.
DEMOCRATS: Give people money so they don’t die
REPUBLICANS: Kill as many people as we can and tank the economy to cripple a Biden presidency
MEDIA: pic.twitter.com/9AxlUorS89
— Matt Negrin, HOST OF HARDBALL AT 7PM ON MSNBC (@MattNegrin) December 12, 2020
McConnell doesn’t give a rat’s arse how many of his constituents suffer, but he’s not good at keeping his caucus in line, and some members of that caucus are worried they don’t have his electoral immunity — or a multimillionaire wife to support them if they’re returned to the private sector:
U.S. lawmakers plan to split $908 billion COVID-19 plan into two parts: source https://t.co/Zfk9djohmu pic.twitter.com/KSgFRBaME8
— Reuters (@Reuters) December 14, 2020
A $908 billion bipartisan COVID-19 relief plan set to be introduced in the U.S. Congress as early as Monday will be split into two packages in a bid to win approval, a person briefed on the matter said…
One will be a $748 billion measure, which contains money for small businesses, the jobless and COVID-19 vaccine distribution. The other will include some key sticking points: liability protections for business and $160 billion for state and local governments.
The leaders of the House of Representatives and Senate did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
One of the sponsors of the $908 billion plan, Democratic Senator Joe Manchin, said earlier on Sunday it would be introduced formally on Monday…
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke on Sunday for 30 minutes with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin “to discuss the latest developments on the omnibus and COVID talks,” Pelosi spokesman Drew Hammill wrote on Twitter.
“The speaker reiterated her view that a compromise on the liability issue should be found that does not jeopardize workers’ safety,” Hammill said.
Also on Sunday, House No. 2 Democrat Steny Hoyer suggested his party might be willing to accept a coronavirus relief deal without the state and local aid that Democrats have been insisting should be part of it…
Shut up, Steny:
Here's the cold hard politics of this for Dems: A deal w/o state/local aid is available after 1/5 if Dems lose the GA runoffs. Conversely, a deal w/state & local aid is available if Dems win the runoffs. Therefore, don't negotiate against yourselves. Don't give Mitch anything. https://t.co/mx6IoRfP1u
— Blank Slate (@blankslate2017) December 13, 2020
Washington isn’t broken. It’s blocked at the slammed-shut door of the Senate Majority Leader. https://t.co/isJv6ag4dn
— Sheldon Whitehouse (@SenWhitehouse) December 12, 2020
The budgets of GOP-led states are being hit equally hard since the pandemic hit, despite congressional Republicans’ claim that including state aid in a coronavirus relief deal would amount to a bailout for states run by Democrats. By @geoffmulvihill. https://t.co/B736dXItng
— The Associated Press (@AP) December 13, 2020
Let's have this debate. If all Republicans are really capable of offering with their call for "divided government" is a check on silly lurid fictions about defunding police and antifa burning down cities under the direction of Empress @AOC, then say so:https://t.co/Lqz0lAEfB4 pic.twitter.com/15Zpi4477L
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) December 10, 2020
39 Hours to the end of Open Enrollment
Frankensteinbeck
When McConnell debated McGrath, and she brought up how people were suffering, McConnell laughed. He loves the misery, poverty, and death that the pandemic is spreading. He cares about how many of his constituents suffer. He’s willing to risk his majority leader status to cause as much suffering as possible, because he likes it.
SFAW
Sargent is SO cute that way.
mrmoshpotato
?If I were me, I’d beat your turtle-faced fascist ass with that seasick crocodile!?
mrmoshpotato
@Frankensteinbeck: Deplorable.
PenAndKey
@Frankensteinbeck: I took that not as a laugh of enjoyment, but a laugh that clearly broadcast, “and why should I care?”. Not that that’s any better.
WereBear
@Frankensteinbeck:
I recently found out just how much his ex-wife and kids hate his guts. Hard-earned, I’m sure.
sab
Stupid question here: doesn’t liability protection for businesses protect them only from their customers? Workers are under workers comp, aren’t they?
Nicole
@sab: It’s not a stupid question; I think it’s about protecting companies that willfully disregard Covid practices and force their workers to come in to unsafe conditions from getting sued by those workers (or their families, if the workers die of Covid).
sab
@Nicole: My point is workers can’t sue under tort law. They are under workers’comp, which pretty much sucks as liability coverage.
IANAL but I thought workers had to rely on the results of employer provided health insurance and workers comp coverage duking it out between them. The workers have no other remedies.
Gin & Tonic
@sab: I had a worker’s comp claim many years ago. It is, at best, adequate. It will (did) cover necessary medical expenses, but that’s it.
dmsilev
@sab: No, I think the idea was to grant immunity to businesses to all liability, from customers and employees alike, to any lawsuits arising from COVID. In other words, “chicken processing plants, feel free to jam your workers as close together as you possibly can, it’s all good.”.
McConnell truly is as repellent as Trump.
germy
Did they give an interview? They’ve always been a mystery to me. I didn’t know they were talking about him.
Immanentize
@sab: Workers Comp covers injuries caused by negligence. Tort relief still exists for claims of willful or reckless misconduct.
BlueNC
@sab: I think, although IA_also_NAL, that workers could possibly sue for
negligencesee proper terminology in #13. The business must provide safe working conditions and if it does not (blocked emergency exit?), the business could be held liable for injuries.The “business liability relief” is to disallow suing for COVID even if the business
is negligenthas willful or reckless misconduct. So, for example, forcing people to come to work on-site and then *not* requiring masks?sab
@Immanentize: Thank you. That was my question…
ETA: …answered.
Booger
@sab: Workers Comp would cover them for the illness (medical costs and a portion of lost wages, usually after an arduous struggle even though it’s designed to be no fault) but not for the inevitable deaths, at a reasonable scale.
BC in Illinois
The Electoral College has started. (Vermont.)
Biden 3 – Trump 0
CNN’s Tracker
Betty
It drives me crazy that Mitch’s play has been obvious for months and only now does that reality seem to broken through. Dems are not good at getting their message across.
dmsilev
WaPo “Breaking news” banner: “BREAKING: The electoral college votes today to formally select the next president. Follow along as states finalize Joe Biden’s win.”
I hope Trump sees that.
Baud
@BC in Illinois:
Trump’s tantrums do have the benefit of providing a civics lesson on our electoral process to a lot of Americans.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty: Aren’t good at or are blocked from? Most people get their info from the media. How much traction do Democratic arguments get there?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@BlueNC: Is the liability shield specific to COVID? Or does it cover other things too?
dmsilev
@BC in Illinois:
Somewhat surprised that New Hampshire didn’t insist on going first.
Chyron HR
Couldn’t someone just get Mitch alone in an elevator and break his fingers? His old man bones must be brittle enough.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chyron HR: You’re someone. Why don’t you try it?
Chief Oshkosh
@Betty: I don’t disagree that Dems could message better, but we have a press that, at the local, regional, and national levels, is still fundamentally treating an attempted overthrow of democracy as an a legitimate difference of opinion among parties. I think to get their attention, Pelosi would have to do something very unlike her. Several have suggested that she not seat the 126, but apparently that is not possible. Maybe she could seat them separately, maybe over in the corner with dunce caps on. I wonder if there are House rules about not being seated on committees? Maybe she could just deprive them of “privileges.”
I would damned sure call for thorough and individual reviews of every federally-funded program in their districts.
sab
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Good question. Sneak in rewrite of all tort under cover of Covid relief?
Complicated? State v federal? Which entity has precedence?Obviously IANAL.
Sure Lurkalot
@Omnes Omnibus:
Precisely and same as it ever was.
Chyron HR
@Omnes Omnibus:
No access to Capitol Hill, for starters.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
So Miller claims that they’re having alternate slates of electors vote in contested states. They’ve been skirting sedition for weeks, but these feel like overt acts by the electors and the planners.
BlueNC
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I’m not an expert, but I think it’s only for COVID.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/12/what-is-mitch-mcconnells-covid-19-liability-shield.html
ETA: but an opportunity to limit business liability and then extend it later? I think that might be the agenda…
p.a.
Is anyone trying to organize small business restaurants/pubs/food purveyors to put pressure on the Senate? I see local news reports constantly about the owners’ problems, hopes, and fears and their complaints about state & local gvt, but is any group on the left trying to get them to focus their concerns where they belong? I assume the national restaurant associations are reich-wing reps of the large national chains and won’t get involved.
BC in Illinois
Somebody referenced this in an earlier thread. Scott Dworkin has a tweet giving the schedule of only the Biden EC votes. Translated into Central time, it is:
9a: NH, VT =7
10a: IL =20 27
10:30a: DE, NV =9 36
11a: AZ, CT, GA,
MD, NY, PA, RI, VA =110 146
12p: MN, NM, WI =25 171
1p: CO, DC, ME, MI =31 202
2p: MA, NJ, WA =37 239
2:10p: NE =1 240
2:30p: OR =7 247
4p: CA =55 302 ! YEA! BIDEN WINS AGAIN!
6p: HI =4 306
So at 4:00 today, I will pour another celebratory glass of 1995 Ben Nevis Scotch, from the “C” clan lands of the Scottish Highlands. I have never celebrated Electoral College Day before, but this year — as always this year — is different
Kathleen
@Frankensteinbeck: His/Rethugs’ favorite musical comedy is Le Miz.
patrick II
So, the White House gets their shots tomorrow, and I am wondering how they are going to play it. Will it be an important event with cameras and encouragement? Look, I saved the country! You need to get your Trump-shots! Or, will it be downplayed as just some people getting their flu-like shots to stay consistent with how they have played this up until now?
The Moar You Know
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: my alternate Senate convicted and removed Donald Trump as president months ago. I’m not sure why he’s not obeying what were our very, very clear instructions.
different-church-lady
Holy katz, every single thing Michael Cohen said before the election came true:
BlueNC
@p.a.: I own a small business and therefore get outreach from the GOP all the time. They simply assume that a business owner must support them. But…
I think there’s a missed opportunity in this demographic, but I’m not a political strategist…
BC in Illinois
At 10am Central time four states – – Vermont, New Hampshire, Tennessee, and Indiana — have voted. Trump 22 – Biden 7. Trump by a three-to-one margin.
Statistically, it’s a one-in-a-gazillion chance for Biden to come back from this deficit.
We’re calling it for Trump.
Baud
@BC in Illinois:
Parler is that way ➡️
cmorenc
Unfortunately, despite blatant COVID malfeasance by Trump and McConnell-led GOP Senators, in the runup to the election, the D messaging that otherwise should have resulted in D Senate control got over-dominated in the final two to four weeks by:
I’d like to blast progressives who pushed the “defund the police” meme into the sun. That was the most repulsive way possible to sell the overwhelming majority of the electorate on the legitimate notion that in light of George Floyd, etc. policing needs serious reform of priorities, training, and funding allocation (change where the money is spent, not starve the police for funding).
rikyrah
Just Chuck
I’m not feeling all that hopeful about GA. First off, local pols outperformed T, even those closely aligned with him. Secondly, our people don’t show up for midterms and specials. Frankly I think the House should just walk over to the Senate building and pay them a visit. With cricket bats.
Baud
@Just Chuck:
I don’t think anyone is under the illusion that we are favored to win.
The Moar You Know
@cmorenc: I’m going to my grave convinced that these so-called “progressives” were trying to throw the election to Trump.
There’s most definitely a time and place for that conversation. It’s “after your candidate for president who won is sworn in”. Not before.
Starfish
@cmorenc: It wasn’t progressives pushing it any more than usual. It was Republicans scaremongering about it.
If it wasn’t that, Democrats would still be called communist, socialist Marxists.
You are giving the police abolition movement much more power than it has.
The issues below are some of the things that real police abolitionists are working on.
Some states are refusing to give inmates the COVID vaccine in the order recommended by medical professionals.
Also, how many federal prisoners has Trump executed in the last week so kindly shut your nonsense down.
debbie
@The Moar You Know:
It wasn’t malfeasance so much as it was failure to step back and think that a very snappy slogan could be twisted by opponents. The creators were too in love with their own ingenuity to see others’ disingenuity.
Another Scott
@BlueNC: The trouble with lawsuits after the fact, of course, that it’s a long, drawn-out process without assurance of having a sensible, fair outcome for those injured (or their survivors).
Even if Moscow Mitch somehow wins the battle on liability protections, there are ways that Biden and the Dems can win the war.
E.g. OSHA and CDC and other regulatory requirements can be strengthened and codified with teeth. So that places have to demonstrate that they are operating safely in advance, so that individual people don’t have to go to court in the first place. Yeah, people may not be able to sue, but the federal government can shut them down or fine the hell out of them if they’re unsafe.
Plus, Congress cannot be constrained by prior lawmaking – they can always change the law when Moscow Mitch is finally gone.
We’ll see what happens, while we fight them every single day.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@Another Scott:
Mitch’s proposal would defang OSHA too.
Immanentize
@debbie: No Democrat ran on “Defund the Police.” Not one. That is Republican propaganda plain and simple.
Activists are not the people who run for office and sometimes their goals are not wholly aligned with winning elections.
Stop blaming Democrats for reactions to violent supremacist actions. They don’t have the agency here.
Actually replying to cmorenc, I suppose.
Sure Lurkalot
@The Moar You Know:
I don’t disagree but there never seems to be any outrage about defunding social security and Medicare, food stamps, the ACA. But any talk about disproportionate spending for police and military is totally off limits. We spent so much on military equipment that the excess went to police and changed their tactics…but we can’t talk about that.
Nicole
@Immanentize:
This. It’s making me crazy that the accepted story from the 2020 down-ballot races is that Democrats lost because they ran on “Defund the Police” instead of the truth, which is that Republicans painted Democrats as wanting to defund the police and some voters fell for it hook, line and sinker.
rikyrah
@Just Chuck:
1.2 MILLION Absentee ballots requested for the runoff
amount requested for the General Election in November?
1.3 Million
of that 1.2 million, almost 90,000 from people who DID NOT vote in November, and who skewed young.
Citizen Alan
@debbie:
This describes the entire Progressive movement from the Nader campaign to the present day. And possibly all the way back to McGovern.
Baud
@Sure Lurkalot: First, what @Immanentize said.
Second, you can talk about whatever you want to talk about. But voters can react to your talk they way they want as well.
cain
Water is wet. This has always been their problem. Unfortunately, I don’t know the inner workings of the party to point out where things are going wrong.
I do believe that a lot of that is the attitude of the media towards the Democratic party. We are nerds and boring – the Republicans are assholes who like to kick sand in your face at the beach.
Citizen Alan
@Nicole:
My FB feed was full of otherwise intelligent people who insisted that any Dems who didn’t run on Defund The Police were no better than Republicans. And a few (who I finally blocked) really did mean Abolish The Police.
Another Scott
@Baud: See above.
As we know, the Executive Branch has powers of its own. Congress can do a lot, but so can the Executive. They can battle it out.
We’re not doomed, even if Moscow Mitch wins this battle. The war never ends.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kent
This.
I don’t know of a single Democratic politician who pushed “defund the police”. At best it was limited to a few non-Democratic lefty types like Kshama Sawant in Seattle who always runs as a socialist against Democrats.
The Democratic failure was in not doing better counter-messaging.
Kent
Sure, but I bet very few of them were swing state voters in IA, ME, or NC where critical Senate races were happening.
Baud
@Kent:
AOC has definitely pushed defund the police. Maybe others too, but I’ve seen some of her tweets using that phrase. But the vast majority of Dems did not endorse the phrase.
evap
@rikyrah: Wow, that makes me just a little bit more optimistic. I voted this morning, and there was no line. It was much less busy than the first day of early voting (at the same location) for the general election. And I dropped off my elderly mom’s absentee ballot last night, so that’s two votes for Warnock and Ossoff :)
Nicole
@cain:
There’s a cartoon out there showing two lines of people queued up for “answers.” One of the lines is “Complicated but right” and the other is “Simple but wrong.” And of course, you can guess which line is longer. I think it’s titled “Science vs Everything Else,” but it applies to so many things.
Kotaku, I think it was, had a recent article about a new video game that features Ronald Reagan, that is a fine read for those who hate Reagan, and one of the things the author mentioned was that Jimmy Carter was, overall, pretty honest with the American people, but Americans didn’t want that; Americans wanted Reagan’s shiny simple lies.
I swear, I think the only way for more effective messaging for Democrats (I say “more effective,” not “better”) is if they start doing shiny simple lies, and I don’t see the policy wonks in the Party doing that, as they seem interested in actually doing a good job for constituents.
Frankensteinbeck
@different-church-lady:
It wasn’t exactly a difficult prediction. Anybody who has met a toxic narcissist knew that Trump will try every single thing he can think of to overturn the election, and will never admit that he lost, and also that he figured he owned the Supreme Court and that was his ace-in-the-hole. Trump will try everything he can think of. He has no reason not to. He has already tried to have Biden arrested, but that requires an investigation, and two investigations turned up nothing. The military has already had to say they’re not going to get involved in a coup. He has tried to pressure congress. He might have been stupid enough that someone sold him on an idea that he could have his own electors. None of the moral, ethical, or adherence to norms issues that would stop even evil regular people apply, and Hell, he has nothing to lose.
Betty Cracker
@Starfish:
I agree. I also think “defund the police” is a lousy slogan that is actually a reasonable policy that most folks here would agree with, i.e., spend less on military hardware to cops and redirect those funds to substance abuse and mental health treatment, education, police de-escalation training, etc.
There are people who don’t think police should exist at all, but that’s very much a fringe view, just like “open borders” is a fringe view which virtually no elected Democrat supports but which is used to scaremonger against the entire party. “Defund the police” is a policy that was boiled down to a slogan which is easily demagogued. But Dems and any issue they raise would be demagogued regardless, as you pointed out.
I’ll cite an example I’ve cited before, and I believe it because I saw it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears among fellow white people: the white backlash to the Black Lives Matter movement played a role in Hillary Clinton’s defeat, and had the movement been a thing before 2012, a backlash to it might have cost Obama a second term.
There should be nothing remotely controversial about the BLM statement or kneeling during the national anthem, but there is because of racism and reactionary demagoguery. There always will be racism and reactionary demagoguery, and I don’t know what to do about it, but shitting on people who are sincerely trying to change a horrible system isn’t particularly helpful, IMO.
Bill Arnold
@sab:
No, it’s a broad “right-to-kill” for corporations. It is legal permission for corporations to disregard any anti-pandemic non-pharmaceutical measures (masks, distancing, etc) that might possibly interfere with profit maximization, or indeed with their general right to (deniably; that makes it sweeter) kill and maim customers and workers for fun. There are plenty of psychopaths (DSM sense) in corporate (and political) leadership positions, and some of them find pleasure in seeing others suffer and/or die. (Some of them just want to maximize profits and don’t care whether their customers and workers suffer and/or die.)
McConnell, who is in a similar class of evil beings who feed off the suffering of others, is just trying to help his fellow kind. Probably, since he’s thoroughly selfish, for quid-pro-quo reasons.
different-church-lady
CAN’T
STOP
DOOM
SCROLLING!!!
different-church-lady
@Citizen Alan: Here we are, stuck in the middle with you…
debbie
@Betty Cracker:
Seconded.
cain
None of us would stand for it either. They’d lose their own constituents. I love honesty, we love policy – but yes, I think your Reagan example was spot on – they want the fantasy story about America – eg shining city on the hill etc. Which I can understand to some extent.
I think the parallels with the evangelical movement is hard to ignore.
different-church-lady
@Immanentize: Most democratic candidates did not. A tiny handful embraced the concept.
What did happen was that the very-online left took this magnificently hair-brained slogan, amplified it, and handed the fascist-sympathizers a cudgel to pound the shit out of every democratic candidate in a violet-colored district. WAY TO GO ROSE TWITTER!
Hoodie
@Nicole: Face it, some activists gave them the paint. The most effective part of the BLM protests was 8 minutes of video of Derek Chauvin strangling George Floyd, not placards saying “Defund the Police.” My sense was that, up until then, even “Black Lives Matter” was of limited effectiveness because many were able to twist this into “Black Lives Matter More” among the unwashed. However, the George Floyd incident legitimized it because of the sheer disregard for black life the video revealed. It seems to me that the likelihood of that kind of crystallizing event for “Defund the Police” is extremely unlikely.
different-church-lady
@Betty Cracker:
There should be nothing remotely controversial about wearing a scrap of cloth across you nose to keep yourself alive during a fuckin’ pandemic, but here we are. Sociopaths have full control of our politics.
cain
@Betty Cracker:
It’s a lousy slogan because it could be weaponized against Dems. I think to some extent that might have been on purpose to force Dems to defend it or something. I don’t know what is in the mind of these progressives – but it would not surprise me if part of this is to force Dems into a corner.
Rethink the police or some other innocuous term would have been a decent rallying cry for a police that is out of control, does not serve it citizenry and is actively right wing, seditious, and racist.
JustRuss
Some truth to that, but more so Republicans are good at working the refs…largely because the refs want to be worked.
different-church-lady
@Hoodie: The goddamned problem liberal/democratic politicians and activists have is naivety: they think their reasoned policy views are just self-evident.
If you’re constantly explaining to your allies that your slogan doesn’t mean what it sounds like, then maybe the problem is NOT THAT YOUR AUDIENCE IS STUPID.
Then on top of that they can’t figure out why our enemies aren’t coming around to their superior logic.
Baud
As a general matter, not specific to the particular phrase at issue here, I dislike the argument that because the GOP will demonize anything, the way we choose to express ourselves has no effect on how voters and the public react. Regardless of whether Trump calls Biden a communist, it matters whether Biden says “I am a communist.” Same with all other messaging.
different-church-lady
@cain:
It’s a lousy slogan because it doesn’t even mean what it sounds like it means.
different-church-lady
@Baud:
Agreed. It’s a bit like playing chess and saying, “There’s no point in making my best move here because my opponent is just going to try to check-mate me anyway.”
different-church-lady
@cain:
“I like shouting slogans! The slogans I shout are good! If you think my slogan-shouting is bad you are the enemy! I know better than you!”
Frankensteinbeck
@different-church-lady:
The misunderstanding issue is vast, because I know too many people who loudly supported ‘defund the police’ who were not shy about saying they meant there should be no police, period. Even the ones who did acknowledge the necessity of some amount of police were so enthusiastic about talking about how police weren’t needed that it was hard to tell they didn’t mean complete abolishment of all police. And the totebaggers I know were horrified.
gene108
@sab:
Insurers have put in exemptions for COVID related losses in their policies. The odds a worker’s compensation policy does not have an exclusion for COVID is pretty low.
I doubt any worker’s compensation policy would pick up a COVID related claim, because of the exemption
Given the abysmal lack of tracing ability we have, and unchecked community spread proving someone got COVID from work will also be very hard.
scav
Being centrist and cooperative — trying to work too hard with republicans and within legal precedent — is being weaponized against Biden, as is hiring people who know what they’re doing — so should Democrats abandon all of these practices as well?
There’s no pleasing some people.
different-church-lady
@Frankensteinbeck: Well yeah, that too. But complete abolishing of the police would have been easier to disown as fringe-left shouting if we hadn’t additionally had people going, “Oh, well, no no, defund doesn’t mean that, it actually means something quite reasonable, let’s have some tea and talk about it.”
This isn’t just internet shit. Someone asked me to do some audio clean-up for a podcast. A corporation did a Zoom trying to advocate for racial justice, and they’ve got a featured guest expert on the subject, and they ask him to explain Defund the Police, and the first thing the guy does is say, “It doesn’t mean getting rid of all police” and I’m thinking, if that is the very first thing this guy feels he has to say then we are not off the beam thinking it’s a shitty slogan.
Frankensteinbeck
@different-church-lady:
I agree 100%.
bluefoot
@dmsilev: Yep, the liability waiver was for all COVID-related liability. Basically it gave/gives employers carte blanche to do whatever they want and everyone can starve or die.
Immanentize
For all of you horrified by (but still talking about) “Defund the Police,” I am begging you not to read or listen to Dr. Martin Luther King. I fear his comments on the moderate white would land you all in a hospital.
Sure, he has been white washed by history, but his actual words, which were wielded viciously against politicians of his day, are still available to read somewhere, I suppose. Also too! Stay away from Malcolm X, Eldridge Cleaver, James Baldwin, Nina Simone, etc. Some of their words would kill you straight away!
p.a.
If you’re explaining you’re losing. If whoever came up with “Defund the Police” and decided it was a winner for the overall voting population had stopped by a random top-10,000 blog and run it by the people here, how many wouldn’t have said, “better rethink that my friend.”
Does not matter whether no Dem candidate down to school committee hopeful ever said it. The conservative movement/Republican Party has national messaging platforms thanks to Murdoch and hate radio that the left/Dems just do not have. MSNBC? Please.
Until and unless this can change the megaphone advantage is all theirs.
trnc
@BC in Illinois: This page has the tally plus each state listed at the bottom.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/14/politics/2020-electoral-college-vote-tracker/index.html?iid=politics_electoral_college_bop
Nicole
@Hoodie:
And there is jackall we can do about that, unfortunately. There will always be activists who, as was pointed out by @different-church-lady will always assume the truth in what they’re saying is self-evident. “Defund the police” is simple and wrong. “Reallocate funds away from military-level hardware and towards social service workers and better training at de-escalation tactics to reduce stress on the police force” is complex but right, and, unfortunately, doesn’t fit easily onto a poster board. I mean, we all thought in 2016 it was self-evident that Trump was unfit for office, but apparently it took four years of him demonstrating it and even then plenty of people aren’t convinced.
And Democratic politicians get stuck, because if they say, “No! Don’t defund the police,” THEN they risk being accused of being just like Republicans. They can’t win, and I don’t know the solution, other than the GOP continuing to break things so thoroughly and so cruelly that people like my sister-in-law finally start to give up on them. Which is not really a good solution.
Ultimately, the GOP come in with a huge advantage because racism in a nation where the majority of voters are still white, and racism is a very challenging thing to overcome. Worth every step of the fight, but racism does not respond to reason, compassion, or any of the other tools Democrats prefer to use.
trnc
I believe the caucus leader makes the assignments. McCarthy probably just throws darts at the list of names.
WaterGirl
@patrick II: I thought they
announced a change of heart(sorry, facts not in evidence) they changed their mind and were NOT going to get them.Betty Cracker
@Baud:
Has anyone really made that argument? Off course it matters, which is why we call some slogans “lousy,” a description that presumes the existence of ones that are less (or more) lousy.
I do think it’s important to be realistic about the stakes. Maybe “reimagine the police” is better, but in a country where masks have been politicized during a pandemic, better sloganeering only gets you so far. It’s still a call to change the status quo, and that’s the real issue.
Ksmiami
@Betty: I really think they need to hire the best agencies for a complete message upgrade and move away from the traditional cadre of political consultants they’ve relied on. Been saying this for years
Suzanne
@Nicole:
So, as someone who used to work in marketing and advertising, the Democratic messaging makes me absolutely crazy. For example, here, on this thread, we have people discussing which candidates actually said “Defund the Police”. As if it matters. We are a national brand. It is one thing. It doesn’t matter if AOC said it or not, because Abigail Spanberger’s constituents are going to hear it and assume that she supports it because literally that’s why political parties exist. The messaging needs to be always always always aspirational, not complicated. And, above all, it needs to be one overarching message.
Our roll call during the convention did this brilliantly. I watched that and genuinely my heart felt larger. That was something I wanted to be a part of. Because there was one message: we are diverse and distant, but we are one unified thing.
Just One More Canuck
@Kathleen: He was rooting for Javert
Nicole
@Betty Cracker:
That’s a really good point. It’s easy to get people frightened about change, no matter what the change is.
Immanentize
@Ksmiami: I support this.!
Defund the Consultants!
Suzanne
@Ksmiami: YES. They need to talk to people who sell stuff for a living. Not political consultants.
dww44
@Baud: But that doesn’t mean we don’t fight and fighting means, GOTV efforts. I’ve been contacted twice about working with that already. It purely is a matte rof getting our voters to the polls. As per the later comment from Rikyrah There’s no way we are gonna be able to combat that constant stream of vile and smearing and racist ads running incessantly on TV and on You Tube and elsewhere. It is what it is. We just need to deploy the better strategy which is GOTV. Winning fair and square.
Every so often for Warnock to be able to continue with his wonderfully calm and pleasant pushbacks on the Loeffler and Republican party and various who know who they are super pacs, that’s about the best we can hope for. There are pro democratic attack ads on both the R candidates. They are tough and mostly focused on their prioritizing their own interests over and above their own.
dww44
@dww44: i also meant to reply to @justchuck.
Geminid
I check out some of the social justice advocates by following the Charlottesville amateur journalist who calls herself “Socialist Dogmom.” Most of them cling to the slogan still. Aside from scolding Mayor DiBlasio over the issue in the spring, Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14) did not seem to push it much. In fact, I was happy to see her and Congresswoman Omar keep a fairly low profile during this past election. They may have learned from the July 2019 blowup in the Democratic caucus over emergency border funding legislation. But republicans were portraying Democrats as captives of “the Left” long before “the Squad” popped up. I’m not sure what to do about that. The media made Ocasio-Cortez into something she is not, perhaps because they like “stars” as much as Hollywood reporters. A lot of regular people do also. I just hope Speaker Pelosi, Chief Whip Clyburn, and Caucus Chairman Jeffries can keep the peace in the Democratic Congressional Caucus next year. With such a narrow Democratic majority in the next Congress, their cat herding skills will be put to the test.
scav
There’s also this underlying idea that somewhere there is a single organizing committee that is creating, polishing and focus-grouping slogans, slogans for a singular, overarching, national plan that is designed to exactly tickle the suburban middle class. Somebody said this somewhere, somebody else picked it up because it was snappy and captured the moment, another because it made a good headline, another because it was scary and oh look! It’s now everywhere. It’s not always that different from a craze for pet rocks and they’re dangerous too.
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker: It would have been better to be guerilla about it. Like “specialize the police” or “perfect the police”. Don’t let the GOP grab the rhetorical ground they want. Then you can say “we want our amazing, elite police forces to be spending all of their effort on crimes that really make us unsafe, and we’ll have social workers and mental health counselors there to take all that superfluous work off their plate”.
marketing: make your weaknesses your strengths!
Nicole
@Suzanne:
Oooh! Or how about, “Save the Police!” Just as the “Too” is implied in “Black Lives Matter,” the “From Themselves” is implied in “Save the Police.” ;) Right-wingers won’t know what to do. “They don’t need saving!” appears to run counter to their claim (false) that police work is the most dangerous job evah.
PJ
@Immanentize: Polls have shown that black people, living today, want more and better policing in their neighborhoods, not less.
Ksmiami
@Suzanne: For years, the Democratic political consultants have been in love with their own voices- and a complete waste of money. There are really brilliant agencies that could help kick the GOP to the curb if they basically id’ the Democratic Party as responsible for everything we enjoy in the 21st century and the GOP wanting to take us back to the dark ages. It really is that simple
taumaturgo
It actuallity, the record shows that Democrats who stood behind and didn’t hide from the BLM and other progressive issues WON their races. Those who dodge and hid who happened to run in red leaning district lost. Florida 26th and 27th.
Suzanne
@Nicole: That would have been a far more effective approach.
Always always, we should push the GOP onto the back foot.
Ksmiami
@Suzanne: make policing local again… since that is the crux of most of the problems in departments- and Republican Leandra love that localism…
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I see it all the time.
Suzanne
@Ksmiami: Agree.
Philbert
@different-church-lady
I see this constantly, the Dems seem to think the general public knows actual facts.More realistically the general public is busy and not really paying attention, and the conservative media meme fog sets their baseline, even if their not very partisan.
There is an ego thing to politics, getting the thrill of feeling believed without having to explain anything. The downfall of many, once reality rears its ugly head.
I sort of wanted Mayor Pete to be Press Secretary, as he does such a fine job correcting the record without setting of all their damn yelling.
taumaturgo
@Immanentize: * Frederick Douglas
Woodrow/asim
Hi. “Defund the Police” came originally from Black Activists.
Conflating them with “leftists” allows people to drag and demean that movement without confronting the idea of telling said Black Activists their slogan “sucks” — which is pretty obviously bad optics.
As a Black man, this is an exhausting and frustrating discussion. It’s been going on since at least the day after the election. Hell, I raised it in a prior comments thread, weeks ago, and got “are you sure this is really an issue”?
It is. It’s painful that so many think we’re going to win, or lose, based on “picking the right words,” when people like Abrams have already shown how we win. It’s painful to see people debate under false premises terms meant to improve my lot in life — because even if I disagree, I acknowledge these people, these black activists, are doing the work on the ground, and in many cases have been there for a lot longer that the #BLM hashtag has existed.
That so many demand we Democrats tip-toe around this one aspect of the Party’s structure and makeup — an aspect that happened to correlate with one of the Parties’ biggest voting blocs — when it’s been clear since “card-carrying member of the ACLU” that the GOP will demonize anything we say…I just don’t get it.
As the old saying goes, “straighten up, and fly right”.
p.a.
@Philbert: He did a good-to-great job every time I saw him, and step 1 was he usually clearly and quickly deconstructed Rethug-framed questions, and put forth the Dem position well. You’d think more actual politicians would be good at this! Maybe those in safe seats are too secure and unpracticed without primary challenges.
cain
Why the fuck are we doing vote counting for the EC? I’ve never seen anything like this in an election – it’s like the press is waiting to see if someone is going to throw a hammer into the whole process and fuck everything else. They want to be there if some fucking drama shows up.
We should not be focusing so much on this EC vote. Nobody is going to change the vote – the damn thing is over.
it will take an act of Congress to change anything. That’s not gonna happen with the Democrats owning the House.
LuciaMia
I think if Mitch’s heart tried to “grow three times that day”, his wizened hide would explode.
cain
While I am on record on ‘this slogan sucks’ – I think part of that reaction is how poorly we respond when challenged by the noise machine. Because we either do not unifying get behind it (like the GOP would) the press purposely dividing us because just like in this blog we get all hot under the collar and thus get more viewership.
I ack that black activists have done a great job on the ground and primarily all of this is a ground game – but we still have 40% of a mostly white contingent held together by xenophobia, white privilege, and racism. That is still a non-trivial number and so this work is imperative in replacing that 40% with a new group of people. But fights over these messaging are distracting. But who knows, I’m in a bubble.
Geminid
@Immanentize: Martin Luther King’s words about white liberals are well known. But John Clyburn, who fought alongside King, was quite explicit in calling the “defund the police” slogan counterproductive, likening it to the “burn baby burn” slogan that he says helped derail the civil rights movement in the late 60s. Clyburn’s statements on this particular question were widely reported, and you should look them up. You can handle them, even if you think others could not handle King’s.
Baud
@cain:
(1) Rubs Trump’s nose in it.
(2) The media hopes some wingnut makes a spectacle of himself.
burnspbesq
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
At the very least, it’s an act in furtherance of a conspiracy.
Immanentize
@Woodrow/asim: I am with you on this.
burnspbesq
@Kent:
The Austin City Council voted to reduce the Police Department’s FY 2020-21 budget by $150 million. If that doesn’t count as “pushing,” I’m not sure you and I are speaking the same language.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@burnspbesq:
Fake Electors at Arraignment – “But we were never told by Powell/Giuliani/Wood/Miller that this was a crime!”
Powell/Giuliani/Wood/Miller at Arraignment/Disciplinary Hearing – “Free Speech! Zealous representation in a politically charged case! Good faith extension! We didn’t read the affidavits before submitting them! We didn’t check the CVs of our experts! DON’T HOLD US RESPONSIBLE!”
Immanentize
@Geminid: Clyburn, if you haven’t noticed, is a very conservative fellow. “Burn baby burn” did not ruin elections any more than “drill baby drill” won them. Back then and today, it is violent racism and monied interests — not slogans — that Democrats must fight against to win.
Two cycles ago, everyone had to run against Nancy Pelosi. Now everyone has to run against AOC. Soon, everyone will have to run against Kamala Harris. See a pattern here?
Immanentize
@burnspbesq: Good for them!!
That sounds like a community victory. I wish Boston would end the practice of indemnifying police in abuse suits. That would save the city tens of millions.
Geminid
I was checking out Rachel Bitecofer’s twitter feed, and she is saying that Democrats should throw the phrase we’re arguing about back at the republicans, since McConnell and other republicans’ resistance to state financial aid is in fact “defunding the police.” Bitecofer moved on from an academic career as political scientist into advocacy, and now it seems she will get into political engineering. Bitecofer is starting a PAC devoted to political messaging. She has a pronounced view that the Democrats can and should be smarter and more aggressive in their messaging. It will be interesting to see what she comes up with.
dirge
@scav: Somebody said this somewhere, somebody else picked it up because it was snappy and captured the moment, another because it made a good headline, another because it was scary and oh look! It’s now everywhere.
There’s an underappreciated bias in favor of things that are not self explanatory, in news, on social media, and notably here.
We could have had a conversation like, he said “stop killer cops; demilitarize the police,” she said “yep, hard to argue with that.” Maybe we did, but it got buried under a blizzard of comments trying to explain what “defund the police” really means, and is it good or bad as policy, politics, rhetoric… It gets more play precisely because it provokes argument.
I think that’s part of the reason for the endless attempts to explain Trump voters: people keep going around and around because there actually is no generally satisfactory explanation.
If that bias is evident here, it’s even worse if you’ve got 24 hours of news to fill. How much time are you going to spend on “dying of preventable disease is bad” when your shouty panelists can’t stop talking past each other about the inexplicable anti-mask weirdos.
And this is great for republicans, because the more absurd your words and actions are, the more attention you get. And terrible for Democrats, because you’re pretty much guaranteed to get stuck explaining awful slogans every time anybody anywhere says something dumb within earshot of a reporter.
Low Key Swagger
Save the police is brilliant.
catclub
The same people who organized massive, successful campaigns by rural hospitals and rural Doctors to get red states to expand medicaid in 2014.
The same people who convinced GM to come out in favor of single payer health insurance, because it would be great for GM’s stockholders.
tribalism rules our lives.
Soprano2
This, completely. We can say all we want that it doesn’t actually mean “defund”, and that most Democrats didn’t run on it, but that doesn’t change the fact that it absolutely sounds to the average low-information voter like they want to get rid of the police completely, because everyone knows that if you defund something it goes away. I agree, a slogan that was even marginally better thought out, like “Rethink Policing”, could have been a plus. I think “Defund the Police”, even if Democrats didn’t run on it, hurt them on the margins enough that we lost down ballot races and Senate seats that we thought we should have won. When you have to constantly explain to people that no, the plain meaning of that slogan isn’t actually what it means, you’re going to lose them. It might make the people who came up with the slogan feel good, but it certainly didn’t help Democrats who were running for office any.
Woodrow/asim
@Geminid: I generally like Clyburn. When his words were noted on this very blog’s comments, I said at the time I’d think on his words.
And I think he made a horrible mistake. Just as Obama and Biden are, by spending any time decrying this slogan. He conflated sloganeering with the multi-pronged attack on Progressive values that the GOP was waged for decades — because it’s easy to do.
As a result: We Democrats are so damn eager to run like hell from anything that smacks of Risk, and it’s exhausting to read/watch it happen on the most innocuous of issues.
And I’m not even a supporter of the slogan, although I am of #BLM. But I sure as hell recognize that hand-waving away it’s resonance in the very community Democrats want to get out to support them, isn’t doing anyone any favors — save our enemies.
ballerat
@Citizen Alan: Co-signed. The Nader voters I’ve met still insisted they had no role in Dubya winning. But really what they wanted more was Gore to lose than Dubya to win. Oh, and there’s still not a dime’s difference between the 2 parties.
I’d like to think these dumbasses were also the core of the Defunders but my 21-year-old niece was the most vociferous Defunder I knew.
I’m convinced part of the fascination of Defund (and Nader) for certain white college kids is because it has a bit of the cachet of a rockstar revolutionary like Che with a strong whiff of anarchist fantasy of smashing all authority and defying all authority figures.
Teen dreams, IOW.
Geminid
@Immanentize: Clyburn is not a very conservative fellow.
Immanentize
@dirge: This is a very interesting take. Thanks.
burnspbesq
@Immanentize:
The problem is that it opened the door for Republican demagoguery, and Abbott drove his wheelchair through that door at over 200 mph. Within hours, he (1) threatened to take away APD’s jurisdiction over downtown, state office campuses and the area around the Capitol, and the area around UT, (2) threatened to take away sales tax revenue (in a state without an income tax, the most important revenue stream for local government) from cities that reduced police funding, and (3) threatened to take away annexation power from cities that reduced police funding. All under the disingenuous banner of “back the blue.” It was ugly, and you’ll never convince me that it didn’t affect election results, not just in Austin and Travis County but all across the region.
Geminid
To finish, Clyburn is not a very conservative fellow. By your standards, maybe, but not mine.
Soprano2
I do agree with this. However, I think it would be better to start off with a catchy slogan that doesn’t immediately make the more low-information voters that we need believe people on our side want to leave them to the mercy of criminals by getting rid of all law enforcement. I live in a more conservative area of the country, so I know how this goes over with lower-information voters, and it’s not good. I listened to the latest “Pod Save America” podcast last weekend, and they had on Anat Shenker-Osorio, who is a messaging expert, to talk about how Democrats need to quit selling the brownie recipe and start selling brownies! It was quite interesting to listen to her talk about how we need to tell people we want to do things that protect their lives better, and stuff like that. Too bad more Dems don’t listen to her.
Immanentize
@burnspbesq: When I lived in Texas, I remember that the State constitution created a weak governor system in favor of very strong, decentralized, counties (256 of ’em)! Have things changed that much that the Governor can take away all county powers?
Immanentize
@Geminid: Back in the beginning of this decade, Clyburn was one of Congress’ co-chairs of “Third Way.” He hasn’t changed except to get more conservative since then. Yeah, he’s on the conservative side for a Dem.
burnspbesq
@Immanentize:
‘Technically correct, but he won’t have any trouble getting enabling legislation through the Lege when it reconvenes in a few weeks. And with a looming primary challenge from Allen West, he has every incentive to move forward.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Immanentize:
Louisville is making that noise these days, and did it right after a friend of mine drilled a former LMPD failure for a 2M+ judgment over maliciously charging a young woman and ruining her life.
Immanentize
@Soprano2: how is this for selling brownies?
Rep. Presley’s People’s Justice Guarantee.
I think it’s quite clear and quite doable. You?
Immanentize
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
If I could change one thing — it’s the police union structures which are amazingly white. It is how, as police forces diversified, the old white police guys maintained power. It’s really a constant across the country.
Geminid
@Immanentize: “conservative for a Democrat” makes him a moderate on the general political spectrum. In my book. That means he is like at least half of the Democratic electorate. Even, I suspect, in your home state.
Tenar Arha
@Suzanne: &
@Betty Cracker: Yeah. I don’t like it, but I get it.
I mean I really didn’t have a problem with the Activists’ chant, mostly bc it made sense to me, being already aware of the arguments around reducing the role of police, or pointing out that budgets are moral documents etc. But you’re right, since I’m not even close to a normie, (none of us posting here are) I’m am totally willing to use something else….
Yet NO ONE who says they lost bc of “THE SLOGAN” seems to have bothered to suggest something better, they just tried to avoid talking about policing or how changing what we fund to better support our values is a Democratic Party priority.
And that’s the real problem, bc like messaging expert Anat Shenker-Osorio says, “Democrats need to stop selling the recipe and start selling the brownie.” She was interviewed on the last episode of Pod Save America & she used the phrase “Fund our lives.” And I was like “what she’s saying” as soon as I heard that podcast.
I don’t know how you change these folks who ran out of a desire for good governance, to write legislation, & to help people in their districts with good policies into sales and marketing professionals who easily speak “in story.” Maybe put people like ASO, Stacy Abrams, & all the flipped state & increased margins GOTV people etc. in charge.
And even though it’s fun, maybe we gotta ask Democratic Party operatives & electeds to stop arguing openly about how we tell the story, and tell them to PLEASE just tell the story. Like that the GOP is the party of corrupt politicians acting only for the interests of corporations & their mega rich donors, and hurting ordinary Americans everywhere.
ETA
Or what @Soprano2: said!
Captain C
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
IANAJ, but if I were, my response would be, “After a month in my contempt jail, you can talk about how you will ensure this will never happen again. Also, I’m personally submitting complaints to your various state bars and suggesting permanent disbarment on the grounds of rank incompetence and laziness.”
(Perhaps this is one reason why I’m not a judge.)
Ruckus
To all those wondering/talking about workers comp.
As a business owner I had to pay for Workers Comp insurance. What it covered and paid for and all it covered and paid for was on the job injuries. It was very expensive in CA at the time for reasons we don’t need to go into. There was basically one place for a smallish company to purchase this so most companies were screwed. Large companies could purchase or self insure. I also paid for regular healthcare insurance.
Workers Compensation, at least in CA covered nothing more than on the job injuries for employees and was a requirement of doing business and I believe still is. If your business was incorporated, the executives were not covered under WC. I haven’t been an employer for some time now so I have no idea what has changed, if anything.
ballerat
I believe it absolutely would have. So many white people I knew, people who had been quiet or seemingly reasonable, were made absolutely livid by “black lives matter”. It went straight to their lizard racist brain with the helpful guidance by rightwing media.
It shocked and demoralized me to see how easy their bigot buttons could be pushed. Trump no doubt noticed.
Bill Arnold
@taumaturgo:
Is there a complete (no cherry picking) (publicly available) technical analysis of this, that shows its work and numbers?
matt the semi-reasonable
The billionaire-owned NYTimes is on the side of the plutocrats against the people. I don’t care if you like crosswords, do not pay them. Do not feed the enemy army.
matt the semi-reasonable
@burnspbesq: Was the dogcatcher onboard?
Another Scott
@Immanentize: But, but, but!!
MLK, Jr. Was A Republican!!.
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
ballerat
@cain: It’s also a lousy slogan because it’s a lie. The intended goal for many was to reform the police, and for a certain segment of the activist left it was to punish the police and for others it was to eliminate (ban) them. Defunding something implies the latter two, not reform.
I think the punish and eliminate aspect was not overlooked by the people who could have been otherwise sympathetic to the actual goals, because realistically we do need police, just not racist AF killers. But twitter left is not realistic even if the consequences are real.
Geminid
@Immanentize: And as far as whether I “see a pattern here?” I’ve recognized the dynamic you describe probably as long as you have, maybe longer. I referred to it in a comment above.
J R in WV
@Bill Arnold:
Come on, TraumaTurgid doesn’t need actual complete statistics to show anything!
He has never used real data before, why expect that now?
WassamattaYou, Bill~!!~
Ruckus
@Soprano2:
One problem is that a lot of political concepts can not be put into a 2 or 3 word slogan. And if that slogan is not the actual truth of the situation it becomes it’s own worst enemy. If you understand what defund the police actually means it’s an OK slogan. If you don’t or take it literally it is a horrible slogan. Things taken out of context often/always make horrible slogans. And often lose support from all the wrong people.
In the case of the police, the concept of people coming to your town and destroying your life as you know it has been sold from the first badge made. (A side note, do you wonder why rudy went to the landscape place, did he take to heart the phrase Lawn and Order? And yes I know that’s bad..) Also how much of republican tactics rely on a catchy phrase, to disguise and deflect attention? They are trying to take away laws, trying to steal all the money, they have to redirect attention and have been for over 50 yrs. Well over.
WaterGirl
@Woodrow/asim: Thanks for taking the time to write this. I’m sorry that you had to.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Citizen Alan:
I know a few of those too. I got into pointless arguments with them.
ColoradoGuy
I’m really surprised the Democrats didn’t adopt the slogan “Better Police Now!”
Simple, because who wants police that are worse? Implied in every slogan is its opposite. The opposite of “Defund the Police” is “Increase funding/Support the Police”. This framing makes it ridiculously easy for the GOP to make the Democrats look like “lefty loonies” who want anarchy in the streets. This stereotype that goes all the way back to Nixon in 1968, and has never gone away. It is an article of faith on the right who are still afraid of the Black Panthers, or the Weather Underground.
What Democrats oppose is bad policing, of the police being unaccountable, of the police turning into a hostile army of occupation. If the police see the community as the enemy, things have completely broken down. Democratic messaging has to focus on what good policing looks like: honest, and applied to the rich as well as the poor. That’s a message everyone understands.