Here’s a gift link to Erin Reed’s list of the 81 Democrats who voted for the defense authorization bill that included termination of TriCare benefits to trans kids (dependents of military personnel). This is the first anti-trans bill of the modern era, according to Erin. There were 16 Nay votes on the Republican side, but some of those were nutters like MTG, Andy Biggs (chair of the Freedom Caucus), Paul Gosar, etc., so I’m guessing they had some kind of objection to the bill that had nothing to do with the anti-trans provisions. This vote sure isn’t an encouraging sign to any trans person.
The fact that Johnson will have a tiny majority next year, along with a good number of Freedom Ca-ca members who love voting against every bill that comes to the floor, is going to make it hard for him to get anything done. In the comments yesterday, there was some discussion of the Democrats’ strategy to protect Social Security. Brian Beutler [gift link] has a perspective on that:
So the plot against Social Security is real, and it goes all the way to the top. That’s why Democrats are prepared to once again oppose cuts to Social Security as a bloc. Running back their 2005 and 2017 plays in defense of the safety net is what Hakeem Jeffries had in mind when he dismissed other, major aspects of partisan opposition as “distraction[s}.” It’s why TPM’s Josh Marshall, a veteran of the safety-net wars, published an article with the headline “Let’s Call It: Trump 2.0 Is Lining Up for Massive Social Security Cuts.”
And, to be clear, it’s important for Democrats to be ready, even against a tiny incoming GOP majority. But we should all try to anticipate the ways that 2025 will be different from 2005 and 2017. I would advise Democrats to prepare for opposition on many other fronts, too, and with the expectation that the main focal points of politics in the coming year are likely to be taxes, immigration, and tariffs rather than the roots and branches of safety-net programs.
And to the extent Democrats do need to run defensive plays to protect safety-net programs, they should imagine ways these fights might not play out exactly as the did in the past.
Erik Loomis, fan favorite here, was on a podcast that I thought was pretty good. As a labor historian, he had a good perspective on the history of what used to work to build community for the Democratic Party, and how that’s lost in the modern era. This includes the loss of liberal religion as well as the decline in union membership. He also called out the Democrats’ habit of running 3 month campaigns versus the Republicans’ eternal campaign. The deal with Loomis, IMO, is the longer the form, the better the content.
One of the topics Loomis mentioned was that commenters in LGM have, in frustration, called a lot of voters stupid. I see that here, too. I just think that’s a pointless labeling that gets us nowhere. The question that interests me is what information those so-called stupid people — the ones who aren’t completely in the thrall of Trump, or aren’t irredeemable racists and/or sexists — used to make up their minds, and why information from Democrats didn’t convince them to vote for our candidates.
Baud
People call voters stupid because they don’t want to believe that those voters reject our worldview on the merits.
Old School
I guess I don’t have to call Republican voters stupid, but I’m not going to call them smart.
Suzanne
@Baud: I think it’s also distressing to consider that Democrats have some credibility problems.
Baud
Here’s info on what the TriCare restriction does.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Sure. Hard to overcome that, especially with people who want to believe we’re shifty.
But I’d say we have a bigger problem with people who don’t believe us than people who don’t hear us.
Soprano2
I agree that calling people who voted for TCFG stupid is pointless. It might make us feel good, but it’s not true. I think mostly they are misinformed because of how they were raised or the media they listen to all the time, like my co-worker who gets her news from Tik-Tok “from people who are on the ground” and doesn’t trust anything she hears from any regular media.
Soprano2
@Baud: Yep, this is pretty much it. They don’t like that someone asked them for their pronouns. They don’t like that there are so many non-white people in the commercials. They don’t mind that there are gay people but don’t like seeing them so openly on TV and in public. They are uncomfortable with the way the world is now, and want it to go back to the way it was when they were young and it was comfortable for them.
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: No, we call them stupid because they refuse to believe Republicans really will cut programs that THEY need. Their worldview is why we call them evil.
dc
People outright vote(d) for Nazis, regardless of smart or dumb or in between, people can be (and often are) cruel and heartless. They are just as likely (if not more so) to vote their hate and fear as they are their hope.
Baud
I’ll pat myself on the back for saying this yesrs ago.
We also lost big city machines, although we’re probably better for it morally (but not organizationally).
Suzanne
@Baud: I think there is a chunk of people who do hear us and don’t believe us.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: Yeah, one minute they’re saying TCFG is a threat to democracy and our way of life, the next minute they’re trying to figure out how to cooperate with him on some things and that they might vote for some of his nominees. If you really believed he was that kind of threat, you’d go all out to oppose him. People are going to think we didn’t mean it, and in many cases they’ll be right to think that.
Steve LaBonne
@Suzanne: They believe what they want to believe. “Trump won’t really do that”.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Yes, that was what I was trying to say, but I said it awkwardly.
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
Agreed.
Seeker
Should the Democrats try to protect Social Security? I don’t think so.
America chose this administration. Elon told everyone there would be pain and people said yes. And the Democrats don’t actually have a choice. They control nothing. Its fine for them to publicly denounce the Republicans and the plan. But I don’t think they should negotiate anything. They shouldn’t offer Dem votes in Congress or the Senate in return for watering something down or not doing something else. People should see Republican policy and they can decide if they are happy with what they voted for.
Baud
@Soprano2:
Then they should keep voting Republican, if that’s how little it takes for people not to trust us.
Baud
@Seeker:
It’s out of our hands, so I don’t know what you mean about trying to protect social security.
Old School
I see Hakeem Jeffries was one of the 81 Democratic yes votes.
This was all I could find from him:
Trollhattan
Stupid is in large a standin for low-information/disengaged voters. What fraction of the population are political junkies, can list and evaluate important issues, can ignore hot-button pop culture issues, can filter out media noise? A slender one.
When they can’t even be arsed to vote in an election where Donald Fucking Trump is the candidate for the third bloody time in a row, knowing full well what he did as #45, then we have another problem, Houston.
ArchTeryx
Everyone’s fan favorite Erik Loomis, eh? I don’t call the man Professor Asshole for nothing, and I’m as credentialed as he is. He’s a fundamentalist on labor issues and frankly we need a whole lot more of those among our elected leadership but otherwise he’s just another anti-Democratic Party gadfly.
As for the American voter, they aren’t necessarily stupid so much as completely incurious. That means they vote in whatever pattern is easiest for them – tribal party, thermostatic voting, whatever. They don’t give a shit about the issues or even candidate character. It’s all inside baseball to them. “Prices are higher, so throw the bums out!” is as far as they ever think, or care to.
Steve LaBonne
@Seeker: All we need from them is to vote as a solid bloc against any Republican proposal. Which also is all they can do.
Shalimar
Don’t look at me. I was banned there for calling him a music asshole-snob.
Shalimar
@ArchTeryx: Be fair. Loomis is anti-everything.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
So I know someone who was a Trump then Biden then Trump voter. Smart guy, but has had bad experiences with well intended regulations being contradictory and burdensome. Plus, he feels like a number of federal programs (like the infrastructure bill) waste money without always accomplishing what was intended. I know someone else who lives on the outskirts of Minneapolis and believes the like rail project was a waste, plus that crime is getting worse there because of Dem leadership. So, in both these cases, they don’t believe us.
Hildebrand
@Soprano2: Can we still call the legacy media feckless?
Sorry, just being snotty – because even though it’s neither polite nor helpful, there are a lot of dumb folks out there who vote.
Motivated Seller
Republicans juiced their electoral success in recent years by running a cement truck through what used to be politely called the “Overton Window.” If, as good faith Democrats, your aim is to make things better without wrecking things, you will–in the era of Trump–be reduced to a Crying Lib.
The two party system is a trap to Democrats. And unfortunately Democratic institutions have zero appetite for jettisoning the two party system, which I believe is the anti-matter to Overton Window smashing. Institutional Democrats that don’t lift a finger (even the middle one) against first-past-the-poll voting are stringing America along in the steady Republican-driven erosion of self-determinative government.
Subsole
“They’re eating the dogs, they’re poisoning the blood of our nation, no one ever suffered like me during the illegal false flag witch hunt.”
The American public ran that down their ear canal, through the manifold twists of their brain, and what their frontal lobes spat out was:
“He’ll make the eggs cheap.”
Nope, sorry.
I reserve the right to call that foolish.
And all those big, strong, no-nonsense tells-it-like-it-be Americans out there can just bandage their feelings as best they can.
ArchTeryx
@Subsole: Perfect example of what I mean by incurious. All the rest of that stuff was just noise to them. The price tags at the grocery store are all they cared about, so time to vote the bums out.
It’s harder for us to take advantage of that incuriosity because there are a lot more tribal Republican voters than tribal Democratic voters, particularly in the all-important EC. We always start from behind, evne when thermostasis and incuriosity favor us.
Seeker
@Baud: Yeah – I agree. But a significant portion of the post is devoted to the premise that the Dems should work to defend the programs somehow. If that means negotiation, they shouldn’t do it imo. And, as you point out, I don’t what else defend could mean given that the Dems have no power to stop anything
UncleEbeneezer
Calling voters stupid might not be great public messaging but if your analysis of our situation doesn’t account for the widespread ignorance, gullibility and apathy of our electorate, I don’t think your analysis is particularly useful either. Assuming that better information, messaging or policies necessarily moves these voters is, imo, one of the biggest failures of our discourse.
Baud
@Seeker: Yeah, they shouldn’t negotiate. No way any initial proposal by Republican comes close to being in the ballpark of any kind of deal, so it’s hard to see how they comes about.
gene108
Calling Republican voters stupid or voting against their interests takes agency away from them. Voters in November are adults.
I believe Republican voters know full and well what they are voting for a support it, even if some of them experience some friction they are not going to throw the baby out with the bath water over this and somehow change their world view.
@mistermix has posted about the friction he experiences with his ACA enrollment, coverage, and premium but I doubt he’s ditching the Democrats over it. I think most people on this blog have Democratic policies they wish worked better, but support something those policies try to accomplish, even if it’s done poorly.
Republican voters know there’s going to be some friction with tariffs and deportations, but they’ll put up with it because they support the broader principle of tax cuts for the rich and cruelty to others that Republicans offer.
Baud
@gene108:
Agree. Well said.
Greg
Are you sure those voters exist? I live in the deep south. The racism and misogyny runs deep even when not signaled by hoods and burning crosses.
Nukular Biskits
Quickly (fly-by … emphasis mine in bold):
I get your point (and Loomis’s as well) but we need to be clear here: There’s a difference between ad hominem attacks and name-calling and correctly characterizing Trump voters who continued to support him in spite of factual reality.
If someone tells a demonstrable lie, they are by definition a liar. That’s not a personal attack but an accurate assessment.
Likewise, if someone does or says things in contradiction with factual reality and against their own interests due to a lack of information, (i.e., ignorance), they are ignorant. Ignorance can be addressed by education.
If someone continues to say and do things in contradiction with factual reality, against their own interests AFTER HAVING PUBLICLY-VERIFIABLE INFORMATION PRESENTED TO THEM REPEATEDLY, then, yes, they are stupid and, quite often, willfully and belligerently so.
I fully realize that calling people “stupid” is no way to win their friendship, support or votes but, quite frankly, I sincerely doubt catering to them will result in those things either.
Now, back to the grindstone …
sentient ai from the future
loomis is pissy because he joined the chorus of saying biden has to go, and commenters pilloried him for it or left.
he is constantly trolling his readers and is incredibly thin-skinned about any criticism when his hypocrisy is on display, they allow actual-factual trolls to become chronic fixtures, they refuse to get rid of longstanding commenters even when they become actual problems that chase away readership, plus they cant get it together to not be chockablock with ads that are sometimes vectors for malware, yet continue to shake the cup and poormouth every so often.
fuck erik loomis and fuck LGM. they get exactly the community they cultivate, so they can piss and moan all they want, it wont make their commentariat any better.
ETA: Campos, Loomis, and Farley make up the “foot parkinson’s” youre-doing-it-wrong caucus, which does a disservice to better, less asshole writers like lemieux, zula, and rofer.
Steve LaBonne
@Nukular Biskits: 🎯
Baud
Speaking of LGM, Cheryl Rofer pulled a post today because she got a lot of negative comments, and is thinking if giving up on writing there.
sentient ai from the future
@Baud: this is my surprised face.
rofer can actually write, and brings some long-overdue scientific credibility to their masthead (the entire site was absolute garbage during covid) but one person can only stand so much.
she’s worth a follow over at nuclear diner and i assume is on bluesky.
UncleEbeneezer
@ArchTeryx: Thank you! So many of the diagnoses/solutions that people float for our side (including here) assume a
spherical cowrational electorate the responds well to information and policy. I don’t know the answer but I have very little faith that pretending voters are something they repeatedly show us they are not, is a good starting point.Baud
@sentient ai from the future:
I follow her on Bluesky. It’s where I got this info
Soprano2
@Hildebrand: Yes, that’s a totally different issue.
Steve LaBonne
@sentient ai from the future: COVID is why I include Lemieux in the LGM asshole caucus. He not only posted stuff nearly as dumb and irresponsible as Loomis but vociferously defended the latter’s nonsense while attacking the commenters who pointed out how stupid it was.
Barry
@Motivated Seller: “The two party system is a trap to Democrats. And unfortunately Democratic institutions have zero appetite for jettisoning the two party system,…”
Because nobody has even a hint og a way to get there.
CliosFanBoy
It may not be helpful, but I think “stupid” fits a lot of trump’s voters.
cckids
Not calling them “stupid”, but . . . on Wed., Nov 6, Jimmy Kimmel’s show did one of their street interview segments; asking young people in NYC: “So, today, Wed, Nov 6 is ELECTION DAY, are you going to vote? and who are you voting for?”
All of them said “Oh, yeah, I’m going to vote, for Harris of course! Can’t have Trump again!”
Now, I realize they edit for laughs, and yet, that they could easily find a dozen or so people who were that oblivious was depressing. And how, in gods name, can we possibly reach them?
Steve LaBonne
@UncleEbeneezer: Biden is starting to get it, far too late- he recently admitted that it was stupid not to put his name on those relief checks the way Trump had done.
Baud
@Barry:
California has gone with the jungle primary. If a third party was going to emerge anywhere, it would have there.
Tony G
@Subsole: Well, to be fair, I’ve considered the majority of Americans (the majority of people in general) really stupid. I’m pretty goddamn stupid myself. This long predates Trump and will outlast Trump. What happened on November 5th was a predictable outcome of that fundamental stupidity.
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
He did say that, but it was pointed out that he sent letters to everyone who got a payment. It didn’t work.
I recall at the time the argument on our side was over the size of the check.
Steve LaBonne
@Barry: That minor consideration never slows down single-issue cranks. Of whom we have far too many theoretically on our side.
Tony G
@Steve LaBonne: And that, my friend, is a perfect example of the stupidity of the majority of American voters. If a check came from the federal government then that check had the approval of whoever was president at that time. If it really so hard for these idiots to understand that?
ArchTeryx
@gene108: That’s why I refer to them as incurious. They don’t want or care to absorb any new information. They just vote the way their tribe votes or vote their feelings of the moment.
sentient ai from the future
@Steve LaBonne: that’s fair, though i think he did temper that a fair bit over time, in a way that campos, loomis and farley have run the other way from.
either way, i’ve stopped even reading them for some time now, what with their behavior during the election. i would still read without commenting for a while, but i just had enough of their bullshit and the stuff they allow to happen along with it.
Subsole
Side note: is it possible, for the love of God, to mention the fact Republicans have devolved into blood-gargling Benedict Arnold fascists without shitting all over Democrats in the same breath? Or the preceeding or following, for that matter?
Like, what is this bizarre need to leaven our criticism of the objectively evil assholes with a dig at the home team?
ArchTeryx
@Baud: Maybe she should come back here. We may be a contentious lot, but we’re at least not as incurious as they are.
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: If I get a check and a letter, I’m not likely to spend much time looking at the letter. Also too, a bunch of people HAVE said they supported Trump because “he sent me a check” so yes it does work. The discoverer of Vitamin C, Albert Szent-Györgi, said that the secret of success in science is “Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise”. True of governing as well.
Baud
@Subsole:
No. That would rip the space time continuum and cause the multiverse to implode.
John S.
@Steve LaBonne:
I read that yesterday. Frankly, it doesn’t matter if Biden “gets it”. He’s done in politics. It’s the rest of the elected Democrats who need to learn these lessons, and so far there doesn’t seem to be much evidence they have yet.
dc
@Tony G: yes
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
Honestly, I wouldn’t look at the name on the check either.
Steve LaBonne
@Subsole: Murc can explain it to you. It’s not just reporters who follow his law.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@sentient ai from the future:
I’m not going to defend Loomis’ treatment of the commenters there, but I find some of his stuff interesting, and as I said above, the longer the form the better the content.
That said, I was interested in this:
I think I’ve read LGM comments about once in the past year, maybe. But it’s interesting that we hardly ever ban anyone here — seriously, our ban list is probably the shortest of any site that has traffic like ours. So I wonder what’s different, or maybe there are people who don’t comment here and feel the same way about our inability to ban people. (For example, the person commenting above who said that they were banned due to saying Loomis has bad taste in music — that would never happen here.)
BTW, the reason we don’t have ads: none of the contributors here are paid, and because of that, our Patreon and other contributions can cover hosting costs without ads. I think LGM tries to pay its contributors something (probably token amount), but I’m not sure.
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: Yet a lot of people did.
Trollhattan
@Baud: We also have no meeses so will not be re-launching the Bullmoose Party.
I wish we had meeses, they look fun.
Steve LaBonne
@@mistermix.bsky.social: The pie filter helps keep the temperature down here because it’s much more convenient than Disqus blocking plus the toggle is a really excellent feature.
Geminid
@Barry: How exactly is the two-party system a trap for Democrats? Just saying it doesn’t make it so.
@Motivated Seller:
John S.
@Old School:
That would seem to indicate that either Rep. Jeffries is part of the bipartisanship at all costs brigade (which seems unlikely) or he thought that the rest of the bill was good enough to swallow the poison pill of anti-trans legislation.
Belafon
@Soprano2: So Republicans put forth a bill that adds money to Medicare. Do you oppose it or not?
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
Maybe. I wonder if it was more right wing society talking to themselves about it more. They have a pretty good community for spreading information amongst themselves, especially about how much we suck.
Steve LaBonne
@John S.: I’m hoping that if an old warhorse like Biden can start to figure it out, others might as well.
Miss Bianca
@Seeker: Could it be possible that you’re nowhere near Social Security age? Or comfortable enough through other means that you’re not going to be dependent on it in what is now laughingly known as retirement age? Somehow, I don’t find myself feeling near as cavalier about telling the Democrats to just roll over on it. Guess it all depends on whose ox is being gored, as my daddy always used to say.
Geminid
@ArchTeryx: I wish Cheryl Rofer would come back here.
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: Hey, we’re also very good at communicating with each other about how much we suck!
ArchTeryx
@@mistermix.bsky.social: Mostly because in a forum with a robust self-blocking system, bans rarely are necessary (mostly to keep out trolls that keep trying to dodge the blocks). People like Loomis ban for pure ego reasons, not to pull weeds out of the lawn, so you get much bigger ban lists. Bluesky rarely needs to ban because it has a very robust self-blocking system. Twitter did not even in the pre-Muskrat days, so bans were how it got done.
Jobeth
@Steve LaBonne: I work with two people who still believe Trump made the Covid payments out of his personal funds and voted for him because that proves “he cares about us”. No matter how many of us tell them otherwise or show them proof they still believe it. What do you do with people like that? I don’t think they will ever be reachable.
Belafon
@Motivated Seller:
How would you fix it? You can’t mention amendments.
karen marie
To paraphrase Driftglass and Blue Gal, the problem with “stupid” voters is not that they don’t have enough information.
I’m going to continue to call them “stupid,” because it’s quicker than calling them what they are – reprogrammable meatbags who don’t care about policy, civility, or the price of eggs – they’re selfish, racist assholes, incapable of thinking beyond “what’s in it for me.” Perfect Trump voters.
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
Haha. I walked right into that particular truth bomb.
Steve LaBonne
@Jobeth: All we can do is a much better job of advertising when WE help people (assuming we ever get another chance to do so).
John S.
@Steve LaBonne:
From your mouth to their ears.
ETA: That article in The Hill that Old School linked to above is not the spine we are looking for Rep. Jeffries and other Democratic leaders to have right now.
Belafon
@gene108:
Great statement. We’re expecting them to act like it.
Miss Bianca
@sentient ai from the future: I miss her posts here. I’m not on Bluesky and I stopped stopping by LGM. Got to meet her once in the before-Covid years, had a great visit with her and O. Felix Culpa. She’s a very, very cool person.
Suzanne
I listened to one of Sarah Longwell’s Focus Group podcasts this weekend while I was running. There was a comment that she made, something like, “Voters care about democracy, but they see it more as a luxury good”. (Not an exact quote.)
I think this is probably accurate, but it’s uncomfortable for me to sit with.
catclub
Which do you think non-voters are?
ArchTeryx
@Steve LaBonne: Most people do suck, even most of us Jackals. We just, for the most part, enjoy sucking together.
(“Arch! Phrasing!”)
FDRLincoln
I am generally speaking a very kind person. But this election, if I’m honest, has broken me of much of that kindness.
For the next four years, my priorities are
A) defending my family from the chaos and awfulness to come
B) helping people who did not vote for Trump who will suffer from his policies
Feeling bad for people who suffer who voted for Trump is not on my list. They deserve what happens to them. It’s not charitable, but after a month, it is still the way I feel.
Fuck them. They deserve what happens to them.
This isn’t 2016. We KNOW what Trump is like. Everyone does. Eyes wide open.
You voted for this scumbag, you deserve every bad thing that happens to you.
@mistermix.bsky.social
Those who are saying the pie filter is the reason why B-J comments are easier to manage: It seems pretty darn easy to block other posters in Disqus: https://help.disqus.com/en/articles/1717146-user-blocking
It can’t be just that the pie filter is somehow better than Disqus’ filter, can it?
(I’m saying this as someone who’s never used a pie filter, and also never blocked anyone in Disqus.)
Miss Bianca
@Barry: And why, exactly, would either the Democrats *or* the Republicans, for that matter, go out of their way to support a “multi-party system”? That’s the part that eludes me – cui bono?
Elizabelle
The voters get it wrong sometimes, and yes, a lot of voters were stupid or delusional this election.
Plus, we have the example of Nazi Germany, and it’s been obvious for some time that Trump — or at least Bannon and other advisors of that ilk — are following that playbook. Did not work out for a lot of German industrialists; will not work out here. (Of course, there are always those wealthy who thrive, picking up the pieces of an economy once it has crashed.)
So yes, this was the biggest election of our lives, and the voters got it wrong. It was close, but the bad guys won. Due to stupidity, cowardice, incuriosity — whole lot of pathologies there.
I don’t blame Kamala and Democrats for not getting through the brainwashing done by Fox News, rightwing media, and the various skeevy influencers out there. They tried very hard. You have to have a listener ready to give you a chance. Rightwing media and all the deplorable social media crap exists to stop that from happening.
ArchTeryx
@@mistermix.bsky.social: I block spammers on Disqus all the time. Trouble is, spammers are really, really good at spoofing and coming right back. Most of my experience with Disqus is with LGM, and LGM, as we know, is a complete shitshow in the comments. I’d wager few of those blocks are for actual legitimate reasons, other than to assuage the fee-fees of various front-page egomaniacs. Maybe we’re lucky in that we aren’t constantly being carpet bombed by fraudsters and spammers.
Elizabelle
What was Cheryl Rofer’s topic that got pushback, which she pulled. Does anyone have the post?
catclub
@Seeker:
Defending SS and Medicare means refusing to negotiate on their destruction. The key thing the GOP needs to cut them will be bipartisan cooperation.
Suzanne
@karen marie:
Agree.
This is my thought when I hear well-meaning liberals say that we need better civics education or that the media doesn’t inform well enough. Like, we all went to school. We all have the greatest information delivery device in history in our pockets. Some people genuinely do not give a shit.
Belafon
He ran campaign ads attacking trans people, but now that the campaign is over…
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/12/12/2291545/-Trump-suddenly-doesn-t-want-to-talk-about-the-bigotry-he-campaigned-on?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_1&pm_medium=web
Miss Bianca
@Suzanne: more evidence of “citizens turned into consumers” mentality?
@mistermix.bsky.social
@ArchTeryx:
FYI – We aren’t being carpet-bombed, but we do have some spam that commenters don’t see. Our policy of putting the first new comment in moderation, and then some front-pager needs to approve it, removes pretty much 100% of the spam. We also have our filters tuned to block out comments that have a lot of links, which I’m sure many here have experienced.
Old School
@Elizabelle:
I didn’t read the LGM post, but it was about the 2017 Women’s March. I gather a number of people felt it was hopeless to try something like that.
Melancholy Jaques
@Baud:
100% agree on that, but when you ask non-MAGAs who vote for Trump to fill in the blanks:
Democrats are for: _________
Democrats are against: ________
Democrats are: ___________
The answers always seem to be supplied by or derived from right-wing sources.
ArchTeryx
@@mistermix.bsky.social: I had no idea. Thank you for that info. So there is some back-end blocking to keep the spammers out. And here I thought we were a small enough pond that they didn’t bother with us. Maybe I’m the stupid one.
catclub
Yes, marginal/non Voters will (might)
vote if 1) terrified 2)angry
3) excited.
4) given a mail-in ballot
What did I miss?
Belafon
@Suzanne: Most people don’t think about Democracy until they need to be able to vote against the person in office. They don’t really think it applies to their ability to do daily tasks.
John S.
@Belafon:
This is what baffles me about the Democratic response on this bill. If Trump doesn’t even want to talk about it anymore, then why are they so afraid to stand up on their first test of holding the line for trans people against Republicans?
Old Man Shadow
I call them stupid because they choose to be stupid.
Both candidates were open about what they wanted to do. Would take maybe five minutes to Google and find out if one was completely ignorant.
So… yeah. The stories of Trump voters reaching, ‘what are tariffs’ after the fact proves their lazy stupidity.
Another Scott
@Old School: RollCall indicates the NDAA was bipartisan (as usual), but Johnson decided to put the poison pill in to stick it to the libs.
Other culture-war stuff was stripped out.
One thing to remember is that there still have to be authorization bills (bills to pay for the stuff that the DoD is authorized to do). The battles aren’t over.
Yes, this poison pill was bad, but that’s what happens in closely-divided legislatures when the other guys are in control. And the guy in the WhiteHouse has a lot of say on DoD policy as well…
Hang in there, everyone.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Chris
@Baud:
Huh. What was it about? I still check regularly enough even if I never comment anymore, but I think I missed that one.
karen marie
@Suzanne: I recommend listening to that episode (and all the rest of them). Their explanations get to the heart of things accurately but – importantly – in ways you’re not going to hear from cowards paid great wads of money to appear on the TV and on the pages of the NYT or WaPo.
Melancholy Jaques
@Baud:
What was it about?
BCHS Class of 1980
I went through ~50 comments here and while I agree with several ideas presented:
– Calling the voters stupid is factually accurate but we need messaging to reach those idiots,
– Dem messaging has to be far more relentless, not relying on voters to know or even remember what they heard last week,
– The results reflected not only the traditional “prices are high so throw the bums out” mentality of American elections but also nostalgia for the pre-COVID days.
Having said that, I saw only one glancing mention of what I believe was the seminal fact of this election:
Democrats had the audacity to run a Black woman for the office of President of the United States of America.
I believe that fact accounts for the softness of suburban support in this election. Racism and misogyny are too deeply ingrained in too many voters. I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that there is only one Dem who could have won any of the last three Presidential elections and that was Joe Biden. I will be very surprised if Dems nominate a woman to the top of the ticket for the next twenty years.
Suzanne
@Miss Bianca:
Yes, possibly.
I also think there’s a perception that democracy is just bureaucracy.
Melancholy Jaques
@Barry:
And I don’t see how that would make anything better.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@Melancholy Jaques:
This is exactly what I’m getting at.
Chris
@sentient ai from the future:
I think the first time I noticed there was something really wrong with that place was in 2021, when basically the moment the man in the Oval Office went from Trump to Biden, they started pissing and moaning that Fauci was too cautious, that the reopenings weren’t going fast enough, that we really needed to instill confidence, yada yada. All the previous year and change’s ravings about science and why it’s important disappeared the second it became an inconvenience to their politicians.
And hey, I’m certainly on board with the idea that Biden on the whole was treated disgracefully in the media and never given credit for how well he handled the Covid recovery. But when I say that within a decade we’re going to see LGM front-pagers wearing MAGA hats and telling people to snort Ivermectin, this is what I’m talking about.
Geminid
@John S.: The NDAA is always passed with a bipartisan majority. My understanding is that typically the respective party Whips agree how many votes each caucus will provide and then work up the required number in each caucus.
Among Democrats voting Yea on the measure were Reps. Terry Sewell (AL), Ruben Gallego (AZ), Pete Aguilar, Zoe Lofgren and Jimmy Panetta (CA), Jahanna Hayes (CT), Nikki Budzinski (IL);
Kweisi Mgume (MD), Elissa Slotkin and Hilary Scholten (MI), Bennie Thompson MI), Gabe Vasquez (NM);
Marcy Kaptur and Emilia Sykes (OH), Veronica Escobar (Tx), and Jennifer McClellan (VA).
Reps. Aguilar and Lofgren served on the January 6 Committee and Bennie Thompson was the Chairman.
John S.
@Geminid:
Well times have changed. The minute the Republicans stuck a poison pill in the NDAA, the norms should have been irrelevant.
I already called my representative’s office (Kim Schrier who voted YAY) to express my displeasure with her vote.
Republicans did this to see what they could get away with, and Democrats just showed them they are not willing to take a stand. Jeffries announced in advance of the vote that they weren’t even bothering to whip for votes one way or another.
Suzanne
@karen marie: I think the Focus Group is a really solid listen. I’m always struck by how non-ideological and non-aligned most people are. It’s an interesting headspace for me, because I’m a person who tries — like most people here, probably — to be intellectually consistent, to have a defined set of principles and then voting behavior follows from that.
But most people probably don’t think that way, and just want shit to work. In whatever way they define that.
Geminid
@Miss Bianca: I call this the “Divide and be Conquered” strategy.
This strategy has been around a long time and it’s the first thing some people think of after a disappointing loss, no matter how narrow the margin.
Lobo
What was the title of the post Rofer pulled?
Subsole
@Baud:
Ok. I can see that.
Is there a downside, though?
Elizabelle
@Old School: Thank you.
LGM commenters strike me as being overwhelmingly male. Wonder if that was a factor.
Lobo
Anyone have a link to the post Rofer pulled?
Chris
@Melancholy Jaques:
Since literally the entire media landscape today is a right-wing source, that’s not surprising. The only place you’d get anything else is by assiduously following liberal politicians or communities yourself, and most people understandably don’t do that for any ideology.
Geminid
@Melancholy Jaques: The grass is always greener on the other side.
Steve LaBonne
@Another Scott: When I am tempted to tell people who are vastly more vulnerable than I am (and let’s be very clear, denial of puberty blockers leads to suicides) to just hang in there, it kind of sticks in my throat.
Baud
Geminid
@Chris: My impression is that a very large majority of LGM commenters are men. I could never tolerate the threaded comment format so I never stuck around long enough to get a better basis by which to judge.
What do you think?
Another Scott
@Lobo:
HTH!
Best wishes,
Scott.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Steve LaBonne:
Certain economic policies is why I include him the LGM asshole caucus…funny how the same people there (and here) who fall into that category also fall into the Tonya Harding Dems category.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@Motivated Seller:
I just wanted to point out that New York State has very relaxed rules that allow multiple parties.
This has been abused, mainly by Republicans (shocker!) who have kept the conservative parties on life support so they can grift for donations so Republicans can run on those parties’ ballot lines.
But, for Democrats, the Working Families Party is a little more lefty party that picks and chooses some fights to try to move Dems more to the left. Generally, most Dems run on WFP and Dem ballot lines, but there have been some exceptions in the past, I believe.
Anyway, it’s a way that another party can be part of the mix without huge institutional overhaul. This is just FYI and FWIW. I don’t think it’s a silver bullet by any means.
Seeker
@Miss Bianca: That’s a very fair point. I’m not far from SS age but not in line to get much from it, in the interest of being honest.
Fwiw I imagine that Republicans would maintain the system for people at some age (55?) and above…that was the plan last time.
In any case, the Dems control nothing so the only thing they can do is negotiate which means giving bipartisan cover to this in return for it being mildly less bad in some way. But thst would still be assisting rather than opposing the effort
Steve LaBonne
@Suzanne: If more people actually understood what it means for shit to work and what is required to make it work, we wouldn’t be in this mess. But there don’t seem to be enough people who genuinely want to understand.
Steve LaBonne
@Seeker: Bullseye. All I want from them is a solid NO on everything Republicans propose. They know how that’s done because they’ve been watching Republicans do it to them for years.
Another Scott
@Steve LaBonne: Understood.
I’m not trying to lecture anyone, especially those who will be damaged by this policy and others to come.
But even with the damage, we have to find ways to keep fighting and keep trying to move forward.
I hope this makes some sense.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Pink Tie
To me at least, there is something to the argument that loss of liberal religion/religious participation has made a difference. My UU church in Houston is struggling to survive, and our choir is maybe a quarter of its previous size from when I first joined 20 years ago. But as we do, we keep trying to offer service and community. My hope is that people might start turning back to liberal religious communities. Unfortunately the pandemic and the grim political environment doesn’t exactly motivate people to get out of bed on Sundays.
Elizabelle
@Chris: I was disappointed Kay was complaining this morning about Anne Laurie’s posts about Biden’s accomplishments.
This is not along the lines of puffing up Reagan, the legendary Great Man, which Kay also mentioned a few years back.
It is that the media newsites are so skewed that we would not know of Biden’s many accomplishments. He is rarely covered, and if so, the headline usually says he is “defending” a policy.
Hoping I have the strength to get offline more, and read books or focus on something else. Sick of the doomerism — good on Cheryl Rofer for calling that out.
Sad that we live in a culture of consumers and apathetics. We used to be citizens. Which comes with some serious responsibilities.
FluxAmbassador
@Elizabelle:
She posted pictures from the 2017 Santa Fe arm of the Women’s March and wove throughout the lyrics to Helen Redy’s “I Am Woman.” It was a very nice and sincere post with an ending that looked forward with hope that similar resistance and solidarity will blossom this time as well.
And the post was immediately besieged with comments about how the Women’s March didn’t accomplish anything, no marches accomplish anything, and it was cringe and the hats were stupid besides.
It’s a credit to Rofer’s nearly infinite patience she didn’t ban those commenters outright and immediately.
Steve LaBonne
@Another Scott: Fighting means saying NO. Even if that means a sacred cow “bipartisan” defense bill doesn’t pass.
John S.
@Another Scott:
How do we explain that to our trans allies who were just hung out to dry by 40% of House Democrats?
Chris
@Suzanne:
I mean, pretty much everything that serves a democratic function in society has successfully been demonized and redefined as “just evil and wasteful red tape bureaucracy” over the last, I don’t know, half-century. Think of how the average movie portrays democratic mechanisms. Politicians are all evil and corrupt and “they’re just trying to get reelected” is actually held up as a negative instead of the way representative government is supposed to work. Accountability mechanisms like review boards and IA always have sinister motivations. Lawyers in general and defense attorneys in particular are greedy scum who all work for the criminals. The court system and people’s rights are just red tape that keeps guilty people from getting their just desserts. Activists are shrill and silly and hypocritical and spoiled. Labor unions and other community organizations are just organized crime whipping up mobs into a frenzy for their own shady purposes. Only cops, soldiers, and sometimes spies are shining paragons exemplifying everything that’s right with America and they should be trusted by everyone and given carte blanche for everything.
Even before Trump, the dominant political mindset in America was basically that of Kaiser Wilhelm’s Germany.
FluxAmbassador
@Lobo: Here you go.
https://disqus.com/home/discussion/lawyersgunsmoneyblog-com/womens_march_january_21_2017/
John S.
@Steve LaBonne:
Exactly. Fuck these ridiculous norms and them being used as an excuse for bad behavior.
Republicans only needed a few votes for this piece of shit to pass. So why did 81 Democrats vote for it?
That sends a pretty strong message, and not a good one.
Elizabelle
@FluxAmbassador: Eh, fuck ’em. They can choke on their bile and assumed lack of agency, and all the cheap cynicism.
Thank you for the report. (PS: At least the LGM doomers remember the march and the pink hats. That is not nothing!)
Steve LaBonne
@Pink Tie: Don’t give up hope. Both my present and former congregations are seeing lots of visitors some of whom are turning into new members. From the most recent UUA statistics half of our congregations were starting to grow again after the COVID slump, even before the election.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@@mistermix.bsky.social:
It’s not per se, they just function differently. Disqus allows one to block both ways, I don’t see somebody’s BS and they don’t see mine, ie, “What I don’t read can’t piss me off”. The pie filter only does the former and as I found out over there and much to my sadness, here, we have long-time, defacto trolls on issues that, unfortunately, one needs to keep an eye on so as to push back on the nonsense that gets spewed repeatedly.
Usta be here if somebody said something you disagreed with, it was mostly a one-shot thing, they didn’t keep after it like a dog with a bone and thus, you let it slide. That’s not so much the case these last few years as some commenters I swear came over from LGM to duplicate the effect they have there.
Geminid
@John S.: Democrats put their own “poison pills” in when they are in the majority, and the requisite number of Republicans and the Republican Whip always round up enough members who’ll swallow them.
But hey! There will be plenty of primary challenges next year and people are keeping lists of Democratic Representative that won’t walk their line. This “Yea” vote can serve as a criteria. There will be many others..
But it will be too late for punishment in the cases of Reps. Slotkin, Gallego and Jackson.. Slotkin and Gallego are moving up to the Senate, and Jackson will be North Carolina’s next Attorney General.
Suzanne
@Steve LaBonne:
That is true.
If I can defend just a small bit of this attitude….. I don’t really want to know gory details of how shit works, either. I know about my own life, and my own area of expertise, and I have my own responsibilities and interests. I genuinely want to outsource a good deal of this to subject matter experts.
The implicit promise of this is good results, though. And so if people perceive bad results, that’s not just a bad outcome, it’s damaging to the credibility of the entire system.
Professor Bigfoot
@Nukular Biskits: “It ain’t name-calling if it accurately reflects the facts on the ground.”
Getting conservatives to actually acknowledge facts on the ground is a mugs game.
Steve LaBonne
@Suzanne: Yes, knowing when and why to listen to experts is a big part of it, and unfortunately not a popular concept in our society these days.
John S.
@Geminid:
I detect a bit of “bothsiderism” there, but I’ll let it slide. Our “poison pills” are generally not designed to fuck people over, which of course makes Republicans very uncomfortable.
But people should be keeping track of these votes, and whether it aligns with the mouth noises their elected leaders make.
It’s incredibly disgusting that the folks you mentioned still voted for this bill even though their votes weren’t needed for passage AND it posed no political risk to them as they move on.
Elizabelle
@Suzanne:
Disagree. Disinformation is an enormous problem. Lack of critical thinking as well. And the media serves up controversy; people float in the media environment but don’t get actual news.
Do agree that too many people just do not give a shit. They are about to see the consequences of that.
karen marie
@gene108:
Have you met “adults”?
Most of my neighbors are absolute dolts who can’t figure out how garbage pails work. They think their litter disappears. It’s not that they believe in magic. They don’t even get to the question of what’s made their litter disappear. Mail? They neither know nor care about anything beyond “is that thing I’m waiting for in my mailbox.”
The majority of people are thoughtless and/or stupid. You insisting they have agency does not make them less fucking thoughtless or stupid.
John S.
@Elizabelle:
Lack of critical thinking + erosion of civics classes X standardized tests = compliant sheeple who vote against their interests.
The Republicans have been wildly successful in their crusade to tarnish public education, but they won’t be satisfied until Linda McMahon wipes her ass with the Department of Education.
Geminid
@FluxAmbassador: Sounds like a bunch of guys who just sit around and talk and never do a fucking thing, sneering at women who at least got out there and tried to do something.
This is a classic example of X-Chromosome Deficiency Disorder. Half the country has it, and they use it to drive the other half crazy.
NotMax
Four little words.
It’s the entitlements, stupid.
Elizabelle
@John S.: Yes. And too many who vote as their pastor “suggests.”
Very sad.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Pink Tie:
There’s a documentary that came out last year, Join or Die, that examines social scientist Robert Putnam’s “Bowling Alone” theory of how declining community engagement created an American civic crisis.
I know that here in Denver, the Inter-Neighborhood Cooperation Council, is trying to arrange screenings around the City.
I’m on two Registered Neighborhood Orgs (RNOs) boards and the president of one, a retired pastor, talks about this constantly. Much of his effort in this particular neighborhood is trying create a sense of communication and support. Such efforts are hampered by a new set of (white) residents who have displaced the previous, majority black population and who grew up in burbs pretty much in the situation as described by Putnam and examined in the film.
Chris
@FluxAmbassador:
Loomis had a similar view of OWS, if I recall. Really, Loomis has a similar view of anyone who actually does or tries anything, ever.
And, like. I have no problem with people smacking liberals over the head when they think they’re doing something stupid or ineffective. That’s normal and probably healthy, and people are going to disagree about what is and isn’t stupid and ineffective. It’s when you notice that this is their reaction to everything and that they never ever actually propose or endorse anything themselves that you at some point start to wonder WTF these people are even for.
Loomis had another post up this morning, the punchline to which was “what is completely useless is sitting here whining about Trump.” Fine so far as it goes. But “sitting here whining” is literally the entire LGM experience.
kindness
I admit I’ve called most Trump voters stupid and worse. I don’t say it to their faces, I have a little couth.
Miss Bianca
@FluxAmbassador: in other words, same-old same-old from a bunch of white male lefty asshats (as opposed to pussy hats). Man, the dirtbag left have been slagging the Women’s March in identical terms for years now. GEE, I WONDER WHY.
Belafon
@Elizabelle: Republicans have parties on Reagan’s birthday. Saying Biden does a good job isn’t anywhere close to that.
Suzanne
@Elizabelle: Not saying disinformation isn’t a problem, but it’s a symptom, not a cause.
Most people here get good information, and we have all the same tools as everyone else. I went to a not-good public school in a red state where there were fights every day and I still learned what a tariff is and how many senators there are and all about the three-fifths compromise.
The baseline problem is that Americans are mean. Disinformation and a lack of civics knowledge are second-order.
Elizabelle
@Belafon: What I loved was someone being quoted at Reagan’s lying in state in DC, and saying it was “Woodstock for Republicans.”
Belafon
@karen marie: The implication is that “they should start acting like it.” The point was that calling them stupid lets them off the hook. Call them adults, and hold them to the standards of what an adult should be. For one thing, it’s time for them to put away their childish impulses.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@John S.:
A gazillion times this. Dismissing what’s been done to public education in all it’s manifestations (as you say, civics, critical thinking skills, etc) because we have such knowledge at our fingertips (the internet) completely misreads the importance of *pedagogical methods” that help make a populace, well, not what we’re seeing these days.
Elizabelle
@Suzanne: Mean, perhaps, incurious, sure, and definitely complacent.
Chris
@Suzanne:
That’s also true.
No matter how big a problem “stupid” is, “mean” is a bigger one.
Geminid
@John S.: Oh great. You are going to let this whiff of “bothsiderism” you detect slide.
You don’t have to. I can handle your critique of this “bothsiderism” you are imputing to me. I won’t neccesarily answer but if you feel like it, let ‘er rip.
Another Scott
@John S.: I guess we’ll find out.
But I don’t like the framing.
Democrats didn’t do this.
Johnson and the MAGA Republicans did.
Best wishes,
Scott.
FluxAmbassador
@Geminid: I’m not gonna throw too many stones since I live in the glass house of being a frequent LGM commenter and a frequent Balloon Juice lurker, but that is an absolutely accurate read on the problem.
Like I said, I usually just lurk here, but the response to Cheryl’s post was really depressing. It’s one thing to vehemently disagree on policy or ideology, but this was clearly someone sharing a very personal memory sincerely trying to be hopeful in a very dark time. And to see a bunch of dudes come in and shit on it was disgusting. So much so when I saw the questions about it here I felt compelled to answer.
Elizabelle
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: So true. People are swimming in a sea of information, but a lot cannot distinguish what is true, and what is problematic.
Problem is too much fake information. And the propensity for “amusing ourselves to death” — focusing on the unserious stuff.
I think “doing their own research” brought us to a lot of this. Not to mention allowing a comeback for the dread diseases we successfully eradicated in the 20th century. Whooping cough, anybody?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Miss Bianca:
Let’s go back to the idea of “citizens as consumers”.
It’s a core principal behind 40+ years of economic and civic thought that began, you guessed it, with the election of Reagan. And it’s so baked into this country, it’s not at all surprising we see voters, well, do what they do.
People with that world view, sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. It redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains that “the market” delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning.
Attempts to limit competition are treated as inimical to liberty. Tax and regulation should be minimised, public services should be privatised. The organisation of labour and collective bargaining by trade unions are portrayed as market distortions that impede the formation of a natural hierarchy of winners and losers. Inequality is recast as virtuous: a reward for utility and a generator of wealth, which trickles down to enrich everyone. Efforts to create a more equal society are both counterproductive and morally corrosive. The market ensures that everyone gets what they deserve.
We internalise and reproduce its creeds. The rich persuade themselves that they acquired their wealth through merit, ignoring the advantages – such as education, inheritance and class – that may have helped to secure it. The poor begin to blame themselves for their failures, even when they can do little to change their circumstances.
p.a.
As Red States/Red Areas vote themselves into the dirt (Dying of Whiteness (ed: not fast enough)) and people with ambition/progressive values move or are driven into concentrated Blue virtual ghettos (hello Electoral College), IDK if there’s any answer besides: it will take disasters like W2 and tRump1 to control at least 1 of the 3 branches of Fed Gvt. OR arrogant conservaturd overreach like going after SS and Medicare.
This assumes there will be nominally legit elections in the future. Their overall policies are so unpopular (besides kicking this cycle’s targets in the throat) I think the endgame especially for the Christofascists who are really in control is to game the Constitution & election laws to ensure power. Going way beyond gerrymanders or Putin-trollfarm fuckery.
FluxAmbassador
@Miss Bianca: Probably the same reason why they’ve been so credulous for years about the “economic anxiety” of these men and worried about “boys being left behind” despite these men showing their real motivation is bigotry and men still making more money than women across every income, educational, and experience level.
Quinerly
@Baud:
Cheryl is very cool in person. BRILLIANT. I need to check in with her. Been a few months since I have actually seen her. She’s on the opposite side of town. She got a couple of cute kittens and was posting about them on FB.
Motivated Seller
disagree. Anywhere Democrats have a trifecta, they should LEGISLATE for improved democracy, for example by adopting Instant Runoff voting. See how Ireland is doing it.
But in cases like Massachusetts, that do have a trifecta, democrats have done next to nothing. Even when joe-citizen set up a ballot Ballot initiative, the Party didn’t do squat, and the proposal went down.
John S.
@Geminid:
I thought it was pretty obvious. You’re retort of “Democrats do it too” was where the issue lies.
While I understand that this is true, there is a contextual difference in the nature of said “poison pills” that I think makes them quite different.
That’s all. I wasn’t trying to make a big stink out of it.
John S.
@Another Scott:
Not sure I’m reading you correctly.
Are you suggesting that it’s Pastor Johnson and his Republican caucus’s fault that 81 Democrats voted for a bill that stripped healthcare from trans people?
FluxAmbassador
@Chris: The only actions Loomis ever speaks approvingly of are the ones that contain actual incidences or threats of violence. Take that for what you will.
The older I’ve gotten the more I’ve come to the conclusion that nothing works on everyone and everything works on someone. I’m reluctant to criticize too harshly the people in the fight on tactics on the grounds that just because someone doesn’t work for me doesn’t mean it doesn’t work for someone else. I think the people that bring giant puppets to protests are idiots, BUT other people really like them!
The only two things I no longer abide are 1) smearing the Democratic Party as a whole because of the actions of one member or because of where the party was 30 years ago and 2) protest or other actions that come at the expense of other people. We can march for Palestine without anti-Semitism, women without transphobia, and Black rights without sexism for example. That’s what we should do. And the people who show up and do otherwise should be immediately shouted over.
tam1MI
Last time I visited Washington DC, I flew in to Reagan National Airport.
I can recall a time when Republicans where pushing to have schools and stadiums across the land named for him. There was a serious movement to put him on Mount Rushmore.
Get back to me on the “hagiography” Dems are doing to Biden when stuff like that happens on his behalf.
Miss Bianca
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Adam Silverman has talked about this book in the context of a broader American history, arguing that, in fact, we are basically reverting to an older model of Americanism – in other words, we are *not* natural joiners of civic/social organizations, as a rule. The particular social/economic factors that spawned bowling leagues and service clubs, in other words, may have been a fluke, rather than the norm, but we perceive it as having been the norm because that’s what a lot of us grew up with. Just as “objectivity in news reporting” and “being able to afford a house and family on one income” and “a liberal Supreme Court” were also anomalies of the same historic period that were very much exceptions to the general rule in American history.
Motivated Seller
@Geminid: How exactly is the two-party system a trap for Democrats?
Republicans have the incentive to wreck government in order to gain power (“SEE! government sux! vote for me and I’ll fix it with DOGE!”). That is the fundamental problem with a first-past-the-poll democracy. Perversely, Democrats actually want to make things better, whereas Republicans want to rule. So Republicans are forever wrecking, and Democrats are forever cleaning up the mess.
Miss Bianca
@FluxAmbassador: I’ll ask you the same thing I always ask when I hear sneering references to “giant puppets at protests” (interestingly, these also tend to come from male commenters): “Da fuq you got against giant puppets?”
Another Scott
@John S.: The 2025 NDAA version passed in the House is a 1486 page PDF. The provision we’re discussing is one line.
The final vote was not on one line of text.
People can have lots of reasons for voting for or against the bill.
The reason why that one line is in the bill is because Johnson put it there on the demands of his RWNJ fellow travelers.
HTH.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Motivated Seller
@Belafon: see comment 176.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Miss Bianca:
Thanks for that. I now, very vaguely, remember him talking about that.
The cognitive dissonance we see in the (new) residents manifests itself when their cohort of speakers talk about creating “communities” and “neighborhoods” as if they didn’t exist, in a much tighter mold, when these neighborhoods were all-black. What we tilt at is their demonstrated indifference and uncommunicativeness to practically everyone around them.
There are a very few exceptions. When we find somebody willing to engage who comes from that demographic, it’s like manna from heaven. Otherwise, we share a ton of frustration.
Suzanne
I’ve been returning to Richard Rorty in my thoughts a lot since the election, for probably obvious reasons. One passage really stood out to me differently than when I first read it in 2017. He writes about the “Old Left” helping “people who were humiliated by poverty and unemployment”, and now we have the “Cultural Left”, which he credits for “decreas[ing] the amount of sadism in our society”.
“This change is largely due to the hundreds of thousands of teachers who have done their best to make their students understand the humiliation which previous generations of Americans have inflicted on their fellow citizens.” He goes on, and I don’t want to type out the whole passage, but goes on to say “American leftist academics have a lot to be proud of. Their conservative critics, who have no remedies to propose for either American sadism or for American selfishness, have a great deal to be ashamed of.”
Sadism and selfishness = the core of the problem.
Ruckus
@Nukular Biskits:
It is very difficult to teach those that, within their own minds, believe that stuffing their heads up their exit port is a thing to do.
It must be, seeing as how so many seem to enjoy it enough to repeat on a regular basis.
Motivated Seller
@Miss Bianca: You are at the heart of the reason why the duopoly exists. However, I would argue that the Republican party is well on its way to eliminating functional democracy altogether. So why should well-meaning Democrats continue to play along?
Cheryl from Maryland
I’m still torn re calling people stupid. I am on vacation in Paris, and I met a young woman today who was a student at Northwestern who had taken AP history courses in high school. We were looking at some 19th C French paintings about the Franco-Prussian War, and she asked me how Russia invaded France (I guess Prussia rhymes with Russia?). Not only is that fucking dumb, but as a child of the internet, she still couldn’t be bothered to look it up. The encounter depressed me.
Subsole
@Greg:
America’s cornfield ain’t exactly open minded, either…
FluxAmbassador
@Miss Bianca: I don’t like performative politics. I used the puppets because they’re a familiar sight, but as superficial as this may be one of the things that helped push me further away from the right when I was in my 20s was covering pro-choice rallies. Seeing the anti-choice people show up with plastic fetuses and in hospital gowns with blood over the groin area was less off-putting than the policies they were pursuing, but it also turned me off in a very specific way.
That said, when I go to anl rally and see the puppets I keep those thoughts to myself because 1) those people showed up just like I did and 2) other people really like them! Not everything has to be for me, and if it’s not malicious then my personal aesthetic preferences can be kept inside.
Subsole
@sentient ai from the future:
She posted here back in the day, didn’t she?
Sherparick
@Suzanne: In part because they have grown up and been living in a environment where the back ground nose is of Democrats being secret, anti-American, communists plotting to take away your SUVs, guns, & local single family zoning while plotting to sex traffic their kids after changing their genders.
P.S. Professor Loomis book “A History of America in Ten Strikes” is a terrific little book.
Chris
@tam1MI:
No you didn’t, you flew into National Airport.
/longtime DC resident
Sherparick
@Cheryl from Maryland: Yea, it is amazing that so many people, including journalists, can’t be trouble to check something on Wikipedia (not that its perfect, but at least you would know the basic facts of Franco-Prussian War.)
Subsole
@Seeker:
I would ordinarily agree, but that premise is predicated on Americans waking up after sufficient pain.
I no longer trust them to.
Instead I expect them to retreat into reflexive Democrat bashing, because the last two decades have trained them to do so, Left, Right and Center.
Alps, too, the media won’t call the GOP out for the damage they cause, because that will risk their access.
UncleEbeneezer
@Steve LaBonne: Except you always do it wrong! ;)
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Cheryl from Maryland:
I think that’s why ArchTeryx’s usage of the term “completely incurious” is so apt in these discussions. Thing is, I don’t know how much of making someone “completely curious” can be taught. One AP history class in high school probably didn’t say much, if anything, about the Franco-Prussian war so unless one is naturally curious, it just slides.
I say all of that and yet, some people can be reached/taught to be “completely curious” and I fear we as a society have lost/fogotten/deliberately-thrown-away that ability.
Chris
@Miss Bianca:
I think a lot of the communitarian side of America also had a lot to do with the North beating the South and imposing its social model as The American Way for the next hundred years. So, 1860s to 1960s roughly. There was always more of a communitarian ethos and sense of “the common good” in the North. It wasn’t an unmitigated good (it started with the Puritans, after all), but true all the same.
Motivated Seller
@Melancholy Jaques: It would remove the incentive for Republicans play the 2-party game of wreck things in order to gain power. Instead they would have to actually change their policy preferences for things that are actually popular.
Currently the 2 party system continually allows them to be a viable party, even though they have rejected democracy.
Ruckus
@Miss Bianca:
Because there are at least 2 sides to humanity. And I’m not talking about genitalia. There might be more, there are a lot of us and not all of us are in any way sane. Some are exceedingly greedy. Some are so nice that they will put others ahead of saving their own butts. Some are so stupid they can be sold anything. Some are too smart for their own good. Some are not as greedy but will still sell their humanity for a few bucks (it’s possible they get too much for it). Some are so greedy they will sell your humanity for a few bucks.
The list goes on. But the point is of course that greed is seldom a good human trait.
ArchTeryx
@Quinerly: BlueSky, too. I was complementing her on her kittens. One of them is orange, the cats that are famous for all sharing one brain cell. We have a rescue orange ourselves.
UncleEbeneezer
A-freakin’-men! I would only add that doing so is, imo, one of the more important points of Intersectionality as I understand it. It’s not about setting up a new hierarchy of oppressed groups, but understanding that everything, including Intersectional Feminism itself, can be weaponized against marginalized groups if we aren’t careful. It’s one of the reasons I get so frustrated when I see so many Intersectional Feminists jumping to categorize Jews/Israelis as White Colonizers (and pretending like they don’t see how doing that enables/encourages antisemitism) in their advocacy for Palestinians.
CliosFanboy
@Chris:
yep. The Reagan part is for tourists and newbies
Chris
@CliosFanboy:
Well, also for longtime DC residents who vote Republican.
(Both of them).
Another Scott
@Chris: DCA!!
Best wishes,
Scott.
Subsole
I think the deeper issue is that these people are not stupid.
They are deeply – and I mean deeply –insecure. All that talk about Libs being elitist boils down to “I am afraid these people are smarter or nicer or more ethically balanced than me, and I am SEEEETHING about it.”
All of their culture is built on resentment of the Other, the Educated, the Feminine. The Uppity, if you will. That’s why they don’t listen.
That’s why they keep voting for ruin.
That’s why you are wasting your time waiting on them to wake up, or trying to talk them around to sanity, or sell them Socialism.
They think you are women, and listening to you will make them women, too.
It’s exceedingly foolish. But there it is.
Captain C
@Elizabelle:
I think the best response for that is, “Oh, really? Neat! Where is it published? I’d love to read it!”
followed by: “Huh?”
“I mean, at least you have a lit review so I can see what you read to draw your conclusions, right?”
“A what?”
“So, what did you do?”
“Well, I watched a few YouTube videos…”
If you don’t at least know what a Lit Review is, roughly, your ‘research’ is probably self-serving bunk.
Splitting Image
@Shalimar:
That’s unfair. Loomis is an asshole about a lot more than just music.
John S.
@Another Scott:
Nobody forced Democrats to vote for a bloated bill (that nobody even read) which has one really terrible provision.
An opposition party has a responsibility to oppose. Now I’m not saying they should spend 2-4 years getting outraged about everything, but Johnson was clearly testing the boundaries with House Democrats. And what he found is that he can get them to swallow poison.
At what point are we allowed to hold Democrats accountable for their actions?
Martin
Here’s a video I’ve been thinking about with respect to Democratic advertising and outreach.
Fair warning, it’s about 25 minutes and set up like an (entertaining) college lecture. But the gist is that social connotation is really how a lot of marketing works, and Democrats kind of suck at that. Think ‘Republican = Patriot’.
They did this at the convention to pretty good effect but then seemed to fall off of it, when the ‘Democrat = Freedom’ message is going to take years to take root.
tam1MI
The bill still has to get through the Democrat-controlled (for now) Senate, so there is a possibility the terrible provision will be stripped out. I’m not holding my breath that will happen, but the possibility is there.
Martin
@tam1MI: Democrats need to learn how to vote ‘present’.
Another Scott
@John S.: We just had an election.
You asked how the Democrats who voted for the House NDAA are going to explain themselves. You’ll have to ask them. I’m pretty sure it’s easy to find their public statements, if any.
Believe it or not, I understand your point. This is a very bad provision and I don’t like it either.
Beating up on Democrats isn’t going to solve anything though.
The majority party put the provision in the bill. The solution is Democrats getting the majority again, and that means being willing to accept party members who don’t vote the way we want all the time – even on important things.
Sometimes people on our side calculate that they have to accept bad provisions in bills to be able to win reelection to fight the next battle with any luck being in the majority. Politics is messy and complicated and infuriating and has real effects on real people’s lives.
I think I’m about done here. FWIW.
Best wishes,
Scott.
tam1MI
I agree with this 110 percent!
John S.
@Another Scott:
Thanks. I understand where you’re coming from.
Another Scott
@John S.:
One final thing (for all of us) – the House Democratic Whip has a Daily Preview of thoughts and party bigwigs’ nickel recommendations on various bills that day. I don’t see a way to get past Previews, and I understand that Jeffries didn’t whip the NDAA vote either way, but that might be something worthwhile to watch in the future on controversial or important bills, especially after January 20.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Ohio Mom
As I general rule, I don’t call people stupid but I will call actions stupid, for example, “That was a stupid thing to say” “She’s made some stupid choices about X.”
Was voting for Trump a stupid thing to do, or are these voters stupid, in this case I make an exception to my rule and say, Distinction without difference.
Really, I can hardly bear to read about the horrors about to be unleashed upon us, especially me and my family. At this point, the only reason I don’t want others to suffer from say, cutbacks to Social Security is that it would also hurt me.
I’m going back to browsing decorating sites. Nothing against anyone here, just don’t have the wherewithal to consider all this now.
Bill Arnold
@Another Scott:
Pat Ryan (D), my House Representative, outed himself as a homicidal[1] anti-trans eliminationist bigot with his vote on this.
[1] Deliberately increasing the probability of suicide by children, is in my ethics, homicide. That the USA legal system is not currently equipped to handle stochastic homicide is a major weakness. (Something something Dr Hilary Cass/deserted island/lifetime supply of freeze-dried dicks to eat as her protein source.)
@mistermix.bsky.social
I went to pick up some new glasses and now I have to get adjusted to the tiny sweet spot of transition (bifocal) high index (thin) lenses with my massive refraction (8 diopter-ish), but I want to thank people who explained their experience of Disqus vs Pie Filter.
I looked at that comment thread on Cheryl’s post (thanks to the person who posted that) and one thing I’ll note is that when you have that volume of commenters, and it’s threaded, I think you also need to have a Reddit-like feature where people can upvote/downvote comments, because otherwise the author of the piece doesn’t have an idea what the community thinks about comments. I think we’re OK with our comments here (200+ comments is a big response here) and also I get why Cole hates threading.
sab
Anyone close to trans people please talk to me about why I should have a problem with this vote, since my Rep voted for it and I mostly trust her.
Also too, I have a trans niece who fled my state.
As far as I can tell, the trans part of this bill prevents surgeries before age 18, but allows hormonal treatment. This was a compromise. Part of compromises is you support making things less awful is the worser alternative of no hormal treatments available for trans kids.
This is what my Congressperson voted for.
My trans niece didn’t come out (or whatever the terminology for trans) until her mid-twenties, but when she finally did the whole family breathed a sigh of relief (finally who she is makes sense, she was so sad before.) However, she was all grown up by then. Other families would have realized what was up years earlier.
My impression is that US doctors don’t do anything surgically on minors. So this whole controversy is to get us fighting about a non-issue.
What have I missed?
ETA: Also too, nobody in Congress wants to vote against Defense Authorization ( support our troops and Ukraine.)
Soprano2
@Belafon: Depends what else is in it, I doubt they’d do a stand alone bill like that. If they did then that would be an exception, they should vote for it. The chances of that happening approach zero, though.
Kayla Rudbek
@@mistermix.bsky.social: having a pie tool helps make this site better because then you can personally control what you see. It’s cutting off or reducing the airflow so there’s less oxygen feeding the attempts to light a fire.
Kayla Rudbek
@Belafon: republicans also name their kids Reagan for a first name as well, which in my opinion is child abuse and idolatry.
sab
@sab: I will be writing her tomorrow. So far I am reluctantly okay.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: People who can’t afford food or rent aren’t concerned about democracy.
Kayla Rudbek
@p.a.: I grew up reading Revolt in 2100; we have been in Heinlein’s Crazy Years for decades, and I fear that he was only off on the religious dictatorship taking over the USA by twelve years.
sab
This whole thread started off on trans issues and y’all have wandered off, so I take that as jackals don’t care. I personally do care and don’t know what to do, so this really pisses me off. Chatter on, morons.
VeniceRiley
The right has captured media, church, and governments. You cannot crack that shell. Anyone with a head up will be a hero.
Happy Christmas!
Bobby Thomson
It prohibits treatment of minors that “could result” in sterility, which means the Defense Secretary will decide its scope, and in the Trump administration you can assume that puberty blockers will be banned.
Rosa DeLauro voted for it, so I’m guessing the military contractors really put the screws on her.
In PA, Cartwright and Wild were in the two swing districts (though Wild lost). Houlahan is turning out to be a tool. She was part of the anti-Biden mob.
Bobby Thomson
@sab: FWIW, I also care.
Kayla Rudbek
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: we’re going to have to sneak it into the arts and video games.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
Well, that is isn’t what I said. I specifically excepted Biden’s “accomplishments”. What I asked about is why there is so much Biden ” is a good man” when we never did that with Clinton or Obama. I asked why we insisted on this moral narrative with Biden and not the others.
Bill Arnold
@sab:
It is argued amongst anti-trans bigots that therapies to block puberty can cause sterilization. This was one of the arguments for the recent UK ban, IIRC.
Erin points to this language. I haven’t verified that it is in the final voted-on bill, though.
page 399
‘‘(20) Medical interventions for the treatment of gender dysphoria that could result in sterilization may not be provided to a child under the age of 18.’’.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
Biden’s “accomplishments” I agree with – with the exception of certain foreign policy decisions I vehemently opposed. I agree he has a lot of (domestic) accomplishments which I have said here, over and over, for 4 years.
What I think is odd and interesting is the demand for a moral narrative on Biden here, to the extent of “we weren’t good enough for him!” I think its strange and defensive because its demanded when no-one has even raised whether Biden is “A good man” or ” A bad man”
@mistermix.bsky.social
@sab: In case it isn’t clear, I give a shit, for personal, moral and political reasons.
Here’s a gift link to Erin Reed’s explanation about why people should care about this provision of the bill:
https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/first-major-congressional-fight-over?r=1v2xgg&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
Excerpt:
Elizabelle
@Kay: I don’t pick up on the “this is a good man” as much as I do “here is stuff Biden is getting done that the major news is not covering — or at least not highlighting.” It truly seems he is being ignored, and that is a decision.
That said, I did love when you said the right was always having to remind us of Reagan’s many accomplishments; all the burnishing. Not so much any more, no? What a weird way for that to fall off the radar.
Bobby Thomson
@Nukular Biskits: This.
Democrats kicked ass when they openly engaged in class warfare and demagogued the shit out of things. You don’t change minds with facts. You get people to vote for you by acting in unison and pushing the right emotional buttons.
Voters are, by and large, stupid (“squishy” is the charitable terms), and that has been a documented fact since The American Voter was published in 1960.
When it comes to trans rights, Democrats haven’t even made an intellectual pitch and have completely adopted right wing frames developed in bad faith. They need to go on offense and stop worrying what the billionaire-owned media will say, because they will support Republicans no matter what. “Why would a rapist pretend to be a trans woman when rapists like Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth are treated much better than any trans person ever has been?”
Kay
@Elizabelle:
Because he could be “accomplished” without being “good” or pure of heart or religious or whatever.
Bobby Thomson
@Kay: No one on the left ever had his back, including during the Afghanistan withdrawal that put him in negative approval to stay, and Hamas enthusiasts probably cost him the presidency.
RevRick
@Baud: The reasons why Trump won his narrow victory are as overdetermined as are why Democrats narrowly lost. But basically, I believe Trump’s win can be attributed to this: he campaigned on I’ll. Make. It. Stop. And those “its” were inflation, immigration, crime, and drugs.
As I stated in a post below, the American public is in an angry mood, because the last two decades have been one damn thing after another that have thrown things all out of whack. The military blunders of Iraq and Afghanistan. The housing crisis and financial collapse leading to the Great Recession. School shootings. Deaths of despair. COVID. Inflation. Each of these factors has left some segments of our society traumatized. And since many subscribe to the Green Lantern theory of the Presidency, because they have no idea how our government works, they throw out Presidents who don’t make it stop.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@Kay:
I also don’t understand the need to make party leaders into heroes. Whether or not Biden is a good man, he was pretty progressive on domestic issues, a disappointment on the Middle East, and in hindsight it’s clear he should have stepped aside and let us have a primary to replace him.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
I frankly don’t know how you miss it, but ok. A!so it isn’t just AL. AL isnt even the person who uses it the most. She just happened to post the Biden Is A Good Man theme today.
Its three different fps and many, many commentors.
Kay
@Bobby Thomson:
Well, “Hamas enthusiasts” is a bit of a tell. I don’t think we have much to talk about.
YY_Sima Qian
Yes, the annual NDAA is considered “must pass”, & the historical norm is to pass it w/ overwhelmingly bi-partisan majorities. However, the Repubs have junked every other norm & junked every institution, so why are Dems still holding fast to “norms”? & why is the NDAA “must pass”? Why is spending on the military & LE too important to jeopardize, but not social welfare?
Oh, that’s right, we are in the Age of Great Power Competition & can’t have any lapse in preparing for high intensity & possibly nuclear war w/ the PRC. The reactionary counter-revolutionaries will continue fear monger foreign threats to make national security the overriding consideration on every domestic & foreign policy, & justification for all of the retrograde & repressive policies they will seek to implement.
I agree this is the Repubs testing the water. They can keep adding poison pills in “must pass” bills for Dems to swallow, targeting different “out groups” in any potential anti-Fascist coalition, & create disaffection one demographic at a time. It’s trans people this time, next time it will people w/ disabilities, then families of undocumented immigrants, then Chinese Americans, etc. etc.
Dems cannot be expected to defeat poison pills when they are in the minority, but when they furnish substantial votes then they provide “bi-partisan” cover to elements of the Republican agenda, especially in the name of “national security”, & dilute the sharp contrast any anti-Fascist should be drawing against the Fascists. Any wonder low information “stupid” voters are skeptical of Dems’ rhetoric? If national security is that important, loudly call out the Repubs for inserting impertinent & malicious poison pills in natsec bills, & vote “Present” if not “Nay”.
A couple of days ago I posted about a House Bill that proposed to let the ultra-reactionary ultra-hawkish Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation to vet textbook lest impressionable young American minds fall under the sway of Communism. Look up the Crucial Communism Teaching Act. If you look at the language, it is another one of those “Anti-CCP” bills.
80% of House Dems voted “Yeah”, including 50% of the Progressive Caucus. Is Communism a current danger to the U.S.? WTF are the Dems voting “Yeah” for?! What problem is the bill trying to solve? If we want to guard the U.S. against the dangers of sliding into authoritarianism, how about adding Nazism, Fascism, ethno-nationalism & religious fundamentalism to the mix. These ideologies are much more relevant to US politics today.
Dems have to decide if we are in fact in a war (“struggle” if you are squeamish) to prevent the reactionary counter-revolutionaries from achieving their goals, & whether the clear & present danger to the U.S. is external or internal, then act accordingly.
Elizabelle
@Kay: I am way more simplistic than you are on this. I just can see the absolute tragedy of a president who did so much for his country, and they were blind to it, for the most part. The media did not cover him adequately, and that was a decision.
Would never give him any credit for the good economy (and yes, housing and food prices are a problem; we get that).
I wish voters had more of an idea of what was going on, and how hard it is to come up with some of those accomplishments. But no. They seem to be magical thinkers, although “thinkers” is doing some heavy lifting there.
Mostly it’s terrifying, because NOW I am starting to see news stories drawing parallels to the 1930s. Why not before, asshats?
sab
@Kay: We did that with Clinton till I barfed (until the intern). Why can you not accept what each party does? Jesus Christ will not come down to earth to rule America, soplease accept what democract throws at us and don’t throw hopeless causes at democracy.
I told you in July that America would never accept a Black Woman as president. Ypu scoffed at me. Perative woed wasn’t Black. It was “woman.”
I am seventy years old and a just realized that a substantial (40 %) of American men just don’t like women.
Kay: Rant on all you like, but my white boomer husband was devastated when we dumped Biden ( best president of his lifetime.) He voted but, but I understand why others didn’t.
Elizabelle
@Kay: I hear you. The insipid stuff gets me, too. Not going to say more. I think Anne Laurie has done a great job keeping us informed. Which is why we are probably even more depressed and alarmed. Alas.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
He had a pretty good run! He spent an entire career in the Senate, 8 years as VP and 4 years as President. I think “America” gave him a lot, actually. I bet he agrees with me too.
Elizabelle
@Kay: Yes. But he warned that democracy is on the ballot, and too many Americans said “what? We can’t hear you over the words “egg prices”?”
He was denied a second term, to a convicted felon and known bullshitter.
Kay
@sab:
I’m confused by what you wrote. I didn’t actually singlehandedly engineer the switch. In fact, THE PARTY did the switch, so in this instance I was aligned with the Party.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
Tganks. I’m done. I just didn’t want to be mischaracterized.
Motivated Seller
Seconded.
sab
@Kay: You were a big part of why I read BJ comments. After a few weeks I have decided to pie you. You have lost your mind. And no, I am not a Zionist. You just are not functioning intellectually in the real world any more. Enjoy the beach. I used to live in Michigan and their winters are brutal and their local government pretty much non-responsive. Plus DeVos and Van Andel.
Welcome to your new world.
sab
@Kay: You egged them on. Don’t pretend you were not part of this. That is just blatant dishonesty.
sab
@@mistermix.bsky.social: A response at last. Thank you MM.
sab
@Bill Arnold: Haven’t they been using puberty blockers for fifty plus years with oncology kids? Frying your innards in cancer treatment makes you adolesce physically way ahead pf schedule.
I had a bookkeeping client whose kid had had brain tumors. He grew pubic hair at age 8. Yes he needed puberty blockers. So why can’t others. Nobody worried about the brain tumor kid’s future fertility.
Another Scott
@Bobby Thomson: Hmm…
The SCOTUS Citizens United decision was January 21, 2010.
Obama called them out in the State of the Union speech that year.
Democrats decried the decision for months (years). Rightfully so.
2010 Midterms? GQP picked up 63 seats in the House and 6 seats in the Senate.
Righteous anger is great (in moderation ;-). Maybe there wasn’t enough of it. Maybe there was plenty but other factors mattered more.
Dunno.
We’re a big complicated country. Elections lately have been close and we’ve been on the losing side too often for our liking. And we’re rightfully upset about it. Unfortunately, each election is different and it’s hard to tease out – with any certainty – what would have made the result different. And more importantly, I think, what we need to do to win next time (and going forward).
Best wishes,
Scott.
Ruckus
@Subsole:
Part of it is that they also see that everyone else besides them and maybe a few friends is highly, fantastically, wealthier than they are. They must be doing something bad, illegal, immoral (one or all 3 of those) to be well off financially. It can’t be because they live somewhere that has a better economy than the viewers and/or has developed skills that earn a higher wage. And that takes manufacturing and that takes an area where there is educational opportunities to learn the skills necessary. And in many sides of industry those educational opportunities are where the jobs are. The school my father went to, to learn his trade, before WWII, is still in Los Angeles, at the same location but has almost doubled in size and trades taught over almost a century.
Ruckus
@sab:
I was operated on when I was a child of 7 yrs old. And I was born and raised in Los Angeles, CA. And at what feels like a hell of a long time ago some days, in the first half of the last century.
Another Scott
@RevRick: This appeals to my truthiness detector.
Unfortunately for those voters, a guy who actually made a bunch of bad things stop didn’t get re-elected, and the Black woman who would have made many other bad things stop didn’t succeed him.
Teams oscillating down the field in Prevent Defenses can make for boring, low-scoring games. Fans don’t like those too much either. :-/
As Geminid points out, the elections in Virginia next year should be interesting. A Black MAGA woman is Lt. Gov and she’ll be running against Abigail Spanberger. The other party from the President usually/often wins in Virginia, so Spanberger should win pretty handily if history is a guide, and she’s a strong “middle of the road” (she had some public criticism of Pelosi early on in her House career) Democrat that seems to appeal to a broad swath of Virginia, but she needs coattails and it’s going to be a slog no matter how crazy Winsome Sears is…
The war is never over. We have to try to keep pushing forward and learn the right lessons (not the easy ones).
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Miss Bianca
@Chris: late back to the thread, but yes, thank you for bringing that up, I think you’re onto something there.
Martin
I disagree. The majority party doesn’t have a majority on this bill.
The strategy for Democrats is to demand bipartisan input on bills and vote present until they get it. The GOP can’t pass shit because they don’t have any agreement within their caucus. They can barely get all of their members together in the House and if they do get a bill through the House purely on GOP votes, getting it through the GOP senate presents a new set of problems because they are unlikely to sign onto whatever shit MTG needed.
Democrats need to wedge the GOP on this matter and demonstrate that they can legislate if they negotiate with Dems rather than the GOP fringe. And you do that by voting present on anything Dems didn’t get input on and forcing the GOP to find every vote.
dnfree
@Miss Bianca: My daddy used to reference the gored ox as well. Thanks for the memory!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Martin:
Perfect summary. This vote doesn’t give me great confidence that we’ll *oppose* until we get concessions we want.
Let the gubmint grind to a halt, that’ll make it harder for the vandals to sack it.
YY_Sima Qian
@Martin: I greatly respect Pelosi for being adept at pulling such legislative maneuvers.
Kay
@sab:
Have you lost your mind? You actually be!ieve Balloon Juice commenters caused Nancy Pelosi and Barak Obama to determine Biden had to go?
I was with the Party. Balloon Juicers were not. I know you DISAGREE with the Party decision but I assure you Nancy Pelosi is not reading my comments and making decisions based on them.
And, as I have said repeatedly, I have no interest in rewriting history. I thought the decision to replace Biden was the best of two bad alternatives and I still do.
Your beef is with the Democratic Party. They decided he had to go. Not me.
YY_Sima Qian
@Martin: & then we have to deal w/ issues where a not insignificant number of Dems agree w/ the Repubs, if not in the solutions then at least w/ the [typically reactionary] framing. Dems will have to think hard, where there is such “alignment”, whether the Repubs are indeed right, whether the opponents are wrong, & whether the Repubs “solutions” are leveraging the issues to the hilt to advance their counter-revolutionary agenda even if they are “right”.
This is especially acute on FP, which tends to have domestic spill over even if most people don’t pay attention. Learn the damned lessons from the Cold War & GWOT.
Consider the current state of the GOP & its transparent goals, “common ground” ought to be exceeding rare.
YY_Sima Qian
@Another Scott: Prevent defense is only advisable when you are comfortably ahead.
TONYG
@Splitting Image: I’ll be charitable and call Loomis a self-righteous scold rather than an asshole. He makes some good points sometimes, but he seems to believe that everyone who’s not named Eric Loomis is inferior to him.
TONYG
@Chris: Reading Loomis’s bloviating reminds me of the old workplace joke: “We must do X, Y and Z immediately!” “What you me WE white man?”
xephyr
If stupid people didn’t create profoundly negative impacts on society by voting, then I’d be glad to refrain from calling them stupid. As it is, I have no reason to cut them any slack.
Bill Arnold
@sab:
Agree.
The anti-trans haters do not (publicly) worry about suicide, and work hard to suppress concerns about suicidal children.
That is because they are motivated by hate. (They don’t hate cancer patients.)
Kayla Rudbek
@Miss Bianca: it makes our position less easy to take seriously (I say this as someone who wore a school uniform and is expected to wear a suit for working in the office). Yeah, it’s theater and posturing but it’s a lot easier to sell radical ideas if you’re dressed and act like The Man. And it’s so much fun to let them think you’re on their side until you bring out the weapons…
Kayla Rudbek
@Chris:
@Miss Bianca:
The Nine Nations of North America made complete and total sense to me when I first read it. Yes, Minnesota lined up with New England as being part of Yankeedom.
Ruckus
@Seeker:
I’m going to say this in the nicest way possible.
Fuck You.
America did not choose this maladministration. Rethuglicans did. They want many people to suffer and their pocket books to fill up at everyone else’s expense.
There is a large segment of the population that is older and has paid into social security for their entire working lives, to have some income in their retirement/senior years, and it works damn well. So we are now going to screw every single one of them so some rich fuck and get richer?
Once again FUCK YOU.
Darkrose
@TONYG: Porque no los dos?
He is a self-righteous scold. He is also an asshole who is happy to proclaim himself an asshole, but if anyone else points out that he’s an asshole, he loses his shit.