Further to my post this morning; ‘Pastor’ Johnson is not actually a Christian, by any legitimate definition of that much-abused word:
She said, “May I ask you to have mercy Mr. President on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away." If Mike Johnson thinks that’s “radical,” perhaps he has a fundamental misunderstanding of his own religion.
— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen.bsky.social) January 23, 2025 at 11:47 AM
Trump and Johnson taking time out to rage about Bishop Budde's very normal and thoughtful sermon is a good lesson that these guys are easy to sidetrack and should be confronted and opposed at all times
— Hemry, Local Bartender (@bartenderhemry.bsky.social) January 23, 2025 at 1:51 PM
No "oh we'll work with them if they have good ideas" please even if this is supposed to be some clever rhetorical jiu-jitsu. Just "what you are doing is evil, don't do it, we will fight you on this," at all times and in all contexts
— Hemry, Local Bartender (@bartenderhemry.bsky.social) January 23, 2025 at 1:53 PM
And these are his ‘shock’ (well, shocked) troops…
As we increase productivity and prosperity in society some luxuries become less expensive (everyone has a big screen TV now!) some have fixed supply and become more expensive (fixed amount of beachfront land) and some rely on skilled labor and become WAY more expensive (college educated au pair)
As I've said multiple times I think the ruling class's distress at the 2021-23ish economy was really reliant on that last category. You're super rich but suddenly you have to hire the immigrant nanny instead of the white au pair. The country club has to start hiring waiters with tattoos. Etc etc.
Having a servant be even implicitly disrespectful to their station causes acute psychic damage to American rich people and I think that's a really underrated dynamic in why they went so insanely off the rails under Biden's economy and worked to tank it.
"My worker who I sexually harrass can walk across the street and get a better job instead of being forced to humor or fuck me" was a genuine crisis for the business tyrant class in America.
It's also the reason for the aggressive push towards AI, and the tariffs; raise cost + downward pressure on wages = squeeze the shit out of the uppity servants.
— j-salvo.bsky.social (@j-salvo.bsky.social) January 23, 2025 at 12:43 PM
Worth noting, for this to work… they don’t actually need the AI to be able to replace you. They just need you to think the AI *might* be able to replace you.
— j-salvo.bsky.social (@j-salvo.bsky.social) January 23, 2025 at 1:26 PM
this is about breaking the back of their workforces, not about DEI as such.
— rev. howard arson (@theophite.bsky.social) January 22, 2025 at 8:29 PM
Humble scholars, begging to be classed with the monied plutocrats…
Dude this is so fucking bleak; I know I’m naive but I still genuinely cannot believe we have people in the humanities normalizing this stuff
— Nathan K. Hensley (@nathankhensley.bsky.social) January 22, 2025 at 8:49 AM
different-church-lady
THEY. JUST. SAY. SHIT.
matt
about that thread about ‘rich people problems’, I also remember that when they were passing the ACA one of the biggest Republican arguments against was that more people would have access to services so there would be lines.
LeftCoastYankee
It’s the unions. Full stop. Biden supported the unions and the corporate class and their overlords cannot abide.
All the 3rd way bullshit was (faux) presenting Democratic social policies over the same old corporate priorities.
When it came time to choose, the broligarchs chose fascism over democracy, as long as workers are desperate and cheap.
Old School
Disrespectful servants was pretty much of staple of 1970s sitcoms.
They should have expected it.
Xavier
Either Mike Johnson has a fundamental misunderstanding about his religion or I do.
scav
@matt: They do rather like having collateral damage in their healthcare systems as well as their military engagements. Oh, and their elementary school education systems.
ETA. Collateral damage is manly.
Suzanne
This is a really interesting piece about campaigning in the digital media age. Gave me a lot to think about.
Joe Biden Was The Last President of the 20th Century—And the TV Era
Jay
When I do a Google search, Google AI is always the first result.
It is basically shit.
I can get better quality from my own searches and search terms.
MagdaInBlack
Of course it’s about maintaining the hierarchy from which they benefit.
MobiusKlein
About the Tech Overlord / big company stuff, my big company was big on messaging a pro employee / pro diversity / anti-muslim travel ban back in 2017.
This time around – crickets. I’m not expecting a full throat scream, but a least a “We will fight against turning your children into stateless entities” confirmation. It was solace back then, and it’s completely missing this time around.
MagdaInBlack
@Xavier: I saw that. Mike Johnson has sold his soul.
KatKapCC
I take solace in knowing that Mike Johnson is going to have to do some serious fast-talking to make it past the pearly gates.
Professor Bigfoot
@MagdaInBlack: That’s what it’s always about.
But it’s about that to a lot more than the techbroligarchy… they have quite a few willing followers, after all.
Quinerly
Breaking news about Hegseth on Maddow tonight. She says reporting being finished up. Story will be during her show.
KatKapCC
@Quinerly: I hate to sound so cynical, but unless that reporting includes video of Hegseth murdering babies with his bare hands, it’s not gonna push any Repubs into the No category.
hotshoe
I think God should call Mike “moses” Johnson home, just so She could show him the gate to Paradise then kick him down to hell.
Tonight would be a good moment to do that; if not tonight, any time tomorrow oh Lord if you please.
Quinerly
@KatKapCC:
We’ll see….Collins and Murkowski announced they were no votes. I think there will be at least one more no vote. My gut feeling all day on this.
WaterGirl
@Jay: Agree. Google has turned to shit recently. AI crap front and center, some of it wrong. But you only know that it’s not correct if you already know something you are googling about.
MagdaInBlack
@Professor Bigfoot: I was going to add that it’s always about that, for nearly everything.
KatKapCC
@WaterGirl: Very good and troubling point.
different-church-lady
@Jay, @WaterGirl:
: Add “-ai” (without the quotes) to the end of the search and Google ditches the A-I crap.
Ksmiami
Break their monopolies, take them at 90 percent
different-church-lady
Here’s what I got from the stupid fucking “Virtual Assistant” from one of my credit cards:
ME: “How can I find statement closing date for current cycle?”
ALLEGED ASSISTANT: “I’m sorry, but I’m unable to cancel your account online. Please call… (etc.)
2liberal
It’s furrowed brow time.
MagdaInBlack
@WaterGirl: So far if you put -ai after the search term in google, you get no ai responses.
Just tried it and it still works. I’m sure they’ll fix that work around
@different-church-lady: ok fine, ya beat me too it =-)
different-church-lady
@MagdaInBlack: Only because someone else here gave me the tip last week. It’s been a real pain saver.
clay
@Xavier: You might say he has a Fundamentalist misunderstanding of his religion.
MagdaInBlack
@different-church-lady: Looks like if you put the term in the address bar (is that the right term?) rather than the google search box, you get no ai responses either.
Quinerly
@2liberal:
I actually appreciate Collins’s detailed statement.
Re any of the cabinet picks, I’ll take and appreciate the no votes anywhere they come from.
collins.senate.gov/newsroom/senator-collins-statement-on-nomination-of-pete-hegseth-to-serve-as-secr…
different-church-lady
@MagdaInBlack: I think in modern browsers there’s pretty much no difference between the two.
Jay
@different-church-lady:
Thank you for that tip.
different-church-lady
Now if someone can just tell me how to get Microsoft Outlook to stop giving me “helpful” suggestions every 4.2 seconds…
Emily B.
Well, Mike Johnson is right. Jesus is a radical guy. Like Moses, Isaiah, and many other prophets. Speaking truth to power, standing up for the poor and marginalized—that is radical.
lowtechcyclist
@KatKapCC:
I don’t know much about heaven (ain’t never been there, they tell me it’s nice), but I do know you can’t bring your sin in with you. And in his case, I’m not talking about enjoying porn.
That man is going to have to do some serious, deep-down changing.
eclare
@different-church-lady:
Thanks!
Another Scott
@Suzanne: Thanks for the pointer.
Ctrl-F “woman”. Ctrl-F “Black”.
Hmm…
I’ll give it a “Meh”.
I remember Biden doing speeches and town-hall type things, walking around with a cordless mic, talking and answering questions. I thought it was good. That’s not “TV era” politics.
I’ll return to my observation that old conventional firebrand liberal Gerry Connolly got 125,000 more votes than AOC did in November, even though their districts are roughly the same size and even though they both won by about 2:1. Her brand of politics hasn’t obviously led to more people turning out to vote for her over other Democrats. Someone needs to connect the dots for me with real numbers.
Harris didn’t lose because “she didn’t go on Rogan.” That’s ridiculous, and laughable, IMHO.
The problem with saying “Politics is digital now, Democrats gotta do more digital!!” is that 1) Democrats have no control over the “algorithms” on the big platforms so no control over who sees their messages, and 2) Digital has about eleventy-seven channels for each potential voter. Without a few Democratic billionaires dumping a few fractions of a billion into those digital platforms (and, oh, BTW, shoveling yet more money into the pockets of the digital oligarchs who are vehemently opposed to many important Democratic positions), it would be a waste of resources – dumping chum in the Pacific.
Finally, recent polling talks about non-voters saying that they thought their vote didn’t matter, that they hate politics, that they weren’t able to register in time, etc., etc. I’m sure there’s a large fraction of non-voters like that, and I’d like to think that some fraction of them are gettable in the near-term. We solve those problems by having people in the trenches, reaching out to them, addressing their needs. We don’t solve those problems by buying more ads on FB, Twitch, and the like.
My $0.02.
Thanks again.
Best wishes,
Scott.
lowtechcyclist
@WaterGirl:
When it told me it was a night with a new moon when I could look out my window and see the full moon, well, I’m no astronomer, but I had a hunch that it might be less than completely accurate.
Quinerly
Not getting a lot of traditional press. I dropped a link this AM in an earlier thread when the NA news feeds and community forums started lighting up.
“Justice Department called into question the citizenship of Native Americans born in the United States, citing a 19th-century law that excluded Native Americans from birthright citizenship.”
salon.com/2025/01/23/excluding-indians-admin-questions-native-americans-birthright-citizenship-in/
yahoo.com/news/excluding-indians-trump-admin-questions-164312466.html
Eolirin
@MagdaInBlack: You know, I don’t think it’s even that anymore?
I think the wealthiest, most politically active part of our society are literally unmoored from reality at this point.
These are people that are now willing to blow up the fundamental underpinnings that allow for the existence of the hierarchy that has historically benefited them rather than have to bend to anyone in any way.
Social dislocation, either through the collapse of societal structure or the consolidation of power in the hands of fascist or totalitarian regimes does not end well for the ultra wealthy. It doesn’t end well for their ability to have not shitty places to live.
You break society enough and mob justice fills the gaps and you bet the pissed off people are coming for you, or you are always under the thumb of the dictatorship that does the same, it only taking one instant of falling out of favor to put your life on the line.
Russian oligarchs don’t want to be in Russia.
The US ones are all deeply delusional.
KatKapCC
@Quinerly: What in the absolute fuck
TBone
(to Quinerly) They must have voted wrong (not enough expletives in my repertoir).
Suzanne
@Another Scott: Democrats have no control over mainstream legacy media, either. Not sure why we seem so wedded to it. Is it a devil-that-we-know thing?
TBone
@Eolirin: 1,000% agree
different-church-lady
@lowtechcyclist:
You gotta go on a Tuesday, half price drinks.
Eolirin
@Suzanne: Media, of any stripe, is not going to be how we win elections. It’s only useful under two circumstances: if you can effectively propogandize it, which we can’t, or if it’s being responsibly used to raise the education levelof the people engaging in it, which it isn’t, and there’s a reliable baseline for truth, which there isn’t.
That doesn’t mean we should abandon media outreach. We do need to be spending resources there. We can’t cede the field without it hurting more. It’s just that any attempted solution to the problem of losing elections that focuses heavily on that isn’t going to move the needle enough for it to matter.
The other solutions are really really hard, or require that we have power and the votes necessary to do some pretty extreme relative to the current status quo things.
About the only hopeful thing in all of this is that we seem to do okay when Trump isn’t on the ballot, the Republicans always overreach, and they’re in the process of breaking a whole ton of shit that people aren’t going to want to be broken. So as long as elections still matter, we just need to run good candidates and we have a pretty good chance to clean up.
But that’s a big if. And also the senate map is going to suck for a long time, so fixing some things will be pretty hard even if we can win.
Until or unless enough more rural lower education white people are willing to vote for the party of civil rights, and until or unless more people take civic responsibility and politics, including being educated on how things work and policy specifics seriously, we’re always going to be at a disadvantage regardless of what our messaging strategy is.
You can’t get your message out to people who don’t pay attention to political media. That’s a lot of them. And it’s a lot of Trump voters. We fixate on it because it reaches us. l But we’re not the ones needing to be reached.
Another Scott
@Suzanne: I’m not sure. The data seems all over the place.
MediaProject.Wesleyan.edu:
That was from Halloween. Maybe it doesn’t include Melon’s last minute 1/4-B.
I’m not seeing a lot of evidence that H-W missed the digital boat. Maybe some things we’ve talked about here are more important than some supposed mistakes in digital land.
Dunno.
FWIW.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Suzanne
@Eolirin: I agree with most of your points except for this one.
That’s pretty famously what FFOTUS does, he gets low-propensity voters in his thrall. He found new people and activated them. These aren’t people following political media, they’re following lifestyle media that has political content.
Tyler Austin Harper made an interesting observation about why Dems are going to struggle trying to find or make a “liberal Rogan”. He noted, “A huge part of the appeal of Rogan and the Rogan Extended Universe is all the motivational stuff and telling you what kind of man to be: watch sports, go to the gym, be curious, eat healthy, etc. It’s quietly about how to live.” The political content is there, but it’s all part of this overall lifestyle stuff.
Anne Laurie
Oh, Pastor Mike wouldn’t want to show up at those gates — all his ‘friends’ and dear ones are gonna be waiting for him at the other gates!
(Hopefully with extra brimstone & his very own lake of burning manure… )
Princess
@Quinerly: not directing my deep cynicism at you personally, but I don’t believe it for one minute. I agree with mistermix — Murkowski and Collins are coming out with furrowed brows because they know they have the votes to confirm. Maddow likes to pump her ratings with this kind of bait. It’s cruel and I hate it.
Jackie
@Quinerly:
Don’t forget Vance could be the tie-breaker. I think four no votes are needed.
Quinerly
@Jackie:
Yes. I think Tillis and McConnell will be no votes.
We obviously will know tomorrow unless the final vote is postponed.
Quinerly
@Princess:
msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/pete-hegseth-divorce-confirmation-defense-department-rcna189…
Suzanne
@Another Scott: I think you’re missing the author’s point a bit. A purchased ad, even if it’s on a digital platform, isn’t really a digital medium. It’s a traditional TV ad, filmed in a studio or at an event, and it would work as well on TV. The way the author is describing digital media is about a lack of script or choreography, no fourth wall. It’s an aesthetic difference as much a a technological one.
Author also points out that Jasmine Crockett is good at this. She is. The way she jumped on that B6 line of hers…. very astute.
Nukular Biskits
Me angry.
And my fucking worthless Republican state officials and congressional delegation are so far up Trump’s ass a cave rescue team won’t be able to find them.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Another Scott:
Nice rebuttal to those pitching endless variations of “Joe Rogan” and “lifestyles” as some messaging strategy.
Another Scott
@Suzanne: Maybe so.
But I’m still not seeing it all that clearly in stuff I’ve been able to find quickly.
Podchaser.com – Donnie – Guest on 50 podcasts
Podchaser.com – Harris – Guest on 47 podcasts
FWIW.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Suzanne
@Another Scott: You looked through that, right? FFOTUS went on many more episodes, a repeat guest on shows. And a lot of those episodes were prior to the campaign. This is one of those places where I think the 100-day campaign really hurt.
I like the idea discussed around here about returning to some version of Fireside Chats, but updated for current media consumption habits. Could be a good way to elevate the profiles of some of the rising stars in the party, too.
Geminid
@Quinerly: That NBC report on Hedgseth led me to another that said Trump has pulled Mike Pompeo’s security detail, like he pulled John Bolton’s. Bolton has been very critical of Trump in public and Trump is a petty, vindictive guy, so I get why he pulled Bolton’s security. But why Pompeo’s? This is getting weird.
Steve LaBonne
Bishop Budde was able to break through the media barrier against actual Sermon on the Mount Christianity. That’s extremely threatening to sick mofos like Johnson.
Kayla Rudbek
@Eolirin: I have had nightmares where the former interstate highways are lined with human skulls on pikes
Jackie
@Geminid: Say one negative word about the FFOTUS and…
His skin is so sensitively thin, we should be seeing his top layer of fat.
Quinerly
@Geminid:
Saw that earlier and meant to catch you on a thread.
The working theory is Tucker Carlson is at the root of Trump turning on Pompeo. There is also a third guy whose security detail got pulled today. I didn’t recognize his name and have already forgotten it.
counterpunch.org/2024/12/30/sinking-mike-pompeo-tucker-carlson-assange-and-trump/
Soprano2
@Suzanne: That was an interesting article, thanks for posting it. That’s worth a front page post IMHO.
Batgirl71
@Jay: Add “-ai” after your search to get rid of it
Another Scott
@Suzanne: I glanced through the list, but don’t have time to do an analysis of the differences (e.g. Donnie was on Hannity a bunch of times, dunno if that should really count as a Podcast as he has his own show on Fox). Yes, some of the cites were for old shows.
At a first glance, I don’t see a big difference in the numbers, and I don’t see evidence that supports the critics who are claiming that he was somehow doing podcasts while she wasn’t and that’s why he won. (Except for Rogan, of course.) But, as I said, it’s an impression. I wouldn’t bet any money on it either way.
FWIW.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
MinuteMan
Another way to keep the workers in their proper places: Return to Office. Can’t properly crack the whip if they not in the office and the uppity folks might start rethinking the whole work/life balance thing and who knows where that might lead.
RevRick
@Xavier: Speaker Johnson’s version of Christianity is shit. As Jesus said a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. And the tree of white evangelicalism bears rotten fruit, because it is the same tree that vociferously defended slavery, advocated for secession and Civil War, and supported Jim Crow and its violence.
TBone
@Steve LaBonne: her courage is so very inspiring, it really helped me deal with *waves hand at the shit show that is now our reality. Courage is when you’re scared to death, but you saddle up anyway like John Wayne said!
There go two miscreants
That was an interesting read; thanks for linking it. Worthwhile for me because what he’s describing is so foreign to my personality. (One criticism I have is that it lets the Trump voters off the hook too easily, as if their votes didn’t have anything to do with their underlying bigotry. But one column can’t address everything.)
MagdaInBlack
@Eolirin: I think you are right. They’ve destroyed their own “ecosystem.”
I’m sure they think it will be different, this time…
AM in NC
@Suzanne: Thanks for sharing this. A lot of it rings true to me.
And just like with right-wingers laying out hundreds of millions to build the direct-mail, newspaper, radio and TV networks over decades ahead of Democrats, they are doing the same thing today by funding podcasts, content creators, and entire media platforms to spread their lies and Russian propaganda. While Democrats rely on NPR, AOC and the Liberal Redneck to battle against the entire online right.
WE ALL need to be content creators for our own networks to share, and we need to support and amplify creators who strike us as funny/smart/on it. And we need to put OUR MONEY toward funding and supporting creators and networks of creators rather than toward political consultants and TV ad buys.
I mean come on, there are SO MANY MORE funny, smart, creative people on the left, and younger people are primed for our messages, we just need to get our messages in front of (especially) male eyeballs in ways they find compelling and funny and cool.
WE need huge funds set up to support creators long-term and to shot-gun small amounts to tons of different people and see what hits and then amplify. Over and over and over again we need this.
We need to be the party of AOC and not Chuck Schumer when it comes to style and the attention economy. And ALL of us need to help with this work.
Eolirin
@Suzanne: That lifestyle stuff is tied to a bunch of cult of personality like following, including Rogan. It’s not like you can duplicate that by force of will.
And people on the left tend to be much more skeptical of that kind of content besides. It’s a bad fit for the cultural inclinations of our voters. It’s the same problem we have in legacy media, honestly. It’s much easier to make a ton of money propagandizing to the right but you tend to go bankrupt trying to do that for the left. It’s not that we aren’t vulnerable to propaganda mind, we’re just not prone to high engagement and spending with respect to it.
A left leaning Rogan can’t sell enough product to be wildly successful. Subsequently, a left leaning Rogan won’t exist.
Eolirin
@AM in NC: How do we pay for that? There’s a reason why Fox is the only network that makes any money, and why right wing direct mail is successful and left wing direct mail isn’t even attempted. There’s only one profitable audience for it, and it isn’t made up of our voters.
Absent a broader cultural rejection of bigotry we need to get used to fighting uphill battles and losing in painful ways a good chunk of the time.
Eolirin
@There go two miscreants: I think almost all of the analysis of why Harris lost is subtly, but sufficiently, rooted in Murc’s law as to be rendered useless.
The Harris campaign could not have won this election no matter what it did, because the people responsible for winning or losing them this election had their own agency. This was not a failure of the campaign. It was a failure of the environment the campaign was forced to operate in. What needs to be done to change that environment is out of the scope of a politicial campaign.
We don’t even control the judiciary ffs. Trump would never have been able to run again if we did, and maybe that would have been enough.
AM in NC
@Eolirin: We raised plenty of money for TV ads and consultants. Harris raised more money than any campaign in history. I think we need to spend money more wisely on different media.
WG’s focus on capacity-building and vote building organizations seem smart places to focus, as does supporting and amplifying content creators and networks that support liberal/Dem/leftist narratives and policies and candidates.
fancycwabs
It’s okay, Speaker Johnson–the Romans had a well-established method for dealing with religious figures that got too uppity–you might have heard about it in church, especially around Easter.