Warren making a 2020 run is brave considering the only female candidate who has any chance at the White House is Yes, I'd Vote For a Woman, Just Not That One.
— That bitch. (@pennysaidwhat) December 31, 2018
How does Elizabeth Warren avoid a Clinton redux — written off as too unlikable before her campaign gets off the ground? https://t.co/E6zfTkzNYy
— POLITICO (@politico) January 1, 2019
I refuse to engage in any conversations about the likeability of women running for President in 2020.
If all women political analysts did that it would make the misogyny more obvious as unlikeable men are left to wax poetic about women’s personalities ignoring their policies.
— Zerlina Maxwell (@ZerlinaMaxwell) January 2, 2019
Got an email from my senior & favorite Senator this morning:
When Elizabeth first decided to run for the Senate in 2012, she ran against a Republican senator who had a 65% approval rating, $10 million in the bank, and a cool pick-up truck…in a state that had never in its history elected a woman senator or governor.
So we’re used to the tired, beard-stroking opinion pieces masquerading as smart political analysis.
We’re used to being compared to any woman who’s ever lost an election, and we’re used to the anonymous, angsty quotes from “concerned” insiders, and the she-can-never-win garbage churned out by the Republican propaganda machine and recycled by the media.
And you know what? We’re also used to proving them all wrong. Because here’s the truth: we outraised, outworked, and beat – by eight points – that Republican senator nobody said we could defeat…
If you get frustrated when commentators spend more time covering Elizabeth or any woman’s “likability” than her plans for huge, systemic change to make this country work for all of us, do something productive about it:
Chip in $5 right now to becoming a founding member of our Elizabeth Warren ? Fund. (We’re calling it the “You Know it When You See It” Fund because, well, you know why.)…
I’ve tweeted regularly abt this misnomer that Hillary got bad press bc she was “bad candidate” and how folks, including Dems, were being wildly naive if they thought institutional sexism isn’t part of our political culture
— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) January 1, 2019
hating the Clintons has long been a DC media profit center. trying to drag Hillary into the 2020 race here is latest giveaway
— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) January 2, 2019
I’m still waiting for the weekly analysis on why Republicans have been able to win the popular vote for President only ONCE in the last 30 years. What does that say about the useless metrics used to make inferences about “likability”? https://t.co/7D3pfdXAtS
— Not Individual-1, Client-1 or Candidate-1 (@yottapoint) January 1, 2019
IMO the desire by Rs to turn Warren into Hillary suggests the GOP has not yet figured out how to beat a Democrat who is not the 2016 iteration of Hillary. https://t.co/QfYcV6aIEX
— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) December 31, 2018
Ken
Senator Warren should call the press the enemies of the people. They seem OK with that.
rikyrah
Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) Tweeted:
Whitaker has to be replaced immediately. It violates DOJ rules, and could conceivably be a federal felony if grand jury material was disclosed, to brief someone outside of DOJ on an ongoing criminal investigation. Unreal.
https://t.co/kPshHUfgVx https://twitter.com/JoyceWhiteVance/status/1080635362341502979?s=17
Pogonip
I’d approve of her becoming president.
Marcopolo
Warren up on Maddow any second now.
Miss Bianca
And David Sirota can shut the fuck up forever, as far as I’m concerned. “Warren’s dreamy because she attacks the – *dramatic music cue* – Dem Establishment!”
It’s all fun and games till she attacks Bernie, I guess.
jl
I posted a comment griping about that stupid Politico when I first saw it a day or two ago. Then I commented on it again. It’s so stupid, I can comment yet again, and not repeat myself evev once. So, that is one idiot stupid tweet. Good example of the miserable tendentious editorial and ‘analysis’ tripe the corporate dominated US media pumps out.
How was HRC ‘written off’, and by whom? She was the Democratic candidate in the general election and got almost 3 million more popular votes than the much more (and infinitely more justifiably) unlikable Trump.
OK, people can argue endlessly on why HRC lost the electoral college vote. But what does ‘unlikable’ have to do with it?
Well, one group that wrote her off was the gang of idiot editors and opinion pundits who didn’t want to talk about policy, and refused to talk about the many manifest problems of Trump. There will mountains of this kind of Politico garbage pumped out about Democratic candidates, and it should only be taken seriously when damning it, when we need to take a break from ridiculing it.
Adam L Silverman
Oy vey…
For those that don’t want to watch it, here’s what was said:
Baud
I personally have no problem with comparing any Dem candidate to Hillary.
lamh36
@Adam L Silverman: yep…I saw that…smh
And if you thought the entire exchange makes it any better, you’d be wrong…as someone said, you can almost hear the dismissal in his tone
B.B.A.
I for one think white men are inherently unfit to govern, and refuse to vote for any of them – unless of course one wins the Democratic primary.
Keith P.
It’s true chutzpah to spend any kind of ink writing about a presidential candidate’s likeability when she’s running against Donald Fucking Trump.
Baud
@Adam L Silverman:
Of course.
Quinerly
@rikyrah: holy shit.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@rikyrah: among other things, how the fuck is Ed Meese still alive?
Adam L Silverman
@rikyrah: I’m sure that Congressman Nadler is preparing a subpoena.
jl
@Baud: Baud 2020! can offer its virtual self as a comparison point for any and all Democratic candidates to make them look good.
Get the campaign in the news. Trump is so incompetent, I don’t know if Baud 2020! can compete on once what was the campaign’s unique strength.
J R in WV
OMG, Sanders is such a total arrogant bastard!
I won’t vote for him except as the guy voted off the lifeboat in the middle of the ocean.
Adam L Silverman
@Baud: I think Senator Sanders will look fabulous in a pantsuit.
rikyrah
Diane & Jefferson (@dianejeffersonc) Tweeted:
Hillary is at a dinner honoring our new speaker @NancyPelosi
I love these two women! Proud of both of them ????
https://t.co/L5g16cjjHl https://twitter.com/dianejeffersonc/status/1080639832513282048?s=17
Baud
@jl: I like to think my incompetence is more loveable than Trump’s.
Baud
@Adam L Silverman: I said Dem candidate.
Shrillhouse
Unlikable?
The current president is a racist piece of human garbage, and a self-admitted sexual predator.
I don’t much like that.
O. Felix Culpa
Here’s an Alexandra Petri-esque riff from McSweeney’s on the mysterious loathing generated by [Democratic] women candidates, but not because they’re women of course: I DON’T HATE WOMEN CANDIDATES — I JUST HATED HILLARY AND COINCIDENTALLY I’M STARTING TO HATE ELIZABETH WARREN
A Ghost To Most
I, for one, welcome our new feminine overlords. Except that opportunist Gillibrand.
jl
@Adam L Silverman: thanks I read the article. I don’t take this stuff very seriously either. I take bad working conditions and gender discrimination and harassment seriously, but not a report on one particular campaign that comes out just as candidates start announcing. What a coincidence. Wonder what was going on the GOP primary campaigns?
I hope BS decides not to run and backs Warren. But I think the corporate dominated media will be publishing hit pieces on any Dem to left of the miserable Cuomo, or less conventional than Joe Biden.
Any corporate media piece I see on any left leaning Dem, or silly stuff like the late great Beto/BS war, I have to ask myself, why is this important to publish now? Are certain people, or parts of the ideological spectrum being targeted? If people don’t believe that this kind of thing is going on, let’s watch the media coverage unfold over next year and then we can discuss and debate. I predict any and all corporate media coverage of Democrats to left of dead center will be negative, and policy will only be discussed by curt dismissals backed by appeals to the Holy CW and savvy.
Adam L Silverman
@lamh36: He’s a bit tone deaf on certain issues.
randy khan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Only the good die young.
realbtl
I’m luke warm on Warren but she strikes me as someone who might be able to answer the inevitable stupid questions (DNA, not approachable) with “And what does that have to do the the issues that are important to the American people?”
Doug Gardner
@Adam L Silverman: FTFNYT should have used “dark clouds” in their headline, or is that only for girl candidates?
Mike in NC
With no disrespect to Senator Elizabeth Warren, about 95% of the country have never heard of her, making a potential 2020 run that will be ten times more grueling than was the case with Secretary Clinton, who after all won the popular vote.
Baud
@Mike in NC: True for most of the people running this year.
Adam L Silverman
@Doug Gardner: I do not know. I am not now, nor have I ever been, affiliated with the New York Times.
sukabi
@Adam L Silverman: this lady says Sanders knew about it. Funny they didn’t talk to her as well…
japa21
@Mike in NC: What percent of the country had heard of Obama when he announced in 2007? And I am sure more than 5% of the country knows who Warren is. At least all of Trump’s supporters do and they also know Trump is scared to death of her.
randy khan
@A Ghost To Most:
Unlike all the other candidates, you mean?
smh
jl
@Mike in NC: If an eccentric old crank like BS could make a name for himself, so can Warren. I think she can handle it, and present a better case for progressive policies that will appeal to wider audience.
Of course, she’ll probably make some TV pundits and news talkers look like ignorant dolts, but I think she can master then BS grin and side-eye, or bland HRC smile and nod, in response.
Jay
Nevertheless, she persisted.
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-elizabeth-warren-could-win-the-2020-democratic-primary/amp/
Adam L Silverman
Who could have ever predicted?
jl
@Adam L Silverman: Come to think of it, what was going on the Trump campaign? I shudder to even think of what was going on there. I guess the NYT editors would say ‘well, everyone knows they are thugs’ or whatever, so would say it is ‘not news’.
From news that has come out about the behavior of the political set, I think very good chance that sexual harassment in political campaigns is common, across the ideological spectrum. If the national paper of record, the mighty NYT did an article on that I would take it very seriously. And they could do that with their world famous reportorial and investigative might.
Call me cynical, but the the corporate dominated US media, or failed media experiment, will publish hit pieces on the whole progressive side of the political spectrum, because the vast income, power and wealth of their rich friends and funders and advertisers will be at risk if a person like Warren is president. Or gets a leadership position in the Senate, Or too many people listen to her and take her seriously. And BS too, though he has become more of a slogan machine than anything else.
Adam L Silverman
@sukabi: Eez a puzzlement!
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman: Certainly is a good thing that Presidents don’t have a multitask and be in charge of many things at the same time. I mean, he was busy. No wonder he didn’t know what was happening.
SFAW
@jl:
But Bernie can point to his string of legislative successes!
All (n)one of them.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I know the primary’s a long way away, but I think SPW just won my vote
I’m a sucker for an anti-Lieberman campaign
Chyron HR
@Adam L Silverman:
I mean, you know, with one notable exception.
Yutsano
*taps mic*
Is this thing on?
SFAW
@Adam L Silverman:
Please give a trigger warning when you post shocking news like that, OK? I had to get the crash cart going, such was the fibrillation.
jl
Damn, I missed some good bits of Trump’s deranged comments earlier today. I am on the very dovish side of US-Iran policy, but even I wouldn’t say anything like Trump’s nonsense.
@JohnHardwood
Trump on Iran’s role in Syria: “they can do what they want there, frankly”
Found via Josh Marshall’s twitter.
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
Juat wait until Warren out-polls Bernie. I’m sure Sirota already has the “corporatist shill!” stories saved and ready to go.
jl
Nice tweet from Warren. She looks good to go, to me. She’ll do fine. Click for the video.
@ewarren
I hear women candidates are most likable in the quiet car! I’ll be talking again on @maddow @ 9pm ET.
https://twitter.com/ewarren/status/1080608079106981889
A Ghost To Most
@randy khan:
Indeed. Her behavior during the Franken affair confirmed her place as the Democratic Omarosa.
Quinerly
Warren interview was good. If she is the nominee, of course, I’ll vote for her. I just can’t forget and forgive her for saying the Dem primaries were rigged in favor of Clinton. I also think the DNA test was a stupid move. She had no understanding and didn’t do her research… if she had, she would have known how Native Americans feel about those tests. I hope to hell I don’t have to vote for her. https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2017/11/02/elizabeth-warren-says-primary-was-rigged-hillary-clinton-favor/ylvL7oNPVwsO9nKRNonBmI/story.html
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: I guess that means Trump is going to bomb Iran, gotta keep Bibi happy.
magurakurin
Warren won’t be the nominee. She really has no chance once the whole field announces. Whether she should be, whether she’d be a great president, whether she has the best chance to beat Trump…all questions that won’t matter, because 2020 ain’t gonna be Old White People Day.
Adam L Silverman
@jl: Even better that whole sand and blood or sand and death thing is from the movie The Mummy. The Paramount Network ran a marathon of it over the holiday and now we know what the President was watching when all alone in the White House.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
He’s always said women and minorities should shut up lest they hurt the fee fees of aggrieved whites. It’s a feature, not a bug.
Yutsano
@Adam L Silverman: I watched the video. My brain hurts. Holy fuck I forgot just how much of an idiot Willard is.
Adam L Silverman
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Nope. The President just told Bibi and the Saudis they’re on their own.
jl
@Adam L Silverman: I am eagerly awaiting the Adam L Silverman explainer for Trump’s Mideast policy.
Cheryl will probably have to sub for you while your are recovering from your nervous breakdown, if actually try to figure it out.
I think Laurel and Hardy did a feature set in Egypt. Maybe there are clues there.
Barbara
@A Ghost To Most: Gillibrand has guts and she doesn’t hide.
Amir Khalid
@Adam L Silverman:
A good test of a presidential candidate’s credentials to lead a nation is what kind of leadership he gives his campaign. It is no excuse for Bernie to say he missed these things because was focused on his candidating. A candidate who is not alert to what goes on in his organisation, and whose senior people are also not alert, is clearly not a competent leader who can pick an able staff.
Adam L Silverman
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: The problem is that the people he’s describing have been supporting politicians and politics and religious leaders and religion that has been doing this to them since almost the start of the Republic. The only thing that changes over time is the name of the politicians and the religious leaders and the political parties.
Mandalay
@jl:
Funny you should mention that! Earlier today Chris Fucking Cillizza retweeted this tweet from a WSJ reporter:
And there you have it in one tidy package: Warren-hating pundit retweets without comment a tweet from his buddy quoting Mario Cuomo choosing Joe Biden over Elizabeth Warren.
Now if you are on the Biden-for-President team I fully understand why you might retweet that. But if you’re not, why are you sending that out to every man and his dog unless you want to shiv Warren at every opportunity? It doesn’t even rise to the level of idle gossip.
Cillizza is the enemy. Watch that worthless fucker like a hawk, and shit on him at every opportunity.
jl
@Adam L Silverman: I liked the sound bite from Trump earlier today that Mattis was a low energy slob who couldn’t deliver for Obama, either, and so got righteously fired by two presidents.
Adam L Silverman
@jl: I watched that whole gaggle today as they broadcast it. None of it made sense in bits and certainly not in toto. As for Middle East policy, there is no longer any coherent foreign policy in any region, whether national security or economic or diplomatic or informational that isn’t simply an application of the Trump Doctrine of “I will be treated fairly or else”.
Adam L Silverman
@Amir Khalid: No argument here.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@jl: Qasem Soleimani is having a good laugh, tonight.
magurakurin
@Yutsano: Sanders is a total fuckwit. He’s toast. And the House is proposing a bill on day one to require any eventual presidential nominee to release at least 10 years of tax returns upon accepting the nomination. Jane better get busy finding those taxes. We’re about a week away from the only thing really separating Sanders from Trump is a gold toilet.
Barbara
@Amir Khalid: “I was too busy to notice what the help were doing.”
jl
@Mandalay: I agree, a lot of what we see in the corporate is social engineering, passing on gossip and low priority news, oddly targeted news stories that point at some people and pointedly avoid mentioning others, I am probably on the extreme cynical end of the spectrum of attitudes towards corporate media.
Well, let’s see how it unfolds. I guess I made my bet on the posture the media will take and we’ll see how much crow us super cynics have to eat if things turn out differently over next couple of years.
Amir Khalid
@magurakurin:
I think that in January of the year before the election, it might be less than wise to make confident assertions about who will or will not be nominee for president. Would you have expected nominee Trump in January 2015?
magurakurin
@Quinerly: It goes without saying she should absolutely get everyone’s full and unqualified support should she win the nomination. She’s certainly qualified and I’d have no doubts she’d be a fine president with ups and downs, pluses and minuses like all those before her.
but she ain’t gonna be the nominee.
rikyrah
@Adam L Silverman:
He is being vetted….FINALLY
Kay
This could be fun. People will pick their favorite candidate and make principled, earnest arguments to convince others and we won’t spiral downward into vicious in-fighting and then flouncing off and refusing to support the nominee.
This time will be different :)
I think it will be extremely difficult for Bernie Sanders to run against the entire Democratic congressional caucus. I don’t know how he pulls that off.
Villago Delenda Est
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: How the fuck is Dick Cheney still animated? Evil persists.
Adam L Silverman
@jl: I just explained this to my mom. There are two reasons that Mattis’s tour as commanding general of CENTCOM and his retirement were accelerated by about 6 to 8 months. The first is very specific: he kept trying to move President Obama to a policy on Iran that President Obama did not want to move to. And this eventually heavily strained his relationship with President Obama. The second is very general: every CENTCOM commander is on the phone with the president every day with bad news. Informing him that someone has been killed in action or that a military operation didn’t go as planned or that he needs more personnel or material or equipment or ordnance. After a while this, all by itself, strains the relationship between any CENTCOM commander and any president. When you then ad in the specific issues pertaining to Iran, it is not surprising that President Obama decided to replace him early with a commander who wouldn’t keep pressuring him about Iran. It had nothing to do with Mattis’s capabilities as a Marine or as a general officer or as a four star commanding general. It was simply that their relationship had moved to a place where President Obama felt he needed someone else at CENTCOM.
tobie
@Quinerly: I’ve been warming up to the idea of Warren lately because I see how she’s getting the Hillary treatment but the beginning of that interview threw a lot of cold water on any enthusiasm. She’s a smart person so all her generalizations about the system and how it’s rigged against working families left me cold. I thought her answer regarding her personal story and how the benefits she received from society enabled her to contribute in various ways in turn was a much more compelling way to talk about the social contract. Her answers on the few pieces of legislation the Republicans tried to move also showed her in a stronger light. Maybe it’s wrong for me to expect this in a candidate but I would like to be uplifted.
Aleta
@Adam L Silverman: Not good is it. Wouldn’t you think by now he could do better … or follow someone’s advice on what to emphasize. But no …
jk
@magurakurin:
Once Kirsten Gillibrand announces her candidacy, Elizabeth Warren, Joe Biden, and Bernie Sanders will rightfully be rendered irrelevant and can all exit stage left.
Gillibrand 2020!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Adam L Silverman: That was mid-afternoon, and here’s Lawrence O’Donnell hyperventilating over Willard’s courage and independence. His infatuation for all things Senate-y sometimes makes him irritating.
magurakurin
@Amir Khalid: she ain’t gonna be the nominee. I’m willing to bet cash money on that.
Kay
Oh, you have to admit it’s brave of her. She’s out there alone (for now) and that’s not easy. The douchebags will be on her like starving dogs.
I always liked her and I still like her. I have a boring Warren story I would like to tell. I first encountered Warren when I was in a “lunchtime” continuing legal education class. Subject: bankruptcy. Those are a bad idea, BTW, lunchtime classes. Anyway, the material we were given was all pro-creditor and then, buried within the packet, was an excerpt from a Warren paper, and I was just thrilled to find a liberal in there. I wanted to hold it up and wave it around.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Adam L Silverman:
Wow. That’s inspiring. Not.
I read that NYT article and it was pretty damning of Sanders. As bad as the misogyny and racism was, the lack of organization wasn’t great either. It’s true that if Sanders had somehow been the nominee he would have had the entire party infrastructure coming to help and shore him up for the general election. But, again, none of that inspires confidence in him as an executive. This man is 75-76 years old and was mayor of a city. He was then a Rep and then a Senator for the past 35 yrs. He should be able do better than that by now.
Ladyraxterinok
@Amir Khalid: Hasn’t HRC been criticized for not stopping stuff going on in her campaign? On her staff when she was SOS.
Hasn’t Kamela just recently been castigated for not knowing about sexual harassment charges vs man on her staff when she was in CA.? And that she put him on her campaign team? And I think that expose was done by NYT!
Marcopolo
@magurakurin: Wow, so sad.
Instead of pontificating over who will or won’t be the nominee 18 months before the nominating convention how about we concentrate on what we like or don’t like about the various candidates whilst trying to focus on their actual actions, policies, and accomplishments. As I was a little taken aback by the way Jay Inslee’s mouth quirked around as he was talking to Chris Hayes about climate change, I am even open to a little bit of talking about a candidate’s physicality but more along the lines of whether it gets in the way of the candidate getting their message across. Anyways, I am pretty sure the rest will all sort itself out given enough time.
magurakurin
@jk: I hope Kirsten does run. And don’t get me wrong, I’m glad Warren’s running. Why shouldn’t she if she wants to? I hope Harris runs. I hope Klobuchar runs. I even hope Tulsi Gabbard runs. Because it would be great to have a campaign in which there are more women running than men?
Yarrow
I think that rich guy who was running all those “impeach Trump” ads is running for President too. Tom something or other?
Jay
I’d feel a little better about the 2020 Primary Pie fights if the RWNJ talking points about cantidates wern’t being trotted out so soon,……
I understand the MSM is contractually obliged to do so,…..
but,……….
Mnemosyne
@Kay:
Personally, I’m looking forward to it. ? The Bernistas seem to think that they’re going to be able to coronate their candidate before anyone else has a chance to run, but 12 months is a long, long time in electoral politics and the chances that only 1 or 2 Democrats will throw their hats into the ring are … small.
As I was saying yesterday, I think my ideal number for a primary group is 6 candidates. That seems like enough to give people a couple of choices, but not so many that people end up fracturing and getting mad at each other well before the actual primaries start.
Ruviana
@tobie: why did her initial comments leave you cold? I really am curious. I followed h er work on middle and working class families for years and it rang true for me.
Quinerly
@magurakurin: let’s hope you are right. I have to admit that I have tried to warm back up to her in the last few days (really liked her when she ran against Brown) but honestly, I can’t get past this DNA test bullshit. If you know anything about Native American culture or have any Native American friends, you know how offensive those tests are. She did herself harm with that stupid test. And, yes, I have harped on this before.
magurakurin
@Marcopolo: whatever, dude. It’s handicapping. People are placing bets on the outcome everyday at places like PaddyPower. I’m placing my bet here. She won’t win. It’s not pontificating. If you want a piece of this action…let me know. I got a C-note on the table…
Amir Khalid
@Ladyraxterinok:
As I dimly recall, that guy was disciplined. So the campaign presumably determined what happened, but chose not to sack him. That could well have been the right call.
Mnemosyne
@Ladyraxterinok:
Actually, the criticism was that Hillary “only” disciplined and fined the guy when armchair quarterbacks were insisting that he should have been outright fired.
Not surprisingly, the same armchair quarterbacks are now insisting that the Sanders campaign is totally innocent of all charges because shut up, that’s why.
From the stories I’ve seen, it seemed pretty clear that women were reluctant to come forward precisely because they’re fans of Bernie and don’t want to hurt his 2020 campaign. But that’s exactly how this kind of shit turns a workplace toxic, real fast.
She was. I’m withholding judgment until I see more about that story, because there doesn’t seem to have been a lot of follow-up so far.
Adam L Silverman
@Marcopolo: I just checked with my mom who is a retired SLP. She’s watching the interview now on the DVR. She says that he has either a corrected lisp or something else has happened, or was a congenital defect, that has been corrected. And that’s what you’re seeing.
Barbara
@Mnemosyne: It is possible that Warren announced first to take out any perceived Sanders advantage. It will be hard for Sanders to outflank her from the left.
Adam L Silverman
@Yarrow: Tom Steyer.
magurakurin
@Quinerly: It’s not like I don’t want her to win. Honestly, I think the Democratic party over reacting to some extent over Clinton’s loss. Yes, it was a shocker, I almost puked…like seriously almost puked…when I saw she was going to lose Virginia on election night and knew Trump would win. But the next nominee only has to find 77,000 votes in WI, MI, and PA. So, if Warren makes it through what is going to be a hellish fight, she certainly has a chance to find those votes. The base of the party though is women, and in particular, black women and then all other POC and minorities. I don’t see Warren making it through the primary. Maybe she should. Maybe the party will be making a huge mistake not choosing her…but it’s just how I see it. She won’t win the nomination. $100 on the table if anyone wants to cover a piece of it.
Suzanne
@B.B.A.:
This is how I feel about Baby Boomers. I really, REALLY want the Boomers to fuckin’ sit down.
Having said that, I will cartwheel through broken glass to canvass and vote for whomever wins the Dem nomination. Even if it’s Bernie or Biden or Bloomberg.
I would literally vote for my mom’s obnoxious-ass Chihuahua if she was the Dem candidate.
Mandalay
@jl:
That reminds me of Dubya’s astonishing comment about bin Laden back in 2002:
Bin Laden had masterminded the destruction of the Twin Towers, crashed four American planes and killed thousands of Americans in a single day. And yet Bush was “not that concerned about him”? Even now I can hardly believe he said that.
I guess it’s a strategy of sorts to pretend you don’t care when you give up, but it’s lame and desperate. It was transparent back then with Bush, and it’s equally transparent now with Trump.
jk
@magurakurin:
Any of them would be fine candidates and they all have less baggage than Warren, Biden, or Sanders.
I’m hoping some younger candidates start announcing soon and maybe Biden and Sanders will finally wise up and realize that their time has passed.
Kay
@Mnemosyne:
They won’t fracture on all 12 or 20 or whatever. They’ll fracture on 2 or 3. No one was screaming about Martin O’Malley and Webb in ’16- it was Clinton v Sanders. So I don’t think the 12 or 20 matters, in terms of fracturability :)
I still want Jerry Brown. I realize, too late, he’s actually my ideal President. Please, he’s already running a country out there- all you lack is an military. He would be excellent.
FlyingToaster
@Mike in NC: SPW’s been in the news for a long time, courtesy of her predecessor, Senator Leathershorts Centerfold.
James E Powell
When will Bloomberg announce? He’s a definite darling of the Village. Can’t he just buy Iowa or something?
magurakurin
@Barbara: that makes sense…you could very well be right. Her only real hope is to try to sprint out ahead early and hold on. But I think we will see a wave of announcements coming very soon now. Other people see the same strategy that you do.
Jay
“The problem is that when journalists ignore what academic research and recent history teach us about gender’s role in shaping those perceptions, they imply—whether they mean to or not—that Warren’s unpopularity can be explained by factors unique to her. They start with the puzzle of her low approval ratings and then, working backward, end up suggesting that her policy views or (pseudo) scandals explain them. Reporters dwell on issues such as Warren’s alleged Native American ancestry not necessarily because they think those issues matter, but because they assume that voters think they matter. If voters didn’t, why would Warren be so unpopular?
What all this ignores is the harsh truth that when women politicians—especially women politicians who embrace a feminist agenda—overtly seek power, many American men, and some American women, react with “moral outrage.” They may not express that outrage in explicitly gendered terms, just as they may not express their anxiety about a black candidate in explicitly racial terms. They may instead cite DNA testing or hidden emails or San Francisco’s cultural liberalism. Or they may simply say they find the candidate’s mannerisms off-putting.
The media’s role is to dig deeper: to interpret these specific discomforts in light of the deeper discomfort that Americans again and again express with ambitious women.”
https://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2019/01/using-word-that-others-fear-to-utter.html?m=1
magurakurin
@Suzanne: same here…100%
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@James E Powell: he’s an almost mirror-image of campaign-trump, pro-gun control, a climate activist, and determined to undo the social safety net. He should devote the rest of his life to spending his fortune advancing carbon capture and alternative energy
Barbara
@magurakurin: I meant specifically that she would all by herself make Sanders so much surplusage, regardless whether she ends up being the nominee.
Amir Khalid
@Kay:
Alas, Brown is a really old white guy.
Adam L Silverman
@Kay: Brown was the commander in chief of the California National Guard while he was governor.
Adam L Silverman
@James E Powell: He basically did about three weeks ago.
jl
@Jay: ” The media’s role is to dig deeper: ”
The news media bosses’ a celeb news divas’ job is to squeeze some corporate value added out of their lousy miserable loser loss-leader news departments. Nothing less, and absolutely for sure, nothing more.
IMHO, of course.
James E Powell
@Quinerly:
As it happens, I don’t know or don’t understand why DNA tests are offensive. I keep trying to get someone to explain it to me, but every time I ask I just get yelled at that I’m supposed to already know and understand and the fact that I don’t means I’m an irredeemable asshole. So, since you seem to know, can you explain without hating?
magurakurin
@Barbara: agreed. She’s a far better spokesperson for those economic inequality issues than Sanders anyway. She’s smarter, by leagues, and has actually been involved in getting a lot of policy in place. It’s definitely in her best interest to plant that flag early. And with this sexual harassment now blowing up on Sanders…he’s toast.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Adam L Silverman:
I don’t think that’s what Kay had in mind
patroclus
Warren is certainly not my first choice given the way she lied about TPP (which just went into effect) being negotiated in “secret.” She would be the first-ever protectionist Democratic President, which I think is ill-suited to counter Trump’s tariff wars. But she’s entitled to run if she wants and I’d vote for her if she gets the nomination. But she’s already WAY down on my list.
Gin & Tonic
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Really going for the understatement, aren’t we, Jim? Face it, the dude is insufferable and has been for years.
different-church-lady
a) Lest you think that first tweet is any kind of exaggeration: I heard effectively what was effectively the exact same statement out of a self-identified liberal white male while working a New Hampshire focus group in January 2016.
b) Scott Brown had a 65% approval rating??
tobie
@Ruviana: As I said, she doesn’t have an uplifting message, she doesn’t present a vision of what kind of country we can be. Instead it’s the endless litany of complaints about how the game is rigged against us little folk and while I’m not billionaire, nor a millionaire, nor a high six figure earner, I don’t consider myself voiceless and a mere cog in the wheel of some nameless, abstract system. I believe there are corporate interests out there that can be given names and faces that look out for their own and there are lobbyists with names and faces who work for them and politicians with names and faces who do the bidding of Exxon, Pfizer, Verizon, etc etc etc. Warren doesn’t make me feel powerful as an individual. She makes me feel anonymous. That’s my response. Obviously others differ. I’m well aware that I’m out of step with the times and the populist mood in the country so take what I say with a grain of salt.
Ruckus
@magurakurin:
Wouldn’t it be funny to find out that wilmer is worth more than individual 1?
Villago Delenda Est
@jk: I will never forgive Gillibrand for what she did to Al Franken.
eemom
I honestly don’t see how I can survive the next 23 months unless I hide under the bed with a warm blankie and a v*lium drip.
magurakurin
@James E Powell:
that’s a big ask considering where you are…
all advice, consent, and information here comes with a side of hate…no extra charge. It’s right there on the sign.
Mnemosyne
@Barbara:
I’ve been wondering if Warren is the sacrificial penguin who’s checking to see if there are sharks in the water.
(Points to the person who recognizes that very obscure metaphor from an early 90s romance novel!)
@Kay:
Maybe so, but I still think that 6 strong candidates would be better than a field of 12-13 weakish ones. Especially if they can figure out how not to attack each other in ways that the Republicans will be able to recycle for the general election.
different-church-lady
@Mike in NC: You could have said the same about Bill Clinton and Obama two years before their elections.
magurakurin
@Ruckus: I honestly believe that before it all ends, someone high up in the Sanders campaign gets an indictment.
different-church-lady
@eemom: You’re saying that like it would be a bad thing.
magurakurin
@tobie:
interesting take. I can see that as well. Well put.
Gin & Tonic
@magurakurin: I’d be happy to see Tad Devine be the one (and I wouldn’t be shocked, either.)
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@patroclus:
Speaking of the new TPP agreement, from Wiki:
Jay
@jl:
Both the Digby post and the cited article point out that a crapload of the anti-Warren crap is mysogeny. Nothing more, nothing less.
magurakurin
@Villago Delenda Est: I won’t comment on that other than neither will a lot of other people and that’s why I don’t think Gillibrand can win the nomination either. I like her though and as I said, hope she runs if she wants to.
magurakurin
@Gin & Tonic: I always wonder if it won’t be Weaver…because Devine has flipped on him to get a deal.
Barbara
@Villago Delenda Est: I don’t really want to relitigate this but I am so tired of every guy who gets called out for bad behavior being defended on the basis of due process or some other technicality. I liked Franken, and he got shivved by some right wing operatives, but I am glad there are people like Gillibrand who can keep their eyes on the prize.
Another Scott
@magurakurin:
Eh?
Clinton/Kaine won Virginia by over 5% – 49.73% : 44.41%
Cheers,
Scott.
tobie
@magurakurin: You know what’s weird…writing up these responses to Warren’s first interview following her announcement feels like some sort of exercise you would do in a focus group. Did you like this flavor? What was your response to this jingle? Do you have positive or negative associations with the word ‘system’? I’ll be thankful if/when we actually get to talk about policy.
Adam L Silverman
Shiny new Floriduh! Man post is up.
magurakurin
@Another Scott: Pennsylvania…my mistake…that was a rough night
Mandalay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
O’Donnell worked behind the scenes in the Senate for years, and I suspect he understands how it works better than most Senators, and certainly more than any other pundit. When there is shit going on in the Senate he is definitely worth listening to.
I have more of a problem with O’Donnell’s hyperventilating over trivia every night. That, and he’s such an absurdly smug and pompous wanker.
Adam L Silverman
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: She said that all that was lacking in Jerry Brown’s California was a military. It has a military. The California National Guard and Air National Guard.
James E Powell
@Suzanne:
All these are baby boomers: Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown, Tammy Baldwin, Maria Cantwell, Debbie Stabenow, Mazie Hirono, Jon Tester, Amy Klobuchar, Doug Jones, Tom Udall, Tina Smith – okay you get the point. Kamala Harris, born Oct 64, is on the edge of the boom. And I didn’t even finish the senate.
magurakurin
@tobie: I don’t think this one is going to be won on policy outright. There is simple too much emotion out there now. Personally, I think we should double down and run Harris…but who knows? The winner will be the winner.
Ruckus
@Mandalay:
Give baby Bush and infant drumpf a break. It wasn’t that they didn’t/don’t want to do anything, it’s that they had/have no idea what to do. And they may even have different reasons for that. GWB may not have known what to do because he thought he needed to get his war on. drumpf just doesn’t do logic, only responses to perceived slights to himself. And he almost always makes any situation far worse.
patroclus
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Of course we should be part of TPP (it’s got a new name) because it lowers tariffs and non-tariff trade barriers for all its member states. It was one of Obama’s signal achievements and would have been very beneficial to our economy long-term. But Warren (and Sanders) led the opposition to it and Hillary chickened out of supporting it in one of her most cowardly moves ever. Trump won’t join it no matter how much he blathers about it. Would Warren? Almost certainly not. I’m inclined to support a Dem nominee who would.
Barbara
@James E Powell: Okay, how about the leading edge of the boomers?
Quinerly
@James E Powell: here’s a good article to start with: https://www.thenation.com/article/dna-tests-elizabeth-warren-native-american-race-science/. Lots more that are more detailed out there. I should have bookmarked them but didn’t. We had a regular commenter on a thread here within the last few days who certainly was more eloquent than I could ever be on the subject. I was late to that thread but wanted to thank him for his thoughtful comment. I, personally, learned the hard way… talking with new friends a few years ago when eating lunch in a friend’s pueblo (Santo Domingo) home outside of Santa Fe and flat out asking what they thought of the tests. (Supposedly, there’s some Cherokee in my family on my mother’s side) Sure got an earful and fuller understanding. Go to any Native American FB group or forum right now. The dislike of her is real.
Raven Onthill
@James E Powell: Here’s an article on Native views of DNA tests:
https://www.latimes.com/science/la-sci-dna-testing-native-americans-archive-20181016-story.html
Any critic of the financial services industry with any real power is dependably branded as racist, sexist, a class traitor, or all three. Just might be a pattern there.
Ruckus
@magurakurin:
I can easily imagine that is possible and maybe even probable.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Adam L Silverman:
Crap. I had a brainfart. Sorry, Adam!
tobie
@patroclus: Is it even an option for the US to join TPP after withdrawing from it? I’d support any Dem who had the courage to talk about the benefits of trade. Who would do that? Adam Schiff maybe but he’s showed no interest in running.
Adam L Silverman
@Quinerly: Here you go:
https://balloon-juice.com/2019/01/01/open-thread-elizabeth-warren-for-presidential-candidate/#comment-7138691
Suzanne
@patroclus:
Agree. The protectionist impulse makes me crazy. Not just because of the tariffs and other economic issues, but also because globalization is an important influence for peace between nations.
I do not think that propping up dying, unprofitable, polluting industries is in America’s best interest. Specialization is far more efficient.
Honus
@magurakurin: Hillary won Virginia handily.
different-church-lady
@Suzanne: OK. What are you going to do with the parts of the American workforce that can’t do that specialty?
Aleta
Iirc Sanders shrugged off a suggestion that he should speak against the sexism of his followers against HRC. Now I wonder if it was his campaign reps who suggested supporters throw coins at her in Ca.
Too bad BS and JS didn’t insist on an absolute policy against sexism and racism from the start. They seem to consider Latino leaders so important to their strategy that until now they believed they could ignore the safety and importance of Latinas.
But we saw the same thing in 2015, in how Marissa Johnson and Patrisse Cullors were treated by Sanders and his audiences. His organizers did not step in to stop the booing and insults and calls to arrest them, or stop the attacks later on social media. Sanders was “a little bit busy” at the time with what he thought was more important work.
Adam L Silverman
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Put the Zima down and back away slowly…
Adam L Silverman
@tobie: It is. But now it is on the terms of the other 16 members, not our terms as the country leading the negotiations and pushing for the trade agreement.
different-church-lady
@Aleta:
Truly, the work of being “the only liberal who cares about the white working class” is never done.
Brickley Paiste
@James E Powell:
The whites imposed blood quantum laws on Indians just like they did with blacks.
Natives’ cultures have been so destroyed that one of the few avenues for them to express cultural power is to determine the identity of who is and who is not an Indian. It’s their definition. It is culture. It is not the result of some “scientific” test like you perform on animals in a zoo. It’s like saying, no, sorry, you’re not a human because you don’t fit the definition we have written down right here.
patroclus
@tobie: Of course we could still join although it would probably take 4 years or so of delicate negotiations with the member states – it’s a long-term goal that Presidential candidates should address and champion; especially after Trump’s moronic policies. Maybe Biden? I don’t know – we’ll see if anyone embraces the historic Democratic position (shared by Wilson, FDR, Truman, Kennedy. LBJ, Carter, Clinton and Obama). This Sanders/Warren remaking of the Democratic position is annoying, ahistorical and counter-productive.
Jay
@James E Powell:
http://www.sfu.ca/ipinch/sites/default/files/resources/reports/dna_symposiumproceedings_2016.pdf
tobie
@Adam L Silverman: Thanks. I knew there was some hitch but couldn’t remember what it was.
Suzanne
@James E Powell: ….and, at this point, I would prefer someone younger to all of those people, except Obama, who isn’t running for anything ever again. Harris is currently my favorite, and her relative youth is a point in her favor, in my opinion.
Anyone the Dems nominate will be acceptable to me, policy-wise. I’ll have specific points of disagreement, but nothing disqualifying. So, since I will have choices, I can allow other factors to enter into my decision. Energy, vigor, ability to inspire young people, and charisma are vitally important to me, since the most important thing the president does is set the agenda for national discussion.
Honus
@different-church-lady: Clinton in particular was considered a joke when he declared early on. Most other potential nominees had withdrawn in the face of GHWB’s 90% approval in the wake of the Gulf War. Then the economy went sour.
SFAW
@jk:
I guess I missed it: outside of the DNA testing — if that even qualifies as “baggage” — what baggage does she have/bring?
Outside of being an unlikable woman, that is. [At least according to Politico and the FTFTFNYT.]
randy khan
@A Ghost To Most:
I will repeat what I have been saying about that for a while:
1. Every single Democratic woman in the Senate called for him to resign. She was just the front woman. If you think she was an opportunist, you have to think the same thing about Warren, Klobuchar, Harris, etc.
2. He was a dead man walking already. While I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt after the first story, there was no way he was going to survive by the point when the Dem women said he needed to go.
3. Lest we forget, sexual harassment was an important issue for Gillibrand long before #MeToo. So it’s not like she just jumped in when the Franken accusations surfaced. If anything, her failure to stand up on the Franken accusations would have looked like she was playing politics with the issue – going after people she didn’t like and giving people she did like a pass.
I loved Franken in the Senate. I loved him before he was a Senator. And I get why people are resentful about him leaving, and even why they blame Gillibrand (even if that’s wrong). But there is no doubt at all that his resignation was the right thing. I mean, just imagine how the Dems would have looked criticizing Roy Moore in the the 2017 Alabama Senate race if Franken had still been in the caucus.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Adam L Silverman:
LOL. I drank a 24 oz Redd’s Wicked Apple Ale on NYE.
randy khan
@magurakurin: I think I draw the line just before Tulsi Gabbard.
Ruckus
@Barbara:
I would bet that we agree on the basic fact that women have been treated like crap for, well ever. Especially women who have any sort of power at all. And yet I still feel that there has to be a process when a person is accused of shitty behavior. It has to be a fair process and therefore an open process. But a process none the less. And Franken didn’t get that. OTHO he did openly admit that he would never run for president because his past would be a determining factor and would render him unelectable. So I’d go at least hard call on the Franken issue. And maybe Gillibrand knew more than everyone who thinks she did him in without process. He did give up awfully easily and rapidly. So a possibility the he knew that she knew something really exists in my mind or that there quite possibly was something to even know. And second, it seems to me it’s the women’s/minorities turn. They sure can’t do any worse than most of the men have been doing. My entire life, going on 70 yrs has been rich white men politics. I want something better.
Mnemosyne
@different-church-lady:
If able-bodied, rebuild our infrastructure, which is shit. I’m betting that a lot of the stuff that was built as part of the New Deal is ready to be replaced or retrofitted. We also need to be paying service jobs a living wage and stop pretending that every Macy’s clerk and Target cashier is a high school student who only needs to work part-time.
If not people are not able-bodied, some form of minimum income better than the SSI disability system will be needed.
Aleta
@James E Powell: Robert Mueller is either a bb or else too old to have power.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@patroclus:
Yeah, that protectionist bent is concerning in Warren. Sherrod Brown is exploring a presidential run as well and he’s protectionist too.
Suzanne
@different-church-lady: I have long supported free college and trade school, free job retraining, and relocation assistance to areas of the country where jobs are more plentiful. Not to mention affordable child and elder care for those with family responsibilities. This country is facing a critical shortage of certain professions in the next twenty years, such as nurses. If we were smart, we would plan ahead for that, and get people into those jobs now.
But that wouldn’t give us any more NYT or WaPo pieces about sad people in Youngstown, OH.
Jay
@patroclus:
TPPII is a lot more than TPP with a new name.
TPPII only exists because Treason Tribble pulled out and the remaining members were able to negotiate a deal, because the US Demands no longer existed, so soverignity, labour and environmental protections could be added in.
The US will never “join” TPPII, because it’s not the kind of Trade Deal that US Corporations allow.
Funny what you find when you google “TPP + secrecy”,
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2015/06/11/politics/trade-deal-secrecy-tpp/index.html
“Washington (CNN) Two copies of the biggest free trade deal in history are sitting in reading rooms — one at each end of the Capitol.
The document is classified. Only members of Congress and staffers with security clearance can access it. And they can’t make copies or even carry their own handwritten notes out the door.”
Another Scott
@Brickley Paiste: Along those lines, TheVerge (from October):
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Quinerly
@Adam L Silverman: that’s the post. I also seem to recall another one equally as good from a regular commenter. It’s something that was never on my radar until I was politely schooled over homemade tamales and fry bread in an older lady’s home almost 4 years ago. I guess my main problem with Warren is she didn’t do her research (or obviously someone on her staff didn’t do the research). She dug in and stuck with her narrative. She magnified the issue with her ignorance and carelessness.
randy khan
@Barbara:
This.
Fair Economist
@Gin & Tonic: Tad Devine is cooperating with Mueller so I expect him to get off lightly. Unfortunately.
Mnemosyne
@randy khan:
I was REALLY pissed off at the time, but I have reluctantly accepted that Franken, a Senator from a state with a Democratic governor, had to be sacrificed so Doug Jones could squeak into office from Alabama. I’m not happy about it, but it did have to be done.
ProfDamatu
@James E Powell: I’m not who you asked, but my understanding of the nutshell version is as follows:
It’s not that the tests themselves are offensive, but rather that using the results of a DNA test to try to establish or validate family claims of Native American ethnicity that is the problem. The idea is that doing so accepts the framing that DNA testing provides incontrovertible evidence of who should or should not be considered (part) Native. Tribes generally don’t accept that framing. Here’s a cut and paste from a reply I posted on an LGM thread on the topic:
“I don’t think that anyone on this thread is saying that in general, people taking DNA tests are harming Native sovereignty, but they are concerned that Elizabeth Warren’s test, and the entire scenario surrounding it, could indeed do harm. And I think that’s probably valid.
I do think that in broad terms, it’s worth interrogating what we’re doing when we take these tests, and what the unintended effects might be. Any random Joe or Jane taking a test doesn’t harm Native sovereignty, of course; what *could* cause such harm, though, is the dominant culture’s conflation of DNA with ethnic identity, and I think there’s a good case to be made that as currently promoted, consumer DNA tests do encourage that conflation.
Again, I don’t think that anyone is telling people that it’s wrong to be curious. They are saying that it’s wrong to contribute to the perception that DNA tests give dispositive evidence as to *who you are,* because that is indeed a dangerous thing to imply. And it’s the publicity in this case that’s the main issue, and the fact that Warren implicitly validated the framing that DNA evidence could “prove” something that the tribe in question had already accepted. Though, as I said above, it’s worth considering whether these tests are ultimately a good thing to do. As I’ve said elsewhere on this thread, I’m agnostic on that question; I think the potential harms could be mitigated if we could somehow push back against the misinterpretations that reinforce harmful cultural narratives.”
tobie
@patroclus: It’s become a big question who we are as a party–pragmatic progressives working incrementally to produce change or ideological progressives who would like to overhaul the entire system. Sometimes I use the shorthand social democrats vs. democratic socialists to characterize the difference. The split’s disturbing. One way or another you’re going to lose a portion of the party and that might well usher in a permanent GOP majority.
Quinerly
@Another Scott: yep. ?
Thanks.
Adam L Silverman
@Quinerly: Did you think I was going to tell you that was the comment and it was not the comment?
patroclus
@Jay: The text of TPP and its successor (with the cosmetic changes) have both been available publicly for years and the provisions were largely known even in the initial stages of negotiation. repeating Senator Warren’s lies is inaccurate – the provisions are not “classified.” I hope someone actually asks her if she still stands by her lies about the “secrecy.” Even with the changes, the new TPP is something the U.S. should join because it’s a good trade agreement. The member states (their corporations and their workers) will certainly benefit from it – so should the U.S.
Ruckus
@Adam L Silverman:
And entire companies in the CA National Guard have been called to active duty and deployed to the ME. A friend in one is there now. That doesn’t give soon to be ex Gov Brown the same experience as president but he does have an army at his disposal. I’d bet there is a bit more restriction on what he can do with that army.
randy khan
@Mnemosyne:
I’m not happy about it, either, but unfortunately it was politically necessary.
Adam L Silverman
@Ruckus: He does. Title 10 versus Title 32.
patroclus
@tobie: That’s the zero sum analysis. It’s also possible to win over disaffected Republicans on the trade issue the way FDR, Truman, Rayburn et. al. did. Hillary didn’t even try – she originally supported TPP and then backed off and backpedalled as fast as she could; thus writing off the possibility of converting voters to a more forthright pro-trade position. She ceded the issue to Sanders and then Trump with her silence and lost the Midwest without correspondingly gaining Florida and elsewhere.
Quinerly
@Adam L Silverman: not understanding you… It’s the post that I had remembered. Just didn’t remember the nym. That’s why I think there may be another one. We kinda have beat it to death with some great ones on this thread too. I generally follow BJ on my smarty pants phone, so cutting, pasteing, long typing isn’t easy for me. I hunt and peck on tiny keyboard. ? Thanks for all you do….and pulling the comment I was thinking of.
Mnemosyne
@ProfDamatu:
Obviously, this is easy for me to say as Whitey McWhiterson (as shown by DNA!) but I honestly don’t think it should be that difficult to explain that membership =/= DNA. The Cherokee Nation and other tribes have an absolute right to decide for themselves who qualifies as a member and who does not. If they don’t want to accept DNA evidence, they shouldn’t have to.
Though, now that I’m typing this, I’m thinking that part of the current fear is that some wingnut who has a DNA test showing that he’s 1/256th of a group that has profitable casino holdings or valuable land will find some wingnut judge willing to rule that he gets to claim money/profits based on that DNA test, and then our conservative Supreme Court will decide 5-4 that, yep, that’s how it works, and the current system of tribal sovereignty gets totally gutted.
It’s still a little self-destructive to make Elizabeth Warren the focus for that fear and not, yanno, a wingnut Republican, but I’m guessing that’s a big part of it.
Citizen Alan
@Mandalay:
That’s not even the worst bit. Kerry raised that very issue during one of the debates, and Bush flat-out lied through his teeth and denied ever saying that even though it was on tape. And no one in the media thought that brazen lie was as important as Kerry noting that Mary Cheney was gay even though she’d been out for over a decade.
Adam L Silverman
@Quinerly: I was teasing and you’re quite welcome.
Jay
@patroclus:
I don’t consider CNN to be “fake news”, nice to know you do.
The US will never join TPPII, your Corporations won’t allow it.
Ruckus
@different-church-lady:
That is a good question.
However.
Why are those industries dying and why didn’t the industries change when the world changed? A lot of those are manufacturing jobs of one kind or another and the world can now assemble and build things as good or better than those old industries did. And a lot of that was because the owners of those industries didn’t want to spend a dime to upgrade facilities/process and blamed the workers and unions. It was easier and more profitable to ship those jobs overseas.
As I’ve said here before I’ve been involved in mfg for over 50 yrs. I’ve owned a mfg business. And I spent hundreds of thousands to upgrade machinery so that I could be more than competitive. Many others did not. (It wasn’t those costs that put me out of business, I did very well with my increased productivity. Nature did me in.) We lagged because so many didn’t invest in current and future business.
J R in WV
@Fair Economist:
Perhaps Devine’s cooperation means some other member of Wurm Sanders’s team is guilty, guilty, guilty?!?!!!! We can only hope!
patroclus
@Jay: Neither the text of TPP nor its successor are either “secret” or “classified.” They have both been publicly available for years. In the U.S. the people are sovereign; not our corporations. Senator Warren’s strategy of lying about trade deals does not recommend her candidacy, at least in my view.
Citizen Alan
@patroclus:
In Hillary’s defense, I don’t think she chickened out of TPP so much as declined to be demagogued over it. I think had she won she’d have renegotiated some sort of fig leaf and then gotten it past the Senate where most people wanted it but no one wanted to admit it.
Quinerly
@Adam L Silverman: OT: lots of beautiful snow around Little Vegas! I have been enjoying the pictures friends have been posting. I’m excited about all the progress on La Castaneda. Can’t wait to check it out. He does quality work if La Posada in Winslow is any indication. ?
different-church-lady
To all who answered: are we working off the assumption that aptitudes can be changed at will? Or are we lumping aptitudes too generally? Why are we assuming someone with an aptitude for manufacturing can be retrained into bridge maintenance? How do we turn coal miners into nurses?
Jay
@patroclus:
“Washington (CNN) Two copies of the biggest free trade deal in history are sitting in reading rooms — one at each end of the Capitol.
The document is classified. Only members of Congress and staffers with security clearance can access it. And they can’t make copies or even carry their own handwritten notes out the door.”
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2015/06/11/politics/trade-deal-secrecy-tpp/index.html
patroclus
@Citizen Alan: You’re probably right. But she didn’t win the election and the U.S. lost out because of her strategy of declining to be demagogued. Historically, it was an enormous blunder. In my view, she should have honestly stated her views – that is almost always the better strategy and often wins converts.
Suzanne
@Ruckus: Not to mention, we can manufacture stuff without people. And we can increasingly harvest food without people. Recently read a fascinating piece about new machinery that shakes the wine grapes loose from the vines, no picking required. So, rather than protecting the shitty-ass job of grape-picking (low pay, no benefits, job that uses up your body and leaves you in pain), could we possibly direct our human capital to higher-value uses? Instead, we are subjected to complaints about the disappearance of “our way of life”…..but economics and modernization has produced winners and losers forever. I am all for using the power of government to help more people become winners, but I will never support, say, coal instead of solar and wind power because we need to keep coal miners employed.
In five generations of my family, they crisscrossed the ocean and then the country six times to pursue greater economic opportunity. I’m sorry if that has left me a bit unsympathetic to those who feel that they get to sit and stay and do the same jobs their parents and grandparents did.
Ruckus
@patroclus:
She’s not my favorite candidate. A couple of reasons, one – the trade issues, like it or not we are part of a global economy, something that is a lot different that what we’ve been for quite a while. Second her age – she’s less than a month older than I am. An olds view doesn’t have to be restrained by their age to only olds issues but it’s also the perspective. Maybe her’s is younger than mine. But I’ve never met many olds who really can see the world with a long future, only a past and a current. And we need people who can see that future and maybe even not see such a long past. President Obama had that 10 yrs ago. Not one republican in my lifetime had that, no matter their age. Which means of course that she’d be better than any rethuglican. So if she’s the candidate in the general I’ll vote for her.
ProfDamatu
@Mnemosyne:
It may not be difficult to explain, to people like us who accept that the tribes have a right to decide their membership. Unfortunately, not everyone does agree about that, which is why much of the Native community was so unhappy with Warren’s choice to do the DNA test. It wasn’t in the post that I copied and pasted above, but as I said elsewhere on that LGM thread, a big part of the problem is that in our dominant (white) cultural narrative, DNA is very much conflated with identity – all those ancestry.com commercials with people saying “I’m 30% Italian!” or whatever. Drives me up a wall, because that’s not how that works!! I think that Native activists have their work cut out for them pushing back against that framing; if our culture is saying that DNA testing can tell us that we’re 30% Italian or whatever, it becomes much more difficult to explain to people why having, say, “8% Native American” doesn’t actually mean you have Native identity.
Maybe, but I can’t really fault the Native community for being angry that someone who was supposed to be on their side bought into a framework that they feel is damaging to their efforts to retain tribal sovereignty (and I’m sure as hell not going to contradict them if they say it is – like you, Whitey McWhiterson here!) Possibly the worry is that it could be turned into, “See, even Warren, who advocates for your concerns, thinks that DNA can tell us about Native identity!”
Full disclosure – I’m an anthropologist, but definitely not a cultural anthropologist, so I’m not all that well-versed in the tribal identification aspects compared to my knowledge of the DNA side of things.
Jay
@Citizen Alan:
TPP was bogged down despite years of negotiations. US obstructionism to sovereignity, environmental and labour lrotections were the sticking point.
Once the US pulled out, TPPII passed in record time.
If the US had stayed in the TPP negotiations, they would still be ongoing, unless Treason Tribble’s minions blew it up.
Hillary Clinton would not have managed to get TPP “passed”, because the US’s entrenched positions on those issues would not have changed, and those positions were why TPP was stalled for years.
Adam L Silverman
@Quinerly: Excellent to hear. My mom went out for the balloon festival this year.
Fair Economist
@patroclus:
Warren was *not* lying. The text was *not* available at the time and that’s why Congresspeople who viewed it were not even allowed to make notes when they viewed it.
James E Powell
@Quinerly:
@Raven Onthill:
@Jay:
Thanks, you guys, for the links. That last one, from Jay, is going to have to wait another day.
I noted that while several tribes, and especially the Cherokee, object to DNA tests, at least one tribe, the Meskwaki Nation in Tama, Iowa, is requiring DNA tests for anyone claiming tribal membership. I understand that each tribe wants to determine who its members are. That seems axiomatic. But Warren wasn’t asking to be a member. She was refuting a claim that she and her family were liars who fabricated Native American heritage to gain advantages through affirmative action programs.
I’m not saying that Warren doing the DNA test was a good idea, but I am saying that given her situation, there were no good ideas. She was being mocked and called a liar by Trump, the press/media were encouraging it and using it to label her. Maybe, just maybe, instead of the NYT running scores of investigative articles about Warren lying about Native American heritage to gain an advantage in an affirmative action program, they will instead run scores of interviews with Native Americans who will say they can’t stand Warren because she got the DNA test. Knowing our NYT, they will likely do both.
Growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, I never met anyone who claimed Native American ancestry. But when I got up and out of there and met guys from the South, a lot of them, African American and white, claimed some degree of Cherokee ancestry. And always with a measure of pride. I didn’t care or question it because it didn’t mean anything to me, but if I were Cherokee I might have responded quite differently. Obviously, I cannot say.
Anyway, I’m sure that Warren’s only intention was to defend herself from further assaults. She erred, and I think most of us could have told her it wasn’t a good idea, but it wasn’t callous disregard. I’m distressed that people are offended but I’m sure there’s nothing anyone can say that will change that. What’s done is done.
Back in 2016, when reporters from the NYT and other press/media would interview the economically anxious white people in small towns who felt disregarded, I wondered if they understood that the NYT reporters didn’t give a shit about them or their lives and that they were just being used as material for another anti-Clinton article.
Citizen Alan
@patroclus:
Hillary’s loss has a thousand parents. Though I admit I’ve had some enjoyment suggesting to Wilmerites that HRC would have been more likely to win by tacking right on trade than on tacking even more to the left in order to pick up “the white armchair communist” vote.
Jay
@ProfDamatu:
Senator Warren took the test to shut up the Insane Clown POSus about his “Pocahontas” cracks and show him up for the million dollar welsher he is.
If the US had a functioning 5th Estate, that would have been the story.
Ruckus
@different-church-lady:
It isn’t that we turn people into something they can’t/don’t want to do, but we don’t even try to make things better, other than in a few token ways. And we allow the businesses to just escape any hit for doing that. All those steel mills that are out of business? They closed because they were no longer profitable in their current out of date condition. And may be we have to look at the concept that business does change and that not only machinery gets out dated and discarded. People do as well. I’m proof of that for sure. And it’s not just mfg, what about doctors, who go through continuous training throughout their careers and still reach the end of a useful career. Everyone does that, perhaps we should look at the entire situation other than as a boardroom decision.
Suzanne
@different-church-lady: In my experience, aptitude isn’t a thing that corresponds directly to a career path. I work around lots of contractors and tradespeople. The one who are more into quick work seem to like framing and flooring and concrete, but people who are more detailed by nature seem to be good at electrical and finish carpentry and specialized fabrication. Similarly, there are some nurses who do a lot of direct patient care and like the human contact, while others take more of an admin/back-of-house role. Some nurses have the stamina for emergency nursing, and others have the patience for long-term care. There’s usually a lot of variation for aptitude in every industry/profession.
What has been noted and measured in recent years is that plenty of men who held stereotypically masculine jobs like coal mining and factory work don’t want to go into certain kinds of work, like nursing, even if the pay is comparable, because those jobs are coded as women’s work. I am not especially sympathetic to that.
Mnemosyne
@different-church-lady:
Retraining depends on what the person’s job skills are. Someone who was doing skilled work at the factory may be able to find similar work in a different area and needs some financial assistance/incentive to go there. Someone who was pushing a button could probably transition to a retail job if they didn’t have to face a 75 percent pay cut.
Coal miners could do construction. I don’t think it would be that hard to move from one type of manual labor to another, but maybe I’m wrong and coal mining is so different from pouring concrete that you can’t retrain miners to do that.
People who are interested in things that need additional education, like nursing, would need a ton of educational support, probably including child/elder care, remedial education, screening for learning disabilities that may have held them back in the past, tutoring, etc. It could be done if we wanted to do it.
Fair Economist
@J R in WV:
We can hope, but most likely the target is Devine’s handler and was not on Sanders’ campaign team. The only one they’d let Devine off for would be Sanders himself and the chance that Sanders has done anything actually indictable is IMO low.
different-church-lady
@Suzanne:
OK. As technology replaces an ever-increasing number of jobs, and more sophisticated jobs, what do we do with all the now-unnecessary people?
How many of those higher-value use jobs are there going to be?
ProfDamatu
@James E Powell:
I’ll just note here that my understanding of the situation is that long prior to doing the DNA test, Warren discussed the matter with the Cherokee Nation, and they indicated that they didn’t have an issue with her claiming descent that included a Cherokee individual. She then went ahead and did the DNA test without discussing that with the Cherokee. This is problematic because it privileges the dominant (white) culture’s understanding of what it means to have tribal heritage (i.e., “Native American DNA”) over the understanding of the tribe in question itself. Many in the Native community have a problem with that because, as discussed elsethread, it has ramifications for tribal sovereignty.
I’ll agree with you that Warren didn’t have any good options here – after all, it’s not like Donald Trump was going to accept the Cherokee’s word that Warren’s ancestor was Native (and the media might thus continue to run with the “liar” narrative), but doing the DNA test plays into a framing that’s damaging to people who we hope will be part of our coalition.
different-church-lady
@Mnemosyne:
But what happens when we ship all of those similar jobs overseas?
Barbara
@ProfDamatu: She claimed native ancestry, which is not the same as native identity. I have verifiable knowledge that I have German ancestry. I would be an idiot to think that gives me German identity. And I totally concur in your evaluation of consumer DNA tests and understand the Native American sensitivity on the issue, but they are swimming upstream, and possibly on a collision course with cultural trends if the idea is to punish people for trying to figure out if they have ancestors who were Native American. Your ancestry isn’t your identity. Even if my DNA test came back 100% Italian, my mother still ate sauerkraut, had German speaking aunts and grandparents, attended a German Catholic school snd made strictly American spaghetti with sauce from a jar.
Mnemosyne
@Suzanne:
I’m still convinced that the job title of “Physician’s Assistant” only exists because dudes didn’t want to be called “Nurse Practitioners.”
Fair Economist
@ProfDamatu: If the tribes point out that DNA is not identity they are correct. Warren is not contesting that; she’s is supporting that position.
Demanding people not take DNA ancestry tests is not defensible.
Demanding people ignore the results of DNA ancestry tests when it indicate Native American ancestry is not defensible.
Somebody attacking Warren for what she did does not have a leg to stand on. There’s no coherent objection to what she did.
Adam L Silverman
@ProfDamatu: The Cherokee Nation officials were fine as long as she didn’t try to claim she should be considered part of the tribe as none of her ancestors are on the Dawes Rolls.
ProfDamatu
@Jay:
Yes, I’m aware of that. Unfortunately we don’t have a functioning media, so that’s not what the story ended up being. I
I know that, being very very white myself, I should probably STFU about this, but still – I reiterate, I’m just not comfortable criticizing Native groups for being angry at Warren over this.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
Reading your comment I immediately thought of the Monty Python bit, Bring out your dead. They made fun but that wasn’t probably far off the truth of the time. How long ago was it that making it to 50 was considered a big deal? Now lots of people make it to ninety. Both my parents had pacemakers, which extended their lives many, many years. A friend had one for for 44 yrs, without it she wouldn’t have gotten close to the 66 she managed. Life changes, it goes on, even if we don’t. Getting stuck in a time frame without realizing that life goes on and changes, like it or not, is a ridiculous frame of mind. No one will be what they were in their 20s, when they hit 60 or farther on. It just doesn’t work that way. Not that long ago most people died before then so it wasn’t important. Retire? Yes they did, but not to enjoy sitting around complaining about change, they died. Not as many people do anywhere near so early any more. At least not in most industrialized countries. We need to account for this change in so many living.
Jay
@Mnemosyne:
“Retraining” has been the Corporate mantra for decades, but as you note, there are more than a few obstacles from providing full testing and support,( which we don’t do), to having living wage jobs for the “retrained” people to do.
We really need an economic “Marshall Plan”, but we are not going to get one.
different-church-lady
@Fair Economist: The problem is that in today’s political environment there is almost no zen diagram overlap between the circle of what Warren is claiming and the circle of what people are going to say about what she’s claiming. It’s Calvinballs all the way down.
Mnemosyne
@different-church-lady:
What happens when global warming kills millions of people and there are no jobs anywhere because the human race has to go back to subsistence farming?
tobie
@Jay: The sticking points were not labor and environmental laws. Canada’s got a pretty lousy environmental record with the tar sands and one of the highest per capita carbon emissions rates in the world. The US has nothing to brag about on that front but let’s not pretend the changes made to TPP after the US’s withdrawal had much to do with the environment. The US wanted stricter regulations on intellectual property than the other parties to TPP did. That was the sticking point.
ProfDamatu
@Fair Economist:
You don’t agree that there’s a coherent objection; fine. But I’m going to go ahead and accept what Native groups are saying. Also, nobody is demanding that people not take DNA tests, FFS. Shit, I’ve taken one myself! But those tests are not nearly as deterministic as people tend to think they are.
different-church-lady
@Mnemosyne: Just when we’re having a great discussion about the arrangement of the deck chairs, you have to come in and spoil all the fun.
Jay
@ProfDamatu:
One of the biggest “stinks” about Warren was raised and carried for days on social media by a Canadian Northern Cree “personality”, 3500 miles away from the Cherokee Nation.
Suzanne
@different-church-lady: Honestly, at some point, though not in my lifetime, I think we may reach “The End of Work”, in that we will simply not have enough work for every person who is capable of work. If we are smart, we will start thinking about Universal Basic Income now, rather than once it becomes a crisis.
But that opens up some other opportunities, if we are smart. If we can have machines grow and pick our food and make most of what we need, and we don’t need to blow each other up, we could devote much more time and energy to making art and spending time with loved ones and developing skills and pursuing interests.
However, that’s a long way away, if ever. In the meantime, many jobs can’t be shipped overseas….nursing and construction are perfect examples. Arizona currently has two thousand teaching vacancies, and the rural districts are in such a world of hurt that they are going overseas to find teachers. There is plenty of work to do in the here and now.
Mnemosyne
@different-church-lady:
I’m just saying, if a reasonably young person in one of those dying towns asked for my advice on retraining, I would tell them to go into plumbing. They will never be able to outsource the unclogging of a toilet in South Dakota to India.
Jay
@tobie:
“Twenty-two TPP provisions that were priorities of the United States but not other negotiating partners were suspended or modified from the signed CPTPP.[14] One of the most contested provisions advocated for by the US was for increased abilities of companies to sue national governments, in particular over strict regulations over oil and gas developments. Another was the US insistence that copyright extend for the author’s lifetime plus 70 years, which is not standard in other countries, and was substantially reduced in the CPTPP language.[6] Japan did extend the period to 70 years,[15] which was a requirement stemming from the EU–Japan Economic Partnership Agreement.[16]”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_and_Progressive_Agreement_for_Trans-Pacific_Partnership
Barbara
@ProfDamatu: Wow. Then why take one? I will not take one for all the reasons you expressed but if I did and received the highly improbable information that I had native ancestry I would not consider it wrong to tell people that was the result. What principle are you espousing other than it was wrong for Warren to have a DNA test?
different-church-lady
@Suzanne:
I repeat: what do you do with all the people who are not cut out for nursing and construction?
Here’s what I’m getting at: labor monocultures are just as dangerous as biological monocultures.
Suzanne
@Mnemosyne:
In general contracting, there is a job title of “Project Engineer”. That person is basically an admin. But it’s usually a dude. So…..ENGINEER it is.
Should note that real engineers who carry a professional license (civil, structural, hydro, mechanical, electrical, etc.) do not have a title called “Project Engineer”.
Ruckus
@different-church-lady:
If we ship all the jobs overseas there won’t be employed people to purchase all the crap that the companies are having made and shipping to us.
You do have a valid point that not everyone can just change or that everyone can be employed at a different career path, at least not easily.
But take me. I’ve had three rather different career paths in my life. Nature destroyed that first career, a drunk boss destroyed the second and a republican recession destroyed the third one. And I’m back working in the first. And I know others who have similar stories. My second career was in OH and the number of people I met who worked 20-30 yrs at the same place amazed me. In my first career, in my own business I had people who quit because the free coffee wasn’t made for them. (fucking snobs) They had another job in less than 2 hrs. That is very unlikely today. Business changes. How long do you think it would take you to find another job?
James E Powell
@ProfDamatu:
Yeah, I’m pretty white, too, and I will STFU about it, but before I go I just want to point out that any NYT or other press/media writing a story about Native Americans’ feelings about the DNA test don’t give a damn about Native Americans, their lives, or their tribal rights. They are doing it to smear a Democratic candidate.
different-church-lady
@Ruckus:
Or as I like to put it, “Why does corporate America think they can fire all their customers?”
Suzanne
@different-church-lady: Then they can go into something else. Much of the country is looking for workers. We are in no way becoming a labor monoculture.
ProfDamatu
@Barbara:
I’m just quoting this as an example; I’m not meaning this to singly you out, Barbara!
It’s really, really not the case that ANYONE is trying to punish people for trying to find out if they have Native American ancestors. I feel like that’s kind of a knee-jerk, defensive response to hearing that doing such a test might (in some situations) be damaging to Native American interests – I know that I had a similar response when the story first broke. How dare someone tell me that it’s wrong to be curious about my ancestry! and all that BS.
However, when it comes to Native American/First Nations ancestry, I think it’s worth interrogating what we’re trying to do with that knowledge. To white people, it’s an interesting fun fact about us and our families; to the Native community, the acceptance of DNA information to establish that ancestry is something that could be used as a weapon against their right to determine who is and is not a tribal member.
Nobody who takes a DNA test and then proudly announces their 6% Native American result is trying to argue that they are Native American (well, at least most of them aren’t) in the sense that they think that a tribe should have to accept them as a member, much less trying to damage the tribes’ sovereignty. But I’m not comfortable dismissing out of hand the tribes’ concerns that playing into the cultural narrative about DNA and ancestry is damaging to their interests.
I’m agnostic myself on the broader issue of whether using DNA ancestry tests is a good idea; I’d hope that we can come to a more accurate cultural understanding of what those tests are and are not telling us. But I would push back against the idea that anyone is suggesting that people be punished for curiosity; it’s ultimately a pretty privileged position that can feel punished by being told that maybe their curiosity about their genetic background could be harmful to others.
Fair Economist
@ProfDamatu:
No, of course not. IIRC, Warren’s test had a 3 generation range for the generations since her last full-blooded Native American ancestor, which is to be expected because crossovers are so random. Plus, at that remove, any assignment to a specific tribe would be bogus (not that it stops the ancestry testers, who often have overly specific assignments). Those are also legitimate points for the tribes to make. But there’s no specific action they could reasonably have asked Warren to do differently – it’s not reasonable to ask her not to do the test and it’s not reasonable to ask her to ignore the results.
Actually, for the tribes to complain about what *Warren* did is to weaken their own position, because they are confusing descent with identity when they say looking at descent is a problem for definition of identity. The smart stand is to remind people that descent does *not* define identity. If they don’t stick to that they increase their chances of being run down by those stupid ads saying “I’m 30% Italian so I’m going to eat more pasta!”
I will also remind people that the original complainers about Warren’s test were *Republican* Native Americans.
Mnemosyne
@different-church-lady:
So are you talking about placing existing workers into new jobs after their factory/coal mining job goes away, or are you talking about creating jobs in areas where there aren’t any? Because those are two totally different things.
I (and I think Suzanne) am arguing that you can move existing coal miners into construction jobs. If you’re asking where the kids of those coal miners are going to work when they grow up, that’s a completely different question that will have a totally different solution.
different-church-lady
@Suzanne:
Define this “something else”. Is a magic wand involved? Can we build policy around increasing the “something else” sector of the labor market? I mean, surely everyone is capable of being competent in a generic “something else”, especially if we leave it entirely undefined.
Jay
@Fair Economist:
“Actually, for the tribes to complain about what *Warren* did is to weaken their own position, because they are confusing descent with identity when they say looking at descent is a problem for definition of identity. The smart stand is to remind people that descent does *not* define identity. If they don’t stick to that they increase their chances of being run down by those stupid ads saying “I’m 30% Italian so I’m going to eat more pasta!”
That’s what the Cherokee Nation did,
That not what the MSM and the “pile on’s” did.
Suzanne
@Mnemosyne: I am also convinced that half of why we get involved in military adventures in recent years is to maintain a federal jobs program for otherwise unemployable young men.
That book by Joan Williams that I keep referencing discusses the point about how many working-class men are insulted by the suggestion to go into any of the service or caregiving professions because that’s pink-collar work, and the military and manufacturing work are considered sufficiently masculine. We can provide retraining all day long, but there is no policy I can suggest that can make an insecure douchebag feel better about doing “women’s work”.
different-church-lady
@Mnemosyne:
Yes.
I’m talking about a lot of different things all at once. In attempt to point out that the solutions are not simple. Not even a bit.
Fair Economist
@Jay: Joining the TPP now would be far less problematic than joining the original TPP. IMO the original TPP was a net negative and the current one a net positive.
Bonus advantage for joining under Trump: it will piss off a lot of the Rust Belt Obama-Trump voters. I suspect we lost a lot of them because Obama promised to renegotiate NAFTA and instead produced the TPP. The TPP actually *did* renegotiate NAFTA with a number of the provisions that Obama had promised, but that kind of policy subtlety is not the kind of things voters are normally aware of.
Ruckus
@different-church-lady:
I know, I know!!!
Because they are only looking at the current bottom line, this and possibly the next quarter, exactly what American business, especially American big business has been doing since before Regan but especially during and after him. And what is taught in American business schools. Profit now, Profit right now, FUCKING PROFIT RIGHT FUCKING NOW!!!, above all else and damn the long term negatives. The stock market goes up or down 3% and people have a stroke. And yet look how high it’s gone over the last 40 yrs.
Mnemosyne
@Suzanne:
I’ll repeat something I said here a while back: we need to re-start the Civilian Conservation Corps and start sending young men (and a few interested young women) way out into the wilderness of our national parks to do the desperately needed repair and conservation work that the regular rangers can’t do. Give them the training, parachute them in with a satellite phone, and let them hike their way back to a base, doing the needed work along the way. That way, young men can work through their fears about their masculinity in a genuinely challenging environment rather than projecting those fears onto a useless coal mining job.
After I made this modest proposal, coincidentally the young adult son of one of my coworkers basically took a gap year and did this kind of work at Yellowstone. It drove his parents nuts that they only heard from him about once a month, but he really loved it and was ready to settle down to college at UC Santa Cruz once the program was done. So now I feel vindicated and that a program like this could work.
Jay
@different-church-lady:
Some solutions are simple. During Apple and Amazon’s extortion tours, it was pointed out by many, that rather than New York, Toronto, Vancouver, Seattle, etc,
If they located in East Nowhereville, yes, they would have to “import” a lot of workers, but they already do that. There would however be a surge of construction jobs, service jobs, etc and a bunch of new business created in an “economically depressed” area.
Jay
@Fair Economist:
You won’t be joining TPPII, your Corporations won’t allow it.
ProfDamatu
@Barbara:
I’m hoping that my previous post answers the “what principle am I espousing” question. I’m not saying that it’s wrong to tell people about the results of a hypothetical DNA test; I AM saying that it would be nice if everyone who took such a test would be super, super clear about what that test is and is not telling them when they tell their friends about the results!
So, why did I say the tests aren’t that deterministic? It’s because of how they’re done. Outside of any concern about contamination of samples, first of all, there’s the fact that the consumer testing firms are working with a completely self-selected sample, which is going to introduce an element of bias into any results. Secondly, when 23andme or whoever gives you ancestry results, what they’re actually able to tell you is that, of the allelic variants and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that happen to be on the current chip they’re using, x% of those variants are more common in, say, Northern Europeans or whoever than in any of the other populations for which they have data. Now, this will indeed give you an accurate idea of whether your ancestry is mostly European or African or Asian, but the percentages will be highly dependent on which alleles/SNPs they happen to be looking at and who else has taken their test. That last bit is really important; it’s one of the reasons that people often get different results from different companies, and why those results may change over time (adding new SNPs to the chip can do that as well).
Another wrinkle is that, due to the randomness that occurs with sexual reproduction, it’s entirely possible to have an ancestor that you know for 100% certain is in fact your ancestor…but to have inherited precisely 0% of that ancestor’s genes.
So, when those commercials show people saying “I’m 30% Spanish!” or whatever…yeah, no, that’s not a good way to understand those results. “30% Spanish” would mean that 30% of the DNA they looked at is more common in Spain than elsewhere (which has no bearing on whether you might have actually inherited it from, say, a French ancestor or whatever). The problem, IMHO, comes with the fact that if, say, your grandfather was fresh off the boat from Ireland, we tend to say that you’re “a quarter Irish,” and that kind of usage is, I think being conflated with the percentages that DNA testing is providing. (That “quarter Irish” person might test out as 25% “Irish genes”….or it might end up being way more or way less than that, depending on the factors mentioned above.) If we could get clear on that, I think DNA testing would be a lot less problematic.
As to why do the test – I can’t speak for others, but the reason I did the test years ago was because I was curious about the “health” side of the tests (that’s what 23andme was calling it back then). That testing isn’t about geographic ancestry, but rather about all sorts of interesting phenotypic variants that we know quite a bit about the genetic background. Things like, “we think it’s 60% likely that you have brown eyes” or “you have two copies of an allele that’s associated with metabolizing caffeine more slowly than typical” or what have you.
Mnemosyne
@different-church-lady:
Not only are the solutions not simple, they each require different solutions because you’re trying to solve totally different problems.
I mean, I can tell you to take ibuprofen for a sprained ankle, but if you give ibuprofen to your cat because it’s in pain, you’re going to kill it because you tried to apply the same solution to totally different situations.
Suzanne
@different-church-lady: Look, we all have to make choices about how to earn a living based on countless factors. Arguably the biggest factor is ***what work is available***. Lots of work is available in the country, and it is varied in terms of skill set and interests and location. I do think we can make policy around the “something else”….that’s why we have experts in labor and business to tell us what jobs are going to be in demand and what work needs to be done.
People need to develop their own competence. I read these job listings for unskilled jobs that read, “Must be able to get to work”. For God’s sake, THAT is a thing we have to tell people? Now, the job someone has might not be the thing they are the very best at, or the thing they like the most, but the majority of people who are not disabled (and many who are) can perform some sort of job competently.
Yes. I am also arguing that certain jobs are not worth saving, because they have high costs to society (pollution, health) and because there is no strategic interest in American consumers paying more in order to protect industries, when we could retrain our workers to do more valuable work. I am arguing that the jobs that will be needed in the future are not the same jobs and are not in the same places as the ones now. If we get ahead of this issue, we could be successful. But instead, some of our politicians, including Warren to an extent, want to protect some of these low-paying jobs. I understand that her impulse is good, but I think protectionism is, in the long run, bad for America.
Ruckus
@different-church-lady:
No they are not simple. But what are we doing to even try? And what about education for young people so that they can fit into the ever changing economy? Making them pay outrageous sums for a college education that they will never be able to repay? How the hell does that help, other than to keep people from other than a dreary shit job that they can’t leave to try and get a better one because they will default on getting an education that teaches them to be worker bees while the owners of the corp they work for closes operations without a second thought and fucks them – and the nation btw, without a second thought. The world is changing, the work world has to change along with it but so far it’s done a rather shitty job. And therefore government has to step in, but of course the business party not only won’t allow that, it will do everything it can to retain control of the lives of it’s workers for their own enrichment. In most civilized countries there is more control, by the workers, by the government, and yes even by the companies. But not here in the land of the almighty dollar and who it belongs to.
And yes I sound like a far lefty. I am a far lefty. I believe that we need to create the society we want and would like to live in, not leave that to the people who think they own the entire society or don’t mind being owned by it.
Jay
@ProfDamatu:
Actually, the Irish are mostly Spanish.
Suzanne
@Mnemosyne: I am a fan of that idea. I could also get behind the idea of mandatory national service for all young people, if the service could be non-military and within the country if so desired. Construction, childcare, elder care, infrastructure work, conservation work, etc.
Mnemosyne
@Jay:
I will tell you a little secret that my cynical father told me years ago, and which I have found almost always holds true: a company’s headquarters will always be located at a convenient distance from the CEO’s house. Guaranteed.
Suzanne
@Mnemosyne: That is true. A company’s headquarters will also almost always be located within 30 minutes by car from an international airport and a major university.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
I somewhat like this idea, but am a bit squeamish because I was involved in the last national service system we had, the draft. Which wasn’t fair, wasn’t equal and got a lot of people killed. OTOH a national service corp that did constructive things as you and Mnems stated could be a useful thing to open the doors for a lot of young people to see if they even liked jobs they hadn’t considered. IOW there are a lot of issues, who, what, how, how long…..
Jay
@Mnemosyne:
Back in the day, during the YVR Tech Boom, I had the good fortune to work for a good Company. Because we couldn’t hire many of the people we needed, we “grew” our own. Paid for school, had in house training programs, promoted from within. Heading out on a trip one day, talked to my Taxi driver, an electrical engineer from Pakistan. Gave him X’s card, told him to call him. Came back 3 weeks later from my business trip and Amir was working on the assembly line and the Company was paying for him to take courses and exams to get his Canadian certification. Two years later, Amir was one of our engineers.
Unfortunately, the Company got bought by a Fortune 100, and within 5 years was completely and utterly gone. Mismanaged to death.
Suzanne
@Ruckus: I would absolutely oppose any mandatory service that required military service, for exactly those reasons. I firmly believe that 98% of the use of the US military overseas in my lifetime has been problematic at best and a morally disastrous stain on our country at worst, so I would never force anyone to participate in it ever.
gwangung
@Fair Economist:
The privilege just wreaks from this statement.
The inherent arrogance turns me off.
Chris Johnson
@Suzanne:
Being able to crank up the economy and GDP until it’s hugely ‘successful’ WITHOUT PEOPLE is rather a new development. This has happened very much within people’s lifetimes. Much of what the original TPP that had American buy-in was in support of this new form of economy, the economy without people… much of what ‘we’ had going for us in that original TPP wasn’t anything to do with people, it was to do with intense intellectual property issues allowing the US to stomp all over the rest of the world, the profits not going to people but to a lot of American corporations holding IP.
I do like the idea of massive, well-paid infrastructure employment (though it may not be a longterm solution) and that’s why I’m so opposed to the PAYGO stuff: we won’t be doing infrastructure projects with that sort of Democrat-only handicapping. Republicans would never do a PAYGO which is why they thrive whenever they get into power: they throw a bunch of money around, mostly toward defense (or now, ICE). Better to do Green New Deal or simply Rebuild Stuff. I would happily go to work rebuilding the abandoned bridge in my town and a bunch of local business would thrive plus I’d save on gas if I was able to use that bridge when I travel.
I hate this notion that people have to abandon their homes and families and friends every time ‘the economy’ hiccups, pull up roots and go to whatever massive population center is trendy, to TRY and get a job alongside millions of equally desperate people, for the sake of productivity. We have long since gone past the point where there’s any payback for the worker in that: it only serves the interests of capital to have all humanity reduced to migrant workers. You cannot believe people are supposed to go from Podunk, Nowheresville to what, LA?!? in order to live and work.
Have you compared the prices for housing between Podunk and LA lately? The places you’re expecting people to migrate to (abandoning their homes, families and friends) CANNOT BE LIVED IN unless you are some sort of lottery winner, and even those ‘rich people’ working for Google or what have you, are living six to a room in absolute squalor.
No. Just no. The instant I hear people advocating that everyone become migrant labor for capitalism, I am done hearing your nonsense. That stuff doesn’t even pretend to work. People rebelling against such expectations gave us DONALD TRUMP ffs, which did not help anybody. Don’t tie Democrats to ‘free trade’ and becoming a migrant worker towards ‘the jobs’ off in California or wherever. It’s an elaborate lie that only benefits large corporations and produces a completely helpless, rootless underclass.
Uncle Cosmo
@magurakurin: You mistook Virginia for Pennsylvania??? And you have the chutzpah to comment on a political blog & expect anyone to take you seriously????
You’ve just reinforced my suspicion that “magurakurin” is the term in some obscure language for “imbecile.”
Barbara
@ProfDamatu: So how did Warren violate your principles?
Barbara
@ProfDamatu: Seriously, how did Warren violate your principles? She told a story similar to stories told by many people about having ancestors who were thus and such. In my case, there is a family legend that my paternal great-grandfather was actually Irish. By a lot of sleuthing, I know that this simply can’t be true, but half my family will say that they are part Irish when asked. Whatever. There is no doubt that Native American tribes stand in a unique place in the history of our nation, and I am willing with basically no qualification to give them the authority to decide who counts as a member of their tribe. But the notion that “concerns” over the possible mischaracterization of what DNA testing actually shows might compromise Native American autonomy over what counts as Native American identity, looks a lot like a straw man and until someone actually tries to get included in a tribe on the basis of a DNA test then I say give it a rest. And also, they better be prepared for how to respond when — not if — that actually happens.
Suzanne
@Chris Johnson:
Outside of the most expensive 5-10 cities in the country , America’s metros are roughly comparable to their rural surrounds. I’m in Phoenix, a city which exists because it is affordable and middle-class people can buy a 2000 SF home for under $250K, and often well below that. We actually landed out here leaving New York, specifically looking for a low cost of living. If you can’t afford Seattle, look at Boise. If New York is too expensive, look at Pittsburgh.
Cities are the future of humanity. Approximately 15 years ago, the world population passed an incredible milestone, and for the first time in human history, over half of the world population lived in cities rather than rural areas. Cities are more sustainable and will always offer more economic opportunity than rural areas, unless you inherit land, because specialization is far more efficient than generalization. For those of us who aren’t going to inherit anything and have to actually earn a living, it is much more personally advantageous to be near a population center. People who are comfortable with their lifestyles who don’t want to change but want to sit around complaining about how Life Was So Much Better Back Then, MAGA!!!!…..zero sympathy. People who lack the resources to make a move or to seek further training, I am all about financially assisting them with that.
Irony: descendants of white settlers living out in rural parts of the country complaining about lack of work where they are, when their ancestors left their homes chasing opportunity and resources, often provided by the federal government. More irony: immigrants and refugees and asylees leaving their homes and coming to this country to work are hated on by white people who disproportionately live in rural areas.
If we are smart, we’ll encourage and assist people to get the skills and to the locations where they can be more prosperous. Or we can be stupid, and keep mining coal and giving tax breaks to Carrier, because MAGA. Or something.
ProfDamatu
@Barbara: Sorry, just saw this now. I’ll just point out that I never said that Warren violated my principles or anything dramatic like that. What I’m getting at is that it would have been preferable, *as Native groups themselves have said,* if she had consulted them prior to using a DNA test to “prove” her family story, and if she decided to go ahead with it, explicitly explain why (assuming the Native groups asked her not to do it). As I’ve said repeatedly here and elsewhere, I’m only listening to what many Native groups themselves have said about this issue. If they don’t like DNA tests being used in this way, I’m not about to whitesplain to them that no, really, it’s just a strawman and they don’t need to worry about right-wingers interfering with their tribal autonomy by instituting a DNA requirement for tribal recognition. Sure, that outcome may seem unlikely, but there is no way I’m going to say that it’s a silly worry, given the history in play here.