The next step after Donald Trump’s trashing of the immigration proposal is a government shutdown. The Republicans, having been bit once by their doing that kind of thing, are, of course, trying to hang it on the Democrats. We’ll see how the media spin it if it happens, but my early readings are not good.
https://twitter.com/EJDionne/status/953253997112188928
https://twitter.com/EJDionne/status/953255595343216641
We didn’t need to ask to know the answer to that one.
https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/953087090048339968
https://twitter.com/JBWolfsthal/status/953085715524579328
https://twitter.com/brianefallon/status/952737185828130816
https://twitter.com/jonfavs/status/952598454274084864
Except for the possible electoral blowback, Republicans probably see a government shutdown as a plus – it shows how badly the government works. Those of you who have to prepare for this have my full sympathy – I’ve gone through it, and it sucks.
Are you one of the unfortunates preparing? Or do you have something better going today?
Cermet
I am preparing but being an essential person, still must show up during the shut down. That certainly sucks. Still, once it is settled, we do get paid.
Baud
They’ve lost every shutdown battle in the past in the polling. Don’t know why they’d win this one. But who knows?
maurinsky
I work for a quasi-government agency, so we will be mostly unaffected.
I went to a stand-up open mic last night and did 4 minutes & 13 seconds. I thought it went okay, but the emcee told me afterwards that I did better than the first 45 times he did stand-up, so I guess for a first time, it went pretty well.
There were some very funny people there, but there were some people who left me feeling disturbed.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Do they? My impression is their base likes it when the Republicans do something, not sit their and argue over trivia. Well, please proceed.
Cheryl Rofer
@Baud: I agree. But Maggie H. is staying scrupulously neutral.
That’s in reference to
Baud
In other news, politico has this story up.
The headline is click bait. The article doesn’t really back it up. The only real controversy it discusses is over access to Sanders email list.
germy
@maurinsky:
In what way? Was it their material or viewpoints?
Baud
@Cheryl Rofer: Scrupiously neutral would be an improvement for her.
Baud
@maurinsky: Cool. That takes courage.
Tenar Arha
@Baud: I’ve started to consider that the GOP is in some kind of plague mode. They spent so long saying “NO” to every compromise they don’t know how to govern. The extremism has reached the point where it’s killing the host.
swiftfox
Seen it avoided so many times, I’ll believe it when I sign the furlough notice.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Cheryl Rofer: I think the correct reply is “When did the GOP lose the majority in the House and Senate?” this shut down will be because again the GOP can’t compromise with itself.
The bit that’s wierd is the full bore racism from Trump, that didn’t work with Roy Moore in Alabama, why would it work in all these purple districts? Or has this really become the party of Trump so this is about keeping up Trump’s approval with his base, screw congress, they are just employees.
Cheryl Rofer
Cheryl Rofer
@Baud: I probably should have used a sarcasm tag.
Baud
@Cheryl Rofer: Nah. Better to leave them guessing.
Chyron HR
@Cheryl Rofer:
You’re forgetting the role that “shadow president Clinton” and “the Clinton administration” play in the shutdown.
FlipYrWhig
@Cheryl Rofer: Doesn’t polling show that like 75% of Americans think people brought to the US as children should be able to stay? I know somehow all they care about is “the base,” and the basest part of the base at that, but I really don’t think shouting AMNESTY AMNESTY AMNESTY is going to work on anyone who wasn’t already convinced, and that’s a small number getting smaller.
NobodySpecial
@Baud: So would injudicious amounts of duct tape applied to her sound hole.
kindness
I am offended by the DACA deal Democrats proposed. They want to make DACA kids 2nd class citizens that have different rights than any other citizen. That’s horrible. Look, we don’t have 2 tiered citizenship here in the US. DACA kids when they become citizens should have every right to sponsor family members to emmigrate in. I was shocked Democrats even proposed that.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
Marcopolo
Good morning folks. I will be calling Rep Clay & Sen McCaskill’s offices in a few minutes to tell them I’ve got their backs if they vote against funding that doesn’t include fixing DACA & fully funding CHIP. The Repukes have the majorities. Let them pass their crap solo if they can.
Peale
@Cheryl Rofer: well that’s what I’d run on too if I were them. The gop has paid zero price in mid terms after the last shut down precisely because they ran so hard against illegal immigrants coming from Africa with Mexican children at the border with the ebolio ground zero mosque virus. Democrats so far haven’t gotten much from DACA support. Democratic voters like it in theory but not enough to show up. It would be awesome if constantly insulting the value of immigrants would bring out naturalized citizens and their children to the polls, but that doesn’t happen either. They won’t shut up until they get thumped for it and so far no thumping has happened.
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
@kindness: Maybe they knew the courts would throw that out as unconstitutional. Or it’s 12 years down the road, so they would have time to fix it. I agree with you though.
schrodingers_cat
Oh goodie we have a new concern troll attacking the Ds.
ThresherK
@Baud: Random journalism +politics word magnets thown at a sheet of stainless steel would be an improvement.
PST
Tom Cotton is Satan. He’s more evil than Paul Ryan (although that’s kind of a “to infinity and beyond” statement). I love the way the republicans argue simultaneously that the democrats would rather shut down the government than help the DACA young people and that they are willing to shut down the government to get amnesty for “illegal aliens”.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Do you know the details of the path to legalization that happened during Reagan admin?
Cheryl Rofer
@FlipYrWhig: Here you go.
86% overall support DACA.
65% support DACA plus more border security.
37% support building the wall; 62% oppose.
I also just don’t see the logistics of deporting 800,000 people, many of whom have medical and teaching jobs.
kindness
@schrodingers_cat: Are you implying anything that happened during Reagan’s term was right?
schrodingers_cat
@PST: They* talk about how they are for skilled immigration when they are doing everything to screw over the skilled immigrants waiting in the GC line. They are full of shit.
* Cotton, WH etc.
CarolDuhart2
@Peale: Dems weren’t organized back them and we had nothing to counter that.
MomSense
@kindness:
Can we just keep them in the country for now?
Cheryl Rofer
Our President is getting hysterical already this morning. As usual, I prefer to present his musings in a way that doesn’t give him any more clicks than he deserves.
maurinsky
@germy:
Material! But this was a very low-stakes event, people were clearly trying out some new stuff, I was the only newbie there.
Jeffro
@Cheryl Rofer: Hey Tom Cotton: FUCK. YOU.
How can Dems be blamed for shutting down the government when the GOP controls all three branches???
schrodingers_cat
@kindness: I am saying no such thing, I just want to know what happened and the exact details of the compromise.
Kay
Government shut down drives me crazy because it’s such a stupid waste of money.
It’s a hugely expensive hissy fit, the President is indulging in. Remember that. He’s burning piles of YOUR money on the sidewalk because of course no one knows if the corrupt, sleazyTrump Family pay any taxes, so it probably isn’t their money.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat:
My reaction exactly. Cue TBogg’s post about the unicorns and ponies.
Kay
@Cheryl Rofer:
I’m thrilled the wall is unpopular. Another huge waste of money. It’ll be grossly corrupt too, with Trump hires distributing contracts. Imagine the crap job they’ll do.
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
As I have pointed out before, we NEVER have REAL government shutdowns. Unless the power is turned off, no taxes collected or refunded, all SS work is stopped, all Medic*** work is stopped, all inspections, government facilities shuttered, no travel of any kind involving TSA or passports etc. There is no government shutdown, the only people who care are Democrats and libtards. More kabuki.
SFAW
I know Favreau’s heart is in the right place, but even coming close to saying the Dems are the ones who decide whether there is a shutdown is an immediate loss. He should do what EVT suggested re: “When did the Rethugs lose their majority in BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS?” Anything else is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, so to speak.
Cheryl Rofer
@Kay: I’d like to say it probably would be better if they do a crap job, but they will be pushing trees and dirt around with bulldozers, so it will still impact the environment.
H.E.Wolf
@NobodySpecial: Yuck. That’s assault. The comment is particularly egregious at the present moment in time, when we have witnessed so many revelations of the assaults, and fantasies of assaults, perpetrated against women who have the audacity to speak.
Fantasizing about putting shock collars on women’s necks so that their power of speech can be cut off, and fantasizing about duct-taping their mouths shut so that their power of speech can be cut off, are two similar instances of the same ugly phenomenon.
? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?
@schrodingers_cat: Another negative nancy in the comments?
Kay
@Cheryl Rofer:
Did you see the piece on the Trump country club yesterday? I wasn’t surprised they skimp on food safety and refrigeration because none of the dopes see that. I was surprised there’s rebar sticking out of the concrete stairways. Suckers.
Amir Khalid
@Baud:
It seems to me that what Politico calls the Clinton side of the rivalry is in fact the Democratic party’s mainstream. And one has to wonder what Bernie is up to when he refuses to let the DNC have his mailing list. Loyalty must go both ways. I think the party should demand he either provide it or quit calling himself a Democrat. Otherwise it’s allowing a hostile takeover by outsiders whose leader won’t commit to the party.
PPCLI
@Jeffro: If there is a shut-down, the counter talking-point should be “The GOP is so incompetent it can’t run the government even when it controls the Presidency, Senate and House (and Supreme Court).” It has to be said 1 million times, mirroring the iron message discipline of the other side. Over and over. Don’t look for clever alternative points. Originality doesn’t work like repetition of a simple clear, convincing message. The GOP understands this and uses it to devastating effect.
And unlike the GOP messages this one has the advantage of being true.
Cheryl Rofer
@Kay: I didn’t read it, but no surprise.
PST
@kindness:
That strikes me as a pretty good example of the best being the enemy of the good. Under the executive order, even before that was abrogated, there was no path to citizenship of any kind, nor could there be without legislation. A plan that opens up citizenship would remove the uncertainty and greatly improve the situation for the dreamers. Minorities have to compromise to get anything done; losing some purity is often the cost. Moreover, I don’t think this really restricts the rights of citizenship — of which we only have one class. It restricts the conditions under which certain non-citizens can immigrate, and better or worse, immigration is not a matter of right and can be subject to quite arbitrary conditions.
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
Does he? I thought the only ones doing that were the BernOrBust-ers.
ETA: And “he caucuses with the Dems” does not count.
SFAW
@PPCLI:
Seconded, thirded, and fourthed.
Amir Khalid
@SFAW:
Well, he started calling himself that so he could run for the party’s presidential nomination. And the way they’re courting him (ETA: and his followers), the DNC definitely seems to consider Wilmer still a Democrat.
germy
Kay
@Baud:
It’s interesting to me that political media have disappeared Obama. If there’s a “Clinton” wing of the Party there’s certainly an “Obama” wing of the Party. They essentially ignore a two-term Democratic President who won with huge numbers and was always supported by the base of the Democratic Party. 2012 wasn’t “close”. The Obama people knew they would win it easily. The unpopularity of Obama was WILDLY exaggerated.
They are IN LOVE with their 1990’s notions of Democrats. It’s like they’ve passed this “Clinton wing” narrative down to a new generation of journalists with no interceding events intruding, events like a 2 term Democratic President.
Chyron HR
@Amir Khalid:
Maybe a list of a dozen Republican PACs that made millions of $27 donations isn’t very useful?
(Or “revolutionary”.)
Feathers
@schrodingers_cat: don’t know exact, but it was sanctions on employers with citizenship verification, in exchange for amnesty for anyone who’d been here five years and committed no crimes.
Jumbo76
Jon favreau is kind of a dope. That’s not the message. The message is that they are in control of the government. They can do whatever they want. And then, as Nancy Pelosi says, if they need our votes, it will have to match our values. The end.
Amir Khalid
@Chyron HR:
Maybe, but the DNC should be the judge of that.
kindness
Back to the 2 tiered citizenship proposal Democrats made.
Look at the optics of it. If this proposal is written into law and passed Republicans could (sure as shit will) run campaign comercials in the future stating that Democrats wrote laws making Hispanics second class citizens who don’t have the same rights as any other citizen. Republicans will campaign on that for decades and the dim whitted would believe them because in that case it would be true.
Democrats don’t need to give up full citizenship of Dreamers to make them legal is all I’m saying because doing otherwise will bite Democrats in the ass for many campaigns to come.
mai naem mobile
I looked up Cotton when they were talking about him as a possible candidate for POTUS. Google Cotton and his wife and you get a bunch of first page google results of Cotton hanging out at gay bars etc, the sudden marriage and that the wife is essentially a beard. Anyhow, Cotton is an asshole but i wonder if like Lindsay Graham he’s not compromised.
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
Maybe I’m splitting hairs, but: I thought it was that he’d run for the Dem nomination, but never declared himself to be one. I’m truly not trying to be a smart-ass (for a change), it’s just that I still see an “I” after his name, and I don’t see a lot — although I haven’t been paying close attention, I confess — of him stumping for Dems, or helping Tom Perez.
Kay
@Chyron HR:
They may use it for impure actions, like electing Democrats. It must remain pure and unsullied, Bernie’s list. It’s for raising 27 dollar donations to buy back to back tv ads in Ohio the next time he runs, with a cut off the top for his wife’s friends.
Aardvark Cheeselog
What I’d like to hear from every talking head’s lips:
“Republicans have shown that they don’t want to listen to Democratic suggestions, so they should stop whining about a shutdown pass a spending bill with their majorities”
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: I wonder how many of those donors really exist or if it was just a shell game for Russian oligarchs to launder money.
SFAW
@kindness:
Look, no matter what the Dems do, the Rethugs will find some way to pervert it into a “OMFG the Dems are trying to kill you and your children” message. It’s pretty much a fact of modern political life, so stop worrying about it.
But thanks for the concern.
Boatboy_srq
@Cheryl Rofer: “Great Wall.” Humph. Lord Dampnut thinks he’s emperor of Jyna?
Redshift
@Kay: I suppose there’s some of that, but I think it’s also that the entire “overhaul” is an attempt to placate the Wilmerites, and the media buying into their their narrative that the only reason anyone opposes them is because they’re a “Clinton person.”
Boatboy_srq
@schrodingers_cat: That’s an evil thought. Which of course makes it more probable just for that.
SiubhanDuinne
@Kay:
Do you have a link to reporting on that? Thanks!
Amir Khalid
@SFAW:
It seems really strange that the DNC would let an outsider seek the party’s Presidential nomination. I was under the impression that he at least called himself a Dem during his campaign, and afterwards changed his affiliation back to independent. In any case, an outsider has really no business being involved in reshaping the party.
1000 flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@schrodingers_cat: Here is the Wikipedia article.
There are, as usual, links at the end worth a look.
Boatboy_srq
@Kay: Blah President did not happen. Ahmurrrkkka would never allow a travesty like one of Those Other People® running things, and too many Bothsiderists got too badly burned by rumours of Kenyan CryptoMuslim IslamoFascoSoshulism to bring it up.
It doesn’t help the news cycle thst BHO was one of the most consciously, deliberately above-board and scandal-free – and therefore uninteresting – US Presidents in living memory.
JohnO
Put me solidly down on the side of the D’s pretty much collectively saying FU to the R’s. Maybe toss in some best wishes in the interest of comity.
The reason I don’t ID as a D is because my whole life they are playing submissive because they’re trapped by their collectively (generally, of course) humane and civil nature. Politics is not for the weak.
There is an opportunity here for the D’s to step on some necks. I for one am not sure the R’s can pass ANYTHING w/o a lot of D help. Agree with the message of, “Hey, we’re not the ones in charge. You have all the power. Get what you want done, we’re not helping because we are decent human beings.”
opiejeanne
@Amir Khalid: Yes, he switched to a D when he ran and switched back to I when it was over. He has done nothing useful for the Democrats since that.
Jeffro
@mai naem mobile: He’s compromised just by virtue of being a psycho wingnut and a complete liar. Yesterday he was tweeting about how much he loves MLK and supports MLK’s messages of unity, blah blah blah. Just like all the other Republican snakes, he’s learned to SAY all the right things (including accurately describing what America SHOULD be, and accurately describing some of our problems) but what he actually DOES/VOTES is another thing entirely.
Lying scum.
Gin & Tonic
@Kay: Still wish you’d go back to posting on the front page and not just in the comments. You’ve really been on fire this last year.
The Thin Black Duke
@Gin & Tonic: Seconded. Kay brings a touch of class to this wretched hive of scum and villainy.
chopper
not excited about the prospect of a shutdown, cause with these assholes i may not actually get backpay after it’s all done. then again, it’s not like I’m ever all that excited to go to work these days knowing this guy’s my ultimate boss. feh.
schrodingers_cat
@Boatboy_srq: It is not a coincidence that the racist President rose due to the blessings of a racist (but polite) media. I am looking at you NewsHour and NYT.
ETA: Genteel racism is still racism and there was nothing genteel about the way they tore into President O
marcopolo
@Baud:I read the article and agree the headline overstates the DNC in disarray narrative–people don’t read the news to find out that things are going well, do they? But the whole fight over the Wilmer email list/voter information will be a moot point in a couple of years. These lists have value (financial value) but only for a set period of time as the data gets old. Normally someone with a list like this will actualize this value by renting it out. That is SOP. I’m not a big fan of Wilmer, don’t know what kinds of negotiations are occurring between him & the DNC (not covered in the article), but I don’t think any candidate that develops a good list should just give it up (I’d reckon that Obama didn’t hand over his 2008 campaign voter list to the DNC for 2010–though I bet he rented it out). If Wilmer’s folks are refusing any kind of use of the list (even renting out of it), which is possible but again the article doesn’t exactly speak to that, that would be short sighted and would not maximize its value. But the only folks who completely give up their lists are folks who have no further electoral ambitions or whose lists have aged out.
manyakitty
@Kay: It’s not like he’s planning to pay anyone, either.
schrodingers_cat
Rs lie all the time because the news media does not call them out on it. T lies so blatantly that the prestige media can no longer act as the clean up crew, but they try. See Dana Bash and Judy Woodruff and others on last week’s meeting held at the WH on immigration.
Patricia Kayden
Didn’t Trump recently say words to the effect that a government shutdown would be good? Democrats need to play an ad with him saying that on a loop.
Feathers
@kindness: Go away. This isn’t second tier citizenship. It is a newly created path to citizenship which acknowledges that they were brought here illegally, and thus have limitations beyond the ordinary on who they can sponsor for citizenship.
Being able to sponsor family members for immigration is something I support, but to turn it into a basic right of citizenship is just trolling.
WaterGirl
@opiejeanne:
I would go so far as to say he didn’t do anything useful for Democrats while he was running, after he dropped out, and before and after he lost.
Patricia Kayden
@Cheryl Rofer: Exactly. This isn’t rocket science. Republicans fully control Washington, D.C. Any government shutdown is a testament to Republicans’ ability to obstruct but not govern.
Spanky
@The Thin Black Duke: Thirded. You have a lot to say, Kay. Stop hiding in the comments!
Re: the shutdown. As an evil Fed contractor I’m guaranteed not to get paid, yet I’m all for it if it means the Dems vote their values and not succumb to hostage-taking.
Boatboy_srq
@Kay: Not the least bit surprising to some of us who have spent time in the Sunshine State. Building maintenance involves keeping the roof on and making sure the walls don’t fall in until the wrecking ball is positioned properly. There is no preservation, only demolition and replacement. The number of stars a particular property gets us only a measure of how many years have passed since it was built and how many were initially intended, less one star per decade since construction.
That, and tRump property, which means the contractors working on the place likely were and are stiffed for their fees. And Himself never sees the damage since he’s on the fresh-sod-every-season golf course.
It surprises me only that Tsar-a-Lago isn’t even getting Disney-grade attention to its condition.
Patricia Kayden
@chopper: In the past, government employees have gotten paid. Hopefully, the same will happen again as there is little upside from failing to pay hundreds of thousands of federal employee voters.
Major Major Major Major
@JohnO:
Parties are composed of their members. You have a better chance of changing this by being a member than by commenting on a blog.
Kay
@SiubhanDuinne:
Google THAT if you want an eye opener. He has hundreds of violations going back years- food safety, late or missing wages, ADA violations. Members have sued him and won. You could spend weeks listing examples of Trump’s crap management of his gross country clubs.
Many of us missed it because we getting a 16 month class on server management from political media. That was Job One.
sherparick
@PST: Again, there is a huge swath of the Internet Left that just seems to be unable to comprehend the existence of Republicans, that these Republicans have the majority in the House, 238 members, and have elected Paul Ryan Speaker or that they have the majority of the Senate, 51 seats, and have elected Mitch McConnell majority leader. And of course you have a President in Trump whose default position is deport them all. A DACA bill, and extension of status to TSP Haitians and Salvadoreans, will have to be filled with conditions and compromises to get through this gauntlet.
kindness
@SFAW: And that is really my point. No matter what is agreed to Republicans will turn the fear & rage dial up to 11 and go with that. No matter what Democrats agree to. And since we are in a position where 9 Democratic Senators need to sign on we don’t have to make Dreamers 2nd class citizens.
This isn’t purity ponyism. This is poker and we are holding the winning hand. Don’t blow a winning hand.
SFAW
@Amir Khalid:
My impression (at the time) was that the DNC “braintrust” was concerned that he would run as an Independent, thus (probably) siphoning a significant number of votes from Hillary. Frankly, that’s not an unreasonable gaming-out of the election. I don’t know which came first, Sanders deciding to run for the Dem nomination, or the DNC acting on the “independent run” belief.
No argument from me. Mnemosyne might disagree, however. (Mnem, if you read this, I expect you know I’m kidding about that.)
kindness
Why is my comment in moderation?
SFAW
@Boatboy_srq:
Like.
Spanky
J-Rube goes there:
Sadly, she’s still an outlier in the media.
schrodingers_cat
@Spanky: David Brooks called Tom Cotton an honorable man and a good man and said that his immigration proposals had merit. Judy Woodruff nodded her head. Why is the NewsHour giving cover to racists?
Ruckus
@Tenar Arha:
This is why I wrote the other day that earmarks are very necessary. The only way for two wildly opposing factions to govern is to compromise and they won’t do that if they get nothing for it. Compromising with absolutely no payoff is considered giving in, and no one sees that as acceptable. The people that wanted to end earmarks and were successful are the very people on the far reaches, the ones that won’t compromise in any way. Now there is no way to marginalize them, to take them out of the picture. So the crazies run the institution.
Spanky
@Spanky: Update: By my count she uses the word “lie” 9 times in reference to Republican Senators and/or Trump. Also too, “prevaricate” once.
Patricia Kayden
@Baud: They’ve lost all shutdown battles but still get enough votes to have taken over the federal government. I’m not seeing any downside to shutdowns for the GOP.
But her emails!!!
@Spanky:
Not so much. Morning Joke and Mika called them out as liars as well.
chris
OT, but still…
opiejeanne
@WaterGirl: I agree with that.
The Wilmer trolls were hard at work yesterday and I wonder how many are based at a troll farm in Russia.
Patricia Kayden
@JohnO: I registered as a Democrat because I want to be able to vote in their primaries. In MD, primaries are closed. And yes, you’re correct that Democrats are way too polite. Not sure what will change that.
Kay
So this is the kind of bullshit Democrats in Ohio are up against from media:
Almost none of this true. In addition, Kucinich is a nasty, mean-spirited clown who is interested only in the promotion of Kucinich and he was NEVER “well liked”, by anyone except the dumbest fucking Lefties who didn’t even come out and vote for him last time, when he ran against Marcy Kaptur.
But the Toledo Blade doesn’t much like Cordray because he was an effective AG who worked hard for non-plutocrats and he’s pro-labor. While Kucinich is a Fox news celebrity.
I don’t mind that media are in the bag for the GOP. They can have an opinion like anyone else. But this bullshit that they are somehow principled small “d” Democrats who seek only a lively and transparent process has to stop. The Toledo Blade editorial page is MOSTLY concerned with eradicating labor unions, starting with their own employees. That’s what they’ve ALWAYS been about. That’s why they want the weakest possible D candidate.
Yarrow
@Feathers:
This is a terrible idea. First it punishes the people who didn’t do the wrong thing–the people who were children and were brought here by someone else. The people who brought them here are the ones who should pay the price, if anyone should.
Second, having any kind of new type of citizenship changes how we do citizenship in this country. It’ll be very easy to point at this new citizenship–a lesser form–and then decide it’s okay to extend it to people from whatever country or of whatever skin color or religion. We do not do citizenship in this country that way and we should not change that standard.
opiejeanne
@Kay: Hot dogs? At Mar a Lago? I don’t know why those would be on the menu at all except in very small quantities in case of small children on the premises.
satby
@H.E.Wolf: ok, you’re ridiculous. I’m calling troll.
catclub
@kindness: I am actually surprised that they are pushing for citizenship. The DACA setup under Obama was simply delayed and de-emphasized enforcement (lots of much higher priority deportation cases).
Just shows how much I know.
Mnemosyne
@Kay:
They’re not the only ones. It’s the basis of all of rhe Democrat-bashing we hear from the “left” as well. They parrot 1990s Republican talking points over and over again and get all huffy if you point out what they’re doing.
danielx
@Tenar Arha:
Not news.
There are a lot of people (let’s just say most in the Freedom Caucus) who didn’t go to Washington to participate in government. They got elected, in their view, to go to DC to blow shit up. Or, as used to be said back in the day, to burn the motherfucker down. They are not interested in, and don’t know how to, actually get stuff down. They have no concept of what is involved in a shutdown, nor do they know (or care) about the consequences of a government default.
Major Major Major Major
@Kay: good god.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Well, how could he be?
Adria McDowell
If a government shut down means military retirees/people who receive VA disability payments won’t receive their payments on the 1st, that could put a lot of people in a huge financial bind from which they might not recover. Like to the point of homelessness.
Unfortunately, quite a few of the population I mentioned above will blame the Dems. But not all will.
Mnemosyne
@SFAW:
????
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@H.E.Wolf: We doing political slash fiction fantasy now too?
FlipYrWhig
@Kay: How is Cordray more “insider” than Kucinich, who was IN WASHINGTON [cue scary music] for 16 years? By its own terms that argument is so very stupid.
Major Major Major Major
@FlipYrWhig: same way Bernie, who’s only ever held down a job in government, is an outsider shaking things up.
opiejeanne
@danielx: California’s state lege had that problem, a small group of Republicans who voted “NO” on everything regardless of merit. They proudly accepted the term “bomb throwers” to describe themselves and they caused havoc for several years, fulfilling their promise to vote against anything that cost a nickel. Curt Pringle was Speaker of the Assembly, and the leader of those guys.(Because Republicans hated Willie Brown so very much they got Californians to agree to term limits just to get rid of him after 15 years as Speaker of the Assembly, so Pringle’s term in office was limited, thank God, as well as the rest of those bomb throwers. He went on to become mayor of Anaheim and wasted a pile of taxpayers’ money suing the Anaheim Angels over their name change to the ridiculous Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
California slowly came to its senses and those guys aren’t in charge. We have a few very annoying Representatives mostly from the areas east of I-5 that need to be replaced because they’re part of that stupid Freedom Caucus.
danielx
@Kay:
Well, yes.
Because the Obama presidency of relatively little scandal was so booooooring, as is discussion of policy options and their implications. It was SO much more fun pursuing the Clenis and HRC, which is where the breathless coverage of – EMAILS! – came in. I would say it’s a safe bet that certain publications **cough**NYT**cough** were really and truly looking forward to endless articles and think pieces about the misdeeds, real or imagined, of an HRC presidency. It’s just not the same covering Trump.
satby
@WaterGirl:
Quoted for absolute truth. He was and remains a net negative.
opiejeanne
@Major Major Major Major: Oh God.
Barbara
@Cheryl Rofer:
Best responses:
1. Republicans own the House, the Senate and the presidency. Democrats don’t have the power to shut things down.
2. Tom Cotton has just proved that he is a racist liar. Why would anyone believe anything that comes out of his mouth?
Barbara
@kindness: Wow, of all the things one might be offended by this week, being offended that sometime in the future, after having obtained permanent legal status, dreamers might not be able to sponsor their relatives’ as immigrants. How about, “first things first?” As in, let’s take the threat of deportation off the table so that these individuals have the security they need to get on with their lives. And then, remember, anything that is forward looking can be changed. But if you want to die on this specific hill, all I can say is, you will be dying with a lot of other people’s dreams.
Mnemosyne
@Yarrow:
I’m pretty sure that’s what the purpose is — to prevent Dreamers from sponsoring the parents who brought them here illegally for citizenship. I guess we can argue about whether that’s really a punishment for the child or the parent, but it seems to be an attempt to not “reward” the parents who brought their kids here illegally.
Barbara
@Kay: Kucinich has always been a fraud, in so many ways, on so many issues, but first and foremost, on issues affecting race and gender.
chopper
@Patricia Kayden:
yep. but I always worry about it, and let’s just say that drumpf isn’t known for paying his employees.
Jeffro
Ok, this will make you laugh: Joni Ernst defends Trumpov...”he was just standing up for Norway” (seriously!)
Oh, ok Joni, thanks!
TV AD: “Joni Ernst: just as much of a Trump apologist as Tom Cotton…and we all know about Tom Cotton, that fucking lying snake”
(ok that one might not make it on-air…but still…)
danielx
@schrodingers_cat:
Well, David Brooks.
trollhattan
How does DACA poll as a policy concern? My hunch is “average Joe/Jane doesn’t give a damn. Linking DACA to a shutdown seems dubious and there will primarily be reports from closed federal tourist destinations, like last time.
trollhattan
@Jeffro:
Has the nut-cutter heard of a place named Finland?
Asking for a friend.
Barbara
@trollhattan: A government shutdown might not poll well but to be perfectly blunt, Republicans paid no electoral price whatsoever for the transitory negative polling they received around a government shutdown. Dems should stay on message, and the message is: Republicans have majorities in both chambers of Congress and are in control of whether the government shuts down. That’s it and it has the added virtue of being true.
KickBoxBanana
Good thing we are getting rid of Franken. That surely helps because it makes us more pure, or something!
–said nobody except Cole and Gilibrand…probably.
Still waiting for Cole to call for Trumps resignation or the last, paying off porn stars to keep quiet. That’s ok with him I guess. But heaven forbid Franken makes a joke in front of cameras.
tobie
@Major Major Major Major: I need to steel myself for this kind of crap which will be coming to Maryland soon. I doubt Chelsea Manning will win the Democratic primary for Senate–though it would be good if she would push Ben Cardin to the left on Middle East policy–but Ben Jealous is a serious contender in a crowded Democratic field for governor and according to a recent portrait in Mother Jones he’s still talking about Clinton, neoliberalism and the super-predator comment. There’s a really solid candidate for governor Krish Vignarajah, and it will be interesting to see if Michelle Obama, whom Krish worked for, will campaign for her. That would make a difference.
Barbara
@trollhattan: Part of Norway does border Russia. It’s a relatively short border above the Arctic Circle, compared to the long border between Finland and Russia. But Ernst is not technically wrong. She probably had a staffer look at it just so she could offer this defense.
trollhattan
@opiejeanne:
The stupid super-majority rule keeps things in Sacramento on a knife edge, as it’s retained/lost based on a mere seat or two. Tyranny of the (R) minority.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
The whole thing is dumb. There was Cordray, Pillich and now Kuchinich. Cordray is by far the best candidate as far as actually being governor.
Kucinich is terrible. A terrible person. I think he has psychological problems. Now, that’s just me but there you are.
I think the Toledo Blade should conduct their yearly anti-labor union campaign, a campaign that is directed mostly at their own employees, somewhere other than under the guise of Defending Democracy. Just tell the truth.
Cheryl Rofer
@trollhattan: Norway has a small border with Russia in its far north. Most of the rest of its border is with Sweden.
ETA: I see Barbara beat me to it. Russia has been messing around with that border, and far northern Norway is significant for NATO basing.
Tom
The Republican Party controls the presidency and both house of Congress. They can keep the government open with Republican votes alone. That’s the ONLY message anybody should be repeating.
Yarrow
@Mnemosyne: I understand that, but the way to do that is with existing laws. People can sponsor parents and other family to come here but the family member has to be evaluated on their own. Their petition can be denied.
Creating a separate class of citizens is a terrible idea and can lead to all sorts of separate classes of citizens. Republicans want to do away with birthright citizenship. I’m sure they’d be happy to determine that the children of naturalized citizens aren’t really citizens or the children of poor immigrants aren’t really citizens and so forth. We should not given them any opportunity to undermine what citizenship is.
JohnO
@Major Major Major Major:
My votes and any volunteering I do will probably be exclusively D for the rest of my life. (I vowed never to donate another dime to a political party after Citizen’s United and have stuck to it.)
I said I didn’t ID as a D. I’m not a moron, know right from wrong, and have been hanging out here at my favorite blog as a lurker for many years primarily because of our host’s righteous rants, which I miss but am happy about, ultimately. He’s a kindred soul, and I still love all the smart people here.
But thank you for the wisdom.
geg6
@H.E.Wolf:
Hmmmm, I’ve been doing that ever since I became aware of a Mrs. Phyllis Schlafly back in the 70s It has continued up to this day, when my preferred target would be most of the female GOP congresscritters. And I’m a woman. And I’m just fine with it.
Amir Khalid
Here’s a point about migration I haven’t seen much mention of. Norway is a peaceful and prosperous country people migrate to, not from. People don’t need to leave a non-shithole country. That’s why almost nobody from there migrates to the US, or anywhere else. The exceptions invariably have personal or career reasons, rather than fears for their physical safety or economic security.
Kay
@FlipYrWhig:
Kuchinich was Bernie in Ohio before there was a national Bernie. He’s probably mad he was upstaged. Before there was a metoo movement every holier than thou lefty male used to tell me his wife was beautiful by the second sentence of any conversation about why they love him. She looks fine- she’s certainly an attractive person, but it was bizarre. Like, leering. Like “look at Dennis with the hot babe!” Gross. They were dude bros before dude bros existed.
geg6
@trollhattan:
Actually, even a majority of Republicans are against discontinuing DACA. Something like 80% of the people support the Dreamers.
Jeffro
@trollhattan: @Barbara: @Cheryl Rofer:
Whether she looked into it or had a staffer look into it or not (and like the good, fact-based libs we are, we’re actually discussing the technicalities)…IT’S COMPLETE BULLSHIT AS AN EXCUSE!! Come on now people! =)
I’d respect her more if she just said, “he slipped and spoke his mind, I guess”. Or “the president can try and defend what he said, if he wants – I won’t”. But instead, technically correct though it may be, she’s defending this crap.
I swear, Repubs like Ernst will do anything, anything at all to keep blowing those white superiority/supremacist dogwhistles…he who is The Voice of Whiteness must never be corrected, must always be defended…it’s unbelievable.
TriassicSands
Republicans have to keep their base in line. A shutdown shouldn’t hurt that — it might even help. After that, the GOP counts on their ability to win the war of words with Democrats, the compulsion of the media to go with the “both sides” approach, and the stupidity and ignorance of the American people, which increase every year. A slam dunk? No way, but they have a fighting chance even if the odds are against them.
The alternative is to govern responsibly and that isn’t an option. They have no idea how to govern competently or otherwise.
geg6
@Kay:
They have always existed, Kay. Always. Ask any woman active in the anti-war movement in the ’60s. Or the women of the Black Panthers. Always.
Leto
@chopper:
We’ve already been told not to expect back pay.
I still have an extremely hard time with this.
ET
Personally if Congress under the GOP was a workable place, they would just put the DACA compromise to a vote. If it passes the Congress desk just dump it on tRump’s desk and see what happens. He either signs it or he doesn’t. While he has a tendency to sign anything put in front of him (unless is racism gets the best of him).
Timurid
@Cheryl Rofer:
Stupid Mongolians!
schrodingers_cat
@ET: That’s how they would behave if it was a functioning branch of the government.
Barbara
@Jeffro: I am not defending Ernst, and her statements were comical in context. Norway’s response, if they were honest, would be something like, “Norway is one of the wealthiest countries on the planet in no small part because Norway (under the guidance of an Iraqi immigrant — you can look it up if you don’t believe me) marshaled its oil reserves in a way that was very forward looking. Unlike, for instance, Alaska. Even Norwegians are offended by Trump, and Norway has a lot more immigrants with dark skin than it used to. So shut up and sit back down if you think that we are as entranced by our white skin and blonde hair as your president seems to be.”
H.E.Wolf
@satby:
I am chagrined that I sounded trollish – my apologies. I was really bothered by NobodySpecial’s “duct-taping her mouth” imagery. It reminded me of this, from a couple of years ago [prepare for quotation fail; I’m really bad at it]:
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Not my cuppa tea. However, the late Joanna Russ wrote a wonderful essay about slash fiction, which was how I first learned of the genre.
Kay
@geg6:
“Excuse me. Have I somehow wandered into some sexist SDS meeting where the gals fetch coffee while the revolutionaries plot Big Picture strategy?”
I spent 5 days around them at the DNC hotel in ’08. I never heard her say a word. The Great Man does all the talking. Kuchinich is one of those people who looks over your shoulder while you’re talking to him looking for someone more important at the free beer event. He found a Guardian reporter and then they BOTH lectured and mansplained to me. I was just there for the snacks. I could give a shit if I talk to them or not.
The Moar You Know
I frequently hit 7/11 in the mornings for coffee (theirs is quite good these days). They have the LA Times, NYT, USA Today and the local vile San Diego rag.
All four are going with “Dems to blame if government shuts down” in their headlines. The stories are different but as you probably know, only about one in ten go by the paper section and bother to read anything but the headlines or indeed buy a paper.
This isn’t good. The needed point, that the GOP controls the government utterly and alone will decide if there’s to be a shutdown or not, is not getting out there.
SiubhanDuinne
@Kay:
Thanks. At some point during the campaign, I remember reading a couple of fairly lengthy articles detailing health and safety violations in public spaces of Trump Tower. Shouldn’t be surprised that concern about other people’s well-being is nonexistent for him, at all his properties.
(Edited for clarity.)
Major Major Major Major
@JohnO:
Not my fault you can’t come up on your own with the notion that it’s easier to change a group by being a member of it.
Jeff Boatright
@Jeffro: I agree; this is something that I don’t understand. How is it that Dems have any power to shut down the government at all? I do not understand. Do the (R)acists need even one Democratic vote in the House or the Senate to vote in a budget? How does this involve the Democrats at all?
H.E.Wolf
@geg6:
Understood and appreciated. Although we disagree on this particular point, we share viewpoints on many other issues; and I always read your comments with interest (and often with silent applause).
Gin & Tonic
The director of DHS has testified under oath that she is not aware whether Norway is a predominantly white country.
opiejeanne
@trollhattan: I forgot about that. We moved to the Seattle area in 2010 and my attention to California’s politics are not as focused as they used to be.
Pringle was a total piece of work; the first time he ran for Assembly he hired a private security company to intimidate voters at the polls… er, to make sure there was no illegal voting.
Kay
@SiubhanDuinne:
I loved the “public space” one because that was contractual/regulatory. It was a condition of him getting the space. Imagine how mad he was, being forced to let “those people” in. Of course he skimped on quality. He’s nasty and ungenerous. In other not-shocking news, Don Jr lied to reporters about the Trump charity. They do pay Trump Criminal Enterprises out of donor funds.
Guess that’s the last time they take a Trump’s word! The 500th time they were lied to last calendar year!
dmsilev
News alert thingy: Steve Bannon subpoena’d to testify in front of Mueller’s grand jury.
(FTNYT link)
Barbara
@Gin & Tonic: It’s Trump’s new reality show, “How Low Can I Make You Go?” This week the contestants are Perdue, Cotton and Nielsen and I still think Perdue wins but Cotton is definitely scoring more points with his latest comments.
Barbara
@dmsilev: Probably means he is not a target or is getting some kind of immunity even if only use immunity for testimony in front of the GJ.
schrodingers_cat
@Barbara: Nielsen is Kelly’s protege, handpicked to succeed him at the DHS.
Adria McDowell
@Gin & Tonic: Again, how I’m I unemployed but that dummy has a job? Jesus Hernandez Christ.
Barbara
@schrodingers_cat: Yes, I am aware. But saying repeatedly under oath that you don’t know facts that everyone else has known since grade school — but especially when your name is Nielsen and you yourself have blonde hair — just makes you look like a sniveling idiot.
Patricia Kayden
@dmsilev: Good! Shoes keep dropping.
opiejeanne
@Gin & Tonic: This is a joke, right?
dmsilev
@Barbara: That’s pretty plausible. Of course, the question then becomes “what does he know, and about who?”. The shit (Bannon) will hit the fan (the grand jury) and be liberally distributed all around the room.
Adria McDowell
Welp, just went to to see if I could do some volunteer work for Cordray, and that link is to some “stop Cordray” right wing nonsense.
Not a good look.
ETA: Ha! And he’s from Grove City. I have an old boyfriend from there who called it “Grovetucky.”
Double ETA: Whoops! That link should be shorter. Forgot to close it out. Oh well.
Kay
@Gin & Tonic:
They hired an anti-contraception activist to run the contraception program. They hire low quality know-nothings deliberately.
Brachiator
Even though Trump often appears to waffle over what he wants, he typically tends to return to the hardest position that he has mentioned either in a Twitter message or at one of his periodic rallies with his base.
Also, Trump always talks about a deal, sometimes bipartisanship. I don’t think I’ve often heard him talk about a “compromise.” And any deal has to make Trump look good. It’s not about what’s good for the American people. It’s not even what may be good for the Republican Party, something that his GOP boot lickers should recognize more clearly.
The Republicans are stuck. They talk about the federal government as though it is a parasite or foreign entity, not something by, for and of the people. They want to shut it down, but still use it to “protect” us against terrorists and to deport the unworthy. They have stopped making sense and can’t get back to any consistent reality. Unfortunately, the looniest people among their base don’t see a problem with this.
germy
gvg
@Amir Khalid: It’s actually pretty common for politicians of either party not to share lists. Mostly it hasn’t even mattered so it doesn’t get noticed. I would say it’s more common not to share than to share. I don’t think Obama shared his even.
email lists being valuable or even mailing lists, is pretty recent and we don’t have customs worked out yet completely.
Bernie is usually not a loyal Dem though.
Kay
Here, the NYTimes calmy refers to the President’s efforts at obstruction of justice:
The standards are lower now. Anyone who denies this is kidding themselves or somehow profiting off it.
Amir Khalid
@Gin & Tonic:
Is there by any chance photo or video evidence of her nose growing longer?
Gin & Tonic
@opiejeanne: I seldom joke.
gvg
@Baud: According to Fire and Fury, Trump and company perceive Maggie H as biased against them. I found that interesting. Trump is said to hate her and he has attacked her verbally a few times.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@gvg: I think it’s his whole psychotic attraction/repulsion thing with her, the Times, and Manhattan in general. He craves their approval, hates them all the more, and wants that approval all the more, the more they look down on him
Mike in NC
Advantages of a government shutdown: (1) Fat Bastard gets to play golf every day and not have to interact with creepy foreign heads of state, and (2) the rest of the family can focus on having all the gold in Fort Knox transferred to Trump Tower. Winning!!!
JohnO
@Major Major Major Major:
Perhaps.
This is a club that lost to Donald Trump. For the last 20 years I’ve seen poll after poll that confirms on an issue-by-issue basis majorities of the public agree with D’s. They are very, very bad at politics, you know, their job, and it offends me on some level. I don’t join clubs that offend me, and it isn’t up to me to change the D party. Maybe it’s just a personal quirk…the Cub Scouts were a little to clubby for me at 7 and my parents let me quit because the whole thing creeped me out.
The D’s have me where it counts. They’ll get my heart when they earn it.
Gin & Tonic
@Amir Khalid: Good question, but Pinocchio was Eye-talian, no? Probably a shithole that Trump wouldn’t hire from.
schrodingers_cat
@gvg: I don’t buy that, T goes to Maggie H and NYT whenever he wants to do an interview. They know NYT is a friendly venue just like Fox that reaches a different audience.
Chyron HR
@JohnO:
Ah, there we go, “People in red states keep electing Nazi rapists, therefore there’s something wrong with Democrats.”
MattF
@dmsilev: And it’s merely accidental that Bannon now has no defenders close to Trump, I’m sure– Bannon’s now a voice from under the bus.
Gin & Tonic
@Mike in NC: Speaking of creepy foreign heads of state, Nursultan Nazarbaev will be visiting the WH today. Rachel did a really good segment on that last night.
I guess Kazakhstan isn’t a shithole.
Feathers
@Yarrow: This has nothing to do with their citizenship. Reagan era “amnesty” citizenship recipients had to officially admit that they had entered the country illegally. The dreamers entered the country illegally. Because they were children, they will be allowed to become citizens, but they will have limitations on their ability to sponsor relatives (presumably the parents who brought them here). Immigration laws are already highly complex, and this seems more of a limitation based on their previous illegality, rather than in anyway debasing their citizenship.
raven
Lil Bit got a bath!
Trollhattan
@geg6:
Talk about the silent majority.
Aleta
@Cheryl Rofer: ha, thanks for the laugh
MomSense
@schrodingers_cat:
Could it be the Koch money?
jc
The Democrats need to loudly denounce Dirty Donald’s constant bad faith game playing. He’s full of it, every time. Stop pretending that Traitor Trump is ever going to play fair.
schrodingers_cat
@MomSense: That would be my guess. I don’t remember Newshour being this horrible under Jim Lehrer.
Brachiator
@The Moar You Know:
It’s hard to find a copy of the physical edition of the LA Times anywhere. News racks have been removed from many locations, and people don’t care about the paper anymore. But when I google search for today’s LA Times’ headlines, I don’t see any mention of the government shutdown at all.
MattF
@jc: Dems are making those arguments– what’s not being reported is the flat-out dishonesty of Republican claims.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
some small good news
Boatboy_srq
@Cheryl Rofer: Is that the same Nato that Lord Dampnut insisted must pull its own weight because the US is tired of footing the bill?
Jeffro
@dmsilev: This is the part I like:
TALK, SLOPPY STEVE, TALK!!
What did you mean by “treasonous” re: Don Jr.?
JohnO
@Chyron HR:
That’s a fair characterization!
Mostly I lurk because it’s too tough a crowd for me. But since The Boy King has radicalized me quite a bit I’ll play: You don’t think D’s could win in red places more often if they were more competent with the hundreds of millions of dollars they receive to convince people to vote their way which at least 20 years of polling suggests those voters and people sitting out want to do in the first place, which REPEATING NOW I already do (vote and volunteer, if only a little) which is what matters? (See GOP Senate “renegades” like Flake the Fake and Collins and even St. Maverick)
Jeffro
@Barbara:
Ok…but can you fit that on a bumper sticker? Or at least a tweet? =)
Aleta
@raven: Very distinguished. (House of Lords?)
gvg
@Yarrow: No that is NOT what this does. Dreamers are not a certain color or of a certain country origin. They come from everywhere and can be white. In fact I would be if we had lots of immigration from white countries especially Russia, within a decade lots of people would be screaming about them. Its an ordinary unattractive human trait not to like outsiders or foreigners.
Being able to sponsor someone else here is not a citizen right for anyone. that isn’t in the constitution. It’s just ordinary law and changes from time to time. Even our spouses becoming citizens is just laws.
So the dreamers who came here very young were allowed to have legal residence but Obama couldn’t get them a process where they eventually became citizens. However if they are here, and have American children, when the children are 18 I think they can sponsor the parent(?) They are still vulnerable to spiteful Presidents and legislators though. Now they can become citizens if the deal had gone through but couldn’t bring their parents like legal immigrants.
Keep in mind that the law doesn’t have to stay the same and Congress could enact a law that said no one could sponsor a relative. We have previously had laws that excluded whole groups which is what the citizens wanted then.
Actually its the Dreamers current status which is most like 2nd class citizens.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I am going out of my head nuts watching this recap of this morning’s testimony– “tough language… profanity… vulgar words….”
ITS THE FUCKING RACISM YOU FUCKING COWARDS
Brachiator
@Feathers:
Horseshit.
Aleta
@Kay: Failing to treat fish that had been prepared for sushi for parasites…
opiejeanne
@Gin & Tonic: I saw right after I asked that this is in fact true. I am dumbfounded.
Boatboy_srq
@Kay: This is why it confounds me that anyone with any sense would pay to be a member of his time share tenements. The poor maintenance, shoddy construction/repair, and general awfulness make tRump branded properties just plain unattractive. Time was that, unless he “bought” (meaning that he borrowed money to slap his name on) a property where you already had a membership, unless bad gilt and tacky decor were your thing you went somewhere else.
raven
@Aleta: She’s the queen around here.
Chyron HR
@JohnO:
No, I think white working class red state voters have been completely radicalized by Fox News and other right-wing media and will never vote for a Democrat regardless of what political views the candidate has.
Brachiator
@Kay:
A common theme was surprise that Dennis could attract such a “hot babe.”
MattF
@Boatboy_srq: If you’re looking for a place to put ill-gotten gains, then low maintenance is a plus.
Miss Bianca
@Chyron HR: Yeah, with a heaping helping of, “My heart can’t belong to just ANY old non-fascist political party – it has to be as special as *I* am!”
gvg
@schrodingers_cat: i don’t consider Trump the best judge of reality. I am not saying she covers him as I would prefer either. Just I find it somewhat believable that he would think something so stupid. mildly funny if true.
JohnO
@Chyron HR:
No dispute there. The great reckoning of Nov. ’16 for me was the stark realization that I live in a country chock FULL o’ morons and a**holes (2 out of 5!). It has been life changing for me (a Trump vote was the first vote I have ever held against anyone personally, and it has cost me personally), and I will cop to a very strong degree of utter hopelessness that I fight every day.
Plus I’m so old I still cling to the belief that there needs to be at least two (I’d prefer three) functional political parties in this country for it to function. I think any political entity allowed to run wild is dangerous.
But I will, as they say, caucus with D’s, and I have a FB “political page” that is shall we say pretty hard on Club Conservative. :-)
I am not the enemy, and I do not enjoy circular firing squads, either.
Boatboy_srq
@MattF: This assumes that the entire tRump house of cards has been money laundering from the get-go. Which means you might be on to something.
JohnO
@Miss Bianca:
Thank goodness nobody is making any profound and all-encompassing generalizations based on how intimately well they know me from the single-digit mountain of comments I’ve made lately.
I appreciate the warm, inviting welcome to the D party some are giving me though!
Mnemosyne
@JohnO:
Democrats are good at politics, in the sense of actually keeping the machinery of our government running. They are bad at getting white supremacists and assorted racists to vote for them, because Democrats won’t promise to only give stuff to white people.
I’m sorry, but anyone who still denies what happened in 2016 is a fool: white supremacists and racists voted for Trump because he’s a white supremacist, and people who deliberately didn’t vote or voted third party were A-OK having white supremacists running our country.
It’s not even “Team Liberal” and “Club Conservative” anymore. It’s “do you want white people to maintain their social status at the cost of everything else about our country?”
A majority of white people answered “yes” to that question. Let’s not fool ourselves that it was anything more than that.
Mnemosyne
@JohnO:
We had a choice in 2016: fascism or plural democracy. A majority of white people — though not a majority of voters — chose fascism.
You no longer have to wonder what you would have done in Germany in 1934. You would have done the same thing you did in 2016 when Trump’s election was looming.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Where? who gave you your lists, what doors did you knock on? what kind of feedback did you get from these red voters who should be ours for the asking? On what constituencies do you base your repeated assertions that this oughta be easy and then only reason “the Dems” can’t do it is cause they’re not as smart as you?
also: I don’t think anyone here claims to speak for the Democratic party
Miss Bianca
@JohnO: Has it never occurred to you that when you come to a nest of jackals who are, by and large, mostly not only committed Democratic voters but are, like me and a lot of others here, committed Democratic Party MEMBERS, who volunteer not only their time but also give money to campaigns and hey, maybe even take campaign management positions or maybe run for office themselves as Democrats, and announce, “oh, hai, I think the Democratic Party sucks because they aren’t doing what *I* think they need to be doing to win elections, and no, I’m not going to join the Party and work to change that – or even see if what I’m bitching about is actually true, I just want them to change to suit ME” – that that stance MIGHT be construed as deeply fucking offensive, clueless, and privileged? Maybe it is a generalization – now if you’re half the guy you obviously think you are, you might stop mid-huff and say, “wow, maybe this person is just an asshole, or maybe – just maybe – *I’m* the asshole?”
From one asshole to another – welcome to the fight for the soul of our country. Democrats are leading it. Now either join up or shut up.
JohnO
@Mnemosyne:
I agree 100% with your narrow-casting re: white supremacists, I’m just working on the perhaps false and naive assumption that there aren’t enough white supremacists to do the deed by themselves. It’s more complicated than that.
Donald Trump is a comprehensively awful, terrible example of a human being. Across the board. It’s greed, it’s selfishness, it’s gross materialism, it’s a scorched earth zero-sum dog-eat-dog philosophy about the meaning of life that his voters share. I even agree that in general the roots are probably at least “tribal” if not frankly racial.
So why this? “I’m sorry, but anyone who denies…” What/where did I deny this?
JohnO
@Mnemosyne:
OK, I’m out, because I can’t adequately communicate my wildly complex thoughts on the entire deal, and am tired of being beat up and called a Nazi when I am in fact making the very same argument SOME of you are making about me to other people all the time!
No wonder I mostly lurk, and no wonder I feel so welcome and affiliated with so much of the D party!
WaterGirl
@raven: That’s one foofy dog! Looks great.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
O. Bless your white boy’s heart.
JohnO
@Miss Bianca:
I’ve been lurking happily and even long ago commenting in bursts in this nest of jackals for…more years than I can remember now. I know what it is and who it’s populated with.
And yes, I’ve considered it a lot.
As for what “I think” the D party should be doing to win elections, “scoreboard, baby.” Next you’ll be telling me to hang in there with the Cleveland Browns.
Miss Bianca
@JohnO: If you’ve lurked this long, and haven’t figured out that “Democrats suck” isn’t going to be a winning position to take here, well… I dunno what to tell you. Well, yeah, I do, actually. Your “wildly complex thoughts” basically boil down to “it’s all the Democrats’ fault for not being more appealing to white guys (like me!)”
Mnemosyne
@JohnO:
No one is calling you a Nazi, so settle your feathers.
But people keep searching for the “real” reason a majority of whites voted for Trump like they’re Bush pretending to search for the missing WMDs at the White House Correspondents Dinner because they don’t want to face the truth: a majority of white voters in this country are racist enough to vote against their own self-interest as long as it hurts people of color more.
That’s just reality. Searching and hunting for the “real” reason a majority of whites in Alabama voted for a serial child molester over the guy who sent the KKK to prison for murdering 4 little girls is just mental masturbation.
Adria McDowell
@Mnemosyne: PREACH!!
I can’t take anyone seriously who says they don’t enjoy circular firing squads, and then proceeds to join them. POC, women, LGBTQ, Dreamers, the poor, etc. don’t have that luxury.
JohnO
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
LOL
Have a good day, and good luck! I’ve been impressed with y’all’s persuasiveness and insight!
JohnO
@Miss Bianca:
NO!!!!
But I’ll not dig further.
“You no longer have to wonder what you would have done in Germany in 1934. You would have done the same thing you did in 2016 when Trump’s election was looming.”
OK Tom Cotton.
NOBODY here has any earthly idea what I did w/ The Boy King’s election looming.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JohnO: and I with your detailed and informed accounts of the actual persuadable voters you’ve encountered who’ve been abandoned by Dems cause they’re not smart like you– which accounts, of course, are what separate your valuable insights from the lazy whining of an ill-informed bubble boy
Jim, Foolish Literalist
You should tell us, John. I’m sure it’s a tale as fascinating as it is factual. The thousands of Ohio and PA voters you encountered who were gonna totes vote for Clinton but were turned off by meanies in the comment section of a certain top 11,000 political blog.
ruemara
@JohnO: Earn it? Motherfucker. It’s a choice between fascist oligarch oppressing minorities, poisoning your planet and stealing your money and the DEMS HAVE TO EARN YOUR VOTE. God. Damn. Slither back onto your high horse and go be pressed elsewhere. A fool needs to know he’s a fool before he steps out in public.
pamelabrown53
@JohnO: @#226.
Please don’t drop out. We’re basically discussing nuance and a lot of good can derive from such discussions. IMO, productive discussions are those where all examine our inherently biased beliefs and learn/grow.
WaterGirl
The reality of the Donald Trump world is horrible, and it’s stressful and our fuses are short. Seems like we go from zero to 60 against each other, like happened with SC last week. Why don’t we save the big rocks in our pockets for the republicans?
Adria McDowell
@WaterGirl: That was different, though. SC wasn’t demanding purity from Democrats like this wannabe-undercover-Bernie-cultist is.
Miss Bianca
@JohnO: You’re quoting at me…something someone else said to you…why? You can’t be bothered to remember who said what? You’re not giving me a high opinion of your mental acuity, frankly. But hey, if you’re not just trolling us, please, please do tell us exactly what you WERE doing with “the Boy King’s election looming”. Were you out there working to persuade people to vote for the Democratic candidate, as the only viable alternative? Or were you getting high with Jill Stein and Gary Johnson and saying, “ooooohhh, we are SO fucked because the Democrats are SOOOO sucky, amirite?” Pray do enlighten us.
pamelabrown53
@WaterGirl:
Thanks, WaterGirl, Sounds like a fitting summary to a contentious thread.
JohnO
@pamelabrown53:
:-) Thank you. Yes. The criticisms have been quite nuanced.
No, no, I’m not being subjected to the same purity test I’m being accused of holding, despite being turned into a functionally radical D by the horror of last Nov. (actually long before last Nov.) and having expelled former loved ones from my polite company at great cost and pain to many peripheral loved ones (while it isn’t shooting them Civil War style, it came at cost), family and friendships destroyed, and telling my wildly diverse and immigrant-heavy neighbors that I can hide people in my single lonely ass political junkies tiny townhouse and making inquires into organizations that can help me do that should it become necessary, and despite me voting straight ticket D and doing everything I can to persuade every freaking “reasonable” Republican I can to switch parties (so ironic) ever since I figured out the R’s went around the bend, a few Bush’s ago. And on and on.
I grew up in Trump country, folks. I know who they are. For my first 20-30 years the thing that struck me about politics most of all was that the only thing D’s and R’s agreed on was that the darker your skin was the more suspect you were, which I was raised to believe is morally reprehensible. And on and on.
But everyone here on my ass knows all these things and more, I’m sure, he said, ducking, covering, and once again endeavoring to GTFO of here…
I’m sure I’ve opened myself up to yet more ridicule and scorn. Have at it. I’ll do my best this time to leave the Trumpian insults alone.
Mnemosyne
@JohnO:
Dude, that was me, not Miss Bianca.
And I wasn’t calling you a Nazi. I was calling you a moron who refuses to face reality.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
you don’t know how to close a browser window, but flipping Arizone (and GA-6 and Charlie Dent’s district and the WI gov’s mansion) to blue is easy? You’re an interesting fellow, John.
Mnemosyne
@JohnO:
The problem is that you seem to still be operating on that assumption about both parties despite all of the available evidence of the last 20 years. Why?
chopper
@Jeffro:
Jesus, norway’s border with Russia is like 50 miles long.
SgrAstar
@trollhattan: Finland. That was my first thought too. The level of stupidity among the Rs is just overwhelming. I am struggling to grasp how far we’ve fallen as a country. ACK!
chopper
@JohnO:
hey look, the sea lion is waddling away.
JohnO
For a variety of reasons including matters political which is a lifelong hobby I once enjoyed, I spent most of 2017 suicidal (big and longstanding issues with depression), and gave a lot of thought and a retrospectively disturbing amount of time trying to figure out if I could make a suicide on the Capitol steps in DC work for team D, politically. No joke. (I’m OK now.)
Wonder if that would’ve been good enough for some of you.
Stuff like I can’t figure out how to close a browser and I can’t see any differences between the parties on racial issues is just…mean and insincere.
I try very hard not to be insincere. Perhaps I’m not a good enough writer to convey that, but I try very hard.
Go Team D, and keep up the good work, everyone.
Miss Bianca
@JohnO: Are you seriously wondering whether committing suicide on the Capitol steps in DC would be “good enough for us”? Uh…like WUT? Jesus, NO, dude..I prefer my political protest to take the form of staying alive to fight the fascists, if you can’t think of any better reason.
Seriously, seek help, if you haven’t already. A lot of us have been suicidal, and those who have lived to regret it usually didn’t get to that place alone.
Adria McDowell
@Mnemosyne: Because, apparently, he still exists in a pre-Civil Rights era mindset.
“For a variety of reasons including matters political which is a lifelong hobby I once enjoyed, I spent most of 2017 suicidal (big and longstanding issues with depression), and gave a lot of thought and a retrospectively disturbing amount of time trying to figure out if I could make a suicide on the Capitol steps in DC work for team D, politically. No joke. (I’m OK now.)
Wonder if that would’ve been good enough for some of you.”
What the actual fuck is this? As if you are the only one here with mental health issues……you have a white martyr complex, and I am done with it. You’re pied.
Gin & Tonic
@JohnO: In all of this writing I have yet to see one concrete position that, in your opinion, the Democrats should take to win the bubba vote. What plank should they add to or remove from their platform, what policy paper should they issue on what issue, etc. We’re all doing it wrong, and if we followed your advice we’d do better. So what’s that advice?
JohnO
Let’s see. Off the top of my head. Most people I’ve spoken with over the years of both parties DO want a simpler tax code, and have for a long time. Beyond the simplest filing, it’s hard not to have the suspicion (and trust me, a lot of bipartisan America does) that you are either being ripped off for not knowing some neat loophole OR ripping off the government by not doing something right. Plus the common perception that the richer you are the more you can pay to avoid taxation. Has made me nuts for years that the D’s haven’t recognized this. They do it because IMO (!!!!!) they’re too wedded to the idea of tax code as behavioral cudgel.
Could’ve gotten out in front on the weed issue about 5 years ago, and that alone may have driven enough of the Youngs to swing the election to HRC.
There are a few others.
I’m here because I like it here, and have nothing better to do. I’ve done what is possible for me to do on the right side of this debate. I’m WELL aware that I’m not the only one hear with mental health issues, I’ve had “help” for years and years, and I’m OK now. (Motto: “just hang on, it always gets better sooner or later”) I’m nobody’s martyr. Depressed lonely people sometimes think of irrational ways to make their lives count.
Thanks, all, I’ve relearned a valuable lesson re: STFU. Clearly I have nothing to add. Though for the record this is where I’d start on the tax code:
jonorato42.wordpress.com/2006/03/25/taxes/
jonorato42.wordpress.com/2007/11/27/the-root-of-all-american-evil-lies-in-the-tax-code/
satby
@H.E.Wolf: ok, so apology for calling you a troll. And I agree that the statement by Achenbach was extremely sexist and misogynistic. But fantasies about duct taping people’s mouths when they spew garbage is an equal opportunity fantasy; the only thing it has in common is that both were directed at women, but one developed out of hate for that specific woman, while the other grew out of dislike for the woman’s stenographic approach to normalizing the abnormal. And I bet real $$ the same commenter would be equally happy to duct tape David Brooks’ mouth. I know I would.
FlipYrWhig
I’m late to the party as usual, but re: @JohnO:
I’m accustomed to hearing this the other way around, to wit, that Democrats try too hard to woo mushy-middle voters in red states and over-focus-group and tailor their messages too narrowly in order to suit them. But it seems like you’re imagining the opposite, which is that Democrats should do some other thing that proves to you that they’re more convincing somehow, and… scale up? IMHO the big political lesson that otherwise smart people are taking way too long to learn is that the kinds of things that appeal to people who are savvy enough to find their way to the liberal blogosphere are PROBABLY NOT the kinds of things that appeal generally. If they were, the country would be very different by now.
JohnO
Most of the persuadable R’s I know are very pro-environment. When was the last time the D’s made a big coordinated effort to shine a light there?
The other thing the D’s should try to do, IMO (!!!!!) is, and not until after they figure out a bunch of tangible ways to do it, is sell, and sell hard the idea that they’ll make people’s lives easier. Simpler. Not such a big hassle. Cut some red tape. The reason the “fewer regulations” thing resonates is because at this point everyone can take a slice of their lives and apply “too many regulations” to themselves.
I’m here because I like politics.
JohnO
@FlipYrWhig:
On some things, I suppose, but over the past few years I’ve come to the conclusion that the D’s should throw more long balls, and get out of prevent defense, if the metaphor makes any sense. Medicare buy-in seems completely no-brainer to me, as has MJ legalization for a long time. The demographics are good, the time is right.
So yeah, it depends on the issue for me. Everything moves faster these days…I know it is tough calculus to make.
FlipYrWhig
@JohnO: I know you know this, but tax FORMS are not the tax CODE You know who doesn’t want a “simpler tax code”? Tax filers who aren’t individuals.
This is my favorite article about the tax code and who benefits by it: Suzanne Metler, Washington Monthly, 20,000 Leagues Under the State, 2011.
FlipYrWhig
@JohnO: But at a certain point this becomes “Marty Schottenheimer should be a better coach” or, God forbid, “Blake Bortles should be a better QB.” Yeah, he should. How? And, if he can’t, who’s better out there? And how do you get him on your team? And what do you give up to achieve it? And how do you feel if, having done that, you flop even worse?
Gin & Tonic
@JohnO: So legalizing weed, increasing funding for the EPA and Medicare for all will turn Alabama and Texas blue? Got it.
Mnemosyne
@JohnO:
You mean like by creating a bunch of new protected lands that Trump promptly reversed?
Look, you have a very stark choice in front of you: continue trying to swim on your own in shark-infested waters, or accept a seat on the lifeboat that’s rowing alongside you. Telling the people who are rowing the lifeboat that they need to give you a good reason to climb aboard or else you’re going to keep swimming towards the hammerhead that’s swimming at you is your choice, but you also don’t get to blame them when you get bitten by that shark after refusing their help.
JohnO
@FlipYrWhig:
Not quite sure if this is what you’re getting at, but I’ve ALWAYS been far more likely and willing to try to change a non-racist Republican’s vote than bother with the dug in. Pre Boy King, I engaged in that behavior regularly, because most of the conservatives I know personally by now are not abjectly horrible human beings.
Again, Trumpsters are my formative years, and most of them I agree are completely unreachable. But a 5% party ID realignment would be a real big deal.
JohnO
@Mnemosyne:
I agree. I’ve done my best to try to explain that I’m doing what I can do on YOUR behalf/side. You don’t have to beat me up anymore. I give up.
*sigh* I know they’re on the right side of the POLICY! Most people do! That’s my point! The votes are there!
JohnO
@Gin & Tonic:
NO! They are examples of political weakness and failures to recognize political winners.
I take it you didn’t like and/or agree with my tax code suggestions. :-)
JohnO
@FlipYrWhig:
I understand the enormous (and IMO insurmountable) institutional power behind maintaining the status quo in the Code (consider the tax lawyers and high powered CPA firms alone). I’m suggesting that based on my decades of serious discussion about this with people of all stripes that outflanking the GOP on the right is a political winner. A political long ball worth trying, because it would flummox the R’s and intrigue some of the persuadable.
David Kay Johnston’s “Perfectly Legal” had a pretty strong influence on me, federal tax code-wise. It’s a horror. It may in fact get The Boy King off the hook, ultimately, because it’s become endlessly “interpretable” like the Bible. :-)
FlipYrWhig
@JohnO: I don’t know how old you are and won’t ask, but I’m 46, and as far as I can tell there have been two fairly large realignments since the middle of the 20th century. The first was when Southern racists switched from D to R. The second was when Northeastern professionals switched from R to D. I don’t see where 5% of the current Republicans are going to come from to swing. Every Republican I’ve ever known well has either been petrified of crime, contemptuous of “welfare” and/or “college boys,” or just a raving hateful jackass. If they were willing to switch from R to D based on a cool policy initiative, they’d have done it by now. Republicans don’t promise them, or deliver them, anything except spite and tax cuts, and that seems to work fine. It’s team spirit. To go back to football, it’s pretty rare for someone to say, “I’m usually an Eagles fan, but I like the Cowboys’ linebackers this year, so this time I hope THEY win.”
FWIW my pet theory is that Democrats do best when Republicans have showed themselves to be CORRUPT. I like Hillary Clinton a lot, but she got smeared as corrupt for 25 years, and that was enough to lose the election. Your point about taxes can be subsumed under that. But the target isn’t “Republicans,” let alone “non-racist Republicans” (who aren’t that large a proportion of Republicans, sad to say), it’s “people who barely pay attention to politics because they think it all sucks.”
Mnemosyne
@JohnO:
White Americans don’t vote on policy. They vote on race. That’s been made very clear now. We can improve various policies because it’s the right thing to do, but we need to be realistic about why we’re doing it.
I know it sucks to realize that your friends and family are more deeply racist than you ever realized. I had to deal with it myself in 2016. But we need to accept that Democrats are not going to win those voters over with policy changes, because the environment and legal pot are less important to them than maintaining white social dominance.
Gin & Tonic
@JohnO: Oh, I get it, those are positions that won’t help us turn Texas, but will help make California bluer. Great idea.
FlipYrWhig
@JohnO: Read the Mettler article, though, about “tax expenditures,” if you haven’t already.
BTW my longstanding techno-wonk proposal is to have a line on tax returns that turns the “net taxes paid” into a proportion of “gross income” so that people can see what rate they’re actually paying. I don’t think very many people at all have a good sense of how the withholding -> refund bit is _actually_ working, and that contributes to the sense that you need a sneaky-clever tax guy to outwit the government and steal your money back.
FlipYrWhig
@Gin & Tonic: To be fair, I think those could be spun as positions that (in theory) would energize hitherto-disengaged nonvoters. But that goes back to the implicit hypothesis that there are a lot of disgruntled liberals out there who don’t vote because they think Democrats are _too conservative_. And there’s not a lot of evidence for that. They exist; we know them; they flock together and egg each other on. But in what numbers? I don’t think there’s a lot of *there* there.
JohnO
@FlipYrWhig:
Yeah, I agree that’s a good idea. Heard another good one a while back which was along the lines of itemizing your federal taxes, “X (real dollars of the filer’s tax nut) went to the military, Y to SS, Z to NASA,” and so on. Educational and perspective enhancing. Also (for the government) relative simple.
As to the other comments, nowhere have a I said that the racists, which I now agree constitute a horrifying number of GOP voters and which had a huge impact on my 2017, are in any way worth any time. I just know a lot of conservatives who are not reflexively racist, and are getting more and more embarrassed about being associated. It’s just MO there’s a target-rich environment out there right now because of the general unease.
Seems to me a lot of elections are real close these days. And IIRC, they’re even getting closer in places like TX.
JohnO
@FlipYrWhig:
Oh, and I forgot to note, I’ve used Turbo Tax for several years and at one point (I have a simple return now and haven’t looked too closely for a while) they did give you your net tax rate in the data you were provided. I loved it and agree most would.
satby
@JohnO: I haven’t dived into this specific debate because I have seen you make the occasional comment for years. But your continued complaints about how your comments are being received (ie, you learned to STFU) is just lame. People are engaging with you (mostly) in good faith. THEY DON’T AGREE WITH YOU, is all. And for an example of how policies that help them not actually mattering to voters just scroll on back down to the “Bad news everyone” thread, which recaps the sad state of Kentucky’s short lived successful Obama care rollout, followed by the people who were most helped by that voting for the guy who promised to take it away. And he won, and now about 900k will lose access to health insurance, and thus health care. You’re convinced that policies are what people vote on. Many of us have experienced live and in person that that’s not the case. Leave it there then.
FlipYrWhig
@JohnO: Lots of threads building up on top of this one so I think I might adjourn. I think you may be too hopeful about the appeal of the, um, appeal to reason and ideas, but I’d be pleased if you were right and I was wrong.
SFAW
@kindness:
Keep telling yourself that.
I don’t think they’re holding Aces-and-Eights, but it’s hardly a “winning hand.”
JohnO
@satby:
Arghh. Thanks anyway for being civil. And yes, I’m reminding myself that most are being just that.
But no, I don’t think people vote on policy at all. Policy the D’s are good at, by and large. They’re bad at the politics part (in no small part because policy doesn’t fit on bumper stickers as many have noted). HRC IMO is a pretty good human being and undisputed policy wonk but her fatal flaw of being a lousy retail politician, coupled with being in the smear machine for 25 years doomed her. And so did media malpractice–they taught the country to hate her almost completely without merit over decades; because they just didn’t like her.
Am I alone in my despairing consideration of the idea that the GOP base needs to take the consequences of their votes sometimes? I’m always able to talk myself out of it because of the collateral damage, but Nov. made me think about it all the time…thus the impulse to hide dreamers in the hopefully unnecessary new underground railroad.
Miss Bianca
@JohnO: OK, so you think that the way for Democrats to woo “non-reflexively racist conservatives” is to become…even more liberal? Um, I’m going to go ahead and say…”unlikely to work”.
As for your “pro-environment Republicans”… again, it’s not Democrats’ job to carry all the water here. Ask your “pro-environment Republican” acquaintances: “Are you so disgusted by the current GOP’s anti-science, anti-environmental stances and looting of our public lands and ransoming of our public welfare that you’re willing to start voting for Democrats? Yes or no?” If they say, “No”, then their “pro-environment” stance is bullshit, and nothing the Democrats do to tack further left on environmental issues will matter a damn. Because right now, literally any Democrat is already better than any Republican when it comes to environmental issues.
What other self-contradictory nuggets have you got in your “Oh, Democrats should just be better” trickbag?
J R in WV
@kindness:
Because you mentioned a game of chance, which WordPress prevents.
JohnO
@FlipYrWhig:
Thanks for engaging. I think I’ll take a break for a while.
Again, keep fighting the good fight. I won’t criticize you for how you do it. :-)
JohnO
@Miss Bianca:
I have turned to shaming them viciously should they be such cowards. And in many cases shunning former loved ones at great cost. Not only that, I think more people should do it.
How many times do I have to say I’m a functionally radical D compared to your average citizen? Like way out in 3rd standard deviation-land. It’s OK if you don’t believe me though.
Brachiator
@JohnO:
Just jumping in at random. I hear this a lot, the thing about “fewer regulations,” but it seems to me that a lot of the people who say this just have a bug up their ass in general, and rarely can come up with any specific regulations that damage or impede their lives.
JohnO
@Brachiator:
I don’t mean institutional regulations, which I don’t think there are enough of, for the record, I’m thinking about making Average Joe’s life a little easier by cutting some of the red tape at a more personal level.
This is just a silly example, but here in IL there is a law that says the checkout person at the register of the store cannot scan alcohol unless they’re 21, which leads to frustrating delays for everyone and is beyond stupid, considering everyone is on camera and c’mon. There are a million examples of this—big ones are taxes and health care, which is why I think D emphasis on how much simpler everyone’s life would be with universal health insurance and how much fairer life would be if everyone with HS math skills and minimal data could figure out everyone else’s tax nut. Just market the goal of taking some of the trouble out of Average Joe’s life. (After they think of more concrete ways to do it.)
JohnO
@Miss Bianca:
I have also answered the call for policy proposals that are quite a ways from “D’s just need to be better.”
And nobody has challenged me on ANY of those, besides declaring they won’t work. Which you know because what D’s are doing is working so well…
…get off me. It’s all right. I will not stoop to knowing everything there is to know about YOU in terms of your politics and motivations.
Uncle Cosmo
@SgrAstar: Of course Finland was “your first thought.” And of course like trollhattan, you were wrong – Norway has shared a border with Russia ever since the end of the Winter War in 1940, when Finnish territory bordering on the Arctic Ocean (that once separated them) was ceded to the USSR as a result.
Just One More Canuck
@JohnO: I don’t see how having the checkout person be 21 creates any delay or creates any problem at all. If you wanted to illustrate how cutting red tape would make Average Joe’s life easier, you might want to think of a better example
Brachiator
@JohnO:
This is, I think, a state law, not a federal law or regulation, but I take your point. We could go down a rabbit hole on this one, which is similar to a California regulation. I also am amused by some irritation at stuff like this by Texans, who have no problem with some localities having “blue laws” which prohibit all alcohol sales or sales on Sunday. But then again, religious nuts always hate federal and state laws, except for the ones they want to see imposed on everyone.
And that’s part of the larger problem. A good chunk of the folk against excessive regulation are inconsistent about what rules they like, which they don’t, and often don’t do much to try to establish reasonable changes that the majority might agree to. They prefer to bitch and moan about government.
ETA: could not resist the sales clerk and alcohol rabbit hole. CA rules:
And in practical terms, there is some concern that an underage clerk will sell alcohol (and cigarettes) to his or her underage buddies if given the opportunity.
Miss Bianca
@JohnO: Oh, I have no problem believing you’re a leftist. What I don’t believe is that you’re a Democrat.
First, because you’ve already stated that you’re not. Second, because you start out by saying, “well the Democrats SHOULD be doing this, that, or the other thing that I think they’re not doing and THAT is going to attract more people like me!” and then go on from there without any apparent awareness or acknowledegement of any inconvenient evidence that they may *already* be doing the things you think they ought to be doing, OR that there might be valid reasons for it if they’re not. Or that the influence of the vast right-wing conspiracy (yeah, I went there) which devotes millions, if not billions, of dollars to making sure that you and everybody else is convinced that, regardless of whatever the GOP is doing to fuck things up, it’s really all the Democrats’ fault, just *might* be a factor in your decision to say, “Democrats suck.”
Brachiator
@Just One More Canuck:
Happened to me once out here in California. The 18 year old clerk could not check out my stuff because I had a bottle of wine among my groceries. The store (Target) had recently added a food section, including wine, so this had not been an issue in the past. I could either scoop up my stuff and go to another register, or wait until the clerk had an older clerk come over and continue my transaction.
FlipYrWhig
@Brachiator: I actually don’t know very many people other than business owners who carp about “excessive regulation.” More people carp about long lines at the DMV and too many road-crew guys leaning on shovels instead of digging. And AFAICT what they tend to mean is long lines (behind black people leading up to a black person) and (black) road-crew guys leaning on shovels.
JohnO
I have never said D’s “suck.” I will concede to thinking they are not perfect, but anyone who thinks I’m unaware that the D’s are powers of 10 more preferable to R’s at this point is just reading what they want to read.
There IS a VRWC! I agree with you! And policy-wise I do think the D’s are getting done what they can.
They’re just not winning enough elections relative to the majority’s opinion on the individual issues.
I don’t ID as a D. I act like a D. This is in part, Miss B., because I’m the least tribal person I know. I am reluctant to ID with anyone or any group. I would now be considered a “leftist” by most metrics but that is largely because the R’s have moved so far to the right over the course of my lifetime. I hate R’s at this point, which point I’m not sure I could make clearer than I did just now. The D’s, all of them, even horrible ones, will get my vote anyway.
I get it, you will not be appeased. I played on team sports for much of my life and one thing sports is good for is learning that you don’t rag on your teammates because it is counterproductive.
You are pigeonholing me and ripping me and it is lousy of you considering I do far more than most to advance your cause. Again, have at it. You’ll not read me making assumptions about you and your good intentions.
I sense a serious case of OIIP. I’ll admit to being under-identified though.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
Random note, but this is why CA ended up saying you can no longer buy alcohol at the self-checkout — underage kids were using the self-checkout lanes to illegally buy alcohol. It was kind of a hassle when they changed that, but preventing illegal sales was more important than convenience.
JohnO
@Brachiator:
If you’re 6 deep in the line, and the nearest 21 year old is even 30 seconds away, AND you’re politically oriented, it’s pretty irritating. :-) I have more than once, pleasantly and with a grin, said for everyone loud enough to hear, “Hey, no problem, I’ll scan it through!”
It isn’t the example, it’s the principle. There are numerous examples all over the place, and of course many of them are local, but that doesn’t preclude the D’s from crafting a strategy around “simplification” to over simplify.
Mnemosyne
@JohnO:
So you came here, announced that you are not on our team though you sometimes cheer for us, and you’re surprised that the people who actually are on the team pushed back on you?
That’s the thing: you want to be accepted as a teammate of the Democrats and have all of the privileges of being on the team without having to put on the uniform. When you played sports, did your coach let you play in street clothes because you didn’t want to have to visibly join the team?
JohnO
@Mnemosyne:
I was not generally popular with coaches (though I was with teachers who as a group are far less authoritarian, something I’m famously resistant to) so you’re right. I also didn’t join HS basketball with the skills to compete because they had a rule that said I had to get a haircut. I’m 59, never married, no children, a boy and his dog. Politics is in the family blood, and The Boy King ruined it for me when he established there is now a serious reality-gap between tribes, something that did not exist when I was younger in terms of at minimum GOP “decorum,” for lack of a better word. I recently posted their 1956 platform document on FB because it laughably liberal, ripping conservatives and Republicans in the brief text intro.
You sort of have it right, but your contention that I need to be accepted as a teammate of Team D is inaccurate. I don’t care about being accepted into tribes. Got a very small one of my own.
I’m not surprised. I had just gone too long without commenting to remember what I was getting in to.
Brachiator
@JohnO:
This is not just a D thing, and of course, is not about federal law, which supposedly irritates a lot of people who vote Republican.
@FlipYrWhig:
I agree with you on this one.
Sorry. This is emphatically not true. At least not with respect to Southern California stories.
J R in WV
@Jeff Boatright:
Actually, the Rs DO NEED at least 9 Democratic senators to reach the level of 60 votes needed to stop debate on a budget. So until they come up with a plan that 9 Democratic senators find acceptable, they cannot force a debt-limit bill nor a budget spending bill through the Senate.
The Rs have total control of what bill comes up for a vote, can vote down amendments, the contents of a debt-ceiling bill or a budget, all of that is under their total control. But they need to “compromise” enough with each other to get to a bill that they can persuade the necessary Democrats to support to reach 60 votes. Or more if they lose some of their own members by voting to keep the government functioning, of course.
Just one more canuck
@Brachiator: ok, I’ll buy that. I guess it then comes down to whether the rules is serving its intended purpose and if it is, whether the inconvenience John O refers to is significant enough to warrant changing it. He also said that there’s cameras everywhere- if he meant that the cameras could pick out the underage es, he’s wrong. My 13 year old daughter has a teammate who could very easily get served.
JohnO
I think it is also very R of you to assert that at this point in my life the degree to which I root for you is less than 100% based on what I have posted, since I’m 100% functionally D. You’re not being fair.
It’s OK. I won’t pretend to know your inner workings because I think that’s bogus. Fire away.
JohnO
@Just one more canuck:
Again, the example itself is silly and trivial, but to the camera part not only does it serve as a deterrent can retroactively catch the offenders. I’m not suggesting the customer be able to scan liquor in any case, I’m suggesting that the 20 year old scanning it in full view of the camera and whomever is in eyeshot is very low-risk.
J R in WV
@Gin & Tonic:
Oh, come on now! Really !!! that’s a good one
Mnemosyne
@JohnO:
If you want to make an argument as an outsider, then make it, but don’t complain when you get pushback from people who are on the team. You yourself just said that team sports showed you that it’s a dicey proposition to attack a team because they’ll all band together against you, but you did it anyway and now you’re complaining that the team is against you.
Don’t make me start quoting Hamilton lyrics at you, man. I’ll do it. I have a big bag of Aaron Burr quotes with your name written all over them.
J R in WV
@JohnO:
Actually, the Cub Scouts kind of creeped me out too. Especially after the field trip to the Baptist church one Sunday. That was kind of the dead end to me.
Brachiator
@FlipYrWhig:
I think I ran across this once before, but it was fun to read through it again. I find it interesting that this “progressive” writer would have endorsed the Republican version of the new tax plan that would have eliminated the mortgage interest deduction altogether.
@Just one more canuck:
Yep, agree with you about this.
JohnO
@Mnemosyne:
I have not once complained about anything other than seriously uninformed ad hominem attacks. “Don’t know how to close a browser” and such.
I love this place. I’ve been here a long time. I just forgot how powerful tribalism really is for a spell.
I’m hoping only a small number of you “banded against” me, percentage-wise, as if that is a good thing to do to anyone who is (horribly misguidedly, recklessly stupidly, relentless wrongly) trying and occasionally succeeding in furthering your own cause in the first place.
Just one more canuck
@Mnemosyne: maybe Alain can develop a Hamilton-lyric filter to go with the pie filter
J R in WV
@Gin & Tonic:
“I guess Kazakhstan isn’t a shithole.”
Well, until the election was over, Trump was “building” a hotel there, so of course not. Or a hotel was being built that would have had Trump on it, more accurately.
There is still a lot of money laundering in and out of Kazakhstan, apparently, so maybe that’s why this fellow is here.
JohnO
@J R in WV:
LOL…I’ve met a few of us over the years. It really made me uncomfortable, and I was only 7! Took about two weeks IIRC…
…this was in lily very small-town white rural America and for the life of me I can’t remember if there was anything specific that did it for me.
terry chay
@tobie: That’s not how politics works in practice. Study after study has shown that the biggest indicator of how left a Democrat is in policy (or how right a Republican is) is margin of victory in the general, not stated position, background, or anything else.
A candidate on the left, doesn’t push a Democrat to the left, it pushes them to the center because it weakens their position in the general, lowering their margin of victory and forcing to seek the center in order to survive. If you want a lefty firebrand pushing a Democrat to the Left, then you have to run primaries similar to the way the Republican party handles it (wins based only on enthusiasm of the base powered by resentment politics), in which case, eventually you end up with the same candidates (the Left’s equivalent of Donald Trump and Roy Moore), not a moderate democrat who has been “pushed” to the Left.
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne:
And there, summed up in a nutshell: Wilmer and the Wilmerites. Got no FLTG for them.
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne:
“Talk less. smile more”? : )
JohnO
@Miss Bianca:
No. Our definitions of “on the team” very simply differ. Duh. I don’t need any recognition for voting and arguing (often obnoxiously) and from time to time working for no money D. The right thing to do is its own reward. Also, repeating now, why on earth wouldn’t I want to join the team given the warm welcome I got here? :-)
I’ve heard word of this Wilmer thing, but it sounded to me like another useless inside-baseball word of the day so haven’t looked into what it means. Apologies.
terry chay
@Mike in NC: He won’t be able to be playing golf because the first thing they pull is his security and travel. I doubt the Republicans will do it initially, but it looks really bad if they don’t as a shutdown continues and the pressure to pull it (like they did to Obama and Clinton) will be immense. They will cave because the golfing plays poorly with even his base.
Matt
@Mnemosyne:
I see the “fuck you, vote for us” outreach machine is still in prime working condition. Was worried it might’ve broken down after how much it got used in 2016.
JohnO
I just don’t think “we’re not Republicans” is enough, and the evidence is pretty strong that whatever policy proposals and political strategies the D’s have been losing with (beyond O, which someone PLEASE tell me somewhat mitigates the “all white conservatives are racist” trope) are not the answer.
Now that I’ve chilled a bit and stepped away emotionally it’s kind of interesting how this attitude has made me a pariah in the view of some.
Doesn’t make me want to joint the Social Club D’s, though!
terry chay
@Mnemosyne:
I agree with your entire post (and all your comments) except this:
Specifically, it’s more accurately stated as “because Democrats won’t promise to punish non-white people,” not “give stuff to white people.” They don’t want “stuff” (even as they may depend on it), they want others to not have it. (I know it’s semantics because your other comments back up your understanding.)
It’s resentment and exclusion, not about their benefit. If you look at the interviews, they’re even resentful of giving stuff to white people, whom they refer to as lazy and trash. In fact, most of the resentment politics of “I voted for Trump because I can’t stand liberals looking down on me and calling me stupid” is ironic because it isn’t the liberals doing it, it’s other Trump voters.
Mnemosyne
@Matt:
Again, if you couldn’t be arsed to oppose white supremacy and fascism in 2016, I have no time for you. Silence is consent, and you decided that fascism was better than a third Obama term.
You only have yourself to blame for your bad choices.
Miss Bianca
@JohnO: Honestly, I don’t give a shit whether you “join the team” or not. If you’re voting for Democrats, that’s all I actually care about. But as Mnem and others have pointed out, for God’s sake don’t start talking *here* about “what the Democrats have to do differently to win my heart” unless you’re actually prepared to join the party and do the hard work of making it over into your preferred image. If you ARE prepared to do that work, I think you’ll find that your local Democrats will welcome you. But if you’re not, and you just want to to complain about how others aren’t Democratin’ right enough for you, it makes those of us who actually ARE doing just that, even those of us who are not naturally joiners, feel a little stabby, and if you can’t grok that, then for Heaven’s sake, what jackal pit HAVE you been hanging out in all these years?/
FlipYrWhig
@JohnO: I don’t see why “we’re not Republicans, we hate those guys” can’t be enough when “we’re not Democrats, we hate those guys” quite clearly works and has worked for 50 years. The Republican Party is nothing but the “Make The Libs Cry” Party. If “we’re not Republicans” doesn’t work, we should be coming up with a theory for why. I don’t think that theory is going to be “because we don’t have good enough plans to improve the lives of the people who aren’t voting for us,” because that’s the thing that people like Hillary Clinton and John Kerry and Al Gore and Michael Dukakis ARE BEST AT IN LIFE, and, funnily enough, they’re not president. AFAICT Obama, the most successful Democratic presidential candidate in my lifetime, didn’t run on policy in the slightest, but almost entirely on symbolism mixed with youth, optimism, intelligence, and decency. Kennedy, before my time, also won that way. So I’m not sure why we get stuck in this rut of BUT WE NEED TO COMMUNICATE BETTER WHAT WE’LL DO FOR THE PEOPLE. I don’t think that has won a presidential election since before the invention of television.
Mnemosyne
@JohnO:
The team is the Democratic Party. You have repeated over and over again that you are not a member of the Democratic Party, so you are not on the team.
You may be a fan, or a hanger-on, or a supporter of the Democrats, but you’re not part of the team by your own words.
JohnO
@Mnemosyne:
*clutches pearls* Oh my heavens! I don’t have a D ID card!
LOL
Mnemosyne
@terry chay:
I think you’re mostly right — they’re more interested in seeing Those People suffer than in getting benefits for themselves. But I don’t think they would turn down, say, universal healthcare if they were told that it was reserved solely for them.
terry chay
JohnO: Unlike others I have stood on the sidelines in your little battle, but I’ll point out that
strongly implies that the right political strategy with respect to that cohort is not to turn them into D voters, but to exploit their embarassment/disillusionment to turn them into non-voters (a much easier row to hoe). There are other cohorts (young people, minorities) which are already aligned with D voters who simply need to be turned into voters as a much lower hanging fruit.
Yes, people switch their vote, but far fewer than you think (or self-report). Many more people report voting for the winner of an election than actually do. So one out of every two Obama-2012-turned-Trump-2016-votesr is either lying or misremembering. The statistics is that Trump did worse than Romney on every metric and the majority of the change was the Obama voters->Clinton non-voters being much, much larger than the Romney voters->Trump non-voters with the switchers being practically none.
Mnemosyne
@JohnO:
Then don’t complain that you’re not getting all of the respect and benefits of someone who does have one.
FlipYrWhig
@terry chay: I’m with you. I think there just aren’t very many “swing voters” anymore. I would add that there’s very little to indicate that what swing voters want is politicians promising specific cool ways of bettering their lives. I think what they want is “trustworthy” and “resourceful,” and to the degree that members of said swing group voted for Donald Trump it was, unlikely as it might seem, because Hillary Clinton was made to look LESS trustworthy and LESS resourceful by comparison to Trump the straight-talker and deal-maker who had too much money to be corrupt. It seems ludicrous now and always seemed ludicrous to us, but I think that attracted just enough votes to put Trump over the line this time. If you want data points other than the special quirkiness of Trump vs. Clinton, look at how people like Doug Jones and Ralph Northam prevailed. It sure wasn’t “here are the many great things I’ll do for you.” It was “I am a decent, normal human being, and my opponent is a rabid freakazoid, and you’ve seen how well THAT turns out, haven’t you?”
J R in WV
@JohnO:
No one, here, NO ONE here can welcome you to the Democratic party, we don’t represent them. Not for nothing are we proudly known as a ravening pack of jackals!!
Wake up JohnO !!
terry chay
@Mnemosyne: Definitely!
SFAW
@JohnO:
Please endeavour not to be more of an arsehole than is absolutely necessary. YOU are the one who has said, more times than I care to count, that you’re not a team player. Then when someone points out that the “team” is not “(allegedly) well-meaning progressives,” because there is no “Allegedly Well-Meaning Progressive Party,” you pull the block-quoted shite. Don’t like the responses calling you out? Too effing bad, whinger.
Sab
@NobodySpecial: She could still type.@schrodingers_cat: zI missed it. Who’s the new troll? I wish they’d limit themselves to late night threads.
Sab
@schrodingers_cat: I don’t, but my sister brought in a chain migration of her husband’s relatives in back then, and they have been rather exceptional citizens. Sort of embarrassing for those of us who’s ancestors have been here awhile and haven’t done much.