I know nothing about Argentina’s politics, but it looks like they chose poorly in their presidential runoff yesterday, electing a hard-right, loud-mouthed gobshite with stupid hair.
In a move reminiscent of another right-wing egomaniac with stupid hair, the new president, Javier Milei, spread rumors about fraud prior to the runoff election, maybe to inoculate himself against humiliation if he lost. It wasn’t even close — he won with 56% of the vote, according to WaPo.
Milei’s movement adopted the Gadsden flag, which is never a good sign. Milei was known for revving a chainsaw at rallies, which similarly does not inspire confidence.
According to HuffPo, the new president promises to take drastic action to address the nation’s woes, including rolling back abortion rights and sex ed in school. It’s unclear how that’s supposed to help, but Milei is hardly alone in calling for the oppression of women and queer people as a national cure-all.
In defense of the Argentines who elected “self-described anarcho-capitalist” Milei, the country really has been going through some shit, with inflation topping 140%. Tens of millions of Americans are such spoiled toddlers that they’ll empower fascist cranks out of sheer boredom, so who are we to judge?
Open thread.
On The Road – Albatrossity – Merlins!
Baud
QFT.
Always sucks to see a right winger elected, but from what I’ve been reading, their history and politics, and the specific candidate choices in this election, are far different than ours.
But to be fair, abortions are a proven driver of inflation, so it all makes sense.
The Thin Black Duke
“When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an audience, and their public business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.”
Neal Postman warned us. And it’s not an exclusively American problem either, unfortunately.
Baud
@The Thin Black Duke:
I often feel that the right acts like clowns because they know even the people who oppose them will be entertained by it.
Most of us still do the right thing. But they only need a small percentage to succumb to it.
Baud
On the news this morning, MSNBC was yukking it up about some Trump event in Iowa where the presenter was talking on a Yoda voice. Maybe it would have been funny if the humour wasn’t in service of fascism, but it was.
Viva BrisVegas
Now all he has to do is figure out how to stay in power.
He’s got a couple of choices:
1) Fix Argentina’s problems. I jest, like all right wingers he has no real policy except stamping on those weaker than him.
2) Cheating and Couping. This is the most likely.
3) Make things worse then give up and run for Russia with a bag full of cash.
I favour a mixture of 2) and 3).
The Thin Black Duke
@Baud: The usual right-wing suspects engage in bread and circuses because they have nothing constructive to offer other than performative nonsense. Unfortunately, some people on our side of the political divide are invested in loudmouths who believe that delivering Aaron Sorkinesque speeches on talk shows will get things done. These clowns think The West Wing is a documentary.
Baud
Are there any bears in Argentina?
#ObscureLibertarianReference
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: The right seriously do believe abortion is a driver of inflation. (They want to maximize the birthrate to make sure there’s a sufficient worker pool decades down the line, and they equate anything that does not maximize the birthrate with abortion. It makes sense in their heads.)
Baud
@The Thin Black Duke:
West Wing was over two decades ago.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Also explains their support for child labor.
ETA: I’ll give them this. If you want the economy to be more labor oriented and you’re complaining about any inflation above a minimal level, you’re going to need to choose what you want more.
satby
@Baud: @The Thin Black Duke: This thread (in Threadreader, not twitter) by David Roberts discusses the Republican (and reactionaries worldwide) attempts to reduce the publuc’s faith in democracy. Worth the read.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Incredible but true. I didn’t watch it while it was running on network TV but checked it out years later in the early days of streaming. I found it very entertaining, and I do kinda wish democracy worked as depicted on the show.
p.a.
All they had to do was look north to Brazil for a cautionary tale, but no…
Baud
@satby:
I’m seeing more efforts to convince young people of that. Hard to say whether that’s from right wingers acting as lefties, or true lefties themselves.
The Thin Black Duke
@Baud: Some folks are still mad at “Hanoi Jane”. Why do something new when you can crank out a set of your Greatest Hits?
satby
@Betty Cracker: Well, we recently had a front page post about favorite TV shows of the 70s, which was 50 years ago. And helps explain why I CANNOT get any youngs in my family to read this blog, even though they’re pretty politically aware.
Ain’t none of them got time for that ish.
Speak of, for those interested, I also shared two good articles in John’s overnight thread. Also about a TV show. But at least one in this century.
Baud
@The Thin Black Duke:
I’m amazed how much old stuff gets recycled online in order to generate new outrages. Right and left.
Betty Cracker
@satby: The “politics as spectacle” problem seems to be permeating local politics in a way I don’t recall seeing before, at least in my town and county. I don’t know if this is happening everywhere else or not.
White evangelicals (predominantly men) have ruled the roost here all my life, and all along they’ve used racist, xenophobic, sexist, anti-queer, sectarian, etc., scaremongering to acquire and retain power. That’s nothing new.
But it seems like they used to pretend to oppose alleged local menaces. Now they lazily follow the national and state templates provided by Trump and DeSantis.
For example, there was a big blow-up in county commission meetings recently about whether a completely pointless anti-immigrant “resolution” was sufficiently deferential to Ron DeSantis. I was thinking to myself, aren’t you people in charge of local shit? What about the fucking roads? What about the goddamn trash hauling?
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: They are in every way the party of cheap labor–except that their xenophobia works against that.
It didn’t always. There was a longtime tacit bargain where the horror of undocumented immigrants actually worked for cheap labor, since they didn’t actually do a lot to stop the immigration or keep employers from employing these people–they cracked down just hard enough that employers of undocumented immigrants could use the threat of deportation to keep them cowed and docile.
But under Trump, true believers in the ethnic cleansing of the US were in control and they actually started to crack down hard enough that the farm labor pool dried up.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Same with free trade. Say what you want about, it helped lower prices.
p.a.
George Wallace, paraphrased: I used to talk about better roads and good schools, and people fell asleep. Then I got on stage shouting “**clang **clang **clang!” and the folks went wild.
LiminalOwl
@Baud: That you call obscure?
Betty Cracker
@p.a.: Yep. Still, when local pols ignore local issues and indulge in performance art, that can open opportunities too. I’m thinking about when Danica Roem in Virginia defeated a long-time Repub incumbent for a statehouse seat. Her opponent ran on culture war crap like bathroom bills. Roem won with a campaign focused on traffic and local economic issues.
satby
@Betty Cracker: Don’t know if you’ve ever lived in a blue state (blue city in a hard core red state like where I am now barely mitigates the damage), but daily life seems more like living in two different countries. Most people don’t realize it because most people stay near where they grew up. I envy my friends still living in IL, IN’s crack state politicians keep passing the stupidest laws.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I think a lot of people take democracy as seriously as I take HOA elections. Meaning they ignore it unless something really bad is happening.
lowtechcyclist
@LiminalOwl:
I have bearly any idea what he’s talking about.
Soprano2
Don’t forget, many Nazis fled to Argentina after WWII. I just heard a piece on NPR where they interviewed Argentine voters about him. I heard a lot of the same crap they said about TFG – his lack of experience doesn’t matter because he’ll have experienced people working for him, we needed a change, etc. I wish I could pick my sister’s brain about this – she knew several Argentinians because she played polo.
Soprano2
@The Thin Black Duke: My husband is, and he’s 76.
Soprano2
@satby: Lots of them watch those old shows, though. They can skip those threads! But yeah, we’re mostly old.
Betty Cracker
@satby: I lived in Boston for a few years but couldn’t bear the cold or the distance from my family, so I came back home. I was a youngster then and didn’t pay much attention to politics.
daveNYC
Milei’s win makes perfect sense.
Rolling the bones on the crazy guy makes sense when you’re in the shit and the alternative is the person who got you in the shit in the first place.
Soprano2
@Baud: China tariffs that Biden kept is a hidden reason things at the store are more expensive.
Baud
@daveNYC:
Yep. Not like 2016, when there was no reason except hate to vote Trump in.
Jackie
TIFG was quick to congratulate Milei with this:
“You will turn your Country around and Make Argentina Great Again!”🤮
The Thin Black Duke
@Soprano2: Try to get a young person to watch a “classic” B&W movie. Even worse, A SILENT FILM (the horror, the horror).
Princess
Milei better watch out. The last South American leader Trump endorsed lost his next election, had a failed coup, and then caught such a terrible skin disease he can no longer wear pants.
satby
@Soprano2: We skip a lot of threads around here. Which wasn’t really my point anyway. My point was that the general consensus around here skews old and as a result our cultural references are old. We miss a lot of stuff influencing young people now because we have our own information loop.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: For the record. yes. Spectacled bears.
satby
@Betty Cracker: Understandable!
But even complacent red state voters can be motivated I hope. Ohio voters overwhelmingly approved two measures that their gerrymandered state legislature has decided to try to ignore. Let’s see how that works out for them.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Thanks! Hope they’re hungry.
The Pale Scot
He just needs a fashion makeover some epaulets etc
assets.sutori.com/user-uploads/image/e8f3d0ba-01d2-4696-aec1-bb6ae16b88bf/1e03afa1cf00ff135badd71c7b…
Frankensteinbeck
Holy shit. That’s a win button for whoever is out of power. It doesn’t matter what their platform is. Something is going so wrong that people will be desperate for a change.
@Betty Cracker:
That changed in 2009 when Obama got elected. Suddenly all elections were national elections.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: From their Wiki page: The spectacled bear is the only bear native to South America and is the largest land carnivore in that part of the world, although as little as 5% of its diet is composed of meat.
So, don’t get your hopes up.
satby
@The Thin Black Duke: I think though that some of the resistance to old (movies, shows, whatever) is partially a result of education in this country being such a disaster. Granted, I work in a farmers market (where the unemployables find a career), but the lack of knowledge about civics, history, their own families’ origins etc. is rampant.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: I never watched it either Betty. Still haven’t.
Jackie
@The Thin Black Duke: When my kiddos were little we had a B&W TV. Finally got a color TV and not long after, an old show came on in B&W. My seven year old burst into tears and bawled “our new TV BROKE!”
Baud
@satby:
That’s a perfect motto for a for-profit university.
Geminid
With Rep. Abigail Spanberger running for Governor, the Virginia 7th CD will have an open seat next year. Last week, retired Army colonel Yevgeny (Eugene) Vindman was the first candidate to announce a primary bid. Along with his twin brother Akexander, Colonel Vindman is fairly well-known for his role as a whistleblower over the Trump /Zelensky phone call, which formed the basis of the first Trump impeachment.
Mr. Vindman’s campaign rollout was a success nationally: $800,000 raised the first day, a friendly interview with MSNBC’s Ali Velshi, and endorsement tweets from Adam Schiff and others.
Locally, the rollout had mixed results. Problems started when newly elected Delegate Joshua Cole tweeted, “Who is this guy? I haven’t seen him in the 7th District.”
Podcaster Rachel Vindman, the candidate’s sister-in-law, came in cussing, berated Delegate Cole for attacking Vindman, and finished with “I have never heard of you.” Brother Alexander Vindman’s response to Mr. Cole was was more restrained, but some (including me) thought it was condescending.
Then, in order to improve the candidate’s local politicking credibility, Alexander Vindman posted a picture of himself, his brother and a couple others standing in front of a Eileen Filler-Corn yardsign, implying that they’d been pounding the pavement for the Delegate. People pointed out that this was in 2021, Filler-Corn had a safe seat nowhere near the 7th CD, and anyway, how come no one’s holding any campaign literature?
Then the head of Prince William County’s Democratic organization chimed in to say that if the Vindmans had wanted to support Virginia Democrats that year, there were several close races in their home county where they might have done some good. She did not point out that they did not help local General Assembly candidates this year either, but she did not have to.
Virginia political pundits including the acerbic Ben Tribbet joined the pile on. It was a striking example of the differences between a national reputation and a local one. I think it was also a sign that there is at least one other good candidate, who has yet to announce but has their own proponents. That could be State Senator Jennifer Carrol Foy.
satby
@Baud: I know that I sound flip, but it’s truly heartbreaking. So much wasted potential, especially in all the kids who are “homeschooled” and in reality aren’t being educated at all, except in the family business and how to work at a farmers market.*
Make a comment about some cultural reference that even modern kids have seen, like the Wizard of Oz, and enjoy the blank stares. And these kids aren’t Amish.
jonas
I guess Argentina has entered, along with a number of other countries, including us, the FAFO stage of democracy.
Baud
@satby:
It is heartbreaking. We waste so much human and material resources coddling right wingers and their ideology.
Kay
@Geminid:
Oh no. I love that they noticed they weren’t carrying campaign literature – sleuths! :)
Princess
@satby: This is going to be really unpopular but I can’t help noticing that a lot of the defenses of homeschooling hear (ie. From liberals) sound a lot like defenses of lax or zero gun laws — sure it’s terrible for the country as a whole but they have some personal particular need for it so it needs to be allowed.
The Thin Black Duke
@satby: Thing is, I believe that’s a choice. Using my own experience, I’m not the most adventurous person but what usually prodded me out of my comfort zone was boredom. In spite of my own resistance to change, the idea of doing the same thing over and over again for my rest of my life was intolerable. It’s better to strangle a newborn babe in their crib than to nurse unfulfilled desires.
Baud
@Princess:
I’m no expert, but I think it depends on whether the state enforces standards for homeschoolers. If the state does that, I don’t know that it can’t be an option for some people.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: Sounds like the Vindmans may have handled the adversity poorly, but what do you think Delegate Cole’s motive was for the snarky tweet or whatever? Why shit on a fellow Dem like that?
elliottg
General political philosophies can usually fall into one half of this square.
Giving sh*t away | Hating on other People
|
———————
|
Problem solving | Sucking up to money
Steeplejack
@Betty Cracker:
I think the Vindmans are seen as intra-party carpetbaggers. Virginia has a strong Democratic Party, and there are a lot of experienced state-level pols looking to move up.
Brachiator
The inflation rate in Argentina has hit 140 percent and the poverty rate is 40 percent. Milei is almost a 19th century libertarian, which means that many contemporary libertarians love him.
He has proposed getting rid of the Central Bank and dollarization of the economy. Pinning the economy on dollars theoretically curbs the printing of currency and puts a break on inflation. He also has talked about slashing public spending but would still somehow magically maintain key social programs.
His social policies are authoritarian, sexist backwards and nuts, but again part of the weird nonsense that going backwards in time will solve something.
Argentina has a long history of screwing up it’s economy. Here is one useful short video, from the Economist.
Here is another short video on the repeated failure of Argentina’s economy.
ETA. The swooning for a populist authoritarian definitely is a warning for the US.
elliottg
@elliottg: I can’t get it to come out correctly. Anyway:
Top half = fascism/populism
Bottom half = liberterian
Right half = fascism/conservative = GOP
left half = socialism
Kay
@Geminid:
I follow Rachel Vindman on Threads (yes, I’m still on Threads – I like that it’s mostly normies new to politics ) and she’s definitely acerbic, but not in a way I dislike :)
But they should have anticipated the carpetbagger objection- that’s normal in D politics.
Kay
Argentina just liberalized abortion in 2020 and now he’s going to roll it back? If he does, a 1921 law goes back in where women are criminally liable for abortions. They had an active underground though, especially with woman to woman networks for prescription drugs to end pregnancy, so tens of thousands of women got abortions anyway.
Geminid
@Kay: One of the Vindmans was carrying literature, but it was a Alexander Vindman’s book. I believe the photographer was Adam Parmahenko. It really looked like a social gathering that happened to have an Eileen Filler-Corn yard sign in the background.
Former Delegate Filler-Corn is running for the open 10th CD seat. Sadly, Congresswoman Jennifer Wexton must retire on account of a severe neurological malady. Ms. Filler-Corn made history in January of 2020, when she was sworn in as Virginia’s first woman Speaker of theHouse of Delegates.
mrmoshpotato
@The Thin Black Duke:
Mmmmmm silent horror films.
catclub
@Geminid: White guy, career military, probably leans right, so I bet it took a while to realize that if he is in favor of democracy he has to change to the Democratic party.
Kay
@Geminid:
Lol. Perfect. I’m suprised the roll out was so ham-handed because they really are national- have had plenty of media experience, etc. You would think they would know they have to go in humble – “we’re hoping to earn your support”.
OzarkHillbilly
@Steeplejack: Yep.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊😊😊
satby
@The Thin Black Duke: yes, it’s a choice that their parents made for them (talking about the kids). And that the grandparents made for the parents too. Some do get out, often LGTBQ+ kids who need to for their own safety and sanity. But how do kids with a 5th grade or less education, who are functionally illiterate, get out? And when they’re old enough to leave they’re often already teenaged parents themselves.
We shouldn’t allow that as a society. They can homeschool, but they have to meet some minimum standards.
The Thin Black Duke
@satby: That’s a good point. Thank you.
Every family has a designated weirdo, and in my family, that was me.
But no matter how much of a knucklehead I was during my difficult teenage years, my family always supported me even though I knew they didn’t always understand where I was coming from. They always had my back, and I loved them for that.
I was blessed. However, as you so astutely pointed out, some people aren’t so lucky. If the appropriate boxes aren’t checked off, they won’t get a helping hand but a slap in the face, and it hurts more when it’s coming from someone who says that they love you.
Kay
@satby:
It really is bad. I see the young people when they try to go to community college and first encounter a standardized test (placement test) that isn’t one of the fake Christian curricululum tests- they’re shocked because they’re all told they’re doing great and are far, far smarter than public school kids. They end up really angry.
Juvenile judges are aware of it although they won’t say it publicly in this Right wing county. We had one (who has since retired) who had just had it – he would order parents to enroll them in school “I want them in a seat at a school by Monday the 12th”. There’s also a really disturbing group of homeschoolers who are dodging child abuse investigations. They pull the kids out of school when teachers report them to authorities.
I think it’s WAY the hell out of control.
Betty Cracker
@Steeplejack: Okay, that makes more sense. Thanks!
daveNYC
@Baud: Yeah, the USA was extra grumpy with inflation that got up to a third of the lowest Argentina has been experiencing and has since dropped back to mostly normalish levels. I can’t even imagine what it would feel like to be in a situation where your salary is effectively half what it used to be after a year, and that on top of the shrinkage from previous years.
sab
@Princess: I am so old that I remember when Ohio didn’t allow home schooling because they wanted those Amish kids in school. And the Amish don’t go to college, so all the Amish schools used Mennonite girls as teachers.
Joey Maloney
But what if your unfulfilled desire is to strangle a newborn babe?
Kay
@sab:
Ugh. I don’t know how the girls were teachers since the girls get no education at all. The boys barely get to what might be say 6th grade but the girls get nothing. They can barely read. We see them come thru the court system too when they leave the faith and have no skills and no education so end up on the streets. Fundie religions of all stripes are brutal to girls and women and Amish are no different. If there were a bunch of religions that were cruel and repressive to all men the way so many are cruel and repressive to all women I wonder if that would be excused as “culture” or “religion”. I doubt it.
Eyeroller
@Baud:
I know that at least many states have zero standards or requirements for homeschoolers. We could eliminate a lot of the problems if those kids had to take the same standardized tests as public-school kids and there were some consequences for failure. Parents would be free to choose homeschooling (it’s often beneficial to neurodivergent children, as one example) but there would be some requirement for actual education instead of big-screen TVs and trips to theme parks. We should do the same with private schools. But we can’t do that because of “parental rights” and “religious freedom” and “we are just making sure the government schools spend your tax dollars wisely.”
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Alexander Vindman told Delegate Cole that he understood why Cole would act as a surrogate for Yevgeny Vindman’s potential General Assembly rivals, so he also took Cole’s question as disingenuous.
Personally, I think Delegate Cole was genuinely wondering who Alexander Vindman was, and I do not fault him for that. I know who Yevgeny Vindman is, but I am a political junky. I don’t expect or even want Democratic politicians who are political junkies. I want them to be sharp observers the world around them, which I think Mr. Cole has shown he is is; that matters more to me than a keen and detailed study of events in Washington.
I spend a lot of my time reading stories about politics, probably too much. So in a way I envy Josua Cole, a hardworking young man with a bright political future, because he has a life.
catclub
@daveNYC: I suspect that once there is some imbalance between the national currency and the amount of desired imports, the currency falls VERY rapidly. Hence high inflation.
Dollarization, combined with dramatically reduced quality of life, can cut inflation.
The sense I got from Argentina was that the well off already try to dollarize as much of their personal economy as they can. harder if you are not well off.
Kay
@Eyeroller:
When Ohio put vouchers in, private schools tested lower than public schools and that went on for about a decade- the public schools would always test better than the private schools. So two years ago Republicans in Ohio got rid of the standardized testing mandate for private schools. Now only public school students have to take standardied tests. Fixed that problem! Now we just don’t know how well the religious schools perform- deliberately- we don’t want to. “La la la – fingers in ears”
Elizabelle
WRT home schooling: I think of the Hart case in Oregon, where the white lesbian mom couple pulled all the adopted children of color out of school after one of the moms was accused of abuse. And kept them away from other adults, unless the moms were on the scene. They moved house whenever they came to the attention of social workers (a few of whom realized what they might be dealing with, but: articulate white parents [ETA: with a savior complex, yet]).
Ended with one mom driving the whole family off a cliff to their deaths in California. They were fleeing the authorities, who were coming to investigate abuse allegations.
Not a fan of isolated home schooling: make sure the kids are interacting with adults in the community outside the bubble. Who have a duty to report.
catclub
This is VERY hard because schools are funded based on how many kids are in seats for how many days.
And any standardized test that more than 80% of high school seniors could pass – about a third of 7th graders could also pass – and then they would not be required to go to school – which is a funding problem again.
I don’t know a solution. I know the present system requires attendance not for educational achievement but for funding.
satby
@sab: @Kay: And the ones I see aren’t Amish or Mennonite, though earlier generations of their families may have been. They’re fundie Christian nationalist types or just “libertarians” worried about how public school “brainwashes” their kids (actual quotes).
Anyway, my point back there was that a lack of education leads to a lack of appreciation of culture, civics, and history. And since the public schools are barely hitting even minimal goals in much of this state, it’s a problem extending beyond the homeschooled and into the general public.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: Well, you know VA politics and I don’t, but I am skeptical about Del. Cole’s question being genuine. I mean, if he were truly curious about who Vindman is, he could have googled him! It sure sounds like a shot across the bow, and a successful one at that. ;-)
Elizabelle
@Eyeroller:
Yep. And don’t even get me started on vaccines. Foo on the “religious exemption” there.
marklar
@elliottg: I’m a big fan of looking at this organization scheme for political identity. It flows from Mary Douglas’ concept of “Cultural Cognition”.
For anybody interested in this approach, I strongly recommend checking out Dan Kahan’s website (google Cultural Cognition Project), and track down the paper by Kahan titled “Cultural Cognition as a Conception of the Cultural Theory of Risk.”
I’ve used Kahan’s materials in some work I’ve done on public perceptions of harm reduction approaches (in addiction), and find it fits the data better than political affiliation.
catclub
@Kay: The right wing and the right wing religious definitely see education as a source of government money for themselves.
Jeb Bush springs to mind. Maybe his brother in Colorado as well?
catclub
For a while there Mississippi was less permissive of religious exceptions to vaccines than California. Not sure where they stand now.
Matt McIrvin
@The Thin Black Duke: Postman’s thesis always bothered me a bit because he seemed so morally opposed to the idea of entertainment itself–the Puritan stance. I think we do need that. Not just high art, but some of the lowbrow, stupid stuff too.
But he had something. The problem arises when people think they can subsist on a diet of only entertainment, that learning and information are the same as entertainment, that politics should be entertainment. It’s like trying to eat only ice cream.
Soprano2
@Geminid: Sounds like they aren’t smart about local politics, that’s not a good sign.
Soprano2
@Princess: I think it should be allowed with safeguards – they should have to be tested every year to see if they’re keeping up with grade level just like public school kids are.
Eyeroller
@Kay:
Sab said they used Mennonite women and Mennonites (even the women) are allowed to go to college, though they may be expected to go to their own church-run colleges like Eastern Mennonite University in Virginia. Amish and Mennonites are both Anabaptist sects so I suppose that’s why the Amish would allow Mennonites to teach their children.
sab
@Soprano2: Why would they be? They have spent most of their adult lives moving around from army base to army base, with their roots in their service not a local community.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Nominated!
Soprano2
@Brachiator: They could learn something from Brazil. Planet Money did an episode about how Brazil stopped runaway inflation by creating a whole new currency. Their theory was that inflation is partly mental, that people expect it and thus cause it with their behavior. Having a whole new currency stopped the inflation spiral there.
Geminid
@Kay: To be fair, Vindman himself is not a carpetbagger. I think he’s lived in the new 7th District for a few years, and a lot of people in this area have not themselves lived there very long either. But Vindman’s national sponsors are seen as carpetbaggers.
And Vindman wasn’t helped when Lincoln Project founder Rick Wilson added his endorsement. That really triggered Democrats here, because they have not forgotten the stunt a Lincoln Project operative staged at a 2021 Youngkin rally, that blew up in their faces. People were like, “that f**king Lincoln Project had better keep their f**kin hands off this election!!!”
Matt McIrvin
@catclub: It was a 180 on what constituted owning the libs. Right before COVID there was a movement on the right to crack down on antivaxxers because they thought it was a liberal hippie mom thing. It was a go-to “whatabout” when liberals accused the right of being anti-science. COVID and the Trump-inspired backlash against public health authorities killed that though.
Steeplejack
It struck me like a bolt from the blue yesterday that not a single person clamoring for Joe Biden to step aside and not run for reëlection goes on to add “—and let Kamala Harris take over!”
The misogynoir is obviously out there, but I hadn’t thought of it in such stark terms before.
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay:
Wow. That tactic is right up there with not gathering COVID stats as a way of stopping the pandemic. Let’s all just pretend it’s not happening and it will go away.
Ohio used to be a model for quality public education. The decline in public education there and nationally–which dates back to *spit* Reagan IMO–is both sad and dangerous.
Soprano2
@satby: I read Tara Westover’s book “Educated”. It was eye-opening for sure. It was a miracle she got out of that situation.
sab
@Soprano2: Ohio has no standards whatever for homeschooling. Just say you are doing it and the state will take your word for it. The religious schools aren’t much better, but they at least have to have the kids show up to get funding. The home schoolers don’t get funding so nobody cares what does or does not go on.
I am really dreading what is going to happen if DeWine succeeds in getting his mitts on the state board of education. It is totally contrary to the state constitution, but that doesn’t seem to mean anything in Ohio these days.
Steeplejack
@Geminid:
Not a literal carpetbagger—yes, he lives in the district—but in the sense that he doesn’t seem to have been active in Democratic politics and is known mainly (only?) for his involvement in the Ukraine affair.
O. Felix Culpa
@Soprano2:
Ms. O grew up going to fundy schools, K through college. At least she got something of an education and compensated by reading a lot on her own, but she’s expressed regret over educational opportunities lost during her formative years. She’s also an outlier, having the intellectual curiosity, drive, and courage to break out of that deliberately hermetically sealed culture.
ETA: Unlike Westover, at least Ms. O’s parents are kind and loving people, within the context and limits of their fundamentalist view of the world.
Betty Cracker
@catclub: Religious nuts are over the moon about the DeSantis homeschool scheme, which lets parents directly hit the state up for cash and is insanely lax with restrictions on where the money goes (e.g., big screen TV and theme park tix are legit expenses). They were mad about the rollout because, as always, the DeSantis clowns bungled the basics, i.e., fund distribution. But the homeschool parents have piped down now that the $8K checks are rolling in.
Soprano2
@Kay: I’m not surprised because the actual results didn’t fit what they’re always telling everyone, so they got rid of the evidence. I used to hear that from my mother, how private and religious schools are just automatically better, and my dad was a public school superintendent! It’s a religious belief on the right that public schools are the worst – probably in actuality because that’s where most of the non-white kids are. They’ll never actually say that, though.
ETtheLibrarian
So Argentina is doing the same thing the US and the UK did? Did they not look north and east and see how badly that went for those countries?
(But this is a country that elevated the Perons so are we all that surprised)
Soprano2
@Elizabelle: Yep. I have a friend who has a homeschool music business. She has an orchestra and teachers who give music lessons. She lost a lot of students during Covid because only 1/3 of the parents would comply with her request that the students mask. She was pretty upset about it, said she couldn’t believe some of the things parents she’d known for years said to her. I think her numbers have recovered somewhat. I think what she does is a good idea, because it gets those kids out of their house and interacting with other kids. What I really resent is when those parents want to have their kids in public school music groups, clubs, and sports teams. If you want your kids to do those things, send them to public school!
Soprano2
@Steeplejack: It’s obvious once you see it, isn’t it? All this hand-wringing as if TFG would become president if something happened to Biden. It’s so obvious to me that it’s all about Harris and their fear of her becoming president.
Kay
@Soprano2:
I think there’s a generational difference w/Catholic schools. Catholic schools had a huge unpaid workforce of educated women (nuns) who worked as teachers in their schools. Hence- “excellence!” – that’s the magic of a high quality unpaid workforce and a religion and society that only allows women to serve in certain roles. That’s the “secret sauce” that public schools didn’t have. That is no longer true and has not been true for decades, but people who were schooled by nuns still think it’s true (or something).
The Catholic school teachers where I live are the teachers who are either brand new or didn’t get hired at the public school. The public school pays more. It’s more desirable. They get a couple of years under their belt at the Catholic school and then apply at the public school, which pays a living wage.
satby
@Betty Cracker: Your earlier comment about your local politicians triggered a memory of something I recently read.
Soprano2
@sab: There aren’t any as far as I know in MO, either. My SIL said they once had neighbors who homeschooled (all of the kids had Biblical names), and that all of their kids were a year in learning behind her kids, who were in public school. Then when my niece freaked out about going to school when she was a freshman (for a reason I still don’t know) the state allowed my in-laws to say they were homeschooling her in order to avoid truancy charges. They bought some textbooks, and as far as I know that was the extent of the “education”. My niece turned out OK, she got her high school equivalency easily and has a good job with Servicemaster now where she and hubby both make really good money. She was lucky, I think, and she’s smart as a whip. She knows how to manage money.
Geminid
@Kay: Vindman came in humble with his announcement video, but Rachel Vindman sure didn’t a few hours later. Her tweet had real “Do you know who the Vindmans are?” energy.
I think the other three Vindmans figuratively stuffed Rachel’s mouth with a sock, because she hasn’t tweeted about the race since.
Yesterday, Yevgeny Vindman made a humble tweet, with a picture himself and his wife on a downtown Fredericksburg street. Vindman said he is a history buff and he loves walking around Fredericksburg because of the town’s history.
The photo triggered my twisted sense of humor; it turns out the Vindman twins both married tall redheads.
Kay
@Soprano2:
It was really good, Educated. I still think about it. We had a huge case here- child abuse- where we dealt with a whole group of young fundie women (they testified for the prosecution). Just shocking. They don’t have basic ID. No birth certificate, no SS #, nothing. It’s to keep them trapped in the fundie lifestyle. They literally can’t function in modern society. They were great though- so brave. I ended up just loving them. One of them came back to see me. She was working as an aide at a vets and living on her own. She had jeans on – I smiled at that because they had to wear these ridiculous long dresses.
Soprano2
@O. Felix Culpa: I think Westover’s mother was loving, but she was limited by her upbringing and her husband. That woman’s father was a monster, though, with no sense at all of how to treat children. He had them working in a scrap yard rather than going to school!
Soprano2
@Kay: I think that’s right – my husband was taught by nuns through 8th grade, then went to a technical high school (fun fact, he went to high school with Dick Butkus). It’s similar to how the public school teacher pipeline used to work – when women only had a few careers to choose from, teaching was desirable because it was more professional, thus I’m sure it attracted the better students. That’s not true anymore.
different-church-lady
Or, as I call it, the Rebel Flag of the North.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I don’t know that much about Joshua Cole, so I am guessing here. But it would not surprise me if an intelligent younger politician did not know who Yevgeny Vindman is. I bet a lot of good state level officeholders don’t.
The Pale Scot
@Kay:
Long time ago in Anatomy a student broke into tears over a disagreement with the prof over the half life of Pu. We couldn’t figure it out. Later on reading some young earth BS I realized that was it, a 5000 yr old earth wouldn’t have the existing isotope ratios so obviously the half life estimate was wrong
Miss Bianca
@Betty Cracker:
Why, you could be described *my* dumber-than-dirt GOP County Commissioners!
Juju
@Steeplejack: People in the military tend not to be active in politics, beyond voting.
Geminid
@Juju: I think partisan political activity by active-duty military officers is discouraged, and Colonel Vindman retired only two years ago.
J.
@Baud: Actually, there are. But not enough.
#FreeTownArgentina?
lowtechcyclist
@satby:
This. Doesn’t matter if a kid is in a public school, charter school, private school, or getting homeschooled, the same set of standards should apply to all. If a homeschooled kid has fallen behind grade level, that kid should have to be in a school that meets the standards.
And there should be metrics on private and charter schools: if they do statistically worse than the local public schools, then they should be required to notify the parents of that, and include that fact in all materials they distribute to encourage parents to send their kids there.
And if the gap is big enough, they should get shut down. And no reopening under a new name but with the same people in charge and most of the same staff.
lowtechcyclist
@sab:
@Kay:
Can’t say anything about the girls, but one of the guys I went to grad school with was a Mennonite, had graduated from Eastern Mennonite University, and was definitely one of the smartest of the grad students in math at U.Va. when I was there.
So some of those Mennonites seem to get a real education.
UncleEbeneezer
@The Thin Black Duke: It’s hard to get passed the huge difference in visual aesthetics. I’m almost 50 and I struggle with B/W and silent films or really anything prior to the 60’s. I’m down for trying some Noir or period films but it always takes a little mental work for me to get past how dated everything is, not to mention the casual racism, misogyny etc. So I can only imagine how hard it must be for actual young people. It’s like asking them to get excited to play Pong, Pac Man or Oregon Trail.
trollhattan
Dude is utter shite, as any self-declared “libertarian” will prove to be. Now, with moar gunz. The seal of disapproval is cemented by having already received congratulations from one Donald Trump.
Don’t cry for me, Argentina, get ready to weep for yourselves. Also no, you’re not getting the Malvines back because you know he sure wants that. Speaking of which, the Tories are revving up Liz Truss’ tax cuts coupled with welfare cuts. Head of lettuce: deploy!
trollhattan
@lowtechcyclist: Reviving my only Mennonite joke: Know why Mennonites ban sex? It leads to dancing.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
When I finally got around to watching Nosferatu, I was amazed how creepy it was.
@UncleEbeneezer: For some reason I’ve watched very few movies of the 50s, which actually overlaps with my lifetime (I was born in 1957). But I’ve really enjoyed a lot of stuff from the 30s and 40s.
YY_Sima Qian
Milei promised to dollarize the Argentinian economy to help fight inflation. However, given Milei’s hard libertarian/far right wing beliefs, that might just make Argentina an economic colony of global financial interests that operate w/ USD. It will certainly circumscribe Argentinian sovereignty. It is also not clear how Milei’s dollarization plan could work when Argentina is out of USD reserves. Argentina under the current Peronist government has been tapping a currency swap line w/ the PRC, essentially taking on Chinese Yuan debt to pay off its USD obligations. Milei has been vehemently anti-PRC in his election campaign, so he may take Argentina out of the BRICS grouping as one of his 1st order of business. However, if he turns away Chinese loans & investment, he will have zero bargaining leverage w/ the USD/Euro bond holders, & what US/European investment that might arrive will probably take the form of looting Argentinian assets (which Milei may not care about).
Then again, Bolsonaro in Brazil also campaigned on a platform that had anti-PRC as a key feature, but in office he found that he had to deal w/ the PRC & Chinese firms, anyway. All of his conviviality w/ Trump did not bring any meaningful economic assistance or business investment, & there were few alternatives available to Chinese money. Milei might learn a similar lesson.
The only other country I am aware of that dollarized its economy to fight hyperinflation was Zimbabwe after the death of Mugabe. At least Zimbabwe also made the Euro, the Pound, the Japanese Yen & the Chinese Yuan legal tenders, too, so that it was not completely beholden to the USD. I have a few souvenir defunct Zimbabwean bank notes from a visit to the Victoria Falls a few years ago, w/ face value of 5 Billion Zimbabwean Dollars.
trollhattan
@different-church-lady:
This one?
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
Those kids landing in actual universities on account of their 4.6 GPAs from Academy of Mom will be in for a few shocks.
It’s not out of the question they’ll then sue the university over their woke academic standards–some wingnut shop will fund their activities. Unwoke physics will be a hoot, but lab could be really dangerous.
Nettoyeur
@The Thin Black Duke: Too bad they aren’t mad at Moscow Tucker.
Nettoyeur
@YY_Sima Qian: Greece Euro-ized its economy and lost the ability to discount its currency. Woe ensued.
evodevo
@Baud:
Yep…my military-wife sister is still going on about SDS, WeatherUnderground and Jane Fonda…they live in San Antonio, so I should start twitting her about Abbott and abortion (they are atheists and in favor of abortion rights – go figure)
Paul in KY
@Kay: Mennonite boys are more or less like normal folks, just have to wear the special clothing, etc. Do not know about female Mennonites.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Eyeroller: I still think those kids should be required to take standardized tests. Even if the state doesn’t act on it, there is value in having the numbers to back the annecdotes. If you have data showing that homeschooling is harmful, you are in a better position to even sway its liberal defenders that reform is needed.
Geminid
@Paul in KY: Back in the 1970s, a friend of mine was taking classes at a community college over in the Valley and made friends with a Mennonite student. One day the friend said, “Come on out to the parking lot, I want to show you my new car.”
It was a shiny new muscle car, maybe a Charger or a Camaro.. “You mean they let have these things?” my friend asked. The Mennonite replied, “Sure, as long there’s no chrome.” The bumpers and trim were painted.
Matt McIrvin
@Steeplejack: I’ve seen at least one or two people who wanted Biden to step down in favor of Harris. But that was a while ago– around 2021, I think. Not recently.
Geoduck
@The Thin Black Duke: Americans tend to take the short view. Hanoi Jane? In some places, there are people who are still mad about things that happened in the 13th Century.
Geoduck
@trollhattan: The joke is usually about “sex standing up”, and has been applied to all sort of conservative religions. Here’s a Jewish version:
An Orthodox Jewish couple, preparing for their wedding, meets with their rabbi for counseling.
The man asks, “Rabbi, we realize it’s tradition for men to dance with men, and women to dance with women at the reception. But, we’d like your permission to dance together.”
“Absolutely not,” says the rabbi. “It’s immodest. Men and women always dance separately.”
“Well, okay,” says the man, “what about sex? Can we finally have sex?”
“Of course!” replies the rabbi. “Sex is a mitzvah within marriage, to have children!”
“What about different positions?” asks the man.
“No problem,” says the rabbi. “It’s a mitzvah!”
“Woman on top?” the man asks.
“Sure,” says the rabbi. “Go for it! It’s a mitzvah!”
“Doggy style?”
“Sure! Another mitzvah!”
“On the kitchen table?”
“Yes, yes! A mitzvah!”
“Can we do it on rubber sheets with a bottle of hot oil, a couple of vibrators, a leather harness, a bucket of honey and a porno video?”
“You may indeed. It’s all a mitzvah!”
“Can we do it standing up?
“No!” says the alarmed rabbi. “That could lead to dancing!”
trollhattan
@Geoduck:
🤣🐑😅
Paul in KY
@Geminid: I’ve met Mennonites at KY Derby. Drinking a bourbon & betting on the races. Using a smartphone, etc. etc.
Geminid
@Paul in KY: I’m not surprised, especially about the smartphones. Unlike most Amish, Mennonites are fairly accepting of electricity, computers etc. They tend to be strict about drinking and smoking, at least in public.
But maybe not all tobacco use. I used to live near Stuart’s Draft, Virginia where there are a lot of Mennonites. The Food Lion there had a really big selection of snuff. I hardly ever notice snuff being sold in other areas.
Paul in KY
@Geminid: I’ve never seen one smoking or vaping.