Someone said something in the comments at some point, and I thought it was important enough that I wrote it down. But of course I forgot to make note of who said this, so I can’t credit them. (But feel free to out yourself if you like!)
It’s emotionally safer to be angry at Dems all the time. If they end up prevailing, you can say you made it possible by holding their feet to the fire. If they don’t, you can say you were right not to trust them all along.
I think that explains so much. I doubt that it’s a conscious choice, but it is most certainly a coping mechanism.
But if we’re still doing that 6 months later, I think it’s worth thinking about. For some of us, I wonder if maybe we are getting in our own way. Is that why it’s easier to talk abut what we should be doing, instead of making the call, or writing the letter, or making the public comment, or donating to a fundraiser, or going to a protest, or talking to people who aren’t MAGA but still don’t get it. I am certainly not doing everything I can.
Maybe we’re just exhausted? Is it that hope is hard?
We’re 6 months in, and if anything is holding us back personally, it seems like we damn well need to figure out what it is.
We need to stop calling out the abused wife for staying, and start calling out the bastard who is beating her.
About 3 times a week I leave the house to run an errand, only to find that I have forgotten my phone or my purse. It’s annoying! The last time I did that I remembered that when my -ex and I we were raising his son, it seemed like he was always leaving the house without something he needed, or he was leaving something behind when he came home. So we asked him to get in the habit of pausing and asking himself “do I have everything I need” before he left the house or left the swimming pool, etc. So I have been trying that myself this week, and so far, so good.
So is there a question we should be asking ourselves if we’re not doing everything we possibly can in these terrible times?
Baud
Posted this downstairs, but it might fit here.
Baud
I agree with the anonymous quote.
Suzanne
I think it’s also somewhat human nature to be more hurt by those you thought were on your team than by the other side. I know I feel that. Like, I expect Republicans to be terrible.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Is that a joke, or for real? About Dems commissioning the Bro research?
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Seems to be real.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Baud:
And my reply from downstairs:
The commissioned study can be summarized as follows:
Democrats are losing young men voters, so they talked to Will Stancil, Larry Summers and Matt Yglesias about how to win them back.
That entire piece highlights this problem. Dems have spent, and are again spending, millions researching Black voter outreach, yet they’re still losing working-class Black support and seeing turnout drop in key cities.
You can’t just keep throwing money at a problem and expect trust to magically appear, particularly when for the last dozen years, local Dems running cities have done everything policy-wise to screw the exact same voter blocs they’re now gonna spend $20m to figure out why.
Democratic donors treating men like an endangered species on a remote island they need to study probably won’t rebuild trust.
This kind of top-down, anthropological approach misses the point: people don’t want to be decoded, they want to be understood and met where they are.
WaterGirl: It’s real:
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/democrats-young-voters-speaking-with-american-men-million-1235349919/
WaterGirl
@Suzanne: Oh, I completely agree with that!
But we’ve had 6 months and sometimes it feels like we’re still emotionally stuck where we were 4 months ago.
If this were a breakup, our friends would be telling us it’s time to get it together and move on.
Earl
Or a rational response to “There’s a thing we could have done. But we didn’t.”
Hell, just last week, we saw the Senate overturn electric vehicles in California by 50 votes. Turns out that Cuck Schumer and the Dems have been lying, and it takes, and always has taken, 50 votes in the senate to pass whatever you want. Who knew? (Besides everyone. Everyone knew.). I look forward to Cuck’s evolution in messaging strategies for not accomplishing Democratic priorities now that the 60 vote excuse is dead in the water. I believe in his ability to dig deep to fail.
Baud
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
I also replied downstairs that it does seem like a waste of money.
I’ll add here, it’s nice, at least, to have something real to point to in criticizing Dems rather than the usual abstract stuff we normally see.
WaterGirl
@Baud: That being real makes me want to bang my head against the well.
By the time their study is completed it will be too late.
WaterGirl
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Exactly.
Baud
@Earl:
Schumer wasn’t lying. The Republicans overruled their parliamentarian to do that. I agree Dems should have gotten rid of the filibuster, but he wasn’t lying about the votes it takes to get things done if the rules are followed.
Old Man Shadow
I’m not angry. I’m just disappointed.
I am not going to paint with a broad brush, but it seems that many Democrats are content with the trappings of their offices and don’t have the fire and passion to lead a serious opposition.
It seems as if quite a few Democrats do not believe in anything seriously enough that they wouldn’t compromise on it the moment a consultant or focus group told them to do it. Folks who seem like they aren’t genuine at all. Folks who need three committees to decide on something.
Many come off as a clueless corporate boss who might mean well, but is so inundated with MBA prion disease, they don’t know how to relate to normal folks. Best case scenario is they hang out in their offices and let the workers do their jobs. Worst case, they get personally involved.
I don’t necessarily expect a new prophet like MLK, Jr. I don’t expect a new FDR.
I just want someone who believes in something enough to say, “You shall not pass” and mean it. And if they plummet into the abyss for taking that stand, they’re willing to do it.
I already want to believe. Help me believe. Revive the dying fires in the hearts of Americans. Don’t navel gaze. Believe. Draw the line. Stand.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@WaterGirl:
So, people who are now talking about their political fee-fees being hurt because of some sense of betrayal always seem to be the same members of the Loyal-Dems-But/Tonya Harding Dems crowd from last year. And back then, such feelings of hurt political fee-fees as a result of what was widely seen as a political betrayal were being dismissed by them.
The cognitive dissonance on display…it burns.
Suzanne
@WaterGirl: Oh, for sure. But, IMO, the BJ comment section is a bit of a sounding board and a place to commiserate, considering that we all have to go out in the world and do our best. It’s okay to be deeply disheartened.
Baud
@Old Man Shadow:
It won’t happen because Dem voters don’t agree on what line in the sand Dems should draw.
And if they do agree on a line, they don’t agree that there shouldn’t be other lines.
We’re stuck in the crab bucket.
Omnes Omnibus
Our side also has a tendency to let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Look what happens here whenever a Dem comes out with a strong statement that seems to resonate. The urge to wordsmith to make it just a little bit better becomes irresistible. Yeah, we are all very smart and given enough time we could hone it to perfection. It gets us nowhere and probably irritates the fuck out of the person who had the good idea in the first place.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I see that they want to lose their base and run after the chimera of the demographic that is the Republican base.
One party wants to murder me and the other one doesn’t care whether I exist or what I have to say. I get KJP.
Baud
@Suzanne:
I have never done this.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
I just wish they’d do it more cheaply.
Melancholy Jaques
It’s exhaustion plus frustration plus having no good response to the hard truth about Americans. We are the good guys – and that even includes most of “the left” that disses Democrats for a living. At least they are arguing for better lives for people. But we are confronted by the fact that we are slightly outnumbered by ignorant, hateful bigots. Cruelty and stupidity are ruling our country and we do not have a good response. A lot of people think they do, but we know they don’t because if they did we’d have done it by now and we wouldn’t be in this situation right now.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, …
FWIW.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Baud:
I wonder how many ways that Feckless Democrats Failed are listed in the article.
But not enough to click.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
E.
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I’m not sure you are right about that. I was a Loyal-as-hell dem, so loyal I even door-knocked for *Biden* and would have done so to the bitter end, and I feel as betrayed as hell. I won’t give Tapper or Klein a penny for their books but I did sit through the interview and yeah, it pissed me off. I spent a lot of time waiting for Pelosi, the Obamas, Jill Biden, Schumer, someone I trusted to tell me WTF was going on.
It’s not crazy or wrong to want to know what happened. It also isn’t crazy or wrong to feel betrayed by your political leaders when they do not show uniform opposition to something they were for many months describing to be a Democracy-ending event. Who knows, maybe I’m the only one who feels this way, but i don’t feel that weird about it.
Omnes Omnibus
This is not necessarily true. There is overt and covert voter suppression. Far too many people don’t vote. If they did and we got the result from 2024, I would say you are right. But that isn’t the world we live in.
schrodingers_cat
I heard some of Mamdani’s answers at the debate. Does he get a donation everytime he mentions billionaires? I don’t think this as big a votegetter as Sanders acolytes seem to think it is. At this point he sounds like a younger version of the fingerwagger from Vt. Boring.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Polls are apparently tightening. I’m not fan of Cuomo, and I don’t have a dog in this fight. I didn’t see the debate.
E.
@schrodingers_cat: Why can’t the answer be that it is an issue he cares about?
stacib
@E.: Considering the quickness with which the Democratic “leadership” dumped Biden, why in all hell would I ever trust them again? If you can dump the old white man who was supposed to be your friend, you would dog walk my black ass. No more trust from me in the Democratic party. Individual Dems – I’m still working on that.
Josie
I suspect that, while Dems should be pushing the idea that they are working for the working class as opposed to the wealthy, they are constrained by donors and consultants. I’m sure there were wealthy donors behind the dumping of Biden, and now there are consultants selling the idea of how to appeal to men. What a crock. If our system of economics and health care was working for middle and lower middle class people, we would not need those expensive consultants.
Motivated Seller
It is reasonable to be afraid of those who wield physical violence. It is a struggle to cope with the fear of violence, almost as much as the violence itself. Depending on what feels more harmful (which can change from moment to moment and occasion to occasion) people might veer closer or farther from the root cause.
Its not a knock on the integrity or intelligence of the victim. People aren’t perfectly adapted to endure abuse.
Jeffro
Gluon1
The comment was originally made by @Baud late last year: https://balloon-juice.com/2024/12/18/a-little-programming-note/#comment-9466353
Jackie
@WaterGirl:
The result will be inconclusive.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Josie:
New piece out that shows how Trump’s actually put together a new coalition that shows significant inroads into the so-called Dem working class strongholds:
https://x.com/owasow/status/1930315361976557815
It highlights how Dems actions over the last 3-4 election cycles belies a whole lot of “we’re here for the working class” mythos that surrounds the party in favor of increasingly white, wealthy professionals in metro settings, or as I and others call it the “Democrats Gentrification Problem”.
That piece also references a FTFNYT’s podcast titled “A 1,400-Country Crisis for Democrats” that’s been referenced here over the last couple of weeks, at least some of the charts associated with it.
Belafon
@schrodingers_cat: It turns out that plenty of men on our side won’t vote for a woman.
narya
@Omnes Omnibus: This is the thing that, honestly, has me in a pit of despair these days. I think they’re doing just enough voter suppression–gerrymandering, but also making it harder to vote, requiring more paperwork, restricting the means and the times and the places–to make winning that much more difficult. All of this confident “we’ll take the House AND we might be able to snatch the Senate !11!” talk just doesn’t take into account that stuff. And the suppression is happening state by state, locality by locality, which means the national media are not paying attention. And the Supremes are sitting in the wings, waiting to certify any half-assed voter suppression scheme that has a tinge of legality to it.
Basically, I’m feeling fortunate that I have the specific consulting gig that I have: it’s paying me relatively well, yes, but also it’s in support of an organization that serves people experiencing homelessness, so it allows me to feel like I’m doing SOMETHING positive, even if it isn’t political action. And it still feels like a copout. I’m exhausted.
Belafon
@stacib: Believe me, it wasn’t just the Democratic leadership.
Michael Bersin
Do what you can when you can. But you have to do something. Hand wringing doesn’t count.
Call your representatives (local, state, national). Show up to a meeting. Volunteer somewhere. Join a demonstration. Do something, anything.
We live in a nation made up of people with short attention spans and no long-term memory.
I’ll rest when I’m dead.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Baud: now Thune claims the gop senators did not overrule the parliamentarian (even though they obviously did). Now, they claim they overruled the GAO.
Baud
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
I happen to think working class people would be better under Dems. But if a majority of them feel differently, they have the same right as everyone else to choose Republican.
Baud
@HopefullyNotcassandra:
I don’t know what that means.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Old Man Shadow: Might I suggest you read some things from Elizabeth Warren and restore some of your lost hope.
This is the announcement of her report on Elon Musk’s 130 days of looting our government.
https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/new-warren-report-special-interests-over-the-public-interest-elon-musks-130-days-in-the-trump-administration
You can read, copy or download the actual report (PDF) by clicking REPORT (PDF) under the headings on the first page.
There is not anything focus grouped or mealy mouthed about Senator Warren IMHO
schrodingers_cat
@stacib: Well said. That’s where I am.
Splitting Image
What cheeses me off is that most of the people leaping to say that the Democrats need to be open to new ideas and have to do things differently going forward have been very quick to criticize the Democratic party after the election using the exact same ideas and the same language that they’ve been using for years if not decades.
This applies to both Bernie Sanders and Matt Yglesias. Both of them have trotted out the same lines that they have been using for years. Leftist pundits say that the Democrats made a mistake by listening to centrists and centrist pundits say that the Democrats made a mistake by listening to leftists, as both groups would have said if Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Donald Trump had never been born.
pajaro
@Earl:
It takes 50 votes to pass a bill subject to reconciliation. You know that, don’t you?
pajaro
@Earl:
It takes 50 votes to pass a bill subject to reconciliation. You know that, don’t you?
@Old Man Shadow:
It doesn’t help to say “you shall not pass” if, given the votes, you can’t stop something or someone from passing.
schrodingers_cat
@E.: It is possible but the framing he is using is stale and doesn’t appeal to people beyond the DSA faithful.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Melancholy Jaques: despite our current abysmal executive branch and the pending MAGA Murder bill, I don’t think most of us are horrible even in the reddest of the red areas.
Many of us are horribly misinformed.
There is a case on point happening right now in small town Missouri where the Trump supporting town disagrees with his deportation actions against the soccer mom amongst them.
That soccer mom got released from ICE custody today. https://www.iowapublicradio.org/ipr-news/2025-06-05/ice-releases-carol-mayorga-a-missouri-mom-whose-detention-sparked-rural-uproar
How do we get these folks to see that the cruelty to Mrs Mayorga and others like her is the freaking point of the entire exercise? I don’t know. I just keep trying things, looking for the something that reaches through the rightwing media mindfog.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Another Scott: that is awesome! Thank you for posting it.
KSinMA
@HopefullyNotcassandra: That’s my Senator! She is indeed an antidote for disappointment, despair, etc.
tam1MI
I think this Wonkette article pretty much says it all.
I obviously don’t agree with what she said about Joe Biden, but everything else she said is spot on.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@E.: I have one question for you
Right now, knowing everything you know, which president, Biden or Trump is superior?
Everything else is horse manure. That is the only question that matters. That was the choice we had.
If you cannot stop there, ask if Kamala Harris as president would be infinitely preferable to Trump.
Most of our media is a mess, running like lemmings after shiny objects tossed by insurrectionists whom our media mostly ignores.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@stacib: trust but verify?
tam1MI
@tam1MI: Oops, that should be, “I don’t agree with everything she said about Joe Biden and the Uncommitted people…”.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Baud: it means Senator Thune is full of it. It also means he is claiming the senate gop did not overrule the parliamentarian so nobody else can do so now. He is claiming the senate did not change the senate’s precedents.
Baud
@HopefullyNotcassandra:
I don’t understand how he expects anyone to believe that. But whatever. It’s only going to become an issue again when we take the Senate back. Then the Dems will have to decide how aggressive they’ll be.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@KSinMA: yes! Thank goodness, yes!
Suzanne
@tam1MI: Thank you for sharing that piece. I find myself nodding as I read.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@tam1MI:
Thanks for the link. Some goodies:
Plus, she pounded on Newsom in the first paragraph so I’ll forgive her the Biden stuff…this time.
tam1MI
I’m a white woman and I feel the same way. It’s kind of hard to rush into battle when you have good reason to believe that your so-called “fellow troops” will shoot you in the back.
Baud
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
I don’t believe that. They don’t want that from Dems. When they imagine a “real” Dem, they’re thinking of someone who validates their own view.
No lefty is going to say “he’s a centrist, but at least he’s real.” And vice versa.
Quiltingfool
I think that “we the people” need to do our part: protesting, calling and writing Congress, local organizations, etc.
I believe we have depended on our elected folks to know what we want without us having to tell them. Read My Mind! Lol
I can’t remember who said it (Jeffries, maybe?) when there was some sort of protest at the Capitol; he said that when it came to women getting the vote, it didn’t happen because a bunch of legislators one day said, “Hey! How about letting women vote? Let’s do it!” No, those guys had to see lots of people advocate and get downright vociferous.
We need to be pushy and not stop. Or else our elected representatives may think we are fine with business as usual.
Same goes with the complaint about old people in Congress. Support younger candidates. Get pushy.
E.
@HopefullyNotcassandra: I don’t have to ask myself those questions because they are insulting. I campaigned as hard as I could for Harris without leaving the state and I almost did that. So shut the eff up with criticizing me for wanting to know what happened, from people who were there, during a time I was particularly invested in. And stop being so simple as to think this means I’ve abandoned the party. God what an insufferable dolt you must be.
Ruckus
So is there a question we should be asking ourselves if we’re not doing everything we possibly can in these terrible times?
Very likely.
Humans like to focus on things to do, often making lists, written or memorized. And we often leave out something because of how brains work. And that is very much OK when we work in groups because it’s extremely rare when we all think exactly the same way or about the same whatever. It’s one of those things that makes humanity work better as a group than as individuals. We can all have tremendous, grand concepts but as a group there can be better and more answers to all the questions. Sure there will always be grand ideas, but there will be more of them in a rational, thoughtful group.
H.E.Wolf
Here we all are chatting, and sometimes snapping our claws at one another.
Perhaps we could consider closing the browser window and doing one small, concrete thing. Do the dishes if you are feeling disheartened by political volunteer tasks. But as a better writer than me remarked, earlier in this thread:
“Do what you can when you can. But you have to do something. Hand wringing doesn’t count.”
I’m going to walk my talk and log out of Balloon Juice for the nonce, and log into my ongoing database project for the local Democrats. :) With affectionate good wishes to us all.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@E.: Did you really mean that?
let us assume you could get every piece of data about what happened last year that you could ever possibly want? How would that help now?
I know this is horrible. It is horrible for us insufferable dolts too. I have been called much worse by my Republican relations, too. Insulting each other gets us nowhere. I apologize for stinging you.
The Biden old conversation continuing when the republicans have introduced a bill to murder us is beyond me.
Soprano2
@Josie: It’s all about the same thing – our society sees white men as the “normal, ordinary” voter, and if they are against you then society sees you as abnormal. That’s it, period. It’s why so many Democrats are still wringing their hands about “Reagan Democrats”. There doesn’t seem to be any idea at all that maybe they should point out that white men aren’t the “average, ordinary voter” anymore.
Melancholy Jaques
@Omnes Omnibus:
@HopefullyNotcassandra:
I know we don’t want to believe how many awful people there are, but I’m done making excuses for American voters. They could vote in 2020, but just decided not to vote in 2024 or they decided to vote for Trump. This was not 2016 where they could claim they didn’t know or expect. But what that asshole is doing now is exactly what he promised and what the voters chose.
They were either in favor of or comfortable with a president who is a corrupt, lying bigot who had tried to overthrow the government with a violent mob, whose entire campaign was nothing but hatred, fear, and scorn. So let’s not delude ourselves that it was about the price of eggs. He hasn’t done shit about the price of anything except to lower the prices of common stocks. And he is still way more popular than the Democratic Party or any Democrat. It’s because there are way more assholes like him in this country than we believed or still want to believe.
Soprano2
I agree with that. When people say they like FFOTUS because he’s “real” even though they might not like him personally, what they mean is he says things they agree with. I do agree that a politician can be focus grouped to death, and I wish Dem politicians would call bullshit more on the people who nit pick them to death, but voters really don’t want politicians to be “real”, they want them to say things they agree with.
tommyspoon
When I separated from my wife, prior to our divorce, I started missing deadlines at work. Mind you, as an actor and a writer, deadlines are SACRED to me. My boss noticed and sat me down and advised me to get a handle on myself before these incidents added up to where he had no choice but to let me go.
So, I talked to my therapist, and she showed me a study that indicated that divorced people missed deadlines and forgot appointments at an astonishing rate. Further research indicated that couples often “share a mind” around certain things: names, dates, numbers, etc. “When you divorced,” my therapist said, “you basically lost half of your mind.”
That led me down the personal organization rabbit hole and I discovered the Getting Things Done philosophy, which I still follow to this day. I won’t say it works for everyone, but it really works for me and my productivity has done nothing but increase since I adopted it over fifteen years ago. (I’ve given presentations on GTD, so feel free to ask me questions!)
Like you advised your ex-, it’s always good to take a pause and conduct a personal inventory.
My GF has a list taped to the inside of the front door to make sure she doesn’t forget anything before leaving the house. I use it, too.
Ruckus
@Old Man Shadow:
As much as I agree with you – and I DO, I also understand that we are all humans. OK most of us are human. And that means that we are often going to disagree – at least to some point, about some point. Being in public, especially in politics means that we are rarely going to agree on every point. We all live in 2 worlds, the public one which we discuss here all the time – and the individual worlds each of us occupies, which is what makes up humanity. And that in today’s world we can discuss and agree/disagree about specific points, such as we are doing here every day. It’s like a very, very large back fence. And that can make humanity a better place exactly because we can do that, our back fence is thousands of miles long, with a lot of people on the other side.
My point is that what you said here is important, which is that we are not all leaders, at least not all the time. We hire people by consensus to say and do what is necessary for all of us to have a government. Some are going to be loud, aggressive, and some are going to be quiet and often more focused. Is either completely right or wrong? I’d say no, because not all of us can stand on stage and discuss anything. I used to have a job that required me to occasionally stand on a stage and talk to an audience. In a tux or a suit. The first time I did that was intimidating, the second time far less so, but some rarely get completely at ease doing this. And it’s quite possible that they never will. So some are quieter and some can stand on stage and be completely at ease. But one thing that helps make humanity is that we aren’t all the same, we aren’t all stage people, some are loud, some are quiet. It doesn’t mean we don’t know, understand and do our work, and likely very well, whatever that work is. And if I had never stood on a stage in front of a lot of people I’d have never known that it isn’t as hard as some of us think, nor as easy as some make it look. And that all people are different for different reasons.
Melancholy Jaques
@Belafon:
Until someone presents me with conclusive evidence to the contrary, I will believe that was the deciding factor in both losses to that asshole.
Ruckus
@Melancholy Jaques:
I worked in public for decades, in professional sports. And like every bit and part of humanity there are rules and rule breakers. And followers. Some of the rules are unspoken, some far more out in the open. Some rules have seriousness on a high level and some are petty. And as in all parts of humanity there are humans at every level of smart, dumb and in the middle. And almost all of us fit in more than one level at different times. It’s humanity. Some of us have egos that don’t let us see that others may or may not fit in our bit of humanity, often depending on how we see it, not necessarily in full, actual reality. And for me, learning this was vital, because it allowed/made me see other sides of whatever the issue was/is. We all, in essence, are human, but that is a very big group of different issues/observation/belonging/skills/emotions/needs that can change in an instant. Ever been shot at? I have. And not in a war zone, in public. It changes you, in ways none of us, or at least most of us would never understand. Because there was no reason for me being shot at walking down a sidewalk. Other than to make me run like I’d never run before or since.
Omnes Omnibus
@Melancholy Jaques: I think the world is full of both stupid and awful people. Don’t try to paint me as Panglossian. When a third of the country didn’t/couldn’t vote (as the case may be), I think it is premature to say that we are outnumbered. We were outvoted, but that is not the same thing.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Melancholy Jaques: the ignorance is vincible someone accurately said the other day
No doubt that is true. Yet, there are people everywhere who are trumpies and kind, decent folk, simultaneously. It is extremely strange to interact with them I can attest. They generally believe me to be exaggerating about the horror show, or missing important facts (when I am not and usually can prove). They are out there. We just need to figure out how to reach them. In my long years at this attempt, I have managed to move a whopping 4! people, although those 4 are almost all to the left of me now.
People who really ask themselves “what would Jesus do?” cannot be ok with this president. There are a lot of people like that. With some it almost feels like they are afraid to look, for fear of social ostracization.
lowtechcyclist
@pajaro:
From Wikipedia:
A bill to overturn California’s EV requirements would totally upend any subject limitations, and it’s hard to see how it wouldn’t erode the limitation on number of times it can be used as well.
So if reconciliation was used for this, the filibuster’s pretty much in tatters going forward. That’s a good thing, of course: it really shouldn’t exist at all.
Ruckus
@HopefullyNotcassandra:
With some it almost feels like they are afraid to look.
With some it’s not almost. With some it’s almost never.
We are all human. In all sizes, shapes, sides, views, intelligence, lack thereof, egos, desires, responses, skills, how we respond to events and or stupidity, what we know, believe, etc, etc. And yet most of us can fit into various places within the human experience. Want to climb a mountain? Many want to and do. Some are funny, some couldn’t manage to tell a joke if their life depended on it. It takes all kinds and the list goes on and on, because it’s humanity.
Sally
@WaterGirl: I would like to understand what “meeting these guys where they are” means. Because if it means meeting a bunch of misogynistic, racist bigots where they are, no, I won’t.
gene108
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
It wasn’t “gentrification”. The deciding factor in 2024 was the deluge of Republican propaganda from right-wing media, social media influencers, podcasters, and even the federal judiciary with Judge Cannon refusing to address any issues raised by the prosecution hoping the documents case would go away to the SCOTUS with their bug fuck absolute immunity ruling.
Second, and I don’t know what to do about this onslaught of right-wing propaganda. Basically, Republicans did what they’ve done my whole life and demonize out groups and creating a backlash against inclusivity, but this time they weren’t punching directly against black like people, GHWB did with the Willie Horton add, but found the transgender and queer communities to villainize. The thought of someone’s son or brother deciding to be a woman icked enough people out across different races and ethnicities.
It pushed people to be against the transgender community, and is attempting to destroy that community. They tried to demonize transgender people to the point supporting them publicly became would become toxic. I think they mostly succeeded.
Force Democrats to defend books or graphic novels that didn’t sound kid friendly when passages are taken out of context. This worked for a while, but there was enough backlash to shut book banning down in some places. It did have an impact in that we wasted years talking about it, and our side could only win against book bans in non-conservative areas.
Even when the #MeToo movement blew up and pushed the term “toxic masculinity” into the public sphere, it alienated people. There was no talk among liberals of positive aspects of masculinity for years, until governor Walz was the VP candidate.
Democrats are tied to cultural issues that do not have a dedicated fanatical support system, unlike Republicans and the support they get from conservative Christians for promoting cultural issue most people are not in favor of.
Michael Bersin
@H.E.Wolf:
Bingo!
Paul in KY
@Baud: Me too.
Paul in KY
@Belafon: At least for President. They’ll vote for one for any other office (it appears).
Paul in KY
@tam1MI: Great article! Truman said it many years ago: People want a Real Democrat, not a ‘Fake Republican’.
Paul in KY
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: She was 100% correct about Pres. Biden. He was physically slipping and he knew it and he should have bowed out.
Paul in KY
@tommyspoon: I use lists all the time. Going to Bonnaroo next week and I have a giant list for that!
Paul in KY
@Melancholy Jaques: It was a torpedo in the side in both 2016 and 2024.
Dennis Doubleday
@WaterGirl: I regret to inform you that we are not even 5 months in yet. It just feels like 5 years. On the other hand, if we can get to 24 months, the worst of it might be over.