I have sort of been a “normie” in the past week or so because of a big push for one of my clients, a big undertaking at home, and the start of gardening season.
So I haven’t had time to read all the newsletters and substances and articles in the news.
But vibes? Even normies have time for vibes, and it sure feels like something is shifting.
Cue 100 people telling me I’m wrong? I hope not, but the chips will fall where they may.
Open thread.
zhena gogolia
I don’t know whether you’re right, but I hope so!
Eolirin
I think something is shifting but what is less clear is whether that can accomplish enough to stop things. We’re just gonna have to wait and see on that front.
Professor Bigfoot
It feels like there’s a light at the end of the tunnel… but I suspect it may be an oncoming train.
Or some other such metaphor as that, because when the shelves go empty in the next couple of months and prices climb, just how will Americans* respond?
Bill_K
There’s something happening here
But what it is ain’t exactly clear
Baud
I felt like something was shifting, but I think it’s because ate some bad beans.
Trollhattan
With respect to the ship’s seaworthiness, the captain has come around to allowing as to how it’s possible, just, for an iceberg to have compromised the unsinkable craft in some fashion. Second dinner seating is nevertheless expected to go forward as scheduled.
Baud
Trigger warning: photo of Schumer.
Baud
@Trollhattan:
I heard the Titanic sinking was Biden’s fault.
Baud
dmsilev
@Baud: Nonsense.
That was all Jimmy Carter.
Baud
A truth thread on Reddit.
Soapdish
Lollerskates!
dmsilev
@Professor Bigfoot:
Clearly, time for another tax cut for Elon Musk! We can all agree on that, right?
WaterGirl
@Trollhattan: That’s perfect!
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Bernie bro Jon Stewart will chime in with his concern trolling anytime now.
Butch
@Baud: His speech at Macomb Community College in Michigan drew three times as many protesters as supporters, but you’d never know it if you read the legacy media.
bbleh
I think the tone in the MSM has shifted. They’re more critical, less ooh-wow! And I think several matters have indeed developed not entirely to the Orange Guy’s advantage. But the media LOVE to exaggerate, and — as actual economists have noted — the data really aren’t in yet. There’s lots of economic warning signs, and lots of hand-wringing over how trust in the US is lost, forever lost! But things have yet to bite, if bite they do, and if they don’t, I think it’s gonna be nothing more than another swing of the pendulum of entertainment.
(OTOH I DID stockpile a whole buncha coffee. I’m very particular about my coffee.)
As the Orange Guy says, stay tuned!
terraformer
Josh @TPM seems to think so. Some choice quotes from a couple of “editorials” the past coupla days:
Socolofi
The problem with waging war on everyone is while many will be cheese-eating surrender monkeys, you do eventually end up with an organized resistance and do have to fight.
Leopards can only eat so many of their voters’ faces before enough voters kinda get wise that they’re all on the menu.
The 50% of MAGA that has nothing in the market (and it’s probably more than 50%) – they’re all thrilled at the moment. They won’t be once they realize everything costs 20%+ more, but that hasn’t dawned on them yet.
The % of MAGA that DOES have money in the market… not happy. And not buying that this is Biden’s fault. You could make a very good argument that 2008 wasn’t directly George W Bush’s fault, but it didn’t matter – his watch, he was in power, all him. In this case, it’s trivially easy to draw the line between tariffs and the stock market. It’s real time. It’s on all the news. You see upswings when there is news of tariff relief as well as downswings when more threats come out. People get it.
So really, the only interesting question is how long will the rich folks at Mar a Lago let Trump fuck around. Given how it’s been relatively quiet on the trade front, I imagine the powers that be are doing things on the QT.
Also note huge freak-out from Trump over Amazon thinking about putting on a tariff line item. If they were serious, they’d embrace it as a great way for Americans to find things made in America that don’t have tariffs. But instead, they were, “nobody will notice a 10% price increase” and threatened huge retaliation. Translation: they’re hoping nobody notices an even larger increase, and they’re hoping nobody traces it back to them. Deals aren’t getting done, they’re fucked, and they know it.
Baud
Trump take Big Mac.
rikyrah
Tabitha is on point about MAGA 👏🏾👏🏾
They support him because he hates who they hate
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP86eoAj4/
Belafon
Just remember, folks, when the rest of the country finally starts realizing what is happening, they’re going to also hate us for being right.
Interesting Name Goes Here
Unfortunately, the vibe I’ve had since November continues to be the vibe I hold strongest, which is that too many of my alleged allies would have far less of a problem with throwing me, mine, and other people like me under the bus to validate their own personal feelings than I myself was even comfortable with confronting. That got reinforced yesterday with The Bulwark’s attempt to drag Hakeem Jeffries back down into the Inexplicable Hate box.
How do you get rid of that vibe without stepping back and watching the people who instill it the most suffer as a result of their foolish decisions while trying to weather the storm yourself?
RandomMonster
Well as we all heard over and over again last year, he’s old enough to have been the culprit.
RaflW
I have pretty notorious timing, so me selling some shares today means there will probably be a rally in the days ahead.
But if so, I think it will later turn out to be a dead cat bounce (with apologies to all the BJers who love furry friends. No surprise that the dudes of Wall Street like ugly turns of phrase).
Baud
@Belafon:
That’s why I’m staying out of it. Let them learn on their own. Liberals scolding them will just distract them.
Belafon
Just gonna say, as a software engineer, that I hate everything about this title:
Dow rises 200 points to kick off May as Microsoft, Meta rekindle AI trade
schrodingers_cat
@Interesting Name Goes Here: I feel the same. A lot of people on the left are okay with herrenfolk socialism. That’s why BS of Vt is so popular among the white leftist broletariat.
Belafon
Also on CNBC, Trump is going to move Waltz to be our UN ambassador.
WaterGirl
@terraformer: Happy to see that from Josh!
Pete Downunder
I think there is a definite change in the vibe. We have an election tomorrow our time (our elections are on Saturdays with pre-polling and postal votes available for those unable to vote on the day) and the vibe has definitely shifted. The incumbent Labor (center left-ish) party has been uninspiring and as recently as a few months ago the opposition center right (totally misnamed) Liberal Party was in with a chance. That has now shifted, perhaps inspired by Canada, and it looks like Labor will get back in, although not necessarily with a majority. Minor parties including the Greens (a sensible left party) and independents have also surged. We have preferential voting so the minor parties and independents can make a huge difference. More news as it happens.
Steve LaBonne
I have believed for some time that Trump and his fellow idiots lack the nous and the understanding of how power is wielded, and increasingly also the public support, that would be required to create a durable Orbán-style regime. Don’t take that as unalloyed optimism though- they have already done catastrophic, irreparable damage and will do plenty more. Pure destruction doesn’t require competence, merely evil.
RandomMonster
Under Trump, ‘UN ambassador’ is where careers go to die.
Betty Cracker
@Belafon: Can you imagine how much that pisses Elise Stefanik off? Hahahaha! Thanks for flagging that. Cheered me right up!
Trollhattan
@Baud:
It’s true, and on the same date as he killed Abraham Lincoln. Lots of people are asking, has anybody charged Biden yet for these Biden crimes?
Melancholy Jaques
@dmsilev:
Carter is to blame for the fact that tomatoes have almost no taste.
Baud
@Belafon:
He’ll be able to leak information to our frenemies more efficiently at the UN.
cmorenc
Trump’s Heritage foundation and GOP congressional allies are counting on being able, over the two years since he retook office, to so firmly cement their changed and control over the country that the increasingly deep unpopularity of their agenda over that time won’t matter, irrespective of the vibes among normies and the media turning against them.
Josie
@Betty Cracker:
Yes! We can all use a bright spot in our day.
Ocotillo
@Baud: Hmm, maybe Jon Stewart will come down from Mount Both Sides and speak up about something.
oldster
Two problems for Trump —
1) He has overreached on too many fronts. Soc Sec remains a third rail, for instance, and when his DOGE boys started messing that up it got people’s attention.
2) There are fewer fans of pure cruelty in the country than he was counting on. Yes, it is sad that even 30% of the country are Stephen Miller-like sadists. But the other 70% are not, and they start noticing when plain-clothes thugs wearing masks start breaking down the doors of US citizens, snatching students off the street, and deporting toddlers.
His popularity will not recover. Not even a war will help him now.
RaflW
@Steve LaBonne: Josh Marshall has been saying in recent posts that he believes Trump has, functionally at least, failed. He’s clear that much more destruction will happen on the way down, but Donald and his team of unrivaled sub-mediocraties blew it.
Had DJT ridden the good economy and done the dismantling in a more sly, P2025 way rather than Musk’s chainsaw, drug-addled horror show + ham(burder)-fisted tariffs, Trump’s trajectory now would be very different. But the vibes are souring. In ways that mean Trump can’t unfuck that chicken, even with 3.69 years left of his term.
Like, the shelves will be empty for months, because any backing down now on tariffs will take 8 weeks to turn back into orders. And no American business will believe that the chaos of the first 100 days will abate, so investment in property, plant and equipment will likely now lag for years.
Josie
@cmorenc:
So, we all need to donate when we are able and write those postcards, among other things. Elections are our only way out of this.
matt
@cmorenc: I’m 100% expecting them to make it illegal to throw out all of their burrowed fuckin’ morons running all the exec agencies. They’ll have a permanent ‘deep state’ of their own.
Professor Bigfoot
@oldster: From your keyboard to God’s monitor.
Jackie
@Betty Cracker: Cracks me up, too! Yesterday I read somewhere that Stefanik is pissed at Johnson – apparently they met yesterday to discuss her upcoming promised leadership role in the House – with nothing solved, except the word “soon” from Johnson.
RaflW
@oldster: Several prominent Republican senators are insistent on gigantic cuts to Medicaid. And 10s of million of Americans seem to have no idea whatsoever that this will mean huge — truly seismic — dislocations of old people from nursing homes. Including a lot of white people who may themselves, and their kids voted for Trump & the Republican senators. They will be betrayed and dismayed (and lied to about who is to blame, but Trump will be president as they get evicted and have to move back in with Cletus Jr.)
Matt McIrvin
Nate Silver’s aggregator aggregated a bunch of ferociously negative polls for Trump over the past few days… then the “disapprove” topline ticked down again today, but it was just because Emerson and Rasmussen (two of the most consistently pro-Trump pollsters) had released their usual outliers.
Now, it may be that they’re right and everyone else is wrong! But even they were WAY more positive a few weeks ago. The trend is consistent.
Baud
@Jackie:
I can’t he’s happy to have a woman demand something of him.
Trollhattan
@Matt McIrvin:
Darn that Biden, tanking Trump’s polls just like that. The Biden Crime Family has no scruples nor limits to their evil.
Captain C
@bbleh:
Although I expect the FTFNYT to come up with a series of ‘everything is Biden and Obama’s fault and suffering is good for you anyway’ articles on the front page in the next few months.
Matt McIrvin
Anyway, what I’m bracing for is Trump getting far more violent on his political opposition. He’s already got Kash Patel doing investigations of a bunch of people and organizations on our side; I’m thinking of something much bloodier. It’s his natural next recourse when public opinion turns against him.
frosty
@Bill_K: I was waiting for that line.
Matt McIrvin
@oldster:
Not a bet I would want to make.
A big foreign terrorist attack would give just about any Republican President a huge shot of patriotism juice. Maybe even a Democrat. Even Jimmy Carter benefited from the Iran hostage crisis until it had been going on a while with no sign that he could resolve it.
Eolirin
@Josie: Boy I hope so, but it’s not a guarantee.
gvg
I don’t think we have seen enough real damage to ordinary Americans for the memory to last yet. He did the damage really early in his term. there is time for people to forget, if he actually gave up these stupid damaging plans…but it he just sort of pauses, without changing the people he listens to and “learning” anything, and he keeps trying to do the same kind of thing more slowly or more subtly, then we are still in for a rough ride. What needs to happen is people organizing, forming new alliances of convienece, things that work. Thats the vibe we need. We also need the polititians that stand up to him to get rewarded, not lose elections. that includes republicans.
bbleh
@Matt McIrvin: yeah me too. I think his first move may be to start a war — much less risky to do violence against sneaky drug-dealing entirely coincidentally nonwhite foreigners than against somebody who might look like your aunt — but if things really heat up this summer, I can see all kinds of domestic suppression — water cannon, mass arrests, hell even the Insurrection Act &/or martial law. Plus I think there will be an uptick in vigilante violence, which of course the Orange Guy has nothing to do with, wink wink. His followers are gonna be just as frustrated and willing to act out as he.
Geminid
@Belafon: Axios’s Barak Ravid posted that Trump said he would make Marco Rubio acting National Security Advisor until he picks a new one:
I think Trump’s next National Security Advisor will not need Senate confirmation.
Matt McIrvin
@bbleh: The brake on violent suppression of the protests is that, as everyone noticed on April 6, the people turning out for the protests are rather elderly and white–the people who have giant targets painted on them are mostly staying home. If they bring out the water hoses and rubber bullets, or worse, it won’t even look good to the Fox News audience.
But a cornered animal is very dangerous.
oldgold
There is very little that is truly amusing in politics these dark days, but this may qualify.
The 60 Minutes interview of Kamala Harris that is the basis of Trump’s lawsuit against Paramount (CBS) for deceptive editing, has just received an Emmy nomination for “Outstanding Edited Interview.”
H.E.Wolf
I think that being able to comprehend that 2 or more things can be true at the same time is a really useful life skill.
As is the ability to say, Yes, I will do my share of the necessary work, although the future outcome is unknown.
Many things right now are alarming; and many other things are encouraging; and it’s my responsibility to keep working in small, concrete ways to add to the balance on the “encouraging” side.
Doing nothing except speaking of one’s own despair is a form of privilege. I know that we jackals are able to surmount that temptation!
Baud
@oldgold:
Heh. Thanks for sharing.
Wapiti
@Geminid: Yeah, all this dual-hatting of key positions reminds me of the revelation that a lot of ‘elite’ guys who are supposedly managing companies are just positing on signal chat all day.
Secretary of State is a 60-80 hour a day job.
National Security Advisor is a 80 hour a day job.
There’s no way a competent person can do a good job dual-hatting those two positions.
Baud
Captain C
@Belafon: I will feel no obligation whatsoever to render assistance to anyone who screwed this election up and now hates me for being right.
Miss Bianca
@Belafon: Oooh, Stefanik gonna be stewing over that, I bet!
BC in Illinois
@Matt McIrvin:
As an elderly (registered septuagenarian) white guy, I can attest to this. There was a MayDay anti-Trump rally at the St Louis Arch today. Majority white, with a wide variety in age, but tending toward the old. 300-400 people. Not a great sound system, so mostly signs and chants.
It is a work day / school day, so that may have kept the numbers down for the younger crowd. A fairly significant Union (UAW) presence
ETA: I wore my “Veteran” cap (USN HM2, 1969-73) to mess with people’s stereotypes. I wasn’t the only one. A CPO (Chief Petty Officer) cap and several VoteVets t-shirts.
Jackie
If this doesn’t say what to expect from FFOTUS’s tariffs…
Let the hoarding begin!😡
I consider this a leak to the media – and FFOTUS isn’t going to like the fact his administration is openly admitting it’s going to get bad these upcoming months/years.
Elizabelle
@oldgold: Chef’s Kiss! Marvelous news.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Schumer is why we have pineapple on pizza, that’s the kind of monster Schumer is.
barbequebob
@Bill_K: still rocking it, 59 years later
youtube.com/watch?v=GsPF1BwdXBI
Matt McIrvin
@BC in Illinois: I’m assuming these today will be smaller than on the 6th, since most of us aren’t taking the day off (though a bunch are scheduled later). I’m going to be otherwise occupied this weekend so can’t do the more conveniently timed ones.
Frank Wilhoit
It is like [the reasons why no one understands] climate change. It does not make the weather warmer; it makes the weather more unstable. Falling apart is a kind of shifting.
Old Man Shadow
My general vibe is “DOOOOOOOOM DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM” but that could be the chronic general anxiety disorder. Or my natural cynicism. Or my misanthropy.
Old Man Shadow
@Professor Bigfoot: It’s a balrog.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Matt McIrvin: You do know we are effectively are war with Yemen? Remember Donny bigly no like the military stealing the spot light from him.
Miss Bianca
@Baud: How far away are we from full “precious bodily fluids”?
Professor Bigfoot
@Old Man Shadow: As long as it’s not a slavering grue.
noncarborundum
Breaking: Trump signs executive order renaming San Andreas Fault to Biden’s Fault.
RaflW
Here’s another reason the wheels will just keep coming off the Trump Admin.
I know the central thrust is to make government not work. But a lot of normie people expect things to keep on going the way they have been. Government working silently in the background is invisible. Government having 4 functions run by one shit-eating toadie is going to fail. The cracks will show up all over, eventually. And it’s not just lil’ Marco who is having their portfolio overloaded. Trump will struggle to staff this admin just like he did the first one. Because once the ‘it sucks here, we’re failing’ vibe starts rolling, who but the shittiest possible people will want to work there?
Captain C
@Baud: We need to convince him that gravity is a harmful conspiracy and that he can convince everyone else of the truth of this by jumping off the Grand Canyon and flapping his arms to fly across.
Or just get him back on heroin and then have someone slip him a hot dose.
Baud
@Miss Bianca:
Heh. I almost added that to my comment.
Miss Bianca
@RaflW: What, does this mean that Donnie can’t find any more
patsiesmen of principle to fill his Administration’s positions?Old Man Shadow
@Baud: So… he’s going to ground all air traffic?
Baud
@noncarborundum:
Heh.
Ksmiami06
@Eolirin: Democratic leadership needs replacing now
Ksmiami06
@RaflW: aside from people on our side getting hurt, I don’t care if Republicans /MAGA get destroyed
They Call Me Noni
@RaflW: Sounds like Rubio is this administrations’ Jared Kushner.
Soprano2
@schrodingers_cat: I think that’s unfair, he helped the 9-11 responders get things from Congress. He really cares about that issue, it’s not just “concern trolling”.
hitchhiker
Which is why I don’t read the legacy media.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
We can opine about various feelings regarding various subjects, like media coverage “turning”.
But we should never forget that we’re in the midst of a cold civil war which means playing a longer game than feeling some turning point has been reached or almost reached. It’s what bites us in the ass constantly, an analogy being (D) campaigns shutting down after every federal election.
WaterGirl
@Jackie: I assume the word “pretend” is silent in the phrase pretend leadership role?
Baud
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Agree.
schrodingers_cat
@Soprano2: Maybe. But he tries very hard to burnish his bro credentials by constant Dem bashing. He has been this way since Obama was first elected
If he was really concerned he would do everything in his power to get Ds elected. He wouldn’t interview John Yoo with kid gloves, I could go on.
Citizen Alan
@Matt McIrvin: I will go to my grave convinced Jimmy Carter would have won in 1980 had the Iranian Hostage rescue attempt succeeded instead of turning back after one helicopter crashed. For want of a few loose screws, our nation was lost.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: @comrade scotts agenda of rage: Agreed. I will believe that things are turning against the Rs when they lose more than a couple national elections in a row.
WaterGirl
@Geminid:
How is that possible?
...now I try to be amused
@Steve LaBonne:
I’ve noticed that right-wingers consistently overestimate hard power and underestimate soft power. That’s why they don’t appreciate how good the US has had it in the world since World War II, and why they feel frustrated when the US doesn’t just lord it over everyone.
We were fortunate that World War II took place during the FDR administration. They had a lot of smart people who did understand soft power, and the limits of hard power, to design the UN, the Bretton Woods Agreement, the Marshall Plan, NATO, etc. But the Trumpistas are busy destroying all that.
JoyceH
Sadly, one thing I confidently expect in the next year is more entirely preventable high casualty events – entirely due to the hollowing out of government. One thing history tells us is that it’s not enough to pass regulations, you have to enforce them. And all the inspectors are being shown the door. The Triangle Shirtwaist fire was in 1911. That caused the government to make it illegal to lock doors during business hours. The Hamlet Chicken Processing fire was in 1991. Despite a number of previous fires, the factory had never been inspected – and the doors were locked. In addition to workplace safety, there’s safe food handling and a host of other things where we’re just going to trust the business owners to pay money to keep their workers and the public safe. We’ll learn AGAIN what a bad idea that is.
schrodingers_cat
@…now I try to be amused: The hard left is also contemptuous of our soft power and think that America is the Evil Empire.
TurnItOffAndOnAgain
This is just my gut feeling, but since the election…okay, there are a lot of normies who know about MAGA. They have relatives or people they know who are, or said normies just have an awareness that such people exist in this country. I think these normies might have thought the first time was a fluke. The second time around proves it wasn’t. And it’s waking up some normies to the idea that no, it wasn’t an accident, it wasn’t a mistake, there is a good amount of people in their families, in their work, and in their country that want this. So much they were willing to vote for it twice.
And I think normies are frankly tired of the MAGA drama, whether they’re aware of or care about how terrible it is for their pocket book and their daily lives and civil liberties and the constitution.
Should they have figured this out before now? Fuck yes. Should they have been worried about the potential of a second term, even if they thought the first time was a fluke, because the second would even more horrendously bad than the first? Fuck yes, god damnit.
But it does feel like the worm has turned regardless.
I think people might be developing a similar attitude to Both Sides Do It as well. Maybe not incredibly quickly, but people get tired of that talk when there’s an actual fascist in power to worry about; especially if people believe that Both Sides Do It was, in some capacity, to blame for said fascist coming into power.
One way or another, the Old Way Of Doing Business in government was going to crumble at some point. Things are too different today than they were even twenty years ago. If the country at large survives this, then the way its citizens—in government and out—think about politics in this country will probably have been changed forever.
Kirk
I think enough people are clued in to the supply chain that the whispers of empty ships at ports mean something to them. They may deny the reason for the Covid lock-ins and supply chain interruptions but they still lived through them recently enough that they still bear scars.
It’s the id talking in the background, or so I believe. It may not convert TO democrats, but it’s creating dissatisfaction with what’s happening now.
ArchTeryx
@Socolofi: That’s why Camelcamelcamel exists. And it may become perhaps the most valuable website in the country before much longer, because it tracks Amazon prices long term. If they jump up 120% like Temu prices have, Camelcamelcamel will catch it immediately and tell you exactly by how much they jumped. They’re now our tariff-watcher, and one that Orange Fuckstain can’t do a thing about.
bbleh
@Matt McIrvin: yup. And if the propaganda machine goes into full drive, they’ll use photos from other places and times (remember the “caravans”?), or AI/Photoshop Scary Nonwhite people in, and all with a constant blare about thugs and rioters and violence in the Big Bad Cities.
It might turn off some normies, at least ones who pay attention. but it seems like they’re willing to play just to the crazies even now — think RFK — and if/when things heat up further …
Won’t keep me from showing up tho.
Tim C.
@WaterGirl: NSA isn’t a senate-confirmable post. It’s only significant in terms of the president listening to someone “Advisor” is the important noun here.
WaterGirl
@ArchTeryx: I have never heard of camelcamelcamel.
danielx
@oldgold:
Will drive Felonious Orange right up the wall if it’s ever brought to his attention.
Matt McIrvin
@bbleh: It’s why I’m showing up NOW. If there are all these little rallies with old white dudes in veteran caps that people can see with their eyes in little podunk towns, it makes it harder to portray this as manufactured dissatisfaction involving a bunch of college kids and people who J. Random TV Viewer is inclined to be scared of, down in the big city
And I’m more inclined to go to a protest in my town or the environs than to go to the big ones in Boston, for that reason and others.
WaterGirl
@Tim C.: Oh, right. The wording was such that it sounded to me like, “the previous one had to be Senate approved, but the next one won’t need to be”, which made no sense to me.
Thanks,
Central Planning
@RaflW:
Thank you for your sacrifice!
matt
@Wapiti: they’re turning so many of these jobs into ‘fire staff and close the doors’
Trollhattan
@They Call Me Noni:
Middle East: still fixed. Thanks, Jared.
Professor Bigfoot
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I watch a lot of the NBA (go Cavs!) and there have been teams that just “didn’t have that killer instinct.”
Michael Jordan had that in spades, as did Kobe– the willingness to go flat out, balls to the wall on ’em right to the final horn.
We can’t afford to be that team. We need to step on their fucking necks until they are thoroughly defeated, and maybe for a couple of cycles after that.
Princess
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Actually the pineapple thing is Canada’s fault. Sorry.
Jackie
@WaterGirl: As in “Acting” National Security Advisor. Acting whoever’s don’t need confirmation.
Trollhattan
So long, and thanks for all the fish. Vance edition.
Melancholy Jaques
@Professor Bigfoot:
Never going to happen. It is an unwritten rule of being a Democrat that one must spend a minimum of 50% of one’s efforts criticizing other Democrats.
ArchTeryx
@WaterGirl: http://www.camelcamelcamel.com. It’s an Amazon price tracker and not based in the U.S., though it primarily tracks U.S. prices
Pick anything obviously from China, copy the URL, and paste it into Camelcamelcamel’s search bar, and you get a complete graph of its price history. Including any sudden jumps up due to tariffs. It’s real easy to figure out what the tariff share is from those graphs, too.
Trollhattan
@Jackie: Heck, they don’t even need to act and with Li’l Marco, that’s what we’re going to see.
Princess
I agree with the vibe shift thing. But it’s like the Germans are bogged down at Stalingrad and there are years more pain and casualties to get through, and no one knows what it will look like at the end.
Professor Bigfoot
@ArchTeryx: THANK YOU. I hadn’t heard of camelcamelcamelcamelchameleon but trust and believe I have an account there now!
ArchTeryx
@Professor Bigfoot: I doubt they ever expected to be our economic Samizdat. Their primary purpose was telling when it was a good time to buy an item, and whether a bargain really was a bargain.
But you use whatever resources you can in war. No matter how unconventional. And this is war.
Professor Bigfoot
@Melancholy Jaques: I’ll just point out that you very SELDOM (if ever) see Black Democrats slagging other Democrats.
Betty Cracker
@Matt McIrvin: I agree it’s important to show up now. My little podunk town had a well-attended Hands Off rally on 4/6. Mostly white people, mostly older, which reflects the local demographics. It’s hard to spin that into BLM/antifa rampage, even with Photoshop.
WaterGirl
@Jackie: I know “Acting” doesn’t need confirmation. How many of those did we see in his first term? Answer: way too many!
Jackie
@Jackie: Nevermind. Answered above. I thought Waltz was confirmed.
cmorenc
@matt:
That actually was a key part of Trump / Heritage Foundation’s game plan if he won in Nov 24.
SW
Except for the 27% MAGAt cult members, empty shelves are a deal breaker.
Trollhattan
@Betty Cracker:
Let’s not get hasty, has anybody checked their hands for tattoos?
BellaPea
@Steve LaBonne: I read a somewhat reassuring article on that same topic today. It was an interview with John Bolton. I loathe his politics, but the guy is pretty politically savvy. He said Trump has the attention span of a 1-year-old and no real plans beyond flashy moves like tariffs. He also said Dump and his crew are not smart enough or strong enough to pull this country into a facist state. I hope he is right.
Nettoyeur
@Wapiti: But wait…..Kissinger did both jobs 1973-75.
Jackie
While the media and we have been focused on Waltz and Rubio, this happened:
Kirk
@Jackie: So does this mean he’s finally going to put sanctions on Russia?
SiubhanDuinne
@noncarborundum:
snort!!
rikyrah
Hasn’t really been reported, but the Orange Menace LOWERED the minimum wage for Federal Contractors.. from $17.00 back down to $13.30 RIDCULOUS.
They Call Me Noni
@ArchTeryx: Good to know. Thanks!
They Call Me Noni
@Trollhattan: Wonder if Marco is thinking that at the end of all this he will also get a billion dollar pot of gold compliments of the Saudis.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@zhena gogolia: I second that emotion.
Baud
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker: I have a cardboard sign this time, shit is getting serious
WTFGhost
@Professor Bigfoot: I feel the same way. The courts are now faced with a President who is directly refusing a court order, and refusing to purge contempt.
If they refuse to hold him accountable in some way, they might as well just flip themselves the bird instead.
The tariffs are unpopular, and the economic vibes are bad, and that makes the courts more likely to consider holding him accountably, but they’re too cowardly to act until they get a sense their party, the Republicans, will back them.
That might not happen until there’s real fury at Trump, and they’re trying every single lie to tamp it down, but, well, Trump is just so evil, and so stupidly evil, and so mean-spirited, and so ODD (Oppositional Defiance DIsordered), they’re going to run out of lies before he runs out of mean, evil, defiant, and stupid.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Butch: really? I did not know that. I have been worrying about where most Michiganders stand.
Jackie
@Kirk:
I wondered the same. I sense Putin/Russia will be excluded.
WTFGhost
@Baud: If beans are shifting, you may have bugs or rodents in your household. Oh: and, the ones in your coffee grinder? They’re not just for display – they actually get ground up into little bitty pieces and you can run water past them to make coffee.
So, when they get ground up, they shift. I hope this helps.
(Thankfully, they upshift – if they downshifted, they might have the power to avoid the FUNNEL OF DEATH where you will not only be GROUND INTO NOTHINGNESS, your very SOUL WILL BE EXTRACTED BY BOILING WATER.)
lowtechcyclist
@ArchTeryx: I’d walk three miles for a camelcamelcamel.
Elizabelle
@Professor Bigfoot: LOL. Boy George in addition to electro swing.
ETA: good way to remember that site, too.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Belafon: I am not certain about that
HopefullyNotcassandra
@RaflW: does not our stock market feel like a gigantic pump and dump scheme? It does to me
ArchTeryx
@HopefullyNotcassandra: It is since Trump got elected.
Baud
HopefullyNotcassandra
@schrodingers_cat: I am no bro. Nonetheless, as I have said to you previously I am tickled Senator Sanders is drawing huge crowds and that he is on our side against fascism. Somebody needs to be doing this By all means, talk more democrats into getting out there are organizing us.
Once upon a time Hillary Clinton insulted every person working for Barack Obama with a smile and a celestial choir crack. That crack made every single call on behalf of Barack Obama much more difficult. We went from a barn raising to save America to “you are deluded, kid” in a whiplash.
I won’t ever forget that little bit of gop-like politicking. I have forgiven it, though.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Betty Cracker: the maga ladies failed to realize all of that vitriolic misogyny was aimed right at them. It always is.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Melancholy Jaques: what tomatoes where? Mine burst deliciously
Harrison Wesley
@Citizen Alan: History repeats itself. A few loose screws in the White House…,.
Kirk
@Jackie: I was being a bit sarcastic, too. Not that you can tell in print.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Jackie: the gop is trying to convince former Rep. Stefanik to run head long into a concrete wall by running for governor of New York. Her face is nearly gone now. Will she object before the leopards finish her nose or just accept her political slaughter supinely?
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Matt McIrvin: I got polled once by Rasmussen. That pollster leads right with every single question.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Baud: is he going to ground all air traffic? Grifters gotta grift
WTFGhost
@rikyrah: Well, but first, they are taught to hate the people they then later hate. It’s a vicious cycle. You can’t beat it with hate, which is why I’m glad I’m seeing more stories that might call for compassion, not hate.
People need to hear of a stalker who keeps following a transperson around to get them arrested if they try to pee in a public restroom, before they realize the horror of bathroom bills. They need to have someone, in that news story, point out, look, anything you do in a bathroom, that bothers another person, will get you arrested – “right” birth sex or not! And a trans rapist, looking for victims? “Get real – their transition records would come up in court, and the jury would recommend deep frying them, if that penalty is available.”
Instead, they hear scaremongering, and weak tea “but that’s not TRUE!” responses. That’s the part I don’t understand.
I think because part of it is fought in social media advertising, and the rest on, e.g., Fox News, there’s no room for a strong defense, because Fox won’t allow one, and maybe no one else is covering it.
sab
Our local valley restaurant also has a side deli. Pouring rain so we decided to go get dinner at the deli instead of eating in the Mexican restaurant as we had planned.
Three old people waiting around for our orders. Rick Ainsley “Never Gonna Give You Up” came on the speakers, so three old people humming along while the youngsters serving us looked at us, puzzled.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Old Man Shadow: my thought precisely
and untimely
Matt McIrvin
@Interesting Name Goes Here: I’ll take the slagging on any Democrats perceived as timid from the left, but when it comes from those never-Trumper Republicans, they can go piss up a rope. No Republicans get to tell us what we should be doing. The admonition to throw somebody under the bus is coming right behind, I can tell.
sab
@Kirk: “//”
Martin
I don’t think you’re wrong but I don’t think the vibe shift is comforting either. “The vibes are off” was the explanation for why Democrats lost – that despite the positive top line economic numbers, people didn’t feel like the economy was in a good place, or at least heading in a good direction.
A vibe shift here doesn’t necessarily boost Democrats as much as it makes voters dislike all politicians even more, and that’s a challenging environment, particularly if you are prone to defend incumbents. 2026 could be less a blue wave as a primary wave, with a lot of new idea Democrats running up against a lot of new idea Republicans. Right now you have anti-corporate/tax the rich movements both to the left of Democrats and to the right of the GOP (that’s where Steve Bannon operates and tends to have a decent pulse of young Republicans).
Having Trump falling out of favor is good, but I’m not convinced it will be to Democrats advantage. I’m kind of expecting an incumbency bloodbath. Democrats need a message and I’m not sure they are able to come up with one.
Some other vibes that are starting to get some data wrapped around them. Starting last year we saw warnings that knowledge workers/professional class was facing headwinds. Over half of new graduates last year were in jobs that didn’t require a college degree. That was a growing trend. We now have more data that the new graduate unemployment rate is high relative to the overall rate – which is unusual. Usually new graduates fare okay. There’s data to suggest that some of this is due to reduced demand in the kinds of industries where AI is being deployed. A lot of new graduates in these industries go into positions where they are basically just analysts. They don’t have a lot of decision authority but they are learning the industry and the business by collecting data, doing reports – with conclusions and arguments around them. It’s how you train workers in a lot of these industries and evaluate their judgement for taking on more responsibility. But that’s the space where AI is somewhat useful – it’s pretty good at injecting a ton of data and giving you reports, and it’s cheap to deploy. This could be a long-term softening of labor demand in these industries or it could be a short-term cost cutting measure that self-corrects down the line when these industries realize they don’t have a pipeline of talent because the AI isn’t capable of building a marketing campaign, and they never hired the new workers that would be chosen to fill that role. The vibe that college wasn’t worth it had a bit of truth to it, probably overstated, but not entirely wrong. Those jobs were gateways to good careers that could support a family, and those opportunities do look like they have dried up to some degree. More importantly, nobody knows what the trajectory of that trend are – is it going to eat up most jobs in your field making your degree largely worthless, or is it just a restructuring of the field that will in relatively short order self-correct. Nobody knows – and that uncertainty is part of the vibes, and our elected officials are completely hands off about this stuff because they too don’t know. But because these graduates found jobs somewhere – just a growing number of them not in jobs that their degree was needed for, and because the proposed AI filling in these roles didn’t undercut GDP, all the top line numbers were still good, even though you probably had growing discontent at being unable to break into the industry you were seeking and having to take a job that probably had weaker career prospects.
Elizabelle
@Martin: Tech bros and media barons (and their catspaw politicians) gonna be the death of us.
Not to mention an overheated vibes! vibes! vibes! (social) media environment.
It’s all terribly unsettling, and too volatile.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: I am sorry but it seems that you are suggesting that a college education only has value in that it provides a person with an immediate job in the field that they studied. I am sure that was accidental, right?
jonas
@Baud: Eh, Trump’s rallies right before the election were half-empty, rambling shit shows, too, and look where he is now. A better indicator are the polls, IMHO, which are very, very bad. And he does not seem to be interested in correcting course. At. All.
Elizabelle
@Martin: Martin, also: maybe Bannon does have his finger on the pulse of young Republicans — and ick there —
but maybe having seen how Trump is turning out, a lot more voters will be wary of being sold a bill of goods and “new ideas” that are completely untested.
Who knows what the economy and the amount of disruption is going to look like by this fall, never mind fall 2026?
And it is way more likely that Democrats are going to have more truthful things to say about predatory capitalism, and the dangers of unregulated private equity (all the housing stock getting hoovered – heh – up, pension funds raided and jobs jettisoned — we are seeing this way too much, and we do not have the Biden economy cushion).
I like our chances, actually. Although, the lies and disinformation will be off the charts. I think that is a lot of what happened in 2024. Not able to counter the disinformation, and it is pervasive.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Omnes Omnibus:
I hope not but alas, that’s the way universities think and promote themselves to a large extent.
As a proud arts-and-parties major with a BA and MA in something most people consider worthless, I hate the fact universities, and to an extent society, do that and people view them in the way you’re understandably criticizing.
Baud
@jonas:
But he’s president now and a winner. But I agree polls are a better snapshot than a rally (or a protest).
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: No, I’m not suggesting that. Look at the perspective. What is the job the university is being hired to do? For a lot of students, they are hiring the university to get them into a career or industry. That’s not necessarily the job the government is hiring the university to do in their support for higher education, or the job that society is hiring the university to do, or the job the faculty are hiring the job to do.
If young people are looking to that degree to be a key that unlocks a specific door, I find that disheartening, but understandable. I’m not going to fault them for choosing to not be homeless over being broadly educated. In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, that’s a no-brainer, and that’s the evaluation I think we are forcing young people into in an economy where there are few assurances of payoff. Isn’t that the nostalgic appeal of the 1950s – that all you had to do was work hard and there would be a good job that would allow you to raise a family. And now you need to go through the whole college admissions grind, carry that debt load, and still find yourself driving Uber? It’s a failing of the social contract that changes our relationship with education. Has nothing to do with what I think the value is in broader terms. I don’t get to berate some young person living in their car for not appreciating that they have earned a broad education.
schrodingers_cat
@Martin: Is it possible that you are projecting your own feelings about disappointment with the Democrats on to the electorate.
Omnes Omnibus
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I went to a LAC for undergrad. It was never sold that way.
Gretchen
Those evil MFs at NIH just cancelled their participation in the Safe to Sleep program, a successful 30 year effort to decrease infant deaths during sleep.statnews.com/2025/04/30/nih-ends-participation-in-safe-to-sleep-campaign-to-prevent-infant-deaths/
I spent yesterday with my grandchildren. The daycare was closed so the teachers could go to the funeral of one of the babies who died while she slept. She had an undiagnosed brain tumor. How anyone could look at this program and think it’s a waste of money has a cold, dead heart.
catclub
@terraformer:
‘clear majority’ ? facts not in evidence.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: Yeah, I was struggling with the wording on that one. I was trying to make the point that Rubio only has to hold the national security advisor portfolio until Trump figures out who he wants. That could be soon, but it might not be.
catclub
@jonas:
This. Trump even told them he is so needy HE needs these rallies, no matter how lame.
catclub
@Geminid: I say Rubio is the new Jared Kushner. he will get all the jobs.
Melancholy Jaques
@Martin:
Bro.
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat: I wonder too. Cuz otherwise, it is head in the oven time (for those of us who still have gas stoves).
Glory b
@Melancholy Jaques: Lol.
Trollhattan
@Gretchen:
Cripes.
Refreshed from the Best Sleep Ever, Ebenezer Scrooge left the mansion and strolled over to the Cratchit shanty. Scrooge knocked the door open with a single mighty whack from his bespoke golden cane (Harrod’s), marched in and spying Tiny Tim cowering in the corner, snatched away the lad’s crutch.
“I’m using this to kindle my morning fire, you wee twirp. You’re lucky I don’t horsewhip you for simply being pathetic. How do you ever expect to earn a living being like that?”
“Now get to the office, Cratchit, I have bales of work for you and yet here you sit. NOW!”
Best Sleep Ever led to one of Ebenezer Scrooge’s Best Days Ever, even if he couldn’t quite remember which day it was.
-The end.
Melancholy Jaques
@Omnes Omnibus:
In my admittedly anecdotal experience teaching high school, this is exactly what nearly every student believes. My efforts to the contrary were unavailing.
Martin
I’m not so convinced. I think the left is really, really failing to understand the schism developing on the right. And I think the left is really, really failing to understand just how badly equipped our institutions are to meeting the current economic space given how little control the US government is allowed to wield there. And in this space, it’s the right who are willing to take big swings at those institutions and not the left. I think the electorates vibes are that the economy is out of control – more among young than older folks – and that this governmental machine we built is both unequipped to deal with it and unable to change to a state that it can. I don’t see any evidence that Democrats are prepared to attack and reform the machine. But Republicans are more than willing to attack it. That their reforms are generally terrible is one step further down the line than most voters can engage with.
In the most recent Harvard Youth Poll (conducted end of March), 23% of voters under 30 have a favorable view of Congressional Democrats, compared to 29% of Congressional Republicans, and 31% for Trump.
Trump weakening isn’t helping Democrats. Voters are free to take the view that everyone is shit.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Gretchen: destroying that program helps nobody anywhere. The GOP is just a death cult with billionaires.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: A friend listens to Steve Schmidt, and when he told me how Schmidt was slagging Chuck Schumer, I told him that there is a sizeable group of disaffected Dems who like that sort of thing. Never-Trumpers like Schmidt need an audience and they are going after an easily reached set of people.
Whether they constitute “the Base” or even a large fraction of it is another story. Schmidt mainly cares if they are numerous enough to support his podcasts.
I’m fairly cynical about the Schmidts and their counterparts on the left side of the Party. They thrive on demoralized Democrats and are incentivized to keep them demoralized.
cain
@RaflW: who are going to be pissed to have more mouths to feed when prices are high and the shelves are empty. Never mind the cost of all those meds going up because the GOP are also letting companies do whatever pricing for meds.
The plan could be that Americans vote Dems back in to control congress and then the GOP acn blame the Dems. History repeating itself. But if Dems hold both House and Senate they have the option to absolutely kick him out. Will they take it or will they back down. I say they back down.
Elizabelle
@Martin: Why are the youth so badly informed? I am serious. Those kids are NOT all right.
This is all getting really depressing. Time to stay off this blog.
cain
@Matt McIrvin: All that takes money. They have to cut even more programs to fund the witch hunt. Which will make more people angry.
Even all those deportations, paying for a foreign prison, all of that costs money and they soooo much want to give that rich tax cut. They also will have to do a bunch of crap to please the evangelicals.
lowtechcyclist
@sab:
At our HOA meeting last month, I said something about the Group W bench. Blank looks. I said, “from Alice’s Restaurant?” More blank looks.
Ouch.
Omnes Omnibus
@Elizabelle: Meh, Martin has been a burn it all down guy for a few years now.
Geminid
@catclub: One interesting player in this area is Adam Boehler, who was Jelared Kushner’s college roommate. Boehler is a sort of deputy to Steve Witkoff, with a portfolio that includes American hostages around the world. Boehler played a role in the Gaza negotiations for a while in March until the Israelis objected to his posture towards Hamas.
As for Rubio, I think he’s the designated fall guy for when one of Trump’s foreign ventures blows up. Rubio might survive this year but I bet he doesn’t make it through 2026.
cain
@Jackie: I was thinking that this would put India in difficulty but it doesn’t seem like India is buying Iranian oil.
cain
@rikyrah: hopefully that’s what they pay ICE.
Bill Arnold
@matt:
They’d need to pass laws to do that.
And even if they do, those RW-deep-state people will be identified, and can be resigned to managing departments that sharpen pencil sharpeners, or similar.
And then, after a year or so, correctly classified as government waste.
Elizabelle
@Omnes Omnibus: I hope Mr. Mensa realizes that he is going to burn my house down first. Sick of it.
lowtechcyclist
@cain:
First of all, the Dems are a long shot for taking the Senate, even if 2026 is a wave year. Maybe they can beat Tillis and Collins in NC and Maine, but that only gets them to 49. They need 51 for control since the VP is Republican. What are the other two?
Second, it takes 67 Senate votes to kick him out. If they couldn’t convict him right after the insurrection, good luck in doing it now.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: Trump can have a war with Iran if he wants to. It would be easy to make demands on Iran that would cause the nuclear talks to break down.
The US has certainly moved enough military assets into the Indian Ocean/ Middle East theatre to get a war going. Trump doesn’t seem to want one, but there are people in and out of the administration who’ve wanted a war with Iran for years.
Omnes Omnibus
@lowtechcyclist: Don’t bring up facts to the people who are inclined to be predisappointed.
Martin
@schrodingers_cat: I am reporting data that is coming out of a variety of sources. Chronicle of Higher Ed and Inside Higher Ed has been reporting on this trend for years, with a lot of uncertainty as to the cause, based on data coming out of the federal reserve and other agencies.
What we’re getting now that we’ve had time to start narrowing in on causes is that there are some industry specific trends.
Note, I’m not saying the GOP has a better plan here – far from it. But that doesn’t let Democrats off the hook. I’m not an advocate of the ‘well, my kid isn’t the worst in the world’ defense. Being the 2nd worst kid in the world is still terrible. Democrats don’t deserve to get a pass because they are less shitty than the GOP, and in the ‘pick your team’ aspect of American politics, I can see why people rush to defend bad policies because the other teams policies are worse, but appreciate that voters don’t need to do that. They can say both policies are bad. And they have been saying both policies are bad – that shows up in polling and focus groups time and time again. But people here won’t hear of it – and you have been among the more vocal of that group.
The Audacity of Krope
@Elizabelle: Now, just like a lack of approval for Trump doesn’t necessarily translate to support for Democrats, lack of support for Democrats doesn’t necessarily translate to voting behavior.
I say this as someone who has been voting a straight D ticket since 2006 yet only would have responded “yes” to a survey asking if I supported Dems as a unit from about mid 2021 to early 2024.
George
@Martin:
As a tangential comment related to institutions, I’ve realized that the faith I had institutions–the mainstream media, for example, or academia, or organized religion–to counter fascism was misplaced.
In fact, the only institution that really counters fascism is the Democratic Party, which is why for decades it has been attacked by Republicans and disparaged by the media, the result of which is to fracture the party and damage its ability to be the source of resistance. Pretty much any positive social, economic, educational, or environmental change since the end of WWII has come about due to the Democratic Party, yet even some liberals and progressives prefer to attack it rather than attacking the groups doing actual damage to the country.
Perhaps there never was an example in recent history in which an institution truly countered fascism. Perhaps believing that there are institutions that will counter fascism is just a falsely hopeful human mythology, the same way that some people believe that guardian angels keep them safe from nightmares and demons.
Professor Bigfoot
@Elizabelle: The burn-it-all-downers are always ready to sacrifice the rest of us
ETA I suppose it would be uncouth of me to mention that they all seem to come from one demographic…
Martin
@Elizabelle: They are not badly informed. Part of their disaffection is because Democrats refuse to fight, refuse to piss off their billionaires. Both parties are ultimately controlled by the investor class. That’s the problem. The fight to get Biden off the ballot was waged among Democratic donors – we had no say in it.
Being disappointed that Democrats aren’t fighting is not exactly a badly informed take, IMO. See Schumer being proud of his strongly worded letter delivered the same day that Trump was openly ignoring a Supreme Court ruling.
Interesting Name Goes Here
@Professor Bigfoot: Listen to some of them talk sometimes, and you’ll start wondering if they’re not speaking from a basis of fantasies that they’ve had where they’re the main character fighting the dystopia.
Baud
Elizabelle
@Martin: Yeah, I definitely understand that. But. Democrats are who brought them any social safety net that is now being shredded. And I realize it is not enough of a safety net. Or a secure future. But it is what we could get, and it came hard.
If the young are that cynical and nihilistic, fuck them.
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: Is that not what is happening?
I’ve been warning that problems have a way of getting solved, and you can solve them by being proactive and honest about the problems and doing the hard work to get in front of them, or you can solve them by ignoring them until things burn down. You’re acting like the constantly declining approval of Congress and government isn’t real. I’m pointing out what happens when it gets low enough, and maybe you need to take more active steps to keep it from getting there.
Or does everyone think that if Democrats just reinstate USAID and OSHA or whatever as they were that the electorate will be happy again? Because I have some bad news for you there.
schrodingers_cat
@Martin: I support a party that doesn’t want to kill me YMMV.
I don’t think the US is the second worst country in the world. If I did, I wouldn’t have become a citizen. I chose this country because I love it. And I think Ds are the better option. They are not perfect by far but I admire what they have been able to achieve in the last 100 or so years
And the Ds are not just a better party compared to the Rs. They are a good political party, period.
The Audacity of Krope
Not as it was, but if they reinstated OSHA and properly funded it I would count myself as at least somewhat pleased.
Interesting Name Goes Here
@Interesting Name Goes Here: I ran out of time to edit, but there’s one more thing I want to add about those dystopian fantasies people seem to idolize so much.
What, pray tell, does anyone here think is the common thread between the protagonists of things like the Hunger Games, Last of Us, Maze Runner, and so on and so forth? Three guesses, but you’ll only need one.
Supplemental question – what happened to Amandla Stenberg’s character in Hunger Games? Or Storm Reid’s character in the Last of Us?
Martin
@George: I don’t think the Democratic Party can be relied on to counter fascism. I think in this moment it serves their interests, but like I noted above – the donors picked our nominee for 2024, not us, and the party isn’t exactly organizing the opposition here – it’s community driven.
Democrats are still voting for Trump nominees and bills. The party is not exactly treating this like an existential threat, despite their rhetoric.
Elizabelle
@Baud: I am about done with this. I am not an anxious person, but the idea that things can’t get better, and that we deserve that because we are such a terrible party? Who deserve to lose cuz — messaging!
I am really wondering how many people have dropped off BJ because it is just too painful to see this kind of analysis? Fuck this shit.
Matt McIrvin
I think a lot of people need to live through chaos and see people killed or hurt by it before they appreciate any kind of institution. All you can really do in the meantime is put your marker down and hope they remember what you said when the time comes. They might hate you for it but it’s not about you anyway.
The Audacity of Krope
@Elizabelle: Things can certainly get better. Better is just not on offer from either major political party.
Martin
True. But it also means that Democrats ability to predict or steer that voting behavior is very weak. That means 2026 could go in any direction, including a red wave. That’s why I think it will be an anti-incumbency election – with lots of primary challengers winning and the overall trend of that election going based on why those challengers are winning, rather than on anti-Trump sentiment. For all we know this is the moment we end up with a pile of Joe Rogan clones in Congress.
Baud
@Elizabelle:
I respect people’s choices. No one has to join us or like us.
If we’re a minority, we’re a minority. It’s not a shameful place to be.
Glory b
@Professor Bigfoot: Why OF COURSE they do.
Always have.
The ones who are sure that it won’t be THAT BAD for THEM, no matter what it is.
Elizabelle
@The Audacity of Krope: Really? I think Biden Harris was way, way better. And he represented his party’s goals very well. Did a lot with not a strong hand.
We lived it. We could see it.
Glory b
@Martin: That doesn’t make any sense, given the relative policies of each party.
No Republican can win a primary without kissing Trump’s ring. They move in lockstep, a challenger would be no different than the incumbent.
What would be the difference?
Anyone who doesn’t think that things were better under Biden wasn’t paying attention.
The Audacity of Krope
@Elizabelle: What Biden/Harris offered was the best version of what we have already been doing, which has not been that great for a lot of people.
I tend more to think more of Obama. Obama convinced me that capitalism can work. He convinced me that we can work with Republicans.
Wrong on both counts.
ETA: Also worth noting that I said upthread that Biden and Harris’s tenure in the White House was the only time I was fully supportive of Democrats as a whole. Democrats, themselves, rejected Biden’s presidency. Well, the donors and their elected mouthpieces…
Elizabelle
@Baud: I do not think we are that badly a minority. But I think too many voters are deeply unserious people, and too many blew off voting, and look what it got us.
I think the American electorate is a huge problem. Too many adolescents — no matter their age, who take was is good — and what was built, over time — for granted.
Martin
@Professor Bigfoot: Note, I’ve never suggested that Democrats are on the wrong side of civil rights issues. In fact, I’ve routinely pointed to Democrats support for trans issues as evidence they were more genuine in that support because it wasn’t a clear trade for a voting bloc.
My warning has always been that it would be better if Democrats did that reform with you in mind than if they failed to do it and left it to the GOP who were guaranteed to sacrifice you. I don’t accept the false choice that Democrats have to throw marginalized groups under the bus to win. It’s the constant assertion that Democrats lose because voters are too racist that gets my back up – because it forces Democrats to make the pragmatic choice that only white men should be nominees. That framing forces Democrats to throw marginalized groups under the bus to win. I’ve argued that Democrats should lean into their civil rights support but deal with the underlying economic issues that they refuse to acknowledge. Voters feel like the economic system is unfair. Democrat need to acknowledge that and not ignore it. Ignoring meant that Trump could blame that feeling of unfairness on DEI and trans kids in sports and immigrants, where Democrats could have blamed that feeling of unfairness on billionaires and hedge funds and private equity. Instead they tried to convince voters that felt the system was unfair that it was fantastic. Look at that unemployment rate. Everyone gets to drive for DoorDash.
Elizabelle
@Martin: Democrats have to be perfect, or they are just no damn good.
We did not develop Citizens United. We did not gut the Voting Rights Act. This is not happening in a vacuum, Martin.
Professor Bigfoot
@Elizabelle: It’s impolitic to say it, but much of the American electorate is poorly educated, incurious, and oh so very intellectually average.
Professor Bigfoot
@Martin: Still working on that hostile takeover, aren’t you?
Elizabelle
@Professor Bigfoot: It’s true. And now FAFO.
The Audacity of Krope
They don’t have to be perfect, but if their brand is going to be “just good enough,” they cant be blinking in fights with the bad guys.
JCJ
@Melancholy Jaques: Not quite right. I believe Walter Mondale’s response to the candidate with “new ideas” was to quote a Wendy’s commercial and ask, “Where’s the beef?”
Baud
@Elizabelle:
I think people have to unlearn taking things for granted. We’ll see if Trump teaches them that.
The Audacity of Krope
@Baud: Like taking it for granted that Democrats intend to help?
Matt McIrvin
@Elizabelle: The fact is, the “conservatives” right now are not some kind of philosophical Burkeans; they’re the revolutionary wrecker party, bent on destroying all institutions. So if you’re just vaguely dissatisfied with the world and want everyone to fuck off and go to hell, you might well support them.
That their policies kill a lot of people might even be a selling point. Fuck it, I didn’t like people anyway. Voting Republican is easier than going off in the shopping mall with an AR-15.
Liberals are the actual conservatives, not a good look if you want revolution.
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
Up to the individual to decide. If people they can do better without us, they should do their thing
No One You Know
@H.E.Wolf: THIS.
Some people can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory with discouragement. That’s generally noticed by a feelings-not-facts approach to undercut the good feeling about doing the right thing. Some “feelings” aren’t legit to such folks. Discouragement is valid, hope is not.
Hope requires courage.
Change happens when a significant minority own their moral authority to stand up for what’s right.
Quit confusing near-term outcomes to see long-term goals. Do the right thing anyway. It’s the moral authority we have that they don’t.
I can’t remember who said this, but a social scientist said something like, “the only thing that has ever changed society is a small group of dedicated people. It’s the only thing that ever has.” Anyone recognize this sentiment?
A small group of billionaires is trying to do just that.
So can we.
And there are more of us than there are of them.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
I’m not upset that I’m a political minority. I feel no shame about that. It is what it is.
But I cannot respect the choices of people whose all too casual voting decisions last year are going to visit great harm on millions of Americans, to the extent that they haven’t already.
@Martin:
And Biden did a better job of solving more problems “by being proactive and honest about the problems and doing the hard work to get in front of them” than any President I can recall since (fuck) LBJ, for all the good it did him. And did that “with not a strong hand,” as Elizabelle reminds us. He made me proud to be a Democrat for the first time ever.
I just don’t see that there was some secret winning move available to him to change how people view the Democratic Party in the current media landscape, or do whatever else it is that you think the Dems need to do.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
Right. Should have said their right to make their own choices.
Martin
@Elizabelle: But young people don’t want a safety net – particularly one that for decades government has been unable to shore up.
They want opportunity. They want a social contract. They want some assurance that if they have good performance evaluations and their company is turning profits they won’t be part of some 6% across the board layoff because some activist investor demanded a larger share buyback. I noted a bit back a comment that most Americans are 3 bad months from homelessness and almost none are 3 good months from being millionaires. If you want young people to look at college as a way to improves themselves and not as a meal ticket, then you have to take the very real risk of homelessness off the table. Again, this is basic Maslow’s hierarchy of needs stuff here. People will tolerate a felon, racist president who throws people into an El Salvador hole if they think it will help ensure their kids don’t live in the back seat of a Toyota.
And the safety net is supposed to be insurance – when something goes wrong and you fall. It’s not supposed to be a substitute for opportunity – for doing the right things, going to college, working hard, and a society saying ‘sorry, the robot is cheaper’. You have to address that part of things. Marginalized groups don’t take particular comfort in the presence of the safety net either – they too want the opportunities. And that’s the underlying problem with the US economy. The traditional path of hard work and applying yourself is increasingly unreliable in favor of get rich quick schemes, fraud, and just plain greed. Musk’s arbitrary layoffs of government workers isn’t an outlier – it’s increasingly the norm.
Back in 1930 John Maynard Keynes predicted that his grandkids would work 15 hours a week thanks to all of the productivity gains that were expected to come in the future. And some people still have that view, that AI and the like will usher in an age of fully automated luxury gay space communism as we enter a post-scarcity economy. But I look at it as I think it’s played out, that you’ll wind up with like 3 guys who own all the IP for that automation, capture all of the wealth in the economy, and everyone else is living in hovels, not unlike how earth is depicted in The Expanse. Yes, productivity has improved enough for us to work 15 hour weeks, but that assumes there are no Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos who will own half the nations wealth and require we work 40 hour weeks if only to have half our output turned over to them to form that wealth.
And I point back to 2007 when a bunch of bankers knocked millions of people out of work and into homelessness and wrecked everyones 401Ks and then weren’t punished for that, and instead were allowed to use their great wealth to make money on the recovery as well (this was a Democratic president and Congress, mind you), the unmistakeable lesson to the little guy was ‘don’t work hard, fuck over your neighbor’ because that’s how you get ahead now. Not for everyone, but for an increasing number of people that’s true. And I don’t see Democrats really standing up against that. I don’t see them offering a different economic vision. Sure, we’ll stand on the picket lines, but we won’t fix the big underlying problems. We won’t tax wealth. We won’t really crack down on finance. Democrats don’t fight the powerful, they negotiate with them. So of course they are disillusioned – they don’t really have anyone fighting for them economically. I think Democrats should do that, and I mostly get pushback from this community.
You say ‘fuck em’. Well, guess what they gave you in return for that – a 2nd Trump presidency.
Matt McIrvin
@Martin: Young women want a safety net, and opportunity.
Young men want to fuck the young women and are pissed off that, these days, the young women don’t feel any pressure to oblige them. They think Trump is somehow going to bring a new world in which they’ll have to.
I think that’s some of what’s going on.
Martin
Assuming Trump is sufficiently unpopular, there will be primary challengers.
Trumps unpopularity is evidence people think things are worse now. That wasn’t the calculation last November. Last November Democrats were saying things were great, and they won’t change under Harris. Voters were saying no, things kind of suck, and we want them to change, and Trump promises changes. And we got changes. Like, he delivered. But voters, somewhat fairly, don’t understand broad economic policy. It wasn’t that long ago that Democrats were the one demanding tariffs to protect US manufacturing, and now that’s the GOP position. Sean Fein is supportive of Trumps tariffs. I think that’s pretty clear evidence that voters are unreliable to choose around economic policy. But they can understand ‘this is bad I want it to change’ and ‘this person promises change’ and ‘this person promises no change’. That’s easy.
MagdaInBlack
@Martin: I don’t always agree with you, Martin, but this time, I certainly do.
schrodingers_cat
@Martin: What a long screed to say that Rs suck but Ds suck more and you want a Trumpian figure that follows a left wing revolutionary agenda. It still all about economics to you not people losing their basic fundamental rights and in some cases their lives. You sound gleeful when discussing the second Trump presidency.
Interesting Name Goes Here
@The Audacity of Krope: OK, so what is blinking and what is picking the correct fight(s)? Because everyone seems to think Schumer blinked in February. And yet, even the media industry is looking at Trump and Musk and saying “WTF?” instead of blaming Democrats. Everyone thought Hakeem Jeffries wasn’t ’bout shit until he brought his entire caucus in line during that aforementioned fight; now everyone loves him (except The Bulwark and those that believe it religiously, apparently).
The problem here is that you have people itching for a fight so badly that they don’t care how the fight finishes as long as they get the fight. Some, as I alluded to above, think that they’re the Main Character and whatever happens to them will slide off easily, while some just want to see the world burn. While that might be good catharsis, it’s really shitty political policy – especially here.
The Audacity of Krope
@Martin: this person promises no change’. That’s easy.
Actually, Harris was promising to go after real estate practices that kept housing prices artificially high. That could have been a really significant change.
Trouble is that it was ignored in favor of a narrative that Harris “had no policy.” Utter bullshit, especially when compared to her opponent.
As an independent only loosely attached to the Democrats, I have a hard time seeing Harris as the problem last year.
Schiff, Brown, Pelosi, Obama, Warren on the other hand…
And two of them I once viewed as political heroes.
Interesting Name Goes Here
@Martin: Well, now those young people get to learn what everyone else with more brain cells than sperm cells did before – fuck around and find out.
Martin
@Elizabelle: I didn’t say there were no good. I’m saying they weren’t good enough. FFS, they lost. I think the demand by Democrats that Biden’s legacy be preserved boxed Harris in from being able to maybe propose a change in course. I think more than that the failure to have a proper competitive primary going into 2024 (and I don’t know how the mechanics of that could have worked apart form convincing Biden to not run) would have created space to have a bigger debate about the role of the party toward the economy and allowed for more room to take a more reformist position. That never happened.
I think the party would have been better served in this moment if we had been more critical of Biden’s agenda. Yeah, there was good stuff in there but the gaps were significant, and the agenda failed to respond to the electorate. I think we need to be honest about that.
The Audacity of Krope
@Interesting Name Goes Here: Let’s start with Democrats shouldn’t be underbussing constituencies, even those with a questionable degree of support.
Gavin Newsom trashing trans folk and Fetterman supporting the intellectual underpinnings of Trump’s war on academic freedom (and that’s only the latest manifestation of how he endangered University students) spring immediately to mind.
ETA: On the latter individual mentioned, there does seem to be a bigger problem where a not insignificant amount of Democratic voters and definitely most of their politicians are, at best, ambivalent about genocide.
Interesting Name Goes Here
@The Audacity of Krope: Those are good places to start. But there’s still the issue of knowing when and where to fight, and recognizing that if it looks like a trap and kills like one, it’s probably a trap and it either needs to be avoided or defused – not attacked head-on because it worked in a movie once. That’s another thing I’ve brought up in the past – too much of our supposed counter-strategy too often reads like if I did just a little bit of surface-level digging and scratching, I’d find out that it came from a comic book and people just want to see if it would actually work in reality.
The Audacity of Krope
@Interesting Name Goes Here: So, I’mma need a concrete example on this one.
Interesting Name Goes Here
@The Audacity of Krope: I keep bringing up the Schumer example because it’s probably our most recent. But Nancy Pelosi would be another one – most of what we can claim as successes over the last 10 years has come in large part from her doing the unglamorous work behind-the-scenes. And IIRC, Hakeem Jeffries was one of her protégés.
If you want something more concrete than that, then I don’t have it for you. The only reason I’m paying any attention to this shit now is because other people have made it my fucking problem.
Martin
@schrodingers_cat: I repeatedly above said that Dems suck less. Will you please stop lying about the things I say.
George
@Martin:
Which nominees were confirmed, that would not otherwise have been confirmed, with Democratic votes? If 46 Democrats vote against a crappy nominee and one votes in favor, and 53 Republicans vote in favor of the nominee, the problem is not the lone Democrat. The problem is uniformity of the GOP.
What legislation has passed Congress that otherwise would not have passed Congress without Democratic votes?
I’m sure you know that the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives, be it Pelosi or Jeffries, allow members of their caucus to vote with Republicans if that vote has no impact on the eventual passage of the bill. That’s not being weak. That is being smart politically because it provides cover for the dissenting Democrat in his/her district.
Keeping as many Democrats in Congress as possible makes sense. Arguing–as some people here do–that primarying centrist Democrats with progressive candidates who will just lose in the general election makes no sense. Unless of course the people who are arguing for that are merely rightwing trolls sent by the dark lord to wreak havoc, which I sometimes think is the case.
It is in the best interests of the Democratic Party and the country to allow what amounts to inconsequential dissent in voting on bills or confirming nominees. More savvy commenters would use that in our favor. “See, the Democrats allow dissent. The GOP does not.”
What would be sweet is if younger voters, who seem to be the topic of this particular thread, were smart enough to understand American democracy and how it functions.
The Audacity of Krope
@Interesting Name Goes Here: If I wasn’t clear, I meant of what a trap would look like.
And I’ll give it to Pelosi, she marshalled through some difficult legislation…that was marginal enough in its impact that it didn’t engender a whole lot of love for Democrats. The ACA was probably the most significant of this and that’s just as easily looked at as a new financial obligation as any sort of boon.
Then you get to her support for
insiderCongressional stock trading and for Biden’s ouster. Overall, a mixed bag there.The Audacity of Krope
I’ve always found this to be a dubious assumption.
Furthermore, I’d rather lose fighting for what’s right than concede to some awful shit and lose anyways.
George
@Elizabelle:
I haven’t dropped off BJ entirely, but I visit this site much less often than I did before various commenters started their “Democrats are to blame” anarchic nonsense.
Gretchen
@Interesting Name Goes Here: I don’t know because I haven’t watched these things. If you think it’s significant, how about telling us?
Glory b
@schrodingers_cat: Yeah, I got that vibe too.
Martin
@The Audacity of Krope: I agree that Newsom and Fetterman are absolutely losing the plot here. It doesn’t benefit Democrats to fight the GOP culture war on the GOPs terms. Just do a fucking class war – the president will not stop taking about being a gazillionaire. Point out how much money he has made since being elected and ask voters if they are also wealthier. Point out how investors are getting rich off of his trade war. This is not hard.
Note, Newsom is taking the stance that he is because there are a LOT of very wealthy Democratic donors in California and he’s not about to piss them off so he’s going to adopt the GOP framing and do his own mini war on woke. I was skeptical he would be a good candidate last year, and it sucks that he rose to my expectations on that one.
schrodingers_cat
@Martin: You are damning them with faint praise at best. Your anger seems to be directed at Ds rather than Rs.
George
@The Audacity of Krope: Whether or not it is a dubious assumption depends on the composition of the congressional district in question. A district that voted 60/40 for a centrist Democrat might vote 52/48 for a progressive one. A district that voted 52/48 for a centrist Democrat likely would be more difficult for a progressive to win in the general election. And anyway, it’s better to live on your feet than to die on your knees.
Elizabelle
@George: Hello there. Good to see you. I think I might have to take a break, for my mental health.
You will laugh, but I have been reading up on WW2. 80th anniversary of VE Day coming up a week from today. I prefer my Nazis dead.
And that fucking FDR. In a wheelchair, I tell you. Of course they were hiding that from us. And aged! He looked 20 years older than he was! Must replace!
Interesting Name Goes Here
@The Audacity of Krope: What a trap would look like would depend on the situation. The shutdown threat this past February was one of those situations. McCain trying to suspend his campaign in 2008 to look like he cared about the financial crisis was another.
This is very unrelated to politics, but NASCAR recently laid a trap trying to encourage its’ teams to take it’s All-Star race and make it a no-rules run-what-you-brung kind of deal, and the teams balked because of the costs in doing so. NASCAR is trying to spin that as acceptance of their current-generation race car, but it’s not quite working because just about everyone still hates the car and the racing it’s brought about. But instead of trying to fix the car (or scrap it, as I think they should do), NASCAR tried to bait the teams into doing their homework for them.
schrodingers_cat
@Glory b: Thanks for chiming in, sometimes it gets very lonely here.
Martin
@The Audacity of Krope: I didn’t say Harris didn’t have a policy, I said Democrats don’t. Showing up in September as one person advocating a policy isn’t nothing, but it’s not a position of the party overall.
Democrats are still suffering from being viewed by a lot of independents as friends of the bankers, left over from 2008. It needs more than just Harris throwing out a technocratic solution to a subset of the housing problem to fix that. There needs to be a broader narrative on housing access and affordability out of the party that I have not seen, I think in part because they do get a lot of money from that industry, and in part because advocating for housing prices dropping is very tricky when you have a lot of voters that have equity in their homes. It’s going to require a sustained effort and not some add-on campaign promise. It doesn’t help that the places with the worst housing problems are blue states with Democratic governors and legislatures. And it doesn’t mean that this is the fault of Democratic policies, but it does mean that Democrats have broadly failed to address the problem. I’ve been supportive of Newsom’s efforts here in CA, but they haven’t been enough. They need to take bolder action.
Martin
It does not matter. If you campaigned in 2024 that Trump represented an existential threat to the nation, to Democracy, you fight on every front. You certainly don’t find a reason to vote for that threat after the election.
I would argue that those votes are why Democrats are so pissed off with their elected officials right now.
The Audacity of Krope
Yes, this
OMG, so much this.
Jay
In the current MSM and Social Media environment, the Democratic Party Platform and policies can be as conservative or progressive as you want.
It simply won’t be reported on or make it into the American conscience.
If you read the “Letters to the Tsar” in the r/Leopards reddits, well, the mass of ignorance, propaganda and delusions that the Democratic Party has to break through just to get the normies, is stunning.
no body no name
You can’t advocate for the economic interests of the working class and poor while protecting and advocating for the educated professional class. The Democrats have chosen educated professionals which means the majority of the country gets peanuts. They are justified in not liking the Democrats. At the same time social issues do not cost educated professionals anything and allow them to wash away their sins. The loudest shouts to shut up about economics because that’s throwing a group under the bus are from educated white professions. Everyone sees straight through that now. Then these same educated professional whites scream at those they screw over to get inline, don’t ask for a damn thing, and if they dare mention anything that might offended well off educated white social liberals economic mindset the Nazis win.
I say this as a member of two groups marked for death by the GOP. People realize we suck. They realize we are liars. They realize we cannot be trusted. They realize we are a protection racket for upper middle class educated professionals in the best zip codes employed in the industries (tech, finance, consulting, law, media) that ruined the entire country and we made money doing it.
I don’t know how we fix it. But fixing it requires us giving up a ton. Power, money, and influence among it. And if we are not willing to do that we are going to get fascism good and hard and we will own the blame as much as the GOP.
Professor Bigfoot
@schrodingers_cat: You are absolutely not alone.
But we do have to accept that there is nothing the Black, Jewish, and female led Democrats can do to please the white men who constantly criticize them.
Professor Bigfoot
@Jay: For a significant fraction of White America, the Democratic Party is the party of pedophiles, Communists, adrenochrome addicts— whatever utterly ridiculous calumny you can think of; and they’re willing to believe this.
Just like Boston believed Charles Stuart. Like they believed Susan Smith.
The Audacity of Krope
@Professor Bigfoot: All criticism of Democrats, of course, coming exclusively from white men.
I won’t bother you with stories of my efforts to get my roommates to vote…for anyone at all. Or, for that matter, with descriptions of the composition of my household.
Don’t want to undermine your theory. I’m mostly with you on this, but you might be overstating a bit here.
WTFGhost
@lowtechcyclist: Frankly, the funniest way to get rid of him would be to start slowly turning up the Covid-Grief ads, and then hold impeachment hearings on his handling of Covid-19 in 2020.
There’s nothing in the Constitution that remotely suggests impeachment is limited to the current term, or the next term, ONLY IF CONSECUTIVE. Trump is once again President; he is once again subject to impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors.
Yes, yes, yes, I know it wouldn’t happen, I mean, *DUH*, that’s why I mentioned his handling of Covid-19, like that would stick!
I just opined that it would be the funniest way for him to go, short of his slipping on shit from his ruptured diaper, and falling and cracking his skull open, so demonic beings would fly out bleeding ichor that tasted like lemon Starburst candies, though it was also highly poisonous, and his last action was to scoop up a big glob of ichor and shove it into his mouth, spilling some into the gaping head wound from which… from which the demons… escaped?
Man. Tough room!
Professor Bigfoot
@The Audacity of Krope: Oh, obviously it’s not ALL white men.
But when 2/3 of white men vote directly for white supremacy and a significant fraction of that remaining third continuously shiv Democrats and insert themselves as much as possible into positions of authority and power in the Party… well, I can’t just ignore that, can I? SHOULD I?
ETA— “There is no horseshoe. There is only white people who are at best uncomfortable with any power being held in Black hands. Those white people are at all points of the ‘left-right’ spectrum.”
I cannot NOT notice how some folks viciously attack the Jewish Democratic leader in the Senate and the Black Democratic leader in the House; and I find it terrifically difficult to believe it to be “mere coincidence.”
The Audacity of Krope
@Professor Bigfoot: Not at all. I didn’t want to challenge you so much on the white men part as the notion that Democrats don’t have work to do with other demographics.
Ksmiami06
@Professor Bigfoot: thank you absolutely destroy them and then bury them in concrete
The Audacity of Krope
Hard to analyze those without delving into counterfactuals and I haven’t yet discovered a way to peer into alternate realities. I don’t know how things would look if Dems didn’t provide enough support for that budget, so I refuse to guess.
Elizabelle
@No One You Know: I think your quote is from Margaret Mead, a sociologist, I think.
Hope requires courage. Yes, yes, yes.
Ramona
@Elizabelle: I too get the heeby jeebies from the things that Martin is pointing out but he’s bringing the receipts. There is no need for despair though. We Dem party backers can intervene at the primary level. We can change the conversation relentlessly speaking of a wealth tax and reversing Citizens United. We can identify and target the donors and criticize them for not backing policies that help us the broad populace. We don’t back the Democratic party simply because it is the Democratic party, we back it because it has been better than the GOP at reducing the misery. We can make it even better by identifying those groups who are in misery and advocating policies to help them. It is a relatively new and insidious idea that the goal of American public education is to replace the training that at one time corporations invested in rather than to educate a citizen to properly evaluate the democracy we live in and vote with wisdom. We have to fight this idea. The American Prospect in my opinion is a magazine that offers sound and detailed policy ideas on what a well-functioning Democratic party should be doing and seems to be fair about when it does deliver. IIRC, they had an article some years ago about how the risk and price of training employees has been transferred from the corporations to the individual and how this has lead to the inflation in credentials where positions which formerly only needed a high school education now demanded a Bachelor’s degree not because the work depended on the degree but because employers have succeeded in transferring the risk and cost of developing their workers entirely onto the individual worker despite getting a result that doesn’t quite match the demands of the tasks at hand.
Colette South
@Steve LaBonne: I’m with y ou on this point. Did you read the NYTimes Editorial Board’s long article today: “There is a Way Forward. How to Defeat Trump’s Power Grab.” The last third, especially, was quite impressive in its eloquence and optimism.
Elizabelle
@Ramona: Walking the pup. Back soon.
Elizabelle
@Ramona: Great comment! Agree w you. Hope is courage.
And yes re employee training. I don’t blame Europe if they are pointing and laughing at us. On many fronts, alas.
Kayla Rudbek
@Bill Arnold: and hopefully fired for cause and jailed
Elizabelle
@Kayla Rudbek: have been late to threads you are in, but am delighted to hear you got a clean bill of health.
Jay
@Ramona:
@Elizabelle:
In a bunch of “specialties”, you need to get “certs”. get “credentialed”. These are done by “associations”, evening classes, and aren’t cheap. For minor stuff, (forklift driver) eg, it can be just one class per model, but you need to renew every 3 years. For other stuff, 6 or more courses, taken one after another in sequence, and then one more course every year, to keep your certs. Quite often the “new” course required, is a rehash of what you previously learned and do every day.
My CPIM cost me, back in the late 80’s and 90’s, about $3800, and another $415 a year to keep. My PMAC cost about $4900 and costs about $550 a year to keep.
Back in the day, it cost me nothing to drive forklifts from pickers, to 5 ton Hysters. Then a “license” was required, a 2 day course, ( Company paid, and paid the weekend overtime), the license was supposed to be “good forever”, now, you pay, $365 per model class, a 1 day course, good for 3 years only, $2599 for all the classes I have driven since the late 70’s. Now they have added in, that if the Employer paid for the courses, the Employer “owns” the license.
Ramona
@Elizabelle: I’m pleased you found my comment great. What kind of a dog do you have?
Ramona
@Jay: The Employer owns the license=travesty! That they can rely on the work of a reliable operator does not suffice for The Employer?
The Audacity of Krope
@Ramona: God forbid some small percentage of employees might take that license they paid for and go work for someone else.
Jay
@Ramona:
@The Audacity of Krope:
One of the reasons I quit my last job, was that I was supposed to go to Toronto for a week of training on inspecting, using and repairing 3M Safety gear, and get a cert.
The Company wanted me to sign a “undertaking” where if I left for any reason a year after the course, I would repay the Company the costs of the course, airfare, food and accommodations.
Technically, an illegal “non-compete cause” using loop holes.
I argued it, all the way up the food chain, which did not endear me to my employer and then I quit.
Basically, what that episode told me was that with that training, I would be a much more valuable employee, and others would pay me much more for my skills.
chemiclord
@Interesting Name Goes Here: If the Bulwark had reported that Jeffries had said something like, “Listen, if you go to El Salvador, keep in mind you’ll be going into an authoritarian country that will be at best passively hostile to you with a U.S. President that likely will not help you if something goes wrong,” I’d believe that.
But of course, the Bulwark had to go for the sensationalist piece with no nuance and was guaranteed to stir ire.