In the comments on my last post, there were the beginnings of a discussion on “groups” (a.k.a. “special interest groups”). If you want the background on this, Jon Favreau and Ezra Klein got into it last week on Pod Save America. The example that is being batted around is that the ACLU questionnaire for candidates in 2019 had a question about taxpayer funded gender-affirming care for trans prisoners. Harris answered the question affirmatively and she was pummeled in the campaign over that. Biden (wisely) skipped that question.
Adam Jentlesen apparently wrote a NYT Op-Ed over the weekend saying that Democrats need to learn to say no to these groups. On the podcast, Favreau noted that it wasn’t uncommon for the Obama Administration to say no to groups, either. Josh Marshall also weighed in on this a couple of times yesterday and today. (Those are gift links which might or might not work.)
Anyway, whether or not the 2019 ACLU answer got Harris in trouble, there’s a big difference between noting that perhaps Democrats listen to groups too much in general, and whether the Harris campaign failed because it listened to them too much in particular. I think anyone who was paying attention and wants to make an honest case can’t argue that the Harris campaign catered to groups to an extreme. In fact, I’d say they studiously avoided what they considered extreme positions from the groups. There was almost zero discussion of the trans issue, Harris hardly mentioned her identity as a black woman, and Walz in particular was almost muzzled at the debate, and was clearly over-prepped by consultants who thought the way forward was to make common ground with Vance.
Josh Marshall uses the example of gay marriage and how that might have cost Democrats the 2004 election, while also noting that most mainstream Dems came out for civil unions instead, which I’ll note didn’t do us a shit bit of good, electorally. Those who hated the notion of two people getting married also hated the notion of them living together under a state-sanctioned contract. And, twenty years later, it’s hard to imagine the end of gay marriage, though there are 6 sharia law judges in DC who I’m sure are imagining it as we speak.
So now we’re in a similar spot with trans rights. I don’t see how running away from treating trans folk with basic human dignity gets us anywhere. This issue goes beyond the desires of a special interest group: there’s just no percentage in throwing away the rights of a minority under siege in a completely ineffective effort to appease the unappeasable.
So, where I’m left is wondering exactly what the “centrist” Democrats who are saying that anti-trans stuff sunk our battleship want us to do? I mean, yeah, they’re frustrated, because it’s a huge distraction. But what’s the alternative other than supporting trans rights the same way that our party has supported gay rights, black rights, hispanic rights and women’s rights? Another way of looking at it: Biden was right to avoid answering that stupid ACLU question, but he would be very, very wrong if he abandoned trans Americans. The issue isn’t “groups” — it’s basic human rights.
Old Man Shadow
What moderates have always wanted on civil rights: to drop the issue until some nebulous future time when it’s the “right” time to fight for human rights for a marginalized group.
Old Man Shadow
What moderates have always proposed for civil rights battles: Wait until some time in the future when it’s “better” to fight these battles.
New Deal democrat
I almost wrote Josh Marshall to point out that almost 50 years ago, the Equal Rights Amendment foundered on almost an identical issue: did it mandate unisex restrooms? There were some respectable lawprofs who said it did. (I don’t remember if the issue of separate sports teams came up or not).
I suspect if you tried to re-pass the E.R.A. today, it would still founder on the same issue. Lots of people are just squirrelly about that kinds of stuff.
Aussie Sheila
Good post.
The other thing about the idiocy of running away from your commitments to ‘out groups’ is that your opponents will simply make something up anyway irrespective of what you do or say.
A little less handwringing (which is understandable in the current circumstances) and more looking at where things went ok. It looks like the Democratic Party is starting to focus seriously on State and local races.
Good.
That’s the first step in securing an enduring victory and aiui, Dems did well in those arenas where they competed seriously.
As for the rest I think less attention to consultants and no attention at all to donors, and more to the Party apparatuses in the States where you need to win.
And I think inflation and its effects, particularly high interest rates on small business where many immigrants are the indebted, precarious and always worried owners, had more to do with a very, very narrow loss than the handwringing about a tiny vulnerable minority like trans people.
It’s simply ridiculous to spend any time on it imo.
Baud
Good question and good point. More broadly, everyone is talking in abstract generalities about what we should do. I’ve heard very few specifics, except for the Medicare for All people who always think that’s a winning issue.
During the campaign, lots of people thought marijuana legalization would be a winning issue. It wasn’t.
TheMightyTrowel
this whole argument from the dc podcast bros is repugnant. either you believe in human rights or you are exactly the empty vessel spouting nice sounding shibboleths that the right wing press accuses dems of being. grow a spine and stand for something other than personal power and influence. the dydes are dragging down the whole party because politics is a game to them with no real personal consequences.
narya
I listened to that particular episode, and I thought the discussion was really enlightening–the challenge, for a candidate, is that the questionnaires that the groups want filled out are often extremely lengthy. Candidates are of course going to hand it off to a staff person and then review it, but the candidate then has to remember everything they said to every single group. That all sounds like an exercise in gotcha to me, one that isn’t going to serve the candidate well.
As for the people saying that anti-trans stuff sunk our battleship, well, second of all, there’s no proof of that, but first and foremost, we’re not going to abandon trans folks. Just no. We can and should continue to work on how we talk about this (and there are multiple “right ways”), but abandoning trans folks has no place in the discussion. IMHO.
Old School
Baud suggested “equal dignity politics” as a phrase to use.
That works for me because if a Democratic politician suggests that they are for trans rights, but would be open to denying gender-affirming care for prisoners or forbidding trans athletes to compete in high school sports, the “controversy” will just move to a different anti-trans issue.
Baud
Also too
We’re going to have to do both and we’ll get pummeled whatever we do.
Butch
My niece is now my nephew. He lives in a small Western town and I was always worried about his safety, but more so now.
TBone
Comment from elsewhere:
FCC Chair pick 🤡😆
(CBS News)
I bet he had a view of Rump Tower when he said it.
Citizen Alan
@New Deal democrat: So many intertwined issues–abortion, equal rights for women, acceptance of LGBT rights, transgender issues–turn on the obsession that straight white Christian men have with making sure everyone conforms to the gender roles as they are outlined in the Bible. Gender roles that, by a happy coincidence put straight white Christian men at the top and everyone else in a subordinate position.
Ryan
@Baud: I agree. I mean, would you respect any politician that compromised on his or her values simply for job security?
narya
And, as we’ve been discussing today, there is no single general answer that’s gonna work everywhere. So the one-weird-trick (or, rather, one-big-reason-we-lost) people should STFU. They won’t, of course, but I’m giving myself permission to ignore people who are saying shit like that. (Not that my opinion matters, but still.)
Baud
And FYI
sentient ai from the future
As the parent of a trans kid (oops, am I identity-politics-ing? Sorry not sorry) I think you’d be hard pressed to find another demographic who will be as tooth and nail about fighting this, since our kids’ safety is being directly targeted.
The challenge is doing the civic education and activist praxis to get folks up to speed ASAP.
lowtechcyclist
There ain’t none. Inclusiveness is a core Democratic value, and one of the things that has finally made me proud to be a Democrat is the fact that in recent years, we seem to have finally gotten past underbussing minority groups when they’re demonized by the right. To turn our back on them is to turn our back on who we are as well.
Aussie Sheila
@narya:
I find the idea of political Party leaders filling out questionnaires put forward by various interest groups risible, if not repugnant. Listening to your base as you put together your platform and program is fundamental to any Party that needs to keep proper faith with its members and supporters.
Being asked to complete a checklist like this Is undemocratic in my opinion, and fraught with pitfalls going forward. Listen, respond, then campaign on widely held and deeply felt commitments and policies that meet the political needs of your people, at the time of the actual election.
sentient ai from the future
@Old School: I like the phrase, and we could shorten it to “dignity politics” since we know right wingers have none.
danielx
@TBone:
Right. And if Carr’s last name happened to be Sanchez or some such, he wouldn’t be pontificating to Fox News on how Americans are treated .
Sanjeevs
Hundreds if articles on how one magical policy position would have won the election.
Other than Carol Cadwallladr, nothing about how the Republicans became dominant on social media via troll farms and the backing of the platform owners,
Total waste of time reading that ‘analysis’.
New Deal democrat
@Baud: We have now had 3 elections in a row that have been decided by an average of 1.3% of the vote in the three “blue wall” swing states (less than 500,000 total).
Given death and coming of age, probably only about 80% of the Electorate was the same throughout the 8 year time span. Racial/ethnic demographics have evolved somewhat as well. Trans rights weren’t an issue in 2016 or 2020. Per Kevin Drum the GOP vote for Congresscritters only went up from 50.6% to 59.7% in this election.
And yet the Electorate seems frozen. Tiny changes at the margins are making all the difference.
Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride
The ACLU has always had an agenda of defending and trying to advance unpopular causes. It has never had an agenda of getting its leaders elected to office or figuring out how to help anyone else do so. That being so, I wonder whether it ever benefits politicians — even on our side — to respond to questionnaires like this. i suspect the number of voters who would be upset because a politician refused to do so is far less than the number who would be upset by a “wrong” answer.
KatKapCC
Anyone who thinks the answer is ignoring trans people never cared about trans people to begin with and therefore does not deserve to be listened to ever about anything.
planet eddie
It’s very exhausting having folks deliberate just exactly how visible we’re supposed to be and in what ways we’re supposed to be inconveniences. It’s one of the reasons way back when I knew they were going to be using trans folks as The Wedge issue when the election got closer, and was pretty worried that this would be the reaction from the Dems if we lost…
Peal
there’s a typo in there right, because that’s a huge difference.
Melancholy Jaques
@Baud:
The one area in which our party does need to sit down, talk it out, and figure where we stand is immigration. We have to come up with a four or five point argument that we can sell – first to our own voters, then to the public.
We get hammered on this not just because the nation is filled with ignorant, hateful bigots, but because we don’t have a policy answer that the public understands and identifies as the Democratic Party policy proposal. All they heard was that we favor open borders so scary brown criminals can come here to rape women, get free sex change operations, and take away all our black jobs.
We have to be able to do this. I think it means we are going to have to embrace and sell amnesty. Not going to be easy.
@mistermix.bsky.social
I posted this in the last thread, but here again is Sarah McBride’s response:
Steve LaBonne
Whatever politicians do, the dignity and worth and belovedness of trans and other genderqueer people is not a mere political issue for me, but a very basic moral and religious (UU) issue. Underbussing is not on the table for me in any way, shape, or form. Especially today (Trans Day of Remembrance) of all days but also every day of the year.
New Deal democrat
@Peal: ok to be safe here is the copy and paste:
Baud
@Melancholy Jaques:
There are a lot of issues where we’re avoiding internal battles.
Steve LaBonne
@New Deal democrat: Trump all along has brought out voters who don’t care much about other Republicans. I think this offers some hope for the future.
Old School
@planet eddie: It’s good to see you!
KatKapCC
@@mistermix.bsky.social: And I’ll say again that I’m worried for her safety if this means she will be using men’s bathrooms.
Aussie Sheila
@Aussie Sheila:
Oh, and anti trans campaigning was a big issue in the 2022 Federal election here. The reactionary fuckwit that ran on that issue in a very conservative electorate lost. Bigly. To an independent that supports the ALP mostly in the HoReps.
Culture war issues will always be on the back burner (except for that part of the electorate that cares-about 25%) in favour of a broad, compelling and relevant economic message.
tam1MI
I said as soon as the election results came in, “The Dems are going to move to the right. It’s only a matter of which group they decide to throw under the bus”. So I’m not surprised that certain pundits are calling for trans people to be thrown under the bus.
What gives me hope (ironically) is that the ranks of elected moderate Democrats who might hold this position got thinned out in this election while progressive Dems more or less stayed at their same strength, so that idea is more likely to be shot down.
JiveTurkin
I live in Florida and saw almost no ads for president. My brother is in NJ and watches mostly sports on TV, and he said he saw the same anti-trans ad on an almost constant basis. His comment was it was vile but probably effective. I don’t know what you can do to combat it, but trying to throw the trans community isn’t an option.
Sister Golden Bear
And predicted Johnson just announced that trans people are banned from Capitol restrooms. (via Joe.My.God)
This goes beyond Rep. McBride and also affects any trans people working at, or visiting the Capitol. And gender policing of any cis woman who doesn’t look feminine enough—there’s a long sordid history of this
A reminder that 1) it’s an attempt to normalize anti-trans discrimination, and 2) it’s a “urinary leash” intended to keep trans people out of public spaces.
Eduardo
@@mistermix.bsky.social: That is perfect. Maybe making it a bit shorter so more people read it but with the same message.
marcopolo
@Aussie Sheila: Second this.
I have been a supporter (monthly donor) of Run for Something since 2018. They help recruit & train candidates for state and local office who are younger (most or all under 40), and more often women, minority folks, and members of the LGBTQI community. If you don’t know about them click the link & check them out. They have a pretty great track record (over 1000 folks elected). When I hear people say Ds should have a 50 state strategy, well, Run for Something has been doing that for a half decade now. And if you want to find a “local” candidate to support there’s a good chance there is a Run for Something candidate nearby–there’s a list at their website. Btw, over 10,000 people have signed up to be candidates since the election!
Also, if any front pagers wanted to set up some kind of Zoom or something with Amanda Litman (RfS’s founder) or someone else from the group that would be pretty cool. And positive. And inspirational.
cmorenc
@Citizen Alan: Jesus was a strait white guy – all the prints and paintings of him in churches, especially contemporary evangelical ones, depict him as a white guy, and church members are plugged directly into God, so how could they possibly be wrong about that? Jesus appearance in these Church artworks depict Jesus as a hippiesh white guy with long hair &beard who looks like he maybe resided in a commune when he wasn’t out giving away loaves and fishes. Amazingly, his depicted resemblance to a DFH doesn’t seem to bug them at all.
Chris
@Aussie Sheila:
This.
When it comes to “identity politics,” the plain fact is that even if every single member of whatever “out group” is currently under a microscope were to disappear or just go hide in the closet for mainstream society’s convenience, the only thing that would happen is the right wingers would find some other identity group, drag it into the spotlight, and start all over again.
The normies can piss and moan all they want about how they hate hearing about “identity politics,” but this isn’t going to stop happening until enough of them finally get it through their fucking heads that the fascists, not the currently-stigmatized-identity-group and not the liberals sticking up for their rights, are the common denominator and the inciting incident here, and until enough of them finally learn to shut that shit down immediately instead of pretending yet again that there’s some sort of important conversation and negotiation to be had here.
(So, you know, it isn’t going to stop happening in my lifetime).
Sister Golden Bear
As far as whether Dems should underbus trans people (again) for “the greater good,” remember Republicans have explicitly said targeting trans people is part of their explicit strategy to eventually overturn all LGBTQ rights.
Trans people are the canaries in the coal mine.
Baud
@planet eddie:
👋
Kent
There are really two separate issues here that might have some overlap in electoral politics but they are separate issues.
First with respect to interest group politics in DC. This is a real issue even completely outside of electoral politics. For example, my former career was as a marine fisheries biologist with NMFS which is part of NOAA. I mostly worked on Alaska fisheries issues but also some on national marine mammal protection. What I discovered is that there is a whole cadre of national interest groups that engage in fisheries policy out of DC (mainly it seems as fundraising appeals and to show that their DC lobbyists are working). So, for example, on some random commercial fishing measure affecting only some niche fishery in Alaska we would get comments from the Humane Society, Greenpeace, PETA, and a whole much of other groups that were often uniformed or demanding policy positions that were frankly contrary to the law. They would also demand hearings on issues in DC which meant holding a hearing on some Alaska topic 5,000 miles away from the nearest Alaska fisherman or native group that only the lobbyists of national interest groups would attend. Giant waste of time. There were also Alaska based environmental groups but they were 100% better and more thoughtful than their DC kin.
There is an entirely separate issue of how the GOP fixates on issues around which to negative campaign. This is basically a process of flinging shit against the wall with a giant firehose and seeing what sticks. Two years ago it was CRT and DEI and migrant caravans. This year it was trans issues and “Border Czar” Harris letting immigrants eating cats. The GOP will do this regardless of what Democrats do. And they will just make up shit. There is really no way to insulate against it. You just have to know how to answer it. I think Walz showed us the way which is (1) don’t be such fucking weirdos, and (2) what others do with their lives is none of your damn business. Harris probably made a strategic mistake to even engage in a question about transgender prisoners. But the would have found a different way to attack her on the issue if she had spent all of 2019 in a defensive crouch. So you just have to know how to deal with these negative attacks. Because they will come even if they have to completely invent scandals out of thin air (emails, Benghazi, etc.)
Aussie Sheila
@marcopolo:
Excellent strategy! Run everywhere and anywhere, no matter how hopeless it seems. The ALP always runs candidates in every electorate, as it should. Any State Party that failed to run candidates in every electorate would be dismantled and rebuilt. As it should.
Elections are the best way to run and test people, policies and programs. Politics is a ‘learning thing’.
People hear about your Party and the people running for election, and the Party listens and learns from the people that vote for and against, your candidates.
Nothing beats actual electoral competition for teaching and learning.
dnfree
@Baud:
Yeah, and the “Medicare for All” is an idea propagated by people who aren’t on Medicare, or if they are they aren’t paying attention to all the restrictions and things that aren’t covered! That’s why those of us on “regular” Medicare (not Advantage, which has its own problems) have supplemental plans if we can afford it. I don’t know enough about Medicaid coverage to be able to say if that would be better, but probably lots of people don’t want to be on Medicaid?
Sister Golden Bear
@Steve LaBonne: Regarding today’s Transgender Day or Remembrance, the trans woman who started it has been explicit that it’s not just about commemorating trans people murdered because of who they were, it’s remembering anyone — trans, non-binary, or cis — who was murdered because anti-trans/non-binary hatred. 36 victims in then U.S. during the past year.
Baud
@Melancholy Jaques:
When we last tried comprehensive immigration reform, a pathway to citizenship was part of that IIRC.
Steve LaBonne
@Sister Golden Bear: Absolutely, and that was made clear in the vigil at my church last night and in the UUA video we watched as part of it.
TBone
@danielx: don’t miss that Carr made the statement about Elno being treated…unfairly…because a government subsidy didn’t effortlessly fall into his lap, for once! Gee, Elno falsely advertised capability that he did not possess! Whodathunkit!
And who is the anointed king of getting special treatment because of his last name?
It ain’t Carr or Elno!
Drumpf!
cmorenc
Has Trump considered that his severe personal bout with COVID that might well have been fatal or left him suffering from “long COVID” is the kind of preexisting condition that would make him uninsurable if the ACA is repealed? Or that even a bona fide physical done by a doc not in the tank for him might well find some conditions that would make it difficult to find health insurance but-for his Presidential gig?
Baud
Melancholy Jaques
@Baud:
I believe you are correct on pathway to citizenship and, at least in the abstract, that has majority support.
What we ought to abandon is the constant struggle to get Republicans to agree to our plan. We have to have a Democratic policy, not a bi-partisan one that gets shot down and we don’t get credit for trying from anyone who is concerned with the issue.
Baud
@Melancholy Jaques:
I have lost faith that we’ll get credit no matter what we do.
Bupalos
We need to be able to distinguish between politics and morality, and between our values (which don’t change) and our political priorities which emphatically do.
If there is no win for your issue on the table of politics at that time, you’re doing no good at all to pretend like there is, in order to lock in some group activism/approval. Politics is not the place to make gains in trans acceptance, culture is. When you act within politics like you’ve won cultural battles that you haven’t yet won, the kind of negative progress we’re seeing right now is the result.
I think the correct approach within politics here was to continue with the line that it is just weird for these regressives people to be so obsessed with what’s in people’s pants. Culture is close to tipping over on them. But if we act like activists, like it’s such a huge deal for the party overall, that doesn’t work. I think the right approach within politics is just “meh, don’t really see the problem here, can’t you just let people be free and mind your own damn business?”
tam1MI
Slightly off topic, but I watch a lot of YouTube. Right after Harris got nominated and up to about 3 weeks before the election, every time a Republican ad went up pounding on a Dem, it would immediately be followed by a Dem ad hitting back. But the last 3 weeks before the election, the Dem ads disappeared and the Republican ads ran unopposed. It’s one of things that gave me a very bad feeling about how the election was going to turn out.
Geminid
@tam1MI: Very few moderate Democratic Representatives lost this year. I can’t think of any offhand except Mary Peltola in Alaska and (I think) one in eastern Pennsylvania (Peltola is behind but the race has not been called). There may be a couple more.
Two or three “moderate” Dems lost seats in North Carolina on account of gerrymandering.
The five Democrats who flipped Republican seats in New York, California and Oregon would be considered moderates, I think. I guess we’ll see if they join the New Democrat Caucus or Progressive Caucus, but that doesn’t mean so much these days.
Two very liberal Progressive Caucus members were replaced by more moderate Democrats. That would be Jamaal Bowman (NY16), who lost his primary to George Lattimore, and Cori Bush (MO01) who lost to Wesley Bell.
KatKapCC
@Baud: Every one of them should be asked by every reporter “If the report wasn’t bad for Gaetz, why did you not want it released?”
Aussie Sheila
@Baud:
How about listening and learning from recently arrived immigrant groups about their policy preferences and views before rushing to fill in questionnaires composed by a bunch of post graduates in some foundation somewhere?
I have two post graduate qualifications and my views about various matters don’t exactly align with small business people in marginal electorates.
The difference is, I know that.
I know that winning and exercising power is the most important thing you can do for your base and it can and should be done without throwing away fundamental commitments. Sometimes you lose by doing that, but people respect Parties that stick to their guns when it comes to their fundamental values.
No one likes or respects an organisation that twists in the winds of ludicrous op eds in big city rags that no one reads except political insiders.
Your base doesn’t care. It cares about day to day survival.
All of it. Including small and vulnerable groups that should never be shoved under the bus because some bigoted fuckwits and their opportunist donors start trying to push you that way.
JMG
Just leak the damn report and see what happens. IMO the Republican Reps are making a big mistake. Nothing inspires the DC press corps like the idea of a hidden scandal.
Chris
@Melancholy Jaques:
Frankly this needs to be true regardless of topic. No more of this bipartisan shit.
piratedan
A big part of this is due to the actual number of trans people being so small when in comparison to the number of people who are gay or bi. Hollywood had an ongoing acceptance of people on the downlow (unless you were a male romantic lead) and those people were seen and observed thru the late 50’s thru the early 70s and sloooooowwwwwly, attitudes began to change. Finally seeing roles in TV sitcoms and reducing the fear factor and allowing mom and dad to simply see them as people.
Trans people are just slowly reaching the threshold of awareness in the US and naturally the GOP has othered them as they are wont to do. It takes time, even generations before opinions begin to change and obviously the time is now to begin, but for the vast number of people, they lack a complete understanding of the mental state, much less about the transition process. For fucks sake, remember we’re dealing with an inordinately large number of the electorate that still doesn’t understand that the ACA and Obamacare are the same thing.
KatKapCC
@Bupalos: Politics and morality are intertwined, and if you don’t think so, then both your politics and your morality are fucked up.
It is IMMORAL to legislate against trans people’s lives. It is IMMORAL to pass laws designed to make their very existence all but impossible and nigh on illegal. It is IMMORAL to treat their human rights as a political issue only.
It speaks volumes that you think the only reason Dems support trans rights is to “lock in some group activism/approval”. Maybe they want to do it because — GASP! — they actually care about trans people and want them to be protected and safe and healthy.
The fact that you think the “culture is close to tipping over” on transphobes tells me you haven’t paid a lick of attention to the situation.
Steve LaBonne
@KatKapCC: This would be why this person is in my pie filter here and was in my block list at LGM.
TBone
Where were the tax returns? In the shitter memory hole?
2022:
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-house-committee-set-release-trumps-tax-returns-capping-years-long-battle-2022-12-30/
Bupkiss!?
cmorenc
@Baud:
The credible charges of criminal sex with a minor against Gatz would, for most lawyers, be grounds for disbarment or denial of bar application for a would-be lawyer. And the case would already be before the state bar disciplinary committee by now. And Trump wants to insist on Gaetz as the US AG? When there are so many sociopathic asshole RW lawyers who are competent and willing to carry out his agenda unfettered by the shadow of statutory rape-for-hire?
KatKapCC
@Steve LaBonne: I can see your logic.
TBone
@cmorenc: silly rabbit, it makes perfect sense when the only thing you care about is pwning the libs.
Lobo
Here is the article agreeing with the post:
https://newrepublic.com/article/188597/democrats-left-election-interest-groups
How to square the circle:
Avoid answering dumb questions.
As I mentioned before: Start with shared values/interests and then go to specifics.
It is habitual punching down to excuse and distract us from their own failures.
Chris
@JMG:
History suggests that’s highly contingent on who the scandal’s about.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bupalos: There is a big difference between not emphasizing a particular stand because is right but unpopular and walking away from a correct position because it is unpopular. One is politics; the other is simply shitty.
Jeffro
this right here
tax cuts for the rich help the rich fund all sorts of things that are bad for democracy. including outright owning/controlling new and powerful forms of media/communication, and with them, the means to microtarget lies to American voters.
Aziz, light!
We should stick to our values and our goals for American society. But I believe that the voters getting hoist by their own dotard will have a lot more to do with the outcome of elections than will any degree of messaging. Reclaim power if we can, but be discreet about how we intend to use it so as to not to feed the noise machine.
Baud
@Aziz, light!:
Yes. As in 2000 and 2016, voters are more inclined to be attracted to right wing social issues when the economy is doing good, while they pretend the economy is bad.
UncleEbeneezer
@planet eddie: Nice to see you again. Wish it were under better circumstances.
cmorenc
@KatKapCC: The problem is how to push and legislate for trans rights while successfully fending off RW attempts to destructively distract attention onto trans playing on girls varsity sports and sharing the same locker room?
Aussie Sheila
@TBone:
Indeed. How about campaigning on cronyism and corruption? I know trump and his crowd are irredeemably authoritarian and utilise bigotry to generate votes, but corruption and cronyism grates on everybody, especially the Dem base. Far more than detailing the exact federal legal position regarding bathroom etiquette.
The issue of trans rights should be an issue of according everybody dignity and respect, and minding your own damned business.
Sports policies are matters for sporting bodies, not federal legislation, and if the policies are bad or discriminatory, hold hearings and publicise the issues towards ensuring dignity and respect for all.
The trans woman Rep who just got elected will do more for engendering understanding, respect and acceptance than all the posturing in media combined.
Sister Golden Bear
@planet eddie: (Earlier reply got eaten…) Good to see you, even if I wish was under better circumstances.
And yes, EVERY DAMN WORD YOU SAID.
Layer8Problem
@cmorenc: Have you considered that he might, I don’t know, maybe not have empathy? Just throwing that out for discussion.
Redshift
@cmorenc: I’m always hesitant to believe TFG has any real plan, but if there’s any calculation at all involved in the Gaetz pick, it’s that the reasons you absolutely don’t want someone that compromised in a position like that are exactly the reasons TFG does — he wants a lot of unethical and illegal stuff out of the Justice Department, and the best way to get it is to appoint someone who’s not just slavishly loyal, but totally dependent on TFG to keep him ahead of severe consequences.
Omnes Omnibus
@planet eddie: Hey, welcome back, stranger!
Fair Economist
I think the message should be that people should be able to work, travel in public, and use the restroom. Period. Regardless of fashion choices or medical procedures.
The Audacity of Krope
For me, the question of trans therapy for prisoners is one of scale of engagement. Are we talking taxpayer funded surgery (against) or hormone therapy (unreservedly for)?
The notion that Republicans want this sort of taxpayer conscious debate and aren’t just demonizing trans folk is ludicrous, though.
HeleninEire
@@mistermix.bsky.social: Sarah McBride should do as she’s told. Use the men’s room. Anytime there is a Republican at the urinal she should walk over, stare, point, and laugh.
That’s what I would do.
schrodingers_cat
Direct quote from Rep. Jaypal. Why is she so gleeful?
Redshift
I think the difficult part on a lot of issues is how to fight for what’s right without responding directly to manufactured outrage. Fighting on their turf is always a bad idea, but too often avoiding that leads to “let’s not talk about this to avoid giving it oxygen, and then do the right thing when it’s time for action,” which isn’t good enough either.
Jeffro
@TBone: so funny – I was about to post a response to your comment at #64 and then I saw your note at #67, which said the same thing in VASTLY fewer words. =)
It really is all that they care about, though. We ought to point it out at every turn.
Sister Golden Bear
@piratedan: Generally agree, but…
Trans people got a lot of awareness in the early/mid-2010s, remember Time magazine’s 2014 cover story about “The Transgender Tipping Point.” Not uncoincidentally, that’s when Republicans made their first (largely unsuccessful) attempt at bathroom bills.
What is different now is the much larger number of kids and youth identifying as trans and non-binary. (Much like many more people started identifying as left-handed once we stopped beating kids’ hands with rulers when they tried to write left-handed.)
So it’s the same dynamic as with other minority groups when they pass the threshold from “tiny enough to be unthreatening” to “OMG they’re taking over.” Which is typically is utterly disconnected from actual numbers. E.g. I don’t remember the cite at the moment, but IIRC there was survey data showing conservatives think a quarter of the population is LGBTQ, when in reality it’s about 5% overall (and something like 10% of Gen Z).
dnfree
@HeleninEire:
That’s not what you would do if you wanted to be elected again from your district.
Sister Golden Bear
@HeleninEire: The thing is, it won’t stop there. I fully expect Johnson and Republicans to use rules of decorum to require her to be addressed as “the Gentleman from Delaware,” and use the dress code to require her to wear men’s clothing.
@dnfree:
Agreed. Unfortunately, like many other “firsts” McBride has to play the role of the better person.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
I don’t know if she’s gleeful, but she’s way wrong if she’s accusing Harris of being Republican-lite. It’s offensive.
ETA: also. Another example of meaningless abstractions, without any concrete proposals
Redshift
@Fair Economist: And if you think “men sneaking into women’s restrooms” is a major threat, tell me why you’re okay with putting a predator in charge of the Justice Department. And the Defense Department. And the White House…
Aussie Sheila
@Fair Economist:
This exactly. Frankly if you fill up the ‘space’ with policies and programs that appeal to your own base, the issue of bathroom etiquette drops down to where it should be.
Like, who gives a fuck.
prostratedragon
“La mufa”
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: The “rightfully so” is an echo of Bernie.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Oh, but Harris said we should have a lethal fighting force!
RaflW
“There’s just no percentage in throwing away the rights of a minority under siege in a completely ineffective effort to appease the unappeasable”
A-fucking-men. I read Josh’s Backchannel just a bit ago (before coming here and seeing this post) and for the first time as a subscriber there, emailed them. I said “What is Josh arguing? Is he saying that trans people getting to pee is the ‘maximalist position’?” His post was uncharacteristically obtusely argued, which if I want to get armchair psychologist about it, suggests to me that he knows ethically what he’s arguing is wrong, but politically he wants to make it seem right.
I am so crystal clear: If Dems throw trans people in the ditch, I am done with the Democratic party till they get their shit together. I’ll vote for ’em. I’ll still volunteer for people I know and trust like my friend Brienne who is an incoming freshperson Assembly member in WI. But the $15,000 I invested this year, and double that plus in the past two cycles? The Democratic Party can fuck right off if they cut out trans people from the coalition.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Well, I don’t know what Jaypal is thinking about when she says that. Obviously, the working class isn’t asking for a softer military.
zhena gogolia
@RaflW: I subscribed to Marshall a few days ago and already have buyer’s remorse.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Yes, I’m mixing messages. I think Jayapal is just echoing Bernie on the “economic anxiety” front. But I also saw lefties mad that Harris thinks we should have a military that can kill people.
TBone
@Jeffro: 👍
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Those people are ungettable as MAGA though.
TBone
@Aussie Sheila: 👍 I don’t want to minimize the attacks on our people, but some are specifically designed to distract, divide, flood the zone with outrage. Ok, maybe more than “some.”
Bupalos
@KatKapCC: Confusing morality and politics gets you less than nothing. Politics simply can’t run ahead of culture. I agree with your statements about the utter immorality of legislating against trans people (like my sister, if you need bona fides) but I disagree with the practical effect of taking activist-level moral stands in politics when that win is not really there on the table of politics. I’d go so far as to say doing so is ethically fraught.
This isn’t to say our politicians shouldn’t oppose the kind of garbage the GOP cooks up. But the regressives are doing it specifically to drag these issues to the table of politics before we have won the issue in culture, because they know that’s their best chance to set us back. We should absolutely oppose, but we also have to understand WHY they are doing that, and that it matters a ton how we respond. That we have to play the politics well even when we think these are issues that go beyond politics.
Lots of things are fundamentally immoral and destructive in deep human senses that we have to approach politically in ways that don’t foreground the moral certainty we feel. Fracking would be one for me, an issue I’ve been in jail for. The reality is that the culture right now does not support a political win there, because the culture wants low low prices. So under the bus it goes. Until that culture changes, it’s counterproductive to express the passion of an activist within the realm of politics on that issue.
p.a.
The fuckers wanted to burn the country down over Clinton’s consensual affair (the dumb prick). Look at their precious leader and the swamp-things he wants to appoint now.
All for Jeebus
Sister Golden Bear
And so it begins again at the state level. Republicans file 32 anti-trans bills on Texas’ first day of their pre-filing period.
Next year will probably be ever worse the 2004 legislature season, when Republicans state legislatures introduced more than 500 anti-trans bills.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Bernie and his brats have been lecturing us since we lost the election. And then we get sermons from several FPers about how we need to all pull together and not squabble like the proverbial crabs in the bucket.
In short if you don’t agree with us, STFU.
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: The whole point of a military is that it is lethal. Fundamentally, that’s why it’s there. Ask a soldier what the spirit of the bayonet is sometime.
TheMightyTrowel
@Baud: idk a gun toting prosecutor who steadfastly refused to stand up for minority groups ostensibly in her coalition certainly strikes me as republican lite…
maybe it’s because I’m not in the us, but i think the turf wars about party alignment are part of the problem. Either you have trust in your coalition and enough spine to stand for your priorities or you don’t. Getting pulled this way and that by consultants and pouting that people misunderstand you speak to me of a failure to communicate, a failure to build respect with your coalition partners, and a failure to create a policy platform you believe in enough to sell to your constituencies.
Baud
@TheMightyTrowel:
You’re caricature is way off, unless being a true Democrat means limiting ourselves to about 10% of the population.
ETA: Really, it’s as bad as the type of caricatures Republicans come up with for Dems.
ETA2: It’s becoming clear that there a class of lefties who do not appreciate what Republicans are today.
schrodingers_cat
@TheMightyTrowel:
Which minority group did she not stand behind?
Lyrebird
@schrodingers_cat: Hi physics cat!
I didn’t see a video, so I didn’t see any glee, but boy howdy I have a hard time taking it well when VT Sen or others offer pat explanations of the election results that act like POTUS’ work (child tax credit, union pensions, more construction jobs) or FLOTUS’ record (e.g. changing laws protecting domestic workers) is somehow ?? lacking ?? in fights for working people?
Like, it does not get much more working-class than hospitality & domestic workers & construction & whoever had the pension funds at risk.
Noskilz
I can’t see any advantage to throwing people under the bus for the sake of convenience – the people who one is trying to appeal to with that sort of thing seem like they’d just vote for whoever is peddling the uncut version of their particularly hatreds.
I’m also a bit puzzled how someone is hoping to capitalize on nuances when the target audience that claims to be very worried about the economy but also chose to vote for a man who explicity told them in his own campaign his intention was to impose massive tarrifs and inflict a campaign of massive layoffs on the largest employer in the nation. There are a lot of people it appears somehow imagined they were not voting to crash the economy and destroy the safety nets they depend on depite the guy promising to do so openly boasting that this is his plan. That doesn’t seem like a messaging failure so much as a “there are a lot of voters who does not seem to know what words mean” problem.
I can see the logic of wanting to capitalize on ambiguity – but I am also concerned that could lead to a situation where constituencies decided to sit things out because they don’t feel they are included.
I’m a bit puzzled by the folks facing an existential threat like Trump who decided to sit this one out, and appalled by those who decided he was exactly what they wanted.
I clearly have no good ideas on how to change that, but being as inclusive as possible and keeping an eye out for all the folks about to find out the hard way what a stupid thing they have done seems like a start. Making it clear what we stand for – even if it seems to have momentarily fallen out fashion – seems like a better route to rebuilding enough of a coalition to win than letting it be known our support is a matter of convenience.
Aussie Sheila
@Bupalos:
Once again, morality and politics are inextricably combined. It’s just that what is deemed ‘morality’ and what is deemed ‘politics’ is dynamic and not fixed. It changes with the culture.
It is very bad politics imo, to make any distinction between the two concepts. Fundamental values, which assist a Party to ‘code’ for certain issues are very important. They can never be eschewed if you want to retain your Party identity.
The way those values are expressed, particularly to your base, may be a matter of political calculation.
Throwing a small, vulnerable minority under the bus as a reaction to the worst and most reactionary politics would do irreparable harm to both your Party and the wider polity.
Bupalos
@Omnes Omnibus: I absolutely agree.
The subject here is the appropriate difference and relation between activists (the groups) and politicians. This is roughly the difference between morality and politics. There are real pitfalls that result in sabotaging both when the distinction gets too fuzzy.
tam1MI
If what I have been reading from news sources is at all accurate (big IF there, I know), the arguments that occurred here on BJ in the direct aftermath of the election are as nothing compared to what’s going on amongst elected Dems. If that’s true, I tend to see a lot of these statements as staking out turf, along with a hefty helping of We-Told-You-So.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Good question.
People who are arguing that Harris lost because she was too “Republican” are basically blaming progressive voters for giving us Trump. I declined to believe that absent data confirming it.
Aussie Sheila
@Bupalos:
If your politicians, activists and the Party at large is unable or unwilling to navigate difficult issues, they should try a different career.
You won’t always win wrestling with difficult issues, but if you don’t, you will surely lose.
TheMightyTrowel
@schrodingers_cat:
palistineans? anti-war jews? trans folks?
american parties are de facto coalitions rather than the smaller more ideologically coherent parties in parliamentary systems. your can’t demand purity or unity from them but for a coalition to be viable there must be respect within that coalition. that’s obviously not true.
look, i should not have this conversation here because fundamentally I think direct action not electoral politics is the only thing that will save my communities as climate change and creeping fascism both impact us.
tam1MI
I don’t think it was a shot against Harris, it’s probably more of a shot against the Dems who are insisting the party needs to move to the right in order to win again.
Baud
@TheMightyTrowel:
Data says Jewish and LGBT voters came out strong for Harris.
Ohio Mom
@dnfree: You have to be poor to be on Medicaid; current rules are that you can’t have more than $2,000 to your name. That requirement makes most people ineligible.
As I’ve often said, Ohio Son, as a disabled person, has been covered by Medicaid since he was a wee lad, and it’s the best coverage any of us in Ohio Family have ever had. All care, including prescription drugs, is free for him, and he’s never been denied any care.
Even if you took away the the asset ceiling, and allowed people to have any amount of assets, people would probably not be keen on being covered by Medicaid because they’d be afraid of catching poor people cooties.
Example #one gazillion of how stupid Americans can be. Medicaid for All would be single payer by another name.
Aussie Sheila
@TheMightyTrowel:
Direct action in the absence of electoral politics is what got the US union movement to its current position, and assisted in making US social democracy what it is. I don’t recommend it.
At all.
Baud
@tam1MI:
It has to be a shot again Harris. She was our standard bearer. Most House Dems were reelected. Is she saying Sherrod Brown was too Republican?
Omnes Omnibus
@Bupalos: I don’t think we do agree.
Fair Economist
@Baud: I’ve mentioned this before, but Harris got more votes in Vermont than Sanders did.
Being too far right was not the reason Harris lost.
Baud
Nancy Mace wants to be the Bathroom Lady
Bupalos
@Aussie Sheila: People need to define “throwing under the bus” politically here. Was refusing to answer the question of trans rights for prisoners an under-bussing by Biden? Was taking the activist position an effective combination of morals and politics? To wind it back 20 years, was Obama’s ambiguous position on same-sex marriage or Clinton’s “don’t ask don’t tell” an under-bussing?
What is the moral/political status of Harris specifically embracing fracking? For that matter, what is the status of McBride’s language in response to the Mace’s disgusting legislative attack on her dignity? Personally I think the reality is often that making progress in politics and making progress in morality and culture are two different things that require distinction and careful calibration.
RaflW
Update: Josh wrote me back. What he said in the email was IMO clearer, and not equivocal. I think he just wrote his original post in a way that didn’t land right.
Dan B
@planet eddie: Great to hear from you! I hope you did okay with the Bomb Cyclone. I was feeling especially down with the continuous announcements of appointments of criminals and abusers plus the raging winds so it’s encouraging to hear from you.
Trollhattan
Set Collins’ Furrow Alert Level to Potato Field.
tam1MI
My guess is it was a shot against Seth Moulton and other Dems of his ilk.
Baud
@Fair Economist:
The perpetual fantasy of the vast untapped progressive polity is irritating.
HeleninEire
@Sister Golden Bear:
@dnfree:
This is why I’m not a politician.
Baud
@tam1MI:
Her statement makes no sense applied to them.
Bupalos
@Omnes Omnibus: We do on your statement there. I can’t tell what you’re necessarily defining in real terms as someone “walking away from the issue” or whatever.
karen marie
@narya:
The only reason there’s a need to talk about this is because Republicans are consumed by “identity politics.”
The “rule” is nothing but empty performative virtue-signaling by Republicans. Republicans should be asked why men are allowed to use any public bathroom given how dangerous Republicans say they are.
TheMightyTrowel
@Aussie Sheila: direct action is also what got us civil rights, gay rights, etc. you can read what you want in history, but i think if you’re going to talk about the downfall of us union power you can’t just not mention integration, racism, and the way civil rights activated white supremacy and flipped a bunch of political dynamics – that’s also identity politics btw, the media just pretends it’s not.
voting pragmatically is a thing i do, i just don’t think it will actually benefit my communities. it might reduce or stave off some harms. still valuable, not the same thing (cc @Baud re voting by queer folks. some are party partisans, many of us are trying to escape the worst of the damage. that’s not an endorsement or a good coalition platform)
anyhow I’m logging off to get work done. I’ll leave here with: i encourage more pragmatic and less idealistic engagements with politicians. most of you aren’t running for election, there’s no reason to focus-group your beliefs and moral values. say what you believe, say why, tell the politicians this as often as necessary – i know many here do already!! – and worry less about what’s good for “the Dems”, the party and individual constituents have different needs and aims.
Ohio Mom
@Baud: The Jewish vote this time broke the way it always does: the vast majority for the Democratic candidate.
Liberal Jews (as in belonging to Reform movement) and secular Jews remained, well, liberal, and voted for Harris. Orthodox Jews continued to vote for Republicans.
Here is a more detailed look from Eric Alterman: https://forward.com/opinion/673192/jewish-vote-2024-trump/
Dan B
@Sister Golden Bear: Im imagining McBride dressing in a tux like a certain Hollywood star of the forties, or Katherine Hepburn. Be theatrical.
Suzanne
@Baud:
Agreed.
Basic-ass numeracy seems to be lacking.
Baud
@Ohio Mom:
I think it was even better than average though. I could be wrong.
Lyrebird
@Baud:
@Omnes Omnibus:
@Jeffro:
@Sanjeevs:
Been weighing whether it might be good for my mental health to take a break from the comment sections, but for today fwiw I want to put some “applause” emojis on yours.
Aussie Sheila
@Bupalos:
Political calibration is quite distinct from eschewing fundamental ethical commitments to dignity and respect for all. Quite different.
The Australian Labor Party lost a federal election in the early 2000s over, among other things, our adamant opposition to the Iraq war and Australia’s ludicrous commitment of a few scores of ‘army training ‘ Officers to that appalling war of choice.
Did that hurt the Party? At the time, yes. After that? No, not at all.
It cemented the leaders and the Party as being stalwart and true to their values. That is worth far more than one election. It guarantees that the Party ‘codes’ for particular stances, and is worth its weight in electoral gold in future tussles and struggles over other, far less weighty issues.
Steve LaBonne
@karen marie: We should ask why Republican men are allowed to use any bathroom given how demonstrably dangerous they are.
KatKapCC
@Bupalos: So until there are no transphobes left in the “culture”, we can’t fight them in politics?
tam1MI
@TheMightyTrowel: I think one of the things many of our voters or would-be voters need to get through their heads is that voting isn’t performance art.
Dan B
@zhena gogolia: Jayapal ran a successful organization to protect immigrants after 9/11. She was idolized for what she built. And her kid is trans so she’s got a strong interest in the well being of “groups”.
RaflW
@Geminid: The self-defined moderate Angie Craig in MN-02, a race Cook rated “tossup” most if not all campaign season, won 56-42. At least one story in the Star Tribune called it a landslide.
Lobo
@Sister Golden Bear:
“exhibiting a gender that is different from the performer’s gender recorded at birth using clothing, makeup, or other physical markers” as being in “drag.”
Mass arrests at Halloween? Can the Celts still wear kilts. Where is this definition of men’s and women’s clothing? Can women wear jeans? What happens to Gender Neutral clothing? How can we mock these laws while not trying to cry?
Gretchen
I like McBride’s statement that she’s not here to fight about bathrooms but for her constituents. Then we have Jasmine Crockett saying that if Johnson is concerned about safety he should release the Gaetz report about sex trafficking, and others saying Mace is so desperate for attention she’s tweeted 140 times in the last 24 hours. I think the two-pronged attack of McBride being dignified and above the fray while everyone else goes on the attack about Gaetz and how pathetic and lacking in real ideas Mace is would be effective.
cmorenc
@Redshift:
I agree this is among the most important reasons he picked Gaetz. The others are to force a loyalty test on R Senators to see if they will fall in line to whatever he demands, along with his extremely limited concern for long-term consequences for the country or anyone but himself.
Aussie Sheila
@TheMightyTrowel:
I’m the last person to argue against pragmatism. But there’s a difference between that and jumping up and down because some reactionary fuckwits want to establish the terrain on which they want you to fight .
KatKapCC
@Baud: And how will this be enforced? Guards checking everyone’s genitals at the bathroom door? And what of people who have had gender affirmation surgery? Will some mall-cop Bubba be able to tell?
Aussie Sheila
@tam1MI:
Bingo!
TBone
Where’s Rudy Colludy???
We have not yet begun to be pwned!
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/georgia-election-workers-defamed-by-rudy-giuliani-ask-judge-to-hold-him-in-contempt-in-new-legal-threat/ar-AA1us7sB
schrodingers_cat
@TheMightyTrowel: Majority of the white vote (men and women) went for Trump. The marginalized went for Harris. Your assertions are not supported by actual votes.
Or what @Baud said.
Your characterization of Kamala Harris is offensive and wrong.
Sister Golden Bear
@Baud: As I said about bathroom bans being attempts to prevent trans people from being out in public….
Gretchen
@KatKapCC: That’s always the real question. Chromosome tests on file? There are a lot more people who aren’t XX or XY than the homeschooled evangelicals think there are. Where do the XXY or XYY people go? There are probably people walking around who don’t even realize that they have unusual configurations. I’ve known an XO person for years and didn’t know it until I was told.
Sister Golden Bear
@Dan B: Worked for Marlene Dietrich.
TBone
@schrodingers_cat: yet, as a percentage of the popular vote, Hillary beat him again in 2024.
Gretchen
@Sister Golden Bear: And everyone who doesn’t look like their idea of what women look like: small, long blond hair, girlie clothes and the fundie baby voice like Johnson’s wife affects.
Another Scott
@planet eddie: Good to see you.
Hang in there.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Geminid
@tam1MI: Rel. Jayapal could have mentioned Rep. Moulton by name if she wanted to. But Moulton’s contrarian position on women’s sports has nothing to do with abandoning the working class, which is what she accused Democrats of doing.
I think Jayapal is trying to restart the ideological battles we saw after Clinton lost in 2016. I don’t see her caucus going along though. Her cconstituents might also think differently
Ed. Maybe Washington Reps. Pramila Jayapal and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez could stage a debate about the future course of the Democratic Party. I would like to see that one.
hrprogressive
The modern Democratic Party is just as beholden to insane amounts of corporate and related monies as the Republican Party is.
Nearly 80% of Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck.
Millennials and Gen Z feel “The American Dream” is at best, unachievable, or completely dead and buried.
And too many Democrats who have been in safe seats for 20+ years can’t wait to “make nice with the GOP” because the Beltway Media has made “bipartisanship” the Holy Grail of Governing, consequences be damned.
I’m not going to claim the specific ACLU question wasn’t harmful to Kamala’s campaign, it may well have been.
There are lots, and lots, and lots of people who have seen prosperity and growth and happiness stolen from them by the greed of the uber-rich, and they see politicians regardless of letter next to their name doing their bidding, instead of the other way around.
A lot of people are Really Mad about Their Lives in ways that have nothing to do with the old “God, Guns, Gays” or now “Trans People”.
Yes, there’s a significant percentage of the American Populace who wants to erase these people from existence. There’s no denying that.
But the final numbers seem to suggest Trump & Harris both got about 49/48% of the people that voted, and there were tens of millions more people who just did not vote at all because they feel their votes do not matter.
The Democratic Party has failed to give so many people a reason for their vote to matter, because at the end of the day, most people look at their empty bank accounts, soaring rents, inability to afford childcare, student loans that won’t go away for a worthless degree that doesn’t get them a job that pays the bills and allows them to thrive, and they make their choices based on that.
Yelling “Trump is a Nazi/Trump is a Fascist/Trump is awful ZOMG” for almost a decade has genuinely not moved nearly enough people to care.
Is that bad? Hell yeah it’s bad!! Full stop.
This country is not “equally divided”. It’s fractured into the following cohorts:
1) Out and Proud Nazi/MAGA/White Supremacist/Sympathetic to the causes
2) “Vote Blue, No Matter Who!” people who understand the dangers of fascism and reject the GOP completely
3) Disillusioned and disaffected people who truly believe “both sides bad, fuck them both, neither help me so why should I vote for them?”
4) Super low information voters who bought what Trump was selling but are already regretting it/not MAGA/just not informed because they aren’t terminally online/don’t read “The News”/don’t trust “The News”
Biden kept running around saying “The economy is great!” but what he meant is that “The macroeconomy is doing much better than it was during the pandemic”. But how it SOUNDED was extremely tone-deaf to all the tens of millions of people looking at empty wallets, shitty apartments, and no hope of improving their microeconomic situation anytime soon.
Democrats have got to stop sucking up to Wall Street and making nice with Republicans and be For The Working People, Again.
Trouble is, I suspect most of them either don’t know how to do that any longer, or have no desire to do it because they’re now rich and powerful and feel insulated from whatever comes next.
It is not impossible to run a populist campaign from the left that addresses the yawning wealth inequality and theft of the American Dream while also just very plainly stating “everyone deserves dignity and to be free of persecution” and mean it without getting bogged down by gotcha questions about whether people in prison deserve surgery or not.
Am I saying this is easy to accomplish? No.
But I don’t understand why this seems to challenging for a lot of people to visualize as one of, if not the, major root cause here.
Sister Golden Bear
@KatKapCC: Historically, women’s bathroom policing has been done by cis women deciding a particular woman isn’t feminine enough and then calling security and/or assaulting the woman in question. It’s happened to numerous cis butch lesbians, as well as “masculine” cis straight women. Things have gotten ugly when a rent-a-cop Bubba shows up.
As I said previously, there’s a long, sordid history around this, and bathroom bans inevitably embolden the bigots.
Gin & Tonic
@schrodingers_cat:
If I’m not mistaken, the majority of the white vote has not gone for a Democrat since 1964.
billcinsd
@Chris: but Democratic Centrists love bipartisan initiatives
Ohio Mom
We are being trolled here. We all know how seductive it can be to engage with trolls, hence the off-repeated advice, Don’t Feed the Trolls.
We have at least two examples of not engaging: Sarah McBride’s masterful deflection (comment 26), and Tim Walz’s swatting them away with his admonition, “Mind your own business!” He implies, “you are wasting my time with this silliness.”
Note, neither one of them got into long discussion on the unfairness of Republican actions. Which are definitely unfair and unAmerican.
Many of us here are doing exactly what Republicans want us to do, which is turn on ourselves and our leadership (“If Dems do this, I’m leaving the party”). We are smarter than that.
Dan B
@Sister Golden Bear: Dietrich’s tux would drive Johnson, Mace, and MTG nuts.
Sister Golden Bear
@Gretchen: FWIW, every time they’ve done widespread chromosome testing on women athletes, they’ve ended up dropping it because too many “chromosomal anomalies” show up in otherwise seemingly cis women.
Not just stuff like androgen-insensitivity syndrome — where a woman can have XY chromosomes — but often chimeric stuff, which can happen when a woman who gives birth to a son still has remnants of the fetus’ XY chromosomes in her body.
TBone
@hrprogressive: well said.
TBone
@Dan B: followed by Katharine Hepburn’s slacks.
tam1MI
Because that is what their voters want and reward them for. I don’t know how to fix this.
sab
@Butch: My nephew is now my niece (has been for a number of years.)
A once morose silent child is now a witty, charming, outgoing woman. She had to leave her birth state and I will probably never see her again, but hopefully she will be safer out west. God knows she wouldn’t be safe here any more. And she never harmed anyone in her life.
Sister Golden Bear
@Gretchen:
The TERFs in the UK also have an extremely narrow idea of what a woman should look (and act) like. I wouldn’t call it horseshoe stuff because at heart despite their positioning themselves as “feminists,” they’re really quite reactionary in their views.
Geminid
@billcinsd: The last two big bipartisan initiatives passed by Congress were the Infrastructure bill in November, 2021 and the CHIPS+ bill in July of 2022. All but 6 of the Democratic caucus members voted for the first one and they all voted for the second. So it wasn’t just “Centrists” who wanted them.
KatKapCC
@Sister Golden Bear: Yep. It’s happened to my (trans) partner a few times, as well as a couple butch friends. With one of them, the lady was with her grade-school aged daughter, and my friend was like, “What do you want me to do, pull my pants down and show your child my genitals?” It’s all so batshit, in addition to being cruel and hateful.
Aussie Sheila
@Gin & Tonic:
Yes, a majority of the white vote hasn’t gone for the Dems since 1964. It’s not hard to see why.
And does anyone here think the Dems should eschew their deep commitments over the years to racial equality – social, economic and political?
No, no one here would do that.
Have Dems won elections since 1964?
Why yes, yes they have.
There is your answer to hewing to your fundamental values and ensuring your Party ‘codes’ for important things.
Now it needs to code for more things, not less. And from the same well of values.
KatKapCC
@Dan B: It drives me nuts too but in a very different way <3
sab
@Sister Golden Bear: UK TERF feminists certainly do need a lot of protecting for professed “feminists.”
Maybe they should go back to mandatory skirts in school and no girl paper routes and no girl audiovisual club membership and girl crossing guards and no shop class for girls, and later no bank accounts and credit cards to protect us delicate creatures from the world. That was my childhood and young adulthood.
My niece just wants to live as herself in the world and not get beatup in the bathroom.
balconesfault
@Old School: I don’t think that most defenders of Trans rights get just how glaring the trans-athletes issue is.
I think the blind spots for Dems is that they take literally the rhetoric about school sports (HS and college) being primarily about participation, and character building, and teamwork.
Thus, it’s natural to jump to the conclusion that a trans athlete being DENIED all those opportunities for personal growth and development that being on a school team provides is unfair.
Of course – those of us who are deeply involved in those sports (I was a HS team captain, and competed at the NCAA Division 1 level, and have actively coached HS athletes, male and female) know that it’s in large part about coaches putting together the best talent they can, and athletes spending huge chunks of their lives, trying to excel at their sport both individually and as a team. It’s about wins and losses and championships and scholarships.
The importance of this to so many people is alien to a lot of Dems … and so they can’t understand why a video of some trans athlete in Oregon dominating the women’s 400 at the State Championships gets shared tens of thousands of times. The important thing is that the trans athlete wasn’t barred from the experience of being on a HS team, and in HS competition, simply because of her gender transition. They consider barring a trans athlete to be “arbitrary”.
I think we have to face this blind spot head on by pointing out that the nature of women’s competitions being separate from men’s is already “arbitrary”.
Dems have to come up with an answer that is compassionate … but is compassionate not only to the trans athlete who might be denied the ability to compete on her HS/college team, but to the female athlete who has not gone through puberty as a male and thus is going to lose the chances to excel given the reasons we created women’s sports, and moreover championship competitions in women’s sports, in the first place.
The providing gender transition care to prisoners/detained immigrants issue was really stupid – and Dems should have taken it head on by pointing out that the Republicans were spending more money on advertising the issue than the Federal Government would likely be on the hook for over the next decade. A single lawsuit over this issue probably costs far more than the medical procedures for a dozen incarcerated individuals. Point out that the Republicans are wasting money, and everyone’s times, on an issue that really doesn’t affect almost anyone but those involved, and people should be ashamed for promoting it.
Another Scott
@Fair Economist: +1
Similarly (though obviously not the same) with driver’s licenses. It doesn’t matter what your immigration status is, if you are driving on US roads you need a license to demonstrate that you can safely operate a vehicle, insurance, and all the rest. Driving (heh) people underground, making them fearful of being arrested (and worse) if they’re stopped, is dangerous to everyone.
But the politics of it is stupid and nonsensical because the fear and anger centers of our brains are too big and the GQP knows activating them is their path to power.
It’s infuriating. :-(
Hang in there, everyone.
Best wishes,
Scott.
schrodingers_cat
@Gin & Tonic: You are not mistaken.
Dan B
@KatKapCC: LOL!
Subsole
@JMG:
No. A Democrat scandal. Only a Democrat scandal awakens their interest.
Get it thru your heads, folks.
The media agrees with the GOP that we are lesser, sub-American filth. We are here to be abused by the noble white savages of diner country, then get mentally and emotionally abused by Ivy-league Coastals who berate us about not understanding our Savage, but Noble, betters. And that includes Leftists AND Centrists, by the by.
Those folks on the morning shows? The Sunday panels and editorial pages and columns and beat decks? The editors and producers, owners abd shareholders?
They look at you, and they see a racial slur who had it coming.
There is literally no way in HELL you can look at their refusal to accurately report on the GOP and tell me they crave scandal. Bullshit. They crave GOP acceptance because the GOP is coded as manly and strong and Daddy.
I suspect a lot of our media luminaries are soft-handed professionals with deep-seated insecurities about their intellectualism and the attached perceptions of inauthenticity. They basically have internalized the idea that they don’t have a “real job, a man’s job, a job you do with your hard, horny, oh-so-strong (ahem…) hands”.
I suspect this because the one, universal, underlying connection to ALL of global conservatism is a deep, gnawing, pathological insecurity about masculinity (yes, even the women. Especially the women, actually.) And the media is just nakedly in the tank for these assholes.
Not aiming this rant at anyone in particular. It is part tactical observation, part anguished howl.
Omnes Omnibus
@balconesfault:
I would be interested in seeing some science to support that assertion. I suspect there isn’t any.
Betsy
This is the disadvantage of a winner take all system with just two parties, which of course we’re stuck with because that’s just the way we’re set up.
If we had the ability to form a coalition government as in a parliamentary system, you couldn’t rise or fall on just one thing like trans rights.
I mean you could, but it wouldn’t happen as often, and there would be too many such issues flying around for it to be all or nothing.
We’re screwed because of the stupid constitution.
balconesfault
@Omnes Omnibus: Here’s a great discussion:
https://newsroom.uw.edu/blog/expert-science-wont-resolve-debates-about-trans-athletes
“In the controversy about trans female athletes participating as females in sports, an important consideration is whether the athlete has gone through complete puberty. Some transgender females go all the way through puberty as a male. Then they begin gender-affirming hormone therapy in which their testosterone is suppressed to a very low level, and they’re typically given estrogen therapy to raise blood estrogen concentrations to levels typical of women who have normal menstruation. The scientific data we have indicates that the muscle mass in a typical trans woman who went through puberty remains higher than the muscle mass of a typical cis female for at least one to three years.”
The size advantage of going through puberty is permanent. The musculature advantage will last for a few years, even with hormonal treatment.
When spectators see a trans athlete who’s 6 inches taller and has 30 lbs more musculature win easily in a female competition … they’re going to come down hard in the direction you don’t want to.
I personally wouldn’t be surprised if it was this issue alone that cost Colin Allred his race against the much detested Ted Cruz, even if Allred has never advocated for trans athletes (but simply voted against a trolling GOP bill that included a trans ban along with a laundry list of odious positions).
Omnes Omnibus
@balconesfault: And transwomen athletes have, of course, dominated in every sport in which they have participated. No? Hmmm, funny that.
Aussie Sheila
@Betsy:
Whats to stop the Dems supporting certain State and local Parties that can win in conservative districts, and governing in coalition with them? They would have to meet certain commitments obviously, but isn’t that the origin story of the many coalitions like farmer’s/worker’s parties and candidates that still operate here, and sometimes win local (meaning confined to one electorate) seats in State and Federal elections?
Big two Party only coalitions are simply too wide imo. But a coalition of Parties may be more possible.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Sister Golden Bear: It reminds me of the movie Hidden Figures, in which the Black women analysts had to go to another building because their building had “white only” bathrooms.
Fake Irishman
@Ohio Mom:
Medicaid eligibility varies greatly by state and by program. Long-term care programs have the asset test. Most other programs do not (for now).
People who are on Medicaid generally speak very highly of it. Our own Dave Anderson is on the record stating it was the best coverage he’s ever been on when he qualified as a parent in PA after he lost his job in the 2009 recession shortly after the birth of his daughter.
balconesfault
@Omnes Omnibus: Not sure your point here.
They don’t have to “dominate in every sport”. There are a lot of factors in play.
But you can litigate that all you want based on that argument. And you’re still going to lose in the court of public opinion 80% of the time.
Because there WILL be trans athletes who dominate, and the vast majority of people will consider that to be unfair.
Aussie Sheila
@balconesfault:
I don’t know enough about the endocrinology of muscle mass development in adolescents. However, whatever the truth, this is a matter for Sports Associations and expert medical opinion.
Not a federal election campaign aimed at some 70 million potential voters. To argue that such things should preoccupy a serious political Party is simply ludicrous.
Balconesfault
@Aussie Sheila: you are absolutely right.
But we live in the political environment we live in, not the one we want.
Aussie Sheila
@Balconesfault:
If a political party, and more important, its activists and supporters don’t work to shape the environment you live in, you are passive observers not political actors.
Sister Golden Bear
@Omnes Omnibus: There isn’t. It’s been studied extensively.
Omnes Omnibus
@balconesfault: Most international sporting bodies have allowed trans athletes with no issues. The fact that a shitload of Americans have hang-ups is no reason to be shitty to trans athletes.
Omnes Omnibus
@Sister Golden Bear:
I know.
Sister Golden Bear
@balconesfault:
So you wanna actually provide actual examples of this?
Geminid
@Betsy: Psrliamentary coaltion governments have fallen over one issue countless times. A recent example would be the Dutch government that fell last year over asylum policy.
Balconesfault
@Sister Golden Bear:
https://www.witf.org/2022/02/20/transgender-penn-swimmer-thomas-ends-ivy-meet-with-3rd-title/
Balconesfault
@Balconesfault: https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/transgender-teen-booed-winning-girls-track-race-state-championship-rcna153383
Sister Golden Bear
@balconesfault:
The Olympics, NCAA, CIF (CA’s sports federation) have allowed trans athletes for about two decades each.
In that time there’s been one swimmer, Lia Thomas, who won an NCAA championship in 2022, and her time in the 500 meter free was 9.18 seconds short of the NCAA record. In the preliminaries for the 200 freestyle, Thomas finished second. In the final for the 200 freestyle, Thomas placed fifth. In the preliminaries for the 100 freestyle, Thomas finished tenth. In the finals for the 100 freestyle, Thomas placed eighth out of eight competitors. Meanwhile cis athlete Kate Douglass broke 18 records during the same meet.
In Tokyo, the first trans woman qualified for the Olympics, and lost in the first round.
But, yes, let’s ban trans athletes because someone is concerned they might dominate a sport. Somewhere. Some day.
Sister Golden Bear
@Balconesfault: So you’re claiming both of these women were 6-inches taller, and had 30 pounds more muscle, than their competitors. Not supported by the evidence.
LibsOfTikTok and mediocre swimmer Riley Gaines aren’t exactly reliable sources.
Omnes Omnibus
@Sister Golden Bear: I know why you are fighting the good fight here, but I am doubtful that you will have much of an effect on that particular commenter.
Sister Golden Bear
@Omnes Omnibus: I doubt so as well, it’s more for others.
Omnes Omnibus
@Sister Golden Bear: I know.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Melancholy Jaques: Less easy because among Democrats there’s a lot of disagreement on how much immigration should be allowed. At one extreme, you have activists who practically do want open borders. At the other end, you have people who would be happy with more restrictions on immigration (not to the level of Trump, but reduced numbers).
The Truffle
How about leaving trans people alone and letting them live their lives?
Gretchen
@Sister Golden Bear: Interesting. I didn’t know about the chimera thing, but I know it’s much more complicated than evangelicals want it to be. It’s not just, you’re either a boy or a girl, done. For one thing, 1/2000 babies are intersex. There are millions of babies born in the US each year.
I also didn’t know that they found unexpectedly many anomalies when they did widespread testing of athletes. I wonder if this is also the case now that they do genetic testing during pregnancy more frequently.
I only learned about my XO friend’s situation when her relationship became serious and she had to tell him she couldn’t have children, and was worried it would be a dealbreaker for him. Fortunately, it wasn’t, and they are married now.
Conservatives just hate complexity. They want everything to be black/white. It’s like it hurts their heads to think.
Gretchen
@KatKapCC: Exactly! They claim they’re worried about what their kids will see in the bathroom, and then make demands and cause scenes that they will have to explain to their kids when they could just wash their hands and go about their business. It’s nuts! I’m sorry this happens to your people. I wish we had “hateful people bathrooms” so the rest of us could pee in peace.
Gretchen
@Sister Golden Bear: Thank you for that. It’s good for the rest of us to see we’ll formulated responses that we can refer to later.
randy khan
@danielx:
I can make a pretty long list of things that Carr hated over the last couple of years at the FCC, and this is just one of them. He’s going to go after them all, big and small.
I will say that the specific issue here was a relatively close call, and SpaceX probably had a decent chance (as these things go) of getting it reversed. But the question of whether Starlink was capable of meeting the requirements was real.
randy khan
As a progressive, I am going to stand with vulnerable people, particularly vulnerable people who aren’t hurting anyone, and transgender people are pretty vulnerable right now.
But I also think two other things:
1. As others have said already, there’s not any evidence that the transgender issue actually did any harm to Dems in the election.
2. I agree that there’s no need to answer every question asked by every group. In some cases, a candidate should actively avoid engaging with a group. (Nobody thinks Dems should answer the National Right to Life Committee’s survey, for instance.)
mvr
Skipping to the end without reading all 200+ comments so likely this has already been said. Josh Marshall’s take was not that we should not have defended gay marriage in the aughts or trans rights now. His point was that those who apply an unpopularity test to what we defend should look back in time to the aughts and notice (among other things) that what some of us defended then (gay marriage rights) is mainstream now.
Civil unions rather than marriage rights was always bullshit despite my understanding why some folks I otherwise admire couldn’t come out and say what they thought at the time. One of the things I like about Biden was his getting ahead of the change in PR and saying out loud what most of us already thought. Same sex couples are no more and no less entitled to marriage rights as anyone else. Whether that view was electorally popular or not at the time, pointing this out was the winning game in the long run. This is not to say that standing up for what is right is always a winning political move. But it isn’t always a loser either.