www.nytimes.com/2024/12/13/u…
Nevertheless, SHE is UNDETERRED! “But Ms. Gillibrand wants Mr. Biden to use his presidential power while he still has it to force the issue, effectively daring Republicans to wage a legal battle to take away equal rights for women.”
BidenPublishTheERA.org #ERANow— Horses&Roses.bsky.social (@deedeegiese.bsky.social) December 13, 2024 at 9:09 PM
There’s at least one front-pager I expect to show up and piss on this idea, but this is my post and I am very much in agreement with Senator Gillibrand. Sure, the Repubs will squeal like scalded weasels, and it will take no energy at all for their bought & paid-for SC(R)OTUS justices to reinvalidate the amendment, but: As Democrats it behooves us to leave our message in the history books. If not now, when? “Gillibrand Presses Biden to Amend the Constitution to Enshrine Sex Equality” [gift link]:
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York is on a mission in President Biden’s final days in office. She wants to convince him that he can rescue his legacy by adding the century-old Equal Rights Amendment, which would explicitly guarantee sex equality, to the Constitution as a way to protect abortion rights in post-Roe America.
He could do it all, she contends, with one phone call.
Both houses of Congress approved the amendment in 1972, but it was not ratified by the states in time to be added to the Constitution. Ms. Gillibrand has been pushing a legal theory that the deadline for ratification is irrelevant and unconstitutional. All that remains, she argues, is for Mr. Biden to direct the national archivist, who is responsible for the certification and publication of constitutional amendments, to publish the E.R.A. as the 28th Amendment.
The move would almost certainly invite a legal challenge that would land in the Supreme Court. But Ms. Gillibrand wants Mr. Biden to use his presidential power while he still has it to force the issue, effectively daring Republicans to wage a legal battle to take away equal rights for women…
Kelly Scully, a White House spokeswoman, said senior administration officials had been discussing the proposal with lawmakers and other stakeholders.
“President Biden has been clear that he wants to see the Equal Rights Amendment definitively enshrined in the Constitution,” Ms. Scully said in a statement. “It is long past time that we recognize the clear will of the American people.”
The issue of the E.R.A., which was first proposed by women’s suffragists in 1923, is politically simple and legally complicated.
The Constitution states that proposed amendments must be passed by two-thirds majorities in both houses of Congress and ratified by three-quarters of the states. It makes no mention of a deadline for ratification, but Congress in modern times has typically included a seven-year clock for the states to sign on…
Ms. Gillibrand said she was not dissuaded by the possibility that a conservative-leaning Supreme Court might strike down the amendment.
“This will ultimately be decided by the courts, but this is a moment in time where we should stand up for what we’re for,” she said. “If you’re waiting for the people you don’t like on the court to die, we’re all going to be dead. That’s too long to wait.”
Republicans have generally called the measure gratuitous, arguing that equal protections for women are included in the 14th Amendment. But they, too, have conceded that adopting the amendment could provide a new legal basis for protecting abortion after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and said it should be opposed as a way to protect the lives of the unborn…
A new survey by Data for Progress, a progressive think tank, showed strong support for Mr. Biden taking action and that doing so would “cause a significant, positive shift among voters in terms of how they think Americans will look back on Biden’s presidency.” About 61 percent of likely voters, including about 87 percent of Democrats, said they supported Mr. Biden taking action to adopt the Equal Rights Amendment.
The poll also showed a 30-point increase in the percentage of voters who said they would look back on Mr. Biden’s presidency more favorably if he were to take action on the amendment.
Kate Kelly, the senior director of the women’s initiative at the Center for American Progress, who has been working on the issue for a decade, said she hoped that Mr. Biden and Democrats would not argue themselves out of taking action.
“This is the closest we’ve ever come for it being considered,” Ms. Kelly said. “I always tell people, ‘Think of what the other side would do if they were one signature away from changing the Constitution.’ We need that energy.”…
Baud
I hate the media.
J.
Love it. He won’t do it, but I hope he does.
Erin
I’ve been thinking a lot about this article over the last day:
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/a-disease-of-affluence/
You don’t need to read the whole thing, but the last section, starting at the heading “A mean and slavish people” is really excellent and something I will be thinking on for a while. The author does a good job of dispelling the lie of “economic anxiety” as to why people voted for Trump, and expands upon the argument of always needing someone to look down on.
Baud
Also, no offense AL, but we’ve seen time after time that before the fact sentiment in support of an action do not line up with sentiment after the action is taken. It’s a large part why we’re in dire straits today.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: ME TOO
I was hoping someone would get there first.
Betty Cracker
What the heck, it’s worth a shot.
Professor Bigfoot
@Erin: This has always been self evident to me and to the vast majority of the Black electorate.
Once again, it’s white people.
different-church-lady
“Please do something unconstitutional, Mr. President.” That’s where we’re at now?
brantl
He should do this because it’s right, he should do this because it’s legal. Then, to the political implications: this would solidify a great many women hating the Rethuglican party (and the Rethuglican part of SCOTUS), which they richly deserve, when they come up with some bullshit grounds to knock this down, and we promise if given majorities, to resubmit the ERA WITHOUT TIME LIMITS.
Baud
@brantl:
Resubmitting the ERA would require ⅔ majority in both houses.
different-church-lady
“Which is why we’re having Roberts and Company work on getting rid of it.”
different-church-lady
@brantl: The argument that women will make the GOP pay was deeply undercut just five weeks ago.
Baud
Interestingly, the women haters today like to use the example of only men being subject to the draft as a reason for men having special rights in society. Of course, the women haters of yesteryear used the fear of women being drafted to stall the ERA.
brantl
@different-church-lady: It’s not, unless it is judged so. The Republicans have been playing Calvinball with unconstitutionality for years, our side should be thinking outside the box for what’s right, and make them stand up and prove that they’re right; they certainly haven’t so far. They’ve just loopholed and lied us to death, haven’t they?
Baud
@different-church-lady: And no voters have ever given Dems credit for actions that right wing courts have invalidated. Just doesn’t happen.
different-church-lady
@brantl: Have you seen the Supreme Court lately?!?
brantl
@different-church-lady: Pile this on top of Dobbs, and women won’t notice? I think that will turn a lot more than 1.5%.
lowtechcyclist
@different-church-lady:
You beat me to it. Those Republicans take 14th Amendment rights so seriously.
Gin & Tonic
Here’s a topical one in memory of Steep, who liked Grant Green.
Baud
I don’t care what Biden decides, but the idea that anything he does will have positive electoral consequences for us seems ridiculous to me. Even in the unlikely scenario where the courts uphold the ERA, I think the political benefit we get will be nil.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: This move would put the onus on Republicans to argue why there should not be an Equal Rights Amendment.
They might choose to hide behind technical arguments, but that will not hide the truth of the matter: they do not in fact believe men and women should be treated equally.
lowtechcyclist
@brantl:
This. Fuck it, let’s use the One Weird Tricks we’ve got, even if we know they’re bogus. WE know where they stand, but the more we can force them to make that clear to normies, the better.
Eolirin
@Baud: We will only ever get political benefit from letting the Republicans burn the country down while they have power.
And then only for a cycle or two. Assuming we even get elections that matter at this point.
Eolirin
@Geminid: Neither does the electorate. That’s the real problem.
Baud
@Eolirin:
That’s been the pattern. I don’t know how we break the cycle, but individual acts in support of liberal causes won’t get us there, IMHO.
Suzanne
@Eolirin: Very glad to see you back. I hope you’re well.
WereBear
@brantl: Take a freakin’ stand that means something more than a FNTY pat on the head.
NotMax
Sorry.to say it but like the hoo-ha not so long ago over minting a trillion dollar coin, does not pass the smell test.
BlueGuitarist
@Erin:
glad to see this getting more attention.
awesome commenter Kay posted a link to it yesterday morning, and later in the thread memorably said
“We’re the country that just rejected democracy because we wanted cheap credit to buy more landfill contents.”
TBone
I sent a message to President Biden about this issue recently. The reply on White House letterhead (nym changed for privacy):
Nelle
Here is what I will do and what I wish everyone would do. I will spend my money on what I need up until January 19. Pantry and refrigerator will be full. Gas tanks will be full. Then no money the rest of January.
Spend money when Biden is president. Yes, come Feb, I will have to spend money, but not the first 20 days of Dumpster misrule. Still thinking about fasting on Jan. 20.
Will not make a difference to the world. Will make a difference to me.
mali muso
So even if it doesn’t rise to the level of one weird trick, would publishing the ERA hurt anything? I guess I’m trying to see the downside.
Eolirin
@Baud: The only way I see things changing is with generational changes to the electorate, and so much is contingent on us having fair elections, and not being pushed to the brink by climate change and growing poverty to the point that all the young people give up. It’s also contingent on us having enough time to get there.
I’m not hopeful.
That being said, I think autocracy is much more likely, followed by a general decline of the US economy and world status, until the government collapses under its own weight and we get bitter fighting and scrambling to try to shape what comes next that paralyzes us enough that climate change leads to large population die offs that we can’t compensate for because we’ll have done nothing to prepare for any of it, and the breaking of supply chains for common and necessary goods will kill the vast majority of the people who’re left.
We’ve got like 30 years, on the outside. And less than that for the necessary global policy changes to avoid it, which we will not be a part of pushing for for the foreseeable future.
This is why I don’t really post anymore.
lowtechcyclist
@WereBear:
I gather your message here is ‘do something real instead of this.’ Well, how does this get in the way? Why not both?
Also: what’s ‘FNTY’?
TBone
@TBone: I also sent a return “No, thank YOU” message to Senator Bob Casey yesterday.
My postscript to him read:
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: Exactly. I don’t know if it would redound to Dems’ political benefit or hurt Repubs. Looking for logic in our electorate seems like a fool’s errand. But I don’t see a downside either, and it’s the right thing to do.
TBone
@Nelle: I’m all in.
Raoul Paste
@Baud: So true. When things get bad enough, people change.
LeftCoastYankee
I think it’s better to try something that is a long shot than to just assume it won’t work because of the Roberts court, and not try at all. Giving up before trying is what everyone expects of us (Dems).
Also things change unexpectedly, and laying a path that could enable lower level judges room to create good precedence is playing “offense”.
It’s time to throw everything at the fascists, which will be a lot of “defense”. A Little “offense” is good for moral.
Eolirin
@Suzanne: Unfortunately, I’m not.
Politics is no longer the most existential issue I’m facing, though we’ll see what happens with regard to medicaid and the ACA, because it may jump back up the list.
I have not felt more at risk of suicide in the 30 years of struggling with it than I am right now. Necessary and appropriate steps are being taken, but there are logistical and housing issues involving other people that I can’t meaningfully influence that need to be resolved in order for my stress levels to come down to a point that’s compatible with life.
I’m really hoping they don’t manage to break medicaid and ssi/ssdi because I’m honestly not sure I can survive having to deal with that on top of everything else.
lowtechcyclist
@NotMax:
I’ve never seen a convincing explanation of why the trillion dollar coin wouldn’t actually work in the manner its proponents claim. And even if it didn’t, there’s never been a reason not to try it.
Just like now, AFAICT.
‘Oh, this won’t do any good, so let’s not do it, even though the cost in time and energy is effectively zero.’ Fuck that shit.
oldster
If Biden considers it and does it, then Repubs will use that as an excuse to trash the Constitution.
If Biden considers it and does not do it, then Repubs will use *that* as an excuse to trash the Constitution.
They are going to claim that their god-emperor can rewrite the Constitution whenever he wishes to, and Leonard Leo’s flying monkeys will rubber-stamp it all.
At which point, they will also find a reason to blame it on the Democrats. Either because we did something, or because we thought about doing something and didn’t do it.
So on balance…let’s do it.
Suzanne
@BlueGuitarist: I think it goes wrong in one important place:
The professional class is largely Democrats, with some independents. The working class is now largely voting Republican. I don’t think the resentment is accurately described. The resentment is from the working class toward the professional class and the poor.
I will also note that, unlike in the past, consumer goods and food are relatively cheap while housing, education, and transportation are the most expensive they have ever been. Elizabeth Warren and her daughter described this in their book The Two-Income Trap some years ago and it has worsened since then. So, as much as I hate the garbage Americans buy…. it is very possible for families to have “disposable income” for stuff and yet still really struggle to afford some big stuff that matters.
Eolirin
@Betty Cracker: Yeah, that’s the primary reason to do it.
But the reason not to do it is that it will fail with this court, and if there’s a future court that will uphold it instead, it’ll actually become an amendment. We’re very unlikely to get to 2/3rds in the senate ever again. So it’s not without potential downside. It’ll be much more difficult to raise the issue a second time.
Suzanne
@Eolirin: I’m sorry to hear that. I’ll be thinking of you and hoping for good outcomes. In the meantime, I hope us here in this weird little corner of the series of tubes can be a respite for you.
Professor Bigfoot
Once again, the Jackaltariat ignores the elephant in the room: Trump and the Republicans appeal to white grievance WORKS.
The long term project of the Confederacy— white supremacy, by law and by custom, is coming to fruition.
And damned few white people can even SEE it.
[edited to add] Let us try to recognize that the “male” in “white supremacy” is always there, it’s just silent.
Baud
@Suzanne:
White working class.
Chief Oshkosh
@different-church-lady: There actions that the Republicans have taken that I sure-as-shit thought were unconstitutional, as did actual constitutional scholars, but turned out to be totally constitutional, man. So who are you, or I, or anyone here to say?
TBone
I don’t usually pay a whit of attention to football. But
FLY, E A G L E S, FLY!
When I was still really new here, some Jackal jackass from Pittsburgh told me in a rude way that he just laughs at people from Philly. I said
Eolirin
@Suzanne: Thank you
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
Platinum coin not working would destroy the economy.
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud: Meh. There’s little to no downside. Hell, I think he should remove all the “W” keys from WH keyboards and laptops as he walks out the door.
MazeDancer
Dems are in pain. One brief moment of pain relief is a lovely thing.
The pic of the 17 GOP committee heads in the upcoming Congress, alone, is inspiration to act. All white men.
TBone
@Eolirin: me too what she said.
Baud
@Chief Oshkosh:
Only downside is political, so it depends on what you predict will happen.
The Hunter Biden pardon was the right thing to do too and didn’t have any downside except political.
Eolirin
@Baud: Only if we waited to try it when we were close to the debt limit. If we get it litigated while there’s no imminent debt crunch we’d still have time to pass a limit increase.
The problem here is that someone would need to be willing to spend politicial capital on it without there being a crisis. Which I could see someone like Trump doing, but I can’t see any Democrat ever doing.
Eolirin
@TBone: Thanks
stinger
@Baud:
Yup. Classic circular argument. “Oh, we can’t draft women! … Oh, we only draft men, so women aren’t equal.”
Soon-to-be Sec of Defense McRapey doesn’t think women “belong” in combat roles. I have no doubt that he thinks women don’t belong in the military at all, except in secretarial roles, and I’ll bet that opinion starts to get batted around the minute he’s sworn in.
MagdaInBlack
@Chief Oshkosh: I’m in favor of just switching a few letters around on the keyboard.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Donald Fucking Trump has said things more believable than that.
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: Come on, now, you know only white people actually WORK! /s
AM in NC
@Professor Bigfoot: And MEN (as pointed out in the piece Erin linked to). It’s white people and men wanting to preserve the privileges and status gained from being white and being men and having someone “beneath them” – in the case of men, often-times literally physically beneath them. We need to deal with both of these factors to regain ground and to promote a liberal ideal (as opposed to a fascist or libertarian ideal).
Baud
@Eolirin:
That’s why Trump will be president. MAGA plus a small number of non-MAGA want to just try zany things because it’s entertaining.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist: Ok.
@Professor Bigfoot:
I’m too busy eating T-bone steaks to work.
TBone
@Baud: points for use of the word “zany.”
I’m a big believer in zany in case anyone hasn’t already noticed.
Starfish (she/her)
Several lefty orgs like Indivisible have been pushing for this, and I think that Biden should try to get it done because giving these organizations the win will help maintain enthusiasm and persistence that they are going to need for the next two years.
I think that commuting the sentences of the federal death row inmates to life in prison would be useful in preventing the Trump folks from carrying out executions. I think that may be unpopular, but I am concerned that some executions may happen.
Baud
@TBone:
Triple word score!
Suzanne
@Baud: That’s true, but there’s enough white people in the working class that they drive that statistic. It also raises the question of how one defines “working class” — is it by degree attainment, income, ownership?
I am also really coming to consider how our politics are impacted by age and race. As noted previously, the median American voter this year was 44, born in 1980. That’s the oldest it has ever been. The median white person is 45, apparently. The Boomer generation is 75% white people, whereas the Millennial generation is only 50% white people. The 45+ age cohort voted for Trump, those 18-44 went for Harris. But there’s so many more older people than there used to be, relative to young people. Feels like there is very much this protect-the-wealth politics going on, and due to the way our society is aging, it’s more potent this time.
TBone
@Baud: 💜
Baud
@Starfish (she/her):
Federal death penalty not affected by state bans.
Eolirin
Like I think an underappreciated lesson from this election is that the US electorate fundamentally does not pay attention to politics in the numbers necessary for a democracy to create beneficial outcomes for its citizens.
We can’t correct that through messaging, because people aren’t listening to anything we might want to say. We have structural issues when it comes to branding in that we don’t own any propaganda networks and the right owns multiple. We don’t have many cultural and community driven organization networks either. We have one advantage in that popular culture is dominated by more liberal values, but this is not to our political benefit because it mobilizes right leaning turnout out in reaction more than it motivates turnout by disengaged people on the left. That may change if things get too extreme though. It’s a bit of a bulwark against where they want to take things.
So we’re at a huge structural disadvantage when it comes to motivating turnout or getting enough people on side except when the other side fucks up really badly, which is what happens pretty much every time they’re in power.
But that dynamic only continues if we’re allowed fair and free elections. And if they’re not arresting democratic leadership. And it still kills us in the end; climate change is not going to sit around and wait for us to get our act together.
different-church-lady
@Baud: You put your finger right on it. “Fight zany with zany” just ain’t gonna work or help.
moonbat
Gloom. Doom. Gloom. Doom.
Never fails when I get on this blog lately – which I am doing less and less to avoid taking up permanent residence in the Pit of Despair – and someone suggests that Biden or Dems in general take any kind of action that demonstrates what the party stands for that there is an immediate chorus of ‘It won’t work (make any difference, the voters just rejected that, blah, blah, blah).’
I’m here to say: It doesn’t matter now. The election is lost. We can’t now go back and have a do-over. All we can do is stand for what we believe in and let people see exactly what that is.
Complacency is in part what got us here. Assuming that we stand back and watch the electorate get it good and hard by the incoming Trump administration will solve our problems next time around cedes all agency to them and makes us look weak and ineffectual which is exactly what they want. You can’t blame the Dems for not campaigning 24/7/365 and at the same time claim that this kind of action is meaningless. It’s not. I hope NFLTG Joey B does it and forces them to take a stand against it.
Baud
@Suzanne:
I had heard for several years that younger demos are now the majority. Was that wrong?
Starfish (she/her)
@Baud: Interesting. A few states have been executing people, and I am afraid that Trump may want to show that he is “tough on crime” by executing some folks.
cmorenc
@brantl:
That’s what we thought the effect of women bleeding out in hospital parking lots while miscarrying because of abortion restrictions in the wake of Dobbs, and see how much that cost Trump and the Rs back in November.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
We’ll never out-zany them because they’re willing to punch down and hurt innocent people and we’re not.
Eolirin
@moonbat: I don’t blame the Dems. I blame the electorate.
This isn’t a problem the Dems can fix. The problem is us, and if we don’t start holding the electorate and our culture more to account, it’s not going to get better. It’s not up to the party to do that. It isn’t something they can fix.
Baud
@Starfish (she/her):
That’s what he did last time.
Eolirin
@cmorenc: It’ll hurt them more in lower turnout elections. It’s motivating, just not to enough people when Trump is on the ticket.
eclare
@Eolirin:
I am so sorry you are going through this. Fingers crossed it gets better.
Eolirin
@eclare: Thank you. It’s going to be a rough few months. A lot of uncertainty right now.
Kay
I’d give it a shot. I always liked Gillibrand’s focus on women – she once put forth a whole package of legislation focused on childcare, women’s health research, etc.
You wonder why you don’t hear more about her… oooops! Answered my own question there.
Suzanne
@Baud: The country is the oldest on average that it has ever been and getting older.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: The proposed platinum coin was a means to an end– that being raising the debt limit– and not an end in itself.
As it it turned out, Biden and Congressional Democrats achieved that end by making Squeaker McCarthy and the Republicans back down. They didn’t need to try an end run; they just just leaned in and won the sumo match.
different-church-lady
Y’all have fun debating whether Biden should put aluminum foil on our doorknob each night here’s why.
Quinerly
@Gin & Tonic:
St. Louis born! Be sure to check out “The Grant Green Story.”
I have actually met Sharony Green, his former DIL.
I’m on the move and out of time but a dear, now deceased friend of mine (Ollie Matheus), long before my day, owned a short lived coffee house in St. Louis called “The Holy Barbarian.” Google Grant Green connection and the recordings from there. St. Louis cops kept raiding the place for various reasons….the main reason, though, was for “mixing of the races.” 1959 St. Louis music scene. Ollie was White. Lived in my old St. Louis neighborhood of Soulard his final years. Shaved head. Wore a giant, natural sponge as a hat. Carved out to fit his head. I really should have studied it more but that thing had been around a lot of years and appeared to be its own ecosystem.
I have a copy of a tape from some of the originals from the club (Holy Barbarian) that Ollie’s brother, Virgil, made for me. A CD was actually made later. Mine is a cassette made from copying a 1959 recording, pre that CD.
Related. My old friends, the Matheus brothers were cool cats. Lots of running around with Mile Davis stories. Miles was from just over the river. Alton, Illinois. Great statue of him there. Miles had a very interesting background story.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Millennials are a big group and they’re getting older. But that doesn’t mean that young people (<45) aren’t a majority.
moonbat
@Eolirin: I belong to a political party. I’m going to continue to use that apparatus to effect change where I can. I’m not going to chuck it because it’s the electorate’s fault. It’s just another throw up your hands ‘argument’ that’s all too common on here.
Suzanne
@Baud: Right, If you define “young people” as under 45, and the median age is just about 39, then yes…. that follows that people under 45 are a majority. The median voter this year was 44, so basically the electorate was evenly divided between older and younger this year. That’s never happened before.
Starfish (she/her)
@Baud: My sister is one of the older Millennials. With the oldest Millennials being in their early 40s, the youngest Millennials are still of the “Are all these folks voting like they should?” age.
Eolirin
@Eolirin: Like, I don’t think Dems will do better by running better campaigns. I think all of the talk about why we lost and trying to figure out how to do better but changing tactics is an attempt to avoid facing the reality of the situation.
What Dems have been doing is pretty close to the best Dems can do. They’re not that weak, they’re not bad at this, they don’t campaign that poorly, and all the people saying Dems don’t clearly stand for anything are full of shit.
There are always things that can be improved, but we’re really talking about stuff on the margin.
But acting like the problem is the actions Dems are our aren’t taking, gives us a sense of agency. Recognizing the truth, which is that the Republicans, at least with a candidate like Trump, will win in the Midwest and therefore have a lock on the electoral college because a majority of the electorate in those places will vote for him, means grappling with the fact that a majority of the US electorate are some combination of unrepentant monsters, deeply ignorant, or extremely stupid.
That’s not something you can beat in a Democratic system. It’s something that beats you. If you’re in the minority, you can only win by changing the culture of abandoning your positions. We can’t really abandon our positions without just becoming them the divides are too stark. And culture change is not something top down efforts by political parties are good at.
Suzanne
@Starfish (she/her): According to exit poll data (which isn’t as reliable as the data that I’m sure we’ll get soon)…. The 30-44 age group went 51/47 for Harris and the 18-29 group went 54/43 for Harris.
Marmot
@Eolirin: Haha. You think voters consider the issues!
Eolirin
@moonbat: That’s not what I’m saying.
The party cannot affect the kind of change that needs to be affected by itself, and if that’s all we do, we are lost.
This is not a statement of hopeless, or a suggestion the Dems shouldn’t bother to do things. It’s describing a category error; the things necessary to fix this are not the things the party is capable of doing. That doesn’t mean they stop doing the things they can do. It’s that those things are insufficient by themselves.
NotMax
@Baud
At the other end of the spectrum, Alaska the first state to reach zero living WW2 veterans. Source.
Professor Bigfoot
@AM in NC: Like I said, the “male” in white supremacy is always silent, but it’s always there.
Also straight and (ostensibly) Christian, but…
Baud
@Eolirin:
I agree. People want a political party to fix what is at bottom a sickness in the culture. Not possible.
Ocotillo
If the 14th amendment accomplishes what the ERA would have done, why was the 19th amendment necessary?
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: BAUD 2028! T-bones for strapping young bucks everywhere!
😂
p.a.
Don’t want to set up a straw man, but am I understanding some of the comments as “EPA action is a useless political gesture, tilting at windmills”?
WTF is wrong with a political gesture in politics? After a couple of generations, kinda beginning with the “Moral Majority” *ptui*, of being on the receiving end, FSM forbid our side make them put their bullshit out there. (Of course, the filthy MSM will echo whatever the Rethugs frame is…)
Apologies if I’m misunderstanding.
Eolirin
@Marmot: I do not. I think that’s the problem.
I think people need to develop a better sense of civic responsibility, to be encouraged to engage more, and to learn more about how things work. And I think that’s a generational effort if it’s going to succeed.
I don’t think cultivating that is something that can happen by Democratic party operatives changing when and how and how much their candidates string words together or what stunts they try to pull to get attention on things in a hostile media environment.
E.
I just want to see our side fighting. We are so timid.
Starfish (she/her)
@Suzanne: Why are older Gen X folks such a disappointment? Do they think they are Michael J Fox in Family Ties?
Gin & Tonic
@Quinerly:
This is why I like this place.
Have you read Miles’ autobiography? I’m pretty sure it uses the word “motherfucker” more than any book ever published.
Eolirin
@p.a.: It’s not my position. I’m not sure if it should be done because I think we only get one shot at it, and it’s possible if we wait we might actually get it done.
So the signaling benefit has to be weighed against that. It’s not clear to me which is better.
TBone
@moonbat: me too.
LAC
@different-church-lady: thank you and Baud for having the better takes here. This requires a hail mary political action unlikely to much when it is clear that the argument about the dire situation of reproductive freedom under the mottled orange,repeated over and over and over again, did not penetrate the electorate. Yes, it was close, blah, blah. But if all we have is dubiously legal stunts left, that is depressing.
Old Man Shadow
I dont think it would be a winner politically, but I’ve been wrong a lot lately, and it might buy us a month or two before a national abortion ban, so why not?
SiubhanDuinne
@MagdaInBlack:
Which would mean that all presidential speech texts would be more in alignment with the barglegarble that he invariably says anyway.
AWOL
@brantl: Fifty-three percent of voting women will think Trump did this. One hundred percent of nonvoting women won’t care WTF anyone does because they’re utter morons.
Still, I hope Biden does a “Fuck You” to the fascists, but that’s just a masturbatory fantasy. And anything he does that reeks of decency and fairness will be struck down by the Opus Dei Fascist Court.
TBone
You can’t win if you don’t try!
Fly, Eagles, Fly!
Eolirin
@Baud: It is much easier to externalize the source of salvation. You can blame someone else when things go bad and you never need to do the hard work of actually making things better yourself
We have forgotten the lessons of the civil rights, women’s rights and labor rights movements. We are going to need to relearn them. And we have precious little time.
Suzanne
@Starfish (she/her):
RIGHT?!?! Like, what the fuck?!?! But, remember that each generation gets less white and things become somewhat clearer.
The aging of the population also leads to avocado-toast discourse about student loan forgiveness, housing prices, and more. #OkayXer
NotMax
@LAC
At least for the present, government of rule by law beats government of rule by gimmick 8 days a week.
Eolirin
@Suzanne: I do have to wonder what the demographic bulge will end up doing to housing prices in the medium to long term.
Is the stock type mismatch with demand enough to swamp the supply suddenly opening up as larger percentages of the population die off at once?
Nettoyeur
An interesting angle is that even if SCOTUS throws this out because it sidesteps the constitutional amendment process, there is a direct precedent that keeps Trump from voiding the 14th amendment citizenship by birth clause.
Kristine
@Baud: Yup. So do I.
Omnes Omnibus
Before doing this, I would interested in the answers to a few questions. What exactly do proponents hope to achieve? What do they think is the likelihood of success? If it is not successful, will it make passing an new ERA harder in the future? BTW, if the answers are a grand gesture, not very, and probably not, I would still be fine with it. The third question, IMO, is the key.
NotMax
@TBone
♬ On your mystery ship.
;)
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Erin:
Kay posted the piece yesterday. My comment then:
It’s a nice historical read but the conclusion is nothing other than the venerable Davis X. Machina’s observation (which is right up their with Cleek’s Law and the Crazification Factor):
Suzanne
@Eolirin: I have the same question. The population is still growing, albeit much more slowly than in the past. And, for the first time in American history, subsequent generations are not as wealthy as the Boomers. And, because of economic specialization and the service economy, jobs are more urban than they used to be. So there is still going to be high demand proximate to growing urban areas and lower demand away from those.
So. I don’t know.
different-church-lady
@Old Man Shadow:
A whole lot of people have been wrong about a whole lot lately. But only some are willing to admit it.
kalakal
@Omnes Omnibus:
Beat me to it and phrased it better
Omnes Omnibus
@Starfish (she/her): @Suzanne: It’s nice to see the commenters branching out in generation bashing, and I am sure Gen Xers appreciate the attention. Normally, it’s Boomers and Millennials.
Kay
@Starfish (she/her):
I’ll tell you one reason. A lot of them have millennial or zoomer kids who have gone “no contact” for various reasons, some good IMO and some due to really minor errors by their parents, again, IMO.
They feel they are being held to impossible parenting standards by their grown children and it’s unfair and springs out of pop psychology on “trauma” on social media.
The “no contact” is brutal and includes no contact with grandchildren. Its not ideological either – these are not conservative parents with liberal children – it’s across the spectrum. I run into it again and again in the law practice, from both the parents side and the adult children side. I think its more social media poisoning. Everyone has now self diagnosed their childhood trauma and found the perpetrators – their parents.
Eolirin
@Nettoyeur: I’m gonna get accused of being a doomer again here, I’m sure, but the only thing really stopping Trump from voiding birthright citizenship is the rank and file ICE agent’s unwillingness to violate the law.
While it may be important to use every avenue to try to stop things, don’t think that means success will happen. Or is possible.
Guaranteed failure shouldn’t be a reason not to do the right thing. Not by itself anyway. But there’s no real constraint on a lawless executive. The courts do not have enforcement power. The legislature does not have enforcement power.
It’s why it’s so important to be considering what steps can be taken to remove people from harm’s way outside of the existing systems. They will not provide reasonable defense if things get really bad. They can’t. But those are also not the kinds of things that we can talk about here.
Quinerly
@Gin & Tonic:
I have read it….years ago!
If I get time after I settle into my rental, I’ll Google some Grant Green/Holy Barbarian links for you. St. Louis’s NPR station did a really good segment years ago, if I recall correctly. All my Grant Green trivia and info is filed away in a cabinet that made it’s way to Santa Fe in the move. He died before I arrived there but the Matheus brothers gave me an education on that period of time….St. Louis music scene. Plus, Gaslight Square.
For some old time barrel house, Blues stuff, check out James Crutchfield. I loved that guy. I used to drive him around when he needed help.
And just between you and me…..Johnnie Johnson was a much greater person than Chuck. Met them both. One humble and kind. The other an asshole and abuser of women. IYKYK
Great music scene in St. Louis
different-church-lady
@Eolirin:
You can’t turn everyone into a sociopath overnight. It takes time.
Trump was just given more time.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Plan to survive long enough to hear “What’s a Boomer?”
:)
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Baud:
A very good correction to make against a broad narrative that gets shared here that’s predictably full of holes as Prof Bigfoot and others continually point out.
I’m actually no big fan of Brookings fellows but this is an interesting look at the “working class vote”:
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-4-working-class-votes/
One of the up-front key take-aways:
Belafon
@brantl: the women who voted for Trump around me don’t want the ERA either. It was a woman that torpedoed its otherwise easy passage when it was first proposed.
tobie
J. D. Vance paid no electoral price for making fun of adult women without children and advocating in the past for stripping women of the right to vote. Passing the ERA will have zero electoral consequences for Biden & the Dems and no consequences for Republicans who will successfully turn this into a story about Dem’s unconstitutional tactics.
I think Dems can help Biden cement his and their legacy by reminding people of his economic record.
Simple chart: that was then in 2020, this is now in 2024. Don’t make it easy for Trump to steal Biden’s domestic accomplishments.
Kay
@Eolirin:
FWIW I think your opinion is your opinion, and a perfectly valid possible read on the situation. If someone is going to go from hopeful to despairing because of your comments they probably werent resilient enough to put up much of a fight anyway.
Doug R
@different-church-lady:
And what’s stopping trump from publishing an “adjustment” to the 14th amendment abolishing birthright citizenship?
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus: We discuss racial and gender patterns in voting all the time. How’s that different than discussing age patterns? If it’s not about you, it’s not about you.
I will note that we hear plenty of shit about the “tankie left” and student protestors in the comments on this blog.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suzanne: I said it was nice.
Eolirin
@Kay: To be fair, we have an absolute child abuse epidemic in this country, going by the actual psychiatric standards for these things.
No contact as a tactic was never meant to be applied so broadly, initially focusing more on malignant narcissists, and people shouldn’t be self diagnosing, but there’s almost certainly some degree of truth to a very large number of parents doing things that are, with overwhelming evidence, psychologically scaring, and often with long lasting and significant functional consequence.
It’s been with us a long time, and while I think it’s been getting better, it’s been part of the cultural poison that leads to bad electoral outcomes, and we would be better off recognizing and trying to address it than treating it like it’s a fake issue driven solely by social media fads.
Geminid
@NotMax:
“And why were those Boomers ‘OK’?”
Kathleen
@Eolirin: My wish for you is the outcome you need and some level of comfort and relief. Please be kind to yourself.
gene108
@Eolirin:
I am so sorry you are going through this period of depression. All positive thoughts you pull through this.
Starfish (she/her)
@Omnes Omnibus: I think we are both younger Gen X, and the Gen X jokes usually involve showing various intergenerational warfare jokes that have (once again) left out Gen X because we are just too insignificant to matter.
But you know, as the generation of latch key children, this is perfectly fitting.
Eolirin
@different-church-lady: ICE has a headstart over most agencies too.
Doug R
@Eolirin: I feel ya. but Solar and wind are cheaper than coal. Filling your electric car’s “tank” is way cheaper than gasoline or diesel.The rest of the world will move, it’s just that America will spend years/decades in a farting hole covered in its own feces.
You know, like Putin’s Russia.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Eolirin
@gene108: Thank you. I think though, to some degree, it’s actually that the depression is better than it has been in a long time. TMS (transcranial-magnetic-stimulation) is kind of amazing.
But the consequences of being less paralyzed by symptoms and then having significant life altering stress is it increases the risks.
This is a well understood issue with depression; things are most dangerous when you’re doing well and facing a downslide, or when you’re getting better.
@Kathleen: Thank you.
Starfish (she/her)
@Kay: There have been a lot of these stories on local public radio lately with the holidays coming up.
One person was talking about how it was a fantastic idea to go no contact with her family. She had moved to a different country and gone back to see them, and they went out to dinner. Her family essentially roasted her saying that her visit was not nearly as bad as they expected it to be, and she never spoke to them again.
There was another one yesterday, that was a Moth story. A Jewish lady married a former Jehovah’s witness, and her mother in law quit talking to her for nine months.
Kay
@Eolirin:
I think it cheapens child abuse, an issue I have spent my entire career working on, to include things like reasonable punishment for breaking rules. Children are human beings separate from their parents. They should be permitted to have relationships on their own terms with THEIR extended family, even if their parents have banished that family. My father thought his own mother was irresponsible – a bad mother. We adored her as a grandmother. We had our own individual relationships with her, because my father didn’t treat children as his property to be granted or withheld.
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus: It just blows my mind that the generations who use or are about to use Social Security and Medicare are the ones who went for Trump. And then I remember that they’re more white and then I think how that tracks.
Nukular Biskits
Good (late) mornin’, y’all!
I endorse Senator Gillibrand’s idea!
WTFGhost
@lowtechcyclist: Frankly, I agree with using the platinum coin as a bargaining chip, but it kind of demands a D administration.
“Fine, you’re threatening a default; I’ve just minted a platinum coin. If it comes down to the wire, I deposit it, and let you fucking *sue* me to crash the entire world economy!”
Same logic as the ERA, really: do it, to make them *undo* it, publicly.
You win elections in this day and age by making your opponents look horrifying, and rubbing your victories in their faces. Those two options open the door for both at once.
NotMax
@Starfish (she/her)
You say that as if it’s a bad thing.
:)
Kay
@Starfish (she/her):
Obviously 9 months of not talking to her is unacceptable. I’m the last one to demand anyone be a doormat. It took about 5 years for my mother in law to like me – she was always polite but she’s well off and a snob and it took a while. I adored her later and I know she loved me too. I miss her almost every day and my kids have a whole set of stories about her. I am so, so glad I didn’t keep them from her.
Suzanne
@Eolirin: I’m glad you’re having a good experience with TMS. My MIL recently finished her course and said it was life-changing. I tried to get it for Spawn the Elder, but insurance wouldn’t cover it when he was under 18. So now we have to try again.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Doug R:
As an EV owner who’s pretty emeshed in Bolt world, and surrounded by people who would love to put home solar up but are still constrained by our shitty utility company, XCEL, and our feckless public utility commission (folks in CA will echo the same sentiment, different players), yeah, the farting hole analogy speaks to the corporate hold that enables that hole to get larger and larger.
Another issue with energy sources isn’t necessarily what EV’s might bring to the equation but how crypto and AI will simply add to energy needs potentially in a way we saw during the 20th Century’s industrial growth, ala the Petroleum Century.
Here’s something for everybody to check back on next year:
https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/electric-vehicle-myths
You gotta wonder if the incoming (mal)Administration will yannk that page down in a heartbeat.
Sure Lurkalot
@Suzanne:
Don’t entirely disagree but half of the “really struggle to afford” are microeconomic, consumer choices being made. I don’t doubt immediate gratification purchases have a root in despair and a YOLO mindset, but fiscal discipline is not a high point in our late stage capitalist, consumerism uber alles society. The margins might be bigger now, but young people starting out having to scrimp and save for big ticket items like cars and houses has long been a fact of life. Big government could help but our electorate just voted for big corruption instead.
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud: I haven’t seen a political downside from the Hunter Biden pardon. What initiatives have been delayed or killed? What election has been lost since he pardoned his son? Who of any worth is crying about it and whining that they’re going to take their ball and go home? Please don’t tell me that The Mighty Baud (2028!) is giving credence to the chattering class. C’mon, man!
People were going to piss and moan either way. The hand-wringers are going to wring their hands. Bravo Foxtrot Delta. If this affirmative action reveals to Biden that it’s OK to do the right thing, and that understanding led to the current round of commutations and pardons, and that action and follow-on understanding leads to further such actions, then great! He’s finally fully embraced the power of the presidency and the decades-in-coming political realities that led us to where we are today.
Swing for the fences, Joe!
Nukular Biskits
@Baud:
I can’t say as I disagree with the first part of that, particularly in light of election results.
Having said that, though, I see no downside so why not?
Doug R
@Eolirin:
Yup. I see a high chance of this attempt failing BUT it could kick momentum for it actually working down the road.
Like Bill and Hillary Clinton trying to get us healthcare in 1993 and finally the ACA in 2010.
Chief Oshkosh
@MagdaInBlack: Oooh. Devious. I like it.
UncleEbeneezer
@Starfish (she/her): We had our coming of age right when Rush Limbaugh and FoxNews took over the airwaves and also when “Liberal” news decided to start bending over backwards to be “balanced.” Also there was a wave of tremendous cultural nihilism you could see in shows like South Park, Seinfeld etc. Just as Right-Wing Media was starting to dominate there was simultaneously a collective air of shrugging for many in Gen X. I think it was during the 90’s that Anti-Feminism and long term projects like portraying the Media as biased/Liberal and widespread belief that Isms/Phobias were all exaggerated (and the cool kids understood that) really started to win. That’s my best explanation.
NotMax
@Chief Oshkosh
it’s a big honkin’ deal in the rarefied halls of the clutchitariat.
Eolirin
@Kay: I’m not saying you should do that.
But the way reasonable is defined is doing some heavy lifting in that sentence. There are wide swaths of the country for which beating your kid is reasonable punishment. We have a lot of data on what that does and none of it’s good. I know you’re not including that in your statement, but what the science is showing calls into question things that are still more broadly accepted as reasonable than that.
And I think more importantly, demonstrating the extent to which the things that people aren’t doing fucks kids up even more. Emotional neglect is measurably damaging, for instance. And often significantly so.
So I’m all for not defining trauma in a way that fuzzies the definitions to start including things that don’t actually cause meaningful or negative long term consequences. Trauma is a serious concept and needs to be treated as such. No contact is an extreme intervention and shouldn’t be used flippantly. But as someone with deep ties in mental health and trauma affected communities, I also see how we give a ton of stuff that breaks people a complete pass, at a societal level, as well. This is not a small problem. We’re not doing nearly enough to try to make it better.
WTFGhost
@Eolirin: When people say that other folks should be engaged more, the first question that comes to mind is “do you know why they aren’t engaged?”
People are social creatures, and natural busybodies (in the positive sense, “oh, I know a trick that’ll help with that!”), and if they have time and energy and happiness, they will engage.
Time and energy can be in short supply, and, this can result from economic anxiety – no offense, I’m not saying it’s the *whole* reason, just, hey, there might be a reason it was the initial analysis from 2016.
Happiness is the other thing that seems in short supply, and, of course, a lack of happiness always helps the out-party. Misery is also a big fascism aid, “will you please stop sheltering illegals, so we can finally get back to a good economy again?”
I’m not saying I have answers to what to do. Maybe you can get political volunteers to do Arts and Crafts style childcare for phone bankers and other shift-workers – there’s a bit of time and energy. But, I mean, you could say “that’s a tiny chip out of a giant boulder” and *wow* are you right!
It’s just, if you don’t think of one aspect of a problem, you miss your chance to have the solution drop into your lap. One reason I’m so sorry Harris lost was, we have a massive joy deficit in this country, *I* think. Well, if you don’t think people need time, energy, *and* happiness, you won’t have that particular regret (or, for a more positive spin, that particular warm ray of HOPE pre-November).
Another Scott
My Rep, Don Beyer, from 2022:
The GQP blocked it in the Senate in April 2023. The vote was 51-47 with 60 being required (of course).
There is, as usual, no One Weird Trick.
IANAL.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Doug R
@Eolirin: The right wing f*ckery is amplified by hostile foreign active measures.
We need a way to either cut or flag or flag and delete propaganda content from places like Russian troll farms.
Baud
@Chief Oshkosh:
@Nukular Biskits:
I have no idea. I recall that the fight for student loan relief was supposed to be a winner, and it became a small liability. I can’t predict these things, which is why I don’t care what Biden does.
That said, I stand by my view that there will be no political benefit based on past experience of not seeing political benefits.
Melancholy Jaques
@Professor Bigfoot:
I don’t think anyone is ignoring it, it’s just that we do not have a solution or effective counter.
Suzanne
@Sure Lurkalot: I will never disagree that people spend money on stupid shit. But I will counter that a record-high percentage of Americans who rent are rent-burdened.
It’s a have and have-not economy.
ETA: Forgot to paste:
JML
I’ll admit, I saw this and immediately thought: “oh, Gillibrand popped her head up again to see if anyone wants her to run for president”.
Nukular Biskits
@Baud:
Again, concur that it’s highly likely, given the recent election results and our communications structural deficiencies (i.e.; the right’s communications infrastructure advantage) there will little to no immediate or even long term political benefit.
And, as was mentioned by someone else up-thread, it’s entirely possible that if there WAS a political benefit, Trump will be credited for it.
But … doing nothing but marking time until 20JAN is not a plan and is IMHO nothing more the preemptive surrender.
Norms went out the window and we have an electorate with the attention span of a goldfish. To borrow from Adam Silverman (and I’m doing this poorly), Democrats, progressives, liberals, etc, need to start practicing asymmetrical politics, all while working on a long term, decades-long, political infrastructure program (courts, media, etc).
Doing nothing, while an option, is only advisable if doing something will make matters worse. I simply do not see this making matters worse.
tobie
@Suzanne: Wasn’t this the first election where Boomers voted in the majority for the Democratic Presidential nominee? I thought that was the swing…whereas GenZ swung hard right, which doesn’t surprise me. A generation raised on social media has shown itself to be easy bait for simple takes on complex issues.
p.a.
I saw this in very liberal people, the ususal I paid off my debt, why can’t they b.s. Public college people!
I have a loose understanding of the numbers and how different they are now, and tried to get that through, but not really successful.
Eolirin
@WTFGhost: I agree, especially about the joy part.
But I think it’s deeper than just a lack of time and energy, because I think there’s also an active dislike of and disillusionment with, politics, broadly.
Driven in large part because people don’t really view themselves as part of that process, instead of a bystander to it. I think time and energy are difficult barriers, but if that second part, that feeling of separation from civic responsibility, was less intense, it would help a lot all by itself.
We need political outcomes to fix the time and energy problems. A more just and fair society will make it so people don’t need to work as hard just to live. Much of that is driven by theft on the part of the billionaire class. So we unfortunately can’t really work that angle too much.
The 70s and 80s did a lot of damage, culturally. The 90s were kind of peak expression of that and we’ve only been shifting back gradually since the 2000s. I really do think, if we had unlimited time, and a functioning democracy, that white culture is moving in a positive direction on these issues and in another 10, maybe 15 years, things would look very different.
Kay’s pointed at the effects of anti bullying initiatives in the past. I think this kind of thing has a massive impact in the long term.
Though I’m not sure how migrant flows from places without a cultural context for functional democracy potentially shift that pattern either.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Did you not notice notice all these woman voting for abortion rights protection while at the very same time re-electing the very same assholes who took that right away?
Suzanne
@tobie: No, not at all. The 65+ cohort went narrowly for Trump, and the 50-64 cohort went strongly for Trump 56/43, according to the link I posted above. That is based on exit poll data, which is less reliable than the data that I’m sure we’ll get from Pew in upcoming months.
Eolirin
@Doug R: We should ban social media feed and targeting algorithms. It wouldn’t solve the whole problem but it would help a ton.
And we can do it on privacy grounds by making the data collection necessary illegal
It would quite possibly bankrupt some companies, as ads would be far less valuable, but I don’t see that as a problem per se.
jimmiraybob
As an older white guy I couldn’t agree with you more. This election was won by constantly and loudly advertising that “wokeism” (e.g., diversity, equity, and inclusion) is the enemy to be vanquished. And I have no doubt the monolithic and exclusive society they envision. Or the inequities they are prepared to carry out.
Suzanne
@tobie:
Here’s more on the youth vote:
Starfish (she/her)
@Kay: The framing of the story was interesting. The person who told the story had given birth to twins, and her mother-in-law would come and watch them every weekend. The woman was raising the kids in Judaism and sent holiday cards to someone near the mother-in-law about some Jewish thing that they did as a family, and the mother-in-law quit talking to her over it. (She didn’t send the card to the mother-in-law because Jehovah’s witnesses do not observe the Christmas holidays, and she didn’t want to offend by sending a Christmas card.)
She perceived the mother-in-law not talking to her as an anti-Semitic aggression, but there is also this thing with some Jehovah’s Witnesses where they are so involved in Kingdom Hall that they don’t really talk to people outside of their religion. I found some thread on reddit where folks left the Jehovah’s Witnesses when they realized what a time suck it was when they could not do all their regular Jehovah’s witness stuff during the pandemic.
Anyway, her mother-in-law liked to shop at dollar stores so when a dollar store opened up in her neighborhood the woman just called her mother in law up and said “I miss you,” and they went back to doing their usual stuff.
This part was important too because a lot of this “cutting off of the family” ends when “we are going to just pretend none of this ever happened.”
I cut off my own mother for two years in my twenties because of some of the stuff Eolirin is talking about, and it ends when we pretend that none of it ever happened.
Starfish (she/her)
@UncleEbeneezer: Was it the 1990s or was it even into the early 2000s? I felt like It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia fell into this cultural nihilism category, and I always hated it. And I think that Dave Chapelle blew up his career over it.
A lot of episodes of South Park ended with Cartman trying to become Hitler.
“We are so post racist that we can say this racist stuff.”
“Oh shit, why are the racists laughing so hard at our jokes.”
matt
@p.a.: the problem with this gesture is it’s against brand for Biden the respect for laws and institutions guy. Oh, that was always just bullshit will be the response.
Another Scott
@Eolirin:
CalculatedRiskBlog talks about demographics like this frequently (from 2023):
Much more at the link.
Demographics might not be destiny, but it’s a big weight on the scales.
Best wishes,
Scott.
jimmiraybob
@AM in NC:
It’s not just men. I’m old enough to remember Phyllis Schlafly and the movement she started.
tobie
@Suzanne: I looked this up the other day and read that the breakdown among 65+ was 49-49. NBC had it at 49-50. According to this summary, Harris gained 4 points over Biden among women 65+ and had the same not-so-great record as Biden among men 65+. I’ll keep an eye out for the final data. The one thing that does seem clear is that GenZ in general and especially GenZ men shifted to the right.
Doug R
@Eolirin:
Yeah, I don’t see the value in “targeted” ads. It’s more psychological warfare than anything and too manipulative. If you want something, search for it.
I would LOVE limits on data collection and mandatory anonymization.
matt
@Doug R: it’s to enable different messages to different groups, which might be becoming necessary to win.
Professor Bigfoot
@Eolirin: There’s a world of difference between “oh, woe is us” and “aight, here’s the cards we’ve been dealt, how are we gonna play ‘em,” as individuals, families, and communities.
Americans* have made their choice.
*”In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.” — Toni Morrison
Suzanne
@Another Scott: It will be interesting to see if downsizing picks up. So far, downsizing has not materialized the way it was predicted. More people understandably want to age in place (rather than go to assisted-living places), and we also don’t have a large backstock of senior-appropriate housing (one floor, disabled-accessible) distributed across communities.
Doug R
@matt:
I think that’s the secret to the right wing’s success-note their messaging is all about othering everyone else.
tobie
@Suzanne: We’re discussing different things. I’m talking about the 65+ crowd. The group 50-64 strikes me as way too broad. Folks who are 63 have a lot more in common with 65+ than with 50 year olds. If you’re two years from retiring, you’re thinking about Soc Sec and Medicare. That’s not you’re biggest concern if you’re 50.
matt
@Doug R: they spent most of their money on targeted ads that did this vs the TV ads the Dems spent on. Definitely should be looked at. you don’t have to have contradictory messages to different groups, but communication styles can be different and emphasis can be different. You pitch tax free social security to old people and tax free tips to service industry people.
frosty
So my joke that successful parenting isn’t that hard is true? “Don’t beat them, don’t fuck them, and teach them to read and they’ll already be in the 40th percentile.”
WTFGhost
@Kay: Without context, without being there, it can be hard to judge how abusive a situation is. It might not be what the parent did – it might have been a gentle swat, but on a child who was screaming that they didn’t want to be hit, for example, and the trauma wasn’t the swat, the trauma was “I begged and pleaded and you DIDN’T LISTEN”.
Don’t want to make a mistake like that? Don’t have kids. I’m sorry – I don’t want to say that like, scary, just, 24x7x365 for 18 years, you think you won’t lose your cool and blurt out *something* deeply hurtful? Only if you’re a saint, but, if you are secretly *not* a saint, let me tell you: if you’re warm, loving, and kind, to your children, they will remember those hurtful moments, but as outliers, the times they were worried or scared, because they were so different. But the worry and fear diminished, because things went back to normal quickly.
Where was I? Right: that’s the other side of it. If there are some of those traumatic moments, with a parent who wasn’t “there” for the children, those traumas don’t heal cleanly. They remember the time a parent went crazy with a belt on their butt, and they don’t have lots of good memories to soften the metaphorical blows.
Finally: a lot of olds have an entitlement complex a mile wide and eighty cubits deep, so they may not realize that it’s *okay* to say “I was a cruddy parent, sometimes, I get that, and I’m sorry. What can I do so you trust me with my grandkids?” And then, *LISTEN*.
A lot of people don’t realize they are being hurtful, when they are being so. They think they’re just being funny. (Guardians of the Galaxy 2 has a good sendup of that.) They might think they’re gently teasing someone about a flaw. Maybe they’ve gotten used to being sarcastic, and haven’t really thought about how it comes across. And they might think other folks are too sensitive, forgetting that, with general kindness, people put up with a fair bit of snippiness.
For the record, with several *strongly* supported diagnoses, I too sometimes get annoyed at self diagnosis. But sometimes, well, if a person does PTSD exercises, and they help, I don’t care if they think they have PTSD, even if they don’t have the symptoms.
I just think it’s important to remember, they may be like a guy going “breathe, woman in labor, puff-puff!” – they know the early/easy interventions, but they haven’t any real *experience*.
Suzanne
@tobie: Sure, but….. “Although that translated to a 10-point jump (36% to 46%) in youth support for Trump compared to 2020, young people were still the age group with the highest support for the Democratic candidate this year.”
If there is a cohort whose minds have been most turned to evil by the media…. It’s the Fox News/Newsmax demo.
Doug R
@Suzanne:
I saw that housing has turned into such a large luxury specialty that nobody builds basic homes anymore and seniors are trapped in their McMansions.
More 2 and 3 bedroom apartments with level floors and varying levels of care would help. I know my parents lived to 91/89 in a 55+ apartment with a home care attendant coming by 1 or 2 times a week to help with meal plans and cleaning and dishwashing.
Glidwrith
@jimmiraybob: An observation: black folks and other assorted minorities know it was always about white supremacy. Yet they’ve made progress all these years dragging this country towards equality. In my perception, part of the approach was to use the laws and rub our noses in what is fair.
Perhaps we should stop coddling the WATB white working class and tell them to sack up, step up and be the partners and protectors they should aspire to be.
UncleEbeneezer
@Nukular Biskits: This is where I’m at. Would love to see Biden do it, but won’t be angry if he doesn’t. What really bothers me is seeing so many people using this to get preemptively worked up about how Dems/Biden always fail us.
Suzanne
@tobie: According to that link I posted, the 65+ cohort narrowly went for Trump. And, again, the older cohort is a bigger share of the electorate than it has ever been.
Gen Z swung somewhat to the right but still was the most Dem-leaning age group. The youth are not the biggest issue in front of us.
Melancholy Jaques
@JML:
I was going to say, hasn’t she been a big disappointment as a senator?
And in general, why are our senators so low profile? It could be me, but I don’t see our team out there defining the brand they way I see Graham, Cruz, Rubio, etc, always getting their names, words, and deeds in the mix.
matt
@Glidwrith: I mean, sure, but telling the people you need something from to sack up doesn’t ever work. Maybe it makes losing feel better.
tobie
@Suzanne: Don’t agree. Dems improved their performance amongst Boomers. Millennial and their GenZ children swung right hard and tipped a close election.
Kay
@Starfish (she/her):
Or you can just kind of hash it out. My daughter is a more permissive parent than I was. We go back and forth on this. Her daughter was pitching a fit at a holiday meal in my house where twenty other people were eating. I thought she should have to leave the table. My daughter said “you are not going to banish her for being upset” – ok, clearly a reference to my banishing her from tables when she was being inconsiderate to others. So we talked about that – how I’m a banisher and she’s not :)
I think people can talk about things and allow differences without harsh judgment.
Suzanne
@tobie:
Improved against a terrible baseline. More than half of Boomers voted for Trump. Gen X was even worse. Again, they’re disproportionately white.
oldgold
Three things:
1. Ever since the Al Franken debacle, I have had a dim view of Gillibrand; and, more importantly,
2. I think there should be a time limit on ratifying a Constitutional Amendment and believe Congress is the branch to do it. Further, 7 years seems to be a reasonable period of time; and,
3. As Biden is going out the door and Trump is entering, it seems a piss poor time to take Presidential action to amend the Constitution that is less than by the book and thereby suggest this is an acceptable way to proceed.
prostratedragon
From the NYC Department of Records, an account of the Hard Hat Riot of May 8, 1970. Thought by some to be the original event of the White Working Class narrative. With photos.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, today’s Non-Sequitur – the continuing adventures of Danae.
Best wishes,
Scott.
WTFGhost
@Doug R: It’s not just that. I heard a commercial aimed at (I believe Hispanic men – I didn’t recognize the accent), and it was all about how he’s macho and powerful and he wants something, he gets it, he says he’ll do something he does it!
Any other human being would be embarrassed by this kind of public fluffing, but Trump loves it.
That’s the biggest electoral failing on the D side vs Trump – they don’t have memes about how wonderful their politicians are, and if they did, it wouldn’t be for saying something mean about a Muslim or something – we’d wait for an accomplishment. MAGAphones get continually excited by spreading memes about “shithole countries” and such.
Eolirin
@matt: This appeal has to not come from Democrats, but from members of those communities seeking to change them.
This is why this is a cultural problem and requires actions that cannot be performed by the party or our politicians, even if those also need to do their part.
KatKapCC
@brantl: Did women notice Dobbs in the election? Sure doesn’t seem like it!
Folks, we need to stop living in the fantasy land where we believe that Republicans will ever be held accountable by the electorate. It has never and will never happy to the degree we all like to fap about
And y’all really need to remember that there are a lot of women in this country who are NOT in support of “women’s rights”. They sneer at the word “feminism”, they’re anti-abortion, they love to giggle and coo about how much they love men. There are a lot of women who think the ERA is embarrassing liberal garbage. Just because someone lacks a penis doesn’t mean they can’t be a dick.
UncleEbeneezer
@Starfish (she/her): 80’s-early 00’s, in my opinion. Yes, there are tons of examples. I think that huge trend, along with Sinclair taking over and dominating the media landscape, played a huge role in granting Gen X/Z people implied permission to lean into their worst instincts and adopt cynicism, nihilism etc.
Eolirin
@Kay: Yes, when they can.
No, when they can’t.
People who are reasonable enough to communicate with and aren’t generating an excessive amount of pain or bringing up a ton of anger or fear when they make the attempt, don’t tend to go no contact.
If they’re going no contact, some part of that dynamic is off. I think to the extent that some people are overreacting due to social media driven fads, it’s that they’re not reasonable enough to communicate. That is something that people can be taught how to be better at, and no contact is a piss poor replacement for doing that work.
But it’s not meant for that. And something has gone very wrong if people are ending up with so little emotional resiliency and such poor communication and interpersonal relationship skills that they’re turning to that when basic conflict mediation would suffice.
WTFGhost
@Eolirin: Random thought.
Does Microsoft own your novel, which you wrote using Office 365? No – everyone agrees, if you do the writing, *you* own the copyright.
How is that different from Facebook collecting information on you, based precisely upon your actions? Aren’t *you* “writing” your data to Facebook 365, and shouldn’t you own copyright to that data, OR DOES MICROSOFT OWN EVERYTHING ON O365?
NB: Office 365 allows you to create content “on the web”, so that’s the reason I specify that particular SKU. Microsoft Office, non-web version, is somewhat different, and wouldn’t fit this argument, but, Google Docs might.
Still:
Office 365 lets you create content on the web.
Facebook lets you create content in your account.
In each case, we humans don’t necessarily *understand* what is being gathered (for writing/spreadsheets/etc., font and other presentation information, akin to Facebook), but in one case, we say we have unquestionable copyright, and in the other, our default is “NOOOOO! IT BELONGS TO ZUCKY!”
In a nation of, by, and for, the people, Facebook would have to ask to use your information – this is a good time to cry it out as a clear problem of capitalism being worshipped over democracy.
TBone
Gen Xers don’t give a shit what we’re called. We know what we are.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2s1MrONepDo
Kathleen
@Eolirin: I agree with you. Well stated. I do think however there could be room for some change in local politics.
tobie
@Suzanne: In a close election, trend lines matter. This shouldn’t be hard to understand.
Eolirin
@WTFGhost: So, this is complicated by the fact that FB is actually getting your permission to that data as part of the terms you agree to when you use the site.
Ownership isn’t necessarily the issue here. MS, could, for instance, make it so that while they do not own the copyright to your work, the rules for that are straightforward enough, they have free reign to, say, use it to train AI. And if that was done transparently enough, I think they’d be fine, legally speaking.
And there have been some attempts by certain social media platforms and games to actually take IP ownership of content created on their platforms. I’m not sure if these have been legally hashed out in full, and usually public outcry gets them to back down on trying to assert full ownership, but you do need to cede certain rights when you use these platforms or they wouldn’t work at all. FB can, for instance, distribute your work when you make a post, without having to pay you for it.
Ohio Mom
@Nelle: I am planning on dusting off and wearing my pink pussy hat on Inauguration Day. I don’t leave the house much in winter, I will be saving up errands for that day so the hat will be widely seen.
I know this will accomplish next to nothing except making me feel better. But that counts.
kindness
I can certainly support good programs and processes that Gillibrand brings up. Even though I doubt I’ll ever let go of the anger I feel towards her in torpedoing Al Franken’s Senate career.
Subsole
@Baud:
Again, Democrats are seen as America’s N-Word. That is not me being glib, or flippant. That is what they see when they hear the word Liberal.
Anything we do for them is their God-given inalienable due. Anything we ask of them is overstepping one’s place.
Eolirin
@Kathleen: Oh for sure. Local and state stuff is a completely different story. There’s a lot more work to do there in specific places.
Kathleen
@Baud: Yes! You and @Eolirin have stated it perfectly. I share the same opinion but I didn’t frame it the same way but I think that framing is helpful. I told a friend this morning a many different forces have declared war on the Democratic Party, which coincidentally is the only party interested or capable of actual governing. And yet Democrats keep winning/flipping seats (inch by inch). Given the current climate as you and Eorlirin have articulated it’s amazing that Biden/Democrats accomplished as much as they have without suffering a blood bath. I think the major problem with the Democratic Party is that it think it’s too critical of itself and fails to acknowledge the strengths it has in the face of vicious and vile attacks.
WTFGhost
@p.a.: I’m not sure of the numbers for student loans either, but, I get the sense that college has gotten expensive based on the “without this, you won’t ever have a *career*” but assistance didn’t keep up, because “why not make people borrow against their future *career*?”.
So: yes, higher debt loads, possibly at higher interest rates, and *very* few people go from college directly into a *career*. So they have to manage at a McDs after a humiliating couple months flipping burgers, but that’s not enough to pay for the loans against their magnificent future *career*, so there are late fees and interest and penalties, and, it can’t be discharged in bankruptcy unless you’re, like, permanently disabled on Medicaid.
There’s an entire racket dedicated to taking advantage of the poor, in ways large and small. I’m sure the student loan financing industry has gotten in on the racket, as well. They’re like how we described the French after the revolutionary war: they want to keep our heads above water, by keeping their hands on our chins, so we’ll always depend on them.
Alas, soundbites win over “there’s an entire, humongous racket dedicated to fleecing the poor….
Omnes Omnibus
QFT
Miss Bianca
@Gin & Tonic: I love how he describes something as being more potent than “ten motherfuckers.”
“10 MF” became a standard of measurement with my ex and me.
brantl
@Baud: yep.
UncleEbeneezer
@WTFGhost: We do have memes. Dark Brandon is one. And there are numerous gifs of Kamala in Senate hearings, dancing etc. The problem is half of our side rolls their eyes, labels them cringe or screams about Genocide!!1! in response. Any/all celebration of Dems must be hijacked back to the more important job of trashing them for being imperfect. This is a huge weight on our shoulders that Republicans don’t have. They will celebrate/worship the worst piece of shit imaginable because he’s their guy. We throw the best POTUS in generations out because he’s old. We choose to fight with both hands tied behind our backs by routinely failing to support/celebrate our own people. People will b*tch and moan about Michelle Obama’s “when they go low, we go high” but the truth is those people don’t want to go low. Going low would be looking at Biden, Kamala whoever, shrugging off their imperfections and going to the mat for them and resisting the urge to shit on them for every thing we disagree with in order to win, at all costs. Too many people on our side simply refuse to be good foot-soldiers/cheerleaders because they all want to be the General/coach.
Eolirin
@Omnes Omnibus: Seconded.
Though I’d add another major problem is that they’re trying to win elections in America. :p
Miss Bianca
@Kay: One of my favorite cartoons from back in the day showed two figures shaking hands with the caption, “Nature and Nurture both agree – it’s all Mom’s fault!”
WTFGhost
@Suzanne: Krugman points out in his Econ 101 textbook that subsidies are an amazing way to fix things like housing costs.
First, people can live in housing.
Second, landlords have money to make improvements (some rent controlled apartments are knob and tube wiring)
Third, if the government is spending too much on subsidies, it has incentive to fix housing using other methods.
This is also a good argument for single payer health care. If fracking is poisoning the water, even *Republicans* will care, because they don’t want to spend more on the medical costs associated with poisoning constituents.
Oh, was I just rude to Republicans? My apologies – bad pain morning.
Seriously, though: isn’t it crazy to have to think of government by people who need a *financial* incentive to avoid *poisoning* people?
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud:
I don’t recall that I said there would be a political benefit, though I can conjecture some. Like you, I have trouble predicting the future.
But there will be enormous actual benefit to the lives of the people that “get done right” by Biden. That’s mostly in regards to the commutations and pardons, but it this snowballs into a lot of other actions that a more-aggressive Biden takes in the waning days of the republic, then lay on, Macduff!
TBone
@Eolirin: Google owns rights to every photograph on my dumbphone.
Eolirin
@UncleEbeneezer: I think it’s more that Democrats don’t have nearly as many intense partisans to begin with.
Most of the people in our coalition do not strongly identify as being a Democrat. That level of investment in politics and especially a party is viewed as icky.
On the right, they’re not really as partisan as I think they appear, but their voters have a fundamentally different relationship with politics. Party and politics is a means to an end for them, solely and completely. And that end is domination over their enemies and those they view as lesser.
The left does not have any kind of similarly motivating force. The left cannot coalesce around itself because it doesn’t have an objective of winning at all costs. It can only coalesce around a crisis. And that unity evaporates with the crisis ending.
Eolirin
@TBone: They do not own the copyright afaik; they cannot sell the images and they can’t prevent you from selling them. But they do have more limited rights granted by the license agreement to your use of the programs and stuff.
Omnes Omnibus
@UncleEbeneezer: I think a lot of people on our side have trouble “supporting the team” because they see that act as inherently corrupt. Anecdotally, I think a lot of them were not been a part of a lot of group activities (team sports, orchestra/band/choir, and the like) while growing up.
zhena gogolia
@UncleEbeneezer: Good comment.
Starfish (she/her)
@Omnes Omnibus: I agree about not enough people doing things that were team oriented.
I don’t think it was all as bad as UncleEbeneezer made it out to be though. I think because our majority was very narrow, it was possible for one or two (Sinemas and Manchins to sandbag the whole agenda whenever they felt like it. Look at how many judges they got in seats when they decided that they were not going to do that!)
I look forward to the mess that will be the House of Representatives with an extremely narrow Republican majority and numerous grandstanding peacocks who are not in it for anyone but themselves.
WTFGhost
@UncleEbeneezer: You’re right, re: memes, and thank you, that said what my fumbling brain was trying to say. We can’t just love us some Dark Brandon, we have to be Too Cool For School and label it cringe.
And it’s twisted, because you *can’t* duplicate what Republicans do, it would be insanely bad for America, as you say, to ignore all the flaws and such. Yet we do have to combat worship, somehow. In Trump’s case, I think we’d want some quiet keyboard warriors (no one’s going to feel *good* about this) that spread the nastiest memes,
“of course there’s a pee tape, he was too dumb to think they’d duplicate it!”
First scene: Michael Cohen explaining his grunting on stage could be a sign of him filling his diaper, Second Scene: a gross bulging (cartoon, I hope!) diaper puffing up while showing him grunting on stage.
Getting cartoonists to agree to take single days to mock him in a particular way – I’ve always pictured him as a toad, so that’s why this idea sticks out – so there are dozens and dozens of bits of mockery of him, which will both get under his skin, and remind his followers that he is FUGLY.
I think that’s how you kill worship, without counterworship. Show them the god’s feet ain’t actually clay, they’re just covered in MBE, male bovine excretia, ’cause it’s leaking from his mouth all day long.
brantl
@different-church-lady: Condescension is always unimpressive, except to the condescender.
VFX Lurker
THANK YOU.
White folks like me keep overlooking this.
brantl
@LAC: We’ve got many avenues, and we should try ALL of them.
different-church-lady
@brantl: Impressing you is not my intent.
Nukular Biskits
This thread is probably winding down but I think this is relevant:
That was Bill Clinton in 2002.
I came across this while reading No More Mister Nice Blog This, to me, encapsulates the issue:
In short, Democrats should be doing SOMETHING and not nothing.
different-church-lady
@Nukular Biskits:
I’m replacing “seems” with “is”.
brantl
@WTFGhost: This, if the ERA gets passed, make these assholes come out against it. THAT will fly well.
Citizen Alan
Easy.
“This is just a back door attempt by the godless, liberals to impose woke privileges for the trans groomers who are coming after your children.”
And every republican and the majority of white women would buy it.
jefft452
@different-church-lady: Read Article V
Kathleen
@UncleEbeneezer: Thank you!
brantl
@Baud: Then do it because it’s the right thing to do. Period.
Kathleen
@Nukular Biskits: First they should define what the “something” is that Democrats should do that they’re not. Second, what are the possible outcomes of “doing” that “something”. Third, what are the negative and positive impacts of those outcomes. I’m riffing on the decision steps Omnes used upthread.
brantl
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: If this is your BEST argument, then why do parents persist in teaching their children the lesson they didn’t learn the last time they were taught that lesson?
It’s OBVIOUSLY POINTLESS, right? No one ever learns the 2nd, or 3rd, or 4th time, right? AA is just full of shit, right?
Grow up, life is harder than you thought, when you were five.
Kayla Rudbek
@Nelle: Mr. Rudbek and I have planned to be out of the country for inauguration. But a spending boycott from inauguration to as long as possible sounds like a good idea too.
Citizen Alan
@Starfish (she/her):
You laugh. But I have said for years that far too many of my generation built their entire cultural identity in their formative years around Alex P.Keaton, who was basically gordon gecko repackaged as a teen heartthrob
This was also around the time that “Preppie” became a fashion style, four teams after all. Middle class kids in Mississippi dressing like what they imagined rich kids who attended private school would wear.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@tobie:
A couple of interesting reads on GenZ and 2024 that are worth reading that provide a far more nuanced, goalpost-moving look at what might have happened:
https://www.alligator.org/article/2024/11/gen-z-voter-trends
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/08/young-voters-trump-gen-z
One takeaway is what we always end up saying about the Yoot Vote: apathy plays a major part.
Citizen Alan
@jimmiraybob: now there’s someone whose death brought a smile to my face.
Eolirin
@Nukular Biskits: The constant fucking bullshit around this is that you can generally find some Democrats who are doing the thing that supposedly shows how Democrats are weak/corrupt/won’t fight for you/have no values, especially since we don’t have the kind of mechanisms to enforce party loyalty that the Republicans do, but you can also generally find a bunch of Democrats absolutely doing the opposite and exactly what whoever is complaining about Democrats is yelling at them to do.
Guess what gets signal boosted and what doesn’t.
It’s the same, but in reverse with the Republicans. And this is why we can’t fix our branding issues.
Miss Bianca
@Nukular Biskits: National-level Democrats panic-stampeding to replace a sitting Democratic POTUS because oh my God, he’s three years older than his pumpkin-hued criminal GOP opponent struck me as being the ultimate in telegraphing a message of “our shit is weak.”
Just a view from the reddish-hued Heart of the Heartland.
Citizen Alan
@Subsole: And also the words socialist, marxist, communist, and occasionally muslim. I was always convinced that the claim that obama was secretly a muslim, despite all the evidence to the contrary, was simply because that was a code for the n word.
suzanne
@WTFGhost:
College has also gotten expensive because taxpayers pay for less of it than they used to. I’d have to go dig out the figures in my links, but something like 70% of the cost of attendance at a public university was paid by the taxpayers in 1965, and now it is something like 12%. Slightly different in each state.
So we pushed more of the cost onto students and then avocado-toast at them about it.
Kayla Rudbek
@Eolirin: and a lot of people who are getting cut off probably do deserve it (anyone who follows James Dobson or the other fundamentalists/RWNJs who promote child abuse as good parenting, for example). And narcissistic behavior doesn’t track to political alignment either.
Madi_x
@WTFGhost: I would go so far as to say that there’s a loud and moderately large minority of Dems and Indy leftists that would overtly attack someone who pushed a “this Democrat is popular” message. A lot of people treated the simple act of the White House trying to get influencers on their side as inherently corrupt.
brantl
Republicans are going to alienate people one drip at a time, we need as many drips as we can get.
Suzanne
@tobie: Sure. The trend lines of the country getting older on average (63% of the electorate were age 45 and up) and those people voting for Republicans (52/45 Trump) were much more determinative of the outcome than how young people voted.
So why does the older age cohort love them some Trump?
WTFGhost
@Eolirin: I agree with the legality – I’m saying “but why *do* we consider that to be okay, to say it’s all *theirs* and not a bit *yours*?”
The attitude is what I mean – people should be all snarly that Facebook TAKES their information, SELLS it, sells COPIES of it, doesn’t let you SEE or UNDERSTAND it, when other services understand if *you* build it, it’s *yours*.
The outcry over swiping community created objects for public use is what I’d like to see over Facebook, until social media can’t say “well, you agreed to it *then* you can’t grouse *now*” because people are just too angry over that.
I dream of castles in the sky, too. Meh.
brantl
@different-church-lady: And you’re doing a bang-up job of not impressing me, so, there’s that.
different-church-lady
@brantl: There, everyone’s happy.
UncleEbeneezer
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: My takeaway is: fuck the DSA!
David Collier-Brown
Hey, folks, don’t give up before you even start.
If you have an amendment that wasn’t proclaimed, do so now. At the very least it’s a booby-trap for Mr Trump to step into, and it certainly will cause states to consider adding it to their constitutions.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
Its the right thing to do. He should have done it sooner, but now is better than not at all. I don’t care what the GOP does or doesn’t do. It would be great if it goes through. If it doesn’t, then that isn’t any different than what we have now. All the debate is pointless. Actions speak a lot louder than words. Pushing this through would benefit women and men in the long run.