Here’s the thing about bloggers who started in the mid-2000s, like me. We started by criticizing Democrats, specifically the Democrats who endorsed the Iraq War. That war is the biggest mistake made by this country in my adult lifetime. Despite that criticism, the party survived. The most politically talented Democratic President of my adult lifetime, Barack Obama, got it right on the war. In part he was informed by the critique of the war that bubbled up from the Democratic base, in a tiny part because of blogs, which were a lot more visible and influential then. We “made space,” as the kids say, for a view about the war that was almost completely ruled out of bounds by mainstream media, but was shared by a large number of Democrats.
Today, we’re in a much worse situation. Trump is an existential threat to the country. This has spurred me to write about two topics: the threat Trumpism poses, and how Democrats need to change to meet that threat. Right now, with the weak sauce coming out of the party elders, I’m thinking the second is a more important job.
In writing about this, there are some positions that I don’t accept: The view that Democratic positions are minority positions and therefore we’re doomed to be a minority party. That it was only racism and sexism that caused us to lose this election, though they played an important role. That messaging doesn’t matter. That silence is a smart move by our electeds. That we need to quietly sacrifice trans rights (I think it shows only weakness and fecklessness to do so.) That campaigns are pointless (though I do think that dumping hundreds of millions into TV ads is the dumbest way to campaign.)
Here are some things I believe: The “resistance” was as effective as it could be, and there’s no shame in participating in those protests after Trump’s first election. Calling your Congresspeople is a worthwhile activity to stiffen their spines. We need a new media ecosystem, but that’s a long-term project. The short-term project is getting more eloquent advocates (other than Elizabeth Warren) criticizing Polio Boy Bob and Trump’s plan to privatize the USPS, among other terrible ideas, now.
With that in mind, here are some bloggers I respect and have respected for a while who I think have similar attitudes. I don’t agree with these people on everything, but I read them regularly and appreciate their insight. They’re in the same place as me when it comes to the events of the last few days:
Doc Zoom at Wonkette: What the Fuck Do Democrats Think They are Doing?
David Dayen at Prospect.org: What We Have Here is a Rudderless Ship
Oliver Willis: Democrats: The Surrender Party
Brian Beutler: More on Ethical Populism (how to resist Bobby Polio Jr)
If what I wrote gets you mad, please target your anger towards your Democratic Member of Congress and/or Senators, if you have them, by calling or emailing. If you think that Democrats need a kick in the ass, well, here’s me making space for that.
AKA The Man
I get the feeling that our Canadian Federal Liberal Party is going to be in the same boat in a short few months (weeks?) and I fear they will be just as weak and rudderless as an opposition. We already have evidence from the provincial Liberals who have done incredibly poorly as an opposition party.
suzanne
9/11 and the invasion of Iraq are the formative events of my political life (I think I’m right around your age). I made a promise to myself then that I would never vote for anyone who supported it. I have held to that in every primary vote since.
In full transparency…. I don’t know that I will ever fully get over this, and part of what was so devastating to me about it was that some Democrats didn’t oppose it as they should.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@AKA The Man:
Justin seems completely at sea yet clinging to power. I don’t get it. He’s lost the NDP, seems like his position is untenable.
Old Man Shadow
I definitely agree with contacting your Congressmen.
Right now, a lot of well-paid people are probably telling them to be more “business friendly”, more conservative on economics, and more conservative on “culture war” (read LGBTQ rights) things as a result of the election.
They need to hear from you that that isn’t what you want at all. You want anger. You want opposition. You want defiance.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@suzanne:
Same here. I’ll vote for them in the general but it shows a real lack of judgment.
I’m 61 btw.
AKA The Man
@@mistermix.bsky.social: Trump making him look like a chump was not on my 2024 bingo card
@mistermix.bsky.social
@Old Man Shadow:
Yes. I think what people who are concerned about too much criticism of Democrats don’t understand is that the consultant class started working the refs the second the election was over. They lost the election, but they want to blame it on others. As with the Iraq War, the only criticism of the consultant class is going to come from the unpaid or low paid bloggers / social media liberals.
Old School
I’m all for complaining about actual things Democrats have done. Let your elected officials know your displeasure.
Lately, a number of comments/posts have struck me more along the lines of “Here’s what I imagine the Democrats will do when Trump takes office and I’m outraged about it!”
Trivia Man
To build n the comment about silence, i believe there is always reason to do the right thing. Many democrats and neutrals insisted impeachment was as a mistake because the outcome was certain. That position was even louder the second time because the first failed.
I emphatically disagree. It was the right thing to do. Peter Frylinghausen was a republican congressman from NJ during the McCarthy era. His family has been very prominent in national politics since the Revolution so he had some gravitas.
His quote about McCarthy says it well. (Apologies for an imprecise quotation)
If we remain silent it is assumed we agree. It is a mistake accept someone because they are of our own party and it is of short term political benefit to the party,
@mistermix.bsky.social
@AKA The Man:
I saw a CBC story the other day comparing the volume of fentanyl coming via Canada vs Mexico. I thought there was something wrong with the graph in it because you couldn’t see the amount coming from Canada. Turns out the Mexican amount was so large that the Canadian part was almost invisible.
Yet Trump’s tariff threat, based in part on this, got JT on a plane. Unbelievable.
cain
@suzanne: mine too. That’s when I became politically active and aware.
Been a wild ride.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@Old School:
Here’s a list, most of which I’ve posted about:
81 votes for the Defense Authorization Act that removed treatment for trans kids from TriCare. That just passed the Senate, btw, haven’t had time to see how many D’s voted for it.
AOC vs Connolly, and the seniority system in general.
Almost complete silence on Trump’s cabinet picks, his threats towards the USPS, Social Security, etc. I’d say if your MoC or Senator isn’t saying something about that, worth asking why not.
Also, if you’re so inclined, you can ask your rep/senator to support some of the measures like Gillibrand wanting Biden to state that the ERA was ratified. I don’t know if that will work, but why not throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks?
hrprogressive
I’m glad someone on this blog gets it.
Thanks.
Don’t have a lot else to add right now.
“Mad as hell” about sums it up.
John S.
@Old School:
True.
But there are also a number of comments/posts that have struck me and others along the lines of “Don’t criticize Democrats, even when they say or do stupid things and if you don’t agree with me then I’m outraged about it!”
Hopefully we can find some happy medium in between.
Geminid
@suzanne: Those were major events from our side, and they were cataclysmic for people in the Middle East. The 9/11 attack and Bush’s destructive Iraq war began two decades of violence, turmoil and destruction that is only now coming to an end, if it is in fact coming an end.
matt
Thinking of contacting Pelosi’s office with a message to ‘go sit in a rocking chair’ over her childish feud with AOC. Her website only allows you to complete the form with a California address though.
Another Scott
Thanks for this. I respect the need for pushing our people to do better, even when they’re in the minority.
My take is a bit different.
I think we can make some progress toward righting the ship in the coming months/years, if we learn the right lessons of the DJT elections. That doesn’t mean throwing the vulnerable overboard. That does mean recognizing that progress is a slog and that we have to get enough people on board to make that progress. If that means being fire-breathing liberals to get disillusioned liberals to turn out – fine. If that means emphasizing compromise and tacking toward the center to get more normies to vote for us – fine. If that means doing both at the same time, in different areas of the country – fine. Bringing evidence to discussion about proposed various paths is helpful to the conversation.
“Just win, baby!” – N. Pelosi.
“Purity kills.” – me.
In general, I don’t think beating up on our people is a good move, especially not when the country is so closely divided. They’re trying to find a path forward like the rest of us. AOC’s path is not going to be the same as Spanberger’s path is not going to be the same as Warnock’s path is not going to be the same as Gallego’s path is not going to be the same as Fetterman’s path. I also don’t think that the obvious lesson of a close election is to drop everything and move farther left everywhere. I don’t like it, but maybe we still are a “center-right” country in too many places and we have to find a way to make progress in that environment. Let’s look at the evidence and think carefully about what we do moving forward.
And let’s hear about Wikler’s, MOM’s, and all the rest of the candidates for DNC Chair positions on where the emphasis should be.
FWIW.
Thanks again.
Best wishes,
Scott.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@hrprogressive: Hey, don’t know where you live, but since you’re constantly being challenged about having a third party, I suggest you study how New York handles third parties, and specifically the Working Families Party. They’re a way for people to have protest votes, primary challenges, etc., while not “throwing away a vote”. AOC is a member and promoter of WFP. (DSA disavowed her.)
If you’re interested, of course, not a command from on high.
John S.
@@mistermix.bsky.social:
I called Rep. Schrier’s office the day of that DAA vote and told her staff how displeased I was with her vote and why.
They were very receptive to the feedback.
artem1s
He did not have to vote on that. He was not in the Senate. None of them voted to start a war. The whole thing was a dog and pony show by the GOP. No one was going to vote against holding a known terrorist aligned country accountable for developing WMD’s after 9/11 and W and Cheney both knew it. No one knew W and Darth were planning on making shit up about WMDs. They all knew that 5 different inspectors had reported there were no WMD’s in Iraq.
Obama never had to make the hard decision to throw his political career out the window and risk being primaried like everyone else did. He threw all those who were in office under the boat when he campaigned on his ‘very brave decision’ to oppose it in a speech two years after the fact.
suzanne
@@mistermix.bsky.social: OK, well, I’m quite a bit younger than you, then.
But, honestly, it’s a thing I still think about. And I have been roasted here for saying that I don’t identify as a Democrat — though I have always been a registered Dem since my 18th birthday — but the Iraq invasion is why I don’t describe myself that way to people, as a rule. Too many Democrats shit the bed on this, when it really mattered, and I want to be more specific about myself.
RaflW
I know it’s a rearguard action now, but I just called my two MN Senators (at their district offices) and left very cranky — respectful but mad — voicemails (with zip code & phone number) upon seeing that they voted to f*ck over the trans kids of military families.
“Where’s your fight?” I asked. “Rolling over on this will just embolden Republicans to further attack vulnerable people.” And the Minnesota-devastating “I am extremely disappointed in you for this.” I even noted that Tammy Baldwin over in WI had the guts to vote no.
I’d encourage others to do the same. Vote tally is here. Democrats need to hear that we’re pissed and that we’ve got trans people’s backs, even if these perfidious knuckle-unders don’t.
I’ve been saying, we need to provide spine stiffeners. Both encouragement before, and a swift swat on the nose for mistakes after. Go pick up the phones, please!
different-church-lady
The compulsive defensive crouch of Democrats started over the summer and has now gotten entrenched due to the election results. Except for a handful (Warren and AOC come to mind) they’ve embraced the inner-narrative of the abused. And they don’t seem to understand the electorate is responding to that projection of weakness, creating a feedback loop.
Chris
@@mistermix.bsky.social:
The other thing to remember is, when the consultant class and pretty much anybody in Official Washington looks for someone to blame, the scapegoat they settle on is always, always, going to be “the left,” “the progressives,” and whatnot, and their proposed solution is always going to be “we need to back off from these extreme ideas,” whatever the hell the idea may currently be.
Fair Economist
@Old School: I think the media is running is running its usual “split the Democrats by ignoring most of them” routine. 498 Democratic officials do the right thing; 2 don’t; the mainstream media talks about nobody but those 2; the outrage squad says “Democrats are betraying us”
And Republicans benefit.
Ramona
@RaflW: That seems to be a vote on reauthorizing a wildlife habitat bill.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@artem1s: The AUMF (Iraq War resolution) was effective October 16, 2022.
The following is a transcript of the remarks then-Sen. Barack Obama delivered in Chicago on Oct. 2, 2002. In his speech, Obama said that what he was opposed to was “a dumb war … a rash war.” He said the war was a “cynical attempt” to shove “ideological agendas down our throats” and would distract from domestic problems such as poverty and health care.
He was right from the start, and he made his political career by being right.
hrprogressive
@@mistermix.bsky.social:
I’m in southeastern Virginia.
We don’t really have anything like that here.
I’m very tempted to try and run for an office myself as next to impossible as it might be for an actual working class person, but I don’t know yet.
Not giving away my specific CD here at the moment but yeah.
I just don’t know.
I wish “we” could more effectively use things like the internet to get people like me and younger to give a shit.
I am worried that the party machine is probably too much to overcome without some sort of “Black Swan Event”.
So I know I have a lot to say and not much to offer at the moment.
I would maybe like to change that.
I have my own personal demons in the way too, so. It’s hard.
Anyway.
I do appreciate your posts a lot, so.
Thanks again.
matt
@Chris: To me it’s pretty obvious that when Biden gifted Harris with his awesome campaign operation that’s what sunk her campaign.
Chris
@Trivia Man:
This kind of logic would’ve led Republicans to dump Trump in 2016, because everybody “knew” he was going to lose.
You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.
different-church-lady
@Fair Economist: Yes, exactly on the nose: it’s the “Some Democrats” ploy. No matter what the issue, “The Some Democrats” have a problem with it.
Ramona
@Chris: We cannot know if a Republican nominee besides Trump would have won in 2016.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Back when Markos started DK (many of us got started at the same time along with long-departed bloggers like Steve Gilliard and Doghouse Riley), he frequently talked about living in the “Single Issue Ghetto” space.
He also talked about electing “More and Better Democrats”, that aimed primarily at our problem as a party with Dems that voted to support the Iraq war or Blue Dogs.
We’re still dealing with that as a party although the Blue Dogs (Socially Liberal/Fiscally Conservative but yunno, ‘Democrats’), while smaller in numbers, have a successor group, “New Liberals”, that from a policy standpoint, suck (and numerous people here push) so it’s always a tough balancing act and why we had to deal with the electoral repercussions like Manchin and Sinema, hated em but needed em.
It’s a reason why many of us are not silent about policy crap that gets pushed by various flavors of the left (nationally and in here) that ultimately, hurt the party. It’s a way of not getting sucked into the ‘Single Issue Ghetto’ and an attempt to elect “Better” rather than “More” Dems.
It’s why when I see crap statements from somebody like Booker, it reminds me of the nuances we all deal with when voting and just how much nose-holding eventually happens.
Ah, to be a normie.
Mistermix: Denver meetup will be a good one!
Lobo
Thanks. I agree with you. One thing is to make people realize that the election resulted from a many factors, most structural:
Each of these was not determinant but together was enough. I am using this quote to help guide me, When we can’t change the world, we must change how we engage with it. By changing how we engage, we can then make the changes necessary.
Chris
@Geminid:
I’m not holding my breath.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Looking forward to it! Glad our Xmas travel worked out so we could be back in town. Thanks for hosting!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Chris:
Ah, Hippie Punching. Never gets old.
//
Baud
I think our positions on many issues are minority positions. But I don’t claim any special knowledge.
Melancholy Jaques
The OP does not agree that it was only racism and sexism that caused us to lose this election, but without those things, every presidential election since 1992 would have been a Democratic landslide. We struggle to break even because racism and sexism make about half the country completely impervious to any factual description of the economy or the world. Policies make no difference to them. You can save their jobs and their pensions and they are still going to vote for Republicans because we Democrats are the party of blacks & women & LGBTQ & push 2 for Spanish & everything they hate about changes in professional sports.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@hrprogressive: Hope you are able to engage with your local party in some way that’s fulfilling to you. From personal experience, it can be great or it can suck, but when it’s great, it’s really a lot of fun. Even losing campaigns can give you the feeling that you did something.
Baud
@Fair Economist:
Agree.
zhena gogolia
@Melancholy Jaques: Right.
zhena gogolia
@Fair Economist: Also right.
John S.
@Baud:
Would you mind naming a couple of those minority positions?
The polling (as much as it can be believed) generally portrays most Democratic positions as very popular with Americans.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@Melancholy Jaques:
This is true, and the party that is for change and inclusion struggles with it. But there are other factors than race and sexism, as @Lobo points out above.
Kay
They now have a poll that says most people oppose turning the country over to Elon Musk so maybe that will buck them up.
The Democratic base opposed the Iraq war and (still) supports trans rights because the Democratic base has always been where Democratic values actually reside.
You’re “the Democrats”. A thing is the sum of its parts. Uphold our values whether they do or not. We’ve done it before without them.
different-church-lady
@Chris: I think it would be extremely helpful if “the left”/”the progressives” were much smarter at understanding MAGA has become extremely skilled at weaponizing every tiny bit of progressive belief. We (they*) need to be much much smarter about how our (their?) vision of progress gets represented in the media. (I’m specifically thinking about “Defund the Police”).
Yeah, it means threading a needle that asymmetrically unfair, as usual, but it’s a reality we have to face.
(*I only say “they” because we here aren’t the ones in charge of the messaging. Not trying to point fingers.)
Baud
@John S.:
Immigration.
National security
Policing and crime
Defense
Economy
Immigration and border
Billionaires
Federal taxes and regulation
Of course, these are broad categories, and any poll on specific issues will make us look better or worse. But I think we lose net voters on the broad categories.
different-church-lady
@Kay:
ALL SALES FINAL, YOU DUMB FUCKS!
UncleEbeneezer
@Old School: Complain In Advance™ is definitely an ethos here.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@John S.:
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/democrats-culture-war-messaging/
Good question. My knee jerk reaction was Immigration but then, half the time I don’t know how articulate the Party’s position is on immigration.
The above piece does the usual “working class” angle while leaving out the “white” word that should preface that label.
different-church-lady
@UncleEbeneezer: Still better than comply in advance, I suppose.
TBone
Via the Blogfather:
Hope Is Not a Bird, Emily, It’s a Sewer Rat
by Caitlin Seida
Hope is not the thing with feathers
That comes home to roost
When you need it most.
Hope is an ugly thing
With teeth and claws and
Patchy fur that’s seen some shit.
It’s what thrives in the discards
And survives in the ugliest parts of our world,
Able to find a way to go on
When nothing else can even find a way in.
It’s the gritty, nasty little carrier of such
diseases as
optimism, persistence,
Perseverance and joy,
Transmissible as it drags its tail across
your path
and
bites you in the ass.
Hope is not some delicate, beautiful bird,
Emily.
It’s a lowly little sewer rat
That snorts pesticides like they were
Lines of coke and still
Shows up on time to work the next day
Looking no worse for wear.
Thank you, J.C., for this, which I trot out privately every now and again. Today is a good day for publicity.
Jeffro
Doc Zoom quotes that Bouie piece I noted in the last thread (and includes a gift link to it)
I highly recommend reading the whole thing.
Citizen Alan
I normally hate the expression “holding our powder dry,” but I make an exception for it now, which is why I’m not angry (too much) at Dems for not being aggressive opposition. Trump’s not even in office yet, and several of his Cabinet picks have been embarrassing fiascos. It is entirely possible that the GOP will go through another Speakership crisis if Pastor Mike pisses off too many Freakshow Caucus members between now and then. I can understand the attitude of “hold off on opposition now so the Republicans who all hate each other don’t have someone to unify against and wait until they actually try to pass something.”
Personally, I refuse to worry about Shitgibbon’s cabinet nominations. He will not nominate anyone who is not bad for America. Because only people who hate America would agree to work for him.
different-church-lady
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
“We’ve abandoned the battlefield. Why aren’t we winning?”
Geminid
@@mistermix.bsky.social: I’ll be interested to see how New York’s working Families Party handles the City Mayoral race this Spring.
I’m just glad I can look at that one from a distance. City Democrats will have plenty to think about, and I’m thankful it’s them and not me.
hrprogressive
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Not specifically limited to DK, but, notice how “More and Better” rapidly transitioned into the “Resistance Twitter” ecosphere of “Vote Blue no Matter Who!!!”?
The idea became that “collective we” just needed to shunt as many people who had a (D) next to their name in every office possible, and we’d sort out shit like policy later.
This, and the collective focus on “Zomg Trump Bad!!” did nothing to persuade voters who aren’t terminally online and just notice life kinda sucks for them.
There are so many postmortems that could be done over the last 25 years or so, it’s hard to rehash it all here, but not actually working to Elect people who give a damn about their constituency instead of the donor class would certainly be part of it.
Betty Cracker
I don’t disagree with anything you said, but I suspect I’m less alarmed than you are by post-election developments so far (among Dems, I mean). I think we’ll have better data and stronger resolve soon. People are still rocked. I know I am.
Baud
I’ll repost my comment from earlier. Not sure what this means for trans rights and the left side of the party
different-church-lady
@hrprogressive:
Biden’s inability to solve human greed was the fatal flaw.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Same. It’s like with Trump. I’m less interested in the posturing. More interested in seeing the action.
I don’t need to be inspired by politicians.
Kay
@artem1s:
Twenty one Democrats in the Senate voted against Iraq, and two Independents. More than a hundred voted against it in the House. Somehow certain people manage to do what’s right no matter how much they’re bullied by Republicans and media.
They’re “the Democrats” too.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
Another position we’re a minority on.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I read the article linked on bsky (Tex Trib, I think?), and Casar is NOT saying Dems should abandon inclusion.
Gretchen
One thing I find maddening is that a bunch of those early-2000s bloggers were right all along, but big media is still booking the dummies who were wrong all along: Bill Kristol, David Brooks, Nicole Wallace, Joe and Mika, and worse, people like Rick Wilson who built the present-day Republican Party in all its wrongness and venality.
People who were yelling that the Iraq War was a bloody mistake in 2002 are still toiling in obscurity on blogs and podcasts: Marcy Wheeler, Driftglass and Blue Gal, No More Mister Nice Blog, and others. They were right about that and everything else all along, but they say things Big Media doesn’t want to hear.
I was a housewife in Kansas and I could tell invading Iraq while the weapons inspectors were still saying they hadn’t found anything was a horrible mistake, but the big names were all cowed into agreement.
different-church-lady
@Baud: It’s becoming increasingly obvious to me that we have a much deeper politics-as-entertainment problem than anyone has yet recognized. Trump is creating a cabinet like he’s casting a reality TV show, and the press is eating it up the same way reality TV creates a modern freak show for consumption by imbeciles.
.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
The data on Latinos looks better than we were told. Harris is going to end up the same as Biden there, in terms of split but not turnout. We didn’t lose them, they just didn’t come out.
Baud
It’s emotionally safer to be angry at Dems all the time. If they end up prevailing, you can say you made it possible by holding their feet to the fire. If they don’t, you can say you were right not to trust them all along.
cain
@John S.:
It comes down to the Dem being the only adult party but they certainly aren’t perfect. So I think some folks are worried about things splitting part and we need to focus on unity.
Or sometimes this stuff causes anxiety. Not sure. Eveyeones triggers are different.
John S.
@Baud:
Thanks! That’s an awful lot of topics to work with.
There’s definitely some there which we get our asses handed on, but there’s some room for nuance in others.
I wish we could find a way to successfully hit Republicans on topics where they are perceived to be on the “winning” side (e.g. Immigration, Security, Economy). Turn their strengths into weaknesses.
cain
@Baud: I have successfully don’t this against the Baud-First party.
Kay
@Gretchen:
Ooof. When they admitted they didn’t read the classified material they were given access too. Half a million dead Iraqi civilians.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Wel, that’s good that he’s not saying it. He probably can’t out loud. But he has to implement his strategy somehow, and Republicans will certainly be talking about trans people. As with everyone else, we’ll see.
West of the Rockies
Republicans deserve the lion’s share of blame. Democrats and the American people were lied to: WMD’s.
different-church-lady
@Baud: Speaking of being in the minority: I suspect you’d be with me on this, I’m much more concerned that the people in charge of my country and society aren’t insane, incompetent and filled with hate than I am with being self-satisfied by my own beliefs and predictions.
But then again, I’m not some kind of internet star.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
From what I can tell, the audience loves it too, even if it’s a hate love.
NotMax
@@mistermix.bsky.social
You been living under a rock?
Vociferous opposition doesn’t receive the breadth of coverage and dissemination it ought but that doesn’t mean it isn’t taking place. I’ve certainly seen and heard plenty, and it will keep being expounded now through nomination hearings. But one has to actively seek it out.
The sclerotic old school MSM sticking their collective fingers in their ears and chanting “na na na, can’t hear you” is the crux of the problem.
Another Scott
@@mistermix.bsky.social: Eh? Obama took office as a senator on January 3, 2005.
Best wishes,
Scott.
different-church-lady
@West of the Rockies:
Democrats have a responsibility to sniff out the lies.
John S.
@cain:
I hate that analogy because it’s so apt. Nobody blames the toddler for breaking shit when the older sibling gets the blame for not stopping them.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
Yeah, I hate predictions. Even mine are bunk. I especially hate people who treat their predictions as events that have already occured.
rikyrah
@Gretchen:
The MSM was all in.
See their anger at Biden for pulling out of Afghanistan
Old Man Shadow
@hrprogressive: I honestly have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.
Harris ran on policy. Harris ran on policies that would help Americans.
Biden did more for labor and the middle class than any president in fifty years.
That he did not usher in a socialist utopia does not mean he did nothing. Democrats did the best they could with the majority the voters gave them.
cain
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Because not centering white working class men is a political loser.
That’s why the 90s Dems spent a lot of time chasing this demographic. But the apparently Latinos, Indians and Asians are also not happy that we are not centering white working class either and distracted by LGBTQ+ issues.
rikyrah
@different-church-lady:
All the while their ratings are cratering because the people that would be their audience hold THEM responsible for us having the Orange Menace back.
different-church-lady
@NotMax: MSM is at a point where they will only amplify the most dramatic or unusual. Man Bites Dog is the only thing they will bother with anymore.
Starfish (she/her)
@@mistermix.bsky.social: What’s the difference between the WFP and the DSA?
rikyrah
@Baud:
I am SO not buying any Democratic Party that isn’t about INCLUSION.
Inclusion is just saying that you want everyone to be able to live their lives in peace and thrive.
Because, them living their lives in peace is none of my business and doesn’t hurt me at all.
John S.
@NotMax:
The first really full-throated example of pushback that I’ve seen came from Sen. Warren with regard to Musk and his massive conflicts of interest. I have been looking high and low for more examples (because the MSM loves them some Dems in disarray), but I’m not really finding them.
If you have some other examples, I would sure love to see them!
tobie
I feel like the left wing of the party spent the past four years bitching about Biden for things beyond his control like SCOTUS’s decision in Dobbs to SCOTUS’s overturning of his (IMO wise) student debt relief program to a Republican Congress refusing to consider anything Democrats proposed.
Was he perfect? No. Was he old? Yes. Did he stand up for labor? Yes. Did he try to do something about climate change? Yes. Did inflation happen under his watch? Yes. Was it exclusive to the US? No. Did wage growth outpace inflation? Yes. Did he preside over a revival in US manufacturing? Yes.
The fact that he got no credit for any of the above outrages me. I’m not keen on Dems singing kumbaya with Republicans but I will wait till the new Congress is seated before working myself up into a lickspittle rage. Life’s short. I’ve got my own wounds to lick.
ETA: Oops. Old Man Shadow said it better at #84.
KatKapCC
@Baud: The fact that any Democrat has the gall to label people’s right to fucking live as “culture wars” is repugnant.
RaflW
Update: Sen. Smith’s office staff called me back. He did say that Tina co-sponsored an amendment to strip the anti-trans part from the bill. To which I said, “well then she should have voted no on the main bill when her amendment failed.” I again pointed out that Tammy Baldwin, who just won with a much narrower margin, voted no.
And I talked with him about how MN Democrats have done a lot of work to position MN as a trans refuge state. Having both MN Senators vote to strip TriCare coverage from family members seeking gender care definitely weakens the messaging potential of us as a refuge state. I emphasized that this is just the beginning and what is the senator going to do next to protect trans people.
(I also got a callback from Rep. Angie Craig’s staff a while back on a different bad vote. In both cases I called the local/regional offices. I feel like the D.C. numbers are of course important but tend to just be tally sheet calls.)
rikyrah
@Old Man Shadow:
Best President in my lifetime, and that shocked the shyt out of me.
different-church-lady
@tobie: I feel like the left wing of the party never really wanted Biden in the first place, so they just didn’t put any effort in to having his back.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@NotMax: Cite some examples other than Elizabeth Warren. I’ve been looking.
KatKapCC
@Betty Cracker: But then what does “culture wars” even mean? TikTok? Taylor Swift? Stanley cups?
Starfish (she/her)
@hrprogressive: If you are being serious in considering a run, Run For Something is out there to help younger progressives organize campaigns.
https://runforsomething.net/
KatKapCC
@Another Scott: He was a state senator before that.
tobie
@different-church-lady: Could well be. And the antipathy toward him ended up spilling over into antipathy toward Harris. How much rage/disgust with Dems was generated on social media is something future researchers will need to explore.
rikyrah
@cain:
What is centering them?
Telling them that we’ll go back to the time where all you had to be was WHITE to get a job?
Back to the delusional days of Mad Men.
They were never big fish in a big pond.
They were fish in a pond where all the other fish were locked away in sardine cans.
But, now, the cans are open and they have to compete like everyone else.
I’m supposed to care and center muthaphuckas who are basically mad that this country passed two pieces of legislation that made me the FIRST PERSON IN MY FAMILY BORN WITH FULL RIGHTS IN AMERICA.
I didn’t get anymore rights than them.
Just the full rights that my ancestors SHOULD have gotten when the Civil War ended.
SO, center those uneducated racist muthaphuckas?
No. I don’t think so.
KatKapCC
@Starfish (she/her): 7 points in Scrabble.
@mistermix.bsky.social
Here’s a fuller quote from Rep Casar, new head of the progressive caucus. Seems clear to me.
Kay
I hope the base stays engaged on opposition to GOP priorities, with or without elected Democrats. The early aughts were the most unified and organized D base in my lifetime.We all sort of settled on “nonnegotiables” – our nonnegotiables, not theirs.
We can do that again.
Replicate that and we’ll have an opposition.
Baud
@@mistermix.bsky.social:
Not that clear to me. How do you implement not talking about immigration or trans issues?
KatKapCC
@@mistermix.bsky.social: I mean…sure, that sounds better. But even still, I’m not wholly comfortable with using trans rights simply as an economic political football. They should be defended because it is the right thing to do, not so we can score pundit points with a cutesy “trans people didn’t deny your insurance claim” soundbite.
Lyrebird
Thank you.
MisterMix, I want to say with respect, bc I appreciate your work and your thoughts. FWIW the way you posted about this the first time…
was so devoid of balance, so lacking in any beyond-straw-man attempt to get to know Connolly’s record, and with no pushback that I saw on commenters saying oh he’s worse than a MAGA person bc whatever…
I stepped away from it, probably a good choice, but in my head was, “what happened to training your fire on the enemy?”
People act like “the Dem establishment” is a unified thing that’s sitting there withholding power from younger aspiring leaders on purpose… Acting like this is somehow true ends up giving the young adult new-voter types I work with wrong impressions that get in the way of their taking effective action. I agree that we have to keep pushing, but I am THRILLED with my Dem Rep.
For myself, I will keep checking in to BJ to see how @Betty Cracker: is faring and admire people’s pet photos, but I think I need to take a big step back from trying to have policy/approach conversations on these threads for my own ability to stay effective.
different-church-lady
@@mistermix.bsky.social:
Biden effiin’ did that. He just couldn’t convince anyone it actually happened.
NotMax
@,different-church-lady
They’ve upped the ante to Trans Bites Dog.
//
.
Anecdote from a long ago journalism class.
Reporter being chastised by the TV news producer: “About the story on the burning orphanage. How come the flames on Channel 8 were higher than on your coverage?”
Reporter: “Maybe, but the nuns in my report were crying.”
Starfish (she/her)
@Baud: I don’t think that the Democrats really were focused on the culture wars. I think the Republicans were very focused on framing the Democrats as if they were completely focused on the culture wars.
tobie
@@mistermix.bsky.social: Wasn’t Harris’s entire campaign about bringing down the prices of groceries, lowering rent, increasing the housing inventory, helping first time home buyers, raising wages for working people, reintroducing the Child Tax Credit, bring down the price of Rx drugs, using Medicare to cover eldercare, strengthening Soc Sec?
In short, her whole campaign centered on the needs of working people. Rep Casar’s prescription for Dems seems like the Dem platform in 2024. That quote “Dems should change course…” when all Casar’s doing is rehashing Harris’s priorities bothers me to no end.
Baud
@Starfish (she/her):
I agree. We had a good balance. But people don’t listen to us. They listen to what other people say about us.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@Starfish (she/her):
The DSA are socialists and have the agenda of socialists. I don’t know much about them other than seeing them hand out newspapers at the Rochester Pubic Market.
The Working Families Party is basically a more left wing version of the Democratic Party. Democrats normally (not always) run on both the WFP line and the Democratic line. They pick and choose their battles where they’ll primary a Democrat. The Democratic Party in NY has, shall we say, a few issues.
different-church-lady
@KatKapCC: I’m seeing it more as redirection: “You’re frustrated. Focus your frustration on the right thing, the thing that’s actually winding you up, not the thing this manipulator is telling you to.”
John S.
@KatKapCC:
I also do not consider a human being’s right to exist a “culture issue”.
Another Scott
@KatKapCC: Yes. But artem1s’s point at #20 – that he didn’t have to make a hard choice on the actual vote for the AUMF – still stands.
Obama made the right call, and that’s good and important, but it was easy for him as he wasn’t in the US Senate at the time.
That is all.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Barbara
I suppose that means there is 100% agreement that the most important thing anyone can do, left right or center, is criticize Democrats. That has just worked out so well for us this year! Yes, let’s keep it going!
Getting to the end of my rope here. I actually don’t like Doc Zoom (of all the writers at Wonkette, I think he is among the weakest).
@tobie: Yes, +1000
rikyrah
@Baud:
I dunno.
But, if you give an inch on trans…you DO understand that trans is their gateway to bringing back the horrible old days for LGBTQIA+ folks when I was growing up.
For those suggesting this…
THEY WILL NEVER STOP AT TRANS.
TRANS ARE ONLY A MEANS TO AN END…They want to roll back EVERYTHING that has been accomplished for the LGBTQIA+ Community.
EVERY PHUCKING THING.
The immigration situation will take care of itself. We have too many in the
” he’s not talking about me”
group. And, they will have to rolled up on and rolled on out of here for them to understand:
a) YES, he was talking about you
b) You are not White
c) They don’t consider ANY of you ‘ the good ones’
The one thing about being Black in America, and them instituting the ‘ one drop rule’. …we know that you’re talking about ALL OF US. We have no such delusion…outside of our Coons. ..and we’ve always been able to keep them to about 10% of our group.
tobie
@Barbara: Don’t go. We need your voice. I always appreciate your comments.
Gretchen
There was a hearing yesterday that was supposed to be about sports gambling but Kennedy and Blackburn hijacked it to berate the NCAA president about trans women in sports. The guy said that there are half a million college athletes, and fewer than 10 are trans women. Why can’t advocates make something of « why are you so obsessed with those 5 players among 500,000? ». AOC drew blood portraying Nancy Mace as a panty-sniffing weirdo, making her deny that she wanted little girls to « drop trou ». I wish everyone else would take a page from that book.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@tobie:
Yep, both Biden and Harris ran on a pretty progressive agenda, and generally the progressives supported them. Whether the support of this agenda was the reason she lost is kind of the debate that’s going on now. Casar is laying down his marker that it wasn’t.
KatKapCC
@different-church-lady: Sure, but this is predicated on the belief that people aren’t actually transphobic, they’re just being told to be because of other things they’re upset about.
But transphobia is real, and it is dangerous, and acting like we can sort of pretend it doesn’t exist will only make it more dangerous.
Matt McIrvin
I remember “throw the gays under the bus” after 2004 too. The whole thing was blamed on “values voters” which meant people voting against gay rights and abortion. The outrageous liberal overreach of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts was supposed to have been the trigger that lost it for Kerry. I remember a commenter on the TPM forums who kept following up to every thread about gay rights, saying stuff like “silly lesbian-rights liberals” had lost it for the good old labor left.
But Bush was running on residual 9/11 fumes too.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@Another Scott:
Yep, he was. That was a quick cut/paste from NPR, which was wrong.
KatKapCC
@Another Scott: His stance could well have meant that “state senate” was the furthest his political career would go. Obviously it had the opposite effect, but he had no way to know that at the time.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@different-church-lady:
This is closely to related to the 40+ years of what began under Reagan where we’ve redefined citizens as consumers, in this case the consumer aspect is ratings/clicks, etc.
Lobo
@different-church-lady: I forgot to add as structural issues: President as salesperson/charismatic leader. I also forgot squirrel issues of crime, immigration and inflation(this goes along with info ecosys).
For some reason, Trump is like a bizarro Elvis. His warped charisma attracts a bigger and diverse group than others would.
The better question may be why did he win, instead of why did Harris lose.
John S.
@Barbara:
Why would Democrats criticize anyone other than the people they voted for and who are supposed to represent them??
Republicans don’t give a shit what we think, even if you’re their constituent. So what would be the point?
Barbara
@tobie: I appreciate that and I will still be here, but I am a bit distraught that I am seeing a nearly complete wholesale failure of self-examination and an overabundance of knee-jerk criticism of the kind of stupid comments made by people who are always inclined to make stupid comments.
This isn’t going to make us smarter or result in better strategy.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@Lyrebird:
Come on, I don’t remember anyone saying he’s worse than a MAGA person.
Barbara
@John S.: Yeah, that’s the kind of response that makes it more likely even if only marginally to lose elections.
Because the criticism isn’t AIMED AT THE ACTUAL POLITICIANS. It is aimed at influencing other voters. Is that really so hard to understand?
John S.
@@mistermix.bsky.social:
It’s a tall ask. I’m not sure there are any other examples that exist out there.
Geminid
@@mistermix.bsky.social:
The Working Families Party runs candidates on their own ballot line, but they are often the Democratic candidate whom they’ve endorsed. New York’s unique “Fusion Voting” system makes this a viable party strategy.
Another Scott
@John S.: A better question(s) might be:
How can we get to the outcomes we want? Is it through relentless criticism of people on our team, or is it something else? Does “you suck, now do what I want” actually work?
Best wishes,
Scott.
TBone
@NotMax: good eye
RaflW
@different-church-lady: “The compulsive defensive crouch of Democrats started” when I was a kid. Maybe earlier. How deeply they squat varies, but it’s so baked in I sometimes despair of even being a registered Dem.
I’m wondering what us rank n file schlubs can do to help maybe get the DNC poobahs to vote for Ben Wickler for Chair? That’d restore some modicum of hope for me. But the people who get to vote on that seem like the same entrenched, consultant-swarmed people who slow-walk us into every Chamber-tested centrist ‘compromise’ that’s a 80/20 win for Republicans.
John S.
@Barbara:
I don’t know who you’re shouting at, but MY criticism and that of mistermix and many others (but certainly not all) here is AIMED AT THE ACTUAL POLITICIANS.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@Another Scott:
He risked his career and future to make that point, loud and proud.
The notion that the vote on the AUMF was in some special category of political risk, so very hard, and every other form of opposition to the war, by extension, wasn’t as difficult or risky, was a talking point adopted by the Democrats who made the wrong vote, as a way to justify their wrong vote and lack of judgment/courage.
I’ll never accept that, and therefore I didn’t vote for Clinton or Biden in the primary because of their AUMF votes.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Just like the post-2004 debate about whether Democrats had somehow gone too far on gay rights and abortion, the whole discourse tends to ignore that the other side can make stuff salient by harping on it.
Voters thought that Harris cared more about trans rights than about their concerns because Trump and Vance were telling them so, not because of anything Harris did.
Haters can gin up hate against whatever group they want to stigmatize, and then if you just don’t join in the hate, you “care more about this marginal minority than about regular folks who are hurting, what is wrong with you?” This is how it works. You can cringe and back down all you want and you’ll never neutralize this issue unless you become a hater.
rikyrah
Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) posted at 8:44 AM on Wed, Dec 18, 2024:
“Now, Trump is preparing to follow Bush’s example once again. He and his billionaire cronies are making strong signals that he’ll begin his second term by attacking Social Security, mirroring a political disaster Bush brought upon the GOP.” https://t.co/wRRmo2jGU1
(https://x.com/atrupar/status/1869393389885731125?t=uz4lys1Ofti_hP6s646rOA&s=03)
New Deal democrat
@Kay:
Do you have a link for this? Not being critical; I just would like to read the information, because I think it is very important.
John S.
@Another Scott:
My job is going in and cleaning up other people’s fintech messes. I would never get the outcome desired without performing root cause analysis, and figuring out where things went wrong and why. So a big part of that is holding people accountable for their actions.
What you’re describing is destructive criticism. And no, that doesn’t work. But constructive criticism is appropriate, and sometimes it actually helps!
RaflW
@Ramona: That’s some weird parliamentary shit.
different-church-lady
@tobie:
Seems like Casar is addressing a messaging problem, not a platform problem.
Ole phat Stu
I started blogging in 2002 . but here in Europe it was not so political as yall in usa. See how it goes with 47 ???
Melancholy Jaques
Anybody going to mention the terrible horrible, no good, very bad day happening on Wall Street? I guess I just did!
They’re going to blame Biden somehow, right?
@mistermix.bsky.social
@Baud:
Hmm, I thought it was a pretty basic politics 101 pivot. I’ll paraphrase it for you, it’s a two stepper.
Statement of support: “We will not throw our allies, trans people, under the bus.”
Pivot to criticize: “But remember that all the focus on our allies is just a distraction from what I really want to talk about and what they don’t want to talk about.”
Baud
@@mistermix.bsky.social:
That’s great if you don’t have anyone else saying anything. If you have to be in a conversation with people, that’s going to sound hollow.
ETA: It also means no progressive will affirmatively advocate for culture war issues, including trans issues.
Barbara
@Another Scott: Yeah, it’s a bummer, the degree to which the country is not exactly awash in progressive idealism, especially when it comes to gender.
To provide but one example, I think that many people are missing the gender based appeal of going after transgender persons — basically, no one cares about she to he transgender persons — they are definitely caught in the crossfire and will be hurt — but whether it’s sports, restrooms, etc., the focus of the moral panic is almost solely on he to she transgender persons.
Once again, even with this we are missing perhaps one of the biggest drivers of this issue — that there is a bedrock, core belief that controlling the feminine including if necessary controlling females and female experience is a legitimate societal endeavor.
File it under the category of “How to discriminate against women while pretending that all you are really doing is protecting them.”
It grieves me greatly that so many women buy this line of reasoning, but many do.
Birdie
@Baud: This take is accurate. It’s why Palestine protesters targeted Harris and Green New Deal people protested Pelosi.
It’s safe to talk back because Mommy will still love you.
Another Scott
@@mistermix.bsky.social:
The speech was barely noticed at the time he gave it.:
Again, he made the right call. But the fact remains that he was not under the kinds of pressure that sitting Democratic senators were at the time.
FWIW.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Another Scott
@RaflW: Yup. And it’s an illustration why having people who understand how complicated systems actually work is important.
Similarly, Obamacare started life as “Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009”. They take a bill that has made it through one of the Houses, strip the contents, and put in the text of the must-pass legislation to get it through the rest of the process.
Best wishes,
Scott.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@Baud:
Well, perhaps if Casar was having a conversation over a beer with you and me, it would sound hollow.
Casar was not in a conversation. He was in an interview. The interviewer wanted to make the whole thing about trans rights (and probably other hot button issues).
Casar wanted to get his message out.
Casar was asked about trans issues and he gave a statement of support and then he pivoted to explain that trans issues are a distraction from the issue he wanted to talk about.
This is what every politician does in a hostile interview, which is every mainstream media interview with a Democrat.
Casar’s on the record on trans rights:
https://www.austinchronicle.com/columns/2024-06-21/opinion-the-right-wing-is-attacking-queer-and-trans-americans-to-distract-from-their-bigger-agenda/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTHR2r9d6rA
Baud
@@mistermix.bsky.social:
I hope he can pull it off.
Martin
@Melancholy Jaques: I mean, the Fed is forecasting the thing that is obvious to forecast with a president talking about broad tariffs. That investors are surprised by this just reveals how little they understand this stuff.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@Barbara:
Have you seen AOC’s response: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKmDSh1H6Kg
I think she’s on the same point.
Martin
@Baud: Democrats can’t win a culture war that the right sets the rules of.
Democrats should engage in a class war that they set the rules of.
Lyrebird
@@mistermix.bsky.social:
Maybe there was an “almost” – I’m in a work crunch and an elder-parent issue crunch, so I was reading quickly. Must get back to grading now or I would go search.
More important:
Whether or not you’ll read this, thanks for considering what I said.
KatKapCC
@@mistermix.bsky.social:
And do you think this would make a trans person feel supported and seen and protected? Does this sound like someone who will always have their backs? Does this sound like full-throated support for a tiny group of people who are being demonized and attacked and who, in some parts of the country, can barely even exist in public safely?
This is not support. This is merely non-demonization. That is not enough.
Baud
@Martin:
I don’t think a class war will be successful, but others of good faith disagree, and it’s not my call. I’m not going to run away if that’s the course they choose to take.
ETA: Under current circumstances. If Trump destroys everything, who knows?
@mistermix.bsky.social
@Another Scott:
And, under pressure, they made a massive mistake. In sports, I believe that’s called “choking” and they would be taken off the field. In the military, they would have been demoted. But in politics, they made excuse after weak excuse for sending a bunch of kids to their death for a pointless war.
Obama had the right instincts right away. He did not fail.
The people that minimize Obama’s correct decision have an agenda, the same agenda that encouraged bloggers to shut up and not criticize the Democrats who failed, to not say that they should have resigned in shame for the death that occurred on their watch.
I was there, I remember.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@KatKapCC: I posted his full-throated support of trans folk above. Read the link and watch the video.
A politician has a limited amount of time in a hostile interview. I’m not going to ding him for a basic pivot.
suzanne
@Another Scott:
I’m sorry. My response is: so what?!
We elect these people to do the right thing when shit gets difficult. That’s literally the job. They are well-compensated for it. The worst thing that would have happened to any of them is that they lost their subsequent election and they had to become a normal working stiff like you and me.
Voting for the AUMF was a failure and a betrayal.
rikyrah
Art Candee 🍿🥤 (@ArtCandee) posted at 2:02 PM on Tue, Dec 17, 2024:
Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett torched MAGA Reps like James Comer and Gym Jordan pushing lies about the Bidens:
“How did not a single House Republican or their staff catch the significant inconsistencies and lies within Mr. Smirnov’s story in nearly two years of congressional investigations?”
Methinks because they’re lying clowns.
https://t.co/fFtWN9apmX
(https://x.com/ArtCandee/status/1869110879318331504?t=ma5K0Kf_hsLu3xrzofRtPg&s=03)
RaflW
@Another Scott: We’ve seen some very wild “delete all” bill replacements in the MN Legislature. It’s amazing (good and bad) what a body with [cough] “rules” can do when they really want to.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@Lyrebird:
As I recall, People were divided between its ageism to be against Connolly vs promote the better communicator (AOC). I didn’t see anyone make Connolly the enemy, just question whether he was healthy enough to do the job. Anyway, good luck with your responsibilities…
rikyrah
Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) posted at 8:44 AM on Wed, Dec 18, 2024:
“Now, Trump is preparing to follow Bush’s example once again. He and his billionaire cronies are making strong signals that he’ll begin his second term by attacking Social Security, mirroring a political disaster Bush brought upon the GOP.” https://t.co/wRRmo2jGU1
(https://x.com/atrupar/status/1869393389885731125?t=S91o6pLjnxM95nY1tbodOg&s=03)
scary lawyerguy (@scarylawyerguy) posted at 9:23 AM on Wed, Dec 18, 2024:
My unpopular opinion is that this has a much better chance of succeeding b/c 1) gerrymandering largely shields Rs from any political consequences and 2) the right wing media ecosystem is 10x what it was 20 yrs ago and will sell this to their dupes. Mainstream outlets will shrug.
(https://x.com/scarylawyerguy/status/1869403074642739423?t=y7la8lLGzwsja9NdaiYyuA&s=03)
@mistermix.bsky.social
@John S.:
I’m re-tweeting/skeeting (hate that word) ones I find. In addition to Warren, Chris Murphy did a good job defending Liz Cheney, and Maxwell Frost is always fire. But Frost is definitely not a party elder.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
In 2009 marriage equality advocates disrupted the annual Daily Kos convention and shouted down a Senator. Many on Balloon Juice were mad because that was supposedly disloyal to Democrats.
Aren’t you glad we didn’t abandon marriage equality and instead the base bucked up the Democratic Party and said “these are our values. Now you follow us – we’ll lead”
tam1MI
Maybe it was that way amongst the rank and file, but it wasn’t left wing elected Dems who ousted Biden. It was moderates. Elected Dems on the left stood strong for him.
KatKapCC
@@mistermix.bsky.social: I did read it, and I responded to you:
If you think this is full-throated, 100%, undying support, then you have a lot to learn about what support for trans folks really means.
rikyrah
Daniel Goldman (@danielsgoldman) posted at 2:04 PM on Wed, Dec 18, 2024:
As the shadow Pres-Elect, Elon Musk is now calling the shots for House Rs on government funding while Trump hides in Mar-a-Lago behind his handlers.
It increasingly seems like we’re in for 4 years of an unelected oligarch running the country by pulling on his puppet’s strings.
(https://x.com/danielsgoldman/status/1869473959248593208?s=03)
rikyrah
Christopher Leonard (@CLeonardNews) posted at 6:43 AM on Wed, Dec 18, 2024:
SCOOP: Tyson Foods has subpoenaed two news organizations, demanding they turn over notes and contacts with local farmers whom Tyson Foods put out of business.
I’ve never seen such aggressive subpoenas issued by a major corporation to news media.
https://t.co/akkM1IQPHj
(https://x.com/CLeonardNews/status/1869362778043306164?t=8jw5OpEsVOssM8SDp_z1KQ&s=03)
rikyrah
Because, of course…..
The Halfway Post (@HalfwayPost) posted at 11:17 AM on Wed, Dec 18, 2024:
BREAKING: An extremely MAGA televangelist from Mississippi who claimed faith in Donald Trump as God’s newest prophet was “more powerful than any drug on Earth” just got arrested for running a meth lab in the basement of his church.
(https://x.com/HalfwayPost/status/1869431823706796051?t=RukQgbZrwkGJCFPfjpEnHg&s=03)
rikyrah
uh huh
uh huh
I knew Republicans would co-opt some of @VP Harris’ plans. They were solid and appealed to working class families. So Democrats aka @ChrisMurphyCT you might want to step in here and give credit where credit is due. She was the most family oriented candidate we ever had.
(https://x.com/KMC4wauk/status/1869040719215853655?t=7hkQUCw0TTym02PrK3SBCA&s=03)
rikyrah
scary lawyerguy (@scarylawyerguy) posted at 11:58 AM on Wed, Dec 18, 2024:
This was the goal, dude. The media wants him on air all day, every day b/c they think he’s good for ratings. Biden was a boner killer for their entire business model b/c no one watches cable news to hear about boring, competent governance
(https://x.com/scarylawyerguy/status/1869442241955279145?s=03)
rikyrah
ME TOO
Tim 🇺🇸 (@trouble_man90) posted at 5:12 PM on Mon, Dec 16, 2024:
I continue to grieve the lost time and the lost opportunities over the next four years. Even in the best case scenario where we win the 2028 election, Democrats wont be able to pass any vital legislation until 2029at the earliest. If you count the pass two years of republicans controlling the house, that SIX years of nothing.
People are in need right now and we won’t be able to help. Way too many people on the left are ok with that.
(https://x.com/trouble_man90/status/1868796350927978995?t=hdEIxb2qG0PRlSW70hsJaA&s=03)
rikyrah
Chris D. Jackson (@ChrisDJackson) posted at 0:37 PM on Tue, Dec 17, 2024:
🚨 BREAKING: In a bold move, President Biden just came out in support of a ban on congressional stock trading:
“Nobody in the Congress should be able to make money in the stock market while they’re in the Congress.”
🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 https://t.co/4cEO06JMxl
(https://x.com/ChrisDJackson/status/1869089441723380016?t=pLw-i0Yn9eFdMJCYyLdx3A&s=03)
🇺🇸🦅🎗️🪷 🇺🇦 🇮🇱 Catherine Watching MAGA FAFO (@CMargaronis) posted at 6:24 PM on Tue, Dec 17, 2024:
Joe Biden never has traded stocks while in public office. Absolutely above reproach
GeorgiaPeach Forever46 🇺🇲🦅🇺🇲 (@ChrisFromGA68) posted at 7:33 PM on Tue, Dec 17, 2024:
He pledged in his first senate debate in 1972 never to own stocks or take honoraria. He & Jill have kept that pledge for 52 years
(https://x.com/ChrisFromGA68/status/1869194176220578089?t=MDp7Ma_BXwChChj9Xa0LJA&s=03)
hrprogressive
@Old Man Shadow:
Biden and Harris spent the last couple of years explicitly saying “The economy is doing great” while a lot of poor and working class people were openly saying “Are you serious right now?”
It came across as tone deaf and out of touch.
I keep seeing posters like yourself tout all these great achievements, and I, as another “terminally online left of center person” agree with you.
But “the broader electorate” does not agree, and as such, the vibes weren’t good, and so, they said “Nah, I’m good” and stayed home.
If you wish to blame voters for this, you can.
But blaming voters doesn’t change them into Voters For Your Cause.
Sure, Biden and Co had a hostile, corprofascist media, battling against them.
But how often did they go around touting their own successes?
How often did The Democratic Party go around saying “here’s how we fight and win for you” instead of “Zomg. TRUMP BAD. MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION EVAR!!!! HELLLLLP AND DONATE!!!”?
And now, you have plenty of Democrats coming out and “obeying in advance”.
After spending two years telling voters the GOP and Trump were a threat to the country…now that the election is over, it’s time to make nice?
How are average voters supposed to comprehend that?
rikyrah
Donald Trump is a white DEI hire (@Needle_of_Arya) posted at 5:11 PM on Mon, Dec 16, 2024:
another potential FAFO: elderly Trumpers in hard-to-reach zip codes & addresses who rely on the USPS for their medicine, but so much of the federal agency is privatized that the cost to deliver to those addresses is “prohibitive” from a business perspective cost-benefit analysis
(https://x.com/Needle_of_Arya/status/1868796143846806009?s=03)
rikyrah
hail to the cheeto (@lib_crusher) posted at 4:48 PM on Mon, Dec 16, 2024:
AOC is living the classic upwardly mobile millennial career path-ambitious gunner who thinks getting in on the ground floor, working hard and doing whatever the bosses want will get you a fast track to upper management, only for upper management to refuse to retire
(https://x.com/lib_crusher/status/1868790258181263623?t=BnUbW9IgZNFf55G4BSRdDw&s=03)
NR_Garrett (@NR_Garrett) posted at 6:46 PM on Tue, Dec 17, 2024:
No, she’s the Classic millennial who wants things handed to them. She hasn’t done shit. Lauren Underwood would be a better choice. She’s actually passed bills. Multiple BILLS
AOC has done NOTHING but talk.
(https://x.com/NR_Garrett/status/1869182304851300585?t=1givCdXnnT4u0KpIndQVOQ&s=03)
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: The way I figure it, I have no idea what the correct strategy for a politician who needs to win elections is, but I don’t need to win elections and I’m going to keep advocating what I advocate. Politics is for something.
Trivia Man
@Trivia Man: Actual quote:
“By remaining silent we permit the public to believe that most Republicans condone the senator’s tactics. By remaining silent we lend credence to the view that we prefer to risk losing our freedom than to offend a questionable ‘asset’ to our party.”
@mistermix.bsky.social
@KatKapCC:
Here’s the text of his editorial in the Austin Chronicle. What, exactly, is missing? He supports legislation supporting trans rights, has a track record of doing it in his prior job, marches in support, etc. Is there something else he was supposed to do? Mentioning that the reason for Republican attacks is in part to distract from their agenda is just the truth.
You can’t expect him to repeat this editorial in every interview.
Matt McIrvin
@hrprogressive:
I heard this in 2016 too. The “precariat” weren’t buying the economic happy talk; it seemed out of touch.
The thing is, in 2017, Trump told them “the economy is great!” even though absolutely nothing had changed and suddenly these same people believed him. So, what gives?
Another Scott
@suzanne: I understand why you feel that way.
Made me look at something related. CFR.org (from 2011):
(Emphasis added.)
There were lots and lots of things going on around the time of W’s demand for the AUMF in September-October 2002. Like his father, W was determined to go. The problem wasn’t Democrats voting for it, the problem was W and his minions being determined to go (I don’t believe that any Democrat who voted for the AUMF would have started the policies that lead to it).
The GOP picked up 2 Senate seats and 8 House seats in the November elections.
FWIW. YMMV.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Geminid
@tam1MI: Except for Reps. Lloyd Doggett and Raul Grijalva. Those two Progressive Caucus members called for Biden to step aside early on.
Old Man Shadow
@hrprogressive: Biden literally went around the country showing up for projects funded by his significant legislative achievements.
Biden literally walked a picket line.
Jesus Christ, what the fuck is he supposed to do? Show up at everyone’s job interview or annual review and put in a good word for them?
Bupalos
@Old Man Shadow: I don’t want anger or defiance. I want stuff like the IRA subsidies for heat pumps we passed two plus years ago to get implemented and not have a lot of bullshit lobbyist rules all over them. I want carbon emission lowered. I want gas prices higher. I want fracking operations to stop leaking shit into the water and methane into the air. I want my local school system to start making kids better instead of worse.
You can’t eat resistance or anger, and (with apologies to our opponents) you can’t actually run democratic politics on it for long either. You have to offer to do stuff people belief you can do that they want you to do that makes life better.
The problem with Democrats right now and prior to the election is that we aren’t credibly offering to do much of anything that anyone seems to be motivated by.
Bupalos
@Old Man Shadow: Biden did lots of good stuff. His failing was political communication. There wasn’t really any story that all that stuff fit in, it was posed more as a kind of technocratic “good government” management of the status quo.
i think he really needed a liberal version of “they’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats” deployed at billionaires, the predatory climate-destroying economy, and godbothering busybodies poking around your womb. The stuff he did was never recognized as being aimed at the things people were angry at or afraid of.
Matt McIrvin
@Old Man Shadow: To me, the problem with all explanations of “why people don’t perceive Democratic economic policy as good” in terms of legit perceptions of structural inequality, or Democrats not being progressive enough, is that absolutely none of that explains why they see Republican economics as good. By that theory they ought to see right through supply-side shit, but they don’t.
Kayla Rudbek
@rikyrah: thinking of my approach to trans issues (lapsed Catholic here, I am cis and have certain biases known and unknown so probably getting it wrong, Sister Golden Bear or other trans people here please correct me where I am wrong)
Question for the anti-trans Christian: As a Christian, do you agree that we live in a fallen imperfect physical world where anything that can go wrong will go wrong? (Answer should be yes, if not then you point them at the Gospel where Jesus heals the man born blind).
If we do live in a fallen imperfect world where anything that can go wrong will go wrong, then why isn’t one of those wrong things not having your external organs matching your mind, that is, being born trans? Jesus didn’t tell the blind, the deaf, and the lame (King James version language) to sit down and be content and quiet with how they were born, so why are you doing that to trans people?
Obviously humans aren’t God and we can’t fix everything, but we can at least reduce burdens where we can (get blind people seeing eye dogs, make infrastructure accessible, have sign language interpreters, etc etc etc.). The universe of Star Trek is closer to being the Kingdom of God than anything those right wing nut jobs can come up with.
Martin
@Baud: the problem is that the culture war gets taken up by the media as ‘the thing that matters’ and it puts Democrats in the position of explaining. I think it would be better for Democrats to be on offense, to have a competing ‘thing that matters’, and put the GOP in the position of explaining. Every ‘it’s because of trans people’ should be replied to by ‘says the minister flying around on a $50M private jet – he’s not making your life better, he’s making $50M off of you’.
It doesn’t need to directly convert voters. It just needs to throw the GOP off of their game, and give Democrats a narrative to chase. The problem is that Jerry Fucking Connolly isn’t going to play that tune. So long as Democrats aspire to be Republicans on the economy, Democrats cede the entire narrative space to culture war. Voters care about the economy, but there’s no debate there at all because Democrats have no honest, driving message there.
Martin
@Matt McIrvin: Because there is no democratic economic policy. Harris started out with an outline of one, and that fell away within weeks. You can’t substitute a grab bag of popular incremental efforts for an economic vision.
The underlying economic problem is that workers have no future. If you want to get ahead as a worker, you need to transition, at least in part, to the investor class. The GOP are currently waging a war among the investor class, but workers are just going to get fucked over in that. The Democrats aren’t siding with the workers so much as they are siding with one side of the investor class. That’s where the economic vision needs to be centered, and the policies will emerge naturally once that vision is established.
The reason a lot of us focus on AOC is that she has that vision, and not many Democrats do.
Ruckus
@Martin:
We may say it differently but I think we are believing the same things.
The rethuglican party has once again hired shitforbrains, and I believe it’s because he supposedly has MONEY and hates the same people. But it seems that most of his life he’s done what he seems to always do, bullshit and lie. He comes from money of course, not necessarily well, or reasonably earned, but still in his world money is money. And means far, far more than any amount of humanity, common sense, or any other words or concepts that can describe even shitty humans. He thinks his money makes him GREAT. But he’s not even close.
Suzanne
@Another Scott:
There’s more than one problem there.
No Democrat should have voted for it. That might be a second-order problem, but it’s still a problem.
If the GOP was just gonna do whatever Shrub wanted, then it’s even easier to vote against it, Literally, the only thing to lose would have been their jobs at the next election. That’s it.
It was shameful then and it’s shameful now.
MomSense
@suzanne:
The aftermath of the war included ISIS and a refugee crisis that has played a big role in destabilizing western democracies. Fear and the burdens of trying to house and care for lots of refugees created just the right conditions for ethno nationalists to exploit.
Another Scott
@Martin: It’s pretty clear you know very little about Gerry Connolly.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Jacqueline Squid Onassis
I’m sure never contributing to, nor voting for, any politician of any party who helps with the oppression of trans people. I’m not voting for the fascist candidate, either, but I just can’t vote for someone who votes with the fascists on that issue. It directly impacts me and my community. If you’re voting to deny my health care and my existence, I don’t care if the other guy is worse. Either way it’s a direct attack on my existence. It is the very definition of an existential issue for me and for my community. It’s not, “Of course the Republicans are worse,” in this case. It’s, “You are exactly as bad as the Republicans.”
But, of course, attacks on trans rights are the gateway oppression to attacking gay rights and women’s rights.
Brant Lamb
@matt: What the hell is that supposed to mean? Seriously.
Brant Lamb
@Kay: Inherently, that’s the same thing as losing them. If they went to the other side, you lost them TWICE. (Your votes went down by X, the other guy’s went up by X, 2X delta.)
brantl
@West of the Rockies: That stuff was being debunked in real time, by the McClatchey newspapers, some people were just too stupid or lazy to read them.
Starfish (she/her)
Sen. Whitehouse: “The toddlers are clearly running the kindergarten over at the House Republican caucus.”
https://www.threads.net/@aaron.rupar/post/DDvreznAaly
BellyCat
The Oliver Willis piece is 🔥
devilsandwich
@@mistermix.bsky.social: So you didn’t vote for John Kerry or Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden for president.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@devilsandwich: No I didn’t vote for them in the primary. Always vote D in the general
Also don’t make me regret approving your comment on a dead thread. That’s often a spammer technique. If not, no harm, no foul.