My mom was a hardworking cardiac care nurse who wore scrubs and sneakers to work. She had a great deal of contempt for hospital administrators who invented hoops for the staff to jump through that weren’t directly related to improving patient care. She derisively referred to such people as “the suits” and would passive-aggressively undermine and ridicule their initiatives.
For example, once the suits required clinical staff to come up with procedures to support some initiative that Mom thought was stupid and pointless. She complied, but she named the processes she came up with in such a way that the acronyms were near obscenities, such as TERD.
I thought of the suits today when I read about a dumb thing CNN’s designated Trump-suck up Scott Jennings said in a “lighthearted” panel discussion about things they wish they could bring back from “extinction.” From HuffPo:
Jennings, for his part, opted to target American workers who have office jobs.
“America, I’m going to hold your hand while I say this,” he said as he looked directly at the camera. “We’re going back to the office five days a week, and we’re going to wear business attire. We’re no longer dressing like hobos, and we’re no longer going to act like every job is a part-time job.”
“Go back to work, put on a tie, stop whining, let’s get back to business,” he added.
Jennings is an ass, of course, but I think he speaks for a lot of the suits who lost their minds when the pandemic forced a mass experiment in remote office work, which diminished the suits’ power over cubicle kingdoms. Then near-full employment levels gave workers the upper hand, forcing concessions from the suits that rankle to this day.
I suspect this is an underrated factor in CEO-class support for Trump. And if he crashes the economy and causes mass unemployment and plummeting profits, that’ll be a small price to pay for the suits to lord it over a diminished herd of compliant office workers again.
On a somewhat related note, here’s the greatest video ever made about office zooms.
@nikkifoxx A heads up would be nice, Janice. 👏🏼 #zoom #workfromhome #corporate #homeoffice #foryou #fyp #unprepared ♬ original sound – 🦊 Nikki Foxx
Open thread!
On The Road – Auntie Anne – Southeast Asia – Chuong Village and Hoan Kiem Lake, Hanoi – Vietnam 5 of 5
Baud
Too bad the workers hated it too.
sab
Well, T***p is basically just a not very competent landlord, so of course he wants all those people back in their expensive rented cubicles.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: The workers hated it?
Suzanne
Agree.
But it’s also an underrated factor in blue-collar support for Trump: jealousy of “email jobs” and resentment of the people who have them.
Mikr1172
Pettiness and vanity still rule their world.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Did they vote in sufficient numbers to keep the suits in their place?
Baud
@Suzanne:
This is a more accurate way to say it. Half the workers are allied with the suits.
Scout211
As many have pointed out recently, Mar-a-Lago is Trump’s home, where he often puts in his regular 2-hour work day. But since no law or rule applies to him, it’s all fine.
Jeffro
It’s kind of like a second (or third?) layer of backlash…first we had a black president, then we *almost* had a woman president, then we found out we really do need ‘essential workers’ (and that many folks can work from home/don’t have to commute & then work in a cubicle)…
…oh, and we found out that a decent-sized child tax credit really worked in terms of lifting millions of American families out of poverty…
…and we found out the hard way that vaccines really do work and save millions of lives…
…and that a conversion to green energy really is possible…
…and then we almost had a Black woman elected president…
Backlash, backlash, backlash on top of backlash.
No wonder they are going full-bore to try and undo literally everything. We were about to shuffle the whole deck.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Haven’t seen any data on office worker voting patterns, but since Dems tend to win with college graduates, I suspect the majority voted for Harris.
@Suzanne: 100%.
Geminid
It’s a snowy day in Ankara. Evidently that’s unusual these days, but the snowy scenes reminded me that Turkiye’s capital used to be called Angora, and was known fot its floofy cats and goats.
Jerry
Betty, it sounds like your mom had that whole “malicious compliance” thing down to both a science *and* an art. She is my hero.
Suzanne
@Baud:
Yeah, this.
It’s amazing to me, but I see it again and again: in any bullshit social hierarchy, people reserve their loathing for those just above and just below them. Rarely for the people at the top who enforce the bullshit social hierarchy in the first place.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Yep. The classic Office Space movie had that dynamic just within the office world.
Why shouldn’t billionaires be on top if the regular workers are so easily played?
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Suzanne said it better. But the fact is blue collar workers also gained an advantage over their bosses under Biden.
Betty Cracker
Was just reading an article in the Tampa Bay Times (link, but it’s probably paywalled) about how DeSantis’s state-level “DOGE” organization is harassing public universities about their research. They developed a DOGE seal and everything. God, what a pathetic copycat.
Scout211
I was about to post a Military.com article from yesterday about the commander at the US base in Greenland who pushed back against Vance’s hostile, passive-aggressive statement while he visited there. They released the email she sent to personnel in an article yesterday. I foresaw another officer being relieved of duty for criticizing the administration while being female. Then I read this just now:
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Was listening to the most recent episode of Josh Marshall’s podcast yesterday, and Marshall’s cohost, TPM reporter Kate Riga, said it’s time for Dems to stop chasing union voters in places like Michigan because they’re going to vote for plutocrats like Trump anyway due to culture war garbage. She pointed out that Biden walked a picket line and Trump held a rally at an anti-union shop, and they still voted for Trump.
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud: Eh, again, you’re giving them way too much credit. Many of them are simply unable to relate what they like or dislike, what they perceive as good for them or bad for them, with how they vote.
The common clay of the west and all that stuff.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Wow. We do seem stuck but I interested in hearing who we should chase. It’s not like we can afford to lose what little we have.
I suppose if business finally wakes up to the fact that the economy does better under Dems, we could end up becoming the “fiscally conservative, socially liberal” party of every independent’s dream.
Interesting times.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Yeah, I don’t know how workable that is either. I’m unfamiliar with voter data in the Midwest, so maybe Riga was overstating union support for Trump.
Sen. Slotkin (D-MI) proposed her first bill in the Senate, which is to outlaw the sale of Chinese-made cars in the U.S., not exactly an urgent problem at the moment. She got a lot of ridicule for that on Bluesky, but she’s not taking Riga’s advice.
oldster
@Scout211:
That’s a military officer who served with honor.
So of course she had to be fired. I wish her luck in her civilian career
ETA: and of course the upshot is that her position will be filled by a boot-licking incompetent who is unqualified for the position. DEI for stupid white males, from Trump to Hegseth and al the way down.
Librettist
The meatheads have the same attitude toward skilled trades like IBEW.
Scout211
This is a good point.
In addition, it seems like most people have their hot button issue and don’t have the ability to parse through multiple conflicting issues.
UAW President Sean Fain (who supported Harris) came out in favor of Trump’s tariffs because the union is against NAFTA.
He’s now trying to explain that the union doesn’t support all of Trump’s policies but still supports the tariffs as it applies to autos.
To workers it then gets translated: Free trade is bad for auto workers so all free trade is bad. Trump understands what auto workers need so Trump understands what all workers need.
Parsing through the details of any policy decisions is too complicated for most workers and really, most Americans. Republicans have reeled in those voters with simple slogans that bring out the hot button issues and successfully have made it look like Republicans=good for you and democrats=bad for you.
ETA: clarity
Deputinize America
@Betty Cracker:
I’ve seen bunches of those Chinese cars in my travels – they’re affordable and look badass. I realize that Slotkin has a role that she’s got to play with the spoiled brat protectionist demo in Michigan, but goddamn, I hate to see it.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Yep. Whenever I brought up the zero unemployment economy, I was told by blog betters that it didn’t matter because the housing situation sucked. And vibes >>> macroeconomic data.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
Librettist
They long for the days when cable TV was boss and CNN was a loss leading vanity project for Ted Turner. They can play dress up in Dad’s cloths all they want, it won’t change the industry trajectory.
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker: I struggle with this idea of “not chasing union members”, because I don’t know what that really means. I have said, and I still think it’s largely true, that unions are not proving to be solid coalition members. Overall, the white men in unions are voting just the same as if they would if they weren’t in unions, etc. The cultural factors are outweighing everything else for them. Getting a union endorsement doesn’t seem to be getting us additional votes.
But…..we still should do the right things for workers! Protect their rights to unionize and enforce safe workplaces and go hard against wage theft and all of the other good things that Dems do.
Loomis is going sorta viral right now for saying that unions don’t exist to get politicians elected. That’s true, but I also really struggle with that demand for solidarity from unions that is not being reciprocated. That’s the point of a coalition: sometimes you show for others in trust that they’ll show up for you.
Professor Bigfoot
@Betty Cracker: I’d go farther and say quit trying to get white men.
The ones we are gonna get are already here, and let’s be honest with ourselves- nearly 2/3 of them voted for Trump, and a significant fraction of that remaining third is unreliable as fuck.
If you eliminated white men from our voting, the rest of us would be living in paradise.
Deputinize America
@Scout211:
Had Fain and other union members talked and fought the good fight about outsized gains in the C suites and short term decisions creating fictive value gains for shareholders at the expense of labor I’d maybe hear him out on trade.
He hasn’t, and it shows. My Ford assembly line clients are making about 8% fewer dollars per year than they were about 10 years ago, not even counting for inflation; the OT opportunities are gone.
catclub
@Jerry: ON the other hand, hand washing made required behavior was also objected to by ‘medical professionals’.
Similarly, checklist based medicine has evidence in favor of it, but that does not make it an easy thing to get cooperation on.
thirdly, has Scott Jennings ever told Elon Musk to wear a tie and take off that stupid red hat he wears?
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: I’ve been saying for YEARS that we may as well give up on getting “the (white) working class” because they are by and large stupid, ignorant, racist, and misogynist as fuck.
Don’t get upset at me for saying this, because you all know damned well it’s true for the majority of them.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: It seems to me like voting for KH was a bridge too far many white people. Because Biden did win the upper midwest in 2020, which both HRC and KH lost.
I was ridiculed as being afraid of Seb Gorka when I brought up the racism KH would face after the Biden debate saga.
Guys, as an outsider who didn’t spend their childhood here I know you better than you know yourselves
Oh and white professional class liberals can be just as racist but they hide it better. As my Sikh friend likes to point out, its racism that wears a suit and tie
There are people on this blog, valued commenters even, who hate international students and H1-Bs with as much passion as MAGA types hate foreign born day laborers and farm workers. And I have known them IRL as well.
Librettist
Ken Paxton is running for Cornyn’s seat.
I guess it’s time to get the hell out of Texas.
artem1s
true, but more important, us cube people were a lot more productive when we didn’t have to stop working every 5 minutes to have a meeting with some supervisor who was desperate to prove that they still added value to the company. A lot of companies have noticed and are decentralizing power and decision making as a result. Funny how us cube people are able to come up with working solutions to improve production and cut waste once we’re let in on the decision making process. the 1950s days of CEOs and middle managers having a personal secretary handle all those annoying communications and spreadsheets and doing your reports for you isn’t coming back dude.
Professor Bigfoot
And THAT is what Americans* voted for.
Gin & Tonic
@Suzanne: I have an IUOE hall and training facility near me, which I drive by often. Harris signs out front last fall, but I can’t help wondering how the membership actually voted.
sentient ai from the future
@Suzanne: there is nowhere near enough political education going on in union shops, because rank and file members skew right wing, so it is chicken/egg.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Suzanne: Every university faculty member I ever worked with thought administrators were useless and too numerous. In our most heated moments, we thought faculty members who chose to become administrators were people who couldn’t publish enough to survive otherwise.
randy khan
i say this as someone who personally feels like he lost something when his office shut down for the pandemic: Study after study has shown that remote work is at least as productive – and often more productive – than working in an office, and in fact that employers often get more work hours from their employees who who remotely. So, since from a purely economic point of view, employers ought to be jumping up and down to promote remote work, all of these demands that people return to the office are about something else. (And usually that something else is control, of course.)
Also, somebody who whines about how people don’t wear proper business attire to the office is at least two decades behind the times.
Geminid
Rumeysa Öztürk, the Turkish Fulbright scholar who was snatched off a Somerville, Mass. street two weeks ago by ICE, was able to appear by telephone in a hearing Tuesday in the Vermont federal District Court.
Öztürk’s attorneys asked Judge Williams Sessions III to grant her bail so she can continue her studies at Tufts University while the government’s deportation case against her is resolved. Ms. Öztürk currently is held in at a prison in Basile, Louisiana.
The government claims the case must be heard in Louisiana, and Sessions required both parties to submit briefs on the question of jurisdiction by today. He scheduled a second hearing on the case Tuesday, April14 (from NBC Boston).
Seventy-seven year-old Judge Sessions was appointed to the bench by Bill Clinton in 1995. He worked as a public defender before going into private practice.
narya
@Jeffro: I can’t help but wonder if we are still reshuffling the whole deck, but in ways that we can’t yet see. Lots of unemployed hungry people, including fired military and federal workers who know how some things work, might be an interesting coalition. The R strategy is to pit people against one another, but if you make the group large enough and people desperate enough, you may well get them to work WITH one another.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
schrodingers_cat
@Professor Bigfoot: Your comment is ever green.
Self proclaimed socialists like Hasan Piker (MM once posited he could be the left’s Joe Rogan) and the Jacobin magazine love them some tariffs as does their patron saint in Vt.
Trivia Man
Should we call the authorities? We haven’t seen Melania for quite some time and im getting worried. Is she OK?
UncleEbeneezer
@Professor Bigfoot: Preach it!
But now that you’ve said that I have no choice but to go MAGA, move to OH and be profiled in a sympathetic Times piece /sarcasm
PS- hope you are feeling better /not-sarcasm
Librettist
@schrodingers_cat:
It is a categorical error to think racism and sexism have been expunged from Democratic voters.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
It does seem like a silly bill, but the propensity of social media to find things to ridicule doesn’t inspire me.
schrodingers_cat
@Librettist: Bingo.
JML
Management instituted a dress code for my office last year. (I work on a university campus) Instead of “dress for your day”, certain things are banned because management found them inappropriate. No more jeans, except on fridays. No hoodies. No t-shirts. No shorts. Even university branded stuff is banned if it violates the strictures.
Of course, they don’t hold the student workers in the office to these standards, only the full-time employees, whether they’re in a forward-facing role or not.
My office mate violated it last week (wore a hoodie celebrating Val Kilmer’s Doc Holiday after Val passed) and they made him change. It’s the dumbest hill to die on, and all it’s accomplished it to create division and dissatisfaction.
Soprano2
@Baud: They wanted to go back to 2019 because they wanted cheaper goods. Plus, our party put that scary black woman on the ticket. They’d rather have the senile criminal who said he could make everything go back to the way it used to be rather than the scary black woman who said we need to go forward and make everyone’s lives better.
BellyCat
FTFY
Rusty
The suits are nostalgic for a time when “everyone knew their place”. It rolls all the racism, misogyny and bigotry together where they are on top and not challenged. The “horror ” the wealthy and the favored class experienced under Biden was their perceived loss in status. I swear a lot of this boils down to status, the need to je admired. I wish they would get therapy and let the rest of us live our lives.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: Yep, this is true. There was a lot of resentment here among some people who had to keep coming to the office every day against people who could work at home. They thought everyone working at home wasn’t doing anything, even though they had to do work and create logs of what they did every day.
Professor Bigfoot
@schrodingers_cat: These are things that are obvious to most of us who are not straight or white.
It’s why I keep railing on about how white people need to examine the ways in which white supremacy affects their own lives, infects their own thinking and beliefs.
I know this is possible because I continue to work on examining the ways in male supremacy/patriarchy affected my own thinking for most of my life; and I’m still finding bits and pieces of them even now.
It can be done but it’s work and well…
(on a completely different subject: hot damn, y’all, I can’t tell you how good it feels to be sitting back at my own desk in my own cluttered lab/office/studio/workshop and conversing with you smart MFs!! It’s so damn good to be here!)
Dorothy A. Winsor
@JML: Whoa. I occasionally wore shorts to teach in during hot weather. Classrooms in some of the oldest buildings weren’t air conditioned
Another Scott
@Baud: I don’t think this is quite right.
I think it’s more that this is another reflection of us accepting the “if you’re explaining, you’re losing” framing and mostly giving up on trying to get people to understand and buy in to any change in policy.
Biden and Democrats did some of this, but everyone needs to do more:
“This new virus is forcing us to make big adjustments while we develop, test, and deploy new treatments and vaccines. While we’re doing that, we have to think about and create new ways to work and be efficient, and part of that is maximizing the promise of the Internet and remote work.
“Nobody likes sitting in traffic. Nobody likes getting home hours after work ends and not having time for enjoying time with friends and family and recharging before the next day starts. We’re going to find out how to do remote work smartly, spread the benefits, understand how it affects traffic and mass transit, figure out better ways for remote learning, and do all the things we can to take full advantage of the wonders of the Internet…
“Our supply chains took a huge hit and it will take time for them to readjust to the new reality. We’re going to work on resiliency and smart inventories to minimize disruptions in the future. And because big changes like this can cause inflation, we’re going to watch for and go after those who are price gouging and attempting to unfairly increase their market power…”
Etc., etc.
Leadership has to explain things to the rest of us. Most people are too busy living their lives to spend time reading policy papers and debating. They decide based on feelings, what they hear, and who they trust. None of this stuff is self-evident, and by not explaining things, and not repeating the messages over and over and over, it lets the conspiracy nuts and malefactors of great wealth shape public opinion and public policy to their benefit.
Unfortunately, the times we live in seem to demand relentless messaging from our side. It was great that we didn’t have to worry that Biden-Harris was going to burn down the world and instead know that competent people were doing the jobs. However, one cannot tune into the radio news at the top of the hour without 4-5 stories in 5 minutes about the latest thing that 47 has done and their effects. It’s relentless messaging that 47 is in charge. It makes a difference to masses who aren’t paying much attention, and messaging really does matter, a lot.
FWIW.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Baud
I suppose if more people are dressed sharp, they’ll ignore how Republicans are bringing this country down.
Professor Bigfoot
QFT.
It’s ALL of a piece; and that piece is the song of white male supremacy.
Soprano2
@Baud: Yep, but now they think it’s OK to call people “
retards” and say “pussy” again, so they’re happy. *rolleyes* They got what they voted for, so they should be happy no matter what happens right?*that word puts you into moderation. Best not to use it, even in quotes. (WG)
Baud
@Another Scott:
That’s not messaging. That’s people loving authoritarians. Which a lot of people do right now. And not just in the right.
ETA: If Biden had done that as purely messaging, social media would be all about how his actions were just words and not real change.
Suzanne
@Gin & Tonic: So, living in Pittsburgh, which is essentially the capital of construction and building trades unions….. it was interesting to look at the shifts in voting locally. The white, college-educated suburbs got bluer, by kind of a lot. Mt. Lebanon and Sewickley and Upper St. Clair, etc. But it ended up being outweighed by shifts to the right in rural and working-class areas. The Steelworkers union endorsed Harris and then much of the rank-and-file voted for Trump because Biden came out against the U.S. Steel merger with Nippon.
Interesting: Chris DeLuzio (who, BTW, represents the district that Conor Lamb used to represent) came out with some mealy-mouthed statement about tariffs being kinda good sometimes, and blah blah blah about western PA being “hollowed out”. But, like, his district is in something like the 70th percentile for college education attainment and includes all those bougie collegey suburbs, and that’s why it’s been getting bluer.
Chief Oshkosh
@Librettist: I don’t see CNN as Turner’s vanity project. He had an idea and he poured his resources and personal effort into bringing it to fruition. Hell, he literally worked, ate, and slept at CNN for years (famously sharing his and then-S.O. Jane Fonda’s morning routine in a CNN broadcast tidbit). And even once his goals were met, he continued to innovate.
Soprano2
@Betty Cracker: I think we should stop trying to chase certain unions, like the Teamsters. Some unions are a lot more minority and female than they used to be, but I think the Teamsters are a lost cause. I get why she’s saying that though, I guarantee you most of the white guys I work with who are in the union voted for FFOTUS because of the scary black woman.
Trivia Man
@Professor Bigfoot: glad to see you back. I think about your comments a lot.
Chief Oshkosh
@Librettist: Man, the world would be a better place if all unions were like IBEW and if all union members were like IBEW members. Very personal bias based on minimal experience, but their Get out the Vote efforts are great.
Professor Bigfoot
@Soprano2: This may well be a flaw in my own analysis… that unions are not the bastion of straight white men that they once were.
There was a time when no one who wasn’t white and male was allowed to join a union, after all; and isn’t that part of “Making America Great Again?”
I’d love to see more percentages of non-white-male union members; that would tell us who to go after.
Baud
@Chief Oshkosh:
IBEW reddit is awesome.
topclimber
@randy khan: Per your point, from the Bureau of Labor Statistis:https://www.bls.gov/opub/btn/volume-13/remote-work-productivity.htm
“We find that TFP growth over both the 2019–21 and the 2019–22 periods is positively associated with the rise in the percentage of remote workers across 61 industries in the private business sector, even after accounting for pre-pandemic trends in productivity.”
Of course, they also find that employees reaped few if any of the financial benefit in the productivity rise.
Soprano2
@schrodingers_cat: Trust me, I work with a lot of them and full employment didn’t matter to them at all, they took it for granted. They were mad because people who they don’t like were benefiting from Biden’s policies, and prices in the store and at the gas station were too high. I had a co-worker almost yell at me last year to not say the economy was good because it wasn’t, everything was too expensive and people’s wages weren’t keeping up. She’s in for a big surprise.
Geminid
@Librettist: Get out of Texas, or maybe stock up on popcorn. The Paxton/Cornyn primary looks to a heated and bitter contest. Paxton will lead the state’s radical anti-establishment Republican faction against the party’s County Club/Chamber of Commerce wing led by Cornyn.
At least, that’s how it looks from 1200 miles away in Virginia.
Another Scott
@Suzanne: Of course, unions haven’t been a solid, unbreakable block for Democrats since at least the 1980s and the “Reagan Democrats” days. (And part of that was driven by the RWNJs who came up with using abortion as a giant wedge issue.)
That doesn’t mean we throw them under the bus. That’s what the other side wants, of course.
We’re a huge coalition. We have to tailor our message and our policies in a thousand different ways as a result. There’s no one size fits all, easy slogan that guarantees victory.
We all know this. Why we are supposed to jump when some pundit or politico or pontificator (quite often who isn’t a Democrat) thinks they have an epiphany on What Must Be Done based on some small poll somewhere is still baffling to me.
FWIW.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Baud
@Soprano2:
The story of the Democratic Party.
YY_Sima Qian
@Scout211: The MAGA tariffs will not work out well for the automakers in the US, & by extension the UAW:
I’ve written before that, IMO, manufacturing sector unions in the US have large failed to play constructive & productive roles in addressing the challenges & dislocations presented by globalization. Instead of making common cause w/ foreign workers so that gains realized from globalization can be distributed more equitably everywhere, they have mostly turned manufacturing employment a zero sum competition & have viewed foreign workers as enemies rather than comrades, thus making their members more vulnerable to the siren songs of xenophobia & nativism at times of increased stress, precarity & scarcity.
Soprano2
@Professor Bigfoot: I don’t think they’re all stupid, not by a mile, but they are uninformed about a lot of things, and racist and misogynist too.
AM in NC
So did y’all see Trump yesterday saying (on camera!!!!) that he made over $2 BILLION in one day by timing his trades in the market?
It is so blatantly illegal. It is shocking. And it need to be shared EVERYWHERE.
Sure will be calling my senators today asking if insider trading and blatant market manipulation is just fine for Republican elected officials these days (while destroying the retirements of everyday Americans)?
And asking them, would they be doing NOTHING if Joe Biden had just bragged the he made a mint from his own policies that tanked our economy?
CORRUPT. CORRUPT. CORRUPT. EVIL.
Baud
@AM in NC:
I thought he said Charles Schwab made $2 billion.
Librettist
Business travel took a big hit and never returned. Zoom, et al.
Professor Bigfoot
@Another Scott: We don’t “throw them under the bus,” our focus is on improving the lives of ALL workers.
But what we have to do is quit trying to chase the stupid racist motherfuckers.
And the only way to do that is to quit thinking of white men as the one demographic to go after. THEY ARE NOT.
Suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot: So unions these days are not largely white men, not at all.
But….. what seems to be happening is that union members are voting just the same as they would be if they weren’t union members. So there’s not really an electoral incentive for Dems. The incentive seems to be doing the right thing.
But if you aren’t electorally rewarded for that…. well, we get stuck with Sunkist Stalin.
ETA: This is a better link.
Soprano2
@randy khan: I don’t mind casual, but I want people to look neat and professional. A nice polo and jeans is fine, but I have a problem with sloppy jeans and hoodies at the front desk. Sue me, I’m old.
Professor Bigfoot
This is an endemic attitude of American white men. They must be ABOVE those foreigners (especially the dusky ones from the Global South and the “slanty-eyes” from the East).
Their need to be on top of everyone and everything is why we can’t have nice things.
UncleEbeneezer
@Baud: Also, when Dems explain things we get endless complaining (even on the Left) about how elite, out-of-touch and arrogant they are. The response is never “well said, let’s all vote Dem…” it’s always STOP LECTURING US!!
Professor Bigfoot
@Soprano2: Not all of them, of course… after all, we have several here who are plainly intelligent, competent, and capable humans even though they’re straight white men. ;)
But MOST OF THEM have lived their lives in a country where they simply expect to be the bosses; who expect to achieve success simply by showing up, who will not ever deal properly with having a not-white-male boss themselves.
MOST of them. SO MANY that chasing their votes is a fool’s game.
tobie
@Scout211: I don’t get why the UAW supports tariffs. Cars assembled in Michigan are made with materials and parts that aren’t domestically sourced. Prices for certain materials are based on global markets. All car prices will rise with tariffs. Less consumption will be the result and that will be devastating for US automakers. C’mon, UAW, think this through for a sec.
Another Scott
@Baud: That’s part of my point.
The other side is relentless in their messaging. They make stuff up regardless of the reality. We have to find ways to counter that, and that includes relentless messaging.
Of course the other side is going to complain. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Professor Bigfoot
@UncleEbeneezer: There is nothing we can do to get them. Simply nothing.
As long as women and non-white men have power in the Democratic Party, American white men will continue to reject Democrats.
satby
I never fail to be disgusted by the self proclaimed leftists who openly yearned for their own version of an authoritarian to force the solutions they preferred on the country. Or were angry with Biden and his administration for not behaving that way.
Soprano2
This, 100%. Some people seem to think if you say things a couple of times it’s enough. It’s not, you have to say it over and over. I started listening to a music station in the morning when I get ready rather than NPR Morning Edition. If all you listened to was a station like that and your own music, you wouldn’t even know FFOTUS was doing anything! They rarely talk about anything going on in politics or the government. I think a lot of us live in a bubble where everyone listens to the news and knows what’s going on, so we think everyone is like that.
YY_Sima Qian
@Baud: Slotkin has agency here. She chose to spend her time on that topic for her 1st bill as Senator, a performative one at that, at a time when MAGA is trying to burn the world down (& the US 1st) w/ rapid de-globalization. She is in position of powerl & she chose how to exercise that power, so she is not above reproach for her choices to date. That does not mean anyone should be agitating to cast her as on the enemy side, she has a few more years to build a record.
She should keep Tim Ryan’s example in mind, though.
Suzanne
@YY_Sima Qian: Shawn Fain/UAW (and Gretchen Whitmer, and DeLuzio, and Sanders, and others) being wish-washy about the tariffs is an own goal, IMO. Everyone who opposes FFOTUS should be unambiguous that this is bad. There’s a time and place for nuanced discussion of how to use tariffs selectively to advance our interests, but this isn’t it.
Librettist
@Chief Oshkosh:
Founder/visionary passion project is acceptable. But they know damn well in Atlanta the audience now is that moron David “can you run more reality programming?” Zaslav.
YY_Sima Qian
@tobie: The entire manufacturing sector in the US, from the unions to the business lobby, have gone all in on economic nationalism, & has been the case for nearly 2 decades.
schrodingers_cat
@tobie: Unions are protectionist. Trade pacts have been demonized in this country since forever. I remember how bitterly NAFTA was criticized by Mainers of all political persuasions in the 90s.
US has benefited immensely from both trade and immigration but there are huge domestic lobbies that are anti-trade and anti-immigration. Organized labor is one of them. Independent Vt senator made a career opposing both since the 90s when he was in Congress. So these two issues cut across ideological lines.
They like the Orange Man because he speaks their language.
Baud
@YY_Sima Qian:
I assume she’s pandering to someone. Social media doesn’t have to take the bait. It’s a waste of resources.
Cliosfanboy
Before I took the buyout, I was the last of the guys who wore a dress shirt, dress pants, and a tie at my university. At least outside of the business school (FEH). But I was older than the others and used to work for Uncle Sam in a job where that was the normal attire. The tie usually fits that day’s class or matches a holiday, such as a tie with lots of little tiny ghosts for Halloween. The tie with little Frankenstein’s Monster was for test day! And I refused to wear a jacket. I HATE jackets. Now that I am part-time at another school, I still dress “business casual,” but so do my department colleagues. After 40 years, I’m just not comfortable working if I am dressed casually.
OTOH, one of my department mates dressed so sloppily that once someone called campus security to report a homeless man wandering around campus. Nope, it was just this guy walking to class.
schrodingers_cat
@satby: You and me both, sister. They just want a LW version of the Orange Menace. They have a milder version in their finger wagger from Vt. Oh and he is not old. No sir. He is a spring chicken. But Biden, he was too old.
Suzanne
@Soprano2:
Back in my advertising days, I read a lot about how difficult it is to penetrate most people’s awareness. At the time, which was about 20 years ago now, the statistic was that people needed to hear or see something approximately 20 times before they would even remember it, never mind formulate an opinion on it.
And that was pre-social media and pre-smartphone, so I am sure that it takes much more exposure at this point.
schrodingers_cat
@Cliosfanboy: I had a Computer Science prof who dressed like a hobo.
UncleEbeneezer
@Soprano2: As the saying goes “You can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into.” Being better informed is good but I think we all know countless examples of people who did/do know better but being informed is still not enough to (ahem) trump their isms/phobias and general assumptions of social hierarchy. Like so many Americans, union members want the benefits of Dem governance without having to support Dems.
Trivia Man
@YY_Sima Qian: just like American cities and states racing to the bottom trying to attract business “investment”. No taxes! Fast track environmental impact reports! Free infrastructure! FYIGM writ large.
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud: I’ll check it out – thanks!
YY_Sima Qian
@schrodingers_cat: Hakeem Jeffries had the right take on the tariffs. There will be a time (we all hope) when we can debate the technocratic merits of tariffs of different levels on this or that product, & whether the purpose makes sense, but that time is not now. Now is the time to beat MAGA over the head for their nonsensical trade policy & the shambolic execution of said policy, ridicule them for getting slapped down by the bond market, & beat them over the head some more for the tariffs they chose to implement, & the hit to the wallets of all Americans & to the viability of most American businesses large & small.
Belafon
@Suzanne: And all of the white collar middle class people who needed an underpass so they could feel justified in just getting through their shit job.
tobie
@YY_Sima Qian:
@schrodingers_cat: We like to think that opposition to globalization began with NAFTA but it precedes the agreement by many years. The other day I linked to the 1988 song “Are my hands clean” by Sweet Honey in the Rock that traces the production of the cotton and polyester filaments that go into a bargain tshirt. It’s an amazing catalog. Nothing we buy is purely or even primarily domestic.
YY_Sima Qian
@Professor Bigfoot: That is definitely a strong factor. Manufacturing labor in the US was once dominated by white men, & the leadership of manufacturing sector unions remain mostly white men.
schrodingers_cat
@tobie: Oh I am sure. I was just recounting my own personal experience. Orange Man wants to bring mercantilism back.
Shakti
Good morning, y’all. I attempted to take bird pictures, cleaned up, finished my prayers, and I’m going to wind my way down to the supervisor of elections today. It’s a beautiful day here. Be safe, be well.
From another thread, on Substack but broadly applicable tbh:
User density pulls people to platforms they wouldn’t otherwise use; and keeps people on platforms they would otherwise leave.
If user density, and eyeballs and attention, weren’t so important, businesses (and politicians, influencers, etc) wouldn’t work so hard to obtain them and fracture the third. Pivot to video wouldn’t have been ruinous; Twitter as a business selling views wouldn’t be nosedived into the ground.
If my little comments mattered for nothing, every single internet entity wouldn’t be trying to grab them with wholesale claims to using them and my comments/posts/whatever wouldn’t have ended up in those content mill articles.
Your attention; your time, your focus, is a gift. Remember that.
Scout211
@Cliosfanboy: My husband taught at a university for 41 years and always dressed casually. That majority of the professors and instructors did as well. Only the “suits” in admin dressed more professionally with suits and ties or suits and dresses.
My husband and a few other professors wore shorts in the hot weather but most did not. It was a thing in his department to see how long he could keep wearing shorts as the weather cooled in the fall.
The only person that seemed concerned about his attire was my BIL who was in sales and always wore a suit and tie. He was worried that my husband wouldn’t be taken seriously without at least a jacket and pants! I always laughed and told him don’t worry, none of us take him seriously. ;-)
Soprano2
@Professor Bigfoot: You can find that information at this link. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm Union membership of white men is declining, while membership of black men is increasing, but it doesn’t give the actual numbers overall. I think you’d have to look at it state by state to see where it’s important to try to get the votes of union members. Biden was the most pro-union president of my lifetime, but I don’t know how much difference that actually made to them.
lowtechcyclist
@Professor Bigfoot:
Glad you’re out of the hospital, and feeling well enough to be a lively presence in the comments!
Now: sure, if white men couldn’t vote but everyone else 18+ could, we’d be living in paradise. I’d cheerfully give up my vote for that deal.
But they can and do vote, so we don’t need just a majority of everyone else, but a bigger majority among everyone else than the Rethugs get of white men.
That almost surely means we’ve got to do better among white women than the not-quite-50% that we actually get.
But one of the factors that makes that a challenge is the company that most white women keep. And that’s white men. And as long as that continues to be the case, you’re only going to get but so much separation between the views of the women and the views of the men.
People who hang out together are either going to be pretty close to being on the same page about stuff like that, or keep their differences to themselves. If the guys are loudly on Team R, most of the women they hang out with are either going to be on Team R as well, or be quiet about their apostasy.
Given that underlying reality, we’re lucky that the gender gap among whites is as big as it is. (And it’s the reason s_c’s perennial blaming of white women pisses me off.)
Until whites become a noticeably smaller fraction of the voting-age citizenry than they currently are, it’s hard for me to see doing much better electorally overall without doing better among white men.
Rusty
@Professor Bigfoot: I appreciated your comment on discovering all the ways that whiteness, Marlene’s, ect. are privileged in our culture. The last year in particular, but really the last 5 have been for myself becoming much more aware how embedded and subtle these advantages are part of our culture. Attitude, ethics and more, all are titled to advantage some groups over others. It is very hard to see, it’s by reading and talking to those outside of mainline culture that i have been learning, they understand it so much better as outsiders.
Hoodie
It goes without saying that Scott Jennings is a dope. I do wonder if younger workers are missing some things by working remotely, but I would guess that going to the office as organized today wouldn’t necessarily supply these missing things. My first engineering job I came in with a group of about 40 new hires, we all went to the company mothership in Pittsburgh for a few weeks of orientation and then en masse to our job site in Maryland. That group was the social context for us for at least the first few years of our careers, providing a sort of support network. Most of the older employees in the company had come up in this system, so a lot of them had a sense of duty to bring younger employees along because they’d had similar experiences. I actually became lifelong friends with one of my first managers, he was the best man at my wedding a few years after I had left the company.
I don’t have a lot of direct experience of the current workplace given I’m aged out, but I sense that working in the office these days is probably not what it used to be. I started my career just at the point when companies started to back off on in-house training and development and started to view employees more as fungible commodities. In that kind of environment, there’s probably less of a point to having people be in the office. As many note, it probably just ends up being a way for the petty managerial class to feel they’re in control and often negatively affects productivity because the in-office experience is probably mostly Office Space sort of dysfunction.
I remember taking a class in law school about law firm dynamics. It was a weird class, but it did have some interesting topics. One topic was about the comparative advantages and disadvantages of different types of law firm organizations. Studies indicated that the most successful firms were ones with high levels of internal trust and a concomitant lock-step compensation (i.e., within given cohort, pretty much everyone got the same base and bonuses). However, once trust within a firm broke down, the eat-what-you-kill model was more effective. I’d say we’re more at that stage in most workplaces.
Soprano2
@Another Scott: The press still talks about “Reagan Democrats”. Most of them are probably dead by now!
Soprano2
@Baud: The last time we had a relatively bad job market here was in 2008-2009. A lot of people who are adults now were kids when that happened, so they don’t remember what it’s like to have a bad job market. They think it has always been like that, because for them it has.
Suzanne
@tobie: Also important to note that manufacturing as a percentage of the economy had been declining long before NAFTA, as well. NAFTA became emblematic of all this stuff that was already happening.
Also important to note that the worldwide trend toward urbanization is due to all these same factors….. as the world economy becomes less about agriculture and resource extraction, and more about trade and services, people necessarily have to collect in cities.
Anyway
I was surprised/disappointed by Whitmer’s comments on the tariffs – granted she’s from Michigan but hee statement was too wishy-washy and FFOTUS-friendly.
Paul in KY
@Baud: Leland Stanford quote: ‘I can hire half of the working class to kill the other half.’
schrodingers_cat
@lowtechcyclist: Pointing out voting stats is not blaming white women. I have also said nothing specific about ww in my comments on this post. But do go on.
lowtechcyclist
@Trivia Man:
Send a case worker around for a wellness check! :D
Soprano2
Unfortunately, too many people still think of white men as the most important demographic, the “real Americans”. I would even narrow that further to blue collar white men, they’re seen as “real men” and “real Americans” with “common sense”. I agree that we should quit chasing their votes, a majority of them are never going to vote for Democrats. Even the white men on our own side can be toxic, see James Carville going off that the Democratic party is “too feminine”.
YY_Sima Qian
@tobie: Well, the rise of Japan, & the challenge that the Japanese auto industry posted to Detroit, certainly fermented a lot of xenophobia. Chinese American Vincent Chin was murdered by white racists who thought he was Japanese.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Workers in tech industry loved it. Their CEOs and boards of directors hated it.
The bit about making everyone wear a tie is telling. Tech guys haven’t done that since sometime in the 1980s.
My dad used to wear a suit and tie and shiny shoes to do the long hell commute to the office for his programmer job every day… even though also he brought a briefcase-sized portable terminal with him and telecommuted after hours and on weekends, at a time when that was extremely uncommon behavior. He could actually have worked remote most of the time.
tobie
Soprano2
I’m a woman, I’m fully aware of how the undeserving white guy can get promoted over the smart, hard-working woman. I lost a promotion once because the boss decided it would be better politics to promote the boss’ son who worked in the factory (I worked in the office). He has just graduated from college, so they wanted to give him a job in the office. It was against company policy but they did it anyway, and made up a bullshit excuse about why I wasn’t going to get the job (after it had been offered to me).
Paul in KY
@Scout211: She must have 100% known she was going to be canned. Either for that or just some effed up ‘reason’, cause she is an O-6 with girl parts.
Kudos on her.
Fair Economist
@YY_Sima Qian: To use an analogy about opposing tariffs, if somebody is trying to burn your house down, you don’t say “burning logs in a fireplace is nice around Christmas”.
Professor Bigfoot
@Suzanne: Thanks, that’s more info I need to check for sure. But I gotta say you gave me a new one today after which I had to wipe down my tablet:
Soprano2
@tobie: They want all of those parts to be made in America with union labor, that’s why. They think tariffs will accomplish that.
Fair Economist
@Matt McIrvin: Wearing a tie measurably interferes with mental function. It reduced blood flow to the brain.
Fair Economist
@YY_Sima Qian: There was also a Vietnamese student murdered while rollerblading in the parking lot of a high school near me because the murderer thought he was Japanese.
Professor Bigfoot
@YY_Sima Qian: Speaking as one who donated to and supported and voted for that stupid MF (he’s EXACTLY that last 1/3 of white dudes that are in our coalition but not really) Ms. Slotkin should definitely beware.
Suzanne
@lowtechcyclist: There’s a staggering gulf in voting behavior among white people, which is educational attainment.
And this is from 2024, before the election, and college-educated white people moved even more blue than this.
Soprano2
@tobie: Planet Money did a whole series of episodes about making their T-Shirt. It was fascinating to see how many countries were involved in the production of a simple T-shirt.
Paul in KY
@schrodingers_cat: Voting for a female for POTUS seems to be a ‘bridge too far’ for many men (white, brown, green, red).
Paul in KY
@narya: That’s called ‘communism’ :-)
Scout211
@Soprano2: I wouldn’t be surprised if every working female had at least one story (probably multiple stories) of when we got passed over for male a with less experience because reasons.
After about five years at my first job out of grad school I was championed by my supervisor for a promotion to a treatment team leader and you guessed it, the physicians (who were the bosses) chose a white male who not only was hired after me but was trained by me when he was doing his field work in grad school.
I went into private practice after that. I was my own boss then and loved it.
Hoodie
@Fair Economist: Ties always struck me as the epitome of empty formality. I can see making people wear suits to promote some sort of uniform appearance, just like some factory workers wear a standard coverall. But why does tying a piece of cloth around your neck make you more serious? When I first started working in engineering, we were required to wear ties. You could wear jeans, but you had to have a tie. It was silly. If you went to the production floor you had to have a tie bar or rack or stuff your tie in your shirt because of the risk of the ties getting caught in something. Thankfully, the tie rule died a year after I started, but some managers still wanted it.
New Deal democrat
Just wanted to update this note, since the issue came up earlier this week.
The US 10 year Treasury is now up to a 4.49% yield, vs. 3.99% one week ago. The issue has been, are foreigners abandoning US assets? One way to check is to compare what is happening with similar foreign bonds. The answer is that Canadian and UK bond yields have moved up in similar fashion, Japanese bond yields less so, and French and German bond yields have not moved up at all.
So the move is not limited to US Treasury’s, but it does appear that the further removed a country is from the US economy, the less their bond yields have been affected.
The best alternative explanation I have read this week is that the sharp move reflects a forced unwinding of arbitrage positions rather than an actual abandonment of US assets. I think if we start to see Canada and the UK decoupling for US bond yields, then we definitely have a problem.
One immediate negative domestic effect is that mortgage rates have moved higher by about 0.3% to close to 7.0% again, and this will have a nearly immediate dampening effect on the US housing market if it continues.
schrodingers_cat
@Paul in KY: True but being a child of non-white immigrants did her no favors. IIRC she did worse than HRC did in 2016 in the midwest.
Paul in KY
@Another Scott: Effective propaganda does work. Goering explained that, among others.
Suzanne
@Scout211: As someone who actually spends a lot of work time on construction job sites…. the misogyny and homophobia are disgusting. I have worked with superintendents who straight-up say that they will dismiss women and men perceived to be gay from job sites because they “distract” the other workers. I have witnessed (and experienced) women workers being openly leered at and catcalled and harassed. It’s fucking gross.
schrodingers_cat
@Soprano2: It won’t.
Professor Bigfoot
@YY_Sima Qian: White supremacy is central in this country.
There was, after all, no German or Italian Internment.
Kayla Rudbek
Mammogram and ultrasound clear no cancer! Now I have to go find some breakfast and get myself to work.
p.a.
@Suzanne: This associates with the hard sciences as well. In the Eisenhower era, the hard sciences were pretty evenly split 50/50 Dem/R.
As the R Party has slipped further and further into anti-science nitwitism, even the hard scientists have moved D. Probably most of R support in the sciences today would be engineers, who are… odd.
gene108
@Professor Bigfoot:
White people are the biggest voting bloc in this country. This makes them difficult to brush off as voters.
schrodingers_cat
@Kayla Rudbek: Great news! Congrats.
Harrison Wesley
@oldster: Alas, “integrity” isn’t a beautiful word like “groceries”.
Scout211
@Kayla Rudbek: Yay! Great news!
Paul in KY
@Baud: Sounds better in Latin: ‘Id pro concesso tulerunt’
Suzanne
@Kayla Rudbek: FANTASTIC!!!
Kayla Rudbek
@Professor Bigfoot: there was harassment (my Italian great grandfather was considered an enemy alien during WW2 despite having several sons in the military, the Italians in San Francisco were limited in where they could go). Maybe some internment camps too but I have to get breakfast and head to work. I hope your health issues are better.
Professor Bigfoot
@Shakti:
Wisdom. 🙏🏾
YY_Sima Qian
@Fair Economist: Damn! I was not aware of that case.
schrodingers_cat
@gene108: Truth.
narya
@Paul in KY: I prefer anarcho-syndicalism, but I’ll accept it. ;-)
jonas
I absolutely agree. The problem right now is that the rightwing noise machine drives the news cycle and dominates the media silos more Americans live in — cable news (except for MSNBC), social media, talk radio, podcasts, etc. Relying on a press conference or an interview on one of the Sunday morning network news programs to get your message out simply doesn’t cut it anymore. By the time you’re done taping, any Repug lies you were trying to debunk have circled the globe 10 times.
I’m not sure what to do about that.
CliosFanboy
@UncleEbeneezer:
it made sense for the ceramics and art profs to dress for the job, but Political Science?
Suzanne
@p.a.:
Bunch of changes happening simultaneously….. more women getting higher education and into previously male-dominated fields, assortative mating by education, geographic sorting as college grads live in/near cities for their work, etc. All of this represents a changing social order and thus changes to voting behavior.
Professor Bigfoot
@lowtechcyclist: Dems haven’t won white men in the last 50 years.
I think chasing the white vote is a waste of time and resources, because they are NEVER, as a demographic, going to give up their position at the tops of all the pyramids.
Our best option will always be to get more and more of EVERYBODY ELSE.
As long as women and Black men have power in the Democratic Party, the majority of white men will reject us.
Even to soft reject us while pretending to be one of us: see the senior senator from Vermont, for example, or the way Tim Ryan ran away from the Party and said he wasn’t one of those Democrats aty every single turn.
schrodingers_cat
Deleted. No point regurgitating data for those who won’t listen. Off to work.
lowtechcyclist
@Suzanne:
One of the striking bits of info from that Pew survey is that there’s almost no gender gap among white voters without a college degree. 64% of the men and 62% of the women are Republicans or lean that way.
This is exactly what I’m talking about. The educated women I grew up with would cheerfully disagree with the men they knew. But the women in blue-collar social milieus were way less likely to.
Suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot:
I would be inclined to agree with you….. but for misogyny. Men of every race shifted to the right. When the margins are small, this matters.
YY_Sima Qian
@Fair Economist: That is good & pithy!
p.a.
@Kayla Rudbek: WW2 my uncle went AWOL several times, when the MPs showed up at his house, his Italian citizen father: “he’s in the attic.”
As the MPs escorted him out, “Dad, what the hell…”
“Hey I don’t want to be interned!”
Later he was recognized as having fired the last shot in the European theater. How it was figured out 🤷🏻♂️ He joked about it, “Heard the war war over and was so happy I fired off a round.”
Professor Bigfoot
@Rusty: Like I said, I still deal with my own internalized misogyny— you cannot have been born and raised male in this country without absorbing it!— but it requires being aware and being willing to learn.
I have to be willing to just STFU and LISTEN to women, and it’s a continual thing.
There are those white dudes who do walk the walk— there’s a reason why Black folks generally loved Joe Biden; and he was happy and comfortable among Black folks.
(another thing about all the white dudes on SM telling me that Biden was a huge racist… like really, dude, do you think we’re that fucking stupid that we’d enthusiastically support an outright racist? GTFOH)
schrodingers_cat
Popping in to share this great resource, it has many interesting maps.
White vote, 1964-2020.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Kayla Rudbek: Congrats!
Suzanne
@lowtechcyclist:
Absolutely!
And, from what I have seen, even white men who finished college were right around 50/50 R/D in this last election.
Geminid
Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff is racking up the flight miles. He’s in St. Petersburg today, and expected in Oman tomorrow. US and Iranian negotiators will begin talks on Iran’s nuclear program there.
And speaking of racking up flight miles, when Turkish and Israeli military delegations began talks in Azerbaijan Wednesday, about “deconfliction” in Syria, the Turks denied the Israelis permission to fly over Turkiye.
Turkiye allows direct passage for civilian flights from Tel Aviv to Baku, but they made the IDF’s Boeing 707 fly the long way around, over Greece and the Black Sea. That added 1100 miles to what would have been a 1000 mile flight.
YY_Sima Qian
@Professor Bigfoot: There is no point trying to win a majority of white men, but the losses can’t be too lopsided, or winning the overwhelming majority of minority voters will not be enough. Should try to win a majority of white women, too. I think more of the younger generations of whites, men or women, are gettable.
A Ghost to Most
@Professor Bigfoot: I’ve been here for 50 years, but you make it clear it was never really home. Christians dhimmi everyone who isn’t in the tribe, but they are not the only ones. Not by a long shot.
Sheep, shepherds, dogs, and wolves. It’s good to be a cat.
Alce _e_ardillo
@Librettist: That time was 20 years ago.
Gvg
@schrodingers_cat: even democratic voters are unable to let go of the idea, nobody wants to work anymore. I point out that we were brought up hearing that the retirement of the baby boom generation was going to cause a worker crunch, and we have reduced immigration, so of course there are fewer people seeking work.
gene108
@Another Scott:
I fell asleep reading your War and Peace length explanation.
Democrats need to work on explaining things in a way that fits on a Post-It note, and then work towards trimming it down to fit on a bumper sticker.
Most folks, unlike the denizens of this blog, are not avid readers, have limited curiosity beyond what they’re already interested in, and are not going to dig through nuanced explanations. There’s nothing wrong with living like this.
Communication has to take into account the audience. Republicans are good at the simple slogans that seem right, but are built on a pile of logical fallacies that most people are not going to think about.
Melancholy Jaques
@Professor Bigfoot:
That only seems to work when the Republicans have crashed the economy or we have a generationally talented candidate or both.
Baud
@gene108:
QFT.
Too often it seems like the audience for our communications is ourselves.
Melancholy Jaques
@Another Scott:
Agree with this, but would also add that the stories that the political media ran about Biden were always in Republican frames and relentlessly negative. Trump gets sane-washed and euphemized. That matters even more.
And by the way, it seems that since the president is not a Democrat, Gaza is no longer a problem for any protestors and the media don’t consider it worth talking about.
Suzanne
@gene108:
SEVEN WORDS PER SLIDE!!! SEVEN WORDS PER SLIDE, GODDAMNIT!!!
I’m kidding-not-kidding. You’re absolutely right.
lowtechcyclist
@Professor Bigfoot:
But losing white men 60-40 is much better than losing them 65-35.
As noted, there’s basically no gender gap among whites without college degrees. So the track record suggests good luck winning more white women w/o college without winning their men. And men without college degrees are probably the hardest white demographic to reach. I will agree that throwing money at trying to reach them is probably a waste of time, money, and energy.
The Pew survey showed an 11-point gender gap among whites with college degrees. 53% of the men, and 42% of the women, were Republicans or leaned that way.
There may be room to grow that gender gap. How much, I don’t know. But I’d think that it would make as much sense to try to get through to college-educated white men, given that they as a group only marginally favor Republicans, as to try and get college-educated white women to lean Dem by 15 or 20 percentage points more than college-educated white men do.
gene108
@Professor Bigfoot:
SEIU (Service Employees International Union) and the unions that represent some Star Bucks stores and Amazon warehouses are probably much less white male than the manufacturing and trade unions.
I think these are unions and workers Democrats need to work with to get them on board.
Omnes Omnibus
Three votes per precinct would have flipped Wisconsin. You don’t need to get a majority of white men, but getting a couple more at the margins would help. Or talking a few nonvoters into voting. Or both?
We are never going to get the MAGAs or the hard corps white supremacists/misogynists. And pursuing them is foolish. So maybe we work the margins?
lowtechcyclist
@Kayla Rudbek:
Yay!!!!!
Enjoy your breakfast!
sab
@Professor Bigfoot: I think you were still in the hospital when WaterGirl posted about an Ohio meetup in Columbus on May 17.
Almost Retired
@schrodingers_cat: Amazing. And the white vote for Mondale and McGovern was so low, there wasn’t room to write out their full names in the blue bar graphic.
Deputinize America
I hate ties, and I really hate the lawyers who insist on going to every CLE suited up in coats and ties.
lowtechcyclist
@Professor Bigfoot:
There was German internment during WWII. On a much smaller scale than Japanese internment, but over 11,000 of them were interned during WWII according to Wikipedia.
Germans were also interned during WWI.
YY_Sima Qian
Useful charts through the link:
Kristine
@randy khan:
I haven’t read all the comments so someone may have mentioned this already, but iirc there was also concern about the collapse of office real estate and businesses in areas that rely on office workers. Idk how significant those issues are in reality, but I recall lots of discussion at the time.
I also recall discussions about turning office/commercial buildings into affordable housing and Suzanne explaining how that’s not as simple as it sounds.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: People forget that we were hemorrhaging factory jobs in the 1980’s, well before NAFTA. It was actually an attempt to stop some of that.
Kristine
@Kayla Rudbek: Yea!
Omnes Omnibus
@Deputinize America:
I am sure they do it just to annoy you.
schrodingers_cat
@lowtechcyclist: Yes and sauerkraut was liberty cabbage. Many Germans anglicized their names Kohl became Cole. I also remember reading a MAGA like tirade by founding father Ben Franklin about swarthy Germans in Pennsylvannia. So hating on immigrants is as American as apple pie.
But Germans could blend in much better than the Japanese who were a visible minority.
Geminid
@Geminid: Axios’s Barak Ravid reported that Trump envoy Steve Witkoff will meet with Putin while he’s in St. Petersburg today. Ravid’s story:
https://www.axios.com/2025/04/11/russia-witkoff-putin-ukraine-meeting-trump
Welp. Looks like another bad link.
schrodingers_cat
@Almost Retired: Thanks I am glad you found it useful.
Suzanne
The more obvious solution to the issue of rural towns deindustrializing and dying would be to open up remote work! Since we can’t seem to build enough houses for people close to job centers, we could move the people to the cheaper houses.
But, of course….. that’s not what they want, and it’s for cultural reasons. The residents of those dying towns don’t want a bunch of white-collar workers coming in. That brings cringey wine moms and trans people and all flavor of godless heathens.
prostratedragon
@Fair Economist: Well-put.
YY_Sima Qian
I guess the Brits have finally concluded that the “Special Relationship” is no longer worth the groveling required for its upkeep, & that it is time to diversify:
Short & anodyne, but words one could not imagine coming out of the British establishment, especially the natsec establishment, a mere month ago.
The UK trade & economic security minister is also in Beijing at the same time, on a separate & equally low profile visit.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: If instead of getting the white vote in the low 40s if Ds could bump it up to mid 40s that would cause a sea change in electoral outcomes.
karen gail
Suits are part of class system; they subconsciously tell people that they don’t get dirty or have to labor with their hands to do their jobs. This bias has been around since the 1600’s; sadly, the look white shirt, tie, jacket hasn’t really changed. Men are told that this is the standard they should strive for, a job that means wearing a suit and tie; rather than a skilled or semi-skilled laborer. Since it has been a standard for so long it is no longer questioned; but men are judged on collars, ties and cuffs rather than what kind of person they are or what skills they might have.
I worked for a tailor shop; the head tailor would tell you what he saw when he looked at the suit wearer, didn’t matter if the guy was a handsy jerk it was all about the quality of the suit.
prostratedragon
@Kayla Rudbek: Great news!
Kristine
@satby: That surprised me, but maybe it shouldn’t have. Just the left’s version of “we know what’s good for you—shut up.”
bluefoot
@schrodingers_cat:
I was reading a piece the other day about how Joe Biden has offered to go out and speak against FFOTUS, Musk, etc but has been turned down by Dem leadership, but rank-and-file and “normie” Dem org would love to have him speak. There’s a fundamental disconnect about what “elites” think and what people on the ground think.
IME a LOT of the white professional class is racist, but in a quiet way. Sometimes they don’t realize how racist they are. (Like a friend who felt Kamala Harris is stupid, “just because” and when probed about it, said “I just feel someone like her can’t be smart.”)
lowtechcyclist
@schrodingers_cat:
Well sure. I was contradicting a statement that there was no German internment during WWII. And while doing so, I already said it was on a much smaller scale than Japanese internment. So what’s your problem?
West of the Rockies
Super late to the thread (it’s 7:30 PST). I’d never heard of Scott Jennings until a few years ago. Who is this heinous toad? He seems sooo sure of himself and sooo ignorant. Never thought I’d say this: he’s stupid Sean Hannity.
Anyway
@Kayla Rudbek: YAY!!! So happy for you.
Omnes Omnibus
I actually like going to work. I would not do well with WFH. I suspect (Ha!) that this blog tends toward introverts who have jobs that can be done from home and this colors the conversation here on this topic. I also don’t have an issue with suits and ties.
I welcome your hatred.
WTFGhost
Heh. The best part of being a database support engineer was, all I had to wear was the t-shirt:
“There are two types of people in this world.
1) those who can reason from insufficient data”…
…and everyone knew I was someone to be respected (if only for semi-sartorial statements).
(Also: wow, did *I* misread scale in that video, thinking that there was a “tits up” cookie jar, and a jar of peanut butter roughly the size of a #10 can!)
Mike E
@lowtechcyclist: she’s the gatekeeper here at the blog, one of many.
oldgold
Painting with a broad brush is common when commenting on a blog such as this. The format damn near requires it.
That expressed, when the painting begins to be done with an industrial spay painter, in my opinion, it is less than above reproach. Today’s discussion concerning white straight males is approaching that.
Paul in KY
@schrodingers_cat: You are correct on that.
bluefoot
@Rusty: A good friend of mine, professional, white and male told me it was COVID and George Floyd than made him realize how pervasive and embedded, structural and hence invisible (to him) white supremacy is in the US. He has basically said to me, repeatedly, that once he saw it, he can’t unsee it, and it’s everywhere.
prostratedragon
@lowtechcyclist: My father’s German professor was interned soon after the war declaration. They came on campus during the day and took him. Don’t recall whether he was a citizen though. No one thought he was a nazi.
karen gail
@Professor Bigfoot: There were German internment camps during WW2; one was at Fort McCoy in Wisconsin. Some of the people at the camp “volunteered” to work for the local farmers; some of who were also of German ancestory.
Scout211
This story really makes me mad. Bros on the internet are so horrible to women. Not that anyone here is surprised. I started reading about this last week and couldn’t believe how cruel and disgusting these bros have been to this young woman.
Just so you know, she is suing now so now Portnoy and McAfee are making noises that sound almost like apologies but not quite.
The rumors were false but seriously, even if a female college student was having a sexual relationship with an older man who happened to be her boyfriend’s father, how is that news you share on a large sports platform??? A young woman’s sexual relationship?
It’s beyond disgusting. Here is her statement to NBC News from a few days ago.
lowtechcyclist
@oldgold:
I disagree. Neuter and spay, it’s the only way! ;-)
WTFGhost
@Omnes Omnibus: I would like to be the kind of guy who enjoys going into the office, joking with his co-workers, asking about the “big football game” and knowing I’ll hear a soccer score, etc., and encouraging fun collaboration/competition within the database support community. I only enjoyed working from home because I had to.
That said: having my Breville tea maker (the effer will drop a basket, steep the leaves (!!) as long as you set, at the temperature you set, then raise the basket, to stop tannins from leaching into your tea), and my Breville double boiler espresso maker (no waiting for the milk steamer to get to temp here!) (hey, product loyalty – Breville makes some good kitchenware!), having my preferred lunches easy to make, having bacon and eggs and latte, or tea, piping hot, while I read my morning e-mail, and having a five minute commute to the liquor cabinet, made working from home a treat, too.
Professor Bigfoot
@Kayla Rudbek: OUTSTANDING NEWS!!!
But no, sounds to me like a great time to take the day off and celebrate!
New Deal democrat
In more (soft) economic data that probably nobody here gives a $h!t about, per CNN:
”Consumer sentiment plunged 11% this month to a preliminary reading of 50.8, the University of Michigan said in its latest survey released Friday, the second-lowest reading on records going back to 1952. April’s reading was lower than anything seen during the Great Recession.”
A big partisan divide opened in this survey at least five years ago, but this reading necessarily means that even a lot of GOPers have soured on T—-p’s economic “leadership.”
prostratedragon
@schrodingers_cat: Entire communities of Japanese Americans were removed, with businesses, farms, and other properties being lost. I don’t think this happened on the same scale with either Germans or Italians, especially the citizens among them.
Professor Bigfoot
Speaking as an engineer, frankly most of us are highly trained, but poorly educated.
There’s just no room in the curriculum for the kinds of humanities that could help us to grow.
Those engineers who get it tend to be autodidactic— the kids who were at the library all the time any way. Your basic sports and gaming addled boy who goes into engineering school will remain uneducated AF.
Old Man Shadow
You know it’s about dominance because nowhere are productivity numbers cited by the corpo fuckhead.
Why?
Because people are generally more productive when they’re happier and they’re fucking happier when they don’t have to slog through half an hour to two hours of fucking traffic or train rides to get to work. They’re happier when they have their dogs and cats within reach. They’re happier when they get to see their fucking kids before they go to bed.
But that makes them think they’re human beings and not fucking cogs for corpos to use up and discard, so back to the office you must go.
Professor Bigfoot
@gene108: So what do we do when they proven again and again that they will not vote for you?
Turn on your own supporters to get the? Or bust your ass to get everyone else?
Again, Dems haven’t won white people nationally in DECADES.
Professor Bigfoot
@Kayla Rudbek: I’m sorry, but this sounds like “the Irish were slaves, too” apologia.
Masses of Italians were NOT sent to concentration camps.
Maxim
Been watching The Pitt. Noah Wyle’s character could have a nice long chat with your mom, Betty, about The Suits.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Another Scott:
We always have the entitled white urbanist/New Economy part of the ‘coalition’ looking for reasons to toss organized labor in toto under the bus. At the same time, they’re the first ones to tell people that disagree with them that they’re “toxic” or “purity ponies” or how we don’t understand coalition politics. The cognitive dissonance on display is another example of how that’s not an exclusive characteristic of the right.
The fact they cherry pick Fain/UAW statements is in keeping with the general anti-union/anti-labor sentiment we’ve seen develop in the party for years.
Fain’s saying stuff that reflects how Dems have either taken for granted or ignored a decent swath of voters that actually do vote for what they percieve their interests are…and they don’t see Dems, particularly at the local level in urban/metro areas, working for those interests.
Paul in KY
@gene108: Good point. Simple repetitive and catchy. Ours would have the advantage of being actually true.
Ruckus
As a past employer of a small numbers of highly skilled workers I agree with this post.
If one attempts/does become a pompous, arrogant ass of a boss the talent that will stay working there is in direct response to the size of the local work force. In a highly populated area there are more workers but there are also more jobs and more choices can be made by both sides. And often will be. One also has to pay a higher wage to attract a highly skilled in specific way, work force. IOW employees do actually have power in a highly skilled work environment. Also as one who was an employee from an early age, one gets to see both sides and SHOULD LEARN not to be a pompous, arrogant ass. Life is a hell of a lot easier and better if one isn’t. But pompous, arrogant assholes rarely learn important life lessons – because they are – pompous, arrogant assholes.
zhena gogolia
@Kayla Rudbek: YAYAYAYAYAY!!!
lowtechcyclist
@Scout211:
That’s fucking horrible. I hope that everyone involved in spreading that rumor gets sued down to poverty level.
And I hope that she can recover from being on the receiving end of this nightmare.
Professor Bigfoot
@Suzanne: Fair point; but they’re still small percentages as compared to the white demographic as a whole.
We can work on our recalcitrant men. We will never win white people.
raven
Did you see Rory’s 4 year old daughter sink a 40ft putt?? Priceless.
Betty Cracker
@Kayla Rudbek: Yay! Happy for you!
YY_Sima Qian
Lots of new business opportunities in de-globalization & Sino-US mutual embargoes!
Although the agile entrepreneurs mostly seem to be on the other side of the Pacific. Perhaps Mexican Cartels should represent & pivot the employment of their immense skills toward consumer goods, maybe more lucrative than smuggling drugs.
Professor Bigfoot
I agree, but I don’t put the odds of success very high. AFAIK, that marigold MF got approximately the same percentages of WW all three times.
I am not sanguine that they are gettable, either, but we’ve a far better chance with college-educated WW than any other part of their demographic and I applaud efforts to get them, too.
Heh, we shave off 2 or 3 percent of white women and we win.
Scout211
@raven: That was so cute!
Scuffletuffle
@Cliosfanboy: Lol, one of the attorneys in the firm I work at dresses so casually that I call him “Homeless Dude” when i see him.
Professor Bigfoot
@A Ghost to Most: Um… I’m sorry? I don’t understand.
Harrison Wesley
The WWII references in comments got me thinking about a movie I haven’t seen in many years, Bad Day at Black Rock. Wonder if I can find it on the tube.
Professor Bigfoot
@Melancholy Jaques: Such is the fate of the Republic.
Because after 50 years of solid rejection of the Democratic Party, it seems clear that the majority of white people are simply unwilling to share this country with people who are not white.
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: But can y’all come up with a messaging strategy that can actually be heard by white people?
Because, again, EVERYBODY ELSE seems to hear Dem messaging quite well.
raven
@Scout211: The poor thing got spooked by the crowd reaction!!
Suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot:
Agreed.
The thing is, of course, is that white people are aging. Younger age cohorts are much less white. Boomers are about 75% white, Millennials are about 50% white, and Gen Z is less than that. So we would expect to do better election by election, with a purely racial analysis. (And in fact, Gen Z was the bluest-voting age cohort, then Millennials, then Boomers, then Gen X.) But obvs, losing enough men borked that plan.
JML
@Scout211: this is awful. Only thing that matters to these fucks is getting clicks and ratings. They literally do not care about the damage they cause. I hope she sues and takes them all for a fuck-ton of money.
social media is really good at amplifying toxicity and hate. it’s the worst part of the internet. It’s so easy for a lie to get baked in now, and there’s almost never consequences for the people who perpetuate and amplify the lie. For decades right-wing radio was the biggest pusher of this kind of crap and now it’s everywhere on the internet.
the worst offenders also always have excuses for why they shouldn’t be accountable for their actions. “I was only kidding/It was a joke” or “I was just asking a question” or “some else told me it was true”.
Professor Bigfoot
@gene108: Absolutely 100% agreed.
Professor Bigfoot
@Omnes Omnibus: How do we differentiate where those margins are? How do we determine what ways we CAN peel them off? What specific issues are there, what messaging will be successful with white men?
Ksmiami06
@Baud: we have got to activate our team and moderates and young ppl. Come up with a counter plan to Trump bs like affordable housing, healthcare and education. Pink collar workers too.
Baud
@Professor Bigfoot:
Can messaging improve our turnout by 5 points across the board? Maybe.
I’m not sure how we make the long term structural changes we need.
raven
McAfee has always been a fucking asshole.
Matt McIrvin
@Melancholy Jaques:
Not true, they had a presence at the Hands Off rallies (and, I’ve heard, got friction from the other protesters in some towns, though I didn’t see it in mine)
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Betty Cracker: Yes, but as wrong as they are about it, they actually believe Trump when he says that tariffs will hurt China and help American manufacturing. They think someone is finally standing up against China and other countries long term unfair trade practices in their interests. They don’t know enough to know that he’s just f-king us all over. We have long derided blue collar workers as voting GOP against their own interests, but in this case, they actually think this will help them.
Ruckus
@Gvg:
As an old, who worked in a high skill level manual trade, as an apprentice, then employee, then owner/boss. One has to learn that you actually employ real human beings who can destroy your business if you treat them like crap, and that the quality of work (and therefore the success of the business) can be in direct response to being a crap boss. And also, while even in a big town/area there may be more jobs but there are also more employees able and willing to discuss crappy places not to work. And why. Employees have power, but have to understand it to use it well. Just like employers. Power can be easily abused and the cost for doing that can be very high. I saw this in the military, some of the higher ranks thought their shit didn’t stink. It didn’t. Stink would have been far nicer than reeked more than one would think possible. I also saw high level personal who had a fucking clue and were easy to work for and with. It is a night and day difference. Be a better person, a better part of the whole, it is a far nicer, better experience.
YY_Sima Qian
LOL:
schrodingers_cat
@prostratedragon: Of course. I was not the one that was disputing that.
Professor Bigfoot
Speaking from a career in Corporate America, it’s not your imagination.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Nope. People like the Orange Man’s lies because he tells them what they want to hear.
Same phenomenon in India with the Saffron PM.
Professor Bigfoot
@oldgold: If you know how to get more straight white men to vote for “the party of hoes and Negroes,” then by all means hold forth, please.
schrodingers_cat
@bluefoot: Academia is no different even if they talk a good game. Non-profit is no different. It is a societal problem.
Blog betters will respond with
#notallwhitepeople (STFU Indian coolie, will be left unsaid but implied)
I agree its not all white people but far too many. We can’t tell just by looking at you that you are one of the “good ones”
Omnes Omnibus
@Professor Bigfoot: I don’t have the answers to that. I suspect that a variety of micro strategies will be needed. My only point is that arguing for or against trying to win white men as a whole is pointless. We don’t need to win all or even most. Winning a few more would make a difference. As would motivating nonvoters to show up.
Matt McIrvin
@Professor Bigfoot:
FWIW, I was hearing complaints about Biden from Black people on Mastodon all year that seemed like they were from a different universe from the talk here. Mostly concerning the lack of nationwide progress on police brutality, which they felt Biden had no interest in addressing, and they credited Biden/Harris losing support to that.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
I agree completely.
Geminid
@Suzanne: Kay has a pretty good post today about unions and the Democratic Party, over at Mistermix’s blog. She uses Teamsters President Sean Fain’s recent speech to membership as a starting point.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Matt McIrvin: The Gaza protestors have been a constant presence most outdoor events I’ve attended in St. Louis. I didn’t see them at the Hands Off protest in St. Louis, but it was cold and rainy. As big as attendance was, it would have been bigger with better weather.
MisterForkbeard
Coming to this late, but: I’m middle management at a large tech company. I do prefer that people come in 2-3 days a week if they can, because it makes a lot of things much easier. I do metrics on this stuff, and the people that come in tend to do better work, respond better to changes and updates, can be managed easier and also stick around longer. That’s the management perspective. At least where we are, it’s not punitive at all but we see better results around it so we encourage people to come in, and we tell new hires they need to be present 3x/week for at least a year.
My best engineer is also fully remote and I wouldn’t dream of making him come in. We’ve also had grumblings because some people have exemptions to the office return (for good reasons) but you can’t really talk about why, other than to say there are certain broad categories that do get exempted. RTO (if done right) can be really beneficial.
Also, asshats like Scott Jennings are just trying to be assholes. He hasn’t defined any reason people need to come in, he just wants them to. And he doesn’t do 5x/week full-time days, either – and he’s getting paid monstrously more than anyone else he’s screaming about. What a dick.
prostratedragon
@Harrison Wesley: I thought of that, too. Here’s a scene that refers to what the story is about.
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus: I hate to say it….. but that was John Fetterman’s strategy, and it worked out well for him. He went to every rural county in PA in his hoodie and shorts and won enough of that rural white working class vote to keep the margin close in those areas. The cities voted as blue as expected; the rural areas slightly less red. The math mathed.
MisterForkbeard
@Suzanne: No, you’re totally right. There’s a couple of problems, though, that I’ve seen play out already on the business side of things.
1. As long as you’re doing remote work, why not get people from a much cheaper remote location like Mexico? You get 2-3x as many people.
2. A lot of the work isn’t really suited for remote work – you can do it, but it’s less efficient or when there’s an issue it’s exacerbated
And like you said, a lot of these folks don’t want white-collar workers or different job types. They just want things to continue to work like they did, with the types of people they’re used to.
schrodingers_cat
@Matt McIrvin: Lefties of all colors who are over represented on blogs and social media hate Biden. Also on the internet you can be anyone. I am going by the actual election results and exit poll data.
Ruckus
@Professor Bigfoot:
I think that we can learn from those around us as we grow and (possibly) learn. I had an older sister who thought she ran the show. But she learned that she didn’t. It took a bit of effort and for her it was the hard way. But we actually became good friends and siblings after the learning process, and that lasted for the rest of her life. One of the things learned was respect, which has to be from both sides. This worked later on in the military. Some of the lifers were complete and utter pompous arrogant assholes. Good leadership above them changed their attitude and arrogance. But that leadership is not always there and sometimes doesn’t work – some humans seem to stop learning at a young, stupid age, and never seem to understand living, participating – IOW, actually living.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
The really unsettling thing that YY_Sima Qian has been pointing out is we have a disturbing number of people who aren’t willing so share the planet with the Chines.
DarbysMom
@Kayla Rudbek: YAY! Great News!
YY_Sima Qian
FFS:
While the DOD gets a cool US$1T to waste.
Every one of the programs on the chopping block has a rough counterpart in the PRC’s space program, on similar or faster timelines. The PRC has been catching up fast in space, including space science, but this is just the US committing seppuku while it is still in the lead.
Suzanne
@Geminid: THX for the tip, I will go read her post.
I watched some of the clips of the speech last night. “The free trade disaster” that he complains about…. enables American auto manufacturing, as noted in an earlier comment in this thread.
MisterForkbeard
@bluefoot: There are a lot of racist white professionals, definitely. I hate to refer to online communities here, but I started doing more professional connection work a year or so ago and the level of people who think it’s fine to yell about Indian professionals to another white guy was really surprising to me.
I had another couple of guys tell me they prefer not to hire women because of maternity leave (to be fair, in their country the maternity leave is about a year and it’s really obnoxious to manage through), and several others tell me that “younger kids” these days don’t work hard. I think the real problem with that one is that 90%+ of our entry-level applicants are asian or south asian, while the people that’ve been around for 10+ years are mostly white and they’re feeling an impending change.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Geminid:
Fain is the UAW president.
catothedog
@Professor Bigfoot:
Wait till you hear about the rich brown tech bros of Silicon Valley. (Ramaswamy is not an aberration) Anti-black racism is rampant among privileged Indians, because it comes naturally to them from their home country – ala the darker lower castes. Sure they may vote Democrat, but that has no bearing with their contempt of darker skinned folks.
prostratedragon
@YY_Sima Qian: Well, if the young samurai in the movie had his sword and dagger taken away by the lord, who then forced him to use the bamboo ones.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: Do you ever follow Ragnarok Lobster? He’s on BlueSky now. Mr. Lobster and the other Black people he links to, like Candidly Tiff and Needle of Arya, take a very different view from the lefties you describe. You might find them a refreshing change of pace.
coin operated
I’m a worker bee in IT…been remote for 4 years now and wouldn’t go back to an office job unless I absolutely had to. I *know* I’m more productive in my own little space.
Oh…and don’t tell me we can’t collaborate while WFH. I have co-workers in 12 different time zones and Teams/Zoom works in all 12 of them.
Sure Lurkalot
@Kayla Rudbek: Yippee! You have as many more miles to ride as your legs and desire will take you, carry on.
schrodingers_cat
@catothedog: They may be the worst specimens of humanity but they don’t have the numbers to sway elections except may in one or two congressional districts. But do go on, I am all ears about how Indians suck.
Because racism directed at Indians is tolerated on this blog.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Like the call centers in India that’s been a thing since the 90s.
Not mention most teams these days are scattered all over the place and all they do is come into work and property turn on Skype all day.
Heck, I work in manufacturing so I have to be in 40 hours a week and my manager in another city.
And I would imagine a prick like Jennings would rage quite if he had to wear half the stuff people in manufacturing are required to wear so they don’t destroy the product.
Captain C
@Trivia Man: She’s presumably in her luxury New York apartments banging her current lover or lovers on Donnie’s dime. He’s presumably happy to be rid of her presence so he won’t object unless she makes him look bad in public.
Citizen Alan
@Betty Cracker: i feel exactly that way about farmers in the midwest. No Democrat should ever vote for a farm bill again. Unless it contains sufficient benefits for democratic constituencies.
MisterForkbeard
EDIT: Getting rid of my comment. Didn’t like it when I re-read it.
I guess what I can say more accurately is that I’ve had a couple of indian friends who tell me that rich indian techbros (or people who think they’re on that path) are really awful, regressive idiots. But you can probably expand that to most rich (or aspiring) techbros.
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: My good and dear friend, I have been asking just what messaging will get through to white men and I don’t recall hearing it.
I’ve been saying that everyone else seems to hear Democratic messaging just fine; and I’ve relied on William of Ockham for why that phenomenon exists.
Geminid
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Thank you for the correction; I got his union mixed up with the other Sean’s even though I just read Kay’s piece on the UAW leader’s speech.
Citizen Alan
@Baud: Democrats have been the “fiscally, conservative, socially liberal” party since at least 1994.
YY_Sima Qian
Uhh…
Would be techno-authoritarian feudal lords looking for a place to build their castles.
catclub
Leopards, faces, etc at CNN:
Professor Bigfoot
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Against their financial interests; obviously.
But this leads to the question: exactly what perceived interest are they actually voting for?
Geminid
@Suzanne: Kay made the point that the media “cherrypicked” Fain’s speech; they highlighted the part on tariffs but left out the general thrust of Fain’s argument. She said that was decidedly critical of the Trump administration’s policies.
MisterForkbeard
@YY_Sima Qian: It’s always amazing to me that these folks keep openly saying they need to be somewhere without any controls, protections or rules.
If you ever heard someone argue they needed to be exempt from anti-murder laws, you’d be really damn suspicious of them. When these chucklefucks insist they need to be away from worker protection laws, safety laws, environmental laws and so on everyone should take that as a tacit admission.
YY_Sima Qian
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: It’s both, no? & there is significant overlap between the two.
Soprano2
@schrodingers_cat: I know it won’t, but they believe it will, which is why they support the tariffs. They don’t want to admit that this production will never come back to the U.S. unless there’s some kind of catastrophe.
Soprano2
@Kayla Rudbek: Yay! Must be a huge relief.
Citizen Alan
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Nearly every high school administrator I dealt with during my very brief teaching career struck me as someone who got into teaching but then realized they hated it after putting in too many years to viably transition to a different career. So they cobble together a master’s in administration over a few summers and got jobs as principals and vice principles. And then sat there for the next twenty years drawing the biggest salary in that school and having almost no concerns other than minimizing discipline problems.
Suzanne
@Geminid: Like I said, I only watched clips. I’ll have to go back and read or watch the full speech.
ETA: Fain has been pretty outspoken at other times about NAFTA and has been pro-tariffs on automobiles. Also made some factual errors and said that half of Americans don’t own stock and thus don’t care about the stock market.
schrodingers_cat
@Soprano2: Even if it comes back, the manufacturing in the US is not going to employ as many people as it did previously
laura
@Gin & Tonic: i can tell you exactly how IUOE voted- they overwhelmingly voted for trump. I attended the 2015 General Convention and the International Union’s General Council’s report included a poll of Membership it had conducted in the lead up to the election, and which would determine what candidate, if any, the Union would endorse. I was stunned to learn that a super majority indicated that they would vote for trump and no amount of Member education on the candidates would change their vote. Professor Bigfoot is correct. The Democratic Party would be well served in focusing on the South for voters- voters who may be, but are probably not white. Focus on the base as it currently exists and build off of that. To chase the ever elusive white male voter, and to underbus everyone else to do so, is a mugs game and a waste of resources. But so far, all I hear is that the next candidate must be white and must be male for “reasons.”
Geminid
@Suzanne: If you don’t have time to watch the whole speech, Kay’s piece should be a fair summary. She’s a pretty accurate reporter.
Suzanne
@Geminid: I’ll definitely read it today, I think she’s got a lot of insight.
Sure Lurkalot
@Suzanne:
I see this as a more persistent problem than racism as it’s baked into so many creation myths and religions worldwide throughout time. Evil created by the very existence of womankind. It’s the expression of a biological power that women have, so any power must be denied them.
Professor Bigfoot
@Omnes Omnibus: I don’t disagree; but TBH, I’ve heard a lot of talk about how we need to peel off some white men; but I’ve never heard ANY specifics— just “Don’t write us white men off like that!”
Scout211
True. But now he has a toddler daughter and stories like this one on Sports Illustrated online have made him seem all sweet and soft now that he’s a girl dad. But being a girl dad didn’t stop him from smearing this young woman on his sports program.
Anyway
lower taxes.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Citizen Alan:
Yup.
Lily white people born and raised in lily white areas who define their progressiveness purely on the fact they voted for Obama and support abortion rights. Their policies marginalize the minority poor and demonstrate how their message simply highlights the Dem Party’s vulnerability to challenge from the populist right.
The Audacity of Krope
@schrodingers_cat: God, you’re fucking delusional. Denouncing with every breath the people who most consistently stood by Biden as the real perpetrators of the under-bussing.
Professor Bigfoot
@catothedog: We children of the African diaspora will always be despised.
But like dust, still we rise.
Matt McIrvin
@MisterForkbeard: It’s the same mindset that complains about “crooks getting off on technicalities” when it’s Fourth or Fifth Amendment stuff, and that thought putting the War on Terror detainees at Gitmo was a great hack. Red tape is always an unreasonable impediment to the Führerprinzip.
I mentioned that UK stage adaptation of “Dr. Strangelove” I saw a stream of recently– the dialogue in it brought to mind a key detail I think I missed the importance of in Kubrick’s movie. Ever think it was strange what a peripheral character Dr. Strangelove himself seems to be in the story? He’s mostly comic relief and exposition. Except… that’s not true. Dr. Strangelove, the Project Paperclip Nazi, designed the plan that allows mad General Ripper to start a nuclear war single-handedly. And in the play, at least, he mentions offhand that it’s the Führerprinzip in action. Unaccountability at all levels of the organization. It’s more pointed than I realized.
Elizabelle
@Scout211: Oh oh. As soon as I read “she”, I knew the boys in the Trump misadministration would be gunning for her.
Appreciate your courage, Col. Susannah Meyers. May a Democratic administration find use for your talents and decency.
Fuck Trump. He is killing our military and diplomatic preparedness.
And I feel white hot rage for him, and his cretins, with firing these qualified commanders, especially when they are women.
Again. Trump has the tiniest mushroom penis. He is not worthy.
Professor Bigfoot
@Soprano2: I don’t think conservatives are able to reckon with this: here in the 21st century, it’s a GLOBAL economy.
There’s damned little that exists that doesn’t have pieces/parts/components/widgets that didn’t cross at least one (and more likely MANY) border.
I don’t think they can grasp that the 1945 world order no longer exists.
Ruckus
@MisterForkbeard:
As someone who was once a mental health counselor I can easily state that some/many humans see themselves as the center of, well every damn thing. And they are not.
In some ways being a senior citizen allows one to see that while the world has changed, humans changing their concept of their position within the group takes a hell of a lot longer. Men are stronger. OK that can be BS. But it is a common belief among humans. When I was a mental health counselor and got that attitude I’d ask one question. “Do you want to grow a human and give birth?” The answer was always either NO! or Not On Your Life! Always. We all have this thing we call EGO. For some men it is their pivot point, the always ruler of their concept of most everything. But life doesn’t work that way. And some of those guys have to learn that the hard way. Some never do. I also used the word RESPECT. It often didn’t fit well within their guidelines of living. Which is why they had so many issues. Humans are animals, but with a wider range of possibilities and skills than most other animals. Some never seem to learn having, using one of the most important skills – respect. It is a simple concept, easy to apply, often extremely difficult, sometimes seemingly impossible for some to learn.
Professor Bigfoot
@Anyway: Cheaper eggs. XD
Matt McIrvin
@YY_Sima Qian: A lot of US “space fans” in a general sense had been Trump supporters because they liked Elon Musk, thought NASA was mismanaged for this reason or that and were excited about going to Mars, etc. There had been a lot of dissatisfaction with Obama because his White House seemed less bullish on SPAAAACE than they were, and historically they seemed to get more support from Republicans.
I think for a lot of them it’s only sinking in now what it means to have an administration that sees science as waste.
UncleEbeneezer
@Matt McIrvin: Policing in the US is mostly subject to State, County and City laws. The federal govt doesn’t really have a ton of say over the vast majority of police/sheriffs depts. Any major changes a President would want to make happen would require a Congress with the sort of Dem majority we haven’t had in my lifetime and a Liberal SCOTUS majority like we also haven’t had in my lifetime. The problem like so many others is the fact that voters won’t elect enough Dems. And then use that to justify not supporting Dems.
Paul in KY
@bluefoot: I’d be fine with Pres. Biden doing that, but only if he could looksound not-at-all like he did in that debate. If he can’t or they can’t get him to look/sound sorta like Biden in circa 2021, then no.
PaulWartenberg
(watches video)
SHE SHOULD HAVE KEPT THE UNICORN!!!!
also, she needs to lower her seat about… 3 more inches…
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: Rentier!! (shakes fist in a general Westernly direction)
Paul in KY
@Scout211: No non-public person should have that happen to them. That said, considering she is an Ole Miss KD, I’m pretty sure she’s an asshole of some type or degree.
rikyrah
@oldster:
UH HUH
UH HUH
Geminid
@Paul in KY: I may be mistaken, but I think the story actually was about VP Harris, and her offer to campaign in Wisconsin for the more liberal state supreme court candidate.
I can see why the locals might have waved Harris off, for reasons specific to that contest. And as it turned out, the judge did just fine without assistance from out-of-state Democratic politicians.
They Call Me Noni
@Kayla Rudbek: Ten tons of worry lifted off your shoulders! Great news.
Suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot: A social order in which they have their pick of attractive women is what they want.
Matt McIrvin
@coin operated: It works better for some people than others. Being 100% remote was tough for me, but I think all I need is about 2 in-office days a week to keep me plugged in and motivated. The main problem with 5 is that the commute will kill me unless I’m living very close to the office, and that’s impossible to arrange sustainably because work moves faster than I can.
The Audacity of Krope
Unquestionable hierarchy that places them nearer to the top than merit would suggest.
Paul in KY
@Old Man Shadow: sadly so true…
Paul in KY
@raven: Glad to see a comment from you, sir! Hope all fine with you down there in the GA.
Raven
@Paul in KY: Thanks! Pondering a lumbar fusion at the moment!!
Paul in KY
@Professor Bigfoot: Yeah, Attorney General and then Senator from California. How could they be smart?!?!
Jeezus…
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: Like TFG was going to rein in police brutality…LOLing! They were probably a bunch of fakes.
Matt McIrvin
@Citizen Alan: The problem is that it’s antithetical to liberalism to try to shape policy specifically to harm and punish whole constituencies. That’s the other side’s thing.
We just can’t do our thing expecting a cookie. I think a more redistributionist, pro-labor economic policy is what we should be for. But because it’s right, not because it’s a winner. Politics needs to be for something.
Paul in KY
@Suzanne: That was excellent strategery by him. He was, however, gifted with a dingbat of an opposing candidate.
Paul in KY
@schrodingers_cat: We sure slag whitey for his/her myriad sins (and rightly so). I don’t think certain members from the Indian Subcontinent should be spared either. Goes for terrible examples of any ethnic group.
Matt McIrvin
@Paul in KY: Not fakes, I think, but they were coming from a more radical-left than Democratic Party perspective, and some were Silicon Valley tech folk.
schrodingers_cat
@Paul in KY: I have never spared them. On my blog or here or on Twitter. But bringing up Indian men and their horribleness in the context of this current discussion sounded too much like whataboutery. YMMV
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin:
Agreed. We should fight to do the right things for people, even if they don’t vote for us.
The lesson we need to learn, though, is that doing the right thing for people doesn’t earn their votes. We need to engage in other strategies to win stuff.
Princess
@Geminid: A Cornyn vs Paxton primary, if it gets ugly enough, sounds like a great opportunity for the right Democrat.
Paul in KY
@Professor Bigfoot: ‘Donald Trump hates you and laughs at you. You will always be the dirty, stupid help to him and his friends.’
Paul in KY
@Geminid: That’s Fain’s fault, IMO. If you going to be critical, make the whole fucking speech be critical. No cherry picking opportunities.
UncleEbeneezer
@lowtechcyclist: Erika Lee in her excellent book America For Americans noted that while Germans and Italians faced punishment during WW2 the framing was always on their nationality whereas Japanese were framed as a direct threat to whiteness. There’s a huge photo in Manzanar showing a big sign in CA saying “No Japs! This is a White country!” So I think it’s fair to say that the internment of the Japanese was not just much larger scale but also racialized in a way it wasn’t for Germans and Italians.
Paul in KY
@schrodingers_cat: Maintenance for the robots.
Paul in KY
@Elizabelle: She probably knew that one way or another the end was coming for her (Base Commander), so she went out and did what she did & now will come back to the states with her fine O-6 pension and hopefully have a fine post-military life.
bluefoot
@Professor Bigfoot:
Yeah, unfortunately I see it a lot in my supposed-merit-based profession (scientist now management in biotech/pharma). I could tell stories….and the problem is that the stories aren’t one-offs, they’re just the clearest or most egregious examples of what goes on all the time.
Paul in KY
@Geminid: My bad on that. Thanks for the correction.
Paul in KY
@Raven: Whatever you choose, I hope it adds to your quality of life!
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: Then I guess they were holier-than-thou idiots. Again, people to whom derision is an effective tactic.
ChrisSherbak
@Kayla Rudbek: Excellent news!!
Geminid
@Princess: There might be an opportunity there for a Democratic Senate candidate if it’s a wave year. This seems like a party-wide fight that could demoralize the losing side. Republicans will have about six months to mollify hard feelings before November
The fight might expand opportunities in the House side. Texas Republicans try hard to gerrymander their Houses districts, but its suburban districts are growing fast and could shift demographically.
In 2018, demographic shift plus political tailwinds enabled Democrats Libby Fletcher and Colin Allred to win suburban districts that Republicans thought safe when they redistricted earlier that decade.
The Pale Scot
Take of the glasses yo, you look like a doper in 70’s budget crime drama
Juju
@Kayla Rudbek: That’s great news. I imagine you’ll sleep better tonight.
Ruckus
@sab:
Not very competent.
He’s not in any way competent. At any damn thing.
As an ex machinist and ex employer I often wondered at life in the suits land. And my conclusion has always been pompous arrogance. And I’ve been in the military, which had different uniforms – not suits, but which really made zero difference to the concept. At least in the minds of many of the upper ranks. (Rank is such a good word to use for some of them….) I had one ship’s captain that was a normal human being and one that at least tried to be one. The rest? Pompous arrogant assholes, who knew everything and proved themselves wrong regularly. One was so bad, not even one of the other officers liked him. He was wrong about 1000% of the time. He had been the group commander of the first ship I was on and he ended up being the captain of the last one. Fortunately I got discharged and served on that ship for only 2 weeks. Oh yeah, the good times…….. I did get to see a lot of the world I never otherwise would have.
Matt
@schrodingers_cat:
Truly heartwarming that – even at a dark time like this, when we’re watching the fundamental idea of representative government get skull-fucked to death by plutocrats – people are truly focusing on what’s important: whining about people who dared to vote against The Chosen One in 2016.
JFC you morons are pathetic.
Ruckus
@Scout211:
So we do live in a dictatorship. I wasn’t sure.
Now who is the leader? It isn’t the doofus at the top of the food chain, I doubt he can tie his own shoes. First, can he bend over that far without falling over, second does he even know how to tie a knot? Not saying he didn’t know ever, just that the inner workings seem to have decayed just a tad. (That word tad is doing a lot more work than usual)
Citizen Alan
@Soprano2: i make a point of wearing a coat and tie on the days when court is in session, even though I have never once set foot in our courtroom while l anyone was in there. I go business casual the rest of the time, including those days when the boss specifically tells me that i don’t need to wear a tie because we only have one or two cases that will be on zoom.
But I also work from home 1-2 days per week, during which time I frequently, get all my work done just as efficiently and professionally, as I do in the office while typing from an easy chair in my boxers.
Scott jennings, who I wager, has never done an honest day’s work in his entire life while in a suit or not, can go straight to hell.
Citizen Alan
@satby: i remember watching the green party presidential debate in 2016. It was on youtube and was sponsored by the RT Network (I didn’t know what that was until I googled them later and found out that it was literally “Russian Television.”) At first I was watching it for laughs because it was hilarious. Watching these cranks answer questions from two abject morons who seemed to be intentionally parodying the cliche of “an ultra-liberal journalist.” ( One of the panelists said “Yummy!” in response to a comment by a candidate about abolishing capitalism.) But by the half hour mark, i wasn’t laughing anymore. Because it was clear that those idiots (of whom jill stein, shockingly, was by far the most serious and presidential) wanted a left wing dictator. One of the candidates blithely talked about abolishing private gun ownership “within the first hundred days.”
Ruckus
@Librettist:
That is because unions are there to demand reasonable pay, working hours and respect, three things many upper level jackasses seem to think are unimportant, especially actual reasonable/decent pay. And not to be so tired at the end of the day that they can’t reasonably/rationally drive home.
pieceofpeace
@Scout211: This is scary. The beginning of Trumpsdumpworld casually being above the laws, or at the least – being decent to American workers – and, militarily-approved as a standard government policy. A show of dominance without question, and they want this total allegiance accepted, with no questions nor respectful explanations/thanks! for one’s life work allowed. The press is sucking its thumb.
I see this more as a sign of the ruthlessness to come and the T. people intend to give no information, save ‘the president’s agenda’ as an explanation for its actions.
They’re laying the offensive/defensive comment for which they will demand acceptance by the citizens and other interested parties in controversial situations or baked into all of us as “truth.”
Citizen Alan
If we had worked together in the same office, I would have utterly hated you. I still remember a guy who worked in the same building as me twenty years ago who had so much free time (the pro se law clerk) that he spent half of everyday would wandering the halls and striking up tedious conversations with people in their offices while they were trying to work under a deadline.
We just got the news that my court is going to start having monthly potluck luncheons. Which means I have to spend time outside of work cooking or else shell out “a donation” and have yet another meal full of food I’m not supposed to eat because if I don’t bring something keto friendly, there will be nothing at all keto friendly. Oh, and it’s looking like it will always be held on a day where I would normally be able to telework, except for the social requirement of showing up at a potluck luncheon.
Paul in KY
@Matt: She never misses a chance to slag Ole Saint Bernie of Reeferstan.
Paul in KY
@Citizen Alan: All forms of ‘Communism’ tried out in the last 100 years have been non-Democratic to one extent or another. usually very anti-Democratic.
Citizen Alan
@Professor Bigfoot: If world war II had happened twenty or thirty years earlier, they probably would have. Part of the reason I hated scalia, and still hate alito, so much is that they were/are so bigoted despite the fact that their fathers were probably called “dagos” to their face.
Ruckus
@Deputinize America:
Generally people in this country like modern cars.
What they don’t like is that most of the reasonable modern cars are not made in the US. Maybe assembled here but even that raises prices. Our general labor costs are higher than some/many other countries. That does not mean slave labor there, just that for something like a car company if the cars are manufactured in say China or Japan, it adds a lot to the price if they have to be assembled here in the US. All the parts have to be shipped separately, which adds a lot to the cost, along with most of the time our labor is more expensive. As someone who owned a specialized manufacturing company I can tell you that skilled labor in this country is expensive. More expensive than in other parts of the world. But the containers made from the tools that my company manufactured – plastic bottles for one example, in individual or household serving sizes would be not all that cheaper if you added in all the extra room required on board ship and the cost of refrigeration on that extra room, to make them there and deliver them here. And so much is shipped in large containers or manufactured/grown here and home refrigerator or individual sized bottles manufactured here are what you see in the stores. (Not to mention the time it takes to ship eatable food long distances can create uneatable food of it before it arrives from out of the country)
Citizen Alan
@Matt McIrvin:
Hence my caveat in the following sentence. ” Not unless we get something that benefits democratic constituencies in return.” Politics should be about negotiation between people representing different constituencies, so that everyone benefits. Not this bullshit of Republicans, demanding everything and getting nothing in return because they’re constituencies the only “Real Americans.” Republicans dominate voting among US farmers because of the attitude of “welfare and government benefits for me but not for thee.”
The Pale Scot
@Paul in KY:
I believe that was Boss Tweed
VeniceRiley
@Citizen Alan: Just bring a protein shake and tell them you didn’t want to miss it because you really enjoy seeing them all. A little white lie helps.
The Pale Scot
Pinwheels. Tortillas, ham and cream cheeze, wrap ’em up. Or a dozen cans of store brand chili, add some cayenne to cover the flavor
Badabing Badabam etc
Kayla Rudbek
@Citizen Alan: agreed, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1891_New_Orleans_lynchings my mother-in-law being Sicilian from New Orleans knew about this (she might be related to one of the lynching victims)
Kayla Rudbek
And thanks, everyone, for all your support and kind thoughts!
Elizabelle
@Paul in KY: I hope so. And she resisted the enshitification her “POTUS” and VP are bringing down upon the military and the people of Greenland (and Denmark).
Paul in KY
@The Pale Scot: Thank you for the correction. My mistake on that.