Yes this is blatant "We Have Always been A War With Eurasia' scale propaganda to defend Trump's economic record after four years of constant attacks on Biden's economic record but don't worry ya'll the guys who spend 21 hours a day online have assured me they're not influenced by media narratives
— Weedle (@weedle.bsky.social) March 16, 2025 at 7:17 PM
I am too Savvy to believe in *anything*, say the Deeply Savvy, except for mocking whatever you less refined sensibilities might think you unironically enjoy. Oooh, a superior viewpoint! It’s the perfect worldview for an angsty teenager, but making this one’s personality after the age of 25 is detrimental not just to the individual, but to Living in A Society.
My ultimate pretentious philosophy take on the Trump era is that it's more or less the final form of the "I'm far too mature and intelligent to dirty myself by *believing* in anything" mindset that's been spreading across American culture in various forms for the past ~60 years.
— politiburb (@politiburb.bsky.social) March 16, 2025 at 6:22 PM
And I think once we survive this and win (yes we're going to win), the ultimate takeaway will need to be a full embrace of cringey stuff like "belief" because now we'll know the alternative is extinction.
— politiburb (@politiburb.bsky.social) March 16, 2025 at 6:23 PM
"Believing in the virtue of your country" feels very eyeroll-worthy and it makes you a lot of cool friends to say you think your country has no virtue (derogatory). But eventually what happens is that someone declares your country has no virtue (laudatory) and then things get bad.
— politiburb (@politiburb.bsky.social) March 16, 2025 at 6:34 PM
Terry Pratchett was a wise man as well as an excellent wrier, and Death is one of his best recurring characters (Susan is Death’s granddaughter, by adoption.) A quote from HOGFATHER, his alternate-world Christmas / Winter solstice story, to get us through the next few months & years:
“All right,” said Susan. “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need… fantasies to make life bearable.”
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
“Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—”
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
“So we can believe the big ones?”
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
“They’re not the same at all!”
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME…SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
“Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what’s the point—”
MY POINT EXACTLY.”
We (collective we!) are the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape. Let us honor both halves of our heritage.
War for Ukraine Day 1,117: Fantasy Land Foreign Policy
Baud
If you were an animal, you’d be my spirit animal, AL.
something fabulous
Aww still never read any Pratchett– I guess it’s time to start!
VFX Lurker
You are in for such a treat. I’ve read/listened to all of his wonderful Discworld novels and short stories. I’ve listened to his Truckers trilogy, and I look forward to reading the rest of his stories.
I should re-read them, too.
Baud
David_C
Yes to this. Back when the cool kids (not here) were going full tilt against Biden’s candidacy with these savvy takes, I mentioned that we need fewer pundits and more fighters.
I’m reading Battle Cry of Freedom and still get goosebumps at Lincoln’s speeches and actions. Yes, it’s cool to point out the flaws in out heroes (in the current chapter, Grant and Sherman), but there’s a cost.
Speaking of hot takes, was talking to a coworker about the lapse in funding averted, and my thought that truly bad things would have happened, and she mentioned that her recently-retired husband, with decades of public service, was emphatic that a shutdown would be a golden opportunity for DOGE.
Baud
Groundhog TV
Baud
Steve in the ATL
@Baud: sounds like a BFD
Rusty
Belief, or I prefer faith, ultimately leads to connection. And connection is a baseline necessity for community. The same 60 years has seen a serious erosion in our institutions, clubs, churches, organizations, where people came together in community. We’ve been sold the story of radical individualism that ultimately separates and isolates us (and renders all but the most wealthy powerless). A revival of faith, which need not be religious, is an important part of the healing we will need after Trump.
Baud
@Steve in the ATL:
As long as Tesla continues to fall, I’m happy.
Suzanne
A few of us had a brief description of the savvy assholes we know/encounter. A few people here said that their savvy assholes were lefties. Maybe it’s because I live in swing states, but almost all of the savvies I meet — by probably 99 to 1 — are centrist independent types. You know. “Socially liberal and economically conservative” types. This is probably why I deeply resist the “we lost, so let’s move to the right!” impulse.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Not just lefties. Much broader problem than that. But probably disproportionately lefties online so more visible.
YY_Sima Qian
@Baud: BYDs aren’t coming to the States any time soon, but the architecture is very impressive.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Baud: The company line is robo taxi’s are going to save the company but I’m not sure they haven’t been passed by already – Nissan has a version of the Leaf that has been extensively tested in London and is now performing well in test in rural England. NPR Morning Edition did a segment on it yesterday morning. I think they’re farther along the development curve than Tesla.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
I had three colleagues in my office fired because they were still in their probationary period. What I’ve heard is going to happen is they’ll be hired back (assuming they agree to come back) but kept on administrative leave. So they’ll start drawing a paycheck again but we won’t be getting any work out of them. Seems super duper efficient right?
Suzanne
@Baud: Online is really different, yeah. Like, I know a lot of lefty people. My BIL is probably what y’all would call a Berniebro. And yet, I literally can’t think of one of them who didn’t vote the right way, or stayed home. Meanwhile, I know so many of those “centrist independents” and I’ve hard tons of them say things like, “I didn’t vote for either of those two assholes!”. But online doesn’t match that…. because “centrist independent” types usually don’t give a shit about politics at all and can’t be arsed to engage in discussion about it.
This is why I push back when people here get into hippie-punching here. I think it’s punching the wrong way numerically, and it damages the coalition.
The SNL “undecided voter” sketch resonated for me very strongly.
narya
Thanks for this, AL; I very much needed it today. It’s kinda weird—l’m a lifelong (and third-generation) atheist, very much an introvert, and I have some anarchists in there, too, and I still believe in the Hogfather, so to speak. I am finding it stirring to see ordinary people with handmade signs on Maddow every night, fighting for democracy.
Baud
@Suzanne:
People are going to punch back based on what they see, and people are less inhibited to punch back online than in real life.
So you might as well be asking people to get off the Internet, because no one is going to remain silent if they are confronted online with things they don’t like.
Suzanne
@Baud: I mean, I can’t stop anyone from doing what they want. But I can push back. I take special note of the people who insist that we can’t criticize Dem politicians, but love to take shots at Dem voters. I think those people fall somewhere on the stupid-to-evil spectrum, because they do a lot of damage, IMO.
p.a.
@narya: People have worried about how long it’s taken Hungarians to get fed up with Orban, and projected that onto the US, but Americans are such entitled, WATBs, that we tossed hyper-competent Biden out (and yes, housing cost especially was a legit issue- not that tRumpenstein had any answer) that I’m not surprised the obvious incompetence (admittedly the idiots need actual current EXAMPLES when history should have sufficed) is coalescing opposition. Not to mention the blatant threat to democracy as well.
Of course, being entitled WATBs, if we do manage to overturn the current order, how long will THAT last? But first things first…
Baud
@Suzanne:
Sure. Anyone can say what they want. Everyone also has a different view of what causes damage. Some of our voters are centrist independent types, and you rightly (IMHO) called them out.
Suzanne
Open thread? Eat that fiber, helps you eliminate microplastics.
Parfigliano
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Trust Fund Employees. Don’t do a thing get a check.
Trump and Musk can surely understand that.
Liminal Owl
@something fabulous: I read several of Pratchett’s books, years ago. Not sure why I didn’t continue, but I’ve been meaning to go back to them… and was just given an e-book “bundle” of the whole set!
Jertian
To quote Sir Terry
“Down there – he said – are people who will follow any dragon, worship any god, ignore any inequity. All out of a kind of humdrum, everyday badness. Not the really high, creative loathsomeness of the great sinners, but a sort of mass-produced darkness of the soul. Sin, you might say, without a trace of originality. They accept evil not because they say yes, but because they don’t say no.”
– Terry Prachett, Guards, Guards
Betty Cracker
@narya: I’ve always been a Maddow fan, but her reporting since January has been so courageous and inspiring and essential. She’s the Murrow of our time, imo.
Princess
@Suzanne: Oh fascinating! Thanks!
On the left-centre thing, it depends on your in-person social world too. In mine, the non-voters and third party voters — people I know personally — are lefties. Totally agree about the savvy centrist too cool for school non voters — I just don’t know any.
This is probably a dead thread but I don’t think I can do AL’s heart-warming morning thread today and I don’t want to spoil the vibe there.
Geminid
@Baud: Battery technology has advanced at a high rate lately, and not just for car batteries like BYD is utilizing. This kind of technology will make electric buses and heavy trucks more practical.
Advances in battery technology can have a big impact in the transition to clean electricity generation, by leveling out relatively intermittent solar and wind generation. They can also have an impact on home battery adoption. And it seems like economical, efficient batteries would work well in combination with geothermal power generation, and there’s a lot of work being done in that sector.
WTFGhost
I’ll throw out a thought people don’t often think of, especially because of the way the word is used. What is “faith”? To Evangelicals, “faith” means “bullheaded, stubborn, defiant certitude, that you insist is as good, better even, than mere ‘belief’.” I know, I know, “not all Evangelicals.”
Faith is a choice. Faith is where we say “I believe in justice,” and act as if there is something we can call “justice” that we can achieve.
What is “justice”? The idea that people should be treated fairly and well. When the state talks of “justice” it is (presumably) handling times when people were treated *unfairly*, and they’re trying to set things right, which really makes the definition confusing, if you try to learn it by usage! Justice means the murder never happened; trying the murder case is an attempt to impose what has been lost.
We have a minimum wage that is too low. That is *injustice*. Is it cringe to believe in that? I don’t care, I don’t even know (nor care) what the kewl kids think “cringe” means – some of us *graduated* from high school! Now, obviously: you can’t fight all injustice, because woo, lord, do we humans generate it, but, once you realize that justice isn’t just some nebulous concept, but something that says “you, yes, you, deserve to be treated fairly, and well, and if people are truly cheating you, you should not find it acceptable,” it’s a lot harder to simply look away from everything.
Is what is happening with rampant information theft and rampant, baseless, accusations of “waste, fraud and abuse”, in Washington DC justice? No – it’s rampant injustice. We, the people of the United States, grant these bozos power to use, under the Constitution and the rule of law. The President has forsaken the one phrase in the Constitution that allowed it to be ratified, that the President shall see that the laws are *faithfully* executed. It is not fair for a President, duly elected, to go beyond the boundaries of what the Constitution allows. While one can argue that “faithful” execution of the laws has some leeway, asking for baseless investigations into the families of likely political opponents goes so far beyond that, you can’t justify it.
And then a Republican Senate swore to see impartial justice done. I believe in justice – I think you know how rage-filled I was to watch their violation of every single aspect of that oath. I only ever occasionally dream of thoughts of Hell, and fire and damnation, and recognize they play no part in anything that can be called “justice” and yet, I still sometimes think “geez, God, could you maybe scare the eff out of them, because they swore, by your name, to be impartial of all things? ‘Impartial’ is just such an insult to our collective intelligence, even given how little they respect that.”
We don’t need “belief” so much as we need the stuff I think of as “faith”. You can’t really believe in justice – it will never happen, without at least gentle work. I mean, come on: aren’t you tempted to gobble the cookies your partner made? Don’t you sometimes have to stop yourself? That’s gentle work for justice. If you can’t split cookies without sometimes expending effort, you understand that justice needs faith, and work, on the part of most of us.
Soprano2
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Sounds like malicious compliance to me. They think they’ll eventually prevail and want to be able to argue that they don’t need these people, see our office is operating fine without them.
Mai Naem mobile
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: I’m in the Phoenix area where the Waymos were first tested and we right now have a lot of waymos. Waymos are Jaguars. I used to occasioanlly see a Nuro in one neighborhood. Nuros used Toyota Priuses for testing. I saw a small van recently. It kind of look like a Scion xB but it was heading the other direction from me so I didn’t get a good enough look to see what vehicle it was.
WTFGhost
@Geminid: I once pondered whether you could have a rule where, if you buy a battery backup at the grid level, the power company had to overbuild the battery pack. You could create incentives (“you fill your battery with the cheapest energy, and use that first”) that would make it worthwhile, while doing a huge amount of backup capacity.
If we wanted to make our grid 100% renewable, the biggest cost is in eliminating the absolute worst-case scenario, not in avoiding brownout/blackout worse than we already have. It’s like insurance, if you follow David Anderson: the most expensive patients are the cost drivers, which makes sense to a mathematician who flirted with actuarial science. (Actuarial Science doesn’t drink in public, and dances kind of boring, but behind closed doors, can be quite interesting. Still: if an actuary says “how do I love thee? Let me count the ways,” said actuary’s eyes will go blank as they think “well, that’s one way… there’s another, and another, and another, that’s four so, okay, five, six, let me get some paper and a pencil…”)
It’s a strange idea (yes, we’re not flirting with actuarial science any longer), but I remember how some energy people were salivating at the idea of people driving EVs to work, and then hooking these huge batteries up to the grid until quitting time, so I wondered how you might achieve the same effect, and, use the economy of scale to help it out.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: I used to work with a lot of “centrist independent” types but I suspect that by now, they’ve all taken sides and are either outspokenly anti-Trump or pro-Trump.
The Bernie fans *all* voted for Harris. They did mostly go with the “Biden is senile” or at least “there’s something physically wrong with Biden” framing, but they were still resigned to voting for him, and when Harris got in they were more enthusiastic.
I don’t think I actually know IRL anyone who is sitting these things out, any more, except for non-citizens who can’t vote (but have an enormous stake in what happens, considering that the metro area I live in seems to be ground zero for CBP/ICE disappearing legal residents at the airport).
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: MeidasTouch is one of those hopium peddlers that I got suspicious of during Trump’s first administration, always spinning everything to say that Trump is about to go DOWN and he never does. But it’s an indication that there’s a demand for that.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
I don’t partake, but I’m not surprised at the demand.
Apropos of the OP, people want to believe in something. Libs who engaging in nihilism or cynicism about our future aren’t helping to bring people in IMHO.
Geminid
@WTFGhost: I’m not that deep into this stuff, but one thing that comes to mind is that stationary batteries could be substantially more economical because they don’t need to be light enough for an efficient vehicle. Now scientists and engineers are devising batteries with all kinds of materials and bringing their efficiency up to that of lithium-ion batteries. And some of these types won’t burn if they fail which is important for home applications.
Maybe ten years from now a lot of homes will have a battery unit standing next to the water heater. Or in place of the water heater with a tank. because there’s a more compact, on demand type heater in use. An apartment block might have a row of them in the basement. A Krogers might have larger units that were moved in with a forklift instead of a dolly.
Kristine
@Suzanne: looks like joining the Rancho Gordo Bean Club was a good call.
Shalimar
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: I think everyone who tries is further along than Tesla since the day that Musk insisted on using only cameras for self-driving, eschewing radar and lidar. Tesla’s taxis will always be inferior to Waymo (which has been operating for years in the manner that Tesla plans to begin in the next year or two) and others. There is absolutely no reason to believe that Tesla will be competitive in the self-driving taxi market.
narya
@Kristine: I LOVE being in Bean Club! And, unlike Fight Club (a movie I have never seen and do not want to see), the first rule of Bean Club is to never STFU about how awesome Bean Club is.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Matt McIrvin:
By US electoral standards, nobody here “sits anything out”, our 80% participation rate is the result of CO making it so easy to vote.
That should be the standard everywhere although it won’t bring about that “Permanent Democratic Majority” that’s been pitched as our nirvana.
Kristine
I’m in the process of rereading Pratchett. I’m reading out of order, and am currently in the middle of Feet of Clay. There’s a passage about how a regime can survive all manner of assaults save that by men of wealth who have been sitting around a table and deciding The Time Has Come.
Now they’re setting up a figurehead.
I miss Pterry. He was so very good at working in the seriousness while still making you laugh
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I think the word “Hope” also works in this context.
Yes, there are a lot of pudnockers on the left who think they are super genus level political strategists who think yelling at someone is the best way to win them over to their view point. It reminds me of martial arts were everyone is black belt.
Matt McIrvin
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: We’re still used to generally higher turnout benefiting Democrats, because that was the norm pre-Trump: our voters tended to be the ones who were lower-educated and harder to turn out.
That’s no longer true. Trump built his victories on support from marginally attached voters, and our side will come out in lower-turnout special and midterm elections. We do worse in the highest-turnout ones.
(Erik Loomis thinks this means that voter-registration drives are useless. I think they’re still useful as long as you’re targeting a sympathetic population. But it’s true that we could be at a point of diminishing returns outside of places like college campuses.)
Will that still be true when Trump on the ballot is no longer a factor? Nobody knows. It sounds like Trump is planning to use his son with the same name as his third- and fourth-term proxy.
Raoul Paste
Many years back, Joseph Campbell said something to the effect that American Society had more existential angst due to the falling away of a common mythology.
Kristine
@narya: I just received my third shipment. I have a backlog to deal with. I usually make hearty soups—my next batch will be a veggie bean that’s heavy on the kale. But last week I was cooking down four containers of grape tomatoes and decided to toss in half a bag of one of the white beans. No soaking or anything, just a rinse. They soaked up all the tomato juices. One of those spur of the moment dishes that just worked.
Three cheers for Bean Club!
kalakal
@Kristine:
@narya:
Bean Club is wonderful!
A friend told Mrs kalakal and I about Rancho Gordo and we are so grateful
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Matt McIrvin:
Polls are catching up to what many of us have been saying for a while: the Democratic Party left working-class people behind years ago.
The Party, and many online self professed progressive commenters who preach a deregulatory economic policy (Center for New Liberalism, New Democrats, basically the Noah Smith, Yglesias, Atlantic writers types, basically the children of all those ‘socially liberal/economic conservative’ types, ie, entitled white people who fled their lily-white places of origins to gentrify cities) combined with urban, cosmopolitan business “liberalism” helped get us here…and they’re simply doubling down on that approach post-election.
I know people like me who are staunch Dems but have always been well to the left see this as a battle between us and the over-polished, technocratic, pro-biz, pro-billionaire folks like Newsom, Shapiro and Polis (and plenty of others). I feel that’s a battle we’ve lost and are, not suprisingly, taking the most wrong takes from the election given how we’re seeing that play out right now with (D) “opposition”.
Today, voters are demanding fighters who will stand up to autocrats & oligarchs instead of being complicit in the dismantling of our democracy.
Trivia Man
@Suzanne: my father was a great example of hippie punching. Super liberal, his favorite politician was hubert Humphrey because of his compassion for others. Dad was a special ed teacher in public schools for decades. Hated nixon with the fire if a thousand suns for his policies and general crookedness.
But to the day he died, he blamed hippies for nixon. “Hippies in chicago are the reason we got nixon for president.” Refused to consider mayor daley’s role, the vietnam interference, the nixon lies and dirty tricks… nope, all hippies.
And that led him to fall down the path buchannan rabbit hole eventually which led to 30 years of republican donations. And eventually a volunteer who helped bring trump to michigan in 2015.
Hippie punching led him there and foubtless many others.
narya
@Kristine: I make the beans four pounds at a time (two batches in separate pots, then two MORE batches in the same pots w/o even washing) and freeze serving sizes in the 4 million fresh mozzarella containers I’ve acquired from farmers’ market purchases. (Yes, I use a scale to weigh out the portions; you could use plastic bags, too, and just roll them up tight.) I track what I have on my food-in-the-chest-freezer whiteboard. I have beans plus farm-share veggies plus grains plus some cheese four nights a week for dinner, and it’s easy to throw cooked beans into any stew, tacos, etc. (Never shut up about Bean Club . . . .)
Professor Bigfoot
@Suzanne: I hope we all realize that we’re talking about white people, here.
The rest of us really don’t have the luxury of “moving right.” We’re not going to move into the arms of people who want to kill us.
rebelsdad
@Professor Bigfoot: say it louder for the people in the back
Professor Bigfoot
@Jertian: Sir Terry understood the banality of evil.
Kristine
@kalakal:
@narya:
I need to start cooking just the beans with herbs and spices and freezing.
The thing I can’t get over is how quickly RG beans cook. No soaking required.
Professor Bigfoot
@Geminid: Progress IS being made, despite the best efforts of the coal and oil fetishists.
Professor Bigfoot
@narya: Well. I keep discovering new stuff around here.
”Bean club?” There’s a bean club? Runs off to Google.
”Oh, and there’s now a waitlist!” :D
Professor Bigfoot
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: After all, what makes anyone think that the masses who did not vote would have voted any differently from their compatriots who put Trump into office?
narya
@Kristine: Honestly, I don’t even bother with spices–just carrots, onions, garlic, and, if I have it, celery. Usually I don’t even salt them at the end–all of which expands how they can be used later. I fire up the pots when I know I’m going to be around all day, and then I magically have wads of cooked beans.
narya
@Professor Bigfoot: I got off the waitlist several years ago–6? 7? years–and it’s so awesome. At one point they allowed members to switch to twice a year rather than four times a year shipments, but that was only for current members. Check your local stores, though: many folks report finding bags of RG beans in the wild.
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: Yes, though right now we’re seeing vehicle battery tech having a damaging effect on transit policy sometimes because it’s a temptation that crowds out other, better kinds of electric transit that require installing more infrastructure.
For instance, Boston’s MBTA deciding to rip out all of its remaining trolleybus lines because they could theoretically just replace the trolleybuses with battery electric buses.
(It’s frustrating, because battery tech has also made trolleybuses *better*–modern ones tend to have a smaller battery that they can use to run off-wire for short distances, which greatly improves flexibility and means you don’t have to have a huge tangle of wires at every intersection. But a battery bus that just charges at the station needs a much larger, more expensive and environmentally costly battery.)
Matt McIrvin
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Biden’s relative economic progressivism, labor activism and massive COVID relief spending got him nothing. People just complained about inflation and supply-siders argued they’d been right all along.
The party’s rightward move on economics was pretty much complete by the 2000s, so if that’s the problem, Barack Obama never should have won any elections. Unless it’s a delayed effect.
I think the Democrats’ support for civil rights, LGBT rights and feminism pisses off a lot of working-class white men, but we can’t throw those people under the bus MORE than the Republicans do, that’s a losing proposition–and we can’t make the issues less salient either, because it’s the Republicans who drive that.
Kristine
@Professor Bigfoot: I was on the waitlist for about a year. RG emailed me when my turn came.
Kristine
@narya: I’ve developed a real liking for western Mediterranean and South Asian spices and herbs. Burlap &Barrel is my go-to. Their dried oregano buds that you need to grind yourself—I never realized how lovely that scent was.
They Call Me Noni
@Kristine:
Have you purchased the banana vinegar? It’s kinda funky but fabulous.
artem1s
@Baud:
this why Soutpiel has been so desperate to poke his fingers into US regulations and incentives to buy EVs. He ruined Tesla by putting the focus on AI, self driving tech, and his terrible, no good design preferences while the rest of the world continued R&D on battery technology that is affordable and added bonus doesn’t kill the customers. He really is the natural replacement for TCF and the MAGAt cult worship. Everything he touches dies. He’s also the living embodiment of John Galt. Has created absolutely nothing of value on his own and is only wealthy and powerful because he stealing the ideas and labor of millions of immigrants, indigenous people, serfs and slave workers. I wish he’d fuck off to his own Galt’s Gulch on Mars and DIAF already.
pajaro
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Biden’s economic policies resulted in significant wage growth at the bottom of the wage scale. He was the most pro labor President we’ve had in generations. Manufacturing jobs actually increased under his watch. In rural areas, we increased rural broadband. the American Rescue plan kept people in their apartments when the country shut down. We didn’t leave the working class, they left us for the guy who passed a tax plan that shoveled tax breaks to millionaires and whose campaign was funded by billionaires.
Matt McIrvin
@artem1s: Trump’s hatred for EVs can be easily converted into a hatred for EVs that are not made by Tesla.
Matt McIrvin
@pajaro: The trouble was, the effect of a lot of that relief was nullified by inflation (caused largely by supply shocks out of Biden’s control), and because of automation the revival of American manufacturing didn’t necessarily lead to a commensurate increase in jobs in the old Rust Belt, though I know Kay has argued that there was more than we might think.
Kristine
@They Call Me Noni: First I’ve heard of it—I’ve been concentrating on beans. But it’s definitely something I will try—I like unusual vinegars.
RevRick
@Rusty: You won’t get an argument from me about this, Rusty. Part of the reason people feel so powerless in the face of the Trump regime’s depredations is that they are so disconnected from the larger community. They may have a close circle of Friends, but that seldom leads to more effective action.
And I agree with Pratchett that the material world provides us with absolutely no evidence whatsoever of anything we would consider praiseworthy. It requires a faith to love, to hope, to care, to affirm that noble deeds, such as that of the Montgomery county teacher, really matter.
For liturgical churches, this season of Lent would have us be mindful of the fact that “we are dust, and to dust we shall return.” But that is so we consider what we do in the time and space we are given. We will live on this Earth for X period of time…so what?
MAGA and Trump are ultimately cynical and nihilistic, telling us that nothing good really matters, so act like brutes and grab whatever you can.
And really, if there is not some “moreness” to the universe besides what we see, then any goodness becomes somewhat performative. Reason may tell us what we should do, but our gut may ask, “why bother?” And the gut usually wins those arguments.
So, yeah, it takes a leap of faith together with a community to support and practice it.
Xavier
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Yes. Today’s Democratic establishment sometimes feels like it secretly believes in trickle down.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Matt McIrvin:
Make no mistake, that’s the last thing I’m suggesting and would push back strenuously against anybody who would suggest that.
Omnes Omnibus
@Xavier: The Democratic establishment that voted for Biden’s initiatives? That one?
different-church-lady
If you’ve got time to be disgusted by eggs but no time to be disgusted by fascism, then fuck you.
different-church-lady
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Yglesias is the Democratic Party. Okay.
different-church-lady
@Matt McIrvin:
…out loud, way too much, and should stop.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Xavier:
Secretely? Not a chance. For years, we’ve had commenters push various angles of what is essentially a libertarian, techbro economic agenda that’s Reaganomic, trickle-down. It’s gussied up in greenwashing language and banal progressive catch phrases but the adoption of neoliberal econ policies by both sides over the last 40 years is undeniable.
A good read on how this is still fundamental to our side:
https://prospect.org/economy/2024-11-26-abundance-agenda-neoliberalisms-rebrand/
Interesting Name Goes Here
@Suzanne: How is it stupid or evil to call out or blame people who can’t even be arsed to fill out a paper form? The hard fact of the matter is, it really doesn’t matter what the Flavored Hate of the Week does when so many of the people eager to push and sell that hate to others can’t and won’t do even the bare minimum to help fix it.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@different-church-lady:
I sure as hell don’t think he is but I look around me at people who vote (D) of the “brand” they think he represents.
Miss Bianca
@Kristine: What is this miraculous bean that needeth no soaking – and Bean Club, the purveyor thereof – of which you speak??
ETA: Found it, joined the waitlist.
Glidwrith
@RevRick: I have on my wall at work a logarithmic graph, the axes are visual vs audio. A teeny tiny band is what we can see and hear.
The universe sings and there is far more than what we see.
Lobo
@WTFGhost: Amen brother
Kristine
@Miss Bianca: heh.
I will admit that I don’t mind al dente beans in occasion, but I’m pretty much in the seldom to never presoak camp unless the beans are old, and RG beans have a rep for cooking fast.
YY_Sima Qian
@Geminid: It was not just the batteries for BYD:
Paul in KY
@Trivia Man: Maybe he wanted to go there? Sad, anyway.
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: Pres. Biden and his team did a piss poor job (IMO) of laying blame for the higher prices: ‘Greedy companies trying to get back what profits they lost in COVID Times’ Plus ‘Evil Putin has caused oil prices to skyrocket, due to his illegal war on Ukraine’ .
Pres. Truman & Pres Roosevelt & Pres Johnson would have reveled in getting to skewer them. It (IMO) was a failure of good partisan politics.
WaterGirl
PSA: Wil, I can’t contact you directly because none of the email addressed you have used here is valid.
If you are reading this, please get in touch with me about your status as a commenter on Balloon Juice. watergirl at balloon-juice.com
brantl
Sometimes you need that rising ape to kill those f*cking snakes. Hey, Trump: stop hiring out of Slytheryn.
brantl
@Rusty: and for that across much of the stratification of America, you’re going to need trade unions.
brantl
@Matt McIrvin: Voting suppression forcibly sat many of them out.
waspuppet
The minute Bill O’Reilly (yeah that’s how long ago it was) told Donald Trump “Yeah but Putin kills journalists” and Trump replied “You think we don’t have killers in this country?” I knew everything I needed to know. He’s one of those “precocious” fifth-graders who’s now in eighth grade and nobody calls them precocious anymore and they’re trying to get it back by showing how they don’t believe in anything because that’s what “smart” “adults” do.