Before:
I just had a convo with a Trump supporter this morning who doesn’t believe any of this, doesn’t care that Trump is a bad person, and is certain that voting machines were tampered with in 2020 – among other things. The magnitude of this problem is breathtaking. pic.twitter.com/XgQ5aWIt3x
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) October 30, 2024
Here’s the good news – yes, good news:
A substantial portion of the country did not consciously choose the unworthiest, shittiest President of all time to purposefully oppress you.
The bad news is, they did it because they were so ignorant as to be inhabiting a different… pic.twitter.com/XPFWFFuAMr
— JChoe (@JoohnChoe) November 8, 2024
A substantial portion of the country did not consciously choose the unworthiest, shittiest President of all time to purposefully oppress you.
The bad news is, they did it because they were so ignorant as to be inhabiting a different factual universe altogether.
After…
Uncharacteristically, I’ll say that Dems should stop beating up on themselves and firing volleys back and forth. (They can get back to that later.) American voters – as I’ve been warning for years – are changing, and becoming more like Trump. That’s hard to counteract. /1
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) November 9, 2024
Maybe the mistake we all made was thinking America would elect a Black woman. I had a gut feeling they would not. But in any case, when elections are about feelings, fantasies, boredom, and resentment, the candidate who services those delusions has a natural advantage. /2
Democrats are understandably focused on voters who flipped because they’re suffering economically. But a far larger number of voters were un-flippable and not poor! They’re the comfortable Trumpers who think, like, Canada conspired with Michelle O to hijack voting machines. /3
When millions of people think that way, you can’t agonize *too* much over losing another 3 pts during a global backlash against inflation (that no govt could have stopped and that the US handled well).
Especially when you’ve won impt House/Senate races in all those states./4The Democrats should definitely have a reckoning about their inability to recognize that becoming the party of the college-educated (which is what the GOP used to be) has affected their ability to message. And you’re seeing some rumbles already. /5
But no Dem can change the fact that millions of ungettable GOP votes are set in stone not because of economic conditions – which were the best any candidate could have hoped for – but because even relatively affluent voters have spent years marinating in complete craziness. /6
And I’ll add, again, that this is not some post-hoc rationalization based on this week. I’ve written about this for years, and warned about it at length in a book I wrote more than four years ago. That’s really why I just couldn’t be optimistic about this election. /7x
The economic conditions were not “the best any candidate could have hoped for”. Yes the stock market is up, and yes inflation is down but when people have to pay twice as much for pop-tarts as they did 4 years ago they’re gonna blame the dude in charge.
Becuase they are idiots.
— Jimmy coconuts (@Jombafomba) November 9, 2024
Almost like their just frustrated people clinging to their bibles and guns. He called it. pic.twitter.com/FD3oGnnD9V
— Mike Bryan (@wolf2point0) November 9, 2024
What a profound irony that the two men most responsible for the warping of the collective American mind are an Australian and a South African.
— TheOrangeChicken (@TheOrangeC57985) November 9, 2024
How does our beleaguered country recover from this level of willed idiocy? Best case, as far as I can see, is that the economic suffering & political chaos the GOP guarantees for the next four years will finally gut what remains of their corrupted parasitized shell of a party. The ‘hot stove theory’ of political realignment. (No) Joy.
My working theory for What’s Gone Wrong is that the plethora of media sources have enabled extremist ideologies – not by LIMITING people’s exposure to ideas, but by INCREASING it. This enables people to select whichever narrative supports their inner emotional universe best.
— Will Stancil (@whstancil) October 22, 2024
Ultimately most of these extreme ideologies are about intellectual laziness and indulgence – substituting prejudice and simplicity and emotion for the hard work of thinking through complicated problems, confronting uncertainty, and developing a consistent set of beliefs.
The endless all-you-can-eat buffet of information in front of us, as it’s grown wider, makes it easier for people to avoid contradictions and difficult thoughts. They can always find some bubble that will indulge their worst, most incoherent beliefs.
As less-centralized, partisan forms of media have grown and endlessly fragmented, this process has only intensified – to the point that it has become almost impossible to convince many people of extremely simple facts when those facts collide with their instinctive beliefs.
One of the things I’ve noticed is that sometimes it’s the smartest people who are least susceptible to new facts, because they’re better at developing rationalizations. Now we’ve created an infrastructure where they can distribute those rationalizations to millions instantly.
This explains both the why the growth of extremism is worldwide, but also how it melds itself to local characteristics: People everywhere are finding it to rationalize their local prejudices as their menu of media options grows and fragments.
I think it also explains why it’s so hard to deprogram people in the thrall of extremism. The problem isn’t lack of access to good information, but too much access to indulgent, reaffirming information. And the ultimate defect is within them: they’re unable to not indulge.
The growth of social media and partisan media and alternative media has turned people into little Skinner-box rats, constantly visiting whichever website or channel or account that will let them feel smart, angry, depressed – or whatever inner state they crave – all the time.
And it turns out that what a lot of people crave is the surge of validating anger that accompanies watching a mob brutalize disfavored minorities.
In conclusion: Sometimes I’ve grateful that my Spousal Unit & I are old, we have no kids, and our next-gen relatives don’t look like they’ll be having kids either. Tomorrow, hopefully, I’ll be back to pushing that boulder uphill.
Baud
The left of center needs to think about our shared culture, not just our politics or messaging. The right has a shared culture, which is why it’s so hard for them to go against it.
TBone
It’s the dopamine rush that cruelty to The Other gives them. Domination revenge fantasies.
It’s the cruelty, on top of being untethered from reality and unable and unwilling to read (functionally illiterate).
We need a national denazification program.
Joe Falco
@Baud: Can you break down what you mean by “shared culture”? All I’m picturing for the right is a shared vision of disliking/punishing other people that don’t agree with them.
Baud
@Joe Falco:
Yeah, that’s how the right culture has developed. What are we offering as a counter? Not all that much. Hate to say it, but a lot of what we do is exclude people for not being good enough or pure enough in some way. I don’t think the non-right had developed much of an identity other than being opposed to the right.
Hildebrand
We know that round about 75 million wanted Trump – his vote total is pretty consistent – which means we know what we have to overcome on the deranged side of aisle. We don’t need to spend a lot of time trying to figure out what they want.
Its the ones who sat out this election that we’ve got to figure out.
narya
@Baud: The challenge here is that, at least for some of us on the left, the whole point is that we DON’T have to share all of our culture; we’re more okay with MYOB and multiple voices.
Baud
@narya:
Yeah. And I think that leaves us at a disadvantage.
TBone
Hubby is yelling at the TeeVee “C’mon Donold, just turn on that big faucet and put the fires out!”
He is a normie (I have not retired that term), my touchstone to those not as immersed, and for him to grasp that utter bugfuck, let alone to know that Donold actually said that…
Now hubby tells me Donold is claiming that the Iranians tried to assassinate him. It’s on GMA.
SFAW
The “immune-but-not-really-immune-because-he’s-a-Demoncrat” president — whether Biden or Harris (because Biden has resigned, let’s say) — can declare Rupert Murdoch a terrorist, or perhaps charge him with Treason, or both, then declare Fox (in all its forms) a terrorist operation, and shut them down.
Not much, but it’s a start.
I’m trying to figure out if they try to crash the Economy in the next two years, or wait until after the mid-terms. Either way, they’re going to try. The question then becomes if the populace will be so collectively afraid, that voting them out will be unlikely.
Yes, I’m a cynical bastard, and the comments are not totally serious, but it’s tough to convince morons (i.e., Foxbots) that things would be better with the Dems in charge, because they’ve been told we’re the collective AntiChrist.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Well for another perspective on it, here is a video talking about how homelessness and high rents are a problem in Montana
youtube.com/watch?v=dU2x0BmFhJI
I don’t see why they think Trump, a real estate developer will fix it, but there sure is a problem.
Bex
Another day of blaming ourselves. Yeah that’ll show ’em.
Phylllis
There’s a part of me that hopes the pragmatic Republicans, like Gov. Deputy Dawg here in SC have the smarts to know that for example, gutting federal education funding will have a disastrous impact on their and other states and work hard to moderate it (like Abbott’s comments on deportations). I feel like, though, the ‘here’s hoping you get the full measure of what you voted for, good and hard’ part of me is now winning.
narya
@Baud: I agree, but I have no clue how to address it w/o the purity tests that you referenced above. Maybe being more explicit about it in the massive new lefty media that’s going to spring from the ground? One possible angle is a message about getting things done, which is boring but makes everything else possible, and recognizing that there are multiple paths to getting things done AND multiple “everything elses”–it’s up to YOU to figure out what you want. Eh, I dunno, I’m just trying to encourage the people around me to keep making art and music and food and to keep being kind. It’s all I can focus on right now, and it feels so inadequate, not least because my training and inclinations move me to dig into all of this stuff.
Chet Murthy
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Again, progressive income taxes will solve that problem: some rich will not move there, and the rest can pay to house the poor. And by reducing their incomes, you reduce the amount they can bid up house prices.
waspuppet
The high stock market, the easing inflation, the high employment numbers, the lowering crime rates? Republicans will notice all of those things starting Jan. 21. They won’t stop talking about them. Trump’s magic touch will have worked again. It was so easy.
Shalimar
My frustration isn’t that so many people are evil. MAGA is still a minority by quite a bit. I’m frustrated that most of us are stupid and innumerate, with no understanding of economics at all.
Bupalos
Impoverishment, chaos, and fear does not make people better or wiser.
TBone
@TBone: crap tried to fix that mistranslation by hubby.
The DOJ made the claim, not Donold.
TBone
@Bex: 🎯
Baud
@waspuppet:
Yep. If Joe Biden were a Republican, he’d have coasted to a second term IMHO.
Propaganda about legitimate economic issues is still propaganda.
K-Mo
There’s a lot of reasons for our impending bout of fascism.
For me, in thinking through analyses of our failed media, my biggest complaint is the normalization of truly evil shit. The country is shot through with low info voters, but when has it not? The difference now is that, instead of just winding up with bad policies we’ve put the operation of our country as a democracy in peril. (Still) unbeknownst to the masses.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Chet Murthy: They were talking about in the video the Republican governor slashed the taxes to make Montana a tax haven for the rich and rich rushed in bought up all the housing to the point the rents on apartments are $2,500 a month, in Montana. Apparently, as always, that was the Democrats fault.
TBone
How many MAGA sat still in our government offices, looking nondescript this whole time, biding and waiting, I wonder…They’re loud and proud in Congress, but what about all the quiet, white collar holdovers playing gray rock.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
I’d like some for-instances of that claim that we’re excluding people for not being good or pure enough. Maybe that’s happening on the far left that I never actually come across but only hear about indirectly. And I’m sure RW media can tell their audience that we’re all like that. But there’s not a whole lot we can do about that; we don’t have any control over far-left purity ponies.
And the fact is, we DO have a shared culture. It’s one of inclusion. It’s that people of every group should have the same rights and opportunities in this society as straight white American men do. It’s that we’re going to enact policies that help people regardless of how they’re likely to vote, and that when some disaster strikes, we’re not going to ask whether it’s hitting a blue or red area, we’re just going to fucking help them out. This is our shared political culture.
Phylllis
@TBone: A lot, probably. Local and state government are shot through with them. Not to mention the sovereign citizens who have government jobs.
TBone
@Phylllis: exactly.
Chris Johnson
All of this. So much THIS. It’s fundamental.
Also, thanks for copying the relevant bits out of Twitter: I’ll no longer even give that shit a click, no matter what, because it’s the weapon that shot us. Please drop Twitter, it’ll rot your brain because it is a finely crafted propaganda machine in the hands of the enemy. Srsly.
That’s also why ‘normie’ is super important. Firstly, those of us who can become that while privately remembering what reality was, need to go do that and cultivate other normies. Just drop the occasional truths, casually. They’ll be hard to miss or argue with, because the pravdas will be damn hard to swallow. That’s how this goes.
Secondly, ‘normie’ is exactly what this post highlights. I’ve been saying that people avoided Trump rallies because they didn’t want to see. Perhaps a majority or even a supermajority on that side voted for the pretend man they’d never seen or met. They know him about as well as they know Jesus, like I’ve said. They voted for Jesus, not the guy we see.
That means they didn’t vote for the guy we see. They figure we’re liars. Some of ’em might be gentle in a kindly belief that we are deluded, if we’re not throwing rocks at them and forcing them to believe more of the lies… but we know we paid closer attention, and that also means the idea of ‘normie buyer’s remorse’ could be a BIG DEAL. That’s a stronger weapon than anything we could possibly do.
Our votes got stolen not by burning ballots, but by successfully bullshitting a LOT of people. They did not vote for that. They feel enormous relief because they prevailed and voted for… what they thought was US, and they saw US as what the other side in fact represents. To them, we’re the big lying meanies, and they managed to stop us before we killed again. A lot of them are just relieved.
Oopsy. I really do not think their relief will age like fine wine. We’d been warning, we knew stuff they didn’t. But they trusted their people. Oopsy.
Normies, man. All of modern political chaos is based on what you can do to fuck with normies.
Caustictity.acerbity
@Baud: i have no evidence for this beyond personal experience but I do think our organizations need to examine the quality of the data they are using for gotv efforts. I thought these things were amusing in the run up to the election and now seem darkly ominous after. My youngest will be 20 in a few months. Since he turned 18, he’s been eligible to vote, there have been 2 primary elections, a local election, and then this presidential election. He has 100% publicly available record of voting. He is a dues paying, campaigning member of the umich democratic club for the last 2 years. He has received 93 Harris mailers, 2 hand written post cards, 2 canvassers came to the door looking for him while he’s away at college, and he literally got called by a group phone bank at umich…while he was working at the phone bank. Who might have been reached and convinced to vote if the effort to activate him had been redirected to an infrequent or non voter? My older son did not receive quite as much attention but also has 100% voting record since eligible and my wife and I received zero mailings directed at us (which is fine, we also have very long voting records) and i get they were obviously targeting young people but the data should also show these 2 were very obviously already gotten.
TBone
@Chris Johnson: hard agree.
RandomMonster
We offered the opposite of that: inclusion. Wasn’t enough in the end.
Shalimar
@waspuppet: I think it will be the other way around. Trump will have so fucked things up by July with his tariffs that they will keep the fiction that it was terrible under Biden and Trump inherited it.
Starfish
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Private equity needs to get out of owning housing units. Landlords that own thousands of units should be highly highly regulated.
Remote work really hurt a lot of housing markets. I think places like Costa Rica and Puerto Rico got hit by some of this.
AirBnb needs to be killed.
WereBear
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Montana can’t hate the rich, they are the only ones hiring now.
Cognitive Dissonance, meet Reluctance to Move. And red states don’t help you, it’s your kin network or nothing.
Will the red states use legislation to solve the upcoming brain drain, because I’m sure there will be a Fugitive Incubator Law, where the child must be born in the state, and can’t leave, which is the new version of birthright citizenship.
Chet Murthy
@Starfish: This article ( theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/mar/19/end-of-landlords-surprisingly-simple-solution-to-uk-housing… ) develops those thoughts. It worked in the UK.
K-Mo
@narya: I’d like to see more of a perma campaign led by Kamala and Tim that’s more no-holds-barred about our values. A full-throated, persistent message about how the F-your-feelings people and the toxic masculinity people and the I-me-mine people and the cruelty-to-others people and the abdication-of-responsibilities people and the no-societal-guardrails people have America 100% backwards, completely separated from seeking votes in an upcoming election.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
@RandomMonster:
Inclusion isn’t helpful in defining us, since we obviously and correctly exclude Nazis, Christian nationalists, and other assortments of bad people.
Figure out how we explain who we accept and who we reject as unacceptable, and I think that would provide more clarity for people who may not understand what were about.
p.a.
Well, when the shit hits the fans (h/t The Replacements) how many will identify reality and how many will buy into the Wurlitzer/Time Machine- bad in Republican admins is because of previous Dem admins, good is the immediate result of the R admin. Inverse when Dems in power.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Well, the good news is AirBnB is dying, a lot of laws have been passed on the local level to stop that shit.
WereBear
@Baud: There’s only one rule, babies. Please be kind.
~Kurt Vonnegut
snoey
@Starfish: That’s what drives the problem in Bozeman, not the super-rich. White flight Californians using their housing equity to bid up normal housing. 2 bedrooms selling for 25% over asking sight unseen cash over the phone.
Baud
@Chet Murthy:
That goes against what Suzanne has said about the US market, that we have a low supply of homes.
WereBear
@p.a.: I had a glimmer of hope that a lot of people had no idea what they really voted for…
and the data on that is pretty overwhelming.
Please, Buyer’s Remorse in a funny car.
Starfish
@Chet Murthy: Should I troll the local NextDoor by telling them that this is the best article ever by their favorite guy who bought their house for $20,000 in 1960 and complains about the city being full and about the people who want access to housing that is less than $1,000,000?
Shakti
The funniest fucking shit:
Like which is it my guys? Was the Obama economy where wages were stagnant for a long time the best one? I thought you hated that one with a passion. Why are you, richie riches, upset about inflation? If you think Trump is going to be better on economy, why are all these manufacturers and service sector companies putting money into inventory instead of hiring and raises, and why are you fucking panicking? Isn’t Infrastructure Week back again?
Chet Murthy
@Baud: Sure, there are two problems:
(1) not enough houses
(2) existing houses are not deployed well
The article is about #2. And it’s a big problem.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: The hostile media environment is what lead to the debacle last Tuesday. And its not just the MAGAs who fed on that propaganda, it was the readers of NYT and Nation as well. Joe Biden received negative press from the get go from the Afghanistan pull out. And elected Democrats didn’t have his back. See for example NP’s blatherings to the NYT from yesterday, neither did the left flank of the party.
FWIW affordable housing is not a factor determined by macroeconomics. It was just another stick used to beat Joe Biden with by people supposedly on our side. I had never before this administration seen it included in a macroeconomic discussion by the media or our leftist betters.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Well remember, who writes the laws – the people with a money.
And in that video there was some woman obvious upper middle class in a Boseman city council meeting telling the poor that they should just leave.
Thinking about it, the people in Montana who are making the locals life miserable are the real coastal elites (as in rich douches). So, I can see they might be lashing out at anyone who reminds them of that.
Chet Murthy
@Starfish: ?? Are you saying the author Nick Bano is the guy you’re describing ? I didn’t know that. But does it really change the article’s truth value?
Baud
@snoey:
Yeah. But they blame Californians or Democrats but not their own Republican state government.
Same problem in Texas. How long have Republicans controlled that state?
Chris
Like I said yesterday: it’s not that they’re ignorant. That would imply that they actually believe the nonsense listed in those polls, and they don’t. They don’t disbelieve it either, per se. Like Trump, they’re just bullshitting. They’re saying what they have to to square the circle between the policies they really want and the need to feel that they’re still the good guys, the victims, etc.
They “believe” that unauthorized border crossings are through the roof, because that lets them pretend that the Democrats haven’t repeatedly addressed their “very reasonable” concerns about illegal immigration, which in turn lets them pretend they have no choice but to vote for the candidate who wants to assault and kill immigrants.
They “believe” that violent crime rates are at an all-time high, because that lets them pretend that cramming ever more money and giving ever more immunity to the cops as they brutalize blacks and homeless people is a legitimate response to fear for their life, and not the usual class and racial prejudice that it is.
And they “believe” the economy’s bad, because that lets them pretend they’re honest and concerned voters just punishing an incumbent for not looking after their bread-and-butter issues, as opposed to what they really are: people who will never vote for a black woman because she might treat other blacks and women equally when what they’d rather have is a fascist putting them under his boot.
That’s 90% of the people who voted for Trump. The good news, I suppose, is that a lot of swing voters (people who flipped votes and people who stayed home alike) aren’t like that, they really are just responding to vibes and bullshit, so they’re theoretically gettable. The bad news is, the vibes and bullshit are pretty much all controlled by media organs that are violently hostile to us.
SFAW
To be a little more serious: it took the Rethugs about 20-30 years of directed effort to overcome reality. It (probably) started with the demonizing of the so-called “liberal media.” That effort dovetailed with Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes creating Fox, and what Ailes turned it into. It has apparently now been overtaken by Nazi twitter as a source of all-things-hateful-toward-the-marginalized.
In any event, overcoming that hate and “anti-intellectualism” (to borrow from Hofstadter) will take just as concerted and long-term an effort — unless Lone Skum’s “throw us into a Second Great Depression” plan accelerates the time line.* My family and I are better situated than most to survive that intended Depression, but that doesn’t mean we’re immune, nor a guarantee we’d survive it intact.
Not sure who has the wealth and stamina to keep that anti-Fox/anti-Nazi-twitter effort going. It certainly isn’t Bezos, and probably not Gates.
All that said: I’m still trying to figure out what I can do to help us overcome the hatred and insanity.
*In case someone thinks I’m being hyperbolic: the bandied-about Trump/Musk plan to “cut $2 Trillion in debt” to “save” the economy has, by its own admission, said it would create a Depression, without using that exact word. The cynical me says the intent is to create a new/different class of serfs, willing to do any shit job, just to be able to survive.
sab
@Caustictity.acerbity: My dad got 4 postcards to vote. He died in April 2024 and he hadn’t voted in 10 years because he was in a nursing home with dementia.
My mom even got a postcard and she died 12 years ago.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Chet Murthy: Hmm, I have been hearing a lot about how the UK has the same jacked housing costs (combined with a shitty economy, thanks to Britexit). Apparently the whole thing is a serious problem across the First World.
Starfish
@snoey: This happened where I live too!
Any attempts to address homelessness in the west are disjointed and just not good.
We had snow for a couple of days, and the homeless shelter has had to turn people away because there is not enough space.
narya
@K-Mo: @Baud: These two comments are siblings.
John S.
@Shalimar:
I don’t think tariffs are going to become a reality, just like most of the BS that dribbled out of the orange pie hole. Not while the puppet masters who bought and paid for this election have anything to do about it.
Hell, even the “let’s deport millions of people” train has already lost steam now that the Texas governor threw a bucket of cold water on it.
Most of these batshit crazy ideas will never come to pass, just like the Mexico wall. And they don’t have to, because MAGA will never blame their dear leader for his failures to deliver.
SFAW
@Baud:
So you’re buying into the lie that it’s NOT the fault of Kamala Harris, George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi? What’s next: you’ll tell us that “up is up” and “down is down”? Do you take us for fools?
Chet Murthy
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: thatcher un-did the policies described in that article: allowed people to buy their council houses, then let them out. Next thing you know, you have landlord with bunches of houses, and they turn into slums, and kids die of inhaling toxic mold, etc.
Starfish
@Chet Murthy: No, Nick Bano is doing a great job.
We have a local resident (or many local residents) who declared this college town full five seconds after they entered college in the 1970s.
This article is one that they desperately need to read so I was thinking of sneaking it to them like you sneak peas to a toddler by telling them it was by their favorite local insufferable 80 year old who will not stop writing very bad opinion columns in the local paper.
DFH
Anne, great post this morning. Barely able to delve into much post-crap analysis but Tomasky and more are settling on blaming right wing media propaganda, and I think that’s an unavoidable conclusion. Just recognizing that my neighbor might be smart and competent in other ways, and kind too, before I saw he put up a Trump flag. IF teh theory of bad info input is the one to lean on for understanding, then things will have to play out with those consequences we predict. Because I can’t force my neighbor to watch and read and listen to what he doesn’t want to. They’ll have to learn, and everyone will suffer their ignorance.
WereBear
I also wonder if there’s not a lot of self-sorting about the population in red states or blue.
I’m wildly simplifying here, of course, but college educated people are far more mobile in their lives — even if they work at home — because they aren’t planted the way I suspect Trumpers are.
See, when you don’t feel capable of running away from danger, you focus on keeping it away from your town. Those people who love Trump and are generally still within 50 miles of their birthplace?
We met one a while back. She was afraid of an elevator that went up one floor. She said it was the tallest building she’d ever been in.
It was a two story medical building. Or she wouldn’t have left town!
AM in NC
@lowtechcyclist: I had a really sad conversation with my 21-yo son last night. He is very online and a liberal Democrat, but he was feeling HORRIBLE yesterday because of the constant, “white men should all go kill themselves” messages he was seeing online.
He feels like he can’t say ANYTHING for fear of being wrong and attacked. He is trying to figure out how to be an adult, and how to be a man, and he feels like he can’t do anything right in a lot of people’s eyes. And he says he totally gets why that is! He feels guilty for being a white guy. But also shitty for feeling guilty about something he can’t control.
He is terrified that no woman is ever going to want to date him again because what decent woman would even want to talk to a white man – and again he understands why they might feel that way!
We need to do better reaching out to more young white men – we need our Joe Rogan on the left. We need young Tim Walzes to model a non-bro masculinity that is community-and kindness-based, and we need to create real-world alternatives to the online social spaces young men are retreating to. So many of them hate what school is these days, and that isn’t good for them or us.
I know it can seem like we always and only cater to men and their needs/pathologies, but if we continue to ignore this issue, it’s only going to get worse. Testosterone is a helluva drug and dangerous when not directed appropriately.
Starfish
@Baud: This is so true, and it is true in Colorado too. People have resented Californians moving here for decades. There are also a lot of rich Texans owning expensive vacation homes in the ski resort towns.
snoey
@Baud: Montana had a Dem governor from 05 to 21. The current government is a horror show and the super rich are doing all kinds of shit to the environment, but the middle class housing market blew up on it’s own.
WereBear
@Shakti: Your information gave me a warm glow. Revenge is my fuel sometimes, can’t help it.
It’s funny because they brought it on themselves.
Baud
@AM in NC:
Sounds like your kid is the victim of propaganda. I hope you’re able to find some help for him.
Another Scott
+1 on Will’s tweet thing.
I went to middle school in the early ’70s with a guy who, as a young teenager like me, was a very proud Bircher. He gave me a copy of “None Call it Conspiracy” (a takeoff on the earlier “None Call it Treason”). It’s a crazy book that even I could see was nuts. In the first 20 pages or so he says something like , “… some may think that all of these things are coincidences, but that would mean that there have been no less than 11,823 [or something like that] coincidences…” My young head instantly went “NOPE, he’s nuts”.
Tmurp and Musk and Thiel didn’t create this RWNJ stuff. It’s been out there for 250 years or more.
What’s different now is that anyone on the planet can put out some fancy, glossy propaganda that gets amplified by anyone else with no friction at all. And it doesn’t even have to be a human starting it now, with various “AI” contraptions that have little or no cost (to the user, plenty of cost to the planet) to use. One guy can say something provocative, gets rewarded with lots of clicks, and it becomes something that affects the nation (rather than being that drunk guy at the end of the bar that everyone used to ignore).
I don’t know the solution. “Free expression” is a good and important thing. But when the monsters twist that into weapons that are used against us, then it is dangerous to us and our futures.
Maybe some sort of friction needs to be added to the process. In the old days, if you wanted large masses to read or hear your stuff, you had to buy and ad in the paper, put up a billboard, print up flyers. It had a cost. Now, it’s essentially free. Adding a cost to that process would help slow down the bad actors and give space to other viewpoints.
“You want to click on that link to play that horrible video? That will cost you, and the sender’s ISP, $0.10. Ok?”
Yeah, it could be abused and would have to be thought about carefully. And maybe it would never work, but I think we have to think harder and more deeply about how to combat mis- and disinformation in these days of nearly frictionless communications from everywhere into our heads.
Best wishes,
Scott.
superdestroyer
People need to be very careful in using that chart about true and false statements. Yes, crime was higher in 1980 but the violent crime rate did go up 30% in 2020 which the spike starting after the George Floyd murder reaction. In addition, per capita traffic accident deaths went up due to the police decreasing enforcement of traffic laws. And who knows what level of property crime exist today since most businesses do not bother to report property crime to law enforcement and due to Democrats wanting to treat property crimes as an insurance issue rather than a criminal justice tissue.
Yes, inflation slowed in 2024 but inflation was high the first two years of the Biden Administration and the Biden Administration failed to blame Trump or world conditions for the inflation. And increasing federal spending during times of high inflation was a mistake.
And yes, illegal immigration has slowed but the percentage of people living in the U.S. but were born outside the U.S. has never been higher and in many places in the U.S. people have to interact with others who are recent immigrants, cannot speak English, and seem disinterested in assimilation.
Layer8Problem
@WereBear: Yeah, I too am hoping that “Heighten the Contradictions” actually works this time.
Starfish
@AM in NC: Can you explain what you are seeing wrong with school? And when you say something is wrong with school, are you talking about lower ed or upper ed or both?
superdestroyer
@Baud: And what shared culture would that be. There is no TV show, movie, book, sporting event that even 50% of Americans experience.
schrodingers_cat
OT: From Inktober Day#8, Hike
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Racism is just an excuse on which people the rest of us can drive out into the blizzard to freeze to death, and not feel guilty afterwards.
You all like to cite the NAZIS, well the NAZIS targeted the Jews because they knew from WWI Germany was going to have a good shortage in the next war when the Royal Navy started its’ blockade, so ,the NAZI logic was, this time it will be the Jews who will do the starving, not the good Germans. Never mind the obvious point “how about not having a war?”.
Racism is the symptom, not the disease. So, what is the disease?
Sounds to me like affordable housing is something we can reach a lot of those people with. It secular, so it’s not something they will start whining just favors one group.
Starfish
@superdestroyer: Increasing federal spending during a global pandemic kept people from starving. Food prices went up, but fewer people starved when everyone was laid off. There were some companies trying to soak up the extra money, and then they hit “Hey, we can’t continue with the shrinkflation, why is that?” later on. They couldn’t continue because people did not have the extra SNAP benefits.
Zelma
I’ve been a rabid news junkie ever since I retired 17 years ago – that’s when I discovered Balloon Juice. Before then, I was just a normal news junkie. In the wake of Tuesday’s bombshell, I have decided to limit my visits to Balloon Juice, the Bulwark, Josh Marshall and Heather Cox Richardson. I’m not sure how I’ll fill my time now; perhaps I’ll find my crochet needles somewhere. Does anyone need a scarf?
Seriously, I’ve done little but ponder why this happened. I live in a very red county of a blue state in an upper middle class resort community, so I know Trump voters. I think very few of my acquaintances are into the crazy reaches of the web. (We’re old and often not that computer savvy.) But what they do is watch Fox News and that is all that is necessary to convince them of the evils of the Democrats. They also listen to the pastor at the local Catholic Church and they hear regularly about the evils of abortion, which easily transfers to the evil of Democrats.
If you leave the island and venture into the wilds of Cape May County where the “regular” folks live, you have not only Fox News (blaring from every TV in every waiting room), but also talk radio which has become a cesspool of anti-liberal hate talk. And then, you drive down Rt. 9, and you will see one “evangelical” church after another, all of them teaching about the evils of the “liberal” agenda.
This is not to say that there aren’t folks who have fallen into some of the wilder conspiracy theories out there. But my point is, people can become Trump devotees simply by watching Fox News and listening to talk radio and their pastors.
oldgold
No, the idiots are pols who don’t know that high food prices are a ticket for losing, at a minimum, your political power and in some cases your head. (See the French Revolution)
As much as anything, this election was lost in grocery checkout lanes.
AM in NC
@K-Mo: Yep, we need a year-round, every day, multi-pronged cultural campaign, completely un-related to elections explicitly. This isn’t about an election, is’s about who we are as people – the messaging needs to be about that. And we need to use THEIR cultural signifiers to peel them away from each other.
Jesus and his message tied to liberals/Dems
Strong male figures and their messages tied to liberalism/Dems
Moms and their messages tied to liberalism/Dems
Rich people and their messages tied to liberalism/Dems
WereBear
@AM in NC: All we can do is our best, in any case. He’s doing all the right things to find the people who will fit him by so doing. And be able to do many of the things he wants to do.
Even at that age, they might need help to focus at any positive. In the midst of this real crisis, he still shouldn’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
He won’t have to be perfect. That’s a lot of pressure!
Baud
@superdestroyer:
Maybe nothing. But that helps keep the right strong, because they’re offering something.
schrodingers_cat
@Zelma: The mainstream media/prestige media did not cover Biden admin favorably either. Its easy to just blame the RW media echo chamber but they are only a part of the problem.
TBone
@K-Mo: PA Senator Bob Casey not going down without a fight, still will not concede. My characteristically understated, elegant, gentlemanly Senator is an inspiration.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@oldgold: I agree with that, and I will point out – deporting all the people who pick the crops, turn it into food than ends up on a store shelf isn’t going to bring those prices down.
Perhaps looking a lot at the high food costs, how to bring it down might be a good opportunity. I would rather suspect no one in Trump’s admin even gives a shit about food prices.
TBone
@WereBear: 💜
My favoriteOne of my many favorites of hisMom and Dad kept a library in our home, and Mom had a shelf devoted to him.
Ramona
@K-Mo: I was hoping for this even before the election when I thought Harris-Walz should prevail. Their campaign organization should not be stood down. I donated to her newly named organization on Thursday in response to her email which included words from her concession speech.
schrodingers_cat
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Racism and bigotry are not going to be cured with affordable housing and cheap groceries.
If that were the case Trump and Musk wouldn’t be racist they are not hurting for housing or groceries.
Baud
Concur on the permanent campaign against Republicans. That’s what they do and it’s effective.
JML
@oldgold: you’re not wrong. the actual prices of food matched up closely enough to the FauxNews rhetoric, making it easier to for people to buy into the other “scary” bits on crime and immigration. You’d be amazed how many people living in the suburbs and exurbs are afraid of going into “the big city” downtowns now and think that they’re much more likely to be a victim of a crime now than 5-10 years ago. Or how many people who will now blow up an interaction with a homeless person into a terrifying near-death experience that gets repeated all through their social circle…and reinforces the fear-mongering about crime going on on places like FauxNews.
Misinformation and fear are a dangerous combination.
Nukular Biskits
With reference to Tom Nichols above, there have been lot of analyses about the election; i.e., what Harris did wrong, what Trump did right.
Almost none of it touches how a significant portion of the American electorate is comprised of people who refuse be informed or who chose to hate.
No way to sugarcoat it: These are not “good people”.
I really hate saying it and admitting it and it goes against my nature. I am by no means the only person pointing this out but those people just can’t be reached, they can’t be reasoned with, they will never consider anything that doesn’t comport to their beliefs America should return to a time where only certain people (white men) ran everything and everyone else was 2nd class citizens … or worse.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Big drama among the families of the Vietnamese I work with is they have realities who demand their kids don’t have “American” friends, which both outrages the Vietnamese who have assimilated, with a lot of “go back, if you think Vietnam is so terrific” and unenforceable with their kids because of simple human nature.
TBone
@John S.: someone here said yesterday that the tariffs will be used as bribes to curry favor. Like the withholding of federal disaster emergency assistance to blue states or making PPE available only to the highest bidders.
Xavier
Democrats go on and on about what you should hope for. Republicans go on and on about what you should be afraid of. Apparently it’s easier to motivate people with fear than it is with hope.
New Deal democrat
@oldgold:
Since you will probably get flak for this, let me just say that your point is valid.
I liked Joe Biden. In fact, except for the passage of the ACA, I think he was a better President on policy than Obama (granted, bigly: he had the experience of seeing how 2009-12 panned out). I think Harris ran a nearly flawless campaign.
That being said, Biden’s apparent nonchalance about high inflation (and the Fed’s tardy and extreme reaction thereto) always bothered me. i think it probably was just in his disposition not to be “hair on fire” about anything.
TBone
@WereBear: now that’s a flat earther!
Quinerly
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Lots of unhoused issues and high rents here in Santa Fe. Lots of Rightwingers discussing it on social media. Living in the inner city of St. Louis for 40 years, I am very used to seeing the unhoused. The issues here are newer, though. I totally understand that if you aren’t used to seeing guys and gals on medians at stop lights, it can be jarring. But so much blaming the homeless and vitriol, though (and for some reason lots of hatefulness about the unhoused with dogs. Some are convinced they are stealing pets).
Chris
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Oh good. We’re at the “you people talking about racism is just like what the Nazis did to the Jews” stage of mental gymnastics.
WereBear
@JML: It also makes them the star of the movie in their heads.
If they need narcissistic fuel, it will be Hell Comes to Frogtown out there, to each other.
I think the WWE is certainly where Trump learned what his fans call showmanship, which was after all run by abusers and traffickers who exploited the talent.
Hulk Hogan was a cultural ambassador. We all live in Rhinoceros now.
Quinerly
@New Deal democrat:
Truth
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@schrodingers_cat: Again, you all just like to cite NAZIS, back to the failed Austrian Painter. Anti-Semite has been a thing in Germany since the Medieval period, and flares up with times are bad. Like, say the entire country was starving like in the winter of 1918/19.
Racism is like anthrax, it’s endemic looking for an opportunity when people are weak.
Zelma
@schrodingers_cat:
Oh, exactly. The main stream media played a significant role in all this which is why I no longer subscribe to the NYT or the Post. It’s obvious. While comparatively few people still read newspapers, they do set the information agenda and the constant undermining of the Biden administration gave legitimacy to the more extreme opponents. And it was the headlines that really skewed things because that’s often the only thing that people saw.
Baud
Good time to remind ourselves that high prices didn’t prevent black voters from voting for their country in the way they always do.
artem1s
sorry this where they always lose me. my MAGAt family members had exactly the same education opportunities I did. My brother was the first to graduate college and went on to get an MBA. He is more well off than almost anyone I know in his peer group except those who were born into wealth.
the real difference between us is 1) I love to read. And 2) our peer group changed when I went to grad school and then moved to an urban, diverse area. I stopped consuming TV news and advertising. I haven’t watched a full hour of TV news since the 1990s. Comedy news like The Daily Show and even John Oliver just don’t satisfy me. I’ve always consumed my news and educated myself via the written word. When I search for instructions on google and get a list of 5 minute videos as answers to a one or two step solution to a problem (where is that fucking setting in excel MS decided to hide in this upgrade) it drives me crazy. Conversely when I need detailed step-by-step video to see how to do something, half the time the makers skip the important parts because they are focus on results and not process. That also makes me crazy.
The hard fact of the matter is people are lazy and easily bored by fact based, long form media. They want home runs and touchdowns not defense. Xhitter became popular for a reason. Skinner reward based education was popular for a reason. And it worked. We have a whole generation of people who know how to press the right bar in the fewest steps possible to get to the food pellet in the fastest way. They get their fix, their little upvote, and move on to the next dopamine rush.
You cannot educate a populous with snippets and sound bites. You have to teach people how to learn before they can be successful at learning. You can’t learn to learn or love learning if you fear failing. Or if you are allowed to opt out of solving complex problems and don’t have to ever learn how to consume and comprehend long form media. And you will fail to learn complex things if you have no ability to develop an attention span or eagerness to learn.
Being educated is NOT the problem. Not being able to HEAR or accept complex solutions or detailed instructions is the problem.
WereBear
@TBone: That’s my first LOL since it happened. Namaste.
Layer8Problem
@Baud: The secret? Recognizing who the bad guys are.
New Deal democrat
@superdestroyer:
As I pointed out in the thread below, the CBO estimated that about 5-6 immigrants entered the country in 2022-23. That is simply huge. Since the beginning of human history, that kind of mass migration has always spawned a backlash.
Source: cbo.gov/publication/60569
(scroll down for graph)
snoey
@WereBear: Not all Trumpers. A Montana newspaper did a dive into the stats and previously registered Republicans out moved in the Democrats by 3:2.
Ramona
@AM in NC: This. MSM, Fox News and rightwing social media are a year round campaign untethered to any imminent election and we need the same on our side.
Nukular Biskits
My apologies.
I have gotten out of the habit of greeting everyone (including Baud🤣) with “Good mornin’, y’all!” before I post anything else.
Lemme get some more coffee to take the edge off the crud I’ve picked up from the others and to de-grump me a little.
schrodingers_cat
@superdestroyer: What exactly does disinterested in assimilation mean?
Zelma
@Xavier:
This!!!!! “Democrats go on and on about what you should hope for. Republicans go on and on about what you should be afraid of. Apparently it’s easier to motivate people with fear than it is with hope.”
I don’t watch much TV except for sports but I’m in the Philly market so saw enough ads to get a feeling for what was going on. My overall sense was simple: Republican ads were dark and ominous and Democratic ads were in lovely color. (Since I turned off the sound as soon as a political ad came on, I actually don’t know what the ads said.)
TBone
@artem1s: 🎯
Nukular Biskits
What to do?
You’re never going to reach these folks. They’re always going to vote against their best interests, refuse to educate themselves on actual, issues and they’re going to use ballot box to codify their prejudices.
AM in NC
@Starfish: Well, we have seen a consistent trend line with girls and women increasingly doing better in elementary and secondary school and women are far outpacing men in college these days.
I volunteer at a local elementary school, and, in general, girls are just better at how we do school now. They can sit longer, are more focused, are more verbally communicative, can keep their hands to themselves, etc. A lot of these differences are developmental differences and matters of timing, boys get there eventually, but girls usually first, but we expect (most) boys to be developing at the rate (most) girls do.
And the teaching staff in schools is OVERWHELMINGLY female. I think one of the best things we could do for our nation is to double teacher pay so men will enter the field. Having elementary and middle schools stocked with both male and female teachers would be potentially HUGE for boys and for undoing patriarchy.
Under-educated men are a problem in every nation. Their economic limitations inevitably lead to violence when there are enough of them in bad enough shape. We need to do a better job with boys in school so they don’t all become prey to Joe Rogan and Elon Musk and Rupert Murdoch and Pope Francis et al.
TBone
@WereBear: 🩷☯️🙂↕️
Dorothy A. Winsor
There’s a guy on tiktok who’s plans to quote promises Trump made and show how they’re not kept. He started with Trump saying that within 24 hours of being elected, he would end the war in Ukraine. He has the audio of Trump saying exactly that. Most replies cheer the poster on, but a few people are protesting that Trump meant within 24 hours of being inaugurated. That’s not what he said.
Quinerly
Probably not a lot of new info here. I do like charts, though.
npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/11/08/nx-s1-5184539/trump-election-abortion-votes-harris
Chris
@Zelma:
“Few people read newspapers” also undersells how many people are aware of what they put out.
Do low-infos read the newspaper? No. Do they see the headlines when they’re walking into the grocery store? Yes. Do low-infos choose to watch CNN at home when they could be watching Netflix instead? No. Do they still see it in the doctor’s waiting room? Yes. Do low-infos seek out political stories in any media at all? No. Do they still get to hear the highlights from other people who have, even at second or third or fourth hand? Yes.
bbleh
@lowtechcyclist: concur. So far as I can tell, the people whining about being disrespected by the libruls, insofar as it’s true are being disrespected because they are overt bigots &/or unwilling to acknowledge verifiable facts. And in any case, indulging their bigotry or their fantasies wouldn’t make them any less resentful.
They’re like pouty teenagers. Except a lot of teenagers grow out of it
And in any case, the party of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, and of the New Deal and the Great Society, is just not gonna meet a bunch of racist, xenophobic, homophobic, misogynist, emotionally underdeveloped anger junkies halfway. And if not doing that makes me a Purity Pony, then sign me up.
Nukular Biskits
Time to read all the comments … y’all slow down!
Quinerly
@Baud:
For the most part, Black voters see the bigger picture. I guess that’s obvious.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@TBone: And deporting people who annoy the administration. Government will be used selectively to reward and punish.
Starfish
@AM in NC: I have seen the part about the expectation that kids sit down. This is why they will identify male giftedness and ADHD so quickly and practically ignore girls with similar issues. The girls are not causing trouble when they are struggling in those ways.
I am in a nice school district so about half my child’s elementary school teachers were men, and he has had some male middle school teachers too. In middle school he has had male science teachers all three years. His librarian is a man, and he has several other male teachers.
We just toured the high school, and they have a bicycle mechanic class where they take apart and reassemble a whole bike.
Quinerly
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Tariffs will be used to reward and punish.
Nukular Biskits
@Baud:
That shared culture on the right includes a willingness to attack or outright ostracize members who don’t conform.
Not saying “the left” (which is an ambiguous term) doesn’t do that but “the left) isn’t as rigid in its ideology or in enforcing it against “heretics”.
Plus … while we have our favs, I think it’s safe to say that we really don’t have anything comparable to the Cult of Trump.
sab
@schrodingers_cat: Immigrants are ” disinterested in assimilation” !?! Sez who? I call BS.
The only immigrants I know who are not intensely interested in assimilating are Anglophone Canadians. Every other immigrant I know is working hard to learn English, learn to like our food, learn our customs, figure out our laws, our banking, our cars.
They may have family issues when their kids assimilate too fast, but that is not the same as failing to assimilate.
bbleh
@sab: concur. Lived in CA for decades and saw it. Heard it remarked that “the most ‘American’ people I know are the children and grandchildren of immigrants.”
Also too, lower crime rates per capita than native-born Americans.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: One of my great grandmothers who was born in the 1880’s and was the third generation of her family in the US grew up in a German speaking community. My grandmother’s first language was German. My mom grew up in a home with her grandparent (my grandfather bought the house his in-laws went renting the top floor of because his in-laws were poor). When she was growing up, German was spoken a lot. She understood it but never learned to speak it. Assimilation can take generations. People botching about it can yet themselves into the son.
Did you notice that that commenter conflated legal and illegal immigration?
beckya57
My Spousal Unit and I are both old and childless also, and we are also grateful for that. One of my brothers said yesterday he’s glad they have only one grandchild. I remember when my husband and I were talking back in the ‘80’s about whether to try for children. That was during Reagan of course, and we did not like what we saw happening even then, eg the attacks on government agencies and welfare, and the dismantling of the mechanisms restraining wealth accumulation (progressive taxes, antitrust, estate tax etc). We were convinced the US was going down a path towards oligarchy, and that figured in our decision to remain childless (not the only reason by any means, but it was a factor). And I think subsequent events have shown that was a good decision, unfortunately.
sab
@Omnes Omnibus: My grandmother grew up in a town in Wisconsin (born 1895). Her mother was a Canadian Scot. Her father was born in America to Irish immigrants. Grandma spoke fluent German because that is what the neighbors all spoke. Who was assimilating there? Grandma sure did.
ETA Everyone in that town could speak English. German only died out after two world wars
ETA I still have her cookbook put out by the local ladies. So much good German pastry.
AM in NC
@Starfish: I am in a great school district in NC (the one where UNC professors’ kids go and with great test scores), and there is one, ONE male teacher in the elementary school I volunteer in. My two boys had ZERO male teachers in elementary school and one male teacher in middle school (science for one and history for the other son) and those were their favorite teachers.
Maybe you live in a blue state where teacher pay is higher? In NC our GOP-dominated General Assembly is choking off public education.
WereBear
@Dorothy A. Winsor: See? They live in their heads now.
Didn’t even need the Matrix.
I must admit, I had no idea the capacity of the human mind included this, without all those science fiction trappings.
Chief Oshkosh
I don’t think it will matter at all if “The Republican Party” completely disappears. I don’t think very many of the Trump voters think of themselves as being in a political party as traditionally understood. Hell, look at results in Michigan — not only had their state Republican Party disintegrated, the factions were physically beating on each other.
No, we’re already living in a time where the Republican Party is whatever Fox et al. says it is, and this can change hourly…and that’s not hyperbole.
Second, the argument that there are too many ideas out there and that that resulted in people picking and choosing the lazy ones, the ones that confirmed biases, may be true within a very tiny, tight, self-referencing pingpong ball of an argument, but what it misses is the sea that it’s floating about it, and that sea’s name is spelled M-O-N-E-Y and it’s been rising since Limbaugh and Fox in the 90s (Tomasky noted this yesterday at The New Republic). Sure, there may be a bazillion “ideas” out there (if that’s what you want to call hot-takes), but the billionaires spent and continue to spend a lot of money to ensure that only those that benefit them get repeated and amplified.
I think the second issue, the media issue, has resulted in a post-party political world, at least for those who voted for Trump. The globs between the ears of over half of the voters simply do not reflect reality. Within glob-reality, those people are making good, sound, logical choices. There is no need for a political party to campaign for policies or candidates when the choice is so blindingly obvious…in glob-reality.
Further, we’ve gone beyond just Trump as a cult leader. If Trump executes on even a tiny part of his shitty “ideas,” the economy will tank (again). However, the billionaire-driven media will present glob-reality in such a way as to further benefit them. This glob-reality may be simply that the bad Biden policies are still playing out and that prosperity is just around the corner, which is the likely play early on. Then, when things continue to get worse, the glob-reality will be that Trump is failing (yep, I think that’s as likely as other scenarios). They’ll play it as the Savior gave his last full measure to defeat the evil libtards, but hey, he’s old and should be allowed to rest and relax in his silvering (oranging) final years.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
Sallycat
This may have been mentioned above, but the Tampa Bay Times has an article in which nine people explain why they voted from Trump. Basically, they believe the lies.
Starfish
@AM in NC: Yes, our teacher pay is relatively high.
Another Scott
@Omnes Omnibus: +1
No time to dig up the numbers now, but my recollection is that a large fraction of the good economic growth the US has had recently is directly due to immigrants. Motivated people working drives economic activity. It’s hard to think of anyone more motivated than people who leave their homes, friends, support networks behind to start a new life in a new country…
And it’s a big reason why the US economy has done better than those of other rich nations post-pandemic.
Closing the border will hurt the US economy and economic growth, even before one thinks about kicking people out. It’s just math. People need to understand the benefits and the costs of big policies like this. Reality always gets a vote.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
frosty
I agree. I’ve canvassed every Presidential election since 2004 and unfortunately after every one (except maybe 2008-2012) the previous organization walked away and we started from scratch.
I’ve heard the reason that PA Dems are always behind the 8-ball is that we relied on unions for the organization and once they disappeared nobody else picked up the slack.
Nukular Biskits
@Another Scott:
I don’t disagree with anything you said in that quote and the rest of your post … but we’ve already seen ample, cold-reality evidence that many people simply won’t accept any such understanding or even try to wrap their heads around it.
Chris
@sab:
@bbleh:
Thirded.
Also, you know, while there are immigrants who won’t assimilate, because there are a few idiots in all groups, your average whitebread American-born American is never going to meet any of them. You know why? Because they’re not interested in assimilating! They’ll spend their whole life leaving you completely alone, because you’re not like them. We do not have a goddamn national epidemic of Haitian immigrants knocking on hapless white people’s doors, shoving cell phones in their faces, and demanding that they press one for English.
Chief Oshkosh
@TBone: This is very, very true in my experience. Many of these gray-rock MAGAs (or functional equivalents) exist in CDC, USDA, VA, and FDA have been there since Shrub. I have to deal with some of them. Quietly horrid human beings.
Another Scott
@Nukular Biskits: Things don’t change until they do.
We have to keep trying.
Best wishes,
Scott.
lowtechcyclist
@Starfish:
I’d be good with that. I’m skeptical as to how much it would do to solve the problem, but as a first step, it’s worth a try.
Is there a way to do this at a national level, though? The only route I can see would be to raise the property taxes on single family homes that weren’t owner-occupied. And that would obviously be a county-by-county thing.
But ISTM that this would be part of the solution, not part of the problem. There’s a shortage of housing where the jobs are, but there’s plenty of housing in rural towns where there are few jobs. Obviously, a lot of people cannot work remotely, but if people whose jobs can be done remotely are allowed to, that gives them the freedom to move to where housing is cheaper. Last year when I was still working at the Census Bureau and they were still ‘reimagining’ the HQ building, I had colleagues who’d moved to Connecticut, Texas, and Oregon, and were working from there.
@Chet Murthy:
That article, in arguing that that should work here, makes the point that the U.S. has more housing units (HUs) per capita than in the past. One problem with that is that the real measure would be HUs per household, and households are smaller than they used to be: there are a lot more childless couples and people living alone than there used to be.
The other problem, as I noted above, is that where the HUs are and where the jobs are don’t always match up well. We may have enough HUs on a national level but still have serious shortages in many metro areas.
So while I’m all for taxing the crap out of single-family rentals, I think it’s more likely to just somewhat ease the housing situation rather than solve the problem. Too many cities just need more housing, and ideally that would be more dense housing (apartments and condos) closer to the center city.
frosty
I don’t think the right had anything comparable to the Cult of Trump before he came along. I mean, wearing diapers outside of your pants to show solidarity? Nixon didn’t get that. Even Reagan didn’t get that!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Hildebrand:
Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!
Being able to reach them better? I just read the TNR piece linked to yesterday about “the media environment”. Interesting and depressing:
Its the ones who sat out this election that we’ve got to figure out.
TBone
@Dorothy A. Winsor: no doubt about it, in an even more intrusive manner than last time.
I refuse to be shocked or awed into submission. I will not go numb or turn away. I will use my own body my way, if necessary, to DISSENT.
Nukular Biskits
@Another Scott:
Agreed. The problem is what should we try.
Appeals to reason, evidence-based arguments and plain common decency aren’t working. I don’t like what that leaves but I can’t escape the inevitable conclusion that a large part of the American public is ignorant and/or stupid (which are two different things) and/or hateful.
khead
@Baud:
This is a pretty good comment. I’ve been living with this for years (church going blue guy, red county) and see it up close. I think I could write a book about it. It’s a little more than “It’s Fox stupid” – although it is Fox to start. It’s that the Fox World is an entire ecosystem that gets reinforced throughout daily life. I see all the things Tom Nichols talks about and I have no idea how to penetrate that bubble without some maybe SERIOUS hardship for everyone. I say SERIOUS because a fucking pandemic that shut down the country, killed 2 million people and bankrupt every fracking well from Pittsburgh to El Paso wasn’t enough – and, even worse, the only thing these folks remember from the whole escapade is CHEAP GAS.
jowriter
@schrodingers_cat: I think that is a very good assessment of what went on before the election re our economy and the real state of things on the ground. A bullhorn of bs and a piccolo’s worth of truth from our “trusted media sources.” Thank you.
Tony G
The majority of American voters chose fascism this year because: a) They support fascism and/or b) They are astonishingly stupid. One Weird Trick (or a dozen Weird Tricks) in the Harris campaign would not have made a damn bit of difference. Even if Harris had run on a fascist agenda it would not have mattered because the voters wanted the real thing. I have no answers. The “experts” who are currently bloviating about the election have no goddamn answers either.
TBone
@Chief Oshkosh: 😔🤬🔥
I had a conversation with my Dad during the Dubya years on this exact topic and added in the PTSD of the soldiers lucky enough to be returning but to no medical care.
I miss my Antifa, ex-cop, anti-racist, ‘Nam vet Dad so fuckin’ much these days it almost makes me wilt.
But I am not a petite flower and because of him I will fight this to the death.
When I found out my new (Korean emigree) dentist is Antifa ex-military yesterday, in lieu of kissing him on the mouth with my numb lips, I came home and cooked Thanksgiving dinner.
I’m making turkey Bobbie hoagies today! Capriotti’s style!
Nukular Biskits
@frosty:
I’ll quibble about whether there was a Cult of Reagan but, if it did actually exist, the members weren’t totally lost in it.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Baud:
Didn’t really think about it from that perspective but you’re right.
Cleek’s Law and an incredible right-wing-noise machine are tough tides to swim against. And racism. And misogyny.
superdestroyer
@Starfish: But the increased spending continued along after vaccinations were available for everyone. Past the summer of 2021 there was no need for economic stimulus.
sab
@Omnes Omnibus: There was no tv then. Grandma grew up in Wisconsin in a British/Irish family and could speak German fluently. I still know some of her German insults about my faults in sewing.
My Ohio parents moved us all over the South in my childhood, and I was constantly having to adjust my accent (North Carolina to Kentucky to northern Florida.) Now it seems Southerners no longer have Southern accents.
Trivia: to Southerners of my generation Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton have completely different accents.
narya
@Baud: And that’s where our diversity can serve us well: different people/outlets can focus on different aspects, ALL opposing the Rs. Harris, Walz, the Dem governors, etc., can lead in pulling it together.
khead
@waspuppet
This is what is going to annoy the shit out of me. I spent all summer watching these folks complain on FB and IRL about the price of eggs and how they can’t afford anything…… in between posting pics and telling stories of their vacations. They will all turn on a dime fast than an NFL CB to claim how great things are now. One guy actually complained about how bad things are out there…. a couple of days after posting trips of a family trip to Costa Rica. I gave him some simple advice since it’s so bad, “More couponing! Less Costa Rica!” Then he changed to “well, I’m worried for my kids”. To which I responded “If it’s that bad for your kids try giving them some cash instead of Costa Rica!” End of conversation.
Eunicecycle
@Nukular Biskits: the saddest thing to me was realizing there are not more of us than there are of them.
Edited to be less nasty.
superdestroyer
@schrodingers_cat: Americans are thinking of the media interviews with Hispanics who have been in the U.S. more than a decade and still cannot speak English. To the U.S. men’s soccer team being booed while playing in the U.S. due to immigrants remaining loyal to their country of citizenship. To the immigrants who use terms like “my country” when referring to their place of birth.
Chris
@Nukular Biskits:
The simplest play, and exactly the one Republicans would go for? Just do the same thing all over again. And again. Voter fatigue, goldfish memories, and incumbent-blaming guarantee you’ll be back in a few election cycles regardless. And then you change everything you can before you’re voted out again.
Now, it may be that this is the turning point and there are no more real elections after this because fascism. But if that’s true then it doesn’t matter what we try, electorally speaking.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Fucking AirBnB is a pox on a lot of levels. And yes, a lot of big-city, touron destinations in Europe are taking very concrete steps to get rid of them.
The problem here in the states is that a lot of the restrictive regulations are easily get-aroundable and/or never enforced. Denver is the poster child for that.
Another problem here is that AirBnB and other short-term rental groups (but mainly them) are *big* donors to pro-developer groups and their big city mayors and city council types. Big. It’s in their best interest to get “their” people into offices in such cities as to stop what actual residents want: to get fucking AirBnB the fuck outta neighborhoods.
superdestroyer
@New Deal democrat: A flawless campaign would have one given that the Democrats had won the popular votes five out of the last six elections. That Harris had to be carefully managed when dealing with the media shows that the campaign was not flawless.
Chris
@TBone:
Your dad sounds like a badass.
sab
@TBone: All the actual soldier families I know were
thrilledvastly relieved when we pulled out of Afghanistan. We were there for a generation, losing people, to what purpose exactly?Tony G
@Nukular Biskits: I was in my mid-twenties/early thirties during the Reagan epoch and, yes, it was different. Reagan had a lot of supporters (even in “liberal” New York City) because he told people the lies that they wanted to hear, but these wasn’t the kind of religious devotion that Trump has somehow engendered. I was a teenager during the Nixon administration that was cut short by Watergate, and that an another kind of dynamic. Nixon supporters tended to think that he was “an asshole, but out asshole” because he would crack down on the blacks and the hippies. The cult of Trump is something different and moe insane.
waspuppet
@Shalimar: I think you might be underestimating their, um, flexibility. “We were a shithole country in December, we were great again in January and now in July eggs are $32 a dozen because Elizabeth Warren went to a Pride parade” is no problem for them. Cf. the South.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Baud:
Which in itself isn’t correct. It’s a talking point that originally came out of an astroturf group founded in CA and primarily funded by Theil.
Here’s a more recent graph on the issue:
twitter.com/NotoriousAirbnb/status/1846608997593575632
superdestroyer
Democrats need to go back and reread the first edition of the “The Two-Income Trap” by Elizabeth Warren and really try to take away some lessons from it. The Democrats should stop doing any policy that makes it harder to afford a home in a “good neighborhood” with a “good school.”
Omnes Omnibus
@superdestroyer: Loads of horseshit.
Tony G
@sab: Yes. And the fact that the Afghan “leadership” fled or collapsed within days showed that the top U.S. military officers had lied about the success of their mission.
RevRick
@Baud:
@narya:
The first question I think we need to ask ourselves is “what is working class culture?” And I think Tex Sample answered that question over forty years ago when he said that since the working class has little expectation of getting the coin of the realm ($), they settle for its cheap alternative: respectability .
Respectability is an inherently conservative bent, because it manifests itself in three ways—
A well-ordered home. Is it neat and tidy? Is the lawn mowed? Are the kids properly clothed?
A well-ordered family. Are the children well-behaved? Do the adults behave well in public? Are they sober?
A well-ordered community. Are the schools functioning? Are community institutions being preserved? Is social conflict being held to a minimum?
Having served a working class church, I know how much policing of behavior takes place through things like gossip. But a lot of the change in social mores has upset the apple cart since the 60s, threatening all three of those values.
It’s not surprising that Rush Limbaugh got traction with his smears about feminazis. The reigning ideology of working class households was that dad was the breadwinner and mom managed the home. But now all sorts of wild cards has turned these expectations on their heads. For many in the working class, the world has become unhinged.
We need to develop a convincing narrative about how the progressive project strengthens homes, families and communities; that we seek to build, not destroy.
White working class males have been on a downward arc since 1973, not only in terms of their economic prospects, but also in terms of their personal power and authority. And they’re acting like wounded bulls in response.
sab
@superdestroyer: Who says she was carefully managed? Or that she needed to be? So she wouldn’t give an interview to the f… New York Times. If she had would that have helped her? I have doubts.
Baud
@sab: Long time right wing troll.
sab
@RevRick: You always have such useful takes on life and things.
sab
@Baud: Are you saying me bad for feeding?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@AM in NC:
Yup, the 40+ year GOP War on Public Education continues apace. It’s what allows for an electorate to vote for somebody like Hair Furor: an ignorant population is an easier controllable one.
No Nym
@artem1s: “Being educated is NOT the problem. Not being able to HEAR or accept complex solutions or detailed instructions is the problem.”
Very true. Public schools actually reinforce the shattering of attention by ringing a bell every 50 minutes and moving everyone around. We build no tolerance for thinking and paying attention. Our media environment has only made it worse. Even here, I can not follow any single conversation to find it satisfying because I like to read each comment and think about what someone is saying and how it resonates with me or not. It is hard to participate in American life if you are a thoughtful, deliberative person more inclined toward a book than a football game.
Phylllis
@khead: This! Family vacations to Disney, or cruises, or other major outings, but eggs are too expensive. A co-worker was complaining about grocery prices earlier in the year, but shut the hell up when I asked how much their 10-person trip to Jacksonville for a week to see Clemson play in the Gator Bowl cost.
Baud
@RevRick:
Easier said than done. This feeds into my longstanding complaint, however, that we tend to emphasize problems we haven’t solved instead of promoting how we make things better for people. If I started reading liberal commentary with no prior background understanding, would I leave with the impression that we had something positive to offer regular folks? I’m not so sure.
different-church-lady
Well, let’s see here, they won’t vote for a black woman, and they won’t vote for an old white man if he’s a Democrat, so… what else we got to experiment with?
sab
@Tony G: My husband has a theory about so little blowback from Trump insulting the military. Trump only insults officers, mostly generals and admirals, and only insults enlisted folks of color.
Lots of retired enlisted folks dislike the officer class.
TBone
@Eunicecycle: oh but that’s not the case. Losing an election did not make our (percentage of the population) numbers somehow fewer. We outnumber, outflank, and will constantly outmaneuver the idiots. I’m not saying we won’t get our hair mussed, but they don’t have the numbers.
They just cry louder, longer, and harder.
Phylllis
@No Nym: Schooling is operated for the convenience of adults. Education is about what’s best for kids. Good luck getting most of the adults who run schools to start from that premise.
different-church-lady
Democrat wins: gun sales skyrocket
Republican wins: abortion pill sales skyrocket
Nukular Biskits
@Eunicecycle:
I’m not saying that some of us on “the left” (again, WTF that is) can’t be rigid and unaccepting, choosing conspiracy theories over evidence-based facts.
But, FFS, what has happened on “the right” in this country is well beyond that now.
different-church-lady
@TBone:
Yeah.
We just don’t seem to out-vote them.
Another Scott
@superdestroyer:
Governments exists to do the big things that individuals and smaller groups cannot do.
It takes years to spin up actions on big projects. It takes years to spend the money.
I’ve mentioned before that a line item in the FY24 federal budget (generally) has to be “obligated” by 9/30/2024. But the actual spending of the money – cutting the check from the US Treasury – can happen up to 2 years later (because of the rules in the FAR, the amount of time it takes to get quotes, the amount of time it takes to evaluate contract proposals, the amount of time it takes to build the stuff, the amount of time it takes to evaluate whether the thing delivered actually meets the contract, etc., etc.)
Trying to spend just the right amount of stimulus to rescue the economy and the people does not and cannot work. Data always lags. We don’t know if something worked or not until a year or two later.
One has to go big or it doesn’t work.
My $0.02.
Best wishes,
Scott.
No Nym
@Tony G: Exactly right!
different-church-lady
@Phylllis: Ask ’em how much the luxury SUV and the pick-up truck with nothing in the bed cost.
Nukular Biskits
@Chris:
As someone who values facts, evidence, context (you got the picture), I really have a problem with distilling an issue down to a 4 or 5 word talking point to repeat. I am an engineer, after all, and engineers love complex problems (and have a tendency to make overly-complex things).
But … repetition of simple points, EVEN WHEN THEY ARE OUTRIGHT LIES, is apparently that “one weird trick” that works with so many voters.
different-church-lady
@Tony G:
If the only solution to beating fascists is to become fascists then what’s the point?
JML
@AM in NC: They are going to need to raise teacher pay even higher even in the Blue States where they somewhat fund public education, because the profession is in crisis. Retention of teachers is is getting scary and college students are selecting away from the profession. And who can blame them? Why would you want to be a teacher these days? We expect teachers to parent kids while also attacking them for doing so, we expect them to hit every education marker or be tarred and feathered while having to manage all of the socialization aspects as well as navigating increasingly difficult discipline situations.
It’s brutally hard to be a teacher, especially in poorer districts. And we’ve made it harder for them to retire, so you have teachers desperately trying to hang on even though they’re burned out and know they’re no longer capable of giving their best. All while crapping on them on the daily.
Being a principal is equally dreadful: you literally have no friends you can count on now. You’re getting beat up by teachers, students, parents, administration, and your own school boards. (I have a close friend who is an excellent principal, loves teaching and education, and will probably have to quit in the next year because it’s ruining his health. When your doctor tells you that it doesn’t matter how much you’re making because you’re going to be dead if you can’t bring your blood pressure under control…uh-oh.)
And the more we screw up in public education now, it has cascading effects for life. It impacts everything.
My university started as a Normal School, a teacher’s college. Education has been a core component for it’s whole existence. But it’s diminished greatly, not because the program isn’t good, but because so many fewer students want to be teachers. Arts education allowed us to have a nice music & theatre program for decades, and they’re all going away, because the schools aren’t recruiting band & orchestra directors or running drama programs in middle & high school. Can’t sustain small performance programs without the music education people filling in the ranks.
TBone
@Chris: he was absolutely the most badass person I ever had to fight. I learned to fight dirty at a very young age. I can’t hear this song, my tribute to him, without gloating with pride and simultaneously crying. It is literally the story of my life – we left my Jewish bio dad when I was 3, and my (step)Dad who adopted me dropped me off in front of a law office when I was 17 or 18, growling “Go in there and get a job.”
🎶
m.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z1Ple-qYuU
When he quit being a cop, he went back to school and became a college professor of American history AND Russian history!
different-church-lady
Once again: social media is killing us.
sab
@Eunicecycle: But we won a lot locally. Congresscritters, local bond issues (libraries, schools, disabled, foster kids.) I still believe the most important government is local.
Frankly, that is why I prefer living in Ohio to living in California. Here our local government matters a lot. There it is almost non-existant.
lowtechcyclist
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Not to pick on you in particular, but can we add all these damned ‘Laws’ to the BJ Lexicon? I quickly forget what each one is. I *think* I know which one Cleek’s Law is, but have no idea what it means when someone refers to, say, Poe’s Law. (That you’re in trouble if the raven says ‘nevermore’? No idea.)
Chris
@Tony G:
Reagan (and I suppose his third term, HW) was the last Republican who actually had to have some appeal to moderate-ish non-red-staters with at least a few liberal sensibilities. Southern Democrats hadn’t completely flipped yet and Republicans still had a lot of Rockefeller moderates to keep happy.
Once Gingrich’s GOP swept the South in the nineties, it was all over. The onboarding of the old Strom Thurmond segregationists and their fusion with the Taft-style fascists was complete, so the moderates weren’t needed anymore. No more brakes, the spiral into cult’s been going ever since.
Eunicecycle
@Tony G: I remember a survey during the GWB administration that a majority of people said Yes to the question, “Should the government be able to censor the news media?” It was during a time when Bush was getting pretty negative press and the administration was pushing back. That was frightening to me at the time. Had people not heard of the First Amendment?
Nukular Biskits
@different-church-lady:
This is something I touched on last night in a post about last year’s MS gubernatorial race.
The GOP incumbent ran a MAGA campaign.The Dem challenger, while pushing a few policies that were progressive (Medicaid expansion, which is popular in MS), essentially ran as a “conservative-lite”. He lost.
“Conservative” voters (however you want to define them) are always gonna vote for the bonafide article.
RevRick
@Baud: You’re not going to get an argument from me about that. But I think we also need to take a page from Karl Rove, who asserted that the way to succeed in politics is by attacking the other party’s perceived strength.
The general public, for instance, believes Republicans are better for the economy, but the reality is they suck. That’s a message we should hammer again and again.
Quinerly
I haven’t read much of this thread. May have already been posted. Everything I am reading makes me think no Dem connected with the last 4 years could have won. And, yes, the media and stupidity are killing us.
“One person memorably told me that she couldn’t vote for Harris because ‘you don’t see women building skyscrapers.’”
theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/09/us-voters-kamala-harris-donald-trump-republican
different-church-lady
@Nukular Biskits: Yes, but I didn’t make my point accurately. What I mean is: “if the only solution to beating fascists is to become actual fascists, then what’s the point?”
different-church-lady
@Quinerly: That’s actually a great fuckin’ reason to vote for a woman.
different-church-lady
@RevRick:
Offer only good if you’re a Republican.
sab
@different-church-lady: Pickup truck with a four foot bed. What fits in there that won’t fit in a Honda Fit? My stepson has such a ridiculous pickup truck. Why not just have a car?
Baud
@RevRick: I agree. Honestly, I just don’t think enough of us believe in ourselves.
Another Scott
@Phylllis: [ rofl ]
We’ve been looking into replacing our 20 year old refrigerator. It still works fine, except the defrosting drain develops a clog and water drips out on the floor every few days/weeks unless I let it fully defrost for a day or so (I haven’t been able to find the actual clog). It’s annoying.
Models I’ve been looking at are $2000-$2500. Lots of money! :-( And maybe 3x what we paid for our existing one!
But it will probably pay for itself in 2-3 years because it uses substantially less electricity. Along with having more capacity, better features, and less risk of damaging the subfloor from water.
Raw numbers on the price of a single item are not proof of anything. It’s a talisman to indicate that one is a member of a particular tribe. If it weren’t gas, or eggs, or Netflix subscriptions, it would be granite countertops or F-150s or lawn services. Grr…
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@lowtechcyclist:
Speak to the management? I’m just an old-school, liberal Dem (aka The Face of the Party That Lost) with no influence here. ;)
I too have to look up most of these, just like I did for Poe’s Law.
i GuEsS i NeEd A sArCaSm FoNt.
varunpatil.github.io/Sarcastic-Text-Generator/
sab
@different-church-lady: Not really. We spend a lot of time defending ourselves (and Democracy) and very little time attacking them. And all their attacks are confessions.
Trollhattan
@Eunicecycle: During Nixon’s day the majority of Americans polled thought those dead Kent State kids “had it coming.”
This bloodthirsty resentment is always bubbling just beneath the surface.
No Nym
@Phylllis: Oh, I know! I was on a high school restructuring committee for 5 years, informed by all kinds of education foundations research. We recommended later start times, longer and fewer classes, student portfolios for assessment, and a lot of other tweaks to make education more likely to happen and sketched out proposals for implementation. In the end, the whole project was shitcanned because it would disrupt the football schedule. Booster Club parents weren’t having it. That school still runs like it’s 1956, but I am long gone.
Steve LaBonne
@Quinerly: Right-wing media are killing us. Few Trump voters get any information at all from “our” media. This is why I fear that there will have to be a whole lot of Finding Out before reality will begin to seep into the wingnut bubble. I have never been a “heighten the contradictions” guy, not even a tiny bit, but now it will happen in spite of us, and we better hope it works.
Nukular Biskits
@different-church-lady:
I’m not sure I have a good answer. Actually, I’m not sure I have ANY answer.
My pre-college-educated inner redneck thinks it’s time for all these assholes to reach the FO stage of FA; i.e., let them get the gov’t they wanted. Also known as inevitable consequences. Also known as “I DIDN’T THINK THE LEOPARDS WOULD EAT MY FACE!!” The problem with that is the rest of us who don’t deserve it will suffer as much if not more.
My college educated self says their has to be another way.
Layer8Problem
@Omnes Omnibus: That particular nym I recall from one of my pie filters. A troll/pot stirrer.
sab
@Nukular Biskits: Sherrod Brown ran conservative lite in Ohio and lost for only the second time in his career. I wonder now if he coached Tim Ryan in his run against JD Vance.
3Sice
Stop looking at demographic grids and thinking this square is bad or message to this square better…
Think of it as a Lava Lamp with two blobs that lose and gain pieces dynamically. Some are electorate driven, some by external factors and some by candidates. Then figure out in a 24 month window how to get to 270.
Steve LaBonne
@Nukular Biskits: I fear there isn’t one. I am now quite convinced that 2008 and 2020 were the outlier elections.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@RevRick:
And always remember that Rove is simply the next generation of right-wing messaging/framers coming from Lee Atwater.
I see groups not necessarily associated with the right do a masterful job of using similar right wing messaging tactics combined with how Big Tobacco and the opiod people worked for decades “Smoking Won’t Kill You!” and “These aren’t addictive!” to promote their agenda, win local elections, etc. Meaning, there’s no reason we can’t use the same methods.
Sure, one might feel the need to take a long hot shower more often but politics is a blood sport and we on the left so often seem to forget that.
Steve LaBonne
@sab: I was really dismayed by his campaign. I wish him a happy retirement.
The Audacity of Krope
@sab: Sherrod Brown earned that loss.
Quinerly
@sab:
Your husband is on to something. Had a retired Marine here doing some work for me in October. College graduate….college after his Marime Corps stint. He wasn’t offended by Trump’s remarks about the military. Made it pretty clear to me that he felt everything was directed at “the generals.” We didn’t get into it too much but he let me know in a split second that he mostly agreed with Trump. He’s White, in his 60’s, married to his second wife who is Hispanic. Two children with her. (He also mentioned he is sick of political correctness, this “Trans stuff,” and walking around on egg shells when talking with women. And, yes, Hell will freeze over before he ever does any more work for me.)
sab
@Trollhattan: I live near Kent State and those kids were rioting and burning buildings and the Guard were at risk. I was on the kids side then but the facts matter.
ETA Gov Rhoades should have insisted that they cancel class. The town was under fucking seige. You couldn’t get in to town (my brother tried.) Why then pretend that school was normal.
The Truffle
@3Sice: I also chalk this up to anti-incumbent sentiment. Dems won the presidency in 2020 and even had a good year in 2022. And yes, it looks like buyer’s remorse in the only solution at this point. You know how a second presidential term is worse than the first? Well…
Phylllis
@different-church-lady: My mind spins at the thought of what their monthly car payments must be. And you know they are financing for seven years.
kindness
Shared culture… Well, how about we approach it from a different angle? Right wingers/MAGA types are completely tribal. It’s almost a monoculture. The whole Democratic Party thing is a big tent. A lot of very different people coming together because of a shared point of view, but still identifying as their own. Democrats are one of many. For the most part Democrats treat that many as a positive thing. Being inclusive of other peoples/cultures enhances & enriches our lives. Republicans see that and pull back in horror. Republicans use diversity as bait. Easier to blame one group or another. Easier to whip up fears and hatreds over those one is less familiar with (Fox’s whole game plan).
Democrats can have a shared experience, but we’ll never have a shared tribe like the right does.
The Truffle
@Steve LaBonne: 2012 and 2022 weren’t too bad for Dems. Just saying.
Maybe we do need to take a page from Rove.
sab
@The Audacity of Krope: Yes he did. We spent the summer throwing shoes at the tv.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@The Audacity of Krope:
Or (and I don’t know cuz I didn’t follow Brown’s campaign one bit), he simply met the inevitable end of a Dem elected during a previos era in a state that turned heavily red?
His loss reminds me of when McCaskill lost here in MO. And lord knows she was no Sherrod Brown. And ran a decent enough last campaign (which is saying a lot coming from me who was always a chronic McCaskill critic). Didn’t matter and wouldn’t have mattered, Misery was Misery and there wasn’t shit *any* candidate could have done about it.
Phylllis
@sab: My Fit has more cargo space than my husband’s CRV.
sab
@Phylllis: Damn. Our Fit is getting long in the tooth.
Omnes Omnibus
@sab: Interesting. There might be something to it, The thing is though, Trump still obviously despises enlisted soldiers too. The Arlington stunt, the unwillingness to get his hair wet at a military cemetery…. That wasn’t aimed at officers.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Phylllis:
The Fit is one of the best small cars ever made on so many levels: reliable, massive cargo space (for it’s size), gas mileage decent enough (for it’s time), etc.
Used ones around here, when they come up, sell in a nanosecond almost regardless of mileage.
Harrison Wesley
@No Nym: The part about ringing the bell reminded me of why The Lighthouse was so effective. Blasts from the foghorn were incredibly disorienting.
The Truffle
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Where is our Karl Rove? We need one.
Nukular Biskits
@sab:
I am by no means a paid political pundit (would be nice to have a cushy job like that where there are no consequences for being wrong) but, at least here in MS, most voters are going to support the genuine article, not the guy who cosplays as a conservative (and I realize that’s kinda harsh).
Someone last night suggested running as independents instead of under the Democratic banner and I do think that idea might have some merit to it. Having said that, however, I see absolutely no reason why Democratic candidate shouldn’t run a full-on progressive campaign. This sounds very cynical of me, but if they’re gonna lose anyway, why pretend they’re something they’re not? Additionally, it would perhaps slowly start moving that Overton window back to the left.
Nukular Biskits
@Steve LaBonne:
I fear you may be correct, at least for the remainder of my time on this planet.
Steve LaBonne
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I loved mine. Put 250,000 miles on it. Apart from normal maintenence the only thing that ever really broke was the AC compressor.
Nukular Biskits
@Phylllis:
Which is why I still have my 1997 Suzuki Intruder 800 and my 2002 Ford F150.
Well, that and I’m a cheap bastard. LOL
The Audacity of Krope
Why not both? Because he deserved it.
Democrats are no longer a viable vehicle for positive social change. They might not have been for a long time.
3Sice
@The Truffle:
My anecdotal under thirty Rogan listening, Harris voting brah thought “California liberal” just doesn’t resonate with enough midwestern and southern voters, and running Newsome would/will dump out the same results.
Eunicecycle
@TBone:
@Nukular Biskits:
@sab: Thank you all for your replies. I know you are all feeling the same way I am and you’ve given me some hope. I am just such a Debbie Downer but trying hard to hold up my daughters’ spirits at the same time.
Phylllis
@sab: I was thinking of trading next summer for an HRV, mostly due to giving these old bones an easier time of getting in & out of the vehicle. Gonna hold on to it for at least another year or two now, as it still hasn’t even hit 100,000 miles.
Omnes Omnibus
@Layer8Problem: I know. I just like poking them at times.
AM in NC
@superdestroyer: The same Americans whose grandparents lived in Germantown or Little Italy and spoke that language at home.
I had to remind my dad about this when he spouted that crap about THESE immigrants not assimilating. I said Dad, it was ever thus. Why do you think we had China Towns and Little Italies? And German-speaking churches back when you were a kid? This is just our generations version of what has always happened here.
He went, hmmmmmmmm.
sab
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Every time I take mine in for service I get calls from the dealer wanting it.
Nukular Biskits
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
In my previous life, we had a 2009 Fit.
Bought two 2011 Fits from insurance settlement when the 2005 Accord was totaled by a local gas truck.
Transfered 2009 Fit to oldest son, who promptly wrecked it and then bought a 2012 Fit.
Honda Fits were great for short commutes, getting groceries, hauling critters to/from vet, etc, and got great gas mileage. They sucked, however, WRT comfort and cabin noise. The later Fits, I understand, started having quality and form/fit issues.
snoey
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: and if you get a five speed you can accelerate with vigor when needed. That little engine is happy to crank 5000 rpm.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Nukular Biskits:
Sigh, it’s deja vu all over again. We were having these exact same discussions 20 years ago about when given a choice between (R) and (R-Lite), people go (R) almost all the time.
And then people come back with rationales for why candidates in tough electoral landscape, let’s use MT, OH and TX as this year’s examples, run as (R-Lite) thinking (despite decades of evidence to the contrary) that’s their only shot in such a state.
And yet, as we *always* see, it never works out that way. Maybe Tester and Allred honestly aren’t the kind of liberal Brown is and run a campaign that way, fine. But it’s really no excuse for somebody like Brown to do that, knowing at some level, the state’s changed and his politics are no longer a fit for the state.
Watering down one’s politics is simply a strategy for losing. And yet, here we are doing what we taught to me waaay back in the day when I was at the USMC Command & Staff College: reinforcing failure.
Nukular Biskits
@Eunicecycle:
Right now, I’m just pissed. And probably will remain that way for quite a while. I just am not sure how to go forward other than my commitment to tell each and every person who wants to tell me how great Trump is, “FUCK OFF!”
I’m also considering how to make it clear to local business owners who supported Trump I’ll patronize them no longer.
There has to be a cost, and I’m not talking about one that involves force, violence, etc. Just trying to figure out how, when and where.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Phylllis:
Don’t trade it in. Sell it yourself. A Fit with under a 100K on it will sell for a great price and instantly.
The Audacity of Krope
This, exactly. Why I’m getting out of my corporate healthcare job and working more local.
Melancholy Jaques
@Baud:
Didn’t change us jackals either and there are plenty like us. We all didn’t abandon the Democratic Party because times got hard. We had huge crowds and massive amounts of donors and apparently no way of knowing that about 15 million had checked out and weren’t going to vote.
Nukular Biskits
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Emphasis mine:
⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️⬆️
THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WereBear
Pie Hammer at the ready for smiting today.
I am kind, but I am not a fool. No benefits of the doubt after we heighten the contradictions, etc.
AM in NC
@JML: Oh I know, it is a serious, serious issue. The vast majority of Americans, the vast majority of parents, has NO idea how bad the teacher crisis is. State budgets are going to need to address this, and sucking money from them to fund religious sec academies doesn’t help.
Bill Arnold
Remember Morning in America, a Reagan 1984 campaign slogan?
Here are some important numbers for Morning in America.
Unemployment 6.5 percent (Oct 1984)
Year over year inflation rate 3.90%, Dec 1984 (similar around Oct 1984)
Federal funds rate rate 8.24 percent, Dec 1984 (similar around Oct 1984)(same link)
By these standards, October 2024 was economic utopia.
Reagan won that 1984 election with 525 electoral votes and >58 percent of the popular vote.
Quinerly
@Another Scott:
I just went thru the refrigerator research and 3 month search. Granted, I was pretty specific about what I wanted and had saved for. French Door similar to what I had in St. Louis. Loved my LG there. I guess it’s about 10 years. I have missed it. Because of the space a new one here has to go in, I was limited to counter depth. The prices for counter depth were really eye opening. Samsung and LG supposedly have gone to crap. Lots of complaints and at least one class action suit. I bit the bullet and went with the cheapest Bosch that was on sale with Lowe’s. Negotiated with an independent appliance store and they beat Lowe’s price. I absolutely love it. It is about the only thing other than my dog that has made me happy since Tues. My runner up was a Kitchen Aid Quad and it’s cheaper cousin Whirlpool Quad. The counter depth GE was even more than the Bosch.
Layer8Problem
@Omnes Omnibus:
👍 Keep on keeping on.
Phylllis
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I was picking mine up after an oil change a few months ago and came out to find a salesperson along with who I took to be a dad & college-age daughter circling mine. I was like, not today folks.
Soprano2
@WereBear: I heard that a guy at work said now there will be no tax on overtime, it’s going to be great. I wonder how many people think they voted for the magic wand they think TCFG has to whatever he wants? They may be disappointed when things get worse. I think people still won’t be able to ignore what they’re paying in the store every day. I guess we’ll find out, if they truly voted for lower prices and that doesn’t happen they should turn on R’s.
Eunicecycle
@AM in NC: I had to shut my mom up when she was talking loudly about people not speaking English in the presence of some Spanish speakers. I said, “Your granddaughter and great-grandkids are living in Germany and I’ll bet they speak English to each other in public. Do you want people to be so mean to them for not speaking German?”
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@snoey:
Great point. My two cars prior to my 2023 Bolt EV were Mazda 3 sedans: 2009 5-speed (totaled in a hit and run shortly after moving to Denver) and then a 2012 with an automatic (couldn’t find a manual that didn’t have 150K miles on it).
The 5-speed was zippy and great when one needed vigor as you put it. The auto was sluggish to the point of feeling in danger at times.
Now, the Bolt EV with one pedal driving makes that 5-speed look sluggish.
Omnes Omnibus
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
We? Who is this we?
Chris
@Bill Arnold:
And this kind of thing is why I blame media and not economics.
In any remotely healthy media environment, Biden’s inflation problem would have been the equivalent of Reagan’s first term recession: yeah, it sucked, but it’s clearly on the mend so I guess whatever the government did worked, good for them!
Layer8Problem
@WereBear: Once again, 👍.
superdestroyer
@Omnes Omnibus: If one works in healthcare, then one quickly learns how to use the app on an Ipad where one can call up translators for over 100 languages. Do you really think everyone needing those translators moved to the U.S. this year? No, many of them moved to the U.S. decades ago and just refused to learn English or function in the dominant culture. They live in their own cultural cul-de-sac while the rest of us have to pay extra so that a translator is available.
Nukular Biskits
@The Audacity of Krope:
I’m not sure that’s a viable option for me. I work for a big DoD contractor and have been in this field for over 37 years. Having just turn 60 and with a couple of life-changing events on my immediate horizon and in my rear-view mirror, that’s not something that’s available to me.
Given I work in a white-male dominated field populated with a LOT of “conservatives” (note the quotes there), you can only imagine that I am a voice in the wilderness. I am in a management position now so I have to be careful about what I say. I have communicated to the guys on our contract reminding them that we’re not paid to pontificate on politics and we each have a responsibility to maintain a non-hostile work environment. Mgrs for some of the other companies have communicated something similar to their people so it’s been relatively quiet this election in our office.
But, it’s inevitable one of the Trump idiots is going to say something and, despite my better angels, my inner redneck is going to come out for a run.
lowtechcyclist
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
In neighborhoods new enough to have an HOA, maybe the HOA could jack up the dues on houses that are being rented out in whole or in part.
superdestroyer
@sab: She had to be carefully managed and still managed to screw up. There were obvious questions that any comms staffer should have anticipated and yet, Harris was not prepared.
Harris did great in the one debate after a week of prep but when Trump refused to do another debate, Harris’s staff never trusted her to do a real townhall.
WereBear
@Melancholy Jaques: This is how I figure they keep their jobs.
Some of these zombies are professionals who make lots of money, that’s why. And they can be — competent.
Wingnuts compartmentalize and get through med school while being fire breathing Evangelicals who don’t believe in evolution and by extension, the science of biology itself.
I won’t utilize the services of anyone with such a lack of reality anchoring. Who knows what Tiktok might be influencing their next diagnosis and treatment plan?
I don’t want to wonder what damfool notion my tax attorney, if they turned sovereign citizen and didn’t tell me, has in store.
Phylllis
@Quinerly: We switched to a Bosch dishwasher when the GE model installed in the house gave up a year or so ago. Pleased as punch with it. When the GE fridge goes south as it inevitably will, we’re going with Bosch for that as well.
WereBear
@Soprano2: Jokes on him!
Project 2025 abolishes overtime.
superdestroyer
@Another Scott: When the government is running annual budget deficits of over $1 trillion, it was not the time to start up new programs. The Democrats operate on the idea that the first year of a new administration is the time to create new entitlements and new spending programs to reward the members of their coalition. But when the annual budget deficits are so big and so much money is being spent on interest, the idea of new spending does not work.
When one looks at the election failures of all of the incumbent political parties in the west, part of the failures is due to every government running huge budget deficits.
The Truffle
@Nukular Biskits: Eh…I wouldn’t be too sure of that. Obama got two terms. That wasn’t an outlier. Neither were 2018 or 2022.
superdestroyer
@AM in NC: One needs to remember that it took two world wars, a depression and 50 years of very little immigration to successfully complete the integration of most Americans. Increasing immigration when assimilation is failing is a bad idea.
The Audacity of Krope
I’m not saying it will be the same for everyone, but it would do us all some good to assess our lives for opportunities to deny the money beast. None of us will starve it on our own, but each of us can keep a little away.
In my mind, if you manage to defend yourself thoroughly without escalating much, that’s a job well done.
Omnes Omnibus
@superdestroyer: My mistake. Steaming horseshit. And please fuck off into the sun.
sab
@Quinerly: Was that Miguel?
I don’t understand the whole anti trans thing. Hardly anyone is trans. You will likely never meet one. On the other hand for actual trans it matters a lot.
I have a trans niece who was desperately unhappy his whole childhood (we couldn’t understand why) and is now very happy in her adulthood, although she lost out a lot on education when she was figuring things out. I can barely believe this happy charming person is the same as that morose child.
But .07 of population, so not likely to impact anyone’s life who doesn’t care.
The Truffle
@Nukular Biskits: Eh…I wouldn’t be too sure of that. Obama got two terms. That wasn’t an outlier. Neither were 2018 or 2022.
@sab:
Buyer’s remorse is coming, sad to say. People in blue states will be okay. Others will likely be hurt bad.
superdestroyer
@Starfish: Considering that less than 15% of elementary school teachers are male, if one lives in a district with 50% male elementary school teachers, then one is living an anecdotes that is not representative of almost all Americans.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Bill Arnold:
Thanks for the numbers.
Nobody could find a job, even people with what we’d now call STEM degrees (like my wife the physicist). Back then, here in CO, unemployment had peaked the previous year at 9% (it’s why I went to grad school, no way some kid with a geography/history BA was gonna get a job outside of Pizza Hut). And even tho was coming down, nobody was hiring.
A mortgage, even 3 years later when we purchased our first home, was 10%. As I mentioned above, the echoes of the Reagan/Volcker recession lasted a loooong time.
And yet, that bastard was reelected in a landslide. And GWB got the third term. As BCrack put it, we are a stupid country, probably a terminally stupid country and yet, people like me and her continue to retain the capacity to be surprised and disappointed by it.
No Nym
@Harrison Wesley: The Harrison Bergeron effect.
Steve LaBonne
@sab: The answer is that fascism needs scapegoats, and people who are few in numbers and totally powerless are ideally suited for that role.
superdestroyer
@Quinerly: Just like all taxes are used to reward or punish. That the Democrats cannot get rid of the carried interest loophole for hedge fund bros or get rid of the 529 savings program shows how the Democratic Party is dominated by the wealthy.
Bupalos
@kindness: All indications are that this most recent presidential election, as well as the one previous and the one before that, represent a realignment where their party gets less white, less educated, and less wealthy while ours gets more so. We’re still more diverse overall, but that “tribal/non-tribal” analysis probably belongs to another time.
pika
@JML: I wonder if we’re at the same Normal school…
Layer8Problem
@superdestroyer:
Nice! Pied on this thing too. Happy trails and спасибо.
The Audacity of Krope
After working so hard for so long to stop it and watching people embrace it so heartily, I’m determined to enjoy watching the world burn.
Albeit while still trying to mitigate the damage and help people.
laura
@schrodingers_cat: your shading to give form in the ground is very well done. Your commentary is scrappy and thoughtful and I admire you from way over here in CA.
sab
@Steve LaBonne: I just don’t understand why people go along with scaping the goat that never hurt them. It’s just an innocent goat living its goat life.
JMG
Here are the popular vote spreads for each Presidential election in this century: 0.5 percent, 3 percent, 7.6 percent, 4 percent, 2 percent, 4 percent, right now about 2.5 percent with votes to count. Republicans won 4 of these elections, Democrats 3. The two parties are fighting over a very small patch of demographic territory. Another score is incumbent party won 2 of these elections and lost 5. This strongly suggests that either party that holds the White House is facing strong head winds within that small patch. Unless Trump decides to cancel elections altogether (he might, that’s no joke), or we suddenly morph into a new Era of Good Feelings (Why were people so happy in 1820 anyway?) we’re liable to see the same trench warfare in the next elections, This is why IMO the Democratic Party has problems, but is not in criris.
The one problem I’d like to see addressed the most is getting prominent Democrats to STFU about their internal beefs. Keep it in-house.
Nukular Biskits
@The Truffle:
I hope for all our sakes you are correct.
Steve LaBonne
@sab: I do not share the rosy view of human nature common among my fellow UUs.
Nukular Biskits
@The Audacity of Krope:
Did I mention that I’m an engineer?
IMDB: Star Trek Generations – Quotes
Geminid
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I think you are saying that Sherrod Brown’s so-called “Republican lite” campaign is how he lost, not why he lost. I am inclined to agree.
It’s too bad Kay is in Portugal. I’d like to hear her take on this question. She’s a fairly astute political observer.
It’s probably not be too bad for Kay, though. That was a well-timed vacation. When they flew into Lisbon, Kay and her husband might have felt a little like Ilsa Lund and Victor Lazlo flying in from Casablanca after escaping the Nazis.
sab
@superdestroyer: Except that immigration isn’t failing. We have a lot of new Nepalis in my city. Their restaurants are thriving. Weird NepaliAmerican food that would be unrecognizable anywhere else in either country but is wildly popular here.
Starfish
@superdestroyer: I didn’t say that 50% of the elementary school teachers in the district are male. I said my son had 50% male elementary school teachers. Some of the teachers, he had them twice, like when his first grade teacher became his fourth or fifth grade teacher. Some of it is that I do live in a district where we do school choice, and I saw a school with a man as the librarian, and I was like “Look, a man, who is not a gym teacher, we are going to this school.”
NeenerNeener
My sister was telling me yesterday about an acquaintance of hers that is absolutely convinced that Trump has an IQ of 155 and Kamala of 110. There’s also some rumor going around on RW sites that Biden had an intestinal accident on stage at some point, but Trump is healthy as a horse. Flip both of those and you would get the truth, but normies are fixed on the thing they heard first.
sab
@superdestroyer: Troll. Now you are just answering my question for more detailed information with the same bs comment you started with, rephrased. You have nothing.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Geminid:
We were in Venice in 2016 and woke up the morning after the election to see what had happened. We then went on a classic Venetian Bacarri Crawl the rest of the day (before the bacarri crawl went viral shortly thereafter and every little place there started doing it).
Problem then and with Kay now, is that they gotta come home.
Quinerly
@sab:
No…nope not Miguel. Miguel was born in Mexico but I think legal. Wife is not legal. I dumped him after we had such a good summer of 2023 landscaping, laying flagstones, and laying fake grass in a side yard for “The Princeling”…I even gave him an “employee appreciation party” in Sept 2023. He included all his extended family and I was the only one here communicating in English. Which was OK. I wanted to honor him for his hardwork and let him show it all to his wife and children. I dumped him this July for his sudden love of Putin and crazy talk about Biden and the Dems wanting to out law farming. He seemed a little too Trump curious to me and got in my personal space all puffed up about “doing his own research” and I didn’t understand the world. Have replaced him with the sweet, artist, musician from CA. His name is Bogart. He wants me to meet his parents when they visit. Bogart looks a little like Al Pacino in Serpico.
The guy I am speaking of above is a White guy from KS. Moved to NM in the 1980’s. Retired from IT. Does handyman type stuff.
sab
@Nukular Biskits: I had no idea you were an engineer. I will store that away in my tiny mind.
I cut a lot of slack for known lawyers being argumentative. That is what they do.
Engineers tend to obsess with detail ?
Layer8Problem
Engage a troll, keep a troll. The More You Know [gif]
Bupalos
@Baud: This isn’t quite true. The slow erosion in black turnout for Dems generally isn’t nearly as striking as with hispanics, but it’s very real.
It’s visible this cycle even though probably masked a bit by our running a black candidate.
The reality is that the new Republican Party more explicitly weaponizes themes that work on lack of education, across ethnic and economic lines. As Trump famously said “I love the poorly educated.” This is populism. It’s here to stay and we have created a fertile ground for it over decades. We have to figure out how to play in that immature sandbox.
The Audacity of Krope
@Layer8Problem: If you engage with a troll the right way, you can get them to do something very self-revealing and, ultimately, blocked.
Very satisfying.
sab
@Quinerly: That is a relief. One reason I don’t leave the Midwest is that the most objectionable midwesterners are already leaving.
Geminid
@sab:
This reminded me of something Theodore White wrote in The Making of a President:1968, about George Wallace’s choice of Curtis LeMay as his running mate.
Wallace himself had been a Sergeant in the Second World. His campaign obviously appealed to white racism, but it also had strong populist, anti-elite themes. White thought the choice of a retired general for VP undercut Wallace’s populist appeal.
Quinerly
@Phylllis:
I had to replace dishwasher here soon after buying. I knew all the appliances were 20 plus years old going in, so was prepared. I want Bosch dishwasher after all my research. Ended up getting a couldn’t pass up deal on a 3 rack KitchenAid. Am very pleased.
I just opened my Bosch refrigerator to comfort myself….I just smiled again.
Plus, I am cooking seafood and sausage chowder. Soup for the soul.
[email protected]
@Quinerly: I knew that LG had a few years of bad refrigerators, but didn’t realize there were class action suits involved. I had an LG refrigerator from 2006 that was an excellent fridge. My brother bought one based on my fridge and he and his wife had trouble with their LG staring at about month six. His fridge had three compressors in 10 years when the third one broke down, they just got a new refrigerator. I believe it was a GE. The LG 2006 refrigerator I had died in May of 2020. I had to match my existing black appliances and to do that I had only two manufacturers from which to choose. Bosch and LG. The Bosch was a beautifully made refrigerator that cost over $6000 and an LG that was less than half the price of the Bosch, but wasn’t black, it was something they called black stainless. It’s actually a very dark gray with sort of a stainless look. I picked the LG. The LG people have corrected all the picky flaws I disliked about the previous LG, and the new one has been a very good refrigerator. I do sometimes wish I had just gotten the Bosch. I’d probably still be paying on it, but it was a beautifully made refrigerator. I don’t want my LG to find out about my Bosch lust. It might take it personally and start acting up.
The Audacity of Krope
My idea is to run as a Republican for Congress in two years. This was a good cycle for Rs, even in MA, but they couldn’t put up more than 30 percent in my home district.
You in a deep blue/deep red district? Want to run for office but your usual party a little too committed to their orthodoxy?
Stress test the out party. There are a lot of uncompetitive seats out there and people are tired of the same the same arguments never moving. So let’s build coalitions of independents across America and shake things up like the voters say they want, but responsibly.
Nukular Biskits
@sab:
You have no idea.
Take my activity for today, for example. I’m engineering a solution to keep the 4-year old g’baby (who is on the autism spectrum) from cheerfully dumping the entire 5-gallons of our chilled water dispenser on the floor.
I can guarantee it will be MAGNIFICENT (meaning absurdly over-engineered) when I finish!
The Truffle
@Nukular Biskits: I think 2024 is the Dems’ 2012. Just a theory. But I do think we will have a recession before long, alas.
Just make 2026 our 2014 and 2028 our 2016.
The Truffle
@The Audacity of Krope: I believe it was Nichols who said Trump voters are going to get what they voted for good and hard. Which may be what happens anyway. Some gotta learn the hard way. At least he can’t run again.
Another Scott
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: On the other hand, I think we need to remember that the country is not as liberal as we are and want it to be.
My quick evidence? The 2017 Virginia gubernatorial race.
Tom Perriello ran an inspiring campaign talking about change and progressive ideas and pushing Virginia forward. Got endorsements from Sanders and Warren and Feingold. Dave Matthews. Pfeiffer and Plouffe. Had enthusiasm and was leading in many polls.
And he was crushed by Northam in the primary – 55.9% to 44.1% – who was happy to say that he would never support some of Perriello’s proposal.
Nancy Pelosi’s “Just Win Baby” is really, really important.
Many people don’t know that Jimmy Carter had to run on a pretty racist program to win the governorship in Georgia in 1970.
(He and Maddox were battling all the time when they were actually in office.)
It was only once he got into office that he was able to start changing things for the better.
Ultimately, change in government comes from people being in government. It all starts with winning elections. That means finding ways to get a majority of the voters at that particular time and place.
Best wishes,
Scott.
The Truffle
@3Sice: Newsom is great for optics. Not for the Oval Office. Would love to see a Dem Governor run next time who isn’t him.
The Audacity of Krope
@The Truffle: Every time a Republican is elected President in my lifetime, they manage to collapse the entire economy worse than the time before in half the time.
So my barely informed guess is that Trump will have the nation in flames in two year’s time. There may be opportunities to help, both more and less conventional. Just stay alert.
sab
@Nukular Biskits: It doesn’t surprise me you have a g* baby on the spectrum. I am guessing you are slightly on it yourself.
sab
@Geminid: That is interesting. Thank God for small mistakes.
RevRick
@different-church-lady: Have Democrats ever really tried it?
Nukular Biskits
@sab:
I’ve often wondered about that myself but then I also think that probably everyone is to some extent or another. My problem is that I truly do care about truth, scientific and otherwise, the future, this world and even the assholes in it.
Anyway, this isn’t a biological g’baby. Long story, life-changing event, new life now. But love her just the same as I do my other two.
brantl
@Baud:
The shared culture is this:
We need to push this, and push it HARD. This needs to be our theme every goddamn day, until each and every election from dogcatcher to president. We need to push that we are a home to all the people that have been mistreated by this country, and anybody who believes in a fair shake.
After Jon Edwards, nobody in the Democratic Party has been talking about the poor and disadvantaged any more, and I think that was shooting ourselves in the foot.
We need to be looking out for everybody, and we need to make our bones on being the adults in the room. And we need to ding the Republicans running for office as being the temper-tantrum riddled children in the room. Not their VOTERS, their OFFICIALS; that’s how you get the voters to leave the party.
We need to identify our individual candidates with our goals; when a referendum reflects our goals make sure we say “elect so-and-so, so this referendum isn’t overturned after it’s passed.”.
K-Mo
@SFAW: True enough. But also: the reason we as a country are so susceptible to Fox News and Joe Rogan and so on is that we are a shallow, vapid lot. Folks just don’t have any inclination to looking at the big picture or cultivating goodness in themselves. They want to entertained, the more BS the better. And don’t get me started on the incels who can’t relate to women and watch porn all day. My wish for Americans is not that they will become smart all of a sudden, but just that they make an effort towards being better people. Give us some lovable (and loving) idiots and we can make progress.
different-church-lady
@sab:
Because then you’d be a commie pinko.
SomeRandomGuy
The reason America won’t elect a black women is the Republican Party spreads bigotry. JFC, is that not obvious? “Our” mistake may have been underestimating the bigotry – not some far more amorphous “is it the skin, or the vulva, that’s pissing them off? If she were JUST Jamaican, and still had a vulva, would they vote for her then? What if she started packing?”
(“Packing” is when a woman wears some form of artificial penis, under regular clothing. I don’t understand it, so I just repeat, verbatim, the definition I was given.)
It’s okay to hate; it’s okay to lie; it’s okay to march with literal Nazis, then run in an alley, take off the uniform and squeal (like a little piggy) over how much fun it is to ape evil grown ups “just for kicks”.
While that’s okay, we are fucked. The goal is to get it to be not-the-fuck-at-all-okay to lie, hate, and support Nazis, with the minimal cost in blood. That’s “blood” as in lives, though NEVER as “blood and treasure” because WAR IS NOT A PIRATE MOVIE ahem.
Because no one is going to be converted to the good fight by “Actually, with higher marginal tax rates and more funding for education, prosperity would likely skyrocket in 10-20 years”. It seems it will have to be seeing people murdered in front of them, if Covid-19 didn’t do it
SomeRandomGuy
@Baud: If you’re living in the same house as the arsonist, no one remembers that you put out the last ten fires, they only care that there’s a fire *now* and these noble ARSONISTS say YOU caused it!
What have we *delivered* that’s *big* and lasting, since ObamaCare? Pandemic relief? Fire. Hurricane relief? Fire – though we’re stretching the analogy. CHIPS act? Who actually cares? IRA? Who actually cares?
Not trying to shoot you down – and, I confess, with my CFS, I might have forgotten something really big that *should* have been in the news, but wasn’t. But this is why they always do a “starve the beast” tax cut after they win a trifecta – so there’s no *money* to propose something like ObamaCare or universal childcare credits, or increases in the post office’s ability to market additional services (simple banking/internet access/etc, but they have a lot of Points of Presence!).
They really think if you skin the mark *past* the marrow, you’ll get to the really yummy stuff.
SomeRandomGuy
@different-church-lady: I mean, *FUCK ME* when did not “thou shalt not disrespect another man’s wheels,” leave the bro code?
Another Scott
@SomeRandomGuy: Dunno. Saved a few million lives? Something like that?
Reuters – Trump administration had no coronavirus vaccine distribution plan – White House.
That’s just one example.
Competence matters, even if it’s not sexy and even if voters a few years later have memory-holed it.
FWIW.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Soprano2
@sab: My husband’s father still gets mail here every so often; he died in 1993! There are some old, bad lists out there for sure.
K-Mo
@SomeRandomGuy: The ACA wasn’t just big- it was the biggest achievement by our Federal government during the last 50 years. That’s too high a bar to meet. In terms of Biden, the IRA, the CHIPS act, and associated infrastructure investments were all big achievements but navigating the end of the pandemic, pulling us out of a recession, and managing a soft landing from a worldwide inflation event were huge. I’d gladly stack that up against Trump’s big hits from term 1: Operation Warp Speed, overturning Roe, a big tax cut for the wealthy, and … what exactly? But it’s too late now.
SomeRandomGuy
@Shalimar: Um. Like the people who noticed train cars of bodies going in, *no* traincars of food going in, and brushed the ashes neatly away in the morning.
If California ends up going at in hammer and tongs with Texas, in a continued Civil War, at least we can tell that shithead movie producer that we were right, he was sanewashing and normalizing, *not* trying to stir up discussion.
SomeRandomGuy
@K-Mo: Agreed, I didn’t mean to say “there’s the moon, jump over it,” I meant, “well there’s not much we *have* done that you can *see*”
Have we kept bibles out of OK schools? Good, we’re the enemy of the bible. Was it the right thing to do? Yes, BUT – we just put out another fire, and, gads, the old Batman serial, dunununu, etc., ? The Penguin saying “When you see BATMAN, he’s associating with CRIMINALS. When you see ME, I’m surrounded by the POLICE! Which one of us is a better example for the citizen of Gotham wack wack?” (Sorry – I can’t hear it in my head with out a final “wack wack”. If penguins don’t wack, someone owes my chlidhood an explanation.) In this case, they see us associating with anti-religious folks, and they don’t think “necessary allies”.
So anyways, they’re always seeing us having put out a fire. “You know, if *you* fixed the cause of these fires, we wouldn’t have to keep calling you!”
If Republicans cared about America or its citizenry at all… but, apparently, they don’t.
SomeRandomGuy
@Another Scott: Please don’t be the kind of dick who takes an “electoral who cares” as a *real* “who cares”, if you would. You seem like a decent fellow – fucking arrogant and poison-mean to suggest someone don’t care about millions dead motherf… my friend. I’d rather think of you as the former, decent, type of fellow.
SomeRandomGuy
@Nukular Biskits: God damn it.
I grew up with CFS, and I couldn’t figure out where people got all this MFing TIME from, and you just tugged a grieving heartstring where I wish I had the energy to just fool around and have fun with… well, anything, mostly. Constant pain that scrambles one’s brain isn’t conducive to the “f” word.
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Watering down your politics also doesn’t work when your opponent will lie with abandon about your politics anyway. At least stand *for* something, so you’re a shining light for them to throw their dung at. Sometimes, sometimes, a turd lands just right, and everyone gets revolted by the shit throwing.
More often, people die, their lights forever extinguished, and we have to pick up after ’em. Sorry – not trying to be melodramatic, trying to be *ready*, if/when.
SomeRandomGuy
@different-church-lady: Since the 1990s, Republicans have skewered any funding for right wing militia and terror group investigations.
Now, those same people and their descendants are taking power. I think they’re going to terrorize people, and there will be bloodshed, before there’s any chance of sanity.
Remember: 400,000 Covid-19 dead, no one cared then, no one cares now (ELECTORALLY SPEAKING if any dickwads are in the room), how the fuck will anything LESS than bloodshed change attitudes?
justsomeguy05
@Tony G:
algorithmic social media can create an entire (right-wing) ecosystem completely detached from facts.
justsomeguy05
@sab: ahh, so you admit that those being “othered” are animals ;-) JOKE ! @sab was literally referring to goats !
More seriously, scapegoating many groups of “others” works because it targets the lizard brain emotions, and tribalism, and for each voter only has to resonate re: some of the targeted groups to be able to completely over ride knowledge and information. Though those 2 are also deficient in many R voters.
Nukular Biskits
@SomeRandomGuy:
Did I do something bad? If so, mea culpa!
Another Scott
@SomeRandomGuy: Sorry. No offense intended.
I too often state the obvious things that everyone knows, but haven’t been said yet.
I was just trying to say that we’ve done a huge amount to be proud of, even if much of it is simple baseline competence. Everyone here knows that. My response was more directed at the press and the political operatives who seemingly have the memory of a goldfish.
Again, my apologies.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Nukular Biskits
@Another Scott:
The kind that swim or the kind that come in cheesy flavors?
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Baud: @narya:
I agree. We do mostly have shared values. Kindness, fairness, compassion, respect for knowledge and excellence, respect for rule of law (provided its fair). One thing I absolutely would love to see codified into law is that algorithms need to be banned from directing you to controversial topics, unless you are searching for them. So people looking for information about a video game won’t get pushed videos by Andrew Tate. Kids searching for information about how rainbows work won’t be pushed info about the gay community that might be overly sexualized for their age. People looking for information on controversial topics will still find it.
The fact that kids and others get radicalized politically, religiously, and spurred to hate being pushed controversial material via social media algorithms is how we’ve ended up here. As someone who knows, that is something that isn’t hard for them to implement. You’re just layering in some rules with the predictions. Conservatives (especially parents) would support this. Liberals would support this. The only people who will get bent about it are influencers, which is a GOOD thing. Those are the people steering our culture and communities off the rails.
K-Mo
@SomeRandomGuy: That’s a fair take. Unfortunately this leads me back to my prior, which is that we didn’t seem to tout our own achievements very well or with much gusto. Loomis piece made this point somewhere along the way. But maybe this wasn’t so much an error about how to message as it was the nature of our accomplishments. Personally I like and can get excited about competence, but I guess most others don’t.
Chris T.
@superdestroyer:
Right, much better to have two world wars and a great depression instead.
SomeRandomGuy
@Nukular Biskits: No, I’m just a cranky misanthrope complaining to the universe in a hopefully humorous fashion about something I just recently figured out. I’m smart, I know that, I know you might whip my tail in English Lit, but you might find yourself surprisingly clobbered in an area that I’m not *as* educated as you. But, I have no energy for play, and when I can force myself to do things, it’s no longer *fun*. So I’ve been imagining “what would like be life if I had time?” and I was razzafrazzinGood for YOUrazzafrazzamuthfuqinguniverse”
I sometimes wonder what if I
a) found I was cured, miraculously, in my 20s, and
b) was that most boring of people, an *actuary*. (I bucked for actuary – I’m allowed to make the joke.)
I like to pretend I’d be “the only person you’re likely to meet who sometimes makes actuarial work sound fun”
You were having fun, and it flicked me on a raw spot, because I love to see people have fun, but, I can’t always participate. I was, in the words of the 80s “bitchinG” – not “bitchin” which mean “good/nice/cool/fuckable/elegant”, but “bitching” in the sense of complaining.
SomeRandomGuy
@Another Scott: No worries – what I said was what I meant: I’m angry enough that I *might* want to call you a motherfu, well, you know, but, decided *consciously* you deserved “my friend”.
I got hurt by a lot of people. I’m trying to learn my defense mechanisms. I may have sounded like it was worse for me than it was, and, for me, it was a lot of crankiness bubbling over, so, there’s a lot of emotional energy, but not, like, “OMG you hurt me,” more like, “damn I hate when people do that, here’s why,” and relationship anger: I might say to myself, “hey, anger here: you must protect SomeRandomGuy because you love him. So, mention that this *does* hurt, so no one hurts you non-deliberately. Then, if people are dicks, don’t engage, even if they’re fun an entertaining.
Does that make sense? “Please tell me you’re fun and engaging, and forgive me for talking to you like you were a kindergartener (I mean… I guess. Yeah. A bit.), but I really was hurt by that.”
I hpe tat mkes sense. Language proc and spasticity too high for more. Baby talk not mockery – baby words are *primary* words, we remember. So, going to babytalk is a cope, eh?
superdestroyer
@sab: Thanks for resorting to the better food from better immigration line of reasoning. It is mocked my all of those alternative media types on the right as the “cheaper chalupas” argument for more immigration.
superdestroyer
@Starfish: But that leads to the question of whether you went to the school each year and asked for your son to be put into a classroom with a male teacher.
Such methods do not scale up to help all boys.
superdestroyer
@sab: Harris lost and lost badly. Harris (and Biden) put the Democratic Party on a pathway for more losing in the future. And the response from progressive is to double down on the losing and resort to name calling.
superdestroyer
@The Truffle: One may want to look at the Senate races in 2026 and try to find three seats that the Democrats can pick up.Collins (R-Me) may be the only realistic pickup while the Democrats have to defend Ossoff (G-Ga).