In the overnight thread, on the topic of whether Trump will ever face accountability for anything, ever, commenter Princess mentioned Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușesc, who learned the limits of his power on Christmas Day in 1989. Sent me for a stroll down memory lane, it did.
A few days before his overthrow and execution, as the country was unraveling, Ceaușesc staged a massive rally in Bucharest to tamp down dissent. The look on his face at about the 1:20 mark when it begins to dawn on him that the event is undergoing a rapid unscheduled disassembly — wow.
Ceaușesc’s fall is etched in my mind because I watched coverage of it on live TV at a rental car counter in Logan Airport, and the rental agent was a Romanian American who was feeling all the feels. She watched with a trembling hand over her mouth, in shock, with tears rolling down her cheeks.
All I could do was watch with her as we waited for a much-delayed vehicle to arrive. The agent and I were around the same age — babies, I now realize! She was scared and hopeful and furious all at once. I think of her from time to time and hope she is well and that her family back home made it.
The people of Romania suffered in unimaginable ways before they brought their tyrant down. I hope we can rid ourselves of our would-be dictator in a more quotidian way.
***
I had an epiphany while observing wildlife from the porch a while ago.
Three hummingbirds are currently fighting over one of the three hummingbird feeders in my yard. Hummingbirds are Democrats. 🤔
— Betty Cracker of Florida (@bettycrackerfl.bsky.social) July 29, 2025 at 9:06 AM
Change my mind!
Open thread.
On The Road – Captain C – Netherlands, September 2024 Part 1: The Hague and Rotterdam Part 1
jame
Nah, you’re probably right.
Jeffro
It’s a great comparison – what will happen when MAGA nation stops listening to trumpov? I don’t know but let’s find out, and soon. =)
(And thanks for adding ‘quotidian’ to my vocab, even if I don’t completely agree with the sentiment!)
Ten Bears
If only democrats were that graceful …
The Audacity of Krope
I’m still working on making sense of the hummingbird thing.
BellyCat
Quotidian or not, I share your desire. The *not* version would be somewhere between more likely and much quicker.
hueyplong
BC’s post resonates, and not just because we just spent a half hour watching hummingbirds duel over our feeder.
thalarctosMaritimus
I heard a scream from the staircase last night and went to investigate. All four of our cats were on the staircase, trying to claim their territory from the others.
We have three floors and 8 rooms. Everyone has plenty of room, and never has to see anyone they hate unless they actively seek them out.
Yet they’re always staking out about 3 square feet somewhere in the house, and coming to blows over it (never serious, just being prima donnas). My cats, too, are Democrats.
NotMax
Ceaușescu.
Mention must also be made of his odious and tyrannical wife Elena, who shared his fate.
The Audacity of Krope
This makes a little more sense to me.
Redshift
In the early 2000s, I spent a week working with a guy from a partner company who was originally from Romania. His company had unhelpfully put him up at a hotel near our office in an utterly unwalkable DC suburb with no car, so Ms. Redshift and I took him out to dinner and to see the sights.
He talked a bit about how he had been a student under Ceaucescu and knew people who’d been disappeared. Seeing the monuments in Washington, he told us about how the dictator had built a WWII monument that everyone knew was a monument to himself. He said he couldn’t wait to tell his friends back home about how Washington not only had a bigger monument than that, we had lots of them.
Betty Cracker
Interesting polling data from Gallup:
Wowzer, that partisan gap.
Boris Rasputin (The Evil Twin)
Ceaușescu. I remember his downfall. Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving couple.
The Audacity of Krope
@Betty Cracker: Fantastic. Where were Democrats on this 20 years ago? Shit, how about five years ago when blind support for Israel took the top three slots in my local D primary that had about 12 people running and the winner was an open Islamophobe?
That would be Jake Auchincloss to the uninitiated.
Belafon
@The Audacity of Krope: Are you comparing support for Israel to Israel’s military actions in Gaza?
Betty
@Betty Cracker: Republican support has increased? That is sick.
Zelma
I’ve been thinking a lot about where the Democratic Party goes from here. I’ve been a Democrat since the Republicans nominated Barry Goldwater. I had just turned 21 and when my father (a rock ribbed Republican) took me to register to vote, he was stunned when I filled in the box that said “Democrat.” I believe we had our first of many fights about politics that day.
In the 60 plus years since, I have occasionally voted for a Republican – maybe four or five times – but never for president. I have served as a local committee member and given generously to Democratic candidates. I say all this to prove my bona fides.
There is much discussion about what the Democratic Party stands for and how they can create a message that will resonate with the public, something that will fit on a bumper sticker. I think the answer is staring us in the face. “For the many, not the few.” It’s that simple. And it has the benefit of being true. Or at least, it should be.
But I am not sure the current leaders of the party and its monied elite understand that this is a winning slogan.
Another Scott
Thanks for this.
Ceaușescu’s fall, the Iron Curtain falling, the Berlin Wall coming down, the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Those were flabbergasting times. I’m still kind amazed that Albania is in NATO now. Albania!!
And a good reminder that: Change is sometimes delayed, but change always happens. Life is change. Sometimes change is bad. Sometimes change is good. Sometimes change is meh. Sometimes change is partially reversed. But change does and will happen, and we need to work toward making the Time After more like the world we hope to see.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Belafon
@Betty: I saw a report (and I might have seen it here) that support inside Israel is over 50%.
Belafon
@Zelma:
So white people, right? /sarc
The really hard part about a slogan that simple is how easy it is to misinterpret. We can’t even get “Love your neighbor as yourself” and “The love of money is the root of all evil” correct.
Edited: I used “route” instead of “root” in the last phrase, but I think it might also work.
karensky
@jame: Agreed.
karensky
Thanks for this post, Ms Cracker. It was thrilling.
Belafon
Had the hummingbirds been Republicans, they would have destroyed all three feeders and then attacked you for not building any.
montanareddog
@Boris Rasputin (The Evil Twin): I remember one of his goonish sons, being dragged battered and bloodied before the cameras and he had quite visibly pissed himself.
Suzanne
So a couple of months ago, I listened to this episode of Past Present Future, “A History of Lawfare”, which was incredibly detailed about the trial of the Ceaușescus. As this happened before my memory, it painted an incredible picture of the events.
kindness
In America we had a tradition of leaving ex-leaders alone after they retire. Trump has trampled that ‘norm’. The Kreskin in me tells me if Trump makes it to the end of his term, he’ll slink off to his Florida lair and gloat the rest of his life. Democrats typically try to turn forward rather than look back. My hope is Trump never makes it to the end of his term. Lynching him won’t happen. Heart attack most likely would. If only Qatar had donated Trump a bunch of convertible Lincoln Continental limos instead of a 747.
Doug
@Suzanne: You might like The Porcupine by Julian Barnes. It’s about the trial of a deposed communist dictator of a fictional European country, modeled on Romania’s neighbor Bulgaria. The former leader is completely unrepentant, and gives as good as he gets. It’s fascinating (and also short).
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Belafon: Exactly, this is why “all lives matter,” which on the face of it appears the most anodyne statement possible, can be racist. I wish the messaging could be that simple, but I’m afraid that it isn’t.
Gretchen
I’m starting to wonder if Melania is in the Epstein files. Part of his business was bringing “models” over from Eastern Europe as sex workers. He introduced Melania to Trump and said that the first time they had sex was on his plane. Does that sound like romance or something else? And there are stories of Melania riding around with Maxwell in her limo when Maxwell would hop out to talk to a young girl. Of course the worst way to keep the whole thing secret is to assign 1000 FBI agents to plow through it.
Betty Cracker
@Zelma: I like it!
catclub
Nazis favoring genocide, who knew?
catclub
@kindness:
With suicide doors!
The Audacity of Krope
@Belafon: Israel has been ethnic cleansing over there a long time. So, yes, blind support for the state of Israel and, more to the point, funding it militarily is a perfectly reasonable lens through which to view support for their government.
cain
@Betty Cracker: The GOP voters are not flush with empathy.
There are voices in the right wing christiansphere who declare empathy as a sin:”
“Empathy almost needs to be struck from the Christian vocabulary.” “Empathy is dangerous. Empathy is toxic. Empathy will align you with hell.” “Most people have a hard time imagining how empathy could ever be harmful. And therefore, if I’m the devil, where am I going to hide some of my most destructive tactics?”
npr.org/2025/03/22/nx-s1-5321299/how-empathy-came-to-be-seen-as-a-weakness-in-conservative-circles
They are so against woke that even the notion of caring for others is toxic to them. So of course things like genocide, and even core tenants of the Christian faith are not a thing.
It seems like we have really reached the bottom at this point.
RA
Unfortunately, trump will never have a moment of understanding and clarity like that. A beautiful “aha!” moment, for everyone to see, followed by the “Oh, shit!” moment.
ArchTeryx
@The Audacity of Krope: Hummingbirds are extremely territorial during nesting season, and they are pugilists to boot. They’ll fight for the fun of it. One’s probably trying to claim all three feeders for themselves (and their chicks) and the others are trying to sneak in for a drink at one of them, only to get chased off by the squatter.
And I’m convinced their perception of time is just plain different than ours. Compared to them, we’re all slugs and snails.
catclub
The most accurate is ‘the party for better government’
which does not sell.
It is the closest to ‘for a more perfect union’ compared with the other side, which is ‘take what you can’.
Steve in the ATL
@Zelma:
I think we’ve all done this, and for good reasons. When I lived in Memphis, I once voted for a man–not running as a Republican!–those platform was “kill the white people”. Why did I vote for that? I felt it was a better alternative than another member of the wildly corrupt Ford family (Harold’s ancestors and cousins; he was by far the best of the bunch), and I stand by that vote today!
I know we have some Memphians here who remember that family. Don’t know if they are still a force to be reckoned with there.
catclub
@ArchTeryx: We always made life difficult for the one that tried to drive away the others by putting the three feeders on three different sides of the house.
eclare
@cain:
I remember when some Republican compared Joe Biden to Mr. Rogers and meant it as an insult.
The Pale Scot
I still remember this,
. For example, in 1990, following the execution of the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu, Mark Russell did a parody song on his show to the tune of “Chattanooga Choo-Choo”.
“Pardon me, boys / Are you the cats who shot Ceauşescu?,
It really made my day, when you blew him away”
eclare
@Steve in the ATL:
The Ford family seems pretty quiet these days.
John Cole
Approximate mood right now after reading the news for three hours.
youtube.com/watch?v=D-tKdFNTOgk&ab_channel=rainbowdove
The Pale Scot
I am perfectly fine with the hanging upside down from a lamp post method
Albatrossity
Hummingbirds are much too selfish and feisty to be Democrats. I think of them as Libertarians.
The Pale Scot
I am perfectly fine with the hanging upside down from a lamp post method
Plz delete previously messily addressed post plz Betty
(It’s Frankensteen! Frankensteen!)
Miss Bianca
@hueyplong: When the rufous (spelling?) hummies come, they are such little douche copters at the feeder that they get their own – a small one, in the back, that no one else uses cuz at least one rufous is there guarding it at all times. Whatever, pal. The rest of them are chowing down at the big feeder. :)
JaySinWa
I’m not sure that is the worst way. If you have so many people, they probably get a small enough sample that prevents them from seeing the bigger picture. And I believe they were tasked to look for specific information mentioning Trump. Narrow focus without much coordination compartmentalizes what they find.
Miss Bianca
@Zelma:
I like it! You’re hired! :)
The Audacity of Krope
@Belafon: Israel has been ethnic cleansing over there a long time. So, yes, blind support for the state of Israel and, more to the point, funding it militarily is a perfectly reasonable lens through which to view support for their government.
Betty Cracker
@Miss Bianca: “little douche copters” — ahahahaha!
A Man for All Seasonings (formerly Geeno)
Nah – Hummingbirds wake up every day and choose violence. Most dems barely defend themselves.
Other MJS
@cain:
There are legitimate reasons to emphasize compassion (the desire to alleviate suffering) over empathy (vicariously experiencing another’s suffering), but somehow these guys never bring up compassion.
masterclass.com/articles/compassion-vs-empathy
Baud
@Steve in the ATL:
I once did it to get a girl.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@A Man for All Seasonings (formerly Geeno):
Exactly. We could use a few even lethargic hummingbirds (of which there are none).
Other MJS
@Miss Bianca: It’s very Vulcan.
tam1MI
@NotMax: Ceaușescu.
My memory of this is hearing a news report about his execution and how it was carried out and broadcast to the Romanian people on Christmas day. The people who announced it called it, “a Christmas gift to the Romanian people”. Being very young and very innocent and very ignorant, I was shocked that a nation could air a bloody execution on TV on a day that was supposed to be about peace on Earth and goodwill towards men.
tam1MI
What strikes me more is the relatively weak support on the Republican side. 71% is pretty soft support for a party that usually registers +90% for anything their side does.
JiveTurkin
@Gretchen: I wish the media would investigate the model connection. From Wikipedia: Trump Model Management, later shortened to T Management, was a New York City-based modeling agency founded by Donald Trump as T Models in 1999. It was closed by Trump in April 2017, shortly after he became U.S. president.[1][2].
It sounded like an operation to bring young Eastern European girls to the US to serve as playthings for rich and powerful men. It definitely did not seem like a serious modelling agency. I wonder whether Epstein was involved with it in some way.
pluky
@The Audacity of Krope: The spirit animal of the Aztec God of War is a hummingbird.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hu%C4%ABtzil%C5%8Dp%C5%8Dchtli
JaySinWa
@tam1MI: but that 71% is increasing support from Sept.
While Dem and Ind are going down dramatically. Almost like most Reps have a different view of reality and values than everyone else.
tam1MI
Also probably a “rally round the flag” effect. Now that their tribe/team is doing it, it’s okay.
This also probably accounts for some of the drop in support amongst Dems. Our side isn’t involved any more, so we feel better about calling it out.
Offense is always more fun then defense.
RevRick
@Betty Cracker: I disagree with your conclusion about hummingbirds. They are the epitome of GOP ideology, fighting over resources and power and only those who win do so, because they deserve it.
Much of GOP philosophy is grounded in Social Darwinism and its accompanying belief in natural hierarchies of race, class and gender
I should add that much of Social Darwinism points to the survival of the fittest in the natural world.
Hungry Joe
For a brilliant, nerve-shredding look at life under Ceausecu, see “Four Months, Three Weeks, and Two Days.” I walked back into the theater a few days later, saw it again, and walked out with nerves re-shredded. Amazing film.
Professor Bigfoot
@Miss Bianca: Gods bless all you dear, sweet summer children… before you can come up with “messaging” that “works,” you’ve first got to figure out why it is that Black people and Jewish people and LGBTQIA+ people seem to hear Democratic messaging just fine, but straight, white, (ostensibly) Christians simply cannot.
Trying to design a messaging strategy that does not address this phenomenon is doomed to failure.
Nettoyeur
@cain: They only care about their certified faithful. Like the Spanish Inquisition The difference there are many competing infallible wingnut evangelical leaders….but only one Pope.
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: Well? WAS IT SUCCESSFUL??
Iron city
@catclub: The Lincoln Continental 4 doors ( sedan or convertable) all have suicide doors so it is a feature not a bug. For 1960s vintage convertables you need to be careful how you park because they are unit body (all sheet metal) so they flex and if you park over top of a rise or over a dip they will either jam the doors closed or make them impossible to latch. I learned to drive in one. They are the best at drive in movies.
Baud
@Professor Bigfoot:
Yes!
Baud
Following France
Anonymous At Work
Interesting “development” on the Ukraine front. Trump declared that Russia has “10 to 12 days” to agree to a ceasefire, down from 50 days around 30 days ago, and Russia told Trump to shove it. Trump’s overall comments were “10 to 12 days, cuz I know you’ll tell me to shove it anyways.” Wonder if Trump wants the drama or feels that a Nobel Prize requires him being a big boy for once.
chemiclord
The general public always moves slower than we want, and never as readily as we desire.
Baud
@Anonymous At Work:
I don’t trust it, but if it helps Ukraine, I’m for it.
BellaPea
It’s kind of funny that in his zeal to be a Dear Leader, Dump does not remember that most dictators do not have happy endings. Hitler, Mussolini, Ghadafi, and the Eastern European dictators all had very unpleasant deaths. I hope he gets some kind of comeuppance some day, maybe not that bad, but enough at least partially pay for all of the suffering and unhappiness he has caused in this country.
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: <Denzel Washington gif> My man! </gif>
Belafon
@Professor Bigfoot: Very well said.
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: CAN Israel even offer a “two state solution” that the Palestinians might be willing to accept?
For example, CAN Israel pull back the many “settlements” in the West Bank without putting itself in danger from internal forces?
Steve LaBonne
@Professor Bigfoot: THIS X1000
Baud
@Professor Bigfoot:
One state is not going to be any better.
Gvg
@Zelma: it’s not. Not because it’s not true and people don’t want it. It just doesn’t work. The leaders have been burned by the “supporters” too many times to believe a slogan will work. We complain a lot about the leaders. But all responsibility rests on voters in a democracy. Look at how we admire the Congress people who voted for ACA knowing they would lose their seats, because “it was the right thing to do”. Principled yes, but voters were being weak and venal. I have seen it a bunch since Clinton when I started to watch closely. He made a lot of compromises that the electorate forced on him. The alternatives were worse losses, but some of the problems have gotten worse. Our one advantage is Hollywood and entertainment and I don’t think we are using it well. We need to slip some more background education into peoples diet. And repeat it a lot.
Princess
I’m so glad that Ceauşescu got to experience the complete loathing of his citizens directly and face to face in such a way that he could no longer deny it even to himself. I hope Trump gets to experience that too.
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: God’s teeth no, it is not.
It either becomes a pluralistic society and the “Jewish” part of the Jewish nation will come to an end via democratic means or that Israel becomes a full-on apartheid state.
EITHER endangers the existence of the State of Israel, but here we are nonetheless.
Hungry Joe
@BellaPea: One exception was Hoxha, the isolationist tyrant who ruled Albania for more than 40 years. Died old, of natural causes, in charge till the end.
Professor Bigfoot
People like to forget that this was at the peak of Reaganite conservatism’s popularity; when every conservative man thought he was Alex P. Keaton.
Baud
@Professor Bigfoot:
I’m not sure it’s helpful to cast the only way out as existential.
But luckily no one important reads this blog.
suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot:
My theory, such as it is, is that a lot of white people see politics as about power and who gets to exercise it rather than about principles and how to actualize them.
Which is why we see the yawning gulf between “supporting Democratic policies” and “actually voting for Democrats”. They see the Democrats as a club they don’t want to be in, rather than an organization that pursues specific policy outcomes. This is the dumb vibey shit.
There are, of course, many white people who love GOP policies, as well. But they are aided and abetted by the useful idiots I just described above.
Baud
@suzanne:
Well said. Couldn’t agree more.
catclub
@Baud: Trump will do nothing and give Putin more time to accelerate his bombing campaign.
Anything better than that is the best we can hope for.
Maybe Trump will concede Poland to Russia as well, in hopes for peace.
Stacy
@Gretchen: According to Maria Farmer, one of Epstein’s and Maxwell’s victims, it was Ivana Trump who was the one who did this with Maxwell. Farmer was in the car with both of them while Maxwell would drive around schools and parks in Manhattan looking for girls.
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: If it’s true- and I think it is- then it certainly is helpful to understand the actual reality even if it doesn’t point to an easy way forward. The one thing that’s certain is that ignoring reality is NEVER helpful.
Let’s remember that the electorate is very closely divided. The situation is serious but far from hopeless.
catclub
@Hungry Joe:
Also Fidel Castro
New Deal democrat
@Betty Cracker: Even more remarkable is the difference in opinion by age group.
Asked if they approved of Israel’s military action is Gaza, 49% of people age 55+ agreed. But only 29% of people aged 35-54 did, and only ***9%*** of people 18-34.
I’ve seen similar results from other polls. Generally speaking, the divide is between those who remember the 1967 and 1974 wars, and those whose memories begin afterward.
If Israel continues on its current path, it will lose its American government support within 20 years at most.
Kristine
@suzanne:
“Who controls the goodies.” Definition of “goodies” ranging from basics (food, shelter) to education, medical care, to existential (rights) depending.
Steve LaBonne
@suzanne: They see Republicans disempowering people who don’t look or believe the way they do. That works for them and there’s no messaging that can change that.
Steve LaBonne
@Kristine: I disagree. The kind of power Republican voters care about is not that, but power OVER- over the wrong kinds of people. The unwillingness of so many white liberals to see this is frustrating.
suzanne
@New Deal democrat: There is a significant generational divide on the Dem side on many issues, not just I/P. And given that older voters (45 and up) are still voting majority GOP, we count on young people to make up the gap.
Young Dems don’t have the same issues alignments that older Dems do and the nature of the math makes these fights more intense.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
suzanne
@Steve LaBonne: I think messaging and “dumb vibey shit” is actually incredibly powerful. But when I say “messaging”, there’s really two parts to it…. there’s the content of the message and usually how it relates to policy — what principles we want to actualize. But the other part of “messaging” is all the strategy part: how, when, and in what “voice” we communicate. The picture we paint of the future and how we make people feel seen, that their aspirations matter. “Hopey changey” stuff, going on podcasts vs. direct mail, “authenticity”, smiling on “vertical videos”, wearing red hats.
I think most people at Balloon Juice are smart and well-read and are used to trying to make rational, well-considered decisions. Do not make the mistake of thinking that most people are like that.
Westyny
@Hungry Joe: I also recommend Norman Manea’s On Clowns: the Dictator and the Artist.
Trollhattan
@Another Scott:
Obligatory: youtu.be/XhXDcxAM0zc?si=GiJA9Xt1fKEebkY0
Westyny
Deleted second comment, my internet and/or BJ is wonky today.
rikyrah
@New Deal democrat:
I wish that they would ask if America should be subsidizing Israel.
I know where I stand, but I would like to know how I stack up compared to my fellow Americans.
Glory b
@tam1MI: Thats because Trump is kind of all over the place, one day mad at Netanyahu, wanting beachfront condos in Gaza the next.
rikyrah
@Steve LaBonne:
Because, they would have to admit the true awfulness of so many of their family members 😒😒
Trollhattan
On hummingbirds: they will face down foes orders of magnitude larger than their tiny selves.
Is our Democrats willing to do same?
Glory b
@suzanne: Young people tend to be unreliable too.
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: Nonetheless, whether anyone recognizes it or not, it IS existential, and for both peoples.
If they cannot negotiate a way into a stable two-state solution, the future is bleak for the entire region.
suzanne
@Steve LaBonne: There’s a lot of white people who genuinely believe that, if there’s a lot of Black people in government, that they would take that as an opportunity to punish white people in some way. That’s because…. that’s what they would do with power, if they had it.
Professor Bigfoot
So long as the Democrats are led by Black people, Jews, and women, most white people will want nothing to do with us.
Thank you for articulating it succinctly.
p.a.
But the young are unreliable voters. Not ideologically, but physically: actually casting votes. Or am I misreading the post-election number crunching, which is also the CW?
rikyrah
@JaySinWa:
@Betty Cracker:
I wish people would be honest about the GOP support of Israel.
They don’t give a shyt about Israel, except for how it falls within THE RAPTURE. THAT’S IT.
And the way that the MSM completely ignores that😡😡
Ksmiami
@Professor Bigfoot: ding ding ding. You’re exactly correct. And I believe the nation will just wither if it stays on its current course.
rikyrah
@suzanne:
That’s what they are already doing – WHITE PEOPLE.
We have told them for decades to leave us the phuck alone. We have never pushed vengeance. we have pushed defense, as a reaction to being attacked.
Steve LaBonne
@suzanne: Well they currently do have it and that’s exactly what’s happening.
rikyrah
@suzanne:
What GOP POLICIES?
Outside of punishing THOSE PEOPLE
what are GOP POLICIES that they support?
Steve LaBonne
@rikyrah: That would be uncomfortable, and we know it’s a mortal sin to make white people uncomfortable.
suzanne
@rikyrah: Agree. I meant more “that individual person”. If that person was ever in any position of authority, if they were anyone’s manager at work or whatever…. they would fuck with people, and flex on them.
Belafon
@Professor Bigfoot: I’m still looking for a way to exit the white people club, there’s just one problem…
Omnes Omnibus
My ex’s parents were the first generation of Romanians to grow up under Communism. They were both from opt families but were given the chance to get an education. Her dad ended up running a state owned vineyard and winery and her mom did horticultural research. They were basically the success stories of the first days of the system. It’s funny how quickly, within a generation, that it went wrong. By the end, her dad was keeping two sets of books, one official one that showed he was meeting government goals and one that made the vineyard/winery function. He could have taken over the winery by “buying” from the government but he was basically an honest guy so he didn’t. My ex’s uncle basically got a trucking firm that way and became a mini oligarch.
New Deal democrat
@Glory b:
@p.a.:
It’s true that the young are unreliable voters. But once people form ideologies, they tend to hold on to them for the rest of their lives.
The problem on this issue is that the American reversal of carte Blanche military support for Israel’s wars may only occur after the last Palestinian child is dead.
suzanne
@rikyrah:
Tax cuts, social program cuts, anti-abortion, etc. Some people love that shit. But lots of people who don’t love that shit vote for Republicans anyway.
Steve LaBonne
@Belafon: I can’t do anything about the color of my skin, but I sure as hell can do plenty about my behavior and attitudes.
Professor Bigfoot
@Steve LaBonne: We live in a society built in Enslavement; that condoned and supported Jim Crow… to believe that history doesn’t resonate in the beliefs and behaviors of white people today is naive; but naïveté also excuses white people from ever examining why those phenomena were bad.
I say again that Germany has done a FAR better job of reckoning with its past than the United States ever has.
Deputinize America
@The Audacity of Krope:
Hummingbirds are vicious little assholes – doesn’t stop me from loving to see them or enjoying feeding the little pricks.
Belafon
@Steve LaBonne: Oh, same, but that doesn’t change what I would like. So I’ll just keep on harassing the others in the club to wake the f up.
Steve LaBonne
@Professor Bigfoot: We have barely even started trying and now we’re rapidly going backwards.
cain
@Other MJS: I think they would attack that because you must have requisite empathy to even understand or care about the suffering of others.
Professor Bigfoot
@Steve LaBonne: The Bigfoot Dictum explains a great deal.
”There is no horseshoe. There is only white people who are at best uncomfortable with any power being held in Black hands. Those white people are at all points of the ‘left-right’ spectrum.”
There’s a powerful though subconscious fear of having a non-white person “over” them in any way.
This explains the near psychotic response to the Obama Administration, from gutting the Voting Rights Act to electing the Birther in Chief.
Belafon
@Professor Bigfoot: Part of me thinks it might take something similar to what happened to Germany here to make that happen.
Steve LaBonne
@Belafon: That is indeed the thing to do. Many of us have had the experience that they will assume we’re fellow members of the club- unless we speak up.
Professor Bigfoot
@suzanne: By the same logic, the white people on Balloon Juice are thoughtful, HIGHLY informed people compared to the mass of their demographic.
The white people who have done and do the internal work to understand their place in this white supremacist, patriarchal society as just “fellow humans,” are actually pretty rare.
The majority of white people will support white male supremacy “just because.”
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
p.a.
10+
youtu.be/DMNJk1LNV0w?si=rmtMAsDNErDYYf_j
Not long ago, China (both I believe) S. Korea, & the US had issues with how Japanese imperialism was being taught in Japan. We’re sure good at correcting other nation’s uhhhhh… “oversights.”
Professor Bigfoot
@Steve LaBonne: It can be a capital offense.
Professor Bigfoot
@Belafon: Easy- grab ANY ONE of your ancestral identities and hang onto that!
”I’m not white, I’m Scottish.”
”That’s white, too!”
”Sez YOU. I sez otherwise.”
prostratedragon
“Lunático [Gardel’s horse],” Gotan Project
suzanne
@rikyrah:
They also care about hating on Arabs/Muslims. This issue offers them a twofer!!!
FYI, I think that’s also a part of the generational divide within this country. I saw growing up, in my own family and neighborhood, much more affinity and comfort with Jewish people than with Arabs or Muslims. I don’t think SuzMom knew any Arab people until she was an adult, and we lived just outside NYC and she worked there. We’ve had a lot more Arabs and Muslims come to the country in recent decades and I had many friends and classmates growing up who are Muslim. So I think that’s part of why the younger generation is more supportive of Palestine.
Omnes Omnibus
@Professor Bigfoot: Sure, pick one of the palest nationalities in Europe for your example. Hell, I am virtually translucent and I am darker than most Scots.
Steve LaBonne
@Professor Bigfoot: We can remind them that Ben Franklin thought Germans and Swedes weren’t white.
Glory b
@New Deal democrat: The unknown here isn’t what people think, it’s how much it matters to them.
Does what happens in Gaza mean enough to change a vote? The last time I saw that kind of polling was of college students before the election, Gaza was number 12 in importance on the list of topics presented.
Has that gone up or down with the general public? Who knows?
suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot: I don’t think you need to flatter us, though you’re very kind to do so. I think most of us here, of every possible variation, are trying to learn to be clearer thinkers and better citizens and humans. Unlearning all of the patterns and habits that we were raised with is the work of a lifetime.
I know I struggle with overcoming many of the family cultural expectations I was raised with. And they hurt no one but me — and my kids, if I don’t break those habits. “Is this what I really want? Am I truly being an active agent of my own life?”. Shit. It’s so hard.
Belafon
@Omnes Omnibus: At least I could identify with Sinners that way.
Glory b
@suzanne: Before 9/11, US Muslims were pretty Republican. They switched after, but were trending Republican again in connection with the LGBTQ panic manufactured by Republicans
michiganadvance.com/2023/10/03/how-some-michigan-muslims-united-with-extremist-republicans-against-l…
lowtechcyclist
@rikyrah:
That would be an excellent poll question – it’s the most significant way in which the U.S. supports Israel. Maybe politicians ought to know whether voters support that policy.
Soprano2
@Steve LaBonne: I don’t know how they can’t see this. I guess it’s easier for me since I live among them, but I know what they want – power to hurt the people they don’t like and help the ones they do. If they could figure out a way to deny government benefits to anyone who isn’t white their support for those programs would go way, way up. They believe they and the people who are like them are deserving of help before anyone else gets any help.
Soprano2
QFT. It’s what drives a lot of their fear of non-white people being in power.
prostratedragon
@NotMax: Also worth a dead thread comment that their tyrannizing partly to the form of insisting that their submediocrity and ignorance of science along with everything else should become the superlative standard. I’ve been thinking of 🤡 as American Ceaușescu for some time. Ptui!
Thanks for the video, BC. I too remember following this on the news, with some relief on their behalf.
catclub
@Professor Bigfoot: yes
catclub
@Soprano2: The election of Harold Washington as Mayor of Chicago. He had the unreasonable nerve to hire black people for jobs that were assumed to go to white people.
Machine politics were not allowed in Chicago, after all.
lowtechcyclist
@Professor Bigfoot:
As soon as someone can occupy the U.S. the way we occupied Germany, I’m sure we’ll finally have that reckoning.
suzanne
@Glory b: Yes, they’re, as a cohort, fairly culturally conservative.
The voting behavior of Arab-Americans has absolutely nothing to do with starvation and war crimes being committed against the people of Palestine. This is an issue of human rights.
cain
@Anonymous At Work:
It’s all theater. He is trying to create a distraction. The man does nothing but generate noise.
cain
@BellaPea:
Except for Stalin and Mao.
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: didn’t Charlie Pierce describe you as an “ambulatory cream cheese sculpture”?
cain
@New Deal democrat:
They will lose support from American Jews first.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: Not quite, but my grandfather used the term fish belly white to describe his own complexion.
cain
@p.a.:
Young people like being very emo so they like doing emo things and don’t find voting to be that interesting. There is no adrenaline rush to voting.
They are looking at it wrong. I find voting to be very exhilarating. People are vying for your vote and spending millions to obtain it. It’s all about the framing.
prostratedragon
@cain:
See the next thread. Jasmine Crockett has something for that:
cain
@Glory b:
Most immigrants are conservative if they are not European.
tam1MI
That is a flaw shared by many nations.
Professor Bigfoot
@suzanne: Absolutely it is.
But it’s worth it. 🙏🏾
Professor Bigfoot
@Soprano2: “There is no horseshoe. There is only white people who are at best uncomfortable with any power being held in Black hands. Those white people are at all points of the ‘left-right’ spectrum.”
Professor Bigfoot
@lowtechcyclist: Reconstruction, 1865-1877.
It failed because there was nothing like the Nuremberg trials for the treasonous Confederates, who went on to rebuild white supremacy by fire and the sword.
There’s a reason why there were hundreds of monuments to the “losers” of that war.
NARRATOR: “The didn’t really lose.”
evodevo
@Albatrossity: Yes. There are plenty of feeder holes on any feeder for everyone to get some, yet one male will try to chase off everyone else from all the neighboring feeders. Resource sharing is NOT a hummingbird policy lol
New Deal democrat
Hile we are at it, here is Scott Horton:
“The major accomplishment of Jonathan Greenblatt and the ADL has been to kill the pro-Israel consensus among Americans. Democrats now prefer candidates who refuse to travel to Israel (+45%) and back a bill to end military aid to Israel (+61%). A comparable shift has occurred among Independents.”
bsky.app/profile/robertscotthorton.bsky.social/post/3lv4hbj2qo22e
Miss Bianca
@Professor Bigfoot: Let’s not forget that Germany was essentially *forced* to do a better job of reckoning with its past – at the point of many, many guns. And even then, it was only Western Germany that did so – Eastern Germany got to bask in the ersatz glow of being part of the “Great Patriotic War” Soviet sphere and deny any responsibility for a Nazi past or being a better citizenry in the present for decades, and it showed when there was finally reunification. (1989 again!)
Short of an invading force made up of the rest of the world, I don’t see that happening in the US.
chemiclord
@kindness: It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to start that tit for tat, no matter how satisfying it would be.
But that’s presuming he’d go quietly into retirement, which recent history suggests he would be incapable of doing.
Martin
I will just note that in the NYC primary race, young voters had the highest turnout, higher than the highest demographic in the prior primary. I think there is a tendency to treat this as a ‘young people are lazy or disengaged’ issue rather than a ‘we don’t have candidates that young people like’ issue. Young voters have always ebbed and flowed – the 26th amendment was ratified in the wake of the Vietnam war because they were engaged around that issue. NYC primary is just one data point, maybe a flash in the pan and not a reliable thing, but it did happen. Young voter turnout in 2022 was the highest in a midterm in decades, because Dobbs had just happened.
I think the problem with this analysis around young voters is that it assumes a little bit of the ‘young people are democrats and then they turn into republicans’ narrative. And I think it’s more likely the case that people set their party when they are young and tend to not change it. So even if you aren’t getting turnout, you are getting people to identify.
IMO, the main problem that both parties are having with young voters right now is that they are economically fucked and neither party is doing anything about that and that is why you see them running to the margins politically, because the center (of both parties) has not embraced any policies that would benefit them going back 40 years. The whole Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Obama period has been a growing economic disaster for young and poor people that fell of it’s first cliff in the global financial crisis, then it’s second cliff in Covid and is now so bad that young people have given up on anything that looks like conventional politics to people over 40. They’re either socialists or fascists because 40 years of neoliberalism has been that destructive to poor and young people.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Martin:
And yet, we have a crapton of “liberal” commentators, writers and heaven help us, Democratic politicians, who’s lesson from last November is to simply double down on that.
Abundance Coachella a couple of months back plus Broder Klein’s so-called “abundance” rebrand of Reaganism highlight that.
Geminid
@JaySinWa: I wonder if Israel got a bump in Republican approval because of its 12 day war against Iran. I know the question was about Israel’s actions in Gaza, but the Israel/Iran war could have conditioned the response. Gaza has been out of the news for the most part until the last ten days when the humanitarian crisis became a salient story.
I spend a lot of time looking at Middle East news sites and Gaza stays a big story there, but my sense was that a lot of American sites and Americans tuned it out. But the Israeli/Iran war that began June 12 was a big story that became a huge one when the US bombed the three Iranian nuclear sites. Republicans may still have been “feeling the glow” when that poll was taken.
Fair Economist
@Baud: Starmer doing the right thing in a bold move? Unpossible!
(I mean, seriously, I can’t think of any politician use such a blank check on power (5 years to do whatever he wanted) so incompetently.)
Glory b
@suzanne: No, it doesn’t.
Somewhat off topic is the question of how important Americans find the issue. We are usually pretty unconcerned about foreign affairs.
Lots of people are starving, unfortunately, but without being noticed by Americans.
ellenr
@pluky: That’s hilarious!
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Professor Bigfoot: thank you for injecting a reality check into the slogan discussion
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@BellaPea: Hi Bella Pea! One can only hope.
dnfree
@Zelma:
Oh, you remind me of my family! My father was a rock-ribbed Republican also, and I was still with him in the Goldwater era. A couple of years later I met my now-husband in college, and in one of our early discussions about the Vietnam War he told me “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” It turned out he was right.
Juju
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m so pale that I had a few students ask me why I wore white socks most of the time. I wasn’t wearing any socks. It was my bare skin.
ruckus
@cain:
It seems like we have really reached the bottom at this point.
You’re kidding aren’t you?
This is rethuglicans. They know they’ve hit bottom when they find themselves falling off the other side of the earth. You know the side that doesn’t like complete and utter assholes and can turn off gravity for specific individuals. Maybe in another thousand years we’ll figure that out and find that specific spot. Till then, hang on and at least try to change one individual. Enough of us doing that might actually work. Although my betting limit is one.
Paul in KY
@Another Scott: Didn’t know Albania was now a member. Jeezus! They were like Double-Stalinist back in the day.
Paul in KY
@Professor Bigfoot: The future is bleaker for the Palestinians. Most Israelis (IMO) will be fine.