it’s too bad there’s not a profession dedicated specifically to informing the public that could help them with this. alas. https://t.co/AgzG63k7U9
— Jean-Michel Connard ? (@torriangray) October 11, 2021
Opinion | Take the Democrats-are-doomed narrative with a grain of salt https://t.co/1agoBBdH16
— Eugene Robinson (@Eugene_Robinson) October 11, 2021
Like wildebeests crossing the Serengeti, journalists travel in a herd. We follow not the life-giving seasonal rains but a safe, comfortable, groupthink story arc — call it The Narrative — whose current chapter is titled “Democrats are doomed.”
Readers can’t help but be aware of what The Narrative is saying, or shouting, right now: President Biden’s approval numbers are down. The slim Democratic majorities in the House and Senate are in disarray — and surely will be erased in next year’s midterm elections. Everything hinges on whether an ambitious agenda involving trillions of dollars in social and infrastructure spending is enacted within the next few weeks.
There’s always some truth in The Narrative but rarely an abundance of perspective. Biden has served less than one-fifth of his term in office. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) will be running their chambers and setting the nation’s legislative agenda until January 2023 — at least. And big, transformative legislation does sometimes get signed into law during an election year, with one example being the Affordable Care Act in 2010…
The context that’s missing is that the Democratic Party, for better or worse, has to represent the entirety of the sane political spectrum, from Sens. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) on the right to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and the Squad on the left. That’s because the GOP has left the building…
I can’t recall another time when one of our political parties has so lost its way — and its mind — leaving the other to do all the serious work of governing. And one of The Narrative’s weaknesses is an inability to deal with novel situations — as though the wildebeests, expecting to be galloping across wide-open savanna, somehow find themselves in a dense rainforest…
So when The Narrative warns that Biden urgently needs to get the progressives and the moderates in his party to set aside their differences, I take a somewhat different view. What I see is a pretty normal exercise in legislative give-and-take, except that it’s all happening within the Democratic Party — while Republicans hoot, holler and obstruct from the peanut gallery…
debbie
FB is on fire about the wealthy making out better under BBB. Is there no talk about means testing? I thought it was one of the issues being negotiated. ??♀️
NotMax
A touch of morning music.
Flyin’ fingers.
(Calluses at no extra charge.)
;)
Baud
Ha! He was on MJ saying the same thing. It was nice to hear.
Baud
@debbie:
Manchin wants it. Progressives hate it..
ETA: I also assume the meme is a lie based on cherry picked info.
debbie
@Baud:
These were flaming liberals complaining about it. Somewhat of a surprise to me.
NotMax
@Baud
The dimensions of the chasm between MSM predisposed reporting and reality on the ground put the growth of Jacob Marley’s chain to shame.
OzarkHillbilly
Blech.
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
May we address you more formally as Blech Master O?
:)
Starfish
@debbie: Means testing is not the only way for this stuff to work. Means testing slows stuff down. You can choose to give things to everyone and tax it back from people later, but maybe doing it that way will make people sad?
The child tax credit works this way. Everyone gets the tax credit monthly; but if you were not supposed to get it, you pay it back at the end of the year. If you really don’t want it and think you don’t qualify, you can opt out. This puts the burden of doing stuff on the people who have more time and money.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Mr DAW has MJ on. Joe sounds like a raving leftie
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Starfish: There must be studies on the cost/savings ratio of means testing. It costs to run an enforcement mechanism
Baud
@debbie:
Why is that a surprise? Flaming liberals have been attacking Dems for decades.
Kay
@Baud:
The child tax cedit is already means tested.
Manchin wants to make it a poor people program. If the only social programs Democrats want are poor people programs (a mistake in my view) that’s fine, but BBB is already means tested out the wazoo. Manchin wants to means test it further.
Baud
@Kay:
Right. I don’t support his position. That said, something has to give to get his vote.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: You can call me anything you like, just don’t call me late for dinner.
Geminid
@debbie: Did the flaming liberals give any specifics? I see people trashing the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill with broad claims like,”It encourages privatization,” or “Its a climate arson bill,” but they don’t say how or why, as if readers are expected to take the assertions at face value. It doesn’t take that long to explain the basis of a judgement, and I am suspicious of people who don’t.
brendancalling
Scrolling through the news this am, CNN really pissed me off with the doom-lingering, as did the Post (I try to avoid the Times unless absolutely necessary, FTFNYT). So Eugene Robinson’s column was a nice palate cleanser, especially after Michael Gerson’s handwringing.
However, I worry that folks like Robinson and Rubin are telling me what I want to hear. I try to remind myself most voters don’t pay attention to the DC mess… but I still worry that shit is going to hit the fan.
BTW—when do Bannon et al go to jail for defying a Congressional subpoena? I’ll be making calls today.
Kay
@Baud:
Oh, they’ll give. It’s just tough to negotiate with people who operate in bad faith and won’t make an actual offer, hence the delay.
I still think they’ll get it done, but it will be done despite the best efforts of the “moderates”. I just hope Manchin and Sinema allow a tax increase on the wealthy. It isn’t actually fiscally responsible to spend more money without raising taxes, as Manchin and Sinema did in the infrastructure bill. Budget hawks, my ass. They refused to raise revenue and they spent a 550 billion. That’s easy. It’s not budgeting- it’s spending.
Baud
@brendancalling:
A pundit’s only value is telling people what they want to hear.
Baud
@Kay:
No argument here.
MattF
’Journalists travel in a herd’ is absolutely true. The one journalist I got to know pretty well (and a member of the White House press corps, many years ago) was the person I’d go to for a brief on conventional wisdom. Another fact is that they are primarily concerned with their careers. If a puff-piece about Senator X will help promote their career, it will happen. And editors are mostly ex-reporters.
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
Have a lesser British law enforcement procedural show running in the background starring O-T Fagbenle, so have “O” on the mind.
(He’s, as usual, good in it but one can do only so much with trite, lazy scripting.)
;)
Starfish
@Geminid: Part of the problem is that the whole thing is not written out yet. People take the demands that various sides make and create the details. However, right now, people are not making specific demands. They are concern trolling. “Oh, it costs too much. Oh, it won’t be means tested.” Those things could go into text, but it means they have to agree to what comes out of those things, and we have people refusing to do that.
NotMax
@Starfish
I’ll take D means testing over R mean testing* any day.
*”Doesn’t directly hurt enough people. Send it back for rewriting to correct that.”
MattF
Charlie Kirk gets schooled.
Kay
Only in our ludicrous world of innumerate media pundity is a bill that spends 550 billion without raising any revenue to pay for it (infratsructure) more “fiscally responsible” than a bill that spends 3 trillion but raises taxes to pay for it.
Not getting how such “budget hawks” missed the revenue side of the ledger. It’s nonsense.
If they want to be “budget hawks” but they refuse to raise revenue to even cover existing expenses, guess what? They can’t spend anything. We have to accept their framing for the spending side of the ledger but at the same time they refuse to consider the revenue side at all.
It’s bad faith. No one could operate under this frame, because it isn’t real- it’s wholly ideological. It’s anti tax but pro spending. They can’t have both sides of that. They CAN but no one should accept it from media when it’s presented as an actual workable idea. It’s not.
Joe Falco
Like poo-flinging monkeys that escaped from their cages…?
Betty Cracker
We’ve been saying something like this here for years, so it’s nice to see it on the opinion page. I don’t think it’s infinitely sustainable for a single party to represent the entire political spectrum. It results in a helluva “branding” problem. But here we are, waiting for something to give.
Kay
Biden has a history of being counted out and coming back so I wouldn’t count him out yet if I were a journalist- not that it matters, I guess, because they never go back to their own predictions anyway so it’s not like any of them will be drummed out of the corps for counting him out. Again.
Spanky
@Joe Falco: Gene knows what’ll make it past the WaPo editors.
Baud
@Kay:
I agree completely. I think the problem we have is two fold. First, there are progressives who want to deficit spend to finance investments. Second, it’s tough as nails to persuade moderates who prefer things paid for that the Dems are their only responsible choice. I think those two factors force us into indecisiveness when it comes to messaging.
SiubhanDuinne
@MattF:
That is legit hilarious.
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
Sanders is not a Democrat except when convenient for Sanders.
Just sayin’.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I just find the centrist game playing fucking infuriating. I get it- they’re Righties. I accept that. Make your fucking offer. Let’s go.
That they STILL haven’t put forth anything on drug prices means we’re still operating in bad faith and they harm the political prospects of the Party every day they swan around on cable tv and never get any work done.
I blame the rest of the caucus and the leadership only for not planning on how to handle the 9 months of centrist delays and trickery. That should be budgeted in, politically.
satby
@Betty Cracker: On more than one opinion page, according to this.
Can’t rec subscribing to Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American enough, BTW.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: But how broad a spectrum is it really? How much real difference is there between the 10th most liberal Democratic Representative and the 10th most conservative? The 4th most liberal Senator and the 4th most conservative? I don’t think there is very much, not when I look at a broad range of issues.
Soprano2
@Kay: I think making the child tax credit a “poor people program” is a bad idea. That’s a way to make it unpopular and motivate politicians to get rid of it. Having the middle class benefit from it is the way to keep it strong and popular.
MattF
@SiubhanDuinne: Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.
Baud
@satby:
I feel like I haven’t seen you in a while.
Betty
@debbie: Means testing is not the answer. A lot of red tape that keeps the least able from benefiting from what is supposedly for their benefit. It’ s all about the “desetving poor”.
satby
@Baud: You haven’t. I prefer news to lifestyle magazines.
Baud
@Betty:
Means testing too often involves red tape, but it really doesn’t have to. It depends on the specifics.
@satby: I miss you, but I understand.
Betty
@Kay: Changing their narrative to more accurately reflect reality seems nearly impossible.
topclimber
@Kay: Innumerable instances of innumeracy in our media, and so little learning! I don’t think more than a few beltway reporters have yet grasped basic principles of statistics like the margin of error.
Is it perhaps that the corporate media doesn’t want folks who can count.
mrmoshpotato
And a boatload of “These conflict-humping, media slapdicks…”
MomSense
@satby:
She is really good. She’s a good friend of my cousins so sometimes I see her when I go upta camp.
schrodingers_cat
@satby: You and me both. Glad not to be the only one that feels this way.
OzarkHillbilly
@MattF: Priceless.
Baud
@Geminid:
I had a similar thought the other day. If the last two “moderate” Senate votes we needed weren’t Manchin and Sinema, but two different Senators like a Tester and a Coons or a Mark Warner (where we only had 50 Dems), if we lived in that reality, would we appreciate how much better we had it, or would the dispute simply expand to fit the ideological spread and be just as frustrating?
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: We would appreciate it. Tankie caucus would bad mouth it. You know the one that boos at HRC’s name and whose founding grump tanked our nominee in 2016.
MattF
@Baud: Maybe another case where the marginal vote is the one that matters.
Spanky
@satby: I’ve just been over at CNN site. If you have a decent news site – or at least somthing better than that crap- please share it.
OzarkHillbilly
I don’t know. “At least we’re sane.” doesn’t sound all that bad to me. ;-) ;-)
Baud
Test
Soprano2
I’m afraid this means the offer is “we can’t do that” even though it’s wildly popular with everyone, including Republicans who aren’t in Congress. It’s stunning to me how politicians screw around and don’t do things that could earn them votes – it seems like it would be so easy. It makes it obvious that they care more about the few people who give them lots of money than they do about their constituents. Letting Medicare negotiate drug prices like every other health insurance company in America seems like a no-brainer that should have been done years ago, yet for some strange reason they can’t seem to get it done.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
We’re also anti-fascist. That’s a plus in my book.
satby
@MomSense: Nice! If you ever do again, pass along my admiration, please and thanks?
Though tbf, I hadn’t read it until I saw it shared via Michael (formerly Hussein) Tallon’s FB feed. Another writer who’s a must read for me.
schrodingers_cat
@Spanky: Not Satby but Twitter is a good resource, follow reporters directly on the ground who are doing the reporting instead of pundtwits.
Like @scottmcfarlane for Jan 6 news, for example.
Washington Post is not too bad if you discount their op-ed page nitwits like Theissen, Abernathy etc
Baud
@MattF:
That’s always true. But it would be nice to live in a world where we had several marginal votes to choose from when trying to get things done.
topclimber
@Soprano2: Maybe we should brand it as the Private Option for Medicare, so there is a level playing field.
Baud
It occurred to me that one side benefit of doom punditry is that it makes getting rid of the filibuster seem like a riskier proposition.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: If it also makes the Rs complacent that’s a double plus.
satby
@Spanky: I read just about any news site, I just consider their bias when I do. But I prefer sources outside the US because they seem a bit better able to maintain a slight detachment to the outcome. Please note every modifying waffle word in the previous sentence.
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud: As bollocks up as means testing to get in practice, seems like Joe should just say OK, get it signed off, and we’ll get right on that means testing stuff…
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Woah there Hoss, you’ll never get centrist Republicans on board with radical talk like that!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Baud: Medicare is means tested in that if your income is over a certain level, you pay more for Part B. They take it straight out of your Social Security. Obviously the govt already has all those numbers. They just need to cross data bases
ETA: I offer that as an example of inexpensive means testing.
satby
@schrodingers_cat: Yeah, I’m mostly on Twitter now, where you can find a lot of familiar names who seldom comment here any more.
mrmoshpotato
@MattF: Cow and Chicken intro
Kay
@Soprano2:
The universal public programs are the most resilent. Why did they call Social Security and Medicare a “third rail” in US politics? Because they had an enormous group of middle class beneficiaires.
“Means testing” doesn’t hold up across the board- it falls apart if you poke it at all. You saw it with PPP. Did big companies get PPP? Yeah, because they have most of the employees. We avoided a 2009-like depression because we pumped a shit load of money into the economy. Lower and middle class people are the least economically resilient and the least able to weather a downturn. They benefitted most.
Baud
@Baud:
To clarify, a side benefit to people who don’t want Dems to get Dem things done.
debbie
@Geminid:
I found the post:
The guy’s an established artist who rarely posts about politics. Not sure if I’ve seen him refer to BS with any reverence. It seems like his issue is the disparity.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
Baud
@Kay:
I keep hearing this, but I’m not sure what it’s based on. There are still lots of means tested programs out there.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Baud
@debbie:
Assuming those numbers are accurate, that’s only one small part of BBB.
I assume those numbers come about because paid family leave is a tax deduction, but maybe there’s some other reason.
Kay
@debbie:
We’ve done this for the last thirty years though- limited benefits to poor people to raise them to the level of the lowest tier of the middle class and the “disparity” he’s worried about gets bigger every year. Focusing on “equity” between people who make 6k a year and 50k a year “brings up the bottom” but it’s such a low floor it doesn’t change the trajectory.
jonas
Right, because if it’s a means-tested program only for the very poorest, it becomes an entitlement for “those people” that can easily be put back on the chopping block eventually.
Tony Gerace
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Medicare has been successful for more than a half-century because it has no means testing. Means testing has the effect of excluding many of the people who need help the most — people with limited education, limited time and stressful lives. Also, means testing leads to a narrative that the program is benefiting only Those People, and should therefore be eliminated.
Immanentize
@Tony Gerace: Didn’t you just read DAW saying that aspects of Medicare are means tested? And the part that is not, is inadequate to the health needs of most aging seniors. Hence, part B or Medicare Plus Advantage Extra Mucho Bueno. And you know Medicaid is also means tested. As is the ACA.
Kay
@Baud:
Baud I work with means tested programs. They’re a nightmare. It isn’t just “the paperwork”. It’s the control over peoples lives. It keeps lower income people in a box apart from the rest of the country and it doesn’t matter that everyone who keeps them there is “well meaning”.
I’m glad they’re there because if they weren’t people would be on the street but “means tested versus on the street” are not the only options. The centrists don’t actually have any new ideas. I would be thrilled to hear one, but they don’t have any. They have the 1990’s Democratic platform. They can’t just bitch at the Lefties. They have to actually come up with something.
We have a far Right “movement” that is endlessly creative in attaining their (malicious) goals and in response we get Manchin reciting boilerplate 1990’s Democrat. It’s not good enough. This is competitive- they have to do better.
Immanentize
@satby: Funny. Wish you were around more, but then again, I’m not either. Even OH often misses an opportunity to Blech us all.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
??? Weren’t they on the same recently-released list as the Ivory-billed Woodpecker?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@schrodingers_cat:
What is the “tankie caucus”? And it’s Manchin and Sinema, along with some “moderates” in the House, who have caused the real problems.
I remember not liking Sanders either for 2016. Frankly I still don’t. But we need his vote and he’s been far more reliable lately than Manchinema
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@rikyrah:
Good morning
Baud
@Kay:
I don’t disagree with any of your experience. But my question was about political resiliency of universal vs. means-tested programs. I just don’t know what that’s based on. If it’s just intuition, that’s fine. But if there’s something else to support it, I’d like to know.
Kay
@jonas:
Obama’s (and before Obama, Pelosi’s) expansion of Medicaid was life-changing. It changed tens of millions of lives. It will have a generational impact because health care pays dividends later, in a healthier population. No one talks about it, because middle and upper middle don’t encounter it until they’re in a nursing home.
If you’re going to do means tested programs at least figure out how to present and sell them politically, so there’s some political gain. We don’t do that at all.
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I agree. The main problems we have in 2021 aren’t the problems we had in 2016. The pendulum can always swing back, however, so it’s always good never to let your guard down.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: In the current dispute over the BBB plan, it’s basically a handful of so-called moderates who are really obstructionists looking for branding fodder, so there’s not a ton of daylight between the right- and left-most positions — the caucus minus a dozen or so people are united on that. But we’ve got to keep in mind that bill is the result of a lot of debate and compromise within the party. Outside that context, I do think there are deep and genuine policy differences between someone like Jon Tester and Elizabeth Warren, and they represent the entirety of the “sane” spectrum of U.S. politics.
Immanentize
@Baud: Community Action Agencies for the poor are a sad shadow of their intended purpose because block granting. Opportunity Zones have been turned from urban development (money to communities in need) into high end development (money to developers) programs. Where are Head Start, home weatherization and home energy subsidy programs now (shadows of their former selves, because they are “poor people programs”)? VISTA? Job Corps? Teach for America?
These programs are just ones off the top of my head that have not been sustained because, most people on the ground believe, they realy helped poor people.
The one perhaps shining light has been the COVID era school lunch for all – but we have seen how mean some communities are about that.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Tony Gerace:
The people behind means testing consider that a feature, not a bug. Which is another reason why means testing is a crock.
Kay
@jonas:
Obama knew this reality. Why was the entire ACA discussion about the exchanges and coverage of preexisting conditions? Because that’s what middle and upper middle cared about. Obama knew enough not to focus on Medicaid- the whole bill would have portrayed as a “hand out”.
We don’t get any political benefit t from promoting poor people programs exclusively.
Immanentize
@Baud: I meant my last comment for you, but somehow responded to Geminid? Oh well, mistakes were made. fixed it!
Baud
@Immanentize:
Thanks for the examples. Although… public schools are universal, and the GOP is able to demonize and harm them as well. My guess is that we have a lot more means tested programs than universal ones, so I’m not sure the best way to add them up. But you gave me some information to think about, so thanks.
Geminid
@debbie: Interesting. I’m not too bothered, though. Those high income earners pay plenty of federal taxes when they are not on paid family leave. A cap at $5000 might be in order, but I know to little about the question to say for sure.
This issue reminds me of the SALT tax exemption. A liberal friend does not want it reinstated because it seems to benefit the better off. But I think this person does not look at the larger picture.
Kathleen
@satby: Hi Satby. Would you mind shsring twitter handle? I know I follow SC and Betty C and lamh and alt fax but I don’t know any other BJ handles on Twitter. I’m @urbanmeemaw. Thanks. If you don’t want to share handle it’s cool.
Kay
My assumption was the progressives asked for much more than they intended to get because one of their criticisms of Democrats is Democrats start negotiations too low. I think they’ve clearly outlined their “must haves” and it’s climate change, child subsidies (leave, child tax credit) and drug prices, with a tax increase to both pay for the programs and also take a tiny chip out of the yawning gap between the top 1% and the rest of us.
Climate change and the tax increase will be the heaviest lifts, because they affect the most powerful actors and they are lobbying like crazy against the whole bill.
Amir Khalid
Sad news for fans of traditional Irish music. Paddy Moloney, founder of The Chieftains, has passed away at the age of 83. Here they are with Sinead O’Connor performing The Foggy Dew.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
Oh I agree. Always keep your guard up for sure.
Spanky
@Amir Khalid: Damn.
I’ll be raising a glass to himself tonight.
gvg
@Soprano2: the middle class has been so eroded in real fiscal solvency, that they need the child tax credit almost as much as the poor. Frankly, I don’t see how we keep replacing our population without this change plus quite a few others. It is too expensive to have kids.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: There may be significant issues between Warren and Tester, and on some issues they may actually be deep. But they are in agreement on many others.
Anyway, mine was a tricky question. Tester may be the 4th most conservative Democratic Senator, but I count Warren among the three most liberal. I could think of a half dozen other Senators I’d nominate as 4th most liberal.
Immanentize
@Baud: The universal school problem for the GOP is race. Which the means testing problem might be as well….
topclimber
@Immanentize: Vista, Job Corps and Head Start could be invigorated by thousands of volunteers paying off their student loans.
Good on Biden for improving existing loan rebate programs, but we need to do more. Any college educated person from most colleges and regardless of for how long, can be an asset to a struggling neighborhood.
Full disclosure: Hoping to qualify myself.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, interesting goings-on in Iran after the recent elections. AlJazeera:
Al-Sadr also has ties with Iran and frequently visits there. But they’re different ties than these other groups. The falling turnout should be a warning sign to all the factions that they need to start making things better…
Politics is complicated!
Cheers,
Scott.
Geminid
@Geminid: When I think of Democratic voters instead of members of Congress, I don’t see that broad a spectrum. My guess is that 80% of Virginia’s Democratic voters would fall between Mark Warner and Tim Kaine ideologically. The ten percent to the right and left of them still vote for them even if they may have reservations
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I agree with Saletan, which I do not often do
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I am truly shocked that there is enough self awareness to make this article possible. A lot of the press seems to be as double down on stupid as Trump is.
MattF
@Amir Khalid: Terrific, and not what I expected. Over 13,000,000 views… and yeah, I guess it is ‘traditional’.
satby
Actually, I ‘m a former VISTA, so I know it’s still active as a component of Americorps, though tfg’s admin tried like hell to starve those programs. One of my future retirement goals is to go back into the Senior program. But they weren’t poverty focussed programs entirely; the NCCC does a lot of disaster and national park services, for example.
Teach For America was always a ngo non-profit, also still active.
Baud
@satby:
Thank you too.
topclimber
@Another Scott:
Thanks for this.
topclimber
@satby:
AmeriCorps to become ClimateCorps?
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: If your argument is that as you move toward the middle of the spectrum, the policy differences are less pronounced, we agree. I think you’re onto something when you look at voters rather than elected officials, though maybe I’d quibble with the percentage allocation of right vs. left positions nationwide (don’t know enough about Va. to have an opinion). If we had two parties that were equally “sane,” i.e., connected to reality and committed to democratic governance, the distribution of voters would be very different.
I think that was Robinson’s point — that cramming all the sane people into one party makes it harder to reach consensus. Seems like common sense to me.
Old School
A question about the media village:
Before the Woman’s March, there was a comment here about how the NYT was looking for people to interview marchers about how they were disillusioned over the Biden presidency.
Did they actually write that article?
I’m not a subscriber, but haven’t seen it mentioned anywhere. So was it not written? Or did it just not get any traction?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
If you had told me twenty years ago that Larry Sabato would some day be pushing back against anti-Dem CW, I would have said you were nuts
Old School
@Amir Khalid: That’s too bad about Paddy. I’ll have to dig out some Chieftains albums.
satby
@Amir Khalid: Téigh le Dia Paddy!
Both the Irish language and the Irish music revival owe the greatest debt to Paddy. Never missed them when they came to Chicago, and my youngest son is named in honor of him.
this joint is running like a dog today, innit?
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Wait, all the hand wringing was over one poll???
I’m rededicating my self to my transition to normieness. (It’s as hard as losing weight FWIW.)
Redshift
@gvg: Government support for child care is one of the many areas where the US is an outlier. We’ve transitioned from a society where women mostly were at home to one where women mostly work white leaving child care in the “screw you, you’re in your own” category. We should never have gotten to the point where it being expensive is the issue, it’s just a no-brainer that it’s a widespread need for the whole system to work.
Kropacetic
Means testing is a means to ensure that help never reaches quite enough of the working poor. That way enough voters remain distrustful of government action that the leeches running everything can continue accruing all the moneys to themselves unperturbed.
MattF
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think polls continue to lose reliability because of ever-lowering response rates. And error estimates are mostly wishful thinking. Bearing in mind that error estimates have error estimates…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: Speaking of hand-wringing (thread):
satby
@topclimber: I got part of my loan for the paralegal program at Roosevelt University paid off with my Vista service, though it wasn’t why I volunteered. I had wanted to join the Peace Corps, but they didn’t take people without college degrees.
Feathers
Means testing is also terrible because the dollar amounts are set into law and rarely updated. What was stingy become tragic. A screenshot of the food assistance program went around Twitter this weekend. It asks if you have anything in your household worth more than $300. Basically everyone lies. Because are you supposed to sell your stove and refrigerator to get a small amount of money for food each month?
The real problem is that the means testing limits become a trap. The amounts of assets allowed is now less than first and last months rent anywhere. So you can’t move to where there might be a job or family support. So you can’t get a working car.
Here’s an article looking at the problems the 1994 welfare bill is still causing. Women have to name the fathers of their children. The money from the fathers doesn’t even go to the families, but instead to the government to pay back for the benefits the families received. The stories are horrific. If means testing is agreed to, it is only made worse later, not cleaned up. Not able to add link on phone:
https://abq.news/2021/09/to-get-public-assistance-in-new-mexico-single-mothers-are-forced-to-share-intimate-details-about-their-families/
satby
@Kathleen: I’m @sbarrt
I’m not anonymous on the web, anyone can easily find me URL through my store.
topclimber
@satby: I will check it out.
Another Scott
Rothenberg at RollCall reminds us of the way things work (and makes it both-sidery to keep his village cred:
No great insights, ignores the disingenuous arguments and bad faith on the GQP side, and is very both-sidery, but it’s worth keeping in mind – work gets done at the deadline and until then a lot of it is posturing.
Worth a click.
Cheers,
Scott.
taumaturgo
@Soprano2: I will call it what it is: CORRUPTION in a major scale.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Most likely result will be a lot of stuff will be insourced or moved to Mexico since that’s easier and quicker than expanding the west coast ports.
taumaturgo
In the meanwhile, in the real world far away from the suburbs and pristine downtown neighborhoods, the working-class voters continue to be clueless:
“Only 10% of Americans describe themselves as knowing a lot of specific things about what’s in the Build Back Better plan, and a majority admit to either not knowing specifics or anything at all.” CBS recent poll.
When the political conversation is aimed and dominated by the plutocrats the message hardly trickles down to the masses, and IMO this is by design. 2022 is not looking pretty.
MattF
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Empirical evidence points to a large gap between what people tell polls about their vaccination intentions and what they actually do.
jonas
@Kay: Except the income cutoff for Obamacare subsidies was so low that really only the working poor saw the benefit. Middle and upper class voters got a lot of the administrative benefits for their work-based health insurance — kids staying on your policy to 26, no more preexisting conditions, etc. — but got burned with higher premiums (viz. the whole “you can keep your doctor” imbroglio). A lot of people don’t realize that one of the things in the BBB bill is moving that subsidy line substantially to benefit more middle-class people. And the dental benefit on Medicare — that’s HUGE, but you hardly hear anyone mention it.
Kathleen
@satby: Americorps is a active in my community. I’ve met volunteers at community meetings. From what I hear on the radio there are many programs available in Hamilton County. One of our county commissioners brings busses to different neighborhoods with incredible array of resources like rent assistance, medical, etc.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I think he is ticking up. There are 2 Right wing polls that bring down the average but that’s just the norm now for Democrats, so it shouldn’t affect the real number.
Wait for the comeback theme! Oh, I forgot- only Republicans get those :)
It is true about Biden though, and I’m the first to admit it, as one who underestimated him. He is ROUTINELY underestimated which can be a kind of superpower.
Kathleen
@satby: Thank you.
Kay
@jonas:
I don’t agree with the dental benefit for Medicare. I would push money towards younger people at this point. I think we need more investment in them. Show me we’ve covered everyone with basic affordable health care and I’ll talk about extending benefits to that portion of the population. I don’t think there will be any political upside either- I would do it just for that- but I don’t think we’ll get any.
satby
@Kathleen: Both Americorps and its predecessors VISTA and the Peace Corps are / were primarily staffed by young, white, middle class college or newly graduated kids. They were assigned to different resource strapped NGOs to work and the stipend was paid by the government, but they weren’t designed as low income support programs except incidentally. When I (and many others, including Secretary Pete) talk about having a national service Americorps is one already in practice. And it should be expanded.
Another Scott
@jonas: Unfortunately, and unsurprisingly, it’s always this way. Programs always start too small with too many limitations. It’s annoying and even infuriating because we know how to make things better. But political progress is incremental.
CAP – SSI is the latest example:
It’s long past time to fix these issues. The Reconciliation Bill does that – or at least will make progress on them.
Take the win, celebrate the win, and keep building on it.
Cheers,
Scott.
trollhattan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I “love” how Abbott is now openly commanding Texans to “Die, die, die you fuckers” and they’re basically patting him on the back for a job well done, showing those Democrats.
Kay
@jonas:
But that’s means testing in a nutshell! That’s the GOAL of means testing. Obamacare was one big means test.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Yes, well this time last year Trump started realizing he was about to get spanked in the election and not cruising to a win like the Republican chosen polls were claiming.
julia
g to a win like the Repub
Kay
@jonas:
I often disagree with Bernie. What’s nice for me about having more progressives is you get more diversity of opinion among progressives. Bernie ain’t the only choice.
I think centrists need to do more than just water down progressive proposals. They occupy this kind of protected space where they never have to offer anything and it’s made them lazy. They need something other than 1990’s Democratic proposals. God, really? Joe Manchin is going to bore all of us with this discussion of “entitlements” that we beat to death in the 20 years prior?
Mike in NC
Going to pick up a few rolls of toilet paper today, since the media is implying we are about to have another round of hoarding.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: just about a year ago he was helicoptered from the White House to Walter Reed, and we later found out he was afraid he could become “one of the diers”, he was a hair’s breadth from a ventilator, and the then-experimental monoclonal antibody therapy probably saved his life. ETA: and a month after that, he came within 100,000 or so votes of winning the EC again
I think it was a week or two later that Chris Christie’s life needed saving by the same treatment– which was only authorized because he was a crony of the President– because, asthmatic and morbidly obese, he had gone maskless at the Coney Barrett festival. Which I point about because it fascinates me that a man who almost died from his own stupidity and who was saved from the magnitude of said stupidity by beyond banana republic corruption, and this man is regularly invited on television to tell us what to think about politics, by one of Bill Clinton’s top campaign aides.
Another Scott
A useful reminder…
Expanding and protecting healthcare continues to be a winning issue for Democrats. Smart candidates know that.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kathleen
@satby: I agree with you about Americorps.
Frank Wilhoit
My take on the CBS 10% finding is a little different. CBS are whistling past the graveyard. They have to pretend that people [would] care about the details. They don’t. CBS can’t admit that, because if they did, they may as well turn out the lights and go sell oranges from a cart on the sidewalk. It’s all tl;dr. It’s all tribalism, front front back back side to side. Our (anti-Republicans) tribalism is inherently weaker, because we are vaguely aware that tribalism is a bad thing; but we (Homo sapiens) have now devolved to the point where nothing else remains.
Ksmiami
Where’s Villago when we need her/him? Her nym over and over…
dmsilev
@Another Scott: There’s precisely one state (West Virginia) in which less than 60% of adults have gotten at least one dose of the vaccine, and even there it’s 57%.
Just Chuck
Noticing my comment volume on Reddit has gone way down lately since I started repeating this to myself every time I start a comment: “Don’t engage with stupid assholes.”
If everyone did that, Twitter would go under.
Feathers
@Another Scott: This. There isn’t marriage equality until the disabled can marry. The other issue with the impoverishment is that there are so many medical and support needs that aren’t covered by Medicaid/insurance so having no money means not being able to afford needed equipment and supplies.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Perhaps if Trump wasn’t believing in the BS Republican narrative all along, he might have won, incumbent with a national emergency and all that? It has been pointed out that Cuemo, as odious as he is, polled well at the height of the pandemic by simply doing his job. Jimmy Carter pointed out that presidents get a +15% boost in the polls during national emergencies like wars.
L85NJGT
@dmsilev:
sab
@Kay: That is such a good point. Progressives are what, a third or half are caucus? And they don’t always agree on every policy point, but they are all working in the same direction.
cain
@Betty:
I find it funny that the people who exploit all this stuff tend to be conservatives. It’s why they do all that projection.
Miss Bianca
@Amir Khalid: Oh, man. That is sad news, indeed. RIP, Paddy!
cain
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The press doesn’t have it in them to keep covering Afghanistan.
dmsilev
@L85NJGT: “Dying to own the libs”.
cain
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: white conservatives are 3x the Americans the rest of us are thus we need to normalize the results.
scav
@dmsilev: I think they’re confusing our giggles, outright guffaws and/or looks of confused disbelief with being “owned”.
Soprano2
@Kay: My MO rep is working here in Missouri to make these programs better. They’re testing a way to fix the “cliff” problem, where earning one more penny means a huge cutoff of benefits for people. It’s really crazy to have there be a disincentive to make more money. https://www.ozarksfirst.com/local-news/local-news-local-news/springfield-lawmaker-working-to-prevent-the-cliff-effect/ Do you think this would be better?
Matt McIrvin
The tone of political conversation right now makes me think sometimes that the next presidential election is in November. I have to remind myself that Biden has been in for less than a year.
Matt McIrvin
@L85NJGT: And an outsize number of the urban deaths were way back in the spring of 2020, especially in the Northeast.
I think that’s what a lot of retrospectives miss–just how bad it was in greater NYC, and to some extent the rest of the urban Northeast, way back at the beginning before there were vaccines, or effective treatments, or even very good knowledge of what preventative measures really worked. The case rates were ridiculously undercounted because nobody was getting tested at the beginning unless they were sick enough to get into the crowded hospitals. The dead just piled up. It all makes the rest of the country look relatively better than it should just because they weren’t hit hard by that first terrible wave.
Just Chuck
@Matt McIrvin: Forget about baseball, politics is the American National Pastime.
Cameron
I guess universal basic income with annual cost-of-living adjustments might help. Kind of unlikely to happen, though.
Timurid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The pandemic showed me who the worst people in America are, it showed me who the most important people in America are and it showed me that they are the same people.
Ruckus
@Betty:
They don’t live in reality.
Manchin and what’s her name (I can never remember how to spell it) get paid by the government to be Democratic senators. How much do they get paid on the side not to be Democratic senators? And of course we – Democrats cover a lot of the political spectrum now because the rethuglican party of today only exists to abscond with all the money they can, and a lot they shouldn’t be able to. Everything their leadership does is to control the money. How much is spent on things they don’t want, how much is made available to them, how – no that about does it. They want to control how the little that is left gets spent, so healthcare needs, say for a woman’s possible need is a no no. The federal government? No that might get in their way. Look what they do to the states they control, below the bare minimum. They don’t give a damn about the future, because they won’t be here to hoard all that money. That’s up to their kids. Their entire premise is control and money and not necessarily in that order. They have no vision of actual governance, of an actual country, their only vision is selfishness.
Gravenstone
Just a little. My employer finally rolled out the mandate that all employees must be fully vaxxed by early December. About a week after announcement, the pushback is starting from a very vocal minority on my local site through the novel avenue of a sitewide email chain. Listening to the hue and cry of the anti-vax is … interesting.
Sounds like an overestimate in our little teapot tempest here. But damn if they aren’t convinced that they’re the absolute majority. Fucking wankers…
Ruckus
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
trump never doubled down on stupid. He’s not that smart to understand how to double down. He is just a racist fuck of massive proportions, another one of those things he “learned” from his father. He is maybe the prime example of how to fail upwards radiating hate, ignorance, and an almost total lack of humanity. He started out with a pretty good sized bankroll (a good portion of which he stole from his siblings), KKK level racism, an IQ in seemingly unrecognizable low numbers, and enough self admiration to light up Broadway, and he used all of that to fail to succeed at anything he attempted, other than being one of the most useless and to very likely make the list of 100 worst humans of all time.
Villago Delenda Est
Hence my nym.
Villago Delenda Est
@Ksmiami:
I swear on a stack of Action Comics #1 that I didn’t put up my last post in response to yours. I’m just running a bit behind this morning…Her Serene Highness has been pestering me incessantly for another treat, and Wonkette has been busy, too!
taumaturgo
@Kay: Wasn’t Obamacare a ripoff of the right-wing proposal to fix healthcare that even right-wingers opposed? Are the conservative democrats slowly morphing into GOP w/o the Q yet? It seems that way, doesn’t it?
Ksmiami
@Villago Delenda Est: I believe you, but your nym is what we need Rt fucking now. The village must be obliterated.
Cameron
OT: Here’s how they do it in Florida. https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2021/10/12/florida-fines-county-357-million-for-covid-vaccine-mandate/?sh=3a1ecf12def9
catclub
@Matt McIrvin:
Right now Vermonts overall number is higher than Mississippi’s
but Mississippi has three or four times as many deaths per capit and also many more total cases per capita.
evodevo
@Matt McIrvin:
Trumpy and Friends were counting on that…they figured it was hitting the city libruls/POCs hard, and they didn’t feel they had to do anything remedial. Funny how that turned around ….
Chris T.
Means-testing in general is kind of silly and pointless, though we need some elementary school mathematics to show it:
(edit: proving to self that I can’t do elementary school maths any more)