In times like this, people often hate hearing “go vote”. But really what we mean by “vote” is “build political power”, and yes, that is still the answer. 1/x
— Tayhlor Coleman (@tayhlorcoleman) June 24, 2022
The district attorney who will decide whether or not to prosecute doctors who provide abortions. The school board member whose oversight of curriculum will shape our children’s worldview and thus our future. The county executive who’ll determine what health funding to prioritize.
The judges who will hear cases brought against women and their doctors. The sheriffs who will investigate the reports against women and their providers. The state legislators who will craft the law now that the decision has been sent back to the states.
The controllers, comptrollers, & treasurers with leeway to decide exactly how soon they’ll reimburse a woman’s health clinic surviving month to month on a shoestring budget. All positions of immense political power. All positions elected with, OR WITHOUT, your vote.
But building political power is about more than voting. We must vote AND show up and hold the leaders we elect accountable. We must vote AND never shut up about the stakes in each election with those in our own concentric circles.
We should be pragmatic about our political reality and remain clear eyed that WE are still our own best shot at building a more equitable and more just country for our children and future generations. Each election is about much more than just us.
The fall of Roe didn’t start today. It started in the midterms many of us sat out. It started in the elections we just couldn’t find the motivation to vote in because the candidates didn’t “inspire” us.
Our opponents found the time and the motivation. And now we see the result.
Many of us look to the struggles of earlier generations and wonder if we would have been brave enough to risk everything they were willing to put on the line for progress. That is impossible to know. But history will judge what we do in this moment.
So yes. Vote and build political power. Vote and build political power. Vote and build political power.
Because if we don’t, they will. /end
Too, also:
Full roundup here on how the American public felt about Roe and abortion prior to today’s decision:https://t.co/vwitmuyBPh
— Ariel Edwards-Levy (@aedwardslevy) June 24, 2022
One other notable finding from this one: “Overall, 36% of adults say that prior to taking the survey, they had given ‘a lot’ of thought to issues around abortion.” https://t.co/iZWRFm3d0J
— Ariel Edwards-Levy (@aedwardslevy) June 24, 2022
gwangung
People on here talking about how “voting” won’t solve anything and yet that’s exactly how the GOP accomplished this. Their voters show up every time, en masse, regardless of whether they are in love with the candidate or not, because they’re laser focused on the endgame. Today.
chris evans
@notcapnamerica
zhena gogolia
I love the last line in the Cohen tweet
Omnes Omnibus
Voting is necessary but not sufficient.
TheTruffle
I really think this just exploded in the Republicans’ faces. I think they will lose the votes of most women and a lot of demographics. Or maybe it is wishful thinking.
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus: right. Gotta keep doing it too
Emma from Miami
I am thinking of leveraging economic power against corporations that support Republican politicians. Find out the ones that we could boycott, publicity pressure, etc. Make it a big deal. Voting is important but showing the bastards that their pocketbooks will hurt can move the needle.
zhena gogolia
@TheTruffle: I have the same instinct. This has a higher profile than their usual stunts
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Voting is the first step in civic engagement. I am going to be volunteering for Maura Healey’s campaign. She is running for governor.
She had fighting words yesterday.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: great
PaulB
One thing I dislike about much of the Twitter discourse, in particular, is that people keep talking past each other. If, for example, you have voted in every election that you were eligible to vote, then clearly the exhortation to vote isn’t aimed at you. It’s aimed at the people who couldn’t be bothered to vote, or who insisted that there was no difference between the parties, or who insisted that there was no way that the Republican Party or the Supreme Court would ever do [x].
Similarly, when people are insisting that you need to find the time and the motivation to vote, they aren’t dismissing things like voter registration drives, money for campaigns, volunteering for campaigns, speaking out in public forums, and the like. They are simply saying that, at a bare minimum, you, personally, need to get out and vote.
So instead of getting offended when someone doesn’t deliver the message quite the way you think it should be delivered, don’t get pissy, don’t get offended, don’t attack them. Acknowledge the validity of their point and then list a candidate who needs money, or a website where people can volunteer, or an ActBlue fund that is raising money.
And always, always, point out that it wasn’t Democratic politicians or judges who have been pulling this shit. Point the finger where it belongs: at the Republican Party. The one take I will attack on Twitter and elsewhere is that Congressional Democrats are responsible for this.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Frank Wilhoit
It is very easy to say “build political power”, but the whole problem is that the nature of political power is changing, out of recognition, day over day. By definition, it is not possible to analyze this kind of transformation in real time, which means that, as with previous tipping points, what will be rewarded tomorrow is lucky guesses today. Even understanding the root causes, as many of us imagine (each differently) that we do, is no help, because the manifestations of the root causes are unstable, and instability cannot be anticipated, but only reacted to. Everything depends upon the time scale at which one reacts, neither too eager nor too lazy but “just right”; but we have not had simulator training, the wings are coming off, and the right time scale cannot be determined — except, again, by luck.
Our opponents are not trying to substitute their rulebook for ours. They have torn up the rulebook, and it suits them that there should be none, except improv.
It is not about women (as, before, it was not about Blacks, or Jews, and tomorrow it will not be about…whomever, wait and see). It is always and only about the Disloyals: the defenders and sympathizers of the out-groups, the people, ostensibly members of the Community, who think differently but cannot be identified at sight, so the game is to stress them and force them to identify themselves by speaking or acting out.
Bill Arnold
@TheTruffle:
Tom Levenson yesterday:
“Anyone voting Republican at any level this fall is pretty much voting NSDAP in 1932.”
(German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei[b] or NSDAP. Or, you know,….)
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Too many people hear “necessary but not sufficient” and decide not to vote since it’s not going to be good enough.
Let’s at least get folks into the voting booth before we start loading them down with extra work. Our participation statistics are abysmal, especially in off-year and special elections.
Baud
The debate is wearisome. The anti-voters have no path forward. None.
PaulB
And while I’m ranting, let me add one more rant about “messaging.” Yes, messaging matters, as does message discipline. I suspect few would argue with the claim that the Republican Party generally does this better than the Democratic Party. But it’s overly simplistic to think that better messaging would solve all of our problems. “If Biden/Pelosi/Schumer had better messaging, this wouldn’t have happened!”
It’s the Green Lantern theory of politics, where all you have to do is “will” something into existence and it will magically work. It’s never that simple. And pretending that it is allows people to insist that this is all somehow the fault of Democrats. Again, this points the finger away from where it belongs.
Can and should the Democratic Party be better at messaging? Absolutely. Suggestions are welcome as to what to say and how to say it. But just be honest that isn’t a magic bullet, isn’t a panacea, doesn’t solve all of our problems. Be realistic about what messaging can and, more important, what it cannot accomplish.
Frank Wilhoit
@PaulB: Messaging is about who listens.
taumaturgo
Amen.
.
SpaceUnit
But the Democrats have a wokeness problem.
I heard it on the teevee.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Indeed and I have my doubts that people who find voting too onerous have it in them to start a revolution or a general strike.(some platitudes they throw out)
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Agree. Plus, they haven’t done it. Why not, if it’s a magic elixir that will solve all our problems?
Starfish
Young people typically vote less than everyone else.
People chiding young people for not voting is not going to motivate them to vote. They are doing what they have always done. Why are people in the party blaming the least powerful?
There has to be some sort of positive motivator. What vision of a better tomorrow is there? What has been done specifically for young people? No climate change anything? Yelling at them about wanting college debt relief? Like seriously, nothing was done for them. So what is their positive motivator?
We knew this was coming. What was the plan for when it happened? What are we going to try? Why was there no real plan in place? This has been a strong possibility for years now, and it should have been considered the moment Trump started seating judges.
schrodingers_cat
@PaulB: The only group that doesn’t seem to get Democratic messaging is the group that votes overwhelmingly for Rs.
The rest of us hear the R messaging loud and clear and need no extra encouragement to vote straight ticket D.
I have little patience for those blaming the Ds.
Baud
@Starfish:
We’re chiding people who are encouraging people that voting is useless. They are working against our interests.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
This anything-less-than-everything-is-nothing ethos is counterproductive too.
livewyre
@Starfish: Speak for yourself. There are motivations other than being led.
different-church-lady
@Starfish: Cart. Horse. Order. All that all that.
different-church-lady
Too many people confusing voting with buying stuff.
schrodingers_cat
@different-church-lady: Or dating.
livewyre
@Starfish: Actually, this is a pretty clever approach. Start out blaming a generalized group, and then turn around and say they’re not being served well enough. Presumably you’re not among them and have no standing to represent them as a coherent bloc, but you can still make everyone unhappy and less invested. Win/win.
As for me? I’m here because I actually favor the right for myself to exist. I don’t need to be fed or led in order to be involved. That part was done for me, by way of threat.
Cacti
@Starfish: Decriminalizing marijuana at the federal level is popular with young people, broadly popular with a majority, and is one of the lowest hanging legislative fruits on the vine.
I mean it’s about as close to a layup as you can get and the Dem gerontocracy won’t give it the time of day.
Why???????????
Cacti
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: So name a single thing has been done to help young people broadly, by the current administration and Congress.
Suzanne
@Starfish: Young people also showed up in 2020 and went pretty hard for Biden.
I am also one of those people who thinks that our first obligation as a society is to kids and young people, and older people come much further down that list.
The under-30s that I know care really, really hard about three things: Student loans and the cost of education, housing prices, and climate change. Overwhelmingly. We need to deliver on those things.
Starfish
@Cacti: True. Instead of attempting to woo away some anti-choice Republicans by stuffing money into an anti-choice Democrat in Texas, they can woo away some libertarian dodos who will hopefully grow out of it eventually.
Baud
PaulB
Actually, they have “given it the time of day.” The issue is just how far to go and it fits right into this debate, as some members of Congress won’t vote for anything less than full legalization, which means that things like banking reform and medical research bills die.
And it has to go through the Senate, where it would need a) a reconciliation bill, and b) every Democratic Senator on board.
This, like just about every other initiative, is being blocked by 100% of Republicans. So why aren’t you blaming them?
Cacti
@Baud: And what has the august upper chamber done with said bill.
And what has the White House done in promoting its passage?
I can answer that for you in three words:
Jack diddly squat.
CaseyL
Why do you think the Democrats have not delivered on these things?
Never mind. I’m sure the GOP will get right to it when they win back Congress.
Frank Wilhoit
@Suzanne: You have ticked off three market failures, which are conspicuous to a certain audience; but there are many, many others, including some that are more conspicuous to more people, alongside some that have been very carefully concealed.
The market is the problem. The market is always the problem. All market incentives are perverse. No one wants to square up to that.
Plucking three crooked feathers out of an ugly hat may not have any lasting effects.
PaulB
Billions of dollars in student loan relief not good enough for you? Infrastructure and Covid relief bills, which also benefit young people, not good enough?
But even if it were the case that Democrats hadn’t done anything, I can still point to the evils that Republicans have passed, and more that they have on their agenda, and still make the case that it is in their best interest to vote.
livewyre
@PaulB: Because if they win, it’s one step closer to a
white supremacist patriarchalutopia. Presumably where everyone’s mother is up for grabs.Ohio Mom
In fairness to “normies” it’s often hard to tell who to vote for in such non-partisan races such as the local school board.
Or judges or county auditor or any number of other positions it’s not clear what they do. These races usually don’t get a lot of news media attention either.
The other side of course finds out who to vote for when they go to church. But liberal and mainline clergy tend to follow the rules about not endorsing candidates. And that’s not counting that a lot of us don’t belong to a congregation.
All these things are structural problems for our side. You can tell people they have to vote but you can’t stop there.
Please note, I know what the county auditor does and I have my own systems for figuring out who deserves my vote. But I put more effort into this than most.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Cacti: since you’re all about student debt, when was the last time anybody made a payment?
Did young people get Covid relief, vaccinations, home testing kits?
Do young people drink water?
Are EV charging stations good for the environment? Capping abandoned oil fields? Cleaning up mines?
It is true that Biden has kept none of the campaign promises that Bernie Sanders made while losing to Joe Biden by two-to-one, or that led Senator-Perfesser Warren to third place in her home state primary.
livewyre
@PaulB: I can guarantee you that this one doesn’t speak for young people generally, nor for anyone who finds the evils of conservative rule intolerable.
gwangung
@Starfish: I think pot legalization has potential. Particularly since there are LOTS of states where we can see the effect.
Cowardice on this issue isn’t the defendable.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@CaseyL:
Anything Less Than Everything Is Nothing.
ETA:
I don’t think it’s cowardice. I do think this is one area where Biden critics have a point. He’s just an old dude who probably thinks marijuana is a gateway drug, a notion probably reinforced by his family’s various issues with addiction– same reason he’s a lifelong teetotaler
Cacti
@PaulB:
You more or less just made my point for me.
“It would need every Democratic Senator on board.”
To which I say: Uh huh, and? Isn’t that the reason we vote for them so that they can pass legislation we support?
I already know the Republicans suck. That’s why I don’t vote for them.
PaulB
Note how Cacti excoriates Democrats without once mentioning the Republican Party or Congressional Republicans. I think I’m not going to bother to engage that particular commenter again on this thread. Life’s too short.
Case in point: “You more or less just made my point for me.”
My point sailed right past him. Probably intentionally.
And note this response to getting his ass handed to him: “Did you switch socks, livewyre?”
Yup. It’s pie time. And time for me to head out. Play safe, everyone.
Steeplejack
And you can’t just vote for president, your well-known senator and (maybe) your congressional rep. You have to vote in all elections—state, local, right down to village dogcatcher. All of those trigger laws were put in place by GQP legislatures consisting of shitbirds that we possibly didn’t even notice, much less vote against.
Cacti
@PaulB: Did you switch socks, livewyre?
David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch
@Starfish: What possible plan is there? If you codify Roe this court will simply overturn it the way they overturned the codification of voting rights and campaign finance reform. If you are able to expand the court they will simply contract the court when they get their hands on the levers of power.
Even AOC said yesterday the only way to reverse this is by the long hard work of winning elections to replace the extremists.
For 20 years I’ve voted to protect others while the usual suspects insisted Roe would never be overturned so feel free to vote for Nader and Stein and Trump. And now the very same cast are asking me why didn’t I protect them from themselves.
Cacti
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
So, nothing specific. Got it.
livewyre
Supporting supremacy is an act of supremacy, no matter whether there’s an idea to “defeat” it later. Countless of us wouldn’t survive the transition, and survival would be very pointedly selective. From certain standpoints, that’s a price worth paying. Which brings us back to supremacy.
livewyre
@Cacti: ♥
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Cacti: So you’re arguing for an age limit to debt relief? That’s interesting. What’s cut off? One day older than you?
Cacti
On this, I actually agree with you.
I don’t think Biden is a coward on this issue. Just an old, out of touch, drug warrior.
livewyre
@Cacti: Don’t forget “sleepy”.
gene108
Kay had posted earlier about thinking of creative ways to anticipate the next bit of fuckery the anti-abortion people are going to do.
Based on the New York handgun law that overturned the day before the Dodd decision, I think states that keep abortion legal will be sued to make abortion illegal in those states.
The anti-abortion crowd are fanatical zealots. They aren’t going to stop until abortion is outlawed everywhere.
Lums Better Half
1. “Build political power” for a specific change, such as protecting abortion rights, is in conflict with “vote Blue no matter who.”
2. Are we now ok with “holding leaders accountable?” Because any previous suggestion of that has been met with flames around here. Or has no one ever succeeded in identifying an appropriate leader to criticize?
Cacti
So the message is, give your time and money, and maybe years to decades later we can undo the damage?
Does that not sound incredibly uninspiring to you?
Cacti
@livewyre: You’re welcome to offer a factual rebuttal of Biden being an old, out of touch, drug warrior on the issue of MJ decriminalization.
Starfish
@David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch: Did the illegality of the various abortion bans stop the anti-choicers from passing them anyway? Show your people you are willing to fight.
After the Supreme Court knocked down Maine’s attempt to keep public education funding out of private religious schools, Maine went back and said that all schools that receive funding need an anti-discrimination policy to show how they will fight discrimination against LGBTQ students, ruling out the religious schools again.
livewyre
@gene108: Right, this is a conflict between rule of law and rule of force. There’s no procedural or rhetorical magic bullet that will immunize our regulatory state from attack. Instead, we don’t just vote, but protect elections and enforce the laws we have. We can’t count on the right thing being done for us from above – representation flows upward.
With this administration, we have at least a start at it and we have a chance. That may not be to everyone’s preference, but it still makes a difference to those of us who rely on it, and notice.
Cacti
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Your example of electric vehicle charging stations was also precious.
Yeah, lots of young people driving $60,000 Teslas. lol
David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch
@Ohio Mom: I usually vote for the candidate who has the shortest name or the candidate who has the hottest spouse.
livewyre
@Cacti: Points for repetition. Keep on message. Show us what we’re fighting.
Cacti
Or from bombing clinics, abducting and murdering clinic workers, etc. Alito’s decision was a vindication of a 50 year domestic terror campaign by the “pro-life” movement.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch: how did you handle Dennis Kucinich?
(You all remember Kucinich? He was Bernie when Bernie’s biggest audience was Thom Hartmann. O, to be able to return to those days!)
Starfish
@Ohio Mom: Most of these seats are uncontested, and the two that are contested all have candidates that are prioritizing the same issues. I am voting for the one who wore a flannel shirt in his mailer because I want a grunge revival.
David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch
@Starfish: You asked for a plan, not theatrics. AOC has a plan but that involves hard work.
livewyre
@Cacti: Your answer is one of “ours”, I gather. As long as it involves killing. Water the tree and all that.
Baud
@Cacti:
Here’s what you said
I proved you wrong, so you moved the goalposts. That’s fine. The intertubes are full of irrelevant hecklers. You don’t matter. Voters will either join our fight or they won’t.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: and apparently the only electric car that exists or ever will exist is the Tesla (and aren’t they a lot more than 60K?)
Starfish
@David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch: Those laws are not theatrics. They last for a period of time, and they may make progress in some states.
Cacti
@Baud: Except, you didn’t.
It went to the geezer chamber of Congress to die.
Suzanne
@CaseyL: Look, I am not arguing that the GOP is better on anything. I mean, I’d prefer them under my tires and inside concrete slabs from coast to coast.
But our coalition doesn’t win without young people. It simply does not. And much of that cohort will not turn out if they do not see action on their issues. It’s the part of the same mindset that makes them better about work-life boundaries and quitting shitty jobs.
And it is a really, REALLY shitty message to them that their parents’ generation got cheap college and housing and that they won’t get that ever and that it will set them back for their entire lives.
Cacti
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The entry level Tesla with tax, tag, and title runs about $50-$60k.
gwangung
@Cacti: Fuck off and eat pie. What a lazy hack you are.
Another Scott
@Starfish: It’s best if young people do it themselves. And they are. E.g. MarchForOurLives:
We’re a big tent. The message needs to be tailored to the various subgroups to get their buy-in and participation, and that is best done by people in those groups.
There are no short-cuts. Everyone has to do their part.
Cheers,
Scott.
Cacti
@Suzanne: Get ready for the board AARP chapter to shake their canes at you.
Meanwhile. The Federal minimum wage remains $7.25 per hour, and one Dem Senator theatrically voted against raising it.
YY_Sima Qian
Shouldn’t the exhortations just be “Organize!”? That is how political power is built, regardless of the structure of politics (including in a rapidly decaying democracy). That is how progress has been made in most of the US history (& history period). If things truly come to a head & culminate in some kind of confrontation (violent or otherwise), it will take organization to prevail then , too.
That is how the reactionaries built their power. It takes organization to get out the vote come election time. Organize well & the votes will come, even in places where they are being actively suppressed. Especially in these places.
To me, “Vote!” betrays a subconscious bias that actions of righteous individuals, acting as individuals, will be adequate to meeting the ongoing challenge, & that elected leaders will respond to the cacophony of these individual voices. In reality, it takes disciplined organization of like minded individuals, ensuring that they speak w/ one consistent voice & deliver one unified message, to be truly heard & felt by those in power, & not just those in political positions.
“Vote!” also understates the necessary hard work needed between elections.
Gretchen
Kansas is probably the first abortion vote after the decision, on August 2. KS Supreme Court ruled that the state constitution protects the right to abortion, so they are trying to amend the constitution to allow the state to regulate or forbid it. I went to the Democratic headquarters yesterday to pick up some Vote No signs and had to wait in line in the very busy, fired up office. https://www.votenokansas.org
livewyre
@YY_Sima Qian: Agreed completely. Voting is the score, organization is the game.
Which makes it all the more important to keep track of the incentives others have to keep us from organizing. Any crack to be exploited to keep us at each others’ throats is fair game. Anything that makes it seem like disagreements can’t be reconciled, that we don’t have a team or a party or even each other. That’s what provocation is for and why I’m so insistent about highlighting it lately.
Gvg
@Cacti: sigh, we don’t quite have the votes to save roe but you think we could have done something for the young? I would like to see those things myself but there are even fewer votes for anything else. We barely technically have a majority and people don’t agree exactly on everything. Even when the Republicans had all 3 they didn’t get much done and they had different factions who didn’t agree. Legislating is hard.
This is how democracy is. Always has been. It’s aggravating but everything else is worse.
different-church-lady
@Cacti: DID. YOU. SEE. WHAT. BIDEN. TRIED. TO. PASS???
Cacti
@Gvg: And yet, both parties always seem to be able to come together and put aside their differences when a massive corporate bailout is needed.
I’m sure the youngs don’t notice though.
Brachiator
@David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch:
I once voted for the candidate who had the hottest mistress .
OK, not really, but this was a state primary with so much mudslinging that it almost came down to this.
different-church-lady
@Frank Wilhoit:
DING DING DING DING CORRECT ANSWER!!!
Cameron
@David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch: Me, I’m more a hottest-name, shortest-spouse man. But I believe in a big tent, so it’s all good.
O. Felix Culpa
@PaulB:
As the Thin Black Duke has wisely said, you don’t need to join every argument you’re invited to. Good choice. :)
Suzanne
@YY_Sima Qian:
Exactly right.
Don’t even get me started on “Organize!”. Like, what the fuck does that even mean? I literally design buildings, and I wouldn’t know how to organize any sort of political activity. I join existing structures and I can show up and write postcards and march and donate to the art auction and pass out pamphlets etc etc etc. But I have a job and kids and I will not set those aside to “organize”, even if I did know what the fuck I was doing.
different-church-lady
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
No, no, no, what’s being asked here is “Did young people get sparrows and curtain rods that older people did not get?”
livewyre
@Cacti: Here exactly is an example – subtext: “Both parties are the same. You don’t have a party. You’re alone. Don’t organize.”
Cacti
@different-church-lady: I did.
And it was scuttled by Joe Manchin. Who was also an aye vote for Boof Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch. Just as a minimum wage hike was torpedoed by Sinema.
When Dems are voting this way, it doesn’t really help with the “vote blue, no matter who” messaging.
different-church-lady
@O. Felix Culpa:
WHO SAYS I’M WAITING FOR AN INVITATION?
Starfish
@Cacti: Legalizing marijuana can also help older members of the party with their pain and sleep issues.
different-church-lady
@Cacti:
Right. So obviously the solution is to NOT vote for democrats, because those two suck.
Cacti
@Starfish: And frankly, toking up could help some Republicans mellow out and stop being so angry all the time.
There’s really no downside.
Cacti
@different-church-lady:
They voted blue, no matter who.
Did it pay off for them?
O. Felix Culpa
@different-church-lady:
LOL!!!
ETA: Seriously, folks. One commenter has taken over two threads in a row with their inanities. Maybe consider, you know, not feeding the thing under the bridge that likes to eat goats?*
*h/t Immanentize
different-church-lady
I see there’s a whole lot of “Try this one
weird trickmagic legislation to solve your fascism!” running about.livewyre
@Suzanne: Well, I’m no expert at organization either, but I see it the same as any other form of struggle – those who have an idea how can help others do what they can, and there’s a spot for everyone who at least agrees on a cause worth approaching, within the constraints of their comfort and health. I wouldn’t ask anyone to sacrifice their well-being for the sake of some future hypothetical benefit when no such thing is certain. But it’s surprising what we can do when we actually know what to work at.
livewyre
@different-church-lady: “Solve” is doing a lot of work there. Apparently not all of us agree on whether to move away from it.
David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It was tough, Dodd had the shortest name, but Hillary had the hottest spouse.
Steve in the ATL
Jesus fucking Christ the trolls are tiresome today.
Suzanne
To some extent, I think this kind of fatalism is actually the right approach. The tenor of much of our messaging around engagement is often really positive, and it shouldn’t be. It destroys our credibility when we win a majority and we still can’t do shit. It’s condescending.
Look, the best-case scenario at this point is, like, we work our asses off, and in a decade, MAYBE…. MAYBE…. we can get back to where we were. And in the meantime, countless women suffer, and they’re mostly young people. Even the best-case scenario is really fucking bad. I would like to hear a Dem politician say that.
Baud
@O. Felix Culpa:
One thing I’m confident doesn’t turn out voters is inane debates about whether the Dems are good enough to vote for.
different-church-lady
“Okay, so we shot the puck at the net, and the other team blocked our shots. Obviously there’s no point in shooting the puck at the net.” [Takes off pads, goes home.]
Birdie
@Cacti: Too poor to own Teslas, and yet here you are going on about college debt relief. Which socioeconomic class of young people would that benefit, exactly? And what exactly is your solution to climate change that doesn’t address ICE passenger vehicles? At least get your logic straight “lol”
Gretchen
@Suzanne: the young in Kansas seem fired up about the abortion issue. I’m calling their attention to the August 2 vote wherever I can.
Mnemosyne
@O. Felix Culpa:
As I told him in the other thread, cosplaying as a revolutionary when you’re past 40 just makes you look pathetic.
different-church-lady
@Baud:
But it does build Twitter followers, and that’s what’s really important.
livewyre
@O. Felix Culpa: Yeah, that’s a fair request. I think I’ve found out about all I need to from this one. General responses only from now on.
TriassicSands
@PaulB:
I’m sorry, PaulB, but you didn’t word your comment exactly as I would have. You must be a DINO.
But, actually, I agree with your comment. And it’s not limited to Twitter.
Cameron
@Suzanne: I don’t know if running meetings counts as organizing, but I found this guide (by the Wobblies, of all people!) to be pretty interesting. Not that I’m going to be asked to run any meetings any time soon.
https://www.iww.org/resources/rustys-rules.pdf
different-church-lady
@Steve in the ATL:
There are days when they’re not?
O. Felix Culpa
@Steve in the ATL:
Inorite?
@Baud:
MagdaInBlack
@Steve in the ATL: Yup.
Elizabelle
Dare to vote.
frosty
@Cacti:
Good lord, what a timewaster you’ve been here. Into the pie safe!
Honus
@PaulB: my response to the “better messaging” advocates is to point out that Democrats have won the last two presidential elections by four million and seven million votes. Democrats in congress, and especially the senate, have also received the majority of the votes for years. The system is mainly what’s killing us.
YY_Sima Qian
@Suzanne: Organize like the reactionaries have, who learned from the progressives and leftists of early 20th Century. The seemingly mundane tasks you described are some of the necessary footwork of organization at the grassroots level. You can recruit others to join, too.
Organization also takes time & money. If you don’t have the time to contribute, there is still the money, so that those who have the time to contribute also have the resources to work w/.
David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch
@Brachiator:
I don’t blame you. There was no shame in voting for Wilbur Mills.
Suzanne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
They lost more jobs and got vaccines only after the olds.
I will note that, for those young people who have young children under 5, they were also not able to vaccinate those kids until literally this week. Covid has been a disaster for young people.
different-church-lady
@Cacti:
“Just let the fascists win” is hella inspiring, no?
zhena gogolia
@David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch: bingo
Cacti
@different-church-lady: “We can’t get anything done for you, but we’re not overtly fascist” is a really stirring alternative.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Suzanne:
The question was very specifically about what the Biden administration has done.
You blame Biden Covid-related job loss?
You don’t think more vulnerable populations should have been prioritized for vaccines?
different-church-lady
@Another Scott:
Oh, well then fuck it, I’m out.
Starfish
@Suzanne: Yup. I am super stoked for all the folks talking about making appointments for their under fives.
We were trying to make a booster appointment for our almost-12 last week, and the pharmacy was having computer system issue that did not allow it. He got his booster this week.
Cacti
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Boomers should always be first. Just ask them.
different-church-lady
@Cacti:
Holy godddamned mother of fuck WHY DO YOU THINK THEY CAN’T GET ANYTHING DONE ARE YOU PLAYING AT BEING THIS STUPID DELIBERATELY?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@YY_Sima Qian:
Yup. Friday was the culmination of a relentless, committed, fifty-year movement. I’ll trot out my favorite Charlie Pierce anecdote: He sat in on a county Republican Party meeting in a red area where they were, effectively, choosing the next county agricultural commissioner. Every candidate talked about abortion.
zhena gogolia
@Suzanne: I am so tired of this. I’ve been voting since I was 18 to try to keep republicans out of office. It was as simple as that and nobody needed to bribe me
O. Felix Culpa
@different-church-lady:
Yes. SATSQ.
Starfish
@Cacti: You should just be responding to folks with “Ok, Boomer” at this point, with the number of them who have claimed to have pied you.
NotMax
‘@different-church-lady
“Unless I see the name Green Lantern on the ballot there’s no point in voting at all.”
//
Cacti
@different-church-lady: Vote for Sinema, she’s blue, no matter who! (and thinks you can live on $7.25 an hour)
Steve in the ATL
@different-church-lady: @O. Felix Culpa: @MagdaInBlack: I have salmon cooking on the Traeger and a nice bottle of cab opened—seems like a better use of time than dodging trolls here!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@zhena gogolia:
thank you, for the votes, and the comment
Cacti
@Starfish: A majority of the commenters here, in their heart of hearts, probably believe that young people really could save up for a 20% down payment on a starter home in today’s market…
If they’d just stop eating avocado toast and drinking lattes and craft beer.
Suzanne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I don’t blame Biden for what happened at the beginning of the pandemic. I do think that it is time to start crafting policy to be passing wealth from olds to youngs. Young people should have been given a lot more money — like, orders of magnitude more — than older people. And kids under 18 and old people should have been vaccinated first.
I believe that we make commitments to our kids, not to our parents, and the fact that we did not prioritize children in the vaccination effort, when they needed to get back to school and they literally have no way to advocate or organize for themselves, is absolutely horrifying to me.
O. Felix Culpa
@Steve in the ATL:
I’ll be right over. Happy to bring guac and chips. :)
Starfish
@zhena gogolia: Please tell me what life conditions were like while you were doing this. Where were you living? How much was the rent? Did you have a job? Did it cover rent? And food? If you went on to college, how much was that?
If/When you had kids, was childcare something that could be found or something that you had to put yourself on a list for six months before the child was born? How much of your pay went to that?
How many times did childcare shutdown due to some kid catching the illness caused by an active pandemic?
If you had medical needs, were able to afford to go to a doctor? How about medication?
dww44
@gene108: One thing not to forget about today’s iteration of the reactionary conservative…. not only does she/he want to return to the pre-1950’s era, but they want to force us to join them. Somewhere along the way they totally ditched the live and let live part. I blame their church and their news channels.
different-church-lady
@Cacti: At this point I know perfectly well that today I couldn’t afford to buy the house I bought 16 years ago, so I don’t know who the fuck you talkin’ to.
Suzanne
@zhena gogolia:
I think it is reasonable to expect returns on investments, be they time, money, effort, etc. On the previous thread, a commenter noted that he’s donated over $20K to various candidates in Texas and that it has done nothing.
If you keep doing something, and it keeps being unsuccessful, at what point do you say that it’s not an effective strategy?
zhena gogolia
@Starfish: you know nothing about me and don’t deserve any answers to these questions. If the candidates I have supported had all won we’d be in a different world now
SFBayAreaGal
@Steve in the ATL: I love some tart key lime pie. It is so good.
livewyre
@dww44: I’d expand on that point, even – not only does fascism angle to recruit, it does so by goading us into following its example in response. Force for force, insult for insult, wall for wall. If we abandon our party and defeat ourselves, we save it the trouble.
zhena gogolia
@Suzanne: this has not been the Republican approach. They don’t get discouraged. So they won. Thanks Bernie
Baud
@Suzanne: Allocation of money and time is a different issue. The discussion is about the act of voting every two years. There are people who are denigrating that.
Starfish
@Suzanne: They chose to vaccinate the oldest first because that was the population that was most likely to die from COVID.
China chose not to vaccinate their elderly, and it sounds like when Omicron got to Hong Kong, it was pretty brutal. A number of countries had various kill-your-elderly policies in place.
Remember all the deaths in nursing homes? That was what the initial vaccination was trying to stop.
Anyway, what is going badly now is money for testing and more vaccines is drying up, and that is not great
***
The psychological toll the pandemic took on young adults seems pretty bad though.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: They are all we have. They are all that is standing between us and theocracy. It is really not that hard to get involved with the party at the local level if one wants to get involved. We have meetings once a month. Lately it has been on Zoom. There is a caucus we arrange every year to send delegates to the state convention.
This time around we had many open races and I actually got to speak to the many of the candidates directly telling them my concerns and issues.
different-church-lady
The only thing more tedious than hating on boomers is hating on youngs. And vice versa.
Whole lot of people here tonight in need of dope slaps.
One of the Many Jens
@Cacti: Yes. It did.
You will notice that a nationwide abortion ban is not currently in effect. Nor other inevitable abominations that a Congress with a couple fewer Democratic representatives and one fewer Democratic senators would be passing.
We just made incremental progress on firearm legislation (not nearly (nearly) enough, but more than had been done in decades).
We have been able to put smart and decent human beings in the Judiciary. People who will put those smarts and decency into how the law is practiced across this country.
And more. We are starting to get departments up and running again after having been stripped. We’re doing things like managing Bears Ears between the feds and multiple tribes. We’re facilitating WTF to do with the Colorado River and Lake Mead, among other environmental catastrophes. There are a hell of a lot of meaningful things that are happening right now because people voted in 2020. But we have to deal with the consequences of past votes, too.
If people want more and harder things passed, then they need to DO MORE and elect more people who will do those things. Magic wands do not come with political office.
Sorry, but I have had the fucking biscuit on this. We are where we are because for over a decade people have not exercised their responsibilities to the Republic and their fellow Americans, themselves, and our future, by, at a bare minimum, voting in elections. You don’t vote, the country gets run by the people who do. Actions (and the lack thereof) have consequences. What’s happening right now is a result of VOTERS’ ACTIONS.
Starfish
@schrodingers_cat: I filled out my primary ballot. The governor is unopposed, and he likes NFTs so THIS CIRCLE WAS INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK.
Another Scott
ObOpenThread – An ad for Indeed posted in a Wonkette comment. Very well done. ICYMI – YouTube (0:51).
Representation matters. A lot.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
There was no legitimate reason not to take the covid vaccine but some people still found reasons not to.
Suzanne
@zhena gogolia: Republicans don’t get discouraged because they’re authoritarians. They have a different psychological profile than we do. They do what they’re told. Voters on our side are not this way, which is why they’re on our side. Of the OCEAN traits, they score higher on “openness to new experience” than authoritarian types.
Gretchen
@Starfish: childcare was not only unaffordable when I was raising children , it was unavailable. I went to night shift when my job decided that taking 6 sick days in a year was grounds for starting firing proceedings, while among my four children they had 24 sick days that year. I slept a few hours at a time and can’t even look at pictures of myself from that time, I look so exhausted. See Elizabeth Warrens account of Aunt Bee. I didn’t have an Aunt Bee. Don’t give me “you don’t know how hard it is”. I do. That’s why I want to fight to change it.
Suzanne
@Starfish: I don’t mind vaccinating the really olds who were at risk early. But they should have been vaccinating kids concurrent with that. Instead, my youngest will get her first vaccine this week.
This country does not give a fuck about children. We just saw more evidence of that yesterday.
Cacti
@different-church-lady: Except, Boomers really did break America.
Young people didn’t.
zhena gogolia
@Suzanne: well we’re all getting a lovely new experience this week aren’t we
Cacti
@Suzanne: The states that claim to value the sanctity of life have worse infant mortality rates than Lebanon.
Shalimar
@Cacti: You don’t seem to even have a plan. Other people’s plans may suck like you think they do, but at least other people have plans. You don’t have anything.
debbie
@Starfish:
Let me answer in case ZG’s gone.
Are you implying when we olds were young, things were easy? Bullshit. I was 18. I worked at Filene’s in Boston, and my weekly take-home pay was $57.55. We managed to afford rent by bringing in new roommates as needed — one month, there were 7 people in a 3-bedroom apartment.
No kids, no insurance, used the ER for the two times I had pneumonia and to get birth control.
Unclear why you asked for all this, but it should be obvious I had no down payment for anything. Avocado toast was but a distant dream. Actually, avocado toast never occurred to me.
Even so, I didn’t expect gifts or benefits for voting. It was our responsibility and part of the price to be paid for living in this country. This transactional shit has gotten out of hand. Do it because it’s the right thing to do, not because you’ll get a goodie bag in exchange.
eclare
@One of the Many Jens: Amen. I still remember NPR interviewing some woman in CO about the 2016 election. She said she needed a reason to vote for Hillary that did mention TFG or SCOTUS.
I hope she’s happy…well, I hope other things that I will not spell out.
different-church-lady
@Shalimar: Who says quitting is not a plan?
Gretchen
@Starfish: no, you didn’t put yourself on a list or worry that it would be shut down, because it didn’t exist unless Grandma was available. She wasn’t in my circumstance. Talk to some older women who worked when most women didn’t.
YY_Sima Qian
@Suzanne: Are the margins of loss narrowing? If so, the strategy is actually working.
I do agree that the institutions of political power and political discourse in the US are in fact themselves the problem, providing structural advantage to the reactionaries. Organizing to get out the vote, & even the act of voting blue across the board itself, are rear guard actions to me. Overcoming the structural disadvantages at national politics, getting Ds into the WH & Congress, do not achieve lasting change nor prevent the reactionaries from coming back stronger, as we have seen following the elections of Obama & Biden. Organize to push for D candidates that are willing to make structural reforms when in power, & hold then accountable to making sincere efforts in that direction after getting elected: get rid of the filibuster, ban gerrymandering, pack the SC, give DC & PR statehood, neuter the lobbying industry, etc. & that’s the peaceful way forward.
MagdaInBlack
@Cacti: Dear sweet jesus, shut up.
livewyre
@Shalimar:
Sure there’s a plan. It’s just not in favor of any of our well-being, or for that matter, the continuation of society. It starts with provocation and division to keep us at odds with the party that represents those interests.
Note specifically the focus on the relationship between those of us here and the Democratic Party, with a focus on disrupting it.
Baud
@YY_Sima Qian:
I mean, we were just a few Senate votes short on almost all of those things.
eclare
@Another Scott: Wow. Well done.
Cacti
@Shalimar: I’ve said repeatedly to make expanding SCOTUS a campaign issue. The current majority there wants a shooting in every school, and women as birthing chattel.
That was tut tutted by the blue hairs as not being supported by polling taken before Sam Alito effectively said that women “are beings of such an inferior order” that they “have no rights which the white man was bound to respect”.
I’ve been told repeatedly that the winning message is: give Dems money and votes, and maybe 10 years from now, things will be better.
It’s like some of you people WANT to fucking lose.
Gretchen
@debbie: thank you
different-church-lady
@debbie:
Very very right. But here’s the thing: I’m not sure it’s even how it really is in the real world. I suspect it’s the very-online playing Monday-morning quarterback after every loss.
livewyre
And the lines keep repeating, too. We must have exhausted the list of talking points. It’s like some of you people WANT to fucking lose.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Since I’m not technically a Boomer, I wasn’t trying to buy my first house with a 15% mortgage when unemployment was at almost ten percent
Shalimar
@different-church-lady: Jesus christ the whole point of quitting is to avoid all of this look-at-me drama. He’s trying to take everyone else down with him, mass suicide.
different-church-lady
@Suzanne:
Because they didn’t know if it was safe for kids. Heck, the only reason the olds got it was due to emergency approval.
Baud
@livewyre:
This is the same discussion we had on this blog 10 years ago. We ran out of talking points a long time ago.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
what’s the old definition of a fanatic: You can’t change their minds, and they won’t change the subject?
livewyre
@Baud: Well, we just burned through 10 years of them in a day, then. New record.
different-church-lady
@Cacti:
Tell me again how many campaigns you’ve run?
livewyre
@different-church-lady: This one.
gwangung
@YY_Sima Qian: Actually, there were a lot of voters who thought 48 Democratic Senators were good enough to enact the sweeping change they wanted.
And they are frustrated that it isn’t.
Another Scott
@Suzanne:
How many years did it take for slavery to be abolished in the USA? Looks like around 246 or so.
How many years did it take for women to get the vote in the USA? Looks like roughly a hundred.
Gandhi spent about 50 years using non-violence to win changes and independence for India.
Politics is slow. It has always been slow. People need to understand that. If things were easy they would have been done already.
Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.
The young are impatient for things to be better – and rightfully so! But change will only come quicker if they get involved and fight for it.
Cheers,
Scott.
different-church-lady
@Baud:
This blog ten years ago no longer exists, so I’m afraid we have to recreate it fresh.
O. Felix Culpa
@livewyre:
Prezackly. And fairly successfully too, given the amount of engagement received.
Again folks, you do NOT need to engage in bad faith conversations ad nauseam. How about dem Cubs/Sox/Whatever
@Another Scott:
Thank you for the Frederick Douglass quote, who is rightly getting noticed more and more.
Starfish
@Gretchen: A single income household was a doable thing, and what you were doing was rare. Now, there are many two-income households that cannot afford a place to live or child care. We are pretending that parental responsibility is just not a thing.
Cacti
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The average home price in 1980 was $47,200. Adjusted for inflation, that’s about $164,000 currently.
The average home price in 2022 is $374,900.
Yeah. Boomers had it a hell of a lot easier, even with bad interest rates.
gwangung
@different-church-lady: At least one of the stumbling blocks from what I was reading was to figure out the optimal dosage. Not as easy as for adults.
Gretchen
@Starfish: do you imagine there were abundant, cheap childcare centers in the 1970s? There weren’t. The plan was quit your job when you have a baby. If you wanted to be the weirdo who tried to have a job and a family, that was on you. It probably wouldn’t work, but you could exhaust yourself trying, to the amusement of the people around you.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Cacti:
Funny thing about politicians, if the polls and other feedback from their voters tell them this is the magic bullet the bats in your belfry are telling you it is, they’ll adopt it.
Cacti
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Perhaps it would be worth testing the waters now that we have a runaway, partisan Supreme Court.
If they can take a break from making fundraising requests.
different-church-lady
@Starfish: That the economy is gamed, and that it’s more heavily gamed against young people is obviously correct.
That there are fast solutions to this problem with 48+2 rabid cats is a fantasy.
different-church-lady
@O. Felix Culpa:
THE CUBS WOULD BE DOING BETTER IF THEY’D JUST PUT MORE YOUNG PLAYERS ON THE ROSTER!!!
Ksmiami
@Emma from Miami: completely- make it untenable because it is…
Gretchen
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: my first house was only a 12% mortgage, but it was an adjustable that went up to 15% the second year. The ceiling was 18%, so like buying a house with a credit card.
livewyre
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You’re responding to a provocation campaign. Every reply lets it iterate its talking points. Remember, the point is to be repeated for those listening, not to convince on the spot.
Cacti
@Gretchen: And how much did said house cost?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
The Freudianist slip ever
Gretchen
@Starfish: who told you that? It sure wasn’t in my case. It was a struggle on two incomes. You are thinking of the 1950s, not 1975-2005. And you’re telling me that if I just stayed home and didn’t have any professional ambitions I would have been fine? Just be a mom, little lady?
Cacti
2020: Vote Blue, No Matter Who!
2020-2022: Manchin and Sinema fuck young people over
2022: Uhhh…vote BluER no matter whoer?
Ksmiami
@Another Scott: we are backsliding- this was a fight that had altered the way we live now. It’s the first time the US has upended settled rights… I think we are to look at Dobbs as the Dred Scott decision of 2022. America will cease to exist
Starfish
@Gretchen: Sorry. I have no clue how old you are.
livewyre
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I wish I could give it credit for being Freudian, at the rate subtext is becoming text. Awfully hard to be sure these days.
different-church-lady
@Cacti:
30 year mortgage for $164,000 at 10% interest: monthly payment of $2,074.
30 year mortgage for $374,900 at 5% interest: monthly payment of $2,013.
Your move.
Lyrebird
@gwangung: Thanks for that.
I just found out that Yello Pain redid his brilliant “Vote Don’t Count” song for Vote.org in 2020. SHould be required viewing I think.
(Youtube link)
Cacti
@different-church-lady: And insurance and property tax costs?
Gretchen
@Starfish: 69. Graduated from college in 1975, masters in 1976. Wanted to be a scientist. Spent 40 years juggling nights, evening, weekend shifts to make sure I was bringing in income while my four children ( 3 with asthma) were cared for by me and hubby tag-teaming because we had no local relatives. I about lost it when son in law told me that his wealthy parents « worked really hard » when his mom stayed home his whole childhood.
different-church-lady
@Cacti:
OKAY, OKAY, MANCHIN AND SINEMA SUCK, I CONFESS, I CONFESS!!!
livewyre
@Ksmiami: The America of white supremacy could never sustain itself. The only question now is how to make another, better one. Ideally while the old one is still kicking.
different-church-lady
@Cacti:
You, my friend, are merely being an idiot now.
Starfish
@Cacti: The leftists are appropriately thinking outside the box.
Mondaire Jones is saying that the legislature can limit what laws the Supreme Court is allowed to review.
Earlier, there were discussions of killing the shadow docket, and I really think they should do that. Because having outcomes with no transparency into what logic led is there is bad.
AOC is asking Biden to put clinics on federal land.
O. Felix Culpa
My thirty-something sons are definitely not as well off as my ex and I were at their age. My elder son graduated from college right into the global financial meltdown. He’ll never regain those lost earnings years. They also face accelerating climate change. The situation sucks for them and their cohort in so many ways.
And yet, they vote. Every election. Why? Because they understand what’s at stake if they do not, namely handing their futures over to the fascists. I do what I can to help avert that outcome too.
Starfish
@Gretchen: You’re a few years younger than my mother.
Cacti
@different-church-lady: Not to mention:
20% down payment on $164,000: $32,800
20% down payment on $374,900: $74,980
different-church-lady
Hey, I got an idea. Let’s do a little thought experiment. Let’s say Manchin and Sinema hadn’t won their general elections. Is it possible in a theoretical way to say who would be in control of the senate right now?
Fair Economist
@Omnes Omnibus: Not true. I live in CA, and basically once there were enough Democratic voters to get a supermajority in the legislature, our governance problems went away.
In the current situation, enough votes for Democrats *is* sufficient.
O. Felix Culpa
@different-church-lady:
JUST NOW???
Cacti
@different-church-lady: So, those aren’t costs that are included with a monthly mortgage payment.
Now, I’m no mathematician here, but I’m going to guess that the tax assessment on a $374,900 property is just a smidge higher than on a $164,000, since it’s a percentage of the total value and all.
Baud
@O. Felix Culpa:
Excellent parenting.
One of the Many Jens
@eclare:
Yeah, I remember more than a few people like that hit the news. Hopefully, she did end up voting.
What a mess.
different-church-lady
@Cacti:
I’m not saying housing is equally affordable (it most obviously is not): I’m saying the example you offered is deceiving.
I’m also still trying to figure out how not voting is going to change any of this.
debbie
@Cacti:
That would require that tax rates are the same everywhere. Fat chance.
Cacti
@Starfish: I know in the past, the Oglala Sioux tribe had also discussed having a clinic on tribal land if South Dakota ever fully banned the procedure.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Starfish:
What law/s is he basing that assertion on? The well-known and irrefutable Well, It Should Be True! Doctrine?
It would be great if this /checks notes/ Member of Congress studied up on the relevant federal law before creating a new illegal litmus test for Biden for all her twitter followers to feel betraaaayed by
persistentillusion
@Cacti: FO
livewyre
We all can fight fascism, right here and right now, by not engaging on the merits of the argument being presented by a dedicated provocateur. If you have to respond – which I can absolutely understand the temptation – I recommend questioning the actions on display. What support is being offered? Where are attacks being directed? Why are the answers “none” and “at us”, respectively? Suspect effort, not identity. That’s how we get through.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
A tweet posted on a Bernie subreddit. You’ll enjoy it.
https://i.redd.it/vmvin1gcst791.jpg
Cacti
Well, Judicial review is essentially premised on a power that SCOTUS granted itself in Marbury v. Madison. SCOTUS is a co-equal branch. Time for the other branches to push back.
MagdaInBlack
@different-church-lady: I admire your patience and stamina.
YY_Sima Qian
@Baud: Yes, but how then do we get more Senators that support the structural reform agenda into the upper chamber?
The alternatives are violent revolution & giving up (& every family for itself).
I suggest that we support candidates that recognize the need for structural reforms, starting from local level offices & in the primaries. In the general, vote for whoever w/ the D next of his/her name, even if he is Manchin & she is Sinema. Keep the pressure on elected officials to keep their campaign promises once in office, even if that pressure don’t often immediately succeed. On social & economic issues, pressure businesses & corporations, too, so that they do not have fear only of the reactionaries. Work on convincing people one at a time of the nature of our current challenge – we are in a conflict for survival against medieval forces, that structural changes are needed to safeguard modern progress.
That is how the inmates of the asylum gained power over the GOP, & through the GOP the country.
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud:
Heh. Not my point, but thank you.
Both of them canvassed in Indiana for Obama in 2008. It worked! The state flipped Blue! They also know how disastrous it can be to lose elections, e.g. 2016, so now use their respective skills towards messaging support and legal voter protections. I’m proud of them.
Fair Economist
@Cacti:
What color is the sky on your planet? Democrats have passed a blizzard of important legislation in the past 2 years, including:
$2 trillion for COVID relief
Bipartisan Infrastructure
Violence Against Women Prevention
Controls on price gouging in shipping
Support for Ukraine
Postal reform
Gun control to reduce partner violence.
Many of these are things we’ve been fighting for for DECADES. And the list of useful executive actions is literally in the hundreds.
Democrats are doing a great job at making our lives better. Honestly if *all* they were doing was keeping the fascists out of power that would be and INCREDIBLY GOOD reason to vote for them. But in reality we are getting an enormous amount of other good things from the Democrats being in power.
Baud
@YY_Sima Qian:
Yes, I agree with all that. The problem is we are debating this step
For some dumbass reason.
Ksmiami
@livewyre: I’ve been thinking a lot abou Game theory in dealing with the GOP and the best course of action is to go Meta and change the actual game board. Meaning, instead of accepting the old structures and sclerotic institutions that exist now, we need to tell our own side that we will plan a more thoughtful and inclusive America so get your asses to the voting booths, volunteer, do outreach, etc… in the meantime, blue states should bring the pain: hold up tax and transfer payments to the federal government unless the tax dollars are not spent propping up evil, misogynistic and authoritarian red state governments…
Bill Arnold
@Starfish:
Plenty was done for them. Women, including young women, have had some of their human rights stripped away. They can be raped and forced to bear the rapist’s child in some states. When (if) the SCOTUS issues a decision next week blocking the United States from regulating greenhouse gases, and maybe even regulating anything at all, they will have had some of their remaining hope for a less hellish future stripped away from them. Those living in certain crowded jurisdictions will shortly have to worry that the nutcase yelling at them simply for Being is carrying a concealed firearm and can easily murder them, and perhaps not get caught. Police departments can now stop reading people their rights, and this could legally be selective, e.g. white republicans might get their rights read to them.
These are not things that would have happened if either Trump had not seized power in 2016 or the Democrats had controlled the Senate for all the Trump years.
Conversely, many federal judges have been appointed by Biden and there is a good chance the Biden will appoint a SCOTUS replacement for one of the older justices if the Senate is solidly in Democratic control 2023 through 2024, and the US regulatory apparatus is controlled by a party that believes in government.
And if the Democrats gain 1 or 2 in the Senate and hold the House of Representatives, some good legislation will be possible, especially if people do the diligence of building a wave of political pressure for good legislation.
If the Republicans gain control of the House, the Senate, or both, they will do their best to tie up government, impeach (depending on House control) a bunch of people for ludicrous shit, perhaps shutdown the government or cause a US debt default, both of which they will blame on the Democrats.
different-church-lady
I’m also going to observe at you all that when I go to the part of my fair city that is filled block after block with freshly built condo skyscrapers the vast majority of the people I see waking their apartment-sized dogs and hauling their yoga mats about are half my age, so (a) obviously some young folks are figuring out how to work this fucked-up system and (b) I wonder if they are also to be blamed for the fact that fascism is all the rage 2000 miles from where they live.
different-church-lady
@MagdaInBlack:
Well, that’s a funny way of spelling “stupidity”, but thanks.
Brachiator
@livewyre:
Even though we had been tipped off about the Supreme Court, the release of the actual decision was still devastating. People need to vent.
We will get down to the hard work of fighting the mean spirited craziness that has been unleashed on the country. But I understand that people need a little time to deal with the enormity of the Supreme Court’s foolishness.
Cacti
@Brachiator: Person I’ve never seen before is certain I’m an interloper.
It’s kind of cute, really.
different-church-lady
@Brachiator:
…as soon as we’re done with the hard work of fighting each other.
different-church-lady
@Cacti:
Why do you say that?
Cacti
@Fair Economist: I was speaking of young voters, whose primary issues are wages, the cost of education, and the cost of housing.
Who are warned repeatedly “vote Dem, or else!”, but never see any of their priorities addressed.
Unless you think that postal reform was a burning issue for them.
PaulB
There does appear to be some basis for Congress to strip the court of jurisdiction in some limited cases. See this link, for example (PDF file).
I am not a lawyer and am not qualified to judge whether the argument holds water and whether it would apply to any specific scenario under discussion. A Google search on jurisdiction stripping provides further discussion.
Cacti
@different-church-lady: Why do I say what?
O. Felix Culpa
@Brachiator:
The comment refers to a single provocateur who has taken over two threads with inanities. Not a venting activity, but a goat-eating creature under the bridge effort. livewyre’s suggestion is apt.
Bill Arnold
@Cacti:
Do you vote for Democrats?
Cacti
@Bill Arnold: Sure do.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: heh! I see her re-tweeted and mocked a lot. Since she’s a TV writer (seems a lot of TV writers in SoCal are part of Rose twitter), I’ll paraphrase Jack Donaghy: She has the confidence of a much smarter person.
livewyre
I can understand the compassion behind interpreting what we’ve seen as venting, but how plausible is that, really? In this particular case, I mean. Venting doesn’t consistently (and repetitively! so repetitively!) drive a wedge between us and the President, Senators of our party who vote for our judges no matter how odious, and anyone else who would represent us in the halls of government. If that’s venting then I’d hate to see attacking.
YY_Sima Qian
@Baud: Yeah, that debate is not commensurate w/ the crisis we face. Though I tend to agree w/ livewyre I this particular case.
PaulB
Not really. It’s mostly just a single, very persistent and determinedly ignorant, troll. I do wish that more people would learn to not engage these people. It’s such a waste of time.
livewyre
@Bill Arnold: I wouldn’t take anyone’s word for what they do in private. All we have to go by is what’s on display. And I think that’s been amply demonstrated.
O. Felix Culpa
@livewyre:
Truth.
Seriously, folks. Do. Not. Feed. The. Troll. Even if it has been around for years and is not new to the blog. Its function is the same.
Kent
Yes, it’s wishful thinking. The orcs will ALWAYS be at the door and every meaningful election from this point forward is always going to be close due to all the structural advantages that the GOP has. And we will lose a lot of them because people are stupid and apathetic. That is the world we live in.
Cacti
@livewyre: New guy says I’m a heretic! Excommunicate me!
japa21
@different-church-lady:
Perhaps “insanity” is better, after all the idiot is remaining an idiot no matter what you say.
Baud
@PaulB:
That’s true here. Across social media, there are others who engage in the debate and treat the issue as debatable.
different-church-lady
@O. Felix Culpa:
The sad thing is that this particular consumer of hoofed flesh probably has a valid point buried somewhere underneath this pile of slime, but somewhere along the way decided covering everything else with the slime was the way to go.
japa21
@Cacti:
If only we could.
Starfish
@different-church-lady: It is the Democratic way.
different-church-lady
@Cacti:
The things that you say.
Cacti
@different-church-lady: Could you be a little more specific?
japa21
@different-church-lady:
Thinking the same thing.
zhena gogolia
@debbie: Thanks. And I’ll always give to Planned Parenthood because they were there for me.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent:
The orcs can be pushed back. Dobbs and the Jan/6 revelations could be the sort of events that create a seismic shift. If we work for it.
different-church-lady
@Cacti:
Well, if you insist…
Eolirin
@Cacti: Brachiator is a long time commenter that posts more than you do.
Try again.
Sister Golden Bear
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Considering a few months back she praised Hitler, I’d say not a Freudian slip at all.
Ksmiami
@livewyre: agreed… I’m so tired of the tiresome deference to the Constitution written by men in tights. Our system isn’t working anymore- not in a way that gives us forward momentum. Time for an upgrade.
livewyre
I’m not much for faith, honestly. That’s for whoever finds it fulfilling. I’m for rights and for defending them from assault and abuse. Not complicated, when it comes down to it.
I’ll admit I don’t have much going for me, but at least I don’t get paid to end society. That must suck.
Starfish
@Brachiator: Thank you.
Fair Economist
@Cacti: COVID relief brought unemployment to near-record lows, and that has had a big effect on wages and working conditions.
In CA, where we have enough of a Democratic majority, we’ve shut down the crooked diploma mills (thank VP Harris, the leader on that) and capped university fees. Biden has forgiven tens of billions in student debt.
And, in CA, we’re finally doing the zoning reform Portland and Minneapolis have shown will bring down the cost of housing. It hasn’t kicked in yet because of the crazy mortgage market, but it’s about to start.
Also young people really care about climate change. Care to compare the policies of Democratic California with Republican Florida?
Again, electing Democrats makes things better.
And again, even if it didn’t, just keeping fascists out of power is more than worth it. Fascism is really awful.
Cacti
The first step in fixing a problem is admitting that there is one.
Good luck.
Starfish
Would the Hyde amendment apply here or not?
different-church-lady
@livewyre:
There’s more than a bit of Murc’s Law going about these environs tonight.
Eolirin
@Cacti: Then your reply target for that comment makes very little sense.
O. Felix Culpa
@different-church-lady:
When people show you who they are, believe them. We have been shown more than a few times who they are. The conversation is intentionally unproductive and, worse, wicked boring.
livewyre
The new line of attack appears to be to discredit whoever’s describing the line of attack. That’s not a move from a position of advantage. It turns out that abusing everyone around you has costs – figure that one out.
different-church-lady
@Cacti:
Well, you’ve been saying a lot of things here tonight and I was just wondering why.
different-church-lady
@O. Felix Culpa:
Oh, I dunno, I’m starting to get the scent of catnip…
MagdaInBlack
@different-church-lady:
different-church-lady
@livewyre:
Like, becoming president, for example.
Cacti
Being correct rarely makes you friends in the BJ comment section, but such is my lot.
I remember when I was branded a BJ heretic for not agreeing that Edward Snowden was the greatest human since Jesus Christ.
Ah, memories.
Cacti
@different-church-lady: The same reason anyone says anything in a comment section.
It fills the time.
livewyre
You can’t fire me. I quit.
different-church-lady
@Cacti:
Past performance does not guarantee future results.
different-church-lady
@Cacti:
I rather think it helps you avoid the work.
And I should know.
Starfish
@Cacti: I think the belief system of the Balloon Juice commenters is getting broader.
Brachiator
@O. Felix Culpa:
I wasn’t just responding to that comment, but to the tenor of a lot of comments. People are angry, frustrated. I see a lot of rehashing of old arguments. I see a few people being uncivil towards long time commenters with whom they typically agree.
Not all of this can be blamed on trolls or provocation.
Cacti
@different-church-lady: Well, it is a Saturday.
Honestly, I don’t comment that much these days. Too busy with other things.
YY_Sima Qian
@Fair Economist: There maybe a supermajority for modernity in CA, but there isn’t one in the larger US, & that’s before we account for the structural advantages of the reactionary forces. Reforms are needed to make sure that a supermajority is not necessary to to achieve & sustain progress, & that the minority cannot hold the whole hostage. If reforms are not possible, then I am afraid there will be violent conflagration in the end.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
God has a wee joke on trump supporters….
different-church-lady
@Starfish:
I think I can safely say the dis-belief system here has gotten a lot wider in the years since that event.
O. Felix Culpa
@Brachiator:
I absolutely agree that there’s a lot of justified anger and venting on the blog, and more than a little internecine bickering. However, livewyre’s comment was specifically about a specific commenter who has derailed two threads with bad faith arguments, so your response was somewhat misplaced in that context.
With that, I shall go read a book. Enjoy the evening!
different-church-lady
@Cacti:
Perhaps your other things feel lonely tonight.
Brachiator
Some facts about youth voter turnout in 2020.
We estimate that 50% of young people, ages 18-29, voted in the 2020 presidential election, a remarkable 11-point increase from 2016 (39%) and likely one of the highest rates of youth electoral participation since the voting age was lowered to 18. Our new estimate is based on newly available voter file data in 41 states—AK, DC, HI, MD, MS, NH, ND, UT, WI, WY do not have reliable vote history data by age. This analysis replaces our earlier estimate, released immediately after Election Day, which estimated a 5 to 11 point increase in youth voter turnout compared to 2016 based on data available in that moment….
Half of eligible young voters cast a ballot in 2020. However, as is the case in every election cycle, youth voter turnout rates varied widely across the country: New Jersey (67%), Minnesota (65%), Colorado (64%) and Maine (61%) had the highest statewide youth turnout rates, while South Dakota (32%), Oklahoma (34%), Arkansas (35%), and New Mexico (39%) had the lowest….
Turnout in 2020 was much higher than in 2016, when we estimate (using the same methodology) that 39% of young people cast a ballot. This sizable, 11-point increase builds on young people’s momentum from 2018, when youth turnout was record-setting for a midterm year. State-by-state turnout increases between 2016 and 2020 were 9 percentage points on average, but also varied widely. The largest increases in youth voter turnout were in New Jersey (+22), Arizona (+18), and California and Washington (both +17). Notably, with the exception of Arizona, all of those states automatically mailed absentee ballots to all registered voters without voters having to request them. No states saw a decrease in turnout, and in only one state (Louisiana) did the youth voter turnout rate remain flat, at 42%, between 2016 and 2020.
Turnout of Newly Eligible Voters Stronger, but Still Lagging
We also estimate that voter turnout among young people ages 18-19 was 46%. This age group deserves special attention because they are the newest eligible voters, so their electoral participation, or lack thereof can provide a window into how well—and how equitably—we are preparing and priming youth to participate in democracy. Additionally, voting is a habit that, when formed and practiced early, is likeliest to persist later in life. But, by the same token, when preparation for voting is inequitable early in life, those inequities can also persist.
Historically, youth ages 18-19 have voted at lower rates than their slightly older peers, and that was once again the case in 2020. However, some states managed to close the gap; in California and Washington, remarkably, voter turnout was actually higher among youth ages 18-19. But in still other states the difference was stark: in South Dakota, where 32% of young people under 30 voted, just 12% of 18- and 19-year-olds cast a ballot. As we mark the 50-year anniversary of the 26th amendment that lowered the voting age to 18, these voter turnout differences by age are a reminder that challenges to achieving equitable participation remain.
Starfish
@different-church-lady: What do you mean by that? Are we more jaded about dudes trying to create their own personality cults?
different-church-lady
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
“Some day a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets.”
livewyre
Now that things seem to be winding down, I’m grateful for the opportunity to stretch my viewpoint. Arguing is fun, but figuring out why we argue is the real juice for me. And sometimes the answer is just that we don’t share a view on existential matters, and more than one of us is prepared to use whatever means are at hand to make sure. No huge deal, though – it’s only my right to exist at stake, as well as that of everyone in a position like mine.
I depend on society. That makes me weak. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
different-church-lady
@Starfish:
Yeah, I think so. I think we’re a lot more savvy about who we let become our darlings than we used to be. And the Trump years just erased any certainty we had about anything optimistic.
Cacti
@YY_Sima Qian: The way our Constitution is structured makes the structural reforms required all but impossible. Not trying to be Debbie the downer, but a minority of the population will always be able to gum up any meaningful reforms in the Senate.
We have a wonky system, set up in the 18th century, by humans as fallible as those from any other age. We’ve reached the point where it’s become dysfunctional, but without any easy way to jettison what no longer works.
And that’s why I think the states are headed for a divorce.
Starfish
@different-church-lady: Maybe we can bring Freddie de Boer back, so we can all hate the same thing again?
scav
There’s a special yoga move called Troll Pose which consists of repeatedly patting oneself on one’s own back.
livewyre
Next on the agenda is bringing back the secession thing, since that seemed to bear fruit earlier in the day. Somehow I doubt there’s quite the fire for it left at this point. Best of luck, though.
different-church-lady
@Brachiator:
Okay, so remind me again which party can’t get through to young voters?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@different-church-lady:
you think I think I should throw out my “Avenatti ’24” T-shirt?
Cacti
@livewyre: It is nowhere written that the American experiment goes on forever.
January 6, 2021 made that abundantly clear.
different-church-lady
@Starfish:
I’m so happy we could serve as a stepping stone on his misbegotten career…
different-church-lady
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Like the first Doonesbury said, “There are still a few bugs in the system.”
No, I think you should kill it with fire.
Eolirin
This has been touched on, but I think it bears repeating; all of the Dems aren’t doing enough to earn the vote of group x analysis is fucking stupid because it gets the relationship between voter and politician exactly backwards. The left used to understand this, and parts of our coalition still get it, like black people and what’s left of labor as an organizing force.
Politicians respond to pressure from the people who get them elected. They do not respond to pressure from people who do not vote for them. You have to be showing up a lot for a long time, and have to be showing up in numbers big enough to matter to outcomes, a lot, for a long time, if you want to get to have a say in policy. It’s the only way it’s ever going to work.
There is no alternative to this. Elected officials changing their tone slightly or using the right set of magic words does not some how change the dynamic.
The electorate is the entire problem, full stop.
Fortunately because we’re part of that, we get to have agency. We need to start using it better.
Cacti
@Starfish: I kind of miss Freddie the Bore. It was fun whacking him around like a pinata.
Steve in the ATL
@O. Felix Culpa:
Um, I thought you were bringing guac?
YY_Sima Qian
@Cacti: Although aspects of the US Constitution are clearly anachronistic & ideally should to be reformed, most of the needed structural changes do not require a new Constitutional Convention. There is nothing enshrined in the Founding Documents about filibuster, gerrymandering, size of the SCOTUS, sanctity of the lobbying industry, etc. Senate rules can changed so that it can properly function as an upper house of parliament. All it takes is a simple majority that support these changes.
Mind you, I am deeply pessimistic myself. Even if these reforms can be enacted, no way the reactionary forces take the defeat lying down. They will launch armed insurrection before giving up. Progress may well ultimately have to be defended by force of arms.
different-church-lady
@Eolirin:
Ah, well that right there might be the nut of the “young voters” problem….
Fair Economist
@YY_Sima Qian: The point is that the more Democrats in office, the better things are. Yes, the US as a whole isn’t going to do as well as California, but every extra Senator or Representative is going to make our lives better.
different-church-lady
@Cacti:
It’s been a while, but I don’t remember pinatas of my childhood making incessent whining noises when you hit them.
Suzanne
@different-church-lady:
They didn’t even start the clinical trials in kids concurrently with the olds, and the kids are still getting emergency authorization, even a year and a half later.
The fact that we sent children back into school buildings without vaccines is one of the reasons I feel a deep, deep sense of betrayal from this country, and I doubt that I will ever really get over it. They pushed vulnerable kids back into schools so that their parents could get back into the productive economy.
schrodingers_cat
@debbie:
Well said. Became a citizen so I could vote. So I don’t understand this bargaining, give me this or I will withhold my vote business.
O. Felix Culpa
@Steve in the ATL:
Oops. Ate it already. Rain check? ;)
Back to my book. GBCW, for now.
YY_Sima Qian
@Fair Economist: On that I agree completely, what I am saying is what these more Ds advocate for and vote into law are what ultimately matters.
livewyre
There’s nothing about individual essence in either supporting fascism or supporting rights. Either could stop. I won’t.
Others may speak for themselves. Whether they will? That, we can observe.
MisterDancer
Upon looking over this thread, I am reminded of the words of that great poet, and slayer of vampires, Blade:
O. Felix Culpa
@MisterDancer:
Great quote! Bookmarked.
gwangung
@Eolirin: A FRICKING MEN!
A subset of that….the larger the margin of victory for a politician, the less centrist they will be. A Democratic politician will vote way more progressively the larger their margin of victory.
It’s obvious and it’s common sense once you stop to think about it.
It doesn’t make sense to expect wildly progressive bills passed when you have narrow margins in the House and A TIE in the Senate.
Warblewarble
Th ere are always (always) nazis who run ahead of the pack. Miller did not misspeak, make a Freudian slip, stop, stop running to give these people cover. They hate you, believe them when they tell you.
livewyre
@Suzanne: It still hurts a little that this country is “they” to you. Understood, though – done is done. The rest of us have a lot to answer for. We’ll find out if we can, one way or the other.
Another Scott
@PaulB:
Yeah, it’s in the Constitution. But what the text means is up for debate. ConstitutionCenter.org:
Lawyers are trained and paid to be able to argue any side of an issue. Who knows how something like this – stripping the SCOTUS of jurisdiction on a particular topic – would turn out. :-/
Cheers,
Scott.
livewyre
@Another Scott: That’s what’s so enraging, isn’t it? Either the word of the court is used to strip away the concept of rights – not just the implementation, but the very idea – or its own credibility is broken.
We could still use one, I would think. But that’s the way of force over law. It’s going to need us to defend it.
Eolirin
@Suzanne: There’s an even more intense amount of skepticism in the US around vaccine safety with kids, unfortunately. I think we would have lost more than just the core anti vaxxers if it had been accelerated the way the adult vaccine was. We already ended up with lower uptake.
You’re absolutely right about the harm caused by the slowness in approval for kids though.
I’m just not sure there was a way to realistically avoid it once a sizable section of the population decided vaccination (or any other kind of mitigation strategy, for that matter) against deadly pandemics was Satan.
Bill Arnold
@Cacti:
Any such discussion is nonsense without adjusting for inflation.
US Inflation Calculator
Kathleen
Deleted. Really not worth it.
different-church-lady
@Bill Arnold:
Hate to defend my playmate on this one, but the $164,000 figure was already adjusted.
Soprano2
@Starfish: I have voted in every election I was eligible for since 1980. I have always felt it was my civic duty to do so. I have NEVER thought that my vote needs to be “bought” by any politician by doing certain things for my group “or else”. I find this “Group X doesn’t vote because no one does anything for them” highly offensive. You’re saying their vote has to be purchased by the highest bidding politician. That’s gross. They should vote to make their voice heard, period. How can they expect to ever influence anything if they don’t vote?
JaySinWA
@Suzanne:
I think that we started from the most visibly affected first. There were a lot of early claims that young kids somehow didn’t get COVID, then when it was found that they did it was assumed to always be mild. After the numbers came in that there were severe cases, the interest (and frankly the marketability) of vaccines for young kids became apparent.
The idea that they never got it always struck me as stupid. It does appear that there are fewer severe cases the younger you are when you get it, so the risk is and was perceived to be lower with kids. The fact that kids can spread infection was almost totally ignored IMHO.
Eolirin
@Another Scott: The problem with this approach is that the Supreme Court gets to decide that question.
zhena gogolia
@Eolirin: Good analysis.
Suzanne
@livewyre: I vote in every fucking election, donate, canvass, etc etc etc. I come from a five-generation military family, so I get the idea deeply of participation and civic responsibility.
Yascha Mounk wrote a good book called “The Age of Responsibility” a few years ago, and I found it to be a pretty good frame about this issue. Why don’t we feel the same sense of responsibility and shared destiny that we used to? The reason that he pinpoints is, “Since the 1970s, responsibility—which once meant the moral duty to help and support others—has come to suggest an obligation to be self-sufficient.”
So young people heard this shit loud and clear, and they see that they will have a much harder time becoming self-sufficient than their parents and grandparents did. So they are throwing all their effort into schemes to improve their own outcomes, and they are more likely to opt out of collective efforts like voting, because that’s not the idea of responsibility that we inculcated in them. And that is consuming everything, and they have to look at things in terms of inputs and outputs.
Bill Arnold
@Suzanne:
FWIW, the “they”s in that case are the Trump administration and the vaccine companies, (at least) one of which was dependent on the Trump administration for funding.
Horrible decisions on their part, to be clear. By spring 2020 it was starting to become evident that long covid/damage would be a thing and reasonable to suspect that it would such damages would affect young people including children, but the decision makers had blinders on and were focused on death statistics.
The Thin Black Duke
The guy who derailed two threads tonight didn’t used to be this way.
I remember looking forward to what he had to say.
What happened to him?
Soprano2
@Cacti: I suppose you’d rather Mitch McConnell were running the Senate. Biden still wouldn’t have a full Cabinet, virtually no judges would have been appointed, no Covid bill would have passed in March 2021, no infrastructure bill would have passed – I could go on. You’re being stupid. Besides, at this point the federal minimum wage is irrelevant anyway.
Bill Arnold
@different-church-lady:
Oh, oops.
Suzanne
@JaySinWA: There was no reason that we could not have started trials in kids concurrent with adults. There is no reason that we fucking un-approved the two-dose Pfizer vaccine for months until they submitted the data on the three-dose vaccine. It didn’t have to be this way. It became this way because we (royal we) did not make it a social priority. The shit that goes into my three-year-old’s arm on Friday is the same shit that I got last March.
Suzanne
As to the housing price issue, I will note that the Canadian federal government passed a law prohibiting sale of homes to anyone but Canadian citizens for a defined period (I think three years). That’s a good place to start. I’d love to see restrictions on short-term rentals, too, though that would probably have to be at the city level. At the federal level, I’d love to see immense federal taxes, like confiscatory, on real estate if you own over two properties.
Eolirin
@Suzanne: You’re right, we didn’t, but please don’t erase the contributions of the anti vax movement in leading to that outcome. It had a massive and negative effect on the possibility space we’ve been operating in.
Eolirin
@Suzanne: Hell, we could probably do a lot of work driving prices down just by aggressively prosecuting money laundering and strengthing those laws.
Another Scott
@Suzanne:
Young kids are not small adults.
STATNews (from February):
(More at the link)
An important thing to remember, IMHO, is that this is still a novel virus with many unknowns, and too may people are suspicious of the vaccines. Getting it right before its made available is important.
Cheers,
Scott.
Suzanne
@Another Scott: This is a massive fail. They approved the three-dose series, but we could have gotten started with two doses . Because MATH, you can’t get a third shot without a first and a second. They knew it was well-tolerated. This is a massive fucking failure by the FDA. Approve the shit and then worry about convincing people. Some of them won’t be convinced, no matter what we do, so stop trying to get them on board. What happened with the kids vaccine is indefensible. I will honestly never forget it.
Another Scott
@Suzanne:
I understand your frustration, but I think it is misplaced. NewScientist (from May 19):
FWIW.
Good luck with your youngster.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
not just more Catholic than the Pope, too Catholic for the Pope
Sally
We shouldn’t have to organise. We shouldn’t have to donate untold billions to GOTV or the messaging. Registration and voting should be easy and universal. Alas we don’t live in that world, or that country. I have lived in countries where voting is so easy, and so inexpensive. As Zelenskyy says when you surrender ground, winning is back is much harder than holding it. The multiplier is, I believe, about 3:1, probably more in reality. We have lost a lot of ground because people didn’t vote. Now we have to combat gerrymandering, suppression on so many levels – closed, and moved voting stations, ID’s that are hard to access, limited machines, long lines, work day voting, etc.. R legislators that kneecap incoming D governors, judges, police bosses, school boards, on and on. All working against democracy because they can’t win unless they cheat. So that’s what they do.
Now we have an enormous uphill battle to claw back their massive gains. They put in the decades of cheating and lying to gain this ground, and now they have it, they are not going to relinquish it. We have decades of work ahead. I can’t go with the “we have to motivate people to vote”. We live in a complex, interconnected society where your well being depends on everything else. You want air and water that doesn’t contain toxins. You want schools to educate your kids or kids around you so you can live in a functional society (ie people who, at minimum, can read and write and work machines, save your life in a hospital), roads, safe food, air travel, defence, libraries, safety standards, on and on and on. Vote.
Voting is a hard fought for right. It was hard fought for because the powerful did not want to dilute their power. It is also an obligation. I am obligated to participate in the democracy in which I live. I am not a free loader. If you don’t vote, you are letting other people determine your life. If voting didn’t matter, didn’t change things, they wouldn’t be always trying to stop us. The motivation to vote is that you are obliged to help determine the management of the society in which you live. In a system such as the US, if you have to vote for the lesser of two evils, then that’s what you do. If you have to be bribed, against the overwhelming poisons of the other side, try living in a place where you can’t vote.
Voting emancipates us. Voting (not guns) frees us from tyranny. Voting should be easy, with universal adult franchise, and every citizen’s obligation.
Vote.
Sally
@Suzanne: But can that person come up with a better strategy? Or even just another strategy? Maybe search for better candidates, or maybe it’s so red there will never be a successful D candidate there. So donate somewhere more winnable, for now. Sometimes it takes generations. Just ask Black people.
livewyre
@Sally: Would add to this – not just a question of whether to vote, but how. One use for organizing is to protect the ability to vote at all, especially for those most targeted for suppression. Another is to defend against attacks on the ability or even inclination to organize in the first place.
We organize to stay organized as well as to make voting count. In a roundabout way, this multiplies our effort. The less organized we start, the more we have to gain. That might come as a surprise to the opposition whose entire suite of principles rests on denying it.
Suzanne
@Another Scott: I completely disagree. Covid moved so fast that they needed to be prioritized. I am so sick of our side’s ridiculous dedication to process and rules and institutions when the evidence suggests that they are utterly inadequate for the task.
Testing kids’ vaccines after we get adults figured out makes sense when we have time. It is the stupidest thing when the disease is moving fast, and if our institutions cannot tell the difference, then they fucking suck.
Over 75% of kids in this country got Covid. We’ve had a vaccine for a year and a half, and we fucked around because Rules and Process and Procedures. We have no idea what Long Covid is going to do to them. We made them go back to school totally unprotected. We utterly failed.
livewyre
@Suzanne: The only way I can figure to keep our children as safe as possible is to protect the rule of law with everything we have. Those most vulnerable to institutional abuse, whether youth or elder or marginalized, I can’t imagine faring any better under a regime of force – even if it started out as “ours”, and even if we were capable of amassing one.
I can understand not being in a place to hold out hope for that, after all those experiences – and maybe some of my own. But I think I see a way through and am prepared to keep on, at least for my own sake, and preferably for everyone’s. That’s the hope.
Bupalos
@Starfish: i think you’re identifying the key message. And it’s more than a message, it’s more like an attitude: the past is past and we can never go back and in most ways shouldn’t want to. The future exists and is coming and isn’t some cast in stone doom, but a place that, despite challenges, we can make better than the past and better than the present.
Our politics is breaking down because a fairly smallish minority believe both of these neccessary truths. These aren’t optional beliefs, without them and without understanding they are true we have no refuge and our chance at full humanity will drain away.
Suzanne
@livewyre: The rule of law doesn’t have to include overwrought bureaucratic bullshit. Our organizations need to be nimble enough to respond to threats and challenges.
livewyre
@Starfish: @Bupalos: I did jump on that with a veiled accusation, didn’t I? Definitely a mistake – heat of the moment, or whatever excuse. That interpretation escaped me entirely and I appreciate having it put into context. I’m over here trying to stick up for what works at all but we also need something new that works enough as well. Glad to learn.
James E Powell
@schrodingers_cat:
I’ve got none at all. Turned on MSNBC earlier today. A reporter interviewing two young women in green shirts. Reporter asks, [paraphrase] “Don’t you think Democrats to blame for not preventing this?” Both young women agreed. I had to turn it off.
I expect “This is all Hillary fault” to be the theme of the Sunday shows. I’m exaggerating, but not too much.
Mnemosyne
@Suzanne:
Wait. Hang on. You think we should have vaccinated children against a novel virus with no idea of how the vaccine might affect them, or what the right dosage was, or what the long-term effects might be?
Are you insane? No, really. Why on earth did you think that was going to fly when people are already refusing to give their kids proven vaccines like measles and whooping cough?
I know that the pandemic was particularly stressful for parents and every parent I know has been eagerly awaiting a vaccine that is safe for their children, but your idea that the adults who refused to get vaccinated would have gladly gotten their kids vaccinated instead is completely bonkers. Sorry.
Suzanne
@Mnemosyne: No, I think we should have started clinical trials for children at the same time we did them for adults. Which we did not. And I doubt that anti-vaxxers will vaccinate their kids ever, but I don’t give a fuck about them and I’m pissed that we tried to assuage them at all. I would have vaccinated my kids the moment a trial showed safety, and pretty much any efficacy at all.
SFAW
@Sally:
Your entire comment was excellent, but this stood out, especially as regards the “but give me a reason WHY I should vote for Hillary, but without mentioning Trump and SCOTUS” crowd. [As eclare reminded us at 168, and to which I have referred more than a couple of times.]
zhena gogolia
@Sally: BRAVA! I ASK THAT THIS BE FRONT-PAGED.
zhena gogolia
@The Thin Black Duke: Good question.
J R in WV
@different-church-lady:
Dear Ms Church-Lady:
Please go to the top of this thread and click on the pretty pastry there, then click to select Cacti into your pie safe. Like majik the troll will no longer populate your threads!
Another Scott
@Sally: +1
Well said. Thank you.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mnemosyne
@Suzanne:
They tried to start at the same time, but it took longer to get enough participants since a lot of parents were reluctant to let their children get an experimental vaccine. You have to have a minimum number of participants to get a valid result.
I assume you signed your kids up to participate in a clinical trial since you really wanted them to be vaccinated?
brianm
@Suzanne:
@Suzanne:
You are my hero in this thread.