Jeffries on Trump planning a military crackdown in Chicago: "We should continue to support local law enforcement and not simply allow Donald Trump to play games with the lives of the American people as part of his effort to manufacture a crisis and create a distraction because he's deeply unpopular"
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) August 24, 2025 at 9:14 AM
Predictably (*sigh*), BlueSky was flooded with (mostly) white ‘progressives’ slanging Jeffries for Doing It Rong, while (mostly) Black posters told them to climb down off their crosses. But it made Our Very Serious Mainstream Media happy to highlight Democrats in Disarray… reminding me of this photo:
Thousands of people gathered over the weekend in Lithuania's capital Vilnius to watch teams of corgis compete in an international race.
— The Associated Press (@apnews.com) August 24, 2025 at 1:00 PM
(I know, that’s a slur against corgis, who are fierce dogs with minds of their own.)
Counter-argument to the ‘progressives’:
I'm posting this link again because it's so important for Democrats to understand that we are fighting back HARD, and because I'm sick and tired of reading that Hakeem Jeffries isn't doing enough from fools who don't understand what his job is:
cmarmitage.substack.com/p/its-time-f…— JB_CADCAM (@jonbanquer.bsky.social) August 24, 2025 at 11:26 PM
Chris Armitage, at The Existential Republic SubStack:
Behind closed doors, blue state leaders are planning. They’re war-gaming scenarios where federal agents show up and continue to transgress further and further past what is “legal.” Daily the courts are showing that that something is legal when Trump wants it to happen, and illegal when he doesn’t. How does a government function under these circumstance?
For many state Attorney Generals and Governors, the legal briefs are already drafted. The strategy sessions have been running since December. “We saw this coming, even though we hoped it wouldn’t,” former Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum told The 19th days after Trump’s inauguration.
This is what American federalism looks like in 2025: Democratic governors holding emergency sessions on encrypted apps, attorneys general filing lawsuits within hours of executive orders, and state legislatures quietly passing laws that amount to nullification of federal mandates. Oregon is stockpiling abortion medication in secret warehouses. Illinois is exploring digital sovereignty. California has $76 billion in reserves and is deciding how to deploy it. Three sources on those daily Zoom calls between Democratic AGs say the same phrase keeps coming up, though nobody wants to say it publicly: soft secession.
Not the violent rupture of 1861, but something else entirely. Blue states building parallel systems, withholding cooperation, and creating facts on the ground that render federal authority meaningless within their borders.
The infrastructure for this resistance already exists. Twenty-three Democratic attorneys general now gather on near-daily Zoom calls at 8 AM Pacific, which means the East Coast officials are already on their third coffee. They divide responsibilities and share templates for lawsuits they’ve been drafting since last spring.
California Governor Gavin Newsom called state lawmakers into a special session later this year to protect the state’s progressive policies, while Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker launched Governors Safeguarding Democracy, seeking to unify state-based opposition to Trump’s agenda. Rob Bonta, California’s attorney general, describes preparations so thorough that challenging Trump’s birthright citizenship order required only to “cross the T’s, dot the I’s, press print, and file.”…
The preparations are specific and practical. Draft lawsuits sit ready in what officials call “brief banks.” States are identifying which federal funds they can afford to lose. They’re studying their executive powers and state constitutions. They’re building coalitions that transcend traditional partisan lines. Pritzker claims some Republican governors have quietly expressed interest in collaboration, though he won’t say which ones, leaving observers to wonder if he’s protecting sources or bluffing.
“Democrats in Congress, even if they really want to do things, what you can do in the minority is quite limited,” strategist Arkadi Gerney observed. “But these governors have the opportunity to actually run their states very differently from how the president is running the country.”…
On The Road – Albatrossity – Landscapes, Global
satby
JB Pritzker is not a person who “bluffs”.
MagdaInBlack
The thing is, I think these aren’t distractions in the sense of “oh look over there.” These “distractions” are all part of the whole “move fast,break things” process.
satby
@MagdaInBlack: Agree. The firehouse of crazy coming so fast that people can barely get a response together before it’s on to the next crazy. Exactly like living with a dementia patient. Which all of us are.
Suzanne
I have been formulating some thoughts in recent months about our political organizations, in light of demographic projections that 90% of the population of the country will live in cities/metro areas within a pretty short timeframe. States are too big to be effective, often, and they’re frequently divided. Cities are too small, metro areas are often 50 or more separate governments. This is super-inefficient and simply not the right scale of governance for the population concentration we will face. It makes it difficult to govern and develop and integrate.
Thinking of my now-home state of PA….. could there be some sort of level of government that repped Philly, Pittsburgh, and their metros, as one unit? Or a way for the cities/counties to work together?
Baud
@MagdaInBlack:
@satby:
It’s because a lot of liberals insist on dealing with things piecemeal, instead of just treating the Republican apparatus as the source of all the problems.
Baud
For once, I wish I lived in Mississippi.
Soprano2
@satby: I agree. I never know what’s going to happen next with my husband. It’s like living on a knife’s edge all the time. That’s why I take an antidepressant to stop the anxiety attacks
ETA another way in which it’s similar is you have to pick your battles. I don’t insist that my husband change his clothes every day because I have better things to do than argue with him about it. I make sure he’s clean and presentable, in my world that’s good enough. I feel like it’s a win that he takes a shower once a week.
Professor Bigfoot
Now even Anne Laurie has to incorporate an “obligatory NotAllWhitePeople.”
:^D
Baud
@Professor Bigfoot:
She’s one of the good ones.
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: Amen.
MagdaInBlack
@Baud: These are steps in advancing the fascist take-over. Am I being too dramatic? I don’t feel I am
eta: we can blame trumps dementia or whatever, but he is just the conduit for other bigger plans.
Baud
@MagdaInBlack:
That’s not too dramatic. I just don’t feel like the oprevailing ollective response to all that is happening is productive.
Professor Bigfoot
@MagdaInBlack: The first thing the would-be autocrat does is get control of the “security ministries,” the “power ministries,” the “people with guns” ministries.
At DoD he has installed a drunken apparatchik.
At Justice he has installed a loyal lackey.
The FBI now has a totally loyal Trump lunatic in control.
I don’t see how this ends without violence; but I hope the Great Khan and his fellow blue state leaders can.
MagdaInBlack
@Baud: Because they’re looking at it, as you say, piecemeal.
I will even go so far at to say trumps “dementia’ IS the distraction.
Baud
@Professor Bigfoot:
The Trump base covets the spilling of innocent blood. We’ve already had assassinations of Democrats, but that wasn’t officially at the hands of the state. They really want their avatar Trump to do the killing with his state apparatus.
ETA: They are really pissed off there hasn’t been a BLM 2.0 yet, I guarantee it.
Eyeroller
That linked Bluesky thread was extremely irritating. I am unable to discern what Jeffries did “wrong” in that clip. Divert the subject to talk about Mamdani? Why? He’s a national politician talking about national politics in this case. He could perhaps be more dynamic, maybe also use smaller words, but that’s obviously not his style.
I am convinced that there aren’t all that many of those leftier-than-thou types, but they are extremely online and loud and the MSM (or, as Michael Harriot so aptly put it, the “white media”) loves to platform them, and present them as representative of typical Democrats. And as we have discussed, this is a big part of our overlal problem.
Baud
@Eyeroller:
I think there are a bunch of people and/or bots that troll Dem accounts to ruin interactions
ETA: The more irritating folks are the well known accounts that feed the anti-Dem beast.
Professor Bigfoot
Oh, we know.
Which is one reason why there hasn’t been a BLM 2.0.
Another Scott
@Suzanne: Agreed that it’s inefficient. And it’s obviously not the case that we live in the best of all possible worlds and that rural, town, city, county, state, federal are the best way to organize the USA for all time.
There are other things too, e.g. WMATA – Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (IIRC). DC, MD, and VA contribute and have roles in the funding and governing. (Similarly, NJ and NY run the Port Authority.) Which means it’s slow and inefficient. But it pretty much is the only way we have figured out how to run such things that cross boundaries.
There are a few places where the city and the county are effectively the same thing (like Jacksonville, FL, IIRC). Counties are the big players in NoVA.
I suspect that the trend is going to be larger government systems rather than smaller. But I haven’t had any caffeine yet, so this is subject to revision…
Have a good week, everyone.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Hoodie
LGM has a discussion about how Trump’s worldview is locked into the 70’s and 80’s. I’d say he’s trying to rehabilitate the failed presidency of Richard Nixon, complete with obsession with policing crime, American decline (Viet Nam and rise of Japan), centralized economic control, and detente with the Soviets. In Trump’s view, Nixon failed because he wasn’t tough enough.
Baud
@Hoodie:
He probably does represent his base well in that respect.
Hoodie
@Baud: What I wonder about is how the current generation coming of age will react to this era, as it’s common for people to lock in a world view in late adolescence/early adulthood. What happens to a generation of people who form their world view in the context dominated by an aging pol with such antiquated views?
mrmoshpotato
Illinois balls will be gargled by Dump.
Baud
@Hoodie:
As I understand it, a significant portion of them are becoming Republican.
FDRLincoln
I have been reading “Nixonland” and it is very remarkable how much of what Trump is doing is a repeat of what Nixon tried to do or wanted to do…destroy universities, control the media, attack minorities, build up the resentment of the white “working class” base.
The difference is that Trump has 100 fewer IQ points than Nixon, fewer scruples, and a totally subservient party behind him.
hueyplong
@FDRLincoln: In a dumbed-down era, a dumber effort will work.
I was depressed for a while after reading Nixonland. “For a while” as in “to this day.”
Baud
@FDRLincoln:
Nixon was burdened with both people with a living memory of fascism and the threat of communist superpower competing for hearts and minds.
Also, too, the civil rights era was still pretty new and white Dems hadn’t yet really processed the extent to which the Democratic party would betray its white populist heritage to become a civil rights party.
Eyeroller
@Hoodie: I doubt Trump even thinks about Nixon. Some of the shadows behind him might, of course, but not Trump himself. It’s often said that Trump lives in the 1980s, well after Nixon, so I think if anything he’s trying to out-Reagan Reagan. Similar but more extreme rhetoric and policy goals.
But the crime fears and the “Satanic panics” and “winning” the Cold War and “greed is good” were just deeply entrenched at the time in the affluent classes.
The Audacity of Krope
Didn’t see the clip because no Bluesky, but from the headline my best guess would be referring to armed occupation of our cities as a distraction.
Admittedly, this is not the framing I’d choose. But if that’s how he feels and it’s what gets him in front of a camera denouncing the President, I say it’s a good thing. Then again, as above, I don’t really have all the details.
moonbat
It has probably already been observed here, but what would really make 45, Miller, and the MAGA faithful happy is a race war. It has been the unspoken, and sometimes spoken (looking at you Charlton Heston) wish of the ammosexuals since forever.
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
One thing I’ve noticed online recently is that there are several camps of people that insist that Dems spend all their time talking about (1) affordability, (2) Epstein, or (3) Trump’s fascism.
Which means there’s always something to criticize whatever subject is chosen for any particular interview.
mappy!
A case study in tunnel vision. No. Comment.
From Obama to Bernie… with blinders on.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Baud:
That is the most frustrating thing to me. They also take people who aren’t helping enough and people who are actively trying to destroy them and say they are equivalent. I do not understand why they can not acknowledge that Republicans ARE the source of most if not all of their problems.
Professor Bigfoot
@moonbat: To which I have always replied, “okay, it’s clear you’re ready to kill for white supremacy. But here’s the question: are you also ready to die for it? Because y’all ain’t the only ones who own guns and know how to use them, and as Fannie Lou Hamer said, ‘some of y’all will not write your mamas again.’”
We’re ready to die to defend our homes and families just like we did in Tulsa and Elaine and Rosewood and…
Baud
@Eyeroller:
The killing off of USAID is the modern version of ignoring the AIDS crisis.
Layer8Problem
@Baud: I can’t imagine why, beyond simple racism and misogyny, which Republicans do seem to have locked up. It’s not like they’re all that good at the governmenting from the way they’re currently managing things. If one’s attitude is “I’m White, have no comprehension of Fascism or history, can’t identify anything useful government does because oblivious, so nothing bad is happening to me Q.E.D.” the Republican party would be your natural home.
The Audacity of Krope
@Baud: I think 1 and 3 are critically important. I’m beyond caring about 2, it exhausts me, but others are allowed their concerns, I reckon.
In my mind, just say the truth as you see it.
Baud
@Layer8Problem:
I don’t know why. I’m sure everyone has a theory that is consistent with their existing world view.
satby
@Baud: living memory of fascism; living memory of nuclear destruction; living memory of pollution that turned skies yellow or green and lakes that could catch fire; living memory of the death and disabilities “minor” childhood diseases could cause.
The fact that that is now ancient history rather than a shared reality is a big part of the problem. And people don’t have to live through history to learn the lessons, but when the history is denied and the lessons ignored, the universe decides it’s time to learn them again.
Baud
@satby:
100%
satby
@mappy!: yeah, I read 3/4 of that preening narcissist’s bullshit and bailed before I replied in a way that would get me bounced from SubStack.
Princess
@Soprano2: Shower once a week is totally a win (I bet the people who work in proximity to Trump would agree). My mother always dresses nicely. She does that by wearing the exact same thing Every Day.
Steve LaBonne
Along with Newsom and Pritzker let’s not overlook the fine job Gov. Moore of Maryland is doing standing up to (and trolling) the tangerine tyrant.
Baud
@satby:
Not gonna click, but interesting because there was a Bernie/anti-Dem propaganda post on the Reddit front page this morning. My spidey sense said Russia or US right wingers, but it could have been true believers.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Professor Bigfoot: This is the second time I’ve seen the “Great Khan” reference to Governor Pritzker, and I have no idea what it means beyond referring to a faction in Fallout.
Baud
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
I think it’s a meme started by his fans online. Not sure about the true origins. Probably just someone came up with tht idea and it stuck.
satby
@Baud: My spidey sense said Russia or US right wingers, but it could have been true believers.
Both, probably. We keep getting reminders, even from Russian media, that Russia engages in active disinformation in all western countries. Plus true believers never acknowledge that they could be wrong, especially since there’s so much ragebait supplied to keep them hooked.
satby
FYWP
TONYG
@Baud: Those would be the same “progressives” who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Kamala Harris in 2024 or for Hillary Clinton in 2016. I wonder how that worked out?
The Audacity of Krope
@mappy!: She’s kind of wild. I’d probably take her opinion more seriously if she weren’t just echoing what the braindead media had to say.
Dem apostates do it wrong too, after all.
Layer8Problem
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: Well he’s descended directly from Genghis Khan, so he’s entitled, as one could say.
satby
@Baud: Also, have you ever seen a picture of Gengis Khan?
New Deal democrat
@Eyeroller:
Both Armando and Ken White a/k/a Popehat criticized Jeffries for his “distraction” rehetoric:
“Jeffries on Trump planning a military crackdown in Chicago: ‘We should continue to support local law enforcement and not simply allow Donald Trump to play games with the lives of the American people as part of his effort to manufacture a crisis and create a distraction because he’s deeply unpopular’”
Armando:
“ ok thats a legitimately terrible answer.”
bsky.app/profile/armandondk.bsky.social/post/3lx5onz7c3k23
And Ken White:
“ Hitler’s Invasion of Poland Distraction From Important Issues Addressed In Munich Agreement”
bsky.app/profile/kenwhite.bsky.social/post/3lx5zsps7422v
Per this post, I will now sigh and tell them to get down off their crosses.
JML
I’m guessing it doesn’t have anything to do with Tom Wham.
Geminid
@Eyeroller: I have watched Hakeem Jeffries ever since he won the election for Caucus Chair in November of 2018. Since then, I have also watched the Jeffries hate because that’s when it started. It flared up four years later, in November of 2022, when he became Minority Leader.
The anti-Jeffries campaign intensified after last November’s election. That was a demoralizing shock– a crisis– and the haters weren’t about to let that crisis go to waste. They wanted to exploit Democratic demoralization for their own ends, those being a takeover of the Democratic Party. And Jeffries more than anyone stands in their way.
I don’t think the campaign is working though. At least, I see no signs that it has among the Democratic House Caucus. They have held together on all major votes this year. And while the journalistic vultures would give anything for an anti-Jeffries quote from a Democratic House member, they’re not getting any.
I think that’s because House Democrats know Hakeem Jeffries’ worth in a way the rest of us do not. And they believe that as Speaker, he will prove his worth to Democrats in particular and Americans in general.
That is what the haters fear and that’s why they try so hard now. Because if Jeffries proves his worth, he will also prove them wrong.
Personally, I believe the Democrats will retake the House next year. And as that prospect nears, I expect the Jeffries haters to show their true colors, and focus their hate on the Democratic Party in general.
Baud
@TONYG:
Don’t know. The comments that flood a Jeffries post are mostly random accounts that may or may not represent real and sincere human progressives. Just like anything else online, there’s very few ways to tell whether a swarm is legitimate or a means to manipulate emotions and create vibes that serve the elites.
satby
@Layer8Problem: he’s not, that’s just a meme.
Baud
@New Deal democrat:
It’s a funny criticism, because he’s basically emulating online people who are constantly talking about distractions.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@New Deal democrat:
Yeah, they aren’t getting off their crosses. A number of them are well paid influencers who are profitting off their crosses. I’ve started to believe that a lot of the rhetoric about “corporate Dems” being bought and sold by their paymasters is just projection. The horseshoe is real. Projection isn’t just for Republicans!
satby
SSDD for black folks.
Baud
@satby:
He might be. The Khan spread his seed far and wide.
Geo Wilcox
Just read this on Bluesky, might be the most perfect description of Trump ever.
James van B®️egt
@causticcorner.bsky.social
Behold. The festering carcass of American rot shoved into an ill-fitting suit: the sleaze of a conman,
the cowardice of a draft dodger, the gluttony of a parasite, the racism of a Klansman, the sexism of a
back-alley creep, the ignorance of a bar-stool drunk, and the greed of a hedge-fund ghoul, all spray-painted orange and paraded like a prize hog at a county fair. Not a president. Not even a man. Just the diseased distillation of everything this country swears it isn’t but has always been: arrogance dressed up as exceptionalism, stupidity passed off as common sense, cruelty sold as toughness, greed exalted as ambition, and corruption worshiped like gospel. It is America’s shadow made flesh, a rotting pumpkin idol proving that when a nation kneels before money, power, and spite, it doesn’t just lose its soul it shits out this bloated obscenity and calls it a leader.
moonbat
@Professor Bigfoot: But lots of facts on the ground have changed since that sad historical legacy of white supremacy in this country they want to harken back to. These old racists seem to be dealing more with world inside their heads than reality. Take the DC ‘occupation’ for example. Stats are that DC is a majority black city. Ergo in 45’s ‘mind’ it must be an urban hellscape and the perfect place to provoke the rioting they could use an excuse for a military occupation of all blue urban areas in the nation. But…crickets. The president is reduced to handing out pizza and burgers to his forces on a weekend night.
It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so evilly stupid.
Baud
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
Not every criticism is false. But much like the NYT and EMAILS!, the idea is to keep people focused on those things as a “distraction,” one might say.
different-church-lady
I’ll repeat this from a few weeks ago: when people whine that they want Dems to fight, the really mean they want Dems to beat Trump, even though the time that was possible ended 9 months ago without their help.
Librettist
@Hoodie:
Yo Boomer irredentism. “Someday this war will be over”.
RIP Cracker Barrel.
The Audacity of Krope
@New Deal democrat: Can someone who saw the clip better explain the “distraction” framing to me? Don’t get me wrong, Trump has plenty of flaws he might want to distract from, but becoming an existential threat to one’s constituents is not a way to do that. It’s a new biggest problem.
It’s a sort of violent street-theater propaganda from how I see it. I have no problem with the way Jeffries views this. What’s most important is that he’s denouncing the occupation of our cities.
Still, the “distraction” framing confuses me.
Steve LaBonne
@Geo Wilcox: WHITE America’s shadow made flesh.
lowtechcyclist
@Steve LaBonne:
I’m really quite happy with my Governor.
mappy!
@Geminid: The anti-Jeffries were probably anti-Pelosi. You count votes, you hold the caucus. He has the votes. It’s holding.
Baud
For the record, I would prefer it if everyone on our side, from the top leaders to the lowliest online commenter, eliminated the word “distraction” from their vocabulary.
I just don’t think it’s remarkable for a pol to use the same language with regard to Trump’s actions so many regular folks use.
Suzanne
@Another Scott: So when I lived in the Phoenix area, they have something similar called “Maricopa Association of Governments”, and they are responsible for standards around a lot of the shared public infrastructure in the region. One street might go through four or five separate municipalities, so it would be terrible if the street didn’t have consistency. But the buildings on the street are all permitted by the individual municipality, and the same building might have to be under an entirely different building code edition if it is literally across a street. Some of the suburban municipalities are handling the “outer suburb to inner suburb” transition well, while some of the districts within Phoenix itself want to maintain suburban character and that’s difficult. Fights over highway routes and public parks and light rail and the like.
Scottsdale didn’t want the light rail because they were scared of brown people being able to access their city.
satby
@Baud: There was an article in the Chicago Tribune (pay walled) that I didn’t link to because I couldn’t read it either, but the opening graf stated it wasn’t true.
Scout211
Kilmar Abrego Garcia taken into ICE custody at appointment
The Audacity of Krope
For most people, distraction means you aren’t talking about what (I think) is important.
In assessing those claims, it comes down to whether you trust the priorities of the speaker.
Librettist
@Suzanne:
Historically, city-county mergers happen when the GoP is trying to hang on for a few more cycles before they get turfed out of local control.
marklar
@Baud: “As I understand it, a significant portion of them are becoming Republican.”
My response here is based on an admittedly VERY limited and specific sample, that of male students at a Liberal Arts College (who I estimate voted 55% to 45% for Trump in 2024).
These ‘kids’ voted Republican, but I’m not sure they are becoming Republican. They don’t buy into conspiracy theories. They are not racist (any more than White people predominantly buy into White Supremacist narratives, and almost all of us are implicitly racist), they are not ableist, and they are not homophobic or transphobic (with the exception of participation in high level athletics).
What they ARE is adolescent (neuroscientists often define adolescence as lasting until age 25) men. Who want to have fun. Who ARE sexist (#Notalladolescents). The Democrats have not been the fun party. We ruined their fun in high school with COVID restrictions. We ruin their fun by pointing out the consequences of conspicuous consumption on economic equity and the climate.
Worst of all, we ruin their sense of entitled sex lives by encouraging women to assert their autonomy, which means that they don’t get the sex lives they think they deserve.
What does this mean for the future? More maturity will hopefully make them realize that Democratic policies are motivated by concern for the public, and in retrospect I believe that many of these Trump voters will come to see how they benefitted from them. The marginalization of groups of people will also work to further alienate them from MAGA Republicanism.
The sexism might be more intractable, since Republicanism currently stokes the power of and benefits of patriarchy. We saw this in communities with high levels of machismo. These communities typically support Democrats, yet many of the men turned to Trump.
I guess what I’m saying is that the White Supremacy and Sexual Identity issues that attract Xers and Boomers to Republicanism aren’t as strong in the younger generations (at least the sample that I see). The sexism is still strong, but that might be partially due to adolescents being entitled adolescents. Some of them may or may not outgrow that. Male privilege still runs quite deep in many of them.
Another Scott
@Hoodie: (Caveat – I haven’t read the LGM stuff; I rarely get out of the boat to head over there.)
Yes, 47 is stuck in the ’70s and ’80s, but it has nothing to do with Nixon. 47 is always about himself.
Wikipedia.org:
Someone else has probably already made this point: Nixon was a monster, but he was at least partially constrained by his party and by the large Democratic majorities in the Congress (57+% in each house), and by courts that could read and understand plain language.
47 wants to be king. We don’t do kings here.
Grr…
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
mappy!
@satby: Trying to formulate a non-confrontational response in my head, and failing, I think I’ve come around to something like, “If you don’t have some sort of moral compass, you drift.” Drifting is easier than doing the work. Sleeves rolled up, Elbows up.
Steve LaBonne
@Another Scott:
John Roberts didn’t get the memo.
zhena gogolia
@different-church-lady: So true.
Suzanne
@Librettist: Agree. But I’m talking about something kind of different. What if there was some sort of super-urban government that governed multiple metro areas in a region? The state level is difficult, because most states have blue dots, and the people in the rural areas complain about being governed by the people in the big city, whereas the people in the cities often feel controlled by rural voters. So….. we¡re talking about blue states “seceding”, but could there was a way for cities to “secede” from their states and govern themselves?
Eolirin
@Baud: Gosh, but the media loves that framing. It lets them have a discussion about nothing while seeming savvy. If you’re trying to get signal boosted giving them what they want really helps.
The Audacity of Krope
The journalistic gold standard…
satby
@mappy!: a non-confrontational reply to the OG poster? Who bristled at the people pointing out her privilege as a young white woman unlikely to be very affected by her refusal to vote for Harris? Good luck.
Because the throughline in all these Bernie fan confessionals is that their opinions are far more important than facts or the damage their sniffy distain of the only potentially winning opposition party to a lawless, authoritarian party. And that was not unknown before that election. But she’s lost friends and her child has lost play dates. Oh, the humanity!
Fuck her.
Stevarino
sorry but Jefferies is weak. It should be very easy to explain how the Ganster/Fascist/whatever you call the get rid of the data people, will completely screw up the economy and the country and things you like and need. But he can’t. Everything is so robotic and odd and obviously tested and watered down.
It is actually very strange
And he can’t bring himself to support Mamdani. That tells you a lot.
Geminid
@Suzanne: Scottsdale’s decision concerning light rail reminds me of Virginia Beach’s decision in the 1990s to reject a light rail project. It would have connected the City of Norfolk to Virginia Beach. The project was affordable and the rights of way were clear, but it was voted down and fear of Norfolk’s Black population was a factor.
Norfolk built its half and it’s a success, but not like it would be had the whole project been built. And traffic in Virginia Beach keeps getting worse and worse.
The Audacity of Krope
Better a lawful authoritarian party than a lawless one, I always say.
Another Scott
@Baud: Yeah, Popehat has his lane and he mostly stays in it and fights very well there. (Though he has seemingly been checking out Dougj’s corner the last few weeks. Hmm…)
Popehat’s lane is First Amendment and Civil Liberties stuff. That’s his emphasis and he’s pretty much always going to take that as The Most Important Thing.
And he’s got a point. But it’s not the only point we’re having to deal with right now. And Jeffries lane isn’t the same as Popehat’s lane. They’ve got different jobs.
The problem is, IMHO, when people take a good point made by someone who’s great in their lane and use it to beat up and weaken other folks who are actually doing a good job given all the constraints. Jeffries isn’t spending 3 months in Cancun or having his buddies redo his home office for free or … He’s keeping his caucus unified. Jeffries isn’t king and there aren’t magic words he can say that will make everything 47 is breaking all better.
Yes, we always have to push our people to do better. Everyone can do better. But we also need to build them up if we want a strong team to defeat the monsters. This is the team we have going into November 2026.
“I don’t support you, now do what I want” never works…
My $0.02.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Eolirin
@The Audacity of Krope: JMS pegged them completely in B5 when he had Delenn lambast a couple of talking heads with “You do not wish to know anything, you wish only to speak. That which you know you ignore because it is inconvenient. That which you do not know you invent.”
The only unrealistic part of the scene was that this shamed them.
Librettist
@satby:
The Tribune has some threadbare brand equity among those that believe tax giveaways to corporate entities are the sign of a vibrant local economy, and Democrats shouldn’t be left to home rule, because reasons….
1993 forever and ever, amen.
Their printing plant, aka “Freedom Center” was bulldozed for a casino.
satby
But still you persist.
The Audacity of Krope
Drama demands change in its characters. Life, not so much.
Geminid
@Baud: I think a lot of people want politicians to be pundits. In my opinion, that shows a real misunderstanding of a politician’s public role.
Steve LaBonne
@Another Scott: I mean, I Iike what Newsom is doing because it forces the mediots to notice the bizarreness of Trump’s behavior. But performativity isn’t everything (unless you’re a very online progressive). Jeffries understands his actual job- which is by no means an easy one- and he does it very well.
Steve LaBonne
@Geminid: Amusing ourselves to death. This is not a serious country.
lowtechcyclist
@New Deal democrat:
I couldn’t stand Armando even when I was a regular over at Daily Kos fifteen or twenty years ago, so I don’t give a damn what he says.
I take Ken White more seriously, but my attitude is, yanno, not even the best politician is going to say it exactly right every time, and as discussed here, we spend way too much time criticizing people who are on our side and we could do with a good deal less of that.
Main thing is, it’s important that our elected representatives understand the stakes here. I haven’t been paying much attention to what Jeffries says, despite his apparent role these days as an intramural punching bag, so I can’t say whether he does or he doesn’t. I’m sure other people here can speak to that, but in the meantime, I’ll just move along.
satby
@Librettist: way back in the before years when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was young, it was well known that the Trib was the Republican paper and the Sun Times was the Democratic one. Both are hollowed out shells of themselves, as all print media is now. My mention of it as a source was not an endorsement, it was just the first Google link to the Gengis Khan rebuttal.
The Audacity of Krope
@satby: I’m sorry I refuse to login to another platform I’m not involved in, that shouldn’t be a requirement to post here. I have the headline and the ensuing discussion, I know the broad outlines of what is being discussed and am providing full transparency about what I do and don’t know.
And I’m defending Jeffries’s right to choose his own framing, so I don’t even know what the issue is here.
New Deal democrat
@The Audacity of Krope:
I suspect it is one of those poll-tested tropes that are typically used by Congresscritters of both parties.in any event, it has been favored a lot online, for whatever reason.
To be clear: it is perfectly possible to simultaneously hold the following 2 opinions about Jeffries: (1) he is fundamentally a machine politician who would make a terrible Leader of the Resistance, and (2) he may be an extremely effective House leader whose main obligation is to count, whip, and deliver the votes of his caucus for the party’s positions.
sab
@Soprano2: OT:My sister and BIL were in town and we had lunch with my late dad’s nurse’s aide. BIL put himself through college as an orderly in a VA hospital. His mother and my dad had dementia all through their nineties.
One of the coping mechanisms BIL and my dad’s nurse’s aide came up with was using erasable white boards. Both nursing homes started using them all over the ward.
If the parient is stuck in a rut asking the same questions over and over, if you write the answer on the white board then they can see it and calm down without asking you or getting agitated.
Answers to questions like where are we, what day is it, when is dinner.
Eolirin
@Geminid: This frustrates the hell out of me. Especially given the utter lack of historical perspective it implies.
Belafon
@Suzanne: Take a look at the way the DFW area is run. We aren’t a big single city with suburbs, we’re two large cities (~1 million each), a few cities in the 300-500K range, a few more in the 100-300K range, etc. We have mayors for each town, transit authorities that require cooperation from multiple cities. It’ll give you an idea of the good and the bad of this arrangement, but here’s one bad: areas that used to be small towns (600 to 1200 people) really far away from what we call “The Metroplex” are now part of it, but decisions they made 50 years ago – like not participating in the systems set up to collect and distribute water – are now hurting them as their populations grow at 30% a year).
Lyrebird
@Suzanne: This is just a little piece from education administration, and I have no idea whether it relates well to your question, but the way NYS does vocational school combines lots of districts into regions. If you hadn’t seen that, thought you might want to be familiar.
prostratedragon
Bernstein conducts his Candide overture. Because it’s his birthday.
Belafon
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
Because they operate under the Green Lantern theory, and all it takes is for Democrats to fight harder. There are people I would like to see fight harder. But it won’t make any appreciable difference because they don’t have any power. Democrats here in Texas were all set up to filibuster redistricting in the Senate, and Dan Patrick just stopped it cold, and didn’t even answer their questions on how he was able to block something allowed by the constitution.
Cheryl from Maryland
@Steve LaBonne: My Governor! He is totally on the front lines, offering Trump a golf cart to tour Baltimore and calling Trump “President Bone Spurs.” Kudos also to Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, who took COVID money to start a program to stop the troubled from going further down the criminal path — the Baltimore murder rate shows how successful he has been (and smart — finding money to provide the social work needed without cutting into the police budget).
satby
@The Audacity of Krope: ehh, sloppiness on my part. My issue, and it is mine, is your relentless need to trash what you claim is the “lawful authoritarian party” over and over and over and over. We get it, you have a sad people aren’t performing to your expectations.
Aziz, light!
The rural gunhumpers like to post to YouTube their elaborate fantasies of how prepared they are to blow away invaders from the city they imagine are someday going to emerge from the trees and start approaching their homesteads. These bedwetters live with the inchoate fear that one day that they need to defend themselves from Inner City gangs or antifa troops or random marauders of a dusky hue who want to take their stuff. They pretend to be savvy preppers but what they crave is the opportunity to murder anyone whose existence makes them fearful.
Steve LaBonne
@Aziz, light!: White settler culture hasn’t changed in 400 years.
Kirk
@The Audacity of Krope: The only reason for talking 2 is that it appears to cause disruption and weakness to T and the Magats. The only reason to discuss it amongst a group of progressives is to arm them for upcoming verbal sparring.
You’re right, it’s significantly less important than fascism and affordability. But it’s a stick that still works, for now.
Belafon
@New Deal democrat:
To be more diplomatic, Trump needs his voters to believe the cities are burning to actually distract them from how expensive things are getting.
Eolirin
@New Deal democrat: Those can both be true yes, but the thing is, Jeffries’s job is only one of those things anyway, so the first point is pretty moot.
People expecting him to be both are the ones in the wrong. It’s not a realistic expectation. And people in congressional leadership roles are naturally ill suited to it. We shouldn’t be looking to them in the first place. Their actual jobs restrain them from being as effective at it as someone else could be.
Steve LaBonne
@Eolirin: Thank goodness at least some blue state governors have figured out that they’re the ones on the front lines. That’s really the only place where opposition power still resides.
Scott P.
That Chris Armitage post is interesting, but it has no links or sources, and there is precious little info on who Armitage is or his qualifications. Anyone know anything about him?
Soprano2
@Baud: Maybe that’s why they’re so incensed that a restaurant chain changed their logo and the interiors of their stores in order to attract more and younger customers – all the pent-up rage has to go somewhere. I found out the Cracker Barrel CEO is a woman, that’s probably why they’re convinced these changes are “woke” and “DEI”. The whole thing is ridiculous, but it’s an outlet for their outrage.
Eolirin
@Steve LaBonne: It sounds like they knew it going in if they’ve been running planning sessions since December.
Steve LaBonne
@Soprano2: I mean, they took the cracker off the logo! And even the barrel.
Suzanne
@Belafon: The Valley of the Sun (the Phoenix area) has similar problems. Fast growth, changing demographics, many municipalities that have changed in character, and lots of people who are change-averse.
I was thinking about this w/r/t the congestion pricing in NYC and how controversial that was. The challenge faced is that voters in NYC couldn’t pass taxes on Westchester or Suffolk County residents, or residents of New Jersey, CT, or PA (which is now where many of the distribution centers for NYC deliveries are located). Yet those people created demand on City resources.
Eyeroller
@lowtechcyclist: I tend to agree with Baud that we should stop talking about “distractions.” But it appears that the criticism of Jeffries (that isn’t some Mamdani fanaticism) is that he wasn’t sufficiently alarmist. That wouldn’t have likely gone well with our MSM.
The only other “social media” I do besides this blog is Reddit and I only read a few feeds for that, but what I see is boatloads of accounts who would identify as “progressives” (if they’re not just bots or agents provacateurs) who call every single thing Trump does a “distraction” from the Epstein files, which is their obsession. Maybe some acknowledgement of the authoritariansm, but the Epstein files is front and center every time.
Personally I don’t think Trump does distractions. He just throws everything out there because he is an authoritatian and he came into office this time ready to wreak revenge on his enemies, make himself more powerful, and most importantly get a lot of money. And he’s backed by people who are more focused on longer-term authoritarianism.
Suzanne
@Soprano2: The thing with the Cracker Barrel logo is similar to the Nike Colin Kaepernick ad: a lot of people being reminded that they’re not especially desirable as customers. The people they hate (diverse and “woke” people) are the desirable customers.
Valued commenter Marc made a very insightful observation some weeks ago about how some voters are valued more than others. Same is true with customers. And this is a market society (not just a market economy), so that’s how people measure themselves against others.
Another Scott
@Soprano2: Google tells me that Cracker Barrel’s stock price is up almost 32% in the last 12 months. At the moment.
I mentioned in an earlier thread that some suspect this stuff in the news is related to some mini-MotU wanting to take over the company (for 10 years or more). We should be skeptical of anything involving money that is being memed – especially if it involves red hats…
Be careful out there…
FWIW.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Belafon
@Suzanne: Rockwall, where I live, was smallish, around 20K when i moved there in 2001. It’s now at 53K. It used to be where I would say is the eastern edge of the metroplex. Not any more, and lots of people drive through it to get to Dallas, so much that it’s part of every morning traffic report on TV. Because people here thought they could keep things from changing by refusing to prepare for the future, I30 is finally being widened, to the width it should be to handle traffic now. This project, which just got under way last year, is going to take ten years to complete.
Steve LaBonne
@Eyeroller: Can anyone listen to Trump’s demented brain farts and imagine that he has any real plan or agency? He is a useful idiot being manipulated by evil people like Miller and Vought (not to mention Putin). His lizard-brain resentments make him extremely easy to manipulate.
AxelFoley
@satby:
That…is sadly the truth.
Soprano2
@satby: I read it with the feeling that she didn’t really tell me anything about why she turned against the Democrats. I wish those people would be honest about it – they turned against the Democrats because they embrace people who aren’t straight and white and male. A clue is that almost all the comments were about transgender women. When they say “Democrats quit talking to the working class”, what they really mean is “Democrats started listening to all the working class, including non-white people”. All I got from that is that she’s a self-centered narcissist.
The Audacity of Krope
Maybe it’s worth recognizing that maybe I’m not saying these things from a place of outright hostility, that I have complex and often countervailing thoughts.
I point out the authoritarian element in the party because I see it as harmful, fatally harmful, to worthy goals that most run-of-the-mill Democrats share. It’s bigger than any of the party members, elected or otherwise. Really it comes from big donors. And it has always been this way, so my expectations are fully met, thank you.
I’ve said it before. I don’t see a place where my views fit. I’m trying to find one, but that means making arguments and trying to move a few people. I see the authoritarian element as dominant in the Democratic Party. Far less so, even, but more insidious in its ability to get good people to go along with bad things.
I’m not claiming membership in a party that protects police who brutalize communities, undermines our safety to protect our colonial projects and the industry they support, and works to foster dependency on unaccountable private entities.
I think the Ds have a better chance of getting to a better place on these matters. But they ain’t there. And if we’re arguing about mitigating harm and the scale of misery, we’re accepting these particular forms of harm which do not emerge from nature but the systems of men as inevitable and necessary.
I can’t accept that.
Ohio Mom
@Hoodie: That is an interesting question.
I was an older mom, when Ohio Son was little, all his peers had moms ten years younger than me. There was definitely a difference in how I, a child of the 60s and early 70s, and they, children of the Reagan era, saw disability issues.
This era of heightened contradictions is bringing some of them around though. Now that the fantasy of their sons outgrowing their autism has been cast aside and they see how essential the social safety net is for their families, they are growing alarmed. Leaves me bemused. Some things you just have to wait out I guess.
I am thinking how the generation that is coming of age right now turns out as far as their politics and social critique will depend on what happens — do we continue on this fast slide to totalitarianism or is there a backlash? Another confounding factor is social media and the internet in general. There’s a lot more propaganda circulating nowadays.
chopper
i’m in vilnius right now, but not for the corgi race
Soprano2
@New Deal democrat: I wish they would all quit using the idea that anything is a “distraction”, and instead deal with all of these things as serious problems that need to be addressed.
Gaardian
The beef with Jeffries is real, and I think it shouldn’t be excused. Trump is placing armed thugs on the streets of the nation’s capital in order to throw brown people in jail without due process and to intimidate Democrats in big cities and specifically Dems in Congress into submission.
The Jeffries response as a big city Democrat of color is to say this is a distraction from ‘real’ kitchen table issues, by which I assume he means inflation.
As someone who lives in SoCal and has been dealing with this illegal federal invasion of my home for a long time and watching neighbors hide in their homes, or worse, be disappeared, it would be nice if Democrats at the federal level gave a sh** about my state and didn’t call the felonies committed by the government against my neighbors less real and worthy of attention than a grocery bill in Lansing.
Jeffries is reciting poll tested pablum to appeal to suburban districts in Philadelphia, and he thinks the way to do that is to sell me and mine out. Well, eff him, and anyone who backs that tactic. I’m tired of this mid-90s, Clintonian, triangulation around the very people who make up the Democratic coalition in order to appeal to fascist-curious dentists in Cincinnati who move over to Trump more and more every cycle.
I like that the Dem govs are fighting back, and I’ve got their back.I don’t understand why the beloved minority rights in the Senate that Schumer and co bend over backwards to protect when they are in the majority don’t matter for spit when the GOP finds itself in charge again, and Senate Dems just shrug and go “oh well” and shrug, shedding a tear for the norms before they go about their day.
I don’t understand the love Jefferies is getting. What the thing is that you point to during Jeffries tenure as Minorty leader and say “wow he did that well” or “wow, he’s really meeting this moment and he should be Speaker.”? because i’m not seeing it.
Teresa
@Geo Wilcox:
Excellent description of Trump. Although a few swear words would have made me laugh. That description actually describes a lot of others in his circle of hate as well.
New Deal democrat
@Eolirin: Agree with your comment.
Baud
@Soprano2:
They can’t say that because they know the liberals they’re trying to manipulate will dismiss them if they do. Saying Dems stopped listening to that working class is a socially acceptable critique in lib circles.
Soprano2
@Baud: LOL, GMTA.
satby
@The Audacity of Krope: and I consider anyone who calls the Democratic party “authoritarian” deeply unserious, no matter how many justifications you produce. Whatever. Just pie me.
Layer8Problem
@satby: Yes, yes it is.
The Audacity of Krope
I only pie in instances where others are being outright dishonest. You copped to your mistaken interpretation, so I’m not seeing that here.
I believe in listening to people even if I don’t agree.
Ohio Mom
@Suzanne: I would think it would depend on the state’s constitution. Municipalities are creatures of their state, the state constitution lays out how much autonomy a city (or village, or township, or whatever) has.
In Ohio there has been some squabbling over some issues about how much home rule a city can exercise. Since the cities are Blue and the state legislature is gerrymandered Red, as you can imagine, the fights are about the cities being too liberal.
ETA: Missing Kay right now, she’d have something to add that would make things clearer.
Soprano2
I’ve been thinking about this for awhile – Democrats used to be the “fun party” and Republicans were the “moral scolds”, telling people they can’t do anything fun; now we’re the moral scolds telling people they can’t do anything fun and Republicans are the ones telling everyone they can have as much fun as they want and don’t think about the consequences. The turnabout with young voters could really be that simple.
I’m concerned about this, because I think it’ll be the hardest “ism” to overcome. Lots of men see women in power as people who are trying to be their “mommy”, and they want to rebel against her.
Baud
@Soprano2:
Republicans tell people they can punch down. We can’t compete with that with people who desire to punch down.
satby
@The Audacity of Krope: oh, that wasn’t a mistaken interpretation, I cherry picked a quote that better fitted the snarky response I intended to make anyway. Which is why the (all comments) intro.
Timill
@sab: You can get clocks to help with that: amazon.com/gp/product/B0C2T3Y3TG?th=1
moonbat
@Aziz, light!:
Exactly.
I’m like, ‘Dude, there’s a reason you’re out there all alone in the wilderness. Most of the cool people have gone to the urban areas, there they don’t have to look at or listen to you, ass-face. Ain’t nobody gonna invade you.”
Occasionally I wonder whether we would be experiencing the present moment if The Walking Dead hadn’t run so long. That’s the level of stupid we’re dealing with.
Soprano2
@sab: I’ll have to keep that in mind for the future; right now that’s not much of a problem mostly because he doesn’t get agitated. My biggest problem right now is that he lets our cat Louis out when he lets the dog out. I’ve put a sign on the back door that says “Don’t let the cat out” but it’s only somewhat effective.
The Audacity of Krope
Are we, though? The bugaboos are the same and they’re still all on the same sides. Republicans say you can’t govern what you put into or let grow out of your body (except vaccines that cuz that was convenient in one particular moment), you shouldn’t deviate from gender expectations, the loose language of your culture makes it lesser, et c. Democrats say don’t spread disease and don’t be a bigot, though they have their own struggles with the latter.
So unless what you consider fun is spitting in others’ faces and being racist, I don’t see what makes Republicans the fun party.
satby
@Baud: we also can’t compete with that when a sizable %age of our own side also wants to punch down, targets may differ but punching down on somebody is very important.
RevRick
@Professor Bigfoot: What we need to strive for is nobody gets shot. Because if the bullets start flying, I guarantee that everybody will lose.
Mass protest demonstrations? Sure. But have white clergy and white grannies at the front. Good old boys recoil at gunning them down.
The Audacity of Krope
@satby: You still owned up. That’s the point.
Baud
@satby:
Politics follows culture.
Steve LaBonne
@satby: There’s a reason why UU ministers usually wear clerical collars at demonstrations when they never do otherwise.
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
Maybe all protestors and demonstrators should dress up as priests and nuns.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: I think that’s of a piece with the complaints about how commercials are “too diverse”. They think that because where they live almost everyone is white, so they can’t understand who is being marketed to. When I hear those complaints I always say that these companies spend millions of dollars to figure out how to market themselves to the people whose dollars they want to attract, and most of the time those are young people because if you capture them young the idea is that they stay with you forever. I know this is how car companies think.
All these MAGA’s seem to believe that the Cracker Barrel CEO and the board made those changes all by themselves. Don’t they know that a consultant was hired to do it, and they probably presented several ideas to the company? I also think the American Eagle company did that ad campaign deliberately, knowing how much attention it would get. It’s possible that they even started the “controversy” themselves!
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud: And we know from how Occupy Wall Street, BLM, and many other movements that were met with extreme, excessive police violence that few mayors or governors have proper control of their own forces. The shitbirds want blood, and they will get it.
There are many reasons that Defund the Police made and continues to make sense.
The Audacity of Krope
I used to do that, but I got out of the habit…
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope: Nice.
The Audacity of Krope
Shhh, every time you utter those words, a Democrat somewhere loses an election.
Matt McIrvin
@Eyeroller: He said we should support law enforcement (trying to draw a distinction between city cops and ICE/CBP). I have mixed feelings at best about local law enforcement and it made me itch a little. But for much of the online left, any expression of support for a cop is pure bootlicker talk, the sign of a fascist.
Belafon
@Soprano2: Except it’s not even that. I’m not going to tell any person what to do in their personal life as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else. That’s not the Republican stance.
Baud
@Belafon:
And there’s your problem.
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud: When I “insist” that the Dems consistently bring up affordability, Epstein, and Trump’s fascism, I don’t expect them to not talk about or deal with anything else. Just pulling a Cato (“Carthago delenda est”) and ending every interview with “And why hasn’t Trump released the Epstein files?” will suffice. So far, it appears to be the one weird trick that continues to drive the shitbirds crazy.
chemiclord
At the end of the day, for the fauxgressives of Bluesky (and all social media), the message is completely secondary to who is saying it. I can promise you that if Mamdani had been in that interview, and said the exact same thing as Jeffries word for word, the response would have been, “Go on, king!” and “That’s the nation’s mayor right there!”
They are a bloc that is running completely on vibes. There is no depth beneath the surface of their little gang of rabble-rousers. Their idea of “fighting” is to post AI slop and type in all caps on Bluesky exactly like Trump does on Truth Social. I don’t even both clicking on Trending tabs with a candidates name anymore, because I already know there’s not going to be anything worth reading.
The sooner we start ignoring the fauxgressives, the better off we will be.
Baud
@Chief Oshkosh:
I wasn’t singling you out. I’m talking about the amalgam of “advice” that I’ve seen people give if Dems want to prove their serious.
TONYG
@Soprano2: This “Cracker Barrel” freakout is even stupider than the usual freakouts. Anyone who buys products in stores knows that the logos of products tend to evolve to be simpler and “cleaner” in appearance. I guess the motive is to convince consumers that the product is “fresh and new”. The evolution of the Pepsi logo is one of many examples of this. zenbusiness.com/blog/pepsi-logo/
Baud
@TONYG:
That first one makes me think Pepsi was initially marketed to witches.
The Audacity of Krope
Explains my love for the product.
Geminid
@TONYG: I thought that old Cracker Barrel logo was funky the first time I saw it, and that was long time ago. I’m surprised it took them so long to change it.
Eolirin
@Baud: White liberals are frequently just as incapable of accepting the racist roots of many of our problems as white conservatives. Sometimes even moreso, though the conservatives don’t always view the consequences as problems instead of desirable.
We can’t have honest discussions of race in this country. White people are too fragile and defensive about it, regardless of political orientation, as a general rule.
Chief Oshkosh
@Geo Wilcox: That, my friend, is a humdinger!
planetjanet
This weekend my cycling group stopped at the Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial in DC. One quote from his Christmas sermon in Atlanta in 1967 stood out to me. “If we are to have peace on earth, our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective.” The part about our tribe spoke to me about our infighting. We must support each other as we fight for our democracy.
narya
Regarding “distraction,” well, here’s this week’s Tom Tomorrow. (I get the cartoons a day early, plus commentary from him, and if you haven’t signed up to do that, why not?? Help support a cartoonist today! But the deal is that you don’t share before it goes live on Kos.)
Matt McIrvin
@RevRick: Is the point to prevent anyone from getting shot, or to make so that if someone DOES get shot, it works out better for us?
Hate to say it but I think some of the way nonviolent resistance works is the second. Sooner or later, the goons commit an atrocity that shocks the conscience against victims who can’t be dismissed even by the subtly bigoted, and there’s a mainstream reaction.
Ramona
@mappy!: who is this woman? I am curious but I don’t really want to know.
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud: I know; I didn’t take it personally, just took the opportunity to explain my personal motivations. :)
Jeffro
Push to redraw the lines…America should be 30 states, each centered on a big metro area, not 50 states still trying to make relatively ancient boundaries work.
So in your case, we’d have the ‘state’ of Philly and the ‘state’ of Pittsburgh.
Matt McIrvin
@TONYG: There’s a design pendulum that swings between minimalism and elaboration. We’ve been in a “simplification/flat design” phase for several years now and it might be time for the return swing to start. But, yeah, there’s nothing unusual about that one.
Belafon
@Matt McIrvin: Nonviolence is generally the attempt to force people to recognize that the side with power is abusing it by presenting them with stories and images that invokes shame and revulsion. The problem right now is that the other side is beyond feeling shame.
No, I don’t have an answer.
Jeffro
100%
zhena gogolia
@narya: Excellent.
Scout211
I agree.
I’ve mentioned here before, that most normie Democrats are not on social media, so they don’t have any experience with the “fauxgressives” so they don’t have reactions to them like I read here.
My family and all of my friends are normie Democrats and do feel the same way that the majority of commenters here feel. But they keep quiet and keep their heads down and don’t go on social media to express their political views. But they will vote for Democrats 100% of the time.
It feels at times like normie Democrats are being dismissed while the “fauxgressives” are being highlighted and get all the attention. They function as trolls and get reactions and lots of energy directed at them, just as they intended.
I have too much going on in my life right now as a caregiver so I think I may take a break for now. These “meta threads” are getting to me.
But I still love you all. 😊❤️
Carry on.
Steve LaBonne
@Scout211: I usually try to avoid the “meta” threads but of course an open thread can turn into one without notice.
zhena gogolia
@narya: Excellent.
LAC
@chemiclord: Amen! The self importance and gatekeeping even after all this is tiresome. And continues to fracture us.
BeenHereSince2003
It is so disappointing that the “(mostly) white people oppose [current ineffectual Democratic leader] whereas POC support [current ineffectual Democratic leader]” gaslighting is still being peddled here.
This is EXACTLY what was being said here in June 2024 after Biden’s disastrous debate. It was all bullshit. It’s an indictment of our party that appeals to the magic wisdom of non-white people has become such a formulaic, thought-terminating cliche, that it gets reflexively used even when it is very obviously wrong. We hemorrhaged support among non-white people and continue to do so.
The idea that “POC” are behind our leadership and that “white privilege” is behind any criticism of them is just such a fucking lie. Our fucking leadership fucking sucks. They ALL need to be replaced. Jefferies. Schumer. All of them.
For 10 years they manipulated us into biting our tongues in the face of their stupidity, because “any criticism only helps Trump/White Supremacy/etc. ” . What was the result? Did we fucking stop Trump by remaining silent ? No. We just let these asshole keep their comfy positions while failing the country. I’m sick of it.
Matt McIrvin
@Scout211: In real life I certainly know a lot of normie Democrats, but I live in New England and here there’s sort of a third category which one might call the normie Bernie fan. These mostly white liberals who aren’t necessarily steeped in online discourse but are still more democratic-socialist than the party. It’s a regional thing, I think.
I listen too much to the people someone here called “online leftie soreheads” and I think it’s some kind of guilt complex at heart– I am intuitively attracted to people telling me it’s all my fault. Maybe because it’s a kind of negative self-aggrandizement: being the secret villain is better than being totally irrelevant.
My wife thinks it’s the “tone of confidence”, the same thing that frauds and fanatics the world over use to retain attention and sound like experts. Could be. There’s something about a very dramatic assertion that compels attention even when it’s bullshit.
Interesting Name Goes Here
@BeenHereSince2003: This sounds aggressively white.
Ramona
@Soprano2: A self-centered narcissist indeed! How could she expect her friends who’d likely be politically involved as she was to continue to be friends with her!? And could she not make friends with the local MAGA so her son could go to parties?
Soprano2
@The Audacity of Krope: Republicans are telling people that they don’t have to change, that they can do anything they want, including hate on people who are different. We, of course, don’t tell people this. I think this change happened during Covid, when Republicans said we could go back to normal, why are we cancelling things and wearing masks, and liberals told people no we can’t go back to normal because people are dying and scolded everyone for not adhering to all the Covid protocols in the way we thought they should. I can’t tell you how many comments I’ve heard about the stupidity of wearing a mask in your car by yourself or wearing a mask outside when you’re by yourself. That’s how a lot of people see us now, whether we like or agree with it or not. To them we were the people telling them they had to wear a mask even when you were by yourself, and saying their kids couldn’t go back to school no matter what, and it doesn’t matter that we weren’t saying that.
Soprano2
@satby: People want hierarchies. They want to know who is more important and who is less important. This seems to be a tribal need, and being able to “punch down” satisfies that need.
The Audacity of Krope
@Soprano2: So, it’s the blowing up in the public imagination of a few extreme examples. Typical.
For the record, I never hassled anyone about a mask unless they were conspicuously sick or getting in my personal space. I was hassled with demands to remove my mask many, many times.
Matt McIrvin
@BeenHereSince2003: I listen to a bunch of Black progressives on Mastodon who have been saying the exact opposite of what Prof. Bigfoot here likes to assert– according to *them*, it’s the party leadership that is high on white supremacy and it’s why they lost some Black men.
I think both sides here can be right to some degree: One side may be talking about the absolute value of support and the other about the change in that number. And that comes in part from a generational split. But I’m a white dude trying to figure it all out from the outside.
Soprano2
@Matt McIrvin: I think the ultimate desire of a company is to have a logo that is instantly recognizable, like the Nike swoosh or the golden arches. That’s part of what the drive for simplification is, I think. It could also be that it works better online.
Soprano2
@Scout211: You should stay here, you need an outlet. I know I do!
Soprano2
@The Audacity of Krope: I know, but unfortunately perception matters more than the truth in this instance. Covid screwed up a lot of things, and I think this is one of them. People reacted against being lectured and told what to do all the time, and their perception is that most of that came from liberals. I said to my therapist that we found out a lot more people have Oppositional Defiance Disorder than we thought, and she agreed with me! She can’t understand why there was so much resistance to doing common sense things for our health, but she used to be a nurse.
Librettist
Crack Barrel is getting clocked by other fast casual breakfast joints as their customer base hits the demographic cliff and falls off. Faux-hillbilly is no longer bringing them in at the interstate off ramps.
They’ve been doing up the interiors Joanna Gaines style for a couple of years.
Jim Crow America is dying and reactionaries are gonna react.
chemiclord
@Soprano2: See, the problem is that Cracker Barrel removed the wrong thing.
I say this half-sarcastically, but people hate reading. They don’t like words. They want to be able to identify a brand quickly with an easily memorable image. There are some exceptions to this, but they usually involve a memorable font that makes the word feel like an image (see also, Coca-Cola).
Had Cracker Barrel removed the words, but kept the generic white dude leaning against a barrel, the pushback would have been considerably less.
Jackie
@Scout211:
I understand. You need to do what’s best for YOU, and your family, but I truly value your voice here, and will miss you terribly.
Melancholy Jaques
@BeenHereSince2003:
I share your frustration, but do not agree with your analysis. I’m a left coaster so I arrive at these morning threads way to late to participate fully. But two points overall.
First, I’d say that lefties complaining about Democrats is normal and not something we should worry too much about. It’s how they define themselves. Our problem is that normies do not know or care about the damage that asshole is doing.
Second, our leadership has very little to work with. Our desire for effective ways to counter that asshole and the Republicans greatly exceeds our party’s ability to counter them.
We do not have the power to do very much at the federal level. That is why we have to win the midterms. If we expect anything good to happen, we need to win them decisively. It’s going to be very hard because there are a lot of forces aligned against us. Nothing else really matters.
Citizen Alan
@moonbat: i have often had the thought the Trump administration is what we would have gotten had charles manson foregone his plan to trigger a race war with a bloody spree killing and instead simply gotten into politics. The MAGAs are basically 70 million Manson family members, all of whom vote.
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: That’s what I figure.
I ride with the Great Khan because it’s fun, just like being an acolyte of Dark Brandon was.
Glory b
@Gaardian: Mminority leaders in the House have no power unless they can convince some of the majority to vote with them, enough to swing a vote.
What minority leaders do you count as admirable & what have they done?
You forget that he, and other black men, have to be measured in their communications so they aren’t dismissed as just being “angry.”
Glory b
@Matt McIrvin: Not so fast…
csus.edu/news/newsroom/stories/2025/2/black-voter-project.html
rikyrah
CALL TO ACTIVISM (@CalltoActivism) posted at 10:25 PM on Sun, Aug 24, 2025:
![]()
BREAKING: Trump’s DHS chief Tom Homan just said Abrego Garcia “is absolutely gonna be deported” and “he can enjoy the little time he has with his family” before adding “his family can go with him.”
This isn’t law enforcement – it’s state-sanctioned cruelty. t.co/Ql7Xmz5Cbo
(https://x.com/CalltoActivism/status/1959819365853151709?t=-_ag5Gdf1CKQSoC3QV2QDA&s=03)
Glory b
@Interesting Name Goes Here: Yup.
Belafon
@Matt McIrvin: Which kind of sounds like this group is overlooking the misogyny in men of all ethnicities.
mappy!
Just something that showed up in the feed. A typical campaign gadfly. Someone who works a campaign and thinks they have an insider awareness and some sort of prestige that they think goes along with it. I’ve worked local, state and congressional campaigns and run for local office a few times. People drift in, and drift out. Some burn out, some get out of the way and make room for the new kids on the block. You hope the newbies have half a brain. There’s always hope.
rikyrah
WHEN I SAY THAT I WANT THESE FOLKS BROUGHT UP ON CHARGES AT THE HAGUE
Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) posted at 7:20 AM on Mon, Aug 25, 2025:
Breaking: Kilmar Abrego García has just been detained by ICE after arriving at the agency’s Baltimore field office as part of a required check-in, according to his attorney.
“The only reason to take him into detention was to punish him.”
(https://x.com/kylegriffin1/status/1959953927438241885?t=JHlkJJfaQcRXAuBR56yslA&s=03)
Lobo
Perry Bacon @perrybaconjr.bsky.social
Rhetoric itself does not accomplish much. But it’s better to have political leaders describing Trump’s dictatorial ambitions openly as opposed to downplaying them as stunts or distractions. Also, it is scary and unlawful and we should all be concerned. Troops could be in your city or mine soon.
rikyrah
Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) posted at 8:51 AM on Mon, Aug 25, 2025:
The Chris Christie TV hit that prompted Trump to threaten to prosecute him: “Donald Trump sees himself as the person who gets to decide everything, and he doesn’t care about any separation.” t.co/41jgdN71aq
(https://x.com/atrupar/status/1959976837909524770?t=bbTriuieAtStVSZIKE-3lw&s=03)
Ramona
@Jeffro: that makes sense to me…
rikyrah
Democracy Docket (@DemocracyDocket) posted at 8:06 AM on Mon, Aug 25, 2025:
53 cities in Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia had higher crime rates than D.C. in 2024. Despite this, these states deployed their own National Guard troops to help address D.C.’s newly declared “crime emergency.”
t.co/85ocrccOZj
(https://x.com/DemocracyDocket/status/1959965732965319043?t=RTKmO9hmT3K1mf1tZxsywg&s=03)
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: This brings up an interesting question: are there any women among the Black Progressives you listen to on Mastodon? Are they all or mostly men? That in itself would not invalidate their conclusions, but it would give some important context, I think.
@Belafon:
Lobo
FactPost
@factpostnews.bsky.social
Trump: They say, ‘he’s a dictator.’ A lot of people are saying, ‘maybe we like a dictator’
rikyrah
WHAT EXACTLY is Newsom saying now..
That Kamala Harris DIDN’T SAY THROUGHOUT THE CAMPAIGN?
I’LL WAIT…
Greg Sargent (@GregTSargent) posted at 6:54 AM on Mon, Aug 25, 2025:
Newsom isn’t breaking through because he tweets in all-caps, or uses cool memes, or trolls Trump. It’s because he’s leveling with Dem voters about Trump, MAGA, and authoritarian power.
On the pod, @whstancil and I go deep into Newsom and Dem failure:
t.co/3Duv4bYo37
(x.com/GregTSargent/status/1959947521729437952?t=57Dvjz6T54iSNBNFFsHpbw&s=03)
rikyrah
Opie 🚂 (@showmeopie) posted at 8:13 PM on Sun, Aug 24, 2025:
Like all of the issues the left has chastised Biden and Harris and Democrats over for 4 years or more have just gone completely radio silent on Trump. They’re still blaming Democrats for things. It’s pathetic.
(x.com/showmeopie/status/1959786184852594725?t=zaTZBJFvfUWwRZZCJs7BaQ&s=03)
Jamesetta Williams 💕 (@jalexa1218) posted at 9:34 PM on Sun, Aug 24, 2025:
Yes student loans is absolutely the best way to understand this dynamic. Activists convinced themselves that Biden did not actually want to cancel student loans despite taking the fight to SCOTUS. Trump dismantled what Biden did achieve, and they are still complaining about Biden
(x.com/jalexa1218/status/1959806640632320475?t=1Y47aiqokWzCXZrt79c8WQ&s=03)
Harrison Wesley
@Lobo: Unfortunately I think he’s right.
Ramona
@Belafon: I became convinced by the argument that every successful nonviolent movement attained success because an incipient albeit near universally maligned violent movement lurked somewhere.
Captain C
@mappy!: She’s (the author of that piece) full of shit and her friend was definitely correct that she’s operating from a place of privilege. If you really think that in 2024 the most important thing to do was to Teach The Democrats A Lesson, you’re either too dumb to talk politics or you wanted what’s currently going on (or something like it). Either way, no one has to take you seriously going forward, except for purposes of threat assessment.
Harrison Wesley
@rikyrah: She said it all. Our Liberal Media couldn’t be bothered to report it.
LAC
@rikyrah: Oh good lord, fucking Greg Sargeant going in deep on failures? He could do a whole show on his media failures. We need more Pod Save a dudebro podcasts?
And yes, Harris said this a thousand times last year!
Booger
@Aziz, light!: Gather round children, and listen to a story from the before times: Back when we had a functioning Congress, Congress had an Office of Technology Assessment. This office produced many very insightful documents on issues before Congress, and one of the was called (IIRC) “The Effects of Nuclear War.”
One of the scenarios was the impact of a limited attack on D.C., and the exodus of folks from what remained of NoVa to Charlottesville and Albemarle County down Rt. 29. (This was so far BITD that most of that route would have been rural, not strip malls and subsivisions).
I think that scenario still thrives in the minds of many rurals…not necessarily crime per se, but urban collapse and hordes of hungry people who you’d rather kill than share with.
Suzanne
@chemiclord: Cracker Barrel isn’t a salient enough brand to go without the name in most applications (like Nike…. where you often see the swoosh without the name). Also, a fair amount of the effectiveness of the old logo was in the typography, so they can’t just remove it.
Part of the backlash is that people are just change-averse, and most people are just gonna get over this. The flatter logo works better technically for recognition at highway distance, at small scale when printed or on a screen. Those are really the technical reasons that they did it. But the flat minimal look, which Apple perfected and now everyone else copies, is aesthetically “left-coded”. Conservatives have been hostile to modern design for, well, ever.
Remember Prince Charles’ dumb opinions about modern architecture? I love that Lord Foster made fun of him.
rikyrah
NBC News (@NBCNews) posted at 5:57 PM on Sun, Aug 24, 2025:
BREAKING: National Guard troops in D.C. to begin carrying weapons tonight, including rifles, a Defense Department official said. t.co/nFcku7UAP4
(https://x.com/NBCNews/status/1959752058476679514?t=IWim_Mw5hZX0XuYZdMivMw&s=03)
The Watcher (@gussthelawyer) posted at 10:57 PM on Sun, Aug 24, 2025:
They not getting the justification for murdering enough black & brown people so they trying to up the ante so Trump can declare an emergency and stay in power.
(https://x.com/gussthelawyer/status/1959827520699637788?t=-J3JkVhRuLyu8z08It97KQ&s=03)
Melancholy Jaques
@rikyrah:
Totally agree, but Kamala Harris insisted on being a woman the whole time.
ExPatExDem
His statement sounds like focus group argle-bargle that went through three layers of consultants.
Why is it so hard just to say “Sending military into police US cities is wrong, illegal, and unamerican. It’s the act of a third world dictator.”???
Hakeem, if you’re reading this, you can use any of the above, gratis.
p.a.
If we spread around online that the name Cracker Barrel was always intended to be a joking smear of its customers…
Timill
@Baud:
Pretty much: WHEN TRIP VENTURELLA SAT DOWN AT his computer in 2022 and jokingly created the Twitter account “Nomadic Warriors for Pritzker,” he didn’t imagine it would amount to much.
WereBear
@Booger: I would adjust slightly: they fear all the non-whites finished with leaving the nearest “city” a smoking ruin, and heading for the countryside.
That’s why they always talk about “race war.” They don’t imagine shooting white people in their psychotic dreams.
Harrison Wesley
@p.a.: Donald Trump, the official human Cracker Barrel.
Captain C
@satby:
“I’m so sorry, but I can’t allow my kids to play with someone whose mom obviously doesn’t care if I live or die.”
WereBear
Some Atlanta suburbs did the same thing.
Much of America is ceaseless, pointless, status posturing. Constant hierarchy thinking.
Steve LaBonne
@WereBear: When we had a “say their names” BLM protest in my little town, several of the local businesscretins boarded up their windows because they were convinced that “those people” were being bussed in from Cleveland to smash and loot. I don’t patronize those establishments any longer.
WereBear
@Steve LaBonne: And now the “Cracker” part is open to a worse interpretation…
Citizen Alan
@mappy!: Loathsome pampered cosplay Marxist. It’s telling that the second comment giving her words of encouragement was a damned TERF.
Citizen Alan
@Baud: I hate Bernie Sanders more than anyone alive whose not openly a Republican.
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: Yes, but the two making the case against the Democratic Party in the most detail are men, and concentrating specifically on liberal and specifically Biden’s support for “law-and-order” politics, arguing that this is basically open season on Black men.
2liberal
anyone looking for streaming options, I’ve been trying some things off Wired’s list of best shows and movies on Apple+. I’m liking mythic quest after seeing the pilot.
LINK
Matt McIrvin
@p.a.: I always assumed that a lot of the love for the chain was openly embracing that sense of “Cracker” in a reclaiming-the-slur sense. The right actually loves to do that kind of thing as much as marginalized communities do. Defiantly identifying as rednecks and “white trash”, etc.
Citizen Alan
@Steve LaBonne: Continuing the Babylon 5 theme:
Steve LaBonne
@WereBear: Actually the cracker leaning on the barrel is what they like. Southron heritage dontchaknow.
WereBear
@Ohio Mom: You were in my thoughts this morning, as the news gave me plenty of red state dismay as the Big Beautiful Bill throws them under the bus.
Which includes people like your family.
I’m in a blue state, but had to take early retirement because of chronic illness, (and getting it for illness is difficult.) But only 15% of autists make it to actual retirement without a breakdown of some sort, which can last for years.
I did better than most, but at the cost of a serious autoimmune condition and severe ND Burnout.
“Grow out” of my nervous system wiring? Not likely. And for those curious, it was about being a woman. I had my regular job, plus the coffee-fetching, break room washing up, ego-polishing, and being decorative as part of my job.
It’s not a disability to know when you are being exploited. Hurting people who need the help is their favorite evil.
My heart goes out. There’s nothing wrong with that organ.
jefft452
” tired of reading that Hakeem Jeffries isn’t doing enough”
He cant even endorse the winner of the Democratic primary in his home city
Steve LaBonne
@Matt McIrvin: They are out of touch with most actual Black voters, who want cops to stop killing them AND want cops to do a much better job of protecting their neighborhoods instead of harassing them. The kind of voters who put Eric Adams over the top.
WereBear
@chopper: And you aren’t GOING?
WereBear
@moonbat: It’s that The Apprentice ran so long.
I swear, every single MAGA does mistake reality shows for actual Reality. So he was a successful tycoon!
Matt McIrvin
@Citizen Alan: Suppose I and my child are part of a “dying people.” What do we do with this information?
I recall Sheridan eventually told the Vorlons to get lost and G’Kar found a way to be politically productive. But that’s science fiction for you.
Matt McIrvin
@Steve LaBonne: Actually that was one of the points made: when the police are mostly focused on harassing you and taking your money, you can’t *use* them for what is supposed to be their intended purpose. And it becomes clear they’re not for you at all.
Melancholy Jaques
@satby:
I didn’t even get that far. People like her are no more persuadable than a MAGA.
“[G]etting an uber straight to my hotel, where I booked a flight home a day early” definitely tells us this person is not coming from a place of privilege.
“Democratic Party stopped speaking to its working class base” means “Democrats aren’t racist enough for the majority of white people who did not go to college.” Because for reasons no one in the political media ever mention, the non-white portion of the working class still votes overwhelming for Democrats at every level.
WereBear
@Belafon: I saw a R politician explaining there would be plenty of jobs when the immigrants leave.
And look at all these empty shacks to live in!
WereBear
@Matt McIrvin: “Fake it because you won’t Make it” is alive and well in MAGAland.
Steve LaBonne
@Matt McIrvin: Right. But they don’t want to get rid of cops, they want better cops. Many progressives seem to have trouble grasping this.
Kathleen
@Professor Bigfoot: I know this thread is deader than Stephen Miller’s eyes I just have to say I adore AL. And you too!
Steve LaBonne
@WereBear: Those politicians get to go first.
Steve LaBonne
@Melancholy Jaques: The really invisible people are not only Black working people but also Black rural people. Invisible to mediots and white “progressives” alike.
Kathleen
@Hoodie: I keep saying his spew feels like 1968 Nixon campaign all over. It’s eerie.
Matt McIrvin
Regardless, I don’t think we’re actually going to be able to vote them out, because even if we win landslides, they’re not going to allow the winners to take federal office. I suspect Trump is going to be “President” for the rest of his life, however long that is, and maybe even after he’s dead in the sense that Kim Il Sung is Eternal President of the DPRK, and a right-wing junta will have federal power after that until the US as we know it disintegrates.
So we have to figure out ways to deal with that. But the thing is, it’s still useful to win these elections to make the illegitimacy of the regime as clear as possible.
Citizen Alan
@moonbat: I always thought total societal collapse due to zombie outbreak was ridiculous because any remotely functional government could have shut down an actual zombie outbreak (as if such a thing could happen) fairly easily.* But then Covid hit, and I realized that if we had a real zombie outbreak, a third of the adults in this country would race towards the zombies “to pull their fake zombie masks off,” certain they were just a hoax perpetrated by the government to steal their guns or something.
*Props for TWD and The Last of Us for at least providing a plausible explanation: In both cases, the zombie plague is caused by something that spread around the world so fast before the zombie part of it became apparent. TWD had a virus that basically infected everyone on the planet with the result that anyone who died anywhere for any reason would become a zombie. The Last of Us had a fungus that had infected the world’s wheat supplies spread globally through trade before the actual outbreak started among humans.
AxelFoley
@Geminid:
VA Beach resident here–so THAT was the reason the light rail didn’t get done.
Can’t say I’m shocked.
Citizen Alan
@Geminid: The old CB logo all but said “we primarily cater to old white men.” When I’ve eaten at CBs in the past, the vibe it always gave me was “this is what my high school cafeteria would have been like had it been decorated by the KKK.”
Matt McIrvin
@Citizen Alan: Never cared for zombie stories because I had the icky sense that the zombies were a metaphor for whatever human group you really wanted to waste and get away with it, but I guess these days they often go the “non-zombie Man is the real monster” route.
I’ve heard some COVID alarmist types argue that subtle physical brain changes wrought by COVID infection make people’s politics worse, which would mean that we are in year 5 of a sort of very subtle zombie apocalypse and almost everyone is a zombie. I suspect that’s a bit too reductive but it also makes me wonder if this kind of thing has happened many times before.
Citizen Alan
@Ramona: I feel sorry for the toddler. It’s hell growing up with a narcissistic mother.
chopper
@WereBear:
honestly given how heavy the shit is i’m here to see, it would be a nice distraction
WereBear
@Citizen Alan: I gotta say their green beans are pitch-perfect Midwestern farm. Boiled to death with a hint of onion.
WereBear
@Matt McIrvin: I always thought it was a MAGA warning.
Unthinking people have been the enemy since the Enlightenment.
Kathleen
@Geminid: Jeffries’ real constituents/stakeholders are the caucus and his District. He’s not Chief In Charge of Juice Boxes and Blankies for scared white people.
Citizen Alan
Meanwhile, in real life as opposed to MAGA fantasy land, I often wore a mask in the car when I was driving a short distance from one store to another because I didn’t want to forget it when I got to the second location. And also because I considered wearing a mask to be a trivial inconvenience that only a pathetic whining baby would complain about. The only time I ever had a problem with masking was in the one class I had during my LLM program that actually required me to present oral arguments in front of a mock judge’s panel, and the (slight) impediment that wearing a mask imposed on my breathing exacerbated the nervousness I felt about public speaking as part of what was effectively my final exam.
TEL
@mappy!: She seems to be extremely entitled and very very privileged. About what I expected.
divF
@TONYG: Also, as many people have pointed out, the old Cracker Barrel logo is a largely a blur on a cell phone screen. The effect of having a logo that does not recognize this is communicating that they are not cool, and caught up with the times. It’s fingernails on a blakcboard, like seeing a web page from the 1990s.
Matt McIrvin
@WereBear: See, I figure with this kind of story “what if I’m the zombie?” is always going to be the interesting question. But I read too much Philip K. Dick in my youth.
I did enjoy “Shaun of the Dead” where the opening of the movie showed Shaun missing for a comically long time that the zombie apocalypse was in progress because his miserable life had him acting halfway like a zombie already.
Citizen Alan
I seriously considered buying a gun when I was still in Mississippi at the height of pre-vaccine Covid era, when MAGA assholes were literally accosting people for wearing masks. And if someone had tried to snatch my mask off in the gas station parking lot or something like that, I would have absolutely shot them.
Melancholy Jaques
@WereBear:
Let’s not forget all the newly open spaces under bridges.
Suzanne
@AxelFoley: Mass transit is often about Fear of a Black (or Brown) Planet. Low-density, car-based lifestyles have always been about enabling geographic separation from Those People (white flight).
Now, however, the opposite problem is happening, which is white people — usually wealthy — wanting to move back into many cities. Increased demand is a significant factor in driving prices up. LA’s Black population has fallen from about 20% of the population to about 8%.
Glory b
@jefft452: Hhe’s “Uncommitted.”
Interesting Name Goes Here
@Citizen Alan: I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – the only thing separating Bernie Sanders from Donald Trump is that Bernie occasionally has a conscience.
BeenHereSince2003
@Melancholy Jaques:
I agree, but what makes you think that the leaders responsible for the utterly abysmal strategy we been seeing are capable of delivering us the midterms?
The entire post-2012 Democratic Strategy is in ruins. They designed that strategy to keep the “Obama Coalition” together. The “Obama Coalition”: Young voters, Women, and People of Color. Since then we have seen major loss in our margins for 2 of those 3 groups. The strategy was either bad, horribly executed, or both (I vote both). How do you expect the people who crafted and executed such a failed strategy to lead us to success now?
satby
@Glory b: it’s adorable when people assume that whatever identity/ethnicity/ race is stated online is a true statement. Are there a “bunch of Black progressives on Mastodon”; are some actually that and others ratfuckers; or are some of them actually bots and trolls? Inquiring minds…..
BeenHereSince2003
youtu.be/AC9SF7TOyHQ?t=72
Iron city
@Suzanne: Many more years ago than I would like to think, there was a text and a simulation model used in a Sociology course I took called Urban Dynamics by a MIT professor named Forester.
It was a pretty simple minded model derived from modeling of factories and processes. This was in the 1970s when urban
removalrenewal was a big way to build better housing for working class. The model was a little counterintuitive and said the best to get more better working class housing was to make it easier for upper and middle classes to get new houses. The logic was, as I recall, that as the upper classes went off to their spiffy new housing they would free up the upper class housing for the middles and the middle class housing would then be available for the working class and I suppose the working class housing for those homeless or in the refrigerator boxes down by the railroad tracks. I could never get the model to actually model a real world place with actual data, so I’m not sure it is very useful but what this discussion reminded me of that analysis.Matt McIrvin
@Citizen Alan: And then they had the temerity to call maskers “the sheep”. There were people who were bucking social convention and it wasn’t them.
Eyeroller
@satby: Dead thread but Mastodon is such a minority platform that I wouldn’t expect people posting there to be very representative.
satby
@Steve LaBonne: Most progressives don’t acknowledge that lots of cops are POC too.
Omnes Omnibus
@Citizen Alan: Would you really have done it? Have you trained enough with a handgun that you could have drawn and shot only the person who was attacking you and not injured an innocent passerby? Could you really live with having taken a life? What if it was an innocent passerby. A lot of handgun carried by inexperienced people end up being taken from them by criminals. Did you think through any of this or did you just get angry and want to lash out?
Matt McIrvin
@Eyeroller: Yeah, also, Mastodon despite its progressive reputation is dominated by European geeks who really do not get Black American culture, and it’s been so famously problematic for Black posters that the ones who stick around anyway are probably pretty iconoclastic and stubborn types.
Matt McIrvin
@Kathleen: One difference was, crime was ACTUALLY RISING during the Nixon years. The factions just disagreed about the cause. Today, they disagree about reality. Crime is not rising but the MAGA argument is “yes it is, your evidence is a lie, everyone who matters just knows it”. They try to alter reality by just *saying* shit and telling you to trust their gut.
Tim in SF
I guess I’m one of those whites who was slanging Jeffries for doing it wrong. I will continue to criticize leaders who use “distraction” rhetoric. That word shouldn’t come out of Jeffries’ mouth, or out of the mouth of any other Democratic leader. “X is a distraction from Y” doesn’t work anymore. .
Kathleen
@Matt McIrvin: Good point.
Darkrose
*deep breath*
I’m late to this thread–the perils of being on the West Coast–and I didn’t read through all 279 comments.
But when I read the first paragraph of this post I just…I’m so tired, y’all. I’m tired of feeling invisible here because I don’t fit into the neat “(mostly) white progressives” or “(mostly) Black posters” who are what, anti-progressives? not progressive? boxes. I’m a Black woman who has been a Democrat all my life, and I’m old enough to get the senior–sorry, the “wisdom discount” at my favorite dispensary, as well as at Black Bear Diner.
I’m also a Black woman who believes that the party should reflect the concerns of its voters, and that if elected officials aren’t doing that, we, the voters, can, should and must call them out, and that’s what I’m doing. I’m furious that the leaders of my party are dismissing the concerns of actual, real constituents who are scared and angry while muttering vaguely about “kitchen table issues” and “distractions.”
You know what my wife and I talk about at the kitchen table? Whether I’m still going to have a job if my university system bends the knee and gets rid of all of us “diversity hires”. Whether my trans friend at work is still going to be able to use to bathroom. Whether or not we’ll be able to get vaccinated for shingles, COVID, and the flu, and whether I should stockpile my antidepressants just in case. Whether the helicopter overhead is Sac PD or ICE, and what to do if they knock on the door.
My job as a voter isn’t to cheerlead for my party. My job is to be informed, to vote for candidate I believe support policies that promote my values. When they do, I thank them. When they don’t, I demand they do better, or I will support someone else. That’s how it’s supposed to work.
FWIW, one of the people who has criticized Jeffries is NYT columnist Jamelle Bouie. He’s a Black man who is one of the most followed posters on Bluesky. He responded to Jeffries’ comments: “A kitchen table issue is being afraid to leave your home because there are armed soldiers on the street…this notion that everything is a distraction coming from Democratic politicians is to me just cowardice.”
I think he’s absolutely right.
Paul in KY
@Soprano2: Sorry he’s got to that point. He’s very lucky to have a great wife like you in his life. I hope you are able to get some breaks from time to time!
Paul in KY
@Professor Bigfoot: CIA now run by a crazy Russian intelligence agent…
Paul in KY
@satby: There is a resemblance…
Paul in KY
@satby: Agree. Fuck that POS.
Paul in KY
@RevRick: Also every fucking one at the demonstration needs to behave. Anyone who doesn’t needs to be ‘chastised’. Back in the old days, the teamsters thugs took care of the ‘chastising’. We need to have a cadre that can do that.
Paul in KY
@Chief Oshkosh: Good trick. Worked for Cato.
Ksmiami
@Gaardian: the only thing Dems should be doing now is blocking everything going on all media and attacking the GOP and protecting democracy to the extent they can
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: My experience is more with people who know damn well that there are many people around them who aren’t white, who are being marketed to; they just don’t like that AT ALL. Maybe they insist those people are all “illegals”…
Matt McIrvin
@Darkrose: To me this is just further evidence that this is all way more complicated than the commentariat here generally believes.
Citizen Alan
@Omnes Omnibus: We got a vaccine before it got to that point. But yes, it looked like we were getting to the point where members of a deranged cult might try to assault me for the sin of wearing a god-damned mask in public during a pandemic. And at the time, I was stuck in Mississippi for the foreseeable future surrounded by those creatures. If nothing else, I would have opened carried, which alone would probably have been enough to ward them off since most MAGAts are gutless cowards as well as vicious bullies and sexual predators.
At my mother’s funeral in June of 2022, there were 200 people in attendance. And I was the only one in a mask. And I was actually glad that I had the excuse of having had a mild case of Covid 20 weeks earlier and could plausibly claim to still be contagious. Otherwise, I would have faced enormous social pressure to not wear a mask at a minor super spreader event.
The Lodger
@Steve LaBonne: They still call CB a restaurant, it’s more of a gift shop with meals available in the back room.
Kayla Rudbek
@Suzanne: like the city-states of Ancient Greece or in the Holy Roman Empire?