Kim: You have a number of nominees who are literally, their mission is to dismantle the organization that they are being nominated to be in charge of. I find that to be so dangerous at this moment.
We will keep fighting, because that’s what Democrats do, it’s who we are.
Hakeem Jeffries tells Joy Reid that Democrats "are prepared to aggressively push back" on Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy potentially cutting Social Security, Medicare, etc. and their attempts to deregulate the industries that regulate them.
??— Art Candee ???? (@artcandee.bsky.social) December 12, 2024 at 3:51 PM
ICYMI: We directed $11 million to support food shelves and fight housing insecurity.
All Minnesotans deserve a warm home and full table this holiday season.— Governor Tim Walz (@governorwalz.mn.gov) December 11, 2024 at 9:29 PM
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced they are going to be capping overdraft fees at $5 for banks that have over $10 billion in deposits to follow through with a Biden promise to get rid of junk fees.
It will take effect Oct. 1, 2025.
Of course Elon Musk wants to get rid of the CFPB.— Art Candee ???? (@artcandee.bsky.social) December 12, 2024 at 2:27 PM
My mantra for the next for years: If we must live without hope, there is always vengeance.
We are starting to see a Democratic narrative form: that the Trump Admin is a government by billionaires for billionaires. And Musk will be the poster boy.
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) December 12, 2024 at 9:22 PM
Yep. It's a matter of principle. Frankly I don't think it's a very costly cowardice to wait until Trump actually screws stuff up to start attacking him, & the underlying principle is good, but I am so tired of folks letting Trump get away with shit on principled grounds
— Chatham Harrison is tending his garden (@chathamharrison.bsky.social) December 12, 2024 at 3:05 PM
Yep. The party isn’t anyone’s friend because it’s the sum of the people in it, not an independent entity. This is why anyone who hates Republicans should work to see the “I Really Fucking Hate The Republican Party” faction wins over the “Maybe Daddy Will Stop Hitting Us If We’re Nicer” faction.
— Starfish Who Can’t Think Something Witty (@irhottakes.bsky.social) December 11, 2024 at 6:57 PM
an entire political era designed to test the limits of "lol nothing matters"
— Chatham Harrison is tending his garden (@chathamharrison.bsky.social) December 12, 2024 at 2:37 PM
Libs basically have the Y2K problem where working tremendously hard to prevent the worst from happening gets interpreted by the general public as there never having been any danger in the first place. The good news is, this might not be a problem anymore soon. This is also the bad news.
— Starfish Who Can’t Think Something Witty (@irhottakes.bsky.social) December 12, 2024 at 8:19 AM
On The Road – Captain C – Road Trip, April 2024 Part 14: National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum Part 6
Elizabelle
It is horrifying. But: there are more of us than them, and we can make some noise. Also, science seems to have a liberal bent, as does truth.
Albeit, not planning to spend the next how many years with my hair on fire. Pace ourselves. There will be enough outrages for all manner of activists/protesters.
Baud
The last post is spot on. The upcoming battle will be to push back on everyone who wants to blame Dems from not stopping Republicans or for not exhibiting the desired level of performative outrage.
NotMax
And now for something completely different.
What’s next, Zombie Number 9 cologne?
;)
Baud
@Elizabelle:
I don’t think there are more of us. We have to recruit if we want there to be more of us.
satby
@Baud: If by “more of us” it’s meant more people understanding the stakes and not wanting the fantasy the media sold as “Trump 2.0” , I agree there aren’t more of us. There’s more of these guys 👇
an entire political era designed to test the limits of “lol nothing matters”
Elizabelle
@Baud: Yes. Although I suspect a lot of nonvoters would be with us. Perhaps the coming years will shake some of them out of their complacency or apathy or ignorance. Whatever keeps them from existing as citizens, rather than as mere consumers or an audience.
Fair Economist
The mindblowing thing is how those interviewees have been bamboozled into believing Trump will do the opposite of what he actually intends. He’ll be friends with the ones hurting us like Putin, spend more on the military and less on food stamps, lose money for the country with bigger deficits, and raise healthcare costs by blocking drug regulation and insurance company regulations.
What I’d really like to see is how they get that disinfo into people’s brains. We rag on the MSM a lot, and they are a problem, but these kinds of things haven’t been even in places like Fox. They aren’t talking about people hungry in the streets. Influencers? Targeted advertising? What’s going on?
NotMax
Door to door sales of Liberal Scout cookies?
“Push the Medicaramelts.”
:)
NotMax
Postus prematuris.
#8 meant to be @Baud.
lowtechcyclist
The Lord told Abraham he’d spare Sodom if there were 10 righteous men there. We know how that story turned out.
C’mon, Lord, can’t you fry the Senate GOP caucus? ;-)
NotMax
@lowtechcyclist
Righteousness has a liberal bias.
;)
RSA
At least they picked representative Trump voters to quote. You know, like Kenneth, a Black military veteran and ex-police officer, who now drives a truck.
cmorenc
@Baud:
The difference is that there are just enough of “them” who don’t believe Trump really intends to do most of the shit he said he intended to do, and if any of it is does turn out bad, it won’t affect them. And that somehow Trump has the business and financial talent to fix the economy so it works better for them. And inflation was a Biden-created problem Trump will solve.
Baud
@RSA:
Haha. You got their number.
Ten Bears
Vengeance is good. I like vengeance. And stochastic terrorism
Republicans should be looking over their shoulders …
satby
@Elizabelle: An interesting, and infuriating op ed in the Guardian today talked about the UH CEO shooter as “the median American voter” due to his haphazard apparent political beliefs. I don’t necessarily agree with it, but this snippet made some sense:
Hildebrand
@Elizabelle: The nonvoters couldn’t bloody well rouse themselves to do something as simple as voting. No, they aren’t ‘with’ us. They are the literal definition of idiots – private persons. Meaning, they don’t work for the common good.
Elizabelle
Top story on the FTF NY Vichy Times (we helped bring you Trump):
RFK Jr.’s lawyer wants to revoke approval for the polio (!) vaccine.
And a roundup of six childhood diseases. Hello, 20th century. The Trump administration. Everything old is new again.
Gift link (for any anti-vaxxer pals):
Six Childhood Scourges We’ve Forgotten About, Thanks to Vaccines
Most Americans, including doctors, have no memory of the devastating diseases that routinely threatened children until the 1960s.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
Baud
@satby:
Interesting when civil rights and the environment get left out in an effort toake “anti-system” look better.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
narya
“He believes in Christ.” What a fucking dolt. I guarandamntee you that I, a lifelong atheist, know more about Christ than the orange menace.
Renie
It is unbelievable how delusional those people statements are for voting for trump. Any of them who believe he is a good Christian must be smoking something high quality.
Quinerly
Hey…if kind commenter Pauline shows up, could someone send her to yesterday’s morning thread? She and I were having an interesting discussion about her hometown of Nogales. I was very late back to the thread after we were chatting about Patagonia, AZ. I left her some info and had a question for her about an elaborate wayside shrine outside of Patagonia. Thanks!
I’m out of here. Have a great day!
Dorothy A. Winsor
OT and probably of interest only to me: I went viral for the first time on tiktok yesterday. The post currently has over 13K views. I was shocked. It’s a short review of a popular YA fantasy book. That’s it.
geg6
@narya:
For. Real. Same.
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Congratulations!
Baud
@narya:
I have it on good authority that Christ does not believe in him.
Melancholy Jaques
@Baud:
We ought to have learned by now – to our great horror & chagrin – that there are not more of us. And however many there are of them, they all vote every time, up & down the ballot.
narya
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Woo! Yay you!
Sherparick
@satby: Trump, Fox News, & MAGA (but I repeat myself) will be blaming every bad thing that happens the next 4 years on Biden (similarly to how the Republicans blamed the 81 – 82 recession on Jimmy Carter), the “Deep State,” “George Soros,” “immigrants,” & “China” (while at the same time Trump will say how great Xi is and that they are best pals.) Also, Patrick Healy and NYT are bad faith actors.
Organize locally. Join local Democratic groups. Run for local offices like the School board, or at least show up at meetings.
Dagaetch
@Elizabelle: my dad had polio when he was 4, just a few years before the vaccine was a thing. These people can take a long walk off a short pier, please and thank you.
narya
On a better note, Penzey’s has 50% off everything in their stores today (25% off online, w/ the code “RESIST”); saffron, vanilla, and gift cards are excluded.
montanareddog
I hope that “to aggressively push back” is just Jeffriesspeak for fighting tooth and nail against any Republican attacks on Social Security, Medicare, etc.
Elizabelle
@Dagaetch: Very sorry to hear that. And yeah. Fuck ‘em.
Jeffro
This right here.
Vaccines, pasteurization, and agencies that regulate food/drug safety = tremendous advances in longevity and well-being.
Why it’s almost like our Endless Distraction Society is making us dumber, or something?
Elizabelle
The Second Trump administration. Where every day is Friday the 13th.
different-church-lady
People are rock-fucking stupid.
Calling them rock-fucking stupid isn’t going to get us anywhere.
Not calling them rock-fucking stupid also isn’t going to get us anywhere.
different-church-lady
Gonna be a blast watching the blue states try to cobble together replacements for social security and the FDIC.
Anyway
@satby: was the author “Martin”?
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: How is that going on this blog? There is a FP poster who blames Ds for everything. One exception is a Dem whose name begins with an A and ends with an A.
Elizabelle
All these Americans. “Doing their own research.” What could go wrong?
I won’t mind if Europe and the rest of the advanced world demands proof of vaccines for entry.
Americans. We’re not just visitors. We are vectors.
Doug R
@Fair Economist:
Foreign active measures?
schrodingers_cat
@Ten Bears: Yeah no. Vigilante justice is bad for everyone, especially visible minorities.
Are you a white man by any chance?
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Is that first name only? Otherwise, I can’t figure out who you are referring to.
Leto
@satby: Three chords and the truth still hits like a sledgehammer.
schrodingers_cat
@Renie: I won’t necessarily take T voters for being truth tellers. In any case actions speak louder than words.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@narya: @Baud: Thank you. It’s a weird accomplishment
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Yes.
All the first page posts praising the Dem I am talking about by a regular D basher frontpager are another clue.
different-church-lady
@Ten Bears: “Revenge of the Nerds” just don’t work that way in real life.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Just wanted to check, since she’s usually referred to by her full name or her initials.
schrodingers_cat
@Elizabelle: Europe is awash with their version of Trumpers as well. This is not just a local phenomena, its a global one.
different-church-lady
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I look forward to your upcoming insanity.
Chris
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Agree. Unfortunately, our vision was voted down last month. I suspect the right wing ethos that relies on violence and the threat of violence (“anti-system”) is ascendent.
Prescott Cactus
I feel like I’m on the Titanic and over the PA system I hear, “Don’t worry folks, we’re just stopping for ice”.
satby
@Baud: as I said, infuriating as well as interesting. But the kernal of interest to me was the pro- vs anti-system statement, because it could explain the lack of coherence in a lot of voters for the convict and the disengagement of non-voters. “Messaging” clearly isn’t connecting with a lot of Americans (for a lot of reasons including racism and misogyny); is the reason because the vast majority feels they have no place and will receive no fairness under the current system? Generally, happy people tend not to begrudge other people, unhappy people always do.
It’s as good a hypothesis as any other that’s been horked up.
Chris
@satby:
I feel like as little as ten years ago, there would’ve been a lot more conservatives willing to stand up and be shocked and horrified and talk about how this is all the left’s fault for fomenting all this class warfare. Among ordinary people, I mean. Instead? Yeah sure, public figures are saying it, but nobody else gives a shit. On either side of the aisle.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@different-church-lady: Me too!
different-church-lady
@satby: It’s more “pro-chaos/anti-chaos” at this point.
RevRick
@Elizabelle: I agree that we need to pace ourselves. I would add the recommendation that we pick one issue that we care about and gather some likeminded people to work on it.
I’m going to focus on climate change.
@Baud: I’m with you,Baud. There are more people who identify as conservative than those who identify as liberal. By a substantial margin. We need to win moderates by two to one in order to win.
narya
Also too, for the cheese lovers among us: I’ve had a wheel of this year’s Rush Creek Reserve, and it is (as usual) delicious. (I get it for a little cheaper from the local farmers’ market cheesemonger.) I just ordered two more wheels, too, because it is a yearly treat to myself. Also, to get philosophical for a second, because it’s a living thing, basically, it must be consumed rather than hoarded or saved for later. It’s a good reminder not to postpone joy, which I admit I need these days.
Denali5
I miss Tim Walz.
satby
@Leto: 👏👏John Prine is smiling in heaven right now.
Betty
@Dagaetch: Mitch McConnell also had polio. Could this possibly be a wake up call for him to rally his troops,against the RFK Jr nomination? Or not?
Baud
@satby:
I think propaganda and demographics are big drivers, along with rapid technological change. YMMV.
Prescott Cactus
@schrodingers_cat:
Can I buy a vowel ?
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: The burn-it-down contingent in our coalition damaged Biden by badmouthing all his accomplishments. Which the MAGAs amplified, and the normies believed. Media led a helpful hand to their R masters.
Our local Ds met last week. And all the anti-establishment tankie talk by some made me really exasperated. I mean do you really think that people who find it too onerous to vote have it in them to stage a revolution? What are these people huffing?
Give me a fucking break.
Baud
@Betty:
Who knows? Apparently, the WSJ is against RFK too.
satby
@different-church-lady: basically semantics: system /anti-system; chaos / anti-chaos.
different-church-lady
@Betty: McConnell doesn’t have a soul.
Suzanne
@satby:
I think you’re right on the money with this.
I get the overall sense that people are deeply unhappy and pessimistic, and that leads to resentment and conspiracy-theory idiocy.
I am also pretty pessimistic about the country, but I’m ting to guard against the resentment and conspiracy theory crap.
schrodingers_cat
@Prescott Cactus: I already gave you one for free.
Another Scott
Given the disinformation landscape these days, and the history of In This Ohio Diner, I’m disinclined to take the FTFNYT “typical DJT voter” comments at face value.
(I’m not interested enough to try to read the original story.)
Yeah, there are people like that out there, there are people on public transit who talk loudly to themselves and have disturbing thoughts but they don’t get profiles in stories in “the paper of record”. Out of 150+M voters, how did the FTFNYT reporter get those comments? Hanging out on “DJT – Great President or Greatest President” on TruthSocial?? Why did those comments get picked to be published??
Did they do a similar “Tell me why you voted for Kamala Harris” story??
What sort of impression are readers supposed to take from this? Savvy people know everything is hopeless for those expecting the public and politics to be rational?? Americans are stupid so we’re all doomed?? Rational people have to let disinterested know-nothings who don’t bother to inform themselves run the country?? Nothing matters so we should all give up?? The bottom 95% are rubes, so you smart NYT readers can point and laugh while you put peas in your guacamole and read about empty $25M apartments?? What??
Bouie seems to be a decent chap, but this story really annoys me…
Just say NO to FTFNYT.
YMMV.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
No, I don’t believe anyone except the right wing is capable of leading a revolution in the US.
H.E.Wolf
Remember that old adage, “Talkers don’t do, and doers don’t talk”? I’d like to see lots of us jackals disprove that.
I’ve got a small, concrete task to offer: a postcard GOTV campaign for a Jan. 7th special election in VA. It’s 50% complete, so a small effort (4 postcards per writer) will be plenty. Ask for addresses today, write this weekend, mail on Monday. Details below.
Democrat Kannan Srinivasan, a member of the VA House of Delegates, is running for VA State Senate, to replace Democrat Suhas Subramanyam who was just elected to Congress.
Postcards To Voters is writing for Srinivasan.
Volunteers provide their own cards and stamps.
The organization provides:
– addresses
– 3 required sentences to write
– 3 business days in which to send them.
Minimum is 4 addresses.
https://postcardstovoters.org/volunteer/
Betty
@RevRick: Ironically the effort by Democrats to protect institutions is conservative. What Trump and company are up to is radical and in no way moderate.
TBone
A wonderful article by Marc Elias on topic.
https://www.democracydocket.com/opinion/now-is-the-time-for-courage/
There is so much more great stuff at the link, but here is just a teaser:
schrodingers_cat
@satby: But the people who spout this revolution and anti-system BS are usually white people. Even here on BJ comments.
Of course the FPers who discuss politics on BJ are also mostly white.
All this is a backlash against the traditonal have-nots getting closer to the levers of power by the haves (mostly white and mostly male)
schrodingers_cat
@H.E.Wolf: I reread your comment. Its a special election, they are not running against each other. I need more tea.
different-church-lady
@Betty: On on side is a political party and on the other a cult of personality. All the usual rules of battle break down under that circumstance.
satby
@Baud: I agree with that, I just think it’s possible that the sorting out isn’t following the paradigm we’re used to, even under racism and misogyny which also factors in.
different-church-lady
@schrodingers_cat: Don’t forget: we’re fantasying about others starting a revolution.
Baud
@satby:
I’m not sure what paradigm you’re referring to. Anything is possible.
schrodingers_cat
@different-church-lady: What is really annoying is the stupid on steriods I am seeing everywhere and not just among MAGA.
OT: I have set up my desk easel. Its nice.
Ramona
@Prescott Cactus: E
RevRick
@cmorenc: Yes, Trump convinced enough voters that inflation, immigration, and crime were all created by bad or weak Biden policies, and that he would fix them.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Agreed. Tankie left definitely is not. People tweeting about this, get an anxiety attack if they have talk on the phone.
TBone
@Leto: love that kid, I posted that yesterday too. His other songs are also delightful (Turtles!)
Thank you.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
I’ll admit that I don’t like talking on the phone either.
different-church-lady
@schrodingers_cat: Trump is a genius at weaponizing stupidity.
satby
@schrodingers_cat: Not discounting racism or misogyny AT ALL, but it’s not explaining the gains the convict made in minority voters. Hell, none of his voters makes sense really except for the rich guys, but facile assumptions about minorities who see themselves as white adjacent seem pretty racist too. There’s more going on.
schrodingers_cat
@Another Scott: Good analysis of how I feel. I don’t read the NYT even though I can, for free. I don’t want to give them clicks or my money. They need to FOAD.
satby
@Baud: right/left, red/blue, liberal/ conservative.
Baud
@satby:
Sure. I’ve said for a few years now we’re in the midst of a political realignment.
ETA: Of course, decisions are still binary. Either woman have autonomy or they don’t, for instance.
Suzanne
@satby:
I agree with this, too.
I was commenting yesterday about how most normies aren’t ideological at all. Their views are often totally inconsistent. If there is a common thread, it’s that they want things to be “more effective”, and of course, that raises the question of how to define effectiveness. Which, I’m sure, is also completely inconsistent and probably has some malign aspects.
schrodingers_cat
@satby: His gains among minorities are not as much as they were being touted initially. The media likes to talk about this a lot and not how the most anti woman ticket won among white women.
What is going on is that disinformation and misinformation won against truth. The media environment is largely responsible. It plays on people’s biases and tells them what they want to hear.
Tankie left helped. The major state level legislative gains for the Rs have come from New England which is very white (Vt and NH)
RevRick
@montanareddog: You can sure that Nancy Pelosi is whispering in Jeffries’ ear about how Democrats successfully derailed a similar effort by the Bush administration in 2005-6. And, if anything, the Democrats are more ideologically aligned than they were back then.
CaseyL
Open thread, so I’m posting a kitty bleg: Oscar needs help!
Oscar is my 16+ yrs old DMH Siamese. I’ve talked about him a lot here, I think. He’s pretty healthy for his age: some heart issues related to hyperthyroidism, for which he had the I-131 treatment a couple months ago and did great; some kidney issues, as nearly every cat his age has. Otherwise fine… until yesterday.
Suddenly yesterday: His back legs went out. Not non-functional, but very weak. He sort of sways in the middle and walks unsteadily, stiff-legged, like a drunken sailor. Falls down a lot. Can go up and down stairs, but very unsteadily. So far as I can tell, he can go to the bathroom OK.
Of course I took him to the vet. They couldn’t find anything wrong on physical examination, nothing immediately obvious in X-Rays. They think, maybe, a skipped disc. Or brain tumor. Would need an MRI to see.
Anyone with any insight, ideas? Please?
At this point, I’m willing to consider acupuncture. Or even prayer.
I love the little guy, and am devastated.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: The Republican nominee won white women easily BTW.
But let’s blame Latino men, a majority of whom voted for Harris because Rs made some gains among that population.
Also in case its not obvious I have no love lost for minorities who think they are special by voting for Republicans. Just pointing out that the media never discusses the white elephant in the room in all their election analyses.
p.a.
@Fair Economist: The empty vessel is also a blank slate. Just write in what you want!
TBone
@TBone: turtles! By Jesse Welles
https://www.tiktok.com/@jessewelles/video/7446425666813300011
Another Scott
@narya: @Renie:
“Christian” is a tribe, not a religion, for many/most these days.
A sweet, caring, hard-working, little old lady social worker I know in NC who works for a great non-profit that helps disabled people told me just after the election that the results in North Carolina were a “disaster” (the 3 big statewide winners were Democrats) and later in the conversation said “we’re all Christian” so things would get much better when DJT was in office in January. The cognitive dissonance is astounding, but real.
I remember attending my mom’s church one Sunday a few decades ago and hearing the preacher telling us all to say to ourselves that “Jesus wants me to be rich! I deserve to be rich!” and looking around to see everyone eating it all up (many with self-satisfied smirks on their faces).
:-/
It’s tribal.
I’m not sure how we break through the bubble, but appealing to common humanity and listening and understanding how they feel (and the difference between their feelings and what they say) has to be part of the process of bridging the gap and figuring out a way forward.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Betty Cracker
@satby: FWIW, I agree there are elements of truth to that theory. There isn’t a single cause or a simple explanation. There never was. It seems like a species of “one weird trick” to insist on it.
John S.
@Baud:
So… following your train of thought, is there any criticism of Democrats which is allowed? Do our elected Democrats have no agency whatsoever in the actions they take?
When Rep. Khanna says or does stupid shit, are we not allowed to take offense or comment on it?
I’m seriously trying to figure out where the middle is with the extreme positions on display here every day between the “speak no evil of Democrats” crowd and the “Democrats broke everything” crew.
RevRick
@satby: Trump’s minority voter supporters are well aware of his rank bigotry, but chose to ignore it, because he promised he would solve issues that have deeply hurt them and their communities: inflation, immigration, crime, and drugs.
TBone
@CaseyL: arthritis? Our kitty Josey is currently not doing well and I feel your pain.
Maybe some kitty pain meds are in order, at Oscar’s age. Just a thought.
satby
@schrodingers_cat: You know we generally agree. And I’ve said for years on this blog and elsewhere propaganda works and we (as a country) have been ineffective about countering it. But as a coalition, we need to increase our electoral share without throwing members of the coalition over the side of the boat. How we do that no one has quite figured out. And we better.
H.E.Wolf
@schrodingers_cat:
Yeah, it wasn’t one of my more clearly-worded comments. Evidently I need more tea too!
Special Election Jan. 7, for VA legislative seat (NOT the U.S. Congress).
If the Democrat wins, the legislature retains its Dem majority… of 1 seat.
Write 4 postcards this weekend, and be a doer, not a talker. PostcardsToVoters.org/volunteer
Hildebrand
@satby: Sexism helps explain the rise of men of color voting for Trump.
Look at the drop in numbers for Gov. Whitmer’s re-elect in places like Dearborn and Hamtramck, the right wing played on the fears of the social conservatives in the Arab American community.
This was definitely done in the Hispanic communities I know.
Likewise, with younger African American men. Folks in my congregation have shared stories about sons saying, ‘I don’t want to vote for Auntie’.
Of course, it all pales in comparison to white men’s misogyny and white folks’ racism – but it is all of a piece.
Betty Cracker
@CaseyL: Damn, I’m sorry to hear that. Poor fellow. :(
CaseyL
@TBone:
He does have arthritis, but this was so incredibly sudden and severe it doesn’t seem to be that.
It’s like he had a stroke, but there is no other evidence of that – though an MRI would be helpful.
The vet sent me home with pain meds for him, but they made his condition so much worse – unable to take one step without sprawling on his face – I don’t want to give him more. ETA: He doesn’t seem to be in great pain: his appetite is fine (though with cats you can never know for sure).
satby
@CaseyL: If you’re willing to spend the $$, get the MRI. A stroke isn’t found on a skeletal x-ray but a MRI or CAT scan will. IANAV, but that sounds like it could have been a stroke.
schrodingers_cat
@satby: We need a better media. Not just better messaging. Social media has been disruptive in ways we don’t fully comprehend. I see this in India too not just over here.
CaseyL
@satby:
I’m willing to get him an MRI. Just waiting to talk to the vet again, after a radiologist has looked at the x-rays.
Prescott Cactus
@CaseyL:
I’ll say some prayers for Oscar.
TBone
@John S.: I posted a link by someone critical of Dems yesterday and it wasn’t received well (expectedly). But I was too ready to be insulted about it and ended up getting defensive when I should have let it go. We needn’t attend every argument we are invited to, and I forgot that.
Anyway
@Betty Cracker: Dems are seen as “establishment “; there are many that perceive themselves as contrarian, anti-establishment who cannot bring themselves to vote D. Dem brand does not work for many. Yes it works for AAs, Jews, LGBT, Immigrants ( though I am waiting to see the full data on that demo this election) … how to reach enough to get a majority … before someone chimes in with Trump did not win a majority, talk to me when Rs don’t control the WH, Reps and Senate when Dems control anything in DC
satby
@Betty Cracker: Yeah thanks, that was my only point.
CaseyL
@Prescott Cactus:
Thank you!
Suzanne
It should also be noted, while we’re blaming the “tankie left”…. the pattern of younger voters leaning Dem and older voters decisively voting for the GOP absolutely continued this year. That’s tied up with race: 75% of Boomers are white, while only 50% of Millennials are white. And the median voter was 44 this year, which is the oldest in history. Due to birth rate decline and longer life expectancies, the age distribution is considerably different than it has been in the past. Losing the “blue wall” states was primarily about losing older working-class white people; those states have older populations on average.
A demographic trend that should concern us: people are moving out of blue states relative to red states, by a lot. The result is that blue states are likely to lose Congressional districts in 2030 and thus electoral votes. If it doesn’t happen in 2030 and the trend continues, it is likely that a candidate who won all the same states that Biden won in 2020 will not get to 270 electoral votes.
karen marie
When I open my tablet and hit the Chrome icon, in addition to the tabs I had open, a “fresh” tab wll open that has what I take to be random headlines generated by who knows what. This morning one of the lower down story headlines was about a December 11 increase in Social Security, illustrated with an AI generated picture of a grinning Trump against a background of a dramatic golden city. He is not president, of course, but stupid people (ie, Republican voters) will take it as evidence that Trump is making their lives better. When it all goes into the shitter after January 2025, it will of course be the fault of Democrats. Republicans are getting better at taking credit for the achievements of Democrats and leaving Democrats holding the bag for GOP atrocities.
tobie
I’m glad elected Dems are settling into their new role as an opposition party. It’s an adjustment. I don’t blame them for needing a few weeks to figure this out.
I disagree with Copelovitch on excusing Dem disunity. (Manchin and Sinema just nuked Biden’s pick for NLR, giving Trump the majority on the board.) Dem disunity made it seem like the admin wasn’t getting anything done. It hurt the party terribly.
TBone
@CaseyL: maybe that pre-existing arthritis caused him to move in a way that injured him over time (it’s happened to me, putting pressure on other parts that don’t hurt so much), resulting in the sudden crunch. My advice: check the dosage of pain meds and adjust accordingly! He’s not used to them, so less is more.
I hope, if this theory is wrong, you find out what else is going on!
My cat still eats only just enough to stay alive and we still don’t know why.
Anyway
Ro Khanna is despised on BJ, so slam away…
RevRick
@John S.: I think that what’s called for is a ceasefire on hot takes. There’s a temptation when anxiety is high to react and not respond (which requires patience and reflection).
What that means is that when Democrat X says/does something that pushes your button, you don’t immediately accuse X of being in league with the devil. It may mean X is raising a trial balloon or is just mouthing a platitude for the sake of appearance to the DC media. Let it unfold before coming to a conclusion. Cut Democrats some slack. The operative word is grace.
karen marie
@tobie: Oh, spare me. “Settling into their role.” Watch not what they say but what they do. Experienced politicians who have been both minority and majority should not need a couple weeks to understand the assignment.
Melancholy Jaques
@Hildebrand:
I do not know why that is not obvious to everyone.
Kay
@TBone:
Will Stancil is not anti Dem. Ninety per cent of what he writes is pro Dem. Does he proclaim his undying devotion to Joe Biden daily? No, because he’s a Democrat, not a member of a religious sect. He’s interesting and original.
And unlike 99.99999 of his detractors, he has actually run for office. I donated to his campaign for city council (he lost). I think he’s great.
Post what you want. Balloon Juice is not a affiliate site of the Democratic Party. You don’t need prior approval for links.
TBone
@RevRick: as usual, your comment is a spot-on solace. Grace. We are not all mustache-twirling villains!
Kathleen
I just watched this video with Dan Goldman and Marc Elias and I highly recommend it. Such a treat to watch two accomplished, knowledgeable and competent people discuss issues of the day using facts. In this case they talk about possible ramifications of Trump’s appointees and promises to prosecute his enemies in government. Scary and sobering but also uplifting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0QDFO_zB1U&ab_channel=DemocracyDocket
TBone
@Kay: thank you so very much for that. I feel much better today and that really helped.
tobie
@karen marie: I’m referring to the post about “settling into a narrative.” What I find inexcusable is bowing to Trump and/or Musk or pretending that the GOP stands for the interests of working people.
satby
@Hildebrand: Having said 4 times on this thread that racism and misogyny were huge factors, I’m not sure why you seem to feel I need that repeated to me. We need to overcome the objections people have, and I believe it’s possible to chip away at that. But the bigger get is the non-voters, almost 35% of eligible voters didn’t vote at all. That’s where the consideration of what motivates them breaks down, and where disaffection with how government works or doesn’t for them might be worth exploring.
As @Another Scott: says.
PBK
@CaseyL: Did your vet consider cardiomyopathy? Those symptoms are what our cat had before his diagnosis.
Suzanne
@Anyway:
To be fair, a lot of “establishment” aspects of government don’t work well. I blame the GOP and a IGMFY attitude for that, though.
The more I read and learn, the more it is impressed on me that 1980 was such a watershed year — and not in a good way. Reagan and trickle-down bullshit being a critical part of that. Coincidentally, Mr. Suzanne and I were born in 1980. Even though our parents are strong Democrats, I do notice a significant difference in general outlook between us and them. I would bet that generational difference is not just limited to us.
John S.
@TBone:
I totally agree with that. Otherwise, we will burn ourselves out. But there has to be some sort of balance between constant outrage and righteous indignation, or it’s gonna be an even longer 4 years than already anticipated.
Kay
@TBone:
You’re fine. Stancil is so committed to the Democratic Party he actually did the (horrible, unpaid, thankless) work of running in a local race. I actually wish the national party would hire him. He has some original thoughts.
karen marie
@tobie: The jury is still out. Again, not what they say, what they do.
Take fucking Blumenthal. Obvs, he’s a senator, so not under House leadership, but he is clearly not playing whatever game you think Dems have settled on.
John S.
@RevRick:
There seems to be an awfully thin line between grace and free pass, but I understand where you’re coming from.
TBone
@John S.: that’s the golden ring on this merry go round. We reach for it, sometimes unsuccessfully. But mostly we catch it. Hopefully we can wear that golden ring in our distress, as a reminder…
tobie
@Suzanne: Can you be specific about the inefficiency of various govt offices? I just renewed my passport online and received the passport in 2 weeks. Soc Sec helped my mother claim her survivor benefits after my Dad died. An acquaintance of mine declared herself her mother’s caretaker and now receives a monthly Medicaid payment and food stamps. All this strikes me as a govt working well. I will not cave to rightwing or tankie talking points.
Matt McIrvin
@Elizabelle: Liberals are a small minority. A liberalism that advocates freedom and government help even for people who aren’t you or in your immediate circles is a fundamentally alien way of thinking. We are tribal beings.
Liberals plus people who are in some kind of marginalized group, and therefore would benefit from a more generous and accepting society, are a majority. (That follows immediately, in fact, because women and girls are a marginalized group, and they are a majority by themselves.)
But this doesn’t mean conservatives lose, because they can divide and conquer: convince some marginalized people that different marginalized people are the real problem, and appeal to whatever majority/hegemonic affiliations they happen to have and aspire to hold on to.
So it’s always a battle.
TBone
@Kay: yes! I read this interview. He’s not Minnesota nice alla time, and neither are we!
https://racketmn.com/will-stancil-twitter-who-is-economy-minnesota-minneapolis
What he is, primarily, is persistent.
Hildebrand
@satby: I know you know this – my apologies for tagging you.
I’m just frustrated by the seeming desire by a few too many to try to diminish what is a clear issue. There’s just a few too many white folks who want to pretend that this isn’t a real thing.
That, and I’m guessing that a too large percentage of those who stayed home, stayed home because of these same issues.
Again, my apologies.
Old Man Shadow
That last Twitter post is what we’re dealing with: uninformed morons who think they’re well-informed smart people
John S.
@karen marie:
There are many other Democrats besides Blumenthal who have been questionable lately, but they have until January 20 to find their proper footing.
Then it’s game on.
satby
Paul Krugman now has his own Substack. Today’s column subhead:
Arithmetic has a well-known globalist bias
John S.
@tobie:
Glad you had a better experience than I did last year trying to renew passports.
I paid for expedited service and it still took almost 8 weeks to get our passports. I was freaking out up until the week before my daughter and I left for Korea because her passport came last. So not an ideal experience for me.
Inconsistency of service is just another form of inefficiency.
tobie
@karen marie: I have no problem rebuking Blumenthal for praising Musk. I hope CT voters are giving him a piece of their mind. He needs to hear this won’t fly.
tobie
@John S.: Exactly.
RevRick
@Suzanne: Polls about national sentiment go back decades, but since 2002 have been in steep decline, with only brief gains. Only about 25% express satisfaction with the direction of the country. The majority are quite unhappy, even angry.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: If someone posts a link and someone else thinks the linked piece says stupid things, that person is allowed to say so.
geg6
@narya:
I have a friend who is a flight attendant who does a lot of overseas flights, often to the Middle East. She was just in the UAE and got me a huge (for saffron) bottle of saffron for like $12. It would cost many multiples of that here. It’s a lovely color and aroma and came in a fancy bottle inside a silk bag.
satby
@Hildebrand: Huge issues, not the only ones and not totally insurmountable if people feel there’s enough slices of pie for everyone. Hardcore haters are going to stay that way; but the big, squishy, propagandized middle we have to do better with. That’s all, and how to should be a bigger discussion.
tobie
@John S.: Sorry to hear about your experience. I applied for myself alone, not a family, and it was a renewal not a first-time passport. I’m a dual national and my other passport took two months and two appointments with many hours sitting in a waiting room. The US renewal felt painless by comparison.
mali muso
@RevRick: So what happened in 2001 to start that decline? I’m guessing 9/11. This morning I was thinking to myself that Bin Ladin and his compatriots can take some credit for sparking the spiraling downfall of the American experiment.
Suzanne
@tobie: So I shared yesterday that my kids attend public school. The building is over 100 years old and doesn’t have air conditioning, and it can’t be put in, so they cancel school when it’s 80 degrees. I recently had to take SuzMom to get her passport renewed, and despite the fact that her expired passport issued in 1998 has her name on it (she reverted to her maiden name after her divorce in 1981), they are requiring her to supply paperwork proving that. Apparently her ***actual passport*** issued by that same agency, birth certificate, and Social Security card are not sufficient. So we have to go back to the state to dig out over-40-year-old paperwork because they won’t accept their own document as proof of her name. I could regale you with stories of the projects I’ve managed getting caught up in slow processes at various levels.
Now, I will note, my interactions with private companies are similarly Kafka-esque. I’ve been trying to pay for Spawn’s meds with my HSA card, which they will not accept over the phone. They directed us to their app. And the app crashes when we try to use it. And when I try to call, an 20-minute hold time is on the low end. And that’s just my frustration this week.
But, if you are wondering why people don’t have a general sense of functionality and optimism…. look outside.
prostratedragon
@NotMax:
Mooncat, eh? How about a little Moondog:
“Wind River Powwow”
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne:
And I don’t have to explain to you why that is. ($$$$$)
But the thing is, if it’s primarily because of $$$$$, that ought to also dilute the redness of those red states, in principle, and make the less-red ones easier to flip. That’s where old-time Jim Crow tactics come in to hold the line for Republicans. North Carolina and Georgia being prime examples.
Another factor is reactionary governments going hard right to make the state obnoxious to economic newcomers who aren’t conservatively inclined.
There’s a YouTuber named Fran Blanche who makes awesome retro-technology videos–she’s an older trans woman and was talking about how it was getting too expensive to live where she was. All these people in her comments tried to convince her to move to Florida. Come here, it’s cheap, it’s great! She made a whole video about how, no, she can’t move to Florida, because she can’t legally PEE in Florida. The place is physically intolerable to her now.
Then she made another one about something SpaceX did and there were all these people in the comments gushing about how Elon Musk is our Leonardo Da Vinci. A guy trying his hardest to make life impossible for people like Fran. I think a lot of these folks just can’t add two and two. They don’t connect cause and effect.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Ten Bears: Yeah, don’t know who you are, but anyone advocating terrorism automatically gets pied.
CaseyL
@PBK: Cardiac issues were considered, since he does have a murmur and history of hyperthyroidism, and they did check that. But I don’t know if cardiomyopathy was specifically considered. Can you tell me more?
Another Scott
@John S.: People are different.
Personally, I’m trying to figure out ways to make things better in the challenging environment to come. I recognize that, being a liberal, I’m a minority in the politics of my country. I recognize that [politics to enable] progress is frustratingly slow and infuriating and damaging to real people, but it’s the best and maybe only way we have to solve important communal problems so we have to work with it. It hurts my head that too often there isn’t enough support to do the rational things that science and logic tells us we need to do. I, personally, do not – at the present time, just after an election – see much value in attacking folks on my team, no matter what stupid (to me) things they say. The problems we face are overwhelmingly going to be caused by the other team and we need to fight them not folks on our side.
I don’t think that we can wait to try to make progress for some time when politics is somehow fixed, or the economy is somehow fixed, or the mass media is somehow fixed, or the tax system is somehow fixed. As much as I harped on Fight for 15!!, and the need for at least two US House members for every state, I think and recognize we have to try to make progress with the system as it exists now – no matter how difficult that work is.
It’s going to be a slog, we won’t win every battle, but we can make things incrementally better than they would have been otherwise.
That’s my take. I don’t demand that everyone else agree with it. I’m wrong about a lot of things. Discussion and argument is why we come here, and that’s a good thing.
YMMV.
Best wishes,
Scott.
RevRick
@John S.: I am not saying give them a free pass. I am just suggesting we slow down. I would add one other thing. Ranting on the internet about a Representative or Senator from another district/state is as effective as pissing into the wind. I value my wellbeing more than whatever shenanigans they may be pulling. After all, if they get reelected, then the only thing I can do is make peace with that.
Suzanne
@RevRick:
Honestly, I count myself among them. If one thinks of 1980 has that turning point year….. 2002 is right around when those 1980s babies entered “the real world”. I will note that I graduated in 2002 into a recession.
I shared this guest post from Tom Owens on Aaron Renn’s Substack, but I think it warrants a reshare. Essentially, the solid middle-class life is becoming less and less attainable. I think that has a huge amount to do with pessimism.
sab
@Matt McIrvin: Are those folks even people, or just Elon’s bots?
On the other hand I moved back from out west to Ohio 25 years ago because much of Ohio is cheap to live in and I had family here. For me it was a good choice, but it is still 21st century Ohio, which is Alabama with more snow.
I am glad my granddaughter moved out and sorry my stepkids stayed.
Matt McIrvin
@sab: Elon fanboyism is still rampant in the space-fan/science-fiction/techbro/futurist community. I see some of these people in real life so I think there are plenty of real ones out there.
CaseyL
@PBK: I looked up the symptoms for cardiomyopathy, and don’t think it’s that. The vet did mention a possibility of thromboembolism, and I think they ran some tests to check for that, not sure. I’m following up with the vet this morning, after a radiologist has studied the X-rays, so maybe will ask then.
sconosciuto
24 years ago today Al Gore reacted to being on the losing end of a presidential election he and his supporters considered rigged by doing the exact opposite of inciting a violent coup.
https://youtu.be/Xq5YdkYSyEE?si=y0aNLY5lTEXmhwXGa
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin:
That assumes that people’s politics don’t change as they move, or that the people who are actually moving are liberals.
Ezra Klein — blog favorite! — noted on his podcast that people being priced out of places they want to live is a deep, deep expression of pessimism. Much moreso than not voting. Not being able to afford to live near your family, or near where you grew up, or within a reasonable commute of your job is a deep wound.
narya
@geg6: Oh my! I don’t actually use a lot of saffron–in paella, maybe, which I make maybe once or twice a year–but that is an amazing gift!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@RevRick:
That’s what all of us are counting on. Nancy Smash laid out how to *oppose* back then. Let’s hope her successor’s are looking at the crib notes from the period.
RevRick
@mali muso: The only time this century (!) satisfaction reached 50% was in January 2002. First, we were pulling out of the brief recession in 2001, which led to a four-year jobless recovery. Then we had the newly-created Department of Homeland Security constantly keeping us on edge about “threat levels”. Then we got lied into invading Iraq, which quickly went sideways. Then came the housing crisis and financial collapse leading to the Great Recession, which took us six years to crawl out of. Tomorrow is the anniversary of Sandy Hook. The chaos of the Trump years. COVID. Inflation. Deaths of despair. An upsurge in crime. Need I go on?
Another Scott
@Suzanne: IMHO, it’s almost always hard for people starting out in life. I’ve related my stories before, so I won’t do so again.
That analysis would be more persuasive if it considered rents rather than median home prices – most college grads don’t immediately try to buy a house, no matter their generation – my dad was in his late 30s when he bought his first home, as were we. (I wouldn’t be surprised if the results were similar – housing of all sorts is too expensive now.)
FWIW.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
@mali muso: Income inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient has been increasing consistently since the Reagan era. But in the 1990s, it was still a lot lower than it is now, and the Clinton-era recovery was the last time that there was an economic boom whose benefits were really broadly shared.
That despite the fact that even the Democrats of that time were way to the economic right of where they are now–the damage from that hadn’t accumulated yet to such a degree.
(I think the progressive left’s widespread perception that the Dems have kept moving right is really their perception of accumulating economic inequality and the effects of that–Democrats haven’t done a lot to stop it, though of course that’s to a large extent because they haven’t had the political power to stop it, with Republicans putting up extraordinary obstacles to substantive legislative change. Try explaining that, though. When you’re explaining you’re losing, as the saying goes. I like to explain things so I’m always a big loser.)
Now, we’ve had some interesting things going on just in the past few years: the COVID recovery efforts really were broadly shared benefits, but rising prices (caused maybe partly by those, but mostly by global supply-chain issues outside of any administration’s control) kept everyone from enjoying it very much. Meanwhile, there’s been a kind of localized recession in tech and media that has made some people miserable whose voices have outsize amplification. I think we underestimate the political effect of the fact that while the economy as a whole is doing great, in Silicon Valley it’s like the Great Recession.
tobie
@Suzanne: I do “look outside.” I also “look” and frequently “live” abroad, so I compare how public services function here and elsewhere, how people deal with disappointments, the cost for services etc. We are spoiled brats. Anecdotal shit not worth a damn but since you mention it: I also needed to prove my mother’s marriage to my father from 1955 for her to get her survivor’s benefit. I wrote the appropriate office in NYC, paid the fee, and got a duplicate copy. Yeah, it added time to the process but it was no big deal.
There are studies of the permitting process in the US and that seems like important info for speeding up the construction process. Instead we’ll get deregulation which may speed things up but lead to less safe buildings and infrastructure.
Schools are run locally so not much the fed govt can do there.
Chris
@mali muso:
Not 9/11, the response to 9/11.
The war on terror was supposed to be our generation’s World War Two. Big patriotic togetherness, big military successes, enemies turned into friends, everyone proud of their country again, and George W. Bush going down in history as the new FDR, or at least the new Ronald Reagan.
Except it all went to shit. First the pivot to the Iraq War, which unlike the immediate response to 9/11, was so blatantly being used as a partisan hammer that it couldn’t possibly fail to kill a lot of the good feeling that came after the attacks even if the Republicans and moderates still made a pro-war majority. Then, by the middle of the decade, the wars had gone south so fast and so hard that it was pretty much impossible to deny that our generation’s World War Two was in fact our generation’s Vietnam War.
Then came the financial crisis, then came Obama’s election, and then came the GOP’s decision that its new goal was to wreck the country thoroughly in the name of partisanship-uber-alles.
PBK
@CaseyL: We went through this quite a few years ago so please also look online for more current info. A heart murmur can definitely be an early symptom. The back legs not working very frequently occurs because the abnormal heart action throws a clot that commonly affects the artery leading to the legs. Start with a chest X-ray to see how the heart looks and if there’s fluid buildup. You’ll need an ECG to get a definite diagnosis of cardiomyopathy.
Please keep us informed and I’ll keep you and Oscar in my thoughts!
ETA just saw your most recent update. Do hope it’s something less serious.
lowtechcyclist
@Suzanne:
Hasn’t that been happening almost continuously in most metro areas? More people move in, the ‘burbs extend further out, what used to be outer suburbs and cheap are now inner suburbs and expensive. Living near where I grew up was always out of the question.
UncleEbeneezer
@satby: Ironically, I wouldn’t be surprised if the focus on Systemic Oppressions (Racism, Misogyny etc.) by Social-Justice-minded people over the past 15 years has exacerbated the problem to some extent. I know from spending a lot of time in that world with that as a constant point of focus and it definitely can cause major feelings of despair and being overwhelmed, not to mention a very black/white view of systems that is too simplistic. It’s definitely important for good people to understand and acknowledge the importance of combatting systemic isms, phobias and inequities. But the constant raging against systems encourages burn-it-all-down fantasies and helplessness, imo. When I see people gripe and moan about our Justice System and advocate completely demolish it, it always makes me think “Ok, but you do know that despite all of its’ flaws that our system is still one of the most liberal systems with the most actual protections for individual rights in human history, right?” I feel much the same about fantasies of dismantling Capitalism.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
As I said last night, Stancil is a 3rd rate Yglesias who himself is a 3rd rate Yglesias.
He’s not friend of Dems. Spent a lot of time before he decided to run for office bashing Biden across the board. Tried to somewhat get rid of that when he ran, toned it down because he knew it turned of actual Democrats. He’s just another entitled, white dude of a certain age that represents the “new liberalism” of that demographic. Racially tone deaf people who are in many ways libertarians in trench coats.
Thank goodness he lost. It showed voters there weren’t buying his/Yglesias brand of bullshit.
And there’s been a loud chorus of people here who’ve been saying for years that the election of Reagan marked a massive turning point in ‘Murkin history, it’s nothing new. His election and the subsequent baking in of soooo much of the crap started during his administration is a massive reason why we are where we are today.
Matt McIrvin
@Chris: I always kind of mistrust “the event when it all went wrong” analyses. For people in my parents’ generation, the JFK assassination was the moment when everything good and true died and the world went to shit. That was before I was born, so I guess Shit World is all I ever knew.
But the explosion of income inequality after Reagan came in is a measurable thing.
Matt McIrvin
@UncleEbeneezer:
We sure do have an extraordinarily large fraction of our population in prison. Large by global historical standards.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Matt McIrvin:
Anybody interested in seeing the Gini Coefficient:
https://flic.kr/p/2qzDTTQ
It was trending up in the late 70s but gee, look what happened after a certain president took office?
Chris
@Matt McIrvin:
I’m not saying that the response to 9/11 caused any of the other incidents or is the one explanatory event for all the pessimism today. It was just the first in a bunch of things largely sharing the same theme that dominated news and perception of politics over the last twenty years.
Kay
@Suzanne:
I think its probably because they went to an echip in the late 1990s (they did another electronic update in 2007). Passports issued prior to that would not be considered identification in terms of a border crossing because there were many more issues with fraud prior to that.
RevRick
@Matt McIrvin: COVID caused inflation, just as the oil crises of 1973 and 1979 did, just as WW2 did, just as WW1 did, just as the Civil War did, just as the American Revolution did. Exogenous shocks to the economy always cause nasty bouts of inflation.
Matt McIrvin
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: You can also ask, why was Reagan so popular to begin with? And I think that goes back to a kind of perfect storm of what was going on in the 1960s and 1970s. There was racist backlash to the civil rights movement. But also, there were a bunch of other things happening at the same time that made mid-20th-century liberalism look like a failed god. You had the utter disaster of the Vietnam War, which largely got pinned on liberals. You had stagflation going on for a whole decade, for murky and complicated reasons. The oil crises, making the automobile culture that the US had just bet on massively suddenly far more expensive.
(Yeah, a lot of the worst stuff actually happened under Richard Nixon’s watch. But he was economically far less radical a conservative than Reagan, still operating under mid-20th-century assumptions and, importantly, restrained by liberal majorities in Congress.)
And, very importantly, there was an explosion of urban crime that remains kind of mysterious to this day (maybe caused by lead in people’s brains–I suspect it was a combination of that and other stuff)… which came close on the heels of a dramatic court-mandated expansion of civil liberties, just horrible horrible timing. People really do not like what they perceive as a breakdown of civil order, and perceptions lag reality too–when the crime wave was over, vanished as mysteriously as it had begun, they continued to perceive crime as increasing even when it wasn’t.
Kay
Can I say I am THRILLED schools are finally banning cellphones?
Jesus fucking Christ. How the ridiculous, wholly venal tech industry managed to convince us to put garbage tech into every classroom is beyond me.
Don’t give a 13 year old a 1000 dollar distraction machine to put in his pocket to take to school. We really needed a decade long failed experiment to get that? Have any of these people ever met children?
UncleEbeneezer
@Matt McIrvin: True. But if you look at places that do it much better, the systems themselves aren’t radically different in form. They all incarcerate people for crimes. The difference is really in the how, why, who of it all. They just administer similar systems but with better choices and more common sense/empathy.
satby
@Matt McIrvin: And people who through immense wealth never pay a penalty or go to jail for behavior other people would be sentenced to hard time for. The unequal application of the law and abuse of lawfare by the rich against people trying to hold them accountable is demoralizing to a lot of people.
Matt McIrvin
@UncleEbeneezer: A lot of it comes down to our prison sentences being incredibly long. And that’s fallout from the “get tough” response to the 25-year crime wave I mentioned above
The thing is, we’re so used to it that it might be hard at this point even to convince liberals that prison sentences for violent crimes should be shorter.
Omnes Omnibus
@UncleEbeneezer: In the US, we find liberals who are demanding 30 sentences for crimes that would get no more than 10 in most Western European countries. We have ostensible liberals who say “I am against the death penalty but, in this case….”* As a country, we want severe punishments. It’s perverse.
*If you make that statement, you aren’t actually against the death penalty.
pluky
@Hildebrand:
I would upvote this if I could. Not many know the original meaning of “idiot”!
Chris
@Matt McIrvin:
Reagan’s “government is the problem, not the solution” thing was basically perfectly timed for the moment. Wasn’t just Dixiecrats angry about civil rights or plutocrats angry over the New Deal who felt that way. The entire generation of people who were raised by their New Dealer parents to see government as a force for good and instead got Vietnam, Watergate, and all that shit that came out in things like the Church Committee hearings couldn’t help but find it resonant too.
Suzanne
@lowtechcyclist:
Yes, that’s the pattern of urbanization in general. But not being able to afford to live not just in the neighborhood you grew up in, but not even in that metro area….. that’s pretty new.
I have shared, as an example, that my in-laws, neither of whom have a college degree, bought a home in Menlo Park, CA, in the early 80s, when they were in their mid-20s and raised their kids. My FIL held a bunch of jobs, but mostly worked a a salesman. My MIL was a cashier at Safeway. And Mr. Suzanne and I could not hope to live basically anywhere within a 3-hour commute of the Bay Area. His cousins (in their 30s) who do still live there are either completely financially supported by their parents or are living with a bunch of roommates and are paying exorbitant sums for that. None of this makes anyone feel like the country “works well” or that the economy is good.
tam1MI
They got a huge assist from the Columbine shooters.
Suzanne
@tobie:
See, disagree. Adding time to every process is a big deal. Collectively, it’s a cost burden borne by citizens. And because I have to take her to a second passport appointment, it’s additional time I have to take off work, which I will have to make up.
Chris
@Matt McIrvin:
The growth of the security state and the mentality that goes with it is probably the worst and the hardest to uproot of all the things conservatives have foisted on us over the last… I don’t know, half-century or so.
You can run against plutocracy and still win elections. You can run against racism and still win elections. But it’s basically impossible to run against the security state. Anything that exists, no matter how wasteful it is, how bad at its job it is, and how much collateral damage, is keeping us safe, and any effort to reduce it or even maintain some mild form of accountability (don’t even think about scrapping it), is pro-crime and endangering the citizenry. (Not to mention anti-patriotic, surely the worst crime of all).
A lot of this was built during the Cold War, and during the response to the crimes waves of the mid-sixties to the mid-nineties, but the war on terror just completely finished cementing it and now rolling it back, on every level from police brutality to warrantless wiretapping, is unthinkable.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: I agree, I remember when you called a customer service number and a person answered. Now they do everything they can to direct you to their Web site or their automated service. I wouldn’t be calling you if I could get what I need from your Web site!!!!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Chris:
Farther back than that:
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/world-war-i-aftermath-security-state-nsa/
It’s something we don’t discuss much because unlike what I harp on, the election of Reagan and the implementation of and now-baked-in of a market-based (neoliberal) world view and solutions to everything, the security state mindset/apparatus goes back a lot longer, thus, as you point out, is beyond baked in.
It’s telling because you’ll see plenty of self-professed progressives essentially pitch the exact same “tough on crime” mantra that the right does just using more progressive-sounding phrasing.
WaterGirl
@CaseyL: My cocker spaniel had that happen out of the blue, and it was a disk problem they corrected with surgery. Can you get Oscar to a vet school? That’s who diagnosed And treated Murphy.
Did they do the test where they check for feeling in his paws? I don’t recall details, but it’s a pain test, and my guy only responded to deep pain, and that’s how they knew what it was.
If it’s that, you have to act very quickly.
Miss Bianca
@Prescott Cactus:
I plan to steal this in the near future.
WaterGirl
@Ten Bears: Not cool. Read the comment policy at the bottom of the page.
Miss Bianca
@schrodingers_cat:
My local Democratic Party is basically as useless as tits on a bull (to borrow the phrase that always let me know that Mom had had more than one old-fashioned at the bridge party). I realized that to do anything about it was going to be a full-time job that I didn’t have time or inclination for.
And then something happened in July that made me quit the Democratic Party altogether. So now, not only do I not have any idea what they’re up to – or not – I don’t give a shit about it either.
UncleEbeneezer
@Omnes Omnibus: Agreed. I think part of it is our unique racial history and the way racism informs how so many people view policing and incarceration. It’s one of the reasons I think attempts for Restorative Justice will always have a really uphill battle in America.
Miss Bianca
@Hildebrand:
This fucking infuriates me. I just want to slap some of these guys: “What’s wrong with your Auntie? Were you not raised right? Is that what your problem is?”
Miss Bianca
@Omnes Omnibus:
I did find it very weird that in addition to all the “freedom-enhancing” ballot issues that passed in CO this last election (right to abortion codified in state constitution, prohibition against same-sex marriage repealed in same document), the “tougher on crime!!” ones regarding bail and prison sentences also passed – by similar margins.
Citizen Alan
@Elizabelle: it gives me no pleasure to say I told you so. But i’ve said repeatedly before the election that even if Kamala won and we took the house and kept the senate, we would still have to grapple with the fact that we had seventy five million americans who actively desire to live under a fascist, white supremacist theocracy. And I just couldn’t see how any democracy could survive those numbers.
Citizen Alan
@Fair Economist: A disturbing amount of it comes from churches, at least in the south. For uneducated white people, church represents greatest source of tribal identity. And that tribal identity now includes the belief that the democrats are the party of blacks and immigrants and gays, and therefore is the primary tool of satan in the world.
Professor Bigfoot
@satby: “Minority” is an all-encompassing term that ignores one demographic truth– that white Latinos vote more like white people, and Black people and Jews overwhelmingly voted for Democrats.
The goal of whiteness is not lost on Latino people– witness Rafael Cruz and Marco Rubio.
We understand nothing if we don’t parse the racial dynamics behind the success of a white supremacist candidate.
jefft452
“We are starting to see a Democratic narrative form: that the Trump Admin is a government by billionaires for billionaires. And Musk will be the poster boy.”
This is good
The only people that are less popular then Musk are Musk fanboys
Kathleen
@Citizen Alan: I agree 100% with your assessment.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Suzanne: Even window units can’t be put in? I feel like that is the kind of thing parents can do a fundraiser for.
WTFGhost
Erm. I don’t ever like the messaging “we’re in a dangerous time,” because we need to avoid the “they say EVIL when they mean EFFECTIVE.”
“Remember, they couldn’t even get Covid-19 vaccine to people when it was the number one thing on every single human being’s minds! Biden was able to get over a million people a day, within days of inauguration, even after Trump’s coup attempt.”
“Trump is hiring people from TV. Now, if I have a mystery malady, I don’t want Hugh Laurie, I want an actual *doctor*.”
Those are the kinds of complaints you want to make. You need to make sure people understand “now, Trump is an *IDIOT*, who think you can just ‘dismantle’ a federal department because whiny podcasters don’t like its name. But podcasters aren’t the actual people these departments serve.”
If you don’t point out that he hired *THE* boss of the Keystone Kops to run the Effa Bee Eye, not just a straw boss, or that guy who led them for a couple-three months and got fired, no, THE boss of the Keystone Kops, you’re omitting such a large portion of the truth. Plus, you lose the chance to spray your metaphorical ink in his eye.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Miss Bianca:
I don’t find that weird at all. Most people have concerns about being victims of crime. They want social order. While specific police reforms are acceptable to the broader public, anything that makes it sound like less law enforcement is something most people get really nervous about. Frankly, most people, especially white people, will take bad police over no/few police.
Chris
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
Which effectively means that police can just keep pushing the envelope in perpetuity, since any walkback of anything they’ve done, however ridiculous, constitutes “less law enforcement” and automatically means “we’re all going to die.”
WTFGhost
@Soprano2: If you didn’t know this – as in, had it confirmed – most robo-receptionists are intended to get you to hang up, unless you *really* need to speak to someone. They deliberately try to increase the misery in this world. to save themselves a few dollars.
Is this the thread where someone mentioned “they cut government costs, but the costs don’t go away”? Well, this is a prime example of it. They cut the costs to provide a quick, human response, but the need for a quick, human response, didn’t go away. We pay for it, in time, and oftentimes in misery, and sometimes, in pain.
And we’re supposed to sigh and say “what can you do?” because, hey, while Republicans win elections, life’s going to keep getting worse.
schrodingers_cat
@Miss Bianca: I get it. My one foot is out of the door.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
You have just described the mass of white people from the burbs that have moved here over the last decade and their attitude toward the Denver Police Department.
A department that even I can remember from the mid-70s was stereotypical awful in ways we’ve seen in a broader, national context and never really changed.
It’s relationship with the black/brown community here was always awful and that was on full display during the BLM protests. White attitudes? They quietly blame part of DPD’s general withdrawal from certain areas of enforcement as a result of the BLM protest blowback as to why they can’t get their stolen $5K bicycle back.
And you see that distrust/trust playout exactly along racial lines here. As I said above, these pale-blue, self-professed progressives whites have brought with them a suburban sense of class, racial tone-deafness and security to the city and love any “tough on crime” legislation/programs as long as it’s disguised with progressive-sounding language.
Therefore, how that vote played out here in CO was no suprise when you consider it’s something of a bipartisan thing when you dig down.
dnfree
@satby: Your full name comes with the Krugman link from Substack. I think that’s wrong for them to do and I don’t know if there’s a way for you to stop it. It says “S….B…. Shared this with you, do you want to follow them?” I think Balloon-Juice operates on nyms and not names for a reason.
satby
@Professor Bigfoot: May I direct you to my comment at #134?
Nowhere have I disputed that racism and misogyny were key to Harris’s loss. Now, where do we go from here, and are there non-voters that might be captured by additional outreach without throwing our base voters overboard?
satby
@dnfree: thanks, I think that’s happened before from Substack too, but I’m not actually anonymous on the Internet. There are even people from my childhood who would know immediately it was me if they saw my nym. But I appreciate the heads up.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Chris: Yes. You can reform at the margins with the cops go too far. Anything else faces blowback.
Chris T.
@CaseyL: Have they ruled out saddle thrombus? (Hope they have, those are very bad)