. Counties have very little say in how the program runs, yet must carry a major part of the funding load on their own backs.
I don’t want this crazy health plan bill to pass either, but, this part of it would be good. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.
WestTexan70
@RM: I’m a late-era (born in 1960) Boomer who works with college students at a large university. I’m constantly impressed by their intelligence and energy, but mostly by their ability to adapt to changing circumstances. These folks are much more mature and put together than my cohort was at a similar age. I’m on a one-man “evangelical” mission at my school to get these facts across to my generation. I’ve not made much headway, but I’ll keep at it.
prob50
To over-generalize generational traits, biases and political and voting positions is a solid way to end up making a lot of really schmucky assumptions about a whole lot of people who may just want pretty much what you want. “Boomers do this and Mil-Exs do that and blah, blah, blah, blah”, because in the end you pull together or you don’t.
I’m in favor of people who pull together in the same general direction as me and actually get out and vote that way. I don’t care how fu*king old they are or aren’t, and I don’t have the time, energy or patience to want to slap them around.
Welcome to my tent. Please bring your own deodorant.
debit
@RM: Oh boo hoo. You feel marginalized and like everyone is picking on you. Guess what? Everyone feels marginalized and picked on. So you voted and contact your representatives. Yay! Me too. Now where’s my cookie?
I’m sorry, but I am done with catering to hurt feelings voters.
Barbara
@debit: I will say (without generalizing too much) that I have noticed that my millennial children have a habit of getting unduly focused on things that create what I call negative energy. They succumb a little too easily to a culture of grievance. When they start complaining about trivial things that don’t even affect them I tell them that every person on earth has only so much time, and so much energy to devote to things. Devoting their energy to transient outrages is a complete waste of time and energy. They don’t really thank me for it but they know where I stand on the issue.
FlipYrWhig
@Miss Bianca:
This Be The Verse
BY PHILIP LARKIN
1971
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
J R in WV
@SFAW:
Our hillbilly internet connectivity is via CPIP – Carrier Pigeon Internet Packets!! Thru-put is slow, but reliable as long as the sun shines!
;-)
J R in WV
@Peale:
Air France is the top for quality of service. Even in the coach the food is comparable to a good restaurant, and the wine is… wait for it… French!!
debit
@debit: And apparently I am turning into my dad and am sometimes rude and intolerant and breaking my own self imposed rule of not being an asshole. Apologies, RM. You keep being you.
debit
@Barbara: You have my admiration for your patience and efforts at guidance. I’m great with dogs (and horses and cats) less so with people sometimes.
Barbara
@WestTexan70: I love my millennial kids and their friends, but being with them does make me feel sometimes like they grew up in a foreign country. The differences are stark. Except that I don’t actually love my own generation all that much so I don’t really mind.
different-church-lady
@RM: I personally said nithing until the second-hand winge-winge-winge noise began.
prob50
@Barbara:
“It’s not having what you want, it’s wanting what you’ve got.”
Sheryl Crow “Soak Up The Sun”
different-church-lady
@RM: That’s because BOOMERS SUCK.
My freakin’ point all along is that Boomers sucking is NO FUCKING EXCUSE for political apathy.
different-church-lady
@rikyrah: If it’s all right with you I’ma just cut-n-paste the hell out of that
different-church-lady
@Barbara:
More to the correllary I was tring to get across: don’t let yourself be defined by your friends’ fears either.
If I knew anyone my weirdly undefined age who was going through the same socioeconomic circumstances that I was going through and they told me they didn’t vote, I’d be dope slapping them, not making pleas for understanding on their behalf just because I “identified” with them.
different-church-lady
@Barbara:
The indulgence in grievance is most certainly an overall, inter-generational cultural shift. Perhaps younger people succumb to it more easilly because they’ve been raised in a post-shift society.
West of the Rockies (been a while)
@Baud:
Honestly, there are days when I feel expending GOTV efforts on Millenials is akin to trying to get the WWC vote. Both seem a waste of resources. Gotta try, but, damn — both groups seem incapable or unwilling to invest in their own best interests.
Tom Q
Can I submit that very few people know what they’re referencing when they say Boomers? Technically, of course, the term means people born between 1945 and either 1955 or 1960, depending which definition you follow (I always heard the former growing up, but lately people assume the latter). But what many people seem to want to mean by it is, people who grew up being anti-war liberals but swung heavily Republican in the Reagan era — as if we’re all a bunch of David Horowitzes.
But here’s the thing: even back in the day, the percentage of Boomers who fit the anti-war demographic wasn’t all that great, and was heavily concentrated on college campuses. I was in that group, and I — along with all my friends from that era — have been a dependable Democratic voting bloc ever since. We came out strongly for Hillary last year. But the majority of my age group — non-college, or community college rather than university — never lined up the same: they voted for Nixon in ’72, and most every GOP president since. So it’s not as if they changed/sold out; they came of age in a leaning-Republican era and they fit in perfectly. My guess is the Boomers some of you loathe so much are heavily concentrated in that grouping. Please don’t paint those of us who’ve been faithful to the cause with your broad brush.
And, yeah, as has been pointed out: the younger generation feeling like they’re being scapegoated is not something brand-new with millennials. Everyone I knew in my 20s felt the same about how they were viewed by their elders.
Plus, for the record: I see the millennials as the golden hope for progressivism (again, not ALL, but the majority this time), because of their stances on social issues especially. My only frustration with them is their seeming inability to understand the importance of voting in every election. Which was especially important on November 8th: their percentage for Hillary was impressive, but their raw numbers for her fell short of what we needed. And, given the paper-thin margin, that was conclusive.
Citizen Alan
@germy:
I would submit that the subset of Millennials who can afford to Jet off to Cancun for spring break is not representative of the entire age cohort.
tybee
@RM:
suck it up, cupcake.
SgrAstar
@RM:
Ahem. Wilmer is not a boomer.
Stan
@Tom Q:
I too have great hope. They are much better people than we were at their age.
However, can we really say they’re wrong abut voting? My son in law who works seven days a week (literally, 7 days, every week) at two jobs….very smart guy, very informed. Is voting high on his priority list? No, and I don’t blame him.
TenguPhule
@Baud:
It involves Pixie Dust and Rand Paul farting cotton candy unicorns.
Tenar Arha
@rikyrah:
*nods vigorously*
Yep. They really can’t handle the truth, thus all the stories signaling “Not Me!” rather than stories about the people & groups who are hurt by the election.
Linda Binda
I hope I’m not coming off in some of these threads, the *very* few times I post, as a Nice Troll (TM), (pfft), but I have been lurking on this blog since late 2004, so… (yep, *that* long)
I’m another Actual Millennial, but a Black one, and a Child-of-Immigrants one at that, and then, thanks to that *awesome* (urgh) story about all of those African convention attendees being denied visas, I’m in that awful Person-Who-Has-Relatives-Abroad-Who-Apparently-Now-Will-Be-Blocked-from-Entry group, too. Yay.
My mom has a distant cousin who was a younger sister and aunt of people we know here in the Atlanta area: she (the poor lady — in her late ’40s, I believe) died of breast cancer, recently. I never got to meet her, but I’ve known her older brothers and one of her sisters for years: her brothers happen to be the fathers of my kid cousins; the sister, I’ve known since I was 6 in 1990, and who now lives in L.A. with her husband and children. We heard that she wanted to come here from Nigeria (we’re all Nigerian — same ethnic group as Adichie — Igbo) to see if she could get treatment, but for some reason, she could not get a visa. Hmm. Also, my oldest brother has been in this country longer than I’ve been alive. He’s been in this country since 1981, when he was 5. He went to go renew his driver’s license in January, and the stupid Georgia DDS forced him to wait almost four weeks on them to *verify* his 15-year-old Certificate of Naturalization. He was righteously pissed off. Threatened to contact Rep. John Lewis, Representative of our failed, crime-ridden district (yep). I’ve never heard of anyone having to *verify* a Naturalization before. Have you guys? And my mom was getting on his case for not having a passport and not bringing his Social Security card to the DDS (our DMV, BTW — Georgia has to have special names for shit). Meanwhile, the week of my birthday last month, because I’m a born U.S. citizen, the only hang-up I ran into was that the lady already about to take my picture had to call someone on the phone for five minutes to merge my records, because government/hospitals/employers paperwork-anything love to act special whenever your last name has a hyphen. Seriously. And so, I got my license over a week before my brother got his, even though my birthday is two weeks after his. My older brother, middle between me and Oldest Brother, his birthday is July ’77, he is also Naturalized, he renewed his license last year, when we still had actual governance. No verification needed, then, apparently.
Should I say more about who I voted for? Can you tell, yet?
The only elections I don’t vote in are local elections, because my city is unincorporated, so there is no one to vote for, so, in essence, for someone like me, local elections beyond school board and county commissioner don’t really exist; also, I didn’t vote in 2002, because I was newly registered for the first time that year, I was living in Milledgeville attending Georgia College and I didn’t know how to apply for absentee ballots as a student without a license or a car of her own. I accidentally missed the Georgia Primary this past election. I didn’t want to choose between Sanders and Clinton; I didn’t like either, to be honest — I wanted Biden, although, hell, he could’ve lost, too — let’s face it — Americans are stupid. I got the date wrong, or maybe my dissatisfication with the primaries nonsense made me forget, so I forgot, and Clinton won so well here, whatever I could’ve voted for there almost wouldn’t have mattered. My older brother got on my case for filling in an absentee ballot to vote for Clinton. He kept lecturing me about how I was practically wasting my vote, why can’t I go stand in line like everyone else? I kept telling him, I don’t like waiting in line in an Early Voting place or our usual precinct, for several hours, only for my vote to practically not count hours later or days later, when the votes are finally counted. He got on my case about that, too: “Just go in during lunch time, like I did; you can walk in and out.” I’m like, why do I have to time myself to walk into a building only a few miles from my house, like I’m trying to get to work? That’s bullshit. It’s by design that huge chunks of my day are supposed to be lost to the whole simple voting process — I’m supposed to stand in a line wrapped around a building to get in another line to see the same old white ladies and men I see as poll workers every two to four years (I applied for a poll job in 2004 — NO, I didn’t get in), with some newer old black lady faces, because white flight and natural progression of time is shrinking that white lady pool (I don’t hate white women — I trust you a lot, actually, some of my best friends are.. :). .. But the supposedly “ghetto” Clayton County government has a big Old White People pool), to verify my right to vote with my state-issued ID, to ultimately wait in ANOTHER line to use the Diebold machines, because…? I know, I know, as a responsible citizen and person, I’m supposed to put up with it or whatever else Evil puts in my way in order to exercise my right to vote, so I’m not an idiot, so, DUH, and so, WHY? Why is the idea that voting is supposed to be some sort of arduous undertaking, that takes months to start, and hours to finish, so normalized? It’s bullshit. I’ll keep putting up with it, because I don’t trust people, and I have false hope ( :P ), but I think the smart people need to finally kill off the naive mental idea that the slightly less smart coming after us can be trusted to do the right thing. I think 2016 forever proves that leaving things up to people’s natural sense of goodwill is a good way to start the Apocalypse. I mean, shit. What’s wrong with free, automatic registration? What’s wrong with compulsory voting? Yeah, yeah, “it’s a choice,” blah, blah, but my older brother grumbles all the time that we’re one of the few countries in the world that requires so little service from its people: we don’t even require any military service, people grumble about Selective Service, which hasn’t been enacted in years. What’s wrong with even online voting? Or letting Election Day be a Federal Holiday of some sort? How about we make it so we can’t force people outside of poll workers and Election officials to work on Election Day? Why do we treat Election Day like it’s a normal work day? It’s not. It’s bullshit. It shouldn’t take longer or be harder to vote than it took for me to fill out my ballot in my car, buy my postage for my envelope off of my laptop, and mail it already paid for at my local post office. And I shouldn’t be made to feel like a bad person or a sap for choosing that way to send in my ballot, either. No, I’m not physically disabled (I have anxiety issues), I’m not elderly, and I’m not overseas, I’m just someone who thought my voting experience in the 2014 Midterms were a special breed of bullshit I’m not going to re-suffer through. I waited five hours in line during Early Voting, just to see Michelle Nunn lose to David Perdue within two hours of counting, after even FiveThirtyEight thought she might win — that’s bullshit. I’m not waiting more than twenty minutes in any vote-related line ever again if my vote counts towards nothing more than a county-referenced MARTA referendum. Bullshit. No, I’m not going to stop voting; that’s not what I’m calling bullshit — I’m calling the normalization of the idea that voting should be actual work, like the kind of work I do on any given day at the post office, bullshit. I’m saying that the idea that voting should be more time-consuming and obnoxious than getting your groceries rung up at the Wal-Mart “speedy” checkout lane is bullshit. And yes, I know why it happens, and yes, I know in districts like mine it’s on purpose and by design, what I’m saying is, I’m not a bad person if I refuse to accept this as the status quo. What I guess I’m ultimately saying is, if a LAZY person like me is still yet not too lazy to vote, why should it be a surprise that so many other people luckier and more privileged and probably harder-working than me on other issues actually ARE too lazy to vote? Because it’s all bullshit. Voting should not be harder than a simple stop at the Post Office — 30 minutes or less. Either that, or electronic or mail-in for everyone nationwide. And the Electoral College? Bullshit. I mean, I get it that we’re also, in a way, counting how many states of the union, by their numbers, are electing a president, and not just raw numbers of people, but what’s the point if the numbers used to represent said people in the states’ voting power are inaccurate and antiquated, and the people who represent these states voting have no power of their own to be a final check in the process, if there are serious constitutional concerns? …If you have just a bunch of careerists who are all FYIGM at the helm at the sinking ship? The crashing train? Bullshit. :)
So, yeah, I’m a millennial, I’m black, I’m 33, and… I don’t like or trust anyone, at least, not like most people do. I’m cynical in many ways and too naive and trusting and childish in others. I guess, as long as voting is designed to be hard and frustrating, to base your country’s survival on the young and naturally lazy and selfish? This will only get worse, not better. Doing something about voting suppression is a step in the right direction, but in everything else in American life, we made things popular with Millennials by easing access; why be surprised that voting, increasingly designed to be as inaccessible as legally allowed, is scaring them away? It’s like asking my classmates in 2000 why they can’t just pay for their music rather than download off of Napster? So what if it’s a $25 CD album with only two good songs on it, because the music industry barons have decided we don’t need to buy singles? (My brother used to manage a record store…) I mean, in any other aspect in life, you’d be wasting your breath. Hell, that argument has stopped working with anime fans, another spoiled, tech-savvy demo, another Millennial subset. That barely works with people who watch TV or see movies, and I bet it’s the Boomers and Gen-Xers with children who are the ones keeping those ones afloat. Even my brother downloads movies — I watch movies streamed on YouTube once in a while, but it’s usually movies I’ve seen before or movies I can’t easily see here in the States (i.e. British TV movies).
So, uh… yeah. Everyone sells everything else to us like it’s a product, and like we’re just dumb consumer drones (I sound like latter-day George Carlin, don’t I?), but voting isn’t. Of course, we don’t vote. And I’m one of the few who still care, but I’m a Georgia Democrat, a feminist, and a black atheist who hates Atheism (TM), and I’m running out of ways to keep being engaged and caring, it’s becoming easier to be borderline-suicidal and resigned to believing that we’re either in the end-days (I know, I’m some weird atheist, huh?), or we’re being governed by people who want to rush the end-days in. And like that stupid YouTube flame war I got myself into the other day, I’m tired of it looking like I’m the only one under the age of 50 who cares without a cute gif meme and smarmy, inappropriate, “ironic” humor to spew at someone. It’s disheartening.
Sorry for the super-long post.
pluky
@rikyrah: Preach!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@SgrAstar: “Stewardess, I speak millennial”, a “Boomer” is anyone older than 50.
quakerinabasement
Excellent word, gonif, but I think it’s just one f, not two.
WestTexan70
Hey, Linda Binda —
It may not mean much, but this 56-year-old white, native West Texas atheist man likes your style. I know it sometimes looks bad out there and I know I am in the catbird seat because, in addition to all the above, I’m doing OK financially and I have been happily married for almost 30 years. But if there’s one thing my sweet, late mother ever taught me that stuck with me is that we’re all responsible for each other. If I’m doing OK and others aren’t, then I need to get my butt in gear and do something about it. She and my father were the only non-openly racist folks in my family. They, like me, can never walk in your shoes, but she pressed into my psyche that we can never feel we are better than someone else because of an accident of birth. She’s been gone a year this month and I’m happy that she never saw trump in the WH.
I guess that what I’m trying to say is, please don’t get too disheartened. You’re too young and obviously too smart to have that happen. In case you haven’t noticed, we need all the smart, good folks we can get. There’s next to no chance we will ever meet, but know that there are some of us who are older than you and much whiter than you who give a damn about you and others in your situation. I hope I live long enough to see the real changes that are necessary. But if I don’t, I will keep fighting the bastards as long as I can. Have a good evening.