The idea of Ben Wikler as head of the DNC gives me hope.
Take 20 minutes and watch what Ben has to say. I came away inspired. He’s not trashing the party, and he’s got the vision we need.
I also tried to watch the Young Democrats candidate forum – I was able to force myself to watch the first half. I felt like I should listen to what all the top candidates had to say, but damn, I heard so much pandering to the Young Democrats of America and too much same old, same old and blah blah blah from the other candidates and just couldn’t bear to watch the whole thing.
In my not-so-humble opinion, Ben Wikler is one of the leaders we need right now. Let’s hope that the 448 people who get to vote will have the sense to understand that this is not the time for business as usual.
We have a leader we need right in front of us – DNC, wake the fuck up and break the mold.
Watch the top video and share your thoughts!
Omnes Omnibus
No, you fuckers can’t have him! There is more work to do here in Wisconsin.
Starfish
I am listening to the Driftglass and Blue Gal podcast. Dragging Tom Friedman never gets old, but their sound person is doing way too much with the movie clips.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: I totally get why you want to keep him. Would you really hold on to him, though, if it was your choice? Don’t you think we need him on the national level so we can dig out of this hole?
He would definitely be a hard act to follow.
WaterGirl
Like them or not, the other three present as hand-picked by the political consultants who will be the death of the party.
David_C
Please find the Substack post by Leonard Pitts. I’ll post it in a thread somewhere after work.
WaterGirl
Just read the TPM morning memo.
It’s so true. Why is it that Republicans don’t pay a price for all their lies and incompetence?
WaterGirl
@David_C: Can you give me a hint on what to google for? Did you suggest it because it’s in agreement, or disagreement?
googling substack and his name brings up a bunch of stuff.
John S.
@WaterGirl:
Because if everyone knew what shitbags Republicans really were, the media wouldn’t have nearly as much fun with all their breathless horse race coverage.
You can’t convince people the race is going to be close when it’s so obvious that one of the horses is a broken nag.
Steve LaBonne
@WaterGirl: Too many moron-Americans who have no idea what’s going on and don’t want to know. We can only hope that even they won’t be able to ignore 4 years of this chaos, but who knows.
JGreen
@Starfish: Well, Blue Gal is the sound person. It’s very much a homemade operation. You could probably let them know (and they might then read it on the air–it’s that kind of a show).
Old School
@David_C:
Here’s today’s post for those interested.
JML
Ken Martin is an interesting option: he’s done very well in MN, overall, but he’s also been state party chair for a pretty long time and it might be time to move on. he knows how to raise money and has been good about keeping the party on message, and the track record of wins is pretty good (things got very tight last election and the state house is now tied, but that’s better than losing it entirely). not sure about him trying to be the face of the party until we have a new national leader, though.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: Omnes is just afraid that if Wikler goes to D.C., Wisconsin Dems are going to look at him and say, “Next man up, Omnes.”
At least, that’s what my Occam’s Eightball tells me..
Starfish (she/her)
@WaterGirl:
Maybe @David_C meant this article by Leonard Pitts about how folks were discussing Harris’s defeat?
Baud
@Geminid:
All of Wisconsin is afraid of that happening.
Kosh III
He says all the right things and it seemed to work in his state. I’d be thrilled if the National party actually noticed states that aren’t Blue or Battleground. I know the Electoral College has fraked us big time but those of us in Fascist Red Theocracies need some help and attention.
Buttigieg/AOC 2028
Mr. Bemused Senior
I ask myself the same question. Of course most people don’t pay as much attention as we do here, but sheesh.
Trump is doing his best to make the rot obvious. Will people notice and if so, what will they do?
rikyrah
The babies holding up their numbers to be matched with an Elf. 😭😭😭😭 https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8NbMnoH/
CaseyL
@WaterGirl:
Three big reasons:
1. The MSM has carried the GOP’s water for quite a long time. Remember the run-up to the Iraq War? Anti-war voices on the airwaves were fired or just not offered airtime. The MSM has only gotten worse since then in what it chooses to cover and how it “analyzes” news.
2. Normalcy always takes precedence. This is not unique to the US. It’s a human thing. Basically, we pursue our daily lives because we don’t know how to do anything else. You want a revolution? Excellent! Walk me through how you get one going. Be specific.
3. Democrats have generally cleaned up the messes the GOP creates. I have some faint hope that this time is different, that the Dems aren’t going to do damage control but will let the country see, up close and personal and for long enough to make a goddamn impression, exactly what it means to have the GOP running things.
RaflW
@JML: I’d put Martin as my #2 choice after Wickler. He doesn’t light a room on fire, but I agree that he’s done pretty well in MN. I watched a couple of his answers from the Young Democrats video, and sure it’s a bit pander-y but he at least gets that there’s a hunger to 1) move faster on generational change in the Dem machine, and 2) that active local folks outside D.C. are fed up with consultants driving most decisions.
Ben would be better, but I don’t feel despondent about Ken.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@WaterGirl:
Because to the party of tire rims and anthrax, the lies and incompetence are a feature, not a bug.
And to the oligarchic backers (I’m channeling my inner Horseshoe Lefty this morning), that’s perfect as it makes it easier to have things run to their liking, meaning poorly.
Kristine
@WaterGirl:
The abusive lover’s reaction to rejection: “If I can’t have you—or in this case, U.S.—nobody can.”
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Identify the voters in the Republican voting pool who have been adversely affected by Republican lies and incompetence.
RaflW
Breaking MN news: A district court judge has ruled one MN DFLer was ineligible to run for the state House due to residency issues, and is barred from taking office. This means that temporarily, the MN GOP will have the Speakership (was tied, with a power-sharing agreement).
A politics-knower points out though that the MN GOP can’t pass bills unassisted by Dems, because the 68 vote threshold I guess is fixed and the Repubs have 67 votes (Dems temporarily have 66). Walz will call a special election, and the seat was won by the (adjudicated) carpetbagger by 30 points, so the GOP move will have an impact till Dems can get the seat filled but it’ll be prudent for Walz to call the special elex as quickly as statute allows.
eta: The DFLer could appeal to the state Supremes.
SiubhanDuinne
@David_C:
This?
Link
Sorry about the ugly link. My fat fingers aren’t good at linking from the phone.
I generally liked Leonard Pitts when he was a WaPo/syndicated columnist, and this Substack piece puts into words much of what I’ve been feeling and (clumsily, imperfectly) saying since November 5. Thanks for calling attention to it.
stinger
@rikyrah: Thank you!
David_C
@SiubhanDuinne:
@Starfish (she/her):
@Old School:
Thanks, all. That’s the one. Need to be a bit careful and cryptic. ;-)
oldgold
@WaterGirl:
Why is it that Republicans don’t pay a price for all their lies and incompetence?
Fox News, Sinclair, Am Radio and X.
hitchhiker
My theory is that they don’t pay a price because people expect the federal government not to work.
It’s been a punching bag forever, either as a minor annoyance (pot holes, the DMV) or as a collection of thieves, liars and fools going back to Nixon — and people who remember his resignation clearly are senior citizens. Obama was an outlier. Not a thief. Not a liar. Not a fool. But if you made a word-association of administrations beginning with Jack Kennedy, which is where my memory of federal government begins, it might look like this:
That’s how I think normies have taken in our government over the last 60-odd years. It’s an understanding based solely on headlines and memes. See how it all runs together? The government is understood to be a bad joke, and you just try not to think about it too much. At election time everyone yells at you and makes slick commercials that take over your shows and you just wait for it to be over.
That’s why they don’t pay a price.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@SiubhanDuinne:
Exec Summary of the Pitts piece for those who don’t wanna plow thru it:
Lobo
On the issue of structural factors that operate against us. There was a study that showed the more a person received their info from a trusted source or was more informed, the more they went for Harris. On top of it, there was a study that showed the low level of literacy, many if not most read at a 8th grade level.
This goes to L. Potts, question of what is wrong with the American voter.
Again, this was a factor. It was not determinative, but this combined with others were.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@SiubhanDuinne: thanks! It’s depressing but I think correct.
Chris Johnson
@SiubhanDuinne: The thing that jumps out from this substack, for me, is this: Leonard Pitts is taking too much at face value, and I look extremely askance at that sort of thing as a rule.
When you have an ENORMOUS decades-long mass influence operation to produce exactly the result that, in fact, happened, you do not get to go ‘oh no, the true nature of the people has spoken! Guess we all suck!’. You simply don’t get to do that.
It can be another branch of the same disinformation operation. It IS literally that, just not necessarily knowingly from Leonard himself. He doesn’t seem to be beating it into the ground as much as the true enemy agents but he’s not asking the right questions.
How are people made to do this? Even back in the day Hitler didn’t just ride a wave of eager evilness. Hitler’s situation was constructed, and those methods have been studied ever after by all would-be fascists.
The only difference is now it’s directed by a third party that wants BOTH the warring factions to lose, catastrophically. Nobody is supposed to survive. And that matters to their tactics.
I would ask Leonard there, HOW are people made to act that way? It’s a good question and we have plenty of the answers, documented.
WaterGirl
@JML: If he is the guy on the left in the photo, he was the absolute worst about pandering to the young democrats. Remember, I’m the only one who was a chair of Young Democrats! Very old school, i didn’t hear anything new from him, or any passion.
WaterGirl
@Starfish (she/her): yes!
WaterGirl
@Old School: that has to be it! thank you.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Chris Johnson: I take it by “third party” you mean Putin’s Russia and if so I agree.
Sure, there has been a years-long propaganda campaign against Democrats and the tools of public persuasion have been honed to a sharp edge.
Still, the appeal to prejudice and selfishness is effective because it connects with human nature.
Since we’re unlikely to change the effects of millions of years of evolution we have to find a better alternative.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Indeed. Rs don’t pay a price because they are the party of white people. The default demographic of this country.
How many times does one have to say this.
Chris
Open thread, right? I just lost fifty brain cells listening to the weekly office call where people started talking about DroneGate.
People, and my immediate manager first among them, are positive that DroneGate is real. Manager even has a whole theory about how it’s The Government sending all those drones into the sky to investigate something, and they just don’t want us to know about it. (What are they investigating? Aliens or something!) Refreshingly enough, though, nobody seems to think they’re from some hostile country like Iran. Why? Because “they don’t have the technology!”
Aliens are real, but Iran getting a few of its people into the United States and starting to play around with a few things they can get at fucking Best Buy is unimaginable. I know I shouldn’t be complaining about this, because better they be in hysterics about aliens in the sky than they be in hysterics about the Arab, Persian, and Afghan immigrants in the suburbs of northern Virginia. But my God, people are so fucking dumb.
Professor Bigfoot
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Precisely what I’ve been saying.
Except I refuse to use a weaselword to dodge the white elephant in the room:
White male Christian supremacy.
Professor Bigfoot
@Chris Johnson: It’s what white people voted for.
Not all of us.
White people, who, by the way, will NEVER acknowledge the role of whiteness in their electoral choices.
p.a.
If tRump called a fork a spoon there’s a billion dollar support structure that would tell his followers starving trying to eat broth that it was lieberals’ fault they are hungry.
Baud
@p.a.:
Big Spork
RaflW
@hitchhiker: The main thing is that when the government works (reasonably) well, it’s invisible.
Maybe there’s potholes, but the 105,000,000 people who are going to drive more than an hour or two for Xmas/Holidays will mostly get on federally funded highways and, with incredibly rare exceptions, no bridges will collapse. No bandits will set up illegal roadblocks to shake down or harm drivers. Stop lights will generally work and prevent most intersection crashes or yelling/gesturing fits.
The majority of the food sold for family feasts will be mostly safe to cook and consume, and not in short supply (except eggs, because we’re a stupid country and bird flu is getting worse than it ought to). If Uncle Joe chokes on a piece of hard salami after a few too many brandy oldfashioneds, 911 will be answered, an ambulance will arrive and an ER will save his life.
Your Xmas tree lights will probably not catch on fire, and your grandkids toys will probably not poison or maim your beloveds because of consumer protection laws and agencies.
People don’t think of most of that as government!
WaterGirl
@p.a.:
Just wanted to see that again.
Matt McIrvin
@hitchhiker: Over on LGM there’s a post arguing that the Republicans’ branding as the party of anti-government means that they actually DO get the blame for the pain of government shutdowns. Historically, I think this is true. But it’s also short-term.
During the Bush II years it drove me up the wall that it seemed like the Republicans could use their own failures as a selling point: “I suck, I’m the government, therefore government sucks, but I’m anti-government, so vote for me because I suck.”
Goldwater’s “I have no interest in streamlining government or making it more efficient, because I mean to reduce its size” was the model.
But when there’s actually a crisis going on that they obviously caused, it doesn’t work for them. For a little while, it doesn’t work. When the crisis passes, attitudes seem to revert to favoring them.
The way they get mileage out of the DMV is telling: that’s not even the federal government, that’s your state government, so it particularly makes no sense to use it as an argument for devolving things to the states.
But I think someone pointed out here that one of the reasons it works is actually racism–DMV clerk positions are the kind of government job that has been historically open to minorities when others weren’t, so part of the common experience of the DMV for white Americans is a minority person trying to tell you what to do.
Matt McIrvin
@RaflW: “Get the government out of my Medicare!”
Professor Bigfoot
@Matt McIrvin: Why do conservatives call for “small government?”
Because only the US Federal Government (granted, in fits and starts) has guaranteed any of the rights of Black people in this country.
From Grant fighting the Klan (until the Compromise of 1877 killed Reconstruction) to Eisenhower sending the Guard to Little Rock to the enforcement of the Voting Rights act and especially the Civil Rights Act, it’s been the feds who did ANYTHING to support the rights of Black people.
So if they can make it “small enough to drown in a bathtub,” it won’t be able to interfere in their corrupt local fiefdoms.
RaflW
@Chris: I guess these people don’t know that Russia has been buying deadly military drones from Iran and unleashing them on Ukraine for quite a while now.
The also don’t know that their car’s license plate is probably be surveilled multiple times a day right now by boring old land-based spy cameras along public roadway and fed to law enforcement agencies by a private for profit company.
The misplaced mistrust is of course totally predictable!
Matt McIrvin
@Professor Bigfoot: And Goldwater’s “libertarianism” lost big in 1964 but played well in the Deep South, where Republicans historically never won, because he opposed the Civil Rights Act. And that was probably the genesis of the Southern Strategy.
Old Man Shadow
@Professor Bigfoot: I find it impossible to disagree. You should run for office.
The powers that be probably wouldn’t let you get far, but it would be refreshing to hear a candidate say the stuff you say openly to the media.
Chris
@RaflW:
Oh, the Russia thing occurred to me too, although you don’t even need to reach that far – like I said, any of us could go out and buy a drone any minute.
It’s always nice to see a prejudice (“Middle Easterners are scary and violent and always up to something!”) defeated by another prejudice (“Middle Easterners are primitives who just sort of sit around in the desert humping camels, they probably don’t even have bicycles yet.”) I guess.
hitchhiker
@Matt McIrvin:
it always comes back to racism.
every fucking time, every fucking issue, every fucking candidate.
just glanced at my list above, and wow — how BAD did Bush II have to be for Obama to win?
and how long did it take for them to burden that earnest, hard-headed, community-activist scholar with every failure imaginable?
one year.
Matt McIrvin
@hitchhiker: The world of 2008 was an amazing clusterfuck–the failures of Iraq and Katrina, then a period of high gasoline prices (always a political killer in the US), then an amazingly alarming economic collapse that happened during the home stretch of the presidential campaign as the coup de grace, and John McCain, while he was a man who got bipartisan respect, seemed to have no plan for how to deal with it, but Obama did.
Another Scott
@Chris Johnson: +1
It rubbed me the wrong way as well.
Sure, many people are intolerant. Sure, many people hate change. Sure, many people are afraid of people who are different.
That doesn’t explain the vast edifice that throws all those fears and bad aspects of (some parts of) human nature in their face for hours a day every single day.
It’s not a biological state of affairs that the US is doomed to have our politics ruled by DJT and his minions for the rest of time as US demographics changes. We can – and I think, will – do better.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Josie
@Professor Bigfoot: “White male Christian supremacy” pretty much sums up our problem in four words. Thank you.
prostratedragon
@Professor Bigfoot: Yes.
RevRick
@WaterGirl: The GOP paid a price in 2008 and in 2020, but they are able to get back in the game, because they have a base that cares more about their racial “superiority” fix than anything else. They control a swath of electoral votes in the South and the Great Plains and northern Rockies that is unbudgeable.
Mr. Bemused Senior
I am an optimist so I’m inclined to agree. Yet we have to be realistic about the obstacles we face. Bigotry is a big one.
IMO the fact that we are under constant attack from Russia ought to be a story that could be used to our advantage. So far though it’s not.
VFX Lurker
Trick question. The Republican voters who died of COVID and/or an inadequate social safety net no longer vote.
I once knew an uninsured Republican voter who spoke against universal health insurance for years. He later died in 2013 because he didn’t have health insurance. 🤷♀️
Kathleen
@David_C: I know this thread is long dead but I have to thank you so much for that link. He nailed it.
Professor Bigfoot
@Matt McIrvin: No “probably” to it. ;)
Professor Bigfoot
@Old Man Shadow: Alas, I have a nasty tendency to indolence, and the skeletons in my closet have reached regimental strength. ;)
lowtechcyclist
@Omnes Omnibus:
Gotta admit, that got a big laugh from me.
I can’t remember anymore when or why I first became a big fan of Ben Wikler. What I do remember is that the first thing I did when I heard that he was taking over as chair of WisDems was to start a monthly contribution to them, so I was clearly already sold on him. And this despite having only the most minimal connections to Wisconsin. But I knew it’s a lot easier to win the Presidency and Congress if we do well in Wisconsin. (Maybe we can kick that worthless fucker Ron Johnson out of the Senate the next time he’s up – too lazy right now to check if that’s ’26 or ’28.)
WTFGhost
duplicate
Another Scott
@VFX Lurker: Made me look…
McGill.ca on “Died Suddenly” (from November 2022):
I continue to think that while racism in the post-Obama world of politics is important, there’s much more going on (and misogyny may be more important than racism). But that’s another discussion.
Maybe Biden was more right than he gets credit for. Maybe we really are in a Battle for the Soul of the Nation…
Too many RW churches have turned into huge political and economic outfits that are subsidized by the US tax code. That seems to me to be an increasingly dangerous thing. I’m not sure what can be done about it (especially not in the short-term) given the First Amendment and the present SCOTUS. But throwing out expertise and science and having every policy disagreement turn into a weaponized lizard-brain battle of Good/God vs Evil/Satan (which just so happens to benefit those MotUs who refuse to pay taxes or actually contribute to improving the general welfare) does not seem to be sustainable.
The politics of the good guys and gals needs to better understand how bad actors take human psychology and twist it to serve their aims. Fear of the other, existential battles, being part of a battle of Good vs Evil, protecting Our Way of Life, etc., etc., drive people in a way that “OMG! The Cost of Eggs!” doesn’t. We need to find ways to combat the cultmakers.
FWIW. Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
WTFGhost
lowtechcyclist
@Old School:
Thanks for the link – my wife and I are fans of Leonard Pitts, going back to his days with the Tampa Tribune.
David_C
@Kathleen: Thank you. As a fed I have to be careful what I post during work hours, although I do post about general topics, like the value of vaccines, on social media after work. More ideas are in the works.
Mr. Pitts gets serious consideration from me because he’s been so right over the years. My views have been shaped by three books: “Dying of Whiteness,” “The Sum of Us,” and “Caste.” It’s not easy to build a multi-racial, multicultural society. I believe that other industrial nations with safety nets were less diverse than we are when then they passed more social democrat-influenced laws. We can’t have nice things because benefits would go to the “wrong” people.
On leave, maybe furloughed, and having a personal Happy Hour (one beer) so sorry if my syntax is mangled a bit.
David_C
@RevRick: Once again our thinking seems to be in synch. Blessings!
BigJimSlade
@Old School: “intolerance gives you one thing that is often irresistible: someone to blame.”
This reminds me of when the orange fart cloud came down the escalator in 2015. When he said Mexico was sending us drug dealers and rapists, it was garden-variety scapegoating. I was horrified that it wasn’t an immediate disqualifier. We learn that scapegoating is wrong as children.
Badpenny
@Omnes Omnibus: I wouldn’t worry if I were you. Electing Wikler would be the right thing for dems to do, so of course they’ll not do it. Rahm to the rescue!
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
Who on their side is going to make them pay?
The people actually in charge of their party don’t give a rats ass about the people that make up their party, they bow down to the people with money, like elon, being ready to buy the US – for pennies on the dollar and by bringing hate – which we do not need more of, thank you very much.
MrPug
To answer you question: because the democrats are awful at politics. They have been thinking for at least since Obama that just passing good legislation and governing competently will be noticed and rewarded by the voters without doing bothering to do anything else. And now we have Trump again who, I guarantee you, will take all of the credit for months long trends in things like inflation, border crossings, etc. before he’s even taken office.
To just show how not a damn thing the Democratic leadership has learned, they opted for, with Speaker Emeritus’ urging, a 74 year old recent cancer survivor that no has heard of who doesn’t follow politics over a 35 year old super star that pretty much everyone has heard of for a key leadership position.
And until and unless the Democratic party gets its shit together and figures out how to actually fight the GOP I will keep slagging them.
MrPug
Who on our side is going to make them pay?
Professor Bigfoot
@MrPug: How do we stop white people from voting for white supremacy?
Ruckus
@Mr. Bemused Senior:
Will people notice and if so, what will they do?
What can we do? Money owns most(all?) of the mainstream media so getting them to even think of talking down money and money grubbers is not going to happen.
We are a country that money founded. And yes I mean that. Of course it didn’t take the kind of money it takes today but back then being successful was inherited money or hard work. Mostly it was hard work. Today it is owning stuff or inheritance of a LOT of money. And work. And a lot of money buys things/people that make them more money. It can also buy pomposity. And seemingly has. Take shitforbrains (PLEASE), His father was a rather successful landlord and raised 3 kids, 2 of which seem(ed) normal – and one who normal only in the concept of more money makes one a better person. And it really, really, really rarely does. And in no way did in this case. Hence the nickname. What can we do? No real idea. I’m an old fart, I’ve only got a few years to hopefully a couple decades left. But I’m not going to appreciate it if I lose my healthcare – the VA, or the democracy that I enlisted in, supposedly to protect. Or my Social Security that I paid into and I EARNED! And I’d bet that I’m not alone in my position, even with people that had a much different track or a shorter or longer one.
This was supposed to be a country for ALL OF US. Not just the rich or privileged. All of us, regardless of color, gender, age, money. A country of equality – although it has had to go through a lot to even get close to that, that is what it was founded on and absofuckinglutely still has a ways to go. All of that does not mean that we have to bow down to money, pomposity, bull and shit. It means we do not have to.
WaterGirl
@Badpenny: I saw Rahm’s name on a list of people who had declined to be in the running.