The Republican Party is more diverse than it once was, especially in places like Florida and Texas. But during a “thank you” call with supporters yesterday, failed presidential candidate Ron DeSantis said that while the party welcomes votes from racial and ethnic groups that fall outside the party’s solid vanilla core, those voters should be prepared stay in the back of the bus: (NBC)
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told backers of his unsuccessful presidential bid Wednesday that former President Donald Trump should not play “identity politics” when picking a 2024 running mate.
“Now we have a diverse Republican Party. I want everybody in the fold, don’t get me wrong. But I don’t want people representing 10, 15% of the party being in the driver’s seat,” DeSantis said on a call with supporters, including those who had committed to serving as delegates for him at this year’s Republican National Convention, according to audio obtained by NBC News.
“So I would want somebody that, if something happened, the people that voted us in would have been pleased to know that they’re going to continue the mission,” DeSantis added. “I’m not sure that those are going to necessarily be the criteria that Donald Trump uses. … I have heard that they’re looking more in identity politics. I think that’s a mistake. I think you should just focus on who the best person for the job would be, and then do that accordingly.”
Wow. Okay, thanks for clarifying that.
NBC talked to one Republican who was on the call and who noted that invitees were people who had been recruited as DeSantis delegates for the 2024 convention. Given the timing, that person suspects DeSantis is keeping in touch in case the Trump campaign implodes before the GOP gathering in Milwaukee.
Could be! The Trump campaign wasn’t amused at the speculation:
“Ron DeSantis failed miserably in his presidential campaign and does not have a voice in selecting the next vice president of the United States,” Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in response.
On point for once. Open thread!
On The Road – frosty – 3rd Annual National Park/COVID Challenge Part 2 – Lassen Volcanic National Park
OzarkHillbilly
Yes, of course. He wants those people put back where they belong.
WereBear
I keep thinking Nikki Haley is surging because she’s the anti-Kamala. In tiny minds.
Which means they at least connive in reality.
Frankensteinbeck
And this is Florida, the most Hispanic-friendly GOP state.
MattF
He wants that BotB demographic.
WereBear
@Frankensteinbeck: And my mind sighed and said, “Yes, that’s true.”
Baud
Biden it is, then.
Who just happens to be a white guy.
Baud
Women represent far more than that, but the GOP doesn’t want them in the driver’s seat either.
Matt McIrvin
This is the Republican attitude toward America, in a nutshell: minorities and even women can have a seat at the table if they do what they’re told and don’t make too much noise. But if there’s any sign that they’re taking over? Freakout. Violence, if necessary.
Another Scott
@Baud: It read like an attempt to shiv Nikki to me. So, a twofer!!
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@Another Scott:
Absolutely.
Princess
De Santis broke a cardinal rule here. I think Black and brown supporters of the GOP are there because they think somehow being Republicans is going to make them white, that they won’t be treated as anything but white so long as they hate the right people and things too. Ditto for women supporters. Now he has turn that fig leaf off. And maybe made it harder for Trump to pick a woman or a non-white VP. Hmm, maybe that was the point. Or is it a shot across Haley’s bow?
I’m still betting Preacher Johnson will be Trump’s pick.
Frankensteinbeck
@Matt McIrvin:
Like I’ve said, they’re fine with Haley as a protest vote. It shows how not-racist they are. If they thought she had an actual chance they’d drop her like a hot rock.
WereBear
@Matt McIrvin: They are tokens and expected to act like it.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
It’s also how people felt about Catholics until modern liberals became a force and united all the right wing religions against us.
Kay
I think that as the GOP diversifies the gender gap becomes more and more important. This was 2020:
RevRick
@Matt McIrvin: The Republican reactionary mind takes as a given a world of natural hierarchies. With white guys at the top of the heap … naturally. By definition non-white, non-guys are unqualified.
OzarkHillbilly
@Another Scott: You mean the knives are out for Nikki> Hoocudagessd it?
Baud
@Kay:
They can legally regulate based on sex in a way they can’t legally regulate based on race yet. So yeah, that’s where their focus will be.
Baud
I think we also underestimate the number of men and boys who will find Republican misogyny attractive.
Kay
@Baud:
“we”
I really, really don’t underestimate that :)
Princess
@Kay: I had a long chat with my son about this recently. He thinks South Korea, where it is the most extreme, is primarily because of the military service young men have to do. I think in general the fact that young men and women live in really different spaces online has something to do with it but he pushed back on that. I still think I’m right.
ETA he’s also really concerned about the rise in misogyny which he sees becoming more and more of a force.
BretH
Gem from the Wash Post:
Bobbi Althoff deepfake spotlights X’s role as a top source of AI porn
Musk has laughed off the need for content moderation. One day before the Althoff video spread, he shared a message from X’s chatbot, Grok, calling content moderation a “digital chastity belt” and “steaming pile of horse manure” enforced only by “digital tyrants.”
“Let’s give a big middle finger to content moderation and embrace the chaos of the internet!” the post said.
X did not respond to requests for comment.
Gift link:
https://wapo.st/3SR25yQ
zhena gogolia
@Frankensteinbeck: That’s my feeling too. It’s why I don’t participate in the Ooh, Haley could beat Biden! freakouts.
Baud
@Kay:
Not you. But a lot of people wear rose colored glasses when it comes to young people, including young men and boys.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
I use the term “Culturally Caucasian” typically in another context/topic but is seems to apply here when characterizing anyone in a demographic that the modern GOP actively works to screw (women, blacks, gays, etc) and yet identify politically with that party.
Yeah, for years it’s always been explained that one thing they all share is LOWER MY FUCKING TAXES! and IGMFU but damn, given all the stupid that’s been weaponized in the GOP over the last 2 decades, I come back to my vague “Culturally Caucasian” moniker to describe why they stick around.
Kay
@Baud:
Oh, that’s probably true.
Baud
@BretH:
It’d be wrong even if he were principled about it, but he bans people for their content all the time.
Princess
@zhena gogolia: I think Haley could beat Biden for the same reason Obama beat McCain — there would be just enough people (feckless independents) who would vote for her to prove they aren’t sexist. And the backlash against women would be as extreme as what has followed since Obama’s election for Black people.
Could, not would. But the media would be solidly behind her.
Kay
@Princess:
That’s interesting because the one demo where there isn’t a gender gap in US politics is Asians.
My two younger sons told me there were more young male Righties than I thought and they turned out to be correct. It’s funny though- my middle son, who is unmarried and a skilled trades person – so has a really male workplace- and has lots of male friends is turning out to be the most reliable Democrat. He’s even a poll worker. He hates bullies though. He’s been an underdog defender since he was a little kid.
Baud
@Princess:
South Korea is also experiencing extreme population collapse. More than China even. They aren’t having children, and that’s getting the men folk riled up.
Baud
@Kay:
Kudos to him.
Baud
Of course, the men aren’t trying to improve women’s lives so that they want children, but instead hoping to control them like they did in the past.
Suzanne
I had a former coworker make a statement like that, something about how a Muslim congressperson couldn’t represent his interests. I didn’t respond because asshole, but I was thinking to myself WHAAAAAAAAAT? Like, even if you are deeply religious…. the vast majority of the work of government has nothing to do with that. You don’t think someone who attends a mosque could represent your interests in…. anything?
That’s the way I see racism manifest a great deal these days: just this feeling that other people are this whole separate species who couldn’t possibly care about the things you care about, or who operate from a place of immediate self-interest instead of rationality. I feel like those people are always telling on themselves….. because that’s how they would operate if given any power.
Baud
US is increasing population only because of immigration.
I think Dems could get some mileage from a “Let’s have more babies” agenda that was based on liberal principles, rather than right wing oppression. Much of it would be stuff we want to do anyway for moral and public policy reasons.
Kay
@Princess:
I see it among young rural white women. They’re just more “liberal” across the board than young white rural men – culturally, public policy opinions, etc. They’re also a LOT less angry.
The gender gap for white voters is about 7 points. That’s concentrated among college educated white women but I think there’s room for growth with non college women.
Trivia Man
Get ready fir wall to wall outrage at the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. We all know Trans people are the hot scapegoat right now. And “Drag Queen” is a convenient proxy for actual trans people because they tend to be more conspicuous.
In Wisconsin they may have finally found their centerpiece – a real child molester who is also a Drag Queen instead of a pastor or GQP politician.
Buckle up.
Baud
@Trivia Man:
Thanks for the warning. We should send the Republicans a congratulations card.
Suzanne
An interesting piece by Charles Blow in the FTFNYT.
I also read yesterday that there is currently a record-high percentage of single adults: 25% of people age 40 have never been married.
So: (many of) the dudes aren’t getting married or having kids, and they’re pissed about it, They want to ban abortion and IVF. Coerce young women into early marriage and parenthood and financial dependency, and drive them out of professional life back into the home.
Trivia Man
@Baud: my input is to make improvements in worker protection the key to economic stability. If you can have stable finances, including child care and safe schools, kids are more reasonable.
WereBear
@Trivia Man: Relatives have always stepped in with childcare, but now they might not be up to it, or working a job themselves, things being what they are.
Kay
@Suzanne:
We could make it easier for women to have children in this country. It’s wholly doable. The Democrats in the House had a whole set of bill to get there in 2020 but Manchin and Sinema strangled that in the crib.
Women should hold out for better working conditions.
Lapassionara
@Suzanne: Projection is always a tell.
hueyplong
@Princess: Don’t bet your own money on that. Trump is cunning enough to notice in any live meeting that Preacher Johnson puts Jesus/God ahead of Trump. Would give him flashbacks to Pence.
Baud
@Kay:
We still don’t market our policies as pro-birth rate, however. At least not that I’ve seen.
Betty
@Another Scott: It think it may be aimed at Tim Scott.
Suzanne
@Baud:
I agree with this.
Where we always run into trouble is with white men who want to talk down to women and people of color as irresponsible, “welfare queens” and “sluts” and “desperate single mothers”.
It’s so funny to me that that was the rhetoric for so long, so the response from women and people of color was to go to college and get long-acting reversible birth control and have much less sex at young ages and delay marriage and parenthood until there was more financial stability, and then the white dudes are all like WE DIDN’T MEAN LIKE THAT!!!
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Okay, but even so, I have yet to see evidence that young men are *worse* in this regard than old men. People keep pointing to individual instances and saying “see, demographics won’t save us” but it’s not quantitative.
mrmoshpotato
I’d forgotten the OSC* is in Milwaukee this year. Enjoy!
*Orange Shitstain Convention
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊😊😊
Betty
@Kay: He has empathy which now seems to be a Democratic trait.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Old men are certainly worse than young men. But we’re counting on young people to defeat old men and their political party, so if enough young men become increasingly attracted to misogyny, old men values win.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Kay
@Baud:
No, we don’t. I’m not 100% comfortable with that, honestly. I think we can put in paid leave and child care subsidies and then just leave them to their own devices – they take it from there. “Pro natal” freaks me out a little and puts a lot of pressure on young women who may not want children.
Lefties rave about Scandinavian countries with their extensive family supports and those ARE wonderful but there’s also a lot of societal pressure for women to produce children, which is not as wonderful. I think the US is more free for women in that sense.
3Sice
Abbott is positioning for 2028. The disability is a shield against blowback from the gender and racial animus, and harkens back to a time before Democrats had lost their damn minds on race.
Clearly the Democratic Party has lost its way and needs to be corrected by Big Daddy.
The hubris of these clods….
Baud
@Kay:
I hear you, but it’s like immigration. If the right successfully creates a panick about birth rates, it’s hard to not have a talking point in response.
mrmoshpotato
Just finished Last Week Tonight’s piece about Supreme Court Ethics and WOW!
Bigger scoundrels than I imagined.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Princess: Misogyny becoming more of a force? Holy crap.
danielx
@Suzanne:
Just think of all the slots that would in medical schools! For which 56.5% of applicants were women in 2022.
I for one welcome the coming dominance of women in the medical profession, since they’re less likely to be power tripping arrogant jerks.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
The modern GOP has always been about keeping the wimmenfolk barefoot, pregnant, chained to the bed with just enough slack to get to the kitchen.
This telling piece from those good folks at the Heritage Foundation is just another example of how the forced birth “movement” was never about saving zygotes:
https://twitter.com/Heritage/status/1662534135762624520
They’ll never change. When industrialized democracies *worldwide* produce policies that give women control over their own bodies and the birth rate drops should tell these assholes something. But it doesn’t.
Sanjeevs
The Clarence Thomas episode of John Oliver is up on YT. One of his best ever.
https://youtu.be/GE-VJrdHMug?si=cwEGXx3D5c4oaVsb
Jeffro
DeSantis, just…just WOW.
Down the road, when we have time to build a Mt. Rushmore of the country’s most monumental douches, he absolutely is first-ballot on that thing.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: IIRC German culture still has a huge stigma attached to working mothers, worse than here.
Gin & Tonic
I hold no brief for Fox News, but in stark contrast with their former employee, Bret Baier went to Ukraine and sat for an interview with Zelensky close enough to the front to where he could hear artillery fire. I’ll bet he wasn’t overawed by a supermarket, either.
catclub
Projection. This is inherited from the fears of ANY black power.
Obviously they will get violent revenge, … cause we sure would.
Emphasis on ‘they’
Jeffro
It feels like there’s an opportunity for Dems to reach out to young males of all demographics and regions. I’m not sure what the message would sound like, but it’d almost have to be “don’t buy the fake & easy ‘fixes’ that the GOP’s trying to sell you…they’ll use you for your vote and leave you with nothing…you can compete…you can be a part of this country’s future…come join us!”
It’s not about changing the party platform, it’s not about putting young men ahead of anyone else. But offering them a different vision and speaking directly to them seems like a smart thing to do.
mrmoshpotato
@Jeffro:
There is no mountain or rock face in the world that deserves that!
catclub
@hueyplong: I think preacher Johnson would help guarantee 90+% evangelical votes, and Trump would like that. The flashback to Pence would be in a good way.
catclub
Some landfill mountain?
Kay
I know there’s nothing anyone can do about it, but I’m concerned about what I see as a subtle shift in political media/Republican rhetoric over the past month, going from just 24/7 Biden bashing to 24/7 Biden bashing and language that indicates to the public that Trump is inevitable and has already essentially won. It’s making me a little frantic – they’re manufacturing consent.
The NYtimes and Politico are essentially already choosing staff for the Trump White House. If they present this to the public as “over- Trump wins” that will matter to the huge chunk of flighty know-nothings who decide elections.
I thought maybe Biden could capitalize on media/GOP overreach – people hate when they think they are being manipulated – say things like “pudits don’t decide elections, voters do” – or “Donald Trump thinks he has already won- he won’t even wait until you vote” – you all know that drill.
tb
@catclub: maybe there’s one shaped like a phallus available.
mrmoshpotato
@catclub: Read what I said. Also, how dare you? Also, sledding hill.
And another how dare you for good measure.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
It’s a little creepy. A “have sons for the motherland!” vibe that I don’t really think would fly with American women.
We don’t have to Rachel Maddow these people – they don’t need to be led every. single. step. of. the. way. IMO that appraoch FEELS coercive. Paid leave and subsidize childcare and they’ll get to “children” all by themselves. Also, Righties are going to immediately turn it into “white children” and it will be ruined. Just leave children out of it. Be vaguely “pro family” but with solid policy – that’s enough.
Manyakitty
@Princess: agreed. Been saying for a while that Mikey is the chosen one. Then citizen trump can step down, get a full pardon, fuck off to KSA or Russia, and our country gets converted to a full Gilead.
Another Scott
@Betty: Him too.
But Scott dropped out and Nikki is still there, so she clearly has more support in the party. She’s a more direct threat to DeSantis’ (imagined?) future viability.
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Baud: One of Dean Baker’s (many) hobbyhorses is that rich countries having flat (or slightly falling) population growth is not a bad thing. Increased efficiency and productivity means that fewer workers are needed, the country gets richer and can afford to spend more on retirement and social services, and, e.g., it won’t be a tragedy if there’s less pressure on housing prices in Seoul and Tokyo.
I think he makes a good point (as usual).
I think the effort to reclaim “freedom” as a Democratic word is a good one. You want time off to have a kid – here you go! You want time off to go live in the woods for a couple of months to recharge – here you go! You want time off to take your kid to a foreign land to teach them about the importance of understanding others – here you go! You need help with child care or elder care or just getting through the month as a single person – here you go! You need help moving to a new city to take a new job and gain new skills – here you go!
Etc.
Specifically tying it to more babbees would have the potential to go where we don’t want to be, as I think Kay said above.
Provide the opportunity for people to figure out themselves what they want to do with their lives and their families. Don’t think that OMG not enough babbees!!11
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Suzanne
I will also note that we could create a “pro-natal” agenda that fits in with the kind of life that more women seem to want now — free or low-cost college for themselves and their future children, cheap childcare that is easy to find if you don’t live near a grandparent, egg freezing and fertility treatments covered by insurance, etc. And I will also note that suitable housing availability in the places that people want to live is a frequently-cited reason that many people don’t have kids, or as many as they may otherwise want.
And I don’t really want to hear that people should lower their expectations and raise a family in 600 square feet like their grandparents did. People living modern lives don’t want to do that and are telling us so by not doing it. We need to encourage and incentivize people to do things, not tell them to lower their expectations. Women today have higher expectations for their lives than their grandmothers did.
PAM Dirac
@Jeffro:
I think that is a perfectly good message, but I’m skeptical that it will attract many MAGA types. As many others have noted, those types tend to be whiney snowflakes. There are very passive as well. A good job, a good wife, etc aren’t something they expect to work for, to possibly modify their behavior to fit what employers or women are looking for, or do anything at all that requires them to acknowledge that they might be at least a little bit of the problem. These aren’t things they want, they are things they DESERVE and if they don’t have them it MUST be because others are failing them and need to be brought into line. By someone else of course.
Suzanne
@Jeffro:
It’s amazing how, as there have been advances made by people of color and women….. white dudes have been outcompeted.
sab
@Another Scott: One of the few positive outcomes from Covid is working from home as an option for young mothers.
My stepdaughter would be floundering financially if she couldn’t work from home with a third grade kid. The kid gets sick a lot. If mom had to call off work for that they would have fired her. Instead she puts the kid to bed and works from home.
Same at my (seasonal) workplace. They trained up a really good young bookkeeper. Then she got married and had a baby. She comes in to the office when she can, but she does a lot of work remotely. In olden times she would have had to quit and they would be starting over on a new girl.
Ken
Remind me, did DeSantis even break 5% in any of the primaries and caucuses this year?
Ken
@Jeffro: @mrmoshpotato: We could start with Stone Mountain, Georgia. It comes with several of “the country’s most monumental douches” pre-carved.
Another Scott
@Suzanne: Hey!
;-)
But isn’t it the case now that many people starting out in NYC (or NoVA) have to live in a bedroom or have 5 roommates?
Starting out is hard. It will probably always be hard, though of course we can do a lot to make it easier.
I continue to think that the ’50s to the ’80s was an aberration in US housing. I don’t think we’re ever going back to the days where a factory worker can buy a new home on a single income while in their early 20s. And we probably shouldn’t – suburban living too wasteful to continue for another 100 years.
Cheers,
Scott.
geg6
@Baud:
Why? This is insane. Let people decide for themselves and try not to coerce them into giving birth when they would normally not be so inclined. Provide programs for those who choose to have children, but don’t go making people feel they have to have kids or feel bad about not having them. I am totally against that, as a woman who, as a child through my adulthood, always voiced my lack of interest in children or birthing any. You can’t imagine the pressure put on people like me when having children is the thing that is pushed out as the best path or the norm. Fuck that. I still hear about it and I’m about 15 years past menopause. And making motherhood (or parenthood) a pillar of your campaign inevitably leads to the bullshit I’ve had to listen to all my life.
Baud
@geg6: Who’s talking about coercion? I was talking about how to sell policies we support anyway. People can disagree with that approach, but don’t misrepresent it.
sab
@Suzanne: My mother announced to all of us children at home that she had no intention of helping on childcare. Then she wondered why she had no grandchildren. She blamed the youngest kid for traumatizing the slightly older kids who helped on childcare. That was weird because we loved our baby sister. Fortunately her oldest was off in boarding school and didn’t get the message. When oldest had kids Mom helped her a lot.
Anyway
@catclub:
The latest fear is that if AA/Dems get more power reparations will get a big push.
Betty Cracker
@mrmoshpotato: Poop sculpture! ;-)
@Kay: I read a David Corn piece earlier where he points out that the Trump people have successfully memory-holed Putin’s interference in the 2016 election. Corn notes that even with all the fresh media coverage about Trump’s affinity for Putin in the wake of the “let Russia do whatever the hell they want” speech, outlets don’t mention Putin’s well-documented interference in the 2016 election. Apparently screaming HOAX and RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA for years works. So yeah, an inevitability narrative push is worrisome.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
Where’s your evidence for this?
Suzanne
@geg6: There is a fair amount of evidence/research that women who do want children are not having as many as they want, due to finances, trouble balancing competing priorities, etc. I think it would be great if we could push a social system that removed risk and enabled the people who do want kids to have them on their terms….. but without coercion or marginalization of the people who do not want them.
sab
@Betty Cracker: I vividly remember Kay ranting on election shenanigans and the utter secrecy about it.
Princess
@Matt McIrvin: That’s been the experience of friends who have worked and been mothers in Germany. On the surface, all kinds of support but in fact their society (like the length of the school day) depends on a woman who stays at home and if you don’t, you will be made to feel it. North America is pretty good on Gender stuff actually, relatively. Which should concern us!
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): It’s my observation of how many people talk about young people.
different-church-lady
My god, the man doesn’t even know how to pander.
Suzanne
@Another Scott:
Yes. But people are also getting married later in life, if they marry at all, and housing is growing more expensive relative to wages. And the economy is demanding more education than it used to, which also costs more relative to wages than it used to.
It’s harder now than it used to be, for multiple reasons.
Princess
@Manyakitty: Johnson calling himself Moses is the tell. He’s going to lead us from the wilderness. Trump better hire a food taster.
different-church-lady
@Baud: The number of women, even.
Frankensteinbeck
@Betty Cracker:
Bill Barr. One hundred percent Barr. He came out and said the Mueller report exonerated Trump, and when anyone told the press no, read it, it actually says Trump is guilty as sin, they didn’t care. They had their Narrative, and it was bold, contrarian, required no work or actual understanding of anything, it reassured them that the GOP is a legitimate party, and best of all it could be framed entirely as Both Sides playing partisan games.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
I was more so questioning the premise that young people won’t vote for us
Baud
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): They won’t all vote for us. That’s always been true. The topic at hand is how many young men we lose because they become attracted to misogyny. That’s anyone’s guess.
geg6
@Baud:
What you are talking about inevitably leads to what I’m talking about. I’ve lived it. Provide the programs, fine. But to be constantly talking it up–ooo, look how we support people who have kids!…always leads to looking askance at anyone who isn’t down with the having kids or marrying shit. How about we just provide programs that help everyone, whether nor they choose to have kids? Maybe we should be touting what we want to do for those who don’t want to marry or have kids instead since that seems to be an issue no one is addressing.
For myself, I’d love to see it be determined to be discriminatory to have workplace parties for people who are getting married and having kids. I’ve spent literally thousands of dollars over my 25 year just at this particular job (and hundreds more if you include my previous job) buying gifts and providing food and drink for these things. No one has ever thrown me a party or given me a gift for anything at work. Ever. And when I have expressed the opinion that it’s not really fair to do this, I am told that I should have married or had kids if I don’t like it. It pisses me off to no end. You want to marry and procreate, good for you! But don’t expect me to throw you a fucking party. But no one will ever consider it discriminatory because people who marry and procreate are held up as the norm and even aspirational. I am at a point in my life where I’m deathly sick of it and am thrilled that the kids are rejecting the entire bullshit narrative. I’m with them. Put it off as long as possible and even forget the whole thing if you like. But all these things you talk about and what happens to me at work are coercive. Because the underlying message, whether conscious or not, is that you aren’t normal or deserving if you don’t follow the “pro-natal” path.
catclub
H.E.Wolf
An “aberration” in the sense that post-WWII, the US government changed some of its fiscal policies and tax structures in ways that benefited the middle class, starting in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The GI Bill was one of the most notable changes.
Then in the 1980s, as we all remember, the Reagan-era government enacted radical changes that benefited the wealthy classes at the expense of everyone else.
You’re absolutely correct that those fiscal changes in the 1980s have had a negative effect on most people. That tax structure, favoring the wealthiest in our country, is what I consider aberrant. Or maybe I mean abhorrent.
Baud
@geg6:
We can’t legislate away assholes. And I don’t see how we don’t talk about people having children at all. Those people are still a major part of the citizenry, and I’m not ceding them to the GOP.
geg6
@Suzanne:
That would be great. But that’s not how it works. How about providing childless singles the same help given to parents for their pets? Then no one is being marginalized in their choices. I love my pets more than any person in my life and they provide me with happiness and companionship just as families do for others who want them. I sure could use some programs for pet health insurance, pet daycare, pet food stamps…
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Thor Heyerdahl
@Princess: I read your last sentence as “I’m still betting Preacher Johnson will be Trump’s prick.”
geg6
@Baud:
No, we can’t legislate away assholes. But we can make it less comfortable for them to be assholes by addressing the needs of both those who want families and those who don’t and by talking about both. That is where the problem begins. Everything is always discussed from the framework of what’s best for families. Never even mentioned are those who don’t want families and what is best for them. We are invisible or treated with contempt and hostility. It’s a minority population that no one sees as one.
Nelle
@geg6: Back in the mid-70’s, I threw a shower for a younger woman who was not marrying right out of college, but moving into her own apartment and had nothing. We grew up in the same church and I invited the older church ladies. They were a bit flummoxed but gamely showed up and helped to stock her kitchen with pots, pans, etc. Just do it.
sab
@Nelle: What a wonderful idea.
suzanne
@geg6:
I support this.
Paul in KY
@Baud: Jesus, how many women of childbearing age got smoked in that crazy game show of theirs?! They need to fix that kind of stuff, before harshing on their women!
Jeffro
@Ken: love it!
suzanne
@H.E.Wolf:
Agree. If the 50s through 1980 were “aberrant”, it’s because we as American society chose for it to be that way. It’s not immutable laws of nature that made it aberrant. It was a choice to fuck over the middle class in favor of the rich.
We can unshit that bed, too, if we so choice.
Another Scott
@H.E.Wolf: @suzanne:
+1
Yes, we can and should make things better for housing affordability.
(I’m honestly trying not to argue with strawmen below, so apologies in advance.)
I push back a little, though, on the idea that (somehow) housing going forward is going to be ever larger homes on sterile lots with evergreen grass in the suburbs the way it was for our parents. Here in NoVA, new houses are ever bigger even as the infill lots are ever smaller. Yes, it’s because close-in land is ever more expensive, so builders have to jack up the price to make the economics work for them. That economics is understandable, but it’s bad (and hard to fix).
I don’t think people should expect that 3000-5000 square-foot homes with 3 car garages are somehow the new American dream. I think we need to push-back against that.
I don’t think the choice is between Tiny Houses and McMansions, but I don’t think it’s a bad thing for houses to start shrinking in size for lots and lots of reasons. People need to be able to afford to live close to where they need to go.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Paul in KY
@Ken: I’m hoping it gets redone with Andre 3000 and Big Boi up there.
Suzanne
@Another Scott:
Agreed, but a nice 1800-2200 square foot row house or ranch house with a small backyard is a pretty reasonable thing to expect in most of the country. That’s enough bedrooms for a couple of kids (and yes, most people want their kids to have their own rooms), maybe a home office if you WFH, space for a pet.
Like it or not, most people need cars to get around to work, and therefore need somewhere for them to go. Most people want a dishwasher and to not go to a laundromat and enough space to not drive one another crazy. People are also physically larger than they used to be. Life is different than it used to be and our needs have changed.
Nettoyeur
@Ken: I think he may have hit 10-11%, but it 2as temporary. Puding fingers and high heeled boots didn’t help this Ivy Leaguer establish connections with the working class.