Before last night's event, @BarackObama surprised a group of 80 content creators organized by @BidenHQ. Discussed the stakes of the election, and encouraged them to stay engaged. Cumulatively, they reach 140 million people online, mostly age 18-24. https://t.co/YvMH788AZd
— Eric Schultz (@EricSchultz) June 16, 2024
Former President Obama dropped by a gathering of about 80 digital content creators — including stars of TikTok and Instagram Reels — during the campaign fundraiser for President Biden in L.A. on Saturday, and told them:
= “We live in a cynical time. Let’s face it: I think a lot of the people who watch you, listen to you, who are fans of you — a lot of times they feel turned off by the political discourse.”…
Why it matters: Obama, 19 years younger than Biden, acknowledged that many of the young, progressive creators were skeptical of Biden — but argued that “he believes in the basic things that you believe in.”
“Joe Biden, you may not agree with everything he does,” Obama said. “By the way, you didn’t agree with everything I did. And that’s OK. Because in a big, messy, complicated country like this, there are going to be disagreements.
= “But Joe Biden’s basic trajectory — what he believes in his core … nine times out of 10, he’s going to make decisions that accord with your core beliefs.”
“I need you guys to use your influence, and it doesn’t have to be boring. I don’t expect you to have a bunch of charts and graphs,” Obama added.
“I understand folks are swiping or scrolling, and you’ve got to use humor and you’ve got to use other things that are engaging people.”…
"So far, Levenson has mostly appeared before friendly audiences of Democratic students and leaders already planning to support Biden." https://t.co/j0drbmPIbd
— Nick Baumann (@NickBaumann) June 17, 2024
Per the Washington Post, “Meet the 24-year-old trying to solve Biden’s problems with young voters”: [gift link]
… Levenson has what might be one of the hardest jobs on Biden’s reelection campaign, charged with persuading young Americans, many of whom are deeply skeptical of Biden, to vote for him in November. A political activist since high school, when she first met now-Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez, Levenson has a job that requires helping equip students to counter criticism of the president and training volunteer leaders and organizers to talk to voters not yet sold on voting for him…
Although inflation, housing and health care are bigger priorities for young voters, polling shows, the war looms large on the college campuses Levenson spent the spring visiting. Some young Biden supporters — including national leadership of the College Democrats of America, a group whose endorsement the campaign has touted — have raised concerns about the president’s handling of the conflict.
“Each day that Democrats fail to stand united for a permanent ceasefire, two-state solution, and recognition of a Palestinian state, more and more youth find themselves disillusioned with the party,” read a statement in late April from the group, one of 15 young-voter-focused organizations that endorsed Biden’s campaign in March.
Levenson joined the Biden team in January, earlier in the election cycle than Democratic presidential candidates usually hire for her role, and is one of the youngest people to ever hold her title. She has spent the past few months traversing the country, meeting with young voters and organizers and training students to use an app that allows users to send pro-Biden content to share on social media, gather contacts for the campaign and make a voting plan.
Student organizers who met with Levenson this spring praised her and the campaign’s efforts, but said she faces an enormous challenge…
In organizing trainings, Levenson encourages volunteers to use an “empathetic bridge” to speak with potential voters who may disagree with some of Biden’s policies — as she put it, “giving people the space and permission … that it is okay to be with us, even if maybe you don’t agree 100 percent with every single policy.”
“When we talk about reaching young people where they are, it’s not only about reaching young people physically where they are on campus and online. It’s also about reaching them where they are in terms of how they’re feeling about the election, and how they’re feeling about Biden in this moment,” Levenson said.
Some outside organizing groups are optimistic that the time Levenson spent working at organizations such as the student-led March for Our Lives will help Democrats better coordinate with allies who share the party’s goals, said Santiago Mayer, founder of the Gen Z-focused Voters of Tomorrow….
The Biden campaign is focused on reaching young voters in three categories: on campus, online and non-students, according to Levenson.
At the heart of its campus organizing is Students for Biden Harris, an organizing program launched in March with chapters at more than 270 campuses in 38 states and D.C.
Over the summer, Levenson and her colleagues plan to focus more on non-students, turning to places young people gather such as bars, sporting events and music festivals like Dreamville Fest in North Carolina, where the campaign canvassed this spring. Online, the campaign is working with influencers and buying digital ads on social media sites such as Snapchat, where it is the top spender of any political campaign…
Joey Maloney
Good morning to all who celebrate.
opiejeanne
@Joey Maloney: Good morning.
Are we celebrating morning or Eid al-Adha? Or both?
Joey Maloney
@opiejeanne: Your choice. I’m “celebrating” what appears to be an impending stomach flu.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Joey Maloney: I believe the traditional Balloon Juice felicitation in such circumstances is “blech”.
SpaceUnit
I’m celebrating Tuesday. Hooray for Tuesday. And blech.
JML
Oof. just got back from a european cruise and my sleep schedule is wrecked. (worth it, though)
Tony Jay
Obama speaks true. If I were a native of the Lost Colonies I’d be happy to vote for Joe. I don’t agree with him on everything, and though I think he’s shit the bed on some issues, he’s been great on others, and the general ethos and trajectory of his Administration is definitely in the
rightcorrect direction. A hundred billion times better in every way than the wheel-spinning shitflingers humping away atop the broken and beaten corpse of the Labour Party.Vote Blue – You Kind Of Have To
Baud
Who doesn’t like charts and graphs?
Baud
@Tony Jay:
The problem with Democrats, unlike Labour, is that we stayed competitive and didn’t let Republicans complete control for over 15 years straight. If we had, we’d be sitting pretty like Labour right now.
Frankensteinbeck
The more Democrats you elect, the better things get. Look at any pair of states in the US. Look at California and Texas. Look at how Florida has changed as their government gets more Republican. Do you want concrete evidence that there is a reason to vote Democrat? It’s right in front of you.
WereBear
Look, it’s a clear choice between a steak dinner that’s medium instead of medium rare and the baked potato wasn’t cooked enough and they got you another one.
OR this bowl of poisoned tapioca pudding. What kind of poison? Only the best poison, the biggest and most spectacular poison!
Manyakitty
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: feeling the blech in my bones today. I’ll add an argh, too.
Manyakitty
@WereBear: the most poison ever seen in the history of the world.
eclare
@WereBear:
Don’t forget the ketchup for the steak, which will also end up on the wall.
eclare
I hope some Biden Harris people were at Bonnaroo this past weekend. I know it’s in TN, but local news articles quoted from a lot of people who came from other states.
Baud
@Frankensteinbeck:
Yeah, this right here. The problem is people don’t want to trust natural processes no matter how proven. They want to negotiate better deals, which too often results in no deal.
Joey Maloney
@Baud:
Welcome to the Clinton years.
WereBear
@Joey Maloney: It’s clear to me now how the Right Wingers have all this extra time to work themselves into an insurrection.
They don’t waste it on careers, family and friends, or extraneous hobbies. They just all have the same ones, and it has to do with insurrection.
This is the kind of mission statement corporations dream of. Since they are people, my friends!
Kay
I went to an Ohio Democratic Party organizng meeting last night and several people mentioned Meidas Touch as a place they go for progressive politics – I hadnt heard of it but looked it up and it looks like a combination of a blog and a you tube channel.
Baud
@Joey Maloney:
Clinton’s win put the powers that be into a frenzy. They really thought Republicans would own the White House forever.
Tony Jay
@Baud:
There are sooooo many differences, most to do with the different political and electoral systems. I’d mainly put it down to the fact that your Republicans went down the Fully Owned By Lunatic Billionaires & A Radicalised Base route a bit earlier than our Tories.
Betty Cracker
The NYT analyzes Dems’ chances in Florida (gift link). The takeaway seems pretty accurate to me (i.e., it’s a long shot but worth the effort).
All I’d add is there’s one factor this and other analyses don’t mention or downplay when talking about the GOP lock on the state: the large number of unaffiliated voters.
Repubs have a registration advantage of about 1 million, an achievement they’ve been crowing about for a few years and rightly so. But there are more than 3 million NPAs. Even if you account for leaners, that’s a lot of people.
Another factor in the state’s complicated political history that gets overlooked a lot: the decades-long registration advantage Dems once enjoyed was based partly on Dixiecrats. It’s not like this was once a super-liberal state that Repubs captured. It was always part Alabama.
WereBear
@Betty Cracker: And the unaffiliated are already not wedded to a party, and (I think) can get turned off more easily as a result.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: They like making perfect the enemy of good.
eclare
@Kay:
I’m surprised you hadn’t heard of them. I get their stuff from time to time, mainly through retweets on Twitter (I will never call it X).
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Which ends up with them making themselves the enemy of the good.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: That is Ron Filipkowski’s digs. I never tire of reading him there and on Xitter.
eta he goes heavy on sarcasm, speaking directly to my soul.
Baud
@Kay:
I’ve seen people link to it. From what I can tell, it’s a lot of spin, but I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing given how inundated we are with negative spin.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: I used to be skeptical of Meidas because their rise on Twitter was similar to the trajectory of other outfits I think of as “resistance grift” operations, i.e., clout-chasers peddling false hope and misleading memes in the name of engagement. But over the years they’ve added some legit voices and capabilities to their roster. Good for them! We need that kind of online resource.
eclare
@OzarkHillbilly:
That sounds good, I’ll give him a follow for awhile.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Thank you for the link. It is so NYTimes politics to use a photo of Donald Trump’s AA and Latino supporters in NY in an article about Democrats in Florida:
They’re just in the tank for their hometown hero. Donald Trump. It shows in every single politics article. It’s like their knee jerk, decades-long hatred of the Clintons. Irrational.
eclare
@Betty Cracker:
I was late to the thread yesterday, great drawing of Badger! Such expressive eyes.
Baud
@Kay:
Jesus. They know what they’re doing.
H.E.Wolf
Thank you for the gift link, and for the points you made in your comment.
Postcards To Voters has an ongoing project to encourage FL Democrats to sign up for vote-by-mail in time for the Nov. 2024 election. Voters who receive mail-in ballots tend to vote at higher rates than the in-person cohort.
I’ve been writing for that one, whenever they make addresses available*. It could help achieve a victory for the abortion-rights amendment on November’s ballot.
*The FL VBM project goes on brief hiatus during special election writing campaigns. It should recommence by the end of this week. Minimum of 4 postcards per request, 3 required (standardized) sentences to write, and 3 business days in which to mail them. [email protected]
geg6
Just gotta get through today and then I’m off until next Monday. My boss is letting me use up some of my accumulated sick time before I lose all but 30 days at retirement. I’ve got some ridiculous number of hours accumulated (I think it’s 800+ hours). I can’t use it all, but I’m going to use what I can by 9/30. Now if only the air conditioner part would come in, I’d be sitting pretty in this crazy heat wave. Oh well, guess I’ll be spending a lot of time at my sister’s pool.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I was glad they have somewhere to go too.
Manyakitty
@geg6: any chance you can trade some of those hours for money?
Kay
@Baud:
Their readers notice. One of the first comments on the article notes the difference in tone between this article about how Democrats are a long shot in Florida to the NYTimes coverage of Trump and GOP claims that they are competitive in blue states. Worst politics coverage in the country.
Baud
@Kay:
Maybe DougJ needs to get hired by MeidasTouch so Pitchbot wisdom can get more exposure.
ETA: The NYT and other media report the news as they want it to be.
Princess
@Baud: Yeah, Labour seems to me to be where the Clinton Democrats were after 12 years of Reagan Bush.
Mousebumples
@Kay: I was also skeptical of them, but they’re partnering with/supporting Jason Kander’s Majority 54 podcast, which I really enjoy. So they do good things. 😊
Now, off to read BC’s gift NYT link…
satby
@Betty Cracker: My politically aware younger son (38) watches them a lot. I think people on this blog don’t have any idea how younger people get their news and how important influencers are in delivering it. The Biden admin doing such consistent outreach to and through them is a big deal.
geg6
@Manyakitty:
Only 30 days worth. Sad!
Betty Cracker
@eclare: Thanks! I may attempt a Pete sketch today. Otherwise, he’ll feel left out!
geg6
@satby:
Absolutely right.
satby
@Betty Cracker: Hope today is a better day for you Betty.
Baud
@satby:
Do you watch them? What do you think of them?
satby
@geg6: I kept my legal residence in IL until I got laid off by my old IT company years after I moved to my “summer cottage” in MI strictly because IL had far better worker protection, including a requirement that companies pay out in time off or money ALL accumulated vacation hours. Came in handy when I got laid off at 59 1/2, it added 4-5 weeks on top of my severance weeks of pay.
Baud
@Princess:
It’s why I’m apprehensive that if Biden doesn’t win, we’ll end up moving back to the center as a party rather than continuing to push left.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Isn’t that always the way it works?
Glory b
But the war doesn’t loom large on campuses either. It was either Harvard or Axios that did a poll of college students, Gaza was number 13 of 15 issues, far behind healthcare, keeping a strong economy, guns, etc.
It just gets way more media attention than it deserves
It polls even lower among all young people. We need to remember that the majority of young Americans don’t go to college.
satby
@Baud: I follow a lot of them on Twitter and watch the ones that interest me the most.
I like Politics Girl, Meidas Touch sometimes, 2RawTooReal a lot. There’s others. And the Biden campaign puts ads on these influencers channels too.
Edit: those links are to good recent videos by them
Princess
@Baud: I can definitely see that — and it is what Labour has done. I wonder what the GOP will do if Trump loses. I don’t see that they have a lot of wiggle room to move even a smidge to the centre given the interests of their moneyed and Christian base.
satby
@Glory b: And don’t imagine that’s not a deliberate choice either.
eclare
@Betty Cracker:
Well we can’t have that!
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t think we moved to the center after 2016. We kept moving left.
eclare
@Glory b:
Regarding your last sentence, I haven’t seen any coverage of what young people who are not in college think about anything. I am sure that is deliberate.
Thank you for bringing the issue up, it had not occurred to me.
satby
By the way, that Politics Girl link should be shared with every young woman (and middle aged, and old) you know.
Baud
@satby:
I’ve subscribed. Thanks.
Baud
@Princess:
Only one way to find out!
Jay C
@Princess:
There is a major difference, though, in the analogy: due to the differing political/electoral systems, Bill Clinton (like Joe Biden three decades later) really only had two years try to accomplish anything, before the biennial Congressional elections did for the Democratic majority. If Labour gets a big Parliamentary Majority in the upcoming vote (maybe even that “supermajority” Boris Johnson was recently vaporing about), they’ll have five years to (rule or ruin, take your pick) the country.
satby
@Baud: at your service 😉
Seriously, it’s appalling that people keep themselves so siloed into separate news sources. This is a blog, and not a news channel, though some front pagers do use good sources (thanks again, Anne Laurie and Betty!!). Sure, there’s lots of clickbaity and bias confirmation out there, but there’s good, informative stuff too. Even on Twitter still.
Kay
There’s a reason Democrats do outreach at colleges though:
It’s also just math in certain swing states. Democrats will not win MI and WI w/out college voters. They also will not win without all the other Democratic voting groups, that is true, but such is the nature of coalition politics – we are stuck with one another because if “a group” constitutes 50k or so (or more) voters that group is essential.
Baud
@satby:
I’m more of a nonconsumer of news these days. I get some info from BJ and reddit links, and other random sources. But I don’t feel as if there’s any media source that wants me as a customer these days.
satby
@Baud: forgot Liberal Redneck, who is actually a comedian /actor but is funny while delivering real information too. This last video got 147k viewers so far.
Rachel Bitecofer says ridicule is a powerful weapon battling the cult. If that’s true, Trae Crowder is a general in our army.
Baud
@Jay C:
Obama too.
Mai Naem mobile
@Princess: if TFG loses he’s done. He’s not going to be able to stretch the trials out another 4 years and he will be found guilty in at least one of the trials and they’re all important. MAGAts would be done as far as voting power. The GOP just goes back to being the party of monied interests(big oil, big banks and big tech.)
Baud
@satby:
I’ve seen some of his stuff. It’s good, but everything I’ve seen is commentary, not news or information.
satby
@Baud: yes, it is commentary, but the nuggets of info are delivered so smoothly in the flow. TBF, mostly about what the right wing says and how stupid conservative conspiracy theories are. But I think that’s important too, for people who only hear the both sides media. But I take your point.
Edit: I guess my larger point is there’s an entire resistance ecosystem of alternative news sources that many older folks are unaware of.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: You’re right, and arguably the same was true after 2004.
Baud
@satby:
I agree. We need to get our talking points out there, and it needs to be done by regular folks, not Dem big shots.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I thought about mentioning 2004, but that was the beginning of our two decade push left, so it’s more iffy as an example.
Kay
He gave protected patient information to Christopher Rufo, to use in their crusade against trans people.
I knew it was going to happen – a lot of them skate really close to the line legally in terms of patient privacy protections – this is particularly egregious because it’s the medical records of minors.
I think the case has relevance to reproductive rights too – this is how they’ll track women for pregnancy monitoring – they’ll get people with access to the records to give the info to Right wing pols or activists.
He has a very fancy lawyer so the billionaires must be funding his defense, probably Harlan Crow.
MagdaInBlack
@Baud: He does a ” Weekly Skews” on Tuesday evenings on his Youtube channel. It’s a bit more informative along with the humor. Its an hour and I always watch it.
Joey Maloney
@Betty Cracker: For the Democrats, sure. But the GOP is a one-way ratchet all the way to Crazytown.
Baud
@Kay:
Information wants to be free.
ETA: another example of “imagine the national outrage if a lib had done that”
Baud
@MagdaInBlack:
Thanks. Wasn’t aware of that.
The Red Pen
@Kay: I like MTN, but a lot of their short videos tend to be Ben Meiselas reporting something and then lapsing into a monologue about how insane the Republican Party is. Good monologue, but he repeats the same points in a lot of videos. I frequently bail at the ad break.
They have a few satellite contributors, like Legal AF which has good legal coverage. They have some good comic content like Gabe Sanchez and the Alien Super Show.
For serious stuff, Bryan Tyler Cohen is better. He has some particularly good guests:
https://www.youtube.com/@briantylercohen
Also really like Farron Cousins at Ring of Fire:
https://www.youtube.com/@TheRingofFire
He’s a little less “rah rah” than others, so he adds some good grounding.
I pay for YouTube Premium (ad free) so I watch it a lot.
Kay
@Baud:
Thank God for HIPAA is all I can say. Right wing activist doctors would be collecting all our records and turning them over to some douchebag crusader without it. I hope this ruins his career. He violated patient trust. He shouldn’t be a physician.
Another Scott
@Glory b: I think it’s easy to mistake interest on campuses with political intentions, and FTFNYT wants to push that.
This was my experience decades ago, and maybe I was an outlier, but I attended campus meetings about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and about the Iranian takeover of the US embassy. I argued with the Spartacus Youth League at their meetings on the benefits of the invasion. Etc.
I voted for John Anderson for president in 1980.
People can and do compartmentalize. People aren’t machines. They can be passionate about things, and also be pragmatic, and there’s not really a contradiction. While everything is connected, the connections aren’t determinative when it comes to individual actions by particular people.
The press has a narrative. Don’t let it make us think that their story is destiny.
Cheers,
Scott.
NotMax
BTW, DJT stock down another 6.29% at Monday’s closing.
Liminal Owl
@Joey Maloney: oh dear. May any health issues resolve quickly.
The Red Pen
@satby: Trae had the best take on that “Try that in a Small Town” song that came out a while back.
Baud
@NotMax:
👍
eclare
@satby:
I love him and follow him on Twitter. Of course I’m biased, we’re both from TN, but he is from the way more conservative side, so good for him for breaking out of that mindset. I wish he’d do a show in Memphis.
eclare
@Baud:
In the Senate, didn’t Obama only have months due to the recount for Franken’s seat and Kennedy’s brain cancer?
Kay
@The Red Pen:
These people were not long term “involved” political people so I think they would be fine with a rant about Trump. One of the women had never been to any kind of political event before.
It turned out I know her son – I hired him to do an online ad for the law office – he did a great job. Not uncommon in this rural area – we all have like one degree of separation :)
Baud
@eclare:
Yes, if you take the filibuster into account.
Baud
@Kay:
Just means he’ll probably run for Congress.
Another Scott
@eclare: Wikipedia says 72 Senate working days in the 111th Congress.
History is weird.
Cheers,
Scott.
Joey Maloney
Does receiving the illegally-obtained patient records put Chris Rufo at criminal risk too? What about if he suborned the original crime? Ohpleaseohplease, he’s one who definitely needs to feel the jackboot of the Federal government jammed up his ass.
eclare
@Another Scott:
Thanks!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@eclare:
Franken was sworn in 7 Jul 2009.
Kennedy died 25 Aug 2009.
Paul Kirk was appointed to Kennedy’s seat.
The ACA was signed into law on 23 March 2010.
satby
@The Red Pen: interesting! I didn’t list Bryan Tyler Cohen because my son says he got sick of Brian’s clickbaity headlines and delivery, though he still will watch some of his videos. I used to watch him too, but quit for the same reason. I like Mark Elias, but I subscribe to his Democracy Docket newsletter; Glenn Kirchner, OTOH, is an unnamed but obvious target of Teri Kanefield’s dislike of TV lawyer pundits, who she thinks are setting false expectations for people about some of the court cases around Trump right now. Her predictions are right more often than his have been so far. Tim Miller is from the Bulwark, which I also used to subscribe to but now only get the free stuff.
Baud
@satby:
I can’t stand click bait either.
Kay
Thomas Friedman (!) says American leaders need to stop “debasing” themselves on Israel.
When you’ve lost the inventor of the “Friedman unit” it’s time for a change of policy.
QFT, as the kids say.
Kay
It’s bad enough that The Onion now covers it:
If you watched the State Department and USAID briefings on aid to Gaza, which are just embarrassing, you would know why The Onion sees them as satire.
OzarkHillbilly
@eclare: He can be a bit repetitive as he beats a dead horse, but I just skip those parts.
YY_Sima Qian
@Kay: Well, Bibi is coming to address a joint session of Congress, at the invitation of Congressional leadership, including the D ones, & w/ the obsequious adulation of certain D reps (amongst whom Gottheimer has been the highest profile & the most risible). Bibi’s plan is probably to undermine Biden, just like he did Obama the last time he addressed Congress. Parts of the D caucus in Congress are masochists when it comes to Israel ruled by the reactionary ultra-rightwing.
So, no significant change in direction is on the horizon. The US will continue to proudly wear that millstone around its neck. Most of the world will look on in disgust as most of the bipartisan members of Congress (though surely more Rs than Ds) give the likely active war criminal repeated standing ovations.
Meanwhile, AIPAC is trying to make an example of Jamaal Bowman…
As for the election, D should be trying to compete everywhere. Even if the national party does not have the resources to do, the local parties should still try to chip away at the R dominance in those state & local governments, so perhaps over time overcome the illiberal managed democracies that R has established there. It’s not just the national level elections that matter. Ds have made that mistake repeatedly in history.
YY_Sima Qian
@Kay: Well, the pier certainly has proven to be a disappointment & an embarrassment.
Betty Cracker
@YY_Sima Qian: Re: your last paragraph, that seems to be happening. The ruinous 4-year-rule by a buffoonish malignant narcissist was the clue-by-four upside the head that many folks apparently needed.
Steve in the ATL
@Baud: I’ll send you the link for one weird trick to stop clickbait
@Kay: the Onion’s 9/11 coverage back in 2001 was phenomenal. Better than many real news sites!
Kay
@YY_Sima Qian:
I knew jailing all the protestors wouldn’t make this massive clusterfuck go away.
I used to feel bad for Samantha Power, who is an expert on genocide (!), but I no longer do. No reason she had to put her name on this and keep it there other than careerism. Her reputation will be ruined internationally, and it should be. With friends like her Palestinians don’t need enemies.
“Dead cat diplomacy” They’re no longer working on a deal. They’re working exclusively on dumping the “dead cat” of their dead deal on Hamas’ doorstep and protecting Israel from any accountability, for anything. It osn’t just famine anymore now – now it’s infectious disease. Disease is just going to rip through that weakened, starving population – it will get much, much worse.
Starfish
@Glory b: I have been to a college graduation this year and have seen students in their keffiyehs. I watched another online and saw students in their keffiyehs at that one too.
The ceremonies I was watching were for advanced degrees so for Ph.D.s and M.D.s so I am not sure what any of this means to the undergrads, but it was a little surprising.
It could be that I was watching events from Michigan and Minnesota (which both have considerable Muslim populations), but the whole thing surprised me a little.
Starfish
@Baud: Same. There are some local online presses that are doing a good job and some niche stuff (Chalkbeat), but I am probably more disconnected than I have been. This is not bad.
Starfish
@Kay: He is a surgeon in Texas. He probably has the money. Also, surgeons are generally jerks. It is known.
Kay
@Starfish:
Western Michigan, hardly an upper crusty school, had a pro Palestinian encampment.
Geminid
There is a Virginia news site, Cardinal News, that covers news from Southside and Southwest Virginia. It’s decent but by no means comprehensive. Cardinal News is not all politics, but it has followed the 5th CD primary race between Good and McGuire fairly closely. That snarly fight will finally end today.
Kay
@Starfish:
Ha! What nerve, snooping around their records. Does he also object to minors getting cosmetic plastic surgery or rich parents putting their boys on growth hormones to get them over six feet?
I have a middle class and working class client group and my clients are absolutely nutty over their kids privacy. They’re always looking for privacy violations from schools or health care providers. I wonder how this plays with those people.
YY_Sima Qian
@Betty Cracker: Yep, & as I said in my response to Soprano2 in Adam L. Silverman’s Ukraine thread on Sunday, if the Ds somehow win control in one of those states, seize the moment to try to enact as progressive an economic agenda as possible & not play the “competent technocratic” centrist that try not to scare anyone.
Most of the world is deep in an anti-establishment/populist moment, the center will not hold for long. Either the Progressive Left or the Reactionary Right will reap the benefits of such a moment, but historically it has tended to be the reactionary right. Don’t let the reactionaries seize the economic populist mantle, or even the non-interventionist/non-militarist mantle on foreign policy, as Trump & many of the cynical reactionaries are already doing. The transparency of their cynical & dishonest rhetoric notwithstanding, a lot of low-information voter will flock to it if they feel the Ds only represent the established elites (Wall Street, Hollywood, academia, the MIC, whatever), especially if they are already sympathetic to the antiquated social values & views on race relations that the reactionaries espouse.
Ds cannot rely upon shared revulsion against such views & values to sustain a majority over the reactionaries & the Herrenvolk nativists.
Manyakitty
@geg6: rude! I guess it’s better than nothing, but still!!!
YY_Sima Qian
@Kay: I knew Samatha Power had turned into a careerist when she & her husband Cass Sunstein showed up in their finest to a fabulous & exclusive birthday bash for Kissinger’s 99th birthday, to join in all the fawning toasts. & I say that as someone who thinks Kissinger’s views on geopolitics were worth listening to, despite having a dramatically overrated reputation, as one among many from a variety of perspectives.
Chris
@Kay:
Jailing all the protesters is pretty much the classic centrist response to fascism, namely assuming that it’s not the fascists but their targets that cause the social disorder, so if only you can shut them up, surely the fascist problem will just disappear. Surely they wouldn’t just keep finding excuses to raise shit regardless, would they?
(I almost started listing examples of the phenomenon, but there are just way too many of them).
Chris
@YY_Sima Qian:
Kissinger is your basic Talleyrand/Metternich wannabe, whose ideal world is the nineteenth century Concert of Europe setup, and whose worldview is that life is all about the great powers and nobody else matters.
Credit where it’s due, that mindset actually did make him a decent point man for our relations with other great powers and especially the détentes with the USSR and China. Unfortunately, it’s also the reason he was such a humanitarian catastrophe in the third world, whether the third worlders involved were on our side (the Kurds), on the other side (the Bangladeshis), or both (all of Southeast Asia).
Eolirin
@YY_Sima Qian: That’s what’s been happening in places like Michigan and Virginia, and hopefully Wisconsin and Pennsylvania will be able to follow suit. PA is very close to having a trifecta, and WI will hopefully get there now that they’ve got better maps, though it’ll take a couple of cycles.
But as the VA governor race showed it doesn’t always work, at least not immediately. We need to be able to hold sustained wins for a few cycles. And in places like Florida and North Carolina, there won’t be a retaking of the statehouse period, not unless we manage to pass legislation forcing new maps, in conjunction with rebuilding the state party.
In the places where there’s been a return to fairer maps, through ballot initiative or court action (when they’ve been allowed to actually be implemented, anyway) we’ve typically seen very rapid movement.
If we hadn’t lost three SCOTUS seats to bullshit we would’ve had the votes there to end this stuff nationally.
Ksmiami
@Joey Maloney: I think it’s in Accessory after the fact territory but depends on how Rufo behaves in the investigation … I’m sure better legal minds can weigh in though
YY_Sima Qian
@Eolirin: Dems winning control is a prerequisite, what what they do in power, & what we push them to do in power, will determine whether the gains are sustainable.
Who during the euphoria of election night 2008, or even election night 2012, ever thought the US electoral system would produce a Trump after Obama?
YY_Sima Qian
@Chris: Quite right on Kissinger. His is that of cynical, unsentimental & amoral realpolitik, & that is a perspective worth reading among many other perspectives, even if one does not subscribe to such worldview. They offer good counterbalance against triumphalism, moral certitude, & adventurism.
But, if I was Samantha Power, at most I would have sent Kissinger a personal note in the form of a birthday card, & not associate w/ an event whose purpose was hagiographic celebration of the man & his work.
Chris
@YY_Sima Qian:
Well, actually.
One of my oft-repeated statements in 2012 was that if Republicans lost two elections in a row with people they perceived as moderates, RINOs, and liberals, we’d be lucky if their 2016 candidate didn’t wear white sheets and a dunce hat.
Of course, I didn’t expect said 2016 candidate to win. It kind of upended everything “everybody knows” about the political map when he did.
Chris
@YY_Sima Qian:
Eh. I suspect it’s less that he’s a cynical, amoral, unsentimental realpolitiker, and more that he’s in love with the idea of being a cynical, amoral, unsentimental realpolitiker, and being viewed and celebrated that way all over Official Washington. Kind of like all those people who fell all over themselves promoting torture in the 2000s, not because they actually were steely-eyed realists committed to doing what must be done regardless of if it’s pleasant, and more because they really wanted the entire nation swooning “look, it’s Real Life Jack Bauer!” whenever they appeared.
VFX Lurker
Anyone familiar with Black American history saw it coming. Trump fulfilled the American pattern of white retaliation and destruction following Black success.
I, a privileged white girl, learned an edited version of history in school. So, I was not prepared.
YY_Sima Qian
@VFX Lurker: Good point, but I think even most African Americans were full of hope in 2008 & 2012, even if they harbored those darker doubts deep down due to the historical experience.
I too learned that whitewashed version of history, in the NYC public school curriculum & the Ivy League education after. I was introduced to writings James Baldwin, Malcolm X, & the later more anguished MLK, Jr. Having absorbed the “White Liberal” sensibilities of the post-Cold War “End of History” moment (even though I vehemently disagreed w/ Fukuyama’s thesis), I had thought all of them far too radical for the good of the African American causes, & held the sanitized & sterilized version of the early Civil Rights Movement as the example to follow.
I remember my African American colleagues being equally shocked & dismayed at the outcome of the 2016 elections, but there was indeed a difference. My reaction was “this is not the America I thought I knew”, theirs had an undercurrent of “we were fools for thinking that America has changed that much, should have trusted our gut”.
Citizen Alan
@YY_Sima Qian: I did not anticipate Trump. But I knew after Obama would come a monster. Every GOP President of my lifetime (which began seven months into Tricky Dick’s first term) has been an order of magnitude worse than the one before. And I include Ford in that, because Nixon was lawless, but Ford was the one who showed the Republicans that lawlessness carried no consequences.