As I watch some people jump to increasingly bleak conclusions about the fate of our republic in light of the Senate voting down witnesses, I'm thinking today about the Stockdale Paradox. pic.twitter.com/Df91NFBy34
— Henry Kraemer ?????? (@HenryKraemer) January 31, 2020
You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end — which you can never afford to lose — with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of current reality, whatever they might be.
If you’re disillusioned, I get it. But do do 2 things for me today:
1. Look to the past: go read up on a hero that nearly died for freedom. Tubman. Mandela. Hamer. Malala. Get perspective.
2. Look to the future: go talk to a child and remember that someone sacrificed for you.
— brittany packnett cunningham (@MsPackyetti) January 31, 2020
My favorite part is this line. We can all debate whether and how democracy is is dying. But politics isn't something that just happens. Politics is what WE DO. We shouldn't just complain about the political storms – it's up to us to go out and stop the rain. pic.twitter.com/skKY3iUk4y
— Ezra Levin (@ezralevin) January 31, 2020
debbie
Things will get better. The snowdrops have begun to bloom!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Bush admin would have pulled this Russian stunt off with applause, the best they can do now is a pathetic “we don’t want to talk about it and you’re mean”
We are winning.
The Dangerman
Is the Hannity and Trump thing this afternoon live or taped? If live and Trump has a series of brain farts (I know, how can you tell from the past 3 years), maybe that is when things start to turn around. Just a feeling this whole shit show is a house of cards and when it goes, it won’t be stopped.
zhena gogolia
A most inspiring thing for all of us would be a big shiny front-page post showcasing the many, many brilliant moments of Adam Schiff’s handling of the impeachment trial.
zhena gogolia
@The Dangerman:
Even SNL went there, referring to his “mini-strokes.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@zhena gogolia: and a link to DougJ’s Senate challengers ActBlue (that was a thing I saw here, right?)
Another Scott
Thanks for this.
Things will get better. They’ll get better faster if we work together for incremental progress.
Eyes on the prizes.
Cheers,
Scott.
zhena gogolia
When I start to despairingly meditate on Drumpf, Graham, McConnell, &Co., I stop myself and meditate on Schiff, Jeffries, Yovanovitch, Kent, Taylor, Vindman . . . .
zhena gogolia
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’ve been doing my own chaotic donations — monthly to Gideon, Hickenlooper, McGrath, Ditch Mitch, Mark Kelly — and will probably start monthly to Biden too.
The Dangerman
@zhena gogolia:
Was that mini strokes or many strokes?
I was around my Father having TIA’s for years and, eventually, the big one comes in that set of circumstances (assuming Trump doesn’t clean up his eating habits, gets a reasonable amount of exercise, and … oh, OK, nevermind, we are talking about Trump here).
WaterGirl
@debbie: Will we get to #15 before someone asks what a snowdrop is? :-)
Omnes Omnibus
This is actually a really good explanation of some the recurring despair that I see around here.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: I know what a snowdrop is. We aren’t all barbarians here.
Another Scott
Oh, and Happy International Palidrome Date Day – 02/02/2020.
Cheers,
Scott.
LarrytheRed
If pep rallies are what we need to buck each other up, bring on the pom poms!
Fair Economist
Dead democracies tend not to stay dead. My pet example is the many back-and-forths in France between the French Revolution in 1789 and the stabilization of the 3rd Republic in the 1880’s. Even an extraordinary restriction of voting under the Bourbon Restoration failed at keeping out the liberals.
Omnes Omnibus
@Fair Economist: We’re not dead yet.
Mnemosyne
Repeating myself from the thread below:
FOR ARIZONA JACKALS ONLY!
Mark Kelly needs you to sign his nominating petition to run for Senate against Martha McSally, and you can do it online:
apps.azsos.gov/apps/election/eps/op/
WaterGirl
Words to live by.
It can be so hard to stay vigilant and it’s so easy to lose focus. How long before we collectively forget these words of wisdom, and some of us slip back into despair?
debbie
@WaterGirl:
No better symbol of hope! ?
NotMax
Dejection: warranted. Despair: not.
Time to re-bone up on Carl Sagan’s Baloney Detection Kit.
OT. Senior moment. Flipped the switch to make a fresh pot of coffee only when I went back to pour some found I had forgotten to put the pot back in the machine after washing it.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: This is true!
I didn’t really pay much attention to flowers until I turned 30. Surely that’s an indication that one or both of our BJ commenters who are under thirty may not know? :-)
Mnemosyne
@zhena gogolia:
Schiff was our Rep for years, and then we moved and are now one block away from being in his district. Le sigh. ?
One year, the Republicans were so desperate that they dug up some guy named Stephen Colbert (not the famous one) and put up campaign signs with no party affiliation on them. Didn’t help — Schiff still crushed him.
WaterGirl
@debbie: Yep. First ones up!
The Dangerman
The second segment in this Drunk History episode seems timely. Hell, the first one is timely, too. Besides, Katie Nolan has the best smile around, drunk or not.
Another Scott
OpenThread, so…
LOLGOP at Eclectablog – Beware Bloomberg:
Read the whole thing.
Eyes on the prizes…
Cheers,
Scott.
zhena gogolia
@Mnemosyne:
Schiff is a great, great man.
SNL doesn’t know what to do with him so they make fun of his eyes.
Aleta
hitchhiker
Listened to Chris Hayes interviewing Ezra Klein last night, and felt somewhat better. There’s no point pretending that this will be repaired quickly or easily, because it won’t. Ezra has a book just out that’s about polarization; one thing he said that made sense to me is that we’ve lost “crossover identities.” Everything has to be stacked. If you’re pro-choice, you’re also anti-AR15s and pro-diversity. This is one of the factors in our inability to tolerate “the other side.”
Another is that our system, with all the checks and balances, all the veto-points and people, cannot work if one “side” chooses to refuse to allow their “enemies” to have a turn at governing. We’re living that, and it sucks.
Another is that Republicans enjoy political power but crave cultural power. They’re ruining our system of government right in front of us because they’re aware that white Christian men aren’t in charge of setting the cultural tone anymore. Us olds remember growing up under the white Christian man cultural rules, right? So many of those are gone, but from their perspective it’s more important that the loss of that cultural power means they feel disrespected and threatened. Bill Barr is exhibit A.
Democrats enjoy cultural power but crave political power … and in the end (a generation or so) we’ll get it, for what it will be worth then.
It settled me down to hear someone talking about the long history behind all that, and the long future we confront. We live in the transition, and it feels terrible. But it’s not forever.
Haydnseek
@Omnes Omnibus: No, we aren’t. But to paraphrase the great Frank Zappa, we’re beginning to smell funny.
Mnemosyne
@zhena gogolia:
He honestly is a pretty ordinary guy for the most part. He works hard for his district and does a lot of the usual stuff like sponsoring art contests, etc. Good constituent services, from everything I’ve heard. Berners hate him because he’s business-friendly and has a lot of giant entertainment corporations as constituents.
But he’s also a great trial lawyer and the current crisis gave him a chance to shine. I think we’re all pretty happy in So Cal that everyone else is getting to see how good he is.
moonbat
Thank you, Anne, for this. If I’ve read one “All is lost in our democracy” headline in the last few days I’ve read 100. They all seemed designed to make us despair and that is the last thing we need to do now.
zhena gogolia
@Mnemosyne:
I don’t think too many ordinary guys could have done what he did over the last week. The physical and mental stamina he displayed, combined with pitch-perfect moral courage, is highly unusual. For me he really outdid Obama, and I never thought I’d say that.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Well, you still made coffee. ?
Omnes Omnibus
@moonbat: Stay out of the next thread.
mrmoshpotato
@zhena gogolia: Hard to make fun of a staunch defender of democracy with a laser focus.
mrmoshpotato
@Omnes Omnibus: Thanks for the warning.
Mnemosyne
@zhena gogolia:
I probably feel about Schiff the same way that Obama’s constituents felt about him when he was their state senator who became a US Senator and then president — I knew him when, and now everyone else gets to see him in action. ?
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Coffeegasm daily since I laid out beaucoups spondulicks for what aficionados call the Rolls Royce of coffee makers when it was available at an extremely rare and inviting sale price for Black Friday. Tour.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: That was excellent advice!
zhena gogolia
@Mnemosyne:
I always had a good feeling about him, but he has astounded me through this whole process.
Of course, DJT’s approval rating just hit an all-time high. But Stockdale.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
Adam Schiff is the new Peter Rodino.
/showing my age
zhena gogolia
@NotMax:
See, I paid almost no attention to Watergate at the time. I did enjoy watching the helicopter ride with fellow SBA employees, though.
Sab
OT We just made a wonderful discovery this morning. My BIL died Thursday morning. Everyone is very upset. An academically inclined niece just found an interview he did for Library of Congress Veterans History Project about his Vietnam experience. He never talked about it (the interview, from2012) or his experience leading an infantry platoom in the central highlands 1968-1969.
It was a really good interview, about an hour long. He was funny, and thoughtful and articulate, like he waswhen he was alive.
What a wonderful thing for his family to get to hear. I am so glad he was able to do it, and that the great niece found it.
PersistentIllusion
@zhena gogolia: Thanks for supporting D’s but please consider supporting Andrew Romanoff instead of Hick. Hick was an ok governor, but said more than once that he wasn’t interested in running for Senate and didn’t think he would do a good job if elected. He’s more interested in governing than legislating.
laura
@Sab: that’s a nice bit of joy in the midsts of your family’s loss- I hope that it brings comfort and lessens sorrow.
Sab
@laura: It has. Questions his brothers always wanted to ask but were afraid to, and he answered a lot of them, in his own voice. A very good interviewer, also.
Suzy
@Another Scott: Reading the post of Eclectablog, I’m becoming more and more convinced that Bloomberg has a very good chance at BUYING the nomination of the Democratic Party. Recruiting political operatives and paying them BIG wages ? He’s already made the media market very pricey for all the other candidates, and he will make the “political staff market” too pricey too.
The Bloomberg campaign is the perfect demonstration of how in America democracy is completely distorted by Money.
Bloomberg: the proof that money can buy anything in America.
Problem: if he is nominated, would the democratic coalition hold together? Maybe just a few months in order to beat Trump. But after that ??
Frankly, if Bloomberg succeeds, I sense that there could be a realignment of political forces in America. Hard-left (25%-30%), Hard-right (25%-30%) ,and a coalition between Center-left, Center and Center-right (40%-50%). The independents who are disgusted republicans are in search of a political party. If they “invade” the Democratic Party, all bets are off.
NotMax
@Suzy
He can’t affect the prices charged for campaign ads. Media market outlet competitive pricing is regulated.
From the FEC:
from the FCC:
Kattails
Lovely quotes, thank you.
@zhena gogolia: Yes please, seconded. I know it’s late, spent all day cleaning, but I would be very happy to see that if anyone’s still listening out there….