Kay made a good comment in the last post:
An opposition could simply repeat Trump’s broken promises over and over for two years. They don’t even have to address Trump voters directly at all. Is gas under 2 dollars a gallon? Are interest rates at 2? Is there world peace? Is Trumpcare in place? Are food prices at 2016 levels? Why not?
There was a lot of complaining in the comments a week or two ago when Bernie said that he’d support Trump’s effort to lower credit card interest rates. There was less noise when Fetterman said this:
“If Dr. Oz is about protecting and preserving Medicare and Medicaid, I’m voting for the dude,” Mr. Fetterman, D-Pa., said on the social media site X.
Neither of those statements really bothered me because I think they’re part of a strategy to hold Trump and his appointees to their word. Note that I distinguish saying “I’ll vote for some nominee if they pledge to do (some specific good thing that’s the basis of their appointment)” or “I’ll vote for (some specific good thing Trump wants)” from “Man, RFK Jr. has a few good ideas”. That’s because the former types of statements are basically the sleeves of a vest in negotiating terms — they are statements about things that will probably never happen with huge amounts of wiggle room. For example, Dr. Oz’ appointment is to oversee Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services. There are a million ways Fetterman can say that Oz won’t preserve those two programs and therefore deserves a no vote. Similarly, Bernie’s statement sets him up to be publicly disappointed when Trump doesn’t follow through on his promise.
Even though I think there’s a positive strategy behind comments like Bernie’s or Fetterman’s, I think we can do better. On this point, Steve M makes a good observation:
Want to try holding Trump to this [credit card rate] promise? Introduce a bill to lower credit card interest rates — and put Trump’s name on it.
Sanders and Warren should write a bill limit credit card interest rates and call it the Donald Trump Credit Card Sanity Act. They should put Trump’s September quote in a “Whereas” paragraph at the beginning of the bill. They should dare him to oppose a bill with his name on it. Dare Senate Republicans to oppose a bill named after him.
I know, I know — most mainstream economists, across the political spectrum, oppose limits on credit card fees, because they make it less likely that banks will offer cards to poorer people. Last year, when Senator Josh Hawley, of all people, introduced a bill to limit credit card interest rates, the bill went nowhere and had no co-sponsors, not even Sanders or Warren.
But if you want to make the point, don’t sit around waiting for Trump not to act. Actively hold him to his word, and do it in an attention-getting, headline-grabbing way.
Trump didn’t just get elected because of his hateful base. Low information “vibes voters” who have memories of a goldfish thought that what Trump said about inflation and credit card rates sounded good. We can shit on those voters all we want, but we need to convince some of them, as well as convince our voters who didn’t turn out, that if/when we have power, we’ll actually do some of the popular things Trump promised. Proposing legislation and keeping track of broken promises — in a noisy, consistent and sustained fashion — are two ways to do that.
Trollhattan
How does one point out reality to people filtering reality out, getting their news from podcasts and Youtube?
Baud
I think parsing acceptably positive statements from unacceptable positive statements is going to be difficult.
Starfish (she/her)
@Trollhattan: Podcasts and YouTube are usually getting their information from somewhere. Usually, that somewhere is real news.
“Where does this podcaster or YouTuber get their information from? Why do you trust it?”
Open the door to critical thinking. You can’t make people walk through it, but you can open the door.
syphonblue
More than Blue states which are already blue, we need to do this in MI, WI, NC, AZ, GA, PA….Along with slapping some Trump Did That! stickers everywhere.
Baud
Biden’s CFPB limited credit card late fees and that is currently tied up in litigation in the Fifth Circuit. Trump’s people will need to make a decision about how to handle that.
Baud
Via Blue sky
Kathleen
But if it’s OK for Fetterman and Bernie to work with Trump or Oz why is it bad for Hakeem Jeffries to say Dems will work across the aisle if it will benefit the American people? That comment was what stimulated the discussion on Dem “appeasement”, which was deemed to be “bad”. But Bernie working with Trump is good because it will “help the American people”.
LeftCoastYankee
For sanity’s sake I’ve resolved to focus on what is done and less on what’s said, by both the Idiot King as well as our opposition folks.
That’s probably a little easier now than when he’s in office, so we’ll see.
terraformer
So, not only do *we* have to “know things”, we also have to hand-hold members of the mouth-breathing caucus (and indeed, the conveniently forgetful press and media as well) to recall / report what the orange dirtbag said while spotlighting that he *didn’t* do those things – and surely in some cases, did the opposite
I get it, this is the price we pay for “knowing things” amongst of sea of people who can’t be bothered to know them, as well as captains of ships on said sea who are paid to *not* spotlight such things for “access”
just making sure I’ve got this right.
Chip Daniels
Its important about the low info voters who put him over the top because that determines what is the most effective opposition.
We can’t reach or even worry about the hardcore cultists but we can reach the outer layer of swing voters who are receptive to a simple repeated message.
Trollhattan
@Starfish (she/her):
I don’t know who these people are. I have a smattering of Trump-loving acquaintances and inlaws, self-identified, and sane friends and inlaws. Who is this amorphous blob stirring themselves once every four years to vote, convinced “neither party is any damn good” before deciding who gets theirs.
My kid’s generation do not seem to access normal news outlets. I can’t even convince her to expand her worldview.
Fake Irishman
@Chip Daniels:
Yes.
Perhaps an interesting idea we could run here would be to throw out some scenarios of lower information voters and how to talk with them.
Leto had a few good stories in a comment thread a while back.
We can exchange some notes, share success stories and build up some knowledge on how we engage.
Trollhattan
@Baud: Even Bibi’s on board.
UncleEbeneezer
@Baud: But he didn’t say “Fuck Israel” or cut funding to Iron Dome, so really this is just more genocide…
Kay
I think it serves an important civic purpose too. Its a facts benchmark not for Trump voters but for our voters. We are all going to have to hang on go reality for dear life for the next four years as Republicans and media gaslight us about Trumps miraculous success. Repeating the promise over and over and asking if it has appeared yet will stick. Gas, interest rates, Trumpcare, food prices and world peace. Since Musk is co President we have another huge promise – 2 trillion in cuts and a balanced budget.
We need a record.
p.a.
tRump: “There’s only a cease-fire because they know I’m the next Preznit!”
tRump voters: woof woof yeeeehaaaaa USA! USA! USA!
Bibi: tick-tock, tick-tock, Gaza…
Kay
@UncleEbeneezer
Well, as you know the protesters were objecting to war crimes in Gaza – war crimes that have now been extensively documented and which Joe Biden is protecting the criminals from prosecution on.
Lebanon was an escalation of the Biden/Israel policy. Good work moving the goalposts though.
Geminid
@Kathleen: I started following Hakeem Jeffrirs’ career back in November of 3018, when he won a close election for Caucus Chairman. California Rep. Barbara Lee came in second. That’s when a couple top aides to newly elected Rep. Ocasio-Cortez threatened to primary Jeffries.
Some people on the Left side of the Party aand more people outside the Party have held a grudge against him ever since. I am never surprised to see Jeffries targeted by disgruntled Democrats.
Kay
@Geminid:
But why are you impressed with him? I don’t object to him but he has done nothing to show he’s some exemplary leader. Perhaps he will in the future, I don’t know.
tam1MI
So Biden scores a foreign policy win to end out his term.
The Uncommitted assholes must be beside themselves.
Geminid
@Trollhattan: It sounds like this agreement would implement UN Security Council Resolution 1701. That was passed in 2006 as part of the ceasefire agreement that ended the 2nd Israeli/Lebanese War, but it was never implemented. Resolution 1701 required Hezbollah to withdraw their heavy weapons north of the Litani River.
Hezbollah never complied. Instead they poured more Iranian weapons into the border region. The Lebanese government couldn’t do a thing about this because Hezbollah outguns the Lebanese Army. They also assasinated Lebanese politicians who oppose them, including President Hariri.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@Kathleen:
Specific, targeted proposals for “cooperation” that are anchored to promises Trump made and probably doesn’t intend to keep are fine with me. They lay the groundwork for calling Trump out on failing to keep promises.
Blanket statements about bipartisanship, to me, are not helpful.
That all said, Hakeem Jeffries was handpicked by Nancy Pelosi for what I assume are his skills at legislating and keeping his caucus together. He just isn’t going to be that great of a spokesman. Nor was Pelosi, for that matter. I believe you posted a YouTube video of the entire interview, which I watched a few minutes of. I think it basically showcased Jeffries’ ability to push out a hell of a lot of talking points. I don’t find him an inspiring speaker. He may be a great Speaker, just as Pelosi was.
@Geminid:
This is not the reason I criticized Jeffries the other day. I frankly think of him as relatively uninspiring center-left Democrat who is probably an excellent legislative technician and caucus leader. (“Probably” because this is his first stint in the opposition, and we need to gauge his performance in a difficult role.)
That said, people in the comments here sometimes act as if the left advocating for their desired (more leftist) candidate for a party position is some sort of betrayal, which I don’t think it is. It is normal for a healthy, big tent party to have factions that advocate for a leader that might be more in touch with that faction. History since 2018 has shown that the centrists (Gottheimer et. al. in the House, Machinema in the Senate) have done way more damage to the party than people like AOC.
AM in NC
@syphonblue: Our state government will NEVER do this. Unless Josh Stein (newly-elected Dem. Governor) can figure out a way to Executive Order it somehow.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@tam1MI:
Weren’t they upset because of the genocide in Gaza, which this ceasefire does nothing to address?
Geminid
@Kay: I’m impressed by Jeffries’ intelligence, communications skills and toughness. Jeffries’ peers must have been impressed by him too, because he’d only served six years in Congress before they elevated him to Caucus Chairman.
But I find most Democratic Representatives impressive in some way.
How about you? Who do you find impressive, and why?
Gloria DryGarden
@Starfish (she/her): so, are you suggesting we drop comments on every YouTube that references news, asking where did they source their information?
and just pepper the comments of everyone’s podcast or YouTube with useful questions that offer critical thinking?
Kay
@Geminid:
I just don’t think.any of that has been proven. He was Pelosis ‘s choice and I still think Pelosi is the best, but I agreed with her on Biden. Balloon Juice tends to support whoever “the Left” opposes- Jeffries is great because Lefties wanted someone else. So far he’s generic Dem. He literally has accomplished nothing yet.
tam1MI
I saw the election returns from Dearborn, Michigan. If they were upset about Gaza, they had a funny way of showing it.
Kay
@@mistermix.bsky.social:
Forget it. Goalposts hoisted and moved.
Maybe we need a list of promises for our side too.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: Or they supported Jeffries because he was Pelosi’s hand picked successor, end of story.
Gloria DryGarden
@Kay: i need a nice comprehensive list, that I can print up, of all these promises. Is there one somewhere?
i don’t think I can stomach the research. But if someone makes a list, I’ll staple it in my calendar planner, and think about how to get it frequently recirculated and discussed.
Geminid
@@mistermix.bsky.social: I don’t see people on the left side of the Party advocating for their preferred candidate as some sort of betrayal. This to be expected. I think they’re wrong, not treacherous.
I sometimes have problems with the tecniques of guilt by association and character assasination that are used here against more moderate members of House Caucus, but I deal with that on a case-by-case basis.
But someone asked a question at #18 with general application, and I answered on that basis and referred to some of what I thought was relevant history.
tam1MI
@Gloria DryGarden: Ask and you shall receive.
Geminid
@Kay: You asked my opinion and I gave it. I wasn’t trying to prove anything to you and I have no plans to.
I’d still like to know who impresses you and why. There must be someone who has proven themselves to you besides Rep. Kaptur.
Gloria DryGarden
Im here to announce a somewhat terrifying headline I see on my google news feed:
”Homan says he is willing to put Denver mayor ‘in jail’ over deportation position.”
The Hill. 11/26/24 9:10 am by Juliann Ventura
article barely says anything more than the headline
alarming.
im off to do my car emissions test before it snows, I’ll be back. Hope y’all have some thoughts.
Gloria DryGarden
@tam1MI: thanking you ,( heart emoji)
Kay
@Gloria DryGarden:
No, this is a list of what people where I live and work have told me. There’s actually more. He also promised 10k per family for homeschooling. I mean, they misunderstood – it wasn’t 10k for homeschooling it was the ability to put 10k of your pretax income into an educational savings account, but none of them knew that. “529 plans” (educational savings accounts with a tax advantage) have been around a very long time but none of them know that. They were confused when I told THEY would have to contribute the 10k. They thought it would come from the federal government.
Raoul Paste
@syphonblue: Along with slapping some “Trump did that” stickers everywhere…
After the election, Adam said that we are now in the guerrilla war phase. This sounds consistent with that scenario.
different-church-lady
Trump might not need the money from Big Credit. But you can bet Senate and House critters will still want it.
Lobo
My opinion(worth the paper it is on) is that Trump will be operating as an protection and admiration racket. Oh course he is indulging those who have supported him in the past to the detriment of the most vulnerable. We should structure and message these as supporting Democratic priorities, e.g., protecting and expanding Medicaid and Medicare. AND we should label them Trump whatever on them to jam everyone on the Repubs side. Make it choice between ego and ideology on their side.
I also think we should call them out on the fact the Repubs are the rapist party now. See A government by toxic men, for toxic men
Bill Arnold
@Starfish (she/her):
No need to be passive about it; work out (even if probabilistically) the sources of information watched/read by those podcasters and youtubers, and invade (politely) those spaces/sources, and feed eye-catching narratives/memes/real information into them.
This is something the Republicans have been doing. (Also Russians.) One line of effort has them and others firehose-feeding into low-reliability-low-effort/cost fringe bottom-feeder RW sources/media, and those working narrative engines pick through the nuttiness and steal the most promising efforts for mid or higher level media.
Kay
You could also add RFK Jrs promise. He promised he would get all additives out of food. This is a big promise. I read that California has the strictest rules for food safety/wholesomeness so we have an actual example – did Donald Trump succeed in putting California food standards in nationally? Did they at least accomplish that? I’m even willing to grade on a curve.
Sure Lurkalot
@tam1MI:
I do note that we don’t want most on this list of Trump’s promises and of course, because it’s Trump, many promises are mutually exclusive and/or cancel each other out.
But hell yes when IVF treatments aren’t fully covered and his fantastic cheaper everyone covered it’s so easy health care plan never materializes, it will be most excellent for as many peeps as possible to point that out.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: You could be right. As we discussed a while back, maybe specificity is the key?
Kathleen
Mary Trump had a good overview of what actions Dems have taken so far in today’s Substack:
https://www.marytrump.org/p/democrats-fight-back
Bill Arnold
@tam1MI:
Wow. That is an amazing list (of Trump Promises). No video links, though.
Torrey
The one silver lining I’ve managed to find: the word “Trumpflation” has a nice ring to it.
ETtheLibrarian
As of when I got these number 11/26/2024, these are popular vote totals.
2024
Donald Trump 76,860,623 votes
Kamala Harris 74,368,312 votes
2020
Donald Trump 74,224,319 votes
Joe Biden 81,284,666 votes
trump did get more votes than 2020, but the real difference was that Harris got way fewer than Biden so in no way is this a mandate for trump. Basically, Dems need to remember trump doesn’t have a mandate regardless of what he, GOP pols, conservative media, MAGA cultists, etc. have to say.
kindness
“Voters with a memory of a gold fish”.
Yea…. I think I see a problem with those being ‘our’ voters. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try but…
Kay
USA Today has a glowing cover story about how inflation is over.
Voters will now report that prices have come down. I genuinely do not know what “messaging” will fix this.
Geminid
It sounds like the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah will take effect at 4am local time. That would be 9 or 10pm Eastern time I think.
Fair Economist
@Bill Arnold:
Podcasters and youtubers talking politics are generally doing it to get paid – either by monetizing their audience, or directly from some propaganda shop. They mostly don’t present information honestly, with some exceptions who are already good at getting their own info.
brantl
@terraformer: What alternative is there when “the crucial swing voter” has the discriminatory skills, and attention span of a gnat?
brantl
@Kay: Joe Biden has not protected wat criminals; Bibi has protected war criminals, and Stumpy will laud them.
Please , stop shooting us in the foot.
Bill Arnold
@Fair Economist:
Yeah, paid liars are a problem.
Need to have a reliability rating system. For instance, mediabiasfactcheck has a rating for media sites that includes approximate position in the left-right spectrum, and other measures. Sample:
Americans for Tax Reform (ATR)
Soprano2
@Kay: Nice of them to notice this after the election is over.
Glory b
But wouldn’t capping interest rates at 10% make it much more likely that lower income, new to the labor force & those who’ve had financial difficulties ( hello covid!!) will find it very difficult to get credit? Car loans, mortgages, other big ticket items?
rikyrah
Donald Trump is a white DEI hire (@Needle_of_Arya) posted at 5:15 AM on Tue, Nov 26, 2024:
Black people were swing voters for a hundred years before the Civil Rights Movement; the Civil Rights Act & Voting Rights Act pushed them firmly into the Democratic column
(https://x.com/Needle_of_Arya/status/1861368217689825735?t=7O-s82Jz_BK4KlHOlbSNzg&s=03)
rikyrah
👑 Mr. Weeks 👑 (@WonderKing82) posted at 11:14 PM on Mon, Nov 25, 2024:
No, we have a two party political system. That’s what you stupid ass people fail to comprehend. Healthcare, Democrats, Voting Rights, Democrats, Drinking clean water, Democrats, breathing fresh air, Democrats.. etc… everything that progressed this country was because of Democrats.
(https://x.com/WonderKing82/status/1861277308050407644?t=Lgj8wIqgjfGX8Ula6PmdHA&s=03)
Kay
@brantl:
Im sure Trump will protect Netanyahu too.
rikyrah
ProPublica (@propublica) posted at 7:00 AM on Tue, Nov 26, 2024:
ProPublica interviewed dozens of established Latino immigrants and their U.S.-born relatives.
Over and over, they said they resented that the government gave scores of asylum-seekers access they never had to shelter, work permits and IDs.
https://t.co/8WuAiPhwSH
(https://x.com/propublica/status/1861394542085234899?t=CjOSnz0gy78SQTtzu_8mZw&s=03)
Kay
@Soprano2:
Well, the upside is it’s a good test for us. The question was: “ were voters responding to real economic conditions or media/Republican characterization of the economy?”
We’re about to find out. If they start to promote the economy and voters then say the economy is better (with no real change) then that tells us its perceptions of the economy, not reality.
rikyrah
Amene (@Ange_Amene) posted at 6:36 AM on Tue, Nov 26, 2024:
Democrats only have ever needed so much of the white vote.
It’s been 43% of white men for a decade and now we know we have a cap with white women which is 45%.
As long as Republicans continue to campaign on whiteness and Restricting access to abortion ISSA WRAP with them.
(https://x.com/Ange_Amene/status/1861388542615642521?t=YFQ7mPtQUHgBqXDjEh3NiA&s=03)
Citizen Alan
@Kay: TBH, Jeffries hasn’t’ really been tested. He’s minority leader, and in the Congress that’s about to end, Democratic unity was easy while the Republicans were so hapless that they couldn’t pass anything that the Dems really needed to oppose. That may change now that the Senate is in GOP hands. We shall see.
Dadadadadadada
Also, House Dems should introduce articles of impeachment. Every. Single. Day.
Martin
@Glory b: Yes. This was always my concern regarding free college tuition. Without a corresponding increase in funding for schools to grow, all you’re doing is shifting the filtering function from money to admissions, and admissions is going to deny access to a somewhat overlapping but somewhat different population of students. It doesn’t expand access, it shifts who gets denied access.
The same would happen in the financial market. Additionally, Americans are carrying too much debt now, and making it easier to carry more doesn’t help.
I’m of the view that for-profit financial institutions are the main problem, if you consider the beneficial things that profits are argued to do, pretty much none of them apply to finance, at least in a way that is socially beneficial.
A better start would be to allow the USPS or some other institution to provide public banking services so at least we have that floor set, and then move upward squeezing abusive lending from the market while backfilling it from the public side until we hit what feels like a good balance.
I’ve been pushing my state reps to explore banking services for state residents. The DMV is the entity that makes the most sense to do this since they’re already charged with resident identity,, and an expansion of access to the DMV might be good overall.
Martin
@rikyrah: Yeah. That showed up in AOCs little focus group. The takeaway there isn’t that migrants got something undeserving, it’s that the government failed the residents that needed it. Solve that, and they won’t care about the migrants nearly as much.
If government isn’t serving the electorate, the electorate will turn against everyone that the government is serving.
If it seems like farmers are turning on trans people, the problem is that we’re doing the farmers dirty, not that we are helping trans people. Do both, and the problem will go away.
Bill Arnold
@Kay:
We did part of that experiment in 1984. A 1984 economy objectively significantly worse than the Oct 2024 economy was sold as “Morning In America”, and Reagan was re-elected with 525 electoral votes.
Miss Bianca
@rikyrah: you know, I just don’t get the fucking RESENTMENT all the time. People resenting student loan debt relief. People resenting any aid to asylum seekers. People resenting the mere existence of trans folks. People resenting pretty much any fucking nice thing, any lucky break, any long-awaited justice, ANYTHING good that happens to happen to somebody else. When did we as a society become such miserable fucked-up crabby-ass crabs in the bucket? Or have we always been this way and I just never noticed it?
Baud
@Miss Bianca:
I resent your comment.
Gloria DryGarden
@rikyrah: in suddenly in a mood:
I don’t think men should have any vote or legislative say about womens bodies and health. They (men) cause pregnancy, but they don’t all carry much of the ensuing events. Some of course, are great allies and support their families and assist w child rearing. And then there’s the rest of them.
Sorry, I know this is not a practical idea. Just saying.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: How are we doing farmers dirty right now?
Gloria DryGarden
@Miss Bianca: Martín explained it well in one of todays threads. If government helps A, but not B, B turns against A.
solution-
help both.
then again, it could be a strategy, to get B, the bigger group, to turn against A. His example was farmers and trans people…
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: White people want to discuss every reason under the sun but this. The news coverage, social media posts and blog posts confirm this.
Kosh III
@Kay:He also promised 10k per family for homeschooling. I mean, they misunderstood – it wasn’t 10k for homeschooling it was the ability to put 10k of your pretax income into an educational savings account”
How many ordinary people have 10k just sitting around? More TBS (Trump BS).
jefft452
@Omnes Omnibus: by not putting them on a pedestal and constantly telling them that they are better than the rest of us
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
We canceled Hee Haw.
hrprogressive
“The Donald Trump IVF Protection Act”
“The Donald Trump Credit Card Fee Lowering Act’
“The Donald Trump Inflation Reduction Act” (a bill which stops greedflation and price gouging)
“The Donald Trump Energy Freedom Act” (end big oil subsidies, finance green energy)
“The Donald Trump Family Farmers of America Act” (ax Big Ag subsidies, give to small farms)
And then when none of it happens, pound the table repeatedly.
Vibes voters will notice, maybe.
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca: There is an attitude of wanting to take away other people’s benefits rather than saying “Hey, they have something good. I deserve good things too.” I don’t understand it. Fundamental lack of a sense of self worth?
Bill Arnold
@Bill Arnold:
Heck, the economy in 1988 also sucked relative to the current miracle economy. (Not as bad as 1984 though.) GOP won the the presidency for a 3d term in 1988.
Unemployment rate 4.7% Oct 1988
Inflation 4.2% Oct 1988
Federal funds rate 8.27% Oct 31 1988
For October 2024, the corresponding numbers were: 4.1%,2.6%,4.83%
Baud
@Bill Arnold:
Yeah, but Willie Horton.
artem1s
I like the way you presented the example of cc rates. But why not do it with stuff Dems want to get done or protect. At this point I’m past bickering about who gets credit and whether voters can be swayed if you frame Dems accomplishments just right. Use the MAGAt stoopid against them. The MSM is going to give Rs credit and blame Dems if any legislation isn’t p-perfect anyway. So fuck it. Put his fucking name on it and make the next R POTUS candidate disavow it just like RMoney had to disavow Romney Care. That asshole will sign anything if you put his name on it and give him a sharpie.
I wanna see the TCF Anti-ZEGS Saving Granny’s Social Security and Medicaid bill. Follow it up with the Repeal Obamacare and Replace with Trumpcare Extending ACA bill. Someone will have to figure out the right acronym. Chances are you’ll get a decent amount of R-Dumbasses to vote for it cause lord knows they never read these things.
Give all the credit to their orange hero. The next time Cruz or Rand vow to kill SS or ACA let them face the backlash.
rikyrah
G Elliott Morris (@gelliottmorris) posted at 9:34 AM on Tue, Nov 26, 2024:
I don’t want to engage in a long back-and-forth, but I will say that a lack of empathy for people outside their bubbles is a big reason why Democrats have failed to recapture the Obama coalition, and esp. why they find themselves in the current mess they’re in in the Senate
(https://x.com/gelliottmorris/status/1861433419697189228?t=0K7_uWS3LOJxgsFO04SfzQ&s=03)
👑 Mr. Weeks 👑 (@WonderKing82) posted at 11:10 AM on Tue, Nov 26, 2024:
Lack of empathy why yall told us our Blackness were identity politics….. fuck them and you. Yall celebrated this man, defe ded this man, now yall want us to feel sorry for his voters… nah bro… fuck you.
(https://x.com/WonderKing82/status/1861457564556312946?t=WbB2_7boHEN_E0Lu2oCWEA&s=03)
Mike S. (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
Other promises of trump’s to hold him accountable for are
“Eliminating taxes on Social Security benefits and on tips.”
We need a thread called PPromises, promises!” to keep track.
Fake Irishman
@Martin:
@rikyrah:
The problem of course here is that the legal immigration system is broken. Dems have offered at least twice to try to fix that in 2007 and 2012, but been blocked by GOP crazies. Heck, we signed off on an enforcement bill in 2023.
GOP sabotage gets rewarded with voters who should be sympathetic. It’s a problem that goes back to Bill Clinton.
Fake Irishman
@Omnes Omnibus:
or general despair.
Geminid
@@mistermix.bsky.social: I’m not sure what you meant by the damage Josh Gottheimer did. It’s true that in Fall of 2021, Gottheimer wrote a letter signed by seven other Democrats asking Speaker Pelosi to decouple the Build Back Better bill from the Infrastructure bill. That’s what happened six weeks later anyway, not because of that letter but because we had the votes in the Senate to pass one but not the other.
In the event, Gottheimer helped bring in the Republican votes needed for the House to pass a bill that President Biden, every Democratic Senator and all but six Democratic Representatives wanted.
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez on the other hand did her best to discredit the bill before and after it passed. It took many Democrats months to see past her gaslighting, and some never did.
Kay
My youngest just got home for Thanksgiving and he described his gf’s parents as “screenagers” – it means they’re on social media all the time. I love that.
sab
So I bought two Chewy giraffe cat condos and my cats love them, and I think they are adorable.
Looking at Christmas I thought : Wtf they are African. Many Africans are not Christian but many others are. But these guys are just fake giraffes. Kwanzaa? Is that cultural appropriatian?
OT two packages that we did not order from Walmart landed on our doorstop yesterday. No way to contact Walmart if you don’t have an account. No ID about customers.
So we were either going to throw them out (today is weekly trash day) or keep them. Reece holiday trees in one package and Legos in another. I finally opened them to see what they were. Intended to throw out the Reeces and donate the Legos.
Then the unfriendly next door neighbors (we have been here three months with not a word from that side) claiming them. Husband gave them up. I would have said ‘what?! (Don’t expect neighborliness if you cannot manage basic curtesy towards new neighbors.) Well that ship has sailed. Next bad delivery goes right into the trash. I am sure ours would have.
Then the next door neighbors who have not said a word to us since we moved in four months ago tirned up today claiming their kids packages.
Starfish (she/her)
@Gloria DryGarden: Republicans do that. I was not suggesting to do that. Here is a YouTube about a British photographer talking about how Hillary’s team did him wrong, and the commenters are 1000% Trumpers who hate Hillary Clinton and totally know she is a terrible person.
You have to understand what people are consuming to understand their world view, and you really have to listen to them to be able to influence them.
Sometimes, it is hard because people are not telling you about what they are consuming.
Kayla Rudbek
@Gloria DryGarden: JAQ (Just Asking Questions) is a tactic that the Right Wing has been using for decades; it’s more than time to take it back. We need to recruit the advertisers and marketers to work for us instead of against us.
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: Oh, lots of ways. They can’t grow their own seeds because we’ve let Monsanto patent them. We’ve let their suppliers consolidate to such a degree that they have effective monopoly power. Stuff like that. It goes on and on. Go tune into just how pissed off farmers are at John Deere over repair practices, for instance.
It’s not that Democrats necessarily backed this stuff, but nothing is being done about it.
This is why I’m a little irritated that my argument around the need to balance democracy and capitalism keeps getting derailed by discussion of civil rights. Opposing a rent-seeking or grift based economy doesn’t impact civil rights in the overwhelming majority of cases.
Eggs seem to be the go-to example for inflation, but egg farmers aren’t getting rich in this situation. The supply chain forced egg farm consolidation for the sake of supply chain efficiency, which increases the impact of things like bird flu because farms aren’t diversified. Egg farmers are generally contract bound, so it’s not like they have a lot of opportunity to charge the distributers more when their flock gets wiped out. McDonalds, the single largest buyer of eggs doesn’t face higher prices because they too are contract bound. They have massive long term contracts for eggs, so their prices are protected as are huge grocery chains like Krogers. Go check the price of an Egg McMuffin when eggs hit $12/doz – it doesn’t change. So all of the pain of the supply/demand imbalance falls on consumers or small businesses, with the balancing function generally being the retailers. Understand that the balancing function isn’t one where eggs are more expensive because the cost of eggs goes up, but one where the price of eggs goes up until it discourages enough people to not buy eggs until supply and demand balances. Whoever has pricing control is the one keeping the profits, and that’s almost never the farmer given these are commodity markets.
A law on price gouging can provide some relief in extreme times, and is welcome because it applies to a specific economic situation that isn’t usually present, but it doesn’t address the structural problem at all. Farmers will often tell you how terrible this system is, but Democrats are almost as horny as Republicans for the overall efficiency of the system and the resulting GDP or export or whatever benefits. And that doesn’t excuse the fact that the farmers may have invited this whole system because they saw it in their microeconomic benefit at the time, and waved away the macroeconomic consequences (and as such things often go – even if you opposed it because you saw the consequence, the dipshit down the road might have done the inviting and there was fuck all you could do to prevent the eventuality), but punishing them for their bad idea does nothing to keep them from voting Republican. Being the party willing to help solve these problems might change their mind about that.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Martin:
None of that is an excuse for these people willingly and knowingly supporting evil. The same people they vote for (Republicans) don’t say or do anything to fix those problems, yet they continue to vote for them.
You’re also ignoring the fact that plenty of these people are just plain bigoted and like the GOP’s cruelty
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: People do tend to find civil rights important for some reason. Especially if they are someone whose civil rights are threatened.
Martin
@Kayla Rudbek: Yeah, I mentioned this before too. That Republicans are really good about speaking to problems, often providing no solutions, and Democrats are really focused on solutions without speaking to problems. It’s really easy to tear a solution apart because even leading economists will disagree about the utility of a tariff or a subsidy, etc. so there’s a lot of ammo there. But if people are unhappy about a problem, you can try and wave that away with a GAO report showing that inflation is low, but they’re still unhappy. Like, that doesn’t work at all.
Democrats used to speak to problems, and they kind of suck at that now. Except around, say, abortion – which the GOP threw into Democrats laps. And Dems did great on that – all of the abortion initiatives got majority support – and then voters pulled the Trump lever. The GOP is fighting a culture war because it’s a good way to center on problems. Maybe made up problems, but problems nevertheless. Democrats used to counter that with class war, but right now the GOP are doing a much better job of that than Democrats, and that’s a huge problem.
The axis of problem that the Dems are fighting on is civil rights, and the beneficiaries of that war are not large enough to carry victories, even with all of the allies thrown in the mix. Democrats need to speak more directly to a large swath of voters pain points. My argument is that there’s a huge one sitting right there that Democrats refuse to pick up because I think they were afraid of the donors. And my argument now is that they’re lost. Stop worrying about that and go after them.
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: Did I ever once suggest not fighting for that? You can fight for both farmers and trans people. These are generally mutually exclusive groups, at least as actual policy is concerned.
This is what’s pissing me off – you act like it’s a choice. It’s not. It almost never is.
Martin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Just so you know, invoking ‘evil’ ends any discussion. You cannot argue against ‘evil’. This is just a corollary to Godwin’s law.
As soon as you refuse to engage with the reasons why these people might act the way they do, there’s no point discussing it. That doesn’t preclude people being racist, etc. but that’s not 99.5% of Trumps base. We lost by 0.5%. There’s plenty of non-racist people we can engage with to get a win. It’s not necessary to achieve unanimous support in the electorate.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: There are limited resources. People have limited time and attention. At risk populations tend to see civil rights as more important.
Bobby Thomson
You have to do things in a way to get around the billionaire owned mass media; i.e., all of it.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Martin:
There’s right and wrong, good and evil. And these people willingly choose evil. There is no excuse for that. Period. I don’t give a flying fuck what their petty precious reasons were.
They were warned, they had access to all of the same information the rest of us had, and they choose that fucking fascist freak. He’s never changed who he was, he’s the same piece of shit now that he was the first time he was president. I remember what he was throughout all of 2020 and early 2021. They fucked me and a lot of people I know over. They also fucked themselves over. They will never be able to wash the blood from their hands no matter hard they scrub. I was able to make the right choice based on my own rational self-interest. What’s their excuse?
This quote from Kay is apt:
TBone
@Omnes Omnibus: that’s really rich considering what you said in my direction earlier. Do you kick your dog too, or just me?
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Martin: While I agree that we could try to solve farmer’s problems, if we did try and help them, like we did with rural broadband, I don’t think they’d vote for us anyway. You can’t solve all problems. It make sense to put your focus on solving the problems that effect your voters. If your voters feel heard and that you are at least trying to address their concerns, there’s a better chance of having them turn out and not turn coat.
Bill Arnold
@Martin:
Biden issued a right-to-repair executive order (to the FTC) in July 2021.
Work continued, e.g. Readout of the White House Convening on Right to Repair (October 25, 2023)
Work continues. Just pre-election, tweaking Mr. Trump (who campaign-promised working McDonalds ice cream machines on social media), A new copyright rule lets McDonald’s fix its own broken ice cream machines (November 3, 2024, Emma Bowman)
Omnes Omnibus
@TBone: I haven’t the faintest idea what you are talking about.
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: At risk populations can’t carry a fucking election. That’s why they’re at risk.
If that’s the level of problem we’re dealing with – failing to understand what a plurality is – then we’re in worse case than I thought.
And I’ve known a lot of people in at-risk populations that cared fuck-all about civil rights because they were rich enough to not care about it. Caitlin Jenner can wave the issue away because she’s rich enough to jet off to whatever country would give her care. For anyone who is truly marginalized and at risk, the economic problems are just as valid as for anyone else.
Ostensibly, the civil rights issue for the black community are pretty on the margins as compared to say the trans policy where their very identity is in question. And yet, the black community struggles because the economic systems aren’t often available to them. For them, you fix the civil rights problems in large part by fixing the economic ones – housing, banking, food deserts (market consolidation), jobs, small business opportunities, credentials and so on. Same thing for the non-immigrant latino community. They don’t need social programs as much as they need economic fixes.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: I think we simply disagree on philosophy. I see people choosing their tribe over their pocketbook. Farmers choosing the GOP as it promises to decimate the agricultural labor force have made an economically beneficial choice. Chasing them isn’t a good use of resources, is it?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
How is that them making a beneficial economic choice? Maybe I’m missing something?
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I left out the word not.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
I figured that’s what it was
jashead
Hang Trump with his own rope, always, every single time, they are the Trump Tariffs. Root it deeper into the public consciousness than “weird”.
Martin
@Bill Arnold: Two points:
I’m curious how many Democratic voters, who have strong principals in support of freedom of the press and freedom of speech would be okay with Trump nuking the NYT from orbit because we feel that there is a kind of accountability that should come to the NYT, and while we disagree with Trump’s reasons, we don’t disagree with the result. I mean, there seems to be a fair bit here on the left of putting good policy aside to achieve a certain emotional result.
I’m not saying that’s bad, I’m saying that’s normal.
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: Depends. I’ve seen a lot of interviews with famers in CA that are pretty quick to back climate change issues and use the lingo of people that really do care about it, but in the end say ‘Economics don’t permit me to do the thing that’s right. I can’t fight climate change if I lose my farm.’
And yeah. And that might be a voter that we are losing that ideologically we can get. Again, we’re talking maybe 5% of farmers here, but 5% of farmers wins you back PA, WI, etc. And consider too if this is what you are campaigning on, where does that force the GOP to go? A lot of politics is staking out ground and forcing the other guy to stand somewhere less secure.
Democrats did that on abortion – where the GOP was in the position of explaining why their esoteric rules around exceptions and weeks weren’t just hypothetical nonsense while Dems had the secure ground and didn’t need to lever much better arguments than ‘women and doctors are better at working that out than us’. Like, yeah, that’s easy to process.
And just like I think it would help Democrats to in some cases pull back to the states to force red states to reconcile for example, their anti-climate change/disaster policies with their anti-tax ones (something they get to avoid right now). I think forcing those kinds of debates within various industries helps too. CA has seen some success dividing the auto industry that way.
Tony G
@Gloria DryGarden: Critical thinking is hard work. That’s why “low information voters” don’t do it. I’m sorry, but I have no respect for those idiots. I’m old enough that I was 39 years old when, in 1995, the internet evolved from being a tool used by a handful of academics to something that was widely available to ordinary people. The internet, with search engines, provides access to an almost unlimited amount of information (and misinformation). You don’t even have to get out of your chair. The fact that, 29 years later, the “average person” is at least as ignorant as ever is a good illustration of the laziness and stupidity of the “average person”.
chemiclord
@Miss Bianca: We’ve always been this way. And right-wing media didn’t shape us this way, either. It merely told us what we wanted to hear all along.
Young Chemi quite clearly remembers back in rural Michigan listening to adults during a freakin’ little league game behind the dugout griping to each other that if Democrats won, they’d take all the “hard working money” from “honest God-fearing Americans” and “give it all to the uppity n*clang*s.”
And it’s not like these people were outright KKK members in their spare time; it was two members of the township board. This was the mid-80s, which predated Fox News and the rise of Rush Limbaugh by about a decade.