This was mildly depressing to read first thing in the morning:
Senate Democrats have invited New York Times columnist Ezra Klein and Democratic data guru David Shor to talk to senators at their annual one-day issues retreat on Wednesday, sources tell Axios.
Why it matters: Democrats are still processing how they lost the 2024 election and are looking for new ways to appeal to a changing electorate that neither party clearly owns.
I guess the quest for One Weird Trick that doesn’t involve voters suddenly developing better critical thinking skills, a greater sense of civic responsibility or becoming less bigoted or whatever is inevitable.
But at this moment, I like Josh Marshall’s suggestion better: Focus on discrediting Republicans at every turn. Drive up their negatives. Oppose, oppose, oppose. Marshall uses Iowa as an example, but it’s broadly applicable: (gift link)
With this in mind, if I were in charge of any Democratic electoral operations my goal right now would be to be investing a lot of money in doing everything possible in Iowa to discredit the Trump White House with a view toward defeating Sen. Joni Ernst next year. (Not solely in Iowa, but it’s a place where the logic and opportunities are among the clearest.) Right now, the Trump White House is playing havoc with the farm sector from countless different directions — gutting the FDA and the USDA and various loan programs that facilitate family farming. They’re also gutting the Veterans’ Administration as well as various health care programs that support older Americans and rural voters. The White House is giving Democrats quite a lot to work with…
The DC discourse tells us that the Democrats lost in 2024 because their party became too “woke” and identified with purported elite concerns about trans rights, DEI, “open borders” and the like. The truth, I think, is a bit different. The reality of the 2024 election is that there was concentrated public unhappiness with inflation, the high cost of living and other dislocations tied to the aftermath of the pandemic. Republicans were able to make the case with a key slice of voters that Democrats were indifferent to the cost of living because they were so focused on pronouns and DEI. That notorious Trump ad (“Kamala is for they/them. I am for you”) I think captures this…
Obviously, anti-trans voters ate this ad up. But I think it’s real power comes in that message about, who are you for? Who do you care about? Trans rights supporters make a very good point when they point to polls which show most voters are not anti-trans. Where things break down is on the question of salience. If Republicans can successfully make the argument that Democrats don’t care about cost of living challenges facing the majority of Americans because they’re hyper-focused on trans issues or making sure trans women can compete in women’s sports, that’s a big problem. You change that misunderstanding or perhaps you get the party to change less by holding performative intra-party battles than simply by driving up the salience of different issues through the act of being an opposition.
I’m not even sure you have to drive up the salience of “different issues” because the economy is already worse due to the ceremonial head of state’s trademark chaos and the wrecking ball his top campaign donor took to U.S. agencies. People are even more unhappy about the economy now than they were last year. It’s unlikely to get better since the idiots running the country are actively wrecking things.
Meanwhile, Trump keeps stomping on his own dick. This week, he’s mumbling about how parents should give children fewer dolls — a weird line he keeps waddling out to repeat. And Commerce Secretary Nutlick [sic] is on TV yapping about future American jobs that involve screwing in tiny little screws and multigenerational factory toil.
And the voters who are most detached from politics? The nitwits who broke hard for Trump because they were mad about eggs and gas prices? Looks like they’ve discovered that hot stoves are HOT barely 100 days into Trump’s second term:
New piece: Trump’s approval rating among low-engagement voters has fallen 30 points since Jan, the worst decline for any group. The GOP’s big advantage with hard-to-reach voters has evaporated as economic turmoil & toxic politics turns them away from Trump
www.gelliottmorris.com/p/what-do-di…— G Elliott Morris (@gelliottmorris.com) May 6, 2025 at 8:09 AM
The economy aside, there are a whole lot of new issues Democrats can add to the pile of stuff to hang around Trump and Republicans’ necks. Making it hard for seniors to access Medicare service is unpopular. Blowing up U.S. biomedical research is unpopular. Gutting the VA is unpopular.
Enshittifying FEMA is unpopular. Making airline travel less safe is unpopular. Running crypto scams from the White House while people struggle to afford housing is unpopular (or would be if people knew about it).
Anyway, I think Marshall has a point. Less navel-gazing, more vilifying the villains.
Open thread!
PS: Bird bonus: these lovely Black-Bellied Whistling Ducks stopped by this morning.
We hear them fly by a lot — as the name suggests, they whistle! But it’s always a thrill when they actually stop by and say hello.
Big Win in North Carolina!
The Audacity of Krope
The notion that Democrats are obsessed with trans people when most of their actions on this front have been responses to a steady stream of Republican assaults on this community…is perverse.
These people truly live in upside-downy-world.
Mathguy
First? Nope, second.
Since it’s an open thread:
I received spam from WaPo announcing proudly that WaPo won 2 Pulitzers. One of those went to Ann Telnaes. Too bad she doesn’t work there any more after leaving due to censorship by…WaPo.
What sleazy shitheads Bezos and Co. are.
NaijaGal
@The Audacity of Krope: Targeted Facebook ads that convince middle aged voters that up is down and blue is red. I found this out from my sister-in-law who gets most of her political news indirectly through FB. I was shocked.
Matt McIrvin
@The Audacity of Krope: It’s the “stop hitting yourself” election tactic and it works like a charm.
Step 1: pick a small, defenseless minority and start stomping on them in an outrageously cruel manner.
Step 2: “Democrats are too busy trying to keep me from stomping on this defenseless person to care about you!”
Democrats clearly aren’t the ones obsessed with this minority, the bullies are. But you can make it about anybody.
cain
Need to recruit folks in red counties to start holding town halls. This is the way. I don’t know what Ezra Klein brings to the table. I mean they are a NYT reporter, how much do they know about anything about anywhere in this country?
Baud
@cain:
Same. Frankly, I would feel that way about a progressive pundit too. What do pundits really know?
The Audacity of Krope
@NaijaGal: Never mind the “entertainment” shows that Fox airs every night, they bang on the unreality drum relentlessly.
suzanne
I think this is a perfect example of how we can have multiple messages to voters and not “throw anybody under the bus”. Some voters are more interested in their personal financial situations, and we should be able to talk to them directly. Other voters will be activated by other messages and that’s fine.
Geminid
Syrian leader al-Sharaa is heading to Paris tomorrow; from Syrian media site Levant24:
In other Syria news, the first passenger flight from Jordan in over 10 years landed at Aleppo International Airport this morning.
Baud
Marshall’s take seems to suggest that there’s nothing we could have done, since the reasons we lost were well outside our control.
jonas
@Mathguy: Reminds me of the classy admins at Penn who tried to tout one of their professors winning the Nobel Prize for medicine a few years ago — after the school had denied her tenure.
prostratedragon
@cain: They could hold one in Mike Lawler’s district.
Baud
While I understand the short term goal of winning the next election, I don’t know how we combat the increasingly problematic situation of voters grading Republicans on a curve.
Jeffro
I have to agree. People are looking for folks who’ll try to make their lives better, not actively make things worse. This pack of goons shouldn’t be too hard to villify
Someone noted yesterday that the trump campaign had some really dumb “TRUMP LOW TAXES/KAMALA HIGH TAXES” yard signs everywhere last fall. Maybe we don’t need to overthink this a whole lot?
“DEMS FIGHT FOR YOU/TRUMP LIES AND STEALS” is a good start
Scott
Here in the Houston area, we get the black-bellied whistling ducks flying in and wintering. There were a lot of them until about mid April. Most have moved on. To where, I know not.
NaijaGal
@The Audacity of Krope: She doesn’t watch Fox News and voted for Kamala but was saying some weird stuff, so I probed a little.
ExPatExDem
I like Ezra Klein well enough, but maybe inviting one of the usual suspects from the Boston to DC corridor isn’t the best way to get a pulse on the national electorate.
Just sayin’.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Agree 100%.
bbleh
@The Audacity of Krope: @Matt McIrvin: and alas, what issue is then in the media nearly every single day? Trans people. Not the growing economic catastrophe, not the destruction of American science and technology, not the gutting of American healthcare.
Republicans dangle bait, and Dems rise to it every time.
As Marshall suggests, they should not do this. Rather than take the bait, Dems should angrily reject it — “there they go again, peddling their HATRED, instead of focusing on the REAL problems facing Americans like the ECONOMY and HEALTHCARE — problems REPUBLICANS are making WORSE! Just LOOK at what they’ve done …” etc and so on.
Attack, attack, attack. Yes it’s one of the Rovian mantras, but in a situation like this, it’s way better than dropping into a crouch and whining.
Baud
If that’s a paste from Axios, it doesn’t say directly that Klein will talk about why we lost. Schor might, since he’s a data person.
Mathguy
@jonas: I’m a Penn alum, so that makes it extra amusing. The Penn administration is nothing if not shameless and scummy.
Cathie from Canada
Sometimes I am still amazed at how much racism and sexism affect US politics.
Basically, Kamala lost because millions of Americans decided not to vote for a Black woman for president. You could almost feel the electorate turning in late October. Instead they picked the Golden Calf, who told them whatever they wanted to hear and who reflected their own needs and wants.
Even Democrats in Washington seem to feel that pull, they deeply want bipartisanship so they convince themselves Trump will want that too as long as they treat him nicely. And now they seem to be thinking they don’t really need to do anything difficult or unpleasant because the Midterms will save them.
I hope they are right but I fear they are not.
Baud
@jonas:
Can’t have a DEI hire.
prostratedragon
On the one hand,
On the other hand,
stinger
Turn their perceived strengths into weaknesses. Like Republicans did with John Kerry’s THREE Purple Hearts.
Belafon
I suspect there were quite a few “Why are you worried about the Jews when the economy is bad?” attacks in Germany back in the day.
Belafon
@Baud: The true problem is that she didn’t have a man around to take the credit from her.
Baud
That’s who Senate Dems should invite to their shindig.
Moondoggus
I tend to agree with Josh on this; for whatever reason, the white working class views the Democrats as corrupt and focused on minorities. Interestingly, the ones I talk to think the Republicans are corrupt as well. They think that Trump, and I guess by extension, Musk, are not corrupt because “They don’t need the money.”
I do not agree with them, and when we talk about this I tend to gain traction when I point out that Trump’s whole line of business is selling his brand. The man is literally for sale.
Democrats can do a MUCH better job of messaging; we tend to use way too many words. For example Chris Van Hollen’s statement about Abrego Garcia started off well, in that he said he’s not defending the man, he’s defending his rights. But then he got lost in technicalities. He should have said, and by defending his rights, I’m defending your rights., in fact EVERY AMERICAN’S rights that are in our Constitution. Trump and the Republicans don’t respect the Constitution and they don’t respect the American people.
Gov Walz gets it. Instead of Ezra Klein the Democrats should listen to Walz. Tie Republicans to Trump every chance we get. Republican Recession. Republican tax hikes for ordinary Americans and Tax cuts for Musk and Bezos.
We need to use a crisis communication strategy
No more than 3 points. No more than 27 syllables. Then shut up, because after that the people stop listening and start thinking.
zhena gogolia
@stinger: Don’t forget his Silver Star.
The Audacity of Krope
@bbleh: Yes, but we can attack without ignoring the plight of trans people. Dems are doing work on economic issues and civil rights issues. It is a lie they are ignoring one for the other and it should be forcefully pointed out as a lie every time.
Baud
@Moondoggus:
This is why I disagree with people who think Dems could have gained traction by attacking rich people more. Too many people admire the rich, rather than feel persecuted by them. That may change by 2028, however.
Steve LaBonne
I don’t usually engage with the inside baseball stuff but Christ, Klein and Shor? Kill me now.
Bupalos
I’m a bit more for the broader navel gazing than the tactical politics, but both have to happen and aren’t in any way exclusive. And there is a strain within the “abundance” (ick) schtick ,which Klein has been hired to help hock, that does need to be heard: namely, that government bureaucratic paralysis is sucking the life out of effective governance. It presents a huge, long-term systemic threat to progressive goals and democratic freedom. The right-wing populist realignment is largely a result of us playing on a field that tilts further and further away from us in this sense. It’s creating a thirst for authoritarianism.
We can’t make education better and lower the number of mentally and economically vulnerable people we loose every June into the civic bloodstream. We can’t regulate the internet. We can’t reduce greenhouse gasses. We can’t lower the cost of living or improve inequality. Winning elections seems to be mostly a recipe for proving what we can’t do. This doesn’t mean you get blasé about winning elections, but we better give some time to thinking about things like our failure to implement the IRA.
suzanne
@Baud:
Exactly right. They feel much more persecuted by the HR department and by liberals who say they shouldn’t get to use the R-word.
Jeffro
“Tax the rich. Just because” polls pretty well, actually
The Audacity of Krope
@Baud: I’d argue that no one gets that kind of money without being fatally corrupt.
Baud
@Jeffro:
It doesn’t move votes.
Gun regulation polls well too.
Belafon
@Bupalos: We still have to indicate to the people in the party that we know that they have special concerns – especially related to bigotry of all types – and we are still going to fight for them. But the party needs to figure out how to say “If any group loses their rights, then you will eventually lose yours.” Then again, Trump is trying to prove that for us right now.
linnen
@Moondoggus:
A Modern Zen Koan for you;
“If the Democratic party has a message but the National Media refuses to cover it, did the Democrats speak at all?”
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: Silver Star?! A real hero would have a Gold Star.*
*Yeah, I know.
Baud
Omnes Omnibus
@Belafon: Stop advocating hyper-identity politics.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m pretty sure Trump sells those now.
Baud
Bupalos
@Baud: I can’t actually think of any politician outside Bernie and AOC that have made raising taxes on the rich a cornerstone of their political identity. There’s no way to know what things move votes unless you put that thing up front and center in a campaign.
The standard democratic line on this stuff is a highly diluted version of “ask wealthier Americans to pay their (undefined) fair share.” It’s always under their breath and made to sound like what it is – a likely meaningless adjustment to which loopholes they’ll need to use.
MoCaAce
“Black-bellied whistling ducks”? Really? We know you made that up!
Marie de Gournay
After he spend last summer writing masturbatory columns fantasizing about the Democrats kicking out their president, Ezra Klein can fuck off to Alpha Centuri minor.
Manyakitty
@Jeffro: really good idea. Now if only the Democratic leadership would listen.
pajaro
@cain:
The DNC has been doing town halls in red districts. It’s one of their new initiatives.
Dagaetch
I think Democrats feel on some level that they have to win on the basis of their ideas, when in reality, all that matters is making sure the other party loses. Then we can do the things and make people’s lives better, and who really gives a damn if they voted for us because they wanted better healthcare or because they were disgusted with Trump. It’s become fairly clear that ideas simply don’t win elections.
Baud
@Bupalos:
I’m sorry, I’m not asking anyone to make it part of their “political identity.” Dems promise a more progressive tax system, Republicans promise tax breaks for the rich, and the issue doesn’t move votes.
Also, too, Bernie failed to win the nomination twice and AOC has only won a heavily Dem district in NY. So we don’t have much evidence as to whether their “political identity” on taxes would move votes against Republican candidates.
linnen
I find the election’s “economic anxieties” to be a modern day “We are talking about good schools and bussing, not integration and race.”
If people respond to surveys with ‘the economy is bad’ at the same as spending like they actually believe the economy is doing well, that does not lead one to conclude the Democrat’s problems is with the economy. And if the media always buries any economic news that helps Democrats and any Democratic messages / policies about the economy, they are not making things better with constant front page ledes of “Democrats are bad for the Economy!”
Baud
@Dagaetch:
I don’t disagree, but we’re inundated with messages that people “need something to vote for.”
JoyceH
@Baud: people admire the rich when the economy is good. When the economy is bad but their taxes keep going up while the rich people’s taxes keep going down, they start wanting to behead them. Hey, it’s happened.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Baud: Put another way: a sign saying “Tariffs are taxes! Tax the rich!” isn’t going to work.
suzanne
@Dagaetch:
Agree.
The Democratic Party, and politics in general, is first and foremost a vehicle for amassing political power. Anything we do to try to get voters to be better people (even if they should get more educated about the checks and balances, or learn what a control group is, become less racist, whatever)….. is simply not going to work and we do damage to our goals in the meantime. It’s like telling people that they should lose weight and probably would be about as successful.
zhena gogolia
@Marie de Gournay: Right on.
The Audacity of Krope
Emphatically.
Belafon
@Dagaetch: The hard part is that we have a election-deciding number of people on our side that only vote on “has the Democratic party motivated me”.
Bupalos
@Belafon: I agree completely and have voiced the same thing elsewhere. There’s an important extension to the point here – if people don’t believe you can be effective, they won’t care much whether you’re signaling that you’re going to fight for them or not. It’s like the Cleveland Browns promising to try and get you a Lombardi trophy for your shelf. You can believe they’d like to… but so what?
We’re entering an era of politics where the idea of getting the things you want out of government as it exists seems increasingly discredited. We can maybe tactically beat Trump and Republicans in the next elections…I tend to think we will via their own self-immolation. How that becomes anything more than another setting of another stage for another authoritarian, probably a more competent authoritarian…. That’s something we have to start thinking about now.
Miss Bianca
Ezra fucking Klein, who led the “Joe’s Gotta Go” brigade.
Fucking Democrats.
That’s all I gotta say for this morning, it is pissing down snow here. Grumble.
Baud
@Miss Bianca:
Maybe the Senate Dems will go all “Murder on the Orient Express” on him.
A guy can dream.
scav
There are days I am thankful to remember I am actually not in charge of the bus.
I am not driving it.
I am not in charge of changing the brake pads.
I am not tasked with choosing the music.
I didn’t build the landscape or the road.
I am certainly not in charge of correcting the passengers’ world view, dress sense and private lives.
I can put on whatever passes for a seat belt on the damn thing and shout suggestions in certain instances, but at other times I’m just adding to the general din / confusion and not influencing the driver or strengthening the brakes by howling.
Today may be one of those days.
Baud
@JoyceH:
So when Democrats are in power.
Bupalos
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I don’t get this. Is the idea that taxes have to be either good or bad, and it doesn’t matter in voters minds who the taxes are levied on?
Tax on lower and middle class = Bad, Tax on rich = Good
I think this is what a large majority of people actually believe. What they don’t believe is that the Democrats are going to do anything meaningful about it, because when you put in the category of things you just kind of lightly mention it, that says a lot.
Dagaetch
@Baud: I think we just need to ignore the people saying that. What’s their evidence? Are there truly people out there who would vote for Democrats with detailed policy proposals, but not for Democrats who just talk about how bad Republicans are? Maybe, but I bet we’d convert enough low information voters that we would still win.
bbleh
@The Audacity of Krope: And we certainly should NOT ignore the demonization and oppression of Trans people, nor of immigrants documented and undocumented, nor of children of immigrants born here, nor non-white or non-Christian or other non-heteronormative people, nor nor nor. But we also should not allow Republicans to set the agenda. When a bully is picking on someone weaker, you attack the bully. And maybe you yell about “picking on someone your own size” during the process, but the main point is, you change the subject; you make the BULLY the issue.
New Deal democrat
@prostratedragon:
Thanks for that link. I read the opinion; it is a scathing rebuke of the T—-p Administration’s position. I particularly like how the Judge makes use of the government’s unwillingness to take any action to bring Garcia back, even after the Supreme Court’s opinion.
I believe this cascade of adverse rulings is having a significant effect with two separate audiences:
1. The public, who hears or reads about another such ruling almost every day now. I believe it is an important fact in why T—-p’s approval rating is already poor
2. The Supreme Court, which also must be aware of this steady stream of findings, and – reading the tea leaves – seems unwilling to accept that the Administration is acting in good faith in any of these areas.
suzanne
@Belafon: There’s probably a lot of both types of people. Some want that positive vision stuff. I know a lot of these people. Some are much more self-involved and only care about their bank accounts, and would be far more responsive to REPUBLICANS SUCK messaging.
The good thing is that these can be simultaneously true!
Baud
@Bupalos:
Yep, it says your going to try to get it done. People can choose not to trust us or to trust Republicans but that’s their choice.
Dagaetch
@suzanne: Exactly. I’m fine with think tanks spending their time on policy planning, there’s plenty of wonks out there who can build the policies. Our party and our candidates should be in the business of gaining power, then using the experts to get things done.
As someone who has spent most of my life overweight, excellent analogy.
Redshift
This is what Indivisible has been organizing people to call their reps about since January, and it’s always made a lot of sense to me.
Manyakitty
@Miss Bianca: grey and drizzling here. Guess it’s better than snow. Blech
Hoodie
It’s pretty simple, Dems win when the public views the other party as fuck ups. There’s more to be gained from highlighting Trump’s disasters than from anything Ezra Fucking Klein is offering.
Miss Bianca
@NaijaGal: So, can Dems start crafting ads saying, “Republicans are too obsessed with gutting your SS and Medicare to give billionaires more tax breaks to care about you”? And if they did, would media outlets run them? Would the Trumpenproletariat even notice?
I mean, it does have the advantage (or disadvantage) of being actually *true* going for it…
The Audacity of Krope
@bbleh: 💯
Belafon
I don’t have time to write it right now, but this thread is almost America Ferrera’s character’s speech from The Barbie Movie: “Democrats have to be for the working people, but we can’t imply that we’re for all working people, or whites will think that we’re giving their jobs to minorities. And we have to stand for trans rights, but if we do it too hard, we get accused of putting women in danger.” Someone could definitely do this much better than me.
Baud
@Belafon:
Good reference. It’s this exactly.
Omnes Omnibus
@Manyakitty: Sunny and warm here. I want that one last surprise blizzard.
Bupalos
@The Audacity of Krope: The mistake is to separate the issues instead of unifying them as interdependent parts of freedom.
Freedom requires civil rights for all, and freedom requires an economy that generates prosperity and distributes its gains overwhelmingly to the many instead of the few.
Soprano2
@Baud: I actually think that’s right. It’s not popular to say this here, but I think Biden would have lost even worse than Harris did. We loved him and all the good stuff he was doing, but most people didn’t feel that way. For over a year even Democratic voters were telling focus groups that they wanted someone else to run for president, that they thought he was too old. We didn’t believe that, but we couldn’t convince all the other voters of it. I think Biden was one of the best presidents of my lifetime, but the job took a toll on him that I don’t think he wanted to acknowledge. Whether we could have won with a candidate not associated with the Biden administration is unknowable.
As for Ezra and Co., I think they have some valid points but the problem is that so many of the things they talk about aren’t anything the federal government can do much about. From what I see in my city when it comes to development the problem isn’t rules and regulations, it’s the people living near the places that developers want to develop. We have one long-running dispute about land on one of the busiest intersections in the city, that’s across from one of the two hospitals we have, because the people in the neighborhood behind it are determined to keep it zoned single family housing! There’s another dispute where the city green-lit a housing development because the developer met all of the requirements, but because the lots are smaller than the more expensive subdivision next door the people in that subdivision are pulling out all the stops to keep the houses from ever being built. What can the government do about either one of those situations? When I listened to them be interviewed this was frustrating me, because they never mentioned how hard it is to develop land when there are already people living next to it.
Betty Cracker
Tentative good news from The Hill:
Martin is a clownish hack and a fanatic, and if he indeed gets sidelined, that’s not only good on the merits, it could set off a cascade of positive events. Trump nominated Martin for that job on 1/20. He loves Martin because Martin is a knob-gobbling sycophant who constantly performs stunts for Trump.
I believe Tillis is up for reelection, and if he’s on Trump’s shitlist because Tillis sandbagged Martin, that weakens Tillis against whomever the Dem nominee will be, so maybe there’s a path to taking that seat.
Jeffro
right??
that’s what I was going to respond to Baud’s comment at #38 – it doesn’t move votes…yet…because it isn’t really being tried
Omnes Omnibus
@Bupalos: Ah, you mean like the Harris campaign did?
Jeffro
@scav: I like all of this – very helpful – thank you!
Manyakitty
@Omnes Omnibus: that’s definitely still within the realm of possibility.
Soprano2
@Jeffro: Like I said in the other thread, even here in deep red MO there are stories about different local agencies that are struggling or might even have to shut their doors because of FFOTUS letting Musk fuck around with the money. It’s one thing to think people in those big cities are going to be denied services, but it’s another to hear that the popular local food bank is going to be $3 million short because of suddenly losing federal funds.
Baud
@Soprano2:
I don’t know what would happened in another timeline, but there’s no timeline where a defeat doesn’t discredit us IMHO.
The Audacity of Krope
@Bupalos: Yes, exactly so.
Manyakitty
@Jeffro: we could places bunches around all the diners and such where the “Real ‘Murkins TM” strap on their feedbags. And near gas stations and grocery stores. And churches.
Josie
I have listened to a couple of speeches by Governor Pritzger, and I would wager that he agrees with Josh Marshall. I find him appealing and very inspiring.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Exactly right. All the eat the rich talk only appeals to trustfund brocialists. Who probably like it because they hate their parents. Lots of prominent Berners that fit this description.
The Audacity of Krope
While they did so, the media narrative grotesquely and pervasively insisted otherwise.
I believe one worthwhile mission for the next few years will be the creation and dissemination of sufficiently entertaining educational material on media literacy.
People, as a rule, should know how to independently evaluate claims.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: We have to build our own alternative media. By that I don’t mean people who attack us from the left.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
I would love that, but I’m not sure we have the wherewithal.
schrodingers_cat
Senate Democrats needs to speak to Black Democrats not Ezra Broder Klein and his Luntz wannabe sidekick.
Bupalos
@Omnes Omnibus: Very much so, in that middle part of the campaign. Unfortunately she chose to close more with the message about existential threats to democracy that were correct but in political terms completely ineffective or counterproductive. And in retrospect, I think she was simply dead in the water after “nothing comes to mind.”
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: We have to start somewhere. The RWNJ disinformation complex was not built in a day.
The Audacity of Krope
@Baud: YouTube will let just anyone post.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
It’s a contradictory message to a pack of idiots. Their pea brains will instantly latch on to worst reading of it and think “Ah, those sneaky Democrat’ really want to raise muh’ taxes”
Sure Lurkalot
Someone get Marshall’s message to Elissa Slotkin and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez. I fully realize politicians need to thread the needle with challenging electorates but using Republican talking points (describing Dems as “woke” and “elites”) and bashing your own party (yes, which I fully admit I’m doing here) is tired and counterproductive.
What’s more elite than Trump’s cabinet of multimillionaires and billionaires?
I’d rail on Gavin Newsom but he’s is a lost cause.
Belafon
@The Audacity of Krope: And there are a number of liberals on there. But we do have the problem that a lot of us liberals are still critiquing (or worse) the Democratic party far more than we are Republicans. And that’s fine in a normal political time.
Jeffro
@schrodingers_cat: take a look at that poll I noted upthread and see what you think
Bupalos
@schrodingers_cat: Probably need to do both. Indeed the 8% shift of black men to Trump while running a black candidate is something Dems better get to addressing.
Actually a decent chunk of this offering from Klein and Shor is specifically about the loss of groups that have traditionally powered Dem margins and gives you an idea about what the interaction will probably be like.
Trollhattan
Healthcare in the Age of Trump. LOL, education and credentials? What a tired concept.
If he weren’t in prison, I would have assumed George Santos changed his name to Dr. Nate Ahir.
Betty Cracker
@Josie: This week, I finally heard (most) of the Pritzker speech that caused so much buzz a while back and was also impressed. He’s a billionaire, but he seems like the real deal, a potential “class traitor,” as folks used to call FDR. I thought his message on immigration was excellent.
ExPatExDem
@Bupalos: I’m sure that the reasons are varied, but I don’t think she ever completely shook the “Kamala’s a cop” label, and that it dragged her down.
Geminid
@Sure Lurkalot: There are a couple commenters here living in WA03, Rep. Perez’s district. I wonder how they see her.
The Audacity of Krope
@Belafon: That’s why my suggestion of the type of content, media literacy focused, doesn’t require discussion of candidates. It’s a tool we make available for everyone knowing that we tend to do better with those who are more discerning about their information.
Granted I’ve been talking about this a while. This is certainly something I could attempt all on my own.
I’ve been waiting to find the time but maybe I need to make the time.
Baud
Emily B.
Now Trump’s minions at the EPA are planning to end the Energy Star program, the WaPo reports. The program has saved consumers $500 billion since 1992.
They are taking every opportunity to make life more expensive for average Americans.
(Speaking of going on the attack!)
Baud
Ruckus
@Baud:
Almost all politicians are graded on a curve. Only really bad or really good ones are more likely to be graded rationally. It’s because of the concept of the job. Concept wise you work for everyone, but there will be times when a segment of the people you work with and for will want something that is out of the main direction of most people, but which is still something of importance that is always going to upset some of the population. And the bigger that population the bigger the segments often get. A democracy is almost always going to have some segment pissed off. It’s the nature of a democracy. You can’t make everyone happy. Even if you just print money to give to everyone, some are going to be pissed that a group they don’t like got the same as them and everyone else. It’s humanity. Logic is often rarer than hens teeth.
Randy
I am reading Klein’s book ‘Abundance’ and it is a good read. Republicans are evil and deserve criticism but there is plenty room for improvement for Democrats. They need good messaging but also more appealing policies.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@cain:
Less than nothing…unless you count all the New Dem/New Liberalism types epitomized by people like MattY, Noah Smith, a host of Atlantic writers, etc.
Bupalos
@ExPatExDem: If you listen to Shor’s presentation of it, the decline comes disproportionately from conservative black men who were voting Democratic realigning to their ideological rather than ethnic identity.
It’s a multi-cycle trend now that ethnic identity and its traditional party alignment is losing significant ground to ideological identity.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Baud:
All Shor’s been doing is trying to explain away any responsibility his typical-democratic-consultant-crap might have had in the loss last November.
He doesn’t want to lose those consultant dollars because of any associated loser stink. He’s right down there with Klein, MattY, et al in people we should be skeptical of.
New Deal democrat
@Baud: Perversely, consumers’ retail spending has surged since “Liberation Day,” almost certainly because of front-running to stock up on needed items before the shortages hit:
tradingeconomics.com/united-states/redbook-index
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Marie de Gournay:
Thirded. s_c calls him Ezra Broder Klein for many very good reasons.
I also read something about some other real winners being involved in the topmost post, Larry Summers, Niall Ferguson and a couple of other people (like MattY) who should also put on a rocket and blasted in the specific direction of the Sun.
Miss Bianca
@schrodingers_cat: Agreed.
Bupalos
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I’d like to hear a criticism of the actual data or conclusions in some analytical sense rather than just seeing it dismissed in these terms of attacking the motivations.
If there are folks here that would want to do that this is probably the presentation Shor is going to be giving.
youtube.com/watch?v=Sx0J7dIlL7c
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@schrodingers_cat:
Thank you for pointing out the Shor/Luntz comparison. It’s very apt and had been percolating in the back of my mind for a while.
The Audacity of Krope
@Bupalos: Data can tell you what happened. It can’t tell you right and wrong. That’s my criticism of the data.
geg6
There is no hope for the dimwits in the Senate. Anyone who listens to Ezra fucking Klein is so cut off from the real world that they will never find their way back. Jesus fucking Christ.
Jeffro
it’s funny…I have that very book on my to-read shelf…need to actually open it and get going at some point, though!
it’s supposed to be pretty good
Jeffro
absolutely insane
(well, for people with any sort of conscience, anyway)
chrome agnomen
@ExPatExDem: sure. republicans are all ‘back the blue’, but evidently not the ‘black and blue’.
Baud
@Jeffro:
Josie
@Betty Cracker:
Yes, the long speech is on You Tube and well worth listening to. I just realized I misspelled his name. Should have been Pritzker. Shame on me.
Ruckus
@Moondoggus:
The man is literally for sale.
Well, yes and no.
He wants to sell himself because he has nothing else to sell. His problem is of course that still leaves him with nothing to sell.
But – and it’s a big, round, smelly but, some will buy the crap he’s selling because it effectively hurts some, but others likely more than them. It’s a vicious circle of bullshit. Which of course is all he’s got to sell, because he is who and what he is, which anyone with more sense than a box of Kleenex knows has a very negative value to everyone.
Bupalos
@The Audacity of Krope: That’s a thing one can say about data, but I’m not sure about it’s relevance to political tactical analysis… and I just don’t see much actual evidence in spaces like this that the folks who think they are angry at people like Shor and his data and interpretation actually have a concrete idea of what that data and interpretation even is.
Feels a little knee-jerk anti-intellectual to me.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@The Audacity of Krope:
The data shows drop offs in places that we don’t like or want to see drop offs.
The problem is as you imply, clowns like Klein, Schor and the rest of that crowd see it as a reason to double down on a party built on cosmopolitan, business liberalism aimed overwhelmingly at a white, professional voting block. It marginalizes a lot of the voting blocks we see the decline in like labor, the working poor, education blocks, etc., and shows how vulnerable we are to an attack from the populist right…because we don’t have an effective answer to that because as a Party, we can’t agree on one.
So clowns like Klein simply trot out, in book form, nothing more than rebranded Reaganism only with liberal PR:
prospect.org/economy/2024-11-26-abundance-agenda-neoliberalisms-rebrand/
One must ask themselves why does tired old libertarianism have to keep having a makeover with some empty but pleasant sounding new names, unless it’s a defacto confession they know they’re wrong but are going to continue anyway.
Oh yeah, it’s because most white professional Dem upper class want to be lied to, they don’t want to admit what they believe is unpopular. MattY, Ezra, The Atlantic, et al are just doing fan service for meek hall monitors. The most shocking thing is that many people still take Ezra Broder Klein seriously.
Jeffro
I’m willing to give it a read but…didn’t our presidential candidate talk repeatedly about building 3 million housing units? And $25k in first-time home buyer down-payment assistance? Don’t most Dem electeds talk about changing NIMBY zoning to YIMBY zoning? Restoring the child tax credit that was so successful during the pandemic? Green energy and green energy jobs?
It sounds a little both-sidesy by Klein, but I’ll try to keep an open mind
From the Amazon page for ‘Abundance’:
*hopefully, Klein notes somewhere in the book that government is primarily failing because one of our two major parties is actively trying to sabotage government at every level?
Anyway
??? I thought Lunz came up with catchy memes (or whatever they were called in the pre-internet days). Recasting Estate tax as Death Tax etc
Archon
People happily voted for an evil conman who didn’t even try to hide the fact he was an evil conman with evil and stupid ideas.
As far as I’m concerned we don’t have a messaging problem, we have an American voter problem.
WTFGhost
It’s true – it’s easier to make people dislike the other party, than like either party. It also has the truth on its side; Republican bigotry is vile. Plus, Republicans use negative messaging to liberals; turnabout is not only “fair play,” it’s essential.
schrodingers_cat
@Jeffro: I think that we should stop taking polls as the gospel truth. People’s voting patterns should be given more importance in electoral analysis than the polls. The elections are only polls that matter.
If people actually wanted to tax the rich they would vote D. People lie to pollsters.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Jeffro:
lukewsavage.com/p/the-paucity-of-abundance
thebaffler.com/latest/abundance-mindset-bronzini-vender
The “Abundance” initiative comes out of the Koch network and is nothing more than a rebrand of Reaganism, promoting a vision of progress and prosperity thru free markets and minimal government intervention. It’s closely connected to the Koch Stand Together and the Foundation for American Innovation.
And fucking “yimby zoning” is simply another glibertarian, deregulatory effort that came about from an astroturf movement in CA funded by good ole Peter Theil. But oh how the New Dem/New Liberalism, entitled white, extreme centrists love them their deregulatory policies with liberal PR to hide the end result.
Bupalos
@WTFGhost: The problem is that the kind of overall degradation of social trust and democratic capacity that is implied in both parties striving to out-negative each other actually ends up working to the benefit of one party. And authoritarianism.
The rise of the “double haters” coincides with the rise of Trump. This is a pattern that can be seen across the globe, not just in America.
matt
I saw something about how Republican negatives are going up but we’re not seeing the normal seesaw effect where Democratic positives go up at the same time. So maybe the party does need to work on their branding problems on top of driving up Republican negatives.
Moondoggus
@Jeffro:
I’m waiting for someone to make Tax The Rich a campaign slogan.
Jeff Bezos is spending $600,000,000 on a wedding. He can afford to pay more in taxes.
Melancholy Jaques
@Baud:
How to keep their sweet pundit gigs.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Melancholy Jaques:
That exchange wins the thread!
Baud
@matt:
Our lack of branding is what keeps our support as high as it is.
Moondoggus
@schrodingers_cat:
was Harris running on raising taxes in the rich? If so I missed that
Ohio Mom
@Moondoggus: Yes, Tim Walz would be an excellent choice, Sherrod Brown too. Both are Democrats from flyover states, both understand what the voters in their states think and know and value, what they are angry about and what they hope for.
Ezra Klein follows the news. He started blogging when blogging was a new thing and was able to parlay that into the cushy job he has now. You gotta give him credit for smart career navigation.
But he has no extra insight into current events than Balloon Juicers do, and he is without the knowledge and wisdom gained by being a regular person trying to get by in the world. Saying he’s in a bubble isn’t the half of it.
Sherrod Brown says that one of the reasons he lost this last time is that Ohioans are still mad about NAFTA. I don’t know if that would occur to Ezra “Broder” Klein, unless he read the same piece about Brown I did.
I usually try to give elected Democrats and Democratic leadership the benefit of the doubt but not this time. We really are in a mess if that’s their idea of a guru.
Socolofi
I think the normal collective wisdom from Democrats is that (a) the only thing that matters is elections, and (b) people don’t remember anything except in the 6 months prior to an election. I look at Schumer’s “we sent a strongly worded letter” as exhibit A.
I would love to see Democrats do targeted, medium-outrage ads, especially as they can be run relatively cheaply on appropriate platforms. Don’t say, “TRUMP IS COMING FOR YOUR MEDICARE!” or some other chicken little sky is falling… but just say what Trump HAS done / said, like: “Trump says it’s OK that toys will cost 10 times as much” or “Tourism down 20% over Trump’s trade wars” or (and can’t hammer this one enough) “Trump’s trade war cost your retirement 20%!”
The other thing, and I get that Democrats get exhausted with the number of rabbits, both real and stupid, to respond to — in an interview, Trump was asked about using the military on Canada and Greenland. He kinda said “no” on Canada in a standard politician way, but didn’t rule out conquering Greenland via military force. So they should just be on message saying that it’s outrageous that Trump hasn’t ruled out any military action against allies like Canada and Denmark. For the most part, MAGA won’t care, but the US’ allies in Canada and the EU are listening very, very attentively.
Melancholy Jaques
@Jeffro:
It’s another one of those things where the poll support does not translate to votes. 79% support raising taxes on the rich, but ~50% consistently vote for the party that always cuts taxes on the rich. See also, Support for abortion rights.
WTFGhost
@Bupalos: I never said both parties should try to outnegative each other – merely that failing to try to drive up Republican negatives is trying to fail at the goal, which is win elections for sane people.
It really matters that Trump thinks you can “deport” people to prison, without due process – without anyone checking in on the word of a bigoted administration. The monstrosity isn’t obvious – not when some people insist it would be unfair to paint a monstrous act as monstrous.
UncleEbeneezer
@Baud: Bingo. Especially considering the way people view Dems as the evil Mom who makes them eat their broccoli (while working two jobs and putting a roof over their heads).
geg6
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Every word of this comment is exactly right. Jesus, these assholes are like zombies, intent on eating Democratic brains.
Tim C.
@Belafon: Not sure this is the case. I mean there’s a group of lefter-than-thous who flip between voting and not voting for Democrats. But most of them basically never will vote for Democrats ever. They are addicted to the purtity feeling and are basically “Green MAGA” who cannot connect to political reality anymore. Bernie is basically the cult leader here. While a lot of people understandably argue over AOC, she has been much better at the idea of pushing on Democrats rather than helping Republicans by witholding votes.
Likewise, anyone who says the reasons Democrats lost is because Democrats focused too much on protecting trans people is either a liar, a moron or both.
Ruckus
@Emily B.:
They very likely couldn’t care less about average Americans.
They care, if you can call it that, about them and them alone. Because if they actually cared about others they would likely explode into smithereens from that concept that they should, in any way care about anyone but themselves. It’s one thing that makes them who they are. It also makes having a government that actually thinks/cares about all the citizens immensely important.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Ohio Mom:
Yup.
Our very own Adam S said about a month ago somewhere else:
Once he hit it career wise, I read something else about Little Ezra that seems spot on even from when I was active on Pandagon back in the blogging dark ages:
Old Man Shadow
This does not inspire confidence. What I would really like is for Senate Democrats to hash out what exactly they are willing to fight for. Not just in a safe way. What are the fucking issues… what are your fucking principles that you would risk your job for? What would you risk your life for? What would you stand in front of a MAGA mob yelling, “STOP!” for? And if you really mean what your answer is and it’s under threat now, why aren’t you doing it?
And if the answer is nothing, then don’t run for reelection.
Serving in the Senate is supposed to be an honor and a responsibility, not sitting back and enjoying a club membership.
schrodingers_cat
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I don’t trust EK at all.
Geminid
@Ohio Mom: I doubt if any of those Senators think Esra Klein is a guru. Those Senators have been around the block a few a few times, and I suspect the Kleins and the Shorrs are a dime or dozen to experienced, practical politicians. I consider those two a poor choice for that occasion, but I suspect those Senators were not polled on who they wanted.
UncleEbeneezer
I’d love to see what would happen if we all did this all the time instead of waiting only until once Republicans are already in power. Like instead of tearing down our own President/candidates/party in public, we can (and should) always target Republicans. You wanna talk about Gaza? Ok, let’s talk about Trump/Republicans. You wanna talk about dementia? Ok, let’s talk about Trump/McConnell etc. It really isn’t complicated or difficult to do. We just have to have the fortitude to resist the bait to destroy our own.
zhena gogolia
@UncleEbeneezer: I don’t have much hope of this happening.
zhena gogolia
@Archon: Absolutely.
Bupalos
@Ohio Mom: I really wonder if people here actually listen to Klein. Like, do people think his deal is that he just goes on and spouts his opinions about stuff? His show is 95% bringing on people that have expertise or analysis or experience in a certain sector and exploring their thing.
The funny thing about this post is my first exposure to Ezra Klein was him banging the table for Obama to make Sherrod Brown his running mate. One wonders what our politics would look like today if that had happened. The idea that Klein just doesn’t understand this kind of politics because he’s not a “regular person” really teeters on the edge of anti-intellectualism for me.
I don’t really line up with Klein as far as his version of left political preferences, in the fairly rare instances when he dwells on those, and I do think they tend to reflect a coastal elite preference that is sometimes kinda gross. Especially the obsession with housing, which the coasts don’t seem to realize is also a “let’s continue to depopulate and brain-drain the interior at any and all costs.” But that show is simply one of the few really intelligent and deep places online to encounter a broad range of arguments worth consideration and hear them explored.
With your occasional total howler. I was forced through a whole Ross Douthat thing on mysticism that left me depressed about humanity and wanting a shower.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bupalos: Well, you are obviously our intellectual superior. We are just lucky to have you here.
Bupalos
@Omnes Omnibus: I guess I should walk that back.
StringOnAStick
Here’s a report from wingnuttia: a close friend has fully FOXified parents, and when she told them about the ports being idled, they had barely heard about it. When told that Vancouver B.C. has a lot of the diverted shipping traffic, her mom’s first comment was “oh, maybe they’ll ship it to us from there” until she caught herself and noted that Canada is angry at us and the tariffs. So, slight dawning realizations are happening in FOX-verse, but only from people talking to them from outside. Soon those high prices and missing goods won’t be something than even FOX can paper over.
Josie
@Geminid:
That would be an interesting question. Who decided on those two particular persons? Wouldn’t it be great if there were people designated to ask those interesting questions and find the answers?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@StringOnAStick:
That’s like “peak wingnut”, there is no such thing.
The Audacity of Krope
Suppose that depends whether you think data science or ethics is a more worthwhile intellectual endeavor.
StringOnAStick
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Her parents are conservatives and her dad is reachable, her mom is all in on banning abortion so she is not. Prices cut across the ideological spectrum; leopards, faces, etc. Heavy discontent with prices and scarcity during Covid is going to be the model here, and the scarcity and prices are are going to be worse.
catclub
@NaijaGal:
I am no longer shocked.
tobie
@Miss Bianca: Best joke about Ezra Klein came several years ago when Lakshya Jain retweeted Klein’s post that “everyone he (Klein) knows” is wondering whether it’s right to have kids given climate change, and Jain’s retort was, “Yeah, everyone at an Elizabeth Warren campaign reunion.” I’ve never been able to find this tweet again. Maybe Jain deleted it. Anyhow, I find that Klein often takes his social circle to be representative of the country and that’s unlikely to be the case.
I’m with Betty Cracker: in a country where critical thinking is on the ebb, best to demonize your opponent. Republicans have given Dems plenty of stuff to hit them with.
Rusty
The six reactionary bigots of the Supreme Court decided it’s okey-dokey to kick trans people out of the military. We really can’t expect any help from SCOTUS against Trump.
Ruckus
@Jeffro:
Is he in this for the work or for the money the work gives him?
Now most people work for the money because a lot of jobs really offer not that much if no one makes a profit. Also if a job does not have at least some profit it will most often fail, unless it is a job that gets paid for what it does rather than what gets shipped out the door. Take a lot of government things, say Social Security. This is an entity that takes tax money and gives it to others, often after they stop paying into it. It really does help millions of people to actually give them a retirement fund that buys food and shelter that they may not otherwise have for the entire rest of their lives. Take the VA, which provides healthcare to veterans as one of it’s main duties, often long after they retire and may not have enough to purchase healthcare. And considering the not so great pay for being in the military and the sometimes high cost risk that often happens, having that is often all some vets have.
tobie
@Moondoggus: Maybe I’m in the minority but I really don’t want to hear from Walz again after his disastrous performance on the campaign trail. He so messed up an easy debate. Vance walked all over him because he was tongue-tied and unable to think on his feet. Progressives like to say he was muzzled. I think he just showed he was not ready for prime time.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bupalos: I just find it amusing that you have started equating disagreement with your analysis methods with anti-intellectualism. Quant analysis is useful, but it is not the only valid way to look at problems.
Citizen Alan
@stinger: The moment that I realized I utterly hated the GOP and that there was absolutely nothing redeemable or admirable about them was the 2004 GOP convention, when people walked around sporting purple band-aids while nominating a god-damned draft dodger for reelection.
catclub
@Moondoggus:
That is like someone worth $5M spending $15k on a wedding!
Or someone worth $500k spending $1500.
I suspect there are people worth $500k who spend more than that on a ring.
peanuts.
New Deal democrat
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: The best line about Ezra Klein I ever read was from Philly Inquirer columnist Will Bunch about 10 years ago:
”At this point the only thing separating Ezra Klein from David Broder is six feet of dirt.”
Ruckus
@StringOnAStick:
When they can’t hide them fox just doesn’t mention them, acts like those things don’t exist. Talk about the weather, talk about the sun coming up and down. But there is always something to be pissed about in humanity – even if it is in the news broadcast they are spreading, not necessarily lies but camouflage about something. And BTW they have just a tad of experience doing that.
Redshift
@bbleh:
Yeah, there seems to be a perennial belief among a portion of Democratic electeds that Republicans will try to make us talk about issues that they think are bad for us (which is true), and since they want that, the way to handle it is to avoid giving those issues oxygen and talk about the ones we want to talk about (which mostly doesn’t work.)
There are definitely some things they claim about Democrats that should get a response of “what the hell are you talking about?” But for ones where not responding means not defending people and ideas that we actually do care about, not talking about their BS won’t make it not matter. Not saying it’s always easy, but the right answer is not to argue on their terms and instead talk about what we actually believe, that people should be allowed to be themselves and live as they wish as long as they’re not causing any harm (and made-up scare stories about threats to children that might possible happen somewhere aren’t “harm.”)
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Bupalos:
Classic right wing, libertarian framing right there, the government is the problem, not the solution. It’s always a cover for the usual right/glib deregulatory agenda (which all the New Dem/New Liberalism clowns also love to death). When the framing starts out that way, it’s simply another effort to get somebody to accept that as the point of departure for discussion. It ain’t, so as Steve Gilliard would say, we’re not here to debate, we’re here to stop.
Since you listen to Little Ezra (you’re not alone, plenty of people here do), you’ll probably have heard that his main inspiration for the latest rebrand of Reaganism in his book was a Niskanen Center (libertarian DC think tank that produces predictably libertarian crapola) paper called “Cost Disease Socialism”.
The paper is what you’d expect from them with the added intellectual heft of using MattY blog posts as references.
Yeah, every (D) should listen to him and his “intellectual” compatriots.
HopefullyNotcassandra
Agree! Agree! Agree!
What this president is not stealing, he is destroying.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@cain: I don’t know. I do know Mr. Klein was blaming democrats for policies brought to California by the Howard Jarvitz taxpayer association. That association is about as rightwing as this country used to get. I stopped listening to Mr. Klein’s book tour after that. There is a record he could check.
Citizen Alan
@The Audacity of Krope: To be fair, you can become a billionaire either by being utterly corrupt or by simply being related to someone else who became a billionaire by being utterly corrupt but whose heirs were not such a spendthrifts as to blow it all. I am finally overcoming my distrust for JB Pritzker because, after research, all I can find about his family is that their fortune largely came from Hyatt Hotels, which is horrible re: unions and labor, and that the family briefly owned Ticketmaster. The Pritzkers seem to be, at worst, the Diet Coke of Evil.
Martin
I’m not sure how you poll for this but I suspect that the broader shape of the economy is also a problem. What I mean is not top-line metrics like GDP and unemployment, but how the economic benefits are distributed, who the economy is centered on, how much of a hassle participating in the economy is, etc. These are difficult things to measure but I’ve been hearing things along these lines stated in focus groups for a while. You get observations around things like fairness, feelings of exclusion, and so on. So, vibes, basically.
Redshift
@matt:
They do before the midterms, but the only thing that’s going to throw sand in the gears of the rest of Project 2025 before then is to make Republican/Trump ideas and actions unpopular enough that congressional GOPers are worried about losing. (Yes, that won’t work on the most hardcore gerrymandered ones, we’re not talking about all of them, just enough.) I think too many of our electeds are still sticking with the “just make it to the midterms” thinking, instead of getting that opposition by any means possible is better for not inheriting a smoking ruin of a government and for winning.
feebog
I read Marshall’s piece yesterday and it made a lot of sense. Trump and Republicans are digging themselves a huge hole. Democrats should eagerly be handing them a larger shovel. A day should not go by without a prominent Dem loudly pointing out that the Republican congress could stop Trump’s tariff madness at any time. They are just too chickenshit to step up to the plate.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Bupalos: the Supreme Court massages every issue to get the political result the cons want. That is our problem. To address that problem, we must win big.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Redshift: once more I wholeheartedly agree
robtrim
The Dems have a simple message that they could use against Trump and the GOP:
“They (the GOP and Trump) don’t care about you! They don’t care about you!
And then simply enumerate the long list of ways that the GOP has acted to protect the rich and corporations, to damage the middle class economy, to interfere with common sense regulation (clean air, clean water, consumer protection), to tear into the health care safety net, to reduce aid to those suffering from storms, tornadoes, hurricanes, and an out of control climate, to get a decent education, to see to it that the Constitution is protected and defended.
That would just be a starting point. George Carlin pointed this all out decades ago,
lowtechcyclist
@bbleh:
This.
I won’t say everyone hates bullies, but the people who don’t, well, we can do without their votes.
Baud
I wish the Dems would make more of an effort to be appealing to me.
Bupalos
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I’m not speaking for this “abundance” stuff as whole here, I can tell I have a big problem with a hole it has at it’s center. But I don’t think this is right:
“Classic right wing, libertarian framing right there, the government is the problem, not the solution.”
I mean, whether or not the abundance-heads are infected with this, it’s not what I’m saying. Government is not the problem, the way government has been paralyzed is the problem. Part of that paralysis is bureaucratic, but this paralysis isn’t inevitable or unchangeable. Another part of it is regulatory capture and the role of money in politics as deliberately disabling.
But I think we better acknowledge it, because it’s simply real. We had several hundreds of millions of dollars in hand to build out EV charging networks. We built about 100 total. In 2 years. We had tens of billions for half cost and free heat pump programs. 2 years later, no programs were operational other than at trial levels in 2 states. Now they’re dead. This has fed and will feed a basic credibility and trust problem that will lead to authoritarian political outcomes. And people just won’t care what you promise or who you say going to fight for. If you demonstrate you can’t do it, that all you can do is talk about it, democracy will continue to decline and authoritarians will prosper.
lowtechcyclist
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
I was listening to people who were Better Than Ezra all the way back in the ’90s. ;-)
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Bupalos: I don’t disagree with you about the paralysis. I simply believe it flows from our Supreme Court.
Our Supreme Court took a law that specifically said the Secretary of Education could modify any or all student loans in whole or in part and rendered that law down to
No, the Secretary of education cannot modify this many loans! while the justices claim they are “textualists.”
Textualism was always a rightwing joke anyway, but the major questions doctrine beats that joke hands down.
Our paralysis is no matter how excellent our laws, this court will invent a way to strip them bare and leave us with nothing. All while the court intones that transgender military members are not irreparably harmed by separation from the military and women have no reliance interest in Roe. The court is full of straight up nonsense.
AM in NC
@bbleh: 100% this. Deflect their talking point and turn it around on them. Then go after their perceived strengths and knock them down a few pegs. Rove is odious, but he wasn’t wrong on tactics.
Martin
@Bupalos: I find Klein’s argument to basically be some warmed over neoliberalism, but I think there’s some truth in the bureaucratic paralysis. And a lot of that is just basic politics. The one I go to a lot is the Child Tax Credit under Covid that was really well implemented and stands as a contrast to most other safety net programs. It was implemented as UBI – a monthly check to everyone with a kid that was clawed back for high income earners when they filed. Its means tested but on the back end, which means you can implement it really quickly and broadly, and don’t fuck over the people who had a job last year but lost it this year.
I think we got a sensible program because it was Covid and even Republicans didn’t feel like they needed to tie bureaucratic anchors to it like they do other programs, but Democrats need to at least champion how government can work efficiently when given the opportunity. And Democrats do sometimes undermine their own efforts. Here in CA one contributing reason we haven’t seen as much low-income housing built is that legislators put a requirement for union labor on many of their initiatives, and there aren’t that many unionized developers. It’s a good sentiment, but it’s putting the cart before the horse.
chemiclord
I think the Democrats have “learned” that if you aren’t going to be rewarded for actually doing things… then why do anything?
schrodingers_cat
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: You are not serious, MattY’s blogposts as references for “scholarly work”. Newton wept.
WTFGhost
@Tim C.: Yes, but to hammer back my own point, the problem isn’t entirely that Democrats did or didn’t protect trans folk – they were perceived as protecting trans folk.
When I mention driving up negatives, we want to message how Republicans want to force transfolk to the closet – “they’ll be afraid to reveal their depravity, because if they do, they’ll never be able to use a toilet!”
Some will be “okay, fine, that’s the point,” but, others will say “what BS, that’s the kind of thing the liberals think we do!” until they hear friends and relatives repeating a punchline from the ad – that won’t make them vote Democratic (whatever their final choice, it won’t be that one single ad!) but it will make them feel a bit ickier about voting Republican than they might otherwise, and that might get them to stay home.
matt
@UncleEbeneezer: That is the problem, is that the Democrats have that brand.
Melancholy Jaques
@Old Man Shadow:
I want all Democrats to do this. I’m sure I’m annoying with this, but Who are the Democrats? What do they stand for? are the two big questions that we are letting everyone except us answer for us.
That Marie Frusenglädjé Perez person talks about Democrats as if she isn’t one, they instead of we. I guess she is the only way we hold that seat, but I don’t have to like it.
The things we stand for, including standing up for trans persons, are good & morally right. We have to make the case as to why it’s good & morally right, not assume everyone can see that. Same with immigrants – authorized or not. We Democrats need a comprehensive plan for immigration reform & we need it to be simple enough to explain to dunces, dolts, dullards, and dumbells. It’s going to have include paths to citizenship, especially for Dreamers, & if people want to spazz over amnesty, then fucking explain why that is the best thing to do.
matt
@Redshift: I have to push back a little here – if Democrats look like they are positioned to actually win in some districts then they become a more appealing counterparty for deals in defiance of the administration. There needs to be thunder to steal
Bupalos
@Martin: I haven’t really engaged with the “abundance” stuff, I think I have a kind of intuition it’s going to make me throw up. Because we are smack dab in the midst of the greatest abundance the world has ever seen, the whole issue being that the way this ridiculously huge (and unsustainable) abundance is being divided up is just flat making humans and humanity and society worse.
But yeah. The child tax credit is a great example of what government can be and do, stripped of all the disabling bureaucratic bullshit. The IRA HEEHRA is the inverse poster-child. Household’s were supposed to get $8000-16,000 to reduce energy bills while doing climate action… but now add some bureaucracy to make sure there’s no ‘waste, fraud, and abuse’ and suddenly you’ve spent a half billion and no one got anything.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@schrodingers_cat:
I hope you realize I was turning my sarcasm knob up to 11 with that sentence.
And yet, we have a wide swath of self-professed progressives who lap up that shit and re-spew.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Melancholy Jaques:
Oh, she’s a classic Klein/MattY/Smith/New Dem/New Liberalism “Democrat”. They’re the most racially tone deaf people in our “coalition” so it’s not surprising she’s got no problem throwing a few trans people under the bus given who she see’s as her base.
She definitely falls into the “more” Democrats when going back to the “more and better” Dems trope of the Aughts.
Bupalos
@HopefullyNotcassandra: We could win small, jettison the filibuster, and expand the court.
Unfortunately for that to be politically viable longer term, the court has to do something that the populace doesn’t like. And for the most part, they haven’t meaningfully done that. Dobbs was close but the actual result (since states now control the issue and even most red states don’t want to ban abortion) wasn’t as potent as Democrats thought.
cain
@Old Man Shadow:
It’s sort of sad that the only person who risked their job and political career to do the right thing was Liz Cheney. Perhaps she’s still betting that she can take over the GOP when it collapses (and it will, what they are doing is not sustainable)
Martin
@Bupalos: The abundance stuff isn’t great. Call it reformed neoliberalism. It leans into still trying to deliver on the false promises, without coming clean with the public on why they were false.
Fundamentally, you can only get infinite growth if you have infinite population growth. We’re hitting that wall now – most developed economies aren’t growing, one exception being the US, and only because of immigration. Take that away, and the country needs to figure out how to do a managed contraction, and we’ve been on the ‘we’re going to grow forever’ pipeline since we were founded.
It’s notable that the one part of the country that did experience this is the confederate south and maybe there’s something to be learned from their politics around that. Not sure what that is, but maybe there’s something there.
Ruckus
@Baud:
Branding is like a tall fence. It cuts off people that “do not belong” behind whatever the fence/brand is around.
Allowing many sides into this bigger side should be the goal. Because while almost all of us are human, not all of us act the same way or see the same things, or speak the same way. We have differing important points, that can vary widely depending on gender, age, wealth and/or likely several other factors. Are we old and depend on Social Security that we paid into for decades? Are we young and depend on reasonable education so that we can afford to pay for most of our living expenses, including adding to Social Security for our and others future, even if we end up not needing it. Others will as we pay in.
Also something else to remember, the general health is getting better people are living longer, which means when they retire they will need more than the old farts now do. In my lifetime many illnesses have been effectively conquered. When I was born there was ONE vaccine. Medicine has changed rather dramatically in the last 75 years. How many damaging illnesses have been, if nothing else controlled or actually conquered? How many polio victims do you know? This one person has known/still knows a total of 5.
Our government could very likely be better. It absolutely could be far worse. Many people seem to be trying to go back in time to when it actually was, because of wanting so many things to go backasswards in time. And that is not how time works nor should it be the way government and living works.
schrodingers_cat
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Most of the broleteriat is innumerate so I take their data analysis with a grain of salt. And they do cite each other’s work a lot. Its a peer non-review
MattY, Ezra Klein are considered intellectuals, such is the sorry state of our media. So your sarcasm could well have been reality.
Bupalos
Interesting nugget from the Klein/Shor piece there:
The entire “gender gap” expansion we’ve seen appear in the last 2 cycles comes from voters under 24 years of age. Which means the gender gap among young people is completely off the charts, the kind of quick sociological transformation you just never see.
Klein and Shor spend maybe two sentences on this, but the hint is that this maybe comes from the fact that online spaces (where these young people’s brains live) are MUCH more gender segregated than practically any real physical space people exist within.
cain
@Moondoggus: Too bad he’ll be forced to invite Trump.
Bupalos
I really appreciate your content here and you really hit on some concise nuggets.
RevRick
@The Audacity of Krope: There’s an aphorism attributed to Balzac which says precisely that.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bupalos: Whether it is a potent vote getting issue or not, it is an extremely important civil rights issue.
Bupalos
@Bupalos: The older people get, the less of a gender gap there is. And lately, the older you are the less likely you are to drift right.
Check out the data Shor is presenting – it has some real shockers for anyone who is still operating on old received wisdom. As of 2020 old white guys are less likely to be Trumpish than young white guys. As of 2024, much less likely.
Omnes Omnibus
@RevRick: It is too often truncated. The full line is this: The secret of a great success for which you are at a loss to account is a crime that has never been found out, because it was properly executed.
Taylor Swift’s and Rihanna’s billions are easy explained. The aphorism doesn’t apply to them. Nor does it apply to Musk because we know more or less what he did. Of course, this doesn’t stop everyone from using the truncated version.
RaflW
Elliot Morris: “Trump’s approval rating among low-engagement voters has fallen 30 points since Jan, the worst decline for any group.”
Trump took what should have been a cakewalk first 100 days economically, and made it into a uuuuuge negative for himself and other elected Repubs (see Gov. Kemp deciding to pass on running against Ossoff). Figuring out how to speak to this group that has seen a 30 point plunge in their opinion of Trump shouldn’t be all that hard. Just dump the beltway-tainted consultants and go out and talk to voters. May require some cat-herding when it comes to low-engagement folks, but they’re getting this negative info somewhere!
Bupalos
@Omnes Omnibus: It obviously the greatest contraction of freedom for citizens in the United States in the last 50 years. And scary that people don’t really care about that enough as an abstract to take politically meaningful action at the federal level.
Also interesting that pale red states like OH or MO reacted emphatically.
Bupalos
@RaflW: I don’t think it was going to be a cakewalk in any event. After what he presented in the campaign versus the reality of what he could do, he was looking at either a long slow slide or a quick jolt downward.
Citizen Alan
@Bupalos: All these comments about Ezra Klein made me realize: He’s basically “the thinking man’s Joe Rogan for Democrats.”
The Audacity of Krope
@Citizen Alan: Conventional thinking man, perhaps.
Downpuppy
As long as this is about Joni Ernst, don’t be shy about her military liaision habits.
Citizen Alan
@The Audacity of Krope: In my experience, “the thinking man’s whatever” is almost always meant sarcastically nowadays.
Donald Pruden, Jr.
@Matt McIrvin: That is a great summing up.
It is only fair to advise you that I will be stealing your idea.
The Audacity of Krope
@Citizen Alan: I know. I still stand by what I said.
sab
@Citizen Alan: I remember when Ezra Klein was just a little tyke, and was really excellent during the ACA’s passage through Congress. He read the statute language and explained it all in clear English. A lot like Richard Mayhew without all the math. It’s a shame to see him turn so courtier careerist.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
The world of today has changed a lot in the last 75-100 years. Maybe not everywhere in the world but most likely the vast majority of places. Look what we are doing today. Look at your car and compare it to one 75 – 100 yrs older. Generally it is going to be far, far better. Look at the building you live in. Look at what we are doing right now. Imagine healthcare without MRI or CT scans. Imagine healthcare means seeing a physician whose tools are a watch, a dull knife and a hand on your forehead to measure temperature. So much of life has changed so significantly and sometimes in the lives of living humans today, that it is often difficult to imagine. How many of us actually remember when vacuum tubes were sold in local stores. How many remember when a TV with a 9 inch B/W screen was normal? Or computers didn’t exist. Or tubeless tires, or…. the list is long and many people are still alive that remember much of it. Our world has changed in many, many ways, and in more than a few it hasn’t changed at all or noticeably.
jefft452
” If Republicans can successfully make the argument that Democrats don’t care about cost of living challenges facing the majority of Americans because they’re hyper-focused on trans issues or making sure trans women can compete in women’s sports”
It seems pretty clear that Republicans don’t care about cost of living challenges facing the majority of Americans because they’re hyper-focused on attacking trans people
Ruckus
@Baud:
It is possible that regular people do get upset because they don’t see how anyone can get that wealthy. Most of us don’t because we don’t have the money to make more money with. How many times has shitforbrains declared or come close to declaring that he was officially broke/busted? I believe it’s 5 but I’m not checking. He is educated but he is actually at least seemingly ignorant for someone with his level of education. IOW it might be that his brain has no compartment for rational thought. He can sell crap pretty good, he’s done it at least twice to get elected.
schrodingers_cat
@sab: He showed his Broderite tendencies early. When the ACA had some teething problems when it went online he was super critical.
Betty
@Baud: They wrote a book called Abundance that proposes a new direction for Democrats. I didn’t agree with their advice, but I can’t recall now precisely what was so annoying.
Ruckus
@Melancholy Jaques:
One of the problems is going to be that some will never agree with you, or me or most any democrat. I believe that they want everyone that doesn’t agree with them or at least their side of the population to basically stop breathing so that their world will be perfect.
I decided when I was very young that I was never going to accept that things had to be “perfect” or my way or even one way. Back a few decades even when the population was just a bit smaller there were still human beings that did not believe with the whole, and who thought that humans had to be one way and one way ONLY. The only differences today are there are a lot more humans, we can often see the differences up close and personal, and people who want/need to be different can get exposed to a much larger anti them group a lot easier. Now there are still some things for them being different that are easier, some of which is that they can find their safe place a little easier. That doesn’t always make them safer though. Because there are, and likely always will be those that think that everyone has to adhere to a rather specific set of characteristics to be/remain within humanity. And often they think this because it strengthens (or at least they think it does) their position in humanity. Many, many humans do not want to allow much if any difference between humans because they think it lessons their place in humanity. That of course is not how it works, that’s like thinking there is only one breed of dog, or one color of skin or…..
Paul in KY
@Matt McIrvin: It’s what Goering talked about when he was being debriefed after his capture. For them it was the Jews.
Paul in KY
@Cathie from Canada: It was misogyny, pure and simple. If all the dipshits that had voted for Pres. Biden in 2020 but then voted for Cheetolini in 2024 had voted for Harris, she would have won.
Paul in KY
@Moondoggus: Good points!
Elizabelle
@Moondoggus: Your comment 29: very well stated.
We could all use that strategy. I like the part about let them start thinking; give them space. (Then, listen.)
Paul in KY
@Soprano2: Pres. Biden did have to stand down. He (IMO) would have got beat by that shit. I wish he’d done it alot sooner. Given the time he did, it was only ‘logical’ that VP Harris take over.
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: FDR (God bless him) wore that as a proud badge of honour!
Paul in KY
@Bupalos: IMO, any black person (except the obscenely wealthy) who votes GQP is like a chicken voting for Col. Sanders.
Paul in KY
@Ohio Mom: I would like to see Gov Walz campaign as Dem nominee for Pres.