Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

We still have time to mess this up!

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Monday Morning Open Thread: Onward

Monday Morning Open Thread: Onward

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If it goes down, I’ll miss twitter, unless / until I can find convos like this elsewhere. I am not a member of any organized party; I’m a Democrat — Will Rogers

Reader Interactions

166Comments

  1. 1.

    Taliesin WW

    First? Huh, I don’t even feel caffienated yet. I feel good to be on the rightly winning side though.

  2. 2.

    Baud

    People who focus on messaging always fail to link the message with reality on the ground.

    Dems have campaigned on abortion rights as long as I can remember.  What’s changed is that the right has actually now taken those rights away.

    Same with voting rights. Trump’s actions have made something that seemed abstract to most normies into something real.

  3. 3.

    PST

    I got through Thanksgiving with my MAGA brother with no political discussion. He seems subdued, perhaps because he was in a nine-to-one minority, perhaps because he has evidently found the 90 pounds I lost in the last year and doesn’t have the energy to argue. I hadn’t seen him for a couple of years, but the last time we talked about TFG, which we both try to avoid, he said that Trump did a lot of good but maybe it was time to move on. I think there’s a fair amount of that going around — the people looking to him to solve our problems diminishing, the people looking at him as a problem to cope with increasing.

  4. 4.

    Geminid

    This morning’s Politico articles include one titled “House Democrats on slim GOP majority- welcome to hell.” The writer details the effort made by Democrats in the current Congress to make their slender majority work in unison. They also touch on various causes of attrition- death and disability, criminal convictions, etc.- and the time factor involved in filling empty seats.

    Attrition could come back to bite McCarthy (if he in fact wins election as Speaker) because he has pledged to end proxy voting and will have to marshall all his caucus for critical in-person votes.

  5. 5.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: Normies from groups targeted by the Republicans don’t need any  messaging to convince themselves to vote for Democrats.

    That group is increasing thanks to the open Republican embrace of fascism.

  6. 6.

    Kay

    I like do something Twitter. I think they’re a good addition to the mix. Their criticism of the poll-based punditry is smart and needed pushback against that group, a group who have become too dominant and needed to be taken down a peg.

  10. 10.

    Kay

    NYTimes was wondering why voters in the NY media market believe that crime has exploded when in fact it has not. No mention of the fact that no media outlet did more to push and mainstream the crime panic than the NYTimes.

    Rob Chappell
    @robchappell365
    ¡14h
    Replying to
    @nytimes
    Serious question: has there been any introspection in your newsroom about the role you played in this? Where did those headlines come from?

    The lack of accountability is just amazing. They misled an entire, huge area of the country and impacted the composition of Congress and there’s no examination or analysis at all.

  12. 12.

    Geminid

    @Kay: I also think the poll-based pundits need to be taken down a peg. I wonder, though, if the current crop of practitioners who actually run campaigns for Democratic candidates like, say Arizona Secretary of State-elect Adrian Fontes, have not already moved beyond poll-based methods. In many ways, the “do something” crowd seems to be engaged  in an avstract and sterile debate with other pundits.

    Maybe now that the practitioners are through with their busy season they will weigh in on ways and means of winning elections.

  15. 15.

    Kay

    The New York Times
    @nytimes
    ¡16h
    Official
    New York and its suburbs are among the safest large communities in the U.S. But amid a torrent of doomsday-style ads and headlines about rising crime, suburban swing voters helped drive a Republican rout that played a decisive role in capturing the House.

    They’re trying to determine where those headlines came from. It’s an open investigation, so they can’t talk about it.

  17. 17.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Kay:  I’m not familiar with ‘do something Twitter,’ in fact most parts of Twitter that get a lot of discussion here are stuff that I never see there.

    But the notion that Dems should do good things for people, and that in particular the Executive branch should go ahead and do good shit if laws have already been passed to empower those actions, has always seemed inarguable to me.

    One thing I appreciate about David Dayen at the American Prospect is that he’s made lists of specific things that a Democratic Administration could do, and specified the legislation that authorized the Executive to do it.

    Anyhow, the Dems have done plenty of good shit over the past two years, via both legislation and executive action, so if anyone’s saying they didn’t really do that much, I’m just gonna ignore them; they aren’t worth engaging with.

    Besides, in the near future, I’m much more likely to get into a discussion an argument with far-right evangelicals.  Christmas is coming, and my wife’s cousins were pumped enough about DeSatan a year ago.

  19. 19.

    Kay

    @Geminid:

    I think there’s a lot of validity in criticism of “plug in THIS policy, get THIS result”. I think Do Something are correct in noting that is not how human beings work.

    People bitch constantly about Democratic disunity but it really is a push-pull and a debate and a lot of times it’s a useful and needed correction to one group or another becoming too dominant and comfortable.

  20. 20.

    Baud

    @lowtechcyclist:

    I’m not on Twitter and not about to go on now, but from second hand accounts, when I hear Do Something twitter, the image that comes to mind is Green Laternism, which is a philosophy I believe hurts our efforts.

  21. 21.

    lowtechcyclist

    @PST:

    perhaps because he has evidently found the 90 pounds I lost in the last year

    Congrats! Weight loss is NOT easy, so my hat’s off to anyone who can get rid of that much weight.

  23. 23.

    gene108

    I am still disappointed so many people continue to vote for Republicans.

    They have had nothing but fear mongering, since Bush, Jr.’s second term went down in flames. They tried hyping up the magical power of tax cuts, when they won 2010 state elections, but reality proved they were delusional. Then Trump comes along, in 2015, talking promising better universal healthcare than Obamacare, strengthening Social Security and Medicare, and Republican voters love what they’re hearing. All the “intellectual heft” of conservative policy gets swept away, showing Republican voters don’t really give a damn about “job creators” or the magic of “free market Jesus”.

    Back in the 1980’s, when crime rose, teen pregnancy rose, etc., there was a fig leaf of cover for culture war rhetoric that before ‘x’ liberal success happened crime was lower, divorce rates were lower, etc.

    Crime, for reasons no one can fully explain, started dropping in the 1990’s and aren’t back to where they were 30 years ago, so the myth that ‘x’ liberal success led to the dissolution of society just doesn’t work. They’re trying to stoke moral panic with LGBTQ+ community, but it’s not catching on outside of people already willing to believe these things.

    Their supply side trickle down mystical belief in the power of the tax cut fairy and deregulation has proven a failure, but they stick with it because their donors want it and they don’t have anything else.

    Yet a large part of the country supports them. Go figure.

  24. 24.

    Betty Cracker

    I had Thanksgiving dinner with a bunch of wingnut relatives, and I was ready if it came up, but there were no political discussions at all. We talked about kids, pets, food and sports. Whew!

  25. 25.

    Kay

    @lowtechcyclist:

    Do Something was a response to “we can’t do anything because we don’t have a (real) majority in the Senate”

    They think there’s a whole bunch of political levers outside passing legislation- I agree with that.

  26. 26.

    Spanky

    @Kay:

    They misled an entire, huge area of the country and impacted the composition of Congress and there’s no examination or analysis at all.

    Nor should any be expected. I’m sure there’s a “Mission Accomplished” banner hanging in the editor’s office.

    ETA damn! A lot of comments landed while I was pecking on my phone.

  27. 27.

    AnonPhenom

    @Kay: ​
     

    NYTimes was wondering why voters in the NY media market believe…

    Because Jay Jacobs (and a bunch of other Cuomo machine detritus) are still actively sabotaging the party in NY. They see their job as defeating *The Left* rather than defeating Republicans.

  28. 28.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Kay:

    They’re trying to determine where those headlines came from. It’s an open investigation, so they can’t talk about it.

    I don’t live near NYC, but I’ve heard that the supposedly Dem mayor kept on talking about rising crime.  If so, he certainly made it easy for the NYT headline writers.

  30. 30.

    Baud

    @gene108:

    It is frustrating, but the fact is, it has only been fairly recently that our side has been unified against them.  You can’t expect non-Dems to fight a fight that Dems won’t.

  32. 32.

    J R in WV

    @rikyrah: ​
     

    Good Morning, rikyrah ~!!~ I’m not usually up and coherent at this time of day, but Wife has an early PT appoint`0ment today. So good morning, everyone! Argh, I can’ ttypoe yet! ;~)

  33. 33.

    Kay

    @gene108:

    The headline thing at the NYTimes really is curious though. Often in their crime panic stories the story itself contradicted the hysterical headline, as in one story where the headline claimed police had been defunded and then refunded when actually it was just additional money to police.

    An honest headline woud read “police receive additional funding” – the truth- but that didn’t fit the narrative.

  34. 34.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: “Do Something” is such an amorphous term when used as a pejorative. There were people in the opposite camp (not sure what they’re called — “Shut Up” Twitter, maybe?) who denounced the idea of student debt relief so angrily that I half expected blow-back on POTUS when he took executive action. Didn’t happen, maybe because it was never a policy debate but rather a personality-driven factional spat all along.

  35. 35.

    gene108

    @lowtechcyclist:

    But the notion that Dems should do good things for people, and that in particular the Executive branch should go ahead and do good shit if laws have already been passed to empower those actions, has always seemed inarguable to me.

    One thing I appreciate about David Dayen at the American Prospect is that he’s made lists of specific things that a Democratic Administration could do, and specified the legislation that authorized the Executive to do it.

    Do Something Twitter wants the Executive to do things where the law isn’t crystal clear, and even if something had been done for decades – like the case the EPA lost over carbon emissions – doesn’t mean it’ll hold up in the courts.

    I’m dubious of anybody saying the Executive has the ability to do something, but isn’t because of how sketchy the courts are and how many ambitious Republican state AG’s want to make a name by getting Democratic policy overturned in the courts.

  36. 36.

    Geminid

    @Kay: There are certainly merits to the “do somethings” positions, at least in the abstract. But I do not not care about how wrong! wrong! and more wrong! Matt Yglesias is about popularism.

    I want to know how Democrats like Marcy Kaptur and Sharice Davids won their purple districts by 5 points and more, and how Gabe Vasquez and Marie Glusenkamp Perez flipped red seats in New Mexico and Washington. There are stories there that need to be told, and that I think would be much more instructive than the debate over more abstract questions of messaging.

  37. 37.

    PST

    @Amir Khalid:

    When I hear a Trumper say this, I always wonder: “Such as …?”

    I now suppress the urge to ask, since it’s futile. It’s always something fictitious, or loathsome, or fictitious and loathsome.

  38. 38.

    Kay

    @Spanky:

    It’s important! Schools are always the top budget item, everywhere, but police are always second.

    If the police were never defunded (they weren’t) and this crime panic has led to huge new funding for police people need to know that, so they can ask why police aren’t solving the crime problem even with huge amounts of additional funding.

  40. 40.

    mrmoshpotato

    @oatler: My body’s burnin’ like  lava from  Mauna Loa!

    Like you should go to the hospital, or like you should write a song? (See Midnight Oil.)

  41. 41.

    Eyeroller

    @Baud: The real issue IMHO is that the NYT drives the discourse in the rest of the media, particularly the NYC-based TV media from which most voters actually get their information (and in the particular case of the NYC metro area, no doubt local TV media would be especially resonant with the NYT).

  42. 42.

    Kay

    @Geminid:

    I disagree, and the reason I disagree is because I am so familiar with Marcy Kaptur. I think I mentioned I voluntereed for her this cycle but I have followed her for 20 years.

    She runs a campaign that is tailor made for northern Ohio – it is Toledo. The lesson from that forHouse candidates is “run a localized race in a bad cycle for D’s” which is conventional wisdom and which any candidate can do and which doesn’t mean that much for the larger Party.

    It isn’t an ideological approach, “centrist” as opposed to “Left”. It’s a local approach.

  43. 43.

    Barbara

    @lowtechcyclist: ​They didn’t get the big bang noisy toys that were on their wish list, like indicting Trump, and they don’t need the underwear and socks of student debt relief or ACA support. So THEY feel cheated.

  45. 45.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker:

    I accept that there are actually idiots on both sides in this situation. To be honest, I think the left side tends to get more flak because they often put Biden or the Democrats or the Establishmen in the other camp, while the Shut Up Twitter side doesn’t do that or does it less.  In fact, Biden or the Democrats or the Establishment are often caught in the middle, and the two sides are just competing factions.

  46. 46.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Kay: Do something Twitter only criticizes elected Dems and their appointees for not doing enough. I for one haven’t seen any criticism of the media or the various polling outfits.

    Its always why hasn’t Biden canceled my student loans or why hasn’t Garland clamped the Orange Error in leg irons. They also shit on anything that the Democrats do.

  48. 48.

    Kay

    @Geminid:

    Democrats have been chasing the perfect purple district approach for years and they should stop. The perfect purple district approach depends on the district. The only broad application is “find a candidate who is a good fit and run a heavily localized campaign”, but everyone already knows that.

  50. 50.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: I am not against valid criticism of Democrats but constantly knee-capping what is ostensibly your side achieves little.

    I am looking at you Vt senator  and your bhakts.

    Before the elections Vt senator was out there criticizing the Ds for focusing on abortion too much. He even wrote some op-eds  about it.

  52. 52.

    Baud

    @schrodingers_cat:

    He’s not the only one.  In the runup to the election, I saw lots of Dems talking about what the “Democrats should do.”

    Here’s a thought. “You’re a Democrat (or aligned with them). Why don’t you use your voice to tell voters why they should support Dems, instead of preaching to Dems about how they should run their campaigns.”

  53. 53.

    Baud

    Now that the election is over, my favorite crime panic story is from Morning Joe. Although nominally supportive of Dems, they had had a poll about which issues voters cared about in the election. Crime was at 5%, but the entire segment was about how Dems needed to have an answer to the GOP attacks on crime.

    The amount of media gaslighting for the GOP this year was insane.

  54. 54.

    Joey Maloney

    For  Humboldt Blue from downstairs, my best wishes for you and your dad.

    I won’t sing – even if your dad were 25 and in perfect health that would kill him – but I will play “Peace” by Sarah Jarosz and think of him and you.

  55. 55.

    PST

    @Geminid:

    I want to know how Democrats like Marcy Kaptur … won their purple districts by 5 points

    Decades of name recognition and a disgusting opponent. We Toledoans are consistent. Except for a single term, the Ohio 9th elected only two representatives between 1955 and the present. The rethugs gerrymandered Kaptur shamelessly but not enough to overcome those obstacles. The redrawn district will be a tough one in future elections, however, with different candidates.

  56. 56.

    Geminid

    @Kay: Everybody should know this, and I think successful Democratic candidates and their campaign teams do know this. I do not see the “do somethings” talk about such mundane but practical questions, though.

    Here I may be handicapped by a small sample. My exposure to this group is pretty much limited to self-described “do something Democrat” Will Stancil and pundits that he retweets favorably, like Brian Beutler and Mehdi Hasan.

  58. 58.

    Cameron

    @Amir Khalid: If I engage at all (and sometimes I’m stupid enough to do that), I’ll ask, “Which of his policies do you think did the most for the country?”

  59. 59.

    Baud

    @Cameron:

    If I were a rightie, it would be easy for me to say the Supreme Court.  Although any Republican president would have done the same.

  60. 60.

    PST

    @Kay: My comment noting Marcy Kaptur’s name recognition as a key to her success didn’t give her credit for what you pointed out, that she’s earned her longevity by being smart in the way she campaigns and represents her voters.

  61. 61.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: It really is shocking, isn’t it, how totally unaware they seem to be. This is one of the good things about Twitter, because I’m sure that thread is absolutely full of people telling them just what you are saying here. The Times people might never look at it, but a lot of other people do who might not be as aware as we are about this.

  62. 62.

    Geminid

    @PST: I kind of knew that, and was tagging Kaptur along with Davids, Vasquez  and Glusenkamp Perez as representative of more practical subjects of inquiry than the debate over more abstract issues like “popularism” and the like.

    And as straightforward as Kaptur’s task may have been, I’d still like to hear from knowledgeable observers, or even the candidate and her team, just how they accomplished it. Same with Davids, Vasquez, Gluesencamp Oerez, and a few dozen others. These tactical questions interest me as much or more than the strategic issues people like to talk about.

    These and other Democrats, veterans and newcomers alike, will be worth watching in the upcoming Congress. I will have  to rely on state and local media, though, because national news sites like to cover only a few “stars.” But that’s another another story.

  63. 63.

    Anyway

    @Geminid:

    I want to know how Democrats like Marcy Kaptur and Sharice Davids won their purple districts by 5 points and more, and how Gabe Vasquez and Marie Glusenkamp Perez flipped red seats in New Mexico and Washington. There are stories there that need to be told, and that I think would be much more instructive than the debate over more abstract questions of messaging.

    I want to know what happened in reliably blue states –  NY, CA, even OR. Are we taking voters in large blue states for granted and not delivering for them? I am more concerned about the complacency revealed in saying “no problem. we’ll win those seats back in 2024”

  64. 64.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: I agree elected Dems are caught in the middle, at least rhetorically. It’ll be interesting to see what lessons people take away from the party outperforming expectations in 2022. One thing I’ll say for the Shut Ups, when they lose on an intraparty issue (i.e., when elected Dems “do something” on an issue favored by the Do Somethings), the Shut Ups seem to mostly take their own advice and…shut up! :)

  65. 65.

    indycat32

    I need advice/opinions from the cat wranglers here. I’m still trying to get the hell-cat’s four spawn trapped and fixed. My current idea is to keep them in a large dog crate which I purchased and set up in my detached, unheated garage. It’s large enough for litter, food and water, and I have polar fleece blankets to keep them warm. Do you think I could safely keep them like this and for how long? I’m worried they will hurt themselves trying to escape. I can spend some time with them, but not 24/7. The Indy Humane spay/neuter clinic has appointments available in late December, so I wouldn’t trap them right away. This would be a lot easier if it was warm out.  Thanks for any suggestions, ideas, comments.

  66. 66.

    Cameron

    @Kay: The only Do Somethings I have a problem with are the ones with the goal posts mounted on a perpetually idling rocket sled.  “We just passed Medicare for All!”  “Why aren’t you sending me an incentive check to get me to sign up for it?”  Nothing is ever good enough, and if somehow it is, well, there’s something else that isn’t good enough.  I don’t think most of them are lefties, even dilettante lefties, since the few that I actually see refer to the “Democrat” party, which is a peculiarly wingnut construction.

  67. 67.

    Geminid

    @Baud: Not that I know of. It’s not a movement so much as a posture, arguably a reflexive one.

    I have noticed that some anti-DSA tweeters like Buffalo Meg use a drooping red rose in their headings.

  68. 68.

    sab

    @Kay: An extremely Republican town near me had a bond issue last year to fund a new roof for the police station because it has a leaking roof. They voted it down: Norton voted to defund the police. When the choice is taxes or police Republicans will defund them every time.

  69. 69.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: Now the papers are on to stories about the new locked cases some places like WalMart, Walgreens and CVS are using to fight shoplifting. The stories say, with zero evidence, that things like deodorant and shampoo are being locked up because there are organized rings of thieves who steal massive quantities of them and resell them online. It’s become a thing that stories state things like this without presenting one shred of proof that it’s actually happening.  It’s a new panic about massive theft rings that may or may not exist.

    At my local WalMart the things being locked up are expensive electric toothbrushes and those expensive razors and razor blades for women’s razors. Deodorant and shampoo are still free on the shelves. One thing I’ve always wondered about is how much theft there is of cosmetics, because they are easy to conceal and relatively expensive. There is one WalMart neighborhood market where all of the cosmetics are in those locked cases, which actually seems right to me.

  70. 70.

    sab

    @Kay: I agree.  Tim Ryan ran for senate as if all of Ohio was the Mahonimg valley. It didn’t work. It worked for him in the Mahoning valley for twenty years.

  71. 71.

    Geminid

    @Cameron: They’re lefties alright. But for many of them, the Democratic party and the the party establishment who deny them their rightful place at the head of a Left coalition are the immediate enemy. They figure that once they establish a powerful, truly Left party they will make short work of their Right rivals.

  74. 74.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    A lot of twitter is where you hang out on it. During my 3 hour family zoom on Saturday, someone asked me if I was being harassed more on twitter. I’ve never been harassed on twitter. I could be if someone decided an old lady writer was worth it, but no one has.

  75. 75.

    Geminid

    @Soprano2: I’ve noticed that the Walmart near me has no shopping baskets, just shopping carts. This is typical of other Walmarts I’ve shopped. I used to think they just wanted people to buy more stuff than would fit in a basket. Then I realized that it’s harder to sneak something out of a cart and into a pocket than to sneak it out of a basket.

  79. 79.

    Anyway

    The Acme I go to has no baskets either, just carts. I always shop with the basket and asked the staff what happened.  Apparently “the baskets waked away” and they decide to get rid of them. I hate pushing a cart around and shop for whatever I can carry in my hands to the (self-)checkout.

  80. 80.

    Soprano2

    @Geminid: Our WalMart does something that I think is hilarious. They put in a bunch of those self-check stands, which creates a theft opportunity. So, to counter that, now you have to show someone at the door your receipt for everything in your cart that isn’t in a bag. (I guess no one could ever put something that they didn’t pay for in a bag, LOL) So they decided to save money with self-checkouts but have to spend money on people to check everyone’s cart because of the theft opportunity they created!

    When I had to get something out of one of those cases they put it at a check stand where I had to go to buy it. I had wondered how they did that, because locked cases don’t prevent theft if you just hand stuff to people!

    At the local Dollar Store all of the carts have poles on them that prevent the cart from being taken out of the store. I guess that’s one way to combat cart theft!

  82. 82.

    jonas

    @PST: Trump did a lot of good

    I read this a lot coming from GOP donors or cowardly politicians and such, but I want to always scream “What?! What single thing did that malignant orange toad do that even a fair-minded *conservative* can call ‘good’?” Maybe the tax cuts for the rich, but what else? An expensive and pointless trade war with China that required the taxpayer to bail out all those midwestern soybean farmers? Wearing through pair after pair of ballistic-grade nylon kneepads every time he met with Putin? Saying there were “good people on both sides” in a violent neo-Nazi rally? Acting like a Grade-A ass in every foreign meeting he attended? Orchestrating a coup to keep himself in office after he lost an election?

    We could go on, of course.

  83. 83.

    Marmot

    @gene108:

    Crime, for reasons no one can fully explain, started dropping in the 1990’s and aren’t back to where they were 30 years ago, so the myth that ‘x’ liberal success led to the dissolution of society just doesn’t work.

    …

    Yet a large part of the country supports them. Go figure.

    I think that part above is the only constant belief among conservatives of all stripes—an attack on the traditional social order has caused a breakdown in society. You can trace it back to at least the French Revolution.

    And even though every conservative I’ve ever met believes crime is worse now than in the past, I have never met one who bothered to check out crime statistics over time.

    Too busy employing tax-cut Jesus, actual religion, singling out hated minorities, etc., in an effort to protect “legitimate” power.

  84. 84.

    satby

    @indycat32: yes, that’s a fine plan. But don’t wait to trap tgem, do it soon because as it gets colder and stormy they may move to more dangerous /less accessible digs. Plus every day out is a day of danger from vehicles and predators.

  86. 86.

    Soprano2

    @Marmot: And even though every conservative I’ve ever met believes crime is worse now than in the past, I have never met one who bothered to check out crime statistics over time.

    They don’t care about statistics or proof; what they know is that there are more non-white people in the U.S., thus crime must be worse. They see more homeless people, so crime must be worse. It seems pretty simple to them; it’s why they want to be able to carry a weapon everywhere. I actually had a co-worker tell me, when we were talking about the Q night club shooting, that she just feels safer if she knows a trained person with a gun is nearby if something happens! I asked how can you be sure there is always a trained person everywhere, and she said she didn’t want to talk about it because she knows I don’t agree with her. I mean, how can anyone agree with such an insane idea, that letting everyone have firearms everywhere means there will always be a highly trained person nearby to take down a shooter if the need arises? She’s a nice person for the most part, but whoo-boy this is so illogical I can’t wrap my mind around it.

  87. 87.

    WaterGirl

    @Geminid:

    I want to know how Democrats like Marcy Kaptur and Sharice Davids won their purple districts by 5 points and more, and how Gabe Vasquez and Marie Glusenkamp Perez flipped red seats in New Mexico and Washington.

    Because Balloon Juice raised money for their campaigns? :-)

  89. 89.

    Matt McIrvin

    @lowtechcyclist: I think “Do Something Twitter” is more about people who will primarily blame Democrats for being impotent squishes (or possibly actually corrupt) because Donald Trump still isn’t in prison.

  90. 90.

    indycat32

    @satby: I was hoping you’d answer.   I have cat shelters placed around the house which they and the other outdoor cats use.  I think they and their mother are here to stay because FOOD!! I’ll set up the traps  later this week when it warms up.

  91. 91.

    Soprano2

    So we put up our Christmas decorations last night. We always get a real tree. We put it in the stand on Saturday so that it could get water and open up before we decorate it. About 30 minutes after I got the tree decorated, it just fell over. I mean it literally fell over, no people or animals were involved at all! I was sitting in the living room when it happened; I wasn’t able to react fast enough to catch it because after all who can process seeing a Christmas tree just fall over? Amazingly only one ornament was broken, although I did have to repair the ornament my sister got me from Holland a long time ago. My theory for what happened is that hubby insisted on pulling on the top of the tree when he put the angel on using our step stool rather than getting the higher stepladder so he could just place it; that must have weakened the grip the stand had on the trunk, and it slowly slipped until it couldn’t stay upright anymore. We got it fixed, but now the tree looks a little drunk because it’s leaning a little toward the corner where it’s sitting. I said good enough, we aren’t touching it again! So far so good, it was still standing this morning. I’ve never even had an animal knock a tree down before, let alone have one just fall over!

  92. 92.

    lowtechcyclist

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Do something Twitter only criticizes elected Dems and their appointees for not doing enough.

    Well, if you think there are things the Dems can actually DO that they’re not trying to do, then yes, that’s where to aim one’s criticism.

    Seriously, the idea is that we elect Dems in order that they can solve real problems and implement positive changes.  That’s the bargain: we vote for them, and if at all possible, they get the things done that they talked about when they were running.  That’s the bargain.

    If they don’t hold up their end of it, then damn straight, criticize them.

  94. 94.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Marmot:

    And even though every conservative I’ve ever met believes crime is worse now than in the past, I have never met one who bothered to check out crime statistics over time.

    If you do, you can often get the result you want by cherry-picking. Crime IS up if you pick your baseline to be just before the COVID pandemic. Not so much if your baseline is 1977, or even 1994. Of course, they believed it was rising even when it wasn’t.

  95. 95.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Baud:

    I remember DSA used a red rose to identify themselves on Twitter.

    Well at least now I finally know why you guys have been calling it Rose Twitter all this time.

  96. 96.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @sab: You gotta raise funds to run the town with somehow. What d’ya expect them to do, raise taxes? You must be some kinda commie.

  97. 97.

    Cliosfanboy

    @indycat32:

      Alley Cat Allies may be able to help. I agree though, please trap them right away.

    https://www.alleycat.org/

    We built an BIG indoor pen in our garage with chickenwire we got with a “Cat Enclosure Kit”, and added a cat door to it to the outside. We kept the cat door closed until we were sure the cats thought of the pen as “home” and would return for food and shelter (about 6 weeks).

  98. 98.

    Soprano2

    @Matt McIrvin: “Do Something” Twitter makes me crazy because they just want Trump arrested, who cares if the charges will stick or you can actually get a conviction with the evidence. Also, they never seem to give Democrats credit for what they actually do, they just move the goalposts and say they should have done something else. There is value in pushing back against conventional wisdom, but when something you are advocating happens you should give people credit rather than ignoring it.

  100. 100.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I think the main thing that made me sick of Twitter was that it revealed that a dismaying number of my pre-existing friends were highly susceptible to bad-faith argumentation from the horseshoe/dirtbag/illiberal left, and they kept amplifying it.

  103. 103.

    Cameron

    I’m hoping the contract issues get resolved between RR management and the unions this week.  GA Senate runoff should be front and center of national news right through next week, but a RR strike on 12/5 would overshadow it.

  104. 104.

    Geminid

    @Obvious Russian Troll: Eric Adams had good approval numbers in polling a few weeks into his term. His approval was down to 29% going into this summer. City residents don’t seem to be buying what he is selling.

    New York’s ranked choice voting could make Adams vulnerable to primary challengers in a couple years. He barely squeaked by Kathy Garcia last year. Ironically, the old system would have required a runoff  because Adams did not make it past 40% (he had 33% of first choice votes). Adams might not have prevailed against a consolidated anti-Adams vote.

  107. 107.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I think “Do Something Twitter” is more about people who will primarily blame Democrats for being impotent squishes (or possibly actually corrupt) because Donald Trump still isn’t in prison.

    I honestly can’t blame them.  IANAL, but ISTM that with respect to all these extremely secret documents he shouldn’t have in his possession, he’s long since blown through any possible defense that he was lacking intent.

    And yeah, I know because he was President and will have a stable of lawyers, they’ve got to dot every i and cross every t, but if I can’t understand why there aren’t very few i’s and t’s left to deal with, I can understand why most people can’t understand.  This person got three months for a similar (but much more trivial) case.

    (Getting further off topic, but I really hate the whole ‘intent’ business in the law. It always seems to help the people who can afford a stable of lawyers, while doing little good for those who can’t.)

  111. 111.

    lowtechcyclist

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Dems are not above criticism. What I don’t like about many prominent do something handles is that they are mum about the Republicans.

    Yeah, and I’ve put up with decades of Liebermanesque Dems whose guns, like yours, always seem aimed leftward.  Whatever.

  112. 112.

    Marmot

    @Soprano2: Yep. They absolutely do not care about whether there’s proof or goddamn sense in any of it. They just *know* it deep down, and everything else is justification.

    There’s no point in trying to convince them—but if there’s a normie listening to the conversation, that’s who I’m trying to win over.

  113. 113.

    Soprano2

    @schrodingers_cat: They don’t seem to care whether or not Garland can actually prosecute TFG for crimes; they just want to see a perp walk with him in handcuffs. They seem to think that’s what really matters! Marcy Wheeler can be a good antidote to their constant whining.

  114. 114.

    schrodingers_cat

    @lowtechcyclist: I have no love lost for the Lieberman or Tim Ryans of the Democratic party either.

    And I have never advocated for either of them or Sinema for that matter. So your analogy is inapt. I have nothing against the left. But I do not like the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic party. Because they use the party to run for elections but once elected keep pissing on it.

    I like lefties/Progressives like Hakeem Jeffries and Nancy Pelosi who are team players and get work done and not those who preen for the cameras and spend all their time criticizing other elected Ds.

  115. 115.

    Geminid

    @WaterGirl: I think that would be a great idea. I often hear Democrats complain that “we don’t have a good bench.” They often know only a few Democratic Representatives by name, though, and names of capable Representatives like Veronica Escobar and Colin Allred of Texas would just draw a blank.

    You can’t learn about most Democratic officeholders through national media sites. State and local media are useful sources here, as would be Balloon Juice features.

  116. 116.

    sab

    @Soprano2: We have one. We get it out of storage every year and just plug it in. It has fake snow and pinecones. It smells funny, but that keeps the cats away.

    We used to have a huge fiberoptic tree that we loved, but two of the cats destroyed it.

    I would love to have a real tree just to see the cats reaction.

    We have five cats.

  117. 117.

    Kathleen

    @Geminid: Right. Also stories about Lauren Underwood successfully hanging on to her purple seat and Greg Landsman flipping OH#1 (my district). He ran a very interesting campaign which I followed rather closely. It’s worth dissecting. The guy he defeated held on to that seat for 26 years and only lost once in 2008 then he got the seat back in 2010. In our case the new gerrymandered maps helped to make that possible believe it or not.

  119. 119.

    Ken

    @lowtechcyclist: he’s long since blown through any possible defense that he was lacking intent.

    Repeatedly posting “I took them because they belong to me” does tend to do that. I’m not sure if he’s had his lawyers make that particular argument in court, but that would do the same.

  120. 120.

    sab

    @schrodingers_cat: Tim Ryan is not a centrist. He just presents himself as such. He was my congressman for twenty years and I know his voting record. He does himself enough damage, please don’t help him do more damage. He is not like Lieberman at all.

    ETA He lives in a bright red state. The centrist stuff was trying to get elected, and it failed. Voters never vote for Republican lite when there is a real Republican on the ballot, but normies often stay home when the choice appears to be two flavors of Republican.

  121. 121.

    Kathleen

    @Kay: That’s what my newly elected congressman did in OH#1. He ran a very smart campaign. He knows his voter base in the city and made it a point to campaign in Warren County which is strongly Republican. I think he managed to get a some votes there.

  122. 122.

    Marmot

    @Matt McIrvin: If you do, you can often get the result you want by cherry-picking. Crime IS up if you pick your baseline to be just before the COVID pandemic. Not so much if your baseline is 1977, or even 1994. Of course, they believed it was rising even when it wasn’t.

    Omg. In the run-up to the 2020 election, I received a door flyer from local wingers that clearly cut inopportune years out of an historical trend line. Along with quite a bit of other chicanery .

    I was livid. My “independent-minded” (now-ex) friend, though, he was full of equivocation.

    Funny, that. Fancies himself a math guy.

  125. 125.

    lowtechcyclist

    @schrodingers_cat:

    The constant bitching and moaning about Garland is beyond tiresome.

    I guess you guys must be masochists.  I never hear any of that, except occasionally here (and almost none of that lately that I can recall).

    I just hear all the bitching and moaning by people like you about all these people I never run into on Twitter or elsewhere.  And I agree that it’s tiresome.

  127. 127.

    WaterGirl

    @Soprano2: I am in the running for “least handy” person on the face of the earth, but my guess is that the stand wasn’t big enough / heavy enough / strong enough for the size and weight of the tree.

    *Now a hundred handy people can explain why my answer is totally wrong.

  128. 128.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    The stories say, with zero evidence, that things like deodorant and shampoo are being locked up because there are organized rings of thieves who steal massive quantities of them and resell them online.

    Reporters are going to have to show me some evidence because this crime theory doesn’t make any sense. They’re stealing “massive quantities” off shelves? Or a large group are shoplifting and pooling the stolen goods? They’re still making 8 dollars a bottle and more thieves means more people who get a cut of the 8 dollars.
    I want to see all the records relating to a conviction for this crime.

  129. 129.

    sab

    @schrodingers_cat: I see what you are saying, but Tim Ryan actually was a team player always. The speakership battle was a legitimate difference, and when he lost he climbed right back on board and supported her wholeheartedly. Unlike Lieberman, who did everything he could to gut the ACA. Ryan never did anything underhanded like that.

  130. 130.

    Marmot

    @Soprano2: I love our artificial tree!

    Also, I’ll never forget the time back when my roommates and I set up a used Xmas tree in the backyard and set it on fire. Flames reached at least three times the tree’s height.

    The things are really, really dangerous.

  132. 132.

    Soprano2

    @sab: I would love to have a real tree just to see the cats reaction.

    Be careful what you wish for. My mother had two kittens who climbed her real tree and toppled it over. She took all the ornaments off it, threw it out in the backyard, and never had a Christmas tree again!

  133. 133.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    And I want an additional source for crime stories OTHER THAN police. Police have an agenda. Obviously.

    If they’re just writing down whatever police told them about “crime” or “crime policy” then it’s useless.

  136. 136.

    sab

    @sab: I am saving eggshells to paint as christmas ornaments. Cats can bash them to their hearts content. On the real tree. In 2023.

  137. 137.

    Soprano2

    @WaterGirl: Well, we’ve had the same kind of tree in that stand for at least 20 years and it’s never happened before. I do think we should have trimmed some off the bottom of the trunk; if the trunk were a little bit shorter it might not have happened. Your guess is logical, though.

  138. 138.

    Ohio Mom

    @PST: Are we sure that the Republicans in Columbus aren’t going to use the excuse of the Court finding the districts they drew not quite kosher to re-draw them once again? And this time they will have a state Supreme Court on their side.

    That’s my fear, anyway, that finally being represented in Congress by a Democrat (Greg Landsman) will be a short lived experience.

    If someone (looking at you Kay) wants to correct me, I’m all ears (or maybe it should be, all eyes).

  139. 139.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: There are actually rings of thieves who steal things and sell them online. What they do, though, is use stolen credit cards and buy high end goods like expensive women’s purses or shoes, then sell them on EBay or Amazon. I heard a story about it on Planet Money. That makes sense, though, while “rings of thieves stealing massive amounts of $3 deodorant sticks to sell them online” makes no sense at all.

  140. 140.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    What’s the fixed costs these shampoo theft rings have? They’re shipping to individuals who purchase online? So they’re paying shipping costs for 1,000 individual bottles of shampoo? What’s that? Best case, 2 dollars a bottle?

    Reporters have to walk us through this entire crime industry. They can’t just do – “shoplifting ring…something something…online”

  141. 141.

    lowtechcyclist

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I have no love lost for the Lieberman or Tim Ryans of the Democratic party either.

    And I have never advocated for either of them or Sinema for that matter. So your analogy is inapt.

    Whatever.  The Liebercrats had major influence in the Dem coalition, and I had to put up with listening to their shit for eons.  You’re upset about people on the left fringe who AFAICT have negligible support or influence.

  143. 143.

    Geminid

    @Kathleen: I think Ohio Republicans may have shot themselves in the foot with an overly ambitios map. In a wave year for Republicans, they might have returned Chabot in the 1st and flipped the seats won by Emilia Sykes and Marcy Kaptur (although in Kaptur’s case they might also have had to pick one  of the woman officeholders in the primary instead  of the miserable Majewski).

    Instead they went 0 for 3. I think they could have at least held on to Chabot’s seat had they been less rapacious. Now I think they will have a hard time winning it back, and demograghic change could put it out of reach.

  145. 145.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: Honestly, I just want a source or any proof at all. They are way too prone to just write this stuff up with zero proof of any of it.

    There was an op-ed in our paper a couple of weeks ago like that – over and over, the author just asserted things were true with no proof and then proceeded to say “x thing happened” because of the things he said were true with no proof! They publish low quality stuff like that these days, it’s pretty pathetic.

  147. 147.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Obvious Russian Troll:

    The same mayor who got his first paycheck in crytpo? I’m going to go out on a limb and say the guy isn’t that bright.

    Well yeah, but the NYC Dems somehow nominated him.  I guess I’m wondering whether they should have seen in advance that he’d be that way.

  148. 148.

    Geminid

    @WaterGirl: My handy-splain theory was that the screw clamps were tight originally but then the wood  decompressed over time and the clamps should have been tightened again.

  149. 149.

    UncleEbeneezer

    The best example of Do Something Twitter, imo, is Elie Mystal with respect to Garland/DOJ.  On more general politics/policy, it would be that shithead Michael Tracey.  Don’t be like them.

  151. 151.

    Geminid

    @lowtechcyclist: Adams was a controversial candidate and he barely squeaked by Kathy Garcia when all the ranked choices were assigned. As I said at #104, had New York’s former voting system still been in effect Ms. Garcia may well have won a runoff and been New York’s Mayor today.

  153. 153.

    Tazj

    @Anyway: Tom Bonier and Simon Rosenberg might have answer.

    Tom [email protected] Nov 23

    I do believe that this is yet more evidence of what @Simon WDC has been saying-there were two elections happening, one inside the battleground states where Dems over performed, and one elsewhere that looked like a typical midterm.

    An as we saw in the post- Dobbs registration data, the decision had a bigger impact in states where choice was more directly threatened.

    Bonier did or does analytics for Democratic campaigns. That’s what it says in his Twitter bio.

  156. 156.

    schrodingers_cat

    @UncleEbeneezer: Agreed. I have them both muted but I still see some of the screenshots of their most egregious tweets in my timeline

    At this point I am mainly using Twitter for news from India and keeping in touch with activists and grassroots journalists fighting the good fight against the Sangh and its evil designs on India.

    Yesterday for example I joined a space hosted by two of my mutuals who participated in Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra ( Join India March, where Rahul Gandhi has been walking across the length of India for the past two months.) One of them is a documentary film maker and the other is Congress party activist.

  158. 158.

    UncleEbeneezer

    How to spot Do Somethings in the wild:

    1.) They still maintain that Hillary “ran a bad campaign”, didn’t visit Wisconsin etc

    2.) We could have easily had a Public Option if only Pelosi/Obama had tried!

    3.) Biden should be able to magically make Manchinema do the right thing.

    4.) Every GOP victory is either because of some Dem policy failure or Dem messaging failure.  (It’s the  “Dem failure” that matters most and is the most telling).

    5.) Trump should be in jail already regardless of actual rules and guidelines of DOJ, schedule/speed of the courts, time it takes to collect evidence and litigate pesky things like Executive Privilege claims of key witnesses without which conviction would be impossible, etc.

    There are of course many more examples.  It’s really one of those Know It When You See It kinda things.

  160. 160.

    Kathleen

    @Geminid: We have experienced political reporter here who was pretty confident Chabot would lose his seat. I don’t know why Repubs drew the map the way they did. In theory they have to redraw before 2024 but as far as I ‘m concerned they can keep the current map here. I think Landsman can get reelected and I can keep my Dem state Senator and house rep which I lost in the prior gerrymander.

  162. 162.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Geminid: ​I also think the poll-based pundits need to be taken down a peg. I wonder, though, if the current crop of practitioners who actually run campaigns for Democratic candidates like, say Arizona Secretary of State-elect Adrian Fontes, have not already moved beyond poll-based methods.

    If I may speak as a retired applied statistician who actually designed and ran a political poll a couple of generations back: It’s less likely they’ve “moved beyond” than “refined their techniques” to account for the mobility of mobile phone #s, caller ID allowing people to not answer unknown callers, and people who fuck with pollsters out of sheer spite.

    I conjecture two types of political polling are ongoing. One is the classic variety used by campaigns and issue-focused committees not only to obtain a (reasonably) accurate snapshot of the “state of play” but also to identify weaknessess in messaging and opportunities in various demographics. Such polls go the extra megaparsec to eliminate or account for bias in sample selection and question phrasing, because their aim is to solicit accurate information for use in modifying subsequent activities to improve the odds of winning. The average citizen will never hear about them, because they are kept very close to the vest – why provide data (that you paid handsomely for) to your adversaries for free?

    The other type is the push-poll – what I call (pace Dr Doolittle) the pushyou-pollyou. Instead of eliminating bias, the pushyou-pollyou actively cultivates it with unscientific sampling and leading and inflammatory questions, and then blasts out “results” far and wide to anyone who’ll listen. The idea is to anger, inflame, outrage, create false dichotomies, etc. This is beloved of websites and media whose main aim is to generate page views (=> ad revenues), and unscrupulous advocates of particular positions who want to drive or amplify a particular narrative.

    Pushyou-pollyous are the stock in trade of publicity hounds like Choke Toad and Nate Pewter over at 538, who are past bastards, uh, masters, at tossing heaps of pushyou-pollyous into the specious “poll aggregation” mix to bury legitimate survey results beneath illegitimate, unscrupulous, partisan narratives masquerading as “scientific.”

    Tl;dr – Campaigns do legitimate survey research seeking information, but you’ll never see it; you’ll see crap aiming to manipulate the electorate instead.

  163. 163.

    Geminid

    @Uncle Cosmo: I was imprecise in saying these campaign professionals had “moved beyond” poll based approaches. I meant that they rely on polling less an on demographic and pther factors in calculating theor best messaging strategy.

    And congratutions on the Ravens’ recent success! Lamar Jackson deserves it.

  164. 164.

    Gravenstone

    @Soprano2: I guess no one could ever put something that they didn’t pay for in a bag, LOL

    Most of those bagging areas are tied into scales. If the weight in the bag doesn’t align with the items scanned, it takes notice. Same idea goes if you have an oversized item that doesn’t fit in a bag. You then have confirm to the system that you don’t want to bag it.

  165. 165.

    Obvious Russian Troll

    @lowtechcyclist: Yeah, good question. Sometimes a candidate doesn’t reveal enough of themselves to allow voters to figure out who they are until *after* the election.

  166. 166.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Geminid: ​

    @Uncle Cosmo: I was imprecise in saying these campaign professionals had “moved beyond” poll based approaches. I meant that they rely on polling less an on demographic and other factors in calculating their best messaging strategy.

    Fair enough, but keep in mind that statistics-based methods for characterizing “reality” are themselves imprecise in the best of conditions (where everyone answers the phone for pollsters & completes the survey truthfully). Survey research is just having to deal with additional layers of uncertainty. They’re smart folks, they can work out less precise but still useful techniques.

    And congratutions on the Ravens’ recent success! Lamar Jackson deserves it.

    Spoken too soon, alas. The Jags just demonstrated how to beat the Crows and I’ll bet every other opponent will play the same.

    LJ will be tagged and traded next year because our ignorant-of-NFL-level-offense-&-defense head coach insists on wasting his best years under an imbecile offensive coordinator who was fired twice before because he has no clue about how to respond to an opponent’s defensive adjustments in real time. Greg Roman (NB an acronym for MORAN) has no Plan B except running Reaction Jackson into the ground.

    I fully expect Lamar to win multiple Superb Owls with a team that will promote his maturation into a true generational talent at QB. It just won’t be here :^(, and Poe’s Crows will be cursed (justifiably!) by football fans everywhere for having wasted the best years of his career.

    Oh well, small stuff next to the war. Slava Ukraini! Geroyam slava!

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