Wisconsin: not for sale
— Ben Wikler (@benwikler.bsky.social) April 1, 2025 at 11:31 PM
Dear DNC, do we get to say I told you so now?
The DNC went with one of the good old boys for the party chair, the guy who knew all the right people, had paid his dues, waited for his turn, and wouldn’t rock the boat. Not much, at least. Stick with the devil you know, wouldn’t want to change too much even though the world is on fire!
I would be surprised if not an insignificant number of DNC insiders aren’t maybe wishing they had voted the other way.
Well, our loss is also our gain! I would like to see the alternate universe where Ben Wikler is voted in as DNC Chair so I could know whether we would have won in Wisconsin if someone else were chair of the Wisconsin state party right now. Wisconsin needed the Supreme Court victory, and so did the rest of the country.
My statement on Wisconsin’s election results tonight ⬇️
— Governor Tony Evers (@govevers.wisconsin.gov) April 1, 2025 at 11:04 PM
Wisconsin: not for sale is classic Ben Wikler. Truly proud that we supported their efforts with our fundraising, and proud of everyone who did their part to help make this happen.
Listen to Susan Crawford as she says last night, loud and proud, our courts are not for sale!
Susan Crawford: “So Today Wisconsinites fended off an unprecedented attack on our democracy, our fair elections, and our Supreme Court. And Wisconsin stood up and said loudly that justice does not have a price, our courts are not for sale.”
— Vince D. Monroy (@vincedmonroy.bsky.social) April 1, 2025 at 9:52 PM
Democracy is not for sale, either. I say that in spite of the current mob violence and mayhem currently playing out under FFOTUS.
Democracy is not for sale. I have been re-watching Leverage.
Let’s go steal democracy.
Taking a Break from the News, Take 2
Baud
Glad for Wisconsin, but I don’t see a reason to be negative about the DNC. We overperformed in the FL districts too.
I’d prefer to keep it positive. YMMV.
WaterGirl
@Baud: I’m not happy with the chair of the DNC, seems kind of lame to me; I’m not going to be a cheerleader for someone who is mediocre. I’m not going to rah-rah for Democrats in leadership positions who aren’t meeting the moment.
Participation trophies are be the 5-year-olds in sports.
Do you have a link for the DNC action for the Florida seats? Because I’m not aware of any, though that doesn’t mean there wasn’t any.
I am aware of the activities of National Ground Game, the group that we supported.
CCL
. . . and this news – Musk to go bye bye – perhaps related to the Wisconsin results?
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I haven’t followed DNC activity. Historically, they wouldn’t have been involved in House races. But I don’t know what the new model is.
rikyrah
Christopher Webb
@cwebbonline
This is Senator Jim Banks from Indiana. No need to tell you he’s a Republican—it’s clear by the cruel disdain he shows his own constituent who was laid off.
Also note: he waits until he’s safely behind his staff and the door is just about to close before telling him he deserved it and calling him a “clown.”
So, he’s not just cruel—he’s a coward.
https://x.com/cwebbonline/status/1907415329678213314
WaterGirl
@CCL: Wow! From your article.
Does he think we’re stupid?
The president is pleased that it’s a clear day and the sky is blue, even as the hurricane and tsunamis are ravaging the area.
TheOtherHank
Trolling for a rotating tag. I saw this over on the Bluesky:
Everything looks like a conspiracy when you don’t know how anything works.
Scout211
@CCL: That was already reported. He is a temporary special government hire and they can only be hired for 130 days. Musk already announced that himself with a long list of accomplishments and money he “saved” the country about a week ago. A jackal here (can’t remember who) found the law that listed 130 days as a temporary special government hire, which is the number that Musk used to announce his own “job well done.”
Elon Musk Teases His Departure From DOGE
A Ghost to Most
OT: <strike>Electrek</strike> CleanTechnica is reporting that Tesla has asked Elmo to step down from the Board. I guess it’s back to Swastika Street.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: Interesting that twitter won’t let that particular tweet be embedded.
That video clip needs to go viral. Total disrespect for his constituents on display.
They are literally controlling what they let people see, down to minute levels.
Parfigliano
The DNC Power Money people are invested in Good Old Boys. Shun them.
It’s a horror movie…”the calls coming from inside the house.”
WaterGirl
@Parfigliano:
It’s not a horror movie – at least not the Democratic side of things. The horror movie is the Republican party and its co-presidents.
I totally disagreed with your take last night that the FL special elections were a waste of time, money and energy.
Those losses in very safe republican districts sent a message and will have some Republicans in the House on their back foot, quite possibly unwilling to take a vote for something that they otherwise would have voted for.
Sister Golden Bear
Good analysis by Erin Reed about how WI voters rejected not only Musk, but also the millions spent on anti-trans ads. Democrats do not need to throw trans people under the bus to win.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I did a quick Google search.
Thor Heyerdahl
Good news with Sen. Booker, Wisconsin, the first county win in FL-1 since 1992, and Louisiana voting no on heinous amendments.
I guess it was the perfect time to go dig in the inner-democratic party litterbox (shrugs)
Betty Cracker
@Sister Golden Bear: From your quoted material:
I think that’s true. To the extent Trump’s anti-trans ads worked in 2024, I suspect they succeeded in convincing low-info voters that Dems spend 80% of their time directing taxpayer funds to provide gender-affirming care to incarcerated undocumented immigrants. In short, people are dumb and awash in propaganda.
They Call Me Noni
@rikyrah: Yup. We have Mike Braun for governor too. Assholes have a strong game here.
kindness
How long before some Trumpie suggests the Wisconsin election needs to be reviewed by SCOTUS?
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Before 2016, no one knew of DNC’s existence now thanks to BS it has joined the list of Democratic villains.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@CCL: If Musk goes, will that be the end of DOGE?
Ohio Mom
Admittedly off-topic:
I was skimming through an earlier thread, making sure I didn’t miss anything and came upon some comments lamenting Kay’s departure (I share those regrets).
Then I recalled the um, heated discussion that led to mistermix’s departure (I know he stops back here now and again, but he went from occasional front pager here to having his own site elsewhere).
As I remember, the um, heated discussion was about mistermix’s unhappiness that
Cory BookerJeffries was off doing a book tour instead of staying in D.C. and fighting. Lots of disagreement about how mistermix described things (I could be mis-remembering).Seems ironic in light of
Booker’sJeffries tour de force which concluded yesterday. I think we can agree that he is fighting, and doing so strategically. There may even be something to be said for his timing at holding his filibuster now, when the full impact of Trump/Elon/Vought’s efforts are beginning to dawn on the low-informed.There might be a moral in all this.
edited to correct Booker to Jeffries.
Betty Cracker
Regarding the DNC chair: I don’t know much about Martin. Wikler seems like a rare talent, so if I had a vote, I would have cast it for him. That said, I heard an episode where the Pod Save guys interviewed both, and each had good things to say about what they’d do with the DNC. There seemed to be a lot of mutual respect between them.
I still hope Wikler gets tired of the cold weather, moves to Florida and figures out how to fix our state party org.
Betty Cracker
@Ohio Mom: The book tour was Jeffries, not Booker.
schrodingers_cat
@Ohio Mom: It was Hakeem Jefferies that MM was upset about.
ETA:BC got there first.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
There was some of that when people were going on about Howard Dean.
WaterGirl
@schrodingers_cat:
I am not and did not say that the DNC or the DNC chair is a villain.
I just don’t think that showing up the weekend before an election to make a point is indicative of a DNC chair that is going to take the fight to the Republicans.
Ohio Mom
@Betty Cracker: Oops!
Wiping egg off my face. Jeffries is still in the doghouse, next to me.
I still think the I’m, heated discussion was stupid though.
Trollhattan
I want people leaning into that “End of Western civilization” shit that spewed from Elmo’s piehole. Like, every time he’s in public or doing a presser, ask him if it has begun and what signs should we be looking for. Make him eat those damn words.
Congratulations to the cheesehead judge lady!
Eolirin
@Ohio Mom: It was Hakeem Jeffries doing the book tour, not Booker, which was also being used to communicate with local black leaders.
And we’ve all moved on from that when Jeffries got the house caucus to hold strong on the CR and Schumer and the senate decided keeping the government open was the lesser evil.
This has all been little more than noise.
Scout211
From Wired last month:
DOGE may be still around when he leaves but it looks like the current members of DOGE only have the 130 day special government employee status like Musk.
Eolirin
@WaterGirl: The DNC’s primary job is behind the scenes organizing, coordinating strategy, and moving money around. It’s not to be a public face for the Democratic party. They’re a support organization.
That Martin is making commitments to local races is a really big deal. We’re not going to hear about most of what they’re doing though.
Marcopolo
@Ohio Mom: Um actually the issue was Hakeem Jeffries book tour. Just to set the record straight. Strangely, Schumer also has been doing a book tour. Cory has no new book out afaik.
Was not involved in that discussion other than reading it but I do miss Kay’s takes from NW Ohio (which I tended to agree w/) & was wondering why I hadn’t seen her around.
edited to add, not piling on but man am I a slow typer, lol.
WaterGirl
@Ohio Mom: Everyone is on edge, and I suspect that there was a perfect storm (not in a good way) of things that led to the way that thread played out.
We have to be able to listen to different opinions without getting to virtual fistfights.
Barbara
@Ohio Mom: Not Cory Booker — Hakeem Jeffries. Sorry, others jumped in first. The problem I had with using a “book tour” almost like an all-purpose slur is that such a tour was probably organized many months in advance and included independent retailers as well as community events. It wasn’t a vanity tour, and it seemed like there was a little too much haste not to give Jeffries the benefit of the doubt. No wish to relitigate, except that WG (much as I love her) is doing something similar in my view. I doubt if anyone can make instant change with the DNC, and the expectation that they can or could feels too much like holding people to an impossible standard. YMMV
pajaro
@WaterGirl:
You think that the DNC isn’t taking the fight to the Republicans, when one of the first things they did was to help organize the empty chair town halls in Republican districts.
I too, would have preferred Wikler, but I don’t see evidence that Martin is doing a bad job.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I came her for the fisticuffs.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: Turlish journalist Ragip Soylu is Middle East Eye’s Turkiye bureau chief, but he watches US politics fairly closely. Soylu just reposted a prediction from February 13;
…with the comment:
Betty Cracker
@Ohio Mom: Yeah, the blow-up here was unfortunate, but Mix and Kay are rocking it on the new blog.
WaterGirl
@Ohio Mom: Ohio Mom, i just took the liberty of striking out Booker and adding Jeffries – I thought that would be better than the entire thread correcting you in replies. :-)
Barbara
@Geminid: Musk has the money. Trump’s ego will make peace with Musk’s money. Should that evaporate or be tied up elsewhere, yeah, he’s history.
bbleh
So have the wingnuts started screeching FRAUD about the WI election yet?
(tbf, I DID see SEVERAL buses heading north up the highway out of Center City Philly … )
Betty Cracker
@Marcopolo: Did Schumer resurrect his book tour? I thought he canceled it after the CR kerfluffle.
Trollhattan
@Betty Cracker: I don’t think Chuck is going anywhere near San Francisco, but that could just be me.
Scout211
@Betty Cracker: he postponed it with future dates not yet announced.
Trollhattan
A CA governor candidate I can take seriously. And, a local!
Trollhattan
‘Tis both a mystery and a pity.
Scout211
@Trollhattan: That’s great news!
WaterGirl
@pajaro:
I’m pretty sure I get to say that I have not been impressed with what I’ve seen from the new chair.
I’m pretty sure I get to say that I believe the DNC chose the establishment candidate, not the best candidate.
A quick google of the empty chair town halls in Republican districts didn’t indicate any connection between the DNC and those empty chair town halls in Republican districts.
If it’s actually the DNC that organized those, then I will upwardly revise my opinion of the new chair. Though I still won’t think he was the best choice!
Wisconsin needed the win; the whole country needed the win.
As I indicated up top, we do not know how Wisconsin would have turned out if Wikler was now chair of the DNC instead of the state party.
Marcopolo
@Betty Cracker: Well, after that cluster all his media hits were in service of trying to defend that decision. Not a lot of oxygen left to promote the book. AND doing book promotion is an activity where you have to meet real human beings face to face which I think he was probably counseled against.
Honestly though, who the hell wants to read a book by Schumer anyway?
gene108
I don’t get the obsession with DNC chair.
What does the DNC actually do other than fundraise?
It has no actual power to compel the party to do anything. If it tried to grab some power to be able to do anything for the national, state, and local parties, it’d probably step on a few toes and be told to cut it out.
Chief Oshkosh
@rikyrah: Boy, now there is someone with a punchable face and attitude to match. What a little shitweazel.
TONYG
Good. Now it’s time for the Wisconsin state police to arrest Elon Musk and charge him with the felony of offering to bribe voters. No bail for this asshole flight risk. Keep Elon’s ass in the Wisconsin equivalent of Riker’s Island until his can get a fair trial for this felony. Throw his ass into prison if he is convicted.
Geminid
@Trollhattan: That makes me think Kamala Harris does not intend run for governor next year. I guess we’ll know for sure before too long.
Californians will get another high-profile demonstation of its “jungle” primary model. I’m curious: how do you like it so far?
Barbara
@gene108: Me neither. A successful DNC facilitates the election of candidates without leaving obvious fingerprints. Otherwise too many candidates can be vulnerable to accusations that they are just puppets of the big bad forces of DC and national Democrats.
Chief Oshkosh
@schrodingers_cat: Howard Dean enters the room.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
FWIW, I’m not challenging your opinion. I don’t have info one way or another. It just seemed like an odd juxtaposition with the celebration about yesterday’s win.
Betty Cracker
@TONYG: Not a lawyer, but yeah, if offering bribes to voters isn’t illegal, why isn’t it? I saw a piece somewhere that noted the two people who got million-dollar checks from Musk weren’t random members of the public. One was a Young Republicans activist and the other some other type of connected Republican.
Musk pulled something similar in the 2024 election, and this article (can’t remember where I saw it) said he squirmed out of the bribery or illegal sweepstakes charge by saying it was a payment to an influencer or some such horseshit.
Scout211
I was about to post the same thing.
Baud
sentient ai from the future
@Trollhattan: yet, i think a combination of “short squeeze” and algorithmic manipulation by fellow billionaires, tsla went from down 4% in premarket trading to nearly 6% up vs yesterday, putatively on news musk is stepping back from doge.
bought another put option, on the far side of earnings report, if nothing else to voice my skepticism in that domain.
i dont think returning to tsla is going to help the brand.
Geminid
@Scout211: My guess was that Becerra touched bases with Harris before he made his move, but that’s just a guess.
But I wonder if you’ll participate in my little poll: how do you like California’s jungle primary system?
surfk9
@Geminid:
When I saw the announcement I thought the same thing
Baud
Eunicecycle
@Betty Cracker: I wonder how the other people feel who signed his petition, thinking they had a chance to win $1 million, when they never had a chance? Do they feel like suckers? I don’t wish them ill, just hope they wake up!
Marcopolo
@gene108: Under Howard Dean (2005 when I first started paying attn to them btw), the DNC made a point of allocating resources to EVERY state (aka the 50 state strategy)—which obvs hadn’t been happening. In AK where I lived at that time this meant fully funding a position at the state Democratic Party which was actually a big deal as that helped w/ their fundraising & candidate recruitment & a few other things.
So yeah fundraising but also strategizing, coordination between various party (and outside) orgs & other minutiae. Generally not the role of the DNC head to be any kind of public/forward face for the party but they can/should have tremendous impact behind the scenes.
Finally, the DNC head has a lot more independence during an R administration. If there is a D president then the DNC head is pretty much their not quite lapdog but maybe apparatchik?
Belafon
@Betty Cracker: That and letting them in the same locker room as the voter’s daughter, or denying the daughter a spot on the team.
Baud
Scout211
So far, it seems to be working okay. But the Democrats right now are in a super majority so often we see two Democrats in the general election. If the Republicans ever get more voters here, it could swing the other way and that wouldn’t be great. But currently, I like seeing that Democrats don’t have to campaign against each other in the primary as much as they would if only one was guaranteed a slot in the general.
Belafon
@Baud: Cool. We can throw others in jail.
Planetjanet
@WaterGirl: Would it help if you knew Ken Martin was personally knocking on doors in Wisconsin and Florida? He does the work. He did the same here in Virginia in 2017 and other critical special elections to help us flip our state legislature.
Link
schrodingers_cat
@gene108: I don’t either.
Baud
@Planetjanet:
You broke the blog.
TurnItOffAndOnAgain
@Ohio Mom: You’ve been corrected, but your overall point is correct. Jeffries ended up holding his caucus together better than Schumer, after all.
And I’ll make anybody who rants about the DNC a deal; if you can explain to me why it matters I’ll hear you out. I’ll give bonus points if you can do the same about Merrick Garland. But until then I don’t know why I should care, so I won’t. I got other stuff to worry about.
Trollhattan
@Geminid:
Newish primary system occasionally coughs up a real hairball, like the last time DiFi ran for senate, faced another Dem who received the California Democratic Party endorsement, and stomped him anyway.
Because there’s no obvious successor (quick, name the Lt Gov) we should see a good forty or so candidates in the ’26 gov primary. Which two make it to the general will be a real crapshoot. I wonder if the Republicans have another pitcher in the bullpen?
I do not see Harris running. It would be a letdown career-wise and her rather weak support here last fall is worrying. I don’t happen to know how many years she’s got left under state term limits.
Eolirin
@Marcopolo: Martin’s saying he’s moving back to that kind of strategy, but only people on the inside would be able to tell if he actually is.
The biggest point to all of this is we can’t evaluate the DNC from the outside, because part of its role is to be as close to invisible as it can. The only people who are going to know how good a job Ken Martin is doing are democratic party officials and operatives, state and local candidates and party organizations.
We’re not part of that group, on the whole.
WaterGirl
@gene108:
If all the DNC chair does is fundraise, there’s not a chance in hell that Ben Wikler would have wanted the position.
If you watch any of the video Q & As, I think you might realize that there’s a lot more to it than that.
I do think it’s interesting that so many people jumped on the one thing I wrote that was not the point of the post, and wasn’t at the heart of the post.
That can get really annoying. It’s easy to feel like putting together a post is a waste of time.
surfk9
@Geminid: I am ambivalent. I voted against it. The Republican brand in California is so toxic and the candidates they run are so comically awful that they have not been able to take advantage electorally.
WaterGirl
In this conversation, several people are saying “the DNC only does this”.
Is this not the blog that just yesterday was talking about this being the time where business as usual should not apply?
Planetjanet
@WaterGirl: Would it help if you knew that Ken Martin was on the ground knocking on doors in Wisconsin and Florida? He puts in the work. He did the same here in Virginia in 2017 and helped us flip the state legislature.
https://bsky.app/profile/kenmartin.bsky.social/post/3lknt7uws2c23
cain
RIP Val Kilmer :(
Redshift
@WaterGirl: I gave some money to the DNC after Martin started to get into an “insider briefing,” and maybe get on a better mailing list. He talked a good game, and we’ll see about the results. In particular, he talked about getting active on alternative media channels where we haven’t been, and competing and party building everywhere, both priorities for me.
They did organize some empty chair town halls; I got a newsletter about it. (Did you know they now have a newsletter? They’re unfortunately still terrible at publicity.) Most of those town halls were driven by Indivisible and may other groups, however.
So yeah, Martin is actually doing some new stuff that we need, but it’s too soon to judge how well. PR is still a big problem, and the bigger problem is that there has never been a single head of the party when we don’t have the presidency, and we really need one right now.
hueyplong
@Baud: Unless I read the name of a 4th GOPer senator in support, that bill to reverse the Canadian tariff looks a bit like Kabuki.
pajaro
@WaterGirl:
You are a front pager, you get to initiate any post you want, and express your opinion in any way you want. I am a mere occasional commenter. I’ve known Wickler since he was working in DC (before he came to Wisconsin and helped reverse the gerrymandered state) and I think the world of him. I have also not seen anything to indicate that Martin is a bad hire, and he certainly had the support from the Minnesota Dems when he became a candidate, which was based on the work he did in the party there. Martin is relatively new to the job, and I have read in Simon Rosenberg’s blog of some of the organizational initiatives in which he is involved.
I’ve always found this blog to be constructive, so maybe you or one of the other posters could consider, if you think the DNC could be doing more, some suggestions that are specific to the role of DNC Chair. And I apologize in advance if you have already done so and I missed it.
cain
@WaterGirl: I appreciate all your posts, WaterGirl.
Betty Cracker
@Belafon: I agree that’s part of it. My sense is the median voter didn’t think about trans people at all much before Repubs pumped billions of dollars into making it a wedge issue. Hell, there are more kids with measles now than there are trans athletes competing in NCAA sports, but propaganda is powerful.
I hope we don’t learn the wrong lesson from that. IMO, the wrong lesson would be “well, Repubs made the general public alarmed about trans people, so we should throw them under the bus.” The right lesson, IMO, is that public opinion can be shaped. Repubs shaped it with lies, which makes it harder for us to reshape with truth. But that’s the job now.
Baud
@hueyplong:
Very much so. But at some point, maybe they’ll feel the economic heat.
Geminid
@Scout211: One thing I realized last November when I was following Derek Tran’s and Adam Gray’s close Congressional races was that the open (or “jungle”) primary system tends to cull out independent and third party candidates. I’m not saying this a good feature or a bad one, but it’s a feature.
California and Washigton adopted this system around 15 years ago, while Louisina has had it for a while. Alaska recently adopted a hybrid system: one open primary with the top four finishers advancing to a Ranked-choice runoff in November.
hueyplong
@Baud: That’s the hope. I’m not looking for the same thing that it took to get the 1940s Germans’ minds right.
cain
@gene108: If you are fundraising, then you have money and also influence. I don’t think they are some kind of bank – they give money strategically I would think.
But since we aren’t living in normal times, perhaps there are other things they can do. We don’t have to do anything traditional anymore. Trump has broken all compacts.
Redshift
@WaterGirl:
To be fair, it looks to be like about half the post is about the DNC. If you meant it to be a throwaway, you may have gotten carried away. 🙂
cain
@Baud:
They feel the heat. The heat between two goons.
🎶 How can you just leave me standing, against a world so cold? Maybe I’m just demanding, maybe I’m just like my father.. or maybe I’m just like mother, she never satisfied. Why should we scream at each other (in this blog). This is what it sounds like when Musk cries. 🎶
TONYG
@Betty Cracker: Yeah. I would just like to see — just once — a very rich person suffer some consequences for his crimes. I know that that will never happen in our “system”, but that’s my fantasy.
BlueGuitarist
@Baud:
@WaterGirl:
Would have LOLed if the notable hit in your quick search had been to comment 37 on this very blog a few days ago, when yours truly (a Ben Wikler fan) mentioned Ken Martin and Nikki Fried canvassing for Josh Weil
https://balloon-juice.com/2025/03/29/thin-skinned-twats/
enjoy this from a random BlueSky post last night:
Geminid
@surfk9: My impression at the time was that the jungle primary system was intended to favor more moderate candidates from either party. I’m not sure if that’s how it works out in practice, but the system hasn’t been around for that many cycles.
I rather like Alaska’s hybrid system, but I am mainly glad these novel voting systems– jungle primary, Ranked-choice– are getting a good shakedown cruise in a few jurisdictions before they become more widely adopted.
Planetjanet
@Baud: sorry
UncleEbeneezer
@gene108: The DNC obsession really seemed to take off in 2016 when it was a useful scapegoat to explain away Bernie’s significant primary loss to Hillary in a way that gave him (and his Progressive fans) a pass for ignoring the base of Black Voters. Since then it has often been the go-to example for some sort of behind-the-scenes puppet master intentionally rigging primaries (and other sins) to unfairly keep progressives from the leadership positions they are entitled to. The puppet-master thing was especially unfortunate when Debbie Wasserman Schultz was the head of the DNC, seeing as how close it was to centuries-old antisemitic conspiracy theories. But like with the Primary Jeffries nonsense illustrated, all of those sorts of considerations (to avoid racist/antisemitic stereotypes and double-standards in how we treat and talk about Black/Jewish representatives) go right out the window when white liberals/progressives decide they are mad at the Dem Party.
Redshift
@WaterGirl:
I agree, I think the overarching problem we have is that all of our officials are still trying to do their jobs (legislator, fundraiser, midterm campaign planner) at a time when their jobs are nearly irrelevant in dealing with the threat we face. I get that’s what they were elected to do, but so few are meeting the moment and realizing that while their job is what makes people look to them as a leader, they need to get out of the box, and grasp that if they do it well, no one will care that it’s technically not what they’re supposed to be doing.
scav
@WaterGirl: Well, if you’re expecting to control / manage the response to a post as a measure of success, then you’re doomed to disappointment! Conversations are like toddlers, they quickly grow up and go their own damned way. Would it maybe help to sometimes think of an essentially good news post as a variant of the respite nothing but calming photos post, a space dedicated to the wheee! and the whew! before we buckle down (later) to analyzing what worked and didn’t?
Nettoyeur
Elon and Donald just announced that Elon is stepping down from DOGE to spend more time with his money, er, businesses. This of course has nothing to do with the ass caning he paid $25M to get in Wisconsin.
Belafon
@Betty Cracker: Agree. I fought with a cousin and her friends on facebook over this, and they just knew that those trans people are dangerous, but preachers, they’re mostly ok and only a few bad apples. It was frustrating on so many levels.
Lobo
@Betty Cracker: It was unfortunate. I think they both added more diversity here. Losing another poster has hurt this blog. There was unnecessary reactions here which drove them away. I thought about posting here, but paused. The vitriol reached to a point that I thought the blog would collapse. We should assume decency.
Eolirin
@Redshift: What would meet the moment right now is large scale civil disobedience, and I think it should be fairly obvious why the Democratic party can’t be the group calling for that.
We will need those people to be able to do their jobs if we can wrest back control, and they won’t be able to if we put them on the front lines of what will often cross the line into illegal, even if non-violent, actions.
We’re putting too much on the party, when a lot of response needs to come from activist organization, specifically targeted at Republicans and their allies.
The Tesla protests are doing good work. It would be extremely bad if the DNC was the one organizing them though. It’d undermine the whole project. And so on.
WaterGirl
@BlueGuitarist: I was aware that Martin had shown up to canvass and have a presence the weekend before the election. That looked to me much more like making a statement than anything else.
WaterGirl
@Planetjanet: It was just for a minute! Thanks to Baud speaking up, I was able to immediately fix it.
UncleEbeneezer
@schrodingers_cat: I think it’s a crucial cog in the fantasy that if Dems would just run Real Progressives™ voters would give us electoral landslides. The relatively sparse number of radically progressive electoral wins can’t be because the voters in most districts reject them so it’s easier to claim it’s all the fault of the evil DNC.
WaterGirl
@Redshift: It’s like the point that Martin (our Martin, here on BJ) makes. There’s a time to install the fire alarms and smoke detectors, but when the house is already on fire, that’s not the time for that.
WaterGirl
@scav: That makes sense.
The conversation is quite frequently, maybe almost always, determined by the first comment, or the first few comments.
In this post, someone jumped on that one thing in comment 1, and then everyone was off and running about that one thing, rather than about what 95% of the post was about.
Any loose end, or any stray throwaway comment, and someone will jump on it and then the point of the post is lost, as it was in this case.
WaterGirl
@Nettoyeur: Is this a new announcement, or is it the story that came out a week or two ago?
Do you have a link?
Planetjanet
@WaterGirl: The link I sent you of Martin was two weeks ago. When he canvassed here in Virginia, he was relentless. He is not an always online person.
Eolirin
@WaterGirl: I would make a counter point; expecting accountants to suddenly make for good firefighters is a recipe for disaster.
We do not need to be limited to acting through the democratic party, and it’s okay for it to be bad at certain things.
mvr
@Betty Cracker: There is a Wisconsin statute that says:
12.09 section 3 at https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/
statutes/12/13
TurnItOffAndOnAgain
@Lobo: Dude, I was a part of the thread that made MM quit, and it had bell pepper scoville heat units. Both by Balloon Juice standards and just general internet standards. It was his choice to leave and I respect it; I really wouldn’t categorize it as his being driven out.
Geminid
@UncleEbeneezer: Just to engage in some political pedantry: the “Primary Jeffries” story was a 36-hour affair in November of 2018, that began right after Jeffries won the election for Caucus Chairman. The vote was around 121 for Jeffries to 111 for Barbara Lee, who was a hero to many “progressives” and their preferred candidate.
Politico’s Laura Barron Lopez wrote a story that quoted two people “close to” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez saying they were gonna primary Jeffries and had a Black woman lined up for the job.
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez disclaimed the effort the next day but as people noted, she did not deny the story. I assumed that was because the Politico reporter had recorded her chief of staff and press secretary making their brag (Ocasio-Cortez and they parted ways the following August).
Jeffries’ win that day kicked off a years-long campaign to discredit Jeffries. The misleading and invidious Dave Wiegel story about Jeffries’ “childrens book tour” that made it onto this blog late February was part of that campaign.
zhena gogolia
@Nettoyeur: Wonderful, now that he’s done probably irreparable damage to the federal government and stolen all our data.
(Full disclosure: I make this statement solely on the basis of facts I have gleaned from BJ.)
Betty
@Betty Cracker: They were paired with anti-immigrant ads so it isn’t clear exactly how much of the anti-Dem vote was due to one or the other.
RevRick
@WaterGirl: The DNC is not responsible for Senate, House, Governor or Legislative seats. It is only responsible for organizing the Presidential campaigns. The DSCC does the Senate. The DCCC does the House. The DLCC does state legislatures. Individual state committees do statewide offices.
The answer to the question of why the DNC did nothing about non Presidential races is that they are supposed to stay in their own effing lane.
TEL
@Betty Cracker: I was listening to a Lincoln Project podcast with Stuart Stevens and Simon Rosenberg. Rosenberg liked the DNC focus on doing town halls in R districts and a lot of the other stuff they’re currently doing. He spoke with Booker a little before the filibuster and said Booker went far and wide gathering content for his filibuster. (Rosenberg is a Dem strategist, and while I don’t agree with some of his focus, he’s pretty well-connected).
rikyrah
@Ohio Mom:
I just thought Kay was taking a break because she was going to Europe to visit her son and granddaughter.
She’s really gone from BJ?
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: It’s true. When Kay and I last communicated by email, she said she is gone from Balloon Juice. She is posting at mistermix’s new place.
WaterGirl
@RevRick: I’m not sure i agree with your statement.
Even so, if you are correct, they apparently are not “staying in their lane” since he went to Wisconsin this past weekend before the April 1 election. And someone here reported that they canvassed in NY before the special elections there.
WaterGirl
@TurnItOffAndOnAgain: Sometimes there is a straw that breaks the proverbial camel’s back.
edit: I was adding a bunch more to that comment and forgot that I was editing, and the edit window closed. Not worth typing it all again.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: I thought that Saturday post might have been the straw that broke the camel’s back until Mistermix announced his new blog the following Monday, two days later. That made me think he had been planning his departure for a while.
Gloria DryGarden
@mvr:
@TurnItOffAndOnAgain: see key words in comment 111 by Mvr
being driven from, being run off the blog, the straw that broke the camel’s back. Whatever cumulative “stimuli”
regardless of others’ assessments of someone’s choices, at the bare bones fact level we have : 1. these behaviors, comments and scoville heat levels happened and 2. Someone left as a direct result
splitting hairs over he should/ shouldn’t have, or they were/ weren’t driven away, don’t change the results
sometimes you have to pick your battles, and decide how much toxic load your system will endure. People leave, often there’s a reason, sometimes others are left guessing deducing or interpolating.
Gloria DryGarden
WG, do you know if that lovely Grand Canyon photo is from the East, upstream end, or from the west, downstream end of the canyon? End is the wrong word, toward..east, west..
WaterGirl
@Geminid: You may be right.
On the other hand, I set up our Home Away from Home website for Bj in a night.
mistermix is tech savvy. He totally could have done the website in a day or two.
So he may have been planning it for awhile, or he may have just said fuck it, life’s too short to take a bunch of crap, and made a snap decision.
No one knows the answer to that except mistermix.
WaterGirl
@Gloria DryGarden: I do not. You’ll have to catch HinTN in a thread and ask him.
He will surely be in a meetup thread sometime after the meetup happens this Sunday.
am
Ken Martin killed it in MN.
Wikler is killing it in WI.
There’s no drama here, it’s just a big fat win. I for one am super glad to have both of them. Either of them is a great DNC chair, and the DNC is not doing badly as far as I can tell. WI is a critical state and I’m happy to let our ringer focus there. The party lost out once when Stacey Abrams ran for office and her focus came off party activities in a swing state, she was awesome on GOTV. I just wish Wikler could moonlight in PA, too.
Geminid
@Gloria DryGarden: Mistermix announced his departure Sunday, Feb 23 with a post titled “Adio Muchachos…” That gave his side of the controversies leading to his departure, and there were plenty of comments* discussing the matter.
A post by Mistermix the previous day, “Sampling Local Media” provides some of the context.
* Ed. 186 comments.
different-church-lady
NAZI BILLIONAIRES FUCK OFF!
Gloria DryGarden
@Geminid: thx.
My comment was intended also for extrapolation about others who have left, or disappeared for long breaks. It happens.
Sometimes I am too subtle w the nuances, though I didn’t think so this time..