For all the blather these days about the dispirited opposition, we've seen two examples already this week — the Episcopalian bishop and the Reagan-appointed judge — who are willing to stand up to Trump's overreach and sociopathy.
— Bill Grueskin (@bgrueskin.bsky.social) January 23, 2025 at 2:48 PM
Bloomberg and (to my surprise) Axios launched Project 2025 trackers this week, connecting Trump's moves to the wildly unpopular manifesto. This is a really good opportunity for Democrats to run riot over this already plowed and seeded terrain and keep their grip on the Project 2025 narrative.
— Jason Linkins (@dceiver.bsky.social) January 25, 2025 at 2:06 AM
It's really rare for these kinds of media organs to evince something of a civic impulse (or an impulse that can be shaped into a civic impulse); it's a good sign that the political media wants to have this partisan conflict to write about and the terms here are highly favorable to Democrats
— Jason Linkins (@dceiver.bsky.social) January 25, 2025 at 2:06 AM
For your consideration, as Rod Serling used to say:
This is an excellent piece. Democrats have actually done OK. But close doesn’t matter as much as the reality that 53 is greater than 47, 220 greater than 215. They can’t do much to stop Trump right now; Repubs have to step up to block nominations
What Dems have to do is oppose. They’ve done…/1— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) January 22, 2025 at 10:22 AM
…it before. In 2003 new minority leader Nancy Pelosi, in a unified front with organized labor, planted their flag & refused to give an inch on privatizing Social Security. Some Dem wanted to know when Dems would offer their own plan. Pelosi’s response:
“Never. Is never good enough for you?” /2Another galvanizing moment in Dem opposition to Dubya—probably not one of Mr Kristol’s favorite moments—was the Murtha resolution. Dem John Murtha was the first Vietnam War vet elected to Congress & one of the party’s biggest hawks. But in Nov 2005 Murtha—who had supported the invasion of Iraq— /3
…introduced a resolution calling for the redeployment of all US troops out of Iraq. It had no chance of passing. But it was an earthquake; after being split in 2002-2003, Murtha’s resolution started bringing Dems together in opposition to the war. Repubs flipped out so much that they offered…/4
…their own bullshit resolution they knew everyone would reject. But in the debate new Rep Jean Schmidt said she was asked by a constituent to tell the 37 year Marine Murtha “that cowards cut and run, Marines never do.” Democrats erupted. It was everyone. Some of the Massachusetts liberals…/5
…were shouting at the Repubs, & future DLC chair & current Fox pundit Harold Ford Jr lost his shit & ran across the floor to point & scream at the Republicans for attacking Murtha.
Democrats picked a fight, Republicans took a cheap shot, & it emboldened & unified Democrats. It was…/6
…a turning point & put the Dems on the path to winning the House in 2006 largely on opposition to the war, & the nomination of Barack Obama
Murtha’s resolution & tge resulting fights didn’t immediately change policy. But it changed the politics of the moment & the next two elections…/7
…which were both Democratic waves, with one of the results being the eventual withdrawal of troops from Iraq under President Obama
These moments can’t always be planned ahead. Bush hadn’t talked much about privatizing Social Security until after his reelection. Murtha’s resolution wouldn’t…/8
…have had the same impact in 2003 or 2004. But when the opportunities arose the Dems sized them. The opposition to privatizing SS & the Iraq War turned the party from the weakass directionless blob of 2002 to the party that won big in 2006 & 2008, ended the Iraq war, stabilized the toddering…/9
…world financial system, & passed the ACA. It was also the start of a years-long unification of a more progressive & disciplined Democratic Party that, despite tiny majorities, passed the most sweeping Dem legislation since the Great Society.
I don’t think opposing everything at all times…/10
…is necessarily the answer; we want the government to work as well as possible, so there will be an occasional vote where Dems should agree w Trump on basic continuation of government. But they also need to pick some big fights. Republicans will overreact. They can be divided. Dems can’t know…/11
…what will break through. But if they hold firm, don’t make cowardly surrenders, persevere, & stand for what’s right, they’re more likely to stop Trumpism than if they passively play it safe. We’re on the right side, what we believe in is more popular than Trumpism, & it’s our only choice. /12
Dems have been pretty consistent on tariffs. But yes, Dems should go to every microphone they see, every keyboard within reach, & talk about Trump releasing cop killers & sex criminals. /13 bsky.app/profile/aowl…
— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) January 22, 2025 at 2:05 PM
What Trump’s doing across the government is far worse—as policy & as political liability—than Bush trying to privatize Social Security. Dems took SS privatization & turned it in to the torpedo that delivered their first direct hit on Bush’s second term. Trump is giving Dems more targets than in 2005
— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) January 24, 2025 at 3:01 PM
this isn’t doom (and i think it might even head off some of the worst they can do), but cranking all of these stoves that will cause almost immediate pain means we are probably in for a *rough* february. hangover is gonna set in damned near immediately this time.
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) January 24, 2025 at 4:50 PM
A huge number of Americans' political choices the last couple of decades have been structured around the fact that nothing truly bad has ever happened to them, and therefore nothing bad *could* ever happen to them. It will be cognitively dissonant, at least!
— Jacob Kramer-Duffield (@jaykaydee.bsky.social) January 24, 2025 at 5:18 PM
I keep thinking about how Dubya's 2nd term started in a rather triumphant mood to and by the end of it the entire political and media establishment were pretending they never supported him.
— Weedle (@weedle.bsky.social) January 24, 2025 at 2:24 AM
Baud
That post is a few days old, but based on my blue sky feed, Dems did do this.
Kay
I agree with his characterization of congressional Democrats opposition to privatizing Social Security, but the opposition to the Iraq War didn’t come from leadership – opponents of the Iraq War were demonized by media, Republicans and Right wing Democrats in 2002. It was only after the Left side of the Party pushed and the war became broadly unpopular that Dems in Congress started opposing.
But, I guess if I were Bill Kristol I’d rewrite what happened too. He was on the wrong side of that. I’m just amused at the lengths he’ll go to avoid giving anti war people any credit. He was one of the people smearing us and lying about us.
Jobeth
I missed the news about these pardons this week. Along with the death of Cecile Richard it’s been a week of bad news for the pro choice movement. Since there won’t be any clinics left to block in red states I hope the blue states have passed state laws against blocking clinic access since these criminals will surely be emboldened by this administration.
https://apnews.com/article/abortion-trump-executive-order-pardon-817774b21d32a4edf6d39ee43cbc18f4
Kay
Democrats WERE a weak directionless blob in 2002, because they were terrified to oppose media and Republicans on the War on Terror. They got some direction when they belatedly realized that media and Republicans were wrong and they could safely oppose the war media and Republicans lied us into.
Baud
I made this point the other day. Fascism has been attractive partly because it’s been consequence free.
The Thin Black Duke
@Baud: Let’s see how America likes living without guardrails.
hells littlest angel
@Baud:
If a tree falls in the forest and no news organization reports it, does it make a sound?
Baud
@The Thin Black Duke:
I jokingly said Dems shouldn’t run anybody in 2028. Why clean up their mess yet again, only to be taken for granted yet again?
Maybe not joking.
Ben Cisco
@Baud: Such a take presumes that you and yours would survive the chaos; I cannot even remotely begin to take that kind of risk.
Baud
@Ben Cisco:
Well, I don’t seriously expect Dems not to run anybody, and whoever the nominee is will have my full support. Unfortunately, the only way I see the rot in the political culture changing is if Trump leaves the country alone an even worse state than I imagine.
Suzanne
A Project 2025 tracker is a fantastic idea. (I just briefly looked around Bloomberg and Axios to see what it looks like and I couldn’t find it, though…. maybe not launched yet?) But I have been musing in recent days about presenting information visually. Like the “red and blue maps”, or the Upshot’s dial. It’s hard to get people to remember statements or details of things that are in the past, so there’s a real risk of losing the entire idea of Project 2025 in the “public imagination”. If they can design a tracker graphic that keeps it in the forefront of people’s minds, and helps make the connection between it and what is happening now…. that could be a powerful thing. Extra points if it can be easily shared on social media feeds and it stands out.
Chief Oshkosh
@Kay: I’m confused by the FP formatting. I think that the Kristol piece is separate from the Dana Houle Bluesky piece that is spread across several posts.
waspuppet
@Baud: Yes, but what they need to do is say it again tomorrow. And next week. And next month. And next year. That’s how these characterizations stick, and that’s the part they never do.
Starfish (she/her)
So last night, I started watching the series about the Love Has Won cult, and they believed in every conspiracy theory and did a lot of drugs. Robin Williams was important to their belief system as was Trump and Q. The head of the cult claimed that Trump was her father in a past life. And they were seeing the light in Hitler at some point. And it was strange seeing the conspiracy theories that started out of being way too high just get dark in all these little ways.
Scout211
@Suzanne:
Maybe this on Axios.
Betty Cracker
I think this guy quoted above has it wrong:
The entirety of this century so far has been destabilizing — pointless wars, trillions squandered, financial markets tanking and people losing everything, life expectancies declining, technology-driven isolation, wealth inequality rising, a loss of the assumption that future generations will have it better than previous ones, a global pandemic that killed millions, etc.
Others have had it worse in history for sure. None of this excuses poor political choices. But I think the tweeter misunderstands the situation when he claims nothing bad has happened. We won’t get to a solution without recognizing the problems, which are real.
Baud
@waspuppet:
That’s why Trump floods the zone. So people demand Dems talk about the newest outrage.
Kay
@Chief Oshkosh:
The timeline doesn’t even match the argument on Iraq or Social Security privatization. It didn’t begin in 2002. None of that happened until 2005. So is he saying Democrats should wait until 2028 to oppose Trump? We’re just throwing in the towel on the 2026 midterms?
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Most of those things are very abstract to most people. That makes them difficult to connect to people’s day to day lives.
Compare to inflation (real but exaggerated) and crime (somewhat real but also exaggerated), which people feel directly.
Even the entirely fake trans panic is tangible. People can envision trans women and girls on sports teams and in bathrooms.
ETA: The 2008 recession was tangible to people.
Kay
The real kill shot to the Trump Presidency is opposing and delaying the tax cuts until after the midterms.
That, IMO, is the high risk/high reward move but worth it. The only thing Trumps monied backers care about is those tax cuts. It’s worth billions and billions of dollars to them. They’d happily deport all of you if they got a tax cut extension.
Baud
@Kay:
We don’t have the power to delay the tax cuts.
Scout211
Seems to violate Federal law?
Princess
@Chief Oshkosh: Yeah, I think the quotation is all Houle. And I don’t know what he meant about nominating Obama. He wasn’t nominated until 2008. Does he mean the senate seat? I don’t remember that changing the calculus that quickly, but I guess it was a straw in the wind that an anti-war in Iraq guy was elected senator.
Suzanne
@Scout211: Saw that, but wasn’t sure if that’s what the tweet was referring to, since it isn’t named “tracker”. I’d love to see this info in a graphically appealing form, and that gets updated periodically. As dumb as it is…. the environment is visual, and people remember information in images more than in text or in speech.
Marmot
@Kay:
And let’s not forget the legacy media! Anti-war bloggers and other Americans were painted out of the picture or railed against (thx again David Brooks), but never represented fairly. And afterward, we were right for the wrong reasons!
Funny—I’ve heard a lot of references to the W Bush administration lately. Mostly on the Professional Left podcast—thanks for the recommendation, whomever.
Denali5
@Kay:
What does your family in Denmark make of this continuing focus on the US taking Greenland? More and more it seems to be a more serious idea, and not simply a diversion from the other scary things that are happening.
Kay
@Baud:
“Nothing can be done” cannot be the Party motto. I mean, if “politics” is over and nothing matters and we’re just hoping the asteroid hits then I’m not sure there’s anything to discuss.
Lapassionara
@Betty Cracker: I agree, but it doesn’t look like people ever understand the causes of the bad things that happen in a way that affects their voting. With the exception of the 2008 election, the voters keep returning people (and the party) to office that result in bad things happening. For example, the Supreme Court is now in the hands of a right-wing cabal. If the voters remembered the bad things that happened because of this (eg, Dobbs), then I think they would tend to vote for the Democratic nominee for president, but evidently they do not tend to care about this issue. I have no idea what to do about this.
Chief Oshkosh
@Betty Cracker: I think that the point is that these folks don’t perceive that any bad has happened to them. I think that if you are old enough, and of a particular political or philosophical bent, you can appreciate what might have been if the US hadn’t taken a spiraling rightwards turn back in the late 70s.
Hunter Thompson had it right when he wrote about the tide of leftward movement just coming up to his Vegas window sill, then inexorably retreating back into the sea. Or something like that – it’s been a long time since I read that piece.
Baud
@Kay:
We can oppose. But we shouldn’t lie to people about what not having a majority means.
ETA: We can’t hold Republicans accountable if we tell people we had the power to stop them and didn’t.
SFAW
@Baud:
I’d hazard a guess that the most crime (or crime-rate “increase”) that people experience is “did you hear about that bad thing mentioned on Fox/EyeWitless News last night?” as opposed to the inflation which everyone experienced.
Chief Oshkosh
@Kay: As I mentioned, I am confused by how the whole thing is presented, but yes, I don’t recall that being the timeline. Also, I don’t recall the Murtha event at all, but I love the story and hope that that is how it happened.
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker:
Agree. And it really kicked off with 9/11, and the utter shock and horror of watching Americans jumping out of buildings on live TV. And climate change presents this looming threat that our political life just isn’t up to dealing with, and our technology and media environment is so fast-moving and ephemeral compared to what it used to be. This is has been an unstable time, and I don’t think we’re going to get a break soon.
Baud
@SFAW:
But it’s easy to envision, even if not directly experienced.
Kay
@Denali5:
They’re horrified. They think it’s aggressive and belligerent and they’re bewildered that the US is attacking their PM and insulting and demeaning Danes when they have been so loyal to the US.
They think our country is a dangerous, violent basket case and instead of threatening allies we should be cleaning up the rampant and unchecked corruption in our politics and government systems.
Raven
@Chief Oshkosh:
Long Gone Gonzo: The Friendship of President Jimmy Carter & Hunter S. Thompson
https://branfordseven.com/hunter-s-thompson-jimmy-carter-politics/
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud: Agreed, which is why our opposition must be total and uniform, which is sort of the point of the Kristol/Houle OP mash. Nancy did it with SS “reform” 20 years ago. “It can be done!” I think is the take-home message.
Glory b
@Kay: GI’ve us a list of things that CAN be done then.
People keep talking in these abstractions, “Fight Like Hell,” “Fight, Fight, Fight,” “Do something!”
Do what?
Kay
@Chief Oshkosh:
The Murtha story is true. But it only came about after two years of really relentless pressure from the anti war wing of the Party. The Right and Center of the Party voted for the war. This idea that we were unified in opposition is not true. It was a huge rift between the Right and Left sides of the Party and it continued through the Democratic presidential primary of 2007.
The Thin Black Duke
@Baud: This.
White Americans are addicted to voting for Republicans.
You can’t kick a bad habit until you admit you have a problem.
SFAW
@Baud:
Lots of things are “easy to envision”; I was referring to your contention that people had experienced it (i.e., “which people feel directly”).
Starfish (she/her)
– Dave Troy
Chief Oshkosh
@Raven: Thanks!
Princess
@Kay: Canada feels the same way except the bewildered part because we’ve lived beside you long enough to not be surprised.
CliosFanBoy
AKA “Mean Jean.” A real piece of work, even for a republican.
Suzanne
@SFAW: I don’t know that that’s true. Increased crime and public disorder was pretty visible to me. I don’t hold either political party responsible for it, though. But I think the pandemic and fentanyl have cooked some brains.
ETA: We experienced a man, high on drugs and having a total breakdown, invading our home in the middle of the night and smashing up our house. I also witnessed a few other incidents.
Glory b
@Chief Oshkosh: No, there will always be those ostensibly on our side that will go over every statement by every elected Dem so they can criticize them for not opposing it the right way. Amy Klobuchar was getting dragged by lefties on Bluesky for being too detailed and not foaming at the mouth.
She said the right thing but it was no good because she didn’t seem angry enough to them.
I think this becomes demoralizing and discouraging.
Gvg
@Betty Cracker: crying wolf too often gets you tuned out. I would say that the precise disasters we predicted, did not happen to ordinary people yet. Excluding unfairness to minority groups which was already happening, and not a change, until now when it will be a change worse.
The reason most disasters didn’t happen is mostly the democrats and until recently the sane business republicans managed to head off the worst dramatic bad things. Repeatedly preventing defaults for instance. The problem is that most people don’t really understand what a default would be, and mostly see it as a tantrum that inconveniences them when offices shut. It’s like a strike. They really do not get the cascade of a real worldwide depression and loans for everything including business liquidity forever being a higher rate, etc. They don’t even know how Britain blew up a lot of prosperity by Brexit.
People don’t even know the pre revolutionary European reasons that the separation of church and state was to preserve religious freedom not repress it, and it was needed mainly to protect Christians from Christians.
Climate change is rather different, it happened gradually. The only reason it got added into the conservative tribalism is they have adopted know nothingism and refuse science. It’s bad luck these are happening at the same time.
The rising income inequality also happened gradually and it’s been hard to get people to notice, then agree with what to do about it. Because it was gradual, it was also something that got tuned out.
Before the crashes I don’t think we can prevent, we need to start hammering these points.
Democrats protected SS and prevented default etc when you elected enough of them to have the votes. When you didn’t, we CAN’T stop bad things. That is actually the way democracy is supposed to work. You voted this way and that’s why this happened. They said they were going to do this before you voted for them. They tried before and didn’t have the votes. It was not because they didn’t mean it. All of them, not just Trump.
This country was founded by a lot of people fleeing the religious wars of Europe between kinds of Christians. Not just persecution, but the ravages of war, disease and property confiscation if they had any. There were multiple wars. Armies in those wars were more like hoards of ravening bandits than modern armies with supply lines.
The founders put in separation of church and state on purpose to protect religion and it was mostly to protect Christians. They were near descendants of those who left from where it was normal to have a state religion and hated it because they could not worship God in the way their conscience said. It’s evidently been too many generations and people have forgotten. These evangelicals are fools.
zhena gogolia
@The Thin Black Duke: I keep coming down to the fact that if a majority of white people had turned away from Trump’s criminality and evil, we would have President Harris and be moving forward in a positive direction right now.
Kay
@Denali5:
Trump called the Danish PM, twice, and threatened her with trade sanctions unless she meets his demands to turn over territory.
That US media have gone along with these Putin-like moves against an ally is appalling.
Also, and I know this doesn’t matter to US media, Greenlanders are the indigenous people of that island. The US doesn’t just get to go in there and stomp on them. They’ve been negotiating treaties with Denmark and Norway since 1200. They’re not savages who the slick NYC real estate crook and his media buddies are going to get to trade their huge island for some beads. It’s valuable. They know it’s valuable. The US can’t afford Greenland and they can’t purchase the indigenous Greenlanders. They’re not for sale.
SFAW
@Suzanne:
My point wasn’t that people weren’t experiencing crime; my point was that it seems to be much more in the realm of indirect experience for most people, whereas inflation has affected pretty much everyone in the country.
ETA: I’m truly glad you’re safe after that break-in. I imagine it was pretty scary.
Baud
@SFAW:
Ok. I actually don’t know how many people have experienced crime or directly know a crime victim. But crime has always punched people’s buttons.
Betty Cracker
The debt ceiling is a leverage point Democrats may be able to use to extract painful concessions from Repubs. But for that to work, Repubs will have to believe Dems really won’t give them the votes to prevent debt default and the resulting economic catastrophe. I don’t know if Dems will be willing to play hardball at that level or even if they should. I do know that agreeing to be the sole responsible governing party isn’t working out for us.
Starfish (she/her)
@SFAW: I think you are right. There were a lot of people afraid to go to the cities who had not been to the cities for years.
Suzanne is also right in that there are people wilding due to drugs, homelessness, and mental illness.
Jeffro
Two themes, two memes, two hashtags, two quick ways to sum it all up going forward:
#NoOneVotedForThis
#ItsAllOnTheGOPNow
When the extremely painful stupid starts to come down on the public at large, it’ll be important to hammer those two themes, over and over.
Let’s be a real opposition party, Ds!
Kay
@Glory b:
Trump has given them two issues they all agree on – gutting Medicaid and halting funding for the infrastructure law they passed. Not even the furthest Right Democrat will break ranks on those. So start there. Oppose those. Oppose them inside GOP House districts, where the Medicaid beneficiaries and infrastructure spending is.
Baud
@SFAW:
I agree that inflation is more tangible than crime. But both of those things are more tangible to folks than a lot of the problems that we libs care about.
Suzanne
@SFAW: Maybe. I do think disorder is more visible relative to pre-pandemic, though. Not just on TV. Homelessness, drug use, assault, public masturbation, etc.
A few months back, I watched a fight break out between two men. One of whom had his baby daughter strapped to his back in one of those Baby Bjorn carriers. An utter WTF moment for me.
Kay
@Glory b:
When they opposed Social Security privatization they tied it to specific GOP lawmakers in the House. Media screeched that it was too aggressive but they did it anyway.
The Thin Black Duke
@zhena gogolia: I think this is why so many black people are pissed off right now. White people like to pretend this was a difficult decision, but it wasn’t. Donald Trump is the embodiment of whiteness elevating mediocrity at the expense of POC and it’s insulting to claim otherwise. Black people don’t have the luxury to sit out elections because the repercussions of having the wrong man sitting in the Oval office impacts us both directly and immediately. So whenever some white person is acting “surprised” at what’s happening, it’s infuriating. It also tells me that these white people don’t know any black people. Oh, maybe as co-workers or next door neighbors, but not as friends.
Jeffro
@Ben Cisco:
@Baud:
I’m thinking about running in 2028. On the Republican ticket.
Why not? I could spell out what an actual, principled conservative would look and sound like, since no one over there seems to know or care anymore.
(Actually the main reason would be to start beating it into people’s heads that, Rep Ogles be damned, trumpov is a lame duck and will need replacing in four years. But still)
zhena gogolia
@The Thin Black Duke: I’m white, but this is exactly how I feel.
Now everyone’s in “resistance fighter” mode, when all they had to do was support our candidate wholeheartedly, not scream at him (or her) about Palestine, and keep TRUMP OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE. That was too difficult for them, but now they’re going to “resist” somehow. Bullshit.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Hopefully the resistance fighters were full throated Harris supporters. I agree they don’t have credibility if they weren’t.
Suzanne
@Baud: I think we also are underestimating how destabilizing some of the social changes around “family formation”, educational assortative mating, declining religiosity, etc….. have really been. Of course, these trends have continued under both D and R governments.
I hate the term “ family formation” because it’s usually social conservatives using it to shame women who want to go to college, but it does describe a milestone event for lots of people.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: I’m going by people on a listserv I’m on, who were screaming “Genocide Joe” last spring but are now sharing advice about how to protect people from ICE. Forgive me if I’m not interested in their advice.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Yeah, we do need to provide people with that information, but those types of messengers are basically ICE’s partners in crime.
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud: Yes, agreed about having skepticism about their potential work product, but to be clear, I’ll take resistance fighters who lack credibility over non-existent resistance fighters.
Mike E
If it’s on fire then you’ll get 24/7 TV coverage.
Betty Cracker
@Gvg: You make a great point about responsible parties (Dems and the now all but extinct chamber of commerce Repubs) keeping the worst effects of Repub irresponsibility at bay. Given low levels of civic engagement, it’s invisible to most voters. It disconnects votes from results (as does the filibuster). It breeds cynicism.
Starfish (she/her)
This Iranian lady left decorative tile out as presents for the firefighters who saved her house and got to meet them.
H.E.Wolf
From your comments here, over the years, I think of you as a capable and insightful do-er, so this is for other folks who might also be asking that question.
I’d start with: do one small, concrete action.
Donate some money to the local food bank.
Read a book by Rep. John Lewis. I started with his book for children, because it was brief.
Call or fax your congresspeople – valued commenter Nelle has shown the way here, with kind and effective persistence over months and years.
Draw a daisy on the sidewalk to cheer up passersby. (They’re the only thing I can draw, and they’re lopsided, but hey.)
Eolirin’s guest post yesterday had a much more eloquent and detailed commentary – I recommend it to anyone who hasn’t read it yet.
https://balloon-juice.com/2025/01/24/guest-post-eolirin/
Baud
@Chief Oshkosh:
That also means working with centrists and Republicans like Liz Cheney and Bill Kristol.
The Thin Black Duke
@zhena gogolia: Voting is the easiest and most effective means of enacting change but white political purity ponies won’t do it for whatever reason. Let’s do one-minute Aaron Sorkinesque sound bites on TikTok instead.
Scout211
Another J6 participant who is rejecting a pardon.
It’s an interview with the man. TL;DR: He had alcohol and mental health issues and mixed that with his politics at the time. He’s sober now and sees how wrong he was and how wrong it is for Trump to pardon everyone, as if it didn’t happen.
tobie
The rule of thumb has always been that Soc Sec & Medicare are the third rail of American politics. Reduce them or cut them and otherwise quiescent normies will protest.
Democrats should of course oppose the Trump/Republican agenda because it is radical and will hurt everyone but the super rich. Not every issue will have traction, though. Elected Dems are going to need to be nimble and, please, for the love of God, only put your best speakers in front of the cameras.
Baud
@Scout211:
Good for him.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Chris Johnson
@zhena gogolia: No, we’d have President Harris and we’d be at war, with the same shit regarding Musk and Twitter and the total capture of all news networks going on that had been going on before.
I’d take it, unhesitatingly, but there’s no way that was going to work. We would not have defeated our enemies because they’d still be there getting ever more radicalized by an adversary nation that’s done a lot of homework on how to take us out. ‘better’ wasn’t an option when you look at what’s been revealed now. All that would still be there.
I don’t know what’s going to happen apart from empire collapse. I’d be happy to see double empire collapse as Russia is way out over its skis here: it’s gotta be a lesson to everyone, at this point.
Out in the hinterlands, humans find ways to survive. We wouldn’t have been given a chance to have things be good, but neither can our humanity entirely be destroyed.
Ohio Mom
@CliosFanBoy: Mean Jean was my Rep. Talk about being mortified, I think I still am by the memories. She must have missed being in Congress because she ran for either State Senator or Rep in a district east of mine. For all I know, she’s still in office in Columbus (sorry, not goggling before breakfast).
I think I understand people who seem immune to the cataclysms around them. I remember one morning back in the Great Recession, going down the driveway to pick up the morning paper and the garbage men were on my cul-de-sac filling up their truck, as always, and even if Ohio Dad was in job limbo, the rest of the world kept humming away. I thought about how comforting that was.
I think that’s one of things people find comforting about religion. Even in the midst of whatever is going on in their lives, they go to services, and it’s the same sequence of the same rituals that have been in place for millennia — even though a lot of the rituals are newer but that’s not the feeling that is evoked.
Even right now, you wouldn’t know looking at me how terrified I am. I’m picking up the house, sorting the laundry, fussing after my guys, same as everyday. It’s easy to get caught up in the everyday minutia and ignore the upheaval in D.DC. Hell, it’s downright seductive. It’s an effort keeping up with the news. Much easier to focus on the dishwasher that needs emptying.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
rikyrah
@The Thin Black Duke:
Truth
Truth
rikyrah
@Kay:
They would sell their mothers for those tax cuts
Kay
@zhena gogolia:
They’re exactly the people who will protect people from ICE. They don’t give a shit if they’re smeared by the Right. They have firm beliefs and they fight for them, whether those beliefs are politically popular or politically expedient or not.
But, no. They won’t need the Democratic Party’s permission to oppose Trumps Brown shirts, anymore than they needed the Democratic Party’s permission to oppose Iraq or war crimes and ethnic cleansing in Gaza. They believe in those positions. They just go forth.
rikyrah
@Kay:
They want to put it in a reconciliation bill, so it only needs 50 in the Senate
Baud
Via Reddit, New Zealand represent!
Kay
@rikyrah:
I’m talking about opposing it politically, but there will be business friendly Democrats who break ranks on the Trump tax cuts, so go for the two gimmees Trump handed them – Medicaid and infrastructure funding.
Those are safe to oppose. Start there.
Betty Cracker
There’s a reason Trump raised such a stink about kicking the debt ceiling can down the road during the last continuing resolution (or whatever it was) dustup before he took office. He knows it’s a leverage point for Dems, and he wanted it eliminated for the short term so he could shove his reactionary agenda through as quickly as possible and without concessions. The crazies in his own caucus didn’t budge, so the issue looms, and if the crazies remain immovable, the only way to avoid default is with Dem votes. I hope our leaders are prepared to use that to full advantage. We’ll see.
lowtechcyclist
@Gvg:
The know-nothingism and anti-science attitude has really been a follow-on consequence. Too much of the corporate world, from the oil and gas biz to auto manufacturers, were against it for $$ reasons, and the RW types broadly were against believing in global warming because libruls were the ones sounding the alarm. (It’s one of those laws I can never keep straight.)
I think it was the pandemic that finally pushed them into across-the-board anti-science mode, rather than just claiming that the science on global warming was wrong.
different-church-lady
You say “wildly unpopular manifesto” as though it were wildly unpopular.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
good point – they do have some leverage there.
Baud
My 2¢ is that liberals are still trying to fight a political war rather than a true culture war.
Trump and the Republicans are offering a competing culture to ours. We should think about how to persuade people to choose our culture instead. The institutional party is really a side show in that fight.
different-church-lady
@Gvg:
No, it’s because they read the warnings as hippie scolding. “If hippies think it’s bad, then it must be good, and I’m not going to let a hippie tell me I can’t do anything I want.”
different-church-lady
@Baud: Bingo.
Starfish (she/her)
@Baud: I am going to go put tampons in all the men’s bathrooms because it makes Trumpists cry.
Ksmiami
@Glory b: start with quiet sabotage, then amass power : hard and soft and then fight.
Mai Naem mobile ¹
@Scout211: remember SCOTUS said its okay if Orange Mosquito does it.
different-church-lady
@Kay:
But will they be any good at it? Consider that the people zhena is talking about behaved in a way that helped put the brownshirts back in power.
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud: I can’t say that either are on my payroll, but if they’re looking for jobs…
/
Nelle
@H.E.Wolf: Thank you for this. My suggestion is meager, but a start. Smile at people. I thought about this when I was at the gym this morning. A month ago, I was feeling grim when I was there and a woman was wearing a t-shirt that said “smile”. Normally, I hate anyone telling me to smile (in 2nd grade, I refused to smile on command and ended up with no recess for 2 weeks. I still feel justified. I didn’t have the language, as a little Mennonite girl, to tell the teacher that I have a resting bitch face).
Anyway, this little white haired woman reminded me of my mom and she smiled at me and I smiled back. Darn if it didn’t turn my day around. So genuine smiles, because I want to. All over the gym. Even before sunrise!
Mai Naem mobile ¹
@Starfish (she/her): condoms too.
Baud
@Starfish (she/her):
I like it.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I think Democratic leadership is willing to play hardball on the Debt Ceiling, and Jeffries has said so. At least, that’s my recollection from reporting in yesterday’s Politico Playbook that I’m too sleepy to look up right now. The reporter also said there may be 9 to 12* members who aren’t sure they wsnt to play chicken over a potential default.
This could end being important because Speaker Johnson and his henchmen may not be able to get his entire caucus on board for an increase. This time they could be the one’s yelling, “Mint the Coin!”
Democrats hung together fairly well in 2023 when the Debt Ceiling came up. But we held the White House and Senate then, so this will have a different dynamic.
Another different dynamic: back then, Joe Biden was a stablilizing force.This time around, Trump is a chaos agent and he already is deliberately throwing the country into turmoil. An impending default will be much scarier than last time, and fear can and will drive markets.
* We need to hunt those witches down now! BURN THEM!!! (just kidding/not kidding)
different-church-lady
@Chief Oshkosh: Right now they’re probably looking for protection.
tobie
Even China seems to have internalized Trump’s 2016 taunt of Rubio as Lil’ Marco. This admin is owned by techbros, China, and Russia.
https://mastodon.cloud/@raymondpert/113889198219316083
> “I hope you will act accordingly,” Wang told Rubio, [..] employing a Chinese phrase typically used by a teacher or a boss warning a student or employee to behave and be responsible for their actions
different-church-lady
@tobie: China has nukes, right?
Kay
Just amazing. Trump banned reports on bird flu – they’re forbidden to tell the public about bird flu spread. Wealthy media corporations have very fancy lawyers. None of them are going to sue on the federal government barring the release of information on infectious disease?
All I can think about are the THOUSANDS of editorials about how woke college students were a threat to free speech. Meta is blocking anti MAGA speech, and X, and TikTok, and the federal government has put a gag order on their own employees so no one will know bird flu is spreading and not a peep from any of the free speech defenders.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Might be some data here:
National Crime Victimization Survey
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Agreed, and I think @different-church-lady‘s point about scolding is related to a cultural vibe we’re on the losing side of right now. That’s one reason Walz’s “weirdos” and “mind your own damn business” lines had (and may still have) such potential to be an effective counter, IMO.
It wasn’t scolding — no one was lecturing anyone for being offensive or trying to get them to adopt more respectful language. It was “mind your own fucking business, weirdos.” There’s an important difference there, I think.
tobie
@different-church-lady: Yes, China does. My interest was in the rhetorical posture the Chinese govt adopted. They are treating the US as a client state and that may be an accurate description with this admin.
different-church-lady
Calvinball is a harsh mistress.
Starfish (she/her)
@different-church-lady:
I would like to nominate this as a rotating tag line.
different-church-lady
@Betty Cracker: Yes, but we have to keep in mind that any and all warnings will be re-fabricated into “scolding”. The right is a toddler always looking for a reason to throw a tantrum.
Suzanne
@Baud:
I absolutely agree with you here. I have been musing on how, I feel, “our side” is no longer really thought of as especially funny. Fifteen years ago, or so, I think that energy was different. I would have told you then that every person I knew personally who was funny, relatable, personable, enjoyable to be around, etc…. was left or liberal. I wouldn’t say that today.
I know I feel less fun than I used to. There’s a lot of weight.
Kay
@different-church-lady:
Well, we can monitor and critique them from our warm houses.
What if they wear cringey hats or yell too loud!?! Some of them might even also oppose war crimes!
Safer to wait until we can assemble a completely unobjectionable and harmonious “opposition” that doesn’t upset anyone, ever.
different-church-lady
@Suzanne: It’s because Trumpism is grim. We’re not arguing over policy or budgets anymore — we’re fighting an existential battle. Too many people are still ignoring what the stakes are.
K-Mo
@different-church-lady: You’re not wrong but I just don’t understand what the way forward is without welcoming in some or all of the people who voted for Trump or sat it out due to whatever brew of idiocy and underlying pathology drove them.
different-church-lady
@Kay: “Genocide Joe” was not the same as a cringey hat.
Denali5
@Kay:
So will NATO support Denmark in this tiff? I have family in Hungary who have relied on NATO and the EU’s backing if they are invaded. Things are getting so strange.
K-Mo
@Baud: Agreed. And their culture sucks.
Ben Cisco
@The Thin Black Duke:
Perfect summation, just wanted to see it again.
Kay
@different-church-lady:
Oppose means oppose. You’re going to piss people off. It’s adversarial. Anyone defending deportees in person is going to get kicked and punched and pepper sprayed and arrested. Its not polite.
Starfish (she/her)
@Kay: She would prefer to fight Democrats than fight fascists.
Ben Cisco
@Jeffro:
You’re nowhere near a big enough asshole to get any traction for a GOP nod. they’re devolving, and have been since Nixon.
rikyrah
@Kay:
I am following the WHO on every social media platform that I can.
different-church-lady
@K-Mo: We can’t welcome them in: they’ve decided they don’t want to come in.
Instead we’d have to convince them that pragmatism is more important that reactionary politics.
No, I don’t know how we’re going to do that.
Quinerly
@Kay:
THIS!!!!
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker:
And the cultural vibe is shaped by people we know and encounter in our personal lives, and people we see on social media, and cultural figures. Not our elected officials.
lowtechcyclist
@Betty Cracker:
Fortunately, we don’t hit the debt ceiling until June IIRC, but funding for the government is only through March. In both cases, the GOP has the votes if they stick together, which is a big ‘if’ so hopefully Dems can extract major concessions then.
But on both, our messaging has to be consistent: the GOP controls the Presidency and both houses of Congress (and an extremely friendly Federal court system, though that’s a side issue here), they can pass any bill they want to. So anything ‘Congress’ screws up, it’s the GOP that has full control, and it’s their fault.
Suzanne
@different-church-lady: Oh, I agree 100%: it is grim as fuck.
Kay
@Denali5:
Yes. Trump also attacked NATO and the whole EU at Davos because EU regulators actually enforce the rules they adopt and apply those rules to US companies. US oligarchs and Trump object to the enforcement of laws.
Denmark’s government is squeaky clean. Its tiny, true, but so are a lot of US states and no US state’s government is as clean as Denmark’s. They cant believe Americans put up with such rampant corruption and self dealing. They think we should clean up our own stinking mess before we steal Greenland and stink it up, too.
different-church-lady
This is going to sound overly simplistic, but: we’ve been stumbling around asking “Why?” for months, and I think we’ve finally pulled out the key to the answer here on this thread. It’s a broader cultural war and we’ve been fighting it like it’s still a political war.
Trumpism is literally reshaping what is acceptable in society, and that reshaping is happening through channels that are not purely political. Trump is merely the leader of something ugly that already existed, but wasn’t allowed to be viewed as good. We can’t fight that just at the ballot box anymore.
Mai Naem mobile ¹
So this involves House Oversight idiot James Comer but I wonder if this is part of an effort to get crypto into banks and get a bailout like the techbros did with Silicon bank a couple of years ago. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2025/01/24/the-us-oversight-committee-is-investigating-allegations-of-debanking-in-the-tech-and-crypto-sectors/?utm_source=bluesky&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=forbes. Bloomberg’s got a piece on Howard Lutnick’s investment in Tether which surprise surprise is a crypto favored by drug cartels etc.
I just see a S&L crisis 2.0 or another ’08 bailout except now it’s extra spicy with crypto.
different-church-lady
@Kay: I think you and zhena are talking about two different groups of people.
cmorenc
@Betty Cracker: The key point is that nothing bad has happened to them or their immediate circles personally – they are insulated from the avalanche of bad shit happening to other people elsewhere , even right here in the usa. Storm troopers have not marched through their neighborhoods. They did not get laid off etc
Kay
The Resistance in 2016 arose out of the grass roots. It was very successful. I reckon that’s where The Opposition will come from, too. They’ll be in front of the Democratic Party, not behind them. They always are.
Layer8Problem
@tobie: Excellent, and I’d wager we have a “diplomat” without any conception of subtilty, subtext, or sarcasm.
Betty Cracker
@lowtechcyclist: 100% agree. Connect the result to votes. Voters gave Republicans all the power, including the SCOTUS, so what happens is on them. Want different results? Empower different people.
Another Scott
@lowtechcyclist: +1
If the price for protecting the social safety net is default (for whatever short duration), then we must be willing to default. Giving in to the monsters by giving up our few pieces of power will not make things better.
(Repost) Jeffries knows this.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Steve LaBonne
@lowtechcyclist: I don’t think the Democrats should even try for concessions on the debt ceiling. They should sit on the sidelines and say over and over that it’s a problem the Republicans have to fix. Republican-caused disasters that even the dumbest voters can’t help noticing are the only hope for staving off decades of fascist rule, so Republicans will just have to decide if they want to trigger an economic meltdown so soon after taking power.
Quinerly
@Jeffro:
Since Ogles’s name has been invoked, I’ll throw this into the mix. He’s looking for this investigation to be dropped.
https://www.newschannel5.com/news/newschannel-5-investigates/facing-fbi-investigation-that-trump-could-halt-andy-ogles-proposes-allowing-third-term-for-president
Quinerly
@Starfish (she/her):
Heart emoji.
Kay
Democrats could just wait to see what’s most unpopular and glom onto existing opposition. I’m serious. That’s the completely risk free option that’s always available. Its probably also low reward, but low reward is enough for modest gains. They could eke out a House win in 26 doing just that and nothing else.
tobie
@cmorenc: The economy has been thriving in the trades but white working class voters are incapable of understanding that their personal success is linked to the success of the overall economy. Joe, the Plumber and Tito, the Builder are convinced they built their business entirely on their own. That rural white Americans and small business are among the biggest recipients of state and federal aid never crosses their mind.
Suzanne
@different-church-lady: I think you are correct, and I think this goes back to “crisis of meaning” type stuff. Wasn’t it Breitbart who said that politics is downstream of culture? He knew how to manipulate. He was really, really good at it.
All of this is deeply qualitative and not measurable, and isn’t really actionable through the things we’re used to doing. I have a sense that the general “mood”, for lack of a better word, is really, really different than it was even in 2008, which is not even an age-of-majority ago.
Geminid
@Kay: Trump is also demanding that NATO countries devote 5% of GDP to military spending. We spend 3.4% of GDP on defense.
Josh Marshall took this as bad-faith demand intended to break up NATO I don’t usually see Marshall quoted in foreign policy threads but I saw this on one of them.
I also saw some Trump supporters advocate cutting off spare parts for Denmark’s F-35s if they don’t knuckle under. I can’t even begin to explain how bad an idea this is. I think Lockheed will nip that one in the bud, but you never know with an idiot like Trump.
Quinerly
@Baud:
And doing a slight smile when McConnell waited to almost the end of voting last night to cast his No vote on Hegseth.
Betty Cracker
@cmorenc: I understand the point, but I think it’s fundamentally wrong. Some relatively well off cranks are into Trumpism for the transgressive thrill of being an out and proud racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic turd— that’s real, those are the boat parade people, the most visible Trumpers.
But I don’t think enough people fit that description to seize control of the government by voting. IMO, there’s a larger number of people who sense society is broken and things are coming apart, and they’re willing to gamble with burning it all down to change things.
Quinerly
@Kay:
THIS!!!!!!
150 TIMES………
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: That’s assuming that something like an election actually happens in 2026 and political opposition is allowed to exist, but I guess that’s the unspoken assumption of all of this.
The Thin Black Duke
@different-church-lady: “True terror is to wake up one morning and realize that your high school class is running the country.”
–Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Geminid
@Mai Naem mobile ¹: I heard that the people behind Trump’s crypto-currency have come up with a name for it: “Rube-Ls.”
tobie
@Mai Naem mobile ¹: This is an underreported threat. Crypto will eventually crash but if US banks are invested in it, the bailout required to rescue the economy is going to make the 2008 bailout look like chump change.
LAC
@The Thin Black Duke: Good morning and amen to this! I am also infuriated by (but sadly resigned to) the emerging strategy of othering us in order to rope in those magical beings who voted for trump for some good faith reason despite his criminality and vileness.
oldgold
The Resistance will scuffle along half-assedly in a scattershot manner until a leader rises up.
Now, do not get me wrong, half-assed scattershot resistance is better than none. Hell, it may succeed from time to time. Switching the House is very possible in 2026.
The conditions are ripe for a leader to rise up within the next several months. I suspect it will be someone from outside the Potomac political cauldron and not necessarily closely affiliated with the Democratic Party.
different-church-lady
@tobie: When have US banks ever made catastrophically bad decisions like tha– oh shit….
Layer8Problem
@Kay: I will be ecstatic to see the “Genocide Joe” crowd on the barricades with the rest of the opposition, ready to get bloodied if necessary.
Steve LaBonne
@Betty Cracker: I agree, the difference was the burn it all down vote. And I fear that seeing what that actually looks like might be the only way to sober them up. I say that with sorrow and trepidation because I do understand what that looks like.
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker: In Trump’s first term, he made a lot of noise but wasn’t all that effective at making radical change–if you weren’t in a category of people he was specifically targeting (most notably immigrants), and you had low political and news engagement, you didn’t notice that he was hurting anything until the COVID pandemic hit. The economy was in pretty good shape. You maybe heard Democrats being upset but they always are when Republicans are in power. Much of the media nominally opposed him but considered him a fascinating clown.
I think there’s a lot of nostalgia for the world immediately before COVID, around 2019, and a lot of the new marginal Trump voters were voting to get that world back, somehow. Of course they won’t get anything of the sort–they get a Trump who is out for revenge and backed by organized creeps out to wreck the government and enforce a far-right society. They actually *didn’t* vote for that or didn’t know they were voting for it, regardless of how loudly we told them they were.
different-church-lady
@LAC:
I can tell you this white person ain’t signing on to that.
The Thin Black Duke
@LAC: Racism is the societal Rubik’s Cube that White America has to solve. Black people can’t do it for them. “Hard” racism is burning a cross on a black family’s front lawn. “Soft” racism is voting for a racist because of the price of eggs.
sentient ai from the future
@The Thin Black Duke: how many views does voting get them tho?
different-church-lady
@Matt McIrvin: His first term was for kicks. This term is for revenge.
chrome agnomen
@Jeffro: I don’t argue with the effect of those hashtags, but I want to stress that many people did in fact ‘vote for this’.
different-church-lady
@The Thin Black Duke: Which kind of racism is voting for a racist because you want to and using the price of eggs as a cover story?
Kay
@Geminid:
Americans think of Danes as mild socialists who will roll over to anyone who yells louder. Danes think of Danes as Vikings. In Danish museums Danish history is literally portrayed as “Vikings to Social welfare state”. They think the social welfare state came out of their strength, not their weakness.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Kay: perhaps, but the example of the of the Republicans in 1850s is a really good one because that was when the Republicans invented Woke.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: they also don’t understand that the EU is a thing, or if they do, they think of them as a bunch of feckless bureaucrats that the British threw off the yoke of.
sentient ai from the future
@different-church-lady: the usual kind
Nukular Biskits
Good mornin’, y’all.
Late today, slept in a little. About to head into work for a while.
Every time I read the news or see the bullshit pronouncement from MS Republicans, I feel like Bruce Banner in The Avengers:
If only I could turn into The Hulk instead of a flabby senior citizen …
Glory b
@The Thin Black Duke: Say it louder for the ones (“Abandon Harris”) people in the back.
We been done told them.
chrome agnomen
@Baud: not tangible for several meanings of the word. I’d argue that most people voting on that have not actually been touched by crime, at least not in any ‘tangible’ way. if your argument is that of being perceived as a problem, then yes, I agree. the crime aspect is one that is as old as the old media trope ‘if it bleeds, it leads’.
of course this all ties to the very real inability of many people to engage in critical thinking, in other words, to find reliable sources of information and value them, instead of the easy sloganeering of the majority of media.
conservative thinking has always been the laziest, and therefore most attractive sort, for many. why work, when an easy out is offered. that quite often being as simple as ‘it’s not your fault’.
Torrey
@Princess: But Obama made a huge impression with his speech nominating Kerry. It contained, IIRC, the “red states / blue states” segment, or an early instantiation thereof. And it put Obama sufficiently in the limelight that Republican commentator and Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan, in her comments on the 2004 election reviewing the various ways in which the Republicans won, adds “I do not know what the Democratic Party spent, in toto, on the 2004 election, but what they seem to have gotten for it is Barack Obama. Let us savor.”
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Baud: Fascist are just wannabe American reactionaries. What do you all think Hitler invited a time machine and a went back to the 1840s and showed Americans how to enslave minorities, hate on immigrants, take land from weaker countries, and ethnically cleanse American Indians?
Kay
@Geminid:
I just don’t think bullying and demeaning really proud people is a good negotiating strategy.
We can’t buy Greenland anyway. You know how big Greenland is. We can’t afford Greenland. The largest industry in Denmark is shipping. They understand shipping routes and the value therein, and have since hundreds of years before the US even existed.
A lot of them think Trump wants Greenland to strengthen Putin, and Putin is a genuine threat to them. They’re not amused.
schrodingers_cat
@The Thin Black Duke: Black people and people like me who saw this coming from a mile away.
ETA: Most of the pro T voices on social media are BJP IT cell trolls based in India.
Freemark
@Kay: Sadly that seems to be a highly accurate take on the subject.
Glory b
@different-church-lady: Yes.
Once AGAIN, “Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America’s Heartland,” by Jonathan Metzl.
Jeffro
Thanks! (I think)
It would just be a stunt, of course. A flash in the pan, I’m sure. But it might be fun. Call a press conference, slap together a podium…
…”my fellow Americans, I am answering the call. Donald Trump is a lame-duck president and the GOP will need a new leader in 2028 (if not sooner – no offense, Donald)…
…I thought I might take a shot at it, since I can articulate actual conservative principles for you all, instead of licking Donald’s boots…
…I look forward to making the principled conservative case for clean energy (through carbon taxes), Medicare for All (since it reduces waste and lowers costs), and a return to opposing dictatorship and fascism wherever it appears, either at the Heritage Foundation or in the Kremlin, just like my beloved St. Ronnie (sob)…
…I look forward to receiving your primary votes, the nomination, and a landslide in November 2028, and then thoroughly fumigating the White House.”
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist: Right-wing general anti-science has been a thing for a long time, and that’s partly because it’s been pushed by corporate money interests for a long time. The tobacco industry was a major player back in the 1960s and 70s, and they were turning the WHO into a boogeyman way back because the WHO was anti-smoking.
Big Tobacco even funded a lot of the early climate-change denialism, which sounds bizarre at first, but think about it: they’re (a) an ag lobby, and (b) motivated to generally erode trust in international NGOs, who were sounding the alarm on that too.
So then that dovetailed with religious-right attempts to put Biblical creationism in science classes, and also, their connection to alt-medicine grifting woo goes back further than most people realize.
Now, for a long time, all this was a bit obscured because hippie-counterculture mistrust of science and technology (thought of as a unit) coded left, though really it’s more complicated than that.
The right-wing version tends to love technology but hate the science community as something that should just be the obedient handmaiden of technology but has gone off the rails. They’ll say they love science, they just think their science is the real science, or that engineers are the real scientists and don’t need the corrupt science establishment any more. And there’s an attraction to types of crankery that would imply Promethean technological miracles in violation of scientific principles, like free energy or miraculous space drives or immortality supplements.
Jeffro
Why it’s almost like there’s this huge, unifying campaign issue lying there, just waiting to be picked up…
sentient ai from the future
@Kay: prompted a visit to a small rabbit hole
“Hardbeen the Wolf-Berzerker proposes a 1.5% cost of living increase in the housing allowance based on construction supply chain difficulties”
The Thin Black Duke
@different-church-lady: A dishonest one. At least Nazis “Seig Heil!” with their whole chest. And the problem is racists are more comfortable being racists in public now.
Miss Bianca
@The Thin Black Duke: All of this. I am so sorry.
And when I confront people – like my brothers – who I know voted for Trump, and tell them that white supremacy and misogyny are the *only* reasons they would have voted for Trump over Harris, oh, the shock and horror that ensues! How dare I accuse them of such sordid motivations! I must be crazy!
And all I have to say to them is, “if you can’t see it, it’s because you don’t want to see it.”
And then after that (to my brothers): “Well, I hope you’re happy with your choices when Medicaid gets cut and G. gets kicked out of the nursing home and you have to live together.” Things usually get mighty quiet after that…
Librettist
The Silicon Valley freaks want the VC hookers and Ketamine party to roll on, but the industry has matured, there is no next big thing or sector to digitize, and the price of entry for the next social media app is next to nothing. They should be targeting uptake among 14-16 year olds, instead of the usual old fart list of aggrievements.
The mega-data center environment is wildly overbuilt.
Jeffro
completely OT but Jen Rubin’s new “Contrarian” newsletter has a feature where she highlights someone who’s a standout for democracy. this week’s pick? Al Gore.
Ben Cisco
@different-church-lady:
The semi-self aware kind.
Starfish (she/her)
@tobie: The reach of crypto is broader than it was, but the broader economy has a tiny amount of crypto. For example, if you invest less than 1% in something risky and lose than one percent, it really does not matter if your holdings are large enough.
Matt McIrvin
@Librettist: They think AI is going to remove the need for skilled workers and just create a money machine that runs itself with only an input of capital. I think they’re going to be sorely disappointed.
Glory b
@zhena gogolia: Very performative.
And as I mentioned before, the Pro Palestinian folks did all that and wound up giving a big win to Bibi as far as American’s perception of both sides.
They were in a hole & wouldn’t listen to the folks who told them to stop digging.
Geminid
@tobie: The Crypto crash may come too soon for Republicans to act. Basic financial reforms take a long time to clear Congress, If the bankers don’t want them we’re talking years.
Crypto-currencies will likely crash first. I think crypto currency will prove very vulnerable to a downturn in the real economy. Crypto has thrived through ten years of economic growth. It’s a bubble anyway, and a small crash in crypto could trigger a recession that might not otherwise have happened. That would amplify the crypto crash which could in turn feed back on the economic crash. Then we could be in 2008 territory, and that might be a best case scenario.
This is one reason the Debt Ceiling question is so fraught this time around. I’m no economist so this is just a gut feeling, but I think this situation is much more volatile than it was in the Spring of 2023, the last Democrats and Republicans played chicken with a default.
sentient ai from the future
@Librettist: but what if we made even bigger data centers, with fancier processsors, that used more power, to let people make bad meme backgrounds and make autocorrect even more annoying?
Starfish (she/her)
@different-church-lady: As much as it pains me, the bankers are making good decisions. They are not on-board with the whole effort to get rid of DEI. They are not investing deeply in crypto.
Steve LaBonne
@Torrey: We are still dealing with the same old Slave Power. If Lincoln came back he would not take long to recognize what he was looking at.
Starfish (she/her)
@Layer8Problem: How many Genocide Joe people do you know in real life? Seriously.
NotMax
@Geminid
“Try turning the economy off and back on again.”
//
Ben Cisco
@Miss Bianca: ‘Murica – where it is orders of magnitude worse to be called out for racism than to actually be a racist.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: I’m thinking Putin is maneuvering Trump into a two-front World War III against the EU: the US attacking from the west and Russia from the east, just like old times except the fascists are on the other side (mostly).
UncleEbeneezer
@Baud: But they did they MEAN it? And were they “old” while doing so?
Matt McIrvin
@Starfish (she/her): I know more people from way back who are the opposite–people who swung right because the Democrats aren’t pro-Israel *enough* and they consider Biden and Harris to be antisemites for not utterly crushing the Gaza protesters.
Ben Cisco
@Starfish (she/her): I work in IT in the finance industry, and can confirm. My outfit is having NONE of Herr Orangefarben’s nonsense.
Librettist
@Matt McIrvin:
Oh great, the same search results you’ve always gotten, but with more errors.
Those jackasses are going to pancake the economy, and whichever ones are left will still have to bend the knee to the bond market.
Pay out dividends? How gauche….
Soprano2
@Baud: Man, this was my mother. Until my dad cheated on her when she was in her early 40’s, nothing bad had really happened to her. She never really recovered from it because she had no experience to tell her she could. There’s a benefit to having had shitty things happen early in your life. It’s not fun, but it teaches you that things can get better.
Miss Bianca
@sentient ai from the future:
LOL! Viking Socialism for the win!
eclare
@Ben Cisco:
Thank you.
lowtechcyclist
@zhena gogolia:
Yeppers. Less than three months ago, there was a much easier way for them to help protect people from ICE.
Miss Bianca
@Ben Cisco: Ain’t it the truth, ain’t it the truth… :(
TBone
A.L.!!! I am so dang grateful for all of your hard work and for providing this history lesson today!
You rawk!
Librettist
I mean… sure, all hail the inherent awesomeness of the white American male, but Fetterman is likely to take an L no matter how he positions himself “culturally”.
The Old Northwest is old, white, and doesn’t understand why their favorite eatery closed and got replaced by a fast casual joint with furiner food.
Until that boomer bubble drops of the edge of the table, wishful thinking 1962 back is the deal.
Democrats should promise a coal fired Edsel in every garage.
Starfish (she/her)
@zhena gogolia: You are on a listserv.
1) Listservs are mostly for older folks. (I am on one tiny one with some friends for planning dinners, but I bet you if I told some younger folks about listservs, they would have no clue what I am talking about. I just had to explain to someone what a phpbb was.)
2) If it is an international listserv, then there are going to be some people who are not from your country being weird.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Listing to my crazy passed relatives the real target is competence. Remember, both Obama and Harris came from relatively humble beginnings to greatness, while these MAGA hats struggle to put on pair slippers. The racism was their excuse why they didn’t have to do better (well, at lest I am not a blackty black!) and here comes blackity black, black to blow by them and rub in their face what useless idiot they are.
It’s no accident that Trump, the ultimate dumb jock, is letting Musk, the dumb mans idea of nerd, walk all over him.
Another Scott
@Betty Cracker: @Matt McIrvin:
I still think the answer is buried in the numbers.
If masses of people were wanting to burn it all down, then Donnie should have gotten a lot more votes than in 2020, shouldn’t he?
2024: (CookPolitical.com)
Harris: 75,017,626 (48.33%)
Donnie: 77,301,997 (49.80%)
Total: 155,211,283
2020: (Wikipedia)
Biden: 81,283,501 (51.3%)
Donnie: 74,223,975 (46.8%)
Total: 158,429,631
3.2M total voters stayed home.
Nearly 6.3M Biden voters didn’t vote for Harris.
Donnie picked up about 3.1M from 2020.
Maybe those 3.1M Donnie voters were Biden voters in 2020? I haven’t seen anyone make that case (but maybe I missed it).
There’s still the missing 3.2M…
If the reason is apathy or being unable to register or having barriers to voting or …, then the solution is different than if the reason is anger and wanting to burn everything down (by staying home??).
Dunno.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Steve LaBonne
@Librettist: Our biggest problem was with YOUNG white men.
Starfish (she/her)
@Baud: There are real people doing the work of attempting to protect people from ICE. Those are people setting policies about letting folks into schools and court rooms.
There was concern about ICE at a school in Chicago, but it was really the secret service wanting to talk to an anti-Trump 11yo.
If people are posting on social media in English about how to protect people from ICE, they are engaging in performative nonsense. I don’t know who made these lists or if the advice is good advice. I am not boosting that nonsense.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
What exactly is our culture? We’re a big tent. We don’t really have a single culture. We have some shared beliefs, but that’s getting closer to politics’ territory.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott: I think my explanation works for Biden voters who stayed home, too. Yeah, lazy racism and misogyny, definitely part of it. But also the feeling that Biden was supposed to fix everything and he didn’t, in fact it seemed to get worse (where THEY lived, not where I lived) even though there was a vaccine.
I sometimes wonder if Biden would have cruised to reelection if the Omicron variant hadn’t emerged, that kept COVID vaccines from functioning as a blatantly miraculous pandemic-ender, and instead made them work only about as well as a flu shot (you probably won’t die but you’re still gonna get sick). But since something like Omicron was probably a biological inevitability, it’s not worth thinking too hard about that.
Steve LaBonne
@lowtechcyclist: This. MAGAs are homogeneous enough to be treated for some purposes as a culture. “Everybody else” is not a culture.
Suzanne
@Steve LaBonne: The biggest problem was with white men ages 45-64.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Baud:
Yup, they do. But, if a Dem holds a press conference and nobody* hears it, did it happen?
*nobody = anybody outside of the beat reporters designed to cover it.
I looked at a Jefferies press conference from earlier in the week that a friend of Geminid recommended. Easily found it on AP’s YouTube channel where it had a shade under 10,000 views.
Not exactly a viral thing.
Again, not bashing Dems here, most are saying the right things but getting that message out to a broader audience…
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
If we don’t have an umbrella culture than we can’t compete. Something always beats nothing.
Steve LaBonne
@Suzanne: Also not Boomers. But on an election to election comparative basis I would still say that the biggest deleterious change (other than the stay at homes) was losing a significant part of the youth vote we were counting on to the young male fans of Joe Rogan and worse.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Geminid:
Take away (or massively limit) it’s basic source of being, cheap electric power, would be the best way to get rid of this nonsense.
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: This is always the greatest difficulty in fighting against fascism- a compact fanatical minority against a diffuse majority.
lowtechcyclist
@Quinerly:
So he could be sure it wouldn’t affect the outcome, is my WAG.
Baud
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Right. But then people make up stories about the Dems not doing things they’re doing. That’s what I find irritating.
I don’t always get it right but I don’t cling to my mistakes if I’m shown to be wrong, because I don’t want to act like MAGA.
sentient ai from the future
@Matt McIrvin: the afghan pullout set the tone, because our fourth estate is a bunch of simpleton abuser-enablers chasing outrage clicks
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: In the 2010s, Boomers had shifted further right than GenXers, but I think to some degree that was an artifact of category definitions: the really reactionary Boomers were the oldest ones, along with their Silent Generation predecessors, and they started dying. Meanwhile, Gen X stayed pretty reactionary.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Steve LaBonne:
This provides some really nice analysis (and graphs!) on the gender gap in vote choice:
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/blog/gender-differences-2024-presidential-vote
Miss Bianca
@Librettist: Gosh, and yet…I could swear I read somewhere that it was a majority of Boomers who voted for Harris, and a majority of Gen X and Z who voted for Trump. So, you think all we need is for Boomers to die off and *that’s* what will usher in Utopia? Yeah. Sure. Go fish.
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
Yes. Same problem when it comes to fighting the oligarchy and corporate power. Folks love to talk about “the people,” but “the people” are hardly unified.
Ben Cisco
@lowtechcyclist
1. Mind your own business.
2. Don’t be an asshole.
Steve LaBonne
@sentient ai from the future: And now Trump is screwing our Afghan allies, that the journamalists pretended to care so much about, and there’s hardly a peep from them.
Baud
@Miss Bianca:
I think Boomers voted for Trump but less than in the past.
Gen X was our big problem, coupled with bad trends with the youth.
Suzanne
@lowtechcyclist:
Honestly, I think the fact that even we can’t define our culture is evidence of the struggle we’re discussing. I have said before that if you went out on the street and asked a hundred people what the Democratic Party stands for, you’d probably get a lot of blank stares. Some people would probably say that the Dems are the party of black people, some would say that the Dems are the party of their annoying niece with blue hair and face piercings, some would say it’s the party of LGBTQ people, probably a lot would say that it’s the party of their condescending boss with a MBA. The caricatures come from the people we encounter. But, like…. what are the animating values we share? I bet a lot of people genuinely do not know. The civil rights era was long before my time, and I’m the median-age voter. This is part of why I think Dems have a “brand problem”.
sentient ai from the future
@lowtechcyclist: i was trying to work through with the youngling what this might represent, e.g thune’s ability to hold his party in line even at razor thin margins, actual discontent in the ranks, what?
the timing note was important, i think, and i didnt get that at the time. ol’ turtle was concerned enough to go last.
Steve LaBonne
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Good stuff, thanks. I will study it and try to update my perceptions.
kalakal
@lowtechcyclist:
“We have both kinds. Country and Western”
zhena gogolia
@Baud: I thought our umbrella culture was We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal. We had a hit Broadway musical based on it.
All the rest is commentary. And you can’t hold to that principle and vote for Trump (or fail to vote for Harris).
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Steve LaBonne:
This. This bit of political theater is the poster child for “deja vu all over again” and I hope the Dems finally let those klowns drive the klown kar off the cliff for the first time, see what happens, deal with the massive blowback, and hopefully see that, if nothing else thru a political (reelection) lens, they shouldn’t do it again.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
We’re also pro-science, I would say.
different-church-lady
Why on fuckin’ earth are we still debating which demographic category was most “responsible”? It’s pointless.
p.a.
This is extremely troubling if it has the “Reagan effect” on this generation. I was 21 in 1980 and my fucking idiot cohort of Reaganaughts has obviously done long-term damage to this country.
H.E.Wolf
@Nelle:
You are the opposite of meager. I always learn from your comments how I can do more of what I aspire to do.
different-church-lady
@Baud: We’re pro-reality.
Steve LaBonne
@Suzanne: To a considerable extent I’m afraid it’s an intractable structural problem, because Democrats are a very broad coalition and don’t share a lot of things beyond “not MAGA”. Every time you narrow down the message you risk splitting off a little piece of that coalition. This is why I am allergic to discussions of what the Democrats are “doing wrong”- they tend to vastly oversimplify the problem.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Hard to fit that into a Broadway song.
Another Scott
@Matt McIrvin: On Omicron…
My understanding is that all (7?) human coronaviruses never give permanent immunity. I vaguely recall some comment by Fauci and others very early on in the vaccine development days that we would need boosters because being a coronavirus we wouldn’t get permanent immunity from a vaccine, either. Human coronaviruses are sneaky devils.
Am I misunderstanding?
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Steve LaBonne
@p.a.: Yes, I find it very troubling indeed.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
We need to close the show tunes gap.
Suzanne
@Baud:
Yes, this is accurate. Boomers narrowly voted for FFOTUS, Gen X did so pretty significantly, Millennials went for Harris, and Gen Z went even more for Harris by percentage….. but they did shift rightward. But, an interesting thing to remember is that the “youth vote” is a shrinking percentage, because the birth rate has been declining for some time and the average age of the population is increasing.
different-church-lady
@Another Scott: VIRUS: “Who’s the apex predator now, assholes?”
Steve LaBonne
@different-church-lady: Oh, we know the demographic group that’s responsible- white people, and especially white men. The more things change the more they stay the same.
Matt McIrvin
@Miss Bianca: A majority of Gen Z voted for Harris… but there was a gigantic gender gap, with young men going for Trump:
https://navigatorresearch.org/2024-post-election-survey-gender-and-age-analysis-of-2024-election-results
But young women swung further to Harris and I think there were also more of them voting.
Baud
@p.a.:
Maybe. There was more of America to hollow out when Reagan was president. Trump has less to work with.
Still, he promises unearned status, and that is seductive.
Betty Cracker
@Another Scott: We’ll get more reliable analysis soon enough (takes a while for professionals to sift through all the data and come up with hypotheses), but one thing I am certain of is that in a big, complex country like the U.S., there’s not a single cause or simple answer. IMO, anyone who claims otherwise is selling snake oil or otherwise centering their own particular grievances.
Racism, sexist, anti-LGBTQ hysteria and xenophobia explain a lot but are not the whole story. I think there are Trump voters who want to burn it all down because the status quo sucks. I think there are voters who stayed home because they don’t think voting matters. I think there are people who voted for chaos mostly for its entertainment value. Etc.
I don’t know what to do about it, but I hope we figure out before it’s too late. (It might be already for all I know, but we have to keep trying.) I think Baud at #91 and different-church-lady at #131 are onto something important too, i.e., it’s bigger than party politics.
UncleEbeneezer
@zhena gogolia: Me too. I resisted full-force from 2017 through 2024. From 2020 on, the assignment was crystal fucking clear: elect Dems and keep this fucker from coming back. But too many of the people we needed to do that were too busy bashing Biden for Student Loans, Afghanistan, Train Derailment and finally Gaza. They talk about big game about hating Trump/GOP but they couldn’t be bothered to do the work of talking up our candidates and pumping up the Dem brand, when it mattered most. Bashing Biden was more important to them than stopping Trump, plain and simple. By the time they FINALLY came around and supported Harris, the damage couldn’t be undone. I did my time resisting for seven years and was mocked as BlueMAGA, Groupthink and BlueNoMatterWho for trying to get everyone in formation and support our party when it wasn’t cool or edgy to do so. Now the assholes are mad because people like me are mentally checking out and not willing to spend all our time and energy following every development and fighting them. I don’t know what to say…the time to fight/resist was 2020-2023. The way to resist was to boost Dems and bury Trump in the info sphere and keep the GOP out of power. I was willing to do it. They weren’t. I’m getting real tired of this particular okie-doke. I just lost my house and everything we own and have serious PTSD. I have more important things to do than spend my time listening to people who didn’t take the 2024 election seriously lecture me about the importance of resisting all this shit that I warned them about. I KNEW this shit was coming. BlueNoMatterWho was not some cute phrase of derision to me, it was the obvious and ONLY way forward.
Layer8Problem
@Ben Cisco: Somebody nominate this, I have to go somewhere
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker:
In other words, racists.
different-church-lady
@Layer8Problem:
I nominate ^that!
NaijaGal
Thank you for this, Anne Laurie! Just found the Axios article on Project 2025 parallels and it’s useful. Usually don’t read Axios.
zhena gogolia
@UncleEbeneezer: I’m with you. I hope you’re doing okay.
Another Scott
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Thanks for the pointer.
Hmm…
We need to require white men to go to college, it looks like…
[ sigh ]
Thanks again.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Miss Bianca
@Matt McIrvin: Ah, thanks for this, I was too lazy to go look anything up. Yep, the gender voting gap is large, and I am pretty sure it’s worldwide. It’s discouraging for any bright-eyed armchair analysts like myself who want to chirp, “the youth will save us!” Some of them will want to, some of them won’t.
Glory b
@zhena gogolia: Exactly. It’s frustrating that so many people on here think otherwise.
Matt
Shorter Bloody Bill Kristol: I’m still a giant bigot who hates everything the Democratic Party stands for, but they need to save my ass from fascism so I can keep giving them terrible ideas.
The first step of “rethinking” is to stop listening to people like Bill Kristol.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott: That’s correct. We would have needed boosters regardless.
But the other thing that was happening was that, while they were very deadly in a population with no COVID-19 immunity, the original virus and the first few variants weren’t all that contagious by comparison with Omicron. The vaccine wasn’t designed to prevent disease transmission, really just severe disease–but against those early variants, it WAS very effective at preventing transmission, more or less by accident. It seemed like a miracle.
And in the spring and summer of 2021, the Biden administration leaned hard into that: get your vaccine, get your life back. Then to some degree Delta, but especially Omicron complicated the message because the vaccine did relatively little by itself to prevent you from getting infected; it just prevented severe disease and death.
That was the opening that allowed DeSantis to claim “the government lied about the vaccine’s effectiveness” and be believed.
different-church-lady
@UncleEbeneezer:
But that would be so cringe!
Suzanne
@Steve LaBonne: I agree that it’s a structural problem of a coalition. I think it’s also an opportunity, though. I think there’s still a lot of room, maybe even thirst, for aspirational ideas and figures and movements. Right? Every generation wants to think of themselves well, to feel like they did something to be proud of, to tell the grandkids about. That energy can be directed for good, but it can also be captured and twisted. That’s what FFOTUS does.
Glory b
@UncleEbeneezer: Wow, praying for you.
Miss Bianca
@UncleEbeneezer: Yeah, I hear you. Except for the losing my house part, I’m right there with you on all of it.
Sorry for your loss. I hope your sojourn in Taos goes well for you.
Steve LaBonne
@Another Scott: How about just making it easier by not expecting them to take on a lifetime of student debt.
different-church-lady
@Steve LaBonne: Wait, you expect us to fix structural problems?
stinger
@H.E.Wolf:
All good ideas. I’d also suggest attending your local school board meetings; just show up. Show support for public schools. City council meetings and county board of supervisor meetings are other good places where hardly anyone not on the council or board attends, and individual citizens can make a difference. Planning and Zoning commission and public library board meetings, too.
Matt McIrvin
@Miss Bianca: I think demographic shifts help us but they’re not automatic. (This also applies to the conspiracy theory version on the Right, the Great Replacement hypothesis that liberals were letting in waves of brown immigrants who were robotic Democratic voters. They weren’t even that Democratic!)
Steve LaBonne
@Glory b: We’re white people. When we don’t like what we see in the mirror, we whine that the mirror is calling us racists.
different-church-lady
@Matt McIrvin: We need to start posting some leaflets at the border.
lowtechcyclist
@Ben Cisco:
That hardly constitutes a culture, unfortunately.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Agree. The problem with the coalition is that it’s members tend to be more loyal to certain people outside the coalition who oppose the coalition than to the coalition itself.
different-church-lady
@lowtechcyclist: In fact, it’s probably not a culture until you are an asshole.
Steve LaBonne
@different-church-lady: I thought there wouldn’t be any structural problems on this test!
different-church-lady
@Baud: “I’d never join a group who would have me as a member.”
lowtechcyclist
@different-church-lady:
“I’ve a mind to join a club and hit you over the head with it.”
different-church-lady
@Suzanne:
I think the majority of people in every generation just want to fuck around and not find out.
stinger
@Baud:
Yes! Work with anybody! Anybody who’s on our side for ten minutes!
McConnell, Johnson, Vance, Grassley, Ernst, Collins — Republicans don’t refuse to work with people who aren’t perfect, with whom they don’t agree on every single nuance of every single issue.
Neither Biden nor Harris was perfect on everything, but my God we’d be in a better position now if one-issue voters hadn’t gone off them.
UncleEbeneezer
I resisted for seven years but was mocked as Groupthink and BlueMAGA and BlueNoMatterWho when I tried to get people to embrace the obvious reality that our only priority was stopping Trump in 2024. To me the ultimate resistance was putting our gripes and criticisms of Dems aside and talking up Biden/Dems as much as possible. Too many people in our coalition simply refused to do so until way too late. Bashing Biden was more important to them than stopping Trump. My house just burned down and I have PTSD and a life to rebuild. I need a mental break after resisting for seven years. The people who are now lecturing everyone about how we all need to resist at every turn, are far too often the same people who wouldn’t stop talking shit about Biden when all of this was on the line.
sab
@stinger: Good idea. I had never thought of doing that although I live in the city and have grandchildren in the schools. I can watch board meetings on line, but then they don’t see me.
zhena gogolia
@UncleEbeneezer: Yes. Sigh.
Quinerly
@lowtechcyclist:
Sounds like Tillis was on the fence until close to the vote. Met with Hegseth 2 hrs yesterday.
Look, I loathe these people. But I take any of them denying Trump anything akin to a small crack. Might just be a nick on the windshield….but we know how that goes sometimes.
Who thought we would be reading and frontpaging Kristol and Jen Rubin? I never thought I would turn up the sound when George Conway came on.
Miss Bianca
@sab: You still ought to be able to comment from online, tho’, if/when public comment is allowed.
I can attest from experience that elected officials tend to pay more attention to public sentiment when the public actually shows up to their meetings, whether in-person or online. Whether that’s a good thing or not just depends on *which portion* of the public shows up. The reactionaries tend to show up in force a lot more often than the liberals do, at least in my neck of the woods.
sab
@Miss Bianca: More reason for me to show up. To balance things out.
artem1s
google maps. or some similar app that has geolocating features. people can document and pin pictures and videos. could be used to document abuses and protests. Maybe a project Wikimedia could take up. It would be a good fundraiser for them as well. They already have a screening process in place to keep misinfo from flooding their sites.
It already exists, easy to contribute to, and links to the P25 events can be shared in social media. maybe links can be embedded in the imagery as well. As the abuses are uploaded, the map becomes a visual history of how the EO’s and P25 are disrupting communities, courts, social services, healthcare, unemployment, etc…
Quinerly
@Suzanne:
Mostly agree.
Betty Cracker
@zhena gogolia: Maybe my perspective is different because I live in a state where I personally witnessed the emergence of a genuinely diverse and multicultural consensus in favor of fascist government, but no, I don’t think racism explains everything that’s wrong with American politics.
Is racism a huge, ongoing and intractable problem in American politics? Hell yes! Was it the original sin (along with sexism) that contributes to so many other social ills in this and other countries? Undoubtedly. Are lots of white people completely oblivious about the role white supremacy played and still plays? Obviously.
I don’t think many if any folks who regularly comment here doubt the truth of any of that. But I don’t think racism explains everything, and I think it’s important to identify the other factors to move forward.
Quinerly
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Thanks for this link!
Bill Arnold
@different-church-lady:
China have been building out a massive land-based second-strike capability, in multiple missile fields.
This is as nuclear deterrence vs both the USA and the Russian Federation.
Quinerly
@Betty Cracker:
Truth!
different-church-lady
@Bill Arnold: Right, so Trump can’t just nuke that guy without getting nuked back.
different-church-lady
@Betty Cracker: One thing I would like to see is people stop talking as though identifying the other factors is the same as denying racism is a huge factor.
eclare
@zhena gogolia:
Freedom was mentioned a lot in the campaign. It was even the theme song.
stinger
@Suzanne:
So we need our own Breitbart and Luntz and Limbaugh. Rather than expecting the entire culture to be turned around by a handful of politicians who have another job to do.
Food for thought, thanks!
RevRick
A minor bone to pick with our front pagers, but exhortations to “never give up”, don’t give in to depression/despair/anxiety and such actually have the opposite psychological effect. We don’t need more willpower or won’t power.
If we let our emotional responses be governed by what the evil and stupid do, we have given away our power.
If there are any here who are inclined to surrender or give up or wallow in despair, please reconsider. You are better than that.
bluefoot
@The Thin Black Duke:
I would correct that to “not as people“. I think too many white people see POC as NPCs (“non-player characters” in game-speak). We exist to provide drama, support, characterization, etc to the “real” people but our full humanity is always in question or diminished or ignored. If that weren’t true, FFOTUS would never have been elected.
Baud
@eclare:
Yeah, we’re culturally for equal dignity for all individuals and personal autonomy, and not just as it relates to governmental policy.
Quinerly
@lowtechcyclist:
Of interest. McConnell’s lengthy statement.
“Mr. Hegseth has failed, as yet, to demonstrate that he will pass this test. But as he assumes office, the consequences of failure are as high as they have ever been.”
https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=EC748E81-6790-49D6-8B7E-330740C03152
tobie
@zhena gogolia: @Glory b: What’s so hard for young people to understand about voting on multiple issues? The only people I know who wanted to burn it all down were young people who either didn’t vote or voted for Trump to give the middle finger to Dems.
One of my biggest complaints about Biden was blindly accepting the Gaza Ministry of Health’s casualty figures. Once in a blue moon, tho’, truth leaks out, as it did on Thursday, when the MoH released figures on the number of parents killed in the conflict with parents defined as mothers and fathers of children under 18. Lo and behold, the figure indicates that the number of fighting-age men killed in the conflict is orders of magnitude greater than what the MoH has reported elsewhere. This bloody conflict–and yes, it has been bloody–has ben propagandized to kingdom come.
Baud
@stinger:
Agree. The other side’s power doesn’t come from their institutional party.
Matt McIrvin
@tobie: China was Trump’s big enemy boogeyman during his first administration and he tried to claim that *Democrats* were China’s puppet. But he’s trivial for foreign powers to manipulate if there’s a big impressive dictator for him to love. Those guys just impress him so much.
and Xi Jinping is SMART. Way smarter than Putin.
bluefoot
@Baud: This is an insightful comment. I think many don’t realize we are in an actual war – a cold(ish) war for now, but pardonsing J6 insurrectionists, etc sends the signal that violent white supremacy is going to be sanctioned.
Kay
@UncleEbeneezer:
The opposition to this are already the same people who opposed what they believed to be Bidens terrible policy in Gaza.
People who go along to get along aren’t all of a sudden going to become an opposition. That’s not how people work.
I already know who will risk arrest on behalf of deportees and it isn’t going to be the people who shushed every dissenter for the last four years. It’ll be the people who took an unpopular and personally risky but principled position and stuck to it. That’s how opposition works. It isn’t politically convenient. It’s adversarial.
Miss Bianca
@bluefoot: Ouch. I think you’re on the mark there.
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker:
Wasn’t some of that a kind of slice-and-dice bigotry where every part of the coalition thought Trump was going to keep some other part of it down?
tobie
@Matt McIrvin: Agree that Xi Jinping is playing a long game, ultimately for Taiwan. You don’t have to be particularly wise to know that Trump can be bribed and cryptocurrency makes those bribes untraceable. America’s for sale.
sab
@tobie: I see here a lot about pro Gaza people digging holes and being bad.
In my experience the pro-Gaza troublemakers were Russian troublemakers. Those were the anti-semites. The anti-semitism was the point. The Gazan angle was just the hook.
The actual Gaza protesters were American citizens of Palestinian background who were concerned about family in Gaza, trying to get Biden to adjust his approach.
I doubt that many of them stayed home or voted for Trump.
zhena gogolia
@Kay: But we didn’t risk arrest by going to the voting booth. That was the way to stop Trump. It was too hard for some people.
ETA: And the energy was exerted in screaming at Harris during her speeches. I never heard that screaming at Trump.
different-church-lady
@Quinerly: Gee Mitch, we haven’t had a horse in this barn for years now, but it’s awfully sweet of you to close that door.
different-church-lady
@tobie: I’m pretty sure that doesn’t make it any better.
different-church-lady
@bluefoot:
It’s not a signal, it’s a rubber stamp.
tobie
@sab: The precinct results in Michigan suggest otherwise. And, if I were a Palestinian American I would consider withholding my vote. The decline in young voters and the shift to the right among those who did vote is the bigger issue. I think many actors, foreign and domestic, wanted to divide the American public for personal benefit and I’m sorry to say they did. It was not lost on me that both Netanyahu AND Hamas agreed to a ceasefire after essentially destroying Dem support through this conflict.
H.E.Wolf
@stinger:
Thank you for your excellent – and useful – additions to the list!
tobie
@different-church-lady: Well, it takes the genocide claim off the table just for starters.
NutmegAgain
Some scant comfort, I guess. I read an article in the Independent (UK) this morning that each time Trump called the Prime Minister’s office, in his last term, all the staff would listen in and break up in pants-wetting hysterical laughter.
Matt McIrvin
@RevRick: The thing that bugs me is that it’s so impossible to know at this point what even has a chance of working because we don’t know how much democracy we will have. There are commenters and FPers talking about electoral strategies, while others are basically implying that a hot civil war is coming, so we ought to be either planning to kill our neighbors when they come to kill us, or just planning to die, because we aren’t going to be any better at facing tanks and missiles with a popgun than some right-winger obsessed with the right to revolution.
sab
@tobie: Michigan isn’t the only place where Palestinians settled. They are also in Ohio (Toledo and Cleveland) and lots of them in California, and elsewhere.
stinger
@Miss Bianca:
@sab:
Yes! I live in a blue county in a red state. So at first glance it might seem that there’s no real need to support local government. In fact, that’s all the more reason to make my corner of the world as blue as possible.
tobie
@sab: Yes, and most post-election analyses show a marked shift to the right or third-parties among Palestinian and Arab-American voters.
That’s not my point. Arab Americans constitute 1% of the population, Jewish Americans 2%. Neither group swung the election. The fact that the number of non-voters rose dramatically, especially among young voters, and Trump increased his supported by over 3million voters made all the difference.
LAC
@UncleEbeneezer: Thank.you for speaking the truth and I am sorry about what you are going through.
tobie
@UncleEbeneezer: You were right. And I’m so sorry about all you have to go through now with the fire and the (mal)admin’s desire to play politics with disaster aid.
Miss Bianca
@stinger: Whereas I live in a red county in a blue state, and I concur heartily about feeling a responsibility about keeping local government accountable – in my case, trying to keep local government actually accountable on real, *local* issues, and not focusing on the manufactured BS about “election integrity” and “workforce housing means scary immigrants and mooching poors coming in by the busload, ZOMG!”
It’s kind of exhausting, but then I do see progress and feel a little inspired to keep on keepin’ on with it.
stinger
@tobie:
Oh my God. So the “American” part of this hypothetical Palestinian American doesn’t give a damn about any of the other dozens of issues America is facing right now? One-issue voters did this to us?
stinger
@Miss Bianca:
Exactly!
tobie
Holy moly, we have two man crush diaries after this one dubbing AOC “Opposition Leader.” MM’s diaries convince me that populist progressives see the electoral loss as an occasion to remake the party to their ideological liking. Dems will wander in the desert for 40 years if that’s the case.
tobie
@stinger: Please note the wording: “I would consider.” I’m not immune to the immense suffering and anguish of this conflict for those with family in the region.
bluefoot
@UncleEbeneezer: I hear you on this. People who kept resisting and beating the drum were (and still are) derided as catastrophizing and how “it can’t get that bad again.” Yes it can, MAGA holds all three branches of the Federal government. Pass laws to make it illegal for women to get credit or have a bank account or own property alone, they can do that. Implement Jim Crow 2.0? deport or put in camps anyone who they decide is an enemy or “illegal” or whatever? Withhold aid to people like you who have lost their homes because they want to exact some twisted form of revenge because you don’t show abject fealty? All that, and more.
sentient ai from the future
@Betty Cracker: i think florida in particular is interesting, but i think the bridge between the colorism of the caribbean and south america and plantation racism of white folks is not over a particularly wide gulf. multicultural, sure, but both really deep and widespread social hierarchies that get their noses way out of joint about challenges to it.
thus, multicultural fascism. theres some darker skinned misogynists that are along for the ride, too.
bluefoot
@tobie:
Some people need a leader, and do their own version of purity pony.
tam1MI
And they should keep doing this! Those people WILL reoffend, never stop pointing out that their victims could have been spared if the people who attacked them hadn’t been released from prison!
sentient ai from the future
@Matt McIrvin: the thing that often gets missed in these kinds of discussions is that of targeted sabotage operations that are not sexy or public dsplays. the nuns from sound of music taking the distributor cap, not the tianamen square tank man.
logistics are still a thing.
sentient ai from the future
@different-church-lady: and pete hegseth is just the man to start recruiting younger white supremacists and keeping war criminals in place.
because “recruitment”
tobie
@bluefoot: Very true. I used to like this blog for the discussions it produced but that has changed. I don’t like front page posters chastising commenters for the way they respond to posts. That’s a conversation killer in my opinion.
tam1MI
We’re supposed to forget that elected Dems spent an entire month in focused, disciplined resistance to their own fucking President, but now they just can’t do the same to stand up to Trump for Reasons and we are all supposed to understand and cut them all sorts of slack. No.
Citizen Alan
One of the reasons I despise bill maher so much is that he’s such a fucking hypocrite. He is utterly obsessed with liberal cancel culture, even though his old show was abruptly taken off the air due to conservative cancel culture after he made a single comment that, if you take it out of context and squint hard enough, looked like he was praising the 9/11 hijackers. Bill maher goes after the oberlin college student council because he knows if he goes after moms for liberty, they can actually damage his career.
Citizen Alan
@Suzanne: i we’ll go to my grave utterly convinced that 9/11 would not have happened had al gore been president.
Geminid
@Kay: Yes, the Danish Soy Boys who plundered and extorted gold from all across Western Europe for hundreds of years .The Danish Soy Boys who fought the Saxons for control of England for a over a century, and almost won. Those Danish Soy Boys
tam1MI
That means no Dem votes whatsoever on those bills, so the GOP can’t pass them off as “bipartisan”.
NaijaGal
@bluefoot: Reconstruction 2.0 (guerilla war phase)?
Kayla Rudbek
@Ben Cisco: yeah, I’m not sure what the Patent Office will do with their outreach to non-traditional inventors yet, but I always love pointing out how if everyone else was inventing and filing patents at the same rate as white men, it would add $1 trillion to the US economy every year. https://inventtogether.org/facts/
But right now they are having to deal with whether or not the unionized examining corps will be forced back into the offices (doesn’t look like it although who knows with this White House? https://www.reddit.com/r/patentexaminer/)
Kayla Rudbek
@artem1s: seconding this! And post the maps on every social media site you can. Facebook has Brilliant Maps and Simon Shows You Maps, for example.
Kayla Rudbek
@stinger: yes, we need to hire the advertisers/influencers. Propaganda is NOT an inherently evil thing.
Kayla Rudbek
@Citizen Alan: same here.
Geminid
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I would like to see utility regulations that made elecrical power for crypto-currency production more expensive.
That would require a complex set of new laws and regulations among a lot of jurisdictions, and could not be effected on a national basis before 2030 at the earliest. Court battles would add more time.
Some reforms might be done at the state level. A lot of regulatory programs start that way, and we need to take those first few stepsas soon as possible.
This will also be a battle on the environmental law front, broadly speaking. Corporations will want to.build more fossil fuel plants in order to supply all kinds of intensive data operations. Anyway we can do to make that harder, including mobilizing community, legal and political opposition will help. The same means can be used to make using renewable energy generation easier.
If effectively framed, these types of refoms could be winners at the electoral level. That may be the most important level of all. Americans tend to be sceptical at best towards paying more for any thing or service whatsover. But they are not so averse to other people paying more, especially if its some corporation.
pieceofpeace
@Raven: Looking forward to this, thank you!