I think a lot of us are still reeling from the devastation, leading us to us to tend to be rigid instead of being able to perceive nuance.
I have said this before – I believe there is not just one true faith and that there is not just one reason we landed in the shitty place we’re in. It was a perfect storm, change any one of them and we would have squeaked by with a narrow victory. But now we’re in the shitty place, and our primary goal needs to be getting out of the shitty place we’re in. When the house is on fire, your only goal is to get everyone out of the house alive; if you don’t make it out of the fire, then nothing else matters.
It seems to me that the most important thing right now is getting 51 seats in the Senate and a bunch more seats in the house. Let me be clear, that does not mean I’m wiling to sacrifice anyone’s human rights to get those seats, but it does mean that we have to work with allies that have the same end goal, even if the members of the coalition have a 100 different priorities they feel are most important.
When you’re at war, you don’t throw out the experienced general because they are older than you like, or they said or did something you don’t like, or because they made a mistake about something. Age is definitely a consideration, and I am more than tired of the seniority system that rewards attendance over performance.
And yes, the median age of elected Democrats in the House and the Senate is too high. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be thrilled that it looks like there’s a good chance that Sherrod Brown will run for the Senate in 2026, regardless of his age, because he is our best shot. The same thing is true for some of our other leaders. Age should be a consideration, but not the only consideration.
What we need to do FIRST IS WIN.
Unlike the other side, we are intellectually sophisticated enough to understand and accept the need for nuance. In a crisis, it’s human nature to become more rigid. The more threatened I feel, the more rigid I become, and I know I’m not alone in that.
So I think we need to fight that tendency to be rigid in our thinking. At every level, we need to be more flexible. I think that could be our secret weapon, if we can embrace it.
I met my best friend at work – we both worked in the same unit at the University. At performance review time, we had to review ourselves and then turn that in to our bosses, and then they reviewed us. Tina always said that there were plenty of people who would criticize or tear you down, and she wasn’t going to help them in the process by giving herself bad marks on anything. There was a lot of wisdom in that, I thought, and I would apply the Tina Principle to the situation we’re in.
The fact that we lost does not mean that we weren’t doing a lot of the right things. It doesn’t mean that our messaging was terrible. It doesn’t mean that the Democratic party is broken. It doesn’t mean that we have to change everything.
Yes, we lost. It’s mind-blowingly awful. But there were a lot of foreign actors with their thumbs on the scale, and I believe the election could have gone the other way, and likely would have gone the other way, without all the bad actors. Russia. Israel. Hamas.
I want to come back to a point that Another Scott made recently, which is that many of the presidential elections for the last 25 years or so have been pretty close. A third party candidate here. Hanging chads there. A series of slim wins and slim losses on both sides.
I simply do not think that our loss in November means the Democratic party is broken and that we have to throw half of the Dems overboard. Yes, the mean age of Democratic elected officials is too high. I don’t think we need to change course as much as we need to do some changing with the times, particularly with respect to how we get our message out in the age of not just social media, but corrupt social media and mainstream media.
Speaking of flexibility, I think the consultants and the fundraising machines are blind to the fact that they have taken things too far, and that what was once a good approach is no longer working. They cry wolf a thousand times a day, and crying wolf even louder and more frequently is not working. That’s a course correction I can get behind.
We talked about fairness in yesterday’s post, Democrats: Making Your Life Better.
The smart move is to learn the right lessons from our loss, and learn from what has come since then, but we will surely lose if we continue to shiv our allies and throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Even here, sometimes we resemble dogs with their hackles up, and once those hackles go up, it’s hard to have any outcome besides a fight. Maybe learning to recognize when we are being rigid would be a good first move.
Weetabix
I dunno… President Lincoln threw out his experienced generals on the grounds they kept losing. Promoted Grant because “he fights.”
Ishiyama
Actually, I think it will be necessary, and a good thing. “There’s a hard rain a gonna fall”.
Professor Bigfoot
I’m a card-carrying* Democrat and have been for decades.
I will ALWAYS support the Democratic candidate; and I have SELDOM had to hold my nose to do so.
That doesn’t keep me from being less than pleased with supposedly Democratic candidates running like, “no, not really; I’m not like them!
*okay, card holding— I’ve got too much crap in my wallet as it is
Baud
I can’t stand that system. Glad I no longer have to do it.
Melancholy Jaques
Maybe in most respects, but not in our online discourse. And not just us and not just politics. That is something about these mostly anonymous internet formats.
As for the age issue, I am a 70 year old who would love it if we had a corps of 40 somethings ready to take over leadership, but we don’t. Cooper & Brown are the only chance we have in those states and they are going to have very hard campaigns. I don’ t think many people would bet good money on two wins in those races right now.
Baud
@Professor Bigfoot:
I didn’t get a card.
Otherwise, I’m the same as you.
Scamp Dog
I think the close elections come from a fundamental conservative/GOP problem that their goals are bad for a lot of people, but they have a lot of money for the propaganda machine. They can’t buy a landslide, but they can dirty up the democratic brand, and make enough contradictory promises to squeak out a victory about half the time.
Our problem is now that they’ve gotten the trifecta, they see a path to setting up an authoritarian system that obviates the need for democracy and lets them loot the place. Their problem is that what they want isn’t consistent with a system that generates actual prosperity.
What happens next isn’t at all clear to me, and makes me doubt anybody else’s predictions as well.
NutmegAgain
Love this post. As to, “we had to review ourselves and then turn that in to our bosses” fuck that nonsense! In grad school I had one professor, one of my doctoral advisors, who made me write my own letter of recommendation. (Yes she was that lazy. I’m sure she cloaked it in some “own your own power” BS.) That was truly horrible. I was still under her supervision, as I was just about to defend my dissertation, and many years of work. It was scary, humiliating, and toxic to be asked to do that. I don’t think she made any changes, just signed the damned thing. (This was more than 25 years ago and I still feel the feels when I think of it, which thankfully is very rarely.) But when anyone in a vulnerable position is forced to do something like that I think it’s always a dominance move and it sucks.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Professor Bigfoot: Me, speaking as a ex-Republican myself I find it a bit absurd anyone would pass on an opportunity to vote against a Republican. At lest the Democrats want to govern.
wonkie
I think our loss was because, at that point in time, the majority of voters voted for racism and misogyny, and I totally fail to see how that is the fault of Democrats.
I’ve also noticed that the people who are heavily invested in Dem-bashing are often the same people who engage in either/or allornothing thinking. They don’t seem to understand that it is possible to credit some, fault others, fault one for this and credit the same one for that or BLAME THE FUCKING REPUBICANS.
And my observation of the devoted Dem-bashers on Blue Sky is they seem to have noticed politics starting about three months ago, have extremely limited understanding of current or historical Dem activities and are sometimes actual marxists. Seriously. The kind of people who brush off mass murder by Mao or Stalin as a necessary step to fight the evils of capitalism.
They also don’t seem to understand that the incessant public smearing of Democrats is NOT GOING TO HELP US WIN. On the contrary.
And lastly they don’t seem to understand that it is possible to stop the mindless smears and, instead, focus on constructive targeted criticism.
The sad thing is that social media probably isn’t a bad measure of where we’re at with the base and the general public is probably worse, though minus the Marxism.
But I tend cynical.
suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot: Did you get a card? I didn’t get a card.
In all seriousness, I agree with WaterGirl. The things that unite us on the left side of the aisle are greater than our differences, and we simply do not have the numbers to win if we don’t all get onboard the train. But I’m an elitist shitlib cringe wine mom, so take that FWIW.
It makes me laugh here at the people who think I’m a shitty centrist and those who think I’m a dirtbag leftist. LOL.
Steve LaBonne
@Professor Bigfoot: Devil’s advocate: in a party that is a broad coalition and that has to appeal to very different electorates in different parts of the country in order to win enough to govern, a certain amount of that is unavoidable. I will grin and bear it in constituencies where it’s needed, while being angry about it where it’s clearly gratuitous.
Professor Bigfoot
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I have a theory that completely answers that question; but is generally rejected ‘round these parts.
Josie
Thanks for this post. I agree wholeheartedly with everything you wrote. We could all do with a bit less egotism and a bit more inclusiveness. The Democratic party needs to prevail, and we need to put aside our differences in order to make that happen.
Cmorenc
One of the essential things going forward is to leave intramural grudges from the past aside and concentrate on how we win and regain critical ground with the electorate. Such as grudges against people who supported Bernie instead of Hillary in 2016 and people who wanted Joe to step aside in 2024. Or against those who insufficiently supported your pet issue IYHO, whatever that was. We have to keep together a diverse coalition, and that is going to necessitate a lot of give-and-take – the only thing that matters right now is to rip the grip away from the fascist kleptocrats and religious extremists on government, period. Progress is impossible playing righteous blame games.
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud: Yep. Foisted off on us a decade ago, with no input, and certainly no follow-up from the deciderers as to whether it’s worth all the effort, ill will, and drama it creates.
Princess
@suzanne: I’m an elitist shitlib cringe wine mom too and I think Water Girl is right.
Tim C
@Scamp Dog: I agree with you on this analysis. The fundamental problem with “Evil” and yes, the Republican-Trump movement is evil, is that simply put, evil doesn’t really work. It doesn’t create prosperity or progress or anything that helps people. It’s dumb and selfish and ultimately self destructive. There’s not even really a coherent thought in “Conservative” dogma right now that does anything but destroy both its enemies and itself.
StringOnAStick
I am a solid liberal and I contribute on a monthly basis to what/who I think are most effective, and I now unsubscribe immediately from any text I get, but especially the ones using the “this is a CRISIS, DONATE NOW” approach. Some of it feels like political fundraising has just become an easy cash grab, and it makes people even more cynical so I am doing what I can to not encourage it.
matt
Voters turning into knee jerk ageists because of Biden is predictable and stupid. Rise above scapegoating in your analysis. Old white guys check a lot of identity politics boxes for people unfortunately. Also they generally have settled political personas, which calms people down especially in a world where we can elect Sinema and get a ridiculous backstabber of the voters.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Professor Bigfoot: Well, yes, racism. But the only part of the problem. It’s really a celebration of the stupid.
Socolofi
Fire Everybody! never works, but when your team loses to TFG, AGAIN, you can’t just say, “Oh, it was a once in a lifetime confluence of events!”
One is an occurrence. Twice is enemy action (I skip right past coincidences).
As an example, one of the slogans from Harris that made me cringe was: Opportunity Economy. TBH I didn’t read much about any nuance, but from a slogan, what it said to me was, “I’ll have the opportunity to work hard and make it.” Well fuck, I’m ALREADY working hard. So I have to work HARDER? So it’s not a shocker that a lot of working-class people turned away.
Meanwhile, you look at Mamdani in New York. He’s like, “This place is fucking too expensive, I’m gonna fix that, here’s some things I’m gonna try and do.” Again, not a shocker that a lot of people are interested in that message.
Despite a not-as-rosy jobs report, there’s a LOT of press that college grads can’t find jobs. There’s computer science types, who normally would be scooped up somewhere, who can’t find jobs. Yeah the economy is doing fine for a lot of people, but for a lot of young people, many with college debt, the prospect of not being able to get anything close to a real job is terrifying. It’s also terrifying for parents who don’t know what else they can do.
What I haven’t seen yet are any current leaders even talk realistically about that problem. And that’s the refresh of leadership Democrats need IMHO.
StringOnAStick
Agreed on the need to come together to get the fascists out of office, and I have ceased being nice to the anarchic accelerationists I know, I am just fucking done with them.
I am a strong liberal with a monthly contribution list that gives my husband agita, and now I unsubscribe from every text I get asking for money, especially those that use the hair on fire, give now OR ALL IS DOOMED approach. I have limited funds, but now I feel that too much of it is a cash grab because there has been a growing (and demonstrated by R’s) realization that a great way to make a ton of $ is to run and get donations, have consultants, etc. I will no longer support what starts to feel like a cynical cash grab of up to 10 different groups a day asking for money, and I unsubscribe immediately, period. I know several people who are immensely cynical about the constant asks for money, and their main comment is along the lines of “if they actually were DOING something”. We here know they are, but I am reporting how the normies see it. The party may not be broken, but the texting for $ fundraising model is.
JustRuss
Democrats are losing tight elections against a tsunami of money, foreign intervention, and a hostile media ecosystem, both conventional and digital. It’s kind of surprising we’re not doing a lot worse.
Steve LaBonne
@Socolofi: A LOT is going to depend on whether Mamdani can make tangible, visible progress. That is very hard in NYC as De Blasio found out. I am fervently wishing Mamdani luck, he’s going to need plenty.
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
Speaking as a not-yet-old and as an employment-challenged person, I find it most odd that the one profession not entirely consumed by ageism is the one tasked with making all our lives either better or miserable, depending on the political party involved. Dotage is not a benefit to decision-making in government. We cannot simultaneously tell people that their professional growth ends at 40-something and expect pols who are nearly twice that age to remain effective in office.
Steve in the ATL
@Baud: I hate performance reviews. Partly because I always get bad ones, but mostly because they make my job so much harder. 90% of employees get a 3 out of 5, then we get sued and I get pleadings that say “Plaintiff met all their expectations every year for 10 years, then they fired him, *claiming* that he wasn’t performing his job!”
Great if done right, but almost never done right.
Steve LaBonne
@StringOnAStick: I am grateful that Google Fi is quite good at recognizing and blocking spam texts. I look at my spam folder now and then- oy.
UncleEbeneezer
The fact that American voters chose: Nixon, Reagan, W and Trump makes it tough for me to be too hard on the Dem Party. Bigotry sells in US politics. The fact that we somehow elect a Clinton, Obama, Biden every now and then is actually impressive if you know the history of Racism, Misogyny and Xenophobia in America.
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
Dmkingto
Well said, WaterGirl!
Baud
Steve in the ATL
@suzanne:
Are you also cheugy? And could someone please tell what that is?
Professor Bigfoot
@Steve LaBonne: No argument— but I link it with that also seem to not have robust Black outreach in the big cities.
They’re trying to appeal to white conservatives, and those white people will always prefer a full throated “conservatism” to “conservative lite.”
It LOOKS like they would prefer to appeal to white conservatives than to the actual base of the Party, and I think THAT is a mistake.
Chief Oshkosh
@UncleEbeneezer: Don’t forget Carter, who (IMO), showed a lot of personal growth in many areas. Nowhere near where we are today, but then, his heyday was a long, long time ago.
Trollhattan
Is retired Rep Steve King (Nazi, IA) an undocumented consultant to the Trump admin? Experts disagree.
“Sir” insert makes the quote utterly credible.
Professor Bigfoot
@Cmorenc: I don’t think of it as “holding a grudge,” I think of it as “recognizing and grappling the the fundamental truths uncovered about the American electorate and just why do who hate the Democratic Party.
Steve LaBonne
@Professor Bigfoot: All true.
Professor Bigfoot
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Stupid white people are generally racist.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
laura
Fall in love in the primaries and fall in line in the general and stop running from your party is what I’d advise – not that anybody’s asking. I’ve never been ashamed to be a Democrat ever. All I have to do is glance at Republican policies, Republican elected officials and the vast majority of Republican voters to know which side I stand on and for. Third parties is a muggs game.
A newer, better, more equitable New Deal is what I’ve always hoped and worked for and I see no need to abandon that policy goal. We will only get there via the Democratic party, so I remain proud to be a Democrat.
Parfigliano
What’s a “wine mom”?
suzanne
@Steve in the ATL: I am deeply cheugy. Very basic and uncool.
Cartoons Hate Her had a funny piece about how, once white mom types join something, we make it uncool.
Cheugy AF.
bbleh
As noted elsewhere, “politics makes strange bedfellows,” and I’m perfectly fine with that as long as they put out.
Or as I-can’t-remember-who put it some time ago, “lead, follow, or get out of the way.”
Hildebrand
@Socolofi: It is not a coincidence that Trump defeated two women and lost to the old white guy – America is still a deeply misogynistic and racist country.
Jackie
He’s made it official. I remember his passionate speech at the DNC Convention last summer, and assumed it was only a matter of time.
The republicans switching parties to Democratic almost say it’s for those same reasons.
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: Oh, I’m sure he will win the election. But that’s the easy part.
suzanne
@Parfigliano: The stereotype of middle-class overworked moms who drink to cope. This generation’s version of Valium moms. Sort of scapegoated as a type, similar to “girlboss”. Often derided as “basic”.
I don’t actually drink wine, other than on very rare occasions.
pajaro
Thank you, thank you Water Girl.
Doug R
@wonkie:
“They’re eating the cats! They’re eating the dogs!”
Got 1.5% MORE of the vote, even after 1,500,000 dead Americans from COVID and the January 6 coup.
Geminid
@matt: Democrats elected six new Senators last year: Andy Kim, Elissa Slotkin, Lisa Rochester Blunt, Ruben Gallego, and Adam Schiff. They all replaced other Democrats. If I count Dianne Feinstein, the Senators they replaced were a combined 120 years older than their replacements.
This shift never got much attention. In fact, I have yet to see anyone pounding the “gerontocracy” drum acknowledge it. That makes me wonder if some of them actually care about this issue except as a club to beat Democrats with
Ed. I missed one of the saix new Senators. Or maybe there were only five, but I know I ran the numbers on the age differential several times.
catclub
No, and no.
Betty
@Steve in the ATL: Oh, you are so right about performance reviews. How many times as in-house counsel did I have to tell supervisors sorry, you can’t fire a guy you keep giving good reviews to. In a different career as a trainer, I found it was nearly impossible to get across to supervisors that doing performance reviews right was not just sitting down and putting numbers on a paper. Anyway, I am happy to be retired so it’s someone else’s problem.
Deputinize America
I keep debating with myself over my desire to donate money to the Communist Party just to create a leftward foil, and to send a message that calling every government action designed to help people as “communism’ is cheapening the phrase, but I really value my TSA Precheck and Global Entry privileges too much to lose them by going on some stupid list.
Plus, I wind up reading CPUSA material, and find that is generally hot garbage from a leftward slant.
pajaro
@Geminid:
And Angela Alsobrooks
ewrunning
@StringOnAStick: Agree wholeheartedly, but I’m far from sure that “unsubscribing” actually accomplishes anything. Whoever came up with “Humbly Asking” as a subject line for fundraising emails should be locked in a room and forced to listen to “Baby Shark” 24/7.
Belafon
@Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq):
As a 55 year old, I’ve never heard that.
Trollhattan
@Betty:
My deepest foray into hell on earth was having twelve direct reports for which I had to prepare and conduct annual evaluations. By the dictum of 90 percent of energy is consumed by 10 percent of workers, ten would be relatively easy, friendly conversations even, and two would be nothing but dread and conflict.
Trollhattan
@Deputinize America: Oh, you’re already on a list or three.
Geminid
@pajaro: That’s right. Alsobrooks was 52 when she replaced 80 year-old Ben Cardin.
Doug R
@UncleEbeneezer:
I’d argue it’s been that way for a lot of folk for most of American history-the Warren court was an anomaly.
Belafon
@Deputinize America:
Cmorenc
@ewrunning: Unsubscibing only works when there’s numerous enough collective impact to economically undermine the viability of the entity being unsubscibed from.
The Audacity of Krope
From an OP in defense of a man who was famously among the first the shiv our D President last year.
Bokonon
Let’s take a page from Cato the Elder, and repeat over and over –
GOP delenda est.
stinger
WaterGirl, I agree that we are too rigid, and I’d include too fixated on purity as an example.
We as a party gave up on the most effective president in 80 years because of one partially bad debate performance. I strongly disagreed, but we’ve got people saying that Elizabeth Warren/Chuck Schumer/Adam Schiff/etc. will never get their support again because, from where they were sitting, they thought we needed a candidate other than Biden. I don’t know how often I have seen one jackal or another say that some Democrat was dead to them because of a vote on this or that, or because they weren’t rude enough to the sitting president, or some such. It’s not just a difference of opinion on a given topic, it’s a DEAL BREAKER.
My dog, people, how do you maintain IRL relationships? Maybe you live in blue states and have little concern about the bigger picture. I’m going with WaterGirl and the Tina Principle. There’s a time and a place for publicly criticizing ourselves. This isn’t it.
hoytwillrise
@Socolofi: Yup. this whole we’ve got to rally behind Dems is exactly what leadership is unwilling to do when it comes to NYC, they’re still in the insiders club & won’t change until they’re replaced.
Soprano2
@Steve in the ATL: There’s a rumor in our department that a couple of years ago the supervisors were told to find something subpar about everyone in their performance review so that if they ever wanted to fire them they could. It would explain a couple of things that happened in my performance review that year. My boss this year said he read that review and was kind of perplexed by it. I told him I think it was because I got crossways with the bosses’ bosses pet employee (which is kind of true). I’ve been told that employees were told by their boss that this was happening! I feel like after you’ve been in a place for 20 years the performance reviews are mostly worthless. What kind of goals am I going to set for next year – keep doing my job?
Soprano2
@Steve LaBonne: I didn’t even realize those were going into a spam folder until I got a car that showed me every text, and I couldn’t see them! I looked at unread, and whoo boy…..
Soprano2
@Professor Bigfoot: It’s a continuing effort to get back the votes of the people the press considers the “real” voters – white men. The press acts like politicians aren’t actually legitimate unless they can get the votes of white men, that’s one reason they’re so biased toward Republicans.
Archon
@Deputinize America: Any time or money given to left-wing parties in America is just helping the Republican party, period.
Like it or not the Democratic Party is the last institution with JUST enough legitimacy and support to defeat fascism in America. If the Democrats fail the next step is blood on the streets.
tobie
@JustRuss: I agree with you about the hostile media environment and tsunami of dark money Dems face. However much Harris/Walz raised, it was a pittance compared to the undisclosed funds and support Trump and the Republicans had. Yesterday’s thread was about the overarching vision Dems should craft. Republicans are good at breeding cynicism–e.g., all politicians are corrupt–and selfishness. What will be our version of “hope and change” to combat this? I don’t know but that’s the billion dollar question.
Ohio Mom
In a bit of a rush right now, not reading the rest of the comments, just saying that WaterGirl is channeling Cole, I feel properly yelled at, and I’m already a Sherrod Brown fan.
Mr. Bemused Senior
OK, usually I just lurk on discussions like this, but now I have something to say.
I happen to be a strong supporter of Adam Schiff even though I was also on the stick with Biden side of that argument. I was ready to disown Schiff but his immediate turn to supporting Kamala Harris, moments after Biden’s announcement, convinced me otherwise.
We just had a long conversation (“Which Side Are You On”) about what is the right thing for senators to do when it comes to funding.
My personal opinion is there should be NO cooperation with Republicans at this point. But I am not an office holder. I agree with WaterGirl 100%: the most important thing for us now is to win elections.
Melancholy Jaques
@Cmorenc:
Yesterday on BlueSky I saw a thread of people arguing about the 1990s crime bill.
ExPatExDem
That’s a very rose colored assessment of the former POTUS.
Omnes Omnibus
@Melancholy Jaques: It’s been the subject of “debate” here in the past week or so.
The Audacity of Krope
@ExPatExDem: Or a gentle condemnation of decades worth of Presidents prior.
Melancholy Jaques
@Soprano2:
Not to defend the ingrained racism of the political press, but white people are 60% of the population & have over 80% of the wealth. It makes practical sense that anyone trying to get elected nationally would try to appeal to that group or at least, as I think every Democrat has done, appeal to what they believe to be the persuadable portion of white people.
ruckus
Age should be a consideration, but not the only consideration.
This should be on a very nice plaque somewhere.
The right age sometimes allows more strength or experience or energy. But it’s realty, not political gain that should be a major part of politics. Yes the side that wants better for everyone rather than selfishness should be the side in office, because that is the point, or should be for politics, in a democracy. The concept of a democracy is the best for all, not the gain for a few, or the pompous arrogance of one. The head is supposed to lead for everyone, not for the few. Or the dollars. That doesn’t make it easy, it actually makes it harder. And not every “leader” is going to have everyone in mind as to who, what, when, how comes up – which it does often in government.
Baud
@Melancholy Jaques:
Not recently, but I’ve occasionally seen Taft-Hartly being discussed in a similar vein.
Archon
@ExPatExDem: I liked Biden and think he got a raw deal in some respects but this “best President in 80 years talk” sounds absolutely delusional to me.
Belafon
@ExPatExDem:
The most effective in 80 years? Because if you’re talking about the other part of that sentence, then that’s the entire problem we’re having as a party.
The Audacity of Krope
@Archon: Most of the rest weren’t exactly good Presidents either. Only a couple of them I’d even feel comfortable calling good people.
Belafon
@Archon: I would put it around 60 years, and then we could have endless debates about Vietnam vs Medicare. 80 years includes Truman.
suzanne
@Belafon: Raven’s not here to drop FUCK LBJ into the conversation.
I miss that guy.
Archon
@Belafon: Forget 60 years, the vast majority of Democrats would look at you funny if you said Biden was a more effective President than Obama, and I’d be one of them.
Trollhattan
Meanwhile…
Wonder if this will trigger a “nasty senator” shot from Donny?
The Audacity of Krope
@Archon: Obama was especially effective at conceding policy points to Republicans to build good faith that never came.
Trollhattan
@Archon:
I’ll give Biden credit for the most consequential single term in my lifetime. And in the face of utterly contemptuous and criminal Republican opposition.
Matt McIrvin
@suzanne: In real life, I feel like a wild-eyed radical. On line, I feel like a stodgy centrist shitlib.
tobie
I guess we’re back to throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Dang.
Melancholy Jaques
@Archon:
After LBJ, who got more done?
Archon
@Trollhattan: Please, Obama was the one who got a contemptuous and criminal Republican opposition. Biden got a Republican party happy to sign on with him to get factories and fiber optics built in red state communities.
Omnes Omnibus
@Archon: Name the legislation that the GOP voted for during the Biden administration, please.
stinger
If I’d said “an effective president”, some of you would apparently have nothing to contribute to this conversation about rigidity.
Shalimar
I will say the obvious: You can’t cry wolf, take a shitload of money for tons of wolf traps, and then not do anything about all the fucking wolves.
stacib
@Professor Bigfoot: that also seem to not have robust Black outreach in the big cities.
Agree 100%. I can’t remember the last time a canvasser was in my neighborhood asking for votes for either party. Easily, decades. The assumption that’s it’s the south side of Chicago and will most likely go Democratic seems to be enough for any candidate running as a D. I can’t imagine the number of votes either lost or don’t happen due to disinterest in the “message” and apathy because folks are being told their vote is taken for granted, and that has started to sink in and fester.
ruckus
It is not an insignificant concept that 100 or 1,000 or 10,000 people will have different ideals, concepts of needs and priorities. We have different lives, we have different histories, different needs. Sure some of those needs are very similar, but still different, not everyone likes to eat paste for dinner….. or prime rib.
One of the problems I see for this country (or any country) is that as the population gets bigger many bits and pieces may not get big enough to work as they once did. Food is an example. Some place to live at least reasonably close and reasonably affordable to some place to work is another. A possibly wider array of jobs might help. Less pompous arrogance from the over monied might help. But then this is humanity, in all its forms, ideals or lack thereof.
suzanne
@Matt McIrvin: Yes, well, the internet is a dark mirror, in many ways. Even this place. One of the weirder things for me in 2024 was the gaping chasm in perception and opinion here on BJ, versus what I saw in my real-life friend group and among my neighbors.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Melancholy Jaques: meanwhile, most in the gop cannot seem to remember basics like George W. Bush was president when the financial crisis hit and Alan Greenspan (gop appointee/lifelong deregulating gop) even kind of sort of apologized for preaching business would regulate itself.
It used to be known that elephants never forget. Now the whole bunch of goyper elephants have dementia.
Melancholy Jaques
@HopefullyNotcassandra:
The Republican political media hung the financial collapse around Obama’s neck and promoted the hysteria & the tea party bullshit that limited his ability to address it.
They did the same with Biden & COVID.
And a large portion of the voters, being morons, went along with it.
Trollhattan
@Archon: We’ll just forget January 6 then.
WaterGirl
@Ohio Mom: Hey, there wasn’t a single goddammit or “I hate you people” in my post! :-)
suzanne
@WaterGirl: Nor did you refer to anyone as “Sassyfrass Farts”.
lowtechcyclist
@Archon:
He was, and you can look at me however you want.
lowtechcyclist
@Shalimar:
Tons of Wolf Traps? That sounds cool – it’s a really pleasant venue. There should be tons of them around the country!
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Archon: Political achievements are truly group efforts. Political destruction is too.
Every achievement stands upon the last and so on. President Biden was able to achieve a great many things in part because President Obama got in there first. This analysis can continue back to the beginning, even back to magna carta. The analysis should include senators, congressional representatives, staffs and secretaries too. Jurists, governors, mayors and protest leaders belong in the discussion. Where would any of us be without Learned Hand (and what a name he did have!)
The most significant change that assisted President Biden’s many successes, belongs to Senator Reed, I think. Antitrust enforcement was virtually impossible until Senator Reed achieved majority rule in the senate on presidential appointments. That same rule change has allowed this president to install some truly dimwitted bulbs, unfortunately.
The process of perfecting our union is more a culmination than a competition. When we see it that way, it is easier to work together to get it done.
We need to win if we are to end this scourge anytime soon.
hueyplong
Both Obama and Biden put an end to bad actions of rogue Republican regimes, and in both cases worse (Trump) came along and undid a lot of the good. I’m not seeing the point in arguing which was some slight margin better than the other. Both did exceptionally well under the specific conditions in which he operated.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Trollhattan: that is a brilliant idea! Let us hope enough Goypers get on board.
stinger
@HopefullyNotcassandra:
Nice.
SFBayAreaGal
I’ve noticed Raven has been missing in the comments. Is he okay?
Old School
@SFBayAreaGal: Steve in the ATL mentioned talking to Raven in a comment this morning.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@stinger: I actually thought I was paraphrasing Barack Obama there. I still do. I cannot find the quote if it exists outside of my imagination.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
‘Let’s not bicker and argue about who killed who. This is supposed to be a happy occasion.’
– Monty Python
Sure Lurkalot
Even in blue state local elections, I have had to hold my nose to vote…for example, for John Hickenlooper and Jared Polis (twice each for governor, add twice for mayor and once for Senator for Hickenlooper). Polis, who, believing vaccination should be a “personal choice”, likes the monster JFK Jr. and Hick, who voted for the embarassing sycophant, Scott Bessent as well as the crypto bill and more, despite his staff telling supporters he would stop voting for Trump’s shit sandwiches.
I seriously can’t even with these two, I have no desire to vote for another libertarian or Republican lite Dem ever again but the alternative is always worse.
So, the nose got held and it likely will get held again but I’ll admit to being a bit sore about it.
cain
@Baud:
Do you have a cat?
suzanne
@Sure Lurkalot: I voted for — and even made phone calls on behalf of — Kyrsten Sinema. Multiple times. And I knew she was a piece of shit and I did it anyway. I feel you.
tam1MI
@Baud:
Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams are in a high-stakes staring contest.
Both independent candidates are refusing to get out of each others’ way in the NYC mayoral race — virtually sealing victory for Zohran Mamdani
They say this like it is a bad thing.
Trollhattan
@tam1MI:
Big “Let’s you and him fight” vibes. Hopefully, NY avoids them both. Enough with the mayoral own goals.
Baud
@cain:
That’s a very personal question, don’t you think?
tam1MI
@Steve LaBonne: Oh, I’m sure he [Mamdani] will win the election. But that’s the easy part.
I think there is a better than even chance Mamdani becomes the next David Dinkins. I wish him the best of luck because he will need it.
Citizen Alan
@Steve LaBonne: Yeah, even if he wins decisively, he’s going to have to deal with the fact that the NYPD as an institution will hate him on principle unless he does something to signal he’s okay with NY cops effectively having a license to kill. And they’ll probably still hate him even if he does.
Martin
I don’t think you need to throw any of them overboard, apart possibly some of the very old ones. But they do need to learn from November and adapt to it. What Democrats claim to stand for needs to come into alignment with that they do, they need to listen better to voters, and they need to adapt how they campaign to voters to the modern era. To wit Mamdani:
That’s it. If direct policies that help the working class is our definition of ‘leftist’ god fucking help us, the Democratic Party deserves to die – that’s not socialism, that’s liberalism. But Marie Gluesenkamp Perez is the co-chair of the blue dogs and does most of those things. Sherrod Brown does most of those things (and I think is only struggling because Ohio has drifted pretty far to the right), that was a big part of Cory Booker’s appeal with the stories when he was mayor, same for John Fetterman coming up from mayor – they were both very working class focused, citizen focused, direct action politicians that were visible.
Trump campaigned on more liberal economic policies than Harris did. Yes, they were all lies, but Democrats aren’t covering that space. Biden ran on raising the minimum wage and 8 Democratic senators voted against it. 1 and 2 people! The party of labor has lost labor.
Uncle Cosmo
FTR, it was seven: Angela Alsobrooks replaced Democrat Ben Cardin in MD.
Uncle Cosmo
Nice stenographic version of You’re a fucking imbecile, buddy1
Archon
@The Audacity of Krope: Obama was able to show how hypocritical and fake Republican talking points on their supposed policy preferences were.
Citizen Alan
@Baud: Evil cannot comprehend good. And apparently, jerks cannot comprehend not being jerks. Kinda reminds me of how the Bernie people were outraged in 2020 when most of the Dem presidential field dropped out relatively quickly so that everyone could rally around the most viable non-Bernie candidate instead of simply staying in out of stubbornness and ego and thereby letting Bernie take it with a plurality. (Which is, of course, how Shitgibbon got the GOP nomination in 2016.) IIRC, David Sirota thought it was “cheating.”
frosty
@suzanne: But I’m an elitist shitlib cringe wine mom.
I passed that on to Ms F and she said “Yeah! No, wait, make that a cocktail mom.”
The Audacity of Krope
@Archon: Yes, that’s definitely a way to phrase the same thing as though there were no consequences.
Another Scott
@Melancholy Jaques:
Hard disagree.
For example, there were lots of 20-30-40 something reporters talking about the “historic” inflation during the pandemic. They had no personal experience with the most recent actual severe economy-wide inflation in the 1970s, so some/many were taking propaganda as being the truth.
It helps to have leaders with experience, who can say – “look, I was there, this isn’t like that, and I can tell you why”.
A government run by masses of 40-somethings would make a lot of foreseeable mistakes.
Yes, oldsters have problems as well, (as does systems that reward seniority above all else). But they have lots of value, also too. There needs to be a balance.
Something something old age and treachery something something.
My $0.02.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Archon
@The Audacity of Krope: Who said there were no consequences? It was a political strategy that worked in some ways, didn’t in others. I think the better question is, was there a different strategy a black President like Obama could have used that would have worked better against Republicans?
Gaardian
I’m sorry, but no. Performance in this crisis matters. The performance of so many of our incumbent Dems has been to roll over, make excuses, rely on norms that only seem to apply to Democrats. The fact that so many elite democrats, from huge law firms, to big universities, to elected representatives have chosen to bend the knee in the face of a creeping dictatorship shows that the priorities of that entire class of Democrats is out of synch not only with the median Democratic voter but with the Constitution as well.
There’s no way you can win a war with a general whose first move is to surrender and wait for. . . what? another 3 or four or five point drop in Trumps approval to maybe, I dunno, have an opinion?
I don’t understand why every Senator just doesn’t deny unanimous consent on everything available until ICE agents take off their masks and stop throwing people into secret prisons without due process. Not hard. Bare minimum really. I don’t understand why we’re not filibustering by every single available thing every single day we can. Something a minority in the Senate can do. Have they passed this performance review?
Maybe the GOP takes it away, if they do, so much the worse for them, but the act of doing so costs them time and energy. That’s what we need to buy now, is time.
It’s insane actually that you get more love of democracy and the Constitution from someone walking down the street who takes real risks with their lives and safety to confront the illegal military occupation of Southern California in the face of ICE tyranny, than you do from elected folks who swore a literal oath to do exactly that.
Sen Alex Padilla got thrown to the floor by Noem’s security for asking a question. What was the result? They can’t even be stirred to protect their physical safety or the dignity of their office. How can they be counted on to fight for you?
When you’re soft like that, it shows. Trump sees it. Thune sees it. Miller sees it. They reek of fear and indecision and trump comes by for their lunch money every day. And they pay!
ruckus
One of the things that being an old can help is a look backwards. See what was done in another time and did it work and work well or was it a complete bust. Sure humanity changes, often with knowledge and communications. We get today, to see more than we did 50-70 years ago. This concept we are doing right here of course didn’t exist. I worked stuffing envelopes for politics well before I could vote. Of course the voting age dropped to 18 after I turned 21. Oh well better I missed it than it didn’t happen. Many people were drafted or joined the military during Vietnam when they couldn’t vote and many of them died in that war without ever being able to vote. That to me was very wrong.
I see some who don’t think that the voting age should have dropped but I thought and still think that if the country could demand someone be drafted at 18, or serve in the military at 18, they should have been able to vote. We were at war and over 58,000 American military personal died there. Many of them were likely under 21 years old. Many of the people I served with at that time were under 21
And how about WWII or the Korean war? How many died there that were unable to vote?
The Audacity of Krope
@Archon: And for all of it, in the end, we end up with a meaner immigration system, more committed to our murderous colonial projects abroad, and more dependent on private industry.
Thanks, Obama.
Archon
@The Audacity of Krope: Only an ivory tower white male liberal would deign to blame Obama for the mess we are in right now…
Miss Bianca
@Jackie: I approve this message.
The Audacity of Krope
@Archon: His share of it and I chose very specific segments of policy. And I ain’t in no ivory tower. I’m busting my ass and skipping meals to pay rent
I was broadly supportive of Obama throughout his Presidency. It is only in retrospect that I see that while he was better than most of, if not all, the others who held the position during my lifetime, he still didn’t do much to help.
He couldn’t have. Our institutions, including the Democratic Party, aren’t set up to allow it.
Martin
@Another Scott: Wages in the 70s were a lot better so there was a greater degree of slack to absorb that inflation. Real wage growth in the early part of the 70s was pretty good so the ’73 spike mostly just ate those gains without setting people back too badly, but the ’79 spike really set people back. Also too, that inflation gave us Reagan, so we downplay it at our peril.
Also in the 70s asset inflation was very low so things like housing were still approachable even with high interest rates, but post Reagan has been generally marked by high asset inflation rates (post GFC, very high) which nobody seems interested in addressing because if you’re old, you hold assets so the economy looks great, and if you’re young you don’t and the economy looks terrible. Democrats are playing the same ‘pull the ladder up behind us’ game that we accuse the GOP of doing, but rather than it being rich to middle class, it’s middle class to working class.
Older democrats would be in better standing with young democrats if they would focus on rebuilding those bridges to asset ownership and the middle class and stop trickling down. It’s why they liked Bernie despite him being one of the oldest guys out there because his whole message was wages over assets. The ARA was the only thing Democrats accomplished under Biden that directly helped the working class and that was temporary and gone by 2023. Democrat couldn’t even pass Biden’s minimum wage hike because 8 senate Dems defected.
Martin
@Archon: You have that backward. The whole Democratic experiment that started with Clinton was how to peel the white middle class out of the GOP because Democrats were getting killed due to how large that class had gotten. So starting with Clinton Democrats shifted their focus from the working class to that middle class – and it worked. The soccer moms that were supposed to make a permanent republican majority over crime concerns became Obama voters. That plan worked, and a lot of white dems that now are Pod Saves fans would have been Bill Kristol fans in the 80s. The problem was that the Democratic Party shift in favor of locking down the middle class has caused them to ignore the working class and they’ve been steadily bled off election after election. It’s not that the GOP offers them anything better, but they don’t offer them anything worse either. You have two parties of trickle down, protect asset values, boost productivity polices.
It’s not that Obama was worse than the alternative, far from it, but Carter was looking at policies like negative income tax (universal basic income) and guaranteed employment, and instead Democrats gave us the gig economy. Democrats have lost the working class because rather than pulling resources down from the rich, they pulled them up from the poor – through stagnant wages, loss of labor protections, and highly inflationary assets that shut the door to the middle class. It’s easy for the middle class to support immigration – they aren’t competing with them for wages, but the working class are and Democrats don’t offer a solution to that conflict. Democrats dunked on immigrants that voted for Trump, but their reasons were that asylum seekers were getting more resources from the government than they could earn working full time. That’s not racism or an apathy to immigrants, that’s an economic system for the poor that is busted and rather than acknowledge that and find solutions to it, we called those voters stupid or evil. That is the entitlement of the neoliberal middle class speaking. The white male liberal is the Mamdani voter because his policies aren’t socialist, they’re liberal. If anything they’re to the right of where pre-Reagan Democrats were. At least they would build non-market rate housing in the 70s. Even the DSA aren’t ready to offer those policies – they’re too radical for the Democratic Party because they would risk undercutting the value of middle class assets, which is a bridge too far even to address homelessness. The problem has gotten so bad we’re losing low income black voters to the GOP.
That wasn’t a problem that began with Biden, it’s a problem that began with Clinton and has not been addressed by any Democrat since because the two parties are pitting the middle class against the lower class and refusing to pull resources out of the upper class to benefit both – which is largely what happened after WWII until Reagan. Since Reagan it’s been two competing versions of this but the Democratic version has a homeowner with some money in the market on the right and the wage earner on the left. As an electoral tactic to reclaim the middle class by Clinton in the 90s I think it was a good idea, but the Democrats never took the necessary step to start bleeding the upper class so that they could hold onto both the middle and lower, and instead they sustained that middle class asset focus until it lost them the working class.
Look at Trumps economic promises in 2024:
limit credit card interest to 10%
no tax on tips or overtime (salaried workers, generally middle class don’t earn overtime)
tax credit for family caregivers (people who can’t afford to hire that out)
tax deduction on car payments
These are all targeted at the working class, and they are all direct. These are liberal policies rather than neoliberal ones. They were also all lies. But it speaks to Trumps ability to even credibly propose policies like that to a group of voters that Democrats have long thought they had locked down and who are defecting. It’s not for lack of ideas – but Democrats are too afraid to do bold economic policies that benefit the working class to get them passed even when they are in power.
ruckus
@suzanne:
This website is spread a lot farther than even one of the larger states. And having traveled this country rather extensively, and lived in 3 of them, and almost 400 miles apart in one of them, I’d say that while politics is generally spread between 2 parties, there are differences within both parties in different places. Some more conservative and some more liberal than average. CA has around 40 million people living in it. And Los Angeles County is more populated than 42 states so I wonder how many votes CA gets in a national election. Bet it’s more than a few.
Mike in Pasadena
After Rethuglicans-only passed the rescission bill last month, I have thrown out the baby with the trump bathwater. All Rethuglicans are crooks who will steal your under shorts off the clothesline if you go in the house for a cup of coffee or yank your shorts off your body when you fall asleep. I have learned that I can never trust ANY r person ever again. They are all evil. Including both of my r brothers. Full stop. I’m not throwing Democrats away, but I am throwing ALL r’s out. Out of my life.
TurnItOffAndOnAgain
@Archon: This.
Msb
Good points, thanks!
Pittsburgh Mike
@martin
Great points! Aside from expanding ACA subsidies, D’s have done relatively little for the working class.
I’d also like to see something concrete done to reduce income inequality. That probably involves tax increases at the top end (say $1M or above in income), but it should go further, and tax excess C-suite compensation based on median employee compensation.
Pittsburgh Mike
@Gaardian: Exactly. And why aren’t the Democrats in the Senate writing their own budget bill and saying “Unless you include these items, we’re not funding the government.” The Republicans shouldn’t be the only people to play chicken with shutting down the government.
Yes, Trump may then start doing things legally that he could only do illegally before. But no one’s stopping him from doing the illegal things he’s doing now, so what’s the loss?