Despite what you might think about the “liberal” newspaper here in the People’s Republic, the Boston Globe has not always been sympathetic to Elizabeth Warren. But even if she hasn’t decided whether to run for higher office in 2020, the Globe has apparently decided she will, or should. Reporter Annie Linskey — again, not necessarily a friend to liberals, or to other women — did the in-depth reporting on the slur that will follow Warren like birtherism followed another Democrat:
The 60-plus Harvard Law School professors who filed into an auditorium-style room on the first floor of Pound Hall on that February 1993 afternoon had a significant question to answer: Should they offer a job to Elizabeth Warren?
The atmosphere was a little fraught. Outside the hall, students held a silent vigil to demand the law school add more minorities and women to a faculty dominated by white men.
The discussion among Harvard professors inside that room is supposed to remain a secret, but it’s still being dissected a quarter of a century later because the resulting vote set Warren on her way to becoming a national figure and a favored target for conservative critics, among them, notably and caustically, President Trump.
Was Warren on the agenda because, as her critics say, she had decided to self-identify as a Native American woman and Harvard saw a chance to diversify the law faculty? Did she have an unearned edge in a hugely competitive process? Or did she get there based on her own skill, hard work, and sacrifice?
The question, which has hung over Warren’s public life, has an answer.
In the most exhaustive review undertaken of Elizabeth Warren’s professional history, the Globe found clear evidence, in documents and interviews, that her claim to Native American ethnicity was never considered by the Harvard Law faculty, which voted resoundingly to hire her, or by those who hired her to four prior positions at other law schools. At every step of her remarkable rise in the legal profession, the people responsible for hiring her saw her as a white woman.
The Globe examined hundreds of documents, many of them never before available, and reached out to all 52 of the law professors who are still living and were eligible to be in that Pound Hall room at Harvard Law School. Some are Warren’s allies. Others are not. Thirty-one agreed to talk to the Globe — including the law professor who was, at the time, in charge of recruiting minority faculty. Most said they were unaware of her claims to Native American heritage and all but one of the 31 said those claims were not discussed as part of her hire. One professor told the Globe he is unsure whether her heritage came up, but is certain that, if it did, it had no bearing on his vote on Warren’s appointment…
Warren, in a lengthy interview that started in the sparsely decorated Penn Quarter condo where she stays in Washington and ended in her hideaway office in the US Capitol, opened up for the first time about her claims to Native American heritage. She explained that it was passed on to her as a fact of family lore and that a generation of women in her family were aging, and dying, in the late 1980s. As they faced mortality, Warren said, they focused more on the family’s American Indian ancestry, and the impression stuck with her.
Her grandmother, who shared many stories about ties to the Cherokee and Delaware tribes, died in 1969. Her daughters — Warren’s aunts — then took on the central place in the family. “As the sisters became the matriarchs, they began to talk more about their background and about their mother’s background,” Warren explained…
But this year, as she campaigns for reelection to the Senate and considers a 2020 presidential bid, she has taken a major step: releasing the contents of her university personnel files to the Globe after six years of rebuffing requests for them.
“You have what I have,” Warren said, pledging that she had turned over every record in her possession about her years as a teacher at five different law schools and a stint visiting at another. “My family is my family, but my background played no role in my getting hired anywhere.”…
***********
.. Warren said she had always identified closely with her mother’s side of the family: a sprawling and rowdy group with scant resources who looked after one another, and who, according to family lore, have Cherokee and Delaware blood.
When her grandmother died in 1969, Warren’s mother and three aunts led the family and further impressed on her their proud Cherokee connection.
Then in the late 1980s, around the time that Warren began identifying professionally as Native American, she began losing them, too. Her aunt Mae Reed Masterson died in October 1989. Her aunt Alice Ann Reed Carnes died in August 1990. That left her mother and her aunt Bess Veneck, (aka Aunt Bee), who lived with Warren and helped her raise her children.
The two women in my life who have always been my guides through the world began to focus even more on the past,” Warren explained.
This is also when Warren was leaving the West behind, for good. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to try and fit in to the new East Coast culture.
“When I get to Penn and Harvard, I look around and think this is not a club that I’m likely to be able to join,” said Warren, who noted she was a woman, a mother, and from a humble background and from Oklahoma. “I had different heritage than most of the people there. . . . You can try to keep your head down or say: This is who I am. Different from the rest of you, but this is who I am.”
Mann recalled the struggle his wife had initially when adjusting to Penn, a move they made more for his career than hers. “It was really hard for Elizabeth to leave Texas,” Mann said. “At Texas, they just energized her, and the East Coast was just a very, very different place.”Warren’s mother died in July 1995, the same month Warren started her tenured job at Harvard Law School. Bess Veneck — her Aunt Bee — died in December 1999.
“They were dying,” said Warren. “I lost them all in that time period.”
Warren, as she has in prior interviews, said that she does not remember telling Penn to change her ethnicity on their forms. “I can’t recall specific conversations,” Warren said. “The best I can do is tell you the overall. There is no one thing that stands out in that time period.”
Warren’s colleagues at Penn at the time recall that she liked to make a point of talking about her Western heritage by referring to herself as an “Okie” and comparing her Western sensibility to their Eastern habits.
And in interviews during those years, she also talked extensively about her Oklahoma background. “I think the best thing that I can do for Penn students is be a woman and be from Oklahoma and to come from at best a working-class background,” Warren said to the Penn Law Forum in a November 1990 interview…
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Assertions that Warren benefited from her Native American claims also assume that the Harvard Law School dean at the time, Robert Clark, was pushing for diversity. But it’s not at all clear that this was at the top of his mind.
While discussing affirmative action with the law school’s first black tenured professor, Clark famously said: “This is a university, not a lunch counter in the Deep South.” (Clark later apologized for the remark.)
Clark, who still teaches at Harvard, declined multiple interview requests. He has said in the past that he became aware of Warren’s Native American claims after she was offered a job…
***********
… “I wish that I had been more mindful of the distinction between heritage and tribal citizenship,” Warren said, reflecting on the statistics and on her decision to list herself as Native American. “Only the tribes can determine tribal citizenship and I respect their right. That’s why now I don’t list myself here in the Senate as Native American.”…
It’s a long article, with a lot of detail, but the outline is simple: Warren is part of the generation of women who had to earn their place in the Big World by being twice as smart and working twice as hard. This will never be enough for the revanchists among whom it is an article of faith that anyone not a white man can only prosper through “cheating” a system where being a white man is the first and most significant requirement for success. But it’s not their world any longer, thanks to the efforts of people like Senator Elizabeth Warren!
geg6
This is completely OT, but we just found what looks to be an almost newborn kitten stuck under a shelf in our garage (and don’t get me started on John leaving the garage door open). Since we live across the street from the local Humane Society and there were cars in the lot, John took it over. And they wouldn’t take the kitten! Said they were just having a meeting of volunteers and that we’d have to bring it back tomorrow. So John is now going out to get an eye dropper or liquid syringe and some milk substitute so we can try to keep it alive. We are re-thinking our donations to them. Assholes.
debbie
And you think this will ever change? I don’t.
FlipYrWhig
@geg6: Ugh, that sucks! Good luck!
Betty Cracker
@geg6: Damn, that sucks! My kiddo fostered a newborn kitten that the shelter wouldn’t take. Well, they said they’d take it, but only to euthanize it since they said they didn’t have the resources to deal with newborns. I know she was told NOT to feed it cow’s milk, but I don’t remember what she did end up feeding it. Do you want me to ask her, or have y’all already figured that out? Good luck with the poor critter!
schrodingers_cat
@geg6: I have seen kitten formula sold in pet food aisle of the grocery store. Kitten lady is a good resource for fostering kittens. She has an informative YouTube channel.
Betty Cracker
I read the Warren article yesterday and agree it puts to bed the notion that she benefited from any sort of “affirmative action” due to Native American heritage. Of course, Twitler will continue his racist slurs, but it’s bullshit, which we already knew.
The fact that Warren put all this out there now does make me think she’s at least seriously considering a run in 2020, which is fine with me. I would gladly vote for her. But if Warren decides to stay in the US Senate or go for a cabinet post in a future Democratic administration, that would be great too. She’s an asset wherever she is in public life, IMO.
Ohio Mom
As many here already know, I grew up on the Bronx and moved to Ohio as a young adult — for a job, and one thing lead to another and here I still am.
Now I knew NYC had once belonged to Native Americans (who got snookered by Peter Stuyvesant) but that was it as far as it went regarding anyone claiming any connection to anything near tribal heritage. I was surrounded by people from every other corner of the globe, and their various heritages were obvious, and often robustly identified with.
Then I moved here and it seemed like every third or fourth person I met claimed to have a Native American ancestor. The first couple of times, I was impressed but then I realized it was a silly, somewhat self-aggrandizing myth.
None of them did anything in their day-to-day lives that reflected their so-called heritage, not even anything as superficial as my mother carrying on her mother’s Hungarian tradition of smothering chicken in paprika.
All this is in way of saying, I knew immediately how to categorize Warren’s so-called claim to Native ancestry, and it was always clear to me that if it wasn’t this, the crazy, degenerate right would have latched on to something else with which to badger her.
I sometimes wonder how many of the deplorables ragging on Warren have themselves claimed a Native great-great-grandmother. It’s not zero.
schrodingers_cat
@geg6: Hanna Shaw is the kitten lady.
http://www.kittenlady.org/
Fenix
Feed formula every 2 hours, and then gently rub its little bottom with a warm wet cloth. Mama cat has to stimulate the little ones to eliminate.
Doug R
@geg6: Sounds like you guys got adopted!
Every good pet store should have kitten milk and bottles with nipples.
Found this guy mewling under a bush in May: Nibbler
Doug R
Ah, both racism and sexism-how could the ultimate man baby of white privilege resist?
rikyrah
You are the phucking NYTimes!
Why are you asking this question like you are a phucking bystander???
https://twitter.com/nytopinion/status/1036021979516731392
JWL
“Don’t care where you’re from
Or where you’re going
All I know
Is that you came”.
That’s a lyric from a song by John Lennon called Frieda People. It pretty much hits the cosmic nail on the head, too, at least by my lights.
It’s great news for the democratic party that the republican party has been reduced to attacking Warren with this preposterous and laughable line of attack. It’s all they got, and it’s nothing. They got nothing. Indeed, the democratic party has good reason to celebrate the flop sweat stink of republicans in clinging to that line of attack against Warren.
Besides, the entire leadership of the republican party was repudiated by their own rank and file in 2016, which is why Trump is president today. Ironically, at a time when it effectively controls all three branches of the feederal government, the republican party today is at the weakest ebb in its history, and is primed to be scattered to the four electoral winds. The democratic party’s rank and file should take tremendous heart in that fact, and disregards the counsel of their own fears that the GOP is so damned formidable an organization that it can’t be killed.
rikyrah
@geg6:
Awe ?
Sounds so cute ?
Please post pictures of the cutie pie
Mnemosyne
As I understand it, this is the bind that Warren finds herself in: you can have Native American ancestry and even DNA, but if your family did not register with the government at specific times in the late 19th and early 20th century as part of a tribe, you cannot legally call yourself an American Indian, because there are specific legal parameters for that. Last I heard, Warren was able to provide genealogy records to back up her ancestry claims, but that still doesn’t make her legally a Native American.
(Note: I am not an expert — I did read an article on Indian Country Today that explained the whole thing, but I can’t search for it on the iPad.)
ribber
By the way, in the newsprint version, the nut paragraph that you highlight starts on top of A1 and continues on A6, thus depriving the debunking a spot on the front page. The front page portion ends on “…in documents and interviews, that her {Warren, Page A6}”
Gin & Tonic
@debbie: As an older white dude I hesitate to respond to this, and yet in observing at fairly close hand the personal and professional obstacles faced (and overcome) by my wife beginning 40 or so years ago, and the personal and professional path taken by our 30-something daughter, things look different to me.
efgoldman
@Betty Cracker:
And yet she persisted.
mad citizen
Best of luck to all the newborn kitties and adopters or foster parents. Sadly we’re at the end with one of ours, 19 years two months Lulu. Got home last night after a couple hours away and she’d thrown up, I guess, in various places, including her baby food, which is her preferred food these days. She was congested and having trouble breathing, seemed the process had started. Yet, after 10 minutes of my wife holding her in a towel, Lulu perked up, got down on the floor, and jumped back on her security blanket on a large footstool (16 inches is her jumping limit). We’re just waiting for the inevitable, whenever it comes. It’s been harder to communicate with her as well since she lost hearing 2-3 years ago. Anyway, that’s my labor day.
Hopefully I’ll get some time to delve into the long Russia/Repub traitor articles Cheryl and Adam posted.
patrick II
Our verbal family history says we have an Indian ancestor on my mothers side. I have no reason to disbelieve it, and I don’t think the family story should disqualify me from higher office. (there are plenty of other reasons) It is one of those ridiculous republican attacks that just get repeated and repeated until it doesn’t seem so ridiculous to true believers looking for an excuse to follow their worst instincts.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: It will, long after I am dead but hopefully not my granddaughter.
Baud
Now that what we always knew has been confirmed, what’s the response to the haters who will continue to lie about it?
I’m a fan of derision.
debbie
@Gin & Tonic:
There are always exceptions, and I’m very happy for your daughter. Watching office machinations from where I sit, however, equality isn’t always a given. Maybe when management ages out or dies off, things will improve for all women, but we’re not there yet.
Also, you shouldn’t ever hesitate.
jc
Warren got hired strictly on her abilities. You think that’s going to stop Trump from smearing in a racist way her at every opportunity?
Platonailedit
@JWL:
Thank you for being on the thread topic. The thugs are afraid of her and now that bs has flamed out, they see her as a target. Glad that she blunted that stupidly racist tsctics. With so many women candidates running in 2016, she could be a front runner for 2020. She is a capable and accomplished leader in her own right.
donnah
I hate a lot of what the Right Wingers do, but these ridiculous attacks stink. They don’t care if Warren is a descendant of Native Americans, but they believe they can spend their time making accusations and slurs, just like they did with Obama’s birth certificate and Hillary’s crippling illness. It’s a mean-spirited distraction and we always have to come up with proof to defend the accused.
The Republicans and Trumpsters will always do this. It’s a device, a ploy. Trump himself uses it all of the time. I wish we could ignore them.
Chetan Murthy
@Gin & Tonic: I’m sure it’s gotten better, too. But I’ll bet that if you talk to your daughter in 10yr, she’ll have the kind of stories that make you want to reach for firearms. Or a bullwhip. The times they are a-changin’. Just not enough, and not fast enough.
efgoldman
@Baud:
Didn’t work for birtherism.
The RWNJ noise machine will do what it does. No logic or rebuttal or facts work. Never has, never will. Best to ign ore it and press on.
debbie
@Gin & Tonic:
Third time:
There are always exceptions, and I’m very happy for your daughter. Watching office machinations from where I sit, however, equality isn’t always a given. Maybe when management ages out or dies off, things will improve for all women, but we’re not there yet.
Also, you shouldn’t ever hesitate
debbie
Hope you’re right, but as we’ve seen with #MeToo, not as much has changed as we’d thought.
Baud
@efgoldman:
Agree. But smears worked against Gore, Kerry, and of course Hillary with swing voters and some Dems. That’s what I’m interested in preventing.
efgoldman
@Platonailedit:
Hope not. I love her, but she’s too old.
Mnemosyne
@geg6:
I agree with everyone else that you should seek out expert advice, stat, even if the best place to get it today is the internet.
As I understand it, the biggest rookie mistake people make is not realizing that you have to wipe the kitten’s butt after every meal to stimulate them to pee/poop (this is what the kitten’s mother would normally do). I think most kitten rescuers use a damp cotton pad but, again, consult the Kitten Lady or other experts.
Suzanne
@Chetan Murthy: No shit.
Just this week, I was sitting in a planning session (I was and usually am the only woman at these for this project) and the civil engineer on the project walked in behind me. He decided to greet me by tugging on my ponytail.
First off: DON’T TOUCH ME, YOU CREEPY BASTARD.
Secondly: the only people who have pulled my hair in the last twenty years have done so in a highly specific context. You are not invited to that context.
Third: refer to first.
rikyrah
Uh huh
Uh huh ? ?
Techmeme (@Techmeme) Tweeted:
Sources: Jack Dorsey has personally weighed in on content decisions at Twitter and overruled staff to keep Alex Jones and reinstate Richard Spencer’s account (Wall Street Journal)
https://t.co/YvbazxHtjG
https://t.co/NPyaxw2OdW https://twitter.com/Techmeme/status/1036608313558032385?s=17
efgoldman
@Baud:
How? The Village/MSM will report what they report. The fact that Weasel Face has zero credibility will help the next two cycles.
Suzanne
@efgoldman: I want to vote for Beto O’Rourke in 2020! Or Cory Booker or Kamala Harris or someone else young and stylish and cool.
We need to lean into our brand. Our brand is vitality and cool people.
Baud
@efgoldman:
“How” is the question I’m asking. Maybe the answer is there is nothing to be done about it. I don’t know.
Baud
@Suzanne: My brand is whoever wins the primary. I don’t see how pre-picking a style is helpful. What do you do if someone else less cool gets more votes?
efgoldman
@Baud:
Our own Tom Levenson tried to put public pressure on the FNYT. You’ll recall they brushed him off.
Mnemosyne
@donnah:
Unfortunately, the Warren smears hit right in the Republicans’ preferred wheelhouse: they can claim simultaneously that she’s an icky minority (in addition to being an icky woman) AND that she tried to use affirmative action to leapfrog over more deserving white men (and, by definition, any random white man deserved the job more than she did, because white man). Plus they can say that she lied about her heritage and tried to defraud Harvard by claiming to be Native American because she is not legally an American Indian.
If a Cherokee or Delaware band has not officially adopted her yet, I think it might not be a bad idea. I understand there are a lot of hard feelings about white people claiming Native A,erican heritage, but it would cut off at least some of the racist rhetoric.
Baud
@efgoldman:
The NYT is hopeless. I was hoping someone had a bright idea about how to go around such gatekeepers.
BC in Illinois
@jc:
She became a law professor, writing textbooks on her field of commercial law. Her book on the Law of Debtors and Creditors is available from the Washington University (St Louis) Bookstore for $256. (You can rent it, used, for $102.)
Think of the level of scholarship and expertise (and the amount of work) that went into creating that book. Then think of several books like it — on bankruptcy, on commercial law.
Then think of the level of scholarship and expertise (and the quality of work) of her accusers . . .
OzarkHillbilly
@Mnemosyne: For what it’s worth: Celtics’ Kyrie Irving named Little Mountain as member of Standing Rock Sioux
Not sure how it all works out legally, but the tribes are the last word on who is and who isn’t one of theirs.
Roger Moore
@debbie:
Of course a huge problem is that today’s management is the group that is grooming the next generation of management. Today’s bigoted managers are going to look for like-minded people to encourage and promote, so tomorrow’s management will still be prejudiced. This is why progress is so slow.
Doug R
@Suzanne:
As the movie moguls would say, Harris/Booker or Harris/O’Rourke hits all four quadrants!
geg6
Well, we got a newborn feeding kit at Pet Smart. Hopefully, the sweet little thing makes it.
rikyrah
Nathan H. Rubin (@NathanHRubin) Tweeted:
Ever notice how black & brown folks “break the law” but white people “wander into legal jeopardy”?
Our double standard extends far beyond the criminal justice system & instead permeates our basic discourse. https://twitter.com/NathanHRubin/status/1036217586294444032?s=17
tokyokie
Like Sen. Warren, I grew up in Oklahoma (albeit in the opposite corner of the state). A lot of my seemingly Caucasian classmates claimed Native American heritage, and nobody ever questioned them about it. But keep in mind that Oklahoma was the last area in the Lower 48 to be settled by whites. It’s a lot closer to its frontier days than other places in the country (my grandfather, for instance, participated in the 1889 Land Run), and the widespread claims to tribal heritage are something of an outgrowth of that.
Platonailedit
By the time 2020 rolls around, the traitorous thug’s regime would make any good dem candidate a much sought after alternative. Many bjers should stop peeing in their pants and stop over thinking what the rethugs would do. Rethugs smear. That’s their standard MO. Bfd.
Fred Waltman
There was a tradition in our family that one of men had a wife “from the reservation” (this was southern Missouri/Arkansas). In fact my father found out he was listed as a “Native American” at the university where he taught. When I asked if he had ever claimed it officially he said no, but it had come up in conversations with colleagues (mostly at parties) and he figured word got back to somebody in HR.
I started researching the family tree online didn’t come across any likely candidates and when I did the Ancestry DNA thing there was no Native American listed — there was 2% Iberian Peninsula and 1% Italy/Greece so maybe that is how the story got started.
Anyway, I totally feel for Sen. Warren on this
Suzanne
@Baud: I will certainly vote for whomever wins a primary. That’s why I’m going to cast a vote for Kyrsten Sinema. Pardon me, I just threw up in my mouth a bit.
But I do think that it’s good to have a brand. And I don’t mean that in some false, lipstick-on-a-pig way. A good brand takes a serious look at what (in this case, the policies and positions we hold and who is delivering them) we offer that our competitors do not, and tries to connect in a multifaceted way.
The Democratic Party has a brand, whether or not we think of it in that way. And instead of pretending otherwise, we should lean the fuck in to that. Our brand SHOULD BE: young(er), vital and energetic, passionate and idealistic, diverse, successful despite lack of privilege—and COOL. Fashionable, modern, urban, aspirational, smart, unstuffy and casual without being crass. We need to show a positive vision for the future that people want to be associated with. We should be finding these candidates at every level and nurturing the hell out of them.
biff murphy
The Globe sucks. Was a dem rag, and with the takeover by John Henry I might as well be reading the Boston Herald…or not
marv
@Ohio Mom:
Exactly this. Many years ago I read the late, great Vine Deloria’s “Custer Died for your Sins”, where he had a wonderful passage about the number of white folks who claim a Cherokee grandmother. I grew up in Ohio, and did that ever ring true. FWIW, Warren’s story seems simply true to me.
Platonailedit
@BC in Illinois: Yup. Unlike bs, she is brilliant and scholarly. In her short term as senator, she has done more in moving the policy discussions towards left with concrete proposals than the perpetual senator, bs.
zhena gogolia
@Platonailedit:
I’d vote for her in a heartbeat.
Brachiator
Why is Warren’s “ancestry” an issue? Why? Why? It’s all nonsense. It’s double BS since the conservatives trying to make this an issue oppose affirmative action anyway, so they are saying that she took unfair advantage of a benefit that should not even exist.
About the only interesting thing about this false controversy is how viewing race in America has shifted and how racists continue to weaponize ethnicity and use it against people.
Whiteness is white without nuance. It used to be that native American ancestry among whites was so common that it was excluded from categories that determined racial inferiority. And so white people could talk about and claim native American ancestry and not lose their place as real white folk. Especially if they lived as white folk and never tried to connect with the social life of native peoples.
This touches on the other aspect of racial life in America that is relatively new, but still arbitrary and stupid, that we can all be sorted into our appropriate “community,” which is always unitary, and from which we may never stray.
And of course, white people can bend or break this rule if they like. So, for example, Sarah Palin can claim some mystical connection to Alaska and apparently even claim some special link to her husband’s sliver of native American ancestry, but Barack Obama is just a black guy from Chicago, and his deep love and connection to Hawaii is disregarded.
So I got nothing to say about Warren except that she is an exceptional person. And it’s obvious that Trump will continue to insult her as long as she is in politics, and his idiot supporters will happily go along. And I suppose that pointless investigation into her background will continue as well.
James E Powell
@donnah:
It isn’t Trump and the Republicans or even FOX that we need to be concerned with. It’s the NYT – which sets the agenda for everyone else doing national political news – and the cable shows.
Betty Cracker
@Suzanne: I agree with the policy-related aspects of the Democratic brand you list. I disagree completely with defining the brand by attributes such as age range, locale, fashion, etc. It’s a big, diverse country. One size does not fit all.
daize
@mad citizen: I am so sorry to hear about Lulu. It’s so hard when a dear pet is ailing. Thinking of you.
satby
@Fenix: @geg6: what Fenix says is correct. Bottle babies can be hard work between feeding every two hours and making sure they pee and poop. Be sure to keep it warm too if you have air conditioning, a hot water bottle with warm not hot water under a fleecy blanket will help.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
Those two points aren’t really in conflict. They’re supposed to be a double whammy that should piss off anyone no matter their position on Affirmative Action. If you think the program itself is BS, you should be angry at Warren for taking advantage of it. If you think it’s justified, you should be angry at her for dishonestly taking a spot from somebody more deserving.
satby
@mad citizen: Good thoughts for you and Lulu. She’s has a remarkably long and happy life with you.
J R in WV
Interesting piece, thanks! Did not know she had written complex legal textbooks, but not surprised, you don’t get hired at Hahvad Law without over-achieving, either in work product or genetic background…
mad citizen
@daize: Thank you daize, we lost two last year, one being Lulu’s littermate Betty (we thought of two 50s names before we ever got them), so unfortunately we’re prepared for the process from fairly recent experience.
trollhattan
@tokyokie:
My MIL was born in Oklahoma the third girl of fed-up parents (who really, really wanted a boy) and they left it to the doctor to name her which he did, giving her a tribal first name. Only late in life did she start claiming to be “part indian” and while we weren’t buying it there was no sense in questioning it. I think it was a way to make a tough childhood seem more interesting.
laura
I had the privilege to attend Harvard Law School for a semester in the Labor and Worklife Division’s Trade Union Program. There was a metric fuck-ton of portraits of current and past faculty everywhere. So many white men. So few women. I had to search to find Senator Professor Warren’s. Its where I learned not just “its a man’s world, baby” but its These men’s world. It is George Carlin’s Big Club.
If Senator Professor Warren can manage to get herself into Harvard, illuminate the kitchen table economics in absolute opposition to conventional wisdom of the elegant economic modeling that erases any actual lived experience of most of society, and write about the subject in such clear, plain language that her books became bestsellers -and then run a simple, successful campaign by running a ground campaign and being available. Then she wins and she legislates on a nationwide platform of consumer justice and succeeds. And that a popular fidget spinner is whether she runs for president vs. Is she more effective in the Senate distracts from discussing the policies she advances through drafting her bills right now. She’s on fire and few know it because of the endless cavalcade of treason and corruption.
Because she’s done all of that. Because she’s modernized the New Deal and Great Society policies she’s capable of success at higher levels of power. And that’s a threat. And so she must be diminished. She can’t be attacked on her record, so swiftboating it will have to be.
Misogyny runs deep and it runs through too many women, women like Linskey.
Miss Bianca
@Betty Cracker: Hear, hear! I’ve been scolding FB friends who posted stories about Gillum and AOC winning their primaries and saying things like, “I hope the DNC/National Dem Party/People Who Don’t Worship St. Bernard wake up!” with virtual-screaming, “they won THEIR primaries! In THEIR regions! They fit THEIR regions! Not necessarily the whole country yet, especially since they haven’t yet won their actual elections, however likely they look! Stop trying to say, “we all have to be one kind of Democrat, and that’s MY idea of a Democrat!” Fuck that shit – the more we vote for the BRAND, not the individual, the more we’ll start getting “your kind of Democrat” – and my kind of Democrat, and his, and hers, and theirs.
Platonailedit
@laura: She was the originator of CFPB idea way back in 2007 even before she was a senator. That is a bfd. Of course, the stupid voters and nonvoters had to elect the current corrupt thug and other thugs who have made it their mission to dismantle it.
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker: I personally am so fucking annoyed when I go to Dem party meetings here. I am 38 and if there was a bell curve of the age distribution of the room, I would be at the very low end of it. Median age is probably 60. Unsurprisingly, there is a lot of talk about saving Social Security and Medicare, how Obamacare helped out when someone had a heart attack or cancer, etc etc etc. And I agree with all of it. I support every one of their policy goals.
But this coalition is wondering why Millennials don’t show up and participate. And I really think that a large part of it is because everyone is fucking old. I don’t hear about student loan forgiveness, or assistance buying a first home, or what to do about the urban affordability crisis. These people aren’t going to deal with cancer or heart attacks for decades. Give young people a reason to show up NOW, for THIS election. Even Elizabeth Warren, who I think is fabulous, isn’t talking about that stuff. We get parental leave from Warren and Sanders, but even that is not enough to unfuck the situation for the kids.
We are faced with a scenario in which we have to remake our coalition, because a huge chunk of the white working class who we used to be able to count on turned out to be racist AF and I am not willing to do what they want to keep them in the coalition. So we need young people. And yet we keep missing the damn boat.
I don’t want to vote for old people anymore. I will if that’s the only choice, but I really want to vote for the next generation of leaders. It is not unusual for people to want to see people like themselves in positions of power. If we want Millennials in the coalition—and let’s remember that we cannot win if they don’t show up—we need to speak to their concerns and put them in power.
MattF
One thing to note– this whole argument against Warren is a trivial libel. RWNJs get all worked up over the supposed advantages of one racial or gender identity over another… But the clear advantages of being a white heterosexual male seem to get overlooked. Why is that, you think?
IOW, even if Warren had tried to take advantage of her family background in this way– which she did not–, it shouldn’t matter.
StringOnAStick
@mad citizen: So sorry your Lulu is feeling her age. Cats have always been a huge part of my life and the near end is such a difficult time for all involved. You gave her a great and long life.
geg6
She has eaten, peed and pooped. So far, so good. Teeny tiny little thing!
tobie
@Miss Bianca: You will allow, though, that there can be better and worse candidates. No? Bill Nelson seems dull. Ben Jealous seems abrasive. Andrew Gillum and Stacey Abrams seem to be a unifying figures who are proud to call themselves Democrats. AOC seems divisive and uses her media platform to bash the party. I’m all for treating each candidate individually and allowing them to showcase the talents that appeal to their constituency and region. That doesn’t mean I have to like them all, and in a few cases I do see them as a danger to the party in general. The amount of distrust, disdain, and contempt Bernie bred for the party should not have been tolerated. Robert Menendez should have been asked not to stand for reelection.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’ve been thinking along these lines, on Labor Day, as we keep hearing about the booming economy that’s doing so great, with a steady stream of reports that the almost half the country could not meet an unexpected $400 expense, or similar factoids– $400 won’t cover a trip to the emergency room. A quick google search turns up a CNBC– are they still cheerleaders for day trading?– article that says Americans in their 50s have 12% of what they’ll need to retire, which is based on a ideal nest eg of $1 million, which I think is a fantasy for most people.
Suzanne
Also, let’s remember that most voters are not ideological. Policy positions are less important to these people than other things, such as a positive view of the future, energy, and a sense of connection with people.
The master of all of this: BHO.
The person who just couldn’t figure this out despite being really smart and capable and fabulous on most policy: HRC.
PJ
@Suzanne: @Betty Cracker: @Miss Bianca: One person’s “cool” or “stylishness” is another persons’ empty posing or lack of self-awareness. You sound like a cheesy marketer when you make those the attributes you are selling, and the use of those terms immediately sets off my bullshit detector. Moreover, judging by the politicians who get elected where I’ve lived and nationally, very few of them would I ever consider “cool” or “stylish” (Obama was one of those few.) Democrats need to focus on candidates who support the policies they favor and who can get elected in whatever region they live in. I don’t care how old a candidate is or how stylish they are if they can’t run an effective campaign or can’t work effectively to implement positive policy changes.
Furthermore, acting like age is some kind of intellectual infirmity or lack of capability is simple bigotry. Some people obviously do deteriorate by the time they are 70 (e.g., Trump), but others are still whip smart and active past that time (e.g., Pelosi). Not voting for someone like Warren or Pelosi because they are, or will be, past a certain age is just stupidity.
Elizabeth Warren has been an effective advocate for consumer rights and financial protections in the Senate. I don’t know what her foreign policy stances are, or how effective she would be in running for President, but there’s only one way to find out, and if she wants to take a shot at it, more power to her.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and both won in very peculiar circumstances– Crowley ran like he was trying to lose, and Gillum had IIRC four primary opponents (?). They’re both smart and charismatic, though AOC seems to have drunk a bit of the Bernista kool-ade. Gillum knows what he’s up against.
On topic– I got distracted– I wonder if EW has a 23 and me result she’s gonna drop on trumpie when he starts a round of “Pocohontas’ at a key moment. And I still can’t believe the president of these United States uses that middle school racism, proudly and in public. MSNBC showed the clip of him saying it to the Navajo code-talkers with that stupid grin on his face… he’s such a fucking embarrassment
Miss Bianca
@Suzanne: Um…Suzanne? You don’t think that there’s *any* onus on Millenials to…show up at these meetings? It’s a chicken-and-egg situation. You think there should be more people your age at these meetings? Then recruit some. Or share your ideas on recruiting them with others. Or something. But man…do I get sick of people saying “why don’t more people like me show up? Why are all these old people talking about the stuff that concerns *them* the most?” as if, a), it’s somehow *bad* that Boomers and others even older are concerned about the stuff that affects them; and b)., as if they bore no responsibility for being the change they want to see. I guess I’m to the point of saying, “Either be the change or stop whining about the fact that the people who *are* showing up and being the change don’t look like you or speak to your concerns”. Because apparently, the change ain’t gonna happen by itself.
Platonailedit
@Suzanne:
Disagree. I see dems, including Schumer, talking about student loans and other millennial issues often, despite the fact millennial are not reliable voters. They just need to open their eyes and ears to what is happening right now under this corrupt thug’s regime.
PJ
@Suzanne: Obama was a very good politician, Hillary Clinton was not (unlike Bill, who was a natural). This is more a matter of temperament, how someone relates to people, than something you learn (though it can be learned). But being a good natural politician has nothing to do with being stylish or cool (viz. Biden).
germy
Steve Bannon headlining the New Yorker magazine festival?
If I hadn’t let my subscription lapse last year, I’d cancel it.
They have some good journalism (Ronan Farrow) but they treat less famous writers like shit.
By the way, after my subscription ended, they sent me a renewal letter: $99.00 for one year. I tore it up.
Then they sent me an offer: $50 for one year.
Imagine someone trying to sell you something for a hundred bucks, and you telling them “no thanks, I’m good” and them saying “OK, I’ll let you have it for fifty bucks.”
Remnick and Toobin need moar money to keep their lifestyles going. I’m sure Remnick will be tough on Bannon, right?
Suzanne
I believe that I said that I would vote for whomever we put up. But the Democrats seem to be targeting Millennials this cycle and I have seen much handwringing about converting non-voters to voters, and questioning why Millennials don’t show up. Why, don’t the young people know that if they voted, they would have more power and save us from Trump?
Yet…..WTF are we giving them? What reason are we giving them? People of every age want to be inspired, and people of every age and cohort want access to power and they want their interests represented. No matter how stupid you might think it is, people want to feel good about casting their vote. I want to feel that, with my vote, I am not just voting for a good person for a specific job, I am voting for an enduring positive vision and a slate of people who will carry that through for years and years. I really want to vote for people who are able to pick up the mantle of leadership and run with it.
Abrams and Gillum are two that I would say fit this brand very well. They are genuinely exciting, they don’t try to copy the aesthetic or style of old country-club types, and they don’t come from privilege.
jc
@laura: Excellent points. My attempt to say them more simply:
Warren writes about economic issues in clear, plain language – her books became bestsellers.
Warren ran a simple, successful campaign by running a ground campaign and being available. She legislates on a nationwide platform of consumer justice.
She’s modernized the New Deal and Great Society policies. She’s capable of success at higher levels of power.
And that’s a threat. And so she must be diminished. She can’t be attacked on her record, so swiftboating it will have to be.
Misogyny and racism run deep.
Platonailedit
@Suzanne:
The latest dem talking point on student loans
Warren has plenty more on these lines about student loans. In politics, you want to be heard? then turn up first,
tobie
@Suzanne: The only cool politician I can remember in my lifetime is Obama. Bill Clinton was a great retail politician because he was at one and the same time folksy and sharp. I can’t think of any hip Congressman, governor or even mayor I’ve had occasion to vote for. College debt was and is a big issue in national politics. Climate change and the kind of infrastructure spending it will require should be front and center of most campaigns as well. I’d love to see talk of high speed rail again but I’m not sure that’s a 30-something issue. The GOP has been so relentless in going after Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security that I think Democrats feel an obligation to respond. That’s what’s left of the New Deal so the fight is both substantive and symbolic.
Suzanne
@PJ:
Wrong. Biden is cool AF. Saying shit like “malarkey!” in the debates, the Obama-Biden memes, laughing at the time Jill accidentally made a dick joke, his appreciation for the Onion version of Joe Biden……Joe Biden is really fucking cool. He connects with people because he’s genuine, funny, slightly inappropriate, and smart. In a word: COOL.
trollhattan
@germy:
Bannon is a Nazi. Nobody should be associating with a Nazi.
The end.
germy
@tobie:
I don’t know. Maybe it is for some of them? I thought I read somewhere the younger generation isn’t in love with car ownership as previous generations.
rikyrah
Dear FrontPagers:
Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) Tweeted:
Chris Christie’s admin reportedly funneled $500,000,000 of N.J. workers’ pension cash into the owner of American Media, the media biz that allegedly helped bury negative stories about Trump. Christie’s PAC also got a big donation from the same media biz.
https://t.co/COrqSLiquv https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1036237314631053320?s=17
germy
@trollhattan: Exactly. He wants a mainstream platform. That’s his plan.
Send him back to the dork web.
Platonailedit
@germy: Just great, more public space for venal racists & bigots.
trollhattan
@Suzanne:
Yup. He has every reason to be beat down from what life has presented him and instead, he’s Joe Fucking Biden.
PJ
@Suzanne: @Miss Bianca: I don’t think the reason young people aren’t showing up for your Democratic meetings is because they are scared off by the old people. Since 1972, when the voting age was lowered to 18, young people consistently show up for elections much less than older people. (It went up a little in 2004 and 2008, but still not close to pre-1972 levels). https://www.census.gov/prod/2014pubs/p20-573.pdf There are a lot of reasons for this; part of it is because of a concerted effort by the wealthy and Republicans to make democracy seem pointless, that voting for a Democrat is just the same as voting for a Republican, so why not stay at home on election day? Part of it is because Democrats make little or no concerted effort to get them involved, but as Miss Bianca points out, this is because when you do attempt outreach, most young people can’t be bothered. They have other, more important stuff going on in their lives. Their lack of participation is a big problem, but I’ve seen no polling or other evidence indicate that they will participate more if all of the candidates are below a certain age (50? 40? 30?).
rikyrah
Thread
RT @imillhiser: 1) So, I have a story about Ron DeSantis, who Republicans just nominated as their gubernatorial candidate in Florida.
Spoi… https://twitter.com/imillhiser/status/1034807206280081409?s=17
Miss Bianca
@Suzanne: Strangely, tho’, Joe Cool has never made it past the Presidential primaries. Huh. Almost as if being “cool” isn’t enough for some (most) people.
tobie
@germy: Maybe we should say high-speed rail with major discounts for students like you have in the rest of the developed world? And rail should be treated like a public utility with proper government funding.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@germy: that is just astounding and bewildering
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
No, it’s just a false controversy.
Nope. Opponents would be unhappy if the most bona fide native American in the universe took advantage because they would think that a more deserving white man was robbed.
Some people think that affirmative action means allocated slots for designated nonwhite people. That’s not how it works.
And the idea of someone “more deserving” falls back into the bullshit of how white Warrren might be, or is supposed to be.
Suzanne
@Platonailedit:
If this is our attitude, then we will continue to lose and wonder why.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Warren means that “the tools to reduce or eliminate debt” are good jobs that pay more so we can repay those loans or consolidate loans for a low interest rate and expanding income-based repayment. Which is fine, but it’s still repaying loans that (quite frankly) should never have had to be taken out in the first place. I’ve seen a push to forgive debt from closed for-profit institutions, which is helpful, but certainly not enough for everyone who went to a state university or a private school. And new IBR policies aren’t retroactive, so they won’t affect anyone who’s already paying.
WhatsMyNym
@Suzanne: Anybody can run, the Democratic Party is not a top down organization like most in Europe.
BTW; I live on the west coast and barely know anything about most of these eastern politicians. Too busy with taking back the last GOP strongholds.
tobie
@germy: P.S. Gillum’s the only one I’ve heard mention high-speed rail. He’d like to revive plans for an Orlando-Tampa line, I believe. Betty Cracker, Adam Silverman and others from Florida would know more about this than I do.
germy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Did you see the excuse Remnick made? He basically promises he’ll challenge Bannon.
Why give him a platform in the first place?
PJ
@Suzanne: Christ, Biden was my senator for ages and I like him a lot (notwithstanding his promotion of the credit card industry), but he is never someone I would consider “cool” in the way that you are using it. Yes, he is genuine, and he doesn’t GAF, for the most part, about what other people think of him (so he qualifies for the Miles Davis sense of “cool”), but he isn’t “cool” in the sense that marketers use, and what you think should be promoted, which is why the media always uses him as a punchline (and also why the Onion chose to adapt his personality to their version of him.)
Suzanne
@Miss Bianca: No one said that coolness is enough to win Presidential elections. But Beto O’Rourke is within spitting distance of Ted Cruz in Texas, of all places, in large part because he doesn’t come off as the disgusting gelatinous weener that Ted Cruz does. It’s not because Texans all of a sudden decided that they love progressive politics! Story after story about O’Rourke features a quote from some centrist or conservative who notes that he seems genuine and real and just a really good guy.
germy
@tobie: I’d be happy with improved normal-speed rail. More tracks, updated trains.
Platonailedit
@Suzanne:
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. – Plato
If you want a seat to the table, first be there to ask for it. No one is going to hand it over to you on a platter.
Brachiator
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That would be so funny.
Even more fun would be to show that Trump had, say, some Middle Eastern ancestry. Or even some African ancestry.
Platonailedit
@germy: So chris hayes show, version 2.0, then?
PJ
@germy: And lower prices – it costs $188 one-way to go between NYC and DC on a non-Acela train (vs. $30 by bus).
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Platonailedit: Joy Reid had some emo-pundit on yesterday bleating that Barack and Michelle don’t need to be having nice moments with the Bushes, they need to “tell us what to do” about trump. I forget who called it the “one weird trick” school of politics. People want to hear some new and magic formula to fix things. There isn’t one. We need to vote. They say it all the time. A big part of OFA is about voter turn-out. Michelle Obama made a viral video with some people who I gather appeal to the youngs, and looking at her twitter during the McCain funeral she was retweeting and encouraging a voter registration effort. I’ve seen conflicting reports on the effect the Parkland kids are having with their efforts, but they’re focusing on voting.
Suzanne
@Platonailedit: I fucking show up. I go to my party meetings, I canvass, I register people, I talk about these issues with my friends and neighbors, and I vote every time. But I am an outlier. And I can tell you that the vast majority of my age cohort that I talk to, including the ones who share most of my views and positions, do not feel that the Democratic Party speaks for them or represents them accurately. They feel like voting is a shitty obligation like jury duty when they want to feel like it is an actualization of self. You might think that is unrealistic (in fact, I do), but you have to meet people where they are if you want something from them.
MattF
@Brachiator: I doubt that would have much effect. Trump is just exhibiting his contempt for Warren, and that’s all Trump’s fan base wants to hear. Trump’s the schoolyard bully and facts, whatever they may be, really don’t matter.
Another Scott
@Miss Bianca: +1.
Hillary was a great politician. She had the disadvantage of being a woman who was talented in politics, seen as a threat by the GOP in her home state and nationally, and being a victim of 30+ years of hateful lies that the national press was more than happy to repeat, amplify, and spread.
How would Obama have done with 30 years of “mom jeans” and “what a loser, he can’t bowl, doesn’t know how to order a cheesesteak, and likes arugula” and “hangs out with 60s terrorists, and bought his house from a mobster” and all the rest.
(groucho-roll-eyes.gif)
Who else would put up with all the crap she did – even attacking her kid and her family charitable foundation, for Pete’s sake – for decades and still be willing to battle them all in two national campaigns – not to get rich and grift the country, but to actually try to make things better.
Most of what we “know” about her personality and her “coolness” is the result of decades of misinformation and lies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N708P-A45D0 – she was (and is) fine. (2:28)
I disagreed with her on several things (getting involved in Syria, for one), but the country really did itself a disservice in not electing her. Sure, she would have been the continued victim of unfair attacks, but she would have done very, very well by us.
Cheers,
Scott.
B.B.A.
@Brachiator: If you go back far enough, everyone has African ancestry. That’s the real reason why wingnuts don’t want to teach evolution in the schools.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@tobie: 30-somethings want good jobs/better wages; affordable housing, child care, and health care; as well as (in many cases) climate action and social justice.
Mandalay
@Suzanne: I can’t help noticing your admiration for Joe Biden after posting earlier about a co-worker: “DON’T TOUCH ME, YOU CREEPY BASTARD”.
If Biden had been a Republican it would be conventional wisdom on this board that he was a “creepy bastard”, and a groper of women and children.
Suzanne
@PJ:
I consider “cool” to be authentic and self-effacing, easy to connect with, with mild transgressions of social norms when appropriate, and essentially aspirational. Cool is someone you look at and you wish you were—and if you can’t be that guy, you can at least vote for that guy. Biden mostly fits that. He’s not the coolest guy ever, but he is definitely a cool dude. Cooler than many in politics and of his generation.
Brachiator
@Suzanne:
Young people are busy being young. That’s how life works.
The issue of school violence has energized some young people. The idea of free college, also. In some places there seems to be more energy than usual.
But younger voters have to step up, if they want it. They can’t be forced into political participation.
Platonailedit
@Suzanne: Then the people you talk to need to grow up and face the reality. End of story. Obama happened because people turned up.
And I am not buying your all millennials are disinterested in voting theory. Of late, I have seen kids do wonderful things on voting front.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Uber-Bernie Bro Jon Fugelsang once made a rather belabored joke about Biden being Obama’s smartest move, because he was impeachment insurance, he knew the Republicans would never put a “real liberal” like Biden in power. I’m so old I remember when Joe Biden was known in the Left Blogosphere as ‘the Senator from MBNA”. But his affect has a lot of appeal. See also, Shouty Bernie.
zhena gogolia
@geg6:
Oh goody! You’re good people.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
What issues do they think Dems don’t address?
Brachiator
@B.B.A.:
Wingnuts have all kinds of problems with evolution, especially the idea of a common ancestor that gave rise to apes and humans. They insist on seeing homo sapiens as God’s special toy.
Miss Bianca
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: 3
Fun Fact to Know and Tell: A lot of us 50-somethings want that, too!//
PJ
@Suzanne: A lot of people have a fundamental misunderstanding of how politics works. No one is getting a pony (unless you are David Koch, in which case, you are getting all of the ponies.) It is long, sometimes painful, often unpleasant interactions with your fellow citizens. No politician is going to always vote the way you want them to. Often, they are only going to do what you want when you make them do it, because, to get anything done, they have to argue with and persuade dozens of other politicians who are uninterested in your concerns.
(As an aside, I think there is a basic problem with how politics is taught in our schools, where it is mostly reduced to a popularity contest when voting for student counsel, rather than studying how the sausage gets made and how to get the sausage you want made.)
I agree that lack of participation by young people is a big problem, but talking about student loans or debt generally, or lack of jobs, or whatever it is that young people are concerned about has, historically, not persuaded them to show up and vote. I have been very much encouraged by the turnout at the women’s marches and the marches for our lives and other events over the past two years and I hope that turns into actual votes.
I have met too many “progressives” who think voting is a pointless exercise, and so don’t bother, and I’ve never been able to persuade them that their voice is something that matters. But your friends who thing voting is a shitty obligation, what would persuade them otherwise?
Baud
I feel the only way we’ll really know how to construct a stable majority is trial and error. Charisma is great but it isn’t a strategy IMHO.
Miss Bianca
@Miss Bianca: Ack, block-quote fail. Wow, do I miss the edit function.
Lapassionara
@germy: This just sucks! Why would they give him a platform for his fascist views? I don’t care how well the interviewer prepares, Bannon will not be acting in good faith. This makes it impossible to “reveal the lie” at the heart of his philosophy. So they just wind up giving him a respectable forum, and amplyfying his message.
trollhattan
@Another Scott:
Her biggest crime was being a woman. Her second-biggest crime was the last name Clinton.
She was and is an excellent politician, presuming you want elected officials who understand the law, politics, international relations and who can wrestle with them in real time with respect to reality, not how you’d like things to be. That’s who I want, not a Reaganesque leader who thinks government and governing are icky.
Fair Economist
@tobie: High speed rail is something of a chimera. Our problem is nit that you have to take a plane to get there, it’s that you need a car once you arrive. The advantage of rail is that you can go straight to the inner city and switch easily to local rail lines. Until we have walkable lively inner cities and extensive local rail it is not much of a boon.
Suzanne
@Platonailedit: Obama happened because the people who turned up felt really great about turning up. They felt empowered, valuable, inspired. They felt like we were on the cusp of something new, on the threshold of the kind of change you read about in history books. He became the avatar for what people wanted the country to be—the kind of place where a smart black kid of no distinguished parentage can succeed.
Look at the data. Look at how many young people show up (hint: they have lower participation rates than older cohorts). And remember that we cannot win elections if they do not engage with us. Maybe that’s just a natural consequence of age and the older they get, the more involved they will become. But also, maybe it isn’t. Voting is a habit established early in life, after all. I firmly believe that the Dems would be better served by treating them as a valued part of the coalition and building a bank of leaders who aren’t Baby Boomers.
Brachiator
@Miss Bianca:
Yep. Totally agree with you.
Platonailedit
@Suzanne: Dems don’t treat students as a valued part of their coalition is a blatant false claim and a bad faith argument. I am done.
debbie
@Suzanne:
I have no problem voting for younger candidates, but when the incumbent’s been an effective representative and has a record of progressive policies, why automatically vote for the younger candidate? Youthful exuberance may be fun to witness, but it won’t get the legislation through Congress.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I remember back when I was a young voter, my conservative acquaintances were much more likely to be registered to vote than the liberals. I suspect their parents made sure they registered like they made sure they went to church.
Princess
Oh cool; she’s running. Good to know.
zhena gogolia
@trollhattan:
Thank you.
Platonailedit
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That’s one thing I admire about rw’ers. They value their votes. They will definitely fuck up others’ lives (and in many case their own lives) with their votes, but they do turn out and hence control almost all levers of powers. Libruls can learn a few things from them about getting political power and keeping it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and Dems have been chasing young voters since I was one. Motor-voter, MTV candidate forums, I saw Hillary Clinton and Jerry Brown on college campuses in the 92 cycle. Obama in 2010 did massive rallies on college campuses. Being out of that demographic and a social media luddite, I don’t really know what’s going on now, but I’m sure the Dems are all over social media
SWMBO
@Suzanne: How much of HRC not having a ” positive view of the future, energy, and a sense of connection with people” “who just couldn’t figure this out despite being really smart and capable and fabulous on most policy” was/is because she was walking against the current of mysogyny? It doesn’t matter if you are a smart,capable, talented, intelligent leader if you start off with the other team on third base and they try to knee cap you every time you try to bat.
James E Powell
@tobie:
Has anyone explained to her that since she won the primary, she is the party?
Fair Economist
@Suzanne: If you are looking for inspiring policies it’s hard to beat Warren. She really understands how debt and corporate law are used to hold down the peopke AND she knows how to fix it AND she is excellent at communicating those fixes. E.g. listen to her proposals for reining in corporations.
An interesting side to her pre-politics career was that during the great housing bubble she was one of the leading authorities warning about mortgage debt. She was so influentual the banks felt compelled to invite her to conferences and listen to her scold them.
Miss Bianca
@Suzanne: And look how many people I know – I don’t know about you – who, when all of Obama’s charisma couldn’t make Republicans do what he wanted, and he was forced to compromise or walk back on a lot of his legislative promises – who felt betrayed and like “Obama was a total sell-out, man!” and then they were on to the next new thing that made them feel all hopey-changey (Bernie Sanders? Fucking Really?).
Because they refuse to understand *how the sausage is actually made*. They get all grossed out by it, and then they say, “that’s it – no more sausage! I only want the candidate who promises he can deliver only organic, free-range legislative victories that have never been harmed by any harsh realities!”
Sorry. I like a nice, charismatic populist as much as the next gal. Unlike the next gal, evidently, I don’t expect them to shit all-organic rainbow unicorn poop and be FURIOUS and DISILLUSIONED with them when they can’t. Besides, I hate unicorn poop.
Suzanne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
From what I hear (and yes, this is anecdotal, because I’m talking about what I hear), they feel like Dems are not appreciating their problems. They like Obamacare but resent that they have to pay in when they’re young (yes, I know this is how insurance works) because they don’t have money now. They are stressed out because they can’t afford to live where they want to live and they have to live with parents or a shit-ton of roommates. They are stressed out because they have six figures in student debt, and/or they can’t get a job that doesn’t suck, and they feel like they have to go to college to get a job that doesn’t suck. They are stressed out about social justice but aren’t necessarily comfortable with taking an ideological stand like Black Lives Matter, because they also see people who have privilege whose lives still suck. The minority people I come in contact with convey less concern about things like violence from cops and being targeted by ICE than feeling like they will always be fucking broke AF. (That’s not to say that they don’t care, but that it doesn’t seem as personal.) And there are a lot of non political stressors: like it or not, but the importance of image seems to be more salient to this cohort than to others, And they don’t seem to necessarily want to follow the paths their parents did—don’t necessarily want kids or a suburban lifestyle. If anything, I think the overarching theme is just insecurity. There aren’t policy solutions to many of these issues, but we should still hear them out.
Brachiator
@Baud:
It’s September. I wish that midterms get out the vote strategies were falling into place.
We know that Republicans count on voter disqualification methods focusing on students, nonwhite voters, older people, etc. And we know that the GOP is trying to rob young people of their future.
The clock is ticking. Trump and his GOP should be an obvious target that opponents can agree on.
West of the Rockies
@Suzanne:
And hopefully they will speak to the concerns of the non-Millenials. I’m reluctant to presume they’re all fabulous people. The alt-right has its fair share of youngish Incels.
My broader point is that we are diminished when we assume all “the olds” are selfish and without ideas or value. Your comment did NOT assert such a thing, but I get nervous around bashing one group whole-cloth or assuming absolute grandeur from another. I, too, want a more youthful, optimistic Democratic party (with lots of POC and sexual diversity), but I also value the wisdom and experience of the more mature members of the party.
As for the mature members of the GOP… I suspect they are constitutionally greedy, fearful, racist, etc.
jk
Bullshit, it’s a matter of common sense. The presidency is the most physically and mentally demanding job in the world. There will be crises that a president has to confront that play out over days or weeks that require someone to get by on very little sleep for an extended period of time. Don’t try feeding me this fucking nonsense that Biden, Warren, or Sanders have the physical stamina to get by for days or weeks on little sleep while dealing with a stressful situation and remaining mentally as sharp as a tack. The democrats have a great field of candidates for 2020 so stop living in fantasyland and wake the hell up. Biden, Warren, and Sanders are too old for this goddamn motherfucking job.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and judges. I’ve got MSNBC on in the background and they’re talking about Kavanagh. I could be misremembering, but the Supreme Court was a huge issue for Dems in ’92, after Clarence Thomas. I haven’t seen anything like it on our side since. Fucking baffling to me.
Platonailedit
@Brachiator: Yup, focus on the real enemies and their illegal and illegitimate actions instead of sniping at a party that is doing something for your causes and for your good.
Roger Moore
@PJ:
I think Hillary’s political skills have been unfairly derided. She isn’t as charismatic or as good a public speaker as Bill or Barack, but she has a lot of compensating skills. She’s obviously a master of the policy side- though both Bill and Barack were also very good. She’s also supposed to be fantastic at interacting face-to-face, which made her very effective as a senator and also apparently helps her a lot when she can meet with people in small groups.
Another Scott
@Suzanne:
One can just as easily, and correctly, say that Obama happened because the GOP blew up the world economy and enough people were disgusted with it to give him a chance.
;-)
Don’t get me wrong. Obama was great and did great things. But charisma and appealing to the youth were only a small part of the reason why he won.
One could also say that he won because African Americans pretty much voted as a block, and turned out in higher than usual numbers. The lesson learned from that hasn’t been that the Democrats should only nominate bi-racial males going forward. ;-)
As you and others have said, 80% of life is showing up. People who show up for a political party are going to determine its policies and direction. That’s just the way it is, and that’s pretty much the way it should be. While Atrios is correct that blaming the voters for a candidate losing is (almost) always wrong, ultimately people have to show up on their own, not be “inspired” to do so… Self-government isn’t a birthday party.
Cheers,
Scott.
Suzanne
@SWMBO:
A disgusting amount. I have been blathering about it for years.
Are you asking me? Because I agree with you, for the most part. But I’m already on board. I do think that there is value in voting for young people now so we can eventually have elder statesmen in the future. I want to get to work establishing the next generation of leadership.
Fair Economist
@Suzanne: Yep, the youngs are justifiable upset about being broke. And Warren is the best candidate for talking about fixing that .
Princess
Given that the last candidate the young’uns liked a whole lot, though not enough to actually put him over the top, was Bernie Sanders, who is the opposite of dynamic and young, your argument is pretty much null.
I think young people want what everyone wants, which is someone authentic, and that can be found in anyone, young, old, black, white, brown, male, female. I don’t think young people are nearly as shallow as you make them out to be, except maybe those ones who think that voting should be about “self-actualization”. Frankly, it is a boring civic duty like jury duty. Even if you are transported bu the top of the ticket, it’s a very long ticket and no one is in raptures by the time they make it to the bottom of all those judges.
Brachiator
@Suzanne:
Yeah, they will be broke under Trump. And he ain’t creating no jobs.
They like Obamacare, but Trump is trying to kill it. And he dropped all the replacement talk. Obamacare could be fixed, and some of the pricing models adjusted, under the Democrats. You get nothing from the GOP.
I agree that younger people should be listened to, but I also think that the Democrats have answers. Also, young people should understand that they can shape the direction of the party and the future. They should step up, be encouraged to step up.
Otherwise some of them sound like they are still children waiting for someone to take care of them.
Uncle Cosmo
@PJ: And the Decela (i.e., non-Acela) trains aren’t that much faster than the bus. Greyhound from Baltimore to NYC (Port Authority 42nd St) is 3.5-4 hrs vs ~3 hr on Amtrak.
I customarily travel that Greyhound route to fly to Europe out of JFK – leave Baltimore in the morning, one brief stop in Wilmington DE, E train from PA42nd toward Queens, change at Sutphin Blvd to the AirTrain for JFK. Generally saves ~$300 over the cheapest flights out of BWI at a r/t bus plus subway & train fare of ~$80. It’s an extra ~5 hr each way but there are often direct flights out of JFK that pretty much cancel out the time differential.(Doesn’t hurt that one of my best friends from college lives ~6 blocks from an E-train stop in Queens – I can hang out with them in the afternoon & grab an early supper before heading on. Or stay a day or two on either end. Of course I’m
retardedretired so I have the time to spare.)Suzanne
Dems treat young people with a certain amount of inevitability, I think. I think the Dems take young people for granted. They look at polls of their political views, which generally align with the positions of the party, and assume that they will show up or at least won’t vote for the other party. But I don’t think that’s sufficient. They don’t reliably show up, and I think that’s because they are not catching what we’re throwing. Every bit of market research into this group will tell you that this group wants–more than others have historically–to feel emotional investment in their vote. And all groups respond to being targeted directly. I think we need to specifically target this cohort. And we need to contrast ourselves with the GOP—because that brand is not any more popular and this is a fucking golden opportunity to lock in Dem voters for life. Let the GOP be the party of duplicitousness and landed gentry and gross old men than look like Trump and the Turtle. We can be the party of vitality and energy, the party where anyone can succeed, the party that actually represents America.
Mnemosyne
@Platonailedit:
Yup. And you never, ever hear them saying stupid shit like both sides are the same! or we need someone younger and more charismatic than Mitch McConnell to run the Senate! because they know that voting is important. If they didn’t think it was important, they wouldn’t spend so much time trying to convince liberals not to vote and blocking eligible voters from the polls.
It pisses me off that our side has fallen for obvious propaganda from their side, and I’m not sure what more we can do to counter it.
Suzanne
@Brachiator:
I agree that the Dems have answers. That is why I spend time doing this. But I am not a candidate, because I have a Facebook page full of intemperate shit and I need to have a job, and because I don’t like stupid people and I live in Arizona.
I want them to step up, too. But I can also put myself in their shoes and I can see why they don’t. It is hard to feel like you belong in a group when you show up to a meeting and I am the youngest person there! Because I am old!
PJ
@jk: There is no field of candidates for 2020 right now – no one has thrown their hat in. If you don’t want to vote for a person because they are old, that’s on you.
Doug R
@germy: The car ownership rate and licence holding rate is lower for the younger generation.
Trends always seem to happen before they get replaced-as in newspaper circulation started dropping before the internet was here-these young people may be anticipating self driving cars, rapid transit and high speed rail.
Here in Western Canada, Greyhound is stopping their bus service as of year end. Ridership has plummeted in the past ten years, I’m guessing more affordable air fares cut into their business.
I for one would love a high speed service between Vancouver-Seattle-Portland-NorCal-LA-San Diego.
Emma
@Suzanne: HRC had the whole of the United States political press lying about her. I am told by at least three people who met her in person at medium-sized events and spoke to her briefly that she is amazing at a person to person level. She is knowledgeable, practical, and committed to helping people at all levels. What else should we want from leadership?
Amir Khalid
@Princess:
The authenticity you say young people seek in a presidential candidate was not something Bernie Sanders had in abundance. bSanders did great in rallies but fell embarrassingly short if you probed him on substance.There were large gaps in his policy knowledge that he never bothered to fill and I never got the impression that he understood political strategy all that well. And that’s just two of his shortcomings.
Suzanne
@Princess:
Except for his age, Bernie is actually a really good embodiment of what I’m talking about. He did not feel focus-grouped to death. He looked unusual for a politician. And he specifically talked to that cohort. And the yelling—he did feel dynamic. He came across as feeling genuinely pissed off. His campaign circulated photos of his as a young man and he looked just as fucking goofy and unretouched as my Facebook page looks. I think a candidate who can capture Bernie’s energy but improve on his politics would be really formidable.
Fair Economist
@Roger Moore: The thing about media presence is that it is like a reality show. The media cuts and edits to present the story they want people to get and they are quite capable of misrepresenting reality. If you see unedited footage of “stiff” Dems like Gore and Hillary they compare favorably to their opponents. IMO most of the reason Obama had a rep for “cool” was that he was being set up to mess up Hillary and then surprised them by actually winning. The media tried to “egghead” him later but it is hard to revise a set opinion so it was only partially successful.
Emma
Aagh, no edit function. Millenials want change? Let them show up and do the donkey work. Politics is not sitting back and waiting for people to appeal to your feelings or your principles. They should get their arses in the fight and make those changes.
Suzanne
@Emma:
That is what I want (along with vision). But I want it for the next 40 years, so can we start building it now?
hilts
@germy:
It’s become increasingly difficult to avoid Steve Bannon because media outlets keep tripping over themselves to interview him.
Steve Bannon is a malignant cancer and any magazine, newspaper, tv show, etc. who gives him a platform to spew his venom should be flooded with emails expressing outrage. I also recommend that people boycott these media outlets.
PJ
@Mnemosyne: Urban Outfitters, owned by RWNJ Richard Hayne, sold t-shirts that said “Voting is for Old People” in the run-up to the 2004 election. Discouraging young “hip” people from voting is a long-standing Republican strategy.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
Platonailedit
@Suzanne:
Ah, a bs bot. I suspected as much given your one note argument and then the goal post shifting when facts were presented.
JaneE
@Mnemosyne: At one time tribal membership for the Cherokee was open to anyone who lived within the Cherokee Nation lands and could document Ancestry on the Dawes Rolls. If that is still the case and if I moved to Oklahoma somewhere within the Cherokee Nation lands, I could apply for tribal membership. If I did that, the Native American taking the application would probably double over laughing and look for the candid camera.
The Dawes rolls are the bible for Cherokee ancestry, and they are riddled with errors. On the undocumented side of my family, my great grandmother thought that a name on the rolls is really her, but using her nickname instead of her actual given name. No way to tell if was supposed to be her or not.
From my perspective, anyone who calls themself an Okie probably has had family in the state long enough to almost certainly have some Indian blood.
Suzanne
@PJ: One thing that I observe about the young (and I have no data to back this up, this is just an observation at this point) is that they don’t seem to like joining things. They don’t join social clubs or churches or the Rotary or whatever. All of those groups report declining membership and I don’t know of anything that has filled that gap. I think that probably extends to political parties. That definitely reflects what I see, which is a lot of young people who, when asked, espouse left/liberal/progressive political positions, but who don’t feel that the Dems represent them accurately and who don’t gain a sense of identity or personal brand affinity from association, so they don’t join.
I have a feeling that that is actually a cipher and that the Party represents at least 80% of their views. I know that Dem candidates would do a better job actualizing their vision for the future. So how to we attract these people, if not with all the stuff that I mentioned that everyone seems to think is silly?
Roger Moore
@Fair Economist:
Trains have a lot of little advantages, too. They have more legroom than airplanes, and often nicer scenery. You can bring more luggage, and it doesn’t have to go through an insane screening process, which saves both time and dignity. The whole experience is a lot more casual and relaxing than the stress of flying.
Amir Khalid
@Suzanne:
My feeling about Bernie the presidential candidate was and is that he was all sales pitch and precious little product. My fear is that in 2020 some similarly hollow candidate will capture Democratic voters’ imaginations and either prove a distraction in the campaign, or, God forbid, get elected and prove themselves inadequate in the Oval Office.
Brachiator
@Doug R: Interesting point about car ownership rates. A recent Fed study came to the following conclusion.
Also interesting is the claim that smartphones and social media make it easier for younger people to get along without a car.
Hope this link from my mobile browser works.
https://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/notes/feds-notes/2016/the-young-and-the-carless-the-demographics-of-new-vehicle-purchases-20160624.html
Emma
@Suzanne: Not with Sanders. He seems to appeal to people who want a single solution that primarily benefits white folk. He reminds me of the old-line Cuban communists — hell, most old-line communists that believed if you could make everyone economically equal every societal issue could be solved. Idiocy.
Mnemosyne
@Roger Moore:
And, of course, the frustrating thing is that Hillary Clinton talked about every single one of those things and had detailed plans to fix them, but no one paid any attention because she was too old, too ugly, and not deferential to men.
(Now I want to see if anyone else recognizes the above quote. It was not originally applied to Hillary.)
Suzanne
@Platonailedit: A bot? I’ve commented here for years. I’ve done Party and campaign work for years. Fuck off.
I worked in advertising for years. I have been immersed in strategies for how to get people to do what you want them to do for a long time. I have studied what people want, and how to give it to them. And this Party has a problem with that.
When we want black people to participate, we talk about investigating their specific interests and concerns and supporting black candidates. When we talk about wanting women to participate, same thing. And yet, when I mention that the Democrats have a young people problem, and that all of our candidates are either old or don’t fucking talk to that cohort, or at least try to communicate with them ***in the way that they communicate and reflect the kind of vision they have***, it’s “they need to show up if they want us to care about them”. No. That is a recipe for disaster.
Suzanne
@Amir Khalid:
For sure. ABSOLUTELY. But that sales pitch was really, REALLY effective. I have my problems with Bernie, but he did something important and we should interrogate that. For whatever reasons, fair or not, HRC did not have this appeal, and it made a difference. So let’s work on bringing up candidates who can do this.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
Yep. Good points.
I would add, though, that the working poor think about college, and that California has been good and could be better with its college system. I’ve always known people who went to community colleges, LA Trade Tech, etc, and who moved up into the Cal State and UC systems. Transportation (Blue Line, Red Line, etc) is also pretty good and relatively inexpensive. Not sure how other states do. Obviously, more should be done to improve public schools and bring tuition down. And the tough part is jobs. Jobs with a future. But this last part is tough and even higher minimum wages are only part of a solution.
Miss Bianca
@Suzanne:
Great! So you’re on your party’s central committee, right? Or at least, giving them the benefit of your expertise.
No, I’m not snarking, I’m being serious. And granted, I know you have a lot on your plate – professional career, Spawn(s), etc – but honestly: if you’re going to Party meetings, and you have this background, and you’re still bitching about not seeing the Democratic Party do what you think they need to be doing to succeed, then I am asking you, what’s the problem, here? Is it that you’ve offered to help your local party recruit young people and younger candidates and they blown you off? Or have you not offered at all?
Aleta
@Suzanne: Look at polling results for only young voters, divided among Latinos, blacks and whites. What you say about the concerns of young people and their feelings about the Democratic party/policies, including their feelings about older people, seems more about young whites than nonwhites. There are also big differences in attitudes toward other social issues, violence, etc.
sukabi
@Mnemosyne: think it has to do with % of native American …ie. Have to be at least 1/16th to be accepted into a tribe.
Suzanne
On student loans….. every policy that I have seen out of the Dems is a good start but nowhere near enough. They would reduce my loan burden from about $800 a month to about $500 a month. That’s definitely a good thing. But it’s still $500 a damn month. And I would like to go back and get another degree, but I can’t afford to add to that.
No one is talking about forgiveness except in very specific circumstances. No one is talking about capping loans at, say, $50K. Reductions in length of the repayment period are not retroactive, so they will help no one who is already in this position. It is hard to get excited about this shit. It’s not bad policy, but it is inadequate.
Mnemosyne
@JaneE:
IIRC, the problem for Warren is that the particular ancestress that she traces to is not listed on the Dawes roll. Some Cherokee people chose not to register, or were living out of state when the registry was open and missed their chance.
That was the complicated thing that American Indians were trying to explain when the controversy first arose: even if you can trace an ancestor through genealogical records (as Warren apparently can), you’re not legally an American Indian unless that person registered as a member of their tribe. So Warren is stuck in kind of an ugly spot where she has the DNA but not the paperwork, so people like Trump can make racist jokes about her and claim it’s okay because she’s not “really” Natove American — see, even the Cherokee and Delaware say she’s not one of them! It allows them to be racist and accuse her of being a liberal poseur all at the same time. No wonder they won’t let it go. ?
B.B.A.
If Hillary was so flawless, we should renominate her in 2020. Third time’s a charm amirite? *rolls eyes*
(To be clear: I voted for her twice in 2016. Bernie is a shit stain on the body politic. I’m a Gillibrand 2020 supporter.)
SWMBO
@Emma: Found this on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/tbogg/status/1036415161102360576?s=21
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne: Also, Hillary kinda, probably won if you take away voter suppression and other BS. But she had to overcome being a woman and also being part of the strongly disliked Clinton machine. And hell, some racists hated her because she had been deferential to Obama.
But her policies were solid and true. This should give the Democrats an advantage if they don’t fuck it up and play to their strengths instead of worrying about the GOP and pundits who try to set the Democrats’ agenda.
ETA. Hope you are healing well.
Suzanne
@Miss Bianca: I have offered to help with recruitment and turnout and I have provided my thoughts. I don’t want to run myself, but I want to support those who do. What I perceive is that a lot of the Party apparatus realizes that they don’t have enough young people participating but they don’t really get why they don’t want to participate. They hold these meetings on Monday nights with no childcare and you have to leave work early to get there on time (two strikes). And then they have a few young candidates and they are treated like they are not serious, because they haven’t been involved in the Party for a long time and aren’t treated like they have the credibility. We have a great candidate for school board this year, and our State Senator is also awesome, and they are both in the younger cohort. So it’s not universal. But primary day was two weeks ago, and I was pretty disappointed.
oldgold
I think we should stay focused on the upcoming ‘18 election.
After November 6 and,hopefully, a full accounting from Mueller, these cloudy ‘20 political skies may clear. Hopefully, a new star will emerge.
We desperately need new – bold leadership.
Roger Moore
@Another Scott:
Obama was ahead for essentially the whole election cycle. The economic meltdown helped push up his margin of victory, but he was headed for a victory well before the crash. Of course a lot of that might have been that people were feeling the pinch of the economy slowing down before the financial crisis, or that they were tired of all the other ways the Republicans were screwing up the country (e.g. Iraq, Katrina).
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
This is true, but has nothing to do with genetic ancestry, or even family history. Warren can say that her family history spoke about native American ancestry and leave it at that.
I suppose she could add that Trump clearly inherited the asshole gene.
Playing into the ancestry game is a waste of time.
Suzanne
@Aleta: Yes, for sure. I am merely reporting (and I threw in that caveat) that I am only speaking for what I hear. I will say that most of the young minority people I know are Latino, due to where I live, but even from what I am hearing from them, they are less concerned about things like ICE raids than they are about still being fucking broke. That’s not to say that immigration isn’t an important issue to them, but that it is merely one important issue. Talking about shoring up Social Security and Medicare just sounds like waah waah waah. Medicare for all could be a good issue.
James E Powell
The Youth Vote – the Holy Grail or Great White Whale of Democratic politics. Every four years since my first presidential campaign in 1976 I’ve heard people talk about how this time – at long and dear last – we are going to get the youth to vote.
There have been small increases, but the turnout rate has been pretty steady. See this Brookings report.
I didn’t find a report of turnout rates by age & party in my cursory google search. I wonder if young RWers turnout more than non-RWers and if so, why?
I also think it’s an error to lump 18-20 year olds with 25-29 year olds. These are very distinct life stages. I’d also like to see some research done on people who became consistent voters, at what age & why. Does anyone here know where to find such things?
Platonailedit
@Suzanne:
Indulging your strawman arguments, they get attention because they turn out, capisce?
And you are a long term bj commenter has got jacksquat with you being a bs bot.
Miss Bianca
@Suzanne: I hear you. For the record, you could be describing *my* local party!
@Platonailedit: Lay off with that “BS bot” BS. Suzanne is not one of those. Or weren’t you around when the *real* BS bots were wanking all over this page?
Suzanne
@Platonailedit: Black people turned out in pretty large number for the Dems for years and we didn’t pay attention to them, to our detriment. I’d like to avoid repeating that error. I would also like to win elections in the meantime, especially since every model of a winning coalition includes the Millennial cohort. I would also like to have candidates ready at every future election, which means figuring this out now. You may be more comfortable losing than I am. That’s on you.
Suzanne
@Miss Bianca: Everyone in my local party is really great. Everyone is smart and compassionate and hardworking. They’re just so used to the way things have been. The Dem candidates who actually win here in AZ (which is a far smaller group than those who lose) don’t look like the Party. The winning group is on average younger, less likely to be a business owner or to be wealthy, and they’re more racially diverse. And yet, every fucking election, the local Dems nominate a bunch of older white people who are all very nice and boring and they have the right policy positions and they lose. Like, how many times does this have to happen? Embrace the future.
Platonailedit
@Miss Bianca: I don’t see much difference between their talking points and hers. YMMV.
@Suzanne: You claimed dems pay more attention to black people and then immediately contradict by saying dems don’t pay attention to them. Which is it?
Suzanne
@Platonailedit: I’m saying that we didn’t pay attending to them for a long time (decades), which was our problem. And since 2008, we seem to have at least made a cursory attempt to pull our heads out of our asses and treat them as if they are valued members of this coalition by listening to their concerns and nominating black candidates. (No, we haven’t done enough.) However, we didn’t do that for years, and that was to our detriment. We missed opportunities to serve people better. And we didn’t really take note of it until the Obama coalition showed up.
I want to establish a new generation of leaders in order to advance that agenda for at least the rest of my lifetime. I want to be the party that looks forward. We have done a shit-ass job of growing anybody younger than Obama in this party, and we are doing a shit-ass job reaching out to the largest generational cohort in this country…..even as we depend on their fucking turnout. Stop repeating our error.
PJ
@Roger Moore: I can get work done on a train, but I have yet to be able to do more than read and jot notes on a plane, mostly due to a lack of space and the general uncomfortableness. The bus is fine, and one the East Coast, it’s not much slower than a train and is about a sixth of the price, but it’s also impossible for me to get any work done. I just wish the train were more affordable. Even at half the price, it would be expensive, but it wouldn’t be the cost of a plane ticket.
Suzanne
Another example that just happened today of how my local party doesn’t get the younger cohort: on Facebook (yes, the old people network) the chair posted this image of “Brands to buy to support Unions!” for your holiday barbecue. They were all things like Oscar Mayer hot dogs and canned sodas. I’m sure that fell like a goddamn thud with the generation who is concerned about processed food and sugar intake and organic this-and-that. This is the generation of #savethestraw and gluten-free everything and avocado toast, the generation turning away from fast food options. Not that supporting union-made products is bad by any stretch, but it’s a perfect example of a disconnect.
PJ
@Suzanne: It does sound like they aren’t aware of dietary trends that have gained ground since the mid-70s. On the flip side, if they are buying a lot of high-sodium processed meats and drinks full of HFC, they might not be around for much longer.
Suzanne
@PJ: I’m just so tired of losing. God.
Betty Cracker
@Suzanne: Supporting unions is an existential issue for Dems. Wouldn’t hurt to have other things geared toward younger folks’ concerns too. But let’s not throw out the baby with the bath water. And honestly, that goes for your whole strategy as originally delineated, which came off as “fuck anyone uncool, over 50 and everyone who doesn’t live in an urban center.”
You’ve since clarified. But the point is, let’s expand the tent, not make the people who actually show up and do the work in thousands of precincts feel unwelcome.
One thing I wish my local party, which is also mostly older women, would do is rethink the damn meetings. You have to leave work or at least get out on time and travel to the city. And it’s mostly boring shit like finance reports. I’m an old fart, and it bores the shit out of me!
I know some stuff is based on rules. But we need to rethink them. Let people participate remotely. Make the meetings more fun, etc.
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker: Well, I think that I use the term “brand” in a way that other people don’t, likely because this used to be my job and it was my area of study in college and I still immerse myself in it. Perhaps instead of “brand”, one could consider it “the deep story”. The deep story is the thing we all think of without really realizing that we’re thinking of it. For the Democrats and the political left, we’ve been talked about for years in negative terms as elitist or at least educated, too young and idealistic and unaware of The Way Things Really Are, minority-loving, bleeding heart, “urban” aka cool with blacks and gays and Jews, want to take your guns and your taxes, etc etc etc. We all know this deep story.
Let’s lean the fuck in to this deep story. This deep story is fucking AWESOME. That doesn’t mean that every candidate in every district is going to look like they stepped out of Millennial central casting. But this resonates with people—and it should—because we are, by God, the party that has a better vision for the future. We need to stop looking at these as weaknesses to overcome but instead as strengths to double-down on. When the Party meetings look like the Tuesday fucking lunch rush at Denny’s (another place my local party actually holds meet ups), I have no confidence that they are doing a good job connecting with the people who are not them.
Candidates are going to be different and nobody is going to be everything. But the future is young, multiracial, urban, educated or at least wants to be, and has different stylistic and cultural markers and concerns and folkways and aspirations for their lives. We would be better positioned as a party moving forward if we capitalized on this, since this is already our deep story!
Steeplejack
@geg6:
Good luck with the baby kitty!
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
I don’t think we get jobs with a future until we fix the economic issues with being a business owner.
And no it’s not only taxes, it’s structure and culture. Like it or not there is a celebration for wealth in this country. Bigger, nicer house, fancy cars, kids in Ivy League schools. That’s nice of course but it is at the expense of the working class. I call it the Walmartization of business. There is little to no stability. Example a company we do work for didn’t have room to expand their LA facility. Rather than look for room here they are moving the entire facility to CO. Without offering one employee work, even if they wanted to move. Now that might be good for CO, it’s about 100 employees but it sucks for people that worked for years for this company here. How do you think any of those employees are going to feel on their next job, if they can find one within driving distance? At some point the health of the employees has to have some impact into the thinking of the executives. But most often there is none. And employees where I work are wondering what are we going to do with that loss of work because the company that has no care about their employees isn’t going to have any about their vendors. And companies do this sort of thing all the time, employees are considered interchangeable in the executive suite. It creates a mood and a pallor over working, one of do no more than the absolute minimum, you’er getting fucked anyway. It isn’t healthy for society.
Steeplejack
@geg6, @satby:
As someone who is typing right next to the aged housecat at her heated workstation, I’ll add that you can get a small heating pad for $15-20 at Target or wherever and wrap a throw around that. Much better temp control and easier to turn on again instead of changing the water.
Pro tip: Look for one with a longer timer (e.g., three hours instead of one.)
TerryC
@Suzanne: “One thing that I observe about the young (and I have no data to back this up, this is just an observation at this point) is that they don’t seem to like joining things. They don’t join social clubs or churches or the Rotary or whatever. All of those groups report declining membership and I don’t know of anything that has filled that gap.”
In my sport of choice, fast-growing Disc golf, young people are amazing for their contributions to leagues, other events, and course development. Imagine all the social groups from the last century, like Elks, Moose, etc., as a sports community strung across the US with 6,000 local free or cheap courses to play. Community involvement, including by Millennials, is strong in ways that regularly amaze me.
So there may be one replacement: Disc golf groups.
PJ
@TerryC: The revolution begins with Wham-o.
smintheus
Truth is that in that era, academics all over the US were on the hunt for minorities under every single leaf. Institutions were falling all over themselves trying to plump up the numbers of minority faculty they could publicly claim to have hired – by virtually any means available. I recall watching as the scion of an Upper East Side subcontinental Indian family was wined and dined as a potential “minority” faculty hire (someone who was just a few months after passing MA exams, and in absolutely no way ready to leave grad school for a full time teaching position).
My colleagues at the same crazy university almost had a conniption because I refused to let them put me down on their register of minorities as a Native American (all my ancestors are white except for a single great-grandmother). The pressure to just go along with the charade was intense.
I would not be surprised if faculty at Harvard took a single passing reference by Warren to her Indian ancestry and decided that she needed to be added to the not very long list of tenured minority faculty.
Laura
@jc: i don’t mind a good editing, but did you have to get rid of metric fuck ton?
And if you’re a feller, ive already had a metric fuck ton of mansplaining to last a lifetime. tkb
native prof
I’m a Native American history professor at a research university in a red state. I have a couple thoughts on Warren, who I will eagerly vote for, that I thought I’d share.
1) I have no doubt Trump’s birtherism and Pocahantes slur come from the same bottomless well of hatred and misogyny. But this doesn’t mean the issue is at all comparable to birtherism, which was an outright racist slander. There are legitimate reasons that be troubled by her identity claims, even if it didn’t benefit her through affirmative action.
2) Oklahoma was a hot mess of land theft. I wouldn’t be surprised if Warren has some Native DNA, but any white family with deep roots in Oklahoma is implicated in the Dawes Act, just like how white Southerners have legacies of slavery. Claiming Native heritage is the icing on the cake of a century of appropriation, but basically all white people in Oklahoma do it. Warren is no outlier.
3) I’m definitely voting Warren in the primary. She is in a different league as everyone else. Her latest proposal to federalize corporate charters, increase transparency, and encourage long-term thinking is straight out of FDR’s playbook. I think it would WORK as good policy, and would hold up constitutionally in a Kavanaugh court since it respects corporate personhood.
4) There’s rampant abuse of affirmative action by white people today. At least 20% of minority students in each incoming class at my university appear to be white people checking a box based on Ancestry DNA pie charts or bullshit family lore. Most never attend diversity events or publicly identify as people of color. And investigation is out of the question. The incentives are all lined up to encourage ethnic fraud: colleges win (by reporting more diversity), dishonest students win, and real equity loses. It’s a broken system. No idea how to fix it.
Still voting Warren. But there’s real peril ahead. It’s not pure bullshit like birtherism.