James Carville had an interview in Vox yesterday which is getting a lot of discussion (including at TPM, where Josh Marshall is asking readers to write in and give their opinions). The consensus seems to be that he has hit on something. I think he conflates two things.
The first is the language we use. He argues that Democrats have a problem because we use high-falutin’ language to talk about race, which ordinary folk find condescending
You ever get the sense that people in faculty lounges in fancy colleges use a different language than ordinary people? They come up with a word like “Latinx” that no one else uses. Or they use a phrase like “communities of color.” I don’t know anyone who speaks like that. I don’t know anyone who lives in a “community of color.” I know lots of white and Black and brown people and they all live in … neighborhoods.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with these phrases. But this is not how people talk. This is not how voters talk. And doing it anyway is a signal that you’re talking one language and the people you want to vote for you are speaking another language. This stuff is harmless in one sense, but in another sense it’s not.
The second is the differential between what Republicans can get away with saying, and what Democrats can say:
Take someone like Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She’s obviously very bright. She knows how to draw a headline. In my opinion, some of her political aspirations are impractical and probably not going to happen. But that’s probably the worst thing that you can say about her.
Now take someone like Marjorie Taylor Greene, the new Republican congresswoman from Georgia. She’s absolutely loonier than a tune. We all know it. And yet, for some reason, the Democrats pay a bigger political price for AOC than Republicans pay for Greene. That’s the problem in a nutshell. And it’s ridiculous because AOC and Greene are not comparable in any way.
I think we can all agree that plain speech is good, and AOC does get way more than her share of shit compared to what MTG should be getting. But did Democrats “pay a price” for AOC? Show me how they did — that’s an easy charge to make, and hard to prove. A lot of Democrats who tend to be less likely to vote are energized by AOC. Is the reason AOC gets more shit that MTG because she used “faculty lounge” language? Nah, it’s because she’s smart, young, brown and unafraid to voice her opinion, and racists hate to see that. It’s no accident that AOC gets more shit than, say, Katie Porter, who’s white and similarly unafraid to voice her progressive opinions.
As for the “pass” that MTG gets, that’s part of the DC culture that Carville has been marinating in for 30+ years. The Sunday shows, the epitome of the world Carville inhabits, are having Republicans who promoted the big lie as guests without challenging them.
Carville’s basic prescription is for Democrats to pound the insurrection as well as the scandals of folks like Gaetz and Gym Jordan, and to be more emotional. I think that’s one thing we can all agree on, but it’s not language, it’s access. I have no doubt that AOC, Katie Porter, Brian Schatz or any other Democrat pretty far to the left could get on those shows and talk plainly about Gaetz and insurrection, but the world that Carville helped to make only gives them a sliver of the access that Republicans get.
Cheryl Rofer
There is no reason to listen to James Carville on anything. None.
My sense of the interview is it’s an old white guy complaining that we should all speak old-white-guy-speak.
Spanky
Assumes facts definitely not in evidence.
germy
Carville is a rat fucker. He waits until Democrats win a majority, and then starts complaining.
He’s not on our side, is what I’m saying.
Kay
I don’t think that’s what happens. I think they find it intimidating and impenetrable. You’re pushing them away. They don’t get furious. They just drop back.
Which is just so, so sad because the language is intended to be “inclusive”, right? :)
Spanky
You have an unclosed quote in the header, btw. And you might has well have titled the post “Green Room Politics”, because that’s what Carville is actually trading in.
Starfish
@Cheryl Rofer: I came here to say this, but you were more polite about it.
I was going to say something along the lines of “James Carville is telling on himself. He is telling you that he only hangs out with old white racists.”
Gin & Tonic
I asked this yesterday: when’s the last time Carville won an actual election?
Baud
I agree with this post, but also with ignoring Carville generally. If he has made good points, someone else can make them too.
The Republicans thought it was a good line of attack. That’s about all we know.
planetjanet
If you are worried about getting on the Sunday shows, having an emotional argument will do it. Carville is right on that point.
Old School
Since I first heard the term “Latinx” from an immigrants rights organization, it’s never bothered me to hear the term used to describe that group of people. Yes, the term is relatively new. Language changes, even if James Carville might prefer that it doesn’t.
MattF
Also, AOC is an attractive young woman. Few people mention it, but I feel sure it drives the RW asshole demographic crazy. Attractive, smart, successful, has definite political opinions.
Baud
The difficulty with trying to figure out “how much is too much” with AOC or progressives generally is that we both gain some votes because of their message but also lose some votes because of their message. So you can’t tell them to STFU, but you also can’t let them going hog-wild with rhetoric that scares middle-of-the-road voters who we also need. The pundits, however, aren’t interested in doing a deep dive on how to strike the right balance.
Kay
@Baud:
I just think it’s important to consider criticism. Someone else can make the same point, that’s true, because it’s a fairly common complaint in the Democratic Party.
But we have to look at things. Something went really wrong with our ideas about what Latino voters want for example. That’s true whether you get all bent out of shape over “Latinex” or not. And it seems like our misunderstanding was really patronizing, honestly. Latinos are Americans. They have the same set of concerns as everyone else. Why were we talking to them as if they all arrived here yesterday?
WaterGirl
@Spanky:
You have to read the whole sentence to get to the part where mistermix basically says they can’t get on the shows where they would happily say those things.
Baud
@Kay: Right. I read the Carville piece yesterday and I don’t disagree with much of what he says. But he’s not a good messenger IMHO. The question is, is there anyone progressive Dems will listen to when it comes to feedback of this kind, especially where they feel like non-progressive Dems aren’t listening to their feedback. I don’t know.
WaterGirl
@MattF: The crazy Greene person presents like she thinks she’s a hot blonde, but all I see is ugly.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
One thing Carville got right, all those years ago: “It’s the economy, stupid”. We’re more than a year away from having any idea what the political landscape will be for the mid-terms.
MattF
@WaterGirl: She wants some of those Palin starbursts.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
We know that a strong economy didn’t help us at the end of Clinton and Obama’s terms, but we haven’t tested what a strong economy will mean for a mid-term election.
Or, for that matter, what sedition will mean.
WaterGirl
@Kay:
Latinos don’t necessarily have the same set of concerns as everyone else. In fact, different latino groups have different concerns from one another.
Our mistake has been in presuming that their priorities are the say. They are not. It seems that we are starting to learn that after the results from 2020. Better late than never.
Puddinhead
@Old School: @MattF:
I think the RWNJ furor over AOC stems from the cognitive dissonance they feel after furiously masturbating to her picture. They don’t understand why a liberal can make them feel those feelings.
hueyplong
If Fox wants to invite Carville to be their token Democrat there’s nothing to be done about it, but our side should not give him oxygen. His time came and went in the 90s and his assistance was marginal even then.
As for AOC, if it wasn’t her, Fox/GOP would simply turn someone else into her. They have to have their scary villains, preferably female and non-Caucasian in case any of their demographic is too hard of hearing to pick up the dog whistles.
WaterGirl
@MattF: Yep. She wants to use what she perceives as her “good looks” to help her succeed, but I swear she appears less attractive every time i see her. I think the ugliness inside is showing more and more on the outside.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
I appreciate y’all. 100% on-board with the “why are we supposed to care what this guy thinks” sentiment. (And yes, I remember 1992 and know who this fucker is.)
Kay
@Baud:
Well, we disagree a little there because while Carville is doing his usual “criticism of progressives” I think plenty of mainstream Democrats do it too.
What it’s really about is not “speaking incorrectly”. What it’s really about is not listening. If you’re speaking over and over and the intended audience isn’t responding you are not listening to them. You have to go back one step further than “talking” :)
One thing I noticed was Democrats belief that Latinos thought Trump was talking about them- all of them- when he said Latino immigrants were all rapists and thugs. They weren’t offended because they are 1. not Latino immigrants and 2. not rapists and thugs. They understandably did not believe he was talking about them. They’re normies. They evaluate on an individual level. “I’m not a rapist or thug and I oppose rapists and thugs so therefore I agree with him”. We can’t just put them in these groups.
Ken
Case in point: Someone posted yesterday evening that Tucker at Fox has announced he won’t be saying “Biden Administration” any more, instead it will be “Harris-Rice”. Two cases in point, in fact.
Baud
One thing I think happens when it comes to reaching out to Latinos as well as many other groups of voters, is that people presume that advocates (immigration, environmental, racial justice, etc.) speak for large swaths of voters. Most advocates do amazing, important, and valuable work, but none of them have been selected by voters to speak for voters.
different-church-lady
@Baud: It actually hurt us, because voters just went, “Aw fuck it, everything’s so great we can take a chance with the clown.”
Kay
@WaterGirl:
Well, I disagree. That preserves the same frame and says we’ll just diversify the categories. There was a basic disconnect there that goes further than “Puerto Ricans are like THIS, but Cubans are like THIS”
It has to be rethought. IMO the whole approach is wrongheaded.
Baud
@Kay: I’m not sure where we disagree. But I definitely agree with your second and third paragraphs.
Villago Delenda Est
Carville has been sleeping with a Sith Apprentice for decades.
efgoldman ’em.
Roger Moore
@germy:
I think he really wants the Democrats to win, but that he’s somewhere between irrelevant and harmful because he’s mentally stuck in the ’90s. It’s sad to see someone who can’t keep up with the times, but at least the Democrats seem to have the good sense to ignore his advice.
Ejoiner
@WaterGirl: my wife and I were floored that during the past administration all of the leading GOP figures seemed to be literally physically corrupting in front of our faces, like villains in a horror movie. Pence and the fly, McConnell and the bruises, Trump and…well, everything. The evil rot shows through and barely gets noted. SMH.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: true, but: Gore and HRC both won the popular vote, and both had leftist antagonists who ran against them in ways that were both personal and ideological, and both had to deal with the weird psychological resentments and self-loathing of the political media wrt Bubba, which Tweety and MoDo exemplified in ways that were often embarrassing to witness, but were widespread in those fabled green rooms.
sab
@Old School: How the phuck do you pronounce it? If you can’t say a word does it even exist?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
The problem with AOC (which extends to the Squad) is that her district is not demographically or culturally representative of very many congressional districts in the country as a whole, and the sort of rhetoric that motivates her voters will be counterproductive in the country as a whole.
People like incremental change, and can get on board, but they don’t like the notion of massive, unprecedented and untested structural change.
Old School
@sab: “La-tine-Ex”
Google says “laˈtēˌneks” or “ləˈtēˌneks”
Baud
Honestly, in form, Carville’s criticisms seem like a centrist version of the lefty critiques of Obama that drove me away from kos and other blogs. At least he didn’t mention the “bully pulpit.”
On a meta level, I have grown weary of the way we (the broader we) talk about things. It seems like an endless loop. I want an entirely different framework for conversation.
MattF
@Ken: I’ll admit that, a year ago, I thought Biden was too old for the job– but I’ve been proved wrong. RW media personalities don’t care about what actual liberals think, they score points off the delusions of their audience. It ain’t pretty. Watching Carlson (which, fwiw, I’ve never done) compulsively picking at the scabs on his own back doesn’t really count as ‘owning the libs’, IMO.
Dee-Lurker
I disagree with Carville in every respect. The GQP caters to the appetites of those who are aggrieved and want simple explanations to justify their grievance. They did a diner schtick on Fox this morning where some dolt interviewed three veterans in a diner. Each veteran agreed that:
-Joe Biden is not really in charge
-The Squad tells Biden what to do, but they aren’t in charge
-The “elites” are actually in charge
For some reason, this was all they needed to think about as to why things are so wrong right now. It scratched that itch that allowed them to be assholes the rest of the day. That’s how fascism operates when it is ascendant. The anti-semitic tropes of scary cabals of moneyed elites running the scene gives fascists permission to fly their flag in public.
Carville knows that roughly 1/3 of the country lets right wing media take dumps in their skull every day for three decades. There is no special set of words or approaches that are going to somehow win them over. That 1/3 of the country wants theofascism. End of story. What we need to do is keep engaging on the trajectory we are upon, which is reclaiming representative government as a tool for good. This should be followed up with scorn and ridicule for fascists. Finally, the FCC needs reform and the Fairness Doctrine should be returned to law. As Driftglass pointed out nearly twenty years ago: this country can’t remain half Fox and half free.
germy
A Carville Translator weighs in:
sab
@Kay: Important point. I have ‘Latino’ friends who were born here same as me. Except their parents sometimes but not always spoke Spanish at home. I also have Chinese and Ukrainean friends the same. Why aren’t they treated differently?
Cameron
@Kay: Listening is important – I think feelings of helplessness and invisibility are what drive a lot of the division in our society and lead people to support an authoritarian (or outright fascist) leader. They’re not wrong in feeling ignored – what they’re wrong about is who they think is responsible for their condition.
Josie
I receive emails from Beto O’Rourke’s Powered by People group. One of the things they are doing is phone banking to talk to people all over Texas, including along the border, to find out their concerns and plans for voting. This seems to be a really smart move, and it will be interesting to see the information he compiles from these conversations.
Ken
@sab: Could rhyme with “minx”, using the English rule that x = /ks/.
Or, since it’s Spanish-related, could be the “x” of “Mexico”, which is almost like German/Scottish “ach”.
Or, to go really far back, “x” was pronounced as English /sh/ in medieval Spanish, which is useful for figuring out transliterated Nauhatl and Mayan names like “Chicxulub”.
Kay
@Baud:
We disagree because Carville believes this is exclusive to The Left in Democratic politics and it’s not.
He won’t criticize his own tribe. There are Lefty politicians who are good listeners and know how to talk to different groups and there are centrist Dems who do too. Centrist doesn’t mean you know how to do it. He’s always done this. He conflates his ideological preferences with a whole set of other attributes that don’t necessarily follow.
There’s room for “faculty lounge” speech but it can’t be the go-to because it’s too narrow and it’s frankly off-putting and sometimes downright baffling to people who don’t marinate in this stuff.
Cheryl Rofer
On “Latinx” in particular.
My understanding is that it’s not popular among the group it is intended to describe. As WaterGirl noted, there are many subgroups that might be included. It is particularly inappropriate for Hispanics in New Mexico, many of whose families have been in this area and part of the United States of America for longer than many Anglos.
So it would be better not to use that collective noun and instead speak of Cubans, Salvadorans, Oaxacacans, and New Mexican Hispanics. But others have made this point.
Kay
@Cameron:
This is too broad and obviously wildly favorable to Democratic voters, but I don’t think they respond with “offended!” like Righties do. Instead they just drift away. They don’t have the same sense of entitlement to “belonging” that Righties do.
It’s WHY I’m sympathetic to them. They don’t feel outraged. They feel like they can’t come in. Let them in.
rp
As I said to some friends yesterday, a big part of the problem with this is the observer effect: Carville himself is part of and wants to influence the conversation, as he acknowledges in the interview. And by saying “this is a big problem for democrats” he’s helping to make it into an issue that bad actors will glom onto. The media and the right love the “democrats are eggheads who don’t understand ‘real’ Americans,” and he’s given them a lot of ammunition for this fight.
IOW, this is a problem for democrats in large part because people like Carville say it’s a problem for democrats.
Baud
@Kay: If you think that I think that the problem is exclusive to the left, you are mistaken. Centrists have their own set of problems, some of which overlaps with the left flank and some that do not. I’m less concerned about centrists simply because I don’t think their all that powerful anymore except for their role as the last set of votes we need to pass anything. I don’t see them leading on any significant policy issue, but instead they are reacting to more progressive initiatives.
germy
rp
@Kay: But when has it been the “go-to”?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
a@rp: a lot of truth to that. I had to turn off Brian Williams last night when introduced a segment on this with a tortured joke about Iowa and kale– apparently there’s a NASCAR driver named Kale, or a homophone of kale? And Real Americans in Iowa love NASCAR and hate vegetables. But I hope David Plouffe responded by talking about Biden introducing a
billplan for universal pre-K.Williams can be amusing, and has made some surprisingly anti-REpbulican points over the past few years, but he’s a man whose salary I would be is in the seven figures, and is convinced he speaks for regular Americans because kale, Whole Foods and F-150s.
Kay
I’ll just give you all an example. Last night. Now this is an extreme example but it happened.
We had Tim Ryan on the Zoom in a NW OHio county that is working class. First “question”- “why do you call it climate change? It’s really climate chaos”
So Ryan is a practiced pol and he zoomed right by it, but JFC, keep you eye on the ball. Try not to completely exclude them in the first 5 minutes.
raven
Carville doesn’t give a fuck what you think.
zhena gogolia
@Baud:
I’m no fangirl of Ocasio-Cortez, but I would not characterize her as using “faculty-lounge” language. She speaks very clearly and straightforwardly, as far as I can tell
ETA: And putting her into any rhetorical proximity with Greene is an obscenity.
sab
@Ken: That is my point. I speak and read English. I see that and have no idea how to pronounce it. You give me three, maybe four options.
different-church-lady
How did ignoring Michael Moore’s warnings in 2016 go for us?
zhena gogolia
@Old School:
I first hear it in my church from a “community organizer,” which I guess is a bad name but seems to apply to people who spend their energy helping people instead of piling up cash.
sab
@Kay: Do you like Ryan? He has been my Congresscritter for years, so I am used to him.
Jeffro
He’s right about ‘Latinx’ and about trying to use simpler, plainer language whenever possible. And about constantly pounding the insurrection. Everything else is kind of dumb and overwrought.
SOMEhow we managed to overcome this huge liability and elect President Joe Biden while winning a majority in the Senate and holding onto a majority in the House. And now we have the various Rescue Plans and Jobs Plans and Families Plans going for us, against an opposition best described as ‘performative Nazism’. I like our chances. But thanks, James (eyeroll)
schrodingers_cat
Academic jargon is meant to be precise but it can sound stilted in ordinary speech. It is important not to sound like a graduate seminar in social sciences, I agree with that message.
When I first saw Latinx I was confused, I thought it was an unknown Latin person.
I also don’t like the Asian designation. In this country it usually excludes people from the subcontinent. Although the last time I checked, India is squarely in Asia. Also there is very little that someone from Siberia, China and India have in common to lump them all into the same group.
Nor do I like the POC designation. WTF does it mean anyway. Why lump all the groups who don’t trace their origins to Europe together.
germy
“whatever the case may be…”
feebog
@rp:
This. It’s not messaging, we have plenty of Dems who are great at it; Tammy Duckworth, Elizabeth Warren, AOC, Jim Clyburn, Chris Murphy, Cory Booker, all come to mind. What Dems do not have is the Right Wingnut Wurlitzer that never stops, never slows and always plays at 11.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat:
I wonder how much it is tied to affirmative-action categories, which work that way.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Agreed. No she doesn’t speak in academic jargon, she speaks like a social media influencer who moonlights as a Congresswoman.
ETA: That said she is way better than that horror show, MTG.
Ken
@sab: Yeah, it was kind of my point too. English, where “ghoti” is pronounced “fish”, and “though” “through” “rough” “cough” and “bough” don’t rhyme.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard “Latinx” pronounced. When I read it, my inner voice rhymes it with “sinks”.
Just Chuck
There already is a gender-neutral word that covers Latinos and Latinas: Latin
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@schrodingers_cat:
This is grossly unfair and uninformed. She actually is one of the best explainers of what Congress does, and her role in particular, that I’ve ever seen. She regularly posts on social media explaining what she does and how she does it. As far as I’m concerned, her work is a model of how MoCs can interact with their constituency via social media.
RobertDSC-iPhone 8
Not interested in what that clown has to say.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@schrodingers_cat: I don’t like AOC (!) and I hate Bernie Sanders’ guts and liver, but the both-sidesing of “on the one hand you have people who want to create a universal public health insurance program, on the other you have those who want to violently overturn the results of a presidential election” is fucking immoral.
To his credit, I think that’s what Carville is trying to say, but if that’s what he wants to say, he should take a big swing at the people sagely nodding at part of his comments, like Brian Williams.
PST
@WaterGirl:
I think you guys are kind of saying the same thing, and if so, it’s certainly something I agree with. To say that Latinos “have the same set of concerns” as everyone else is another way of saying that their concerns are myriad and diverse. This is not just a matter of different origins. Among other variables, concerns and opinions are affected by socio-economic status and generation in the continental U.S. I see very little systematic difference in opinions between Latinos and white non-Latinos among my college-educated friends in business and the professions. Plus so many of these families are mixed. Likewise, I get the sense that blue collar entrepreneurs share many concerns whether Latino or not. Latino opinions are all over the lot.
Citizen Alan
The Fairness Doctrine would do nothing about Fox News, as it is based on the legal premise that the public owns the airwaves and the Government can regulate speech there as a condition of granting licenses to use a particular frequency for broadcast. The FCC cannot regulate speech for political content on cable TV without violating the 1st Amendment. That said, a revived Fairness Doctrine might work to deNazify talk radio, which is something, I guess.
BruceFromOhio
@Ken:
That’s helpful. I won’t be saying “Tucker Carlson” anymore, instead it will be “That Fascist Asshole on Fox.” Oh … wait ..
schrodingers_cat
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix: Underinformed? Because I disagree with you. What legislation has she authored that has passed Congress? Isn’t that her job? She is not that great at constituent services either. What she is good at is getting in front of the camera to bash other Dems.
sab
@schrodingers_cat: Asian is three quarters of humanity, and every color except weird pasty northern white and African black.
Citizen Alan
@different-church-lady:
Which warnings? The ones that said we needed to vote for Bernie or Stein b/c Hillary was no different than Trump?
raven
@schrodingers_cat:
Dancing With Professors: The Trouble With Academic Prose
In ordinary life, when a listener cannot understand what someone has said, this is the usual exchange:
But in scholarly writing in the late 20th century, other rules apply. This is the implicit exchange:
Jeffro
@Ken: that was me and I’m still laughing at ol’ Tucker ;)
They just can’t get traction against the competent, congenial, humble old white guy, so…(flips playbook to page 83)…yup, let’s go after the usual boogeywomen of color (sorry there James Carville – it fits)
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Kay:
I agree this is true for a lot of people. I also think some people do find the language condescending and irritating. They see the language changes as a pointless cudgel used to demonstrate how backward they are.
sab
@Ken: Lol. You don’t even know my surname, which people in my county cannot pronounce correctly although we were early settlers.
different-church-lady
@Citizen Alan: No, those sucked. I’m talking about the ones where he tried to tell us the rust belt was going to fall for Trump’s culture-war crap. He had the wrong solution, but he identified the problem correctly.
schrodingers_cat
@raven: In case of the sciences, that is not quite true. In physics for example it is difficult to translate math (precise) into words (imprecise). You can see that with explanations of quantum mechanics which ends up sounding like woo when it is anything but.
citizen dave
Carville should get off the stage if this is the extent of his insights.
It’s funny next to the pieces on Biden’s first 100 days, how so many underestimated him, did not see all this coming, etc. He gets shit done.
I do like Ms. Ocasio-Cortez. I was thinking yesterday that she could become the first Latin-american president. I think she should become a NY Senator first. She has a great opportunity–all Dems–to build the D brand as getting shit done. For everyone. From my few learnings of her, she seems to do her homework on issues and speaks from a position of knowledge, which is always a good thing.
WhatsMyNym
@Cheryl Rofer:
Thank you Cheryl.
Also, AOC is in NYC and that’s all that really matters to our esteemed “national” press. Poor Katie lives in the western boonies.
raven
@schrodingers_cat: I don’t think that was her point.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@different-church-lady: MM spent far too much time shrieking that Democrats were the real enemy to deserve any credit for finding that single truffle late in the game. Same reasons it’s going to be a long, long time before I trust Ocasio-Cortez
different-church-lady
@raven:
Recently it’s gotten a little worse than that:
patrick II
@MattF:
AOC is also going to be a powerful Democrat in the long run. They spot young Democrats with talent and start attacking early in their career to build up a cumulative animus. Think of Hillary in the 90’s.
The Thin Black Duke
@different-church-lady: The people who listened to Trump were never going to listen to us.
Mary G
O/T, but this picture of the couple in Florida who refuse to hire vaccinated teachers for their private school is hilarious in a WTF way:
Be sure to open the photo for what my favorite fashion bloggers call “scroll down fug.”
Citizen Alan
@Ken: I’d always assumed it was pronounced “Latin-X.” Like some all-Hispanic spin-off of The X-Men.
Another Scott
Everyone’s right. Carville’s right that language matters. Cheryl’s right that Carville’s talking to an audience stuck in politics from 30 years ago. MM is right that access matters.
I’m not going to get upset about talking about language too much myself. Yes, it matters and we need to tailor our comments to our audience. Duh! ;-)
But it doesn’t matter that much compared to voting access and fighting voter suppression. As long as the Teabaggers can choose who is a voter, the language we use matters very little.
Eyes on the prizes.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
Michael Moore always says the same thing. He was only right in 2016 because of Comey.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
The “price” for AOC is she is easy to lie about to the GOP Base. Then again Hillary Clinton was a pretty boring, middle of the road politician and the GOP turned her into a serial killing lesbian she-vampire so lesson is don’t worry about what their base thinks, worry about what our base thinks (come to think of it, to bad Hillary wasn’t a serial killing lesbian she-vampire, think of the campaign slogan “Oh yes, she can suck the life out of those bastards”)
And, is Carville accusing a bartender from Brooklyn of excessive diction?
zhena gogolia
I hope this incredible interview will get front-paged. MPD officer who was almost killed on 1/6.
schrodingers_cat
@raven: I got her point and I agree with it. I was making a different but related point. That it is not always easy to translate jargon to a general audience. It is a skill few academics possess.
Citizen Alan
@raven:
Could be worse.
different-church-lady
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yeah, but one thing I’m trying to get at here is it doesn’t matter if you like the person delivering the message. Moore got a lot of things wrong, but he had his finger on something we were blind to — perhaps willfully blind.
Remember when EMAILS hit and Cole told us this was gonna kill Hillary and we all told him it was going to be a nothing-burger? Same thing.
You might think Carvill and Moore suck, and you might have very good reasons to think they suck. But they have a much better understanding of people who aren’t us than we do. We might ignore their suggested solutions, but we should stop ignoring the warnings and work with the info.
schrodingers_cat
Carville is plain wrong about AOC, she is popular on social media because she is relatable and doesn’t speak in obscure jargon.
Kay
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
I don’t like “condescending” because that assumes there’s something they’re not understanding. It’s not a cognitive defect on their side. They are not interested in talking about things in this manner.
Same example from last night. There’s a real issue in Ohio with Lake Erie water quality. People who go to political meetings don’t follow political science, they follow Lake Erie water quality. Instead of the correct language on “climate change” why not give them an entry point by talking abiout the lake that is in their back yard? Then THEY can be the experts.
Ryan actually did this. He segued right from climate change to Lake Erie water quality, because he knows how to talk to them.
Eduardo
@Just Chuck: 56 y/o gay Cuban, in the US since 2001.
Correct. Latin is perfectly gender neutral. You are speaking to me in English — meaning I understand the language — but then you want o call me ‘Latin’ in Spanish because of course I couldn’t understand ‘Latin’ in English. But then ‘Latino’ is male so let’s make up ‘Latinx’ which is absolutely the opposite of what a word in Spanish is supposed to look or sound like. sigh
A Ghost to Most
I’ve never been in a faculty lounge.
Sounds like a dreadfully boring place.
zhena gogolia
@A Ghost to Most:
We don’t have one. We used to have a lunch room, but now they let students in so it’s a student lunch room that we can try to squeeze into.
Suzanne
Eh.
I think he’s right here. Yeah, we are probably losing some people on the very rightward edge of our coalition who don’t like AOC or the Squad or the Green New Deal. That’s probably true. The question is: is that a problem worth fixing? I think probably not. I think Carville’s point that MTG is crazy but doesn’t seem to be a liability to her team is a good one. I interpret his statement as being about a double standard, not a criticism of AOC.
As for the language thing, eh. I have never heard any of my Latino/e/x personal contacts use “Latinx”. So I don’t. If they want me to, then I will.
Citizen Alan
@A Ghost to Most:
My recollection of my brief time spent in actual faculty lounges suggests that they consist mainly of bitch-fests about the state of “kids these days” from bitter middle-aged people who realized too late that they should have done something different with their lives.
different-church-lady
Christ, I’m running a one-person faculty lounge in my house.
schrodingers_cat
I am not at the rightward edge, Ds will always have my vote but I don’t worship at the altar of Bernard the Magnificent, and I am not fond of the performance art of the Bernie brigade. It undermines us.
Frankensteinbeck
@patrick II:
No, I really think they just hate women.
WaterGirl
@Eduardo: Lurk less, comment more! :-)
WaterGirl
@Frankensteinbeck: Especially women who don’t seem to know their place!
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
I agree. He thinks she’s too far Left so he puts her in the “obscure jargon” category.
It isn’t Left/Right. This idea he has that all centrists know how to talk to the common man and all Lefties speak in jargon is an ideological preference of his, and it’s demonstrably not true.
There’s a lot of joy and energy in AOC. It’s appealing. What we should be doing is thanking God she’s not on the Right, because they’d really have something if she were.
Eduardo
@WaterGirl: lol
Will do!
zhena gogolia
I know plenty of people within the category who use Latinx.
I really don’t know what to do to avoid offending somebody.
Ken
@Frankensteinbeck: Two birds with one stone, then.
germy
Remember Carville’s “trailer park” quote?
Drag a hundred-dollar bill through a trailer park, you never know what you’ll find.
Frankensteinbeck
@WaterGirl:
There’s an extra layer (and I think it’s important to know) based on the details of misogyny. Misogynists see women as vulnerable, inherently victims. It goes right to the lizard brain. So, since conservatives are chickenshits, they feel like they can pile on the attacks with no danger to themselves, and really vent their spleen. It’s why despite their hating all kinds of folks, women get by far the worst public harassment.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
The world isn’t black and white. Of course we won’t be able to change the hardcore GQP demographic. Those aren’t the people Carville is talking about us losing. Its the people on the margins.. the folks who are with us on a lot of policy, but feel alienated. He’s been watching those folks slip away for years and so have I. The GOP IS better at speaking to their fears and aspirations than we are. It is a problem.
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
John Kerry is an example of a centrist who speaks in this language. I think he’s a genuinely good person and hard working, all that, but he didn’t reach them at all and what was appealing about it was he’s self aware enough to know it. He made fun of himself during the 2004 campaign for it. It’s just what he is. I liked him for not trying to be a different person, which doesn’t ever work anyway.
germy
Centrists are good at explaining why we can’t have nice things.
different-church-lady
@Suzanne:
That’s kind of how I feel: I’m going to call people what they want to be called. I think part of the problem Carvill’s trying to point at is that “academics” feel the need to identify the one correct term for any group/situation and then proscribe that one correct term.In an academy, coming up with a single point of view that is official is necessary. But that’s just not how individual people’s minds work outside of the academy.
In the end, I think it’s better to embrace what Kay is saying: don’t spend so much time battling over what things are called, and spend more time addressing the concerns that actually affect people’s day-to-day well-being.
Kay
@germy:
You know what I’m sick of? Nostalgia. His idea that there was some “golden age” of the Democratic Party is just nonsense. I’m sick of indulging people who live in some imagined past. They can have it but they can’t force me to pretend it happened.
yellowdog
@schrodingers_cat: Bexcuse people of European origins have lumped together all those people as lesser beings.
Josie
@zhena gogolia: This needs to be publicized far and wide. Those who participated and those who were responsible should not be allowed to bury this with their lies and disinformation. I could feel his pain.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: Yes agreed about John Kerry. How have you been? You were away for awhile and before that we had exchanged some angry words. I kept wondering if you had stopped posting because of me
Glad to have you back!
sab
@Kay: You nailed it. AOC has Joy and Energy.
My stepsons and my husband adore her.
zhena gogolia
@Josie:
Yes, I hope this gets a lot of play.
schrodingers_cat
@yellowdog: True but there is no reason to continue doing that.
gvg
@Citizen Alan:
I think this is an incorrect generalization. It’s very common for experts to say this but I think they are wrong. Cables and fiber optics go on private property which owners don’t sell part of to these companies. Those are public utilities with right of ways granted by governments. We could regulate them. Satellites are transmitting over airwaves. So those should already be regulated. If companies don’t comply, they can face fines, jail time or lose ownership of their cable lines in an area. We don’t have to accept the old framing. A state or city can block bad actors.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Eh, From what I’ve seen the GOP does the political equivalent of the Abrams Mystery Box “Republicans have the policy fix for ALL of your problems in this plain, brown, paper bag. But you can’t see inside the bag until after the election. Trust in The Bag!” and the suckers who vote for them’s brain does the rest.
gwangung
@schrodingers_cat: Sure there is; there’s a core of right wingers who explicitly want to continue to treat POCs as lesser humans, and they have a fair amount of political, social and economic power.
And surrounding them are a nimbus of folks who aren’t as explicit, but would have no problem with that treatment, since it doesn’t affect them.
patrick II
@Frankensteinbeck:
Not mutually exclusive.But yeah, they really seem to have extra animus for young women. But it depends on who “they” is in our conversation. If we are talking about the Republican old guy dupes — yeah, they don’t like young women telling them what to do; women should know their place. If we are talking about Republican con men running the party they care about it mostly as an attack point that resonates with their old white guy audience.
Soprano2
I agree – to people who don’t follow politics, it sounds as baffling as the Fox News speak you hear from the right. It doesn’t meet people where they live. I had a co-worker ask me the other day what I thought about “defund the police”, and I know without asking that she’s against it because she thinks it means get rid of the police. I said I think it’s not a good slogan, but that what I’ve heard it means is to rethink whether we need to load all the stuff onto the police that we do, just like we’ve loaded a bunch of stuff onto the schools that maybe they don’t need to be doing. I asked her if she thinks we need to be sending a police officer to deal with homeless people, or with people who are having mental health problems, and she agreed that we might not need to do that. You have to meet people where they are, and try to persuade them with language and examples they can understand and relate to. Insisting on one slogan or one way of speaking about an issue is a recipe for failure.
taumaturgo
Incrementalism has given the Democrats the like of Manchin and an assorted of DINOS that at this moment are confused and full of consternation by Biden’s metamorphosis when it comes to adopting and implementing the progressive caucus policies. The defenders of the status quo are on their heels for the choices they must make between for example defending the filibuster at the high political price of the destruction of the party and a crushing defeat for Biden’s agenda.
Another Scott
@gvg: +1
If it were easy, it would have been done already. It will be difficult to prevent the broadcast commonweal from being turned (even more) into Ow My Balls!, but it’s not impossible.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@Kay:
I agree. It’s destructive.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@different-church-lady:
I hate Michael Moore and I’m ambivalent about Carville– like his fellow Green Room denizen Rick Wilson, I wish he were as effective as his ego and reputation suggest. But I don’t ignore or dismiss his warnings.
To pull the discussion back from jargon and messaging, let’s look at health care. The only top-tier Democrat who didn’t embrace BernieCare won the nomination and the Presidency. He beat Sanders two-to-one, and beat Warren in her home state, where he spent no money and had no campaign office, one of the most liberal Democratic constituencies in the country.
I see a few people saying here that AOC is the future of the Democratic Party. I suppose it’s possible that she and the party and country could all evolve to a point where that’s both true and a good thing. But that future isn’t 2022. And the midterms won’t be decided in places like Brooklyn and Queens or even Westchester County, but in Arizona and Georgia and Wisconsin and North Carolina.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Yes and no. Let’s take immigration:
GOP: Illegal immigrants are competing with you for manufacturing and construction jobs. Its unfair. We will stop it.
Democrat 1: If you believe that, YOU ARE RACIST!
Democrat 2: Welll, actualllly, <long explanation of economic theory which completely debunks GOP if you understand it>
Blue collar normie: Looks around and sees a lot of immigrants in manufacturing and construction jobs. Thinks the GOP explanation makes more sense.
Plus, the GOP gets to paint us as either hysterics, condescending elitists, or both. That is why the language matters. Then you have Fox pounding that home 24/7 to reinforce the message. We can’t change that dynamic if we keep refusing to acknowledge it.
WhatsMyNym
@taumaturgo:
what???
Baud
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
Yeah. But coming up with a good response isn’t so easy.
Roger Moore
@Cheryl Rofer:
“Latinx” makes more sense when you realize it was originally invented by trans activists who who were unhappy with the inherently gendered nature of Latino/Latina. So yes, it still doesn’t have complete buy-in from the group it’s trying to describe. Of course I don’t think there’s any term that has universal buy-in for the whole group, which makes whichever term you choose potentially a problem.
Geminid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I would add the VA5 District to the places where the midterms will be decided. The incumbent Republican won by only 5 points, and the 5th will be redrawn more neutrally before next year’s contest.
But I know your list was not meant to be exclusive. I just want to plug a local contest.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@gwangung:
“Entertain me or do my manual labor, but don’t vote unless it is the way I tell you to”.
Roger Moore
@zhena gogolia:
These are mostly census categories, which means they’re used across the federal government. IIRC, the census uses four very broad racial categories (White/Caucasian, Black/African American, Native American/Alaska Native, and Asian American or Pacific Islander) and an ethic category of Hispanic/Latino or not. Now we may want to change that, but it’s what we’re stuck with for the time being.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Giuliani was the target of a search warrant today. Countdown to Greenwald meltdown commences now….
James E Powell
With the understanding that my experience is anecdotal, I have worked in the Los Angeles schools for 15 years. About 66% of my bosses & colleagues and about 85% of my students & their parents have identified as Mexican, Mexican-American, Salvadoran, Salvadorean, Salavadoran-American, Guatemalan, Honduran, and one guy from Cuba. The subject comes up often. Although they generally accept the use of Latino & Latina, none of them use that term when referring to themselves. Always the nation of the families origin, even if the family has been in the states since forever.
The terms Latinx and chicano/a have been discussed at various times in faculty meetings (Should we be using this term?) and in class (What do you guys think of this?). With the exception of a few recent graduates of UCLA’s teacher program, no one wants either one. They don’t hate it, they think it’s silly, and they are not inclined to use those terms. Their expressed objections are: can’t pronounce it, who came up with this?, what’s wrong with Mexican? and why do we have to have a label?
I’ve never brought it up with a parent, but have never heard any parent use anything other than nation of the family’s origin, if there is any ethnic reference at all.
Over the last 40 years, there has been a problem at times with the way some Democrats speak. Kind of bureaucratic babble with an overlay of MBA fog-words. Gore and Kerry both got ragged for it. But I’m pleased to note that none of our rising stars talk like that.
Kay
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Ha! Finally. That crook. “Top cop” my ass. He’s a common criminal.
James E Powell
@Kay:
Me too. I long for the days when there was no nostalgia.
Kay
@James E Powell:
Your experience is probably really valuable. Fewer consultants, more this:
Democrats changed how they raised money but they didn’t change how they spend it. They’re swimming in money. They could pay people like you for advice.
Suzanne
@different-church-lady: TBH, all of my friends who could be described under the “Latino” umbrella identify as their family’s country of origin, so it’s really only online that I use the term “Latino” at all. Everyone else identifies as Mexican, Guatemalan, Belizean, Venezuelan, Puerto Rican, etc. I even hear more identification by Mexican state than “Latino”. I thought that that was because I lived in a place with a lot of “Latino” people and it was important for them to differentiate.
Suzanne
@James E Powell:
Mr. Suzanne worked in multiple districts in Phoenix and is now working for the Houston school district (he’s a bilingual speech-language pathologist and he works in Spanish almost exclusively), and he would co-sign this.
Kay
@James E Powell:
My father is really mean and has no friends but I always appreciated his harshness.
He worked nights so I would come back from public school and tell him whatever happy nonsense we had learned and he’d be like “well. It wasn’t like that at all, and I was there“.
Suzanne
@schrodingers_cat:
Well, that’s the hard part of coalition-building: you can’t please all of the people all of the time. I just think the insinuation that AOC hasn’t cost the Dems any voters is probably not correct. I do think it’s likely that she and the rest of the left have probably brought in more voters than they drove away… but we can acknowledge that. As someone who generally aligns with AOC’s politics, I actually encourage that. Most of those rightward edge people are assholes and the middle of the road is for flat squirrels.
topclimber
@Cheryl Rofer: The common denominator for all these people is Spanish, which is a gender-driven language with poetic phonemes. The x sound has use in a few cultures, but a word like Latines seems more apt. It is a usage to embraces all genders or none.
different-church-lady
@James E Powell:
C’mon, gotta be a rotating tag line PLEASE!
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
What does it matter? Nobody hears about this shit until it’s amplified by Fox News and the rest of the right-wing distortion machine.
And if they can find a half-dozen far-left types somewhere who are spouting ideas that most Americans would dislike, Fox News etc. will make sure that their ideas get spread far and wide, and will paint everyone left of center as believing those ideas. And if they can’t find those half-dozen people, they’ll invent them.
Look at the past few days, fercryinoutloud. Kamala Harris’ book being bought up by the government and donated to charities. Biden’s plot to restrict all Americans to 4 pounds of red meat per year. Whatever it was about John Kerry.
Every last progressive in America could become a 1990s triangulation centrist tomorrow, and it wouldn’t change what Fox News was saying and what “middle America” was hearing.
Kay
@lowtechcyclist:
I think we could all be more generous with one another. One of the things I hear from older women (like myself) is THEY are not sure of what the rules are around “me too”. A lot of this was accepted behavior in the workplace when we were coming up. Maybe it shouldn’t have been! But if liberal women think the rules are too complex and don’t understand them then there’s something wrong, because we’re the supposed victims.
A lot of us don’t feel like victims. I don’t.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
I disagree. I don’t think it’s accurate to divide up the entire universe of people into either (1) die-hard Fox News viewers or (2) people who are indifferent to what our side is saying. They may be relatively small in number, but I think there are various groups of people are end up being influenced by how we talk and behave. The harder question in my mind is how we deal with that problem, but I believe the problem exists.
Matt
This is a threat from guys like Carville, not an already-happened: they are ready and willing to go full-fash if the party doesn’t keep the hippies properly shushed.
Just Chuck
@Frankensteinbeck: That and if a woman fights back, she’s seen as “bitchy”.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Matt: you forgot to say “DNC” and “corporate”
James E Powell
@Kay:
They’d be better off paying you. I’m in CA. We need Ohio. Badly.
Greg VA
Carville is a tool but he’s not wrong about the language. I am an urban liberal gay man with urban liberal friends and I can’t keep up with the ever-evolving terminology. I know what an enby is (I just had to Google the spelling) and I recently learned what AMAB/AFAB is too (thanks again, Google!).
I also recently had to Google why “folks” suddenly became “folx” among my more liberal friends. It was previously a gender non-specific, race neutral term for a group of people but the spelling has been changed to apparently become more welcoming to anyone who previously didn’t feel quite welcome enough by the traditional spelling. It’s overkill, it’s obnoxious, and it’s alienating.
JoyceH
I’m an overweight old rural lady, and I like AOC. She’s incredibly bright and very energetic and is on the side of good things. And I quite get why the right loathes her. She’s that girl in high school or college who never even looked their way, didn’t notice them because she was busy with her own friends and her own interests, but every time they looked at her across the lunch room (and they looked at her a LOT), their buddy would elbow them and say, “Forget it, she’s way out of your league.”
And I don’t like Latinx because it strikes me as part of this crusade to degender language in ways that are often silly and clunky. There has been a determined effort to eliminate every word that ends in -man or -men, rather than just repurpose the language to make the term gender-inclusive. Example: Fireman. One approach would be to just assume that a fireman could be either a man or a woman. The other is to replace the term with firefighter. The problem is that the people who insist on firefighter also insist that those who go with a gender-inclusive fireman are actually either consciously or subconsciously opposed to women in the fire fighting field, and then things get contentious.
No One of Consequence
@Dee-Lurker: Damned if I don’t keep returning to this, and your post. It is hard for me to wrap my head around that: 1/3 of this country wants theofacism.
It is hard for me to grasp, because I know in my bones for it to be true, and that it is antithetical to our Nation as conceived.
So long as the ‘correct’ ‘god’ is the intended, and vocalized, recipient of the prayer, 1/3 of this nation would be just fine with having that be a required part of the school day.
This grates against my spine, and I fear it will ever be thus.
Peace, and how bout a little Wisdom to go along with it?
NOoC
piratedan
well there are a number points here where I feel like we’re talking against each other…
One, Carville appears to think that people who are not GOP campers STILL watch the Sunday shows in search of rational discussions of policy… that ship has sailed.
Point two, if those shows really did offer what was supposed to be an independent platform for political discussion, we would see that reflected in the guest lists, supposedly handled by an independent neutral media for the point of informed political discussion. They aren’t.
The point regarding the message being the problem, doesn’t appear to be the message per se, but if your side doesn’t have the same access to the media to deliver the message and the framing of the topics always favors your opponents, then its a perpetual uphill battle to ensure that people understand your policies and how you hope to enact them.
What has transpired is that there are so many other ways of getting your message out there and in front of the people you want to reach. I fully believe that the Dems have to get better at THIS, as it appears that the most successful media messaging is controlled either by Republicans (because they have the money) or because they share the same ethics with Republicans (meaning that they don’t have any).
Despite those disadvantages, we’re winning elections, but because of the disadvantages, we’re not winning more.
smith
@Eduardo: I don’t speak Spanish, so correct me if I’m wrong, but Spanish words as a rule don’t end in x. Latinx is basically an English word, fabricated to de-gender a gendered language. It strikes me as an instance of English language imperialism.
sab
@smith: When you actually say it, you still have to stick in a vowel, which will genderize it. The whole discussion is silly.
different-church-lady
@Greg VA:
It strikes one as very hipster-kitty, doesn’t it? “My favorite band is De-genderizing Words. You’re probably not woke enough to have heard of it.”
And I don’t doubt that subconsciously the “ever-evolving” element is to make sure they forever remain the ones who liked the band before it became popular.
Greg VA
@different-church-lady: There is definitely an element of virtue signaling. ” He folx, look at how woke I am!”
Darkrose
I know this thread is mostly dead, but I want to weigh in on the Latinx thing, because I feel like both Carville and people in this thread are missing the point.
The term did originate in academia, but it wasn’t created by Latin American professors. It was created by college students of Latin American descent, many of whom are the children of second- or third-generation immigrants who don’t speak Spanish, who wanted a way to make a gendered language inclusive of people who identify as non-binary. As the Center for Chicanx and Latinx Academic Student Success at UCD puts it:
The term wasn’t foisted upon the community by white academics, like many people have said. Young Millenial and Gen-Z folks developed it in order to make their non-binary friends feel included in the community. I think they should be lauded for that, but instead the attempt to be inclusive is being sneered at as being excessively woke and silly, as though recognizing someone’s identity is purely an academic exercise at best and pointless nonsense at worst.
jl
Some of the ‘woke’ is virtue signaling by faculty lounge types, tote baggers, pubic officials. In my business it is from academic administration that loves to talk and ‘reach out’ and send a lot of sensitive emails and and do sensitivity presentations and trainings, but run under their desks and issue blanket bans if anyone gets an invite to do a teaching session at a minority or rural low income school (even if it’s mostly white rural low income kids) for fear of a 0.1 percent chance of running afoul of the CA affirmative action ban.
But, a lot of it is coming from grass roots movements out protesting and doing community organizing. AOC and the squad didn’t sit in some quite back room, holding a cultural coup plotting session, that come up with the divisive phrases and slogans. My main criticism of Carville’s comments is that he doesn’t seem to understand that.
As for Carville’s suggested solution, it is too performative IMHO. Wiki says he coined ‘It’s the economy stupid’ and I think he should remember that needs to a big part of the message too. I think Biden gets it just as well as AOC or Bernie, but he has much better ideas on how to sell a solution that can appeal to a broader audience. Whether he can make enough headway before the next election to keep a working majority, with jokers like Manchin and Sinema running whatever rackets they have, I don’t know.